Peers and beams at City Tavern

Two middle-aged men in gimme caps swigged beers through a running exchange about duck blinds, rare Italian rifles and somebody's amicable divorce. Not quite the types or topics you'd expect on a lofty stretch of Main more associated with overengineered eyewear and ennui. But that's the Main Street renaissance settling in for the long haul at City Tavern.

City Tavern is the kind of instant neighborhood hangout that downtown needs. Sure, there's contrivance in the coziness – the rugged dark woods, the restored tin ceiling, the goofy TV stand-wine racks – but this is Dallas. Like the Live Oak Lofts, which were new-built to look rehabilitated, City Tavern accelerates the aging process. It would take 10 or 20 years of real-time cigarette smoke and spilled sour mash to accomplish the desired effect. And who's got time like that to wait?

The walls are decorated with kitsch movie posters (Kitten With a Whip, Naughty Dallas), vintage photographs and this puzzler: a framed print of "Great Irish Wine Families of France." In keeping with the season, Christmas stockings stitched with bartenders' names ("Frankie," "Reid") are pinned behind the bar – alas, beyond the reach of grateful customers to put goodies in. Upstairs are two pool tables and a big-screen television.

City Tavern, located in the former Mariano's space, is open daily. It's ultra-casual. No cover, no way, no how.

In 10 words or less: Instant Cheers anchors one end of Main Street revival.

How happening: Hit or miss. Happy hours can howl.

Who's there: Downtowners in the market for a real/fake pub.

Prime real estate: Window seats at the front are good for surreptitiously checking out the young things walking upstairs.

Published in The Dallas Morning News 12.19.03 ___________________________________

Mellow at Severine's

Listen to music and hear yourself think at the same time, a rare trick in Dallas but entirely possible at Severine's Bar, another promising new Uptown spot. Small-combo jazz wafts out the door and onto the patio overlooking McKinney Avenue and to the club's private face, a brick-laid, tree-shaded courtyard.

Dallas is a meager town for jazz. What there is runs toward the heavy amplification of smooth grooves. Strictly Tabu expired years ago. The Sambucas and Terilli's soldier on. The hotel-bar versions available at the Melrose and Anatole are a little off the beaten path for locals.

But Severine's is right there on a main night-life drag. It's a fine fit for its sibling next door, Savory 12. Brick, wrought iron, timber pillars and a weathered oaken bar, as well as that courtyard, give the place a touch of Garden District New Orleans. The menu is tapas – as federal law now requires all new menus to be.

The wine list numbers more than 100 bottles; 30 are by the glass. Hess Select cabernet is a reliable red at $6.95. Mellow, underpopulated, unglossy – Severine's is a walking-distance antidote to Dragonfly.

In 10 words or less: A little jazz, a little wine – the lush life.

How happening: Intermittent at best. Give it a shot on a Friday.

Who's there: Diminished-sevenths devotees and the runoff from Le Paris Bistrot.

Prime real estate: Nelson Algren would've dug the courtyard.

Published in The Dallas Morning News 11.28.03 ___________________________________

Talent exposed

Everybody likes a pat on the back for a job well done – it's only natural. People who toil in the adult entertainment industry want their strokes, too. Or, rather, let's just stick with the pat on the back. At the Adult Entertainment Awards held Oct. 28 at Blue, they got it.
Life can be difficult swinging from aluminum poles in plastic stilettos, ducking the anxious paws of conventioneers or the sour deprecations of pinched-lipped busybodies. One night a year, though, there's time to celebrate, to plant the flag, to step back and proclaim: "Skyler, those shoes are so cute!" So about 800 of the ecdysiastically inclined sashayed into the downtown mega-club to drink, nosh, compare tan lines and root for their favorites in such categories as best disc jockey, manager, all-nude club and adult theater.

Portly porn star Ron Jeremy, who's been bobbing merrily through the mainstream culture lately like a big mustachioed cork, was supposed to be the featured guest. He didn't show – something about fires in Southern California. He wasn't missed, and anyway he's available on E! pretty much around the clock. Instead, the partygoers made their own fun, ignored banter by "local celebrities" and cheered heartily when somebody they knew got mentioned.

Upstairs in the VIP lounge, the industry select hoovered a spread that featured beef Wellington, seared tuna, foie gras and a chocolate waterfall for dipping strawberries. There was also a bit more exhibitionism than among the commoners.

The action onstage included fairly involved and wholly cheesy exotic tableaux. The most jaw-dropping was a chesty tribute to first responders by the male LaBare dancers. Firefighter, police officer and Marine preened and flexed to Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA." Words fail.

The scene: AEA party at Blue

Who was there: The torso-centric and their enthusiasts.

How happening: Jammed, jumping, jiggly.

Prime real estate: In the Howard Johnson's-hued VIP room.

On the seven deadly sins scale: A disconcertingly buttoned-up four of seven. Lust, pride, envy, gluttony. Missing: wrath, greed, sloth.

Published in The Dallas Morning News 11.07.03 ___________________________________

Sitting pretty at Republic

Dallasites are determined patio revelers. The specter of five-month summers hardly dents their enthusiasm for tippling alfresco. They'll sit out and drink and dehydrate contentedly as overhead fans chop at turgid, exhaust-fume-choked air and spray-misters compound the humidity.

