Riverfront Times February 20, 2019 by Riverfront Times

FEBRUARY 20-26, 2019 I VOLUME 43 I NUMBER 7

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“ Every day up here is a different adventure. There’s always something happening here on Broadway. I could write a book of all the stuff I’ve seen on Broadway.” Mike T. Jackson, owner of Don’s MeaT MarkeT, phoTographeD aT The Marine Ville shop on february 16

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Publisher Chris Keating Editor in Chief Sarah Fenske

COVER How He Met His Mother Jason Reckamp went looking for his birth mom ...and found a family Cover design by

EVAN SULT

M U L T I M E D I A A D V E R T I S I N G Sales Director Colin Bell Senior Account Executive Cathleen Criswell, Erica Kenney Account Managers Emily Fear, Jennifer Samuel Multimedia Account Executive Michael Gaines, Drew Halliday, Jackie Mundy

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

News

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 Creative Director Tom Carlson www.euclidmediagroup.com

Josh Hawley, extremist

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A R T Art Director Evan Sult Contributing Photographers Tim Lane, Monica Mileur, Zia Nizami, Andy Paulissen, Nick Schnelle, Mabel Suen, Micah Usher, Theo Welling, Jen West, Corey Woodruff P R O D U C T I O N Production Manager Jack Beil

INSIDE

2/28/19

E D I T O R I A L Arts & Culture Editor Paul Friswold Music Editor Daniel Hill Digital Editor Jaime Lees Staff Writers Doyle Murphy, Danny Wicentowski Restaurant Critic Cheryl Baehr Film Critic Robert Hunt Contributing Writers Mike Appelstein, Allison Babka, Thomas Crone, Jenn DeRose, Mike Fitzgerald, Sara Graham, MaryAnn Johanson, Roy Kasten, Jaime Lees, Joseph Hess, Kevin Korinek, Bob McMahon, Lauren Milford, Nicholas Phillips, Tef Poe, Christian Schaeffer Proofreader Evie Hemphill Editorial Interns Ryan Gines, Chelsea Neuling, Benjamin Simon,

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Music & Culture

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Jesse Gannon | Papa Ray’s Vintage Vinyl Roadshow | The Record Space

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Correction: Last week’s cover story, “This Election Could Change Everything,” included inaccurate information about Tom Villa’s tenure as Board of Aldermen president. He left of his own volition after two terms; he was not beaten by Francis Slay. We regret the error.

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HARTMANN The Extremist Josh Hawley showed his true colors by voting against the bill that kept the government open BY RAY HARTMANN

enator Josh Hawley is rolling. Barely in office more than a month, Missouri’s junior senator has already learned to channel his inner Trump, grab his Twitter gun and get ahunting for swamp creatures. And in a moment that must go down as one of the more amusing in modern Missouri political history, Hawley bagged his first prey: Senator Roy Blunt. Blunt, to his credit, was among a select group of bipartisan members of Congress chosen to provide adult supervision to President Trump in the form of a border-

security bill designed to avert another government shutdown. It passed the Senate last Thursday by an overwhelming margin of 83-16. Hawley was one of just eleven Republicans to vote against Blunt’s bill. Before the ink was dry, he had already issued the following tweet: “I just voted NO on the border spending bill. Doesn’t secure the border, weakens ICE. It’s 1100+ pages and was filed in the dead of night. Only in Washington is this considered normal. This is a stupid way to do business and it’s time to change it.” So, what did Missouri’s senior senator think of Missouri’s junior senator’s tweet? “Blunt’s office said it had ‘nothing to add’ when asked about Hawley’s comment,” McClatchy’s D.C. Bureau reported last Thursday. The hell it didn’t. From Blunt’s perspective, this wasn’t your everyday bill: I’m thinking he considered it quite the achievement. Blunt was one of just seventeen members of Congress, one of just

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egant Trumpishness of the presentation, the judicious application of ALL CAPS, accentuated with sentence fragmentation that fully captures the ambience of an angry old man muttering under his breath. Doesn’t secure border. Weakens ICE. Weakens ICE. Doesn’t secure border. And, ah, the substantive analysis. If you really want to inflame someone’s emotions about a piece of legislation you don’t like, tell them it’s 1,100 pages long. (I’ll admit: The passages written in Russian that the White House sent over might have been a tedious read.) But here’s a news flash: Legislation governing a nation of 325 million people on a subject as complex as immigration policy has an irritating tendency to run past 280 characters. Also, let’s not overlook the reference to the bill having been “filed in the dead of night.” I’ll confess I don’t know when it was time-stamped, but Hawley’s Continued on pg 8

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eight Republicans and one of just four Republican senators behind this “stupid way to do business.” And as a high-ranking member of the Republican leadership, he clearly was one of the most influential participants. The bipartisan panel toiled under excruciating pressure to pull a political rabbit out of its hat so that the narcissist-in-chief didn’t further damage the republic over his wall — at least for those few fleeting moments of compromise before he tossed red meat to his base by going the “national emergency” route. Had more Senate Republicans voted like Hawley, that effort would have been remembered as an historic failure and the nation would have been plunged into another senseless shutdown. If I were Roy Blunt, I’d have plenty “to add” the next time I saw Josh Hawley. But let’s not overlook the splendor of Hawley’s tweet: Like a fine wine, it’s truly something to savor. Initially, we focus upon the el-

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HARTMANN

Continued from pg 7

characterization conjures images of someone pulling up in a windowless van and slipping sealed, unmarked envelopes into the halls of Congress as an unsuspecting nation slept. In reality, the panel’s work was America’s lead news story for many days. Regardless of how one views the final product, the process hardly lacked transparency and thoughtfulness. So, saying “only in Washington is this considered normal … this is a stupid way to do business and we have to change it” makes Hawley seem like a moron. But there’s a problem with that: Josh Hawley is not a moron. Josh Hawley is smart. This is a guy with a history degree from Stanford and a law degree from Yale, a former Supreme Court clerk who taught law at the University of Missouri-Columbia before becoming Missouri attorney general, where he toiled for roughly 45 minutes before deciding to run for U.S. Senate. If you’re stupid and tweet something stupid, that’s one thing. But if you’re smart and you dumb things down to the incredible depth to which Hawley sank here, you’re worse than stupid. You’re a cynic. You’re dishonest. How ironic it is that one of Hawley’s first political patrons was none other than Senator John “St. Jack” Danforth? Danforth shocked many Republicans by publicly pleading with Hawley to take on Claire McCaskill within a month of Hawley’s first electoral victory. It was a big snub to Danforth’s fellow St. Louisan, Representative Ann Wagner (R-Ballwin), who was actively weighing an entry to that race herself. It’s notable that Wagner was among 87 Republicans in the House to support the measure that Hawley found so repulsive. But what’s even more interesting is that the bipartisanship that led to this measure was the very essence of Danforth’s being — certainly in his view, at least — throughout his eighteen-year career as a U.S. senator. I wonder what St. Jack thinks about Hawley now taking such mortal offense at the scourge of bipartisanship. Or the way Hawley grovels for Trump, who Danforth savaged in 2017 as “the most divisive president in our history.” Don’t hold your breath waiting for Danforth or other traditional Republicans to grow the cojones to call out Hawley as an extrem-

If you’re stupid and tweet something stupid, that’s one thing. But if you’re smart and you dumb things down to the incredible depth to which Hawley sank here, you’re worse than stupid. You’re a cynic. ist demagogue on the issue of immigration. But that’s exactly what he is. In fairness, as a candidate Hawley didn’t hide his hard-line immigration views. Last June, he defended Trump’s immoral policy of separating children from their parents at the border: “It is an entirely preventable tragedy: Don’t cross the border illegally and this won’t happen.” Hawley also wouldn’t respond to media requests about DREAMers or whether people accused of illegal border crossing were entitled to due-process rights. It isn’t shocking that he’s no progressive on the subject. But even accepting that Trumpbase Missourians might be riled up about caravans and the like, Hawley’s bland persona belied just how nasty he can be on the subject. He proved that last week, at the expense of Blunt, among others. Now that we have the full picture, if Hawley ever runs for state office again in Missouri, perhaps he’ll campaign on building a wall on our state’s southern border, with Arkansas paying for it. That’ll keep us safe from “those people,” which might not be a bad thing. You see, Hawley’s bio says he was born in Arkansas, in a town called Springdale. Missouri would be better off if he had stayed there. Ray Hartmann founded the Riverfront Times in 1977 and recently made his triumphant return to these pages as a columnist. Contact him at rhartmann@ sbcglobal.net or follow him on Twitter at @rayhartmann.

NEWS

Lime Bikes Leave the Street for the Scrapyard Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI

ime bikes turned up at a St. Louis scrapyard on Wednesday, dumped by the dozens on a mountain of junk that overlooks the nearby riverfront biking trail. This scene of trashed Lime bikes — a situation not uncommon in other cities — follows the company’s announcement earlier this month that it is restructuring its St. Louis fleet by completely removing its stock of bicycles. In their place, the company said it would increase the availability of its popular (and more expensive) scooters. But unlike rival bike-sharing company Ofo, which pulled out of St. Louis in July, it’s not clear whether the company attempted to donate parts of its bicycle fleet, which at one point numbered 1,500. The bicycles’ presence in a north city scrapyard suggests it did not. That’s sad news for Patrick Van Der Tuin, executive director of St. Louis BWorks, which works to repair and donate bikes to kids and other nonprofits. Over the summer, BWorks had been the recipient of 250 donated Ofo bikes — a relatively small fraction compared to the total number of Ofo bikes apparently scrapped, stolen or otherwise lost to the streets, but still a welcome donation. Last week, Van Der Tuin says he began hearing about scrap trucks from Grossman Iron and Steel making their way across town carrying piles of Lime bikes. Investigating further, on Wednesday he visited the warehouse in Dogtown where Lime previously stored bikes awaiting repairs. There, Van Der Tuin found a Grossman truck being loaded with Lime bikes. He noticed that bikes’ bodies had al-

Bicycles in St. Louis’ Lime fleet were bisected and sent to the scrapyard last week. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI ready been cut in half to remove the batteries. Van Der Tuin tweeted out his findings, posting photos of the truck and a bisected bicycle. In the tweet, he wrote, “Even with multiple notices that this was going to happen that no one from Lime or the City of St. Louis could manage to get a plan together that would have salvaged these bikes.” In an interview later that afternoon, Van Der Tuin says that he previously attempted to contact both Lime and various city aldermen, but no one could tell him if there were plans to reuse or donate the bikes. To Van Der Tuin, it appeared that Lime was choosing the easiest method of disposal for the bikes — a method that required slicing hundreds of bicycles in half. “They’re making the bikes completely unusable for anybody, but there are parts that are sitting there that are usable,” he says. “I talked to a couple of people there, and they said, ‘No, once it’s in the dumpster, it’s in the dumpster.’” A Lime spokesman, who asked that we not use his name and not quote him directly, stresses that the bikes are being recycled, not headed to a landfill. Recycling a Lime bike requires batteries to be removed — and that means tak-

ing it apart. Donating the bikes, however, isn’t in Lime’s plans. The company says that bikes already in working condition are heading to other cities. Gifting bikes that need major repairs to a nonprofit, the company said, would be unfair to the recipient. But Van Der Tuin’s organization, for one, had hoped to get the bikes. In October, he’d spotted hundreds of Lime bikes awaiting repairs. At the time, a company spokesperson stated that bikes were being fixed and would return to service in a matter of weeks. Instead, earlier this month, the company announced it was pivoting to scooters. And when RFT visited the warehouse last week, all those bikes were gone. Van Der Tuin now wonders if those repairs were ever actually completed, or if instead Lime allowed the bikes to languish in storage for months, only to be chopped in two and shipped to the scrapyard. “We know of at least three Grossman trucks, 60 feet long, that are filled with these bikes,” Van Der Tuin says. “Maybe some of them went somewhere else, but it seemed like the bulk of them went to the scrapyard.” Van Der Tuin says the com-

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pany’s actions aren’t just inexplicable, but a reversal of the promises Lime made when its fleet launched in April. “This whole project was sold to the bicycle community as, ‘We’re going to get more cyclists out here, and more cyclists are going to make everybody safer,’” he says. “It was going to be this big, environmental, green transportation mode.” And while it may make business sense for Lime to accommodate the apparent consumer preference for scooters over bikes, those scooters are so accident prone that local doctors have called on city officials to convene a task force in order stem the tide of emergency-room trips. Also, scooters are more expensive than Lime’s discontinued bikes, which had cost just $1 per half-hour. Now, riders will pay $1 just to unlock the scooter, and then fifteen cents a minute onward. For cyclists like Van Der Tuin, the end of Lime’s bike operation is a deep disappointment, and a waste of an opportunity bring sustainable transportation at a vast scale to St. Louis. “This whole project,” he says, “has turned into anything but more cyclists or being environmentally friendly.” n

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ICE Moves to Deport St. Louis Mom Written by

DOYLE MURPHY

lsa Guzman, a 48-year-old married mother of four, arrived last week at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement downtown office for what she hoped was a routine check-in. Instead, she was taken into custody. ICE agents took her into a room and returned to her companions with a plastic bag holding her jewelry, including her wedding ring. She was then scheduled to be deported in a week, says her attorney Evita Tolu. Guzman, originally from Honduras, has been in the United States nearly twenty years and has lived in the St. Louis metro area since 2000. Guzman has no criminal history, worked three jobs and paid taxes, her attorney says. “It’s horrible,” Tolu says. Guzman married a U.S. citizen last year, and her husband had filed a petition seeking permanent residency for her. That petition is pending. “We need six months,” Tolu says. “That’s all we need to do everything right by the law.” If Guzman is deported before the petition is decided, there is no hope of her returning, Tolu says. Family, friends and supporters now say their only hope is to buy time. Guzman crossed the border into California in 1999. She presented herself to federal agents and requested asylum, says Sara John of the St. Louis Inter-Faith Committee on Latin America (IFCLA). She never received it, but she’s always attempted to maintain compliance with U.S. law, her advocates say. For more than a year, she’s worn an ankle monitor, and she has complied with routine check-ins, friends and family say. The check-ins are usually with an ICE contractor, but last Monday she was told to respond for a 9 a.m. appointment the following day at the field office. Her husband, Steve Miller, installs televisions in hotels around the country, and he was in Colorado. Worried that something was up, he called their pastor, Kevin Todd of Strong Tower Church in Spanish Lake. “That kind of shook him up a little,” Todd says.

