Riverfront Times, November 1, 2023 by Chava Communications

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NOVEMBER 1-7, 2023

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NOVEMBER 1-7, 2023

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Owner and Chief Executive Officer Chris Keating Executive Editor Sarah Fenske

E D I T O R I A L Managing Editor Jessica Rogen Editor at Large Daniel Hill Staff Writers Ryan Krull, Monica Obradovic Dining Critic Cheryl Baehr Theater Critic Tina Farmer Music Critic Steve Leftridge Contributors Aaron Childs, Max Bouvatte, Thomas Crone, Mike Fitzgerald, Cliff Froehlich, Eileen G’Sell, Reuben Hemmer, Braden McMakin, Tony Rehagen, Mabel Suen, Theo Welling Columnists Chris Andoe, Dan Savage Interns Alexia McCullison, Peter Cohen

A R T

COVER

P R O D U C T I O N

Art Director Evan Sult Creative Director Haimanti Germain Graphic Designer Aspen Smit

The Trouble with Bad Cops

M U L T I M E D I A

A D V E R T I S I N G

Publisher Colin Bell Account Manager Jennifer Samuel

Even accusations of serious misconduct don’t stop officers from landing a new job — and getting back on the beat

Directors of Business Development Tony Burton, Rachel Hoppman

C I R C U L A T I O N Circulation Manager Kevin G. Powers

B I G

Cover illustration by

L O U

H O L D I N G S

Executive Editor Sarah Fenske Vice President of Digital Services Stacy Volhein

TYLER GROSS

Digital Operations Coordinator Elizabeth Knapp Director of Operations Emily Fear Chief Financial Officer Guillermo Rodriguez

INSIDE Front Burner News Missouriland Feature Calendar Cafe Short Orders Reeferfront Times Culture Music Film Stage Out Every Night Savage

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Chief Executive Officer Chris Keating

N A T I O N A L

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A D V E R T I S I N G

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FRONT BURNER

MONDAY, OCTOBER 23. The St. Charles County NAACP calls for an investigation into the Wentzville School District, saying Black students are bullied while adults stand by. Color us shocked, shocked that such a thing would go down in Wentzville. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 24. D.C. Republicans are having a terrible time choosing a new Speaker of the House, and Missouri has its own Speaker problems: As the Missouri Independent reveals, Speaker Dean Plocher (R-Des Peres) double-billed taxpayers for expenses covered by his campaign. Plocher is in the process of returning the money, but calls for his resignation are swift — even from fellow Republicans. Meanwhile, Wash U students walk out over the university’s pro-Israel statements, while Aldermanic President Megan Green’s Unhoused Bill of Rights seems dead in the water after defections from Green’s fellow progressives — and no support from Mayor Tishaura Jones.

Previously On LAST WEEK IN ST. LOUIS WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25. Mayor Jones has COVID-19, which apparently makes her the last person in St. Louis bothering to get tested. Meanwhile, a hurricane pummels Acapulco — and a horrific shooting leaves 18 people dead, many of them members of the deaf community, in Lewiston, Maine. Another 13 are injured, and the gunman is on the lam. Dear God! The horror, however, is the distraction the GOP needs: Their new Speaker, Mike Johnson, is a nutjob who openly disdains the separation of church and state. (We’re used to disdain, but it’s seldom this open!) THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26. The weather

5 QUESTIONS for biologist Erik Herzog As a biologist who studies in circadian rhythms, Washington University’s Erik Herzog has strong feelings about the seasonal time changes that will have us “falling back” on November 5 — namely, that we need to scrap them. The former president of the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms is proud to have led the organization to a position that has now been adopted by all of the medical and scientific societies that have taken a position on time changes: that permanent standard time is the preferred schedule, and our twice-annual adjustments are not worth the damage. Herzog joined us last week to share why these seasonal switches are dangerous — and just who has him on speed dial. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. People love falling back. What’s wrong with getting an extra hour of sleep? There’s nothing wrong with getting an extra hour of sleep. Our society is chronically sleep deprived. I would argue that we need to make this permanent. So your real argument is that we should just never spring forward after this. What’s so bad about that change? For the three days after we spring forward, we see increases in car accidents and heart attacks. It’s disruptive, it’s confusing, it’s even fatal. And so it’s just a matter of whether we want to switch to Daylight Saving Time, which we currently observe for nine months out of the year, or Standard Time, which is the way things were originally designed when they made the time zones. The way they made our time zones was figuring out where in the middle of the time zone that the sun would be directly overhead at noon for most of the year. And right now, for nine months of the year, we’re living contrary to that. So why is there such a big lobby for permanent Daylight Saving Time? Senators like Marco Rubio are really in favor of getting rid of time-switching, and originally they said, “Let’s go to permanent Standard Time.” When that didn’t fly, they said, “Well, how about permanent Daylight Saving Time?” Now they’ve done the math,

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is warm, and the trees are turning. Glorious. Meanwhile, Florida’s Matt Gaetz says fellow GOP Congressman Jason Smith (R-Cape Girardeau) is “living a lie” — whatever could he mean by that? Also, a beleaguered Plocher sits for a livestreamed interview with Missouri Times publisher Scott Faughn, only for Plocher’s phone to loudly announce that he has an incoming call from disgraced former House Speaker John Diehl. Awkward! FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27. An afternoon storm instantly drops temps from 85 degrees to 50, ushering us from late summer into frigid fall — just in time for Hal-

loween party season. Brrr! SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28. Ray Hartmann breaks the news: The superintendent of the St. Louis County Special School District has been put on leave for reasons that go unexplained, even in the Post-Dispatch’s follow-up article. Meanwhile, the victim of a car theft shoots the perpetrator in Webster Groves, proving to county residents that no one is safe in Webster Groves or even Kirkwood. (Oh wait, people just make those sweeping conclusions about the city. Right.) SUNDAY, OCTOBER 29. St. Louis Police arrest a Florissant man who terrorized multiple people in the Central West End this morning — attempting to snatch a baby, choking an 82-year-old woman and more. Turns out he’s the same guy who punched a Wash U student just two weeks ago. The week ends with City SC losing to arch rival Sporting KC on a terribly cold and rainy night. Boo.

and they think they can make an extra billion dollars a year in the golf industry with people being able to go to the golf courses after work when it’s still sunny. And that’s probably true; it probably would make Florida more money, or at least the golf industry in Florida. The problem is that the rest of us who live further north or live further west have real consequences on not just our health but our safety. The reason we got rid of permanent Daylight Saving Time in 1974 was that some kids got hit Erik Herzog wants to fall back and then never spring by a bus in Florida waiting forward again. | JOE ANGELES / WASH U for the bus in the morning in the dark. Parents in Florida advocated for an end of national Daylight Saving Time — so it didn’t even last for a year. It felt like there was a growing consensus that seasonal switches were a problem and then we lost the momentum. Do you think we’re stuck with seasonal time changes for years to come? I think we are seeing movement in the opposite direction now, with more and more politicians being interested in permanent Standard Time. I’ve been very surprised at the senators who call me. People who I think of as Marco Rubio’s allies politically are very upset, and they say their contingencies are much more interested in permanent Standard Time. Senators call you? Like, they actually do their homework and call up an expert in circadian rhythms? Well, their staff call me. I’m happy to take those calls. —Sarah Fenske

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SOMETIMES IT’S THE L I T T L E T H I N G S T H AT C O U N T

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WEEKLY WTF?!

Batmobile gained a dead bat, and Joker ran away. | RYAN KRULL

GRILL WATCH When: Friday, October 27, 8:20 a.m. Where: Spring and Wyoming streets, Tower Grove South What: a true batmobile Why: Whether this li’l fellow perished after being pinned between this car and another or is simply a Halloween decoration, he certainly speaks to the season.

15 SECONDS OF FAME BACKSIDE OF THE WEEK

Ryan Krull

We didn’t have to look hard for the St. Louisan who gained fleeting, and inadvertent, attention this past week. After all, the RFT’s own Ryan Krull went viral last week — and far be it from us not to acknowledge the backside of our staff writer after it’s been featured prominently in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. As you can see in the accompanying photo, snapped by the He never even flinched. | Post-Dispatch Pulitzer Prize winROBERT COHEN / ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH ner Robert Cohen, Ryan was filming reality TV star (and Clayton High grad) Brittish Williams as she left St. Louis’ federal courthouse October 24. Williams had just been sentenced to four years in the slammer for various acts of fraud (pandemic scams, bogus insurance claims) and her entourage wasn’t in the mood for media attention. When one lunged at Ryan, Cohen snapped an instant classic. Yet Ryan wasn’t intimidated by either Cohen’s talents or the reality hanger-on’s fists. His video of the incident has notched more than 1 million views on Instagram alone — and on YouTube, nine times the viewership of a recent RFT video showing Hollywood hunk Jason Momoa praising St. Louis. People just love to see reporters get threatened! Asked about his terrifying ordeal, Ryan shrugged it off. “I regret that I have but one backside to give to my profession,” he said.

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NEWS

MO Cannabis Arrests Plummeted Even before Missouri legalized weed, possession charges hit their lowest point since 1994 Written by

MONICA OBRADOVIC

rrests for marijuana possession in Missouri reached a 28-year low in 2022, but marijuana possession still accounted for nearly half of all drug arrests in the state, according to new FBI data. Out of 20,829 arrests across the state for drug possession in 2022, 8,863 arrests were for marijuana possession. While weed advocates say that number is still too high, the FBI’s annual log of marijuana arrests hasn’t been that low since 1994, when the agency reported that Missouri law enforcement completed 7,237 arrests for marijuana possession. Compare that to the 2010s, when arrests for marijuana possession soared. In 2016, the FBI logged 21,568 arrests for marijuana possession in Missouri. That figure would drop by 58 percent in fewer than six years. As that’s happened, data shows that overall drug arrests in Missouri have declined. In 2021, however, the number of arrests for “dangerous nonnarcotic drugs” — a category that includes meth and LSD — finally surpassed those for cannabis. The FBI released its data for 2022 earlier this month. While it can provide a glimpse into crime trends through the years, its accuracy has been repeatedly called into question as law enforcement agencies across the country (including, notably, the St. Louis police) don’t consistently submit data. Even so, the seemingly dramatic decrease reflects a seismic shift in Missouri’s perception of marijuana. “The short story is that public opinions about cannabis have

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In St. Louis city, cannabis possession made up 14.7 percent of 644 drug possession arrests in 2022. | SHUTTERSTOCK been changing for years,” says St. Louis-based criminal defense lawyer Joe Welch. In 2014, the Missouri legislature updated the state’s criminal code to reduce penalties for the lowest level of marijuana possession to be punishable only by a fine, rather than jail time. Voters have since approved the legalization of medical marijuana. And last December, another voter-approved constitutional amendment, Amendment 3, legalized recreational weed. Jack Cardetti, spokesman for the trade association MoCannTrade and lead strategist on the legalization campaigns, attributes the decrease in arrests in part to these measures. “These dramatic drops in yearly arrests are both a function of the two voter-approved constitutional amendments, as well as smarter public safety policies that prioritize fighting serious and violent crime instead of using finite law enforcement resources on cannabis possession,” Cardetti said in a statement to the RFT. Even before full legalization, local governments in Missouri

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started to chip away gradually at War on Drugs mentalities and decriminalize cannabis in certain amounts. Efforts to decrease the penalties for possession began in St. Louis city in 2013, when aldermen voted to decriminalize cannabis and reduce fines of $100 or more to $25 at the most. In 2021, the city all but legalized small amounts of pot with a bill that barred police from issuing citations for two ounces or less. A year before, Kansas City’s legislative body voted to strip that city’s code of penalties for marijuana possession. Prosecutors also changed their outlook. A week after the medical marijuana vote, the Jackson County Prosecutor’s Office announced it would stop prosecuting most marijuana possession cases. Two months later, St. Louis County announced the same. And two years into her tenure, former Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner said her office was “hampered” by pursuing low-level cannabis offenses and would no longer bring possession cases for small amounts.

Loosening the law’s grip on cannabis hasn’t necessarily meant justice all around. The FBI’s crime data explorer does not show the demographics of those arrested for cannabis possession, but other reports indicate drug laws have continued to be disproportionately enforced on minority Americans. A 2020 analysis by the American Civil Liberties Union concluded that Black people were 3.64 times more likely than white people to be arrested for marijuana possession, even though their cannabis use was comparable. In Missouri, the ACLU concluded that Black people were 2.6 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white people. An RFT analysis of St. Louis city citations from 2013 to 2017 found equally big disparities. The FBI’s data also gives a glimpse into which law enforcement agencies in Missouri enforce cannabis laws the most. According to the data, 39.5 percent of St. Louis County Police’s 938 drug possession arrests in 2022 were for cannabis. In St. Louis city, cannabis possession made up 14.7 percent of 644 drug possession arrests. The Kansas City Police Department beat out all other agencies in the state’s most populous areas — only 5 percent of their drug possession arrests were for cannabis. But Welch, the criminal defense lawyer, points out that access to cannabis affects how many people are arrested for it. The proliferation of cannabis across the U.S. could be part of the reason why the 2000s saw so many more arrests than the 1980s and early ’90s. “Access to cannabis back then wasn’t as it is now,” Welch says. The year 2006 appears to be the peak of cannabis arrests in Missouri. That year, law enforcement agencies made 22,138 arrests for cannabis possession. That doesn’t surprise Brennan England, founder of Cola Private Lounge and president of Minorities for Medical Marijuana Missouri. The West Coast’s cannabis market started to swell around that time, according to England, and people started transporting weed from California. “From 2005 to 2010, there was a huge explosion of good weed,” England says. n

Satchmo’s owner Ben Brown faces a second lawsuit over wages. | FLICKR/GAGE SKIDMORE

GOP Pol Sued Again Sen. Ben Brown faces a second lawsuit over violations of Missouri’s minimum wage law Written by

RYAN KRULL

second person is now suing a Missouri state senator saying he failed to pay the wages required by law to employees of his Chesterfield restaurant. Before being elected to the Missouri Senate in 2022, Ben Brown (R-Washington) entered the public fray surrounding pandemic lockdowns in late 2020 when his Satchmo’s Bar and Grill refused to close for indoor dining before being shut down by county health inspectors. Brown rode his defiance of St. Louis County Executive Sam Page to his spot in Jefferson City. However, earlier this year, a

man who worked for Satchmo’s from June until August filed a lawsuit in St. Louis County Circuit Court. Willie Williams claimed he was bilked out of his overtime pay and was fired when he asked his bosses about it. Last week, a very similar suit was filed by Amber Beem, who says that she started working for Satchmo’s this past July, first as an expediter and later as a dishwasher as well. Despite being told she would be making between $100 and $150 a night in tips, she only received tip money on two occasions. She also alleges she earned $14 an hour, despite being promised she’d earn $16 an hour up to 40 hours a week and then $24 an hour for overtime. Entire days that she worked “disappeared” from her timesheet, her suit says. She quit working for the restaurant in September and never got her final paycheck, the suit says. Beem, like Williams before her, is suing to recover the wages she feels she’s owed. Both former employees accuse Brown of violating Missouri’s minimum wage law as well as breach of contract. Both are represented by Richard Voytas, an attorney in St. Louis. n

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MISSOURILAND

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World Ballpark Village was the place to be the weekend before Halloween Photos by

SVEN WHITE Words by

SARAH FENSKE

n Friday, October 27, a storm blew into St. Louis, and what had been a hot October week suddenly became a shiveringly cold one. The cold and dreary Saturday that fol-

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lowed meant trouble not just for all the kids wrapping up soccer season, but also for what’s historically been one of the area’s biggest Halloween bashes, the outdoor party in the Central West End. Rain called it off at 8:30 p.m. And so what’s a party lover with a great costume concept to do? Why, head downtown, of course, where the Mad Tea Party hosted by 105.7 The Point and The Rizzuto Show was just getting started. The place was wall to wall people, Moon & the Teenage Dirtbags kept revelers rocking and a costume prize purse of up to $10,000 meant a whole bunch of great looks on the dance floor. (Naturally, there was more than one riff on Alice in Wonderland.) Moral of the story? Don’t let anyone tell you that downtown St. Louis is dead. On one of the biggest party nights in a very hardpartying year, the intersection of Clark and Broadway was exactly the place to be. n

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A C E L E B R AT I O N O F T H E U N I Q U E A N D FA S C I N AT I N G A S P E C T S O F O U R H O M E