This patio-philia makes the enduring popularity of Primo's explicable. Now that McKinney Avenue landmark has competition in the nearby Republic, a new lounge and tapas restaurant on Hall. Republic's patio is big (3,000 square feet), boisterous and backed by a 12-by-12-foot slate water wall. It affords nice views of the surrounding semi-skyline – the sprinkle of Uptown high-rises. And based on this aging satyr's several exposures, it's the new locus of youthful indiscretion.

Inside, the place favors standard-issue international urban hip: Italian leather sofas and chaises, black granite dining tables with high-backed chairs, chocolaty velvet curtains and lots of candles.

Not so hip – and a hazard to Republic's long-term prospects – are the poorly placed lavatories, squeezed between the bar and the door to the patio, directly in the flow of traffic. Let's put this delicately ... or not: They're closet-size one-holers, though very nice slate-and-travertine-accented one-holers, and they're in the middle of everything.

So far, the plumbing isn't quelling the buzz crowd. A temperature-controlling awning that's being erected should keep the patio teeming in the cooler months ahead. Republic is open nightly and has just started serving lunch and Sunday brunch. No cover.

In 10 words or less: Narcissism and a slight breeze amid the bustle of Uptown.

How happening: Burning up, even midweek and late. Don't these people have to work in the morning?

Who's there: Bright and shiny young 'uns.

Prime real estate: On the patio next to the water wall.

Published in The Dallas Morning News 10.17.03 ___________________________________

A toast to Jeroboam

Three years of operation is a laudable benchmark for any bar or restaurant. Hospitality is a perilously fickle world, where businesses have gnat life spans. It's more noteworthy, even (cue basso pundit voice) culturally significant, for Jeroboam, which celebrated its third anniversary with a party on Sept. 17.

Jeroboam was in the vanguard of redevelopment on a dolorous stretch of Main Street that turned out to be the start of something big. Radiating out in both directions from the intersection with Akard, Main has become an undeniable strip. Flowering below the lofts of the restored Kirby and Wilson buildings are Umlaut, the Metropolitan, Euphoria, the new City Tavern and more.

On some nights, you don't even have to squint hard to believe you're in a vital, "street-with-eyes" urban center. Certainly not on this night, as about 500 scene-makers made it to Jeroboam, keeping a battalion of valets sprinting. The particular draw was the return of prodigal chef Chris Pyun to the Entertainment Collaborative fold that owns Jeroboam. He's changed the menu from bistro French to New American and loosen-ed the wine list from its French-only constraints.

The bar's not much changed – heavy oak and zinc-topped. One commentator described it as citified but without pretension. Those with pretension, who made this the place for a while to wear Donnie Brasco leather car coats, have moved on. And the car coats are back in the closet.

It's open daily except Sundays. No cover. Occasional private parties may bust up plans for an unobstructed sit and sip.

In 10 words or less: Redevelopment linchpin serves spirits in boho style.

How happening: The Fickle 500 are long gone, but it still has its moments.

Who's there: Transplants to Dallas looking for a big-city prospect.

Prime real estate: Grab a window seat next to the tree of champagne on the bar.

Published in The Dallas Morning News 10.03.03 ___________________________________

Haven for the unpretentious

Down Bar and Lounge is easy to drive by. Thousands do so in ignorance as they negotiate the wending cow path of Pearl Street to Canton and the Farmers Market. By day, Down is a darkened two-story storefront at Commerce and Pearl. At night, it's a shyly lit island of studied funkiness.

Operated by buff, bluff Craig Vaught, of the old Harder Bar on Lower Greenville, Down eschews the Euro vibe and steeper drink prices of next-door Divan for a neighborhood feel.

There's a single pool table near the door. The floors are restored hardwoods. The 25-foot ceiling features the original pressed tin of the centenarian building. The bar top consists of two pieces of plywood that have been layered with cement, stained purple, then lacquered a cobalt blue. That smart look was provided by Brandon Watson of Advanced Surfacing.

The mezzanine here is a hoot. Troop up the squeaky staircase to a 300-square-foot cubby enclosed in glass and decked out in '70s rec-room kitsch, with wet bar and tiny refrigerator, low, black divans and illuminated cube tables. Peer down on your minions as they gaze up at you in a parody of super-club Blue's glitzy, exhibitionist VIP room.

Down is open, ambitiously, seven days a week, starting at 5 p.m. weekdays and 9 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.

In 10 words or less: A Nighthawks-at- the-diner view of downtown.

How happening: Spotty, with a happy-hour bump, midevening void and late-night rush.

Who's there: The deliberately unpretentious and wordsmiths from the nearby Dallas Observer.

Prime real estate: Settle into slacker languor on the mezzanine.

Published in The Dallas Morning News 09.19.03 ___________________________________

Lounging is easy at Divan

Divan has settled in on Commerce Street between Harwood and Pearl as one of a lengthening list of hipster lounges.

Along with the nearby Down Bar and Lounge, it's an outpost of merriment on a ragged edge of downtown. Location is a big hurdle for both to overcome. Since opening late last year, Divan has seized a bit of a niche for hosting fashion and magazine parties. So, on many nights, you'll end up drinking alone, but on others, you might be surrounded by a multitude who are lean of limb and professionally disheveled. On Saturday, it's holding a "Copacabana Party" that could be worth a peek.

Divan was too shy for its own good for a long time. It recently installed some signage out front to catch the eye of drive-by lounge lizards. Inside, there's room to burn (4,500 square feet) and room to spare (another 4,500 square feet on the second floor, unfinished, with the possibility of a rooftop deck).

