Riverfront Times, April 5, 2023

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Publisher Chris Keating

Editor in Chief Rosalind Early

EDITORIAL

Managing Editor Jessica Rogen

Editor at Large Daniel Hill

Digital Content Editor Jaime Lees

Dining Editor Cheryl Baehr

Staff Writers Ryan Krull, Monica Obradovic Theater Critic Tina Farmer Music Critic Steve Leftridge

Contributors Thomas K. Chimchards, Mike Fitzgerald, Reuben Hemmer, Jim Merkel, Andy Paulissen, Mabel Suen, Graham Toker, Theo Welling Columnists Chris Andoe, Dan Savage

Editorial Interns Katie Lawson, Braden McMakin

ART & PRODUCTION

Art Director Evan Sult

Creative Director Haimanti Germain Graphic Designer Aspen Smit

MULTIMEDIA ADVERTISING

Associate Publisher Colin Bell

Account Manager Jennifer Samuel Directors of Business Development Tony Burton, Rachel Hoppman, Chelsea Nazaruk

BUSINESS

Regional Operations Director Emily Fear

CIRCULATION

Circulation Manager Kevin G. Powers

EUCLID MEDIA GROUP

Chief Executive Officer Andrew Zelman

Chief Operating Officers Chris Keating, Michael Wagner

Executive Editor Sarah Fenske

VP of Digital Services Stacy Volhein

Audience Development Manager Jenna Jones VP of Marketing Cassandra Yardeni www.euclidmediagroup.com

NATIONAL ADVERTISING

VMG Advertising 1-888-278-9866, vmgadvertising.com

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Send address changes to Riverfront Times, 5257 Shaw Avenue, St. Louis, MO, 63110. Domestic

FRONT BURNER

MONDAY, MARCH 27 Three children and three adults are dead in Nashville after yet another horrible school shooting . Never mind that authorities are only beginning to dig into the shooters’ manifesto; Josh Hawley knows what happened — it’s a hate crime targeting Christians! Meanwhile, the writers over at Deadspin are in awe of St. Louis’ new MLS team . “ City SC have started the year 5-0-0, are atop the Western Conference, have the best goal difference in the league, and have already collected just shy of a third of the points they’ll probably need to get to the playoffs in their inaugural season with only 15 percent of the season gone. So who the fuck are these guys ?” Yo Deadspin : We’re St. Fucking Louis !

Previously On LAST WEEK IN ST. LOUIS

trial because her office isn’t ready to proceed , or the fact that St. Louis police lead the nation in shooting civilians , yet never get charged for it. Nope, the “roundtable” is all about her own political future . Also, she’s apparently running again. And with that, the progressives defending Gardner from the AG’s witch hunt — even while despairing at her utter incompetence — release a quiet sob .

destruction.

SATURDAY, APRIL 1 Soulard pizzeria

Pizzeoli is now Pete’s Aioli , the Battlehawks are taking their talents to Inglewood , the Chicago Bean has moved atop our own Gateway Arch and Imo’s is now selling a pizza solely composed of “crunchy corners” — April Fools’! (Really, brands, is this tomfoolery actually worth your time?) In real life, all good things come to an end, and so it is for both the weather ( brutally cold winds whip across the region) and our expansion team (CITY SC falls 1-0 to Minnesota ). Boo.

TUESDAY, MARCH 28

The Saint Louis Zoo train is going green. The new electric locomotive, one of seven now circumnavigating the zoo, is named for Mary Meachum , an abolitionist and conductor in the Underground Railroad. Pretty cool! St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner hosts a “criminal justice reform roundtable” and somehow manages to say not a thing about the urgent criminal justice reform issues confronting St. Louis, like people being stuck in jail for months awaiting

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29 In Rome, Pope Francis is in the hospital. Maybe we could send him St. Louis’ newly acquired Holy Toe™ ? In Jefferson City , Democrats filibuster a bill to make it harder to change Missouri’s constitution. It’s time well spent: Everybody knows the only way to enshrine Democratic values into law in this state is to put them on the ballot separate from all partisan affiliation.

THURSDAY, MARCH 30 It’s really and truly spring now — and it’s glorious . The

FIVE QUESTIONS for Laynee Knipmeyer, maker of the T-Rav hat

trees are budding, the sun is shining … just in time for the Cardinals to lose 10-9 to Toronto. Unrelatedly, the PostDispatch says more people are leaving the region. The metro area is now down to 2.8 million, and the city of St. Louis is now smaller than Henderson, Nevada, and Wichita, Kansas . (Who?) Will the last one to go turn off the light? Meanwhile in New York, a failed real estate developer has been indicted for business fraud. Is it bad we’re more riveted by Gwyneth Paltrow’s legal travails ? Today we learned she’s not at fault, naturally. Gwyneth is never at fault.

FRIDAY, MARCH 31 The predictions got ever more terrifying — hail the size of baseballs! Gale-force winds! Tornadoes! Somehow, St. Louis again avoids the worst of the carnage, even as a twister touches down in Little Rock and 32 are left dead throughout the South and Midwest. Once again, we thank the Arch for sparing us from

she’ll say is “soon.”

SUNDAY, APRIL 2 All of yesterday’s sadness is forgotten as the Battlehawks win, 24-15, in Houston. Spring is back — sunshine and warmth fill the air, but not too much warmth: It’s perfect marathon-running weather , and the dedicated nutjobs who run 26.2 miles for fun are at it again as we lazy slobs wave, hungover, from our front stoops. More good news: Pope Francis makes a remarkable recovery! Christians around the world wave palm branches in the streets, preparing to reenact their journey from praising Jesus to agitating for his death within one brief week. A further reminder (as if you needed it) that humans suck

What inspired you to make the hat?

My partner Nick came up with the idea for the hat. He loves St. Louis soccer and wanted to show up in a big way at the games to support the city. We recognized the toasted ravioli as a St Louis staple and wanted to bring a bit of flavor to the games.

How’s it feel knowing this hat is now a Big Thing in St. Louis?

It feels wonderful to feel the love and support from St. Louisans when we were just creating something goofy to have fun. We love that the city loves t-ravs as much as we do!

How did wearing the hat to the soccer game come about for your partner?

Nick had the idea before the season started and had so much fun at the first game, we knew it had to be turned into a reality. He’s a season ticket holder and will be at every home game.

Laynee Knipmeyer has created what may become the St. Louis answer to the Green Bay Packers’ famous Cheeseheads. You know, those enormous cheese block hats that everybody wears in Wisconsin? Yeah, St. Louis does it better (of course).

In a brief clip captured during a St. Louis CITY SC game, Knipmeyer’s partner Nick Lammering was shown wearing the toasted ravioli hat, and St. Louis went wild for it.

Knipmeyer, it turns out, made the t-rav hat, and she’s hearing from plenty of people who want one of their own. A modified version of her creation will be priced and available on her website shortly. When? All

How can people stay up to date so they can acquire their own toasted ravioli hat?

You can follow our journey on social media, @travmanstl on IG and Twitter.

What was the process like making the t-rav hat? Was it difficult or pretty easy?

I designed it on my iPad by drawing on top of photos of his head, then headed to the nearest craft store to pick up materials. After yards of fabric, some elastic, paint, a cut-up hat and a few tears, T-Rav Man was born.

—Jenna Jones

Nick Lammering is T-Rav Man thanks to sewing from Laynee Knipmeyer. | COURTESY PHOTO

SOMETIMES IT’S THE LITTLE THINGS THAT COUNT

WEEKLY WTF?!

Dumpster Watch

Location of sighting: Tower Grove East

How the bumper got in the dumpster: unknown

Our guess: a courteous Kia Boy

Location of expired temp tag: unknown

Should you do this if your bumper falls off?: maybe take it to a scrapyard if you’re not interested in reattaching

Title if dedicated as a sculpture: St. Louis, mixed media, car in dumpster, 2023 What surprises us most: that it was properly put in the trash dumpster and not the recycling

ESCAPE HATCH

We ask three St. Louisans what they’re reading, watching or listening to. In the hot seat this week: three employees of Left Bank Books in the Central West End.

Alicia, online order processor

Reading: The Murderbot Diaries, a science fiction series by Martha Wells

“The first book is like 200 pages, but it’s so well done. I really love the character. I want to know more about this murderous robot.”

Randy, book buyer

Reading: Slow Birding: The Art and Science of Enjoying the Birds in Your Own Backyard by Joan Strassmann

“I’m a birder, and slow birding is the way I like to bird. It’s about enjoying the birds you see, not how many.”

Baeyle, bookseller

Reading: City of Girls, a novel by Elizabeth Gilbert

“It’s good so far; I started reading it because there’s a lot of sewing in it. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes historical fiction or is crafty.”

The Meteoric Rise of St. Louis’ Vogue Ball Scene

Only a few years ago, our local vogue ball scene felt very underground. I remember following my map through frozen, desolate east-side streets to a seemingly abandoned building. I thought perhaps the affair had been canceled, and then I noticed tire marks in the snow leading down a dark, narrow alley to a rear entrance illuminated by a single bulb. While events still happen in venues like that, these days you’re just as likely to find balls at the Contemporary Art Museum, Washington University or in hot Grove nightclubs such as HandleBar — and you’re likely to meet people who traveled hundreds, maybe even thousands, of miles to be part of them.

Our scene’s meteoric rise is often credited to Meko Lee Burr, Kece Juicy Couture, Vanessa Frost and Maven Logik Lee — a 33-year-old producer who returned to us from New York in 2021. At the time, he told me, “I want to connect our scene with better venues, new sponsors, and more safe spaces.” Now, we’re seeing his vision come to life.

On March 4, I was in the green room before Lee’s The Future Is Femme Ball in Wash U’s stately Danforth University Center interviewing Jack Gucci, star of FX’s Pose and HBO Max’s Legendary Gucci, one of several big names who flew to town, was the celebrity emcee. He said he’s always heard that St. Louis had great Chinese food, and he found that to be true after dining at Lefty’s Fried Rice.

Our interview was interrupted when a Los Angeles performer pulled him aside. “I need to warn you about the DJ situation,” she said in a hushed tone. Apparently, the DJ — a last-minute replacement who had never worked a ball — was offended when instructed on what music to play and when.

Gucci returned. “Anti-LGBT laws are being rolled out all over the country. I want to show the people what a safe space looks like.” He recalled when Lee was just a face in the crowd and watching him evolve into a stand-up leader of his own organization.

On the mic, the charismatic Gucci heaped praise on the DJ, masterfully diffusing any hard feelings. But honoring people is at the core of Ballroom:

During the opening — in what’s called Legends, Statements, Stars — one by one the performers are introduced, and then they strut, dance and perform on the runway while a commentator hypes them as the crowd roars.

Burr is among the city’s finest commentators, and at Lee’s event, he invited me to attend one of his upcoming balls at the Contemporary Art Museum. He later put me in touch with Michelle Dezember, CAM’s director of learning and engagement. I asked how CAM got involved with the Ballroom community.

“I was excited when Maxi Glamour approached CAM about hosting Black Friday Ball at the museum in 2020,” Dezember begins. “Balls are incredibly inclusive and supportive spaces, and I see how getting to collaborate and share the space ... has shaped the museum for the better.”

Marlon Bailey, author of Butch Queens Up in Pumps, will be facilitating a conversation with academic Julian K. Glover and Maxi Glamour about queer theory, Black LGBTQ+ cultural formations and performance at CAM on Wednesday, April 26.

Bailey says, “The fact that there is a resurgence of the Ballroom scene in St. Louis is a testament to how this community goes a long way in meeting the cultural and social needs of its Black LGBTQ+ members, many of whom experience violence, and societal marginalization and dispossession.”

As St. Louis Ballroom moves uptown, drawing celebrities, intellectuals and the glitterati, I was curious to know if those I first came to know voguing in the back alley venues had come along for the ride. Lee says the answer is yes.

“Folx used to think, and it was true, that people thought Ballroom was too gritty, dirty, violent, etc. to be in nice places,” Lee says. Participants now feel safer, “fab,” and more seen.

In only a few short years, Lee and a handful of others have catapulted St. Louis to the upper echelon of the global Ballroom scene, all while elevating and nurturing a generation of marginalized young people — a generation who will be able to fly because Lee built them a runway.

Outrage and Hope at Trans Rights Rally in Jefferson City

With state anti-LGBTQ legislation at an all time high, hundreds descended on the Capitol to protest

Written by MONICA OBRADOVIC

When Keeley Kromat talks about how her daughter started hormone replacement therapy, she describes it as when “[I] got my child back.”

Before, Kromat’s daughter, Rowan McGrew, was “sullen and withdrawn,” and it was difficult to get her to talk. Now, two years after starting hormone therapy, McGrew’s “bright.” She has a huge group of friends. She’s a competitive skateboarder.

“She’s just blossomed,” Kromat says.

But Kromat and McGrew are worried other trans kids in Missouri won’t get that same opportunity. Missouri’s Republican legislators have proposed dozens of anti-LGBTQ+ bills this session. One bill, Senate Bill 49, would ban minors from receiving gender-affirming care.

“The whole time everything’s been going on, it’s been a constant fear of, oh, are we going to have to figure out some workaround?”

McGrew, 17, says.

McGrew and her mom traveled from St. Louis to Jefferson City to protest last Wednesday. They were part of a large crowd; hundreds gathered around the Capitol steps carrying signs with messages such as “Trans rights are human rights!” and “Love thy neighbor.”

Protestors came to the Capitol for a multitude of reasons. Some, like Kromat and McGrew, have

traveled to Jefferson City before to testify against bills, and returned to raise their voices. Some were allies, standing in solidarity with their trans friends and relatives. Others came because they didn’t know what else to do. At a time when the state seemed so against them, raising a sign and shouting “Protect trans lives!” outside the Capitol, as legislators who did not respect their wishes deliberated inside, felt almost like a duty.

Even so, PROMO, a statewide LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, planned the protest with specific legislation in mind. Senate Bill 39 and Senate Bill 49 passed in the Senate earlier in March. Senate Bill 39, dubbed the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” would require transgender athletes to play on sports teams according to the gender they were assigned at birth.

“I don’t know what the legislature’s been thinking,” says Nancy McKerrow of Columbia, Missouri. McKerrow came to the protest for her 11-year-old niece, who’s trans-

gender and would be ineligible to receive care under Senate Bill 39’s proposal. “The way the Missouri legislature is moving, we’ll have to leave the state.”

The bills didn’t pass without a fight. Democrats have spent hours

filibustering against such measures, and the gender-affirming care bill was ultimately changed to exclude transgender Missourians already receiving care. Still, if passed by the House and signed by the governor, the bill would place a four-year ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender minors who haven’t already started the care.

Senator Greg Razer (D-Kansas City), the only openly gay member of the Senate, spoke passionately on the Senate floor and again at the protest.

“We protect trans lives. We protect our children,” Razer said. “We’re going to continue to do that because in the LGBT community, we not only bring rainbows, we bring sunshine.”

