NOVEMBER 22–28, 2017 I VOLUME 41 I NUMBER 48
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Sanctuary Alex Garcia is no ‘bad hombre.’ So why is he holed up in a Maplewood church, trying to avoid arrest? BY DOYLE MURPHY
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THE LEDE
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“I had no idea that the civil rights movement, all of the civil rights movements, have had ties to St. Louis. In order for me to be aware of what’s going on now, I need to have that same level of awareness as to what has happened in the past.”
—Brianna Hamilton, pHotograpHed at tHe missouri History museum’s exHiBit #1 in Civil Rights on novemBer 19
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TABLE OF CONTENTS FEATURE
13.
Sanctuary
Alex Garcia is no ‘bad hombre.’ So why is he holed up in a Maplewood church, trying to avoid arrest? Written by
DOYLE MURPHY Cover by
KELLY GLUECK
NEWS
CULTURE
DINING
MUSIC
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20
27
35
The Lede
Calendar
Your friend or neighbor, captured on camera
Seven days worth of great stuff to see and do
9
22
Counter-Proposal on Pot
Lewis Reed offers a rebuttal to Alderwoman Megan Green’s marijuana decriminalization bill
Film
Robert Hunt is frustrated by Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
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Side Dish
William Pauley found healing — and a business plan — in kombucha
31
Op-Ed
Food News
Sarah Fenske weighs in on a surprising decision involving a high-profile Sunshine law case
NOVEMBER 22-28, 2017
38
Sara Graham visits the swanky new 1764 Public House, the latest offering from the Gamlin brothers
A judge finds that St. Louis officers used chemical weapons to “punish” protesters
RIVERFRONT TIMES
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First Look
ACLU Wins Concessions
Humble Pie says farewell in Ladue, while kimchi and coffee are both headed to Laclede’s Landing
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Heart’s Content
Joywave is on the cusp of something big, writes Howard Hardee
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Pit Stop
Bosnian food is having a moment in St. Louis, Cheryl Baehr finds — and J’s Pitaria is a big reason why
Homespun
Bruiser Queen Heavy High
40
Out Every Night
The best concerts in St. Louis every night of the week
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This Just In
This week’s new concert announcements
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SEPTEMBER 20–26, 2017 I VOLUME 41 I NUMBER 38
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NEWS CounterProposal on Pot Legalization Written by
DANNY WICENTOWSKI
I
t didn’t long for Lewis Reed, president of the city’s Board of Aldermen, to find reasons to slam the sweeping cannabis legalization measure proposed last month by Alderwoman Megan Green. Apparently, it’s such a bad bill that Reed didn’t even have to read it very carefully. Green’s bill seeks to drastically alter the city’s cannabis laws, which currently allow officers to treat first or second infractions of marijuana possession under 35 grams as a municipal violation, instead of a matter for state court. The Green bill would amount to legalizing pot possession for personal use. Reed saw something dangerous in Green’s proposal — so he took his concerns, naturally, to NextDoor. Reed compared Green’s bill with the prevailing cannabis laws in Colorado. But the post was riddled in inaccuracies. For instance, Reed’s very first comparison claimed that while Colorado’s laws permit users to buy one ounce, Green’s bill would permit the purchase or sale of two ounces. Except Green’s bill, Board Bill 180, doesn’t permit anything resembling Colorado-style commercial sales. The bill wouldn’t make buying or selling weed legal, only its possession of up to two ounces or ten plants. So numerous were Reed’s misstatements in the post that the St. Louis chapter of national cannabis legalization group NORML published a detailed takedown that annotated Reed’s claims with corrections on virtually every point. Seemingly in response, Reed reached out to NORML and attended its monthly meeting last week. Did he walk back the inaccuracies in Continued on pg 11 his NextDoor
SEASON OF DISRUPTION
Maleeha Ahmad, one of the lead plaintiffs in the ACLU’s case against the city, testified that she was pepper sprayed without warning. | THEO WELLING
Judge Rules for ACLU Written by
DOYLE MURPHY
S
of Anthony Lamar Smith. Protests began almost immediately after the verdict was announced. The lead plaintiffs in the case, Maleeha Ahmad and Alison Dreith, both testified they were pepper sprayed in the face without warning. Ahmad says she and other protesters were non-violently blocking the path of a Metro bus filled with police in riot gear when an officer sprayed her. Dreith, the director of Missouri’s NARAL chapter, says she was just one of the protesters in the crowd when an officer got her. The ACLU attorneys argued during a three-day hearing last month that police followed no clear rules when responding to protests, giving any cop the power to declare demonstrations to be “unlawful assemblies” and go after protesters. “Plaintiffs’ evidence — both video and testimony – shows that officers have exercised their discretion in an arbitrary and retaliatory fashion to punish protesters for voicing criticism of police or recording police conduct,” Perry wrote. Perry also focused on the mass arrests on September 17. The so-called “kettle” swept up protesters, neighborhood residents and journalists. Video from the night shows officers surrounding people at Washington and
Tucker before blitzing them with mace and roughly dragging them across the pavement. People caught up in the kettle claim officers taunted and beat them. Perry says there seemed to be no evidence of violence or criminal activity to justify the police actions. “Plaintiff’s evidence of the activities in the Washington and Tucker intersection on September 17, 2017, shows no credible threat of or violence to officers or property... “ Perry wrote. ACLU attorneys celebrated the judge’s order. “This court decision is a win for the people of St. Louis and for the First Amendment,” said Tony Rothert, legal director of the ACLU of Missouri. “By requiring police to adopt these common-sense solutions, we can protect rights of the people to express their concerns about the troubling racial disparities in policing.” The city issued a statement saying police would follow Perry’s instructions. “We appreciate the time and effort of Judge Perry, and we will comply with the order of preliminary injunction,” the statement says. The preliminary injunction was filed as part of an overarching suit filed by the ACLU. No trial date has been set in the case. n
After a former officer’s acquittal on murder charges, St. Louis takes to the streets
t. Louis police officers unleashed mace to “punish protesters” following the acquittal of a former city cop on murder charges, a federal judge has found. In a decision released November 15, U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry sided with activists and the ACLU of Missouri, granting a request to set new restrictions on the way police officers respond to demonstrations. Perry cited numerous incidents, including the mass arrests downtown on September 17, in finding there was enough evidence to support a preliminary injunction. The federal judge’s 48-page memo and order dictates new rules of engagement for officers responding to protests. They include prohibitions against declaring protests unlawful when there aren’t threats of violence and using chemical agents against people expressing their constitutional rights. The ACLU sued the city on September 22, a week after a judge found former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley not guilty in the 2011 killing
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Decision Is a Slap in the Face
L
ast year, attorney David Roland won one of the most consequential Sunshine law cases in the city’s history. In response to Roland’s lawsuit against the St. Louis Board of Election Commissioners, a judge opened up absentee ballot applications to public inspection — a ruling that paved the way for Roland to make the case that the Hubbard family had been abusing the absentee process. That argument resulted in the judge tossing out the narrow victory that incumbent state Representative Penny Hubbard (D-St. Louis) had won in the Democratic primary against former Ferguson activist Bruce Franks Jr. and ordering a special election. And that special election resulted in Franks toppling Hubbard — earning a seat in Jefferson City and becoming, in the process, a formidable force in city politics. Approve of his tactics or don’t — but you can’t deny Franks’ impact. And so it’s more than a little bizarre that, last month, Roland’s Sunshine law lawsuit wrapped up with a ruling that not only determined that the elections board didn’t have to pay Roland’s legal fees — but also concluded with an order that Roland pay the board. St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Jason Sengheiser’s order, issued October 16, found that the board’s denial of Roland’s request for absentee ballots was not necessarily a purposeful violation. Therefore, the board didn’t have to pay fines, much less Roland’s legal fees. Then Sengheiser added the kicker — a brief sentence that, initially, media outlets (including the RFT) didn’t even notice. Roland would have to pay the elections board’s costs. He’s now on the hook for a bill of $1,084.50. The board, naturally, didn’t fail to notice the kicker; it promptly submitted its bill on October 19. Last week, Roland filed a notice of appeal. He is asking the Missouri Court of Appeals to reconsider Judge Sengheiser’s ruling. He wants a decision that says the board’s rejection of his request was, in fact, purposeful — the way the Sunshine law is written, he notes, any error is to be in favor of transparency. By going the opposite way, he argues that the board stepped away from mere confusion over how to handle the absentee applications and into intentional flouting of the law. But beyond that, he wants that $1,084.50 assessment to be lifted. “It is difficult enough to decide to take
on a Sunshine law case when you know that the likelihood you can recover expenses is low,” he says. “That you can end up with a judgment against you, even in a case that you win, removes whatever incentive you may have to pursue these cases. For a public interest attorney, it severely complicates the calculation of whether we can take these cases on.” Roland is a public interest lawyer who freely admits that he runs his Freedom Center on a shoestring. A bill of this size, he says, is “devastating.” “That’s a huge penalty for us,” he says. “It’s definitely a cold shower.” Roland says that Missouri’s Sunshine law is well-crafted to ensure that government agencies are open with records sought by the public. But in reality, when bureaucrats deny access, even when the violation seems clear-cut, gadflies and journalists alike often think twice before resorting to legal action. It can be hard to recoup costs — and actual fines from judges are all too rare. No one should doubt the chilling effect of the expense involved in litigation; that it could mean further costs even beyond one’s own legal bills takes things to deep-freeze level. And this case is even stranger. This was a case Roland won, after all — and there was never any argument made that he somehow misstepped or overreached in a way that should result in a penalty. To some extent, Roland may be the victim of timing. Circuit Court Judge Julian Bush — who called the board of elections’ reasoning in denying him and Franks absentee ballots “gobbleygook” — left the bench to take a job as city counselor. Sengheiser, who was handling only the question of costs, didn’t live through the sturm and drang of the Hubbard dynasty’s final gasps. And so perhaps he didn’t share Bush’s disapprobation for the board’s actions. Perhaps he wasn’t dwelling on the fact that, after the records were forced open, another judge found that they revealed “serious abuses of the law” — abuses that occurred on the board’s watch. Maybe then he wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the board’s denial as a mere mistake. Still, if this decision is allowed to stand, and David Roland is forced to pay $1,084 to the board that nearly blocked him and his client from learning the truth, we’ll all be the victims. Not just Roland, not just Bruce Franks, but anyone who cares about openness, transparency and clean elections. Anyone who cares, in fact, about Sun—Sarah Fenske shine. Sarah Fenske is the editor in chief of the Riverfront Times.
Alderwoman Megan Green, left, wants pot decriminalized. Board President Lewis Reed, who fears gangs terrorizing the city, has a more modest proposal. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI
LEGALIZE POT Continued from pg 9 post? Just the opposite. In fact, during the meeting, he doubled down, and then, days later, proposed his own cannabis bill — one that would eschew the ambitious decriminalization of Green’s measure in favor of simply lowering the $100 to $500 fines now assessed for possession to $25 to $50. According to a recording of Reed’s remarks to NORML, his concerns focus on the ways in which Board Bill 180 “could be exploited” by drug traffickers and gangs. “To give an illegal enterprise an opportunity to expand, I think that’s a scary thing,” Reed said. Reed conceded that he based his view of the bill on his own interactions with troubled youth and gang members. On NextDoor, he elaborated, writing, “The bill would inadvertently create an incentive for non-residents to come to the City of St. Louis to partici-
pate in illegal drug sales, distribution and consumption.” Still, it’s worth noting that Reed’s position on the bill goes a bit further than his point about gang connections. He alleges that Green’s bill would bar employers from refusing to hire someone who comes into a job interview stoned, as well as prohibiting officers from citing motorists with weed in their car. Neither circumstance is mentioned in Green’s bill, and Reed seems to ignore its other provisions — and common sense — that would support a boss’s decision to reject a high-as-balls job applicant. Green’s bill also prohibits public weed use, which includes “any street, alley, park, sidewalk, public building other than individual dwellings, or any place of business or assembly open to or frequented by the public, and any other place to which the public has access.” Green’s bill is, however, aggressive in its attempt to legalize can-
nabis in St. Louis. It even includes a provision stipulating that any city employees (including cops) who use city resources to go after people 21 or older for low-level marijuana possession “will lack the lawful authority to do so” and would be subject to “discipline under the laws and rules pertaining to the Department of Personnel.” Despite the differences in their proposals, Reed and Green agree that St. Louis would be better off with a state-wide cannabis legalization measure, one passed either by the ballot or through the legislature. At last week’s NORML meeting, Reed added his name to medical marijuana petition currently being circulated by New Approach Missouri. Karin Chester, executive director of Greater St. Louis NORML, tells RFT that she’s in favor of “anything that reforms marijuana laws,” but she disagrees with Reed’s take on Board Bill 180. “This all goes back to the ‘reefer riverfronttimes.com
madness’ mentality,” says Chester, adding that although Reed’s bill, Board Bill 193, seems to resembles a recent ballot measure passed in Kansas City, she’d like to see Reed’s offering amended to remove penalties for possession of paraphernalia. NORML hasn’t formally endorsed either bill, but Chester says Green’s attempt to legalize marijuana hews more closely with the group’s goals. “The most dangerous thing about marijuana is that it’s against the law,” Chester says. Green’s bill, which targets law enforcement resources going toward marijuana cases, “creates a de facto legal legal environment, which is not ideal.” “The ideal,” explains Chester, “would be if we could put into place a system for dispensaries and cultivation. That’s not possible right now, but I think [Green’s bill] gets us as close to that as we can possibly get right now.” n
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A D U LT TOY S
TinRoofStLouis.com
Sanctuary Alex Garcia is no ‘bad hombre.’ So why is he holed up in a Maplewood church, trying to avoid arrest?
