Riverfront Times, May 31, 2023

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Publisher Chris Keating

Editor in Chief Rosalind Early

EDITORIAL

Managing Editor Jessica Rogen

Digital Content Editor Jaime Lees

Editor at Large Daniel Hill

Staff Writers Ryan Krull, Monica Obradovic Dining Critic Cheryl Baehr

Theater Critic Tina Farmer Music Critic Steve Leftridge

Contributors Max Bouvatte, Thomas K. Chimchards, Thomas Crone, Mike Fitzgerald, Reuben Hemmer, Andy Paulissen, Tony Rehagen, Mabel Suen, Graham Toker, Theo Welling

Columnists Chris Andoe, Dan Savage

Photography Fellow Braden McMakin

Editorial Interns Scout Hudson, Nina Giraldo

ART & PRODUCTION

Art Director Evan Sult

Creative Director Haimanti Germain

Graphic Designer Aspen Smit

MULTIMEDIA ADVERTISING

Associate Publisher Colin Bell

Account Manager Jennifer Samuel

Directors of Business Development Tony Burton, Rachel Hoppman

Marketing Director Kristen Moser

Event and Promotions Manager John Heinrich

BUSINESS

Regional Operations Director Emily Fear

CIRCULATION

Circulation Manager Kevin G. Powers

EUCLID MEDIA GROUP

Chief Executive Officer Andrew Zelman

Chief Operating Officers Chris Keating, Michael Wagner

Executive Editor Sarah Fenske

VP of Digital Services Stacy Volhein

Audience Development Manager Jenna Jones

VP of Marketing Cassandra Yardeni www.euclidmediagroup.com

NATIONAL ADVERTISING

VMG Advertising 1-888-278-9866, vmgadvertising.com

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FRONT BURNER

MONDAY, MAY 22 The Post-Dispatch breaks the news that Rick Hummel died Saturday, and it’s an outpouring of love for the Commish. The 77-year-old covered the Cardinals for five decades. But just when you want to see the Cards win one for the departed sportswriter, they lose to Cincinnati in the 10th inning — and strike out 14 times. Also unfortunate news: The city’s Public Utilities Director Curt Skouby says his department needs a 40 percent rate increase, stat. Anyone else starting to think there will be nothing left of the Rams settlement (much less all that ARPA money) once the city gets caught up on all its longneglected infrastructure? Nothing works!

TUESDAY, MAY 23 News breaks that some kid from Chesterfield crashed a U-Haul into a White House security barrier the night before in what’s described as an attempt to “seize power, and be put in charge of the nation” — and kill the president if necessary. What are they teaching these kids at Marquette High, and how delusional do you have to be to think a U-Haul is going to be enough to seize power? Officers didn’t even find weapons or explosives …. just a sad-sack Nazi flag. That’s not even enough to seize the Reichstag, kiddo. Meanwhile, our supposed week of perfect weather

Previously On LAST WEEK IN ST. LOUIS

turns hot — 85 degrees and a bit muggy. At least the Cardinals win, 8-5.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 24 Tina Turner dies at age 83. The Post-Dispatch headline tells us that the “Sumner grad’s big dreams helped her become royalty,” proving that in St. Louis, it really does all go back to high school. Still, for all our eye-rolls at the St. Louis question, we can’t help but be proud we can claim one of the greatest of all time matriculated here. Rest in peace, queen.

THURSDAY, MAY 25 Oath Keeper Stewart Rhodes gets 18 years for helping lead the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6. And yet Josh Hawley walks free among us! Rhodes is the first person to be found guilty of “seditious conspiracy.” Meanwhile, the national media seems increasingly certain that the U.S. will default on its debt and throw the economy into chaos. Our only conso-

FIVE QUESTIONS for person-on-the-move Kreskin J. Torres

lation is that we’ve been to this rodeo before; it’s hard to get too wound up when every eight months or so Congress seems intent on scaring the shit out of us and then every eight months or so they just raise the ceiling anyway. We’re gonna just keep telling ourselves these boys are crying wolf … right?

FRIDAY, MAY 26 Nearly 100 people gather outside a St. Charles County library branch to protest — and counterprotest — a library clerk’s attire, which apparently included both a goatee and makeup on a day a total Karen happened to be there with her kid. Said Karen, who is apparently named Rachel Homolak, admits her kid didn’t even see the offending librarian, but these are the times we live in: She still put the poor librarian on blast on social media. The Post-Dispatch says 35 people heeded her call to protest. Another 60 showed up to support the librarian, which shows there are still some nice people in

the world — even in St. Chuck!

SATURDAY, MAY 27 In Cleveland, the Cards beat the Guardians 2-1, despite just getting two hits. Both of them were from Brendan Donovan, who also garnered two walks and a stolen base — leaving him with two runs scored and also the game’s sole RBI. The other run came courtesy of a passed ball, and, yes, Donovan is also the guy who scored on that. Truly heroic. Back in St. Louis, the weather is actually perfect. Next time someone tells you perfection isn’t possible, point to this day

SUNDAY, MAY 28 The kids in D.C. reach a debt ceiling deal (told ya!) Back home, at Sunday mass, Catholic parishes read individual letters from Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski, who explains that he’s ordering the closure of 35 parishes and reassignment of 155 priests, the biggest reorganization of the Catholic church in St. Louis history. Reflecting the Catholic church’s falling fortunes in north city and north county, nearly half of the closures are there. Which of course means it’s going to be even harder to be Catholic in north city/ county, and that means things may even get worse from here. Remember when St. Louis was the Rome of the West? Now we really are just a rowdy Dubuque

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How was it when you first came to St. Louis in 2020?

It was terrible. I had a situation where [my lodgings] had bed bugs. My favorite restaurant changed that all around. I go to Mai Lee’s mainly to try the St. Paul’s sandwich, and I met Qui Tran. He’s one of the owners, super nice guy, super fun guy. I ended up sitting in that restaurant till closing and met so many incredible people who gave me recommendations.

Have you tried Imo’s yet?

I haven’t had it yet, but people keep telling me it’s either you love it or you hate it. It’s a cracker crust, and I’m not a fan. I don’t really like cheese unless it’s pizza. I do mozzarella, but if it’s like a cheddar blend or any other kind of cheese, I don’t do it. I heard this is a Provel cheese or special cheese blend that they put together. So I don’t know.

What do you think of the rest of the food here?

Oh, it’s fantastic. I had Salt + Smoke, I had toasted ravioli, I had Ted Drewes Frozen Custard. Strawberry Shortcake is my favorite. They give you extra cake for a $1.40 extra.

What made you start traveling like this?

Kreskin J. Torres has 395,139 miles on his 2012 Honda Accord. The reason? He has spent the last seven years driving across the country trying local food, meeting people and driving for rideshare services. Along the way he’s visited Indian reservations, eaten chili and cinnamon rolls (his favorite dish), couch surfed and tried his first green bean casserole. (His favorite place so far? Mississippi, specifically Jackson.) The 35-year-old Baltimore native is currently in St. Louis for the second time and says the city is far livelier than the last time he visited — during the pandemic.

I wanted to see how other people live and put myself in their shoes. I also wanted to find a way to bring people together, people in America, and I found that food is a great common ground to learn about someone’s culture.

What’s the biggest lesson that you’ve learned?

If we take the time to learn about somebody else and their way of life, people don’t care what you look like or where you’re from. They will share their culture and way of life with you. —Rosalind Early

Kreskin J. Torres loves St. Louis barbecue, especially Pappy’s. | COURTESY PHOTO

WEEKLY WTF?!

Pothole Watch

What: Possibly the largest pothole we’ve ever seen.

Where: Ninth and Wright streets

What it looks like if you squint: still a giant f*cking pothole

Most likely to be mistaken for: a crater on the moon

This pothole can fit: approximately 1,672 marbles, $300 in pennies or a small koi pond

Sound your car makes when you drive over it: not good

Risk of damage to car: 100 percent

15 SECONDS OF FAME

INTACT BODY OF THE WEEK: Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster

In life, Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster was the founder of the Benedictine Sisters of Mary, Queen of Apostles in Gower, Missouri — an order that created chart-topping albums of Gregorian chants and Catholic hymns. In death, she’s become known for refusing to decompose, according to Catholic News Agency

Lancaster died in 2019 at age 95. (She founded the Benedictine Sisters of Mary when she was 70.) She was buried without being embalmed, the Benedictine Sisters say. Recently, the sisters decided to dig her up and move her to the monastery chapel. According to Catholic News Agency, this is common for founders of orders.

Exhuming a body after four years seems like a messy undertaking, but the nuns were expecting to just find bones, especially when they saw the wooden coffin had cracked. But instead, they found Lancaster’s remains fully intact — if a bit moldy.

“We think she is the first African American woman to be found incorrupt,” Mother Cecilia told Catholic News Agency

If you aren’t Catholic, this interest in decomposition might be a little strange. But in Catholic tradition, when someone doesn’t decompose, it is a sign of holiness. Could beatification for Lancaster be far behind?

(Full disclosure: Our unchurched asses have no idea if Lancaster would be considered for beatification.)

Since news broke of the intact body, people have been flocking to Gower, Missouri, to pray with Lancaster and touch her remains. Unfortunately, the nun was only on display through Memorial Day. Lancaster will continue to defy nature in private.

SOMETIMES IT’S THE LITTLE THINGS THAT COUNT

Judge Blocks PostDispatch Story About Accused Murderer

In a rare move, the newspaper is barred from publishing information about a man accused of killing a police officer in 2020

Written by RYAN KRULL

Ajudge in St. Louis Circuit Court has forbidden the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from publishing material from the mental health evaluation of a man accused of killing a police officer in Tower Grove South in 2020.

It’s unknown what exactly is contained in the evaluation, but court filings made by those attempting to block its publication say material in it is “highly confidential” and that its being made public would hinder Thomas Kinworthy’s ability to get a “fair and impartial trial.”

Kinworthy, 46, is accused of killing officer Tamarris Bohannon on August 29, 2020. On that day, according to a police probable cause statement, Kinworthy was armed when he ran into a house on Hartford Avenue. Two residents fled out the back door. When Bohannon approached the front door, Kinworthy allegedly opened fire, killing the officer. He was taken into custody after a 12-hour standoff.

Kinworthy’s case has been making its way through the courts ever since.

Earlier in May, a mental health report about Kinworthy was filed with the court by an attorney with the Missouri Department of Mental Health. A report like this would typically not be filed publicly, but this one was — likely in error.

That same day, according to court filings, Post-Dispatch reporter Katie Kull obtained a copy of the report through a search of public court records. On May 22, Kull contacted Kinworthy’s attorney seeking comment.

That same day, the public defender’s office filed a petition for a temporary restraining order seeking to block the publication of any material from the report. In addition to arguing that the report could hinder Kinworthy’s ability to get a fair trial, the petition also says that the information about

Some on Board of Aldermen Question High Overhead for City Parking

According to documents, the city only brings in 7 cents of revenue for every dollar spent on parking

Written by RYAN KRULL

For anyone who forgot to move their car on street cleaning day last year and paid that $20 ticket, only about 56 cents of that fine went to the city’s general coffers. And the $4.45 it costs for two hours of parking at some spots downtown? That nets the city’s general fund roughly 12 cents.

This is according to data compiled by the Treasurer’s Office and presented to the Budget and Public Employees Committee of the Board of Aldermen last week.

A breakdown of the Parking Division’s revenue shows that in fiscal year 2022 the Parking Division within the Treasur-

Kinworthy isn’t of “legitimate interest” to the public.

However, the Post’s attorneys pointed out in court filings of their own that Kull obtained the material legally from a public filing and that courts typically only practice “prior restraint” — the legal term for a court blocking what would otherwise be free speech before it even takes place — when that information involves “issues of grave national security or significant threats to public safety.”

A temporary restraining order barring the Post from publish-

er’s Office had $15.4 million in expenditures and brought in $16.6 million in revenue, according to the documents obtained by the RFT. That adds up to the city spending roughly 93 cents to bring in $1 of parking revenue.

Of that $1.1 million in net income, only 40 percent — $472,000 — was sent to the city’s general fund.

“That means around 5 cents of every dollar in parking fees goes to the general fund,” says 8th Ward Alderwoman Cara Spencer, who is the chair of the committee.

Spencer says that “when done right” parking can be lucrative for city coffers, but that’s not what’s happening now.

“The money generated on our streets should go into them,” she says. “Especially given their current condition.”

City Treasurer Adam Layne told the committee, “There are many costs to parking and parking enforcement, and there’s also more operations than the average person sees.”

Layne also said that much of $6 million for contract services goes toward the meter technology as well as services and upgrades to the meters. Layne declined to comment further for this story.

Other documents prepared by the Treasurer’s Office show that the budget for fiscal year 2023 includes more than

ing anything based on the mental health evaluation was issued last week, and it will be in place for now as the suit continues to make its way through the court.

Kansas City attorney Jean Maneke, who specializes in legal issues related to the press, says that when someone legally accesses a document at the courthouse, “There’s a presumption that it’s yours, it’s open to you to read and to use the information, because it is a public record.”

She adds, “I am sorry that this happened to whoever made the mistake. But the reporter did nothing wrong. The reporter had a right to presume this was a public record. Everybody, always when something goes wrong, tries to think, ‘Who can I blame?’”

The public defender’s office has until Friday, June 2, to submit filings in favor of the restraining order. The Post has until Monday, June 12, to submit filings against.

Post-Dispatch Executive Editor Alan Achkar and Matt Mahaffey with the Missouri Public Defender’s Office declined to comment on the case. n

$6 million in “contractual and other services,” a little more than $7 million for personnel and about $3.8 million in “non-operating expenses.”

(The documents prepared by the Treasurer’s Office are, at first blush, a little difficult to parse, as a notation at the bottom says, “All amounts are in millions,” which if true would mean that the Parking Division’s expenditures on personnel are equal to the entire economy of Montenegro. The RFT is assuming that the documents should read “All amounts are in thousands.”)

Spencer says the Parking Division “is a department with a function, parking, which derives revenue off city infrastructure and the city’s right of way on streets that are in deplorable condition for failing to invest in their infrastructure.”

She adds, “I just cannot believe how little they returned to us.”

RFT contributor Mike Fitzgerald reported in March that Layne planned to renew the controversial parking-management contract with Hudson and Associates LLC, a company that had, along with its CEO, donated $38,000 to Mayor Tishaura Jones’ political campaigns.

According to Fitzgerald, the contract attracted scrutiny because it promised the company $2.35 million per year regardless of performance. n

A Post-Dispatch story was blocked by a judge. | PAUL SABLEMAN/FLICKR

Mayor Signs Order to Protect Trans Residents

The executive order requires city government buildings to have at least one gender-neutral bathroom

Written by MONICA OBRADOVIC

St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones moved to make St. Louis a more inclusive space for trans residents last week.

Last Thursday, Jones signed an executive order that requires key city departments to implement new gender-inclusive practices in light of anti-trans legislation passed by the state legislature.

In April, the Missouri legislature passed bills that restricted transgender minors from gender-affirming care and kept them from playing on sports teams that match their gender identity. Those were just 2 of 48 different anti-LGBTQ measures filed last session — and part of what made Missouri the state with the most anti-LGBTQ bills in the country last session.

“I’ve heard from trans youth and their families who feel like hateful attacks from Jefferson City will force them to leave our state,” Jones said in a statement. “This order sends the message that St. Louis will fight to protect our trans community in the face of bigotry.”

