Riverfront Times, October 30, 2019 by Riverfront Times

riverfronttimes.com

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

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

riverfronttimes.com

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

THE LEDE

PHOTO BY THEO WELLING

“This is my daily attire. Every day you can catch me like this for the most part. But I like to get comfortable some days.” SAMUEL WILLIAMS, PHOTOGRAPHED DOWNTOWN ON NORTH THIRTEENTH STREET ON OCTOBER 27

riverfronttimes.com

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Publisher Chris Keating Interim Editor in Chief Doyle Murphy

E D I T O R I A L Managing Editor Liz Miller 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 Ella Faust, Caroline Groff, Ronald Wagner

COVER

Glamming the System Maxi Glamour, St. Louis’ “Demon Queen of Polka and Baklava,” is bringing vivid drag activism to an international audience

A R T Art Director Evan Sult Contributing Photographers Virginia Harold, Stephen Kennedy, Monica Mileur, Zia Nizami, Andy Paulissen, Nick Schnelle, Mabel Suen, Micah Usher, Theo Welling, Jen West

Cover photo by

P R O D U C T I O N Production Manager Haimanti Germain

ANDY PAULISSEN

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

INSIDE

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

The Lede Hartmann

Is the enemy of airport privatization a friend?

News Feature Calendar

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

9 12 20

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

Film

Riverfront Times 308 N. 21st Street, Suite 300, St. Louis, MO 63103 www.riverfronttimes.com

Cafe

General information: 314-754-5966 Fax administrative: 314-754-5955 Fax editorial: 314-754-6416

Western Stars | Dolemite Is My Name

BEAST Butcher & Block

Founded by Ray Hartmann in 1977

Short Orders

Culture

Jenn DeRose of Known & Grown STL | Nathaniel Reid Bakery | Drake’s Place | Little Fox

Roland Johnson | Thames | Takashima Records | Blue Strawberry Showroom

Out Every Night

Young Thug | Robert Earl Keen | Lucy Dacus

Savage Love 6

RIVERFRONT TIMES

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

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

HARTMANN One Big Happy Family Everyone loves the City of St. Louis — for the good stuff Written by

RAY HARTMANN

can’t remember having more mixed feelings on a topic than this. n the one hand, it is fine news that St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann has stepped forth passionately — joining forces with St. Louis County Executive Sam Page and Denny Coleman, interim director of the Port Authority — in an attempt to do a really good thing for the City of St. Louis. That would be their attempt to put the brakes on the

city’s indefensible, and potentially corrupt, rush to cash out its number-one asset, St. Louis Lambert International Airport. As stated repeatedly in this space, the rush to lease the airport to private interests (in effective perpetuity) — clearly at the behest of and through investment by Shadow ayor e Sin uefield — is about as bad it gets. The city would lose control of its greatest asset in exchange for a gigantic, uick-fi up-front payment that would give new meaning to the concept of mortgaging one’s future. Where the money would go is anyone’s guess. But if you’d like to try your hand at wild speculation, one might start with Sin uefield’s well-known dreams of nuking the city’s earnings tax, a revenue source that offends him but has been validated by city voters by overwhelming margins. Worse yet is the political atrocity of the process, which was unveiled by former Mayor Francis

Slay (after working secretly with Sin uefield for a year or more in the final days of a si teen-year administration. After publicly misrepresenting this treachery as some grand, futuristic innovation in airport management, he and numerous cronies apparently stand to receive extraordinary consulting fees if it goes forward. Wow. ost telling is the fierce opposition by Mayor Lyda Krewson and assorted o cials to accountability and transparency. The tireless effort of 20th Ward Alderwoman Cara Spencer to require some manner of public approval of the privatization concept was again stalled last week. Since neither Spencer, nor citywide o cials like Comptroller Darlene Green and Treasurer Tishaura Jones are succeeding in stopping the project, maybe the only hope is for the rest of the community — led by Ehlmann and Page — to slow things down. Personally, I think Ehlmann and

riverfronttimes.com

Page should be enlisting a study by the East-West Gateway Coordinating Council, which includes all of the warring parties, rather than freelancing one of their own. Process matters here if St. Louis is going to stop Sin uefield and company from ramming this through. But even having said all that — and despising the rush to airport privatization — another point must be noted: The outside “benefactors” of the city really have some chutzpah here. (For those not up on their Yiddish, “chutzpah” is best embodied by the boy who kills both of his parents and pleads for mercy because he’s an orphan.) Ehlmann is a likable man (albeit a conservative Republican). He’s accessible, competent as a county executive and well intended. But in the process of doing the right thing with respect to resisting the rush to privatization, Ehlmann has in the process put on display the unbridled hypocrisy of his

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

Continued on pg 8

RIVERFRONT TIMES

HARTMANN

Continued from pg 7

own St. Charles County with regard to our region. In an October 17 op-ed piece in the St. Louis Business Journal headlined “City Cries Poor, But ay Alone eap enefits of Airport Privatization,” Ehlmann waxes eloquent about Lambert as “our most valuable regional asset” and even introduces the heretofore unspoken phrase “metropolitan family” into our local lexicon. Now, that’s special. On two occasions, in 1996, St. Charles County voters rejected a modest half-cent sales tax that would have extended MetroLink all the way to St. Peters, dramatically improving the county’s access to the very same Lambert International Airport. The ostensible claim: These fine citizens ust don’t like paying taxes. The notion that the 90-percent-white county lacked appetite for more “family gatherings” with its more diverse neighbors in St. Louis city and county was presumably just coincidence and not about race. Whatever. Nearly a quarter of a century later, as if St. Charles County’s self-defeating rejection of MetroLink never had happened, Ehlmann wants a seat at the management table of this very airport. And he seems unwilling to recognize the trifling detail that the city owns 100 percent of said airport. Period. It’s theirs, not “ours.” Ehlmann’s rationale, as expressed in the Business Journal, was astonishing, describing the airport’s rightful owner as “a city that contains 12 percent of the region’s citizens, whose earnings, sales, property and state income tax support the city, its institutions, its convention center and the most generous historic tax credit program in the country.” For crying out loud, St. Charles has its own convention center and it’s going to whine about supporting the one in the city? And if having historic tax credits (God forbid) means the city owes it to other counties not to control its own airport, well then all of Missouri’s counties should run the city airport. Here’s the bottom line: Fewer than half of the people defined as St. Louisans by the United States Census Bureau live in the city and county combined. That number was in the 80 percent range half a century ago. This reality must be addressed, be it in participation in the airport, the Saint Louis Zoo-Museum District, crime, edu-

RIVERFRONT TIMES

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

I’m on Ehlmann’s side if whatever he does slows airport privatization. cation or other matters that actually involve people spending tax dollars for the collective good of the region. I have long argued that the people of St. Charles are as much a part of St. Louis as people who live in the city and county. But not for free. When the Blues won the Stanley Cup, everyone partying in the rollicking celebration was “from St. Louis,” with no territorial distinctions. Ditto for the Cardinals’ glories and the Arch, and the Zoo and Grand Center and all the wonderful cultural institutions within the city and county. When it’s something positive, we’re all one big very happy family. But if we’re talking about any of the other challenges facing pretty much every major American city, then St. Charles County acts like the city is a distant thirdworld country. That’s not right. This isn’t a new argument from Ehlmann. Not long after St. Charles County voters rejected MetroLink, he was a state senator arguing that Missouri should essentially seize management of the airport. He even stooped to saying, “St. Louis would not have a world-class facility so long as only residents of the City of St. Louis are allowed to work there.” e drew fire for that one from a city o cial as an insult and “an affront to the citizens of the City of St. Louis and the excellent employees we have out at the airport That o cial hy, it was the aldermanic president, a fellow named Francis Slay. Lots of history and irony here. Slay was right and Ehlmann wrong that time. Now it’s reversed. I’m on Ehlmann’s side if whatever he does slows airport privatization. But as for this “metropolitan family” thing? I’ll believe that when St. Charles County residents do the right thing and get on board with MetroLink expansion. With money. 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

Arson Hits the Delmar Divide Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI

omething isn’t right on Enright Avenue. Fires are eating through the block’s vacant homes. Residents, who have watched their nights lit by the blazes of massive house fires, are wondering if a serial arsonist is at work. The latest spate of fires started this month. First, on October 7, police found char marks on the floor of an inhabited brick home, which investigators deemed evidence of a break-in and arson. Days later, on October 11, a suspected arson annihilated a vacant home at 5126 nright, with the flames spreading to the roof of a neighboring home re uiring police o cers to stage a daring rescue in order save a disabled resident trapped inside. n ctober 2 , the fires returned to the 5100 block of Enright. This time, two vacant houses burned in an early-morning blaze that, police say, remains under investigation. “I’ve lived here ten years. I’ve seen fires, says one resident, who introduces herself only as Jazz. She has to speak above the sound of a worker sawing plywood, which will be used to board up a previously inhabited home made unlivable by fire damage to its upper floor ast fires have left their mark on the block. Jazz points out the gutted and blackened skeleton of 5163. It burned in November 2018, she says, possibly the result of “homeless guys trying to cook something ut onday’s fires were different. Jazz lives one block north on Kensington Avenue. She watched the blaze from her porch. “I’ve never seen it like that, like, such intensity, she says It was two in the morning. I stepped out my back porch, and it was like sunset Walking along Enright, she comes to 5126. Today it is less a house than a collection of rubble

This is all that remains of 5126 Enright Avenue after an apparent arson, one on several suspicious fires in the neighborhood. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI and a cracked concrete staircase, the result of the ctober fire that razed it to the foundation. The neighboring home is also blackened, its upper windows broken and now awaiting boards; the inhabitants, saved by the heroics of police, have been forced out for the time being. A few feet from the rubble, a mobile surveillance unit left by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police keeps watch. Jazz notes the cameras’ placement with dismissiveness. “It was stupid that the police put this camera here, she says ecause whoever burned this house isn’t coming back to burn this. They’re going to come get the rest of them. And they’re not going to set it from the front The question of who is responsible — a serial arsonist? teenage vandals cooking fires remains frustratingly unanswered. After the ctober fires damaged two houses, CrimeStoppers raised its reward to $6,000 for information on the suspected string of arsons. And while police have not yet said whether the ctober 2 fires are similarly suspect, the fires are raising tensions on a block that al-

ready knows the scars of vacancy, demolition and disinvestment. ere, the elmar ivide the shorthand St. Louis uses to describe the vast gap in the living conditions between the metro north and south — couldn’t be more clear. The neat row of houses on the 5100 block of Enright is interrupted by empty plots and grassy fields alking the block, Jazz notes that older, long-term residents have been forced out of homes due to code violations and unpaid taxes. Developers have snatched up homes on the eastern side of the block, leaving once-inhabited homes as vacos Here, the Delmar Divide is quite literal. One block south of the 5100 block of Enright lies Delmar Boulevard itself. It is this area where the backers behind the burgeoning Delmar Maker District are seeking “to create an environment to attract artisans, designers, makers, and entrepreneurs of all walks of life who will live, make, and sell their goods According to property records, all three of the vacant houses on nright consumed in fire this month were owned by Green Line

riverfronttimes.com

LLC, which lists the same address as Third Degree Glass Factory — one of the existing anchors for the proposed Delmar Maker District. Records show at least a dozen properties on the 5100 block of Enright have been bought by Green Line or other entities listing the same address, hinting at the possible future development on Enright as part of the Delmar Maker District. Reached by email, Jeremy Idleman, executive director of the Delmar Maker District, wrote that the district “has been working closely with the leadership in the neighborhood, Third Degree, MADE, and the owners of the buildings in uestion in response to the fires and added, “Everyone wants to find the person responsible Whoever it was, their work left no question as to the intent. Idleman wrote that on October 7, contractors found the back door of 5168 Enright “pried open and an unsuccessfully ignited trail of gasoline throughout the first floor The home, he added, shares an alley with 5163 Delmar, a former church that was nearly leveled

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

Continued on pg 11

RIVERFRONT TIMES

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

Mizzou Athletics Fumbles Diversity Tweets Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI

ast week, the University of Missouri of Athletics Department attempted to celebrate, by way of tweet, the diverse backgrounds and talents of its student athletes. Specifically, how they are “more than a student athlete.” A laudable idea! The only problem was, well, everything else about the nowdeleted tweet. The post featured the beaming images of four Mizzou athletes sorted into boxes, each proudly facing the camera behind a line of text that someone clearly didn’t think about long enough before hitting publish. That’s because there seems to be a clear difference in the messages displayed between white and black student athletes. There was gymnast Chelsey Christensen — “I am a future doctor” — and swimmer/diver CJ Kovac — “I am a future corporate financer.” Opposite them were two black student athletes, whose texts did not include the word “future” or even mention their areas of study. Instead, runner Arielle Mack is shown stating only, “I am an African American woman.” Similarly, Chad Jones-Hicks — who appears to not be a student athlete, but rather a “Ticket Office Assistant” accord-

ARSON

Continued from pg 9

by fire the previous night In a subsequent press release, Idleman clarified that a total of seven buildings — including two buildings on Delmar — were intentionally burned or damaged when flames spread to adjacent structures during the various fires this month As for the homes Green Line LCC owns on Enright, Idleman wrote that these are intended to become lease-to-own homes for local artists and employees who work in the neighborhood owever, the buildings that burned were uninsured at the time of the fires, meaning “this is a total cash loss for the developer Idleman added that the fires have made the future of the development unclear at this time In a statement included in the press release, Doug Auer, cofounder of Third Degree Glass Factory and the MADE makerspace on Delmar — both busi-