A
Alex Garcia has taken sanctuary in Christ Church in Maplewood, where he is surrounded by reminders of the congregation’s commitment to welcoming strangers. | KELLY GLUECK
BY DOYLE MURPHY
lex Garcia took refuge from federal immigration agents nearly two months ago inside an old brick church in the St. Louis suburb of Maplewood. He is still there. He may be there for a long time — or maybe a short time. There is really no way to tell. The 36-year-old construction worker is hoping to return home to Poplar Bluff, Missouri, in time for the holidays. Even weeks ago, Thanksgiving had begun to feel like a long shot. But maybe Christmas. Christmas would be wonderful. He, his wife and his five kids get together with his in-laws and eat tamales on Christmas. It’s one of the rituals he has adopted during his thirteen years in the Bootheel. Bow hunting deer in the fall. Fishing with the kids in the summer. And work. Work is all the time. Work is how Garcia, an undocumented immigrant from Honduras, earned the respect of white, blue-collar guys in Butler County, where Donald Trump won 79 percent of the vote. Bald with a bushy beard that sits low along his jaw, Garcia is a quiet force on the job site. Other contractors and business owners describe watching him crawl over roofs or pour concrete all day before he heads off to mow grass on his nights and weekends. They know he has five kids to support, and they respect him for doing it without welfare — which, they are quick to point out, is more than they can say for a lot of their neighbors. “You need to get rid of about half the people in this town and keep him,” says Jamie Tyler, a 38-year-old railroad worker who also runs his own construction company. There is no guarantee Garcia is coming back to Poplar Bluff. In fact, the odds are not great. After granting him temporary permission in 2015 and 2016 to stay in the country, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials denied his request for 2017. It is part of a new hard-line approach on undocumented immigrants. The agency notified him of its decision in a letter sent at the end of August. Garcia’s wife opened the envelope on her lunch break and called him in a panic. “I was a little panicked, too,” Continued on pg 14
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Alex Garcia with his two youngest children. | COURTESY OF ALEX GARCIA
SANCTUARY Continued from pg 13 Garcia recalls, carefully choosing the English words. “But I was trying to tell myself it was going to be OK — one way or another, everything was going to be fine.” All across the country, undocumented immigrants are getting similar messages from ICE. The agency is under new directives to broaden the scope of its enforcement efforts. Trump, who campaigned on promises to deport all the “bad hombres” from the U.S., issued an executive order in January that expanded the focus from people who are national security threats to virtually anyone who has crossed the border without permission. Even those, like Garcia, who have been previously vetted and granted stays multiple times in the past have been targeted. Now, his future is uncertain. His wife and kids are American-born citizens. Honduras, which has one of the highest murder rates in the world, is not a realistic option for his family, he says. If he’s deported, he will be required to wait ten years before he can be considered for legal re-entry. What happens to his children, Garcia wonders. His youngest is three. His oldest, 12-year-old Ayden, was diagnosed in 2014 with Asperger Syndrome. “They need me right now,” Garcia says, adding later, “They always going to need me.”
Unbeknownst to Garcia, a loose network of religious leaders in the metro area had anticipated a situation like his — and they had already begun making plans. The roots of what is now known as the St. Louis Coalition for Sanctuary started with meetings and discussions in February. Trump’s executive order regarding ICE enforcement priorities was barely a month old, and his administration was also making plans to beef up U.S. Border Patrol and phase out Differed Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, the Obama-era policy that granted certain permissions to young undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. by their parents. “It’s laying the foundation for mass deportations,” says Sara John of the St. Louis Inter-Faith Committee on Latin America. Searching for ways to push back, the group began considering sanctuary as a possible option. The concept is thousands of years old and is basically an agreement that law enforcement officers won’t barge into a house of worship and start hauling out fugitives. In medieval England, noblemen sometimes took refuge inside churches for weeks at a time while they tried to negotiate with angry lords. A modern-day movement turned toward immigration in the 1980s when thousands of people fled bloody, U.S.-backed civil wars in Central America. Angry that then-President Ronald Reagan was
Garcia with his wife, Carleen, and five children. | COURTESY OF ALEX GARCIA loathe to grant the newcomers status as political refugees, activists and religious leaders set up networks of churches to serve as safe houses. The Rev. Noel Andersen of Church World Service, which tracks the movement, says the difference between now and the 1980s is that the people taking refuge today are already here, often living and working peacefully in the country for years before they claim sanctuary. The policy shift under Trump has simultaneously put those people in danger of deportation and sparked new levels of activism in supporters, he says. “I think that we’ve seen there’s a real increase in the number of people in the country that understand we need DACA, we need a path to citizenship,” Andersen says. Since the election, the number of churches nationwide that have publicly agreed to offer sanctuary has doubled to at least 800, according to Church World Service. There are about 30 known cases across the country of people currently living in sanctuary. Most of them are in cities, such as Denver, that have large populations of undocumented immigrants. None was in Missouri — until this fall. In September, John learned about Garcia’s case. The construction worker’s attorney, Nicole Cortés of the MICA Project in St. Louis, works closely with the Inter-Faith
Committee on Latin America. She knew John had recently attended a conference to learn more about sanctuary and put the family in touch. John remembers those first conversations clearly. “They were terrified at the prospect of him leaving,” she says. Sanctuary is not for everyone. Moving into a church with no end date is an extreme and, at best, temporary solution. John carefully laid out various scenarios. Garcia and his wife, Carleen Garcia, spent two weeks trying to decide what to do. “In the beginning, I was against taking sanctuary,” Carleen says. “I was against him not doing what they were asking, specifically because I was worried about the repercussions for doing so.” Garcia was worried about drawing negative attention to the kids, and the couple had concerns it could put Carleen in legal jeopardy, too. “Then one morning I woke up, and I was like, ‘What am I doing? Why am I just giving up? Why am I just going to give him to them?’” Carleen says. “What kind of wife would I be if I didn’t fight for him?” Garcia had been ordered to report to ICE by September 21. Instead he moved to an undisclosed safe house and, a couple of days later, Christ Church in Maplewood. He has been there ever since.
Garcia spends his days in the church hunting for projects to keep himself busy — leaky windows to glaze, faded doors to paint, drywall to patch. Built in the early 1920s by German evangelicals, Christ Church sits on a corner in a shady residential neighborhood of Maplewood. It has become a hive of activity. On any given day, food trucks are parked outside while cooks prep meals in the building’s lower-level kitchen. Gardeners tend the last of the summer vegetables in raised beds at the edge of the parking lot, and off hours are filled by twelve-step programs and GED classes. The Rev. Rebecca Turner, who leads the progressive congregation, was one of the first to say her church would offer Garcia sanctuary. “If we’re going to take seriously following Jesus, then we have to engage with the world,” she says. Weeks later, she does not regret the decision, even if engaging with the world leads to engaging with a powerful arm of the federal government. Legally, ICE agents could show up at any moment, force open the doors and take Garcia away. Sanctuary offers no real protection from the law. But Turner is relying on ICE to follow the agency’s written policy that says it won’t enter “sensitive” locations, including churches, to make arrests unless there is an emergency. As an added safeguard, Garcia and his supporters chose to announce riverfronttimes.com
their actions publicly, sending out press releases, enlisting politicians and allowing reporters to visit the church. Cortés says if ICE agents do decide to go against their policies and arrest Garcia at the church, they will have to deal with the publicity that comes with it. “We’re not going to let that happen quietly,” she says. “If that’s happening, we’re going to be loud.” Rep. Stacey Newman (D-St. Louis County) is one of the elected officials who have come to Garcia’s aid. She says his case is a perfect example of the need for a better path to citizenship, and it would be cruel to deport him simply over a shift in policy. “This is a real-life situation for Alex and his wife and his five children,” she says. “Sending someone back like this is really just out of spite.” Questioned by the Riverfront Times, an ICE official confirms the agency does have plans to deport Garcia, but that agents won’t arrest him as long as he stays in the church. They’re now locked in a standoff, with Garcia unwilling to go out, and ICE agents unwilling to go in. A base-level tension hangs over the situation, but most days in the church are low on drama. Garcia might listen to the radio for a bit in his makeshift quarters after waking up. (He regularly tunes in to Sean Hannity, although he concedes the conservative commentator would not approve of his Continued on pg 16
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Garcia, shown painting doors, has tried to keep himself busy in the church. | KELLY GLUECK
SANCTUARY Continued from pg 15 situation: “No, he would not agree.”) And then he starts whatever project he has selected for the day. The old church has seen plenty of wear and tear in the past century, and Garcia scans every surface as he makes his way through the building. On a recent morning, he works his way down an interior hallway, scraping, sanding and painting a dozen doors within a few hours. He wears a NUMBER ONE DAD shirt, blue jeans and a wooden rosary that some visitors to the church gave him recently. Turner has made it clear he is under no obligation to do anything, but he says he cannot just sit around all day. If he thinks about his kids too much, he will start to cry. “It’s hard when the little one says, ‘Dad, why you don’t go home with us?’” Garcia says. He was nineteen when he first tried to cross the border from Mexico into the United States. Born Rene Garcia Maldonado, he says he grew up in the countryside of Honduras without electricity. The closest town was a two-hour walk. Originally, he thought he would make some money up north and come back, but Border Patrol agents caught him shortly after he crossed the Rio Grande. That was in 2000, and a federal immigration judge signed an order expelling him from the U.S. There was not even a hearing. He tried again around 2004, and this time he did not get caught. He quickly hopped a northbound train, unsure where exactly it was headed. When it dumped him out in Poplar Bluff, he remembers it was raining. “I got off the train and started walking, seeing what I could find,” he says. On his first day, he landed a job as a dishwasher at a Mexican restaurant, where he worked for
seven years before going into construction. In the early days, he says, he still planned to return to Honduras. But he soon began to assimilate into the Poplar Bluff community. He dated a local woman, and they had two boys before the relationship ended. He started dating his wife a decade ago. She also had a son from a previous relationship, and when they got together, they meshed their families together. Now married seven years, they’ve added another boy and, finally, a girl. In 2013, Garcia and his wife contacted Cortés to try to get him citizenship. As Cortés looked into Garcia’s case, she soon discovered bad news: The 2000 immigration deportation order was still in effect. A DWI from 2008 was the only mark on his record, but that 2000 expulsion for border crossing effectively killed any chance of obtaining legal status, Cortés says. It did not matter that his wife and kids were all natural-born citizens. For awhile, everything was still fine. The family did have a scare in 2015. Garcia’s sister had also crossed into the United States, and he decided to accompany her to a scheduled immigration check-in at an ICE satellite office in Kansas City. He had originally planned to just stay in the car, but the location seemed a little sketchy so he escorted her. Cortés says that was a mistake. ICE agents questioned Garcia and eventually identified him from the 2000 order. Before he knew it, he was being detained. He was locked up for two weeks before Cortés was finally able to persuade ICE officials to grant him a stay of removal. To make her case, she included signatures and letters from hundreds of people as well as medical records for his son, demonstrating the ongoing need for Garcia to remain in the country.
consequences, but considered the possibility remote. He had followed a code over the years to assuage his fears. “The longer you do good, don’t harm nobody, you’ll be OK,” he told himself.
The Rev. Rebecca Turner says she hopes to inspire other congregations to offer sanctuary to undocumented immigrants. | KELLY GLUECK
Garcia spends some of his free time sitting in the quiet sanctuary of Christ Church. | KELLY GLUECK She was able to get another yearlong stay using essentially the same argument in 2016, but things had changed when she tried again in 2017. Under Trump, stays are much more rare. Even if they’re granted, they tend to be for shorter amounts of time, 30 days or six months as opposed to a year, according to the agency. An ICE official says the recent policy changes and the more sweeping nature of arrests is basically a return to pre-Obama enforcement directives. There is some truth to that, says former federal prosecutor Javad Khazaeli, but the Trump-era changes go much further than Bush ever did. Now in private practice in St. Louis, Khazaeli worked for the Department of Homeland Security under George W. Bush and Obama. He says prosecutors previously had discretion to go after the most dangerous people.
The idea was to focus their limited resources on terrorism and violent crime. “I’d rather go after the child molester than the 80-year-old Guatemalan grandmother who has no criminal record,” he says. A guy like Garcia would have gotten a look under the old policies, Khazaeli says, but it is unlikely he would have ever become a priority for removal once it was determined he was not a threat. “What the Trump administration has done has totally changed that,” he says. “What I think they’re doing is trying to increase their statistics.” After all, it is a lot easier to find and arrest people who are already checking in than to hunt down a gang member living on the fringes. “The downstream effect of that is now you can’t put as many resources to go after people who are
actual threats to national security,” says Khazaeli, who sent an inquiry to ICE regarding Garcia at Cortés’ request. “I think we’re significantly less safe because of this.” In the first 100 days after Trump’s executive order, ICE arrested more than 41,000 people confirmed or suspected to be in the country illegally, a 38 percent increase over the same period in 2016. That translates into more than 400 arrests every day. And while nearly three-quarters of those arrests are of people with criminal records, the number of those arrested without criminal records is surging. The proof is in the stats for non-criminal arrests during the first quarter of 2017. Busts spiked to 10,800, more than double the 4,200 recorded the previous year. None of that is good news for Garcia, who is hoping immigration officials will look beyond his legal status to all the positive things he has done — and the harm his deportation would do to his family. He thinks that should count for something. Whether it will is up to ICE. All Garcia can do is wait. He spends his days biding his time, trying to be useful, waiting for a reprieve that may never come. He and Carleen have told the two youngest children he is just working at the church. The three older boys know vaguely that his absence has to do with immigration, but they do not fully understand. Garcia does not quite understand it himself. Like anyone without legal status, he always knew there were potential riverfronttimes.com
The Rev. Turner and more than a dozen other clergy members meet on a windy October morning outside of Robert A. Young Federal Building in downtown St. Louis. Garcia’s last, best legal option is to persuade ICE to take a second look at his request to stay in the country on a temporary basis. The trouble is that agency officials have so far refused to even accept the paperwork. It hasn’t been for lack of trying. His wife, backed by a few dozen activists, attempted a month ago to hand-deliver the paperwork, but a clerk at the ICE satellite office turned Carleen away. The pastors have decided to try again. There will be no march this time, and Carleen is not with them. The plan is for Cortés and Turner to deliver the documents, which include more than 800 signatures of people in favor of Garcia’s application. They have kept the group small, enough people to show support but not so many as to give Department of Homeland Security officers a reason to say they’re causing a disturbance. Still, within minutes of their arrival, officers stride over and inform them they cannot congregate on the marble floor of an outdoor courtyard. The group dutifully moves onto the sidewalk, where Turner addresses them. She reiterates that they are not there for civil disobedience, but simply to drop off the paperwork and leave. Eventually, eleven people and a toddler head through the spinning doors of the building. But when they reach the mouth of the hallway leading to ICE’s office, a pair of DHS officers steps in front of them. The office is locked for lunch. No one can accept the documents. “They want me to tell you they won’t even answer the door,” one says. Cortés speaks up: “ICE accepts documents here all the time.” They make it to the doorway, but the office behind the glass door is indeed locked when they arrive. The officers tell them they have to go, but the pastors refuse. Eventually, the officers agree to ask the ICE staff if two people can come just far enough in to deliver the papers. Instead, the officers return with what appears to be a police or security supervisor. “Any tenant in Continued on pg 18
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SANCTUARY Continued from pg 17 any federal building has the right to refuse service,” the supervisor tells the group. John is incredulous, pointing out that these are taxpayer-funded government offices. Turner repeats that they just want to deliver the papers. “We are not here for civil disobedience,” she says. “Well, that’s what this is,” the supervisor replies. Just as it’s getting tense, a manager steps out of a side door and finally agrees to let two people into the office. This seems to satisfy the police for the moment; they disappear down the hallway again. Cortés leans against the wall and shakes her head as she waits for the door to be unlocked. “Fuckery,” she says under her breath. She and Turner are eventually allowed inside. Through the glass, the clerk can be seen cracking an interior door just wide enough to poke her head out and accept the papers before she ducks back inside. Minutes pass as Cortés and Turner wait for her to return. As the clergy wait hopefully in the hallway, the officers return yet again. This time, they are adamant: Everyone has to leave. “It’s not me asking,” one of the officers says. “I’m telling you, you have to go.” He and the pastors go back and forth. The officer wants to know if everyone is refusing to leave. Worried that arrests are coming, three of the people in the group leave, but the others stay. The officers sighs. “We’ll see what we have to do,” he says, before leaving again. Whatever the police decided, the group will never know. Moments later, Cortés and Turner exit the office. The clerk had stamped their papers and given them a receipt. Turner smiles a huge smile and gives the group two thumbs up. They’re euphoric over what is the bureaucratic equivalent of mailing a letter. “That was incredible,” Cortés tells the group. “You guys did that.” Later, an ICE official will tell the RFT that staffers had only locked the office door because it was their lunch break, not to avoid the pastors. However, that does not appear to be true. The times posted on the door say lunch ends at 12:30 p.m., and the group lingered until nearly 1 p.m. Conversely, when the RFT returns on two separate occasions during the posted lunch break, the doors are unlocked.
