Charlie's Kitchen. Sometime last February. The Reverend and I have graduated from taking communion to baptizing ourselves in a sea of liquor. Frankly, we're sloppy. Our planning session has degenerated into the sort of drunken love-fest that ironically only straight men engage in, which is a shot and a stall away from "just experimenting." "Theress not fihve, noh, noht two-NO 'UN... c'n do wut ewe doo... noht even ewe." "I haf so much rizpect for wot yer doin wi' WAKKA.... (drool)." It's in this gay-skirting mode that we get into a bit of prick waving. I tout my Barnum-ic talent for convincing media types that I embody The New Komedy - which is the same old comedy wrapped in a horse-shevik flag - while the Reverend asserts I wouldn't last a stressed heartbeat doing comedy outside Cambridge. The upshot is a challenge: I charge the Reverend with writing the alternativest, most Dali-scious routine his road dusted brain can contrive, while I must accompany him on a three day descent through the lumberjack camps and boxing rings that are Maine. We seal the pact with our umpteenth drink and part ways weaving. I wake up the next morning with hangover like a stroke.

The 29th of March. I'm in a rented car hurtling toward towns with names that alternate between the alarming and the unpronounceable (Moosefist, Swackanassraw). I'm camouflaged in wool and flannel, a bit of blackout obscuring my front teeth, a hatchet snapped to my belt. "That's a bit excessive Walters." "Name's Earl," I correct the Reverend between mouthfuls of beef jerky. "And you know durn well wot we Mainers do to lib'ral sabotoors we catch turnin' our wimin 'ta faggits."

Maine. I'd heard stories about the place as a boy at the feet of truckers. Wild tales of Bigfoot, bearded women, and the mythical land of Canuhda. "Columbus me boy-" My name is Sam Mister. "Quiet! Yer half Spainiard aint cha?" In fact, I am. "Right then! Columbus me lad, don't venture north a Massachusetts. There's monsters in them woods what can hoist a man's rig right off the road, mash it up, n' swallow it whole! And if you keep goin' you'll drive clean off the edge a the world!" Actually, you'll hit New Brunswick. "‘Tis the same! ‘Tis the same!" I always assumed these northern horrors were wild inventions to scare children, like the Windigo, Sasquatch and Neil Young. Taking stock of the dwindling homes and spreading trees I felt less sure.

We stop in Portland to collect other unlucky traveler Steve Caowette - an exceedingly nice, funny guy with a bizarro Squiggy-as-Christopher Walken impression that's to be experienced - before continuing North, North, North, North... North...... North......... After five hours of forest we emerge into some creaking civilization. There are no people. Outhouses are common and barns outnumber homes ten to one. Colors are chipped and wild. Each shack's architecture is a hundred and eighty degrees from the previous, in fact there's no consistency within the individual designs; most houses feature insane additions and dangerous repairs certainly conceived in the drunken dead of night and executed immediately without the benefit of sobriety or sunlight to guide the project. Worst, signs with the French flag keep popping up and we theorize that if the locals weren't all dead, they'd probably speak the hideous tongue. At this point the booker of our impending funeral is cursed savagely, brutally, bitterly, up and down. "(The name has been changed) Fucking Bob Stein!" "This goddamn gig is a complete cluster-fuck!" We roll into the town- no, village- no, street of Madawaska with our car crammed full of insults. A deep breath is taken as we enter Jay's Bar and Grill to discover... an excellent little club with a proper stage, lights and sound system. Friendly, bi-lingual locals welcome us. A delightful bartender more breasts than girl meets us warmly with cold beers. We sing the praises of the booker. "Fucking Bob Stein! Always comes through!" Later, the crowd is appreciative, sharp, and successfully entertained. I acquit my self decently in my Maine debut; the threatened cherry popping is a pleasant, brief romp. Much too much alcohol is downed, the recommended dosage of an over the counter broncho-dilator is exceeded by several hundred milligrams, and we retire to the hotel with the busty bartender and a friendly trollop in tow. This healthy scene is aborted, however, when Caowette suffers a sudden attack of conscience and refuses the "very young," "too nice" bartender who "has a boyfriend" and she leaves with the friendly trollop in tow. Fearing the only explanation for this is a midnight molestation by Suddenly Sexually Suspicious Steve I switch rooms. This terrible waste of an orgy - which in Steve's defense I almost certainly would have bungled down the stretch - is proof of the equation that even with *loose women* two out of three encounters ends in a blue balls bust. That's my math anyway.