Divan features high ceilings with restored tin panels, soft lighting, a custom-painted concrete floor, plush furniture spread about in clusters and a lot of walk-around space. The long, blue pearl granite bar is an amenable place to prop an elbow. Music is polyglot international – perfect for the space.

It's open Wednesday through Sunday evenings. The proprietors cater to after-work imbibers, downtown residents and the before-and-after crowd from the nearby Majestic Theatre. They control the door with a dress code; cover charge for special events only.

In 10 words or less: Cozy cuddle corners beckon couples inside the big silver doors.

How happening: Crickets chirping midweek, but picks up late on weekends.

Who's there: Loft-dwellers and other downtown adventurers.

Prime real estate: The far back ottoman across from the DJ booth.

Published in The Dallas Morning News 09.05.03 ___________________________________

Titillation as tedium

LAS VEGAS – That which was once forbidden passes into acceptance and then into a trade show topic.

	Quibbles and bits Lower Greenville roils along: Will the Sugar Shack recover from its jarring debut? Tantra, which arose from the ashes of Go Lounge, provides instruction on achieving internalized bliss. Well, not probably, but feckless youth are digging it anyway. ... The Metropolitan crew has opened City Tavern at 1402 Main. ... Culture scribbler Candace Bushnell (Sex and the City) reportedly closed Double Wide down when she was feted there. The redneck theme bar near Fair Park is the latest from the XPO Lounge folks. ... A smart redo of the bar couldn't help save Bamboo Bamboo. Mr. Dallas sheds a tear for sloppy encounters at the former Voltaire, which may become another Cool River. ... Half-price wine nights are proliferating. Try Wednesdays at Liberty Noodles on Lovers Lane or most nights at Picasso's in northeast Dallas.

But Mr. Dallas was stuck, too far from the door to make an unheeded escape. So he screwed on his serious face for 90 minutes of blah-blah-blah. Surely the "Adult Interactive Party" the following evening would prove saucy. The only fantasies that encroached on his mind at this moment involved mythic conquest at the gaming tables. And those would be rudely expunged later by a vicious streak of video poker.

The annual congregation of the $20 billion home video industry spooled out for three days all over the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino on the Vegas strip. Ballroom-level meeting rooms droned with ministrations on "Can DVD and VHS co-exist?" and "the art of customer loyalty." Upstairs, three floors of suites were given over to exhibitors hawking everything from Game Boy derivations to copyright protectors to the very latest in extreme digital kink. And it was all just tremendously unfascinating to an interloper.

This toothsome seminar title was "It's All Grown Up: Products, Retailing and Marketing of Adult Product." The panelists included representatives of major adult video companies, but nobody you'd want to see in flagrante, and a couple of video store owners.

In the great tradition of self-important seminarists everywhere, the participants talked over, past and through each other. The discussion grew animated when Howard Levine of Vivid Entertainment exhorted the audience, mostly sober-sided retailers, to "Buy better porn!" He seemed determined to filibuster the whole afternoon, while his compatriots on the dais glowered. They looked as though they were ready to brain him with a four-hour fetish comp. (That's industry talk for compilation tape.)

The tedium eventually adjourned. However, the party at the hotel's Venus Lounge, sponsored by the Vivid, Private and Wicked labels, provided little joy either. A horde of golf-shirted Gomers pressed to the bar, pudgy fists clutching red drink tickets, or waited for the on-camera talent to arrive. When it did – ho-hum. Store-bought physiques wafted in on acrylic heels and wafted back out. Mr. Dallas' nearly constant churchgoing prevented him from recognizing any of the starlets except Sydney Steele.

Accent on looks

Back in Dallas, the diaspora from Steel has settled at Stolik, the brand-new European restaurant. Everybody who used to work there is here now, in the former Martini Ranch space on Fairmount at Cedar Springs. Robust blondness presides at the front of the house – and all over the house, if the Aug. 2 pre-opening party is an indication.

This was one of the most pulchritudinous debuts in recent years. Shrink-wrap tops, silk cargo pants and hoochie heels abounded. Who knew harem wear would stage such a stunning comeback? The party was bounteous elsewise. The wide variety of nibbles evaporated like snowflakes in summer before they made it to the buffet table. The open bar was well and truly open, and a decent sparkling wine flowed freely.

Stolik (Czech for "small table") is much more restaurant than nightspot (see Weekly Specials, Page 9), but the new decor encourages an after-work or end-of-evening drop-by. The basic two-level layout remains, but materials and colors are softer and more inviting. Brownish-red walls with black accents and stone facings provide warmth. The lowered ceiling makes the bar area cozier.

On the seven deadly sins scale, the Stolik party rates a Mitteleuropean five of seven (lust, gluttony, envy, pride, greed). Absent: wrath, sloth.

Published in The Dallas Morning News 08.15.03 ___________________________________

Tangled up in Blue

There have never been so many sybarites in one place outside of hell. And that made the July 10 VIP opening party for Blue irresistible. The mammoth nightspot drew 3,900 downtown and turned the blocks around Elm and Pacific into bedlam.

A sudden downpour of biblical proportions (take that, sybarites) drenched partygoers as they streamed inside, turning the evening into a wet T-shirt contest without the option. Bright, shiny sylphs found their barely there wear plastered on and their makeup dripping off.

	Blue-print for success: Click here to view a pdf of the interior plan for Blue. (Requires free Acrobat Reader.)

These are the moments we cherish.