Last week’s protest was the second time that Rachel Stout had returned to the Missouri Capitol to protect trans rights. The week before last, she counterprotested a rally held by conservative groups to “protect” trans kids, which in their view meant limiting gender-

In Jefferson City, people gathered to protest anti-trans legislation. | REUBEN HEMMER

“We protect trans lives, we protect our children. We’re going to continue to do that because in the LGBT community, we not only bring rainbows, we bring sunshine.”

affirming health care.

But Stout hasn’t lost any steam. She and a friend spent hours patrolling the Capitol as security for the protest. On the steps of the Capitol, Stout looked militant; she wore black pants and a black shirt. A utility vest strapped around her chest held pepper spray.

Minutes after the protest, a man on his way into the Capitol building asked Stout why she was dressed like that. “You look pretty dumb,” he said.

“Cry about it!” Stout shouted back. Stout’s friend, dressed in the same outfit, told the man his jacket looked “pretty.”

This is the type of bigotry she deals with every day, Stout says. But when hateful comments turn into threats of physical violence against trans people — that’s what motivates her to show up to protests like this, ready to defend people from threats. It’s a calling she wishes wasn’t necessary.

“I don’t want to do this,” Stout says. “I want to be collecting Super Nintendo cartridges and playing Magic: The Gathering That’s what I was doing before all this.”

By “this,” Stout means protesting the 34 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been proposed in Missouri this legislative session alone, according to the ACLU. That’s just a small chunk of a nationwide trend — 44 states have introduced a total of 435 bills targeted at the LGBTQ+ community.

Knowing that, Kromat and McGrew stood in front of the Missouri Capitol with much more than their own futures in mind.

“Fortunately, it looks like she will be in the loophole, provided her doctors will still be able to provide her care,” Kromat says of McGrew continuing her genderaffirming care. “But we want that care to be available to all trans kids in Missouri. We don’t intend to give up fighting no matter where this goes.”

Hundreds more had the same resolve at the protest in Jefferson City. They won’t back down, PROMO board of directors member Kend all Martinez-Wright said.

“Let it be known, for days, weeks, months, possibly years to come, we will be in this fight,” MartinezWright said. “At the end of the day, joy comes in the morning, and we will win.”

Serial Killer Gary Muehlberg Pleads Guilty to His First Known Slaying

The “Package Killer” abducted Robyn Mihan when she was 18 years old

Written by RYAN KRULL

Thirty-three years ago, serial murderer Gary Muehlberg discarded 18-year-old Robyn Mihan’s dead body along a stretch of rural Highway E in Lincoln County. Muehlberg abducted Mihan from the Southside Stroll in St. Louis on Thursday, March 22, 1990, before murdering her in his home in BelRidge. That Monday, he tied her lifeless body between two mattresses, and in the early morning hours left her along the roadside to be found by a commuter.

On Friday, 33 years later, Muehlberg pleaded guilty to Mihan’s murder via video feed in a courthouse in Lincoln County. This was the first of Muehlberg’s six known killings and the last, for now, that he has pled guilty to.

Prior to Muehlberg being sentenced, Mihan’s mother Saundra had a chance to confront her daughter’s killer. “I don’t quite understand, Mr. Muehlberg, how you are not able to be here face to face,” she said. “The murders weren’t done by Zoom call.”

She called Muehlberg “a monster,” telling him he created a hell on earth for Mihan and his other victims but that he was just at the beginning of his hell.

However, despite the tough words, Saundra said that ultimately she was compelled by her faith to forgive the man.

Between 1990 and 1991, Muehlberg abducted five women from the Southside Stroll, St. Louis’ then-red light district. He murdered them all in his home and then left their bodies in conspicuous containers along roads and highways throughout the region. The grim M.O. earned him the name the “Package Killer.”

In 1993 he murdered a male acquaintance, Kenneth “Doc” Atchison, a crime for which Muehlberg received a life sentence in 1995. He was in prison in Potosi last summer when cold case detective Jodi Weber with the O’Fallon Police Department cracked the threedecades-old murders via DNA evidence

and confronted Muehlberg, who confessed to the crimes.

After the hearing on Friday, Weber told Saundra that as she worked on the cold case for years she regularly drove on Highway E, past the spot where Mihan was found.

“I’d talk to the girls,” Weber said. “And say, ‘Give me something. Give me something.’”

Muehlberg spent March on a courtroom tour of sorts, pleading guilty and receiving life sentences for his crimes. On March 6 in St. Charles County Circuit Court, he confessed to the murder of 21-year-old Sandy Little. In St. Louis County court on March 21 he admitted via video link that he murdered Donna Reitmeyer, 40, and Brenda Pruitt, 27.

In all cases, Muehlberg struck a deal with prosecutors that he would plead guilty to the murders in exchange for them taking the death penalty off the table.

Lincoln County Prosecutor Mike Wood called Muehlberg’s crimes, “gruesome and horrific.”

“I cannot imagine the pain that was inflicted on the victims and their families,” Wood said. “I hope today provides some closure so that Robyn’s family can begin to heal and that Gary Muehlberg can be held accountable for his actions.”

Friday’s plea brings an end to Muehlberg’s pending business before the court. However, two mysteries still hang over his crimes.

The first, which is likely to never be solved, is Muehlberg’s motivations for committing the murders. In a letter to his victims’ families, Muehlberg described the period during which he committed the murders as a “dark time” in his life. In a previous conversation with the RFT from prison, Muehlberg said, “Some things cannot be explained as a why.”

He added, “Even when all this is over in court, you cannot use an eraser and eliminate from your mind things that are there.”

The other lingering mystery, which investigators hope can still be solved, is the identity of Muehlberg’s fifth female victim.

When he confessed to Weber that he’d killed Mihan, Little, Pruitt and Reitmeyer, Muehlberg also said there was a fifth woman whose body he discarded in a metal barrel at the Ram Jet selfservice car wash, though there is uncertainty about the specific Ram Jet location where Muehlberg left the victim’s body.

Muehlberg says he doesn’t remember the woman’s name, if he ever knew it to begin with. According to Weber, Muehlberg has said the unidentified woman was white, with shoulder-length dark brown hair. Muehlberg says he may have picked the woman up from the Wedge bar at the corner of Bates Street and Virginia Avenue in the Carondelet neighborhood.

Authorities have repeatedly asked the public for their help identifying the unknown woman. If anyone knows anything about a woman who disappeared in the south city area in 1990 or 1991, they are encouraged to call the O’Fallon Police Department.

In the meantime, Muehlberg will remain at Potosi Correctional Center where he has been for almost 30 years. The 74-year-old is in bad health, has fallen repeatedly in recent weeks and appeared on Friday in a wheelchair.

“I prayed the good Lord would let me live long enough for the monster, whoever it was, to be caught and convicted,” Saundra said. “I said that even if they had to bring me in on a gurney, I’d come to court.” n

Gary Muehlberg confessed to a series of slayings in the 1990s. | MODOC

In all cases, Muehlberg struck a deal with prosecutors that he would plead guilty to the murders in exchange for them taking the death penalty off the table.

Almuttan Family Connected to Eyesore Property in Pine Lawn

The family is also linked to the informant who brought down three members of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen

Written by RYAN KRULL

To call it an eyesore would be an understatement.

For years Pine Lawn Alderwoman Dionne Jones has been trying to do something about the pile of charred rubble at Dardanella and Kienlen avenues, but it’s a task made all the harder because she can’t get a straight answer about who owns the property.

“You have [neighbors] who are ashamed to invite friends over,” she says. “Like even though your house is nice, your friends have to bypass this to get to your house. It’s embarrassing.”

There was once an auto body shop here, but for years there has been no discernible business. A few years ago, a fire

Attorney General Asks for Public Comments

The AG wants comments on transgender care, so we reviewed the last time Missouri asked for public comments on library funding

Written by RYAN KRULL

As part of his ongoing investigation of the Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, Attorney General Andrew Bailey launched an online form last month through which any old Missourian can weigh in on the issue.

Bailey’s announcement says the form is for any complaints or concerns residents might have “about gender transition intervention you have experienced or observed in Missouri.”

The move calls to mind a similar effort launched by Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft last year, when he asked the public to give their two cents over his proposal to cut state funding to libraries that provided what Ashcroft termed “non-ageappropriate materials” to young readers.

Critics blasted the rule proposed by

reduced the building to the pile of debris it is now.

Property records indicate that the lot is owned by ISYM ENTERPRISES, an LLC which according to state records was incorporated in 2015 by Rami Almuttan.

Almuttan was sentenced to four years in prison in October on a conspiracy charge stemming from his role in a cigarette and synthetic marijuana trafficking scheme. He is currently free pending ap-

Ashcroft as a form of book banning. It came as schools were proactively removing books like a graphic novel version of George Orwell’s 1984 and the Holocaust allegory Maus from their shelves to stay on the right side of a new state law many said was overly vague.

In November, when Ashcroft asked for feedback, the public took him up on the offer. A public records request for all submissions yielded more than 20,000 pages — pages that may foreshadow where this is all headed for Attorney General Bailey and his new attempt to gauge the sentiment of the populace.

Many Missourians wrote in with wellintentioned and well-reasoned critiques of Ashcroft’s proposal. Ian J.’s submission succinctly states a common theme of citizens calling out the purportedly small-government GOP official on his hypocrisy: “Let parents be the judge of what is appropriate for their children to read. Your proposal takes away that freedom you preach about.”

But there were also plenty of instances of things getting weird.

Michael R, for instance, submitted an impossible-to-parse flowchart ostensibly proving that Americans are dying at the hands of “Homeland Security in a Communist COVID Society.”

Another submission contained what appears to be a Missourian’s doctoral thesis from their coursework at the University of Phoenix.

peal. Rami is the brother of Mohammed Almuttan, the businessman who, after a 2017 arrest for his role in the trafficking scheme, became a federal informant and went on to record two former aldermen and the former president of the Board of Aldermen soliciting bribes.

On the phone, Rami Almuttan says the property actually belongs to his uncle.

“It’s not mine,” he says. “At one time my family was going to buy it, and they

did it under my name. … But I thought it was off my name.”

Rami gave the RFT the number for his cousin, Ali Jon, who says he’s the manager of the property. He says he’s not allowed to say who the owner is. “I have to ask them first,” he says.

Jon says that he thinks the building caught fire about two or three years ago, and as far he knows, the owner is trying to sell it.

“We have a couple buyers. We’re just waiting for them in the process of getting funds,” Jon says.

Jones, who has a view of the mess from her backyard, says she first ran for alderwoman in 2021, intent to fix quality-of-life issues in Pine Lawn just like this one. But she’s finding this particular issue more difficult than she imagined.

Across from the property on Dardanella is a row of modest but well-kept homes, and across the street on Kienlen is the iconic Skate King, which for more than 50 years has drawn people from all over the region for a night out. The rubble sticks out like a sore thumb.

Jones has floated the idea of a nearby church buying the property to use as a parking lot, but if any deal is in the works, it seems to be progressing slowly.

Jones describes it this way: “It’s tied up in foolishness.”

“It’s an eyesore,” she says. “It’s very sad. It makes us angry.” n

pages.

For instance, K.D. wrote: “Who gets to determine what is sexually appealing to any or every minor in the entire fucking state? Is it you? Do you want to personally read every single book which is published every year — which totals around 5 million, mind you — then be my mother fucking guest.”

“Your religious takeover of the libraries isn’t too far removed from Iran’s morality police or the Taliban’s Shariah Law. Fuck you,” wrote Eric K.

Cathy G. ended her submission to Ashcroft’s site, “Fuck off with this nonsense.”

Someone submitted a rather long poem, in which we think the poet may have confused the secretary of state for his father, who famously sought to cover up the breast of Lady Justice. It included the lines: And you pray for the biggest bra in the world John because you see that breast on the spirit of justice in the spirit of your own inhibited sexuality.

A letter from a Kansas City man included screenshots of Ashcroft’s own website, which the letter pointed out had some functionality issues.

Naturally, there were plenty of four-letter words to be found among the 20,000

Martha B wins the award for the brainiest dunk: “You are not in loco parentis,” she wrote, using the Latin phrase that means fulfilling a parental duty. “You are just loco.”

We didn’t read through all 20,000 pages, but after about half an hour of perusal, we got the sense that the public’s comments were something like nine to one against the so-called book ban.

The voluminous feedback seems to have done little to tamp down politicians’ appetites for micro-managing libraries, which probably tells you all you need to know about these sorts of online submission systems set up around culture war issues.

So go ahead, weigh in on the Transgender Center. Just know that reporters like us may be the only people actually reading. n

Alderwoman Dionne Jones near the property she calls an eyesore. | RYAN KRULL

Andrew Bailey is requesting public comments on transgender issues. | COURTESY PHOTO

Baseball Heaven

On St. Louis’ highest of holy days, the Redbirds returned to Busch Stadium

Written by ROSALIND

EARLY

Photos by THEO WELLING

The gates to baseball heaven opened again, and St. Louis poured in. The Cardinals hosted the Toronto Blue Jays on March 30 at Busch Stadium. In addition to the Clydesdales walking the track, a pep rally at Ballpark Village and recognition of the Cardinals as 2022 National League Champs, Adam Wainwright surprised the crowd by singing the national anthem.

The game provided lots of opportunities to cheer, since the Cardinals scored nine runs. Unfortunately, the Toronto Blue Jays scored 10. There may have been no joy in Mudville when the Mighty Casey struck out, but St. Louis baseball fans know the season is long, and our boys are just getting started. n

A CELEBRATION OF THE UNIQUE AND FASCINATING ASPECTS OF OUR HOME

WALKABOUT The

WALKABOUT

Jim Merkel shares what he learned by walking 45 miles through south city

Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Jim Merkel’s book Walking South City: A Journey through Historic St. Louis Neighborhoods. You can preorder it now at reedypress.com.

This book began with an eight-mile walk that my publisher, Josh Stevens, took with his son in the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic. The trek from their house in the Lindenwood Park neighborhood to the Gateway Arch in the summer of 2020 gave them a taste of neighborhoods like The Hill, Lafayette Square, LaSalle and downtown. It confirmed why they love St. Louis.

On a different day, they walked about the same distance to Kirkwood, but it wasn’t the same. They discovered the county had fewer sidewalks, heavier traffic and was generally more difficult to navigate on foot than the city.

The experience inspired Josh to propose an idea to me in early 2021. With CDC guidelines still recommending physical distancing, we decided to meet on a heated patio in Webster Groves’ Old Orchard. The heaters were on full blast, but we still felt a chill. I warmed up when I heard his idea about writing a book on the neighborhoods of south St. Louis. The proposal was too good to ignore and led to the volume you’re reading, which recounts my 45-cumulativemile stroll through south St. Louis, known more commonly these days as south city.

In our discussions about the concept, Josh and I decided we wanted the book to provide a living perspective. I planned to include conversations with people I encountered along the walks, from leaders of the community to people walking their dogs. I would incorporate neighborhood history, but my biggest focus would be what I observed.

My ties to south city run deep: My great-great grandfather settled there in 1858, I’ve lived in the Bevo Mill neighborhood with my wife, Lorraine, for more than 30 years, and I reported on this part of town for the old South Side Journal from 2001 to 2009.

The walking route herein touches all of south city’s neighborhoods. The result was a winding path that Continued on pg 16

Jim Merkel explored south city’s history, architecture and character by walking 45 cumulative miles through the area. | BRADEN MCMAKIN

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stays south of Highway 40.

