Riverfront Times, July 24, 2019 by Riverfront Times

riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

HONORS & AWARDS: • Charles Shaw Trial Advocacy Award • Missouri and Kansas Super Lawyers • St. Louis Magazine, Best Lawyers in St. Louis DWI • Riverfront Times Best Lawyer • Best Lawyers in United States • 10 years of law enforcement training, including time as a narcotics agent • Invited to speak nationally on the topic of DWI defense • A proven record of successfully defending difﬁcult DWI cases • A graduate of the National College of DUI Defense at Harvard

riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

THE LEDE

PHOTO BY THEO WELLING

“It kind of was an emotional day for me for a lot of reasons. One of the reasons why I ended up here was because ... I used to come here as a kid. It’s kind of a centering of yourself. It’s like a warm hug. You know?” MICHAEL GREEN, PHOTOGRAPHED ON JULY 14 IN MARQUETTE PARK riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

TABLE OF CONTENTS Publisher Chris Keating Interim Editor in Chief Doyle Murphy

E D I T O R I A L Arts & Culture Editor Paul Friswold Music Editor Daniel Hill Digital Editor Jaime Lees Staff Writer Danny Wicentowski Restaurant Critic Cheryl Baehr Film Critic Robert Hunt Columnist Ray Hartmann Contributing Writers Mike Appelstein, Allison Babka, Thomas Crone, Jenn DeRose, Mike Fitzgerald, Sara Graham, MaryAnn Johanson, Roy Kasten, Jaime Lees, Joseph Hess, Kevin Korinek, Bob McMahon, Lauren Milford, Nicholas Phillips, Tef Poe, Christian Schaeffer Proofreader Evie Hemphill Editorial Interns Katie Counts, Joshua Phelps, James Pollard

COVER

Distress Signal KDHX recruited a team of talented young black staffers — and is now grappling with what they found when they got there Cover story by

A R T Art Director Evan Sult Contributing Photographers Virginia Harold, Tim Lane, Monica Mileur, Zia Nizami, Andy Paulissen, Nick Schnelle, Mabel Suen, Micah Usher, Theo Welling, Jen West, Corey Woodruff P R O D U C T I O N Production Manager Haimanti Germain M U L T I M E D I A A D V E R T I S I N G Sales Director Colin Bell Sales Manager Jordan Everding Senior Account Executive Cathleen Criswell, Erica Kenney Account Managers Emily Fear, Jennifer Samuel Multimedia Account Executive Chris Guilbault, Drew Halliday, Jackie Mundy

DANIEL HILL Cover design by

EVAN SULT from a photo by

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

THEO WELLING

E U C L I D M E D I A G R O U P Chief Executive Officer Andrew Zelman Chief Operating Officers Chris Keating, Michael Wagner VP of Digital Services Stacy Volhein Creative Director Tom Carlson www.euclidmediagroup.com N A T I O N A L A D V E R T I S I N G VMG Advertising 1-888-278-9866, vmgadvertising.com

INSIDE The Lede Hartmann

5 7

S U B S C R I P T I O N S Send address changes to Riverfront Times, 308 N. 21st Street, Suite 300, St. Louis, MO 63103. Domestic subscriptions may be purchased for $78/6 months (Missouri residents add $4.74 sales tax) and $156/year (Missouri residents add $9.48 sales tax) for first class. Allow 6-10 days for standard delivery. www.riverfronttimes.com

News Feature Calendar

The Riverfront Times is published weekly by Euclid Media Group Verified Audit Member

A disappointment of Wagnerian scale

12 24

Carlos Zamora’s cART | La boheme | Paint Your Wagon | GeekCraft Expo | etc.

Cafe

Short Orders

Culture

Riverfront Times 308 N. 21st Street, Suite 300, St. Louis, MO 63103 www.riverfronttimes.com General information: 314-754-5966 Fax administrative: 314-754-5955 Fax editorial: 314-754-6416 Founded by Ray Hartmann in 1977

Rhone Rum Bar Chris Muether of the Third Rail | Pokebar | Esther’s Persian Cafe | Sedara Sweets & Ice Cream

Samuel Gregg | Nick Vatterott

Out Every Night

Beck | Tedeschi Trucks Band | Nas

Savage Love 6

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

Riverfront Times is available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader. Additional copies of the current issue may be purchased for $1.00 plus postage, payable in advance at the Riverfront Times office. Riverfront Times may be distributed only by Riverfront Times authorized distributors. No person may, without prior written permission of Riverfront Times, take more than one copy of each Riverfront Times weekly issue. The entire contents of Riverfront Times are copyright 2018 by Riverfront Times, LLC. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part by any means, including electronic retrieval systems, without the expressed written permission of the Publisher, Riverfront Times, 308 N. 21st Street, Suite 300, St. Louis, MO 63103. Please call the Riverfront Times office for back-issue information, 314-754-5966.

HARTMANN Silence of the Ann One more sad case study from a Republican Party that’s lost its soul BY RAY HARTMANN

nn Wagner certainly knows how to put Donald Trump in his place. You may have heard that the president last week stirred a bit of a hornet’s nest by tweeting that four of Wagner’s fellow female congresswomen — her colleagues and sisters — should go back and help fi the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” It prompted “Send Her Back!” chants at a Trump rally, which a smirking president allowed to rain down

from his supporters for 13 seconds. Well, you don’t want to be messing with Fighting Ann’s girls like that. Why, she was apoplectic. Let me give you a sampling of the bold words and headlines that Wagner (R-Ballwin) aimed directly, by name, at Donald J. Trump. “The vernacular, especially toward women, I found to be very demeaning and Neanderthal to be perfectly honest,” Wagner told an audience of 100 women in response to Trump’s slurs. “People are sick of the politically correct thing, but you can go too far, and I don’t believe we should be kicking every sector of people around, women and those who are immigrants.” Yes, you’ve got to hand it to Ann Wagner — that really was a bold choice of words, and it got her some national attention: “Missouri lawmaker calls Donald Trump’s position on women ‘Neanderthal,’” proclaimed a headline as far away as the Mobile, Alabama, Real-Time News.

Now, I realize you might not have seen this precise coverage, and if you’re confused, perhaps should clarify. These specific words were stated by Wagner in specific criticism, by name, of Trump, on the specific occasion of his hurling ugly insults at women. But I’ve taken a small poetic license here. These words were stated by Wagner on August 27, 2015 — less than four years ago — after Trump said of then- o News journalist Megyn Kelly: “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her ... wherever.” In Trump’s defense, he had been annoyed by Kelly prefacing a debate question with, “You’ve called women you don’t like ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ ‘slobs’ and ‘disgusting animals,’” to which Trump quipped, “Only Rosie O’Donnell.” Yes, the aforementioned counterattack was made by Wagner — specifically against Trump, by name — in an Alabama speech that was ironically billed, accord-

riverfronttimes.com

ing to the media coverage, as “encouraging women to take chances and be leaders.” Those words would have worked pretty well if Wagner had chosen to take a chance and be a leader last week after Trump made far uglier — and not at all humorous — racist attacks on emocratic epresentatives le andria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. But for some reason, Wagner’s outrage was a tad more muted this time. For one thing, she forgot to mention Trump by name, unlike she did in her Alabama speech. And after tweeting nothing in response to his tweet, and issuing no press release, all Wagner could bring herself to observe — in an email to KMOX — was that she was “disappointed at the lack of civility and respect coming from both sides of the aisle.” Of course, of course. “Both

JULY 24-30, 2019

Continued on pg 8

RIVERFRONT TIMES

SAINT LOUIS

HARTMANN

ORCHESTRA

sides” are the problem, just like they were in Charlottesville, right? Now, Wagner did tilt her withering condemnation of Trump just a tad toward one of the “sides,” noting “Democrats need to be held accountable for their socialist policies and seemingly outright contempt for the ideals on which America was founded.” Lovely. agner essentially identified the “real” problem: Four elected American citizens, women of color, essentially brought “send her back” chants upon themselves by having been so anti-American as to disagree openly with the world according to Republicans like Wagner and her new BFF, Trump. But let’s be fair here: Wagner also had some pretty tough love for her president, albeit in a searing statement in which she forgot to mention his name. “We can disagree with one another on policy without resorting to name calling and other comments that make many Americans feel unwelcome in the nation they call home,” Wagner’s email statement raged, in a slightly audible electronic whisper (emphasis added by me because I was so knocked out by its emotion). Come on, Ann. Lighten up on the poor guy. This is akin to presidential harassment (as in “todd akin”). It’s a good thing Wagner took a deep breath and brought all this pandemonium down enough to vote the ne t day against a ouse resolution condemning Trump’s racist tweet as racist. Ever the voice of reason, Wagner said she voted “no” because the measure was “counterproductive,” fostering division, not the unity our nation needs, according to KMOX. I’ll agree with that. We need unity. That’s why it’s nice when a congresswoman like Wagner can use her Twitter account to celebrate our nation’s Independence Day on July 4. Or to proclaim, three days later, our pride and unity when the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team won the coveted World Cup. Oh, wait. Somehow, the congresswoman missed that opportunity for a statement of unity. It seems as though she made no mention at all of the U.S. team’s great victory. Not a tweet, nor a retweet (like one on Sen. Roy Blunt’s account, but, of course not Sen. Josh Hawley’s). Maybe it was an oversight that the first woman to chair the Missouri Republican Party forgot to shout out this accomplishment

ROBERT HART BAKER Conductor

“SHALL WE DANCE...” Annual Pops Concert at Queeny Park

Greensfelder Recreation Complex 550 Weidman Rd, Ballwin, MO 63011

Friday, Aug. 2, 2019 at 8pm Richard Rodgers: The King and I - March of the Siamese Children, Shall We Dance? Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story - I Feel Pretty, Maria, Tonight, One Hand One Heart Johannes Brahms: Hungarian Dance No. 5 in G minor Johann Strauss, Jr.: Roses from the South Waltz, Thunder and Lightning Polka Peter I. Tchaikovsky: Sleeping Beauty Waltz - Sleeping Beauty Disney animated film score Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov: Procession Of The Sardar - The Curse of the Mummy, film score Two South American Tangos - “El Choclo” and “La Comparsita” Georges Bizet: L’Arlésienne Suite No. 2 - Farandole That’s Entertainment - MGM film score medley including “Singing In The Rain” Give My Regards To George M. Cohan - Yankee Doodle Dandy, film with James Cagney Herman Hupfeld: As Time Goes By - Casablanca, Warner Bros film score Babies (Big Band Ballads Medley) Pretty Baby, Rock-A-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody Cole Porter: Night And Day - featured in the MGM film The Gay Divorcée Benj Pasek: The Greatest Showman - A Million Dreams, Rewrite The Stars, This Is Me Ronan Hardiman: The Lord of the Dance - Cry of the Celts A beautiful quilt handmade by violinists Carol Lodes and Melanie Murphy and signed by the conductor will be raffled off during the evening. Table seats - $30 each Gallery Seats - $15 each Reserved Table for 8 - $240 Reserved Table for 10 - $300

FOR TICKETS OR INFORMATION

(314) 421-3600

www.stlphilharmonic.org

RIVERFRONT TIMES

Continued from pg 7

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

that inspired so many girls and women, and the rest of us. But one seriously doubts it. Far more likely, this was another case of a Republican “leader” being so fearful of Supreme Leader Trump that she dare not even acknowledge a World Cup victory because he and the team didn’t form a mutual-admiration society.

The entire Republican Party has had its soul removed by the narcissistic, racist, wannabe tyrant, so why single Ann Wagner out? Here’s why: Wagner, like Blunt once upon a time, could be standing out from the crowd. Now, why pick on Ann Wagner? It’s pretty much a given that the entire Republican Party has had its soul removed by the narcissistic, racist, wannabe tyrant to whom they feel they owe their political survival? So why single her out? Here’s why: Wagner, like Blunt, could be standing out from the crowd. Blunt was one of the grownups in the room — arguably the most in uential — who managed to broker the deal that kept the government open last year, when a bi-partisan, bi-cameral group from Congress placated the pouting president. I’m not a fan of Blunt’s politically, but I gave him a shout-out for doing the patriotic thing, then. More recently, Blunt sadly regressed to offering nothing but a tepid statement of disapproval of Trump’s racist tweet, effectively blaming the Democrats. Meanwhile, his counterpart, Sen. Josh Hawley said nothing at all, probably because he believes “Send Her Back!” didn’t go far enough in its racism and enophobia, and he chose not to attack Trump from the right ank. But my focus on Wagner is sim-

ple: She needs to be better than this, because she has been before. After the Access Hollywood, grabthem-by-the-p scandal broke in October 2016, Wagner was among a relatively small number of Republican o cials who showed the courage and character to demand that Trump be removed from the party’s ticket just a month before the election. “I have committed my short time in ongress to fighting for the most vulnerable in our society. As a strong and vocal advocate for victims of se tra cking and assault, I must be true to those survivors and myself and condemn the predatory and reprehensible comments of Donald Trump,” Wagner said. “I withdraw my endorsement and call for Governor [Mike] Pence to take the lead so we can defeat Hillary Clinton.” Previously, she had returned a donation from Cadet Bone Spurs after the coward had said Sen. John McCain wasn’t a war hero because “I like people who weren’t captured.” Said Wagner at the time: “I have no respect for anyone who uses a national microphone to disparage our vets.” Some people, myself included, were conned into thinking that was the real Ann Wagner. Let’s face it, I would never support Wagner politically — we disagree on just about every substantive topic — but from everything I can tell, she’s a good person, with good intentions and with no trace of racism or bigotry against immigrants. She could have deserved respect, like she earned a month before the 2016 election, and been di cult for emocrats to challenge, by the way. Instead, almost from the moment Trump became president, Wagner has spun a complete 180-degree turn, and has made the political equivalent of a pact with the devil. She became a sycophant overnight and hasn’t looked back. Wagner’s seat is one of 33 identified nationally by emocrats as top targets in the 2020 election, with good reason. She’s lost her voice, and her dignity, at the feet of Donald J.Trump, someone she once put in his place. Now, apparently, she thinks that place is a throne. n Ray Hartmann founded the Riverfront Times in 1977. Contact him at rhartmann@sbcglobal.net or catch him on St. Louis In the Know With Ray Hartmann and Jay Kanzler from 9 to 11 p.m. Monday thru Friday on KTRS (550 AM).

NEWS Shelter’s Deceptive Stats Masked Kill Rate Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI

sly bit of paperwork magic allowed the St. Louis County Pet Adoption Center to obscure the causes of more than half of its reported cases of euthanasia last year, according to an audit. The findings in the 268-page audit by Citygate Associates call into question the once-celebrated drop in the shelter’s kill rate. The consulting firm was hired last year for $85,000 by the county council to audit the operations of an animal shelter that had long been dogged by controversy and allegations of mismanagement, some of which were first reported by the Riverfront Times in January 2018. A big part of the shelter’s recent troubles were related to the tenure of Beth Vesco-Mock, who had been hired in late 2017 as director of the county’s Animal Control & Care department. While VescoMock had come to St. Louis with considerable baggage from her old job as the director of a city animal shelter in New Mexico, her supporters pointed to her amazing results when it came to lowering the euthanasia rate in St. Louis County. To make that particular boast, however, those supporters — including then-County Executive Steve Stenger — apparently relied on the shelter’s curious way of reporting euthanasia rates: Only “shelter decision” euthanasia rates are reported to the shelter’s advisory board, leaving aside a second designation, “owner requested euthanasia,” or ORE. It is the ORE rate that startled auditors. Their final report found that, under Vesco-Mock, the shelter had instituted a policy for all pet owners surrendering animals to check a box on a form marked

Euthanasia rates at the St. Louis County Pet Adoption Center were misleading. | SHUTTERSTOCK “ORE.” The form, however, didn’t explain that checking that box meant the animal was being surrendered for euthanasia. This worked to the shelter’s advantage, since it wouldn’t affect its number of “shelter decision” euthanasia cases. The audit notes: “If [Animal Care & Control] later ends up euthanizing any of the animals with a checked ORE box for any reason, they are then being categorized in statistics as OREs.” The deception went beyond the numbers. Auditors observed one interaction in which a woman turning over a dog checked the “ORE” box without knowing what it meant. Here’s how Citygate described the interaction: “One person that Citygate observed turning in a dog first asked if the shelter was a no-kill shelter and indicated she did not want her dog euthanized. She was told that the shelter was not a no-kill shelter, but that they try to adopt out all of the animals unless the animal is aggressive or sick. She checked and initialed the ORE box as directed by staff, but Citygate did not hear her being told what the ORE initials actually meant.

