I want to thank Big Ernie who is the owner of Big Ernie's Diner. (The joint's name has been changed at the owner's request in order to keep certain riff raff out). Big Ernie's is a legendary Long Beach dive located down on the docks of Long Beach harbor. It's long been a hangout for longshoreman, drunks coming off an all night bender, crooked cops, hookers, drug dealers, and other great folks too many to list here. Big Ernie's coffee tastes like hot piss and his eggs have the flavor of turpentine, but you don't come to Ernie's for the food or the java anyway. It's purely for the ambiance. You see all the waitresses at Big Ernie's all wear see-through negligees. Some wear g-strings or thongs and others wear full panties, but you get a full tit shot from every goddamn one of them and some even wear see-through panties, but it's the ones who have a thick bush that drive me crazy. I just love the sight of a full muff peeking around the edges of a pair of hot pink panties, the seventies porn star look. I'm just not a fan of the shaved beaver. The landing strip or the Hitler look is OK, but I just can't stand the sight of a clean snapper.
Don't get me wrong, the babes at Big E's aren't going to be starring in any Hollywood features or strutting down some fashion runway and a few are getting a little long in the tooth but who gives a shit? Poontang is poontang where I come from. I'm getting off the track here but I wrote damn near all of this book sitting in a corner booth - which even had a phone jack so that I could access the Internet and my e-mail - at Big Ernie's. I'd start at six in the morning with my French Legionnaires breakfast - a cup of Big Ernie's rotgut urine-like tasting coffee and a unfiltered Camel - and wind up the day around 1600 with a cheeseburger and a six pack of Miller High Life.
So many thanks to Big Ernie and his wonderful staff. To Big Ernie's Diner! The only diner that I've ever waxed my cane in.
And I before I forget. Many thanks to Jerome, who got me this very nice and very hot laptop computer that this book was written/typed on, and at such a bargain at that. It's not often that you can get a brand new Dell for an ounce of Columbian and a hundred bucks. Thanks, buddy, you're the tops!
Of course, a round of brews and a slap on the ass to Scott Anderson, the co-author of Salt On The Nuts. Scott and I went to boot camp together and were crewmembers onboard the USS Dixie - where needless to say we often got boiled as owls together - and were able to get back in touch with each other after I survived those hellacious years. I saw some of Scott's perverted and twisted writings on the Web, contacted him, and convinced him that he was the only one who could help me out on Salt.
Finally, to Javier and Felicia. You both know why.
Somewhere in the Pacific - 2006