A Mighty Wind, and Greenwich Village

Origins and origin stories are important. They act as baselines for where you came from, where you went, and have ongoing implications on your directions going forward ( I almost wrote direction home). I’ve dissected my origins on the blog regularly. But there are inflection points in most stories that seem more important than others. So I talk less about my days before leaving my parents’ home and school, and more about the days in which I launched. I think that’s because it was the point at which I began taking the helm of my own life, and not under the guidance of parents and teachers.

I launched in Greenwich Village, New York City.

Before I started my Pius Itinerancy ( read being on the road) in April of 1965, I had been a habitué of New York City’s Greenwich Village for about two years. To the point, I was a third, or at best, a second-rate folksinger in the lower end of coffeehouses. There is no sense in trying to gild this particular lily. I wasn’t and wouldn’t have ever made the top tier. I don’t have a great rep to protect.

Actually, as I think about it, making the top tier was never what it was all about. I was living the “Life” writ large for a Folkie. I was part of the Greenwich Village scene, played nightly for cash, and between sets spent time talking, playing, and singing with my peers. You’d find me haggard on Sixth Avenue around five AM after putting in a night playing for folks in from exotic Paramus, Belchertown, Silver Springs, and Hong Kong. Between sets, you’d find us in a tight assembly in the back of coffeehouses, talking about the big futures we planned.

You did not have to be a top-notch performer to be part of this life. There was plenty of room in the cracks for anyone who wanted to contribute. I collected my first greenback dollars, and coins of the realm, when I was about sixteen. It was, I think, in the basement coffeehouse called the Cafe Why Not on Bleecker Street in the Village. It was an intoxicating event. Someone had actually paid a sixteen year old kid from Washington Heights to play the guitar, and wail about being on the road – said experience was several years in the future. I think I spent the entire sum acrosss the street at the Minetta Tavern on beer. And no I was never carded for ID in the Village. a couple of the other performers introduced me to the life patterns of the village – where the cheap eats were, places to crash, how to stay clear of the police, and where to “hang” between sets. In a few weeks I knew how things operated.

It was a rich life, and many outside of it envied those of us in it. There were folkies, beats, bohemians, and many others. We were poets, folksingers, authors, artists, and people who were just along for the wild ride on Bleecker and Macdougal and all the surrounding area.

We lived off tourism. People coming down from uptown, or in from the ‘burbs, and people visiting the city from further away. Perhaps to say that we grazed upon the herd is not inappropriate.

Did I know some of the big people in the mix? Sure, it was a small place, and we often rubbed shoulders with them. They weren’t my friends, but I wound up at parties with them, being part of the action at coffeehouses where we all hung out. Lots of us knew each other well enough to share drinks at the Minetta Tavern (one of NYC’s oldest bars) or buy rounds at the White Horse Tavern. Close friends, no.

A MIghty Wind

So when the Movie A Mighty Wind came out, I found a lot to dislike. It was a horrible pastiche and made a satire of our lives. Well, to be honest, there was a lot to satirize. And so, while the movie irritates me, I wound up liking it too.

It took me home.**** Of course, you can never go home again, as the acts satirized in the movie find. But sometimes you can visit the outskirts and reclaim a bit of the feeling.

***For more read my earlier post: https://loucarrerascarver.com/2026/02/28/the-folkie-apocalypse/