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riverfronttimes.com AUGUST 17-23, 2022 RIVERFRONT TIMES 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Publisher Chris Keating Editor in Chief Rosalind Early EDITORIAL Managing Editor Jessica Rogen Editor at Large Daniel Hill Digital Content Editors Jaime Lees, Jenna Jones Food Editor Cheryl Baehr Staff Writers Ryan Krull, Monica Obradovic, Benjamin Simon Copy Editor Evie Hemphill Contributors Thomas K. Chimchards, Joseph Hess, Reuben Hemmer, Andy Paulissen, Famous Mortimer, Delia Rainey, Mabel Suen, Graham Toker, Theo Welling Columnists Ray Hartmann, Dan Savage Editorial Interns Julian McCall, Carlos Mendoza, Kasey Noss, Olivia Poolos ART & PRODUCTION Art Director Evan Sult Creative Director Haimanti Germain Production Manager Sean Bieri Graphic Designer Aspen Smit MULTIMEDIA ADVERTISING Associate Publisher Colin Bell Account Manager Jennifer Samuel Directors of Business Development Rachel Hoppman, Chelsea Nazaruk Directors of Sponsorship Sales Deanna Schmidt MARKETING Director of Marketing & Events Christina Kimerle Marketing Coordinator Sydney Schaefer BUSINESS Regional Operations Director Emily Fear CIRCULATION Circulation Manager Kevin G. Powers EUCLID MEDIA GROUP Chief Executive Officer Andrew Zelman Chief Operating Officers Chris Keating, Michael Wagner Executive Editor Sarah Fenske VP of Digital Services Stacy Volhein VP of Marketing Emily Tintera, Cassandra Yardeni Executive Assistant Mackenzie NATIONALwww.euclidmediagroup.comDeanADVERTISING VMG Advertising 1-888-278-9866, SUBSCRIPTIONSvmgadvertising.com Send address changes to Riverfront Times, 5257 Shaw Avenue, St. Louis, MO, 63110. Domestic subscriptions may be purchased for $78/6 months (MO add $4.74 sales tax) and $156/year (MO add $9.48 sales tax) for first class. Allow 6-10 days for standard delivery. www.riverfronttimes.com The Riverfront Times is published weekly by Euclid Media Group | Verified Audit Member Riverfront Times PO Box 179456, St. Louis, MO, www.riverfronttimes.com63117 General information: 314-754-5966 Founded by Ray Hartmann in 1977 Riverfront Times is available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader. Additional copies of the current issue may be purchased for $1.00 plus postage, payable in advance at the Riverfront Times office. Riverfront Times may be distributed only by Riverfront Times authorized distributors. No person may, without prior written permission of Riverfront Times , take more than one copy of each Riverfront Times weekly issue. The entire contents of Riverfront Times are copyright 2022 by Riverfront Times, LLC. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part by any means, including electronic retrieval systems, without the expressed written permission of the Publisher, Riverfront Times , PO Box 179456, St. Louis, Mo, 63117. Please call the Riverfront Times office for back-issue information, 314-754-5966. INSIDE Hartmann 7 News 8 Missouriland 10 Feature 12 Calendar 18 Cafe 21 Short Orders 27 St. Louis Standards 30 Reeferfront Times 33 Stage 34 Music 36 Film 39 Out Every Night 41 Savage Love 45 COVER Collateral Damage Families call for change as suspects fleeing arrest kill innocent motorists. But police say their policies aren’t to blame Cover photo by TYLER GROSS
A common complaint nationally is that citizens feel unwelcome when calling Internal Affairs or other points of contact within a department to report concerns about officers. After all, one is calling police to complain about police.Then there’s the distrust of In ternal Affairs operations fostered among rank-and-file police, es pecially among Black officers re garding racial justice, as one of ficer emphasized to me recently. There’s an inherent lack of trans parency.So,itwas unnerving — albeit not surprising — that the police unions’ petition against the new Division of Civilian Oversight reads in part that “it could result in less cooperation from police of ficers who lack faith and trust in the [Civilian Oversight Board] Or dinance and process.”
Police MuchProtestDothToo
St. Louis City
Lawsuit to block civilian oversight makes the case for why it’s needed Written by RAY HARTMANN F or a fleeting moment in the spring of 2020, just about ev eryone in America came to gether as to the need for bet ter police accountability. The world had just witnessed, on chilling video, the 8-minute46-second strangulation murder of a defenseless Black man named George Floyd by Minneapolis po lice officers. Even as the nation’s streets erupted in spontaneous rage, an oasis of uncommon con sensus emerged: Something had to be done to hold bad cops ac countable for their misconduct. Police departments and police unions were not hesitant to place distance between themselves and officer Derek Chauvin, who killed Floyd. Much lip service was given to the need to separate the rare “bad apples” in policing from the large majority of good cops who welcomed more transparent over sight of their work. At least that’s how the story seemed to go. Even the topic of civilian review boards seemed to provoke less of the historical re sistance from police. Newfound agreement on accountability had great kumbaya potential. That was then and this is now. In retrospect, the notion that po lice had become more receptive to greater civilian oversight in response to Floyd’s murder was mostly an exercise in damage con trol. It was not an epiphany. Police still want to police them selves, especially if the alternative is oversight by civilians. That’s just a fact. But imagine if one 17-year-old kid hadn’t captured Floyd’s mur der on her cellphone camera. What do you suppose the result would have been for Chauvin and his three fellow officers? The answer isn’t hypothetical. The Minneapolis Police Depart ment put out a news release im mediately after Floyd’s death — but before knowing it had all been captured on video that the world was about to watch. Here’s that release: “Man Dies After Medical Inci dent During Police Interaction “May 25, 2020 (MINNEAPOLIS) On Monday evening, shortly after 00 pm officers from the Minne apolis olice epartment respond ed to the 3700 bloc of Chicago Av enue South on a report of a forgery in progress. Officers were advised that the suspect was sitting on top of a blue car and appeared to be under the in uence. wo officers arrived and locat ed the suspect a male believed to be in his 40s in his car. e was or dered to step from his car. After he got out he physically resisted offi cers. Officers were able to get the suspect into handcuffs and noted he appeared to be suffering medi cal distress. Officers called for an ambulance. e was transported to ennepin County Medical Cen ter by ambulance where he died a short time later. At no time were weapons of any type used by anyone involved in this incident. he Minnesota u reau of Criminal Apprehension has been called in to investigate this incident at the re uest of the Min neapolis olice epartment. o of ficers were in ured in the incident. ody worn cameras were on and activated during this incident. Yes, that’s the George Floyd story had there been no video. No eye witnesses would have mattered. Chauvin and the others would still be on the police force. We would have never heard Floyd’s name. If you want to think that sort of news release could not possi bly have come out of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department under the same circumstances, go ahead and believe that. For the rest of us, it’s a cautionary tale: The police cannot be expected to police themselves when it comes to potential misuse of force or oth er forms of misconduct. That’s why it’s so troubling that the three police unions in the city came together — in a rare mo ment of unity — to oppose the city’s plan to create a Division of Civilian Oversight. They are the St. Louis Police Officers’ Associa tion, the Ethical Society of Police and the St. Louis Police Leader shipTrueOrganization.toform,the police unions are claiming that they’re all good with outside oversight (they’re not) and that the problem is they weren’t allowed input (they were) and that the new structure is in tended to empower anti-police zealots (it isn’t). They also claim it’s illegal, which will be decided inThere’scourt. a lot to like about the city’s initiative. Addressing dis trust of police in the community was a top priority advanced by Mayor Tishaura Jones in her 2021 electionDedicatingcampaign.anentire division of the city government to the over sight function represents seri ous commitment and not merely a talking point. One of its strong features is that it will provide that oversight not just on police mat ters but to the city jail as well. The division is supposed to de velop a team of 10 trained inves tigators — backed by subpoena power — to supplant the role of the powerless Civilian Oversight Board. That group of seven vol unteers was supposed to review police department investigations into officers accused of excessive force, abuse of authority and dis crimination.Butguesswhat happened? The board ran into obstacles, as re vealed in this description from St. Louis Public Radio: “Up until last year the police department had withheld nearly all of the complaints it received against officers, leaving the board unable to fulfill its basic function, according to a joint investigation with the Independent and Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting.”Somuch for the enthusiasm of police to be subjected to outside oversight. No matter how much homage is paid to their mission of “public service,” they cannot abide the people they are “serv ing” to be messing with their busi ness as it regards discipline. In the current system that’s left to an Internal Affairs Division. It’s a structure that is poorly suited to the challenges related to use of force in today’s nearly impossible environment of mutual distrust between police and the commu nity.By definition, an Internal Af fairs unit will foster more distrust — regardless of good intentions — because of its fundamental design flaws. Internal Affairs lacks the independence of an outside citi zens’ approach because it is part of the police structure with all the unavoidable bias that entails.
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How about that? Police officers are threatening “less cooperation” if the city imposes oversight into allegations of their misconduct. I didn’t realize that’s one of their prerogatives.Evenifitturns out to be, it’s really bad messaging to trash this new effort to improve po lice accountability even before it launches. How about, instead, working within the new system to make it better and fairer to every one, police included? If police don’t have a better idea (and they don’t), perhaps they should heed the advice they are re quired to read to citizens every day: “You have the right to remain silent.” n Ray Hartmann founded the Riverfront Times in 1977. Contact him at rhartmann1952@ gmail.com or catch him at 7 p.m. on Thurs days on Nine PBS and St. Louis in the Know with Ray Hartmann from 9-11 p.m. Monday thru Friday on KTRS (550 AM).
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“I don’t think that’d be a good idea in this moment,” Bosley said at the time. “We have no clue what we would do to replace that building if it was to be shut down.”The business will have 30 days to prepare before temporarily closing for five months. If the owners fail to comply with the regulations, the motel could close for an additional year. The owners of the motel were not physically present for Friday’s hearing. n
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Grand Motel Closes for 5 Months Deemed a public nuisance, the motel has to abate all code violations to reopen Written by BENJAMIN SIMON T he Grand Motel will close for five months after coming to an agreement with the City of St. Louis on a public nuisance notice. At a hearing last Friday, the city announced that under terms agreed to by owners Grukrupa Inc., the motel will be subject to city, state and federal inspectors and cannot reopen until “all code violations are abated.” In five months, the motel will have the ability to reopen if it meets that standard. However, the owners must implement armed security on weekends for the next 12 months. Rates will also shift from four-hour blocks to a nightly rate. The St. Louis Department of Public Safety sent the motel a public nuisance no tice on March 31. According to the consent agreement, the city has received 86 calls of a nuisance at the motel over the last 12 months. In the last seven months alone, police responded to three drug-overdose deaths, another near-fatal overdose and a shooting on the site. The city said hotel staff also called police 16 times to report guests who didn’t check out on time. In July, residents went door-to-door in the Jeff-Vander-Lou neighborhood to inform people of the hearing. “There’s got to be something that we can work on to make this stop,” community member Carron Johnson told the RFT in July. “It’s not safe. It’s not a friendly environment. And a lot of people, when they go by, they’re nervous.”
Police OversightCivilianFight
ree police unions have filed a lawsuit to block a civilian oversight division Written by MONICA OBRADOVIC S t. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones signed a bill establish ing a new civilian-led agency tasked with investigating po lice misconduct on August 3. But St. Louis police organiza tions weren’t having it. Three police representatives filed a lawsuit targeted at Board Bill 47 six days after the mayor signed it. The bill, sponsored by Ward 26 Al derwoman Shameem Clark Hub bard, creates a Division of Civilian Oversight in St. Louis’ Public Safety Department; it passed the Board of Aldermen with a 17-3 vote in July. When Mayor Jones signed it, she called it “a critical step forward” in improving trust between commu nity and police. Yet for three St. Louis police unions, the bill represents a signifi cant overreach. It sparked so much concern that the St. Louis Police Of ficers Association (SLPOA), the Ethi cal Society of Police (ESOP) and the St. Louis Police Leadership Organi zation have formed a rare united front as plaintiffs in the lawsuit. ESOP, which represents mostly Black officers, and the St. Louis Po lice Officers Association, often re ferred to as the “white” police offi cers union, have historically taken polarized stances on hot issues. SLPOA supported Darren Wil son during the Ferguson unrest; ESOP did not. SLPOA criticized five former St. Louis Rams ath letes in 2014 after they entered a game with their arms raised in a “hands up don’t shoot” pose. ESOP commended the athletes’ actions, saying it “completely supported” the Rams’ players protests. When St. Louis Circuit Attorney im Gardner filed a civil rights lawsuit in 2020 against the city and SLPOA — in which Gardner accused them of orchestrating a racist attempt to oust her from office and block her from doing her job — ESOP stopped short of supporting Gardner but asserted her allegations of racism among police as Gardner’strue.lawsuit was the cul mination of multiple, stymied at tempts to reform St. Louis’ crimi nal justice system. During her first year in office, Gardner attempted to form an independent team to investigate police misconduct. A Board of Aldermen bill that would have established such a unit in her office never made it past a first reading in 2018. However, years later, Board Bill 47 gives Gardner the authority to set up a public integrity unit to investigate officer-involved shoot ings. Once formed, the public in tegrity unit would conduct inves tigations previously undertaken by SLMPD’s Force Investigative Unit, an internal unit of detectives that investigates officer-involved shootings.Policerepresentatives fear this new unit and the Division of Ci vilian Oversight would subject of ficers to prejudice by people with a “hidden agenda against law enforcement,” ESOP wrote in a statement posted to Facebook on August 4. Jones soon countered in a com St. Louis City police unions are fighting civilian oversight. | FLICKR/PAUL SABLEMAN
Grand Motel will close in September due to nuisance violations. |
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At the time, Third Ward Alderman Brandon Bosley said that the property owners have hosted community events and handed out Christmas toys in the past. He hoped to work with them to provide a cleaner and safer environment for nearbyBosleyresidents.didn’twant to see the hotel shuttered permanently.
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Ce-Antonyo Kennedy’s booking photo. | VIA MO DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS ment. “I thought ESOP stood for hold ing bad actors accountable?” Jones wrote. “I think you should give the law a chance before sug gesting amendments. Be blessed.” Board Bill 47, if enacted as writ ten, would cause “real interfer ence with the police department’s ability to do their job,” says Sher rie Hall, ESOP’s lawyer. Civilians having that much pow er to interfere borders on “abol ishing police in general,” Hall tells the RFT. “I don’t think anybody who’s being rational about this re ally wants that.” The Civilian Oversight Division will review complaints, which can be filed in-person or online, for police misconduct and use-offorce incidents. It will also have subpoena power and access to city jails to investigate complaints. A civilian oversight commis sioner, the supervisor and head of the Civilian Oversight Division, would have the authority to take disciplinary action against police and corrections employees. Also, unions object to how the bill permits “civilian oversight in vestigators” to go to every scene where an officer or Division of Corrections employee discharges a firearm or applies force result ing in the death or serious injury of a “Hereperson.you’ve got this civilian oversight board that’s got subpoe na power and the ability to go on scene — that’s unheard of,” Hall says. “And you’ve got this Public Integrity Unit that could possibly do the same thing. And you’ve got the officers trying to investigate a crime. You could have all three of them at the scene, and there’s no indication who has top billing there.”TheCivilian Oversight Board’s nine members can be as young as 16 years old — as long as they don’t hold public office, aren’t a law-enforcement officer and don’t have an immediate family member in law enforcement. Bill 47 requires each member to have knowledge or experience in cer tain fields, such human resources, civil rights or law enforcement. Members may have prior experi ence in law enforcement as long as their work ended four years be fore their entrance to the board. ESOP isn’t necessarily against a civilian oversight board, the union said in a statement last week, it’s that the board structure recently approved by Jones is too “broad” and violates state statute.
