Riverfront Times, December 28, 2022

General information: 314-754-5966

Founded by Ray Hartmann in 1977

SIX QUESTIONS for Photographer Scott Cummings

Around 1 p.m. on a cold Monday in December, a man walked up the steps of the Old Courthouse, a camera around his shoulder. He turned around to take a photo of the Arch when I stopped him. The man was Scott Cummings. This interview is edited and condensed for clarity.

What brought you out here today?

I live in the Dallas area. I was given a free pass to fly on Southwest Airlines. I was on my way from Dallas to Oklahoma City. That didn’t work out. So I randomly picked St. Louis. I’m just out here for the day [from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.] doing street photography.

That’s cool! Do you normally do stuff like that? I’m a retired schoolteacher, and I have a startup photography company. So I do everything from stock to fine art to design work. I just love shooting, being out with my camera, and the exploration of it, different cities. So I did minimal research –– just enough to get from the airport, take the MetroLink to downtown, walk around and be surprised.

What have you done during the four hours you’ve been here? I saw the [Citygarden]. I checked out your old warehouse district and Busch Stadium. But I like older architecture, [and] there’s some art deco stuff I saw. Some dilapidated buildings that I think you guys are gonna gentrify. The White Knight [Diner] sandwich shop –– that was real retro. I popped my head in there. Folks were friendly. Took a few shots.

Is this your first time here? Yeah. First time.

Anything surprise you? What’s your first impression?

Downtown is a little bit more –– maybe it’s a post-COVID thing, maybe it’s a cold day … but it’s not as populated. It feels a little bit desolate. But I’m cool with that. Because that’s atmosphere. You can get some cool shots off.

So when did you start being a photographer? I’ve always enjoyed photography, and I was able to retire two years ago. I’m 63 now. So I’m at the point in life where I still want to work and be active, and I just love photography. I just love being out taking pictures. It’s kind of a way to meet people, to explore, to learn, keep your brain sharp. Benjamin Simon

FRONT BURNER

legendary comedian

Nikki Glaser describing her recent encounter with

SO ST. LOUIS Holiday Breakdown

An anonymous story about something that could only happen in the Gateway City

Full disclosure: I hate St. Louis Christmas. Despite not being Christian, I’d never frowned upon the holiday living in Ohio. I had other people of my faith around me, and we noshed on Chinese takeout on Christmas Eve.

I can pinpoint the moment my feelings changed. It was 2012; I was in my early 20s and working at the Galleria.

The most wonderful time of the year for retail workers is full of yelling from managers and corporate to sell more, more, more. Customers surge in, mostly whiny jerks. But that didn’t bother me too much.

All my coworkers could talk about was Christmas. Every time

they asked my plans, I saw pity in their eyes. But being another faith and living my life differently is not deserving of pity.

On Christmas Eve, my store manager couldn’t stand the idea of me not being surrounded with friends and family, eating fruitcake. She invited me to her house for a proper Christmas — how dare that bitch!

Just kidding. I thought it was a nice gesture. But instead I walked through the snowy Central West End to catch what I recall was the opening showing of Django Unchained. I was by myself; I got popcorn; it was great.

But Christmas had the last laugh after all when I married a kindof-Christian. For better or worse, Christmas is part of the package.

Send your So St. Louis story to jsrogen@euclidmediagroup.com.

ESCAPE HATCH

We ask three St. Louisans what they’re reading, watching or listening to. In the hot seat this week: three RFT staffers.

Rosalind Early, editor-in-chief Listening to: My Spotify wrapped “It has a lot of Labrinth on it because I discovered (and fell in love with) Euphoria this year.”

Ryan Krull, staff writer

Reading: Bad City: Peril and Power in the City of Angels by Paul Pringle “It’s the story behind a piece of good local journalism in Los Angeles that’s written like a thriller.”

Jessica Rogen, managing editor

Watching: Glitch on Netflix “It’s surreal, trippy and makes almost no sense. In other words, it’s a perfect zone-out escape.”

Scott Cummings is a roving photographer. | BENJAMIN SIMON

“I was very shocked that [Jerry Seinfeld] was even familiar with me, let alone a fan. It was awesome. It was one of the best moments of my career, and it just happened last night.”

the

HARTMANN

2022 News Quiz

How much do you remember from 2022?

BY RAY HARTMANN

This year brought some wild news stories, but were you paying attention? Test your knowledge of this year’s news cycle with our annual quiz.

Grading Scale: 10 correct answers: You need to find something other than the RFT to read.

8-9: You’re probably a radical socialist who hates America.

6-7: You haven’t lost your touch since high school.

1-5: It’s cool. This is all Fake News.

0: This quiz was a conspiracy to destroy your mind. You got us.

1. Mark McCloskey only received 3 percent of the vote in the 2022 Republican Senate primary, and he got that solely because he once pointed guns at peaceful Black Lives Matters protesters. He would have fared better with this RFT descriptive as his campaign theme:

A) “Rippling beefcake Mark McCloskey”

B) “The man in sweatpants covered with suspiciously sexy white stains”

C) “The Hot Buff Candidate”

D) “One Hot Piece of Ass”

E) All of the above

2. Unknown candidate Katherine Pinner shocked St. Louis County by winning the Republican primary for county executive. Which of these did she NOT do?

A) Compare wearing COVID-19 masks to Satanism

B) Sue RFT for its headline saying she “does the hokey pokey”

C) State that COVID vaccines contain microchips for tracking purposes

D) Suggest that a “secret sauce” produced her upset of state Rep-

resentative Shamed Dogan

E) Say she’s staying in the race “to uphold my commitment to God, to myself, and to the voters” — and immediately drop out

3. After his conviction on bribery charges, former Alderman John Collins-Muhammad argued that he should be able to keep the $19,500 in bribes he received because:

A) They were “an investigative cost”

B) They were covered under the state’s Finders Keepers law

Inflation has made prison commissary costs unbearable

D) He thought humor would soften up the judge

E) “It’s not fair! All the other aldermen get to keep their bribes.”

4. The RFT described it as “The Most Batshit Senate Race in History.” Which of the following did NOT happen?

A) Eric Greitens cocked a shotgun and threatened to go “RINO hunting” of his political opponents.

B) Eric Schmitt lit a blowtorch and threatened to take it to “Joe Biden’s socialist agenda.”

icky art ler lit a onfire and proposed burning all LGBTQ+ people as witches.

D) Bat World Sanctuary demanded that RFT apologize for slandering bats.

E) D, but maybe C and D

5. What does “Rhubarb” mean in St. Louis?

A) A bench-clearing brawl at a Cardinals game

B) A St. Louis County Council meeting

C) St. Louis’ French spelling of “Barb Street”

D pie filling that s also a vegetable, which seems weird

E) The name of the coolest ginger monkey ever, born September 30 at the Saint Louis Zoo

6. “We’ve had someone get very sick, get very altered and confused.” What was the chief of medical toxicology at Barnes-Jewish Hospital referring to?

A) The ninth inning of the Cardinals’ opening Wild Card game

B) Governor Mike Parson explaining why he signed a bill promoting Ivermectin

C) Ivermectin poisoning

D) MAGA poisoning

E) An RFT staff meeting

7. After Missouri voters legalized recreational marijuana, the RFT’s Daniel Hill called for criminalizing weed culture. What was his best suggestion?

A) Outlawing “Interstate 420” shirts

B) Outlawing “Blacklight posters covered in pot leaves and aliens and shit”

C) Outlawing “any bong sporting a depiction of, say, a glassyeyed ick fist umping a stoned Morty”

D) Outlawing white guys in dreadlocks telling “how all the world’s problems could be solved if everyone just took a toke, bro”

E) What was the question?

8. Which news item from February didn’t age all that well?

A) Alderman Jeffrey Boyd tweets: “Could it save taxpayers money if criminals were caned and let go rather than jail?”

B) Centene announces a 15-year deal for naming rights for the MLS stadium.

C) Governor Mike Parson calls for criminal prosecution of a Post-Dispatch reporter whose work may have spared 100,000 Missouri teachers from having their Social Security numbers exposed by the state.

D) Trudy Busch Valentine releases “cringeworthy” campaign song

that “rhymes Trudy with Missouri.”

E) All but D (wasn’t in February)

9. Kia/Hyundai made news in St. Louis when:

A) Their engineers were contracted by the city to design cell-door locks for the jails heir engineers were fired y the city for having designed cell-door locks for the jails

C) Mayor Tishaura Jones threatened to sue them because their cars are so easy to steal

D hey came to St. ouis to film “We’re a Smashing Success” ad campaign after thieves crashed their stolen cars into buildings all over the region

E) The company unsuccessfully tried to hire Fredbird for its “Who Needs Keys?” ad campaign after learning he has no pockets

10. When Centene pulled out for naming rights for the new MLS stadium became the first t. Louis media outlet to describe the new home as “the electrocuted stadium” — followed up by some fantastic naming-rights suggestions. What happened next?

A) A ginormous RFT ad buy was placed by Enterprise Leasing.

B) Ameren threatened to sue RFT for stealing its proprietary trade names “Big Wet Electricity Park” and “Dark Park.”

C) Centene announced that the RFT’s “Medicaid Overbilling Park” idea was the last straw and that it would leave St. Louis forever because of it.

D) Ghosts didn’t laugh at “The Revenge of Mill Creek Stadium” idea.

E) Not a single thing. But they should still go with “Stan Kroenke Stadium – because it sucks, get it?”

p.m.

1E; 2B; 3A; 4E; 5E; 6C;

Ray Hartmann founded the Riverfront Times in 1977. Contact him at rhartmann1952@ gmail.com or catch him at 7 p.m. on Thursdays on Nine PBS and St. Louis in the Know with Ray Hartmann from 9-11

Monday thru Friday on KTRS (550 AM).

RFT’s Hunkiest Chunk of 2022 winner (spoiler!). | REUBEN HEMMER

A New Neighborhood Watch

St. Louis Hills uses cameras and private security to help prevent

crime

Written by MONICA OBRADOVIC

After someone carjacked one of his closest neighbors a few years ago om Scheifler had enough.

His neighborhood, St. Louis Hills, did not feel the same as it did when he and his wife moved there about 30 years ago. Crime had become more and more frequent. As he watched local news, he became discouraged about the odds of the city’s seemingly stripped police force having the resources to do something about it. So he did something himself.

“I love this neighborhood, I love my neigh ors Scheifler says. I really, really hate the idea that we might feel compelled to move because of the crime.”

fter years of work Scheifler a software programmer, created an app to detect crime through a network of cameras equipped with artificial intelligence. he cameras are owned and controlled by residents. Most blocks within St. Louis Hills’ 1.5 square miles now have at least one. Residents place them on trees, above garages — usually spots with street views.

Scheifler s app notifies an off duty o cer paid through neighborhood funds of movement detected on the cameras, whether it s people or vehicles. he o cer reviews the footage on a tablet, and if the footage shows someone in the act of a crime the o cer responds to the scene.

ther a uent predominantly white neighborhoods in St. Louis have opted for similar approaches to curb crime as the city’s police force uckles from sta ng shortages.

Neighborhoods with the resources, such as Soulard and the

Central West End, are increasingly turning to private security companies that employ off-duty o cers for granular patrolling. ProPublica investigation in September turned attention to these private police forces, which allow city o cers to supplement their income while wearing their uniforms and using departmentissued weapons.

The largest of several policing companies in St. Louis, the City’s Finest, employs about 200 officers according to ro u lica. Scheifler s system uses one o cer through Campbell Security, which also employs off-duty law enforcement o cers or military personnel for so-called “private policing.”

St. Louis Hills’ four-week trial period with an o cer will cost about $8,900, according to Scheifler. he St. ouis ills Neigh orhood Association will cover the initial cost, but after the trial period, individual households throughout the neighborhood will be asked to contribute $15 a month.

Scheifler commended St. ouis police for what they’re able to do “with the resources they have.”

He adds: “It’s not a complaint about the job the police are doing. It’s simply a recognition that, with the resources they have, they can’t be in the right place at the right time.”

Scheifler says he s heard his “fair share” of criticism along the way. But he feels his security system could produce a net enefit.

Scheifler descri es the system called AwareNet, as a neighbor-

hood watch “reimagined.” More than 100 residents bought cameras at a cost of $150 each that connect to Scheifler s app.

Scheifler has ero access to footage, he says, except for the multiple cameras he’s paid for to record outside his own home. Residents can only see footage from their own cameras. So many people have participated that most St. Louis Hills blocks now have at least one camera — which puts most residents at ease.

Patty, who asked to only be referred to y her first name said someone tried to steal her car a few weeks ago and broke its win-

Keeping Score

dows. Eleven other vehicles on her street were hit in the same night, she says. In a separate instance, someone stole one of her neighbor’s trucks. Another neighbor lost a catalytic converter.

“I just hope word gets out that we’re watching you,” Patty says. “Don’t come in our neighborhood; we’ll know who you are.”

The theft of his house’s gutters prompted Jim Hennessey to use AwareNet. Copper gutters once lined Hennessey’s house. Their theft means he’s out an estimated $3,000. He hasn’t replaced them yet because he fears the replacements will get stolen, too.

“Just as I was ready to pull the trigger to call the gutter guy, my neighbor got hers stolen from her house,” Hennessey says.

AwareNet has so far led to one arrest: someone going block to block checking for unlocked vehicles according to Scheifler.

Scheifler acknowledged that not all neighborhoods have the resources to organi e and spend money on cameras. He’s also aware that his system could just push criminals to other areas. But he’s willing to provide AwareNet to other St. Louis city neighborhoods “at cost” and says volunteers can opt to check flagged footage versus paying for an off-duty o cer.

“This is a way I can give back to the neighborhood, and perhaps the city,” he says. n

Written by BENJAMIN SIMON

As the Saint Louis University men’s basketball team begins its 202223 season, an entire world of people is making it happen. It’s not just head coach Travis Ford drawing up plays and superstar point guard Yuri Collins dealing out assists. It’s equipment managers washing jerseys, announcers boosting the crowd and the director of player personnel organizing recruiting trips.

There’s also the manual stats crew.

They aren’t statisticians. They aren’t employees of the university. They don’t get paid — unless you count the free tickets and parking voucher. They are just four guys who enjoy Billikens basketball and do their part to track it. As Chaifetz Arena rumbles after a huge alley-oop dunk, the statisticians are huddled in front of their papers, chatting back and forth, making sure they correctly logged who made the dunk and who made the assist.

The stats crew is made up of four people: Ron Golden, Ken Mraz, Mike Owens and Mike Van Hecke. They won’t be on the court, or on press row. They will be sitting near the band, where they’d rather not sit because it’s a little too loud, and they like to talk to each other and double-check each other’s stats.

They each take a different category. Golden takes rebounds. Owens takes the shot chart. Mraz takes field goals, free throws and helps with the shot chart. Van

Tom Scheifler is a so ware programmer and St. Louis Hills resident. | MONICA OBRADOVIC

e manual stats crew at Saint Louis University keeps score and continuity for the team

[GUEST ESSAY]

Lesson Learned

app allowed her to devote time to other things. She took walks, tried new coffee shops and baked cookies. She reported that “deleting TikTok made it easier to leave my phone alone.” Most important, being without the app allowed her to connect with her mom when she went home over the weekend. “I was grateful that I didn’t have TikTok because it let us connect again on a personal level. I was able to put my phone down and just enjoy the present moment with her.”

Written by LIZ CHIARELLO

When I described the assignment, the class let out a collective groan. Students would spend 48 hours without their favorite app. “TikTok is a thing!” one protested. Others grasped their phones more tightly.

The class is called “The ‘I’ in ‘Internet,’ the ‘Me’ in ‘Meme’” (title partly cribbed from author Jia Tolentino), and it is designed to help students think about social media’s role in their lives and in the world.

Part of Saint Louis University’s new core curriculum, this Ignite Seminar encourages students to learn through personal self-reflection. What is more personal than our phones? Responses to the assignment varied. Here is what students had to say:

One student spent a lot of time on TikTok “whether between classes, before bed or even while I was eating.” Not having the

Another student found that deleting Instagram helped her feel better about her college experience. “My transition to college has not been ideal, while my friends have shown on their Instagrams that they are transitioning just fine,” she explained. “Not having Instagram allowed me to be happier as I was able to enjoy being at SLU and not compare my experience to anyone else’s.” If comparison is the thief of joy, deleting an app can mean reclaiming happiness.

