Riverfront Times, August 7, 2019

1

riverfronttimes.com

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

1

2

THANK YOU ST. LOUIS FOR ANOTHER GREAT BURGER WEEK! 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 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

BURGERWEEKSTLOUIS.COM 2

RIVERFRONT TIMES

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

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

3

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

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

3

4

RIVERFRONT TIMES

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

5

THE LEDE

PHOTO BY THEO WELLING

“I can’t really change anything. If you think about it, that’s impossible. But I wish people were more open to other people ... Like everybody seems closed-minded and scared of each other here [in St. Louis]. I guess it depends on how you were raised and how you grew up and what you think about the things around you.”

ROSE PHILLIPS, PHOTOGRAPHED BEHIND FRITZ’S IN FLORISSANT ON AUGUST 3 riverfronttimes.com

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

5

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Publisher Chris Keating Interim Editor in Chief Doyle Murphy

COVER

Leading Man Olajuwon Davis was both a Black Panther and a talented young actor — who found himself starring in an FBI bombing sting

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 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

Cover design by

EVAN SULT

M U L T I M E D I A A D V E R T I S I N G Advertising Director Colin Bell Senior Account Executive Cathleen Criswell Account Managers Emily Fear, Jennifer Samuel Multimedia Account Executive Chris Guilbault, Jackie Mundy

From a photo by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI

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

INSIDE The Lede Hartmann

5

News Feature Calendar

9 22

Film

27

Cafe

29

Short Orders

31

Culture

35

7

This is the time to talk about guns — and do something about all the killing

A Man of No Importance | JCC used book sale | Cabaret | Antigone

12

Them That Follow

N A T I O N A L A D V E R T I S I N G VMG Advertising 1-888-278-9866, vmgadvertising.com S U B S C R I P T I O N S Send address changes to Riverfront Times, 308 N. 21st Street, Suite 300, St. Louis, MO 63103. Domestic subscriptions may be purchased for $78/6 months (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 The Riverfront Times is published weekly

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

Malintzi Mexican Grocery

Saul Juarez at Grand Tavern by David Burke | International Lunch Series

Tef Poe in Jordan | Native Sons

Out Every Night

39

Sorry, Scout | Brandi Carlile | Pinback

Savage Love 6

RIVERFRONT TIMES

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

45

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 Have we had enough?

Americans need to own the gun violence crisis at our door. And do something about it

BY RAY HARTMANN

E

l Paso, Texas, is 1,215 miles from St. Louis. But last weekend’s white domestic terrorism — compounded shortly thereafter by more atrocities in Dayton, Ohio — hit home as much as this year’s 115 homicides through Monday in the city, which are five more than at this time last year.

We’re so numb to gun violence in our own community that the carnage at a Walmart and at a nightlife district undoubtedly pro-

duced more empathy here, at least among those of us fortunate not to live in war zones. Whether that’s a function of their shock factor and scope, or for factors sociological, or both, the two attacks may have jarred open conversations about hate and guns that have far too long been frozen.

Gun worshippers’ trope notwithstanding, this is precisely the time to talk about guns — and in the particular case of El Paso — the unprecedented stoking of fear and loathing by the hateful rhetoric of President Donald Trump. If you cannot connect the dots between Trump’s verbal and policy assaults on people of color in general — and immigrants in particular — you need a new set of crayons.

And, yes, speaking of tropes, this is precisely the time to talk about the politics of the crisis. If that means politicization of a horrific tragedy, so be it, because there is no other time: The torrent of such tragedies — 251 mass shootings in 21 days this year — leaves no

moment of respite for which to schedule a meeting on the topic.

Of course, our primary reaction is to weep and grieve and suffer for the innocents. That, coupled with our shared admiration and gratitude and awe for the first responders and law enforcement o cials at ground zero of these tragedies, is all that our polarized culture can agree upon.

But to discuss this now — as in right now — is not to exploit the situation. It is to honor to victims’ suffering and memory. And to do something.

When the racist Trump stated, with no sense of irony, that “hate has no place in our nation,” it was about as close as any Republican came to calling him out in the wake of the tragedy. That speaks for itself. Trump’s strategy of exploiting fear and division won’t subside.

So might this be the weekend that ends a quarter century of inaction on gun control?

Don’t expect much. Little or nothing happened after the Auro-

riverfronttimes.com

7

ra Theater or Sandy Hook School or San Bernardino or the Orlando nightclub or the Las Vegas Strip or Marjory Stoneman ouglas High or Santa Fe High or the Tree of Life Synagogue or Virginia Beach or the ilroy arlic Festival or any of the other unspeakable tragedies we recall in shorthand.

What’s needed is a mild outbreak of common sense. We the people merely have to break the spiral of illogic and irrationality that has characterized this issue since the 1960s.

To paraphrase one former president, “It’s the guns, stupid.”

America has too many guns. Far too many guns. We don’t know the real number for certain, because we don’t dare register firearms as we would if they were, say, as lethal as automobiles. But the best estimates put the current number at 395,000,000 or so — approximately twenty percent more guns than people — growing daily.

Those familiar statistics belie

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

Continued on pg 8

RIVERFRONT TIMES

7

HARTMANN

Continued from pg 7

one less noticed, that the percentage of American homes possessing guns has actually decreased over the years. Presently, according to Gallup poll numbers and others, only 43 percent of U.S. homes have guns, a decrease from the 50 percent-plus totals as recently as 1994. It turns out that three percent of the population owns 50 percent of the firearms. Wow. It doesn’t require deep academic analysis to understand what follows. The United States has an exponentially higher firearmsrelated death rate than any other similar Western-style democracy.

A handful of Latin American nations have higher rates. Japan, which has no guns and shockingly, no gun-related deaths.

We’re not matching Japan nor should we try as the Second Amendment right to bear arms isn’t going anywhere. We can envy what they did in New Zealand after their one-and-only horrific massacre: Within six days, and with virtual unanimity among rival political parties, they outlawed — and starting buying back — just about every firearm more lethal than a shotgun. That won’t happen here.

But we can get rational about the Second Amendment, National Rifle Association lies notwithstanding. Rational gun control no more threatens the Second Amendment than outlawing the “right” to threaten someone’s life threatens the First Amendment. Needing a parade permit doesn’t mean you’ve lost the right to assembly.

Not being allowed to perform ritual sacrifice doesn’t deprive a church of its religious freedom.

America merely needs common sense. It could emulate a gun-friendly nation like Canada, where the gun ownership of 34.7 per 100 people is less than a third of the U.S. total but roughly the same as American gun ownership totals all the way back to 1 , when 1 1. million citizens owned an estimated 48 million.

The nation doesn’t need radical change: It needs to return to norms that stood in place in most of our lifetimes.

As to the political realities, national support is overwhelming for universal background checks for all gun purchases. The Democrats, some of whom presently seem braver about taking away people’s health insurance than their assault weapons, might consider the case of battleground state Michigan — one that mat-

8

RIVERFRONT TIMES

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

ters deeply in 2020 — where polls as recently as 2017 showed 88 percent support for background checks. If they can’t run on that, they can’t run.

Background checks should be the low-hanging fruit. So should banning gun ownership for perpetrators of domestic violence, or for people convicted — as youths or adults — of acts of violence.

Then there’s the matter of assault weapons, which should be rebranded for what they are: military-style arsenals.

The principle here is very simple: Civilians have no need nor right to possess military weapons.

Period. The Second Amendment doesn’t provide an absolute right to possess an assault rifle any more than it assures the right to possess grenades or handheld nuclear weapons, both of which would be effective in personal self-defense.

And let’s not get sucked into the vortex of semantic arguments defining assault rifles. Here’s a simple principle: However one arrives at the definition, if a weapon possesses the ability to kill large numbers of people in an instant, civilians don’t get to own them.

That leaves plenty of weaponry available to Americans to hunt, to protect their homes, their cars and their persons, all legitimate uses.

Lastly, can we please dispense with the moronic argument that such and such law would not have prevented such and such tragedy, nor that it would magically prevent others like it. Of course not.

Laws against murder and rape don’t mean that rapes and murders won’t occur. Laws against white-collar crime don’t keep 00 billion from being stolen every year. Laws against speeding don’t mean people don’t speed.

But by attempting to reduce — and eventually eliminate — the scourge of military weaponry in civilian hands, we can better protect our outgunned law enforcement officials and we can reduce the odds, and thus the numbers, of firearmrelated violence in our nation.

We need to do that, and we need to that now. Because what happened last weekend in El Paso and Dayton — and what’s happening every other day in cities like St. Louis — isn’t merely close to home.

It’s here. 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 Museum Restores Giant Scrolls Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI

T

he Saint Louis Art Museum is a temple to the fight against time — fights that museum conservators often decide are best left lost. Throughout the galleries of ancient art, visitors pass endless examples of cracked pottery, discolored idols and all manner of headless, legless and armless statues.

But in the vast sculpture hall at the center of the museum, conservators are waging an uncommonly aggressive campaign against the ravages of time, all to save what could be described as 1850’s version of a movie: a painted “panorama” composed of 25 panels that is spooled, like a scroll, through two huge wooden rollers — literally, a moving picture.

It is no small undertaking. In total, “Panorama of the Monumental Grandeur of the Mississippi Valley” stretches 350 feet long.

Each panel is seven and a half feet tall. According to the museum, it is the only known Mississippi panorama still in existence.

And now, after eight years of work, its restoration is nearly complete.

On a recent visit, Hugh Shockey, the museum’s head of conservation, observes a three-person team working on one of the panorama’s final panels, No. 17. In 2011, after more than a century of use and storage, the panel’s once-placid river scene had been covered by crisscrossing white patches where the paint had worn off, leaving the image in something of a blizzard.

“This panel is in the worst state of them,” Shockey says of No. 17.

“This painting did not really stand up to the rolling action.”

That’s the other trouble with art conservation — a lot of times, the artists themselves chose materials that quickened a work’s demise.

In the case of the panorama, artist John J. Egan had been commissioned by an amateur archae-

Conservators restore the final panels of a ‘monumental’ painted panorama. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI

ologist, who planned to use the panorama to assist in extolling the tales of his discoveries along the Mississippi.

Egan, in turn, produced a series of scenes painted on canvas and stitched together to form a visual tour down the great river. However, the paint he used did not sit well with the continuous rolling and unrolling.

Today, the panorama is technically functional, but “it takes about ten people and half an hour to move one scene to another,” says Shockey.

But it is not the panorama’s functionality that motivated the museum to begin a monumental effort to restore it. For Shockey, the question of what to do with a 350-footlong theater backdrop is not about its value as an artifact of an archaic form of entertainment, but as a uniquely impressive work of art.

Shockey, though, adds an important clarification regarding the three people with paint brushes attending to the panorama’s panel No. 17.

“These are conservators, not artists,” he notes. “Let’s not confuse the two.”

Shockey isn’t trying to insult the work of the people balanced on stepladders, who spend hours peering at the places where there were once happy little trees or clouds. After carefully descending from her perch, one of those

people, Corrine Long, explains, simply: “We aren’t artists because we aren’t inventing anything.”

Long, an art conservation student attending Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada, is working on an upper section of the panel that had once displayed a pale blue sky and the autumn foliage of a tree in the foreground. When she first got to work, it looked like a clump of white.

But up close, she found, there were “a couple chips of dark green, a blue, a red” — and these tiny flecks of color were enough to reconstruct the palate of what was lost. Here is where the “ethical” part of art conservation comes into play. It’s why Long and Shockey go out of their way to distinguish between the work of an artist and the labor of a conservator.

If the museum wanted, for instance, it could ask Long to repaint those leaves brush stroke by brush stroke. That’s not what she’s doing here.

“Instead of trying to understand what kind of leaves were there, I just use these broad colors of green and blue found in the surrounding area to knock it back, to make it blend with the background.” she explains. “You don’t see distinct leaves there; it just hides the fact that there was a lot of paint loss in that area.”

It is a technique that seems to attempt the impossible and con-

riverfronttimes.com

9

tradictory: Replace what was lost, but without adding anything to the painting itself.

And yet, where there was once an unsightly splotch of white, the spot on the panel Long worked on now shows a mottle of colors, expertly applied in a way that, when seen from a distance — this is, after all, a scene intended to be viewed in a theater — looks to be completely natural with the surrounding.

For Long and the other conservators, the work may sound almost mechanical and uncreative.

But she says she feels a connection with the original artist and assistants who first worked on the gargantuan project. With her face inches from the surface, she can see into the mind of the artist John J. Egan. It teaches her things.

She believes she’s figured out how Egan ordered his assistants to apply the panel’s layer structure: first the background, then the trees, then the mountain.

With the conservation project nearly over, people can finally see Egan’s mostly original mountains through the mostly original trees, and they won’t be distracted by the worn-down evidence of its long use as a backdrop.

And yet, without its blizzard of paintless splotches, it is no longer a purely historical artifact. Its surface no longer presents an immediate reflection of its rolling path through the decades.

What is gone is, indeed, gone. But with skilled application of paint, Long and the other conservators can make the loss disappear.

“I think it’s an ethical question,” Long says. “We don’t want to put something that the artist didn’t put there himself. The important part is to document it and not pretend this isn’t damaged.”

With just one panel left to restore — No. 21, which was in far better condition than No. 17 — the work of nearly a decade is coming to a close. For the museum, it represents the chance for future visitors to appreciate the artistry that went into the original piece.

True, something has been lost.

The monumental work is not exactly as monumental as Egan first painted it. But to paraphrase Futurama, if your art conservation is done right — and as long as your audience isn’t using a UV light — nobody will notice you’ve done anything at all. n

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

9

10

RIVERFRONT TIMES

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

riverfronttimes.com

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

11

BY DANNY WICENTOWSKI

I

t is August , 201 . Canfield rive. Four hours after Michael Brown was shot by Ferguson Police O cer arren Wilson, the eighteen-year-old’s body is finally removed from the scene. A crowd gathers, and they scatter rose petals over the strip of bloody pavement.

