The Barley Horn was a middlebrow East Boca, Irish pub—not the lovable, seedy dive where well whisky day-drinkers erase their early afternoons, but not the woodsy tavern that has the European football games and hosts an annual Bloom’s Day gathering either. In fact, there wasn’t anything much Irish about the Barley Horn. It was a watering hole for the co-eds from Florida Atlantic, a place where your average undeclared sophomore played cornhole and bombed at trivia, hoping anyway to end up with his pants down in some clueless blonde’s dorm before Monday’s General Psych exam.
On a busy Friday night, Boca Police sent three units to the Barley Horn. The flashing sirens cast red and blue light over the entire parking lot. A crowd of drunk college kids and a few middle-aged sots stood outside on the covered patio, curious about all the excitement. An officer pushed Johnny’s head down into the backseat of his squad car. He had never been arrested before. He looked out the window at his girl Jessica and his childhood friend Spencer. There were tears in his eyes.
***
Spencer and Johnny-boy grew up together around West Boca, living across the street from each other in those new housing developments off Route 441, north of Yamato Rd. They would walk to the bus stop in the morning, go to after-school karate class at Sensei Miller’s Karate School and Training Center, hang out at South County Regional Park or the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center. Weekends, the boys would stay up late, drinking Mountain Dew, playing MarioKart or Goldeneye for 64—kid stuff.
As those boys got older, they got into all the shit growing buddies get into. Spencer’s mom Sheila, a full-time cashier at Eckerd’s Pharmacy, always left her carton of Merit Menthol Silvers out on the kitchen counter, unguarded. At some point, Johnny-boy took notice and told Spencer to grab a pack. They walked to the wildlife preserve across Route 411 and lit their first cigs together, each of them taking a single drag and coughing like crazy, vowing never to smoke again. One balmy summer afternoon when they were about eleven or twelve, they found John’s dad’s porno mags under some dusty donation boxes in his closet. Hustler, Perfect 10, Barely Legal. Johnny-boy grabbed the Hustler, and the boys went to his room to inspect the find of the century. With Spencer looking over his shoulder, Johnny-boy feverishly thumbed through the pages until he got to the centerfold—a tall, buxom blond, 80s-style, with fat titties and a brunette landing strip—her arms up, pushing back her luscious hair and smiling for the camera. It was an age of discovery, and these two were a gung-ho pubescent Lewis and Clark.
They smuggled that skin mag to that same wildlife preserve, trespassing through a break in the newly erected fence. There had been a lot of hot air at school about jerking off. Those who knew what it was were cool, but the guys who had actually busted a nut were fucking superheroes. Johnny-boy and Spencer thought it was finally their time to join the A team. They found a bushy patch of wood, completely out of sight from the road and pulled out that sacred tome of tits and ass. They scanned the pages and revisited the centerfold’s blond beauty. To their horny pre-teen eyes, her perfect naked body was glowing white light like some divine image from the mythic past. But Johnny-boy had only grabbed the one Hustler, worried that his dad might notice something was missing, so the plan was to take turns until each of the boys had become a man.
“Alright, Spence, I’m gonna go over there and then you’ll go, cool?” said John.
Spencer agreed, but asked, “OK, but what do I do, I mean I kinda know what but–”
“Really Spencer? You don’t know what jerking off is?”
“Shut the fuck up, yeah, I do, but I’ve never done it before. What? You have?” Spencer replied.
“No, I haven’t, but I’ve seen it online, dumbass. Look at the girl, grab your dick, and rub it really fast up and down until you cum,” John said, making the universal jack-off gesture with his right hand.
Spencer nodded in agreement with Mr. Know-It-All, but all the while he had been a little tense and a little unsure of himself—a little stiff. Something had been already going on down there. While the two were talking over their master plan, a wet spot had formed on Spencer’s cargo shorts near his crotch.
“Wait, Spencer, what is that?” John asked.
“I think I just came,” Spencer answered.
“Oh shit, really? Well, was it good?” John laughed.
“I guess so,” Spencer said, “I don’t really know what happened.”
“OK, then wait here, I’m gonna go try it.”