Mizzou posted, and later deleted, this tweet last week. | TWITTER ing to Mizzou’s website — is shown stating only, “I value equality.” Not to put too fine a point on it, but what the fuck, Mizzou!? Especially for a university where the subjects of campus racism and the role of black student athletes collided just a few years ago, in 2015, when a series of protests and boy-

nesses listed as anchors to the proposed Delmar Maker District — said the development’s backers are devastated by these events, adding that “we want to ensure our community that we are doing everything we can to find out who is doing this Along with Auer, the website for the Delmar Maker District lists a second co-founder, Jim McKelvey, who also co-founded Third Degree Glass Factory and MADE. However, McKelvey went on to leave a larger entrepreneurial footprint: He made his name in tech by cofounding the mobile payment behemoth Square with fellow St. Louisan Jack Dorsey. This past summer, Dorsey announced an effort to create a “St. ouis light Authority to support efforts in tearing down abandoned buildings in north city. That effort, of course, doesn’t involve burning down houses on Enright Avenue. And for residents like Jazz, the questions remain, and she says the theory of a single arsonist sounds a little funny when, at the same time, the street

cotts led to the resignation of the university system president. It was a pretty big deal at the time. Anyway. Mizzou’s social media effort — part of a larger #NCAAInclusion campaign — also included stand-alone tweets featuring the individual student athletes, including Caulin Graves, who,

like the two other black people featured, seemed to exist only as a diversity checkbox. Graves’ banner said, “I am a brother.” Hours after posting the tweet, the Mizzou Athletics deleted it and later posted an apology along with a video showing more athletes making their own “I am ...” statements. To its credit, Mizzou Athletics acknowledged that it had messed up. “Earlier we made a mistake when we posted a graphic about our student athletes,” read a new tweet from the department’s account. “We apologize. Our intent was to provide personal information about our students, but we failed. We listened and removed the post.” However, the video Mizzou posted along with the apology only raised more questions about the “mistake,” as it features two of the black athletes included in the tweets, Arielle Mack and Caulin Graves. The video indicated that the statements featured in the deleted tweet had actually been lifted, out of context, from statements given by the athletes themselves. In the video, Mack indeed says, “I am an African American woman,” but that’s not the end of her line. She continues, “ ... a sister, a daughter and a future physical therapist.” Graves, too, didn’t just say he was “a brother.” His full quote was “I am a brother, uncle and best of all, I am a leader.” This contrast — and the apparent intentional selection that took place in editing the black athletes’ statements in the deleted tweet — did not go unnoticed. Not a great look, Mizzou. n

The upper floor of an inhabited home was damaged by a blaze on October 11. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI is being targeted for major redevelopment. Another resident on Enright, who lives next to one of the houses damaged by fire, summarizes his feelings in two words It’s scary

riverfronttimes.com

To date, police have not released any updates about the suspected causes behind this month’s fires on Enright. Anyone with information can call CrimeStoppers at 866-371-8477 (TIPS). n

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

g n i M m a Gl

THE M E T SYS RIVERFRONT TIMES

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

MAXI GLAMOUR, St. Louis' “Demon Queen of Polka and Baklava,” is bringing vivid drag activism to an international audience BY CHRIS ANDOE

his past March, Maxi Glamour eluded questions about their plans. The St. Louis-based entertainer, guru, event planner, designer and self-proclaimed “nonbinary queer demon” was set to be honored with a 2 Influence Award at a splashy Out in STL awards party overlooking the Arch The award was in recognition of Glamour’s work and influence in the drag community, holding drag workshops and mentoring emerging performers. But when asked if they planned to attend the gala, Glamour was noncommittal. “I’ll likely be out of town that week,” they posited. “I told everyone I was going to Paris for an artist residency program, Glamour later reveals And I’m so bad at keeping secrets Secrecy, however, was contractually required. Glamour was actually flying to os Angeles to film season three of the hit reality Chris Andoe is the editor of Out show Boulet Brothers’ Dragula, vyin STL, a sister publication of ing to be "The World’s Next Drag Riverfront Times. Supermonster." Continued on pg 15

riverfronttimes.com

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

ed t n a w I t a h t is w e n k I "All to help create a space for to t, is x e d n a e b to s o d ir e w show off cool costumes 's r e h t o h c a e in e ic o j e r and presence while enjoying some art form."

Performing and mentoring drag artists, Maxi Glamour is seemingly the busiest entertainer of their kind in St. Louis — and the stage is only getting bigger. | ANDY PAULISSEN

The Making of Maxi

As a rule, Glamour doesn’t reveal their age — not because they’ve got a complex about it, but because nurturing the mystery is an investment in their future intrigue. However, they drop a few clues. They explained their public life began as a fourteen-year-old club kid, once mentioned being "in the scene for fifteen years and said they’ve got a milestone birthday next year which they plan to spend in Norway. Their Facebook page also reveals they graduated from Fort Zumwalt South High in 2008. “I started off just going to parties and concerts wherever they were — basements, clubs, warehouses, trailers, et cetera — the more people the better," says Glamour. “But not just people — the weirdos, the freaks, the broken, those were the people to whom I was drawn. We would congregate at shows and even malls in our most outra-

geous costumes that we thought were so fly “You remember the scene-kid days when the goth aesthetic was vibrant and glamorous, when malls were still busy and the war between preps and punks raged on? These were the days when Mississippi Nights, Creepy Crawl and Cicero’s were still around. It was a different era of St. Louis nightlife culture,” Glamour says. “That was my youth And during this time, their Myspace page was lit. “Myspace was the newest, coolest thing in the music scene, and you had to make one. Being yourself was antiquated. You needed a new identity so people online thought you were cool. There were the Jeffree Stars, the Scotty Vanitys, the Lexi Lushes — it was all about being someone, someone unique, someone you created, someone cool enough to be in your friends' top eight.” Glamour went by several aliases during this time, including Rumplestiltskin, Ale Shaw and an-

der Wright. “So I created Maxi Glamour. It was my way to create a new identity to make coming out of the closet easier. It was my superstar identity to lose all inhibition and join the ranks of Sid Vicious, Boy George, Marilyn Manson, Walt Paper, James St. James and all of my other icons. I wanted to be a club kid. I knew that’s what I wanted in life.” The 2003 movie Party Monster, based on the true story of club kid ichael Alig, who bragged on television about killing his drug dealer and roommate, further fueled Glamour’s interest in club culture. After seeing Party Monster fivethousand-too-many times, I read up on club culture and knew I wanted to create events. Parties that were for freaks like me. For the people that couldn’t fit in with the rest of the world or didn’t want to. It was centered around sex, drugs and that rock & roll lifestyle. It was an escape from the reality of the time we lived. Queer folk had

riverfronttimes.com

no rights — we couldn’t get married, we were barely in the media in the early 2000s, and it was a depressing state," they explain. "Especially in the middle of the country where time moves slower. The underground club scene shouted loud messages that enticed my young heart. Messages like PLUR — Peace Love Unity Respect, from the rave scene — really resonated, as it created a sense of welcoming. In addition, the imagery of punk and electro musicians really helped make their concerts a way to feel comfortable as a masc-ish person to be hyper-flamboyant in makeup and in weird clothes. "I can say that music hasn’t had nearly the same impact on me as it did in these days. Maybe it was the drugs. But all I knew is that I wanted to help create a space for weirdos to be and exist to show off cool costumes and rejoice in each other’s presence while enoying some art form At that time it was all about the music, know-

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

Continued on pg 16

RIVERFRONT TIMES

Maxi Glamour created their identity in the Myspace era of club kids and mall fabulousness. | TL WITT, SARA SWATY ROGER, MAXI GLAMOUR

MAXI GLAMOUR Continued from pg 15

ing the coolest bands, the most underground things going and being original.” MTV’s Sweet Sixteen also inspired Glamour’s desire to party like a rock star. “I saw all these spoiled girls getting their own parties and booking B2K, Nelly and other celebrities for their sixteenth birthday party, so I decided I wanted to book something cool for my sixteenth. I reached out to local band Center Pointe and had them play at my mom’s boyfriend’s house. It came complete with hot-tub swimming pool, and on this night a band to play songs for me. The next party I threw was when I was seventeen and booked Super Fun Yeah Yeah Rocketship at a mini rave in my basement. I say it was a rave, but

it was just twenty people on ecstasy waving glow sticks in the dark. That party lasted a few days and changed locations multiple times. We’d go on these party binges where we’d just party every day for days on end, drinking, smoking, fucking. It was a mess, but it was romantic.” At nineteen, Glamour left for San rancisco to study fashion at Academy of Art niversity but says their dad stole their student loan money, which resulted in being homeless by the second semester. “I didn’t have a home to do homework and had to party crash," they explain, "where you’d just crash at the places where you partied.” After a year, Glamour returned to St. Louis. I asked if there was ever any resolution with their father. “I don’t really chat with him. He’s not really a part of my life.” By 2012, Glamour, who’s fascinated by world cultures, adopted

the moniker “Demon Queen of Polka and Baklava” — two things that transcend cultural boundaries — and graduated from house parties with the production of their first event, Glamourfest, which was held at Tower Grove South’s venerable drag bar, Grey Fox Pub. “It was my birthday and I had a slew of shirtless twinks hand-crush almonds for baklava for this epic event. It was very crowded, even though six people in the cast of fifteen didn’t actually come. There was drag, burlesque, music, belly dancing and of course baklava.”

Maxi-mizing Their Impact

Today, Glamour is seemingly the busiest entertainer of their kind in St. Louis, and a big part of that is Qu’art (pronounced like a quart of milk), an organization they found-

ed in 2014 aiming to promote diversity and inclusivity of queer artists. Qu’art’s projects and festivals, which blend intersectional and multidisciplinary queer artists on the Crack Fox stage, draw applicants from across the nation. Then there are the smaller, community-focused activities, including cleaning up the city in drag and the monthly queer round table where people meet to discuss problems affecting the LGBTQ community. October’s topic, for instance, was making social advocacy more accessible to rural Americans While attending RuPaul’s Dragon A this past ay, Glamour was surprised to meet artists familiar with their organization, even if those artists had yet to hear of Glamour. “When I was in A and met people who mentioned Qu’art when I said I was from St. Louis, it validated the en-

The “Demon Queen of Polka and Baklava” takes on many forms. | TL WITT, PHOTOGRAPHY FROM HELL, MAXI GLAMOUR

RIVERFRONT TIMES

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

Ever the advocate, Glamour is a member of the Satanic Temple activist group. | TL WITT tire thing,” Glamour says. (By the time Glamour attended DragCon NYC in September, they were an A-lister, hobnobbing backstage with RuPaul’s family). Among Glamour’s most intriguing projects is their monthly event Devil’s Cabaret, which they describe as “Satanic, dark, hedonistic, self-loving, sideshow drag, aerial, focusing on the darker side of reality. Eroticism as an art form. Take it in. Use it.” Glamour calls themself a satanist, a detail that has inflamed their army of “traditional values” detractors — especially around Drag Queen Storytime, an event in which drag queens read to children at the St. Louis Public Library. The anti-LGBTQ group Missouri Mass Resistance seems to consider Glamour their top nemesis, and a member posted the following to Facebook, along with a fabulously insane photo of the blue-faced Glamour with a massive, rattedout blue wig: "THIS is the St. Louis drag queen who 'performed' last Saturday, September 28th, at the Schlafly branch St. Louis Public Library. He is a well known SATANIST who is reading to little, little children in a public library. The children are being psychologically damaged at such a young age, this should be a crime!" With Missouri Mass Resistance

vowing to protest Glamour, extra precautions were taken to ensure their comfort and safety. Glamour was handled like a head of state, — or a superstar. “The library made me feel so comfortable and protected,” Glamour says. “Becky from Carpenter branch picked me up with a security team and escorted me into the facility, driving me through a gated garage. It was lovely.” After the event, Glamour requested to be driven past the protesters. Only about ten had shown up, and only a few remained. “I saw like five people that were sad and clearly misled. They were staring off in the distance with pathetic signs that said ‘one man and one woman’ and all that. There were a few counter protestors, and some I recognized their faces from the Occupy Wall Street days.” During my interviews I learned that Glamour is actually an atheist. When asked about their thoughts on Satan, they replied, “It’s to shock people. He’s not really real.” They are a member of the Satanic Temple, which they say is for people with similar views. “It’s an activist organization fighting for the separation of church and state — many people in the queer community, including myself, Continued on pg 19

riverfronttimes.com

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

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

DINNER 7 DAYS A WEEK

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

RIVERFRONT TIMES

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

MAXI GLAMOUR Continued from pg 17

were physically, emotionally and mentally abused by the church.”

Den of Drag Monsters

Filming reality television means being secluded from reality. For six weeks, Glamour was holed up in e urban os Angeles, dividing their time between their eighteen-hour days on set and nights in a sketchy motel complete with fighting drug users It was very di cult at first, they admit. "It was a complete social media blackout, it was like deto ing And there was a child lock on our phones, so no porn at first ut they fi ed it The days of shooting began to blend together. “Staring at the walls, hurry up and wait," they recount. "Little sleep. No windows." Still, there were some perks. "It was so good not seeing straight people for six weeks, though.” Proving your mettle as “The World’s Next Drag Supermonster” isn’t a joy ride. Punishments included things like getting mystery tattoos and eating live spiders, and fellow contestants had very

sharp elbows. “They were mean,” Glamour, who arguably came off as the nicest contestant, recalls. But wigs were knocked back in episode four when Glamour came to the end of their journey and read everyone for filth a read which surprised and inspired respect from the contestants. Once the elimination episode aired, Glamour posted the following to their Facebook page: “It’s taken me a week to reprocess my elimination. I’ve gone through all the feelings of being cheated, not good enough, and hyper critical of my own art. I by nature am not a competitive person hen many people are fighting over the same thing I choose to find something else that pleases me. Maybe that’s my nonconformist attitude that I don’t want what everyone else wants. I didn’t care about the crown and I didn’t care about letting everyone know I thought my art was better than theirs. I went there to be me and use the show as a platform for social change. I went in the show with a non confrontational attitude with an attempt to diffuse any drama directed to me. Some behaviors on the show and many other shows were toxic attention seeking actions that replicate aggressive bullying found too often

in our home communities. My point of being on the show was to demonstrate an outlet that deviates from that path. I wish I had thousands of dollars and sponsors to make my experience easier and get a bigger platform. I didn’t, I just had the polka gods smiling down on me And smiled they did Looking forward to spending this next chapter with y’all and seeing where the roads take me!”