Olajuwon avis, who lives in his mother’s apartment just down the street from the Ferguson Police epartment, reads the news on his phone. He’s on a bus within minutes, heading for the Canfield reen apartments. He’s not the only member of the local New Black Panther Party to answer the call and join the outrage building in the crowd.

This is where it begins for avis. As the evening sets on the first day of the Ferguson protests, a bystander films him walking into the middle of the street. avis addresses the crowd as he paces along Brown’s makeshift memorial.

“Ferguson u lux lan ” he shouts. “That’s who that is ” That gets some attention, and someone shouts back, “Right on ” But even among his comrades, avis is distinctive: His mustache is nearly wider than his face. He wears a black T-shirt with a huge graphic of Malcolm smoking a cigar. And avis has a voice, one that carries easily in the evening air and has a confident, chanting rhythm that cuts through the ambient noise of the crowd.

“Forget tired, we fed up ” he shouts. “You tired, you can take a break. When you fed up you ready to hop off the train ” A young but skillful actor, avis has training in the art of capturing

an audience’s attention as a result of his experience in theater. But in many ways, he is way out of his depth: Canfield rive isn’t a stage or a film shoot, and it is nothing like the small-scale protests avis participated in as a teen member of a group of antiviolence theater activists.

He is like so many who will appear in Ferguson: a young activist, invigorated and enraged at Brown’s killing, taking to the streets not just in the name of justice for the unarmed Brown, but for a unifying principle behind a new civil rights movement: That black lives matter.

And yet, avis stands out. In the coming days, as Ferguson becomes a national focus, he wears a red fez and cape, while marching alongside fellow members of the New Black Panther Party. He adopts the title “Minister of Truth and Justice” and uploads a video of himself asking the United Nations for “assistance in helping the indigenous peoples of the world.”

His outfits and outlook are manifestations of a confusing mixture of ideologies that he’s come to believe in.

Along with his membership in the Panthers, he has become intrigued by conspiracy theories.

He identifies as an “Aboriginal Moor” and a “sovereign citizen,” freed from the legal authority of

what he considers an illegitimate government.

Other protesters notice the young radical — and so does the FBI. Agents are already on the lookout for Panthers, and avis makes himself as conspicuous as possible.

In October 201 , two months into the protests, avis addresses an audience at a church. He is dressed in all black, including a beret, and looks like he could be standing with the original Black Panthers in California or Chicago in the 1 0s. He sounds like it, too, his words urgent and measured with the seriousness of a militant.

“You must have some sense of militancy or strategy in your mind,” he tells the crowd. “Because we are all, soon, going to have to deal with this verdict that is about to drop. I reason that it won’t be favorable ” At this point, the entire region is awaiting a grand jury’s decision on the fate of arren Wilson. But avis could just as easily be talking about himself. Rather than a triumph of militant strategy, avis’ beliefs will soon carry him away from the protests, away from St. Louis, to his own verdict.

And then into prison.

And that is because avis makes good on his speech about militancy and strategy. In the coming weeks, he works with allies who

are not really his allies. He plays a role that he does not realize is a dark fiction. In reality, everything he believes about his life as a militant will turn out to be a lie.

He is clueless about it all — until November 21, 201 .

On that day, avis tries to buy a pipe bomb from the FBI.

T

oday, avis lives in a federal prison in Milan, Michigan, more than 500 miles from St. Louis. Reached by phone, the former Black Panther describes his experiences on August , 201 , from the bus ride from his mother’s apartment in downtown Ferguson to the scene on Canfield rive.

The scene, he says, “just broke my heart.”

“In my mind, I can still see the traces of blood, where they tried to clean it up,” he continues. “I was just floored. Then the sadness turned into indignation, just confirming many of the fears I had about living as a young black man in America. Perhaps I would be next. I remember just lashing out, verbally, just expressing my feelings aloud to those who were there.” avis is scheduled to be released from prison the day after Christmas in 2020. He will have served more than six years in various institutions as a result of his arrest in a 201 FBI sting operation.

At the time of the bust, law enforcement agencies were under pressure in Ferguson to deal with protests that had drawn worldwide attention. A grand jury was expected any day to deliver its decision, and city and public officials were already preparing for the worst. Police departments ordered more body armor. O ce Continued on pg 14

LEADING L EADING MAN MA N O L A J U W O N D AV I S WA S B O T H A B L A C K PA N T H E R A N D A TA L E N T E D Y O U N G A C T O R — W H O F O U N D H I M S E L F S TA R R I N G I N A N F B I B O M B I N G S T I N G 12

RIVERFRONT TIMES

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

Davis, shown here in a 2014 portrait, embraced conspiracy theories and the beliefs of an “Aboriginal Moor.” But his turn to bomb-buying only came after he was targeted by the FBI. | USED WITH PERMISSION

riverfronttimes.com

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

13

LEADING MAN Continued from pg 12

buildings circulated evacuation plans in case of rioting. Schools prepared to close for an entire week. The governor called in the National uard.

In that atmosphere, the arrests of avis and a second Black Panther, Brandon Baldwin, on weapons charges provided a useful narrative — that law enforcement wouldn’t let the protests explode in violence. News of their capture was quickly leaked to media.

“FBI arrests 2 men for buying explosives near Ferguson,” blared a CBS headline.

There was no mention of bombs, only “straw buys” of handguns, in the original charges, but the CBS report cited a “law enforcement source” who described the purchase of explosives. A follow-up in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, citing “sources close to the investigation,” added additional details, including accusations that the duo had reportedly plotted to detonate a pipe bomb in the observation deck at the top of the Arch. avis was the ringleader of the plot, the sources said. The PostDispatch described a plan of ambitious violence that included the assassination of Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson and St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch.

The implication of the stories was that law enforcement officers had intercepted a terror plot that was already in motion, preventing certain tragedy. After avis and Baldwin pleaded guilty in June 2015, then-U.S. Attorney Richard Callahan released a statement, saying the FBI operation had “saved lives.”

Left unsaid, however, was the full story of how two Black Panthers became targets in a weeks-long FBI sting operation whose every element including inert bombs was meticulously arranged and largely funded by two confidential informants posing as protesters.

For avis, it’s also a story of regret and wasted potential: how he started as a college-bound musician and budding actor and wound up convicted in a domestic terrorism case.

O

lajuwon avis grew up living with his mother and five siblings. espite constantly moving “I never stayed in one place for two years,” he says , by high school he was leaving impressions on the adults in his life. Marsha Cann, a board member for the interfaith antiviolence nonprofit Institute for

14

RIVERFRONT TIMES

Peace and Justice, recalls watching the then-fifteen-year-old perform in the Black Rep’s production of the musical Sarafina. She later recruited avis as a member of a group of youth theater activists and says he was “a natural such a brilliant stage presence, and a sense of self.” avis could sing, dance and mix his own beats into rap songs on social injustice and civil rights history. “I called him my little Renaissance man,” Cann says now. “He was just so blessed and talented on different levels.”

In 2010, avis graduated from a pilot high school program affiliated with Northwest Academy.

With the help of multiple scholarships, he enrolled at the Universi-

nal Moor” in accordance with the teachings from the Moorish Science Temple of America. The century-old group asserts that African Americans are actually descendants of Moroccan Moors, and adherents often reject labels of “African American” or even “black.” avis’ new beliefs confused and frustrated his family and friends.

His father, Henry avis, says he and Olajuwon quarreled over the twenty-year-old’s direction. Often, the arguments would lead to months-long stretches when the father or son did not speak to each other.

“He’s said he’s going to join the Moorish movement, change his citizenship, and that now he can just travel, he don’t have to have a

In Ferguson, Davis and other New Black Panthers joined protesters. In this image from August 14, 2014, Davis helps direct traffic during a demonstration. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI

ty of Missouri- ansas City, where he majored in economics. He was the first member of his family to attend college.

“He always had so much good stuff going on,” says his mother, Charlie Partee. “Sometimes, I used to think I wasn’t enthused enough at his accomplishments.

Because, I already knew. I’d tell him all the time, You’re ordained for greatness.’”

But transplanted to the other side of the state, avis struggled.

He was a father by then, and the grant money he’d received as part of his scholarships wasn’t enough to feed and house his young family. He decided to drop out and returned in 2012 to St. Louis. avis came home different. He says a cousin had introduced him to the idea of living as an “Aborigi-

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

driver’s license,” says the elder avis. “He was going to be this person who can do what the fuck he want to do. This was how I took it.”

Being a Moorish citizen didn’t make a lot of historical sense.

But it made the younger avis feel powerful, and he dove into the identity, growing out his mustache to fit a Moroccan aesthetic.

“I was just infatuated with the whole idea,” he recalls. “I wanted to feel empowered.”

Interlinked with his fringe beliefs about Moors was his insistence he could declare himself as his own independent nationality, or “sovereign,” and therefore could invoke treaties and international law he believed exempted him from taxes and government interference in his travel. avis printed out his own identification card, which in-

cluded a field for “Ancestral Estate: North, South, Central Amexem Africa America.” The I. . designated his race as “human.”

In 2013, avis caught a break. A local filmmaker, Bobby Herrera, had met avis years before while working on a documentary. Now, Herrera was shooting an independent film, set on the top of an apartment building in the Central West End. In search of an actor to play his protagonist, the filmmaker contacted avis, whom he remembered as a charismatic actor — great on camera — who had clearly overcome a tough upbringing to excel in high school. avis had never acted in a scripted film before, but Herrera trusted his gut on the unproven performer.

Still, Herrera could tell that avis was not the same happy-go-lucky teen he’d once known.

“He had a totally different mindset,” Herrera recalls. “It was extreme, in the way that he didn’t want to pay taxes, or that he should defect from being an American and be sovereign.’”

They shot the film in three weeks that summer. Herrera says he tried to do what he could for his young star, not just paying avis “a couple thousand dollars” for acting work, but often sending him home with leftovers that Herrera’s wife cooked for the cast and crew.

The acting job was avis’ only steady employment in those days, and his personal life was growing more and more strained. He didn’t have the funds to re-enroll at a local college, and he and his wife were expecting a second child.

At the same time, his confidence in his Moorish and sovereign citizen beliefs grew to increasingly absurd applications, further alienating him from his former support network. The same summer he worked on Herrera’s film, avis refused to pay sales tax at a convenience store and tried instead to submit his self-printed identification papers.

The shop owners called city cops, who tased and arrested avis. He was charged with municipal violations for trespassing, resisting arrest and disturbing the peace.

For Henry avis, his son’s transformation was intolerable. The two argued, and at one point, Henry told Olajuwon his mustache and turban “made him look like a Taliban dude.”

Still, when asked to describe his son today, Henry avis immediately responds like a proud parent: “My son is the smartest person that I know,” he says.

But even he can’t ignore the oth-

er side of his son.

“He’s so smart,” Henry Davis adds, “that he’s stupid.”

O

n August 13, 2014, the national leadership of the New Black Panther Party landed in Ferguson. Their arrival was telegraphed by an anonymous letter sent to a local television station. The letter contained an FBI memo, whose contents were then broadcast, in alarming terms, by Fox 2’s Roche Madden.

“The New Black Panther Party member is here in the area advocating violence against law enforcement o cers,” Madden said during a live shoot on West Florissant Road. “It’s another reason for o cers to be careful out there.”

It’s not easy to describe what the New Black Panther Party means to its hodgepodge of chapters and individual members. For watchdogs of hate groups, though, the issue is fairly straightforward: Founded in Dallas in 1989, the New Black Panther Party, or NBPP, is considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In a 2014 report, the Anti-Defamation League called it “the largest organized anti-Semitic and racist black militant group in America.”

But calling the NBPP “organized” is a stretch. While local chapters have sprouted in cities across the country, only a few appear to have persisted more than a few years. What remains relatively constant is the presence of a few charismatic leaders in the group’s “national leadership.”

Over the years, it was these leaders whose statements about Black Nationalism attracted alarm, not just from observers of hate groups, but from members of the original Black Panthers as well.

One month before the Ferguson protests, the Huey P. Newton Foundation, named for a co-founder of the Black Panther Party founded in 1966, condemned the New Black Panther Party for inciting hatred and “promoting concepts absolutely counter to the revolutionary principles on which the Party was founded.”

At the time of the Ferguson protests, BPP claimed to have chapters across the U.S., but there’s little evidence that the group has ever operated like a truly coordinated national party. In St. Louis, according to Davis, the chapter had about a dozen active members; when the Ferguson protests broke out, he stepped into the role of spokesperson.

Most of the attention, however, focused on the visiting NBPP leaders. The national chief of staff,

Chawn Kweli, arrived in Ferguson with national chairman Hashim Nzinga and former president Malik Shabazz, both figures featured prominently in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s report on the group. Kweli had been named in the FBI memo leaked to Fox 2.

In an August 10, 2014, post to Facebook, Kweli encouraged a fight of self-defense against “the aggressors” in Ferguson. He urged, in all caps, “DON’T BE A PUNK IN THIS HOUR. THIS IS THE HOUR ALL THE GREATS PROMISED. AND IF YOU DIE ..DIE LIKE A WARRIOR.” Davis concedes the Panthers’ coordination in Ferguson “wasn’t the sharpest display of organization,” but even their presence on the street felt like an accomplishment at the time.

“We were trying to show that we were there,” he says. “We were just trying to embody and represent, at least for myself, what it means to be African, what it means to be a Panther.”

According to Davis, St. Louis’ chapter didn’t take orders from Kweli, but it’s also true they worked together to provide security and stage demonstrations. And while Kweli and the other infamous Panther leaders soaked up the media attention, Davis, as St. Louis’ “Minister of Justice and Truth,” posted a press release online.

His nine-page statement, or “Affidavit of Fact,” announced that the St. Louis chapter of the NBPP was a peaceful organization and “does not and has never endorsed the violence that has resulted from the assassination of Michael ‘Mike Mike’ Brown Jr.” Addressed to Ferguson Mayor James Knowles, the statement went on to explain — in language clearly influenced by avis’ sovereign citizen legalese — that the Panthers opposed the “looting, destruction [and] vandalism” that had broken out during the protests. Three paragraphs later, the “a davit” attempted to formally “charge” the city of Ferguson with crimes of “genocide and murder of Aboriginal Indigenous American Michael Brown, Jr.” Davis even reached out to the Riverfront Times, and in an interview on August 26, 2014, he claimed the local NBPP chapter had been active for about a year.

