Roys’ People [Roy Orbison]
September 16th, 2006Joe Bageant has given us permission to Post His Essays ! September 16, 2006 3:08 PM
✓ We will add partial posts ! For the rest of the read see his website!
✓Roy’s People
Can American liberalism rise from Washington’s two-bed brothel to dance with the ghost of Roy Orbison and eat garden tomatoes?
By JOE BAGEANT
Shen2The Shenandoah is not a bar. It’s not a tavern. It’s a beer joint. The kind that does cash-only business and scratches hard for every nickel it turns. And lately, it is about the only place in my life slowed down and dumbed down enough to honestly relax. It takes a couple of hours. Nearly everyone here on this Sunday morning lives or grew up within blocks of the place and feels most at home here — which is not unlike myself, who used to sell newspapers on the corner here at age 12 and who, if the light is right, can imagine that pale, scruffy youngster shouting Paaaaaapers! NoozPaaaaaapers! Such nostalgia eases the frustrated wildness in old men.
This particular beer joint, deemed the seediest in town by good citizens who’ve never even set foot in the place, is operated by Denny, an overweight blonde fellow with breasts and earrings. Denny is going through a sex change and lives every minute of it right up front for a fundamentalist Southern town to ogle.
Copyright 2006 by Joe Bageant