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THE LEDE
PHOTO BY THEO WELLING
“It’s moments like these where we’re actually able to see the progress and celebrate it and it doesn’t always feel like we are kinda drowning, in a sense. It’s like, this is our win. We’re moving a stratosphere. We’re making progress!” YAQKEHA WITHERSPOON, PHOTOGRAPHED AT CORI BUSH’S CAMPAIGN HEADQUARTERS AFTER BUSH BEAT TEN-TERM U.S. CONGRESSMAN LACY CLAY ON AUGUST 4. riverfronttimes.com
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News Dump
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hoehorning everything we want to tell you into this paper is easier some weeks than others. This was one of the hard weeks. The last seven days have been a blur. Cori Bush’s historic victory over seemingly unbeatable U.S. Rep. Lacy Clay was the obvious choice for the cover, but you should definitely read Ray Hartmann on the decision of white Democrats in the state Senate to support Gov. Mike Parson’s election-year stunt of a crime bill — even as every Black senator voted against it. (We’ve got more coverage online of Parson’s latest attempt to undermine St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner.) And then there’s Daniel Hill on the bombshell accusations at St. Louis Public Radio, where reporters and producers of color say discrimination is part of the culture. There’s plenty more inside. As always, thanks for picking up the RFT.
— Doyle Murphy, editor in chief
TABLE OF CONTENTS CAN’T
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Publisher Chris Keating Editor in Chief Doyle Murphy
E D I T O R I A L Digital Editor Jaime Lees Hero In A Hot Dog Suit Daniel Hill Contributors Trenton Almgren-Davis, Cheryl Baehr, Eric Berger, Jeannette Cooperman, Thomas Crone, Mike Fitzgerald, Judy Lucas, Noah MacMillan, Andy Paulissen, Justin Poole, Christian Schaeffer, Chris Ward, Theo Welling, Danny Wicentowski, Nyara Williams, Ymani Wince Columnist Ray Hartmann A R T
& P R O D U C T I O N Art Director Evan Sult Editorial Layout Haimanti Germain Production Manager Haimanti Germain M U L T I M E D I A A D V E R T I S I N G Advertising Director Colin Bell Senior Account Executive Cathleen Criswell Account Managers Emily Fear, Jennifer Samuel Multimedia Account Executive Jackie Mundy
COVER
C I R C U L A T I O N Circulation Manager Kevin G. Powers
The Audacity of Tenacity Cori Bush’s road to the U.S. Congress
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
Cover photograph by
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THEO WELLING
INSIDE The Lede Hartmann News Feature: Cori Bush Feature: The House of Miles Short Orders Culture Savage Love 6
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HARTMANN Betraying Black Senators White Democrats in the senate ditched Black colleagues to support Parson’s crime bill BY RAY HARTMANN
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he noted philosopher Bill Maher once observed the following: “It is one thing to bring a nife to a gunfight. he Democrats are bringing a covered dish.” hat observation came to mind last week when the votes were tallied in the Missouri Senate for 1, the special-session measure that should have been summari ed series of cosmetic twea s and rewording of existing statutes for the purpose of helping the governor loo tough on crime in the coming election.” Here’s how the scoreboard read: Yea , o . Here’s how the scoreboard read, bro en down by race white Democrats Yea 5- . lac Democrats o - . hite epublicans Yea - one absent . lac epublicans don’t have any. he date ugust , two days before the sixth anniversary of Michael rown’s death in Ferguson. he Democrats in Missouri can spin this any way they wish. ut they obviously feared the wrath of Caucasian Missouri voters and sent the lac community a clear message that believe it has grown weary of hearing: “Sorry, but this is a tough vote. e now you’ll support us anyway.” Far be it from me as a white guy to spea for the lac community. Instead, I spoke to the three Black state senators from t. ouis. hat was appalling to me was to see such a great divide — white against Black — in which white Democrats stood alongside white epublicans against lac officials who understand the plight of what is happening in their own communities,” en. Jamilah asheed told me. hey are hurting
teenagers who haven’t even had their minds developed to thin rationally about the things that they do.” hen there was this from en. rian illiams his horrible bill doesn’t do anything to tac le violent crime or otherwise ma e our community safer, and it will hurt children around the state, especially lac children. t was purely the governor trying to pull a political stunt.” illiams, too, was acutely aware that all of his white colleagues had opposed the state’s only Black senators, but less direct than Nasheed in his reaction: “You’ll have to ask them.” Finally, there was en. arla May, who said, hen you begin to loo at criminal ustice reform through the eyes of an African merican, that is when Missouri will begin to move forward for positive change. he statistics ust don’t support the ideology of tough-on-crime measures when you have percent of uveniles who are tried as adults are African mericans.” he added on Faceboo , he tragedy is that we all should have stuc together and voted no.” ll five white Democrats care about the lac community and all will be aghast at the analysis of the vote along racial lines, but it’s inescapable. asheed reminded me of an old uotation f you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” n this case, the Democrats have fallen for a hollow legislative charade that contradicts all the nice words spoken, even by many epublicans, in the aftermath of eorge Floyd’s death on May 5. hat happened to lac ives Matter, police reform and the transformational social movement across racial lines hat happened to the national Democratic position that more resources are needed for attacking the root causes of crime and not for trying to over-police its symptoms ow did the concerns about systemic racism in policing suddenly vapori e et me tell you who didn’t forget about all that he three lac senators who are part of the seventeen-member Missouri lac egislative aucus. t had forcefully called on Parson to convene
the special session on crime to address police-reform issues such as banning chokeholds and greater accountability for bad cops. Parson told the Black Caucus members they could ta e a hi e. f white Democrats uttered a peep in the legislature, missed it. rivately, they’ll say they were trying to eep arson from employing a more nuclear option a concurrent urisdiction” bill that would effectively allow Attorney eneral ric chmitt to usurp the authority of t. ouis ircuit ttorney im ardner on matters of violent crime. On Monday, Parson plowed ahead with that plan anyway. e wants chmitt to be able to step in on what he claims is a bac log of murder cases, potentially including cases that ardner has deemed too wea to ta e to trial. he white Democratic senators are trying to rationalize that they made the best of a bad situation by trying to filibuster and scoring inside-baseball victories over a sentence here and there. ee en. cott ifton’s Faceboo page if you’d li e some of that. As laid out in this space last week, all the talk about cracking down on twelve-to-sixteenyear-olds was fog. xisting law already mandated adult-certification hearings for young kids charged with murder and several other violent crimes. othing was materially changed with this bill. n unintended conse uence for Parson was the outrage of everyone finding out that twelveand thirteen-year-olds were getting mandatory adult certifications for any crimes at all, and the Democrats’ victory” was to get that raised to fourteen. ut the bottom line is that not a word of this is going to prevent a single crime. Meanwhile, as illiams pointed out, the best part of the bill — better witness protection — is undermined by the failure to advance a single initiative that in any way will diminish the distrust for police that is rampant in the lac community. o, it sounds nice but won’t accomplish much. Parson’s signature achievement, at the behest of Mayor yda rewson, was to go full etter ogether on the city by having the state blow up a city-residency re-
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uirement for police officers. he residency re uirement which I’ve opposed for decades, by the way is on the ovember ballot. ow the state’s imposition of it will supersede whatever the voters decide. o much for the epublican orthodoxy about “government closest to home.” n the Democratic side, if this was a strategy, a new strategist is in order. t’s one thing to lay low in one of the twelve states most unsupportive of M by a percent margin contrasted with national approval of by 39 percent), according to the latest ivi s research. hat doesn’t ustify doing the wrong thing with the loo of ittle Dixie. For enator Jill chupp, it was what legislators term a bad vote,” apparently intended to avoid handing ongresswoman nn agner a cudgel she could use against her in their 2nd district congressional race. he district is ust percent lac , and rump carried it by ten points in 1 oo olitical eport says the 2020 house race is too close to call — and I get that the moderate chupp wants to loo moderate. ews flash to Democrats agner will lie about Schupp being soft on crime without the help of a principled vote. agner did, after all, boast that she had voted to support criminal ustice reform after voting no on the eorge Floyd Justice in olicing ct. ow did she accomplish that he messaged that she had voted for epublican enator im cott’s anti-crime measure. ven though she’s not in the . . enate. o be clear, chupp would ma e a dramatically better congresswoman than the duplicitous agner. chupp really would wor across the aisle like she has done in the Missouri enate, something the nation needs. ut on 1, she cooperated to a fault. You can be certain that most or all of the fourteen ouse members of the Black Caucus will voice frustration with the senate waste product when their chamber ta es it up. ill their white colleagues desert them, too t’s a shame Democrats aren’t willing to fight for what they believe in li e epublicans do. he problem isn’t with their hearts. t’s with their spines. n
