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“It’s the first time I ever cried out there with someone. Elderly woman in her 90s. She always come up here, sitting next to Nathan, start talking to him. And she keep on talking and talking like he was real. And she passed away. I’m gonna start crying now. ... Two of her daughters ... was telling me how much Nathan meant to [their] mom. Because every time they’d visit [their] mom at the nursing home here, it’s all she would talk about — Nathan. ‘Oh, we’ll see. See what he’s wearing? Oh, this and that.’ And they were telling me how much he meant to her.”

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MIKE HEISLER, PHOTOGRAPHED WITH NATHAN “WOODEN BOY” HEISLER IN FLORISSANT ON SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30 riverfronttimes.com

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Back to the Future

ne of my favorite things is looking back at decades-old copies of the Riverfront Times. We’ve got them (most of them, anyway) bound in books, and it’s fascinating to see how St. Louis and the paper have changed. For this week’s cover story, Jenna Jones revisits one of those old feature pieces — the story of the controversies a Mehlville teacher triggered in 1994 by telling his students he was gay. However, the striking part of looking back this time isn’t how much everything has changed; it’s how current the issues feel nearly 30 years later. —Doyle Murphy, editor in chief

TABLE OF CONTENTS Publisher Chris Keating Editor in Chief Doyle Murphy

E D I T O R I A L Managing Editor Daniel Hill Digital Content Editors Jenna Jones, Jaime Lees Food Editor Cheryl Baehr Staff Writer Danny Wicentowski Contributors Eric Berger, Jeannette Cooperman, Mike Fitzgerald, Eileen G’Sell, Reuben Hemmer, Ryan Krull, Andy Paulissen, Justin Poole, Jack Probst, Richard Weiss, Theo Welling, Ymani Wince Columnists Thomas Chimchards, Ray Hartmann Editorial Interns Phuong Bui, Zoë Butler, Madyson Dixon A R T

& P R O D U C T I O N Art Director Evan Sult Production Manager Haimanti Germain

COVER History Repeating Coming out almost 30 years ago nearly cost Rodney Wilson his teaching job. Has Missouri learned anything? Cover photo by

DAN STEADMAN

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

INSIDE The Lede Hartmann News Big Mad Feature Cafe Short Orders St. Louis Standards Reeferfront Times Culture Film Savage Love

M U L T I M E D I A A D V E R T I S I N G Associate Publisher Colin Bell Account Managers Emily Fear, Jennifer Samuel Director of Business Development Brittany Forrest, Rachel Hoppman Director of Marketing and Events Olia Friedrichs Regional Director of Marketing and Events Kristina Linden

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S U B S C R I P T I O N S Send address changes to Riverfront Times, 5257 Shaw Avenue, St. Louis, MO, 63110. Domestic subscriptions may be purchased for $78/6 months (MO add $4.74 sales tax) and $156/year (MO add $9.48 sales tax) for first class. Allow 6-10 days for standard delivery. www.riverfronttimes.com The Riverfront Times is published weekly by Euclid Media Group | Verified Audit Member Riverfront Times PO Box 179456, St. Louis, MO, 63117 www.riverfronttimes.com General information: 314-754-5966 Founded by Ray Hartmann in 1977

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HARTMANN The Eager Victim Eric Greitens must love his latest scandal BY RAY HARTMANN

isgraced ex-Missouri Governor Eric Greitens got a nice boost last week in his campaign for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination in 2022. Greitens was accused of illegally funneling more than $100,000 to his Senate campaign from one he had established as governor. It was also charged that he violated federal transparency requirements in the process. If you’re thinking that’s not a great thing, you’re not thinking like a Republican primary voter. Greitens could barely contain his glee at the opportunity to portray himself as a victim of the swamp. A watchdog group called the Campaign Legal Center filed the charges with the Federal Election Commission. Both entities reside in Washington. Both concern themselves with campaignfinance laws and ethics. If you’re Greitens, that’s good enough: One couldn’t ask for better accusers. It doesn’t matter that transferring state campaign funds to a federal account for a Senate race is no small offense. A news release from the Campaign Legal Center explained why: “While Greitens’ 2022 Senate campaign may only accept contributions of up to $2,900 per individual and, importantly, cannot receive corporate funds, his gubernatorial campaign raised dozens of contributions far exceeding that amount — some as much as $100,000 and above. Senate candidates cannot quietly finance their campaign with six-figure and corporate contributions.” Enough swamp talk. Greitens knows a great news-clip opportunity when he sees one. His campaign pounced: “Eric Greitens has been under attack by radical liberals for years. Funds from the state campaign

were used for compliance and to defend against attacks. No gubernatorial campaign funds were used for the Senate campaign and these ludicrous allegations from a radical, Soros-funded, left-wing D.C. activist group have no basis in reality.” What delicious irony for Greitens. He can now take the FEC complaint and convert it to an opportunity to raise more campaign funds from the same shady national donors who have always bankrolled him. These nice people who have underwritten Greitens’ slimy career concern themselves with FEC rules like the mob frets over traffic tickets. Those who have followed Greitens’ career know this hardly represents his first rodeo regarding campaign-finance regulations. In fact, Greitens went so far as to exploit his previous campaignfinance transgressions — which were proven — to launch the reboot of his political career. Last February, the Missouri Ethics Commission announced it had fined Greitens an astonishing $178,000 for two campaign violations — one of the largest fines it had ever doled out for a noncriminal offense. But to Greitens’ delight, the MEC also concluded there was “no evidence of wrongdoing” of a criminal nature. Before you could say “Russian hoax!” Greitens was screaming “total exoneration” to anyone who would listen, which at the time was almost no one. But alas, the “snake” — to borrow one of Greitens’ own descriptors of politicians — had slithered back. And in the warped world of a Republican Party whose sole organizing principle is fealty to a psychopath, Greitens has a plausible path to a seat in the U.S. Senate. “I might be a criminal,” one can hear Greitens saying, “but the other Missouri senator is an insurrectionist.” I jest, of course. No way Greitens would ever stand for the execrable Senator Josh Hawley to outdo him in defense of the Capitol rioters’ patriotism. (Although to be fair, Hawley can hang with anyone when it comes to campaign shadiness.) But I digress. Greitens can be expected to exploit the current allegations of campaign misconduct much like he did with the previous one. The MEC complaint had

Greitens can now use the FEC complaint as an opportunity to raise more campaign funds. These nice people who have underwritten Greitens’ slimy career concern themselves with FEC rules like the mob frets over traffic tickets. been filed against Greitens July 10, 2018, by former Representative Jay Barnes, a leading Republican. It drew little note as a footnote to the disgraceful implosion that had seen Greitens slink out of the governor’s mansion some six weeks earlier. But Greitens nonetheless seized upon it to help obscure the big stuff. You might remember that Greitens had run into some difficulty in 2018 at the start of his second year as governor of Missouri. There was this item that made the local TV news — courtesy of an angry ex-husband — about the then-governor having had a mistress and having tied her up in his basement and maybe having photographed her without her permission and maybe having slapped her and maybe having blackmailed her. Just stuff. But it perversely presented an opportunity for Greitens to go on the offensive against his tormentors. Never mind that these were prominently fellow Republicans in Jefferson City who’d grown weary of getting bullied by him. That didn’t prevent Greitens from assuming the position of victimhood from a “vicious attack” and the “ripping apart of the lives [of

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his family].” Admittedly that line of defense didn’t turn out so well for him. But if you felt bad for Greitens then, you had to feel worse when he endured even more “fake news” about having misused his charity — The Mission Continues — for political purposes. He resigned rather than face possible prosecution for that. It was just stuff. Greitens’ special talent is twisting what appears to be his misconduct into others’ misjudgment. In that spirit, he created a shameless narrative of victimization out of his botched prosecution by St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner. But his resignation as governor had nothing to do with that and everything to do with an overwhelming bipartisan consensus in Jefferson City that Eric Greitens was unfit to hold public office. He still is unfit, but that’s hardly disqualifying in today’s Republican Party. For evidence, look no further than the social media and press shops of Greitens’ four main opponents in the GOP primary quicksand. Not a word of criticism from state Attorney General Eric Schmitt, gunslinging personalinjury attorney Mark McCloskey and Representatives Vicky Hartzler and Billy Long. Nothing to see here. Remember, this was a formal FEC complaint filed against their top opponent — by a credible national watchdog group — in a race in which they are running. Something tells me they would not have demurred so politely had Greitens said something like, “I’m only 95 percent certain that the 2020 election was stolen.” But these are, after all, politicians. And you know what they say about politicians. Well, here’s what one fellow wrote about politicians in advance of the 2016 race for governor of Missouri: “Liars, cowards, sociopaths. They are often deeply broken and disturbed people, who — like criminals who prey on the innocent — take their pleasure and make their living by victimizing honest people. They are drawn to politics as vultures flock to rotting meat, and they feed off the carcasses of vice.” Do you suppose Eric Greitens was projecting? n

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NEWS St. Louis Church Failed to Stop Predatory Youth Pastor, Lawsuit Says

The Florissant church is facing accusations in a civil lawsuit. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI

Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI

victim of convicted child sex predator Brandon Milburn is suing the First Christian Church of Florissant, alleging church leaders were repeatedly warned about the former youth minister’s pattern of grooming boys and teens long before Milburn’s arrest in 2014. Two of Milburn’s victims, abused in 2007 at the ages of eleven and twelve, reported him to police as adults. After a guilty plea, Milburn was sentenced in 2015 to 25 years in prison on seven counts of first-degree statutory sodomy. But the new lawsuit is unrelated to the victims who pursued criminal charges against Milburn. Instead, the suit is connected to a third victim who had come to trust the youth minister through his connection to First Christian. he lawsuit identifies the victim as “John Doe 2.” Based on the details laid out in the lawsuit, the victim appears to be the same man interviewed under a pseudonym for a 2015 Riverfront Times investigation, which chronicled how Milburn used his position in First Christian to gain the trust of both his victims and the adults who were supposed to protect them. The abuse described in the lawsuit took place in 2011, already several years after Milburn abused his earlier victims in the church. By then, Milburn’s clear obsession with the young boys and teens had been noticed, but the musically inclined and multi-

talented youth minister had the backing of senior pastor Steven ingfield and other members of the church’s leadership. As described in the RFT’s interview and the recent lawsuit, Milburn lavished attention on Doe, buying him gifts and expensive electronics, while insisting on sleeping in the same bed during church-sanctioned sleepovers. In the summer of 2011, during a mission trip to tornado-ravaged Joplin, Milburn slept with the teen in the same sleeping bag — while taking the opportunity to abuse him, the lawsuit alleges. At the time, Doe was fourteen. The Joplin mission trip would become a turning point in Milburn’s relationship to First Christian — but it still wasn’t enough to spur action. After Milburn’s arrest in 2014, Scott Seppelt, a church elder who led the Joplin trip, described his observations in an email obtained by the RFT, writing to another church member how “Brandon brought a young boy and slept away from everyone else.” “I talked with Brandon about this the night it happened,” the email continued. “He stated that the boy was shy and would move out where others could see them.” Seppelt also related how, after the trip, he had reported what he had seen to ingfield. wish had done more,” he wrote at the time. The new lawsuit similarly describes Seppelt’s attempt at the time to alert ingfield to what he had seen in Joplin in 2011; the suit notes, “Neither Defendant Wing-

Brandon Milburn is serving 25 years in prison. | MISSOURI DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS field, nor FCCF personnel chose to report Milburn to Child Protective ervices, fire him, or supervise him more closely following this incident.” Seppelt wasn’t the only one to report ilburn to ingfield. awn Varvil, a First Christian youth minister who had allowed her home to be used for church-sanctioned sleepover events, found herself increasingly disturbed by Milburn’s obsession with particular boys. During the sleepovers — as in Joplin — Milburn repeatedly singled out Doe and slept in the same bed with him. According to the lawsuit, Milburn “groped Plaintiff ’s genitals at Varvil’s home on multiple occasions.” arvil eventually told ingfield

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about her concerns about Milburn. It wasn’t just Milburn sleeping in the same bed as a fourteenyear-old: She had been told by another teen that Milburn had exposed himself to a group of five boys and had encouraged them to do so as well. Varvil described her experience with Milburn in extensive interviews with the RFT. At her breaking point, she told Milburn he could no longer sleep in the same bed with Doe, but even then, she couldn’t bring herself to believe that her fellow youth minister was an abuser. But Varvil began sharing her concerns, first with other members of the church, and then with a therapist, who was so alarmed by the descriptions that, as a mandated reporter, the counselor felt compelled to report Milburn to a state abuse hotline. Varvil soon did the same. In February 2012, Varvil brought her concerns directly to Wingfield. he described the meeting to the RFT, recalling, “Steve told me, basically, that he thought I needed mental help. ... He said I was obviously overly involved, overly upset and that I should just be worrying about my own family, not worrying about what Brandon was doing.” The lawsuit describes the same pivotal meeting, noting, “Defendant ingfield did not reveal to Varvil that he had other reports of Milburn’s sexual misconduct with minors.” Varvil would later tell the RFT that ingfield’s refusal to believe her account of Milburn’s behavior shook her convictions and made her wonder if she was just “overreacting.” But by that point, multiple church members had witnessed or heard direct reports about Milburn’s actions, and some had started to compare their stories and notes. Yet Milburn continued to work at First Christian youth events. However, Milburn’s time in St. Louis had seemingly come to an end. He moved to California in late 2012, removing himself from the scene of the community’s suspicion. With Milburn out of their lives, Varvil and other church members did not attempt to alert his new church, Real Life Church in Valencia, which later said in

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a statement that Milburn had come “highly recommended” from a pastor in St. Louis. Milburn was still working as a youth minister in California when t. Louis County prosecutors filed charges against him in 2014. Milburn should have been stopped long before then, the lawsuit alleges, arguing that Wingfield was a mandated reporter and knew enough about the youth minister’s inappropriate behavior to act on that information: “The Defendants had a choice to fire ilburn, supervise him more closely, or to avoid controversy and encourage Milburn to keep doing what he was doing,” the lawsuit states. “Defendants chose to avoid controversy and the consequence of that choice was harm to the Plaintiff.” s for ingfield, he and other church leaders mounted an aggressive defense in the aftermath of Milburn’s arrest. In April 01 , First Christian filed suit against Varvil and other whistleblowers, accusing them of defamation and demanding $25,000 in damages and for Varvil to re-

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cant public criticisms. The lawsuit was eventually dropped, and in August 2015 ingfield was placed on a paid, six-month sabbatical. A church leader announced the sabbatical in a Sunday sermon, explaining that the senior pastor needed time away “to address the stress, grief, fatigue and emotional trauma that he has sustained, but also to address issues that have become deficits to his management and leadership style.” Attorney Nicole Gorovsky defended Varvil in the 2014 defamation suit. She’s now representing Doe in his lawsuit against ingfield and First Christian. “One of the things people should know about, with child sex victims, is how hard it is to come forward,” she says. “Once someone does process that trauma, they get strong enough to realize that someone needs to be held responsible, and they realize that they need to do something.” “The church,” she adds, “needs to be held responsible for what they did here.” ingfield remains First Christian’s senior pastor. The RFT reached out to the church for comment on the lawsuit but did not hear back. n

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COVID-19 Vaccines Could Begin This Weekend in St. Louis County Written by

JENNA JONES

t. Louis County Executive Sam Page says children could receive their COVID-19 shots as early as Saturday. The FDA recently approved Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines for children ages five to eleven years old for emergency use. With the final steps of the CDC’s approval hopefully happening this week, Page says the county is getting prepared. The county executive says he doesn’t believe there will be any need for a mass vaccination site but cautioned that supply might be “tight” for a few weeks as the shots open up. The county health centers will hold evening hours twice a week in order to accommodate the influx of patients, as well as Saturday hours. Page notes the age groups of children with the highest rate of transmission: Kids aged five to nine have a community transmission rate of 20.3 cases per 100,000 people. The second-highest rate is kids ten to fourteen. Page says the new child-sized doses

St. Louis County Executive Sam Page says the supply could be tight at first. | LEXIE MILLER will be ready at the four county library branches and three health centers. Page adds that the county hopes to partner with school officials, and they have already begun working with pediatric offices to distribute the vaccine to patients. Referencing kids in the five-to-nine cohort, Page says, “Children in this age group could be fully vaccinated by Christmas.” He says that a successful vaccine rollout will “help us keep on the right trajectory for a very promising 2022.” When the vaccine is approved, the county’s website revivestl.com will have the information on where to get the shots. Appointments and walk-ins will be welcome. n

THE BIG MAD A Man’s Word Josh Hawley reveals his porn theory, Halloween fails to deliver and Parson loves some media Compiled by

DANIEL HILL GOPORN: Looking grizzled, and if we’re being honest, a touch haunted by what he’s seen, Josh Hawley emerged from the killing fields of The Culture War to deliver a lesson on manhood. A man like Hawley is not here for your whining or to make excuses. But a man is also compassionate, and Hawley would like all of us to consider what feminism and plain old mean talk about men are doing to our society. “Can we be surprised that after years of being told they are the problem, that their manhood is the problem, more and more men are withdrawing into the enclave of idleness and pornography and video games?” asked Hawley, smelling faintly of Facebook napalm and smeared with the dust and grime of a social media firefight as he spoke on Sunday at the National Conservatism Conference in Orlando. No, sir, we cannot. Some of those beta males out there will not understand the senator’s message. They’re too far removed from the days when combat, patriotism, giant teeth and anchorman hair were the masculine ideals. “The Left want to define traditional masculinity as toxic. They want to define the traditional masculine virtues — things like courage and independence and assertiveness — as a danger to society,” said Hawley, delivering a hard truth with the 1,000-yard stare of a man who has seen the carnage of cancel culture up close. (Do they even give Purple Hearts for Twitter burns? Ask yourself that, America.) Toxic masculinity? Is it toxic to promote racism through thinly veiled speeches about “traditional values”? Is it toxic to encourage mobs of QAnon followers as they prepare to storm the U.S. Capitol? And is it toxic to use conspiracy theories to promote yourself at a cost to the country? As the man himself opines, “The last thing we need more of in this country is the victim mindset. And men who blame others for their problems and then slink away to do nothing, or worse, who embrace violence or cruelty, deserve rebuke.” BAIT AND SWITCH: We’re always depressed after Halloween. All of the fun of picking out or designing a costume has passed and we have to go back to being

