Karaoke Night in George Bush's America
Another Visit to Burt's Tavern
By JOE BAGEANT
73 virgins in arab heaven and not a dam one in this bar!
---Men's room wall, Burt's Westside Tavern
Learning through drinking was never dull. But when karaoke came to American bars it got even more entertaining, especially at Burt's where some participants get gussied up for their three weekly minutes of stardom. One of them is Dink, a stubble-faced 56-year-old guy presently dressed like Waylon Jennings. However, Dink's undying claim to fame in here in Winchester is not his Waylon imitation, which sucks. It is that he beat up the boxing chimpanzee at the carnival in 1963. This is a damned hard thing to do because chimpanzees are several times stronger than a human and capable of enough rage that the pugilistic primate wore a steel muzzle. Every good old boy in this place swears Dink pounded that chimpanzee so hard it climbed up the cage bars and refused to come back down and that Dink won the hundred dollars. I don't know. I wasn't there to see it because my good Christian family did not approve of attending such spectacles. One thing for sure, though. Dink is tough enough to have done it.
(By the way, a note to readers who email me asking if names like Dink and Pootie are fictional devices. Hell no! Not only do we have a Dink and a Pootie here, we also have folks named Gator, Fido and Tumbug---who we simply call Bug.)>SNIP<
"I often think the culture wars are just more educated liberal silliness, cocktail chat that never touches the heart of the problem---which is that gutless soft liberals refuse to cross class lines and meet their suffering brothers and sisters face to face right here on this earth.
The Republicans did a great job of this in grassroots organizing, and they were selling bullshit and a screwjob. Imagine what an honest populist effort might do."http://www.counterpunch.org/bageant09092004.html~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a good read. It shows a down side of America by a person who lives there.