CoD Visits the Haunted Bobby Mackey's
Damn Spooky Road Trip!
A couple weeks ago I took off on a random road trip which ended up taking me across the Ohio River. Not what I intended but like everything in my life, one thing led to another and, well, there I was.
The day before I found myself in West Virginia and paid a visit to the home of the Mothman. Not wanting to break the spooky vibe, I ate at the scariest breakfast buffet of my life and searched for a place that had the trifecta of a macabre party; beer, music and the portal to Hell. The miracle of Google never disappoints.
Tonight I am taking you to the notoriously haunted Bobby Mackey's Music World. Bring your "boot-scooting, honky tonkin'" poltergeist shoes! Whatever. I am trying to get you excited.
Bobby Mackey's is located right on the border of Kentucky and Ohio and is not easy to locate whatsoever! Between oneway streets and detoured roads that led to nowhere, it seemed for at least a while, that someone was trying to tell me something. Perhaps the "Hell Is Real" sign I past at least four times earlier in the day should have told me something. The amount of times I took the Almighty's name in vein, if there were demons lurking in the bowels of Bobby Mackey's, I would probably be on my own.
The history of Bobby Mackey's is a little scattered. Recently made famous on the paranormal show, Ghost Adventures, it is claimed to be the vortex to Hell which located right down in the basement where numerous of suspected Satanic sacrifices, murders and mafia executions were said to have been committed. It is hard to be sure what is true and what is sensationalized for tourist attraction. The one certain fact is at one time it was used as a slaughterhouse. Perhaps it was a very scary slaughterhouse?
When you first walk into Bobby Mackey's you are greeted by a warning sign which states that the location in seriously haunted and they are not responsible for injury from attack of anything ghostly. I'll be honest, of all the crazy places I've visited, this is the first which actually had a sign stating there is danger with the state of Kentucky notarized seal. I am not sure what the stipulations are for a state notarized warning sign but it is enough for me to take notice. For all I know they could sign off on anything like "attack cows" or a "verbally abusive Big Foot". Who knows?
For a spooky old music bar it does a great job of perfecting dark. Like, smokey grim deep dark! I don't know what I was expecting, though. Perhaps the biker bar in Terminator 2 with Dwight Yoakam on the juke singing, "...Guitars, Cadillacs HillyBilly Music..."? The whole walkup bar seemed to slant to one side and of course they don't accept credit cards. They do, however, have a lovely ATM machine which has to place a long distant fax call to get cash. It's a quick 20 minutes.
One of the shining highlights were the bartenders. Bobby Mackey's doesn't open for business on Saturday nights until 7pm and of course I was there at 6:45. With the basement ghost tour not starting until 9pm, there was some beer drinking and shit-shooting to do. I believe they sized me up pretty quick since I had no cowboy hat, no cowboy boots and was a nonsmoker. It was obvious I came for the ghosts.
It didn't take long before I asked the idiotic question that would make most any haunted attraction bartender roll their eyes but they actually embraced it! One girl even described getting bit while she stacked glasses and needed someone else to cover her shift because she was too shook up to continue for the night. I sat there in awe and quite literally and inadvertently quoted Robbie Freeling's line in the movie, Poltergeist, "You got bit? WooOow!". After that I felt a bit sheepish asking anything further but they entertained my inquisitive nature.
Time flew and with a growing number of people coming in for the line dancing, there were a few like me who were all set to take the tour down below and see what all the hubbub is about. If you don't know, it's about the portal to Hell and ghosts. We are now on the same sheet of music.
Our tour guide was a pretty neat guy from a Cincinnati paranormal chapter and he spends a lot of alone time at Bobby Mackey's which makes is Axel Rose look more understandable. We all paid the twenty bucks, signed the waivers and headed down to the cellar. I would go on but instead I shot the entire tour on video for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!
Oh, and they have a bottle shoot where the bartenders randomly dump a trashcan full of empty bottles down a PVC pipe tube and when you are keyed up in a haunted basement, it could absolutely make you shit your pants. Anyway, enjoy!
So that was the tour of the haunted Bobby Mackey's Music World in Wilder, Kentucky. I didn't spend too much time after and yes, Bobby Mackey, himself, does play live there on the weekends. As tempted as I was though, I was only about thirty minutes away from my boy, Brian, of Review the World and we had a meet up at his personal haunt to eat lots of eggs and spaghetti chili. It's a Cincinnati think.
So what did I think? I don't know. Just like any of these locations, I don't leave disappointed but I also wasn't possessed by a demon and spoke in tongues. I guess it is one of those things that you want to experience something and when you do you'd probably wish you would not have so it is hard to say what I was expecting. I loved the atmosphere and the people and that is never much different in these sort of journeys. I highly recommend hitting up this honky tonk from Hell if you're around the area and one thing is for sure, I will be back.
Sweet dreams!