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Public Radio Employees Allege Racism Written by
DANIEL HILL
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n a pair of posts published Friday on Medium, employees of St. Louis Public Radio (KWMU 90.7 FM) have alleged that there is a culture of racism at the station. Multiple staffers and former staffers tweeted in support of the posts. That included science reporter and Story Collider producer Eli Chen who also announced her departure. “After 4 years @stlpublicradio, next week will be my last,” Chen wrote on Twitter. “This was a hard choice, since I loved being a local science reporter. But STLPR’s leaders need to change the station’s toxic culture or journalists of color will continue to leave.” Accompanying her tweet is a post on Medium entitled “Racism Exists At St. Louis Public Radio. Acknowledge it.” The byline is listed as “STLPR Reporters & Producers of Color.” The post alleges a culture of racism at the station that results in its employees of color being marginalized and unsupported by senior leadership. “Since 2013, the station has hired about 20 journalists of color to work in the newsroom and on the We Live Here podcast,” reads the post in part. “More than half of them have since left the organization. e consistently have to fight our editors to get stories about race and communities of color told with nuance and accuracy.” In addition to that post, a second article was penned by Marissanne Lewis-Thompson, the station’s afternoon newscaster. Titled “Complicit, Complacent, Or Racist Adjacent — I’m Not Here For Any Of It,” Lewis-Thompson, who is Black, echoes those concerns, saying she feels “betrayed” by the station. “I’ve read a lot of disheartening and downright disturbing threads
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Current and former staffers say station management hasn’t addressed problems. | DOYLE MURPHY about the public media industry,” Lewis-Thompson writes. “Journalists of color have been mistreated, dismissed, and blackballed for speaking out about the deep-seated systemic racism and discrimination in this industry. It bothers me that their very REAL concerns are being minimized.” Both posts mention that a group of employees had submitted a formal letter to general manager Tim Eby raising concerns about Robert B. Peterson III, the station’s now-former director of radio programming and operations. LewisThompson writes that more than two dozen employees had signed the letter, which called for Peterson’s departure and was delivered to Eby on July 1. She writes that Peterson discriminated against Jade Harrell, a member of the programming team and the station’s sole Black on-air announcer, by denying her opportunities and treating her differently than white employees. “Robert accused her of cheating her timesheet for showing up 15 minutes early for her shifts,” Lewis-Thompson writes. “She showed up at the exact same time
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as her white colleagues who were on that shift. Robert then tried to force her to sign a document to confirm that she was committed’ to her job. When she refused, he withheld training and advancement opportunities from her. Roughly seven months after Jade was hired, Robert hired another part-time on-air announcer. This new employee — a white woman — was trained to host the midday and Morning Edition shifts within two months.” She says that they’d hoped Eby would hold Peterson accountable for his actions. “That did not happen,” LewisThompson writes. “Instead, Tim announced Robert’s retirement on July 21. Instead of acknowledging the harm, Tim noted in an email obert’s unwavering enthusiasm for St. Louis Public Radio and the people in this organization.’ A retirement celebration for Robert was canceled only after repeated complaints from staff.” Lewis-Thompson also alleges multiple instances of racism she experienced personally at the station while Eby was present — but silent. In November 2018, she writes,
Eby approached Lewis-Thompson’s desk and introduced her to one of the station’s donors, a white woman, who commented, “I’m so happy they hired someone who looks like you.” Lewis-Thompson was taken aback, left wondering what her skin color has to do with her ability to do her job. “And while she continued to focus on my loo s,’ was loo ing at my general manager, hoping he would speak up,” she writes. “Tim did nothing but make a face and turn his head away. Others who heard the comment didn’t say anything either. I found out later this same donor had said problematic things to my other Black colleagues including that they didn’t sound lac ’ on the radio.” Lewis-Thompson says Eby later apologized, in April 2019, for the incident after other employees of color confronted station management about problematic donors and sources. The station went through a two-day diversity training program in June 2019, which Lewis-Thompson describes as “useless.” In August, Lewis-Thompson says, she had another awkward encounter with a person Eby had just introduced to her. She says she was in the station’s lobby when Eby, who was standing with an elderly Black man and a white man, called her out by name. “He introduced me. We talked for a bit,” she writes. “Then the Black man said I wasn’t what he pictured. I asked what he meant. e said, You don’t sound, you know, ethnic.’ “I was stunned,” she continues. “Once again, I waited for Tim’s reaction. I was hoping he would say something to the man right then and there. When that didn’t happen, I thought Tim would at least acknowledge what happened as we rode the elevator together immediately afterward. He didn’t. Only after I had posted on Facebook about the comment did he apologize — an hour later.” Though Peterson and Eby face the brunt of criticism from both Medium articles, they are not the only members of leadership who are called out by name. Executive Editor Shula Neuman is mentioned in both posts — the group bylined article notes an incident wherein a Black reporter was offered an opportunity to travel with a youth group to Virginia to
report on the anniversary of the first frican slaves being brought there in 1619. The post alleges that Neuman denied the reporter’s request for housing and food, saying that the story wasn’t “big enough or worth covering.” It also says that the team of journalists chosen to report on the five-year anniversary of the death of Michael Brown did not initially include the station’s sole Black male reporter, and that Neuman “said this reporter had not demonstrated the ability to tell these kinds of stories.” Lewis-Thompson, meanwhile, writes that Neuman was aware that an unnamed supervisor treated her differently than anyone else in the office. “I noticed how the supervisor was supportive of my white colleagues and their story ideas,” she writes. “I noticed that every time they spoke to me, they’d sigh and their body language would change. I noticed how they were quick to count me out and not give
me opportunities to prove myself.” Lewis-Thompson brought these concerns to Neuman, who said she’d talk with the supervisor. But the issues persisted, she says. “Shula and I had many informal chec -ins’ that year,” she writes. told her that this person’s behavior could be seen as implicit bias. She said she believed what I was telling her. Then off-handedly she said the person’s actions were ind of racist.’ The three of us talked a lot in 2018. Things did get better.” In Lewis-Thompson’s view, though, the situation with the supervisor should never have been allowed to get as bad as it did. “The moment Shula saw that there was an issue, she should have dealt with it,” Lewis-Thompson writes. “She should have pulled me aside and asked if things were okay. She didn’t. Her inaction led to unnecessary trauma.” The RFT asked Eby for comment on the allegations in the Medium posts and Chen’s departure. In response, he emailed the following
“I asked what he meant. He said, ‘You don’t sound, you know, ethnic.’” statement: “Just as St. Louis Public Radio has reported on issues of racial inequality in our society, we too have a responsibility to carefully examine and address issues of diversity, equity and inclusion within our own organization. “We are not unlike other newsrooms across the country who are re-examining the experiences of people of color in our ranks and we are dedicated to learning more and finding improvements in our processes as well as our practices to support a welcoming and inclusive environment.”