Jones’ order requires city administration buildings to have at least one all-gender bathroom and blocks city-supported sports programs from operating in a way that is not gender-affirming.

Currently, anyone who registers for a sports program via the city’s Recreation Division’s website has to disclose their gender, but the only options are male or female. Disclosing gender will no no lon-

Losing a Local Legend

ger be a requirement.

The executive order also requires the Department of Health to disseminate information on how city residents, including youth, can access gender-affirming care.

Jones’ order is a direct rebuttal to the Missouri General Assembly’s attempt to restrict trans youth from sports and genderaffirming care, which is described in the order as “hateful persecution of vulnerable children through government overreach.”

The mayor conferred with the city’s LGBTQIA Advisory Board to draft the order, according to Shira Berkowitz, one of the board’s nine members.

“The advisory board was able to prioritize and make sure that these are meetable needs and that every piece of the executive order has a place where it can be enforced and provided with access,” Berkowitz tells the RFT

St. Louis follows several Democratic cities in predominantly Republican states that have taken similar actions to combat anti-trans legislation. The city’s also following in the footsteps of what St. Louis County Executive Sam Page did about two years ago when he ordered about 300 single-stall bathrooms in county government buildings to be designated as gender neutral.

The Kansas City Council approved a resolution in May to declare Kansas City a “sanctuary city,” saying the city will not fine a person or organization that seeks or provides gender-affirming care or enforce violations should the state pass a law that would impose such punishments.

Berkowitz, who is also the senior policy director for PROMO, Missouri’s statewide LGBTQ advocacy organization, says the organization is ecstatic to see mayors stepping up.

“We’re thrilled that there’s a wide number of cities supporting transgender Missourians and taking significant stands to condemn legislation that the governor may still sign into law,” Berkowitz says. n

Becky “Queen of Carpet” dies at 67

Written by JAIME LEES

Abeloved St. Louis icon has gone to the great carpet store in the sky.

Becky “Queen of Carpet” Rothman died Sunday at age 67. Her legendary commercials for Becky’s Carpet & Tile Superstore imprinted on generations of St. Louisans, who saw her as a local legend as famous as John Goodman or Jon Hamm.

KSDK reports that Rothman’s nephew, Marc, confirmed her passing Monday afternoon saying that she died of renal failure after having undergone kidney di-

Honoring The Queen of Rock ’n’ Roll

Billboards celebrate Tina Turner’s legacy

Written by JAIME LEES

Hearts were broken across the world last week when Tina Turner, the queen of rock and roll, moved on to take her throne in the heavens.

Here in St. Louis, we were extra crushed because she got her start in the city. The Sumner High graduate put in years performing at local venues like the famous Club Imperial before becoming a superstar, leaving behind a generation of fans who were able to tell

alysis over the past several years. Rothman was beloved around town and getting a selfie with her was social media gold. We spotted her once at the Off Broadway music venue on Lemp Avenue, looking healthy and happy while rocking out to a band. She was generous with her many fans, kindly taking pictures with anyone who asked and giving out a seemingly endless number of hugs. Her kindness extended out to the LGBTQIA+ community, too. She was a proud ally and was very public about supporting and loving her queer daughter.

In fact, Rothman was so admired that just a couple of weeks ago here at the Riverfront Times when we were putting together a collection of “4 Word St. Louis Horror Stories,” we listed “Queen of Carpet died” as a horror on par with “Josh Hawley is here.”

Rest in peace, Rothman. We will be dressing like you on Halloween for decades to come. May you reunite with Wanda “Princess of Tile” in beautiful, high-flying paradise. n

their grandkids about the time they saw a young Anna Mae Bullock.

Turner has a star on our St. Louis Walk of Fame, and we’ve always considered her a hometown hero, so when she passed, it felt like losing Chuck Berry all over again. So it came as no surprise when we spotted a Tina Turner tribute billboard on South Lindbergh Boulevard. Located just southwest of the Tesson Ferry Road intersection, the billboard depicts Turner at the height of her power in a full lion’s wig.

The text reads:

“TINA BETTER THAN ALL THE REST 1939-2023”

The scrolling digital billboard shows no indication of who paid for it. But Outfront Media reached out to us and said that the company has placed the tribute on 20 digital billboards across St. Louis city and county, blasting out love for Tina to anyone who might be passing by the signs.

St. Louis will never forget the queen. n

After Missouri passed legislation curtailing trans rights, St. Louis is offering some protections. | BRADEN MCMAKIN

Becky “Queen of Carpet” Rothman died over the weekend. | SCREENGRAB VIA YOUTUBE

MISSOURILAND

A Summer Sneak Peak

The Columbia Bottom Conservation Area will soon be a must-visit destination

Photos by BRADEN MCMAKIN

Words by ROSALIND EARLY

Every year, the Riverfront Times’ photography fellow, Braden McMakin, likes to go to the Columbia Bottom Conservation area during sunflower season with some friends to take photos, and for good reason. The area is beautiful, packed with the cheery yellow flowers that famously always face the sun

as they’re growing. (When they reach maturity, sunflowers always face east.)

“It’s one of my favorite things about summer,” McMakin says.

The Columbia Bottoms is actually a floodplain near the Confluence where the Mississippi and Missouri rivers meet, according to the Columbia Bottom Conservation Area website. The sunflowers will bloom later this summer and stay in bloom until mid-August. These photos are from last year, but give you a good idea of what the fields look like during peak bloom. The dreamy landscape is the perfect backdrop for artistic photos, and it’s no wonder McMakin and his friends make the trip annually.

McMakin has been taking photos for the Riverfront Times for the last few months. He’s taken several cover shots for us including “Streetviews” for our April 5, 2023 issue and “Rapping Through the Pain” for our February 22, 2023 issue.

A CELEBRATION OF THE UNIQUE AND FASCINATING ASPECTS OF OUR HOME

TAPPED OUT

The process to get a liquor license in St. Louis is slow, antiquated and potentially discriminatory. Can restaurateurs work with City Hall to fix this mess?

BY CHERYL BAEHR

Fried chicken and beer. The two are inseparable in Korean culinary culture, explains Erica Park from behind the long wooden bar at her Carondelet neighborhood restaurant, Chicken Seven. As definitive a pairing as wine and cheese or tacos and margaritas, Korean fried chicken and ice cold beer are just always done together, according to Park. It’s a thing — one that she and her husband, Sean Lee, were excited to bring to their newly adopted town of St. Louis after moving here from Seoul, via Texas, in 2021, and one you know they’d nail if you’ve ever eaten their succulent fried bird. Coated in crisp breading and gilded with honey-soy glaze, the searing hot dish was seemingly made to be washed down with an icy cold lager.

However, at Lee and Park’s bar, the only beverages flowing are soft drinks.

“People still come in two years after we opened asking why we don’t serve alcohol,” Park says. “I want to tell them, ‘I wish.’”

For 2 ½ years, Lee and Park have been unable to obtain a liquor license, shut out because they failed to obtain a majority of signatures from the residents and business owners surrounding their restaurant. It’s a requirement they never imagined would be impossible to surmount — after all, their restaurant remains emblazoned with an AnheuserBusch logo thanks to the building’s past life as a bar. However, after failing on two occasions to get enough neighbors to sign, the couple has resigned themselves to being an alcohol-free establishment.

The decision has left their restaurant in a precarious spot.

“Our chicken is made to order and needs 25 minutes to cook,” Park explains. “While people are waiting, they need something to drink, not just because it’s a good pairing, but so they can relax and enjoy themselves.” A Coke just doesn’t do the trick.

While the restaurateurs’ odyssey could be portrayed as an immigrant couple’s struggle to navigate an unfamiliar government’s bureaucracy, the difficulties that Lee and Park have faced are shared by many other St. Louis

restaurant and bar owners, who have seen their attempts to get liquor licenses stymied by long delays, a maze of policies and procedures, antiquated systems and a signature-based neighborhood petition process that is difficult, if not impossible, to complete.

For years, this cumbersome process, administered by St. Louis’ Excise Division, has been a source of shared frustration among hospitality professionals, who often vent among themselves about the cost of doing business in the city. This spring, as delays have become even more prolonged, many began speaking up, hoping that by sharing their stories and demanding changes to the process, they might bring a much-needed change that not only benefits their businesses but the city as a whole. More importantly, they see a streamlined, modernized process as sending an important message to would-be entrepreneurs that the city is open for business. Right now, for many aspiring restaurant and bar owners, it feels closed.

Danni Eickenhorst has been one of the most vociferous figures in this recent movement to amend the city’s liquor license process. It’s a role she has come to over the past two years as the owner of HUSTL Hospitality Group, parent company of Steve’s Hot Dogs and the Fountain on Locust, as well as

one she has been preparing for throughout her entire career with such organizations as Great Rivers Greenway and the Salvation Army.

“At this stage in my career, my primary focus is on building business opportunities so the amazing employees in our hospitality group can grow. We have really talented people who won’t stay with us forever, so we are trying to grow and create new concepts, but it feels like the city, at times, is actively working against that, and I am not getting back what I put into the city,” she says. “We all feel that, at the end of day, we are just trying to leave a mark in a positive way, and it would be nice to be able to do that.”

Like Lee and Park, Eickenhorst has faced numerous delays in obtaining a liquor license for her businesses, beginning with Steve’s Hot Dogs’ move from Tower Grove East to its current storefront just a half-mile away on South Grand. Lengthy processing times delayed the restaurant’s opening by three weeks — a difficult enough financial blow but, in retrospect, nothing compared to the six- to ninemonth wait she has been quoted for a forthcoming business in the Delmar Maker District.

Eickenhorst acknowledges that staff shortages within the city’s Excise Division, the sub-office of the Department of Public Safety that handles liquor licenses, have played a significant role in these delays, but she points to a cumbersome process as the main culprit, especially the city’s signature requirement process. Her frustrations culminated in a tweet on March 30 in which she called upon her peers to join her in pressing the city to fix the process.

“The excise process in the City of St. Louis takes 6-9 months to go through,” Eickenhorst tweeted. “In other municipalities, it takes just 2-4 weeks. It is *killing* investment in #STL City. I’m pulling together a letter to the Mayor & Board of Aldermen about the need to look at this process & im-

prove it.”

Eickenhorst received an overwhelming response, resulting in an open letter sent on April 3 to the city and the Board of Aldermen requesting improvement to the process. As she and her 22 fellow signatories see it, the delays at Excise are but one layer of a multi-faceted problem that begins with the city’s requirements.

Title 14 of the St. Louis Code of Ordinances outlines a 19-step process that applicants must go through to serve alcohol. Some steps are straightforward: a completed application and $450 fee, paid personal property tax receipts, copies of lease agreements, occupancy and health department permits, and a photograph of the proposed entrance to the establishment.

The main sticking point, business owners say, is the city’s requirement that they obtain neighborhood consent, which means gathering signatures from a majority of the property owners, occupants and tenants located within a 350-foot radius of the business.

On its face, this sounds reasonable; those who live and do business in a neighborhood should have a say about what happens there.

But while many business owners welcome the chance to get buy-in from their neighbors and even relish the opportunity to gather signatures door-to-door as a way to introduce themselves to the area, they chafe at the logistics. For a $100 fee, the Excise Division will provide a prospective bar or restaurant owner with the 350-foot plat from which they need to obtain signatures, as well as a list of property owners in it. However, this information is often incomplete and outdated, sending entrepreneurs down a rabbit hole that involves chasing down outof-town investors, shuttered businesses that are still registered to a particular address and representatives from large companies — Continued

LIQUOR LICENSES

Continued from pg 15

in Eickenhorst’s case H&R Block — who are less than enthusiastic about getting involved in neighborhood goings-on.

And that’s only one group from which prospective business owners must obtain signatures. Occupants and tenants make up a second class of interested parties; to qualify, they must be registered to vote at the address in question but often are not. Alternately, the city’s lists are often not up to date, putting business owners in the position of chasing down people who no longer live in the neighborhood but are still required to sign because they remain on the rolls. Even those whose listings are accurate often won’t answer their doors or reply to mailings from business owners; if they do, the Excise Division must verify the signatures by phone. Signees get two chances to answer; after a second failed attempt, their signature is thrown out.

“It’s super laborious, and it takes us away from our business,” Eickenhorst says. “Anytime you take away the people generating income from your core business, it’s crippling. It became a parttime job for us to make it happen. The whole thing seems incredibly antiquated and can feel like I have to be very intrusive. I did insurance investigations in a previous career, and this is my jam. I can find anyone.”

And yet, Eickenhorst still has to call Joe Kelly.

Bob Brazell remembers the excitement he felt when he was getting ready to open his debut restaurant, Byrd & Barrel, in 2013. That enthusiasm extended to collecting signatures door-to-door and introducing himself to neighbors in order to plant roots within the community.

It didn’t take long for that excitement to wear off.

“My first [license] was probably in 2013, because we opened Byrd in 2015, and it took so long because I did the liquor license myself,” Brazell says. “After doing that, I told myself I would never do that again. It was my first real restaurant of my own, and we wanted to knock on all the doors, introduce ourselves to the neighbors and businesses and let them know who we are and what we are trying to do. That process was hell.”

That experience taught Brazell

something that many hospitality pros have learned the hard way: If you’re trying to get a liquor license in the city, you’d better call Joe.

“Joe” is Joe Kelly, a liquor license compliance specialist whose firm, Kelly & Associates, has been helping business owners throughout Missouri obtain liquor licenses for the past 35 years. No one mandates you use Kelly’s services, though many business owners have found that the variable fee he charges to help them navigate the system — and obtain signatures — is well worth it.

Kelly says he can’t grease the wheels. He has no fast-track to the front of the line. What he does have is 3 ½ decades of experience in dealing with the city and a staff whose sole responsibility is to work on liquor license applications.

He knows the city’s bureaucracy inside and out — yet even he still feels bogged down at times.

“We probably work on about 50 percent of the applications in Excise and have been doing this for years, and I am still trying to figure out how somebody gets through this on their own,” Kelly says. “I probably turn away at least a half-dozen people a month because I don’t want to waste their money and our time because they could come by and write a check, and I can call them back in six months and tell them, ‘Sorry, it won’t happen.’”

In other words, even Kelly, with his full-time team experienced in gathering signatures, knows that some neighborhoods are a losing battle. Some, experience tells him, just will not sign. In those instances — as was the case for Chicken Seven — there is nothing he or the prospective restaurant owner can do.

Kelly understands the frustration that many business owners feel with the process, and he agrees that the recent delays, which he blames on Excise staffing, are unacceptable. However, he believes city officials could make changes to ease the burden. One would be to base the signature requirements upon zoning. The more residential the area, the more signatures required, Kelly suggests — with the goal of easing the requirements for establishments in industrial or commercial zones.

Kelly believes such changes would be a good step toward alleviating the burden on both the license applicants and officials within Excise — civil servants he sees “working their tails off” to get applications processed. He also knows how important it is to get liquor licenses approved quickly.

“Say I’ve been in the restaurant business for 15 years and want to sell, and along comes a restaurant broker with a buyer,” Kelly explains. “The seller wants to get out; the buyer has financing in or-

der. They want to close this deal, but the city says it’s going to take six months to get a license, and even then it’s a maybe. The buyer goes back to his broker and says, ‘Yeah, I don’t want to wait six months. The bank won’t hold my loan for that long, so let’s look in Maplewood, Webster Groves or Clayton where we can close the deal in 30 days or six weeks.”

