You’ll need a choice of staging areas, places to come down, set the tone, seal the deal, steal the prize.

Story By Bill Becker

AVA at The Mirage
I need an evening capper before the evening begins. I saddle over to AVA at The Mirage, a tiki hut affair decked out in '50s nouveau, set within a rainforest of rubber trees and areca palms. Waterfalls tumble, the sun pours in from a sky dome. A simple, but effective retreat here at The Mirage's AVA. Casino-central to the hotel, this bar-lounge hops at all hours with Isis, a five-piece band that belts out blues tunes and the best of Alanis Morissette.

I recline for a moment on one of the clean-lined lime-colored couch seats flanking the perimeter where I can see all-from the entertainment to the other lounge lizards to the ladies in big hair pumping silver dollars into slots as fast as they can excavate them from their purses. Where are the lava lamps, I wonder, as a wellcleaved, auburn-haired pussycat in purple hip huggers comes my way to take my order. She recommends the AVAcano-dark and light rums and a dose of Southern Comfort to give them teeth, served with a toasted coconut garnish.

A crowd of good old boys revels at the table next to mine. They're entitled; there's lots of room here in which to relax, listen and look around, perhaps getting lost in the faux pre-Columbian head carvings that decorate the back of the bar and the brave couples cutting a rug on the intimate dance space before the proscenium.

I contemplate the menu while slaking my thirst: Should I have ordered a Passion Fire with chocolate liqueur, vodka and a "flame" of cayenne? Whew! Or AVAdisiac, where watermelon juice and vodka seem to conjugate. Could the AVAinstinct, be just another passion fruit Martini with mandarin-infused Absolut? Too many questions for my scene-sopped brain.

More purple-clad waitresses alight from the bar area bearing tall V-shaped glasses filled with puce and chartreuse concoctions-none flambé, however. Somewhere a volcano is erupting, but not in my head. Not today. Not tonight.

Tabù at MGM Grand
After midnight I saunter into this place, easily slipping the rope with one of my time-tested tricks, VIP list tricks. I'm getting those "who is that?" looks from a line in which some serious babes have congregated, bursting from their black wraps like a can of spinach in Popeye's mad grip. The ogling gets me going and going, I am-into the dark frenzy of a Saturday night in Sin City.

I head inside where the lights you see are the projections on the walls, bars and tables of odd, changing images that seem to melt to the heat of your hands as you wave them over these artful surfaces. Clearly nothing stays the same at Tabú, not even for a second.

I wade over to the bar, only thigh-high here so spike-heeled girls can sit on it and order up. A wall of disappearing, then reappearing bottles behind the bar intrigues me for now. The complexity of Tabú's décor seeps through my Bombay Sapphire. I nearly forget to catch the covey of Britney and J. Lo look-alikes around me, angling to get noticed, discovered, swept away.

As the night deepens, so does the crowd. The inviting couch-bed arrangements I saw as I entered are now filled with hands and faces in hyperactive convulsions. Beneath the pulsating lights, it's all black textures and skin until two girls step onto the low-rise table and start to dance. A waitress steps up and joins them and the writhing trio gets met by guys horning in on the action and copycat table dances at other mini fêtes around the room.

I cruise between the two bars (it's all champagne and cigars and leggy girls in high back shoes in the bar's backroom) to the central lounge area, where every available surface has turned into a dance platform for naughty nymphettes. The projected swirls go wild with liquid movement. I feel like I'm in some sort of live Jackson Pollock canvas in which people are the paint, where any color could splash and drip at any moment. The action here never stops, but ebbs, flows and explodes until 6 A.M. when I finally take my leave under the solid light of the sun, letting the projections of the neon, the night and those delicious dancers slowly fade from memory.

One last lounge moment before I go. I choose Tabú. If the place rocks like a supernova at night, what could it be like at 2 P.M. on a football Sunday? I saddle up to the empty bar and sit on it, sans J. Lo or Britney this time, only the barboy for conversation. The music is mellow, the lighting effects almost poetic. A couple snuggles at one of the couch arrangements. The dancing waitresses have long since left. A simple Chivas this time, ice, nice. I'm taken in by the schizophrenia of it, wrapped in the calm of this hot-blooded den, wondering what secrets might come of it. I sip the fine Scotch and become part of the changing mural of images on the wall. A very fitting Zen, indeed.

Drink Recipes
AVAlanche	Lemon Drop Martini