Marble Gravestones in Berrytown

No, not gravestones made of marble, but gravestones using child's marbles in a primitive folk-art way to spell out the text. (Also check out the T.C. stone in Richmond.)

DNA Testing? No Thanks.

Last week while downtown, I saw that someone had dumped this sign in the wastebasket at the corner of 5th and Ali. Not sure whether they're making a statement against DNA testing, or whether they simply share my antipathy for plastic signs.

Orange UFOs in McCracken County

From MUFON, by way of Billy Booth:

01-04-10 - On our way home from Paducah to Mayfield, I noticed six orange lights gliding slowly in the sky just off the side of the highway. The lights appeared to be moving at a slow rate of speed. My wife, two children and I observed these lights for approximately 5 minutes or more.

Several other cars pulled over on the side of the highway in that area as well. The lights slowly faded out of sight one at a time, beginning with the one at the tip of the chevron and ending with the last light. I was able to take the picture with my cell phone shortly before the lights started disappearing.

The person filing the MUFON report doesn't say at what point between Paducah and Mayfield they were when the incident occurred, but most of the trip would be in McCracken County, and they most likely took Highway 131 South.

The sighting has great similarity to two others that recently happened in states bordering Kentucky. In, Youngstown, OH about a month prior, on December 5, 2009:

I noticed five or six orange lighted craft in formation traveling from the ground up. I pulled over to get a better look and realized that there was more like 9-12 of them. The lowest was at about 700 feet and the highest was about 2500 feet. At one point the craft had stopped and then they started to move again and climbed to the highest elevation (2500 feet) and disappeared one by one until they were all gone.

And in Lenoir City, TN, on January 3, 2010, the day before the Kentucky sighting:

I was getting a drink from the kitchen and looked out the window when I saw two orange/yellow lights in the eastern sky. They stayed in the same spot for 8 to 10 minutes. I got my camera and started to take pictures. Then the lights started to move left behind a line of trees, and then moved up over the trees and back down behind them again. They were out of sight for at least 5 to 7 minutes.

Megadeth Guitarist Joins Kentucky Band

Ever heard of Hydrogyn? Me neither. But they seem to be someone we should know.

They're a metal band based out of Ashland, KY that have been plugging away since 2004, albeit with a constant turnover of band members. They're fronted by a eye-catching vocalist named Julie Westlake. I haven't paid much attention to metal music post-90s, but the band seems to be going places, having Michael Wagener as their producer (he's produced albums by Metallica, Ozzy, Alice Cooper).

And now, in their latest lineup shakeup, former Megadeth guitarist Jeff Young has joined the band. According to Blabbermouth, "The band is currently in the midst of writing and recording tracks, has a live DVD in the offing and a simple mission: to rock every town on planet earth."

Dinosaurs Alive!

Though I still prefer the old-school simplicity of Cave City's Dinosaur World, I'm looking forward to "Dinosaurs Alive!", the Louisville Zoo's forthcoming exhibit of high-tech animatronic prehistoric beasties.

(But will Kentucky's sizable Creationism contingent get their Archaeopteryx feathers ruffled by it? Read my article about it on Louisville Mojo!)

Kentucky's First Satellite

Gov. Steve Beshear has announced that an organization called Kentucky Space has received a launch assignment from NASA for a satellite in November 2010.

The satellite is called KySat-1, and it has a camera and a 2.4-GHz industrial/scientific/medical band radio, which will be used to test high-bandwidth communications in the license-free portion of the S-band.

KySat-1 is much smaller than the satellites of the past, and is classified as a Picosatellite, weighing no more than 2.2 pounds.

Kentucky Space is a nonprofit consortium promoting the design and development of entrepreneurial and educational space outreach. They're affiliated with the Kentucky Science & Technology Corporation and the Kentucky Space Grant Consortium.

Prisoner Escapes During Bathroom Break

A manhunt is underway in Laurel County tonight for 50-year-old Ricky Allen, who escaped from the courthouse by asking the judge for time to talk to his lawyer alone. Once they were in chambers, Allen then told his attorney that he needed to use the rest room - and he never came back.