The mayor’s office declined to comment on the police unions’ suit — which was filed on the eighth anniversary of the death of Michael Brown on August 9 — but reiterated the intent of the Divi sion of Civilian Oversight. “Mayor Jones has emphasized that improving public safety re quires building trust between po lice and the community, with ac countability being the foundation of that trust — especially eight years after the death of Mike Brown, Jr., and the protests in Ferguson that sparked the formation of [an ear lier] Civilian Oversight Board,” the mayor’s statement reads. ESOP has historically been in fa vor of police reforms and endorsed Jones in her run for mayor. The union’s former business manager, Heather Taylor, is now the city’s deputy public safety director. She serves under Department of Public Safety Director Dan Isom, who was also active in ESOP. Under previous leadership, ESOP supported an earlier iteration of the civilian oversight board. St. Louis had established a Ci vilian Oversight Board in 2015 to receive and review police com plaints, but it was largely inef fective. The board almost always agreed with the police depart ment’s Internal Affairs Division on allegations of police misconduct, and it suffered major delays in receiving materials from police to review officer-involved shootings. The board was supposed to re view police-shooting investigations after the St. Louis police conducted their own investigations. How ever, from 2016 to 2019, the board received no reports on St. Louis police department’s 21 fatal police shootings, and only 10 percent of all internal-affairs investigations were given to the board to review. This new board will have more teeth, as long as the lawsuit filed by two unlikely allies proves un successful in court. If it isn’t, as Mayor Jones said in a Facebook comment to ESOP after its public statement, “... If you’re a good officer, you have nothing to worry about.” n
The other three charges were dropped. Drugs making their way into Missouri prisons have long been a concern of both prison officials and families of those incarcerated. In May, the Missouri Department of Corrections severely restricted the physical mail allowed into its facilities in an effort to curb contraband. According to the federal indictment, Colby stashed 3.25 grams of black tar heroin in an envelope marked “legal mail” that was then delivered to 24-yearold Ce-Antonyo Kennedy. In addition to the drugs, the envelope contained seemingly random legal documents and photos of Colby. Kennedy, the intended recipient, is serving a 15-year sentence for murder and armed criminal action. A sentencing memorandum from the prosecution says that Colby and Kennedy spoke on the telephone about their plan to smuggle drugs and also discussed a previous successful delivery of heroin. These conversations were recorded. This isn’t the first time that Colby has faced charges for her conduct with Kennedy. In 2017, Colby was charged with a mis demeanor for communicating with Ken nedy via a contraband cellphone when Kennedy was in Jackson County jail and Colby was a member of his defense team. According to the 2017 complaint, Colby’s communication with Kennedy via the contraband phone indicated they were in a romantic relationship.
“Women hit their sexual peaks around late 30’s to 40s’ and guys hit their in their early 20’s so that is why you see older women with younger men,” she wrote. Colby is 20 years senior to Kennedy. “So your at your sexual peak, meaning this is a time in your life where you’re the most freakiest?” Kennedy replied. “No, I’m an exception. I’ve always been in a sexual peak and I’m Asian so I’ve always been a freak!” Colby texted. In a separate text, Kennedy wrote, “Girls my age can’t handle me. I need a real wom an.” He added two smiley-face emojis. According to the complaint, Colby also allegedly mailed Kennedy a pair of women’sAccordingunderwear.to a sentencing memorandum, Colby completed a diversion program for the 2017 charge and avoided jailIntime.the federal case, Colby’s defense asked for leniency for the former public defender, writing in a filing that Colby “was born and abandoned in South Korea in 1977. She lived in an orphanage for the first two years of her life.” Her defense added that Colby has a history of “attachment disorder and depression,” has been in a “years-long” relationship with Kennedy, and she “des perately seeks approval from loved ones.” After Colby serves her 13-month sentence, she will be on supervised release for an additional three years. n
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“We support the idea of trans parency,” Hall says. “We just think that what they’ve done here has so many problems, and it’s got to get fixed before it goes into effect.”
Woman Guilty of Smuggling Heroin to Inmate Boyfriend e Kansas-based attorney was sentenced to 13 months in prison Written by RYAN KRULL K ansas-based attorney Juliane Colby was sentenced to 13 months in prison last week for smuggling her oin to an inmate incarcerated at the West ern Missouri Correctional Center in Cam eron. The inmate and attorney had been in a years-long romantic relationship. Colby was indicted in March 2021 on four federal charges related to the at tempted smuggling, including one count of conspiracy to distribute heroin and another count of attempted distribution of heroin. The 44-year-old had previously worked as a public defender for the Jackson County Public Defender’s Office. Jackson is the county containing Kansas City. Colby pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to distribute heroin in February.
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Over 10,000 Vietnamese Americans gathered in Carthage, Missouri, to celebrate Marian Days Words and photos by REUBEN HEMMER A fter a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 43rd annual Marian Days returned to Carthage, Mis souri. Primarily a Vietnam ese American Roman Catholic pil grimage, the four-day gathering is also a celebration of Vietnamese culture and tradition. Well over 10,000 people from all over the world flocked to the small south west Missouri town earlier this month to partake in religious cer emonies, celebrate heritage and reconnect with loved ones.
On the Road to Carthage
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The history of Marian Days be gins in 1975, when Vietnamese clergy members arrived in north west Arkansas as refugees of the Vietnam War. The Roman Catho lic Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau sponsored the clergy members, and invited them to rent a vacant seminary in Car thage. Over time, the congrega tion grew, as did the festivities. The first Marian Days took place in 1978 and brought in 1,500 at tendees — in 2011, 60,000 people attended. Beginning on the first Thursday of August, pilgrims set up large encampments on the seminary grounds as well as in the front yards of local homes. Despite tem peratures reaching nearly 100 de grees this year, attendees created a community within their tents by constructing large kitchens to cook ietnamese cuisine, markets to sell religious and secular items, areas to enjoy drinks while sing ing karaoke and cots to relax on to escape the heat. The highlight of the event was August 6, when guests participated in a proces sion in honor of Our Lady of Fatima — followed by long rows of firecrackers being lit, a release of many balloons, an outdoor mass and Vietnamese musicians performing for the crowd. Mar ian Days ended with a religious service on August 7 and a mass exodus of thousands returning to their homes. n
riverfronttimes.com AUGUST 17-23, 2022 RIVERFRONT TIMES 11 A CELEBRATION OF THE UNIQUE AND FASCINATING ASPECTS OF OUR HOME[ ]
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Families call for change as suspects fleeing arrest kill innocent motorists. But police say that pursuit policies aren’t to blame
O n the night of May 5, Aaron Pig gee had a normal phone call with his mother. They talked briefly about what she planned to cook for Mother’s Day. His mother, Anngelique Simmons-Walker, loved to cook, Pig gee says, and she loved her grand kids. She asked how his 15-year-old daughter, Anniyasha Wallace, was doing in Simmonsschool.planned to go to the gro cery store to pick up supplies for the holiday. “She always cooks on Moth er’s Day,” Piggee says. The next day, Simmons along with two of Piggee’s uncles, his sister, is daughter and two of his young niec es set out to the grocery store in the family’s Kia Sedona. Meanwhile, St. Louis city’s system of automated license-plate readers alerted authorities at 8: 8 p.m. to a stolen Jeep Cherokee that had tags associated with multiple felonies from multiple jurisdictions. The city’s Real Time Crime Center, a high-tech station where officers monitor hun dreds of city-owned surveillance cameras, notified special operations that the stolen Jeep traveled errati cally as it drove into the city. Officers with the anti-crime unit were already in the area. The unit travels in covert vehicles to recover stolen vehicles used in violent crimes. The driver of the Jeep obeyed a traf fic signal and waited at a light to turn east off Union onto Delmar at :20 p.m. Inside the Jeep were three teenag ers, the eldest 18. Behind them lurked three or four covert anti-crime ve hicles, according to Lieutenant John Green. When the stolen Jeep turned east onto Delmar, the anti-crime unit followed. The stolen Jeep suddenly changed lanes and sideswiped a nearby vehicle unassociated with police. That vehicle started chase to take down the other’s plates but re treated after a passenger of the Jeep fired a gunshot at the driver. The Jeep sped away. “By that time, [the anti-crime unit] had radioed in that they were behind the vehicle and gave a direction of where it was last seen,” Green says. “The Jeep took off at a high speed, and they couldn’t keep up.”
Police officials would later say they weren’t chasing the stolen Jeep but that they had deployed spike strips near Taylor Avenue and Delmar to try and flatten its tires. The alleged driver of the Jeep, 18-year-old Mar shawn Stepney, drove over the strips around :2 p.m. The vehicle “kept going,” Green says. Spike strips allow for a gradual decline in speed. Continued on pg 14Elinor Simmons and her grandson Aaron Piggee lost five family members in May. |
DamageCollateralByMonicaObradovic
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Nearly 29 seconds and two blocks later, the stolen Jeep broadsided the Simmons family’s minivan as it crossed Delmar while traveling north on Pendleton Avenue. Five of the seven people in the minivan perished. The blow killed Piggee’s moth er, who was pronounced dead at a hospital. Piggee’s sister, LaRhonda Simmons, and his uncles, Ephraim “Wayne” Sim mons and Luther Simmons, were pronounced dead at the scene. His 11-year-old niece Takera Thompson died three days“It’slater.just hard to digest that they’re gone,” Elinor Simmons, Piggee’s grandmother, said in an interview with the RFT two months after the crash. She’d lost three of her six children, a granddaughter and a greatgranddaughter. “Even after I got the death certificate, I cried three times that day. And the next day, I cried three times. I’m tired of cry ing.” Piggee drove to Barnes-Jewish Hospital around 5 a.m. His broth er had called and said, “Mom got into a bad accident” but wouldn’t say more over the phone. But when Piggee found his family in a hospital waiting room, he instant ly knew something was seriously wrong. At the hospital, Elinor Simmons told him his Uncle Wayne, Uncle Luther and his sister were “down on the morgue table as we speak.” Doctors were trying to resuscitate his mother, and his daughter wait ed in another room for surgery. “When I first heard the news I lit erally broke down,” Piggee recalls to the RFT. At first, he thought ev eryone in the car had died. “You’re going to tell me I lost my two un cles, my mom, my sister, my two nieces, and my daughter? No, no.” Piggee’s eight-year-old niece Trinity Thompson sustained in juries but survived. So did his daughter, Anniyasha Wallace, who had broken a bone in her lower left leg and is recovering from a surgery that replaced the bone with a metal bar. Piggee lost his mother, who was 56; his sister, who was 34; two of his uncles, who were 47 and 43; and his 11-year-old niece. Days after an initial shock set in, and after the anger that soon fol lowed dissipated, Piggee realized the tragedy that befell his family was not a rare instance but rather the latest in a recent pattern of suspects fleeing from police and harming innocent motorists in the“Thisprocess.isnot only happening to my family, this keeps happening everywhere,” Piggee says. A t least 10 people have died and six have been injured in the last eight months in St. Louis city and county as a re sult of suspects fleeing from police.Just two days before the Sim mons family’s fatal crash, a Le may man, Derek Pratt, died in a crash after the driver of a Hyun dai Sonata collided with his Dodge pickup. The Sonata was traveling at 100 miles per hour at the time it hit Pratt’s pickup. The blow sounded like an ex plosion, recalled one witness to media outlets at the scene. Pratt’s vehicle ended up in a nearby tree at the intersection of South Broadway and River City Casino Boulevard without his body in it.
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Authorities said the force of the crash had thrown Pratt out. Pratt was a painter, a husband and the father of three grown children. He was on his way to a job at the time of the crash, one of his coworkers told KSDK. Less than two weeks before Pratt’s death, a woman and her baby were thrown from their ve hicle after a suspected car thief collided with two cars during an attempt to evade police. Authorities took the mother to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. The toddler, two-yearold Jace Richardson, died six days later, but his mother recovered.
The NAACP has worked with the U.S. Department of Justice in recent months to mediate conver sations with police on what can be changed.“We’re interested in making sure they only prioritize chases where there was a loss of life or a high-level crime,” says John Bow man, president of NAACP’s St. Louis County chapter. City and county policies are simi lar in how they warrant pursuits. Pursuits are allowed when “an offi cer has reason to believe a suspect DAMAGE from From Anngelique Simmons-Walker, Ephraim Simmons, LaRhonda Simmons, Luther Simmons and Takera ompson all were killed as a result of the crash.
T he deaths of five members of the Simmons family and others around the same time sparked a commu nity-wide outrage toward police vehicular pursuits. The St. Louis city and county chapters of the NAACP called on police departments to review their vehicular pursuit policies shortly after the Simmons fam ily’s crash. “That was sort of a wake-up call,” says Adolphus Pruitt, president of NAACP’s St. Louis city chapter. “This is something we really need to take a very strong look at and see if policies are being adhered to and if this loss of life is as a result of poor policies or poor supervision.”
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COURTESY AARON PIGGEE
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A 17-year-old girl from St. Ann died a month earlier, in March, after a collision with a stolen Ca dillac threw her out of her car. Before the crash, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that SWAT had attempted to stop the 24-yearold driver of the Cadillac. They lost sight of the car and returned to patrolling but saw the driver hit the St. Ann girl “moments later.”
- Adolphus Pruitt, president of NAACP’s St. Louis city chapter
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Months before, in December, a police detective and a suspect died in a head-on collision after the St. Louis County Police Department’s drug unit attempted to stop a car that had been reported stolen. St. Louis County Detective Anto nio Valentine, 42, and the suspect, Alfred Mayes, were rushed to the hospital where they both died. A second officer unnamed by police also suffered injuries. Police said the car Mayes drove, a stolen Volkswagen Jetta, sped away from an attempted stop by drug detectives. In his attempt to get away, Mayes ran a red light and crashed into the unmarked police SUV that Valentine was driving.These instances, and others like them, have caused Piggee to ques tion police pursuits, though police rarely claimed persuits caused any of the above deaths. “We lost five people in one blow,” he says. “They wasn’t taken from us; they was snatched because someone wanted to be careless — police who want to be careless.”
“That [crash] was sortof a wake-upcall.This issomething we reallyneedto take a very stronglook at andseeifpolicies are ofpoorpoliciesorpoorsupervision.”adheredtoandifthislossoflifeisasbeingaresult
le :
riverfronttimes.com AUGUST 17-23, 2022 RIVERFRONT TIMES 15 has committed a felony involving the use, or threatened use, of dead ly force. In these circumstances, a delay in apprehension would pose a danger to others, based on facts known to the officer at the time.” Lieutenant Brian Schellman said the St. Louis County Police Department first adopted a pur suit policy in 1979. The original policy did not un dergo any significant changes un til decades later and allowed offi cers to pursue subjects for felony crimes when the subject posed an immediate danger to human life orIninjury.2010, the policy changed slightly to specify that officers could chase subjects for “danger ous felonies,” meaning officers could only chase for 10 crimes outlined in the policy: murder, first-degree rape, robberies, ter rorist acts and other crimes. These restrictive guidelines and others included in the county’s policy are why pursuits are “ex tremely rare,” says Schellman, commander of St. Louis County Police’s Bureau of Research and Analysis.Lessthan 1 percent of all county police’s 26,8 4 traffic stops in 2020 resulted in pursuits. Same goes for 2021, when 35 out of 31,346 total traffic stops resulted in pur suits. The trend seems to have continued into 2022 as well. From January to June, police initiated 2 pursuits out of 20,411 traffic stops.“Pursuits are one of the most dangerous things, not only for of ficers but for the violators them selves and the motoring public,” Schellman says. “Hence the rea son why we are extremely cau tious as a department to only al low for the most violent felons.” In 2020, a total of 13 people died as a result of police vehicular pur suits in Missouri, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Seven of those 13 were in vehicles that had nothing to do with the chase. The rest of the victims were occupants of vehicles chased by police. No police died in 2020 as a result of pursuits. St. Louis city’s policy acknowl edges the dangers of pursuits and states officers should use reason able judgments based on safety when initiating a pursuit. In a statement, a police spokes person said the St. Louis Metro politan Police Department is com mitted to ensuring safety. “Few police activities are as potentially dangerous to police and others as vehicle pursuits,” SLMPD’s statement reads. “We have met with community part ners in the past to discuss how our policies can best reflect our com mitment to public safety and we will continue to do so.” So far, the NAACP has held a se ries of meetings with top officials from St. Louis city and county police departments. Pruitt and Bowman say these meetings have been productive, but studying po lice chases and local policies has sparked concern. The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department requires its officers to review and sign a document acknowledging they understand and will comply with the depart ment’s pursuit policy. Officers who fail to do that could be sub jected to “internal discipline,” according to public information officer Evita Caldwell. What that internal discipline entails is a per sonnel matter, Caldwell says. Every St. Louis County Police of ficer has to read the department’s pursuit policy and undergo quar terly training on it, according to Schellman. At least every two years, officers are required to take tests on the policy and are graded on a pass fail basis. If officers fail the test, they have to go through a brief refresher course through the Municipal Police Academy and are barred from pursuits in theInmeantime.2020,consultants with the Teneo Group examined St. Louis County Police Department’s poli cies and made recommendations for all but one: its pursuit policy. “I can say, unequivocally, that our department has one of the most restrictive and conservative policies on pursuits really in the entire nation,” Schellman says.
