El Villa....My Bar!

El Villa…My bar! “Where should I go tonight?” It’s an age-old question, and the answer is often rooted in habit or inertia – you go to where you usually go. It’s Saturday and for me that’s going to my local watering hole here in Fort Walton Beach, FL…. El Villa.

Hey, there’s nothing wrong with that; everyone likes to go somewhere that feels comfortable and familiar. Okay, so it’s not the Four Seasons! And yes, folks, if you’ve been in Fort Walton Beach for any period of time, you know it’s a bar. A bars’ bar to be perfectly honest. And yes, again, on Friday and Saturday nights, it’s a ‘meat market’ of sorts. So what of it? Like Fort Walton Beach has anything more exciting going for it that I should feel guilty frequenting an establishment like this? One thing you can be certain of, Friday and Saturday nights, my nights out, El Villa rocks!

Okay, I’ll admit for the casual ‘first timer’ you could be intimidated coming into the establishment. The first time at El Villa was a bit unnerving for me as well. On first impression driving up, ‘SUSPECT’ in capital letters immediately comes to mind. It’s an old building with a distinctly circa 50s look about it. The craggy looking cedar shingles coupled with a dimly lit and smallish main entrance give it a forlorn and mistakenly ‘off-limits’ look. The inevitable 'hard- used' pickup trucks parked in the parking lot add to the desolation that seems to shroud the property. It is what it is, a ‘locals’ bar, what others might call a ‘dive’.

It isn’t the kind of place that invites the unknown traveler through its doors. But trust me, once inside, any reservations you may have experienced beforehand is soon grounded and baseless. Enter the Villa and you find yourself immediately optically challenged like a blind man hunting a black cat in a dark closet. Encindo man would feel right at home. Fortunately, our visual receptors have the great ability to ‘adjust’ to our surroundings. You notice everyone turns to look. For a moment you are framed in the spotlight, scrutinized. It is an instant initiation rite into the community within.

Like many local watering holes, there is a large-screen television, pool tables in a backroom area, dartboards, a Golden Tee kiosk and a jukebox. In the furthest corner of the establishment is a small stage and dance-floor. The bar stools are comfortable and the bar itself worn smooth by countless elbows. The bar area itself is replete with video kiosks that provide the elbow-benders mindless entertainment on those occasions when conversation becomes either a bore or has the relevance of a dick as hard as brie cheese. For ‘regulars’ of such establishments, these entertainment amenities are mere accoutrements to the magnetism of the place. In any case, there’s something for everyone at the Villa. Whether it’s to imbibe in a drink or two during the weekdays, or go with heavy libation Friday and Saturday nights to the live entertainment provided by Johnny Lee; choose your poison.

Bottom line, El Villa is a dusty jewel. I wouldn’t want it any other way. It has life, not the false, fabricated, cheerfulness that is found in chain eateries and pubs. El Villa’s success attracting and keeping a large following can be attributed to several factors. For starters, there’s the head bartender sometimes concierge. Laid back barkeep ‘Ron’ as he goes by has been serving customers at El Villa for a few years now. Ron is one of those old-school bartenders who achieved some sort of secret bartending psychology degree and is an ever-faithful practitioner. When you’re sitting at the bar and happy, Ron always has a joke for you, and when you’re sniffling in your beer, Ron has a joke and a pep talk at no extra charge. If you’re a woman alone, his chivalry is evident when he makes it a point to escort you to your car, if need be. He seems to love his job. Only when people use the pool table as a coaster or when it becomes clear a patron may have had ‘too much’ does he invoke his authority. Even so, he does it with a certain jocular charm and infectious wholesomeness that imbues ‘the Shoe’ without the feeling you’ve been stepped on. With the current bartender trend running toward the young and the clothes-less, Ron is a dying breed, but that only makes his kind and dignified style all the more appreciated.Patron loyalty is another added factor.