During the walks, I kept my eyes open for details, noting everything from a run-down house to a discarded surgical mask. I looked for the oddities, serious and humorous.

By the time I sat down to write, I had collected hundreds of impressions about south city. Hopefully, the final product offers an authentic view of an authentic place.

A Ride on Route 66

I started my walk along Chippewa Street just west of Gravois. I spotted an abandoned shopping cart from Aldi in an empty used-car lot. That sight did not surprise me, since abandoned items, including assorted trash, appear all over this stretch of Chippewa. Chippewa is one of several east-west streets in south city that extends from near the Mississippi River all the way to the city’s western boundary. As part of Route 66, Chippewa once

served as the main pathway for travelers headed from Chicago to Los Angeles.

I encountered the lonely shopping cart near the railroad viaduct, a familiar site for employees who worked at the South Side Journal building. During my tenure, I would sometimes walk to the highest point of the viaduct and look back at the building. Inside, we produced news stories and features about the surrounding neighborhoods and beyond.

From 1994 to 2009, I sat in a chair at the same spot in the same cubicle in the newsroom. The company paid just enough for us to drive 10-year-old cars. Nonetheless, we had a sense of one-forall, all-for-one and believed our tasks were important.

Some of my coworkers were unusual, like one guy who was constantly angry. One morning, he arrived late for a discussion about a front-page article in that morning’s Post-Dispatch. He normally would have covered the same story, but the P-D reporter had beaten him to the punch. When he demanded to see the story in his usual loud

voice, I picked up the P-D edition with the story and shoved it close to his face. “Here it is,” I said.

Pow!

I felt the impact on the left side of my face. The boss fired him on the spot. He also put a note in my file saying I had baited the belligerent reporter. The next week, my coworkers feted me with fried chicken at Hodak’s. Something in me wishes it hadn’t happened. If he reads this, I wish him well.

I appreciated my coworkers in general because we were proud of covering the little things, like neighborhood meetings in south city and city-council meetings at small municipalities in south county. No other newspapers put the closing of a Catholic grade school at the top of page one. I talked to local leaders that I never would have met otherwise. It was the best 15 years of my career.

I turned away from the building I remembered so well and walked over the tracks that are part of the Union Pacific Railroad’s line through south city.

At Morgan Ford Road, I stopped for the day.

Beer, Boxing and Farmers at a Market

Around 75 years ago, the Soulard neighborhood looked so decrepit that supposedly wise city planners put it on a list for demolition, but thankfully the area around the Anheuser-Busch brewery and the Soulard Farmers Market survived those attempts at destruction. Eventually, the hard work of Soulard’s community resurrected the neighborhood. These days, Soulard’s bars, restaurants and farmers market, along with its Mardi Gras parade, attract folks from everywhere. On September 26, 2020, it drew me in for a walk.

After church, I rushed home and changed out of my Sunday best into jeans, a T-shirt and shoes. I planned to walk through Soulard and Lafayette Square. Just after noon, I stood at Cherokee Street and South Broadway, ready to set off north on Broadway.

The area I passed through has a long history. In 1794, a Frenchman named Antoine Soulard came to St. Louis as the new surveyor-general of Upper Louisiana and fell

Clockwise from top left: Soulard Market today and in 1910. The Brewery is a south city landmark. Soulard architecture includes half houses that slope dramatically. The Lemp Mansion is rumored to be haunted. A statue of General Nathan Lyon in Lyon Park. More scenes from Soulard Market and author Jim Merkel. | BRADEN MCMAKIN, HISTORICAL IMAGE FROM SWEKOSKYNOTRE DAME COLLEGE COLLECTION AT THE MISSOURI HISTORICAL SOCIETY

in love with a woman named Julia Cerre. When they married the next year, Julia’s father gave the couple a tract south of the village of St. Louis, the land now known as Soulard.

The area is also known as a home to many immigrants, starting with the Germans in the 1830s. When political strife in Germany and the modern-day Czech Republic forced people to flee the countries in 1848, many Germans and Bohemians settled in Soulard. Italians, Serbians, Syrians, Hungarians and Croatians also found refuge in the area, making homes in the two-and-three story brick houses, some of the earliest housing in St. Louis that reflects a distinct style. Soulard’s houses are jammed closely together next to sidewalks and often have mansard roofs or sideways gable roofs with small dormers on top. One unusual structure is the “half” house, where roofs descend sharply in one direction, so rain can run off quickly. The neighborhood architecture possesses a grace that makes visitors want to return again and again.

On my way to the heart of Soulard, I walked along Lyon Park and noticed a statue of Captain Nathaniel Lyon on his horse. Lyon, the commander of the St. Louis Arsenal at the start of the Civil War, achieved glory by forcing the surrender of a state militia group thought to be plotting a Confederate attack on Camp Jackson (located on the present-day campus of Saint Louis University).

That surrender, made possible by the infusion of thousands of German volunteers, ended any possibility that St. Louis, and with it Missouri, would fight for the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Lyon was promoted to brigadier general for his achievement, and in 1869, Congress donated 10 acres of the arsenal for a park named in memory of Lyon. A monument to him in the form of an obelisk was installed five years later in the park, and a statue of Lyon, unveiled in 1929 in Camp Jackson Plaza, moved to the park in 1960.

Nathaniel Lyon had received help in his campaign from many St. Louis Germans, a group that also played a big part in the

nearby Anheuser-Busch Brewery, where brewmasters make enough beer to fill Lake Superior. Outside of the Gateway Arch and Busch Stadium, the brewery may attract more tourists than any other building in St. Louis, though nothing beats the night of April 6, 1933, when a crowd of 25,000 celebrated the end of Prohibition. The crowd cheered the dozens of trucks filled with Budweiser as they left the plant and delivered to the masses. Despite being owned by international interests as of 2008, the brewery continues to churn out a wide variety of products that A-B markets with gusto.

After admiring St. Louis’s beer palace, I continued north and passed the point where South Broadway turns into Seventh Boulevard. Soon after, I reached the South Broadway Athletic Club at Shenandoah Avenue, a hotbed of activity since it started as a debate club on December 5, 1899. Over time, it expanded to include boxing and wrestling matches, not to mention gentler events like concerts, dances, softball, corkball and washers. A few years ago, the club

fell on hard times, but a new group of members brought it back to life and finally allowed women to join.

Mike Button, club president from 1987 to 1996, told me that camaraderie has always helped keep the club going. To Button, the club has always provided a social outlet for the neighborhood. He was a member long before he became president and practically raised his kids there. He’s quick to point out that the club has produced boxers of national stature, like Mike Buha, who fought for the heavyweight championship of the world, or Billy Stephan, who boxed in Madison Square Garden. Pros seen on the old Wrestling at the Chase also practiced at the club, and you can still catch the occasional match there.

Heading further north on Seventh, I eventually hit Russell Boulevard. To the west are popular local eating and drinking establishments like Hammerstone’s, Tucker’s Place and John D. McGurk’s Irish Pub and Garden. Be aware: The “Irish” isn’t in McGurk’s name just to get more

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customers on St. Patrick’s Day. After an hour at this bar and grill, you’ll expect to exit onto a street in Dublin. McGurk’s began in 1978, when two local lawyers bought a shuttered bar and broasted chicken place at 12th Street and Russell Boulevard. The owners called their place an Irish pub and played tapes of Irish music until they were told that to be authentic, they had to bring in Irish bands to play live music.

The owners went all-in on the advice and hired groups from Ireland to perform. These days, half of the bands come from Ireland, and the other half include Irish ex-pats who live in St. Louis. No matter who is playing, people flock to McGurk’s for the best in Irish food, drink and merriment.

My route misses not only Soulard’s famous night spots but also its distinctive and gorgeous homes.

Jay Gibbs, a longtime neighborhood resident, fills me in over coffee at the Soulard Coffee Garden on Geyer Avenue. Gibbs said German immigrants built many of the neighborhood’s brick homes from

about 1845 to 1900. The neighborhood declined in the first half of the 20th century, but urban pioneers started bringing the place back around the early 1970s, restoring some of the earliest houses in St. Louis. Similar to housing in early American cities like Baltimore, dwellings in Soulard appear jammed together. The land was expensive, so builders made the lots narrow. They started building in the north part of the neighborhood around the Soulard Market and made their way south. About 5,000 souls live in Soulard today, but 30,000 to 60,000 people lived in the same space in the 19th century, when crowded conditions reigned.

In recent years, you’ll only find people massing in Soulard at its annual Mardi Gras parade. Many thousands come to the event, which starts at Busch Stadium, heads generally south on Seventh Street, and ends at the brewery.

The parade and subsequent street party started as a cooperative effort of five bars. With all the crowds, Mardi Gras is one time for bars and restaurants to get ahead. The event appeals to a younger set of people but includes family features like the Cajun cookout and the Purina Pet Parade.

When I walked away from the parade route and headed west on Lafayette, I noticed how quiet Soulard Market was. It wasn’t a Saturday, when throngs of people seek bargains on kale, fresh fish, baked bread and various other items. Hundreds buy or sell at the Soulard Farmers Market. As I see it, the market is one of the most lively and colorful places around.

My experience on a different day affirmed this observation. Inside the market on the weekend, you’ll find a sea of humanity and noise, not to mention fruits, vegetables, meats and clothing. When I visited, apples, oranges and other delights stood out, but so did other vendors like Herman Handmade Soaps and Jennifer’s Meat & Fish. At Soulard Market, you can also find gourmet mushrooms, Bloody Marys and roasted corn.

But not my books.

A few summers back, I spent two or three months in a stall selling my books. Before the city would consider me, I paid $200 for a business license and $175 more for insurance and membership in the market association in addition to a weekly fee of $40 ($30 outside of the summer). To get the best spot available, I arrived as early

as 6 a.m. and set up my wares. Then I watched crowds walk past me to stalls with food and plants. I quit by mid-July. A guy next to me who fried Lilliputian doughnuts told me he’d put himself through college with his Saturday yields. I was clearly in the wrong industry. Leaving the market behind, I continued west on Lafayette Avenue to the bridge that marked the end of my two-mile walk. I would see more before the end of the day but needed some water first to deal with the heat and humidity. Nothing can oppress the spirit or spoil plans like summer days in St. Louis, whether you live on the south or any other side.

Lafayette Square: Life in a Museum

As I walked west on Lafayette Avenue from the I-55 bridge on September 26, I encountered a busy Tucker Boulevard. I crossed the street and saw to my right a huge condo building that once housed the old City Hospital. To my left stood an 80-foot-tall, red sculpture that resembles enormous beams gathered together. Called

Continued on pg 20

Lafayette Square. | BRADEN MCMAKIN

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Before long, I reached the edge of the stunningly restored Lafayette Square, which came into existence in 1836 when the city decided to sell off the St. Louis Common (land jointly reserved in the previous century for public pastureland and related purposes). The city’s deep pockets funded the design and construction of resplendent mansions that face Lafayette Park, named for the French general the Marquis de Lafayette, who fought with the Americans in the Revolutionary War.

The dwellings that surrounded the park originally housed the richest of the rich. However, toward the end of the 19th century, the area started to deteriorate as the affluent moved west. Then, in 1896, a massive tornado made a direct hit on the neighborhood and dealt what seemed like a death blow. For decades, Lafayette Square remained rundown.

Fortunately for all of us, urban pioneers helped bring the area

back to life. The turnaround started in 1949, when preservationist John Albury Bryan bought a home on 21 Benton Place and restored it. Almost every home except Bryan’s was in disrepair, but he spoke of the neighborhood’s potential and invited rehabbers to join the restoration effort. Under the circumstances, Bryan may have seemed daft, but the results speak for themselves. Lafayette Square continues to win the recognition of local and national experts for historical significance and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Second Empire–style Victorian townhouses in Lafayette are easily recognizable by their windows, which often curve at the top; their mansard roofs; and their third floors. Made of red brick and stone, Romanesque revival dwellings fill the square, where you’ll also find eclectic paint jobs as well as ornate wrought iron fences surrounding compact front yards.

The neighborhood boasts past residents like Horace E. Bixby, a riverboat pilot who befriended Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain). When the Civil War started, Bixby was named chief pilot of the Union Gunboat Fleet on the Mississippi and later inspired a character in Twain’s book Life on the Mississippi.

A few doors down lived one of the neighborhood’s restoration heroes. Ruth Kamphoefner lost her husband in 1964 and supported her five kids with Social Security checks and a part-time job as an art teacher. To save money, she bought a roach-infested shell on Mississippi Avenue and rehabbed it. Kamphoefner went on to restore homes throughout the neighborhood with unparalleled enthusiasm and became a leader in the renewal effort. She told her family’s story in her self-published book Lafayette Comes Back

Residents of Kamphoefner’s block of Mississippi are near the entrance to Lafayette Park, inside which the statues of two early American politicians stand. One is of U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton, who represented Missouri for three decades after it became a state in 1821 and famously claimed that a transcontinental railroad from St. Louis to San Francisco would lead to a Pacific empire. The statue faces west and depicts Benton wearing explorer’s boots and the toga of a Roman senator. The other statue — one of just six bronze castings made by French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon in 1792 — depicts George Washington holding a bundle of rods upright. The City of St. Louis

website describes the rendering as “the only likeness for which Washington ever posed.”

Close by, the scenery could be described as dreamy. Weeping willows enshroud a dreamy grotto where an iron bridge crosses a lake. Formed in 2001, the Lafayette Park Conservancy works to preserve the park’s historical character while encouraging use and hosting band performances, a garden tour and art fair, a holiday market, and the annual Jim King Holiday Pet Parade. Bring your dogs or, if you’re brave, your cats.

After wandering the park, I returned to Mississippi Avenue and made my way to a busy area along Park Avenue. Joggers ran and parents pushed strollers by active storefronts filled with a slew of businesses — a salon, realty office, art gallery, wine shop, bar and a cafe, where locals chatted inside and out over lattes.

When I resumed my walk, I kept north on Mississippi toward Chouteau Avenue, passing Second-Empire Victorian townhouses and more old factory buildings, many converted to lofts or condos. At Chouteau, I found apartments and condos under construction. A new and different area awaited, and I’d soon explore it. n

Clockwise from top left: Lafayette Square underwent a restoration. In Lafayette Park is supposedly the only likeness of George Washington he ever posed for. | BRADEN MCMAKIN

Treemonisha, the work by artist John Henry pays tribute to the eponymous opera composed by Scott Joplin.

CALENDAR

BY RIVERFRONT TIMES STAFF

THURSDAY 04/06 Mission Accomplished

Mission Taco Joint is throwing itself a birthday bash this Thursday, April 4, at Delmar Hall (6133 Delmar Boulevard, 314-726-6161). The iconic West Coast-style taco spot has been around for a cool decade now, and this week brings a celebration of the occasion just down the street from where the restaurant’s original location first opened in the Delmar Loop. The party promises “a night of tacos and entertainment” with tunes courtesy of My Posse in Effect, St. Louis’ premier seven-piece Beastie Boys tribute band. Of course there will be tacos, too, with the Mission Taco Joint food truck parked outside Delmar Hall all night long. Tickets are $10 and are available at delmarhall.com, with proceeds going to Maplewood-based nonprofit Friends of Kids with Cancer. The bar opens at 7 p.m. and the event kicks off an hour later.