Since the shelter had so many animals designated as OREs, it’s not clear how many were legitimate owner requests — for instance, someone who wanted to give a sick pet a merciful and quick end to their suffering — and how many the shelter decided to put down on its own. Digging deeper, the audit sought records of animals designated as ORE who were eventually euthanized. Those cases only raised more questions. The animals included a husky mix who was “fearful and did not make eye contact with staff” — the dog was euthanized after 27 days in the shelter. Then there was a pit bull mix surrendered by its owner for being “disobedient,” but the audit notes that a memo indicated the owner actually surrendered the pet “due to the owner’s living situation.” Still, the audit found the dog stayed in the shelter 55 days before being euthanized for “behavioral reasons.” The euthanasia numbers may have looked good to the county executive and the shelter’s advisory board, but the number of OREs were sky high compared to similar institutions. Other shel-

riverfronttimes.com

ters surveyed in the audit recorded an average of just 2.8 percent of their total outcomes as OREs. The St. Louis County Pet Adoption Center’s rate of ORE outcomes was 14.3 percent, which, the audit notes, accounted for “the majority of euthanasia performed.” That last point is worth emphasizing: The shelter recorded 602 cases of euthanasia in 2018 — over the same time period, the shelter adopted out more than 1,300 animals — but that euthanasia stat didn’t include the 645 cases of owner requested euthanasia. That’s more than 51 percent of the shelter’s total number of euthanasia cases, and it’s not clear how many were misrecorded as OREs to make the shelter look better for its board. The revelation has shaken the shelter’s staff and volunteers. In an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Spring Schmidt, the county’s acting health director, said the shelter’s advisory board was “very disappointed” to learn they’d been tricked. Schmidt, however, said that Stenger had put pressure on the shelter’s staff to lower the euthanasia rate in 2018. Schmidt also said that she hasn’t disciplined the shelter staff for the misleading policy, noting that even staff who had concerns at the time “didn’t have authority to act on them.” Conveniently, though, the parties with authority have all left their posts: Stenger, who once championed the shelter’s low euthanasia rate and praised the hiring of Vesco-Mock, is no longer county executive and is currently awaiting sentencing on federal charges for theft of honest services through bribery and mail fraud. Before his fall from power, however, it was Stenger who moved to fire Vesco-Mock in March 2018, less than a year into her job. Even that wasn’t the end, though, as the county later agreed to pay Vesco-Mock $150,000 to settle a sex discrimination lawsuit. That leaves the county’s Animal Care & Control department under the stewardship of Schmidt, the latest in a long line of interim and permanent directors. Schmidt told the Post-Dispatch that she’s still committed to lowering the shelter’s euthanasia rate, but added, “I expect that to be met through system-wide change and not through a manipulation of numbers.” n

JULY 24-30, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

New Charge for Ex-Cop Written by

DANIEL HILL

illiam Olsten, a former St. ouis police o cer who was charged in January with first-degree assault and armed criminal action for his part in a violent confrontation last year outside of Bomber O’Brien’s, is now facing more felony criminal charges for a separate incident. St. Louis prosecutors have charged Olsten with three felony counts of third-degree assault for pepper-spraying people during a police protest in September 2017 outside of Busch Stadium. Once a member of the police department’s special operations unit, lsten was among o cers assigned that night to monitor the protests that followed the acquittal of ex-St. Louis cop Jason Stockley in the 2011 killing of nthony Lamar Smith. Prosecutors say Olsten blasted at least three people with pepper spray: prominent livestreamer Heather De Mian, Democratic

$47 Million Payout in Deadly Blast Written by

DOYLE MURPHY

urvivors and relatives of those killed in a deadly industrial explosion in 2017 on the edge of Soulard have agreed to a settlement of more than $47 million, their attorneys say. On April 3, 2017, a 3,000-pound boiler exploded at Loy-Lange Box Company, sending a massive hunk of metal rocketing through the factory’s roof. The metal flew 500 feet through the air before crashing through the ceiling of an office in the Faultless Healthcare Linen building up the block. One man, 59-year-old Kenneth Trentham, was killed and two others were injured at Loy-Lange. At Faultless Healthcare Linen, one person was injured and three more – Christopher Watkins, Tonya Gonzalez-Suarez and Clifford Lee – were killed. All three had reported for their first day of work at the laundry company. Watkins and Gonzalez-Suarez had recently

Ex-Officer William Olsten. | COURTESY SLMPD committeeman Rasheen Aldridge and Amir Brandy, who was photographing the protests. According to charging documents, Olsten unloaded on the three even though “no clear warning and/or orders to disperse were given.” No attempt was subsequently made to arrest any of the three for any crime, the charges say. The charges further allege that Olsten was visibly angry at Brandy and had to be held back by other o cers before later blitzing the man with pepper spray. De Mian uses a wheelchair and

been married. The Simon Law Firm, which represented eight of seventeen plaintiffs in the consolidated lawsuits, issued a news release on July 18, blaming the fatal explosion on “a series of errors” going back years. That included flaws in the design of the boiler, a botched repair job four years earlier when it was found leaking, inadequate inspections and missed maintenance. At first, though, not even emergency crews understood the full scope of the destruction wrought by the blast. Firefighters responded to what was originally reported as a building collapse at Loy-Lange. Another long, pipe-shaped piece of metal had also stabbed through the roof of Pioneer Industries, where it severed water and electric lines but did not hit anyone. When firefighters arrived, they found two disaster sights and were not initially sure how they were connected. It was an eerie scene. The neighborhood east of Russell Boulevard and South Broadway is dominated by factories and warehouses with shift workers flowing in and out. People in nearby plants heard the massive blast but didn’t know what was happening. “It sounded almost like a sonic boom,” Connie Murphy, who was at work across the street from Loy-Lange, told the River-

Aldridge has a prosthetic leg, which would give them the classification of special victims and potentially increase the penalties for Olsten, according to charging documents. Javad Khazaeli, the attorney for one of the victims, tells the PostDispatch that video from the night proves that lsten fired the pepper spray at the trio “to punish them for criticizing police actions.” A photo published by the St. Louis American shows Brandy walking away from Olsten while Olsten blasts him in the head with pepper spray. Video shot by De Mian shows the moment she was hit with pepper spray as well. Olsten can be seen holding the can. “Olsten did that on his own,” De Mian told RFT after the incident, noting that no one had given an order to spray them, “because he’s a dick.” Olsten and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department at large are currently the subjects of federal civil suits based on their response to the protests following the acquittal of Stockley. A suit against Olsten alleges he challenged at least one protester to a fight, shouting come and fuck me up then” before being restrained by other o cers. lsten, e Mian and Aldridge are three of the four bringing those suits, along with

another person who is a St. Louis County resident. Olsten is also currently facing unrelated charges of first-degree assault and armed criminal action for his part in an altercation that escalated to a shooting outside of omber ’ rien’s in pril 2018. Those charges, filed in anuary, accuse Olsten of sliding open a door and entering a van owned and occupied by a person with whom he and other o cers had had a disagreement inside the bar. Another o cer, oseph Schmitt, then crept along the side of the van with his gun drawn, the charges allege. The victim grabbed his own gun and jumped out of the vehicle, whereupon Olsten allegedly grabbed him and slammed him to the pavement. n the scu e, the victim’s gun went off, striking Olsten in the hand and arm, prosecutors say. Schmitt then opened fire on the victim, who was wounded but survived, charges claim. hen police attempted to file charges against the victim, prosecutors instead brought charges against Olsten and Schmitt. The o cers claim they acted in self defense. The police union hosted a “Back the Blue & The Blues” Stanley Cup watch party just last month. All proceeds raised were said to go to Olsten’s defense fund. n

An exploding boiler blasted through the roof of Loy-Lange. | COURTESY ST. LOUIS FIRE DEPARTMENT front Times that day. “It was like ‘Bam!’ and everything shook.” The lawsuits filed by people injured and relatives of the four killed were consolidated in anticipation of an August 2019 trial, and there was a two-day mediation in June that led to settlements

riverfronttimes.com

with five companies: Kickham Boiler and Engineering, Chicago Boiler Company, Aquacomp Water Treatment Services, Loy-Lange and Arise Incorporated. The plaintiffs settled with a sixth company, Clayton Industries, following the mediation. n

JULY 24-30, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

ROM 50+ RESTAUR F S R E ANT RG U B S $6

JUNE 29 - AUGUST 4

PARTICIPATING RESTAURANTS 99 Hops House (Hollywood Casino) Alpha Brewing Atomic Cowboy Aya Sofia Bar Louie (4 locations) The Beerhouse (River City Casino) The Blue Duck BJ’s Bar & Restaurant Bomber O’Briens Bootleggin’ BBQ Tavern Brew Hub Burger STL Busloop Burgers Carnivore Chocolate Pig Circa Pub & Grill Concord Grill Crispy Edge Dairy King Dr Jazz 12

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

Duke’s in Soulard Evangeline’s Frida’s George’s Diner Half Baked Cookie Dough Hamburger Mary’s Harpo’s Hi Pointe (2 locations) HopCat Hops House Restaurant (Argosy Casino) Horseshoe (2 locations) Hwy 61 Roadhouse J Smugs Gastropit Jefferson’s (2 locations) Johnny’s West Layla (2 locations) The Mack Maya Cafe Mike Duffy’s Pub & Grill - Kirkwood O’Connell’s Pub

Piccadilly at Manhattan Poke Doke Riverside Diner Ryder’s Tavern Schlafly Bottleworks Schlafly Tap Room Shamrocks Pub n Grill Sharpshooter Pit and Grill Spencer’s Grill Spikes Pub & Grub Stone Turtle Tattooed Dog Tilted Skillet Trueman’s in Soulard Tucker’s Place TURN The Village Bar White Cottage The Wood Shack

ill

OFFICIAL BURGER WEEK PASSPORTS AVAILABLE AT PARTICIPATING RESTAURANTS AND AT BURGERWEEKSTLOUIS.COM

TWO WAYS TO WIN FROM THE MISSOURI BEEF INDUSTRY COUNCIL 1. Have your passport stamped at 4 or more restaurants during St. Louis Burger Week, and you’ll be entered to win the Ultimate Grill Out for you and 25 friends. See rules on Passport. 2. Participate in the Social Media Contest

MAKE IT A PERFECT MATCH WITH A SCHLAFLY BEER OR A JIM BEAM & COKE

riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

BY DANIEL HILL

hen Syrhea onaway first joined ’s programming committee, she just wanted to help. local musician, teaching artist, youth mentor and adjunct faculty member at , she’d been approached by the station’s e ecutive director, elly ells, she says, and asked to help with the organization’s goals of increasing diversity and inclusion in its programming, which had for years been accused of leaning too heavily on folk music and similar genres with largely white fan bases. onaway, like many in the St. ouis area, regarded the independent radio station highly, and as a black woman she supported those stated goals. She was appointed to the volunteer position by the board of directors in March 2018. take pride in the work that do, and don’t just join things just to be like, h, ’m on this and do this,’

||||||

PHOTOS BY THEO WELLING

she e plains. t’s not about me. believe in this stuff. onaway wasn’t the only local black luminary brought on to 88.1 M under ells. arian igfall, a former scientist at ashington niversity as well as an author, youth mentor and current director of operations for the artist collective aretched, was hired on as event coordinator in une 2017. Vice hairman of the St. ouis lues Society lonzo Townsend, the son of rammy-winning blues legend enry Townsend and a former entertainment director at the ational lues Museum, as well as co-head of local label no ntertainment, was hired as community engagement coordinator in ctober 2018. arry Morris, coordinator for the Multicultural enter and nternational Student ffairs at ebster niversity

riverfronttimes.com

and frontman for the local hip-hop collective llphonics, was brought on to the programming committee in pril 2018. ocal musician Tonina Saputo, whose accolades include being named one of the best new artists of 2018 by both and former resident arack bama, was brought on as music coordinator in ugust 2018. f the goal was to promote diversity and inclusion, as ells told onaway, had hired itself a veritable dream team. ut today, only onaway and Saputo remain — and the latter was

JULY 24-30, 2019

Continued on pg 16

RIVERFRONT TIMES

Syrhea Conaway joined KDHX’s programming committee in March 2018, hoping to help the station increase diversity in its programming. She quickly became disillusioned.

DISTRESS SIGNAL Continued from pg 15

furloughed indefinitely on uly 23. igfall was uit-fired, as he terms it, in September 2018. Townsend was let go in pril 201 . Morris stepped down from the programming committee in une. nd each of the five had negative e periences at the station that became hibit in a detailed, seven-page letter written by an anonymous group of former staffers and volunteers and released to media in May. ells and the board have pushed back on the letter’s claims, saying many of its most incendiary allegations are simply not true. ut what is irrefutable is that the station is facing the awkward prospect of the majority of its former dream team turning on it and that many of those recruited by ells to increase diversity have become her harshest critics. onaway freely admits she has one foot out the door. My heart feels bad being here. don’t want to be here, she says she told leadership earlier this year. want to do this work, but it seems like you guys don’t want to do the work. feel like ’m be-

RIVERFRONT TIMES

ing used. nd have no problem just packing up my stuff and saying, Thank you for the opportunity, but no thanks.’

n early anuary, ’s acebook account shared a meme. laying off the distracted boyfriend memes then filling social media, it depicted two people: one a man of unclear ethnicity strumming on an acoustic guitar, the other a smiling white woman with her head turned away bashfully. Te t on the man identified him as , while the woman was marked as St. ouis. ccompanying the image was a uestion. t , our new year’s resolution is to serve the community in more mindful, more engaging and more inclusive ways. hat do you want to see and hear from the station in 201 Some commenters responded in earnest. ase up on the banjos, one wrote. More metal and punk. eep the reggae and throwback

JULY 24-30, 2019

hip-hop though, said another. ut some found the choice of imagery a bit ... odd. didn’t realize was trying to get in St. ouis’ pants, wrote one commenter. This gal looks sooooo uncomfortable and wishes this dude would just stop, opined another. ould love to know the gender of the individual who thought that a stock photo of a woman being low-key se ually

wants if you’re supposing St. ouis is a giggly white woman and is a dude playing acoustic guitar at her in a cut-off annel, he wrote. n some ways, the discussion seems trivial the image, after all, was a meme. ut it came during a time that was actively trying to be more inclusive in its programming something even the post itself referenced. nd rather than take all’s criticism as constructive, whoever was manning ’s acebook account fired back in the comments, accusing him of trolling and complaining. all, seldom one to back down from an online scrap, responded, hen directly asked how you could better serve the community, my e pressing that seems to be largely old white people music and not actually aware of the broader community is considered trolling The sniping continued for several days. inally, a week later, the station apologized, stating simply

“My heart feels bad being here. I don’t want to be here,” Syrhea Conaway told KDHX leadership. “I want to do this work, but it seems like you guys don’t want to do the work. I feel like I’m being used.”

riverfronttimes.com

harassed was an ideal choice, added a third. ric all, a well-known local musician, combined those approaches. think the image you shared might help e plain how off-target your impression of what the St. ouis community both is and

in the comments, e are sorry for the tenor of this post. e are listening. ehind the scenes, onaway was ba ed by the station’s approach. She and Morris addressed the matter at the ne t meeting of the programming committee, telling the station’s leadership that depicting St. ouis as a blushing white woman was problematic. , maybe y’all didn’t think about that image. nd it’s , mistakes happen, that’s how you learn, onaway says of the incident. ut to be very defensive and argumentative as the o cial page This is not rocket science. ou guys need to own your mistakes. ou messed up, come out and say, ou know what, this image we posted was problematic and we’re gonna do better.’ ou know, just own it leadership says a management meeting was subseuently held to implement better practices around content creation and publication. Taken alone, the ill-chosen meme may not seem like much. ut for some staffers and volunteers, it was just the latest tone-deaf action in a long roster, many of them with unpleasant racial overtones. n anonymous letters sent to the board and then later the media, they accuse station brass of tokenism, saying black staffers were made to pose for social media posts meant to highlight the station’s diversity discrepancies between the treatment of white staffers and those of color bait-and-switch tactics with job titles and responsibilities, wherein black staffers are hired on to one job only to see their responsibilities and titles immediately reduced and awkward instances of racial insensitivity. The RFT spoke with more than a dozen current and former staffers, programmers and volunteers, including those who were responsible for the anonymous letters. Most asked to remain anonymous. They describe a culture of dysfunction, saying that employees who uestion leadership are often terminated or otherwise face retaliation. They also claim there’s been a staggering rate of turnover at the station in the past year at least eight employees have uit or been let go at an organization that currently lists only ten staff positions on its website. ccording to ’s leadership, five full-time employees were fired between anuary 2018 and une 201 , all staffers. They

say three part-time employees of its first- oor cafe and bar were let go in that time period as well, but the station does not list those positions on its website. Three out of those eight who were fired were people of color, ’s leadership acknowledges. Townsend and igfall were two of the station’s black staffers that were fired, along with a part-time bar employee. Then, on uly 23, four staffers were furlouged indefinitely without pay for financial reasons. igital Media ordinator uther, roduction oordinator on Valley, cer Manager ati iblin

in corporate radio. or e ample, some critics don’t like the fact that ells, who is white, wears her hair in dreadlocks. hile that’s a common cause of consternation in progressive circles, it likely wouldn’t register as a blip on the radar in a different environment. ut doesn’t have advertisers it has donors, who were responsible for nearly half of its $1.38 million in revenue in 2017, according to its annual report. roudly independent and noncorporate, its progressive values are a big part of its calling card. t doesn’t broadcast to make money its 81 independently pro-

KDHX apologized in January for a meme in which St. Louis is depicted as a bashful white woman. and Saputo, the station’s music department coordinator and sole remaining black staffer, were all told not to report to work for the foreseeable future. denies that any racial bias was behind the firings. treats people fairly and has only dismissed people for cause, and by the book, oard resident aul ever says. Still, for an organization that has touted efforts to increase its diversity, it’s clearly a step back. nd now, the station’s website lists just five non-furloughed employees — all of them white. The allegations against probably would not get much traction at another station. ew of the complaints about ’s leadership rise to a level that would worry an department

duced shows and seven podcasts proudly present independent voices and opportunities for all and strive to re ect the diversity of our community as we fulfill our mission to build community through media. rom onaway’s perch as a volunteer, her assessment is that is good at lofty platitudes but not serious about actually doing the necessary work to truly make the station a diverse and inclusive environment. elly is a very talented writer and speaker, she says of the station’s e ecutive director, ells. She’s a very talented orator. She will say things that are very inspiring, but then you watch her and she will not do those things. onaway adds, There’s a mis-

riverfronttimes.com

alignment between actions and words. ut for people who don’t actually see what’s going on behind the curtain, they rally behind what she says, because what she says are things that people can definitely believe in. ut it’s the doing that ’m more concerned about. don’t care what you say. ou shouldn’t have to say anything to me should see it by what you do. nd ’m not seeing it. The people behind the letter say they never wanted it to get to this point. ut has no human resources director, so staffers with grievances are told to follow a chain of command: ring any complaints to an immediate supervisor first, then to ells, then, finally, come to the board. nterestingly enough, that’s how ells herself ended up as e ecutive director. n 2015, as fell behind on its payroll ta es and employees began receiving their paychecks late, ells, then ’s chief engagement o cer and director of the station-a liated olk School, which hosts classes and workshops dedicated to the genre, led a group of staffers to approach the board with their concerns. The station’s longtime e ecutive director was subse uently terminated by ever, and ells was named interim e ecutive director. few months later, the interim was dropped. ow she’s the one at the center of many of the letters’ complaints. n the first letter, hand-delivered to each board member in March and later obtained by the RFT, the anonymous writers alleged mismanagement of funds, retaliatory treatment of employees and poor leadership, and they asked the board to investigate. n response, ever called the allegations vague and ambiguous in an email obtained by the RFT. ithout more specificity about your concerns, it is simply impossible for to investigate or to respond, he wrote. That’s when the group, which identifies itself only as oncerned arties, reached out to local media. nonymous claims are necessary in an organization that has been strategically structured, by the ecutive irector, to have totalitarian control over the institution, that letter alleged. These claims are necessary when employees who uestion strategies, finances, and benefits are terminated

JULY 24-30, 2019

Continued on pg 18

RIVERFRONT TIMES

arian igfall felt his first real discomfort with in ctober 2017, just a few months after he was hired as its event coordinator. e and a volunteer were in the station’s air room when they noticed that the lack ives Matter sign that had hung there for years had been defaced, with black paper covering the V so that it read lack ies Matter. igfall has been involved in the protest movement for years, and says the sentiment made him feel unsafe. f there’s a volunteer there that thinks that, number one, that’s terrible, igfalls e plains. ut also because of my association with the movement, if they were to find that out,

don’t know how they would feel about me being a and being employed and stuff like that. The fact that they took the time out of their day to cut a piece of paper out that was the e act size of the V’ and tape it on the sign means that’s escalated beyond just a belief. They want to show they believe that. igfall approached ells and his then-immediate supervisor to report the incident. e claims they laughed the matter off, with ells even saying that she bet she knew who did it. That’s not funny to me at all, but was so shocked didn’t know what to say, igfall says. So just kind of let it go. The incident, and igfall’s claims about the way ells handled it, are now detailed in the anonymous letter. bout a week later, igfall says he suggested to ells that the station go through anti-bias, anti-racist training, which he says ells agreed was a good idea. ut igfall says ells didn’t pursue the matter. So came back in anuary, came back in ebruary, she’s like, e’re working on it, we’re working on it.’ came back in une and was like, ey, are we gonna do this or what ’ igfall says. was sending her resources, because ’m connected to a lot of people that do this kind of work. esources that we could do for free or for cheap and things like that. Station management finally set up some training in September 2018 — but that meeting was

Radio representatives who, he alleged, admitted the story was error-riddled, and that even its reporting contradicted “the statements [the story] printed.” In response to questions from RFT, St. Louis Public Radio spokeswoman Madalyn Painter rejected Dever’s description of the meeting, writing, “We didn’t admit that our reporting contradicted statements, but we did own up to the shortcomings of some of the reporting and made the appropriate corrections and clarifications.” But Dever wasn’t just upset about the perceived errors. In his email to the KDHX associates, he complained that Hundsdorfer’s story misstated KDHX’s financial situation — what the St. Louis Public Radio story initially described as “more than $3 million in the hole” — while also making it appear like KDHX was in a constant state of financial crisis. Dever suggested that the errors were “pretty galling” since St. Louis Public Radio “competes with us for funding.” Dever concluded the email to KDHX associates by noting that, following the July 5 meeting, St. Louis Public Radio made corrections to the story. Dever

wrote, “I still don’t agree with the corrected story, but it is better than it was.” He added, without embellishment, “The reporter who wrote it no longer works at St. Louis Public Radio.” Indeed, hours after the meeting with Dever on July 5, St. Louis Public Radio added an editor’s note to the story, which explained that the piece had been corrected and, in some cases, “clarified” to reflect KDHX’s policies and financial records. A comparison of the text of the original story and its corrected version show about a dozen changes, though most are fairly minor — and, more importantly, the corrections do not backtrack on the story’s core reporting on the internal struggle over diversity within the station’s ranks. The headline of the story was not changed. For example: One change took a reference to “former employees” and changed it to “people.” And the line about KDHX being “more than $3 million in the hole” that appears to have enraged Dever was corrected, and now reads “KDHX faces about $2.6 million worth of long-term debt, according to a 2018 financial statement.”

