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Welcome to the Ranch We will be serving up farm to table style dishes from our favorite local restaurants to cure your hangover with a hearty meal. This year will be bigger and blazing saddles better by far as we’ve reimagined the whole experience! So lace up those chaps, dust off those cowboy hats and get ready to roll up your sleeves. No hard work, just play at this year’s Brunch on the Ranch!
TRANSFORMING THE FACTORY INTO THE FRONTIER RIVERFRONT TIMES PROUDLY SUPPORTS STRAY RESCUE OF ST. LOUIS BY DONATING A PORTION OF TICKET SALES FROM UNITED WE BRUNCH.
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THE LEDE
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PHOTO BY THEO WELLING
“Let’s see — what can we say about the new year? I’m always hopeful for the new year and peace. Now, I’m getting emotional. Yeah, when I think about the new year, it’s, it’s always a hope for something better.” MADAME MAE PALMIST PSYCHIC PHYLLIS DAVIS-BON, PHOTOGRAPHED IN THE WELLSTON LOOP ON DECEMBER 2 riverfronttimes.com
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Onward
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nd here we are at the end of another [fill in your own adjective] year. I hope you’re not expecting any words of wisdom from me. I’ve got nothing, but you might want to page over to this week’s cover story for people who do. We’ve got insight from people who’ve made those big life changes you’ve been considering. Or maybe you just need to know where to eat. RFT food editor Cheryl Baehr is sharing her annual list of the best new restaurants in St. Louis. You’ll want to start crossing off a few. And because it doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to turn away from the pandemic anytime soon, please read the perspective of Dr. James Beattie, who has a few thoughts about the hell of guiding cancer patients through the Great Mask War. Read up, and we’ll see you back here next year. —Doyle Murphy, editor in chief
TABLE OF CONTENTS Publisher Chris Keating Editor in Chief Doyle Murphy
E D I T O R I A L Managing Editor Daniel Hill Digital Content Editors Jenna Jones, Jaime Lees Food Editor Cheryl Baehr Staff Writer Danny Wicentowski Contributors Eric Berger, Jeannette Cooperman, Mike Fitzgerald, Eileen G’Sell, Kathy Gilsinan, Reuben Hemmer, Ryan Krull, Andy Paulissen, Justin Poole, Jack Probst, Richard Weiss, Theo Welling, Ymani Wince Columnists Thomas Chimchards, Ray Hartmann Editorial Interns Phuong Bui, Zoë Butler, Madyson Dixon A R T
& P R O D U C T I O N Art Director Evan Sult Production Manager Haimanti Germain
COVER Resolutions Simplified
M U L T I M E D I A A D V E R T I S I N G Associate Publisher Colin Bell Account Managers Emily Fear, Jennifer Samuel Director of Business Development Brittany Forrest, Rachel Hoppman Director of Marketing and Events Olia Friedrichs Regional Director of Marketing and Events Kristina Linden C I R C U L A T I O N Circulation Manager Kevin G. Powers
A guide to changing your life, from people who’ve been there
E U C L I D M E D I A G R O U P Chief Executive Officer Andrew Zelman Chief Operating Officers Chris Keating, Michael Wagner VP of Digital Services Stacy Volhein www.euclidmediagroup.com
Cover illustration by
SAM WASHBURN
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Think Past It’s time for the 2021 news quiz BY RAY HARTMANN
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ere you paying attention in 2021? Let’s test your knowledge. First, the grading scale: 10 correct answers: You need to find something other than the RFT to read. 8-9: You’re probably a radical socialist who hates America. 6-7: You haven’t lost your touch since high school. 1-5: It’s cool. This is all Fake News.
1. On July 12, the RFT reported “Greitens Tries Desperately to Duct Tape Himself to ___ at Missouri Rally.” Fill in the blank: A. His new hairdresser B. His old hairdresser C. Mark McCloskey’s assault rifle D. Trump
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) gestures toward a crowd of supporters of President Donald Trump gathered outside the U.S. Capitol to protest the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral college victory on Jan. 6, 2021. Some demonstrators later breached security and stormed the Capitol. | FRANCIS CHUNG/COURTESY OF E&E NEWS AND POLITICO “The science shows that school mask mandates are arbitrary and capricious.” In which RFT story was that cited? A. “Eric Schmitt Admits He Flunked Science, Blames Leftist Teacher”
2. On January 4, an RFT headline read, “An Act of Treason By and For Josh Hawley.” How did we know that two days before the Capitol insurrection?
B. “Eric Schmitt Claims COVID-19 Treated Unfairly by Leftist Media”
A. We’re clairvoyant
D. “Eric Schmitt Says Public Health Is Code for Tyranny”
B. Hawley had issued a press release saying, “Senator plans treason Wednesday” C. Hawley had already announced he’d act to carry out the “Big Lie” January 6 D. Hawley just looks treasonous 3. “These were just very angry, defiant, very violent people that we house.” Who was then-St. Louis Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards referring to? A. Members of the St. Louis Police Officers Association. B. City jail detainees. C. Rams fans looking for Stan Kroenke at the courthouse. D. The news media. 4. Attorney General Eric Schmitt stated the following in a lawsuit:
C. “Eric Schmitt Would Kill to Be Your Senator”
5. Fill in the blank: “Missouri’s Long Wait for _____ Could End in 2022” A. Secession from the Union B. Gun control C. Adult-use cannabis D. An Arkansas border wall 6. On February 2, the RFT carried a story headlined “Sex Workers, Allies Want Next St. Louis Mayor to ____” A. Respect the Hustle B. Hire Them for Special City Events C. Give Them Tax Credits D. Tell Certain Politicians to Stop Stalking Them
7. Teacher John Wallis resigned from his position at Neosho Junior High School after he displayed a rainbow flag behind a sign reading “Everyone Is Welcome Here.” What happened?
9. Who flipped off a loud crowd of angry anti-maskers at a St. Louis County Council meeting?
A. The kids liked the part about showing respect to everyone
C. Dr. Anthony Fauci
B. An angry parent complained he was trying “to teach kids to be gay” C. The school principal said displaying a rainbow flag meant the school must let other teachers display Confederate flags D. All of the above 8. When Governor Mike Parson’s Department of Health and Senior Services produced a study that found that mask mandates worked, Parson did what? A. Publicly stated, “I’m sorry for being so wrong about the dang masks” B. Issued an executive order saying that local school boards should be respected if they issued mask mandates to protect their students C. Demanded that reporters carrying the story be investigated by the Missouri State Highway Patrol D. Refused to let the study come out publicly
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A. Dr. Sam Page B. Dr. Faisal Khan D. Dr. Oz 10. When St. Louis County Police Chief Mary Barton stepped down under fire from her post in July, whom did she thank? A. The St. Louis County Council for its two no-confidence votes. B. The Page administration for agreeing to give her a $290,000 settlement of her sex-discrimination claims. C. The Black community for finally coming to realize that there was no systemic racism in the county Police Department. D. The men and women of the police department.
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Ray Hartmann founded the Riverfront Times in 1977. Contact him at rhar tmann1952@gmail.com or catch him on Donnybrook at 7 p.m. on Thursdays on Nine PBS and St. Louis In the Know with Ray Hartmann from 9 to 11 p.m. Monday thru Friday on KTRS (550 AM).
Correct answers: 1D; 2C; 3B; 4C; 5C; 6A; 7D; 8D; 9B; 10D
0: This quiz was a conspiracy to destroy your mind. You got us.
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NEWS [PERSPECTIVE]
The Great Mask War A cancer doctor’s view of COVID politicization from the front lines DR. JAMES BEATTIE
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his winter was supposed to be better. As a cancer doctor trying to navigate immunocompromised patients through a respiratory pandemic, I have seen the devastating impact of COVID-19 from the outset. And as a lifelong resident of a blood-red county, I have also witnessed the battles of The Great Mask War in grocery stores, businesses and schools in this divided community. The introduction of mRNA vaccines last December offered hope for a truce in The Great Mask War. The rapid development and production of effective vaccines was a medical marvel. But baked into the misplaced optimism regarding this scientific achievement was the idea that people would actually get them. With Missouri vaccination rates hovering at barely over 50 percent, there will be no vaccine armistice. Recently, the head of the St. Louis Pandemic Taskforce warned of region-wide hospital sta ng concerns due to “a pretty clear escalation” in the winter COVID-19 surge. Meanwhile, in what at times seems like an alternative universe, the Missouri Attorney General threatened “enforcement action” against any school district in the state using mask mandates, quarantines or other COVID-19 mitigation measures. The AG even implemented a state-sponsored “hotline” for parents to tattle on school districts who continue to pursue mask policies. The Empire Strikes Back The scientific debate over the benefit of masks is largely settled. While there are a few remaining
holdouts in the tinfoil hat crowd screaming “C02 kills brain cells” (usually at a school board meeting or on TikTok), various studies, including a global analysis recently published in the British Medical Journal and a state analysis of data from Missouri’s own Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) have consistently proven the public health benefit with surgical masks. Nobody seems to really be arguing that point anymore. The debate now has focused on if any public health policy can proceed in Missouri at all, regardless of its impact. The purported basis for the AG’s edict stems from a recent court ruling — Robinson v. MO DHSS. The actual Robinson decision, however, reveals a specific prohibition on unelected DHSS and local health departments from directly imposing quarantine and isolation guidelines without expressly prohibiting city councils, county commissioners, school boards or other elected o cials from imposing public health policies. The AG’s own o ce was, in fact, responsible for defending the DHSS position. However, after a hollow defense (and refusal to file the appeal DHSS re uested), the AG instead proclaimed this Cole County decision makes any school district policy aimed at COVID-19 mitigation in the entire state — including mask mandates — unconstitutional and sent “cease and desist” orders to school districts throughout the state. This brazen misinterpretation of the ruling is consistent with an increasingly frequent display of partisan political hackery. St. Louis County Executive Sam Page deemed the AG’s threat as “carnival quackery,” but perhaps a new term is needed for this new age: assinity /ass-IN-it-eee/ Noun a public o cial who puts personal self-interest or brand above facts, logic and reasoning Example — a state attorney general suing China Ironically, the AG’s own lawsuit against China last year stated that “Missouri faces an urgent public health crisis due to COVID-19”
So COVID-19 is both devastating enough for the Missouri AG to sue a sovereign nation for damages, but also so trivial that there is no reason to quarantine COVID-19 exposed students from schools or even have them wear a mask? while China “sought to minimi e the consequences, engaging in a coverup and misleading public relations campaign by censoring scientists, ordering the destruction and suppression of valuable research, and refusing cooperation with the global community, all in violation of international health standards.” A year later, when the same AG authored a lawsuit against the Columbia Public School’s mask mandate, the danger of COVID-19 in Missouri now apparently paled in comparison to the risk of a student wearing a surgical mask during class “The cure can not be worse than the disease.” (Also, masking students led to “less happiness,” according to the suit.) So COVID-19 is both devastating enough for the Missouri AG to sue a sovereign nation for damages but also so trivial that there is no reason to quarantine COVID-19 exposed students from schools or even have them wear a mask. That’s because the current political climate calls only for grievance, not consistency or logic. A chaotic response from school districts and health departments around the state predictably followed. Some, like the Lee’s Summit
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School District, released a formal (and scalding) response to the AG, citing reasons both within the Robinson ruling and existing Missouri statute as to why the school “will not abandon the statutory duty to govern the operations of the school district.” Others, like the Wentzville School District, quickly and quietly abandoned any effort at masking, contact tracing or quarantine for those with COVID-19 exposures faster than the NRA sends out “thoughts and prayers” messaging after a school shooting. In Wentzville, the pandemic is o cially over as of December 22. As in all conflicts, the battles in The Great Mask War ebb and flow. Ground gained. Ground lost. While the AG and the pro-virus side press ahead in this latest sortie, the next fight cues up. There are other hills to fight on. And other hills to die on. Because casualties remain the one connective tissue that links all wars. Missouri deaths: Civil War - 13,000 WWII - 8,003 Vietnam - 945 Korea - 737 COVID-19 - 15,600 (and counting) In September 1864, General William Tecumseh Sherman remarked that the Civil War “began in error and is perpetuated in pride.” Shortly thereafter, Sherman launched the infamous “March to the Sea” campaign that destructively ransacked the entire state of Georgia and left Atlanta in flames. The Civil War ended barely a month later. How will The Great Mask War end? Will Missouri be left in tatters like Georgia when the truce flag flies? It’s too soon to tell. Until then, The Great Mask War wages on. I suppose dealing with COVID-19 is different in the trenches than on the campaign trail. But up close, it’s a hard slog. And with no end in sight, it’s clear something else that General Sherman said was also true. War is hell. n Dr. James Beattie is a practicing Medical Oncologist in St. Charles County.