Three weeks after the hallway showdown, Garcia receives a response from ICE: The agency has denied his request. After all they went through to deliver the documents, it is as if officials did not even read the paperwork, John says. Both the timeline described in ICE’s denial letter and the number of Garcia’s children are wrong, she says. Not that Garcia’s supporters are surprised. John says they always thought it could take multiple attempts. Now, they are settling in for the long fight ahead. The drive to Poplar Bluff from Maplewood winds south, rising and falling over the hills for more than 150 miles. It was still summer when Garcia left home in September, but now the leaves have begun to change to bright oranges and reds as fall takes hold. Benjamin Zuniga, Garcia’s father-in-law, has been at work since 4 a.m., splitting time between two job sites along the city’s main commercial district. “Alex is the man every man wants for his daughter,” he says. “That will tell you everything.” Built like a jockey, the 56-year-old has a graying mustache, a tape measure on his hip and wire-rimmed glasses. He and Garcia have worked side-by-side nearly every day for the past six years, or at least they did until the trouble with ICE. Zuniga immigrated to the United States from Mexico at age seventeen. Back then, in the pre-9/11 era, it was much easier to obtain legal residency, he says. He traveled from California to Illinois and met his wife on his first night in Chicago. He first visited the town of Poplar Bluff nearly 30 years ago to work with his father-in-law, who had a contract installing cable TV service. When the contract was over, Zuniga decided to move there for good. He estimates there were only one or two other Hispanic people there at the time, but like Garcia decades later, he proved himself through work. He took a job at the Tyson plant and switched to construction when he grew tired of chickens. Over the years, Poplar Bluff has become home. He raised his daughter here, and now gets to see his grandchildren grow up here, too. He has a house twenty minutes outside of town and another 35 acres of woods he uses as a hunting camp on the rare days he can get away. It is the kind of middle-class life that has always been the promise of the American Heartland.
Benjamin Zuniga (right) has found support on the job site with, from left, Corbit Barnet, Michael Litterst and Jarrod Lewis. | DOYLE MURPHY
IT’S THE MOST Garcia was following the same path, and he worked alongside other men doing the same thing. The only difference is that he remains undocumented. Jim Bailey, a developer who hired Garcia and Zuniga to overhaul a pair of shopping centers in town, says Garcia had “gotten himself in a pickle” by entering illegally, but he can’t see any sense in throwing out a working man who has five kids depending on him. “You take Alex out of the equation, and you’re going to see a mother and five kids on some type of assistance, if not full assistance,” he says. Bailey, Zuniga and a handful of contractors, laborers and business owners feel so strongly about supporting Garcia that they have pooled money to cover his bills during the past two months. “He’s just a good, honest guy that wants to work hard for his family,” Bailey says. “That’s a very rare thing these days.” Shortly after lunch on a cold, windy day earlier this month, Zuniga drops by what will soon be a new Starbucks to help finish a concrete pad out back. With a population of about 17,200, Poplar Bluff has managed to avoid the decline of other Midwestern towns. In addition to Bailey’s two resurrected shopping centers, new buildings are going up on the west end of town near the four-year-old Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center. A coalition of businessmen is pushing a plan to expand a section of interstate to create a prime Chicago-to-Dallas route that would pass through town. There’s plenty of work, which makes Garcia’s absence all the more noticeable. Near the future Starbucks, Zuniga is met by a host of familiar faces. Everyone on the site knows about the potential deportation. “Almost puts tears in my eyes, all the things they’ve done to him,” Corbit Barnet, 58, says.
Poplar Bluff is a conservative town, and the men on the crews are about the opposite of bleeding-heart progressives. During a break, 51-year-old Jarrod Lewis jokes about how shocked his daughter’s liberal classmates at Saint Louis University law school were when they learned about the AR-15 rifle he gave her as a gift. The story gets a round of laughs. The Second Amendment might as well be a commandment, but discussions about immigration have become pretty nuanced. There is general agreement that immigrants should come here legally, but they also believe there should also be a better path to citizenship for a guy like Garcia, someone who has worked hard and supported his family. “He’s been living the American Dream, and there’s a lot of people who are natural-born citizens that are not taking advantage of the American Dream,” Lewis says. The men commiserate about what they see as the rise of a welfare state, populated by a growing number of able-bodied adults on public assistance. Zuniga similarly sees a laziness in the government’s approach. He figures if federal officials would put in the effort to look at Garcia’s case, it would be obvious that he’s an asset. “They need to do their homework,” he says. Among the construction crews, this is part of what bugs them the most. They figure arresting Garcia is the easy way out, a way to pump up the number of arrests and deportations without actually going after the trouble-makers. In the end, they look at Garcia’s case and see one more example of the working man getting screwed. “I’m not a Democrat,” says Jamie Tyler. “I’m not a liberal. I’m supposed to be a Republican, but I don’t know about them anymore. But I know a good guy when I see one.” n
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WEEK OF NOVEMBER 23-29
THURSDAY 11/23 Ameren Thanksgiving Day Parade
storytellers and children’s craft projects in the Woodland Workshop. Penguin & Puffin Coast, Sea Lion Sound and the Monsanto Insectarium are all open during the evening event, as is the gift shop. Admission is $7 to $10.
East meets West in The King and I. | MATTHEW MURPHY
Thanksgiving is a tough holiday to celebrate outside of the home. People expect to be feasted, and that’s a tall order for a public event. The Ameren Thanksgiving Day Parade is an interesting solution to that problem, opting instead for musical floats, giant helium balloons and a baker’s dozen of high school marching bands from throughout the metro area. It’s a great way to start your four-day weekend, especially if you can get the kids out of the house quietly so the partner who cooks can sleep in a little bit. The parade steps off at 8:45 a.m. today at Seventh and Market streets (www.christmasinstlouis.com) and finishes with the arrival of Santa Claus, whose solemn duty it is to usher in the month of Christmas.
FRIDAY 11/24 St. Charles Christmas Traditions
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It’s unclear exactly when the holiday season and trains became entwined. Did Santa travel by rail before he got the reindeer? No one seems to know. What is known is that trains are now a major part of the Christmas experience, from children’s horror movie Polar Express to Gardenland Express at the Missouri Botanical Garden (4344 Shaw Boulevard; www. mobot.org). Garden staff build a G-gauge train set-up every year that wends its way through a landscape of living flora filled with houses, buildings and tiny people. The display is open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily through January 1. Admission is $5 (plus regular garden admission), but free during Garden Glow evenings.
BY PAUL FRISWOLD
With Thanksgiving officially out of the way, we progress on to (sigh) Christmas (look, I don’t make the rules). If you’re a fan, there’s only one place you should be: St. Charles Christmas Traditions. Historic downtown St. Charles harkens back to an earlier generation’s Christmas, with chestnut roasters, carolers and costumed Santas from around the world wandering its brick streets. Following the opening ceremony at 11 a.m. Sunday, November 24, at Frontier Park (First Capitol Drive and South Riverside Drive; www.stcharleschristmas. com), the Santas partake in a 20
SATURDAY 11/25 Gardenland Express
parade with their seasonal friends (the parade is repeated at 1:30 p.m. every Saturday and Sunday ’til Christmas). The Cobblestone Wassailers sing after the parade, followed by the Land of Sweets dance party. You can get in a little shopping or just soak up the atmosphere. St. Charles Christmas Traditions continues from 6 to 9 p.m. Wednesday and Friday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday through December 24. Those Wednesday nights are also Krampusnachts, when Krampus, the Mouse King and Belsnickel make their appearances — bring your naughty kids and it’ll straighten ‘em up quickly, before it’s too late. Admission is free.
NOVEMBER 22-28, 2017
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U.S. Bank Wild Lights Last year readers of USA Today determined that the Saint Louis Zoo (1 Government Drive; www. stlzoo.org) had the third-best holiday light display in the country. Buoyed by that ranking, the zoo is determined this year to come out on top — so expect to be dazzled by U.S. Bank Wild Lights. This year’s light installation is open from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday (November 24 to December 17) and then goes nightly from December 18 to 23 and December 26 to 30. There will be carolers and costumed characters, fireside
Bolero Thanksgiving weekend is traditionally a celebration of sensuous delights, mainly having to do with food. But this year you can also feast your ears as the Saint Louis Symphony performs Ravel’s Bolero. The program includes violinist Karen Gomyo, who will take center stage for Pablo de Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy, and soprano Catalina Cuervo, who performs Manuel de Falla’s bewitching ballet suite, El Amor Brujo. Jun Märkl leads the orchestra through this romantic Spanish program at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday (November 24 to 26) at Powell Hall (718 North Grand Boulevard; www.slso.org). Tickets are $25 to $86.
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SUNDAY 11/26 Howl’s Moving Castle
HISTORIC SOULARD
2117 South 12th St. 314-772-5977
SOUTH COUNTY
3939 Union Rd. 314-845-2584
WEST COUNTY
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Sophie is a young woman who lives in a country at war. Her life becomes stranger when she meets an old witch who changes her into a 90-year-old. Sophie sets out to break the curse, but instead encounters a mobile scarecrow who leads her to a wondrous castle that walks on giant bird-like legs. This is the home of the odd young wizard Howl, who reluctantly takes Sophie in as a cleaning woman. She hopes he can transform her back to her true age, while he only wants to avoid becoming embroiled in the war that threatens to destroy two countries. Hayao Miyazaki’s anti-war and antiageism film Howl’s Moving Castle suffers slightly from a plot that hides more of the story than it reveals, but it’s gorgeous to look at and features excellent voice performances from Jean Simmons, Christian Bale, Lauren Bacall and Billy Crystal. Howl’s Moving Castle wanders back into theaters for a limited run. It plays at 12:55 p.m. Sunday and 7 p.m. Monday and Wednesday (November 26, 27 and 29) at Marcus Wehrenberg Ronnies 20 (5320 South Lindbergh Boulevard; www.fathomevents. com). Tickets are $12.50.
1998-2017 RFT Readers Restaurant Polls
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I is musical about a culture clash and the march of progress. The King of Siam hires a British schoolteacher to teach his favorite wives and their children Western ways. Anna, the teacher, is a difficult employee who bristles at the king’s imperious manner, but also admires him for wanting to modernize. Both are stubborn and proud, and perhaps attracted to each other — but such a love can
Howl’s Moving Castle walks back into theaters this week. | COURTESY OF FATHOM EVENTS
www.TuckersPlaceSTL.com
never be. The Tony Award-winning Lincoln Center Theater revival of The King and I visits the Fox Theatre (527 North Grand Boulevard; www. fabulousfox.com) for a two-week run. Performances take place at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday (November 28 to December 10). Tickets are $39 to $115.
WEDNESDAY 11/29 Khizr Khan
Khizr Khan first read the Declaration of Independence as a university student, and it changed how he viewed the world and his place in it. This son of Pakistani farmers realized his future was in the U.S., and he worked hard to get here. But Khan’s work didn’t stop once he arrived — he had a young family to support and an unshakeable belief in the American dream, which meant if he kept working nothing was out of his reach. He put himself through Harvard Law School while holding down two jobs, always looking toward that brighter future. Khizr and his wife Ghazala taught their three sons to believe in that same dream. Their
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middle son Humayun became an officer in the U.S. Army, doing his part to better the country that took in his PenopFoleod, , Happy People yFu pp Ha , od Fo n Fu family; he died in Iraq, the victim ,Gr le le le Pe!ople opnod ,Pe pp leod y Pe yppPe yea iny,ks , Ha Dr top Pe Ha ,,od , Ha Fo n!oppp od ks Fu Fo Ha inyop n Food, HappFu nFuFo FuDonFu,pp tnDr Fo ea Gr of a suicide bomber. When , , , le le le op op op ks Pe Pe Pe y y y in ! ! ! ppin pp pp ks kst Dr ! inea , Ha , Ha od Dr Gr t Dr tea t!Dr Fo ineaks n Fo Dr Fun Fo Fuks Fu Grodea, Ha Grodea Gr tnin Gr ald Trump denigrated immigrants ! ! kseat Drinks! inGr Great Drinks Great Drop and Muslims on the presidential lePe PeOP yPE pp , Ha •, GR od leT, DRINKS! Le opEA Fun FoFu y Y, Ha pp PP HA campaign trail, Khizr and Ghazala •n od Fo , FUN FOOD le op ! in PeOP yHa ks pp in Dr , Ha t • GR od leT, DRINKS! Le opEA Gr Pe Fun Fo y ! PE Y pp ks PP , HA Khan stood up at the Democratic Dr •ea od t Fo ea n Gr Fu FUN FOOD ! ks! inks Dr eatGr Gr National Convention to argue that it GIVE THE FOOD DrinOF eatGIFT was immigration that made AmerWITH CLEVELAND ica great. Khizr Khan recounts the HEATH GIFT CARDS 106 main st. • edwardsville, il story of how he came to embrace 106 main st. • edwardsville, 618.307.4830 wardsvilil ed• edwardsville, main . il•st. st in the American dream and build his ma 6main st.106 10 www.clevelandheath.com 618.307.4830 106 main st. • edwardsville, 106 main st. il • st. edwardsville, 106• edwardsville, • edwardsville, il . il 106 main 618.307.4830 30svil .48ilrd • ed 07wa st 8.3 in• edwardsville, 61 life and family around it in his book618.307.4830 www.clevelandheath.com 6 ma618.307.4830 10 618.307.4830 www.clevelandheath.com 618.307.4830 106 main st. • edwardsville, 106 main st. il • edwardsville, 106 main st. il il eath.c dh30 an.48 An American Family: A Memoir of618.307.4830www.clevelandheath.com el07 ev8.3 cl61 www.clevelandheath.com www.clevelandheath.com www. www.clevelandheath.com 618.307.4830 618.307.4830 eath.c 106 main st. • edwardsville, il dh an Hope and Sacrifice. Khan discusses el www.clevelandheath.com www.clevelandheath.com www.clevelandheath.com www.clev il 618.307.4830 106 main st. • edwardsville, 106 main st. • edwardsville, il his memoir at 7 p.m. tonight at St. www.clevelandheath.com 618.307.4830 618.307.4830 106 main st. • edwardsville, il Louis County Library Headquarters www.clevelandheath.com www.clevelandheath.com 618.307.4830 (1640 South Lindbergh Boulevard, www.clevelandheath.com Frontenac; www.slcl.org). Tickets are $30 to $35, and include a presigned copy of the book.