Apps not only steal joy, they also steal time. A third student found that “the absence of TikTok increased my time with my family and friends immensely.” He initially felt bored and annoyed that he didn’t have the app, but then he found other things to do. “I began to go over to friends’ dorms much more than I had been.” He says time with them took his mind off the app. “I had a lot of fun spending time with friends instead of just sitting in my room wasting time on TikTok.”

Understandably, I got some pushback. One student found it disruptive to her per-

sonal and academic life. An extrovert from the Northeast, she Snapchats her boyfriend and friends abroad each day and organizes group work on the app. She declared herself a proud techno-optimist and observed, “To me, this experiment seems like a back-handed way for educators and people of older generations to make the younger generation feel guilty for taking advantage of the opportunities that come with social media. It highlights the older generation’s reluctance to change and adapt as technology becomes more and

more present in our society.”

As the old educator in question, I shook my head at the folly of the young, their desperate reliance on something as frivolous and harmful as social media. The research is clear: Our apps steal our attention, mine our data and polarize our communities. I thought I knew better. That is, until my own assignment came for me.

Unlike my students with their image-rich TikTok and Instagram, I like the wordy nerdiness of Twitter. It always seemed like a lark, a distraction, until a billionaire bought it and ran it into the ground. Watching my favorite app implode, I feel my students’ pain. I have somehow managed to avoid most of Twitter’s nastiness and found a strong community of academics and activists in my field. Saying goodbye to those people feels like a tremendous loss. I wish I was only contemplating a two-day break.

I’m not yet ready to leave Twitter. There is no satisfying alternative. But I can see the day coming when the bad will outweigh the good. When that time arrives, something precious will die. I will keep writing, I will keep thinking, but I will be left with a critical question: Where do I post? n

Liz Chiarello is an associate professor in the department of sociology and anthropology at Saint Louis University and a former fellow at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University. Her research examines technology, law and the overdose crisis, and her book Policing Patients is under contract with Princeton University Press.

evolved and technology has come around to kind of pass us up,” Mraz says. “But that’s OK.”

Hecke takes assists, turnovers, blocks and steals.

For nearly 40 years, the crew has kept stats at Billikens men’s basketball games. For about 30 of those years, they were the official stats crew, although they have never been paid for their efforts.

They started tracking numbers in 1982. At that time, one person, Joe Noelker, served as a one-man stats machine. He took down everything — field-goal makes, field-goal attempts, free-throw makes, free-throw attempts, offensive rebounds, defensive rebounds, team rebounds, dead balls, total rebounds, assists, turnovers and steals. For both teams. It was a lot to handle. So Mraz and Bill Hertzfeldt joined to help.

Over the years, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch used the volunteer stat keepers’ box scores. Trading cards used the stat keepers’ player stats. When you look at Basketball Reference at how many points

SLU legends like Anthony Bonner or Larry Hughes scored, it was the stat keepers — people scribbling down numbers, in the penalty box, under the basket, in front of the band, wherever SLU put them.

“For the past couple decades, I watched a lot of basketball, shared a lot of laughs and anguished over every missed free [throw], every official’s call that went against the Billikens,” Hertzfeldt would later summarize in an email to his fellow stats keepers when he moved away in 2020.

But that was before computers be-

came readily available.

Starting about 10 years ago, SLU began logging the stats into the computer in real time. The manual stats crew still provides a shot chart to the coaching staff, but other than that, their numbers have been relegated to backup — only used in the case of a power outage or flooding. Mraz professes to have no hard feelings about that. People at SLU seemed better positioned to take over the computer work, and they were happy to back them up.

“Our role has changed as time has

And the manual stats crew is still going. They’re there every single game. Mraz says it’s “a way of getting involved.” He uses the word “fun” multiple times. He’s become close with the other stats keepers, SLU staff and fans. “It’s like going to a neighborhood event,” he says.

Over the years, they have watched Billikens basketball shift. They watched the program rotate through seven coaches, four different conferences and four different stadiums.

But there’s one thing that didn’t change — and that’s the manual stats keepers. Mraz calls their sustained presence “unique.”

“I doubt that anybody puts up with people like us sitting there watching the game, writing things down on paper. But we’ve been doing it for a long time,” Mraz says before pausing.

There’s another voice in the background.

“My wife says they can’t get rid of us,” Mraz says, chuckling. n

A professor who made students delete their favorite app for a class project now must face deleting Twitter

It’s hard going app-free. | VIA FLICKR / ESTHER VARGAS

e manual stats team is Mike Van Hecke, Mike Owens, Ken Mraz and Ron Golden. | JORDAN NEISLER

MISSOURILAND

A Serious Nativity

e Way of Lights display has camels, a LEGO baby Jesus and a replica Bethlehem made of lights

Photos and words by REUBEN

HEMMER

Over the river and through the woods (OK, it’s directly across the street from Hofbräuhaus) in Belleville is the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows (442 South De-

mazenod Drive, Belleville, Illinois; 618-397-6700), which is devoted to the Virgin Mary. During the holiday months, it is adorned with over 1.5 million Christmas lights detailing the story of Jesus’ birth for the annual Way of Lights display. For a suggested donation, guests may drive through the display or view it by horse and carriage.

There is also a petting zoo, a uilt ra e and a massive display put on y enthusiasts ateway sers roup. he exhi it features a life si e a y esus in a nativity scene, popular St. Louis establishments and even Becky the Queen of Carpets on top of the Arch.

You can visit the Way of Lights from 5 to 9 p.m. nightly, through Saturday, December 31. n

CELEBRATION

A look back on the ups and downs of a turbulent year

Look, 2022, well, it was not always that great.

We got things off to a not-strong start with a still-lingering pandemic. Then, a bunch of favorite restaurants closed their doors in the wake of a tremendous worker shortage or a fire . issouri became a chaos zone between the Kia Boyz and careless drivers making the streets unsafe for everyone. St. Louisans’ hearts broke in cto er with the area s first ever and hopefully last school shooting.

But for every bitter pith encountered, St. Louis residents found ways to spark joy. We made the best of bad and ugly things. We laughed as our ridiculous politicians embarrassed themselves. We left our homes and experienced in-person arts. We ripped lids off dumpsters and used them to sled.

To celebrate all those good things and to rage against the negative, the RFT picked some of the events that stood out from the year and did some reminiscing. ead on for our takes on and our toasts to the year. ere s to .

GOOD Best Sled Ever

In February, two boozy legends captured our hearts. The first heavy snowfall of the year spurred Kris Naeger and Kevin enice to come to rt ill and enjoy the snow as many St. Louisans do. But local stores were sold out of sleds. So they got creative. They removed the lids off their apartment’s dumpsters and

after disinfecting them found the lids served as an effective substitute for actual sleds. Pulitzer Prize-winning Post-Dispatch photographer David Carson captured video of Naeger and Venice. The pals’ clear, unbridled joy undou tedly fueled in part y the cans of Busch beer clutched in their hands showed through in Carson’s video, and it quickly went viral. Venice and Naeger’s debauchery made us smile from

—Jessica Rogen

ear to ear, but it didn’t have that effect on everyone. Venice, who Naeger lovingly jabs at as a nonunion “scab,” lost his job after the video went viral. e had injured his arm and started receiving workman’s comp shortly before Carson recorded him on video. Venice had removed his sling because of his many layers of coats and didn’t think anything of Carson’s request to record him. But his sling-less appearance cost him

his job. During the next snowstorm, we’ll make our way to Art ill and raise a can of usch to you, Venice. —Monica Obradovic

BAD Enough Already

The Kia Boyz TikTok challenge phenomenon was a fun story for a whole two minutes, but St. Louisans are long sick of getting their ias and yundais stolen en masse. Over two weeks this summer, 356 were stolen in the city alone.

Thefts slowed slightly as temperatures dropped throughout fall, but with the dawn of a new year upon us, we’re going to encourage those youths in the Lou who feel they must thieve to at least steal something that’s a little less inconvenient for the victim. Political yard signs, maybe? Gaudy Christmas decorations?

Stealing isn’t cool, but if you have to pilfer something, don’t take the thing we need to get to work. —Ryan Krull

UGLY Drowning

From deadly heat waves in Europe to continued wildfires in California, extreme weather was the trademark of summer

. St. ouis was no exception. In late July, the city received its heaviest recorded

2022 IN REVIEW

GOOD Get Active

rainfall in over a century with more than eight inches of rain falling overnight. The rain was accompanied y flash flooding and severe storms. Buses drove in water deep enough to cover their wheels on Forest Park Parkway, and cars unfortunate enough to be on the roads were often completely submerged. In its wake the storm left flooded asements flash floods closed streets and power outages from St. Charles all the way to the Mississippi River and beyond, leading many St. Louisans to question the e cacy of their city s infrastructure. In south city’s Ellendale neighborhood, an entire block of houses near the River Des Peres was left condemned and its residents displaced. Yet several flood insurance companies denied their clients coverage, maintaining that the water that sprang up through their drains and ripped doors off their frames was in fact a “sewage backup incident” not eligible for flood insurance. uly s rainfall exposed gross ineptitudes in the city’s capacity for emergency management the rectification of which will only become more vital as climate change invites increasingly more extreme weather events.

—Kasey Noss

he Supreme ourt s une decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was a seismic event in this country, one whose aftershocks will be felt for years to come. That the highest court in the land would vote to strip away an essential human right and open the door to the criminalization of a basic health-care procedure was seen as an appalling development by a majority of the country — and an ominous sign of that court’s radicalization. But while many despaired, St. Louis activists got to work. In uly a group of protesters under the banner of Resist STL set their sights on the annual enefit dinner held at the airport and organized by Coalition Life, an anti-abortion group whose primary activity is hanging around outside of abortion clinics and harassing those who avail themselves of their services. But rather than just stand outside and hold signs, Resist STL took things a step further and infiltrated it. osing as volunteers, members of the group were able to get an inside look at Coalition Life’s fundraising operation even finding themselves in the position of assigning seating and helping to set everything up for the uly event. That bit of subterfuge allowed them to pull off a hilariously effective disruption of the night’s

proceedings that saw the activists rushing the stage for an impromptu booty-shorts-clad dance party that drowned out the night’s keynote speaker with chants of “Prolife is a lie, you don’t care if people die.” But the fun didn’t stop there. As the protesters were escorted out of the building, Coalition Life, unsure of who they could trust, moved to kick out all of its volunteers, leaving no one to help with cleanup. It was a delicious bit of guerrilla warfare that served as a much needed flicker of hope in a decidedly dark time — and a good reminder that the best way to get even is to get active. —Daniel Hill

UGLY

Crime Pays?

Not to kick the city when it’s down, but controlling crime is not one of its strong suits. This year was especially bad — almost eyepoppingly so, with the massive rash of 69 restaurant and smallbusiness burglaries that happened throughout the fall. Several nights a week one to five restaurants would be broken into by, authorities say, a group of teens. While the group was not always the same people, according to security footage, there were several figures at most of the ro eries.

In early December, police said they’d collared one of the alleged ringleaders, Zavion McGee. The

victims, which included Pappy’s Smokehouse, Rooster, Steve’s Hot Dogs, Yellowbelly and Hi-Pointe Drive-In, must have all breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Most of the time, the thieves got very little. At Steve’s, they weren’t able to steal anything. At Vicia, they stole money from the cash register, and at other places, they were able to steal cash boxes.

But the damage was extensive. Restaurants were described as ransacked, windows were broken and security systems were destroyed. Even if the loss of funds didn t devastate a restaurant fixing the damage was always a financial setback.

Especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, which shuttered many restaurants, the rash of burglaries seemed to add insult to injury. And it could drive even more businesses out of the city.

“It’s gotten to the point where you almost consider moving,” said co owner ustin i son when D s Sports Bar in Soulard was robbed for the fourth time. “We don’t want to. We’ve been here for 15 years now. We would love to stay, but we need some solutions, and whatever we’re doing just isn’t working.” —Rosalind Early

GOOD Fresh Air

Sometimes we need to be forced

St. Louis saw dramatic flash flooding last spring. | @KATESTOWE3

into self-care. The ongoing pandemic has done so much to injure our mental health, but the ways we’ve found to cope will stick with us forever. Nature is a healing force, and many of us were drawn to it this year as a way to reset our minds and take care of our bodies: St. Louis remembered how to really get outside this year, and we’re not sure we’ll ever forget. In addition to adding in frequent little mental-health walks around our neighborhoods, we have so many parks and new greenways to explore. The Great Rivers Greenway seems to be always improving and expanding. It currently offers more than 128 miles of pathway to explore all across the St. Louis area from the riverfront all the way out to Wentzville and everywhere in between. There are paths to explore everywhere from Spanish Lake to Arnold to Wildwood and back again. Combine those outdoor options with the abundance of beautiful parks in St. Louis, and you’ll wonder why you ever stayed indoors pre-pandemic anyway. Forest Park and Tower Grove Park are two big ones that shouldn’t be missed, but St. Louis has a whole host of other beautiful parks where you can escape your house, get some sun on your face and reset your mind. —Jaime Lees

GOOD STL Hearts Art

There’s no soft way to say it: The pandemic really lobbed a loogie at the arts. After all, if we’re all staying inside to avoid contagion, then we can’t be sitting thigh to thigh in

a packed theater or breathing in each other’s bacteria in a concert venue. Things looked bleak for a while, and some venues closed their doors. But artists and arts organizations are supremely inventive, and the pandemic brought out those problem-solving traits. Many turned to virtual programming, opening themselves up to audiences around the globe. Others kept their staff and audiences safe by creating new ways to stay protected, such as sealed boxes to perform in and moving events outside. Plus, new resources aimed at artists (and other businesses) helped many ride out the tsunami of uncertainty.

As the pandemic began to cool its heels, that resilience began to pay off in new and big ways. New concert venues popped up, live theater flourished and artists who had decided to subsist off their crafts during the pandemic realized they didn’t need those non-art careers anyway. Some venues lost those virtual audiences they’d gained during the pandemic (’cause who isn’t tired of Zoom?) but almost all grew their local audiences. It’s more undeniable than ever: St. Louis loves art —Jessica Rogen

BAD School Shooting

October 24, 2022, is a day St. Louis will never forget. That day, we lost an innocent and vibrant young woman who, before a broken 19-year-old shot and killed her, had big dreams for the rest of her life. That day, we lost a beloved teacher and mother who gave her

life to save her students. That day, a senseless act of violence caused hundreds of teachers, students and parents to lose their sense of normalcy, when former student Orlando Harris channeled his rage at his alma mater and opened fire at unsuspecting students and teachers. Central Visual and Performing Arts and the Collegiate School of Bioscience may never be the same, but out of October’s school shooting St. Louis gained one thing — resolve. Missouri’s gun laws have always made it easy for people to purchase guns. But movement to change those laws has begun. State legislators have promised to fight for red flag laws so those who shouldn’t have guns can’t get their hands on them. Students have taken to the streets to push for reform. Local law enforcement has taken extra safety measures to ensure this doesn’t happen again. School and mass shootings have become all too common in the U.S. We can only hope St. Louis and Missouri have learned their lesson and safe gun measures will pass.

—Monica Obradovic

GOOD Finally, Finally, Finally

For years, St. Louis has clamored for an MLS team. Nearly begged. A conversation with any St. Louis sports fan ended in some version of, “Yeah, we like the Cardinals, but trust me, St. Louis is really a soccer city.” You haven’t heard of the Hill kids who played in the World Cup? Or St. Louis Soccer League, the USA’s only profession-

al soccer team? Or the U.S. National Team players Taylor Twellman and Becky Sauerbrunn? St. Louis, they say, is a soccer city. A soccer city needs an MLS team. Again and again, the city seemed close. Minor-league team after minorleague team floated y. Soccer seemed to be gaining momentum nationwide, and MLS had to be coming to St. Louis.

hen finally it happened. In 2018, MLS approved a professional soccer team in St. Louis. Fans rejoiced. But still, it would take time. It would take years before the stadium was built. Even more years until the team arrived. More until the expansion team was actually good. So fans waited, watching the stadium in midtown rise from the ground until finally in the team announced the 22,500-person, state-of-the-art, super-loud stadium would open to the public. Then, days before, it stalled again. Flooding and electrical failures flared and suddenly soccer fans were waiting weeks again, without any idea of when professional soccer would arrive in St. Louis.

hen finally it happened. CITYPARK opened, hosting a game between St. Louis City SC 2 and Leverkusen. It was a friendly match that didn’t count for anything. But it felt like a playoff game. People tailgated outside of the stadium for hours in the 30-degree weather. ans filled nearly every seat. The supporter section pounded drums for the entire game. And the stadium was stunning. Compact and loud, sleek and very St. Louis –– the only team in the MLS with food and beverage options from 100 percent local vendors. After years of waiting, it checked all of the right boxes. Now, we will just have to wait until 2023 for the MLS team.

