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DECEMBER 1-7, 2021

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Welcome to the Ranch We will be serving up farm to table style dishes from our favorite local restaurants to cure your hangover with a hearty meal. This year will be bigger and blazing saddles better by far as we’ve reimagined the whole experience! So lace up those chaps, dust off those cowboy hats and get ready to roll up your sleeves. No hard work, just play at this year’s Brunch on the Ranch!

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DECEMBER 1-7, 2021

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THE LEDE

“I grew up in a rainbow community as a kid. So I just was raised like everything is community. You know, like we all eat together. We share resources together. ... We’re all doing the job together. It goes faster. Yeah, so ... my brain is programmed for community living. It’s hard. I don’t do well by myself. I’m used to having people around.”

PHOTO BY THEO WELLING

JAZZ OF JAZZY’S COMMUNITY GARDENS AND ECOVILLAGE STL/ARTIST CO-OP, PHOTOGRAPHED DURING A WEEKLY FOOD GIVEAWAY IN THE CENTRAL WEST END ON FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 19 riverfronttimes.com

DECEMBER 1-7, 2021

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Lifeline

ew, if any, in St. Louis media have been as dogged in recent years in reporting on and analyzing the opioid epidemic in our region as Mike Fitzgerald. The veteran journalist returns to the subject this week for an in-depth feature about a simple idea that is already saving lives. Mike is a master of seeing the big picture and grounding it in the people at street level. In his latest, he focuses on Kevin FitzGerald, whose longtime labor activism has often put him in the public eye. Now, instead of shouting through a bullhorn or pacing picket lines, Kevin is involved in the intimate work of trying to prevent overdose deaths, one phone call with a stranger at a time. Mike reveals how it works — and why not everyone supports it. —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, Kathy Gilsinan, 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 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

COVER How to Save a Life Could radical compassion work against America’s opioid crisis?

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

Cover photo by

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

PHUONG BUI

N A T I O N A L A D V E R T I S I N G VMG Advertising 1-888-278-9866, vmgadvertising.com S U B S C R I P T I O N S Send address changes to Riverfront Times, 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

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HARTMANN The Spoils St. Louis picks off some of that NFL mogul money BY RAY HARTMANN

oy did we pull off an upset. The city that was so scorned in 1994 for its desperation and recklessness in pursuing a National Football League franchise — for a stupid amount of money — turns out to have been playing possum along. Little did the world know that the quarter of a billion dollars we heaved at Rams owner Georgia Frontiere as a legal bribe to “attract” the Rams wasn’t a Hail Mary pass after all. It was a shrewd investment. We tripled our money in 27 years. In a settlement for the ages, St. Louis will receive $790 million from the robber barons of the NFL cartel to compensate us for their avarice and stupidity. That’s roughly half a billion for the city and county to tussle over, which itself should be as entertaining to watch as football. And let’s not forget the tidy $276.5 million coming to St. Louis in the form of hard-earned fees to the law firms of Dowd Bennett and Blitz Bardgett & Deutsch. That’s not counting how much they’ll make from the lawsuits once the locals start quarreling over how to divvy up the found treasure. Those fees also count as economic development revenues pouring into the region, unless the lawyers spend it all to buy an island or something. And all lawyer jokes aside, hats off to these people for hoisting these greedy jerks with their own petard. Now, instead of moping, St. Louis gets to look back at 1994 and see just how far we’ve come. Back then, we were a mess. The team of my childhood, the St. Louis football Cardinals, had left town for Arizona six years earlier. We regarded ourselves as victims, so much so that we had started building a state-of-the-art football stadium on the come. But things had taken a horrific turn for the worst in 1993, when the NFL decided to add two expansion

See you, Stan. Thanks for all the cash. | PETER POWELL/EPA/NEWSCOM teams. St. Louis was widely favored to be one of them since we were a great sports city with a great stadium half-finished. Then the names Charlotte and Jacksonville were called out — the latter a truly low blow to our self-esteem — and we were in a heap of trouble. At that point, our only choice was to get a team the old-fashioned way, which was to steal one from another city. We landed upon the Rams. The team was owned by Frontiere, who had grown up in St. Louis and was happy to come home — after Baltimore had first been exhausted as an option because the numbers weren’t quite right. She was beset with some financial issues at the time. Under the leadership of the late Senator Tom Eagleton, St. Louis was able to do better with the math, in no small part — I hate to mention it — because of the $80 million that an unknown investor from Columbia, Missouri, named Stan Kroenke, was willing to pump into the team. After no one from St. Louis stepped up. So, we stole the Rams from Los Angeles after they had played there for 49 years. It was payback for Phoenix stealing our Big Red after it had played here 28 years. The difference was that the NFL, which always despised us, was in on the steal of our team by Phoenix. In 1995, the same owners first

In a settlement for the ages, St. Louis will receive $790 million from the robber barons of the NFL cartel to compensate us for their avarice and stupidity. voted 24-4 to prohibit the Rams from moving to St. Louis. You know what happened next? This is great. We threatened to sue them again, and they folded like a tent. See a pattern here? Our lawyers are good. Well, sadly, Mrs. Frontiere passed away in 2008. That left us with Kroenke, and the rest is history. I wrote a 2010 St. Louis Magazine column warning that St. Louis should be concerned about this guy, which was prescient. Then again, in 2017, I wrote another column calling this latest lawsuit against the NFL the stupidest of all time. That gave me the distinction of having written the stupidest

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column of all time. But I digress. As luck would have it, when Kroenke moved the Rams back to Los Angeles — his real hometown — in 2016, St. Louis was freed of the burden of having stolen a team. In retrospect, we had simply borrowed the Rams for 20 years and returned them to their rightful home, pretty much as we found them. And in the process, we had some great times, making it to two Super Bowls and winning one (which remains one more than the Los Angeles Rams have under their belt). I have great memories as a fan of making it to those events. But now comes the coolest part, the one no one apparently saw coming: We knew how to outfox the billionaires in court. Sure, we were 31st in attendance, and sure, we had failed to exercise our option to upgrade the Edward Jones Dome to “upper tier” status — after losing an arbitration case that put the price tag at $750 million or so. That would have forced the Rams to stay in St. Louis until 2024. Our lawyers noticed that the NFL and the Rams hadn’t followed their relocation guidelines in making the big move to Los Angeles, because — frankly — these guidelines were meaningless nonsense that had been crafted to advance the false notion that the NFL valued local-market stability. I’m guessing St. Louis didn’t have that great a case on the merits. But we had smart lawyers who realized that we’d be wearing the home uniforms in court — and that the NFL owners had way too much to lose. And that being billionaires doesn’t mean they’re not idiots. And that the phrase “Oh, we were just kidding about those phony relocation guidelines” doesn’t sound so great when spoken out loud. The result? Why we just tripled our 1994 investment. Who’s looking stupid now? n Ray Hartmann founded the Riverfront Times in 1977. Contact him at rhartmann1952@gmail.com or catch him on Donnybrook at 7 p.m. on Thursdays on Nine PBS and St. Louis In the Know with Ray Hartmann from 9 to 11 p.m. Monday thru Friday on KTRS (550 AM).

DECEMBER 1-7, 2021

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NEWS

Fake Generals, Real Charges in Romance Scheme

“ eneral J.D. told atson that he needed funds to recover a portfolio he claimed was worth million. At the direction of “the general,” over several months in , atson mailed about , to the Berkeley P.O. Box. In ay of that year, federal authorities contacted atson in Ohio and told her she was the victim of a romance scam and that the real military general whose identity had been stolen was in fact “not the beneficiary of the funds she was mailing to St. Louis, issouri.

atson told authorities she would stop sending money to St. Louis and even sent the inspectors a series of links to Dr. Phil episodes in which the popular daytime TV host covered the topic of romance scams, according to prosecutors with the .S. Attorney’s O ce. But the feds say atson’s epiphany didn’t last long. Three days after sending those links to inspectors, atson fell back under the sway of the imposter general. That’s when the case took a bizarre turn and, in the eyes of in-

vestigators, atson began to transition from victim in the scheme to an accomplice. Over the next three months, she persuaded three other people to loan her nearly $600,000 to “secure General J.D.’s portfolio from the nited States ustoms Service pay taxes and fees associated with her winning the exican lottery and finance eneral J.D.’s return from a military assignment overseas,” according to the indictment Prosecutors say atson told some of the victims that she had met “the general” in person and he had a portfolio worth many millions of dollars. One of the targets received text messages from atson’s phone from someone claiming to be “the general himself. The Berkeley P.O. Box atson sent money to is the same address used in the romance scam that led to the indictment of three St. Louisans in September of last year. According to a Department of Justice press release, 41-yearold Ovuoke Frank Ofikoro and -year-old Bonmene Sibe “pretended to be high-ranking military o cers who were deployed overseas. The perpetrators pretended to be romantically interested in the women whose ages ranged between the ages of 5 and . A 1-year-old aryland woman sent 9, to the P.O. Box in

nizations celebrated the exhibit’s arrival. Charlie Brennan, a KMOX radio host who helped bring the display to St. Louis, acknowledged the removal to a “less prominent and visible location” in Jefferson City and said the coalition felt that “this history should not be discounted or dismissed.” Titled “Making History: Kansas City and the Rise of Gay Rights,” the exhibit was displayed in late August at the Capitol, but was quickly removed after complaints. Governor Mike Parson said the exhibit was removed because the proper processes for displays weren’t followed, but state lawmakers and officials said the approval process described by the governor wasn’t required of other exhibits. Curated in 2017 by University of Missouri-Kansas City students, the exhibit explores gay-rights activism prior to the Stonewall Riots in New York City in 1969. The panels tell the story of the hardships the LGBTQ community in Kansas City faced in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, then dives into the city’s role in the gay liberation movement. Telling the stories of the Kansas City

LGBTQ activists is important, Bishop Deon Johnson of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri said at the news conference, because without them, the story of Missouri and America is incomplete. “This exhibit is about looking through the glass of history and seeing and hearing the stories of real people that lived and loved the best way they could,” Johnson said, “and the best way that God created them to be in the midst of setback and struggle. To honor their stories, to honor the story of who we are … we must tell the whole story.” With its arrival in St. Louis, Making History becomes a complement to existing initiatives and exhibits. Representatives from the Missouri Historical Society and the St. Louis LGBT History Project at the news conference reminded St. Louisans there are three displays of LGBTQ history in the Missouri area: one in Springfield, another in Kansas City and the Missouri History Museum’s Gateway to Pride virtual exhibit. Phillip Deitch, the president of the St. Louis LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce, stood by the president of St. Louis Black

Pride Randy Rafter to acknowledge the importance of having organizations like theirs and exhibits like this one. “When each and every one of us looks in the mirror, they can recognize the mosaic which makes up their own life,” Deitch said at the news conference. “But some aspects of identity face discrimination or invisibility that others don’t have to experience. So, it all comes down to this: We all believe that increasing public awareness of the struggles that LGBTQ and other minorities have faced in history is a powerful tool for creating a truly inclusive community in the future. Knowing about each other means to care about each other.” The exhibit will be on display at the Cortex Innovation Community until December 10. From there, it will move to the Gallery at Chesterfield’s the District from December 11 to January 5. The Food Hall at the City Foundry will complete the exhibit’s tour schedule from January 6 to February 3, but the coalition is looking for more places to host Making History and plan to announce future dates at a later time. n

Written by

RYAN KRULL

racing a romance scam that victimized elderly women across the country, federal investigators found a common connection — a post office box in north St. Louis ounty. In multiple cases, fraudsters persuaded their elderly marks to send money totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars to the address in Berkeley. Last week, federal prosecutors indicted Ohio woman Linda atson, alleging she acted as a “money mule in furtherance of the scheme. According to the indictment, atson was contacted online by someone who had stolen the identity of a nited States Army general.

