Henry Earl's 1000th Arrest

Lexington's Henry Earl is in the news again - the man famous for his lengthy arrest record is now celebrating his 1000th arrest. The Associated Press covered the story on their YouTube channel and even gave Unusual Kentucky a brief mention. View it here.

Lyle Lovett, Horseman

Among the many celebrities lurking around the historic World Equestrian Games taking place in Lexington is Lyle Lovett, who has a nice feature article about him in yesterday's Courier-Journal:

Lovett, 52, raises about a half dozen “babies,” as he calls the foals, a year. They keep some, sell some and “give some away,” he said, laughing. But his love of horses is no joke.

“When I'm not playing music, I'm out in the barn,” he said.

In addition to being on the bill at the closing ceremonies, Lovett co-owns a horse, Smart and Shiney, who competed in the reining team event.

Cobb's Haunt

Every year around this time, between the Equinox and Samhain, Sunny Acres Farm hosts a Halloween corn maze called "Cobb's Haunt". Cobb's Haunt has no lights, and no flashlights are allowed. Sounds like my kind of place! But what goes on in the darkness? I shudder to think.

Listen to their radio ad on mp3 here.

Cobb's Haunt welcomes you each Friday and Saturday throughout the month of October. It opens at dusk each night, and the last group goes through at Midnight - and that's just the perfect hour to be there, isn't it?

You'll find the Cobb's Haunt corn maze at 6516 Echo Trail in Jeffersontown.

A Jug's Life

One from my JSH Combo music blog:


Some crappy old recordings of Holland's Jug Stompers (my abysmally inept jug band from 1998-1999) are now resurrected for the 21st century via the blessing/curse that is YouTube. You needn't actually listen to them; just know that they exist and that we had a really good time torturing our hippie audiences at Berea College with our slovenly, spontaneous and unrehearsed avant-garde hi-jinks. But if you insist, you may find four of them online so far: "Hello Josephine", "Come Back to your Kentucky", "Naked on the Railroad Tracks", and "Rainstorm Creeps".

And if that doesn't completely kill any curiosity you may have had about this band, you can also read some recollections and reminiscences about those grand productive days here and also here.

("Yeah, but... but... what about the JSH Combo, JSH?", I hear you cry. Well, be warned: our latest relaunch of ourselves is underway, please stand by. "Hold on", as Paul Stanley once said, "the roller coaster is about to begin.")

Pregnant Woman Saves Pets from Burning Building

This week in Independence, KY, an off-duty animal control officer rushed into a burning apartment complex to rescue over thirteen pets - two dogs, six cats, a snake, a bearded dragon lizard, a rabbit, a lovebird, and a tank of fish.

Amy Leslie, who is in her second trimester of pregnancy, is shrugging off those who call her a hero, but I do indeed hope she receives some sort of award or prize or special recognition. (Not since Pee-wee's Big Adventure have I known such bravery and love of animals.)

Pig Stump

Somewhere in the vicinity of the Oldham County - Henry County border, this pink lipstick-wearing pig was seen in someone's yard, apparently sculpted from a tree trunk.

Killer Pleads "Caffeine Insanity"

This from WXIX-TV: " A Northern Kentucky man accused of strangling his wife is poised to claim excessive caffeine from sodas, energy drinks and diet pills left him so mentally unstable he couldn't have knowingly killed his wife, his lawyer has notified a court."

According to the story, Woody Will Smith, 33, goes to court today for the May 2009 death of Amanda Hornsby-Smith. Woody's attorney, Shannon Sexton, has filed notice with the court of the defense's intent to argue that Mr. Smith was rendered "temporarily insane" because he ingested large quantities of caffeine for several days before he snapped.

Sound idiotic? Of course it does. And yet, it's not impossible that Smith may walk. In 2009, a man ran down two WSU students in his car, pleaded insanity induced by having consumed two cups of Starbucks coffee, and got away with it.

According to the News-Tribune, Smith used an extension cord to strangle his wife, then used extension cords to bind her hands and feet together. Smith claims to have been drinking a half-dozen soft drinks and energy drinks per day, plus diet pills.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, say they can prove Smith is lying, and that their own medical expert is prepared to testify that there was no evidence Smith had consumed diet pills or energy drinks.

Louisville UFOs, 8-28-07

Not sure what to make of this YouTube video. The jet plane leaving contrails is nothing out of the ordinary (unless you see it as a chemtrail double-sprayer) but there are two different shiny objects flying around it. I say "flying around it" meaning from the camera's point of view, of course - they could actually be nowhere near the plane. We can't judge size without knowing distance, and vice versa.

World Equestrian Games

One from our Transylvania Gentlemen blog:


You've seen it advance-hawked on the big sign on I-64 for years now, and at last it's finally here: the World Equestrian Games opens in Kentucky on September 25.

My fellow Irishmen Ronan Tynan and Muhammad Ali will be on hand, as well as the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and Cherryholmes. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai, will also be there (he owns Gainsborough Farms in Versailles, KY and the global breeding operation Darley.)

But what I really want to know is, will noted equestrian and Kentucky horse farm owner William Shatner be there? (That's Bill pictured above, with his saddlebred horse All Glory.)

I'm gonna be there in the cheap seats. Want to hang out? Find me.

Little Town and Country

I haven't tried the grub at the Little Town and Country restaurant in Bedford, KY yet, but I sure love soft-serve cones and neon signs.


The words "drive-in" puzzle me, though. It doesn't seem to be a "drive-in restaurant" in the sense of, say, Sonic, Wig Wam, Parkette, Dairy Dart or The Twin. There's a side window that might once have been for walk-up orders, but it doesn't appear to be in use now.

Glass-Encased Urns

I love the idea of any gravestone with glass or plexiglass enclosures, although I wish the companies that manufacture them would take better care to create ones that are actually waterproof.


This one (spotted in the Bedford cemetery in Trimble County) has unfortunately let in a great deal of moisture, to the extent that some sort of orange fungus is thriving inside the clear glass casing with the urns.

Man Kills Wife Over Breakfast

According to MSNBC, a Breathitt County man facing eviction proceedings snapped last night, killing his wife, his stepdaughter, and three others who lived nearby in the same trailer park.

Neighbors say Stanley Neace stormed around the trailer park in his pajamas, firing dozens of shots from a 12-gauge shotgun, and then he went back into his own trailer and committed suicide.

Reportedly, what set Neace off was an argument with his wife over how she prepared his morning eggs not to his liking.