DISTRESS SIGNAL Continued from pg 17

without just cause or documentation. They are necessary when the has the board wrapped around their finger and publicly slanders anyone who e presses concern. The letter wraps up with a clear statement of the group’s goals. The music community, the arts community, the regional community deserve better, it concludes. emove the ecutive irector and ngagement cer who violate ethical and legal standards. f the board refuses to do their duties in oversight, remove them too. This is overdue.

D Darian Wigfall says he spent nearly a year asking for diversity training at KDHX. He was fired a week before it was held.

Public Radio Reporter Quit Over ‘Handling’ of KDHX Story Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI

n award-winning investigative reporter who abruptly resigned last month from St. Louis Public Radio says she quit over the station’s handling of her investigation into KDHX. Beth Hundsdorfer, who built an impressive reputation as a newspaper reporter before moving to public radio, was preparing a story on allegations at the independent music station but left shortly before her piece, “Turmoil at KDHX,” was broadcast on July 3. “I didn’t like the way the story was handled,” she told the Riverfront Times on Friday in an email. “I quit before seeing the final edits.”

RIVERFRONT TIMES

Hundsdorfer did not respond to follow-up questions about her specific objections. Accounts of problems at KDHX had been circulating for weeks. RFT Music Editor Daniel Hill had also been reporting on many of the issues, an investigation that culminated in this week’s cover story, which explores complaints of former employees and current and former volunteers of mismanagement, including allegations of racial bias and insensitivity. Hundsdorfer’s story looked at some of the same issues. When it aired in July, KDHX’s leadership claimed it was inaccurate in multiple respects. In an email addressed to “KDHX associates,” the station’s board president Paul Dever called the story “a hit piece,” writing that “the story played up the investigated, unsubstantiated employee complaints and some straight up lies,” and complained that that it “played down or ignored any context we provided and in the serious manner with which we’ve treated the same complaints.” Dever’s email went on, describing a July 5 meeting with St. Louis Public

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

concerned with professional principles and made no reference to racism or bias. dditionally, the only staffers invited to the meeting were Townsend, Saputo and igfall — the station’s sole black staffers — and their immediate supervisors: hief ngagement fficer ennifer unn Stewart, who’d been hired in une 2018, and hief Media cer onnie isdom. ells sent the group an email, obtained by the RFT, after the meeting. ttached are the rofessional rinciples that we talked through this week, she wrote on September 21. lease use these as a reference and remember that these are non-negotiable principles that we e pect you to adhere to as a professional staff person at . The outline offers four main points: e resent, e ccountable, e Trustworthy and e urious. Specifics include e responsible with screen time, Take immediate responsibility when you mess up and espect the e perience, e pertise, knowledge and position of your supervisors. n igfall’s opinion, the meeting was a condescending waste of time. The fact that only the black staffers and their bosses were in attendance also struck him as problematic. That’s not professional development that’s not a skill that’s gonna make me better at my job. This is work environment stuff, he says. nd even if it’s not just bringing the people of color and

Painter, the St. Louis Public Radio spokeswoman, rejects Dever’s suggestion that the station acted inappropriately or unethically by covering a funding “competitor.” “Our decision to pursue the story had nothing to do with consideration of who donates to our respective stations,” Painter tells the RFT. “We do not share data with KDHX and are not aware of what, if any, overlap there is between our donors and theirs. What’s more, our newsroom is editorially independent from our development (fundraising) and underwriting teams; we sometimes cover competing non-profit organizations, our own underwriters, and our university. The decision to cover the KDHX story was based purely upon on the newsworthiness of the allegations.” Regarding Hundsdorfer, Painter wrote only that “Beth resigned on July 3. She did not give a reason for her resignation.” Whatever the reason, it was blow to the station’s recent efforts to expand its offering of longform investigative journalism. Hundsdorfer had spent more than two decades at the Bellville News-Democrat,

their direct supervisors into a meeting, that’s what the optics is. ever says that an independent investigation into igfall’s claims painted a more complicated and different picture of the situation than the one described by arian, and it acknowledged that has been engaged in iversity and nclusion training for longer than arian understands or admits. Townsend describes a troubling instance of racial insensitivity that he e perienced as well. That incident, which was also outlined in the anonymous letter, involved unn Stewart, Townsend’s direct supervisor, accusing him of yelling at her and being verbally abusive during a ecember 2018 conversation. Townsend took that as coded language based in racial stereotypes. h oh, ’m the angry black man,’ he reasoned. ’m being hostile and you’re in fear. hen she used verbally abusive’ that was my problem. ne of the bar staffers, Saylor Surkamp, was present for that meeting, and immediately came to Townsend’s defense. Saylor’s like, ey, wait a minute, he’s not yelling at you. ’m sitting right ne t to him and he’s not yelling at you,’ Townsend e plains. ’m so fortunate that Saylor was in that room with me. ecause if she wasn’t in that room it’d have been he said, she said’ and would have been done. ather than escalate, Townsend Continued on pg 20

the Metro East daily where she worked as part of an award-winning investigative team with reporter George Pawlaczyk. When she left the paper, she’d just completed co-reporting a five-part series that delved into the epidemic of gun deaths in East St. Louis, revealing the startling proportion of random shootings alongside a shockingly low number of solved cases. After making the switch in January to radio, her byline appeared on fifteen stories, including pieces covering the fall of ex-St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger. The investigation into KDHX was her last story for St. Louis Public Radio. (She has since resurfaced as part of newly formed news site, the Metro East Meteor, run by her longtime reporting partner, Pawlaczyk.) And because the world of media in the Metro area is small, we should add, in the interest of full disclosure, former RFT editor-in-chief Sarah Fenske accepted a job with St. Louis Public Radio while our cover story about KDHX was being reported. She edited that story but recused herself from editing this story to avoid a conflict of interest. n

riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

DISTRESS SIGNAL Continued from pg 19

opted to remove himself from the situation and walked out of the building. Surkamp’s version of the incident to the RFT mirrors Townsend’s. n a statement to the RFT, unn Stewart points to the same independent investigation that leadership says cleared the station of igfall’s claims. This incident was a culminating event after months of documented behavior, she writes. The thorough investigation conducted by the e ternal law firm found that, in regards to me, my actions, and my limited supervisory responsibilities, all of the claims made in the anonymous letter were unsubstantiated. ells later admonished Townsend for leaving, Townsend says. e replied that he was just protecting himself. ou know how many black men have been persecuted, arrested and killed because of stuff like that he says. t happens every day. Townsend points to this incident as the beginning of the end of his employment at . e was ultimately fired by ells in pril. Surkamp, too, was fired in March, she says. or igfall, the professional principles meeting was the last straw. e gave notice that he wanted to uit shortly after, but offered to stick around to train a replacement. ccording to igfall, ells instead told him his last day should be tomorrow. ust a week later, in ctober 2018, the anti-bias anti-racist training igfall had asked for nearly a year before finally took place at the station, led by the ational onference for ommunity ustice. igfall wasn’t around to see how it went.

n a Thursday in mid- une, ells, ever and former board member indsay attan invite a reporter to the station’s first- oor music venue, the Stage at , to discuss the future of the station — as well as the fallout from the anonymous letter. attan had resigned from her board position less than a week earlier in order to advise the station on public relations and communications through her company, attan o. She says she believes it would be a con ict of interest to remain on the board as she does this work, but still, she is able to speak with confidence through her personal e perience about the situation at . Seated at the small circular

RIVERFRONT TIMES

Saylor Surkamp says she was hired at KDHX as a full-time employee, but when she inquired about benefits, her hours were cut back. tables at the back of the venue, ever shu es through some paperwork as attan presses play on a recorder. ells sits to the side, the dreadlocked portion of her hair pulled back and held in place by a clip. ll three are onmessage when discussing the station’s future. hen think about the culture of , right now ’m thinking of this idea of the entire organization as if we’re writing a new book. t’s like, the first book came out, ells says, referencing the station’s time under former e ecutive director everly acker, and now it’s time to decide what’s in the second book. think that we have an opportunity to backtrack a little bit and to say, hat are the things that we say we stand for hat are the values of the organization, and are we truly fulfilling those s it lip service as it happened organically nd can we be intentional about those things moving forward ’ ells e plains that the station has been grappling with its identity as a community radio station. ts longstanding mission is to build community through media. ut what does that mean ho are they building this community for hat does the word community mean in this conte t She admits that they don’t have concrete answers but says that the board has spent the last year strategically planning, in part with a survey asking listeners what they want to hear. iversifying the sta-

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

tion’s programming represents phase one. hase two, she says, is where they dig a little deeper into what it means for to be a true community organization. f is going to serve the community as it should, it needs to serve everyone, she says. That means being as inclusive as possible. nd so we committed to saying we’re gonna start diversifying our staff, and we’re gonna start diversifying our programmers, and we’re gonna start diversifying the programming that we have, she says. nd we’ve entered into an uncomfortable space of trying to figure out how to do that. nd that’s what we’re learning through right now and what we’re continuing to pursue. f the allegations of racial bias, ever says, n some ways, it’s not really a surprise. ou start digging into those things and issues come up. nd we’re dealing with issues right now. The trio vehemently deny almost all the charges put forth in the letter, and suggest its accusations of racial insensitivity are the growing pains that come with venturing outside a comfort zone. hen you take an organization that historically has not been very diverse and you decide that you’re going to take on the work of making it more diverse and then start creating an inclusive environment, you are going to face things like people are going to start to feel like it’s tokenism,

attan says. r they’re going to feel like the system’s not built for them to weigh in. s an e ample, attan points to the addition of two seats to the programming committee. Though she doesn’t mention names, it’s reasonable to infer she’s talking about Morris and onaway, who each say they were brought on with diversity and inclusion in mind. ut those two individuals, those two community members that were added so that the community could weigh in, were facing a committee that was full of people who had institutional knowledge and years of conte t, and now they’re being told to change by somebody new, attan says. nd so as we try to take these steps toward what we feel is the right direction, we’re also working through growing pains of realizing that right now the system is not built for everybody. ut if we hadn’t started taking those steps in this direction we wouldn’t be in this position, she says. verybody would be happy and fine and listening to folk music.

n 2015, was in dire financial straits. ts move in 2013 from what had been a bakery in south city into a new, gleaming home in rand enter put tremendous strain on finances. Though the building had been gifted to the station, the cost of the move and rehab to the building came out

to just shy of $5 million, and fundraising efforts in advance only raised about half of that amount. Then the S came knocking. had fallen behind on its payroll ta es. everly acker, then e ecutive director, entered into an agreement with the feds to take on personal responsibility if the back ta es were not paid. nly after that agreement was already in place did she approach the board and tell them of the e tent of the financial turmoil. early half of the board members abruptly resigned. acker herself was terminated a few months later, after 22 years with the station. ccording to ever and ells, today, the worst of that financial crisis is behind them. They describe ’s current financial situation as stable but fragile. f you look at all the finances, we are seeing year-on-year growth in fundraising, year-on-year growth in underwriting, year-on-year growth in granting, ever says. ll of those things are good. e still have a lot of debt we haven’t figured out. e’ve gotta figure that out. nd we’ve got a committee on the board that’s working to do that and working very hard and making real steps in that area. e’ve got good relationships with our creditors, we’re on track according to all our agreements in terms of paying stuff back. Some of the allegations against us are financial mismanagement, he says. iven the situation we’re in, we couldn’t be doing things differently right now. nd don’t think we could be doing things better. ever made that statement on une 27. ess than a month later, the station furloughed nearly half its staff. ormer staffers claim financial mismanagement has been an ongoing problem. s an e ample, Townsend says ’s first- oor bar was operating in the red when he took over its management in ctober. hen the station first moved into its new head uarters, the cafe and bar space was intended to generate revenue. ut Townsend says it was actually hemorrhaging money, and some li uor distributors wouldn’t even fill orders due to the bar’s past-due balances. imself a former manager at downtown’s popular roadway yster ar, Townsend says that ’s bar was dramatically underpricing its top-shelf li uor, with shots of ennessy being sold for just $5 apiece. That place was literally charging itself to run a bar, he says.

hen he asked a bar employee about the low prices, he says that employee responded by saying, ell, this is a nonprofit, so they’re not really worried about making money. said, on’t ever say that again,’ Townsend recounts. ecause any place that you are ringing out sales, you’re in business to make money. nd if you’re making a surplus down here at this bar, that’s, in my eyes, an even greater bonus for the board. The board would love knowing that you have some kind of vehicle that’s making revenue. leadership disputes Townsend’s claims. They say the bar was not operating in the red when he took over, and that the bar is still currently profitable. Townsend is also one of a handful of employees who claim there were long delays in receiving the benefits due to full-time employees — specifically health insurance. ccording to ’s employee handbook, full-time employees are to receive health insurance 0 days after they are hired. ut that timeframe came and went, Townsend says, and he had to remind ells to get him his benefits. emailed elly, asking, id you ever remember to send me the benefit form never got it after my 0 days,’ he says. nd she’s like, h yeah, ’m so sorry, forgot.’ ccording to Townsend, forgetting was part of a pattern. e says Saputo had a similar e perience — she was hired in ugust 2018, and ultimately didn’t get insurance until this ebruary. espite her attempts to follow up, according to the letter sent to media, she didn’t receive an insurance card until anuary. ven then, the card had her name and date of birth wrong, rendering it useless. That situation apparently wasn’t sorted out until some si months after her hire date. Saputo declined to comment for this story. second, similar instance is also outlined in the letter, alleging a staffer hired in ovember 2018 didn’t get health insurance until pril, and only after filling out enrollment forms more than once. Surkamp’s insurance situation was even more bizarre. fter initially being hired on as a fulltime house liaison for the bar, Surkamp’s hours were knocked down to part time when she inuired about health insurance. The RFT obtained an email sent from unn Stewart to Surkamp upon her hire that plainly identifies Surkamp as a full-time Continued on pg 23

Authentic Hong Kong Style Cuisine

VOTED ST. LOUIS’ #1 CHINESE CUISINE! FRESH & HEALTHY.

WE CARE ABOUT WHAT YOU EAT!