Booted from Capitol, LGBTQ Exhibit Arrives in St. Louis Written by

JENNA JONES

n LGBTQ+ exhibit removed from Missouri’s Capitol after only a few days on display has found its way to St. Louis, thanks to a coalition of local businesses, individuals, and civic and religious organizations. The first stop for the traveling exhibit is at the Civic Lounge of Cortex Innovation Community, 4220 Duncan Avenue. As reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the display is a duplicate, and the original pieces are still located at the Lohman Building in Jefferson City. In a press conference Tuesday, leaders from various religious and civic orga-

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Victims sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to a Berkley P.O. box. | GOOGLE STREET VIEW

DECEMBER 1-7, 2021

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Berkeley after being contacted by “Walter Piatt who claimed to be a nited States general who had obtained a “portfolio of diamonds during a military raid that he would mail to the aryland woman from Aleppo, Syria. A 68-year-old Florida resident sent between 55, and , to the same box after being contacted by one “Diplomat Barry Jones. A 1-year-old Illinois woman sent an unknown amount of cash to Berkeley after being instructed to do so by a “Lieutenant eneral stationed in Syria who went by the name “Raymond handler. The Berkeley P.O. Box was opened in January by an unnamed woman recruited by 28-year-old Trenice Hassel, the third alleged co-conspirator. Prosecutors say Hassel recruited this specific person because assel knew the woman “would not uestion why she was being asked to open a post o ce box. assel pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of making false statements to a federal agency and was sentenced to time served. She was

When a victim won’t discontinue her actions, she begins to transition to an accomplice in the eyes of the law. described by prosecutors as “lower level than Ofikoro and Sibe. Assistant .S. Attorney Tracy Berry, who prosecuted the atson case, says that fraudsters “rely upon nited States citizens, or individuals who are residing in the nited States, to move the money because their victims would be a lot more apprehensive and reluctant to send money to an address in Nigeria than they would an address in issouri. The basic arc of atson’s story is somewhat similar to that of 81-yearold irkwood resident lenda Seim who in November pleaded guilty to

Page Slams Judge’s Order Undercutting COVID Orders Written by

JENNA JONES

t. Louis County Executive Sam Page said in a press conference Monday morning that he still supports mask mandates despite an “uninformed court order” issued last week by a Cole County judge. Page said his staff is currently working to introduce a mask order to the county council, and he expects it to be ready for Tuesday’s meeting. (No updates on the status were available at press time.) On its surface, the ruling seemed to strip local health departments across the state of imposing health orders, including mask mandates. But Page said on Monday that St. Louis County’s health department and attorneys were still assessing what it would mean for county residents. Page emphasized the timing, noting news of a new COVID-19 variant called omicron. He echoed public health ex-

Sam Page says masks and vaccines are still our best tools to fight COVID-19. | LEXIE MILLER perts saying there’s no evidence that it has arrived in the county yet, but like the delta variant, it’s only a matter of time until it makes its way to St. Louis County. “That’s why it’s simply too early to weaken the mitigation measures that have helped limit the spread of COVID-19 so far,” Page said. “Wearing a mask is one of the most important things you can do to protect yourself, your family and neighbors from COVID-19. That was true

two counts of identity theft. In 1 , Seim was contacted by someone claiming to be “a nited States citizen with business interests in Nigeria, prosecutors say. Seim sent this individual her own money before she began to participate as a “money mule,” receiving money from other victims and forwarding it to her online love interest. Like atson, federal authorities say they approached Seim and alerted her that she was taking part in a crime, and when she did not stop, they prosecuted her. “ atson was correct in referencing Dr. Phil episodes,” Berry, who also prosecuted the Seim case, tells the Riverfront Times in an interview. “Because he has had numerous women and men on who have been catfished and who have been confronted with the truth, either from law enforcement, family members or bank representatives. They then turn around and have another conversation with the fraudster and the fraudster says, No, baby. No, baby, this is all real. I’m going to help you get your money back.’ Whatever the scam

is, they just continue it. Berry says that fraudsters may threaten to embarrass individuals they have conned if they don’t continue to help transfer the money. Fraudsters may also in some cases have compromising photographs that they threaten to release. Other times the fraudsters simply “continue the sob story. According to the Federal Trade ommission, romance scams have become more prevalent during the pandemic. In , people perpetrating such scams defrauded victims out of million, a roughly 50 percent increase from 19. The average loss per victim was ,5 . Though Seim has pleaded guilty, she will not be sentenced until February of next year. The cases against Sibe, Ofikoro and atson are still working their way through the courts. “The concern in prosecuting people is pretty much their level of culpability, Berry says. “Who did they victimize? ad they been warned? ad they been given the chance to basically stop their conduct? n

a year ago, it’s true now and it’ll be true a month from now regardless of the politics of the moment.” He added that he is not considering any additional restrictions on businesses. Page then pivoted to the legalities of mask mandates, taking aim at Attorney General Eric Schmitt and “radical ideologues who still don’t think COVID is real that have moved the goalposts so many times.” He said that Schmitt hardly said a word about mask mandates for more than a year but stepped up his rhetoric as he began campaigning for the U.S. Senate. Professionally, Schmitt has been on both sides of the mask mandate issue: His office filed lawsuits against mask mandates in both school districts and St. Louis County earlier this year. But the attorney general is also the lawyer for the state, which put Schmitt in the position of defending the state in court against the Cole County lawsuit that was filed in 2020 by a St. Louis County restaurant owner. The lawsuit argued regulations issued by state health officials unconstitutionally authorized local medical directors to order businesses closures or quarantines. Last week, Judge Daniel Green ruled in favor of the owners on the matter and declared health orders “null and void” and stripped health departments’ of the power to issue such orders. “Missouri’s local health authori-

ties have grown accustomed to issuing edicts and coercing compliance,” Green’s ruling read. “It is far past time for this unconstitutional conduct to stop.” Schmitt does not plan to appeal the ruling and his spokesperson told the <St. Louis Post-Dispatch that they “are prepared to enforce compliance with the court’s order across the state.” Page said this was another dangerous ruling against the county’s “strong COVID measures.” He argued that the order is bad for the county and undermines all the protections issued, from those designed to prevent all manner of problems, such as Hepatitis A in restaurants, tuberculosis and sexually transmitted diseases. The St. Louis County Council could still impose mask mandates, and Page said he was confident after speaking with several council members, including Chairwoman Rita Heard Days, over the weekend, that mandates would continue. The county council has balked at mask mandates in the past, with Days and councilwoman Shalonda Webb criticizing early mandates that were implemented without council approval. Mandated or not, Page emphasized that wearing masks and getting vaccinated against COVID-19 were the best protection against the virus. He quoted Robert Frost at the news conference: “The only way out is through.” n

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DECEMBER 1-7, 2021

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WEDNESDAY, 12/1/21

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DREW LANCE & JD HUGHES 4:30PM SEAN CANAN’S VOODOO PLAYERS: HIGHWAYMEN! 9PM

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THURSDAY, 12/2/21

PIERCE CRASK 5PM JESSE FARRAR (OF OLD SALT UNION) & FRIENDS 9PM FRIDAY, 12/3/21

ANDREW DAHLE 4PM UGLY SWEATER HOLIDAY PARTY WITH SAINT BOOGIE BRASS BAND 10PM SATURDAY, 12/4/21

ALL ROOSTERED UP 12PM JEREMIAH JOHNSON 10PM

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MONDAY, 12/6/21

ALEX RUWE 5PM SOULARD BLUES BAND 9PM TUESDAY, 12/7/21

DUHART DUO 5PM STEVE BAUER & MATT RUDOLF 9PM

BEST OF B.O.B. FESTIVAL FRIDAY AND SATURDAY (12/3 & 12/4)

THE BIG MAD Wolves at the Gate Unreal meal deals, vulture capitalists and a miscarriage of Missouri justice Compiled by

DANIEL HILL

elcome back to the Big Mad, the RFT’s weekly roundup of righteous rage! Because we know your time is short and your anger is hot: THE LESS YOU KNOW: Anyone worried that the citizenry around these parts is too well-informed should rejoice that Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund that is evil even by hedge fund standards, is bidding to buy Lee Enterprises, the parent company of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. If the past is prologue, an Alden-owned Post-Dispatch would be gutted and sold for parts. That would be a boon for the sort of corruption, self-dealing and coverups that this city already has plenty of. Last week, one Post-Dispatch reporter told the RFT, “This is like having the grim reaper show up at your city’s door.” That is an understatement. Lee Enterprises publishes more than 70 daily newspapers in more than 25 states. So, in fact, there are several dozen grim reapers knocking on the doors of cities and towns, everywhere from Culpeper, Virginia, to Wahoo, Nebraska, to Napa, California. At least in St. Louis, we’re not alone. Cold comfort indeed. LIES TIKTOK TOLD US: The setup was just plausible enough: On November 15, Springfield-area TikTok star Kyle Scheele released a video chronicling a “reverse heist” in which he and his friends designed and smuggled a giant cardboard cutout, featuring himself and advertising a nonexistent “Kyle Scheele Meal,” into a Kum & Go gas station. But then Kum & Go loved the bit so much they actually offered the meal — a twelve-ounce Red Bull and a pizza sandwich — in a seemingly organic embrace of the viral moment. Only, it wasn’t: After the stunt received fluffy writeups in the Springfield News-Leader and USA Today, Adweek revealed the more complicated origin of the supposed viral prank, including the involvement of Kum & Go’s marketing division. On Monday, Scheele released an apology to his 3.1 million followers, saying, “In retrospect, I should have been upfront and told you about it.” It’s understandable why many former fans aren’t taking Scheele’s contrition at face value: Playing with truth, constructing “real” mo-

ments, hiding coordination and monetary investment — these are dangerous building blocks in an era where truth, especially on the internet, is under attack. It’s also a truly bad look for the reporters and newspapers who blithely took the bit and turned it into news. Scheele has oodles of influencer charisma, but here he’s just a bad actor — and we have enough of those already. HER HONOR, ST. LOUIS’ SHAME: On November 30, St. Louis-born phenomenon Josephine Baker became the first Black woman to receive France’s highest honor by being inducted into the French Pantheon. Baker’s life spanned roles of entertainer, beauty icon, World War II spy and civil rights activist — but even as the world honors her, it’s important to remember the overt racism that drove her to find a new home in Europe. Baker’s childhood included the murderous horror of the 1917 East St. Louis Race Riot, and, when she returned to St. Louis in 1952, she refused to perform in protest of her racially segregated audiences: “I ran away from home. I ran away from St. Louis,” she explained in a speech during the visit, “because of that terror of discrimination, that horrible beast which paralyzes one’s very soul and body.” Generations later, St. Louis is still struggling to overcome that legacy of discrimination — and to be a city that Baker would be proud of. IT’S JUST US: It’s a rarity that this particular column, filled as it so often is with furious rage, gets to celebrate a win, so let’s get that out of the way: Kevin Strickland has been released from prison! After some 43 years spent behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit, the Kansas City native’s conviction was overturned last week by Judge James Welsh, who was persuaded by Jackson County prosecutors that Strickland was innocent and should “not remain in custody a day longer.” That’s certainly good news, but it’s tempered by the fact that Strickland is not eligible to receive compensation from the state of Missouri, which only pays out if a prisoner is exonerated through DNA evidence. And he won’t find any sympathy from the state’s top leadership, either — both Governor Mike Parson and Attorney General Eric Schmitt have in the past declined to act in Strickland’s case, despite urgent pleas from prosecutors. Strickland would be left with nothing — and, by his own account, would probably take up residence in a cardboard box under a bridge — if not for the generosity of the public, which has raised more than $1.6 million through a GoFundMe on his behalf. That’s nice and all, but those donors aren’t the ones who are responsible for costing a man more than four decades of his life. Where is the justice? n

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DECEMBER 1-7, 2021

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Could radical compassion work against America’s opioid crisis?