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Even police officers busted for serious misconduct often land on their feet BY RYAN KRULL

tional Association of Police Chiefs, says that one contributor was that the generation entering the workforce tends to want the sort of work-life balance that policing is ill-equipped to provide. “Other shifts in U.S. culture, such as student loan debt, child care challenges for complex schedules, and the need for double incomes makes police work a stressful occupation for families today,” the report says. Then there are the policingspecific factors, particularly the changing public attitudes about the profession. A Gallup poll taken earlier this year found that only 43 percent of Americans have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of trust in the police, an erosion of confidence in the institution that has made fewer people interested in becoming officers. “Policing took a real shot after Ferguson,” says Tim Maher, a former police officer and professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of MissouriSt. Louis whose research focuses on policing. Maher says that when the policing labor market tightened, it was the small, underfunded departments that bore the brunt of the squeeze, an effect that was particularly potent locally. “St. Louis is a unique environment in that we have so many small municipalities, and that creates a problem, in that they’re all vying for the same people,” says Maher. He adds, “Sometimes they tend

to lower the bar a little bit.” It wasn’t just Blackwell who took advantage of that. Take, for instance, the high profile case of Eddie Boyd III. About a 12-minute drive from the parking lot where Blackwell allegedly stopped to assault one of the men he’d arrested is the headquarters for the Berkeley Police Department. That department, which serves Berkeley’s 8,100 residents, currently employs Boyd, an officer whose résumé might as well be printed on a giant red flag. As a city cop, Boyd was twice investigated by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department stemming from complaints about his behavior by parents of young people he interacted with in 2004 and 2005. He was cleared of wrongdoing in both cases, but baggage has continued to build up since then. In 2006, Boyd began to argue with a 12-year-old girl walking home from school, and when the girl’s brother tried to intervene, Boyd tackled him and then struck the girl in the head with a gun. Boyd’s punishment: a demotion. In 2007, in the Ville neighborhood, the newly demoted Boyd was responding to a call about a fight at Sumner High School when he came upon freshman Christopher Dixon. Dixon later said in a lawsuit that Boyd approached with his gun drawn, positioned in such a way that the officer looked like he was either going to shoot him or strike him with it. Boyd hit Dixon in the face with the weapon. “I just saw blood pouring from my face,” Dixon said in a deposition. “Then I remember being

Officers Marcellis Blackwell, top, and William Olsten have both faced criminal charges. | ILLUSTRATION BY EVAN SULT

Continued on pg 15

n the summer of 2022, 33-yearold Marcellis Blackwell graduated from the police academy at Lincoln University to more public fanfare than the average police cadet. Blackwell was a part of the fourth class at the Missouri state university’s police academy, the first of its kind at a historically Black university. It had been established as a way to bring more people of color into the ranks of policing, an ethos that Blackwell himself spoke to when he was interviewed about his time in the academy a few months before graduating. He told the Jefferson City CBS affiliate that growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, the police force was 90 to 95 percent white and he never saw officers who looked like him. It was that disparity that motivated him to get into law enforcement. “It’s an opportunity to address the quality of life issues in the Black community,” Blackwell added. “It’s an opportunity to be a part of the change.” After graduation, Blackwell got hired as an officer in the North County Police Cooperative, an entity established in 2015 that serves eight small municipalities in north St. Louis County. He started walking a beat on the last day of May 2022. Within a year’s time, Blackwell would again be in the headlines for his work as a cop. This time, it wasn’t good. On June 3, Blackwell allegedly arrested a man for unlawful pos-

session of a weapon and driving with a revoked license. Blackwell handcuffed him and drove him to the Normandy High School bus lot. While the man was still handcuffed, Blackwell fondled him for an extended period of time “under the auspices of searching him again.” Blackwell filmed at least a portion of the assault and at one point put his cell phone down the man’s pants. He pulled the man’s penis and stroked it. The assault went on for approximately 10 minutes, after which Blackwell took the man to jail and acted as if everything about the arrest had been normal. In the months that followed, it would become clear the sexual assault was not an isolated incident. Blackwell’s phone showed numerous other videos he’d taken of himself fondling arrestees — suggesting a serial predator abusing the power of the badge to terrorize the very community he’d once told the TV reporter he wanted to help.

2019 nationwide survey found that about three out of four law enforcement agencies reported difficulty recruiting qualified candidates to fill their ranks, and roughly the same number said that attracting quality personnel had gotten more difficult in the last five years. The reasons behind the difficulties are complex. Some are not at all specific to policing. The report, compiled by the Interna-

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BAD COPS

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grabbed and drug by my hood to the middle of the street.” Other officers took Dixon to the hospital, then strangely to an Applebee’s before dropping him off in a cell at juvenile detention. St. Louis Police settled with Dixon for $35,000, but Boyd emerged victorious in the lawsuit stemming from the incident — and that was enough to allow him to remain a cop. And when Boyd later left the St. Louis Police, he said in a 2009 deposition he worked for St. Ann’s police department before finding a job with the Ferguson Police Department. There, his conduct as an officer drew at least four lawsuits and accusations he’d done everything from pull his gun on a Navy veteran cooling off in his car after a game of pick-up basketball to arresting a father for child neglect because the dad had the audacity to let his two-year-old son pee behind bushes at a park. One commonality among the lawsuits Boyd drew in Ferguson is that he allegedly grew irate when faced with even the slightest pushback from people he was stopping. In one case, a man who wasn’t the driver of a car Boyd pulled over allegedly asked why Boyd needed to see his identification. The man put this question to Boyd as he was reaching into his wallet to hand Boyd an ID — yet Boyd arrested the man for failure to comply. Boyd was employed with Ferguson until as recently as 2019.

A Checkered Past Before he was charged by state and federal authorities for sodomizing men he arrested, Marcellis Blackwell ran a company in the Chicago area called One Stop Transportation. It’s difficult to say what the company did, if it did anything at all. Two women who worked closely with Blackwell at that time tell the RFT they had grave concerns about the company — to the point that they feared it was a scam. “One Stop Transportation, that company was fraudulent. That was not a legitimate company,” says Charnice. “It was all fraudulent.” Charnice and another One Stop employee, Brittany, asked the RFT to refer to them by their middle and first names, re-

Marcellis Blackwell once spoke of trying to be “part of the change.” | SCREENSHOT He filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against the municipality alleging racial discrimination — only to take the job in Berkeley, which has a police department about half the size of Ferguson’s. There’s no way the Berkeley department wasn’t aware of Boyd. He has one of the highest media profiles and most robust Google results page of any officer in town. The CBS Mornings national news program did a segment about him. He’s been featured, unfavorably, in NPR, PBS and New York Magazine. The national coverage held Boyd up as indicative of what was then called the “Gypsy cop” phenomenon, a catch-all term for officers who behaved badly in one

jurisdiction, got fired and then quickly found work with another department, only to begin the bad policing all over again. Boyd landed his new job even after all that media coverage. “I wish I could say I was shocked that another crooked police officer was able to get hired at another local police department. But this is the norm,” says attorney Javad Khazaeli, who has represented numerous people in lawsuits against Boyd and the Ferguson Police Department. Khazaeli previously likened Boyd’s capriciously authoritarian nature to that of South Park’s Eric Cartman. It may come as a surprise to many that — at least according to

spectively. They said that Blackwell hired them to help grow what he said was a trucking company he’d founded that had secured a big contract with Mattress Firm. They had uniforms and Blackwell had an assistant and office space in an upscale area in the Chicago Loop that, in retrospect, the women think Blackwell may have been sleeping in. “We got there early one day and it was like he was getting up off the floor or something,” says Brittany. A big part of the women’s jobs was to recruit drivers. On one occasion Blackwell sent them to a VA hospital to do just that, and a social media post from 2015 shows both women and Blackwell at what looks like a career fair. The two women say they collected information from the potential drivers, including copies of their social security cards, under the impression they were onboarding new hires. But things quickly went awry. At first,

their paychecks were slow to materialize. Then, when they did, the checks bounced. “When it was time for him to pay us, he literally stopped answering [calls],” says Charnice. “After that he just disappeared.” When the women came to the conclusion that One Stop Transportation wasn’t legitimate, they started destroying information about the so-called “new hires.” They shredded copies of social security cards and did whatever they could to keep people’s private information out of Blackwell’s hands. In the wake of the operation’s disintegration, the two women tried to figure out what Blackwell’s end game had been. They wondered if he was stealing social security numbers and other information from the people they were tasked with recruiting. That’s just a theory. It would have been a rather baroque plot to conduct identity theft. Why then, for instance, would he have rented a box truck and taken the two women to

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a 2017 study done by the Pew Research Center — police officers at large would agree with Khazaeli’s lack of surprise. The Pew survey of more than 8,000 police officers found that almost three out of four disagreed with the notion that “officers who consistently do a poor job are held accountable.” Berkeley Police Chief Art Jackson did not respond to multiple messages inquiring about Boyd’s hiring. Maher, the criminology professor, says that the extent to which a department can be choosy about who they hire changes when the number of applicants drops precipitously. “When many agencies are having trouble recruiting people, it’s the smaller agencies — which tend in many cases to pay less, offer less benefits — they’re even struggling more,” he says. “When there’s fewer applicants to choose from, and you need bodies on the street, some of these agencies might take a little bit more of a chance on somebody than they would have in the past.”

arcellis Blackwell got busted because his victim in June had the temerity to come forward: The man told other officers in the North County Police Cooperative what had happened. When it comes to investigating and prosecuting police officers, the wheels of justice don’t always turn swiftly. Given how fast things moved against Blackwell, it’s not unreasonable to suspect others in the department may have already Continued on pg 16

an empty parking lot and trained them to drive it? They still can’t figure it out. “I wondered about what it was he was gaining from having us?” says Charnice. “It’s lost on me.” “It was just very weird,” says Brittany. The two women’s employment with Blackwell was a strange chapter of their lives, but also short-lived. Things were more serious for Jill Paris. Also around 2015, Blackwell had reached out to Paris, a Chicago-area insurance agent who worked for her dad’s insurance agency. Blackwell said he was looking to buy an insurance policy for what he described as his transportation business. At the time, Paris says, a lot of the school districts in the Chicagoland suburbs were outsourcing their bussing to independent contractors, and Blackwell’s One Stop Transportation was going to cash in on the trend on the Indiana side of Continued on pg 16

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been wary of him. Officers located surveillance video from a business near Normandy High which showed the unwarranted stop Blackwell made with his detainee there. Four days after the initial complaint, Blackwell was placed under arrest. After they took Blackwell into custody, officers confiscated his personal cell phone. A search revealed videos of the June 3 assault as well as numerous other similar videos Blackwell had made during other stops. Blackwell’s arrest and the two felony charges brought against him for sodomy and kidnapping received widespread local coverage. That media attention brought many other victims out of the woodwork. One of those victims was a man identified in court documents only as RM. In December 2022, prosecutors allege Blackwell placed RM under arrest and then took him to an undisclosed “isolated location.” There, while the man was handcuffed, Blackwell allegedly sexually assaulted him before taking him to jail. Once in jail, Blackwell continued to visit the man, allegedly to intimidate him into silence. After RM bonded out, he had a court date in Illinois on unrelated charges. Blackwell showed up to the court in Illinois and took video of the man, which investigators

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the border. The two met at Starbucks. “He definitely did not come across as a savvy businessman,” Paris says. However, she went ahead and secured him a policy. “I was a young and hungry insurance agent,” she says. “This was a good piece of business for us. Marcellis told me he was going to send several other drivers my direction.” From here, things get a bit into the insurance industry weeds. Essentially, Paris’ company purchased a policy for Blackwell’s company from an insurance wholesaler. When Blackwell’s check bounced and he disappeared into the ether, Paris and her father’s company were left on the hook for the $19,000 premium. Like Brittany and Charnice before her, Paris says she did what she could to minimize the potential damage. She called the superintendent of the district

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Angelique Kidd, far right, is among many people who have sued Officer Eddie Boyd. | MITCH RYALS later found on Blackwell’s phone. Prosecutors wrote in court filings that “there was no reason, other than intimidation, for him to be present.” Blackwell also told RM that if he didn’t keep his mouth shut, his wife would be charged with a crime. Blackwell was charged in September with sexually assaulting eight men he detained in what were functional kidnappings. Because he was acting “under color of law” — meaning he committed the crimes in his capacity as a police officer — he’s facing 16 counts of felony civil rights violations and 5 additional counts of falsifying records.

There are likely more victims — and more potential charges — beyond the eight currently known, prosecutors say. The search of Blackwell’s phone turned up photos of additional victims who are as of yet unidentified. Prosecutors also included in their court filings the intriguing detail that, until 2013, Blackwell went by the name of Willis Green Overstreet. Naturally, many wondered what sort of trouble he’d gotten into before becoming a cop in 2022, and if the North County Co-op should have ever hired him at all. Major Ron Martin with the North County Police Cooperative tells the RFT he can’t comment

where Blackwell said he hoped to do business and told him what had happened and that Blackwell’s company was uninsured. The superintendent assured Paris he wouldn’t get any work from the school. “Having two young children, I panicked that he would be behind the wheel of a bus,” she says. Paris also filed a lawsuit that led to the garnishment of Blackwell’s wages, but Blackwell did his best to dodge those efforts. She guesses she’s recouped only about $900 from him. She tells the RFT the incident became a sore spot between her and her father. She ended up leaving his firm and starting her own. Yet for all the questions about Blackwell’s transportation company, perhaps the biggest question about his past involves his name change. Prosecutors say he legally changed his name to Marcellis Blackwell from Willis Green Overstreet in 2013. It’s unclear what, if anything, he did under that name that would have left any

sort of record. Over the course of several days in October, I called a few dozen numbers belonging to people with the last name Overstreet in Indiana and Illinois who were associated with the same addresses as someone named Willis Green Overstreet, who happened to be the exact same age as Blackwell. No one answered, but one woman did call me back. She knew who Marcellis Blackwell was and seemed to know he was living in St. Louis. She said some variation of “I don’t want anything to do with it” at least a half-dozen times in a conversation that lasted less than two minutes. “I’m just trying to understand why he changed his name,” I said. I don’t want anything to do with it, she replied. “He’s in some trouble,” I said. I don’t want anything to do with it. “If Marcellis Blackwell is someone you care about you should probably Google him,” I said, talking over her. “OK,” she said, and then she hung up. —Ryan Krull

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on Blackwell beyond the statement they issued upon his initial arrest in June. That statement called the charges against Blackwell “massively disheartening” and said he’d be held accountable for his actions. It also pointed out — rightfully — that it was the cooperative that launched the investigation into Blackwell that led to both the state and federal charges. However, the statement doesn’t say anything about whether the police cooperative knew about questionable items in the public record at the time of Blackwell’s hire, which include Blackwell’s wages being garnished in Indiana, judgments against him after he repeatedly failed to appear in court after being sued, or the almost $20,000 insurance bill he’s accused of never paying on behalf of his company, One Stop Transportation. All that goes back to Blackwell’s background before he came to Lincoln University to study policing — and people who knew him then have plenty to say about him (see sidebar, “A Checkered Past”). One of them, Jill Paris, believes Blackwell swindled her father’s insurance agency. Seeing Blackwell’s mugshot after his arrest this fall made Paris relive the anger of what he did to her father’s agency. “To find out that he was hired on by any police force is complete negligence,” she says. “Anyone and everyone who knows anything about people should have just Googled him.” To her point, the litigation stemming from the insurance shenanigans led not only to a record of Blackwell’s wage garnishment but also numerous recorded instances of failing to appear in court. Those results aren’t on Google, per se, but they are on the open internet via the website for the Indiana circuit courts. Maher says things like failures to appear should be looked into very carefully when officers are being hired. “Police departments ought to look into civil matters as well,” he says. “You don’t want to hire somebody with a bunch of baggage, with judgments against them, because, at the very least, that could cause some problems with his employment and would detract from their desirability of having them be a police officer.”

espite accruing some serious baggage — as well as a robust collection of Google search results — William Olsten had no trouble getting police work after leaving the St.

