1 APRIL 25–MAY 1, 2018 I VOLUME 42 I NUMBER 17
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Take Me to
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THE LEDE
PHOTO BY THEO WELLING
“Don’t keep yourself locked up in your apartment. Especially when weather gets nice like this, get out and find something. It doesn’t matter what you like to do; we’ve got it here. We even have a horse track within an hour of St. Louis. So you can’t say, ‘Oh there’s nothing to do here.’ Because you’re just fooling yourself. We have an outdoor concert theater, an indoor concert theater, a baseball team. Don’t stay in your apartment. Netflix is only good for so long.” —Mike Hockaday, also known as king angMartH, pHotograpHed wHile Medieval larping in Forest park on april 21 riverfronttimes.com
APRIL 25 - MAY 1 2018
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TABLE OF CONTENTS FEATURE
16.
Take Me to the River
After centuries of neglect, St. Louis is slowly coming around to the Mississippi
Written by
DOYLE MURPHY
Cover photo courtesy of
EVERETT HISTORICAL
NEWS
ARTS
DINING
CULTURE
5
26
33
42
The Lede
Calendar
Cafe
Your friend or neighbor, captured on camera
Seven days worth of great stuff to see and do
Cheryl Baehr finds that Poke Doke is, simply, ‘pokeriffic’
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31
36
Housing
Larry Rice urges St. Louis’ homeless residents to push for ‘potty parity’
Film
BJ Colangelo is disappointed by the false body positivity of I Feel Pretty
Side Dish
Glenister Wells went from music to Pastaria to a big new role at Juniper
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First Look
City Hall
Homespun
St. Louis comedian Jeremy Essig’s new band, Let’s Not, is no laughing matter
43
Preview
Alvays is coming to the Ready Room, and St. Louis, for the first time
44
Comics
A big increase to the police unit budget has nothing to do with protest fallout, the city counselor says
Good Fortune is finally open in Botanical Heights, while Anthony’s Italian Eats brings just that to Clayton
Apotheosis offers something new with its comic-book selections: a bar
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38
45
Food News
Missourah
Kakao rolls out a new product to celebrate ten years: mole
A bar brawl in rural Park Hills ensnares a city councilman
Out Every Night
The best concerts in St. Louis every night of the week
50
This Just In
This week’s new concert announcements
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Publisher Chris Keating Editor in Chief Sarah Fenske E D I T O R I A L Arts & Culture Editor Paul Friswold Music Editor Daniel Hill Digital Editor Jaime Lees Staff Writers Doyle Murphy, Danny Wicentowski Restaurant Critic Cheryl Baehr Film Critic Robert Hunt Editorial Interns Hayley Abshear, Megan Anthony Contributing Writers Mike Appelstein, Allison Babka, Sara Graham, Roy Kasten, Jaime Lees, Joseph Hess, Kevin Korinek, Bob McMahon, Nicholas Phillips, Tef Poe, Christian Schaeffer, Lauren Milford, Thomas Crone, MaryAnn Johanson, Jenn DeRose, Mike Fitzgerald Proofreader Evie Hemphill
A R T Art Director Kelly Glueck Contributing Photographers Mabel Suen, Monica Mileur, Micah Usher, Theo Welling, Corey Woodruff, Tim Lane, Nick Schnelle P R O D U C T I O N Production Manager Evan Sult
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Tuesdays, MAY
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NEWS
9
Homeless Push for ‘Potty Parity’ Written by
MEGAN ANTHONY
G
oing forward, if St. Louis’ homeless residents are denied access to bathrooms in restaurants or other businesses, they just might raise
hell. That’s the message from the Rev. Larry Rice, who says he’s launching a campaign to encourage “potty parity” in the city. “You’re constantly pushed — push back,” Rice instructed homeless people at a gathering Friday morning. Rice, whose New Live Evangelistic Center in Downtown West was shut down by the city last year, hands out bus passes, clothes and food under Mayor Lyda Krewson’s window at City Hall each week. But Friday, he made it clear he’d be using recent national controversies over bathrooms at Starbucks locations to advance an agenda. His plan is simple. Armed with a hand-held camera, a pair of homeless people are to enter a restaurant and while one is filming, the other is to ask to use the restroom and not to take no for an answer. “We’re going to embarrass them until they help,” Rice says in reference to area food franchises such as Saint Louis Bread Company, Starbucks and McDonald’s. Rice says he will then post the video to social media in hopes to garner a reaction like the one the followed a black man in Torrance, California, who was denied the access code to a Starbucks bathroom even as a white man was not. As local porta-potties are now being locked at night and some restaurants are restricting bathroom access to customers only, Rice wants to draw attention to the lack of accessible bathrooms for homeless people while the firestorm continues on social media. “I’ve been talking about this issue for years and now that it’s in Continued on pg 12 the national
Rev. Larry Rice is calling for the city’s homeless to use social media, and public shaming, to gain access to commercial bathrooms. | NICK SCHNELLE
Protests Not Fueling Payouts, City Says
E
ven as St. Louis is making tough cuts to address a $10.5 million budget shortfall, one city unit is asking for a $2 million increase — the police unit of the city counselor’s office. The unit’s budget covers lawsuit payouts. But, cautions City Counselor Julian Bush, you shouldn’t jump to conclusions. The hefty increase being sought in its preliminary budget has nothing to do with the protests that rocked the city in 2017. “This is about past history, not current history,” he says. The city has been hit with a number of lawsuits over the treatment of protesters last fall, including one
from the ACLU, one from reporter Mike Faulk of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who was caught up in the department’s infamous kettle, and another resulting from that same kettle from a pair of Kansas City filmmakers who say they were sprayed with chemicals, beaten and arrested. Even so, Bush says, at this point, he is not anticipating the kind of huge payouts that could strain the budget. “People have brought claims, but these people were only kept in custody a day,” he points out. “We are not anticipating large payouts.” So what is driving the line item’s 111 percent budget increase (from $1.8 million to $3.8 million)? Bush suggests it has to do with past cases. One likely suspect: the $14 million settlement granted to the family of George Allen, who was wrongfully riverfronttimes.com
convicted decades ago for the 1982 rape and murder of a St. Louis court reporter. St. Louis Public Radio reported last month that the first $5 million installment was due in January. The city, whose officers allegedly beat a confession out of Allen, is sharing the burden with the state of Missouri. Incidentally, even as the sins of the department’s fathers are costing city taxpayers in fiscal year 2019, the police department is one of a select few that will see an increase to its own budget. Thanks to the sales tax increase that voters approved last fall, budget documents posted online show public safety’s budget increasing to $364 million — a seven percent increase from its budget in 2018. And that, of course, does not count payouts from lawsuits related to police conduct. —Sarah Fenske
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Bar Brawl Has Rural MO Talking Written by
DANNY WICENTOWSKI
I
t’s been more than three weeks since Park Hills Councilman Duane McAllister was arrested in the early-morning hours for allegedly assaulting a woman at Bottoms Up bar, a low-key spot in his small Missouri town. Three days later, he lost his council seat by just seventeen votes. The alleged victim tells Riverfront Times that she expects McAllister to be charged soon. But she’s still waiting for the Missouri Highway Patrol to complete its investigation. In the mean time, the rumor mill has swirled — and the fight has become a source of social and political intrigue in the St. Francois County town of 8,655. The incident, which was initially reported in the area’s local paper as a bar fight, was captured on multiple surveillance cameras. According to video reviewed by RFT, the altercation appeared to have been sparked by bruised egos and an unlucky pool shot. But in addition to the councilman, the alleged victim also accuses his wife, Tracy, of joining the attack and yanking out a hunk of her hair. Tracy McAllister works for the St. Francois County prosecuting attorney, Jerrod Mahurin. “You obviously don’t know who I am,” the woman claims that
When Bottoms Up had its first bar brawl last month, things quickly got political. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI
Duane McAllister’s mugshot. | ST. FRANCOIS COUNTY JAIL Tracy McAllister told her that night. “Don’t be a cop-caller.” In an interview last week, Mahurin said he could not comment on the investigation. If the highway patrol ultimately recommends charges, he said that
STREAK’S CORNER • by Bob Stretch
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he plans to recuse himself and appoint a special prosecutor. (Mahurin also confirms that Tracy McAllister remains employed in his office.) The conflicting accusations trouble Steve Coulter. Less than two years ago, he and his wife opened Bottoms Up on the corner of Houser Street, sandwiched between a residential block and a self-storage business. The March 31 incident, Coulter notes, was the bar’s first recorded “fight.” Then again, the bar owner claims, “It wasn’t much of a fight.” On a recent afternoon, Coulter scrolls through video surveillance on a small TV hanging behind the bar, right next to a larger one showing reruns of ‘90s-era Roseanne. Eventually, Coulter pulls up a view showing the bar’s single billiards table, located in a back room behind the dance floor. The time-stamp on the video reads 12:50 a.m., March 31.
On camera, Duane McAllister appears to be watching his teammate take what could be a game-winning shot. The target is the 8-ball near the corner pocket. Instead, the cue ball bonks off the 8, ricochets the other way, and slowly spins toward the center of the table. The white ball drops in a center pocket, a “scratch.” It’s an error that, by rule, ends the game in favor of the other team. The winning team walks toward the dance floor, out of camera range, and McAllister appears to follow. While the footage has no audio, McAllister seems to begin making taunts, and that gets the attention of a man in a red sweatshirt. Suddenly, the two men are shoving and being held back by the other players. They disperse. Three minutes later, McAllister re-enters the frame, and returns to taunting the man in the red sweatshirt. Again, the other patrons separate them. At 12:58 a.m., McAllister is back in view, now with a woman clasping his hand and attempting to drag him away. It’s at this point that the situation becomes something more than a war of words and mild shoving. McAllister disappears, and a woman who appears to be Tracy McAllister is hauled backwards away from the scrum; a stoutly built man in a black t-shirt enters the frame with multiple people hanging off his shoulders — and he appears to have his hands wrapped around the head of another bar patron. The man in the black t-shirt seems to throw a wobbly punch but misses his target, and several people carry him backwards. He topples heavily to the floor, knocking against an electronic dart machine on the way down.
The man in the black t-shirt is the husband of the woman who now accuses Duane McAllister of assault. On the tape, the woman can been seen briefly rushing into room and crouching down to check to her husband — but she’s quickly roped into the chaos. It’s here, she alleges, that Tracy McAllister grabbed her hair and scratched her husband’s face. The camera does show the woman engaged with a blurry figure who appears to be councilman’s wife. What’s not shown with any certainty, however, is whether Duane McAllister carried out an assault on the woman in question. It’s certainly not clear in the footage from the first camera, and a second camera shows only indistinct altercations. In an interview with RFT, the woman (who asked that her name not be printed) is adamant that the councilman “punched me in the right part of my skull” and later struck her again in the eye. The woman provided a photo of summary dated March 31 from the Parkland Health Center in Bonne Terre. According to the summary, she was evaluated that night and diagnosed with a closed head injury and a cervical strain. She also suffered contusions to her left wrist and rib on her right side. Photos of her husband’s injuries show deep red scratch marks on his face and neck. A camera facing the parking lot does show the melee’s aftermath. The woman raced outside after calling 911, she says. There, she was confronted by a different female bar patron, who charged into her. The two can be seen grappling and falling to the ground, and they are soon separated by bystanders. Moments later, a patrol car from the Park Hills Police Department shows up. No arrests were made on the scene. In its first report on the bar fight, the Daily Journal noted that Park Hills cops who responded to the brawl contacted the Missouri Highway Patrol after discovering the incident involved a sitting councilman and an employee of the county prosecutor. Troopers arrested McAllister early that morning at his home, and he was released from the St. Francois County Jail on a $5,000 bond. News of the arrest broke that same day in the online Daily Journal. The story quoted Highway Patrol spokesman Dallas Thompson,
who indicated that the charge was third-degree assault, a felony that carries a maximum of four years in prison. Speaking to the RFT Thursday, Thompson says that investigators have yet to submit a formal report or recommendation for charges. “The only thing I do know is one of the troopers helping to investigate this has a couple more witnesses he’s trying to [interview],” Thompson said. “He’s hoping to have the report submitted to the prosecuting attorney by the end of this week.”
Reached by phone last week, Duane McAllister fumed at the allegations and local coverage of what went down at Bottoms Up on March 31. He denies hitting the woman. “I never swung, I never hit anybody,” McAllister says. He calls his arrest a “false charge,” and counters that the alleged victim and her husband were the true aggressors that night. He adds, “I lost an election because of this. It was a political hit on me.” And the now-former councilman says he’s ready to file defamation lawsuits against those who
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“ran my name through the mud.” “I’ve hired the best attorney in the county,” he says, though he does not name the lawyer. “I know I have a hell of a case. I’m going to make some money off this.” The alleged victim has a much different take. “I don’t understand why they targeted us, why they choose to do this to people,” she says. “The only thing I can come up with is, because of her job at the prosecutor’s office and him being a councilman, that they think they can get by n with it.”