D espite these clear policy re strictions, a local group of activists have little faith that police actually stick to them. In late May, members of the Fatal State Violence Response Program called for a full, unequiv ocal ban on police chases.
“The city has certain policies in place that are supposed to curtail how vehicular chases are used, but as we’ve seen with other policies around chokehold bans around the country, just because the poli cies are in place, doesn’t mean that they’re followed, and even still, the law doesn’t go far enough,” says Brittney Watkins, an attorney with ArchCity Defenders who works with the project.
The Fatal State Violence Re sponse Program is an initiative anchored by the civil rights law firm and Faith for Justice, a Chris tian activist group. Family mem bers who have lost loved ones in jails or at the hands of law en forcement track recent killings and extend support to others in similar straits. At a rally in front of City Hall in May, families of those killed by law enforcement demanded a series of police reforms, including repara tions for families who lost loved ones and increased transparency about the circumstances sur rounding their loved ones’ deaths. At a June meeting at the Deacon ess Foundation in Grand Center, attendees split off into groups of two to review St. Louis city and county police department pursuit policies.Theysifted through the policies while checking answers on a yesor-no checklist. “Does this policy provide a maximum amount of time that police engage in a pur suit? Limit the number of police vehicles that can pursue some one? Define what areas police chases can occur in (e.g. residen tial areas, commercial/business areas, highways, etc).”
For St. Louis city and county police departments, the answer to all of those questions when it comes to policy is “no.” The St. Louis County Police Department’s policy does, however, require of ficers to take into account the offi cer’s familiarity with the area, the presence of innocent parties and “any other condition or situation that would create an unreason able risk.”
At Fatal State Violence’s meet ing was Elinor Simmons, who says members of the initiative called ArchCity Defenders sta attorney Brittney Watkins speaks at a demonstration in front of City Hall.
| MONICA OBRADOVIC Continued on pg 17
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Green says he never found the detective who said that. He adds that there was no high-speed chase. Surviving families can “hear things a different way.” “Sometimes emotions get in the way, and they hear what they want to hear,” Green says. A uthorities later captured Marshawn Stepney, and he was charged with five counts of second-degree murder, seven counts of armed crimi nal action, two counts of seconddegree assault, tampering with a motor vehicle, a felony charge of leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death and a misde meanor charge of leaving the scene of an accident. Two teenag ers, both minors, who were also in the vehicle, were arrested at the scene of the crash. Elinor Simmons spoke at a hear ing for Stepney and pleaded with the judge to deny him bail. “I’m sorry that he’s in this situ ation; you have to be careful of your actions because there are consequences, for negative or positive actions,” Simmons says. She says her family has suffered irrevocable damage since five of their loved ones died so suddenly and wonders how they will ever get over the tragedy. But when the matriarch de scribes those she lost, she smiles. She describes her family as the “Brady Bunch” because, like the family in the show, she had three boys and three girls. One of Simmons’ sons, Luther Simmons, was the joker of the family. Her other son, Ephriam “Wayne” Simmons, “kept the fam ily together,” Piggee says. Wayne Simmons served as president of the Mitchell Family Reunion (Sim mons’ maiden side) and worked with Piggee at Mitchell Services and Company, their joint cleaning service.Wayne Simmons has a twin who feels devastated by the loss of her brother, Elinor Simmons says. Simmons’ great-granddaughter, Takera Thompson, who was 11 at the time of her death, loved to dance and wanted to be an ac tress. She excelled at her church’s praise dance team at Temple of God Spiritual Church. “She was the star of the show — not just because she was my granddaughter,” Simmons says. “She would make people laugh. She would do her part with excel lence, with Thompson’sexpression.”sister, Trinity Thompson, danced on the team, too. But the praise team doesn’t dance at the church anymore, ac cording to Simmons. Simmons’ daughter and granddaughter who died, Anngelique and LaRhonda Simmons, oversaw the dance team. Trinity, now nine, fears walking on her injured leg follow ing a surgery that replaced a bone in her thigh with a metal rod, Eli nor Simmons says. As they reflect on the pain of their losses, she and her grandson, Piggee, are resolute: They want to see an end to police chases. “Too many families are losing their loved ones,” Simmons says. “I lost five people at one time. Can you imagine? Burying five people at one time?” “No family should ever have to go through what I just went through,” Piggee adds. “Police chases have to stop, one way or another. All of us have to come to gether and make that happen, and let’s make that happen and make the rules change. You know, some thing has to be done.”
COURTESY ADAM ALTMAN
n COLLATERAL DAMAGE Continued from pg 15
In addition to community sup port, the Fatal State Violence Response Program provides le gal assistance to bereaved loved ones — whether that’s by helping them file open records requests or standing by them in court. The program is an initiative of ArchCity’s larger Fatal State Vio lence Project, which mostly per forms legal work surrounding po lice killings and jail deaths. According to Watkins, families who pursue legal action to get justice for their loved ones often have little success. “In general, police-killing cas es, whether they’re car crashes or other means, are difficult to litigate, especially in this jurisdic tion,” Watkins says. St. Louis lies in the Eighth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, a notoriously hard area to bring claims involv ing police killings, Watkins adds. “We’ve found it’s very hard for those families to win their cases,” she says. “The cases are drawn out for years; there can be ap peals filed, so it’s a particularly longThisprocess.”hasn’t stopped families who’ve lost people to police chas es from seeking justice, however. Kelly Pratt, the wife of Derek Pratt — the man who was thrown from his truck and died after a crash in south city in May — has sued St. Louis County for damag es suffered as a result of her hus band’s death. “The emotional damages I think are fairly obvious; they’re ex treme, and there’s no amount of fi nancial compensation that can do justice when it comes to losing a husband, a father, a brother,” says Adam Altman, one of Kelly Pratt’s lawyers. Kelly Pratt and her three children did want to speak to re porters, according to Altman. Derek Pratt was not the sole breadwinner of the family but was the primary earner, Altman says. His wife’s lawsuit demands $100,000 from St. Louis County and alleges the county failed to provide adequate training to the two un named officers Derek Pratt’s killer may have fled from. These officers were negligent in their work by failing to “terminate a pursuit at the City of St. Louis Limits, with out a dangerous felony committed within the County of St. Louis,” the lawsuit states. St. Louis County Police say offi cers were near River City Casino as part of a drug investigation shortly before Derek Pratt’s death. They were attempting to make a traffic stop when the driver of the vehicle that killed Derek Pratt sped“Whenaway.the vehicle failed to stop, our officers immediately ceased all efforts to stop the vehicle,” spokesman Adrian Washington says. “There was no pursuit.”
Police said the Jeep had driven over spike strips two blocks earli er, yet at the time of the crash, the Jeep still maintained a speed of approximately 85 miles per hour. “If the police were not chasing, why would they be driving that fast?” Elinor Simmons asks. Green says officers deployed a “tactical pursuit,” a strategic move to slow speeding vehicles down by using deflation devices. St. Louis Metropolitan Police’s vehicular pursuit policy does not define a tactical pursuit, but St. Louis County Police’s policy does, thanks to a revision the depart ment added on June 2. When asked if the teenagers in the stolen Jeep knew police were behind them, Green says one oc cupant may have been aware. “When we interviewed the sus pect, he said he heard one of the occupants say, ‘We hit some spike strips,’” Green says. Piggee, who has spoken with law enforcement several times af ter his family’s crash, says a detec tive told him the night of the crash “there was a high-speed chase.”
Derek Pratt died in May following a crash.
Elinor Simmons would later cor roborate that she and another family member heard the same statement.“Whenwe get down there [to the hospital], we talked with de tectives,” Piggee recalls. “They was like, ‘Well, there was a highspeed chase, we spotted a car, we started going after him, he didn’t stop. One of our unmarked cars hit him to the side, trying to clip him to have him stop.’”
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riverfronttimes.com AUGUST 17-23, 2022 RIVERFRONT TIMES 17 her after hearing news of her loved ones’ deaths. Fatal State Vio lence hosted a support group at the beginning of the summer meeting for family members who had lost loved ones to state violence. “I could hardly speak, because I was in tears then,” Simmons says. “They can understand what you’re going through, and they can relate and help you through this pain.”
I n most of the recent instances, police have denied activating pursuits when the suspects who fled from them killed or injured innocent motorists. Families and activists blame the deaths on police chases, even though police rarely labeled the incidents as pursuits.“People have this perception that if we turn off our light after we engage with a suspect, that they’re immediately going to stop and drive and obey all traf fic laws,” Green says. “That’s not true. They’re going to keep going and do whatever’s in their ability to get away. If that means run ning over people, killing people, they’re gonna do it.” Only in the death of two-yearold Jace Richardson in April did police confirm they were chasing a suspect.Inthecase of the Simmons fam ily, St. Louis Director of Public Safety Dan Isom told media in May that officers deployed spike strips to stop the stolen Jeep that killed several members of the family but did not call officers’ ef forts to stop the vehicle a pursuit. “Y’all putting down spikes?” Pig gee questions. “What are y’all put ting down spikes for if it wasn’t a high-speed chase?”
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FRIDAY 08/19
Bourbon Barbecueand
Block party is a phrase used to de scribe a lot of events, but the Riv erfront Times and Schlafly Beer have been hard at work building a block party in the truest sense of the word: the Pig & Whiskey fes tival, a family-friendly celebra tion of beer, barbecue and bour bon with live music by national artists Tech N9ne, Story of the Year and many more. Exceptional adult libations will also be on hand including Schlafly beer, craft cocktails and a whiskey row (where you can find all the styles: scotch, whiskey and bour bon). Get ideas for your own cock tails and cooking at the mixology and chef’s stage. While you have to be over 21 to imbibe, Pig & Whis key is a family-friendly event that includes a kid zone complete with bounce houses, video games and an opportunity to try out musical instruments provided by School of Rock. Adults (and older kids) can also attain bragging rights among their family and friends by riding the mechanical bull. The free event begins at 5 p.m. Friday, August 19, and runs through Sunday, August 21, at Schlafly Bottleworks (7260 South west Avenue, Maplewood; pigand whiskey.com).
SATURDAY 08/20 10 out of 10 Delmar Hall is bringing another dance party after Friday’s Gimme Gimme Disco. On Saturday, you can again relive the good old days — but this time, we’re talk ing about the days when One Di rection was still a band — with Best Night Ever: A 2010s Dance Party. A play on the One Direction song “Best Song Ever,” blast for ward from the time of disco and into the golden era of pop music. One Direction, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, you name it, and it’s there. Dance the night away at Delmar Hall (6133 Delmar onavailable20,ever-082022)thepageant.com/event/best-night-Boulevard,onSaturday,Augustat8p.m.Ticketsare$17andforthose21andolderTicketmaster.
CALENDAR BY JENNA JONES e Lions Daughter will play at the Pig & Whiskey festival. | COURTESY PHOTO Travel back to the Italian Renaissance. | COURTESY OF DISCOVER DAVINCI - THE TITANS EXPERIENCE
Tired of same-old date night? Check out Date Night at Union Station. It promises all the ro mance of a night out while of fering something different to do. The Plaza at Union Station hosts a night full of drinks, local shop ping and live entertainment. You can also buy a VIP package for two that includes a small gift from the Women’s Creative, a ride on the St. Louis Wheel, putt-putt golf, a discount to the Angad Arts Ho tel and more. There are exclusive experiences available at the datenight extravaganza such as candle pouring with Bolden Candles and an IV vitamin infusion from the Drip Bar Town & Co. Date Night at Union Station takes place at the Plaza at Union Station (1820 Market Street) from 6 to 10 p.m. Friday, August 19. It’s free to the public, but VIP tickets can be pur chased on Eventbrite.
Gimme Gimme Disco A man after midnight might very well be in your future. Gimme Gimme Disco features a full night of ABBA music. If you take a chance on the disco, you’ll hear all your ABBA faves as well as other ’70s and ’80s hits (think the Bee Gees, Cher and Donna Summer). Disco attire is encouraged for all the go-goers. Visit Delmar Hall (6133 Delmar Boulevard, 21Tickets19,disco-081922)eant.com/event/gimme-gimme-thepagonFriday,Augustat8p.m.Doorsopenat7p.m.beginat$17.Theeventisandolder.
Date Night
DaVinci Code Immerse yourself in the Italian Renaissance with DaVinci and Michelangelo: The Titans Expe rience. This event puts Italian Renaissance artists Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo front and center for a multimedia journey. ideos, film clips, D animation and images of both da Vinci and Mi chelangelo’s sketches, inventions, paintings, sculptures and codices are all included in the immersive experience. Guests will explore David, the Sistine Chapel and da Vinci’s machines. Mark Rodgers, curator of the DaVinci Machines & Michelangelo exhibitions for North America, leads the experience as a guide. The experience is open to all ages and includes an art in stallation and self-guided tours, as well as displays on a 40-foot video wall. The Titans Experience is at the reopened Westport Playhouse (635 Westport Plaza Drive, thew estportplayhouse.com) now un til Sunday, August 28. Showtimes this week include 2 p.m. Thursday, August 18, and Sunday, August 21, and 7 p.m. Friday, August 19, and Saturday, August 20. Tickets begin at $40.
THURSDAY 08/18
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COURTESY GIMME GIMME DISCO
The main character, Serafina Delle Rose (played by Rayme Cor nell) is heartbroken after the death of her husband and retreats from the world. She doesn’t know if she’ll find love again, but a banana truck driver has been making in roads. The play’s director, David Kaplan, uses an Italian circus — a dozen circus performers includ ing a ringmaster, aerialists, clowns and trapeze artists — to help tell the story of the play. Panel discussions and additional events are also included in the fes tival. For example, the Tennessee Williams New Playwright Reading is scheduled for Tuesday, August 23, at 7 p.m. at the High Low (3301 Washington Avenue). The reading features five short plays by differ ent playwrights. The festival runs from Thursday, August 18, to Sun day, August 28. Tickets begin at $15 for the new playwright read ing. The Rose Tattoo is performed in the Big Top Circus Tent (3401 Washington Avenue, twstl.org); check the website for showtimes. Tickets start at $25. n WEEK OF AUGUST 18-24
The inaugural Brewed Arts Festi val is coming to Cherokee Street. Focusing on good beer and good art, the festival will put kegs of unique brews, curated by Saint Louis Hop Shop, at area bars, galleries and shops. A ticket comes with a com plimentary glass, so you can taste your way down the street. But also in play is the art part of brewed arts. Screwed Arts Collective curates the works that will be featured. Plus, enjoy live music. The event is both indoors and outdoors. Visit Chero kee Street on Saturday, August 20, from 1 to 5 p.m. for the fest. Tickets are $40 on Eventbrite. Color Me St. Louis Celebrate the full scope of St. Lou is’ architectural beauty with Coloring STL, the Missouri History Museum’s newest exhibit. The ex hibit is a “kaleidoscope of architec ture,” featuring iconic landmarks, homes and buildings of St. Louis past. Visitors, however, play a key role in this interactive exhibit: The buildings are all missing color, and guests can add to them right on the walls. Coloring STL tells the stories of 50 structures in the St. Louis area. For its opening weekend, the museum hosts two keynote pro grams: Michael Allen, an architec tural historian and president of the National Building Arts Center, will join the museum for a conver sation on St. Louis’ built environ ment and cultural heritage. The second keynote program features Circus Harmony. Watch a film of the circus performing and then see an architecture-inspired show. Opening weekend for Coloring STL is Saturday, August 20, and Sunday, August 21, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Missouri History Museum (5700 Lindell TheHarmonyplace2stl).mohistory.org/exhibits/coloring-Boulevard,Bothkeynoteprogramsareatp.m.Allen’sconversationtakesonSaturday,andCircusperformsonSunday.eventsarefreetoattend.
