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MARCH 6-12, 2019
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The Pandemic in Paradise
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he pandemic has hit all of us in different ways, but St. Louis bluesman “Big Mike” Aguirre has truly had a unique vantage. The musician was in the Caribbean last March for a music festival when lockdowns hit, trapping him in paradise. A trip that was supposed to last ten days has now turned into ten months. For our cover story this week, the Riverfront Times’ Daniel Hill chronicles Big Mike’s island pandemic life. It feels like a dispatch from another world as we eye another COVID-19 spring here in St. Louis, but even paradise has its storms. — Doyle Murphy, editor in chief
TABLE OF CONTENTS Publisher Chris Keating Editor in Chief Doyle Murphy
E D I T O R I A L Digital Editor Jaime Lees Interim Managing Editor Daniel Hill Staff Writer Danny Wicentowski Contributors Cheryl Baehr, Eric Berger, Jeannette Cooperman, Thomas Crone, Mike Fitzgerald, Andy Paulissen, Justin Poole, Theo Welling, Ymani Wince Columnist Ray Hartmann Interns Steven Duong, Riley Mack, Matt Woods A R T
& P R O D U C T I O N Art Director Evan Sult Editorial Layout Haimanti Germain, Evan Sult Production Manager Haimanti Germain M U L T I M E D I A A D V E R T I S I N G Advertising Director Colin Bell Account Managers Emily Fear, Jennifer Samuel Multimedia Account Executive Chuck Healy, Jackie Mundy Digital Sales Manager Chad Beck Director of Public Relations Brittany Forrest
COVER The View from the Caribbean
C I R C U L A T I O N Circulation Manager Kevin G. Powers
St. Louis bluesman “Big Mike” Aguirre has been locked down thousands of miles from home during the pandemic — in an island paradise
E U C L I D M E D I A G R O U P Chief Executive Officer Andrew Zelman Chief Operating Officers Chris Keating, Michael Wagner VP of Digital Services Stacy Volhein www.euclidmediagroup.com N A T I O N A L A D V E R T I S I N G VMG Advertising 1-888-278-9866, vmgadvertising.com S U B S C R I P T I O N S Send address changes to Riverfront Times, 308 N. 21st Street, Suite 300, St. Louis, MO 63103. Domestic subscriptions may be purchased for $78/6 months (MO add $4.74 sales tax) and $156/year (MO add $9.48 sales tax) for first class. Allow 6-10 days for standard delivery. www.riverfronttimes.com
Cover photo by
KARL HEYLIGER This page photo by
MIKE AGUIRRE
The Riverfront Times is published weekly by Euclid Media Group | Verified Audit Member Riverfront Times 308 N. 21st Street, Suite 300, St. Louis, MO 63103 www.riverfronttimes.com
INSIDE Hartmann News Feature Short Orders Culture Savage Love 4
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HARTMANN Seeking the Slimelight An act of treason by and for Josh Hawley BY RAY HARTMANN
S
enator Josh Hawley is poised to take his place in American history Wednesday as a loathsome traitor to the nation. But the sedition he proposes on behalf of Donald Trump and in the name of the U.S. Constitution is intended to serve neither. It’s all about Josh Hawley. The junior senator from Missouri plans to throw all his political chips into the center of the table with a fraudulent effort to claim electoral fraud in the 2020 election. He has announced his
plan to join co-conspirators in the House of Representatives for a dead-on-arrival effort to overturn the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Mind you, the claim is limited to votes cast for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and further limited to only those states whose outcome was determinative to their sizable victory over Trump. There’s no argument that the invented fraud claims affected a single other race. Even in Georgia, where Hawley will contest Trump’s loss, he hasn’t even suggested that the same supposed fraud caused Republican Senator David Perdue to have improperly lost enough votes to have prevented a runoff against Democrat Jon Ossoff. No other close race in America in either direction is alleged to have been impacted by the fraud. Only Trump’s. And only where he just happens to need electoral outcomes reversed on the basis of no evidence. More than 50 federal and state judges from
both parties — including the U.S. Supreme Court justices, three of whom Trump appointed — have flic ed away li e flies the lame attempts at judicial frivolousness by Trump’s bungling legal clown car. All that is required for the congressional coup to fail is a simple majority vote of either the House of Representatives or the Senate. Any objection to any state’s certified election outcome must be sustained by both chambers. The chance of that happening in the Democratic-controlled House is zero. And the odds aren’t much better in the Senate, where far more than the requisite three Republican votes certainly exist to reject the assault on American democracy. Hawley knows this. But he has made a political calculation that now is the time to amass loyalty in the Trump base for a presidential run in 2024 or beyond, and that this is the way to do it. It’s a puzzling conclusion for someone of such presumed brilliance. For those of us plagued with
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proximity to this reprobate over the past four years, Hawley’s charade is surprising less for its mendacity than its clumsiness. The junior senator always has slithered smoothly until now. But when the senator’s bluff gets called on January 6, the date January 7 may mark the moment his meteoric career headed toward the ocean. Hawley seems to be banking on hero status on the far right, and he’ll get it for the entire length of its attention span, roughly equivalent to that of one of those farm animals he didn’t raise. He is likely correct in the apparent assumption that no one named Trump will get within several prison yards of the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. But why he thinks he can substitute his hustle for that of world-class con artist Trump is hard to figure. here’s only one Trump, thank God. To be fair, Hawley is a grand master of smoke and mirrors in his own right. He has built a
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prominent career as the quintessential phony: a kid who grew up comfortably as a banker’s son in rural southwest Missouri but waxes mistily on the stump about his days as a farm kid. Turns out Opie Taylor got his hard-knocks education at a posh Kansas City prep school, followed by elite training at Stanford and Yale, where one imagines he was the only student baling hay as an extracurricular activity. After his 2006 graduation from the Yale Law School, Hawley enjoyed a couple of plum clerkships, including one with Chief Justice John Roberts, who certainly must now be banging his head against a wall at the thought of it. Hawley then had brief stints as a civil litigator, a bit part (which he tried to exaggerate) on the legal team championing Hobby Lobby’s right to discriminate before the Supreme Court, and a similarly unremarkable short tenure as a law professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia. It’s no surprise this guy’s newspaper debut was as a sanctimonious fifteen-year-old columnist for his hometown Lexington News. Give him credit: With just two electoral wins greatly abetted by circumstance, Hawley has positioned himself with zero executive experience to be in consideration for the Republican nomination for president. Do you remember all that Hawley accomplished as Missouri attorney general? Didn’t think so. He did join the Republicans’ national legal assault on Obamacare. He jumped on the pile investigating disgraced ex-Governor Eric Greitens and — tellingly — he took a swipe at Big Tech, his signature issue today. But his drive-by service in Jefferson City, where he probably can’t find his old office without navigation today, was notable primarily for his abuse of it for crass political gain. For a man who has used epic skill in raising campaign money from vastly wealthy Republican donors — for the purpose of advancing economic populism and bemoaning the evils of money in politics — no amount of irony is beyond the pale. Again, it seems like ancient history, but it was less than three years ago that the Kansas City Star reported that his office was essentially run by his political consultants. “Josh Hawley pledged to Missouri voters in 2016 that he was
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Josh Hawley has built a prominent career as the quintessential phony. not the kind of career politician who would use ‘one office to get to another.’” the Star reported in 2018. “But within weeks of Hawley’s swearing in as the state’s top law enforcement official, the high-powered political team that would go on to run his U.S. Senate campaign had stepped in to help direct the office of the Missouri attorney general — and raise his national profile. “Out-of-state political consultants gave direct guidance and tasks to his taxpayer-funded staff, and followed up to ensure the tasks were completed, according to emails, text messages and other records obtained by the Kansas City Star.” But that didn’t keep Hawley from riding Missouri’s tragic affection for Trump to victory over Senator Claire McCaskill in 2018. He has treated the Senate like his farm life: Talk is all that matters. As Esquire writer Charles Pierce observed earlier this year, “In a town full of thirsty people, Josh Hawley is a man crawling across the Kalahari. And this is the thing that I know for certain. The most dangerous place to stand in Washington D.C. is any place between Senator Josh Hawley and a live microphone.” On Wednesday Hawley will have that microphone, briefly, and he’ll undoubtedly enjoy a wave of great adulation in the right-wing media bubble. But his Republican colleagues will likely never forgive him for putting them through the worst votes of their careers on behalf of Donald Trump’s tragic psychosis. More important, patriotic Americans will be even less indulgent of Josh Hawley on what hopefully will be a speedy journey to the trash heap of history. n Ray Hartmann founded the Riverfront Times in 1977. Contact him at rhar tmann1952@gmail.com or catch him on Donnybrook at 7 p.m. on Thursdays on the Nine Network and St. Louis In the Know with Ray Hartmann from 9 to 11 p.m. Monday thru Friday on KTRS (550 AM).
