A life less virtuous

Mr. Dallas was concerned about an upsurge in virtue after September's calamity. But he figures it's subsiding or, more probably, never happened to begin with.

All the chatter about "hyper-cocooning" and getting back to what's really important and swallowing a big Black Draught gulp of eternal verities was making his palms sweat. If he stayed home, he'd have to fret about the stress cracks in the dining room wall and the squirrels nesting over the garage. In a stand-up match with authenticity, Mr. Dallas is outgunned. Verities smerities.

Relief arrived last week in the form of an Associated Press report puncturing the rather large claims made about the wholesome fallout from tragedy: people marrying more, divorcing less, rushing to church, signing up for the armed services. Hold the hosannas. Not happening – at least not according to what statistics have accumulated since.

Wishfulness bounded ahead of reality as it often does. Recall the great line from The Sun Also Rises. The star-crossed soul mates, promiscuous Brett and impotent Jake, consider how their life together could have been glorious if only ...: "Isn't it pretty to think so?" says Jake.

Even now, people will queue up to watch Britney Spears lip-sync regardless of what Tony Snow would hope. In Dallas, lines are out the door at Seven and Buddha with shiny-shirted lummoxes and shoulder-baring molls. Euphoria is opening downtown. West Village is flourishing Uptown, with a vodka bar (Nikita) and a bistro (Paris Vendome) in the works. The splashy new Sense will lubricate Knox-Henderson further.

Count on bad behavior, loose talk, poor choices. Signal the all-clear – it's cocktail time.

Abacus counts

Whether your objections to the balder excesses of night life are moral or aesthetic – whether, in fact, you're Tony Snow – Abacus might suit you. The restaurant is one of the most attractive and expensive in town. The bar (no smoking, seats 38) deserves to be more than just a way station. On one recent weekday evening, a knot of folks, none of whom appeared to take their fashion cues from a 2-year-old Gear, discovered that it's a good place to sit and sip.

The wines by the glass are selected with care, with some nice ones going by the boards to make room for others. The lighting flatters. The cherry woods and mustard and eggplant tones throughout sooth. The music is a smart, unobtrusive mix of trance, acid jazz and world beat that won't frighten off the Park Cities worthies.

On the seven deadly sins scale, Abacus rates a high-minded three of seven: envy, pride, gluttony. Absent: sloth, wrath, lust, greed.

The drink on everyone's lips

There is always a drink of the moment, the stylish libation, something to accompany this season's must-have Marc Jacobs jeans or crop top or Snatch T-shirt. It's easy to spot, on every oak or marble or zinc counter, the most-often-shouted words across the bustling bar.

Like fashion, the happening drink changes. Cocktails that once thundered across the plains like herds of buffalo now border on extinction. Consider your grandmother's Tom Collins, as yesteryear as canasta and Father Knows Best; the amaretto sour, which sluiced down every barely legal ingenue's throat when Jimmy Carter was president; the strawberry daiquiri, perennial blossom of the '80s fern bar.

Now comes the Grey Goose and soda.

A pricey French vodka married to the blandest mixer is the hottest match in town. Listen for five minutes at the Meridian Room, Maguire's or Mignon and hear the order as many times.

Naming the poison is easy; explaining is trickier. One Jeroboam bartender's answer was straightforward and had the ring of unvarnished Q.E.D.: "It's the most expensive we have." The drinking Dallasite requires a vodka that's cost-proportional to the new American Airlines Center.

Mr. Dallas has always regarded vodka as he does those white-on-white abstractions: There may be something to them, but he can't see what, and he certainly isn't going to pay for it.

Debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin is gripping business compared with the barren cogitation that accompanies vodka tastings. Adherents declaim endlessly about the grains and distillation process and purity of this one vs. that. They sound as unhinged as Gen. Jack D. Ripper denying the ladies his essence in Dr. Strangelove.

But vodka it is, and a French vodka. That must seem novel, exotic, insouciantly counterintuitive. After all, nobody here is queuing up for Russian champagne. The bottle, informed by effortless Gallic charm, is handsome – tall and sleek with a simple label featuring the flying fowl.

Among Park Cities swells and Addison poseurs, that bird signals a Ralph Lauren Polo reverie of woodsy entitlement. Angular, freckle-faced WASPs arrange long limbs with considered carelessness across a plaid settee, warmed by the hunting lodge's fireplace. Their eyes light in anticipation of that evening's balletic, neurosis-free sex as they sip.