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Dance the night away to some of the greatest hits from the ’70s and ’80s. |
ABCs (Art, Celebration)Beer,
SUNDAY 08/21
Making Nelly Proud Nelly’s famous lyric “I’m from the Lou, and I’m proud” comes to life this week with the debut of Sou lard Art Gallery’s STL: A Juried Art Exhibit. The gallery will be focused on city pride with work related to monuments, nature, hidden jewels and history. Soulard Art Gallery will feature 14 resident artists and a variety of artwork in its collection, from sculpture, paintings, photography and jew elry. The exhibit is free. Visit STL: A Juried Art Exhibit at Soulard Art Gallery (2028 South 12th Street, soulardartgallery.com) on Sunday, August 21, from 1 to 5 p.m.
TUESDAY 08/23
Feeling Rosy
A Sicilian love story gets a fresh take at the seventh annual Ten nessee Williams Festival St. Louis. The festival features The Rose Tattoo, a play of love, death and resilience in an oppressed but hopeful 1940s Sicilian immigrant community. Williams called it his “love-play to the world.”
Festie for the Resties St. Charles brings back its largest arts-and-crafts fair this year: the Festival of the Little Hills, three days of family-friendly fun. Local vendors sell their art, music fills the park and the smells of funnel cake and kettle corn fill the air. Pick the perfect handcrafted gift or take your little one to one of the big bounce houses in the Kids Corner. You can also enjoy magic acts, jug gling, circus performers and fire shows spread throughout the day. Local musicians will be on stage for those looking to boogie. The Festival of the Little Hills takes place in Frontier Park (500 South Riverside Drive, festi valofthelittlehills.com) beginning on Friday, August 19, and running until Sunday, August 21. It is free to attend. Hours for Sunday are 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Maaji’s Street Kitchen features traditional Indian entrees, bowls, roll-ups, sides, drinks and desserts. | MABEL SUEN
At Maaji’s Street Kitchen, Heena Chopra cooks innovative food inspired by her Indian mom Written by JESSICA ROGEN Maaji’s Street Kitchen 3324 North Lindbergh Boulevard, St. Ann; 314-395-7173. Mon.-Fri. 11 a.m.-6:30 p.m. (Closed Saturdays and Sundays.)
Y ou haven’t experienced flaky pastry until you’ve tried Ma aji’s Street Kitchen’s paratha. Tear into a piece and microwafers of the Indian flat bread shower off onto the table, into the assorted curries waiting to be sampled and onto your lap. You’ll know the mess is more than worth it, though, the minute you sample a bite that turns from crisp to tender in your mouth. Here is a bread to rival any French croissant or phyllo-encased spanakopita. One thing you’d never know from taste alone: The paratha is reasonably healthy. Unlike many deep-fried restau rant renditions, chef-owner Hee na Chopra’s paratha is air fried and contains olive oil rather than butter or ghee, the clarified but ter often used in Indian fare. That baking method gives the breads their lighter-than-air texture and a dry, rather than oily, exterior. It’s fitting that Chopra has turned something seemingly so decadent into something whole some without sacrificing taste, perhaps even improving upon the original in the process. Her restaurant, which opened in St. Ann late last year, serves health ful dishes comprised of almost all organic ingredients, with minimal added fat or sugar and no cream or thickening agents — not that any diner would be able to tell. It’s the fare that Chopra serves her family, and it has roots in the food stories of her youth. Chopra grew up in Delhi, the bustling Indian capital, which she describes as a New York City-style melting pot. Her mother, Jaskiran Chopra, worked in telecommu nications at a time when many women were homemakers. How ever, her career never got in the way of feeding her family. Chopra recalls how her mom was the first one up in the morning and had a fresh breakfast and lunch ready to go. She’d also make dinner, staying up later than anyone else, impressing upon her daughter how much you can accomplish “if you keep going.”
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All HerAboutMother
At her mom’s side, Chopra learned kitchen skills by serving as an assistant, kneading dough, shelling peas and destemming cilantro leaves. Meanwhile, she picked up knowledge about spices and tempering, a technique where spices are toasted in oil and added to a dish as a finishing touch to deepen flavor. For Chopra’s 1 th birthday, her mother planned a big celebration and made all the food herself. It’s a fond memory — one that high lights a love for cooking, enter taining and caring for others, as well as the deep regard Chopra holds for her mother’s devotion. That respect flavors Maaji’s Street itchen, which is evident in the restaurant’s name. “Ma” is Hindi for mother, “ji” is an hon orific, and together they’re what Chopra calls her mother. Though the restaurant opened last year, Chopra first dreamed of it in 2016. After immigrating to the U.S. with family 1 years ago, Chopra began working in the restaurant industry. She spent 10 years at Denny’s on Dorsett Road in Maryland Heights — which she calls an education in ranch dress ing as well as how to handle 1 table stations “without freaking out” — then moved to First Watch and Red Lobster. Chopra might have continued on that path but for a visit to India, where her mother took her to a restaurant franchise opened by a former potato-patty seller. Chopra was amazed, and back in St. Louis, she began scheming, saving mon ey for what she imagined would be a food truck. Due to logistical roadblocks, that didn’t happen. Instead, she found a small spot in a strip mall in St. Ann, convinced the owner the space would suit a restaurant just fine and got cook ing. Most of the business is take out, and Chopra hopes to launch a food truck in the near future. Despite its small size, Maaji’s de livers outstanding depth of flavor. Many of the dishes are vegan or gluten free, but there’s at least one option for most dietary preferences. No diner should skip the samosa. Chopra differentiates her version by cooking it in the air fryer instead of the deep fryer. The exterior de livers a deep crunch without an oily finish. Tear into one, and you’ll find an interior positively stuffed with filling, which sings with a wellspiced combination of potatoes, vegetables and onions that balanc es heat with starchy goodness. Chopra serves it with two chut neys, a traditional sweet-sour tam arind and her own special recipe, a blend of fresh cilantro, tomato, ginger, garlic, chiles and lemon juice. It delivers a kick of spice and a jolt of welcome acidity that hand ily brightens up the heaviness of the samosa. Chopra also offers the appetizer as samosa chaat — a bro ken samosa served over chickpeas with onion, tomato, chickpea and yogurt that’s a popular street food in India. Both preparations evoke a primal appreciation for carbs wrapped in more carbs. For her mains, Chopra dips into her proprietary masala (turmer ic, chili powder, ashmiri chile, black pepper, salt, cumin and co riander) and garam masala (bay leaf, cinnamon, cloves, black car
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MAAJI’S Continued from pg 21 Desserts
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riverfronttimes.com AUGUST 17-23, 2022 RIVERFRONT TIMES 23 damom, green cardamom and peppercorns) that she blends and roasts. It gives a bespoke spin to dishes that can be found on many menus across town. Perhaps the most unique is the curry chicken, the sole meat entry on an other wise vegetarian menu. Here the chicken is shredded and present ed in a fiery gravy the protein is tender and melts in the mouth while its accompanying sauce lin gers as a warm reminder. The matar paneer is a combina tion of cubes of fresh, mild cheese akin to tofu broken up by sweet, tender peas. The relatively dry preparation is characterized by an astonishing amount of that pan eer, which squeaks satisfyingly in the mouth it’s a crowd pleaser. A favorite of Maaji’s mains is her dal masala, a curry that combines two varieties of lentils for textural delight along with tomatoes, gin ger, garlic, green chile turmeric and lemon juice. The last ingredi ent shines in the dish — one of the hottest options on her menu, but so perfectly balanced that even the spice averse will simply reach for a glass of water with no histrionics. All of Maaji’s mains can be served as a roll-up or a bowl. For the former, Chopra tops a paratha with basmati rice, tomatoes, cu cumber, onion and her fresh chutney, adding a lemon wedge so diners can customize the fla vor. (A bowl is the same without the paratha.) Though it sounds heavy, the brightness of the chut ney and the fresh, cool crunch of the salad shines, making these far more than the sum of their com ponents. Especially notable as a filler is the gobhi masala here the expertly flavored cauliflower provides a slight resistance in the mouth that quickly gives way to a creamy vegetable that seems cre ated just for this preparation. Those who sweat just thinking of spice should reach for Maaji’s mango lassi. The cool drink com bines only three ingredients: Greek yogurt, mango chunks and some cane sugar — no cardamom. Its cool, yogurt-forward taste serves as a welcome contrast to the cur ries and is a delicious, refreshing beverage on its own merit. Since no meal would be complete without something sweet, Maaji’s offers a selection of dessert fa vorites such as the gulab jamon, a warm, doughnut-hole-like pastry soaked in rosewater syrup, and rasgulla, a cool and an astonish ingly sweet (in a good way) cheese dumpling. A more surprising option is Maaji’s Sweet Rolls Chopra takes those great parathas, spreads them with Nutella, rolls them and dusts powdered sugar on top. Biting into the shattering pastry to find the soft and satisfyingly sticky chocolate-hazelnut spread is a wholly unexpected experi ence. Like much of what Chopra does, it’s unconventional — and so much the better for it.
Maaji’s Street Kitchen Dal masala for eight ounces Gobhi masala roll-up ............................$11.99 include gulab jamun, rasgulla and kaju katli MABEL SUEN Papdi chaat with chole, aloo, sev, onion, tomato, chutney and yogurt. MABEL SUEN Chef-owner Heena Chopra and her daughter, Jayda Miller. MABEL SUEN
Paratha ..................................................$2.79
..................$7.99
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Lion’s Choice’s new plant-based sub is ridiculously good Written by RYAN KRULL T he latest addition to the Lion’s Choice menu is totally meatfree. Though, if someone else plopped it down on your plate, you’d have no idea the plant-based meatball sub wasn’t made with “real” Italian sausage. The new sub is the product of a collaboration between Lion’s Choice, a local fast-food legend established in 1967, and Hungry Planet, a St. Louis-based start-up founded in 2016 and dedicated to making meat alternatives that taste just as good as the real thing and are better for the consumer and for the planet. Hungry Planet has partnered with a variety of local eateries, including Mission Taco Joint and Mac’s Local Eats. But partnering with Lion’s Choice held a special appeal for the company. Its sibling co-founders Todd and Jody Boy man have fond memories of hit ting up Lion’s Choice every Sun day after church. “They made a choice to be vegan, and that took Lion’s Choice out of play for a little bit,” says Brad John son, chief commercial officer for Hungry Planet. “But now they’re really excited to have this.”
BitesPlanetary
[FOOD NEWS] Without
The two entities began exploring a partnership a year and a half ago. Lion’s Choice CEO Mike Kup stas says his company has been invested in expanding its menu to accommodate as many diets as possible. It added a gluten-free breaded-chicken sandwich to its menu earlier this year. However, the company didn’t want a vege tarian offering just for the sake of having one. “Our internal mantra was, if it can’t be ridiculously good, then we really don’t have any business selling it,” Kupstas says.
Johnson says that Hungry Plan et is all about making great food with fewer calories and less fat. He says that even compared to other plant-based meat alterna tives, Hungry Planet comes in at around 30 percent fewer calories and, depending on the specific product, 40 or 50 percent less fat.
Kupstas says that the new plantbased meatball sub will be another option for frequent diners to switch up their orders. “Our hope is this opens the door for some folks to visit us that haven’t generally ever walked in the door,” he adds. n
Lion’s Choice has expanded its menu options to include a plant-based sub. | COURTESY LION’S CHOICE Warning
So all this begs the question: can a restaurant known for its clas sic, perfectly seasoned roast beef sandwiches deliver a plant-based meatball sandwich that is, in fact, ridiculously good? The answer is yes. The sandwich is served in a toasted bun and drenched in a slightly sweet marinara sauce and gooey Provel cheese; both are the perfect compliments to the fennel and sage flavors of the Hungry Planet Italian meatballs, which are soy-protein based. The whole thing is a little bit messy, as are all the best sandwiches. As a longtime Lion’s Choice fan, I could definitely see myself switch ing up my usual order of two roast beefs, instead getting one of the usuals and one of these subs. The most remarkable thing about the sub isn’t that it’s plantbased but how light the sandwich is. This might be the first ever meatball sub that didn’t send me into a food coma.
The plant-based meatball sub will be available in all Lion’s Choice lo cations later this fall.
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riverfronttimes.com AUGUST 17-23, 2022 RIVERFRONT TIMES 27 [FOOD NEWS]
For the first time in 30 years, South Grand will be without the City Diner Written by RYAN KRULL A “Restaurant Space for Lease” sign hangs in the front window of what for 30 years has been the City Diner on South Grand Boulevard. Sources tell the RFT that the diner closed last week with no warning. The sign represents the end of a staunch mainstay on the street. Since 1992, the City Diner has served American fare for breakfast, lunch and dinner. A notice in an October 1992 issue of the Post-Dispatch announced the opening of the restaurant, which at the time, offered a blue-plate special of baked ham and pineapple sausage. Rachel Witt, executive director for the South Grand Improvement District, confirmed the diner has closed. “It’s a great space. It’s move-in ready. We’d love to have another diner on South Grand,” she says. “It’s the perfect business to have in our neighborhood.” Witt noted that, in addition to the usual turnover of restaurants, there have been a number of businesses on South Grand that have been open for many decades, and it is inevitable some portion of those owners will close up shop when they retire. In 2010, City Diner opened a sister location a few miles north on Grand in midtown, by the Fox Theater. It closed in 2016. n A er three decades, the City Diner on South Grand has closed. | RYAN KRULL
28 RIVERFRONT TIMES AUGUST 17-23, 2022 riverfronttimes.com ROWWHISKEY *Other Cocktail Varieties Featured* Tia Linda’s Margarita Woodford TrulyTullamoreReserveDew PIGANDWHISKEY.COM B B Q P I T A C T I V E G A M E S Z O N E & M O R E ! W H I S K E Y R O C R A F T C O C K TA V E N D O R V I L L A Great FireHouseSchoolWhiteofRock Jon Bonham and Friends The Grooveliner Paige Alyssa Nathaniel Carroll and the Party Line Bad Habit (2 hour set) Lion’s Daughter Sebastian Bach School of Rock Joe Dirt and the Dirty Boys Story of the Year Midwest Avengers (60 minute set) Bates and the Strangers Tech N9ne Noon 2 PM 3 PM 4 PM 5 PM 7:30 PM 8:30 PM Noon 2 PM 4 8:307:306PMPMPMPM 5:30 PM 7:30 PM 8:30 PM FRI, AUG 19 SAT, AUG 20 SUN, AUG 21 SlaneTroopIrish Whiskey On The Rocks Old Forester Monkey Shoulder Jack RanchDanielsWater Hendrick’s Fistful of Bourbon Blue Wing Rye Whiskey PenelopeBeatbox Bourbon Bulleit Bourbon Switchgrass Spirits Effen Vodka Basil Hayden Beast Craft BBQ Co. Rib HogKingHaven BBQVENDORSBBQBESURE TO CHECK OUT VENDOR VILLAGE AND THE KIDS ZONE Knob Creek Maker’s Mark Jim JohnnieCrownBeamRoyalWalker Jeffersons ReserveKimchiEzraYellowstoneRooksGuys MissionMimi’s Taco Balcones George Dickel SkrewballOleGlenlivetJamesonSmokey Claffey’s *Subject to Availability* J. Smugs Gastro Pit The Stellar Hog The Fattened Caf. Cowboys Barbeque & Rib Co.
“No matter how small our new restaurants might be, we will always bring big energy and exceptional food,” Hillman said. “We are very excited to bring A Little Hi to our friends in Ballwin this fall.”
The new location will be 2,000 square feet, compared to its sister locations, which are around or larger than 3,000 square feet. A Little Hi joins four other locations in the Hi-Pointe Drive-In chain. Hillman said they’re hoping to expand the concept into additional smaller spaces in the future so more of their fans can get “a little Hi.”
New Hi-Pointe Drive-In in Ballwin to focus on burgers, fries and shakes
When the Ballwin location opens in the fall, operating hours will be similar to its siblings, running from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week. n
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[FOOD NEWS]
Written by JENNA JONES H i-Pointe Drive-In is going back to the basics in Ballwin. A Little Hi (15069 Manchester Road, Ballwin; hipointedrivein.com) is ex pected to come to the area in the fall. Mi cro-menu items will “highlight the greatest hits” of Hi-Pointe Drive-In locations, focus ing specifically on Hi-Pointe’s signature burgers, fries and shakes. The Frisco melt and the menu mainstay Smash Burger are some examples of what main courses will look like, while homemade milkshakes in clude the Jungle Love Ore-Oreo. A rotating menu of “over-the-top” burger options will still be offered, as well. “Since we opened our first location in 2017, we have pushed the limits of your typical burger joint from our chef-driven take on burgers to our outrageous specials,” co-owner Ben Hillman said in a statement. “We’re going back to the basics to focus on what we do best — quality burgers, shakes and fries. Sometimes, the best things come in small packages.”