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Reckoning With a Historic Year of Homicides Written by
DANNY WICENTOWSKI
C
hristopher Rea had always adored Christmas. “It was his favorite holiday,” his sister, Brandy Tate, recalls. “He loved the big Christmas trees and the lights.” But this year, the father of three never got the chance to celebrate the holiday. On December 24, the 21-year-old was discovered shot to death in a vehicle in the Patch neighborhood of south St. Louis. Tate tells the Riverfront Times that the family is now hoping for answers while police investigate. Rea’s death came amid an extended holiday weekend that saw the city’s homicide count pass 260 on its way to a year-end total of 262, a dire benchmark just short of the city’s “record” of 267 homicides that has stood since 1993. Rea’s was the third suspected homicide investigated by police on Christmas Eve. The killings continued on Sunday when three separate shootings left three men dead. St. Louis’ climb toward the bloody record set nearly three decades ago was a looming reminder of a much older crisis — one that affects thousands of lives, including both victims and their families, every single year. But at a time when the COVID-19 response dominates the region’s attention, 2020’s homicide numbers can’t be ignored. They are in a league of their own. Compared to 2019, which ended with 194 homicides, this past year’s 262 killings represent an increase of 35 percent. That appears to be the largest year-to-year spike in a generation. The summer’s 76 homicides doubled the death toll recorded in the city’s most violent years. Indeed, 2020 marked itself as the peak of an entire decade of St. Louis’ steadily rising homicide
Fatally shot on Christmas Eve, Christopher Rea is among the victims of a historic year of homicides.| COURTESY BRANDY TATE counts. Starting at 144 homicides in 2010, the city recorded lows of 113 killings in 2011 and 2012. By 2015, the homicides were undeniably skyrocketing. That year, as St. Louis approached 200 illings for the first time since the early ’90s, Riverfront Times reporter Nicholas Phillips took a deep dive into the crisis, analyzing homicides going back to 2008 and outlining the frustration and finger-pointing between police, public officials and prosecutors. While the 2015 homicide count was shocking, Phillips’ story noted that the year’s homicide rate of 50 victims per 100,000 people was still far below the numbers recorded in the city’s all-time bloodiest year, 1993, during which the homicide rate hit 69 per 100,000. But, as Phillips also noted, the St. Louis of 1993 had a population of around 387,000. These days, with the city at roughly 300,000 residents, it still has the homicide count of a much larger city. In 2019, St. Louis ended the year with 194 killings and a homicide rate of 65 per 100,000. Now, one year later, the homicide rate has already blown 2019 and 1993 out
of the water: In the St. Louis of 2020, there were 87 homicide victims per 100,000 people. Globally, a homicide rate of 87 per 100,000 would make St. Louis the fourth-deadliest city in the world, narrowly topping the homicide rates recorded in the Mexican cities of Ciudad Victoria and Ciudad Juárez, according to a 2019 ranking by USA Today. The numbers are shocking and, whether 2020 or 2015 or 1993, there are no easy answers. According to homicide statistics released by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, police closed 76 cases in 2020, leaving more than 70 percent of the year’s homicides unsolved. Both Police Chief John Hayden and Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner have cited lack of cooperation from the public and blamed witness intimidation for the low number of solved cases, but these obstacles were similarly raised by the city’s previous mayor, police chief and top prosecutor. he city officials have changed. The crisis hasn’t. Still, that didn’t stop U.S. Attorney General William Barr from being ludicrously wrong when he
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bragged in October that a federal anti-crime initiative had reduced St. Louis homicides by 49 percent, a claim that drew debunkings from both the RFT and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The crisis goes on. From federal to state to local levels, no one seems to know how to help St. Louis descend from its bloody peak. The numbers are staggering and, in terms of human loss, incomprehensible. For people like Tate, who started a GoFundMe campaign to pay for her brother’s funeral, St. Louis’ historic year of killings is now part of the personal history of her family’s loss. “He left three little girls behind,” Tate says. “He was full of life, and I just want to ask the public if anyone knows anything. Our family has been taking it hard.” In an email, an SLMPD spokesperson said that the investigation into Rea’s death is ongoing, and that anyone with information is urged to call the Homicide Division directly at 314-4445371. For a reward, anonymous tips can be left at CrimeStoppers at 866-371-8477. n
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Republican Rep. Wants to Legalize Recreational Marijuana Written by
JAIME LEES
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issouri state Representative Shamed Dogan (R-Ballwin) is pushing for a constitutional amendment to legalize the sale of recreational marijuana in Missouri. The GOP representative filed a bill last wee that would change the Missouri constitution and allow for voters to approve the legal sale of marijuana in Missouri for recreational use, with the goal of having the issue on the ballot in . is proposed amendment endeavors to establish the marter and afer Missouri Act. Under his proposal, mari uana would be regulated li e alcohol and recreational mari uana would be allowed for Missourians age and older. ecreational mari uana would be ta ed at percent, and medical
Rep. Shamed Dogan wants us to have legal marijuana.. | OFFICIAL PORTRAIT mari uana would still be ta ed at the current rate of 4 percent. etails in the proposed bill, , state that the collected ta money shall be distributed to the Missouri Veterans Commission infrastructure including, but not limited to, the Missouri department of transportation and the e pansion of broadband and drug treatment programs, including drug treatment courts.” With an overwhelming number of Missourians approving the medical mari uana program in , ep. ogan is betting that when it’s put to a vote that Missourians will choose to legalize adult-use and end mari uana prohibition. thin the war on drugs has been a
Customers flocked to Illinois dispensaries. Could Missouri be next? | LIZ MILLER failure — and the most glaring failure of it has been the fight against marijuana,” Dogan told The Missouri Times. e’ve spent billions of dollars fighting against a drug which is, in the grand scheme of things, the least harmful on the list of what is currently illegal. We spend the most resources and time on it, and it’s time that ends. The public has come to that conclusion, but our laws have been pretty slow in catching up with that.” Dogan is also aiming to loosen up licensing in the name of the free mar et, li-
New Rules as Indoor Dining Returns This Week in St. Louis County Written by
DANNY WICENTOWSKI