Glow Up

This Thursday, April 6, grab your flashlight and your hard-ciderloving friends and head out to Eckert’s Farm (951 South Green Mount Road, Belleville, Illinois; 618-233-0513) for a little grownup Easter fun. In addition to a daytime egg hunt geared for kids, the farm is hosting its first-ever Adult Glow-in-the-Dark Easter Egg Hunt that is just for people who are 21 and up. Everyone kicks off the evening in the Cider Shed with a signature cocktail; from there, you’ll take a wagon ride out to the farm and try to track down some of the 3,000 glow-in-the-dark eggs (flashlights encouraged). Not only will gathering the most eggs give you bragging rights, but each egg has a prize inside. When you’re done, head back to the Cider Shed for live music, a cider flight and snack pack. The holiday event starts at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $30 and are available at eckerts.com.

Something New

If you’re like most New Girl fans,

you are currently deeply distressed by Netflix’s plans to take the beloved show off its platform this April. But here in St. Louis, you don’t have to weather this storm alone. This Thursday, April 6, Chill Trivia Company will celebrate all things New Girl with New Girl Trivia at Das Bevo (4749 Gravois Avenue, 314-8322251). Who brakes for birds and rocks a lot of polka dots? How old was Winston when he pierced his belly button? Only the most hardcore New Girl fans will prevail. Even if you’ve touched glitter 24 hours beforehand, you’re still smart and tough and strong! You can sign up your team of four to eight at chilltrivia.com or send Chill Trivia Company a message on Facebook or Instagram. Tickets cost $15 per person.

The Constitution, Personally

When she was 15, Heidi Schreck traveled the country competing in Constitutional debates. Eventu-

ally, it earned her a scholarship to college. Years later, she reflects on what the Constitution meant to her at 15 and what it means to her now, as well as how it impacted four generations of women in her family. The autobiographical play What the Constitution Means to Me was a sensation as an off-Broadway production and was even nominated for two Tony Awards on Broadway. Catch it from Max & Louie Productions at the Marcelle Theater (3310 Samuel Shepard Drive, 314-549-9990) from Thursday, April 6, through Sunday, April 23. Tickets are $15 to $50; showtimes vary. More info at maxandlouie.com.

FRIDAY 04/07 The (Smokin’ Hot) Body of Christ

If biblical bodies give you the tingles, you’ll want to check out the Sexy Jesus Pageant this week at Aurora STL (7413 South Broad-

way). The South Broadway establishment describes itself as an “intimate performance space,” which makes sense because not only is it sized just right to be cozy, but many of the events there are also of the barely clothed variety. And with the Sexy Jesus Pageant on Friday, April 7, Aurora STL is making sure that you have not just a Good Friday this year, but a Great one. The pageant will feature dreamy long-haired children of God, all competing to be crowned the first “Sexy Jesus of St. Louis.” The event will include a talent show, and contestants will be interrogated by judges while wearing their Sunday best. Any competitor who could turn water into wine would get our vote, but maybe the winning Jesus will be really good at stripping or pole dancing or something fun like that. The fun starts at 7 p.m., seated tickets are $25 each and a standing-room ticket is $20. No word yet on how much it costs to be hung from the cross. For more information, visit aurorastl.com.

It’s cherry blossom season at the Missouri Botanical Gardens. | VIA FLICKR / KARI

Springtime Sip and Stroll

There are few better ways to celebrate what makes St. Louis spring so glorious than by strolling around the Missouri Botanical Garden (4344 Shaw Boulevard) to see the cherry blossoms in their vibrant bloom. And early April is the best time to view the trees, according to MoBot. This Friday, April 7, get real St. Louis with it and add a little alcohol to the mix with the Sake and Sakura event. Sake experts will be on hand to help guide your taste buds where you want them to go, and admission comes with a generous offering of five different samples. Walking through the garden with a drink in hand will surely make winter’s dreariness feel like a thing of the past. The event kicks off at 5:30 p.m. and runs until 8 p.m. Tickets are $25 for members and $30 for the general public. For more information, visit missouribotanicalgarden.org.

TUESDAY 04/11

Homecoming

The precise identity of St. Louis’ most famous author is up for debate, though Tennessee Williams certainly comes to mind. But then there’s Mark Twain, William Burroughs, Ntozake Shange, William Gass, Maya Angelou and Jonathan Franzen, of course. It’s a tough call, but regardless of who deserves that top honor, for 11 years, it was almost without question that the most famous literary figure unexpectedly living in the Lou was Curtis Sittenfeld. The bestselling author of Prep, American Wife, Rodham and more even defended the city (while writing about her initial ambivalence) in the New York Times in a 2013 opinion piece titled “Loving the Midwest” that described her transition to a St. Louis local. Then, in 2018, she and the family moved to Minneapolis. But now, for one day at least, Sittenfeld is back and repping her

latest tome, Romantic Comedy, at an event hosted by Left Bank Books but held at Clayton High School Theatre (1 Mark Twain Circle, Clayton; 314-854-6600). The book follows Sally Milz, a sketch artist for a live comedy show, as she searches for love. Local fans and former neighbors can get a copy and hear Sittenfeld in conversation with St. Louis’ Edward McPherson at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 11. Masks and tickets are required, and the latter will run you from $34 to $39. All prices include a copy of the book. Visit left-bank. com for more information.

WEDNESDAY 04/12

Dating and Commiserating

If you’ve done Hinge or Tinder or been picked up at a bar, you know the simple truth: Dating is difficult. That’s why Helium Comedy Club (1151 Saint Louis Galleria Street, Richmond Heights; 314-727-1260) is bringing in some of St. Louis’ funniest comics this Wednesday, April 12 to talk dating disasters, marriage issues and relationship problems for its Dating Disasters Comedy Showcase. Shon Don, SoccerMom, Angela Smith, Travis Anderson and Meredith Hopping will be on hand to bring the funny, and the evening will be hosted by Andy Hamilton. Once it’s all over,

WEEK OF APRIL 6-12

you’ll never be so glad to be single. Tickets are $10 each or four for $30. The show is 18-plus and starts at 8:30 p.m. More info at stlouis.heliumcomedy.com.

Several Added Looks

Midnight Theatre Company’s first show at the Blue Strawberry, Just One Look, was initially supposed to run for just three nights, but it’s been such a success that the popular Central West End cabaret added two more nights of it in late March and then, after those sold out, three more in April. The play isn’t much in the plot department, but it’s become a must-see thanks to Kelly Howe, the local actress with terrific pipes who nearly blows the roof off while taking us through a bravura performance of Linda Ronstadt’s greatest hits. As for those hits — did anyone under age 50 realize that Ronstadt had quite so many? Running a dizzying gamut of ’70s and ’80s classics (including, naturally, the title track and “Long, Long Time,” the epic ballad given new life by HBO’s The Last of Us), Howe offers a tour de force that you’ll enjoy even more for its staging in this sophisticated space. The show runs April 12 through 14. Tickets are $20 to $25. The play starts at 7:30 p.m., so get there an hour early to order dinner and enjoy a pre-show cocktail. n

My Posse in Effect will be helping Mission Taco celebrate its birthday. | COURTESY PHOTO

Kelly Howe is a convincing Linda Ronstadt in Just One Look. | TODD DAVIS

Following Breadcrumbs

Thanks to an incredible attention to detail, Katsuya’s Japanese dishes demonstrate serious culinary artistry

Written by CHERYL BAEHR

Katsuya

6301 Delmar Boulevard, University City; 314-296-3368. Mon.-Sat. 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sun. 11a.m.-8 p.m.

If you want to understand how serious Katsuya is about its katsu, you must consider a most humble ingredient: the breadcrumb.

The tiny flakes of breading that coat Katsuya’s various katsu dishes may seem like a means to an end — just a blanket of crumbs that allow a cutlet, seemingly the main event, to get a little color and texture after a dunk in the fryer. However, when you actually receive your order of pork katsu, you understand that they are the dish’s most vital component.

Co-owners and longtime friends Teddy Lee and Jack Li are serious, if not borderline obsessive, about their breadcrumbs. Instead of using a pre-ground panko product, the pair begin by sourcing the best quality locally made milk bread from west county Korean mainstay Kim’s Bakery. Lee and Li receive the fresh bread at Katsuya in whole loaves, then cut it into smaller pieces before feeding it into a special machine imported from Japan which crushes — not grinds — the bread into delicate flakes the texture of newly fallen snow. Lee and Li coat the tender pork cutlet in the freshly crushed panko, then dunk it in the fryer; because the panko is still soft when fried, it creates this light-asair, crisp texture that is as noticeably different from a pre-ground product as freshly made pasta is from its boxed counterpart — a level of effort remarkable for such a casual restaurant.

Yet, that effort is precisely the reason they opened Katsuya. Both

veterans of the St. Louis dining scene, Lee and Li separately spent the majority of their culinary careers in area sushi restaurants and developed an appreciation for Japanese cuisine. Lee, in particular, became fascinated by katsu and often wondered why that genre, so common in Japan and Korea, had not yet made its way to

St. Louis, even as sushi and ramen spots had become so popular. Though he was focused on other projects, including the popular Korean food truck and brick-andmortar K-Bop, Lee dedicated his free time to studying katsu. He traveled to the West Coast to learn from those who had mastered the craft, hoping one day he’d get a

chance to translate that knowledge into a katsu restaurant of his own.

That opportunity came in July of 2022. Though Lee had been casually looking for spots to open a katsu restaurant, his plans firmed up when he came across the former TNT Wieners storefront in the heart of the Delmar Loop. He recruited his partner Angela Phuong, Li, and Li’s partner (Angela’s sister) Nina Phuong to help him in the effort. Together, they converted the hot-dog-centric space into a katsu bastion whose casual format contrasts with the serious artistry that goes on in its kitchen.

Katsuya’s dining area is small and shotgun-style; a handful of black booths line one side of the room, and an equal number of white metal tables provide seating on the other. Exposed brick, old wooden floors and wood wall accents warm the space, and a red-tiled wall that lines the combination order counter and openkitchen space gives the room a pop of color.

Because of the limited seating, it can be challenging to find a table

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Katsuya offers katsu and sushi bento boxes served with daily side dishes. | MABEL SUEN

Chef-owners Jack Li and Dae Lee and Manager Angie Phong keep things running. | MABEL SUEN

during peak dining hours; once you try the katsu, you understand why. Katsuya’s previously described pork version is a stunning study in texture and the importance of fresh breadcrumbs. It’s also incredibly flavorful. Unlike so many fried foods, which taste of little more than fryer grease, the pork flavor shines through and is accented with the restaurant’s signature sauce, which has a slightly appley sweet herbal taste that Angela likens to a cross between barbecue and worcestershire sauces.

However, the pork is not the restaurant’s only katsu stunner. Whereas the pork is a flat, pounded cutlet, the menchi version features a plump patty of ground pork, chicken and onion that is like Japanese fried meatloaf. It’s as juicy as the shrimp katsu is tender. Here, a massive shrimp is flieted and split down the center, allowing even more surface area to be covered in the outstanding panko. The texture works so well on the shrimp, you’d be forgiven if you thought it was coconut crusted based on its looks. Angela encourages diners to mix a bit of spicy mustard into the katsu sauce for dipping. It’s a marvelously pungent concoction that pairs especially well with both the shellfish and the tofu katsu, which itself is a revelation of what is possible when you use a creamy, high-quality product.

The katsu would shine even if served on a cheap paper plate, but Lee and Li bring the same level of commitment to their presentation as they do to their breadcrumbs. All orders are served in a sturdy,

sleek black cardboard bento box alongside an impressive array of daily rotating side dishes. These include everything from creamy potato salad and pungent kimchi to paper-thin fish cakes, edamame and seaweed salad; Lee, who is Korean, got the idea for this variety from banchan, the myriad of small side dishes served with Korean meals.

Because of their extensive sushi experience, Lee and Li also offer several sushi rolls at Katsuya, including the beautifully presented Katsuya Roll, which pairs tuna, salmon and crab with shrimp

tempura, avocado and scallions. The Spicy Tuna Roll is equally appealing; a generous portion of luscious spicy tuna sits atop a California Roll, which is amped up by a drizzle of sriracha. An especially decadent Philly Roll is filled with cream cheese, avocado and salmon; the entire thing is then lightly breaded and fried so that it crisps up around the outside and makes the cream cheese molten. Like the katsu, the sushi is also served in bento boxes with a number of treats, including crab Rangoon that actually tastes like crab, gyoza, an individual portion

of tiramisu and an avocado-sized potato croquette, accented with slightly sweet baking spices

On one visit that croquette was not just a plain fritter, but had been whimsically adorned with tiny eyes, a nose and a smiling mouth made using katsu sauce and wasabi mayo. It’s exactly the sort of thoughtful detail you’d expect from a place that’s so serious about breadcrumbs. n

Continued from pg 25

The pork katsu features deep-fried pork loin covered with panko bread crumbs | MABEL SUEN

Katsuya is located in the Delmar Loop. | MABEL SUEN

The Alaskan roll is made up of a California roll topped with seared Alaskan king salmon. | MABEL SUEN

SHORT ORDERS

Makeover

Tim’s Chrome Bar reopens with a new, colorful identity

Written by THOMAS CRONE

Over the last few years of operation, you could walk into Tim’s Chrome Bar and maybe find a handful of patrons scattered down what was considered the longest bar in St. Louis city. It’s possible that, on that very night, there were more people upstairs in the eight singleroom lodgings above — all part of a big, four-storefront building called the Irene. It’s possible that even semi-regulars didn’t know the building’s name or about the apartments, or that there was a full restaurant next door, shuttered behind a mysterious door and looking as it did on the last day of operation as Stari Grad.

There was always a bit of mystery about the dimly lit Tim’s, though; that’s what made it a fun stop on a night’s rounds. Why were there always a couple of old boys at the end of the bar watching Japanese pro wrestling? Where did all the slow-dancers go, the folks who’d shuffled out to Tommy Flynn’s one-band renditions of the classic rock hits for so many years? Why were there 200 bottles of varied liquor behind the bar? And the biggest curiosity: How in the world was owner Tim Pappas keeping the place alive, even as a weekends-only tavern?

These days, a lot of mysteries are solved, though the fans of the movie-set-ready former version are going to have their heads spun by the dramatic changeover that’ll greet them at the new, colorful version of Tim’s Chrome Bar (4736 Gravois Avenue, 314742-7881)

Anne Schuchard’s family runs Boo Cat Events, a hospitality company with a stake in the event spaces Boo Cat Club and Majorette, as well as Das Bevo, located across the street at the Bevo Mill. From that perch, they watched

Pappas move from a reluctant seller of the building to an actively interested one. When he finally listed the space during the run of COVID-19 closures and limitations, they jumped at the opportunity to tackle the big, multiroomed Irene. Tim’s Chrome Bar was the first and most important part of that turnover.