Blue is bold: a $5 million bid to keep the lights on downtown after dark. The Main Street nexus of Jeroboam, the Metropolitan, and Euphoria has done some of that. Divan and Down are flickers on Commerce. But Blue, a two-story, 17,000-square-foot entertainment complex, is moon-shot ambitious.

DAMON WINTER / DMN

The VIP room is bathed in orange.

That's a daunting number in a downtown that even after a decade of residential redevelopment can still look like On the Beach at quitting time. The sidewalks may not roll up after 5, but they start to crimp at the edges.

Blue's all-in-one approach may be the only way to draw that kind of traffic, but thinner-skinned lounge lizards could shy away. One overwhelmed observer, scoping the snaking swell of the crowd up to the mezzanine, the video gadgetry and the orange of the VIP room, mused that "it's a Chuck E. Cheese's for adults." Another likened it to the long-gone Confetti on Upper Greenville.

On the seven deadly sins scale, the Blue opening rates seven of seven (lust, pride, envy, greed, gluttony, sloth, wrath).

It's bigger than ...

This place sure could hold a lot of hay. The proportions are historic. Or, anyway, they dwarf some historic proportions.
• Pantheon rotunda: The Roman emperor Hadrian wasn't so august with his construction (15,828 square feet).
• Sistine Chapel ceiling: Michelangelo had to toss paint across only 5,764 square feet.
• Appomattox Court House: Lee and Grant talked terms in smaller accommodations (3,200 square feet).
• Lincoln Memorial interior: Honest Abe presides over just 9,225 square feet.

No shirt, no service

Legible dressing has passed out of our world. Where once a banker looked like a banker, a lawyer like a lawyer and a mechanic like a mechanic, now everyone looks like an idiot. It's worse in club land, where "upscale" means most of the men are wearing long pants. Blue promises dress-code vigilance in the form of sizable guys at the door wearing earpieces and stony expressions.
• No ball caps.
• No athletic wear.
• No flip-flops.

Hue and cry

No club is complete without its own lineup of gimmicky drinks. Blue's are blue, which means blue curaçao, which means don't be around a conspicuous consumer of these on the morning after.
• Blue Light: Vodka, curaçao and pineapple juice with a pineapple garnish.
• Blue Sky: Skyy citrus, curaçao and pineapple juice dressed with a lemon wedge.
• Island Blue: Rum, coco, curaçao, pineapple juice and 7-Up.
• Long Island Blue Tea: All the stuff in a Long Island iced tea plus curaçao.

Sounds like ...

The mix is the message, getting feet on the dance floor is job one. It's too early to tell for sure what will be on the turntables here. An initial listen finds the music ruddered in the mainstream. Aphex Twin fans need not apply.
• Fridays: Hit Factory, a cheese soufflé from the 1970s, '80s and '90s.
• Saturdays: Code Blue, house and high-energy dance music.
• Sundays: Blue Gone Wild, geared to younger ears for college night.

Published in The Dallas Morning News 07.18.03 ___________________________________

Shuck and jive time

Jack Ruby meets Brave Combo in BurlesqueFest, a touring show of neo-naughtiness that sashayed into the Gypsy Tea Room last Friday. Like most things "neo," BurlesqueFest assumes a familiarity with, and affection for, the source material: If you don't get it, you won't get it.
The source material here is old-school striptease – a blue-haze underworld of cheap smokes, watered drinks, bad jokes and sad-eyed bump-and-grind – something downtown Dallas had plenty of back in the day.

The performers update and domesticate this demimonde with a large dose of wink-and-nod knowingness. After all, nobody onstage or in the audience would be caught dead in the clubs on Northwest Highway. They're playing. That means determinedly tacky sets, outrageous costumes to match the clichéd stage names (Catherine D'Lish, Lola Lush) and hardly more skin than in a Victoria's Secret commercial. Just as well. Some of the dancers, particularly the zaftig trio called Oracle, had never said no to a cheeseburger.

For those of us who take our corruption seriously, who really work at it, this variety act for the pierced and tatted could seem merely precious. The music made the difference. The accompanying ensemble, DeVotchaKa, kept the novelty from wearing too thin by furiously spinning Middle Eastern, klezmer and punk sounds into genuine fun.

The Boulder, Colo., group and its oddball instrumentation (violin, tuba, upright bass) found a local following. So did headliner Ms. D'Lish, who heroically swung in a gilded birdcage and splayed across a spider web in pursuit of her art. Air quote marks aside, she is one gorgeous redhead.

Pretzel logic

The next night, the generally irony-free Men's Club was trying something different: a club inside the club for people who want to be in the vicinity of dishabille without feeling as though they are.

Huh? you ask. Here's how it works: Once a month, the redecorated VIP lounge is transformed into Club Taboo, where women keep their clothes on. Lissome bartenders ply drink specials while a DJ spins a hard-house mix, a tonic departure from the classic rock booming from the outer darkness. The target market for Club Taboo is ... difficult to say. Whoever's out of twenties? The dancers' perpetually gigless musician boyfriends? In pontificator-speak, only time will tell.

On the seven deadly sins scale, BurlesqueFest rates a slough-love three of seven (pride, sloth, lust). Absent: envy, greed, gluttony, wrath.