When I come to life the next morning I am not refreshed. My cut-rate speed bender has left me with some heart confusion and a low grade seizure that hampers my first few attempts to get up, shower, and throw up violently. My condition isn't helped at breakfast by the Reverend who orders a heaping dish of furiously colored coleslaw and a bowl of regional culinary weirdness called poutsin - pronounced pussy - which resembles caramel streaked with cum (in fact, gravy and cheese), run through with french fries. The Reverend, however, fails to observe me gulp down two rolls of Tums before eating. I feign agony through his second bowl of the stuff when our nauseated conditions are reversed, then perk up and insist we take to the road.

We arrive in Ashland and hook up with our final co-presenter Shane Kinney, the Shaner, a hyperactive walking still, a heavy metal drummer in the spastic Ulrich mold. I recognize Shane as the Beavis to my Butthead when he identifies an Iron Maiden bootleg I own by asking if the singer goes flat in the third verse of "Where Eagles Dare" (Dude, totally!!!). Much of the remainder of the trip is spent asking whomever we meet if they're "ready for some Judas Priest style heavy metalll" and assuring them they're "gonna have a lethal, lethal time." (The Sinner!!!!!!!!)

That night's gig, however, is scrubbed when no one shows up. Apparently the owners of the joint we're to amuse in opted not to advertise at all in favor of psychic commercials-a new medium that's free and so hip it doesn't even work. The bartender adds that even the sign out front announcing a "COM DY NIGHT" was covered up by a snowplow... and that was that it seems (cue banjo). Without opposable thumbs they couldn't grip a shovel to dig it out.

It's at this moment that the Shaner suggests the most dangerous event, and no, that doesn’t need to be qualified. Why not trade in our glum moods for some gunshot wounds and go drinking at Freem's? Freem's Bar. Caowette had told us about this redneck academy and the two near fights he'd fled there. He warned us Kinney would be uber-eager to head there after the show. The Reverend with a child on the way, and myself with at least an on/off appreciation of living had answered Steve's review with "fuck that"’s all around, so I knew we wouldn't be heading there tonight.

So we're at the threshold of Freem's Bar. The Reverend, Steve and I have our flannels on and tucked in. The Reverend's removed his earrings and donned a baseball cap. I'm doing my damndest to contain my irrepressible Cambridge faggitude. Fucking Kinney, however, is bubbling over in the loudest leopard print shirt ever rejected by a Jersey pimp as too much. The door flies open under his power and we follow the imp of our demise in. I've never seen so many mounted animal heads. It's like Noah's Ark if he was psychotic and decided to save space by boarding only a third of each animal. In fact, for all I know Freem's is made of moose, deer, chimp busts, because no paneling is visible around them. Any gaps around the plaques are filled by guns, shells, I think I spot a nuclear missile or two. Most alarming, despite being so far north we're kissing the ass of Canada, I spot no less than five confederate flags, including a monstrous one to be used as our funeral shroud adorning the stage, which speaking of, supports a mustachioed man in black leather pants and a blue leather t-shirt singing a karaoke rendition of "Take this Job and Shove It." Oh my god.

This is not a place to hit on women. We take a seat, maintain a respectful silence and offer Freddie "Vance" Mercury our spirited applause between renditions of "Angel" and " I Fought Authority." Then Crazy Girl pulls up a chair and begins fumbling with our cocks. "Hi I'm Crazy Girl, and I've got a rack bigger than the one on that deer! I'm gonna sit with you guys and flirt nymphomaniacally 'til you're so sweaty with lust and fear you can't help but make a pass!" "Please Crazy Girl, go away. We just want to sit by ourselves, sip our O’Doul’s and reflect on the joys of Jesus and abstinence." "Nope! Have you seen my rack?" Jaeger shots begin appearing. We maintain priestly control, so the forces of evil conjure up shots of 151 proof, gasoline, diesel. While I'm scanning the room looking for a window to jump out, Caowette falters; when I turn back around he's mounting the stage. A thin trickle of urine escapes my right pant leg. When he breaks into "You Don't Bring Me Flowers Anymore" - both the Neil Diamond and Barbara Streisand parts - I shit myself. Some guns go missing off the wall. I spot not a few patrons nursing erections, sprung from homo-cide fantasies. There's nothing left for us but drinking so heavily our bodies will be numb for the inevitable pounding. Kinney follows Caowette with a stirring, half tone rendition of "Mandy," and I cap the set with a death defying cover of Tom Jones’ "Delilah." During the midsection of my number, Kinney fills the void on the floor with his inimitable dancing, featuring such patented moves as The Hedge Trimmer, and the Shaner High Kick. The boy's got talent. Not much. His style's a cross between Fred Astaire, Jackie Chan, and epilepsy. When I return to the table we've been joined by an enormous, beet red man in parachute pants who's exchanged his blood for steroids. He's being aggressively friendly in that any-minute-now-I'm-gonna-crack-you way. Apparently he's married to the whore of doom - who unbeknownst to us has been masturbating under the table - and he's been watching us drip pre-cum on his wife all night. Silly us, we've been the jealous pre-show for a screaming match, followed by some wife beating foreplay, tearful apologies and a trailer wrecking fuck. We're ashen with dread; they're so flushed they're about to screw on the table. As a unit, we rise, excuse ourselves to the bathroom ("We come up with best dick jokes when we're crossing swords!") feign left, and bolt right out the door. It's blizzarding. A lone cruiser has spotted the Mass plate on our car and circles the block waiting to swoop down on us city boys. We take a quick survey of our respective drunkenness and elect me to drive us home. Exactly (actually, I'm remarkably sober; chalk it up to beer burning fear). We make a show of responsibility for the perched sheriff and head for the motel on foot. When he flies off to circle again, we slip n' slide back to the car, pile in, and drive the approximate hundred feet to the motel. What assholes.