It’s not just sales of existing businesses that are hurt by the city’s lengthy application process. Kelly has had clients who want to open new businesses that require 8- to 10-month build-outs. They

Sean Lee and Erica Park have struggled to obtain a liquor license for their restaurant Chicken Seven. | MABEL SUEN

Myles McDonnell is the excise commissioner in St. Louis city. | BRADEN MCMAKIN

LIQUOR LICENSES

Continued from pg 16

assume the best thing would be to have Kelly start right away on the liquor license. The problem is that he cannot guarantee that neighbors will sign off on the application, potentially leaving his client holding significant debt for a bar or restaurant that may not even be able to sell alcohol. While larger hospitality groups might be able to get a license approved in advance of breaking ground, smaller business owners might not be able to play that waiting game. Even something as seemingly straightforward as taking over an existing business — but needing new ownership of the license — can take months on end.

It’s a dilemma Brazell faced when he opened his first restaurant in 2015.

“They have to think about what that does to a business owner,” Brazell says. “You are either purchasing an existing property and getting a license in your name or starting a new business and new license. If you are purchasing an existing one, this can almost kill those deals because you are dealing with these six-month delays, and it affects the buyer and the seller. If it’s a new business, you can’t have the contractors sitting there for half a year while you’re paying them, waiting for the license to come through. That’s what we had to do with the original Byrd & Barrel.”

For all of the difficulties that the signature portion of the liquor li-

cense process creates, Kelly does not think the city should do away with it altogether. He believes it offers a degree of protection for bar and restaurant owners since they’ll know whether the community supports their application before the hearing stage. He also sees the signature process as diluting the potential influence of organized opposition. Without a petition process, a group of outspoken neighbors could send a team of lawyers to a liquor license hearing in a show of force, quashing an applicant’s prospects.

However, the biggest reason he believes that the signature process should remain in place is because it gives people an important voice in what goes on in their neighborhoods.

“It’s democracy at its finest,” Kelly says. “It takes the politics — or any other corruption — out of the process. Either the neighbors say it’s cool with them or not. They are not relying on their alderman or even the excise commissioner to make that decision. It’s a very valid process.”

While many restaurant owners curse the city’s complicated process, Christina Robles knows firsthand that there is a simpler way. As a business owner in both the City of St. Louis and Brentwood — Robles is part-owner of Padrino’s Mexican Restaurant and Sal y Limon — she has navigated the two cities’ processes and was struck by the ease with which entrepreneurs can do business in a St. Louis County municipality.

“The difference was night and day,” Robles says. “In the city, it was four months of pain. I started the application in April and didn’t get my license until September, which was two weeks after we opened. In Brentwood, it felt like I took a nap and got my license. I remember putting a couple of hours on the meter when I went in because I expected it to take a long time, and I was out in five minutes.”

Obtaining a liquor license in Brentwood, like many other St. Louis County municipalities, does not involve gathering signatures. But that doesn’t mean residents and neighborhood businesses were shut out of the process. Instead, interested parties are able to request a public hearing with Brentwood’s Board of Aldermen before the license is approved. Robles believes that ensures their voices are heard, albeit in a different way.

The lack of a signature-based petition requirement meant that Robles was able to get Sal y Limon’s liquor license in a matter of weeks. However, she notes that it is only part of the reason things moved quickly there. In Brentwood, the process is handled mostly online, instructions are clear and up to date, and processes are automated. In the City of St. Louis, by contrast, Robles describes a Chutes and Laddersstyle runaround through an an-

tiquated, and often out-of-date, system.

“I remember voicing my opinion strongly about how I am supposed to know what they want when they don’t update the instruction sheet or website,” Robles says. “And then I am running around from department to department; you have to go down and get approval here, then go there. When you get to an office they sent you to, they ask why they sent you. So then you go back up and tell them that they sent you back. It’s insane.”

Indeed, plenty of evidence supports Robles’ view that the Excise Division is behind the times. Not only are meetings recorded using an eight-track player in the age of smartphones, in response to Sunshine Law requests from the RFT the division also reported that it does not have a system for tracking the license applications or their outcomes. It also doesn’t keep minutes of any of the hearings. The eight-track recordings (and more recently, Zoom recordings) apparently suffice.

Eickenhorst echoes this sentiment. Though her main source of angst has been chasing down phantom business owners and neighboring tenants, she, too, believes the entire process is ripe for modernization, and she suggests that a clearer, more concise way of doing things would alleviate the burden for both applicants and

Danni Eickenhorst, owner of HUSTL Hospitality Group, is advocating to change the city’s liquor license process. | BRADEN MCMAKIN

Attorney Joe Kelly specializes in liquor licenses. | BRADEN MCMAKIN

those taxed with processing their applications. An Excise staffing increase, she noted in her April 3 letter to the mayor and Board of Aldermen, is only a Band-Aid fix.

While Brazell, Eickenhorst and Robles express frustration, their experiences have boiled down to the cumbersome signature gathering process and the backlog at the Excise Commission.

Lee and Park, however, cannot help but feel that something more nefarious has been at play for them. In particular, their dealings with an apartment manager who acted as a gatekeeper for the residents of her building — occupants who made up a significant percentage of the population from which Lee and Park needed signatures — left her feeling unwelcome, demeaned and demoralized. Park even recalls one incident, when she came to the door — obviously pregnant — and the manager refused to acknowledge her knocking.

“Personally, I feel that St. Louis has a really great local history; people are proud of their neighborhoods. But if you are new, you don’t feel accepted,” Park says. “I feel discriminated against. I think things would have been different if I was someone else.”

Park is not alone in feeling this way. Since this past December, Ono Ikanone and his wife, Justice Johnson, have worked tirelessly to obtain signatures from the Washington Avenue community for their forthcoming Nigerian restaurant, Levels. The restaurant has been a dream of Ikanone’s ever since he moved to the U.S. in high school, and after working as an engineer for the past few years, he finally decided to pursue it, purchasing the building at 1405 Washington Avenue that had been vacant for two years and was in such disrepair it was raining inside the building.

He assumed his neighbors would be excited to see the space rehabilitated, especially by a local family outfit. Instead, he faced intense pushback that made his dream feel like a nightmare.

“We purchased the building, and the first thing after that we were told we could not get a liquor license there, straight up,” Ikanone says.

To better their odds, they hired Kelly, who reached out to the Downtown Neighborhood Association, or DNA, a nonprofit that advocates for residents. “When he told them the address, they sent an email back to him that they

were very against anything that involves liquor and will probably give us pushback,” Ikanone says.

“There was already a preconceived notion that things would not go well here — that a neighbor had been selling alcohol illegally and that had been upsetting them. What does that have to do with my business? What does that have to do with me? That was the onset of everything.”

Ikanone ultimately got the license on May 11, but only after he and his wife went on a six-month public relations campaign he describes as akin to the “shaking hands and kissing babies” tasks required of political candidates.

Ikanone does not take issue with the DNA’s fiercely protective approach toward its community. His issue surrounds how members of DNA were influenced by a downtown resident who Ikanone says launched a blatant, racially tinged smear campaign against him that included a video, pulled together with clips from Ikanone’s Instagram account, aimed at making it look like he was trying to launch a nightclub (one clip, Ikanone notes, was taken from a Nigerian Independence Day celebration).

“That shook us a bit and made us think that nobody will sign the petition because people will think we are something that we are not; that is the narrative we have to overcome,” Ikanone says.

“Essentially, he ran an anti-Levels campaign against us with all these people, and that’s the problem with the signature process. If I were to band with someone and tell you that I’m not going to sign, you’re toast. If another Nigerian restaurant wants to open across the street, and I don’t want the competition, I could say they are

unsafe and kill the business before it even starts.

“Yes, I still want the public to have a say in who moves in, but no one should have that kind of power to say, for whatever reason, that they don’t want someone to move in — even if they clearly show the best intentions and are heavily invested in the community.”

While Ikanone and his family ultimately got the signatures, the lengths he had to go through left him feeling insulted and low. He is adamant that he hates boiling things down to race, but he cannot see another reason for why he had to put so much effort into dispelling preconceived notions that Levels was going to be a nightclub when nothing in his business plan or background should have given anyone that impression.

Ikanone understands that the elephant in the room — and in any room where liquor licenses around Washington Avenue are being discussed — is the nowshuttered Reign nightclub. The bar made headlines over the years for numerous incidents, including multiple shootings, that ultimately led to a city-ordered shutdown two years after it opened in 2022. Ikanone also understands why his neighbors would be wary about another nightclub coming into the area (though Reign’s owners have maintained the problems were not caused by the club but rather an overall uptick in crime in the downtown area).

What Ikanone cannot understand is what his family friendly Nigerian restaurant has in common with Reign. Other than one thing.

“People can decide not to sign for multiple reasons, and we can-

not leave out prejudice and racism,” Ikanone says. “With some of the things I have seen — I don’t like to play that card, but how many credentials do I have to present to you? I have gone to school, worked as an engineer, and approached someone about this business concept, and they think, ‘You are going to be like those other guys.’ I don’t even know those other guys.”

Despite their struggles, Ikanone notes that he had a lot of things working in his favor and was uniquely positioned to fight as hard as he did. He had the resources to hire Kelly, well-placed allies in the community and contacts in his network who connected him with fellow restaurateurs like Eickenhorst, who shared her knowledge and offered support. He had the benefit of owning his own building.

And his heart breaks for those who do not.

“There is a guy out there that is just a chef and doesn’t have [my] resources,” Ikanone says. “He has an excellent idea for a business, but he is a young Black guy who is not going to get a liquor license no matter what he does. We will never know what he could have contributed because he doesn’t have the resources I have.”

Ikanone’s experience — as well as the experiences of Eickenhorst, Robles and the others leading the charge for change — has resonated with one important figure who has become an unexpected ally: the excise commissioner himself, Myles McDonnell.

McDonnell has been the commissioner since 2016, a position that he came to after spending 34 years as a special agent with the Missouri Department of Public Safety Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control (he’s also an attorney). He admits that when he first came onto the job, he hoped he might bring about reform, having heard even then complaints about the cumbersome process. Even if major changes would need to go through the Board of Aldermen, he figured he could help speed things up.

However, he quickly found himself handcuffed by the letter of the law and unable to do anything except execute a flawed process to the best of his abilities.

“I know for a fact that this process has discouraged people [from doing business in the city],” McDonnell says. “I had to feel sorry for some of these [applicants]. If

Continued on pg 20

Ono Ikanone and his wife, Justice Johnson, are opening a Nigerian restaurant. | BRADEN MCMAKIN

LIQUOR LICENSES

Continued from pg 19

they really want to do it right, and they are a chain place that comes in and has money, they can hire someone to do it. If you are a person who is trying to do it on a shoestring, maybe you don’t have that.”

McDonnell says recent short staffing has made things move especially slowly, even as he and his team work overtime. Turnaround times have recently quickened, thanks to Mayor Tishaura Jones shuffling around staff to bring more people into Excise — he notes that they recently went from having 30 applications in the queue to just 5.

McDonnell is more than amenable to bigger change. He was happy to participate in a recent meeting between St. Louis restaurateurs, the mayor’s office and the Division of Public Safety, and feels heartened by what he sees as a genuine desire to address these issues on the part of the administration. He was also pleased to see the restaurant and bar owners present reasonable solutions to speed up the application process.

“It was a really good meeting, and we came up with some very good ideas on how to address this,” McDonnell says. “The mayor is really interested in streamlining the process and making the city more business-friendly than it has been in the past. I think things are going in the right direction.”

McDonnell knows that signature gathering is the biggest pain point — both for the restaurant and bar owners who need to secure them and for his office, which needs to verify them. He’s open to seeing it change and was moved when Ikanone — who was also in the meeting — noted how unsafe he felt going door-to-door gathering signatures, especially in the wake of the recent shootings of a Kansas City man and New York woman who found themselves on strangers’ property. However, McDonnell cautions that any solutions cannot be one-size-fits-all and should take into consideration the impacts that different types of business have in a community — for instance, sit-down restaurants versus packaged liquor stores.

McDonnell also believes that it is important to have a plan in place for how to address problem properties, should they arise, though he believes that his team within the Problem Properties Unit has the infrastructure in place to handle any issues. He notes that residents are able to express their

concerns about problematic businesses through a liquor license protest petition which, like the application itself, requires obtaining signatures of 51 percent of interested parties within the 350-foot plat surrounding the business. Any solutions, he notes, will have to balance the needs of both the prospective business owners and the community.

“Everybody is working together for a common goal and positive one — to get things opened up,” McDonnell says. “The mayor has really spearheaded this to streamline it and make it more business friendly, but any proposals being discussed have to be passed by the Board of Aldermen. There is only so much we can do.”

Eickenhorst and Ikanone left their meeting with the administration upbeat, believing that they were finally making progress in their quest for reform.

“I felt heard, and I felt like the city was doing what it needed to do to help,” Ikanone says.

However, any change to the actual ordinance establishing the city’s liquor license process must happen through the Board of Aldermen — and at its May 5 meeting, it became clear that reform might not be as simple as some would like. Upon introduction of a resolution that would establish a Special Committee on Red Tape, Ward 12 Alderwoman Sharon Tyus expressed concern with efforts to make it easier to obtain a liquor license.

Citing a history of nuisance properties, the north city alderwoman spoke to the lack of agency residents of her ward have when it comes to addressing problem businesses. In particular, she described a business that has had five or six shootings in the last five or six months, yet the Problem Properties Unit cannot find a way to shut it down.

“I’ve often found that what people think is great in one part of the city is often not great in the other part of the city,” Tyus said.

Alderwomen Anne Schweitzer offered similar thoughts.

“In my neighborhood, we have had problems with this on both ends of the spectrum,” Schweitzer said at the May 5 meeting. “On the one hand, businesses have had to jump through so many hoops with so much effort to just get their businesses open in terms of whether or not you can even find the people to sign the petitions and whether or not there are enough people who live around

the business to even possibly have a chance.”

Schweitzer then echoed Tyus’ sentiment about the difficulties her community has faced in revoking the licenses of problem properties. She, too, cited instances of shootings associated with bars or retail-sales spots, and noted how difficult the protest petition process is — just as difficult for concerned neighbors as the application process is for businesses.

“In the best-case scenario, this special committee could both address issues on the front end and the back end of the process so that when there are problems in our wards and our neighborhoods, that our citizens, our residents have the ability to fight back,” Schweitzer said. “Because the liquor license process isn’t only hard on the front end; it’s just as hard at the back end when our folks need to address these issues in their community.”

Like Schweitzer, Alderwoman Cara Spencer has sympathy for businesses whose applications have been on hold due to delays at Excise. It’s an issue that prompted her to contact McDonnell last summer to complain about the backlog.

“I 100 percent see the problem, and I want to fix the problem too,” Spencer says. “I stand with the restaurant and bar owners that are waiting ad infinitum, and this is totally unacceptable. The sale of liquor is vital to them.”

Still, Spencer sees the problem as much larger than a cumbersome process, and is adamant that any potential solutions must address what she sees as general dysfunction within the Excise Commission, beginning with its antiquated systems and ending with its failure to provide timely relief to neighborhoods suffering from problem businesses. Citing Reign, as well as Exotic Bar and Grill — a Cherokee Street establishment that has been at the center of several incidents, including a brazen shooting on May 5 that left two dead and two wounded — she is exasperated that the community has no clear remedy for such issues.