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he bar seems so low. How could you not make 2022 a better year than 2021, right? It feels like aiming at the participation trophy of resolutions. But, hey, that’s what we thought in 2020, and we all saw how that turned out. So instead of assuming that the new year has to be better than last, you’re going to want to make a plan. Want this to be the year that you get that work-life balance in check or turn that water-eating lawn into an edible landscape? Or maybe you’re ready to nail your edibles recipe? We’re here for you. Our writers have been talking to St. Louisans who’ve had your goals and mastered them, and they’ve got the tips and tricks to get you started. Here’s to good days ahead. —Doyle Murphy, editor in chief
How to Kill Your Lawn (Because Lawns Are Terrible) St. Louis Hills resident Danielle Meert isn’t a hateful woman, except when it comes to lawns. “Grass is not natural,” Meert says. “You’d never find a lawn in nature. A lawn has no ecological benefit. It provides no wildlife habitat. Somehow, though, lawns are the socially acceptable thing to do.” Even worse, in Meert’s eyes, is that lawns are the biggest irrigated crop in America, taking up more land than wheat, corn and fruit orchards combined. Meert’s biggest problem with lawns is the fertilizers and other chemicals people use on the grass. In St. Louis, those make their way to the Mississippi River, then wind up with the rest of the Midwest’s runoff in the Gulf of Mexico. While earning a master’s degree in conservation biology at the University of New Orleans, Meert studied the gulf’s “dead zone,” the thousands of square miles where all that runoff kills fish and marine life.
She recommends killing your lawn by covering the grass with wood chips and then laying a tarp over the chips, though this process can take up to two years. She’s also seen people use old billboards to snuff out wide swaths of lawn in one swoop. She used “hot” piles of compost to kill her backyard’s grass in record time but is going the slower tarp route for the front. Now that most of her grass is gone, Meert is replacing it with a cornucopia: cilantro, blueberries, onions, mushrooms, rhubarb, rosemary, stevia and valerian. This is not a complete list. The giant pile of mulch in her front yard and the chickens in back have led to a neighborhood complaint or two, but the haters are few and far between. Nearby LeGrand’s, Dairy Queen on Hampton and Kaldi’s have all made donations to Meert’s cause. “This is the most eco-friendly house in St. Louis Hills,” Meert says proudly. “Even our bricks are made from locally sourced clay.” She says the yellowish orange clay likely came from the neighbor-
Danielle Meert wants you to move beyond the traditional lawn. | RYAN KRULL hood when the house was built in the 1950s. That one, though, she can’t take credit for. In Meert’s front yard there is still a narrow stretch of grass, the last remaining patch of lawn on the property. “My husband made me promise to finish all the other pro ects before I kill this last bit right here,” she says. Rest assured — those blades’ days are numbered. RYAN KRULL
How to Become a Master Home Bartender When Eric Guenther thinks back on what ignited his passion for cocktails, he recalls it all starting with one drink. “I remember going to Público and having this really good daiquiri,” Guenther says. “It’s incredibly simple ust rum, lime uice and simple syrup — but it’s so incredible. My personality is such that I don’t ust say, h, this is the best daiquiri in St. Louis.’ I’m go-
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ing to dig deep down into it and ask how it can be better. It can always be better. You never know everything, right?” Though that Público daiquiri may have been the spark that ignited the powder keg, it wasn’t the first time Guenther, a physician by trade, went down the cocktail rabbit hole. Even before, he’d been working on perfecting his margarita game, graduating from Cuervo and pre-made mix to actual recipes involving better-quality tequilas and freshs uee ed uices. He tinkered with different mixtures and settled on a classic three-two-one-half ratio: three parts tequila, two parts lime uice, one part simple syrup and a half part Cointreau or other orange liqueur. Having committed that recipe to memory, a light bulb went off when he began researching daiquiris. “I was like, Wait a minute. This is basically the same formula as a margarita but with rum,’” Guen-
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How to Build Your Yoga Practice
ther says. “The connection just started happening. I liked whiskey, so I looked up whiskey sours and saw that it was basically the same recipe, too. I realized the base was almost the same formula — alcohol, citrus and simple — and it all started coming together. Once I got to that point, I just started playing.” Though Guenther is quick to admit that there is much more to cocktails than learning that particular recipe, he believes that, at least for home bartenders, nailing something simple is an important first step in upping your cocktail game. As he explains, once he became proficient in the basics, he began experimenting with different citruses, different simple syrups (white sugar versus brown sugar, for instance), different brands of spirits and even adding multiple spirits in one drink, such as adding tequila and mezcal into his margarita. In addition to mastering a base recipe, Guenther advises those interested in getting into home bartending to focus on practicality and your own personal preferences. “Whenever I learn something new, I am super practical,” Guenther says. “I’m not going to just find recipes and follow them all the time; I’m only going to do it if I remember it. If I just pick a random drink that I don’t care about and follow a step-by-step recipe, I’m not going to remember it. I’ll maybe make it just that one time. If you start with what you are really into and nail it down, it will umbrella from there.” Though he admits the cost of building your own home bar collection can be prohibitive, he insists you can find good bottles at a variety of price points. His own preference for daiquiris, Flor De Cana white rum, runs roughly $18 a bottle. High-end bottles are not necessary, he insists, but there is a certain level of quality, if not expense, that you need to hit. He also emphasizes that you cannot take shortcuts when it comes to the other ingredients. There is no substitute for fresh-squeezed juice, even though juicing citrus can be a labor-intensive endeavor. “There’s no cheating,” he says. “Get everything you actually need and don’t cut corners. It makes all the difference because you can’t hide something crappy when there are only three or four ingredients.” CHERYL BAEHR
If you want to contort your body into insane shapes and get killer abs and a brand-new bubble butt, well, maybe keep looking. But if you want to slow down, chill and get back in touch with your mind and your body in the context of a supportive community while you shake off the … everything … of the past couple years, maybe this is your year for yoga. Kate Ewing, founder of Brick City Yoga in Benton Park West, says that the mind-body focus of yoga is a great antidote for the stress, anxiety and isolation of modern life — all of which has been cranked to eleven during the pandemic. Sure, you might end up learning how to stand on your head, but that’s not really the point. “Our mission has really never been to focus on the physical attributes of the yoga practices. If you look at our Instagram, I don’t post pictures of people in yoga poses,” Ewing says. “We don’t want new students to think they have to look a certain way or get into a certain shape to practice yoga. There’s obviously a lot of physical benefits, but there’s so much more than that. We focus a lot on meditation and breath work, tools students can use off the mat.” During early pandemic shutdowns, the studio moved into the virtual space, but the special sauce was missing an ingredient. “We hopped on the online trend that was very popular during the first weeks and months, but it sort of leveled off,” Ewing says. “The classes were great, but what was missing was that sense of being around people.” Whether you’re brand new to exercise in general or yoga in particular, or just looking to shore up a practice that might have lapsed, it’s important to be realistic with your intentions. “The first thing is to pick a schedule that’s manageable, whether that’s amount of classes per week or time of the class,” Ewing says. “Trying to set a goal of wanting to take five yoga classes a week might set someone up for failure.” Skidding into a 5:30 p.m. class at 5:32 after hyperventilating through tra c after leaving work at exactly 5 isn’t exactly charting a course for nirvana, either. Ewing encourages students to get in touch with instructors and ask questions about classes, too. (All of Brick City Yoga’s classes, including basics, are $10.) Let them
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know what you’re looking for and what your challenges are, and they can guide you toward the class that’s right for you. Those ubiquitous January challenges, Ewing says, aren’t really viable introductions into building a practice that lasts. “It’s not realistic to go through drastic changes every year over a 31-day period!” she says. “Really focus on what type of experience you want to be having with a physical practice, versus what outcome you want to have.” MELISSA MEINZER
How to Declutter Everyone accumulates things. It doesn’t matter how much you keep up with the clutter; at the end of the year, it can be easy to feel like you’re drowning in things. Decluttering doesn’t have to mean throwing everything away or even really throwing anything away. Most items can be repurposed, regifted or donated. Sometimes, though, it can be challenging to know where to start. Marie Kondo may be an icon of organizational skills, but she isn’t a realistic model for most of us. It’s to have more than five shirts, especially when life gets too busy to do laundry for a couple of days. The important decluttering should involve the stuff you don’t use often enough to warrant the space it takes up. Ask yourself the question, “Does this take up more space than it’s worth?” No matter how big or small the decluttering mission is, I start with a clean bed. It has been a game-changer for me. First, make the bed, giving yourself a platform to put all the stuff on. Once you’ve covered it with clothes, knickknacks or really anything contributing to the clutter, there’s no option of going back to sleep until it’s clear again. The project is locked in. After you’ve discerned which items take up more space than they’re worth, there are plenty of places across the city to donate them. There are old standards, such as Goodwill or the Salvation Army. But you might try House of Goods and Oasis International. They focus on assisting refugees new to St. Louis but will help anyone in need and are good local options. For the things you keep, it can be a struggle to know where to put them. Everything needs somewhere to go. That process might involve actually buying more things in the form of organizers. There’s no need to spend a ton of
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money, but some discount-store containers can help keep everything neat. Make a list of the organizational categories you need and get that many baskets or drawers in the appropriate sizes. There doesn’t need to be any guilt associated with the decluttering process. Keeping on top of clutter is a di cult task for a lot of people, and even the most disciplined people build up a collection of excess during the year. Any progress is good progress when it comes to entering the new year a little fresher. MADYSON DIXON
