The only ones for me are the ones "mad to party, mad to bone, mad to get hammered, desirous of all the chicks at Buffalo Wild Wings, the ones who never turn down a Bud Light Lime, but chug, chug, chug like fucking awesome players exploding like spiders across an Ed Hardy shirt." These iconic words, written by a young, brilliant Jack Kerouac in his landmark 1956 novel "On the Bro'd," launched several generations of privileged, lacrosse-short-clad undergrads careening across American highways, cruising for the best way to "beast it" to the next sports bar.

Or they would have. For the past several weeks inspired parodist Mike Lacher has been envisioning this alternate history. In it, the roadtripping '50s beat writer showcases "bro" behavior and lingo in his slurry, stream-of-consciousness prose. The result, On the Bro'd, is a send-up of Kerouac's famous book and a revealing bit of "what if" revisionism. In a line-by-line reworking, the author reimagines Kerouac quotes, like the "crazy ones" segment above, and updates the characters, such as the Hollister-attired, spiked hair Dean Moriarty and a "Mystic Tanned" Marylou:

One night while I was Bowflexing there was a knock on the door and there was Dean, grinning, smelling of Axe in the dark of the hall, and saying, “What up, you remember me— Dean Moriarty? I’ve come to ask you show me how to play "Wonderwall."

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Erik Hayden