The original idea was to take a more turnkey approach to the switch. But, to invoke the proverbial onion, every layer of work on the systems revealed a need for yet more work. The dance floor had rotted, all those spilled drinks causing irreparable damage. The HVAC system, the electrical, the plumbing … all had deferred maintenance issues. The apartments needed a total overhaul. One project begat another and another and, soon enough, Tim’s had begun to fully transition from a big, long, dark bar into a whimsical, tworoomed pastiche of period pieces and historic replicas, a collision of plaids and animal paintings and intentionally mismatched furniture, all backed by brand new bar and restaurant equipment.

“The original idea was to keep a little more of the aesthetic of the bar,” Schuchard says. “It had been

sitting vacant for a little bit and turned into a much bigger renovation than we originally thought.”

With all the added needs and expenses came an opportunity to put a whole new stamp on the place. An art gallery will take up one room, while the bar now takes up two of the four street-level storefronts. The upstairs area is a TBD option, a later-in-2023 project, though it definitely won’t be repurposed for the micro lodgings of the past.

Months of curiosity about the build-out are over. The public’s now welcome to investigate.

Bar manager Chelsea Pfister says that “we want to be very connected to the community” when it comes to the bar program and “we’re working with a lot of local distillers and breweries.”

Eventually six draft handles will be in operation, with batched cocktails joining beers on tap. Food’s back, with a kitchen producing intergenerational classics such as pizza rolls, French onion dip and deviled eggs. Both the food and drink menus will be tweaked in the months to come.

Schuchard and Pfister both say that the early visitors have been positive, be they returnees or

first-time visitors to Tim’s. Still, they are aware that some of the old heads that used to imbibe at Ye Olde Tim’s, partially because it was such a dated and quirky timepiece, have lost their everloving minds on social media about the changes. Turns out that’s another cost of opening a new business in a favored old haunt.

“The alternative was it sitting vacant,” Schuchard says, understanding the initial hue and cry. “With us having a bigger investment over there [at Das Bevo], it’s important for us to keep the neighborhood in a nice state.”

She adds that the Schuchard family wanted to “integrate some new things. Once we started going, we just went for it. The intent was to make something fun, that people might enjoy and that wasn’t here already. You can always create another sports bar, another dive bar. This feel wasn’t something as easy to replicate.” n

Tim’s Chrome Bar is open Wednesday through Saturday nights with live music (and vinyl DJs) planned for the weekends, along with an early open house bingo game on Sundays at 3 pm.

Tim’s Chrome Bar has officially reopend under new management, Boo Cat Events. | JESSICA ROGEN

Lagers Rule

A rising tide of microbrewed St. Louis lagers will make you forget about grandpa’s Bud

Written by TONY REHAGEN

It’s baseball season, and for beer drinkers, that means a Pavlovian thirst for lagers. The connection dates back at least to the 1880s, and more than a century of aggressive marketing has conditioned us to crave suds at the crack of a bat. No matter whether we’re at the ballpark, at the bar or on the couch, a cold, crisp American lager always seems to slake while we root for the home team.

But in recent years, you may have noticed a gradual uptick in gameday options beyond the boring old Bud. Even in Busch Stadium (named after the family once MLB nixed Budweiser Stadium; Busch beer, an allegedly Bavarian-style lager, came later), fans can easily find a 4Hands City Wide Pils, a Schlafly White Lager kellerbier or Urban Chestnut’s Musial-commemorating #6 Classic American Lager along the concourse. That’s because independent breweries in St. Louis, like those across the country, are finally trying their hands at brewing lagers.

Make no mistake, the IPA in all its hazy, hoppy, sour, cold and milkshakey forms is still craft king. But according to Nielsen, between 2019 and 2020 alone, the sale of maltier and more sessionable craft lagers in the U.S. rose by nearly 10 percent. And the style’s upswing is showing no signs of slowing.

“It feels like there is a trend toward lagers, definitely,” says Florian Kuplent, brewmaster and co-owner of Urban Chestnut Brewing Company (multiple locations including 4465 Manchester Avenue, 314-222-0143).

If anyone can sense tremors in the lager landscape, it’s Kuplent. Born in Bavaria, he served as a brewer’s apprentice in a tiny German brewery before eventually coming to Anheuser-Busch as staff brewmaster in 2002. In 2010, he left A-B to start Urban Chestnut, which has stood for more than a decade as a standard bearer for craft lagers throughout

the region. But despite Kuplent’s pedigree, that wasn’t always the intent.

“I didn’t want to limit myself to a certain style of beer,” Kuplent says, pointing to UCBC’s Revolution Series, which featured more experimental styles like the STLIPA and ran parallel with the Reverance Series of more traditional European styles. But the latter has been more popular from the jump. “We make more lagers than we make ales, and that was pretty much true from the start,” he says. “Not necessarily by design, but because consumers demanded it.”

The reason UCBC’s lagers were so immediately successful might be the same reason so many of Kuplent’s contemporaries opted not to go there for years: because brewing a consistent, quality lager takes precision and expertise. Unlike ales, which come from yeast that ferments at the top of the

[WELCOME NEWS]

It’s Back, Baby!

The legendary BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups returns to ride again

Written by JESSICA ROGEN

A shudder of horror went through St. Louis music fans earlier this year when the legendary BB’s

brew at warmer temperatures, lagers are bottom fermenters that require colder climes. “If you ferment at lower temperatures, which lagers do, there’s a lot less room for error,” Kuplent says. “You really have to have your process under control to produce a beer that’s good. That’s probably why some smaller breweries just starting out don’t tend to make them.”

The fact that lagers are more focused on core ingredients, especially the malt, with fewer adjuncts and added flavors also means that there are fewer places to hide any flaws in the translucent golden brew. Kuplent already had years of experience at A-B, which many craft brewers begrudgingly admit puts out an incredibly dependable product, especially for such a massive scale. Perhaps as a result, Urban Chestnut was able to hit the brew floor running with

Jazz, Blues & Soups (700 South Broadway, 314-436-5222) closed its doors temporarily for renovations without announcing a reopening date.

With Beale on Broadway closing permanently in 2019, many worried that BB’s might follow suit. But that fear, thankfully, seems to be unfounded.

Last week, the downtown club announced on Facebook that it was now open Friday through Sunday and for select concert dates. For now, no soups are on offer — but the bar does say that outside food delivery is welcome.

BB’s fans took to the post’s comments section to express their joy — and relief:

now-STL-standards like Zwickel, an unfiltered German lager that is naturally cloudy and 100 percent malt-forward; Stammtisch, a traditional pilsner with a slightly bitter finish; and Urban Underdog, an American-style light lager that doesn’t skimp on flavor. Today, these three lagers constitute about 75 percent of UCBC’s total sales.

The early and growing popularity of these beers might also have contributed locally to another reason why Kuplent thinks craft lagers are finally having their day nationally: Beer drinkers have awoken to the fact that watery Budweiser isn’t the end-all be-all of the style.

“When craft beer first emerged, the best way to differentiate yourself was to make something that wasn’t already on the market,” he says. “Over time, the consumer got educated and tried different things and learned that lagers can actually have some interesting flavors and aromas. A lager doesn’t have to be a beer that doesn’t have any flavor at all. It can still be drinkable and sessionable — but it can also have complexity.”

Sessionability (a made-up word that essentially means you can pound a bunch of them in one drinking “session” and still keep your shit together) is likely the last key element in lager’s recent resurgence. Since these beers are typically half the alcohol content of most modern IPAs, they attract more health- and sobriety-conscious Millennials and Gen-Zers. And two lagers for every IPA also means that barkeeps and breweries can sell more and make twice the money — it’s a win-win.

So this baseball season, when you hear “Here Comes the King,” skip the Bud and reach for a Zwickel or a BirdMan Helles from Modern Brewery or a Civil Life #Carlbock. Or better yet, try all three. n

• “Great news. The greatest blues music club anywhere rides again.”

• “Yay John May and B.B.’S crew!! Smart move, and if my life was different, I would be there to support you! You are all in my heart, best wishes and keep up the great work!!!”

• “Great plan for now! Happy the shows are earlier as it’s a long drive home late at night”

• “Happy to see you’re back open!”

For our part, we’re just relieved that the venue, which has been around since 1976, is back and seemingly on its way toward full opening hours eventually.

Commenter Roy perhaps best expressed our sentiments: “Right on!” n

Urban Chestnut produces lagers with superior flavor. | VIA FLICKR / PAUL SABLEMAN

Good for You, Good for the Planet

The new monthly STL Vegan Market aims to make plant-based food more accessible

Written by ROSALIND

EARLY

For St. Louis vegans, those wishing to try veganism and others who just want to eat healthy, St. Louis will soon have a monthly night market that will cater just to you.

STL Vegan Market starts Saturday, April 8, and will run from 3 to 7 p.m. It will be in 2 Acre Park, located at the corner of Vandeventer Avenue and Forest Park Avenue (near Ikea, where folks can also find overflow parking).

The event is a partnership between the new group STL Vegan Market and Pocketparks, a nonprofit that rehabs unused plots of land. The pop-up market will be at 2 Acre Park every second Saturday from April through August, with the goal of mak-

Kitchen House Closes

Owners Paul Whitsitt and David Rodgers bid farewell and offer reassurance: “Don’t worry about those chickens”

Written by SARAH FENSKE

The owners of Kitchen House Coffee have shut their doors for good.

In a Facebook post last week, owners Paul Whitsitt and David Rodgers said they made the difficult decision to close the almost nine-year-old Tower Grove East coffee shop, located at 3149 Shenandoah Avenue.

“This decision was both long coming and made suddenly,” they wrote. “We would have loved to have invited you to come for a week of last visits, but honestly we just are not staffed to do that right now, and we would not subject you or our team to a less than pleasant final experience with us.

“We opened with an idea of fostering community, and hope we have succeeded with that on some level. Thank you for being part of that community and sharing yourselves with us. And don’t worry

ing it just a bit easier to be vegan.

“St. Louis is a growth city; it’s constantly leveling up and growing in opportunities. One thing it didn’t have, until now, is a community inspired by vegan consumerism,” says Melissa Crawford, founder of STL Vegan Market. “What better way to build a community excited to consume with more intention than with a monthly night market at a beautifully reimagined park in the city, where the public can gather to simply have fun and enjoy a variety

of local vegan businesses?”

But the market is not just about vegan food. Folks will be able to find yoga products, plant vendors, a candle company and more.

Businesses that will be at this inaugural vegan market include Tipsy Pony Party Bar, Yummy Sweetcakes, Las Vegan, Dharma + Dwell, Ann’s Roots, the Yoga Rocks, Tethered Plant Shop, Green Earth Art Company, Way 2 Fresh Eats and Jules Candle Company. n

You only need to try one style to know if a Neapolitan spot is worth its salt: the Margherita. The original and the pizza from which all else flows, this simple masterpiece of crust, fresh mozzarella, simple tomato sauce and fresh basil doesn’t give a pizzeria any room to hide, revealing if you are dealing with a true pizza artist.

Noto

The only area restaurant to be certified by the Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana, Noto is, hands-down, the bi-state region’s most authentic Margherita pie.

Louie

Louie offers such an all-around extraordinary dining experience, it’s sometimes easy to forget that behind it all lies a humble Margherita pizza. Yet flawlessly nailing something so simple is exactly why this outstanding restaurant shines.

Katie’s Pizza & Pasta Osteria

When Katie Lee Collier opened her first restaurant, she didn’t even know how to fold a pizza box. Now an accomplished restaurateur, the Katie’s Pizza & Pastaria co-owner has never lost sight of the fundamentals, like making a quintessential Margherita made even more delicious with luscious fior di latte mozzarella.

Fordo’s Killer Pizza

about those chickens — they have a lovely coop and friends waiting for them just a couple of blocks away!”

The coffee shop came out of Rodgers’ and Whitsitt’s nearby urban farm, and as they acknowledged in the post, they had no prior restaurant experience when opening. Nevertheless, they soon perfected a menu of soups and sandwiches in addition to juices and coffees, using eggs, fruits, vegetables and honey from their farm. They also opened a second location in the Patch neighborhood in 2019, although that outlet previously closed.

The closure was greeted on Facebook by a flood of comments from neighbors and friends. In a particularly sad irony,

Kitchen House Coffee was recently featured as a “success story” for the city’s COVID-era Small Business Recovery Grant program, administered by the St. Louis Development Corporation. St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones came for a visit to celebrate the shop, and the program, less than a month ago.

In its promotional video, the St. Louis Development Corporation reported that the coffee shop used the $5,000 grant to upgrade its point of sale system.

“They are truly excited and grateful for the City of St. Louis stepping in to help upgrade their business during their time of need,” the city agency reported. “The rest of the story is history!” n

Chef Joe Luckey deftly carries out pizza excellence at Fordo’s Killer Pizza through a variety of innovative wood-fired pies. However, he equally excels at the classics, such as a stunning Margherita that is quintessential, char-speckled pleasure.

Union Loafers

Union Loafers serves the best bread in the metro area, if not the whole world. It’s no surprise that anything built upon this fermented dough foundation is just as exceptional. The Classic, its Margherita, is a stunning, leopard-spotted masterpiece.

CHERYL BAEHR’S MARGHERITA PIZZA PICKS [FOOD

The fundamentals of a vegan diet. | SHUTTERSTOCK

Kitchen House Coffee opened in Tower Grove East in 2014. | JESSICA ROGEN

Boardwalk Waffles’ Expansion Plans Are Embroiled in Lawsuits

The St. Louis-based ice cream sandwich eatery has been sued by four different landlords

Written by RYAN KRULL

In the past year and a half, the company that operates Boardwalk Waffles & Ice Cream has been sued by four different landlords throughout St. Louis for not paying rent. Two of the suits — over properties in Midtown and Maplewood — have been settled to the satisfaction of all parties. But the other two, which involve properties in Soulard and on South Grand, have grown so contentious that one landlord has hung a banner of apology above the retail space where Boardwalk Waffles has yet to open and another landlord is facing criminal charges.

In 2017, when Eric Moore opened his first Boardwalk Waffles & Ice Cream in Maplewood, he told local media that he grew up in New Jersey and had fond memories of the Jersey Shore and its boardwalk, where he used to buy two waffles with a scoop of ice cream between them.

“These sandwiches were a staple growing up on the East Coast, but we’re going to take the idea even further,” Moore told Sauce Magazine.

The concept of sandwiching ice cream between two waffles proved to be a hit. In August 2020, Moore’s operation moved into a larger space just down Manchester Road from where it first opened. A second Boardwalk Waffles opened on Telegraph Road in south county last September, and Moore told reporters he was planning three more locations in rapid

succession.

But more recently, Moore and the company for which he is the registered agent, BWAIC LLC, have been sued multiple times by their landlords.

In January 2022, Maple King Properties sued Moore and BWAIC, saying the company owed $25,000 in rent for its Maplewood space. Two months later, Grand Center Inc. also filed a lawsuit against BWAIC, alleging the company leased space from it in the Metropolitan Artist Lofts near the Fox Theater, but then missed multiple rent payments.

In August 2022, court files indicate the two parties in the Maplewood suit reached a settlement, agreeing that Boardwalk Waffles owed $34,256, but the judgment was stayed. Months later, the landlord filed again in court, and last month, earned a default judgment of $36,380 after the eatery failed to respond. The Maplewood location remains open for business, and Moore tells the RFT he and Maple King Properties are “just fine.”