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Ilsa Guzman, shown with husband Steve Miller, was taken into custody by ICE agents during what she’d thought was just a check-in. | COURTESY OF REV. KEVIN TODD

Guzman’s jewelry, including her wedding ring, was returned in a plastic sack to a friend by ICE officials. | DOYLE MURPHY Still, they hoped it was just another check-in. Guzman’s longtime friend, Leticia Seitz of the advocacy group Latinos in Action, drove her to the office that morning; a small team organized with IFCLA accompanied them. Guzman was nervous, but every meeting with ICE is nerve-wracking, Seitz says. They knew she could be deported at any time. After Guzman requested asylum twenty years ago, says John, she was issued a court date without a

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time and date. The Supreme Court ruled last year that the practice was illegal, and that notices to appear in court must include times and dates. (There has been some major chaos since the ruling, because the Department of Homeland Security apparently decided to get around it by sending notices with bogus court dates.) But Guzman missed her unspecified court date, and she was issued an order of removal in absentia. John says Guzman, like

many others who have been issued the orders, knew nothing about it and continued to live her life, raising a family and working. The Rev. Tyler Connoley is one of the half-dozen people who routinely go with Guzman to her appointments. Each time, they say a prayer outside the building. He says Guzman has been conscientious about making her appointments. When ICE employees came out of a back room in the office to get her, they would not let anyone go with them. Tolu, the attorney, says she was led to believe they were just doing some initial processing and then she would be able to speak with her client. But that’s not what happened. When agents returned, they handed over the Ziploc bag of jewelry and said she would deported in a week. “They basically said they had made their decision, and there was nothing to discuss,” she says. In a statement, ICE noted that the deportation order in Guzman’s case had been issued in 2000, and that she was taken into custody in 2014. “ICE released her from custody on an order of supervision based on humanitarian reasons,” its statement says. “In December 2018, a federal immigration judge denied her motion to reopen her case. As a result, she was taken into custody, and she remains in ICE custody pending her removal to Honduras.” Last week, Connoley says they pleaded with agents to let them talk with the supervisor of the field office. Instead, they were eventually given a sheet of paper with a phone number to call. No one answered. The group remained in the building through the morning. Guzman’s eighteen-year-old son, John Briones, arrived shortly before 1 p.m. and gave Seitz a hug. “It still hasn’t hit me yet,” he says. He’s hopeful they can organize enough people to make ICE reconsider. “She’s not a criminal. She is a hardworking woman. She is no harm to this country.” Tolu says she will file a motion to stay the order of deportation, but Guzman’s future and the future of her family are in the hands of ICE. “They have discretion.” As of last week, Guzman’s family and supporters did not even know which of the three county jails used locally for immigration detainees she would be sent to. She would likely be able to call them that night, they believed. Briones remains hopeful and says his mother will be OK. “I know she’s strong,” he says. n

Boom magazine captured Michael Kehrer, Matt Harper, Todd Alan and John Jones at the game. | COLIN LOVETT #BOOM MAGAZINE

Blues’ Switch-Up Has LGBTQ Fans Fuming Written by

SARAH FENSKE

hen the St. Louis Blues started hosting Pride Night in 2017, they went all out. Drag queens roamed the concourses for charity. Fans got, and promptly donned, T-shirts. Prominent members of the community were chosen to drop the first puck — in 2017, it was the first gay Miss Missouri, followed in 2018 by prep football standout Jake Bain. And the rainbow lighting was divine. “It was like a Skittle factory exploded inside that place,” says Colin Murphy, editor in chief of Boom magazine, which covers the LGBTQ community here. Fast forward to the game on February 12, and while the team notched yet another victory on the ice, LGBTQ fans in the stands were left feeling distinctly underwhelmed. Gone were the drag queens, the celebrity puck drop, the gear that made gay and lesbian fans instantly recognizable and feeling honored. Instead of T-shirts, or the hats given out in 2018, people with theme tickets were given backpacks — and those were handed out inside plain white bags. Photographers for Murphy’s magazine, who’d presumed they’d have no trouble getting shots of the rainbowcolored fun, found themselves stymied. “We couldn’t even do our jobs,” Murphy says. “You try to identify LGBTQ people if they’re not wearing a special shirt!” For members of the community there not just for work, but for fun, the night also left a sour taste. Marty Zuniga, vice president of St. Louis Pride, says his group ended up leaving in the second period. “We felt like we’d been sold a bill of goods that this was our night,” he says. Reached for comment, the Blues ini-

tially suggested LGBTQ fans were wrong to think they ever had exclusive ownership of the festivities. Despite the hoopla devoted to the Pride theme in its two previous iterations, Blues spokesman Dan O’Neill suggests Tuesday wasn’t meant to be Pride Night at all — but rather an “all-inclusive” night called “Hockey Is For Everyone.” The goal for the league-wide initiative, O’Neill says, “is to communicate that hockey is an all-inclusive sport for fans, players and staff. We made every effort to recognize as many communities as possible, including the LGBTQ community.” So does that mean no more Pride Night? O’Neill doesn’t address that directly, stating only, “Hockey Is For Everyone was an all-inclusive night.” While the team gave out the Pride backpack, he says, “we also represented the LGBTQ community, blind hockey players, special needs hockey players, sled hockey players etc. Our goal was to make everyone feel welcome and appreciated.” In that, some fans say, the team failed. They credit the Blues for hosting a Pride Night before the Cardinals were willing to do so. But now, they say, it’s the Cardinals who seem to be doing it right, while the Blues marketing felt like a baitand-switch. And to suggest the evening was never actually Pride Night felt to some like gaslighting. The game had been listed as Pride Night on the Blues’ website, Zuniga says — although references to that were scrubbed just two days before the game. The Blues made no effort to explain that plans had changed, or how the evening was being folded into other efforts to support diversity. “You took our money and did not show support to the community,” Zuniga says. “If you’re going to change things, come to us first. Don’t just say you’re going to do it again, and then we show up and there’s nothing.” Zuniga, for one, won’t be back. Of his group’s early departure Tuesday, he says, “It was a great game, but we’re over it.” n

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HOW HE MET

HIS MOTHER

Jason Reckamp went looking for his birth mom ...and found a family

BY DOYLE MURPHY

very year on Veterans Day, Karen Harty would think about her oldest son. It was not because he was in the military, although he could have been. She had no way to know. Harty had been just sixteen years old in 1974 when the baby was born at the old St. Louis County Hospital. She was only allowed to hold him for a moment or two before he was hustled away, leaving her alone to wonder what was next for the little boy. She had made the decision to put him up for adoption, but then what? Would his new parents be good to him? Would he have a nice life? The instant he disappeared from her sight, he became a mystery. At the time, Missouri laws governing adoptions presumed this was best. Better to make a clean break and let everyone move on

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with their lives. The state recorded the spare details on the birth certificate — date, time, Harty’s name and address in Florissant — and then sealed the document with the intention that no one would ever see it again. But Harty always wondered what happened to the boy. Before her son was born, she and the child’s father spent long hours talking about whether they could raise him. Her boyfriend wanted to try. He hoped to talk Harty into getting married, and he joined the Army at seventeen to support them. But Harty’s parents could offer little help because they were taking care of her sister who had Down syndrome. They rejected the idea of a teen wedding in favor of adoption. She ultimately decided they were right, but it broke her heart.

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“I just felt like at my age, it was the right thing to do,” Harty, now 60, says. “The best thing to do for him, not necessarily for me, but for him.” And so on Veterans Day of 1974, Harty’s mother drove her to the hospital, where the teen gave birth to a healthy little boy and handed him away. She has thought about him ever since, ticking off the birthdays as he turned 18, then 30, then 40. Was he happy? Did he have a nice life? Harty and the boy’s father never saw each other again. She got married and divorced and married again. She had three more kids, and raised them. She is a grandmother now. It has been a good life, but she could not forget her firstborn. Each Veterans Day,

her husband of 30 years, Dan, would see the sadness in her face and ask, “Are you thinking about him?” Invariably, she was. All she had of the boy were those few moments after he was born. Forty-four years later, she still remembers them vividly. She recalls kissing the top of his little forehead. Just before he was taken away, she whispered in his ear: “I hope you find me one day.”

ay Reckamp remembers the first time he saw his son. He was at Catholic Charities’ old headquarters in the Central West End. “We walked in, looked at him and my impression was he was an old man in a little bitty body,” Reckamp, now 79, says. “He had a high

Jason Reckamp’s search for his birth mom hit hurdle after hurdle. Then the rules changed. | DOYLE MURPHY

forehead and a serious expression.” He and his wife, Judy, had decided on adoption after years of trying to have a child. They spent four years on Catholic Charities’ waiting list, going to classes, preparing to become parents. When the day arrived, they named their baby Jason. The fact that he was adopted was never secret. Judy got a sign that read, “You grew into my heart, not under it,” and put it up in his room. “That’s how she looked at it, and I did, too,” Reckamp recalls. The family lived in University City. Reckamp was an engineer and Judy was a nurse. Both were smart and outgoing. In the funny way of the world, the couple was able to conceive two boys in the following years, giving Jason a pair of younger brothers. His personality varied from his siblings, but the differences among them were subtle. “For the most part, I think Jason had a pretty normal childhood — aside from being left-handed,” Reckamp jokes. A rolling conversationalist, the father is quick to laugh and easily chats on any number of subjects. He soon noticed his first impression of his eldest as a serious little man was pretty accurate. While his younger brothers would jump right into a project, Jason was deliberate. Before he did something, he looked to others and then modeled his behavior accordingly. “He’s never been a spontaneous kid,” Reckamp says. “I’d be upstairs, and I’d look out in the backyard, and he’d be mimicking Ozzie Smith’s moves at second base, trying to do it exactly like he did.” Sports was another area where Jason differed from the others. His brothers, Bryan and John, had little interest. But Jason shot baskets in the freezing cold, dragged the two younger kids outside to act as hockey goalies and even made them stand in as pylons as he pretended to race down football fields. To this day, he lives in the misery of Blues’ fandom. He also gravitated toward writing while his brothers were good at math. “I remember a lot of the conversations I was on the outside, looking in,” Jason, now 44, says. Still, the differences were not glaring. It is only in retrospect that he begins to see the seemingly inherited traits that ran through the others. “I never felt all that different,” he says, adding, “I had a great childhood. It seems almost nitpicky to talk about it now.” Then, less than a month be-

fore Jason turned fifteen, tragedy struck. That year, 1989, Judy and Ray Reckamp went on a float trip with friends. The husband and wife floated ahead of the other couple and decided to hike along a cliff where they watched the sunset and renewed their wedding vows. As they headed back toward their boat, Judy slipped and fell off the edge. She was airlifted to the hospital, but the injuries were fatal. “My mom was probably my best friend,” Jason says. Still in his freshman year at Christian Brothers College High School, he had often turned to Judy for help as he tried to sort through the confusion of being

with myself — ‘I’m going to find her,’” he says. Jason talked to his dad about the idea, and Reckamp had no problem with him trying. Still, it wasn’t clear where to start. This was before the internet became a go-to source for life’s mysteries, and so it wasn’t until years later, when Jason was about to become a father himself, that he first made a serious effort. He started with Catholic Charities. Parents who had given their children up for adoption could provide updates, including health information, if they chose. For a fee, Catholic Charities would check the files to see if there was anything available. It was a crap

Jason had a happy childhood after being adopted as a baby. | COURTESY OF JASON RECKAMP a teenage boy. He remembers that awful Sunday night when he watched through the window of their house as his father returned home alone. Judy’s death upended Jason’s world. He’d been quiet before but withdrew further. He started thinking seriously about finding his birth mother. “I was trying, at least in my mind, trying to fill a hole,” he says. He looks back and realizes nothing would have mitigated the pain of Judy’s death. But the loss of one mother awakened a powerful urge to find another. “In a broken young teenager, that feeling started to come to the forefront,” he says. “It was just more of a pact

shoot. There might be something; there might be nothing. Jason wrote them a check — he remembers it being about $500 — only to be told they had nothing for him. “All that did was piss me off,” he says. A Catholic Charities worker suggested he might have better luck with a private investigator, so Jason tried that, too. That cost him another $2,500 to $3,000 — and turned up nothing. “I was just throwing money into the wind,” he says. Burned twice, his efforts were more low-key after that. He kept an eye on websites where other adoptees traded tips. At the end

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of 2016, he learned about a newly passed Missouri law. The legislation would for the first time allow adoptees to request birth records from the state without a court order. All they had to do was fill out a form and send in $15. “I was like, fifteen bucks? Holy shit,” Jason remembers. He assumed there were would be a rush of applications when the law first took effect in January 2018, so he waited a month, filled out the form and sent in his check. Eight months later, a letter arrived.

ormer state Representative Don Phillips understands the powerful hold of the unknown. The retired state trooper from the southern Missouri lake town of Kimberling City was adopted as a baby, and like tens of thousands of other adoptees, grew up not knowing where he came from. So when a 75-year-old adopted woman asked him during his third term in the statehouse for help unsealing her birth records, he recognized a familiar ache. “I knew exactly,” he says. “I could empathize with what she was feeling and knew exactly what she was feeling.” Versions of a bill to open original birth records for adoptees had been kicking around Jefferson City for at least fifteen or sixteen years. A hard push in 2000 ultimately failed, and Phillips had no luck when he first tried in 2015. “‘Adoption’ seems to be a poison word, even in today’s society,” Phillips says. “It’s like an affliction. That’s a hurdle we have to get over. We have to convince people adoption is a good thing.” As he worked on the legislation, he met Heather Dodd of the Missouri Adoptee Rights Movement, a volunteer organization. Dodd’s mother had been orphaned at age six, and she and her siblings were sent to separate foster homes. When Dodd’s mom tried at age eighteen to track down her long lost family, a social worker told her it was none of her business, Dodd says. “I grew up hearing that story, knowing that we had other family out there,” she says. Dodd was eventually able to help her mother find her siblings, but she had to get creative to do it. She started by locating her grandmother’s grave and leaving a note next to the headstone. The note was later discovered by relatives, who provided the first bits of information. “It took thirteen years to find every last one that was adopted out,” Dodd says. Interested in genealogy, Dodd