With his eyes laser-focused on that centerfold’s golden hussy, John beat his meat with the verve of John Bonham at Wembley Stadium, kicking off the intro of “Rock and Roll,” and boom!, he nut almost immediately into the dirt. He wiped his hands as best as he could on some tree leaves and walked back to the spot where Spencer was waiting, with the Hustler under one arm and a self-satisfied grin on his face. He put his other arm around his best friend, and said, “Dude, that was awesome.”
***
Little changed between the young wankers until the summer of eighth grade. The boys had started listening to their own music, slowly letting go of their parent’s proverbial teats. Johnny-boy’s older sister Lorraine drove them to Borders at Shadow Wood Plaza, a run-down strip mall with a movie theater and a McDonald’s, where Friday nights, the parking lot and alleyways transformed into havens for throat-sucking, little handies and other firsts, where the high school kids from Delray Beach sold joints of oregano and pencil shavings to the know-nothing middle schoolers and watched them act high. Johnny-boy bought his first CD with his own money that night. Significant Other by the great Limp Bizkit. “Nookie” would be a formative song for the young douchebag.
Smoking weed had become the big thing then, and thanks to the advent of Napster and Kaza, Johnny-boy and Spencer had found out about songs like Cypress Hill’s “Hits from the Bong” and “Smoke Two Joints” by that West coast junkie Bradley Nowell. They watched KoRn smoke up and act like fucking fools on Who Then Now? and they thought it was the coolest thing.
That summer, Robyn Taylor, the most popular girl at Yamato Middle, was throwing an end of the year party. She had gone through an early growth spurt and was top-billing in everybody’s spank-bank. Word on the street was that Robyn had let some kid from Boca High fuck her with a dildo—it sent the schoolboys into an absolute frenzy—no one more so than handsy Johnny-boy. Robyn’s parents had cleared the living room and turned into a mini-ratchet nightclub with strobe lights and a stereo so the kids could pretend to be adults. A bunch of tweens had formed a circle, booty dancing like jack rabbits to “Back that Thang Up.” Robyn was bent over right in the center, flapping her ass cheeks at the speed of light, grinding up some cool-kid highschooler with a gold chain and frosty tips like Justin fucking Timberlake. There was a fold-out card table with bowls of Doritos and soda. The AA little-league hopefuls had stolen their parent’s vodka, bringing it to the party hidden in water bottles covered by aluminum foil.
Johnny-Boy and Spencer went into the backyard, where some of the party had spilled-over. That’s where they first caught the scent: the sweet, musky aroma of the devil’s lettuce. Behind a hedgerow, five kids were passing around a single fat blunt. A loosely rolled Dutch Master greenleaf packed with a dime of shitty shwag, Mexican stomp weed. The quality didn’t matter back then, those kids were higher than Neil Armstrong on Apollo 11. The boys didn’t smoke on that fateful night, but they agreed that the weed smelled really fucking great.
That week Johnny-boy called Lorraine and asked her if she could get him a dimebag of green. Lorraine was married to Mick, a husky guy from the trailer parks in Sandalfoot, who slung regs from his minivan, a ‘99 Dodge Caravan, metallic blue with a driver’s side sliding door, a perfect feature for the job. Mick packed classic Disney movie VHS cases (those bigger, plastic ones that could open and close) with nicks, dimes, and quarter bags, driving the minivan around Boca and Deerfield all day long, making drops. Some of the older kids would pick up a whole case of nicks and sell them one by one from outer zipper pocket of their Jansport backpack in the courtyard during lunch. Lorraine didn’t want her kid brother going to one of those sketchy motherfuckers, so she agreed to get Johnny-boy the hook up, but warned, “I’ll get you a bag, but don’t be a fucking idiot and get caught by mom and dad. And if you do, don’t say a word about Mick. I swear Johnny I will fucking murder you if you do.”
Early Friday afternoon, Lorraine delivered the goods, when she came to the house to talk with their mom over coffee and cigarettes. Johnny-boy finished off a can of Mountain Dew and headed over to Spencer’s house. The two boys went to the makeshift camp they had built deep in the wildlife preserve. Johnny-boy pulled out the empty Mountain Dew can and caved in the middle, creating a little reservoir for the bud to sit in. He poked a few holes with a paperclip in the center of the can, right at the deepest part of the aluminum crater, and put a pinch of weed over it. Spencer handed him the lighter he had stolen from his mom, and Johnny-boy put his lips to the tab and took a big hit. Puff. Puff. A big cloud of smoke poured out from Johnny-Boy’s mouth and hit Spencer right in the face. It smelled like tangy, kindled wood chips. The hit burning his virgin lungs, Johnny-Boy kneeled over and coughed his ass off, and when he looked up, Spencer saw his eyes had gotten watery and blood-shot. He passed the soda can pipe to Spencer who cacked the rest of the bowl in one fat hit. He had smoked a few more of his mom’s Merits and had gotten a little more experience with the pleasures of smoking. Within minutes, both the boys were high as fuck, tripping out over the trees and bird sounds like a bunch of fucking amateurs.