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Jay Jay Williams, who is homeless, says he has been denied bathroom access. | MEGAN ANTHONY media; you can see it,” says Rice. For the last five years, Rice has been lobbying for porta potties to be placed around the city for homeless people to use. With little access to private restrooms, homeless people are often forced to find an alley or the backside of a dumpster to relieve themselves. If caught urinating in public, homeless people risk receiving a $100 fine and other penalties. If they are caught multiple times, they can be registered as a sex offender and risk jail time. Still, some homeless residents say they’d rather urinate on themselves than go through the ordeal of asking to use a restroom. One man, Alan, says he feels like he’s being looked down upon when he enters restaurants. The few places that allow him to use the restroom force him to leave his belongings in the front dining areas. Alan says to avoid such circumstances, he usually finds a dumpster to go to the bathroom behind. Jay Jay Williams is another homeless man who says he originally tried to use the restroom at the city’s shelter, Biddle House. When he arrived, he found that they were closed for cleaning so Williams decided to walk down the street to the McDonald’s on Tucker, where he was denied ac-
cess to the bathroom. Williams says he was approached by the security guard and asked to leave. Because he is currently on parole, Williams complied with the guard’s orders and eventually found a quiet alley that was out of the way. “It’s a last resort but if I got to go, I’m going to go,” Williams says. While many homeless people report that they have never been fined or arrested for public urination, those at Rice’s outreach Friday all cited some form of intimidation from law force. “They treat them like criminals. Dig through their things, abuse them,” Rice says. “Have a heart. Have a little compassion.” Rice calls to a woman who has just gotten a bag of food from the volunteers: “You live in your car don’t you?” Yes, she replies. “And you need somewhere to clean up?” She nods her head with an exasperated smile, yes. After quickly thanking Rice for help with gas money, the woman continues walking, maybe to her car or across the street to the park. Either way, she’ll keep moving until she feels the need to brush her teeth or use the restroom. If she’s lucky, she might be able to do those things in a bathroom. n
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Take Me To
the River
After centuries of neglect, St. Louis is slowly coming around to the Mississippi BY DOYLE MURPHY
O
n a cool, bright day in early April, one of the world’s great rivers is deserted. No one fishing. No boats in sight. Flattened cans of malt liquor and a couple of cars had dotted the parking lot of North Riverfront Park, the drivers slouched down low in their seats. But out here in the middle of the channel, man has all but disappeared. The dark, choppy water smacks against the side of the canoe. A steady wind whooshes overhead. In the distance, gleaming white pelicans bob alongside the Illinois shoreline. Is this the nightmare that has kept generations of St. Louisans clinging to high ground? Well over a century after Mark Twain described the Mississippi River as a “wonderful book” with a “new story to tell every day,” most of us barely think about it at all. The river remains a static monster in a forgotten corner of the city’s psyche. Drive over it if you must, but don’t get any closer than necessary. The Mississippi, St. Louis knows, will kill you if you let it. People do die in the waters every year — sucked under by a deceptively lazy-looking surface, fooled by shifting water levels that remake the banks without warning. And yet, paddling toward the sandy beach of a river island just twenty minutes north of the Arch, it feels peaceful. An unseen canal diverts barge traffic around the
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Chain of Rocks. The occasional log floats past. Paul Gruber steers this late-morning voyage from his seat at the rear of the bright blue canoe. The bearded 27-year-old moved to St. Louis from Florida for college, living here for years without ever really thinking about the river. After studying graphic design, he worked in sales and construction. It was not until his then-boss suggested a Mississippi canoe and camping trip as a reward for his staff that Gruber even realized it was possible to get on the river. “I didn’t really have any outdoor skills,” recalls Gruber, who as a kid didn’t even like summer camp. Still, he was interested in the idea. The trip was led by Mike “Big Muddy” Clark, the gruff philosopher king of a small band of river rats who dared dip their oars into the infamous waters. Clark was in the early stages of his guiding company, Big Muddy Adventures. The perceptions of the river were so negative back then he barely even considered marketing. “Your first line would have to be, ‘Try our service, you won’t die,’” Clark, 58, says. Instead, he focused on river evangelism. He was in search of converts — and more urgently, a cook — when he met Gruber on the overnight expedition about five years ago. Gruber had brought a pot of chili to help feed his Continued on pg 20 co-workers,
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Over a century after Mark Twain described the Mississippi as a “wonderful book” with a “new story to tell every day,” most of us barely think about it at all. An island in the middle of the Mississippi River is less than six miles north of the Arch and accessible only by boat. | DOYLE MURPHY
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The St. Louis riverfront, shown as it was in the 1850s, was once a bustling part of the city’s downtown. | COURTESY EVERETT HISTORICAL
TAKE ME TO THE RIVER Continued from pg 17 and Clark soon hired him to come along on future trips to handle the food. In the years since, the young paddler has spent thousands of hours traveling the river and camping along its banks. He has even done the end-to-end voyage, shoving off at the marshy headwaters in Minnesota and emerging 65 days later from the wide churn in Louisiana. Not everyone takes to the Mississippi so completely, but it is also true that a growing number of people in the St. Louis area are taking a second look at the much-maligned river and seeing new possibilities. After years of ceding the waterfront almost entirely to industry, there are renewed efforts on a variety of fronts to bring city dwellers and tourists back to the water. New investment. Multi-million dollar projects. For Clark, who has now taken thousands of people onto the river, just seeing St. Louis from the water provides an entirely different perspective. “When people see the city from the river,” he says, “they have this sense of pride.” 16
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t. Louis’ love-hate relationship with the Mississippi is almost as old as the city. By the early 1800s, the settlement founded by French fur traders had begun to morph into a smoky, noisy industrial hub. The strategic location just south of the great river’s confluence with the Missouri, paired with the rise of steamboats, made St. Louis a key inland port. Hundreds of buildings rose along the river’s banks as we have tried simultaneously to harness its power and separate ourselves from it with flood walls, locks and overbuilt lowlands. Over the years, the riverfront has supported shipbuilders, cotton merchants, lumber dealers, boilermakers and foundries for smelting iron ore hauled in from Missouri mines. Anheuser-Busch carved out a spot on the southern end where it could cool its beer in caves and ship product down the river. Business boomed, but the grime of the factories and warehouses made for unpleasant living conditions, says David Lobbig, curator of environmental life at the Missouri History Museum. Wealthier residents fled polluted urban life for the countryside. The fact that the riverfront was the first stop for
S
FIVE WAYS TO ENJOY
the Mississippi River 1. Canoe it. Big Muddy Adventures (www.2muddy.com) offers various guided trips up and down the river, from three-hour daytime tours to full moon floats with dinners prepared by top chefs, such as Josh Galliano of Companion Bakery, on an island in the middle of the water.
2. Bike it. arriving immigrants only hastened the flight to the west. “They moved further and further, and that tradition sort of continues today,” says Lobbig, who is working on an upcoming exhibit about the middle Mississippi for the museum. By the 1920s and 1930s, the riverfront had become a popular scapegoat for the city’s flagging fortunes. Depression-era politicians described it as an irredeemable “slum” while floating a plan to demolish a 37-block zone. In its place, they vowed to build a grand memorial of some sort and new highways they promised would bring new life. Historian and author Tracy Campbell argues the proposal probably had more to do with the interests of real estate firms, who were the largest property owners and stood to make a healthy profit by selling their buildings to the government through the eminent-domain process. “Although some areas showed obvious signs of economic ruin, others were not quite the wasteland of destitute and abandoned buildings ravaged by time and the Depression that the mayor portrayed,” he writes in The Gateway
Arch: A Biography. In fact, the targeted zone included 290 businesses with a workforce of roughly 5,000 and only a two percent vacancy rate, Campbell notes. There were also nearly 200 houses, the majority of them rentals, charging middle-class rates. Supporters of demolition leveraged the fact that a significant number of the people who lived there were black. They tried to persuade white voters that displacing residents and businesses would be best for the city as a whole. In the end, Campbell writes, the campaign succeeded through a combination of unsupported promises, fear and widespread voter fraud. The Arch was eventually built on the site, but it never quite delivered the promised economic punch. And it did not erase the idea drilled into voters that the riverfront was a frightening and undesirable place. Even today, with a $380 million overhaul of the Arch grounds scheduled for a full unveiling in July, elements of the old sentiment remains. The river is seen as dirty, dangerous and not a place for recreation. Alderwoman Christine Ingrassia says she learned as Continued on pg 22
Pedal along the Mississippi River Greenway (greatriversgreenway.org/greenway/mississippi-greenway-chouteauold-chain-of-rocks-bridge/) from Chouteau to the old Chain of Rocks Bridge. The 12.5-mile trail built by Great Rivers Greenway will take you along the river’s edge on both sides of the flood wall.
3. Stroll along it. Take the grass-covered land bridge across I-44 to the revamped home of the Gateway Arch (www.gatewayarch. com). Learn your history at the newly renovated museum, which opens this summer. Lounge on the wide lawn or go down to the water and book a riverboat cruise on the Becky Thatcher or Tom Sawyer.
4. Photograph it. Capture some birds from Bellerive Park (5570 South Broadway) or the adjacent Sister Marie Charles Park (199 Elwood Street). Eagles have been known to hang out in the trees here (especially around sunrise and sunset) and there’s almost always a bunch of gulls diving between the barges. Bellerive also hosts a summer concert series.
5. Fish it. Local anglers catch some massive catfish at North Riverfront Park (9400 Riverview Drive) and a few prehistoric-looking sturgeon. The diehards will fish this spot even when it’s flooded and they’re casting lines into the submerged parking lot. Further to the north, the Columbia Bottom Conservation Area (www.visitmo.com/things-to-do/ columbia-bottom-conservation-area) is a great option, too, and it has a boat launch. —Doyle Murphy riverfronttimes.com
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A grassy amphitheater now sits on the site of a former parking garage on the north edge of Gateway Arch National Park. | DOYLE MURPHY
TAKE ME TO THE RIVER Continued from pg 21 a kid in St. Louis never to trust the Mississippi. “We were taught to be scared of it,” she says. It was only later, as an adult interested in environmental and flooding issues, that she first went onto the river. She was instantly hooked. “I felt this sense of pure joy and excitement,” she says, “and also regret that I was almost 40 years old and had never been out on the river before and had never really thought about the river before.” unsok So’s fourth-floor office has one of the best views anywhere in the city. The east-facing windows of the prolific restaurateur’s building on Laclede’s Landing overlook the Mississippi from high above the water, the scene framed in stunning fashion by two historic bridges. He does not even have to turn his head to see the spans of the Eads Bridge to his right and the Martin Luther King Bridge to his left. St. Louis’ riverfront has always been a bit of mystery to So. When he travels to other cities, the hottest properties are along the water, regardless of whether that water is an ocean or creek. He never understood why the same was not true here. “It puzzles me,” he says. The Landing, with its cobblestone streets and handsome brick buildings, is one of the few riverfront neighborhoods with open views of the water. Yet it has struggled. Over the past several years, So has seen neighboring bars in the once-thriving entertainment district dry up and die. Many blamed construction on the new Gateway Arch National Park for further isolating the
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hard-to-reach neighborhood. But So survived and is now poised to take advantage of his perseverance. “The Landing itself needs to move with the times,” he says. “All the bars and nightclubs that went out need to be re-concepted. The Landing is not what it was ten to fifteen years ago.” For one thing, the renovation of the Arch grounds included demolition of an eyesore of a parking garage that previously blocked the flow of foot traffic between the monument and the historic neighborhood. Gently winding paths curving along the new green space now funnel directly under the Eads onto the Landing’s cobblestones. So’s building at 612 North Second Street is the first structure pedestrians see upon entering the neighborhood. “This was a dead-end zone,” he says. “Now it’s the front entry to the Landing.” He took advantage of the construction years to overhaul the 158-year-old former cutlery factory, focusing on a new clientele and much more river-centric concept. Instead of twenty-somethings arriving for nocturnal debauchery at bars and nightclubs, he sees a future full of families strolling over from the Arch grounds, weekend wedding parties and lunch-hungry employees from the surprising number of office workers in the historic neighborhood. He is replacing his first-floor Drunken Fish sushi restaurant with a new fast-casual Korean spot called Kimchi Guys, due to open within weeks. A coffee shop called Miss Java will offer Belgian waffles and provide the neighborhood with a rare breakfast option — a nearly unthinkable concept when 3 a.m. bars ruled the Landing. So’s $3 million renovation calls for additional offices for lease and three new event spaces, including a
Generations of St. Louisans have been taught to avoid the Mississippi River. | DOYLE MURPHY
A new land bridge reconnects downtown to the Gateway Arch National Park grounds. | DOYLE MURPHY 325-seat hall called VUE at the top of the five-story building. Like his office, the large event space has river views to the east, but the demolition of the parking garage has also opened a clear, southern sight line to the Arch and surrounding green space. Westward-facing windows look out on the city skyline. The newly opened space has already been booked for 40 events and weddings this year. So sees all this as a natural evolution for the Landing and the city’s riverfront as a whole. He thinks the combination of projects might finally bring St. Louis back to the Mississippi. “Why couldn’t we have a river market?” he says. “A thriving river market.”
he Arch itself remains a marvel. A shimmering behemoth, it catches the light so easily from all angles that it can completely change its complexion within minutes. The site it sits upon, however, was flawed from the start. Early planners had total and disastrously misguided faith in highways to jump start downtown. As a result, a wide interstate was routed along the western edge of the new monument’s grounds. The placement has allowed untold numbers of commuters to call out “there’s the Arch” as they cruise past, but it severed the site from downtown foot traffic as thoroughly as if it had been a moat. The ambitious tourist could still
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find his way from Busch Stadium or the Old Courthouse to the legs of the Arch (and maybe even down to the Mississippi), but the hassle seldom seemed worth it for most St. Louisans. When the opportunity arose to renovate the 53-year-old monument’s home turf, one of the primary objectives was to reconnect the park to downtown. Re-imagining the site has been a $380 million endeavor, with $221 million in private funding — the biggest public-private investment in a national park in history. On a recent tour, Gateway Arch Park Foundation Executive Director Eric Moraczewski leads the way over a new land bridge toward the mouth of the re-imagined museum. “You had all these roads you had to cross before you could even think of getting to the park,” says foundation spokesman Tom Nagel. The museum, scheduled to open in July, is state of the art. Interactive exhibits augmented by eleven-by-seventeen-foot video monitors will guide visitors through the rich history of how St. Louis shaped the country. Designers have worked to tell the story through a variety of perspectives — “The West was won” versus “The West was stolen,” for example. “It opens discussion,” Moraczewski says. “It opens the thought riverfronttimes.com
process of how we got here and where are we going.” Visitors will descend through the underground space before re-emerging beneath the legs of the Arch. From there, they have eleven new acres of park to explore, aided by more than five miles of bike and walking trails. A bowl-shaped natural amphitheater has replaced the demolished parking garage, and the eastern edge of Pine Street provides another pedestrian walkway back into downtown. From the eastern hillside, it is an easy walk down to the riverfront. In anticipation of the Mississippi’s fluctuating water levels, which can rise and fall more than 40 feet, the park renovation raised Leonor K. Sullivan Boulevard two-and-ahalf feet. The move is expected to prevent about 60 percent of the flood days when the river crests the road. Now, they just need the people. The park foundation has already begun a series of concerts and events to draw crowds as they unveil the project in phases. The main welcome-back party is set for July at Fair St. Louis, when thousands of people are expected fill the grounds. Moraczewski wants people to see it as more than a tourist attraction. “It’s still a beautiful park,” Moraczewski says. “We want it to be used like Forest Park or Tower Grove.” Continued on pg 24
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TAKE ME TO THE RIVER Continued from pg 23 ight and day, barges chug along the Mississippi. The metro region still has one of the busiest inland ports in the country, and miles of the riverfront are occupied by industry. “It truly is a working river down here,” says Jim Meyer, president of Italgrani USA. Headquartered along the water in deep south city’s Patch neighborhood, the grain-milling operation blends a variety of specialty flours to ship to pasta makers across the country. The nearly century-old elevator was once among the tallest structures in St. Louis, and steelworkers are busy on the south end, building an addition that will increase Italgrani’s storage capacity by 40 percent. In years past, long lines of trucks hauled grain from farmers to the site where it could be milled, transported on a conveyor over to the river and poured onto barges bound for the gulf. Today, Italgrani is more likely to ship its products on rail cars, but it keeps its conveyors in working order for the occasional barge loading. All along this strip of waterfront are commercial work yards, a nearly unbroken stretch until you reach Sister Marie Charles Park and Bellerive Park on the north end of Carondelet. Some of
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the businesses are like Italgrani and want or need access to the Mississippi, while others have taken advantage of affordable real estate in an industrial zone. Sarah Wood Martin, alderwoman of the Eleventh Ward, says fewer of her constituents make a living at the river than previous generations. A few of the big employers, including shipbuilders, have folded up, and automation has claimed other jobs. “It’s sad, because a lot of my constituents, their families were blue-collar and were able to make a living,” Martin says. “But they’re fourth generation, and it’s almost like it’s passed them by.” In the vacuum left behind, the stretch of south St. Louis along the river from Patch to Carondelet has begun to look for new ways to reinvent itself. The neighborhoods have attracted a growing arts scene, lured by affordable real estate and laid-back residents who, after living next to plants with 24-hour truck traffic, aren’t likely to get too upset if a newcomer colors outside the lines a bit. The result is a mostly harmonious, free-wheeling mixture of factories, bars, community gardens, antique shops and murals. “You have more leeway and more creativity because it’s a lot of industry,” Martin says. “I would like to see a nice entertainment district here.”
