As many metallions are aware, Jeff Hanneman, guitarist of Slayer, has been undergoing skin grafts and physical therapy after contracting necrotizing fascitis. This means his flesh began eroding away. This is usually caused by a spider bite, most notably by the infamous Brown Recluse, a breed native to the Georgia here where I'm at, but also the Black Widow (another Georgia spider) and Hobo Spiders (Rocky Mountain states).

This news disturbed me, as I see all sorts of alien creepy-crawly things around here all the time, being in Georgia and surrounded by a lot of trees. I'm still not sure that I've seen a Brown Recluse, although I do know from some Googling that I'm supposed to look for a "fiddle back." (Who's going to have a magnifying glass handy and what spider is going to sit still long enough for you to examine it's tiny back for that kind of detail, I don't know.) I usually adapt a live-and-let-live attitude towards bugs, even spiders, just letting them go on their way, or putting them in a paper towel and taking them outside when I can.

However, if a arachnid looks like it might bare a fiddle, or even a mandolin or charango, I've gotta throw `em in the toilet. Here are a few I've had to execute lately. Click for larger images. What do you think? See any violin students?