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HOW HE MET HIS MOTHER “It sounded Continued from pg 13 like me on the later helped a woman in an online other end of group track down down her dying mother, who was then in her the phone call. 90s. The two experiences led her to team up with other volunteers It brought me and ultimately launch the Missouri Adoptee Rights Movement group on Facebook. chills.” After the 2015 bill failed, the team — Phillips calls them the “Adoption Army” — came up with a new strategy. So far, discussion had focused on the harm. Opponents argued that any change to the law would essentially break the promise of secrecy made to generations of parents. That reasoning tracked with old attitudes of shame, recalling an era when pregnant teens were spirited away to “visit relatives.” Unsealing records now, providing a path for adoptees to contact their birth parents, was seen as forcing women to confront dark secrets. But Dodd and the Adoption Army were in contact with not only adoptees, but parents who had spent decades wondering what had happened to their children. “We had many, many birth mothers on our side who were really wanting their children to be able to come and find them,” Dodd says. In meetings with lawmakers the Adoption Army focused on the positives of offering a path for people to uncover their lineage. “You’re really going to change people’s lives,” Dodd told legislators. More than twenty states provide some way for adoptees to request their birth records. A few states, including Kansas, had never sealed them. Dodd argued that the rise of DNA testing and sites like Ancestry.com were already serving as a workaround in the remaining states, including Missouri. Providing adoptees access to their records would allow them to contact birth parents directly, rather than working backward through a DNA match to a second or third cousin, a process likely to involve multiple family members, some of whom might be learning of the adoption for the first time. “‘What sounds more private to you?’ That was my question to them,” Dodd says. “That’s when the light bulb came on for a few of them, I think.” The Missouri Adoptee Rights Act passed easily in 2016, and it proved even more popular than Phillips ever expected. “We knew there would probably be hundreds [of requests], but it ended up being more like thou-

sands,” he says. The new law included a provision to allow parents who did not want to be contacted to opt out. But few did. The state was overwhelmed with applications from adoptees. Early estimates of six to eight weeks to get records ballooned into six to eight months. The Department of Health and Senior Services fielded 4,044 requests for original birth certificates between October 1, 2017, and December 31, 2018, according to the state. Slowly, the department has worked through almost the entire backlog and is now working on 2019 requests, a spokeswoman says. Phillips, who left his legislator’s job when Governor Mike Parson appointed him to the state probation and parole board, says legislators slog through bills year after year, hoping to pass something that makes a real difference. For him, the adoptees rights act was that bill. “This was absolutely your dream come true for a bill,” he says. Most of the stories he hears are positive. But even in rare cases when parents do not wish to be contacted, adoptees at least have closure. “The known is something people can deal with,” he says. He was 47 years old when he tracked down his birth parents. As a longtime lawman, he had the skills and resources others did not. “I was in the business of finding people,” he says. And yet there was nothing that could prepare him for the first time he picked up the phone and dialed the number for his biological father. “It sounded like me on the other end,” Phillips says. “I couldn’t even tell the difference. It brought chills.”

ason Reckamp’s certificate of live birth arrived in the mail in October 2018. He and his girlfriend, Jennifer Patterson, stared at the name: Karen Piper. When she gave birth to Jason, she’d been sixteen and lived in Florissant. After a Continued on pg 16

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SAINT LOUIS ORCHESTRA

French Connection ROBERT HART BAKER Conductor

Friday, March 1, 2019 8 pm

The J. Scheidegger, Center for the Arts Lindenwood University 2300 West Clay Street St. Charles, MO 63307 Virtuoso pieces for keyboard & orchestra and sublime choral music, reflecting the high cultural influence of France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Jason talks to his birth mother for the first time. | COURTESY OF JENNIFER PATTERSON

HOW HE MET HIS MOTHER

Saint-Saëns

Continued from pg 15

Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 78 “Organ”. Chris Loemker, organ soloist

lifetime of mystery — not to mention a significant amount of wasted effort and money — Jason finally had the name of his birth mother. But while it was more information than he had ever had, it was also 44 years old. Surely, she had moved, and there was a decent chance she had married and changed her last name. His biological father was not listed. Jason and Patterson spent the night googling names and diving down rabbit holes. They would come across a possible match, pull up pictures and search for any resemblance. “It’s funny how you can kind of see yourself in every person,” Patterson says. They decided Patterson would write a letter to the address listed on the birth certificate and address it to “the Piper Family,” hoping it might seem a little less intrusive coming from a third party. In the meantime, they kept searching online. Patterson, an attorney, enlisted colleagues to help. One came up with a likely person from a Classmates.com yearbook page for McCluer North High School in Florissant. Jason’s sisterin-law was then able to find a crucial piece of the puzzle by locating on Facebook a Karen Piper Harty, whose profile matched the information they had available. As far

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as they could tell, this was her. Jason was not sure what do with this new information, gathered in a flurry over three days. “I went from not having anything for years to having something concrete,” Jason says. “Initially, in some ways, that was worse.” It was overwhelming. What if Harty did not want anything to do with him? What if she was horrible? What if they did not even have the right person, and he had to start over? Patterson again offered to make the first contact and sent a Facebook message. It was not only that they thought it might seem less threatening for her to reach out; he had followed so many false starts, he was not sure if he could bear another. “Every other door I had tried to knock on or open was slammed in my face, or it was just a wall,” he says. “I didn’t think I could hear, ‘No.’” Harty responded to Patterson’s message the next day and said she would love to talk. Patterson and Harty spoke first, and then one day in October 2018, less than a week after he first learned her name, Jason picked up the phone and heard his birth mother’s voice for the first time. Patterson watched his face change as he talked. In their relationship, Patterson is the outgoing one. Jason has “always been kind of a loner,” she says. But his expression that day was so pure, she

pulled out her phone and took a picture. In the snapshot, his eyes are bright and his mouth open in a grin. “I had not seen him smile like that,” Patterson says. Harty was heading out of town with her husband to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. But after several days away, they cut their trip short and hurried home to Missouri to meet Jason. Harty lives little more than an hour northwest of St. Louis in the small town of Eolia and works at a rural health clinic in Bowling Green. She had previously worked in Creve Coeur and used to have an apartment in St. Peters. All this time, she and Jason had been within an hour or two of one another. It was equally surreal for her to learn his name: Harty had called him “Jason” after he was born. She thought the Reckamps must have known and decided to keep the name, but they did not. They picked “Jason” on their own. She reserved a private dining room at BC’s Kitchen in Lake St. Louis for their first in-person meeting. She and her husband met Jason and Patterson for lunch. They arrived around 11 a.m., and Jason gave her a bouquet of flowers. They stayed all afternoon and into the evening. Lunch turned into dinner and then drinks — and the party grew. Harty’s younger son, 41-yearold Ryan Hoffman, sent his mother texts until finally they invited him to join them. “He would not stop hugging Jason the whole time,” Patterson says. The group did not leave until after 9 p.m. Jason had tried not to expect too much, but the reality has been better than he could have imagined. Harty was warm and kind. Talking to her felt natural. “I honestly couldn’t have asked for a better situation — a better person, for one, just inside and out, a great person,” he says. “It’s been pretty cool. It’s easy to say now, but if it had been the other way, or the other end of the spectrum, I would have at least had closure.” Harty was similarly moved. She was so nervous heading into their first meeting that she did not sleep the night before. But Jason thanked her for the decision she made all those years ago. He’d had a good childhood and was raised by people who loved him. “All those things you wonder,” she says. “You

bring them into the world — you want to make sure he’s well.” After they parted ways, she contacted someone else she had not seen in more than 40 years — Jason’s biological father, Jim Lownsdale. “I just want to tell you, I had the best experience,” she told him.

ike Harty, Lownsdale had long hoped his oldest son would come calling someday. He also counted the birthdays every Veterans Day. He thought maybe after the boy turned eighteen he would hear from him, but the decades passed and he began to assume they would never meet.

brought her to visit Lownsdale at Fort Leonard Wood before Jason was born. Piper left the teens alone for the day so they could talk. Lownsdale remembers it was bitter cold. His options had been limited. He did not have any money, but the Army would house his young family. Even after Harty went home, he was not convinced he wanted to give up the baby. The process required his signature. He went to the Judge Advocate General’s office on base to sign the papers but soon turned around. “It took three trips to get me to sign,” he says. “I was very reluctant.” Ultimately, it seemed like there

he says. “I didn’t think he’d ever come along.” He and Jason met last fall at Lownsdale’s seventeen-year-old son’s hockey game. “I saw him, and it was like I’d known him all my life,” Lownsdale says. Jason had started his search for his mother. Meeting Lownsdale was more unexpected. “Mom was easy, probably because I’ve been lacking one for 30 years,” he says. With Lownsdale, it was initially “more just two guys hanging out. It was not a bad thing.” As they have talked, Jason has noticed a familiarity in the way they speak and think. Both love hockey and, painfully, the Blues. Jason is working on a novel in his spare time, and Lownsdale has written a couple of unpublished books. “In a lot of ways, it felt like I was talking to myself, at least in my own mind,” Jason says.

ow that Jason has found his biological mother, new worlds have opened up. He has three half siblings on Harty’s side and four on Lownsdale’s. He is still tabulating the number of new nieces and nephews. He has met Harty’s father, his grandfather Bruce Piper, who used to be a hockey referee. “He’s a firecracker,” Jason says. “He’s 91, and I bet he could probably still put on skates and play.” He had always assumed vaguely that his roots spread beyond just his mother, but their nature and direction offer endless surprises and fascinations with each new Jason Reckamp and Karen Harty at their first meeting in 44 years. | COURTESY OF KAREN HARTY introduction. He and his newly discovered relatives are moving gingerly after “I figured for, I guess, the last was little he could do. He signed so much time apart. Separately, ten years that it wasn’t going to the forms, the baby was born and each says they are cautious not to Lownsdale served his time in the come on too strong. It is a balance happen,” he says. He was in the Army by the Army. He and Harty lost touch between making up for decades time Jason was born. He never while he was still in the service. He of lost time and also building saw him and imagines holding later went on to law school. He is new relationships among virtual the baby and then letting him go now an attorney and lives in Ches- strangers. “We’re like, ‘Join the fammust have been gut-wrenching terfield. He has four other kids and says he likes his life. “I don’t be- ily!’” says Harty’s oldest daughter, for Harty. Part of him still thinks they grudge anything,” he says. “It was 32-year-old Carissa Lovelace. “But could have made it as parents. all people doing what they thought you want to respect that he has He knows the odds were against was best.” But he never forgot his his own family that he’s grown up with.” them. They were so young in 1974, firstborn. Given his profession, he says he Out of all the half siblings he and he concedes it was likely the right call to put him up for adop- is surprised he did not hear about has met so far, Lovelace may be tion. Still, he looks back at his sev- the changes brought about by the the most like Jason. Their relaenteen-year-old self and wonders. Missouri Adoptee Rights Act. When tives describe both as deep think“I’m not so sure it was as right he got a Facebook message from ers who consider their words Harty one day, he was stunned. before speaking. But Harty also as everyone thinks,” he says. “I’d been looking and waiting,” Harty’s father, Bruce Piper, Continued on pg 19

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Jason and Karen Harty with (from left) Carissa Lovelace, Ryan Hoffman and Danielle Robinson. | COURTESY OF KAREN HARTY

HOW HE MET HIS MOTHER Continued from pg 17

sees similarities with other family members. Her youngest daughter Danielle is funny like Jason. Her son Ryan now spends Blues games

texting back and forth with his older brother. As for Harty, she still has only seen Jason in person about a halfdozen times, but they continue to text and talk on the phone, sometimes for hours. The relationship is still new.

“I hope that continues to grow,” she says. “I pray that it continues to grow.” Patterson, who made the first contacts between Jason and each parent, has watched him slowly lower his defenses, probably for the first time in his life.

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“I’m a little surprised how much he has thrown himself into this,” she says. “I’m happy for him.” Patterson thinks the bond will deepen naturally between Harty and Jason, in part because Harty’s outgoing nature will overcome his passive personality. But she worries that Jason’s and Lownsdale’s personalities are almost too similar and that they will get stuck, each waiting for the other to act first. “I’m afraid that Jim and Jason are going to miss that,” she says. Jason is not sorry for the way things worked out. He is close with his father, Ray Reckamp, and he still thinks about Judy every day. Still, these new connections help piece together a puzzle 44 years in the making. Talking to his birth father, he says, “I realized he wanted to do the right thing and take responsibility. I think that’s all you can ask from a sixteen-year-old kid.” He and Lownsdale text and call. Neither wants to upend the other’s life, but they are eager to get to know each other. In some ways, Lownsdale says, meeting Jason was like meeting a stranger who was also his best friend. “You’re not sure why,” he says, “but you’re with your family, and you know it.” n

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CALENDAR

BY PAUL FRISWOLD

Company Wayne McGregor is at the Touhill for one night only. | RICHARD DAVIES

THURSDAY 02/21 They/Them/Us

FRIDAY 02/22 Bits of Pieces

The impressive growth of the St. Louis theater scene has allowed a greater number and variety of voices to tell their own stories. The Q Collective, a group dedicated to presenting works by and about transgender, agender and genderfluid people, opens its second season with its inaugural Transluminate Festival. Transluminate features five short plays by local playwrights Charlie Meyers, Elon Ptah and J.D. Charles. Charles’ “Miss Arkansas” is about a transgender woman entering a beauty pageant, an act that infuriates another competitor. “Homebody,” by Ptah, shows how a black trans guy named Malcolm moves from self-loathing to self-love, while Meyers’ “Breanna” explores the relationship between Andy and Breanna, two former humans now living in android bodies in a futuristic, post-human society. Transluminate is performed at 7 p.m. Thursday and Friday and at 4:30 and 8 p.m. Saturday (February 21 to 23) at the Chapel (6238 Alexander Drive; theqcollective. theater). Tickets are $10 to $20.

Austrian-born artist Oliver Laric creates work that explores image creation and repetition, which he displays on both the museum and gallery circuit and the online realm. For his new exhibition, Currents 116: Oliver Laric, he presents his video animation Betweenness, which features repurposed mushrooms, people, anime characters and some snippets of the CT scan of the Saint Louis Art Museum’s mummy, Amen-NestawyNakht, all morphing into animals. The cycle of looped video blurs all of these borrowed images together, which reveals their shared shapes and forms. Laric also sculpted his own version of Reclining Pan (long on display in the museum’s gallery 236) using 3D scans of the original. He used the digital files to “print” sections of the sculpture in various materials on a 3D printer, which he then assembled. Currents 116: Oliver Laric is on display in galleries 249 and 250 from February 22 to May 27 at the Saint Louis Art Museum (1 Fine Arts Drive; www. slam.org). The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, and admission is free.

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Send Us an Angel Tony Kushner’s monumental drama Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches refracts the early days of the AIDS crisis through the prism of politics, religion, sex, the Red Scare, drugs and Antarctica. All of the characters and places are created by a smallish cast that must play young and old, dying and dead, and fantasy and reality. At the heart of all of this is a series of love stories that smash into the cold philosophy of its 1980s setting. “It’s everyone for themselves” is a horrible way to live and a worse way to die. The Washington University Performing Arts Department presents Millennium Approaches at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday (February 22 to March 3) at Washington University’s Edison Theatre (6445 Forsyth Boulevard; www.edison. wustl.edu). Tickets are $15 to $20.