Paul Gruber, left, and Tanner Aljets of Big Muddy Adventures haul a canoe up a tenfoot embankment. | DOYLE MURPHY
Eddie ‘River King’ Price is a regular among anglers at North Riverfront Park. | DOYLE MURPHY
A series of full-wall murals commissioned by the Carondelet Community Betterment Federation are part of that effort to rebrand. Fred Hessel, the federation’s executive director, sees a lot of potential as real estate prices rise in trendier neighborhoods. “This is a place where you can still buy an affordable house — not like Tower Grove South or Shaw,” he says. Martin agrees, though she says it is a place sometimes overlooked by the rest of the city, despite its charms. “This is kind of this pocket,” Martin says of her ward. “They really don’t know it’s there.”
he Mississippi is not an easy river. It is not, for example, a place for a mindless, boozy float trip. Clark from Big Muddy Adventures cautions novices against paddling out without a guide and the right gear. What might look like a single flow is really a patchwork of currents, ricocheting downstream as they slide over and under one another with boat-flipping power. Low waters that suck away from the banks one week might surge the next and cover previously dry land in wide pools. This is true even as engineers have tried to restrain the Mississippi’s wilder tendencies. But usually, we do not get that close. The abundance of fenced-in fac-
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tories can make even getting to the water difficult. And while it is not the toxic sludge some might imagine, the idea of accidentally catching a mouthful of the Big Muddy is not exactly appetizing. “Access to the river is really difficult,” says Susan Trautman, CEO of Great Rivers Greenway. “I think that’s why you don’t see as many people on the trail.” Great Rivers has built about fourteen miles of trails along the St. Louis riverfront to the north, with plans for more connections and additional park areas in hopes of improving access. Part of the challenge is logistics, and part is perception, the not-completely unwarranted idea that isolated stretches along the river can be dangerous. As part of its campaign to attract more people to the trails, the public agency has hired private security to patrol it from Wednesday through Sunday so that people feel safe, Trautman says. It seems to have begun to work. In 2015, the agency set out a counter and recorded more than 38,000 people on the trail. Trautman says it is a rewarding ride. “I’ve seen wild turkeys and deer and all types of wildflowers,” she says. The route runs north from Chouteau all the way to Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, weaving along both sides of the flood wall. Toward the north end, 71-year-old Eddie Price has cut across the trail to the banks of the Mississippi and anchored three fishing poles in the ground. He once pulled a 76-pound catfish out of these waters, he says. riverfronttimes.com
“Man that sucker came good,” he says. “I had about twenty people come to the house for a fish fry.” On this day, the retired Florida sheriff’s deputy has only hooked a couple of sturgeon, which he threw back. Still, there’s something nice about sitting on the side of the mighty Mississippi on a sunny day. “I love watching the river going down, down, down,” Price says. “There is a fascination with it — I will say that,” Trautman says. “People love to look at it.” A few miles south, tucked away in an alcove of the flood wall, a 57-year-old man who gives his name only as Jeff has spent weeks doing just that. He lives in a tent next to a couple who six months before built the campsite floor out of scavenged cobblestones and driftwood. They have gone out for the day, but Jeff has stayed behind. In a few days, he plans to go to a rehab facility in Springfield, Illinois. He says he was kicked out of a St. Louis homeless shelter months before for arguing with the staff. He has a black eye, and a finger on his right hand is purple. “It’s peaceful down here, man,” he says. The water will inevitably rise up someday and overtake this spot, but it soothes the man for now. Barges glide past all day long as one of the most storied rivers in the world stretches out before him. “It’s peaceful just to sit down here. I’ve had people who come down here from the streets and just want to sit down here. Not get drunk. Just sit here.” n
APRIL 25 - MAY 1 2018
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CALENDAR
BY PAUL FRISWOLD
FRIDAY 04/27 Leslie Jones
Left Bank Books celebrates Independent Bookstore Day in a big way. | COURTESY OF LEFT BANK BOOKS
SATURDAY 04/28 Independent Bookstore Day
I
ndependent Bookstore Day started four years ago as a response to the success of Independent Record Day. Shop owners saw how limited-edition merchandise could draw record collectors in record numbers. They realized that with a little help from the publishing industry, they also had the opportunity to attract hardcore readers. At Left Bank Books the event has been a big success, according to events coordinator and bookseller Lauren Wiser. “The first year it was kind of an experiment. We didn’t know what to expect,” she recalls.”We put together some author events, and oh gosh, people came. We’ve had people waiting at 9:30 a.m. to get in,” she adds. “It depends on what the exclusive merchandise is that year. We’re busy ’til 5 or 6 p.m.” This year’s premiums range from a plush version of Maisy mouse wearing the Read With Me T-shirt to a Literary Map of the Universe, which features a mix of classic and obscure science-fiction novels. The freebie is Kevin Cannon’s Midwest Indie Bookstore Road-
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map, highlighting 150 bookstores from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to Missouri (there’s a pop-out illustration of St. Louis’ great options). But Independent Bookstore Day is more than merchandise: It’s a celebration of bibliophiles, both the customers and the people behind the registers. Left Bank always invites artists, authors and friends of the store to come out and join the fun. This year Dancakes will be on site from 10 a.m. to noon whipping up custom, literary-themed pancakes, and at 2 p.m. The Magnificoes! perform a dramatic reading of William Shakespeare’s The Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh. To add the spice of competition, Wiser and staffer Shane will hawk their favorite books during Staff Pick Supermarket Sweep, a game for which the rules are still being decided upon because they’ve never done it before — danger abounds. “It’s something new that we sort of invented this year,” Wiser explains. “We’ll have a set amount of time, and we’ll see who can sell the most books to a customer. We’ll ask them what they like to read, what their faves are, and then we try to sell them as many as we can. We’re still working out how we’ll choose a customer. We might pick a regular, or we might ask for volunteers.”
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Left Bank is not the only indie store in town, however. As Wiser is quick to point out, “We have an embarrassment of riches here in St. Louis.” The Novel Neighbor (7905 Big Bend Boulevard, Webster Groves) has literary cocktails, a band called the Wargs with a Game of Thrones and Harry Potter theme, and guest authors, as well as a selection of special merchandise. Maplewood’s The Book House (7352 Manchester Road) will also have giveaways, guest authors signing books and storytellers. All of this is a tribute to St. Louis’ group embrace of the neighborhood bookstore, which was rumored to be on its deathbed years ago. Wiser knew that was a lie when people predicted it in the 1990s, and it remains untrue today. “Everybody predicted the death of print and of the indie bookstore, but we knew that wasn’t going to happen,” she says with certainty. “We curate our selection very carefully; we don’t try to sell books that people don’t want. We don’t have a corporate structure, we have no algorithm and we take customer service very importantly. The big stores can’t do what we do.” Independent Bookstore Day is celebrated at Left Bank Books (399 North Euclid Avenue; www.left-bank. com) starting at 10 a.m. Saturday, April 28. The party runs all day, and admission is free.
Long before she became a breakout star on Saturday Night Live, Leslie Jones was a standup comedian honing her craft on stages across the country. She spent more than two decades learning how to command a stage, work a crowd and pace a set so that laughs explode out of the audience. Jones brings her high-energy set to town at 8 p.m. tonight at the Touhill Performing Arts Center on the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus (1 University Drive at Natural Bridge Road; www.touhill.org). The performance is part of the school’s annual Mirth Week celebration, and tickets are $35.
SLSO: Bruckner 4 For thirteen years music director David Robertson has led the St. Louis Symphony to new heights and tightened the orchestra’s bond with the region through special performances, community concerts and a sometimes-daring choice of works. His tenure comes to an end soon, but he won’t go quietly. At 10:30 a.m. Friday and 8 p.m. Saturday (April 27 and 28) at Powell Hall (718 North Grand Boulevard; www.slso.org), Robertson leads the city’s finest big band through Anton Bruckner’s always-inspiring Symphony No. 4, which is nicknamed the “Romantic.” It’s a moving piece that evokes a sense of the idyllic countryside, which gives way to a bracing barrage of horns that are meant to recall the sounds of a medieval hunt before climaxing with a densely woven wall of sound and color that sums up everything that came before. It’s difficult not to see it as both a loving look back at Robertson’s time in St. Louis and a grand farewell. In true Robertsonian fashion, the Bruckner No. 4 is paired with modern German composer Jörg Widmann’s imposing Violin Concerto, with Christian Tetzlaff doing the honors. Tickets are $25 to $68.
W E E K O F A P R I L 2 6 - M AY 2
Jennifer Connelly and David Bowie star in Labyrinth, once again in theaters. | ©THE JIM HENSON COMPANY
Labyrinth Leslie Jones plays the Touhill on Friday night. | JASON LEE/JWLPHOTOGRAPHY.COM
SATURDAY 04/28 Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson Andrew Jackson was an irascible old soldier who ran for president and won the popular election on the back of his plainspoken manner and tough talk. But because no candidate won an electoral majority, the power elite chose someone else to do the job. In his anger at being snubbed, Jackson and his supporters founded the Democratic Party and roared into the presidency four years later. He fought duels while in office, survived an assassination attempt and ran roughshod over anyone who stood in his way, forcing Native American people onto the Trail of Tears and upholding slavery. The Alex Timbers and Michael Friedman musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson romanticizes the man as a violent heartthrob who uses populism and force to reshape America, for better and for worse. The Saint Louis University Theatre performs the show at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday (April 26 to 29) at the Grandel Theatre (3610 Grandel Square; www.kranzbergartsfoundation.org). Tickets are $5 to $8.
SUNDAY 04/29 Little Foxes Regina Hubbard was born wealthy but unable to keep any of it, thanks to the inheritance practices of early-twentieth-century America. Her brothers Oscar and Benjamin split the family fortune and now live carefree, while Regina had to marry the terminally unhealthy Horace Giddens for his money. When her brothers hatch a scheme to acquire Horace’s money through a questionable marriage, Horace rebuffs them, but Regina has other plans. She is not the kind of woman to quietly acquiesce; blackmail and murder are her tools, and she uses them well. William Wyman’s film adaptation of Lillian Hellman’s drama Little Foxes stars Bette Davis as the vituperative Regina, and it screens at 6:30 p.m. tonight at Webster University’s Moore Auditorium (470 East Lockwood Av e n u e ; w w w. w e b s t e r . e d u / film-series). Opera Theatre Saint Louis presents Marc Blitzstein’s operatic adaptation Regina later this May, and thanks to OTSL, admission for the film is free.
Jim Henson’s fantasy film Labyrinth becomes more popular with each passing year. It’s a modern fairy tale that stars David Bowie as Jareth the Goblin King, who steals the infant stepbrother of Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) at her callous request. Quickly regretting her hasty wish, Sarah must try to penetrate Jareth’s labyrinth (not a euphemism) to rescue the baby. Jareth’s magic and dark charisma are powerful, but so is love, and with the help of some strange friends, she might get her stepbrother out of there. Fathom Events brings Labyrinth back to theaters for a limited time. You can see it locally at 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday and 7 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday (April 29 through May 2) at the Marcus Wehrenberg Ronnies 20 (5320 South Lindbergh Boulevard; www.fathomevents. com). Tickets are $12.50, and Labyrinth-inspired costumes are encouraged.
TUESDAY 05/01 Cathedral Concert: SLSO David Robertson may be leaving St. Louis, but he’s not out the door just yet. Robertson brings the St. Louis riverfronttimes.com
Symphony and Chorus to the Cathedral Basilica (4431 Lindell Boulevard; www.cathedralconcerts.org) at 8 p.m. tonight for the final Cathedral Concert of the season. The program pairs Olivier Messiaen’s loving tribute to his Catholic faith, L’Ascension, and Verdi’s Four Sacred Pieces, which is a showcase for the chorus. Tickets are $24 to $49.
WEDNESDAY 05/02 Django As is the case with a surprising number of Quentin Tarantino’s films, his Django Unchained bears many similarities to a violent spaghetti Western — in this case, Sergio Corbucci’s Django. In the 1966 film, Franco Nero stars as the titular anti-hero, a former Union soldier who wanders around dragging a coffin behind him. When he rescues the prostitute Maria from a gang of murderous thugs, he earns the enmity of Major Jackson and his gang of ex-Confederate soldiers. This sets in motion a chain reaction of revenge, double-cross and extreme carnage that comes with a ludicrously high body count. The Strange Brew crew screens the cult classic at 8 p.m. tonight at Schlafly Bottleworks (7260 Southwest Avenue, Maplewood; www. webster.edu/film-series). Tickets are $5. n
APRIL 25 - MAY 1 2018
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YOUR SANDWICH PUB IN THE GROVE
A
20 BEERS ON TAP PLUS A ROTATING SELECTION OF BOTTLES & CANS POOL TABLE • GIANT PAC MAN • BOARD GAMES • DJS THURS-SUN @ 10:30PM
OPEN FOR LUNCH AT 11AM • SAMMIES TILL 2:30AM 4 2 4 3 M A N C H E S T E R AV E N U E • 3 1 4 - 5 3 1 - 5 7 0 0
THIS WEEK THE GROVE SELECTED HAPPENINGS
IN
Day or night, there’s always something going on in The Grove: live bands, great food, beer tastings, shopping events, and so much more. Visit thegrovestl.com for a whole lot more of what makes this neighborhood great.