FUN FOOD FUN FOOD HAPPY PEOPLE HAPPY PEOPLE GREAT DRINKS GREAT DRINKS
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TUESDAY 11/28 The King and I
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NOVEMBER 22-28, 2017
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FILM
[REVIEW]
MO Violence, No Meaning Martin McDonagh’s latest stars a Missouri stupider and more violent than the real one Written by
ROBERT HUNT Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Written and directed by Martin McDonagh. Starring Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson and Caleb Landry Jones. Opens Wednesday, November 22, at multiple theaters.
Y
ou can search every inch of the map looking for Ebbing, Missouri, but you’d be wasting your time. Martin McDonagh’s new film isn’t really about the Midwest in general or Missouri in particular (and from the smorgasbord of accents on display, it’s unlikely that he’s ever even been in the state). The setting is instead a purely imaginary small town, a cozy American heartland of bumbling deputies and eccentric townsfolk on which McDonagh can hang his Coen Brothers-in-Mayberry conceit. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri begins with Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) buying advertising space on an isolated road. Mildred’s teenaged daughter was viciously raped and murdered seven months earlier, and her billboards ask why no one has been arrested. She even calls out the local sheriff by name. Now, she could have just walked to the sheriff ’s office to discuss this — it’s right across the street from the ad agency — but then we wouldn’t have a title, would we? Instead, the billboards are immediately (and for no clear reason) met with hostility by the entire community, not least by Sheriff Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) and the brutish Officer Dixon (Sam Rockwell). Violence ensues, along with two acts of arson and
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Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) is a woman on a mission. | MERRICK MORTON © 2017 TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORPORATION a suicide. If you’re looking for a message about grief or retribution or morality here, you’re better off looking for Ebbing on that map. Writer-director McDonagh specializes in fast, foul-mouthed dialogue and sudden, irrational moments of mayhem, and he piles them on rapidly with no concern for how they add up. Every line has been fine-tuned for maximum provocation, usually hammered in with sitcom repetition. There are broad strokes of character here — the sheriff has pancreatic cancer, Dixon is a half-witted mama’s boy — but they’re really just set-ups for recurring punchlines. When Peter Dinklage shows up briefly, McDonagh seems to think his very presence is a joke; nearly every line in his four scenes contains crass allusions to his size. Even the worst and broadest attributes are dismissed with a smirk: We’re told that Dixon is a racist with a history of torturing prisoners, a detail repeated so often that eventually it’s regarded as little more than an eccentricity.
NOVEMBER 22-28, 2017
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As a playwright, McDonagh has a reputation for sharp dialogue and imaginative plots, but Three Billboards feels lazy, even self-indulgent. There’s no sense of Mildred’s grief, no consequences for any of the film’s increasingly cartoonish acts of violence. As a crime film, it teases a coherent plot but quickly withdraws from it. As a character study, it’s almost deliberately superficial, half-heartedly tossing in a few cliches about redemption but dropping them just as carelessly. Mostly, Three Billboards is just casually, absurdly violent. It’s like a Three Stooges film, one in which after every eye-gouge or head-pounding you see bruises on Larry’s face or blood oozing from Curly’s head. People are beaten and thrown through windows. Mildred kicks a young girl in the crotch. When one character nearly burns to death, the film treats it with ridicule, like nearly everything else, yet when Mildred’s billboards suffer a similar fate, it’s one of the few scenes given anything close to sympathy.
It’s as if McDonagh has turned Mel Brooks’ famous maxim — “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die” — into his sole principle. OK, Three Billboards is just another stupid, brutal film that generates nervous laughter by depicting debased and savage behavior. What’s the big deal? Just as it’s hard to look at the news these days without thinking that civilization is going through a rough patch, a quick overview of recent films suggests that gleeful callousness and unthinking cruelty are the two faces of our post-Tarantino cinematic zeitgeist. In the last few months, we’ve seen violence of every kind treated with rock-star swagger in Baby Driver, with icy, comic-book stylization in Atomic Blonde and with hipster irony in Good Time. In that company, Three Billboards isn’t even the worst offender; it merely eliminates real emotions such as grief or empathy and replaces them with knee-jerk sarcasm. n
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J’s Pitaria boasts Bosnian classics, such as (clockwise from top left) doner kebabs, house-made desserts and stuffed pitas, which are sold by the pound. | MABEL SUEN
[REVIEW]
Pit Stop Bosnian food is having a moment in St. Louis — and J’s Pitaria is a big reason why Written by
CHERYL BAEHR J’s Pitaria
5003 Gravois Avenue, 314-339-5319. Tues.Fri. 10 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sat.-Sun. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. (Closed Mondays.)
I
n 1989, Zamir Jahic occupied the top floor of a building on the corner of Gravois and Morganford, a new kid in town from Bosnia via Norway. Like many Bosnians who
moved to St. Louis at that time, fleeing the war that divided the former Yugoslavia, Jahic created a life for himself in the shadow of the Bevo Mill. He opened a nightclub, ran a coffee shop, became a U.S. citizen and met his wife, eventually leaving behind the neighborhood and the twirling windmill that had greeted him every morning outside his apartment window. Eighteen years later Jahic is back in his old stomping grounds — in the exact same building, in fact. But this time he’s a restaurateur, not a resident. Every day, before the windmill begins to turn, he arrives to begin stretching the handmade dough that serves as the basis for most of the dishes at his six-month-old restaurant, J’s Pitaria. It’s not just the pita that brings him into the kitchen so early. There’s the wood-fired somun
bread that needs baking, the baklava that needs to be layered and the from-scratch doner meat that must be stacked and put on the spit. Jahic no longer lives in the building, but he spends so much time toiling away on his handmade delicacies, he might as well take up residency in the kitchen. The work may be hard, but for Jahic, it’s a passion that goes back many years. In fact, his love of food is what led him and his wife, Josi, to open J’s Pitaria in the first place. Though they met in St. Louis, the Jahics were from the same town in Bosnia and looked back with longing on a particular style of rolled pita that was popular there but nonexistent in the U.S. Lamenting the lack of traditional Bosnian pitarias in St. Louis, they decided to be the solution. The Jahics were so committed to authenticity, they brought the riverfronttimes.com
owner of their favorite Bosnian pitaria to Missouri to help them develop their dishes. But they didn’t stop there. Wanting to offer doner kebabs, the handheld pita sandwich popular in Europe, they traveled to the town in Germany where Josi Jahic lived prior to moving to St. Louis and learned how to make them the right way. These efforts have paid off in a delightful fast-casual restaurant whose existence underscores the moment that Bosnian food is finally experiencing in St. Louis. J’s Pitaria is the latest in a run of terrific new eateries (Balkan Treat Box, Lemmons by Grbic) showing the city what a treasure it has in its Bosnian culinary heritage. And finally, we’re starting to pay attention. How could we not? The moment you step inside J’s Pitaria, it’s
NOVEMBER 22-28, 2017
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J’S PITARIA Continued from pg 27 evident that you are in for something special. The space, which Jahic renovated with the help of friends, has a warm, inviting feel, with exposed brick, a window seat filled with earthy-colored pillows and filigree vases on every table. However, it’s the glow of the lamps lighting the pita display case that gives the room its warmth — a soft, golden light that keeps the day’s selections warm and ready to serve. That’s not to imply that Jahic’s pitas sit out all day. Though they are prepped and ready for customers to grab and go, he makes the trays of pita continuously throughout the day, guaranteeing that they are always fresh. That’s evident the moment you bite into one of these beauties. Like a blintz made from phyllo, Jahic’s pitas are stuffed, rolled and baked to the point that the exterior gets golden and flaky while the interior remains gooey and tender. The pitas, which are ordered by the pound rather than by the piece, are both sweet and savory. The latter include a simple cheese version, which oozes with mild and gooey
For dessert, try a Bohemian cake, cupavac or a classic baklava. | MABEL SUEN kajmak, a housemade buttery spread that is like the lovechild of feta and boursin cheese. The pita is like a pillow-soft, cheesy version of a fried spring roll. You can also opt for a version with spinach added to the luxuriously creamy mixture. In place of the cheese mixture,
FRESH & AUTHENTIC BRAZILIAN CUISINE
cubes of country-style fried herbed potatoes serve as the filling for the potato pita. Black pepper coats the tubers, infusing the dish with just a hint of spice. Not all the choices are vegetarian, however. Jahic also makes a delectable meat-filled pita with seasoned ground beef that’s a
cylindrical cousin to the empanada. Like the oil used to fry the potatoes, the drippings from the meat soak into the pita, forming a jus-filled stratum that lies just underneath the flaky top layer. The Jahics also offer a pair of more traditional sandwiches. They
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take special pride in the doner kebab, and not just because they traveled halfway across the world to figure out how to make it. You’ll find many spit-roasted meats in town (gyros in particular) that are processed and frozen. But the doner meat at J’s Pitaria is prepared and stacked on the spit in-house. It’s extra effort, but it results in an ultra-fresh, tender product that, when sliced, reveals layers of perfectly seasoned beef and fat. Roasting it vertically gives the exterior a pleasant, crisp caramelization that concentrates the seasoning. The meat is then stuffed inside housemade somun, which is like a rustic wheat pita pocket, and filled with fresh vegetables and tzatziki sauce. The other sandwich offering, a chicken panini, is a molten pairing of marinated chicken breast with tomatoes, spinach, shaved red onions and provolone cheese. Stopping here, it would be a respectable Mediterranean-style melt, but Jahic stuffs these components into kajmak-slathered somun, adding an extra layer of creaminess that subs his buttery cheese spread for the standard sandwich condiments. The result is exceptional.
Though the majority of the pita options at J’s Pitaria are savory, Jahic prepares an apple version that’s like a pie roulade. The apples are diced into small cubes and seasoned with just a hint of baking spice and not too much sugar, allowing savory notes of the buttery pita to shine through. His baklava is equally exceptional — a walnut filled delicacy that looks as if it is made with a thousand layers of phyllo, each of which oozes honeyed nectar. And Jahic’s krofna, or filled Bosnian doughnut, should earn him a spot on the city’s list of top doughnut purveyors. The competition is tough, but these are that good. They succeed, like everything in this delightful eatery, by being true to their roots, by unabashedly presenting authentic Bosnian cuisine prepared with skill and quality ingredients. Eating a taste of the old country smack-dab in the middle of a new one might have made Jahic nostalgic for his hometown all those years back. Now, though, he doesn’t have to be. He’s given those n flavors a new home. J’s Pitaria
Cheese pita (per pound) �������������� $6�99 Doner kebab ��������������������������������� $7�99 Apple pita (per pound) ������������������ $7�99
Chef-owner Zamir Jahic wanted to open a classic Bosnian pitaria. | MABEL SUEN
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SHORT ORDERS
[SIDE DISH]
A Passion for Fermentation Written by
CHERYL BAEHR
W
illiam Pauley of Confluence Kombucha/the gastroLAB (4507 Manchester Avenue, 314-833-3059) may have been called “Chef Billy” by his sister when he was a kid, but by the time he was old enough to get a real job in the kitchen, he had to start out with a much humbler job description. “Growing up in a small town, I worked in fast food because that was all that was around us,” Pauley recalls. “Working there is just a different way of looking at food — it’s not nutritionally rich. I think that’s why when I started working at Blood and Sand, I brought up the idea of nourishment as the backbone of what we do in a major conversation we all had. I’ve always held onto that idea.” Pauley’s interest in nourishment and healing began nearly ten years ago when a bleeding ulcer sent him into the ICU. At the time, he had no health insurance, so he began looking at ways to heal himself. He began drinking kombucha for its health benefits, fell in love with the fermented beverage and eventually began brewing it himself. Around the same time, he found himself in the restaurant business, first as a dishwasher for Maggiano’s and eventually in the hallowed kitchen of the members-only restaurant Blood and Sand, where he trained under Chris Bork (now of Vista Ramen). There, as Pauley gained confidence in his cooking abilities, he began to explore the possibilities of fermented foods with the hope of turning his passion into a business. That passion led to the creation of Confluence Kombucha. At first, his business was limited to farmers markets and yoga studios, but eventually, he and his business partner Julie Villarini opened a brick-and-mortar 30
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William Pauley was in a very serious car accident soon after opening his restaurant. But he’s battled back to full-time work. | MABEL SUEN space in the Grove, allowing them to not only showcase their kombucha varieties in a tasting room format, but also giving Pauley the space to showcase his culinary talents in the form of a dining concept called the gastroLAB. It hasn’t always been easy. About three months after opening Confluence Kombucha/the gastroLAB, Pauley got in a serious car accident while leaving work. The incident left him with eleven broken ribs, a broken scapula and a punctured diaphragm. Hospitalized for two weeks and in recovery for a few after that, Pauley was determined to get back into the kitchen, no matter how painful it was. He succeeded in that goal, returning to work after only a month, though he admits that full recovery has been an uphill and painful struggle. However, he looks at the experience with a graceful perspective and sees it as being part of what led him to where he is in the first place. “The beauty in all of this is that all of what I am doing, in some ways, comes from a lot of pain,” Pauley explains. “Before I was in the ICU with a bleeding ulcer, I had ulcers for twenty years. That’s what led me to kombucha. It might sound sad to think about, but in the same breath, you need that to grow. I feel blessed that all of this could have been a lot
NOVEMBER 22-28, 2017
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worse — though I have to admit, I’m looking forward to closing the chapter on 2018.” Pauley took a break from the kitchen to share his thoughts on the St. Louis food and beverage scene, his not-so-secret sweet tooth and his dream of an international feast. What is one thing people don’t know about you that you wish they did? In grade school, I loved choir. What daily ritual is non-negotiable for you? Morning prayers and stretches. If you could have any superpower, what would it be? Teleportation. What is the most positive thing in food, wine or cocktails that you’ve noticed in St. Louis over the past year? The move toward more vegetablecentric dining is upon us. What is something missing in the local food, wine or cocktail scene that you’d like to see? The Michelin Guide! Who is your St. Louis food crush? Chris Krzysik has created some of the most thought and palette-provoking food I have experienced. Find him on the weekends at Claverach Farm and other days at Mac’s Local Eats. Who’s the one person to watch right now in the St. Louis dining scene?