Arch de Triumph You’re a St. Louisan, so you’re familiar with the blend of awe and pride inspired by the Gateway Arch. It’s a monument to westward expansion and the creation of America, sure, but it’s ours. Last year the Jefferson National

Type Hike: Arch celebrates our monument through the art of posters. | TYLER GROSS

Expansion Memorial became the country’s 60th national park. On the one-year anniversary of the declaration that made it official, Type Hike, a group that supports the outdoors through typography, presents Arch, a show and sale of 60 art-driven posters that depict our big shiny baby. They will be on display from 6 to 9:30 p.m. Friday,

WEEK OF FEBRUARY 21-27 February 22, at Brennan’s Work & Leisure (3015 Locust Street; www.typehike.com/arch). Admission is free, and proceeds from poster sales benefit the Gateway Arch Park Foundation. Afterward, some posters will be on display at the Arch through March 24.

SATURDAY 02/23 Italy Gras Mardi Gras is not just a French celebration. Most of Europe celebrates in the final days before the beginning of Lent, and Italy is no exception. The Italian Community of St. Louis invites you to party with them at Carnevale Veneziano, a Venetian-style blowout that’s also family friendly. Guests are encouraged to wear Venetian masks while dancing to the sounds of DJ Antonio Leone (he’s flying in from Puglia, Italy, for the gig) and partaking of a buffet dinner. Wine and beer are included in the ticket price ($25 to $65, free for kids five and younger), and the organizers have a couple surprises up their sleeves as well. Carnevale Veneziano takes place from 7 to 11 p.m. Saturday, February 23, at Mad Art Gallery (2727 South 12th Street; www.eventbrite.com).

example of haberdasher’s art.

WEDNESDAY 02/27 23 and He Wash U. presents Angels in America, Part One. | JERRY NAUNHEIM JR/WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY Sloppy Ds at D’s Place. Note that some venues are only participating on Saturday, so plan wisely to avoid disappointment.

24. It’s free to watch, and if you believe your dog has the charisma and “wow” factor to be named one of the best-dressed pets on parade, it’s only $10 to register a

Dance St. Louis brings Londonbased choreographer/director Wayne McGregor for the Midwestern premiere of McGregor’s most personal show, Autobiography. The piece takes its shape from the very building blocks of McGregor’s body, his DNA. He created 23 portraits in movement, one for each chromosome pair, after having his genome se-

Eat Soulard Mardi Gras’ culture of excess is not limited to alcohol. Fat Tuesday is the last stop before the restrictions of the Lenten season take effect, so people avail themselves of these final days to indulge their sweet tooth, meat tooth, Cajun tooth, et cetera. Taste of Soulard, which takes place from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday (February 23 and 44) throughout Soulard (Allen Avenue and Menard Street), allows revelers to sample Mardi Gras-inspired delights from local restaurants. Your $25 pass gets you one drink voucher and six food vouchers. You’re free to use them in any combination you choose at participating businesses. The menu is already online (www.stlmardigras.org/events/ taste-of-soulard), and it’s got everything from Tarte Flambe at Molly’s Bar & Restaurant to the

Oliver Laric, Austrian, born 1981; Betweenness, 2018; edition of 5 + 2 AP; HD video, duration: 4 min 35 sec; Courtesy of the artist, Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin and Metro Pictures, New York. LARIC-2017-0157 © Oliver Laric

SUNDAY 02/24 Dogs, Dashes and Haberdashers The costume traditions of Mardi Gras are not just for humans, and the Beggin’ Pet Parade is the proof. Beloved dogs who are comfortable wearing clothes, costumes or exotic outfits gather with their people at South 12th Street and Allen Avenue (www. stlmardigras.org/events/begginpet-parade) for the 1 p.m. parade of pooches on Sunday, February

single canine; the judges will select the most gloriously attired dogs for the Court of the Mystical Krewe of Barkus at the Coronation Pageant, where the King and Queen of Barkus will be anointed with their crowns. Registration fees help the Open Door Animal Sanctuary. And if you have a need for speed, don’t forget the Wiener Dog Derby, which always follows the parade and showcases the fastest dachshunds in the metro area competing for glory. Humans can flex their competitive muscles in the derby-hat contest, which challenges you to flaunt your best

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quenced. A computer algorithm resequences each of the 23 individual pieces prior to every show, so no two performances are alike. Company Wayne McGregor presents Autobiography, which features a score by electronic musician Jlin and set design and projections by Ben Cullen Williams, at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, February 27, at the Touhill Performing Arts Center on the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus (1 University Drive at Natural Bridge Road; www.touhill.org). Tickets for this once-in-a-lifetime show are $35 to $69. n

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Bobby’s Place is named after Bobby Plager, a former St. Louis Blues defenseman and cultural icon of the 70’s. Bobby’s Place is located in Valley Park and on Hampton Ave., and both locations offer their respective neighborhoods are a place where our patrons can feel at home. Bobby’s Place is known for their wide variety of ﬂavors of Chicken Wings, their fresh meat Hamburgers and Chicken Sandwiches, and their not too thin Pizzas that come out on a rectangular metal tray. A wide assortment of freshly made appetizers, sandwiches, salads and pastas can be enjoyed while watching any of your favorite sports on the many ﬂat screen TVs throughout the Bar & Grill. Beer you say? Well we have 16 local and regional tap handles of your favorites and countless bottles and cans to wet your whistle. Bobby’s Place is known for a $6.99 daily lunch special and a wide variety of drink specials. There is always something going on at Bobby’s Place, whether that something is Trivia Night, Beer Pong, DJ Music, or live bands. A full bar with signature drinks and shots will compliment a good night out with friends at Bobby’s Place.

As one of the premier vegetarian restaurants in the St. Louis area, Frida’s has earned accolades for serving hearty meals that are as tasty as they are nourishing. Owners Natasha Kwan-Roloff (also the executive chef) and Rick Roloff elevate vegetarian cuisine by marrying high-quality, local ingredients with innovative flavors. All items are made from scratch, have no butter or sugar and use little to no oil – but with the flavors and creativity at Frida’s, you won’t miss anything. The University City restaurant’s newest hit is the Impossible Burger – a massive plant-based patty that has the texture and juiciness of meat and often fools carnivores. Frida’s award-winning signature namesake burger is no slouch, either, with its tahini-chipotle slaw topping and local bun. The menu also boasts decadent favorites like tacos, wraps, pizzas and desserts, and a new Sunday brunch that just launched in April. Beer and wine are available, and many of Frida’s menu items can be modified for vegan or gluten-free diners.

BLK MKT EATS

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The fast-fresh, made-to-order concept has been applied to everything from pizza to pasta in St. Louis, but the sushi burrito surprisingly had no Gateway City home until BLK MKT Eats opened near Saint Louis University last fall. It was worth the wait, though, because BLK MKT Eats combines bold flavors and convenience into a perfectly wrapped package that’s ideal for those in a rush. Cousins and co-owners Kati Fahrney and Ron Turigliatto offer a casual menu full of high-quality, all-natural ingredients that fit NOT right YOUR AVERAGE SUSHI SPOT everything you love about sushi and burritos in your hand. The Swedish Fish layers Scandinavian 9 SOUTH VANDEVENTER DINE-IN, OR DELIVERY MON-SAT 11AM-9PM cured salmon, yuzu dill slaw, Persian cucumbers and avocado for aTAKEOUT fresh flavor explosion. Another favorite, the OG Fire, features your choice of spicy tuna or salmon alongside tempura crunch, masago, shallots, jalapeño and piquant namesake sauce; Persian cucumbers and avocado soothe your tongue from the sauce’s kick. All burrito rolls come with sticky rice wrapped in nori or can be made into poké bowls, and all items can be modified for vegetarians.

Housed in a retro service station, J. Smugs GastroPit serves up barbecue that can fuel anyone’s fire. Married teams of Joe and Kerri Smugala and John and Linda Smugala have brought charred goodness to the Hill neighborhood, nestled among the traditional Italian restaurants, sandwich shops and bakeries. Part of St. Louis’ ongoing barbecue boom, the J. Smugs’ pit menu is compact but done right. Ribs are the main attraction, made with a spicy dry rub and smoked to perfection. Pulled pork, brisket, turkey and chicken are also in the pit holding up well on their own, but squeeze bottles of six tasty sauces of varying style are nearby for extra punch. Delicious standard sides and salads are available, but plan on ordering an appetizer or two J. Smugs gives this course a twist with street corn and pulled-pork poutine. Several desserts are available, including cannoli – a tasty nod to the neighborhood. Happy hour from 4 to 7pm on weekdays showcases half-dollar BBQ tastes, discount drinks, and $6 craft beer flights to soothe any beer aficionado.

CARNIVORE STL

THE BLUE DUCK

BLKMKTEATS.COM

JSMUGSGASTROPIT.COM

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Carnivore fills a nearly 4,000-square-foot space on The Hill with a dining area, bar lounge, and adjoining outdoor patio gracefully guarded by a bronze steer at the main entrance. Always embracing change, Joe and Kerri Smugala, with business partners Chef Mike and Casie Lutker, launched Carnivore STL this summer. As the Hill’s only steakhouse, Carnivore offers a homestyle menu at budget-friendly prices appealing to the neighborhood’s many families. Steak, of course, takes center stage with juicy filet mignon, top sirloin, strip steak and ribeye leading the menu. Customize any of the succulent meats with sautéed mushrooms, grilled shrimp, or melted housemade butters, such as garlic-and-herb and red wine reduction, on top of the flame-seared steak. Other main dishes include a thick-cut pork steak (smoked at J. Smugs) and the grilled chicken with capers and a white wine-lemon-butter sauce. St. Louis Italian traditions get their due in the Baked Ravioli, smothered in provel cheese and house ragu, and in the Arancini, risotto balls stuffed with provel and swimming in a pool of meat sauce. With an exciting new brunch menu debuting for Saturday and Sunday, Carnivore should be everyone’s new taste of the Hill.

There aren’t many businesses named after Adam Sandler movies, but at the Blue Duck, the food is as whimsical as its “Billy Madison” reference. Originally founded in Washington, Mo., owners Chris and Karmen Rayburn opened the Blue Duck’s Maplewood outpost in 2017, bringing with them a seasonal menu full of American comfort-food dishes that are elevated with a dash of panache. Start the meal with the savory fried pork belly, which is rubbed with coffee and served with a sweet bbq sauce and root vegetable slaw. For the main event, the Duck’s signature DLT sandwich substitutes succulent smoked duck breast instead of the traditional bacon, adding fried egg and honey chipotle mayo along with lettuce and tomato on toasted sourdough. Save room for dessert; the Blue Duck’s St. Louberry pie – strawberries and blueberries topped with a gooey buttercake-like surface – is a worthy tribute to the Gateway City.

RIVERFRONT TIMES

FEBRUARY 20 - 26, 2019

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FILM

[REVIEW]

Nothing to See Here In Never Look Away, romance eases the iron grip of totalitarianism Written by

ROBERT HUNT Never Look Away Written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. Starring Tom Schilling, Paula Beer and Sebastian Koch. Now playing at the Landmark Plaza Frontenac Cinema.

t was perhaps inevitable that the Cold War would become the fallback subject matter for today’s European filmmakers with a historical bent, just as the two world wars were for their predecessors. Like Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Never Look Away uses Soviet-dominated Europe as the backdrop for a fairly conventional love story, viewing the era mostly with a kind of nostalgia. Set in East Germany, the film depicts the yearning not only for the forbidden fruit of the decadent West (the bourgeoisie freely listen to “Papa-Oom-MowMow”), but also for the bad old days themselves. An oppressive system doesn’t seem all that bad when you’re young and in love. Spanning roughly a quartercentury, Never Look Away is a rambling film with a simple central plot. Ambitious young painter Kurt Barnert (Tom Schilling) wins the love of fellow student Ellie (Paula Beer), daughter of a prominent but overbearing doctor, while laboring to find his own vision under the constraints of Soviet realism. The period setting and political signposts are just elaborate window dressing for a familiar story of love overcoming disapproval, where the demands of a party line are far less urgent than the pressure of awkwardly meeting your mate’s parents for the first time. Nominated for two Academy Awards (for best foreign film as well as for Caleb Deschanel’s cinematography), it’s a sprawl-

Saskia Rosendahl as Elisabeth May. | CALEB DESCHANEL, COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES CLASSICS ing mess of a film, endearing but empty. Von Donnersmarck aims for an epic, complete with weighty themes and historical significance, but the pieces don’t really add up. It covers a lot of territory — Nazism, the bombing of Dresden, forced sterilization, cultural totalitarianism, post-war rehabilitation, even painting versus photography — but it’s all just historical namedropping, contrivances that tie together narrative loose ends. The opening scenes during the Nazi years tell the story of a young girl driven to madness and death by the state and provide a bit of back story for one character. It also establishes a tenuous historical connection to the later events by reminding us that the Nazis also disliked “decadent art.” After two hours of digression and a considerable amount of time spent presenting Beer sans clothing, the art world takes prominence in the film’s final hour, as Kurt and Ellie end up in a prestigious school in Dusseldorf. Dominated by a sphinx-like professor (modeled after Joseph Beuys), the art school circa 1960 is a hotbed of late modernism — which turns out to be exactly like a TV sitcom’s version of modern art from that same era. Students shoot arrows into canvases, naked boys roll paint over their bodies and paint-covered gymnasts turn

somersaults across rolls of paper. Kurt struggles to find the big theoretical idea that will drive his work. He does, but von Donnersmarck manages to treat his achievement as both portentous — his paintings appear to tie up most of the film’s plot lines — and trivial. After three hours of showing Kurt’s aesthetic struggle, the film ultimately dismisses art as irrelevant, merely a sign of his dedication. This applies not only to Kurt’s faddish shifts of style but to art in general: Ellie’s own ambitions to design clothes are mostly dropped the second Kurt asks her for a date, and the other artists and students mostly function as buddies cheering on the young hero. There’s a curious contradiction at the heart of Never Look Away, one that ultimately diminishes its emotional resonance and makes nonsense of its Twentieth-Century European History for Dummies approach. Von Donnersmarck clearly wants the viewer to empathize with his young couple. But while he’s made them likable, he’s left out any other human characteristic. They’re surrounded by powerful forces and monumental events, yet they barely notice. Never Look Away is history told with a shrug; its protagonists move through cataclysmic events with an irrelevance that makes Forrest Gump look like an action hero. n

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CAFE

[REVIEW]

Return of the Native Nick Bognar has turned his family’s Nippon Tei into one of the city’s best restaurants Written by

CHERYL BAEHR Nippon Tei 14025 Manchester Road, Ballwin; 636-3868999. Tues.-Thurs. 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. and 5-9 p.m.; Fri. 11:30 a.m.-2 p.m. and 5-10 p.m.; Sat. 5-11 p.m.; Sun. 5-9 p.m. (Closed Mondays.)