OPEN DAILY

DIM SUM

EVERYDAY 11AM-3PM

11AM-10PM 8116 OLIVE BLVD. • (314) 567-9997 • WONTONKINGSTL.COM riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

rP ice at

Gre

Fish Monger on Duty Wild King Salmon Now Available

Wine • Beer • Spirits • House • Roasted Coffee Fresh Bread • Gourmet Foods • Smoked Meats

314.781.2345 | Big Bend & 40 in Richmond Heights 22

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

Locally Owned Since 1979

DISTRESS SIGNAL Continued from pg 21

employee, as well as a copy of ’s employee handbook, which states, ll regular full-time employees are eligible to participate in health plans, with the ompany paying the costs of obtaining such health and welfare benefit packages for regular full time employees only. n ovember 30, ells sent out an email to staff, obtained by the RFT, e plaining that the station would be switching insurance plans. hen Surkamp uestioned ells, noting that she had not been offered benefits, ells replied that she was only included on the email because it was sent to the staff email group, and that they currently only offer benefits to salaried employees. Surkamp’s hours were subseuently cut to 36 hours a week, rendering her ineligible for insurance, she says. leadership says the reason for the confusion involves the station’s transition away from having S uatter’s afe, run by local chef ob onnoley, operate out of the building. They acknowledge there was a part-time staffer working full-time hours for a period of time during that transition but say it was during the employee’s 0-day probationary period, when insurance is not offered. They say that employee was brought back down to part time after the transition. Townsend suspects simply didn’t have the money to cover premiums, something he attributes to an e perience early in his time at the station. e says he tried to take his first paycheck to a check-cashing spot near , but that institution told him they no longer honor checks from the organization because they had bounced too many times. leadership did not respond to a re uest for comment about the bounced checks.

n the weeks since the anonymous letter was released to media, the fallout has been dramatic. ts claims have since made it to social media, grabbing the attention of programmers, volunteers and listeners alike. planned performance at the ocal oint by the folk group the Short ound Stringband, of which ells is a member, was cancelled in the face of potential boycotts and demonstrations against ells. The ocal oint declined to comment. Thomas rone, an RFT contrib-

utor and longtime programmer at the station, viewed the letter with concern. e had been set to work on a history project as recently as last year, but he says mi ed messages from management about the project turned him off the idea. etween that and the allegations outlined in the letter, rone chose to recuse himself from fill-in duties and pledge pitching until there’s a change in leadership, at both the management and board level. e announced his decision on acebook last month. Victoria onaldson, a recent addition to the programming committee and co-host of the station’s awthentic program, also voiced her concerns as a black woman. s it shows in this letter and through my personal e perience with , black voices are not given as much value as our white peers, she wrote in a widely shared acebook post. oining the rogram ommittee was my way to hopefully help shift the culture and evolve into a more diverse and culturally sustainable station. owever, it appears the atmosphere that has cultivated internally is to ic and dangerous for the institution itself and there’s very little that my role on the program committee can help with fi ing it. n a statement to the RFT, she says, have no reason to uestion the contents of the letter or consider them invalid. n which case, there should be a structural overhaul of because many of these narratives are not new and the culture of has allowed it for too long. espect is given when it is deserved. s for ’s board of directors, the lawyer hired to investigate the letter’s claims largely cleared the station of any wrongdoing, save for one instance of racial insensitivity and one instance of unwanted advances between volunteers and staff, according to ever. The investigation did yield a list of recommendations, including e panded diversity training through outside consultants, prioritizing diversity in recruiting, creating an o cial diversity and inclusion coordination role in management, improving recordkeeping for complaints, creating additional avenues — such as an anonymous hotline — to file com-

plaints and updating polices on anti-harassment, ever says. e adds that the station plans to follow all the recommendations. ’m happy to report that the review did not substantiate any of the major claims of the letter, he wrote to station associates. The station’s critics are skeptical of the investigation, noting the attorney hired by the board to conduct it spoke to just one former staffer. didn’t name that e -employee, but igfall says it was him. ll other former staffers interviewed for this story say they were not contacted. claims that multiple attempts were made to reach out to each of them, but the former staffers dispute that claim. Shown ever’s email, igfall bristles. The allegations in the email are not unsubstantiated when numbers of people are coming out behind it and saying, h yeah, ’ve e perienced this, oh yeah ’ve e perienced that, he says. ou just didn’t — the board wouldn’t talk

on its own, igfall says. She’s the common denominator. nd didn’t want it to be like that, but that’s it. elly is going to kill that organization if left to her devices. onaway echoes igfall’s assessment. ells, she says, has no business being leadership at , or anywhere, unless they really have a huge overhaul in how they not only treat people, but how they operate. t comes down to, in my opinion, just poor leadership. oor management skills. o emotional intelligence. Townsend agrees that ells is the main problem but says the board is negligent as well. lot of these board members also, they have to be held accountable too, Townsend says. This board is just as guilty as well, because they have not done their due diligence in order to keep these people accountable. The vast majority of staffers and volunteers the RFT spoke to for this story say they want to thrive. They believe the station is a good thing for St. ouis, a vital resource for local artists and the community at large. ut they believe current leadership is failing to live up to its promise. igfall says, in a perfect world, would be similar to the early days of Sta ecords, a place where people of all colors come and work together for the betterment of the community and the uplifting of local artists. onaway wonders why the station doesn’t have youth programs to train kids in the community on the ins and outs of broadcasting and other media jobs. Townsend doesn’t understand why the station’s olk School, which he says sits empty most of the time, isn’t a oots School focused on a wide variety of music. ntil the board has people in there that are invested in that vehicle, and until that board has people that are invested in that station working and being e ecutive director, ain’t shit gonna change and it’s never gonna be a force, Townsend says. should be a force. od, it just breaks my heart, onaway says. ecause want it to be something so great. ut don’t know. don’t know what’s gonna happen. This could be the end of it. ho the fuck knows mean, everything comes to an end. ut it’ll be sad if it is. t’ll be a damn shame if it is. n

“If we hadn’t started taking steps in this direction, we wouldn’t be in this position,” says former board member Lindsay Pattan. “Everybody would be happy and fine and listening to folk music.” to anybody our days after ever’s email, unn Stewart, who was at the center of a number of the anonymous letter’s claims, announced her resignation. n a statement to the RFT, she claims her decision was based on her belief that her skills, talents and professional contributions were no longer a productive use of staff time, no longer the best engagement for the communities it was her intention to center, and that her commitment to this role was no longer a healthy choice for her. wish nothing but success as they navigate change. ells says unn Stewart’s resignation was a personal choice and that she was not forced out. nd while unn Stewart’s resignation is good news for her critics, the majority of those who spoke to the RFT believe ells is the real source of the station’s dysfunction. The only reason this is happening is so we can save . ecause feel like if elly stays there, it’ll crumble in on itself

riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

CALENDAR

BY PAUL FRISWOLD and wkwafina play ullock’s team. The film is this week’s rt Hill Film Series installment. The party starts at 6 p.m. Friday, July 26, in front of the Saint Louis Art Museum (www.slam.org), with food trucks, beer, wine and cocktails for sale (soft drinks, too) and live music. The film itself begins at 9 p.m., and admission is free.

SATURDAY 07/27 For the Fans

THURSDAY 07/25 Anchors Aweigh Art is something to be appreciated, and St. Louis-based illustrator/ graphic designer Carlos Zamora’s cART exhibition at Laumeier Sculpture Park is one of those examples. Zamora transformed three golf carts into kinetic sculptures by installing his oversized paper boat sculptures on top and wrapping the bodies with printed vinyl slogans. A fourth large paper boat sculpture will be placed in a creek on the Laumeier grounds. The Cuban native drew inspiration for the project from his heritage, specifically the song ara uio de papel — ittle aper oat — as well as Cuban car culture, nursery rhymes and politics. Carlos Zamora: cART opens with a free reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, July 25, at Laumeier Sculpture Park (12580 Rott Road; www.laumeier.org). The following night a Havana Night celebration takes place in the park’s Aronson Fine Arts Center from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., with mojitos, snacks, asino dance lessons and a

RIVERFRONT TIMES

screenprinted poster station. Tickets are $25, but admission to the park and Zamora’s boat sculptures is free. The exhibition continues through December 22, and the park is open daily from 8 a.m. to 30 minutes past sunset. – Joshua Phelps

FRIDAY 07/26 All-Consuming Love Rodolfo is a poor poet living in Paris, while his friend Marcello is a starving artist. When their more successful friends Schaunard and Colline bring food and then depart for the cafe with Marcello, Rodolfo stays behind to work on a new verse. A beautiful young seamstress named Mimi interrupts him, and in an instant the two fall in love. Poverty is no barrier to romance blossoming, but his jealousy and her fatal case of consumption are. Rodolfo and Mimi have some good times before they reluctantly agree to separate so he doesn’t have to watch her

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

die. ut can the two lovers really be apart? Giacomo Puccini’s opera La boheme celebrates all-conuering love. nion venue pera presents La boheme in English at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday (July 26 to ugust 3 at the nion venue hristian hurch 733 orth nion oulevard www.unionavenueopera.org). Tickets are $30 to $55.

Ladies, Take It Away The all-female heist film Ocean’s Eight features a galaxy of stars and is set against the gilded backdrop of the Met Gala. Debbie cean Sandra ullock is just out of prison and looking for a big score. She rounds up a group of seven other women who are experts in their various fields and sets in motion a plan to steal the Queen of Holland diamond, which is a whopping 136 carats and is the centerpiece of the infamous Toussaint necklace. It will take meticulous planning and crack timing to pull of the audacious heist, but anything boys can do girls can do better. ate lanchett, Sarah aulson, Mindy Kaling, Rihanna, Anne athaway, elena onham arter

Four years ago, former Deadpool comic writer Daniel Way visited a lackluster craft fair filled with resellers and multi-marketers. There wasn’t anything there for me, he says. oth ay and his wife, Kim Way, took it upon themselves to create a craft fair that catered to the geek crowd. So they created the GeekCraft Expo. eek raft po is a comic book convention that meets Etsy,” Daniel Way says. Entering its second year in St. Louis, the GeekCraft Expo has expanded to twice the size due to popular demand, and features geeky handmade items of everyday objects by local artists. Way, who is the director of the event, says many of the items are Harry Potter, Star Wars or Lego themed, as those three pop culture giants have the most devoted fandoms. The second GeekCraft Expo for St. Louis will be 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday (July 27 and 28) in Webster niversity’s rant ymnasium (175 Edgar Rd; www.geekcraftexpo.com/stl-2019). Visitors can register at the website to get in free, or pay $2 at the door. Additionally, Way says the Geek Girls Club will be have their brunch at 10 a.m. Sunday, and it’s open to the public. – Joshua Phelps

Fresh Paint The classic Lerner and Loewe musical Paint Your Wagon has its own fresh coat of paint courtesy of Jon Marans. Marans rewrote the book, changing the structure in several places and adding a black character (H. Ford) and two Chinese characters; the show now

WEEK OF JULY 25-31

LET’S CONNECT Discover a new way to bank in the Central West End. commercebank.com/connect

A bigger, better GeekCraft Expo takes place this weekend. | (C) 2019 CRAFTEDLLC looks more like the real California during the gold rush era. The handsome Mexican love interest has a new name (Armando) and a beefed-up background as well. What remains is that gorgeous oewe score, with and’rin’ Star and They all the ind Maria,” and the love story between Armando and Rebecca, whose father en is a prospector who finds gold. When a boom town sprouts up around his claim, personal and romantic con icts sprout between the 400 men and the small number of women. Even gold isn’t enough to make that ache of loneliness go away. The Muny presents the reworked Paint Your Wagon at 8:15 p.m. Saturday through Friday (July 27 to August 2) at the Muny in Forest Park (www.muny.org). Tickets are $15 to $105.

TUESDAY 07/30 Home Team Wins? The hated Chicago Cubs are back in town to play the St. Louis Cardinals, which is good. In a strange twist, the Cardinals have lost all their Cubs games in Chicago and won all the home games against the Cubs. Let’s see if that bizarre tradition continues. First pitch is

at 7:15 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday and 6:15 p.m. Thursday (July 30 to ugust 1 at usch Stadium (700 Clark Avenue; www.stlcardinals.com). Tickets are $10.90 to $260.90.

Middle-Age Muppets In the 40 years since the release of the original Muppet Movie, the film has maintained its popularity with kids and adults, thanks to its weirdo humor and Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher’s brilliant songs. Kermit the Frog makes the long journey from the Florida swamp to Hollywood in order to become a star, accruing strange Muppets — and the divine Miss Piggy — as he travels. The trip is filled with laughter and heartbreak, as well as a million cameos from the stars of the 1970s. The Muppet Movie is back in theaters for a pair of dates in honor of its 40th anniversary. Fathom Events presents The Muppet Movie at 12:30 and 7 p.m. Thursday, July 25, and 12:30 p.m. only on Tuesday, July 30. You can see it again locally at the Marcus Ronnies Cine 5320 South indbergh oulevard www.fathomevents.com). Tickets are $12.47 to $15.47. n

riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

ROM 50+ RESTAUR F S R E ANT RG U B S $6

JUNE 29 - AUGUST 4 #STLBURGERWEEK

riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 201

STL BURGER WEEK 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

COMMANDMENTS

St. Louis Burger Week has created such strong, lusty, even insane feelings, that we decided it needed its own little manifesto. Please read on.

1. THEY COULD RUN OUT

We expect that the restaurants will be extremely busy. So, if a place runs out toward the end of a shift, handle it like an adult, go back the next day, earlier, order your burger and thank them for working hard. Please be nice to our restaurants.

2. THERE’LL LIKELY BE WAITS

People have been talking about Burger Week 2019 for months. Don’t be surprised if restaurants have waits. In fact, be surprised if they don’t.

3. TIP LIKE A PRO

$6 brings out the cheap in all of us, but really, you’re likely getting a $10+ burger, so please tip at least 20%. The people who are serving you are working harder during Burger Week than an average week. A kind word will also be welcome - these people are our friends and neighbors.

4. YOU SHOULD BUY A DRINK AND/OR OTHER FOOD

Purchase of sides and extras are not a requirement, but we think it says a lot to those working hard to bring you extraordinary experience. Grab some fries, a Bud Select, a cocktail and say thanks!

5. CHECK SOCIAL MEDIA

Restaurants will be encouraged to post their waits and remaining burgers for the day on their social platforms. Also don’t forget to share and tag your photos with #STLBurgerWeek.

6. DINE-IN

Just a final note that many restaurants are dine-in only. Make sure to double check the Official Burger Week Passport to confirm which locations offer carry-out and which locations are dine-in only.

THANK YOU!

A huge thanks to our sponsors: Missouri Beef Industry Council, Schlafly & Jim Beam!

RIVERFRONT TIMES

STL BURGER WEEK 2019

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 201

STL BURGER WEEK 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

STL BURGER WEEK 2019

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 201

STL BURGER WEEK 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

STL BURGER WEEK 2019

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 201

STL BURGER WEEK 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

STL BURGER WEEK 2019

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 201

STL BURGER WEEK 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

STL BURGER WEEK 2019

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

Burger Week: A Week With Our Name All Over It! Burgers STL’s Menu Features •

Professionally Blended Proprietary Ground Beef • Fresh Daily Baked Breads • Locally Sourced Produce • Truck-Made Pickles • Family Recipe Chili • Our Own Seasoning Blends and Rubs* * available for purchase, take some home!

Where To Find Us During

July 28– August 4

MONDAY 7/28

TUESDAY 7/29

WEDNESDAY 7/30

THURSDAY 8/1

FRIDAY 8/2

Nestle Purina Headquarters 801 Chouteau Ave., St Louis, MO 63102 10:30 am–1:30 pm

Foley Dental Group 2016 Vadalabene Dr., Maryville, IL 62062 10:30 am–2 pm

CityGarden 801 Market St., St. Louis, MO 63101 10:30 am–1:30 pm

Weingarten 1780 E IL-15, Belleville, IL 62221 4–8 pm

Recess Brewery 307 N Main St., Edwardsville, IL 62025 5–11 pm

OUR FEATURED $6 BURGER

The Cuban

SATURDAY 8/3

SUNDAY 8/4

Grappa Growlers Six Mile Bridge 1501 N Belt W, 11841 Dorsett Rd, Belleville, IL Maryland Heights, 62226 MO. 63043 2–7:30 pm 5-9 pm

Brioche bun, 6-ounce Angus beef patty seasoned with Burgers STL’s very own seasoning, then grilled to perfection. Topped with Swiss cheese, garlic aioli, truck-made pickles, spicy mustard, spinach, and wait for it... thinly sliced cherry-smoked ham. We then wrap the burger in aluminum foil and place back on the grill pressing it down.

We Back The Blue Burgers STL proudly donates a portion of its proceeds to Edwardsville/ Glen Carbon police training

www.burgersstl.com

•

(314) 441-5853 riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 201

STL BURGER WEEK 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

OFFICIAL BURGER V G S

ALPHA BREWING alphabrewingcompany.com The Cowboy Burger: A savory 1/4 pound tenderloin patty topped with a cranklin’ onion ring, Applewood smoked bacon and house-made steak sauce, served with a handcut spicy pickle spear. Black Bean Burger: House-made black bean burger made with roasted red peppers, onions, garlic and quinoa topped with lettuce, tomato and hand cut pickles served on a brioche bun. ATOMIC COWBOY atomiccowboystl.com Atomic Burger: grilled angus beef w/ chipotle mayo, lettuce, & pico de gallo, choose cheddar or pepper jack cheese, served on bakery fresh vanilla bun.

AYA SOFIA ayasofiacuisine.com Ottoman Burger: Our juicy, 1/2 pound, house made ground beef burger topped with feta cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, Turkish pickles and garlic aioli. Substitute Kasar or American Cheese. Falafel Burger: Our delicious and crispy chickpea falafel patty served with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and Turkish pickles and garlic aioli. BAR LOUIE 4 locations barlouie.com 6 Napkins Burger: Two smashed slider patties, grilled with yellow mustard, topped with caramelized onions, double white cheddar, pickles, & Louie sauce. THE BEERHOUSE (RIVER CITY CASINO) rivercity.com Cubano Burger: 8oz burger, topped with shaved ham, Swiss cheese, dill pickle and Dijon mustard on a pressed brioche roll. BJ’S BAR AND RESTAURANT bjsbarpizzaflorissant.com Hog Head Burger: 8oz Patty stuffed with pork belly topped with cheddar bacon grilled onions fries and brown gravy.

V T

THE BLUE DUCK blueduckstl.com Griddled burger on Slambun with American cheese, bacon, fried pickled red onions, house ketchup, beer mustard, and shredded lettuce. BOMBER O’BRIENS bomberobriens.com Dublin Burger: Certified Angus Beef topped with bacon, cheddar cheese, Guinness caramelized onions and a fried egg.

V S

BOOTLEGGIN BBQ bootlegginbbq.com BMC: 2 house ground brisket smashed burgers topped with cheddar cheese, a smoked Portobello mushroom and bacon crumbles. Served with lettuce, tomato, onion and pickles.

BREW HUB TAPROOM brewhub.com Cowboy Burger: Burger cooked to temp with housemade Jack Daniels BBQ sauce and onion rings, topped with pepper jack cheese and served on a brioche bun.

BURGERS STL New Location Daily burgersstl.com The Cuban: Brioche bun, 6 oz. - angus beef patty seasoned with Burgers STL very own seasoning, then grilled to perfection. Topped with Swiss cheese, garlic aioli, truck made pickles, spicy mustard, spinach, and wait for it... thinly sliced cherry smoked ham. We then wrap the burger in aluminum foil and place back on the grill pressing it down to flatten.

BE SURE TO GET YOUR P

6 B U R G E

V S T

BUSLOOP BURGERS busloopburgerstogo.com Fresh quarter pound ground chuck pattie, pepperoni, grilled mushrooms green peppers and onions, mozzarella and provolone cheese, and zesty pizza sauce. Served on toasted Italian bread. CARNIVORE carnivore-stl.com 6oz Taco Seasoned Burger, topped with pepper jack, sautéed peppers and onions, Sriracha aioli, fresh jalapeños and diced red onion. Served on a fresh Vitales Bakery bun. CHOCOLATE PIG thechocolatepig.com Pimiento Cheese Double Double with Pickled Jalapenos and Bacon on a Brioche Bun. CIRCA PUB & GRILL circapubandgrill.com BBQ Bacon Burger: BBQ Bacon Cheddar Cheeseburger grilled to perfection served with LTOP on an Artisan bun.

THE CONCORD GRILL concordgrill.com Concord Burger: 6 oz. Our best seller with bacon, onion straws and cheddar cheese sauce. Served with seasoned fries. Jim White Burger: 6 oz. burger with sautéed mushroom, bacon and Swiss cheese. Served with seasoned fries.

V S T

CRISPY EDGE crispyedge.com The Grounder Potsticker: Onion Dough filled with Select Ground Beef and Cheddar, All wrapped in Bibb Lettuce, topped with Tomato Aioli, Relish, Cherry Tomatoes and Sesame Seeds.

V G S T

DAIRY KING edairyking.com Double Cheeseburger: 100% fresh ground beef with ketchup, mustard, pickles, onion, lettuce and tomatoes. Served with fries and a drink. DR JAZZ drjazzsoda.com 6 oz cheeseburger with apple wood bacon, BBQ sauce, provolone served with a side of garlic parmesan mushrooms.

DUKE’S IN SOULARD Double Grilled Cheese Burger: Two smashed and grilled patties of prime Kern ground beef, with applewood smoked bacon, sandwiched between two grilled gooey cheesr sandwiches. It’s cheesy delicious.