Logan Ely of Square1 Project. His approach to food is inspiring, intelligent and unique. If you have not made it to one of his dinners, catch him on Instagram and make a reservation. Which ingredient is most representative of your personality? SCOBY (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast), which is used to ferment tea to create kombucha. There is a chaotic and perfect harmony between the bacterium and yeasts within the culture. In my personality that represents my deep extremist nature and how opposing entities can co-exist to create balance. If you weren’t working in the restaurant business, what would you be doing? Traveling and creating imagery. Name an ingredient never allowed in your restaurant. Anything with gluten. What is your after-work hangout? Home. I always have plenty of projects going on, and some time with the guitar is a great way to reset. What’s your food or beverage guilty pleasure? I have always had a bit of a sweet tooth, so definitely ice cream. What would be your last meal on earth? A smorgasbord of Thai, Moroccan, Japanese, Ethiopian, Scandinavian and on, and on, and on. n
[FOOD NEWS]
Humble Pie Peaces Out
F
ans of Humble Pie (9783 Clayton Road, Ladue; 314-997-7070), the takeout pizzeria from the owners of Fozzie’s Sandwich Emporium, are dealing with some disappointing news. The restaurant, which shuttered October 11 for what was supposed to be a menu update, is now permanently closed. Jess Lucas, who co-owns both Humble Pie and Fozzie’s with her husband, chef Mark Lucas, explains that the closure has less to do with the concept than its location. “We were really excited about it, and we loved the menu, but the space just wasn’t big enough,” Lucas explains. “We were doing our own doughs and sauces, and you just need a larger skilled staff to do those things. We thought about retooling the menu, but in the end, we didn’t want to compromise what we were doing just to fit the space.” Humble Pie opened this past April in the former Red-L Pizza space in Ladue. It took over a building that had its quirks. Though a charming facade and patio greeted diners, the scene was only a facade. To patronize the restaurant, would-be diners had to walk around the side of the building, through an alley, and enter a tiny vestibule barely large enough for an order counter. But the speakeasy vibe did not work for their more upscale concept. “We were going for the Fozzie’s grab-and-go thing, but I think Humble is better suited as a sit-down concept,” says Lucas. “Pizza is good for takeout and delivery, but what we were doing is better suited for somewhere you
can sit and have a glass of wine.” The restaurateurs are now renovating the space and rebranding it as Dottie’s Flour Shop, a brick-andmortar retail spot for the bakery Lucas owns with her business partner, Dottie Silverman. “This all happened organically,” Lucas explains. “Dottie and I wanted to do our own sweet pies and granola, and we started that because of Humble. It was so well-received that it took on a life of its own. We started doing special orders and taking on clients and before we knew it, we were looking for a space of our own.” Lucas envisions an open retail shop that will include both baked goods, like bagged cookies and granola, and boutique household items such as fun aprons or dessert platters. Lucas says that she and Silverman plan on utilizing the building’s front patio area — the space that was the Humble Pie facade — for special promotions, like a Saturday-only retail window. “We are very social-media-driven, so we’d like to keep up that component with special promo[FOOD NEWS]
KIMCHI, COFFEE FOR LACLEDE’S LANDING
B
ig changes are underway for 612 N. 2nd Street, the former home of the Drunken Fish in Laclede’s Landing. Munsok So, owner of the home-grown Drunken Fish chain, announced in a press release that he had undertaken a gut rehab of both the fifth and first floors of the building. So said he would be opening not only three striking special event venues on site by year’s end, but also a fast-casual Korean restaurant and a coffee shop. Both the restaurant — a Korean fusion
Humble Pie offered great pizza and, above, ratatouille salad. | MABEL SUEN tions,” she adds. Like Humble Pie, Dottie’s Flour Shop uses all organic ingredients, and has a large selection of vegan options, something that she feels sets the bakery apart. “We don’t feel like this is the end of Humble Pie, but more like we are concept called the Kimchi Guys — and the coffee shop Miss Java will be opening on the first floor, along with an intimate special event space called Kor, the release said. That space will seat 125 inside, with a small outdoor area overlooking the Mississippi River seating another ten. All three will be opening in the coming months, the release said. A bigger space on the fifth floor will hold up to 325 guests, with a third private-event option in the lower level. But while the event spaces may get party planners excited, people who live and work downtown may be even more thrilled about the Kimchi Guys and what the press release says will be the “first official coffee shop on the Landing.” Like Seoul Taco, which has flourished on the Loop and is opening a second St. Louis-area location in Chesterfield, the
putting it on the back burner. Eventually, we might do it in a different location, but for now we are focusing on Fozzie’s and Dottie’s,” Lucas explains. “This all has slowly taken itself on a path of its own, and I feel like this is what is meant to happen now.” —Cheryl Baehr Kimchi Guys will offer Korean tacos, BBQ rice bowls and “Korean sandwiches,” as well as a full bar. It plans to be open seven days a week for lunch and dinner. And Miss Java, too, promises to offer everything from Belgian waffles to sandwiches, “providing an early option for breakfast seven days a week and staying open until 9 p.m.,” according to the release. As for the other remaining floors, the Drunken Fish’s corporate offices will be on the fourth floor, while the second and third will be leased as office space. “I hope that what we are doing here brings value to the community and to the city of St. Louis,” So said in a prepared statement. “I believe that others can see the success of this and bring increased interest back to the Landing. We are extremely excited about what this represents.” —Sarah Fenske
T EA
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ays!
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Dishes like blackened redfish, above, are served in an elegant space. | COURTESY OF 1764 PUBLIC HOUSE 9528 Manchester Road
(314) 942-6445
(at corner of Manchester and McKnight)
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Now Open: 1764 Public House Written by
SARA GRAHAM
O dining read more at
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pen to the public last month, 1764 Public House (39 N. Euclid Avenue, 314-405-8221) is the third restaurant in the Central West End-based Gamlin Restaurant Group portfolio, following SubZero Vodka Bar and Gamlin Whiskey House. Named in tribute to St. Louis’ founding in 1764 by Pierre Laclede — a French immigrant to our sister city, New Orleans — the restaurant and bar showcase elevated Creole and St. Louis-style favorites. Breakfast, lunch and dinner menus include recipes that executive chef Ryan Cooper and his team have been honing for a year and a half. Three types of gumbo, finished tableside, appear on the menu next to Provel-laden pizza and St. Louis-style ribs. Traditional beef toasted ravioli is offered, as well as a unique twist — crawfish toasted ravs. Other small plates include French onion dip with po’boy chips, Old Vienna Red Hot wings, Louisiana hot wings, house-made sausages and a pretzel board. Entrées lean more traditional with jambalaya, braised short rib Bolognese, cast-iron blacked redfish, grilled Cajun char-crust ribeye and veggie étouffee. Snack and sides include unique menu items, such as Cajun popcorn, fried spinach, cornmeal catfish poppers, waffle fries and candied
fingerling sweet potatoes. The cocktail menu focuses on the classics, such as wine spritzes, New Orleans favorite the hurricane, the daiquiri and the iconic pink gin. The restaurant is housed in the historic Forest Park Hotel, which was built in 1923 by the Koplar family, who also built the Chase Park Plaza, Powell Symphony Hall and a host of other landmark properties in the city. The hotel had its heyday in the 1930s and ‘40s, when it was home to the Circus Snack Bar nightclub, which hosted notables from Louis Armstrong to Liberace. The building had been vacant for twenty years before the renovations that led to its opening as 1764 Public House, and the restaurant pays tribute to its vibrant years with an Art Deco-influenced modern style. The restaurant’s vibe is comfortable, meant to reach customers at an approachable price point, welcoming all, public house-style, with the bar as the centerpiece. The bar will transform into a sports-forward space for end-of-season games. Coowner Lucas Gamlin explains, “The space is meant to feel like an extension of customers’ living rooms and neighborhood.” 1764 Public House is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week, with a holiday jazz n brunch kicking off this week.
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UPCOMING SHOWS 11/28 KURT WARNER’S NIGHT WITH CHAMPIONS
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11/30 STATE BEAUTY SUPPLY 50 YEAR BASH
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12/12 HOHO SHOW W/ SEETHER
1/25 CHASE RICE
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1/26 TIFFANY HADDISH
12/15 THE IRREPLACEABLES TOUR
1/27 DATSIK
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1/29 THE POINT BIRTHMONTH SHOW W/ K.FLAY
12/21-23, 28-30 EL MONSTERO: THE DEFINITIVE PINK FLOYD EXPERIENCE
1/30 BØRNS
12/31 NEW YEAR’S EVE WITH JOE DIRT & THE DIRTY BOYS
2/2 MØ & CASHMERE CAT
1/6 MEMORIES OF ELVIS
2/9 THE POINT BIRTHMONTH SHOW W/ THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS
1/12 BIG HEAD TODD & THE MONSTERS
2/10 JACOB SARTORIUS
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MUSIC
35
[PREVIEW]
Heart’s Content Rochester’s Joywave is on the cusp of something big Written by
HOWARD HARDEE Joywave
8 p.m. Friday, November 24. The Firebird, 2706 Olive Street. $15 to $18. 314-5350353.
I
t’s a Trip” is all over alt-rock radio right now. The lead single from Joywave’s new album, Content, kicks off with laid-back guitars and an underriding tension that builds into a fist-pumping, stadium-stomping chorus. The band sounds bigger than ever, like it’s got a ticket stamped for headline slots at music festivals. But the indie-rock quintet out of Rochester, New York, hasn’t lost the sense of humor apparent in so many of its music videos. The one for “It’s a Trip” shows the band riding jet skis and getting noticeably older (thanks to gobs of makeup) in every cut, while a bikini-clad woman on the back of frontman Daniel Armbruster’s ride preens and flips her hair around even as the entire band dies and turns into skeletons. “We suggested having a quote-unquote babe who stays the same age while we get really, really old,” Armbruster says. “And I liked that — it feels a lot like touring.” Armbruster spoke to Riverfront Times as the band geared up for the second leg of its U.S. tour in support of Content, released in July. Joywave is slated to play the Firebird on Friday, November 24. Armbruster says it’s always a surreal experience to hear his own band’s songs on the radio, but he tends to listen with a nitpicky producer’s ear. “I’ll usually leave it on, but I’m always worried about how the radio compressor is changing the mix and the master,” he says. “I obsess over the technical side of
Eric Armbruster, second from left, has led Joywave since its inception in 2010. | PHOTO VIA PARADIGM TALENT AGENCY things.” That’s not to say Armbruster is a perfectionist in the studio — at least, not anymore. During recording sessions for Joywave’s first major-label studio album (2015’s dance-groovy How Do You Feel Now?), he was painstakingly meticulous: “I was very much like, ‘Is the mic in the right position? What adjustments do we need to make? Am I professional now?’ The further we got into the process, the more I realized the imperfections and the things I wasn’t doing right led to a more unique sound.” Now Armbruster fully embraces a looser style of recording. For instance, on “It’s a Trip,” he recorded his vocal overdubs directly into the preamp, without any sound-proofing. “It’s good enough and gets the idea across,” he explains. As the band’s principal songwriter, Armbruster lays out the basics for each instrumental part with music production software and presents it to the other members. “I give them something to listen to and they play it much better than I do,” he says. He developed that approach after years of working in bands where the creative process
was much looser — like, someone would play a guitar riff and everybody would add instrumental pieces around it. But in those situations, Armbruster says, everybody usually tries to shine at once. “When everyone is trying to play the coolest thing on top of each other, you’re really just making a giant, cloudy mess,” he says. “So it requires a certain level of restraint we didn’t have when we were younger; everybody was trying to be in the spotlight. That’s what led me to do things in the computer. Not being the world’s greatest guitar player, I’m not concerned about shredding or making some kid say, ‘I’ve gotta learn that song on the guitar.’ Everything is serving the song I’m writing.” When it comes to composing, it helps that Armbruster has a diverse instrumental background. He started playing piano in third grade and learned the flute, bassoon and guitar in the years leading up to high school, where he met most of the future members of Joywave. The band went through several iterations due to its incestuous relationship with several other indie groups in Rochester, taking on its current riverfronttimes.com
form in 2010. But even before then, Joywave was drawing interest from music agents and other industry reps. “Record-label people started appearing in my life around 2007 and were always telling me I was doing it wrong,” Armbruster recalls. “For a few years, I was like, ‘These guys are professionals; they know what they’re talking about.’ But the actual answer was that they didn’t — and everything I did was failing.” After a few years, he assumed that Joywave’s music wouldn’t go anywhere whether he listened to the “professionals” or not, so he started doing whatever he wanted. “If you fail that way,” he says, “you still have your pride, you know?” Eventually, the labels came calling and Joywave signed to Hollywood Records, which has granted the band total creative independence. Now, with its tracks popping up on radio stations across the country, it feels like the band is on the cusp of something big, and Armbruster finds it all exhilarating. “This is what we’ve all wanted to do for more than half our lives now,” he says. “I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.” n
NOVEMBER 22-28, 2017
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38
HOMESPUN
BRUISER QUEEN Heavy High bruiserqueen.bandcamp.com
M
ost bands don’t write their song lyrics as ready-made taglines, but there’s a mission statement lodged halfway through Bruiser Queen’s third fulllength, Heavy High. “Have fun before you die,” Morgan Nusbaum sings. “Anything else is a waste of time.” That’s not to suggest that the band’s output is puerile or childish; the type of fun the band advocates, both in sound and presentation, is fatalistic, sweaty, loud, candy-coated and over in a flash. Singer/guitarist Nusbaum and drummer Jason Potter have been refining Bruiser Queens’s neon-tinted brand of whiplash garage-pop for about eight years at this point, and Heavy High distills the duo’s quick-hit precision while leaving room for flashes of elastic dream-pop that give glimpses of Nusbaum’s range as a vocalist and songwriter. Heavy High was released on CD in mid-November (a dark-blue vinyl edition is due out after Thanksgiving), and Bruiser Queen played a flurry of local shows to promote the release after a six-week, 30-odd show tour. Over iced tea at MoKaBe’s, Nusbaum illuminates the stages of adjusting to life on the road. “The first week or so, you’re still thinking, ‘I have stuff to do at home but I can’t do it; where am I? What is happening?’” Nusbaum says of the band’s tour alongside Chicana punk band Fea. “Then after the first week you’re like, ‘This is my life. I’m this wandering person now.’ Being out that long is weird; this was the first time I’ve ever gotten in the habit of different things — you gotta get in the van and drive for five hours, and then as soon as we get to town we’re gonna find food, because you know there’s not gonna be food at the club.” Potter and Nusbaum have toured a fair amount — traveling light is one of the many benefits of playing in a two-person band — but this stint, the longest of their career, took them to both coasts. “Our New York City show was really good — we played at a place called Berlin, a tiny little basement club. San Angelo, Texas was surprisingly good; it was this crazy, packed place,” she says. “And we played the Viper Room in West Hollywood on Halloween night, which was a blast. They still have an ‘R.I.P River Phoenix’ on their sign.” Bruiser Queen’s set was studded with songs from its three LPs and numerous seven-inch releases, and it gave the band a chance to work through the Heavy High material before its official release. The album’s final two tracks show two sides of the same Bruiser Queen coin. Both “Tonight We Dream” and “Wanderlust” channel big-eyed romantic readiness; the former professes desire through crunchy, switchblade chords, while the latter takes it into the ether with a dreamy sway. “Wanderlust’ borrows a little from Santo & Johnny’s guitar tones and Phil Spector’s signature drum beat, but it’s Nusbaum’s vocals that change the atmosphere, moving from a whisper to an (eventual) scream.