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WEDNESDAY, APR 25 CAPTAIN JANE, SILVI SILVI, THE SATURDAY BROTHERS, SISTER WIZZARD
$5, ALL AGES, 7PM AT THE READY ROOM
WORTHLESS KNOWLEDGE WEDNESDAYS 8PM AT THE GRAMOPHONE
THURSDAY, APR 26 THAT RAT PRESENTS
LITTLE COWBOY, CULT SEASON, POLYSHADES $3, 8PM AT THE READY ROOM
FRIDAY, APR 27 ALVVAYS, FRANKIE ROSE
$15-18, ALL AGES, 7PM AT THE READY ROOM
FILLMORE, JACOB DAVIS $12, 8PM AT ATOMIC COWBOY
P OVER CHIP
4
TH L THE
SATURDAY, APR 28 FILMORE AND JACOB DAVIS $12, 8PM AT ATOMIC COWBOY
MONDAY, APR 30 CHICANO BATMAN, AMASA HINES $16-18, ALL AGES, 7PM AT THE READY ROOM
B
$
M
S
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APRIL BURGER OF THE MONTH
GLAZED & CONFUSED!
PASTURE RAISED BEEF BURGER, BOURBON BACON JAM, OVER MEDIUM EGG, HICKORY SMOKED BACON, HOUSE POTATO CHIPS AND STRAWBERRY JAM WITH A GLAZED DOUGHNUT BUN COURTESY OF VINCENT VAN DOUGHNUT.
4130 MANCHESTER AVE. IN THE GROVE FIRECRACKERPIZZA.COM
4 3 1 7 M A N C H E S T E R AV E I N T H E G R O V E 3 1 4 . 5 5 3 . 9 2 5 2 | L AY L A S T L . C O M
WEDNESDAY, MAY 2 THAT RAT & RIVER CITY OPRY PRESENTS
THE FIGHTING SIDES & FRIENDS, LES GRUFF & THE BILLY GOATS, THE NATIVE SONS, BRUCETOFFEREON $7, 8PM AT THE READY ROOM
THURSDAY, MAY 3 LEE DEWYZE $18, 7PM AT THE MONOCLE
BIG TOBACCO, LITTLE COWBOY, DEAR GENRE
FRIDAY, MAY 4 PACES LIFT & BEN BOUNCE “TROPIKORO” VINYL RELEASE 10PM AT THE MONOCLE MJP & T WELCOME
DDG
$25-70, ALL AGES, 7PM AT THE READY ROOM
SATURDAY, MAY 5 MINUS THE BEAR, THE COATHANGERS
JUNE 16 & 17
SHOWCASE STL
IN THE GROVE
$25-27, ALL AGES, 8PM AT THE READY ROOM
$5, ALL AGES, 8PM AT THE READY ROOM
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FILM
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[REVIEW]
Pretty Woman Amy Schumer is no dog, and that’s just one reason I Feel Pretty is a trainwreck Written by
BJ COLANGELO I Feel Pretty
Written and directed by Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein. Starring Amy Schumer, Michelle Williams and Emily Ratajkowski. Opened Friday, April 20, at multiple theaters.
W
hen the trailer for the body image satire I Feel Pretty debuted online, the internet was furious. The film looked like a gender-bent version of Shallow Hal, with internalized misogyny in contrast to old-fashioned male chauvinism. Luckily, I Feel Pretty is not nearly as offensive as the trailer would make it out to be, but it’s still a problematic clusterfuck that has absolutely no concept of how the real world works. Amy Schumer stars as Renee who has been gaslighted to the point that she believes she’s too unattractive and uninteresting to be successful. Playing a self-loathing woman living in a world where everyone appears to be smarter, faster, thinner and prettier allows for audiences to immediately identify with the character. However, all of this changes when Renee hits her head at a SoulCycle class (because of course it has to be fucking SoulCycle) and suddenly perceives herself as the most gorgeous woman in the world. Nothing is different about Renee physically, but her newfound confidence gives her a new lease on life and a new perspective. I can already hear the undeserving “Yaaaas Queeeeen!” chants from here. I Feel Pretty isn’t unique in using a body swap as a plot device (see: Big/13 Going on 30/Freaky Friday/17 Again), even if it’s only in the heroine’s head. The triteness is disappointing considering the script
Renee (Amy Schumer) feels like a new woman after a head injury changes her perspective. | MARK SCHAFER; MOTION PICTURE ARTWORK © 2017 STX FINANCING comes from Never Been Kissed’s Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein. I commend the duo for creating a film that focuses more on self-love than on changing to appease the world around you, but I Feel Pretty still misses the mark on what could have been an influential film. Once Renee begins living with her Beyonce attitude, everyone around her seems perplexed. How can she be so confident with that figure? Given that Schumer is not the bridgetroll she once believed herself to be, the reactions of everyone around her are laughably unbelievable. With the revolutionary start of the body positivity movement and the popular #EffYourBeautyStandards mantra adopted by many plus-size women, it’s a bit odd that Renee’s friends and co-workers can’t possibly understand why she’s suddenly sowing her wild oats and feeling herself. Sure, these people also live in a world that’s consistently telling them they’ll never be good enough, so there’s a lot of projection of their own insecurities in their confusion as to why someone deemed “lesser than” is acting like she’s anything but. The projection, however, feels inauthentic and fails to build up the “love thyself” message.
The moral that I Feel Pretty is desperately trying to deliver doesn’t even make it out the door. Is it important to preach confidence to women living in a society that tells them to hate themselves? Yes. Is it empowering to see a woman owning her appearance? Yes. Is self-love and confidence the key to happiness and success? Hell no. Telling women that “all you need is confidence” is just as unrealistic as telling children “when you grow up, you can do anything.” The only reason Renee feels so confident is because she’s convinced she’s the hottest babe on the planet. Her confidence still feeds into the cycle of “look a certain way and you’ll finally be happy.” And while Renee’s life does turn around once she starts living her life to the fullest, her big breaks are all opportunities of circumstance. The beauty company she works for has realized they have to start marketing to “normal people,” and therefore promotes Renee. This isn’t some great earned achievement; this is a token position where she happened to fit the criteria. I Feel Pretty also never addresses the privileges already afforded to Schumer for being only slightly less conventionally attractive than the riverfronttimes.com
standard. Had this movie starred a larger actress like Melissa McCarthy or an actress of color like Tiffany Haddish, Renee’s work experiences would be a hell of a lot more difficult whether she was confident or not. Michelle Williams plays Schumer’s boss in what is arguably the best comedic performance of her career. She steals every scene she’s in, largely due to the fact she’s the only comedic presence that isn’t hashing out the same “LOL Y U SO CONFIDENT, CHUBBY LADY?” joke that overwhelms the rest of the film. For diehard Williams fans, this is a refreshing change of pace for an actress often pigeon-holed as a distraught lover. Renee’s romantic interest is played by the completely adorable and endearing Rory Scovel, who delivers a masterful leading-man debut. I desperately wanted to champion I Feel Pretty, but I cannot in good faith hail it as the feminist masterpiece it so fiercely tried to present. Despite what mouth-breathing Redditors have to say about Amy Schumer, she is a revolutionary comedic performer. Unfortunately, I Feel Pretty does her no favors and her talent cannot save her from a jumbled n script and repetitive jokes.
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Monthly RafFLe Prizes JULY
MAY
10th Anniversary
TO CELEBRATE OUR 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY WE’RE HOLDING A RAFFLE EVERY MONTH THROUGH NOVEMBER ENDING WITH A GRAND PRIZE WINNER! RAFFLE TICKETS ARE $5 EACH OR 5 FOR $20. Tickets available at Pappy’s, Bogart’s, Southern, Dalie’s and Adam’s. Winners receive a complimentary meal at Pappy’s for four with a bonus SpeedPass. (no waiting in line) and tickets to one of our city’s notable attractions.
OCTOBER
Year Long Family Membership Year Long Membership to Year Long Festival Membership with 4 Adventure Passes plus The Saint Louis Science Center to the Missouri Botanical Garden extras to the St. Louis Zoo which includes The Butterfly House AUGUST & Shaw Nature Reserve JUNE Year Long Family Membership NOVEMBER Year Long Family Membership to The City Museum to Grant’s Farm/VIP tour $300 Gift Card for the SEPTEMBER and The Magic House Peabody Opera House 4 Tickets to The Gateway Arch and the VIP Brewmaster Tour at Anheuser Busch
★GRAND PRIZE WINNER★
WHOLE HOG EVENT + SIDES FOR 100 PEOPLE* *AGREED UPON TIME AND PLACE. CERTAIN RESTRICTIONS APPLY.
ALL PROCEEDS WILL BE DISTRIBUTED BETWEEN SHRINER’S HOSPITAL, CARDINAL GLENNON HOSPITAL, CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL AND THE RONALD McDONALD HOUSE.
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1627 South 9th Street (314) 621-3107 bogartssmokehouse.com
2951 Dougherty Ferry Rd (636) 529-1898 daliessmokehouse.com
2819 Watson Road (314) 875-9890 adamssmokehouse.com
3108 Olive Street (314) 531-4668 stlsouthern.com
La Vallesana CHEROKEE STREET’S ORIGINAL DESTINATION FOR TACOS & ICE CREAM TWO L ARG E PAT I O S • I ND O O R & PAT I O B AR HA P P Y HO U R 2- 6P M M O N- T HU RS 2801 CHEROKEE STREET • 314-776-4223
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CAFE
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Poke bowls and taro bubble tea are joined on Poke Doke’s menu by crab Rangoons and both pineapple and matcha soft-serve ice cream. | MABEL SUEN
[REVIEW]
Go Fish Poke Doke’s customizable poke bowls are packing in customers in the Central West End Written by
CHERYL BAEHR Poke Doke
8 South Euclid Avenue, 314-833-5900; Mon.Sat. 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sun. 11 a.m.-9 p.m.
W
hen I approached the order counter at Poke Doke around 6 p.m. on a recent weeknight, the scene bordered on chaotic. As a line of customers around eight deep
queued up to customize their bowls of poke, three employees worked at a feverish pace to keep up with demand. At one point, they were doling out toppings with such ferocity I swear I saw sesame seeds and fried wonton crisps fly through the air. Looking out over the dining room, I understood why the line was running out of ingredients and the workers looked like they were in the midst of battle. Though the space is not massive, it’s big enough for roughly 30 people — yet every last table was full. And, as the manager suggested when we asked how things were going, it had been like this all day. “It’s poke-riffic!” he laughed. It’s poke-riffic indeed for Andrew, Annie, Leon and Steve Shih, the four siblings who took a chance on building a brand around bowls of raw fish in the middle of the
meat-and-potatoes Midwest. To a restaurant newbie, it might seem like a gamble, but the Shihs are no neophytes. The brothers and sister were born into a family of restaurateurs and grew up in the business, watching their grandparents, parents and uncle run different Chinese restaurants in the area. They seemed destined to join the industry. However, other than Andrew, who worked for his parents at their Chesterfield restaurant Hot Wok, the siblings took different career paths. Though they were all fairly content with their professional engagements, a trip to Disneyland last year lit a spark that made them reconsider. The Shihs stumbled into a poke restaurant one day for lunch and instantly fell in love with the fresh, exciting flavors. Once their eyes were opened, they began to notice the genre’s prevalence in riverfronttimes.com
the Los Angeles area and lamented that it was not available to them back home in St. Louis. They made a pact to change that and got to work developing Poke Doke. While the other siblings continued to work at their day jobs, Andrew took on the role of managing partner and traveled regularly to southern California to learn as much as he could about poke. He came back energized with recipes and confident that a fast-casual model — the Chipotle of poke — was the way to go. The Shihs agreed. After finding a building, they signed a lease last July, opened last October and have been busy ever since. The location, which is just south of Laclede on Euclid in close proximity to the massive BJC medical complex, seems key to Poke Doke’s success. On my visits, a
APRIL 25 - MAY 1 2018
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NOW OPEN
SUNDAYS 10AM-8PM
SERVING BRUNCH 10AM-1PM
618-307-4830 www.clevelandhealth.com 106 N. Main | Edwardsville, IL The dining room includes plenty of seating, although the place can still get packed at times. | MABEL SUEN
St. Louis’
#1
Steakhouse 19 Years In A Row! 1998-2017 RFT Readers Restaurant Polls HISTORIC SOULARD
2117 South 12th St. 314-772-5977
SOUTH COUNTY
3939 Union Rd. 314-845-2584
WEST COUNTY
14282 Manchester 636-227-8062
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POKE DOKE Continued from pg 33 significant portion of the clientele was dressed in hospital scrubs, a testament to the demand for a quick yet flavorful and healthful dining option within walking distance of the medical center. Add to this the fact that you can get these options, even when there is a line, in no more than five minutes, and it’s no wonder the fish is flying off the shelves. Or, to be more precise, the fish is flying into bowls. As with the Chipotle model, Poke Doke patrons choose a base (such as rice, soba noodles or greens), select their main protein and decide how many scoops of it they want, then dress it with as many accoutrements and sauces as will fit in the bowl. Unlike the city’s other new poke concept, Blk Mkt Eats, which opened not long after Poke Doke in Midtown, there are no suggested preparations and no pre-ordained bowls. For better or worse, customers here are on their own, able to customize to their heart’s content. Whether you prefer Blk Mkt Eats to Poke Doke may prove largely a matter of whether you know what you want and can come up with
APRIL 25 - MAY 1, 2018
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your own flavor pairings — but it’s almost certain your heart will be content with the rich, high-quality salmon, which is as fresh as it gets in the Midwest. (And in 2018, that’s quite fresh indeed. Because of how quickly Poke Doke goes through product, it gets deliveries twice daily.) I enjoyed the salmon over white rice and simply dressed with the restaurant’s signature poke sauce, a sweet and vinegary soy. Hunks of smashed avocado, sliced radishes, edamame and cucumbers enhance the freshness of the fish and allow its flavor to shine through. As a finishing touch, I opted for the wasabi mayo “drizzle,” a surprisingly mild concoction but pleasantly so as it did not detract from the salmon, the superstar of the dish. Ahi tuna, the quality and watermelon color you find at a high-end sushi restaurant, is cut into cubes and serves as the restaurant’s de facto signature because of its association with the poke form. As a personal matter, I prefer its texture and flavor to that of the salmon, though both are exquisite. Again, I’d recommend either a brown or a white rice base for experiencing this fish, then loading up on just enough condiments to enhance,
not cover up, the wonderful tuna. If you’re less interested in the simple pleasures of fish and more in playing around with accoutrements, both the shrimp and tofu are neutral enough that they benefit from the enhancements. The former are simple chilled shrimp (smallish versions of the ones in shrimp cocktail), and the latter, by its very nature, is made to soak up flavors. I paired the shrimp with the briny seaweed salad and the tofu with the spiced kimchi. I liked the second combo better because of how the funk and chile heat from the fermented Korean vegetables infused the tofu with complexity. As good as the ahi is, though, I was not impressed with the spicy tuna. I expected the sort of chilemayo tossed tuna salad you find at sushi restaurants, but was instead presented with fish that was so minced, it had a pasty texture. At first, I thought I had mistakenly been given masago instead of tuna, but this is just Poke Doke’s style of preparation. Unfortunately, the pastiness does not work well for poke; it ends up getting mushed into everything else in the bowl to the point it is unrecognizable. Just order the ahi instead and ask for extra spicy mayonnaise “drizzle.”