How to Find a Better Work-Life Balance The pandemic brought work home for many St. Louisans. For those who can no longer leave work at the o ce, the switch has completely thrown off the worklife balance. When Nicole Coglianese opened Citra Fitness & Movement citrafitness.com in August 2020, she knew that finding a good work-life balance was going to be tough. Not only was opening her business during the hell of 2020 complicated, she knew that her boutique yoga and Pilates studio was going to need a lot of attention. She was ready to give it, too, but she still isn’t sure where she stops and it starts. “When I started running my own business, I became a part of the business and the business became part of me,” Coglianese says. “That probably isn’t healthy, but it became part of my identity — not only the way I look at myself, but the way that other people look at me. So sometimes it’s easier just to be ‘on’ all the time. But to me, running a business is also very fun, and that makes it easy to lose track of time. So that’s something that I’m working toward, to dedicate time to be me and time to be the business.” Coglianese says she had to experience burnout multiple times before she made a point of trying to actively focus more on her personal time. To keep herself and her business in top shape, she’s implemented a series of solutions that have allowed her better time management and lower stress overall. She now tries to show herself respect by doing things that are just for her, such as getting a massage. She’s also learning to release control by letting a friend plan an outing or letting other people take the reins and guide her through meditation. She also schedules nights in to just chill, order food
Nicole Coglianese had to learn how to create work boundaries, even with a job she loves. | PROVIDED and connect on the phone with friends. These are all small things, but they were things that she didn’t allow herself previously because she was always working on building the business. The weird part, though, is that stepping away from work in these tiny ways has made Coglianese even better at working. Her business is thriving, and her mind is clear and focused on the future. So if you want to do better in 2022 than you did in 2021, maybe try taking a step back from business. Also, take time to engage your core. Your whole body will thank you. JAIME LEES
How to Write an Excellent Blurb for a Special Issue of the RFT in Record Time The key, of course, is brevity. DANIEL HILL
How to Start a Podcast For all its many (many, many, many, so many) downsides, one nice thing (the only one?) the COVID-19 pandemic did is give a way for people to explore hobbies and talents they didn’t know they had, as well as listen to or watch things they didn’t have time for before — and this is where podcasts enter the picture. Podcasting has continued to grow in popularity throughout the pandemic, with Forbes reporting that an estimated 125 million people are expected to listen to a podcast each month in 2022, up from the esti-
mated 100 million in 2020. Podcast host Michael Wagenknecht has advice for those who are looking to get into hosting their own show: Pick something you love. Wagenknecht has done his podcast, a St. Louis sports show titled Toasted Tavern, for close to three years now. He’s worked alongside his co-host Scott Tobben to expand the podcast from humble local beginnings to a statewide affair, traveling to Kansas City to air podcasts and streams, and speaking with a Cardinals announcer and a Kansas City Royals historian. Wagenknecht also credits Tom Ackerman, KMOX radio sports director, as part of the podcast’s growing success; the KMOX host lends advice and joins the show from time to time. For Wagenknecht, the achievement is not something he initially expected to have success with. He balances a 50-hour workweek and is a full-time student at Lindenwood University, but also carves out time to create his podcast. He’s stayed consistent, working around his job and school schedule, filling his free time with podcasting. Wagenknecht says that setting aside a time to record the podcast doesn’t have to be set in stone — that’s the beauty of the medium. While sleep is hard to come by as he embraces the busy schedule, he wants others who want to leap into the podcasting world to know that it’s possible. “When you pick something you love, you’ll sound the most knowledgeable,” Wagenknecht
says. “And make sure you have a partner in crime. You can do it by yourself, but having someone to bounce ideas off of and challenge you is valuable.” He suggests getting started with a $40 USB microphone, and notes that there are free streaming services where you can upload your podcast. Other than that, he advises future podcasters to just take the leap, and to not be afraid to put yourself out there. JENNA JONES
How to Trace Your Family Tree Before you rush out to take that DNA home test Aunt Sally got you for the holiday, Simone Faure urges you to ask yourself one important question: Why do I want to do this? A fierce genealogy enthusiast when she’s not making elegant pastries at her bakery, La Patisserie Chouquette, Faure has helped numerous people around town trace their roots since she fell in love with the field several years ago. She’s witnessed family reunions, has seen people uncover exciting details about their histories and has made the voices of enslaved people speak to their descendants — but she advises would-be explorers to do some serious soul searching before they dive into the past. “There are lots of reasons why people want to look into their family tree,” Faure says. “Some are trying to figure out where their family’s schnitzel recipe came from and why they are always eating these traditional things. Some
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are trying to find lost loved ones. Some are adopted and want to learn about those circumstances. There are a million reasons, and identifying why you want to do this is important, because it will dictate the route you take. When you are looking up your family history, it’s not just your history. It’s your parents’ and your siblings’, and it’s important to think about who has the right to tell that story and be the keeper of that information.” For those who have decided to take the plunge, Faure says there are numerous resources, some free, that will give you the tools to trace your roots. Though there is a fee associated with it, she encourages people to start with a DNA test. “DNA doesn’t lie, but Grandma Eunice definitely does,” Faure says. “Oftentimes, it’s to protect you, they believe; to cover for someone who is dead and gone or because the truth is simply too painful to talk about. That’s where DNA comes in, because it will show you things clearly.” Faure notes that, although the countries of origin that are revealed through a DNA test should be taken with a grain of salt, they are fun places to start. From there, she encourages those serious about tracing their family tree to buy the basic Ancestry.com subscription that gives you access to every census record published to date and access to other people’s family trees, as well as some newspapers’ military records. If this is cost-prohibitive, she notes that the library has its own subscription that can be used, for free, with a library card. Those institutions also offer free classes in genealogy that can be very helpful. Death records — free to access in Missouri if they are at least ten years old — are another important resource, as are online resources like familysearch. com. TikTok has been another great source of information, especially when it comes to learning the tools for tracing your tree or even watching others do their own. Even something as simple as walking through the cemetery in your family’s hometown can reveal important information. “They say dead men tell no tales, but that is a lie, honey,” Faure says. “They are, a lot of times, speaking loud and clear, and because they are dead, there is nobody there to contradict them.” Whatever path you take, Faure urges patience and respect. Though she understands there
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will probably be disappointment along the way, Faure believes the important thing to remember is that this is your journey — one filled with curiosity, beauty, ugliness and everything in between, but one that will give you a greater understanding of what makes you uniquely you. “If you come up against somebody that matches your DNA, and they don’t want to answer you back, that means they had a different reason for getting tested,” Faure says. “Perhaps their family circumstances are none of your business. Just because you are a match doesn’t mean they want anything to do with you. You have to respect people’s wishes, because your story is your own.” CHERYL BAEHR
How to Start a New Job Like Cori Bush The American workplace is changing. But amid what many are calling the Great Resignation in 2021, many workers will be walking into new jobs in 2022 — and, unfortunately, a lot of those places are still going to be filled with pointless rules, intolerant customers and unreliable coworkers. Cori Bush can relate. Elected in 2020, the Missouri congresswoman marked the first day of her first legislative session by hiding from a mob of insurrectionists on January 6, 2021, but ever since then she’s made headlines for staging an outdoor, overnight protest of evictions and taking a personal stand against the onslaught of abortion restrictions. In November, the Riverfront Times interviewed Bush about her new reelection campaign and being “an activist in Congress,” but we also asked her to share advice for people who might be facing familiar challenges in the coming year as they take on new roles in jobs that might be very, very far from ideal. Bush’s advice starts with a mantra she has told herself in the past: The sky is not your limit. “It’s just walking in with the assurance, the knowledge, of what you came through to get here,” she says. “It’s understanding, ‘If I came through that, I’m ready and equipped to go into this next chapter.’” It can be easy to let uncertainty and criticism lead a person to doubt that they really belong in that new o ce or new position.
Congresswoman Cori Bush knows how to hit the ground running. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI Bush herself has plenty of doubters, but she hasn’t let that stop her from calling out abusive behavior from the likes of Republicans Mar orie Taylor-Greene and Lauren Boebert, or even lobbing criti ues at members of her own party, such as Joe Manchin. For the newly hired of 2022, Bush has a message that she’s carried with her from her days protesting in the streets of Ferguson and St. Louis: “Remember who you are,” she says. “Know what your mission is. Whether it’s a group, whether it’s your ob, whether it’s school, whatever it is, it’s, ‘Why am I doing this? Why am I connected to this?’ Be rooted in that. And once you know why you’re there, you have to stay connected to that once you get that settled, that path becomes clear, and that path is the path to success.” DANNY WICENTOWSKI
Don’t sweat the small stuff, especially starting out. It can seem daunting at first, and you’ll get caught off guard the menu didn’t mention cheese, so why is this salad covered in it? . nce you get the hang of it, you’ll spot the red flags. Do your best, don’t beat yourself up, and keep going. Remember why you’re doing this. For some, the giant carbon cost and deforestation of the meat industry is enough. thers focus on the conditions and abuse of animals in factory and even organic farms. r you may have recently learned how wretched and dangerous slaughterhouses are, even for the humans who work there. Whatever it is, let that be your guiding principle. You’ll definitely get friction from others. But know that your actions do matter, and that this is a way to make a positive impact each day, every day. EVAN SULT
How to Go Vegan (or Vegetarian)
How to Be Resilient
Whether you want to actually address climate change on a personal level, or you recently learned that turkeys can purr and even recogni e human faces — whatever it is, you’re ready to stop eating animals. Here are some tips to make it stick and make it a pleasure): Set yourself up for success. Find a few easy home staples: a bagel with ite Hill cream cheese, pasta, stir fry. If you’re going out, check the menu first: If there’s only a lone veggie burger or sad red pepper sandwich who wants those?), keep looking. Find places you can thrive. Most Asian restaurants are rich with vegetarian food. Lean into St. Louis’ many great Thai, Indian and Vietnamese spots and you’ll be set.