The issue between Grand Center and BWAIC has also been resolved. Moore says the Boardwalk Waffles at North Grand and Olive should be open “in about a month.”

However, a third landlord, Dave McCreery, considers matters between him and the waffle company far from resolved.

McCreery has been a part of the South Grand neighborhood since 1976, when he purchased the building at the corner of Arsenal and Grand, right across the street from Tower Grove Park. He previously served as president

of the South Grand Community Improvement District, and for 12 years, McCreery and his wife Beulah Ann operated the Tower Grove Creamery out of the building’s first floor.

Last June, they announced they were getting out of the ice cream business — and that Boardwalk Waffles would open on site in just two weeks.

Instead, 10 months passed, and the couple recently hung a banner on their building, atop where the creamery once was. “Friends & neighbors,” it begins. “We apologize for our corner shop and appreciate your patience as we work to bring in a viable business to serve you.”

McCreery tells the RFT that he wanted to apologize to the neighborhood for the space being vacant for so long. He says he knows that having an empty retail space at the entryway to the business district hurts other businesses as well. “I felt I probably should have put the sign up sooner,” he says.

He adds, “The damage to the neighborhood really hurts.”

McCreery says he and Beulah Ann believed Boardwalk Waffles and Ice Cream would open on July 1. A copy of the lease shows that Moore signed it as both as an individual and as president of BWAIC. He also wrote rent checks for $4,000 each, McCreery says, with each check dated on the first of every month.

But, McCreery alleges in court filings, the checks for July and August bounced. (McCreery would later testify in court that the checks for October, November and December bounced as well.) McCreery’s attorney Matt Ghio says

he was told by an assistant circuit attorney that, as a matter of policy, city prosecutors do not pursue criminal prosecutions over postdated checks that bounce.

Boardwalk Waffles has yet to open at the Grand and Arsenal property. In September, McCreery filed a lawsuit against Moore and BWAIC LLC, seeking to evict them from the space on Grand and Arsenal. The lawsuit alleges that Moore is refusing to leave.

But Moore says the McCreerys are “too emotionally attached to the space.”

About the allegations of bounced checks, Moore says, “If you’re going to try to file for eviction. I’m not going to let you clear checks.”

Last month, Judge Lynne Perkins ruled against McCreery, writing that the lease Moore signed “does not provide for early termination,” and without the lease being terminated, Boardwalk Waffles and Moore can’t be said to be illegally occupying the space.

McCreery asked for a new trial in the Circuit Court with a new judge. The next hearing is set for April 19.

“I literally could open the space up in about three weeks,” Moore says. “But at the same time, it’s like, are we going to open the space only to find out that they don’t want to work with us and get this resolved?”

In the same call, Moore adds, “There’s too many puzzle pieces. And if you want to go and run your article, it’s going to be half baked, and we’re going to sue you guys for libel because it’s not played out yet.”

In a subsequent call, Moore insisted that everything he’d said

The new store features the same aesthetic as the original location. | COURTESY ERIC MOORE

the day before was off the record, despite not saying anything to that effect at the time. He did, however, agree to say one thing on the record: “Basically, BWAIC expanded too fast. We got ourselves caught up in a situation, but we’re hitting summertime, and we’ll get ourselves out of the situation.”

Even more contentious than the dispute over the South Grand property may be the lawsuit that has erupted over the space where Moore opened a Boardwalk Waffles in Soulard.

Last month, the owner of the building on Russell Boulevard sued BWAIC for what the landlord said was nonpayment of rent. The landlord, which operates as 1001 Russell LLC, alleges that on January 26 they notified Boardwalk they were in default and the lease would terminate.

Despite this, the suit says, Boardwalk has not left and is “unlawfully occupying the premises.”

The suit alleges that, as of the end of February, BWAIC owes $75,000 in “unpaid rent, utilities and other sums due.”

But Moore says the matter is far more complicated.

In fact, he says, “My landlord broke in and stole our safe.”

What’s gone down in the past several months at Boardwalk Waffles’ Soulard location is not entirely clear. But a letter from the city to the landlord dated January 27 cites the Boardwalk Waffles address for an occupancy violation.

“Restaurant next door is using this space for storage and miscellaneous use without occupancy permit,” the notice from the building inspector says.

The letter adds, “Cease operation until certificate of occupancy has been obtained.”

On the very next day, according to a probable cause statement, po-

lice responded to the Soulard waffle shop. Moore told officers “that the front door to the warehouse, currently still under construction, had been partially ripped from the hinges. Additionally, several large ice cream buckets could be observed to have been removed from the freezer and thrown throughout the area.”

Moore also told police a safe had been stolen.

About two weeks later, one of the members of the LLC that owned the building was arrested and charged with burglary in connection to the incident. The charges are currently pending in St. Louis Circuit Court, but the landlord’s attorney, Richard Lozano, says he expects the matter to be resolved.

In the meantime, the civil suit between 1001 Russell and BWAIC is scheduled to go to trial in May. The suits brought by the four landlords are not the only ones in the last year for BWAIC and Eric Moore.

In April 2022, a Maplewoodbased distributor of bakery ingredients, mixes and packaging sued BWAIC and Moore for $17,392. Attorney Raymond Bozarth, who represents the distributor, says that despite winning a default judgment when BWAIC failed to respond to the lawsuit, his client has not yet collected the money.

Bozarth also represented a billboard company, Outfront Media, in a lawsuit against BAIC. A judge ordered BWAIC to pay almost $17,000 in that case. Bozarth says the “judgment has not been satisfied at this time.”

Two months later, in June 2022, attorney Mitchell Jacobs sued Moore and BWAIC for attorney’s fees after representing them earlier that year.

That case has since been settled.

Beulah Ann and David McCreery are suing BWAIC LLC for unpaid rent. | RYAN KRULL

REEFERFRONT TIMES 37

[CANNABIS CHEFS]

Professional Edibles

Carl Hazel, former executive chef for the Scottish Arms and other places, has taken his skills to the cannabis industry

Written by MONICA OBRADOVIC

Carl Hazel has a kush-y new job.

The former executive chef at restaurants such as the Scottish Arms, Gamlin Whiskey House, Cobalt Smoke & Sea and more has recently gone down a different career path. As the cannabis industry grows in Missouri and demand rises with the rollout of legal recreational marijuana, Hazel is part of a growing wave of chefs taking their skills into the cannabis field.

Hazel now works full-time for Revolt Labs, a new startup based in St. Louis, where he develops recipes for cannabis-infused chocolates, gummies and more.

Before, Hazel says he was happy with his most recent restaurant gig at Cobalt Smoke & Sea in Creve Coeur. He and his partner had just had a daughter, but Hazel wasn’t really looking to make a move.

“It’s been interesting over the last probably couple of years seeing restaurant industry people leave and come into the cannabis field,” Hazel says. “I was happy with my career; it was something I loved, and this wasn’t something I would have thought about. If I decided to leave the restaurant industry, I wouldn’t have even thought to look into cannabis production.”

But then he met Chad Phillips, CEO of Revolt Labs, through a mutual friend — and he had a chance to be part of something new.

“To be part of something on a very young level and bring it into a market was an opportunity I thought would be pretty cool,” Hazel says.

Before Revolt, Hazel was a bit of a novice when it came to cooking with cannabis. Not that he hadn’t made cannabis products before — he’d experimented with making at-home edibles like cookies — but his preferred method of cannabis consumption was always smoking.

Crafting cannabis products at the corporate level takes much calculation and a bit of finesse. Everything has to be precise down to the milligram, and it’s tracked from seed to sale so there’s not much room for error, according to Hazel.

“It’s not like making cannabutter in your dorm room,” Hazel says. “It’s more detailed, a lot more controlled … not to discount making brownies.”

Besides cannabis, Hazel’s new realm of work presented an entirely different task — working with candy.

“To be honest, as a chef, I’ve always hated chocolate and working with chocolate tempering, which is funny because now one of the biggest things we’re doing: chocolate bars,” Hazel says.

In addition to edibles, Revolt has an experienced extractor on staff, Jon Orton, who’s been in

the business for 10 years legally in Colorado. Orton’s creating wax and a line of concentrates for the company, in addition to the oil Hazel infuses into his edibles.

Revolt does hydrocarbon extraction, a cannabinoid extraction process using super-chilled butane or propane to strip desired chemical compounds out of cannabis plants.

The whole process takes place in an unassuming lab near the Mississippi riverfront. There, Hazel’s kitchen equipment stands in a sprawling space among beakers and an explosion-proof room used for extraction.

Revolt aims to send a line of concentrates, chocolate bars and gummies to the market by April 20, with chocolate bars sold under

a brand called Plain Jane Edibles and the concentrates under Heliocentric Concentrates. Eventually the company will roll out a line of infused beverages.

The name Revolt was chosen as a metaphorical middle finger to Missouri’s established cannabis industry, according to Phillips, the company’s CEO.

“We felt like revolting against the industry,” Phillips says. “[We’re] the new younger guys where there’s all these bigger, multi-state operators and big vertical groups. We’re kind of the little guys, the standouts.”

As for Hazel, he’s found joy in his new gig in more ways than one. While he’s using his cooking skills in a whole different way, he’s felt the weight of the restaurant industry’s demands lift. Now he doesn’t have to work long hours or hammer through busy dinner rushes. Instead, he’s working day hours, four days a week.

“I have a lot of time to spend with my family, which is awesome; I didn’t get a lot of that for 20 years while I was running restaurants,” Hazel says. “You sacrifice a lot to do that. So this is a nice change of pace.” n

Chef Carl Hazel crafts recipes for cannabis-infused gummies and chocolates at Revolt Labs, a new startup based in St. Louis. | MONICA OBRADOVIC

“ It’s not like making cannabutter in your dorm room.”

CULTURE

Opening the Floodgates

St. Lou Fringe Fest is letting in everybody this year — all 65 acts

Written by SARAH FENSKE

St. Louis’ biggest independent theater festival is going huge this August — offering admittance to every single act that applied.

That’s something new for St. Lou Fringe Fest, says President and Artistic Director Matt Kerns. Previously, organizers used something like a lottery system for most of the acts, hand-selecting a few headliners but otherwise leaving selection to chance. This year, as Kerns announced before a crowd at the event space MaTovu on March 25, they decided to open the floodgates.

“We think more than ever all voices in the arts are needed, and that a place was needed for them to perform — and that this was it,” Kerns says.

That means St. Lou Fringe Fest will offer stages to 65 acts for its 2023 festival, which is set to run over the course of just seven days in Grand Center, from August 14 to 20. Last year, it hosted approximately 45 acts, which was already a sprint. Even knowing that not everyone who applied will come through (Kerns estimates there’s always about 5 percent “spoilage”), that still represents a major escalation.

On top of that, Kerns estimates that an impressive 80 percent are local. And this year, though some acts will offer an online option, every last act is currently planning an in-person performance — something Kerns welcomes.

“Theaters are seeing a paradigm across the board of people not coming back — both patrons and artists,” he says. “But this is showing me, as somebody who watches the arts as a business and as an artist, we are seeing the pen-

dulum shift. People are wanting to come back together in person.”

Also announced at the kickoff event: this year’s headliners. The RFT’s society columnist, Chris Andoe, will make his stage debut with a one-man show as the

St. Louis’ Holy Toe

Archdiocese of St. Louis has obtained a new relic, a piece of toe bone, from Sicily

Written by SARAH FENSKE

There’s a new relic in town — and it may be the holiest digit to grace this city of sin.

The relic, now in the possession of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, is purportedly a piece of toe once belonging to St. Louis IX, the French king for whom St. Louis, Missouri, is named.

Yes, toe.

Tina Hogan, St. Ambrose’s director of marketing and advancement, says the relic is “part of his toe bone.” Parishioners at St. Ambrose were invited to a viewing of the appendage over the weekend of March 25.

The toe bone was recently gifted to the Archdiocese of St. Louis by the Cathedrale Monreale in Sicily. The Italian

late-night headliner. The national headliner, Lillian Brown, made a splash last year as a lottery selection and was invited to bring her one-woman show The Oreo Complex back in a more prominent spot, Kerns says. The third head-

liner slot will be filled by Gateway Performing Arts’ production of Bare, featuring a cast of youthful performers in a “pop opera” set at a Catholic boarding school.

As for the many other acts that will be joining that trio, Kerns noted a new production that will turn Humans of St. Louis’ new book into a theater offering, and more. He joked at the kickoff, “I don’t know where we’re going to put them, but we’ll figure it out!”

connection, Hogan says, is one reason St. Ambrose got to display it first.

Hogan says the Archdiocese has papers authenticating the alleged toe, and the Sicilian cathedral has good reason for its claims. After all, King Louis IX was on the shores of Tunisia in an ill-fated crusade when he died of dysentery in 1270. After that, Louis’ body was dismembered (ever heard of mos Teutonicus? It was a thing) and his heart and entrails were in-

terred at the Cathedrale Monreale. Easy to see how a bit of toe might have been left behind as well — even as the rest of his remains were sent on to the SaintDenis Cathedral in Paris.

And now, the toe bone is in its possessor’s namesake city. The Archdiocese hasn’t made any plans for future toe showings public; those wishing for their own glimpse of the holy toe should keep an eye out in their local bulletins. n

The holy relic: part of the toe bone of St. Louis the King. | COURTESY ST. AMBROSE

Lilian Brown and her show The Oreo Complex will be the 2023 National Headliner. | COURTESY PHOTO

“ We think more than ever all voices in the arts are needed, and that a place was needed for them to perform — and that this was it.”

The Wild Rumpus Starts

With a newly eclectic and experimental sound, One Way Traffic stretches its legs

Written by STEVE LEFTRIDGE

One Way Traffic’s Leah Osborne is a ’90s-minded soul. In her Tower Grove South apartment, a red-vinyl edition of Alanis Morrissette’s 1995 album Jagged Little Pill is set to play on her turntable. Stacks of VHS tapes (’91’s Fried Green Tomatoes, ’96’s Twister, ’97’s Dante’s Peak) are on display beneath her television along with a single DVD — Saturday Night Live: The Best of Cheri Oteri — highlighting the comedian’s mid-’90s run on the show.

The ’90s is also the decade that launched the music that Osborne fell in love with after high school — patchouli-scented progressive Colorado jamgrass.

“I was like, ‘Oh, my god,” Osborne says. “What’s Railroad Earth? What’s Leftover Salmon? What’s Yonder Mountain String Band? And then I started going to festivals. That’s when I realized, ‘This is the world I want to be in.’”

The fruits of that epiphany will be on display at Old Rock House (1200 South Seventh Street, 314-5880505) on Saturday, April 8, for the release party for One Way Traffic’s forthcoming sophomore album.

It should be quite a party. After all, the quintet — Osborne (baritone ukulele/vocals), Drew Lance (drums/vocals), Sam Avery (guitar/vocals), Sam Aubuchon (mandolin) and Erik Ferguson (bass) — has gone a long way toward making St. Louis grassier, higher and more sleep-deprived. The group has electrified the newgrass scene with daredevil picking, consciousness-expanding grassedelica (or psychedelic jamgrass)

and enough frenzy-whipping jamgrass bedlam to make you spit up your tincture.

