Baboon in the Bluegrass, Part 5: Hillybilly Hot Dogs and Pentecostal Swingers ( Ashland, KY)

  “...at midnight Ashland, Kentucky, and a lonely girl under the marquee of a closed up show.” -Jack Kerouac


After a week of being plied with gin, poetry, and wonderful company, finally it was time to push east.  After a week of Spring-like weather, I woke up Saturday morning and it was cold and rainy.

Shit. Am I being chased by the weather? Again?

It was starting to feel like it. I barely escaped Illinois with a snow storm at my heels;  by the time I left Cincinnati, the cold and the rain were onto me like bad cop drama. Lexington was cold and windy. If  I decide to head south after I visit Stella,, it will be to escape the winter that's chasing me.

The trip to Ashland was short, and George was kind enough to drive me from his and Laura's place on Willow Drive straight to the door of college friends Mike and Elizabeth Fraizer. I've known both Elizabeth and Mike for many years, Theirs was another one of those weddings I missed, once upon a time. (Sorry Mike and Liz!)  But they have been gracious enough to let bum on the wheel spend a few days, sleep on their very comfy couch and take advantage of their hot water and their washer and dryer -- not to mention the prodigious liquor cabinet which would make any drinking man take pause.

I have always tried to balance the amount of money I spend against my taste for good swill; which is to say, sometimes you can afford the Good Shit and sometimes you can't. Mostly, I haven't been able to. This means I balance taste and cost in what seems a teeter totter sort of compromise. I try to avoid, for example, cheap whiskey. I will, when forced by economics or necessity,drink Bud Lite. I'll even cut corners -- though not many -- on scotch. But I insist, in most cases, on Kentucky Bourbon.

Mike and Liz take the approach that drinking, if done, should be done not only with great care and occasional abandon, but that it should only be done with high class hooch. For his part, Mike is something of and Anglophile when it comes to booze; it's Irish Whiskey -- none of that Jameson shit, either, we're talking pure Irish stock -- and proper English or Irish Ales and Stouts.  Liz is fully on board, having fully engaged sense of the finer things -- be it booze, home cooking, literature, and trashy pop culture. 

(from thesmokinggun.com)

[A good example of this is Jailed. This publication, which is something like an inbred child of the World Weekly News and the Jerry Springer Show. It highlights recent arrests in the area, complete with mug shots and games like "Match the Tramp Stamp." This game, which was borrowed/stolen from The Smoking Gun, consists of matching the picture of the lower back tattoo to the jail house hootchie it's attached to. In addition to being good family fun, it's a good memory game for the kids... 'cause these chickies will, I'm sure be back for encore mug shots... if they haven't already.]

One of the first things Mike and Liz did was drive me across the border into West Virginia (BY GAWD!!!) to a gem of a place called Hillbilly Hot Dogs. This place has been highlighted on a couple of cable shows including Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, so I won't spend too much time on it. I will say, however, that I the Junk Yard Dog was pretty tasty.

The restaurant is made of two buses and a shack.

It's way friendlier than it looks.

People come from all over and lose their license plates.

Liz (Center), Mike (Right). That half-,man is Zach Shavers.

Insidious technology... it creeps in everywhere...

I wanted this hat. Really.

It's also a place to ponder the important and eternal questions.

Ok. This broke my heart a little. Ok. A lot.

This ain't your OSHA's restaurant!

In addition to the oddity and general ambiance of the place, we also met A.J, who informed us that two of the other buses... that were just sort of sitting around.... were going to be cleaned out and added to the restaurant and used for... he whispered... a bar. 

A.J. seemed like a nice enough kid, who was just looking for people to talk to. He also seemed like he might have been living in the bus we found him in... but since I'm essentially homeless, I have no room to talk.

One of the things I always liked about Mike and Elizabeth is the way they live; because it always seemed to me that they -- maybe more Mike than Liz -- sort of live in order to be able to tell the story later. And this, I have found, is a far more interesting way to live. Living to tell the story means sometimes taking risks. A good example of this is the story of the night before their wedding, when Mike checked himself into the Ramada Inn at Morehead, where he proceeded to order a hooker from a Lexington phone book. But the story isn't that the girl actually drove out to Morehead -- even though it's really difficult to get out call hookers to trust you. The story isn't even what happened once the hooker arrived -- because Mike, in spite of himself, is essentially an honorable guy and he most likely just talked to her all night. No -- the story is that he called Liz THAT night and told her about it. 

And Liz married him anyway.

Liz, for her part, is the kind of person who tries to stay open enough to still experience the world. She's naturally friendly, on the gregarious side, and easy to talk to. This is evidenced by the fact she and Mike have been targeted by a church of Pentecostal swingers. This particular sect calls themselves a "Jesus Only" Church... which means they reject the trinity. They have membership outreach programs, such as paying members $250 for person they manage to convert (After all, nothing saves souls like the profit motive!). The minister, in addition to being a gold chain wearing warrior for Jesus, is also... an insurance salesman. So, when Mike and Liz filled out the little Guest Cards and marked -- CLEARLY -- the DO NOT CALL option, guess what happened?

Yep. The preacher called. Not too save their souls. But to sell them insurance. 

What a guy.

But it's good to be open to experiences, even bizarre ones. 

And here I am, waiting for my train ticket to catch up with me; because, even though the train stops here, there's no ticket office. I'm scheduled to leave Wednesday the 8th, headed for Richmond, and eventually, Norfolk. After that, it's still difficult to tell. 

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