Louis Metropolitan Police Department. “Incredible policeman,” says St. Ann police chief Aaron Jimenez, who hired him most recently. In 2019, Olsten had been on St. Louis city’s police force for a decade when he and another officer were charged with firstdegree assault and armed criminal action for shooting a patron outside Bomber O’Brien’s bar in south city. According to a police probable cause statement and media coverage at the time, a 22-year-old celebrating his birthday was sitting in his van by himself in the bar’s parking lot when Olsten and the other officer, Joseph Schmitt, approached. The two officers had been in the bar drinking. According to the birthday boy’s dad, spilled drinks inside the bar may have set off a disagreement. Schmitt went up to the side of the van, gun drawn. Olsten opened the van’s door and let himself in. The patron fled the vehicle, his own gun in hand. Olsten then shoved him to the ground, seemingly without provocation, and the patron’s gun went off, a bullet striking Olsten. Schmitt then opened fire, wounding the patron. Shockingly, the police applied for charges against the 22-yearold patron, which prosecutors refused. They elected instead to charge Olsten and Schmitt. Then, in 2019, Olsten was charged with pepper-spraying without provocation three people at a police protest. One of those people was in a wheelchair; another was current city Alderman Rasheen Aldridge. A civil suit against Olsten stemming from the incident is still ongoing. In December 2019, a judge tossed out the charges related to the Bomber O’Brien’s incident, taking the circuit attorney’s office to task for “willfully” not turning over evidence to defense. The assault charges stemming from the use of pepper spray went to a bench trial in 2021. Judge Thomas Clark found Olsten not guilty, writing, “While regrettable, unfortunate and concerning that the complaining witnesses experienced the unpleasant effects of the chemicals disbursed from Defendant’s mace canister … Defendant’s actions were justified under the circumstances.” By then, Olsten was no longer a police officer. At least not with St. Louis city. In a deposition related to the civil suit against him, Olsten ac-

knowledged that in January 2019, while still on the force and about a week and a half prior to his indictment for the Bomber O’Brien incident, he flunked a random Breathalyzer test on the job, blowing a .062 not long after starting his shift at 2 p.m.. He said he’d been out until about 5 a.m. the night before. He was initially terminated by the department but the termination was reversed on appeal. Olsten then left on his own accord. “I don’t want to work in the city anymore,” he said in the deposition, which was taken September 2021. In order to get hired by St. Ann, Jimenez says that any officer, including Olsten, has to go through a rigorous background check with the department and then pass muster with the city’s civilian police commissioners, a board which Jimenez describes as a diverse group of St. Ann residents. “He’s been incredible here. No complaints here about him,” Jimenez says. “I kind of wonder where the problem lies. Was it the city? Zero complaints and the guys love him. The public loves him. Our community loves him.” Khazaeli, the attorney, feels differently. In addition to representing people suing Boyd, Khazaeli is the lead attorney in the civil suit against Olsten and is the one who took his deposition. “I’m sure St. Ann taxpayers will have to pay for his future misdeeds like St. Louis taxpayers have already done and will continue to do,” Khazaeli says. While Olsten and Boyd walk their respective beats, Blackwell remains in a St. Louis County jail cell, where he’s been since June and where all indications point to him staying until the charges against him work their way through the courts. He has resigned from the North County Police Cooperative. There’s a tricky asymmetry at work when it comes to holding bad cops to account. A fair and competent prosecution of any law-breaking officer will bolster the public trust in policing, but only in small measure compared to the extent to which an officer’s crimes tear that trust down. “When I talk to people about these types of officers, they always try to tell me that the officer is just one bad apple,” says Khazaeli. “But as somebody who wasn’t born in America, I’ve always been interested in American idioms. And the full idiom is that one bad apple spoils the bunch.” n

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CALENDAR

BY RIVERFRONT TIMES STAFF

Head to Cherokee for the annual Jazz Crawl on Saturday. | COURTESY EMILY THENHAUS

THURSDAY 11/02 Medium Matters You can go see a band, a comedian or play any night in this town. But how often can you see an actual TV psychic work her magic live on stage at one of the city’s best venues? Well, this Thursday, November 2, you’ll get the chance to do just that when Theresa Caputo takes the stage of the Stifel Theatre (1400 Market Street, 314499-7600). Caputo, who starred on the TLC show Long Island Medium and has written several books on the “other side,” is bringing her conversations with the dead to the world of the living as part of a national tour. And while plenty of skeptics in the scientific community suggest — probably correctly! — that such performances are little more than a con, as long as you know what you’re getting into going in, there is surely plenty of entertainment to be had. Tickets

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start at $44.75, and the show begins at 7:30 p.m. Find more info at stifeltheatre.com.

Kenough Already St. Louis’ Dr. Ken Haller plays many roles: an improv actor, an acclaimed cabaret singer, a pediatrician. But at the end of the day, he’s “just Ken” and all that encompasses. On Thursday, November 2, Haller will kick his Ken-ness into high gear and celebrate his 69th birthday at the Blue Strawberry (364 North Boyle Avenue, 314-2561745) with the show Ken Haller: I’m Just Ken! Haller will offer life lessons we can only learn as we grow older, addressing such quandaries as, “What happens when your name is Ken, and you meet Barbie, but you realize that you’d rather be with Bobby?” Only a seasoned cabaret artist could answer that question with sufficient wisdom and flare. Woven into Haller’s personal story will be his performances of stan-

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dards by Johnny Mercer, Cole Porter, William Finn and many more. Tickets cost $25 for table seating and $20 for the bar. More info at bluestrawberrystl.com.

FRIDAY 11/03 Me Da Mi Calaverita Eager to keep the Halloweentime fun going, but want to learn how other countries celebrate? On Saturday, November 4, and Sunday, November 5, the Missouri History Museum (5700 Lindell Boulevard, 314-746-4599) will host a vibrant festival of Latin American culture in honor of the Day of the Dead. The Dia De Los Muertos Festival & Celebration of Hispanic Culture will feature live outdoor performances from a variety of dancers and musicians including the San Juan Diego Dancers and Manos Pan America. While you

listen, you can create a souvenir print in honor of a loved one or head over to the craft tables to fold your own Catrina paper doll or tissue-paper papel picado. Let your inner child shine through with face painting and bilingual Spanish-English storytelling. On Saturday, the event will culminate in a short procession through Forest Park. The event is free to attend and will run from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Visit mohistory.org/dia-de-los-muertos for a detailed event schedule.

No Place Like Home We all know the story: In The Wizard of Oz, the tornado-stranded Dorothy follows Oz’s yellow-brick road to its capital, the Emerald City, in order to find a way home. Along the way she makes true friends, overcomes challenges and gets her steps in. If the story

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Celebrate Dia De Los Muertos with the Missouri History Museum. | VIA FLICKR/CITY OF GREENVILLE SC had been set in St. Louis instead of Oz, it would probably be at least a little bit different. (For example, it surely would have been a red-brick road with materials dug straight from the banks of the Big Muddy.) But St. Louisans don’t have to imagine what might have been an alternate version of the film much longer. Instead, they can just head over to the new immersive pop-up bar Emerald City. Taking over Lemmons Restaurant (5800 Gravois Avenue, 314-899-9898) beginning on Friday, November 3, Emerald City will take visitors on a 90-minute trip “in the magical land of Oz.” That translates to immersive art and theater, plus two themed cocktails and an appetizer, per $40 ticket. The pop-up is only for those 21 and older, and show times vary. Expect the pop-up to stay for about two months. More details and tickets at infinitewonderproductions.com.

SATURDAY 11/04 Comfort Zone It’s easy to comprehend what dishes qualify as comfort food upon first sight, even if you’ve never tried them. Usually they are some shade of beige, and invariably they are covered in some kind of sauce or gravy. The culinary stars of south city’s Slo-

vak Fest — chicken paprikash and holubky (cabbage rolls) — definitely qualify. They’re warm, casserole-type offerings that with one bite will send you straight back to your grandma’s kitchen table. Slovak Fest coordinator Joyce Kolnik even calls their holubky the “King of the Cabbage Rolls,” so don’t feel like you have to take an alt-weekly’s irreverent word for it. But if those two endorsements aren’t enough to convince you, there’s only one thing to do: On Saturday, November 4, get down to St. Lucas Evangelical Church (7100 Morgan Ford Road) and try them, along with rosky (a crescent-shaped cookie), Slovak beer and stollen (sweet stuffed bread), for yourself. The fest is free to attend and kicks off at 11 a.m. Most of the profits go to the church for repairs or other unexpected expenses. More details at stlucaslcms.org/event/slovak-fest.

All That Jazz Cherokee Street is always hosting great events, but the 11th Annual Cherokee Street Jazz Crawl will be something extra special. Running all day long on Saturday, November 4, the Jazz Crawl will feature dancers and musicians performing both inside and outside the many shops on Cherokee Street. The festive atmosphere encourages visitors to join in and dance in a second line parade, too.

Dancing with the Stars veteran Derek Hough will be in St. Louis Sunday. | VIA TICKETMASTER The event is hosted by the Cherokee Street Foundation and organized by noted swing/jazz dance instructor and musician Christian Frommelt, so expect a huge turnout and great music and performances. (The Facebook event alone shows that 6,500 people are interested in attending, so you know the party is going to be poppin’.) The fun kicks off at 10 a.m. and runs all day, with a grand finale dance battle and a performance by Blvck Spvde & the Cosmos at the Golden Record (2720 Cherokee Street). Attendance is free for all but the finale, which will set you back $15. Full schedule at cherokeestreet.com/jazz. Make sure to wear your dancing shoes.

SUNDAY 11/05 Best Foot Forward Let’s face it, the only dance concerts most of us have seen on stage are that cheesy Michael Flatley crap or The Nutcracker. Don’t limit yourself! If you’re not ready for something artsy and local, you could do worse than Derek Hough: Symphony of Dance. The eponymous Dancing with the Stars veteran and older sibling of fellow dancing celeb Julianne Hough can hoof it in myriad styles, from Latin to ballroom to contemporary. It’s Hough’s first time taking the show on the road in four

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years, and tickets for the Sunday, November 5, show at Stifel Theatre (1400 Market Street, 314-4997600) start at just $26.50 (though undoubtedly Ticketmaster will make sure to double that with fees). The evening begins at 7 p.m. and also includes the pleasures of a live band. Head to stifeltheatre. com for tickets and more details.

MONDAY 11/06 Open Season Theater impresarios Colin Healy and Bradley Rohlf opened their new dive bar/community theater in the space that previously held the late, great Way Out Club, and while the place is still but a few months old, they’re already using it to solve one of St. Louis’ enduring problems: Where to find some action on Monday night? Hence Stool Pigeon, a night of open-mic comedy hosted by Joshua Slobe each Monday beginning at 8 p.m. Pros and newcomers alike are welcome; show up to the Greenfinch Theater & Dive (2525 South Jefferson Avenue) at 7:30 p.m. to sign up for a slot. And whether you’re showing off on stage or laughing from the bar, why not stay after for a nightcap or two? They’re keeping the place open until 1 a.m. every night of the week — something St. Louis could also use a whole lot more of. More info at greenfinchstl.com. n

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CAFE

Divine Inspiration Ben Poremba’s Deli Divine brings St. Louis New York-Jewish deli fare good enough for Bubbie Written by

CHERYL BAEHR Deli Divine 5501 Delmar Boulevard, 314-987-3354. Mon.-Sun. 8 a.m.-3 p.m.

efore the rows of black-andwhite portraits held court over Deli Divine from their framed positions on the walls, they lived in forgotten bankers boxes belonging to a late family friend of Ben Poremba named Joe Zimbrolt. Rescued by Poremba from an estate sale where they were likely bound for someone’s basement (or the garbage), the portraits were part of Zimbrolt’s life’s work — not his professional work but the effort he dedicated to living a well-examined life dedicated to art, literature, science and the humanities. And before they were part of Zimbrolt’s life’s work, the portraits were people: a mix of intellectuals, artists, writers and everyday folks who Zimbrolt encountered during his time on this earth — the kind of folks you’d meet at the corner Jewish deli who, bound by cultural identity, taste preferences and geography, would each pick a particular neighborhood spot as their special place to frequent daily. Together, their presences would animate the space and create a distinct personality that made the deli a case study in humanity rather than a mere place to grab a bite to eat. Every deli has this culture. It’s what makes them such a unique part of the fabric of American cuisine, and it’s what Poremba has deftly brought to life at the marvelous Deli Divine. These photos create a striking aesthetic, but even more, they point to what Poremba is trying to create with his West End neighborhood restaurant and market. At this point in his career, it’s clear that Poremba is not just a chef or restaurateur, but a storyteller

Deli Divine’s offerings include the outstanding chicken salad sandwich, smoked turkey and pastrami sandwich, and Manek sandwich. | MABEL SUEN unrivaled in his ability to create immersive worlds that transport guests to different locations and times through flavor and design. Olio is a ticket to the eastern Mediterranean; Nixta to Mexico and the American Mediterranean. The Benevolent King is a window into his mother’s home country, Morocco, and Bar Moro is an immersive jaunt to Spain. Add to that impressive list Poremba’s latest effort, Deli Divine, which opened this past May in the mixed-use nonprofit hub and residential building Delmar Divine. Here, Poremba brings to life the Jewish-American deli, both as an amenity to the St. Louis community, which has been shockingly lacking in such a place, and as a way to explore his own heritage. He has always been taken by the Moroccan part of his identity, with all of its vibrant culinary delights, but he admits he was less enthused with the food of his father’s Ashkenazi side, viewing the traditional dishes cooked by his Holocaust-survivor grandmother as bland and unappealing. Over time, Poremba came to appreciate this unique culinary tradition as both a source of nos-

talgia and comfort and an important part of America’s food story. In his mind, there was no better representation of this tradition — other than a grandmother’s kitchen — than the quintessential New York Jewish-American deli; he was shocked that St. Louis city was so glaringly lacking in such places, and he set out to rectify that well before our town’s bagel renaissance of the past year. He’s been piecing together the idea for roughly five years, but it wasn’t until he connected with St. Louis entrepreneur and visionary Maxine Clark on her ambitious Delmar Divine project a couple of years ago that it would finally come to fruition. Walking into Deli Divine, however, you’d be forgiven for thinking it had been there since the site was built as St. Luke’s Hospital some eight decades ago. Poremba has done a striking job of transporting guests not simply to a style of restaurant but to a moment in time — one defined by the tangerine orange, mustard yellow, salmon pink and avocado greens of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s mid-century world. Its blue cornflower Corningware,

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orange Tupperware canisters and coffee percolators are so nostalgic for those of a certain age, they bring a tear to the eye. Those joyful tears continue when you nosh on Deli Divine’s wonderful bagels and accouterments. Poremba knew right away that he wanted to open a deli, not a bakery, so, like most New York Jewish delis, he outsourced his bagel-making to a Big Apple-based company that ships them to Deli Divine twice per week. These are quintessential New York boiled bagels — shiny-shelled on the outside, firm and chewy underneath, and meant to be smothered in creamy, onion-studded schmear, capers and wonderful smoked trout. Silk-textured lox is another worthy offering, though, at the suggestion of a woman behind the counter, I opted for the magnificently peppery smoked salmon pastrami, which paired perfectly with an everything bagel, plain cream cheese, sliced red onions and capers. However, the showstopper was Poremba’s famous egg salad served on a malty seeded pumpernickel bagel and accented with fresh dill.

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Owner Ben Poremba and executive chef Anne Fosterling make the magic happen. | MABEL SUEN

Deli Divine’s assortment of baked goods doesn’t disappoint. | MABEL SUEN

DELI DIVINE

Continued from pg 21

You could be satisfied with simply visiting the bagel side of Deli Divine, but then you’d miss out on its outstanding classic Jewish deli sandwiches, including the Manek, a club-style sandwich featuring perfectly caramelized turkey bacon, lettuce and tomato that’s amped up by a zippy mayonnaise-based sauce. The Herta is the embodiment of Eastern European flavors, consisting of shaved beets and sauerkraut-adjacent coleslaw; Swiss cheese and tangy special sauce add to the pungent pleasure this dish provides. Delectable brisket is the centerpiece of three of Deli Divine’s most spectacular offerings. The Reuben, served on marble rye with Swiss cheese and sauerkraut, is perfection, with the brisket taking the form of wonderfully fall-apart corned beef. The other brisket masterpiece is the Frieda Poremba, a nod to Poremba’s grandmother, which pairs fat-slicked, peppery thick-sliced pastrami with mouth-puckering yellow mustard on rustic rye bread for a beautifully balanced sandwich. And the Joseph Zimbrolt, one of the deli’s two-meat combinations, accents lovely corned beef with rich beef salami; the cuts are piled high onto hearty rye bread and simply dressed with a bit of yellow mustard to slice through the meaty decadence. Poremba also succeeds with dishes that embrace grandmastyle comfort. Matzo ball soup pairs a delicate chicken broth with a plump, semi-firm mandarin-orange-sized dumpling for an

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The bagel menu includes a marble bagel with hand-sliced lox and trout roe. | MABEL SUEN offering that seems as if it could cure all that ails you. Chicken salad, too, excels in its simplicity. Unlike many gourmet versions that dress up the dish with nuts, fruits and cheeses, this one is adorned with only white onion, celery, seasoning and a generous amount of mayonnaise for a shockingly creamy texture. It’s on course to dethrone the city’s reigning chicken salad gold standard. Perhaps Deli Divine’s most soulful dish is the noodle kugel, an offering so steeped in family tradition, everyone whose grandmother has ever made it feels as if

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they have ownership of the form. Deli Divine’s kugel is Poremba’s grandmother’s recipe, a delectable layered casserole that is as eggy as a souffle throughout, crispy from the baked noodles on top and very subtly sweet. Poremba has received too much feedback on his kugel — emails, texts and phone calls telling him it’s either too sweet or not sweet enough. Some say the texture is off; some tell him it’s so spot-on it brings them back to their childhood. These are the sort of arguments you can imagine the folks in the portraits having any given morn-

ing at their corner deli — where the sweetness of your kugel, the herbs you put in your chicken stock or the firmness of your matzo balls feel like the world’s hottest, most controversial topics. That Poremba has invited that banter means he’s not simply running a restaurant. He’s creating a community — the part of deli culture infinitely more vital than anything you eat. n

Deli Divine Corned beef reuben ��$13�75 Egg salad on bagel ��$9�75 Joseph Zimbrolt Combo ��$19�50

SHORT ORDERS

After falling in love with teaching cooking, Jackie Price opened Fennel Cooking Studio, where she hopes to educate the city with her playful classes. | KASEY NOSS

[FOOD NEWS]

Cooking with Gas Midtown’s new Fennel Cooking Studio aims to empower St. Louis cooks of all skill levels Written by

KASEY NOSS

new cooking school in St. Louis hopes to empower people of all skill levels to engage with food in creative ways through inventive and playful classes. Cooking with Local Mushrooms, Plant-Based Thanksgiving and Homemade Gnocchi are just a few of the offerings at Fennel Cooking Studio (3043 Olive Street, 314-200-5410), which owner Jackie Price opened in Midtown last month. “It’s a great opportunity for people who don’t know how to cook to come and gain some practical skills in a very judgment-free space,” Price says. Fennel combines the functionality of a commercial kitchen with the atmosphere of an intimate gathering. The studio is spacious and vibrant, with plenty of green accents