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RIVERFRONT TIMES
NOVEMBER 22-28, 2017
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“Recording vocals is always really hard,” she says. “I’m so loud when I’m singing, so it’s really hard to capture it without just overpowering everything. Whereas before I would get super amped-up and stand back from the mic and just scream into it, this time I wanted more chill vibes for the vocals. It’s still there, still present, but not like pushing in the red.” Nusbaum says that while most of the band’s songs start with a live, loud dynamic in mind, the evolution of its LPs veers toward a more developed, pop-centric sound. “The first one [Swears], we wanted to record the way we sound live, so we didn’t want to do many overdubs. When it came to [2014’s] Sweet Static, we had a sound in mind, but I always feel like those songs are kind of hodge-podge. It took us forever to find the right sequence, so we added keyboard, we added bass, we added a couple more elements to fill it out, sound-wise. I think the new record is the next step up we recorded it in the same spot where we did Sweet Static [Memphis’ Five and Dime Studio] but we had a different person mix it. It just really polished it up — it’s less of that dirty garage sound and more, for lack of a better term, radio-ready.” Bruiser Queen’s cleaned-up sheen has, in fact, already hit the local airwaves; alternative station the Point (105.7 FM) played two back-to-back tracks this past weekend, a benchmark for a band that has been well-loved among south city show-goers and is gaining traction to larger audiences at home and abroad. That level of accessibility is a tightrope walk for the band, who initially shopped the new record around to various labels but ended up self-releasing “I think we’re slightly hard to categorize,” Nusbaum says. “We’re not like a little meow-meow indie band, and we’re not super punk or pop-punk. I don’t think people know what to do with us all the time.” –Christian Schaeffer
SOULARD’S HOTTEST 736 S Broadway • St. Louis, MO 63102 (314) 621-8811
TONIGHT!
WED. november 22
URBAN CHESTNUT PRESENTS: THE VOODOO PLAYERS TRIBUTE TO
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fri. november 24
GENE JACKSON’S POWER PLAY BAND 10pm
sat. november 25
AARON KAMM AND THE ONE DROPS SPECIAL LOW PBR PRICING 10pm
mon. november 27
MARTY ABDULLAH’S RHYTHM ROCKERS BAND at 9pm
WED. november 29
THE VOODOO PLAYERS TRIBUTE TO
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fri. december 8
DANCE PARTY
TYLER KINCHEN AND THE RIGHT PIECES FROM NEW ORLEANS 10pm
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OUT EVERY NIGHT
THURSDAY 23
THE BOTTLE ROCKETS: 8 p.m., $20. Off Broad-
Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.
Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-
“A VERY MESSY THANKSGIVING” WITH MESSY
way, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.
GHOSTS ON THE ROAD: w/ Sisser, Tre Serpenti 8
436-5222.
JIVERSON: 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509
DANIELLE NICOLE: 8 p.m., $12. Old Rock House,
p.m., free. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100 Locust St.,
MAMMOTH PIANO: w/ Syno So Pro, The Aztechs
Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.
1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.
St. Louis, 314-241-2337.
8 p.m., free. Palomino Lounge, 5876 Delmar
KIM MASSIE: 10:30 p.m., $10. Beale on Broad-
DAVE AUDE: 9 p.m., $15. Ameristar Casino, 1
GIVE THANKS FOR THE BOOGIE: w/ Astrocolor DJ
Blvd., St. Louis, 314-361-3099.
way, 701 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-7880.
Ameristar Blvd., St. Charles, 636-949-7777.
9 p.m., $12. The Bootleg, 4140 Manchester Ave.,
PONO AM: w/ Matt F Basler 9 p.m., $7. The
MOM’S KITCHEN: 8 p.m., $10. Delmar Hall, 6133
GARBAGE MAN: w/ Voidgazer, Suicide Dive 8
St. Louis, 314-775-0775.
Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis,
Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.
p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson
LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz,
314-352-5226.
VICKEY MICHAELS & EDICKS WAY BLUES BAND: 8
ROCKY & THE WRANGLERS: 4 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz,
p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broad-
Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-
way, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.
436-5222. STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN TRIBUTE: 8 p.m., $20-$25.
FRIDAY 24
The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis,
AARON GRIFFIN: 7 p.m., free. Hwy 61 Road-
314-726-6161.
house and Kitchen, 34 S Old Orchard Ave,
THE LAST WALTZ ST. LOUIS: w/ Sean Canan’s Voo-
Webster Groves, 314-968-0061.
doo Players 8 p.m., $15-$20. Delmar Hall, 6133
DON’T BREAK DOWN: A FILM ABOUT JAWBREAK-
Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.
ER: 8 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis,
TOM HALL: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups,
314-289-9050.
700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.
FRESH HEIR “BELIEVE” ALBUM SHOWCASE: 8
TOM IRWIN’S HAYBURNERS: 9 p.m., free. Schlafly
p.m., $10. .Zack, 3224 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-
Bottleworks, 7260 Southwest Ave, Maplewood,
533-0367.
314-241-2337.
HA HA TONKA TONKSGIVING SHOW: 8 p.m., $15.
WAGE WAR: w/ Oceans Ate Alaska, Gideon, Vari-
Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-
als, Loathe 7 p.m., $15-$17. The Firebird, 2706
498-6989.
Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.
JAKE’S LEG: 8 p.m., $10-$20. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.
SUNDAY 26
JOE METZKA DUO: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues
16TH ANNUAL BABY BLUES SHOWCASE: 5 p.m.,
& Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-
$15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway,
5222.
St. Louis, 314-436-5222.
JOYWAVE: w/ The Aces, Maybird 8 p.m., $15-$18.
DROP THE MIC: w/ Platinum Intertainment,
The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-
M3ATY, Bucboy Boss, Ill Side, Hippy, Anarchy
0353.
Muzik 7 p.m., $10-$12. The Firebird, 2706 Olive
MARQUISE KNOX BAND: 10 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz,
St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.
Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-
ERIK BROOKS: 8 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s,
436-5222.
2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.
MUSIC OF THE SOUL: 8 p.m., $20-$240. Grandel
JIM BRICKMAN: 3 p.m., $35-$75. Blanche M
Theatre, 3610 Grandel Square, St. Louis, 314-
Touhill Performing Arts Center, 1 University Dr
533-0367.
at Natural Bridge Road, Normandy, 314-516-
[CRITIC’S PICK]
ROLAND JOHNSON & THE SOUL ENDEAVORS: 9 p.m.; Dec. 22, 9 p.m., $3. Hammerstone’s, 2028
KID GOALSS: 6 p.m., $20-$60. The Pageant, 6161
S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.
Beach Slang. | PHOTO VIA GRANDSTAND HQ
ROSALIA: 8 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. SKEET RODGERS AND THE INNER-CITY BLUES BAND: 5 p.m., $10-$15. National Blues Museum, 615 Washington Ave., St. Louis. STRAIGHT NO CHASER: 8 p.m., $34.50-$59.50. The Fox Theatre, 527 N. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, 314-534-1111. THUNDERHEAD: THE RUSH EXPERIENCE: 8 p.m., $12-$15. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.
SATURDAY 25 BEACH SLANG: 8 p.m., $15-$18. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314833-3929. BEN DIESEL / THE STARS GO OUT SPLIT RELEASE PARTY: 8 p.m., $10. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314727-4444. BIG EASY: 9 p.m., free. Nightshift Bar & Grill, 3979 Mexico Road, St. Peters, 636-441-8300.
40
RIVERFRONT TIMES
4949. Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. NGK BAND: 4 p.m., $10-$15. National Blues Museum, 615 Washington Ave., St. Louis. RITTZ: w/ Sam Lachow, Eric Biddines 7 p.m.,
Beach Slang 9 p.m. Friday, November 24. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Avenue. $15 to $18. 314-833-3929.
A thousand rock & roll bands continue to chase the decadent transcendence of the Replacements, but perhaps they’ve let their worship get the worst of them. Down to the flannel and fried vocals, Philly quartet Beach Slang wouldn’t exist without the ‘Mats, and yet the band has created its own furious, fuck-it-all identity. It’s more metal than punk, more peppy than sloppy, and more excited by a thrilling, sometimes wickedly political hook — “I need the struggle to feel alive!”
NOVEMBER 22-28, 2017
riverfronttimes.com
goes one great howling line — than just overdriving the fuzz. And then, just for kicks, the band will release a stunning, lovely, piano-and-strings EP, as it did this year, covering both Paul Westerberg and Alex Chilton. That’s how you handle a rock & roll addiction. Surrender to it ‘til you own it. Cutting Loose: Last year, Beach Slang fired guitarist Ruben Gallego amid sexual assault allegations and drummer JP Flexner left shortly thereafter. The band has regrouped and all reports indicate it’s louder and looser than ever. —Roy Kasten
$22-$25. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720. SOUL REUNION: 10:30 p.m., $7. Beale on Broadway, 701 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-7880.
MONDAY 27 BAROQUE’N REEDS & BOWS: 7 p.m., $38. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900. FLOREA: w/ the Riverside Wanderers, Mt. Thelonious 8 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100. PINEGROVE: 8 p.m., $15-$18. Blueberry Hill The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444. REVOCATION: 6 p.m., $15. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. SOULARD BLUES BAND: 9 p.m., $5. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-
[CRITIC’S PICK]
Messy Jiverson
For better or for worse, the holidays are a time of reunions. And for every drunk uncle and racist grandpa you’ll encounter this Thanksgiving, there’s always the hope of a better sort of homecoming — old friends, lost loves, the occasional holiday hook-up. One of St. Louis’ finest jam-fusion bands is
using this long weekend to resurrect its grooves as Messy Jiverson comes out of retirement for a long-awaited reunion that promises to comprise new material and reimagined oldies. Fans of the recent crop of funk and groove-oriented bands like Vulkpeck and Snarky Puppy will find much to love in this reinvigorated line-up. Arrive on Time: Local instrumentalist and beatmaker Kullus will open the show. —Christian Schaeffer
621-8811.
- The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., Universi-
THIRD SIGHT “SPECIAL EDITION”: 8 p.m., $10. BB’s
ty City, 314-727-4444.
Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis,
JOHN MCVEY BAND: 8 p.m., free. Hammer-
314-436-5222.
stone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.
TIM ALBERT & STOVEHANDLE DAN: w/ Randy 7
LION’S LAW: 7 p.m., $10-$12. Fubar, 3108 Locust
p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St.
St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.
Louis, 314-773-5565.
MARGARET & ERIC: 4 p.m., free. Hammer-
ZUG IZLAND: w/ P.R.E.A.C.H., The Bloody One,
stone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.
Jason Mask Da Booth, Nuttinxnyce, Cannibal
VICTOR & PENNY: 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues
Crew, Yerrty G, Less, Mistah J, Terror Troopaz,
& Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-
P Thang Crazy P, Nyte Shade 6 p.m., $17-$20.
5222.
The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-
WEDNESDAY NIGHT JAZZ CRAWL: 5 p.m. contin-
0353.
ues through Dec. 27, free. The Stage at KDHX,
9 p.m. Thursday, November 23. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue. $10. 314-7733363.
TUESDAY 28 BAD HISTORY MONTH: 8 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee &
VOTED ST. LOUIS’
2017 BEST OF ST. LOUIS Readers Poll
THIS JUST IN ALABAMA: Sat., Jan. 20, 7 p.m., $39.50-$165.
BLIND WILLIE & THE BROADWAY COLLECTIVE: 9
Family Arena, 2002 Arena Parkway, St Charles,
p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broad-
636-896-4200.
way, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.
ALL-STARS OF HIP-HOP: W/ DMX, E-40, Scar-
JAMAICA LIVE TUESDAYS: w/ Ital K, Mr. Roots, DJ
face, MC Lyte, Young Bloodz, Murphy Lee and
Witz, $5/$10. Elmo’s Love Lounge, 7828 Olive
Kyjuan, Tela, Sat., Jan. 20, 7 p.m., $43-$108.