HOW TO SAVE A LIFE By Mike Fitzgerald

A few months ago, Kevin FitzGerald was driving along Interstate 44 toward St. Louis when his iPhone buzzed.

FitzGerald picked it up. The voice on the other end: a man in his early twenties in Ontario, Canada, who had just injected cocaine. “I already used, and I need to talk to somebody,” the caller said, as FitzGerald recalls. So they talked. The two strangers gabbed on and on as FitzGerald turned off the highway and looped through side streets. “We talked politics a lot,” FitzGerald says. “We’re comparing education and health care. He told me he was bipolar. We talked literally for two hours. He was a

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wonderful young man.” FitzGerald, 68, is a volunteer operator for an international program called Never Use Alone, a rapidly growing overdose response line for people using drugs alone. The group, which has no headquarters and exists virtually, runs a toll-free, 24/7 hotline (800-4843731) that connects substance users from all over the United States and Canada with volunteer operators. Volunteers such as FitzGerald stay on the line and talk to users, who provide contact and location information. Volunteers are trained to check in every two or three minutes to confirm the users are still responsive. If the person on the other end of the line stops responding, then the volunteer immediately calls for help. If the call ends uneventfully, as it does in the vast majority of cases, then the operator destroys all contact and location information. FitzGerald, a well-known St. Louis labor activist, contacted the Riverfront Times about Never Use Alone because he thinks it works. “My main thing is to get the word out about this program,” he says. “Because it can literally save lives.”

DECEMBER 1-7, 2021

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ever Use Alone, or NUA, began only a few years ago, the brainchild of a recovering heroin user in Tennessee who was inspired by a Facebook posting. So far, the service is already showing clear promise as one of the few effective ways to turn the tide on America’s raging epidemic of drug overdose deaths. In preliminary figures released in early November, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that more than 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses for the twelvemonth period between May 2020 and April 2021 — a dubious alltime record that eclipsed the previous annual mark of 93,000 OD deaths. The overdose epidemic shows no signs of abating. More than 75 percent of America’s OD deaths were caused by opioids, a class of powerful painkillers that includes morphine and heroin and namebrand painkillers such as OxyContin. And more than 64,000 of the deaths were due to synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. Fentanyl, a painkiller up to 100 times more powerful than heroin, is now pervasive both nationwide and in the St. Louis region.

Because of its highly addictive — and therefore profitable — nature, fentanyl is routinely added to heroin, but is also mixed in with a wide range of other blackmarket drugs, including cocaine and methamphetamine as well as counterfeit versions of OxyContin and the antidepressant Xanax. Fentanyl, unlike heroin, is a synthetic drug. It can be made anywhere. The center of global fentanyl production is still Wuhan, China, because of the cheap and widespread availability of the precursor chemicals needed to make it. But it is increasingly manufactured in secret U.S. labs, which has made law-enforcement crackdowns much more di cult. Many people who OD on fentanyl don’t even realize they’re ingesting it at the time. And if they’re using the drug alone — which is common because of the stigma attached to illegal drug use and the isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic — then the odds of a fatal overdose skyrocket, according to FitzGerald. Substance users whom he talks to on the NUA hotline have become especially wary, he says. Continued on pg 14

Kevin FitzGerald of Ballwin volunteers for the national Never Use Alone hotline, sitting on the phone with people after they use narcotics so he can send help if they overdose. | PHUONG BUI

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“What are you using?” FitzGerald recently asked a caller. “He goes, ‘I would say heroin, but it’s fentanyl.’” A woman that FitzGerald spoke to on the NUA line in mid-November told him she had in her possession a can of Narcan, the brand name of Naloxone, a drug that can reverse an opioid overdose. She had the Narcan in case she OD’ed on the methamphetamine she was taking. “You don’t know what’s in this shit anyway,” FitzGerald recalls her telling him.

ever Use Alone is part of a category of tactics to fight drug abuse known as harm reduction. As such, it belongs on a list of options that not-for-profits and government agencies are increasingly turning to as part of a multipronged strategy to stem America’s record-setting epidemic of drug overdose deaths. Roots of the epidemic stretch back nearly 30 years. That’s when OxyContin’s maker, Purdue Pharma, launched a campaign of cutthroat profit-making by showering tens of millions of its pills upon an unsuspecting rural America, triggering the current cycle of addiction and death. Only in recent years have courts and regulators cracked down, leading to multi-billion-dollar settlements negotiated with Purdue Pharma and other major drugmakers and distributors, such as Johnson & Johnson and McKesson. The deals will almost certainly ensure the companies will avoid ever admitting any wrongdoing — or face criminal charges — in America’s deadly epidemic. But there’s a clear line between the profit-making of pushing an obscene number of prescription pills on the country and the death and destruction wrought by addiction. Looking back, the fentanyl scourge that followed seems inevitable. The growing push for harm reduction is born out of necessity. Tactics have included distributing free Narcan and fentanyl test strips to the public, needle exchange programs and safe injection sites. Nothing else — from stepped-up enforcement at America’s southern border to Congress allocating more resources for the prosecution of drug gangs — seems to be

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“My main thing is to get the word out about the program, because it can literally save lives,” FitzGerald says. | PHUONG BUI making a dent in America’s OD death crisis, which continues to grow like a metastasizing cancer. It was only twenty years ago that about 20,000 Americans a year were dying from illegal drug use. By 2011, that number had doubled to 40,000. By 2019, it had doubled again, to 80,000. It took only another two years for the number of OD fatalities to surpass 100,000 — a nearly 30 percent increase from the previous year, but still a much smaller figure than the true number of OD fatalities, according to some substance-abuse experts. America’s OD death rate is truly shocking when compared to the rest of the world’s wealthy nations. Poland and Turkey recorded some of the lowest rates, at 0.4 deaths per 100,000, while Norway came in at the second-highest rate, at five deaths per 1 , . And America? It blew away the competition. It recorded an OD death rate of 21.1 deaths per 100,000, or more than four times Norway’s. Jenny Armbruster, the deputy executive director of PreventEd, one of the St. Louis region’s leading drug education groups, called Never Use Alone “a good strategy. We always encourage people not to use alone.” Armbruster described NUA as an important option to prevent

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fatal overdoses for people who “don’t have someone perhaps in their life that they’re able to use around or [are] isolated for a variety of reasons.” The Drug Enforcement Administration has made cracking down on fentanyl makers and tra ckers a top priority, according to Armbruster. But like so many things in the drug economy, “it’s like pushing down on one part of a balloon,” she says. “It will move to another area.” Meanwhile, law enforcement and drug education professionals are girding for the next big thing in lethal drugs. Is it something called “benzo dope”? Canadian physicians are already warning that benzo dope, a highly dangerous synthetic street drug, is on the rise in Canada. A mixture of fentanyl and black-market benzodiazepines, a class of tranquilizers, benzo dope leaves drug users even more prone to fatal overdoses than fentanyl alone. Benzo dope’s deadliness stems from the fact that Narcan is not effective against it. Last year, forensic drug experts in the Canadian province of British Columbia found that one in six fentanyl deals were cut with benzodiazepines — a class of tranquilizer that had not typically been found mixed into opioids — compared

to 5 percent last January and zero before 2019.

arm reduction is by its nature a controversial topic within and outside recovery communities. Are you enabling substance users by giving them lifesaving Narcan to reverse the effects of an overdose? Are you encouraging users to stay on drugs, steadily destroying their lives and the families who love them, by giving them a safety net through a program such as Never Use Alone? For FitzGerald, such questions are moot when lives are literally riding on the line. FitzGerald is a retired member of Insulators Local 1. He knows firsthand how widespread drug use is among blue-collar workers. Some of his friends, or their children, have died from drug overdoses. So, among a myriad of other do-gooder pursuits, FitzGerald spends a lot of his time handing out free Narcan, especially at local picket lines and other tradeunion-sponsored events. “Enabling?” he says about Narcan. “This is used when someone is dying.” And yet the question of whether his actions are enabling substance abusers keeps coming back to him, a constant refrain from both

his union buddies and the public at large — principally because of ignorance. An acquaintance of his who’s been in recovery for two decades from alcoholism recently revealed her disapproval of his Narcan distribution efforts, FitzGerald says. “She said that’s enabling,” FitzGerald says. “Somebody’s literally dying.” Mike Brown, a recovering heroin user who started NUA in the fall of 2019, pushes back against the idea that his program enables substance users. “We get that a lot,” says Brown, who makes his home in southeastern Tennessee. “But I don’t think it is, because the only thing we’re helping that caller avoid is death.” Brown makes the point that if NUA was taken out of the picture, more people would die. And how would that make anything better? “So I don’t think we’re enabling anything,” Brown says. “We’re enabling people to stay alive long enough to find a path to recovery. But no, I don’t think it’s enabling at all. The only consequence we’re helping them avoid is death.” Jay Moore, an NUA volunteer operator in Oklahoma City, says harm-reduction programs should be supported. “You might as well choose the side of public health ... and just compassion, really, and meet people where they’re at,” she says. In recent years, city, state and federal governments have been increasingly sympathetic toward harm-reduction strategies as they try to get the OD drug epidemic under control. The shift toward harm reduction is a response to the failures of the “Just Say No” philosophy driving countless DARE school programs going back to the 1990s, Brown says. “We’re realizing now — pardon my French — that’s bullshit,” he says. “The whole war on drugs has taught society that drug users are bad people. I think we’re finally turning the corner. Society is seeing that this isn’t what they told us it was. The whole war on drugs was started with racism. That’s what it is. I think America is waking up.” Case in point: the nearly $2 trillion American Rescue Plan, which was signed into law in March of this year. It allocates hundreds of billions of dollars for big-ticket projects aimed at reviving America’s economy from the damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the projects in the stimulus plan is $30 million for a range of harm-reduction services

