NYCBP Blog

Jenn and Patience will bartend at the reunion.

It is hard to believe that three years ago tonight, The Village Idiot locked its doors. It was a sad night for all, but the saddest have been the Regulars who were scattered to the four corners of the city. Some take solace at Tom's other two saloons, The Patriot and Yogi's. But now it is time for a reunion for old customers and bartenders, organized by the old Regulars. This will be Friday, Aug. 17, 2007, at Yogi's. Jenn and Patience will be the bartenders; both were veterans at the old Idiot.

We had an NYCBP reunion in April. It was lightly attended, but old customers from as far away as Long Island and Connecticut came in for it. It was also held at Yogi's.

If you missed going to the Idiot, you really missed out on the city's greatest dive bars. It went so far beyond what a dive bar stood for. At one time, before the city put a stop to it, the bartenders would sell you goldfish to feed to the snapping turtles that were kept in a big tank at the end of the bar. One night, during a Maxim party, a blonde got on the bar and flashed the crowd. No big deal, happened all the time. But then she squeezed her tits and squirted milk on the crowd.

So the Idiot was more than a bar. It was a circus, a freak show, and a glorious watering hole. They had 2 kinds of bartenders: the ones that had a deer-in-headlights look, that didn't really get the mayhem going on around them, and were just there for the money. They didn't last long. But the very best bartenders were the ones that got it, that were in on the joke, that you were not just slumming, you were a witness to a train wreck and a car wreck, so get another whiskey! The best bartenders just kept the drinks flowing, even if there were people passed out all over the place.

I can't say that any other bar in New York will ever live up to that debauchery, but at the reunion on August 17, we can all compare notes. See you there.

Labels: events