The next day the iced up roads lead straight to hell. The Shaner and I travel in his rolling dumpster. I shouldn't fear for my safety because I'm perfectly suspended in a cushioning ocean of garbage, but I'm not entirely sure Shane can drive. Well is out of the question. To distract us - exactly what we need - we pop an endless succession of Iron Maiden tapes in the deck and have the kind of metalacious time that for headbangers is like getting blown in the car.

I have exactly twelve minutes and twenty seconds of unquestionably *mainstream* material, half that if I have to work clean. That night for the audience of non-traditional college students - adult, not retarded - I do six minutes and ten seconds, then depart the stage before they catch on to me. I hear somebody whisper "What a nice young man." Fools. As with every night, the Reverend and Steve kill, as does the Shaner 'til he goes blue, prompting the Reverend to sing his own rendition of "Mandy" with the revised lyrics, "Oh Shaner, you tried to dick jokes and lost them..."

Inquiring as to a good watering hole, a bellboy advises against a near by night club The Bounty, which he describes as predominantly black.

So we're at the threshold of The Bounty. Curious about what connection could exist between a nautical name and black culture, we enter to discover... a pirate themed hip-hop club. Jay-Z blasts on the sound system as heinous cabin girls twirl around masts and dangle from rigging. Thar she gets jiggy with it! A lone, black man dances with a more than middle-aged white woman; evidence of a redneck grandma fetish if I ever saw it, and I never have 'til now. While in Maine one black guy may comprise "predominantly," the race mos' representin' is mutant. We drop anchor at the bar, for the night, for sure.

Several beers and Bronkaids later I'm dancing with a two hundred pound woman boasting a bouffant slightly larger than the state, her lesbian lover and daughter, and a one eyed woman. They inform me they're fire fighters. Sure. I've never been turned on by the outright bizarre, but there's something so Lynch-ian about this carnival of the grotesque that so help me God I'm turned on. So God does, in the form of a willow of a girl who takes a booty shaking shine to me and leads me away from the worst threesome in creation... just long enough for them to vanish and the ultimate goober to appear. This mullet-headed beef jerk in a leather truckin' cap makes off with my gal to make out with my gal. They bust several moves in cock throbbing mockery of me before I fly to the bar, thirsty for a pint of blood. "Steve, you got my back?" "What? What's going on?" "I'm gonna knock that guy on his ass and cut in with that girl!" Somebody puts me down with a trank gun. When I come to it's tomorrow and I'm well on the way to Cambridge. Steve and the Shaner are gone. The Reverend explains that wherever we go out here we're walking into history. Most likely, Enis from The Bounty was an ex, and he and "my gal" were reliving better nights. As strange elements in an undisturbed culture, we act as a catalyst for others' reaction and gratification. But we're the additive, not the essence, and once used up we're not around to enjoy in the mixing. Sometimes burning through us takes all night. Sometimes we get laid. More often our effect occurs in a brief, manic flash and we're turned out into the cold while the chemistry continues inside. It's the uncertainty of the equation, the gripping myriad of unknown outcomes that are sparked when we walk into a room full of strangers, in a strange town, and connect with them that holds the mysterious, and lonely appeal of the road...

P.S. While the Reverend may maintain his composure, Tim McIntire is a drunken, dancing fool.