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ith the rate of new COVID-19 cases falling in St. Louis County, indoor dining at bars and restaurants resumed on Monday with a set of new restrictions. In a press conference last Thursday, St. Louis County Executive Sam Page said, “The pandemic has been harder on the restaurant industry than on most.” He added, “It’s on all of us who value a dynamic restaurant scene in St. Louis County to support those local businesses as they weather the COVID storms.” That storm overwhelmed St. Louis County in November, when average daily cases exceeded 800. The surge prompted county health officials to ban indoor dining under a set of “Safer at
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Indoor dining is coming back to St. Louis County. | MABEL SUEN Home” rules, though those restrictions are now being lifted. On December 30, the county’s department of public health reported that average daily cases had fallen to 390. However, the return to indoor dining comes with several new rules, including a requirement for businesses to assist in
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contact-tracing efforts by retaining the names and contact info of their patrons — a reflection of the infection risk that persists for indoor dining, even in spaces large enough for social distancing. Page detailed five rules for businesses opening their doors to indoor dining: 1. Occupancy will be limited to 25
censing that had formerly resulted in slower rollouts and higher prices. is goal is that the licensing process for marijuana companies is no more strict than licensing for other businesses. rom the te t of o special licensing shall be reuired beyond that which is applicable for the cultivating, harvesting, processing, manufacturing, pac aging, distributing, transferring, displaying, or possession of any nontoxic food or food product.” n percent of the businesses’ fire-code capacity as long as the diners are able to be seated at tables six feet apart. Banquet facilities are limited to 25 percent capacity with a maximum occupancy of 50 people. 2. All kitchen and serving staff must wear face masks. Customers must be masked unless seated at their tables and consuming food or drink. 3. Restaurants and bars are required to close by 10 p.m. 4. Some bars will be required to install plastic or plexiglass partitions. 5. To aid in contact tracing “if that proves necessary,” Page said restaurants will be required to record the names of patrons. However, the rule requires only that patrons provide one contact information per party. According to additional details released via the county’s COVID-19 hub, contact information is defined as “first and last name and telephone number or valid email address.” Along with the new indoor-dining COVID-19 restrictions, the county’s public health department also released a set of PSAs encouraging safe New Year’s behavior featuring the owners of Olive + Oak, Herbie’s, and Cobalt Smoke & Sea. n
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The View from the
Caribbean 10
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St. Louis bluesman “Big Mike" Aguirre has been locked down in paradise since the beginning of the pandemic
BY DANIEL HILL
W
hen Michael “Big Mike” Aguirre took a trip to the Caribbean in March, he figured he’d probably stay for ten days or so, tops. soul and artist, guitarist and bandleader who, alongside his lu City All Stars, serves as a staple of t. ouis’ thriving blues scene, guirre was slated to perform at the th annual Moonsplash eggae estival on the tiny island of nguilla, ust east of uerto ico and the irgin slands. he longrunning event, organi ed by nguilla reggae artist and cultural ambassador an ie an , was set to run March 12 through 15; guirre, who has made multiple tour runs through the Caribbean in recent years, figured he’d do the show, visit friends on the nearby island of t. homas and then head home to t. ouis. - had other plans. s the novel coronavirus made its way around the world, it brought travel restrictions with it. y March , it had become clear to Aguirre that trying to hop on an airplane would be a nightmare, so he and his partner ristin abcoc , herself a t. ouis scene staple as general manager of ’s a , lues oups, decided they’d be better off staying put for a while. e figured, let’s wait and see two wee s, see what happens, because we don’t really now what we’re dealing with yet, guirre says of the decision. nd also didn’t have a whole lot of confidence in the rump administration’s ability to successfully navigate through that.
hat seems to have been good instincts, he adds with a laugh. hose two wee s have turned into nine months. ithin days of the music festival, leaving the island ceased to even be an option. nguilla officials closed its airport and seaport on March . he ferry that shuttles visitors to nearby t. Martin, where there is a commercial airfield, left that wee end with no date for its return. he territory was officially loc ed down, with no one able to come or go, by air or by boat. urther measures to combat the spread of the virus were soon implemented as well. he government instituted a shelter-in-place order, allowing restaurants to operate as carry-out only and limiting the size of public gatherings to no more than twelve people. n March , the island saw its first cases of one a -year-old merican woman and the other a -year-old nguilla resident who had been in close contact with her. hey were uic ly identified and separated from the rest of the population. o they were in uarantine. hey got better, and then at that point protocols were put in place where you couldn’t get in, guirre e plains. ome people might try to sneak in on a raft, but they had shore patrols and boats. o boats were allowed to come up, no flights coming in, no ferries coming in. he measures wor ed. o date, nguilla, with a population of about , people and a footprint of ust s uare miles, has seen no community spread of the virus. s of the time of this writ-
ing there have only been ten total confirmed cases none of them fatal. o they managed to put a lid on it, guirre says. Meanwhile, the situation in the nited tates went haywire fast. haritably spea ing, it could best be described as an unmitigated shitshow, with more than , dead amid uncontrolled spread while elected officials on both sides of the aisle and at all levels of government have abdicated responsibility of any ind. iti ens are at each other’s throats in the absence of any true leadership, and large swaths of the population have outright labeled the illness a hoa . s a result, hospitals are filling to capacity, and loc down orders remain in place across much of the country. oo ing at it from an outside perspective, guirre is befuddled. don’t now what words to use to describe whatever the fuc ust happened in the tates over the last nine months, he says. ther than a guy trying to win an election and he didn’t, so it was all ust a big waste in the way we handled it. n light of all that, even when nguilla did open up for travel again, and abcoc headed bac to t. ouis in ctober to attend to familial obligations, guirre decided it best to ust stay put. nstead of dealing with anti-mas ers and sic ness and economic ruin, he’s in limbo on an island paradise with beaches and no - to spea of. iterally, of all of the places in the world, including t. ouis, this was beyond fortunate to wind up Continued on pg 12
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Within days of the music festival, leaving the island ceased to even be an option. Anguilla officials closed its airport and seaport on March 20. The ferry that shuttles visitors to nearby St. Martin, where there is a commercial airfield, left that weekend with no date for its return. The country was officially locked down, with no one able to come or go, by air or by boat.