— Price’s favorite color. Thoughtfully curated rows of pots and pans, kitchen appliances and utensils line one wall, and a colorful wallpaper with Fennel’s logo plasters the other. At the front is the counter where Price does her demos. “I intended the space to be really bright and inviting,” Price says. “I feel like that really encourages people to not take things too seriously when they’re cooking. You’re allowed to have fun and experiment.” Inside the studio, you won’t find a typical classroom configuration with all seats facing the instructor. Instead, Price has arranged four tables of four so that pairs of students face each other, dinnertable style, giving strangers the opportunity to learn together. The layout invites various configurations of people to interact with each other, from couples to groups of friends to individuals. For Price, one of the most powerful aspects of cooking is the community it creates. Price learned that at a young age: She has been cooking since she was 13. Originally from the Washington, D.C. area, she moved to St. Louis eight years ago to pursue a master’s in nutrition at Saint Louis University and fell in love with the city’s tight-knit food community. For several years, she worked as a pastry chef at Rise Coffee House in the Grove and as a freelance recipe developer for various blogs and cookbooks. In

2018, Price returned to SLU as a culinary class instructor, the role that ultimately inspired her to open Fennel. “I really fell in love with talking about food and teaching people about food and the inspiration that people get,” Price says. “I just loved how much people got really into cooking, and so I was like, ‘I want to bring this to St. Louis as a whole.’” Some of Fennel’s classes are technique-based, such as the popular Knife Skills Workshop, while some are ingredient- or cuisinebased, including Soup Szn and Cooking With Local Apples. The format differs based on Price’s goals for the class. Ingredientbased classes often star several dishes, with each table making one but learning the skills necessary for all. Price’s passion for making cooking enjoyable and accessible permeates everything about Fennel. She intentionally fills her studio with supplies that people might have in their own kitchen or could easily get. Everyone leaves class with the recipes, so they can replicate the dishes themselves, but also, hopefully, with the confidence to expand on what they have learned. In the back is a small gift shop where participants can buy specialty items used in class. For Price, cooking is not only about making delicious food but also a matter of personal empowerment. “Food touches so many aspects

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of your life,” Price says. “[It’s] a creative outlet that is tied to community; it’s tied to your body; it’s tied to your mental health, your physical health. It encompasses so much of who we are.” Price is also concerned with sustainability, and she tries to incorporate local vendors and produce into all her classes. Some classes, such as October Farmer’s Market, specifically spotlight local, seasonal vegetables. “I’m really excited about partnering with other local businesses and local farmers and producers,” Price says. “I really kind of hope to pass that on to students.” While Fennel’s classes are currently open to students of all skill levels, Price is looking to add advanced classes in the new year. Potential options include an advanced knife skills class and a croissant-making workshop. The reception to Fennel’s opening has been promising, to say the least. All classes are sold out through December except for two, a cake-decorating workshop on November 30 and a cocktail and cocktail and appetizer class on December 21. “So far, it’s been a really great response, and people are excited to be here,” Price says. “Classes have been going so well and have really felt like what I intended, which is just this vibrant, joyful learning space where people meet new friends. It’s been pretty euphoric.” n

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[FOOD NEWS]

Aiazzi Family Sells Rigazzi’s The new owners vow to protect the Hill’s oldest operating restaurant Written by

MONICA OBRADOVIC

St. Louis landmark is under new ownership. Joan Aiazzi, owner and operator of Rigazzi’s (4945 Daggett Avenue, 314-7724900) is handing the keys to the Italian mainstay to a new pair of local owners. Corey Christanell and business partner Donn Ganim have purchased the restaurant, which lays claim to being the oldest operating restaurant on the Hill. In a release, the new owners promised to maintain the charm that’s bolstered Rigazzi’s throughout its decades of serving St. Louis, all while adapting to meet an evolving neighborhood. “As someone who grew up in south St. Louis and still has deep ties to the community on the Hill, I felt it was important that Rigazzi’s would remain a part of St. Louis for the next generation

Rigazzi’s has served Italian-American classics on the Hill since 1957. | VIA FLICKR/PAUL SABLEMAN and beyond,” Christanell said. “We will honor the rich history of Rigazzi’s while evolving to meet the exciting new growth and energy taking place on the Hill.” Though Rigazzi’s is the first restaurant he’s owned, this is not Christanell’s first foray into the industry. Christanell grew

up working at Mama Toscano’s Ravioli, a former Hill institution that was owned and operated by his grandparents. More recently, Christanell has spent more than 20 years serving in a variety of roles, including senior advisor to the CEO. Ganim, according to the release, owns several franchise salons, in

[FOOD NEWS]

RFT Owner Buys Sauce The St. Louis food magazine’s print edition will return in December Written by

SARAH FENSKE

ig Lou Holdings, the RFT’s St. Louis-based owner, announced last week that it has purchased Sauce Magazine — and it plans to bring the venerable food-focused monthly back into print starting in December. Chris Keating, founder and CEO of Big Lou Holdings, said that beyond bringing back the print issue, he envisions few major changes to the 24-year-old magazine. “We wanted to buy Sauce because — like everyone in St. Louis who loves food — we love Sauce,” Keating said in a prepared statement. “We are excited to

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Sauce has chronicled the St. Louis food scene since 1999. | COURTESY SAUCE MAGAZINE continue to bring the great writing, jawdropping photography and unforgettable events that have cemented Sauce as St. Louis’ culinary trailblazer for a remarkable 24 years.” Sauce’s six employees will be retained in the acquisition, Keating said, and Ally-

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son Mace, Sauce’s publisher and founder, said she will be sticking around, too. “The team at Sauce and I are excited by this opportunity to grow Sauce further, as well as relaunching the print edition,” she said. “Sauce has been my life for 24 years, and I look forward to this evolution

addition to the former Jeremiah’s Restaurant and Lounge in Cape Girardeau. Rigazzi’s has filled customers’ bellies with baked mostaccioli and its signature Parmiciano in the northeast corner of the Hill since 1957. Partners Lou Aiazzi and John Riganti opened the restaurant under a portmanteau that represented both of their names. Aiazzi and his wife, Josie Aiazzi, took up ownership a few years later. They eventually passed the torch onto their son, Mark, who ran the restaurant with his wife, Joan, until his death in 2013. Rigazzi’s traditions have stayed the same from owner to owner — the classic white-and-red-checkered tablecloths, the “frozen fishbowl” (a giant frozen goblet that holds any drink of choice). Luckily, it doesn’t seem like any of the things that made Rigazzi’s a St. Louis mainstay will go away anytime soon. “I wasn’t going to sell Rigazzi’s to just anyone — it had to be in safe hands, and that’s who I found in Corey and Donn,” Joan Aiazzi said in a prepared statement. “It was important for me to ensure the next owner of Rigazzi’s was someone with deep ties to the Hill. They grew up coming here, and they understand what Rigazzi’s means to our guests and our community. I can rest easy knowing they will keep the traditions we created on our little corner of the Hill alive and well, and I can’t wait to come back and enjoy a glass of wine on the guest side of the bar!” n as we enter our 25th year. By bringing together two STL media institutions, we’ll offer the most well-rounded coverage of St. Louis’ culinary scene the city has ever seen.” Mace co-founded Sauce as a food-focused website in 1999. Two years later, the magazine launched its print publication, which showed remarkable staying power even while facing a complicated landscape for local journalism (and, for a time, competition from another St. Louis food-focused monthly). In April, Sauce scrapped its monthly issue, though it continues to publish a digital issue online. It also offers a robust website and a host of beloved foodfocused events, including Sauce Food Truck Friday, the Saucy Soiree and Harvest Festival. As for Keating, he has lived in St. Louis for seven years. He formed Big Lou Holdings this July in order to purchase the RFT and three of its sister papers from Euclid Media Group. A longtime publisher, he helped form Euclid Media Group in 2013 and served as its chief operating officer at the time of Big Lou’s founding. n

[FIRST LOOK]

‘I’ve Given This My All’ The front-of-house veteran Chris Kelling’s new fast-casual Maplewood spot Burger Champ has a very personal stamp Written by

JESSICA ROGEN

here are places you expect to interview the owner of a soon-to-open, sure-to-be-hot restaurant, but the bathroom isn’t one of them. Yet that’s where I find myself talking to Chris Kelling, whose Burger Champ (2704 Sutton Boulevard, Maplewood) opens on Friday, November 3. But there’s a good reason that we find ourselves chatting in one of the fast-casual burger spot’s johns, and it’s covering the walls: framed copies of Sports Illustrated, each affixed with a unique mailing label created by Kelling. The one nearest me belongs to Elizabeth Lemon — Liz Lemon from 30 Rock — and I spot Jerry Seinfeld just a few covers away. Below the name, each label bears an address that the character mentions in their show or book. The hardest one, Kelling says, came from Agatha Christie. “This is stupid, but I wanted Hercule Poirot,” he says. “Because I’ve read 27 of those books this year. I tried to do all 32, but my life got really busy last month.” Even so, Kelling managed to find an address in one of Christie’s books and even

CHERYL BAEHR’S

WHITE PIZZA PICKS You can refer to it as white pizza, pizza bianca if you’re feeling fancy, or pizza without tomato sauce if you’re just trying to get the point across. No matter what you call it, though, pizza sans tomato sauce can be a glorious thing, as shown by these five local restaurants, which showcase the best St. Louis has to offer.

Owner Chris Kelling has been a part of the St. Louis restaurant scene for almost 15 years. | JESSICA ROGEN asked a cousin who’d lived in the UK if it would work for mailing today. It was a lot of effort for fictional characters and fictional addresses, much less ones hanging on a bathroom wall, but it really gets at the heart of Burger Champ.The restaurant is full of personal touch points for Kelling, from its name to its logo to its interior design to its menu. “This is the first menu that I’ve created entirely of myself,” he says. Kelling has been an integral part of the St. Louis restaurant scene for almost 15 years, though he’s always partnered with chefs and kept his focus on the hospitality. This is his second Maplewood restaurant in the Champ brand — he opened Pizza Champ with Adam Altnether in January 2022 — and he’d previously been lauded for his fine dining restaurant Elmwood, which fell victim to the COVID-19 pandemic. Before that, he worked for Gerard Craft’s Niche Food Group empire. “I don’t want to be boastful, but I’ve done this for a very long time at very high levels,” he says. “I think I know what peo-

ple like. And if I’m going to do this, and it’s all me this time, I’m going to make sure I approve of everything. I put everything I have into this.” Kelling has stories about many of the menu’s burgers, chicken sandwiches, salads, sides and desserts that prove this. For example: the grain salad, which was missing something until his wife suggested pesto would zing it up. It now has pesto. There’s also the Champ Burger, a double-layered smashburger, which Kelling calls his “platonic ideal.” Or the peanut butter and jelly milkshake, a nod to his frequent consumption of the iconic sandwich, and the strawberry milkshake. “When I was a kid, I would only order strawberry milkshakes because my mom hates strawberries, so I wouldn’t have to share it with her,” he says. “I hate sharing milkshakes.” Then there are the French fries, a basket mounded with ultra skinny ones of both the standard and sweet potato variety. Kelling’s daughter had requested he put sweet potato fries on the menu, so he came up

Bonci at Pizzeria da Gloria The Bonci at Pizzeria da Gloria (2024 Marconi Avenue, 314-833-3734) is not simply one of the most delicious white pizzas around; it’s a contender for one of the best all-around pizzas in the metro area. The perfectly char-speckled, Neapolitan-style crust is slicked with olive oil, sprinkled with a generous amount of fresh garlic and topped with eggplant so thin you can see through it. The vegetable, accented with chile flakes for a pop of heat, acts like a sponge, soaking in the garlicky oil for a mindblowing experience.

mozzarella, fontina and ParmigianoReggiano cheese. It’s then baked and finished with a dollop of freshly made ricotta, olive oil and fresh herbs — a decadent work of pizza artistry.

Four Cheese at 1929 Pizza & Wine There are four-cheese pizzas, and then there is the four-cheese pizza at 1929 Pizza & Wine (7 North Wood River Avenue, Wood River, Illinois; 618-216-2258), a white pie so wonderful, you wonder why tomato became the dominant sauce option. Here, Chef Amy Herren spreads Parmesan cream atop the wood-fired crust, then layers it with housemade

White Spinach and Artichoke at Pizza Head Pizza Head (3196 South Grand Boulevard, 314-266-5400) may have a punkrock vibe, but its white spinach and artichoke pie is a symphony of flavor. The wonderful New York-style crust is covered with an olive oil base amped up with an obscene amount of garlic; this is then smothered in either dairy mozzarella or vegan mozzarella shreds, chopped artichokes and spinach for an effect that is like a decedent spinach artichoke dip in pizza form. Fungo at Noto As you watch co-owner Wayne Sieve obsess over firing the perfect pie in his imported domed oven, you understand

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with this combo offering. They are delightfully crunchy and addictive, and Kelling sneaks them throughout the interview. “I’m always snacking,” he says — something, he says, that Burger Champ chef Jeff Friesen “learned very quickly.” Personal touches are also readily apparent in the interior, which is bright and features bold red walls with a graffiti-style version of the Champ logo painted by two Wash U art students, Maddie Baker and Sarah Hawkes of Moxy Murals. Kelling’s Elmwood, which this space was previously home to, was known for its hospitality. Since Burger Champ won’t have servers — it’s an order at the bar or by QR code place — he carefully considered how to ensure that the hospitality element would be strong and decided it came down to hiring the right crew. Putting something out there so intrinsically him, for another person, might be frightening. But Kelling doesn’t have that reaction. “It feels great,” he says. “Like, the Vikings burning the boats. This is everything I have. This is it. I hope people like it. I can say with 100 percent certainty that I’ve given this my all.” But however much of Kelling might be in Burger Joint, he’s quick to point out that it’s not a solitary effort. There’s the team who made the food and drink happen (Friesen, Bangers Only co-owners Tim Wiggins and Kyle Mathis who developed the cocktail menu, pastry chef Matthew Rice who came up with the shakes); the branding company Yellow Ranger, which designed the crown logo; custom furniture maker David Stine; and so many others. “I’m fortunate; I’ve always been surrounded by really great people since I came to St. Louis in 2009,” Kelling says. “It’s pretty humbling to have that many people help you bring something to life. It’s pretty cool.” n

why Noto (5105 Westwood Drive, St. Peters; 636-317-1143) is the only pizzeria in town to be certified by the Vera Pizza Napoletana as true Neapolitan pizza. His Fungo underscores the accolades. Covered in garlic cream sauce and fresh and outrageously buttery buffalo mozzarella, the pizza is wonderfully creamy, but the richness is cut by kale, local mushrooms and vibrant salsa verde lemon. Thin slices of prosciutto finish this outstanding pie. Verde at Louie Every last thing about Louie (706 De Mun Avenue, Clayton; 314-300-8188) is magical, including the Verde pizza, a magnificently tart riff on the white pie thanks to its pickled green tomatoes. This acidity is countered by the smokey caciocavallo and provolone cheeses, as well as fresh ricotta. A dusting of breadcrumbs adds a bit of crispy texture — a welcome crunch not often found on wood-fired pies.