Best Fried Chicken
in St. Louis!
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A salmon-and-octopus poke bowl rests on soba noodles. | MABEL SUEN The soba-noodle base was also not as enjoyable as the other options. The noodles were overcooked to the point they were mushy, with a slimy glaze. Paired with raw fish, it was off-putting. I appreciate that Poke Doke serves something other than rice, but I’d appreciate it more if it was cooked better. As a nod to their family’s restaurant background (and also to provide some options for meat eaters), the Shihs offer a handful of appetizers like classic pork-filled potstickers, which delight with delicate, crisp-around-the-edges wonton wrappers. Hot braised chicken wings are another riff on a Chinese restaurant staple. These are plump drummies, blanketed in a breading that is so light you won’t know where the skin ends and the coating begins. Unlike the cloying gloppy sauce so often associated with the dish, Poke Doke’s hot braised sauce is a light sweet chile glaze. It’s pleasantly understated. Crab Rangoon relies on the elder Shihs’ longtime secret recipe and proves the perfection of the form. Generous pieces of green onion and black pepper enliven what is so often just a puddle of cream cheese. It’s outstanding.
Tangy pineapple soft-serve ice cream is a welcome palate cleanser after the deep-fried dishes, which come out after your poke bowl. Logistically, there’s really no other way around it; after all, bowls are made to order in front of you, while cooked food has to be, well, cooked. It still makes for awkward logistics, especially because there seems to be no real system for making sure the right dishes get to the right table. Employees are very friendly and walk around the restaurant searching for the correct guest, but there are no order numbers, pagers or table flags to assist them. If the hot items take off the way the poke has, it will be chaos — and not the fun, poke-riffic kind that greeted me on my visits. Still, the fact that the Poke Doke’s biggest challenge is executing seamlessly in the face of enthusiastic demand is a testament to both the concept and the Shihs’ ability to bring it to life. Their employees had better get used to being busy. The demand won’t be lessening n anytime soon. Poke Doke
NOW OPEN!
DINE IN, CARRY OUT AND DELIVERY
Regular poke bowl (3 scoops) ��������� $12 Crab Rangoon �������������������������������������$4 Hot braised chicken wings �����������������$8
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SHORT ORDERS to share his thoughts on the St. Louis food-and-beverage scene, his yin-andyang daily rituals, and why French fries are always the answer.
[SIDE DISH]
How Juniper’s Chef Found His Groove Written by
CHERYL BAEHR
G
lenister Wells lost his father at a young age, but his memories of the man remain fresh — and proved foundational. “One of my memories of him was watching him sit in front of the TV on weekends with a legal pad,” Wells recalls. “He would watch Emeril Lagasse or Julia Child — any of that sort of cooking show —and write down recipes. It’s one of my earliest memories of him.” Wells, who was recently tapped to be executive chef of the acclaimed Southern restaurant Juniper (360 North Boyle Avenue, 314-329-7696), also had another family influence that helped to inspire his culinary career. One of his first food memories involved making egg noodles at the dining -room table with his grandfather, a joyous home cook who, along with his grandmother, loved entertaining and throwing dinner parties. But though Wells loved food and cherished the memories associated with it, he found another passion when he was in school that took up more of his headspace: music. “I got into percussion and music in school and fell in love,” Wells says. “I chose the rock ’n roll lifestyle and pursued that dream, but I had to reconcile one day that it wasn’t the healthiest and most realistic life choice.” Wells happened to be working in a kitchen when he came to this realization. Though that gig was just a means to make money, a friend reached out with an opportunity that would be more. Pastaria was looking for a cook, and the friend thought Wells would be a good fit. He put him in touch with chefs Michael Petres and Ashley
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Glenister Wells went from making music to pasta. Now he’ll run Juniper’s kitchen. | MATT SEIDEL Shelton, and the next thing he knew, Wells was working in a job that not only felt like a viable career path, but also made him feel like he was finally embracing his life’s calling. “I found myself again when I started at Pastaria,” Wells explains. “It guided me to the place I was supposed to be — I’d been working in the kitchen all this time, and it turns out, I was right at home. I just wasn’t aware.” At Pastaria, Wells was shown that the kitchen could be a positive work environment — not one characterized by old-school chefs who yell and throw things. He worked there three years, taking on additional responsibilities and honing his craft. When a friend approached him earlier this year about an opportunity to work with John Perkins at Juniper, he agreed to hear him out. Wells and Perkins forged an immediate connec-
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tion over everything from hospitality to the importance of telling the story of a culture through cuisine. Perkins offered him the job as Juniper’s executive chef, and Wells accepted, seeing it as a way to stretch himself professionally. And stretch he will. The restaurant is moving from its current digs to a new location in the Central West End sometime this summer, expanding its hours and changing its menu. Wells could not be more excited for the chance to tell stories with food. In fact, when he reflects on his own journey, he realizes how important a role food and hospitality have played, even when that hasn’t always been apparent on the surface. “It rubbed off on me,” he says. “Somewhere, within my subconscious, it was embedded. Destiny chose me at that young age.” Wells took a break from the kitchen
What is one thing people don’t know about you that you wish they did? My love for music and the fact that I’ve been a percussionist for most of my life. I’d say another secret of sorts is that I’d love to start a hip-hop group. What daily ritual is non-negotiable for you? Like most humans, coffee. And just recently, yoga and coffee … in that order. If you could have any superpower, what would it be? The power to give everyone in this country equal rights and equal opportunity. What is something missing in the local food, wine or cocktail scene that you’d like to see? Probably more late-night food options that don’t make you feel terrible for eating them. Who’s the one person to watch right now in the St. Louis dining scene? Evy Swoboda of Pastaria, for sure — who I believe is working on a very exciting project right now. Which ingredient is most representative of your personality? I’m going to say the Serrano chile. They’re sometimes very fiery but they always mellow out. If you weren’t working in the restaurant business, what would you be doing? I would probably be working in the special-needs field. Four years ago, I lost my sister who had Down syndrome, and she’s been an everlasting impact in my life. Name an ingredient never allowed in your restaurant. Fake butter/margarine. It just freaks me out! What is your after-work hangout? If it’s not straight home to hang out with my girlfriend and dog, you can find me at Sasha’s on Shaw enjoying a Busch beer. What’s your food or beverage guilty pleasure? French fries. I completely lose all willpower when they’re cooked in front of me. What would be your last meal on earth? Definitely hot chicken! And some greens, French fries and a pizza to n wash it down.
DOUBLE PLAY
$14 DOMESTIC BUCKETS DURING ALL CARDS GAMES
“El Padrino” is laden with meats, along with peppers, red onion and roasted garlic. | SARAH FENSKE
[FIRST LOOK]
A Cozy Cafe in Clayton Written by
SARAH FENSKE
T
he first thing you’ll likely notice about Anthony’s Italian Eats (7641 Wydown Boulevard, Clayton; 314-721-3233) is just how small it is. On first glance, the former home of Manhattan Express looks every inch the counter-service deli it used to be, complete with a glass case of meats at the front. But once your eyes adjust to the size of the room, you may notice other things: the comfortable highbacked black leather chairs that sit behind each table. The gorgeous chandelier providing a soft glow. The framed family portraits sitting on a shelf between two small racks of wine. The space may be tiny, but all of it has been given over to a warm ambiance. And indeed, just like the holein-the-wall Italian spots in more crowded cities, Anthony’s offers a low-key elegance. While you can get chips and a meatball sandwich here, should you desire, your waitress will take your order and happily pour you a glass of wine to go with them. It’s a far cry from a no-frills deli.
The restaurant is the work of the family behind Joey B’s, and their knack for hospitality and St. Louis-size portions is on display even in these cramped quarters. Take that meatball sandwich — it’s practically a footlong, and positively bursting with soft, flavorful meat. Anthony’s is, for the most part, serving a refined version of St. Louis-style Italian. Your house salad will be sprinkled with Parmesan, with a sweet Italian-style vinaigrette; the dozen sandwiches on the menu include a muffuletta and a hot Italian beef. For pizza, you can do it “Grandma’s style” (with mozzarella) or “St. Louis style,” with Provel. And rest assured, when your server asks if you want thin crust or thick crust, “thick” is not thick in any sense of the word other than the contrary-to-St. Louis-style one. “Thick” means a traditional Neapolitan-influenced pizza — “thin” crust will get you a cracker-style wafer. If for some bizarre reason you have room for dessert after one of these laden pizzas, they pipe the cannolis in house and also offer Serendipity cones from a small freezer behind the counter. And while you’re at it, why not get something to go? The wall alongside the deli case offers a full array of imports from Italy, from olive oils to canned fish. It’s a charming addition to a spot that, while small, uses every last inch. Anthony’s Italian Eats is open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. n
$2 UV BOMBS ALL DAY EVERY DAY 10’ PROJECTION TV BEST STEAK SANDWICH IN TOWN LCD’S EVERYWHERE YOU LOOK KEETONS RESTAURANT & SPORTS BAR 4944 CHRISTY BLVD (@ KINGSHIGHWAY & DELOR) • 314-351-6000
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APRIL 25 - MAY 1 2018
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Tacos & Ice cream are breaking
the rules!
2738 Cherokee Street •St. Louis, MO 63118
Shredded chicken and enchiladas help Kakao show off its new mole sauce. | HAYLEY ABSHEAR
[FOOD NEWS]
FRESH & AUTHENTIC BRAZILIAN CUISINE
LUNCH BUFFET 11AM-2PM D I N N E R M E N U, A N D S U N DAY B R U N C H 11A M-2:30P M
WWW.BRASILIASTL.COM • 314-932-1034 3212 SOUTH GRAND BLVD 38
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APRIL 25 - MAY 1, 2018
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Kakao’s New Release: Mole Written by
HAYLEY ABSHEAR
T
he tenth anniversary of Kakao Chocolate’s founding is coming up, and the business wanted to do something special. Instead of its traditional chocolate treats, the St. Louis chocolatier launched a mole sauce — a 28-ingredient version of the earthy, savory and very chocolate-y sauce used in Mexican cooking. It can be used for everything from scrambled eggs to pulled pork. The sauce launched April 18, and Kakao sold small mason jars and samples at the Tower Grove Farmer’s Market and the St. Louis Earth Day Festival in Forest Park. It’s also headed to Kakao’s two retail stores, followed by select retailers in the St. Louis region. The company expects serious demand, says Kakao founder Brian Pelletier. “We’re going to sell lots and lots of it,” Pelletier says. “It’s a differ-
ent kind of flavor.” Mole sauce is something new for a St. Louis manufacturer — and even beyond that, Kakao’s is unique, with its own special recipe. “It’s not a traditional Midwestern thing, and that is one of the reasons why we wanted to make it at Kakao,” Pelletier says. “People enjoy having fun and trying things outside the box.” Pelletier began the chocolatier ten years ago this June. Starting off with a windowless basement and Pelletier as the only employee, Kakao now has two stores and 21 employees who help out with projects and products, including the mole sauce and the upcoming anniversary celebrations. One of those employees is Amanda Calvert, who developed the sauce. The mole is delicious, she says, and shouldn’t be saved just for special occasions. “It can be eaten on a Tuesday. You can enjoy the wonderful sauce any time,” she says. Kakao is working on a few more things for its ten-year celebration, including more experiments with their most popular caramel and chocolate products. The mole should kick off a full roster of projects, Pelletier says. “Mole has always been one of my favorite foods,” he says. “It’s a really great thing and really complex. It’s a really unique product.” n
ALL KILLER. NO FILLER. HAND-CRAFTED SMOKED MEATS AND BREWS
Photography by JENNIFER SILVERBERG
Photography by JENNIFER SILVERBERG
It’s WAY better than a photo booth! info@FishEyeFun.com FishEyeFun.com 314-621-8638 riverfronttimes.com
APRIL 25 - MAY 1 2018
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39
Fried rice, roll-shaped salt-cod Rangoons and tiki drinks are among the offerings at Good Fortune, the “new American Chinese” spot now open in Botanical Heights. | KELLY GLUECK
[FIRST LOOK]
Fortune Smiles on Botanical Heights Written by
SARAH FENSKE
T
wo years and two locations after it was first announced, Good Fortune (1641D Tower Grove Avenue, 314-726-4666) is now open in Botanical Heights. The restaurant, originally pitched as a “Chinese-Americanese” spot in the Central West End, saw a shift in both its ownership group and location as months turned into years. But on Friday, co-owner Corey Smale (who also
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co-founded Strange Donuts) and chef Ryan McDonald (best known for his work at Byrd & Barrel) finally opened their doors, serving “new American Chinese cuisine,” with both takeout options and dine-in service. What exactly does “new American Chinese cuisine” mean? It means that the restaurant is less inspired by modern Chinese cooking — as at acclaimed St. Louis newcomers Cate Zone and Bing Bing — and more a modern riff on Americanized Chinese food. That the restaurant’s phone number translates to 314-RANGOON is telling; rather than being left off the menu, those squares of cream cheese and fake lobster so beloved by American palates are here transformed with salt cod, rolled into oblongs and served with fermented sweet-and-sour sauce. Fermented foods are a big part of the menu. As Good Fortune’s press materials explain, “Exploring ways to boost umami and optimize in-house fermentation with a touch of modern technique, McDonald has curated an
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approachable menu of starters and entrées that lean heavily on seasonal vegetables and reasonable portions of meat — fit for a Midwestern dining mindset. He is drawn to Chinese taste profiles for the opportunity and challenge to build dishes that don’t rely on fats to deliver flavor.” That means dishes like “Mapo Doufu,” which combines tofu, Sichuan fermented bean sauce, chiles, mustard greens and rice. The restaurateurs have put as much care into the look of Good Fortune as they have into the food. After jettisoning the former Silk Road Chinese Restaurant space on North Euclid as well as their plans for a different spot on Tower Grove Avenue, Smale and McDonald have opened in a former heating-and-cooling company’s headquarters. The building is owned by restaurateur Ben Poremba, who has plans to bring a bicycle shop, salon and startup space to the site as well. The Good Fortune portion is thoroughly transformed, with exposed brick walls and low lighting.