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The group bylined article closes by asking the station’s leadership to acknowledge their issues with racism and take action. It stops short of calling for a financial boycott, though. “After reading this, we’re aware that you might consider pulling your donations, but please be aware that could hurt reporters’ livelihoods more than it would hurt leadership, whose jobs are more secure than ours,” the post reads. “We’re asking you to share our story, ask questions, and demand action from leadership at St. Louis Public Radio.” Meanwhile, Lewis-Thompson has made clear she has no plans to allow the allegations to be swept under the rug. “If I am terminated or face retaliation for speaking out, please know that my integrity is intact,” she writes. “As a journalist, my job is to hold ALL in power accountable. Our general manager and senior leadership team are not exempt from that.” n
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THE AUDACITY OF TENACITY CORI BUSH’s Road to the U.S. Congress 10
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O BY DOYLE MURPHY
n primary night two years ago, Cori Bush wiped away tears, climbed on the stage of a strip mall comedy club reserved for the evening and thanked everyone who had supported her campaign.
The watch party that began with the buzz of nervous optimism had shifted over a couple of hours to despair as vote totals pinged across phones and laptops, showing U.S. Representative Lacy Clay steamrolling toward his tenth term in Congress. “The results came in, and it was like the air was taken away from us,” recalls Anthony Sanders, 53, who had been a Bush volunteer since her 2016 run for the U.S. Senate. Few had expected much out of the Senate race. Bush was taking on Democratic golden boy Jason Kander, who at the time was the Missouri secretary of state and much discussed as a presidential contender in the future. So when she finished in distant second, less than four points ahead of Chief Wana Dubie, no one was too hurt. But in 2018, she had legit buzz. Less than two months earlier, a 28-year-old bartender named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had shocked the world by knocking out a seemingly untouchable New York congressman. AOC had visited St. Louis after her victory and campaigned for Bush, and the supporters packed into the Laugh Lounge had hoped to witness a second strike of political lightning. But Clay was even stronger than they imagined, winning by nearly twenty points. “I think we were devastated,” Kristine Hendrix says. “I was devastated. I cried.” Hendrix had met Bush as a fellow activist in Ferguson after eighteenyear-old Michael Brown was killed in 1 by a white police officer. And the two were part of a wave of protesters to cross over as political candidates. endrix was the first to break through, winning a seat on University City’s school board in 2015 and again four months before Bush’s primary against Clay. She thought Bush had a real shot.
“I think I was kind of in a U City bubble,” Hendrix says now. “But I was also really hopeful.” In retrospect, that loss to Clay in 2018 feels like just another plot point in a steady progression toward Bush’s headline-grabbing victory last week in the rematch against the congressman. But that night in 2018, when the Laugh Lounge turned suddenly somber and heartbroken supporters wept in their seats, there was no guarantee that the nurse-turnedcandidate had any political future at all. She had thrown everything she had against Clay, and he walked away smiling. “Usually when you run the second time, you do worse,” St. Louis University political science professor Kenneth Warren says. But over the following months, Bush and her supporters looked at the 53,250 votes cast in her favor, the connections she’d made through the district, the national profile they’d built and they began to envision a different ending to a potential rematch with Clay. “You don’t beat a giant with one punch,” Hendrix says, “and that was definitely a giant.”
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t’s true that Lacy Clay is a giant of Missouri politics ten straight terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, seventeen years in state legislature before that, chair of a subcommittee for the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services. It is also true that he stands on the shoulders of another giant, his father. When William “Bill” Clay decided after 32 years in Congress to step aside in 2000, residents of Missouri’s First Congressional District made the easy transition to voting for his son. By then, the elder Clay had built an impressive political machine. His power was derived from his early roots in city politics and activism, cementing his bona fides
as a fighter and civil rights leader during the Jefferson Bank protests of 1963 when he was arrested and jailed in the city Workhouse for more than 100 days. He was a St. Louis alderman at the time, and even after decamping to Washington, D.C., he kept a close watch on local politics all the way down to the committeeman level. “He had a very well-oiled organization,” says Warren, who helped Bill Clay write one of his many books and got to know the family. “He knew everyone in his district.” As a U.S. representative, he cofounded the Congressional Black Caucus, which became an established source of political muscle. And when upstart politicians such as Bush started to primary incumbent Democrats, including his caucus member son, Bill Clay wasn’t pleased. After the vote in 2018, he chided them in a newspaper interview for challenging sitting Democrats at a time when the party’s top enemies were Donald Trump and his enablers. “They are attacking Democrats instead of going after the Republicans who sit there in the Congress and let this idiot in the White House do what he wants to do,” the elder Clay told St. Louis PostDispatch veteran political reporter Chuck Raasch less than a week after the 2018 primary. When it came to his son’s victory over Bush, Bill Clay offered an assessment that seemed as much a warning to would-be challengers as it was political analysis. “What it says is that an outsider like that can’t come into our district anymore and dictate what is going to be,” he told Raasch. “(Ocasio-Cortez) is the party of Bernie Sanders. She went across the country, he did too, and the results have shown they didn’t influence too many people.”
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ne of the problems with launching a rematch campaign is trying not only to rekindle the energy of supporters, but to increase it and draw in more. That’s tough to do after even a close race. After a blowout by nearly twenty points? Almost impossible. Anthony Sanders, the longtime volunteer, says he signed on to help once again, but he was wary
Cori Bush celebrates after beating the unbeatable U.S. Congressman Lacy Clay. | THEO WELLING
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after the 2018 defeat. “I went to [Bush] and I told her, ‘I’m going to put my heart into this, but after this, I’ll have to move on to something else, because I just don’t believe that the people of St. Louis are ready for change,’” he says. But Bush got a huge boost in January 1 , five months after she’d lost to Clay, when the documentary Knock Down the House premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. It was an instant success, winning the Festival Favorite ward. he film trails four underdog congressional candidates, including Ocasio-Cortez and Bush, through the 2018 primary. Weeks after the film’s debut, Deadline reported that etflix had bought the rights for $10 million, believed to be a Sundance record at the time. Much of the buzz centered on Ocasio-Cortez, the only one of the four featured candidates to win her race. But Bush and St. Louis were treated to serious screen time. hen etflix released the documentary to the streaming world that May, the effect was nearly instantaneous. “I think the campaign started feeling different after Knock Down the House,” says Sanders, who had already noticed an influx of talented young staffers and volunteers. “Once that made it to etflix, everything changed. think it was a game changer.” It wasn’t just name recognition — although campaign workers say it made a huge difference. It personalized Bush and gave her a forum to explain her reasons for running. She had always had a compelling backstory as a single mom who had lived out of her Ford Explorer for a time and worked low-wage jobs to support her kids, eventually earning a nursing degree. But many residents in the district — if they new her new her for fiery speeches during protests. That changed when Knock Down the House started streaming. “When I started knocking doors for this race, people were like, ‘Oh, I saw you in that movie,’” Bush told St. Louis On the Air host Sarah Fenske last week. It was also a fundraising boon. Clay still took in more money — $740,500 to her $562,300 — but Bush raised more than four times the amount she did during the 2018 primary. And she was backed by the increasingly powerful liberal political action committee Justice Democrats, which
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Cori Bush marches in 2017 with the family Anthony Lamar Smith, a Black man killed by a white St. Louis police officer. | DOYLE MURPHY
“Cori was at your door,” says one volunteer. “Cori was in your mailbox. Cori was on your phone.” had supported her and OcasioCortez during the 2018 run. Add in new connections she made as a Bernie Sanders surrogate during his presidential campaign, and she had the kind of resources she could only dream about during the first tangle with lay. That meant mailers, billboards and even television ads. Pairing financial resources with ush’s high-energy, hit-the-streets approach gave her a certain ubiquitousness that’s tough for a challenger to pull off. “Cori was at your door,” says Sanders, the volunteer. “Cori was in your mailbox. Cori was on your phone.”
