Every hotel in Vegas smells like an unfiltered Pine Tree air freshener cigarette. Even the nice ones. I’m staying at The Venetian, which never fails to transport me back to my days shucking oysters on The Adriatic with a Turkish thief named Samsa. He was fat and loved to wrestle. God rest his jolly brownish soul.

My taxicab drops me off close to midnight thirty and my call is for eight AM. If I don’t get at least seven hours of sleep at night I’ll weep diarrhea all the next day. I lament not having the time to get an authentic slice at New York New York or play the slots at Circus Circus or get a handjob at Caesars Palace Caesars Palace. All I have time for is a whore’s bath (a splash of warm water on the crack) and perhaps some story-porn.

Really Big Network has sprung for a suite so I make my way up to my rooms. The corridors are vast in Vegas. The cloying odor immediately rocks its way into my headache region and I’m weaving my way up to the kabillionteenth floor. My room is not unlike my old quarters in Venice: plenty of water, ample light and advertisements for Danny Gans. I immediately strip down to my union suit, yank down the bed covers and get in. I pull the covers up to my foul line and get ready for a classic hotel ON Demand Experience. The Venetian has one of those deals where you can access three movies at once for a trifling fee of $31.99. Luckily, the movie titles will not be listed on my bill. If they ask, I’ll tell them I rented Click! which is worth at least that much.

Two of the movies have no story, which is usually my thing, but in this case they are also lacking anything even resembling a human being. One of them is called something with “gaggers” in the title, which is also not something I usually watch unless, of course, I’ve murdered someone recently and I’m just “in that mood.” The other movie is a surreal, “artsy” porno starring Rocco Sifreddi who is known mostly for his European good looks and the funny faces he makes while staring at a woman’s gaping asshole. I choose Rocco. He’s so gentle.

Three minutes later I’m turning the light off and hitting the hay. I have a big day ahead of me tomorrow. At seven AM I will wake up, wash my entire body, get dressed, have a sensible breakfast and spend the next five hours shooting interviews with porn stars. Should I call my mom first and tell her I’ve “made it?” No. Better to just let the warm anticipation wash over me and transport me to a land of peaceful slumber.

I have a nightmare. In it, the AVN Porno Convention is not all I imagined it would be. Somehow this gathering of like-minded adults has become an apocalyptic hellscape. Men with shaved heads and goatees wag their silver hoop earrings and clamshell camera phones at emaciated, bikini-clad lizards. Disabled women in motorized carts wear slinky tops and wink at fluffer girls who pass out cards advertising gels and colorful foams. Gap-toothed Internet princesses smile as cock-machines pound rubber dicks into their solar plexuses. In my dream, I’m handed a DVD called “Animal Trainers.” On the cover, my old friend Rocco Siffredi holds a woman on a leash and forces his entire lower torso, legs and all, into her unwelcoming throat. He makes his signature funny face. I can’t find any animals on the cover.

As I awake the next morning from uneasy dreams I find myself transformed in my bed into a gigantic insect. Oh well. I get some coffee and head down to the hospitality suite. Ricky, my producer, is there.

“Turned into a bug, huh?” he says.
“Yeah.” I say.
“That’s really pretentious,” he says.
“Probably.” I answer. Ricky hands me my ID and we move downstairs.

I’m immediately struck dumb by the vast expanse of the convention floor.

“Did you know that James Cameron filled this place with water and filmed The Abyss here?” asks Ricky.

That cheers me up. Also heartening is that the smell of ancient Pall Malls sprayed with Forest-Flavored Binaca has been substituted with something else. What is that, cherries? Birthday cake? Frangelico?

“Do you smell blood?” Ricky asks.
I giggle and we move on. He’s so silly.

The AVN Porno Convention is nothing like my nightmare. It’s a colorful world where sex is celebrated and tolerance reigns. Two Polynesian beauties drape fragrant leis over our necks. They don’t even seem to mind touching my brittle exoskeleton. We move farther in. I bump into a large man with a very long ponytail wearing a floor length leather jacket. He turns to me and I notice he is wearing both a denim shirt and denim pants. Attached to his belt, are a cell-phone, a pager and a blackberry all in their own leather holsters. I look up at his face. He’s wearing Matrix sunglasses and has a tiny van-dyke. His sideburns have been shaved off. A black cross dangles from a hole in his left earlobe. It takes me a moment to realize what is going on and then it suddenly hits me: He’s a circus clown! What a wonderful idea! If only there were more children here!

We get to Really Big Pornstar’s Booth for our first interview. It resembles Thunderdome but without the retard and midget. Tina Turner, however, is there. She hands us all flowers.

Somehow we clip a mic onto Really Big Pornstar’s blouse and seconds later I’m getting the story of how she was a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader until she tore her kneecap off. Ha ha! Yaaaaaaaaaay! She tickles my antennae and I laugh.

We walk the floor some more. We run into Ashley Blue who is taking a picture with a chubby, goateed, middle manager type. She’s the one that can fit anything into her backside. She’s the one that can swallow a forearm without choking. She’s the one that famously said she hates Muslims and would “totally fuck someone in the KKK.” I wonder how she feels about bugs! Ha ha! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

We talk to John Stagliano, the inventor of “Gonzo Porn.” Like most inventors, he’s a very genial man and shakes my hand warmly. I ask him what his favorite all-time TV show is.

“Anything with anal.” He answers.
I admire his focus.

We get a few more interviews and I feel superdupergreat. And when I think I couldn’t feel any better we reach a table set way in the back of the room. Light has trouble reaching this corner of the center and the foot traffic is stragglers at best. Luckily Ricky has left a trail of anal beads behind us. I crack my thorax and approach the table.

The table and decorations are all black, projecting an aura of spiritual calm. A man in a dyed black goatee looks up and smiles at me. He is flanked by two beautiful women wearing close to nothing. No words are spoken. He hands me a remote control. A shaman and his beetle apprentice. I press play and the lesson begins.

The soothing opening strains of "St. Anger" by Metallica start to play. Three large Panasonic screens come alive. It takes my compound eyes a few seconds to focus on the rapidly changing images dancing across the screens. What vision of carnal love lay in store for me? I blink. Everything becomes clear.

All three screens flash ultra-violent images of dudes beating the shit out of each other. Noses rain blood on fists. Clothes are torn and men are strangled with the shards. Man bites man. I press stop.

All is quiet. My goateed sensei meets my searching eyes.
“I do not understand,” I say.
“Huh?” he says.
“What lesson lies here within master? How do I use this knowledge?” I plead.
He scratches the inside of his nose with an impossibly long thumbnail and burps softly.
“What do I do now?” I ask, tears soaking my pincers.
“Well…” he begins, “These two chicks will beat the shit out of each other if you want to shoot that.” he says finally. All becomes clear.

Later, at the airport, I gulp Jack and Cokes in a Chili’s Too. I had missed my flight because some lucky bird had eaten Ricky’s anal bead trail. I look around at my fellow travelers and feel sorry for them. They have not yet seen the future. I smile, secure in my newfound enlightenment and I raise a boneless buffalo wing up to my mandible. My claw brushes my proboscis and I feel the new growth of what will soon become a very sculpted goatee. I laugh. Blue cheese dressing drops onto my abdomen. Oh well.

Rob Corddry is an actor. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.