—Benjamin Simon

BAD Goodbye Too Soon

By the spring of 2021, it seemed like restaurants had reason to celebrate. Vaccines were readily available, dining rooms were back to unrestricted capacity, and hungry diners with money to spend were eager to return to their favorite spots. There was reason to feel optimistic that those who survived the initial, acute hardships of the pandemic were out of the woods. However, with supplychain issues, rising product costs and a seismic sta ng crisis this global nightmare has a long tail, resulting in sustained pressure

St. Louis is and has been a soccer town. Now, we finally have a franchise. | ST. LOULIGANS

2022 IN REVIEW

on an industry that, nearly three years later, still feels very much in crisis. There have been winners, to be sure, but if you ask any operator, chef, bartender, dishwasher, line cook or server in the industry, they’ll tell you the same thing: COVID-19 took the cracks that already existed in the hospitality business and left an industry shattered.

This year, we saw some of our longtime favorites succumb to these pressures, saying goodbye not because they couldn’t make it but because the moment called for a reevaluation of priorities. Some bid farewell as they retired. Others were forced out by circumstances beyond their control, and a few simply could no longer financially justify staying open. Whatever the reason, there is no question that their losses have left a hole in our area’s dining community that will always be there. Here are the 10 we will miss the most:

Cafe Natasha’s Hamishe Bahrami needed to retire. There’s no question about that. There’s also no question that the storefront that used to house the beloved Cafe Natasha’s has reinvented itself beautifully into Salve Osteria. However, no one will ever replace Mom’s cooking. The world is a darker place without those beef kabobs.

De Palm Tree

The last restaurant holdout in the now-razed Jeffrey Plaza, De Palm Tree was a delightful homage to owner Easton Romer’s homeland. Now it s an overflow space for a big-box store. Because we all need another place to buy 80-packs of toilet paper.

We End G ll and Pub WEGAP, as it was so lovingly referred to by its regulars, was our last connection to the long-closed but never forgotten Duff’s. Now it too is gone, but never forgotten.

Courtesy Diner

Courtesy Diner may live on in its newer locations, but that Kingshighway spot will forever be the one and only.

Bob’s Seafood

It s di cult to decide which casualty of the University City Costco development is the hardest to bear, but Bob’s certainly makes its case. he definitive place to get the best seafood in town for decades, it’s hard to believe this hallowed ground is soon to be a drive-thru

fast food outfit. Is nothing sacred Pho Grand

After three decades, My and Tami Trihn said goodbye to the South Grand restaurant district they helped create. It’s a much-deserved retirement, though it’s hard to imagine a world without their delectable pho.

Rise

Rise was an anchor of the Grove, and its closure feels like something essential to the neighborhood is now gone. Thank you, Jessie Mueller, for bringing such a beautiful, accepting space into our lives.

Manda n House

ne of St. ouis first hinese restaurants, Mandarin House will be remembered for setting the standard for Chinese American cuisine in St. Louis.

Grbic

It’s impossible to understand the impact the Grbic family had on bringing Bosnian cuisine into the mainstream of the St. Louis dining scene. Its legacy lives on as an events space, but the restaurant’s closure hits hard, even if it was the best decision for the family.

Sweetie Pie’s Upper Cru

In its 25-year run, Sweetie Pie’s put St. Louis soul food on the map, created a star out of owner Robbie

Montgomery and made St. Louis just a little bit more delicious. Despite the drama that surrounded its later years, it will be remembered as a true St. Louis icon.

—Cheryl Baehr

GOOD The Munchies

anna is companies are finding increasingly creative ways to get us high, and it’s been one of our favorite things about 2022. Even if you don’t partake, you have to admire the entrepreneurial spirit that brought the world treats such as marijuana-infused Red Hot Riplets. Riplets have long been a favorite snack of St. Louis stoners, so to be able to buy Riplets that get you stoned is just efficient really. ut it s more than that. It’s giving the people what they want. From Riplets to infused sodas to infused beers to infused chocolates, St. Louis stoners can get their weed in whatever delivery system they prefer, and that is a beautiful thing. It’s one of the few good aspects of capitalism, really. Whichever company creates the best weed snack will be a success because it will have a dedicated customer base that will repeatedly buy its product with glee. Now that recreational mari-

juana is legal, the potential customer base will expand like crazy. Good for weed-snack companies. Good for us. Bring on the Ripletsdust stained fingers. —Jaime Lees

GOOD/BAD Lit

There’s a lot to celebrate when it comes to Missouri’s recent approval of legal recreational weed. The notion that we’d no longer lock people up over putting a relatively harmless substance into their own bodies is at the top of the pile; that those who’ve already run afoul of the legal system over a plant will have their records expunged is right up there with it. But while we’ll certainly be among those partaking now that it’s legal to do so, we still think the road to legalization could have ended in a better place. Amendment 3 saw its fair share of criticism even from those who are in favor of cannabis thanks to its enshrinement of the controversial licensing system used by the state to determine who could participate, with some arguing that it sets the stage for a marijuana monopoly dominated by monied interests and multistate operators. As the measure has already become the law of the land, there doesn’t seem to be much point in arguing about it — but it’s still nice to dream about the more equitable system that could have been. —Daniel Hill

BAD Garbage City

In 2022, St. Louis stank — often quite literally. The problems seemed to start way back in June 2021, when a worker shortage had the city throwing away the alley recycling and asking residents to bring their recyclables to designated drop-off points. (How many people actually did that? Surely not many. Despite a signing bonus for new truck drivers, the problem continued all the way until spring of 2022. Then-new Mayor Tishaura Jones made it a point to say that she’d bring back recycling — and she did, kind of, in May.

Then the worker shortage seemed to shift to garbage collection. By the end of June, trash piles grew in and around dumpsters, especially, it seemed, in the city’s poorer areas. The St. Louis heat and humidity made the situation even more intolerable, and residents and their aldermen

e only thing better than Red Hot Riplets is Riples plus weed. | MISSOURI’S OWN

never intended for the game he loves to devolve into anal-beadbased litigation. On the other hand, the controversy put professional chess on the radar of hundreds of thousands of people who couldn’t tell the difference between a knight and a rook.

—Ryan Krull

GOOD/BAD: Good Riddance

complained heartily — and with good reason.

Over time, the complaints seemed to cool without much news on how. Could things have gotten solved? Nah, with the city’s Street Department recommending dropping off recycling again, it looks like we’re back to throwing away those recyclables.

—Jessica Rogen

UGLY Union Busting

In June, two Starbucks, one in Ladue and one at Kingshighway and Chippewa, voted to unioni e ecoming the first in the St. Louis area to do so. At the time, they were joining 150 other Starbucks locations across the country that had voted to unionize, but that number has since grown to over 250. The St. Louis Starbucks’ decision was celebrated as a victory for the coffee chain’s workers both in St. Louis and nationwide. However, the ensuing months have seen significant challenges to their fight for etter pay and working conditions. Just a few weeks after the two St. Louisarea Starbucks locations successfully unionized, accusations of union busting emerged from a Bridgeton location whose efforts to unionize in early June failed. In September, workers at the Ladue

location held a one-day strike after those who supported unionization efforts saw their hours drop, leaving fewer people behind the counter during some of the store’s busiest weeks of the year. In October, Ladue workers held another strike after a union organizer was fired from his role as shift supervisor. November saw yet another strike as three St. Louis locations joined the nationwide #RedCupRebellion after Starbucks corporate failed to negotiate a contract with unionized stores. The journey of these unionized Starbucks has been fraught to say the least, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction. —Kasey Noss

GOOD Ass Check

St. Louis should consider itself lucky that when Norwegian Chess Grandmaster Magnus Carlsen lobbed thinly founded cheating allegations at San Francisco-born professional chess player Hans Neimann, our fair city was the metaphorical board upon which these greats would play their ultimate match.

The brouhaha began in September when Carlsen abruptly withdrew from the Sin uefield up tournament held here, making cryptic remarks that were widely

interpreted as accusations against Neimann for cheating. Proving that the chess online subculture is just as dumb as every other corner of the internet, Carlsen’s tweet morphed into a theory that Neimann had been communicating with a chess-playing computer via vibrating anal beads lodged in Neimann’s ass

A third supposedly high IQ individual entered the fray when SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted a riff on the 19th-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, writing, “Talent hits a target no one else can hit, genius hits a target no one can see (cause it’s in ur butt).”

Naturally, the fracas between Carlsen and Neimann turned litigious with Neimann filing a million lawsuit against his erstwhile opponent. Neimann claims that the grandmaster made the cheating accusations to distract from the fact that he lost his Sinuefield up match a low to both Carlsen’s ego and reputation, upon both of which rest a global chess empire.

That lawsuit is still winding its way through a federal court in St. Louis. But we wonder how Rex Sin uefield feels a out all this. The millionaire has spent an admirable amount of time, energy and cash making the Lou the new epicenter for chess. He surely

St. Louis already had its fair share of problems when three now-former aldermen were indicted in June for accepting bribes from a local developer. The city was still reeling from the aftermath of the worst of the pandemic. Its police force needed o cers. Its downtown cried for businesses. The city still has those problems — but at least the federal government’s investigation weeded out some of the city’s most corrupt and powerful leaders. St. Louis quickly said goodbye to former Board of Aldermen President Lewis Reed and Aldermen Jeffrey Boyd and John Collins-Muhammad. Even though some already had their suspicions of these electeds’ corruption, the exposure of just how frequently three men sold City Hall to an undercover developer — and for how little money — shook the St. Louis area, disappointing constituents and tainting the city’s image. The silver lining: they all resigned in disgrace and are no onger in o e. As St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones put it: “Lewis Reed had to go.”

—Monica Obradovic

UGLY Road Rage

In August, 17-year-old Matthew Nikolai was walking across Chippewa Street to get some Ted Drewes when a pickup truck struck the Christian Brothers College High School student. He fell into eastound tra c where a ord usion also struck him. Nikolai was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

The tragedy gained attention, particularly since the pickup truck driver fled the scene. In addition it was the second pedestrian death that year in front of that Ted Drewes. More people joined an outcry for greater safety measures that has been echoing through St. Louis for years because this town is a terrible place to be a pedestrian or cyclist.

As of October of this year, 90 pedestrians had been killed state-

Starbucks workers went on strike to protest union busting actions by the co ee giant. | ROSALIND EARLY

2022 IN REVIEW

wide. The St. Louis region — which includes St. Charles County, Jefferson County and Franklin County — alone had 40 pedestrian deaths according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Cyclists in the city have not fared any better. After a car struck and killed Danyell McMiller, 47, activists taped bicycle helmets to poles along South Grand with satirical city orders that read, “As of October 2022, we hereby suggest that all pedestrians crossing any St. Louis street should wear helmets while crossing such street until further notice.”

The danger stems from impaired and reckless drivers, who have caused so much damage and death on South Grand that business owners have pleaded with people to slow down and drive more carefully. (The problem is not just in the city; many pedestrians and cyclists in the county have been struck and killed by drivers.) Pedestrians themselves might also be impaired when they stum le out into tra c.

Our streets need to be made safer for pedestrians by curtailing reckless driving, and Mayor Tishaura Jones is proposing using $40 million in ARPA funds to introduce tra c calming measures in high risk areas. ra c calming could include speed humps, narrowed roads, curb extensions, single-lane roundabouts and making one-way roads into twoway roads to force more careful driving. Better lighting and sidewalks could also help. But Patrick Van Der Tuin, director of St. Louis BWorks, which teaches bicycle safety to kids, points out that engineering roads to be safer is just the start.

“We don’t require any driver’s education for those who get behind the wheel,” he says. The area is also lacking in enforcement. Folks like Andy Karandzieff, owner of Crown Candy Kitchen, routinely post videos of people running stop signs with no repercussions.

out onto his front yard holding an AR-15 to threaten a crowd of people who were doing nothing more than walking past his house, it’s been clear that he’s not quite playing with a full deck. In the fever dream that is the Republican Party in 2022, though, that’s not exactly what you’d call a liability — it’s a prere uisite to hold pu lic o ce. So when McCloskey announced that he’d be running for the seat vacated by outgoing U.S. Senator Roy Blunt, there was legitimate cause for concern. Could a man whose only claim to fame is being an unhinged, gun-toting lunatic clad in a nice pink shirt actually rise to the upper echelons of power based on those actions alone? We’re delighted to report that the answer is a definitive no. Primary voters rejected McCloskey outright, awarding him a paltry 3 percent of the vote in the August election. While that’s good for democracy in general, and we’ll never stop laughing about it, it’s cold comfort considering Eric “Sue the Schools” Schmitt will be heading to Washington instead. Still, at least Mark had a bad time — and we can all agree that’s a good thing.

—Daniel Hill

GOOD Run, Josh, Run!

He’s been messing things up in our state for a while, but this year he finally ecame an internationally known laughingstock. After famously raising a fist in solidarity with some January 6 insurrectionists, his tough-guy facade was shattered when video later came out of him sprinting away from the scene, metaphorical tail between his legs. That short video clip has brought so much joy to so many people. Because of it, people will never stop laughing at this fool. It will haunt him for the rest of his days. News organizations will play it on the day that he dies. His entire life will be defined as efore he ideo and “After The Video.” We always knew he was a weasel, but now we have proof. Vindication feels so good. —Jaime Lees

GOOD I Pick …

with a fork in the road, chose to go straight, throwing his considerable weight behind none other than: ERIC. All caps. No last name.

In incredible displays of cognitive dissonance, or just plain cynicism, both Schmitt and Greitens immediately took to social media to thank the former president for his support, each stating that the endorsement had clearly been meant for him. —Ryan Krull

GOOD/UGLY

Good Pujols, Bad Cards

This year was a magical one to be a St. ouis ardinals fan the final year of Albert Pujols. It was the cliché storybook ending that, if you wrote for a movie, would seem fake. Albert Pujols at the age of 42 coming back to St. Louis for his final season nd then somehow, someway turning into a former version of himself? And then making a run at the milestone 700 home-run mark –– a feat no one thought was possible at the start of the season? And then somehow hitting his 700th home run in Dodgers Stadium, his second home run of the game? It doesn’t even seem real now.

It was the kind of year that, 20 years into the future, you’ll tell your kids or grandkids or whoever will listen.

The thing you won’t tell your kids? That the Cardinals lost, in the first round again. It wasn t always destined to be that way. With 40-year-old Pujols playing like 20-year-old Pujols. Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt earning their superstar contracts. Tommy Edman scurrying around the bases the Cards looked good. But they lost. They didn’t just lose in the first round they lew the first round, squandering a 2-0 ninthinning lead against the struggling Philadelphia Phillies, who barely squeaked into the playoffs.

The record for most pedestrian deaths in Missouri was set in 2020 with 128. If we don’t want to beat our own record, St. Louis has to make the streets safer for everyone.

GOOD Buh-Bye

—Rosalind Early

From the moment gun dumbass Mark McCloskey waddled his ass

We have a lot of secrets here in St. Louis. We don’t tell people that our ravioli is actually fried, not toasted. We don’t tell people that we’re judging them because of what high school they attended. And we certainly don’t admit that the Gateway Arch is actually a weather-controlling device. (OK, maybe that one isn’t true.) But one thing that we’re very happy to share with the world is our deep, unwavering contempt for Josh Hawley

To absolutely no one’s surprise, as Missouri continues its red-ward trend, Republican Eric Schmitt bested Democrat Trudy Busch Valentine in November’s Senate election. But at least the Republican primary provided a little bit of 11th-hour excitement as both Schmitt and former Governor ric reitens fiercely courted an endorsement from Queens-born family businessman Donald J. Trump. The primary had drama not unlike that between two boys vying for the same prom date. Yet, weeks ticked by with no word from Trump. The conventional wisdom was that for the endorsement to do any good, it would have to be issued before 5 p.m. the day before the election so that news of it could make all the major broadcasts.

Five o’clock came and went. That evening, Trump, faced

It was another year marked by mediocrity –– a team good enough to make the playoffs but not good enough to win. And there’s nothing more painful in sports than mediocrity.