The place offers 26 seats for dining in, although with part of the space given to the takeout operation, it’s cozier than that number might suggest. Four seats at the small bar offer guests a view of the kitchen behind it. On offer at that bar? Tiki drinks, as well as other cocktails. Authentic Chinese food, this is not. But it’s all very stylish. And if you’re ordering takeout, don’t expect the same old white cartons. Per the press materials, “Pulling inspiration from emerging streetwear brands and punk rock bands of the ’80s and ’90s, the branding elements of Good Fortune (including the physical space, to-go bags, etc.) have been designed with an eye towards the rebellion, kindness, and ambition of counter-culture. Design elements have also been influenced by traditional Chinese architecture and art. For instance, Good Fortune’s to-go packaging features a design-forward play on the iconic ‘THANK YOU’ carryout bags.” Good Fortune is open Tuesday through Sunday, 4:30 to 9:30 p.m. n
HEAD ON SHRIMP
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APRIL 25 - MAY 1 2018
RIVERFRONT TIMES
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42
CULTURE
[HOMESPUN]
Serious Business Local comedian Jeremy Essig’s new band, Let’s Not, is no laughing matter Written by
CHRISTIAN SCHAEFFER
J
eremy Essig doesn’t sit still for too long. As a touring comedian, he spends roughly half the year on the road. This month alone he’ll visit New York City, Raleigh-Durham and Portland, Maine, and that’s on top of a fairly active calendar here in town. Essig, who is also an occasional RFT contributor, has been a leading light in St. Louis’ comedy scene for well over a decade and one of its most successful exports — his friendship with Brian Posehn has led to some high-profile opening gigs, and he recently had his first headlining slot in his hometown of Zanesville, Ohio. So it was a rare moment of downtime that Essig allowed himself this past winter when he retreated to his home studio to focus on his first true passion: writing, performing and recording music. “My 40th birthday was my last show last year [in December], so I took three weeks off and I basically didn’t leave the studio,” Essig says. He spent that time working through the material that would comprise the debut album from his new band, Let’s Not. “I wouldn’t recommend that to anyone, by the way,” he says of the time spent in his south-city hermitage, poring over some of the more raw parts of the last few years and dealing with “ups and downs in relationships and professionally.” Let’s Not’s debut album, Glimmer, finds a compelling middle ground between the crash-andcrunch of vintage Superchunk and the moody textures of the Cure. This isn’t Essig’s first foray into mu42
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Essig recorded the band’s debut album, Glimmer, in his home studio. | COREY WOODRUFF sic — he’s played guitar and written songs since high school, and about two years ago he joined up with Jason Robinson’s band Shark Dad as a guitarist and backup vocalist. And while he had contributed lyrics to that band in the past, the crop of songs that make up Glimmer cut a little closer to the bone. “It was stuff that didn’t feel right for Shark Dad,” he says. “They started getting a little personal, and I wasn’t sure I wanted anyone else singing that.” The album isn’t exactly soul-baring — Essig is good at painting his more tender material in impressionistic strokes, and there are more than a few quick-hit indie rock songs. But on a track like “Liz,” which sits in the middle of the album, Essig wears more than a little heart on his sleeve as he intones the song’s chorus — “it hurts to try” — amid swirling string pads and a Joy Division bass tone. In addition to being a touring comic and itinerant musician, Essig also has a sideline gig as an audio consultant; the Helium comedy-club chain often hires him to set up mixing boards and provide quality control for its clubs across
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the country. It’s a hobby that he developed during downtime from his gigs and one that enabled him to record Glimmer in his home studio. “The thing with touring in comedy is, you’re done some nights at nine or eleven o’clock and then you have all day off,” he says. “I took two years, took some online courses and read some books. I just kind of experimented with different mic techniques or writing string parts on MIDI. It’s been a two-, two-and-a-half-year process.” On the album and on occasional gigs around town, Essig is joined by bassist Michaela Kuba and drummer/backing vocalist Anne Stevenson. He met both players from doing shows with their other bands — Stevenson plays in the Fade and Kuba in Other People — but both quickly asserted themselves as more than mere session players. “We were just gonna do one show, then we got offered to do another show and took two months to record the album,” Essig says. “I think the way this one was different was I was in a room where everyone else was really good. I wrote this as a real heavy guitar
record, but then Michaela brought in a cello and Anne started doing some vocal stuff.” Specifically, Essig points to the song “Risk,” which features Stevenson singing multiple harmonies behind Essig’s lead. “The couple live shows we did, she would sing but I couldn’t really hear her,” Essig recalls. “She went into the booth and I was like ‘What is going on?’ That harmony she does on the bridge in the second track, she started harmonizing with herself. That was all her thinking it up and being able to do it all in one take. I was sitting there in the mixing chair, thinking how I didn’t expect any of this.” And while Essig has no plans to leave his main gig behind, working with Let’s Not has served to reinvigorate another side of his creative life. “I was never real good at being one of the quote/unquote ‘comics.’ I don’t like watching comedy at all,” he says. “I got into it because it was the easiest vehicle to go traipse across the United States. “My taxes say I’m a comic, but that’s only because I can’t justify n anything else.”
[PREVIEW]
Alvvays Comes to Ready Room Written by
MIKE APPELSTEIN Alvvays
8 p.m. Friday, April 27. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Avenue. $15 to $18. 314833-3929.
A
lvvays is not a band to hide its influences. Its Tumblr page is full of photos and videos that help pinpoint its antecedents: R.E.M. circa “Radio Free Europe,” the Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt, a Daniel Clowes comic comparing cartoonists to rock stars, and such ’80s and ’90s Scottish pop groups as Strawberry Switchblade, Teenage Fanclub and Shop Assistants. Asked to name their favorite albums, Alvvays’ members list a wide, mostly British range, from Cocteau Twins’ sublime Heaven or Las Vegas to the Soft Boys’ whimsical Underwater Moonlight. Clearly, the Toronto-based band remains a group of music fans at heart. However, that doesn’t mean its members are in thrall to their influences. In fact, they’re consciously aiming to transcend them. This is immediately apparent on the band’s second album, Antisocialites, released in September. “I really wanted to control my influences and funnel them into what I was writing,” says Alvvays guitarist and lead singer Molly Rankin, calling from a hotel lobby in London. “It’s something I had never consciously done before. When I write demos, I try to think about what type of drums I want, what guitar sounds I want, anything that I like and envision for the song. It can sometimes shine through, and other times it gets lost. And both are good. You don’t really want to overtly mine something that you respect.” On Antisocialites, the influences peep through on occasion. There are lyrical nods to Jonathan Rich-
The Toronto band’s latest tour includes a stop in St. Louis for the first time. | VIA GRANDSTAND MEDIA man and musical nods to the Primitives and Talulah Gosh, but these are merely window dressings to a truly compelling set of songs. Rankin approaches her subjects from a slightly detached perspective. She’s usually singing in the second person to a specific “you” but uses creative metaphors and details to sort through the wreckage, contrasting sweet imagery with ugly reality. “If I can conjure up a melody that I don’t think has been used already and has the ability to sit in my brain for an extended period of time, I try to make it into a song and plop words onto it,” Rankin says of her songwriting. “Often I have several guitar parts, a bridge, a pre-chorus and a few counter melodies. Sometimes I have less before I bring it to Alec [O’Hanley, guitar]. Once he and I have a coherent piece, we bring it to practice and work on drums and keyboard octaves.” “Plimsoll Punks” is one of Antisocialites’ highlights. The melody is irresistibly catchy, with a sugar-fueled chorus of “You’re gettin’ me down, gettin’ me down, gettin’ me down.” Dig a little deeper, however, and it’s a song of frustration about disap-
pointing, shallow people: “When I chip through your candy coating/ You’re stuffed with insulation … You’re the seashell in my sandal that’s slicing up my heel.” Rankin defines the “plimsoll punks” as “the arbitrary all-seeing invisible eyes. That one is a riff on assigning artistic merit by authenticity litmus test.” Then there’s “Lollipop (Ode To Jim).” In a rush of words, the song starts with a chance encounter with Jesus & Mary Chain’s Jim Reid and imagines a complicated relationship complete with public drug usage, broken furniture and drunk driving. “You’re a lollipop in the form of a lightning bolt/You’re a lollipop in my hair,” Rankin concludes. “I threw Jim into the beginning of the song as a fragment,” Rankin says. “We had a brief encounter with him in Australia, and his mysterious persona stuck with me for a while. The remainder of the song focuses on a young, reckless duo.” It’s all a long way from Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, where where Rankin and keyboardist Kerri Maclellan began writing and playing together as kids. Rankin comes from a musical family, riverfronttimes.com
and spent most of her early years steeped in Celtic music. However, the duo’s tastes were closer to Weezer and Alanis Morrissette, eventually progressing to lesser-known sounds. As a teen, Rankin discovered Teenage Fanclub, the Replacements and the Smiths at a local store. “That kind of flipped the switch for me,” she explains. She was also inspired by Halifax stalwarts Sloan, who were “sort of rock idols for all of us when we were little. We used to watch them on television,” she says. “Kerri and I having a long and solid friendship has been a huge help on this sometimes strange journey,” Rankin continues. “For the most part, we like the same podcasts, bands, drinks and clothes. I’d say the degree to which we agree on things is very annoying to everyone else sometimes.” The members of Alvvays reserve a particular love for Dolly Mixture, a near-mythical English trio. Between 1980 and 1983, the trio released four singles on three different labels, mixing girl-group melody with post-punk minimalism. Upon the band’s breakup, its members compiled the best of their unreleased demos onto a hand-signed and numbered double album, Demonstration Tapes. Now considered a cult classic, it’s impossible to find an original edition. Even CD reissues go for hefty sums. “I think Dolly Mixture was recommended early on to me,” Rankin recalls. “I had made a pilgrimage to Toronto and found Everything and More at a record store called Sonic Boom. I started looking for the original album in the course of touring. I never actually found the vinyl, though. My brother found it for me on the internet and sent it to me. I almost wept when I got it. It’s my most treasured vinyl.” Alvvays has spent much of the last few years on tour, but this leg brings the group to St. Louis for the first time. “Time off in January served me well,” Rankin says of future plans. “I’m cooking up some things on the Korg/drum machine combo in my little space. I’ll probably find another art cave when I’ve some time off, collect enough ideas and sentiments I can stand behind, and n we’ll make something else.”
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Store owner Martin Casas hopes slinging suds along with comic books will help him compete with the Internet. | DANIEL HILL [COMICS]
Apotheosis Opens Its Bar and Lounge Written by
DANIEL HILL
A
potheosis Comics (3206 South Grand Boulevard, 314-2601689) may have soft-opened back in September, but as of April 18, its opening is officially Grand. That’s because, up until this point, a large component of the new space has been missing: its bar and lounge. “We have been open in our current location since September and we’ve slowly been plugging along, getting the liquor license set up and the bar and everything else,” says owner Martin Casas, 37. “But now we’re having our grand opening. All the pieces are in place, and we’re finally gonna have everything we need.” Casas says that Apotheosis will be one of only five comic-book shops in the country that has its own bar, and the only one in Missouri. He explains that the majority of comic-book fans are his age — mid-thirties — and that those fans have evolved over the years. It’s time, he reckons, for comic-book stores to evolve with them. “They would normally go home and 44
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drink a beer and read their comics,” Casas says. “Well, now they can do that at our store.” A handful of tables and chairs, just delivered last week, sit in the back of the shop — this is the lounge area. A pair of stand-up arcade games line the wall, next to two coolers full of drinks. The bar will serve coffee, local craft beer, wine and snacks. Crate after crate of comics will provide all the entertainment a comic-book fan could possibly need. In an age of overall decline for brick-and-mortar shops, there’s a practical reason for Casas’ unique approach as well. “What we’re really trying to do is figure out how to beat our biggest competitor, which is the internet. Like, anything we have in the store you can find online,” he says. “So in order to survive, what we needed to figure out is a new way of attracting customers to the store and keeping them there — we had to build a community around the store. Having a bar inside where people can get a drink and read a book is a good way of doing that.” When Casas first got into comics, that wasn’t so much of a concern — the Internet was still in its infancy. He still has the first comic he ever got, purchased for him by his grandmother during a trip to the store when he was only eight years old. Batman No. 435 — “The Many Deaths of the Batman, Part 3” — is framed and hanging on
his wall. But it was another DC Comics character that solidified his interest in the art form: Superman. Specifically, the “Death of Superman” storyline of 1992 — a seismic event in comic-book history. “I remember I got all the comics and I read ’em, and I was like, ‘Oh my god, they actually killed him,’” he says. “I was one of those guys that really went into it all, and that really hooked me. Since then I’ve been reading comics my entire life.” It’s fitting, then, that the grand opening of the store was set to correlate with the release of Action Comics No. 1000, celebrating 80 years of Superman. “It’s a humongous milestone,” Casas says. “It’s the first superhero, and people kinda think he’s always been around — and he has, since 1938, in the public consciousness. I think he’s the third most recognized symbol. After the McDonald’s arches and the Christian cross, it’s Superman’s shield.” And to his mind, that’s a very good thing. “St. Louis is the perfect place for a comic-book store like ours, and a perfect place to celebrate the spirit of Superman,” Casas says. “We are a city of transplants and of immigrants — like Superman, we say, ‘I’m not from here, but I’m here now, and I want to help.’” n
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OUT EVERY NIGHT [CRITIC’S PICK]
Make Good Times Your Weekend Destination SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE MUSIC - 9 PM
GRAHAM PAGANO FRIDAY NIGHT DANCE PARTY - 9 PM
DJ KELLY DANCE MUSIC & KARAOKE
Anna Burch. | EBRU YILDIZ
Anna Burch
Love is a four-letter word, to quote the mediocre Bob Dylan song. It’s also a six-letter word, as in “boring,” to paraphrase the excellent debut album by Detroit-area native Anna Burch. In the quotidian romantic travails that run through Quit the Curse, Burch always wields rock’s sharpest weapon, honesty, even when it cuts against her own foibles and obsessions. “I think it’s suspect that you ever feel lonely at all,”
she wails, sounding like Exile in Guyvilleera Liz Phair. And of course she’s aiming her sarcasm at herself as her lean band hits a primo buzz around her. Burch’s sound, all modestly chiming guitars and self-harmonized pop melodies, breaks no new ground, but it’s coyly beautiful and bracing all the same. Her way with a tune and a groove is anything but mundane. Raised on Ruckus: Burch started out with underrated Americana band Frontier Ruckus; she’s left the banjos behind but kept the sly Midwestern charm. –Roy Kasten
THURSDAY 26
NATE LOWERY: 4 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s,
ARCH CITY BRASS: 8 p.m., $20. .Zack, 3224
2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.
Locust St, St. Louis, 314-533-0367.
ODESZA: 7 p.m., $40. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar
CHRIS CYR PRESENTS: I’M GONNA BUY COCAINE
Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.
A MOSTLY UNPLUGGED COMEDY ROCK OPERA: 8
ORPHAN JON & THE ABANDONED: 8 p.m., $10.
p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave.,
BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St.
St. Louis, 314-352-5226.
Louis, 314-436-5222.
THE HOOTEN HALLERS: 8 p.m., $10. Off Broad-
PETER CASE: w/ Paul Luc 7:30 p.m., $20. The
way, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.