Published in The Dallas Morning News 06.27.03 ___________________________________

Messages in a bottle

Brothers James and Darren Kelly are flying in from England this week for a ZZ Top concert. Soccer hooligans with extravagant facial hair? Never mind, James was properly obeisant. "You seem to be a connoisseur of Dallas night life. [Good.] ... If you can get us on any guest lists, there could be a few beers in it for you. [Better.] ... Any help finding two young, blond Hooters waitresses ... and I would consider you my best mate! [How many beers is that?]"

	Quibbles and bits Drum roll, please: The latest due date for the Elm Street megaclub Blue – and they really mean it this time – is July 11 for the grand opening. There'll be a VIP party on July 10. Live the dream now at www.bluevip.com. ... Less ambitious but actually serving drinks is Down, 2038 Commerce St. at Pearl. The overlooked Divan is just up the block. Could this be the next great night-life strip? Not probably, but think good thoughts. ... Also in the works are Passport, another cusp-of-downtown project, and Republic, on Hall Street at McKinney. ... Hoofer and aesthete Julia Alcantara presented some kind of dang music-art collaboration at Bamboo Bamboo in Addison last Friday. Mimes next?

• An early-evening sip at Mercy wine bar in Addison or a pre-dinner stroll along Main Street (Jeroboam, the Metropolitan).

• Eat something. You're on your own re: where.

• From midevening on, look for patio high life in ever-roiling West Village. Step over to the reinvigorated Loon at some point. Find similar in the Sipango-Samba Room-Il Sole triangle on Travis Street.

• If you're still ambulatory in the wee hours, the Clubhouse, that den of ecdysiasts on Manana Drive, is having weekend after-parties, for folks who still don't want to go home after leaving Seven. Remember that England expects every man to do his duty.

Emily just moved here from San Francisco. She's living in Hurst-Euless-Bedford and senses that HEB isn't exactly party central. She's looking for "chatty bartenders who can make a fierce martini and an outgoing clientele who aren't so concerned with their shoes that they can't hold a conversation."

Emily, get up on 183 and drive toward the light. For more outgoing pourers and less stuffy pour-ees, consider Mercy and Cafe Gecko in Addison or the Metropolitan downtown. The new Cedar Springs spots Manhattan Bar and M Grill & Tap might work as well.

Troy Sloneker wants action on a Monday and Tuesday night. Lots of luck would be the glib, but incomplete, response. While much of the workaday world passes on libation early in the week, consider that all the thirsty service-industry personnel who cater to the rest of us on weekends will be out somewhere. Look for signs of life on Lower Greenville and along McKinney Avenue. Also, Monday and Tuesday happy hours can be counted on to draw small groups of women who are consoling one another over their miserable boyfriends. You could be the next complaint, Troy.

Super 'Fly

It's a standard grump that any new place, no matter how vile, is hot for a few weeks because of the unstinting wanderlust of the Fickle 500. But quality will win out. Sometimes the place to be deserves to be. That's been the case with Dragonfly at Hotel ZaZa since its poolside "urban oasis" opened in early May.

A few recent nights there were, in gush-speak, incandescent: lovely weather, lovely people, stars above (at least theoretically), glowing skyline cropped by the patio wall. Squint hard and this becomes a sliver of chic South Beach injected into geographically challenged Uptown.

The restaurant clientele has a legacy look – Stephan Pyles' guest list from as far back as Routh Street Cafe, preserved in amber. (Spied at table was one of those houndstooth-check sport coats that shouts "1994.") The scene is out by the illuminated pool and fountain – Dallas adores a water feature – or inside at the tiny, packed-to-the-gills bar.

Go early. By 10 o'clock there's a glacial stall at the valet station and a pile-up at the discreetly neon-lit entrance, where the Better Sorts (youth division) stand in line before they head over to Candle Room to stand in line.

On the seven deadly sins scale, a weekend evening at Dragonfly rates an entelechic six of seven: pride, envy, lust (house of yes), gluttony, greed, sloth. Missing: wrath.

Published in The Dallas Morning News 06.13.03 ___________________________________

Of vice and men

These words spoken in amorous circumstances are what social scientists refer to as a green light. Or in common parlance, pre-coital self-absolution.

Variations include "I don't know what's gotten into me" ... "I've never done this kind of thing before" ... "I don't usually drink champagne."

These are proclamations from the tipping point – the stuff of wispy memories in the declining years or at least at the next day's post-mortem at Starbucks. Dew-traced skin, racing pulse, scattered inhibitions, crumpled sheets. (Pardon the bodice-heaving prose, but it's still spring.)

The theme is the same: to etch a dividing line between action in the moment and action in the ideal, even while giving in to temptation. Action in the ideal is easier to accomplish on a mellow mid-evening at Uncle Calvin's Coffeehouse, where both alcohol and depilatories are in short supply, than at last call at Candle Room, where temptation gets complimentary valet.

As the 17th-century French moralist La Rochefoucauld said: Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue. A later moralist, slots-a-million Bill Bennett, is less elegant: "I'd say I've come out pretty close to even."

Twist of fate

The infirmities of advancing age – judgment, taste, rational calculation of romantic prospects – keep Mr. Dallas away from Lower Greenville. But a couple of visits to Kismet had him almost pining for the old stomping grounds. In part this was because it was early in the week and the strip was free of clod congestion. In part it was because Kismet (that's the Turkish word for fate) is a nice spot.