It was starting to get late, and the boys had to get out of the woods and head back home before it got too dark to see their way through the trees. It was night by the time they got to the edge of the reserve. They looked onto busy Route 411. The cars whizzed by—their headlights blending together like a river of lights. Crossing that eight-lane suburban superhighway took Cheech and Chong another twenty minutes. When Johnny-boy walked through his front door, his mom and dad were standing around the dinner table, waiting.
“Oh, you finally made it, Johnny, I was just gonna call you ‘cause we’re ready to eat,” said his dad, Paul.
“Yeah, I’m home now, dad. Just let me know when it’s ready,” Johnny-boy replied, trying to retreat to his room and regroup before having to face his parents at dinner.
“Hey, where you going, Johnny? I just told you we’re ready to eat. Wait, come here, let me take a look at you. Your eyes are really fucking bloodshot, Johnny. What have you been doing? Goddamit, you been smoking weed, huh? You high right now, Johnny?” said Paul.
“No, dad! I was…in the woods with Spencer, I’m…just tired!” Johnny-boy responded like a deer in headlights.
“Oh yeah, yeah, and what were you doing in the woods with Spencer? Polishing your fucking coin collection? Don’t lie to me, Johnny, this ain’t my first rodeo. Look at you, your eyes are red, and you can’t even put a sentence together,” Paul said, “what, why don’t you go ahead and sit down at the dinner table with your mother and I—here, here’s a scoop of mashed potatoes, you got the munchies, huh, don’t you Snoop Dogg? Oh, you’re really gonna get it kid—no more PlayStation, no Moroso, and that Yamaha 250 you’ve been crying about for Christmas, you can forget it!”
Johnny-boy ran to his room and slammed the door, yelling, “you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, dad!”
“Sure, sure, John, whatever you say. Go ahead, just keep smoking that shit so you can turn into a burnout fucking loser!” Paul yelled through the door.
Johnny-boy’s dad walked back into the kitchen, where his mom was standing by the stove, lighting a Marlboro Ultralight. She took the first drag, and said, “You shouldn’t have yelled at him like that, Paul. I told you not to curse at him.”
“The kid was fucking high as a kite, Susann.”
***
Over the next couple years, Johnny-boy and Spencer drifted apart. At Grand Heights High School, they made new friends and started running in different circles. Being neighbors wasn’t enough to stay best friends anymore—the sleepovers, the porno-mag in the woods, the soda can pipe all seemed like a lifetime in the past. Johnny-boy became a rap kid, a total fucking wigga. He wore a gold chain, baggy Sean John’s jeans, and red Yankees hat—though much had changed, the influence of Fred Durst was forever. Johnny-boy also cut out the middleman, his sister Lorraine, and started meeting up with Mick in Sandalfoot all the time, skipping school and smoking blunts every day, driving around Boca in his Honda Civic like a fucking moron. In fact, he had gotten picked up for truancy a couple times and had to sit in the truancy office all day with a half-smoked blunt of weed up his ass.
Spencer got really fucking weird too. He ran with the goths and the rockers who did all sorts of stupid shit in front of the cafeteria during lunch—like the kid with the “FREE HUGS” sign or the freak who would eat hot dogs with chocolate pudding for a dollar. He started wearing JNCOs and painting his nails black. He bought black band shirts at Hot Topic and put his hair in twisty ties, spraying them green with temporary dye. And the truth was that at Grand Heights High, the goths and the wiggas were like oil and water, they just didn’t mix.