As Spencer sees it, the enforcement piece of liquor control is broken, and problem businesses are not being held to account in any meaningful way. In that sense, community stakeholders feel that their only shot at making sure their neighborhoods stay free of problem properties is preempting them on the front end. Any talk of quieting their voices — for instance, doing away with

the signature process — must be met with guarantees that they will still have a say.

“I would love to see a system in which the community could come and weigh in and laws were enforced in a general sense, but we are not there yet, and we have failed our community by failing to enforce the laws,” Spencer says.

“So many have been screwed over, and we are in a bad position now. It’s important to speed up the process because right now it is totally unreasonable, but we also have to establish trust that once a license is granted, failing to abide by the laws will be handled appropriately by the city.”

In their meeting with the mayor’s administration, both Eickenhorst and Ikanone suggested that they would support a scenario in which it was easier to get the license up front but that it was just as easy to lose. Ikanone has even suggested that the city might explore a one-year probationary period, during which a business might be granted a provisional license while being subject to increased scrutiny before being awarded a full license.

No one is looking to disenfranchise their neighbors. In fact, they believe a mutually beneficial solution could end up strengthening the ties between businesses and their communities — one based on trust and the shared goal of creating a safe, vibrant neighborhood.

Even Park wants to see that happen. Over the 2 ½ years she and Lee have spent on their ill-fated attempt to obtain a liquor license for Chicken Seven, she’s evolved in her position, moving from disbelief to frustration to understanding some of the resistance to their petition after experiencing several unpleasant incidents in the area herself.

“I do want to hear their opinion; if they disagree, they might be right,” Park notes.

Even so, she suggests that any changes might be too late to change Chicken Seven’s fate. Having just opened a new restaurant, Cafe Ganadara, in the St. Louis Hills neighborhood, she’s ready for a fresh start — and maybe even a fresh process that will make things just a little bit easier for her and her family to get their license, should they even try again.

“I think it’s our last year to run Chicken Seven,” Park says. “We’re just not making any money. In the end, we have to say we did our best, but we just couldn’t get it.” n

CALENDAR

BY RIVERFRONT TIMES STAFF

WEDNESDAY 05/31 A Cosmic Gumbo

Break out your Dan Flashes shirt and Stanzo-brand fedora because this week is all about I Think You Should Leave. The riotously funny Netflix offering debuted its highly anticipated third season on May 30, and if that’s not enough, the Heavy Anchor (5226 Gravois Avenue) will play host to a night of drinks and I Think You Should Leave Trivia this Wednesday, May 31. I Think You Should Leave, the 2019 breakout sketch-comedy show hosted by Tim Robinson, veers toward a fever dream, with sketches centered on Wienermobile mishaps and Johnny Carson impersonators gone violent. Superfans would do well to gather teams of four together to flex their fandom over the Heavy Anchor’s Dogtown Pizza and roaring spirits. As all formidable wearers of Calico Cut Pants know, “You’ve got to give,” and at the Heavy Anchor, admission is only $5 per person. The event is 21-plus and kicks off at 8 p.m.

Top Brass

Tennessee Williams may not have loved St. Louis, but this city definitely loves him. For definitive proof of the Lou’s unrequited feelings for the playwright, look no further than the excited crowds at The Brass Menagerie, a show running this week at the Fox Theater’s Curtain Call Lounge (521 North Grand Boulevard, 314-657-5070). Now, we know what you’re thinking, but you might need to take a second glance at the show’s title. This isn’t the famed playwright’s depressing-as-hell story set in St. Louis in the 1930s, although the Wingfields will be making an appearance. Instead of a study in disappointment, The Brass Menagerie features the women of Tennessee Williams’ best-known plays singing about their stories. The “ridiculous lark of a concert,” as it’s been dubbed in promotional material, will have Blanche DuBois (A Streetcar Named Desire) and Maggie the Cat (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) belting out their

tales to the tunes of popular classics. The production no doubt rewards knowing a little bit about Williams’ works, but such knowledge isn’t required to have a good time. The show runs this Wednesday, May 31, and Thursday, June 1, with doors opening at 6:30 p.m. Tickets start at $50. More info at twstl.org/tickets.

THURSDAY 06/01

Big Tent Revival

Last year, Circus Flora brought a bona fide Hollywood star to the big top in Grand Center — Illinois native Britt Lower, recently of the HBO hit series Severance and in St. Louis to research a film project about circus folk. So how does St. Louis’ favorite homegrown circus top that? Well, how about motorcycle tricks? And crossbow stunts? And, get this … a “‘human fountain’ act you have to see to believe.” No idea what most of that

means, but all will be revealed this Thursday, June 1, with Circus Flora’s new show Undercover It also includes juggler Roberto Carlos; the Flying Wallendas highwire act; a few dogs; a pig; and Laura Lippert, an aerialist who gets suspended by her own hair. If that’s not enough to entice you, well, this probably isn’t your kind of circus. For the rest of us, it’s one of the high points of the summer — and a steal at just $15 a seat. Thursday’s peanut-free preview will be followed by the official opening night on Saturday, June 3, and the show will run Tuesdays through Sundays through June 25. Find tickets and more details at circusflora.org.

Cavorting with Courtesans

Surely, if ever a show earned the adjective “madcap,” it is A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum , the Stephen

Sondheim musical about a Roman slave who tries to help his master court a young courtesan. The slave, Pseudolus, develops an increasingly convoluted plan to secure the courtesan, who is promised to another, for his master. And eventually the hijinks involve three families and several chases through the streets of Rome. New Line will stage this farcical sex comedy, which is just as relevant today as it was when it first came out in 1962. The show runs Thursday, June 1, through Saturday, June 24, at the Marcelle Theater (3310 Samuel Shepard Drive, 314-5330367), with shows each week on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $25 to $30 and can be purchased at newlinetheatre.com.

Hot Buttered Soul

The greatest record label in the history of the entire world is going to be celebrated this Thursday,

Can’t wait for Wes Anderson’s new film Asteroid City? At Wes-Fest, you can catch the auteur’s first six films. | FOCUS FEATURES

June 1, on the north lawn of the Missouri History Museum (5700 Lindell Boulevard, 314-746-4599). Another season of the museum’s Twilight Thursdays events has begun — and this week’s event will really swing because it will feature music from the Stax Records catalog. The outdoor concert series is always a huge hit, and for good reason. Not only is the entertainment free, it’s also a great place to spread out your blanket, eat some food and maybe sip on a little wine while listening to professional musicians play some of your favorite tunes. The event runs from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. and there will even be some food trucks on site in case you don’t have time to pack your own snacks. Visit mohistory.org for more information.

FRIDAY 06/02

Love at First Site

It’s always art time in Grand Center, thanks to museums such as the Pulitzer Arts Foundation and the Contemporary Art Museum. But on the first Friday of every month the already culture-rich neighborhood really brings it, as institutions open their doors for an after-hours affair (often with some art food, a.k.a. wine and snacks). Known as First Friday, the event is always a party — but First Friday: Queer Revolution might be the best party of them all. Held at the Contemporary Art Museum (3750 Washington Avenue, 314-535-4660), the event is meant to be a kickoff celebration for

Pride Month and includes performances and art honoring “queer legends and history makers.” Artist Maxi Glamour will serve as cohost, and the event will focus on all the recent infringements upon queer and trans rights across the U.S. — and especially here in Missouri. The event begins at 5 p.m. on Friday, June 2, with performances at 6:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. Admission is free. More info at camstl.org.

Say Cheese

Missouri wineries aren’t exactly known for being good. Suffice it to say the overall tenor and character of Missouri’s “Rhineland” in no way rivals California’s warm and sunny wine country. But what we do have is some damn good cheese. To celebrate Missouri cheese makers and local artisans, McKelvey Vineyards (8901 State Highway YY, Leslie; 573-459-6123) will host its second annual Missouri Artisan Cheese Festival this Friday, June 2, and Saturday, June 3. Dairy lovers can sample cow-milk cheese from Cool Cow Cheese and Homestead Creamery, goat-milk cheese from Terrell Creek and Baetje Farms, and sheep-milk cheese from Green Dirt. Tickets vary in price based on what you want to do. On the low end, a $14 ticket gets you a

WEEK OF MAY 31-JUNE 7

curated wine flight of three McKelvey Vineyard wines. A $100 ticket earns entry into a “cave to table” dinner. The event kicks off at 6:30 p.m. on Friday and 11 a.m. on Saturday. For more information, visit mckelveyvineyards.com.

Pure Wild Animal Craziness

Wes Anderson is fully a thing at the moment, and fans are getting psyched for the release of his 11th film, Asteroid City, which will be out on June 16. Thankfully, those of us living in St. Louis don’t have to wait until then to get our Wes Anderson fix. Instead, we can just head to Wes-Fest, Cinema St. Louis’ celebration of the film auteur. During Wes-Fest, Cinema St. Louis will screen Anderson’s first six films over the first two weekends in June, with one film showing per day. This weekend’s shows include Bottle Rocket, Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, and all will play at the organization’s home base, the Hi-Pointe Theatre (1005 McCausland Avenue, 314995-6273). Friday and Saturday films will begin at 7 p.m., and Sunday’s starts at 5 p.m. Tickets are $12 or $10 for students and Cinema St. Louis members. Visit cinemastlouis.org for more information. n

Circus Flora’s latest show is a spy caper. | POSTER ART

Celebrate Missouri’s cheese makers this weekend. | COURTESY MCKELVEY VINEYARDS

Sandwiches Done Right

South Grand’s Grand Sammies & Sides showcases classics elevated to their full potential

Written by CHERYL BAEHR

Pat Skiersch was fortunate enough to grow up in a household that knew how to cook. His dad, mom and uncle were excellent in the kitchen, so epic weekend meals were a regular occurrence. However, his fondest food memories were of the simple weekday meals his parents would cobble together somewhere between work, school and the kids’ sports practices and games. Their busy schedules meant they lacked the time to put together a full, multicourse meal, but they still made time to eat together and, more often than not, those weekday dinners consisted of sandwiches. The food wasn’t anything over the top, but it was done well — a classic BLT with thick-sliced, peakof-the-season tomatoes, his dad’s excellent pulled pork, his mom’s family famous spicy chicken. For Skiersch, these meals were more than a way to feed a busy family; they were the ultimate comfort of home.

It’s no surprise, then, that Skiersch would look to what he loved the most when opening his debut food venture, Grand Sammies & Sides. Located inside the natural wine shop and bar Grand Spirits, Skiersch’s restaurant aims to be a standalone fast-casual and delivery spot, a place to pop in for a casual lunch or quick after-work bite and an amenity to Grand Spirits. Most importantly, though, it aims to be an homage to the genre that sparked in Skiersch a passion for food and set him on the course for who he would become as a chef — a genuine love for such a humble, comforting cuisine that is evident

in every overstuffed bite. We might never have tasted what Skiersch is capable of making had his career plans gone as he’d envisioned. After graduating high school, the southern Illinois native went to college with the intention of becoming an oral surgeon, only to have his plans

thwarted when his dad got sick. Skiersch had to put school on hold to help run his dad’s business, and as time went on, he decided to drop out completely and figure out what his new path might be. During that time, he found himself cooking at home, only to be disappointed with his handiwork

and frustrated that he’d grown up around such good cooks and — at least on the surface — failed to pick up their techniques.

That frustration turned into a quest; Skiersch resolved to learn how to cook in a big way, enrolling in culinary school and soaking up everything he could from his classes and prestigious externships, including at Disney’s Flying Fish in Orlando and Gerard Craft’s Niche and Brasserie in St. Louis. He loved the business, but he could not shake the feeling that, if he was going to dedicate his entire life to something, he wanted it to be his own dream and not someone else’s. After some serious soul searching, he realized that, despite the prestige that came from fine dining, everything for him always came back to sandwiches. If there was a way to combine his love for that with everything he’d learned from his time in upscale restaurants, he knew he’d be exactly where he was meant to be.

Skiersch would get that opportunity while working alongside chef Matt Wynn at Salve Osteria on South Grand. Though he was tasked with helping Wynn prepare the restaurant’s upscale, Ital-

Continued on pg 26

Grand Sammies & Sides offers casual fare inside of Grand Spirits Bottle Co. | MABEL SUEN

Pat Skiersch is chef at Grand Sammies & Sides. | MABEL SUEN

GRAND SAMMIES

ian-inflected fare, he’d take every opportunity to make sandwiches for his co-workers in his down time. Natasha Bahrami and Michael Fricker, Salve’s co-owners and also partners in the Gin Room, were so impressed with Skiercsh’s creations that they approached him about opening a sandwich counter inside their other venture, Grand Spirits. As soon as they started chatting about ideas, it became clear that this was a perfect fit for everyone involved, and Grand Sammies was born.

Though Grand Sammies’ offerings are the classics of the form, Skiersch’s background in upscale dining is evident. A turkey sandwich, for instance, hits the notes you are looking for in a classic deli offering — tender, shaved meat, thick-sliced tomatoes, melted cheddar cheese — but details like marinated lettuce and crispy fried shallots add complexity. The latter, especially, infuses every bite with onion flavor, and a chipotle- and Calabrian chili-spiked mayonnaise infuses every bite with lip-tingling heat.

Chicken salad, too, benefits from a chef’s touch; the pulled dark meat is liberally tossed with creamy mayonnaise and flecked with walnuts and raisins, which add crunch and sweetness respectively that is akin to a Waldorf salad. A simple garden burrito, too, is elevated thanks to velvety French onion spread that envelops a melange of vinaigrette-tossed tomatoes, cucumbers and bell peppers. It’s like a mouthwatering Greek salad in burrito form.

The meatball sandwich is the sort of outrageously overstuffed behemoth you want from the

form, though what makes it special is that it is made with Salve’s outstanding chicken and beef meatballs. The large, tender spheres are tucked into the soft hoagie roll then coated in oregano-accented tomato sauce and molten provolone cheese. It can only be eaten with a knife and fork if you want to maintain any dignity.

Likewise, the Italian beef is as hefty as it is delicious, filled with hunks of tender beef that taste like a grandmother’s slow-cooked pot-roast. Skiersch balances the beefy decadence with fiery giardiniera that adds substantial crunch in addition to heat. It would have been the meals’ showstopper were

it not for the day’s special, a banh mi, which paired fork-tender, fishsauce-caramel-glazed pork with pickled veggies, cilantro and a generous slather of that mayonnaise.

Skiersch puts the same care into his sides as he does his sandwiches. A cucumber salad, tossed with red onions and mint, is the embodiment of refreshment. Orzo pasta salad, tossed with tomatoes, Kalamata olives and cucumbers, is the flavor of summer picnics in a bowl. However, his most impressive side dish is his Cajun potato salad, an old family recipe based on chef Paul Prudhomme’s classic dish that balances the mayo’s creaminess with gentle heat.