ourselves. (Lame.) Then there’s the sugar crash. (Also lame.) But do you know what is actually the lamest? Once again, we carefully dug through our entire pile of candy and did not find one edible! What is this garbage in our candy buckets? Tootsie rolls? We were promised drugs! So many news stories warned us that our neighbors would definitely be taking a trip to the dispensary in October so they could fill our plastic pumpkins with highpriced marijuana edibles. But nope, just some stupid fun-size Heath bars hiding out at the bottom of the pile. Do we need to move? Are there neighborhoods in St. Louis known for giving away free edibles to hard-working journalists? We didn’t find any razor blades, either. How are we supposed to write stories based on good people giving good candy to good kids for free? What a rip-off. Maybe next year. HUMBLE MANSIONS: Is it elitist not to be an absolute moron? We were confused on this point after listening to Missouri Times publisher and television host Scott Faughn coach Governor Mike Parson through an attack on journalism during a recent airing of his show, This Week in Politics. After commiserating about federal vaccine mandates during the interview in the governor’s mansion, the two moved on to Parson’s bad-faith claim that a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter “hacked” a state education website and “removed” teacher’s personal information. The governor and Faughn know that the reporter actually found a massive security flaw, confirmed it with experts and then, following best practices, informed Parson’s administration so that it could be fixed before publishing a story. Other experts across the country debunked any idea that it was somehow hacking. But this is how Faughn, who infamously delivered $120,000 to an attorney involved in taking out Parson’s predecessor and rival Eric Greitens, introduced the topic: “Governor, the state teacher’s database was hacked by a Post-Dispatch reporter.” Parson, nodding affirmatively to the false premise, went on to repeat his accusations, recasting a public service as a criminal act. Faughn then added, “It just feels like there’s a hint of elitism in some of this stuff. Maybe it’s because you’re not — what did they call Obama; was he a community organizer? Maybe it’s because you had a real job or something. It just feels a little hint in some of those high-falutin’ ivory towers in St. Louis, a hint of elitism about how they talk about this.” Parson agreed, “Yeah.” The governor of the state and the owner of multiple media operations then continued their conversation in a literal mansion. n

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Rodney Wilson with a copy of the 1994 Riverfront Times story about his decision to come out — and the reactions it sparked. | DAN STEADMAN

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History Repeating Coming out almost cost Rodney Wilson his teaching job nearly 30 years ago. Has Missouri learned anything? BY JENNA JONES

Room number 115 at Mehlville High School was decorated with posters in the spring of 1994. Student-made work hung alongside posters of Gone with the Wind characters Rhett and Scarlett kissing, as well as Jackie Kennedy and JFK. Escape from Sobibor, a dramatic retelling of a World War II concentration camp, was playing on the roll-in in a class full of fourteen- and fifteen-year-old social studies students. The class was discussing the Holocaust, and when the movie was over, teacher Rodney Wilson pulled out a poster of the patches Jewish people were forced to wear in concentration camps. He pointed to a pink triangle on the poster and looked at his class. “If I was alive during this time, I would be wearing this patch, because I am gay,” Wilson told the students. It’s a moment that made the Riverfront Times’ August 3, 1994, cover story, sparking rage in parents at school board meetings when they discovered what Wilson had told their children. Students in the class at the time say it didn’t seem like a big deal back then, but now they see the impact of Wilson’s words. Dana Workes, who was in class that day in Mehlville, tells the RFT what Wilson did paved the way for change. “He stepped out and spoke his truth in a way that was definitely appropriate to the lesson. He didn’t make it a big announcement that it was about him, but at the same time he opened the door to conversation,” Workes says. “He showed authenticity; he connected with his students in doing so. It was the beginning of a new chapter that he would continue and still continues to have this position and to this day, in terms of

speaking out and being an advocate and pushing for equality and acceptance and learning.” It was a moment that shifted Wilson’s career path, and it continues to affect his life nearly 30 years later. Ultimately, Wilson was not fired. He went on to win his tenure a year later and worked for the school district until 1997. “When I left Mehlville, initially I wanted to do something a little different,” Wilson tells the RFT now. “Those years, 1990 to 1997, they took a lot of energy.” His post-Mehlville journey took him to Massachusetts, where he taught GED classes in jails, and then to a Puerto Rican learning center, where he taught English to Spanish speakers. Then Wilson returned to Missouri. Each October, he participates virtually in presentations and events for LGBTQ History Month, a topic that

Mehlville School District once didn’t allow him to discuss in front of students. In the RFT’s 1994 story, Wilson had called a “shift toward justice” inevitable. “Young teachers like myself are not going to be closeted anymore,” he said at the time. Then-RFT staff writer Jeannette Cooperman wrote in 1994 that ilson clarified himself swiftly, saying he wasn’t advocating for a “radical overturning of the system.” He said he was aware of gay history and African American history, and he was inclusive of that. He pointed to the Gone with the Wind posters of Rhett and Scarlett, saying he celebrated hetereosexuality and there was nothing gay about his classroom besides the rainbow flag. It wasn’t enough for parents back then. In the weeks that followed the RFT’s coverage, parents

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like Doris Hinsen went to school board meetings and demanded that Wilson essentially go back in the closet — there was to be no talk about his sexuality, they insisted, because Wilson would indoctrinate the kids into homosexuality. They called for him to be fired. n the board meetings, some parents declared homosexuality “unnatural,” and others begged the board to “keep the district a good district.” Flash forward to 2021, and the same battles are still happening in school districts across Missouri. Wilson tells the RFT it’s “disappointing” that these issues are still being debated nearly 30 years later. He points to the case of John Wallis as an example of history repeating itself. Wallis was a speech and debate teacher for the Neosho School District who had put up a rainbow flag and poster to make his classroom more inclusive to LGBTQ students. Parents complained to the administration that Wallis would “teach the kids to be gay.” The district responded by forcing Wallis to sign a paper agreeing to not discuss his sexuality with his students. He resigned. “John was born in 1998, four years after the events at Mehlville High School,” Wilson says. “So it’s unacceptable that this is still an issue in Missouri, in places like Neosho.” Wilson and Wallis had connected on Facebook prior to Wallis’ confrontation with the Neosho

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School District. When Wallis posted on social media about what had transpired, Wilson was there to support him. “It means the world to me that he has reached out to check on me,” Wallis tells the RFT. “I was familiar with his story before all of this, but the connection between our two stories is very telling. It’s almost as if nothing has changed in the years since.” Wilson still checks on Wallis frequently. Wallis says it’s comforting to be able to talk to someone who knows what he is going through. Sarah Reece was a student of Wilson’s when he came out, and she is now a special education teacher in the Mehlville School District. While there was an eleven-year gap between Wilson’s departure and her own start as teacher at the school district, she believes if Wallis had set up shop with the flags in a ehlville classroom now, no one would have batted an eye. Reece says the staff at Mehlville feel empowered to be inclusive without any negative repercussions. In recent years, she was interviewed alongside other Mehlville teachers for a short documentary, “Taboo Teaching,” named after the RFT cover story, about Wilson. One educator who speaks in the documentary, Alex Moore, says he found it hard to think about what happened to Wilson at Mehlville High School. Moore said that in his first interview with the district, he discussed his husband. Reece says after the documentary came out in 2019, the Mehlville staff watched it together, and some of her coworkers asked her about her reaction at the time. She didn’t realize all that Wilson went through with the school board and parents pressuring him to not talk about his sexuality. Reece scoffs at all the concerns about Wilson influencing his students’ sexuality — “obviously I didn’t turn gay because he said that to me.” Today, she’s struck by the difference in dynamics between students of the ’90s and now. “Students are very much so comfortable with their sexuality,” Reece says. “They say, ‘Oh, I’m straight, trans, bi,’ without too much regard for what the reaction is going to be. They don’t seem to be scared to share. Obviously you don’t think of it as being that long ago, but it surely was a lifetime ago. I mean, when this happened, some of the

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Back in 1994, Wilson predicted a “shift toward justice.” In some ways, he was right, but old battles continue. | COURTESY RODNEY WILSON

Just this year, Missouri Republicans floated legislation to ban trans kids from playing sports, making teen athletes the target of the latest version of the moral panics that swept through the country in previous generations. teachers that I work with now, they weren’t even born yet. So, it really has been a long time ago and you realize, like, ‘OK, that was still in the ’90s,’ and you think, ‘Oh, well, surely we were more with it then,’ but we really apparently weren’t.” For Wilson, it’s nice to see Mehlville School District’s evolution. But progress hasn’t been as swift across the state — arguably falling backward in some cases. Just this year, Missouri Republicans floated legislation to ban trans kids from playing sports, making teen athletes the target of the latest version of the moral panics that swept through the country in previous generations. Not even the anti-gay messaging of the 1990s has gone away. Wilson found September especially difficult. long with allis’ resignation, that was the month state officials removed a LG history exhibit at the Missouri State Museum. Wilson read all twelve panels of the display and

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describes it as “basic information about the gay civil rights movement in Kansas City,” the homophile movement in the 1950s and beyond. The display lasted only four days before Republican legislators had it removed. “So in the month of September, we had an attack on inclusive history and an attack on inclusive faculty, 27 years after what I experienced,” Wilson says. “And it was really sad. And I was very frustrated about both of these.” He penned an essay for the Advocate, saying that “this blow could be devastating” to young members of the LGBTQ community. As far as young people in education, the advice to “be true to yourself” is what he can offer. Being in the closet is much harder for this generation, Wilson thinks, because people are more open on the internet and more themselves. Wilson counsels those facing difficult decisions today not to worry too much about conse-

quences, because they still have time to fix them. “It’s just important to embrace who you are and to not hide it, but in your own time and in your own way. Just make sure people know, because life is a lot happier when you’re not keeping secrets,” he says. An old aphorism sticks out to ilson when reflecting on the past 27 years: “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit.” Around the same time Wilson came out to his students in 1994, he founded what was then called Lesbian and Gay History Month. Now known as LGBTQ History Month, it’s celebrated every October in coordination with National Coming Out Day. Wilson chose the month because while June is internationally known as Pride month, school isn’t in session then like it is for Women’s History Month and Black History Month. This year, Wilson has noticed an uptick in interest. He’s spoken to audiences in Oakland, California, and to an LGBTQ youth group in Maine. Wilson looks at the month as the way to tell the full story of LGBTQ people, so students can feel empowered and strengthened by their knowledge of those who came before them, fighting for the same cause. “I think it’s important that young people know what came before

