Fire, sharp objects, hung over guys with knives, slippery floors and boiling oil. Anyone who's ever worked in a real kitchen will tell you some kind of horror story. They'll also tell you that they wouldn’t give it up for the world.

       The crazy hours, the mind numbing pace, the utter mindless wait staff you have to deal with, when that final tickets on the spike and its all shut down you'll hear the chefs rallying cry..."TO THE BAR"! You think you’re a rock star? Find out where the local cooks party and head there at about 12:30 on a Friday night and find the loudest, rudest group of people there. Look for the twenty or so empty shot glasses and the mountain of beer bottles on the table and guys with duct tape on their hands smelling like grease and smoke. Hang with them for a few hours. Even after a 12 hour day of being on your feet sweating, sliding and running, they'll drink ya under the table, crack on ya for being a sissy and proceed to someone's house and keep it up till the sun cracks the horizon. Then we stumble home, sometimes shower, wake up, scarf some aspirin, finish whatever's in the glass or bottle on the table next to us and head on out to do it again. And again. And again.

       After seventeen years of ball busting work in kitchens dealing with some of the weirdest people you'll never meet. The egotistical chef that has no clue. The totally loony dish guy that still has the best smoke you can find even though he only makes 6 bucks and hour. The snooty waitress who treats ya like crap till you give her a ride home and shows ya a trick she can do with her tongue that would make Ron The Hedgehog blush I had to take a break.

       That's what brings me to this. It all started as a way to wind down after a nightmare of an evening. Your done with work but still wired and everyone else is sleeping which is what normal people do. Not I. Grab a 12 from the work cooler and head to the garage. Crank up the crappy boom box with some Ramones or Misfits tapes and drink and play with bones and skulls. It was just one or two things to start with. A little gothic decor to just liven up the place. Someone saw it and loved it and offered to buy it so I made another. Same thing. It happened a few more times and then it kicked in, I could make some money doing this. So I tried a horror convention. I took about a dozen things and I had to leave Sunday because I had nothing left to sell. So now it's what I do. It's not totally for a living....yet. I still cook, sometimes. Though as much as I love cooking this is almost as fun. I really enjoy the artsy part of it. In a lot of ways it's like cooking. You take basic things and with some time, imagination and not a little bit of sweat and blood you get something totally different out of it. Something that I hope you all enjoy.