Marrying the Global & Local

With season three of Dragula broadcasting in more than 60 countries, a Boston-based talent manager lining up appearances and their new jet-setting lifestyle, Glamour has a different perspective on their art and their work. “We validate mediocrity at times,” they assert. “We validate our own mediocrity. I know what level I can be on. What I should be on.” They’re also less prone to accept the status quo in their own backyard. One of many topics Glamour has been speaking on is the lack of diversity on some local drag stages. “If you’re a producer and you’re not putting black people in your show, maybe you shouldn’t be producing,” Glamour says, in

riverfronttimes.com

what has become their oft-repeated mantra. “I’d like to help use the fact that most St. Louisans that are registered voters are Democrat to help encourage those queer folk to not just be Democrat but also progressive. I think St. Louis can often find itself stuck in the past It’s that whole ‘Show Me State’ mentality that makes people afraid of new things. Honestly, I hear more people talk about the 1904 World’s Fair than they do about the future of St. Louis. If more people talked about what could be, instead of what used to be, we wouldn’t be stuck with things like that unfortunate trolley. This comes with acknowledging the fact that the NAA put up a travel advisory warning for the state and how we process that. My vision of St. Louis is to lead the state and country with legislation and a cultural attitude that embraces diversity to not only e ist, but flourish Sitting in clouds of pot smoke at their south-city flat, Glamour explains they see themself as a spiritual leader of drag through glamour, beauty and kindness. They also explain their mission: “I want to drastically change the St. Louis scene.” Glamour pauses and considers their words. “I can definitely change St ouis n

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

CALENDAR

BY PAUL FRISWOLD

THURSDAY 10/31 Feelin’ Blue The title of Clarissa Tossin’s 2017 video Ch’u Maya is a reference to an ancient pigment, translated as “Maya Blue.” The Mayans used this waterproof pigment on their temples and pottery, both for its beauty and its long-wearing color. This same hue is used on Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House in Los Angeles, which not so coincidentally incorporates elements of Mayan architecture in its own construction. Tossin filmed choreographer and dancer Crystal Sepulveda as she performed ritual movements on and around Hollyhock House. Clad in a jaguar-print catsuit and blue sneakers, Sepulveda reclaims the house as a Mesoamerican space in a modern city. The seventeen-minute long, single-channel video shows on a loop in gallery 301 of the Saint Louis Art Museum (1 Fine Arts Drive; www.slam.org) as part of the New Media Series. Clarissa Tossin: Ch’u Maya can be seen Tuesday through Sunday (November 1 to January 19). Admission is free.

FRIDAY 11/01 No-Headache Hoops Forget about all the socio-political hoopla that surrounds the current NBA season: The Harlem Globetrotters are back in town, and the only outbursts you’ll hear at their game will be of laughter. Renowned for their ball-handling skills, insane shot selection and use of both a ladder and a bucket of water, the Globetrotters will play the Washington Generals, who look to be pretty good this year and could absolutely beat the New York Knicks. The Harlem Globetrotters play at 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday, November 2, at the Enterprise Center (1401 Clark Avenue; www.enterprisecenter.com), and tickets are $24 to $104.

RIVERFRONT TIMES

The Harlem Globetrotters bring smiles to the Enterprise Center on Friday. | (C) HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS

Bloody Injustice Bassanio is in a wooing mood, and he’s set his sights on the beauteous Portia. Unfortunately he doesn’t have the money necessary to make the proper impression on the heiress, and so he attempts to borrow money from his old friend, Antonio. Noble Antonio’s money is tied up in shipping, so all he can offer is to secure a loan in his own name and then give the money to Bassanio. Shylock the Jewish merchant agrees to provide the funds, but because

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

The cast of The Merchant of Venice. | COURTESY OF ST. LOUIS SHAKESPEARE

riverfronttimes.com

Antonio has insulted him so many times, Shylock’s terms are cruel: Forfeit, and Shylock gets a pound of Antonio’s flesh Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is classified as a comedy, but only because a wedding happens at the end. There is much tragedy (mostly at Shylock’s expense) in this tale of love, mercy and revenge. St. Louis Shakespeare presents the thorny drama at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 7:30 p.m. Sunday (November 1 to 9) at the Tower Grove Baptist Church (4257 Magnolia Avenue; www.stlshakespeare. org). Tickets are $15 to $20.

WEEK OF OCTOBER 31-NOVEMBER 6 Sunday, November 3, at the Jewish Community Center (2 Millstone Campus Drive, Creve Coeur; www. stljewishbookfestival.org). Tickets are $45, and the festival continues through November 15.

WEDNESDAY 11/06 On Grief

In Feeding Beatrice, a couple deals with a surprise guest. | PHILLIP HAMER

SATURDAY 11/02 Unwelcome Visitor June and Lurie have a problem with their new home: There seems to be something already living there. Beatrice gets cranky when she’s not fed, and a cranky Beatrice is a bloody pain to deal with. The longer June and Lurie give in to Beatrice’s demands, the more entwined they become. Kirsten Greenidge’s gothic thriller Feeding Beatrice opens the Repertory Theatre St. Louis’ studio series. The play is an immersive experience, and seating is limited. Performances take place Tuesday through Sunday (November 2 to 17) at the Loretto-Hilton Center (130 Edgar Road; www.repstl. org). Tickets are $46 to $71.

Loud Noises Anthony is a musician who experiments with electronics and sound effects in his studio in the secluded sand dunes of Devon. He lives a fairly quiet life with his wife, Rachel, all things considered. Their shared silence is broken when a traveler appears. Crossley claims to have lived among the Aboriginal people of Australia, and from them learned the secrets of a shaman. One of those secrets is the ability to produce a shout so loud and horrifying that it kills all who hear it, or so he claims. Anthony can’t resist the lure of this lethal

sound, and so welcomes Crossley into his home. Jerzy Skolimowski’s 1978 thriller The Shout features stars John Hurt, Susannah York and Alan Bates as Crossley, as well as a soundtrack by Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks of prog-rockers Genesis. The Webster Film Series emits The Shout at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, November 2, at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood Avenue www webster edu filmseries). Tickets are $5 to $7.

Bill and Madeline are in Scotland for a memorial ceremony. Seven years have passed since their son was killed when the plane he was flying in e ploded over ockerbie, killing all aboard and eleven people on the ground. Madeline is convinced she may find a trace of her son in the Scottish hills where much of the wreckage fell, but Bill thinks she needs to lay aside her grief and move on, as he has. Deborah Brevoort’s play The Women of Lockerbie is based on a real event, but filtered through the structure of a classical Greek drama. The titular women are a trio of locals who comment on the action and recount the horrors of that day when the sky exploded. The trio also explains the current crisis on the ground: The women of Lockerbie want to wash and re-

Isaac Mizrahi opens the St. Louis Jewish Book Fest. | GREGG RICHARDS turn the clothing that was found in the wreckage, but the American government refuses to let them complete the symbolic act. Slightly Askew Theatre Ensemble present The Women of Lockerbie at 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday (November 6 to 23) at the Chapel (6238 Alexandria Drive; www.slightlyoff.org). Tickets are $15 to $20. n

SUNDAY 11/03 Isaac on Isaac Fashion designer and celebrity Isaac Mizrahi has come a long way from his roots as a gay young man in a Syrian Orthodox Jewish family in New York. Launching his first fashion line at age , Mizrahi rose to fame through his creative partnership with Chanel, released a wildly popular line through Target stores and segued into costume and set design for the stage and operas (he’s twice worked with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis). Mizrahi’s hallmark is his lack of a locked-in aesthetic, instead choosing to design what he likes as his moods dictate. In I.M.: A Memoir, Mizrahi tells his story and explains what drives and inspires him. The St. Louis Jewish Book Festival welcomes Mizrahi as the keynote speaker. He will participate in a Q&A at 7:30 p.m.

riverfronttimes.com

In The Women of Lockerbie grief haunts the hills. | JOEY RUMPELL PHOTOGRAPHY

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

FILM

[REVIEW]

Meet the Old Boss Bruce Springsteen’s Western Stars is a concert film wrapped in earnestness and cowboy clothes Written by

ROBERT HUNT Western Stars Directed by Thom Zimny and Bruce Springsteen. Now playing in theaters.

ver since he received the relatively unusual honor of gracing simultaneous Time and Newsweek covers in 1975, Bruce Springsteen has had a dual presence in the music world. There was the sensitive, introspective songwriter who turned the mundane realities of middle-class life into pop poetry, and there was The Boss, BRUUUCE!!!, the barnstorming performer whose marathon concerts and devoted fan base were coveted by everyone from Ronald Reagan to the fuzzy folks on Sesame Street. In recent years, Springsteen has remolded his public persona by way of an autobiography, a oneman-show on Broadway and now, a new album and film, Western Stars, all revealing a calm and more reflective view of life after nearly 50 years in the public eye. e’s not the first musician to try an image makeover after a long and celebrated career: Leonard Cohen spent his sixties and seventies as a world-weary lounge lizard, a poetic Maurice Chevalier still wrestling with the meaning of life; Bob Dylan, currently 78 years old, has spent several decades recasting himself as a traveling crooner; in his most recent incarnation (which passed through town last week) he strides the stage like Elmer Gantry trading in his choir for a raw roadhouse band. We can’t begrudge Springsteen for feeling like he’s outgrown the sleeveless, muscle-bound rocker of 1984 who raced across stages and pulled a thrilled young Courteney Cox out of the crowd.

RIVERFRONT TIMES

Just your everyday blue-collar millionaire, strummin’ some tunes. | ROB DEMARTIN © 2019 WARNER BROS. ENTERTAINMENT INC. Western Stars — the album — is a collection of thirteen songs about memory, aging, loss and reflection told from the perspective of different characters, including, in the title track, a semi-retired cowboy actor The film consists of those same thirteen songs performed by Springsteen, his wife Patti Scialfa, a small band and a nineteen-piece orchestra giving a private concert in the comfort of his 100-foot-tall barn As concert films go, it would make a perfectly good home video release or television special. The songs are, to my somewhat biased ear, excellent and the addition of strings marks them from earlier Springsteen work and brings out the sincerity of his vocals. Not content to rest on the quality of the music, Western Stars aspires to something more than just a concert film, but it’s not clear what that might be. Each song is introduced by overwrought introductory segments that show the Boss driving across the desert, hanging out in bars, watching horses run or just looking weathered. Earnest, but weathered. The verbal introductions are redundant at best, strained and pretentious at worst, and Springsteen

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

reads them with an exaggerated sense of their significance They’re also cautiously (and oddly, given Springsteen’s history) apolitical. These meditations on memory, aging and loss could be coming from any place and any time. Western Stars doesn’t really have a narrative, but Springsteen tries to hint at one (albeit one that sounds remarkably similar to the recent Sam lliott film The Hero). I don’t doubt his intentions, but the simple-man-of-the-earth bit isn’t convincing The film shows the Boss carousing in beer halls with ordinary folks, but can’t help focusing on his out-of-place material trappings. He’s singing about motel rooms and empty roads, but the film offers aerial shots of a ranch only slightly larger than the average shopping mall. In one of the introductions, he makes a brief aside comparing his music to the pop arrangements of Jimmy Webb, the songwriter responsible for “Up, Up and Away,” “MacArthur Park” and several Western laments recorded by Glen Campbell. Another song, “Hello Sunshine, recalls the shu ing guitar of Nilsson’s “Everybody’s Talkin,’” the theme music for another trans-

riverfronttimes.com

planted Hollywood cowboy. Is he nodding to a long tradition of pop music donning cowboy fashion? Does Springsteen want to admit that it’s just an act, the Marlboro man posing and archetypal Western imagery? His encore number (I won’t give it away), played as the end credits begin, is his wink at the audience, showing the pop star roots hiding behind the Western artifice Western Stars also offers a hint of what may be an annoying new trend in theatrical screenings. As the film began, a title card alerted the audience to stay after the credits for additional material, which turned out to be an unexceptional making-of short which will undoubtedly turn up on the home video release. As more recent films have tried to e tend their theatrical life by adding additional footage or deleted scenes or, in the case of The Current Wars, actually advertising that the film is the director’s cut, it appears that theaters are challenging the way people watch films at home by slavishly imitating it. Will those reclining chairs in the newest auditoriums soon come with remotes? n

[REVIEW]

Moore Than Good Eddie Murphy brings Rudy Ray Moore to cussin’, kicking life in Dolemite Is My Name Written by

ROBERT HUNT Dolemite Is My Name Directed by Craig Brewer. Written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. Starring Eddie Murphy, Keegan-Michael Key, Mike Epps, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Tituss Burgess. Now playing on Netflix.