Johnny-boy’s grades were shit, but he had started working out, running track and playing basketball with the Black kids and the other wiggas, always talking about AI or yelling “Kobe.” Like Robyn Taylor, who had become one of the school’s greasiest revolving doors, Johnny-boy had also gone through a growth spurt and had started to attract lesser-deft members of the opposite sex. He would regularly leave school with some freshman bimbo in his Civic, smoke ‘em out, and get domed-up in the Best Buy parking lot, or he would drive ‘em to Spanish River Beach and fuck ‘em from behind under the overpass. He was a real romantic type. A real Casanova. He would hang out with these girls for about a week and then act all tough like he didn’t know nobody. You’d think this approach would keep him from doing it again, but it somehow attracted more girls—the dirtier, easier ones, but more girls, nonetheless.
One Friday night, Shadow Wood was poppin off like a goddamn block party. All the teens in Boca gathered in one place for a night of smoke and drink, slurp and tug. No one ever actually went to the movies. They sat around the parking lot looking to get fucked up or hung around between the shelves at Borders, rolling around on the floor like sweaty teenage fucking guinea pigs. Johnny-boy showed up to drop off dimebags to a few buddies and saw Hayley, a well-endowed blond he had had his eyes on for a couple weeks. She was wearing cut-off booty shorts, showing lots of skin and the lower half of her apple bottom.
“Hey girl, you smoke?” he called.
“Maybe, is that an invite, Johnny-boy?” she replied.
“Come out to my car and we’ll see.”
He knew that she was into it, that she wanted the D. But the Best Buy parking lot was crawling with smoked-up middle schoolers, so that wasn’t gonna work. Home Goods was closed though, so the parking lot was probably empty, he thought. He could drive over there and fuck this bitch in the back seat of his Civic with some goddam privacy. He doled out the dimes and walked through the alleyway between the Borders and Walgreens toward his car with Hayley. In the alley, a bunch of the goth kids were sitting on the floor in a circle, laughing and talking about god knows what. Spencer was sitting in the middle of ‘em, swappin spit with some dude; it was the fucking Free Hugs kid.
“Holy shit, so you’re gay now Spencer?” Johnny-boy blurted out with a laugh.
“Shut the fuck up Johnny! Shouldn’t you like be smoking a ‘fat blunt,’ listening to Eminem or something,” Spencer quipped.
All the goth kids burst out laughing, and as Johnny-boy walked by, he muttered something in earshot of his old best friend, “whatever, little fucking faggot.”
***
Spencer graduated from Grand Heights High School and got accepted to Florida Atlantic, the fair university near the coast in East Boca, where the lady Owls hoot hoot all the way Planned Parenthood. Johnny skipped so much class his senior year that there was no point anymore. His teachers gave up on him since he hardly knew their names, let alone what was going on in class. So, he dropped out and got his GED at Palm Beach State College, affectionately known by many locals as Palm Beach Correctional. His dad Paul always blamed the weed, watching TV after dinner, grumbling to himself, fucking burnout loser.
Johnny moved out of his parents’ house and into a one-bedroom apartment south a ways on Palmetto Park. He had an ugly-ass American Terrier mix named Capone, and he swore up and down that Capone was a good dog, that he wouldn’t hurt a fly. Yet, the mut would snarl and bark like a rabid killer, and Johnny had to cage that nasty pit bull every time he had anyone over his place. He started doing pressure cleaning, helping Mick and his buddy Ronny occasionally with random handy work or bulky trash disposal. But most of his income came from selling weed, bars, and even a little coke, to some of the kids he went to high school with. The dimebags just didn’t pay the bills, and plus, he was gonna spend the night in Gun Club regardless, if he got pinched by PBSO. Big Mick had expanded his operation. He wasn’t pushing shwag out of the minivan anymore, so he put Johnny on, suppling him with bulk to sling at the bar and clubs. Hillsboro Beach, Downtown Delray, Lake Ave, Clematis—Johnny would make his rounds, blasting 50 Cent or Lil Wayne, dropping off an eighth of krypto one place and making his way to the next spot to deliver a dub of coke.
But Johnny had also grown up a little bit when it came to women. He didn’t really go out to party much, that was business, the grind, that’s how he paid the bills, and he didn’t use it to meet new girls. He kept to himself a lot, actually, unless Mick and Lorraine had him over for dinner at their trailer, where he would smoke a blunt and drink a couple Coors Lights before heading back to his apartment.