In that interview, Davis insisted the group’s intentions were peaceful. “We’re trying to liberate our people, we’re trying to give them economic independence,” he said.

He also claimed police were trying to oppose the group’s efforts.

A group of Panthers had been tailed by police after leaving the

Shot in 2013, Olajuwon Davis’ role in Palacios earned him an award for “Breakout Performance.” | COURTESY GRAY PICTURE funeral of Michael Brown the previous day, he said.

“I’ve been getting followed by Caucasians in unmarked cars,” he added. “We are being targeted.”

Davis was right.

I

n October 2014, the Ferguson protests continued at a neardaily pace. The tension of expectation that surrounded the impending grand jury decision seemed to be creeping closer and closer to a breaking point.

Davis, though, was still struggling. Because of his beliefs about paying taxes, he was essentially unemployable, and he was about to be homeless. His young family lived in his mother’s cramped apartment in downtown Ferguson, but she had decided to leave the troubled city by the end of the month. Davis had no income and no place to move his family.

It was at about that time that help arrived from an unlikely source. Davis had just met a po-

riverfronttimes.com

tential Panther recruit at a protest event, and when avis confided his troubles, he says, the protester offered an incredible deal: a south St. Louis apartment with free rent for the first month and no fees.

In retrospect, there was something suspicious about the offer.

“My wife didn’t feel right about the situation,” Davis says now.

“But he basically gave me an apartment. It was great, I didn’t have to be in my mom’s house. I was adamant about trying to get a place to our own, so I pushed the situation anyway.”

There was one other small detail about the living arrangement: Davis’ new protester friend, who apparently managed the building, would be living on the same floor.

Coincidentally, he lived right across the hall from Davis.

The protester was actually a confidential informant working with the FBI. In court records, prosecutors refer to the man as

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

Continued on pg 17

RIVERFRONT TIMES

15

ALLIANCE CREDIT UNION'S

ST. LOUIS WORLD'S FARE PRESENTED BY SAUCE

FRI: 5PM-10PM • 10:15PM-12AM BURLESQUE & CIRCUS ARTS IN THE PAVILION SAT: 11AM-10PM • 10:15AM-12AM LATE SET IN PAVILION | SUN: 11AM-10PM

FEATURING Marquise Knox | Common Jones | Maness Brothers Lusid | Illphonics | Surco | Clusterpluck | Hounds | Zion Earthworms | Midwest Avengers | River Kittens Brother Francis & the Soultones | Boomtown United Dre' Co | Looprat | Cherry and Jerry | Middle Class Fashion The Gaslight Squares

DREAMWEAVER ENTERTAINMENT

www.StlWorldsFare.com | @stlworldsfare | FB-stlworldsfare | #stlwf

16

RIVERFRONT TIMES

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

“People really think my son was going to blow up the Arch,” says Davis’ father, Henry.

“That wasn’t his intention.” | DANNY WICENTOWSKI

LEADING MAN Continued from pg 15

Confidential Source 1, or CS1.

Soon, avis says, CS1 became a member of the New Black Panther Party.

“He infiltrated in, he signed up, and provided me with resources, housing, companionship,” he says, adding that “these things built up” until a protest event where avis introduced CS1 to Brandon Baldwin.

The Panthers’ “field marshal” in St. Louis, Baldwin worked at outdoor supply store Cabela’s.

A fourth Black Panther, another recent recruit, also met with avis, Baldwin and the informant.

He is described in court records as CS2. Unlike the other informant, avis had known CS2 since childhood. He was a “friend of the family” whom avis considered like a cousin — but for some reason, the quasi-cousin only seemed to talk about one thing: guns.

“I met him out there in the protests . It was good to see him,” avis recalls. “From the moment we met, he was adamant about getting weapons and firearms specifically.”

At first, avis says he tried to just ignore the requests, partly because this particular family friend had been a vital source of support for avis and his wife, including giving them rides to doctor’s appointments.

“So I looked past it,” avis says now. Still, he confided in his mother, Charlie Partee, about the requests. Like avis, Partee describes CS2 as a “close friend” who had watched her kids grow up, visited her house and had even

worked for her beauty salon. But she says he was also involved in “scandalous” activities she didn’t want for her son.

Still, she didn’t suspect that he was setting her son up to be arrested.

“It took me by surprise to find out this person was an informant,” Partee says of her former friend and employee. “He knew our story, he knew the page that Olajuwon was on, that he had so much going for him.”

In 201 , though, avis could see little going right for him. After Baldwin made the first gun purchase as a “straw buyer,” CS1 offered avis 200 as a finder’s fee for making the introduction. avis took the money.

“I just really needed the funds,” he explains. “I was preparing for my youngest daughter’s birth, feeling happy about having something to contribute to the household.”

It was more than just the money. avis’ Moorish beliefs and behavior isolated him from his friends and family, whom he says “really didn’t accept or tolerate the direction I was headed.” He says he briefly landed a job but was fired after a dispute over his rights under Moorish legal philosophy.

The informants, avis says, “were the only people who would put up with my bullshit.”

It made him loyal. And in avis’ telling, the companionship of these two enthusiastic new members became the focus of his activism. Instead of being suspicious of these two deep-pocketed Panthers obsessed with firearms, avis saw them as true believers, just like him.

“I kind of felt indebted to them.

Continued on pg 19

riverfronttimes.com

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

17

18

RIVERFRONT TIMES

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

LEADING MAN Continued from pg 17

They were all who I had. Even my wife was sick of my crap, but they were amping me up, and then they came with these requests,” avis says. “So I made myself available to them. I put my family, children and wife on the back burner. I made this my priority.”

T

he would distribute bombs to hit them in places where it hurt, hit someone important.’”

Or this one from Baldwin’s plea agreement, dated to October 31, 201 : “ avis again expressed an interest in bombs and stated that he had put it out there that he was a terrorist.’”

The surprising quote is omitted from the plea that avis signed.

Regardless, it takes more than putting it out there to be a functional terrorist. In pages of statements, avis and Baldwin never mention possible sources for the weapons, because, of course, their only “access” to explosives comes from the confidential informants.

In reality, the two were broke twenty-somethings with no known connections to anyone close to a bomb seller or a terror network.

Aside from avis’ trespassing citation, neither even has a criminal record. But they perfectly fit the profile of the sort of suspected “lone wolf” terrorist that the FBI targeted in the decade of the War on Terror, cases that involved predominately Muslim targets identified in mosques or found in radical Islamic chat rooms.

Journalist Trevor Aaronson researched a decade of data on

he U.S. Attorney’s case against Olajuwon avis and co-conspirator Brandon Baldwin played out as a story told in two acts. First, avis connected Baldwin with the two confidential sources, both of whom made sure Baldwin knew they were felons.

On October 22, 201 , Baldwin and avis made their first “straw Davis’ mother, Charlie Partee, never suspected that a former friend and employee was working with buy” at Cabela’s. Baldwin used his the FBI to put her son in prison. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI employee discount to purchase a . 5-caliber handgun priced at book that the FBI created fictional deeply that they never realize 500. Neither avis nor Baldwin attacks the bureau could thwart they’re trapped in a thriller whose had that kind of money, so it was and point to as a sign of its robust ending is already written. generously supplied by avis’ anti-terrorist victories. “family friend” CS2.

And like the case against avis At that point, the FBI had aldwin comes off in the plea and Baldwin, many of the cases enough to arrest avis and Baldagreement as a particularly of Muslim extremists featured win. Agents could have appreambitious would-be bomber. young men on the fringes of their hended the two Panthers in the When it came to targets, he Cabela’s parking lot and named the St. Louis County charged them with federal prosecutor, telling CS2 that he firearms offenses. These “wanted to get McCulloch.”

AT T H AT P O I N T, T H E F B I H A D would be the very same Baldwin continued: “I say we charges filed after the FBI knock one of these cops ... there it E N O U G H T O A R R E S T D AV I S concluded the sting operais ... knock a cop ... an important tion. What is apparent is cop ... we gotta hit the chief ... chief that the FBI didn’t want of Ferguson Police epartment ...

AND BALDWIN. AGENTS COULD firearms charges. It wantThomas Jackson, Thomas Jackson.” ed to foil a bomb plot.

In a November meeting, BaldH AV E A P P R E H E N D E D T H E T W O And so the FBI waited. win was recorded telling CS2 that And listened. And recordhe wanted “at least about ten of PA N T H E R S I N T H E C A B E L A’ S ed. That’s when the second them motherfuckers” — that is, act began. bombs. Baldwin wanted the exploPA R K I N G L O T A N D C H A R G E D On the way back from sives for use on “people,” “ATMs” Cabela’s, a confidential inand “tanks.” Baldwin told the informant recorded avis formant, “We at war, you underTHEM WITH FEDERAL FIREARMS and Baldwin as they “disstand, bro.” cussed purchasing black In contrast, avis is never quotOFFENSES. BUT THE FBI DIDN’T powder’ from the outdoors ed in the plea naming specific tarretailer to use in making gets. Apparently, after he “put it WA N T F I R E A R M S C H A R G E S : I T bombs,” according to court out there that he was a terrorist,” records. he spent the next couple of weeks WA N T E D T O F O I L A B O M B P L O T. Federal prosecutors advising the confidential sources would later describe in a about profiting from their illegal plea agreement similarly gun sales. damning details and incriminat- those terrorism prosecutions and communities, isolated and angry.

In avis’ telling, the opportuing statements, culled from weeks found more than 150 convictions But they weren’t active terrorists. nity to buy a pipe bomb was in“Few defendants had any con- troduced by Baldwin and one of of notes on the surveillance of the obtained through sting operations. In a third of those cases, he nection to terrorists, evidence the confidential informant’s durtwo Panthers.

Many of the notes read like found, an FBI informant “provid- showed,” Aaronson writes in his ing a visit to his apartment. They sparse diary entries, like one from ed all necessary weapons, money book. “Those who did have fur- showed him a video of a pipe ther connection, however tan- bomb detonating.

November 1, 201 : “ avis and CS1 and transportation.”

In Aaronson’s 2013 book The gential, never had the capacity to discussed selling firearms to genHowever, avis claims he only Terror Factory, the researcher launch attacks on their own.” erate more profits.” agreed to pay 250 for a pipe It’s like a play, with the FBI pro- bomb as “a middleman for the But then there are entries like broadly contends that the FBI’s November 5, 201 : “Baldwin spoke campaign of anti-terrorism sting viding the set, the dialogue, the stuff.” In return, he would take a operations between 2001 and characters and equipment. The to CS2 and stated that he Baldwin 1,500 commission — which he wanted to build bombs and blow 2011 did little to stop actual at- production just needs willing ac- understood to be the proceeds of things up. Baldwin also stated that tacks. Instead, he argues in his tors who believe in the role so Continued on pg 20

B

riverfronttimes.com

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

19

LEADING MAN Continued from pg 19

subsequent sales of pipe bombs to a third party. He acknowledges that he agreed to buy the bombs but denies that he ever intended to use them.

That’s not how Davis appears in the plea deal, which notes that after he watched the video of the pipe bomb detonation, he remarked to the informant, “[it’s] a start.”

A week later, on November 17, 2014, Davis met with CS2 to hammer out the final details of the pipe bomb sale, which according to prosecutors was scheduled for that Friday. Davis was recorded stating that he wanted to be able to detonate the explosive from a distance. After providing the $100 deposit, avis told the confidential informant, “I need it ASAP, brother, I need them motherfuckers ASAP.” Four days later, the FBI was ready to spring its trap. Davis says he got a text after midnight on November 21, 2014. The message was from his quasi-cousin and fellow Black Panther, CS2, confirming plans to buy three pipe bombs. Not long after the texts, CS2 picked up Davis and Baldwin and drove them to a location in Hazelwood.

Davis remembers trying to push away his unease about the situation.

“Everything felt kind of weird,” he says now. “But my whole vision was, I was just thinking about the money and about the obligation, not wanting to disappoint them, not wanting to let them down.”

Across a parking lot in Hazelwood, Davis remembers spotting the “bomb maker,” who appeared to be a “white guy in a car.” The bomb maker got out of the vehicle and popped the hood.

Davis walked over, reached into the car and picked up the bag of fake pipe bombs. He started moving back toward Baldwin and CS2, the family friend who had betrayed him.

For a few steps, Davis was allowed to believe that everything was going to be fine.

“Then it was, ‘Boom!’” he says.

“Homeland Security come running out.”

Later, when investigators executed a search warrant on Davis’ apartment, they found a Taser, a “large knife,” a mask, gas mask and notebook “containing a shopping list of weapons and cellphones.” They also found digital versions of guidebooks on survival and combat. The titles

20

RIVERFRONT TIMES

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

included: Internet Hitman, Mantrapping, Targeting of Officers and Silent Death.

I

n June 2015, Davis and Baldwin each pleaded guilty to four counts of federal firearms and explosives charges. At the hearing, Davis’ mother recalls feeling like someone had played a prank on her.

“It was like stuff you see on TV,” she says. “I have my baby standing here, in cuffs, the one I never thought I’d see in that suit. Why did y’all pick him?”

Davis’ father, Henry, doesn’t offer much sentiment about his son’s case. The morality of the FBI sting operation doesn’t bother him. Ultimately, he says, his son was “stupid enough to do it and get caught.”

“This is why I say he’s so smart, he’s stupid,” explains the elder Davis. “I’m not upset [at the FBI], their job is to find stupid-ass black people, like my son, and catch ’em up, make big news and deter other people from doing the same thing.”

Baldwin, who is incarcerated in the U.S. Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois, has the same release date as Davis: December 26, 2020.

Reached by phone, he declined to comment on the record for this story. But Baldwin’s father, Berlin Baldwin Jr., tells RFT that he wants people to know his son is not a terrorist: “He’s not the person they say he is. He’s a young person just like any other young person in America, dealing with the wrong people.”