FitzGerald and Pastor Pam often hand out Narcan in high-use areas. | MIKE FITZGERALD nationwide. This is the first time the federal government has provided funding for such services. The legislation directs grants to be provided “to support community-based overdose prevention programs, syringe services programs and other harm reduction services.” Chad Sabora, the cofounder and executive director of the Missouri Network for Opiate Reform and Recovery, in St. Louis, is one of the region’s leading voices for harm reduction. Sabora harbors doubts that, in Missouri at least, the federal dollars earmarked for harm-reduction services will truly reach them. “But that’s going to be a passthrough to the states,” Sabora says of the $30 million federal allocation. “And they can decide what harm reduction is.” Sabora notes that he has tried for years to set up legal needle exchanges and safe injection sites in the St. Louis region — programs that have long been in place in such European nations as Switzerland, the Netherlands and Portugal, with decades of well-documented evidence to back up their

safety and e cacy. But here in Missouri, local governments and the state have thwarted those harm-reduction efforts. “We don’t have the infrastructures nor the interventions to properly spend that money to be most effective,” Sabora says.

he idea behind Never Use Alone took shape in the late summer of 2019. That’s when a member of a Facebook group for substance users posted that a friend had died the night before because he had used drugs alone. As a tribute to the lost friend, the poster made an offer: “Here’s my phone number. If any of you guys use today, call me and I’ll sit on the phone with you.” Brown, a member of the group, saw the posting and experienced an epiphany of sorts. “Why can’t we do this on a large scale?” Brown recalls thinking. “So I looked at it, and I was surprised there was nothing like this already. And it’s such a simple idea. I couldn’t believe nobody did it before me. Never Use Alone was

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born three or four days later.” NUA has spread all across America in the years since. The program has set up dedicated phone lines in New York City and New England. Satellite programs have sprung up in Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia. So far, NUA has recorded more than 5,000 calls and made 31 calls for ambulances. “So the large majority of our calls end safely,” Brown says. “Thirty-one times they called an ambulance, and 31 times the caller survived.” Volunteer operators are trained not to bring up the topic of getting into treatment. “We never mention treatment unless the caller does,” Brown says. “Myself, if I had called a line like this [when still using heroin] and the operator was chatting me about quitting and trying to push me to go into treatment, I’m not going to call back. It takes a lot to get that trust. It would totally destroy it if we then start pushing them into recovery. Our purpose is to keep them alive. It’s not our place to decide when they quit.” NUA prefers to recruit volunteers with substance-abuse histories because “they can understand me. It’s just easier to relate to somebody who’s been there, done that,” Brown says. The Never Use Alone website states that the organization is not accepting volunteer applications right now. The website also notes that serving as a volunteer “is a high stress position, and can be traumatic at times. While most calls end safely, you will likely have a call where the caller is overdosing, and all you can do is call for help, and then listen while you wait for the ambulance to arrive. Those calls ARE TRAUMATIC! If you cannot handle high stress, traumatic situations, this probably isn’t the position for you.” Moore, the Oklahoma volunteer, says the stressful nature of the calls comes from the serious issues that callers present. “We’re both an overdose prevention line and a suicide prevention line at times,” she says. Moore notes the recent experiences of a volunteer operator who himself was fresh out of drug rehab and newly sober. “And you want to make a difference,” Moore says. “But we’re always concerned [that a call] will trigger a relapse” for the operator. The newly sober volunteer received a call from a substance user who, after a few minutes on

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the line, passed out. The operator got ahold of the caller’s mother, with whom he coached through the process of administering Narcan and then rescue breaths “until EMS arrived,” Moore says. “And I know that took a big toll on that person.”

he cold, the cold. The icy November wind is dagger-like and unrelenting; it cuts to the bone on this late Friday afternoon outside the QuikTrip at the corner of Dunn Road and Interstate 270 in north St. Louis County. FitzGerald and his new friend, the Rev. Pamela Paul, who is known universally as Pastor Pam, seem undaunted. Pastor Pam, the pastor of a north St. Louis church, and FitzGerald are here on a mission: to hand boxes of Narcan to everyone they see coming in and out of this busy service station and food market. The responses that FitzGerald and Pastor Pam get are pretty typical. Some people appear indifferent and deny they know anyone with a drug problem. Others seem like they genuinely care, a few opening up about drug issues among friends and family members. A tall man smoking from a vape pen approaches the QuikTrip door when Pastor Pam accosts him. “This is Narcan,” she says. “You give this to a person who overdoses.” The man looks at her quizzically. “The Good Samaritan Act will protect you,” she says, alluding to the state law that immunizes people from prosecution who call 911 to report drug overdoses. “And you just saved somebody’s life,” Pastor Pam concludes, her face lighting up in a bright smile. “That’s what you want, right?” The man nods, takes the Narcan and continues through the QuikTrip door. Pastor Pam, who’s been roaming the St. Louis streets for years handing out Narcan, is an old hand at this. “That’s the key, awareness,” she says, noting that a lot of people still refuse to accept her Narcan offerings. “People aren’t rejecting you when they’re rejecting it.” There is a growing consensus among social scientists, journalists and other people who study America’s overdose crisis for a living that one of the overarching reasons driving it is the fact

FitzGerald’s home includes photos of his role in labor protests, but his work with NUA is often quieter, a phone call with a stranger. | PHUONG BUI

America was literally founded on the evolving idea that all people had a right to “the pursuit of happiness.” In an irony for the ages, America circa 2021 is jam-packed with unhappy, lonely, disappointed, stressed-out, resentful and alienated people. that Americans are feeling increasingly lonely and alienated. A 2019 poll of American adults, for instance, found that more than one in five reported they had no friends at all. This loneliness is also being fueled by declining religious involvement, falling marriage rates and a growing “gig” economy that renders obsolete such longstanding notions as a stable workplace and a set of coworkers. And then there is America’s obsession with what one journalist has called “radical individualism,” especially among men, who are taught early on that seeking help is a sign of weakness. So if radical individualism helps drive the overdose crisis, then what FitzGerald and Pastor Pam are practicing might hold the key to reversing it.

Call it radical compassion — going out of your way to save the lives of total strangers. Such an impulse comes naturally to Fitz erald, a familiar figure for decades in union halls, picket lines, pro-union rallies in Jefferson City and various protest marches. In his Ballwin home, by the door to the garage, there is a framed photo of FitzGerald on his BMW motorcycle, leading a march in downtown St. Louis against Missouri Republicans’ efforts to pass a union-busting right-to-work law. Fitzgerald laughs as he shows another picture of himself dressed up as a Tyrannosaurus rex and balanced perilously atop a giant crane looming over the St. Louis skyline to protest an earlier effort to pass right-to-work. “I was so lucky I didn’t get ar-

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rested that day,” he says. Like so many people who’ve devoted their lives to helping others, FitzGerald has experienced more than his share of tragedy and suffering. Two decades ago, FitzGerald’s wife Moni, suffering from depression, took her own life. And today FitzGerald continues to worry about a person very close to him — a person with a history of mental illness and drug abuse but whose identity he wishes to keep private — who disappears from his life for long stretches of time. When you spend a big part of your waking life trying to make the world a better place, then you know going into it that you will enjoy some occasional wins, but also a hell of a lot of disappointment. That’s just baked into the pie. For instance, FitzGerald lights up like a kid at Christmas when he recounts the long fight to pass Medicaid expansion in Missouri. After repeated efforts, Missouri voters finally approved it a year ago, but obstinate Republican lawmakers delayed its implementation until October of this year. “But we did it,” FitzGerald says. “We got it passed.” But FitzGerald concedes that much of his activism has ended up in defeat as conservative Republicans tighten their grip on state government. “It does get depressing sometimes,” he admits.

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merica was literally founded on the evolving idea that all people had a right to “the pursuit of happiness.” In an irony for the ages, America circa 2021 is jam-packed with unhappy, lonely, disappointed, stressed-out, resentful and alienated people. The COVID-19 pandemic, with its seemingly unending toll of death, serious illness, and economic and social disruptions, has made it worse in many ways. But for years, the United States has seen the same factors that experts have long cited as contributors to dangerous addiction in individuals play out across society at large in increasingly public ways. Witness the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, screaming matches at school-board meetings over facemasks and the attraction many millions of Americans harbor toward right-wing authoritarianism and conspiracy cults like QAnon. The event has already vanished from headlines, but it still bears repeating that hundreds of QAnon true believers gathered in Dallas on November 22 for the prophesized return from the dead of President John F. Kennedy and his son JFK Jr. It may have been a pursuit, but it did not end in happiness. In a recent article for the online journal The Week titled “Why are Americans Drugging Themselves to Death,” the journalist Damon Linker notes a 2015 study that found 32 million Americans, or one in seven adults, dealt with a serious alcohol problem the previous year, while nearly one-third of Americans would show signs of a serious alcohol-use disorder at some point in their lives. Linker also points out that America leads the world in per-capita consumption of prescription medications for anxiety and depression, with 13 percent of adults relying on them even before the pandemic caused new spikes. Linker writes that America is experiencing a “spiritual crisis” because “it seems to involve such comprehensive issues, many of them wrapped up with existential questions of elemental happiness. Our country’s civil religion tells us America is the greatest nation in the world because we’re left free to pursue happiness however we wish. But who among us really knows how to be happy?” Whatever the cause, Linker con-

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cludes, “Americans appear to be losing their way in the world, anxiously pursuing a happiness that eludes them, and ending up drawn to toxic chemical and ideological substitutes for relief from the misery of a disconnected, purposeless existence. … Which might just be another way of saying that radical individualism is hard — and quite possibly a burden too heavy for many of us to bear.” Linker paints a bleak portrait of today’s America — one that is, well, beyond argument to anyone who’s been paying attention. America’s fraught political debates are as hard to ignore as a car alarm blaring late at night. Democrats fuss and fret that democracy is on a death watch because the Republican Party is now an authoritarian personality cult determined to kill it. They fear the January 6 organizers will escape justice. Meanwhile, Republican leaders claim the 2020 election was stolen and that they’re going to make sure it won’t happen again. And once-innocuous things like facemasks and stupid phrases like “Let’s go, Brandon” are suddenly political ashpoints and fierce markers of tribal identity. But there is hope, always hope. And you feel it when you hang out with FitzGerald and Pastor Pam. They’ve driven to a small northcounty food market/liquor store a few miles from the QuikTrip. The market is rumored to be a place where substance users come to buy and use drugs. The pair take up positions near the market’s entrance. Late afternoon has given way to dusk, and then to nightfall. They’ve given away almost all their Narcan boxes. Then a young man named Greg approaches them. He asks for their last Narcan box. Greg says his father got hooked on opioids because of a legal prescription. “He took them for the pain,” Greg says. “Now he’s abusing them. There are times he might OD.” FitzGerald gives him the Narcan and grins, looking pleased as Greg disappears into the night. Pastor Pam shares the look. The world isn’t going to change if a stranger named Greg can save his dad’s life, but it’s something. “So if we can keep doing that, one by one,” FitzGerald says, “it’s a ripple effect. And it can get bigger and bigger.” n Mike Fitzgerald is a freelance journalist. You can follow him on Twitter at @MikeWearAMask.