TOP: Anguilla’s Shoal Bay is known as “the Queen
of the Caribbean.” BOTTOM: The Dune Preserve in Rendezvous Bay is
the home of Bankie Banx’s Moonsplash, the longest-running reggae festival in the Caribbean. “Think City Museum meets Venice Cafe meets Blues City Deli meets Beale on Broadway,” says Aguirre, “in a tiny, beautiful, Covid-free island.” | MIKE AGUIRRE
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LEFT: The Dune Preserve has been Aguirre’s “office” for the last 300 days and counting. | HARBOUR WOODWARD TOP RIGHT: Aguirre and Banx have been streaming live from the Dune Preserve to viewers
around the world, which has helped sustain both musicians as Covid destroyed the gig industry. | CRISPIN THURSTON
COVID PARADISE Continued from pg 11
here,” Aguirre muses. “Almost like it was no mistake.”
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art of Aguirre’s ability to make due on the island comes through the connections he made on previous trips through the region. guirre too his first tour through the Caribbean at the end of 2016, accompanying fellow St. Louis scene stalwart Hudson Harkins, drummer and bandleader of Hudson and the Hoo Doo Cats, on a three-week run through the Virgin Islands. “He’s been going down to the V.I. for maybe 25, 26 years,” Aguirre says. “And we were out at the Beale on Broadway one afternoon after a gig or something, drinking beers. And I said, ‘Are you still doing that run?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I’m thinking about one more.’ And I’m like, ‘Fuck it, take me with you. I’ll carry everything heavy, I won’t complain,’ you know. He’s like, ‘It’s a three-week run.’ I’m like, ‘Perfect, sounds good, sign me up. Won’t even charge a rate;
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let’s just get it done.’” Aguirre and Hawkins tapped Andy Coco, a KDHX DJ and bassist who has put time in for a number of local acts over the years, including the Street Fighting Band and Aguirre’s Blu City All Stars, and the three set out as a trio performing on the islands of St. Thomas, St. Croix, St. John and Tortola as the Hudson Hoodoo All Stars. At the end of that run, Aguirre sat down with Hawkins’ booking agent and inquired about setting up another string of shows in the spring, but he was told that things were all booked up and he should try making a trip in the fall. “Which, hindsight shows would have been after [Hurricane] Irma rolled through here and busted everything up — it wouldn’t have been a possibility,” he says. Undeterred, Aguirre got a run of shows put together for March 2017, bringing Coco and fellow St. Louis musicians Nathan Hershey and Tony Barbata along to accompany him, performing as Big Mike and the Blu City All Stars. “I put my head together, called some friends and lined up like a week’s worth of shows in the V.I.,” Aguirre says. “Came down
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for a week, had that Tuesday and Wednesday off, and just sent a Hail Mary request to the place I’d been in Tortola called Myetts and said, ‘Hey, could you give the band a work permit, a gig, a room, some dinner — some combination of those things?’ And they totally hooked it up.” That particular gig would prove to be a consequential one. In attendance that night was one Bankie Banx, organizer of Anguilla’s Moonsplash Reggae Festival and owner of the bar where it takes place each year, the Dune Preserve. “Normally, after all of these Moonsplashes, after all of the production that takes a month or two or even longer, he’ll get on a boat and sail to a different island and go visit friends or this or that,” Aguirre says. “So he happened to be in Tortola the night we played — this St. Louis band playing all this R&B and soul stuff. And he liked it, invited me for breakfast in the morning, and we chatted.” A few months after that, on July 5, , an flew guirre and oco, who teamed up with yet more St. Louis musicians, Kevin O’Conner and Elliot Sowell, down to perform at the inaugural Rendezvous Bay
Aguirre's view from the beach. | MIKE AGUIRRE
Folk and Blues Fest, which Aguirre describes as “a little whirlwind four-day trip at the Dune Preserve.” Aguirre would go on to forge a tidy working partnership with an , and he flew down solo in June 2019 to perform at the Rendezvous Bay Folk and Blues Fest again, followed by an eighteenday solo stay in Anguilla running from December 2019 to January 2020. It makes sense, then, that he was invited to play at this year’s Moonsplash in March, which is what got him where he is today. When Moonsplash wrapped up, most of the musicians who’d flown in beat a hasty retreat as COVID-19 travel restrictions loomed. But Aguirre, knowing he had a friend in an , figured he might as well stick around. Banx, naturally, is a musician as well — a performer known to some as the “Anguillan Bob Dylan.” Born Clement Ashley Banks, Banx has been playing music since 1963, when he built his first guitar at the age of ten. He’s regarded as a pioneer of reggae music in the east Caribbean, and his career included years of touring through Europe and the East Coast in the ’80s. Since 1991, he’s hosted the
LEFT: Kristin Babcock, who arrived with Aguirre to the island in March, raises the Jolly Roger. RIGHT: Banx’s tree house. | MIKE AGUIRRE
Moonsplash Festival each year and has brought artists including Toots & the Maytals, Black Uhuru, Jimmy Buffett, the Wailers, Inner Circle and countless more to the Dune Preserve stage. When the island went into lockdown, Aguirre and Banx joined forces, with the former providing musical accompaniment — as well as a little technical knowhow — for the latter. “Bankie’s an old dinosaur; he doesn’t know what Facebook Live is, streaming, and none of us has faced a situation where all the gigs go away and the whole industry goes away,” Aguirre explains. “So I teamed up with him to show him how to do livestreams down at the Dune Preserve. You know, pick up a guitar, do Facebook Live, play a song and then post it up there, and then people — someone says, here’s five dollars, here’s ten, here’s twenty, here’s this or that. So it was an opportunity to pivot to an online stream using a cellphone — because that’s all I packed for in a week — and the Dune Preserve is a venue that was locked down, but we could just stream and tell all these stories about Bankie, who’s basically an ambassador of this is-
land and an amazing artist in his own right who built the place.” The endeavor has proven surprisingly successful, Aguirre says, with the pair regularly streaming performances on facebook.com/ DunepreserveAI while encouraging tips. “The amazing thing is St. Louis was so supportive through Venmo and PayPal and stuff. It really revolutionized everything,” he says. “People might spend $100 to go see the band play one night, and $80 of that is on food and maybe $20 is for the ticket, for five or seven people to split. ut then you stream and someone’s like, ‘Hey this is a crazy situation; here’s $500 on Venmo.’ And it could be $5 — it’s been diminishing returns after eight months. But St. Louis has been so supportive. And not only that, the people that I’ve met here, from streaming with Bankie. “It’s just a direct medium from the artist to — really, this is mostly friends and family, because I’m not a big shot — but just people that I’m able to be in touch with, thanks to a cellphone and Wi-Fi.”