Blvd, University City, 314-282-5561.
Chaifetz Arena, 1 S. Compton Ave., St. Louis,
JUST FOR LAUGHS: 7 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues
314-977-5000.
& Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-
THE ATOM AGE: W/ Bruiser Queen, Murphy and
5222.
the Death Rays, The Dive, Joshua Braden and
KIM MASSIE: 10:30 p.m., $10. Beale on Broad-
Dead Format, Sat., Dec. 9, 8 p.m., 10. Fubar,
way, 701 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-7880.
3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.
KURT WARNER’S NIGHT WITH CHAMPIONS: 7 p.m.,
COREY FELDMAN AND THE ANGELS: Sat., Feb.
$40-$250. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St.
10, 7 p.m., $20-$95. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St.
Louis, 314-726-6161.
Louis, 314-289-9050.
NAKED MIKE: 7 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028
CRAZY TOWN: W/ Davey Suicide, Loaded Guns,
S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.
Wed., Feb. 21, 7 p.m., $17-$20. The Firebird,
BEST PLACE TO SING KARAOKE
Karaoke Thursdays with KJ Ray Ortega
KJ Kelly’s Saturday Night Karaoke Dance Parties
RUNNER-UP
ext. 815.
2100.
2017 BEST OF ST. LOUIS Readers Poll
ST. LOUIS’ BEST WINGS
2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. DATSIK: W/ Space Jesus, Riot Ten, Wooli, Sat.,
ADAM LEE: w/ Matt Woods 9 p.m., $7. The
Jan. 27, 8 p.m., $25-$30. The Pageant, 6161
Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis,
Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.
314-352-5226.
DOYLE: Mon., March 5, 7 p.m., $15-$17. The
BIG RICH MCDONOUGH & RHYTHM RENEGADES: 7
Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.
p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broad-
G. LOVE AND SPECIAL SAUCE: Sun., Jan. 14, 8
way, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.
p.m., $30-$35. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd.,
BOB “BUMBLE BEE” KAMOSKE: 8 p.m. Beale on
St. Louis, 314-726-6161.
Broadway, 701 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-
GANJA WHITE NIGHT: W/ Dirt Monkey, Subtron-
7880.
ics, SubCarbon Records B2B, Sat., March 3, 8
DAVID RAMIREZ: 8 p.m., $14-$16. Blueberry Hill
Th
3524 Washington Ave, St. Louis, 314-925-7543,
Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-
WEDNESDAY 29
! u o y ank
Continued on pg 42
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NOVEMBER 22-28, 2017
RIVERFRONT TIMES
41
New Release Video
OUT EVERY NIGHT Continued from pg 41 [CRITIC’S PICK]
RENT OUR STORE FOR YOUR
PRIVATE EVENTS ! NOW OPEN
SPORTS THEATER SPORTS SCORES & GAMES EVERYDAY
Dream Ritual 8 p.m. Wednesday, November 29. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway. $5. 314-3282309.
The ongoing revival of ‘90s-era grunge rock continues unabated with Dream Ritual. Describing itself simply as “a band from the middle of nowhere,” the Springfield, Missouri-based act plainly took copious notes on the work of bands such as Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr. and the like, resulting in a muscular rock sound full of thick riffs, hard-driving drums and plenty of quiet/loud dynamics. This is music that makes you
want to tie a flannel shirt around your waist and adopt a disaffected posture toward the world at large, possibly while experimenting with a variety of drugs. Oh yeah, and it definitely gets your head bobbing, too. Don’t Sleep: Dream Ritual has already found a home on LA’s venerable 6131 records, the one-time home of such acts as Joyce Manor, Julien Baker and Thunder Dreamer. It is reasonable to assume we will be hearing much more from the group in years to come. —Daniel Hill
p.m., $25-$30. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd.,
6161.
St. Louis, 314-726-6161.
LIL WAYNE AND MIGOS: Fri., Dec. 29, 7 p.m., $70-
HENHOUSE PROWLERS: Fri., Dec. 29, 9 p.m.,
$200. Chaifetz Arena, 1 S. Compton Ave., St.
$10-$13. The Bootleg, 4140 Manchester Ave., St.
Louis, 314-977-5000.
Louis, 314-775-0775.
LIZA ANNE: Sun., April 8, 8 p.m., $12. Delmar
I SET MY FRIENDS ON FIRE: W/ Kissing Candice,
Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-
Awaken I Am, Thu., March 1, 6 p.m., 6pm.
6161.
Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.
MATHIAS & THE PIRATES / 18AC & THEONLY-
I’M WITH HER: Tue., March 6, 8 p.m., $32.50-
ENSEMBLE EP RELEASE PARTY: Sat., Dec. 9, 8
$42.50. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd.,
p.m., $10-$12. The Ready Room, 4195 Manches-
St. Louis, 314-533-9900.
ter Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.
J.I.D. & EARTHGANG: Sat., March 3, 8 p.m.,
MY POSSE IN EFFECT: A TRIBUTE TO THE BEASTIE
$20-$65. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis,
BOYS: W/ Looprat, DJ Mahf, Sun., Dec. 31, 9
314-535-0353.
p.m., $20-$25. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd.,
COUPLES ALWAYS FREE INTO THEATERS • CLEARANCE DVD’S $4
JACK HARLOW: Thu., Jan. 25, 8 p.m., $15. The
St. Louis, 314-726-6161.
Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.
SMILE EMPTY SOUL: Sun., Feb. 11, 7 p.m., $13-
WE NOW CARRY LINGERIE FOR WOMEN AND GARMENTS FOR MEN!
KATT WILLIAMS AND MIKE EPPS: Sun., Dec. 31,
$15. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis,
8 p.m., $62-$178. Scottrade Center, 1401 Clark
314-535-0353.
Ave., St. Louis, 314-241-1888.
STORY OF THE YEAR RECORD RELEASE: Sat., Jan.
KEVIN GRIFFIN: Sun., Jan. 21, 8 p.m., $27.50-$30.
20, 8 p.m., $18-$20. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar
Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar
Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.
Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.
TORTUGA CD RELEASE: W/ the Aught Naughts,
KEYS N KRATES: W/ Falcons, Jubilee, Sat., Feb.
Thu., Dec. 21, 8 p.m., free. Off Broadway, 3509
3, 8 p.m., $26-$28. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar
Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.
Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.
YONDER MOUNTAIN STRING BAND: Fri., Feb. 9, 8
KODAK BLACK: Sat., Dec. 9, 9 p.m., $45-$75. The
p.m., $30-$35. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd.,
Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-
St. Louis, 314-726-6161.
DAY BEFORE & BLACK FRIDAY $10 FOR THEATER & VIDEO ARACDE
DVD’S $4.95 + UP, ADULT VIDEO ARCADE & 2 THEATER MAGAZINES • NOVELTIES • SUPPLEMENTS OPEN DAILY 9AM TO MIDNIGHT 636-939-9070 • 2430 SOUTH HIGHWAY 94 (AT PAGE EXT & HWY 94) 42
Dream Ritual. | PHOTO VIA ARTIST BANDCAMP
RIVERFRONT TIMES
NOVEMBER 22-28, 2017
riverfronttimes.com
SAVAGE LOVE PUBLIC PLAYERS BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: I’m a twentysomething straight woman. About a month ago, I had a really vivid dream in which I was at a party and engaging with a guy I had just met. We were seriously flirting. Then my fiancé showed up — my real, flesh-and-blood, sleeping-next-to-me fiancé — whom we’ll call G. In the dream, I proceeded to shower G with attention and PDA; I was all over him in a way we typically aren’t in public. I was clearly doing it to get a reaction from the guy I’d just spent the last dream-hour seducing. Last night, I had a similar dream: Flirty baiting, followed by the use of G to reject and humiliate the other guy. I was really turned on by these dreams. In real life, whenever another woman has flirted with G, I get aroused. And when other men have flirted with me, I get similarly aroused for G. There is definitely a component in that arousal that wants to tease and mock these other men with what they can’t have, even though the teasing is just in my head. I would NEVER use another person like I do in these dreams/fantasies, because it’s cruel. But could this become a healthy role-playing outlet? From what little I know of degradation/humiliation kinks, it’s important that the person being degraded is experiencing pleasure and satisfaction. Is it healthy to make someone’s (again, an imaginary someone’s) unwilling pain a part of our pleasure? My Extra-Arousing Meanness We watch imaginary people being harmed — much more grievously
harmed — in movies and on television and read about imaginary people being harmed in novels. Think of poor Barb in Stranger Things or poor Theon Greyjoy in Game of Thrones or poor Christian in Fifty Shades of Grey. If it’s okay for the Duffer brothers and HBO and E.L. James to do horrible things to these imaginary people to entertain us, MEAN, it’s okay for you and your boyfriend (if he’s game) to do much less horrible things to an imaginary third person to entertain yourselves. But why limit this to fantasy? Why not fuck your fiancé’s brains out after flirting with and subsequently humiliating a living, breathing, willing third? First, MEAN, give some thought to what exactly turns you on about this and then discuss it with your fiancé. It turns you on to see your partner through another’s eyes for obvious reasons — when someone else wants to fuck him, you see him with fresh eyes and want to fuck him that much more. As for the power-play aspects of your fantasy, does your turn-on evaporate if your victim is a willing participant? And how do you feel about threesomes? Bringing someone else in — someone who gets off on the idea of being humiliated — counts as a threesome, even if all your third “gets” to do is be ditched in a bar. You could even work up to letting your willing third watch and/or listen while your fiancé gets to do what he will never get to do — fuck your amazing brains out — which would allow for the humiliation games to continue all night long. Once G is on board, MEAN, you can start with a little role-playing about this scenario. Then, once you’ve established that this is as exciting for G as it is for you, advertise for your
willing third. The internet is for porn, first and foremost, but it’s also pretty good at bringing like-minded kinksters together. As long as your third consents to the play and gets off on it, you aren’t poisoning the well or doing harm. And if you’re worried it won’t be as much fun if your victim is a willing participant, MEAN, remember there will be witnesses, i.e., other people in the bar who won’t know it was a setup, and in their eyes you will be cruelly humiliating this poor schmuck. Not into threesomes of any sort? Well, flirting is just flirting, and there’s no law that requires all flirtations to be strictly sincere. A little casual flirtation with someone else before your fiancé rolls into a bar is permissible — but you’ll have to let the other person know right away that you have a fiancé and that this flirtation isn’t going anywhere, and then you can’t go too crazy with the PDA once your fiancé arrives. Hey, Dan: My husband and I have been together for fifteen years, married for five. He is more sexually adventurous than I am, but I try to keep up. At his request, we have gone to a few sex clubs in our area to have “public sex.” He promised that it would be a one-time thing but insisted we keep going back. He told me that if I ever got uncomfortable, we didn’t have to go back. I told him I did not want to go to any more sex clubs, and he found a loophole: sex booths at porn shops. If I have to do sex in public, booths are best because they aren’t very popular and there is some privacy. This wasn’t good enough for him. He wants an audience, he wants to see me with others, etc. I hate this. I hate how it makes me feel. I hate it. He says all the right things — he respects me, he knows
43
a relationship is a two-way street, etc. — but he is constantly furious with me about this, he tells me I don’t contribute anything to our relationship — all because I don’t want to have sex in public with him or with strangers. Right now, he’s storming around the house in a rage about this and I am tired of it. I react to his “public requests” with nausea and panic because I know he will be enraged for a week if we don’t go. I have even suggested that he go outside the marriage, but he wants me to be a part of it. Everything else in our relationship is great. We have a house, a child and pets. I’m not sure if all that needs to be broken over this. Denial Enrages Selfish Partner And I’m Reeling I’m running out of column here, DESPAIR, so I’m going to have to be blunt: Your husband is a selfish, emotionally abusive, manipulative asshole, and you should leave him. You gave his kink a try, and not only was it not for you, it makes you fucking miserable. You gave him the OK to find other sex partners to explore this with, and that wasn’t good enough for him. He has responded not with the gratitude you deserve — for the effort you made, for the permission you gave him — but with emotionally abusive behavior. And what’s his goal? To make your life a living hell until you consent under duress? That wouldn’t be genuine consent, DESPAIR, and therefore not consent at all. Being served with divorce papers may open his eyes. If so, perhaps your marriage can be saved. If not, go through with the divorce. mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage on Twitter
STREAK’S CORNER • by Bob Stretch
riverfronttimes.com
NOVEMBER 22-28, 2017
RIVERFRONT TIMES
43
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RIVERFRONT TIMES
St. Peters
1034 venture dr.
South City
Mid County
(70 & cave springs, s. outer rd.) 636-928-2144
(at grand)
314-664-4040
(3 miles east of westport plaza)
open until midnight fri & sat
open until midnight fri & sat
open until midnight thurs - sat
NOVEMBER 22-28, 2017
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riverfronttimes.com
10210 page ave. 314-423-8422
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100 Employment 110 Computer/Technical
Sr. Business Solutions Specialist
(Nestlé Regional Globe Office North America, Inc.– St. Louis, MO) Coordinate bus ops process imprvmnt initiatives & the deploymnt of tech SAP process or solutn functnlities. Anlyze & prfrm Tech due diligence to achieve operatnl imprvmnts. Must be available to trvl domestically approx 25% of work’g time. F/T. Resumes: J. Buenrostro Nestlé USA, Inc. 800 N Brand Blvd Glendale, CA 91203 JobID: SBS-VKA.
Manger Business Systems
(Nestlé Regional Globe Office North America, Inc.– St. Louis, MO) Direct daily ops of IT srvce delivery & IT projs for Demand Plan’g priorities, dvlp’g stndrds & sett’g deadlines. Estblsh processes & metrics around aftware dvlpmnt & ovrsee sftwre dvlpment for projs invlv’g intergrt’g SAS app w/ various 3rd party sys incl. SAP. Resumes: J. Buenrostro Nestlé USA, Inc. 800 N Brand Blvd Glendale, CA 91203 JobID: SBS-VKA.
120 Drivers/Delivery/Courier
DRIVERS NEEDED H H H ASAP H H H
Requires Class E, B or A License. S Endorsement Helpful. Must be 25 yrs or older. Will Train.
ABC/Checker Cab Co CALL NOW 314-725-9550 167 Restaurants/Hotels/Clubs Experience Line & Production Cooks for Hotels & Restaurants $9.50-12/hr. Email StLouis@LGCAssociates.com For interview times or Call 314-863-7400
800 Health & Wellness 805 Registered Massage
aaa
MASSAGE!