In the spring of 2020, Mark Labrayere was just trying to keep his head above water. As a respiratory-care practitioner at SSM DePaul, he was on the front lines along with his coworkers as C ID-19 swept across the world, taking it day by day while trying to understand how to treat the deadly virus. Since those early days, the pandemic has claimed over 15,000 lives in Missouri, and Labrayere has felt the weight of that with his own patients. He describes what it was like those first few months with a nurse and himself in the room, holding the patient’s hand as they took their last breath so they wouldn’t die alone. As the crisis rages on, Labrayere remembers the words his mother told him fourteen years ago when
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he went into health care: “It’s to be sad. God made people to be teachers, to do this or that, but he made you to do this. You get your five minutes, but there’s people that need you, so get back in there and do what God made you to do.” “That’s the biggest thing for me,” Labrayere explains in an interview with the RFT. “It’s to be sad, for the families and for the people that we’ve lost, but we also have to be able to bounce back to help the next one. It’s tough to walk out of the room after pulling a breathing tube out and walk into the next room with a smile on my face, but the patient’s room I’m going into, they deserve the best of what we got.” In order to piece that resilience together, Labrayere explains there are two parts: leaning on your support system and remembering why you’re passionate about what you’re doing. For the support system, he says it’s important to not be scared of asking for help from those around you. Remembering your purpose is as easy as asking yourself why you’re doing what you are is it because of money? Is it passion? r love? Brenn Lemon, a nurse manager for the oncology-hematology unit at Mercy St. Louis, agrees with Labrayere, saying it’s important to reflect inward to measure how you’re doing. Lemon says C ID-19 has affected her unit through nurse and patient morale, since safety measures make it harder to celebrate things like her coworkers’ birthdays or for patients to have visitors. She’s become flexible the past year, finding ways to celebrate her nurses through cards and a rmations, while she’s working to connect with patients. Flexibility has been key in building her resilience, as well as celebrating small wins, whether it’s a new coffee creamer or something you find motivating. “I think that’s what I would encourage someone to do,” Lemon says. “Take that step back and look at your challenges and find what your passion is and then put that back into the task. I think that really builds your resilience.” Labrayere echoes her, saying it’s your passion that will push you forward. But, he also would add one thing: “ esilience is not going to happen on its own. We need each other.” JENNA JONES
How to Make Your Own Edibles Though there is an art and a science to cooking with mari uana,
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Dr. Clarence Lovebutter (name changed to protect the not-soinnocent) wants home bakers to know that they should treat making edibles as they would any other culinary endeavor. “Basically, you can make whatever you want,” Lovebutter says. “Any treat that includes butter in the original recipe can be applied to edibles. Once you have the basics of green butter down, you can apply it to whatever treat you like, whether caramels, chocolate chip cookies, brownies, blondies or whatever you want to make.” As the number of dispensaries that have cropped up around town continues to rise and marijuana use (cough, medical marijuana use) becomes more widely accepted, Lovebutter has seen more and more people interested in making edibles at home. A veteran cannabis cook, he has perfected his recipes and believes that anyone can make their own baked goods by following a few simple steps. Once these are down, the sky is the limit. For Lovebutter, the foundation of edible baking is green butter, a marijuana-infused product that is easy to make in just a few simple yet important steps. For his recipe, he says to use an ounce of fresh trim post-harvest per pound of butter. For those who aren’t growers, take a quarter-ounce of buds and grind them up, or an ounce of shake left over from previous amounts you have. “If you’re using fresh buds, I wouldn’t use any more than a quarter-ounce per pound of butter,” advises Lovebutter. For the next step, add your pound of butter, your green material and two cups of water to a Crockpot and slow cook it for about six hours, or until the water is gone. As Lovebutter notes, the water gives the butter time in the slow cooker to heat up the material and infuse the butter without burning it. After roughly six hours, remove the butter and strain it through a metal strainer, pushing down on the marijuana mash and squeezing as much out of it as possible. Put the melted butter into a container, refrigerate, and let it harden. It’s that easy. Though Lovebutter uses Kerrygold Irish butter because of a personal preference, he says that any butter base — salted or unsalted — will do. He even suggests playing around with different fats using the same method, such as veg-
etable oil, olive oil or even coconut oil, which he also notes is an especially good base for a healing salve when combined with arnica oil. As for the actual baking, Lovebutter keeps things pretty simple. A simple box cake mix will do if you do not want to make your treats from scratch, though whatever you do, he insists you follow the recipe, even if it might be tempting to play around. “Like anything with baking, if you don’t follow the recipe and do the process the way you are supposed to, you will end up with different results,” Lovebutter says. “That goes for using the amount of butter it calls for. If you want it less strong, use half green butter and half regular.” Lovebutter understands that increased access to cannabis means that many people will be experimenting with edibles for the first time. If you are new to this form of consumption, he notes that the high is significantly different more of a body high and more gradual compared to smoking, which makes edibles more of a commitment. “As with anything, you want to start off slowly,” Lovebutter says. “If you are looking at that brownie and thinking you want to eat the whole thing, you might want to think again. Start with a quarter of it and work your way up. If you’re a beginner, work your way into it and give yourself an hour or so to feel the results. You can always take more, but you can’t take less. That’s my rule of thumb.” CHERYL BAEHR
How to Grow Your Own Food If you’ve ever sliced into a warm just-off-the-vine tomato and put a piece of that pure sunshine on a sandwich, the taste of a mealy outof-season grocery-store guy just might make you weep in disgust. Even if you live in a tiny four-family flat or can’t keep a cactus alive, you can grow at least something to eat this summer. Start small. Chuck a little basil plant and some dirt into a bucket and plop it in the sunniest corner of your yard porch fire escape. Maybe a cherry tomato, too, and a pepper plant if you have space. Do it after Memorial Day. Water them most days, and keep an eye on them. You can try starting your own seeds and planting spring crops in the wintertime, but those are kind of varsity moves — maybe save that for your ’23 or ’24 resolutions. Truthfully, you’ll probably kill a fair portion of what you plant,
especially at first, but you’re probably not depending on this harvest to keep your thirteen children alive through the harsh winter. (My personal agricultural Yoda is my dad, and he’s been at it most of his 81 years. Almost every year something fails in his legendary garden — every year is an experiment.) “You have to just do your best and also give up control,” says Madyson Winn, garden center manager at Flowers and Weeds on Cherokee Street, a great source for veggies, herbs, fruits, ornamentals and houseplants. “It’s a team effort, you and the plant and the surroundings, and sometimes things don’t always work out how you want. The good thing about that is you learn how to do things differently next time.” It’s low stakes, and every year you’re gathering more data for what to tweak next time. If you go into it with that mindset, the inevitable setbacks (I’m looking at you, Great Zucchini Blight of ’20) won’t seem as disheartening. Remember — you’re doing this for fun. And sandwiches. Winn caught the gardening bug early. “I started just as a kid. My mom told me to pick one plant to grow,” Winn says. “I picked yellow squash. I went out every morning and checked on it. When it was ready, it was just the coolest feeling, picking it and helping cook it for dinner.” It’s not exactly sex, drugs and/ or rock & roll, but seeing a little green marble forming on a tomato plant early on a June morning is a pretty incomparable thrill. “It’s just watching all the work that you’ve been putting into something come to fruiting,” Winn says. “It allows you a chance to appreciate the natural world, how beautifully and organically things want to grow.” MELISSA MEINZER
How to Waste Less Living in a house with more than one other person, it’s easy for the trash to pile up. If you’re anything like me, by the time trash day is there, the can is filled to the brim. Finding ways to waste less not only helps the environment — it can make life a whole lot more simple. It helps prevent running out of things, too. Too many times, I’ve gone to get a roll of Saran wrap that wasn’t there. Using beeswax wraps could have prevented so many of those headaches. Beeswax wraps do the same things Saran wrap does, but you can wash and reuse them. They cost more up front you can find
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a pack of three from Bee’s Wrap for about $15, compared to $5-$6 for 100 square feet of Saran wrap — but it saves money in the long run and helps the environment. Reusable bottles are another way to save money while being mindful of waste. There’s no need to go all out and get a $40 Hydro Flask. Discount options do the same thing. In a guide to students, Harvard University notes that bottled water is “about 3,000 percent more expensive per gallon than tap water” and that 86 percent of plastic water bottles in the United States end up as trash. Landfills account for 17 percent of the United States’ methane gas emissions. Buying reusable water bottles and actually using them reduces the amount of plastic water bottles going into landfills. Along with reusable water bottles, reusable straws and reusable deodorant containers can also help reduce waste. A pack of silicone straws will last a lot longer, and be significantly more durable, than the plastic single-use ones that break easily. Buying everyday items in bulk can eliminate a lot of plastic packaging that comes with buying smaller quantities. It’s best to stick to things like toilet paper, paper towels or nonperishable food products that get eaten regularly so produce doesn’t go bad before you can use it. Any step toward reducing waste, even considering how what you consume impacts the environment, is a step in the right direction. MADYSON DIXON
How to Be More Self-Reliant For years, Kristan Nickels and other members of the Zombie Squad have prepared for a possible apocalypse through the tropes of their favorite horror movies, approaching real-life disaster preparedness as if they were also facing hordes of the shambling undead. But if your resolution for 2022 involves becoming more selfsu cient and less reliant on the structures of society — that is, to be someone who might actually make it to the end credits of a zombie movie — Nickels’ advice doesn’t involve cutting off the rest of the world and moving to the mountains. “In the real world, those ‘lone wolf’ guys are just alone,” she says. “If there’s damage to their bunker, if there is an issue with a pump or water supply, they have to deal
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with it, as opposed to having somebody, having a community.” Self-su ciency has a different flavor in the pandemic era. For Nickels, the wide-scale crash of C ID-19 tested her preparedness skills in ways she hadn’t before considered. Basic disaster preparation steps like maintaining stocks of nonperishable food and warm clothing, and making copies of important legal and insurance documents can assist with the physical isolation and lack of power, but multiple shutdowns of public life and long uarantines posed different challenges. Nickels is an asset manager with the Tower Grove Neighborhoods Community Development Corporation, and creating community amid the isolation became part of her mission. She says she introduced neighbors to each other, removed fences to create larger shared yards and gardens, and arranged social events when the pandemic conditions permitted. “Community could be two people, or twenty people,” she observes. While that communitybuilding could involve local social media networks on Facebook or Nextdoor, Nickels says she encourages people to make a direct connection by attending neighborhood meetings, oining community service groups like ombie S uad or simply introducing themselves to neighbors. “You may only say ‘hi’ to them on the street, but it means you’ve got that connection already,” Nickels points out. “It’s getting to know each other, so that if a disaster strikes or something bad does happen, or you’re in need, that person’s not a complete stranger.” f course, there are many practical ways to make yourself more self-su cient and prepared for the worst. Even with a small budget, Nickels recommends adding 5 of nonperishable food items per grocery trip, which will build up your stock over time. If you’re on medications, talk to your doctor about obtaining prescriptions in three to six months’ supply. It’s also important to consider your pets when stockpiling necessary food, medicine and water. verall, Nickels stresses that while you can fill your home with generators, flashlights, extra water and toilet paper, the best resources in a disaster will likely be other people on your block. “The hardest thing for people right now is to reach out for con-
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tact or community,” she says. “People need to not be afraid. eep your head, use your common sense and take the time to get to know your neighbors.” DANNY WICENTOWSKI
How to Make Good on Resolutions Twenty-one days. It takes 21 days to form a habit, 21 days of doing something over and over until it becomes almost second nature to your routine or at least that has long been the sage advice of professionals, advice we are constantly hearing around the time of New Year’s. But St. Louisan Grace Walker has other advice. Start small. Walker, a full-time student, has had success with accomplishing her resolutions with this strategy. She explains that breaking the resolutions into chunks, instead of tackling them all at once, allows you to feel less overwhelmed. “The key is to start slow and take them one at a time,” Walker says. For example, last year, Walker wanted to establish a skincare routine and make coffee instead of buying it. She started with the skincare routine and then, once she established doing that each morning and night, moved on to her next goal. “ nce I’ve gotten into the routine of that and I don’t see myself falling off the wagon, I add my next goal into the mix,” Walker says. “Eventually, you’ll have all your resolutions together and you’ve stuck to them.” Went ville’s Detox Yoga studio owner April Elliott opened another location this year in Winghaven, achieving a goal she set for herself. When asked by the RFT how to stick by your resolutions, she points to mindfulness. Specifically, Elliott would recommend a ournal as soon as you can get one. She recommends starting with writing down how you feel daily: physically, emotionally and mentally. Ask yourself if you’re present in the moment or if you’re letting your mind wander. Then, keep track of the progress you’ve made in your resolution. If your goal is to lose weight, track the way you feel through your exercises and your emotions. “When you start your resolution, keeping track in a ournal lets you look at your progress,” Elliott says. “As you start to feel better because you are making better decisions, this can be a reminder you don’t want to go back to the place you were before you started your ourney.” JENNA JONES
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Noto Italian Restaurant’s thrilling take on southern Italian fare earns it the title of “Best New Restaurant of 2020 and 2021. | MABEL SUEN
[ROUNDUPS]
Best of the Best Our picks for the most thrilling new St. Louis restaurants of the past two years Written by
CHERYL BAEHR
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his time last December, instead of publishing our annual list of the year’s best new restaurants, we were drowning our tears in pouches of takeout cocktails and writing
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an obituary for the hospitality industry as we knew it. Twentytwo months into the After Times, we don’t need to rehash how or why we got here — we all know what 2020 did to the restaurant business and why the idea of celebrating new spots in a traditional way just was not in the cards during a time of acute crisis. So we talked about the good and the bad, found ways to seek out joy in an otherwise dark time and fueled ourselves with the hope that brighter days were just around the corner. They were. And they weren’t. As the promise of a return to normal (whatever the hell that means) faded faster from our memories than the term “Hot Vax Summer,” the St. Louis restaurant scene in 2021 found itself able to function near pre-pandemic capacity not because things suddenly got bet-
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ter, but because it got used to the hardship. From sta ng shortages that threatened — and in some cases succeeded — to shutter restaurants, to product shortages and rising food costs, the restaurant industry again found itself dealing with one challenge after the next. That the public proved so eager to return to inperson dining was great, except that public returned to a changed industry and showed restaurant professionals way too often that it was not pleased with the new reality. Yet at some point, we have to meet the dining world where it is at and embrace the real successes that have happened since life as we knew it got turned upside down. In spite of — and in many cases, as an answer to — the seemingly impossible challenges thrown its way, the St.