(Meanwhile, back in reality, it's a soupy 90 degrees at 9 o'clock outside Steel, the valet is taking forever to find the Expedition, and Ms. Thing says she has spin class in the morning and don't even think about coming in.)

Published in The Dallas Morning News 08.03.01 ___________________________________

The free drink has its price

There comes a time in the life of every liver when repeat visits to a bar and small talk with the bartender pay off in the form of those three little words: on the house.

The free drink, or comp, is also known as the over-the-counter pour, which can be baldly descriptive: If you're drinking wine, for instance, the server will reach across the bar to fill the glass, not produce a new one. (That is the universal sign of: You're paying, fella.)

Management at most bars, much of the time, makes allowances for the over-the-counter pour. It's part of the game – a nod and a wink at good hooch doled out strategically. The idea is to pay particular attention to regular customers, the folks who shell out like clockwork, the ones who will stick around after the new has worn off and the Fickle 500 – that is, Eric Kimmel and all who sail in him – have moved on.

Obviously, this is a policy fraught with the potential for abuse, even ruin. Bankruptcy records are littered with the remains of nightspots that were comped into penury by friends of the owner, friends of the waitstaff, friends of the friends of the friends, none of whom ever cracked open a wallet.

He who receives the over-the-counter pour is a blessed creature. But with freedom comes responsibility, a certain noblesse oblige.

The paramount responsibility: Tip. Show appreciation for the appreciation. There's a range here, from minimal to maximal. It is classier and more advantageous to the imbiber to hew to the high side:
     • Acceptable, barely: Tip on the first drink (20 percent, rounded up; $8 glass of wine, add $2). Pretend, like the bartender, that the second drink never happened. Favor this formula and it won't happen again.
     • Acceptable, standard: Tip on the first drink and the free pour ($8 plus $4). This represents the norm, like golf shirts and khakis at everywhere short of the Mansion.
     • Acceptable, generous: Pay for both drinks without the tip: $8 and $8 on top of that. Buff an image of big-spender élan, avoid feeling beholden, be remembered in the barkeep's prayers – or at least figure he'll introduce you as The Big Man to some gullible young missy.

Noblesse oblige stretches beyond the tip; hospitality can be such a sweet burden. Don't appear to expect the comp. Act as if it's a most welcome surprise, but avoid gushing. And never ask. That's just tacky. Think of those dreadful slots players down in Shreveport wheedling free breakfast chits.

Once settled in on the barstool, glass nestled in palm, elbow bent for the practiced upward motion – looking, at least, like a tip-inflated facsimile of The Big Man – ponder these questions:
• Am I out drinking too much?
• Why has Providence chosen me from among so many for such good fortune?
• Am I out drinking too much?

Published in The Dallas Morning News 07.20.01 ___________________________________

Could be your lucky day
Mr. Dallas sees no need to fear Friday the 13th.

It happens. The day and the digits click into place, and it happens: Friday the 13th.

Paraskevidekatriaphobics, those with an acute fear of Friday the 13th, pull the shades down, the covers up and quiver for 24 hours. Even the most epistemologically grounded of temperament, which is to say, logical positivists and Lutherans, may pause a moment before booking AirTran.

Tradition has robed both Friday and the 13th with huge significance. Much of it relates to the Good Book. Tradition has it that Eve slipped Adam the apple on Friday and the Great Flood began on Friday. Friday was the common execution day in Roman times. Twelve represents completeness – months of the year, signs of the Zodiac, number of apostles. Add one more and things get out of whack, trouble brews.

But all is not dire. After all, Friday is the end of the workweek; there can be no greater recommendation for it. Thirteen colonies signed on for the American Revolution, and that turned out fabulously. Dan Marino wore No. 13. Nobody carps over getting a baker's dozen – that extra cinnamon cake doughnut is the sweetest.

So on this Friday the 13th, shake free of fear and get lucky. If something bad does happen, you'll know why, and if it doesn't, you'll know better. Some ideas:

Lucky in love
What does it take to be so? In starkest terms – height and hair. Short, bald men will need the extra added ingredient called money. As in solving any mystery, getting lucky in this most base, and sublime, sense involves motive, method and opportunity. The motive: Sex, the reason Freud says everybody does everything. The method: Keep them talking, keep them drinking. The opportunity: Abacus to Ziziki's, Milkbar to Maguire's.