Specializing in Deep Tissue Sports Massage.
Contact Jenny for a
FULL BODY THERAPEUTIC MASSAGE
St. Charles, MO Location.
Call for appt 314-683-0894
Health Therapy Massage Relax, Rejuvenate & Refresh!
Flexible Appointments
Monday Thru Sunday (Walk-ins welcome) 320 Brooke’s Drive, 63042 Call Cheryl. 314-895-1616 or 314-258-2860 LET#200101083 Now Hiring...Therapists
HHHHH
Simply Marvelous
Call Cynthia today for your massage. M-F 7-5, Sat. 9-1. 314-265-9625 - Eureka Area #2001007078
HHHHHHH
PERSONALIZE YOUR MASSAGE ***** Full Body Massage Soft Sensual Touch Tantric Body Grooming & Exfoliation Incalls & Outcalls
*****
GENTLEMAN'S GROOMING 314-688-2164
DOUBLE
your pleasure
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See TWO girls or just ONE. - Soft Touch - Swedish - Deep Tissue Call Breonna 314-500-4755
or Book Online amandaminidayspa.com
A New Intuitive Massage Call Natalie 314.799.2314
www.artformassage.info CMT/LMT 2003026388 Escape the Stresses of Life with a relaxing
ORIENTAL MASSAGE & REFLEXOLOGY
You’ll Come Away Feeling Refreshed & Rejuvenated.
Call 314-972-9998
530 Misc. Services
Relax, Rejuvenate & Refresh!
Flexible Appointments
WANTS TO PURCHASE MINERALS and other oil & gas interests.
Monday Thru Sunday (Walk-ins welcome) 320 Brooke’s Drive, 63042 Call Cheryl. 314-895-1616 or 314-258-2860 LET#200101083 Now Hiring...Therapists
uuu Send details to P.O. Box 13557 Denver, CO 80201
HHHHH
WANTS TO PURCHASE MINERALS
Simply Marvelous
Call Cynthia today for your massage. M-F 7-5, Sat. 9-1. 314-265-9625 - Eureka Area #2001007078
HHHHHHH
and other oil & gas interests.
uuu Send details to P.O. Box 13557 Denver, CO 80201
Y Y Y Y ULTIMATE MASSAGE BY SUMMER!!!!
Relaxing 1 Hour Full Body Massage. Light Touch, Swedish, Deep Tissue. Daily 10am-5pm South County.
314-620-6386
Y Y Y Y ULTIMATE MASSAGE BY SUMMER!!!!
Relaxing 1 Hour Full Body Massage. Light Touch, Swedish, Deep Tissue. Daily 10am-5pm South County.
314-620-6386 Ls # 2006003746
Y Y Y Y
OVERLAND/ST. ANN $585-$625 314-995-1912
300 Rentals 317 Apartments for Rent
NORTH-CITY $295 / $375 314-921-9191 4008 Garfield-1BR apt. $295 deposit. 5073 Ruskin-1BR $375 deposit
~Credit Check Required~ NORTH-COUNTY $510 314-521-0388 Newly renovated 1BR apts for SENIOR LIVING 55+. Safe and affordable. H H H FIRST MONTH FREE! H H H OVERLAND/ST. ANN $585-$625 314-995-1912 SPECIAL-1 MONTH FREE! Great location near Hwys 170, 64, 70 & 270. 10 minutes to Clayton. Clean, Safe, Quiet. RICHMOND-HEIGHTS-MAPLEWOOD $555-$645 314-995-1912 SPECIAL-1 MONTH FREE! Near Metrolink, Hwys 40 & 44 & Clayton. Clean, Safe, Quiet! SOUTH CITY $400-$850 314-771-4222 1-3 BR Apts. Many different units. NO CREDIT, NO PROBLEM! www.stlrr.com
Ls # 2006003746
Y Y Y Y
Musicians Available Do you need... A Musician? A Band? String Quartet?
CALL THE
Musicians Association of St. Louis
(314)781-6612
Mon-Fri, 10:00-4:30
MUSICIANS Do you have a band?
314-467-0766 11754 Lusher Road
Health 500 Therapy Services Massage
We have bookings Call for information (314)781-6612 Mon-Fri, 10:00-4:30 FIRST MONTH FREE!
AFFORDABLE SENIOR LIVING (55+)
Newly Renovated 1 Bedroom Apartments $510 Appliances • Energy Efficient Laundry On-Site
HERITAGE SENIOR APARTMENTS NORTH COUNTY AREA 314-521-0388
WESTPORT/LINDBERGH/PAGE $595-$635 314-995-1912 SPECIAL-1 MONTH FREE! Nice Area near Hwys 64, 270, 170, 70 & Clayton. Patio, laundry, great landlord! Clean, Safe, Quiet. SOUTH CITY (Unfurnished) $675/mo 314-221-9568 2 br duplex, private basement, hdwds, w&d hookups. $25 app fee, call to prequalify NORTH-CITY $295 / $375 314-921-9191 4008 Garfield-1BR apt. $295 deposit. 5073 Ruskin-1BR $375 deposit
~Credit Check Required~ NORTH-COUNTY $510 314-521-0388 Newly renovated 1BR apts for SENIOR LIVING 55+. Safe and affordable. H H H FIRST MONTH FREE! H H H
SPECIAL-1 MONTH FREE! Great location near Hwys 170, 64, 70 & 270. 10 minutes to Clayton. Clean, Safe, Quiet. RICHMOND-HEIGHTS-MAPLEWOOD $555-$645 314-995-1912 SPECIAL-1 MONTH FREE! Near Metrolink, Hwys 40 & 44 & Clayton. Clean, Safe, Quiet! SOUTH CITY $400-$850 314-771-4222 1-3 BR Apts. Many different units. NO CREDIT, NO PROBLEM! www.stlrr.com WESTPORT/LINDBERGH/PAGE $595-$635 314-995-1912 SPECIAL-1 MONTH FREE! Nice Area near Hwys 64, 270, 170, 70 & Clayton. Patio, laundry, great landlord! Clean, Safe, Quiet. SOUTH CITY (Unfurnished) $675/mo 314-221-9568 2 br duplex, private basement, hdwds, w&d hookups. $25 app fee, call to prequalify NORTH-CITY $295 / $375 314-921-9191 4008 Garfield-1BR apt. $295 deposit. 5073 Ruskin-1BR $375 deposit
~Credit Check Required~ NORTH-COUNTY $510 314-521-0388 Newly renovated 1BR apts for SENIOR LIVING 55+. Safe and affordable. H H H FIRST MONTH FREE! H H H
FILE BANKRUPTCY NOW! CALL ANGELA JANSEN 314-645-5900 BANKRUPTCYSHOPSTL.COM THE CHOICE OF A L AWYER IS AN IMPORTANT DECISION AND SHOULD NOT BE BASED SOLELY ON ADVERTISING.
REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS (RFP) The City of St. Louis, Department of Health (DOH), Bureau of Communicable Disease Grants Administration is requesting proposals from local organizations, community agencies, universities, local governmental entities and other interested parties eligible to receive federal funds to provide the following service(s): (Part A) Housing Services, Benefits Administrator, Fiscal Intermediary (IL), Fiscal Monitoring Services, Food Bank and Home Delivered Meals, Health Education and Risk Reduction Services, Medical Case Management, Mental Health Services, Psychosocial Support, Other Professional Services, Referral for Health Care and Support Services (MAI) Early Intervention Services, Housing Services, Medical Nutrition Therapy, (HOPWA) Housing Services Interested parties are encouraged to respond to the solicitation for proposal beginning Friday, November 17, 2017. An RFP packet may be obtained from Phillip Johnson, Secretary I, DOH, 1520 Market Avenue, Room 4027, by either calling 314-657-1556 or via email JohnsonP@stlouis-mo.gov. Interested parties may also download the RFP from the City of St. Louis website at http://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/procurement.cfm. If interested parties have downloaded the proposal from the website, they must register with Mr. Johnson; in order to be notified of any changes or amendments to the RFPs. The deadline for submitting proposals is 4:00 p.m. Tuesday, January 2, 2018.
riverfronttimes.com
NOVEMBER 22-28, 2017
RIVERFRONT TIMES
45
EVANGELINE’S
H VOTED BEST STEAKHOUSE! ••••••••
••••••••
Bistro & Music House
The Changing Pointe at
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VOTED BEST CHINESE! ~2017 RFT Best of St. Louis Poll~
Call Angela Jansen ~314-645-5900~ Bankruptcyshopstl.com
WONTON KING
Dine-In~Carry-out 8116 Olive Blvd~University City 314-567-9997~wontonkingstl.com
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The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely on advertising.
b
FIRST MONTH FREE!
DATING MADE EASY... LOCAL SINGLES! Listen & Reply FREE! 314-739-7777 FREE PROMO CODE: 9512 Telemates
Hope for a bright future
LET’S SAVE SANTA THE TRIP & BE NAUGHTY!
Newly renovated 1 bedroom apartments in North County. Heritage Senior Apartments 314-521-0388
*********** Shop Patricia’s ***********
GET READY FOR THE HOLIDAYS!
South City 3552 Gravois at Grand Mid County 10210 Page Ave (3 mi East of Westport) St. Peters 1034 Venture Dr (70 & Cave Springs-Outer Rd)
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EarthCircleRecycling.com
Earth Circle’s mission is to creatively assist businesses and residents with their recycling efforts while providing the friendliest and most reliable service in the area. llll
Call Today! 314-664-1450
AFFORDABLE SENIOR LIVING 55+
AUDIO EXPRESS!
12” Sub & Bass Amplifier!
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For more info call
Lowest Installed Price In Town — Every Time!
File Bankruptcy Now!
314-230-4S18
SL Riverfront Times —
VOTED FAVORITE INDIAN RESTAURANT! -2017 RFT Best of St. Louis Readers Poll
9720 Page Ave ~ (314) 423-7300 havelistl.com
Call Angela Jansen ~314-645-5900~ Bankruptcyshopstl.com The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely on advertising.
The Fun Starts When We Open On Nov. 24 — And Ends When Promotional Product Is Gone!
99 $ 29 Reg. $3
VE 230 YOU SA
CD Deck And Pair Of Speakers!
Ultimate Massage by
Summer!
SWEDISH & DEEP TISSUE FULL BODY MASSAGE mon - fri 10 am - 5 pm
•
some weekends
South County/Lemay Area
314-620-6386 # 2006003746
SWEDISH MASSAGE FOR MEN! DRAPING OPTIONAL CALL OR TEXT “RFT $70/HR SPECIAL” 314-467-0766 11754 LUSHER RD. S T. L O U I S , M O 6 3 1 3 8
46
RIVERFRONT TIMES
99 $ 49 Reg. 1 $
6.5” 2-way speakers fit many vehicles.
VE 50 YOU SA SOUTH: 5616 S. Lindbergh • (314) 842-1242 WEST: 14633 Manchester • (636) 527-26811 HAZELWOOD: 233 Village Square Center • (314) 731-1212 Mon. - Sat. 9 AM - 7 PM; Sunday Noon - 5 PM
Unless otherwise limited, prices are good through Tuesday following publication date. Installed price offers are for product purchased from Audio Express installed in factory-ready locations. Custom work at added cost. Kits, antennas and cables additional. Added charges for shop supplies and environmental disposal where mandated. Illustrations similar. Video pictures may be simulated. Not responsible for typographic errors. Savings off MSRP or our original sales price, may include install savings. Intermediate markdowns may have been taken. Details, conditions and restrictions of manufacturer promotional offers at respective websites. Price match applies to new, non-promotional items from authorized sellers; excludes “shopping cart” or other hidden specials. © 2017, Audio Express.
NOVEMBER 22-28, 2017
riverfronttimes.com
AUDIO EXPRESS!
Lowest Installed Price In Town — Every Time!
WE’RE HIRING! CALL 314-754-6471
RFT DELIVERY d ow n tow n st. lou i s
S I P P I N’ S M OOTH RYE F R OM THE J A C K D A N I E L D I STI L L E RY
D R I N K R E S PO N S I B LY • R E S P O N S I B I L I T Y. O RG JACK DANIEL’S is a registered trademark. ©2017 Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Rye Whiskey, 45% Alcohol by Volume (90 Proof). Distilled and Bottled by JACK DANIEL DISTILLERY, Lynchburg, Tennessee. Code# 404-1012
LYNCHBURG, TENNESSEE 2
RIVERFRONT TIMES
NOVEMBER 22-28, 2017
riverfronttimes.com
2012 Winner 2012 Winner
BestLAWYER Lawyer BEST AGGRESSIVE Criminal Defense on YOUR Behalf
AGGRESSIVE CRIMINAL DEFENSE YOUR BEHALF HIRE AN EXPERIENCED DWION ATTORNEY
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Honors and Awards:
HONORS & AWARDS
• Charles Shaw Trial Advocacy Award • Missouri SuperAward Lawyers •Charles Shawand TrialKansas Advocacy •Missouri and Super Lawyers • St.Kansas Louis Magazine, •St.Lawyers Louis Magazine, Best in St. Louis DWI Best Lawyers inTimes St. Louis • Riverfront BestDWI Lawyer •Riverfront Times Best Lawyer • Best Lawyers in United States •Best Lawyers in United States • BestLawyer Lawyertotocall callfrom fromaaDWI DWIcheckcheckpoint, •Best inin Missouri for point,asasvoted votedbybylawyers lawyers Missouri MissouriLawyers LawyersWeekly Weekly for Missouri
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They Say Can’t Be Won
TRAVIS NOBLE, P.C.
Don’t trust just anyone with your DWI defense. Contact the law firm of Travis Noble, P.C., by e-mail or call us at 314-450-7849 or 866-794-0947 to schedule your free consultation with a St. Louis DWI lawyer to discover that you have more options than you imagined. We 8000 MARYLAND AVENUE, SUITEDiscover 350 accept all major credit cards, including Visa, MasterCard, and American Express.
ST. LOUIS, MO 63105 PHONE: 314-721-6040 Travis Noble, P.C. TOLL FREE:Suite 866-794-0947 8000 Maryland Avenue, 350 | St. Louis MO 63105 Phone: 314-721-6040 | Toll Free: 866-794-0947 The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements. This disclosure is required by rule of the Supreme Court of Missouri.
The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements. This disclosure is required by rule of the Supreme Court of Missoui.
48
RIVERFRONT TIMES
NOVEMBER 22-28, 2017
riverfronttimes.com