Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Blues, who play here nearly every Sunday night. Few seem to care that Beebe's sits on
a decrepit corner of disinvested buildings and stores. People seem to easily erase the
reality of a drab interior and the trappings of a decayed block and side of town forgot-
ten by the middle class. Enthusiasm for the music and for being in this social milieu
overwhelms the décor of drab orange curtains draping a few dirty windows. The bulk
of the audience is regulars; many have been coming to Beebe's for years. Small groups
of inquisitive nonregulars dot the room. Some are men and women who live nearby and
are out for good music, others offer themselves as intrigued, voyeuristic outsiders in-
tent on immersing themselves in their sense of a mysterious world of black blues. In all
cases, bodies, mannerisms, and social conduct unmistakably signal a sense of self, val-
ues, ideals, and expectations for the evening.
The Complex Club Owner and Sense of Beebe's
Throughout this evening, club owner Jackie Smith scurries around Beebe's to ensure a
social orderliness. She continually multitasks: She checks and replenishes the alcohol
stock, spot scrubs the floors, receives the cover charge at the door from early arrivals,
makes and serves drinks at the bar and at tables, supervises the two waitresses/bar-
tenders,andcleansuptablesandcounters.Theseoccurallthewhilethatsheparticipates
in a splintered banter with new arrivals as they saunter in and look for seating. Both
Jackie and the patrons seem to relish the talk. A bond between these parties is obvious;
each deftly plays off against each other. As she tells me in a semiexasperated tone while
I sit at the bar, “I'm glad the customers are coming on time, with some of these people,
you just never know … some of them would get lost in their own homes!”
Jackie cuts a distinctive stroke into the club's social space. With the power to hire,
fire,anddictateclubrules,thiswhirlwindisapowerfulclubforceandacentralproducer
ofclubknowledge.Hertruthsshootacrosstheclubandarenegotiatedbyothers(tohelp
define club norms and protocols) as she deftly wields her body and partakes in social
relationships. Through this production and allocation of knowledge, Jackie both accepts
and renounces the commodification of Beebe's that reflects her distinctive positionality
and reality making as a local and societal being. At the core of this reality making is a
guiding template: her sense of the club's value and utility.
Tonight Jackie demonstrates that she constitutes Beebe's in a dominant way: as an
economic space to thwart a nagging fear of economic failure and material collapse.
She, like many at Beebe's, worries about her economic future, and emotively vacillates
between economic disillusionment and economic hope. In her darkest moments, Jackie
comes close to invoking a dystopic futility: A trace of potential economic collapse
hauntsher.It,inherwords,“isfeltthroughouttheday;whenI'mcleaningtables,serving
drinks, talking to customers, and dealing with the bands.” She has had first-hand know-