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t present, Aguirre has no clue when he’ll return to St. Louis -- though coming home is certainly never far from the front of his mind. “Let me just say this: The last thing I want to do is seem like I’m thumbing my nose at everybody at home,” he says. “Yes, this is paradise. Yes, I’ve gained more than I can describe in perspective since I’ve been here. At the same time, this has been the most challenging experience of my life.” His lease for his downtown apartment ran out in July — he had to arrange for his belongings to be packed up and put into storage. It didn’t make sense for him to renew that lease, he figured, especially since he’s now spending what little he brings in on a place in Anguilla. “Without any income, having to come up with rent here for a little apartment, one bedroom, one bath, no hot water, no drinkable water — pretty awesome,” he laughs. “And then the rent on the lease back home? So I’m pretty much homeless in St. Louis at this point until I can generate enough income to pay for rent somewhere. Staying with friends and family
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isn’t the best idea when cases are blowing up all over the place.” Considering the fact Aguirre is a full-time musician and opportunities in that field have all but dried up in St. Louis as well as the United States at large, it just doesn’t make sense to come home at this point, he says. He also knows that many of his colleagues are struggling just to get by. “I don’t wanna be part of that problem and be there competing with them for limited scraps,” he says. “It was hard to be sustainable before, working with local industries and stuff, as a musician. So not being part of the problem — and not putting anybody at risk — sounds like a good idea, and that’s guided my thinking.” Aguirre’s career plans are in something of a holding pattern now as well. e’d finished recording his debut album, Mississippi Stew, before leaving for Anguilla, with tracking done over two years’ time at Sawhorse, Native Sound and Red Pill studios. He says that album is twenty years in the making, encapsulating all of the time he’s spent on stages in St. Louis. He’s excited to get it out into the
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LEFT: The unexpectedly prolonged stay has allowed Aguirre to explore the island in detail, which brought him to Big Spring Heritage Site, a freshwater source that includes petroglyphs from the island’s earliest inhabitants. top: Ras Bullet, pictured, and Banx “are my Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf,” says Aguirre. Bullet is a musician and boatbuilder and has has built and rebuilt the Dune Preserve many times over through the years and hurricanes. BOTTOM: Sunflowers at Vinty's Veggies in Lower South Hill. | MIKE AGUIRRE
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world, but he also knows it would be somewhat pointless to release now, when touring to support it is impossible. “It costs money to secure the rights to everything to duplicate, and there’s just no revenue coming in,” he explains. In some ways, though, his experience in Anguilla — and especially performing with Banx — is reminiscent of his early days in St. Louis’ music scene, where he spent his time learning from some of the best and brightest blues musicians ever to step foot on a St. Louis stage. “I was born in 1980,” Aguirre says. “Too young to ever get to know Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Chuck Berry, Albert King, all the legends. But before I turned twenty in 2000, I met Big George Brock, Boo Boo Davis, Blues Boy Bubba, Oliver Sain, Bennie Smith, and was immersed on their stages and in their communities, from Alorton to Wellston.”
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That time, Aguirre explains, was formative for the young musician, cementing his love of the blues and setting him on a career trajectory that he’s stuck with for two decades. His time spent on the island, too, he sees as revelatory. “Twenty years later, from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, I found myself once again fully immersed in a community, a culture, and nation unlike my own, and once again I was welcomed by family, this time by Bankie Banx,” he says. “After twenty years of training as a performer, vocalist, bandleader and small business owner in St. Louis, I was unexpectedly granted the opportunity to live, eat and learn from one of the most inspiring persons I’ve come across in a life dedicated to music and spirit.” The Dune Preserve, too, is a place where Aguirre has found inspiration — and one that he describes in uniquely St. Louisan terms as “the union of the best aspects of the Venice Cafe, Beale on Broadway and Blues City Deli, on a beautiful beach on a beautiful island full of 15,000 beautiful
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people who go out of their way to be nice to each other all the time.” Even before he became something of a castaway on the island, Aguirre had hoped to create more connections between Anguilla and St. Louis. Part of the reason Babcock, general manager at BB’s, had come with him in the first place was so that they could network together and try to build bridges between the music scenes in the two locales. “As a career goal I’ve always wanted to bring people — musicians and also music fans and the people who make the scene and the vibe so great — out of St. Louis and hang out with them, you know?” he says. fter fifteen years spending more time onstage at the Beale on Broadway than I did in bed, it’s cool to have the same people in a change of scenery. So that’s kind of what I’m trying to work on.” For the time being, that’s something of an unrealistic goal. St. Louis is still in the throes of a pandemic, with hospitals overflowing and a virus spreading unabated. Aguirre, by contrast, might as well
be on another planet — one with plenty of sea and sunshine and surprisingly little sickness. Until matters sort themselves out, it’s unlikely that Aguirre’s dream of a St. Louis-Anguilla connection sees fruition. “I’m in this weird paradise bubble trying to hold the door open as long as I can for people to come see what it’s about,” he laughs. But meanwhile, rather than focus on the long term, Aguirre is set on doing what he can in the here and now. “[I’m going to] listen and learn from everyone here who knows more about Caribbean music than I do, which is everyone,” he says. “My job,” he adds, “is bringing the STL vibe wherever I go.” n “Big Mike” Aguirre & the Blu City All Stars have copious new material due in 2021, including their debut studio album, Mississippi Stew. Follow Aguirre’s island adventures (and maybe drop some virtual bills in the virtual bucket) at bigmikestl.com or facebook. com/DunepreserveAI.