hough the name is often mistaken for a dismissive term, the Blaxploitation films of the early 1970s were a vivid and original trend in movies on the fringe of the Hollywood mainstream. Films like Coffy, Black Caesar and Super Fly were essentially tight, conventional genre films — the same things that lots of white filmmakers were still producing — but most of them also contained an implicit political message and a sense of community even as they went through the usual hero-and-villain motions. Rudy Ray Moore’s 1975 vehicle Dolemite is far from being the best of the cycle, but as bad movies go, it’s not a misguided aberration like The Room or Plan Nine from Outer Space. Nonetheless, it’s fair to say that Craig Brewer’s immensely entertaining tribute to Moore, Dolemite Is My Name, could have been called The Black Disaster Artist. Like James Franco’s tribute to Tommy Wiseau, Brewer’s film is an unlikely success story, but it’s steeped in the culture and energy that kept the best

(and the worst) Blaxploitation films down to earth. Rudy Ray Moore was an aspiring singer, dancer, preacher or whatever might have seemed like a quick path to stardom at the time; you name it, he was aspiring to it. He found unlikely success in the field of what used to be called party records — if your idea of a party is listening to someone tell dirty jokes all night. In character as Dolemite, an unrepentant loudmouth whose extreme and ridiculous boasting — mostly about sexual feats — Moore recorded his first album in his apartment, sold it from his car and became an underground hit. It was inevitable — at least to Moore — that movie stardom had to follow, so he threw together his first film, a preposterous 90 minutes of cursin’, killin’ and kung fu. As Moore, Eddie Murphy has rarely been so passionate and natural. Wesley Snipes is nearly as good in an understated comic role as D’Urville Martin, a reliable actor who was given a chance to direct Dolemite and, according to the film, lost all interest and control from the first day of shooting. With an ensemble rounded out by KeeganMichael Key, Craig Robinson, Mike Epps and Da’Vine Joy Randolph (a winning performance as Moore’s comic protégé Lady Reed), Brewer catches the manic energy and camaraderie of Moore and his circle. Written by the team of Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, the Boswells of marginal popular culture figures (they also wrote Ed Wood, Man on the Moon and The People vs. Larry Flynt), Dolemite Is My Name is a film about persistence and unfounded optimism, a motivational tale as infectious as it is inspiring. What shows up on the screen, the film tells us, isn’t as important as the energy and determination that put it there. It’s a nice sentiment, but fortunately, Brewer and company managed to get results worthy of their enthusiasm. n

Eddie Murphy gives a passionate performance as Rudy Ray Moore. | FRANCOIS DUHAMEL/NETFLIX

riverfronttimes.com

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

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

THIS WEEK THE GROVE SELECTED HAPPENINGS

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30

BPRISMATIC EVENTS DRAG ME TO HANDLEBAR: A DRAG SHOW

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.

8 PM AT HANDLEBAR

THE HU: THE GEREG TOUR AT THE READY ROOM

2244 R RIRVI IVEVERERFRRFFRORONONTNTTT ITTMI IMEMESESS MF EJAOUBRCNRCTEUOHAB2R1E04YR- -2236800,-, -M2N20AO0R1V18C8E HM Br5riE,ivRve2er05rf1f,rr8o2on0nt1trt t9i ivmmeeerrsfsi .rv.coceonormtfmtr io mn et ts i. mc oe ms . c o m

GROVE TRICK-OR-TREAT 4 PM AT THE GROVE

TWIN PEAKS, POST ANIMAL, OHHME $18, 7 PM AT THE READY ROOM

ROYAL REGGAE THURSDAYS

$22, 8 PM AT THE READY ROOM

$3, 10 PM AT ATOMIC COWBOY

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31

HONKY TONK HALLOWEEN

4130 MANCHESTER AVE. IN THE GROVE FIRECRACKERPIZZA.COM 10 PM AT HANDLEBAR

SCOTT HELMAN

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1

$10, 8 PM AT THE READY ROOM

FISTER RECORD RELEASE W/

HOMEBURGER AND PUTTY - IMPROV

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4

PARRY HOTTER: A MAGICAL GENDER BENDING SHOW

IMPROV SHOP OPEN MICROPHONE

$5, 7 PM AT ATTITUDES NIGHT CLUB

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5

THE BUNKER - IMPROV

THE KAY BROTHERS AT THE BOOTLEG

THE CALIFORNIA HONEYDROPS

$8, 8:15 PM AT THE IMPROV SHOP

$10, 8 PM AT ATOMIC COWBOY

$17, 7 PM AT ATOMIC COWBOY

EMO PROM 2019

ZOMBIE PROM

COMEDY SHOWCASE AT THE SHOP

$5, 7 PM AT ATTITUDES NIGHT CLUB

9:30 PM AT HANDLEBAR

$12, 8:15 PM AT THE IMPROV SHOP

MAXIMUM EFFORT, ACID LEATHER & BLASTAR

$10, 6 PM AT ATOMIC COWBOY

$10, 8 PM AT THE IMPROV SHOP

8 PM AT THE IMPROV SHOP

r i v e r f r o n t t i m e sr i. vc eo rmf r o n Ot tCi TmOeBs E. cR o 3m0 - N JOUVNEEM 2B 0E -R 2 65 ,, 22 00 11 89

RRI IV VE ERRF FRROONNT T T TI IMME ES S 2 25 5

CAFE

[REVIEW]

Beast Mode In the Grove, David Sandusky grows his barbecue empire Written by

CHERYL BAEHR BEAST Butcher & Block 4156 Manchester Avenue, 314-944-6003. Sun.-Thurs. 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.10 p.m. (or until sellout).

our first clue that AST utcher lock’s brunch is like no other besides the flaming hearth and hog head hanging over the carving station is the porchetta Granted, there are other restaurants in town that serve this Italian porkon-pork wonder, but the fact that it is sliced to order for an all-youcan-eat buffet makes you realize how serious pitmaster avid Sandusky is about brunch e’s dead serious, serving up porchetta that makes you want to go back for seconds, thirds and fourths, even as your body screams uncle ow could you stay away when such beauty beckons The pork belly e terior, crisped up like a porcine potato chip on the outside, luscious and fatty underneath, is rolled around a succulent pork loin that’s accented with herbs and even more fat As the meat is sliced, it iggles and glistens, dripping its uices onto your waiting plate It’s so tender, you could butter your biscuit with it, a challenge that you can actually attempt considering a pan of e ecutive chef yan c onald’s fluffy biscuits are ust about five feet away Tasting that porchetta, you understand why fans of the five-yearold elleville, Illinois, smokehouse AST raft o have been begging Sandusky and his wife, eggan, to open a location on this side of the river Those prayers were finally answered this past une when the husband-and-wife team launched their sophomore effort, AST utcher lock, in the Grove or the new place, they brought with them all of their greatest hits their fork-tender agyu brisket, succulent ompart

RIVERFRONT TIMES

Brunch options include meat cooked over an open flame, such as porchetta. | MABEL SUEN arm pulled pork, beer cheesesteak, mac n’ cheese, russels sprouts and that mind-blowing pork steak owever, as their regular customers would soon find out, they had much bigger plans or the Sanduskys, who have made it their mission to push the idea of what barbecue can be, opening a AST 2 was not enough They saw the Grove spot as more of a testing ground than a smokehouse a place where they could serve what was e pected, then offer their diners more As a result, AST utcher lock is more of a barbecue comple than a mere restaurant, consisting of the smokehouse, a butchery and shop selling prepared foods It also features a private space called the Skullery, which is where Sandusky and his team really get to play If this sounds like a massive operation, it is AST utcher lock sits in the heart of the Grove, but, unlike the neighborhood’s other businesses, it’s far enough back from anchester to give it a uni ue feel The s uat, mid-century modern building is fronted by a soaring, wooden slat structure that partially shades the patio Inside, the room opens up to a traditional fast-casual smokehouse with a large open din-

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

ing room and order counter ere, the Sanduskys serve AST favorites such as the mouthwatering pulled pork, a uicy, smokekissed mound of meat, so soaked in its own uices it makes sauce irrelevant ually dazzling, the basted pork belly is as soft as tempered butter, if tempered butter were a magnificently porky wonder with caramelized edges and concentrated flavor As is the case at the elleville AST, Sandusky’s brisket is positively outstanding A contender for the best brisket in town, the beef is pull-apart tender, barely held together by a strip of buttery-soft fat and charred e terior Tucked into a warm, flour tortilla, with a side of impossibly creamy mac n’ cheese, it’s pure barbecue oy The pork steak is yet another instance where the Sanduskys prove the new place is every bit as good as the original The mammoth hunk of pork is so tender, it falls apart with ust the suggestion of a fork tug There is no need for aull’s here the meat glistens with its drippings, the pork’s natural sweetness shining as brightly as the smoke This is the dish that made AST a household name, and it continues to be the smokehouse’s highlight

riverfronttimes.com

et this is where the similarities to the flagship location end To the right of the dining room sits AST utcher lock’s glassenclosed private dining area, the Skullery, which serves as a combination show kitchen, events space and chef’s table where Sandusky, c onald and their team use a Grillworks live-fire cooking setup to play around with different ideas ost of the e perimentation so far has consisted of weekend tasting menus led by c onald, who uses the live-fire grill as a source of inspiration for seasonally influenced pri fi e dinners n a recent evening, this consisted of an eight-course meal that began with a welcome snack of paper-thin house-cured coppa wrapped around dressed greens with the te ture of flower petals c onald followed with an eclectic progression of dishes including a delicate acorn consomm accented with crisp pepitas, a shockingly fresh hamachi crudo, a pressed chicken terrine served alongside verdant green mole and an outstanding mezzaluna halfmoon pasta filled with beef verall, the dishes were well e ecuted, but there are two that I cannot stop thinking about The first is an outstanding house-

made andouille sausage served with kimchi collard greens The sausage, rustically ground, was breathtakingly hot, but the little flecks of fat mitigated the heat I worried that the kimchi would e acerbate the chiles in the sausage, but instead, the greens had the sweetness you’d e pect from traditional Southern collards, which tempered the spice It was flawless, as was the evening’s star plate, a beef-fat-fried sunchoke Inside, it tasted like the creamiest potato you’ve ever eaten on the outside, the savory tallow crisped up on the sunchoke’s flesh, forming a decadent coating c onald upped the ante, shaving foie gras atop the root vegetable to underscore the richness I can only hope this dish will make a regular appearance on future menus I appreciated the tasting menus, though Sandusky and c onald have a chance to do even better St ouis is currently blessed with several chef’s table options the ones that are the most successful

BEAST chef-owner David Sandusky. | MABEL SUEN are those that have a distinct point of view that lends a cohesion to the e perience AST has a uni ue identity as the place in town to really think outside the bo about barbecue There were elements of this in the e perience, but I’m not sure that the menus so far, while tasty, have fully embraced that It’s an opportunity I hope they will seize moving forward

In terms of brunch, however, AST utcher lock has peaked at the highest mountain top There is no improving upon that porchetta that is, unless you pair it with the restaurant’s brisket, perfectly cooked hot-smoked salmon and shockingly uicy turkey And that hog head is not merely a decoration Sandusky and company will slice you a piece of the owl, typi-

cally reserved to make guanciale, that makes bacon seem lean and boring unless it’s AST’s bacon, which is, hands down, the most marvelous e ample of the form I’ve ever tasted That you can eat all of this, and a made-to-order omelet, and c onald’s biscuits, and the restaurant’s signature russels sprouts and about other things makes it the brunch to end all brunches That there is not a line out the door every Sunday morning is shocking There will be The Sanduskys are used to such lines After all, the popularity of their elleville smokehouse is what prompted them to open AST utcher lock in the first place ow they’ve been able to match that level of perfection is an impressive feat one almost as impossible as saying no to that fifth slice of porchetta

BEAST Butcher & Block Brisket platter (regular) .....................$14.49 Pork steak (half) ..................................$13.99 Brunch (buffet) ......................................... $29

HAPPY HOUR

riverfronttimes.com

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

FEATURED DINING SEDARA SWEETS

SPONSORED CONTENT

6 RESTAURANTS YOU NEED TO CHECK OUT...

CLUSTER BUSTERS

SEDARASWEETS.COM

CLUSTER-BUSTERS.BUSINESS.SITE

314.532.6508 8011 MACKENZIE RD AFFTON, MO 63123

314.297.8846 3636 PAGE BLVD ST. LOUIS, MO 63113

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!

Located on both Page Avenue, as well as the upcoming location in the Saint Louis Galleria, Cluster Busters hopes to provide Saint Louis with high quality seafood at affordable prices. Cluster Busters offers both dine in and carry out seafood, with recipes from Chef Deion Woodard. You will find all your favorites dishes such as seafood, pasta, gumbo, and fried fish. Whether you want to try their flagship “Cluster Buster” or the Lobster Mac and Cheese, Cluster Busters offers something for everyone. Since 2017, Cluster Busters continues to grow as part of a staple of the North Saint Louis community, and is very excited to bring their offerings to the Galleria. Keep an eye out for menu additions as well as daily specials. Cluster Busters is also available for catering and private events, so consider them for your next event. At Cluster Busters, you’re invited to come catch this drip!

POKE DOKE

POKEDOKESTL.COM

CARNIVORE STL CARNIVORE-STL.COM

314.449.6328 5257 SHAW AVE, ST. LOUIS, MO 63110 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.

BLKMKTEATS.COM

314.328.3421 6730 PAGE AVE ST. LOUIS, MO 63138

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

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.

RIVERFRONT TIMES

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!