EVANGELINE’S evangelinesstl.com Black Strap Molasses Bacon Beignet Burger: Black Angus Beef between two Glazed Beignets with Black Strap Molasses Bacon, Tomato, Lettuce.

V G S T

FRIDA’S eatatfridas.com Signature Frida Burger: 1/4lb award-winning patty, tahinichipotle slaw, tomato.

BBQ Beyond Meat Burger: 1/4lb patty, cabbage slaw, house bbq sauce, tomato GEORGE’S DINER George’s Bacon Double Cheeseburger with Special Sauce: 2 Grilled hamburger patties 2 slices of bacon, Swiss cheese, American cheese, special sauce, on Texas toast.

HALF BAKED COOKIE DOUGH COMPANY cookiedoughstl.com 2 chocolate chip cookies (bun), brownie batter (burger), toasted marshmallow fluff (cheese), cheesecake batter (special sauce), and red icing (ketchup) HAMBURGER MARY’S hamburgermarys.com/stlouis Princess Mary Burger: Cheddar & Jack cheeses, caramelized onions, bacon, lettuce & Mary’s sauce.

HARPO’S harposstl.com Half Pound Angus patty Choice of bread, cheese and 16 toppings to choose from.

V G T

HI POINTE 2 locations hipointedrivein.com I Fought The Slaw And The Slaw Won: Single cheeseburger with smoked cheddar topped pulled pork and vinegar slaw

HOPCAT hopcat.com/st-louis The Beyoncé: Two Smash patties and one sunnyside up egg topped with bacon, pepper jack cheese, jalapeno and HopCat’s homemade hot sauce HOPS HOUSE (ARGOSY CASINO) argosyalton.com Breakfast Burger: Cheddar cheese, crispy bacon, fried egg & homemade maple chipotle ketchup on a brioche bun. HORSESHOE 2 locations facebook.com/OfallonHorseshoe Chili Burger: Half pound freshly ground beef charbroiled slight pink or well done, cheddar cheese, topped with our made from scratch award winning chili, jack/cheddar cheese, diced onion and jalapeno slices. All burgers served with shoestring fries, other sides available for additional charge.

MAP KEY

99 HOPS HOUSE (HOLLYWOOD CASINO) hollywoodcasinostlouis.com French Onion Burger: 6-oz. char-grilled burger topped with melted gruyere cheese, French onions, dijonnaise, and served on a toasted bun.

V G T S

= Veggie Substitute = Gluten Free Bun Substitute = Take Out Available = Special ask restaurant for details

R W E E K LO C AT I O N S O’CONNELL’S PUB Fresh chopped sirloin mixed in house daily, charbroiled to perfection, comes with your choice of lettuce, tomato, pickle, onions and served on a Fazio Bun.

UR PASSPORT

THE PICCADILLY AT MANHATTAN thepiccadilly.com Classic Cheeseburger: 8 oz. brisket patty on a toasted brioche bun with American cheese

G E R S

HWY 61 ROADHOUSE hwy61roadhouse.com Cajun Gorgonzola Burger: A 1/2 pound blend of Certified Black Angus beef & Andouille sausage rolled in Cajun seasoning, grilled & topped with Gorgonzola cheese, caramelized onions & Cajun mayo. J.SMUG’S GASTROPIT jsmugsgastropit.com 6 oz Brisket Burger Patty, cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato Bacon Jam, our housemade Memphis BBQ Sauce.

JEFFERSON’S 2 locations jeffersons.com Jefferson’s Burger: 6 oz. beef patty topped with American cheese, Applewood-smoked bacon and smokey BBQ sauce.

V S

JOHNNY’S WEST johnnysweststl.com Johnny’s Texas Burger: 8oz Angus patty, w/ bacon, sliced cheddar, soft English cheddar, homemade Jim Beam BBQ sauce and onion straws, all on texas toast. LAYLA 2 locations laylastl.com

V S

GROVE LOCATION: The Danny Trejo: 6oz TexMex Craft Beef Patty with black bean shmear, lettuce, tomato, onion & house pickled jalapenos & Western dressing on a corn tostada. WEBSTER GROVES LOCATION: Chimi Hendrix: 4 ounce prime smash patty, pepper jack, chimichurri, mediterranean pico, romaine, house-made pickled jalapeños on a sesame bun. THE MACK mackbarandgrill.com The Southside BBQ: Topped with cheddar, onion rings, bacon, our slaw, and smothered in BBQ sauce

MAYA CAFE mayacafestl.com Brazilian BBQ Burger: Spicy all beef BBQ patty with fried plantains, caramelized onions and maple bacon.

V S

MIKE DUFFY’S PUB & GRILL - KIRKWOOD mikeduffys.com Charbroiled burger: On top a Companion pretzel bun, topped with beer cheese, bourbon bacon jam and caramelized onions.

POKE DOKE pokedokestl.com Pokedoke Hawaiian Burger: Hawaiian patty, served with pineapple, lettuce, with a choice of teriyaki sauce or spicy mayo

G S T

RIVERSIDE DINER Double Patty: Ground chuck burger with American and Swiss Cheese, topped with Hickory Smoked Bacon, all between a Fazio’s Bun. RYDER’S TAVERN facebook.com/ryderstavernstl The Medart Burger: 5 ounce smashed beef patty on a soft bun with American cheese, burger slaw (romaine, onion, dill pickle) and special sauce.

SCHLAFLY BOTTLEWORKS schlafly.com/bottleworks-brewpub Bottleworks Burger: 5 Oz. Beef Patty Burger: On a pretzel bun, topped with white cheddar and house-made burger slaw.

SCHLAFLY TAP ROOM schlafly.com/tap-room-brewpub Schlafly Burger: 5 oz. Beef Patty Burger: On brioche bun, topped with Beer Sauce Shop’s Schlafly barrel-aged BBQ sauce, American cheese and fried onions.

V S

SHAMROCKS PUB shamrocks-pubandgrill.com Nestled between two bacon grilled cheese sandwiches we have six ounces of fresh beef stuffed with melted cheese and steamed on a grill with Sweetwater G13 IPA. We top it with homemade bacon aioli and hand battered, deep fried jalapeno and pickle chips. SHARPSHOOTER PIT & GRILL banggoodbbq.com The Stanley: Our half pound burger topped with your choice of fresh smoked pulled pork or fresh smoked brisket, melted cheddar cheese and slaw on a soft, butter toasted bun. The Cowboy: Our half pound burger topped with our signature BBQ sauce, pepper cheese, onion rings, and cherry smoked bacon on a soft, butter toasted bun.

SPENCER’S GRILL facebook.com/spencersgrill Classic American cheeseburger: grilled to perfection, served with thick cut tomato, crispy lettuce, onions, pickle, and served on a lightly toasted bun.

SPIKES PUB & GRUB facebook.com/spikespubandgrub Juicy, cooked to temp, 1/3 pound hamburger with 2 slices of American cheese, crispy onion strings, banana peppers, drizzled with Spike’s sauce on a soft egg Kaiser roll. STONE TURTLE stoneturtlestl.com 1/2 Pound Burger: topped with bacon jam with beer cheese on toasted Brioche bun THE TATTOOED DOG The Mac Attack: Our Angus beef burger, topped with house made 4 cheese gooey Mac n cheese, pepper jack cheese, crispy bacon, roasted garlic aioli and served on a pretzel bun

TILTED SKILLET tiltedskilletwashmo.com Ghost Burger: 1/2 Pound House ground beef topped with smoked ghost pepper jack cheese, fried fresh jalapenos, lettuce, tomato, red onion and Ancho peach preserves. Maple Bacon Brat Burger: 1/2 pound fresh bratwurst topped with white cheddar, avocado, maple syrup, Applewood smoked bacon and beer mustard. All on a grilled pretzel bun. TRUEMAN’S IN SOULARD truemansinsoulard.com Big Kahuna Burger: A big 12 ounce Angus burger starring our fresh house-made Mango Salsa (made from daily from fresh mango, jalapenos, cilantro and citrus, all from Soulard Market) and with a supporting cast of melted pepper jack cheese and applewood smoked bacon.

TUCKER’S tuckersplacestl.com Tucker Cheddar Burger: Always fresh hand-pattied 9oz Angus beef. Charbroiled to your temperature. Topped with our famous soft 100% real Wisconsin sharp cheddar cheese. Also Lettuce, tomato, onion and pickles. All this goodness is served on a fresh toasted Brioche bun.

V G

TURN davidkirklandcatering.com/turn 4oz beef patty: Topped with Derby Sage cheese, Grilled tomato, Mixed greens, on a brioche bun THE VILLAGE BAR facebook.com/VillageBarSTL The Best Cheeseburger served at The Village Bar

WHITE COTTAGE whitecottageicecream.com The Double Cottage Burger (Our Signature Burger): Two quarter LB patties, hardwood smoked bacon, Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, sliced onion, pickle, on a butter toasted bun.

G S

• P L E A S E D R I N K R E S P O N S I B LY •

BURGERWEEKSTLOUIS.COM • #STLBURGERWEEK

THE WOOD SHACK thewoodshacksoulard.com 6oz Smoked Burger with bourbon bacon jam/ avocado spread/ smoked Gouda/ on a brioche.

RIVERFRONT TIMES

STL BURGER WEEK 2019

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 201

STL BURGER WEEK 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

STL BURGER WEEK 2019

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 201

STL BURGER WEEK 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

STL BURGER WEEK 2019

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 201

STL BURGER WEEK 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

STL BURGER WEEK 2019

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 201

STL BURGER WEEK 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

STL BURGER WEEK 2019

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

PING PONG TABLE • POOL TABLE • BOARD GAMES WEDNESDAY TRIVIA • LIVE MUSIC / DJS 5 DAYS A WEEK

THIS WEEK THE GROVE SELECTED HAPPENINGS

Day or night, there’s always something going on in The Grove: live bands, great food, beer tastings, shopping events, and so much more. Visit thegrovestl.com for a whole lot more of what makes this neighborhood great.

25 40 R RIRVII VEV ERE RFRRFF ROR ONO NTN TTT ITTMII MME ESE SS FMEJJAUBURNRLCEUYHA2R1044Y- -2326080,-, M220A0R1189C8 H r5ri,ivve2er0rf1frr8oonnt trt tii ivmmeeersfs.r.coconomtmt i m e s . c o m

WEDNESDAY, JULY 24

ASKING ALEXANDRIA $25, 7:30

PM AT

VOODOO FLEETWOOD MAC 6

NICK VATTEROTT

THURSDAY, JULY 25

PLAYERS LEAGUE IMPROV $6, 8:15

PM AT

THE IMPROV SHOP

ATOMIC COWBOY

PM AT

THE READY ROOM

$15, 7

PM AT

SATURDAY, JULY 27

SLAYYYTER

FRIDAY, JULY 26

SEXAUER'S VINYL HAPPY HOUR 5

PM AT

FIRECRACKER

THE READY ROOM

$15, 7

PM AT

THE READY ROOM

FOR BETTER OR WORSE:

4130 MANCHESTER AVE. IN THE GROVE FIRECRACKERPIZZA.COM

AN IMPROVISED WEDDING $10, 8

PM AT

THE IMPROV SHOP

TECH-NOIR AT THE BOOTLEG 10

PM AT

$27, 7

BLUEGRASS N BURGERS W 2ND SHIFT AND MAC'S! PM AT

GEZELLIG

PM AT

THE READY ROOM

WOOD & WIRE 7

PM AT

ATOMIC COWBOY

MONDAY, JULY 29

FRIDAY, AUGUST 2

THE MOWGLI'S

JJ GREY & MOFRO W/ JONNY LANG AT ATOMIC COWBOY PAVILION

ATOMIC COWBOY

SUNDAY, JULY 28

BARONESS

$20, 7

PM AT

THE READY ROOM

THURSDAY, AUGUST 1

THE DEAD SOUTH $20, 6

PM AT

ATOMIC COWBOY

PM AT

ATOMIC COWBOY

SOUTHSIDE SUMMERJAM $10, 7:30

PM AT

THE READY ROOM

r ri ivveer rf fr roonnt tt ti immeess. .ccoomm

JJ UU NL YE 2 40 - 32 06 , 2 0 1 98

RRI IVVEERRF FRROONNT T T TI IMMEESS 2551

STAGE

Sisyphus and Icarus (Tielere Cheatem and Shane Signorino) find love and laugher in Sisyphus and Icarus: a Love story. | PATRICK HUBER

Second Place The second half of the LaBute Fest is less dramatic than the first but still entertaining Written by

PAUL FRISWOLD The LaBute New Theater Festival Directed by Wendy Renee Greenwood and John Pierson. Presented by St. Louis Actors’ Studio through July 28 at the Gaslight Theater (358 N Boyle Avenue; www.stlas.org). Tickets are $30 to $35.

he second half of the 2019 LaBute New Theater Festival is invariably compared to the first half, which is unfair. The three new plays (and Neil LaBute’s own “Great Negro Works of rt, which plays throughout the fest) should be considered on their own merits. Still, it’s a mi ed bag. There is perhaps less urgency in two of the plays, and the stakes feel lower all around. That’s not bad on the whole, the second half is highly

RIVERFRONT TIMES

entertaining, if lacking in dramatic tension. ichard urtis’ redilections is a negotiation between a highly private society woman and an obituary writer who loves a funny headline. aura im urlow has a story, but first Sparlin Tielere Cheatem) is required to share his own backstory, and then relate the stupidest thing he’s ever done before aura will tell the tale. She then recounts her mother’s incredible backstory and great mistake, and makes her demand that he not reduce her life to that mistake. Both actors are very good (Cheatem, in particular, is completely unrecognizable as Sparlin , but there’s no real drama. aura is revealed to hold all the cards, and Sparlin’s compliance is essentially guaranteed. hy aura doesn’t start from the point of complete control is the only mystery. oseph rawczyk’s enrietta is a far more entertaining. ccountant Carl (Chuck Brinkley) gets in the car with his briefcase full of Viagra and se toys and attempts to drive to a cheap motel. is autonomous car and its new navigation system, enrietta, has other ideas. arly osenbaum

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

voices enrietta with a sternness you’d think Carl would appreciate and eventually takes control of the journey and most of his life. The play riffs on the toll e tracted by our increasingly wired world and how we give away our private lives to machines and websites. rawczyk’s dialogue has a zippy snap, and rinkley mines a great deal of humor on Carl’s journey from lightly horny to outraged and then terrified. The mystery of who requested this upgrade is revealed, which adds that e tra zing to arl’s plight. t’s a smart, funny play with something to say. illiam vor owkes’ Sisyphus and carus: a ove story is a fairytale for adults. s in the myth, Sisyphus Tielere heatem schleps his boulder to the top of the hill day after day, but today finds handsome admirer carus Shane Signorino ying with his golden wings. They irt, uickly fall in love and then we jump to a few years later to find them in the o ce of relationship counselor ibra olleen acker . t’s a frothy comedy well played by Signorino and heatem, and it’s aided immensely by Backer’s thick owery oys accent. t’s light

on subte t and heavy on jokes and wordplay carus speaks like he OD’d on the Complete Works of Shakespeare, which is apparently infectious. t’s a stretch to say there’s a subte t to all this to keep your relationship healthy you must understand your partner’s viewpoint, maybe , but it’s thoroughly enjoyable as a comedy. n a trick of scheduling, reat egro orks of rt closes the festival. t’s even more awkward and painful if you attended the first half and you know what’s coming. The arc of an ill-fated blind date between a black man (Jaz Tucker) and a white woman (Carly Rosenbaum) is packed with social landmines. oth actors trigger their e plosions with more oomph after two weeks of performances, and their shared moments of silence are even more agonizing. osenbaum and Tucker have wired down their characters to the point that even their meetcute is freighted with morbid tension. t’s impressive, both as black comedy and as an e ploration of the subtleties of white privilege and unconscious racism, and it’s an e cellent full stop for a festival that goes from strength to strength with each year. n

FILM

Free Love? Nick Broomfield’s tender documentary examines Leonard Cohen’s great romance and rise to fame Written by

ROBERT HUNT Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love Directed by Nick Broomfield. Starring Leonard Cohen, Marianne Ihlen, Ron Cornelius and Judy Collins. Opens Friday, August 2, at Landmark Plaza Frontenac Cinema.

o ong, Marianne, first heard on eonard ohen’s 1 67 debut album, is one of the most acclaimed e amples of the singer-songwriter’s early work. Melancholy and romantic, its si short verses are filled with details palmistry, remorse, recrimination that must surely be autobiographical, but its message is universal, sung by a narrator pledging that his love is eternal, even as he appears to be packing his bags. t should come as no surprise that the lyrical Marianne had a real-life counterpart, one of many muses to pass in and out of ohen’s sphere others included arhol superstar ico, anis oplin and, of course, the eponymous Suzanne . Marianne hlen, a striking orwegian e -model, was married and with a small child when ohen met her on the reek island of ydra in 1 60. hlen, like ohen, was one of the dozens of bohemian spirits who had run to the egean Sea to create a kind of refuge for artists, a place where living was ine pensive and bourgeois reality seemed miles away. ohen, already well regarded for his poetry in his home of anada, had come there to write. Marianne, separated from her novelist husband, was content with keeping house and inspiring his poems they lived together sporadically for more than a decade, with ohen gradually withdrawing as his musical career took off. ick roomfield’s new film, Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love, tells the story of this on-andoff romance through home movies and interviews with friends

Marianne Ihlen was Leonard Cohen’s muse for most of a decade. | COURTESY ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS of the couple. hlen died in uly 2016 the film uotes a moving letter ohen wrote to her at the time, just a few months before his own death. are for a documentary film, it’s a love story, albeit one told in fragments and shaded by the passage of time. t’s also, perhaps inevitably, the story of ohen’s wayward path to fame, a journey which probably hastened the end of his relationship but which reveals, in retrospect, much about his passionate art. y the mid-to-late 1 60s, ohen had suffered a mental breakdown — possibly from the stress of writing Beautiful Losers, a dark and di cult novel about se and death. e seized upon the idea of becoming a singer-songwriter, despite having, he admitted, an inability to play a note or carry a tune. eveloping a small but significant fan base almost immediately, he leaped onto the concert stage with enthusiasm, as if it were a form of total-immersion therapy. uitarist on ornelius, who played in ohen’s band in the early 70s, provides roomfield with a glimpse of the intensity and indulgences of their life on the road. The film also follows ohen in his post-Marianne decades: a retreat to a alifornia uddhist colony, a period of financial ruin after his business manager embezzled all of his savings and, finally, his startling re-emergence as an aging crooner who used his age, his

Marianne & Leonard is an elegy for those who embraced the notion of a domestic/artistic utopia only to find that the banalities of personal excesses and sour relationships still crept in. voice and his romantic obsessions to fashion a new persona as a en song-and-dance man. More than just a love story music memoir, Marianne & Leonard is in many ways the story of a lost generation, an elegy for the many disaffected young men and women who embraced the notion of a kind of domestic artistic utopia only to find that the banalities of personal e cesses and sour relationships still crept in. The film’s interviewees, friends and e -lovers of both ohen and hlen, look

riverfronttimes.com

back at their ydra days wistfully, sometimes humbled by their naivet but showing not the slightest trace of regret. or ick roomfield, one of the most ambitious and inventive documentary filmmakers, Marianne & Leonard is a strange, atypical work. roomfield is renowned — or notorious, depending on whom you ask — for breaking one of the cardinal rules of the nonfiction film and inserting himself into his stories. e has become emotionally attached to his subjects, ranging from serial killer ileen uornos to ollywood Madam eidi leiss. e can turn confrontational as in Kurt & Courtney, where he was ejected from an awards ceremony for shouting uestions at ourtney ove. Marianne & Leonard poses a different kind of challenge: an he find a personal approach to a story told primarily through home movies, concert films and historical interviews The answer is an une uivocal yes, as roomfield reveals that he was one of those disconnected youths looking for the utopian dream and living brie y in ydra, even becoming one of Marianne’s occasional ings. Though he gives only a few details and serves mostly as the film’s off-screen narrator, his insight and empathy for the time and place — and the people — are unmistakable. eeping his distance, roomfield makes this his most subtly personal film. n

JULY 24-30, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

FEATURED DINING SEDARA SWEETS

SPONSORED CONTENT

6 RESTAURANTS YOU NEED TO CHECK OUT...

THE BLUE DUCK

SEDARASWEETS.COM

BLUEDUCKSTL.COM

314.532.6508 8011 MACKENZIE RD, AFFTON, MO 63123

314.769.9940 2661 SUTTON BLVD, MAPLEWOOD, MO 63143

In May of 2019, Sedara Sweets joined the community of Affton. Sedara serves a variety of baked goods including fifteen types of baklava—both Iraqi and Turkish. Just like the name says, Sedara sells ice cream, using products from Wisconsin-based Cedar Crest, and milkshakes. The cafe offers a small savory menu featuring breakfast bread, falafel and shawarma sandwiches, with rotisserie versions of beef or chicken both on offer. Whether you are looking for something to satisfy your sweet tooth, or a new option for lunch and dinner, Sedara has you covered. “We want to have something for everybody” Sedara Sweets is both family owned and operated. They offer dine in and take out food services, as well as an amazing Baklava gift box that can be ordered online, or even delivered! Owners George and Esraa Simon look forward to meeting their new neighbors and sharing some of their favorite dishes with the community!