From the FBI’s perspective, however, Davis and Baldwin were textbook examples of a successful counterterrorism operation. It simply didn’t matter that the targets were incapable of pulling off a bomb plot on their own.

That is the curious logic of a sting operation, which functions as a kind of moral theater, a test of the character targeting those the FBI believed to be potential terrorists. After their audition, Davis and Baldwin played their roles to perfection. They chose to go on with the show.

And even if the choice was false, and the bomb was fake, they still did wrong in the eyes of the court.

In Aaronson’s book, retired FBI counter-terrorism agent Peter Ahearn summarized the ethics of a proper sting operation, from the FBI’s perspective: “If you’re doing it right,” he says, “you’re offering the target multiple chances to back out ...

Real people don’t say, ‘Yeah, let’s go bomb that place.’ Real people call the cops.”

I

n 2017, three years into Davis’ prison term, Bobby Herrera’s film Palacios finally premiered at the Jim Thorpe Independent Film Festival. The attendees took note of Davis, who co-stars in the film as “Eugene.”

In the film’s opening scene, “Eugene” is introduced fleeing from a gas station. It is the ambiguity of this moment — is it a crime he just committed, or perhaps witnessed?

— that drives the tension of the film. Shot in black and white, it follows Eugene as he hides on the rooftop of an apartment complex.

There he meets a widowed alcoholic, Holly, who is friendly, but also curious and fearful of whatever Eugene is running from.

For his role, Davis won the festival’s award for “Breakout Performance.” The framed certificate currently sits on a bookshelf in Herrera’s living room, awaiting Davis’ release next year.

When they started filming in 2013, “what we shot originally implied that Olajuwon’s character was actually kind of innocent,” Herrera says now. “That, somehow, he had been mistakenly implicated in something, or that to get out of a situation he had to be violent.”

But after Davis’ arrest, Herrera couldn’t reconcile the innocence of the film’s version of Eugene with what the filmmaker felt about its star. So he changed the ending, removing the uplifting reunion between Eugene and Holly — and replacing it with an ending that finds Eugene being led away in handcuffs. It bleakly resembles the path Davis’ life actually took.

“The film bizarrely mirrors his situation,” Herrera acknowledges. “I changed the film in the edit, to be more vague about the crime that had taken place: Whether he was guilty or not guilty, whether there was a reasonable explanation or not, to almost mirror how I felt about his real-life situation.”

For Herrera, the contradiction of Davis never found a satisfying answer. In the prosecutors’ version, avis acted as a profitmotivated gun salesmen turned bomb buyer. Was that really the same talented actor Herrera had known in 2013?

“Maybe,” Herrera suggests now, “he did something rooted out of a misunderstanding, with no intention of being harmful or violent.

But he still chose to do something wrong.”

Indeed, no matter the explanation, Davis chose to buy that pipe bomb. But it’s worthwhile to ask: What role did Davis think he was playing? His quotes recorded in the plea deal are damning, but

they don’t explain how the informants earned and bought Davis’ loyalty. They don’t explain that when Davis watched the video of the pipe bomb detonating, he did so in an apartment gifted to him by a confidential informant actively working to put him in prison.

And it wasn’t like Davis and Baldwin were without options.

Baldwin had access to firearms, yet they didn’t plan a shooting spree. Davis had access to the internet and survival handbooks, but he never tried to buy “black powder” or make make a single Molotov cocktail. They appeared to have no initiative for violence.

And then they met CS1 and CS2.

From within the bomb plot, Davis says he felt like he was representing “what it meant to be a Panther.” The pride made him vulnerable and suggestible. Years later, he now acknowledges it was a delusion.

“I handicapped myself in relying on [the informants],” he says.

“It required this new identity that I had taken on. Part of it was, I felt like I couldn’t go back.”

But this contradiction that so bothered friends and family never seemed to vex former U.S. Attorney Richard Callahan, whose o ce prosecuted the cases against Davis and Baldwin.

In an interview with the RFT in April 2015, Callahan insisted that the sting operation averted a true, bloody disaster for both protesters and law enforcement. Still, moments later, he freely admitted that the duo’s alleged terrorist plot strained credulity.

Asked about allegations that the two had targeted the Arch, Callahan answered that he would “not even discuss the many different targets that these individuals considered or voiced at one time or another, and it’s for a simple reason: A lot of their ideas were totally unrealistic.”

He added, “besides being impractical, it would almost inaccurately sensationalize these charges.”

Two months later, though, the U.S. Attorney’s O ce became more willing to sensationalize the charges. In June 2015, after Davis and Baldwin pleaded guilty, Callahan put out a press release that praised law enforcement for “preventing what potentially could have been a major disaster.”

“The disruption of this plot, coming as it did on the eve of the expected Grand Jury announcement, undoubtedly saved lives,” Callahan said in the release.

“Luckily for all of us, we’ll never know just how many.” n

riverfronttimes.com

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

21

22

CALENDAR

BY PAUL FRISWOLD

FRIDAY 08/09 The Wilde Life Alfie lives a quiet life in ublin with his sister, Lily. She postpones her marriage to take care of her brother, while he’s entirely focused on the plays he directs with his amateur theater troupe, which is based out of a church.

Alfie’s new dream is a production of Oscar Wilde’s play Salome, which the church authorities are adamantly against — the play is blasphemous in their view. When Alfie spots his Salome on the bus, he plans to go forward with the production against everybody’s wishes. Adele, the woman in question, is unsure about acting, but is swayed by Alfie’s passion and belief. At night, Alfie isn’t so sure of himself. He questions who he is and why he always feels out of place, and he has visions of Wilde, who advises Alfie to fight temptation by giving in to it. Stephen Flaherty and Lynne Ahrens’ musical A Man of No Importance is about art, identity and dreams, with a little Wilde thrown in for good measure. R-S Theatrics presents A Man of No Importance at p.m. Friday and Saturday and 7 p.m. Sunday August to 25 at the Marcelle Theater 3310 Samuel Shepard rive www.r-stheatrics. com . Tickets are 20 to 25.

Badass Bobbies The joys of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s Hot Fuzz are many.

The film is an English twist on the American buddy cop thriller, with Pegg’s Nicholas Angel the dedicated and e cient super cop, while partner anny Butterman Nick Frost is a sloppy, overgrown child who thinks the job should be all action all the time. Nothing ever happens in the sleepy village of Sandringham, or so everyone keeps telling Angel. Then why do citizens keep ending up dead in terrible accidents Angel and Butterman get investigating and uncover a conspiracy that goes to the very top. The film co-stars a small galaxy of U. . comedians and great dramatic actors, from Bill Bailey to Adam Buxton to Olivia Coleman, and rewards care-

22

RIVERFRONT TIMES

ful viewers. Hot Fuzz is shown at 11:55 p.m. Friday and Saturday August and 10 at the Landmark Tivoli Theatre 350 elmar Boulevard www.landmarktheatres. com . Tickets are .

SATURDAY 08/10 Detroit in St. Louis

The Guys and Dolls are looking for a big score and love. | COURTESY OF STRAY DOG THEATRE

Nathan etroit is a gambler without a location for his big craps game and no money to secure one. It’s killing him, until he realizes that Sky Masterson could be his big investor. Masterson would bet on the sun coming up in the west, and so etroit bets him a grand that Masterson can’t get the woman of etroit’s choice to have dinner with him in Havana. Masterson agrees, and then etroit plays his ace in the hole: The lady has to be Sarah Brown, the pious missionary who loathes gamblers and drinkers and other such reprobates. Masterson goes to work, and promises Brown a dozen genuine sinners will repent at the mission if she has dinner in Havana with him. In a bid to save her beloved mission, she reluctantly accepts. uys really will do anything for dolls, as the song says.

Frank Loesser’s musical Guys and Dolls, with book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, is based on amon Runyon’s stories about the New York underworld of the 1 30s. Stray og Theatre closes its current season with Guys and Dolls, which is often held up as the greatest musical of the olden Age. It’s performed at the Tower rove Abbey 233 Tennessee Avenue www.straydogtheatre.org at p.m. Thursday through Saturday August to 2 , with a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday, August 1 , and at p.m. Wednesday, August 21. Tickets are 25 to 30.

book sale is your summertime stockup and a valuable aid in your quest. Scads of gently used books are organized by category, as well as C s and V s pro tip: the film is never as good as the book .

The JCC used book sale takes place from 10 a.m. to p.m. Sunday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Wednesday and 10 a.m. to p.m.

Thursday August 11 to 15 at the Jewish Community Center 2 Millstone Campus rive, Creve Coeur www.jccstl.org . Admission is 10 on Sunday and free all other days, and Thursday you can buy an entire bag of books for just 5.

SUNDAY 08/11 Treasure Trove

Englishman Brian is living in a Berlin boarding house while finishing his studies and occasionally teaching erman for a little money. Sally Bowles, his fellow boarder, is like no one he’s ever met she lives only for good times and dreams of being a star. To that end, Sally sings in a cabaret, where she hones her flamboyant act. Brian discovers that inside

You can take your e-readers and cram ’em with walnuts — the real purpose of life is to amass a large and varied library of books, and then read as many of them as you can before you die. The JCC used

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

Race the Park Bicycle racing returns to Tower rove Park this weekend, with the St. Louis Classic. The course is a 1.5-mile circuit that incorporates speed humps they’re less abrupt than speed bumps and a roundabout. Races are divide into classes, with cash prizes for the pro men’s and women’s riders. Races run from :30 a.m. to p.m. Sunday, August 11, with the always entertaining kids’ race at 3:50 p.m. Admission for competitors is 20 to 0, and registration will be available on race day.

Spectators are free.

MONDAY 08/12 Berlin Days

the cabaret is a nocturnal dream world, where cross-dressing and gender-bending are allowed and nothing matters but the moment.

Outside, the Nazi party grows in popularity and strength, but that has no impact on the cabaret performers — until it’s far too late for them to fight back. Bob Fosse’s film version of the ander and Ebb musical Cabaret won eight Academy Awards, including a best actress statue for Liza Minelli’s performance as Sally Bowles. You can enjoy Cabaret once again on the big screen thanks to the Classics in the Loop series at the Landmark Tivoli Theatre 350 elmar Boulevard www.landmarktheatres.com . The film is shown at and 7 p.m. Monday, August 12.

Tickets are 7 to .

Life is a Cabaret, but only for a brief time. | ©1972 ALLIED ARTISTS-ABC PICTURES

WEDNESDAY 08/14 Crime and Punishment Sophocles’ classic tragedy Antigone has survived more than two

WEEK OF AUGUST 8–14

The cast of Antigone. | JOEY RUMPELL millennia because of the undeniable truth at its core: When a person’s faith is pitted against the demands of the state, faith will win, even if that means more punishment. Antigone is the daughter of the deceased king Oedipus, who has placed his kingdom in his brother Creon’s hands. Creon rules that everyone who fought on the losing side of the recent civil war remain unburied and unmourned on pain of death. In reek culture, doing so damns the unburied to a hellish afterlife rather than the paradise of Elysium.

Antigone’s brother, Polyneices, is one of those unburied, and she

goes to bury him and is caught in the act. Her Uncle Creon demands to know why she did it, and Antigone tells him divine laws supersede his laws and will continue to defy him. For this, she’s entombed alive, which sets off a string of horrible tragedies for Creon. ERA and Slightly Askew Theatre Ensemble present a new version of Antigone that was workshopped and updated by Prison Performing Arts and Saint Louis University Theatre. The tragedy is performed at p.m. Wednesday through Saturday August 1 to 31 at the Chapel 32 Alexander rive www. slighlyoff.org . Tickets are 20. n

riverfronttimes.com

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

23

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

THIS WEEK THE GROVE SELECTED HAPPENINGS

IN

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.

2 4 R RI VI VE ER RF RF RO ON NT T T IT MI ME ES S MF EJAUBRNRCEUHA2R104Y- -22680,-, M220A0R118C8 H r5ri,ivve2er0rf1frr8oonnt trt ti ivmmeeersfs.r.coconomtmt i m e s . c o m 24 RIVERFRONT TIMES AUGUST 7-13, 2019 riverfronttimes.com

THURSDAY, AUGUST 8

STEPHEN MARLEY $25, 6

PM AT

AARON KAMM & THE ONE DROPS PM AT

PM AT

ATOMIC COWBOY

CAGEMATCH: RUE MCCLANAHAN VS. LIL' RAZZY NAP: PART II

THE IMPROV SHOP

THURSDAY, AUGUST 15

STEPHEN MARLEY

ATOMIC COWBOY

FRIDAY, AUGUST 9

$12, 6

10

$25, 6

PM AT

ATOMIC COWBOY

FRIDAY, AUGUST 16

AARON KAMM & THE ONE DROPS $12, 6

PM AT

ATOMIC COWBOY

OLD ROCK HOUSE PRESENTS

4130 MANCHESTER AVE. IN THE GROVE FIRECRACKERPIZZA.COM

ANDERS OSBORNE SOLO $23, 7

PM AT

THE READY ROOM

SATURDAY, AUGUST 17

OLD SALT UNION RECORD RELEASE $15, 6

PM AT

EMO NITE ST. LOUIS $10, 9

PM AT

THE OTHERSIDE TOUR: AVI KAPLAN $17, 7

PM AT

THE READY ROOM

THE READY ROOM

TUESDAY, AUGUST 20

EMPRESS OF

ATOMIC COWBOY

EMO NITE LA PRESENTS

KING OF HECK

MONDAY, AUGUST 19

$18, 8

PM AT

THE READY ROOM

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 21

HIKES, JR.CLOONEY, GOLDEN CURLS,

$10, 7:30

PM AT

ATOMIC COWBOY

7

PM (DOORS) AT

FRIDAY, AUGUST 23

VOODOO PLAYERS

THURSDAY, AUGUST 22

PROTOJE W/ BLACKILLAC $20, 6

PM AT

ATOMIC COWBOY

6

PM AT

ATOMIC COWBOY

SATURDAY, AUGUST 24

BATTLE OF THE DADS

FLYOVER COMEDY PRESENTS: STAND-UP COMEDIAN SAM TALLENT (COMEDY CENTRAL, VICE)

THE MONOCLE

7

PM AT

riverfronttimes.com JUNE 20-26, 2018 riverfronttimes.com AUGUST 7-13, 2019

THE READY ROOM

RIVERFRONT TIMES 25 RIVERFRONT TIMES 25

26

RIVERFRONT TIMES

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

FILM

27

[REVIEW]

Serpent Sermons

Wednesday August 7 9:30PM

Sean Canan’s Voodoo

Tribute To Soul Music Featuring The Laren Loveless Review

Friday August 9 10PM

Tribute To Steely Dan by

Them That Follow has a church of snake handlers and Olivia Colman but no dramatic structure to carry it

JD Hughes and the Fuze

Saturday August 10 10PM

Roland Johnson and Soul Endeavor

Written by

ROBERT HUNT

Sunday August 11 4-7

Patti and The Hitmen

Them That Follow Written and directed by Britt Poulton and Dan Madison Savage. Starring Alice Englert, Walton Goggins, Olivia Colman and Jim Gaffigan. Opens Friday, August 9, at the Landmark Tivoli Theatre.

