You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.™
Tootsies World Famous Orchid Lounge.
The purple painted brick building is situated on Lower Broad, amidst a rainbow of neon. From the top of the hill, it does have a Nash-Vegas feel.
Tootsies is conveniently located next to the Ryman, the Holy Church of Country Music, where Hank Sr. and Johnny Cash snuck through a door in the alley to grab a wisky before going back on stage.
This is where I find myself on a cold Tennessee night.
The joint is packed with people. It’s the night after Thanksgiving and families sick of leftovers and their in laws are spilling out of this tiny venue.
I show the bouncer my ID and enter the doorway like a shoe horn enters the back of a size too small loafer.
I am barely 5 feet in the venue when I stop.
Suddenly it’s fourth and goal and Tootsies has the box stacked 8 deep. People are standing uncomfortably, like sardines in a can.
There are bodies everywhere. The edge of the bar is only 10 feet from the door, but it feels like I am on a pilgrimage to Meccah, the wailing wall is within sight and someone incites a riot by saying “Hey is that Osama Bin Laden over there?”
How Tiny is Tootsies?
It’s ant colony tiny. It’s Submarine stairwell tiny. It’s frat boys cramming into a phone booth tiny.
There are seemingly a thousand people packed in this beer hall. It would feel cramped if 100 people were here.
Tonight, it feels like scuba diving without equalizing the pressure in your ears.
It’s wall to wall skin and the latest in cold weather fashion. It’s Black Friday at Best Buy.
As I push forward, a myriad of smells slap me in the face. It’s like a human corn maze as I say excuse me for 4th time in less than a minute.
Hey what’s that smell?
Is that aqua velva, body odor or spilled beer? It’s a jumbelaya of stench.
Success. I get to the bar. The bar maid stares at me. She doesn’t speak, only opening her eyes wider as if to signal it is my turn.
I shout out an order. My words evaporate into a blender of amplified country music. She blinks and turns away.
Like Mayor Bloomberg’s assistant, she is good at reading lips.
She pushes 3 drinks to me. “$23.50”
Wow, what are we drinking, gold?
I pay and look for my group. They each grab a glass, but that is not as simple as you might think.
Handing someone a drink in a human washing machine is a delicate proposition.
People are knocking into each other like flesh covered bumper cars.
And once you have your drink in hand, you have to sip it quickly or you will undoubtedly spill on yourself.
It’s difficult at first, like standing in the ocean of a churning sea and trying to balance your check book.
I try and talk to my friend, but the music bouncing off the venerable walls is so amplified, conversation is nearly impossible. I find myself pushing my lips almost into my friend’s head hole to form words.
To worry about a fire code violation here is to be a patron who hasn’t had enough to drink. God forbid if there were a fire, most of us would disintegrate like unused charcoal briquettes.
I take a sip to wash that thought out of my brain.
Just then, the music cranks up again and the place begins to pulsate.
The stage is a postage stamp. I see a female fiddler, a lean guitarist and a drummer. The singer is belting out a country classic, but he’s nowhere to be seen.
Then a woman near me points to the cowboy hat in the middle of the floor. The singer is surrounded by a hundred people clapping and pushing and jumping. All I see through the crook of an elbow and around a head is a cowboy hat and a microphone.
The singer somehow rises above the crowd and is suddenly on the bar. He is looking down on us, his hat enveloped in an ethereal halo.
His voice is country gold. It reinforces once again that some of the greatest country artists in Nashville are fighting for recognition in these tiny beer soaked honky tonks on Lower Broad.
The night becomes a pub crawl, in and out of little beer stained spots in Nash Vegas. Into the cold, into the heat of another venue.
All in all we see 7 different bands play. And we never travel more than 2 blocks to do it.
Just another Black Friday in Music City.
And that is crazy.™