For Skiersch, the potato salad is much more than a side dish; it’s a piece of family history. He has fond memories of his dad tweaking the dish from Prudhomme’s recipe until he got it just to his liking, then bringing it to every get-together, where it would be eaten up alongside other Skiersch family specialties. That he gets to share that love with his customers through his low-key sandwich shop feels full circle. That we get to share in it with him feels like a privilege. n

Continued

Sides include marinated spicy cucumber and orzo salad. | MABEL SUEN My Cousin Eddie has marinated cherry tomatoes, bell peppers and onion spread. | MABEL SUEN

The Snooki Meatball includes meatballs, provolone and marinara. | MABEL SUEN

SHORT ORDERS

Stylish and Delicious

The new Ballpark Village Katie’s Pizza & Pasta Osteria offers an expanded menu with both to-go items and larger entrees

Written by CHERYL BAEHR

Outside the new Ballpark Village location of Katie’s Pizza & Pasta Osteria (751 Clark Avenue, katiespizzaandpasta.com) it’s a sea of red, with St. Louis Cardinals logos and baseball scenery as far as the eye can see. The stadium sits just a stone’s throw away, across Clark Street, and the Stan Musial statue — Cardinal Nation’s universal meet-up point — keeps watch over jersey-clad passersby. However, the moment you step through Katie’s PPO’s revolving doors, you are transported a million miles away to a serene Italian villa. Stunning marble columns, planters and a host desk inlaid with a bronze lion’s head look as if they were excavated from a dig in Pompeii. A large

Italianesque mosaic adorns the floor, ancient-looking lion sculptures recline atop the back of the host desk and lush potted trees make you feel that, if you look through them and squint just enough, you might catch a glimpse of the Mediterranean.

The third — and at 10,000

square feet, by far the largest in the chain — Katie’s PPO welcomed its first guests on May 22, promising to be a stylish and delicious addition to the Ballpark Village landscape. With its massive dining room, open pasta kitchen, special events space and wraparound patio, Katie’s PPO serves

as the flagship of Katie Lee Collier and Ted Collier’s burgeoning culinary empire, which includes locations in Rock Hill and Town & Country, as well as a thriving national frozen pizza and pasta business.

Similar to the other Katie’s PPO locations in both design and food

The ballpark location of Katie’s Pizza & Pasta is now open. | CHERYL BAEHR

One of the new menu additions is the Parmigiana di pollo. | CHERYL BAEHR

You can find the squash blossom pasta at the new location. | CHERYL BAEHR

offerings, the new Ballpark Village location offers guests an inviting, art-filled space — works by Collier and Lee Collier’s mother, Belinda Lee, are featured prominently — in which to enjoy the handmade pastas and gourmet wood-fired pizzas that turned Katie’s PPO into an overnight phenomenon when it opened its current iteration in Rock Hill in 2013. However, the larger space means an expanded menu, which includes takeaway items designed for those dashing in and out to the baseball game, and larger entrees for diners with the time to make a visit to the restaurant the main event.

These new menu additions include an Italian-inflected take on the classic lobster thermidor; a 24-ounce costata alla Fiorentina; seared, skin-on salmon; and the massive parmigiana di pollo, which features a fried fontina-stuffed chicken breast accented with tomato and arugula.

Katie’s PPO is almost as known for its brunch as its pastas and pizzas, and the Ballpark Village offerings do not disappoint. Dishes include brioche French toast topped with mascarpone crema, figs, strawberries and crispy pancetta; a breakfast sandwich comprising soft scrambled egg, prosciutto cotto, fontina and Calabrian chili-tomato jam; and a squash-blossom frittata with zucchini, tomatoes and goat cheese.

In addition to an impressive wine and beer selection, the new Katie’s PPO offers a wonderful cocktail list with libations including La Dolce Vita, made with gin, creme de violette, ruby port, lemon juice and simple syrup; the Unemployable, which is a twist on the margarita featuring blood orange juice and serrano-infused mezcal; and the Merry Christmas, simply prepared with vodka and watermelon juice. n

The Ballpark Village Katie’s PPO is open for brunch, lunch and dinner service seven days a week from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. on Sundays and Mondays and from 10 a.m. until 11 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

All In

Plantain Girl’s Salsa Rosada brings Venezuelan and Columbian food to Midtown

Written by SCOUT HUDSON

Lafayette Park’s beloved Mayo Ketchup has a new sister restaurant: Salsa Rosada (3135 Olive Street, 314-601-3038, plantaingirl.com), named after the traditional Latin American blend of mayonnaise, ketchup and seasoning, opened last month in Midtown.

Mandy Estrella and Bradley Payne, co-owners of Salsa Rosada and Mayo Ketchup’s mother company, Plantain Girl, originally intended for Salsa Rosada to be a stand-alone Venezuelan and Colombian kitchen. But with the nudges of friend and fellow restaurateur David Bailey of Rooster, Small Batch and Bailey’s Range, the coworkers-turned-couple decided to expand their vision.

“So we went all in,” Payne says. “But we didn’t realize how difficult it was going to be in terms of getting this open.”

Equipping the space on Olive Street was no easy feat. After months of seemingly endless drilling, wiring and bureaucratic back-and-forth, Salsa Rosada faced an opening day four months later than projected. However, Plantain Girl’s dream to build an authentic eatery for the Venezuelan and Colombian communities kept their passion aflame.

“We’ve been seeing a lot of people from Venezuela here just in the first three weeks, so that’s awesome,” Payne says. “The response makes us feel good about how difficult this process of opening this restaurant was.”

The daytime cafe dishes out a variety of Venezuelan and Colombian classics with a side of Midtown chic. Taking residence in the ornate building that previously housed Hugo’s Pizza, the restaurant features a traditional beveled ceiling accented by vibrant blue

walls and large, metal palm leaves.

For Plantain, Midtown was the perfect location. All four of Plantain Girl’s enterprises — Salsa Rosada, Mayo Ketchup, the pop-up at St. Louis Soccer Club’s CITYPARK, and their routine catering customer, Busch Stadium — are within a mile distance of each other.

“We wanted to build out something that was elevated,” Payne says. “The element we’re having is ‘fast casual’ until we get the bar totally up and going. Then this area will be full service.”

Payne teased a full bar with 12 beers and three wines on tap, plus a full liquor shelf for frozen drinks — and potentially, a coffee service. He says with the larger venue, they are looking to get experimental.

“This kitchen is basically a third of the size of the entire footprint here … I don’t think there’s an event we can’t do,” Payne says. While Salsa Rosada looks to add more dishes to their growing menu, it is also firmly committed to authenticity. That authenticity is perhaps best tasted through the street-style perro calientes.

The Colombian hot dog comes dressed with cabbage, a pineapple and cilantro sauce, cotija cheese, potato sticks and the titular salsa rosada. Meanwhile, the Venezuelan dog subs the sweet pineapple cilantro mix for a savory corn and bacon sauce.

Both dogs are served on buns from St. Charles County’s Pan Pa’Ti Bakery, a business relationship that started as something of social media courting. Pan Pa’Ti delivers fresh buns and Venezuelan crescent bread used in cachitos to Salsa Rosada every morning.

“Pretty much everything we do here is pretty much from scratch.

So anything we don’t have to make takes a little pressure off us,” Payne says.

Payne says Salsa Rosada is the only restaurant in St. Louis specializing in Venezuelan cuisine.

“We were able to source sodas that you can’t find anywhere in grocery stores,” Payne says, referencing the cooler stocked with Venezuelan beverages Frescolita and Pony Malta. “[Customers] are getting one and taking three home because they know it’s almost impossible to find these things.”

Their commitment to providing traditional drinks mirrors their dedication in serving authentic Latin eats. As Salsa Rosada crafted its menu, Payne and Estrella invited Venezuelan community members to sample test dishes. In the coming weeks, sancocho, the hearty Colombian, root-vegetable soup, and other Latin classics will find their way to the kitchen. n

Salsa Rosada is open 11 am. to 3 p.m. from Tuesday to Saturday.

Salsa Rosada is open in the former home of Hugo’s Pizzeria in Midtown. | SCOUT HUDSON

[FOOD NEWS]

Porano Returns

Gerard Craft’s fast-casual concept will get a second shot at life in Des Peres

Written by JESSICA ROGEN

There’s a danger in loving a specific restaurant. It’s a tough industry, and even the most stalwart location can falter in times of crisis or staff shortages. Even knowing that, my heart broke a little when Porano Pasta closed in 2018. See, Gerard Craft’s downtown St. Louis fast-casual restaurant had become near and dear to me in the 2 1/2 years it existed.

Diners at Porano could choose bowls of pasta or salads from a menu, or they could craft their own Craft-worthy creation from a plethora of carbs, vegetables, proteins and other toppings. It was perfect for a picky crew — everyone could get what they wanted, but everything was good quality and tasted of it. Taking my super-health-conscious vegetarian brother was great, and it allowed me to make the bowl of my dreams (meatballs on a salad sounds gross but it’s great, believe me).

I’m far from the only St. Louisan who felt that way (even the RFT’s Cheryl Baehr

CHERYL BAEHR’S GOOEY BUTTER CAKE PICKS

Bob Ross may be known for the phrase “happy accidents,” but there is perhaps no better accident than when a St. Louis baker biffed the butter proportions in a cake recipe, resulting in our fair city’s most iconic dessert. In the near century since that fateful error, gooey butter cake has served as much as a source of civic pride as it is a way to keep your dentist in business. These five spots turn out the area’s best versions.

Russell’s on Macklind

said Craft “nailed it” ), but still, it wasn’t enough. In July 2018, the RFT reported that Porano Pasta was closing and that Craft cited lost convention traffic as one of the major causes of the closure.

I mourned but got over it. Or, at least, I thought I got over it. My reaction last week upon seeing an auspicious Tweet from Craft announcing that Porano would return suggests otherwise.

“On my friend Josh Allen’s podcast @ bakedinpodcast, I leaked the fact that

[FOOD NEWS]

Ted Drewes Reopens

A staff shortage forced the South Grand location to stay closed last season

Written by MONICA OBRADOVIC

Ted Drewes opened its Dutchtown location last Friday.

The legendary custard stand kept its second location at 4224 South Grand Boulevard closed last summer amid a staff shortage. But on Facebook last week, Ted Drewes announced the spot will reopen.

“Thank you all for being patient with us in the last few seasons as we worked through the pandemic and staffing is-

we were going to reopen Porano,” Craft wrote. “The news is true and we are excited to bring Porano back in 2024!”

That news sure took me out of my doomscrolling.

The new concept will open somewhere in Des Peres in March 2024, Sauce Magazine reports.

Craft ended his Tweet by asking if former customers remembered their go-to orders. If you don’t, I have two words for you: meatball salad. n

“Restrained” might not be the first word that comes to mind when describing gooey butter cake, but that’s what makes the Russell’s on Macklind version special. With a slightly crisp shortbread-style crust and thinner layer of goo than most, this is the one you can eat in its entirety.

Park Avenue Coffee

What started as a quaint Lafayette Square coffee shop has morphed into a gooey butter powerhouse. Park Avenue Coffee’s Mom’s Traditional perfectly blends cakey softness and buttery goo in equal parts.

Gooey Louie

Gooey Louie is the only place in town bold enough to make the confection its only offering. This dedication to the form means the bake shop can offer just about any variety under the sun, though its original is hard to beat.

Yolklore

Before opening Yolklore, Mary Boehne cut her teeth as pastry chef for the Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis. It’s no wonder, then, that hers are some of the area’s most incredible pastries, including her outstanding version of the St. Louis classic.

sues,” the announcement reads. “If ever there was a sign that the world is ‘getting back to normal’ this is it!” n

The Dutchtown spot will be open from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. every day. Ted Drewes on Chippewa operates from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. hours seven days a week.

Missouri Baking Company

Missouri Baking Company’s traditional rendition of the classic takes on a decidedly Italian flair thanks to the bakery’s addition of almond paste. It’s a subtle tweak that results in a transcendent taste.

Porano Pasta was a fast-casual restaurant in downtown St. Louis. | MABEL SUEN

You can now grab a delicious custard at the Dutchtown location. | IAN FROEB

Get High and Limber

Elevate Well STL is the region’s first canna-friendly health club

Written by MONICA OBRADOVIC

In a renovated apartment above Apotheosis Comics & Lounge, Sarah Fuhrmann starts a restorative yoga session with an affirmation.

“You’re not here to fix anything, find anything new or look for anything different,” Fuhrmann says. “Because you are already enough.”

Lo-fi music plays in the background as a small group of yogis lay face-up on purple yoga mats. Everyone in the room knows each other — and they’re all high. Just moments before the session began, attendees passed around a blunt and drank infused seltzers. Here, at south city yoga studio Elevate Well STL, cannabis is as tied to wellness as the yoga.

Today’s session isn’t about exercise or straining the body; it’s about physical and mental relaxation. Or, in the words of Fuhrmann, “Chilling out: super

REEFERFRONT TIMES 33

style.”

Fuhrmann directs participants to lift their legs in the air. Take a deep breath in, let it out, she says, “circulate movement through your fingers and toes.

“There’s no timeline, no rush, but certainly acknowledge how you feel,” Fuhrmann says.

She speaks in a calm, metered voice. There’s no right or wrong way to do yoga at Elevate. Earlier this year, Fuhrmann founded the small but beloved “anti-studio” as a low-pressure alternative to the traditional yoga experience. Its vibe is more of a social club, and the onehour classes include smoke and social seshes before the yoga begins. People bring their own weed (none is provided or sold there) and chat, laugh, do yoga and eat snacks afterward. The studio currently has about 30 members.

“All you need here is your weed and you,” Fuhrmann says.

At its most basic, Elevate is the region’s first canna-friendly health club. It’s a members-only space tailored for people who don’t feel welcome in typical yoga spaces. Despite yoga’s popularity nowadays, Fuhrmann says, it’s not always accessible to the people who need it most. At Elevate, sessions are open to anyone, but Fuhrmann specifically has Gen Z in mind, as well as LGBTQ+ and neurodivergent people.

“The concept is more than just smoking and doing yoga,” Fuhrmann says. “It’s a community. We’re creating a safe space for people who want to try the expe-

rience without all the gatekeeping that maybe a high-end studio or private country club has.”

Though being high is not a requirement, it certainly enhances Elevate’s experience. Cannabis helps create deeper breath awareness and allows users to relax if they’re nervous, according to Fuhrmann.

Most of the cannasseurs here know what science is only starting to catch onto — that cannabis can (here’s where Elevate’s name comes into play) “elevate” exercise. A recent University of Colorado Boulder study found that 80 percent of cannabis users say the plant motivates them to work out and helps them enjoy exercise more. And CBD may aid athletes’ recovery by improving sleep and alleviating pain.

“People like me who are cannasseurs have been utilizing canna wellness for years but hidden,” Fuhrmann says. “This is a place to come out of the shadows and say there’s nothing wrong with the utilization of the plant. It can enhance your experience and help you through physical and mental healing.”

Fuhrmann hasn’t always mixed cannabis with yoga. She once ran a business that hosted yoga events

across the Midwest in nontraditional settings, such as breweries. Participants would drink before, during or after sessions.

But the pandemic forced that business to end, and Fuhrmann took it as an opportunity to study cannabis and reflect. She wanted to keep doing yoga in public spaces.

Elevate Well STL was born a few years later. What began as a few pop-up classes at various venues, mostly at Cola Private Lounge in south city, turned into something more permanent. In February, Elevate opened in its own space off of South Grand.

Yoga is just a small part of what Elevate does. Instructors also teach classes in aerial arts; capoeira, an afro-Brazilian martial art; breath-work; and qigong, a gentle Chinese exercise used to align the body and mind. There’s also an inhouse massage therapist.

Back in the restorative yoga session, Fuhrmann directs the yogis to lower their feet and to plant them on the earth. She says to notice their physical and mental shapes, to see themselves and “declutter.”