BLK MKT EATS

CRAWLING CRAB

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

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

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

riverfronttimes.com

SHORT ORDERS

[SIDE DISH]

At Known & Grown, Jenn DeRose Advocates for Local Farms Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

s far back as she can remember — and probably even farther — Jenn DeRose has been fascinated with the Earth. In fact, she vividly remembers her first call to activism She was in the second grade. I distinctly remember my first Earth Day,” DeRose says. “We planted a tree and learned about recycling. I remember coming home and telling my parents, ‘This is what we are doing now. Things are going to change.’” Looking back, DeRose realizes she was destined to become an advocate for the environment and our food system. From a young age, she was mesmerized by the poster of the Earth that hung above her bed and always found herself gravitating toward subjects about the planet and its ecosystems. In the fourth grade, she started a “World Club” at her school In the fifth grade, she wrote a report on Siberian tigers and learned about e tinction She was horrified and committed then and there to do her part to change things. Today, DeRose is working to effect that change as the manager of Known & Grown (www.knownandgrownstl.org), an initiative of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment whose mission it is to connect sustainable farms within the St ouis oodshed with chefs, restaurateurs and consumers. As DeRose explains, Known & Grown arose out of the realization that even for well-intentioned consumers who want to support local, sustainable agriculture, it

Jenn DeRose of Known & Grown is on a mission to make eating local accessible. | ANDY PAULISSEN can be di cult to really know the practices behind the food we consume. Small farmers are really struggling; in our foodshed, less than one percent of the land is used for fruits and vegetables,” DeRose explains. “The rest is used to feed livestock or produce ethanol or garbage food. It’s really hard for consumers to know where their food is coming from, because labels can be so confusing. People mean well, but they end up spending more money on products that aren’t what they think they are. Known & Grown makes it easier for consumers to make the choices they want.” At Known & Grown, DeRose feels like she has finally landed where she is meant to be after years of struggling to figure out her path She admits that, after high school, she got off track for a while and had a hard time trying to figure out what she wanted to do. Around that time, she got into the local punk and DIY scene because it aligned with her values She also found herself working in restaurants, even though she says she was terrible at it. “I was a terrible server, a bad line cook, a terrible bartender,” DeR-

ose laughs. “I loved it though. I love restaurants and chefs. I just wasn’t any good at it.” Eventually, DeRose felt the pull to go back to school and opted to study sustainability at Washington University. Her education led to a job with the Green Dining Alliance, where she found herself again working in a restaurant environment, but this time, in a role that was a better fit During this period, DeRose was also regularly involved with the Missouri Coalition for the Environment. The organization was trying to form a regional brand that would support sustainable Missouri farmers, and DeRose helped them in their efforts. When that idea evolved into Known & Grown, she knew it was her dream job. “I’ve been training my entire life for this,” DeRose says. “I’ve worked in every part of a restaurant that you can, so I speak the language. And I’d never claim to be a farmer, but I’ve been a gardener for a long time and enjoy the act of growing food. I don’t believe in fate, but I feel like I’ve been led along a path that makes sense to where I am right now.” DeRose recently took a break

riverfronttimes.com

from managing Known & Grown to share her thoughts on the St Louis food scene, how she incorporates her sustainability ethos into her morning routine and the local chef who’s been known to bring a tear to her eye. What is one thing people don’t know about you that you wish they did? I’m an anxious, secretly introverted person who needs downtime after doing any public speaking or talking to people at social events. I channel my anxiety to do what needs to be done, and then I need to hide for a bit to recover. What daily ritual is non-negotiable for you? My morning French press coffee ritual. It’s not local, it’s not environmentally responsible, but I need it to live ro-tip ook for the Rainforest Alliance and Fair Trade logos on coffee beans to make sure they’re grown with minimal environmental impact and they’re paying fair wages to farmers.) If you could have any superpower, what would it be? The power to force others to look at the world through some-

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

Continued on pg 31

RIVERFRONT TIMES

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

JENN DEROSE

Continued from pg 29

one else’s eyes Then flight What is the most positive thing in food, wine or cocktails that you’ve noticed in St. Louis over the past year? The focus on local ingredients and the shunning of plastic trash like straws and Styrofoam What is something missing in the local food, wine or cocktail scene that you’d like to see? A common understanding about what “local” and “sustainable” actually mean. Luckily, there are programs out there that are doing a good job of education, like the Green Dining Alliance (my

previous job) that address holistic restaurant sustainability, and my current job (Known & Grown), which focuses specifically on how and where food is raised. I’m hopeful that chefs and diners will start using our website (knownandgrownstl.org) as a resource to find environmentally responsible food grown and raised within 150 miles of St ouis Who is your St. Louis food crush? Chef David Kirkland [at Turn]. He once served me a grilled zucchini that came from Urban Harvest ST ’s rooftop garden, and I almost cried because it was so good. Who’s the one person to watch right now in the local dining scene? Watch Known & Grown! We are going to be all up in everybody’s

business before you know it. Which ingredient is most representative of your personality? Nutritional yeast. It seems weird but it gets the job done. If you weren’t in the food business, what would you be doing? It’s been so long that I’ve been in and around the restaurant industry that it is di cult to imagine doing anything else, but I suppose I could see myself working as a sustainability manager for a city or college. Or as a goat farmer. Name an ingredient that shouldn’t be allowed in restaurants. Styrofoam inter tomatoes So gross. What is your after-work hangout? I don’t really have a regular after-work routine. I like to stay

[FOOD NEWS]

Food Network Needs Your Help to Refresh Ferguson Restaurant Written by

LIZ MILLER

A peek inside the Kirkwood bakeshop. | COURTESY NATHANIEL REID BAKERY

[FOOD NEWS]

Nathaniel Reid Bakery Expands Kitchen, Production Written by

LIZ MILLER

ust in time for the holidays, chef Nathaniel Reid of Nathaniel Reid Bakery (11243 Manchester Road, Kirkwood; 314-858-1019) has announced a sweet surprise: the expansion of his flagship bakery in Kirkwood. Recent renovations to the space have added an additional 1,000 square feet of production space underneath the bakery, according to a press release. All this extra room will, of course, translate into an increased number of

treats upstairs, with the bakery projected to double its production and expand large-format catering and boxed lunch options. In the press release, the James Beard Award semifinalist chef credited the expansion to the huge success his bakery has experienced so far. “Thanks to our community’s support we have had the fortune to see the rapid growth of our bakery over the past three years,” Reid said. “We run a very efficient kitchen in a small space, but we want to continue to meet the demands of our guests. With the new expanded space, our team will have a little more breathing room, and we will be able to fulfill more orders for holiday menus as well as catering and boxed lunches.” The bakery, which opened in 2016, is famous for artful desserts like the signature Amber tart, made with pralines with pecan caramel, sablé breton, vanilla-bean mousse and caramelized pecans, as well as rustic fare like quiches and croissant sandwiches. Now, with doubled production, there’s literally even more to love. n

hen Drake’s Place (701 South Florissant Road, Ferguson; 314736-1140) first opened in Ferguson in 2014, it realized a longtime dream for owner Sonny Lewis. The chef and restaurant industry veteran had spent 40 years working in kitchens across the St. Louis area before opening his own eatery. For the past five years, Drake’s Place has earned a reputation for its fine American cuisine and focus on community — and now, Lewis and his team need some support from the community in kind. On November 5 and 6, Food Network’s Restaurant: Impossible will film an episode at Drake’s Place. Hosted by

riverfronttimes.com

busy (I have a second job doing environmental consulting work with BlackRock Consulting and I have a few volunteer roles), but I love to go hiking and walking outside as much as possible, whether that’s down the street to Tower Grove ark, on obinson State Park or any other of Missouri’s beautiful outdoor spaces. What’s your food or beverage guilty pleasure? The vegan Maine Event chocolate chip cookie from SweetArt What would be your last meal on Earth? A pile of vegan Maine Event cookies from SweetArt a bowl of homepopped, locally grown popcorn; and a coffee stout from Schlafly or Perennial Artisan Ales. n

chef Robert Irvine, the television show seeks to reimagine and remodel restaurants in the hopes of turning flagging businesses around. With just two days for renovations and $10,000 for each project, the show charts the progress from initial visit to final reveal. Unlike similar TV shows such as Bar Rescue and Kitchen Nightmares, the team behind Restaurant: Impossible invite people in each restaurant’s hometown to help with the transformation. And that’s where you come in, St. Louis: Food Network has released two notices seeking volunteers for the Drake’s Place episode. The first opportunity to contribute is by helping the Restaurant: Impossible design team renovate and redecorate the restaurant. The second request welcomes locals to visit the newly remodeled restaurant and appear as extras during the big reopening celebration. To read both notices in detail, visit www.riverfronttimes.com. In the meantime, keep updated on the changes at Drake’s Place by following the restaurant on Facebook, and look for an update on this story from RFT after the big reopening celebration on November 6. n

Drake’s Place opened in Ferguson in 2014. | GOOGLE MAPS

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

Authentic Hong Kong Style Cuisine

THANK YOU FOR VOTING US BEST CHINESE!

-2019 Best of St. Louis Readers Poll

OPEN DAILY

DIM SUM

EVERYDAY 11AM-3PM

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

RIVERFRONT TIMES

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

[FOOD NEWS]

Little Fox to Open Next Month in Fox Park Written by

LIZ MILLER

fter more than a year of planning and almost five months of construction, Little Fox (2800 Shenandoah Avenue) plans to open in the Fox Park neighborhood in late November. Envisioned as a modern neighborhood restaurant by owners Mowgli and Craig Rivard, the dining experience will balance the best of fine dining in a more casual environment, the couple says. “It’s really all about comfort and being approachable but done really well,” Craig explains. Getting to this point has been a long time coming for the Rivards, who moved from rooklyn to St Louis to open a restaurant in November 2 The couple first met while cooking at farm-to-table restaurants Diner and Marlow & Sons in illiamsburg, two of the eateries in Brooklyn restaurateur Andrew Tarlow’s empire. They later moved on to Clover Club, also in Brooklyn, where Craig was executive chef. Although the Rivards loved the family they found in the Brooklyn restaurant scene, the couple’s longtime goal was to move to St Louis, Craig’s hometown, and open a restaurant of their own. “We’ve always seen so much potential in St ouis, raig says “We made the decision probably ten years ago that this was the idea we wanted to do.” For Craig and Mowgli, it was key to find a neighborhood where they could put down roots — the couple live within walking distance of Little Fox — and carve out a new community here in St Louis. “We just want to be a part of the neighborhood and add what we think is comfortable dining for people,” Mowgli says. “Our number-one criteria was to be a part of a community.” hen developing specifics for ittle o , the couple reflected back on their time in Brooklyn. While working at Clover Club, the Rivards

A rendering of Little Fox as designed by SPACE Architecture + Design. | COURTESY LITTLE FOX met mi ologist Shannon onche, who’s now developing Little Fox’s cocktail list. Like Craig, Ponche is a St ouis native, having worked with cocktail guru Ted Kilgore at Taste years ago before moving to New York. The Rivards say that they gravitate toward drier, herbalforward cocktails and those made with fortified wines like sherry and vermouth, so diners can expect to see those influences on the menu at Little Fox. While Ponche will be heading up the initial cocktail program, Little Fox beverage director Kelly Nyikes will be overseeing the restaurant’s wine program, which will exclusively focus on natural wines. Prior to joining the Little Fox team, Nyikes worked for One Off Hospitality Group in Chicago, owned by industry titans Donnie Madia and Paul Kahan. After moving back to St ouis, Nyikes worked at James Beard award winner Gerard raft’s Sardella, where he paid special attention to offering natural wines. “Once we carved out [a natural wine selection at Sardella and put labels on it, you started to see a little more velocity — people knew what to expect and they were asking about it, which gave me a lot of hope for when we started talking about this project,” Nyikes says. “There are really good producers sitting in that zero-additive, organically and bio-dynamically grown space who are also lasersighted winemakers who know how to do that in a really clean, precise way.” Nyikes says he’s planning to source natural wines from across the world, including familiar winegrowing regions such as France and California as well as reemerging regions in Eastern Europe, Czechoslovakia and Georgia. “Georgia is the birthplace of

“Every element has an effect on your experience, so we tried to think through every possible thing.” wine; I think those will be really fun to show people how wine used to be made in the ancient world,” Nyikes says. “That will be a really interesting conversation to have. There’s also some really good producers in California who straddle that New World-Old World line in a really successful way, where you get fuller bodied, fuller textured, riper expressions done in this really ‘let’s see how it happens’ way.” With the bar program taking shape, Craig, the executive chef, is currently focused on R&D for the menu, while Mowgli, who will run front-of-house operations, is working closely with S A Architecture + Design on the building remodel. “I had a ton of fun with the design; there was a lot of brick there, and then we’ve brought in a lot of lighter elements — light wood, tile,” Mowgli says. “There’s a lot of texture and light colors when you come in.” In the kitchen, Craig is excited to firm up the menu, which he describes as New American with influences from the couple’s time in Brooklyn and Europe and inspired by the seasons. To that end, he’s been in conversation with local farmers including Crystal and

riverfronttimes.com

ric Stevens of lourish and avid Bohlen of Bohlen Family Farms. “A lot of our larger plates will be staples, and we’ll change up the sides with the seasons,” Craig says. “We’re looking at things like a bone-in pork Milanese and whole grilled trout. Ultimately we’re trying to be as fle ible with the menu as possible, just giving people multiple ways to navigate If you want to come in, have a small plate and a glass of wine on your way home from work, you can do that; if you want to come in with a group of friends and share a bunch of smaller plates, you can do that. If you want to have a more traditional appetizer and entree, we’re set up for that as well.” To start, Little Fox will be open Tuesday through Saturday from 3 to 10 p.m., including a social hour with food and drink specials offered Tuesday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. Eventually, the Rivards plan to expand into weekday breakfast and lunch as well as brunch on weekends. The couple hopes to add brunch service in early 2020 and continue expanding their hours from there. “We hope to get into an all-day concept with espresso and pastries in the morning, light lunch service with takeaway sandwiches during the day, dinner service and then brunch service on Saturday and Sunday, raig says When the restaurant opens next month, it will feature 54 seats in the dining room plus an additional eleven at the bar and around 34 more on the outdoor patio (although that may not open until spring, weather permitting). The redesigned space will feature a separate dining room for private events and special dinners, which can host eight to 26 diners. To start, the Rivards say Little Fox will allow reservations for about half of its dining room, with the remaining seats available for walk-in diners. With an aim to become Fox Park’s favorite neighborhood eatery, that fle ibility for walk-in guests is only one element of Little Fox that the Rivards are excited to share. “Every element has an effect on your experience, so we tried to think through every possible thing,” Mowgli says. “We think that when you come and eat here, between the wine, the design, the food and the music, it will make sense once you have the whole experience.” Keep updated on Little Fox’s progress, including its grand opening announcement, by signing up for notices at www.littlefoxstl.com. n