Stage at KDHX, 3524 Washington Ave, St. Louis,
INSANE POETRY: w/ JP Tha Hustler 7 p.m., $10.
314-925-7543, ext. 815.
8 p.m. Saturday, April 28. Foam Coffee and Beer, 3359 Jefferson Avenue. $8 to $10. 314-772-2100.
Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.
15 Minutes from Downtown over Poplar St. Bridge > south on Route 3 10 Minutes from South County over JB Bridge > 255 N to Dupo Exit
JEREMIAH JOHNSON BAND: 8 p.m., free. Ham-
FRIDAY 27
merstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-
ALVVAYS: w/ Frankie Rose 8 p.m., $15-$18. The
5565.
Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis,
LITTLE COWBOY: w/ Cult Season, Polyshades 9
314-833-3929.
p.m., $3. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester
BROTHER JEFFERSON BLUES BAND: 10 p.m., $5.
Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.
BIKES WELCOME ALL-WEATHER PATIO-PAVILION AMAZING FOOD VIDEO SLOTS-POKER MUSIC - HDTVs - GAMES
Continued on pg 47
200 N. MAIN, DUPO, IL @GOODTIMES.PATIO.BAR riverfronttimes.com
APRIL 25 - MAY 1 2018
RIVERFRONT TIMES
45
46
RIVERFRONT TIMES
APRIL 25 - MAY 1, 2018
riverfronttimes.com
[WEEKEND]
BEST BETS
OUT EVERY NIGHT Continued from pg 45 BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St.
Five sure-fire shows to close out the week
Louis, 314-436-5222.
FRIDAY, APRIL 27
Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-
Brief Candles w/ Brilliant Beast, Seashine, Sunsulking
IVAS JOHN BAND: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues
9 p.m. Foam Coffee and Beer, 3359 South Jefferson Avenue. $5. 314-772-2100.
JOHN HENRY SINGLE RELEASE SHOW: 7:30 p.m.,
Two decades is a long time for a band to stay under the radar, but Brief Candles is one such outfit that has floated in the undercurrent by design. This Milwaukee crew takes on shoegaze with no regard for past or current trends, and that might be precisely why the songs feel so distinct. Last year’s Retreater offers ten uncut gems in a masterclass of songcraft rife with warm riffs and pointed percussion. The recording itself feels out of its time in the best way, with a natural kind of compression crunching down on the overall sound.
314-498-6989.
COMEDIANS WITH DAY JOBS, LIVE!: w/ Jeremy Hughes, Larry Smith 9 p.m., $12. The Heavy
duke’s THE SOULARD SPORTS BAR
5226.
Like & follow us on Facebook for everything going on at Duke’s @dukesinsoulard
& Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-4365222. $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, LESLIE JONES: 8 p.m., $15-$35. Blanche M
VOTED ST. LOUIS’
Touhill Performing Arts Center, 1 University Dr at Natural Bridge Road, Normandy, 314-5164949. MALCOLM HOLCOMBE: 8 p.m., $12-$15. The Stage at KDHX, 3524 Washington Ave, St. Louis, 314-925-7543, ext. 815. MATTY WOOD$: w/ Crash Jordy, bad day dre,
2017 BEST OF ST. LOUIS Readers Poll
Seoul Like the Taco, Tampa, as in the bay, Noah Fence, Vanacana 7 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. MONEYBAGG YO: 9 p.m., $20-$25. Pop’s
Cardinals Baseball
Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720.
$14 Buckets Free Shuttle
RAGGED EDGE: 8 p.m., free. Element, 1419 Carroll St., St. Louis, 314-241-1674. ROLAND JOHNSON & SOUL ENDEAVOR: 8 p.m.,
O.N.G. w/ NAAFI, Eric Dontè, deth_bb
$3. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis,
8:30 p.m. Breakerspace, 4240 Duncan Avenue. $10. No phone.
TREADING OCEANS EP RELEASE: w/ Conman
This show has a lot of layers to peel back. For one, the venue isn’t a typical show space — it’s actually an art residency on the Cortex campus by the Fabricatorz Foundation, with direction from St. Louis’ own Hayden Molinarolo, aka deth_bb. The imported talent for the night comes by way of Mexico City via NAAFI, a collective of DJs that spin an equal mix of dance and experimental music, laying a solid bedrock for local rapper Eric Dontè and his self-proclaimed genre of “ghetto trance.” The whole affair has the moniker of O.N.G., an acronym for “Only Next Generation,” which gives a rundown of what to expect in no uncertain terms.
BEST BAR & BEST SPORTS BAR
314-773-5565. Economy, Wolves, But Wiser, Goaltender, A Scarlet Summer 7 p.m., $7-$10. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353. TYRONE WELLS: 8 p.m., $15-$20. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.
SATURDAY 28 AMERICAN DISCHORD: w/ Captain Dee and The
We’ve Got Every Game
Long Johns, Powerline Sneakers, Antithought 8 p.m., $8-$10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.
Playoffs
BACH’S ST. MATTHEW PASSION: 2 p.m., $10-$45. Missouri Baptist University, 1 College Park Dr, Creve Coeur, 314-434-1115. BAD HABIT: 9 p.m., free. Nightshift Bar & Grill, 3979 Mexico Road, St. Peters, 636-441-8300. BURTON MUSIC FOR PEACE: 8:30 p.m., $15. Saint Louis University-Tegler Hall, 3550 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, 314-977-6338. FILMORE AND JACOB DAVIS: 8 p.m., $12-$15.
Amazing Food
The Bootleg, 4140 Manchester Ave., St. Louis,
SATURDAY, APRIL 28
314-775-0775.
Half-Halloween Full-Costume Party w/ Body Futures, Bruiser Queen, Babe Lords
Bruiser Queen, Body Futures, Babe Lords 9
9 p.m. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Avenue. $7. 314-352-5226.
INGESTED: w/ Bodysnatcher, Signs Of The
Throwing a second Halloween halfway between the last and the next is a gutsy move, but St. Louis has been feeling a lot like October this spring anyway, Continued on pg 50 what with the
Louis, 314-289-9050.
HALF HALLOWEEN-FULL COSTUME PARTY: w/ p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. Swarm 6 p.m., 6pm. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. MARIAN HILL PRESENTS UNUSUAL: w/ Michl 8 p.m., $31-$34. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. NEW LINGO EP RELEASE SHOW: w/ Ashland,
Continued on pg 40
2001 MENARD (AT ALLEN) IN THE HEART OF SOULARD riverfronttimes.com
APRIL 25 - MAY 1 2018
RIVERFRONT TIMES
47
Thursday April 26 9:30pm Urban Chestnut Presents
Alligator Wine’s Tribute To The Grateful Dead Friday April 27 10PM
Clusterpluck
with Special Guests Arkansauce Saturday April 28 10PM
Old Shoe
americana roots rock from chicago Sunday April 29
Back @ You Benefit 3-7PM Keith Robinson and Friends All Star Jam 8PM Wednesday May 2 9pm Urban Chestnut Presents
Voodoo Players’ Tribute to Colorado Bluegrass Friday May 4 10pm Urban Chestnut Presents
The Right Now from Chicago
DISCOVER THE SOUNDTRACK DISCOVER THE SOUNDTRACK TO AN UNFORGETTABLE NIGHT TO AN UNFORGETTABLE NIGHT live music every week MIXTAPE
DECEMBER 08
live music every week DECEMBER 09 HELLA SNAPS MAY04 MAY05 MAY11 MAY12
C A RPE NOCTE M
FEEL GOOD INC. DECEMBER 15
THE LIMIT LONEPUSH RANGERS A.D.D. PROUD LARRY DECEMBER 16 MAY19 GROOVETHANG FAT POCKET NEW CRIME THEATRE DECEMBER 22 MAY25 RETRONERDS TRIXIE DELIGHT SHAKEDOWN DECEMBER 23 MAR26 GRIFFINBREAKDOWN & THE GARGOYLES DECEMBER KINGPIN V I E W29M O R E A T DECEMBER w e s t p o r t s29 o c i a l- s t l . c o mMCLOVIN MAY18
VIEW MORE AT
9 1 0 w e s t p o r t P L A Z A d r i v e • s a i n t l o u i s , m i s swo eu rsit6p3o 1 4r6 t •s o3 1c4 .i5a4l8 . 2s8t7 6l . c o m 48
9 1 0 w e s t pA PoR IrL t2 5 P- MLAAY Z1 ,A2 0d1 8r ir ivv eer f r o•n t t i sm eas .ic no mt l o u i s , m i s s o u r i 6 3 1 4 6 • 6 3 6 .7 5 1 . 5 7 6 o
RIVERFRONT TIMES
[CRITIC’S PICK]
Jeff Rosenstock 8 p.m. Sunday, April 29. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue. $15. 314-4986989.
In direct response to the earth-shaking results of the 2016 United States presidential election, Long Island singer-songwriter Jeff Rosenstock did what anyone who’d just received news so troubling might wish they could do: He decamped to the Catskill Mountains to hide out for a while. During that time alone he wrote his latest solo album, January’s POST-, which makes crystal clear Rosenstock’s feelings on our political climate — and current leadership — without even once mentioning the name of the balding orange troll doll that currently holds our nation’s top post. He may not address the elephant in the room
directly, but his lyrics nevertheless make his feelings crystal clear: “Dumbfounded, downtrodden and dejected/Crestfallen, grief-stricken and exhausted/Trapped in my room while the house was burnin’ to the motherfuckin’ ground,” he sings at the outset of the track “USA” before repeatedly imploring, “Was it you?” of his fellow citizens, searching for answers as to who could have enabled his nightmare to occur. POST- is a clear-eyed look at a broken society, and Rosenstock ably gives voice to the anxieties of a nation within. Hoosier Love: POST- also had some help from some guest stars, including St. Louis native Dan Potthast of MU330, whom Rosenstock knows from their days playing in ska bands alongside one another. –Daniel Hill
OUT EVERY NIGHT Continued from pg 47
House, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-499-7600.
Hardloss, Steeples, Man The Helm, Cold Rooms
Louis, 314-498-6989.
6 p.m., $10-$12. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St.
LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: 8 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz,
Louis, 314-535-0353.
Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-
THE POTOMAC ACCORD: w/ Earthsol, Low
436-5222.
Watermark for Ghost 8 p.m., free. Columbia
A MUSICAL JOURNEY FOR HUMANITY: 5 p.m., $35.
City Saloon, 1101 Valmeyer Road, Columbia,
Blanche M Touhill Performing Arts Center, 1
618-281-6410.
University Dr at Natural Bridge Road, Norman-
RICH MCDONOUGH & RHYTHM RENEGADES: 3
dy, 314-516-4949.
p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St.
THE BLACK & WHITE BAND: 5 p.m., $10. BB’s
Louis, 314-773-5565.
Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis,
ROCKY & THE WRANGLERS: 4 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz,
314-436-5222.
Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-
THE UNDERDOGS: 7 p.m., $10-$12. The Firebird,
436-5222.
2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.
ROGUE WAVE: 8 p.m., $17.50-$20. Delmar Hall,
JEFF ROSENSTOCK: w/ Martha, Bad Moves 8
MONDAY 30
SKEET RODGERS & INNER CITY BLUES BAND: 10
CHICANO BATMAN: w/ Amasa Hines 8 p.m., $16-
p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broad-
$18. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave,
way, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.
St. Louis, 314-833-3929.
TOM HALL: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups,
MOTHICA: w/ Ehiorobo 7 p.m., $12-$15. Fubar,
700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.
3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.
TRIXIE MATTEL: 8 p.m., $40-$110. The Pageant,
THIRD SIGHT “SPECIAL EDITION”: 8 p.m., $10. BB’s
6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.
Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis,
VARIETY’S DINNER WITH THE STARS: w/ John Leg-
314-436-5222.
1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-499-7600.
TUESDAY 1
WAITING FOR FLYNN: w/ Thames 8 p.m., $7. Off
AS THE CROW FLIES: w/ Once and Future Band
Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-
8 p.m., $35-$150. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar
6989.
Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.
SUNDAY 29
DJ DAN-C 9 PM - CLOSE
COLLEGE NIGHT - THURSDAY Neon Beer Pong $2 Tall Boy (16 oz) Cans DJ Ryan - 9 PM to Close
TEAM TRIVIA THURSDAY
SEX, MUSIC, MOVIES, & SPORTS
7-9 PM
$34.95. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.
$15-$20. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd, St.
THE LILLINGTONS: w/ Make War 8 p.m., $16-$18.
Louis, 314-560-2778.
Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.
EDDIE GOMEZ TRIO: 7 p.m., $15-$20. Kranzberg
ST. LOUIS SOCIAL CLUB: 8 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz,
Arts Center, 501 N Grand Blvd, St. Louis, 314-
Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-
533-0367.
436-5222.
2 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis,
WEDNESDAY 2
314-289-9050.
BIG RICH MCDONOUGH & RHYTHM RENEGADES: 7
GABRIEL IGLESIAS: 6 p.m., $40-$75. Peabody Opera
FRIDAY & SATURDAY NIGHT
GIRLS NIGHT OUT: THE SHOW: 8 p.m., $14.95-
DUKE ELLINGTON’S BIRTHDAY CONCERT: 7 p.m.,
FLY HIGH BRO: A BENEFIT FOR ROME’S FAMILY:
DANCE PARTY
p.m., $15. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St.
6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.
end 8 p.m., $72-$140. Peabody Opera House,
SOULARD’S HOTTEST
Continued on pg 50
2001 MENARD (AT ALLEN) IN THE HEART OF SOULARD LIKE & FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK: @dukesinsoulard riverfronttimes.com
APRIL 25 - MAY 1 2018
RIVERFRONT TIMES
49
$5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway,
THIS WEEKEND Continued from pg 47
[CRITIC’S PICK]
St. Louis, 314-436-5222. EDDIE GOMEZ TRIO: Sun., April 29, 7 p.m., $15-$20. Kranzberg Arts Center, 501 N Grand
lingering cold. Only true ghouls will come fully decked out for a fright night in April, but that’s only part of the draw here. Milwaukee’s Body Futures makes a synthetic blend of angular rock with a clean and polished approach to production. And the local lineup? A shortlist of rock favorites that could fill a dance hall of costumed freaks all on their own.
Blvd, St. Louis, 314-533-0367. GARY NUMAN: W/ Nightmare Air, Thu., Sept. 13, 8 p.m., $22-$25. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929. GGOOLLDD: W/ Summer Magic, Wed., May 30, 8 p.m., $10-$12. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. JANELLE MONÁE: W/ St. Beauty, Wed., July 11, 8 p.m., $41-$48.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. JOHNNYSWIM: W/ Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors, Penny & Sparrow, Sat., June 30, 8
New Lingo EP Release Show w/ Ashland, Hardloss, Steeples, Man The Helm, Cold Rooms
p.m., $35-$37.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. JOSHUA HEDLEY: Wed., Sept. 12, 8 p.m., $15-
Chicano Batman. | JOSUE RIVAS
6 p.m. The Firebird, 2706 Olive Street. $10 to $12. 314-535-0353.