It’s been four years since the Cardinals made the playoffs. It’s been eight years since the Cardinals made the conference pennant game. It’s been 12 years since the team won its last World Series. Next season, there won’t be any Pujols (though, we’re not saying we wouldn’t welcome him back), and the Cardinals will have to prove they can win more than regularseason games. —Benjamin Simon n

e Erics duked it out this year. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI

CALENDAR

BY JESSICA ROGEN

THURSDAY 12/29

Articulate

The Soulard Art Gallery (2028 South 12th Street, 314-258-4299), a co-op gallery space located in the heart of the historic neighborhood, has long been known for its resident artists and its monthly themed shows. The latest is the Art of Whimsy, a showcase of “fantastic images, fanciful and playful ideas and vintage retro design.” Co-curated by Alison Bozarth and Jay Thompson, the show features more than 50 artists and 65 artworks. Some not-to-miss inclusions are “Radio Flyer” by John Friese, which won the gallery’s award of excellence; merit award winners “The Cultural Shift” by Dylan Wilson and “He Said, She Said” by Katie Chilman; and the curator’s choice award winner, “Space Buns” by Alexis Pick. The show is free to attend and will be on display through Friday, January 6. Check soulardartgallery. com for gallery hours.

FRIDAY 12/30

White Christmas

veryone s favorite dirty wa e company is coming this Christmas. Naughty Bits, a pop up run by Bella’s Frozen Yogurts (1021 Washington Avenue) that debuted over the summer, decided it wasn’t enough

to merely sell NS wa es during the holiday season but that it wanted to make explicitly Christmas themed. If that sounds like a proposition that’s too hard to pass up, then head to the Dickens Christmas Carol pop up event, which will feature a line of nasty holiday themed wa es. xamples include Rudolph the Deep-Throat eindeer a penis wa e coated with chocolate with pretzels stuck into the head to resemble horns. Of course, there will also be a waffle covered in red green and white sprinkles and adorned with a tiny fuzzy Santa hat. Maybe snacking on it will fulfill your wish list. ike at all of the Naughty Bits pop ups, wa es will e dipped sensually in front of guests. In addition to the edible delights, drag performer and the Sweetheart of St. ouis Tabbi Katt will serve as the event’s guest, and the restaurant will be collecting clothes for donation during the festivities.

Da Bomb

End-of-year partying isn’t only for New Year’s Eve — at least that’s the premise held by Blank Space (2847 Cherokee Street, blankspace314.com). This year, the community arts space is making the last Friday of the year all that and a bag of chips with its That 90’s Jam, a dance party evoking the decade of ut ast Beastie Boys, Oasis, Ace of Base and other equally phat jams. DJs James Biko and Rico Steez will

be on the turntables, while Corey Black hosts the event. So don your finest flannel crop tops aggy jeans, slip dresses and scrunchies and get ready to dance all night long. The event runs from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., and tickets are $8 to $15.

History Comes to Life

Community leader, pioneer and “Angel of the Rockies” Clara Brown lived in the 1800s. Born enslaved, she was freed in 1859 and moved to olorado ecoming the state s first Black resident. There, she opened a laundry during the Gold Rush, using the proceeds to try to free her family. Along the way, she helped bring freed slaves to Colorado. St. ouisans can learn more a out Brown’s remarkable story during

Clara’s Tale at the Missouri History useum indell oulevard mohistory.org . ocal folk storyteller ama isa will don period dress and get in character as Brown, while acoustic duo Dusty James & Abalone Pearl provide music. The free, family-friendly event runs from 11 a.m. to noon in the auditorium.

SATURDAY 12/31

Head over to p. 37 for the RFT’s picks on what to do this New Year’s Eve.

SUNDAY 01/01

No Slingers Here

If you’ve been partying into the

Work by sculptor Charles P. Reay is on display at the Bruno David Gallery. | COURTESY PHOTO

Golfers, start your year o right at the Frozen Open. | VIA FLICKR / KEN MATTISON

WEEK OF DECEMBER 29-JANUARY 4

lutions, of new activities, of buying a gym membership and going twice before forgetting about it and losing a bunch of money. Instead of going through that rigmarole, head to Circus Harmony. In recognition of the human tendency to have big ideas but not always follow through, everybody’s favorite “social circus” has put together a sort of smorgasbord experience. Open to everyone ages three through adult, January Circus Sample Classes run for four weeks and are designed for St. ouisans who are interested in the circus but aren’t sure they can or want to do a full session. Offerings include acro, tumbling, unicycle club, wire walking and more. Classes take place at City Museum (750 North 16th Street) and cost from $10 to $25. Times vary by date. Visit circusharmony.org for details.

WEDNESDAY 01/04

Art Right Now

wee hours of the morning, the thing you’re going to need ASAP is some food to line your stomach. If you’ve said, “No, thank you, please,” to the hullabaloo of a New Year’s Eve celebration, you also probably would like some sustenance. And regardless of who you are and what you’ve done, you probably want that food to be brunch. Why go to a greasy spoon when you can tuck into one of the city’s best spreads with one of the city’s best views at the Cinder House New Year’s Day Brunch (999 North Second Street, 314-881-5759, cinderhousestl.com)? The brunch offerings will include a bloody-mary-andmimosa bar with mixologists to customize your cocktail, as well as a host of stations featuring ham risket and fish custom omelets hot wa es charcuterie and cheese, bread and rolls and more. The food fest runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and costs $95. Children ages eight and younger eat for $40, and those under two will be served at no charge. Drink packages are an

additional $30. Reservations are recommended.

Fresh Air

Even if you’re not a regular hiker, there are few better ways to set the tone for the new year than getting outside, getting your body moving and checking out the (undoubtedly frozen) glories of Missouri. he St. ouis area is flush with excellent parks, but one of the best is the Dr. Edmund A. Babler Memorial State Park (800 Guy Park Drive, Wildwood; 636-458-3813), which is hosting a First Day Hike On New Year’s Day, the group will meet across from the Alta Shelter to walk the Hawthorn Trail, an approximately 1.25-mile hike. That happens to be the shortest trail in the park and has a lot of geographic diversity to offer. After the hike, the park will serve refreshments. And if that brief sojourn isn’t enough of a workout for you, you can pop over to one of the many other trails. The meet-up starts at

10 a.m. and is free to attend.

Play the Course

If you’re a golfer, you want to be at it all the time. It’s just the mentality of the game. So waking up kind of early on the first day of the year and gathering up your irons, putters and drivers to play in the cold isn’t a problem. It’s a delight. If that’s you, the place to head is St. ouis city s only pu lic course the Norman K. Probstein Golf Course in orest ark agoon Drive 314-367-1337), for the Frozen Open four-person scramble. The $200-per-team cost covers a ninehole green fee, a coffee and doughnut breakfast, two drink tickets for on-course beverages and lunch. The fun tees off at 10 a.m.

MONDAY 01/02

Pretzel It

It’s January — the season of reso -

St. ouis has an a undance of top-quality museums for checking out visual art, but for a realtime look at contemporary artists, there’s nothing better than heading to Instagram. Those of us who can’t stand another moment with a screen should head to a local gallery instead. One of St. ouis finest is the runo David Gallery (7513 Forsyth Boulevard, 314-696-2377, brunodavidgallery. com), which is showing works from multimedia artist Frank Schwaiger, photographer Charles Turnell, videographer and photographer Lisa K. Blatt and sculptor Charles P. Reay through Saturday, January 14. Their works range from contemplative and bold investigations into symbolism, to photography mosaics that evoke the Impressionists, to sculptures that celebrate Italian Renaissance art. In other words, there’s something for everyone. The gallery is free to visit and is open Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. n

Have an event you’d like considered for our calendar? Email calendar@riverfronttimes.com.

If this looks like your idea of a good time, check out the Circus Harmony class sampler. | COURTESY PHOTO

The Best New Restaurants of 2022

Dining Editor Cheryl Baehr’s picks from a year of great food, drink and service

Written by CHERYL BAEHR

As I reflect on the year in food

I can t help ut e overwhelmed y a mix of emotions. n the one hand I ve eaten some of the est dishes of my life in marveling at the restaurant owners and cooks who in the face of incessant struggle

dedicate themselves to ringing us the particular joy that food and drink can offer. he restaurant industry is a di cult usiness on a good day for the past three years

those di culties have een magnified y forces that have exposed the industry s systemic flaws and lown up the notion of usiness as usual. hat dedicated folks

still so strongly feel the need to share with us a part of themselves through food is not simply impressive. It s a gift.

ut sometimes those forces prove to e insurmounta le. s I think ack on the past year I am e ually filled with a sense of loss for the places that have decided to call it a day. ach had its own reason and as a patron I have nothing ut empathy for these di cult decisions. or some the pressures of the past few years caused them to reevaluate what they want to do with their lives. or others financial di culties proved too much to ear. hen there were the institutions that ended decades long runs when their matriarchs and patriarchs hung up their aprons so that they could live the lives they d put on hold to dedicate themselves to making ours more delicious. here s real grief associated with their departures from

Bowood by Niche. | MABEL SUEN

Bistro La Floraison. | MABEL SUEN

BEST NEW RESTAURANTS

the St. Louis restaurant scene. I’ve shed actual tears over the loss of my beloved Cafe Natasha’s, even as my affection for Hamishe Bahrami makes me understand that we had to free her from the burden of restaurant ownership so she could finally live her life. y dear friend expressed the exact same emotions about Pho Grand, and a trusted colleague could barely get the words out when she called to tip me off that her favorite burger spot was closing at the end of the year.

Our reactions may sound dramatic, but they were genuine and speak to the idea that food is so much more than a way to nourish our bodies and please our palate. It’s an essential part of the human experience — one that offers joy, connection, pleasure and under-

standing. This is why the following 10 restaurants are more than a list of places with good food, drink and service; they are places that can stir in us the range of emotions that a great meal can elicit.

As is customary at the Riverfront Times, this list is taken from the restaurants I reviewed in 2022; though some technically opened last year, not enough time had elapsed for them to be reviewed before 2021 drew to a close (a few notables from 2022, for example Wright’s Tavern, fall into this category and will be considered for next year’s list). I’ve also included two honorable mentions on this list, which, though reviewed this past year, trace their roots back much further than 2022; though delicious, I could not justify considering them for a list of this year’s best.

As we mourn the loss of our favorites, we celebrate the people behind these 12 culinary gems.

Though they can never replace those who came before them, they fill that void with hope that we will have new favorites and make new memories for years to come.

Bowood by Niche

There are almost too many reasons to enumerate why Bowood by Niche (4605 Olive Street, 314454-6868) is such a delightful restaurant. The atmosphere, the food, the service, the coffee, how chef Dakota Williams can somehow pull off breakfast, lunch and dinner all with such perfection you wonder if he’s been imbued with superpowers. Taken together, this is precisely what makes Bowood so special: It feels like the most complete restaurant to grace St. Louis for a very long time. Williams spent some significant time at Sardella, Gerard Craft’s restaurant that people seem to have understood only after it closed, and it feels like he took all that the former was meant to be and

recreated it in a fashion that just clicks at Bowood. It doesn’t hurt that he’s working with one of the most stunning restaurant settings in the metro area, the lovely Bowood Farms, which is a serene oasis in the middle of the city. Williams leans into this vibe, which creates a seamless experience between the greenhouse environs and the dining room. As a result, you re filled with oth great food and tranquility, making Bowood as much of a feeling as it is a place to eat.

Bistro La Floraison

ara and ichael allina understand that they are, in some ways, an unlikely choice to carry on the legacy of classic French cuisine — in all of its rich, cheesy, butter, meaty glory — that the storefront at 7637 Wydown Boulevard has come to be known for over the years. After all, the husband

Jalea. | MABEL SUEN

Grand Pied. | MABEL SUEN

Menya Rui. | MABEL SUEN

Westchester. | MABEL SUEN

BEST NEW RESTAURANTS

and wife have made their mark on the St. Louis culinary scene through their restaurant Vicia, a celebration of plant-forward eating where guests are more likely to see carrots and cabbage on the center of the plate than a hearty serving of boeuf bourguignon. However, when the Gallinas got the chance to take over the former Bar Les Freres space from iconic restaurateur Zoë Robinson, they jumped on it, seeing it as an opportunity to go back to the style of cuisine that sparked in them a passion for food when they were up-and-coming culinarians. That love for French cooking is evident at Bistro La Floraison (7636 Wydown Boulevard, Clayton; 314725-8880) which showcases flawlessly executed classic dishes, an outstanding French-heavy wine list and a lovely Parisian atmosphere that is nothing short of transportative. Those gougères with gruyère mousse, alone, will take your breath away.

Jalea

It s di cult to decide which is more shocking: that Jalea (323 North Main Street, St. Charles; 314-303-0144) somehow manages to serve ceviche as fresh as if you were on the Peruvian coast in the middle of the landlocked Midwest or that a restaurant like Jalea exists

on Main Street in St. Charles. Neither will come as a surprise when you find out that ndrew isneros is behind the outstanding cevicheria which cele rates the flavors of the talented chef’s heritage. For years, Cisneros has been dazzling St. Louis diners with his culinary prowess at some of the area s finest restaurants, but this past January, he and his sister struck out on their own with Jalea, an unapologetically seafood-driven spot in a part of town more known for meat and potatoes. Though some might have seen this as a risky move isneros was confident that people would get it if he put out an exceptional product; he’s been proven correct as local residents regularly pack the house for a taste of his vi rant fish savory sanguchitos and a Peruvian-style seafood and rice dish that is one of the best seafood platters in the bistate area.

Grand Pied

Grand Pied (3137 Morgan Ford Road, 314-974-8113) may have technically opened in 2021, but it became the restaurant it was meant to be in January of this year, when owners Tony Collida and Jaimee Stang had a moment of clarity. Originally, the pair signed on to Grand Pied with the understanding that it would be the complementary food component to a bar, Chatawa, which operated out of the same space. This lasted for about 10 weeks until the bar own-

er decided to close down his side of the operations. In the aftermath, Collida and Stang found themselves with a restaurant space, no liquor license and a concept that did not necessarily work so well on its own. Though they tried to operate business as usual for a while, they realized in January that what they should actually be doing is bringing to life a brunch and home-cooking-style restaurant that encapsulated everything they love about the business. Since leaning into what they do best, Collida and Stang have turned Grand Pied into one of the area’s most comforting spots filled with such deeply soulful dishes as hot-honey fried chicken, gumbo served over grits and the best pancakes you’ll ever experience. Such delights as these make it clear that this iteration of Grand Pied is what it was meant to be all along.

Menya Rui

Stephen Pursley was born in Okinawa to a Japanese mother and an merican father and the Menya Rui (3453 Hampton Avenue, 314-

601-3524) chef and owner’s foundational food memories centered on noodles. First, it was soba, the buckwheat noodle popular in Okinawa, and eventually, it became ramen, the dish he and his family would always eat in Tokyo as they were passing through to visit family after moving to Union, Missouri. It was natural, then, that he’d gravitate toward ramen when he was looking for direction in his life. This interest turned into a passion, then a quest that took him back to Japan, where he learned the art and craft of ramen in all its varied forms. fter a few years doing pop-ups around town, Pursley opened enya ui this pril on South Hampton with the goal of bringing to town the quintessential Japanese ramen-shop experience. He has succeeded, not only in capturing the feel of a traditional ramen restaurant but also in expanding our idea of all that this dish can be. It’s masterful.

Westchester

The experience that most stopped

Bar Moro. | GREG RANNELLS

Arzola’s. | MABEL SUEN

Sabroso. | MABEL SUEN

BEST NEW RESTAURANTS

me in my tracks this year came courtesy of Westchester (127 Chesterfield owne Center Chesterfield 636-77 -0635), the Chesterfield alley restaurant from a team of restaurant veterans including atthew lickert a prot g of the esteemed chef ill ardwell that opened this past anuary. hen I pulled up to the nywheresville S strip mall where it resides I assumed it would e a asic merican upscale ar and grill when I walked inside I was shocked y the feeling of eing transported to a glimmering s era speakeasy. It s a eautiful scene ut one that is only a minor part of estchester s magic. lickert is a striking culinary talent em odying the philosophy of New merican farm to ta le dining that ardwell helped pioneer in this town. s a result lickert s dishes a stunning pork chop a perfect owl of rench onion soup have a timeless upscale comfort feel that da les at every turn.