ot long after returning to Nippon Tei, the west county Japanese restaurant he basically grew up in, Nick Bognar ran into an old friend who had been dining there for years. Happy to see a familiar face, the friend asked Bognar what it was like being back in the same place where he started cooking. For Bognar, the answer was simple: “I’m not.” Technically speaking, Bognar is indeed back where it all began — in a strip-mall storefront at Manchester and Weidman roads, cooking and preparing sushi at the restaurant his mom opened when he was just ten years old. And yet, these days, the place is utterly transformed, with Bognar himself serving as the catalyst. Now that he’s in the kitchen, Nippon Tei is not simply a different restaurant — it’s the best sushi restaurant in town. His roots in this kitchen are deep. As a kid, Bognar helped his mom by rolling crab Rangoon and egg rolls and eventually learning how to prepare sushi. The kitchen spoke to Bognar in ways that school did not, and he began taking culinary courses through a local technical college while he was still in high school. After graduation, he enrolled in culinary school at St. Louis Community College-Forest Park, all while continuing to assist at Nippon Tei. Though he worked at a few different places around town, namely his family’s other restaurant,

Surrender yourself to the chef’s choice for sashimi moriawase and you could get sublime cuts of salmon, yellowfin tuna and mackerel. | MABEL SUEN Tei Too, as well as Wasabi Sushi Bar, Bognar felt that he needed to get away to cultivate his own culinary identity. In Austin, Texas, he got a job at the renowned Japanese restaurant Uchiko. The experience proved seminal, pushing Bognar to rethink much of what he had learned not just about sushi, but also what it meant to be a restaurant professional. He used his experience at Uchiko to land a gig in Cincinnati designing and then running the sushi program at a new restaurant. After a few years, however, his mother told him she wanted to shake things up at Nippon Tei. Though the restaurant was a success, it was approaching the two-decades mark, and she felt it needed to be refreshed. She invited Bognar to return not simply as an employee, but as co-owner, with complete creative control over the restaurant’s direction. Bognar seized upon the opportunity to create a dining concept that would pair what he learned in Austin and Cincinnati with his ambition to keep pushing himself in his craft. In the summer of 2017, he indeed found himself back at Nippon Tei — and got to work on its transformation. Walking into the restaurant,

you might not immediately realize how dramatic the change has been. Bognar has kept the utilitarian black-accented blonde wooden tables and chairs, Japaneseinspired artwork and red and slate-blue color palette. As soon as you are seated, however, you’ll see a menu that has been completely rethought. Some of the Japanese staples from the former Nippon Tei are still there, but they’ve been refreshed by Bognar’s deft hands. Gyoza, the ubiquitous dumpling dish, is unlike any other version in town, their wrappers paperthin and crisped so that they form little fried crunchy bits around the edges. Inside, minced pork and chicken are enlivened with fried garlic and scallions, giving each bite a pungent kick. They’re exquisite golden-fried wonders, as are the tempura prawns, which feature tender shellfish coated in a light-as-air batter. Aioli made with shiso, an herbaceous, leafy plant, adds a verdant note. Hamachi crudo and tuna tartare provide a sneak peek of Bognar’s skills with raw fish. For the former, slices of the pearlescent fish are dressed with ponzu, then accented with small slivers of orange. Pops of heat in the form of

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tiny sliced chiles break through the sweet citrus. Both the sweet and spice enhance, but do not cover up, the shockingly fresh hamachi. The tartare pairs cubes of tuna the color of rubies with Thai chiles and shiso aioli. The combination of spice and refreshment is exquisite, but the highlight of the dish comes from the slivers of cashews tossed in with the fish. The nuts provide a contrasting crunch that is simply stunning. Studded with black sesame, the accompanying rice crisps are useful not only for eating the tuna, but add dramatic visual appeal, sitting aside the fish like large waves of water. Bognar offers Japanese A5 Wagyu beef (the highest grade) for guests to sear over a hot stone. You can tell just by looking at the shockingly marbled slivers of meat that this will be a superb dish, and as soon as the beef starts to sizzle on the rock, the intoxicating aroma confirms it. All it needs is about ten seconds on each side — enough to give it a bit of caramelization but not so much as to overcook it. When it’s finished, it positively melts on the tongue as if it were beef butter. Bognar smartly pairs it with ponzu to cut

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NIPPON TEI

Continued from pg 27

through the richness, but I wanted nothing to interfere with the taste of pure, meaty pleasure. I hesitated to order the chickenfried rice but was persuaded by my server, and I will be eternally grateful for her insistence. This is, unquestionably, the best chickenfried rice I have had, and probably will ever have, in my life, a deeply savory and umami-laden dish of pure comfort. Grains of rice, slicked with oil and soy sauce, are fried with onion, egg, carrot, scallion and hunks of chicken thigh that are so succulent, you’d think they were poached in butter. The dish’s piece de resistance, however, is the fried garlic that Bognar liberally adds to the mix, giving it a deeply pungent undertone that lingers long after you’ve had your first bite. It’s haunting. No less impressive are the chile garlic noodles. Here, long, medium-sized noodles are tossed with braised short ribs, resulting in the noodles being gilded with beef fat and cooking jus. Bognar underscores the intense beefy flavor with funky black garlic, roasted chiles and togarashi gremolata to counter the richness. If Bognar were not such a sushi powerhouse, he could open a restaurant serving only these noodles and have a line out the door. But Bognar is indeed a sushi powerhouse, and what he is doing for the form in St. Louis is nothing short of breathtaking. Of course, he offers several varieties of rolls, and although they share names and basic composition with what you’ll see at other local

Chef Nick Bognar has transformed his mother’s longtime restaurant. | MABEL SUEN sushi spots, they differ in quality and care. A spicy tuna roll, for instance, places the beautiful, jewel-toned fish center stage, with the chile oil, subtly sweet chile-garlic sauce and tempura crunchies playing supporting rolls. A “Zen Maki” pairs spicy crab with salmon sashimi and salmon roe, the richness undercut by preserved lemon. Another highlight is the “Sake San” roll, which takes the sashimi salmon and salmon roe of the “Zen Maki” and wraps it around a center of spicy salmon skin. This not only deepens the salmon flavor but also adds a welcome crunch that is enhanced by lightly torching the roll. As satisfying as the makimono may be, the sashimi and nigiri offerings are the best ways to expe-

rience what Bognar is capable of doing. You can order à la carte, but you’d be better served by having the chef compose a selection for you in his sashimi moriawase. Here, Bognar and his team assemble twelve pieces of the evening’s best sashimi offerings, presenting them as if they are presenting the sea’s bounty to Poseidon himself. Yellowfin tuna as meaty as filet mignon, salmon so luscious it coats the tongue, sake toro, or salmon belly that is like salmon’s more voluptuous and sexier best friend — together they are composed like a centerpiece, garnished with roe, leafy vegetables and accoutrements. It’s an edible masterpiece. But even if you tear into the sashimi moriawase, you should be much more intentional with the

nigiri omakase. A five-piece affair meant to be enjoyed by one person per order, it’s like a miniature tasting menu, each fish a progression. It might begin with the soft opening lines of something as delicate as hirame, kissed with just a whisper of citrus, and work up to the crescendo of otoro, or tuna belly, its thick, meaty flesh a revelation. Bognar is so restrained, yet so proficient, he allows the impossibly fresh fish to speak for itself, adding only a touch of enhancement, such as chives or zest, here and there. That restraint is shown on Nippon Tei’s signature dessert, the Japanese cheesecake, which is decidedly less rich than its name suggests. Here, yuzu curd replaces the standard cream-cheeseand-lemon concoction typical of American-style cheesecakes, resulting in a fluffy, citrus-forward confection that is accented with almond praline. It’s a satisfying end to the meal that doubles as a palate refresher. If you are lucky enough to get a seat at the counter, you can enjoy all this while watching Bognar in action, commanding his small line of cooks with the confidence of someone who is a master in his craft. You’d think he’d been doing this forever, and in a sense, he has — right here and somewhere entirely different, all at the same time. Nevermind if he’s back where he started or in an entirely new place. At Nippon Tei, he’s exactly where he needs to be.

Nippon Tei Gyoza ........................................................... $7 Chile garlic noodles .................................. $18 Nigiri omakase.......................................... $18

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SHORT ORDERS

[SIDE DISH]

How Brad Phillips Got in the Driver’s Seat Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

lcohol was never something Brad Phillips had to hide from his parents, even as a teenager. In his family, exploring wine, beer and spirits was not only tolerated, it was encouraged. “For me, my interest really started at an early age,” Phillips explains. “My family had always been interested in cocktails, wine and great beer, so I was always around it. As I got older and was able to consume these things legally, I was naturally inquisitive and began asking questions.” Now the beverage manager at Blood and Sand (1500 St. Charles Street, 314-241-7263), as well as president of the St. Louis Chapter of the U.S. Bartenders Guild, Phillips traces his start in the industry back to those teenaged years. Growing up near the Lake of the Ozarks, he got a summer job waiting tables at one of the area’s nicest restaurants, where he learned the ins and outs of fine dining. The industry appealed to him, but he did not choose to pursue it as a career. Instead, he went away to college to study political science and sociology. During his time at school, he had the luxury of not having to work, and he used that time explore the restaurant business as a customer. “I’m not an avid chef, so I thought it was best to let others make dinner for me,” Phillips laughs. “In doing that, I got to experience a lot of different foods — the good and the ugly — and would make mental notes about what I liked and didn’t like.” After finishing graduate school, Phillips returned to the industry, working on the bar side of the

Growing up near the Lake of the Ozarks, Brad Phillips discovered alcohol at an early age. Only later did he explore it as a career. | JEN WEST business. Though he loved making drinks and managing bar programs, he felt the corporate world’s pull and left the business for jobs in finance and then retail. Though he was making good money, he felt disconnected from work, spending his days on conference calls and feeling out of touch with the customer. Still, Phillips stuck with it until fate intervened. His job was eliminated when his company went through a restructuring, and though he was offered a position in another part of the business, he saw the situation as his chance to make a change. Phillips got back into bartending, working at the Feasting Fox in Dutchtown before landing at Blood and Sand, the acclaimed cocktail-focused bar and restaurant downtown. Unlike in his corporate gig, where he felt a lack of connection with the customer, his current job allows him to share his passion with his guests, educate his staff and, through his work at the bartenders’ guild, champion the St. Louis bar scene on the national level. “I always tell my team that when

a guest sits in your chair, they are a guest in your home,” Phillips says. “They may ultimately make decisions, but you are in the driver’s seat and need to take them on that journey.” Looking back, Phillips may have taken a few detours on his own journey to bartending, but he feels the better for it. He knows he is exactly where he is meant to be. “In retail, I lost touch of why I did what I did because I didn’t ever see a real customer,” Phillips explains. “Now, I love what I do. I think everything happens for a reason.” Phillips took a break from the bar to share his thoughts on the St. Louis food-and-beverage scene, his dream night of barhopping, and the candy that gets him every time. What is one thing people don’t know about you that you wish they did? I am pretty much an open book. Maybe people don’t know that I wish I didn’t share as much as I do. What daily ritual is non-negotiable for you? My daily cup of coffee and yo-

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gurt. When I am traveling, I often bring yogurt just in case the place I am staying doesn’t have any. If you could have any superpower, what would it be? Speed. I want to get from point A to point B as fast as possible. The time spent traveling is exhausting. What is the most positive trend in food, beer, wine or cocktails that you’ve noticed in St. Louis over the past year? The art of pairing. There are so many immersive experiences in the dining scene here that allow you to really take the guest on a trip through the pairing. It is quite exciting to see. What is one thing missing or that you’d like to see in the local food-and-beverage scene? Better ice programs. Ice could arguably be the most important ingredient in a cocktail, but it is often overlooked. Creating a custom ice program is the next step for St. Louis. Who is your St. Louis food or drink crush? I have many. Logan Ely at Savage is doing amazing things. Tim

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BRAD PHILLIPS Continued from pg 31

Wiggins at Yellowbelly and Retreat is the new force in food-andbeverage development. Gerard Craft and Ben Poremba are individuals I look up to in regards to concept development and execution. Terry Oliver at Frazer’s is always trying to push the envelope of cocktail development even if the city is not ready for it. Tai Nalewajko at Blue Ocean is always making me jealous of his cocktail creations. And I have to recognize Ted Kilgore at Planter’s House for being the consummate professional and a sounding board when one is needed. Who’s the one person to watch right now in the St. Louis food-and-

beverage scene? Kira Webster at the Bao is killing it. Her ability to take simple ideas and turn them into something magical is really neat to see. Charlie Martin and Morgaine Segura from Olive + Oak are well known in the scene, but they are the ones I look to to see what is new to come. Which ingredient is most representative of your personality? Amari. Bitter is better, they say. I love how this category is finally catching on across the city and we, as beverage professionals, are getting the opportunity to explore the category’s versatility with the guest. If someone asked you to describe the current state of St. Louis’ foodand-beverage climate, what would you say?

