Ezekiel “E.J.” Fields never thought he would become a Fredericksburg icon when he first decided to don a hot dog costume and dance on the side of the road for motorists in 2020.
“I still remember how gray everything seemed during the pandemic with all the businesses shutting down,” Fields said during a recent interview in the parking lot of the Southpoint McDonald’s, where he was decompressing between routines. “I really wanted to do something for Fredericksburg — anything at all to see people smiling again. So I took an old hot dog costume from a Halloween party a couple of years prior and just started dancing.”
Ezekiel “E.J.” Fields dancing at the intersection of Plank Road and Mall Drive. (Photos by Noelle Clark)
Fast forward nearly five years, and Fields, 25, has continued to build a following and social media presence from his dancing in the streets of Fredericksburg.
“I genuinely love seeing the smiles on people’s faces as they drive by,” he said. “It’s just an amazing feeling, and I will keep on dancing for as long as my bones and arms will allow me.”
Fields uses traffic signals to his advantage by dancing in front of the vehicles only when they’re stopped at red lights. He has a playlist on Spotify exclusively for these occasions that he has named “Hot Dog Man Playlist.” He can be seen dancing — even performing cartwheels — to all sorts of music, including “Thriller” by Michael Jackson.
When he’s not in his Hot Dog Man persona, Fields works as a server at Brock’s Riverside Grill in downtown Fredericksburg. But he relishes whatever time he can get dancing on the streets by following what he coined his “hot dog schedule.”
“I try to go dance as Hot Dog Man as often as I can,” Fields said. “I bounce around on where I go dancing at, but my go-to places are Southpoint and in front of the Spotsylvania Towne Centre. I’ve even gone as far as Richmond and Woodbridge to dance at times.”
Fields dancing in front of motorists stopped at a red light on Plank Road.
In his time as Hot Dog Man, he has collected quite a few memories alongside the Fredericksburg motorists he’s made his mark on, including a man who joined in the dancing in another hot dog costume produced from his car.
“This guy was so awesome coming with his own hot dog costume to dance with me,” said Fields of the impromptu duet. “He had told me he was having a really bad day after recently losing his grandmother and after finally seeing me in person, he took advantage and joined in the fun to get his mind off things and just smile and laugh.”
Fields also recalled a mother and daughter who loved to stop and park to watch him dance as Hot Dog Man while they had lunch together at the McDonald’s in Southpoint.
“The family doesn’t even know me personally but they will stop to wave and tell me how much they love to see me dance and how it makes their days,” he said. “And that’s everything right there to me — leaving my mark on these people, even if it’s just by a laugh or a smile as they go about their days.”
His dance routines at various intersections throughout the Fredericksburg area have sparked conversations on local Facebook groups with people filming Fields or asking for his backstory. Commenters from all over the country have chimed in on his antics.
To Fields, the most important thing about his dancing is the message he spreads with each dance: to not care about what anyone thinks and to not take life so seriously.
“I want people to look at me as the Hot Dog Man and see me enjoying myself doing something that could so easily be looked at as being silly or stupid,” Fields said. “If you enjoy something, do it and don’t care what others may think of you — do it because you love it. Be unapologetically yourself.”
