The perfect country song.

BACKSTORY: At NYC’s great old dive-bar, the Village Idiot (the original on 1st Ave, that would be, not the later incarnation over on W 14th), whenever the above tune came on the jukebox, whoever was tending bar would crank it waaaay up, every fist in the joint would be raised high in the air in gleeful defiance of…whatever, and every hoarse, cracked, alcohol-dehydrated voice would sing along with every last syllable. I tells ya, it was some of the most fun I ever did have in my life.

My old roomie Lisa bartended at the Idiot on Wednesday afternoons, and most of those days she’d call me at home around 5 or so demanding that I get down there right away because she was lonely and bored to tears by then. Afternoons tended to be kinda dull at the Idiot; the place didn’t really start to approach escape velocity until around ten or so, see.

Which request for company I was always quite happy to oblige. This reminiscence might convey some of the cheap-beer-sodden ambience of that truly magical place.

THE VILLAGE IDIOT
When I was 19 years old, I got a job working at a bar on the Lower East Side in New York City. You would’ve thought I had gotten into Harvard by how happy I was. The place, The Village Idiot, was a popular hole in the wall on 1st Avenue and 10th Street – far from Harvard.

The owner, Tommy, was a giant Irish guy with an afro. Tommy was from Queens, and his success came from the authenticity of the bar he opened. Everyone loved him and his bar. There was nothing self-conscious about The Village Idiot, or Tommy, for that matter. He was a generous, kind man who loved to party and everybody loved him for it.

So that was Tommy – he was the brand and the bar was his product. Just like any great product, it was honest. It was honest because it was exactly the kind of place Tommy would have hung out had he not opened it himself. It was not a concept, and the people that came there intuitively knew that, so they came back, and they always brought a friend.

The Idiot, as it was lovingly referred to, was a narrow, dank “box car,” but not as big. There was a juke box up front that was on from the moment we opened at 10:00 am until the time we closed – sometimes 4:00 am, sometimes 2:00 am. This was dependent on how drunk Tommy got that night. One of his “tells” was if he came in licking his lips, hide the money. If his lips were dry, you were probably going to be okay.

The juke box was stocked with a collection of country music that was vast, impressive, and perfect. “The Box” had to be full blast at all times. Tommy lived above the bar – and he would call down, “Turn the box up! I can’t hear it.” We sold Pabst Blue Ribbon in a can for a dollar, and Tommy would occasionally bite the middle out of a can of beer to thrill his patrons if things seemed a little slow.

All of the bartenders were women, and were encouraged to drink with the customers. I started making fake pitchers of kamikaze shots because I would get so drunk I couldn’t do my job. Literally – I could not function. I’d pour you a real shot and I’d drink watered down kamikaze mix. No one ever caught me or cared. We were not allowed to wear hats behind the bar because Tommy said that was bad luck.

Another thing I well remember about the Idiot was something the girls working behind the stick called “the Idiot Virgin Ceremony,” a privilege reserved for those lucky souls who were experiencing their very first trip to the seedy, smelly little joint.

See, the unsuspecting newb was required to sit on a barstool with his back to the bar, bending his torso far enough back so that his head rested atop the bar. The on-duty bartendress would then tuck a rolled-up towel around the victim’s neck below his chin to cope with any potential overspill, grab a fifth of bourbon and one of tequila, clamber up onto the bar, straddle the victim’s head, squat down, and turn up both bottles into the guy’s mouth, inevitably splashing raw booze all over said victim’s face, neck, head, and shoulders. The vic had been sternly instructed beforehand that he was NOT to raise his head off the bar, scream for rescue, or in any way refuse the “service” he was being provided as an Idiot Virgin, on pain of punishment most dire.

I learned about the IVC when my friend Joe came up to visit from North Cackalacky, and Lisa did it to him. They ended up falling in love L-U-V, whereupon she moved out of our cramped shithole on Ave B and down to NC and in with him, staying together for several years before the formerly happy couple blew apart like an A-bomb.