Emerging. The scene is pushing the envelope of what is acceptable to the guest in regards to price point, ingredients and combinations. If you were not tending bar, what would you be doing? I’d be a lawyer. Name an ingredient never allowed behind your bar. Rose’s grenadine. What is your after-work hangout? I have several, quite frankly. If I was to envision the perfect evening, I would get off early and head to Taste and say hi to Nick [Digiovanni] and grab some fries. I would then head over to the Haunt and grab a beer, a shot of whiskey and a shot of tequila. Next, I’d go to Whiskey Ring and say hi to John [Joern] and see what new treasure was hiding in

the cabinet. Then a jaunt over to South Grand would be in order, and I’d stop in at CBGB and have my Stag and a neat pour of something fun. I would end my night at Mangia and get to say hi to those who had to work later than me. What’s your edible or quaffable guilty pleasure? Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. I cannot get enough. I have been accused of having an obsession. I can live with that. What would be your last meal on earth? A roasted whole fish of any kind with root vegetables. A bottle of anything French would be in order. If I had my way, I would start with some Champagne, vintage of course, then some Chinon Blanc, then Cab Franc, and would end with a wonderful pour of cognac. n

[FIRST LOOK]

Balkan Eatery Is a Dream Come True Written by

TOM HELLAUER

n a quiet February morning, Loryn Nalic lit the wood-fired oven at Balkan Treat Box (8103 Big Bend, Webster Groves; 314-733-5700), warmly illuminating the space holding the new brick-and-mortar location for her wildly popular food truck of the same name. As the flames danced in front of her, Nalic was flooded with emotion — her dream of owning a restaurant was actualized. She remembered working as a server, bartender, pastry chef and just about every role in the restaurant business along the way. “You name it, I’ve done it,” she says. The moment was “intense ... hard to put into words,” Loryn says. “I’m just so grateful.” But though she had dreamt of living above her restaurant, she and her husband, Edo Nalic, settled for next door instead, after the neighboring space that used to house Stratton’s Cafe became available. “They just don’t make [buildings] like they used to,” Loryn jokes. While the couple enjoyed critical acclaim and financial success with the food truck, owning a restaurant “was always the plan,” Loryn says. Patrons can expect the same creative Bosnian-inspired recipes that made the truck a hit, only this time with an expanded menu made possible by having more space and storage. One of the truck’s calling cards, a wood-burning oven, is also a sizable, copper-finished highlight of the new restaurant. Its warmth and delicious aromas emanate from just behind the counter for

RIVERFRONT TIMES

You can get your pide without standing in line at a food truck now that Balkan Treat Box is open in Webster Groves. | TOM HELLAUER customers to admire. It gets put to use too, with each of the menu’s various breads baking inside before finding their way onto a dish. “It’s the small imperfections ... those little blisters,” Edo says, that make the bread just right. Favorites such as the pide, a woodfired flat bread with a choice of protein or veggies along with herbs, kajmak, ajvar and more, are made ready-to-order. While Edo hails from Bosnia originally and spent time in Little Bosnia’s restaurant scene, the Nalics combine and fuse other flavors from the Balkan region. Turkish, Croatian and other influences show up on the menu. “We want to broaden the spectrum,” Edo says. “We don’t want to focus on one narrow [identity].” He recalls a Turkish customer excited

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to try the lahmacun pide. “If it was just Bosnian, he would not be coming,” Edo says. “It’s just fun to watch everyone experience it,” Loryn adds. In that spirit, most offerings are available as vegetarian and vegan options, furthering Balkan Treat Box’s inclusivity. The space also shows the touches of a community, with the Nalics, family members and friends coming together to renovate the 1,825-square-foot spot. Edo’s father shaped and built the wood oven. Loryn hand-made the light fixtures, sawed more than 2,000 blocks of wood for a decorative wall and built the copper sculpture of the Balkan states now hanging in the restaurant. “I’m a plumber’s daughter,” Loryn says of her handiness. “We have wonderful friends and family that stepped up and really gave us a

push. The restaurant community started feeding us every day,” Edo says. “Thank goodness, because we were broke,” Loryn adds. The restaurant, which opened February 13, is fast casual (customers order at the counter), and hours are flexible at this point, dependent on supply. The Nalics aim to get their liquor license by April, although they are unsure which wine and spirits will make the cut. The Nalics seem to be well at home in the popular stretch of Big Bend, literally and metaphorically. They aim to be here for the long term, hoping to pass down the eatery to their two children who haven’t quite grown an interest for the food industry — yet. “We want to be here. This is our life and this is what we want to do with it,” Loryn says. n

[BARS]

New Grove Bar Aims for High Fidelity

new cocktail lounge plans to open in the ground floor of the Chroma apartments in the Grove, promising “a cultural exchange of Japaneseand American-inspired art.” The duo behind the project, Sean Baltzell and Casey Colgan, are the pair behind Parlor. Also located in the Grove, that bar opened in 2017 with a fleet of arcade games. The new bar will be called Takashima Records. They’re promising a space that features more than 5,000 records on display and “flash art cues,” befitting Baltzell’s other job as a tattoo artist. In a press release, the pair explained, “The focus is on the cocktail list, offering both classic and designer drinks with artistic precision. But, the vinyl sets the tone. Local, national and international DJs put music on display with no limit to

Takashima Records’ stylish look is inspired by Japanese design. | COURTESY OF V THREE STUDIOS genre. Deep cuts and b-sides from your favorite funk, soul, hip hop, boogie, blues, classic R&B and rock create a new-but-known vibe where your only choice is to stay for one more cut.” In addition to cocktails, Takashima Records promises to of-

fer small plates and a beer-andwine list. “Our goal is to further St. Louis’ reputation as a leader in cocktail culture, creating an immersive experience where groups of friends can gather, enjoy and be engaged in the music,” Baltzell said in a press release.

The newly opened Chroma complex is located on the eastern gateway to the Grove at 4041 Chouteau (basically the corner of Chouteau and Manchester). Baltzell and Colgan hope to open on site by year’s end. —Sarah Fenske

Authentic MexicAn Food, Beer, And MArgAritAs!

2817 cherokee st. st. Louis, Mo 63118 314.762.0691 onco.coM www.tAqueriAeLBr riverfronttimes.com

FEBRUARY 20 - 26, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

FEBRUARY 20 - 26, 2019

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MUSIC & CULTURE

[HOMESPUN]

SoulphistiPoppin’ Ace jazz session player Jesse Gannon drops his first solo release in five years Written by

CHRISTIAN SCHAEFFER

esse Gannon plays a neat little trick on “Whatever,” the opening track of his new self-titled EP, the singer and pianist’s first release in five years. As the song opens he plays richly melodic jazz changes over an increasingly insistent and flurried rhythm section, but right at the halfway mark, the instrumental track is infused with his laconic but soulful vocals. “I appreciate both sides of the coin,” Gannon says of the song’s mix of jazz composition and soul attitude. “I also liked how the electronic broth on the intro, the ambient rubato thing I did, turned out nicer than I thought it would. I always wanted to start a record like that.” That quick-change transition sets the scene for an album that mixes neo-soul vibes and jazz chops with Gannon’s smooth vocals. It’s a skillset he has developed as a solo artist and bandleader — his 2013 album Future Vintage was a solid introduction to his talents — but most weeks he keeps busy as an in-demand session player and music director. He often gigs with artists including Lamar Harris, Anita Jackson and Rev. Sekou. Talking by phone on a recent Monday morning, Gannon is in the middle of a late breakfast at the Goody Goody Diner on the north side after a few hours of working as an Uber and Lyft driver. “This might be the slowest January so far,” Gannon says of his side work, noting that a busy holiday season in December usually leads to a fallow period. “It might have to do with the pendulous effect of my clientele. I have several singers in St. Louis that I play with, so

The new songs serve as a long-awaited follow-up to Jesse Gannon’s 2013 album Future Vintage. | NATE BURRELL I’m only busy depending on how often they’re gigging.” A slow January gives him time to reflect on his new EP, as his solo project often takes a back seat to his other steady gigs. Not only does focusing on his own project take time away from other paid work, he sometimes finds it hard to place his output in the greater scene of St. Louis music. “As far as my original project goes, there’s no real scene for that in St. Louis, this straddle-y soul/ jazz soulphistipop thing,” Gannon says. “It’s jazz, but most jazz musicians wouldn’t call it jazz; I don’t swing that hard.” That term “soulphistipop” is Gannon’s own portmanteau, his word for his mix of soulful, sophisticated pop music. He cites legends like Quincy Jones, Curtis Mayfield and George Duke as influences and exemplars of the form, but plenty of the vibes on the new EP owe a debt to hip-hop and sample culture. Local emcee Thelonious Kryptonite guests on the track “Doctor Spin,” and a host of local soul and jazz phenoms (Jharis Yokley and Dhoruba Shakur on drums, Teddy Brookins

and Bob DeBoo on bass) support Gannon’s work on acoustic piano, Fender Rhodes and analog synth. “The Rhodes is one of the best sounds to ever occur to a human ear,” he says of his beloved electric piano. “I just love it. Being that my foundation is a jazz vernacular, neo-soul comes out of that tradition.” A song like “Ecstacy,” with its dreamy, slow-burn groove, may recall the more syrupy jams from the likes of Maxwell or D’Angelo, but eventually Gannon’s vocals dissipate into the mist to allow the horn players a chance to marinate in the song’s stair-stepping structure. “I can write a tune that I might think is a good jazz tune, and then add lyrics to it and add a backbeat to it and pow!” Gannon says. “The goal was to put some sugar in the medicine and make something that is interesting and catchy.” While this is Gannon’s first solo release in some time, he and his bandmates have honed the songs over the years with gigs at the Dark Room and through Gannon’s role as a Kranzberg Arts Foundation artist-in-residence. “Teddy has known the stuff for

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a while; so did Dhoruba,” Gannon says of the material on the EP. “A lot of how I get arrangements is doing it live. That’s sort of the tradition of the straight-ahead jazz world; everybody syncs into the groove. “It also helps when the music means a lot to you; people seem to notice,” Gannon says of choosing musicians to collaborate with. “I tend to surround myself with people who like me because I’m a narcissistic pig. Professionalism is important, but it’s good to connect on a human level and not rely on professionalism alone.” That mix of razor-sharp chops and the hard-to-define quality of being a good hang is an alchemy that Gannon shoots for in his own project, and in his role as sideman and music director for other artists. “I’m trying to make the show that I’m a part of as dope possible,” Gannon says. “I got that from Miles Davis; if you hire the right people you don’t have to say shit.”

Jesse Gannon Record Release 8 p.m. Friday, February 22. The Bootleg at Atomic Cowboy, 4140 Manchester Avenue. Free. 314-775-0775.

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RIVERFRONT TIMES

[TELEVISION]

Papa Ray Plots Career as ‘Bourdain of Vinyl’ Written by

DANIEL HILL

he video opens on the inside of Vintage Vinyl. The lights are on but the record store is empty, save for a single man — Tom “Papa” Ray, the shop’s owner — who stands on the slightly raised perch behind the DJ booth on the right-hand wall. Holding a pair of records aloft, he speaks in an instructional tone. “This is a media storage unit called an LP,” he says. “And this is a media storage unit called a seveninch 45. Now, these have both been around the block. But you know, each one of these sounds better than your iPod or that mp3.” As the familiar crackle of the opening seconds of Oliver Sain’s “St. Louis Breakdown” rises in the background, Ray addresses the camera directly. “The question is: What else are they lying to you about?” So begins the first episode of Papa Ray’s Vintage Vinyl Roadshow, a fledgling production focusing on one of St. Louis’ most beloved institutions and the man who has owned and operated it for decades. Ray has joined forces with a group of producers and media professionals in the hopes of turning it into a series. With networks showing early interest after a November trip to Santa Monica to shop the concept around, the team has begun filming 22-minute shows in earnest. The idea could have been a disaster. Its seed was planted three years ago, when a former Vintage Vinyl employee-turned-producer pitched Ray on a reality show centered on the store. But current staffers rejected the concept. “I was at first surprised, but then admiring of my staff for refusing to have anything to do with it,” Ray says. “So I said to this guy, ‘If all you want is a record store as a backdrop for the obnoxious mating habits of twenty-somethings, that ain’t happening.’” The idea still lingered in Ray’s

RIVERFRONT TIMES

In his first episode, Tom “Papa” Ray explains the difference between a 45 and an LP — and why they’ll always be superior to mp3s. | SCREENSHOT mind, and with a new producer by the name of Brad Hodge, he came up with a concept that would be less Real World and more of a docuseries focused on the independent record store as a cultural entity. “The pitch I was giving was this,” Ray says. “What does it mean to be an independent urban record store in a city that is one of the great foundation cities of music in the world — we gave the world ragtime, jazz, blues, soul, rock & roll, gospel — and yet somehow is always in the top-ten list of cities to avoid? Especially after Ferguson, we are now branded as the Selma, Alabama, of the 21st century. So what does it mean to be that rarest of things in a city like that: a racial neutral zone? And what is the connection of music to culture, culture to music? “And by the way,” he adds, “what was your first record?” That final question plays an important role in the first episode’s outset, with a slew of customers, employees and musicians alike recounting their earliest vinyl purchases. Josh Peyton, the eponymous frontman of Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band, for example, cites his first as a Prince record, though he quickly admits he had no idea who Prince was and just thought he looked cool. From there the episode explores the history of Vintage Vinyl, splicing in archival footage and videos from in-store performances and signing events. There are shots of Jeff Tweedy, Megadeth, Slayer,

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“I thought about it for a while and I said, ‘Well, there’s two shows on TV about fucking cupcakes. Why not?’” Linkin Park, the Flaming Lips, Rob Zombie, the Black Eyed Peas, Ike Turner and on and on. We’re told of the time Queens of the Stone Age gave a midnight performance at the store; the time the Beastie Boys arrived sans entourage and dropped some $300 on jazz records; the time Tenacious D did an in-store (Ray informed Jack Black that his turn as an obnoxious record-store employee in the 2000 film High Fidelity was so good, it compelled Ray to update the store’s employee handbook with a list of what not to do). Loop impresario Joe Edwards predictably makes an appearance; he and Ray sit down at Blueberry Hill and discuss St. Louis’ overlooked importance as a music city. Chuck Berry, too, gets a fair amount of screen time. “This is the only place in the world where the term ‘St. Louis blues’ is taken to mean a game

played on ice,” Ray laments. But, ideally, the show won’t be centered solely on St. Louis. If it is picked up, Ray would soon find himself doing a fair amount of traveling, with cameras in tow. “The producer’s concept is, after three or four episodes about St. Louis — which I expect to have a heavy social and racial context to it, because that’s reality — then take it on the road, go to all these towns that have great independent record stores,” Ray explains. “And this is not my words, this is the producer’s words: ‘I really want to have you out there as the Anthony Bourdain of vinyl.’ “I said, ‘Really?’” Ray continues in a skeptical tone. “But I thought about it for a while and I said, ‘Well, there’s two shows on TV about fucking cupcakes. Why not?’” For now, the group is continuing to gather footage for the St. Louisbased episodes while shopping the series around. Ray says some networks have already expressed interest, but he demurs when asked about specifics. Should the series fail to find a buyer, Ray says he’ll be fine. He’s plenty busy, he figures, simply running his store. “If it doesn’t happen I’ll have more than enough opportunity to continue doing this,” he says. “And if it does happen, what I like is that whatever we film about St. Louis, at the end of it, it’s going to basically say, ‘Yeah, St. Louis may be what people say about us. But motherfucker, we’re a great city.’” n

[ B R I C K S A N D M O R TA R ]

Now on Gravois: a Record Shop Written by

THOMAS CRONE

fascinating graduate school paper could be written on the businesses of Gravois Road, that curving, swerving thoroughfare that slices from Soulard into southwest St. Louis County. And it never offers a more interesting mix of retail and services than in the couple miles it takes to drive from south St. Louis through Affton. There, Gravois has mega-pharmacies, Bosnian bakeries, a pool hall, HVAC repair shops, mole control specialists, barbers and delis, with graveyards liberally dotted into the landscape. It’s not a paradise, with dozens of empty storefronts, though in this part of town, they tend to come back to life with a wild mix of outcomes. One example of a new business: In the middle of it all sits a good old-fashioned brick-and-mortar record shop, born in 2018. Seven days a week, Donald Gene Brazel sits inside the business he debuted on December 15. For the past two months, he’s been slinging vinyl out of the Record Space (8716 Gravois Road, 314-437-2727), as well as cassettes, CDs and movies on all formats (Betamax is coming soon), as well as posters, toys and other collectibles. Though he researched different neighborhoods and buildings, including a storefront that’s located almost directly across the street, he wound up settling the shop into a vacated storefront rooted in a stretch of businesses that include a hair salon, a law office, a Domino’s, and, because this is Gravois, a cemetery. “Essentially, it was almost ready,” Brazel says of the two-room shop. “We built this sales counter, but everything else was already built into the place. We didn’t have to do a whole lot, oddly enough. It already looked like a record store.” He’s completely right on that point. This is a classic record store, in a host of ways. The flooring doesn’t exactly match and there are some inconsistencies in the