The Villa serves gritty raw realism in doses that sometimes can be overwhelming. I’ve got plenty of stories that attest to it. I’ll share the best of those in weeks to come…’El Villa – The Bad’. More importantly, patrons of the Villa for the most part are much like the Villa itself, eclectic, pragmatic, all while sporting a worn look. White collar and blue collar types seem to have perfect harmony relating to each other, quite extraordinary. Again, like the Villa, they seem to have an undying endurance about them. These are people that live life and some of those lives have been hard. You can read it in the creases of their careworn faces; you can see it in their rough and unkempt hands; you can hear it in their conversations. For the most part, they are people that make their way by the sweat of their brows and the ache of their backs. They know the meaning of hard work. Walk through the door, and you walk into something hidden, strange and wonderful, something that is all too rare in our lives. There is a closeness and familiarity that is alive and warm within those walls. For sure, the people that come to this bar and share life’s events, both good and bad, are the reasons the Villa continues to draw and endure. What can possibly be more entertaining than one’s own fellow travelers through life? Nothing is quite as fascinating to man, as man; or to woman, as woman.

Finally, there’s the Friday and Saturday night activity at the Villa wherein the establishment transforms itself into a music and dance venue and does it in a mostly successful way. The dance floor is packed and invigorating on these nights, thanks to the multi-talented Johnny Lee and his one man electronic accompaniment. Top 40 hits are his specialty and personal requests are received and responded to without fail. Of course, a ‘buck’ in the mason jar guarantees it! These nights Ron doffs his bartender hat and becomes concierge proteome - the head ‘meeter’ and ‘greeter’ to all whom pass through the portals those nights. Ron keeps a tight ship on these ‘dance nights’ and keeps it a friendly and non-threatening experience for the ladies. Women can come here knowing they don’t have to worry some shitface will have his appendage poking them in the groin ungratuitously.

The demographic is mostly middle-age women and older men. Now don’t get me wrong, women here like a little gray hair on the fellas. The only reservation they make is that when the urge for them to yell “spank me daddy” prevails, they don’t want the dude to be older than their dad. Beats phone sex when you need that ‘stimulation’. In a town packed with pretense, it’s nice to stumble upon a place where the patrons don’t wear sunglasses and egos are left where they should be, at the doorstep.

For me, I don’t ask for much: just good music, good people, a pool table, a dance floor and a beer that wouldn’t pass a paper-bag test. If you require mood lighting, Monet prints, middle aged men in mock turtlenecks, women with misplaced vanities, then head on over to TGIF or Chiles down the street and pay extra for the attitude. But remember this, you can’t buy ambience like at El Villa. You can’t attain atmosphere overnight. Such things take time, like fraying the bottoms of your favorite blue jeans. A good local bar like El Villa is worn in and welcoming. It’s full of stories. You can feel it. You can smell it. The floor may be sticky, the bathrooms may stink, but it’s MY BAR!

El Villa may not be for everyone, and that’s fine with me. I need room to stretch out my legs.

‘See the losers in the best bars,
Meet the winners in the dives,
Where the people are the real stars,
All the rest of their lives.’

Neil Young, “Sail Away”

Losing A Friend

I suppose there are countless reasons that friendships fail or end, but the broken bond feels deeply personal. I always thought friendships were supposed to be uncomplicated, sustaining, and reassuringly reasonable relationships. How is it then that in a matter of four days in November I managed to alienate my friend to the extent ‘she’ has essentially disavowed my existence?

For the life of me I cannot trace the arc of events that led to the failed relationship to shape it into a recognizable narrative that I can share with you folks. But no matter the sordid details, the fact that this friendship has seemingly failed is never all that surprising. Bonds of friendship in today’s world just aren’t that important, sadly. That friendships can end suddenly, inexplicably, is the refrain of a thousand pop songs. No one expects anything less. All I know is that the world, for me, has shifted on its axis; I will no longer be a part of her active, engaged, day-to-day life; or she of mine.

If she decides to never talk to me again, I will remain her strong, silent friend. If for no other reason than the respect we once had of each other and the good times even though few and far between. I can only hope that she can muster the courage to sit down with me to revisit the issues that brought a thriving friendship to a complete state of inertia. I’m not sure she can, or, in a sad statement of reality, wants to open the door to all that led up to this state of affairs to begin with. I can only hope.