I

f you follow the arthouse/independent scene, you may have noticed a minor trend of films set in nearly uninhabited rural locations, where urban life is barely a rumor and there’s not a cell tower, Starbucks or Landmark Theatre in sight. What’s behind this fascination for this world of wilderness and trailer parks? Is it anthropological, an exploration of cultures that have resisted the pull of modern life? Or is it just a sophisticated form of class baiting, a cleaned-up version of the old Ma and Pa Kettle/hillbilly stereotypes for the reassurance and amusement of the “indie” crowd?

Them That Follow, the latest exercise in cinematic ruralphilia, centers on Mara (Alice Englert), a young girl living in an unnamed but extremely isolated mountain town in Appalachia the film was shot in Ohio). We don’t learn many details about her life (is she in school?), but that’s because there aren’t many to learn. She’s engaged to marry an earnest, God-fearing young man, but she’s in love with — and pregnant by — Augie, who is as close to a bad boy as the area can offer (he’s stopped going to church). This in itself would be a problem for most young women, but Mara’s got it worse: Her father Lemuel (Walton Goggins) is the pastor at the local Pentecostal church, one which specializes in the understandably limited practice of snake handling.

If you’re interested in the finer

FREE SHOW

Alice Engert plays Mara in Them That Follow. | © PROPERTY OF AMASIA ENTERTAINMENT

The performers try hard to find substance here, aware that they’re just a step above stereotypes, but it’s an uphill battle. theological points of reptile-based worship (it’s based on an over-literal interpretation of a few lines in the New Testament), you’ll be disappointed. Lemuel and his followers reach for their crates of serpents as freely as if they were spreading holy water, but they — and the filmmakers — don’t spend time trying to explain it. The film suggests that it’s threatening and more than a little ominous, but for Lemuel it seems almost coolly routine. They talk about damnation or spiritual cleansing, but it’s more out of habit, an automatic response to any behavior that threatens to shake the dull atmosphere.

Making their directorial debut, Britt Poulton and Dan Madison Savage take it for granted that there’s an inherent shock value in the snakes, the oppressive setting and the heavy cloud of moral condemnation hovering over Mara,

but they don’t provide a dramatic structure to hold it together.

There’s not much conflict here, no real small-minded misanthropy or fearmongering. There’s just a lingering sense of resentment, aimless and unspoken.

Mara is uncomfortable not because she’s living in a cesspool of ignorance and oppression but simply because it’s kind of a bummer being a teenager in a town where the only social activity consists of going to church. There’s no indication that anyone watches television or listens to the radio or even subscribes to Reader’s Digest.

Poulton and Savage have assembled a strong cast, but rather than cover the script’s flaws, they only underscore them. The performers (many of whom are British or Australian, as is so often the case with the new cinematic rusticity try hard to find substance here, aware that they’re just a step above stereotypes, but it’s an uphill battle. Englert is admirably self-confident, oggins manages to avoid falling into mustachetwirling villainy, and comedian Jim a gan, as one of the church members, seems to be confused, as if he’s not quite sure how he wandered into the film. As a local storeowner (and Augie’s mother) who offers Mara a matronly ear, Olivia Colman tries to bring depth to a largely thankless role (who am I kidding? — they’re all thankless roles), but then, she’s Olivia Colman, which is more than the film deserves. n

riverfronttimes.com

Sunday August 11 8PM

Blues and Soul Diva Kim Massie Wednesday August 14 9:30PM

Sean Canan’s Voodoo Tribute To The Blues Brothers

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

27

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

28

RIVERFRONT TIMES

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

CAFE

29

[REVIEW]

Tacos Worth the Search Malintzi Mexican Grocery flies under the radar but takes only one visit to love Written by

CHERYL BAEHR Malintzi Mexican Grocery 3831 Woodson Road, Woodson Terrace; 314428-2075. Mon.-Fri. 9 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sat. 9:30 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sun. 9:30 a.m.-8 p.m.

I

f you’re a first-time visitor to Malintzi Mexican rocery, it’s all but certain you will wander around for a moment wondering where you are supposed to order. It’s not that the tiny restaurant within the shop is hidden.

The second you walk through the door, you encounter the market’s sparsely appointed dining area just to the left of the grocery store and carniceria.

An order counter, however, is nonexistent. Instead, a small sign with the phrase “orden aqui,” handwritten in black sharpie, points you to a small break between a wall and the meat counter. No one is manning that space, but if you walk around with a confused look on your face for long enough, chances are good that someone from the grocery side will eventually step in to help.

Not always, though. There’s a palpable vibe that courses throughout the Malintzi market, giving you the impression that the place is determinedly under the radar and prefers it that way.

It’s why, when Mexican food lovers speak with effusive passion about the Latin American culinary jewels of north county — Taqueria urango, La Tejana Taqueria, Pueblo Nuevo — you’ll rarely hear even a whisper about this Woodson Terrace restaurant. It’s also why its owner refuses to give his name to the press. “Just refer to the market,” he says, in a borderline insular tone that evokes a complete disinterest in any sort of public relations campaign.

Chorizo, lengua, pollo, cabeza and asada tacos wrapped in corn tortillas are just the first reason to visit Malintzi Mexican Grocery. | MABEL SUEN What Malintzi’s proprietor will say is that the grocery store has been around for fourteen years, opening in 200 as a way to serve the area’s significant Latin American population. In 200 , he launched the restaurant side because it made financial sense with a butcher shop and fresh produce on site, a food counter was the best way to use his products in different formats.

Malintzi has garnered a regular following for its prepared food offerings ever since, a fact that is apparent in the restaurant’s consistently full seating area. Even during traditionally off hours — 3 p.m. on a Thursday, say — the faded red laminate snack-bar-style booths are filled with hungry patrons grabbing a bite to eat.

This is not a gringo-catering TexMex joint, nor is it an approachably authentic spot frequented by culinary tourists. Malintzi is a homestyle restaurant serving traditional Mexican food to a mostly immigrant or first-generation clientele. The moment you walk up to the market’s front doors, you

are greeted with a mosaic of posters, help-wanted ads and moneywiring service offers, all written in Spanish. Some, shiny and recently plastered to the window, advertise an upcoming rodeo on the east side of the river. Others, tattered and taped over, promote long-past concerts, job opportunities or social services. The windows are covered in a peeling tint to block the sun from shining too brightly into the market. If you didn’t know better, you might think Malintzi is no longer in business based on a quick glance from Woodson Road.

But Malintzi is open — and thriving — and all it takes is a bite of one of the restaurant’s tacos to understand why. The corn tortilla alone is revelatory, occupying a middle ground between soft and crunchy warmed by the grill so that the outside glistens to a pale golden color, the tortillas typically three stacked together are wrapped around any number of meats. Carnitas is succulent, pulled roasted pork that crisps up around its edges and is sea-

riverfronttimes.com

soned with just a hint of salt so that the meat’s delicate flavor is front and center. Carne asada is marinated and grilled, giving the beef a pleasant bitterness. My one quibble is that some of the pieces were gristly.

I was not impressed by the lengua tacos, not because I’m squeamish about eating tongue, but because the meat had an off, gamey taste. I much preferred the cabeza, which was as tender and juicy as pot roast. The meat, which seemed to be mostly beef cheek, was so delicate it could have been spread onto a piece of bread. As good as it was, however, the chorizo was an even bigger standout. The ground pork had a rich, garlicky chile spice that is quite a bit hotter than typical versions. The heat lingered from the tip of the tongue to the back palate, not like a quick smack but like a slow-creeping warmth. It was haunting.

Tacos are Malintzi’s calling card, but the restaurant is proficient in other dishes, too. The huarache,

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

Continued on pg 30

RIVERFRONT TIMES

29

MALINTZI MEXICAN Continued from pg 29

a flattened, oblong piece of fried masa dough, is like a Mexican version of flatbread. The dough is slathered with smashed pinto beans and topped with a choice of meat I chose carnitas and a shocking amount of fresh cheese, sour cream, avocado, onion and cilantro. It’s a mess of a dish, but one that is fun to enjoy.

The sope is similarly adorned, but instead of being flattened and elongated like the huarache, the masa is round like a tortilla, and much thicker. The result is something akin to a Mexican-style cornbread that makes an excellent base for toppings, especially the chorizo since its spicy juices soak into the sope, infusing the entire base with flavor.

Malintzi serves several tortas, all of which are massive and served on a large round roll with a crusty shell and pillow-soft interior. Pinto beans, mayonnaise, lettuce and tomatoes accent your meat of choice, including that wonderfully seasoned carne asada. The only problem is that there are so many toppings it becomes a sloppy mess to eat, and the bread

30

RIVERFRONT TIMES

The Torta Cubana — featuring carne asada, ham and hot dogs — is a delicious mess. | MABEL SUEN quickly gets overwhelmed by its contents once their juices begin to soak in and break it down — it just means you have to eat the tasty sandwich quickly.

This is even more of an issue on the Cubana. Not to be mistaken for a Cuban, the Cubana is a Mexican sandwich that is basically an

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

excuse to pile as much meat between two slices of bread as possible — and when that point has been reached, you pile on even more. Carnitas, ham, cut up hot dogs and cheese vie for space with the same condiments that come with the other tortas. Every bit six-inches thick, this monster of a

sandwich is an eating competition waiting to happen.

Malintzi’s menudo is an excellent rendition of the traditional Mexican soup. Tender tripe and hominy bob in a vibrant red chile broth that has the texture of silk.

The cow stomach lining can sometimes get rubbery, but here, it is delicate and pairs beautifully with the broth’s rich texture. Raw white onions, cilantro, lime and powdered oregano are served alongside the steaming bowl of soup and enliven its intense flavor with a bright punch.

Malintzi’s owner gave me a look when I ordered this soup, making sure no less than three times that it was indeed what I wanted.

When the cook delivered it to the table, she did so with a raised eyebrow not at all unlike the ones given by the restaurant’s other patrons. After all, they don’t get a lot of newbies wandering in off the street and ordering menudo every day. But those who do aren’t newbies for long — and the next time they come in, they’ll know exactly where to order.

Malintzi Mexican Grocery Chorizo taco ...........................................$1.99 Torta con pollo ....................................... $8.99 Menudo .................................................. $9.99

SHORT ORDERS

31

[SIDE DISH]

Saul Juarez Relives His Childhood Memories at Grand Tavern Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

W

hen Saul Juarez says he’s been baking since he was a kid, he doesn’t mean he was his mother’s little helper in the home kitchen. He’s been an actual, professional baker since childhood, starting so early he couldn’t even reach the counters.

“I got my first job in a bakery when I was six years old,” Juarez laughs, recognizing just how unbelievable that sounds. “I had a cousin who had a bakery, and my mom asked him if he would give me a job during the summer. I did really basic stuff like putting egg wash and sugar on the pastries, lining and oiling sheet pans and pulling bread from the oven to place on the cooling rack. I was so young I wasn’t able to reach the tables, so I had to stand on a four-by-four. That’s how baking got into my heart.”

These days, Juarez has no problem reaching the counters at Grand Tavern by David Burke (626 N. Grand Boulevard, 314-4053399), where he works as the restaurant’s pastry chef. However, all it takes is the smell of chocolate or a ripe mango to bring him back to his childhood home in Mexico, where he lived on a small farm and dreamed of working in a professional kitchen. From a young age, he knew pastry was his calling, a realization that occurred in both his cousin’s bakery and while watching professional cooks on television prepare showstopping flambes. The spectacle of it all excited him.

That interest continued when,

Saul Juarez knew at an early age that he was destined for the pastry kitchen. | JEN WEST as a young teenager, he moved to California with his parents. Juarez threw himself into his high school studies and gravitated toward chemistry, a career path he briefly considered pursuing after graduating. However, as he thought over what he wanted to do with his life, it seemed that combining that inclination for science with his passion for baking was the best fit. His teachers agreed.

“When I was in high school, I wanted to take a culinary class, but I had too many credits and had to drop it,” Juarez recalls. “My teacher went to the principal and said, “This kid really loves cooking. You have to let him back in my class.”

Juarez completed that high school cooking class and had his sights set on culinary school. He took some basic classes while working in a grocery store and thought he would continue just chipping away at his degree.

However, his manager intervened and told him that, if he wanted to make a serious career out of culinary, he should attend the Culinary Institute of America.

Juarez was intrigued, but the thought of having to spend sever-

al years at the school’s New York campus did not appeal to him.

When he found the 30-week program in Napa Valley, however, he knew it was the right fit. It was a decision that made him the chef he is today.

“There is nothing wrong if you want to learn by working in a bakery, but I liked having the support of the books and the research which tell you how you can do better,” Juarez says. “Plus, I had an instructor that told us we should make all of our mistakes in school because they are there to help us fix them. When you go to work, you won’t want to make mistakes because it costs money. In school, though, making those mistakes is what makes you better.”

After graduating from culinary school, Juarez stayed in California and worked for a few years at the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa before moving on to the Four Seasons. The hotel asked him to move to its St. Louis property, so he packed up and moved across country to join the team at Cielo.