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

J. SMUGS GASTROPIT

CAFE PIAZZA

JSMUGSGASTROPIT.COM

CAFEPIAZZA.COM

314.499.7488 2130 MACKLIND AVE, ST. LOUIS, MO 63110

314-343-0294 1900 ARSENAL STREET ST. LOUIS, MO 63118

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

Like pizza? Nobody does it better than Café Piazza, a Sicilian Café &amp; Bar in Benton Park &amp; a stone’s throw from Anheuser-Busch (enjoy this iconic St Louis vista from our patio). Our “Big Momma” (a 4-ton laser wood-fired pizza oven) has been firing out pizzas since 2017. Try the original 11” Italian style: bestsellers include our Pizza Bianca (garlic infused alfredo sauce, grilled chicken, bacon and parmigiana) or Queen Margherita (fresh mozzarella, tomato and basil). Prefer a deeper dish? Try our Sicilian pizzas baked in Extra Virgin Olive Oil &amp; tomato fillet sauce with your choice of toppings. Heard of our famous graffiti mural which covers the entire ceiling? Created by legendary artist Paco Rosic, it depicts famous St Louis luminaries: kudos to those who can name all eleven! If pizza isn’t your thing, our appetizers, paninis, and salads definitely will be. Open for lunch &amp; dinner daily. Brunch served Saturday, Sunday 10am – 2pm. $7 original 11” Italian pizzas all day every Monday! Happy Hour 4pm – 6pm weekly ($3 draft beer), all-day Sunday. Open until midnight Friday &amp; Saturday. Group catering also available.

CARNIVORE STL CARNIVORE-STL.COM

BLK MKT EATS

314.449.6328 5257 SHAW AVE, ST. LOUIS, MO 63110

BLKMKTEATS.COM

314.391.5100 9 S. VANDEVENTER AVE. ST. LOUIS, MO 63108 The fast-fresh, made-to-order concept has been applied to everything from pizza to pasta in St. Louis, but the sushi burrito surprisingly had no Gateway City home until BLK MKT Eats opened near Saint Louis University last fall. It was worth the wait, though, because BLK MKT Eats combines bold flavors and convenience into a perfectly wrapped package that’s ideal for those in a rush. Cousins and co-owners Kati Fahrney and Ron Turigliatto offer a casual menu full of high-quality, that fit everything you loveSPOT about sushi NOT all-natural YOURingredients AVERAGE SUSHI and burritos right in your hand. The Swedish Fish layers Scandinavian cured salmon, yuzu dill slaw, Persian 9 SOUTH VANDEVENTER DINE-IN, TAKEOUT OR DELIVERY MON-SAT 11AM-9PM cucumbers and avocado for a fresh flavor explosion. Another favorite, the OG Fire, features your choice of spicy tuna or salmon alongside tempura crunch, masago, shallots, jalapeño and piquant namesake sauce; Persian cucumbers and avocado soothe your tongue from the sauce’s kick. All burrito rolls come with sticky rice wrapped in nori or can be made into poké bowls, and all items can be modified for vegetarians.

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

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

CAFE

Rum Punch A sandy new bar tries hard, but a St. Louis warehouse is a tough sell as a Caribbean dive Written by

CHERYL BAEHR Rhone Rum Bar 2107 Chouteau Avenue; 314-241-7867. Thurs.-Sat. 4-11 p.m.; Sun. noon-8 p.m. (Closed Mon.-Wed.).

few months ago, Paul Hamilton was on a Virgin Gorda beach, leisurely combing the sand as he often does while vacationing in the British Virgin Islands. However, unlike his prior treasure hunts, which yielded small trinkets like driftwood and coral, this one turned up the mother lode: Washed up onto the sand was a giant rope line, perfectly intact, with several buoys still attached to it. Of course, he did what any self-respecting treasure hunter would do. He gathered it up, stuffed it into his suitcase and lugged his massive haul all the way back home with him. Buoys and driftwood are not the only pieces of the British Virgin Islands that Hamilton has wanted to bring back with him to St. Louis. Ever since he and his wife, Wendy, met in the Caribbean in the 1990s, the pair have been fascinated with the region. It was a love affair that started on a cruise line. Both worked on a ship, met and forged their relationship by exploring ports throughout the Caribbean with their fellow boat mates. For the Hamiltons and their free-spirited cruise ship co-workers, “exploring the ports” meant hanging out in rum-fueled clubs and dive bars. Even as the pair settled down in St. Louis and built their restaurant empire (1111 Mississippi, Vin de Set, Hamilton’s Urban Steakhouse), they held onto their passion for the islands and their bar culture, and they were determined to keep it a part of their lives. Buying a home on Virgin Gorda wasn’t enough. Even though the Hamiltons owned a sliver of the island and could travel down there whenever their schedules allowed for it, they still longed for a way to keep that is-

The back patio may be far from the Caribbean, but it still offers a beachy getaway to enjoy a vacation-style cocktail and even volleyball . | MABEL SUEN land feeling with them when they returned to St. Louis. How Rhone Rum Bar, their seven-month-old south-city ode to the bars of the BVIs, actually came to be is decidedly less romantic, however. In need of parking for their several properties clustered along Chouteau Avenue, the restaurateurs found a parking lot that happened to come with a 10,000-square-foot building. The Hamiltons purchased the property and originally thought they’d simply use the building as an additional events space. However, as they got to talking, they realized they had the opportunity to create something that would speak to their love of the Caribbean. Armed with their personal experiences, an impressive rum collection and Paul’s trinkets, the two got to work converting the vacant warehouse into their best interpretation of a BVI slice of paradise. Their efforts clearly come from

a genuine affection for their island second home. However, no matter how many buoys they stuff into their suitcases, they will never be able to bring back the island’s turquoise water, sugary sand and tropical breeze. Without these impossible-to-bottle-up elements, the atmosphere never really transcends the fact that this is a converted warehouse in the Rust Belt. Even with a coat of lime green paint on its exposed bricks, several beachy photos and a thatched bar, the room never really gets past feeling like a Caribbean-themed party in a downtown loft. The outside space is better, due to the fact that most of it is covered in sand. If you catch it when the air is moving and not the stagnant, muggy hell that is typical of a St. Louis summer, you get a nice cross breeze through the shotgun space. The back third of the patio is the most atmospheric with rustic wooden picnic tables and

riverfronttimes.com

a sandy oor so deep your feet sink into it. Also noteworthy is the front portion of the outdoor space, which has been converted into a sunken sand volleyball court. The smell of its damp sand reminds you enough of the beach to realize how much you wish you were actually there. Food is much easier to recreate than atmosphere, and in this respect, Rhone does a much better job at executing a realistic piece of the islands – albeit the one that appeals to tourists. Chicken wings, coated in jerk seasoning, give a gentle, warm-spiced lip tingle you’d get at a chain hotel beach bar, but they lack the smoky depth of a locals’ jerk shack. Tamarind chutney, served on the side, is a high note, its tart sweetness a nice contrast to the seasoned meat. The jerk chicken also makes an appearance on the chicken nachos, a basic version of the ubiquitous bar staple that lacked impact.

JULY 24-30, 2019

Continued on pg 57

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

RHONE RUM BAR Continued from pg 55

Though scotch bonnet pepper cheese sauce and habanero-pineapple salsa promised some heat, neither delivered. Perhaps if there were more of either, it would have made a difference; as presented, the toppings were so sparse the appetizer was little more than a platter of tri-colored fried corn tortillas with only enough beans, chicken and cheese to cover about five chips. Conch and seafood ceviche was decidedly more transportative. The tender, citrus-kissed seafood is simply spiked with fresh herbs, allowing the fresh, ocean avor to shine through. Taro chips, sprinkled with sea salt, are a delightful accompaniment – their simple, subtly sweet earthy taste made them one of the night’s standouts. Pig pops are also enjoyable. The small pork shanks are braised until the meat is fall-off-the-bone tender, then coated in a sticky tamarind barbecue glaze that tastes like a tropical fruit sweetand-sour sauce. Rhone also shows it knows how to cook pork through its barbecue pork sliders. Hunks of succulent shoulder meat drip with the pork’s own cooking juices and are accented with just a whisper of the tamarind barbecue sauce. The light touch allows the sauce to accent the meat and bring out its natural sweetness without taking over. My quibble with the dish is the bread choice. The un-griddled grocery store slider buns cheapened the otherwise excellent sandwiches. The same complaint carries

BBQ pork sliders, Pirate Punch and pina colada cake are three island highlights. | MABEL SUEN through to the curried chicken salad sliders. However, like the pork, the well-executed contents made the dish overall enjoyable. Yellow curry spikes the creamy chicken salad, and ecks of pineapple pico de gallo cut through the richness, adding a pleasant element of sweetness. The Caribbean Caesar salad, topped with shrimp, transcends boring by incorporating jerk seasoning into the dressing. This detail, coupled with orange-scented croutons, makes the salad avorful and bright, even if it still reads as something you would get at your o ce cafeteria’s aribbean theme day. The menu’s highlight is the dish

that captures the spirit of Caribbean cuisine beyond the tourist spots, namely, the hand pies. The shockingly aky crust is like a cross between a biscuit and a pie shell. It’s a wonderful, deepfried shell for three different fillings: rich curry chicken, root vegetables seasoned with ginger or beef and goat that’s so tender and jus-filled it’s like pot roast. just wish there was more of them; at two bites a piece, even an order of three only whetted my appetite for more. Food, however, is only half of Rhone Rum Bar’s story. The restaurant and bar has an extensive menu of the sort of rum-focused drinks that have come to define

beachy cocktail culture. None break that mold but instead offer exactly what you want out of a boozy fruit bomb, like a classic frozen piña colada loaded with so much rum you might get to the end of two and think you are on an actual beach. The “Rhone” follows this fruity-yet-potent mold, pairing two kinds of rum with wild berry and piña colada mix. Both are the sort of sticky sweet crowd pleasers that taste like an all-inclusive resort in a glass. However playful the drinks, Rhone Rum Bar has a massive rum selection that will appeal to the spirit’s aficionados. ou can have them neat, in one of your cocktails or, even better, served in the restaurant’s one dessert offering – a piña colada cake so soaked with the liquor, they won’t serve it to anyone under 21. It’s intensely boozy, but it balances the sweetness of the whipped cream and coconut-covered yellow cake. I imagine that cake, in all of its easy sweetness and booze-soaked decadence, is the exact kind of Jimmy Buffett-on-a-plate confection you’d find in front of a sunburnt actuary from Pittsburgh at the Soggy Dollar Bar. I also imagine that person would have a pretty big smile on her face — mostly because she’s enjoying it ankle-deep in powdery Caribbean sand. ntil the amitons can figure out a way to fit that in their carry-on, Rhone is as aspirational a substitute as we get. Thankfully, the drinks are strong.

Rhone Rum Bar Caribbean hand pies ............................. $9.99 BBQ pork sandwich ..........................$11.99 “Pig Pops” ..........................................$12.99

DAILY LUNCH BUFFET : WEEKDAYS - $9.99 WEEKENDS - $10.99

DINNER 7 DAYS A WEEK

MAKE YOUR DINNER SPECIAL WITH A BOTTLE OF WINE & GET OTHER 1/2 PRICE

riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

SHORT ORDERS

[SIDE DISH]

Chris Muether Finds His Calling at the Third Rail Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

hris Muether can easily say he got his start in the bar business earlier than anyone in town — so early, in fact, that he was hanging out behind the bar before he was even born. “My mom was a bartender when she was pregnant with me, and she did that until she was at least seven or eight months along,” Muether explains. “When she got too far along to bartend, she was the door person. She likes to joke that I had my diapers changed on the top of beer boxes.” Understanding his history in the business, it’s no surprise that Muether ended up as proprietor of his own place, the Third Rail STL (5625 Manchester Avenue; 314-833-4323). Growing up, he was a fi ture at his grandfather’s bar, George’s, and became a key player at the establishment when he and his mom reopened the place as Danno’s Pub in 2009. However, Muether did not always feel that he was destined to be in the business. After graduating from high school, he attended Saint Louis University, where he studied political science. He did not graduate, opting instead to take a job during the 2008 election doing community organizing and voter registration. Muether assumed politics was his path, even though he quickly realized that he did not have the passion nor the stomach for what that line of work entailed. However, he trudged along until the job he was promised after the election disappeared when the economy crashed. Unsure of what to do, he

Chris Muether thought his future would be in politics, but he soon realized he was destined to return to the bar business. | JEN WEST gravitated to what he knew best: the bar business. Now free to help his mom and then-stepdad with a business, he joined them in launching Danno’s, which enjoyed a successful sixyear run. There, Muether learned the craft of bartending as well as the daily tasks associated with running a business. However, when Danno’s closed suddenly for personal reasons, he found himself despondent, reclusive and unsure of what would come next. e’d find himself back behind the bar with the help of his friend, Tony Saputo. The acclaimed bartender was working at Layla in the Grove and offered Muether a job. He accepted, and before he knew it, he was back in his groove, serving guests and pushing himself to learn more about the craft of bartending. “I had a tough time with the bar closing and had to deal with that,” Muether says. “But I wanted to take time to broaden my knowledge base and work at a bunch of different places. I noticed from peers that they had worked at a ton of places and realized that having only worked four years

[at] Danno’s was a weak spot on my resume. You get to see cool stuff at other places — or see what you would never do.” After Layla, Muether set out to gain as much experience as he could, working at such varied establishments as the Delta Queen Port of Call in Kimmswick, Three Kings Public House, Miracle popup bar at Small Change, Boundary and Blood & Sand. Muether was happy in the industry and would have continued working for others indefinitely were it not for his now-business partner, Brian Babcock. Though Muether and his mother were somewhat cynical about business ownership following the loss of Danno’s, Babcock came at them with infectious optimism. The longtime front-of-house veteran has always wanted to own his own place, and he knew that Muether and his mother would be able to help him do that. Together, the three looked for the right spot, signed a lease on the former Keetons Restaurant and Sports Bar and got to work converting it into the Third Rail. “If I would have started from

riverfronttimes.com

scratch, I probably would have opened a small, boutique cocktail place, but the opportunity came up and it just mirrored Danno’s so much,” Muether explains. “I was able to lean on prior experience of knowing what worked and have been able to retain some of the features of what people loved about it.” Muether describes the Third Rail as the quintessential neighborhood bar — a place that caters to all walks of life and offers a little something for everyone whether that is a Busch beer or a well-made cocktail. As he explains, he and his team are less concerned with what is in the customers’ hands than the time they are having while drinking it — something he thinks is crucial in a highly competitive industry. “At the end of the day, I am very excited about the growth and variety in the St. Louis food and beverage scene, but we are reaching peak restaurant,” Muether says. “There is a lot of competition out there, so anytime somebody comes in I am grateful that they took the time out of their day to

JULY 24-30, 2019

Continued on pg 60

RIVERFRONT TIMES

CHRIS MUETHER Continued from pg 59

come in and see the place. My emphasis is to make that worth their while.” Muether took a break from the Third Rail, which will celebrate its o cial grand opening in the first part of ugust, to share his thoughts on the St. Louis food and beverage scene, his passion for crab Rangoon and barbecue sauce (not together) and why you will never see a fennel seed cocktail at his bar. What is one thing people don’t know about you that you wish they did? How much I truly appreciate the patronage of anyone who comes into my establishment. I’m keenly aware that there are a lot of other great options available when deciding where to go out for the night — it is never lost on me how special it is when someone chooses to spend their time with me. In this day and age, it can be a challenge to wrestle someone from their Neti and comfy couch, so always try to make people feel like their time is valued and do my best to offer them the best service I can. What daily ritual is non-negotiable for you? Everything is negotiable when it comes to the uniqueness that is one day to the next. However, I try to keep up with current events both locally and worldwide. If you could have any superpower, what would it be? The ability to instantly deconstruct the elements of the political/economic structures of our society that operate like a cancer to serve only their own selfish interests — then recompose it in a fashion that instead respects the basic needs and available resources of the world as a whole. What is the most positive thing in food, wine or cocktails that you’ve noticed in St. Louis over the past year? It’s been echoed by others in this space, but the trend towards non-alcoholic or low ABV beverages has been very encouraging. I was surprised to discover the majority of our staff at Third Rail no longer wish to drink alcohol. While the reasons vary from person to person, it’s great to see people can still enjoy the nightlife St. Louis has to offer without feeling the pressure of imbibing. What is something missing in the local food, wine or cocktail scene that you’d like to see? More diners who describe them-

