Nightlife in Puritania

Tantalus' off-key look at grand babies, headless bodies, and the bourgeois Beaujolais.

By Tantalus

In basement home bars, the young and rebellious will drink imported spirits and say "Hi" to each other with a mischievous grin. And I, for one, find the idea of nightlife in repressive capitals incredibly intriguing. Imagine Tehran: All these beautiful Persian women in their silk pajamas singing along to Sade and Kylie Minogue, bouncing on their beds, drinking Malibu from the bottle… so I say: Bring on Puritania. I'm already working on my secret handshake.

I Want My Baby Grand

In my piss-poor student days, I used to moonlight as a lounge pianist. It was easy money, good hours, and a certified vehicle of chick magnetism. Since I'm thinking of tickling again, I've been casually exploring some of DC's piano bars to find a suitable venue.

My criteria:
a) It must be dark and sultry, with leather chairs and expensive drinks. Patrons tend to tip more;
b) It should be lively and loud so that patrons don't listen too carefully. It's hard to get every note right (purists can go to Blues Alley);
c) You should never have to honor requests unless, of course, you know the song requested;
d) The place should have a really nice baby grand. None of this tinny-sounding Casio shit.

When martinis made a comeback, piano bars weren't far behind.On 18th Street, Staccato has the concept down, though the baby grand sounds metallic and needs some breaking in. I prefer pianos like an old couch — lived-in and pliant. Grille 88 nearby was a great choice for the recent Cultureflux party, but the pianist that night, however fluent, was a little John Tesh-treacly for my taste.

The Mayflower bar has that dark and sultry look, but the crowd is hit or miss, a problem with many hotel bars. The Four Seasons pianist is stuck in the middle of a drafty lobby playing to no one in particular. The night I went, he was quite understandably asleep at the wheel. And, what's with that tacky carpet? The place desperately needs a makeover. But a Mercedes dealer, to my right at the bar, told me all about armor plating and bulletproof glass, so I may return.

Currently, the best lounge piano is at Kinkead's on Pennsylvania Ave. Nestled in the corner like a lolling, lazy lion, Hilton Felton and his stand-up bass player serve up suave, old-school traditional jazz with understated authority and panache. It perfectly suits the upscale bustle of the place. I'd love to colonize that corner of the room, but Hilton's shoes are just too big to fill. I'll keep looking.

In the meantime, there's always the after-hours piano house party. Out with the Brit Pack last Friday, I ended up at the cavernous apartment of a prominent TV pundit. The pundit was out of town, but his wife was there, entertaining a coterie of journalists. We hadn't planned to stay, just gather up some people for a final fling at the bar. But when I saw that lonely baby grand in the corner, the issue was settled. I followed "I Love You Baby," with a Bossa Nova "Meditation," a raucous dance version of "Bring It on Home to Me," and some Hank Williams honky tonk. All miraculously without waking up the baby in the next room or the blonde passed out on the sofa.

So, if Puritania arrives, I decree a piano in every home. Like a Jehovah's Witness, I will gladly go door to door in a dark suit, screaming "Good Golly Miss Molly" and banging the high notes with my dirty leather boots.

Age of Innocence

We all suspect that DC's gilded crowd of Georgetown society matrons, exiled Iranian multi-millionaires, and Palm Beach commuters entertain lavishly. But since I usually end up tumbling into antique armoires, they rarely let me into their homes. So it came as some surprise to find myself nibbling filo pastry at a hypercool birthday party for Manon Cleary, probably DC's best-known painter.

Inside a stately four-story brownstone on 16th St., the downstairs walls were covered with enormous oil paintings of biblical motifs; the second floor walls were covered with enormous oil paintings of biblical motifs; the third… you get the picture. On the fourth floor, in a small sleeping area that was less bedroom than boudoir, a painting of a conspicuously eroticized Jesus on the Cross gave it all a slightly campy flavor.

Tuxedoed waiters, the town's top art critics and gallery owners, all those furs and pearls, and opaque skin stretched tautly over chiseled cheekbones drifted across the parquet floor and nodded greetings like extras out of Scorsese's The Age of Innocence. The only things missing were horse-drawn buggies and flushed debutantes in strapless gowns.

Later, the Cuban host gave a guided tour of the home gallery, lingering over a particularly ghoulish interpretation of the Rape of Babylon. It featured hanging bodies, headless bodies, sprawling bodies, baby bodies, and naked bodies all so lovingly rendered that the painter (obscure mid-19th century French) was either acting out a particularly violent fantasy or masterfully feeding the bourgeois perversions of his day. Meanwhile, just below in the second floor foyer, a Japanese duo played painfully tasteful Spanish guitar. Perfect.

The Bad Drinks Award

We can declare ourselves blessed by the profusion of new chromed and columned Greek restaurants in town, like the one near Gallery Place that begins with a Z. All there is well and good, except for the wine list, which is curiously restricted to wines from Greece. In the name of Dancing Zorba, do not drink Greek wine. I know there are friends of retsina out there, but for me, the experience is similar to licking a pine tree. When I was growing up in the wild, sap was a good source of daily nutrients, but it never mixed well with my rodent diet. And it always left my tongue feeling a little barky.

Speaking of unpleasant bad wine aftermaths, last week I accidentally got stuck at the Bistro du Coin on Connecticut during a Beaujolais Nouveau fest. Expecting a quiet evening, I was suddenly surrounded by innocents eager to partake in France's annual binge on sugary, young, and not particularly good new wine. I tried to warn them, but they just shrugged me off as an old crank.

Some years ago in Paris, when the Beaujolais Nouveau arrived, I too chugged it down like a roistering boisterous ruffian clochard. Several bottles toppled from the table, and my French improved dramatically. But the next morning, an angry pulsating beast akin to the Alien had settled inside my head. By seven that evening, still buried under a pillow, wincing and groaning, I worried that my bloated arteries would never shrink to normal size. Apparently, Dobermans are such irritable dogs because their skulls are too small for their brain. Would I, too, be permanently condemned to outdoor guard duty? Fortunately, an hour later, the heavens opened. I praised the Lord and vowed to never do it again. And I never did.

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Half dog/half brain, Tantalus has authored a few books, and features for The Baltimore Sun, Newsweek, and The Washington City Paper.

Illustration by Matthew Dawson  (www.fevertown.com)