Heavy Petting

Hack wrote this after watching his cover artist Jonny M.’s pug Boris effortlessly pick up women by playing sad songs on a local dive bar’s tinny piano. After his set, Boris would take one of them to a table in a dark table and have them scratch him behind the ears until their fingers cramped.

The Grump Old Bastard

Hack had intended this to be the story of how he had heroically fought down some young thugs in his neighborhood but when everyone read the proofs, they congratulated him on writing a hilarious book about a mean-spirited old bastard who was constantly harassing innocent teens. He quietly changed the title from “The Hero of the Neighborhood” to “The Grumpy Old Bastard” and pretended that was what he had meant all along.