RIVERFRONT TIMES

selves as “foodies” trying out small POC-owned family restaurants. I love supporting restaurants who bring family traditions to the table in a non-pretentious way rather than re-interpretations of ethnic dishes in posh upscale spots. I’m not discounting chefs who utilize a variety of in uences in their cuisine – and there are many who do so at a very high level – but sometimes it’s best to go straight to the source. Also supporting these business owners makes a positive difference in our wonderfully diverse city. Who is your St. Louis food crush? It used to be the energetic older woman who worked at Asian Kitchen on Olive (I’m assuming the owner, but I can’t be certain). She was always so friendly and outgoing with customers; I loved her spirit. Unfortunately, it seems as though the old ownership sold out late last year, and while I wish the new folks the best of luck, they did take my favorite hot pot off the menu, and it still hurts me deep inside. So, if that wonderful woman is still out there, tell her I’ll gladly pay good money to visit her home for the #63! I still remember it: pork belly, squid, hot peppers and rice ovalettes with that fantastic red broth! Currently, however, I will be topical and say that Nick Bognar deserves every bit of praise being sent his way right now. The meal I had at Indo the other night was breathtaking. He truly cares about his craft and goes the extra mile to

make everything special. The nigiri is unbelievable. Who’s the one person to watch right now in the St. Louis dining scene? I took some guest bartending shifts at Blood & Sand prior to opening Third Rail and was astounded at the progress Eduardo Perez has made in his short tenure as a bartender. Shortly after we first met, he began as a server’s assistant while I was working for Boundary at Cheshire, and now he is crushing busy dinner services five to si times a week. His cocktails have a real unique voice and identity to them. That may seem to be a rather highown way of praising someone’s work, but I truly believe in any creative endeavor where there’s a plateau one overcomes when they finally have a firm grasp of the conventions of their craft and their work begins to illicit its own character. I strongly recommend checking Blood & Sand’s new summer menu where some of his drinks appear along those of the incomparable Brad Phillips. Which ingredient is most representative of your personality? I would have to say brandy. Years ago I may have said cognac, or French brandy in general, but after exploring the category in more depth, I’ve come to adore the overt muskiness of Metaxa or the provincial but often overlooked plum, pear and quince brandies of eastern Europe. Although often sweeter than more beloved

spirit categories, they have a lot of depth to offer for those who dare to open up to them. If you weren’t working in the restaurant business, what would you be doing? Sleeping a lot more. Name an ingredient never allowed in your restaurant. I have no qualms with it being in the restaurant, but you won’t see me using fennel seed in a cocktail anytime soon ... and those restaurants who have used it to besmirch perfectly fine St. ouisstyle pizza should be ashamed. What is your after work hangout? I rarely have time or energy to go out after work to be completely honest. Lately though, I’ve been hitting up the Gramophone because it’s close by and it seems to be 85% industry by closing time. Also, the Alcatraz sandwich “slaps” (as one sodden Blues diehard let me know enthusiastically the night we won the cup to the repeated strains of “Gloria”). What’s your food or beverage guilty pleasure? Crab Rangoon – full stop. It’s not that I think eating them is embarrassing per se, but I’d probably be ashamed to have statistics on how many I’ve consumed in my life. Also, I eat BBQ sauce on nearly everything. The sauce is the boss. What would be your last meal on earth? A trio of dishes from my mother – beef stroganoff, pastry-wrapped pork tenderloin and beef brisket with mushrooms. n

[FOOD NEWS]

Pokémon-Inspired Bar Is Coming to St. Louis

hen you’ve gotta catch them all, there is only one place to go. The PokéBar is coming to town, and St. Louis Pokémon fans won’t want to miss it. This pop-up bar will serve Pokémoninspired burgers, cocktails and a whole lot of fun. Hosted in cities all around the world, the PokéBar promises to be a lively spot with lots of activities and music playing all day. The organizers also promise games including “trivia, card battles, action stations, giant interactive games, all to win points and evolve your Pokémon.” The team with the highest-evolved Pokémon will win prizes. The pop-up will happen in an undisclosed location (it’s a secret for now) and tickets are $45, but they include a burger and a beverage.

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

You can have cocktails with Pikachu when the Pokémon bar comes to St. Louis. | COURTESY OF HYPER PUBLIC RELATIONS The bar will be open on February 15 and 16, 2020, and fans younger than 21 years old must be accompanied by an adult. Tickets are limited, so make sure

to schedule your plans in advance and to sign up to be notified about ticket sales at the website at ThePokeBarPopUp.com. —Jaime Lees

[FIRST LOOK]

Sedara Sweets & Ice Cream Brings a Taste of Iraq To Affton Written by

KATIE COUNTS

hen Esraa Simon came to the United States as a refugee eeing the war in ra , she longed for a place that reminded her of home. She grew up in Baghdad going to coffee shops and eating baklava. ut she couldn’t find an rabic cafe anywhere in the St. Louis area — until now. On May 18, Esraa and her husband George Simon opened Sedara Sweets & Ice Cream (8011 MacKenzie Road, Affton, 314-5326508) out of a strip mall in Affton. Among many items, the casual counter-service cafe serves Middle Eastern specialities like baklava and Arabic coffee. Just taking a bite of the Iraqi baklava brings Esraa back home. “I just remember me—how I was in my country,” Esraa says. Sedara serves a variety of baked goods including fifteen types of baklava—both Iraqi and Turkish—made by Esraa’s relatives in Detroit. (Iraqi baklava uses more honey, whereas Turkish uses more pistachios.) And just like the name says, Sedara sells ice cream, using products from Wisconsin-based Cedar Crest, and milkshakes. As well, the cafe offers a small savory menu featuring breakfast bread, falafel and shawarma sandwiches, with rotisserie versions of beef or chicken both on offer. “We want to have something for everybody,” George says. George teaches Arabic at Saint Louis University High and works as an rabic interpreter he first met Esraa in St. Louis while interpreting for her family. Many of their first dates took place in coffee shops. These dates reminded her of home, but Esraa still remembers how isolating being a new immigrant can be.

Owners Esraa and George Simon with their daughter Maya. | KATIE COUNTS

Sedara Sweets & Ice Cream offers several types of Middle Eastern desserts, including fifteen different kinds of baklava. | KATIE COUNTS “It is so hard because we don’t have people to tell you the direction—what you have to do. What is right. What is wrong. The law. We have nothing,” Esraa says. Starting the cafe helped bring a sense of home to Esraa, and the couple wanted others to feel that too. Customers can sit sipping coffee or tea, listening to Arabic music. “People are living in exile thousands and thousands of miles away from home,” George says. “It’s nice to have a place to come.” George, a St. Louis native and Lebanese-American, says they also hope to change south county’s perspectives. “Being an Arab or a Muslim after 9/11 has not been an easy thing,” he says. Before they opened, George’s

mother told him she didn’t think Affton was ready for an Arab restaurant. Since then, George has seen a wide range of people come into his shop. “People who I never would have thought would be coming in here are eating baklava and drinking Arabic coffee,” George says. “It’s happening.” Someday George hopes Sedara can be a cornerstone of the St. Louis area, but for now, he and his wife are just proud of the work they’ve done. “I’m almost going to be seven years here [in the U.S.] and I did something,” Esraa says. “That means a lot to me.” Sedara Sweets & Ice Cream is open daily from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. n

riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

The

MadCrab FRESH SEAFOOD

“ Deliriously Good Time” -CHERYL BAEHR RIVERFRONT TIMES RESTAURANT CRITIC

SEASONAL FRESH CRAWFISH BUY 5 POUNDS, GET 1 FREE (Market Price)

•FRIED OYSTERS

NEW S! EM •SWEET POTATO FRIES MENU IT

•BLUE CRAB IS BACK!

HAPPY HOUR

MONDAY-THURSDAY 3-5PM 50% OFF BEER & SODA 50% OFF 1LB. SEAFOOD

(CLAM, SHRIMP, MUSSELS OR CRAWFISH)

or 50% OFF FRIED BASKET (SOFT SHELL CRAB, CATFISH OR SHRIMP)

LUNCH & DINNER • OPEN WEEKDAYS AT 3PM • WEEKENDS AT NOON 8080 OLIVE BLVD. • 314-801-8698 • NOW SERVING BEER & WINE

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

MUSIC + CULTURE

[HOMESPUN]

Going It Alone Samuel Gregg, noted sideman for Beth Bombara, steps into the solo spotlight with Land Between the Mountains Written by

CHRISTIAN SCHAEFFER

t would seem that Samuel Gregg is living his musical life in reverse. He’s a Nashvillebased guitarist with a killer instinct for playing Americanaderived licks, but rather than ply his trade in that genre’s epicenter, he spends most of his time playing with St. ouis artists. ou can find him on stage with Beth Bombara and as part of Essential Knots, playing cool, lithe lines on an ivory Stratocastor. “For the most part, my social and professional life is based out of St. Louis,” Gregg says by phone from his Nashville abode. “I’m sort of in hermit mode when I’m down here. It’s nice to be in this music community, but I really don’t leave the house much; I kind of garden and hang out.” While this seems like an odd dichotomy, Gregg says that even in Music City, most professional players only play around town rarely. “It’s more common than you’d think,” he says. “Even ten, twelve years ago when I was playing a lot around town here, I still spent the majority of my time traveling out of town.” e cuts an enviable figure as a sideman — and he’s had plenty of practice, serving as a gun-for-hire for well over a decade. On stage, he plays with economy and grace while his trademark white Stetson completes the package. He wears a cowboy hat the way James Bond wears a tuxedo; he was born to wear it, and when the rest of us attempt the look, it feels like we’re trying too hard. But with the release of his new solo album, Land Between the

Though Samuel Gregg technically lives in Nashville, he considers St. Louis his true home. | NATE BURRELL Mountains, the sideman steps into center stage. The album collects ten songs that strike a dusty, rootsrock vein, with Gregg’s strong tenor voice commanding authority even in his quietest moments. Gregg says that many of these songs were written as much as ten years ago, when he was touring more frequently. “I was writing pages of prose every day, traveling and chain-smoking cigarettes,” he recalls. But when the lure of the road started to fade and the temptations of that lifestyle caught up with him, Gregg says that he realized that he had been steadily “drinking myself out of a job as a sideman.” He stopped touring, stopped playing guitar and shut down the musical part of his brain altogether for a few years. “When I emerged from that dark period, I was sitting on these songs and they were several years old,” he says. “I was living in St. Louis, and I was no longer drinking — I had all this time on my hands. “I wanted to clear the hard drive a little bit,” Gregg says of his desire to commit these songs to tape. To that end, he sent some emails to local studios, looking for space to record and some assistance in

facilitating a backing band. Only Native Sound, the Cherokee Street studio run by David Beeman and Ben Majchrzak, got back to him, and soon enough Gregg had hooked up with a rhythm section — bassist Kevin Bachmann and drummer Mike Schurk — and several local supporting players. His new St. Louis friends helped round out the songs, but Gregg pulled from his own Missouri upbringing for the sound and structure of many of them. He grew up in Cape Girardeau County, and his experiences there — singing in high school choirs, singing religious hymns at home with his family — inform a song like the album’s title track. That song was definitely of home, what would fall under the old-timey music umbrella, which is a lot of where my early playing came from — playing guitar and harmonica with my dad and grandpa,” he says. “There were a lot of folkified hymns it was not quite bluegrass and not quite folk. I think that’s stylistically where that came from.” Gregg says that, growing up, music was a communal experience. “We’d sit around a kitchen

riverfronttimes.com

table and look at each other,” he recalls. So for the album release show at Foam on Friday, July 26, he and his bandmates are going to recreate that vibe. The audience may be standing up, but the musicians will be sitting down. Gregg has asked a number of local friends to sit in with him for the show. In addition to Bachmann and Schurk, Gregg will be joined by Seth Porter, Ryan Sears and Kit Hamon — all musicians with whom he has performed in other bands around St. Louis. Due to the distance between Missouri and Tennessee, the band won’t have a ton of time to rehearse. But for a road warrior like Gregg, it’s all in a day’s work. “That’s where some of this Nashville pedigree comes in; down here, it’s kind of a one-rehearsal deal and you let your natural sensibility tell you what you need to cover,” he says. “I didn’t want it to be an exact recreation of what we did at Native; I want them to let their natural tendencies come in rather than recreate the record.”

Samuel Gregg Album Release Show 8 p.m. Friday, July 26. Foam, 3359 South Jefferson Avenue. $10. 314-772-2100.

JULY 24-30, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

[COMEDY]

An Adventurous Homecoming St. Louis native Nick Vatterott returns to his hometown to push the limits of comedy Written by

BOB MCMAHON

t’s getting late in Nick Vatterott’s set at the Beat Kitchen in Chicago when he decides to tell some one-liners. Before he begins, though, the St. Louis native explains that standup comedy school taught him that one-liners should be punctuated by a musical instrument between each joke. Vatterott doesn’t know how to play any instruments, but he says he’ll make music the best he can. Then he starts: “I like ramen noodles,” he says, “but I always get that same lame prize. ‘Flavor packet?’” Vatterott then launches into a series of exaggerated noises dealt out in a jazzy rhythm that sound vaguely like a drum solo but mostly sound ridiculous. This routine, as captured on his 2014 album For Amusement Only, is a perfect microcosm of the comedian’s modus operandi. He can craft clever straightforward jokes, sure, but he’s itching to frame them in the bigger gag of an absurdist premise that occasionally pokes fun at the conventions of comedy. “I just get bored with the same format all the time and the same way of doing everything,” Vatterott tells RFT. “And sometimes a way to switch that up is to sort of make fun of the form inside of it.” And while he’s hardly the only comedian to play with standard comedic formats, Vatterott breaks from the norm like no other. Past bits include pulling a setlist as tall as himself out of his pocket, using a pre-recorded director’s commentary to satirically analyze his performance in real time and donning werewolf gloves to tell jokes in the persona of a monster. That last idea made its way into a successful submission tape for the 2011 Andy Kaufman Award, which culminated in a talent show. Vatterott won the competi-

Nick Vatterott cites legendary comedian Andy Kaufman as a huge influence, and it shows. | MINDY TUCKERV tion and with it the prize, which “seeks to recognize a performer who lives and works outside the ordinary, as Kaufman did” (other past recipients include Kristen Schaal and Reggie Watts). Indeed, Kaufman is a logical comparison for Vatterott, who is a big fan but interprets the legend differently than some. “I love Andy Kaufman but I hate what some people got out of Andy Kaufman, which was like anticomedy,” he says. “I don’t really want to do anti-comedy. I think you can make fun of comedy and not be anti-comedy at the same time.” In other words, for all his experimentation, Vatterott believes “you still have to tell real jokes.” Vatterott didn’t arrive at this comedic philosophy immediately. Long before his appearances on Conan and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Vatterott was a edgling comic at Mizzou in the early 2000s. He tried his hand at a few things: a humor column for the school paper, improv and the local comedy contest at Deja Vu, the one venue for comedy in Columbia at the time. He’d also make drives to St. Louis and Kansas City for meager stage time, but it wasn’t until Vatterott dropped out of school and moved to Chicago that he found his voice working the Lyon’s Den open mic. Primarily a music venue, the now-shuttered Lyon’s Den hosted a weekly open mic where comics such as Vatterott, Hannibal Buress, Kyle Kinane and Kumail Nanjiani honed their chops and had four minutes of freedom to try anything. “I think we didn’t know how to do comedy, so we just did any-

thing,” Vatterott says with a laugh. “Everybody tried everything there. Some of the weirdest stuff I ever saw was in that room.” A cult of repeat customers and comics soon ocked to every show, forcing Vatterott to have a new four minutes every week. “I’m the comedian I am because of the Lyon’s Den,” he says. As formative as that time was, some of Vatterott’s high-octane style is innate, especially when it comes to voicing characters in his sets. “I remember waiting tables in Columbia, one of the waiters going, ‘You know, when you tell stories you do all the voices of everybody,’” he says. “And I didn’t even really think about it. This is years before I ever did standup.” This skill proved vital to Vatterott’s most recent album, Krock90Q.Buzz, in which he and producer Jesse Case create a scarily convincing full-length parody of purportedly “edgy” rock radio stations. “That was just a funny idea to me, to sell an album like that that people listen to and wouldn’t get that it isn’t a real radio station at first, he says of the 2018 release, which is replete with multiple characters and soundeffect-heavy interludes (“Here’s a dishwasher . hile the fictional station takes aim at the genre more than any specific real life counterparts, Vatterott admits there was some local in uence. “Those radio station stingers on all those St. Louis stations were just so extreme,” he says, citing how promos were always “talking about how big the antenna is and how many megawatts [it has] and

riverfronttimes.com

all these things you don’t even know if, is that a lot of megawatts or is that a few?’” It’s not all a single-minded goof on radio — some unrelated routines and jokes are tweaked to make sense within the album’s concept. But in its entirety, Krock90Q.Buzz demonstrates Vatterott’s ability to achieve his incredible ambition. This limit-pushing creativity is not without drawbacks, particularly in standard comedy venues. Some were resistant to Vatterott’s use of a jarring lighting effect for a bit. “I’ve gotten club owners who’ve just yelled at me for it and gotten mad about it,” Vatterott says. And even in the more receptive “alt” venues he prefers, Vatterott has to arrive extra early to make sure all the technical aspects are in order. Fortunately, Vatterott’s upcoming Ready Room appearance will be presented by the kindred spirits of Bare Knuckle Comedy, a ten-year-old sketch and standup showcase that is using his performance as its final show. Vatterott credits Bare Knuckle with “helping to make a cool scene in St. Louis” in the years since he left, through its showmanship and cultivation of a local DIY aesthetic. It’s a compliment that speaks to what Vatterott values most in comedy and what he wants to accomplish. “It’s impossible to be the funniest comedian,” he says, “but I would still love to try to bring something to the table that isn’t already out there.”

Nick Vatterott 8 p.m. Friday, July 26. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Avenue. $15. 314-833-3929.