It was a job he enjoyed, but he eventually felt like it was time to do something new.

“I said I would be here for two

riverfronttimes.com

years and it ended up being four,” Juarez explains. “I built the team.

The person who was at the bottom is now running the kitchen, and she is very talented. I felt like my work there was done.”

Juarez was intrigued by what celebrity chef David Burke was putting together at the Angad Arts Hotel and decided to join his team.

He’s happy he made the move, not simply because he enjoys working with Burke, but because it allows him the most creative freedom he’s ever had in a job — something he takes every opportunity to explore in terms of those childhood memories at the bakery in Mexico.

“For me, baking on a rainy day always takes me back to my childhood — that and chocolate,” Juarez says. “I always have chocolate around me when I am making desserts. I try to bring those memories with me — the cotton candy we would have twice a year, the fresh passion fruit and mangoes we’d open when they were in season — those memories are my inspiration, and when I put them into desserts, they will then become someone else’s

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

Continued on pg 33

RIVERFRONT TIMES

31

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 32

RIVERFRONT TIMES

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

SAUL JUAREZ

Continued from pg 31

memories.” Juarez took a break from the pastry kitchen to share his thoughts on the St. Louis food and beverage scene.

What is one thing people don’t know about you that you wish they did?

I started working in a bakery when I was six years old, and, as a result, much of my inspiration comes from those childhood memories. I enjoy working with foods that we only had a few times a year, such as cotton candy or chocolate cake, as well as seasonal fruits like mango, peaches and passion fruit.

What daily ritual is non-negotiable for you?

A 6 a.m. cup of hot chocolate

while sitting in my backyard.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Having enough money so I could visit the people who are poor and struggling to teach them to make bread. Artisan bread only requires three ingredients: Water, flour, and salt. Yeast can help, but 100% artisan bread does not need yeast.

I would be so grateful to share my passion with those in need so they could go on to start a better life and provide for their families.

What is the most positive thing in food, wine or cocktails that you’ve noticed lately in St. Louis?

Fresh local produce, and the opportunity to meet the farmers. It’s a pleasure to make their ingredients shine in our kitchen. We get to respect their ingredients to the fullest and appreciate all of their hard work cultivating the product.

Who is your St. Louis food crush?

I have never considered a food crush before! I really love what they’re doing at Cinder House by cooking on the open fire.

Who’s the one person to watch right now in the local dining scene?

Gerard Craft continues to bring different cuisine and culture to St. Louis. It’s exciting to see.

Which ingredient is most representative of your personality?

Chocolate. If I get respect from my team, I’ll make us all shine.

Chocolate is the same; if you give all the respect to chocolate when you are making a show piece or tru es, the chocolate will shine.

Also I can be bitter just like 100 chocolate.

If you weren’t working in the restaurant business, what would you be doing?

Pharmaceuticals, because there are similarities between pastry and working with formulas.

Name an ingredient never allowed in your restaurant.

Food additives or preservatives.

We make everything fresh daily, and that’s what the guest experience is all about. Food preservatives are for products that will be sitting on the shelves or in the freezer, and at Grand Tavern this will never be the case.

What is your after-work hangout?

An hour at the gym … I know, I know, it might look like I don’t go (ha!), but yes, I do one hour in the gym five days a week What’s your food or beverage guilty pleasure?

Hot chocolate and a croissant, together or on their own, are each a guilty pleasure.

What will be your last meal on earth?

A warm baguette with butter, Spanish ham jamon Serrano , and a glass of wine. n

[FOOD NEWS]

Internat’l Lunch Series Lets You Travel the World on Your Lunch Break Written by

KATIE COUNTS

V

enezuela. Laos. Albania. Countries like these may be separated by oceans, but nearly every Wednesday they share a common home at the International Lunch Series, hosted by the International Institute of St. Louis (3401 Arsenal Street).

Each week, the institute features a different country’s cuisine in a casual, luncheon setting. Food is served from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., or whenever the food runs out. Diners can eat their lunch in the institute’s cafeteria or purchase food for carry-out.

The program started this March under the Institute’s Community Development Corporation and has been running ever since, except for a short break for July 4.

Its organizers say the institute has hosted food from “pretty much everywhere,” and there is always room for any caterers who want to join the lunch series. Meals vary in price but normally float around or less than $10.

Nadya Kanim, a business specialist and loan officer who has been working for the International Institute for four years, was instrumental in starting the program. Kanim is a refugee from Iraq, and the institute helped get her settled into the St. Louis area. She says the lunch series is beneficial to everyone.

“It’s an opportunity for both sides,”

A recent lunch at the International Institute’s weekly event highlighted homestyle Iraqi food from Sky Hookah Lounge. | KATIE COUNTS Kanim says. “The community gets to try different food flavors, and it’s an opportunity for new Americans to expand their market for their businesses.”

The institute offers a variety of classes on everything from business ownership to finance to language. Many of the catered meals are prepared and served by immigrants who have received some of these services at some point. A recent lunch featured the food of Sky Hookah Lounge, which brought homestyle Iraqi food to the series’ hungry diners. Sky’s Ali Saadi says his family got help from the institute when they immigrated to St. Louis. He says that he loved being a part of the lunch series; he just wishes Sky

hadn’t run out of food.

Gary Broome, who works as the director of communications and marketing for the institute, says the lunch series started off modest. Many of the institute’s clients come to the U.S. “starting at ground zero,” he explains, adding that it has been incredible to watch them and the lunch series grow.

Kanim estimates that approximately 100 people attend each lunch on average, and that the crowd is just as diverse as the lunch schedule. To prove his point, the July 17 lunch attracted all sorts of community members, including military and police who mingled as they ate.

Public affairs officer Gagik Khoudian of

riverfronttimes.com

the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department has attended several of these lunches. The International Institute is a part of his district, he says, and he believes it’s important for him to support the community. But as an immigrant from Armenia, the lunch also takes on a deeper meaning.

“I came to America as a refugee so it’s kind of a get-back-to,” Khoudian says.

Which, as Kanim notes, is the true power of this lunch series — the ability to bring people together.

“When we know each other we become more strong,” Kanim says. “We’re holding hands. We’re helping each other.” The International Lunch Series will run through August 28. n

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

33

34

RIVERFRONT TIMES

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

CULTURE [ T R AV E L ]

School’s in Session St. Louis rapper Tef Poe heads to the Middle East to teach Jordanians about hip-hop Written by

DANIEL HILL

A

t present, St. Louis rapper Tef Poe is more than 6,000 miles away from his hometown, visiting the Arab country of Jordan, bordered by Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Israel and Palestine. He’s been sent halfway around the globe as an ambassador of hip-hop, representing the United States at large and black American culture specifically, and working to nurture a burgeoning rap scene in the Middle Eastern country by teaching a group of its young emcees the ins and outs of the industry.

Still, St. Louis is never far from his mind.

“Really it’s weird,” Tef, born Kareem Jackson, says. “Because I’m using the skills that I acquired from the St. Louis underground scene to help build a scene in a totally different country. I think back about the Hi-Pointe days. Learning about being on stage and how a crowd doesn’t have to naturally embrace you, how you have to train yourself to be embraced by the crowd.

And just understanding that music is a universal language, as long as it’s good music.”

Tef has been sent to Jordan as part of the Next Level program, presented by the Meridian International Center through a partnership with the University of North Carolina, to work with Jordanian students through the U.S. Embassy and the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. He was afforded the opportunity through his record label, the esteemed Tommy Boy Records, which over the years has been home to such rap luminaries as Biz Markie, Afrika Bambaataa and De La Soul, alongside countless others.

Tef Poe visits the Jordanian city of Petra during his trip to the country. | VIA THE ARTIST He was chosen, in part, due to his teaching experience — as a recipient of the Nasir Jones Hip-Hop Fellowship, founded by rap legend Nas, Tef spent 2017 and 2018 teaching at Harvard through the school’s W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute. In other words, he has considerable experience at the front of the classroom.

“It’s really a program for artisteducators,” Tef explains. “An artist who isn’t a very good educator probably wouldn’t do good in this program, because you have to teach every day. You have to be able to really quickly adapt to the language barrier. Because I don’t speak the same language as these guys — they’re better at English than I am at Arabic. They know what I’m saying, for the most part, and then for the students that don’t know what I’m saying, one of the students will translate, or a translator will translate for us.”

Tef is one of a group of five artists that have been sent to the

country to spread their love of hip-hop. He’s joined by a team of beat-boxers and a dance choreographer. Each day, he says, the country’s king, Abdullah II bin AlHussein, sends a bulletproof vehicle from the embassy to pick them up and take them to the school, where they teach from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tef’s role is to teach the young students, who already have an interest in hip-hop, how to be effective emcees.

“They already had a hip-hop scene, so I don’t wanna say we’re birthing a hip-hop scene,” Tef says.

“But we’re definitely beefing it up and adding creatine to it. Helping the artists with resources. We’re leaving behind a nice amount of equipment.”

To hear Tef tell it, the country’s rap scene is on par with any he’s encountered in the states. But, he explains, young rappers don’t necessarily have access to the tools and equipment they need to be effective. On top of that, it’s a

riverfronttimes.com

35

Muslim-majority country whose culture isn’t as receptive or welcoming to hip-hop as some.

“The goal is to basically empower the hip-hop scene, and also do some cultural diplomacy between our country and their country.

To showcase a different side of Americans, to also showcase a different side of black American culture, and to inspire artists that just don’t have access on a global level,” Tef says. “They’re really not typically living in an environment that empowers them to even think about being artists professionally or to even think that they can be involved in hip-hop.

“Even in some of the dance courses — I’m working with a choreographer from Philly by the name of Queen Dinita, and she’s trying to show them that it’s OK for women in the community to dance,” he continues. “And some of these young men, their fathers don’t understand why they wanna be dancers. These kids don’t come from easy lifestyles; they don’t have easy backgrounds. Some of these kids live in refugee camps.

Some of these kids are fighting with their parents every day just to be a part of this program.”

Tef explains that the group is using the program as an opportunity to motivate the students and inspire them, and to show them that there’s nothing wrong with art, there’s nothing wrong with music. He also aims to teach them that hip-hop can lead to a better life, but that you have to push yourself and make your own opportunities. That ties, once again, to his experience coming up as a rapper in St. Louis.

“We had nothing,” Tef says of his hometown. “There’s no Def Jam down the street, there’s no million-dollar corporations coming to St. Louis, snatching rappers out and giving them careers. They have the same problems. Where do you find a way out when there’s no way out? How do you make a career for yourself doing hip-hop in a place that traditionally doesn’t embrace this type of music?”

Tef’s own way out came in a somewhat unusual way. Though he was already an accomplished rapper, particularly in the field of battle-rap, which Tef rode to a freestyle championship on BET’s 106 & Park, his national profile

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

Continued on pg 37

RIVERFRONT TIMES

35

FEATURED DINING

SPONSORED CONTENT

6 RESTAURANTS YOU NEED TO CHECK OUT...

POKE DOKE

POKEDOKESTL.COM

SEDARA SWEETS

314.833.5900 8 S EUCLID AVE ST. LOUIS, MO 63108 314.553.9440 6316 DELMAR BLVD UNIVERSITY CITY, MO 63130

SEDARASWEETS.COM

314.532.6508 8011 MACKENZIE RD AFFTON, MO 63123 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!

Poke Doke offers St. Louis their energized recipes intertwined in a fast-casual model. Best part is every bowl is customizable to the patron -- whether you know what you want and can come up with your own flavor pairings — but it’s certain your heart will be content with the rich, high-quality seafood. Customers choose a size, a base, (such as rice, greens, or soba noodles) and choose from proteins (such as salmon ahi tuna, spicy tuna, shrimp or tofu), then add as many toppings and drizzles as they wish. If you’re less interested in the simple pleasures of fish and more in playing around with accoutrements, both the shrimp and tofu are neutral enough that they benefit from the enhancements. The menu also offers appetizers such as pork-filled pot stickers, miso soup, and crab rangoon, along with an assortment of bubble milk teas and soft serve ice cream. With locations in both the Central West End and the Delmar Loop, Poke Doke is the perfect spot to grab a quick bite!

CARNIVORE STL

BLK MKT EATS

314.449.6328 5257 SHAW AVE, ST. LOUIS, MO 63110

314.391.5100 9 S. VANDEVENTER AVE. ST. LOUIS, MO 63108

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.

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 coowners Kati Fahrney and Ron Turigliatto offer a casual menu full of high-quality, all-natural ingredients that fit everything you love about sushi and burritos right AVERAGE in your hand. The Swedish Fish layers NOT YOUR SUSHI SPOT Scandinavian cured salmon, yuzu dill slaw, Persian cucumbers and avocado for a fresh flavor explosion.

9 SOUTH VANDEVENTER DINE-IN, TAKEOUT OR DELIVERY MON-SAT 11AM-9PM 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.

CARNIVORE-STL.COM

BLKMKTEATS.COM

CRAWLING CRAB

STIR CRAZY

314.328.3421 6730 PAGE AVE ST. LOUIS, MO 63138

STIRCRAZY.COM

Looking for the best seafood in St. Louis or the Midwest—don’t fret, Crawling Crab is now open! Here, we drizzle everything in garlic butter and then sprinkle on our magic dust! In a fun and casual atmosphere, you’ll enjoy fresh, hand-cleaned seafood ranging from lobster, shrimp, and of course crab legs. All platters come with corn sausage potatoes and Cajun boiled eggs and shrimp that won’t disappoint. For those pasta and veggie lovers out there, there is a spot for you here too! Enjoy our double dipped garlic butter rolls along side with your meal.

And if you are still not stuffed, we have homemade dessert on the menu too! Have a big family coming in or an event coming up? Enjoy our family meal options and our beautiful seafood tables. As we continue to grow, we are excited to add new items to the menu, get creative with new recipes, and give back within the community.

Join us on the first Tuesday of the month for $20 platter specials, and $5 appetizers on every Wild Wednesday!

Open Tuesday thru Saturday 4pm-10pm, currently located in the 24:1 Coffee House Cafe.

