Tennessee Day 1- Competitions, Caverns, and Good Corn Whiskey
I started today getting coffee in the Old City neighborhood of Knoxville at Old City Java. The coffee was excellent, but the real highlight was the sausage and cheese on a biscuit. Sausage patties are always a strange sight for me, but you could tell this was actually fresh, homemade, and made from real quality meat, which is more than I can honestly say about any other sausage patty I've ever had before. And this biscuit was just heavenly.
After that I walked around the Old City area for a bit, and just took in all the old brick buildings and hip little shops and restaurants that have sprung up since.
After a nice walk, I drove to see the Sunsphere, a beautiful remnant of the 1982 World's Fair. It also was featured in an excellent Simpson's episode where Bart gets a fake driver's license and drives to Knoxville only to realize that the World's Fair closed 14 years ago (at the time it aired). The town is actually very proud of that episode, unlike Rio de Janairo, which was very unhappy with the time the Simpson family paid their city a visit. To be fair to Rio though that was after the 10th season and everything was already going downhill.
I took the elevator up to the top of the sphere and got a really amazing view of the city, slightly tinted with gold to add nice layer of surreality.
After the Sunsphere, I was happy to discover that I had parked my car right next to the Knoxville Chocolate Company so not one wanting to spit in the face of fate, I went to check it out. I asked what their specialty was and I was recommended a Tennessee Walking Stick, which is a pretzel covered in caramel, rolled in pecans, and then dipped in rich dark chocolate. I believe the name walking stick is derived from the fact that you will need one after you lose a foot to the instant diabetes it gives you. All joking aside, I got one and it was amazing. I also got a dark chocolate coconut patty and my taste buds were thoroughly rocked.
From there I dragged my single remaining foot, to the Forbidden Caverns in Sevierville. They were actually going to close for the winter season next week so I was really glad I got to see it before they closed. While the caverns lacked the monumental size of Mammoth Cave, they made up for it with more interesting and bizarre drip formations in the rock, the largest wall of gorgeous white onyx in the country, and a psychedelic little light show to explain the Native American legend that gave the cavern its name. It was all very cool. Some other highlights include the remains of a whiskey still from when moonshiners would use the cavern to hide their operations during prohibition. Before the more recent excavations these moonshiners would only have had barely human sized natural entrances and essentially total darkness, which just makes me really impressed by the lengths people will go to for whiskey. My tour also got a few animal sightings include salamanders, cave crickets, and one teeny tiny little bat. I highly recommend a visit when they open back up again in the spring.
After all that talk of moonshine, I couldn't resist following a roadside sign promising free moonshine only five miles down the road from the caverns. I got my free moonshine from Tennessee Legend Whiskey. The samples were in little thimble sized plastic cups, but they were free and the staff was super friendly so I wasn't complaining. I tried samples of their straight moonshine, which was just pure corn grain alcohol, their version of bourbon, blackberry flavored moonshine, coffee flavored moonshine (probably my favorite), their Irish Cream, and an apple pie flavored moonshine which was good but very odd. Unfortunately my phone died from all the pictures I took in the cave so this little moonshine tasting wasn't documented pictorially.
From there, I made the long (and likely inexplicable to most of my family) drive back up to Lexington, Kentucky to participate in the first round of the contest I had accidentally done the preliminary round of last week. There were comics coming from at least five different states and if you won the final round in December you'd get a chance to audition for America's got talent so I figured I was close enough that it would be silly not to stop by.
While I waited for the competition to start, the bartender gave me the incredible news that tonight was wing night so all chicken wings were half off. I ordered a small order of three wings in their signature blackberry habanero sauce. The sauce was amazing. The blackberry gave it a little bit of sweetness without being overwhelmingly fruity and the habanero gave it a nice little kick without really being all that hot.
I strongly considered getting a larger order, but then I thought if I was just eating light I would try for some variety in my appetizers. I then made the delicious mistake of ordering the pulled pork nachos expecting something small and instead receiving one of the largest plates of nachos I have ever seen. It was amazing with the meat just grilled to perfection, but far more than any one person should even try to eat. I shared with as many comics as I could and still ended up having to take a bunch home.
Unsurprisingly the competition brought out the best in all the comedians and it was a great night of comedy from beginning to end. There was over 27 comics there so it was a long night, and I somehow had the incredible bad luck of the only two times in the night I got up to go to the bathroom, I missed two out of three comics to go the next round, Charles Moore and Leslie Battle. I'd seen them both perform when I was in Kentucky and they killed it then, but I would have liked to hear what they brought out for the competition. I could hear constant laughter even from the bathroom though so they must have been pretty damn good. I did get to see the guy that came in first place for the night though, Hiawatha Hunt, and he was one of the most charismatic performers I've seen so far. He was totally comfortable and confident onstage, and most importantly really funny. His bit that I really liked was about the crappy shoes he used to have growing up. "Do you ever have a pair of shoes so worn out, that when you stop the shoes keep going?"
Because there could only be three people making it to the next round, there were a lot of great comics that I really enjoyed that didn't quite make it. Some of the comics I highlighted in the Kentucky week, Jacob Redwin, Justin Adkins, Alex Kuball, and Luke Fagenbush, continued to really stand out for me. My favorite line of the night probably came from Luke with "I hate the Arby's slogan 'We have the meats' It makes it sound like they kidnapped better meat from a different restaurant".
My own set went pretty well, and the host, Josh, told me I got a pretty good score from the judges and nine votes from the audience, which is more than I was even hoping for honestly so I felt pretty good about the night even if I had far too many leftover nachos.
Favorite Random Sightings: Good Golly Tamale, Merchants of Beer, The Pretentious Beer and Glass Co. . Sexy Stuf, Country Boy Shotgun Wedding Ale, a super playful baby cow (I'd never seen a cow display so much energy)
Regional Observations: I've driven by a few discount fire works stores, and I just feel like if there's something that might be worth paying full price for it's probably explosives.
Albums Listened To: The Last Waltz by the Band and Special Guests (Disc 4), Late Registration by Kanye West (Much Like Kanye, I too miss the old Kanye); Lather by Frank Zappa (just a live version of Titties n Beer), Lauren's Mix by Various Artists (A mix CD my sister made me when I first started driving, that had some of my first exposures to Gogol Bordello, the Mountain Goats, and Sufjan Stevens to name just a few); Leadbelly by Leadbelly, Led Zeppelin III by Led Zeppelin (just That's the Way, for some reason I could never get into them); Lefty by Jim Palana (that's my daddy); Legend by Bob Marley (just Three Little Birds; Let It Be by the Replacements (a wonderful mix of genius and childish); Let It Bleed by The Rolling Stones
People's Favorite Jokes:
I didn't get any today so here's one from the internet:
Bob was in trouble. He forgot his wedding anniversary. His wife was really angry. She told him "Tomorrow morning, I expect to find a gift in the driveway that goes from 0 to 200 in 6 seconds AND IT BETTER BE THERE!" The next morning he got up early and left for work. When his wife woke up, she looked out the window and sure enough there was a box gift-wrapped in the middle of the driveway. Confused, the wife put on her robe and ran out to the driveway, brought the box back in the house. She opened it and found a brand new bathroom scale. Bob has been missing since Friday.
Songs of the Day:
My Favorite Version of One of My Favorite Songs
I feel like this is still a fairly progressive song even by today's standards so for 1984 it must have been REALLY progressive.
He'll be embarrassed I'm sure, but it's a good song so I don't care. It's not about me, even though it's called Joseph. Sometimes I actually forget that's what my name really is