Allen had been facing two dozen charges of theft and burglary in London, and was expected to plead guilty.

106.7 Goes All-Elvis

The Wallingford Broadcasting Company has made the wacky decision to change the programming of their Richmond, KY station 106.7 to an all-Elvis format. Though it smells like a publicity stunt - they're urging listeners to give feedback on the website - the change is said to be permanent.

You might think an Elvis-only station would quickly get monotonous and redundant, but Elvis' catalogue consists of approximately 1000 different songs, and that's not even counting bootlegs and marginally-released material. Furthermore, this number skyrockets exponentially when you consider E's voluminous wealth of live versions and alternate takes.

(The Beatles, by comparison, only released approximately 300 songs and made only a handful of live recordings.)


Then again, some of the arcane material in the King's mighty oeuvre is pretty out-there. The common radio listener who might tune in expecting "Hound Dog" or "Suspicious Minds" might be a tad confuzzled by such obscure Elvis tunes as "Queenie Wahine's Papaya", "There's No Room to Rhumba in a Sports Car", "Dominic the Impotent Bull", "He's Your Uncle Not Your Dad", "Petunia The Gardener's Daughter", "The Fort Lauderdale Chamber Of Commerce", and my personal favorite, "Do the Clam".


You can listen to 106.7 online by clicking here.

Covington's Futuro House

The Futuro House was a short-lived fad during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Okay, maybe it wasn't even a fad, because they only ever built 96 of these things.

With 525 square feet of living space, the Futuro House could supposedly accommodate 8 people, its press releases said. Hmmmm... maybe, but only if you're cozy and unclaustrophobic. These things seem more like children's playhouses to me. While it lacks the size and majesty of Berea's Spaceship School, it still possesses a certain space-opera charm.

The official reason given for the failure of Futuro is that the rising price of plastic during the mid-1970s oil crisis made production of the domed domiciles too expensive. Personally, I think the real reason is simply that no one wanted to live in a tiny plastic space pod.

Of the 96 Futuro houses originally sold, Wikipedia estimates only 60% still exist. We're fortunate to have one of them still intact in Kentucky, on Wright Street in Covington. See it on Google Maps Street View here.

Unanswered Sparkman Questions

The dust has finally settled on the Bill Sparkman case, and everyone seems to accept the final investigative report. It concluded Sparkman committed suicide in Hoskins Cemetery and faked it to appear as a murder, because he thought his cancer was coming out of remission and he wanted to leave behind an insurance policy for his son. Case Closed.

But I'm still uneasy about the whole thing. Don't know why, exactly. Something's just not quite right.

True, people do some crazy things, and true, they don't have to always make sense. In fact, the more a news story neatly makes a pat sort of sense, the greater likelihood it's been crafted and contrived. So, part of me thinks, maybe it is true. Maybe Sparkman did kill himself.

But ask yourself: if you were going to fake your own murder, couldn't you have thought of a better way? And couldn't you have done a better job of making it more realistic and believable?

Today's Washington Post:

Investigators said Sparkman's wrists were bound so loosely that he could have done the taping himself. He was touching the ground almost to his knees. To survive, "all Mr. Sparkman had to do at any time was stand up," Capt. Lisa Rudzinksi of the Kentucky State Police said.

I don't mean to speak ill of the dead, but that's just plain stupid. What kind of lynching is that? Did Sparkman really think anyone was going to believe that unknown perps captured him, tied his hands loosely, and then hung him in such an unlikely way? (And why would they even need to tie his hands, anyway? Presumably he wouldn't be going anywhere.)

Sparkman, we're told, was a teacher, a man of science, and highly intelligent. I have real trouble squaring this intelligent man with this poorly-executed hoax attempt.

Lowell Adams, a close friend of Sparkman's, told investigators that Sparkman had confessed his whole secret plan to him. Why would he do that? I don't know. It doesn't make sense. Why would Adams betray Sparkman and spill the beans? I don't know that either.

Some friend.