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he coronavirus wreaked havoc on political campaigns. Big rallies were out. Even small gatherings were out. So was knocking on doors and making those face-to-face connections that drive many an underdog’s campaign.
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Bush’s team still hit the streets, but they set up wellness checks for vulnerable people in the district and dropped fliers instead of trying to talk to people in person — a move designed to reinforce the idea that they still cared enough to come to voters but also respected their safety. Bush became sick herself in late March. Diagnosed with pneumonia, she was admitted to the hospital twice with coronavirus-like symptoms. A test for the virus came back negative, The New York Times reported, but the illness knocked her off the campaign trail for weeks. When she returned, she used her own experience to talk about key themes of her platform, including making sure that everyone has health insurance and that the poor and working class can earn a living wage so they can weather emergencies. Clay had pushed many of the same platforms and could point to a long voting record of backing progressive causes. “No one voted more liberally than Lacy Clay,” says Warren, the political science professor. “He had one of the highest liberal ratings in the almanac.” He also had the experience and connections to party leadership that take time to build and can be crucial to passing legislation. During the campaign, he referenced his role in landing a massive new campus for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, a $1.75
billion construction project billed as the largest federal investment in St. Louis history. But Clay couldn’t relate in the same way as Bush to people in the district who are struggling with the financial fallout of the pandemic. He couldn’t speak to life as a single parent or being homeless. Highlighting the disconnect, fliers attacking Bush chastised her for being evicted three times. Her campaign fired bac , painting the attac as particularly callous and tone-deaf when experts say the United States is facing an eviction crisis on a scale unseen in generations. And then there were the protests. Clay had been criticized for a lack of presence in Ferguson after the death of Michael Brown, and when demonstrations spread across the nation in May after the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, it was Bush, not Clay, who led activists in the streets. It wasn’t just longtime protesters seeing her. The killing of Floyd in Minnesota and Breonna Taylor in Louisville drew diverse crowds, people who’d never been to a protest in their lives. For a candidate who was a protester before she was a politician, it was a big moment. “She was being herself,” says Kristine Hendrix, now the school board president in University City and co-chair of Bush’s campaign. “What better way to introduce an activist?”
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n Aug. 4, Bush’s supporters prepared for another primary night watch party. There would be no blowout at a comedy club this time. (For one thing, the Laugh Lounge shut down in Florissant.) Instead, a small number of campaign workers and journalists gathered, mostly outside at her campaign headquarters in Northwoods while volunteers logged on to a Zoom videoconference to watch together remotely — another concession to the ongoing pandemic. Again, they were hopeful, but the surprise and heartache of 2018 still loomed in the back of their minds. If they were nervous about a repeat of two years ago, it turned to full-blown fright when absentee ballots came back showing Clay with a wide lead. Sanders has been around politics long enough to know what that means in a typical election. “Those absentee ballots really scared me,” he says. But 2020 has been anything but a typical year, and as the tally of inperson votes began to pour in from precincts through the district, they soon had reason to cheer. The more votes came in, the better the news. Clay managed to hold an edge in the county, but the city — where ill lay assembled the first bloc s of his dynasty — went for Bush. Chants of “You about to lose yo’ job, Lacy Clay,” began to cut through the Northwoods headquarters. And then it was over. Two years after getting pummeled by nearly twenty points, Bush had won. “She won! She won!” Hendrix, recounting the scene, says they yelled. “We were, like, screaming, falling on the floor.”
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wo days after the primary, Cori Bush joined St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner and city Treasurer Tishaura Jones in front of the Gateway Arch to celebrate what Jones called a dose of “Black girl magic” at the polls. All three faced serious challenges in rematch races — and were largely underestimated. Jones dropped her frequent critic Jeffrey Boyd, alderman for the 22nd Ward, in the latest round of a feud that extends back through a mayoral election in 2017 and a treasurer’s race before that. Gardner, who was attacked by a phalanx of big-name Republicans (and noname acolytes who sent anonymous death threats), starting with Trump, dominated her race with 60 percent of the vote. And then there was Bush. “I think many of you,” she began, “it didn’t cross your mind
Chants of “You about to lose yo’ job, Lacy Clay,” began to cut through the Northwoods headquarters. And then it was over. that I would actually win ... but guess what? St. Louis spoke.” Warren, the SLU political science professor, says he certainly didn’t think she would win. In decades of watching the Clays control the district, he has seen challengers come and go. Incumbents are inherently tough to beat if they win their sophomore campaigns and stay free of major scandal. Add in a family dynasty and a solidly Democratic district, and Warren didn’t expect much from the latest hype over a Clay challenger. “I was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that story for decades,’” he says. “I’ve heard that question from reporters, ‘Is this candidate going to beat Clay?’ And it’s a big yawn.” He hasn’t done a full postmortem on the race yet, but when he goes into the district to talk to people about what happened, he expects he’ll hear that Clay took voters for granted. Gone are the days of ill lay or his trusted office manager scrutinizing the inner workings of the machine, keeping committeemen in line. The Clays, for all intents and purposes, are better rooted in the D.C. suburbs of Maryland these days. Warren thinks Lacy Clay simply became too comfortable. “I would say the Clay machine has died,” he says. ush is the one who finished it off. She still faces plenty of doubts about whether she can transition from powerhouse campaigner and activist to effective legislator. She has momentum and is already being described as the newest member of “The Squad” — the bloc of young, progressive, female congresswomen of color that includes Ocasio-Cortez. But Bush will still be in a new world and on the outside of the established party. She’s still a long shot to accomplish all the promises she’s made, but she says she is ready. “Just because it has not been done,” Bush said that afternoon in front of the Arch, “does not mean it shouldn’t be done.” n
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W
hen you cross the Mississippi River and enter East St. Louis from Interstate 55, the streets are filled with potholes until you reach Kansas Avenue, a portion of which is nown as Miles Davis Way and has a smooth surface li e the sound of the a legend’s album ind of lue.” he small stretch of nice road sits before the ouse of Miles, the late trumpeter’s teenage home, which has been repurposed into a nonprofit museum and cultural arts center with educational programs for children and teens. The founders have faced some questions over their motivations for renovating what was a dilapidated property with little sign of Davis who lived there from 1 to 1 . ut they have since filled it with art dedicated to Davis and staged cultural programs for youth in the povertystricken area. And now they are working with a $ 5 , capital improvement grant from the state of llinois, so once the threat of the coronavirus subsides, they hope to be able to welcome the public to an artistic hub. t’s not ust about education and music; it’s about how you build,” says J. ary earson, who cofounded the museum with fellow ast t. ouis resident auren ar s. You build methodically. e were instrumental in them repair-
Building the House of
J. Gary Pearson and Lauren Parks are the founders of the House of Miles in East St. Louis. | ERIC BERGER ing this street that has been torn up for over twenty years. We said, e’re here. e’re home and business owners, and we need that street fixed.’” ar s says the property ept coming across” her desk when she served as executive assistant to her brother, then ast t. ouis Mayor lvin ar s Jr. he says members of Davis’ family who owned the house visited the city offices and expressed interest in donating the property to a nonprofit. n 1 , the family gifted the property but to ar s’ private real estate company nc. he deal raised some eyebrows around town. The Belleville News-Democrat published a story in 1 uestioning whether ar s’ solicitations for donations through her nonprofit, ouse of Miles ast t. ouis, for a property that she privately owned violated the federal regulation against inurement. ar s told the News-Democrat
she paid no salaries and sent receipts to donors and had no ethical concern” about the nonprofitprivate property arrangement. ut the same month as the NewsDemocrat story, ar s transferred ownership to the nonprofit, according to t. lair ounty property tax records. ar s has also over the last eight years ac uired lots surrounding Davis’ home from the musician’s family through her private company, which she then transferred to the nonprofit. ny public perception of a scandal wasn’t helped in 1 when her brother, who had moved on to East St. Louis township supervisor, got into a nasty spat with the town’s board over his attempt to hire her for $ , per year as the township operations manager. his is mos and ndy n----r business,” he told the board after members re ected his plan, the News-Democrat reported.) he llinois tate oard of lections also banned lvin ar s earlier this year from running for office until he paid $1 ,1 in fines for failures to file campaign contribution reports. e previously served on the ouse of Miles board, according to the News-Democrat; eah lover, who wor ed as pro ect manager for the former mayor, is now board president. t is unclear how much money
This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center. For more stories about the effect of COVID-19 on museums, please visit the Prairie State Museums Project at PrairieStateMuseumsProject.org.