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[SIDE DISH]
Important Lessons Brittany Van Hook graduated from teaching to bartending Written by
CHERYL BAEHR
B
rittany Van Hook remembers the moment she realized she wanted to change her career path from teaching to hospitality. An aspiring Spanish teacher, Van Hook was at work one day when it hit her that she’d had enough. “I was sitting in the studentteacher lounge, surrounded by all of these punk-ass kids who didn’t care,” Van Hook recalls. “I’d had it. I realized that all I was to them was a babysitter and that I was not going to babysit for $36,000 a year.” Now in a much happier place bartending at the Bellwether, Van Hook knows that her assessment of her students may have been harsh in that moment. However, the complete lack of joy she felt toward teaching had been overwhelming, especially when juxtaposed with the happiness she felt working at her night job. Bartending at a 3 a.m. pool hall, she loved the energy of a full room and enjoyed taking care of people. The smiling, laughing and hustle, combined with the fact that she was making a good living, were all she needed to understand that she could make a career out of the hospitality business. After deciding to pursue the industry as a career, Van Hook landed at Table 3 in Wildwood, where she met her “restaurant mom,” Beth Williams, who taught her everything from wine service to how to succeed as a woman in a male-dominated business. She carried that knowledge with her after she left Table 3, working at 801 Fish, Tank Sushi Bistro and Mandarin, all the while trying to figure out her place in the hospitality world. Van Hook’s job with 801 Fish
Brittany Van Hook will be ready for deep conversations during her bartending shifts at the Bellwether when the pandemic is over. | ANDY PAULISSEN moved her to Denver, but it would be another restaurant there that would really light the spark for her about food and restaurants. Working at True Foods, a healthfocused restaurant and bar, Van Hook realized how much she loved being in a place that focused on both good food and sustainable, healthful ingredients — an understanding that helped her find her groove in the industry. Van Hook returned to St. Louis and began working at the Angad Arts Hotel, which would provide another key awakening for her. While working alongside then-beverage director Meredith Barry, Van Hook developed a passion for cocktails and bartending, and she soaked up every bit of knowledge she could. When she left Angad for the now-shuttered Oaked in Soulard, she used what she learned under Barry to help develop the restaurant’s cocktail menu and bar. Unfortunately, it was short-lived. “It was super heartbreaking,” Van Hook says about Oaked’s closure. “John and Anne [Cochran] are the
greatest people, and unfortunately, they just got into a bad situation. John was so good to us. He called every single one of us to let us know about the closing. It was just heartbreaking, because I’d worked so hard to build the bar, and it was really going to be something. It was really hard to swallow.” Fortunately, it did not take Van Hook long to fall in with her new restaurant family. Not long after Oaked closed, she began bartending for the Bellwether and Polite Society team, where she feels like she is really flourishing. hough the COVID-19 pandemic has been very difficult for restaurants, she remains hopeful that the strength and tenacity of the people who make up the industry — and the Bellwether and Polite Society team in particular — will get them through. “We are in survival mode, and we are survivalists, but we are going to get through it,” Van Hook says. “We have to keep telling ourselves that. If we can survive this, I don’t know what we can’t survive.”
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Van Hook took a break from the Bellwether’s bar to share her thoughts on the state of the hospitality industry, the strength she gets from her partner, dog and restaurant families, and why she can’t wait for the chance to bring two strangers together at the bar again. As a hospitality professional, what do people need to know about what you are going through? I simply worry every day, whether it’s me potentially bringing the virus home to my loved ones, or if one of our coworkers tests positive and we have to close for a few days. Every day is high anxiety and pure stress. Being at work is so tough because I love to express my love and happiness to our guests, and we can’t do that fully right now because we have to protect ourselves by wearing a mask and keeping our distance. What do you miss most about the way you did your job before COVID-19? I’m that bartender that loves to get in those deep conversations
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Drink314 Chronicles Craft Beer and Spirits Written by
CHERYL BAEHR
J
ordan Palmer realized his passion for craft beer in the late 1990s when a high school friend introduced him to the now-defunct Six Row Brewing Company in which he was an investor. Until that point, Palmer admits his beer experience centered mostly on drinking Bud Light as a college kid, but once his palate was opened to the world of craft brewing, there was no going back. “I thought, ‘Craft beer, what’s that?’” Palmer recalls. “I’d always nown chlafly was there, but hadn’t really thought much about it. Then my wife moved to St. Louis, we started going out more, and I started to fall in love with this act of craft beer being created in the city that Anheuser-Busch built. As much as I was tempted to go into brewing, something else came into my head: I’d rather just write about it.” Palmer’s idea to turn his passion for beer and spirits into a writing project has developed into
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and talk for hours if I could. I also love when I get two strangers sharing memories and having a good laugh. It’s the best feeling when you can help someone make a new friend. With COVID, I respect everyone’s space including mine, because right now it’s about keeping everyone safe. What do you miss least? I do not miss walking out that door at two in the morning. I love coming home to my partner and weenie dog by 11 p.m. every night. It is a beautiful thing. What is one thing you make sure you do every day to maintain a sense of normalcy? My life ain’t normal right now, but I do make sure that my partner and I sit down together and have a cup of coffee and talk about how we are going to at-
Jordan Palmer decided to channel his craft beer enthusiasm into writing. | COURTESY DRINK314 Drink314, a St. Louis-centric blog that he’s been running since 2015. The site serves as a celebration of all things beer and spirits — even dabbling in wine, coffee, tea and soda — with the aim of being the definitive resource for all happenings in the region’s craft beverage scene. he idea first came to him about tack our day. I always make sure I cook us a hot breakfast before we walk out that door. Nobody wants to see me hangry. What have you been stress-eating/drinking lately? Pizza Head and a cold Stag. What are the three things you’ve made sure you don’t want to run out of, other than toilet paper? Soda water (Topo Chico). I have a weird fear of running out of wood floor cleaner got problems), and I have a secret stash of Glade PlugIns (cashmere woods is where it’s at). You have to be quarantined with three people. Who would you pick? My partner, my dog (because she’s human on the inside) and my mother. Once you feel comfortable going back out and about, what’s the first thing you’ll do? When it’s safe to go out, I am going to go to the Gramophone and
twenty years ago — not long after the craft beer bug bit him. A television professional by trade, Palmer had just come off a training program in Tennessee to learn how to produce television (a project that would give him the skills needed to start Show Me St. Louis for KSDK) and envisioned the precursor to Drink314 as a satellite order mac and cheese with a double shot of Old Grand-Dad and a Civil Life Angel and the Sword while dancing my ass off with Stan the Man. What do you think the biggest change to the hospitality industry will be once people feel comfortable returning to normal activity levels? I think the capacity will not be at 100 percent for a long time. We will not see a three-row-deep bar, and I think everyone is going to have their own friend bubble, and it will be challenging to invite a new friend in. What is one thing that gives you hope during this crisis? This is easy, the owners of Be Polite Hospitality group. Through everything they have given me hope and strength to get through each workday. We are going to be more than OK, so please be ready to relax and dine at the best patio this spring. n