NOVEMBER 1-7, 2023

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REEFERFRONT TIMES

[WEED NEWS]

‘Social Equity’ Licenses, Exploited Applicants for Missouri cannabis microlicenses were recruited on Craigslist Written by

REBECCA RIVAS This story was originally published in the Missouri Independent.

ames Harnden has been a longtime activist for cannabis legalization, ever since he got slapped with a lowlevel felony possession charge for having an ounce of weed. The 56-year-old Rockford, Illinois, resident says that charge has cost him job opportunities for 30 years. Earlier this year, he saw an advertisement in the Craigslist “gigs” section posted by a Michigan cannabis real estate group called Canna Zoned MLS. It was looking for “partners who qualify as a social equity applicant” to participate in Illinois’ lottery to award cannabis business licenses that are, in part, meant to benefit people impacted by marijuana criminalization. “I spent most of my life applying for jobs and not getting them,” Harnden said. “So I’m like, ‘OK, so maybe one of these licenses will swing my way.’” The Craigslist ad read: “If you are eligible and provide the required documentation, we will give you $2,000, just for helping us submit the lottery application! If we win the lottery and secure a license, we will give you an additional $20,000!” Harnden says what he didn’t realize was that he signed a contract agreeing to hold 100 percent ownership interest on the application but that he wouldn’t get revenue or profits from the business. After the business passed through all the state and municipal approvals, the contract stated that Harnden would be required to sell his share of the business for $1 to the group or be held in breach of contract. The contract also authorized the group to enter Harnden’s information into lotteries for social equity cannabis licenses in other states — and that’s how Harnden says he got paid $500 to be part of the lottery for Missouri’s microbusiness license program. Harnden was eligible to apply in Missouri because of his marijuana charge,

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Cannabis microbusiness licenses are designed to boost opportunities in the industry for businesses in disadvantaged communities, and it was part of the constitutional amendment to legalize recreational marijuana that voters passed last year. | REBECCA RIVAS/MISSOURI INDEPENDENT which is among seven eligibility categories that also includes living in census tracts with high poverty and unemployment rates. Canna Zoned’s Jeffrey Yatooma is listed as the “authorized agent” on the contract Harnden provided to the Missouri Independent, leaving a space for his signature at the bottom. Yatooma secured two of the 16 social equity cannabis licenses — in Columbia and Arnold — issued earlier this month, according to information obtained by the Independent through a public records request. Those records show Yatooma is listed as the “designated contact” for 104 out of the 1,048 applications for dispensary licenses in Missouri’s lottery. Yatooma’s group was not the only one using the strategy of flooding Missouri’s lottery with applications to obtain a dispensary license. An Arizona-based consulting firm is connected to more than 400 dispensary applicants, including six winners, and a Missouri firm is connected to more than 80 applicants and two winners. Both said their clients did not advertise or promise payment for submitting applications. In at least three states holding lotteries for social equity cannabis licenses this year — Illinois, Maryland and Missouri — Yatooma’s group has offered to pay eligible people up to $2,000 to apply on their behalf and $20,000 more if they won. While the Craigslist ads posted in Missouri can no longer be seen online, a screenshot of a similar ad posted by Canna Zoned in Illinois was included in

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a story by the Chicago Sun Times. Ads are currently up in Maryland, where the state’s social equity cannabis application opens on November 13. Provided with a copy of Harnden’s agreement, Yatooma said his company “never signed any agreements along the lines of the one you mentioned.” He said that the agreement was part of “early business discussions.” Yatooma’s group made a similar argument earlier this year when efforts to secure licenses in Illinois faced criticism. “The parties never moved forward with the referenced document, and the state subsequently provided guidance advising on how to structure partnerships,” Yatooma said in an email to the Independent. “In our experience with new laws, it is frequently important to begin business discussions and then be prepared to pivot — and finalize a partnership when new state guidance is announced.” Yatooma also said he’s aware the microbusiness dispensary licenses “must continue to be majority owned by an individual who meets at least one of the eligibility qualifications” outlined in the constitution. Voters approved the microbusiness program last November as a provision in the constitutional amendment that legalized recreational marijuana. Nimrod Chapel, an attorney and president of the Missouri NAACP, reviewed the agreement signed by Harnden and provided to the Independent. He believes

it “defrauds the state” because it gives the eligible applicants no voting or financial interest, in violation of the state’s constitution. “The very people who were victimized by cannabis laws in the first place are yet again on the losing end of what appears to be a distinctly inappropriate power grab,” Chapel said. Yatooma said he rejects “any allegations that we have defrauded the state.” Any final agreements with partners in Missouri, he said, “will absolutely comply with all state laws and regulations.” Lisa Cox, spokeswoman for the Missouri Division of Cannabis Regulation, did not say whether or not the division had seen the agreements between Yatooma and the applicants. However, she said such an agreement will be reviewed as part of the postlicensure verification process, where the division will “determine whether any microbusiness applications were false or misleading and to ensure all microbusiness licenses are majority owned by eligible applicants.” That process will be completed by the end of the year, she said. If the state takes no action to revoke Yatooma’s two licenses, Chapel said the Missouri NAACP would consider litigation to obtain a cease and desist order on the entire microbusiness program. “If [the division] were to look at the agreements — that show the applications are not true — and they don’t take some action against these licenses,” Chapel said, “then I think that they would be totally complicit in a fraud.” In response to the NAACP, Cox said the division will revoke the license if it “determines the applicant provided false or misleading information in the application.” A pattern and practice Simone Booker, a 52-year-old Chicago resident who works in tax preparation, remembers sitting down with an attorney for Canna Zoned, Amanda Kilroe, this spring at Starbucks to talk about a “great business opportunity.” Kilroe’s number is currently listed on the Craigslist ads in Maryland, and she’s who responded when the Independent called the number. However, Booker never saw a Craigslist ad. She was referred to Kilroe by a friend and never received $2,000 for applying. “She’s a wonderful person,” Booker said of Kilroe. “I have met a few people [from Canna Zoned]. They are absolutely wonderful people. So that was the impression I got from them.” Booker remembers asking Kilroe multiple questions about what her commission would be and what percent of the

profits she would get. She said Kilroe assured her that she would be seen as a “social equity partner” and would get a share of the profits at every fiscal quarter. Then after a year, Booker would agree to sell her shares of the company for an amount that “we would work out later,” she says Kilroe told her. They talked about how Booker could potentially make $200,000 before she sold her shares, and she could also choose to buy back into the business later if she wanted. Booker says she now realizes she didn’t read the contract’s fine print closely because Kilroe seemed so trustworthy and professional. Booker said Kilroe never mentioned the contract would force her to sell her shares for $1. And Kilroe’s description of the partnership, Booker said, was “completely different” than what she signed — that she agreed to receive “no disbursements” other than the $2,000 to apply and the $20,000. More specifically, she’d get $10,000 after the municipality where the dispensary is located approved the location, and another $9,999 after the state approves the license and she transfers her ownership of the business. Booker was shocked to find these provisions in her contract when asked about them by the Independent. “I’m completely blessed that God didn’t approve this business,” Booker said. “I would have never signed the contract … not even for the $20,000 because $20,000 is not worth the millions that they’re going to make off of my name.” Kilroe did not respond to the Independent’s requests for comment. Booker fears for the other people who don’t realize what they signed. Having a tax background, she knows how to fill out the paperwork to ensure the group can’t use her name for a federal tax identification number (EIN) in the future. The contract authorized the use of her Social Security number for an EIN, meaning she would be completely on the hook for tax liability of the business even though the contract claims otherwise, Chapel said. But other people don’t know how to do that, she said. “Their name is going to be forever used for business, but they’re never going to profit,” she said. Chapel said he’s never seen a contract like it. “This agreement is wide-ranging, not limited in time,” he said. “It’s not clear when — I guess at death — you would be released.” It’s essentially agreeing to let the company use their “likeness” and name indefinitely, he said. “How is this not literally buying at least

“Their name is in that district. For example, in the 1st Congressional A public warning going to be forever District — which encompasses the City of Kilroe told the Sun Times that Canna St. Louis – Kot was listed as the contact Zoned “didn’t end up moving forward” with any of the respondents to the ad, used for business, person for 76 dispensary applications, making up 62 percent of the total submitafter the newspaper reached out to her ted. In the 2nd District, it was 63 percent about a similar agreement the group but they’re never and in the 4th, 53 percent. made with a gun-violence victim. When asked how CB Advisors was able “We didn’t enter the game in Illinois,” going to profit. ... to find that many eligible people to apply, Kilroe told the newspaper. Sara Gullickson, founder and CEO of the However, Yatooma’s group was behind This agreement firm, said: “As far as our intellectual propat least 20 dispensary applications in Ilerty and how we submit applications — linois under variations of the name “Chiis wide ranging, either lottery or merit-based — obviously cago Retail LLC,” including Booker’s and that’s the secret sauce of the company.” Harnden’s, according to state business not limited in However, after hearing about Yarecords. Chicago Retail LLC wasn’t on the tooma’s strategy of posting Craigslist ads state’s list of winners released on July 13, time. It’s not and paying applicants, she said that was but it’s unclear if Yatooma came away “not our business model.” with a license in Illinois. clear when — I “We’ve probably worked in 30 states Chris Slaby, spokesman for the Illinois and five countries,” Gullickson said. “I’ve Department of Financial and Professionguess at death — been at this since I was 26 years old. I’m al Regulation, which oversees the social now 40 years old. I’ve just been around equity program, said the state’s canna[they] would be for a while.” bis law prohibits him from disclosing if Gullickson has a stake in several canYatooma obtained a license. released.” nabis licenses across the country that are The department was aware of posts a piece of a person?” he said.

cent and 60 percent of the applications

like the Michigan group’s and issued a public warning in February to potential applicants about the dangers of these types of agreements, Slaby said in an email to the Independent. Illinois conducted its lottery on July 13, and the department is currently assessing the winners’ eligibility. Slaby said it “may deny a license in the event it determines any false information was used to apply.” Booker’s contract appeared to be identical to the one Harnden signed in Missouri. Both stated that Yatooma’s group can use the applicants’ information in any of the other states’ lotteries for social equity cannabis licenses, and the group recently contacted Booker again about entering the next lottery in Illinois. At the end of July, Harnden was notified that the group was entering his name in the Missouri lottery, which was conducted on August 28. The Missouri contract is with a Michigan limited liability company called “Report Head LLC,” but Yatooma is the authorized agent listed on the contract. Adolphus Pruitt, president of the St. Louis city NAACP chapter, also reviewed the agreement and said it establishes up a “modern-day indentured servitude.” Pruitt agrees with Chapel that the Michigan group is defrauding the state, as well as putting the applicants in that position whether they know it or not. The St. Louis city NAACP chapter, he said, would support the state NAACP’s move to get a cease and desist order. “It appears that it was never the intent for the ‘social equity partner’ to own, operate, nor benefit from the micro license

minority- or women-owned. But in Missouri, she was acting as a consultant, she said, and wasn’t vying for a license herself. When asked how many of the applicants are from out of state, she said that she didn’t want to disclose the information. John Payne, founding partner at Amendment 2 Consultants, acted as campaign manager for both of the constitutional amendments to legalize medical and recreational marijuana in the state. He’s listed as the contact for 16 percent of the dispensary license applications statewide, including two winners — both in the 3rd District. One of his winning clients applied with just one application, records show and Payne confirmed. The other had 68, which Payne said the person pooled with friends and associates to work together to apply and to get a license. Like Gullickson, Payne said also he didn’t advertise or offer payment like Yatooma. “It was almost all internal networks,” Payne said. “We knew a lot of people and those people knew a lot of people. So that’s how we kind of grew our client base.” Payne said any questionable agreements made as part of the microbusiness license application process should come out in the next couple months, during the state’s post-licensure verification process. “The department does a pretty thorough job of vetting these sorts of things,” Payne said. “They do ask for your operating agreements and contracts that you’ve signed, so that could be something that they look into.” n

as envisioned by the voters,” Pruitt said. Flooding the lottery Of the 16 winners of dispensary licenses, only 5 appeared to have submitted just one application — meaning they didn’t make agreements with eligible people to apply on their behalf. On October 2, the state issued 48 microbusiness licenses in total — six winners in each of Missouri’s eight Congressional districts. In each district, two were microbusiness dispensaries, and four were microbusiness wholesale facilities — where the owners can grow up to 250 plants. According to records obtained by the Independent, the wholesale side — where there was 577 applicants total — did not appear to see the same kind of flooding strategy as for dispensaries, which had a total of 1,048 applicants. As far as finding multiple eligible applicants to apply on one person’s behalf, Yatooma’s operation was not the biggest. And he only applied in half of the state’s eight congressional districts — the 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th. A Phoenix cannabis consulting firm, Cannabis Business Advisors, is listed on 42 percent of the applications for dispensary licenses. And they are the designated contact for 6 of the 16 winning licenses. In every congressional district where the firm’s clients won a dispensary license — including the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th 6th and 7th — its president, Maxime Kot, is the contact listed on between 40 per-

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NOVEMBER 1-7, 2023

RIVERFRONT TIMES

CULTURE

[LITERARY EVENTS]

Hit the Books In its 45th year, the J’s Jewish Book Festival brings authors from around the world to St. Louis Written by

JESSICA ROGEN

hen Hannah Dinkel started as director of literary arts at the Jewish Community Center last year, she imagined there would be some authors who would just be way too prominent to land for the annual St. Louis Jewish Book Festival. Mitch Albom — author of Tuesdays with Morrie, The Five People You Meet in Heaven and so many other huge hits — definitely fell into that category. “He is just such a household name,” she says. “I thought, ‘Oh, gosh, this is a long shot.’ I love that in my desk I have years’ — decades’ — worth of Jewish Book Festival programs. And I’m like, ‘Oh, we got Jerry Stiller in the ’90s. I can go after Mitch Albom.’” So go after him Dinkel did — with great success. The famous author will be closing the Jewish Book Festival at 7 p.m. on Sunday, November 19. “It’s going to be a great event,” Dinkel says. But that’s not the only reason that she’s looking forward to this year’s festival. In celebration of its 45th anniversary, there are several headliners, including Albom. But more than that, it’s simply a singular event that every year brings authors from around the world to St. Louis. They present their books, discuss their process and inspiration and do book signings and extensive Q&As. The J partners with Webster’s independent bookseller Novel Neighbor, which sells the books on site. “It’s so special because our audience and community gets that really unique opportunity to engage with the authors,” she says. Putting together the lineup is about more than figuring who has published a book recently. It’s also about thinking what’s timely,

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search. I just wrote for a few what genres are “in” and months, I just kept writing, who is a really good, enand it’s all poured out.” gaging speaker, as well as Fletcher says that the book balancing the people with includes the people and their large followings or New stories that he’d find himself York Times bestsellers with thinking about constantly, emerging writers. and that all the profits are Although the festival does being donated to Artolution, have “Jewish” in its name a charity that supports artand amplifying Jewish voicmaking in “communities in es is important, Dinkel says crisis,” including refugee that featured authors can camps in Jordan, Uganda and come from any religious Bangladesh. He was inspired background. She points to by a boy, clearly starving, speakers from previous in Mogadishu, who turned years such as U.S. Ambasdown Fletcher’s offer of food sador Marie Yovanovitch or and water and asked for his this year’s Wolf Gruner, a pencil. historian who specializes in Working in the field with the Holocaust and GermanTeachers is about people journalist Martin Fletcher met in his Jewish studies. career and what he learned from them. | COURTESY PHOTO only one pencil, Fletcher had refused and then felt terrible Every year there is also a about it later, which led him panel of Missouri authors. to Artolution. This year’s program will But the chance to support a include Lindy Drew, co-author ing Israel and Jacob’s Oath among of the Humans of St. Louis book, them — so he wanted to do some- good cause isn’t the only incentive based on the popular Instagram thing different to memorialize the to read Fletcher’s book. “It’s a very different kind of account; Martin Sneider, author amazing people he’d met throughof Shelf Life, a novel about a fam- out his career covering wars, di- book,” he says. “It’s not pushing ily and the rise of its fashion retail sasters, famine and civil unrest anything. It’s just about people empire; Lea-Rachel Kosnik, au- as a foreign correspondent. He and their stories and how it afthor of Seeking Forgiveness, a nov- thought he’d do something akin to fects me. And the stories, they’re el based on her experiences with an art project and take stills from all remarkable.” inter-racial adoption; and Jeff his TV news reports and enlarge Basics With Babish Bender, author of Apparel Has No them to make up an exhibit. When people look at an image, You could say that Andrew Rea’s Gender, which discusses his expeYouTube channel rience raising a transgender child. he says, they don’t overanalyze it. successful Whether you’re interested in “You just look at the picture, and Babish Culinary Universe started fiction, cooking, current events or you respond to it in some kind with a mistake. Actually, a lot of more, Dinkel says there will be a of way, maybe emotionally. And mistakes. “My knowledge set is entirely that’s what I wanted to do.” panel that interests you. Fletcher made that photo ex- mistake derived,” he says. “I only “There’s really something for everyone,” she says. “There’s a high hibit, dubbed Teachers, as a nod know anything I know how to do entertainment value behind these to everything he’d learned from in the kitchen or in life from makprograms. Even if you don’t have the people that he’d met, and he ing mistakes. I would say that the necessarily have interest in read- thought he’d show it in a little first 10 years of my trying to be a ing the book, it is a great way to gallery for a weekend. But the cook were a complete disaster.” Rea remembers a lot of those inform yourself about the topics show didn’t stay small, and it has opened in galleries as august as early bad dishes — like a signathat authors are engaging with.” Dinkel is especially looking for- Christie’s in New York. It’s now ture chicken breast stuffed with ward to the opener on at 7 p.m. on traveling to venues across the U.S. cream cheese and artichoke And once people saw Fletch- hearts but unseasoned, or serving Sunday, November 5 — a conversation with longtime Middle East er’s images, they had questions. quail eggs with black truffle oil to correspondent Martin Fletcher, They wanted context. So Fletcher some hungover friends — with author of Teachers: The Ones I thought he’d write about a para- obvious humor. In all of Rea’s videos, he focusCan’t Forget — and YouTube cook- graph for each image. “I just kept writing, and it be- es on how things can go wrong ing star Andrew Rea, author of Basics with Babish, who will be came a book,” he says, noting that, and what you can do to prevent featured at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, No- for him, it’s the most significant or troubleshoot problems. That’s one he’s written. “It’s a very in- especially apparent in his Basics vember 7. Read on to learn more about timate, personal response to the with Babish series, which became people that I met. … [My] nonfic- the backbone for his new cooktheir stories. tion books were about my career, book of the same name, which apabout Israel in a kind of tradi- propriately, has the tagline: reciTeachers: The Ones I Can’t tional way, and the novels, they’re pes for screwing up, trying again Forget Veteran journalist Martin Fletcher straight novels, but this was really and hitting it out of the park. The cookbook is hefty with sechas written many books — Walk- from a gut. I hardly did any re-