36

RIVERFRONT TIMES

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

314.569.9300 10598 OLD OLIVE STREET RD CREVE COEUR, MO 63141 Stir Crazy Asian has been serving the St Louis area for 20 years. The pan-asian fusion style restaurant offers something for everyone. The market bar allows the guest to choose thier own vegetables and sauce, hand it to a chef to wok fry, and get fresh healthy options everytime.

Serving gluten free, vegetarian and keto friendly options, Stir Crazy has tastes for any of your Asian desires from sushi to fried rice. Homemade sauces, fresh vegetables, handrolled crab rangoon and springrolls, bring out the true suttle flavors of Asia. With no MSGs the food will have you feeling great for lunch or dinner. Come see us at 10598 old olive rd. Creve Couer MO.

in a lot of the big music cities — Austin, Nashville, New Orleans — all the scenes in all those towns are kind of unfriendly; it’s not very welcoming. Everyone is competing hardcore against each other,” Lowery says. “It’s the opposite here; it was really easy to crack into. Everybody hangs out all the time and plays with each other.”

Lowery came to St. Louis three years ago. In that time he has held down a regular weekly gig at 1860 Saloon in Soulard and started the Native Sons, an Americana quintet that draws on his Texas roots while dipping into psychedelic tones and existential lyrics. If his youth was spent in fast-playing honky-tonk bands, a more mature Lowery finds wisdom in a slower, more thoughtful pace for his ruminations.

The band will release its debut album Fringe this Sunday at Off Broadway.

Lowery’s gig at 1860 led him to start performing with pianist and harmony vocalist Daniel Turner; from there, other local players joined in: Tom Blood

(LS Xprss, Jesus Christ Supercar) plays drums, Britton Wood (Fighting Side) plays bass, and guitarist Jakob Baxter, whom Lowery calls “the hottest guitar player in St. Louis, at least in this portion of the scene,” rounds out the band.

Lowery returns several times to the idea of community and the all-for-one/ one-for-all support that he finds in the local scene. “We used to throw this thing called Church over at my house every Sunday,” he says. “We’d get together and barbecue and play tunes, so we got to know a lot of people through that.”

It was fitting, then, that the Native Sons chose to record Fringe at Lowery’s house, the site of so much revelry and bonhomie. The group enlisted Kevin Buckley, leader of Grace Basement and, through his connections in the Irish music community, a friend of Lowery’s older brother, to spearhead the recordings.

Lowery says that the band was looking for a “loose, analog sound” and want-

ed to record live in one take. Buckley’s approach was appropriately lo-fi: “He brought over $15,000 worth of equipment and plugged it into a cassette deck,” Lowery says with a laugh.

“The cassette recorder just seemed like the right thing to do for a live band on location,” Buckley says. “Lugging a computer and converters over seemed like a drag; not very exciting. The tape machine is quite portable and simple to use.”

The resulting album has a rangy, livein-the-room feel, but it’s a far cry better than the idea of four-track demos that cassette recording usually connotes. In fact, Buckley fears he may have done a little too good of a job.

“Anyway, it was intended to be a really lo-fi experience; I was almost disappointed that the fidelity was so good,” says Buckley.

Of the songs on Fringe, Lowery says that the album is something of a narrative that tells “a story of despair and redemption.” His struggles back home in Dallas and the brightening of his circumstances in St. Louis helped give shape to the songs’ fall and rise.

“Instead of focusing on my own existential despair, I’m part of this big crazy thing,” Lowery says. “Why don’t I focus on that instead?”

Lowery says that the last two songs on the album, “When I’m Gone” and “Circles Around the Sun,” are his best efforts to sum up his thoughts on the afterlife. He chooses to face the prospect of oblivion on a hopeful and cheery note.

“This universe is all that there is; you’re not going anywhere,” Lowery says.

“You’re going to decay and turn into something else.

“I hope people view it as a positive thing,” he continues. “The fact that we exist at all is insane and wonderful. It blows my mind to think about that stuff; it makes me happy.” n

week, Tef explains that he has mixed emotions about being seen as a figurehead for the movement that followed.

“I feel very blessed and gracious to be in a position to contribute to the city of St. Louis at a time we were really going through something, and I have a lot of respect and reverence for the families of victims of police brutality,” he explains. “But I also feel, in the aftermath of such type of tragedy, that a lot of people took advantage of our city and our willingness to embrace out-of-towners, and our willingness to embrace people that positioned themselves in the midst of the conflict. And all too often, for me on my end, I would have to keep digging even harder to place myself in this ecosystem as an artist, because every year around this time folks call me for interviews basically to exploit the

situation, exploit the city and exploit the family for clickbait and personal gain within their own stories.”

Tef points to the national media types that essentially parachuted into the St. Louis area during the turmoil and, to his mind, used the situation to advance their own careers. Tef, meanwhile, grew up in the area, and his involvement was organic and built out of a love for the city and its people.

“So I really don’t necessarily wanna do media surrounding that because I wanna be respectful to Mike Brown and his family, and I also wanna be respectful to the city,” he says. “I feel as if we do a lot of work in the community 24/7 365, and if we could just get a little bit of that same type of support outside of when it’s glamorous or when it’s convenient to write stories about it, we’d be able

to accomplish even more.”

Meanwhile, Tef is accomplishing plenty on his own — for his students in Jordan, for those he taught at Harvard, for those that benefit from the grassroots organizing in which he participated in St. Louis and beyond. He’s currently in the midst of writing a book about his story titled Rebel to America, to be released by Norton Publishing and touching, in part, on that time in Ferguson. But as far as Tef is concerned, his story, and that of St. Louis at large, still has much more to be told.

“I’m grateful that I was a part of the resistance, and I’m grateful that I played a role in helping our city make history, because I feel like that’s the greatest rebellion of its type that has ever been seen in North America,” he says. “St. Louis made history and will continue to make history. That’s how I feel.” n

[HOMESPUN]

Gone Native Nate Lowery’s psychedelic Americana project Native Sons releases debut album Fringe Written by

CHRISTIAN SCHAEFFER

W

hen Nate Lowery was growing up in Dallas, Texas, his home state’s vast and varied history of country and folk music spoke to him. But if he was to seek out that music, he was going to have a hard time doing it in Dallas.

“The country music scene in Dallas was limited to about one bar,” Lowery says, noting that hip-hop and heavy metal had a bigger market share at the time.

Still, that didn’t stop him from playing in honky-tonk bands and studying the legacy of Texas troubadours like Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt as well as boundarycrossing songwriters like Doug Sahm.

After a while, though, Lowery needed a break from his life in Texas. “Stuff had kind of fallen apart. I was going through a rough time in Dallas and sinking into the pits,” he recalls. “I thought, ‘Man, I needed to make a fucking move.’”

A move to St. Louis — a town he had visited only a few times prior — seemed to be the cure.

“I gave away all my stuff, grabbed my guitar and sleeping bag, and moved up here,” he says. “It worked out great — I love this town.”

For Lowery, St. Louis’ broad and inclusive music scene helped smooth over his transition to a new city. “I’ve spent time

TEF POE IN JORDAN Continued from pg 35

really rose in the summer of 2014 with his activism surrounding the death of Ferguson teenager Mike Brown. Tef was constantly in the streets protesting, and he’s one of the co-founders of Hands Up United, a community organization that sprouted from that activism.

During that time, Tef developed a friendship with noted intellectual Cornel West, who has taught at Harvard himself as well as Princeton and elsewhere, and who was here in St. Louis to protest during what has since been dubbed the Ferguson Uprising. West remains a fan of Tef and even gave him a shoutout during a recent appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast.

With the five-year anniversary of Brown’s death coming this

Nate Lowery had to move from Texas to St. Louis to fully embrace folk and country music. | VIA THE BAND

riverfronttimes.com

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

37

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

@710GLASSCO | 38

RIVERFRONT TIMES

@710GLASSCOMPANY

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

OUT EVERY NIGHT

39

[CRITIC’S PICK]

Sorry, Scout. | VIA ARTIST BANDCAMP

Sorry, Scout 8 p.m. Saturday, August 10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue. $10. 314-773-3363.

When the politically charged quartet Sorry, Scout made its debut with last fall’s Never Asked For It, the group forged a path with propulsive riffs and socially astute lyrics. Vocalist Randi Whitaker is able to take a couple news cycles’ worth of scandals and hashtags and turn them into something potent. With the six-song Barely Waking Up, the band retains its

THURSDAY 8

BACKWASH ALBUM RELEASE PARTY: w/ Pono AM, North by North, the Public 8 p.m., $7. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

BLUES CRUISE: w/ Bike Mike & the Blu City All Stars 8:30 p.m., $22. Gateway Arch Riverboats, 11 N. 4th St., St. Louis.

FARSHID & DAVE BLACK: 8 p.m., $15. Joe’s Cafe, 6014 Kingsbury Ave, St. Louis.

FLORIDA GEORGIA LINE: w/ Dan + Shay, Morgan Wallen 7 p.m. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

I ACTUALLY: w/ Distant Eyes, Sister Wizzard 9 p.m., free. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust St., St. Louis, 314-241-2337.

IVAS JOHN & BRIAN CURRAN: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

KYLE ROWLAND BAND: midnight, $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

MS HY-C & THE FRESH START SHOW BAND: 9:30 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

SMALL TOWN TITANS: 7 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

FRIDAY 9

AENIMUS: w/ Against the Grain 6 p.m., $12.

Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

THE AUGHT NAUGHTS: w/ Opera Bell Band, Jenny Roques 8 p.m., $7. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

BETH BOMBARA ALBUM RELEASE PARTY: w/ Lilly Hiatt, John Calvin Abney 8 p.m., $12-$18. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

zeal while spreading into a broader, more tuneful approach to rock & roll. Opening track “Take It All” rides on speed, fury and the twang/punk attack of Nate Jones’ guitar, while “Freedom’s a Ruse” finds Whitaker predicting a full collapse of social order against a bright, major key riff and a well-harmonized chorus that Vampire Weekend fans might recognize.

Your New Favorite Bands: Local acts Fluorescent and Thames kick off a night of music from relatively new acts.

—Christian Schaeffer

BOOTS, BLUE JEANS & BOOGIE: 7 p.m., free.

Cedar Lake Cellars, 11008 Schreckengast Road, Wright City, 636-745-9500.

FASTER PUSSYCAT: w Bang Tango, Torchlight Parade 8 p.m., $25-$30. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

HAMMER’S HOUSE PARTY: w/ MC Hammer, Sir Mix-a-Lot, Biz Markie, 2 Live Crew, Tone Loc, Tag Team 7:30 p.m., 1 - 125. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

JAMES ARMSTRONG BAND: 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

RADKEY: p.m., 12. The Firebird, 270 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

RIVER BEND BLUEGRASS BAND: 9:30 p.m., free.

The Frisco Barroom, 110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090.

SHARON BEAR & DOUG FOEHNER: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

STEVE DAVIS SUPER BAND: 7:30 p.m., $10-$15.

Ozark Theatre, 103 E. Lockwood Ave., St. Louis, 314-962-7000.

THE TILLERS: w/ Jack Grelle 8 p.m., $12-$15.

Blueberry Hill - The uck Room, 50 elmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

WAR: 8 p.m., $29.50-$57.50. River City Casino & Hotel, 777 River City Casino Blvd., St. Louis, 314-388-7777.

SATURDAY 10

BLUE GROOVE: 9 p.m., free. Nightshift Bar & Grill, 3979 Mexico Road, St. Peters, 636-441-8300.

Continued on pg 41

riverfronttimes.com

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

39

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

GLOCK DAYS

COMING SOON! AUGUST 9TH & 10TH

Glock 19 Gen 4

Glock 17 Gen 4

Glock 43 YOUR HOMETOWN FIREARMS RETAILER FOR OVER 15 YEARS!

VOTED BEST GUN SHOP OF 2015

-2015 RIVERFRONT TIMES BEST OF ST. LOUIS

40

RIVERFRONT TIMES

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

[CRITIC’S PICK]

Brandi Carlile. | ALYSSE GAFKJEN

Brandi Carlile 7:30 p.m. Sunday, August 11. The Fabulous Fox Theatre, 527 North Grand Boulevard. $45 to $88. 314-534-1111.

Brandi Carlile could have been a pop diva on the order of a Celine or Adele (who’s a fan), but the stories she has wanted to tell, from her self-titled debut in 2005 to last year’s Grammy-dominating By the Way, I Forgive You, have always grounded her identity even as her voice shoots for the ionosphere. She’s not afraid to make anthemic statements, whether via country pop or thundering orchestral rock,

OUT EVERY NIGHT Continued from pg 39

BLUEBEAT: 6 p.m., $5. Pop’s Blue Moon, 5249 Pattison Ave., St. Louis, 314-776-4200.

CELEBRATING THE LIFE OF MATT AMELUNG: w/ Fivefold, Story of the Year, Ashland, Greek Fire, Brookroyal, Discrepancies, Isabella, Westcott, Hounds 6 p.m., $20. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

CREE RIDER: 7:30 p.m., $5. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521.

DINOSAUR PILE UP: 8 p.m., $15. Blueberry Hill The uck Room, 50 elmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

DIZZY ATMOSPHERE: 6 p.m., $16. Missouri Botanical Garden, 4344 Shaw Blvd., St. Louis, 314-577-9400.

KSHE PIG ROAST 2019: w/ Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators, Ratt, Blue Oyster Cult, April Wine, Shaman’s Harvest, Shooting Star, Missouri, Royal Bliss, the Black Moods 5 p.m., $19.95-$150. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

PEPPERLAND BEATLES REVUE: 8 p.m., $10. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

ROCKY & THE WRANGLERS: 4 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

SKEET RODGERS & INNER CITY BLUES: 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

SORRY, SCOUT EP RELEASE: 9 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

THUNDER FROM DOWN UNDER: 8 p.m., $20.

River City Casino & Hotel, 777 River City Casino Blvd., St. Louis, 314-388-7777.

UNDERGROUND STYLES: 4:30 p.m., $10. Fubar,

but those songs always emerge from the truth of her experience and art, from a personal struggle with the agonizing fact of human cruelty and the bittersweet recognition that forgiveness is the only way out. Her voice and her songs never forget. Experiencing them live is a thrilling, healing experience.