The Washington Post again:

"In reality Bill spoke with me several times about killing himself and, on the Saturday before his death he told me he was going to kill himself on the next Wednesday," Adams said in a written statement included in more than 200 pages of investigative records.

Adams said Sparkman, who once had lymphoma, preferred to kill himself rather than to die from cancer.

"Bill said he had chosen a place to kill himself 'in the woods' in Clay County and he intended to hang himself," Adams said. "He said he intended to tie his hands behind his back so it would appear that someone else did it, to appear like a murder."

Adams said Sparkman asked him if he wanted to get drunk with him the weekend before his death. Adams said Sparkman bought a case of Budweiser beer in Richmond. An autopsy found that Sparkman was not under the influence of any drugs or alcohol at the time of his death. It also found that Sparkman did not have cancer.

Wait, so he didn't have cancer? He did all this for nothing? So why did he think his cancer had returned? Did he get a doctor's diagnosis? If so, who's the doctor? If not, why not?

The two life insurance policies that Sparkman took out on himself were for accidental death, and would not pay out in case of suicide. Wouldn't it have been far easier to fake an accident than to fake a murder? Wouldn't it have been far easier to actually set a real accident into motion?

For instance, couldn't he have driven his car off a cliff while doing 90 MPH, but stepped hard on the brakes, knowing full well that the brake marks on the road would be accepted as suitable evidence that it was an accident? (Not a very pleasant way to go, but neither is carving the word "Fed" into your own flesh and choking yourself with a noose.) For that matter, couldn't he just have deliberately overdosed on something? Or drowned in a lake? Why this bizarre and implausible kidnapping-lynching scenario?

Lastly, Sparkman allegedly did all this to help his son, who he loved very much. He left detailed written instructions to his son about what to do after his demise, and he closed the letter with "I love you and will always do so." And yet we're to believe that he, in some sort of severely misguided "Spock kills self but saves the ship" act of self destructive heroism, abandoned his son and committed suicide?

Some father.

I can't swallow it. I just can't. There's something more here we haven't been told, but I can't begin to pretend to guess what. I don't necessarily mean to imply anything in the realm of conspiracy or cover-up, but I just can't shake the feeling that there's still a third party at work here, a missing puzzle piece, a shadow over Innsmouth, a speckled band.

Missing Time

I'm alive. Where am I?

Where have I been? As Jerry Lee Lewis once answered the same question to Nick Tosches, "I don't remember. I was a ramblin' man."

I've been cutting a swath with my psychic scythe through salty seas and smoky saloons, searching for answers. "Waiting," in the words of that meat man Raymond Rohbeson, "for an excuse."

Just like my good friend and bowling partner Bill Henrickson, I've been beset from all sides by trials and tribulations, by Judases and Jezebels, by unseen forces and enemy entities. But yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil.

Okay, well, that, and I've been in the process of moving.

Like the Dick Cheney, I've relocated to an undisclosed location. One where a man can sit on the veranda in the nude and read comic books and sip Jefferson's Reserve and build a levee, brick by brick, gulp by gulp.

I haven't had internet access for the past few days during the transition and the chaos, so all blogging but the most etheric kind has been out of the question. But I'm now back in black.

Thank you for your patience, dear reader. Transmission resumes in T minus ten seconds and counting.

Night of January 16th

The play Night of January 16th by Ayn Rand is currently being staged at the Little Colonel Playhouse in Pewee Valley, KY.

What's so unusual about that? Well, the story is a courtroom drama which is very loosely based on the untimely and mysterious death of Ivar Kreuger, a wealthy industrialist who at one time controlled two-thirds of the world's matchstick supply. The audience participates in the story, acting as the jury and voting on the verdict, which literally determines the direction of the play they are watching. The play has two different endings, depending on whether the jury finds the defendant guilty or not guilty.

Despite Rand's popularity as the founder of the Objectivist movement, the play is seldom staged.


You have five chances to left to see the show. Three evening shows: January 16, 22 and 23 at 8:00pm, and two afternoon shows: January 16 and 23 at 2:30pm. You can read Keith Waits' review for Theatre Louisville by clicking here.