NEWTON'S LAW: FINDING NEW EXCUSES THAT ARE JUDICIOUS, DECADENT AND LEGAL

If the road to hell is paved with drunkards, we've all had seats by the expressway. Alcohol and its effects embody a great deal of the human experience: the line is thin between comedy and tragedy, and booze (with its drunken slapstick and wretched alcoholism) serves both sides.

An odd bit of evolution, this notion of humans learning how to distill and down spirits. We can laugh at Otis Campbell locking himself into Andy Taylor's jail every weekend, at his lineal descendant Norm Peterson wasting away on a bar stool in Cheers, yet cringe when we learn some famous actor's liver has rotted away or that another highway fatality has resulted from drunk driving.

Laughter and death are a curious combination, one that artists have long concerned themselves with. Still, an instrument of alcohol's outcome is the gift of invention.

Just as Otis can come up with a dozen reasons why he should spend Saturday nights in the Mayberry lockup, just as Norm can invent smug excuses for loitering on the business end of a beer, a Michigan man is helping define the supply side perspective of drinker responsibility.

He will have to excuse us for allowing his endeavor to test our good humor.

Bill Kassab owns a video store in Mount Clemens, Mich. To ring in the new year of 1986, he and his wife flew to Las Vegas for a few days. Transportation, lodging, food, beverages and an unfortunate line of credit were compliments of the Riviera Hotel and Casino.

All Kassab had to do was oblige the management by losing money at the gaming tables. He was more than generous in this regard.

By the time the Kassabs flew home the day after New Year's, Bill owed the Riviera $37,000. For the 72 hours or so he was in Nevada, he lost money at a rate of $514 an hour.

My guess is the in-flight conversation between the spouses was glacial.

When he got home to Mount Clemens, Bill Kassab paid $2,000 of the money he owed the casino and then reached a conclusion that few others would have come up with.

In his mind, Kassab came to believe he had not lost his $37,000 playing blackjack, craps and the slot machines, though hundreds of people were around to attest he did just that.

No, Kassab insisted, the management of the Riviera plied him with the devil's tonic and stole, just plain stole, his hard-earned money.

While perhaps enchanted at first by this novel claim, the Riviera still insisted that Kassab pay up. When he refused, they took him to court, and only recently a Michigan circuit judge ordered a jury trial to decide the matter.

In Kassab's defense, a psychologist told the court that the gambler suffered diminished mental capacity because of the drinks. In fact, his mental capacity was diminished for accepting the drinks.

Casino owners are not known for benevolence, nor do they often miscalculate the odds. When they give away high-priced hotel space, they generally count on income from another area; i.e., saps like Kassab.

The only way Kassab could have stiffed the casino was to drink faster and lapse into unconsciousness; his misfortune was to remain upright and just alert enough to keep rolling the dice.

Still, casinos, which are in the business of vice, are watching this case to determine if their liability extends to the safekeeping of customers from assorted other vices.

And drinkers are watching this case for any convenient excuses that might be culled from it. Such as: "Listen, honey, I couldn't help being three hours late. My mental state was diminished because they kept selling me all those drinks."

As excuses go, this has a real judicious air to it, decadent but legal.

If it weren't so funny, we'd cry. If it weren't so tragic, we'd laugh.