Ready for Whatever’s Next: Opener Valerie June has yet to break into the mainstream, but her stunning presence, piercing voice and increasingly wide-ranging way with Americana styles suggest it’s just a matter of time.

—Roy Kasten

3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

THE YELLOW BELLIED SAPSUCKERS: 8 p.m., $15.

Joe’s Cafe, 6014 Kingsbury Ave, St. Louis.

YONDER MOUNTAIN STRING BAND: w/ Arkansauce p.m., 2 .50- 32.50. The Pageant, 1 1 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

SUNDAY 11

ANDREW BELLE: 8 p.m., $17. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

BRANDI CARLILE: w/ Valerie June 7:30 p.m., $45. The Fox Theatre, 527 N. rand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111.

CHUCK FLOWERS & ACOUSTIC SOUL: 5 p.m., $15.

BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

JAMESTOWN REVIVAL: 8 p.m., $17.50-$20.

Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: 8 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

MOZZY: 8 p.m., $25-$50. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

PENTATONIX: w/ Rachel Platten 7 p.m., $29.50$129.50. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

RINGWORM: w/ Extinctionism 8 p.m., $12.

Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

SCATTERED HAMLET: w Cacodyl, Evan Thomas, Hubb and the Heavy Hearts :30 p.m., . The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

TIM CUNNINGHAM: 2 p.m., $15. Mount Pleasant Estates, 5634 High St., Augusta, 800-467-9463.

MONDAY 12

THE ALARM: w/ Modern English, Gene Loves Jezebel 7 p.m., $35-$40. Delmar Hall, 6133

Continued on pg 43

riverfronttimes.com

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

41

42

RIVERFRONT TIMES

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

[CRITIC’S PICK]

Pinback. | VIA TOUCH AND GO RECORDS

Pinback 8 p.m. Tuesday, August 13. Old Rock House, 1200 South Seventh Street. $25.

314-588-0505.

“I have come to the realization that making music in this climate is financially irresponsible to my family and ultimately humiliating to my psyche,” Rob Crow wrote on Twitter back in 2015. “I’m going to finish and release the work I’ve already spent my heart and tears on, but even that is likely to ruin me.” Either the Pinback co-founder was lying when he made that crushing proclamation (unlikely) or he is still working through a wealth of material still to be released (far more

OUT EVERY NIGHT Continued from pg 41

Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

GARY CLARK JR.: p.m., 35.50. The Fox Theatre, 527 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111.

MUSIC UNLIMITED: 8 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

TUESDAY 13

DOUBLE VISION REVISITED: w/ David Sanborn, Bob James and Marcus Miller 7:30 p.m., $440. The Sheldon, 3 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900.

PINBACK: 8 p.m., $25. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

ROLAND JOHNSON & SOUL ENDEAVOR: 8 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

WEDNESDAY 14

BIG RICH MCDONOUGH & THE RHYTHM RENEGADES: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

DIVERSE CULTURE: 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

MARK ROSE: w/ Ryan Dunson 6 p.m., $12.

Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

THIS JUST IN 98 DEGREES: Sun., Oct. 27, 7:30 p.m., TBA. River City Casino & Hotel, 777 River City Casino Blvd., St. Louis, 314-388-7777.

BOYZ II MEN: Fri., Sept. 27, 8 p.m., $49.50-

likely), but in any case, fans are surely rejoicing that the man is still taking his ethereal indie rock act on the road four years later. 2019 marks the fifteen-year anniversary of the band’s 2004 release Summer in Abaddon, for which Touch and Go Records is releasing a special reissue. Expect songs from that album, as well as plenty more from the group’s twenty-plus-year career.

A Cellular Level: Los Angeles’ Nick Reinhart will open the show; his latest release, July’s Cellular Music, is a 150-track affair meant to serve as ringtones and text message notifications on your cellphone. It will be interesting to see how that translates live.

—Daniel Hill 12 .50. The Fox Theatre, 527 N. rand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111.

BRIAN MCCLELLAND’S NO THUNDER: W/ Cherokee Moon, Dutch Courage, Sat., Aug. 24, 8 p.m., free.

Livery Company, 6728 S Broadway, St. Louis, 314-558-2330.

DEAD RIDER: W/ R6 Implant, Fri., Sept. 6, 8 p.m., 10. The Firebird, 270 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

I ACTUALLY: W/ Distant Eyes, Sister Wizzard, Thu., Aug. , p.m., free. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust St., St. Louis, 314-241-2337.

IVAS JOHN & BRIAN CURRAN: Thu., Aug. , 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

KIM FULLER PERFORMS THE MUSIC OF BILLIE HOLIDAY: Sat., Aug. 17, p.m., 10- 15. Ozark Theatre, 103 E. Lockwood Ave., St. Louis, 314-962-7000.

KRIS KRISTOFFERSON: Wed., Nov. 20, 8 p.m., $28+. River City Casino & Hotel, 777 River City Casino Blvd., St. Louis, 314-388-7777.

MY MUSIC MY CHOICE: A BENEFIT FOR PLANNED PARENTHOOD: Fri., Sept. 6, 5:30 p.m., $10.

Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

NEW POLITICS: W Plain White T’s, The Mowgli’s, Wed., Nov. 13, 7:30 p.m., $27.50-$30. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

ROLAND JOHNSON & SOUL ENDEAVOR: Tue., Aug. 13, 8 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

SKEET RODGERS & INNER CITY BLUES: Sat., Aug. 10, 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

SONGBIRD CAFE: W Emily Wallace, Tommy Halloran, Devon Cahill, Ryne Watts, Wed., Aug. 2 , 7:30 p.m., 1 - 23. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. n

riverfronttimes.com

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

43

44

RIVERFRONT TIMES

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

SAVAGE LOVE BOUNDARIES

BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: I’m a 42-year-old single, straight female who recently started dating a 36-year-old man in a somewhat exclusive, long-distance relationship. We have known each other for a short time, but have clocked hours upon hours on the phone. I have specifically stated many times I don’t want kids of my own (he does), am extremely safety conscious (only when I see someone’s STI results and know we’re 100 percent monogamous will I go “bareback”), and am against hormonal contraception.

Therefore, I’ve insisted on the use of condoms since our very first encounter, which he at first reluctantly agreed to, but has since obliged without incident. He is expressively into me and treats me better than any guy I’ve dated: cooks for me, gives me massages, buys me gifts, showers me with compliments, listens to me at any hour of the night, and has shown nothing but respect towards me since Day 1.

Until our last sexual encounter.

He woke me up in the morning clearly aroused and ready for sexy time.

He asked if he could enter me, and after I said yes, I grabbed a condom for him and he put it on. We were spooning at the time so he entered me from behind. At one point early in the encounter, I reached back to grab his hand, and all of a sudden, felt the condom he had been wearing laid out on the bed. Shocked and outraged, I immediately stopped and turned to him asking, “Why did you take this off?” To which he replied, “Because I wanted to cum faster.” All I could muster back was, “Do you have any idea how bad that is? I can’t even look at you.” I covered my eyes and cried uncontrollably for a few minutes.

After getting dressed, showering, and exiting without a word, I started to process the atrocity of his actions. It’s clear that he does not respect me, my body, my health, or my reproductive choices, and made his physical pleasure as top priority.

He has apologized profusely, been emotional about his actions, and has definite remorse. After sending him several articles on how it’s criminal (including the one about the German man who got eight months in jail for

stealthing), he now seems to grasp the severity. It’s hard to reconcile his consistent respect for me with a bold and disrespectful act like this.

The best case is that he’s a dumbass, the worst being that his respect and care for me is all a facade and I’ve been a fool. Is there any reason I should consider continuing to see this guy? Is it remotely forgivable?

Stealthed On Suddenly Nope.

Someone is probably gonna jump into the comments thread to make the obvious (and objectively true) point that anything is forgivable. People have forgiven worse — I mean, there are mothers out there who’ve forgiven the people that murdered their children. But moms who’ve found it within themselves to forgive their children’s murderers ... yeah, they don’t have to live with, take meals with, or sleep with their children’s murderers. I’m not saying that forgiving the person who murdered your kid is easy (I wouldn’t be able to do it), but most people who’ve “forgiven worse” never have to lay eyes on the person they forgave again.

So while it may be true that people have forgiven worse, SOS, I don’t think you should forgive this. And here’s why: You only just started dating this guy and all the good qualities you listed — everything that made him seem like a good, decent, lovely, and possibly loving guy (the cooking, the massages, the compliments, etc.) — is the kind of best-foot-forward fronting a person does at the start of a new relationship. Not only is there nothing wrong with that, SOS, but you wouldn’t want to date someone who didn’t do that at the start … because the kind of person who doesn’t make the effort to impress early in a relationship is the kind of person who can’t be bothered to make any effort later in the relationship.

We all erect those facades, SOS, but some people are slapping those facades on slums you wouldn’t wanna live in, while others are slapping them on what turns out to be pretty decent housing. And if I may continue to torture this metaphor: When the first cracks appear in the facade, which they inevitably do, and you get a peek behind it, you aren’t a fool if it turns out there’s a slum there.

We all erect facades, but some people are slapping those facades on slums you wouldn’t wanna live in.

You’re only a fool if you move in instead of moving on.

Anyway, SOS, everybody fronts, but eventually, those facades fall away and you get to see people for who and what they really are.

And the collapse of your new boyfriend’s facade revealed him to be a selfish and uncaring asshole with no respect for your body or your boundaries. He was on his best behavior until he sensed your guard was down, at which point he violated and sexually assaulted you. Those aren’t flaws you can learn to live with or actions you can excuse. Move on.

Hey, Dan: I am a 27-year-old man in an open marriage with a wonderful partner. They’re my best friend, I smile whenever they walk into the room, and we have a ton in common.

We don’t, however, have that much sex. I’m currently seeing someone else and our sex is great. We’ve explored some light BDSM and pegging, and I’m finding myself really enjoying being a sub. I’m kind of terrified that, as a man, I might accidentally violate someone’s boundaries. I’m also autistic, which makes navigating cues from partners rather difficult. Completely submitting to someone else weirdly makes me feel totally safe and free for kind of the first time. The problem is, my spouse is also pretty subby. When they do try to initiate sex, it’s often so subtle that I totally miss the signals. In the past month, I’ve had sex with my spouse maybe once, compared to four or five times with my other partner. My question is this: Have you seen examples of people in open marriages who essentially fulfill their sexual needs with secondary partners, while still maintaining a happy companionable partnership with their primary?

Sexually Understanding Butt-Boy

riverfronttimes.com

45

I’ve personally known people in loving, happy, sexless marriages who aren’t leading sexless lives; their marriages are companionate — some can even be described as passionate — but both halves seek sexual fulfillment with secondary, tertiary, quaternary, etc., partners. But companionate open marriages only work when it’s what both partners want … and your partner’s feelings are conspicuously absent from your letter. How do they feel about being in a sexless or nearly sexless marriage? Your spouse would seem to be interested in having sex with you — they occasionally try to initiate — but perhaps your spouse is just going through the motions because they think it’s what you want.

So … you’re gonna need to have a conversation with your spouse about your sex lives. If you’ve found being told what to do in unsubtle ways by your Dominant second partner to be sexually liberating, SUBB, you could ask your spouse to be a little less subtle when they want initiate — or, better yet, ask them not to be subtle at all. Nowhere is it written that subs like you and your spouse have to be subtle or sly or stand there waiting for others to initiate. “I am feeling horny and I’d really like to have sex tonight” is something submissives can and do say.

Hey, Everybody: The deadline is right around the corner to submit short films — five minutes or less — to HUMP!, my dirty little film festival Your HUMP film can be hardcore, softcore, liveaction, animated, kinky, vanilla, gay, straight, lesbian, trans, enby: everyone and everything is welcome in HUMP And HUMP films are only screened in theaters — we don’t release anything online — so you can be a porn star in a movie theater for a weekend without having to be a porn star for eternity on the internet! The deadline to submit your film is September 13! Go to humpfilmfest.com to find out more about entering HUMP! Listen to Dan at savagelovecast.com mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage on Twitter ITMFA.org

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

45

46

RIVERFRONT TIMES

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

riverfronttimes.com

AUGUST 7-13, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

47

HAPPY HOUR SPECIALS HAPPY HOUR

CARNIVORE A PLACE TO MEAT

Located in the historic Hill neighborhood of Saint Louis, Missouri, Carnivore STL is a flame-grilled steakhouse for the people of casual American dining from the esteemed Italian families of the Hill.

Carnivore is one of St. Louis’ most popular new restaurants and brings something unique to the Hill, a steakhouse. They take pride in their steak, and offer a few different cuts along with delicious house made butter.

Whether it was required to be part of the group of restaurants, or they just felt obligated, Carnivore offers some Italian dishes that could compete with anyone in the neighborhood as well.

Part of their unique offering is their fantastic happy hour, offered every Tuesday through Friday from 4- pm.

Carnivore offers $ domestic beers, $4.50 house wines, $5 premium rail

SPONSORED CONTENT

drinks, and $ martinis. Hungry? Try their steak medallions, arancini balls, luganiga sliders, and various flatbreads.

Every Tuesday, they like to put a spin on happy hour with Taco Tuesday featuring $ tacos, a specialty margarita of the week and a loaded taco flatbread. This deal lasts all night.

Speaking of drinking, Carnivore is offering some exciting new drinks just in time for winter including the Winter Paloma Una ida tequila, cranberry juice, pomegranate juice, topped with club, or their Cocoa Martini vanilla vodka, hot chocolate mix, cocoa liquor, topped with mini marshmallows, and finally the Carnivore Kringle vodka, peach schnapps, and cranberry juice.

Carnivore, a place to meat. See you there!

CARNIVORE | 525 SHAW A ENUE | CARNIVORE-STL.COM

St. Louis’ ONLY Axe Throwing Bar and Grill FREE Axe Throwing with Food and Beverage Purchase!

720 N. 1ST ST, ST. LOUIS, MO 63102