Osborne, however, was not always so music focused. As a high schooler at Bishop DuBourg, her jam was sports — she was a fouryear varsity softball standout and roller hockey ringer. During her first year at Lindenwood University, Osbourne focused on ice hockey, playing left wing and helping the school win a national championship in 2006.

She switched to culinary school and met Justin Torres of local hippiegrass band Clusterpluck, and the music bug bit. Inspired after seeing Elephant Revival play, Osborne picked up the washboard.

“I was blown away,” Osborne says. “First of all, the band was led by a woman. Watching Bonnie Paine play the washboard — I was like, OK, I can do this.”

Osborne became a full-time member of Clusterpluck as a washboardist and singer, got her first taste of touring and performing at festivals, and eventually picked up an unusual instrument for bluegrass: the baritone ukulele.

The one Osborne has been play-

ing for the last 10 years hangs on her apartment wall. It’s a well-loved instrument, the body scratched to hell from a zillion Gchords. Suddenly, Osborne hops up to show off her new one. “I’ve been searching for three years for a full-size baritone uke,” she says, opening a case and running her hand across the instrument’s four strings. “It’s pretty much my favorite thing in the world.”

Osborne left Clusterpluck at the end of 2015 to focus on cooking full time, working in a variety of kitchens. But the music kept pulling her back in. “I had it ingrained in me,” she says. “I had to keep doing it.”

Enter Drew Lance. A regular on the scene, Lance is the scruffy, lovable drummer and vocalist who plays with everyone in town, and who cut his jamgrass teeth as a five-year member of Grass Fed Mule. Lance knew Osborne from Clusterpluck and, after seeing her solo gigs around town, formed a duo with her in 2017.

One day on stage at Venice Cafe, Lance and Osborne noticed a road sign that inspired a new band name: One Way Traffic.

They’re joined by guitarist Sam

Avery, an unassuming 23-year-old more than a decade younger than Osborne. He’s indicative of the multifariousness that has contributed to One Way Traffic’s eclectic musical directions.

Chill-pilled and philosophical, Avery fell hard for Grateful Dead grassy offshoot Old & In the Way and taught himself to play bluegrass guitar. “My parents would drop me off at open mics, and I would play and eventually started getting noticed,” he says.

One of those places was Pop’s Blue Moon, which held its Keep It Grassy open bluegrass picks every Monday night, a weekly hang that Osborne rarely missed. “From 2017 to 2019, we were up there every single Monday,” she says. “Some of those Mondays were hot, too.”

“It was such an education,” Avery says. “These older guys were there who had been playing since they were kids, and you’d just sit there and watch them.”

Keep It Grassy at Pop’s is where Avery met mandolinist Aubuchon and bassist Ferguson, who eventually joined Osborne and Lance to make One Way Traffic a five-piece.

The band released a self-pro-

[JAMGRASS]

One Way Traffic will celebrate the release of its new album, Move Into the Outside, with a show on Saturday. | SARAH PICKEL

duced first album, Turn Right, in 2019 and won the Northwest String Summit band contest in Oregon. “We were competing against all these bands that had been around for years, and we had been together for only eight months,” Avery says, grinning.

But the win’s timing could have been better. “The world shut down shortly after that. Other than that, it was all positive,” Lance says with a laugh.

During the pandemic, the band’s three songwriters — Osborne, Lance and Avery — focused on writing new material, trying to keep the band together and finding a way to pay the bills. To that end, Osborne started Yonder Eats, her private catering company.

“I think we significantly changed over COVID,” she says. “We went from being mostly grassy to progressing as writers and coming up with different kinds of songs.”

Indeed, One Way Traffic’s first album is filled with acoustic-driven songs that lean on established newgrass structures and traditional two-step rhythms. Over time, the band has broken free of those boundaries.

When One Way Traffic started to perform again in 2021 — at a sold-out socially distanced concert at the Foundry, a main-stage set at Roots N Blues in Columbia, etc. — the sets opened with acoustic bluegrass and then shifted to more electric and experimental forms.

Much of the band’s sound comes from having three songwriters. “We all write differently,” Lance says. “I write more straightforward songs. Sam [Avery] writes songs that go all around and do all kinds of things. Leah finds a spot somewhere in between the two.”

“I try to keep everything very loose,” Avery elaborates. “For me, music is all about the conversations that happen on stage. Obviously, there’s a structure to the song, but I try to keep everything very open, always looking for the innovation in the song and see where it wants to stretch its legs.”

As a result, the band has developed a musical telepathy that adds live spontaneity and improvisation.

“It’s a different show every time,” Osborne says.

“When it all comes together, we are all just communicating chaos,” Avery says. “Sometimes it melds together and creates some-

thing awesome, and sometimes you’re like, ‘Oh shit,’ and you have to find your way out. To me that’s some of the funnest parts — when it goes off the rails. There are peaks and valleys, and the valleys are just as fun as the peaks.”

For the last three years the band has been working on capturing this adventurous approach in the studio, and is set to release a ninesong album, Move Into the Outside, out April 4. The album title speaks to the band’s jammy, rockoriented evolution.

“There are a lot of different colors and types of songs,” Lance says. “It’s much more of a growth album than the first one.”

Fans will be able to hear the whole thing live at the album release party, where the band will play Move Into the Outside in its entirety and then return for a second set of anything-goes jambidextrous musical collaborations.

The show will include an expanded band with keyboards, fiddle, banjo, a brass section and guest appearances by the Burney Sisters, and it will be recorded for an eventual live album release.

“This is the most confident that I’ve ever been,” Osborne says. “Before we were trying to ease into things. Now we’re just who we are.” n

One Way Traffic plays at 8 p.m. on Saturday, April 8, at Old Rock House (1200 South 7th Street). Tickets are $15 to $20.

“ Music is all about the conversations that happen on stage. ... I try to keep everything very open, always looking for the innovation in the song and see where it wants to stretch its legs.”

[REVIEW]

Daily Work

The Black Rep’s Skeleton Crew is thought provoking and suspenseful

Written by TINA FARMER

Skeleton Crew

Written by Dominique Morisseau. Directed by Geovonday Jones. Presented by The Black Rep through Sunday, April 16. Showtimes vary by date. Tickets are $45 to $50.

Agood contemporary drama, like Dominique Morisseau’s gritty and affirming Skeleton Crew, holds a mirror to society, then shifts our perspective so we can see a more complete view of the world the story reflects. The Black Rep’s production — directed by Geovonday Jones and featuring fully connected, layered stories and complex characters — is a completely engrossing interpretation. As the tension builds and the fates of each character sway, we see so much more than the stereotypes and surface, becoming thoroughly engrossed in the uncertain outcome.

Long-time employee and union rep Faye, hardworking, hardheaded single man Dez, and the very pregnant and wisely cautious Shanita are members of a dwindling crew working an auto parts assembly line in Detroit. Reggie used to work the line with them, but he’s now their supervisor. Though they each have separate lives and challenges outside of work, here they are part of the “skeleton crew” keeping the lines running amid constant rumors of the plant closing.

Tension builds when a series of thefts threatens to shut the plant down regardless of ownership’s decisions. Reggie

feels trapped and uncertain, caught between supporting the workers, many he’s known his entire life, and following management’s strict directives to ensure his future employment. He turns to Faye for advice. A “second mom” to Reggie since he was a kid, she promises to help despite obligations to the other employees.

Dez wants to start his own business. We see him straddle the line between his own hopes and dreams and fulfilling a role he feels pressured by society to model.

Shanita is smart and mechanically gifted, but she doesn’t have the same support or opportunities as others. Individually and as an ensemble, the cast turns in nuanced, finely tuned performances that continue to reveal their characters’ depth and essential humanity.

Brian McKinley, as Reggie, cares deeply about the employees in his charge and also about his wife, kids and Faye. McKinley shows us the mental shifts Reggie goes through and the toll his character’s commitment takes. Velma Austin’s Faye is bristly and stuck in her ways but ultimately caring. Austin disappears into the character and takes us with her. Olajuwon Davis ensures we understand Dez is much more ambitious, disciplined and attentive than management may see. And Carmia Imani shows us that Shanita is not naïve, but she is quite insecure personally, even though she knows she’s smart and capable.

The production receives exceptional technical support from designers Peter and Margery Spack, Jayson Lawshee, Lamar Harris and Marisa Perry. Jones directs the cast with a sure hand that isn’t afraid to linger in the spaces between the dialogue, particularly after revelations and conflict. None of the characters are perfect and none of them embody the stereotypes society too often assigns on looks, job title or neighborhood alone. Instead, the effectively thought-provoking and suspenseful Skeleton Crew finds universal truths in the working lives of blue-collar Americans. n

Skeleton Crew follows a group of workers at an auto parts assembly line. | PHILIP HAMER

Each week, we bring you our picks for the best concerts of the next seven days! To submit your show for consideration, visit https://bit.ly/3bgnwXZ. All events are subject to change, especially in the age of COVID-19, so do check with the venue for the most up-to-date information before you head out for the night. Happy showgoing!

THURSDAY 6

ANDY COCO’S NOLA FUNK AND R&B REVUE: 9:30 p.m., free. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

BAREFUZZ: w/ Colt Ball & Friends 8 p.m., $12$16. Central Stage, 3524 Washington Avenue, St. Louis, 314-533-0367.

CHEEKFACE: 8 p.m., $16. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

COHEN: w/ Smile on the Sinner, At My Worst 7 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

JACKIE GREENE, LILLY WINWOOD: 8 p.m., $29.50. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

JAVIER MENDOZA AND JIM PETERS: 8 p.m., $15$20. Joe’s Cafe, 6014 Kingsbury Ave, St. Louis.

MISSION TACO JOINT 10-YEAR ANNIVERSARY

PARTY: w/ My Posse In Efffect 8 p.m., $10. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

PIERCE CRASK: 4 p.m., free. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

PIPER ROCKELLE: 7 p.m., $25.99-$599.99. The Golden Record, 2720 Cherokee Street, St. Louis.

SHARON & DOUG FOEHNER: 7 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

TOM HALL: 3 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA: 8 p.m., $28-$35. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

WALTER PARKS: w/ Jody Redhage Ferber & Ben

Dicke 7:30 p.m., $15-$20. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745.

FRIDAY 7

AEDFX.: w/ Cvndles, Pollux, Letters 8 p.m., $15$20. Central Stage, 3524 Washington Avenue, St. Louis, 314-533-0367.

THE BREAKDOWWNS: w/ The Intrusion, Chronyx 8 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

CHASING THE MILKY WAY: 5 p.m., $10. The Attic Music Bar, 4247 S. Kingshighway, 2nd floor, St. Louis, 314-376-5313.

CIAO PALACE: 8:30 p.m., $12-$15. Platypus, 4501 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-359-2293.

THE EMO NIGHT TOUR: 8 p.m., $13. The Hawthorn, 2225 Washington Avenue, St. Louis.

END OF THE LINE: AN ALLMAN BROTHERS TRIB-

UTE: 8 p.m., $22-$28. City Winery St. Louis, 3730 Foundry Way, Suite 158, St. Louis, 314-678-5060.

GIMME GIMME DISCO: 8:30 p.m., $15. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

GRAHAM CURRY & THE MISSOURI FURY: 7:30 p.m., free. The Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090.

HARD BOP MESSENGERS: 7:30 p.m., $15-$20. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745.

HUDAI: w/ Chain Link, At My Worst, Revelations 8 p.m., $12. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

KINGDOM BROTHERS: 4 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

Lo-Fi Cherokee 2023

9:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 8. Multiple locations along Cherokee Street. Free.

Spring in St. Louis is at last upon us. The crocus flowers are blooming, the tree buds are sprouting and the south side is gearing up for yet another Lo-Fi Cherokee event. The annual affair sees Lo-Fi St. Louis (the local video and entertainment company spearheaded by filmmaker Bill Streeter) shoot a marathon of music videos featuring St. Louis musicians performing on a single day across Cherokee Street. This year, that day is Saturday, April 8. Started in 2012, this free-to-attend event is where you can catch a sample of the hottest up-

MONGOOSE: w/ War Druid, Cloud Machine 8 p.m., $10. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

MS. HY-C AND HER FRESH START BAND: 7 p.m., $25. National Blues Museum, 615 Washington Ave., St. Louis.

MURIEL ANDERSON: 8 p.m., $21-$25. The Focal Point, 2720 Sutton Blvd., Maplewood, 314-560-2778.

PIRATE SIGNAL: 8 p.m., $10. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

SCRUB: w/ DJ Chilly C, Jonezy, ATG, Egan’s Rats, Smiley Boy, Comp Da Great, Squires X Dude Its Nolan, City FME 8 p.m., $15-$20. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720.

TEEN MORTGAGE: w/ No Antics, WeedTüth 8 p.m., $12-$15. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

THE 15TH ANNUAL GATEWAY BLUES FESTIVAL: 8 p.m., $59-$125. Stifel Theatre, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-499-7600.

SATURDAY 8

THE 45: 8 p.m., $10. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City,

and-coming acts and the established artists who make the St. Louis music scene so special. Each act is filmed inside a different location along Cherokee Street, so the roving musical party also shows you a sample of the neighborhood, too. Then, when the editing process is complete, each of the videos will be released later this year, offering you an opportunity to possibly catch a glimpse of yourself enjoying some tunes. It’s one of St. Louis’ finest springtime traditions, and we’re glad to say it’s finally here.

Boosie Badazz, T.I., Webbie 8 p.m., $65-$225. Enterprise Center, 1401 Clark Ave., St. Louis, 314-241-1888.

MILD CARTOON VIOLENCE: w/ Last Time Down, Mid Tempo Death March 8 p.m., $12. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

THE POTOMAC ACCORD: w/ Sole Loan, 33 on the Needle 7 p.m., free. Platypus, 4501 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-359-2293.

THE REAL WOBBLY CHAI: w/ po mia, Brawsh 7:30 p.m., $5. Spine Indie Bookstore & Cafe, 1976-82 Arsenal St., St. Louis, 314-925-8087.

THE ROAD TO POINTFEST 2023: SESSION 3: 7 p.m., $8. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720.

ROCKIN RASCALS: 3 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

SHANA FARR: 7:30 p.m., $25-$30. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745.

SWAMP LION: w/ Nolia, Mindclot, Murtaugh, Karenocalypse 8 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

SUNDAY 9

AVERY*SUNSHINE NIGHT 1: 7 p.m., $45-$50. City Winery St. Louis, 3730 Foundry Way, Suite 158, St. Louis, 314-678-5060.

ERIK BROOKS: 8 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

POLYPHIA: 7:30 p.m., $29.50. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

PRODUCTS: w/ Crisis Walk Ins, Pealds, Lucky Shells 8 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

RICH MCDONOUGH & THE RHYTHM RENEGADES: 3 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

THE SNOZZBERRIES: 7 p.m. Central Stage, 3524 Washington Avenue, St. Louis, 314-533-0367.

THREE OF A PERFECT PAIR: 10 a.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521.