Little Sculptures At snō, award-winning chef Tony Nguyen’s new restaurant, everyone is family Written by JESSICA ROGEN A t first glance, you might think the two dumplings, with their jutting lacy wings of rice flour, are not food but art. One is set within what appears to be a small, round box, and the other rests on its gold lid, which is slid ajar so both offerings are visible. Take a bite, and those architectural elements crumble with a snap, giving way to a delightfully thin and tender dumpling skin and a rich filling that’s cut with heat from a drizzle of Calabrian chili sauce. “I love texture, contrast,” says chef Tony Nguyen, creator of the little sculptures. Tony and his wife, Jessica, are set to debut that dumpling — along with a host of other dim sum, sustainable seafood and more — at their restaurant snō (3611 Juanita Street, 314-386-4274, snostl.com) on August 19. Set in the former home of VP Square in Tower Grove Heights, the chef-driven restaurant will serve modern fare that combines Nguyen’s formidable background in European techniques with Asian cooking. Nguyen named snō for his mother, Tuyet, whose name means snow in Vietnamese. The importance of family to the Nguyens can be seen throughout the restaurant in everything from menu to décor to location.Thecouple, in fact, relocated to St. Louis from California to open the restaurant near Nguyen’s parents. “It’s been very family hands on,” Jessica says, noting how her father-in-law painted the entire building. “That’s why we moved here.” Snō is located a block away from South Grand Boulevard in a two-story storefront; the first floor has two dining rooms, a small, 44-seat dining space where Nguyen plans to host private events and a tasting menu, and a 10seat bar where guests will be able to look into the kitchen and order dim sum. The upstairs holds the main dining room, which has space for 80 guests. There are family touches in all three spaces: an artistic rendering of a cherry tree, his mother’s favorite; pictures of and quotes from chefs Anthony Bourdain and Marco Pierre White; a bookshelf full of cookbooks; pictures of the Nguyens in culinary school and photos of celebrities from Nguyen’s days cooking in Beverly Hills.“We basically wanted to make it look like our home and comfortable and like something we would want to sit in,” Jessica says, adding that her favorite section holds the bookcase. “There’s so many stories within these books, and we’ve made so many recipes from these books and all of our inspirations are up there.” Nguyen took inspiration from more than books for snō’s menu; everything on it will have a modern Asian twist, though that may be very subtle. Some examples of this ethos are a cacio e pepe made with ramen noodles and his signature tuna cigars, which he presents smoking in a literal cigar box. It’s the only item that’s made the journey to snō from Crustacean, where Nguyen served as executive chef for eight years. Though the tuna cigars, alongside some other stalwarts, will stay on the menu, the couple plans to rotate dishes throughout the year to stay fresh and to take advantage of what’s in season. In addition, Jessica, who is a marine biologist as well as a chef, will oversee a sustainable seafood program in addition to serving as general manager. “We’re starting with a very humble, modest menu, and we’ll move forward to pushing ourselves a little harder,” Nguyen Thatsays.menu will be paired with a drinks program put together by Justin Gobelman, the bar chef. He’s made sure to incorporate Asian ingredients and flavors to complement the food. Some examples include a watermelon cocktail, which uses pink peppercorn bitters and rice wine, and a martini that contains a sake-based vermouth, seaweed gin and a garnish made from roasted nori. Though upscale fare often breaks the bank, Nguyen plans for snō to stay affordable. Dishes begin at $9 and mostly stay underThe$40.idea is to be a space for everyone and one that fits into St. Louis. “We just want to do well and make sure everybody’s proud,” he says, noting that they’re using local ingredients, visit ing farmers markets and tagging St. Louis producers on snō’s social media platforms. “There’s such great restaurants in this area, and we just want to be part of it.” n Snō opens on August 19 but is accepting reservations now.
All the dishes on snō’s menu will have a modern Asian twist. | JESSICA ROGEN Simple items are the goal for the micro-menu location. | MABEL SUEN
[FIRST LOOK]
Greatest Hits Only
30 RIVERFRONT TIMES AUGUST 17-23, 2022 riverfronttimes.com
Scoop of the Century Ted Drewes Custard has stayed a St. Louis legend for 93 years by keeping things in the family Written by OLIVIA POOLOS Ted Drewes Frozen Custard 6726 Chippewa Street, 314-481-2652. Established 1929 T ravis Dillon, owner of legend ary St. Louis custard chain Ted Drewes, can be found most days inside the Chip pewa shop. More likely than not, he’ll be mixing custard base alongside the rest of the employees — nearly all of whom are at least a few decades younger than him. Dillon, dressed in the typical uniform of pastel-yellow Ted Drewes shirt and baseball cap, says he only recently started tak ing weekends off from the store since he started working there over 40 years ago. “It’s the most wonderful feel ing,” Dillon says. “I feel like I’m half-retired!”Farfrom actual retirement, however, Dillion still has a laun dry list of tasks every day in or der to keep Ted Drewes running. He manages the 70 employees it takes to keep the Chippewa loca tion staffed in the summertime, pays bills, contacts suppliers and, of course, lends a hand in the kitchen when needed. That personal touch has been key to upholding the ethos of the company as a local, family busi ness. The shop is a city staple, a St. Louis-famous chain that aims to stay consistent in both lineage andDillontaste.co-owns the shop with his wife Christy Dillon, the grand daughter of Ted Drewes Sr. They met in college, at what is now Truman State. Dillon was an accounting major, with no plans to take over a business. He was aiming to be an accountant and work for a firm. Christy encouraged him to stay away from the family business be cause, having grown up in it, she knew that it could quickly take over both your work and home life. Dillon was on the same page initially. He just helped out his fa ther-in-law once in a while. “It got to be two nights a week, then three, then four,” Dillon says. “My wife said, ‘If you’re going to work that much, you may as well go help him.’ [Ted Drewes Jr.] of fered me a full-time job.” Most aspects of the shops have stayed the same since Drewes Sr. started selling custard nearly a century ago in 1929. The custard comes in one flavor –– vanilla –– and customers can choose a concrete, shake, malt or a sundae (which Dillon pronounc es, with a slight Missouri accent, as ‘sunduh’). The shop offers a few dozen mix-ins, with favorite combinations, such as Cardinal Sin (cherries and hot fudge), ad vertised at the top of the menu. Another thing that the Drewes drove home was to pay careful attention to the details. Dillon takes this to heart, having a bite or two
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Le : Many employees pick up work during their summer breaks; the company also o ers tuition help. Above: e store o ers one flavor — vanilla — and a host of mix-ins. | ANDY PAULISSEN e Chippewa location has become the local chain’s flagship store. | ANDY PAULISSEN
ST. LOUIS
Owner Travis Dillon most days works from the Chippewa location. | ANDY PAULISSEN
ICONIC PEOPLE, PLACES & DISHES THAT ANCHOR STL’S FOOD SCENE[ ]
The order windows –– nine in all –– at the Chippewa location are almost always busy. During a weekday, four or five will be open for the families crowding around for a sweet treat. On hot weekend nights, all nine might be open to accommodate regulars, tourists and after-work crowds.
Ted Drewes opens windows based on demand. | ANDY PAULISSEN
Ted Drewes is St. Louis famous; its owners want to keep the chain local. | ANDY PAULISSEN “ It’s always been a family?”enoughourtheexpandthetophilosophykeepitinfamily.Whywhenincomefrombusinessisforour
Inside, the employees, in their yel low shirts, work as if in a beehive, buzzing with orders and totals and instructions to each other in a complicated but orderly dance. The custard itself is thick and creamy and melts fast on a hu mid day. Custard contains over a percent of egg yolk (at least 1.14 percent, to be exact), producing a richer flavor than typical ice cream, which often doesn’t in clude any egg. Ted Drewes offers a few different serving sizes that range from micro –– a perfect small treat –– to large, a fountaindrink cup filled to the brim. Dillon has already planned who is going to inherit the Ted Drewes kingdom next: his two sons, now in their late 30s. But while he enjoys his weekends off, playing with his six grandchildren and fishing, Dillon doesn’t plan to quit anytime soon. “[My sons’] intentions are to con tinue the business [once] the Lord has called me home,” Dillon says. Till then he wants to physically be in the shop, mixing custard and taking orders. Even after that retirement, Dillon sees himself still on the business side of things, if only from afar, “for as long as I’m able to think about it.” n
riverfronttimes.com AUGUST 17-23, 2022 RIVERFRONT TIMES 31 of custard every day to make sure it’s consistent with his standards and making sure to pass on that level of care to the entire Ted Drewes family. “If you’re handing out a hot fudge sundae, and you put pecans on it, the fudge will drip over the side,” Dillon explains. “So teach and train your employees to wipe thatThoughoff.” many of those details are about customer service and products –– concretes should be thick enough to stay put when the cup is momentarily flipped upside down, call out orders from largest to smallest –– Dillon also keeps track of the less tasty behind-thescenes to-dos of a family business, such as making sure bills are paid and sales are up to snuff. But, most importantly, Dillon safeguards Ted Drewes as a strict ly St. Louis enterprise. “It’s always been a philosophy to keep it in the family,” Dillon says. “Why expand when the income from our business is enough for our family? That’s really our goal –– to be happy and enjoy a fun life with [our] children and grandchil dren.”What has changed, however, is the local fame Ted Drewes has re ceived since its opening. “Ted Sr. didn’t believe in ad vertising. He believed in word-ofmouth,” Dillon says. In the ’70s, Ted Jr. changed that by buying ads in newspapers and reaping the benefits of higher sales. These days, Ted Drewes adver tises on TV, radio and in a handful of magazines. The places you can buy Ted Drewes ice cream have expanded, too, to a few other lo cal delis and restaurants. You can even buy a cup of custard right after stepping off the plane in Lambert airport from a specialty vending machine kept at a pre cise, steady temperature. “When you sell our frozen cus tard, it needs to stay below zero. So that’s another detail,” Dillon says. Unfortunately, a larger factor than temperature hit Ted Drewes in 2020 –– the pandemic. As a re sult, the Grand location was un able to open this summer, due to a lack of staff. Dillon says they would need about 90 employees total for both locations to be up and running smoothly. In the end, Dillon prioritized the Chippewa location, which has gained popularity likely due to its placement on Route 66. Built in 1941, Chippewa is now consid ered Ted Drewes’ “main store,” Dillon says, and needs roughly 70 employees in order to function. The shop’s current employees can be as young as 15, with many working during their high school or college summer breaks. In the 1990s, Ted Drewes created an educational assistance program. Now kids attending college in St. Louis can work a certain number of hours per week in exchange for tuition help. “We want you to help us, so we will help you,” Dil lon says. “Without the hard work of our employees, there’s no way this company would exist.” Dillon says that he interviews most employees himself, looking for enthusiasm and eye contact in order to offer someone a position. “It’s important as the owner of a family business to know your employees,” Dillon says. “I want everyone to know who I am, and I want to know who they are.”
32 RIVERFRONT TIMES AUGUST 17-23, 2022 riverfronttimes.com MUNCHIE MONDAY: 15% o edibles including: beverages, tinctures, and topicals. 25% o Mama J’s TOP SHELF TUESDAY: 15% o all eighths 45 and above, corresponding grams too. Teal 25% o WAXY WEDNESDAY: 15% o concentrates, 25% o Gas Carts; Rainbow and Notorious 25% o TWISTED THURSDAY: 15% o all Prerolls; AiroPro 25% o , Vertical 25% o FUN FRIDAY: 15% o everything; 25% o Heya STOCKUP SATURDAY: 25% o Beach; Buy any eighth 40 and above get a Heya or Mama J’s eighth 40% o ; Vivid 25% o SUNDAY - SPEND 5% o for 20$- 45$, 10% o for 45$-75$, 15% o ; MORE, SAVE MORE: 75$ and above - Curador Live Resin Pens 25% o , Farmer G 25% o FIRST TIME PATIENT DEALS 1st visit: 30% o entire store, 40% o in house brands 2nd visit: 25% o entire store, 30% o in house brands 3rd visit: 20% o entire store, 25% o in house brands 4th visit: 15% o entire store, 20% o in house brands “Medical decisions should not be made based on advertising. Consult a physician on the benefits and risks of a particular medical marijuana products”
• add at least 144 microbusiness licenses issued through a lottery system with priority given to low-income applicants and people disproportionately impacted by drug criminalization.
There is no word yet from the secretary of state’s office on what led to the boost in needed signatures. Payne says the state performed a routine review of county-bycounty results. The office may have dis agreed with the adjudication of certain counties on the validity of some signatures. State officials certified 214,535 voter signatures across the state, surpassing the required minimum by nearly 30,000. If Legal Missouri’s amendment passes, Missouri will become the 20th state to legalize adult-use marijuana. Payne is confident the amendment will pass. In 2018, he successfully managed a campaign to legalize medical marijuana in Missouri. “We still have work to do; it’s never a sure thing,” Payne says. “But all the indications we have are that there is a strong majority of Missouri voters who are supportive of this issue and will vote yes.” n
• automatically expunge nonviolent marijuana-related criminal records.
VIA FLICKR/EGGROLE
Recreational use will be on the November ballot. |
Green Light Missouri voters will decide fate of recreational cannabis this November Written by MONICA OBRADOVIC M issouri voters will have the option to vote on recreational marijuana in MissouriNovember.Secretary of State Jay Ash croft announced last week that an ini tiative petition by Legal Missouri 2022 gained enough valid signatures to appear on ballots this fall.
• allow nurse practitioners to issue medical cannabis recommendations toThepatients.39-page measure will appear on ballots as Amendment 3 on November 8. “We’re absolutely thrilled that voters are going to have an opportunity to vote yes on Amendment 3 on Tuesday, November 8, and advance this really important criminal justice reform in the state,” John Payne, campaign manager for Legal Missouri, tells the RFT Legal Missouri estimates a proposed 6 percent sales tax on marijuana would generate at least $40.8 million in annual revenue. Local governments would have an option to levy a local sales tax up to 3 percent.Publicrevenue generated from cannabis sales would be used to cover expungement costs for people with records of nonviolent marijuana offenses. Funds left over would go toward veterans’ services, drug addiction treatment and the state’s public defender system. At first, it seemed Legal Missouri would not have enough time to gather the required amount of signatures needed to secure a spot on November ballots. In late July, unofficial reports to Ash croft’s office showed the petition fell short of valid signatures in two of Missouri’s eight congressional districts. The petition needed over 1,000 signatures in the sixth and seventh districts. Both cover mostly ru ral areas in north and southwest Missouri.
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• prohibit employment discrimination for medical-marijuana patients to prevent employees from being fired for medical-marijuana use while off the job.
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• halve the current $100 fee Missourians must pay to grow marijuana at home.
• extend the amount of time medicalmarijuana patient and caregiver ID cards are valid from one to three years.