He still worked out a lot, and one leg day, sitting at the hip abductor at LA Fitness, he actually met a nice girl. Jessica was standing directly in front of him, in skin-tight yoga pants, working the cable machine, pulling the cable through her legs, bending up and down, flexing her tight ass and sweaty crotch in his face. Johnny-boy could almost smell it. Jessica was a bit of a butter-girl but she was fit and active. It helped that she smoked a bit, drank a bit, so Johnny was able to use the old ‘smoking buddies’ excuse to get in her pants. She was a homebody too, so she liked to sit around nights with Johnny and watch TV, even Capone had gotten to know her. But she was still down, having a touch of that Boca hoodrat quality that Johnny loved; she had no problem riding with him on a deal—it even turned into date night sometimes if there were no other deliveries. Johnny and Jess would stay out, do a couple lines in the Civic, and get a drink somewhere.
Every year on Veterans Day, Johnny-boy’s parents had a big barbeque and set off fireworks, since Johnny-boy’s dad was a vet who had done a couple tours in Desert Storm. They always had a lot of people over to eat, drink, sit by the pool, and watch Paul light off his fucking arsenal: blackcats, cakes, big ass 500-gram multishots, 21 Gun Salute, Ammo Crate. They invited over people from the neighborhood, co-workers, a couple guys from the VA, and the family—Johnny and Jessica, Lorraine and Mick, Mick’s bud Ronny who knew everybody, and Sheila and Spencer from across the street, who were pretty much family. Johnny and Spencer hadn’t seen each other in a long time, but the barbecue was cordial enough. They talked, ate ribs and macaroni salad, drank Bud Light. Johnny-boy introduced Spencer to Jessica, and they seemed to hit it off. Jessica followed Spencer out front for a cig while Johnny helped his dad at the grill.
Dusk approached. Food had been eaten, drinks had been drunk, the leftover hotdogs had been covered with tinfoil, and everyone sat around, talking and drinking a bit more, waiting for the big show to begin. Johnny’s dad Paul had been sneaking shots of Wild Turkey all afternoon, preparing himself well to deploy the recreational explosives. He snuck off to the garage and pulled out a little bag of snow, which Mick had given him—earning himself some son-in-law brownie points. Paul did 2 or 3 key bumps in a row and walked back out to the patio guns a-blazin. He sat down with the kids, looked at Spencer, cleared his throat, and asked, “So, Spence, I hear you’re doing good over there at Florida Atlantic, you like it?”
“Sure Paul, I’m liking it a lot over there,” responded Spencer.
“Good, good to hear, what are you studying?”
“I’m a Communications major.”
“‘Communications’ huh, what’s that? Like how we talk? Like how I ask my wife for another drink maybe? Susann get me a beer, would ya?” Paul said, making one of his fun dad jokes.
“No, not quite that, Paul, I’m interested in digital studies and social media marketing, I’m even thinking about grad school,” Spencer continued, being a good sport.
“Oh, that’s real good, Spence, you’ve always been a smart kid and I’m sure you’ll do great,” Paul said, keeping it vague and light, still having no clue what the fuck Spencer was talking about.
But then Paul looked over at his son, and added, “I wish my kid would have gone to college, shit, finished high school even. He’s got this nice girl on his arm now—his mother and I didn’t see that coming, amiright, Susann? But still, it would have been nice if he went to college or trade school or anything really.”
“You’re fucking drunk, dad. Really, you’re bringing this up again, now, at the barbecue, in front of Jessica and everybody? I’m doing fine, aren’t I? I pay my rent, I ain’t bothering you,” Johnny-boy spoke up.
“What? Johnny, what’s the problem? We’re all family here. I can’t want my fucking kid to go to college? Look at Spencer, you did all the same shit growing up, but he’s going to college, studying Carbonation or whatever. How are you any different? No career, no future, I don’t even know how Jessica has stuck around this long,” Paul ranted.
Susann interjected, “Stop it, Paul, you’re being an asshole!”
“No Susann, no, the kid can speak for himself. Go ahead, John, what do you have to say for yourself?”
“Oh, so you want me to be more like Spencer, huh, dad? You want me to turn into a big fucking homo too? You want me to get fucked up the ass, dad? Is that it?” Johnny-boy yelled.
Paul jumped out of his chair, knocking it back, and yelled, “you are fucking out of line, Johnny. That’s your fucking best friend you’re talking about. I didn’t raise you like that. You shut your fucking mouth and apologize to him, right now!”