CAFE

[REVIEW]

He’s Somebody Now With the breakout success of Navin’s BBQ, things are going to start happening to Chris Armstrong Written by

CHERYL BAEHR Navin’s BBQ 3559 Arsenal Street, 314-449-1185. Thurs.-Sat. 11 a.m.-7 p.m. (Closed SundayWednesday.)

ast year, if you would’ve asked Chris Armstrong his plans for his barbecue concept, then called Furlough Joe’s, he would’ve looked at you with a quizzical stare — the whole reason he was doing the project was that he had no plans. Having just gotten furloughed from his job as the Midwest sales manager for a Texas-based brewery, Armstrong was in need of something to do to pass the time and decided to throw himself headfirst into his passion for backyard barbecue. At the time, it seemed like a nice distraction from the real world. It didn’t take long for things to take on a life of their own. Armstrong had the ability to smoke meats to his heart’s content, but he lacked the capacity to eat it all. As the amount he produced grew, he enlisted the help of family, friends and neighbors to make sure the meat didn’t go to waste. To his delight, they were so enamored with his barbecue that they began putting in special requests, then fulledged orders, morphing his ad hoc setup into a more formal arrangement with a weekly menu that consisted of a variety of meats and sides. Calling his operation Furlough Joe’s, Armstrong began crowdsourcing ideas, tweaking recipes and building regular customers until one day it dawned on him: He was basically operating a carry-out restaurant. This past June, Armstrong

Navin’s BBQ melds the best of Kansas City and Texas for a unique — and delicious — barbecue option in St. Louis. | MABEL SUEN

Owner and pitmaster Chris Armstrong may be new to the business, but he’s good. | MABEL SUEN made things o cial. Eschewing the name Furlough Joe’s as a relic of a temporary arrangement, the salesman-turned-pitmaster rebranded himself as Navin’s BBQ — a nod to one of his favorite movies, The Jerk — and set up shop in the former Guerrilla Street Food just off South Grand Boulevard. Without changing the setup or ow of the space, Arm-

strong redecorated the room in a gray, black and red color scheme, emblazoned the wall with a mural of a pig with “STL” across its belly, fired up his smokers and set out to become a bona fide player in the St. Louis barbecue community. Armstrong admits that, at least at first, he was a bit intimidated by that robust barbecue scene. Being the new kid on the block with no

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professional smokehouse experience and little time in the business, he knew it was a bold move to plant his ag in a city awash in great barbecue. However, fueled by passion and determination, he is showing that he is up to the challenge. Navin’s does not adhere to one particular style of barbecue, but rather draws from Armstrong’s experiences growing up in both Texas and Kansas City. The result is a restaurant that takes the pieces he likes from various traditions and melds them into a quintessential smokehouse experience. Brisket, for instance, is subtler than a hardcore Texas style, its bark and smoke gentler. In accordance with his Texas side, the meat is tender, moist and infused with earthy woodsmoke and, as an homage to his KC upbringing, Armstrong serves the dish with a side of sweet and tangy sauce that brightens the meat without covering its deep, beefy avor. Pulled pork is the embodiment of the form, the sweet, smoke-infused meat ecked with bits of caramelized exterior pieces that give it a nice mix of textures. Pulled chicken is a pleasant surprise in

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The Mess sandwich with pulled pork, Navin’s house sauce and sweet heat slaw. | MABEL SUEN

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how tender and not at all dried out the meat is (a common problem I’ve encountered elsewhere); particularly impressive is the sweet rub that gets into every last morsel. However, if you must try only one poultry dish at Navin’s, get the smoked turkey. Juicy and generously avored with black pepper, this is the standout dish. Likewise, Navin’s burnt ends are outrageously good. These stunning little nuggets are equal parts sticky bark, fat and beef that beg to be popped in the mouth like meat candy. Armstrong does well by his Kansas City heritage with this knockout offering. However, some of Navin’s brightest spots are the more whimsical sandwich offerings, where you can see Armstrong really have fun by cutting loose from the expected barbecue playbook. The Jerk is an architectural marvel, featuring pulled jerk chicken, pepper-jack cheese, slaw and onion strings smothered in tangy Alabama white sauce and piled so high onto a soft bun you wonder how it can stay put. Also impressive is The Shinola, a vegetarian monstrosity of slaw, collard greens and Swiss cheese dressed in a sweet pepper sauce. It would be a tasty concoction on any bread, but Armstrong’s choice of rye gives it the feel of a vegetarian Reuben — one that made this proud corned-beef lover not even miss the meat. Armstrong is especially proud of The Lou, and for good reason. This nod to his adopted city is as St. Louis as it gets: a sliced pork steak, smothered in Sweet St. Louis sauce (think good ol’ Maull’s but a little sweeter), molten Provel

and crushed-up Red Hot Riplets. Even the pork itself is cooked in Busch beer, to the point you can taste its sweet malty avor in every bite. Sides at Navin’s are the standard smokehouse offerings, but amped up a bit. Instead of traditional cole slaw, Armstrong amps his up with jalapeños and hot sauce to give it a spicy punch. Potato salad is made with mashed spuds so that you get the creamy texture without a lot of mayonnaise ecked with bell peppers, it has a complex avor and mouthfeel you don’t often see in traditional versions of the dish. Collard greens have a nice balance of bitter and sweet, but what makes them special is the surprising heat on the back end. Mac and cheese is another unexpected treat. Armstrong uses tubularshaped noodles, then coats them in a thick cheese sauce that almost tastes akin to classic ballpark nacho cheese, albeit a version infused with chili spices. Alone, it’s a nice version of a standard, but Armstrong coats his in Red Hot Riplets breadcrumbs, giving it a bit of texture and heat to cut through the decadence. It’s both a whimsical and thoughtful touch. You can see in details like the Riplets breadcrumbs, the proud Busch beer braise on the pork steaks or the Steve artin-in uenced sandwich names that, despite the misfortune that set him on this course, Armstrong is in his element at Navin’s. It may not have been the path he thought he would take, but he’s having fun on it — and we get to have a good time right along with him.

Navin’s BBQ Burnt ends dinner ..................................... $16 One meat dinner ....................................... $12 The Lou ..................................................... $11

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SHORT ORDERS [FOOD NEWS]

Pressing His Luck Logan Ely dishes on Press, his forthcoming ‘smash pizza’ concept Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

Enjoy the holiday pop-up bars of St. Louis this season. | COURTESY THREE SIXTY

[ H O L I D AY S P I R I T S ]

Sip Sip Hooray Holiday pop-up bars come to St. Louis Written by

JENNA JONES

anta Claus is comin’ to town and this year, he’s bringing holiday pop-up bars with him. Two St. Louis bars have announced themes to get you in the spirit, and the drink menus are gifts that keep giving. There will be no reindeer pause at Three Sixty (1 South Broadway, 314-241-8439), but plenty of booze will be owing up on the rooftop. Now open, the pop-up experience transforms Three Sixty into a snow globe, overlooking Busch Stadium and providing its famous view of the Arch. Before 10 p.m., there’s no cover charge. Guests can enjoy their drinks inside or out, and if you’re trying to enjoy your spiked hot chocolate (yes, that’s an option by a fire, the patio is the perfect spot with its fire pits. Food is

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also available at the bar. Three Sixty’s holiday cocktails include the previously mentioned spiked hot chocolate — aptly named Hot for Santa — which is made up of vanilla vodka, hot chocolate, peppermint and marshmallows. Depending on where you fall on Santa’s list, you can sip on the Nice Elf or Naughty Elf. The latter includes Montelobos mezcal, ginger and cranberry, the former ginger, cranberry, ginger beer and 1220 vodka. Baby It’s Cold Out-Cider is for fans of spiked cider; allspice, Buffalo Trace, sweet vermouth, ginger ale and cider are all in the drink. Shots are also available if you’re looking for them: The Son of A Nutcracker is amaretto, heavy cream, Frangelico and cinnamon, while the Down the Chimney could help you if you’re plotting to deliver presents all night with its blueberry Red Bull, lemon and blueberry Smirnoff concoction. Beginning Thursday, December 9, the Central West End cocktail bar Lazy Tiger (210 North Euclid Avenue, 314-925-8888) has its Filthy Animal pop-up bar returning for the holiday season. Giftwrapped cups, creative cocktails and a “curated holiday hip-hop playlist” are all on the table, according to a press release, as well as Filthy Animal holiday cocktail gift boxes for your loved ones. Filthy Animal merch — cups, mugs, beanies and sweatshirts —

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can also be purchased. “We started Filthy Animal as an at-home cocktail experience last year due to the pandemic, so this is our first in-person holiday pop-up, Tim Wiggins, co-owner and beverage director of Lazy Tiger, says in a press release. “I’m glad that we can bring the full experience to St. Louis this year for a great cause.” The bar will donate $1 for every cocktail sold and $5 for every gift box sold to the St. Louis Family ift Drive, a nonprofit organization started by Wiggins’ mother. The organization provides gift cards, gifts and resources to families with developmentally delayed children in St. Louis. The pop-up bar focuses on “nostalgia, fun, and holiday cheer,” according to Wiggins. He adds in the press release that he wants people “to feel and taste that childlike holiday giddiness.” Drinks include the bar’s namesake Ya Filthy Animal, crafted with mezcal, idori, grapefruit soda, fino sherry, Becherovka, lime and Tajin, as well as a hot spiked cider, eggnog and more. Reservations for Filthy Animal can be made on Resy, while reservations for Three Sixty can be made by emailing 360rooftop@360stl.com or calling 314-241-8439. Three Sixty’s pop-up bar runs until Thursday, December 30, and Filthy Animal is open until Friday, December 31. n

iding high on the acclaim and popularity of his Fox Park restaurant the Lucky Accomplice (2501 South Jefferson Avenue, 314-3546100), chef Logan Ely is preparing to take on yet another project: a new restaurant just down the street called Press (2505 South Jefferson Avenue) that will be based on a type of pizza he’s not sure if anyone has ever done. “I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: We like to have fun with food, and we like to play with our food,” Ely says. “We had this funny idea that we just acted on right away, and it seems kind of crazy. It was this idea to do this pizza calzone thing called a ‘smash pizza,’ which seemed kind of catchy. We made four of them and were like, ‘Well, let’s open a restaurant.’ It just seemed kind of catchy.” For anyone who has followed Ely’s career since he arrived back on the scene in St. Louis in 2017, the thought of him opening a pizza joint might seem quizzical. Ely’s resume includes such esteemed restaurants as the French Laundry in Napa Valley, Blue Hill in New York City and North Pond in Chicago, not to mention the fact that he has cooked everywhere from Copenhagen to Hong Kong and reintroduced himself to St. Louis diners through an elegant, avant garde tasting-menu restaurant, Shift (formerly Savage). That he is channeling such impressive experience into a pizzeria would be, on its surface, like Picasso leaving the world of fine art to paint the walls of finished basements.