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Andrew Rea has built his cooking career on making mistakes so you don’t have to. | COURTESY PHOTO tions that span everything from bread to pizza to eggs to seafood to poultry to desserts. Each recipe starts with a little intro from Rea alongside a section titled “How I’ve Screwed This Up” and a few different troubleshooting Q&As. Rea’s jokey, tongue-in-cheek voice comes through strongly in these sections. For example, in his babka recipe, Rea includes both “my babka is dry” (answer: you overbaked it) and “my babka is raw” (you underbaked it) as well as two more serious answers about filing and shaping the breads. “I wanted to include that with every recipe to make things feel more accessible,” he says. “I started [showing mistakes] because I thought it was funny, but then I realized not only with people learning from my mistakes, and I was learning from my mistakes, it also made things feel more accessible. Like, ‘If this guy can do it, I can do it.’” Rea says this approach of messing something up to figure out how to do it is the way he approaches

everything, not just cooking. “I think that’s the only way I know how to do anything,” he says. That goes back to the very roots of his career, when Rea was going to film school and making an unwatchable documentary about post-Katrina New Orleans. That project could not be more different than Rea’s videos now — but film school did lead him to YouTube. He was working freelance and trying to get his foot in the door when he made his first cooking video just for himself. But people kept asking for more and he kept making more and things just clicked. It’s a bit surreal, looking back at it all. “You got to keep making new things, gotta keep trying new things, and that’s what I’m most excited about having the ability to do now,” Rea says. “I’m really, really grateful for the opportunity that this career has given me.” n For more information about the festival and the full lineup, visit ccstl.com/arts-ideas/st-louis-jewish-

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NOVEMBER 1-7, 2023

RIVERFRONT TIMES

MUSIC

[ A L L T H AT J A Z Z ]

All About That (Double) Bass From St. Louis via Great Britain by way of Alton, Janet Evra is making glorious jazz Written by

STEVE LEFTRIDGE

anet Evra was born on the Fourth of July, a bit of poetic irony for a British gal singing and playing American jazz music. Then again, jazz is an international language, and Evra is a transcontinental artist — a world-hopping UK-born St. Louis transplant in love with bossa nova and French jazz. That type of transnational musical federation is on full display on Evra’s brand-new album, the charming Meet Me in Paris, her tribute to French chansons and Parisian pleasure, filled with Evra’s scintillating vocals and bass playing, and backed by a terrific ensemble that includes Evra’s guitarplaying husband, Will Buchanan. Yes, a blonde British doublebass-playing internationally acclaimed jazz chanteuse lives among us in St. Louis, writing songs with her husband, continually planning her next recording projects, walking her baby in her Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood and playing local stages when she isn’t playing jazz festivals overseas. She was born Janet Irvine in England’s West Midlands, which she describes as “sort of like the Midwest of England,” and her family eventually settled in Gloucester, a town that she says resembles “the setting for a British murder mystery.” She’s exceedingly chipper and Anglophilically polite as we chat on the phone, responding to every question with an earnest “yeah!” before answering. Evra says she’s always been a bit of an anomaly. While her mother was a piano teacher, young Janet had a rebellious streak and rejected the formality of lessons and

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British-born Janet Evra’s new album Meet Me in Paris channels French chansons. | COURTESY PHOTO practice. She instead taught herself guitar in high school, forming a rock band with the deliciously ye-olde-England moniker Knave. Later in high school, she found the album that would change her life, causing her to brush aside the Spice Girls and NSYNC and sparking a lifelong love of jazz: Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto’s Best of Bossa Nova. “It blew my mind,” Evra says. “The rhythms, the harmonies — it was a sound I’d never heard before. It was a pivotal album for me.” She adds that her new obsession set her apart: “It wasn’t a party album you’d hear at a friend’s house.” That wasn’t the end of her idiosyncratic streak. When she heard about an international student program at Principia College in some place called Elsah, Illinois, Evra packed up and crossed the Atlantic, even though she’d never heard of where she was going. “I had to look it up on the map for sure,” she says. That was 2006. She’s been living here ever since. At Principia, Evra dabbled in music as a hobby, playing around the college’s robust arts scene.

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“Music was one of the things that made me stay,” she says. “I had fantastic musicians around me doing these side projects just for fun. We were feeling let loose from our previous academic track. We could study whatever we wanted, play music whenever we wanted.” Evra fell hard for Joni Mitchell while in college, taking a turn toward Joni-style fingerpicking and singer-songwriterisms. “I wanted to tell stories like her,” she says. One of the musical connections she made was with the Marylandbred Buchanan, whom she followed to the University of Michigan in 2000, as Buchanan enrolled in law school. The pair married in Ann Arbor, played music on the side, and, upon graduating, relocated to Alton, Illinois, in 2013 when Buchanan took a job there as an attorney. “It’s a beautiful town,” Evra says, adding that Alton was the place where she started taking music more seriously. “We wanted to make more music and play together, and we love jazz and bossa nova,” she remembers. “We started asking, ‘What can we do?’” To

that end, the couple started making trips across the river to St. Louis to check out the jazz scene, which she describes as “a mind-expanding time.” They met local bass messiah Bob DeBoo, attended Jazz Jams at the Dark Room and hit Jazz at the Bistro. Most crucially, Evra picked the double bass. “Once I started playing bass, I realized it’s really fun,” she says. “The bass holds down the groove, creates this synergy with the drums and creates the pocket. Or if it’s a melodic song, I can create this deep foundation for the song while I sing whatever I want on top. I have this feeling of playfulness when I play and sing. I can do things with both of them that I couldn’t do with one alone.” Evra and Buchanan, along with drummer Joe Burress, formed the Bon Bon Plot, playing venues on both sides of the river and writing original material. By 2018, Evra and Buchanan had enough compositions for her first solo album, Ask Her to Dance, a delightfully breezy set of vocal jazz featuring pianist Adam Maness and drummer Montez Coleman. On the strengths of Ask Her to Dance, Evra outgrew the Alton scene and moved to St. Louis in 2019. “We love being in the city, living in the city, going out to see music in the city,” Evra says. “We love St. Louis.” By this point, the couple’s musical passion had taken over their lives. Buchanan left his law career to focus on music full-time, managing Evra’s career and eventually starting Plum Jazz Records. Its first release was Evra’s single “Almost True” featuring Grammy-winning trumpeter Randy Brecker. Buchanan also produced jazz vocal powerhouse Anita Jackson’s upcoming album for the label. All along, Evra continued to earn applause for her poised, effervescent vocals. Evra credits legends like Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan and Julie London as influences, but has also immersed herself in the contemporary stylings of Madeleine Peyroux and Melody Gardot. “I’ve listened to so many singers and experimented with what they’ve done,” she says, though she admits that her sweet but sultry voice is ultimately all her own. “It’s been my instrument my whole life.” Around 2020, that voice drew

the attention of St. Louis piano pillar Ptah Williams, with whom Evra started to collaborate, eventually planning a joint project: a live album of American standards. COVID-19 had other plans. The concert went forward at the Sheldon, without the audience, and was released as New Friends Old Favorites in 2021. The album features Evra’s take on such chestnuts as “Moonlight in Vermont” and “It Had to Be You” alongside Brill Building classics like “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.” “I just wanted to play songs that we love and that people would love and put our own spin on it and let Ptah add his magic on top,” she says. Working at a relentless pace, Evra and Buchanan dusted off their old love of bossa nova on their next album, adding a modern spin to the form, an approach that inspired them to coin a name for their style. “Will and I decided to play bossa nova and were writing these songs with a bossa nova flavor, but they also sounded contemporary, so we decided to call our style of music ‘indie bossa.’” Hence 2022’s Hello Indie Bossa, Evra’s third full-length album, featuring a who’s who of St. Louis jazz all-stars, including Buchanan, Maness, saxophonist Kendrick Smith and trumpeter Brady Lewis. Hello Indie Bossa marked a return of Evra/Buchanan’s songwriting with eight new originals and two covers, including a cleverly serene reworking of Blondie’s “Call Me.” As its title suggests, the album has all the samba beats and muted trumpets you would expect (as well as some of Evra’s most enchanting vocals to date), but the arrangements also incorporate modern backbeats and instrumental brocades, including the expressive vibraphones of Severi Pyysalo. Which brings us to Meet Me in Paris, a project that has been working its way through Evra’s nucleotides since she was a kid. “Growing up in the UK, I studied French for as long as I could, and went on holidays to France as a child. I loved French films and French music,” she says. “I think Paris as an idea transports both myself and listeners.” With about half the album’s tracks sung in French, Meet Me in Paris creates a fetching atmosphere by way of a small ensem-

ble — Evra on bass, Buchanan on guitar, Ryan Marquez on piano and Fender Rhodes, Matt McKeever on saxophone and flute, and Tomi Kämäräinen on drums — that circles Evra’s voice with subtly percussive arrangements. The players are also occasionally given room to stretch out with flitting instrumental passages and romantic colors that evoke a flaneur promenading on Parisian streets. The album reinterprets Frenchlanguage jazz classics, including Edith Piaf’s “La Vie en Rose” and Henri Betti’s “C’est Si Bon” along with a couple of Evra/Buchanan originals — the time-shifting “Mia Mia” and “Paris,” a reprise from the Ask Her to Dance album — tracks that sound of a piece with the standards on the album. Evra is at her most vocally playful and flirtatious here, clearly having fun, as she indicates on the album cover, appearing chapeau-topped, posing with her bass. The next few months will find Evra releasing a video, building shows around these French tunes and gearing up for next year’s festival season. But will the album’s success tempt Evra to depart St. Louis for a larger jazz ecosystem? Unlikely. “St. Louis is home,” she says. “It’s a great vibe. It’s a lot less competitive and cutthroat [than other cities]. We’re not originally from here, but we love being embraced by the scene. We certainly have been welcomed.” Plus, Evra points out, she and Buchanan still collaborate with artists from all over, thanks to the couple’s pandemic-inspired St. Louis Music Box, a long-distance song-building project that pairs them with renowned jazz artists (Brecker, Roy Wooten and Jeff Coffin, among others) in other cities. The musicians play with them via synchronized videos, with each artist appearing in a separate panel. And even though Evra’s new album has just been released, she says that they are already planning the next one. “We always have new songs on the go,” she says. “We both love to write. It’s really fun to think about the next thing. We will always have another album on the go if we can live our dream.” From the looks and sounds of things, Evra is indeed living that dream with a radiant joie de vivre. n

It was like that at Enterprise Center on Tuesday. | JOHN CANAVERA

[ FA N D O M ]

Never Say Goodbye KISS’ St. Louis show was one of the last in the glam metal band’s supposedly final tour — but its schtick remains as satisfying as ever Written by

STEVE LEFTRIDGE

s I waited for KISS to take the stage at Enterprise Center on Tuesday night, one of the final shows on the final leg of their final End of the Road Tour, I couldn’t help but imagine some young kid decades ago falling in love with KISS and therefore rock & roll music. That kid would be middle-aged by now, probably with teenage kids of his own, and here he would be on this night facing a full-circle moment. In a few minutes he would be, all these years later — incredibly, improbably — a few yards away from his childhood heroes, seeing them for the last time and therefore saying goodbye. Let’s say that kid was 10 years old when he used his Easter basket money one day to buy KISS’ 1975 double album Alive at Walmart, took the album home and played it on his cheap bedroom turntable for 1,000 hours straight, thereby dividing his life into two halves: before Alive, when Disney Read-Along Records and his mom’s Elvis 45s dominated his record player, and after Alive, when his room forevermore surged and swirled with gaudy guitars and howling vocals and riotous rock-altar anthems fueled by exploding amps and dripping with ungodly lasciviousness.

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He’d never heard anything like it. These were songs about getting “Hotter Than Hell” and drinking “Cold Gin” and doing whatever the hell “Deuce” was about. He had to listen with his door closed. KISS was the first real rock music the kid ever loved independently of his parents, and it seemed to promise to unlock all of the mysteries that he couldn’t yet possibly understand about rock & roll parties and flaming youth and strutters and makin’ love. There was no going back after this. Of course, it was rendered more irresistibly thrilling that the music was made by eight-foot-tall superheroes who could breathe fire and shoot lasers from their eyes and teleport through space. The kid spent hours staring at the album covers and drawing pictures of Paul, Gene, Ace and Peter. He collected the trading cards, which discharged a singular smell known only to first-generation KISS fans and that scientists have since been unable to replicate, until he had all 132 cards, meticulously sorted from favorite to least. This kid carried a KISS lunchbox, bought the comic books (rumored to have been printed with red ink made from the band members’ actual blood), played with the action figures, bonded with other KISS fanatics at school, sang an a cappella version of “Rock and Roll All Nite” at his fourth grade recital wearing his Peter Criss T-shirt, prayed in bed at night for God to grant him KISS superpowers for real and thought KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park was probably the greatest motion picture ever made. And let’s say the kid once wrote a letter to Gene Simmons, opening with, “Dear Gene. I’m your biggest fan. I like it when you spit up blood,” referring to the bassist’s notorious stage stunt. He imagined the Demon himself in full costume holding his letter and reading it and writing him back. He asked his mother Continued on pg 34

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KISS LIVE

Continued from pg 33

to mail it for him. She agreed, stipulating that if he had said anything in the letter about Gene spitting up blood she would refuse to mail it. (The kid did not confess.) For this kid, one imagines, the idea of actually attending a KISS concert seemed as likely as traveling to Jendell, the planet Ace Frehley was supposedly from. He used to stare in wonder at the back cover of Alive, which showed the crowd inside a packed Detroit arena waiting for KISS with two longhaired rocker dudes holding a homemade KISS sign. Those guys are probably all high, the kid surmised in awe. It all looked excruciatingly exciting and libidinous and perfect and scary as hell. And so now that kid was somewhere in the crowd at the Enterprise Center 45 years later waiting for Paul and Gene to come out. In fact, the arena was crawling with those grown-up kids. KISS shirts were stretched over thousands of torsos a half-century or more in the making. Hundreds painted on their own KISS makeup for the occasion — some artfully applied, some the stuff of nightmares. A family of four arrived in business suits to recreate the Dressed to Kill album cover. A full-costumed “Gene” struggled to walk down the stairs in his platform boots before taking his seat — to the chagrin of the gal seated behind his poof-bunned wig. Oh, how was the show? You already know the answer to that. It was a KISS concert, and by now Paul and Gene are parodies of the parodies of their characters, still doing the same songs, stunts, crowd-participation bits and pyro-drunk production that they’ve done at every show for eons. And that is precisely the point of a KISS concert. “Did you get what you came for!?” Paul caterwauled at the end of the show, and, of course, he already knew the answer. It goes without saying that they opened on descending risers to concussive booms on “Detroit Rock City.” And that Paul divided the crowd in half for the traditional scream-off: “It’s sooo clooose!” he pretended to estimate. And that a line of drool drained off the tip of Gene’s tongue as he stomped menacingly around the stage in his dragon boots. That’s show business. Gene did his kerosene spit-take after “I Love It Loud;” I’ve seen better fireballs from him, but it looked better on the slo-mo replay. Later, his blood-barfing bit came before “God of Thunder” as a platform sent him to the rafters in symbolic solidarity with the folks in the nosebleeds. Everybody took turns taking long cacophonous solos; Tommy Thayer went skeet-shooting, blasting sparkbombs from his guitar’s headstock into the decagonal video screenpads overhead. Eric Singer executed the double-kick drum trick where he acted like he was wiping his hands with a towel, that old gag. Say what you will about allegations of lip-

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synching and backing tracks during KISS shows, but those Les Pauls were cranked. When Paul and Tommy squared off on their guitar duel after “Makin’ Love” (a welcome deep cut) or during a detour into the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” midway through “Lick It Up,” there was no faking it. Paul, in fact, played more guitar than usual. He has always given it glancing blows when prancing and sashaying around, but he ripped into it for real a few times. And how about that flight across the crowd to the second stage? They harness and buckle Taylor and Beyoncé into those contraptions, but the 71-year-old Paul just stepped on the hoop in his seven-inch heel, grabbed hold and zipped across the arena. Paul and Gene look great, too. It’s fun to imagine them in their 20s back in New York starting a band. Little could they have known that they would still be playing together in their 70s and that their Kabuki makeup gimmick would give them the advantage of never appearing to age. Got to hand it to Paul, though. The dude still shimmies and prances like a young man or woman, and he’s been sticking with his arms routine. In fact, Paul’s stage banter is now more awesome in its hilarious terribleness than ever, especially because he never seems to be in on the joke, even though he now sounds more like Edith Bunker than he does the younger version of himself. “St. Looouuuiisss!!” Paul lisped over and over, teasing his wig with swishing femininity, telling us that it was the 18th time KISS has played here, mentioning the KSHE Kite Fly, Kiel Auditorium and the Checkerdome. Then he reminded everyone that this would be the last KISS show ever in St. Louis. Cue the boos. Do they mean it this time? We’ve been here before. A guy sitting near me was wearing his KISS Farewell Tour T-shirt from back in 2000. But now Paul and Gene are septuagenarians. It’s not clear how long Paul will be able to get his “Love Gun” up. When Gene opens “Cold Gin” with the line, “My heater’s broke and I’m so tired,” maybe, after performing the song 2000 times, he really means it. If this is indeed the last-ever KISS tour, only 20 shows remain after St. Louis. After Eric sang “Beth” (OK, yes, that piano was fake), and before the giant beachball party of “Do You Love Me” and the confetti orgy of “Rock and Roll All Nite,” the four band members stood at center stage and posed for a picture with the crowd behind them. At one point as the band was waving their goodbyes, Gene stood stock-still for a few moments just staring expressionlessly out into the crowd. It was as though he was taking in not just that moment but contemplating a whole half-century of this exhilarating, ridiculous, wonderful rock & roll communion. That kid from back in the KISS Alive days, now a grown man saying a teary farewell, was probably doing the same thing. n

FILM

[REVIEW]