MONDAY 10

AVERY*SUNSHINE NIGHT 2: 7 p.m., $45-$50. City Winery St. Louis, 3730 Foundry Way, Suite 158, St. Louis, 314-678-5060.

BLAZE & ABK: 7 p.m., $15. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720.

D.R.I.: 7 p.m., $15. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

—Jaime Lees

Who’s Who: This year’s Lo-Fi Cherokee event will see performances by the Mighty Pines, the Bottlesnakes, David Gomez, Superfun Yeah Yeah Rocketship, Maximum Effort and more. Visit lofistl. com for the full details.

314-727-4444.

ALL ROOSTERED UP: noon, free. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

BEST NIGHT EVER: 8:30 p.m., $15. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

CITY MORGUE: 8 p.m., $30. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

THE COMMODORES: 8 p.m., $65-$125. Lindenwood University’s J. Scheidegger Center for the Arts, 2300 W. Clay St., St. Charles, 636-949-4433. EUGENE & COMPANY: 8 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

FUTURE/MODERN: w/ Judson Claiborne, Two Hands/One Engine 8 p.m., $10. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

THE GASLIGHT SQUARES: 7:30 p.m., free. The Frisco Barroom, 8110 Big Bend Blvd., Webster Groves, 314-455-1090.

HELL NIGHT: w/ Bastard Squad, Killing Fever 8 p.m., $12. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

THE HOMEWRECKERS: 5 p.m., $10. The Attic Music Bar, 4247 S. Kingshighway, 2nd floor, St. Louis, 314-376-5313.

JEREMIAH JOHNSON: 7 p.m., $25. National Blues Museum, 615 Washington Ave., St. Louis.

LEGENDS NEVER DIE TOUR: w/ Jeezy, Lil Boosie,

MONDAY NIGHT REVIEW: w/ Tim, Danny and Randy 7 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

SOULARD BLUES BAND: 9 p.m., $8. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

TUESDAY 11

ADAM MANESS & FRIENDS: w/ Erin Bode, Kevin McBeth 10 a.m., $20-$23. The Sheldon, 3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900.

ANDREW DAHLE: 9 p.m., free. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

NAKED MIKE: 7 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

NICK SHOULDERS: 8 p.m., $20. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

WEDNESDAY 12

DAWES: 8 p.m., $35-$40. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

THE ENGLISH BEAT: 8 p.m., $30. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

JOHN MCVEY BAND: 8 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

MARGARET & FRIENDS: 3 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

RAUL MALO OF THE MAVERICKS: 7:30 p.m., $65. City Winery St. Louis, 3730 Foundry Way, Suite 158, St. Louis, 314-678-5060.

The Bottlesnakes will be performing a song at Lo-Fi Cherokee this year. | VIA ARTIST BANDCAMP

D.R.I.

7 p.m. Monday, April 10. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street. $15. 314-289-9050.

Some 40 years ago, Dirty Rotten Imbeciles — better known by most fans as simply D.R.I. — turned the worlds of hardcore punk and metal on their heads with the release of The Dirty Rotten EP, a 22-song ripper of a record comprising just 18 minutes of material. Played at lightning-fast speeds that were unheard of at the time, the band’s punk-leaning debut served as an excellent primer of its sound to come, which would later incorporate elements of thrash metal into the mix. D.R.I. combined these approaches to form the genre known as “crossover” in the early ’80s, alongside the likes of Stormtroopers of Death, Suicidal Tendencies and Corrosion

OUT EVERY NIGHT

Continued from pg 43

VOODOO LADIES NIGHT: 9 p.m., $14. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

THE WAILERS: 8 p.m., $25. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

THIS JUST IN

105.7 THE POINT BIG SUMMER SHOW: W/ Godsmack, Staind, Tue., July 18, 7 p.m., $25.50$149.50. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

BIG WRECK: Sun., June 11, 8 p.m., $25. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

BROTHER FRANCIS AND THE SOULTONES: Fri., May 5, 7 p.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521.

CANDLEBOX: Sun., Aug. 13, 8 p.m., $35. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

CIAO PALACE: Fri., April 7, 8:30 p.m., $12-$15. Platypus, 4501 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-359-2293.

DIESEL ISLAND: Fri., May 19, 7 p.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521.

FARSHID ETNIKO: Mon., April 24, 5 p.m., free. Strauss Park, Washington & N. Grand Boulevards, St. Louis.

FAT HEAVEN: W/ WeedTüth, the Centaurettes, Candylion, Tue., April 18, 8 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

FRENCHY AND THE PUNK: Mon., April 17, 8 p.m., $10-$15. The Crack Fox, 1114 Olive St., St. Louis,

of Conformity. The band achieved considerable success during this time, touring the world and releasing seven full-length albums by 1995. More than 20 years later, in 2016, the band released its first new material since its heyday, the five song But Wait...There’s More! EP. Fast as fuck and straight to the point, the then-new material proved that D.R.I. still had what it takes to get a pit moving, even after all those years.

But Wait, There’s… Even More? D.R.I. parted ways with longtime bass player Harald Oimoen in 2017, ultimately bringing Attitude Adjustment’s Greg Orr on board. Since then there have been rumors that the band has been working on its first full-length offering since 1995’s Full Speed Ahead. No new material has yet seen the light of day, but we can dream, can’t we?

314-621-6900.

—Daniel Hill

THE GASLIGHT SQUARES: Thu., May 4, 8 p.m., $15$20. Joe’s Cafe, 6014 Kingsbury Ave, St. Louis.

JAVIER MENDOZA AND JIM PETERS: Thu., April 6, 8 p.m., $15-$20. Joe’s Cafe, 6014 Kingsbury Ave, St. Louis.

LIL JON: W/ DJ Nune, DJ Nico Marie, Paige Alyssa, Zeus Rebel Waters, Thu., April 27, 6 p.m., $35+. The Armory, 3660 Market Street, St. Louis, 314-282-2920.

PROXY: W/ Hippyfuckers, Janet Xmas, Death Pose, Wed., April 19, 8 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

SON VOLT NIGHT 1: Fri., Aug. 18, 8 p.m., $27.50. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

SON VOLT NIGHT 2: Sat., Aug. 19, 8 p.m., $27.50. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

TWANGFEST 25 NIGHT 1: W/ Black Joe Lewis, The Freedom Affair, Wed., June 7, 8 p.m., $25. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314498-6989.

TWANGFEST 25 NIGHT 2: W/ James McMurtry, Robbie Fulks, Graham Curry & the Missouri Fury, Thu., June 8, 8 p.m., $35. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

TWANGFEST 25 NIGHT 3: W/ Nadine, Amy

LaVere & Will Sexton, BAJA, Fri., June 9, 8 p.m., $25. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

TWANGFEST 25 NIGHT 4: W/ Waco Brothers, The Paranoid Style, Town Cars, Sat., June 10, 8 p.m., $25. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

YUPPY EP RELEASE SHOW: Sat., April 22, 8 p.m., $12. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. n

D.R.I. | VIA ARTIST WEBSITE

SAVAGE LOVE 45

Sister, Wife

BY DAN SAVAGE

Hey Dan: I married my high school girlfriend after college. We were happy, and the sex was fantastic. Then she fell in love with a woman and came out — just to me — as bisexual or possibly a lesbian. Our relationship somehow survived this tumult, and we decided to start a family. We are now in our 50s, our children are grown and I have not had sex for approximately two decades. My wife long ago lost any desire for intimacy with me or anyone else. My sex drive is as strong as ever but limited to strictly solo activities. My wife remains mostly closeted in terms of not being out to her friends and family, with one exception: one of her sisters, who is single. My wife is overseas currently (for work), and we’ve been geographically separated for four years now. That’s the background. I’m writing to you about the bizarre event that took place over the weekend: I was texting with my wife’s sister, and out of the blue she writes that she has my wife’s permission to sleep with me. This was totally unexpected and caused a panic attack on my part. It felt wrong. I was at a loss as to what to say. She assured me, still via text, that this was OK with my wife, and it would be a safe “sister-in-law with benefits” arrangement. She also has physical needs that are unmet, as she is single, so we’d be helping each other. My wife and I had discussed having an “open” marriage, with each of us seeking “girlfriends.” My wife has said she is OK with this, but I am not, as I fear having a girlfriend — either of us having a girlfriend — could throw our home and family life into chaos and potentially result in divorce, which wouldn’t be fair to the children. Believing my sisterin-law actually had my wife’s permission to at least raise the subject, I went a bit down the road with her via text (things got explicit), and I experienced something I haven’t for 20 years: the elation of an imminent sexual encounter.

I needed reassurance that my wife was actually OK with this, so I asked her. Well, it seems there was a major misunderstanding. My wife was appalled, utterly so. According to my wife, her sister “joked” about sleeping with me when the two of them were discussing the details of their relationships and their sexualities, and my wife only jokingly agreed. Now I feel guilty that I even considered having sex with my wife’s sister, to say nothing of the guilt I feel about the wedge this has driven into a close sisterly relationship.

My wife doesn’t want to discuss this any further. I get that it is weird, especially if it were to be condoned by all parties. But I want to share more about how I feel with my wife. I don’t think she understands how depressing it is to feel that you’ll never be intimate with anyone ever again. That may not be a struggle for my wife, who says she feels no sexual urges at all, but it is for me. I’ve been told by both my wife and my sister-in-law to forget this conversation, so we can all move on. But I find I can’t move on. So what do I do?

Seeking Insight Somewhere

First, I’m not the Supreme Court. I can’t overrule your wife and order her to discuss something she refuses to discuss, SIS, much less order your wife to allow you the husband she doesn’t wanna fuck to go and fuck her sister, who, despite having raised the subject, to disastrous effect, also doesn’t want to discuss the matter further. If you need to talk about this at length with someone, SIS, confide in a friend and/or talk to a therapist.

Second, you haven’t had sex in 20 years, SIS, and it’s understandable that you entertained the first serious offer you’d gotten in decades. Your wife’s sister essentially offered a cheeseburger to a starving man. That you took a tiny little bite out of that cheeseburger before thinking to ask your vegan spouse if it was okay for you to have a cheeseburger … albeit a cheeseburger made with ground sister meat … isn’t something your wife should hold against you for the rest of your life, even if she’d rather not discuss it.

Third, you have your wife’s permission to fuck other women — even date other women — so long as you aren’t dating and/or fucking one of her relatives. Instead of grieving the pussy you’re never gonna get again (your wife’s) or allowing yourself to obsess about the pussy you never should’ve been offered (your sister-in-law’s), SIS, I would encourage you to get some pussy that doesn’t share quite so much of its DNA with your wife. Prioritizing stability when your kids were young was completely commendable, SIS, but your kids are grown now. If you’re so starved for sex that you find yourself jumping at highly inappropriate offers “sister-in-law with benefits” more than meets that threshold — you would be well-advised to seek sex with a more appropriate potential partner than to wait for the next inappropriate offer that comes along. Yes, sex can create chaos. Hell, sometimes I think sex is chaos. But controlled chaos > uncontrolled chaos.

Fourth and finally, SIS, your wife tells you she’s asexual and does not experience desire … and while that may be true … there’s a chance it’s not. While asexual-

ity is both real and valid and vice-versa, people have been known to lie to their spouses about important things no one should lie about. Maybe I’m old and jaded, and maybe I should keep my mouth shut, but I could see someone who married her cis male high school sweetheart before realizing she was maybe/probably/most likely a lesbian claiming to be asexual not just to get her off the hook of having to fuck her husband, whom she may actually love, but to spare her husband’s feelings. It’s not that she doesn’t want to have sex with you, but that she doesn’t want to have sex with anyone. That may be true. Your wife could be asexual. Or she could have a girlfriend on the other side of the world that you don’t know about.

P.S. Maybe I’m jaded and maybe my sample is skewed (definitely my sample is skewed), but something about the conversation your wife had with her sister — the disastrous conversation that led to this whole mess has my spidey senses tinkling. Seeing as your wife is asexual and decades into a loving but sexless marriage and she and her sister were close … she wouldn’t have much to say to her sister during a conversation about their relationships and their sexualities? Besides “still asexual,” and, “still married,” of course, but I can’t imagine those two statements would elicit the joke your sister-in-law made and the misunderstanding it led to.

P.P.S. Now go get laid.

Hey Dan: My hub and I enjoy your columns, and it’s opened our minds about sex a lot. We recently gave each other the OK to try to fulfill our monogamish fantasies IRL but haven’t acted on them yet. But I did meet a guy online, who is also married, and we’ve been having the most incredible cybersex. It’s turned into regular chats, and we’ve talked about meeting up in person. Why am I feeling kind of guilty about this? The hub knows I’m fucking around online with this guy, and it even turns him on! I find myself thinking about this other guy all of the time. Should I end it? Or keep having fantastic orgasms without the hub?

Wife And Naughty Tease

Seeing as you brought this question to me, WANT, and not a priest or an uptight monogamy fetishist posing as a couples’ counselor, I’m gonna tell you what you wanted to hear: Keep fucking around with this guy online and IRL, if you get a good feeling from him after you meet up in person. New relationship energy (NRE), which is what you’re feeling for this guy, can be intense, but it’s always temporary; so go ahead and enjoy it as long as it lasts. As for the guilt, well, people who do and enjoy things they’ve been

told — for no legitimate reason — they’re not supposed to do or enjoy, e.g., gay sex, extramarital sex, kinky sex, seeing a sex worker, etc., sometimes convince themselves that having the decency to feel bad about what they’ve done (at least during their refractory period) means they’re still good and moral people. I’m here from the future — I’m here from your future — to tell you that you don’t have to feel bad about what you’re doing with your husband’s permission, WANT, and to his delight. Unless feeling bad about it turns you on, of course, in which case … you can enjoy that, too.

Hey Dan: We splurge on a housecleaner a couple times a month while we’re at work. We always make sure to tidy up our personal items before she comes, but this week I accidentally left not one but TWO vibrators by the bathroom sink. I had forgotten to put them away, and I was in a rush! Total accident! When I returned home to a clean house, the vibes were neatly laid on the bathroom counter. I am not a person with shame around sex, but this made me feel SO embarrassed! She should not have had to see/touch those! Should we apologize? If so, how to bring it up in a way that’s not awkward? Should we pay her extra? I’m so embarrassed and don’t want her to feel demeaned. Very Intense Blushing-Enhanced Situation

What does your housecleaner know now that she didn’t before? Assuming she’s never spotted one of your sex toys — an assumption I would classify as semi-reasonable (at best!) — she now knows you have sex and that you, like millions of other adults (and surely one or two of her other clients), sometimes use sex toys. Even if she was shocked and mortified and disappointed in you, VIBES, I think you should follow your housekeeper’s lead: She didn’t make a big deal about it, and you shouldn’t make a big deal about it. Just like your hole, VIBES, the memory hole is there to be used.

P.S. Once after we very specifically asked that our room not be made up during a week-long stay at a hotel, we came back after breakfast to find the two dozen sex toys and 50 pounds of bondage gear we’d left strewn all over the room neatly arranged on the shelves of our walk-in closet. If we could look the little old Slovenian lady who cleaned our room in the eye every day for the rest of that week, you can look your housecleaner in the eye, too.

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