the organi ation has raised or how it has spent the money because it has declared each year that it has raised less than $5 , so it has only had to fill out a or postcard” tax return that does not provide specifics rather than a more detailed tax return li e larger nonprofits. earson and auren ar s, who are in their 5 s and friends from high school, both describe themselves as full-time volunteers for the organi ation, but when pressed as to how they then support themselves, ar s says they own and manage properties. earson says he also bartends. urrent Mayor obert astern says he supports the $ 5 , state grant to the ouse of Miles because we need to re-engage our eneration s to understand that this type of history is right there at their fingertips, right there in their own city.” he ouse of Miles is trying to reach students living in an area where percent of residents live Continued on pg 16
After a rocky start, a cultural center in Miles Davis’ former home is taking shape BY E R I C B E R G E R riverfronttimes.com
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HOUSE OF MILES Continued from pg 15
at or below the poverty line, according to U.S. Census data, and attending East St. Louis public schools. The district has a graduation rate of 71 percent and a chronic absenteeism rate of 66 percent, according to Illinois State Board of Education data. “Each time a kid comes in here, we see what their desires are and we build around that. Our kids have been [left], most of them, in one parent families,” oftentimes with no father around, Pearson says while he and Parks provide a tour of the house with Davis’ music in the background and artifacts, memorabilia and art all around. The organization’s programs include music lessons and performances, a mentorship program and activities that have little to do with music, like managing a community garden and raising a pet. “What does that have to do with Miles Davis?” Parks asks rhetorically. “When you think about Miles, you only think about the trumpet, but Miles Davis was a very multifaceted individual, who did not allow you to put him in a box. You weren’t going to define Miles Davis; he defined himself, and so that’s what we want to empower our young people with. Don’t let people define you.” Christian Millender, a recent East St. Louis High School graduate, plays jazz and clarinet and serves as a youth ambassador at the House of Miles. He performed the role of Miles Davis in a play that envisioned what a meeting between the trumpeter and fellow local music legend Chuck Berry would have been like. “We had a lot of students participate from elementary through high school, so it was great to be involved and everyone had fun and learned the lines,” says Millender, eighteen, who plans to attend Jackson State University (whenever COVID-19 allows) in Mississippi, perform in the school’s marching band and study political science and meteorology. “East St. Louis, it can be tough living here, especially with all the poverty and everything that goes on here, including violence. And honestly, for me, I feel like the House of Miles is a beacon of hope for a lot of young kids in the area.” Tisha Pomerlee, a nurse and mother of three, sends her fifteenyear-old daughter Jadora to programming at the House of Miles, because she says, “it feels like togetherness in the black community is not paramount. Not to us. Not to
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the government. Not to anybody. So I love the fact that Lauren goes into [East St. Louis] schools and is pulling these children in as much as she can to get them in and give them a sense of togetherness.” The House of Miles founders plan to use the state grant to repair the organization’s vehicles for transporting students, renovate a neighboring building into a recording studio and build an outdoor stage and a solar butterfly garden in the garage, among other efforts. “Before we got the grant, we had to tell [the state] where it’s going, and we already knew,” Pearson says. “Two years ago, we started talking to the state and we responded to these questions about X,Y and Z, and we did it to the dime.” The founders say construction would be further along if it weren’t for the pandemic. The organization also had to suspend programming and tours and started selling face masks, with the House of Miles logo featuring a butterfly, for $15. Last month, a day after I spoke with the East St. Louis mayor for this story, news reports emerged that he and nine other city employees had tested positive for COVID-19 amid a spike in cases in the Metro East. “It’s horrible. I wouldn’t wish this on anybody,” Eastern told the local Fox affiliate in late July. Tiffany Lee, a communications professor at St. Louis Community College and coauthor of Legendary East St. Louisans: An African American Series, says that in places like East St. Louis “that suffer from poverty, any time you have a pandemic of this kind, they are harmed more. And the reason why I say that is oftentimes it is the people with the lower-paying jobs that don’t get to tele-work.” Lee, who serves on the House of Miles board, has seen how other cultural institutions in the area have either closed or been destroyed, as was the case when a building on East Broadway — once a nightclub where Ike and Tina Turner met — burned down in 2010. “You have a lot of areas in the city that really could help to make the city a cultural center, but what you find is those places end up being demolished due to decay,” Lee says. “What I saw [Parks and Pearson] trying to do with the House of Miles was really inspirational, because the House was very dilapidated. And the fact that they choose to build it up in the memory of Miles Davis, I think, was a great idea.” n
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[SIDE DISH]
Onward and Upward Akar’s Amanda Wilgus Manns celebrates promotion to general manager by making customers happy Written by
CHERYL BAEHR
W
hile restaurants continue to struggle in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, Amanda Wilgus Manns is thrilled that she is able to celebrate some good career news. A week ago, she was promoted to general manager of Akar (7641 Wydown Boulevard, Clayton; 314553-9914), the Clayton restaurant owned by chef and restaurateur Bernie Lee — and she feels that she owes her good fortune to the way the small restaurant has been able to weather the outbreak. hen ernie first opened this space, the size was off-putting to people, and I think many would have looked at that as a negative,” Wilgus Manns explains. “He saw it as an opportunity to execute everything perfectly and touch every dish. Now, going into the pandemic, I think it’s given us an advantage. That size helps us not have the overhead of larger restaurants. e only had five tables on the inside, and now we have a patio that’s extended into the salon patio next door and a parklet that’s allowed us to expand into the street. Plus, we have a lot of regulars who have gone out of their way to support us because they want to make sure we stay.” After more than a decade of working in the restaurant business, Wilgus Manns knows a thing or two about the keys to a restaurant’s success. It’s something she’s learned in larger restaurants, dating bac to her first gig at Drun en Fish in the Central West End. Though she started that job as a way to make money while she was in graduate school for social work,
Amanda Wilgus Manns’ promotion came just a week ago. | ANDY PAULISSEN she quickly realized that she had a knack for the business and that she’d be better suited for a career in restaurants. That realization made her get serious about the industry, and she decided to hone her bartending chops at the acclaimed restaurant Savor. After Savor closed, she moved on to Herbie’s, working her way up from server to bartender and ultimately to manager. There, she soaked up all the she could from chef and owner Aaron Teitelbaum, learning such aspects of the job as ordering, scheduling, mixology and general administration duties. When Herbie’s moved from its original home in the Central West End to Clayton in 2016, Wilgus Manns made the move with it. Business exploded, and though she loved the restaurant and the energy, she felt that she needed to step down from management to a server position to have a better work-life balance. Around that time, Lee, her longtime friend, had opened Akar, and she picked up hours there to support him and work alongside her husband, who was also a server there. “I didn’t know if it was going to be a good fit, because it was different than anything I’d done,” Wilgus Manns says. “It’s a small, intimate place, and I wasn’t sure if I’d like the speed because I am used to higher volume. But I’m older