Elvis and She Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla memorably recreates the world of the teenager who fell for Elvis Presley — and then fled her gilded cage BY CHUCK WILSON Priscilla Directed by Sofia Coppola. Written by Sofia Coppola and Sandra Harmon, from the memoir by Priscilla Presley. Opens November 3.

s Priscilla, filmmaker Sofia Coppola’s engrossing new film, begins it’s 1959 and 14-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu (Cailee Spaeny) is living in Wiesbaden, West Germany, where her stepfather, an Air Force captain, is stationed. Lonely for her friends back in Texas, Priscilla spends a lot of time painting her nails, spritzing her hair with Aqua Net and reading fan magazines about the stars of the day, among them Fabian, Bobby Darin and that paradigm-shifting sensation, Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi), who just happens to be in Germany, too, serving out his own military service. This is a story about a time when people drank Coca-Cola from a glass bottle, and indeed, in the opening sequence, Priscilla, wearing a pretty pink sweater, is sitting at a drugstore counter, sipping a Coke with a straw. (Elvis drinks his Cokes with a straw, too.) A man approaches. Priscilla has caught the eye of a polite young Army officer (Luke Humphrey) who invites her to join him and his wife for a party in the coming weekend at the off-base home of his good friend Elvis Presley. He’s sure Elvis will enjoy meeting a young person from America, especially one from the South. A 24-year-old man setting out to woo an adolescent girl is unsettling, then and now, but Coppola leaves judgment to the viewer and instead holds tight to Priscilla’s worldview, as recalled in her 1985 memoir, Elvis and Me. Priscilla is rightly sure that her parents (Ari

Priscilla (Cailee Spaeny) finds herself swept into the madness surrounding Elvis. | SABRINA LANTOS Cohen and Dagmara Domińczyk) will refuse to give her permission to accept the invitation, but they eventually give in. The polite officer wins them over. Riding in the backseat on the way to the party, her best coat buttoned up tight, Priscilla wears a pleased smile — not, one senses, because she’s on her way to meet a star but because she won out over her parents. She’s 14 and set free suddenly, like a heroine in a story. That freedom will prove to be boundlessly enticing. If the first half of Priscilla is about what happens when two young people ride fame and exhilaration into a marriage they’re not the least bit prepared for, and the second half is what happens when reality pops their balloon, as it were, the party Priscilla attends in West Germany is addictively fabulous, for her, and for us. There is Elvis, mad handsome, in a room that is half-lit and warm, like a jazz club. Elvis is instantly charmed by Priscilla even as he realizes she’s absurdly young. Then he goes to the piano and just for her, pounds out a thrilling, blistering “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and that, maybe, is the first time Priscilla realizes, “Oh,

wow, I’m with Elvis.” Elordi never sings again in the film, but in that one number, and in the ways in which his Elvis remains a brilliantly gifted, easily manipulated fool, he becomes an icon who’s more relatable than the version depicted in Baz Luhrmann’s over-amped Elvis. Coppola is interested in the star’s inner angst only insofar as how it affects Priscilla, who is independent-minded enough to find her way to Elvis but not strong enough to prevent that rebellious spirit from being subsumed by his will. It will take Priscilla more than a decade to hear her own voice again. Spaeny plays Priscilla from age 14 to 28 flawlessly, in a performance that seems likely to become classic. Much of the film is taken up with the minutiae of Elvis and Priscilla’s romance, which is interrupted by his remaining military service, Hollywood film duties and the need to win over her parents. Elvis begins taking prescription drugs to stay awake and go to sleep, and Priscilla begins popping them too, to keep up with him, to be a part of his world. They help her to transform into the glammedout arm candy Elvis needs, even

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as their subsequent marriage and the birth of Lisa Marie eventually pull her back to earth. She tries to grow up, to evolve, but he doesn’t. Increasingly miserable in his career, Elvis broods and becomes unpredictable. Suddenly angry, he strikes Priscilla, then rushes to apologize, saying, “You know I’d never hurt you in any real way.” Like Coppola’s best films — The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette — Priscilla is evocatively tactile. Its rooms, from Priscilla’s teenage bedroom to Elvis’ club-like German digs to Graceland itself, are rich in detail and texture. We can feel ourselves in those rooms, alongside Priscilla, who likes to rub her toes in the shag carpeting. Priscilla is partly a movie about the joy of being in exotic places you never expected to be in and the time it can take, the years even, before the moment arrives when you realize the room you once loved is now soulless and empty. You think, oh so clearly: I gotta get outta here. At age 28, Priscilla Presley lived that moment, got into her car and drove away from the land of plenty, making her a heroine worthy of a movie to call her own. n

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STAGE

37 HEILUNG WED, NOV 1

LSDREAM PLUS ZINGARA AND BLACK CARL!

THU, NOV 2

CELEBRATING BILLY JOEL PIANO MAN 50TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR

FRI, NOV 3

JOHNNY CASH

THE OFFICIAL CONCERT EXPERIENCE

SUN, NOV 5

CRAIG FERGUSON THE FANCY RASCAL TOUR

WED, NOV 8

In Mindgame, director Robert Ashton guides a talented cast with the sleight-of-hand surety of a carnival magician. | JOHN LAMB

CLOZEE PLUS DAILY BREAD, CHMURA

[REVIEW]

Mesmerizing Enough for Hitchcock In Albion Theatre’s dark psychological thriller Mindgame, a writer sets off to interview a serial killer at a hospital for the criminally insane Written by

TINA FARMER Mindgame Written by Anthony Horowitz. Directed by Robert Ashton. Presented by Albion Theatre through Sunday, November 5. Showtimes vary, and tickets are $15 to $30.

lbion Theatre’s Mindgame, a play by novelist Anthony Horowitz, features the kind of purposeful misdirection that would earn the suggestion of a smile from the godfather of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. Strong, fully committed performances and attention to detail keep the audience enthralled in the

tightly wound drama. The only thing that may be missing is a cameo appearance by director Robert Ashton. Mark Styler, a writer, sits waiting in the office of Dr. Alex Farquhar at Fairfields, an experimental hospital for the criminally insane. He’s working on his next project, a true crime novel about one of the patients, and is hoping to speak with the doctor and, potentially, interview the serial killer patient. He’s been kept waiting for two hours and is becoming impatient, dictating notes to a recorder with obvious irritation as a means of passing the time. What the audience knows, but Styler does not, is that Farquhar has been observing him from behind a two-way mirror. When the doctor finally enters his office, he seems distracted and dismissive of the impatient and slightly presumptuous Styler. Something feels off here, a point underscored by Nurse Paisley’s clumsy attempt to pass a note to Styler behind Farquhar’s back as the tension keeps building. Can anyone in the room be trusted or assumed truthful? Director Ashton guides the talented cast with the slight-of-hand surety of a carnival magician. As Styler, Nick Freed is an erudite intellectual who manages to come across as likable, even though he thinks he’s the smartest person in any room. There’s effortless privilege in

his mannerisms and familiarity that’s made uneasy by his constant state of alert. Chuck Winning turns in his best work to date as Dr. Farquhar. He’s indifferent when he first meets Styler, showing polite disinterest in a meeting that clearly caught him off guard. As the play progresses, he seamlessly moves from distracted to insistent to menacing and back around. Freed and Winning are at their captivating best when in their psychological sparring matches. Nicole Angeli is hesitant but impeccably capable as Paisley, with 50 percent more terror in her expressions. While it’s easy to follow the machinations, you do need to pay attention. The three deftly shift intention as each plot twist plays out, and their performances are so convincingly well done it’s difficult to know what’s coming next. If you like mystery and suspense with a touch of dark humor, Mindgame is a well constructed and sublimely performed play intended for more adult audiences. In addition to cursing, there are several uncomfortable moments as well as loud alarms, bright flashing lights and violent outbursts. If you’re the type of person who wants to figure out “whodunit” long before the big reveal, you don’t want to miss this play. The inventive twists and turns are enough to keep you on the edge of your seat, second-guessing yourself. n

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fri, NOV 10 PEDAL THE CAUSE BENEFIT FEATURING

FILMORE wed, NOV 15 AN EVENING WITH THE LATE

JOHN CLEESE thu, NOV 16

CAIFANES FRI, NOV 17

STAVROS HALKIAS

THE FAT RASCAL TOUR

sat, NOV 18

NOVEMBER 1-7, 2023

RIVERFRONT TIMES

OUT EVERY NIGHT St. Louis, 314-376-5313.

THURSDAY 2

ANDY COCO’S NOLA FUNK AND R&B REVUE: 9 p.m., $12. THE BACKWATER STOMPERS: 7 p.m., free. Evangeline’s, 512 N Euclid Ave, St. Louis, 314-367-3644. BARBARO: 8 p.m., $15. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. BARNS COURTNEY: 8 p.m., $25-$100. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. BUTCH MOORE: 4:30 p.m., free. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811. BUTTERY BISCUIT BAND: 8 p.m., free. Tim’s Chrome Bar, 4736 Gravois, St. Louis, 314-353-8138. DANIEL DONATO: 8 p.m., $17-$20. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. KEN HALLER: 7:30 p.m., $20-$25. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745. LSDREAM: 7:30 p.m., $39.50-$49.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer 40 Rd, Chesterfield, 314-423-8500. MAURICIO VILLANUEVA ESPINOSA: 8 p.m., $15$20. Joe’s Cafe Gallery, 6010 Kingsbury Ave., St. Louis, 314-862-2541. POST SEX NACHOS: 8 p.m., $15. Blueberry Hill The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. RENE MARIE: 7:30 p.m., $40-$45. Jazz St. Louis, 3536 Washington Ave, St. Louis, 314-571-6000. RES: 8 p.m., $35-$45. City Winery St. Louis, 3730 Foundry Way, Suite 158, St. Louis, 314-678-5060. SOMEWHAT DAMAGED: 8 p.m., $15. The Crack Fox, 1114 Olive Street, St. Louis, 314-828-5064. THE VERTIGO SWIRL AND SMOKE ASSOCIATION: 8 p.m., free. The Venice Cafe, 1903 Pestalozzi Ave, Saint Louis, 314-772-5994. WARREN ZEIDERS: 8 p.m., $30-$45. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

FRIDAY 3

AS WE SPEAK: w/ Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain, Edgar Meyer, Rakesh Chaurasia 8 p.m., $45-$55. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900. BENEFIT SHOW FOR ILLINOIS CENTER FOR AUTISM: w/ Death and Memphis, Modern Angst, Boss Battle, NoPoint 8 p.m., $10. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. BODIAH: w/ True Commando, Spllit, Aura, Dour 8 p.m., $10. William A. Kerr Foundation, 21 O’Fallon St., St. Louis, 314-436-3325. CASEY DONAHEW: 8 p.m., $25. The Hawthorn, 2231 Washington Avenue, St. Louis, 314-887-0877. CELEBRATING BILLY JOEL: 8 p.m., $39.50-$49.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer 40 Rd, Chesterfield, 314-423-8500. CHRISTIAN KIRK: 7:30 p.m., $15. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745. CONTRACHARGE: w/ Mindclot, Kato, Man With Rope 8 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. THE FALLING MARTINS: 7:30 p.m., free. The Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090. HUDAI: w/ Dirty King, Umlouse, Chaos Bloom 7:30 p.m., $12. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. JAKE’S LEG: 9 p.m., free. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811. KEVIN GRUEN: 4:30 p.m., free. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811. KINFOLK AND THEM: 7 p.m., $25-$35. National Blues Museum, 615 Washington Ave., St. Louis. KODY WEST: 8 p.m., $15. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

RIVERFRONT TIMES

[CRITIC’S PICK]

SATURDAY 4

Metallica. | TIM SACCENTI

Metallica

What is there to say about Metallica in 2023 that hasn’t already been said? The long-running, legendary metal act is one of the biggest bands on the planet, full stop. It’s reportedly sold some 125 million records since its inception in 1981, making it one of the most commercially successful bands of all time. It’s released 11 full-length albums during that time, with nearly half of that material ranging from absolutely phenomenal to pretty damn good (lest that sound like a backhanded compliment, let us assure you we consider that a respectable ratio, all things considered). Its status is so firmly cemented in the annals of metal history that it was able to release a rock documentary, 2004’s Some Kind of Monster, that is entirely focused on the band seeking group therapy — and somehow its legions of fans praised the movie rather than view it as the lamest thing in the world. And most impressively, it has accomplished all of this without even having so much

as a competent drummer (OK, that one was a direct insult, we’ll admit). “It should have been Lars”es aside, the most successful of thrash metal’s “Big Four” still has so much staying power that its current world tour, in support of last year’s 72 Seasons, sees the group performing not once but twice at each stop along the way, meaning Metallica will pack ‘em in to the 67,000-capacity Dome at America’s Center two times this week. Each date will feature different opening acts — that’s Pantera and Mammoth WVH on Friday, and Five Finger Death Punch and Ice Nine Kills on Sunday — but given the headliner, you can’t go wrong either way. Charlie Don’t Cheat: Speaking of Pantera, there has been criticism in metal circles of the fact that the Texas band decided to reunite for a series of tours this year without brothers and founding members Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul, each now deceased. Some have said that the group should not be touring under the Pantera name, to which the band responded that fans should consider the current lineup more as a “tribute” to Pantera than as a true extension of the act that hung it up in 2003. Regardless, you could do a lot worse than Charlie Benante and Zakk Wylde as subs. —Daniel Hill

LADY J HUSTON: 6:30 p.m., free. Grand Center, N. Grand Blvd. & Lindell Blvd. 2, St. Louis, 314-533-1884. MATTIE SCHELL & FRIENDS PLAY WAYLON AND WILLIE: 8 p.m., $18. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. METALLICA: w/ Pantera, Mammoth WVH 6 p.m.,

$48-$2,320. The Dome at America’s Center, 701 Convention Plaza, St. Louis, 314-342-5201. SCOTT MULVAHILL: 8 p.m., $15. Blueberry Hill The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. SUPER JAM DUO: 5 p.m., $6. The Attic Music Bar, 4247 South Kingshighway Blvd., 2nd Floor,

6 p.m. Friday, November 3, and 6 p.m. Sunday, November 5. The Dome at America’s Center, 701 Convention Plaza. $48 to $2,320. 314-342-5201.

NOVEMBER 1-7, 2023

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ALL ROOSTERED UP: noon, free. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811. AND TRIBUTES FOR ALL: A CELEBRATION OF METALLICA: 6 p.m., $20. Ballpark Village, 601 Clark Ave, St. Louis, 314-345-9481. ARI AXELROD: 7:30 p.m., $30. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745. ARMCHAIR BOOGIE & MUNGION: 8 p.m., $15. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. BASTARDANE: w/ Klept, Fury in Few 7 p.m., $15. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. BIG AL & THE HEAVYWEIGHTS: 8 p.m., $20. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. BLVCK SPVDE & THE COSMOS: 7 p.m., $15-$20. The Golden Record, 2720 Cherokee Street, St. Louis. CLAIRE ROUSAY: w/ Aria Thomé, Sun Castle 7 p.m., $12. Gethsemane Lutheran Church, 3600 Hampton Avenue, St Louis, 314-352-8050. DAWN TURLINGTON & LEE ANNE MATTHEWS: 7 p.m., $25. Kirkwood Performing Arts Center, 210 E. Monroe Ave., St. Louis, 314-707-1134. DJ LANDY DANDY: 9 p.m., free. Tim’s Chrome Bar, 4736 Gravois, St. Louis, 314-353-8138. FORGOTTEN SPACE: 8 p.m., $25. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. FOXING + THE HOTELIER: w/ Emperor X 8 p.m., $25. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. JOE PARK & THE HOT CLUB OF ST. LOUIS: 7:30 p.m., free. The Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090. JOHN HOLLIER: 7:30 p.m., free. Tin Roof St. Louis, 1000 Clark Ave, St. Louis, 314-240-5400. JOHNNY IGUANA & THE CLAUDETTES: 4 p.m., $20. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. MONGOOSE: w/ Cloud Machine, Lizard Breath 8 p.m., $10. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. OTTTO AND BASTARDANE: 8 p.m., $15. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. SCREAMING FEMALES: 8 p.m., $18. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. SHUFFLE MODE: 5 p.m., $6. The Attic Music Bar, 4247 South Kingshighway Blvd., 2nd Floor, St. Louis, 314-376-5313. SKELETAL REMAINS: w/ Christworm, Chemical Dependency 8 p.m., $15-$18. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. SOMEBODY TO LOVE: A TRIBUTE TO QUEEN: 7 p.m., $20. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. STEVE EWING: 7:30 p.m., $25. Kirkwood Performing Arts Center, 210 E. Monroe Ave., St. Louis, 314-707-1134. SYNOPTIC FREQUENCIES 7: w/ Claire Rousay, Aria Thomé, Sun Castle 7 p.m., $12. Gethsemane Lutheran Church, 3600 Hampton Avenue, St Louis, 314-352-8050. WEEDIE BRAIMAH: w/ DJ Biko 8 p.m., $32-$38. City Winery St. Louis, 3730 Foundry Way, Suite 158, St. Louis, 314-678-5060.