Chef Logan Ely will bring ‘smash pizza’ to Fox Park in the coming months. | MABEL SUEN However, when you dig into the idea behind Press, you quickly realize that it is no ordinary pizza dive. Like the Lucky Accomplice, where his intention to do casual fare has turned out to be one of the most thrilling restaurants in town, Ely’s take on pizza involves a complete reinvention of the genre. He and his team begin with the same dough you would use in a traditional pizza or calzone, then stretch it over the bottom portion of a cast-iron press (think wa e press without the s uares , fill it with various toppings, place more dough on top of that, then smash it between the iron’s plates. But Ely is not done there. Once the pressed and filled dough comes out of the press, he and his crew cover it in even more toppings and cut it into triangles. The result is a cheesy, gooey, filled calzonelike concoction that is guaranteed to be the city’s go-to comfort food. “It is a pizza?” Ely asks. “Kind of. Is it a calzone? Kind of? Is it a sandwich? Sort of, but ‘smash pizza’ just has this ring to it.” Press will be located just to the south of the Lucky Accomplice in a small, brick storefront that Ely is currently in the process of renovating. He says that the space will not be huge, but that it will have enough room for a sit-down dining area; he is also hoping to add a substantial patio that will connect it with the Lucky Accomplice, and he is in talks with an architect to see what is possible on that front. Though he does not have a firm

“It was this idea to do this pizza calzone thing called a ‘smash pizza,’ which seemed kind of catchy. We made four of them and were like, ‘Well, let’s open a restaurant.’” opening date set yet, he is targeting the end of winter or early spring. With the addition of Press to the Lucky Accomplice’s block of Jefferson, Ely hopes it represents one additional step toward making that stretch of south St. Louis more pedestrian friendly. He notes that the city government currently has plans to slow down the vehicular tra c ow in the area to make it more of a destination entertainment and dining district — something that he is happy to do his part to facilitate. “This is such a historic block,” Ely says. “If we can keep adding to it and make it safe and walkable, we will do what we can.” n

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DECEMBER 1-7, 2021

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[FIRST LOOK]

Natural Beauty Bowood by Niche brings thoughtful daytime fare to the CWE Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

hen chef and restaurateur Gerard Craft was dreaming up his vision for Bowood by Niche (4605 Olive Street, 314-545-6868), he had one guiding principle: He wanted the restaurant to feel like a warm hug. Now, the brunch cafe located at Bowood Farms in the Central West End is welcoming guests with open arms after celebrating its grand opening on November 4. Bowood by Niche replaces Bowood Farms’ longtime restaurant, Cafe Osage, in name and menu, but not in spirit. Craft and his team, led by executive chef Dakota Williams, designed Bowood by Niche to be a welcoming daytime gathering place for the neighborhood and have embraced the natural bounty of their surroundings with an approachable, farm-totable-style menu. “Cafe Osage was such a loved breakfast spot that we felt like it would be silly of us not to reopen with that same aspect and cultivate this as the neighborhood spot we want it to be,” says Williams. “We don’t want to be pretentious, and we don’t want to scare anyone away. We want to welcome people back in this space with open arms and make people feel at home, because that is how we feel here.” For Williams, the restaurant’s a liation with Bowood Farms in Clarksville, as well as the on-site nursery and herb garden, has been a major source of inspiration. He describes using fresh ingredients, sometimes picked just before they get on the plate, as a chef’s dream, and his dishes use as much locally sourced products as he can manage. He is also cognizant of making Bowood by Niche accessible to all dietary preferences, including vegetarians. That philosophy, married with his knack for creating comforting, nostalgic dishes, is what he believes makes Bowood such

Bowood by Niche is now open, serving breakfast and lunch in the CWE. | PHUONG BUI

Bowood by Niche sits amongst the lush bounty of Bowood Farms. | PHUONG BUI an inviting place. Williams points to a few different dishes that evoke the spirit of the new Bowood by Niche. Baked oatmeal, one of his favorite offerings, expands on the classic dish by using farro, barley and quinoa in addition to oats. The multigrain mix is topped with a vegan granola crust, then baked in a Le Creuset and topped with jammed fruit, toasted almonds, sugar and butter. He is also excited about the honey bun, which is a nod to the

long car trips of his youth. However, unlike the gas-station versions he loved as a kid, this one is housemade with a delicate sugar glaze. His egg sandwich also draws inspiration from both the former Sardella (where he served as sous chef) and a bit of childhood nostalgia: the McGriddle from McDonald’s. His version uses a housemade English mu n, steamed egg, red-pepper jelly, hotsauce aioli, pepper-jack cheese, arugula and bacon for a more sophisticated, but no less comfort-

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ing, sandwich. Lunchtime offerings include a burger, which features dry-aged beef from BEAST Butcher & Block, topped with caramelized onion aioli, pickled shallots and Marcoot Farms Tipsy Cheddar cheese. Williams also recommends the little gem salad because it shows how even a simple dish can be extraordinary when it entails fresh ingredients like vegan avocado green goddess dressing, toasted pistachios, cured egg yolks and fresh herbs. Williams is impressed with the restaurant’s drink offerings and has been excited about the collaboration between the bar and the kitchen. Drinks employ homemade tonics, and there are plans for the bar staff to begin making their own bitters with herbs from the restaurant’s rooftop garden. He also recommends the coffee drinks, which include a vanilla latte he insists is the best he’s ever tried — though he admits enjoying it in such a beautiful environment makes it extra special. “I don’t know of a better place for a chef than at Bowood,” Williams says. “It’s this beautiful building, kitchen and dining room — the atmosphere and team and being surrounded by plants makes it so nice here. Sometimes I go up to the herb garden, have my coffee and decompress before the day while watching the sun rise. I think it’s the most beautiful spot in the city.” n

DECEMBER 1-7, 2021

RIVERFRONT TIMES

REEFERFRONT TIMES

[DISPENSARY REVIEW]

Tommy Chims Smokes Star Buds’ Weed Written by

THOMAS CHIMCHARDS

ver the many years I’ve spent lighting plants on fire and inhaling the chemical result of the ensuing decarboxylation, I’ve come to befriend a number of people who’ve made at least a portion of their living selling said plants. I’ve mentioned a few of them in this space before. There’s my most recent former dealer, the ever-trusty Mr. Nickname; there’s The Guy, an interior design visionary whose doorless and dilapidated trailer home practically birthed the concept of minimalist decor; and of course there’s That Guy, with whom I have very little memory outside of a terrible night spent watching Natural Born Killers in his home. There are a couple of other otherwise nameless Guys about whom I’ve shared anecdotes as well: my former dealer with a doorbell hooked to his basement window for ease of purchase, a friend and his dad who used to employ mustard to keep police dogs off their scent, and on and on. I’ve shared these stories about these colorful characters, but always in a way that was light on the details, owing to the fact that the state and federal governments have long held a less than enlightened attitude toward this particular line of commerce. But with the Missouri medical marijuana market now in full swing, we’ve finally reached a point where I can loudly announce to the world, in a paper with a circulation of many thousands, that I know some people who sell weed, and where you can go to purchase their wares. In other words, this is my roundabout way of a disclo-

RIVERFRONT TIMES

Star Buds is one of the first dispensaries in the St. Louis area to offer deli-style service for its flower offerings. | TOMMY CHIMS sure for this column: I have friends who are part of the ownership group for the Star Buds shops in Missouri. Star Buds is a heavy-hitter chain of dispensaries first established in Colorado in 2013, which has since branched out to include locations in South Dakota, Oklahoma, Baltimore, Missouri and even Jamaica. Its Missouri locations thus far include a spot in Festus and one in University City; I stopped by the U. City location on a recent sunny afternoon to sample their wares. For the record, I did not tell anyone I know that I was coming, and I have no reason to believe that any of the employees working at the time had any idea who I was. Upon entry, I went through the usual rigamarole of handing over my ID and med card before being buzzed inside the sales oor. Once inside, I was gobsmacked by the selection — with approximately 40 different strains on offer from multiple cultivators, Star Buds just might have the largest variety of ower I’ve seen so far in a Missouri dispensary, as well as a healthy amount of edibles, vape cartridges, concentrates and accessories. Equally exciting is the fact that this dispensary is the first I’ve visited in this state that operates deli-style, meaning that rather than the pre-packed ower you might purchase from another

DECEMBER 1-7, 2021

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The deli-style weed presentation allows you to really see and smell what you’re getting, and to pick out strains with the help of your own senses rather than just what your budtender might have to say. shop, Star Buds’ ower is kept in large glass jars and weighed out for the customer in-store on an individual basis. This allows you to really see and smell what you’re getting, and to pick out strains with the help of your own senses rather than just what your budtender might have to say. After drooling over the many

strains on hand for a while, I decided to pick up some Sundae Driver, whose buds were enormous multicolored mutants, as well as some Strawberry Float, whose smaller buds were absolutely encrusted with a dusting of keef. Star Buds uses a model wherein prices are set based on the quality of the cannabis: onnoisseur ower is the most expensive at $25 per gram, below that is Top Shelf ($22 per gram), Staff Pick ($20 per gram), Premium ($18 per gram), Special Classic ($16 per gram) and Classic ($15 per gram). The shop also offers budget options under the label of Shake ($10 per gram) and Smalls ($13 per gram), and there are price breaks once you get at least an eighth. I got two grams of the Sundae Driver, a Top Shelf pick, for $44, and two grams of the Strawberry Float, marked as Premium, for $36. I also grabbed a package of gooey butter cake bite edibles for $37, because I’m a true St. Louisan whose blood bleeds butter. All told, I spent a total of $132 after taxes for the pleasure. I dug into the Strawberry Float first. Illicit ardens-branded and rated at 23.17 percent THC, these smaller buds looked almost as though they were hand-rolled in keef, with that powdery goodness stuck in every crevice. Imagine you went to Olive Garden and