The proposed constitutional amendment would allow Missourians ages 21 and older to possess, consume, purchase and cultivate marijuana. In addition, the measure would:
[WEED NEWS]
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Another reason why you should follow the theater’s directives is because you will not get home early. Muny shows start at 8:1 p.m. and can go on past 11 p.m. Ducking out like a coward before the rest of the crowd will not turn back the clock. You will be late for bedtime on Muny night, my friend, and that is that. I’ve gotten stuck in Forest Park traffic after the Muny, and it’s no fun at all, but thankfully over the years my family has developed a foolproof way to steer clear of such frustrating gridlock: Pack a cooler and hang out by the car. Doesn’t that sound nice? Sipping on an ice-cold Busch beer or a fizzy San Pellegrino, chatting with pals about your favorite parts of the production? Not only will this pass the time while you avoid the initial rush of outgoing cars, but sharing your impressions of the show has the potential to bring you closer to your family and friends, thus fulfilling the ulti mate promise of this whole glori ousWhichenterprise.brings me to my last point: Don’t take the Muny for granted. There is simply no other place on Earth where a colossal crowd of 11,000 people can gather together to watch top-tier musical theater, not to mention seven pro ductions in quick succession over the span of a summer. The largest Broadway theater holds just un der 2,000 people and admits no one for free outside of occasion al ticket lotteries and corporate patronage. The Muny, of course, leads the theater world in artistic egalitarianism by offering 1,4 6 free seats for every show. Scream it from the rooftops and chant it to the heavens: 1,4 6 free seats That’s been the best deal going for more than 100 years, a span of time that can reduce even the most radical action into rou tine. It can be easy to see the Muny as just another summer destina tion among many, a place where people sing silly songs and dance funny dances in the stifling heat. The Muny is much more than that, though, not only because those performers onstage and in the orchestra pit are some of the most talented folks alive but also because uniting more than 10,000 people to watch theater outdoors is an act of spiritual fel lowship that goes back to the an cient Greeks. You become part of the performance simply by be ing present at it, and when you are flanked by scores of cheering theatergoers enraptured by every word being uttered and sung on stage, your power is manifold. So next time you go to the Muny, stay put and clap for the nice people. They deserve it, and so do you. n
Muny patrons, y’all should not run out to your cars during curtain call Written by MIKE M c HUGH I magine you have just taken your seat at the magnificent St. Louis Municipal Opera Theatre. Sur rounding you is a packed house of 11,000 fellow Munygoers, a crowd equal to roughly half the population of Webster Groves, who all fall silent as the show begins. In the hours that follow, you are treated to heroic doses of Muny Magic . You marvel at the mas sive dance sequences featuring dozens of triple-threat perform ers. Towering voices imported directly from Broadway leave you in awe, as do the dazzling sets as sembled and operated by an ex pert and unseen crew, all while a peerless orchestra provides sumptuous musical scenery that drifts up and away into the starry night sky. As the final note rings out, and the stage lights dim to darkness, you suddenly find yourself con fronted with a choice: Do you stay at your seat and applaud with un bridled enthusiasm for the mira cle you have just witnessed, or do you scurry back to your car like some kind of asshole? Although the vast majority of Muny patrons select the former option, a disconcertingly large number of people choose the Rat’s Path. These finks can be found slinking out during curtain call, with their shoulders hunched in vain efforts to conceal their es capes, their gaits increased to atypical speeds driven by the adrenaline of shame. The worst case of premature evacuation I had the displeasure to witness occurred during the 2016 production of Fiddler on the Roof. Present in the audience was none other than the show’s lyri cist Sheldon Harnick, who flew in to see this inventive produc tion that included an onstage or chestra as well as a song that had previously only been heard in the movie version. I sat in the section behind Har nick and intermittently observed him from afar until the sun set. What a privilege it was to watch that man experience his sacred creation in a totally new way more than 0 years after its premiere. No matter how many times he has seen that show over the decades, it must be an immense thrill to hear thousands upon thousands of people applaud every number, to receive unqualified assurance that he made something that shall forever retain the power to move human hearts. Then after the curtain, the del uge. Tevye and the titular fiddler had scarcely scampered offstage before a bunch of lunkheads started hauling their sorry car casses through the aisles. As Har nick applauded the actors taking their bows, a procession of rich pricks ditched their seats up front and headed for the exit, obscuring the maestro’s view and making St. Louis theatergoers look like a pack of Indeed,rubes.this type of curtain-call exodus is not exclusive to the Muny: The same dolts can be seen fleeing the Fox, running from the Rep and scrambling out of Stifel on any given evening. It is not worth anyone’s time to ruminate on the motivations of boors who clear out instead of clap, other than that they are contemptible little piggies pathetically oinking their way to the front of the herd, so they can be the first hogs on the highway home to their miserable suburban sties. There are innumerable reasons why one should avoid falling in with such swine, but I shall hence forth focus on three central points, two practical and one more exis tential. The first reason you should remain at your seat and applaud is because those are the rules. At the front of every Muny program is a section titled Theatre Etiquette, which concludes with a humble appeal to “please show your grati tude by remaining at your seat un til after the curtain call.” Then, to really drive the point home, the great Ken Page intones the same request over the mighty Muny speakers at the top of ev ery show just before asking the audience to rise for the national anthem. If you won’t listen to a mouthy jerk like me, at least heed the words of a figure of such soar ing eminence as Page, Old Deuter onomy himself and M P of The Nightmare Before Christmas. (Sor ry folks, gotta stay and clap. Oogie Boogie told ya.)
34 RIVERFRONT TIMES AUGUST 17-23, 2022 riverfronttimes.com [MIND YOUR MANNERS] Stay and Clap, Assholes
At the 2016 Fiddler on the Roof, patrons ran out during the show’s curtain call while the show’s lyricist, Sheldon Harnick, was in the audience. | VIA THE MUNY
When the whole world got turned on its head due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Fringe Fest moved quickly, turning its entire slate of programming into a digitalonly streaming affair and making it one of the only entities in town able to provide space for performers to work and for audiences to see shows. Kerns sees the organization’s work during that time as having been critical to raising its profile in the city and region. “We just [stepped into that] leadership role and went, ‘We have to do this, not just for the artists ... but also for the patrons who are now sheltering in place, who need the cultural fabric of their lives woven together,’” he says. After switching to a hybrid format of digital and live performance in 2021, this year sees Fringe Fest returning to its roots as a largely in-person affair, with more than 40 acts putting on approximately 150 performances over six days. The shows will take place at the .ZACK Theatre, Marcelle Theater, Schlafly Tap Room and the High Low and will be accompanied by a street fair and a brewery takeover at Urban Chestnut Midtown. Noteworthy performances in 2022 include a headlining show by longtime burlesque organizer and performer Lola van Ella, who will be bringing her Van Ella Bordella to perform a new show called Sto ryville Burlesque. Another headliner will be the St. Louis premiere of the 24 Hour Play Project; a New York-based theater company will send its team members to work with St. Louis groups including the Cherokee Street Theater Company and the Uppity Theater Company on a characteristically off-kilter piece for which they’ll only have one day to prepare. “They’ll meet them on Friday night for a workshop,” Kerns says. “They’ll walk away with a prompt, and they will write, produce, costume, build the scenes for, direct, re hearse and be ready to perform the scene when it’s shown just 24 hours later.”
In addition to the headlining events, St. Lou Fringe is coordinating with the Tennessee Williams Festival for something of a crossover event in their shared programming. Veteran St. Louis performer Terry Meadows will play Williams in a one-man show. He’ll talk directly to the audience and share his life story with a script that was created for St. Lou Fringe using interviews from Williams’ life. That show, Confessions of a Nightingale, will be timed to the Tennessee Williams Festival’s showings of Rose Tattoo at the Big Top, allowing showgoers to bounce from one immediately to the other for an immersive experience in the life and work of the legendary playwright. It’s the kind of thoughtful programming that’s become Fringe Fest’s calling card, and that has led to the type of recognition that gets handed down from on high by local government. Importantly, it’s also the level of quality that keeps the flame alive for the performers and artists involved, as well as the throngs of showgoers that will fill Grand Center this week.
“I’m very proud of us as an organiza tion,” Kerns says. “We do the heavy lifting in ways that are equitable and really bring diversity to the table, not just in humans, but also in stories and creativity and disci pline. And every year we just get stronger and better at it." n For tickets, schedule and more informa tion on Fringe Fest, visit stlfringe.org.
More than 50 acts and 150 performances take place this week over six days as part of Fringe. | COURTESY ST. LOU FRINGE
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[UNCONVENTIONAL] A Day for Fringe St. Louis’ most boundary-busting, o -kilter and entertaining festival gets its own holiday Written by DANIEL HILL A fter 10 years and countless performances, the organizers of St. Louis’ Fringe Fest have damn near seen it all. As the city’s premier purveyor of out-ofthe-box, boundary-busting theater and offkilter art, the annual affair reliably sees its performers swinging for the fences, working outside the confines of the con ventional and taking all manner of risk in the name of showing audiences what art can be when the guardrails are removed. It’s been weird, it’s been exhilarating and it’s been one of the most consistently en tertaining festivals in St. Louis’ arts world. But in its 11th year, Fringe Fest gets to see itself as something new: an official St. Louis city holiday. That’s thanks to a proclamation issued to the festival by Mayor Tishaura Jones, recognizing August 21, as St. Lou Fringe Day. “St. Lou Fringe shows that the arts help to foster discipline, creativity, imagination, self-expression and problemsolving skills, also helping to develop a heightened appreciation of beauty and cross-cultural understanding,” the proclamation reads in part. “The art-making at St. Louis Fringe plays a unique and intrinsically valuable role in the lives of our families, our communities and our city.”
For Matthew Kerns, who has served as president and artistic director for St. Lou Fringe for the past seven years, the nod from the city serves as a crowning achieve ment in recognizing the organization’s vital role in the St. Louis arts community. “We are 11 years old this year. We’ve never stopped producing; we continued to produce digitally in the pandemic,” Kerns tells the RFT. “We’ve been consistent with our festival and other programming for 11 years, and the mayor’s office wanted to recognize our contributions to the community, our love and appreciation of our independent artists, our love and appreciation for our local art makers [for whom] we are their only place to get their work on stages.”
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VibrationsHigh St. Louis’ busiest artist, 18andCounting, has his best summer yet Written by KAWAII BROWN E verything clicked for 18and Counting last summer. The St. Louis trailblazer of experimental hip-hop and art, also known as Stan Ch isholm, had made it through a few years of full-time teaching experi ence and was grooving there. He had finally figured out how to bal ance his disparate artistic inter ests, which span many things mu sic to many things visual art, and had gotten comfortable switch ing gears between all of those things. It might have been his best summer yet. Except that this summer might top it. “All systems are firing right now, from the state of my studio, the quality of the paintings I’m creating, the variety of collabora tions I get to have, my connection to the neighborhood, teaching,” he says. “It’s just, like, everything is Lasthappening.”month, as 18andCounting, Chisholm released SOME SORT OF FUTURE, a seven-track album that he performed, produced, re corded, mixed and engineered himself. He is also at work on an instrumental companion album to be titled SAME SORT OF FU TURE that will be released this fall and a yet-to-be-named album by his band, TheOnlyEnsemble, that should launch this winter. “The album consists of tangible electronics, vocals, dissonance, confrontation, sonic mutations, and joy,” he wrote on Instagram. But that’s not all: He’s at work on a mural at the Boulevard Hair Co. in Webster Groves (his second for the company), is getting ready for Paint Louis in September and has hopes for a few more public art projects down the line. He’s also at work on a coloring book, inspired by his students. That’s not to mention all the gigs in the works for 18andCounting and TheOnlyEnsemble. “I think it may be just a flat-out maturity thing,” he says. “It could be a fear of death; I don’t know. Whatever it is that’s going on, I’m like, ‘Let’s just put everything to gether.’”Asamusician, Chisholm is a thing unto himself — whether through vinyl or a modular set, solo or with TheOnlyEnsemble. He moves easily from one medi um to another, creating a unique sound while delivering some sub stantial lyrics. A series of beats, acoustics and frequencies, the music feels like high vibrations that keep the listener present in the moment as each sound be comes more unpredictable yet rhythmic.Chisholm, a St. Louis native, came into his music organically. His artistic journey began in first grade, when he took a liking to vi sual art. He became a student and a featured artist at the Contempo rary Art Museum during his se nior year in high school, which he counts as the start of his 18-year career. The museum selected his drawing, a “cartoonish, character kind of thing,” to be a donor gift for Emily “GettingPulitzer.compliments from strangers and seeing how that whole thing works, that was the big deal for me. It was definitely a big moment for me,” Chisholm says, explaining that he later went on to attend and complete four years at the School of the Art Insti tute of Chicago. Though his first love might be visual art, throughout his life Ch isholm has leveraged music to build connections, find oppor tunities and get ahead. Upon re turning home from Chicago, he realized he needed a fresh way to network and decided to become a DJ, which he describes as a chess move to infiltrate spaces he as pired to be in as a visual artist and vibe“Whencurator.Imoved back to St. Louis from Chicago, I realized I didn’t have my DJ friends around and the events and things I listened to weren’t around,” Chisholm says. “So I started DJing really as a way to kind of just be in the way. Like I knew if I threw this event, I could invite whoever I wanted to be there, and I get to design the flier, and I get to hang things from the ceiling if I wanted to.” His first billed show happened thanks to Josh Loyal of 2720 Cher 18andCounting released the album SOME SORT OF FUTURE last month. | CHRIS BOWERS
36 RIVERFRONT TIMES AUGUST 17-23, 2022 riverfronttimes.com [HIP-HOP]
riverfronttimes.com AUGUST 17-23, 2022 RIVERFRONT TIMES 37 okee (now the Golden Record) in 2010. What Chisholm thought would be short sets in between local acts became a full-hour mid night set that then immediately turned into a weekly spot. That was the turning point for his ca reer as 18andCounting and be came the basis for his platform and a hub to network from and within as he expanded as both a DJ and visual artist. “2720 in particular is really im portant to my career, not only for opening for and connecting with enormous national artists that I’m inspired by, but that’s also [how] TheOnlyEnsemble came to be,” he says.In 2015, Bill Streeter invited 18andCounting to perform at LoFi Cherokee, a local showcase for musicians and artists of eclectic sounds, and a musician he’d met there, Brennan England, was the first person he contacted to join him in a performance. Even tually, TheOnlyEnsemble was formed, which consists of Cannon DeWeese, who plays drums and some electronic percussion; Juan Luchini, who plays keys; and Eng land, who plays his rendition of a didgeridoo, which he calls a slide didge (a hybrid with a trombone), with origins that date back to ear ly tribal Australia. As a group, they’ve performed on the historical Becky Thatcher riverboat as well as at City Muse um, and Chisholm regularly DJs at spots such as the Royale and the B-Side.Asthe vocalist in the group and a solo performer, Chisholm has be come known for using two micro phones, using different effects on each and improvising sound dur ing his synth sets. He’s also assem bled his own modular synthesizer, which helps him create his unique experimental electronic sounds. “I can’t quite claim [that] I built my own,” Chisholm says, explain ing how he’ll reconfigure the com ponents to take the instrument to shows. “It’s nice to have instru ments that are customizable be cause I can sort of fit them to the work.”Chisholm’s latest work, his al bum, didn’t begin with a specific sound but rather an idea for a title. The phrase “some sort of future” came to him in February, but he wasn’t sure what to do with it. Then he did a photoshoot with Chris Bowers, which produced ex perimental, dreamy shots full of soft colors and strong linear light paths. Looking at the results, Ch isholm realized that he not only had a title but also a cover. As he dug into the work, Ch isholm realized that he either had the makings for a really long work or two separate albums. Thinking about the average person’s at tention span, he decided to make both SOME SORT OF FUTURE and SAME SORT OF FUTURE Most of the work was done over the three-week summer break from Kairos Academies, a yearround school where Chisholm teaches middle school visual art. Fitting everything in during that time was an invigorating chal lenge that made for some long nights.Having done all this in such a short period of time seems so far away from where Chisholm was 19 years ago — just having walked into the Contemporary for his first real brush with the arts. “As a child, you don’t choose your life path, you just kind of go with what it is,” he says. “But I al ways enjoyed it because it gave me a really wide perspective.” n Check out SOME SORT OF FUTURE on Bandcamp and most streaming platforms; it will be available on vinyl eventually as well. “ I started DJing really as a way to kind of just be in the way. I knew if I threw this event, I could invite whoever I wanted to be there and I get to design the flier, and I get to hang things from the ceiling if I wanted to.”