Lucky at the track
The new has hardly worn off Lone Star Park, the destination here for sport-of-kings fanciers. Actual alive-and-kicking horse racing ends with a bang this weekend until the fall quarter-horse season. (Tip: anything by trainer Steve Asmussen.) The simulcast cathedral next door, Our Lady of Perpetual Betting, projects onto 400 TV monitors races run from Australia to Arlington Park. You can't draw a breath without a gate flying open somewhere, so put your money down and down and down.

Lucky charms
"Nothing worth knowing can be understood with the mind," declared Woody Allen, embracing irrationality in Manhattan. If you're looking to purchase what can't be understood with the mind, make a fervent beeline for Chango Botanica for lucky candles, lucky incense, lucky figures and lucky amulets. Light up an "attraction candle" just before lighting out. Stock up on Satan Be Gone incense for the morning after.

Lucky stars
When you wish upon a star – first-generation, pre-digitized Disney has it – your dreams come true. Temporarily escape the scorched earth of North Texas for the boundless, air-conditioned heights offered at planetariums. Learn about black holes, white dwarfs, red giants – color is in in the universe this season. Leonard Nimoy intones Spock-ishly at The Science Place. At the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, see what Old West cowboys saw looking up from the Texas plains.

Lucky bites
Some foods augur well, according to tradition. "Eat poor on New Year's, eat fat the rest of the year" means black-eyed peas, greens and corn bread. Six months later, it's the fiscal new year – sort of, close to it – so head to Lucky's Cafe for some home-style. Or break into a fortune cookie for glad tidings at Lucky Garden or Lucky's China Buffet.

When luck runs out
If, despite every precaution, Friday the 13th turns into the kind of dark day that involves close association with the legal system, Lucky Bail Bonds stands as a beacon of at least temporary freedom. It's conveniently located near the stirs, is open 24-7 and advertises "EZ credit terms." What luck. But don't skip.

Note: Mr. Dallas has not yet had need of Lucky Bail Bonds.

Guide staffers Deborah Voorhees, Jay Webb and Gary Dowell contributed to this report.
Published in The Dallas Morning News 07.13.01 ___________________________________

The sloppy encounter

One of the best lines ever from Woody Allen is in Love and Death, his sendup of Russian novels and Bergman movies, in an exchange between Sonja and Boris.

Sonja: "Oh, Boris, sex without love is an empty experience."

Boris: "Yes, but as empty experiences go, it's one of the best."

So it is with sloppy encounters: Take hormones, mix liberally with spirits, add late hours. The results are as predictable, as chemically determinate, as yeast plumping dough: folly, embarrassment, regret. In other words, the stuff of country music songs and fodder for several of the more popular monotheistic faiths.

Wherever men and women gather to imbibe of strong drink and establish eye contact, there shall be sloppy encounters – from the humblest Motel 6 to the Mansion, from the Red Onion to the Riviera. The prowling fields of Lower Greenville, the West End and Deep Ellum are jampacked on weekends with the young and feckless. (Really, what more can be said about a place called The Bone?)

For those looking to decently doff their last shred of decency – or who are, at any rate, too old or impatient to idle in Elm Street traffic for 10 minutes behind an F-150 that's vibrating RZA – there are alternatives:

Carson's: It's enormous and as raucously needy as any place on the Greenville drag, but with acres of parking, a great comfort to valet-phobes and perfect for those awkward post-2 a.m. nuzzles.

Sambuca Addison: Many times winner of the Budapest-above-LBJ award features manageable traffic flow around the bar. Sidle up to your glassy-eyed intended without seeming too obvious – though obviousness is no disqualifier here.

Steel: By contrast, this molten hot spot's bar area is so constricted that movement is impossible. Where you are is where you'll stay. On the other hand, if your sliver of personal space is adjacent to that of a divorced, disenchanted Park Cities hausfrau, then there's room enough.

Beau Nash: This is an ever-changing melodrama typical of a high-end hotel bar. Opportunity knocks. Expect anything: rote cocktail bash for pharmaceutical sales reps, squalid bachelorette party pulling up anchor for the next destination, exuberant appearance-industry professionals with a bad word for everyone, sullen demimonde waiting for a cell phone call.

Voltaire: There's no telling who's going to wash up here, although it's a fair bet they'll look vaguely like Darva Conger.

Published in The Dallas Morning News 06.08.01 ___________________________________