now, and I realized it was a good fit because ’m wor ing for someone who is a good friend. It’s better suited to where I am in life.” Though Wilgus Manns, like many of her industry colleagues, was furloughed this spring when COVID-19 hit St. Louis, she and Lee remained in contact. He was committed to bringing her back while also evaluating how he could free himself from some of the front-of-house responsibilities of running a restaurant to focus more on cooking. Their discussion led to him offering her the position of general manager earlier this month. As she settles into her new role at Akar, Wilgus Manns feels grateful, not only to be back in the restaurant but to be providing hospitality again. Though she’s always loved the industry, the pandemic has made her realize just how much she cherishes being in the position to make people happy — especially at a time when those moments are harder to find. “A few days ago, a couple came in, and when I went to check on them, they were overwhelmed and so happy,” Wilgus Manns says. “The woman said to me, ‘I’m so happy right now because this feels so normal. I want to cry.’ The woman is a teacher, and because she’s going back to school soon, this was her last hurrah. It made
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me realize that all these things that we took for granted before are so much more precious, and it brings everything in perspective. In all of this, I am taking any win I can get and feel so blessed that we are able to give people those rare moments of joy that people aren’t able to have every day.” Wilgus Manns took some time away from her new role to share her thoughts on the state of the restaurant industry, how she’s maintaining a sense of normalcy and what gives her hope in these challenging times. As a hospitality professional, what do people need to know about what you are going through? The hospitality industry is struggling. rofit margins are slim in normal times, so the pandemic is just crushing small businesses. I am so scared for our community — it will be forever changed by this event. However, restaurant people are resilient, innovative and loyal. We will all support each other, even more than before, after this. What did you miss most about your job? While I was unemployed for ten weeks, I missed interacting with other people. I got into this industry because I love meeting new people and taking care of others. What did you miss least?
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Hard Times for Wine Experts Sommeliers, seen as a luxury, were the first to go when the pandemic hit restaurants Written by
CHERYL BAEHR
J
uliette Dottle has caught herself more than a few times listening in on the conversations of fellow customers in the grocery store wine aisle. Until this spring, Dottle was a sommelier at Vicia, spending her working life going from table to table curating beverage selections for the guests at the acclaimed Cortex restaurant. Now, unable to do the job that she loves due to the COVID-19 pandemic, she can’t help but still feel the urge to guide people in their wine decisions. “When I’m at the store and I see people standing in the wine aisle looking confused, I want to go up and help them,” Dottle says. “I feel like I should ask, ‘What are you looking for?’ But then I realize they’d probably think I was a crazy person.” Like most — if not all — of her peers in the sommelier community, Dottle finds herself in a time of great uncertainty. If the COVID-19 outbreak has upended the restaurant industry in general, it has utterly decimated the sommelier profession, a job that relies on the in-person dining model. While upscale dining establishments like Vicia have been forced to transition to carryout and cut excess amenities, sommeliers find themselves in a tough spot. Viewed as a luxury that is much more relational than transactional, many wine professionals have been unable to do their jobs — if they have them at all. “There are so many sommeliers right now that don’t have jobs,” wine consultant Alisha Blackwell-Calvert says. “It’s the first job to get cut, because it’s the cherry on top. Unless you are a sommelier and have another job in the restaurant like GM, you are the first to go.” Blackwell-Calvert, who has worked as a sommelier at some of the city’s top restaurants, was well on her way in the wine business. After leaving Elaia at the beginning of the year, she took some time off in preparation for starting her wine consulting business, figuring she’d launch her project in March. Once COVID-19 hit, her plans were turned upside down as several events and projects were canceled. It’s forced her to hustle, doing virtual wine tastings here and there as she tosses around the idea of offering online wine classes. She feels fortunate to have the opportunity to work with Katie’s Pizza & Pasta as a wine consultant, where’s she’s been doing everything from help-
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Alisha Blackwell-Calvert and her sommelier colleagues face a changed dining landscape. | HOLLY RAVOZZOLO ing to curate the wine list to conducting online staff training sessions. Still, she wonders about the future, not just of her profession, but of the restaurant business as a whole now that is losing vital beverage sales. “In restaurants, especially in finedining, the margins on food are so slim,” Blackwell-Calvert explains. “The margin for alcohol is what is keeping the lights on, so if people aren’t drinking and are just getting to-go food, how are you making a profit? It’s not a sustainable way of running a business. Unless you are a sandwich shop and your business is set up that way, the overhead and small margins mean that you need those beverage sales to sustain the business.” However, it’s not just the lost jobs that many sommeliers are mourning. As Dottle explains, the current transactional nature of the business means there is little opportunity for the relational nature of the job — what she loves most about being a sommelier. “As sommeliers, we love the stories,” Dottle says. “Wine has all of these beautiful stories, and a lot of that gets lost when you are just doing curbside or counter service. It’s been really hard; we’ve lost a lot of people [to different jobs outside the
AMANDA WILGUS MANNS Continued from pg 15
My feet aching at the end of the night. I am way older than I was when I got into this! What is one thing you make sure you do every day to maintain a sense of normalcy? Keeping in touch with friends and family. It kept me sane. Long live the Zoom happy hour! What have you been stress-eating/ drinking lately? Vodka and ramen. What are the three things you’ve
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industry] because of the stress of balancing safety with the job you wanted to do. We honed the craft of telling stories and being in touch with farmers and how the food and wine makes its way to your plate. It’s hard once you switch to this model. It’s not what you want to do anymore.” Zac Adcox, beverage director at the James Beard Award-nominated Indo, has been trying to figure out ways to keep alive the joy of what brought him to the business. Though he admits there is a challenge in making guests see the value in the carryout experience — something that is inherent in an in-person, fine-dining experience — he feels the restaurants that will survive are the ones that adapt every aspect of how they do business. “What I respect most is the ingenuity and creativity of people like [Bulrush’s] Rob Connoley or [Vicia’s] Michael and Tara Gallina — the people who are thinking outside the box and figuring out how to keep the passion for what they do and make things convenient for guests,” Adcox says. “The people who are pushing to do something new — those people will come out of this because they worked hard, and also because they treated their employees well all along. Some will go away, but you
made sure you don’t want to run out of, other than toilet paper? Vodka, tonic and limes (see a theme?). You have to be quarantined with three people. Who would you pick? The people I was actually quarantined with: my husband and Akar coworkers. Once you feel comfortable going back out and about, what’s the first thing you’ll do? Going out to eat. Hugging friends. What do you think the biggest change to the hospitality industry will be once people can safely re-
