Greetings, Haunted Late-Night Googlers Of The World!

Nothing makes me feel more cozily connected to the world's freaks and strangers than my web-traffic doohickey that logs all the Google searches which lead people to this site. Thanks to the wide range of subjects I've discussed with my many interviewees and contributers, I pop up --rather misleadingly, I'm ashamed to admit -- in all kinds of searches related to things that most people probably shouldn't look at during work hours.

Here's a collection of these search keywords from this last week. I omitted repeats, of which there were many -- especially when it came to "castration fantasy" and "asphyxiation video." As is, this list is a nice little poem channeled from the world's brainstem, composed of nuggets that for the most part you should NOT Google yourself under unless you're feeling pretty adventurous:

"Big taranchula eating people parking lot"

"3d fantasy castration"

"Bloody valentine 3d vulva"

"Scholarly articles on Zombies"

"Spongebob fan club phone number"

"Judi dench + stroke the others arm"

"Plastic bag asphyxiation video"

"Really gross hairy spiders"

"Love my oral surgeon"

"Grab ankles horror movie"

"African slaves overboard children become water creatures"

"Slavery through hypnosis"

I'd like to imagine each Googler as a maniac, outfitted in threadbare underpants and slurping corn chowder out of a plastic doll-head, desperately killing time until the next twitching, sweaty bout of slumber. Or worse, a thirteen-year-old with his dad's credit card hoping to score some badly faked snuff-porn before his 9PM bedtime, just like at the end of Demonlover. (OMG Demonlover!!)

But as a writer who constantly finds himself Googling really sketchy, antisocial-sounding phrases nearly every day as a matter of occupational necessity, I know better (my own browser history reveals particularly damning searches such as "pound puppies cartoon"). I'm sure "slavery through hypnosis" guy (or gal. I sort of hope it's a gal...) is actually just a lot like me! And I hope that next time they're looking for "deathmask lizard erotica" -- for some sort of doctorate thesis of great cultural relevance, no doubt -- that they'll stick around for a while, read a few interviews, say howdy. I sure do enjoy seeing new faces around here.

MMMM, chowder.