The 4,000-square-foot venue opened next to sister restaurant Café Izmir in January, in the former Lone Star Oyster Bar space. Its Arabian Nights look – arched doorways, draperies, cushioned divans – is laid on just thick enough to be appealing. The ceiling is a black firmament set with hundreds of tiny lights. There's a side patio. In keeping with its modest ambitions, the bar doesn't serve 40 different vodkas or 20 tequilas, but you can find a poison that will do. The $2 martini night on Mondays comes with an asterisk: It's limited to a vodka of the week. Don't go asking for Boodles with Kina Lillet and a twist.

Sizzling toward summer

The "hard door" is heating up, with VIP lounges extant, in the works and on the drawing board all the rage.

The private club Candle Room, the younger, louder sibling to Sense, is lighting up Knox-Henderson with the mega-wattage that attends being the place to be: a Porsche preserve of a parking lot, thick crowds of the blessed (members and guests, itinerant hipsters, pro dribblers) inside and of the aspirational (dancers from second-tier clubs, their beefcake handlers, most anybody else who wears his shirttail out) outside. Many of the same folks clotted a May 8 hard-hat preview for Blue, the extravagant night-life complex that opens next month at 1933 Elm St. In a triumph of hope over experience, scenesters jammed a sweltering party room to apply for $500 or $1,000 memberships. Substantial food and drink credits make that a bargain for heavy club users, provided the club lasts.

On the seven deadly sins scale, Candle Room rates an of-the-moment six of seven (pride, envy, sloth, lust, greed, wrath). Absent: gluttony.

Published in The Dallas Morning News 05.16.03 ___________________________________

A rake's progress

He's spun seven years of bad behavior into a buzz book called Cad: Confessions of a Toxic Bachelor. It's been optioned to be made into a possible movie, which he's writing the possible screenplay for.

He's half of a blissful media power couple (with lifestyle entrepreneur and former New York Times editor Ilene Rosenzweig) that is a younger, hipper version of Steve and Cokie Roberts.

At a recent luncheon at the Hotel Adolphus he persuaded a roomful of dowager empresses that despite his unsparingly self-documented crimes against the fairer sex, he's a swell guy.

And the capper is, he's no great looker. He describes himself as a "sporty midsize" – quite under 6 feet, slightly built, beaky and bespectacled.

Now, securely happily-ever-after, he's chronicled his Seven-Year Scratch in a funny, sometimes squirm-provoking and finally poignant memoir – the sweetest bit of chutzpah in publishing since Andrés Martinez snagged a $50,000 advance to gamble in Las Vegas and write 24/7.

Somewhere in the infernal regions there's a dotted line with Mr. Marin's scrawl on it.

Between his short, febrile "starter marriage" and his current long engagement and soon-to-be second marriage, Mr. Marin cut a considerable swath through both capitals of "Blue America," New York City and Los Angeles. He might not have racked up Wilt Chamberlain numbers, but for a beaky, bespectacled scribe ... dang.

Among the Marinettes are the first wife, who cut her hair into a suitcase ("Was this something out of The Bell Jar?"); a Tiina with two "I's" restaurateur who shouts, "You can't break up with me over the phone"; the old flame who cautions, "I'm emotionally vulnerable – and I'm seeing someone"; a medical student with morbid enthusiasms; an astrology-spouting L.A. bombshell whose role model is Ann-Margret; and on and on.

Mr. Marin, now the redeemed scamp, wooed the ladies who lunched at the Adolphus just as surely. To been-there chuckles, he related the question he always hears from women when he's hawking Cad: Why don't men call back after they say they will?

"Because he doesn't want to talk to you. And if he doesn't want to talk to you, why do you want him to call you?"

Later, Mr. Marin gamely submitted to an evening out, making a liquid swing through some of Dallas' more cosmopolitan nightspots – Jeroboam, the Drálion, Nikita and the private club Sense. Not one to lack for observations, he offered this postmortem:

• Jeroboam: "Big, serene joint – spacious, maybe because we're the only ones there."

• The Drálion: "The Cirque du Soleil name worried me. I thought we'd be assaulted by contortionists and mimes offering imaginary drinks. But there are no Puerto Rican beauty queens ushering you into divan-terias like this in New York. You never achieve that level of authentic friendliness."

• Nikita: "The Soviet kitsch motif peaked when the Berlin Wall came down. Some hot Natashas though – more skin exposure than at Drálion."

• Sense: "I asked your buddy whether there is more plastic in L.A. or Dallas. He went silent. I think he's still thinking about it."

On the seven deadly sins scale, a night on the town with the Cad rates a pithy five of seven (envy, pride, lust, greed, gluttony). Absent: sloth, wrath.

Published in The Dallas Morning News 04.11.03 ___________________________________

Model behavior

Maybe that could happen in France; it's different in Dallas, where lumpishness and beauty find rapprochement only through the extra added ingredient of money. Otherwise, looks tend to segregate – most deliberately so at D magazine's "10 Most Beautiful People in Dallas" party at the Drálion on March 12. The clientele at the Centrum Building nightspot is usually easy on the eyes. On this evening it was a swelling festival of the genetically blessed and exactingly groomed.

The list-centric publication was promoting its contest to flush out the fairest young things in the city. Ten finalists will be featured in the June issue of the magazine.

Long limbs, flat stomachs and Crest Whitening Strips teeth were the rule for both sexes. Low low-rise pants for the women – exposing that crucial fashion accessory, the thong. Narrow-cut slacks and shirttails out for the men – just as their fathers no longer tie a tie, these fellows can't be bothered to tuck. Contestants circulated among lesser mortals – that is, glomming media types and appearance-industry professionals – lobbying brightly for themselves or acting Zoolander sulky.

