Live Wire: Krulik’s Derby, Day 2
Backstretch Deluge
My first visit to Churchill Downs’ legendary backstretch is in the rain. The pouring rain. But John Scheinman guides me through the sights and sounds and most importantly, the thoroughbred right-of-way.
Wagner’s Pharmacy
All I kept hearing about from John was how great the biscuits and gravy were at Wagner’s, how great the biscuits and gravy were. Let’s go get biscuits and gravy! Of course, by the time we got there, they completely ran out of them. But we did meet trainer Jeff Bonde and owner Phil Lebherz at the table next door.
Jeff Krulik is the Washington, DC-based award-winning filmmaker who in 1986, with collaborator John Heyn, took a camera to the parking lot of a Judas Priest concert arena -- the result was the cult sensation, Heavy Metal Parking Lot. Krulik's rapport with his subjects yields some of the best verite documentaries you'll see -- I Created Lancelot Link, Ernest Borgnine on the Bus, Obsessed with Jews, Hitler's Hat. His current projects include Heavy Metal Picnic, about one of the most raucus field parties ever, and Led Zeppelin Played Here, about an apocraphyl Led Zep concert in a Maryland gymnasium on the night of Richard Nixon's inauguration. 