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

MUSIC + CULTURE [PREVIEW]

Never Be Lonely Roland Johnson collaborates with a host of St. Louis musicians for new LP Set Your Mind Free Written by

THOMAS CRONE

he newest album by St. Louis vocalist Roland Johnson is truly a collaborative affair between him and a pair of talented multi-instrumentalists, Kevin O’Connor and Paul Niehuas IV. Recorded inside of the latter’s Blue Lotus Recordings, Set Your Mind Free is an album of largely original material, all geared to highlight the skills of the 71-yearold local soul legend. “We were building up close to twenty songs over the past eighteen months,” O’Connor says, “with the idea of taking the strongest ten and polishing those to be presented on the album.” “Paul and I bounce between any of the rhythm section instruments,” O’Connor explains. “Paul added a nice French horn intro in ‘Now You’re Gone,’ and I played bari sax on any song with horns.” The record, which is the first in Blue Lotus’ three-year history as a label to be released on vinyl, comes with a host of players and contributors outside of the core trio, many with names that will be familiar to local music fans. David Gomez (Tonina) pitched in on tenor sax, Adam Hucke (Funky Butt Brass Band) played trumpet, Mikail Andrea (Arcadia Dance Orchestra) played trombone. For the tunes with a string quintet, Abbie Steiling, Lindsey Wilken, Mark Hochberg, Dragomir Page and Andy Hainz chipped in. Local singer Emily Wallace sang two duets with Johnson, and the River Kittens provided backing harmonies/hooks on four songs. “‘Mean Mistreatin’ also features Tyler Stokes on guitar,” Neihaus adds. “Mike Graham played upright bass on ‘You Know You’re

Set Your Mind Free is the second full-length record from local soul legend Roland Johnson. | JACKIE TEUBER Mine.’ John Marshall played drums on ‘Now You’re Gone,’ and I played tenor sax on a couple songs, too.” Nine of the album’s ten tracks are originals, with the lone cover an interesting choice, Queen’s “You’re My Best Friend.” Collaborating on two of the tracks is Gene Jackson, another frequent contributor to Blue Lotus’ live shows and recordings. Set Your Mind Free’s o cial ctober 25 release was preceded by a single and video, shot by Chris Boyd at the ever-videogenic Venice Cafe, which O’Connor suggests aligns with the overall positive message of the album’s title. “Plus, it helps that my wife works there and will happily play the part of the bartender,” he adds. That kind of interpersonal connection is a hallmark of the new album, it seems. As O’Connor explains, “Mat-

tie from the River Kittens plays third base on my summer softball team in Tower Grove. One day in between innings I brought up the idea of having the River Kittens sing the hook to the Queen song. Roland was sitting in the control room the day they recorded. As soon as they began the ‘Ooh, you make me live’ hook, he jumped out of his seat with joy and shared a couple positive expletives. We were so happy with their harmonies and e ciency in the studio that we invited them to sing backup on a few more tunes.” “Still Here,” one of the duets between Wallace and Johnson, is another example O’Connor cites of the album’s collaborative nature and deeply personal material. “On a public level I wrote it as a duet about mutual appreciation, love, understanding and sticking around through the tough times,”

riverfronttimes.com

he says. “Personally, I wrote it as an ode to my brother, whom I almost lost to a gunshot. He’s the reason I got into music in the first place His fortitude and determination to stick around and recover inspired me to say ‘thanks’ for everything. I certainly couldn’t sing it, so I was lucky enough to have Emily and Roland do it for me.” Niehaus, whose ownership of his own studio enables him to allow projects to gestate in their own time, adds that “Mean Mistreatin” has an interesting origin story as well, in that it was written and recorded live, all together and in the moment. “The initial idea was to make it long enough to cut the best verses from it, so it would be around three and a half minutes,” he explains. “But when we went back a few weeks later to listen to find the best verses, we realized it was its own valid and special thing and should be left at seven-plus minutes long. Roland improvised the verses on the spot live, with all of us just maintaining eye contact and groove in a circle.” The sense that Johnson might be golden for a bit of spontaneous lyricism is confirmed by his own email about the pro ect, filled with poetic platitudes and near-lyrics (Johnson declined a phone interview). Rather than parsing it out, here’s that note, in full, from the man himself (lightly edited for clarity): “FIRST: I believe in faith, and God has given me the sight and focus to set my mind free of closure. “SECOND: I was told Paul, Kevin, and I share a great deal of openness, business and musical traits along the way of this album. Can’t tell about others, because we together created this album. “THIRD: NOTHING is easy, you must have a thought, story, a tale, to make believe it’s been done, or will be done. “FOURTH: It came in a sense of freedom, the title and all. I felt submerged in my space and just let go after that. I was free in an imaginary dream which just formed. “Finally: We came with what we knew that worked for us: truth, and saying, ‘Yeah, we did it.’” SET YOUR MIND FREE.” Set Your Mind Free is available via Blue Lotus Recordings at bluelotusrecordings.com/store.

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

[HOMESPUN]

A New Light Experimental rock quintet Thames comes into its own with new album Spotlight Written by

CHRISTIAN SCHAEFFER

f you play in a St. Louis band, naming your group after a foreign port of call is a tricky proposition. Our region has a losing track record with proper pronunciations of overseas names — Francophiles would shudder at the hard “oy” sound we land on in “Gravois,” to say nothing of what Missourians have done to the palatial namesake of Versailles (“VerSALES”) in the center of the state. Given that we don’t even agree on what vowel sound should come at the end of our state’s name, this is no surprise. But that doesn’t make things any easier on the moody experimental rock quintet Thames. The band formed when its members were in high school, and a shared fi ation with Radiohead led them to the name of England’s longest river. Never having heard the name said aloud, the band set about introducing themselves as “thaymes” — full pronunciation of the “th” with a long “a” sound — as opposed to how any Londoner would refer to the temz that flows through the center of the city. According to Thames’ singer, songwriter and guitarist Gabriel Jackson, the variety of (mis)pronunciations has become a charming quirk of playing in the band. “Every other person would say it a different way — even my mom, who is probably the biggest fan, will call it a different name depending on what she’s feeling,” Jackson says. So if the name Thames — however you want to pronounce it — betrays more than a little Anglophilia, on its latest release, Spotlight, the band moves away from some of its rit-rock influences (Arctic Monkeys and the 1975 with little bits of Muse and Elbow poking through) and embraces an amorphous electronic palette and emotionally naked lyrics. That shift in sound is part of a continued evolution for the band, which had its rather inauspicious beginnings after an aborted jam

RIVERFRONT TIMES

For its latest record, Thames has moved away from Brit-rock toward a more electronic palette. | VIA ARTIST BANDCAMP session with Jackson and drummer Sean Buchert. The pair had played as high schoolers in a previous group, but when Jackson brought over his own songs, he received a chilly reception from Buchert. “He actually turned me down the first day we went over my material,” Jackson recalls. “He stood up in the middle of my songs and sent me home.” Once Jackson hooked up with fellow Webster University student Zander Hayes (who plays synth and guitar), Buchert changed his tune. “I got a random text from Sean, telling me he was sorry that he told me to fuck off. Now he’s my best friend — we probably spent a year working on this record together Thames is filled out by Noah Gregory on piano and guitar and bass player Connor Fiehler. For its previous EPs, Thames relied on the braintrust at Sawhorse Studio ackson recalls it as a flurried experience. “We would book a twelve-hour session on a Sunday and record everything over one weekend,” Jackson recalls. “It was an odd way of recording a project, and that didn’t allow for that much creativity — it didn’t allow for any lightning-bolt effect.” Jackson credits the crew at Sawhorse for showing a fledgling band how to make an album.

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

“The guys at Sawhorse taught us so much about how to record and how to be a band — we owe so much to them,” he says. But that experience, coupled with Buchert’s growing skills in recording and producing, led Thames to self-produce Spotlight. Aside from drums and final vocals, uchert handled all the recording in his basement. “It was a big jump, but we trusted Sean to do it,” Jackson says. “It definitely made us feel closer I can’t tell you the amount of 3 a.m. nights spent trying to get the most miniscule thing down.” Jackson outlines the genesis of several songs on Spotlight as well as a few of those “lightning-bolt moments” — the sparks of creativity that come with the freedom to tinker and perfect. For the albumopening title track, Buchert’s addition of a relatively subtle, ambient guitar part provided the secret sauce. For the darkly danceable “You Do It To Yourself,” he recalls sweating over finding the perfect synth sound to give the track a swooping sense of lift-off. “Having no timetable was profound for us,” Jackson says. “Toward the end, we had to decide that we were finished e had to gauge that with each other.” The late nights and countless mixes paid off — Spotlight finds the young band in a place where it

riverfronttimes.com

is comfortable with rock dynamics but more eager to play with atypical rhythms and moody keyboards. Jackson’s voice shows a sensitivity and guilelessness that helps sell some of the more emotionally loaded lyrics. “The biggest thing we wanted to get out of this record was that we wanted to tap into a lot of emotions and sonic avenues we hadn’t before,” he says. “Our old sound was a little more rock oriented, which wasn’t bad, but we wanted to make more dance music. The album plays a little more on sadness and heartache — I was more vulnerable with my lyrics.” Spotlight is available to stream and purchase now, and Thames will celebrate its release with a show at the Ready Room on November 23. Once summer comes and school schedules permit, the band plans to tour around the Midwest and beyond. Jackson says that the band’s plans are modest, but that he’s prepared to keep Thames — no matter how you say it — on the tips of music fans’ tongues. “It will be interesting if we make it big and have to answer to some people overseas,” he says with a laugh.

Thames Record Release Show 8 p.m. Saturday, November 23. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Avenue. $7 to $10. 314-833-3929.

Sean Baltzell (left) is launching a record label to complement bar and lounge Takashima Records. | MELISSA BUELT

[VINYL]

Takashima Records to Launch Record Label

ast week, highly anticipated cocktail and vinyl-themed bar and lounge Takashima Records (4041 Chouteau) announced plans to launch an independent record label to dovetail

with the concept. The inspiration for Takashima Records bar and lounge was created by Parlor owners Sean Baltzell and Casey Colgan. For the record label, Baltzell is teaming up Paul Fullerton (DJ Ill Temperament) and Dan Hayden (DJ Hal Greens and owner of the Wine Tap in Belleville, Illinois). Baltzell was first inspired to open Takashima after spending time in Tokyo, where he saw the emergence of vinyl shops doubling as bars across the city. The venue’s label will initially focus

on re-pressing limited-edition vinyl by local St. Louis artists but hopes to eventually branch out in issuing current releases from local, national and international acts. The first vinyl release, anticipated for early 2020, is a re-press of St. Louis saxophonist Oliver Sain’s album, On the Hill, on seveninch vinyl in a gatefold picture-sleeve set. Sain, who passed away in 2003, owned Archway Studio from 1965 until the late 1990s. Sain was a close friend of Tom “Papa” Ray, owner of Vintage Vinyl (6610 Delmar Boulevard, University City; 314-721-4096), who the Takashima team consider a close friend. Ray previously released Sain’s St. Louis Breakdown: The Best of Oliver Sain compilation in 2009. “Unfortunately, many of the master tapes from Archway Studio are MIA,” Hayden said in a release. “But, it is our hope to keep Sain’s music alive and honor his lifetime contribution to the industry. The re-press of Sain’s On the Hill is just the beginning. I think Solomon Burke said it best with his quote, ‘Oliver Sain is the Quincy Jones of St. Louis, but nobody knows it.’ With the Takashima Records label, it’s our goal to re-introduce music lovers to the artists, sounds and styles that have shaped what we love about this city’s musical footprint.” Takashima is partnering with 4 Hands Brewing Co. and 1220 Artisan Spirits on the first release.