“That’s not always fun,” she says. “So remind yourself it isn’t about sunshine and rainbows on the mat, it’s about showing up.” n

Elevate Well STL is an “anti-studio” that teaches yoga and is cannabis friendly. | BRADEN MCMAKIN

Elevate has a social club aspect as well, with people toking up before class. | BRADEN MCMAKIN

CULTURE 35

[FORTUNE SMILES]

Star Turn

A St. Louis game gets a big bump after a Jeopardy! nod

Written by SARAH FENSKE

When Phill Wamser’s older brother Jake called him earlier this month, Phill let the call go to voicemail. The brothers and business partners had been going back and forth all day, preparing for the launch of their new game, Shiner. He needed a break.

But then Jake Wamser texted — and he had big news about their previous game, a rummy-style card game riffing on hot dog toppings.

“We were just on Jeopardy! for Turn for the Wurst as a clue,” Jake wrote. “I’m not kidding.”

Phill still thought it was a joke — “no one outside of St. Louis has even heard of our game/company,” he says.

But it wasn’t a joke, and Jake had the video clip to prove it. There was Jeopardy! host Mayim Bialik, and there was the clue: “A recipe completion card game in which you try to build the perfect hot dog is called ‘turn for’ this.”

When none of the contestants got it, Bialik provided the answer: “It’s kind of cute. Turn for ... the Wurst.”

The brothers still don’t know how Jeopardy! discovered them. But they do know the brief moment has given them a big bump in sales. “From November to two nights ago, we had sold about 300 copies total — very few as online sales,” Phill reports. “Our online sales have quadrupled!”

The brothers founded their company, Wam Wam Games, last year with dreams of becoming indie game designers and developers. The oldest and youngest brothers in a trio of boys who grew up in St. Louis’ Bevo Mill neighborhood (Jake is 40 and Phill is 32), they loved playing games. “I was a closet nerd all through high school,” Phill says.

It took attending Truman State University to really bring that nerdiness to the fore. “It’s the Midwest Mecca for all things nerdy,” Phill laughs.

Once freed to let his inner game geek shine, Phill went all in. And it was during a 2019 game convention in Indianapolis where he got to test out games being developed

that he had an epiphany.

“They were all terrible,” he says. “I thought, ‘We could do that.’”

That led to the brothers forming Wam Wam Games, and from there, late last fall, they released Turn for the Wurst — which began as a joke before they quickly realized they might be on to something.

“A friend of mine typed ‘turn for the wurst’ in a text, and I thought it was hilarious,” Phill recalls. During a car ride, they fleshed out a game idea that initially began as mockery, but laugh-out-loud funny illustrations by their friend Mike Shaw helped them see the possibilities.

Now not only do the brothers sell Turn for the Wurst on Amazon, at conventions and a local game store shelf (it’s now back for sale at Fortuna Games after initially selling out), they’ve also recently launched their second release, Shiner, on Kickstarter. As they continue to bootstrap their company, they hope the Jeopardy! bump will give Wam Wam Games the publicity they need.

Phill, a father of four who works as a youth pastor in Eureka, says the brothers eventually hope to go all in. “Our goal is to get full-time for both of us,” he says. But even if not, there are plenty of rewards in their side gig.

“It’s so much fun to make games and watch people have fun with my games,” he says. “My biggest dream is to be walking through a coffee shop and to see people playing one of my games and just having fun.”

Brothers Phill (left) and Jake Wamser are using their Jeopardy! start to hawk Turn for the Wust. | COURTESY PHILL WAMSER

MUSIC

Single Lady

Newly split from River Kittens, Mattie Schell embarks on a solo record

Written by STEVE LEFTRIDGE

You smell like fresh laundry,” Mattie Schell tells me. We are waiting for drinks amid the varicolored tiles and eclectic bric-a-brac of Venice Cafe, a short walk from the house the talented singer-songwriter shares with her fiancé, musician and audio engineer Nathan Gilberg. Schell describes her home’s proximity to Venice Cafe as “dangerous” due to the tempting convenience of such easy access to her favorite watering hole.

It’s a convenience she apparently enjoys often. The bartender knows her drink without Schell having to order it, and no fewer than a dozen people stop to talk to her during our sidewalk-table interview. (“We’re doing an interview right now,” she tells one friend. “But when we’re done I’m gonna come over and hug ya!”) She’s a popular and convivial fixture of the place, almost always smiling, the kind of gal who likes to have one foot on the dance floor and one elbow on the bar. Plus, she performs at Venice twice a month as one of St. Louis’ most popular new solo artists.

The key phrase is “new solo,” as Schell is most familiar to St. Louis and beyond as one-half of acoustic-based folkicana duo River Kittens alongside singer/guitarist Allie Vogler. Over the last decade, River Kittens recorded two EPs, released a flurry of singles and kicked up dust around the country mixing olde-tyme musical idioms with wry modern songwriting and seamless vocal harmonies.

Vogler had already formed River Kittens as a duo with singer Martha Mehring when Schell first met her in 2014 at the Crow’s Nest in Maplewood. After an impromptu set together that night, Schell officially joined River Kittens, turn-

ing the group into a trio.

The lineup took off, as the Kittens played five nights a week around town, released a well-received self-titled EP and opened for Pokey LaFarge’s 2015 New Year’s Eve show at the Pageant. After Mehring left the band in 2018, Schell and Vogler forged ahead as a duo, eventually connecting with guitarist and producer Devon Allman, who signed the girls to his Create Records label and put out the Kittens’ 2021 EP Soaking Wet

“That record literally took us coast to coast,” Schell says of the band’s cross-country tours open-

St. Louis Says Goodbye to a Legend

Tributes poured in when news broke that Tina Turner died

Written by ROSALIND

EARLY

The world was shocked when the Queen of Rock & Roll, Tina Turner, died last week.

Turner had a plethora of hits throughout her career, including the instantly recognizable “River Deep - Mountain High,” “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” “The Best” and “Private Dancer.” She also won eight Grammy awards and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ... twice.

Turner was born in Tennessee as Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939. She moved to St. Louis as a teenager to live with her mom, and graduated from

ing for the Allman Betts Band and playing venues such as the Ryman in Nashville with the Allman Family Revival. It’s a lifestyle that fit her well. “I love the road,” she says. “For me, it takes a lot longer to want to come home than it does to want to go back on the road.”

River Kittens chalked up a long list of highlights. They recorded at Sun Studios in Memphis, closed the Open Highway Music Festival by jamming with Old Crow Medicine Show on a cover of the Beastie Boys’ “Fight For Your Right,” played the Mighty Pines’ inaugural Pines Fest last year and collab-

Sumner High School. She famously met Ike Turner when she grabbed the microphone during one of his shows when he was performing with the Kings of Rhythm in East St. Louis.

The moment would go down in rock music history.

The duo achieved mainstream fame by 1966 with “River Deep - Mountain High.” By this time they were married, and Bullock was performing under her stage name Tina Turner. The pair later opened for the Rolling Stones and recorded at Carnegie Hall. In her autobiography I, Tina, Turner revealed that Ike was promiscuous and abusive for the duration of their marriage. She got divorced in 1978.

After she escaped her abusive marriage, she appeared on shows including The Sonny & Cher Show, The Brady Bunch Hour and Hollywood Squares to make ends meet, but her music was not charting in the late 1970s or early ’80s.

Finally, in 1983, Turner came roaring back. She covered “Let’s Stay Together,” a hit for Al Green, which got her a record deal. That record was Private Dancer, which had the hit song “What’s Love Got to Do With It.” The album, which she recorded in just two weeks, reached No. 3

orated with G. Love on a version of Bruce Springsteen’s “Atlantic City,” released as a River Kittens single. “G. Love gave us a boost,” Schell says, though she notes that the younger Vogler had previously never heard of G. Love. “I was like, ‘I had him on fucking Napster, dude!’ She was like, ‘What’s Napster?’”

Despite the many successes, the Kittens felt like 2023 was time for a change. Schell treads lightly when talking about Vogler, careful to avoid saying anything negative about her former bandmate or the reasons for their split, and she says she considers the door open to future collaborations with Vogler or River Kittens reunions.

“The experience of the River Kittens is one of the most incredible things in my life,” Schell says, emphasizing the unique vocal connection she and Vogler shared. “Allie and I were really good at telegraphing what we’re going to do, really good at singing harmony. We just had that chemistry with each other.”

Still, she notes that the two were quite different in other ways and that after eight years together, Schell was ready to go solo. “I can’t speak for Allie, but at the end

on the Billboard 200 and No. 2 in the UK. After news of her death broke, St. Louis paid tribute to the songstress with impromptu concerts around her star on the Walk of Fame, billboards and remembrances, according to multiple media outlets, proving the queen will live on in the city’s heart. n

Mattie Schell is a fixture in the St. Louis music scene. | COURTESY PHOTO

Tina Turner got her start in St. Louis after moving here as a teenager. | VIA WIKIPEDIA

of the day, every artist deserves to be able to create without compromise, and I think we were both ready to just do our own thing.”

So suddenly, she became Mattie Schell, solo artist, the girl who grew up as the musical-theatre-loving kid from Jerseyville, Illinois, and member of the sprawling Schell clan of bluegrass pickers. Back in those days, Schell cut her teeth in high school praise bands until heading off to college in Nashville and broadening her horizons. “I discovered marijuana,” she says, laughing. Today, she is wearing overalls and a flat-brimmed ball cap adorned with Grateful Dead dancing bears, attire that sums up both her farm-girl roots and her eventual foray into more expansive, jammier music.

A big influence on her was her uncle, Wayne Schell, who turned her on to some of her favorite artists (Dylan, the Band, Gillian Welch), gave Schell her first mandolin and played covers with her on weekend nights in Grafton, Illinois bars back in the early ’10s. “I really started finding my sound and my voice with my Uncle Wayne every Friday night,” she says.

She eventually landed in St. Louis, waiting tables in Maplewood, dating Gilberg, meeting Vogler and carving out the River Kittens years. After the split with Vogler, Schell found herself taking on previously scheduled River Kittens plans by herself, including a tour with singer-songwriter Jackson Stokes and an Off Broadway concert in February paying tribute to the Grateful Dead’s American Beauty and the Band’s Stage Fright, two of Schell’s favorite albums.

That show ended up being billed as Mattie Schell & Friends and featured an impressive all-star crew

made up of Al Holiday, Nick Gusman and members of the Mighty Pines, Funky Butt Brass Band, One Way Traffic, Yard Eagle and more. “I knew that if it’s not going to be River Kittens, I needed an awesome lineup,” she says. The night was a big success, and Schell promises similar shows to come. She is also a favorite on Sean Canan’s Voodoo nights, most recently a two-night stint channeling Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie for Voodoo Fleetwood Mac.

But Schell is most excited for her upcoming solo album, which she recently recorded in Nashville with producer JD Simo. “I’ve never done a solo record in my life,” she says with visible excitement. “They are all songs that I’ve written or cowritten with my fiancé. We cut the whole thing live in the studio — no headphones, no separate rooms.”

In the spirit of her solo debut, the album’s working title was Baby’s First Record. “I thought it was funny,” she says. “I get so tired of people taking themselves so seriously. Then I recorded one last song, the only one with just me and the guitar, called ‘And So It Goes,’ so we named the album after that song.

And So It Goes has no release date yet, as Schell is fielding some promising label options, but the first single, “Let You Let Me” is out now. “The album is definitely the best thing I’ve ever done,” Schell says. “I’m really proud of it.”

With an advance listen to the album, it’s easy to see why. And So It Goes highlights Schell’s chameleonic ability to channel a range of Americana styles into an assured tour through country crooners, funk-soul groovers, jazzy ballads and folk confessionals, all delivered with Schell’s powerful, pliant vocals.

In the meantime, she’s gearing up for an action-packed summer. She will be singing at Venice Cafe on the first and third Tuesdays of each month; she is scheduled to play three separate sets at the Open Highway Music Festival on June 16; she will hold a solo showcase at Joe’s Cafe on June 22; and she is on the lineup for the Summer Sundown Festival in Effingham, Illinois, in August.

“I’ve started finding my own sound as much as I ever had in my life,” she says. “And I’m chomping at the bit to get it out there.”

n

“ I love the road. For me, it takes a lot longer to want to come home than it does to want to go back on the road.”

Tail as Old as Time

Disney’s 1989 classic has become a sanitized multicultural fantasy in search of a lot more soul

Written by CRAIG D. LINDSEY

There’s nothing like watching a live-action remake of a Disney animated movie to remind you how much times have changed.

The Little Mermaid, the Mouse Factory’s latest redo of a beloved cartoon classic, manages to be an even safer update of the G-rated original, which already took Hans Christian Andersen’s sad fairy tale and made it a family friendly love story by adding some peppy Howard Ashman-Alan Menken tunes and capping it off with a positive outcome.

The 1989 Mermaid is a quietly horny coming-of-age film, with its busty, teenage sea creature getting the itch to be above land, mostly to get closer to the human prince she saved after a shipwreck. She makes a Faustian deal with bitterass sea witch Ursula. In exchange for her angelic voice, Ursula slaps some legs on her and tells her she has three days to get a kiss from the dude, or else the mermaid is hers forever.

The remake is more sanitized for your protection, as Ariel (Halle Bailey, the virginal half of the Chloe x Halle twin-sister duo) is portrayed as a rebellious young scamp who just wants to get away from her surroundings and see what the hell is out there. (The live-action Prince Eric, played by Brit Jonah Hauer-King, is more of a kindred spirit than an object of desire, as Ariel eavesdrops on him

telling his shipmates that he also wants to explore the world.) Ariel strikes the same deal with Ursula (a slithering, sadly reined-in Melissa McCarthy), but in this telling, Ursula wipes her memory of the deal when she gets on land. This makes the courtship of Ariel and Eric seem more like an extended Tinder date, complete with them getting to know each other at a funky island market.

This Mermaid works its ass off at being more inclusive and progressive for today’s audiences. Although the ultimate goal is for our princess to link up with the prince, this version still gives her some good ol’ independent agency. People on social media have already lost their shit about the casting of the cocoa-colored Bailey as Ariel, pissing off those who adored (or even fantasized about) the pale-skinned redhead of the original. Those same people are probably not gonna dig the array of diverse faces that populate this film. Ariel’s king dad is played by that studly Spaniard Javier Bardem, while her fellow sisters (which include Bridgerton/Sex Education castmate Simone Ashley) are a gaggle of gals with different nationalities. It’s also a rainbow coalition above water, as the island is run by a dark-skinned queen (Noma Dumezweni), a.k.a. Eric’s adoptive mother. We also have Daveed Diggs and Awkwafina as, respectively, the crab and the seagull who crack jokes and

aid in Ariel’s mission to kiss the boy.

While there is a lot of diversity on screen, there are still a bunch of white guys behind the scenes. Rob Marshall (who previously helmed Mary Poppins Returns and Into the Woods) is once again in charge of another Disney musical fantasy. He uses most of the $250 million budget making the underwater scenes look more convincing than the above-ground scenes, which look like they were shot at an abandoned miniature-golf course. (Just like nearly every studio movie that comes out, this one

still suffers visually from looking murky and poorly lit.) He gets Poppins screenwriter David Magee to come up with the dreamy/ creamy story and brings back Menken to update some songs and work on new ones with producer Lin-Manuel Miranda (including a rap number Diggs and Awkwafina perform that sounds like something Lil Dicky would’ve come up with as a joke).