John Wallis resigned in September from his teaching job in Neosho. | STEVEN DUONG they were born, because it’s natural that we sort of think the universe started the day we were born ... we have that sense of ego — it’s not a bad thing. It’s just the way it is,” Wilson says. “And so it’s important that we learn early in our lives that, indeed, the universe existed long before we came here and it will exist long after we’re gone. And in this interval while we’re actually here, it’s up to us to make the most meaning we can from our lives and do the most we can to make our lives and the lives of everyone we know and love better and happier and more fulfilling. To Wilson, studying history and understanding what others have done for us on our behalf is the best way to do that. He points to the line about planting trees, saying gay rights activists in the ’30s and ’40s were planting trees, long before anyone would see the leaves. Passing on a seedling to the next generation, he’s watching the work unfold with today’s activists. “We’re watching the tree grow even taller and stronger with the roots more embedded in the Earth so that young people today — hopefully, and I think so — have it significantly better than young people of my generation did,” Wilson says. “And then the young people today are going to move everything forward. I have a lot of confidence in them, because they see a lot of things and know a lot of things now that it took my generation, you know, 40 years of living on the Earth to understand. And the young people today, many of them already have that knowledge and information. So they’re going to advance things even more. And I hope that LGBTQ History Month can be part of that process of enlightening us, all of us, about the history and then giving us the strength that comes

from that knowledge.” Looking back on the years, Wilson only has maybe a couple of regrets — one being that while he has two master’s degrees, maybe he should have also gotten his doctorate. But he doesn’t regret coming out. He’s happy he did. Jamie Windhorst, another one of his students at Mehlville in the ’90s, remembers her teacher fondly. After high school, Windhorst married a man and had a child. When she later came out and reconnected with Wilson, she knew he would understand the freedom she felt. “It’s just a support system that you don’t think that you’re going to stay ‘friends’ with a teacher the rest of your life or, you know, realize the impact that they have at the time or that they continue to impact a life,” Windhorst says. “I feel like as a society we’ve come a long way, but if it wasn’t for people like Rodney, I certainly wouldn’t be where I am today. And I think that we do have a much further way to go. But because of him and his continued education and just what he keeps giving to the LGBTQ community, it’s just continues to be a safer, more educated place.” eece finds inspiration in the way Wilson instructed her class — the way he didn’t just sit there and lecture but involved students in the process through recreating social justice movements’ posters or reading and connecting current events to historical ones. Workes calls him a role model — someone who is a natural teacher and has “never wavered” from it. Wilson, now teaching at Mineral Area College and the cosponsor of the school’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance, has a few years before retirement. He continues to take pride in LGBTQ History Month. And he takes pride in the way he allowed himself to be authentic with his students years ago. “As we get older, we do begin to look back at our lives to try to see what difference did I make or what is that which I might be remembered for,” he says. “And I am happy that I had those experiences at Mehlville High School as an openly gay teacher. It took a little while in my life, but I’m happy that did find a place of complete integration in my own being and acceptance. And yeah, I’m happy to have gotten to a good place. And I hope most of all that I did something that nudged or advanced the ability of others to become integrated in their own personality and accept who they are and share that at an even earlier age than I did.” n

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CAFE

[REVIEW]

Better Fish to Fry Creole with a Splash of Soul brings spicy seafood and Southern fare to the Grove Written by

CHERYL BAEHR Creole with a Splash of Soul 4353 Manchester Avenue, 314-349-2385. Wed.-Sat. 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sun. noon-8 p.m. (Closed Mondays and Tuesdays.)

ust as you cannot fully describe the splendor of seeing the sun rise over the Grand Canyon to someone who’s never had that experience, it’s difficult to fully communicate the grandeur of the Creole chicken-and-shrimp nachos at Creole with a Splash of Soul. Less the sort of bar staple you pick up with your hands, these are closer in spirit to Mexican chilaquiles; the seasoned tortilla chips are not a vehicle for shoveling toppings, but rather a base for a mountain of bell peppers, onions, jalapeños, juicy hunks of Creole spiced chicken and flawlessly cooked shrimp covered in a sauce somewhere between blackened alfredo and a luscious fondue. Akin to an openfaced chicken-and-shrimp pot pie, you find yourself eating it not with a fork, but with a spoon to lap up every drop of this delicious cheesy nectar, your only thought — other than “I should stop gorging myself but my heart won’t let me” — that whoever came up with this stunning display is not simply a culinary genius but doing the Lord’s work. The person responsible for this masterpiece is Ronda Walker, who until last year was engaged in a different noble pursuit. A veteran health-care professional who had spent 30 years in nursing, Walker found herself at a crossroads a couple of years ago when her health took a bad turn. After suffering three strokes, she found herself in an ICU bed, wondering if she was going to make it. As she started to reflect on her life, she reali ed that she had spent it not doing what she

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The considerable (and delicious) bounty at Creole with a Splash of Soul includes, Creole crab cakes, gumbo, Ronda’s house wings, catfish po’boy, fried pork-chop plate, shrimp and grits, shrimp po’boy, Creole catfish, red beans and rice, and fried green tomatoes. You can’t miss. | MABEL SUEN

After 30 years in nursing, Ronda Walker realized her life’s dream. really wanted to do, and was determined to pursue her lifelong passion for cooking. Then and there, Walker resolved that, should she get better, she was going to open a restaurant. That restaurant, Creole with a Splash of Soul, opened this May in the heart of the Grove at the intersection of Manchester and Boyle avenues. reflection of her passion for Creole food as well as her father’s deep soul-food influence, the restaurant has been a labor of love for Walker, who, against all odds, finally brought it to life after about a year of trying to get it off the ground. It wasn’t easy. Between the lengthy rehab it took for her to get back on her feet following her strokes to her being pulled back into the health-care field during the pandemic to both do her part and raise money for her restaurant — something she

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did against her doctors’ wishes — alker has been fierce in her commitment to her dream. That passion is evident the moment you walk into the restaurant and feel like you are in Walker’s home. As passionate about interior design as she is about cooking, Walker has created a warm, sophisticated space outfitted in deep red and goldenrod colors. A seating area with a plush couch and pillows greets you on your right as you walk in the front doors. On the left is the sleek black lacquered bar with seating for approximately ten people. The rest of the space consists of the dining room, which is decorated with stunning blackand-white portraits of women in traditional African ensembles and black-and-gold filigree-style lanterns that hang from the ceiling. It’s the sort of place where you want to sink into your seat to bask in the warmth. However, the moment the food starts to arrive, you jerk to full attention. One after another, Walker brings out the sort of jaw-dropping dishes that you know are going to be delicious before even taking a bite. If the nachos are a case study in obvious decadence, the fried green tomatoes are a master class in understated beauty. The bread-and-

butter-like pickled tomatoes are covered in a crisp, flaky breading — the kind you get on the hand-breaded onion rings of your dreams — with only subtle seasoning, so as to let the tomatoes’ flavor shine through. side of moderately spiced creamy creole “house sauce” has a pleasant tang that pairs perfectly with the sweet and vinegary vegetable. Creole crab cakes are another delightful dish. Here, the fritters are overstuffed with crabmeat and little filler, and seasoned with what tastes like smoked paprika to give them a deeply savory flavor. There’s a little bit of spice in the mix, which is underscored by a delightful dipping sauce that tastes like a smoky Buffalo-andred-bell-pepper aioli that makes your lips tingle. The same excellent breading on the fried green tomatoes coats the fried shrimp on the shrimp po’boy sandwich. he shellfish is fried flawlessly — it’s cooked throughout so that the exterior coating crisps up to a gorgeous, pale golden color while the shrimp itself is snappy. Tucked into a pillow-soft hoagie roll and dressed with the mildly spicy house sauce, tomatoes, onions and pickles, it’s no wonder this is quickly becoming the restaurant’s signa-

Chef-owner Ronda Walker. | MABEL SUEN ture sandwich. Walker’s red beans and rice are the sort of warm comfort you seek out now that the air has a chill in it. Wetter than some versions, the dish almost reads like a delectable Creole chili with just a backbeat of smoky heat. This is a must-try on any visit, as are the shrimp and grits, which can be described as nothing other than sexy. The white cheddar and parmesan grits are so rich and creamy they get all the way up to the line of saucy without crossing it. They are a glorious canvas for hunks of tender smoked sausage and shrimp — at this point in the meal I should stop being shocked by their perfection, yet still find myself gobsmacked by how well Walker cooks them. A simple vegetable fettuccine, mixed with ucchini, squash and mushrooms, is made transcendent by Walker’s silken cream sauce. Her “Down on the Bayou” bone-in pork chop is yet another success thanks to a crispy breading that has a peppery seasoned flavor evocative of chicken-fried steak. Diced bell peppers are seared into the chop, forming a snappy coating of their own that pairs well with the dri le of a red-peppery aioli that finishes the dish. However, if there is one reason to go to Creole with a Splash of Soul — one reason Walker can point to for why she had to upend her life and follow her dreams — it’s the Creole catfish. o matter how much catfish you have eaten in your life, you have never had catfish until you’ve had alk-

er’s. If her prowess with cooking shrimp is impressive, the way she prepares her catfish should earn her a gold medal. he fillet, which is cut thicker than what’s typical for catfish, is covered in cornmeal and pan-fried so that it’s cooked throughout but remains so tender it’s almost uicy. he fillet is placed over a bed of rice, then topped with Creole spiced shrimp. The piece de resistance, though, is the sauce that is spooned over the top of the shrimp and catfish and that pools at the bottom of the bowl. So savory, tangy and spiced, it’s as if Buffalo sauce had a three-way with gravy and brown butter. Walker’s next move should be to figure out how to bottle this magical concoction and become a billionaire. Walker’s talent is undeniable, as is her drive to see Creole with a Splash of Soul through. She admits it has been hard. Because the pandemic has tamped down business and she did not qualify for PPP funding (her business opened during the pandemic, not before, which excluded her), she’s had to go back into nursing as a consultant to make ends meet, while still working full time at the restaurant. Still, she refuses to give up because she knows that this is her calling. She feels it in the depth of her soul, and when you dine at her outstanding restaurant, you will feel it too.

