Audio By Carbonatix
Numerous traits separate the men from the guys. Men come up with sensitive gifts to present their dates, surreptitiously hoping to buy a night in their company. Guys look on such behavior as brown-nosing; a guy’s date is lucky if he shows up on time and dressed appropriately. Men drink wine and pretend to like it, but definitely love spouting their knowledge about grapes and something called “pinot,” just like those people did in Sideways. Guys drink wine because that’s what’s left at the open bar, or because it provides a situation-appropriate horny buzz that allows a guy to freely share his deep feelings on sex, relationships, practical jokes, stereos and sex. Men in a social situation try to play to the crowd around them, altering their personalities and beliefs in order to network in even the most casual situation. Guys may start out this way, but only to lull the crowd into a false sense of security before dragging everyone in a one-block radius down the evolutionary ladder to their own level.
Several members of the Institute of Drinking Studies recently attended a gathering organized in admirable fashion by the new Mormon Representative, who’d scouted several Cherry Creek restaurants and their respective bars and wine lists during fully tax-deductible nights out with his wife. He finally settled on Bob’s Steak and Chop House (121 Clayton Lane) — probably because he wasn’t paying for it, and because Bob’s was the nicest place with the most to lose by hosting a group of guys with the maturity of young Sasquatches.
If you want to park near Clayton Lane, you have to go with the valet out front — and valets are anathema to guys, who’d rather hoof it from eight blocks away than pay for parking in Cherry Creek. So we felt out of place as we dumped our keys with some hireling in a white shirt and burgundy vest, a feeling that was only exacerbated by Bob’s elegant interior. We soothed it by quickly ordering as many drinks as we had hands, because guys know that an open tab can run out at any time. Seeing myself, the Head of Drinking Regrets, the Head of Sleeper Drunks and the Head of Instant Drunks among those shamelessly double-fisting at the beginning of the night, the Mormon Representative raised both his glasses and toasted, “Enter the Vortex.”
The gathering was a little stuffy at first with some minor sucking up, but as most people got their second round of doubles, any professional discussion quickly dwindled into talk of sex, cars, TVs, video games and sex. And though no one compared vino vintages, one guy did opine that good vodka is one that “doesn’t taste much, gets you hammered and doesn’t give you a horrible headache the next morning.” Those might have been the most profound words of the night.
In my complete guy opinion, Bob’s steaks usurp those at Del Frisco’s as the best in town. Not even the accompanying mix of several different wines, liquors and beers blunted their superb taste. Our servers were the model of professional courtesy and efficiency, reading the mood of our crowd expertly and transforming from mere waitstaff to that instigating drinking buddy we all had in college. Without your asking, the servers would bring another round of just the right drink, and if you questioned whether you needed it, they’d give you that drinking buddy’s look that always said: “Wuss.”
By the end of the night, not only had we corrupted our servers, but the rest of the employees and several patrons as well. No doubt part of this can be attributed to the inability of any human to look directly at the Head of Instant Drunks (or what was left of him by the end of the evening) without laughing. But the Head of Drinking Regrets and I must also shoulder some of the blame. We’d spent much of the night practicing our use of the Force, first making food and utensils fly across the room and then perfecting my Wookiee cry and his elephant call (because his Wookiee cry sounds like a manatee getting drilled by a Mercruiser). To our delight, two very attractive young females — who in normal circumstances would consider it slumming just to look at us — started bellowing across the bar in an effort to prove who was the baddest Wookiee of them all.
Still, Bob’s must own most of the responsibility for the night. Because when you get right down to it, Bob’s is just a guy kind of place. If it were for mature people or “men,” it would be named “Robert’s.”