38 RIVERFRONT TIMES AUGUST 17-23, 2022 riverfronttimes.com
E ndless box stores, dirty wind shields, parking lots with zero shade; stalled elevators, eye brow scars, sputtering fluo rescent lights; security fences, empty fridges, cocaine with strang ers in sweaty bathrooms. Emily the Criminal may be one of the most honest LA movies — and American movies — of our times, if only for entirely renounc ing most of the lies that Hollywood and mainstream media happily feeds us. The debut feature of writer-director John Patton Ford, the film swaps the glamorous trappings of rolling hills and Mali bu sands for the workday malaise and financial precarity that affect a much larger swath of the city’s, and our country’s, population. Gone are the blown-out, Botoxed glitterati; they are replaced with a racially cacophonous band of citizens and undocumented work ers hustling to get by. Palm trees barely appear; when they do, they sway toward the asphalt. Shot on a low budget over three weeks during the pandemic, Emily the Criminal follows Emily Bonet to (Aubrey Plaza), an art school grad who turns to a life of crime to pay off her mounting college debt. With a snappy Jersey accent and silver nose stud, Emily scrapes by delivering work lunches to downtown corporations, sketch ing portraits in her car between shifts. Plaza appears in every sin gle scene of this movie — whether hauling vats of pasta or tasing a black-market boss, her electric, strikingly physical performance reminds us that she’s always been much more than a quirky comic. At the same time, Ford’s script does something just as rare for a thriller with a badass female lead: swaps out the implausible, reduc tive “strong woman” trope for a subtle portrait of a distinctly im perfect, yet relatable, human be ing. Like one in five Americans, Emily is buried in debt, and like nearly a third of her compatri ots, boasts a criminal record that effectively precludes gaining the means to pay it off.
Pushing the Legal Limits
“I need a job, a good job,” she coolly confesses to her college bestie Liz (Megalyn Echikunwoke) at a trendy bar. Whereas her friend’s life is “insane” because she’s headed to Portugal on her company’s dime, Emily can’t af ford her rent, let alone the paint needed for making art. When Liz arranges for her boss to inter view Emily for a graphic design position, it soon becomes clear that said “job” is merely another unpaid, full-time internship with zero benefits. “I don’t understand how you feel so comfortable ask ing people to work without pay,” Emily tells the firm’s president Alice (Gina Gershon). Fed up with being pedantically schooled on how awful the field was when Alice was “the only woman in a room full of men,” Emily snaps, “If you want to tell me what to do, put me on the fucking payroll.”
Emily the Criminal is a crackling millennial revenge tale that discards societal lies for an unexpected escape hatch Written by EILEEN G’SELL Emily the Criminal Directed by John Patton Ford. Starring Megalyn Echikunwoke, Gina Gershon, Aubrey Plaza and Theo Rossi. Opened August 12 at Hi-Pointe Theatre.
Aubrey Plaza plays the titular role in Emily the Criminal. | COURTESY ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS/VERTICAL ENTERTAINMENT
Given a lead from a coworker at her catering gig, Emily finds a different, if much less legal, way to boost her financial status: as a “dummy shopper,” amassing pricey electronics and luxury ve hicles in little time with fake credit cards for resale. Within unmarked warehouses and tinted SUVs, Em ily quickly descends into a colorful underworld of immigrants, tough guys and desperate single parents, all more motivated by the desire to survive than an adrenaline rush or flatscreen T . “With a purchase of this size, the bank will call the ven dor, but that takes eight minutes,” explains Youcef (Theo Rossi), the operation’s soft-spoken middle man, prepping Emily for her first big solo venture. “You have eight minutes to leave, or they know it’s fake.” With a techno score redo lent of Tom Tykwer’s exhilarating Run Lola Run, Emily packs more nail-biting sequences into its taut 90 minutes than the bloated Bullet Train, a half hour longer. As much as the film crackles as a millennial revenge tale, Em ily the Criminal simmers as both a character study and a trenchant indictment of the U.S. carceral system and structural poverty it abets. More obliquely, Ford’s debut speaks to the ongoing Great Resig nation, wherein record numbers of low-wage employees have vol untarily quit their jobs. Is it worth working a demeaning job that can’t ever pay your bills? Has our na tional obsession with meritocratic advancement finally reached its breaking point? “Motherfuckers will just keep taking from you and taking from you until you make the goddamn rules yourself,” Emily concludes to Youcef at the film’s cli max. “Am I wrong? Am I wrong?” By its final scene — a plot twist turned happy ending that upends traditional conceptions of the lat ter — Emily the Criminal stealthily labors to suggest that escape from the rat race is possible. Just don’t expect to follow the laws of society or acceptable female behavior. n
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FILM 39
40 RIVERFRONT TIMES AUGUST 17-23, 2022 riverfronttimes.com WEDNESDAY, 8/17/22 J.D. HUGHES 4:30PM FREE SHOW! SEAN CANAN’S VOODOO PLAYERS PRESENTS: VOODOO WOODSTOCK! 9PM THURSDAY, 8/18/22 DREW LANCE & FRIENDS 3-6PM FREE SHOW! FROM THE GULF COAST OF FL THE WILL THOMPSON BAND WITH MAGAHOOCHI TRIO 9PM FRIDAY, 8/19/22 KEVIN BUCKLEY 4PM FREE SHOW! SOULARD BLUES BAND 10PM SATURDAY, 8/20/22 ALL ROOSTERED UP 12PM FREE SHOW! JAKE’S LEG 10PM SUNDAY, 8/21/22 COLT BALL 2PM FREE SHOW! COTTON CHOPS 9PM FREE SHOW! MONDAY, 8/22/22 IAN LEITH 5PM FREE SHOW! SOULARD BLUES BAND 9PM TUESDAY, 8/23/22 ANDREW DAHLE 5PM FREE SHOW! ETHAN JONES 9PM FREE SHOW! ORDER ONLINE FOR CURBSIDE PICKUP! MONDAY-SATURDAY 11AM-9:30PM SUNDAY 11AM-8:30PM HAPPYSPECIALSHOUR MONDAY-FRIDAY 11AM-4PM THEERADRIVER PLUS SUMMER SALT, ALMOST MONDAY FRI, SEPT 2 89.1 KCLC PRESENTS OH, BIRTHDAYWORLDINVERTED-21STTOUR THE SHINS PLUS JOSEPH Tue, Sept 06 THE AUSTRALIANPINKFLOYDSHOWSat,Sept10 40TH ANNIVERSARYTOUR CHRISTOPHERCROSSFri,Sept16TROMBONESHORTY&ORLEANSAVENUEThurs,Sept22JUDAH&THELION PLUS SMALLPOOLS Fri, Sept 23 KSHE KLASSIC CAR SHOW & CONCERT FEAT. JACKYL & PEARCYSTEPHENOFRATTSUN,SEPT25WHEELERWALKER,JR.SAT,OCT1 SUPERACHE TOUR Mon,CONANGRAYOct3 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLING AUTHOR RACHELHOLLIS RACH TALK LIVE! Sat, Oct 8
EUGENE JOHNSON: 8 p.m., $15-$20. Joe’s Cafe, 6014 Kingsbury Ave, St. Louis.
THE BROKEN HIPSTERS: 7 p.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521. CAROLE J. BUFFORD: 7:30 p.m., $20. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745.
AHSA TI NU BAND: 10 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. BEATLES NIGHT: 6 p.m., $10. The Attic Music Bar, 4247 S. ingshighway, 2nd floor, St. Louis, 314-376-5313. BILLY CURRINGTON: w/ Bobby Ford Band, Johnny Henry Band 7 p.m., $25-$50. Ballpark Village, 601 Clark Ave, St. Louis, 314-345-9481. CARY MORIN: 8 p.m., $16. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. DANCE GAVIN DANCE: 7:30 p.m., $35. The Pag eant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.
STEPH PLANT: w/ Bleach Balta, Steven Deeds, Kelly Latimore 8 p.m., $10. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. STONE CRAZY: 7 p.m., free. Cheers Bar and Grill, 61 National Way Shopping Center, Manchester, (636) 220-8030. TURNPIKE TROUBADOURS: 7 p.m. The Factory, 1710 N Outer 40 Rd, Chesterfield, 14-42 -8 00.
THURSDAY 18
THE DELTA BOMBERS: w/ Reckless Ones 8 p.m., $15. The Old Rock House, 1200 South Seventh St., St. Louis.
BREAKFAST IN AMERICA - A SUPERTRAMP CELEBRATION: 8 p.m., $20-$30. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.
e Pig & Whiskey fest will take over Maplewood this weekend with great food and several big-name performers, including Tech N9ne. | VIA THE ARTIST
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DUMMY: w/ Yuppy, Kids, Freon 8 p.m., $13-$15. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. THE FORESTWOOD BOYS: 7 p.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521. GIMME GIMME DISCO: 8 p.m., $15. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. GOODBYE JUNE: 8 p.m., $20-$25. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. HARD BOP MESSENGERS ALBUM RELEASE: 8 p.m., $10-$25. The Dark Room, 3610 Grandel Square inside Grandel Theatre, St. Louis, 314-776-9550. IVAS JOHN BAND: 7 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. KEITH URBAN: w/ Ingrid Andress 7 p.m., $29.50$149.50. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944. NEIL SALSICH & FRIENDS: 7:30 p.m., free. The Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090. THE PEACE, LOVE, MUSIC CONCERT: 7:30 p.m., $15. Florissant Civic Center, Parker Road & Waterford Drive, Florissant, 314-921-5678.
DONZII: w/ NITE FRVR, Deaf Castle, Enemy of Magic 6:15 p.m., $7. Platypus, 4501 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-359-2293.
CHASE MATTHEW: 8 p.m., $25/$30. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.
UMPHREY’S MCGEE: w/ The Disco Biscuits 7 p.m., $49.50. St. Louis Music Park, 750 Casino Center Dr., Maryland Heights, 314-451-2244. VOODOO GRATEFUL DEAD: 7 p.m., $15-$20. The Ready Room, 4140 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.SATURDAY 20 49 WINCHESTER: 8 p.m., $15. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. BEST NIGHT EVER: 7 p.m., $12. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. BEST NIGHT EVER: 2010S DANCE PARTY: 8 p.m., $15. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. BOOGALOU: w/ Brother Jefferson, Andy Coco’s NOLA Funk and R&B Revue 5 p.m., $58. Lemp Mansion Restaurant & Inn, 3322 DeMenil Place, St. Louis, 314-664-8024.
BREWED ARTS FESTIVAL: 1 p.m., $30-$40. Cherokee Street, Lemp Ave. & Cherokee St., St. Louis. THE CONFORMISTS: w/ Imelda Marcos, Zantigo! Riverfront Times Pig & Whiskey Festival w/ Tech N9ne, Story of the Year, Sebastian Bach and more Friday, August 19, through Sunday, August 21. Friday at 5 p.m., Saturday and Sunday at noon. Schlafly Bottleworks, 7260 Southwest Avenue, Maplewood. Free. Of course we have to highlight the free and family-friendly food and music fes tival that we’ve been cooking up all summer long. The inaugural edition of Pig & Whiskey kicks off Friday, August 19, at 5 p.m. with an opening set by the School of Rock House Band, which is a music program that gives students under 18 an opportunity to join a gig ging band made up of fellow students from the school. Jack Russell’s Great White and FireHouse will headline the opening night with a one-two punch of glam metal and ’80s nostalgia. A mighty marathon of local bands begins at noon on Saturday and runs well into the eve ning until Sebastian Bach of Skid Row takes the stage to close out the night in spectacular fashion. Sunday’s schedule gives off the vibe of a state fair done right as Kansas City’s Tech N9ne and St. Louis’ own Story of the Year perform on the same day as other river-city fa vorites including Joe Dirt and the Dirty Boys and the Midwest Avengers. It’s a massive musical buffet on display with a little something for everyone — there’s even a kid zone complete with bounce houses, video games and an opportu nity to try out musical instruments pro vided by School of Rock. Meat Me in Maplewood: The “pig” in Pig & Whiskey refers to the ridiculous amount of food being offered all weekend from the likes of Stellar Hog, Navin’s BBQ, BEAST Butcher & Block, Five Aces Bar-B-Que and Dukes BBQ Shack, alongside many more of the region’s finest barbecue joints. The big attraction here, Whiskey Row, offers up whiskey in several varieties alongside a damn near unlimited supply of Schlafly beer. —Joseph Hess E ach 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. All events are subject to change, especially in the age of COVID-19, so do check with the venue for the most up-to-date information before you head out for the night. And of course, be sure that you are aware of the venues’ COVID-safety requirements, as those vary from place to place and you don’t want to get stuck outside because you forgot your mask or proof of vaccination. Happy showgoing!
[CRITIC’S PICK] OUT EVERY NIGHT 41
THE BETHS: w/ Rosie Tucker 8 p.m., $20/$24. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.
THE GOLDENRODS: 7:30 p.m., free. The Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090. GREEN DRUID: w/ Umlouse 7:30 p.m., $12-$15. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. KORN: w/ Evanescence 6 p.m., $29.50-$89.50. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944. RYAN MARQUEZ BAND: 7 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. THE SCOTCH BONNETS: 5 p.m., free. Ritz Park, 3147 S. Grand Blvd, St. Louis.
ST. LOUIS KLEZMER QUARTET: 7 p.m., free. Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, 7400 Grant Road, Concord, 314-842-3298. THROWN OUT BONES: 6:30 p.m., $10. The Attic Music Bar, 4247 S. ingshighway, 2nd floor, St. Louis, 314-376-5313. ZZ TOP: 7:30 p.m., $24-$380. St. Louis Music Park, 750 Casino Center Dr., Maryland Heights, FRIDAY314-451-2244.19
PIG & WHISKEY DAY 1: w/ Jack Russell’s Great White, Firehouse p.m., free. Schlafly Bottleworks, 7260 Southwest Ave, Maplewood, 314-241-2337. SLEACH: w/ Cannvas Visuals, cøde 8 p.m., $15. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.
THE REVEREND PEYTON’S BIG DAMN BAND: Fri., Nov. 25, 8 p.m., $18. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. SCREENSAVER: W/ Freak Genes, Maximum Effort, [CRITIC’S PICK] Imelda Marcos w/ the Conformists, Zantigo! 8 p.m. Saturday, August 20. e Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway. $10. 314-328-2309.
HOLY FUCK: Sat., Sept. 24, 8 p.m., $18-$20. Off Broad way, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.
JOE METZKA BAND: 7 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.
JOE METZKA BAND: Sat., Aug. 20, 7 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. LIZZIE WEBER SINGLE RELEASE: W/ Cara Louise, Yannon, Thu., Sept. 15, 8 p.m., $15. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.
42 RIVERFRONT TIMES AUGUST 17-23, 2022 riverfronttimes.com 8 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.
LEE BAINS + GLORY FIRES: w/ Loamlands, Birdie Edge 8 p.m., $12-$15. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. THIRD SIGHT BAND: 7 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.
NEIGHBOR LADY: Thu., Sept. 29, 8 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. NERF BLASTER LIVE MUSIC FESTIVAL: Sat., Sept. 3, 7 p.m., $30. Aim N’ Play, 6189 Minerva Ave, St Louis, 314-916-4282. NIXIL: W/ Extinctionism, Van Buren, Socket, Mon., Aug. 29, 8 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. PARTIES IN THE PARK: W/ Two Pedros, Wed., Sept. 14, 4 p.m., free. St. Louis County Memorial Park, 41 South Central, Clayton, 314-615-4386.
SARAH BORGES: 8 p.m., $15-$18. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. SONGBIRD: 7:30 p.m., $35. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. THIS JUST IN ACE HOOD: Sun., Oct. 16, 8 p.m., $25-$30. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. ADAM MELCHOR: Sun., Feb. 26, 8 p.m., $20. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. ANI DIFRANCO: Fri., Oct. 7, 8 p.m., $25-$50. The Pag eant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.
DAS BEVO LUAU AND PIG ROAST: w/ Rock and the Wranglers 4 p.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521. DAVID MEYER: 7:30 p.m., $5. Spine Indie Bookstore & Cafe, 1976-82 Arsenal St., St. Louis, 314-925-8087. HOT HANDS WONDERLAND: 8 p.m., free. Maggie O’Brien’s, 3828 S Lindbergh Blvd, St Louis, 314-842-7678.
MISSISSIPPI EARTHTONES FESTIVAL: Sat., Sept. 17, noon, free. Liberty Bank Ampitheater, 1 Riverfront Drive, Alton Township. MODERN COLOR: W Soft Blue Shimmer, Mofie, Fri., Dec. 2, 6:30 p.m., $15-$18. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.
LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: 7 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. MATT NATHANSON: 8 p.m., $49.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. PIG & WHISKEY DAY 3: w/ Story of the Year, Tech N ne noon, free. Schlafly Bottleworks, 7260 Southwest Ave, Maplewood, 314-241-2337. ROBERT NELSON & RENAISSANCE: 4 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. THE TOASTERS: w/ Boomtown United, Orangetree 7:30 p.m., $18. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, MONDAY314-289-9050.22 COMEDY SHIPWRECK: 9 p.m., free. The Heavy An chor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.