JULY 24-30, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

OUT EVERY NIGHT

[CRITIC’S PICK]

Beck. | CITIZEN KANE WAYNE

Beck 6 p.m. Tuesday, July 30. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, 14141 Riverport Drive, Maryland Heights. $36 to $572. 314-298-9944. When Beck brought his Colors tour to the Fabulous Fox last fall, it was a kaleidoscopic apotheosis of that album’s “good vibes only” approach. Of course, he and his ace band sprinkled in plenty of hits

THURSDAY 25

ALICE COOPER & HALESTORM: w/ Motionless in White 7 p.m., $19-$125. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944. CAVERN COMPANY: w/ Kerplunk!, The Shaved Cat Project, Malibu ‘92 7 p.m., $10. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. CREE RIDER FAMILY BAND: 8 p.m., $15. Joe’s Cafe, 6014 Kingsbury Ave, St. Louis. DIANA ROSS: 8 p.m., $46.50-$151.50. The Fox Theatre, 527 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111. DRIVIN N CRYIN: w/ Will Hoge 8 p.m., $18-$22. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. FERBER & BRACK DUO: 8:30 p.m., free. The Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090. LARRY GWALTNEY: 8 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565. NYDIA LONDON: w/ JDeala T aka PapiChino, Lil Heartbreak, Ghetti Sqwad, Camo Caponee, MadMike MgeCeo, Hundun, Task, Dk Most, FNG Bob, LuhGoonie, Livique, N1CK, K R!LLA, Lundymobb, Cruz Hargove, e.l.bennett, ALIGOLD 7:15 p.m., $12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. SHAWN JAMES: 8 p.m., $15. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. VICE GRIP: w/ Mala Leche, the Noids 9 p.m., $7. Foam, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

FRIDAY 26

THE CADILLAC THREE: 8 p.m., $20-$22.50. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. THE CATCHING: 8 p.m., $10-$12. Blueberry Hill The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University

from his 25 years of pop-culture pantheism — set opener “Devil’s Haircut” never fails to please — and Beck is taking a similar catch-all approach to this summer’s package tour. He’ll be joined by indie lifers Spoon, glam-pop band Cage the Elephant and sibling psych-folk band Wild Belle. Everything Hits at Once: Spoon is celebrating the release of its first best-of compilation, a milestone for a deserving band. —Christian Schaeffer City, 314-727-4444. THE FOUR HORSEMAN: 7 p.m., free. Hwy 61 Roadhouse and Kitchen, 34 S Old Orchard Ave, Webster Groves, 314-968-0061. GOODNIGHT, TEXAS: w/ the Bones of J.R. Jones 8 p.m., $12-$15. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. HEADKNOCKER: A TRIBUTE TO FOREIGNER: w/ Trezz Hombrezz: ZZ Top Tribute, NoCo Incidents: 6 Decades Of Rock 7:30 p.m., $10-$100. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. NICK VATTEROTT: 8 p.m., $15. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. ROLAND JOHNSON & SOUL ENDEAVOR: 8 p.m., $3. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565. SAMUEL GREGG ALBUM RELEASE: w/ Ryan Spearman 8 p.m., $7. Foam, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. THE WHISPERING WILLOWS: 9:30 p.m., free. The Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090. WILCO’S SUMMERTEETH 20 YEAR ANNIVERSARY TRIBUTE: w/ Elliott Pearson & the Passing Lane, Jesse McClary Duo, Matthew Hitchcock & Phillip Russo, Mattie Schell and Band, Yard Eagle, Prairie Rehab 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

SATURDAY 27

BAD COP BAD COP: w/ Dog Party, Pity Party 8 p.m., $15. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. BOB KAMOSKE ALBUM RELEASE SHOW: w/ Miss Molly Simms, Groovy 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

Continued on pg 69

riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

+Vapes CBD +Kratom +Local Glass +Cheap Prices 8122 S. BROADWAY 63111 314.261.4279

@710GLASSCO |

@710GLASSCOMPANY

8205 GRAVOIS ROAD • ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI 63123 • (314) 631-3130 MIDAMERICAARMS.COM • FACEBOOK.COM/MIDAMERICAARMS

GLOCK DAYS

Wednesday July 24 9:30PM

Sean Canan’s Voodoo

COMING SOON! AUGUST 9TH & 10TH

Tribute To The Doctor, Dr. John

Thursday July 25 9PM

Roland Johnson and Soul Endeavor Friday July 26 10PM

Funky Butt Brass Band Saturday July 27 10PM

St. Boogie Brass Band

Glock 19 Gen 4

Sunday July 28 4-7

Glock 17 Gen 4

Melissa Neels Band FREE SHOW

Glock 43

Sunday July 28 8PM

Soul and Blues Diva Kim Massie

YOUR HOMETOWN FIREARMS RETAILER FOR OVER 15 YEARS!

Wednesday July 31 9:30PM

VOTED BEST GUN SHOP OF 2015

Sean Canan’s Voodoo

Tribute To The Allman Brothers

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JULY 24-30, 2019

-2015 RIVERFRONT TIMES BEST OF ST. LOUIS

riverfronttimes.com

[CRITIC’S PICK]

Tedeschi Trucks Band. | VIA CONCORD MUSIC GROUP

Tedeschi Trucks Band 7 p.m. Tuesday, July 30. The Fabulous Fox Theatre, 527 North Grand Boulevard. $49.50 to $159.50. 314-534-1111. Those who consider Tedeschi Trucks Band a Southern blues-rock jam act make a severe category error. While its success would be unthinkable without the Allmans and Widespread Panics before them, its lineage traces to the grittiest of blue-eyed soul pioneers Delaney and Bonnie, especially the duo’s immortal tours and live recordings with Eric Clapton. But set all

OUT EVERY NIGHT Continued from pg 67

CONQUEST: w/ Divine Sorrow, Oracle, ThorHammer 7 p.m., $10-$15. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. JOHN MCVEY BAND: 9 p.m., $3. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565. MIKE MATTHEWS PROJECT: 9 p.m., free. Nightshift Bar & Grill, 3979 Mexico Road, St. Peters, 636-441-8300. NEW HAVEN MUSIC FEST: noon, $20. Cedar Creek, 1401 Olive Rd, New Haven, 573-237-3672. PILFERS: w/ Stop The Presses 8 p.m., $15. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. THE RED FLAGS: w/ Whiskey & Thunder, Postal Modern 8 p.m., $5. CBGB, 3163 S. Grand Blvd., St. Louis. SLAYYYTER: w/ Robokid 8 p.m., $15-$18. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. STEVE REEB & ROSS BELL: 3 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565. WHY DON’T WE: 7 p.m., $39.50-$89.50. The Fox Theatre, 527 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111. THE WISER 5TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY: w/ The Supermen, The Dock Ellis Band, Mutts 6:30 p.m., $5. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

SUNDAY 28

BARONESS: 8 p.m., $27-$30. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. CHARLIE HUNTER AND LUCY WOODWARD: 7:30 p.m., $20-$25. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. EVERYTHING’S FLY SUMMER TAKEOFF 4: w/ Jizzle Buckz, 2Buckz, Carleone Carle, Nikee Turbo, Matty Woods, Jack Spear, Jerei, J. Stones, Ra’Jae 7 p.m., $20. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504

categories and lineages aside: Led by the nuclear-powered singing of Susan Tedeschi and the whatever-is-more-powerfulthan-that guitar work of Derek Trucks, the band rewrites the rules of how gospel, blues and rock & roll must be played. Jamming has rarely been more emotional or even spiritual than in the hands of TTB. Mourning the Blues: Kofi Burbridge, the pivotal keyboardist and flautist for TTB, died at the age of 57 this past February. The band honors his extraordinary talents at every gig. —Roy Kasten

Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. GATEWAY FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA: PIANO AT THE MOVIES: 7:30 p.m., free. The 560 Music Center, 560 Trinity Ave., University City, 314-421-3600. GIRLS NIGHT OUT: THE SHOW: 8 p.m., $20-$40. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. JAYDAYOUNGAN: w/ Yungeen Ace 8 p.m., $25$40. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. RIVER CITY OPRY JULY EDITION: w/ Daniel “GhoSTLeg” Hamm, Jenny Roques, Eric Barnes, Ellen Hilton Cook, Otis Wheels 1 p.m., $5. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

MONDAY 29

LIBERA: 8 p.m., $19-$42. Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, 4431 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, 314-373-8200. THE MOWGLI’S: w/ Petal, Arms Akimbo 7:30 p.m., $20-$23. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

TUESDAY 30

BECK: w/ Cage the Elephant, Spoon, Wild Belle 7 p.m., TBA. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944. GEORGE THOROGOOD AND THE DESTROYERS: 7:30 p.m., $39-$62. River City Casino & Hotel, 777 River City Casino Blvd., St. Louis, 314-388-7777. TEDESCHI TRUCKS BAND: w/ Blackberry Smoke, Shovels & Rope 7 p.m., $33.75-$159.50. The Fox Theatre, 527 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111. THUNDERPUSSY: w/ Hollis Brown 7 p.m., $18. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

WEDNESDAY 31

DANIEL SLOSS: 8 p.m., $35. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. JOHN MORELAND: w/ Caroline Spence 7:30 p.m., $30-$40. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. MARY J. BLIGE: w/ Nas 6 p.m., $89. Hollywood

Continued on pg 71

riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

[CRITIC’S PICK]

Nas. | VIA PRESS HERE NOW

Nas 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 31. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, 14141 Riverport Drive, Maryland Heights. $89. 314-298-9944. Nas cemented his status as a hip-hop legend from the first moment he touched a mic. His debut album, 1994’s indelible Illmatic, was already an absolute classic from the moment it was released, showcasing the young emcee’s domination of the form and resulting in his being dubbed “the second coming of Rakim.” Over production work from such luminaries as Large Professor, Pete Rock, Q-Tip, LES and DJ Premier, Nas displayed a poetic mastery of the Eng-

OUT EVERY NIGHT Continued from pg 69

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

THIS JUST IN ALLAH-LAS: Sat., Nov. 30, 8 p.m., $20-$23. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. ANTHOLOGY – A TRIBUTE TO THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND: W/ Mike Zito, Danny Liston, Sat., Sept. 7, 8 p.m., $23-$27.50. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. BISHOP BRIGGS: W/ Miya Folick, Jax Anderson, Wed., Nov. 13, 7:30 p.m., $27.50-$30. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. BRANT BJORK: W/ Ecstatic Vision, Spacetrucker, Killing Fever, Thu., Sept. 12, 8 p.m., $15-$18. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. DIESEL ISLAND: Sat., Aug. 31, 1 p.m., free. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. DREAM THEATER: Wed., Oct. 2, 8 p.m., $31.50$66.50. Stifel Theatre, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-499-7600. ELIZABETH COOK: Sat., Sept. 7, 8 p.m., $20. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. FAYE WEBSTER: Sun., Oct. 20, 8 p.m., $12. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. GOBLIN: W/ Gigan, the Lion’s Daughter, Fri., Nov. 8, 8 p.m., $30. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. JACQUES THIBAUD STRING TRIO: Thu., Aug. 22,

lish language as he told gritty tales of life in the Queensbridge housing projects where he grew up. Twenty-five years later he’s still one of the best, and his latest, last year’s Kanye West-produced Nasir, proves that time has not dulled his lyrical sword. To say that St. Louis performances are rare would be a dramatic understatement — he was slated to perform here last year with Lauryn Hill but was dropped from the tour for unclear reasons — so fans would be wise not to miss this one. Family Affair: Joining Nas on this coheadlining tour is fellow legend Mary J. Blige, whose set should likewise be considered mandatory. —Daniel Hill 6:30 p.m., $20. The 560 Music Center, 560 Trinity Ave., University City, 314-421-3600. JAY AND SILENT BOB REBOOT ROADSHOW: W/ Jay Mewes, Kevin Smith, Sun., Oct. 27, 8 p.m., $42.50-$50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. KINGDOM BROTHERS: Sat., Aug. 3, 8 p.m., $5. Hwy 61 Roadhouse and Kitchen, 34 S Old Orchard Ave, Webster Groves, 314-968-0061. LIL MIR X LUH SAM: Sat., Aug. 24, 11 p.m., $10-$12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. LUDO: Sat., Nov. 2, 11:30 p.m., $30-$40. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. MARCO BENEVENTO: W/ The Mattson 2, Wed., Nov. 13, 8 p.m., $12-$15. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. MERCYME: Sat., Nov. 9, 7 p.m., $30-$80. Enterprise Center, 1401 Clark Ave., St. Louis, 314-241-1888. NEW HAVEN MUSIC FEST: Sat., July 27, noon, $20. Cedar Creek, 1401 Olive Rd, New Haven, 573-237-3672. RAVENSMOKE: W/ Moon Rocket, Fri., Aug. 30, 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. SPAFFORD: Tue., Oct. 22, 8 p.m., $20-$23. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. THREE PEDROS: Fri., Aug. 30, 7 p.m., free. Hwy 61 Roadhouse and Kitchen, 34 S Old Orchard Ave, Webster Groves, 314-968-0061. TWIN PEAKS: W/ Post Animal, Ohmme, Thu., Oct. 31, 8 p.m., $18-$20. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. WAKER: Fri., Oct. 25, 8 p.m., $12-$15. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. n

riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

SAVAGE LOVE FINGERING IT OUT BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: I’m a 36-year-old straight guy, happily married for more than ten years, and a longtime reader. My wife and I are monogamous. We’re good communicators, well matched in terms of libido and slightly kinky (light bondage, Dom/sub play in the bedroom). For the last few months, I’ve been thinking about trying prostate play, and I have a couple of questions. A lot of bloggers and other writers in the sex-advice complex tout the health benefits of regular prostate massage, but I haven’t found any academic research to back up some of the lofty claims that are being made. Does prostate massage reduce the risk of prostate cancer and prostatitis? Now the relationship question: I’ve brought partnered prostate play up with my wife, and it’s a hard pass for her. Hygiene is an issue, but that’s easy to take care of (shower, enema, gloves, towels on the bed, etc.). The other part deals with our power dynamics. Typically, I’m the Dom, and, based on the limited conversations we’ve had about this, there is something about penetrating me that she finds deeply uncomfortable. What should I do? How do I frame this conversation in a way that may make her more comfortable and gets her finger(s) in my ass? We’ve shared so much — she’s an incredible partner who has helped me realize so many of my fantasies, and I’d like her to be a part of this one, too. Partner Protests Prostate Play If there were any legit studies out there that documented the health benefits of regular prostate massage, PPPP, Richard Wassersug, PhD, would know about it. Wassersug is a research scientist at the University of British Columbia, where he studies ways to help prostate cancer patients manage the side effects of their treatments. “I’d like to believe that I’m knowledgeable on this topic, Wassersug said, “[but] I checked PubMed to see if I’d missed anything in the relevant and recent peer-reviewed medical literature. s e pected, there are no objective data supporting the claim

that regular prostate massage’ reduces the risk of prostate cancer and prostatitis. nd while prostate massage can be used to express prostatic uid for diagnostic purposes, that’s not the same as using it for the treatment of any prostatic diseases. But that doesn’t mean that prostate massage isn’t beneficial absence of evidence, as they say, isn’t evidence of absence. e just don’t know, said assersug, and finding out would, in fact, take a very large sample and many years to collect enough data to provide a definitive answer. ut there definitely is something you can do right now to decrease your risk of prostate cancer, : Two large studies found that men who ejaculate fre uently — more than 21 times per month — are roughly 35 percent less likely to develop prostate cancer than men who blow fewer loads. So if sticking things up your butt makes you come more often, then science says sticking things up your butt will reduce your risk of prostate cancer. Researchers don’t know exactly why coming a lot may reduce a man’s risk for prostate cancer. There’s no data to support one fre uently mentioned theory — that ejaculation may ush out irritating or harmful substances that could be gathering in the prostate along with the uids that make up roughly 30 percent of a man’s seminal uids — so, again, more research is needed. And until those studies are done, men and other prostate-having people should err on the side of ejaculating as often as (safely and consensually possible. As for convincing your otherwise submissive wife to finger your ass, PPPP, you could search for power bottoms on the gay section of ornhub — assuming your wife enjoys gay porn — and familiarize her with the concept of dominant penetratees. ou could also add female condoms to your list of hygiene hacks — put one of these trash-can liners in your ass, and the only thing your wife will get on her fingers is lube. ut if anal play is a hard no for the wife, you’ll have to enjoy anal play solo. Richard Wassersug co-leads Life on ADT (lifeonadt.com), a national educational program in anada for prostate cancer patients dealing with the side effects of andro-

Two large studies found that men who ejaculate frequently are roughly 35 percent less likely to develop prostate cancer than men who blow fewer loads. gen deprivation therapy. Hey, Dan: I am a poly nonbinary person, and I’ve been seeing this guy in a BDSM context for about six months. About two times a month, he canes me and destroys my ass, I get to call him “daddy,” and I get fucked in mind-blowing ways. In the beginning, I expressed interest in dating (with more emotional investment), and he said he didn’t have the mental space for it but he’d be interested in trying to develop something eventually. So we’ve played and had fun, and I’m starting to get feels for this guy... buuuuut... he’s given me no indication he’s interested in anything beyond our current arrangement. I’ve said, “Hey, let’s schedule a date,” something like dinner, coffee, a walk around the fucking block, but he just wants to fuck, no talking. What he wants isn’t what I’m looking for, so I decided to take my business elsewhere and focus my energy on my other relationships. Well, his mom just got diagnosed with cancer and has a couple months to live. He’s devastated. What are the ethics of breaking up here? I dislike just ghosting, but he’s got other friends and lovers to support him. He doesn’t really need me. But he does on occasion send little “thinking of you” texts. So am I able to ghost him? Do I owe him a conversation about wants and needs? I’d like to be friends — I am part of a small kinky community, I’m friends with some of his fuck buddies, and I’m going to run into him again — but this isn’t a time

riverfronttimes.com

in his life when he should be worrying about the feelings of a nowand-then spanking partner. Ghosting Has Obvious Shortcomings That Suck ou’ve constructed a false choice for yourself, STS: either initiate a conversation about your wants and needs or ghost him. But there’s no need for a wants-andneeds convo, as you’ve already had that conversation (more than once) and his don’t align with yours. So instead of disappearing on him, you can simply respond to his thinking of you te ts with short, thoughtful, compassionate texts of your own. (“Thinking of you, too, especially at this di cult time. The odds that he’ll want to meet up in the ne t few months seem slim, and you can always claim a scheduling con ict if he should ask to get together. Being friendly is the trick to remaining friends after a casual sexual arrangement ends. Kindly acknowledging someone’s te ts — or greeting someone in public — doesn’t obligate you to sleep with (or submit to) them again. And while in most cases I would advise a person to be direct in this case, think you should simply step back. Calling him to say, “Hey, I know your mom has cancer and is dying, but I needed to tell you I’m not interested in fucking around anymore, okay will make you seem self-involved, thoughtless and uncaring — you know, not the kind of person someone wants to remain friends with after a casual sexual arrangement ends. ow, if you were this man’s primary partner, STS, and you’d been thinking about ending the relationship before he got the news about his mother, I would encourage you to wait a few months and love and support him through this process. nless the relationship was abusive, of course, which this one wasn’t. ut you’re just a — a friend with bruises, in your case — and this man has other friends and lovers around him, people whose support he can rely on during this di cult time. Listen to Dan at savagelovecast.com mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage on Twitter ITMFA.org

JULY 24-30, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

JULY 24-30, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

JULY 24-30, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

HAPPY HOUR SPECIALS CRISPY EDGE Located in the heart of Tower Grove South, Crispy Edge is St Louis’ first and only potsticker restaurant. Voted as one of St. Louis’ best new restaurants, Crispy Edge’s menu boasts an impressive list of internationallythemed dumplings seared to perfection. Many of its potstickers, like the savory and sweet ‘Chorizo Date’, are also available as vegan version. The restaurant is elegant, modern, and dark. Purple grow lights accenting a hydroponic living wall create warm mood lighting and an atmosphere worthy of date night. A dog-friendly