New Lingo makes the kind of colossal rock that equally fits in at a big arena show or a side stage at Warped Tour (which the band has actually played). There’s a lot to love in singer Joe Glenk’s relentless approach to vocal leads, which sees him howling through poignant verses atop a propulsive punk core. The riffs here are tightly wound, and every single beat feels cut to perfection. Maybe the band feels a little too clean at times, but you can’t fault a well-oiled machine for working right — especially when the songs have such universal appeal.
$18. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.
Chicano Batman 8 p.m. Monday, April 30. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Avenue. $11 to $18. 314-833-3929.
A fair swath of St. Louis was introduced to the wonders of Chicano Batman during a late-afternoon set at 2016’s LouFest. And, true to form, the band dressed to impress: The Los Angeles-based quartet favors well-tailored but delightfully tacky formal wear from the 1970s — frilly shirts, wide bow-ties and enough polyester to warrant a fire hazard, especially on a warm afternoon
MICHAEL CLEVELAND & FLAMEKEEPER: Sun.,
in Forest Park. But the group’s visual appeal only hints at the panoply of influences that it synthesizes: funk, soul, garage-rock and tropicalia, along with an incorporation of styles inspired by the members’ Mexican heritage. Last year’s Freedom Is Free struck a joyful and strident tone, a vision of a country where borders, stylistic and otherwise, are permeable. Hines’ Quarters: Amasa Hines, a Little Rock-based soul and blues sextet, will open the show. –Christian Schaeffer
Aug. 26, 7 p.m., $14.50-$18. Atomic Cowboy Pavilion, 4140 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-775-0775. PORCHFEST STL 2018: Sun., May 6, 1 p.m., free. Skinker DeBaliviere Community Council, 6008 Kingsbury, St. Louis, 314-862-5122. THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS: Fri., Aug. 10, 8 p.m., $35-$37.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. R&B LEGENDS: MOTHER’S DAY EDITION: W/ Evelyn “Champagne” King, Tony Terry, Kim Massie, DJ Kut, Sun., May 13, 6 p.m., $25-$55. Ambassador, 9800 Halls Ferry Rd, North St. Louis County, 314-869-9090. THE RECORD COMPANY: Thu., Sept. 20, 8 p.m., $24-$29. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.
OUT EVERY NIGHT Continued from pg 49
AARON KAMM & THE ONE DROPS: W/ Monopho-
ROGER CLYNE & THE PEACEMAKERS: Sat., June
nics, Crate2Crate, Fri., May 25, 7 p.m., $15-
23, 8 p.m., $20-$25. Blueberry Hill - The Duck
$18. Atomic Cowboy Pavilion, 4140 Manches-
Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City,
p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broad-
ter Avenue, St. Louis, 314-775-0775.
314-727-4444.
way, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.
BIG TOBACCO: W/ Little Cowboy, Dear Genre,
RYLEY WALKER: Tue., Sept. 11, 8 p.m., $12. Off
8 p.m. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway. $5. 314-328-2309.
THE EAST SIDER REVIEW: 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz,
Thu., May 3, 9 p.m., $5. The Ready Room, 4195
Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-
Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis,
Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.
6989.
Exploding In Sound Records should at least be partly credited for the recent crop of copycat grunge bands that have popped up in the last few years. By exporting the likes of Pile, Ovlov and Kal Marks, the East Coast imprint has unwittingly inspired a glut of heavy indie rockers who incorporate noise and seedier sounds. Yazan, a New York native of Palestinian heritage, released Hahaha through the label last week, subverting expectations with his shape-shifting approach to classic rock. This is a sound that will be hard to imitate, much less duplicate. –Joseph Hess
314-436-5222.
BILLY CURRINGTON: W/ Jordan Davis, Thu.,
SIR SLY: Sat., June 23, 8 p.m., $17.50-$20.
FRANZ FERDINAND: 8 p.m., $30.50-$33. The
June 21, 7 p.m., $35-$85. Chesterfield Amphi-
Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis,
Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-
theater, 631 Veterans Place Drive, Chester-
314-726-6161.
6161.
field.
SMOKEY ROBINSON: Sat., Oct. 6, 8 p.m., $60-
FRESH PRODUCE: THE BEAT BATTLE: first
BISHOP BRIGGS: Sun., July 1, 8 p.m., $25-$28.
$90. Family Arena, 2002 Arena Parkway, St
Wednesday of every month, 9 p.m., free. The
Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis,
Charles, 636-896-4200.
Monocle, 4510 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-
314-726-6161.
STL FREE JAZZ COLLECTIVE: Sat., May 12, 7
935-7003.
CAR SEAT HEADREST: Thu., Sept. 27, 8 p.m.,
p.m., free. 14th Street Artist Community, 2701
SUNDAE + MR. GOESSL: 7 p.m., free. Evange-
$22-$25. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St.
14th St, St. Louis.
line’s, 512 N Euclid Ave, St. Louis, 314-367-
Louis, 314-726-6161.
TOMMY HALLORAN: Sat., June 16, 7 p.m., free.
3644.
DEAFHEAVEN: W/ Drab Majesty, Uniform, Fri.,
Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St.
THE FIGHTING SIDES & FRIENDS: w/ Les Gruff &
Aug. 3, 9 p.m., $18-$20. The Ready Room, 4195
Louis, 314-224-5521.
The Billy Goats, The Native Sons, Brucetoffere-
Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.
TRAVIS TRITT: Sat., July 14, 8 p.m., $35-$55. Riv-
on 9 p.m., $7. The Ready Room, 4195 Manches-
THE DISTINGUISHED GENTS WELCOME THE LA-
er City Casino & Hotel, 777 River City Casino
ter Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.
DIES OF EXCELLENCE: Sat., May 26, 6 p.m., $30-
Blvd., St. Louis, 314-388-7777.
WE WERE SHARKS: w/ Boys of Fall 6 p.m., $10-
$140. Grandel Theatre, 3610 Grandel Square,
TWIDDLE: Thu., May 24, 6 p.m., $17-$20. Atom-
$12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-
St. Louis, 314-533-0367.
ic Cowboy Pavilion, 4140 Manchester Avenue,
9050.
DJ PAULY D: Sat., July 28, 9 p.m., $25. Amer-
St. Louis, 314-775-0775.
Each week we bring you our picks for the best concerts of the weekend. To submit your show for consideration, visit riverfronttimes. com/stlouis/Events/AddEvent. All events subject to change; check with the venue for the most up-to-date information.
THIS JUST IN
istar Casino, 1 Ameristar Blvd., St. Charles,
UMPHREY’S MCGEE: W/ Spafford, Fri., Aug. 10,
636-949-7777.
6 p.m., $37-$42. Chesterfield Amphitheater,
3RD ANNUAL ST. LOUIS PIANO FESTIVAL: Mon.,
DOM FLEMONS: Fri., July 6, 8 p.m., $15. Off
631 Veterans Place Drive, Chesterfield.
June 4, 6 p.m., $15-$20. BB’s Jazz, Blues &
Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-
WHOA THUNDER: Fri., Aug. 31, 7 p.m., free. Das
Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-
6989.
Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis,
5222.
THE EAST SIDER REVIEW: Wed., May 2, 10 p.m.,
314-224-5521.
SUNDAY, APRIL 29 Yazan w/ L.S. XPRSS, Thee Oswalds
50
RIVERFRONT TIMES
APRIL 25 - MAY 1, 2018
riverfronttimes.com
Rockstar Painting
$99 Per Room! *Faux Painting Artist* Exteriors Also! 314-835-7758
Now Hiring! $15-$28 per hour
Marketing Assistants Painting Assistants Promo Girls/Guys Send Resumes to ServiceXpressLLC@gmail.com
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314-688-9104
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homeowner survey / Social Media
freepizzasurvey.com
Gorilla Marketing Strategist / Signs / Flyers / Canvassing
ALWAYS A PARTY!! TIL 4AM SUN-THU TIL 6AM FRI-SAT HAVING A BACHELOR PARTY? NEED MORE PASSES? TEXT PROMO TO 618-744-5259
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APRIL 25 - MAY 1 2018
RIVERFRONT TIMES
51
52
SAVAGE LOVE
CRUSHED BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: I’m a straight male in my 30s. I’ve been with my wife for twelve years. I have had several affairs. Not one-night-stand scenarios, but longer-term connections. I didn’t pursue any of these relationships. Instead, women who knew I was in an “exclusive” relationship have approached me. These have included what turned into a oneyear affair with a single woman, a three-year affair with a close friend of my wife, a seven-month affair with a married coworker, and now a fairly serious four-monthsand-counting relationship with a woman who approached me on Instagram. On the one hand, I do not regret my time with any of these women. On the other hand, I have been deceitful and manipulative for almost my entire adult life. I am a terrible husband in this respect. Also, I’m going to get busted eventually, right? Finding out about this would crush my wife. I love her, we get along great, and the sex is good — if I wasn’t such a lying piece of shit, you could even say we make a pretty good team. We are also very socially and financially entangled. I don’t want to leave, but I suspect I should. And if so, I need help considering an exit strategy. Part of my motivation for writing is that I am particularly attached to the woman I’m having an affair with now, and both of us fantasize about being together openly. I’m a liar, a cheat, a use, and a manipulator — and it just keeps happening. A Seriously Shitty Husband On Losing Everything P.S. I’m expecting you to rip me to shreds. It doesn’t “just keep happening,” ASSHOLE, you keep doing it. And these women didn’t “turn into” one-year, three-year, seven-month, and four-months-andcounting affairs on their own. You turned them into affairs by continuing to show up. And while you claim that each of these women pursued you despite knowing you were in an exclusive relationship, it doesn’t sound like you ran from any of them. At best, you broke 52
RIVERFRONT TIMES
into (or slowed to) a trot, which allowed each one of these lady predators to overtake you. The first step toward holding yourself accountable for your appalling actions — a close friend of your wife? really? — is doing away with the passive voice. Don’t ask yourself, “How’d that happen?!?” as if the universe were conspiring against you somehow. You weren’t hit by a pussy meteor every time you left the house. You did these things. You had these affairs. You. Zooming out: If all it takes for some rando to get her hands on your otherwise committed cock is to DM you on Instagram, you have no business making monogamous commitments. If you’d sought out a partner who wanted an open relationship — a wide-open one — you could have had concurrent, committed, nonexclusive relationships and avoided being “a liar, a cheat, a user,” etc. Seeing as you’re a reader, ASSHOLE, I suspect you knew an honest open relationship was an option — that ethical nonmonogamy was an option — but you didn’t pursue that. And why not? Maybe because you don’t want to be with a woman who is free to sit on other dicks. Or maybe the wrongness and the self-loathing — the whole bad-boy-on-the-rack routine — turn you on. Or maybe you’re the wrong kind of sadist: the un-self-aware emotional sadist. You say you love your wife, but you also say she’d be crushed — destroyed — if she discovered what you’ve been doing. Be honest, ASSHOLE, just this once: Is the destruction of your wife a bug or is it a feature? I suspect the latter. Because cheating on this scale isn’t about succumbing to temptation or reacting to neglect. It’s about the annihilation of your partner — a (hopefully) subconscious desire to punish and destroy someone, anyone, fool enough to love you. The tragedy is how unnecessary your choices have been. There are women out there who aren’t interested in monogamy, there are female cuckolds out there (cuckqueans) who want cheating husbands, and there are masochistic women (and men) out there who get off on the thought of being with a person who would like
APRIL 25 - MAY 1, 2018
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to crush them. So long as those desires are consciously eroticized, fully compartmentalized and safely expressed, you could have done everything you wanted, ASSHOLE, without harming anyone. So what do you do now? It seems like you want out, and your wife definitely deserves better, so cop to one affair, since copping to all of them would crush her — or so you think. People are often way more resilient than we give them credit for, and convincing ourselves that our partners can’t handle the truth is often a convenient justification for lying to them. But on the off chance it would crush your wife to be told everything, just tell her about Ms. Instagram. That should be enough. P.S. Get your ass into therapy, ASSHOLE. Hey, Dan: I’m a 42-year-old gay man. I’ve been with my husband for 21 years. We met in college and, except for a six-month break, we’ve been together ever since. I made an open relationship a requirement at the start. While my husband had jealousy and trust issues, he hooked up with others regularly. After a few tense years, we started couples therapy. During therapy, my husband revealed that he was never in favor of the openness. After trying some new arrangements — only together, only at sex parties, DADT — he realized he wasn’t comfortable with any situation. He told our therapist that every time I hooked up with someone, he was retraumatized because it reminded him of the time I broke up with him for six months twenty years ago. I agreed to a monogamous relationship, and I’ve gone a year without hooking up with anyone else. He seemed genuinely relieved and said he felt more secure. But almost immediately, he began talking about how he wanted to hook up with others. I’m at a loss. I feel tremendous guilt for even thinking about splitting up, so I keep hoping we’ll stumble on the thing that will work for us. I don’t know what to say when he says I should be monogamous to him while he gets to hook up with others. He says this would be best, since my hooking up triggers him. We are at an impasse.
It sucks that we could break up over this. Gay Marriage Having Crisis I’ve written about a few gay couples — and a few straight ones — where one half gets to hook up with others while the other half doesn’t. But they were cuckold couples, GMHC, and the half who didn’t “get to” hook up with others didn’t want to hook up with others. The cuck half of a cuckold couple gets off on their partner “cheating” on them. While people outside the relationship might perceive that as unfair — one gets to cheat, the other doesn’t — what’s more ideal than both halves of a couple getting just what they want? But if an eroticized power imbalance — an honestly eroticized one — doesn’t turn you on, the creepily manipulative arrangement your husband is proposing certainly isn’t going to work. Which means it’s both ultimatum and bluff-calling time. So long as your husband thinks he can dictate terms by pointing to his triggers and his trauma, GMHC, he has every incentive to continue being triggered and traumatized. So with your couples therapist there to mediate, tell him your marriage is either open or closed. You’re not interested in being his cuckold and he can’t point to his trauma to force you into that role. You’re a handsome couple — thanks for enclosing the lovely picture (sometimes it’s nice to see the face of the person I’m responding to!) — with a long history together, and here’s hoping things work out. But if they don’t, GMHC, neither of you is going to have a problem finding a new partner. He can get himself a guy who likes being dictated to, if that’s really what he wants. And you can find a guy who wants an open and egalitarian relationship, which is what you deserve. P.S. If your therapist is taking your husband’s side in this, GMHC, get a new therapist. Listen to Dan’s podcast at savagelovecast.com. mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage on Twitter ITMFA.org
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