“Or what? What the fuck you gonna do, old man?” Johnny-boy said, standing up.
“I will put you in back in the fucking dirt, little boy, you understand me, you fucking burnout loser,” Paul yelled, lunging at his son.
Susann screamed, “STOP IT, PAUL!”
Big Mick jumped up and got between father and son just in the nick of time, while his buddy Ronny stood up in front of Johnny-boy so he couldn’t make any moves. Mick told everyone to relax, that it was Veterans Day, that everyone had just a little too much to drink.
Johnny piped up and said, “Fuck this shit, I’m out!”
Then he turned to Jessica, “Come on, babe, let’s go.”
Jessica resisted, “Johnny, I don’t think you’re good to drive right now, I’m gonna see if Spencer or Mick can drive me home, and I’ll call you later.”
“Oh really, with Spencer? OK, well then go fuck yourself ugly bitch, and fuck you everybody,” Johnny yelled as loud as he could.
He stomped out of his parents’ house, jumped in the Civic, and sped away on 411 toward his apartment. When he got home, he sat on his couch with Capone, smoked a blunt while watching BET, and fell asleep.
***
The following Friday night, Johnny-boy got a call from Geo, a bar back at the Barley Horn who he served on the regular. Geo told Johnny-boy that Jessica and Spencer had just walked into the bar together. Johnny threw his phone against the wall. He had only talked to Jessica once since the blowup at the barbecue. He apologized for having lost control and for calling her an ‘ugly bitch.’ She said that she could accept his apology, but that she didn’t like how he had treated Spencer, that Spencer hadn’t even said anything about him. But when Geo told him they were together at the bar, he lost it again, bitter and petty as fuck, thinking,
That little fucking faggot, he probably came in his pants that time just hearing me talk about dick, huh. He’s always been a little fuckin pussy too, gay boy, college boy, probably lets frat boys cum up his ass every night, fuckin sissy fudge packer. What the fuck does he want with Jessica now? She ain’t got a cock, does he know that? Or has he taken too many dicks up the ass to think straight? I’m gonna fuckin kill that faggot, I swear, if he touches Jessica, I’m gonna fuckin kill him.
Johnny slammed two beers and started rolling a blunt. He remembered that he had gotten a little bag of PCP from Mick, and he decided to lace up. That shit didn’t come around often so when Mick got ahold of some, Johnny picked up some personals for a special occasion. He took the duster to the face and jumped in the Civic, speeding all the way to the Barley Horn. The place was packed. The hightops outside were all taken up with drunk college kids flirting and laughing, getting ready to head back to the dorms to get the most out of their college education. The tables inside were equally full. A lame ass folk band was playing Sublime and DMB covers, and they had the whole bar in the palm of their hands. Johnny-boy stormed in and saw Jessica and Spencer sitting in a booth together. He ran over, grabbed Spencer and started pummeling him in the face. Johnny pulled him out of the booth and threw him on the floor, kicking him in the stomach, yelling, “Yeah, faggot, try stealing my girl, now!”
“Stop it, Johnny, stop it,” Jessica yelled.
Johnny kicked him in the stomach again, and continued yelling, “Come on, Spence, get up, fucking fight like a man, come on! You wanna fuck Jessica now all of a sudden? What? Cause she’s mine?”
Spencer looked up at him, and yelled, “I’m gay, you fucking piece of shit! Is this news to you? She asked me to come here to talk about you, fucking meathead moron!”
Those words were rocks in Johnny-boy’s gut. He felt like fuckin horse’s ass. Before he could even say a word, a big Black bouncer sucker punched him in the temple and knocked him the fuck out. When Johnny-boy woke up, he was in cuffs, getting put in the back of a squad car. When the cops questioned Spencer, they asked if Johnny-boy had come after him because he was gay. Some people in the bar told the cops that they had heard Johnny-boy call Spencer a “faggot.” Spencer told the police that that wasn’t the case, that the fight was personal misunderstanding, and that he wouldn’t be pressing charges.
[Image Credit : Photo by Dynamic Wang on Unsplash]
An admirer of authors like Harry Crews and Joe R. Lansdale, ‘Mad’ Max Palermo is a writer of pulp, grit, and horror with a comedic flair and a penchant for the bizarre. He is one of the main contributors to the Orbit Drive-In Zine, a publication for the schlock cineaste.