JASON NELSON BAND: 7:30 p.m., free. Steve’s Hot Dogs, 3145 South Grand, St. Louis. POUND: w/ NOLIA 8 p.m., $12-$15. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.
LJ & THE SLEEZE: W/ Weed Tuth, the Public, Tue., Sept. 6, 8 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.
THE BARFLIES: 2 p.m., free. The Little Bar, 6343 Alabama Ave., St. Louis, 314-875-0607. BOXCAR: 4 p.m., free. Benton Park, Arsenal St. & S. Jefferson Ave., St. Louis. BOYZ II MEN: 7 p.m., $42.50-$120. Liberty Bank Ampitheater, 1 Riverfront Drive, Alton Township. AN EVENING WITH BOYZ II MEN: 7 p.m., $42.50$120. Liberty Bank Ampitheater, 1 Riverfront Drive, Alton Township. KEVIN BUCKLEY AND FRIENDS: 10 a.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521.
JASON COOPER BAND: 3 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. JASON GOTAY: 7:30 p.m., $20. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, S t. Louis, 314-256-1745.
DIRECT MEASURE: W/ Primitive Rage, Thotcrime, Ritual Abuse, Sat., Sept. 24, 7:30 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. DR. SLAPPINSTEIN: W/ Brother Francis & the Soul tones, Sat., Aug. 27, 8 p.m., $10. The Heavy An chor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.
THE MILLENNIUM TOUR: TURNED UP: W/ Bow Wow, Mario, Keri Hilson, Llyod, Pleasure P, Bobby V , Day 26, Ying Yang Twins, Dem Franchize Boyz, Crime Mob, Sammie, Chingy, Travis Porter, Lil Scrappy, Trillville, Sun., Oct. 23, 7 p.m., $64.50-$154.50. Chaifetz Arena, 1 S. Compton Ave., St. Louis, 314-977-5000.
GREEN/BLUE: W/ Punk Lady Apple, Trauma Harness, Thu., Sept. 22, 8 p.m., $7. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.
WEDNESDAY 24 BASEMENT BRAIN: w/ No Antics, Julia Gomez 8 p.m., $10. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. BIG RICH MCDONOUGH & THE RHYTHM RENEGADES: 7 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.
SEAN KINGSTON: 8 p.m., $30-$125. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. STONE HEN: w/ Chaos Bloom, The Mussy Cluves 8 p.m., $10. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. WHISKEY WAR BBQ: w/ Hunter Peebles, Maness Brothers, Old Capital Square Dance Club, Honky Tonk Airlines 6 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. SUNDAY 21 ALICIA KEYS: 8 p.m., $39.50-$139.50. St. Louis Music Park, 750 Casino Center Dr., Maryland Heights, 314-451-2244.
ELECTRIC TOOTHBRUSH SISTERS: W/ Finn’s Motel, Soft Crisis, Trauma Harness, Sat., Sept. 3, 8 p.m., $15-$18. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. ELI YOUNG BAND: Sat., Sept. 24, 7 p.m. Ballpark Village, 601 Clark Ave, St. Louis, 314-345-9481.
EMPEROR X: Tue., Sept. 13, 8 p.m., $12-$15. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. FLASHER: W/ Trauma Harness, Tue., Sept. 20, 8 p.m., $12-$15. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.
KENDALL DAVIDSON: UNPLUGGED: 9 p.m., $10$20. The Dark Room, 3610 Grandel Square inside Grandel Theatre, St. Louis, 314-776-9550. KID ROCK: w/ Foreigner 7 p.m., $45-$249.50. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944. KILLER WAILS: 6:30 p.m., $10. The Attic Music Bar, 4247 S. ingshighway, 2nd floor, St. Louis, 314-376-5313. MISS JUBILEE: 7:30 p.m., free. The Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090. MOOKIE TOLLIVER & SONTA: 8:45 p.m., $25. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. MY POSSE IN EFFECT: w/ Steve Ewing, DJ Mahf 8 p.m., free. The Ready Room, 4140 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. NATIVE STATE: 7 p.m., $10. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. PIG & WHISKEY DAY 2: w/ Sebastian Bach noon, free. Schlafly Bottleworks, 7260 Southwest Ave, Maplewood, 314-241-2337. R.J. MISCHO BLUES BAND: 10 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.
GIANT’S KNIFE: W/ the Public, With Glee, BFD, Fri., Sept. 30, 8 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.
MALEVICH: W/ Warheadd, Cloud Machine, Thu., Sept. 8, 7:30 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.
TUESDAY 23 HOOVERIII: w/ Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band 8 p.m., $10/$15. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. MONUMENTS: w/ Essenger, Sammy Boller 7:30 p.m., $18. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. PUHOY: w/ A Shrewdness of Apes, Ümlouse 8:15 p.m., $5. Platypus, 4501 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-359-2293. ST. LOUIS SOCIAL CLUB: 7 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.
THE RADIO BUZZKILLS: W/ Modern Angst, Darling Skye, the Complaint Line, Fri., Sept. 9, 7 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.
HELL FIRE: W/ Screamer, Sun., Oct. 9, 7:30 p.m., $12-$15. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.
MAXIMUM EFFORT: W/ Powerline Sneakers, Sole Loan, Fri., Sept. 16, 8 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.
The rule of three, in writing, suggests that a trio of characters or three subsequent events is more satisfying or effective than other numbers. Chicago’s Imelda Marcos probably doesn’t care about that rule, or any other, since the band’s beautifully fractured songs rarely adhere to any dis cernible genre. Guitarist Dave Cosejo and drummer Matt Durso have spent the bet ter part of the past decade touring and refining their sound, and now they return to St. Louis approximately three years af ter the release of their third album with a new, third member in Donna Diane of Dju nah. As a trio, Imelda Marcos iterates on the band’s formerly instrumental songs with a focus on powerful vocal leads that feel conjoined to the dense rhythmic inter play at hand. The band occupies a middle ground between so many approaches to songwriting that every listener will hear each song a little differently — like an audible Rorschach test for deep-crate record nerds who have a secret stash of self-released CD-Rs from the late ’90s to mid-’00s. If you feel seen by that state ment, this is the show to hit up on Satur day night. Look at it this way: Some bands take their influences and swiftly throw them in a bowl and keep it loose like a nice chopped salad; Imelda Marcos in stead adds whole obscure genres into an efficient concrete mixer of sounds. A Good Judge of Character: Zantigo! has publicly declared that, as a band, “We vote in all mid-term elections, and we never use scented detergent.” As to how these admirable (albeit dull) traits inform the group’s maximalist brand of mathy synth rock, well, you’ll have to hear for yourself. Zantigo!’s March 2022 release Please Pull Forward is a good place to start. —Joseph Hess Imelda Marcos will bring its uncategorizable and wholly unique music to the Sinkhole this Saturday. |
VIA THE ARTIST
AUSTIN MEADE: Tue., Sept. 20, 8 p.m., $17. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. BETTER THAN EZRA: Sat., Oct. 22, 8 p.m., $25. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. BLK JKS: Wed., Nov. 2, 7:30 p.m., $10-$15. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314328-2309. BOREAL HILLS: W/ Solipse, Cyanides, Sat., Sept. 3, 8 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. CROWNING: W/ the Vast, Mindclot, Fri., Sept. 2, 8 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.
TORY SILVER: W/ Tidal Volume, Coral Moons, Sun., Sept. 11, 7:30 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. n
SHITSTORMTROOPER: W/ Daybringer, Willem Dafrend, Sat., Sept. 10, 7:30 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. SICK THOUGHTS: Mon., Sept. 26, 8 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. SISSER: W/ Terminus Victor, Drab, Kilverez, Thu., Aug. 25, 7:30 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. SIXES HIGH: W/ Megadune, Fri., Aug. 26, 8 p.m., $10. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. SLOPPY SECONDS: W/ the Bollweevils, Ultraman, Sun., Oct. 23, 8 p.m., $18. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.
SMOOTH JAZZ CRUISE ON LAND DAY 1: W/ Boney James. Peter White & Vincent Ingala, Eric Marienthal & Friends, Sat., Sept. 17, 6:30 p.m., $69.50-$93.50. W/ Jonathon Butler, R ‘N R, Eric Darius with Rebecca Jade, Sun., Sept. 18, 6:30 p.m., $69.50-$93.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer 40 Rd, Chesterfield, 14-42 -8 00. SNUFFED ON SIGHT: W/ Feverdream, Split, Dead Wolvs, Sun., Aug. 28, 7 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. SPACEFACE: Sun., Sept. 18, 7:30 p.m., $12-$15. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. SPITER: W/ Duskseeker, Trashgoat, Mon., Sept. 12, 8 p.m., $15. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. ST. LOUIS SOCIAL CLUB: Tue., Aug. 23, 7 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. STATE CHAMPS: W/ Hunny, Between You & Me, Young Culture, Sat., Nov. 19, 7:30 p.m. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. SUBTROPOLIS: W/ Moon Goons, Boreal Hills, Thu., Sept. 15, 8 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. TIGERCUB: Fri., Oct. 21, 8 p.m., $15. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.
[CRITIC’S PICK]
TIM CAPPELLO: W/ DJ Sex Nintendo, Wed., Sept. 7, 7:30 p.m., $10-$13. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.
riverfronttimes.com AUGUST 17-23, 2022 RIVERFRONT TIMES 43 Freon, Sun., Sept. 25, 9 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.
THIS JUST IN Continued from pg 42 Alicia Keys 8 p.m. Sunday, August 21. St. Louis Music Park, 750 Casino Center Drive, Maryland Heights. $39.50 to $171.75. 314-451-2244. Fans of radio-ready throwback R&B have a near-impossible decision to make this Sunday night, as both Boyz II Men and Ali cia Keys come to town for separate shows in celebration of the human voice’s power to inspire some babymakin’. On the one hand you have Motownphilly’s finest, a group whose vocal prowess is so potent that Russian leader Vladimir Putin once enlisted the band’s help in his crusade to up his country’s birthrate. On the other you have the Queen of R&B herself, a towering figure in modern music who has inspired a bevy of artists of the next gen eration to sing you and your romantic part ner under the sheets. It’s a tough call, but we’re gonna have to go with Alicia Keys on this one, for the simple fact that the last time she hit St. Louis was way back in 2008, and it’s unlikely that Boyz II Men will be able to top its 2018 performance with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra anyway. But whether you find yourself at Liberty Bank Alton Amphitheater for the former or St. Louis Music Park for the lat ter, one thing is for sure: You will assume the role of “parent” nine months from now. It’s just science. What’s in a Name: Alicia Keys is currently touring in support of her two latest albums, 2020’s Alicia and 2021’s Keys Both albums have been hailed by critics, with the former even winning a Grammy — thus proving that you don’t have to be especially creative with album titles if your musical chops are unmatched in the known universe. —Daniel Hill Alicia Keys comes to St. Louis Music Park this Sunday as part of her Alicia + Keys World Tour. | TAYLOR JEWELL
44 RIVERFRONT TIMES AUGUST 17-23, 2022 riverfronttimes.com
Quickies BY DAN SAVAGE
Hey Dan: An ex-boy friend is seeing trans prostitutes. Do I tell his current wife IF an opportunity to do so should arise And it will as we live on a small island. I would’ve wanted to know if we were still to gether. Should she not be offered the same If you truly live on a small island — small enough that everyone knows everyone else’s business but large enough to have more than one trans sex worker — then your ex-boyfriend’s wife is gonna find out sooner or later. But even if it means she finds out a little lat er, it would be better if she found out from someone other than you. Assuming your ex’s wife doesn’t already know and approve, if the bearer of bad news is a bitter ex — or someone who can easily be cast as one — your ex-boyfriend will have a much easier time con vincing his wife that it isn’t true. Better she should hear it from the vicar. Hey Dan: I’m a gay boy in the big city and I want to start doing sex work as a side gig. But I have no idea how to start. irst steps First steps: Get vaccinated against monkeypox, Hep A and B, and HPV, and get on PrEP. Then talk with other people who are doing or have done sex work. There are a lot of sex workers on Twitter; most aren’t there to solicit cus tomers, but to advocate for their rights and create community. Fol low and learn. Hey Dan: I met a guy that is very gifted at giving me multiple or gasms, but I have a hard time get ting him to come at all. Any advice If he doesn’t want to come, don’t make him. No problem. But if he’s not coming because you want to make him come with your own hand, pussy or mouth and he can’t come that way, then there is a problem here, and it’s you. Give him permission to enjoy oral and PIV and whatever else you both enjoy before finishing himself off with the same skilled hands he’s using to get you off. Problem solved. Hey Dan: What is the best lube for anal sex with sensitive s in We’re big fans of Spunk. Full dis closure: This isn’t a paid endorse ment — but the last time I men tioned Spunk in a column, they sent me a case. That was years ago … and we’re almost out. Cough, cough. Hey Dan: We often talk about warning signs red ags with in y oms. hat about subs No one should play with … Go to savage.love to read the rest.
JOE NEWTON
“ I met a guy that is very gifted at giving me orgasms,multiplebut I have a hard time getting him to come at all. Any advice?”
This is a preview of this week’s Savage Love. The full version is now exclusively available on Dan’s website, savage.love. Hey Dan: I’m a 40-year-old fe male, cis-het. I have very discern ing tastes in men, and always end up alone. Any way to be more open without sacrificing my standards You’ve either had a terrible run of bad luck — assuming you’ve dated more than 10 men — or you’ve set your standards im possibly high. Some food for thought: perhaps you think you want a long-term relationship because you were told that’s what you’re supposed to want — you were told that’s what all good people want — but you actually don’t want a long-term relationship. They don’t make you happy. But instead of telling yourself that you’re a good per son who prefers short-term re lationships and/or being alone, you’ve set your standards so high — you’ve dialed them up to sabotage — because you want to be alone. And instead of own ing that about yourself, you find fault in the men you date. P.S. There’s no settling down without settling for. Hey Dan: Is there any way to enjoy anal while having a hemorrhoid Nope, sorry. You need to wait for it to heal. Hey Dan: I’m a 36-year-old man. If I get too psyched out to stay hard for (extremely rare) anal with my wife should ust get some Viagra Well, that depends. Does your wife like long anal sex sessions? If the answer to that question is yes, then Viagra could help. Because in addition to helping you get and stay hard, Viagra and other ED meds can delay orgasm. But if your wife doesn’t like long anal sex sessions — if she generally wants you to hurry the fuck up and get the assfucking over with — lasting longer could make those already rare anal sex sessions rarer still. Maybe try a cockring instead? Hey Dan: Tips for helping a penishaver last longer when penetrating other than coc rings Coc rings are great, but they don’t help with longevity.) Cockrings are great; I recom mended them to another read er five second ago. But while a snug-but-not-too-tight cockring can help keep a penis-haver’s penis hard by gently restrict ing blood flow out of the penishaver’s penis, cockrings don’t make penis-havers “last longer,” e.g., they don’t delay ejaculation. (Cockring 101: Gentle restriction is good; trapping blood in the penis is not. Cockrings should be snug, not tight.) If you’ve already tried all the standardissue advice to treat premature ejaculation (which I’ve covered before and don’t have the space to re-re-re-rehash in a Quickies column), an ED med like Viagra might help (for the reasons men tioned above); a low-dose SSRI is also an effective treatment for premature ejaculation. P.S. Whenever someone writes “penis-haver” my slightly dyslexic brain reads “penis-halver,” as in, someone who cuts a penis in half — which some people in the body modifica tion community have done, and bon(e) ap petit to anyone brave enough to do a Google image search.
Checkquestions@savagelove.netouttheSavageLovecast.@FakeDanSavageonTwitter SAVAGE LOVE 45
riverfronttimes.com AUGUST 17-23, 2022 RIVERFRONT TIMES 45
Hey Dan: For those that like to fuck out side on hikes and while camping… should we be wary of trail cams or go-pros people are hiding in trees for whatever reason ow to spot them If people are do ing that — if people are hiding cameras on popular hiking trails — well, then you should indeed be wary. Hike the beaten path, don’t fuck on it.
46 RIVERFRONT TIMES AUGUST 17-23, 2022 riverfronttimes.com
riverfronttimes.com AUGUST 17-23, 2022 RIVERFRONT TIMES 47