SUNDAY 5

THE 442S: 7 p.m., $25. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745. A CHORAL ATLAS: 3 p.m., $30. St. Cecilia Catholic Church, 5418 Louisiana Avenue, St. Louis, 636-458-4343. COLT BALL: 9 p.m., free. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811. DEREK HOUGH: 7 p.m., $26.50-$122. Stifel Theatre, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-499-7600. FOZZY: w/ Seventh Day Slumber, The Nocturnal Affair, Magdalene Rose 8 p.m., $25-$325. The

Hawthorn, 2225 Washington Avenue, St. Louis. HENHOUSE PROWLERS: 7 p.m., $20-$25. City Winery St. Louis, 3730 Foundry Way, Suite 158, St. Louis, 314-678-5060. HUNTER PEEBLES: 10 a.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521. JOHNNY CASH - THE OFFICIAL CONCERT EXPERIENCE: 7:30 p.m., $39.50-$64.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer 40 Rd, Chesterfield, 314-423-8500. LIMBS: w/ Lost in Separation 7 p.m., $18. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. METALLICA: w/ Five Finger Death Punch, Ice Nine Kills 6 p.m., $48-$2,320. The Dome at America’s Center, 701 Convention Plaza, St. Louis, 314-342-5201. PAUL NIEHAUS IV: 6 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. PIERCE CRASK: 2 p.m., free. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811. SPENCER MCDOLE: 5:30 p.m., free. Tim’s Chrome Bar, 4736 Gravois, St. Louis, 314-353-8138.

[CRITIC’S PICK]

MONDAY 6

DAKHABRAKHA: 7:30 p.m., $45-$55. City Winery St. Louis, 3730 Foundry Way, Suite 158, St. Louis, 314-678-5060. GOBLIN: 8 p.m., $45-$75. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. INDIGO GIRLS: 7:30 p.m., $35-$65. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. LUISA SIMS: w/ Sam Golden 7:30 p.m., free. Yaqui’s on Cherokee, 2728 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314-400-7712. SOULARD BLUES BAND: 9 p.m., $8. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

TUESDAY 7

THE CALIFORNIA HONEYDROPS: 8 p.m., $30. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. DANIEL VAN KIRK: 8 p.m., $15-$20. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. ETHAN LEINWAND: 7 p.m., free. Yaqui’s on Cherokee, 2728 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314-400-7712. MY MORNING JACKET: 7 p.m., $37.50-$86.50. Stifel Theatre, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-499-7600. STEVE BAUER AND MATT RUDOLPH: 9 p.m., free. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

WEDNESDAY 8

DOM L’AMOUR: A NIGHT OF SAM COOKE: 7:30 p.m., $20. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745. DREW LANCE: 4:30 p.m., free. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811. THE ELOVATERS: w/ Shwayze, Surfer Girl 8 p.m., $25. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. KELLY WILLIS, BRENNEN LEIGH & MELISSA CARPER: 8 p.m., $22. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. LAS CAFETERAS: HASTA LA MUERTE: 8 p.m., $35-$45. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900. NURSE BLAKE: 8 p.m., $36.50-$81.50. Stifel Theatre, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-499-7600. PAVLO: 7:30 p.m., $35. City Winery St. Louis, 3730 Foundry Way, Suite 158, St. Louis, 314-678-5060. RAYLAND BAXTER: 8 p.m., $25. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. SARUSHIBAI: w/ Heavy Shelling, Kato 8 p.m., $10. Platypus, 4501 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-359-2293. SWAMP RATS: w/ Tim Holehouse 8 p.m., $10. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. VOODOO WEEN: 8:30 p.m., $14. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

THIS JUST IN

Claudio Simonetti. | JEREMY SAFFER

Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin Italian progressive rock act Goblin has carved out an odd place for itself since its founding in 1972. First and foremost, there’s the unusual fact that there have been multiple splintered versions of the group over the years, operating under such monikers as New Goblin, Goblin Rebirth, Back to the Goblin, the Goblin Keys and, most vexingly, Cherry Five. It’s a somewhat bizarre arrangement that stems from the unique nature of its membership, which has long featured somewhat of a revolving door of different musicians. Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin, which is the Goblin of our most pressing concern in this case, is essentially a rebrand of founding member Simonetti’s 1999 act Daemonia, which performs classic and updated versions of Goblin favorites in addition to its own original

material. And the nature of that material brings us to our second point regarding the band’s unique nature, insomuch as its claim to fame comes less through albums proper than through its extensive work scoring horror films, including but nowhere near limited to Dawn of the Dead, Deep Red, Suspiria, Tenebrae and countless others. The band’s current tour is focused on 1985’s Demons, directed by Lamberto Bava and produced by frequent Goblin collaborator Dario Argento. The band will perform the live score during a screening of the classic film, allowing diehard Hallowieners to extend the scariest of seasons nearly a full week after its actual date. Don’t Forget the Classics: Following the film, Simonetti and Co. will take a brief intermission before returning to perform a “classic” Goblin set of songs and scores that will be accompanied on screen by their cinematic counterparts. —Daniel Hill

97.3 THE BULL’S SANTA JAM: Wed., Dec. 13, 7:30 p.m., $39-$289. Stifel Theatre, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-499-7600. AL HOLLIDAY AND THE EAST SIDE RHYTHM BAND: Sat., Dec. 9, 8 p.m., $15-$20. Joe’s Cafe Gallery,

6010 Kingsbury Ave., St. Louis, 314-862-2541. ANN HAMPTON CALLAWAY: Fri., Nov. 10, 8 p.m., $30. City Winery St. Louis, 3730 Foundry Way, Suite 158, St. Louis, 314-678-5060. BLINK-182: $14.20-$176. Enterprise Center,

8 p.m. Monday, November 6. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street. $45 to $75. 314-678-5060.

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1401 Clark Ave., St. Louis, 314-241-1888. BOYWITHUKE: Sat., April 20, 8 p.m., $29.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. BROKEN HIPSTERS: Fri., Nov. 10, 7 p.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521. DAVE WECKL BIG BAND: Sat., Nov. 11, 7:30 p.m., $35. Kirkwood Performing Arts Center, 210 E. Monroe Ave., St. Louis, 314-707-1134. DENISE THIMES: $35. City Winery St. Louis, 3730 Foundry Way, Suite 158, St. Louis, 314-678-5060. THE DHORUBA COLLECTIVE: Sat., Nov. 11, 8 p.m., $20. Joe’s Cafe Gallery, 6010 Kingsbury Ave., St. Louis, 314-862-2541. A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS: W/ Strangelove: The Depeche Mode Experience, Thu., Jan. 25, 7:30 p.m., $30-$50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. GHOST GHOSTON: Sun., Nov. 12, 7 p.m., $30. City Winery St. Louis, 3730 Foundry Way, Suite 158, St. Louis, 314-678-5060. GRETA VAN FLEET: Sat., April 27, 7 p.m., $49.50$124.50. Chaifetz Arena, 1 S. Compton Ave., St. Louis, 314-977-5000. I WISH YOU PEACE BENEFIT CONCERT: W/ Emerson Magana, Aska Maret, Farshid Etniko, Thu., Dec. 14, 7 p.m., $20. Center for Spiritual Living, 12875 Fee Fee Road, Creve Coeur, 314576-6772. THE IVAS JOHN BAND: Thu., Nov. 16, 8 p.m., $15$20. Joe’s Cafe Gallery, 6010 Kingsbury Ave., St. Louis, 314-862-2541. JASON MRAZ & THE SUPERBAND: Tue., July 23, 7:30 p.m., $25-$99.50. St. Louis Music Park, 750 Casino Center Dr., Maryland Heights, 314-451-2244. JUST ONE LOOK: A LINDA RONSTADT TRIBUTE: Wed., Nov. 22, 7:30 p.m., $25. City Winery St. Louis, 3730 Foundry Way, Suite 158, St. Louis, 314-678-5060. KBA: Thu., Nov. 30, 8 p.m., $15-$20. Joe’s Cafe Gallery, 6010 Kingsbury Ave., St. Louis, 314862-2541. KENDRICK SMITH’S WORLD MUSIC FESTIVAL ENSEMBLE: Thu., Dec. 7, 8 p.m., $15-$20. Joe’s Cafe Gallery, 6010 Kingsbury Ave., St. Louis, 314-862-2541. MEAGAN MCNEAL: Sat., Nov. 11, 8 p.m., $25. City Winery St. Louis, 3730 Foundry Way, Suite 158, St. Louis, 314-678-5060. NICHOLAS RODRIGUEZ: Thu., Nov. 9, 7:30 p.m., $30. Kirkwood Performing Arts Center, 210 E. Monroe Ave., St. Louis, 314-707-1134. PROFESSOR SUNSHINE’S ROCK & ROLL REVIVAL: Fri., Nov. 10, 7:30 p.m., $20. Greenfinch Theatre and Dive, 2525 S. Jefferson Ave, St. Louis, 314-776-2307. THE RECORD SPACE 5TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION: W/ Bassamp and Dano, Petty Grievances, Bastard Squad, The Jag-Wires, Better Day, Fri., Dec. 15, 8 p.m., free. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. RED NOT CHILI PEPPERS: Thu., Feb. 8, 8:30 p.m., $20. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. THE RUM DRUM RAMBLERS: Thu., Nov. 9, 8 p.m., $15-$20. Joe’s Cafe Gallery, 6010 Kingsbury Ave., St. Louis, 314-862-2541. SCOTTY AND THE FUTURE: W/ Paul Niehaus IV, Sat., Nov. 18, 7 p.m., $10. Platypus, 4501 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-359-2293. SKANKSGIVING: W/ Skamasala, DJ Lammy, Wed., Nov. 22, 7 p.m., free. Steve’s Hot Dogs, 3145 South Grand, St. Louis. THE SOULARD BLUES BAND: Thu., Dec. 21, 8 p.m., $15-$20. Joe’s Cafe Gallery, 6010 Kingsbury Ave., St. Louis, 314-862-2541. T.3: Fri., Dec. 8, 8 p.m., $21-$31. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900. VOODOO TALKING HEADS: Sat., Jan. 6, 8 p.m., $20-$25. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. n

NOVEMBER 1-7, 2023

RIVERFRONT TIMES

NOVEMBER 1-7, 2023

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SAVAGE LOVE Not Glue BY DAN SAVAGE Hey Dan: I wanted to record this for your podcast, but I’m literally too ashamed to say it out loud. I was in a relationship for more than 20 years with a guy who abused me sexually, emotionally, physically, psychologically and financially. I grew up in a pretty unstable (read: abusive and neglectful) household, and I’m proud that I finally managed to leave this man. I get that there’s this thing where people with life experiences like mine tend to blame ourselves and think everything is our own fault. But there’s this one thing that really makes me think I’m terrible. This one time, when we were in bed and had both been drinking, I kept trying to kiss him. He would often ignore me and refuse to let me touch him for days, and I would wind up making every effort to please him. This particular night I kissed him, and then started to give him a blowjob, and we ended up having sex. He later called this rape. He didn’t call it rape when he pinned me down and told me to stay still, which was how we “had sex” most often toward the end, and sex only happened when he wanted it. I was never able to initiate, not even a kiss. I’m worried that I’m just as bad as him. Before I was with him, I was hot on consent in all things, especially as I enjoy some light BDSM. I think communicating about sex is sexy. I’ve had good open and honest and raw communication with every one of my partners after him, Dan, but I feel like I’m lying to my new partners about being a decent person. Can you please let me know what you think. Feeling Remorse About Upsetting Denunciation Consider the source — that was my first reaction to your question, FRAUD, but I wanted to get a quick gut-check from someone with relevant expertise. “There are so many additional questions I’d have for this person to understand whether what happened would indeed qualify as ‘rape’ in a legal sense,” said Rena Martine, a women’s intimacy coach who happens to be a former sex crimes prosecutor. “But I’m not sure that’s what FRAUD is asking. Ultimately, ‘rape’ is a term her former partner used to describe a single instance where they were both drunk and where FRAUD initiated sex. He didn’t use the term ‘rape’ to describe the decades of abuse he subjected FRAUD to, abuse that involved forceful sex. In that sense, his definition of ‘rape’ isn’t a re-

liable benchmark.” My feelings exactly. If everything went down as you described — the “if” lurks at the heart of every question that appears in an advice column (we only get one person’s version of events) — then you didn’t rape your shitty ex. You initiated sex with a long-term partner in an extremely dysfunctional relationship. While it wouldn’t be OK to climb on top of a stranger on a subway and start kissing him or blowing him, most of us don’t require our long-term partners to secure our verbal consent before they attempt to initiate sex. What we want from our partners — what have a right to expect from our partners — is the emotional intelligence to kindasorta know when we might be in the mood or close enough that a kiss might get us there. And if it turns out we’re not in the mood and that kiss isn’t going to get us there, a good partner executes a quick, non-grudging, non-whiny pivot to something else we enjoy as a couple, e.g., cuddling, ice cream, shit-talking our friends, Zelda, or all of the above. If you had fucked someone for the first time or the 50th time, FRAUD, and you weren’t sure whether he wanted to have sex and you didn’t care whether he wanted to have sex and you behaved in such a way that he was afraid to say no … then his silent acquiescence would not constitute meaningful consent, and you should feel bad. But what happened on the night you described existed in a context of an established relationship — a relationship that included a lot of shitty “sex” initiated by your ex without regard for your boundaries or your pleasure — and your ex had no reason to fear you and could’ve said no at any time. Instead, your emotionally abusive ex decided to weaponize some shitty, drunken, nonrapey sex to make you feel like you treated him just as badly as he treated you; he was projecting and suggesting a false equivalency. Again, if everything went down the way you described it, you didn’t rape your ex … but it sure sounds like he raped you. And since he’s not rubber, FRAUD, and you’re not glue, nothing that bounces off him of has to stick to you. But if you don’t wanna worry about ambiguity with future partners, tell them that before light physical intimacy (kissing, cuddling, shit-talking friends) progresses to actual sexual intercourse (sucking, eating, fucking), one of you needs to say, “Hey, wanna fuck?” and the other has to say “Fuck yes!” Final word goes to Martine: “A cornerstone of shame is a feeling of other-

“I’ve had good open and honest and raw communication with every one of my partners after him, but I feel like I’m lying to my new partners about being a decent person.” ness — this terrible thing happened to me, and no one else can possibly understand what this feels like — but the sad reality is that intimate partner sexual violence is a common occurrence. Almost half of female (46.7 percent) and male (44.9 percent) victims of rape in the United States were raped by an acquaintance. Of these, 45.4 percent of female rape victims and 29 percent of male rape victims were raped by an intimate partner.” Rena Matine is on Instagram @_rena. martine_ and online at renamartine.com. Hey Dan: Young, gay gym member. A few years ago, I was alone in the sauna when this older guy asked if he could massage my feet. I’m pretty vanilla, but he didn’t seem like a menacing pervert. So I took your advice (been a reader forever) and used my words: I told him he could massage my feet on the condition that he didn’t do anything else. He respected my boundary, so I let him do it again and it turned into a regular thing. We would nod to each other in the weight room and he would follow me into the sauna when I was done working out. We started to make stupid small talk to relieve the tension (sexual for him, regular for me) and it turned he worked in the field I wanted to go into. (I can’t be more specific than that, sorry.) He offered to look at my resume and then wrote me a letter of recommendation that led to a job offer. Here our story takes a sad turn: This old man died, and I’m not sure of how to process what I’m feeling. We emailed a little, but we never met outside of the gym. Am I allowed to feel grief? And should I go to his funeral? It’s not a private ceremony, but

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how would I explain my presence to his family? I didn’t know this man socially, and I feel like saying, “I knew your husband and father from the gym,” might raise questions or suspicions. He was bisexual but not out, and I don’t want to cause his family any additional pain. Getting Your Meaning I’m guessing you haven’t buried anyone — maybe a grandparent or two, but not a parent or a partner. So here’s how condolences work at funerals: if someone wants to express their condolences to the immediate family of the deceased, that person approaches the family before or after the service. If that person is unknown to the family, that person can mention (but isn’t obligated to mention) how they knew the deceased before expressing their sympathy (“I’m so sorry for your loss”). It’s meant to be a brief interaction — you want to acknowledge their grief, not burden them with your own — and it’s an entirely optional one. If you don’t want to say something to the family, or don’t know what to say, you don’t have to approach the family. There were a lot of people at my mother’s funeral that I didn’t know, GYM, and some of those strangers — strangers to me, not my mother — approached me and my siblings and stepfather and my mother’s siblings to express their condolences and some did not. But we were grateful to each and every person who came to my mom’s funeral, whether they approached us or not, and we didn’t run around asking strangers how they knew my mother. (For all I know, GYM, there a dozen people at my mother’s funeral whose feet she rubbed in the sauna at the gym we didn’t know she belonged to.) So go to the funeral, dress appropriately, sit at the back, don’t be surprised if you recognize a few other faces from the gym (I’m guessing the deceased didn’t have a monogamous relationship with your feet) and don’t feel obligated to approach the family. If someone sitting in your pew asks how you knew the deceased, feel free to tell (part of) the truth: “We went to the same gym, he gave me some professional advice and I really appreciated his friendship.” And … I’m sorry for your loss, GYM. Your share of the grief is tiny compared to that of this man’s wife and kids, but he touched your life — not just your feet — and your grief is real, meaningful and touching. Send your question to mailbox@savage.love Podcasts, columns and more at savage.love

NOVEMBER 1-7, 2023

RIVERFRONT TIMES

NOVEMBER 1-7, 2023

riverfronttimes.com

NOVEMBER 1-7, 2023

RIVERFRONT TIMES

NOVEMBER 1-7, 2023

riverfronttimes.com