My friend Juliet recently went to Las Vegas for the Adult Video News awards and the associated events to write an article for her very cool website Off the Grid, which is devoted to the recounting of seedy and possibly health-threatening travel adventures.

While she was in Vegas, her Facebook updates had me cracking up. There seemed to be a running theme that went something like this: “Holy shit, this is the douchiest, most appalling thing I’ve ever seen — and I never want to leave.” As she puts it in the article, “This wasn’t my first rodeo, but I’d be lying if my week in Vegas wasn’t everything I hoped it would be, and grosser.”

Listening to her go through the pictures on her phone and tell the stories behind them made me laugh even more. I told her that if this is ever made into a movie, I want to play Ron Jeremy (unless there’s a nude scene, in which case we’re gonna need a body double). And yes, religion does play a part in this story:

What I really like about porn expos is that someone always tries to come to the expo to convince you not to be into porn anymore. They truly go into the belly of the beast.

Now, I have never gone to church to tell everyone there not to believe in God, or that it’s totally cool to have drug-fueled orgies in murder motels, because I don’t like to go into someone’s home and tell them to stop what they’re doing. But that’s just me. So, of course the notorious XXXChurch shows up to the AVNs. Their stickers find a good home as pasties for the breasts of many of the strippers who casually perform around the convention. My favorite is another group who had a board set up where you could write prayer requests for your favorite wayward porn stars.

This mirrors a billboard I saw coming into Vegas that said, “God knows what happens in Vegas. Repent!” and a bumper sticker reading, “A life without Jesus is a dead-end street” plastered on one of the many news boxes with ads for strippers and escorts. I would admire the diligence of a group of missionaries in sin city, except I don’t admire it at all.

But it is funny, as is the whole story. I love the whole point of her website. And having spent years on the road doing comedy, I should probably write something for them about some of the seedier places I’ve had to stay while traveling.