On the seven deadly sins scale, the D party rates a darling five of seven (lust, envy, pride, greed, gluttony). Absent: wrath, sloth.

Crawl thrall

Serving as an antidote to the D party glamorama was last Friday's 15th annual St. Pat's Pub Crawl in Deep Ellum. No chiseled-chinned, professionally tousled Real World wannabes here. Twenty dollars got you a T-shirt and a chance to hooh-hah through eight bars in five hours.

Anything that's been going on that long in Dallas deserves some respect. Mr. Dallas is further mollified by the privilege of having been this year's nearly invisible and entirely tangential grand marshal. According to organizer Gere Boyle, past grand marshals have included former Mayor Steve Bartlett, Billy Martin Jr. and a Cher impersonator – an illustrious pantheon, to be sure.

Crawlers clotted the patio of St. Pete's Dancing Marlin, the staging area, with the keen anticipation of the no-longer-young who don't get out much anymore. Weathered, beery grins and relaxed waistlines signaled probable Jimmy Buffett fans. Mr. Boyle's earnest temperance lecture received polite consideration. Then the 200-strong expedition was off to Fat Ted's, Coyote Ugly, the Curtain Club and onward for silly games and brewski.

Published in The Dallas Morning News 03.21.03 ___________________________________

Brief encounters

That's regardless of the circumstances – they're strangers passing in a hallway, married to other people or childhood buddies who never got up to anything. That's regardless of whether they share the same values – Pepsi or Coke, paper or plastic, foreign or domestic. And that's certainly regardless of the incremental increase of shared experience over a lifetime.

Basically, people smell each other and make the rest up afterward.

The folks who run Facilidate parties wouldn't subscribe to that proposition, but they benefit all the same. Facilidate is about speed and volume – and very first impressions: Meet many members of the opposite sex in a safe, comfortable setting for a short time (three minutes each) and see what happens.

The company, based in Kansas City, has just started doing events here. It's come to the right place, if the party held March 3 at the Mercury in Plano is an indication.

About 60 respectable-looking singles in their 30s spread out among the tables of the upscale restaurant. They were pinned with name tags (first name only) and numbers. Each carried a scorecard, also numbered, with boxes labeled "hit" and "miss" and room for comments. Round-robin interviews followed.

"Gentlemen, do the rotation. Ladies, get used to the seats," quipped John Menghini, the company's co-founder. After three minutes Mr. Menghini would cue music with a move-on message (the Beatles' "Hello, Goodbye," the Stones' "Start Me Up").

At the end of the evening, the participants turned in their cards. Facilidate tabulates the results and wherever there's a mutual "hit," each of the potential lovebirds gets an e-mail address for the other. What happens then is between them and the fencepost.

At $44.99 per event, Facilidate is a deal, with a biggish caveat. Other dating services can cost thousands of dollars, but they provide individual attention and more pre-qualifying filtering of potential mates. Facilidate is bare-bones buffering: Be willing to show up at the designated venue, prove by ID that you're in the defined age range and pay the fee. After three hours and 20 or 30 brief encounters, somehow, some way, bliss may ferment from among the scorecards.

The minimal people-editing appeared to work at the Mercury. These 30-somethings ranged from presentable to comely to why-didn't-Mr. Dallas-sign-up. They all acted as if they had jobs or at least a credit card. No one was obviously unhinged. The overheard small talk didn't get more vanilla than "the coldest I've been was March in Montreal."

It's easy to make sport of such a contrived situation: Better living through scheduling ... Day Planner-dependents penciling in rapture between conversational French Mondays and ski club Wednesdays ... three-minute dates for two-minute people.

But you could do worse – and you have.

On the seven deadly sins scale, the Facilidate party rates a practically church-social two of seven (pride, lust). Missing: greed, gluttony, sloth, wrath, envy.

Saving grace

Seeking signs of intelligent life in Addison? Look to Mercy. The well-appointed, not-too-glam, not-too-dour wine bar opened a month ago in the back reaches of the Village on the Parkway. Just point the Tahoe due south from the main entrance on Belt Line and resist the tug of the steering wheel to veer off toward Sherlock's.

Within lies "tranquility by the glass" – that's the Mercy slogan, but it's not far from the mark. Mercy is a chill room of sorts – 3,500 square feet divided among dining area, lounge, wine bar and cozy mezzanine. It's softly lighted and comfortably furnished, a good place to start an evening or cap one. A smart international music mix, programmed by Tim Harle, mists down from the speakers. Fans of the old Voltaire will recognize sommelier/lothario Vincent Havard buzzing around. Mercy offers more than 100 wines and 25 beers. Seventy-five wines are served by 6-ounce carafes, a nice touch. The small-plates menu looks promising as well.

Mercy is the latest endeavor from Glen Agritelley, who's setting up as a full-service lifestyle provider for the north country – he'll feed you, clothe you and sweat you. His Sebastian's Closet shop is next door. The T Bar M Racquet Club he owns is in the vicinity. Racquet club members rolled into Mercy on March 7, the first perfect pre-spring evening, to sip and sample. All eyes drifted to the second floor, which features a discrete media lounge and a discreet cuddle corner. Expect somebody some night to be caught there in flagrante delicto.

Published in The Dallas Morning News 03.14.03 ___________________________________

Lair of the Dallacuda

The Dallacuda has said hello. She returns to the leather-upholstered ottoman. One of the city's most abundant cultural stereotypes has a new habitat – the lounge at the Drálion, the just-opened sister restaurant to Steel at Welborn and Cedar Springs.