Bar Moro

en orem a s homage to I erian dining is less a Spanish restaurant and more an immersive trip to Spain. aking up residence in o o inson s former illie ean Bar Moro 7610 ydown oulevard Clayton 314- 96-3000) evokes the sexy style and elegant

dining of the former al eit with a oorish Spanish accent. orema has come to e known for his exploration of iddleterranean dining most nota ly at his restaurants lio and the enevolent ing ut ar oro expands that a little further west to a part of the world that has always fascinated him thanks to its strong oorish and ewish heritage as well at its proximity to orocco from where orem a s mother hails. he result is a luxurious experience filled with tinned fish jam n I erico fresh anchovy and pickled pepper toasts and a variety of tapas that flawlessly encapsulate what it feels like to dine in

a tiny ichelin starred eatery in San Se astian. is a ility to create such a transportive feel is pure magic.

Arzola’s Fajitas + Margaritas little over three decades ago ddie r ola took his passion for cooking and hospitality as well as his killer fajitas recipe and turned them into the eloved Dogtown eatery huy s r olas. fter its lengthy run r ola retired only to find himself drawn ack into the usiness earlier this year y his son o y who was eager to reclaim the r ola family s restaurant glory through the enton ark restaurant Arzola’s 730

Mc air Avenue 314- 6-967 ). ogether with the talented chef anya ey they have achieved this and then some ringing to life a vi rant elevated take on ex ex cuisine anchored in warm genuine hospitality. he restaurant hits on every note ut if there is one dish that defines the place it s the steak fajitas a revelation of the form that egins with a hour marinated flap steak that s cooked over heated lava rocks so that the fat melts into the meat then driles down onto the rocks so that it astes the meat from the ottom while adding a smoky flavor. he result of her process is a stunning masterpiece oth charred and juicy thin ut not overcooked that looks not like strips of meat ut gilded petals that have gently fallen onto the plate from a steak flower. ou will taste this and reali e that you have never actually had a steak fajita efore you ve had r ola s.

Sabroso Cucina Mexicana

If you eat only one dish off this list may it e the cochinita pi il at Sabroso 11146 Old treet Charles oc oad t. Ann 314-91 -5037), a stunning slow roasted pulled pork masterpiece that is so tender and juicy you could spread it on a cracker. he meat is deeply porky yet kissed with a hint of citrus to cut through the richness and dressed with a generous sprinkle of diced pickled red onions that give the pork even more alance. hef and owner iguel intor lovingly referred to as hef iguel y those who know him from his lengthy tenure at ission aco oint has spent a large part of his career helping to ring to life dam and ason ilford s vision for a alifornia style exican spot. t Sa roso he is now captain of the ship taking his independence as an opportunity to share with St. ouis diners the traditional flavors of his up ringing in a asco and exico ity. rom his hum le storefront in St. nn he s managed to create a transportative experience that leaves you wanting for nothing more except may e a second platter of slow cooked pork.

Salve Osteria

Natasha ahrami and ichael ricker knew that Salve Osteria 3 00 outh Grand oulevard 314-771-3411) was a risk. hey also knew they had no choice ut to take it. hough they were enjoying some of the usiest years their restaurant afe Natasha s had ever experienced ahrami s mother and the restaurant s ma-

Salve Osteria. | MABEL SUEN

Basil India. | MABEL SUEN

triarch amishe was ready to step away ut could not ring herself to do so as long as it remained open. In an act of oth love and independence ahrami and ricker convinced om to retire and together with chef att ynn reinvented the restaurant on their own terms. nchored y ahrami s mind lowing gin expertise at the adjacent in oom Salve steria is a love song to ahrami and ricker s passion for the Italian food and everage experience something that plays out through ynn s outstanding handmade pastas including a seasonal lam lasagne that is one of the area s purist plates of comfort. he three understand there is a lot riding on their shoulders ut what s lovely is how they come off as less urdened y a legacy and more free to chart their own path. It s eautiful to watch.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Basil India

Basil India 31 3 outh Grand oulevard 314-4 -9711), which technically opened last year flew under the radar for a while thanks to having a similar name as its predecessor asil Spice. hat changed as more and more people simply happened into its South rand storefront and left positively lown away y its magical su continental cuisine. he restaurant is owned y the team ehind niversity ity s urmeric ut the real superstar of asil India is adan hhetri a native of southern India who has cooked at top restaurants in angalore oa um ai and stateside at a modern upscale Indian esta lishment in northern irginia. is

talent is mind lowing and puts him in the conversation as one of the area s top chefs with flawless dishes like his crispy noodle salad a stunning m lange of texture and flavor alanced y crunch and softness coolness and fire tang and sweetness or angra style chili paneer which features cu es of pan fried cheese tossed in a fiery sauce that is a master class on spice use. he restaurant is proof that sometimes the est dining experiences can e found where you least expect them.

Havana’s u an native amara andeiro found herself craving the flavors of her home country after moving to St. ouis to support her daughter s grandmaster level chess career and instead of simply pining for them she decided to take matters into her own hands. She started out with a Soulard arket food stall then a food truck eventually working her way up to the delightful downtown rick and mortar Havana’s Cuisine 1131 ashington Avenue 314449-6771), where she serves a Cuan sandwich against which all other u an sandwiches should e judged. he key to this masterpiece is the read procured from the iconic a Segunda entral akery in ampa lorida a fourth generation akeshop that has een making authentic u an read since . luffy on the inside and crusty on the outside so that it develops the perfect crispness when pressed it s the asis of u ano sandwiches for lorida s large u an community and no different than what you d get in avana. ayered with mouthwatering slow cooked pork ham molten Swiss cheese tangy mustard and pickles it s not just a sandwich it s a revelation. n

Havana’s. | MABEL SUEN

REEFERFRONT TIMES

Missouri’s Own THC-Infused Red Hot Riplets

Cream of the Crop

Six of our favorite cannabis products from a banner year for Missouri marijuana

Written by RFT STAFF

No matter which way you slice it, 2022 was a big year for cannabis in the Show-Me State.

Missouri’s medical marijuana market has continued to mature, and cannabis companies have been adding more variety, higher potency and some downright fun formulations to their inventory. And of course, no one piece of weed news was more seismic than the passage of Amendment 3, which legalized recreational marijuana in the state as of December 8.

While those without med cards will have to wait until February to start making purchases at dispensaries, we card-carrying stoners here at RFT thought it would be altruistic of us to round up some of our favorite products we picked up in the past year as a way of hopefully giving you a head start. Read on, take notes, and we’ll see you in the stores next month.

Missouri’s Own made a big splash when it released its line of Red Hot Riplets infused with THC. The “twice-baked” chips, as they are playfully dubbed, quickly became one of the hottest tickets in Missouri’s medical marijuana market flying off the shelves at every dispensary at which they are sold. It’s easy to see why. Show me a cannabis enthusiast who doesn’t like to tear into a bag of chips when they’re ripped, and I’ll show you a unicorn. The time-honored act of stu ng one s face with greasy salty crunchiness while high as a kite spans generations this development simply streamlined the process. Each package contains about 20 milligrams of THC and costs efore taxes. s for flavor, these things are 100 percent Riplet, with that familiar crunchy, spicy kick and just enough sweetness to light up the taste buds. Once the high set in during my initial session, I felt pretty damn couchlocked, positively glued to my chair, though I was still able to think pretty clearly. Not only that, I was still feeling the effects four hours later when I decided to turn in for the night, ultimately sleeping like a baby.

—Tommy Chims

Cookies’ Gary Payton Strain

When vaunted cannabis company Cookie’s opened its north county location in June, I celebrated the occasion by purchasing an eighth of its Gary Payton strain, due both to its stellar reputation and to the hypnotizing quality of the pro ath-

Rainbow Sprinklies. | TOMMY CHIMS

—Tommy Chims

lete’s eyes on the store’s interior signage. An eighth cost me $56.84 after taxes and clocked in at 26.48 percent THC. Upon opening the bag, I was met with a powerful floral smell with peppery notes and a light citrus bite, in keeping with the fact that caryophyllene, limonene and linalool are the strain’s dominant terpenes. On breakup, this stuff was exceptionally dense, almost like Play-Doh, and left my fingers pretty sticky. On inhale, the taste was exquisite, with a pleasant spiciness on the back of my tongue that reminded me of a fine cigar. It was also exceptionally smooth, and I could rip my spoon pipe as hard as I wanted with no risk of coughing. Gary Payton’s reputation is that of an exceptionally balanced and relaxed high, and that reputation is decidedly well-earned. I found myself to be in a stellar mood, not too buzzy and not too zoned out, high as hell with no trace of anxiety, and plenty energetic. It was among the most even-keeled highs I’ve ever experienced and enough for Gary Payton to rapidly become one of my favorites in the Missouri market.

Vibe’s Gelato Strain

I tracked down Vibe Cannabis’ version of the popular Gelato cultivar at the south-city location of 3 Fifteen. I got home, cracked the lid and the enticing smell invaded my nostrils immediately, with notes of sweet berries everywhere. Dusted with a nice layer of trichromes, the nuggets within had a light-green color with dots of purple flower en-

cased in orange hairs that popped in the light. Upon inhale, I noted that the smoke had a nice round mouthfeel to it, similar to what I’ve noticed in an Ice Cream Cake strain. The berry notes I got from the nose came through in the flavor. As for the high, it brought on some fantastic effects, making me feel happy and uplifted. The body high felt great, like a gentle hug. This is my new weighted blanket. The initial high settled in both the head and upper body, gradually building on the body high into the legs. This could easily be dangerous couch-lock weed, no question. I’m normally skeptical about dispensaries’ THC tests, but this definitely was a heavy hitter and every bit of the 30.48 percent THC on the label. —Graham Toker

HeadChange’s Jurassic Gas Live Sauce Cartridges

One of the major movers and shakers in the Missouri medical marijuana space has been HeadChange, with its lineup of terpene-forward concentrates. Their cartridges are “live,” meaning they include the terpenes from the source flower they re made from diamonds and sauce, in fact. I was impressed with their Jurassic Gas carts, high in limonene, nerolidol and linalool, and clocking in at 69.9 percent combined THC and THCA. The strain is a cross between Jurassic Kush and as ru e I paid . for one half-gram cartridge. HeadChange’s emphasis on terpenes and taste meant my expectations were high, and I wasn’t disappointed ripping clouds of the Ju-

rassic as. Its u legum flavor was more of a slightly more oldschool gum like Big League Chew, and there were prominent fuellike notes on exhale. The taste was not overwhelmingly gas, but more of a sour tart turned sweeter, while not too sweet like a Runtz or other candy terpene strain. The cartridge was enjoyed over a weekend, and I felt more comfortable toting it around than the usual joint, since it is far more discrete. It was also not as obtrusive in the house, and because of that I blew through it fairly quickly. I d definitely purchase it again.

—Graham Toker

Good Day Farms’ Rainbow Sprinkles Strain

My batch of Good Day Farms’ Rainbow Sprinkles strain was rated at 19.98 percent THC-wise, and the label helpfully displayed the strain s terpene profile as well, which includes limonene, nerolidol, linalool and caryophyllene. Upon opening the pouch, I was greeted with a spicy, fuellike scent that hit sharply up in my sinuses, as well as some citrus notes. The buds sported clusters of long, orange hairs dispersed among dark greens and plenty of purple, and they appeared frosted, with tiny, white crystals that sparkled in the light. On breakup, that spicy smell brought some deep sweetness with it that was quite pleasant. On inhale, I found this strain to be exceptionally smooth even when taking large rips, I didn’t cough. As for effects, it brought a focused and energized high, and I found even the

most mundane things to be absolutely fascinating, as evidenced by the fact I spent a considerable amount of time reading about (non-cannabis) weeds on Wikipedia during my review session.

—Tommy Chims

Cookies’ Helium Strain

Upon digging into Cookie’s Helium strain I was immediately punched in the face with a citrusy, piney Lemon Pledge smell. The dense, strawberry-shaped buds were a dark forest green, covered in dark orange/rust covered hairs. On breakup, the insides were a bright lime green, speckled liberally with little reflective trichome droplets. n inhale the flavor had a strong fuel-like taste with an intensity that felt similar to what I might expect doing dabs, but to my surprise, on exhale it had more of a pleasant floral flavor and it was an exceptionally smooth smoke. It brought a strong, clean high, with no couchlock and not much in the way of appetite stimulation. My brain was pretty thoroughly scram led and I found it di cult to concentrate, but in a good way, with my mind pleasantly flitting around from one thought to the next like a utterfly. y chronic pain, which had been bugging me all week, was not nonexistent, but was not so insistent either. I didn’t feel much in the way of anxiety, ut I noted that I definitely could have gotten to a pretty anxious place if I hadn’t made the wise decision to stop efore I finished the bowl. This is powerful, top-shelf stuff to be treated with care.

—Tommy Chims n

Vibe’s Gelato Strain. | TOMMY CHIMS

Cookies’ Helium. | TOMMY CHIMS

CULTURE

Go Big and Go Home

Written by STEVE LEFTRIDGE

St. Louis native Nikki Glaser is still buzzing from the night before. Not from booze — the 38-year-old comedian uit drinking years ago. Not even from the previous night’s sold-out show in Atlantic City, part of Glaser’s The Good Girl Tour, which she describes as the best tour of her career. No, Glaser’s nerve endings are still smoldering because she just met Jerry Seinfeld for the first time. he two happened to be performing in separate showrooms at the same Atlantic City casino, after which the comedy legend summoned Glaser to his dressing room.

Gearing herself up to tell Seinfeld, one of her all-time heroes, how much he means to her, Glaser was fla ergasted when he gushed over her instead.

“It turns out he’s a huge fan!” she tells the RFT on a phone call from her New York City hotel room. “I was, like, ‘Are you doing an impression of the things that I was planning to say to you!?’ I was very shocked that he was even familiar with me, let alone a fan. It was awesome. It was one of the best moments of my career, and it just happened last night.”

Seinfeld’s praise was especially important to Glaser as someone who, despite considerable success and fame, still struggles with feelings of insecurity as a performer.

“I’m someone who always doubts myself a lot and always has imposter syndrome. I constantly uestion my talent she says. “But I’m not allowed to anymore because Jerry Seinfeld told me I was talented, and I really believe him, and he had evidence for it, and I will never forget the things

that he said to me last night, and you can t uestion erry Seinfeld.

Such a bullet-train sentence of rapid fire clauses is typical of laser, who continually demonstrates a head-spinning capacity for sizzling verbal runs that manage to be simultaneously funny, insightful and soul-baring. It’s this racing, high-voltage cognition that often has Glaser stuck in a continual cycle of fraught self-evaluation but which also makes her one of the funniest and most talented comics of her generation. Her last few years have seen a surge of successes: wellreceived Netflix and standup

specials, sold-out shows across the country, a highly popular podcast, a hosting role on HBO’s reality dating show Fboy Island, brutally hilarious celebrity-roast takedowns, a Carpool Karaoke episode with her favorite band Wilco, and on-air guest appearances that have made her a favorite of everyone from Howard Stern to Conan O’Brien.

Next on the list is an event Glaser expects to be another career pinnacle: her upcoming New Year’s Eve performance at Stifel Theatre, her biggest-ever headlining show.

“It’s a fucking honor!” she says. “I mean, I was happy with just the

Pageant! That was the goal forever. So to be at this level — it’s above and beyond. I’m so excited to play that beautiful theater.”

oreover for the first time in many years, Glaser does not have to travel to play a homecoming show. After several years in New York and LA, Glaser moved back in with her parents in Kirkwood when ID wiped out live performances.

“I need to be around people, or I get lonely and depressed,” she says. “When the lockdowns happened I couldn’t do standup every night, and I needed people to be around, so I moved in with my parents.”

Glaser credits the slower pace of life back home with saving her from a work-induced breakdown.

“In the past eight or so years, as I’ve gotten more famous, more work has come in, and I can’t say no, so I was working all day and still doing standup at night,” she says. “So right before the pandemic, I was on the edge of serious burnout. I was kind of going insane.”

After a few months back in Kirkwood laser grew reac uainted with a lifestyle that had comforts and enefits she had mostly forgotten. “I was, like, this is a sweet life! You just eat dinner and watch TV and go to bed,” she says. “I hadn’t had that life since high school.” As a result, Glaser stayed even after the lockdown was lifted, traveling out of town for gigs but making St. Louis her permanent home.

