Tommy Fun

Not long ago, at a bar located across from an auto-supply store, I met a woman whose name induced erections.

"Levitra?!" I shouted above the bass-heavy rap din. All around, rainbow lights flashed epileptically.

"No, Avitra! A-V-I-T-R-A. Avitra!"

"Like the drug?" I asked. Two-dollar draft Buds provided me with the courage to point at my groin.

Her eyes narrowed. She snatched the half-full stein from my hand. Then Avitra disappeared, boogying, perhaps, beside a gentleman with more rhythm-or less pharmaceutical familiarity.

Similar scenes are commonplace in liquor pits, both city and worldwide. However, just six months ago, the only women at Greenpoint's Tommy's Tavern were the ones morning-and-night alcoholics saw parading across the bar's captioned sitcoms.

Todd Patrick (aka Todd P), a local concert organizer, saw promise in the seemingly depressing dive. Spiffy, blue-and-red paint job. Ornate, grandma-worthy light fixtures. A wooden, Country Club malt-liquor calendar updated daily. And, most important, a separate lounge rigged with rave-like lighting and speakers rivaling a jet engine for deafening capability.

"I was like, 'Ah, hell, let's do this,'" Patrick says.

Last spring, a friend organized the first show at Tommy's, and Patrick followed suit.

Disco hoedowns with jam-groovers!

Japanther's dual-pronged sonic assault.

The Homosexuals, reunited and rocking.

Now, sometimes three or four nights a week, the working-man's dive-surrounded by Polish meat markets and Mexican bodegas-is headquarters to New York City's most tinnitus-inducing hullabaloos.

During shows, up to 200 or 300 tattooed young 'uns and pegged-pant bicyclists flood the bar. They shoot nine-ball with the Corona-sipping pool sharkette. Creased-hat regulars perk up, sunken cheeks filling with conversation, not just liquor. ("They're happy to see the younger women," Patrick says.) Third-generation Europeans stream in, along with the odd Hispanic family, creating an intergenerational, multicultural gumbo. Bargoers may not speak one another's language; everyone, however, is fluent in intoxication.

At these prices, even a can collector could get buzzed. Two-dollar Bud drafts. Four-dollar, four-second pour mixers. And a fluorescent concoction known as the Greenpoint Swamp Water.

On a recent evening, I witnessed a woman drinking something cloudy and green out of a glass that, if swung properly, could fell a 300-pound man.

"What?does that taste like?" I asked a woman with bushy brown hair.

"Like citrus."

"Don't you have another adjective?"

"Nope, just citrus. Very citrus." She took a healthy swallow and smiled enigmatically. Poker face or pleasure?

I asked the barkeep, a gentleman wearing a tucked-in blue shirt, what the Swamp Water entailed.

He leaned in conspiratorially. His warm breath smelled like an extinguished Marlboro Red.

"You got three ounces Bacardi rum, dark; one ounce of orange juice; one ounce of lemon juice; and a half-ounce Blue Curacao. Want one?"

Of course. The Swamp Water would put my liver up to the poison-removal test.

He free-poured ingredients into a martini shaker (including lemon juice), shook, then dumped the blue-green potion into a beer mug. It looked nuclear, yet tasted like sour, fermented orange juice.

"Is this really a Greenpoint specialty?" I asked, my lips curling inward.

"No, I got it out of a recipe book. I just added 'Greenpoint.'"

This is what Todd Patrick has done to Brooklyn's rock 'n' roll repertoire. Sure, Williamsburg is lousy with venues, and the Warsaw serves large-draw bands. But it's tiny Tommy's, a few blocks from Newtown Creek and Queens, that's drawing the crowds.

Where else can one watch shows where bartenders sneak into the performance space to scoop ice from the freezer? How about a smoking policy enforced with the firm hand of someone with neither eyes nor nose? Or a bar that, instead of driving locals off during concerts, draws in triple or even quadruple the typical neighborhood contingent?

Tommy's appeal is contagious. Patrick is attracting concertgoers from Manhattan, and his turnouts trump those of better-known Brooklyn bars (which he is loath to name). Heck, the greatest compliment to Tommy's resurgence is this: post-concerts, car services line Manhattan Ave.

A burgeoning scene, maybe, but please exercise caution when trekking to this far-off haunt.

"If there's not a show there're usually just three old drunks sitting around, watching television," Patrick says.