This week I found a new watering hole in Prestonsburg, Malibu's. A good pour of wine in a struggling bar. I'll be surprised if it survives the year, but in the meantime I've found an intimate place to get a good burger and rub elbows with some locals. Interestingly my first visit there I met the owner and her daughter, who was the bartender. Both classic appalachian girls who seem ecstatic in their roles. The daughters best friend is intriguing. Also a bartender, she's a stunning blonde in the Scarlett Johansson-Girl with a Pearl Earring sort of way, from New Jersey. A routine story of an unwilling child, transplanted by her mom who followed the dad back home to take care of ill family. No one leaves here, and very commonly, as in this instance, they drag outsiders back to these hills. She's a speech therapy major and can't wait to get back up east. She's very much out of her element here. I told her Chicago was my favorite city, she said she's never been there....yet. Maybe one day. Two nights later I returned to try out the wings. This night the bartender was a handsome young man from Detroit. Reminds me of Cameron. Same story, his mother married a local, and he was pressured to move here. He dreams of winning body-building contests. He was recruited to play football by the academies, and I didn't hesitate to tell him he made a mistake by not taking their scholarship offers. We reminisced Michigan football, and he knows where Tim went to high school. We shared stories of Walled Lake, Novi, 8-mile Road, and the Joe Louis arena. He couldn't believe I scored 4 tickets behind the glass at a Cup game. To my right at the bar were 3 young men who inhaled, the best they could, yaeger bombs. On my left was a man, my age, who ordered a Coors, and kept hollering out to no one in particular, "putang". It was like if he said ity out loud, the women would come flocking to him. I couldn't tolerate his grotesqueness.
Which brings me to the TV show seen below. It was filmed in the area where I live. I've seen one of the characters in my office. She's clearly a meth-head.
The experiences made me reflect on the young bartenders who need to escape this place, if for no other reason to escape the putang screecher and the drug-abusers. Be sure to download and watch the whole TV show.