Donald Gene Brazel works the counter seven days a week, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. | THOMAS CRONE tin ceiling, but those minor matters only add to the store’s livedin charm. Its two rooms are each lined with original theatrical and record-release posters. The larger retail space is in front, where you find most of the albums and videos in various formats, with multiple racks dedicated to a substantial horror section. The back room features toys and collectibles, as well as several of the shop’s eight arcade games, all of which are set to free play, no quarters required. “We also sell gear and video game systems,” he adds. “Anything collectible. But the focus is on records.” Brazel grew up in St. Louis, then spent twenty years living in Poplar Bluff. There, he peddled his wares at pop-up shops, antique malls and flea markets, though most of his business was done online. “We had a booth, just to test the waters,” Brazel says of one flea market. “I’d been selling online for nineteen years, but they gave me an opportunity to set up in a room, with its own door, so it was our little shop. That’s where the name ‘the Record Space’ came from, since it was where the records were, compared to the rest of the space.” But constantly moving all of his

His collection is not the biggest in town, nor does he ever expect (or even want) it to be, but he figures he can serve some niche markets. goods from place to place proved cumbersome. “You’d have everything set up: records, videos, games, toys, everything. It felt like we just keep building this shop up and tearing it down,” he explains. Soon he found himself dead-set on establishing a brick-and-mortar location. The storefront on Gravois was the first space he visited, and everything moved quickly from there. “It all happened within two or three months,” he says. Brazel figures that any record store needs to establish an identity. His collection is not the biggest in town, nor does he ever expect (or even want) it to be, but he figures he can serve some niche

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markets. From his station behind the counter, he points to his right. There, his punk albums and horror collection are found, the most popular sections of the store for sales and browsing. He has plenty of other rock & roll, but punk and horror (across soundtracks, movies and posters) are the bedrock portions of his collecting, curating and sales. All-purpose record stores “already exist,” Brazel says. “You definitely have to stand out, make your own mark. For me, this is doing what feels natural, and the punk rock and horror things are what it’s all about here.” Brazel is in a punk band, Bastard Squad, with Jon Coriell, owner of Cherokee Street’s San Loo. He views that bar and music club as a sort of sister business, allowing the Record Space to sponsor events off-site while also bringing in cross-promoted, locally themed events. On May 30, for example, Bastard Squad will be sharing a stage with T.S.O.L. at Fubar. To extend the fun, Brazel’s hosting a meet-and-greet at the Record Space with limited edition posters for sale. Tying in local artists, consignment sellers and graphic artists is part of the plan as well. The store’s Devilnaught mascot and most of the shop’s flyers were done by Steve Banes (a.k.a. Punky of Voice of God and Sons of Black Mass). The store’s horror section was recently the apt location of an album release by the St. Louis band Horror Section. And locally created puzzles, zines and albums are found all through the shop. When Brazel signed the lease, he asked his uncle, who owns Bayless Key & Lock, to change out the locks. As it turns out, 40 years ago, his uncle ran his lock shop in the very same storefront. Two generations of St. Louisans, both looking to Gravois to launch their businesses. “The only thing I’d say about the business is that you have to love what you do, as corny as that sounds,” Brazel says. “I’m open seven days a week, 11 to 8. I’m here every single day. I would say that doing something like this puts stress on everything else going on in your life. You have to really want to do it, or be rich and able to hire people. “At the end of the day, it’s just me,” he continues. “I’m not trying to do an idea of what people might want. I’m from the world of punk rock. You do what you want, and if other people want it too, that’s fine.” n

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RIVERFRONT TIMES

OUT EVERY NIGHT

[CRITIC’S PICK]

The Knuckles will perform at the S.L.U.M. Fest Awards this weekend. | VIA ARTIST WEBSITE

S.L.U.M. Fest Awards 7 p.m. Saturday, February 23. The Bootleg, 4140 Manchester Avenue. $10 to $12. 314-775-0775. A companion event to each summer’s annual Saint Louis Underground Music Festival (S.L.U.M. Fest for short), the S.L.U.M. Fest Awards celebrate St. Louis’ hip-hop community by recognizing the rappers, DJs, dancers and artists that keep it vibrant. In typical award-show fashion, the event will feature performances by many of the nominated artists and their fellow musicians. This year’s lineup in-

THURSDAY 21

2CELLOS: 8 p.m., $35-$95. The Fox Theatre, 527 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111. ACID LEATHER: w/ Path of Might, Blāckwēll 8 p.m., free. The Bootleg, 4140 Manchester Ave., St. Louis, 314-775-0775. AL B. SURE: 7 p.m., $30-$50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. ANNE RHODES: w/ Drew Gowran, JoAnn McNeil 10:30 p.m., $7. Foam, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. BLACK STONE CHERRY: 8 p.m., $20. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. BROTHER JEFFERSON DUO: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. CAMDEN: 7 p.m., $10. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. FALLING FENCES: 7 p.m., $15. Joe’s Cafe, 6014 Kingsbury Ave, St. Louis. GIN BLOSSOMS: 8 p.m., $27.50-$30. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. JASON COOPER BAND: 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. JEREMIAH JOHNSON BAND: 8 p.m., $5. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565. NATE LOWERY: 4 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565. PAT REEDY & THE LONGTIME GONERS: 7:30 p.m., $12-$15. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. RED RAINBOW: w/ Drew Gowran, JoAnn McNeil

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cludes T-Dubb-O, the Knuckles, J’Demul, DJ VThom, Arch Mvddnezz and many more performing short sets throughout the night’s festivities. The minds behind St. Louis’ monthly Fresh Produce Beat Battle will be on hand as well, with a shortened version of their competition on deck for the night. Take-no-prisoners rapper Bates will close out the show. Get Your Ass to School: If you’re a rap fan and you’ve ever wanted to know more about St. Louis’ scene, this event is a perfect one-stop shop. Get yourself an education along with a night of entertainment. —Daniel Hill

10:30 p.m., $7. Foam, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

FRIDAY 22

AJ AND THE JIGGAWATTS: 10 p.m., $10. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811. AN EVENING WITH LEFTOVER SALMON: STORIES FROM THE LIVING ROOM: 8 p.m., $25-$35. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900. BOB BOVEE: 8 p.m., $15-$20. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. CELEBRATION DAY: A TRIBUTE TO LED ZEPPELIN: 8 p.m., $30-$40. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. KEVIN BUCKLEY & FRIENDS: 9:30 p.m., free. The Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090. KINGDOM BROTHERS BAND: 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. LITTLE DYLAN: 7 p.m., $10. National Blues Museum, 615 Washington Ave., St. Louis. LOKEY: 9 p.m., free. Nightshift Bar & Grill, 3979 Mexico Road, St. Peters, 636-441-8300. MARTY SPIKENER & THE ON CALL BAND: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. MATT F BASLER: w/ Sisser, Le’Ponds 8 p.m., $5. Foam, 3359 Jefferson, St. Louis, 314-772-2100. MISS JUBILEE: 4 p.m., $10. National Blues Museum, 615 Washington Ave., St. Louis.

Continued on pg 40

OUT EVERY NIGHT Continued from pg 38 ONLYSOUND CD RELEASE PARTY: 8 p.m., $7-$10. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. PEPPERLAND: THE BEATLES REVUE: 8 p.m., $10. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. ROLAND JOHNSON & SOUL ENDEAVOR: 8 p.m., $3. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565. SOCKEYE: 8 p.m., free. The Bootleg, 4140 Manchester Ave., St. Louis, 314-775-0775. TETRARCH: 8 p.m., $14. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. WILLIAM CLARK GREEN & BRENT COBB: 7:30 p.m., $20-$35. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

SATURDAY 23

83 WEEKS LIVE: w/ Eric Bischoff, Conrad Thompson 7:30 p.m., $20-$75. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. AMERICAN ENGLISH: TRIBUTE TO THE BEATLES: 8 p.m., $28-$38. River City Casino & Hotel, 777 River City Casino Blvd., St. Louis, 314-388-7777. BAGHEERA: w/ Motorjaxon 9 p.m., $5. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521. THE BRIANNA BROWN BAND: 8 p.m., $12-$15. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. CELEBRATION DAY: A TRIBUTE TO LED ZEPPELIN: 8 p.m., $25-$40. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. CHRISETTE MICHELE: 8 p.m., $35-$45. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. DAUGHTERS: w/ Blanck Mass 8 p.m., $18-$20. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. THE FOGGY MEMORY BOYS: 9:30 p.m., free. The Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090. JEREMIAH JOHNSON BAND: 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. JOHN MCVEY BAND: 9 p.m., $3. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565. KELLY CLARKSON: w/ Kelsea Ballerini, Brynn Cartelli 7 p.m., $49-$129. Chaifetz Arena, 1 S. Compton Ave., St. Louis, 314-977-5000. KIM MASSIE: 4 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. MIPSO: 8 p.m., $13-$15. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. PORTRAIT: THE MUSIC OF KANSAS: 8 p.m., $15$18. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. RICH MCDONOUGH & RHYTHM RENEGADES: 3 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565. ROCKNR LANTERN FEST: w/ St.Villagers, Tok, John Hawkwood’s Blackfoot, Daytime Television 8 p.m., $5. Foam, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. SLUM FEST AWARDS: 7 p.m., $10-$12. The Bootleg, 4140 Manchester Ave., St. Louis, 314-775-0775. SUNSET OVER HOUMA: w/ John Hawkwood’s Blackfoot Sun, ISH 11 p.m., free. Mangia Italiano, 3145 S. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-664-8585. TOM HALL: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

SUNDAY 24

BJ BARHAM: 8 p.m., $20-$25. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. DANILEIGH: 8 p.m., $20-$65. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. ETHEL + ROBERT MIRABAL: 7 p.m., $32. Blanche M Touhill Performing Arts Center, 1 University Dr at Natural Bridge Road, Normandy, 314-516-4949. FARSEEK: w/ Complainer 8:30 p.m., $5. Foam, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. GENESIS JAZZ PROJECT: 4 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. KURT VILE AND THE VIOLATORS: w/ the Sadies 8 p.m., $25-$30. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

LADYSMITH BLACK MAMBAZO: 7:30 p.m., $30$45. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900. LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: 8:30 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. MARK HARRIS PRESENTS INTERSTELLAR UNPLUGGED: 7 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. R I L E Y: 6:30 p.m., $12-$15. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. RIVER CITY OPRY: 1 p.m., $5. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. TRIO VIRADO: 4 p.m., $24-$32. The 560 Music Center, 560 Trinity Ave., University City, 314-421-3600.

MONDAY 25

BROADWAY COLLECTIVE JAZZ: 5 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. CURT OREN: w/ Matt Sullentrup, Motherbear, Kleb 8 p.m., $5. Foam, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. DR. DOG: w/ The Nude Party 8 p.m., $20-$28. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar, St. Louis, 314-726-6161. THIRD SIGHT BAND: 8 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. YUNG GRAVY: 8 p.m., $20-$79. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

TUESDAY 26

ADIA VICTORIA: 8 p.m., $12-$14. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. DRAGON FALCON: w/ Inches from Glory, AZN, Matt Ingram 8 p.m., $7. Foam, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. ENTHEOS: 7 p.m., $13-$15. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. JOHN MAUS: 9 p.m., $20-$23. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. ROCKIN’ JAKE BAND: 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. STL SHED: 6 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

WEDNESDAY 27

ACTION BRONSON: w/ Roc Marciano, Meyhem Lauren, T-Dubb-O, Indiana Rome 8 p.m., $30$35. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. BIG RICH MCDONOUGH & RHYTHM RENEGADES: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. FATE’S GOT A DRIVER: 7 p.m., $12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. KIKAGAKU MOYO: 8 p.m., $12-$15. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. MARTY SPIKENER & ON CALL BAND: 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. NEAL MORSE BAND: 8 p.m., $30-$50. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. SOCCER MOMMY: w/ Hovvdy, Motiongazer 8 p.m., $12-$14. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. SONGBIRD CAFE: 7:30 p.m., $20-$25. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. WAYNE HANCOCK: 8 p.m., $14-$16. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

THIS JUST IN

AARON GRIFFIN: Thu., Feb. 28, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. ACID WITCH: W/ Against the Grain, Sun., June 16, 8 p.m., $14. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. AFTER WEDNESDAY: W/ Sigmund Frauds, Tristate, Fri., March 22, 8 p.m., $10. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. AGITATE THE AIRWAVES BIRTHDAY DEBAUCHERY 2: Sat., June 1, 6 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. ANDREW CALHOUN: Sat., March 9, 8 p.m., $15$20. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. ART MUSIC OF THE SILK ROAD: Sat., March 30, 7 p.m., $15. The Chapel, 6238 Alexander Dr, Clayton.