Creole with a Splash of Soul Creole chicken-and-shrimp nachos..... $14.99 Shrimp po’boy .....................................$16.99 Creole catfish .....................................$22.99

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MAKE IT IN STORES Schnucks Multiple Locations

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T COUNT RESTAURANTS & BARS Sports & Social 651 Clark Ave, St. Louis, MO 63102

DB’s Sports Bar 1615 S Broadway, St. Louis, MO 63104 The Marquee 1911 Locust St, St. Louis, MO 63103 Ember 4121 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, MO 63110 Helen Fitzgerald 3650 S Lindbergh Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63127 PBR 601 Clark Ave #202, St. Louis, MO 63102 JP Fields 15 N Central Ave, Clayton, MO 63105 Mattinglys 8108 N Lindbergh Blvd, Florissant, MO 63031 Nara Cafe 1326 Washington Ave, St. Louis, MO 63103 Firebirds 1501 Beale St, St Charles, MO 63303 Hotshots - Multiple locations Traffic Jam 6 Westbury Dr C, St Charles, MO 63301

N K R E S P O N S I B LY

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SHORT ORDERS [BARS]

Taste to Be Replaced by BRASS Bar Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

nce upon a time, if you walked into any bar in St. Louis looking for a classy cocktail, your options were likely to consist of an appletini or a Stoli vanilla and Coke. Then came Taste (4584 Laclede Avenue), Gerard Craft’s revolutionary establishment helmed by acclaimed barman Ted Kilgore, which lit the spark that set the city’s beverage scene afire and changed the way we drink forever. But the iconic bar is now headed to the annals of St. Louis restaurant history. In a Facebook statement posted last week, Craft

[OPENINGS]

Chicken Scratch Now Open at City Foundry Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

or years, chef Nate Hereford has worked in fine-dining kitchens, putting together elegant, cerebral dishes of what he describes as “tweezer food.” Now, he’s excited to veer from that path with his new fast-casual rotisseriechicken eatery, Chicken Scratch (3700 Forest Park Avenue), which opened last week in the Food Hall at City Foundry. “Roasted chicken just makes people happy and has always been a big thing for me and my family,” Hereford says. “We love cooking it, and doing it on a rotisserie makes it exciting because it’s super tender and delicious. With the past year and all that’s gone on, doing something that makes people happy feels really important.” For Hereford, the return from the Bay

Taste, which changed St. Louis cocktail culture, has served its last guests. | LAURA ANN MILLER announced that the restaurant has closed, effective immediately. “Now in 2021, after 12 years of service, we are sad to announce that Taste by Niche has closed its doors for good,” Craft’s post reads. “Like so many others in our industry, the past two years have led to countless pivots, and changes, and Area to the St. Louis dining scene at City Foundry is familiar. Having made a name for himself as the right-hand man to chef Gerard Craft at the acclaimed Niche, he finds himself again working with Craft to realize a vision, this time for the food hall, where Craft serves as culinary director. However, this time around, Hereford is focused less on the theater of fine dining and is more intent on serving up a viscerally comforting experience to his guests at Chicken Scratch. His medium for providing that comfort is impossibly succulent chicken, made by using a French Rotisol rotisserie oven. The bird is seasoned with a dry rub and roasted to the point that its skin cooks up to a medium-brown crispness while the meat remains tender and juicy. Guests can choose from a handful of combo meals to enjoy the chicken, either as a quarter chicken with a leg and thigh or wing and breast. Combo meals come with sauce and a side; guests can choose from such sauces as creamy Scratch sauce, horseradish mustard or hot sauce, while sides include kale with parmesan vinaigrette, macaroni salad or jojo potatoes (fried potato wedges). Other main-course combo options include the Scratch Salad, which consists

while we were hopeful to usher in a new era of Taste when we reopened in June, bouncing back was harder than we anticipated.” Opened in 2009 at its original Benton Park location, Taste was an instant success, earning a spot in Bon Appétit magazine as one of the ten best new bars in the country.

Order a quarter chicken, or take a full rotisserie bird to go. | CHERYL BAEHR of field greens, cucumbers, herbs, radishes, parmesan, sunflower seeds and lemon anchovy dressing with the option of adding on chicken. A crispy friedchicken sandwich and a creamy chickensalad sandwich are also available, as is the Chicken Dip, which features pulled chicken warmed in jus and topped with

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In 2011, the bar moved to the Central est End where it solidified its reputation as the city’s top cocktail establishment and served as a launching pad for some of the city’s most respected bar professionals. When the pandemic came to town in full force in March 2020, Taste, like all of the establishments in Craft’s Niche Food Group, temporarily shuttered its doors. It reopened this June. Now, just four months after that attempted reboot, the bar will close for good, signaling the end of an era in St. Louis cocktail culture. The news is not all bad, however. In place of Taste, Craft has announced that a new concept, BRASS Bar, will operate in the space as a complementary concept to his wildly popular adjacent restaurant, Brasserie. Described as a place for French snacks and cocktails, Craft anticipates that BRASS Bar will be the place to go for predinner beverages or a post-dinner apéritif; to facilitate the connection, the restaurant and bar will soon have a doorway connecting the two concepts. We reached out to Craft for comment but did not hear back by press time. n marinated kale, provolone, horseradish mustard and “liquid gold dip.” Hereford also encourages guests who may be either dining elsewhere at the food hall for lunch or simply in the neighborhood to pop into Chicken Scratch and grab a half or whole rotisserie chicken for dinner. As he explains, you get the ease and familiarity of what is ubiquitous at area grocery stores, but with the quality and taste of something much more elevated — that extra level of care to give his guests the best chicken of their lives is what Chicken Scratch is all about. “At the end of the day, the point of food and hospitality is to make people happy,” Hereford says. “The fine-dining drive is great, but it’s a big push. This is an opportunity to realize what’s important for me and my family. I love food that is delicious, whether it’s made with tweezers or served as fast food from a rotisserie. I’m trying to extend that idea of warmth and fun and hospitality here. You can bring those fine-dining elements to any type of food by the care you put into it and the little touches.” Chicken Scratch is open Monday and Wednesday through Saturday from 11:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. and Sundays from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. n

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After just two months on Morgan Ford, Chatawa is sadly out of business. | PHUONG BUI

[CLOSINGS]

St. Louis’ Best New Bar, Chatawa, Has Closed Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

hatawa (3137 Morgan Ford Road), the much-buzzed-about bar in Tower Grove South that opened in late August of this year, closed for good on Sunday. The announcement was made last Wednesday afternoon on the bar’s Facebook page. The bar, located in the heart of the Morgan Ford business district, was the brainchild of veteran barman and former Tick Tock Tavern co-owner Thomas Crone, whose vision was to create a food-anddrink-inspired journey down the Mississippi River, from St. Louis to New Orleans and stops in between. Intentionally bucking the beads-and-Mardi-Gras-masks caricature of the Big Easy, Crone described the space as being a true New Orleans bar inspired by the city’s neighborhoods and injected with a healthy dose of St. Louis. Crone seemed to have succeeded in that vision. Almost immediately upon opening, Chatawa had the feel of a watering hole that had always been there, even though it had only opened on August 18. Warm, cozy and Venice Cafe-styled in its quirky, tchotchke-heavy decor, Chatawa was named the staff pick for the year’s best new bar in the RFT’s recent Best of St. Louis issue. Crone gave no reason for Chatawa’s closure in the Facebook post, stating simply that “Chatawa, as an individual business, will enjoy a LAST week of service THIS week,” closing the post by noting, “It’s been an interesting experience!” Guests were invited to come in for a meal and a drink or to purchase its retail beers, natural wines and liquor to take home. However, in a statement to the RFT, Crone cites a few reasons for why he made the decision to shut down. The first has to

do with product sourcing. Crone was fiercely committed to offering products from the St. Louis-New Orleans Interstate 55 pathway, but he found that he was simply unable to do so, thus undermining the reason he opened the bar in the first place. “We weren’t able to translate our vision of importing items into St. Louis from New Orleans and that I-55 pathway, despite begging, pleading and cajoling our distributors,” Crone explains. “Trying to buy niche products within the current distribution system is a tough task and we lacked the buying power, social capital and/or other necessary magic to make this happen.” Crone says that another issue the bar had was that sales simply did not allow it enough time to get up and running. He notes that Chatawa could have slid by for another month or two at its current rate of business, but that he felt the right decision was to end things now. He further notes that he regrets not being able to fully explore his plan to donate 1 percent of sales every month to local arts nonprofits. As for Grand Pied, the food component run by chef Tony Collida that shares the location with the bar but operates as its own separate entity, Crone is more optimistic, and feels that closing Chatawa at this point in time will give Grand Pied the space it needs to thrive as an independent, standalone concept. “My goal is to let Grand Pied make announcements of their own re: their next steps,” Crone’s Facebook post reads. “I can confidently say that they’ll continue on at 3137 Morganford and are making moves to ensure a long and successful run here. I’ll root them on for sure.” As for what that looks like for the time being, Crone says that Grand Pied is currently working on securing a liquor license under its own LLC but will operate under a BYOB policy until that goes through. Service will resume for Grand Pied on Wednesday, November 3, and it will be open Wednesdays through Fridays from 4 until 9 p.m., as well as for brunch service on Saturdays and Sundays from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. “Tony Collida’s a fantastically gifted chef and deserves the avid following that I’m sure he’ll develop here,” Crone says. n