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Louis restaurant industry has given us so many instances of pure joy over the past two years. Though we could discuss those that happened in 2020 as a footnote, it seems unfair to penalize the great restaurants that opened during that year and simply move on without giving them their moment to shine. In that spirit, this year’s roundup is actually two years in one — the Best New Restaurants of 2020 and 2021, a ranked list of the fifteen best dining establishments to open since January 2020. There are a few caveats to this list. First, in keeping with our traditional Best New Restaurants rules, we are including eateries reviewed or visited in 2020 and 2021, even if they technically opened in 2019. This is true of Little Fox, which opened in December of 2019 and, under
Terror Tacos’ plant-based Southwestern and Mexican food is a delicious vegan horrorshow. | MABEL SUEN The Avogoa Bagel at Coffeestamp is one of the many offerings that makes the cafe a must-visit daytime destination. | MABEL SUEN normal circumstances, would have been included in last year’s roundup. Also, we are only considering restaurants that we have actually been to; though a handful of other promising spots have opened this year, including Tempus (technically it opened in 2020, but it began welcoming guests in person this fall), Root Food + Wine, Botanica and Commonwealth, we feel we cannot speak on them with any sort of authority until we actually experience them firsthand. Assuming the world does not stop spinning in 2022, they will be considered for that year’s roundup. Until then, we celebrate the following fifteen for bringing us some light during times when we need it most. 1. Noto Italian Restaurant Kendele and Wayne Sieve opened Noto Italian Restaurant in January of 2020 as a love song to the Amalfi Coast, but we are the ones who have ended up smitten. Out of the gate, the restaurant was a roaring success thanks to its Neapolitan pizza (hands down the best in the metro area), handmade pastas and traditional southern Italian fare, but over the past year, Noto has gotten even more exciting thanks to the addition of Josh Poletti to the team. With his mastery of charcuterie and fine-dining
techniques, he’s helped turn an already thrilling restaurant into one of the best restaurants in the bi-state region. 2. Little Fox Craig and Mowgli Rivard had big plans for Little Fox when they opened in late 2019, but the pandemic threw all of those out the window. Though every last restaurant in the area was negatively impacted by the pandemic, there was something particularly devastating about watching as the Rivards’ dream for Little Fox was shattered by something out of their control. That they have been able to pick up those pieces and fashion them anew makes Little Fox even more soulful than it was at the outset, because it feels all the more precious. 3. The Lucky Accomplice If there was anyone who should have struggled during the pandemic, it was Logan Ely. Known for cerebral tasting menu experiences at his restaurant, Shift, Ely delivered a form of dining that was about as contrary to eating out during a global health crisis as it comes. Instead of dwelling on that, however, Ely moved forward with existing plans for a more casual eatery just around the corner that would be philosophically similar to Shift but more accessible to
the everyday diner. That restaurant, the Lucky Accomplice, has turned out to be one of the most exciting additions to the city’s dining scene and cements Ely’s reputation as one of the brightest culinary minds in town. 4. Chiang Mai When she was a little girl growing up in northern Thailand, Su Hill resented the education in traditional Thai cooking that she received from her mother. However, over time, she grew to not only appreciate all she’d learned; she embraced it as a way to connect with her mom after she passed away. Chiang Mai is a reflection of that journey, imbuing each dish with meaning that you can taste in every bite. 5. Tacos La Jefa Heriberta Amescua was a legend well before she opened a food counter in the Urban Eats food complex, making a name for herself in the city’s Latin American festival circuit for her outrageously delicious birria tacos. She’d always dreamed of having a place of her own, and in the summer of 2020, she was well on her way with a small brick and mortar inside the Dutchtown food hall. Sadly, her time there would be cut short, as she passed away in April of 2021, but her family is keeping her dreams alive every Saturday, running the counter so that they can ensure people remember the beloved matriarch’s name. One
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taste of her quesabirria, which lives on through her relative’s deft hands, and there is no way you could ever forget. 6. Creole with a Splash of Soul Ronda Walker grew up cooking soul food alongside her father, always knowing she has both a knack and a passion for the craft, but never thinking she would make a career out of it. Instead, she spent years working in the health-care field before a ma or illness of her own would have her rethinking her life’s path. Determined to pursue her passion, she opened Creole with a Splash of Soul this year in the Grove, delivering some of the most delectable dishes to grace this fair city in recent memory. 7. Asador Del Sur Maria Giamportone and Daniel Gonzalez had originally planned on opening a restaurant where they lived in Miami, but after visiting family in St. Louis and noticing the lack of traditional Latin American grills, they felt compelled to change their plans. Their wonderful restaurant, Asador Del Sur, represents their desire to recreate the experience of dining in their respective homes of Ecuador and Uruguay through some of the best steak and seafood you can find in the city. The food, coupled with a bright, chic atmosphere, Latin American wines and joyful service is a great reminder
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of just how transportative a wellthought-out restaurant can be. 8. O+O Pizza When chef Mike Risk was running the kitchen at the Clover and the Bee, he took every opportunity to infuse the menu — especially at dinner time — with the sort of Italian cooking he’d been perfecting his entire career. With O+O Pizza, part of the Olive + Oak brand, he is now able to show all he can do with a dedicated storefront, one dazzling dish at a time. If you need evidence of how outstanding his cooking is, consider that St. Louis Blues captain Ryan O’Reilley loves the eggplant parmesan so much, he has it shipped regularly on dry ice to his parents in Canada. If that’s not an endorsement, what is? 9. Casa Don Alfonso A St. Louis outpost of the famed Michelin-starred restaurant Don Alfonso 1890, Casa Don Alfonso brings the magic of the Amalfi Coast to the Ritz Carlton hotel in Clayton. With outstanding southern Italian fare and a palatial dining room that positively drips in coastal Italian elegance, Casa Don Alfonso has quickly established itself as one of the city’s essential Mediterranean restaurants. 10. Terror Tacos Brothers Bradley Roach and Brian Roash wanted to create a different kind of vegan restaurant — one more steeped in metal and hardcore than the kumbaya hippie vibes typically found in plantbased eateries. They’ve done that in more with Terror Tacos’ loud aesthetic; with exciting vegan takes on Southwestern and Mexican cuisine, the brothers are serving an in-your-face dining experience bursting with flavor and redefining a genre in the process. 11. Timothy’s the Restaurant Partners Steve Manns, Timothy Metz and Sean Olson often found themselves lamenting the lack of traditional fine-dining options around town — so they decided to take matters into their own hands. Their Creve Coeur eatery, Timothy’s the Restaurant, is an unapologetic love song to the sort of upscale dining that eschews bar towel napkins and Edison light bulbs in favor of a classic aesthetic. Anchored by Metz’s expert cooking, this exciting new addition to the St. Louis restaurant scene proves that
At Little Fox, owners Craig and Mowgli Rivard have fought hard to stay true to their vision amidst the challenges of the past 22 months. | MABEL SUEN you need to get you through your day. 14. Coffeestamp Brothers Patrick and Spencer Clapp set out to bring St. Louis a taste of ethically sourced, specialty coffee from their home country, Honduras, but the Fox Park roastery has quickly turned into an essential destination for Central American fare. With a menu filled with such delights as empanadas, burritos, choripan and a Cuban sandwich that will knock your socks off, Coffeestamp is dazzling at every turn.
The sakoo sai moo tapioca dumplings, filled with minced pork and peanuts, are one of Chiang Mai’s stunning northern Thai dishes. | MABEL SUEN good food, service and atmosphere never goes out of style. 12. Nomad Tommy Andrew, also known as “Tommy Salami,” needs a new name. You understand this once you bite into his outrageously smoky, impossibly luscious pastrami, one of the many delights on offer at his restaurant, Nomad. Located adjacent to Dogtown’s Tamm Avenue Bar, this humble sandwich counter is anything but, serving the sort of casual fare that comes from a truly talented culinarian. Can we just call him “Tommy Pastrami” already?