will be left with the best of the best, and there’s something a little exciting in that.” Adcox, Blackwell-Calvert and Dottle all see the havoc wreaked on the industry by the COVID-19 pandemic as a stressor, but one that revealed — not created — its cracks. Adcox and Dottle, in particular, believe that the current situation is forcing restaurants to reevaluate the way they do business with respect to things like wage distribution among staff, health care benefits and more. “The best thing to come out of this is the recognition that the model we’ve been living off of is not correct,” Adcox says. “Getting hit by something as big as this pandemic is a real eye-opener.” Adcox is putting his money where his mouth is, recognizing the need to adapt in his own role. Even as the pandemic has shuttered Indo’s dining room, he’s been able to continue to offer a world-class wine experience to his guests thanks to a retail program he started. Instead of selling bottles table side, Adcox sells curated wine packs that he hand-delivers to customers, together with wine education sheets — and often a few freebies like an extra bottle of wine or a few beers. Blackwell-Calvert also believes that this sort of creativity is key in sustaining the profession. In place of table-side sales, she believe that sommeliers have to seize upon every opportunity to sell wine with carryout food, offer to-go cocktails and even do things like virtual wine dinners so that guests can feel the experience of hospitality in a changed dining landscape. Or, they can be like Dottle and jump in at every opportunity that comes their way — everything short of approaching strangers at the grocery store, anyway. “It’s the little things,” Dottle explains. “Sometimes, I am on the phone all day for my job and it feels like I work at a call center. But if you have a conversation with a guest who is excited to talk about wine, you feel the spark again. You have to find the small moments to rediscover your craft. Whether it’s having a great conversation or writing a personal note on a bottle of wine with a carryout order, that smile from the guest helps us remember why we got into what we are doing in the first place.” n
turn to normal activity levels? Masks and cleanliness. While cleanliness has always been a priority in our restaurant, we are obviously upping the game on sanitizing everything. And masks in general I don’t think are going anywhere anytime soon. What is one thing that gives you hope during this crisis? People coming together. As much craziness as there is, the humanity I see not only on the news but in person gives me hope. It makes me want to be a better person for my friends, family and coworkers. n
CULTURE [CLOSED]
Can’t Stay Here Attitudes Nightclub, St. Louis’ longest-running gay bar, is closing for good due to COVID-19 Written by
DANIEL HILL
A
ttitudes Nightclub (4100 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis; 314-534-0044), a staple of the Grove neighborhood for some 32 years, will close for good this Saturday. The closing of St. Louis’ longestrunning gay bar and drag venue was attributed to the uncertainty that the coronavirus pandemic has brought to the industry at large, and was announced on its Facebook page in a lengthy statement. “One of my fondest memories of Attitudes will always be the nights that we would start off with only the pub side open,” the statement reads in part. “It would be packed as guests waited anxiously to be let into the club. At 10 p.m., we would open the club doors with music playing, laser lights beaming and fog misting in the air. People scattered out searching for their table, for their spot that they owned for the night. Life was Good! “But now, we are living in a time where we don’t know what the future looks like,” the statement continues. “So many businesses, especially in the hospitality industry, have been hit hard by this pandemic. It has been rough, but we can’t thank our current staff enough for how hard they have been working during this time. They’ve worn masks, followed CDC guidelines, and kept everyone safe! And all the while, they worked to provide some normalcy for you to enjoy a fun night out.” In the end, though, the shaky footing the bar industry sits on due to COVID-19 proved to be too much. Attitudes’ owners had already put the nightclub up for sale back in 2018. And that’s after Jann Brigulio, who opened the club in 1988
Attitudes survived a couple of close calls in the past, but it looks like this is it. | DOYLE MURPHY and retained ownership of the building ever since, had swooped in to save the bar in 2016 after leasing it to Dan Stoner the year prior and moving to California. Stoner’s run lasted less than a year, and his announcement that he’d be closing it took Brigulio completely by surprise. She promptly returned to St. Louis to make sure that wouldn’t happen. She hoped she could sell the building and business, and she knew that she had better odds of making that happen if the club
remained open. “If I get the right price, I would sell it,” she told RFT at the time. “Until that time I need to get something going on in there. I’m not about to let that space sit there.” According to the bar’s recent statement, the building itself has since sold, but everything within it is still up for grabs. Those who are interested in purchasing some of those items are encouraged to reach out to Brigulio via email at jannbrigulio@yahoo.com. The closing of Attitudes is just the
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latest in a string of recent shakeups to the Grove neighborhood. In June, arcade bar Parlor and vinyl listening lounge Takashima Records both closed their doors amid a storm of sexual assault allegations. It’s unclear if or when those establishments will reopen, as the business partners behind them seem to be at odds with one another in the fallout. Before that, in May, the midsize-capacity concert venue the Ready Room closed its doors and the building was put up for lease as the venue’s owners seek out a new location. Attitudes will remain open this week, and then it will close its doors for good. he final day of operation will be Saturday. “Attitudes was a special space and became an iconic place for so many,” reads the statement announcing its closure. “Remember what we said as you left for the night, ‘You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here!’ Now is the time we will all leave and take our memories with us. We sincerely thank each of you! It has been our pleasure to serve you for the last 32 years!” n
[STREET MUSIC]
Taking Requests The Red and Black Brass Band is available to play just for you Written by
JAIME LEES
Y
ou can now hire St. Louis’ favorite pandemic pick-me-up to arrive right at your door. The Red and Black Brass Band is known across the city as the strolling street musicians who bring unexpected joy to St. Louisans while we’re (mostly) still confined to our homes. Thousands of lucky people have had the New Orleans-style brass band just show up on their street unannounced and march mountains of much-needed good vibes right past their front door. You might just be having a regular ol’ depressing pandemic day, but then once the Red and Black Brass Band walks by, everything changes. People open their windows and run out to their
Any day you hear the Red and Black Brass Band is a good day. | PHILLIP HAMER PHOTOGRAPHY sidewalks to clap, cheer and sing along as the band marches on. Even St. Louis artist (and one of our favorite radicals) Mary Engelbreit caught a street performance by the R&BBB and was overjoyed. The illustrator was gathering with her family for her granddaughter’s first birthday and the band got the entire neighborhood to sing “Happy Birthday” to the birthday baby. But you don’t have to just stare longingly out your window and listen carefully for big tuba toots in the distance. Now you can book the Red and Black
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Brass Band for your own event — backyard party, birthday celebration or even a funeral. The band posted a photo of its business card and announced on Facebook: “Weddings, Home-goings, Birthdays, Gender Reveals, Private Events, Bar Mitzvahs and more! We’re ready to serve you!” You can reach the band through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, via email at redandblackbrassband@gmail.com, or by calling 314-328-0853. Go ahead and get some of that big brass love, St. Louis. You’ve earned it. n
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AUGUST 12-18, 2020