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television channel called DrinkTV. His plan was to produce drinking content to be broadcast on a dedicated satellite channel in bars and breweries across the country. Though that idea failed to pan out, he couldn’t let go of the notion that he was being called to create some sort of content related to the field he loved. t too him about fifteen years to turn that dream into a reality, but in 2015, he bought a URL, created social media handles and launched the Drink314 site, unsure of where it would go. Palmer was thrilled with the response. During the past few years, he has developed a significant following, cultivated relationships with brewers and other beverage producers in the region, and come to be seen as an authority on all matters beer. “It’s been really fun,” Palmer says. “The reason it became such a passion project is because, as I grew at Channel 5, I became a manager, and when you manage, you are creating less. This became my outlet for creation.” After leaving KSDK a few months ago, Palmer has gone all-in with Drink314, viewing it as a way for him to express himself creatively while figuring out how far he can take it. One way he’s hoping to expand his reach is by partnering with San Diego Beer News in a way that would use that site as a template for different branded Beer News sites around the country. Already he’s established social media handles under the name St. Louis Beer News in the hopes that he can develop a complementary brand to Drink314. Ultimately, though, Palmer is just happy that he has been able to create a community for beer lovers while pushing back against the intimidation that some feel when they get into craft beer. damant that he will never fight about beer, Palmer hopes to bring out others’ passion for craft beverages by arming them with the nowledge they need to find what they love — a calling he feels is his unique place in the industry. “I’m really impressed with the art these men and women do,” Palmer says. “I’ve always seen them as artists. I think I have never been an artist or have a skill that could match up, except possibly writing. After the TV production thing didn’t work with DrinkTV, I turned to writing and found that I’ve always had a knack for words. My voice is my voice, and this is my contribution to this art form of beer. I just want to be a part of it.” n
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[HOMESPUN]
Rough Seas Breakthrough St. Louis artist NandoSTL steers his burgeoning music career through a rollercoaster year Written by
YMANI WINCE
I
f navigating through life as a breakthrough artist isn’t an especially easy proposition, doing so while a global pandemic rages unabated is downright hard. But for St. Louis’ own Nando , has been about finding a way and making things work. At the top of the year, the rapper and songwriter performed at SlumFest, taking home the award for Best New Artist and the People’s Choice award for his song “Outside.” At the show, he delivered a memorable and passionate performance for the track that had everyone in attendance in agreement that he was one to watch. It was an auspicious start to a budding career that had only recently got going in earnest. Growing up, Nando didn’t have an epiphany or life-shifting moment where he discovered his musical talents. In fact, he had a lot of naysayers telling him he couldn’t sing. But he played the drums in church, where much of his sound grew its roots. “It was only a year and a half ago that I decided to do it,” he says. “But other than that, I had never done anything vocally before.” Nando’s sound is unique in that it combines elements of storytelling, singing and poetry. It’s a hodgepodge of gospel, funk and soul influences that ties in a live band and background vocalists, all forming a cohesive sound. His turn at making music came about organically. Nando was a college graduate who’d begun to settle down into family life, with a career and children. The music became a creative outlet to step away from the mundane routine so many can become trapped in. As it turns out, he just so happens
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NandoSTL took home multiple SlumFest awards in 2020 before COVID-19 hit. | RABSOPETTY to be quite good at it. “A lot of people just liked it,” ando says. put the first pro ect out and didn’t really promote it, and it wasn’t a conscious business decision. It just organically grew into what it is now.” And so the trajectory was clear: 2020 would be the year of Nando. He started gearing up to perform at several shows and festivals over the summer, starting with a sold-out show at Old Rock House scheduled for May, with a host of other performances in the region on his schedule. But as coronavirus cases began to trickle into the U.S. and music venues and bars were ordered to shut their doors, the bleak reality that the future of live music was about to dramatically change set in. “We lost out on a lot of festivals we wanted to do, but overall, we’re figuring it out piece by piece,” Nando says. art of what he’s needed to figure out is how to get his latest music into the ears of the masses in an age devoid of live performance. In March, about two weeks before most citizens were ordered to stay home, Nando hosted an album listening party at Shock City Studios on the south side. As the intimate
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number of guests were eager to experience the completion of Nando’s newest project, Bamboo, the musician talked about his hopes for 2020, and thanked his team for their hard work. Bamboo is Nando’s second EP. It’s a follow-up to 2018’s Good Vibes, which included the crowdfavorite track “I Don’t Even mo e. hile the first pro ect has a general summery, carefree feel, Bamboo is filled with themes on the importance of family, self-love, perseverance and confidence. hough penned before the pandemic even started, those themes drive home ust how difficult of a year 2020 has been — especially for an artist on the cusp, who’s seen many of his opportunities dry up in an instant. Nando has since had to deal with his share of creative disappointments, trying to move forward while the world seems to be at a standstill. The concert slated for May at Old Rock House was postponed and moved to late August. COVID-19 cases were steady in the region, and the venue was taking every precaution to make sure the show could go on. But by the time August came, cases began rising rapidly in a second
wave, and the performance was postponed yet again. “We thought the pandemic would blow over, but it didn’t, so we decided to adjust,” he says. “There were a lot of people who really supported what I did, and I was more appreciative of that, so I wanted to give something back. A lot of people bought tickets, streamed the music and sent encouraging messages. I wasn’t going to just stop.” And as the pandemic has dragged on, Nando has increasingly found new ways to adapt. “We live in a digital age, so the pandemic really helped smaller artists to start writing Google ads, and being able to get your content out there,” he says. “With people on their phones more, it gives you the opportunity to fight for that attention.” So Nando improvised and got creative. But he’s a live performer by nature, so he gathered his team and announced he’d stream a live performance of a few of his songs. It was something his fans had been waiting for, and he didn’t want to leave anyone disappointed. Instead of performing on Instagram Live like many fellow artists, Nando returned to Shock City Studios and streamed the event on YouTube. The professional quality of the show, along with the buildup of anticipation after a long season of cancellations and postponements, made the wait worthwhile. Even still, those smaller, digital performances aren’t going to pay the bills. “Being a smaller artist, you have to watch and see what works and doesn’t work for larger artists, because our budget doesn’t allow for too many mistakes,” Nando says. “A lot of what we were doing, we were relying on financing it with show money.” But Nando is still looking ahead, making moves and planning for a post-pandemic world. At the time of the last interview for this piece, he said he was focused on releasing a music video and two new singles. He has hopes for the future, but at the same time he’s grounded in reality. “I don’t have any super big dreams of being Drake,” Nando says. “I just want to enjoy it, make something other people can enjoy, and inspire people the way others have inspired me, too.” n
The prolific Keith Haring at work in his studio. | COURTESY ALLAN TANNENBAUM
[THE ART OF CHESS]
Opening Gambit St. Louis’ World Chess Hall of Fame hosting massive Keith Haring exhibit Written by
JAIME LEES
I
f the Queen’s Gambit sparked an interest in chess or you’re a lover of pop art or queer history, there is a unique show happening in St. Louis right now that you’ll want to check out. The Keith Haring: Radiant Gambit exhibit is currently on display at the World Chess Hall of Fame (4652 Maryland Avenue, 314-3679243) in the Central West End. The exhibit is the largest solo collection of Haring’s work ever shown in St. Louis, and it features more than 130 works spread across two floors, including a never-before-seen private collection of the artist’s work. From the World Chess Hall of Fame: “Keith Haring: Radiant Gambit