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ST. LOUIS STANDARDS

[

]

ICONIC PEOPLE, PLACES & DISHES T H A T A N C H O R S T L’ S F O O D S C E N E

The House That Jack Built O’Connell’s Pub is a welcoming space for people of all stripes, thanks to one man’s vision Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

ohn Parker can talk at length about O’Connell’s Pub, about the cast of characters who have tended its bar and served its burgers, the ragtag crew of regulars who have sat at its bar, and, of course, that one night Allen Ginsberg came into the original Gaslight Square location and held court with his entourage, spinning poetry and pronouncing the realities of the world. However, if there is one thing he wants you to know about O’Connell’s, it’s that this is the place Jack Parker built. “Every bar or restaurant is a reflection of its owner, says John Parker, Jack’s son and now the proprietor of O’Connell’s. “To know O’Connell’s is to know the story of Jack Parker. If he was going to own this place, he was going to do it his way.” Jack Parker may have been the heart, soul, captain and owner of O’Connell’s for many years, but surprisingly, he was not the original owner. Neither was anyone named O’Connell. Back in the 1950s and ’60s, the city’s Gaslight Square neighborhood was considered to be the premier entertainment and nightlife hub of St. Louis, with bars, restaurants and clubs populating the area near Olive and Boyle in the Central West End, creating a district many considered to be the Greenwich Village of the Midwest. Two businessmen wanted to capitalize on the area’s popularity by opening an Irish bar, so they reached out to Jack Parker’s parents’ au pair, who was from Ireland, to consult on the place. She proved so instrumental in the development of the bar that the men wanted to name

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O’Connell’s will always have Jack Parker’s fingerprints all over it as a home to an eclectic cast of characters. | ANDY PAULISSEN it Rita Ryan’s after her. She insisted that was a bad idea, and told them to name the bar after Daniel O’Connell, who was considered one of Ireland’s liberators. They took her advice, and opened their bar, O’Connell’s, in 1962. From the get-go, Jack Parker was a presence at O’Connell’s, pouring drinks, grilling up burgers behind the bar and generally running the place. It was a departure for the south St. Louis native, who used to sell cars on South Kingshighway and run around Gaslight Square. His interest in the arts was sparked by his former roommate, artist Ernest Trova, who used to blast opera and experiment with his craft in their meager arts loft apartment, where Jack used to sleep on the floor on an old mattress. Passionate about art, music, poetry, literature and everything in between, Jack Parker brought that spirit with him to O’Connell’s and cultivated the bar as a welcoming space that was inclusive of everyone. After a few years, the men who started O’Connell’s wanted to get out of the business and sold the

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bar to Jack for $1,500, an amount it took him three years to pay back. However, with his trained bookkeeper mom helping him manage the financial side of the business and his natural penchant for creating community — plus making darn good food — Jack Parker was able to translate that investment into success, eventually moving the bar to its current home on South Kingshighway in 1970, following the decline of the once vibrant Gaslight Square. In its new digs — just as in its old ones — O’Connell’s became less about the bar itself and more about the motley crew of characters that filled its four walls. here was (and still is) Lenard Voelker, the bartender who came in one day as a replacement for his predecessor and was asked by Jack, “Do you work for me?” followed by, “Alright, how much am I paying you?” Nora McDermott, the server from Tanzania, also started in the Gaslight days and worked alongside Jack for decades, as did Red Garner and Ken Thone, two longtime bartenders that were considered masters of their trade

before anyone dared utter the word “mixologist.” But it wasn’t just the staff who animated the bar; Jack Parker was determined to create an environment that made everyone feel comfortable, no matter what walk of life they came from. “Back in the 1970s, there was R&F Spaghetti across the street and Banner Iron Works across the alley that went behind the building,” John Parker explains. “The R&F and the Banner guys would come in for lunch to eat roast beef sandwiches and drink a pitcher of beer, but the symphony guys and the artists followed us here from Gaslight Square, so we had this mix of the arts community and the south-city working class. We’d have regulars who were iron workers sitting next to some guy who played oboe in the symphony. The mix was natural, and that continues to this day.” When Jack Parker passed away last June, the keys to O’Connell’s were passed to John, who knows that it’s his mission to keep the bar’s spirit alive as a way to honor his dad. He has a couple of plans

A lot of stories have been told at this bar over the years. | ANDY PAULISSEN

John Parker took over O’Connell’s when his legendary father Jack passed away last June. | ANDY PAULISSEN up his sleeve — a much-needed POS system, an old-school City Museum-style installation of an antique iron archway and a sculpture meant to honor founder Bob Cassilly, to name a few — but, aside from a deep clean when he reopened the doors last August following his dad’s passing, he insists his strategy is to stay out of the way of O’Connell’s success. “If you work here you’ve seen a lot of change, but if you’re a customer, nothing’s changed,” John Parker says. “Everything is the same, the moose is still there; nothing has changed. That is the main concern I hear from everyone. They always say, ‘Oh, I’m so glad you are open again,’ and I

know before they say anything else to tell them not to worry because I’m not going to change a thing.” Parker is happy with his role as steward of O’Connell’s, and has spent the past year navigating not only the grief of his dad’s passing but also the challenges the pandemic has thrust upon his industry. Insistent on weighing public health and safety above all other concerns, he’s been fierce in his commitment to keeping O’Connell’s a safe place for his guests, and feels that his policies are in line with the bar’s only rule, which his dad established many years ago: You must behave in a civilized manner and be courteous of your fellow patrons. He admits it hasn’t been easy, but he is committed to keeping O’Connell’s going for the long haul. What makes it easier is knowing that he is not alone in his quest, but that he is aided by the memory of his dad, which still animates the place, as well as the employees and guests who have made it what it is. “O’Connell’s Pub is made by the people who come here, and you can’t buy that or make that artificially, arker says. hat’s who really owns the place. It’s intangible, and you can’t own that vibe. It’s what makes this a sacred house — one that is sacred to me not just because we are the best bar or have the best burger in town, but because it’s the house that Jack built. t’s the reflection of him, and I am going to do what I can to honor that for him.” n

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REEFERFRONT TIMES [WEED NEWS]

Green with Envy Regulatory compliance company hired by Missouri for medical marijuana program loses $28 million lawsuit Written by

DANIEL HILL

company hired by Missouri officials to help review applications for the state’s medical mari uana program has been ordered to pay million to one of the applicants it re ected. ise Health olutions, a oint venture between akland, California’s aksterdam niversity and evada-based regulatory compliance company eracious nvestigative, was awarded a contract by the issouri epartment of Health and enior ervices in ugust 01 . ccording to a press release from the company at that time, its purpose was to review applications for prospective medical cannabis businesses, in anticipation of issouri’s burgeoning medical cannabis industry. ut, as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports, the heads of at least one company that was passed over for a license believe that the process was unfair. t. Charlesbased G Consulting, one of many groups who applied to be a part of the state’s medical mariuana industry, leveled a lawsuit against ise Health olutions, asserting that its methodology in scoring potential participants was flawed, even going so far as to accuse the company of corruption. he case wound its way into arbitration, and G prevailed. he arbitrator determined that ise Health olutions negligently performed its consulting duties for H , which caused G Consulting, LLC to be wrongfully denied dispensary licenses. he decision was approved by a uchanan County udge in July. t awarded

If you’re hoping to grow or sell medical marijuana in the state of Missouri, you first must receive a license. But some are calling foul about the process. | LEAH SHAFFER million to G , which is now trying to collect. he company is asking a Cole County court to compel ise’s insurance company, Hiscox nsurance Co., to pay up. ise Health’s role in issouri’s medical mari uana program consisted of providing for-profit boot camps to interested applicants through its affiliated and unaccredited weed school aksterdam niversity. hen the company used a blind process to score those and other applicants before providing its findings to the H for review. t issue, though, is the fact that some believe aksterdam’s coaching may have provided the applicants who attended its boot camps with certain keywords and phrases that may have influenced scorers to give them preferential treatment. t’s not the first time ise Health has faced allegations of impropriety in a regulatory setting. 1 page white paper published in 0 0 by the Cannabis Consumer Coalition about issouri’s confusing medical mari uana licensing process details multiple instances in which the group claims ise Health misrepresented itself, as well as multiple potential conflicts of interest among its employees. ne portion of the report highlights ise Health’s own ugust 01 press release announcing

its partnership with the issouri H . he release touts the company’s role in assisting with the implementation of cannabis licenses in evada and rkansas. ith expert practitioners from both sides of the regulatory field and a successful history of scoring applications in evada and rkansas, ise Health olutions anticipates reviewing and scoring license applications to open cultivation and manufacturing facilities, testing labs, and dispensaries, the statement reads. ut according to the Cannabis Consumer Coalition’s report, this was a misrepresentation of the facts. n one instance, the report notes a piece written by Geoffrey Lawrence for the eason Foundation, which points out that evada’s licensing implementation was beset with controversy that was glossed over in the press release. n fact, Clark County istrict Court Judge Eli abeth Gon ale ruled in an ugust 01 court order that evada’s licensing agency acted beyond the scope of its authority, taking actions she found to be arbitrary and capricious, amounting to conduct that is a serious issue. he voter-approved initiative required the process to be impartial and numerically scored,’ Lawrence writes. However, the regulations contained scoring cri-