Dallas is known for a certain shiny, relentless, socially enterprising subset, which only last year was made great sport of in The New York Times. Before, in 1992 when Manhattanites were reeling from the sordid Woody Allen/Mia Farrow breakup, Newsweek described their chagrin this way: "Woody and Mia were the perfect New York couple. They're smart, they do interesting work – sort of like being rich in Dallas."

Since Steel opened in 2001 it's been the nexus of Oak Lawn fabulousness and Highland Park fabulosity. But the bar is tiny. The Drálion can handle the traffic. Its 1,200-square-foot lounge, curtained off from the dining area, provides room to maneuver and places to sit. The décor is Opium Wars traditional meets Ian Schrager ironic. Ensconce yourself in one of the heavy, hand-carved thrones along the floor-to-ceiling glass wall. Or slump on an ottoman in the middle.

Familiar faces from Steel are stationed behind the 25-foot-long mahogany and marble bar. They're pouring 48 wines by the glass ($8 to $18), which is the real draw of the place. A DJ spins every night – he's still finding his way, but we live in hope.

They'll take Manhattan

People will show up for anything. Mr. Dallas recalls the opening of the Container Store at Lincoln Park several years ago. It was an odd spectacle: Streams of dressed-to-the-nines Park Cities worthies tramped across Northwest Highway from NorthPark Center on a 100-degree July evening to marvel at the latest in closet divider technology. You'd have thought they'd never seen a complimentary glass of chardonnay or crab cake before.

The Feb. 6 grand opening of Manhattan Bar (3005 Routh) attracted a different marveling mob, a younger and more comely one that might not have been familiar with the location's first, and best, destiny as Routh Street Cafe. That temple of fine dining is long gone; this latest replacement is a neighborhood sports bar tailored to its tony Uptown neighborhood.

Thirteen high-definition TVs are scattered around the two-level, 4,100-square-foot space, all the better to ignore the game by. Dramatic oversize paintings by Shane Pennington provide another diversion. Two pool tables and a couple of video game machines are discreetly cordoned off on the second floor. Imbibers can preen for passers-by on any one of three Philippe Starck-furnished patios. The opening drew the reliable drove of Shirt Guys and Balloon Smugglers, who probably won't be back but enjoyed themselves just the same.

On the seven deadly sins scale, the Manhattan Bar debut rates five of seven: envy, pride, greed, lust, gluttony. Missing: sloth, wrath.

Published in The Dallas Morning News 02.14.03 ___________________________________

Navel maneuvers

Make some ... [expletive] noise!" the angular lynx with the long dirty-blond hair yelled, teetering above the heavy oaken bar. She struck a peeved pose and dug her boot heel into the skid-marked top. A rough cheer went up.

Greetings from Mr. Dallas hell.

	The sights and sounds of Coyote Ugly on opening night: Click here to view a GuideLive.com-exclusive video essay by David Leeson.

Coyote Ugly Saloon, the New York bar that became a hit movie that became a franchise, opened last Thursday in Deep Ellum, at 2813 Commerce. A curious throng swarmed the painstakingly arranged dive. They came to celebrate the bare midriff and all the blessings that flow from it. 

Before there was Britney or Shakira or maybe even Gwen Stefani, Coyote Ugly founder Lil Lovell figured out the full potential of that provocative pucker of flesh that is the navel. Her formula, just the sort of mission statement that fits on a cocktail napkin, was this: Babes plus booze equals money. Her gimmick: female empowerment minus the sour-apple politics.

Mouthy malkins would get up in low-rise tight pants and halter tops, cowboy hats, belly buttons bejeweled and tail bones tattooed. They'd take time from throwing drinks together – no more than two ingredients per, so don't ask for a banana daiquiri – to leap on the bar top and dance and josh, to the hoots of the inebriates below. That was 1993. Seven years later, Coyote Ugly became Coyote Ugly after Jerry Bruckheimer heard about it. Now the saloon's a brand, with locations in New Orleans and Las Vegas and others planned for Atlanta and San Diego.

For the benefit of those delicate readers who spend their time pursuing world peace or hauling children to soccer practice, the name refers to the problem of waking up after a night of irrational exuberance to find your arm around somebody so ugly that you feel like a coyote that would gnaw off its paw to get out of a trap. The bar's T-shirt stand sells gear that reads, "Don't just get drunk. Get ugly."

Locally, the commotion began three weeks ago when Coyote Ugly held a daylong audition for bartenders, first at the club, later at the Granada on Lower Greenville. Some 280 young women queued up along Commerce on a bright Sunday afternoon anxious to do their trash-talking, chain-smoking, glinting-navel best. Those were winnowed down to about 40 – the few, the preening, the punctured.

Aesthetically, Coyote Ugly registers somewhere between Hooters and PT's. There's less here than meets the eye, though plenty does meet the eye. It's a bare room with honky-tonk touches. The jukebox blares a tightly edited soundtrack heavy on rock and country-fried rock. The entrance to the restrooms has a corrugated metal divider, one side spray-painted "Boys," the other "Coyotes." A Bud is a not-very-divey $3.50.

On the seven deadly sins scale, the Coyote Ugly opening rates a faux-rowdy four of seven (lust, pride, envy, sloth). Missing: wrath, greed, gluttony.

Published in The Dallas Morning News 01.24.03