13. Songbird It all started with a breakfast sandwich — a classic egg and bacon on griddled sourdough sprinkled with sea salt and drizzled with honey. That dish, known as the “Combo,” took the Tower Grove Farmers Market by storm when Kounter Kulture’s Chris Meyer and Mike Miller introduced it a couple of years ago, giving the pair an idea for a daytime restaurant that would create new opportunities for their restaurant family. That spot, Songbird, is one of the city’s most essential breakfast and lunch eateries, serving easily recognizable yet inspired dishes that provide the warm comfort
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15. Fire Chicken Located in a shoebox of a building off Page Avenue in Overland, Fire Chicken seems unassuming until you taste the food. Based loosely on traditional Korean fried chicken, Fire Chicken is the brainchild of husband and wife Min and Michelle Baik, two restaurant veterans who, after years of running restaurants focused on Japanese cuisine, are now proudly showing off their Korean culinary heritage. The restaurant’s namesake dish, a sticky sweet and searing hot concoction of deep-fried boneless breaded chicken akin to the hot braised chicken you’d find at an American style Chinese restaurant, is something Min has been perfecting for years; noshing on this masterpiece, you can tell that time and care have paid off. n
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REEFERFRONT TIMES [ W E E D L AW S ]
The Highest Court in the Land Missouri Supreme Court weighs whether medical marijuana applications can be disclosed Written by
TESSA WEINBERG This story was originally published by the Missouri Independent.
A
company denied licenses to grow medical marijuana in Missouri urged the state Supreme Court this month to compel regulators to provide application info that the health department has argued it’s constitutionally obligated to protect. At issue is the Department of Health and Senior Services’ refusal to turn over applications of successful license holders, despite being ordered by lower courts to disclose them. DHSS has relied on a provision in the constitutional amendment that legalized medical marijuana in Missouri in 2018. Part of the language voters approved stipulates that DHSS, “shall maintain the confidentiality of reports or other information obtained from an applicant or licensee containing any individualized data, information, or records related to the licensee or its operation…” In its filing with the Missouri Supreme Court, DHSS argued that the administrative hearing commission acted outside of its authority and requested the lower court’s decision be reversed in order to uphold the confidentiality outlined in the state’s constitution. James Layton, an attorney arguing on behalf of DHSS, said during the December 14 hearing that it is the right of applicants who submitted information for it to be kept confidential and urged the Missouri Supreme Court to “vindicate” the rights of those who invested
Missouri’s Supreme Court building, located on West (ahem) High Street in Jefferson City. | JASON HANCOCK/MISSOURI INDEPENDENT their money, personal interest and confidential information. “If that right is to be breached,” Layton said, “they are entitled to some process before that happens.” However, Joshua Hill, an attorney representing the Californiabased company Kings Garden Midwest LLC, who was denied licenses by the state, argued that people denied licenses have a right to appeal the state’s rejection. “The state has chosen winners and losers in this case,” Hill said. ings Garden filed two applications for licenses to grow medical marijuana, but was denied by the state for each. In its appeal, the company requested that unredacted, complete copies of approved applications be produced, in order to demonstrate its belief that it submitted answers that were similar to successful applicants but received a lower score. “We know that to be true in this case, because Kings Garden has two identical cultivation applications that were submitted to the department,” Hill said, later adding: “Those two applications were not scored consistently. We had four points on one question — question number four, for example — and ten points on the other application.” DHSS’ own scoring guide notes that “if two applicants applying
for the same facility type provide identical responses to a question, the score must be the same.” DHSS capped the number of licenses it awarded to cultivators, manufacturers and dispensaries and used a private company, Wise Health Solutions, to score applications. The decision to cap the number of licenses issued and concerns over the scoring process have both been the subject of lawsuits and complaints from denied applicants. In May, a Missouri Court of Appeals in the Western District judge ruled that DHSS regulators were wrong to withhold applications. Since applications were ranked competitively, comparing them against one another was necessary to determine whether the state denied a license in an arbitrary or capricious manner, Judge Lisa White Hardwick wrote. Hill argued that is the only way to have a fair appeal of the state’s decision, otherwise the state can say, “‘Well, the other answers were better and we can’t show those to you because they’re confidential.’” In its brief, Kings Garden Midwest argued that confidential information is not immune from discovery in lawsuits and noted that the administrative hearing commission entered a protective order. It
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also allowed for state regulators to redact applicants’ identifying information when providing the documents Kings Garden requested. Layton argued that the language in the Missouri Constitution does not delegate to the administrative hearing commission the authority to decide what is confidential. “The (administrative hearing commission) takes the position that it can only do what statutes allow it to do. It has no statute that allows it to close its hearing records, and so none of this stuff gets filed under seal. And so it all becomes public,” Layton said, arguing it’s contrary to the meaning of the constitutional provision. When asked by Chief Justice Paul C. Wilson if DHSS would have the same argument if the context was in a grand jury or civil subpoena, Layton said it would. “No one has the power to compel,” Layton said. Hill argued patient privacy would not be put at risk if applications were disclosed, also noting Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act protections would apply. However, Layton countered that if the lower court’s ruling is upheld, then theoretically patients denied medical marijuana cards could seek the applications of patients who were successful in obtaining them. Competing applications have been requested “in many, perhaps most, of the 578 appeals still pending at the” administrative hearing commission, DHSS wrote in its brief, with action currently postponed until the issue is addressed in the courts. Secrecy around basic ownership details of medical marijuana license holders has made it virtually impossible to determine who owns what. An analysis by the Independent and the Columbia Missourian previously found that of the 192 dispensary licenses issued by the state, there were several instances where a single entity was connected to more than five dispensary licenses — a violation of Missouri’s constitution. This past legislative session, an effort by state lawmakers to require disclosure of ownership information ran into roadblocks when state regulators suggested they would recommend a gubernatorial veto if it became law. n
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This year marks the 30-year anniversary of Pale Divine’s sole full-length album, Straight to Goodbye. | DAN ANGENEND
[MUSIC]
Divine Rebirth The Pageant welcomes St. Louis favorites Pale Divine for a triumphant New Year’s Eve reunion show Written by
JON OSIA SCORFINA
I
f you walked down the cobblestone streets of Laclede’s Landing in the late ’80s or early ’90s, you were almost certain to hear the eclectic sounds of Pale Divine booming from classic, bygone venues such as Kennedy’s 2nd Street or Mississippi Nights. Originally formed as four-piece the Eyes in 1984 by singer Michael Schaerer and guitarist Richard
Fortus, with the tight rhythm section of drummer Greg Miller and bassist Steve Hanock, the band came together when its members were still in school. With a jangle somewhere between the ’80s pop romanticism of Psychedelic Furs and the glam and grit of L.A. hard rock megastars Guns N’ Roses fittingly, Fortus has since been a member of both groups), Pale Divine was poised for a brief but spectacular moment to be the next river city rockers exported to the national stage. For a variety of reasons, that wouldn’t come to pass. But this week, the beloved band reunites for a hometown New Year’s Eve show at the Pageant, joined by Fortus’ thirteen-year-old daughter Clover’s band Poster Logic, as well as the original lineup of the Finns. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the release of Pale Divine’s only record on Atlantic Records, 1991’s Straight to Goodbye, lending an even more festive air to the night’s proceedings. In anticipation of the show, the RFT spoke to Fortus, who fondly remembers the band’s origins.
“I was about fifteen when we started the band,” he says. “Michael Schaerer and I went to high school together, [at] the Visual and Performing Arts High School. “We were originally the house band at a place called Animal House, which was an underage club up on 367 and Chambers,” Fortus recalls. “It was an old movie theater that had a huge theater space. They’d have two bands a night. It was usually us, who were the new wave punk band, and usually a Top 40 band.” But the alternative group took a workhorse approach to local gigging, never turning down a show, and quickly became the top-billed club act on the Landing. “We would play everything — renting out VFW Halls, playing in Columbia for frat parties, or we would open for bands at Mississippi Nights,” Fortus says. “We built up our audience; [it was] very grassroots. We’d put flyers up all over U. City. Later, when we were old enough to play the Landing, we would put up flyers everywhere on the Landing or go to other bands’ gigs and hand out
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flyers.” Fortus knew the band was beginning to make a big impression when they started headlining shows with bands they had previously opened for. By the time the band became known as the premiere live act on the Landing, they had mastered the art of the live show. “We were very much a live band. Our live shows were our big calling card,” Fortus says. “I think that is probably how we were most influential on the St. Louis music scene — our production. It looked like an arena show, in a club. The songs were sort of fitting for that.” They soon settled in as the house act at Kennedy’s, which Fortus describes as the band’s “home base.” “We sort of honed our skills there,” he says. “We would really push the production level at Kennedy’s. I think we were very effective at not only changing what bands looked and sounded like on the Landing, but also how they got paid. Nobody was charging a cover when we first got started
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at Kennedy’s. They were paid a flat fee. We told them you don’t have to pay us anything, ust let us charge a cover. They didn’t think anyone was going to pay a cover, but they let us do it and it changed things for all the bands.” The band’s ability to draw enthusiastic sold-out crowds and its catchy, original tunes eventually caught the attention of ma or labels, and the group landed a contract with Atlantic ecords in 1990. But that didn’t happen without a bit of a bidding war first. “We had, over the course of a year or so, had every ma or label come out to see us,” Fortus says. “We created a big bu in the Midwest. The word got out to the coasts about us. People from L.A. and New York would fly in to see us and take us out to dinner. It was an interesting learning experience.” The group then added new bassist Dan Angenend, changed its name from the visual organ moniker to the poetic Pale Divine, and released its debut album Straight to Goodbye in 1991 with high hopes of ascending to the next level of rock stardom. The plan was to break into the national market, and the group’s members hoped that the ma or label deal would help them do so. “In retrospect, I think that was a mistake,” Fortus admits. “Had we continued what we were doing and continued building our grassroots fan base, I think the band probably would have ended differently.” Pale Divine released the single “My Addiction,” a song peppered with longing for larger-than-life stardom, but saw little fanfare outside of St. Louis. In ’92, the band booked a crucial opening slot with the Psychedelic Furs, offering a shot at touring the states to gain some much-needed traction for the album. The tour was a success, ultimately leading to a crucial collaboration between Fortus and Furs frontman ichard Butler with the group Love Spit Love you can thank them for the theme song for Charmed , but it wasn’t enough for Atlantic to continue with the group. The record label took Pale Divine’s album title a little too literally, and ust as the group had gotten signed, its members were already saying goodbye to their lucrative contract. “Having a ma or label album and not recouping basically it was them throwing shit against