Asked about the attention she gets around town as a celebrity living in St. Louis, Glaser insists that she rarely gets recognized and is shocked whenever she does. She recently attended her high school reunion irkwood igh School Class of 2002) and reports that her old classmates did not seem all that impressed with her, which she thinks is how it should be.

“The truth is — celebrity is dumb,” she says. “It’s an empty pursuit. It doesn’t actually bring you happiness. So I think St. Louis has it right.”

At the same time, Glaser remains full of internal contradictions, admitting that she herself is easily dazzled by famous people. She says, “I still get starstruck to this day. I mean, if I saw Becky, Queen of Carpet, I would freak out.”

After a year living in her child-

A newly Seinfeld-approved Nikki Glaser preps for her biggest hometown show yet

Catch Nikki Glaser at the Stifel eatre on New Year’s Eve. | COURTESY PHOTO

hood bedroom, Glaser moved to her current apartment in the Central West End, where she enjoys a routine of walking her dog, getting coffee, running in Forest Park, meditating, playing her guitar and recording The Nikki Glaser Podcast once a week. It’s a pace and state of normalcy that Glaser is reveling in.

“I watch the sunset or play Frisbee in the park with my boyfriend,” she says. “We go to yoga, and then we go out to dinner and then we watch White Lotus. It’s awesome.”

Her boyfriend is TV producer and radio personality Chris Convy, whom Glaser fans know from Welcome Home Nikki Glaser?, the reality show that chronicled her adventures in settling back in St. Louis. It’s the kind of candid look into Glaser’s life that has become her trademark. Her standup sets are notorious for open-book de-

scriptions of her life’s most intimate details, which include raunchy, I-can’t-believe-she-said-that riffs on sex, masturbation, hygiene and other ribald topics.

“For whatever reason, I feel free to say whatever I want on stage, even more so than in a therapist s o ce she says. here is just something about an audience in the dark and having a microphone. I am more honest than I could ever be anywhere else.”

When asked about performing explicit material in front of her own parents, she says the shock for them wore off long ago.

“Oh my God, they have grown calluses over their ears at this point from all the things I’ve said,” she jokes. “They’re used to it. And my boyfriend’s dad has heard everything I could possibly say about what his son and I have allegedly done.”

And yet Glaser does admit to

anxieties about playing St. Louis — particularly the possibility of running into someone afterward and sensing that they didn’t like the show, anxieties that she traces back to feelings she had 20 years ago in high school.

“My biggest fear is, like, some pretty girl from MICDS saying, ‘That was gross. You grossed us out,’” she says. “It’s like being in St. Louis makes me feel like I’m in high school again. Like, am I cool? Do people like me? I want to be accepted.”

Despite loving high school in general, Glaser recalls years of falling short of her desire to be exceptional. She tried swimming and field hockey I uit ecause I had bad shin splints. Also, I sucked,” she remembers), had no success with boys and failed to get leading roles in school plays.

“I would audition for The Diary of Anne Frank, and I would get Jewish Townsperson B,” she says. “I wanted the lead, and I wouldn’t even get close. It was pretty demoralizing.”

Then during her senior year, Glaser was cast in The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940 as Bernice, an uproarious, perpetually drunk character. “I just kind of played her as Karen on Will and Grace or as my mom on New Year’s Eve,” she laughs. Her drama teacher heaped praise on her performance, which she describes as a turning point the first time she felt truly good at something.

Fast-forward to 2022, and the girl who was too scared to dance at Webster-Kirkwood Friendship Dances is about to pack the 3,100seat Stifel Theatre for an adoring crowd on New Year’s Eve.

“It’s going to be a big night out!” she says. here s definitely going to be some pomp to it. It’s going to be more special than just a regular show. This is a dream gig, and I am going to be happier than I could ever be that night.”

And what if the old self doubts try to creep up?

“It’s different now,” she says. “Because I will have Jerry Seinfeld in my head saying, ‘You’ve got it, Nikki. You’ve got it.’” n

Catch Nikki Glaser at 8 p.m. on Saturday, December 31, at the Stifel Theatre arket Street stifeltheatre.com . Tickets are $36.75 to $76.75.

[ONWARDS AND UPWARDS]

Ring in the New Year Right

From decadent eats to burlesque to music, St. Louis has something for you

Written by JESSICA ROGEN

No matter who you are or what you’re into, St. Louis has the perfect place and activity to ring in the New Year. But this isn’t that sort of guide. This is the Trader Joe’s of guides, a curated, manageable list with just the essentials for a certain kind of person who wanders in and sees something wonderful on the shelf — or, in this case, on the list.

You might be asking yourself if you are, indeed, that type of person. Well, you’re reading this article, so I’d say most resoundingly: yes. So read on to plan your New Year’s Eve adventure.

Dance the Night Away

1. Few things are more classic than not realizing when one year has blended into the next because you’re too busy shaking your behind. A great place to do so is through a door tucked into a corner of the Central West End through which you’ll find the area’s premier spot for latin dance, Club Viva (408 North Euclid Avenue, clubvivastl.com, 314-3610322). For the last night of the year, the club will have salsa lessons, party favors, a Champagne toast, and tacos and quesadillas for sale. The fun begins at 8 p.m., and the cover is $10.

2. If when you dance, you like to go big, head to Molly’s in Soulard (816 Geyer Avenue, 314-241-6200, mollysinsoulard. com) for its NYE 2023 shindig. The $500 to $1,200 tickets come with a lot: five open bars, a balloon drop, DJs, cabana tables, large covered and heated patios, and more. It’s more than a dance party, but who doesn’t hit the dance floor at Molly’s?

3. If you can’t dance without food in your stomach, there’s the NYE STL Dance Revolution at the Armory STL (3660 Market Street, 314-282-2720). There’s an all-inclusive food and drink package alongside live music and laser shows

Nikki Glaser met one of her biggest fans — Jerry Seinfeld. | COURTESY PHOTO

to help all that grooving get going. The party starts at 8 p.m., and tickets begin at $100.

Showdown

1. Sure, dancing yourself is fun, but sometimes you just want the professionals to take charge. There’s ballet, tap, modern dance, and then there’s that other genre — oh right, burlesque. In St. Louis, no one is more known for their topquality tease than our very own Lola Van Ella. You can catch her alongside a host of greats at the Casa Loma Ballroom (3354 Iowa Avenue, 314-282-2258, casalomaballroom.com) for Spectaculaire! A Solid Gold NYE, which promises to be a nonstop dance party featuring burlesque, drag and other variety artists. Tickets begin at $55, and there are upgrades that include food, tables, balcony seating and more.

2. But maybe you hit up the Van Ella Productions show last year and are looking for something different but still within the same oeuvre. Take yourself to the Boom Boom Room (1229 Washington Avenue, 314-436-7000, theboomboomroomstl. com) for a party that won’t soon be forgotten. Not only does the event include a burlesque show from the Boom Boom Bombshells, but it promises a threecourse dinner, top-quality liquor, insane NYE party favors, a lights show, confetti canon and much more. The evening is hosted by Madam Molotov and begins at 7:30 p.m. Tickets range from $160 a person to a $4,000 party package.

Head Bangers

1. Head way out there to the Factory (17105 North Outer 40 Road, Chesterfield; 314-423-8500) for six-time Grammy-winning Canadian DJ and electronic music producer Joel Thomas Zimmerman, a.k.a. Deadmau5, at 9 p.m. That Zimmerman — who comes to this fair state on the heels of early March’s collaborative Kx5 with Kaskade — will be spending NYE delighting fans in Chesterfield is mind blowing and thoroughly worth the $79.50 to $124.50 ticket fee.

2. Swing in the new year with the new Jazz St. Louis (3536 Washington Avenue, 314-571-6000, jazzstl.org) CEO Victor Goines during New Year’s Eve with Victor & Friends. The evening will feature a selection of jazz standards, classics and originals all set against a four-course prix fixe menu. There will be shows at 6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m., and tickets are $175.

3. City dwellers seeking soaring sounds and ceilings should head to Powell Hall (718 North Grand Boulevard, 314-534-

1700, slso.org) for the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra’s New Year’s Eve Celebration. Assistant conductor Stephanie Childress will be joined by soprano Mikaela Bennett and tenor Jeff Kready for this 2 p.m. jaunt open to family and friends of all ages. Tickets run $45 to $110.

Quality Noshes

1. Pretty much every holiday has some kind of traditional and delicious food item and thus New Year’s has Hoppin’ John, King Cake and St. Louis restaurateurs putting together amazing tastebud-driven experiences. Midtown favorite the Foun-

tain on Locust (3037 Locust Street, 314535-7800, fountainonlocust.com) celebrates the decadence of bygone eras with its Flights of Fancy event. The restaurant invites guests — dressed in their finest Gatsby-era garb — to enjoy flights of retro cocktails and ice cream as well as shareables. There’s a family-friendly seating at 5 p.m. for $75 and one at 8:30 p.m. for $100, which will include live music and dancing with Miss Jubilee, tarot readings and a Champagne toast.

2. If upscale Southern food is more your thing, head to Juniper (4101 Laclede Avenue, 314-329-7696, junipereats.com), which will have a DJ, open bar that in-

cludes four specialty cocktails, beer options and New Year’s punch; a balloon drop; appetizers and midnight Champagne. Tickets are $75, and the party begins at 8 p.m.

3. Italian eatery Edera (48 Maryland Plaza, 314-361-7227, ederastl.com) is going all out with its New Year’s Eve party, promising dancing with party band Mclovin, a glitter photo booth, an open bar with premium choices plus a Champagne toast and food stations curated by Executive Chef Andrew Simon that include carving stations, raw bar, pizza, dessert and more. Tickets are $150 and the night begins at 8 p.m. n

ere’s no shortage of ways to ring in the New Year in St. Louis — but few are as fine as the options on this guide. | COURTESY PHOTOS

MUSIC

[GRASSADELICA BOOGIE]

Game Changer

St. Louis’ Hillary Fitz is a folk-rock force to be reckoned with

Written by STEVE LEFTRIDGE

Singer-songwriter Hillary Fitz is not your typical banjo-clawhammering, collegiate-tennisplaying, jungle-dwelling, Spanish-speaking, yoga-teaching, holistic-gardening ICU nurse. She’s quite a bit more dynamic than that.

On a recent drizzly afternoon, Fitz comes bounding into a coffee shop in her south-city neighborhood, all smiles and hugs, her amber ringlets corkscrewing down from under a yellow knit stocking cap. She’s a fast talker, rattling off everything from high school memories to life philosophies to upcoming plans with a spirited alacrity that complements the 29-year-old’s globetrotting life so far.

Over the last few years, Fitz has risen to the top of the St. Louis folkrock scene through stellar songwriting, vibrant vocals, sophisticated folkcraft and expansive grassadelica boogie. Along with her reputation as a formidable live act, her 2015 EP She and last year’s A Vibrant Shade of Blue established Fitz as a writer of poignant, honeyed Americana, and a designer of fresh jazz-aware sonic alchemy.

Raised by a Celtic-music-loving father and jazz-devoted mother, it wrote her first songs as a fourth-grader, teaching herself piano as a middle-schooler and taking deep dives into reggae and jam music while attending St. Joseph’s Academy in Frontenac.

“I heard [Bob Marley’s 1977 LP] Exodus for the first time and was like, ‘What is this?’” Fitz recalls. “‘Why do I feel so good?’”

A trip to a bluegrass festival exposed Fitz to jamgrass bands such as Greensky Bluegrass and Cornmeal, inspiring her to break the grass ceiling as a female picker. After high school, Fitz attended

Webster University, where she majored in environmental science, was an all-conference tennis standout and studied guitar under journeyman musician Dave Black. But during her sophomore year, Fitz became vexed by her classmates u i uitous fixation on smartphones, motivating her to find a way that she would temporarily be forced to live phonefree. She settled on moving to the middle of the Panamanian jungle.

“It was a hard sell to my parents,” Fitz laughs.

Living totally off the grid, Fitz took an internship studying water quality, bathed in the river, slept in a hammock every night, had no access to screens (or mirrors, for that matter) and experienced a transcendental reinvention.

“It was completely life-changing,” she says. “Being so close to nature, I was able to process and discover who I am. It gave me the courage to really put myself out there as a musician.”

Back home, Fitz started gigging heavily around town, covering the likes of Bonnie Raitt and James Taylor on acoustic guitar.

y first show was at roadway Oyster Bar,” she says. “I told the booking guy that I knew four hours even though I didn’t. He said, ‘Cool, you’re on in two weeks.’ I went home and freaked out.”

Fitz enlisted drummer Drew

Lance and formed a duo, learned a pile of songs, nailed the Oyster Bar gig and quickly became a staple of the St. Louis bar scene, playing four nights a week. Her wanderlust spirit did not fade, however: She took periodic breaks from performing to study Spanish in Madrid, work on a goat farm in North Carolina and complete yoga-teaching training on a small island in Thailand.

Beyond her solo shows, Fitz spent the next few years singing with soul-jazz guitarist Pete Lombardo, Al Holliday’s East Side Rhythm Band and Sean Canan’s Voodoo Players, in which she covered the female roles during Fleetwood Mac, Talking Heads and other tribute nights. She still makes Voodoo cameos: Just last month, she channeled Joni Mitchell to stunning effect at the annual Voodoo Last Waltz concert at Delmar Hall.

All along, Fitz was writing original material, adding the banjo and mandolin and harmonica to her multi-instrumentalism, and experimenting with jazz tones and textures that added rich layers to her songwriting.

“I was listening to tons of Sarah Vaughn and Ella Fitzgerald and illie oliday she says influences that made their way onto her 2021 album A Vibrant Shade of Blue

One of the album’s key tracks is “Metamorphosis,” a song that

Fitz says illustrates the evolving nature of her own personal story and the maturation of her music.

“A lot of my songs are about change,” she says. “And the album ended up being completely different from how we started it.”

Fitz’s musical transformations have been stimulated by the ringers in her band: guitarist Matt Lyons, bassist Chris Turnbaugh, violinist Mark Hochberg and her longtime drummer Drew Lance.

“They are all incredible,” Fitz says. “They can take the music anywhere.”

COVID-19 prompted another of Fitz’s metamorphoses. With no gigs to play, she decided to fast-track her way through nursing school as a way to secure a steady career that would also provide days off to pursue music. She is now in her first year as an I nurse.

“It is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Fitz says. “But it’s very rewarding. When I get home, I know that my work was meaningful in someone’s life and in someone’s family.”

One thing that she does not see changing is her fondness for her hometown.

“I love St. Louis,” she says. “It’s an easy place to live. We have great food, awesome art, beautiful parks and amazing nature areas a short drive away. And the music scene here is really supportive and collaborative. We all build each other up.”

Still, given Fitz’s rambling spirit, she knows that other adventures may again call her away. But for now, she is excited to polish off the year with the Hillary Fitz Band’s show at the new Central Stage in Grand Center. Fitz promises that folks will see the full range of the band’s stylistic shapeshifting and first class musicianship.

“We’re going to roll with the metamorphosis theme,” she says.

ur first set is going to have an intimate, acoustic bluegrassy vibe, and then the second set will be electric, in-your-face rock & roll.” Beyond that preview, Fitz prefers to keep any surprises to herself: “What you can expect is not knowing what to expect.” n

Catch the Hillary Fitz Band at 9 p.m. on Friday, December 30, at Central Stage (3524 Washington Aveue, 314-533-0367). Tickets are $14.50 advance and $18 day of.

e Hillary Fitz Band plays Central Stage on Friday, December 30. | VIA METROTIX

A Brutal Path

Written by MONICA OBRADOVIC

After he made a documentary about St. Louis’ little Italy, Joseph Puleo kept hearing the same question. Would he make one about the Bosnian community?

A St. Louis-area native of Italian descent, Puleo was aware of St. Louis’ concentrated Bosnain population, but he didn’t know much about it. That changed after he directed and produced his award-winning documentary America’s Last Little Italy: The Hill, released in 2020. He and his wife had moved to Afton, where a majority of his neighbors were Bosnian.

The Bosnians’ stories intrigued him, so he made them the subject of his next project. Puleo’s documentary A New Home screened at this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival and is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

A New Home is the latest collaboration between Puleo and executive producer Rio Vitale, author of St. Louis’s The Hill, whose expertise and connections to the Hill were critical in the documentary’s making.

A New Home brought new challenges for the duo. With the Hill documentary, “you had people reliving probably the greatest experiences of their lives on camera — it was something they were excited to talk about,” Puleo says.