Sundae Driver, grown by Morgan County Farms, brings a relaxed and balanced high. | TOMMY CHIMS had a stroke before you could say “when” to the gentle Parmesan cheese laborer — this is the keef equivalent to that amount of cheese. The buds ranged in color from a pine green to almost white where the keef concentration was highest, and upon opening the bag I was met with a sour, tangy smell with oral and citrus hints. On breakup, this strain is powdery, not sticky and crumbles easily to tiny rocky bits and dust. On inhale, it tastes like it smells, with a little fuel-like feeling up in the sinuses as well. As for effects, I found this to be an exceptionally chill high that left me feeling relaxed and ready to conquer the day. I didn’t feel any anxiety or dry mouth, and I didn’t find it to be terribly appetite-inducing, but it’s a good all-around strain that smoothed out my chronic pain without being debilitating. A nice mood elevator that’s good for creativity as well. Next up, I tried the Sundae Driver. Nearly all of the two grams came in the form of a single bud, a monstrous pale-green uffy thing with purple and pink accents throughout. Cultivated by Morgan ounty Farms (my first experience with this grower) and rated at 15.41 percent THC, Sundae Driver is a well-regarded hybrid made by crossing Fruity Pebbles OG with Grape Pie, with limonene as the dominant terpene. This bud was remarkably lightweight, almost like styrofoam, and made a crackling sound when I crumbled

it in my fingers, easily reducing to a powdery consistency. On inhale, I detected a taste that I described in my notes as “lightly seasoned Mexican soup / cilantro cleaning product,” which sounds like a pretty bad soup but makes for a nice smoke. As for effects, I felt a mellow, relaxed high not dissimilar to what I experienced with the Strawberry Float — both strains are great for chilling without zoning out too hard. (A word of warning for those who use a pipe or a bong: This stuff burns quickly and reduces to dust easily, so be aware that you’ll be at risk of sucking the bowl through.) Finally, I got into the gooey butter cake bites. Packaged in a round plastic tube that, in another life, might have held my collection of pogs, these ten cookies are Osage Kitchen-branded and each contains 10.53 milligrams of THC. The gooey butter cake smell that wafted from within was unmistakable, even though the cookies themselves didn’t have any actual goo to them, instead appearing about the same as a shortbread cookie might. I ate two of them, and let me tell you, if I wasn’t afraid of blasting off into outer space I could have easily consumed the entire tube. I could detect no avor of cannabis, even — just Cardinals baseball, the Arch and delicious red bricks. As for effects, I found these to be a pretty low-intensity affair that mostly relieved a bit of muscle soreness and left me feeling relaxed. I’d say these are probably a great choice for a beginner or someone who is looking for a mellow high. At Star Buds, though, you can pretty much find anything you’re looking for, thanks to their wide selection and deli-style service. In speaking with budtenders across the St. Louis area, I’ve come to learn that several dispensaries are planning on rolling out their own deli-style service in the future, and that the only reason we’re not seeing more of that already is due to the enhanced safety measures and regulatory confusion that has come with COVID-19. Meanwhile, if you’re interested in having that experience now, or if you just want a truly breathtaking number of strains to choose from, Star Buds is a good option. Don’t let the fact that they’re friends of mine scare you away. n

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DECEMBER 1-7, 2021

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CULTURE [MISSING PERSONS]

Brace Yourself St. Louis native Dave Holmes’ new podcast traces the mystery of Sudden Impact Written by

JACK PROBST

n 1998, St. Louisan Dave Holmes woke up feeling ambitious. A boldness inside him that morning compelled him to audition for MTV’s Wanna Be a VJ contest. It turned out to be a life-changing decision. Holmes made it past the grueling audition process on live television, ultimately finishing in second place. Thanks to his charm, freakish knowledge of random music trivia and ability to perform under pressure, he was quickly offered the gig and went on to host various MTV shows and events until leaving the network in 2002. When looking at his career, you could argue he was the contest’s real winner. The exposure was the boost he needed to make his lifelong obsession with pop culture a sustainable career. He is currently a writer and editor-atlarge for Esquire, wrote a memoir titled Party of One, was recently a talking head in the documentary Woodstock ’99 Peace, Love, and Rage, and continues to be the host of a handful of podcasts, such as Homophilia and International Waters. His newest podcast, Waiting for Impact: A Dave Holmes Passion Project, explores three seconds of music video history. “It’s about an investigation into the whereabouts of a boy band called Sudden Impact, who made a three-second cameo appearance Boys II Men’s ‘Motown Philly’ video, and then that’s all they did. Or at least that’s all that we ever saw them do,” Holmes says. “That video was huge in 1991 when I was sort of at my peak video-watching years. Michael Bivins of New Edition and Bell Biv DeVoe had a development deal with Motown.

You can’t promise us these guys and expect Dave Holmes to just forget about it. | SCREENGRAB

“It’s about an investigation into the whereabouts of a boy band called Sudden Impact, who made a threesecond cameo appearance Boys II Men’s ‘Motown Philly’ video, and then that’s all they did. Or at least that’s all that we ever saw them do.” You know, he brought Boys II Men into the world, and they became the biggest-selling R&B group of all time. Bell Biv DeVoe was huge for a few years. There was a group called Another Bad Creation that had a couple of hit singles. All these acts are in ‘Motown Philly.’ And then for three seconds, there’s Sudden Impact, who are these five guys in matching shirts and neckties, and they pointed the camera boldly like, ‘Get ready for Sudden Impact!’ and I was like, ‘Hell yeah, I’m ready for Sudden Impact!’ And then nothing happened.” In 1991, Holmes didn’t have the internet to seek out information on Sudden Impact. All he knew was that they were a bunch of white guys outfitted in dress shirts and ties that resembled the dress code of Vianney High School. It was a time when, as Holmes says, “You could have a moment of fame and then vanish and not leave a trail of digital crumbs the way that you do now.” “At the time, I was just kind of

like, ‘I wonder when that album is coming out,’ and it never did. As life went on, it was just something that I would think of every few months, and I always kind of felt that there was a story there. I really did believe deep down that it’s not only the story of this band; it’s [a] story about resilience, and it’s about dashed hopes and what you do with them. It’s about ’90s pop culture and how utterly different it is from our world right now. It touches on so many things that I’m interested in, and the story of this group, on top of it, it turns out to be really interesting as well.” Over the course of ten episodes, Holmes interviews folks that aspired to reach a level of fame Sudden Impact seemed poised to seize, along with people whose careers were heading down a similar path before they pivoted to something that worked better. The podcast’s structure frames the early ’90s as a time when everyone experienced things as a monoculture, meaning altogeth-

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er — a time before the internet shattered popular culture into millions of niche categories that seem near infinitely impossible to know. As someone who, only seven years after Sudden Impact’s toe touch in popular culture, landed his own place in the pantheon, olmes re ects on what it was like for a kid from St. Louis to suddenly be in front of the entire world on MTV at the height of TRL and boy-band popularity. “It was completely insane, obviously,” Holmes says. “I remember when I first started at T , once they got past the audition and the contest, and once I started hosting, specifically hosting live shows, it was very strange. I felt very calm for the first time in my life. If your interests run in this direction, you grow up a little anxious about how you’re going to make a living, whether you’re normal and all of these things that are crazy from where I am now. But to wake up and go to work and the fact that you’ve got a brain that retains the three seconds of Sudden Impact from a 1991 video that goes from being an embarrassing quirk to being a job skill for, like, a really cool job. That was incredible. “Walking in during the audition and seeing the studio, feeling the excitement and all the PDAs running around with headsets and clipboards and all of the chaos. It just really felt like the mothership came down to pick me up. And once I got that job and started being able to do it and use my skills — and stuff that I didn’t even know were skills — I really just relaxed into it in a way that I had never really relaxed in any kind of job before. “Growing up in west county and going to an all-boys school where pretty much everybody was your stereotypical football-playing male and being somebody who wasn’t, that definitely was a bit isolating and a bit terrifying. But in adulthood, the sort of anxiety of my youth has transformed into an insatiable need to create and to succeed and to be heard and understood. I feel like I have a restlessness from my youth that has turned into kind of a crazy work ethic, so I’m happy for that.” n Waiting for Impact: A Dave Holmes Passion Project is out now on Exactly R!ght Media.

DECEMBER 1-7, 2021

RIVERFRONT TIMES

ELEVENTH HOUR

Got Back?

elcome back from Twickenham, 1969, where we’ve all been time-traveling with the Beatles in the greatest musical documentary ever made, says me. “Ever,” that is, until they finally release Peter Jackson’s original eighteen-hour cut. If you haven’t been watching Get Back and you love music, cancel this week’s appointments and get thee to a Disney+! FINE TO ME: Pokey LaFarge has a new album and a new video out. It doesn’t sound like he used to and he doesn’t dress like he used to — but there’s a consistency to the new album, In the Blossom of Their Shade, that fans will appreciate and detractors will not fail to note. It runs his long journeyman study of popular American roots forms through sharp modern instrumentation and production, which makes for a whole new Pokey. At first it looked like he was doing a full Midwest tour run without STL on the calendar, but no sweat: There are two homecoming shows at Off Broadway to cap off the year, Dec. 29 & 30. BURNT ENDS: Last weekend saw the release of the new tape by Molten Bone, the noisy new collaboration between Andy Kahn and Matt Stuttler — not to be confused with another excellent project, Cyanides, which they’re also both in together. If you like your garage rock spiced up with horror video game vibes, you’re in luck: Cyanides will be playing a few Molten Bones songs this Sunday 12/5 at Blueberry Hill in the Elvis Room with Still Animals and Freon. Otherwise, get on down to the Sinkhole and ask for Molten Bone — they should have some copies behind the counter. Meanwhile, you can sample tracks at sinkholestl. bandcamp.com/album/molten-bone. GHOST WORLD: Speaking of Andy Kahn, his beautifully dreamy former project Frances With Wolves is finally available to hear via Bandcamp. The album, called Fruits That You’ll Never Know, is a collection of demos documenting Kahn’s collaboration with Leanna Kaiser, and it’s like ghosts making music, a gorgeously mysterious collection of color-dense synth clouds and unearthly vocals. It’s up for free at franceswwolves.bandcamp. com, though of course you can also drop some bills in their electronic hat as well. I recommend starting with “Endless Night,” a song that I truly think is ruling the dream-pop charts in a nearby alternate universe. GEEKACHEECHEE: Fans of KDHX’s

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DECEMBER 1-7, 2021

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BY EVAN SULT Afternoon Delight show know that Jeff Hess is both encyclopedically knowledgeable about pop music and a genuinely weird guy. His excellent sometimeband project Tight Pants Syndrome proves the former, and his new album, Songs From Your Face, released under the name Jeffy, proves the latter. It’s a gloriously freewheeling collage of noises and instruments that feels like pure freedom and fun. You can find it at jeffy2.bandcamp.com/releases. TO NAME SOMETHING IS TO GIVE IT POWER: Everyone’s favorite blueskinned, pointy-eared local demon is becoming more real by the second: The performer known onstage as Maxi Glamour and born as... you know what, it doesn’t matter — is filing the paperwork to legally change their name to Maximus Amadeus Glamour! The Metro Trans Umbrella Group (MTUG) recently offered grant money and guidance to STL trans folx to change their names to match their identities, and Maxi took ‘em up on it. Maxi has been performing all over this year — San Francisco, the Mexican Riviera, Portland Maine — and can next be found working with Alexis Tucci on an upcoming Nightchaser event at the Science Center called Love Lab. They’ll be making music and projections in an interactive “alien red-light district with club kids in the city” scene on Saturday, December 11, so obviously you should be there, looking sharp! BEAUTY BEHELD: Photographic rock star Virginia Harold has an upcoming show at the Darkroom, and it’s going to be gorgeous. How do I know? Well, all of her photos are powerfully evocative — portraits, fern fronds, pebbles frozen beneath an icy stream, architectural details, chemigrams, everything. She’ll even have actual silver gelatin darkroom prints available for purchase. The opening is this Friday 12/3 from 4:30-7:30, so get on down there! LOST BUT NOT LEAST: CaveofswordS’ Kevin McDermott has a “an audio sketch” project called cyclycl (extra points for the coolest band name basically ever) which just released a collection called Dulcet Diegetic. For being intentionally abstract, it’s a surprisingly moving listening experience, especially when you realize that the music is both inspired by and a eulogy for a certain cat who recently passed. As someone who has felt such a loss, and how quietly devastating it is, cyclycl acts as a soul massage that might even get you teared up. Until next time: Keep sending cool art and hot tea to eleventhhour@riverfronttimes.com, plz&thx!

