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Other than cheap hooch and a nonviolent crowd, a good happy-hour spot has to have a great view. For me, the only view that really matters is of the sunset. (Lame, I know. But. Whatever.)
And I’m not talking about patios. Otherwise, any ol’ outside venue – your backyard, a park bench, a shopping cart under a bridge – would do. No, I mean places where you can comfortably bask in the lambent glow of the working day’s lazy march into evening, places where you truly can feel like an outlaw, like some sort of legendary bohemian drunkard – Ernie Hemingway, maybe, or Billy Faulkner – titans who played hooky pretty much every day but still managed to produce canonical work. (Even if you have only the hooky-playing part down, you can still feel suave, intelligent, and 10 feet tall at an apt happy-hour spot. As infamous cinematic drunk Arthur says, “Not everyone who drinks is a poet. Some of us drink because we’re not poets.”)
A big thumbs-up then to Finn MacCool’s Pub, a homey tavern on Eighth Avenue by the Hospital District, where your inner gentleman lout, as I discovered recently during happy hour, can really come out. The place is almost entirely covered in polished wood, harkening to the hallowed taverns in hallowed American cities such as Chi-Town and the Big Apple. On sunshiny afternoons, the electric light is kept to a minimum. Nonetheless, the entire room glows like Shambhala, and the front windows are vast enough to let the dozing-off sun work its magic on your psyche.
Finn’s is right by the Hospital District, close to everything, and typically draws civil happy-hour crowds. Not sure how many budding Bogarts or Bukowskis regularly make the scene, but looking the part is half the reality, no?
As Samuel Johnson said, one of the disadvantages of booze is that “it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.” Hmm. Have to give that one a t’ink. Probably over at Finn’s. – A.M.
Contact Last Call at lastcall@fwweekly.com.

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