But the Bosnians’ story of relocating to St. Louis was not a happy one. Interviewees in A New Home recall the hardest years of their lives, when ethnic cleansing at the hands of Serbians forced Bosnians and other Balkan populations to flee their homes against their will. Neighbors turned on neighbors. Serbian friends who Bosnians had

known for their whole lives were suddenly threatening to kill them, raping and killing their women, or stealing their homes.

The war displaced 2 million osnians. any fled to ermany which took refugees temporarily. When their time was up there, suddenly Bosnians had nowhere to go. Their homes were either destroyed or under occupation. any fled to St. Louis. The city was relatively cheap and had the institutional backing to receive refugees.

St. Louis now houses the second-largest Bosnian population in the world, second only to Bosnia itself.

Puleo and his team knew they were making a big ask — wanting their subjects to relive the worst experiences of their lives on camera. But Puleo found that the documentary’s subjects were fairly open to questions. They wanted to tell their stories.

“I think it was a cathartic experience for them to be able to go through this,” Puleo says. “It was a novel situation for many: They’d never been asked to go on camera and do an interview about it. It was probably something that they’ve tried to lock away. Maybe it was eneficial for them to go through this for our film.

A New Home details the intimate and often tragic details of Bosnians’ asylum seeking, but

the documentary also touches on their successes. ow eneficial they are to the St. Louis area. How they were able to turn their lives around, often with little money, and move from the then-less-thandesired neighborhood that was Bevo Mill in the 1990s to south St. Louis County.

The most gratifying part of the documentary for Puleo was the response. He says he daily receives direct messages and comments from people thankful that he took the time to tell their stories.

“I’m just happy that their story was told,” Puleo says. “I think they feel unheard, and this kind of gave them a voice.”

uleo witnessed this firsthand at the documentary’s screening at the St. Louis International Film Festival. The theater was packed with mostly Bosnians, Puleo says. Most had never seen, read or heard their story represented in such a way.

“You could hear audible sobbing going on in the theater,” Puleo says.

he first minutes of the documentary are a heavy experience. Footage from the war shows soldiers marching through streets with rifles and osnians recalling the short time they had to pack up their lives and leave everything. Old newsreels display families scram ling through gunfire

mothers carrying their children, bombs blowing up homes.

A New Home ends on a positive note, however. Bosnian refugees and local experts detail the Bosnian community’s slow but steady ascent and their contributions to the St. Louis area.

Apart from giving Bosnian refugees a voice, Puleo hopes A New Home will explain to native St. Louisans the truth of Bosnians’ hardships. Many south-city and south-county residents were under the impression that Bosnians found their success through handouts, Puleo says. In the 1990s, rumors floated that osnians received thousands of dollars from the federal government to jumpstart their new lives.

No such payments existed, other than a single $500 payment each refugee received to keep themselves afloat in the weeks after their arrival. Other than that, most Bosnains lived off their savings and hard work, the documentary details.

“Hopefully, people watch the film and appreciate their osnian neighbors for what they’ve been able to go through, but also what they’ve been able to bring to the city of St. Louis,” Puleo says. “If anything, I hope that’s what people leave the film with a new sense of appreciation for these people.” n

Joseph Puleo’s A New Home gives voice to Bosnian refugees’ stories of immigration and success in a new city

For A New Home, Joseph Puleo interviewed members of St. Louis’ Bosnian community. | COURTESY PHOTO

OUT EVERY NIGHT

Each week, we bring you our picks for the best concerts of the next seven days. To submit your show for consideration, visit https://bit.ly/3bgnwXZ. Don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s a tripledemic afoot, so you should wear a mask to any public event, be smart about when you take it down and don’t forget to pull it up again. Because you don’t want to miss all the good stuff by getting sick (again), do you? Of course not. Happy New Year, and happy showgoing!

THURSDAY 29

’80S & ’90S HIP-HOP NIGHT WITH DJ G.WIZ: 5:30 p.m., free. Missouri History Museum, 5700 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, 314-746-4599.

ANTHOLOGY: AN ALLMAN BROTHERS TRIBUTE: 7:30 p.m., $26-$32. Wildey Theatre, 254 N. Main St., Edwardsville, 618-692-7538.

BETH BOMBARA: w/ Christian Knoblach 7 p.m., free. Yaqui’s on Cherokee, 2728 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314-400-7712.

CHRIS SHEPHERD BAND: 7 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

FARSHID ETNIKO AND JD HUGHES: 7:30 p.m., $15. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745.

THE HAMILTON BAND: 9 p.m., $8. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

THE JAZZ TROUBADOURS: 7 p.m., free. Evangeline’s, 512 N Euclid Ave, St. Louis, 314-367-3644.

THE LIZARDTONES: 8 p.m., $15. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

FRIDAY 30

5 STAR ROSCOE: 5 p.m., $10. The Attic Music ar S. ingshighway nd floor St. ouis 314-376-5313.

ALLIGATOR WINE: 10 p.m., $10. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

BLOND GURU: w/ Middle Class Fashion, No Antics 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

BOOGIEFOOT: 7 p.m., free. Evangeline’s, 512 N Euclid Ave, St. Louis, 314-367-3644.

BROTHER JEFFERSON BAND: 10 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

DIESEL ISLAND: 7 p.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521.

DREW LANCE: 4:30 p.m., free. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

EIGHTY-ONE: 8:30 p.m., $10. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

EL MONSTERO - A TRIBUTE TO PINK FLOYD: 8 p.m., $32.50-$52.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

AN EVENING WITH EIGHTY-ONE: 8:30 p.m., $10. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

GENE JACKSON & POWER PLAY: 7 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

HILLARY FITZ BAND: 8 p.m., $14.50-$18. Central Stage, 3524 Washington Avenue, St. Louis, 314-533-0367.

KODAK BLACK: 8 p.m., $49.99-$104.99. Chaifetz Arena, 1 S. Compton Ave., St. Louis, 314-977-5000.

MAI LEE: 8 p.m., $32.50. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

NEW YEAR’S EMO EVE: 9:30 p.m., free. Ballpark Village, 601 Clark Ave, St. Louis, 314-345-9481.

SHADES IN BLUE: 7:30 p.m., $12. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

Mai Lee w/ Vega Heartbreak

8 p.m. Friday, December 30. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Boulevard. $30 to $50. 314-726-6161.

There’s no one else quite like Mai Lee in St. Louis, or any other city in the country for that matter. Between managing her family’s restaurant (also named Mai Lee) and pumping out content for a down-toearth YouTube channel that is half music, half lifestyle vlog, the busy Asian American R&B singer is known for spinning lots of plates at any given time. And that’s why her newly released album Friendz

SHITSTORM EP RELEASE SHOW: w/ Maximum Effort, Ace of Spit, Loud Shirts, DJ Sex Nintendo 8 p.m., free. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

SOFT CRISIS: w/ What We Won’t See, The Health and Wellness Plan 8 p.m., $10. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

THAT 90S JAM: w/ James Biko, Rico Steez, Corey Black 9 p.m., $8-$15. Blank Space, 2847 Cherokee St., St. Louis.

THE TWANGADOURS: 7:30 p.m., $15. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745.

carries so much weight and depth. From the opening track where Vega Heartbreak speaks over a chill beat about meeting Mai Lee for the first time to similar interludes spread throughout the record, the singer’s friends and musical family are all given time to shine while the spotlight stays focused on cool, pop-sensible R&B. All of the album’s 14 tracks were named after a different friend as a tribute, but the themes and lyrics in each song aren’t necessarily based on their namesake. Friendz feels like a communal piece of work, but make no mistake, this musical world revolves around Mai Lee’s singular style and distinctly confident approach to the

SATURDAY 31

AARON KAMM AND THE ONE DROPS: 8 p.m., $25. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

ALL ROOSTERED UP: noon, free. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

BRAWSH: 7:30 p.m., $10. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745.

BROCK WALKER & FRIENDS: 3 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

DEADMAU5: 9 p.m., $79.50-$124.50. The Factory, N uter d hesterfield .

FREE YEARS EVE: w/ Goodbrotherlyzm 9 p.m.,

mic. Born from Vietnamese parents who sang in their own band and influenced by her siblings’ love of R&B in the ’90s, Mai Lee’s sound feels inclusive of her background and musical inspirations yet never weighed down by the heavy expectations of either.

On the Up and Up: Although Mai Lee has performed on events with Busta Rhymes, 50 Cent and 2 Chainz, to name a few, this night has been called the biggest show of her career. With the newly released album as rocket fuel, this concert could be the launch pad for one of St. Louis’ most exciting rising stars in the music community.

—Joseph Hess

free. Blank Space, 2847 Cherokee St., St. Louis.

IMANBEK: 10 p.m., $25-$1,000. RYSE Nightclub, One Ameristar Blvd, St. Charles.

JAZZ ST. LOUIS’ NEW YEAR’S EVE: w/ Victor & Friends 9 p.m., $175. Jazz St. Louis, 3536 Washington Ave, St. Louis, (314) 571-6000.

KINGDOM BROTHERS: 7 p.m., $25. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

KUSH & RESOLUTIONS NYE PARTY: 8 p.m., $20. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

LONE RANGERS: 8 p.m., free. Westport Social, 910 Westport Plaza Drive, Maryland Heights, 314-548-2876.

LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: 10 p.m., $25. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

Mai Lee. | VIA THE ARTIST

THE MIGHTY PINES NYE ‘90S FREAKOUT: 8 p.m., $25. The Golden Record, 2720 Cherokee Street, St. Louis, N/A.

NEON TROPIC NEW YEAR’S EVE: w/ DJ Clockwork, Nick O, Drace, Ben Stein 8 p.m., $30. HandleBar, 4127 Manchester Ave., St. Louis, 314-652-2212.

NEW YEAR’S EVE: w/ Marty Abdallah & The Expressions, Jampact 5 p.m., $20. The Attic Music ar S. ingshighway nd floor St. ouis 314-376-5313.

NEW YEAR’S EVE 2023: w/ JTyme, DJ Arty J 7 p.m., $15-$300. Tin Roof St. Louis, 1000 Clark Ave, St. Louis, 314-240-5400.

NEW YEARS EVE AT YAQUI’S: w/ the Gaslight Squares, Luisa Sims 7:30 p.m., free. Yaqui’s on Cherokee, 2728 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314-400-7712.

NEW YEAR’S EVE RED CARPET EVENT: 7 p.m., $125. Bella Vista Winery, 6633 East Main Street, Maryville, 618-228-9111 x3.

NEW YEARS EVE WITH AFROMAN: w/ Kid Lennon, Purple Hearts, Blake Banks, M3rk 9 p.m., $30-$200. The Broadway Boat Bar, 1424 N Broadway St, St Louis, (314) 565-4124.

NEW YEAR’S EVE WITH FUNKY BUTT BRASS BAND: 10 p.m., $20. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

NIKKI GLASER: 8 p.m., $36.75-$76.75. Stifel Theatre, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-499-7600.

NYE LIVE: w/ Joe Dirt 6 p.m., $75-$155. Ballpark Village, 601 Clark Ave, St. Louis, 314-345-9481.

NYE STL DANCE REVOLUTION: 9 p.m., $100. ArmorySTL, 3660 Market Street, St. Louis, NA.

THE ROARING TWENTIES: A NEW YEAR’S PARTY: 6:30 p.m., $30. 9 Mile Garden, 9375 Gravois Road, Affton, 3143902806.

SARKATHA: w/ Mindclot, Nite Sprites, Trashgoat 9 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

SUPERJAM: 7 p.m., $25. RYSE Nightclub, One Ameristar Blvd, St. Charles.

VOODOO GRATEFUL DEAD: 8 p.m., $20. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

SUNDAY 1

TODD SHEAFFER: w/ Allie Kral, Gerard Erker 6 p.m., $15-$20. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd., Maplewood, 314-560-2778.

MONDAY 2

MONDAY NIGHT REVIEW: 7 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

TUESDAY 3

NAKED MIKE: 7 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

WEDNESDAY 4

BOB CASE: 7 p.m., $10. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745.

JOHN MCVEY BAND: 7 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

MARGARET & FRIENDS: 3 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

ST. LOUIS JAZZ CLUB: w/ TJ Muller 7 p.m., free. Evangeline’s, 512 N Euclid Ave, St. Louis, 314-367-3644.

VOODOO DEAD 1968: 9 p.m., $12. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT JAZZ JAM: 6 p.m., free. The Dark Room, 3610 Grandel Square inside Grandel Theatre, St. Louis, 314-776-9550.

UPCOMING

ADAM DOLEAC: Sat., April 29, 8 p.m., $20. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

ADAM MANESS & FRIENDS: Tue., April 11, 10 a.m., $20-$23. Wed., April 12, 10 a.m., $20-$23. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900.

Shitstorm EP Release Show w/ Maximum E ort, Ace of Spit, Loud Shirts, DJ Sex Nintendo

8 p.m. Friday, December 30. e Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway. Free. 314-328-2309.

Follow any ’80s hair metal singer online and, eventually, you’ll be treated to some wistful tweet about a better time when people only cared about sex, drugs and rock & roll. Sure, some aspects of the good ol’ days are best left festering in the past, but Shitstorm carries the party into an uncertain and likely apocalyptic future with one key tenet: Play it loud. Of all the bands named Shitstorm in the world — and there are a few — St. Louis’ sticks out like a sore thumb split open from playing the guitar too damn hard. When singer and guitarist Matt Stuttler takes to the stage, he does so with muddy river water coursing through his veins. That might be because his venue, the Sinkhole, is a haven for punk and feedback that sits on South Broadway only a few feet away

ADAM SANDLER: Fri., Feb. 10, 7:30 p.m., $36.50$166.50. Enterprise Center, 1401 Clark Ave., St. Louis, 314-241-1888.

ANGEL OLSEN: Sat., Jan. 28, 8 p.m., $34.50$64.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer 40 Rd, hesterfield .

AOIFE O’DONOVAN: Sat., April 15, 8 p.m., $25-$36. The Sheldon Concert Hall and Art Galleries, 3648 Washington Avenue, St. Louis, 314-533-9900.

BADFLOWER: W/ Des Rocs, Blood Red Shoes, Tue., March 7, 7 p.m., $30. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

BIG LOVE: A TRIBUTE TO FLEETWOOD MAC: Fri., Jan. 20, 8 p.m., $20-$25. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

BLACK VIOLIN: Wed., March 15, 8 p.m., $24.50$69.50. Touhill Performing Arts Center, 1 Touhill Circle, St. Louis, 866-516-4949.

Shitstorm. | VIA ARTIST BANDCAMP

from the Mississippi. While the Sinkhole isn’t the only spot Shitstorm performs in town, the low-lit floor stage therein can safely be called a home base for the garage-on-fire rock band who has released an impressive array of tapes and records since debuting back in 2014. This night celebrates the release of Demonic Alien, a new EP put out by local label Do What? Records, which is also known for releasing music by the Chill Dawgs, Carondelet Guy and Breakmouth Annie, to name a few. Plus, New Year’s Eve is considered to be amateur hour — everyone knows that the pro partygoers go out on New Year’s Eve Eve.

Credit Where Credit’s Due: It’s been more than a few years since Stuttler’s DIY music venue opened on South Broadway, but the Sinkhole isn’t just a nesting ground for loud rock. The space has hosted a surprisingly huge number of bands and musical acts of many genres from all over the world. Legendary noise act Wolf Eyes and Duma from Kenya are recent standouts from an absolutely jampacked 2022. —Joseph Hess

BLIND MAN’S BLUFF: Fri., Feb. 24, 5 p.m., $10. The Attic Music Bar, 4247 S. Kingshighway, 2nd floor St. ouis .

THE BOULET BROTHERS’ DRAGULA: Mon., April 24, 8 p.m., $44.50-$78. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

BOXCAR: Thu., Jan. 19, 8 p.m., $15. Joe’s Cafe, 6014 Kingsbury Ave, St. Louis.

BUDDY GUY: Mon., March 13, 7:30 p.m., $49.50$79.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer 40 Rd, hesterfield .

CHAMPIONS OF MAGIC: Thu., March 30, 7:30 p.m., $28.50-$78.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer d hesterfield .

CHEEKFACE: Thu., April 6, 8 p.m., $16. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

THE COMMODORES: Sat., April 8, 8 p.m., $65$125. Lindenwood University’s J. Scheidegger

Center for the Arts, 2300 W. Clay St., St. Charles, 636-949-4433.