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teria that demonstrated bias toward some applicants. he controversy in evada is almost identical to the allegations and issues that have been raised in issouri’s mari uana program, asserts the white paper. rbitrary and capricious scoring of applications, questions about conflict of interest and privileged access to regulators by representatives of winning licensees, and market allocation and collusion by winning licensees. s for rkansas, the Cannabis Consumer Coalition asserts that the state dealt with similar problems, including allegations of conflicts of interest and bias bordering on corruption. he odd thing in this instance, though, is that the group could find no evidence in the public record that the ise Health-affiliated company eracious was involved in any part of the process whatsoever, despite claims to the contrary in the resume its owner submitted to the state. he resume of eracious owner Chad estom submitted to the H as part of the ise Health olutions scoring vendor bid claims that eracious was part of the review team for rkansas’s dispensary license applications, the report reads. However, no public record that we could find confirms this. espite the considerable controversy, issouri Governor ike arson’s office doesn’t believe the million udgment against ise Health reflects poorly on the state. hile H was not involved in that matter, the issue appears to be a terms dispute with an insurance company and a non-execution agreement, not a decision by a court on the merits of scoring, H spokeswoman Lisa Cox tells the Post-Dispatch. he issouri edical Cannabis rade ssociation similarly downplayed the case and its impact on the state’s medical mari uana program. his litigation between two private parties doesn’t include the state and will have ero impact on issouri’s more than 1 0,000 medical cannabis patients, our industry, or issouri’s program, the group said in a statement. The RFT reached out to a representative from ise Health for comment, but did not receive a response by press time. n

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CULTURE [GOOD CAUSES]

Child’s Play Local nonprofit will host blues concert to benefit afterschool programs and summer camps Written by

JENNA JONES

he St. Louis Association of Community Organizations has operated for 40 years, aiming to strengthen the neighborhoods that make up St. Louis. Now, they’ve announced a partnership with the St. Louis Blues Society in order to fund SLACO’s afterschool and summercamp music programs for kids. Hitting the stage on Friday, November , five different performers will put on a show, titled Blues, Brass and Sass, at the .ZACK Theatre (3224 Locust Street) beginning at 7 p.m. and ending at 11

[SMALL SPORTS]

Mini Golf Coming to City Foundry Next Fall Written by

JENNA JONES

t. Louis mini-golf lovers, rejoice: The City Foundry (3730 Foundry Way), is getting a place to putt-putt your heart out — and it’ll be here by next fall. Puttshack, a “tech-infused mini golf experience with global food and drink,” has signed a lease with the St. Louis spot, according to a press release. It’ll occupy the 26,500-square-foot space once reserved for Punchbowl Social, a virtual-reality game space that fell on pandemic hard times and was unable to pull through with its St. Louis plans. Puttshack currently operates in Atlanta, Georgia — as well as three locations in London — and is about to open an additional location in Oak Brook, Illinois, in November. “The City Foundry’s innovation-driven, community-focused vision was an immediate draw and perfectly aligned with our

The Funky Butt Brass Band is just one of the acts that will perform at the event. | ERIC NEMENS p.m. Artists will also be in attendance to auction off their artwork. The lineup of musical performers includes Marsha Evans and the Coalition, Fab Foehners, “The

own company values,” Dave Diamond, president of Puttshack, said in a statement. “As the leader in tech-forward social entertainment, we can’t wait to bring Puttshack to St. Louis.” Set to be located east of the Food Hall, the space will take up two stories, with a mezzanine overlooking the entire first floor. The interior will be designed to have a “high-energy, upscale nightclub vibe,” according to a release. Four courses are planned for the area, with each being highly competitive and tech-heavy. The games have automated scoring so players can ditch paper scorecards in exchange for the balls keeping track of the game, which will then email you your team’s scores at the end. The courses also include interactive games at each course and bonus-point opportunities. Games aren’t the only focus of Puttshack, though. A full cocktail bar is planned, as well as a menu with a “globally inspired” dining menu, the press release says. Puttshack’s Atlanta menu EditSign ranges widely with appetizers like shiitake mushroom pot stickers and crispy popcorn cauliflower, while the listed entrees include a variety of flatbreads, salads and sandwiches. “With the help of our partners at

Powerhouse” Dylan Triplett with special guest Miss Hy-C, the Funky Butt Brass Band and Denise Thimes. “We support our youth and fam-

ilies and we feel music and the arts help young people develop to their fullest,” SLACO Executive Director Kevin McKinney says in a statement. “We work hard to provide after-school and summer camp programs with music and arts training. We need your assistance to provide for our youth and families.” The goal of the evening is to raise $25,000. The money will go to providing resources that “will champion the next generation of musicians and creatives,” according to a press release. The concert is the organization’s leading fundraiser of the year, the press release explains, and speaks to SLACO’s “commitment to offering support to community-based programs.” General admission tickets cost $60, with VIP tickets running $75. VIP tickets will get you into a pre-party, as well as a post-show event, complete with a performance from the Joe Metzka Band. Food and drink are also included with the VIP tickets. Tickets can be purchased at metrotix.com. n

The nightclub-inspired Puttshack has signed a lease with the City Foundry. | VIA PUTTSHACK Pace Properties, we’re excited to add Puttshack as another first-to-the-area, curated experience at City Foundry STL,” Will Smith of City Foundry STL says in a statement. “You’ll likely have fond memories of playing mini golf as a kid, but Puttshack offers that experience to St. Louis in a new and refreshed way. Puttshack is

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yet another opportunity to be seen and to find something new in our space.” The space is slated for an opening date early next fall, but may be opening as soon as July 2022. Visit puttshack.com to see how the game works in its Atlanta space, and stay tuned for updates. n

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FILM

Best Seat in the House The St. Louis International Film Festival returns the Tivoli. Here’s what to see Written by

EILEEN G’SELL

ver the past eighteen months of pandemic times, restaurants have closed, bars have shuttered and local hangouts have hung on by a thread. Many nights a quiet eeriness looms over the Delmar Loop — and not just because it’s Halloween season. Its marquee dimmed, its ticket booth vacant, the landmark Tivoli Theatre seems suddenly a bit … haunted. For decades, St. Louisans attended the cinema’s indie and arthouse films in droves the lobby was the rare place you might run into your boss, your ex or your best friend’s father (hopefully, not all the same person). Purchased by the One Family Church last spring, the theater has yet to open its doors to the public. November 4 through 21, that all changes. t this year’s 0th annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival (SLIFF), the trio of Tivoli screens will glow once more as the main venue for a rich selection of narrative and documentary features, along with an array of s and in-person events. While many of the over 00 films on offer will also be available virtually — and in person at Washington University’s rown uditorium, ebster niversity’s inifred oore uditorium, St. Louis Public Library’s Central Library auditorium, and the Contemporary rt useum in Grand Center — the Tivoli will reign again as cinema supreme, at least for cinephiles eager to wear a mask and furnish proof of full COVID-19 vaccination. Per usual, SLIFF brings to the region the best of the best films and filmmakers from around the world, and even a selective overview of the standout titles would exceed the pages of any alt-

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Gloriously mundane family foibles jockey with sociopolitical hazards in Jafar Panâhi’s Hit the Road. | COURTESY SLIFF weekly. That said, based on hours of film-watching, directorial knowledge and my own admitted idiosyncrasies, I humbly offer the following as this year’s highlights (all screening at the Tivoli).

Narrative Feature

Belfast (Friday, Nov. 5): Written and directed by prestige-film heartthrob Kenneth Branagh, Belfast explores the Troubles of Northern Ireland from the semi-autobiographical vantage of Branagh as a boy. The sometimes sentimental trappings are more than balanced by gorgeous black-and-white cinematography and a score from Belfast’s very own Van Morrison, C’mon C’mon (Sunday, Nov. 7): Director Mike Mills’s latest drama stars Joaquin Phoenix in what may be his most poignant role yet: a childless radio host who steps in to care for his nephew Jesse (Woody Norman, a preternaturally gifted kid actor) during a family emergency. Fans of Mills’s Women of the 20th Century will love this tender, often existential, blackand-white exploration of parenting and childhood set in Los ngeles, New Orleans and New York. You’ll be glad you have the mask on to absorb your tears. France aturday, ov. 1 unday, Nov. 14): Only the eccentric Bruno Dumont, most recently

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Cow brings you inside the lived experience of one very real farm animal. | COURTESY SLIFF known for his Joan of rc diptych, could get away with making a two-hour plus film about France, called France, starring Léa Seydoux playing an anchor woman named France de Meurs. What starts as a brilliant satire of news media celebrity ultimately kowtows to melodrama, but France is ultimately as riveting as the country for which it is named. Come for Seydoux’s impeccable acting and stay for her prismatic array of suits and jackets. The Humans (Saturday, Nov. 20): n adaptation of his ony-award winning play, Stephen Karam’s latest is an ensemble film for the ages, starring Richard Jenkins, Beanie Feldstein, Steven Yeun,

my chumer and June quibb. This moving depiction of pan-generational Thanksgiving dissonance will likely make all of us more grateful for the family we have (and don’t have!) late November. Hit the Road (Wednesday, Nov. 10 / Friday, Nov. 12) Son of Iranian New Wave master Jafar Panâhi, Panah Panâhi makes his debut with Hit the Road, a road trip movie that mingles relatable family comedy with harrowing sociopolitical realities. This is the rare movie that celebrates the mundane experience of simply being a mother, father, brother or son amidst even the most tumultuous of narrative contexts. The dog, Jessy, is also a standout.

