THE GREAT WEIRD NORTH: Nardwuar and the Evaporators' goofy garage rock knows no boundaries.

Unless you spend a lot of your free time with (a) effusive record collectors with an obsessive fetish for obscure Canadian rockers, or (b) the pathologically insane, you've probably never met anyone quite like Nardwuar the Human Serviette. First, there's that handle--a combination of fabricated nonsense word, part of the title to the Cramps' "Human Fly," and a synonym for napkin chosen simply for its ability to stymie culturally blinkered Americans.

But that alone is not what has made the name Nardwuar synonymous with gonzo rock journalism. The 32-year-old DJ, media personality and rock'n'roller from Vancouver, British Columbia, is a beloved--and sometimes despised--character because he combines fearless inquisitiveness (like asking Slayer if they thought Metallica were wimps) with more hyperactive enthusiasm than a pack of kindergarteners amped on Cap'n Crunch and cappuccino. He's insistent and in-your-face, but playfully so, his trebly voice often rising into an excitable squeak. Those who can get past his initial barrage of bizarre questions (e.g., "Beck, do you like your hair?") usually come to love his obsessive knowledge of trivia and tenuous social connections. Those who don't, get mean; Skid Row tuffguy Sebastian Bach, for example, smashed Nardwuar's interview tape and stole his trademark wool toque.

Naturally, the manic Nardwuar's got as many of his own rock bands as he does curveball questions.

"I guess I've always considered myself a teenage zitrock loser," he pipes over the phone from his Canadian home. To best express this loserdom, he broadcasts his wacky persona through several channels. The Evaporators are Nardwuar's lo-fi funhouse of garage rock with a geeky smile. Songs with titles like "Woof, Woof, I'm a Goof" and "I Gotta Rash" combine hopping guitar riffs with lyrics straight outta the schoolyard. There are also examples of what Nardwuar calls "history rock," designed to instruct us dumb Yanks about his proud Northern homeland. "We have some songs about, y'know, the border," he says. "We have some songs about places in Canada, we have this song about Grouse Mountain Scenic Railway."

Then there are Thee Goblins. Clad in sheets and cheerleader sweaters found "at a Value Village in Bellingham, Washington, in the women's costume section," Thee Goblins pare things down to a duo playing mostly organ-and-drum goofball instrumentals.

And there's also...well, let the man himself explain the further evolution of his yuk-filled Canuck rock: "Then we turn into the Ska-blins. That's when we're joined by our guitarist and our bassist; our bassist plays trombone and our guitarist plays bass. Then we switch into this new thing we've been doing, the Goth-blins. And you're wondering, how do Thee Goblins turn into the Goth-blins? We just change our sheets, we now wear black sheets. The music basically is the same. And then of course, genre-hopping, we become the Disco-blins. And after that it pretty much ends. We're hoping to take it to some more levels, to have like Fatboy Goblins, and Gob Bizkit. We did try the Techno-blins, but that bombed. We're hoping to do the Metal-oblins, as well, and get like Canadian metal legend Thor."

After all this activity--pestering the testy likes of Courtney Love and playing in multiple groups--it's not surprising that something had to give. Unfortunately, that something was a blood vessel in Nardwuar's brain: In July 1999, shortly before his bands were scheduled to travel to the Yoyo A Gogo festival in Olympia, Nardwuar collapsed and was rushed to the hospital.

"The doc described it as a minor stroke, a brain hemorrhage," he says with uncharacteristic seriousness. "Which might be normal if you're like 80 years old, but if you're 32, like I am, it's not too normal, really. My arm was a bit affected, my left arm. It seems totally better now. In fact, I always had kind of a shitty arm. I was never that coordinated. So it's like, 'Oh, my arm's fucked up, I'll finally have an excuse to go to the gym and try to get coordinated now.'"

But there's better news on the health horizon: "I think I've been cured of cancer. When I saw preacher Ernest Angley years ago, he cured me of cancer. He later said God was liable to strike me dead, the way I was acting. I said, 'Mr. Angley, so now you've cured me of cancer, can you cure the summertime blues?' And he got really mad."

However, this man who got the normally reserved Beck to tell him to "fuck off" and booted him from Lollapalooza, and who once boldly asked Mikhail Gorbachev which world leader wore the biggest pants (adding "keep on rocking in the free world" in pidgin Russian), does have certain topics he considers off-limits. His real name, for instance.

"Well," he replies to my query, "I wouldn't reveal that I was an English social critic who lived between 1819 and 1901 who, on his wedding night, saw his wife's pubic hair, was disgusted by it, became a compulsive masturbator and died a virgin. I would not want to divulge that information."

Quick hint for budding investigative reporters: The initials are J.R. But for the rest of us in the entertainment world, don't bother trying to figure it out. Nardwuar the Human Serviette--both the man and the name--make only as much sense as they need to. Which, considering the exuberant appeal of the source, is not at all.