Putting the Dick Back in Dixie

The expedition began with a stop in the pleasantly innocuous city of Eugene to spend time with the glorious and lovely SAC, who led me on a tour of the city's impressive network of bike paths. I wanted to get a few extra miles of riding under my belt, even though ML assured me our ride would be a veritable cakewalk. One thing led to another and I eventually found myself singing "Folsom Prison Blues" to a roomful of strangers in a hotel bar, partially atoning for my hideous rendition of "November Rain" in a Nelson, New Zealand club last year that led to the expulsion of myself and my two Swedish accomplices.

Instead of blasting down I-5 I decided to take a circuitous route to Mount Shasta via Bend. It gave me an excuse to check out a potentially vicious and beautiful bike tour up and around the Central Cascades. The primary reason, however, was to spend an evening with one of the greatest musical geniuses of our time: Mr. Sheldon Williams, aka Hank III.

Before I could revel in such pleasant tunes as "Thrown out of the Bar", "Smoke and Wine", "Gettin' Drunk and Fallin' Down", "Six Pack of Beer", "White Trash", "Drinkin' Over Momma", "My Drinkin' Problem", "Punch, Fight, F#ck", and the latest hit "Rebel Within" (which opens with the lines "The bottle's gettin' lower again my friend and the hard times are tryin's its best to win"), I had a few pints at the 10 Barrel Brewpub in the glorious sunshine. Bend, situated on the Eastern side of the Cascades, is blessed with lovely weather, good food, outstanding hiking, excellent beer, and a fairly high number of fit and attractive people. I was about to go looking for cheap rooms for rent when I remembered that I had just joined the Washington Air National Guard out of sheer boredom, rendering a relocation to Bend an exceptionally large pain in the ass.

It was still daylight when I entered the Domino Room, already packed with toothless rednecks half in the bag and metalheads in thoroughly impractical jean jackets adorned with patches of their favorite bands. Hank and His Damn Band hit the stage and immediately launched into the drinkin' and Hell-raisin' rave-up "Straight to Hell", sending the drunk and meth "enhanced" patrons to explode into a hillbilly most pit, an exclusively Hank III phenomenon. With no bouncers to spoil the fun stage diving and herb smoking became the order of the stiflingly hot night. Ever the consummate professional Hank played all the crowd favorites of his back catalog, including his anthem "I'm Here to Put the Dick In Dixie [and the C#nt Back in Country]" as well as legendary country standards like his grandfather's "I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive".

Picture taken by someone with a better camera than I

I was embarrassingly exhausted by the time intermission hit. I had just enough time to chug $3 worth of water when Hank's metal band, Assjack, cranked up the volume with "Gravel Pit", and all Hell quickly broke loose. Hank turned over the vocal duties to the fearsome screamer Gary Lindsey while the fiddler picked up a Flying V and shredded with delightful ferocity. By the time they wound down the night with an amazing cover of Slayer's "Postmortem/Raining Blood" medley I was absolutely spent.

I had contemplated sleeping in the back of my station wagon, but that would have involved moving around a lot of crap for which I was not in the mood. I drove out of town about five miles until I found a dirt road heading out into a forest. Sounds of 1 am hippie drum circles and bizarre metal-on-metal scraping noises echoed in the vicinity. To tired to care, I crawled into my tent, dehydrated, ears ringing and face hurting from smiling so hard.