CORY WONG: W/ Victor Wooten, Trousdale, Thu., Feb. 16, 8 p.m., $32.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

DAN NAVARRO: Wed., Feb. 15, 8 p.m., $20. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

DAVID CROSS: Wed., April 5, 8 p.m., $40.50. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900.

DEBBY LENNON: Tue., May 9, 10 a.m., $20-$23. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900.

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS: Sat., March 18, 8 p.m., $27.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

THE EMO NIGHT TOUR: Fri., Jan. 13, 8 p.m., $20$40. The Hawthorn, 2225 Washington Avenue, St. Louis.

AN EVENING WITH THE CHURCH: Sat., March 25, 8 p.m., $35. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

GARZA: Fri., March 3, 8 p.m., $25. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

GRAYSCALE: Sun., March 26, 7:30 p.m., $22. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

HIGHLY SUSPECT: Thu., March 2, 8 p.m., $32.50$45. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

HIPPO CAMPUS: W/ Gus Dapperton, Mon., May 22, 8 p.m., $32.50-$45. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

THE HOMEWRECKERS: Fri., Feb. 10, 5 p.m., $10. The Attic Music Bar, 4247 S. Kingshighway, 2nd floor St. ouis .

INTERNATIONAL ANIME MUSIC FESTIVAL: Wed., March 1, 8 p.m., $44.50-$64. The Factory, 17105 N uter d hesterfield .

JANET JACKSON: Sun., April 30, 8 p.m., $36.95$496.95. Enterprise Center, 1401 Clark Ave., St. Louis, 314-241-1888.

JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER ORCHESTRA: Sun., Jan. 29, 7:30 p.m., $46-$66. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900.

JAZZ AT LINCOLN CENTER PRESENTS: SONGS WE LOVE: Sat., Feb. 18, 8 p.m., $40-$50. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900.

JERRY CANTRELL: Fri., March 24, 8 p.m., $29.50$79.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer 40 Rd, hesterfield .

JERRY HARRISON & ADRIAN BELEW: Wed., Feb. 22, 8 p.m., $39.50-$59.50. The Factory, 17105 N uter d hesterfield .

THE JUDDS: Sat., Feb. 4, 7:30 p.m., $29.50$399.50. Chaifetz Arena, 1 S. Compton Ave., St. Louis, 314-977-5000.

KEVIN BUCKLEY: Tue., March 14, 10 a.m., $20$23. Wed., March 15, 10 a.m., $20-$23. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900.

THE KILLERS: Wed., March 22, 8 p.m., $34.25$134.25. Chaifetz Arena, 1 S. Compton Ave., St. Louis, 314-977-5000.

KIMBRA: Sat., Feb. 25, 8 p.m., $20. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

LAST DANCE: A TOM PETTY TRIBUTE: Fri., Feb. 17, noon, $10. The Attic Music Bar, 4247 S. Kingshighway nd floor St. ouis .

THE LEMON TWIGS: Sat., March 11, 8 p.m., $20. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314498-6989.

LIZZO: Tue., April 25, 8 p.m., $96.50-$126.50. Enterprise Center, 1401 Clark Ave., St. Louis, 314-241-1888.

LORRIE MORGAN AND PAM TILLIS: Fri., April 28, 8 p.m., $30-$60. River City Casino & Hotel, 777 River City Casino Blvd., St. Louis, 314-388-7777.

UPCOMING

Continued from pg 43

LOS TIGRES DEL NORTE: Fri., Feb. 24, 8 p.m., $52.50-$202.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer 40 d hesterfield .

LOUIS C.K.: hu. an. p.m. . . he actory N uter d hesterfield .

LYNYRD SKYNYRD & ZZ TOP: hu. ug. p.m. . . . ollywood asino mphitheatre I arth ity xpwy. aryland eights .

MARC COHN AND SHAWN COLVIN: ri. pril p.m. . he Sheldon ashington lvd. St. ouis .

MARDI GRAS PARTY 2023: Sat., Feb. 18, 5 p.m., . he ttic usic ar S. ingshighway nd floor St. ouis .

THE MAVERICKS: hu. pril p.m. . he ageant Delmar lvd. St. ouis .

MORRIS DAY AND THE TIME: Fri., June 2, 8 p.m., . iver ity asino otel iver ity asino lvd. St. ouis .

THE MOTET: oon ooch hu. arch p.m. . . Delmar all Delmar lvd. St. ouis .

MUSE: Sun. arch p.m. . . . haifet rena S. ompton ve. St. ouis .

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON: ed. ay p.m. . ouhill erforming rts enter ouhill ircle St. ouis .

NEW EDITION: eith Sweat uy Sat. pril p.m. . . . nterprise enter lark ve. St. ouis .

NEW FOUND GLORY: Sat. an. p.m. . . Delmar all Delmar lvd. St. ouis .

PARAMORE: Sun. uly p.m. . . nterprise enter lark ve. St. ouis .

PARKWAY DRIVE: ue. e . p.m. . he ageant Delmar lvd. St. ouis .

PIGEONS PLAYING PING PONG: hu. arch p.m. . . Delmar all Delmar lvd. St. ouis .

POKEY LAFARGE: ri. ay p.m. . he Sheldon ashington lvd. St. ouis .

POP’S LOCAL SHOWCASE: Sat., Jan. 21, 7 p.m., . op s Nightclu onsanto ve. ast St. ouis .

PROUD LARRY: Sat., Feb. 11, 5 p.m., $10. The Attic usic ar S. ingshighway nd floor St. ouis .

QUASI: ri. arch p.m. . ff roadway emp ve. St. ouis .

QUEENSRŸCHE: Sun. arch p.m. . Delmar all Delmar lvd. St. ouis .

REVEREND HORTON HEAT: Scott . iram hu. arch p.m. . ed lag ocust Street St. ouis .

RICKY SKAGGS & KENTUCKY THUNDER: Fri., Jan. p.m. . he Sheldon ashington lvd. St. ouis .

THE RICTERS: ri. e . p.m. . lue erry ill he Duck oom Delmar lvd. niversity ity .

ROYAL COMEDY 2023: Sommore ruce ruce avell rawford rne Sat. arch 8 p.m., $64-$255. Chaifetz Arena, 1 S. Compton ve. St. ouis .

THE SADIES: Sun. e . p.m. . ff roadway emp ve. St. ouis .

SHAME: ri. ay p.m. . ff roadway emp ve. St. ouis .

SHANIA TWAIN: Sun. une p.m. . . . ollywood asino mphitheatre I arth ity xpwy. aryland eights .

SHAWN MULLINS: arry amp ell eresa illiams Sat. arch p.m. . ff roadway emp ve. St. ouis .

SIERRA FERRELL: hu. arch p.m. .

he Sheldon ashington lvd. St. ouis . hu. arch p.m. . Steward amily la a at he Sheldon ashington lvd Saint ouis .

THE SLEEPY RUBIES: the dam aness rio ri. an. p.m. . a St. ouis ashington ve St. ouis .

THE SOUL II SOUL TOUR: edisi usi Soulchild Sat. arch p.m. . haifet rena S. ompton ve. St. ouis .

SOUTHERN CULTURE ON THE SKIDS: hu. ay p.m. . lue erry ill he Duck oom Delmar lvd. niversity ity .

STATIC-X: ear actory Dope wi tid ultus lack ed. pril p.m. . Delmar all Delmar lvd. St. ouis .

STRFKR: Sat. e . p.m. . ed lag ocust Street St. ouis .

TENACIOUS D: on. ay p.m.

. . he actory N uter d hesterfield .

THE 15TH ANNUAL GATEWAY BLUES FESTIVAL: ri. pril p.m. . Stifel heatre arket St St. ouis .

THRAK - A TRIBUTE TO KING CRIMSON: Fri., Jan. p.m. . ld ock ouse S. th St. St. ouis .

THREE DOG NIGHT: ri. arch p.m.

. indenwood niversity s . Scheidegger enter for the rts . lay St. St. harles .

TOTO: Sun. arch p.m. . . Stifel heatre arket St St. ouis .

TREVOR NOAH: ri. arch p.m. .

. Stifel heatre arket St St. ouis .

TRIXIE DELIGHT DUO: ri. an. p.m. . he ttic usic ar S. ingshighway nd floor St. ouis .

TUBA SKINNY: ri. arch p.m. . he Sheldon ashington lvd. St. ouis .

UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA: hu. pril p.m. . he ageant Delmar lvd. St. ouis .

UP ALL NIGHT: Sat., Jan. 28, 5 p.m., $10. The Attic usic ar S. ingshighway nd floor St. ouis .

VALENTINE’S SOUL JAM: Sat., Feb. 11, 7 p.m., . Stifel heatre arket St St. ouis .

VOICES OF MISSISSIPPI: Fri., Feb. 10, 8 p.m., . he Sheldon ashington lvd. St. ouis .

VOODOO DEAD 1973: ed. an. p.m. . roadway yster ar S. roadway St. ouis .

VOODOO DEAD 1981: ed. an. p.m. . roadway yster ar S. roadway St. ouis .

VOODOO LITTLE FEAT: ri. arch p.m. . ld ock ouse S. th St. St. ouis .

VOODOO TALKING HEADS: ri. e . p.m. . ri. e . p.m. . Delmar all Delmar lvd. St. ouis .

WALKER HAYES: hu. ug. p.m. . St. ouis usic ark asino enter Dr. aryland eights .

WATCHHOUSE: Sun. pril p.m. . he Sheldon ashington lvd. St. ouis .

WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE: hu. e . p.m. . he ageant Delmar lvd. St. ouis .

WHITE REAPER: Sat. e . p.m. . Delmar all Delmar lvd. St. ouis .

THE WILDFLOWERS: A TRIBUTE TO TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS: Sat., Jan. 14, 8 p.m., $20-$40. Sat., Jan. 14, 8 p.m., $20-$40. The awthorn ashington venue St. ouis.

WILLI CARLISLE: ed. e . p.m. . ff roadway emp ve. St. ouis .

THE WONDER YEARS: ot ulligan arly osgrove ed. arch p.m. . n

Quickies

BY DAN SAVAGE

Hey Dan: How long after a divorce does someone become “emotionally available” for a new relationship?

Someone who initiated a divorce — someone who made up their mind got a lawyer and filed the paperwork — is probably going to be “emotionally available” a little sooner than someone who was blindsided when their spouse “asked” for a divorce. (It’s not really an “ask,” since you don’t need someone’s permission to divorce them.) But if the person who initiated the divorce was being abused, they may need more time to recover from the marriage than the “blindsided” abuser they left. And if a marriage wound down after a decade or two, and the decision to divorce was mutual and amicable, both parties could be “emotionally available” before they’ve taken their rings off, much less finali ed the divorce.

Hey Dan: Is being a “vaginaphile” an acceptable thing in 2023? Regardless of the other person’s identity?

Absolutely. Dick is nice, I’m a fan, but dick isn’t for everyone. Same goes for pussy. I find it strange that it’s often the same people who insist demisexuality is valid (and it is) and sapiosexuality is valid (and it is) and asexuality is valid (and it is) who will turn around and insist that homosexuality (being attracted to members of the same sex) or heterosexuality (being attracted to members of the opposite sex) somehow aren’t valid (and they are).

Hey Dan: Pro-tips for someone who’s never eaten ass before but wants to?

We’re not going to run out of ass — our strategic national ass reserves are well-stocked — so don’t feel like you have to eat all the ass the first time you try. ake it slow. Suck the dick or eat the pussy of your freshly showered partner, wander down to the taint, then go

deep — take a couple of swipes at the ass with your tongue — before retreating back to the taint, giving yourself time to assess, and then dive back in if you’re enjoying it as much as your partner is.

Hey Dan: I’m living with my boyfriend’s parents for a few weeks. I need to get laid. Suggestions please?

I would suggest fucking your boyfriend. If you don’t feel comfortable fucking him in his parents’ house, fuck him on their roof, fuck him in the showers at the gym, fuck him in the nearest bar with a single-stall restroom and a door that locks. Obstacles can frustrate desire, yes, but they can just as easily fuel desire — so long as you have the right attitude about them.

Hey Dan: My relationship with my husband — with my everything — is in trouble. We were together for a few years, then he got busted with drugs and wound up in prison, and we lost contact for 0 years. hen saw his profile on Facebook, and we wound up talking for a long time. I hate blow jobs in part because I was forced to give this guy a blowjob when I was a teenager. He says blowjobs are what he desires the most. He has to have blowjobs, that’s his bottom line. I gag. I throw up, I get angry and feel sad. He can’t even get it up most of the time. I want him to fuck me so bad, but it’s just not in the cards for me. He is horny all the time, and I’m going through menopause and have no desire. He thinks I don’t love him anymore! Please help! We don’t want to lose each other! At least, I don’t want to lose him. He is fucking me up mentally. He is very persistent. He wants a blowjob every day. Whenever he can get it. I can’t last long enough to make him cum. My jaw is dislocated from my ex-husband. You are my last chance to save this.

Anyone who sees their partner weeping in a puddle of their own puke after they’ve performed a particular sex act and then says, “I’m gonna need you to do that every day for the rest of your life or we’re through,” is an asshole. Call his bluff: tell him he’s free to go but if he chooses to stay,

SAVAGE LOVE

there will be no more blowjobs. I can’t promise you he won’t leave … but whether he accepts your terms (and stops demanding blowjobs) or makes good on his threats (and good luck to him finding lowjo s elsewhere you’ll be better off.

Hey Dan: Is it normal for a gay guy to not be interested in penetrative sex?

Most gay men enjoy penetration fucking getting fucked flip fucking), but not every gay man is into anal sex. “Some men prefer what’s called outercourse, which is everything except penetration,” said Dr. Joe Kort, the psychotherapist and author who went viral earlier this year after coining a term for gay men who aren’t interested in penetrative sex. “Other people might think of outercourse as foreplay, but that implies that the main act is intercourse, but some gay men aren’t tops or bottoms. hey re sides.”

Hey Dan: Best lube for PIV? Foreplay.

Hey Dan: 1. How many people have had sex with more than one member of the same family? 2. Anyone had sex with every member of the same family? 3. Including the parents?

1. Don’t know. 2. Don’t know. 3. Hope not.

Hey Dan: Gay guy here into threesomes and playing with gay couples. How do you tell someone that you hooked up with in a threesome (half of a couple) that you would rather hook up with him solo because you’re not that into his partner? This has happened to me a couple of times recently.

Be direct with the one you’re into without being cruel to the one you’re not: “I would like to hook up with you again but just the two of us.” If he asks why, be honest: “I’m into you but not your partner.” If they “only play together,” if a one-on-one hookup would constitute cheating in the context of their relationship, well, then you’ll either have to fuck them both again (which you’ll regret) or you ll have to go find someone

else to fuck (which shouldn’t be that hard).

Hey Dan: Am I a bad guy for dating a married man in a sexless marriage who has kids in college?

Nope.

Hey Dan: Does bottoming make your butt bigger? More muscular?

ottoming s uats that s cum you’re having injected into your ass, not steroids.

Hey Dan: I’m curious what type of guys Dan Savage is most attracted to. Also, does Mr. Savage like receiving explicit pics from his fans?

Mr. Savage is primarily attracted to men with what Mr. Savage has described as “Muppet faces,” i.e., men with large mouths, big eyes, and other exaggerated facial features. Not one of the men that Mr. Savage has ever dated and/or married regarded “Muppet-faced” as a compliment, despite Mr. Savage’s sometimes frantic efforts to explain that “Muppet-faced” was not just meant as a compliment but it was the highest compliment Mr. Savage could possibly bestow. For the record: Mr. Savage does not re uire his sex partners to wear fu y ody suits spray chocolate chip cookie crumbs all over the bed, or pop out of garbage cans to heap verbal abuse on him. Mr. Savage welcomes explicit pics. Men with Muppet faces are encouraged to submit.

Hey Dan: A young gay male friend has referred to his ass as his “cunt” in front of me, a cis female, and he was not having sex at the time. (You wrote last week that this was something young gay men do while having sex, with their sex partners, and not with their woman friends.) I found this offensive and told him so. He rolled his eyes. Now what? I don’t want to spank him, but I might have to.

I’m happy to spank him for you — provided he’s got a Muppet face and a nice cunt. n

Send your burning questions tomailbox@savage.love

Podcasts, columns and more at Savage.Love