Continued on pg 40

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FEBRUARY 20 - 26, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

[CRITIC’S PICK]

Adia Victoria. | VIA GRANDSTAND HQ

Adia Victoria 8 p.m. Tuesday, February 26. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue. $12. 314-773-3363. A throaty cello scrapes into frame in the opening moments of Adia Victoria’s latest album Silences. It’s a dramatic frame for her entrancing lyrics and slightly drawled delivery, but it also signals a progression of the Delta blues moves that she executed on her 2016 debut Beyond the Bloodhounds. The genre-blurring sounds on the new album (created with

OUT EVERY NIGHT Continued from pg 39 ASHES AND IRON: W/ Wet Tropics, Flourescent, Fri., April 5, 7:30 p.m., $7-$10. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. THE BAILSMAN: Sat., March 23, 8 p.m., $15-$20. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. BECK: W/ Cage the Elephant, Spoon, Wild Belle, Tue., July 30, 7 p.m., TBA. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944. BENDIGO FLETCHER: W/ Cara Louise, Holy Posers, Sat., March 16, 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. BIG RICH MCDONOUGH & RHYTHM RENEGADES: Wed., Feb. 27, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. BOSS UP OR SHUT UP: W/ Slim Beezy, Jay Loc, MBT Forever, Beezy, Boss Heavy, Mike G, Fri., March 22, 9 p.m., $10-$13. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. BRILLIANCE: Mon., March 4, 7:30 p.m., $38. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900. CHANCELLOR’S CONCERT: Fri., March 1, 7:30 p.m., free. The 560 Music Center, 560 Trinity Ave., University City, 314-421-3600. THE CHLOE FEORANZO QUARTET: Wed., March 13, 7:30 p.m., $15-$20. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. CREE RIDER & CARA LOUISE: Sat., March 30, 8 p.m., $12-$15. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. DAVID CROSBY AND FRIENDS: Wed., May 15, 8 p.m., $46-$76. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900. DERVISH: Tue., March 12, 7:30 p.m., $30-$35. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. DRACLA: W/ Blind Oath, Shitstorm, Sun., April 21, 8 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis,

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the aid of co-producer Aaron Dessner of the National) are fitting for an artist who routinely sought to confront tradition and remake it in her own image. The blues can sound like a lot of things in Victoria’s hands, but her experience of growing up a woman of color in the American South remains an essential truth to the message and poetry in her songs. Arkansas Traveler: Singer, guitarist and multi-disciplinary artist Joshua Asante opens the show. —Christian Schaeffer

314-289-9050. DYNAMO PRO WRESTLING: Sat., April 13, 7 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. EILEEN GANNON & EIMEAR ARKINS: Sat., March 16, 8 p.m., $12-$15. Sun., March 17, 7 p.m., $12$15. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. FAT TUESDAY: Tue., March 5, 4 p.m., free. Hwy 61 Roadhouse and Kitchen, 34 S Old Orchard Ave, Webster Groves, 314-968-0061. FATE’S GOT A DRIVER: Wed., Feb. 27, 7 p.m., $12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. FORMING THE VOID: Fri., March 8, 8 p.m., $10-$12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. FRANK & ALLIE LEE: Fri., March 29, 8 p.m., $15$20. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. GANGSPIL: Thu., March 14, 7:30 p.m., $15-$20. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. GRAVEYARD WITCH: W/ Mister Malone, Mon., May 13, 7 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. GREG KLYMA: Fri., March 1, 8 p.m., $15-$20. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. HAIL TO THE QUEEN: A TRIBUTE TO ARETHA FRANKLIN: Sat., March 16, 7 p.m., $20. Voce, 212 S. Tucker Blvd., St. Louis, 314-435-3956. HE IS LEGEND: Tue., March 5, 7 p.m., $15. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. JEFFREY LEWIS: W/ the Opera Bell Band, Sat., April 13, 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. JENNY LEWIS: Sat., Aug. 17, 8 p.m., $30-$40. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. LARA HOPE & THE ARK-TONES: W/ the Fighting Side, Tue., April 23, 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. LUKAS SIMPSON & ROGER NETHERTON: Thu., March 14, 8:30 p.m., free. The Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090. MARTY SPIKENER & ON CALL BAND: Wed., Feb. 27, 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S.

MARDI GRAS • SAT MAR 2

MICHAEL LYNNE BAND SPECIAL GUEST

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DJ DAN-C DJ FRIZZY

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wednesday february 20 9:45 pm Urban Chestnut Presents

the voodoo players tribute to van morrison

thursday february 21 9 pm

the iceman special from new orleans

friday february 22 10 pm

aj & the jiggawatts with special guests

illphonics

saturday february 23 10 pm

clusterpluck

with special guests

scrambled

wednesday february 27 9:45 pm Urban Chestnut Presents

the voodoo players tribute to phish

friday march 1 10 pm

lou dog

tribute to sublime

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FEBRUARY 20 - 26, 2019

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ST. LOUIS’

[CRITIC’S PICK]

BEST SPORTS BAR

Dr. Dog. | VIA PARADIGM TALENT AGENCY

Dr. Dog 8 p.m. Monday, February 25. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Boulevard. $25 to $28. 314-726-6161. Last year, Dr. Dog released Critical Equation, its tenth album, and if it wasn’t the Philadelphia band’s weirdest or most adventurous or even most consistent effort, it did distill the collective’s contradictory impulses to a tuneful essence. Principal songwriters and singers Toby Leaman and Scott McMicken sound less like foils and more like happy hipster brothBroadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. MISS MAYBELL & CHARLIE JUDKINS: Thu., March 21, 8:30 p.m., free. The Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090. MOUND CITY SLICKERS: Fri., March 22, 8 p.m., $12-$15. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. MUDHONEY: W/ Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds, Mon., Oct. 14, 8 p.m., $20. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. A MUSICAL BENEFIT FOR BRANDON TURNER: W/ Overnighter, Flow Clinic, St. John & Farmer Jesse, MotherFather, Sweat Shoppe, Seashine, Kilverez, DayBringer, Astral Moth , Animated Dead, Ashes and Iron, The Bob Band, Sat., March 9, 5 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. OUTLINE IN COLOR: Sat., March 2, 7 p.m., $10-$12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. THE PIANO GUYS: Tue., Nov. 19, 7:30 p.m., $38.50-$158.50. The Fox Theatre, 527 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111. PRETTYMUCH: Fri., Aug. 2, 8 p.m., $29.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. RANDALL KING: Wed., June 19, 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp, St. Louis, 314-498-6989. RAW EARTH: Fri., March 22, 6:30 p.m., free. 50Fifty Kitchen, 3723 S Kingshighway Blvd, St. Louis, 314-875-9623. Fri., May 24, 6:30 p.m., free. Soulard Art Market and Contemporary Art Gallery, 2028 S. 12th St., St. Louis, 314258-4299. Sat., May 25, 6:30 p.m., free. 50Fifty Kitchen, 3723 S Kingshighway Blvd, St. Louis, 314-875-9623. THE RIVER KITTENS: Thu., March 28, 8:30 p.m., free. The Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090. SAVING ABEL: W/ Armenta, Mental Fixation, Karma Dealer, Tue., April 9, 7 p.m., $18. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. ST. LOUIS PIANO SUMMIT: ETHAN LEINWAND, CHRISTOPHER PARRISH, AND CHASE GARRETT: Fri., March 8, 8:15 p.m., $15-$20. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778.

ers, getting high, fiddling with knobs and throwing just about everything against the walls of sound — loose rockabilly, warped drone, punchy power pop, freaky folk, dreamy ballads — and surprising themselves with just how much sticks. No band but Dr. Dog could fuse the surreal and the romantic and have so much jamming, psyched-up fun doing it. Party Like It’s 1965: The unapologetically retro garage-rockers of the Nude Party kick off what’s likely to be one of the most exuberant indie-rock double bills of the year. —Roy Kasten SWITCHBACK: Sat., March 2, 8 p.m., $20-$25. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. TACOCAT!: W/ Sammi Lamzetta, Fri., May 24, 8 p.m., $12-$15. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. TAMARA MUMFORD: Thu., March 21, 7:30 p.m., $15-$40. The 560 Music Center, 560 Trinity Ave., University City, 314-421-3600. TEMPEST: Thu., March 28, 7:30 p.m., $20-$25. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. TENACIOUS D: Fri., Aug. 2, 8 p.m., $32-$86.50. Stifel Theatre, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-499-7600. TERROR JR: Sat., April 27, 7:30 p.m., $20. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. THELMA AND THE SLEAZE: W/ The Jag-Wires, Mon., March 4, 8 p.m., $12. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. THIRD COAST PERCUSSION: Sat., March 2, 7:30 p.m., $5-$20. The 560 Music Center, 560 Trinity Ave., University City, 314-421-3600. TIMESUP: Sat., March 2, 7 p.m., free. William & Florence Schmidt Art Center, Southwestern Illinois College, Belleville, 618-222-5278. TIMOTHY MYERS: Mon., March 18, 7:30 p.m., free. The 560 Music Center, 560 Trinity Ave., University City, 314-421-3600. UADA: W/ Wormwitch, Mon., April 8, 8 p.m., $15. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. VICKI LAWRENCE & MAMA: Thu., July 11, 8 p.m., $28. River City Casino & Hotel, 777 River City Casino Blvd., St. Louis, 314-388-7777. VIOLENT FEMMES, X: Fri., May 17, 8 p.m., $40$50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. VOGTS SISTERS: Fri., March 15, 8 p.m., $12-$15. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. YAWPERS: W/ the Whale, Wed., April 17, 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. ZEPPARELLA: Thu., June 27, 8 p.m., $20. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. n

BEST BAR FOOD

BEST HAPPY HOUR

duke’s in the heart of soulard

2001 Menard (Corner of Menard & Allen)

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FEBRUARY 20 - 26, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

FEBRUARY 20 - 26, 2019

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SAVAGE LOVE CONSIDER THE (EXTRA) LOBSTER BY DAN SAVAGE

wo weeks ago, a longtime reader challenged me to create a new sexual neologism. (Quickly for the pedants: You’re right! It is redundant to describe a neologism as “new,” since neologisms are by definition new: “ne·ol·o·gism noun a newly coined word or expression.” You got me!) “Neo-Neologisms, Please!” was too polite to point it out, but my two most famous and widely used neologisms have been around so long — pegging (2001) and santorum (2003) — that they’re practically paleogisms at this point. So I accepted NNP’s challenge and proposed “with extra lobster.” My inspiration: on a visit to Iceland, I was delighted to discover that “with extra lobster” was a menu item at food carts that served lobster. This delighted me for two reasons. First, lobster is fucking delicious and getting extra lobster with your lobster is fucking awesome. And second, “with extra lobster” sounded like it was a dirty euphemism for something equally awesome. I offered up my own suggested definition — someone who sticks their tongue out and licks your balls while they’re deep-throating your cock is giving you a blowjob with extra lobster — and invited readers to send in their own. It was my readers, after all, who came up with the winning definitions for pegging (“a woman fucking a man in the ass with a strap-on dildo”) and santorum (“the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex”). What follows are the best reader-suggested definitions for “with extra lobster,” with occasional commentary from yours truly… Hey, Dan: “With extra lobster” sounds to me like going down on someone — regardless of sex — when it’s a little more odoriferous than you would like because they haven’t bathed in a while. For example: “Things were getting hot and heavy with my Tinder date last night,

and then I started to go down and was surprised with extra lobster.” Hey, Dan: I think I have a good candidate for your “with extra lobster” definition! It could be applied to a man who has an exceptionally large and dangling foreskin (“His penis comes with extra lobster!”) or a woman whose labia protrudes (“I love pussy with extra lobster!”). Hey, Dan: When I first started dating my wife, she kept her lady parts waxed clean, and they looked a bit like a lobster claw, even being slightly red if the waxing was recent. We nicknamed her vagina and surrounding area “The Lobster,” or “Lobby” for short. So I would suggest that “with extra lobster” should mean anytime you get some extra lobster in on the act — from normal lesbian sex (two lobsters!), to a standard-issue male fantasy threesome (two lobsters and one cock), to a surprise second go-around after you thought the sex was over. The area surrounding the vagina already has a name: the vulva. While most people are familiar with the labia majora and minora parts of the vulva, aka “the lips,” fewer know the name for the area between the labia minora. The spot where the opening to the vaginal canal can be found — also part of the vulva — is called the “vaginal vestibule.” According to my thesaurus, lobby is a synonym for vestibule. So this proposed definition of “with extra lobster” is pretty apt. Now, some will quibble with the lobby-ish implication that a vagina is a space that needs to be entered. One can have a good time — great sex with lots of extra lobster — without anyone being penetrated, i.e., without anyone entering the lobby. Hey, Dan: “Extra lobster should be the name for those cock-extender things. Example: “My husband has a small penis. And you know what? The sex is great! He gives great head, and isn’t afraid to strap-on some extra lobster now and then.” Hey, Dan: As a vegan, I strongly object to “with extra lobster.” It reinforces the speciest notion that is it permissible to consume lobsters, sentient life forms that feel pain, and associating a sex act with the violence of meat consumption fur-

“My husband has a small penis. And you know what? The sex is great! He gives great head, and isn’t afraid to strap-on some extra lobster now and then.” ther desensitizes us to acts of sexual violence. Fuck off. Hey, Dan: When you see a gorgeous ultra-feminine creature far more gorgeously feminine than my straight CIS ass will ever be. But under all the silks and stockings and satin panties... there’s a wonderful and welcome surprise! That girl comes WITH EXTRA LOBSTER! Hey, Dan: I’ve learned about fursuits from you, Dan, and so many other crazy things — like the guy who wanted to be sexually ravished and then torn apart and eaten by zombies. With that in mind, I think “with extra lobster” shouldn’t refer to a sex act. It should be ENTIRELY literal: an act of bestiality performed not with one lobster, but with two or more lobsters. Too literal and too improbable— and euphemisms that describe things that have never happened or only happen very, very rarely are unlikely to enter the lexicon. Hey, Dan: I used to hook up with a cuckold couple with a particularly naughty fetish: I’d fuck the woman, fill her up, and her man would eat it out of her. So, say you hooked up with a woman, let’s call her “Melania,” and her husband, call him “Donald,” ate her pussy after you filled her with come. Donald is eating pussy with extra lobster! Sounds more like pussy with ex-

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tra chowder to me—and what you’ve described already has a perfectly good (and widely-used) name: cream pie. And, please God, let’s leave Trump out of this. There’s no need to associate something so vile and disgusting with eating another man’s come out of your wife’s lobby. Hey, Dan: “With extra lobster” should refer to any intimate pleasure where your expectations are greatly exceeded! I’m a gay man in my sixties, and my husband and I have been together for decade. I also have a friend with benefits. One night we were camping and I blurted out, “I would like to cuddle with you.” What happened next was 12 courses — at least — with extra lobster! We’ve managed to rekindle this energy every couple of years over the past 25! Hey, Dan: I believe your example of “with extra lobster” regarding an extra WOW factor during something sexual is perfect and doesn’t need extra explanation. As the saying goes, Dan, you pegged it! I agree with the last two letter writers: “with extra lobster” shouldn’t refer to any specific sex act — and it should never involve actual lobsters and/or mental images of the current president of the United States — but should, instead, be a general term meaning “expectations exceeded.” When someone really comes through for you, when they knock your socks off, when they make you see stars — when they really WOW you — then you got boned or blown or fucked or flogged or torn apart and eaten by zombies with extra lobster! And with that sorted and settled, a bonus neologism to close the column… Hey, Dan: This isn’t a definition for “with extra lobster,” but I wanted to share it. I live in Uganda and many of the streets are lined with stalls that sell BBQ chicken. If you know to ask for the special chicken, they’ll often sell you weed. Special Chicken has become my favorite euphemism for weed! Listen to Dan’s podcast at savagelovecast.com. mail@savagelove.net @FakeDanSavage on Twitter

FEBRUARY 20 - 26, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

FEBRUARY 20 - 26, 2019

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FEBRUARY 20 - 26, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

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