—Ella Faust

[VENUES]

Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge to Open in CWE Wednesday Oct. 30 9:30PM

t. Louis boasts a strong cabaret scene, but until now, the city didn’t have a venue solely dedicated to the art. That will change when Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge (364 North Boyle Avenue) opens in the Central West End on October 31. The new lounge will offer dining and drinks, but the focus is on intimate musical performances. Owner Jim Dolan is a seasoned music producer, having organized close to a thousand cabaret shows in various St. Louis venues in the past fourteen years. With Blue Strawberry, he’s finally getting the chance to open up his own personalized event space. “Our music sweet spot is singers who tell stories,” Dolan says. “We book cabaret, singer-songwriters, country, folk — all kinds of genres, focusing on singers.” Local and national performers will take the stage at Blue Strawberry three nights a week — Thursday, Friday and Saturday — and during the week, the lounge will be open for dinner service,

Sean Canan’s Voodoo Players Tribute To The Doors

Thursday Oct. 31 9PM

Roland Johnson and Soul Endeavor Friday Nov. 1 10PM From Nashville

A sneak peek at the Blue Strawberry stage. | VIA BLUE STRAWBERRY

The Aquaducks Funky Halloween show Saturday Nov. 2 10PM

with live music on Tuesday and Wednesday. Blue Strawberry’s kitchen will offer a well-rounded menu — from classic American-style fare to a tuna poke bowl and lobster roll — as well as extensive wine and beverage offerings. Chef Kevin Sthair, who previously headed the kitchen at Lucas Park Grille, is Blue Strawberry’s executive chef. Ken Haller, who was voted the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s best St. Louis Cabaret Artist in 2015, will open the room on Thurs-

day, October 31. Other upcoming programming highlights include cabaret queen KT Sullivan on November 16, New York theater scene up-and-comers the Drinkwater Brothers on December 7 and musical theater talents the Skivives, a duo featuring Broadway star Matt Doyle, for a special holiday show on December 8. Tickets to shows and additional information can be found on the venue’s website at bluestrawberrystl.com.

riverfronttimes.com

—Ella Faust

Roland Johnson and Soul Endeavor Sunday Nov. 3 8PM

Soul, Blues and Pop Diva Km Massie Wednesday Nov. 7 9:30PM

Sean Canan’s Voodoo Players Tribute To Paul Simon

Friday Nov. 8 10PM

Clusterpluck’s Pluckin’ To Feed Fundraiser

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

OUT EVERY NIGHT

[CRITIC’S PICK]

Young Thug. | VIA DONAVON PUBLIC RELATIONS

Young Thug 7 p.m. Thursday, October 31. Family Arena, 2002 Arena Parkway, St. Charles. $24 to $45. 636-896-4200. Just in time for Halloween, Young Thug swings through town this week, giving new meaning to the term “slime season.” The milquetoast wasteland that is St. Charles is just about as unlikely a place as imaginable to play host to the dresswearing rap eccentric, and if the location isn’t surreal enough, Thugger’s Family Arena appearance on the spookiest of holidays is sure to put things over the top. The Atlanta rapper’s ascent to the

THURSDAY 31

ADAM GAFFNEY: 8:30 p.m., free. The Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090. HALLOWEEN 2019: 9 p.m., free. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. JAKE’S LEG “HALLOWEEN PARTY”: 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. THE MENZINGERS: w/ Tigers Jaw, Culture Abuse 8 p.m., $25-$28. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. MIKE MORGAN & THE CRAWL: 7 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. RIPE: 8 p.m., $14. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. TWIN PEAKS: w/ Post Animal, Ohmme 8 p.m., $18-$20. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. WE BITE: A TRIBUTE TO THE MISFITS: w/ Stinkbomb, the Winks 8 p.m., $8. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. YOUNG THUG: w/ Machine Gun Kelly, Killy, Strick 7 p.m., $25-$45. Family Arena, 2002 Arena Parkway, St Charles, 636-896-4200.

FRIDAY 1

ADJY: w/ The Sigmund Frauds 8 p.m., $7. Foam, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

upper echelons of the hip-hop world has continued unabated this year with the August release of the J. Cole-produced So Much Fun, Young Thug’s first project to debut at the top of the Billboard 200. For an artist as prolific as Young Thug, it may seem confusing that he refers to So Much Fun as his “debut” studio album — a lengthy string of mixtapes and more informal projects might beg to differ — but in the case of Young Thug, it’d be more confusing if he wasn’t trying to confuse us. Make sense? No? Good. Sup Mates: Thugger will be joined on this outing by fellow rappers Machine Gun Kelly, Killy and Strick. —Daniel Hill ARIANNA STRING QUARTET: 8 p.m., $29. Blanche M Touhill Performing Arts Center, 1 University Dr at Natural Bridge Road, Normandy, 314-516-4949. BIG LOVE: FLEETWOOD MAC TRIBUTE: 8 p.m., $12$20. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. DIZZY ATMOSPHERE: 7 p.m., $10. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. LEFTOVER CRACK: w/ Days N Daze, Cop/Out 8 p.m., $20. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. LUDO: 8 p.m., $30-$40. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. MURF: w/ Target Acquired, Deep Space Killer, Strawberry Buckshot 8:30 p.m., $7. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. NIRVANUS: UNPLUGGED IN NEW YORK 25 YEAR ANNIVERSARY: 8 p.m., $15-$25. Grandel Theatre, 3610 Grandel Square, St. Louis, 314-533-0367. ROBERT EARL KEEN: 8 p.m., $35-$45. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. RYNE WATTS & FRIENDS: 9:30 p.m., free. The Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090. THE SCHWAG: 9 p.m., $12-$15. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

Continued on pg 41

riverfronttimes.com

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

[CRITIC’S PICK]

Robert Earl Keen. | VIA PARADIGM TALENT AGENCY

Robert Earl Keen 8 p.m. Friday, November 1, and Saturday, November 2. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue. $35. 314-773-3363. Robert Earl Keen Jr. didn’t invent the Texas singer-songwriter style, and he can lay no claim to baseball-cap country (Willie probably rocked one before him), but don’t tell his legions of post-collegiate fans who view him as the patron saint of Lone Star singalongs and gringo honeymoons. At his best, Keen can still run circles around the movement that swept him to prominence in the ’80s. He’s a savvy band leader, a deceptively com-

OUT EVERY NIGHT Continued from pg 39

SCOTT HELMAN: 8 p.m., $10-$12. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. SKEET RODGERS & INNER CITY BLUES: 7 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. SODOWN: w/ Trufeelz 8 p.m., $15-$18. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. THIRD SIGHT BAND: 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. TRAP-O-WEEN: w/ T-Dubb-O, Indiana Rome, Fresco Kane, Bates, Bo Dean, The Domino Effect, Aye Verb, Eric Tha Red, Louie McDon 8:30 p.m., $10-$15. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720.

SATURDAY 2

AFTER MIDNIGHT: 9 p.m., free. Nightshift Bar & Grill, 3979 Mexico Road, St. Peters, 636-441-8300. BETCHA: 8 p.m., $10-$12. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. BRIAN CURRAN: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. DEAD END LIGHTS: w/ Voltage Hawk 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. GROUND CONTROL: w/ Odd Fellas, Drawing Blanks, Church Fire 7:30 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. KINGDOM BROTHERS: 8 p.m., $5. Hwy 61 Roadhouse and Kitchen, 34 S Old Orchard Ave, Webster Groves, 314-968-0061. LUDO: 7:30 p.m., $30-$40. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. NO LIMIT REUNION TOUR: w/ Master P, Mystikal,

plex storyteller, and he can rock and twang harder than you’d expect, whether dabbling in bluegrass or blues. Over the years, he’s lost none of the charm and recklessness of his youth, and he can still drive home a road-weathered anthem in a way that transcends outlaw parable cliches. With Keen, the road still goes on forever, and the party is wherever he cranks up his crack band. Runs in the Blood: Son of guitarist Jody Payne and legendary ’70s country singer Sammi Smith, Waylon Payne opens both nights at Off Broadway. He’s a serious talent; don’t miss him. —Roy Kasten

Silkk the Shocker, Mia X, Fiend 7 p.m., $55$128. Chaifetz Arena, 1 S. Compton Ave., St. Louis, 314-977-5000. THE RAGGED BLADE: 9:30 p.m., free. The Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090. ROBERT EARL KEEN: 8 p.m., $35-$45. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. ROLAND JOHNSON & SOUL ENDEAVOR: 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. SKEET RODGERS & INNER CITY BLUES: 4 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. TODRICK: 8 p.m., $30-$35. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. TWIZTID: w/ Kottonmouth Kings, Aaron Romero 6:30 p.m., $20-$45. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. VQM FRIGHTFEST: w/ Murder Machine, Blood of Heroes, Hell Came Home, Dematus, Alamo Black 6:30 p.m., $5. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

SUNDAY 3

AMERICAN SPIRIT HANDBELL CONCERT: 4 p.m., free. Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, 327 Woods Mill Road, Manchester, 636-381-6685. CHELSEA GRIN: w/ The Acacia Strain, Spite, Left Behind, Traitors 6:30 p.m., TBA. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: 8 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. LUDO: 4:30 p.m., $10.57. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. MELANIE MARTINEZ: w/ Lauren Ruth Ward 8 p.m., $36-$38.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. MUSICAL BENEFIT FOR RENEE SMITH: 4 p.m.,

Continued on pg 42

riverfronttimes.com

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

[CRITIC’S PICK]

Lucy Dacus. | VIA MATADOR RECORDS

Lucy Dacus 8 p.m. Monday, November 4. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Boulevard. $17. 314-726-6161. There’s a restless, selfless spirit to the work that Lucy Dacus has released over the past year. Her trio with Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers, the cheekily named boygenius, put out a wellreceived EP last year and thrilled audiences by partnering three songwriters with different aesthetics but a supportive spirit. Dacus has also spent 2019 releasing standalone singles to coincide with various holidays — “My Mother &

OUT EVERY NIGHT

MONDAY 4

COM TRUISE: 8 p.m., $20-$25. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. ILLENIUM: 8 p.m., $45-$47.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. JACK KLATT: 8 p.m., $10-$12. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. NORDISTA FREEZE: w/ Sister Wizzard 8 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. RICH MCDONOUGH & RHYTHM RENEGADES: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. THE TALBOTT BROTHERS: 8 p.m., $10-$13. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. TOM HALL: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. WAX: w/ UBI, Lance Skiiiwalker 8 p.m., $15. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. ZETA: w/ Cult Season, De L’orme, Fluorescent 8 p.m., $7. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

TUESDAY 5

THIS JUST IN

Continued from pg 41

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

FALL IS COMING, TIME TO

GEAR UP

AND HEAD TO THE RANGE

YOUR HOMETOWN FIREARMS RETAILER FOR OVER 15 YEARS!

VOTED BEST GUN SHOP OF 2015

-2015 RIVERFRONT TIMES BEST OF ST. LOUIS

RIVERFRONT TIMES

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

I” for Mother’s Day, a haunted cover of “In the Air Tonight” for Halloween. As enlightening as those releases are, they feel slightly diversionary compared to the power of her 2018 sophomore release Historian, which paired her often confessional lyrics with a force-of-nature voice. If you’re not wrecked by the cathartic closing of “Night Shift,” you may want to check your pulse or kick start your heart. Opening Moves: Dacus will be joined by singer-songwriter Liza Anne and Austinbased quintet Sun June. —Christian Schaeffer

$10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. SUZIE CUE: w/ Joshewa Boyer, Ellen Hilton Cook 5 p.m., $7. Foam, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. INDIGO DE SOUZA: w/ Banana Clips 8 p.m., $10-$12. Foam, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. LUCY DACUS: 8 p.m., $17-$20. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. MOONSHINE BANDITS: w/ Sarah Ross 8 p.m., $22-$25. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. MURALI CORYELL: 7 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. THIRD SIGHT BAND: 8 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. ANAMANAGUCHI: 8 p.m., $23.50. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. THE CALIFORNIA HONEYDROPS: w/ Javier Matos 7 p.m., $17-$20. The Bootleg, 4140 Manchester Ave., St. Louis, 314-775-0775. EDWIN MCCAIN: 8 p.m., $30-$35. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. PALE LIPS: w/ Bad Waitress 8 p.m., $7. Foam, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. SLEATER-KINNEY: 8 p.m., $27.50-$32.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. ST. LOUIS SOCIAL CLUB: 8 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

WEDNESDAY 6

BLACK BELT EAGLE SCOUT: w/ Hikes, Camp Counselor 8 p.m., $10-$12. Foam, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

riverfronttimes.com

THE ADICTS: Sat., Feb. 1, 8 p.m., $25-$30. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. ADJY: W/ The Sigmund Frauds, Fri., Nov. 1, 8 p.m., $7. Foam, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. ANDREA GONZÁLEZ CABALLERO: Sat., Nov. 9, 8 p.m., $24-$28. Ethical Society of St. Louis, 9001 Clayton Rd, Richmond Heights, 314-991-0955. THE ANNUAL TURKEY TOSS: W/ Bassamp & Dano, the Keymasters, the Savage Kind, Powerline Sneakers, the Bitter Ends, Wed., Nov. 27, 8 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. THE ARMONTI EXPERIENCE: W/ Et Alexx, X, Ase, Rocky Maverick, Yz Tha Singer, K00l, AJ, Ste ne rkell, ri , Nov 2 , 8 p m , 8- 2