But since this is a girl-powery flick about a mermaid of color, they couldn’t get Ava DuVernay (has Disney still not forgiven her for A Wrinkle in Time’s chilly reception?) or The Woman King’s Gina Prince-Bythewood to be in the director’s chair? I feel they could’ve added a bit of, shall we say, soul to the proceedings. Despite all the flavors in the cast, the movie is still disappointingly vanilla.

By making The Little Mermaid a multicultural fairytale, Disney is practically ensuring that anyone who talks foul about it is a racist sumabitch. Well, I’m Black, and I still think the film — as proudly allembracing as it is — is a bland, neutered pat on the back for Disney. The Little Mermaid is basically two hours and 15 minutes (the cartoon ran at a brisk 83 minutes!) of a major media conglomerate assuring the audience it’s not racist.

Hell, Disney could’ve just saved its money and did what most billion-dollar corporations do: Send out a really supportive tweet during Black History Month. n

The Little Mermaid

Directed by Rob Marshall. Written by David Magee. Starring Halle Bailey, Daveed Diggs, Jacob Tremblay, Awkwafina, Jonah HauerKing, Art Malik, Noma Dumezweni, Javier Bardem and Melissa McCarthy. Opened May 26 widely in area theaters.

Ariel (Halle Bailey) finds a partner in adventure after rescuing Prince Eric. | COURTESY OF DISNEY © 2023 DISNEY ENTERPRISES INC.

This is a girlpowery flick about a mermaid of color. They couldn’t get Ava DuVernay or The Woman King’s Gina PrinceBythewood to be in the director’s chair?

Lord Have Mercy

Opera Theatre of Saint Louis mounts a thrillingly good Tosca

Written by SARAH FENSKE

There is a moment at the end of the first act of the new production of Tosca that opened Saturday at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis (Loretto-Hilton Center, 130 Edgar Road, Webster Groves; 314-961-0644; experienceopera.org) that manages to be genuinely shocking — no small feat in an age when nothing shocks.

Our villain, the louche police chief Scarpia, sings about his plans to execute the heroic painter Cavaradossi and force himself upon the painter’s mistress, Tosca. This is what Scarpia has always done at the end of Act I, for the 123 years that Tosca has been mounted on the stage. But this production offers a new twist. This Scarpia is visibly excited by his wicked plans — and as the scene comes to its climax, Scarpia deploys Tosca’s discarded white satin glove and, well, finishes the act.

Rest assured, the scene is tastefully staged, but it’s not every day you see a villain masturbating as he sings about his skulduggery, and therein lies the brilliance of James Robinson’s direction. Opera Theatre’s artistic director has had triumph after triumph in recent years, including 2019’s Fire Shut Up in My Bones (which he then restaged at the Met) and last year’s first-rate Harvey Milk Tosca continues his hot streak. For Robinson, breathing new life into this classic doesn’t require the elaborate reconfiguring some-

times seen in the opera world — setting the action on a yacht in the 1920s, say, or a spaceship hurtling to Mars. It’s in finding the psychosexual horror right there in the century-old libretto and having the audacity to bring it to the surface. What makes the moment such a jaw-dropper is not just the clever choreography; it’s also true to Tosca, true to Scarpia and true to the solipsism inside us all. Indeed, the people populating this Tosca are not fools in oldstyle hats and coats, to crib from Larkin. They feel as real as you or me. If a villain’s operatic solo is designed to let us see inside his soul, Robinson lets us see all the way in.

From the beginning, this Tosca forces us to pay attention. There’s no overture; we’re immediately thrust into the action, and the brilliantly ominous set by Allen Moyer (who also did the costumes) evokes Rome in 1800 without a hint of kitsch. The vibe is Catholic Gothic — during Scarpia’s big Act I solo, we can hear sacred chants echoing from a nearby church. “Tosca, you make me forget God!” Scarpia sings in response. Anyone who knows opera knows at that point that he’s headed to eternal

torment, and good riddance. The fact we not only believe in his damnation, but in the terrible sequence his lust unleashes is not just due to the gorgeous Puccini score but the talents of the cast, beginning with Hunter Enoch, who is simply terrific as Scarpia. The excellence continues to the other members of this lust trian-

gle. As Cavaradossi, Robert Stahley convincingly goes from cocky painter to doomed political prisoner, with a voice so strong and clear it renders the supertitles unnecessary. He is matched note for note by soprano Katie Van Kooten, making a huge impression in her Opera Theatre debut as the title character. In big moments, the power in the three leads’ voices feels like it could blow the roof off the Loretto-Hilton Center — and the applause on opening night was appropriately thunderous.

It’s been 20 years since Opera Theatre has performed Tosca, and you can see why General Director Andrew Jorgenson might have resisted. What more can be done with a chestnut like this? What good can come of yet another version of an opera so well-known?

To be sure, this year’s reimagining of the long-forgotten Treemonisha is the bid for greatness, the one the national press is coming to St. Louis to see. But in Robinson’s hands, Tosca doesn’t just seize our imagination. It reminds us of the thrill of a great opera — and the dirty stain at the core of our existences. If only modernday villains had Puccini’s accompaniment for their wankery! n

Tosca

Music by Giacomo Puccini. Libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. English translation by Kelley Rourke. Directed by James Robinson. Presented at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis through June 25. Showtimes vary. Tickets are $15 to $142.

Titus Muzi plays The Sancristan in Tosca. | JESSICA FLANIGAN

In big moments, the power in the three leads’ voices feels like it could blow the roof off the Loretto-Hilton Center — and the applause on opening night was appropriately thunderous.

OUT EVERY NIGHT

Each week, we bring you our picks for the best concerts of the next seven days! To submit your show for consideration, visit https://bit.ly/3bgnwXZ. All events are subject to change, especially in the age of COVID-19, so do check with the venue for the most up-to-date information before you head out for the night. Happy showgoing!

THURSDAY 1

ANDY COCO’S NOLA FUNK AND R&B REVUE: 9:30 p.m., $12. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

BAD COP / BAD COP: w/ the Last Gang 8 p.m., $17. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

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

FISTER: w/ Ilsa, Hot Corpse, Furnace Floor 8 p.m., $15. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

MARCIA BALL: 8 p.m., $28-$38. City Winery St. Louis, 3730 Foundry Way, Suite 158, St. Louis, 314-678-5060.

ROGERS AND NIENHAUS: 6 p.m., $45. CommuniTree Gardens Nursery, 2194 Creve Coeur Mill Road South, Maryland Heights, (314) 533-5323.

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

FRIDAY 2

THE 80’S ARE ALIVE: 8 p.m., $39. Westport Playhouse, 635 W Port Plaza Dr, St Louis, 314-328-5868.

BROTHER FRANCIS & THE SOULTONES: 10 p.m., $12. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

CANDYLION: w/ Sewer Urchin, Frozen Headz 8 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

CHARLES WESLEY GODWIN: 8 p.m., $25. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

CHRISTA AND THE BOOMERANGS: 7 p.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521.

DISCREPANCIES RELEASE SHOW: 7 p.m., $15. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

FAIR WEATHER FRIENDS: 5 p.m., $10. The Attic Music Bar, 4247 South Kingshighway Blvd., 2nd Floor, St. Louis, 3143765313.

THE FUTURE IS FEMALE+: A STAND UP COMEDY

SHOW: 8 p.m., $10. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

JAZZ WITH A TOUCH OF SOUL: w/ Walter Beasley, Miki Howard 7:30 p.m., $67.50. Grandel Theatre, 3610 Grandel Square, St. Louis, 314-533-0367.

MARK NADLER: 7:30 p.m., $25. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745.

MORRIS DAY AND THE TIME: 8 p.m., $40-$60. River City Casino & Hotel, 777 River City Casino Blvd., St. Louis, 314-388-7777.

NEIL SALSICH & FRIENDS: 7:30 p.m., free. The Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090.

PARKER MILLSAP: 8 p.m., $17. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

SEVEN LIONS: 8 p.m., $35-$59.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer 40 Rd, Chesterfield, 314-423-8500.

STRINGZ EMB: 8 p.m., $20. City Winery St. Louis, 3730 Foundry Way, Suite 158, St. Louis, 314-678-5060.

WADE BOWEN: 8 p.m., $20. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

Shania Twain

7:30 p.m. Sunday, June 4. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, 14141 Riverport Drive, Maryland Heights. $40.95 to $225.95. 314-298-9944.

The time has come, St. Louis. Shania Twain is coming to Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre this week, and you know what that means: It’s time to break out your sequined cowgirl boots and your shiny tops and prepare to step on some hearts. The aptly titled Queen of Me tour, supporting February’s album of the same name, hits town on Sunday, June 4, and it’s just the ray of sunshine we need in the wake of the legendary Tina Turner’s death last week. The world may be a sadder, dim-

SATURDAY 3

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

BLACKHAWK: 8 p.m., $45-$75. The Hawthorn, 2225 Washington Avenue, St. Louis.

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

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

EMO NITE: 10 p.m., $17. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

JOE PARK & THE HOT CLUB OF ST. LOUIS: 7:30

p.m., free. The Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090.

KINGDOM BROTHERS: 5 p.m., $10. The Attic Music Bar, 4247 South Kingshighway Blvd., 2nd Floor, St. Louis, 3143765313.

NITE OWL: A TRIBUTE TO HIP HOP: 8 p.m., $15.

Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

NOLIA EP RELEASE SHOW: w/ Null Valley, Mindclot, Murtaugh 8 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423

lywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

SMILE EMPTY SOUL: 7 p.m., $20. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720.

SPARTA: 8 p.m., $28.50-$49.50. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

MONDAY 5

ANDY COCO & CO.: 5 p.m., free. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

BILLY PRINE & THE PRINE TIME BAND: w/ Scarlett Egan 7:30 p.m., $35. City Winery St. Louis, 3730 Foundry Way, Suite 158, St. Louis, 314-678-5060.

COLEMAN HUGHES PROJECT: 6 p.m., free. Heman Park, 1028 Midland Blvd, University City.

MONDAY NIGHT REVIEW: w/ Tim, Danny and Randy 7 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

NEKROGOBLIKON: w/ Inferi, Aether Realm, Hunt the Dinosaur, Summoning the Lich 7 p.m., $24$39.50. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

SARAH AND THE SUNDAYS: 8 p.m., $18. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

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

TUESDAY 6

DUHART DUO: 4 p.m., free. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

ETHAN LEINWAND: 7 p.m., free. Yaqui’s on Cherokee, 2728 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314-400-7712.

JOSH RITTER NIGHT 1: 7:30 p.m., $55. City Winery St. Louis, 3730 Foundry Way, Suite 158, St. Louis, 314-678-5060.

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

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

OTEP: w/ September Mourning. Spider Rockets

7:30 p.m., $20. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

STEVE BAUER AND MATT RUDOLPH: 9 p.m., free. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

TWO FRIENDS: 7:30 p.m., $39.50-$49.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer 40 Rd, Chesterfield, 314-423-8500.

WEDNESDAY 7

—Jaime Lees

mer place without the Queen of Rock & Roll, but at least we still have the Queen of Country Pop. At the very least, we have the promise that we can cut a rug and sing along to “That Don’t Impress Me Much” from the lawn at Riverport while our country queen owns the stage. And frankly, the fact that Twain is still going strong after 40 years in the game actually is pretty impressive, if you ask us. Still the One: Twain proved that she’s worthy of her royal status at Coachella last year when the biggest pop star on the planet invited her onto his stage as his special guest. Harry Styles and Twain sang together, and as a result one generation renewed their faith in her and a new generation learned that she’s a boss. Respect.

South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

ROBERT NELSON & THE RENAISSANCE JAZZ

BAND: 7:30 p.m., $25. Kirkwood Performing Arts Center, 210 E. Monroe Ave., St. Louis, 314-707-1134.

SUNDAY 4

AMERICA PART TWO: 8 p.m., $12. Blueberry Hill

- The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

BETH BOMBARA: 11 a.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521.

BROKEN JUKEBOX: 9 p.m., $9. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

CAM GIRL: w/ Still Animals, Megadune, Insertion 8 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

PEEZY: 8 p.m., $30-$35. The Hawthorn, 2225 Washington Avenue, St. Louis.

RONALD RADFORD: 7 p.m., free. Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, 7400 Grant Road, Concord, 314-842-3298.

SHANIA TWAIN: 7:30 p.m., $40.95-$225.95. Hol-

DEAD & COMPANY: 7 p.m., $51.50-$201.50. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre - St. Louis, MO, 14141 Riverport Dr, Maryland Heights.

DOYLE: w/ Red Devil Vortex 8 p.m., $25. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

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

JOHN MCVEY BAND: 8 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

JOSH RITTER NIGHT 2: 7:30 p.m., $55. City Winery St. Louis, 3730 Foundry Way, Suite 158, St. Louis, 314-678-5060.

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

THE MURDER JUNKIES: w/ Without MF Order 7 p.m., $15. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

THE ST. LOUIS STEADY GRINDERS: 7 p.m., $10. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745.

TWANGFEST 25 NIGHT 1: w/ Black Joe Lewis, The Freedom Affair 8 p.m., $25. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

VOODOO JGB: 9 p.m., $14. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

Shania Twain. | THE FELDMAN AGENCY

[CRITIC’S PICK]

Billy Prine & the Prine Time Band w/ Scarlett Eagen

7:30 p.m. Monday, June 5. City Winery, 3730 Foundry Way. $35. 314-678-5060.

COVID-19 took innumerable things from us — so many that it can be hard to even fathom the loss. For some, it stripped them of their sanity; for many, it stripped them of their innocence; and for everyone, it cost us years of normalcy that we can never get back. But one of the most painful losses we can blame on the bastard coronavirus came early in the pandemic, when the acclaimed singersongwriter John Prine was taken from us on April 7, 2020. A legendary artist whose effortless approach to workingclass anthems of the downtrodden and dispossessed earned him the nickname “the Mark Twain of songwriting,” Prine counted among his fans such luminaries as Bob Dylan, who described his work as “pure Proustian existentialism — Midwestern mindtrips to the nth degree,”

THE 80’S ARE ALIVE: Fri., June 2, 8 p.m., $39. Westport Playhouse, 635 W Port Plaza Dr, St. Louis, 314-328-5868.

AJJ: Sun., Aug. 27, 8 p.m., $25. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

BELOVED BENEFIT: W/ Mo Egeston All-Stars, AhSa-Ti Nu, DOUG, Jay-Marie is Holy, Sat., June 10, 7 p.m., $20. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

THE BOSMAN TWINS: Sat., June 17, 7:30 p.m., $25. Kirkwood Performing Arts Center, 210 E. Monroe Ave., St. Louis, 314-707-1134.

BOXCAR: Fri., June 9, 7 p.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521.

THE COLLECTION: Sat., Aug. 19, 7 p.m., $13. Club Riveria, 3524 Washington Ave., St. Louis, 314-531-8663.

and Johnny Cash, who ranked Prine alongside Rodney Crowell, Guy Clark and Steve Goodman as the “Big Four” of songwriters whose work he loved. Add to the list of admirers one Billy Prine, John’s younger brother. An accomplished musician in his own right who even spent some time as John’s tour manager, Billy hits town this week with his Prine Time Band to deliver a set full of his older brother’s tunes. It’s sure to be an evening of poignancy and beauty, a tribute to one of the best who ever did it by one of the people who loved him most.

314-498-6989.

