Can You Identify This Man?
I don't know about this small town thing. It
sounded pretty good in theory, but I don't know. Out here in the hills, the
cops all have metaphysical billy clubs, and the teenagers throw rolls of
toilet paper into the trees. Don't even think about finding fresh pasta or
andouille sausage, and avoid the local Chinese food like the plague.
Diversity means that someone with red hair is in the room. And watch out for
them city slickers - they're out to prove you a fool. From today's Roanoke
[VA] Times:
No one knows for sure
who he was, that Middle Eastern man in an American flag shirt and a cowboy
hat who was supposed to sing the national anthem at a rodeo Friday night in
the Salem Civic Center. But he sure shook up this town before leaving in a
hurry.
A towelhead wearing the flag at a rodeo?
Danger lurks...
Introduced as Boraq Sagdiyev from Kazakhstan, he was
said to be an immigrant touring America. A film crew was with him, doing
some sort of documentary. And he wanted to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner"
to show his appreciation, the announcer told the crowd. Speaking in broken
English, the mysterious man first told the decidedly pro-American crowd - it
was a rodeo, of all things, in Salem, of all places - that he supported the
war on terrorism.
"I hope you kill every man, woman and child in Iraq,
down to the lizards," he said, according to Brett Sharp of Star Country WSLC,
who was also on stage that night as a media sponsor of the rodeo.
An uneasy murmur ran through the crowd. "And may George W. Bush drink the
blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq." .
At this point, and I'm reading between the lines here, the crowd is buzzing
with confusion. Now, the paper calls it "a restless kind of booing,"
whatever the hell that is, but I have my doubts. I know if these words had
fallen out of the mouth of, say, Toby Keith, there would have been cheers.
Then the man took off his hat and sang what he said
was his native national anthem. He then told the crowd to be seated, put his
hat back on, and launched into a butchered version of "The Star-Spangled
Banner" that ended with the words "your home in the grave."
By then, a restless crowd had turned downright nasty.
"If he had been out there a minute longer, I think somebody would have shot
him," [local DJ] Jaymes said. "People were booing him, flipping him off."
"Had we not gotten them out of there, there would have been a riot," said
Rowe, who has been bringing his Imperial Rodeo Productions to Salem for
years. As his wife, Lenore, put it: "It's a wonder one of these cowboys
didn't go out there and rope him up."
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