Continued on pg 43

OUT EVERY NIGHT Continued from pg 42

Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. BIG MIKE & THE BLU CITY ALL STARS: Fri., Nov. 29, 8 p.m., $15. Joe’s Cafe, 6014 Kingsbury Ave, St. Louis. BLACK BELT EAGLE SCOUT: W/ Hikes, Camp Counselor, Wed., Nov. 6, 8 p.m., $10-$12. Foam, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. BLEED THE SKY: W/ Skinlab, Arise in Chaos, Murder Machine, Tue., Feb. 4, 6:30 p.m., $18. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. BRIAN CURRAN: Sat., Nov. 2, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. BRIDGING DA GAP: W/ Vanguardz, Bell, Geo Davis, Kimmy B, Rhino, Smooth Beats, The Rise of the ast, urkk a onsta, ertified onnection, Sat., Nov. 23, 8:30 p.m., $8-$12. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. BRUISER QUEEN: W/ The Stars Go Out, Sat., Nov. 16, 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. BUILDINGS: W/ Voidgazer, the Conformists, Blastar, Sat., Nov. 30, 8 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. DEAD END LIGHTS: W/ Voltage Hawk, Sat., Nov. 2, 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. DIE ANTWOORD: Mon., May 4, 8 p.m., $49.50$52.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. DIMEFEST MEETS THE METAL GODS SHOW 2019: W/ Domination: Pantera Tribute, Conquest: A Tribute To Metal Gods, Symptom Of The Universe: Black Sabbath Tribute, Sat., Dec. 7, 7 p.m., $10-$15. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. FREE PARKING: W/ Brian Bulger, Hudson Freeman, Dead Format, The Matching Shoe, Fri., Nov. 8, 7 p.m., $5-$8. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. THE FUNKY BUTT HOLIDAY WARMUP: Thu., Dec. 5, 8 p.m., $15. Joe’s Cafe, 6014 Kingsbury Ave, St. Louis. THE GET UP KIDS: W/ Hembree, SONTALK, Tue., Dec. 10, 8 p.m., $22-$27. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. GIANTS CHAIR: W/ Ashes and Iron, MotherFather, Seashine, Fri., Nov. 22, 8 p.m., $12. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. GLORY PRO WRESTLING: UNSANCTIONED II: Sat., Dec. 21, 8 p.m., $25. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. HUNTER DRAGON: W/ Elektrodinosaur, Thu., Nov. 7, 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. INDIGO DE SOUZA: W/ Banana Clips, Mon., Nov. 4, 8 p.m., $10-$12. Foam, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. JAVIER MENDOZA & JIM PETERS: Thu., Nov. 14, 8 p.m., $15. Joe’s Cafe, 6014 Kingsbury Ave, St. Louis. JOE PARK & THE HOT CLUB OF ST. LOUIS: Sat., Nov. 23, 9:30 p.m., free. The Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090. KELLY HOPPENJAMS: W/ Bobby Stevens, Sean Conway, Fri., Nov. 15, 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. KLEON THE COMEDIAN: Sun., Dec. 15, 7 p.m., $22.50. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. LOUIS TOMLINSON: Tue., July 7, 8 p.m., $45.75$65.75. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: Sun., Nov. 3, 8 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. MURALI CORYELL: Mon., Nov. 4, 7 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. MURF: W/ Target Acquired, Deep Space Killer,

Strawberry Buckshot, Fri., Nov. 1, 8:30 p.m., $7. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. MUSICAL BENEFIT FOR RENEE SMITH: Sun., Nov. 3, 4 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. NORDISTA FREEZE: W/ Sister Wizzard, Wed., Nov. 6, 8 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. OAK, STEEL & LIGHTNING ALBUM RELEASE PARTY: W/ Julian Davis, Thu., Nov. 21, 8 p.m., $15. Joe’s Cafe, 6014 Kingsbury Ave, St. Louis. OTHERWORLD/GALAXY/CLUB FETISH 26TH-ISH REUNION PARTY: Tue., Nov. 26, 7 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. PALE LIPS: W/ Bad Waitress, Tue., Nov. 5, 8 p.m., $7. Foam, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. PAT REEDY AND THE LONGTIME GONERS: Thu., Nov. 7, 7 p.m., $15. Joe’s Cafe, 6014 Kingsbury Ave, St. Louis. RICH MCDONOUGH & RHYTHM RENEGADES: Wed., Nov. 6, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. RIFF RAFF: Tue., Dec. 17, 8 p.m., $20-$50. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. ROLAND JOHNSON & SOUL ENDEAVOR: Sat., Nov. 2, 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. SCRANTONICITY: Thu., Dec. 12, 8 p.m., $15-$30. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. SEX, DRUGS, AND STAND-UP COMEDY: W/ Fight Back Mountain, Jess Campbell, Robert Alan Hall, Mollie Amburgey, Ronaldo Mercado, Max Pryce, Fri., Dec. 6, 8 p.m., $10. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. SKEET RODGERS & INNER CITY BLUES: Fri., Nov. 1, 7 p.m., $10. Sat., Nov. 2, 4 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. SMINO: Sun., Dec. 8, 8 p.m., $25-$27.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. SORRY PLEASE CONTINUE: A COMEDY STORYTELLING SHOW: W/ Kenny Kinds, Jeremy Hellwig, Wed., Nov. 20, 8 p.m., $5. W/ Kenny Kinds, Jeremy Hellwig, Thu., Dec. 26, 8 p.m., $5. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. SOULARD BLUES BAND: Thu., Dec. 19, 8 p.m., $15. Joe’s Cafe, 6014 Kingsbury Ave, St. Louis. ST. LOUIS SOCIAL CLUB: Tue., Nov. 5, 8 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. SUBTRONICS: Thu., Jan. 30, 8 p.m., $25-$30. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. SUPERFUN YEAH YEAH ROCKETSHIP: W/ Buttercup, Blight Future, R6 Implant, Sat., Dec. 14, 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. SUPERNATURAL 7-YEAR NAPPIVERSARY: W/ James Biko, Makeda Kravitz, DJ Nico, Sat., Nov. 16, 7:30 p.m., $10. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. SUZIE CUE: W/ Joshewa Boyer, Ellen Hilton Cook, Sun., Nov. 3, 5 p.m., $7. Foam, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. SWEETHEART: W/ Seeds of Satan, Biologist, Thu., Dec. 12, 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. THIRD SIGHT BAND: Fri., Nov. 1, 10 p.m., $10. Mon., Nov. 4, 8 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. TOM HALL: Wed., Nov. 6, 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. WE BANJO 3: Sat., March 21, 8 p.m., $25-$28. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. YOUNG DOLPH & KEY GLOCK: Fri., March 13, 7 p.m., $35-$150. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. ZETA: W/ Cult Season, De L’orme, Fluorescent, Wed., Nov. 6, 8 p.m., $7. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. n

riverfronttimes.com

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

SAVAGE LOVE QUICKIES BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: My little dick has always held me back. I didn’t date in high school because I couldn’t stand the thought of girls discussing my tiny manhood. That said, I’ve adapted fairly well and become skilled with my tongue and hands. The biggest problem is that my dick is just small enough that the head pokes straight forward and can be seen through my pants. I never tuck in a shirt because of it. Because I am always in oversize shirts that hang past my waist, I never look professional. I’ve tried stuffing with socks and it didn’t work. Do you know of anything that can mask a pathetic johnson? I’d love to move up in the world. Physically Embarrassing Nub Isn’t Sufficient Have you considered packing? Trans men, drag kings, butch dykes and even straight cis women experimenting with gender expression will sometimes pack — that is, wear “packing dildos” that create the appearance of a masculine bulge. Packers are modeled on soft cocks, not hard cocks, and they come in a range of sizes and colors. And so long as you don’t engage in false advertising, PENIS — so long as you make it clear to new partners that the bulge in your pants is not a prologue — there’s no reason why you couldn’t pack, just as there’s no reason why you and other guys with small dicks can’t strap on a regular dildo when your partner wants a deep dicking. Hey, Dan: I’m a mid-twenties straight woman, and there’s a pattern in my life that I’m trying to break: Since high school, I’ve repeatedly ended up being friends with wonderful men who I shared an obvious sexual tension with at the start of our “friendships.” (Our mutual friends often noted the sexual tension.) Not a single one has ever turned into more than a one-off drunken kiss. Maybe it’s who I’m picking, but I’m starting to think that I’m the problem. An ex of mine (who I met on Bumble) told me that I give off “don’t touch me” vibes. Looking back, I can see that

all my relationships started in settings where romantic interest was implied — apps, blind dates, etc. I’ve been spending a lot of time with a classmate of mine. We get along well, and he’s hot and single. How do I (for lack of a better term) seduce him? Dreading The Friend Zone Don’t seduce, ask. Don’t put the moves on someone, use your words — or think of your words as your move, DTFZ. Since you give off “don’t touch me” vibes (that’s some valuable feedback from an ex!), and since we’ve asked men to do a better job of perceiving and respecting a woman’s “don’t touch me” vibes, you will have to make your interest clear and unambiguous: “Hey, classmate, we’ve been spending a lot of time together, and I was wondering if you might be interested in going on a date sometime.” Hey, Dan: I have had a very hot, sexy bodybuilder friend with benefits for many, many years. He’s dominant and into really intense bondage and SM, and it’s fantastic. The harder he goes on me, the more aroused he gets. Sometimes he comes three times in one session, always with me in superintense and painful bondage positions. It turns him on so much — and it turns me on, too. The thing is, he hates my dick. We have so much fun during our sessions, but he won’t touch my dick and won’t let me touch it, either. Bodybuilder Is Neglecting Dick

“I thought perhaps I could do some sex work on the side to help pay off my student loans and get more money for classroom supplies.” get some more money for classroom supplies. Thanks to de facto segregation, all of my students are one specific ethnicity and very poor, so I think I could easily avoid accidentally servicing a parent or relative of a student. But how on earth does someone safely and discreetly embark on sex work as a side hustle? Need A Second Job That Actually Pays

Ignoring your dick and not letting you come and then seeing you crawl back for more abuse is most likely part of the power trip that turns your hot, sexy friend on, BIND, and he’s unlikely to start lavishing attention on your dick on my orders. And since it sounds like he gives you plenty of hot JO material for after your bondage sessions, it’s not like there isn’t something in it for you, right?

Someone you work with, someone you went to school with, someone you used to date, someone who lives in your apartment building — it’s not just parents and relatives of your students you need to worry about, NASJTAP. Vindictive exes and small-minded, sex-negative busybodies of all stripes can be a problem for sex workers. And since the consequences of being outed as a sex worker are always swift and severe for someone who works with children, you’ll want to find another side hustle. You should also get out there and support — we should all get out there and support — Democratic presidential candidates who are calling to forgive or cancel student-loan debt, like Elizabeth Warren and/or Bernie Sanders. And, yes, it’s possible to support more than one candidate at this stage of the political process.

Hey, Dan: I am a public school teacher in the United States. I love teaching, and I want to teach for the rest of my career. I am very good at it, but unfortunately that doesn’t affect my pay in the slightest. After ten years of poverty, I’m getting tired of going without. I thought perhaps I could do some sex work on the side to help pay off my student loans and

Hey, Dan: My girlfriend and I have been going strong for almost ten months. She told me that in the past she dated only older men — her teachers, her boss, a police officer and other older men who were, in her own words, “flat-out wrong for me” (two of them were married). I am interested in your take on why she is dating me now. I’m a couple

riverfronttimes.com

of years younger than she is — she is 30, and I am 28. She says she sees a future with me and I’m unlike anyone she’s ever met. Can what someone likes change in this way? The Younger Man You may be the exception — the rare younger man your girlfriend finds attractive or it could be that she was never attracted exclusively to older men. Just because someone dated a string of one type of person (older, younger, taller, shorter, maler, femaler), it doesn’t follow that someone isn’t interested in other types, too. Someone realizing they’re attracted to more types of people or acting on long-standing attractions to other types of people doesn’t mean they’ve changed, TYM, it means they’ve grown. Hey, Dan: I’m a 21-year-old woman. Yesterday I talked to a 26-yearold guy who won’t do cunnilingus but loves to get blowjobs. My friends judged him harshly. Does this go against the rule that people should be able to do what makes them feel good in bed without being judged? Guys who refuse to give oral sex but want to receive it make us feel as if our pleasure is not as important as theirs. Please tell me what you think. Desperate Clitoris I think there are enough women out there who don’t like having their pussies eaten — some struggle with insecurity and shame, others simply don’t enjoy the sensation — that there’s no reason for this guy to inflict himself on women who do like having their pussies eaten. And if making your partner feel good doesn’t make you feel good — if giving pleasure as well as receiving pleasure doesn’t make you feel good — then you’re a lousy fucking lay. All that said, I agree that people should be able to do what makes them feel good in bed without being judged. But if what you’re doing in bed — or refusing to do in bed — makes other people feel bad about themselves or their bodies, well, then you should be judged harshly. Check out Dan’s podcast at savagelovecast.com. mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage on Twitter ITMFA.org

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

riverfronttimes.com

OCTOBER 30-NOVEMBER 5, 2019

RIVERFRONT TIMES

INFORMED, HONEST, EFFECTIVE MEDICAL MARIJUANA ADVOCACY Primero Cannabis Clinics offers State compliant certifications to the program in a safe environment with physicians and advocates that understand how to help you through the process. We also offer certifications through Tele-Care for patients that are home bound or not available during our regular business hours, these certification visits are done by computer or your smart phone. wWe have physicians on staff 6 days a week with different hours to try and accommodate everyoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s schedule. Educated Alternative is a not-forprofit 501(c)(3) charitable organization focusing on education and funding for the cannabis patients of Missouri. Currently through our partnership with Primero Cannabis Clinics we offer discounted rates to see the physician for Veterans and patients on SSDI (State disability). We are accepting donations and those funds

will go toward paying the State fees for the program, even fees to grow your own medicine. Once the dispensaries are open, mid-year 2020, we will start to offer free monthly cannabis to patients on our programs. We already offer educational programs on stretching your medicine out by making your own edibles, capsules and other products...all 100% free in our office or at different places we travel. We do personalized aftercare for patients that see the physicians from Primero Cannabis Clinics, offering guidance and advice as you continue your cannabis healthcare journey, and yes, this is completely free as well. You can always reach out for application assistance even if you didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t see a physician in our office, our goal is to make sure no one struggles to get through the process. Check out our Facebook page for upcoming events!