[FILM]

SLIFF Announces 2021 Award Winners Written by

JENNA JONES

he St. Louis International Film Festival wrapped up last week and with it came a long list of winners and even bigger attendance numbers. A hybrid format for the festival drew in viewers both from the city and internationally. In a press release, the organization says the festival drew an estimated 21,646 viewers. Over 5,000 people attended in person, while there were around 4,300 online streams. Total viewership for the festival was calculated after factoring in that most films watched at home had more than a single viewer. SLIFF’s hybrid format also allowed the festival to be shown globally; viewers hailed from sixteen different countries, as well as 44 different states. There were over 400 films shown at this year’s fest, with 78 countries featured and 37 languages.

Belfast, directed by Kenneth Branagh, took home the TV5MONDE Award for Best International Feature. | COURTESY SLIFF These viewers determined the winners for the “Best of Fest Audience Choice Awards.” Divided into two categories, virtual and in-person screenings, Mila, directed by Cinzia Angelini, took home the online Best Narrative Short award, while the Leon Award for Best Documentary Feature was given to the in-person screening of Twenty Pearls: The Story of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, directed by

Deborah Riley Draper. Draper also won the Women in Film award. Other awards were chosen by a jury, with some categories coming with a cash prize. The Essy award for Best St. Louis film — a category that spotlights films with ties to St. Louis — went to Try Harder!, a film directed by St. Louisan Debbie Lum that profiles five high school students as they navigate college applications.

[DINNER AND A SHOW]

The Factory to Partner with Rock Star Tacos Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

n just four short months of business, hesterfield’s worldclass venue, the Factory, has already welcomed its fair share of music’s heavy hitters. Now, it’s about to play host to a different kind of rock star. The venue will soon be serving food from Rock Star Tacos (multiple locations including 4916 Shaw Avenue) thanks to a newly-minted partnership with chef Wil Pelly and his partner, Rebecca Schaaf. Pelly confirmed the deal last week, explaining that he has been in talks with the Factory about possible food opportunities since it opened this past July. There, at a friends and family event, he and Schaaf talked with some of those

Could there be a more perfect food vendor for the Factory than chef Wil Pelly? | MABEL SUEN involved in the venue’s operations, who explained to them that they were looking to provide food to hungry concertgoers, but had not yet settled upon the right fit. The arrangement grew from there. For Pelly and Schaaf, the partnership with the Factory is natural. Since opening Rock Star Taco Shack in New Town in 19, the music-inspired brand has catered for several acts that have come through the nearby ollywood

asino Amphitheater. For Pelly, who is also a prominent musician, the chance to marry his two passions has been one he has eagerly embraced, and he has positioned Rock Star Tacos as a natural fit for hungry musicians. At the Factory, though, it’s the general public who will get to nosh on his delicious wares. As Pelly explains, the setup will be more like a large catering gig he and his team will drop off tacos

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Documentarian and St. Louisan Nina Gilden Seavey received the Charles Guggenheim Cinema St. Louis Award, given to those from St. Louis who make “significant contributions” to film. The festival also honored St. Louis philanthropist Mary Strauss on its final day for her contributions to Cinema St. Louis. View the rest of the winners on cinemastlouis.org. n

in advance of a performance, and the Factory will then sell them out of one of its concession stands. Employees of the venue will man the stand, and the tacos will be available on a first-come, firstserved basis. To start, Pelly and Schaaf will be offering three different varieties of Rock Star Tacos: the “Jumping Jack Fruit Flash, which is a vegetarian option featuring green chili-stewed jack fruit, the “Number of the Beef, which features ground beef, shredded lettuce and “Fancy Sauce, and the “Thunder luck, made with chipotle and maple pulled chicken. Though the pair hope to add to the offerings down the road, they want to take things slow to see how things go. Rock Star Tacos, which just opened a brand new location on the ill last week, will launch at the Factory on December , debuting at the Old Dominion show. For Pelly, it’s a bit of a laugh to think that what started out as a funny idea between he and his bandmate over whiskey and te uila has turned into a bona fide food phenomenon with an outpost in hesterfield. “It’s pretty exciting to be in a place I never thought we would be, Pelly says. “I never thought I would have a little satellite location in hesterfield. It’s pretty crazy, but rock and roll and tacos, man... n

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DECEMBER 1-7, 2021

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SAVAGE LOVE PAST TENSE BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: So, my husband (42-yearold straight male) and I (38-yearold bi female) have had a closed relationship so far, but we have an active fantasy life. We’ve been together for about four years, and we both had our fair share of partners (casual and serious) before that. We like to talk about fantasies involving other people during sex, be they actual (past partners) or imagined (my beautiful surfing instructor on a trip). Once while he ate my pussy, I asked him about all the pussies he’s enjoyed in the past and he brought up one of his exes — a relationship that ended ten years before we met — and he said he sometimes thought about her when he went down on and/ or fucked subsequent partners, including me. This turned me on. A lot. I started bringing her up every now and then while we fucked, I asked him more about her, I fantasized about meeting her and eating the pussy he enjoyed so much. Like other past partners, she became part of the mental/verbal porn reel we sometimes enjoy during sex. Then one day, in an unrelated conversation, it came out that he’d been engaged to her, that the reason they broke up was because they couldn’t make a long-distance relationship work after he moved to the country where we live, and that it took him years to get over her. This killed it for me. Not only that, but I also now feel weird about all of the times we fantasized about her in the past. It’s not like he did anything wrong — I never specifically asked how serious the relationship was or why it ended — but I can’t shake the irrational feeling there was an omission. I sometimes think about past experiences during masturbation or sex, but never about serious partners — never about men I’ve lived with, been married to or had a child with. Those experiences are too emotionally loaded to mix in with my current sex life in a healthy, detached way. I know my husband may process/feel things differently, but I can’t help but equate what he was doing to me fantasizing about my ex-husband during sex, which I

haven’t done and would feel weird as fuck even contemplating. I don’t see her as a threat — they’re not in touch and she lives in another hemisphere — and I believe him when he says he has no significant baggage about any of his exes, including her. But knowing she was one of the most significant relationships in his life makes fantasizing about her — out loud, with me — feel “off.” I don’t just have this feeling just about her now, but about his past overall. How do I shake this? Thoughts? Turned On Turns Into Turn Off If thinking and talking about your husband’s past doesn’t turn you on anymore, TOTITO, stop thinking and talking about your husband’s past. But if you want to get back to enjoying these fantasies with your husband — dirty talk about your previous sex partners — you’re going to need to reason with yourself. Let’s give it a whirl … So, your husband was engaged to this woman and presumably lived with her for a time, but your husband’s relationship with this woman nevertheless meets just one of your three somewhat arbitrary criteria for “pussy it’s not OK to think about during sex with a current partner.” Yes, it was a serious relationship, but they never married or had kids. And if they had wanted to be together, they would’ve found a way to make it work despite the distance. If she had wanted to be with your husband more than she wanted to remain where she was living when they broke it off, she could’ve married him and emigrated. Likewise, if your husband had wanted to be with this woman more than he wanted to remain where he was living when they broke it off, he could’ve married her and emigrated. Neither made that choice, TOTITO, and I’m guessing neither made that choice because the serious wasn’t as serious as the “engaged” thing makes it sound. Yeah, yeah: Someone proposed (most likely your husband), someone said yes (most likely his ex). But words are cheap and “engaged” is a just a word. It’s a promise and a serious one, TOTITO, but in the end it’s just air. And now, since I’m feeling daring, I’m going to risk doing some math … You say you’ve been with your

“I started bringing her up every now and then while we fucked ... I fantasized about meeting her and eating the pussy he enjoyed so much.” 42-year-old husband for four years. His relationship with his former fianc e ended ten years before you two met. So, that means your husband was at most 28 years old when he broke off his engagement with his ex, and assuming they’d been dating for a few years, he was what? In his mid-twenties when they met? That means his prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain involved in executive functions like decision making, long-term planning and higher reasoning, wasn’t even fully formed when he proposed to this woman. So, you have a choice. You can attach a lot of significance to the fact that they were engaged, or you can look at the other facts in evidence — that they both chose the place where they lived over the relationship, how old they were at the time they got engaged — and see the relationship as far less significant than the “engaged label makes it sound. All that said, if hearing about the pussies in your husband’s past isn’t doing anything for your pussy right now, tell your husband you don’t want to hear about them for the moment. If you miss dirty talk during sex, instead of talking about hot sex you’ve both had in the past, TOTITO, try talking about all the hot sex you’re going to have in the future. Hey, Dan: For the past few months, I’ve been hooking up a lot with my coworker (I’m a bi woman, he’s a straight man). Things are going well, we really like each other (we’ve even said “I love you” to each other), but there are a couple of problems.

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First, I’m 23 and he’s 40. The age difference doesn’t really bother me if I don’t think about it too much, but it matters to a lot of my loved ones. Second, I’m not looking for a serious relationship, as I haven’t been single in a while and am kind of going through my “ho phase,” but it seems like he wants to be exclusive. I’ve tried to break things off or slow things down, but he’s going through horrible shit right now and needs me. I have improved his life, and he has improved my mental state, but he’s also kind of a bad influence and has gotten me back into bad habits. To make matters worse, the new guy at our work seems to be into me and he’s cute and way closer to my age, and we get along really well, so I might want to give that a shot. I don’t know whether to end things, or even how to end it if I wanted to. Any advice on how to get out of this gracefully? Pretty Horrible At Something Easy When you say you want to get out of this “gracefully,” what you mean is you want the impossible from me. You want me to tell you how to end this relationship so subtly that the guy you dumped doesn’t even notice or get upset. Sorry, PHASE, but there’s no way to end things with the coworker you’re currently fucking so you can start fucking the coworker you’d rather be fucking without the coworker you’re currently fucking finding out you dumped him so you could start fucking a different coworker. If it was just your family that objected to the relationship because of the age difference, I would urge you to stay in it. But you want out and the relationship isn’t healthy. (You don’t mention the bad habits he’s gotten you back into, PHASE, but I’m going to assume it’s not double parking and public grooming.) You can’t stay just because he needs you. P.S. I’m supposed to tell you not to sleep with coworkers — it’s right here in my dog-eared copy of the Writing Advice Columns For Dummies — but I’m going to set that aside, seeing as that ship has already sailed, struck an iceberg and sunk to the bottom of the ocean. questions@savagelove.net @FakeDanSavage on Twitter www.savage.love

DECEMBER 1-7, 2021

RIVERFRONT TIMES

DECEMBER 1-7, 2021

riverfronttimes.com

DECEMBER 1-7, 2021

RIVERFRONT TIMES

DECEMBER 1-7, 2021

riverfronttimes.com

Riverfront Times, December 1, 2021

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