IRATION: Sat., Oct. 28, 7:30 p.m., $29.50. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

JEFF ROSENSTOCK: Sun., Sept. 17, 8 p.m., $22. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

KEROSENE WILLY: Tue., June 6, 7 p.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521.

THE LEGEND SINGERS: Sun., June 18, 3 p.m., free. Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, 7400 Grant Road, Concord, 314-842-3298.

LOUISE POST: Sat., July 22, 7 p.m., $20-$25. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

NIALL HORAN: Wed., July 12, 7:30 p.m., $29.50$149.50. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

NO ANTICS ALBUM RELEASE: W/ Blond Guru, Tidal Volume, Sat., July 8, 8 p.m., $12. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

ROBERT NELSON: Sat., June 3, 7:30 p.m., $25. Kirkwood Performing Arts Center, 210 E. Monroe Ave., St. Louis, 314-707-1134.

THE SOULARD BLUES BAND: Sat., June 24, 7:30 p.m., $25. Kirkwood Performing Arts Center, 210 E. Monroe Ave., St. Louis, 314-707-1134.

SOULJA BOY: Sat., Aug. 19, 8 p.m., $35. The Hawthorn, 2225 Washington Avenue, St. Louis.

THE SWEET LILLIES: Wed., June 21, 7 p.m., $12. Club Riveria, 3524 Washington Ave., St. Louis, 314-531-8663.

THREE DOG NIGHT: W/ Chris Trapper, Sun., Oct. 8, 7:30 p.m., $49.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer 40 Rd, Chesterfield, 314-423-8500.

TRACER: W/ Joe Mancuso, Tim Byrne, Fri., June 23, 7:30 p.m., $25. Kirkwood Performing Arts Center, 210 E. Monroe Ave., St. Louis, 314-707-1134.

VOODOO EAGLES: Wed., July 5, 9 p.m., $14. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

VOODOO FORREST GUMP: Fri., July 7, 8 p.m., $20$25. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

WILLI CARLISLE: Sat., Sept. 16, 8 p.m., $18. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

The Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090.

DO WHAT? WEEKEND: DAY 1: W/ Breakmouth Annie, Pleasure Center, Carondelet Guy, Fri., July 7, 8 p.m., $10. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

DO WHAT? WEEKEND: DAY 2: W/ The Chill Dawgs, Spruce Bringsteen, Wig, Petty Grievances, Sat., July 8, 8 p.m., $15. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

EL MONSTERO: Sat., July 8, 7 p.m., $25-$145. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

EMILY WALLACE AND ADAM MANESS: Thu., June 8, 7:30 p.m., $15. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-2561745.

ETHAN LEINWAND: Tue., June 13, 7 p.m., free. Tue., June 20, 7 p.m., free. Yaqui’s on Cherokee, 2728 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314-400-7712.

FEAR: W/ Bastard Squad, Fri., June 16, 8 p.m., $30. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

THE GASLIGHT SQUARES: Sat., June 10, 7:30 p.m., free. The Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090.

GHOST: W/ Amon Amarth, Fri., Aug. 11, 7:30 p.m., $29.50-$149.50. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF: W/ Squirrel Flower, Wed., July 26, 8 p.m., $20. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

JIMMY GRIFFIN AND THE INCURABLES: Fri., June 23, 8 p.m., $20. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

KNEZ JAKOVAC QUARTET: Fri., June 9, 7:30 p.m., $20. Gaslight Theater, 358 N. Boyle Ave., St. Louis.

LADY J HUSTON: Fri., June 30, 7 p.m., $20. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745. Thu., July 20, 7 p.m., free. Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site, 7400 Grant Road, Concord, 314-842-3298. MARGO PRICE: Mon., Sept. 11, 8 p.m., $27. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314726-6161.

UPCOMING

ADULT FUR: W/ Christopher Douthitt, Florent Ghys, Sun., June 11, 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS: Wed., Oct. 25, 8 p.m., $30. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

—Daniel Hill

Big Time: John famously referred to Billy, who was a full two feet taller than him, as his “big little brother,” and would tell stories about how he used to beat Billy up when they were kids. “But then I got drafted, and when I came back this big guy came up behind me and gave me a big hug and said, ‘Hey John,’ with this little voice. I turned around and this fucker was 6 foot 8! I never messed with him again.”

DAD’S DAY BIERGARTEN BBQ: W/ Lucky Dan and Naked Mike, Sun., June 18, 11 a.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521.

THE DEAL: Sun., June 11, noon, free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521.

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA: W/ Fit For a King, Fri., Sept. 22, 7 p.m., $49.50. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720.

DIVAS & GENTS: Sat., Aug. 5, 6 p.m., $30. The Jewel Event Center, 407 Dunn Rd, Florissant, 314-395-3500.

ETRAN DE L’AÏR: Wed., July 12, 8 p.m., $18. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

HEARTCAVE ALBUM RELEASE SHOW: W/ Night

Hike, Waiiist, Fri., July 14, 8 p.m., $12. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis,

BELOVED BENEFIT: W/ Mo Egeston All-Stars, AhSa-Ti Nu, DOUG, Jay-Marie is Holy, Sat., June 10, 7 p.m., $20. Sat., June 10, 7 p.m., $20. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

BULLY: Fri., Aug. 11, 8 p.m., $22. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

THE BURNEY SISTERS: W/ Devon Cahill, Sat., July 8, 7:30 p.m., $15. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745.

CAN YOU FEEL THE PUNK TONIGHT: A PUNK ROCK

CELEBRATION OF DISNEY MUSIC: Sat., Aug. 26, 3 p.m., $25. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

COLLAB STL: W/ DJ Crimdollacray, Josh Levi, 18 & Counting, Jessee Crane, Dannie Fuller, Meredith Hopping, Sat., June 10, 7 p.m., $10. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

DEHD: W/ Sarah Grace White, Fri., Oct. 6, 8 p.m., $21. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

THE DETROIT COBRAS: Thu., Aug. 24, 8 p.m., $20. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

DIESEL ISLAND: Fri., June 16, 7:30 p.m., free.

MICKY DOLENZ: Fri., Oct. 13, 7 p.m., $50-$105. Family Arena, 2002 Arena Parkway, St Charles, 636-896-4200.

MILLENNIAL FALCON ALBUM RELEASE: W/ Free Field, Inner City Witches, Red Sun Sermon, Fri., June 16, 8 p.m., $10. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

POSTMODERN JUKEBOX: Fri., Nov. 24, 8 p.m., $29.50-$69.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer 40 Rd, Chesterfield, 314-423-8500.

PROTOMARTYR: Sat., June 24, 8 p.m., $20. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-4986989.

SKATING POLLY: W/ Bugsy, Jacklenro, Sun., June 25, 8 p.m., $15. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314727-4444.

SO MANY DYNAMOS: Sat., Aug. 12, 8 p.m., $20. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314726-6161.

ST LOUIS STANDS WITH TRANS BENEFIT SHOW: W/ The UFO’s, The Rose Court, Regina Miller, Amy Elizabeth Quinn, Blood Oath, Half Gallen & the Milk Jugs, Young Animals, Fri., June 9, 7 p.m., $10. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

THE STRUTS: Sun., June 25, 8 p.m., $28.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-7266161.

TORI AMOS: Fri., July 14, 7:30 p.m., $36.50$111.50. Stifel Theatre, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-499-7600.

WEEN: Sat., Aug. 5, 8 p.m., $34.50-$74.50. St. Louis Music Park, 750 Casino Center Dr., Maryland Heights, 314-451-2244. sn

Billy Prine. | COURTESY PHOTO

[CRITIC’S PICK]

HAPPY HOUR SPECIALS

SAVAGE LOVE

Appetite for Destruction

BY DAN SAVAGE

Hey Dan: I’ve had a successful career as an artist and thousands follow my professional accounts on social media. My followers think they know me, but I am living a secret double life. What I’ve kept hidden is that I’m bisexual. I have hidden this fact from everyone: from my followers, from my family and from the three ladies who married me believing I was the straight guy I pretended to be. All my marriages failed, ending in divorce with no children produced, thank God, and my ex-wives all went on to find real men who could father their children.

In 2016, knowing my success and investments meant I could live comfortably for the rest of my life, I quit my career in the arts and fulfilled a lifelong dream of becoming a hardcore gay porn slut. (“Slut” fits me much more closely than does “actor,” since what I do on camera is not an “act.”) I truly love the hot sex I’ve had with Alpha Males in the 250ish videos I’ve starred in so far. Truly, my only regret is not doing porn much sooner in my life, as I’m happier now than I’ve ever been.

Question: Should I continue pretending to be straight and keep the people who still follow me on Facebook and Instagram in the dark? Or should they be advised to google my full and actual birth name and the word “porn” so they can see the real me? (My full legal name and my professional name — as both an artist and porn slut — are the same.) I don’t want anyone’s life to be negatively impacted should it become known they follow a person who appears in hardcore porn and does things most people would regard as offensive and grotesque. It seems best that followers who are interested in my art be advised to google me so they are aware of what I am doing now and can unfollow me if they wish.

If you want to include my full legal name in your column, I’ll most likely say yes. And please feel free to give me hell because I understand the things I let men do to me are vile and disgusting.

[Full Legal Name Redacted]

I have no desire to publish your name.

But rest assured, FLNR, that I fell for it. I googled your name and the word “porn,” I was negatively impacted, and I will always regret it. (Gotta work on my impulse control.) The porn you’re making is, as confessed/boasted, vile and disgusting and grotesque and offensive.

It’s also not illegal and can be enjoyed by consenting adults … who hopefully floss, brush their teeth, use mouthwash, and don’t kiss their mothers with those mouths. (Relieved I don’t have to alert the authorities. The health department, on the other hand…)

Look, I know what you’re trying to do here. You choose to porn under your own name, the same name you used as an artist — your legal name, your professional name, your porn name — because the thought of being exposed and ruined turns you on. Almost as much as the thought of ruining someone else’s day by tricking them into taking a look at your work. (I only saw the titles, FLNR, but that was enough.) But what you want most is to be exposed and destroyed — that’s your ultimate fantasy — and you’ve been fantasizing about the moment you’re found out and destroyed since you posted your first video.

And here you are, 250 videos later, and no one who follows you — no one who has admired or collected your work — has stumbled over your vast archive of vile and disgusting and grotesque and offensive porn. Maybe if your pornographic output was a little more mainstream, maybe if yours was a taste shared by more than a tiny handful of people, you would’ve been found out and destroyed already. But the porn you make is so niche — and so vile and so disgusting, etc., etc. — that not one of your followers has stumbled over it. Or stepped in it. And even if one had, FLNR, he couldn’t jump into a comments thread on your Instagram to tell on you without also telling on himself.

So, now you want me to do your dirty work for you … you want me to inflict you on my readers in the hope it’ll get back to your followers … and I’m not gonna do that to my readers.

Or to you.

And I don’t think you would you want me to, FLNR, if you thought about it more during your refractory periods. As things stand now, FLNR, you get to enjoy the dread of discovery and destruction every day. You get to enjoy your perfect fantasies about the shitstorm coming for you when the inevitable happens — or what you thought was inevitable, 250 videos ago — and how your life and reputation and artistic legacy are all destroyed in a moment. But like Bernd Brandes, a German man whose ultimate fantasy was to be murdered by a cannibal after first having his own penis cut off, cooked and served to him, you may find reality falls short of your fantasies. In Brandes’ case, the cannibal he met online, Armin Meiwes, wasn’t a very good cook. Meiwes overcooked Brandes’ penis, which wound up being too tough to eat, and

since Brandes didn’t have another penis, a do-over wasn’t possible. He died disappointed.

Just like Brandes had only one dick, you have only one life. There will be no do-overs for you either. So, you’re better off as you are now — enjoying your perfect fantasy of your destruction rather than enduring the sure-to-be-a-letdown reality.

P.S. Your kinks are just as vile and disgusting and grotesque and offensive as advertised — but I’m not going to give you hell about them. First, because no one chooses their kinks and, second, because the disgust is obviously part of the turn-on for you and I’m not here to cup your balls. (And to be clear, bisexuality isn’t the kink we’re talking about.) If you want to warn people to unfollow and/ or de-acquisition your work to avoid being smeared by association, you can do that without suggesting they google your name + porn. You pretend to be motivated by concern for your followers, FLNR, but I’m not swallowing that shit.

Hey Dan: Etiquette question. I started seeing a massage guy about a year ago after connecting with him on Scruff (“not here for sex but if you want a great massage…”). He turned out to be terrific at it. First couple times I got incredible deep and thorough massages, paid him for the time and added a tip, all good. Then — and with no words exchanged — the massages started getting sexual. Now I get about a brief massage and then his fingers start tickling butt and we end up fucking. He’s totally hot and great at it, always gets me off within the hour session. (He never gets off but is totally hard and enthusiastic the entire time.) We don’t have any interaction outside the sessions, aside from texts setting up the next time. No complaints about the sex at all, it’s great, but I miss the massages! Somehow this relationship went from a massage deal to sex work. (HTH?!?)

So, my question: I’ve never hired a sex worker before. How much does a person tip a sex worker? And any ideas how can I steer the relationship back to more pounding of muscles without giving up the pounding of butt? Thanks!

Loving His Dick, Missing His Hands

How did this arrangement go from a massage deal to sex work? How’d that happen? Your “massage guy” did it. Your massage guy is a sex worker but a choosy one. He looks for prospective clients on hookup apps, offers “massageonly” meetups at first, and once he has a good feeling about someone — someone who respects his initial “massageonly” boundary, shows up freshly show -

ered, and tips well (20-25 percent), e.g., someone like you — your massage guy “upgrades” his new-ish client from massage (not what most guys are seeking on Scruff) to dick (what all guys are seeking on Scruff). If you miss his massages, LHDMHH, book an extra hour and use your words. (“Love your excellent dick, miss your amazing massages!”) Then you can have it all… with “all,” in this instance, being defined as “good massage + expert dicking.”

Hey Dan: I’ve been with my boyfriend since COVID. We were sexually incompatible from the start (both bottoms), but made it work due to the pandemic. Then I blinked and three years passed. We live together, and I love him. But it just feels like a comfortable nice life as opposed to being “in love.” And we never had that hot passionate start stage to fall back on or feel nostalgic about. I wonder if the end of the pandemic means it’s time to move on. I’m 41 years old and feel life can offer more. Am I being short-sighted in wanting more?

Somewhat Unfulfilled Bottom

Two bottoms can have hot and passionate sex. I mean, are there no double-ended dildos in Gilead? Are there no tops in your vicinity, single and coupled, willing to guest star? Are oral sex and/or mutual masturbation not a good time?

Look, finding someone you love and enjoy living with isn’t easy, SUB, so you owe it to yourself to give this relationship a chance. I get it, I get it: You’ve been together for three years, you’ve already given this a relationship a chance. But it doesn’t sound like you’ve given radical honesty a chance. (“We have to fix this or it’s over.”) You don’t wanna wake up five years from now in a no-longer-new relationship with someone you don’t love. Even if you had managed to have a lot of hot sex with that person at the start, SUB, nostalgia for great sex with someone you don’t love (as much or at all) is unlikely to sustain you through the decades between the NRE wearing off and death. Whereas making space in the loving relationship you’re already in — space for passionate sexual experiences together and/or with others (on your own or both) — could be all the sustenance you need.

It’s fine to want more, SUB, but before seeking more from someone else, ask for more from the someone you’ve already got.

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