features artwork by Haring, a world-renowned artist known for his art that proliferated in the New York subway system during the early 1980s. The exhibition includes a never-before-seen private collection of Haring’s works and photographs of the artist, bespoke street art chess sets from Purling London and newlycommissioned pieces by St. Louis artists, all paying homage to the late icon. “‘The World Chess Hall of Fame is honored to present the art of Keith Haring in this exhibition, which includes work spanning the entirety of his career,’ said WCHOF Chief Curator Shannon ailey. ‘ aring’s influence, even though he passed away over 30 years ago, is still prevalent to this day. He believed art was for everybody, just as the World Chess Hall of Fame believes chess is for everybody.’” The hall of fame is also displaying Haring-inspired works from local artists Dail Chambers, Stan Chisholm, Edo Rosenblith and Peat Wollaeger, with styles of artwork ranging from murals to an illuminated chess set. Keith Haring: Radiant Gambit is open now and runs through May 21, 2021. For more information about the e hibit or to find details about the safety procedures and guest guidelines at the show, visit worldchesshof.org. n
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SAVAGE LOVE EUROPEAN ADVENTURES BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: We’re an adventurous, bisexual, non-monogamous, opposite-sex couple with a teenage kid living in Europe. We don’t really struggle with finding and trying new and interesting stuff in bed. However, we do have a problem, and it’s getting worse. Having sex is, well, weird, when the kid is at home. We can’t be loud, we can’t watch porn, we can’t webcam with other people, we can’t do anything involved or time-consuming, like ropes or pegging or foursomes or whatever. We can’t even fuck in the shower. When he was little we had some plausible deniability, but teenagers know exactly what mom and dad do when they shower together. And it’s weird and makes us both not want to. And we’re not imagining it. Our son frequently reminds us that he can hear everything that happens in the house. Before we took a lot of it outside or to clubs or other people’s places. And he had sports clubs and sleepovers and vacations at grandparents and we could do our thing at home when he was gone. All of that is over now and has been for almost a year. We really like having sex with each other, but it has been just very quiet quickies during the day while he’s doing school online or waiting for those rare nights when he is more tired than we are and goes to bed first. It’s been almost a year of this. Way less people want to meet up now, clubs are closed, and traveling is irresponsible. So before we plunge into another year, which as far as I can tell does not look that different circumstance-wise, any tips? Cabin Fever While a lot of teenagers are performatively disgusted about their parents fucking around, CF, a little tangible/audible evidence that mom and dad — or dad and dad or mom and mom or nonbinary parent #1 and nonbinary parent #2 — are still into each other is, on some other level, reassuring. Because if your parents are still fucking each other that means your parents still like each other. And if your parents still like each other that means you
don’t have to worry about your parents leaving each other and throwing your world into chaos. So while overhearing your parents fuck may not be comfortable, it can be comforting. But if you can’t power through your son’s disgust a la Diane and Elliott Birch on Big Mouth — if knowing your son might overhear dad getting pegged or mom getting railed on cam is a boner killer for you and a dehumidifier for the wife — then you’ll just have to resign yourself to quickies for the duration of the pandemic. That means no fucking around in sex clubs for you and no sleepovers at grandma’s house for him for at least the next six months, CF, if not longer. Zooming out … We talk a lot about parents who blow up when their children masturbate and parents who melt down when their teenagers ask for contraception and parents who shame their kids for being gay or kinky or sexually active or just sexual. While these asshole parents can’t make their gay kids straight or their kinky kids vanilla or somehow deactivate their sexually active kids, they can do real and lasting damage. The exaggerated disgust of a sex-negative teenager is lot less likely to do any permanent harm to you or your wife — your son’s disgust is merely and temporarily inhibiting — and you aren’t going to need therapy to solve this problem. You just need him to grow the fuck up and move the fuck out. In the meantime, CF, go ahead and take those long showers together. And if your son objects — if he shames you — just remind him that the front door isn’t nailed shut and he won’t hear anything if he takes a fucking walk. Hey, Dan: My boyfriend and I have been together for four years. I am 25 years old and he is 33 years old. I’m thinking about ending our relationship. I love him, but I don’t see it working out. Our sex life is almost nonexistent. I have low sex drive and can go long stretches without the need for sex. His sex drive, on the other hand, is very high. I’ve brought up opening the relationship, but he is very opposed to the idea. The reason I brought up outside partners besides the sex-drive thing is that we both have different kinks. Some overlap, but a major-
“Having sex is, well, weird, when the kid is at home. We can’t be loud, we can’t watch porn, we can’t webcam with other people, we can’t do anything involved or timeconsuming.” ity of our interests aren’t shared. I will be moving to Belgium soon to advance my career. When I told my boyfriend he said he wanted to go with because he wanted to be wherever I was. He didn’t say anything about his own goals for the future. He has mentioned to me on several instances that he would like to write a book, but he has not written a word in all the time we’ve been dating. He doesn’t seem to have any drive or passion, which kind of scares me. Another big issue is that my boyfriend is having serious financial difficulties and declared bankruptcy a few months ago. I was blindsided by this since we don’t have combined finances or live together, and he never indicated that he was having financial trouble. As I mention earlier, I am thinking of ending our relationship. I love him, but I just don’t know if staying with him is the right thing. I don’t want to hurt him, and I don’t see things going down well if I break up with him. Should I stay? Should I go? Concerned About Relationship Enduring Economic Repercussions You haven’t moved in together, you haven’t mingled your finances, you haven’t adopted a houseplant or a dog or a child. Which makes going — leaving your boyfriend when you leave for Belgium — pretty painless and uncomplicated logistically, CAREER, even if it’s still going to be painful
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emotionally. You say you love your boyfriend, CAREER, and I believe you. And if everything was working except your boyfriend’s financial issues, would urge you to give him a little more time not infinite time to get his shit together. And not everyone is ambitious for professional success; some people’s ambitions are harder to recognize because they don’t revolve around making money. Two people with no professional ambitions might find it hard to ma e their way in the world — someone’s gotta pay the rent — but a supportive nonstriver often makes a great partner for a striver. And I don’t know if you’ve been following the news, CAREER, but there’s a pandemic on and a lot of people are struggling financially right now. our boyfriend isn’t the only person who had to declare bankruptcy in 2020. But I nevertheless think you should end this relationship. You obviously aren’t sexually compatible, , and you’re definitely going to wanna explore your kinks — without guilt or encumbrance — once you get to Belgium. Openness is the only way to make it work when two people have a lot of kinks but not a lot of kink overlap. Kinks can’t be wished away or waved off, as much as people like to pretend they can be (and not just vanilla people); kinks are hardwired, and some outlet — some way to express and enjoy them — is necessary for a in y person to feel fulfilled and content. You might’ve been able to make the relationship work if your boyfriend was willing to open it up, but he’s not; and you’re not comfortable, at least at this stage of life, with a partner who isn’t a striver. Getting dumped is going to suck for your boyfriend, of course, but he’ll be better off in the long run with someone who comes closer to matching his libido and who doesn’t care that his ambitions, whatever they might be, don’t revolve around his career. And who knows? Maybe he’ll wind up writing a book about your breakup. Enjoy Belgium, CAREER. It’s a good place for a young gay man to explore his kinks. mail@savagelove.net @FakeDanSavage on Twitter www.savagelovecast.com
JANUARY 6-12, 2021
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RIVERFRONT TIMES
JANUARY 6-12, 2021
riverfronttimes.com
riverfronttimes.com
JANUARY 6-12, 2021
RIVERFRONT TIMES
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