“We were very much a live band. Our live shows were our big calling card.” the wall and going with what stuck, and we didn’t stick,” Fortus okes about the split with Atlantic records. “The album didn’t capture the energy that we had live.” A follow-up album with Atco records was in the works, but infighting resulted in the scrapping of the sophomore effort and a departure from Atco as well. nfortunately, the stars never fully aligned again for Pale Divine during its original run, and its ma or label chances for mega-stardom burned out with an unceremonious break-up in 1994. With time healing old wounds, the members of Pale Divine had their first reunion show in 2008. Multiple successful reunion gigs would take place over the years since, scattered throughout the last decade when Fortus wasn’t busy touring with post-Chinese Democracy-era Gn . The hometown heroes last reunited in 2018. Preparing for its first show together in the new, post-C ID concert landscape has been challenging but exciting. Fortus is most stoked to be passing the torch to his thirteen-year-old daughter, Clover, whose band, Poster Logic, will open the show, as well as the Finns, who played countless shows with Pale Divine in its heyday. Pale Divine has a lot of surprises in store, too, with a setlist full of early Eyes material, Straight to Goodbye-era highlights and a few covers sprinkled throughout for good measure. “It’s fun to play material I’m proud of, and to play it with old friends,” Fortus says. “It was such an important part of my life. It is really a great feeling to get to do that again every four or five years. It’s touching to see how important those songs were to so many people. It feels great to look out to people singing every word still, 30 years later.” It’s especially comforting in 2021 to revisit beloved local music from a simpler time while we ring in the new year, with all of the optimism that entails. Here’s hoping this New Year’s Eve show is the start of a new St. Louis holiday tradition. n
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FILM
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Little to Love Aiming for complexity, Being the Ricardos reduces comic genius to maudlin gibberish Written by
EILEEN G’SELL
A
aron Sorkin’s Being the Ricardos isn’t great for reasons that are interesting, and is downright bad for reasons that are, perhaps, even more interesting. Depicting one week in the production life of I Love Lucy after Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) has been smeared as a communist by the tabloids, the film explores the anxieties of the “ ed Scare” along with the rising tensions in the marriage between Lucy and Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem), whose “wild nights” with other women have also just swept the gossip headlines, and at the same time his wife has learned she is pregnant. Condensing true events spanning a handful of years into one fateful week in 1952, the movie seems to have been conceived as both a character study and survey of McCarthy-era turmoil. What it actually comes across as is a messy, unconvincing, often saccharine account of one of the fascinating couples in Hollywood history. “My face, my body, my voice that’s all I get to work with,” Ball tells a colleague on the set of her show. But her face is exactly what Kidman cannot deliver, and not for lack of trying. For anyone to replicate Ball’s wacky brilliance, comic facial contortions and beautifully unflattering physicality as Lucy icardo would be a daunting feat. Hand the challenge to a 54 year old actor whose visage has been plumped and filled, buffed and ironed of signs of age or visible quirks, whose facial musculature has likely been frozen for at least the past two decades, and it is well nigh impossible, prosthetic or not, to approximate anything close to Ball’s likeness. In the black and white scenes meant to depict the television sitcom, Kidman’s attempt to make her face do anything over-the-top is almost physically painful to witness, like watching a woman with toothpick
Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem star in Being the Ricardos. | GLEN WILSON/AMAZON CONTENT SERVICES LLC arms try to carry a shovel. Why not cast a physically gifted actor like Kristen Wiig or Amy Adams? To women on the fence about cosmetic interventions, Kidman’s face onscreen serves as a palpable cautionary tale: This is your future. Or rather, this is what it looks like to have frozen your past. But Kidman’s casting cannot be blamed for the failure of the film. The choice to hand Sorkin the script is at least equally questionable, if initially intriguing. For a writer best known for witty, rapid-fire dialogue amidst high-stakes contexts, perhaps the McCarthy-era backdrop of Being the Ricardos felt apropos. Sorkin is a more earnest David Mamet, a neoliberal optimist whose message is almost always more conservative than first it seems. For a middlebrow prestige flick released early December, such a sensibility might seem suitable, if requisite; the Academy adores the moderately liberal biopic. But Sorkin’s overemphasis on lengthy retorts and snappy conversation distracts from what made Ball a genius, what made I Love Lucy a show with unprecedented mass appeal: her slapstick timing. For a film ostensibly about “being the icardos,” it is remarkably, almost willfully, unfunny. The film is also strangely didactic, even for a biopic. Interspliced into the narrative diegesis appear relics from CBS’s past Jess p-
penheimer, Bob Carroll Jr. and Madelyn Pugh pontificating poolside about how important I Love Lucy was to prime time television, chronicling their contradicting experiences of Arna and Ball to the beat of a schmaltzy a score. Except, those onscreen aren’t the genuine big-wigs; they are performed by actors appearing as though in full-throttle talking head mode. One would hope that a screenwriter of Sorkin’s acclaim could find a way to convey all of this relevant historical content through his actual script (the man has an Oscar and nine Emmys, after all). But, no: Instead, he delivers a documentary-style treatise every twenty minutes on why Lucy, Desi and the whole 1952 House UnAmerican Activities shebang were so downright important. The one redeeming note in the film might be Nina Arianda’s portrayal of Vivian Vance, the actor who played Ethel. Arianda nails embodying the complicated relationship Vance had to both her ostensibly homely character and co-star William Frawley (played by J.K. Simmons). Aside from facial resemblance, Arianda transforms from sexy, limber thirtysomething into frumpy Ethel in no time flat, throwing into relief how much the “Ethel” archetype was a performance, and a misogynistic one at that. Perhaps most insufferable is the film’s climax, based on true
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events, but (again willfully!) seeming to ignore the sociohistorical complexities that undergirded Cold War media paranoia. After learning that members of the press will be present at their live recording, Desi decides to “warm up” the crowd with an explanation of how his wife, their prime-time patron saint, has been wrongly accused of communism because she “checked the wrong box” twenty years earlier. And by whom is Lucy exonerated before a flurry of panicked faces? By none other than J. Edgar Hoover himself the same homophobic, racist and maniacal head of the FBI responsible for stalking Martin Luther King, Jr, hunting the Black Panthers, and, more broadly, stamping out civil liberties wherever it was possible. After Desi phones him in front of their studio audience to clear Lucy of communist a liations, the crowd erupts into teary applause, one of the past century’s most corrupt leaders sanctified as a hero. For those with a love for Lucy, read her autobiography or check out Desilu: The Story of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz from your local public library. Or just stream some reruns with Mom and Dad and laugh up your living room like you all once did as a kid. If Lucy checked “the wrong box” in 1936, Being the Ricardos holds the unenviable status of checking none of the right ones. n
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n pandemic times, it’s challenging to find things to do that don’t put yourself or those around you in danger. And while we’re inclined to suggest that the safest event is no event, we also know that sounds a lot like abstinence-only sex-ed, and you guys are probably gonna fuck anyway. So consider these recommendations your condoms: not foolproof, but safer than other options. We only recommend events that take precautions, but ultimately you’re in charge of your own health, so proceed with care.
THURSDAY 30
2ND DRAFT: 7 p.m., free. Evangeline’s, 512 N Euclid Ave, St. Louis, 314-367-3644. BE.BE: 7:30 p.m., $15-$20. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745. END OF YEAR COSTUME PARTY: w/ Ryan Torpea and the Shaky Hands 9 p.m., free. Venice Café, 1903 Pestalozzi St., St. Louis, 314-772-5994. GREENSKY BLUEGRASS: w/ The Mighty Pines 8 p.m., $34.50-$59.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer 40 Rd, Chesterfield, 314-423-8500. KENYON DIXON: w/ DJ Durrty Burrd 7 p.m., $20-$30. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. LONG LIVE LIBORIUS: w/ 18andCounting, Grip Slime, Chris Grindz, Pinkville, Weed Tuth, Lofty’s Comet, Jay Coast noon, $10. Music Record Shop, 3116 Locust St, St. Louis, 310 920 9705. THE MACK NEW YEARS EVE EVE THROWDOWN: 6 p.m., free. Mack, 4615 Macklind Ave., St. Louis, 314-832-8199. POKEY LAFARGE: 8 p.m., $25-$120. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.
FRIDAY 31
AFROSEXYCOOL NYE: Blvck Spvde, Makeda Kravitz, DJ Nico Marie, James Biko 9 p.m., $25-$135. High Low, 3301 Washington Avenue, St. Louis. BIG BOSS BLUES BAND: 8 p.m., $10. VENUE on Main, 202 West Main Street, Belleville, 618-920-3846. BOBBY FORD BAND: 8 p.m., $45-$75. The Midwestern, 900 Spruce Street, St. Louis. CHAMPAGNE FIXX: 6:30 p.m., $75. Bella Vista Winery, 6633 E Main St., Maryville, (618) 365-6280. DIRTY MONEY: 9 p.m., free. 1860 Saloon, Game Room & Hardshell Cafe, 1860 S. Ninth St., St. Louis, 314-231-1860. DJ BLAZE: w/ DJ Rishi, MC Deb. Kid Friendly (kids under 10 get in for free) 7 p.m., $10. Mahatma Gandhi Center, 727 Weidman Road, Ballwin, 636-256-8375. ERIN BODE: 5:30 p.m., $85. Cyrano’s, 603 E. Lockwood Ave., Webster Groves, 314-963-3232. FREE YEARS EVE: w/ DJ Prospect 9 p.m., free. Blank Space, 2847 Cherokee St., St. Louis. THE GASLIGHT SQUARES: 6 p.m., free. Yaqui’s on Cherokee, 2728 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314-400-7712. THE GOLDEN RECORD NYE SPACE DISCO: w/ 18andCounting, DJ Ashley Hohman, DJ Limewire.prime, DJ MAKossa 7 p.m., $10. The Golden Record, 2720 Cherokee St, St. Louis. GRECIAN GARDEN NYE PARTY: w/ DJ Ben Stein 8 p.m., $25. HandleBar, 4127 Manchester Ave., St. Louis, 314-652-2212. GREENSKY BLUEGRASS: w/ Sam Bush 8 p.m., $49.50$69.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer 40 Rd, Chesterfield, 314-423-8500. JAKE’S LEG: 10 p.m., $20. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811. KAMM NYE: w/ Aaron Kamm and the One Drops, Vintage Pistol, Spare Change Trio, Crate2Crate 8 p.m., $25-$30. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. KARAOKE DANCE PARTY: w/ Don Da Legend 9 p.m., free. VFW Hall, 1717 S. Big Bend, St. Louis. LASER LIGHT SHOW SERIES: featuring the music of Pink Floyd and The Beatles 3:30 p.m., $9.95-$10.95. Saint Louis Science Center-James S. McDonnell Planetarium, Clayton Dr & Faulkner Dr, St. Louis, 314-289-4424. LUCIE SWITALSKI: 6 p.m., free. Café Telegraph, 2650 Telegraph Road, St. Louis. MAGGIE ROSE: w/ Them Vibes, Dylan Hartigan 8 p.m., $30. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. MATT KEARNS’ NEW YEARS ROCKIN EVE: w/ The One Four Fives, Shitshow, Size Queens 8 p.m., free. The Improv Shop, 3960 Chouteau Ave, St. Louis, 314-652-2200.
