Bill was born in Pittsburgh in 1983 and, in his own words, “got the hell out of that steel cage as quick as my tiny feet would take me” (Bill, despite his 6’1’’ body, has tiny hands and feet). Bill’s family had worked in the steel industry since arriving in the U.S. some hundred years ago. Bill’s father was laid off in the late seventies and was unable to find work until he died in 1986. He cursed the industry until the end and made Bill swear that he would never throw his life away on a company that would never care about him. Bill hit the road at fifteen and never looked back. He has never had what most people would consider a “real” job.

I first met Bill in San Francisco two years ago at an open mike poetry night in a coffee house. He was being arrested for exposing himself on stage (in reality, he was actually masturbating, and, it being San Francisco, they waited to arrest him until he had come). Since then, I have kept in touch with him via the Internet and he has continued to impress me with his writing. And the number of places he has jerked off. He claims to be the only man to have jerked off in all fifty states. He wrote a poem about each time. When he first heard of Drunk Uncle Bob, he is rumored to have flown to Guam just to jerk off there.

Bill is a weird guy, but writes like a champ. And he does it with one hand.