I'm finding it hard to breathe

Oh, hi! I didn't see you there! My name is Kenneth Bianchi, but you probably know me better as "The Hillside Strangler." As you may have guessed from my somewhat-accurate, colorful sobriquet, I strangle people. That's my thing, I guess. I wake up, I think about strangling. I go to sleep, I think about strangling. I masturbate, I think about strangling. Actually, I usually strangle while masturbating, but that's advanced class.

Because the world has become so complicated, it's harder than ever to come up with your own deal when it comes to killing a lot of nurses. I mean, right there -- you go around strangling a lot of nurses with piano-wire, people are calling you a Richard Speck copycat. You can't go around murdering prostitutes and leaving them on the banks of a deserted stream in the northwest, because the Green River Killer already got there ahead of you.

Hell, the whole choking-people-until-they-stop-moving thing was almost entirely monopolized by Albert DeSalvo. I, along with a few other entrepreneurial spirits, got the ball rolling again. Now, I'm happy to report, there's a whole new vista available for... chokers... of people. Maybe, just call us "Stranglers." Yeah -- the evening news got that much right.

One thing that's bothering my profession is the lack of strong representation. We're spread out into four different unions -- which actually have a ton of intersected interests -- which barely regard one another. The AMG (Aliased Murderer Guild) reps throughout the east and midwest, and some of their more notable cardholders are Dennis Rader and David Berkowitz. The Zodiac killers have a union all to their own, there's so damn many. The CSAK (Confederated Strangle/Asphyxiation Killers) has member rolls from Canada to the Texas panhandle (that's where my dues go). Everyone else -- they fall under the purview of the Teamsters. All this union repping is imperative because our health care is damn expensive -- hell, the Unabomber and John Wayne Gacy decided to go COBRA and handle all that shit out of pocket. Most of us can't do that, but Ted and John are exceptions because they're rock stars.

So, the next time you're under a tarp in a rowboat with, say, a Scott Peterson, or walking up to your Brentwood estate and are beset upon by an Orenthal James Simpson, take a minute to give us a little nod, as if to say, "Good job. I get what you're doing out here." Ritualistically carving the gall bladders out from a family of Mormons during a cold, rainy Colorado night is grueling work -- but someone has to do it.