MORGAN PAGE: 10 p.m., $30. RYSE Nightclub, One Ameristar Blvd, St. Charles. NEW YEARS EVE: 8 p.m., free. Hideaway Restaurant & Lounge, 5900 Arsenal St., St. Louis, 314-645-8822. NEW YEARS EVE 2022 PARTY: 10 p.m., $20-$30. Europe Nightclub, 710 N 15th St, St. Louis, 314-221-8427. NEW YEAR’S EVE THREE FOR ALL: w/ Social Remedy, AmberFade, The Saloonatics 7 p.m., $25-$30. Cutter’s, 239 Carlyle Ave., Belleville, 618-235-7642. NOON YEAR’S EVE CELEBRATION: w/ Firedog 10:30 a.m., free. Missouri History Museum, 5700 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, 314-746-4599. NYE DANCE PARTY: w/ DJ Katie Orlando, DJ Mark Lewis, DJ Hal Greens 7 p.m., $125. Takashima Record Bar, 4905 Chouteau Avenue, St. Louis. PALE DIVINE: w/ The Eyes (Reunion Show), The Finns, Poster Logic 8:30 p.m., $25-$30. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. PONO AM: w/ Shitstorm, Prunes 9 p.m., free. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309. ROARING TWENTIES NEW YEARS EVE GALA: w/ Hard Bop Messengers 5 p.m., $15. Evangeline’s, 512 N Euclid Ave, St. Louis, 314-367-3644. SILKY SOL: w/ DJ Nune is Lamar Harris 8 p.m., $99. National Blues Museum, 615 Washington Ave., St. Louis. SLSO NEW YEAR’S EVE CELEBRATION: 2 p.m., $45-$110. Powell Hall, 718 N. Grand Blvd, St. Louis, 314-534-1700. STEVE EWING BAND: w/ DJ Mahf 6:30 p.m., $85. Ballpark Village, 601 Clark Ave, St. Louis, 314-345-9481. SUNSET STRIP: 8:30 p.m., free. St. Charles Music House, 2556 Raymond Drive, Saint Charles, 636-946-2212. THE STEP BROTHERS: 7:30 p.m., free. Fast Eddie’s BonAir, 1530 E. Fourth St., Alton, 618-462-5532. VAXXED: NEW YEAR’S EVE BASH: 8 p.m., free. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226. VOODOO NYE: PHIL COLLINS VS. PETER GABRIEL DANCE PARTY: 8 p.m., $20-$25. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. WARD DAVIS: 7 p.m., $20-$25. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. WINTERFEST 2021 NEON NIGHTS: w/ DJ MAKossa 4 p.m., free. Kiener Plaza, 500 Chestnut St, St. Louis.
SATURDAY 1
ANNIE SAUERBURGER: w/ Ron McGowan 7:30 p.m., $15-$20. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745. LJUBA ALICIC: w/ Azra Husarkic, Enela Palavra 9 p.m., $50. Bistro Banquet Hall, 5209 Gravois Avenue, Saint Louis. MISTER BLACKCAT: 4 p.m., free. Alpha Brewing Company, 4310 Fyler Ave., St. Louis, 314-621-2337. NEW YEAR’S DAY CELEBRATION SOIREE: w/ Remedy, DJ Charlie Chan Soprano 6:30 p.m., $65-$500. Polish Heritage Center, 1413 N. 20th St., St. Louis, 314-421-5948. NEW YEAR’S DAY PARTY WITH THAT 80S BAND: 9 p.m., free. Helen Fitzgerald’s, 3650 S. Lindbergh Blvd., Sunset Hills, 314-984-0026.
SUNDAY 2
DAVE BLACK AND JOE MANCUSO: 3 p.m., free. Alpha Brewing Company, 4310 Fyler Ave., St. Louis, 314-621-2337. HOT JAZZ BRUNCH: w/ Miss Jubilee and the Yas Yas Boys 11:30 a.m., free. Evangeline’s, 512 N Euclid Ave, St. Louis, 314-367-3644.
WEDNESDAY 5
BOXCAR: 7 p.m., free. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745. BRING ME THE FIRES: 7:30 p.m., free. Steve’s Hot Dogs, 3145 South Grand, St. Louis. CRANK: 7 p.m., free. Evangeline’s, 512 N Euclid Ave, St. Louis, 314-367-3644. VOODOO GRATEFUL DEAD ‘93: 9 p.m., $5. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811. n
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SAVAGE LOVE COMMITTED BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: I’ve been in a committed relationship for ten years — committed because my boyfriend wants it that way. I’d be fine with an open relationship and have asked about it. He’s made it quite clear that he thinks it’s “wrong.” I’m almost never at his apartment. He doesn’t invite me, and my place is a lot more comfortable anyway. His place never looks “lived in.” Everything must be tidy and “just so.” Bed made, bathroom spotless, no socks on the floor. Generally, we spend weekends together, and that’s it. He also refuses to bottom for me or even let me finger him, but he likes it when I come on his ass. In general, he hasn’t been very horny for me the last few years. Anyway, due to a combination of factors (COVID, construction, etc.), I’ve been working at his apartment for a few days. In the coat closet, where he keeps all his supplies, there’s a big bottle of Wet lube and an economy-sized box of Fleet enemas. What’s a guy to think? Frustrated in Brooklyn First, a minor quibble. You use the word “committed” to mean “sexually exclusive,” FIB, when you should know — as a reader of my column — that not all committed relationships are sexually exclusive and vice-versa. Two people can be married or partnered and committed to each other for the long haul while still fucking other people; and two people can decide to stop fucking other people because they don’t wanna use condoms (or they wanna limit their risk of contracting COVID) without committing to each other for the rest of the year, much less the long haul. As for what you found when you weren’t snooping around your boyfriend’s apartment… While it’s not always the ones who think open relationships are “wrong” who cheat, FIB, it’s so often the case — it’s so often the ones who insist open relationships are wrong — that it’s something of a cliché. So, it’s entirely possible your boyfriend has been cleaning out for other men. But why? Why would your boyfriend cheat
if he knew you would be fine with an open relationship? Well, some people who cheat think cheating is wrong (and it is) and the least they can do if they’re gonna cheat (and they are) is have the decency to feel bad about it (or pretend to). ther people are selfish assholes who wanna fuck around on their partners but don’t want their partners fucking around on them. Of course, we don’t know for sure whether your boyfriend has been cheating on you. Lube by itself isn’t proof — guys use lube to jack off — and that box of Fleet enemas could’ve been sitting in his closet for a decade or more. There’s only one way to get to the bottom of this mystery: Ask your boyfriend what’s up. He might have a good explanation — or he might be able to pull a vaguely plausible one out of his squeakyclean ass — and you’ll have to make your best guess as to whether he’s telling you the truth. But if you want to stay with him, FIB, you might wanna lead with that. You can regard what you found when you were looking for supplies — not snooping, of course, never snooping — as an unforgivable betrayal, FIB, or you can regard it as an opportunity to renegotiate the terms of your relationship. Hey, Dan: I’m recently married to a man I have been with for six years. We have a very happy life together in most respects and a very stable and loving relationship. The problem is, six months ago I fell deeply in love with a colleague. (We work in the same field at different companies.) I have never felt this way about anyone before. I have also never cheated. But this is truly the most creative and synchronous connection I have experienced. The second problem is that the colleague is also married and has three children. His marriage is stable but sexless. He says he wants to leave his wife but is unwilling to do so until his youngest child goes to university, which won’t be for another two years. Meanwhile, I am wracked with guilt and indecision about how to proceed. I know that I need to make my own decisions, but I feel paralyzed. How do I start to untangle this knot? Married And Reassessing Relationships In Every Detail What’s the rush? You’ve got a crush
“I’m recently married to a man I have been with for six years. The problem is, six months ago I fell deeply in love with a colleague.” on a married man who’s unwilling to leave his wife for at least the next two years. Since you have no way of knowing how you’ll feel two years from now, MARRIED, and you have no way of knowing how your married colleague will feel two years from now, you don’t have to make any big moves. (Hell, you have no way of knowing for sure how your married colleague feels right now.) If you’re sure you don’t wanna stay in your marriage — whatever else might happen — you should end your marriage so your husband can get on with his life. But if you can envision a future where your feelings for your colleague have run their course and you can see yourself recommitting to a future with the man you’re currently married to, all you need to do right now is wait. Hey, Dan: My wife and I have been together for eight years, married for four. Before we dated, I was honest with her about the fact that I could not offer long-term sexual monogamy in a relationship. She told me she understood and would be into participating in that with me. We stayed monogamous for a few years before attempting to introduce nonmonogamous adventures into our life. Although we went to swingers’ parties and used the popular websites, no potential pairings ever seemed to click for her, either MMF or MWMW. We decided to get married despite never having had an actual encounter with anyone outside our relationship. We have always enjoyed a very satisfying and frequent sex life, but she is now ambivalent about the idea of swinging. She’s told me that if she had to rank her interest from 1-10 it would fall somewhere between 0 and 1. She has said she is willing to do it for me
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and that should be all I need. She puts no effort into finding potential partners or play opportunities. She also does not support the idea of me doing anything solo. Dan, I wanted a partner who would do this with me enthusiastically. I don’t want to drag anyone into sexual activity they aren’t really interested in. I tried to do this right from the beginning, but now every direction looks dangerous. Is there a way forward? Happily Married, Unhappily Monogamous If I had a time machine, HMUM, I would crash your bachelor party and urge you to postpone the wedding until after you’d had a few successful threesomes/foursomes with your then-fianc e, now-wife. Because if swinging was really that important to you, before the wedding was the right time to make sure your wife was into it, not years later. Maybe your wife was into the idea before the service and isn’t into it now (vows seem to have that effect on some people), or maybe she was just telling you what you wanted to hear. Either way, she’ll never be the true “partner in crime” you wanted — meaning, even if she’s willing to go there, she’s not going to put any effort into making it happen. That’s on you. But if she’s willing to give it a try, why not set something up? If she agrees to it, she might wind up liking it more than she thinks. (That happens.) If she doesn’t agree to it, then you face a choice: Let these fantasies go, let monogamy go, or let her go. Hey, Dan: I just read your response to the gay man who wanted to buy a straight male friend a meaningful gift. I was surprised to see this in your response: “So, besides pussy, what does your straight friend like?” Heterosexual men do not like “pussy.” Heterosexual men like women. And not all women have pussies. You know better, Dan. Promote Understanding To All I will scold the next straight guy who tells me he likes pussy, PUTA, and slap the next gay guy who tells me he likes dick — just like Dale Carnegie urged his readers to do in chapter twelve of How to Win Friends and Influence People. questions@savagelove.net @FakeDanSavage on Twitter www.savage.love
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