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SAVAGE LOVE MARRIED PEOPLE BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: I’m a 38-year-old bi woman who has been sleeping with a married male coworker for the last eight months. We’re a walking cliché: I’m a nurse, he’s a doctor, and one night he ended up spilling a lot of personal information about his marriage to me (sexless, non-romantic, she might be a lesbian) before asking if he could kiss me. I declined. Three months and many text messages later, I met him for drinks. The next thing I know we are falling in love and spending as much time together as we can manage. Even though he is married and has kids, this has been one of the best relationships of my adult life. He loves me in ways I never thought possible. (He even savors my COVID-19 curves.) The obvious problem here is that he is married and his wife allegedly doesn’t know about his unhappiness in their marriage. We have to arrange our dates around his work schedule and his lies to his wife. I find myself becoming increasingly jealous of the time he spends with his wife and his inability to spend more time with me. I want him to confront the issues in his marriage and I want him to at least attempt being honest with her so we can figure out if it’s even possible for us to move forward. My question is this: How do I have this conversation with him without it seeming like an ultimatum? I adore him and I don’t think he’s lying to me about his marriage. But I long to have more freedom in our relationship. I love that I finally found someone who treats me so well when we are together but my heart is breaking because our love exists in the shadows. It’s a win/win for him — he gets his marriage, his kids, his “real life,” and me too. But I can’t even text or even call him freely, and I certainly couldn’t rely on him in an emergency. I want this to work. I don’t necessarily want him to get divorced, Dan, as I fear it would cause him to resent me, but that would honestly be my preference. What should I do? Outside The Home Exists Romance What are you willing to settle for, OTHER? If you can’t live without Dr. Married, and you can only have him on his terms — terms he set at the start,
terms designed to keep his wife in the dark — then you’ll have to accept his terms. You can only see Dr. Married during office hours, you can’t call or text him, and you’re on your own if you have an emergency outside office hours. ut agreeing to his terms at the outset doesn’t obligate you to stick to his terms forever. erms can be renegotiated. ut unless you’re willing to issue an ultimatum, OTHER, Dr. Married has no incentive to renegotiate the terms of your relationship. Zooming out for a second: I get letters all the time from women who ask me how to issue an ultimatum without seeming like they’re issuing an ultimatum. I don’t get many letters from men like that for good and not-so-good reasons: Men are socialized to feel entitled to what they want, men are praised when they ask for what they want, and consequently men are likelier to get what they want. To get what you want, OTHER, you’re gonna have to man up: Feel entitled, act entitled, make demands. And you gotta be willing to walk. You have to go in fully prepared to use the leverage you actually have here — your presence in Dr. Married’s life — or nothing will change. Dr. Married needs to understand that if his circumstances don’t change — if he doesn’t change them — then he’s going to lose you. There’s a middle ground between divorce, your preferred circumstance and things staying exactly as they are. Dr. Married’s wife is surely aware that her marriage is sexless and non-romantic — assuming he’s told you the truth — and if his wife’s actually a lesbian, well, perhaps she’d like the freedom to date other women, too. (Or date them openly, I should say; for all we know she’s been getting some pussy on the side herself.) If they want to stay together for the kids, if they have a constructive, functional, low-conflict loving partnership, and it would be possible to daylight you without anyone having to get divorced, maybe you could settle for those terms. Hey, Dan: I’m a bi man in a straight marriage. We have two young children. My wife and I have been working through some relationship issues. Because of these, she has not been open to sex with me, and for eighteen months our marriage has been essentially sexless. I’m not happy with this, but we are working on things. Since
we stopped having sex, I have been using my wife’s used panties to masturbate. I work from home and do a lot of the household work, including laundry. Every couple of weeks, I will take a couple of her panties from the laundry. I rub myself with one pair and sniff the other one. I enjoy the way the fabric feels and am turned on by knowing that they’ve been rubbing up against her pussy. It makes me feel very close to her. I finish by ejaculating into her panties and then I rinse them out and wash them. I’m very careful not to stain or damage them. This is something I do to feel more connected with her sexually. I don’t get hard thinking that she’s wearing panties I came in; I get hard thinking about coming in panties she’s worn. But I worry that I’m violating her — which is not something I want to do. I know that if I were doing this with a stranger’s panties, or with the panties of someone I knew but was not in an intimate relationship with, it would be at best creepy and at worst a sex crime. But she’s my wife, and although we are in a hard place right now, we’re trying to find our way back to each other. So, is this an acceptable way for me to get off while we work on our relationship? Or is it a violation? Wonders About Nuzzling Knickers I’m torn, WANK. If you and the wife were fucking, WANK, she might enjoy knowing that, however many years and two kids later, you’re still so crazy about her that you’re down in the laundry room perving on her dirty panties. ut you aren’t fuc ing, and things are strained for reasons you didn’t share. So you need to ask yourself whether this perving, if your wife were to find out about it, would set you two back. If you think it would — if, say, your wife isn’t fucking you because she feels like you don’t respect her opinions, her boundaries, her autonomy, etc. — then the risk (further damaging your marriage) has to outweigh the rewards (momentarily draining your sack). That said, WANK, if perving on your wife’s panties — without damaging or staining them — is helping you remain faithful during this sexless period of your marriage … and sustaining your attraction to your wife though this difficult time well, an argument/rationalization could be made that your wife benefits from this perving. nd these aren’t stolen panties — these aren’t a stranger’s panties or a roommate’s
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panties — these are panties your wife hands over to you for laundering. That you derive a moment’s pleasure from them on their way from laundry basket to washing machine could be self-servingly filed, I guess, under “what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.” ut if you feel li e your wife would regard this as a violation — and I’m guessing you feel that way, WANK, since you’re asking me about it and not her — then you might wanna knock it off. Hey, Dan: Quick question: Why get married? I’m a 29-year-old lesbian who got married to a woman at 26 and divorced at 28. We had a pretty low-key wedding, but we still stated to all of our friends and family that we were in it for the long haul, people wished us well, bought us gifts, gave us money. When I realized it was a huge mistake (we rushed into it, we ignored huge incompatibilities,) I felt terrible for all the usual reasons involved a break up, Dan, but I also felt like we were letting down our friends, family, and all gays everywhere. I’m jaded right now, I realize, but seriously: WHY DO THIS? Why get married? Why do this thing that adds so much stress and pressure to leaving a relationship that might have run its course, as MOST relationships eventually do? Marriage-Averse Dyke Quick answer, MAD: People get married for love — ideally, at least these days, and it was not always thus. ut sometimes I think people marry for the same reasons you think no one should, MAD: The stress of ending a marriage — the pressure to stay in a marriage — often prompts a couple to work through a rough patch. Of course that pressure can keep two people together who really shouldn’t be together anymore — or never should’ve been together, MAD, like you and your ex-wife — but sometimes two people stick it out to avoid the embarrassment, expense, and drama of divorce and eventually get to a place where they’re genuinely happy to still be together. Maybe a wedding isn’t a promise that two people will stay together forever, MAD, but rather a promise that two people will have to think long and hard before parting. mail@savagelove.net @FakeDanSavage on Twitter www.savagelovecast.com
AUGUST 12-18, 2020
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RIVERFRONT TIMES
AUGUST 12-18, 2020
riverfronttimes.com
riverfronttimes.com
AUGUST 12-18, 2020
RIVERFRONT TIMES
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