Kenneth Branagh mines his own Irish past in Belfast. | COURTESY SLIFF

King Richard (Thursday, Nov. 18): Reinaldo Marcus Green, who debuted with Monsters and Men in 2018, delivers a probing portrait of Richard Williams (Will Smith), father of tennis icons Venus and Serena. Uplifting, but never saccharine, this is a sports film for people who don’t like sports films. Memoria (Sunday, Nov. 14): One of the strangest, most hypnotic films you’ll ever see, pichatpong Weerasethakul’s latest is a collaboration with actor Tilda Swinton, over sixteen years in the making. Set in Colombia’s Bogota and Medellin, and ending in the rainforest, the film follows a cottish expat named Jessica (Swinton) who grapples with a mysterious hearing condition — the sound she repeatedly experiences becomes a type of character in the film. his film is only showing on the big screen, one theater at a time, over the next year, so this will likely be your only chance to see it. Petite Maman (Saturday, Nov. 13): Céline Sciamma — whose Portrait of a Lady on Fire sold out at SLIFF two years ago — returns with a 70-minute drama as potent as it is pithy. Examining the complexities of the mother-daughter relationship through the experience of two eight-year-old girls (further explanation will spoil the plot), Petite Maman reminds us all of the thrills of childhood friendship and the woes of love lost. The Worst Person in the World (Saturday, Nov. 13): In the third

installment of his Oslo trilogy, Norwegian director Joachim Trier (Thelma, Louder than Bombs) once again provides an incredibly complex portrait of modern womanhood, this time following Julie (Renate Reinsve), a medical student looking for love in Norway’s capital.

Documentary Feature

Cow aturday, ov. 1 he first documentary from acclaimed ritish director ndrea rnold (American Honey, Fish Tank), Cow resembles the 2020 Gunda in its incredibly intimate portrait of a farm animal most of us dismiss as merely meat. rnold’s feminist proclivities take a bovine turn in this highly anticipated feature. Flee unday, ov. 1 documentary told in animation? Danish director Jonas Poher Rasmussen makes it happen with this gripping account of min awabi’s escape from fghanistan. i hmed provides the voice for Nawabi’s animated character in what will undoubtedly join the canon of queer movies. Procession (Thursday, Nov. 4): Director Robert Greene, a SLIFF Contemporary Cinema ward honoree, will be in attendance for this trenchant examination of six Midwestern men who survived sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy. Collaborating with his subjects (who will also be present at the screening), Greene adopts a pathbreaking approach to depicting the experience of trauma and the process of healing from it. n

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NOVEMBER 3-9, 2021

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SAVAGE LOVE FEMALE TROUBLE BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: I want to correct you on something you’ve said repeatedly: A man can “hide” his bisexual orientation. I disagree. I felt my boyfriend was gay or bi immediately, but he flatly denied it. But it was so obvious! He sucked at sex, he never initiated, and he was clueless about female anatomy! I was forced to hunt for proof, which I discovered after nine months. Then I mercilessly outed him to friends, humiliated him to his face, and finally confronted him with the proof of his profile on a gay hookup app. I enjoyed every wicked minute exposing his lies and telling everyone the truth because he used and exploited me in a fake relationship. I was wrong about a couple of things. First, I thought if I asked him if he was gay, he would confess and come clean with me. Wrong, he never did. Second, if he was gay, he wouldn’t hide that fact because gays won the LGBT rights fight. Wrong. I am a fag hag but only because I like feeling superior and enjoy what I get out of my friendships with gay men. But I’m not interested in fruit juice. Furious And Vengeful Ex You are a terrible person, I don’t want you reading my column, and I hope your gay friends come to see you for the toxic person you are and cut you out of their lives — unless they’re just as awful as you are, in which case they deserve you. To be clear, FAVE, what your ex did was wrong. I have always taken a dim view of closeted gay men who date straight women to throw people off the scent of cock on their lips (assuming your ex was gay and not bi). But if this dude sucked at sex (when he had it with you), never initiated sex (at least not with you), and couldn’t find your clit if you gave him a flashlight and probably not even then), why waste nine months on him? You could’ve and should’ve dumped him the first time the sex was awful, FAVE, or when you first suspected it wasn’t you or your kind) that he wanted to have sex with.

And for the record, FAVE, anyone can hide their sexual orientation, not just bi men. But many bisexuals don’t come out because they fear being mercilessly outed by angry, bitter, vindictive partners. Again, I don’t have much sympathy for closeted gay men who lie to and mislead women. But if your ex-boyfriend was bi, not gay, and you two hadn’t made a monogamous commitment to each other, he had every right to fuck other people — including other people with penises. Hey, Dan: I have a question for you about pubic hair. I’m a straight female in my 40s and began dating someone new recently. We’ve only been dating for about a month and this person keeps making requests that I shave or trim my pubic hair. I haven’t known this person long enough to feel comfortable making changes to my body on their account. Am I unusual in this area? Is it standard practice now to get rid of pubic hair? I honestly couldn’t care less about my partners’ hair, so long as they’re hygienic. This email may be boring, but I was curious about your thoughts on this topic. Lover Interrogates My Pubes Some people get rid of their pubic hair to please themselves, LIMP, and some people get rid of their pubic hair to please their partners. You’re not obligated to shave just because the man you’re dating asked you to, LIMP, but unless he’s pressuring you or pouting about it, I don’t think he’s being an asshole. If he asked nicely and you said no and he dropped it, LIMP, that means your new boyfriend can take “no” for an answer and isn’t that a nice thing to know about him? That said, I don’t think trimming your pubic hair to please even a new partner amounts to “changing your body.” It’s not like getting a tattoo or removing a limb — if you don’t like how a trim looks or feels, LIMP, you can stop trimming and, in a few weeks, your natural habitat will be fully restored. Hey, Dan: I’m a woman in a committed relationship with a man and we’ve just started exploring ABDL. I’m the sub, he’s the Dom. I was wondering if it would be OK for

“I mercilessly outed him to friends, humiliated him to his face, and finally confronted him with the proof of his profile on a gay hookup app. I enjoyed every wicked minute exposing his lies.” me to change his diapers. I want to show him I’m willing to clean him and take care of him too, but I feel like subs aren’t really supposed to take on those roles. And to be a good sub, I really want to know my place. I trust your opinion on these things. Pensively Approaching Diapered Dom t’s fine with me if you change your boyfriend’s diapers, PADD, but you’re going to have to check with him. Not all “Adult Baby/Diaper Lover” play involves power exchange, but when people combine ABDL with D/s, it’s typically the sub who wears the diapers (and has them changed) and the Dom who does the diapering and changing. But if your Dom is into wearing diapers, PADD, he’s already blurring those boundaries — so, I don’t see why you can’t at least offer to change his. If having his diapers changed by his sub would make him feel less dominant, he can continue to change his own damn diapers. Hey, Dan: I’m a single cis woman in my mid-40s. I’ve never wanted kids, but I did think at some point, I’d get married or have a longterm partnership. That hasn’t hap-

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pened. Which is fine. I’m content with my life, I make good money, I own my own home, and I love and appreciate all of the great things that come with being single. (Doing whatever I want, whenever I want, and — let’s be honest — farting at home whenever I gosh darn need to.) I have a lot of dear friends who are married, and they are family. I accept that I may be single (but not alone!) for the rest of my life, and that’s fine too. But it comes down to this: I need physical intimacy. I’m OK with my life, but I’m not OK never having a sexual partner again. I really, really, really like sex. I want to be with a person I know well enough to get comfortable. But I live in a place where online meetups are either fleeting or scary. And I’m overweight and lack confidence and don’t exactly have all the boys coming to my yard. Give me some guidance, Dan. She Isn’t Necessarily Getting Laid, Eh? nline meetups feel fleeting because most online meetups, like most o ine meetups, are fleeting. They’re chance encounters, like striking up a conversation with a stranger in a bar, and like most chance encounters, they typically go nowhere. Occasionally an online meetup is scary in the dudegives-off-serial-killer-vibe sense, but most are scary in the makingyourself-vulnerable-and-riskingrejection sense — and there’s no avoiding that kind of scary, SINGLE, only building up your tolerance for it. nd finally, GLE, and somewhat controversially … if you’re content with your life as it is, and if you value being able to fart whenever you need to, there are married men out there who aren’t getting any at home, SINGLE, and not all of them are assholes. Some are loving, decent guys in loving, low-conflict marriages who’ve decided to stay married for loving, decent reasons. An ongoing connection with a loving, decent woman who doesn’t want more than they can give could obviously make one of these guys very happy, SINGLE, and it might make you a little happier too. questions@savagelove.net @FakeDanSavage on Twitter www.savage.love

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NOVEMBER 3-9, 2021

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NOVEMBER 3-9, 2021

RIVERFRONT TIMES

Riverfront Times, November 3, 2021

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