Riverfront Times, March 13, 2024

FRONT BURNER

MONDAY, MARCH 4. It’s 78 degrees! Trees are budding, daffodils are in bloom and it’s all vaguely disconcerting. Also disconcerting: The U.S. Army Corps materializes in a quiet Florissant subdivision, testing yet another place where the feds should have realized their radioactive contamination had spread, but apparently didn’t … until now.

TUESDAY, MARCH 5. The Brentwood Promenade is for sale, and what a sales pitch: You could buy the worst parking lot in America, and we’ll throw in a Target and a Trader Joe’s! Meanwhile, it’s a Super Tuesday bloodbath for Nikki Haley, as former President Donald Trump wins 14 states and Haley can only muster victory in Bernie Sanders Land, a.k.a. Vermont. Is that enough to keep her in the race?

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6. It is not; Haley drops out. And then there was one, and he’s orange

THURSDAY, MARCH 7. The driver whose recklessness maimed Janae Edmondson is found guilty. Jurors recommend Daniel Riley spend 19 years in prison for the horrifying crash, which led to the top-

Previously On LAST WEEK IN ST. LOUIS

pling of Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner

On TV, it’s the State of the Union, and President Joe Biden looks revved up. (Not so Senator Katie Britt, the 42-yearold Alabaman giving the GOP rebuttal. God, she seems weird.) Meanwhile, we never thought we’d be on the side of Josh Hawley (R-Virginia), but the unpopular insurrectionist somehow persuaded the Senate to sign off on legislation that would compensate people exposed to radioactive contamination — a chronic problem in north county thanks entirely to the federal government and their utter malfeasance. Oddly, Congresswoman Ann Wagner (R-Town and Country) picks a fight, saying that helping the government’s victims is just too expensive. “We’re not looking to raise our debts and deficits any further than they already are,” she says. So, we’ve got billions for the military — but when fallout from a

5 QUESTIONS for Slider Jesus

It was Halloween in March in downtown St. Louis this past weekend, as thousands of people who work in haunted houses, escape rooms and other aspects of the “interactive concept” industry rolled into town for Transworld’s Interactive Entertainment Show. The four-day affair, held from March 7 to 10, bills itself as the largest event of its type in the country.

Walking through the crowd of visitors on Washington Avenue last Thursday, we tried to find someone who looked like they’d be a fitting ambassador for the convention. Once we spotted Slider Jesus (@slider_jesus on Instagram), we knew he was our guy. And our hunch proved correct, as the man was full of practical advice.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and to omit all the people who came up during it asking Slider Jesus for selfies.

Tell us about yourself.

I’m a haunted house slider.

I’m guessing “slider” is an industry term I’m not aware of, right?

I got knee pads, and they spark and they glow and do all kinds of fun stuff.

So you literally slide out at people at haunted houses, and that’s the jump scare?

Yeah, you got it.

If someone is looking to break into the sliding biz, what advice do you have?

I would say social media is your best friend, for better or worse. My first year on TikTok and other social media, people laughed at me. I was cringe. And I learned very quickly, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. After a while people started not cringing, and they enjoyed it. I got to over a million followers on TikTok. You gotta go through it. You gotta take the good with the bad.

You get a lot of work from social media?

It’s done wonders for my career.

If this was someone’s first time at a Transworld convention, what would your advice be?

Stay hydrated.

military project causes rare cancers in a broad swath of St. Louis County, making the victims whole is too costly? “Shameful for Ann Wagner to turn her back on her constituents — after doing nothing on this issue for years. St. Louis deserves better than this,” Hawley posts. Hell hath frozen over: We agree with Hawley

FRIDAY, MARCH 8. A 17-year-old boy dies at the St. Charles County juvenile detention center after going two weeks without medicine for epilepsy and other health conditions, the Post-Dispatch reports. The St. Louis Archdiocese is closing two more grade schools: St. Roch in Skinker-DeBaliviere and Little Flower in Richmond Heights. Also, a journalist on TikTok does a basic Google search and learns that Katie Britt lied about a woman being sex trafficked in (employ breathy, outraged tone here) “the United States

of America” — the incident actually happened in Mexico … during the presidency of George W. Bush. Talk about unforced errors: She’s giving one of the highest profile speeches of the year. Did she really think nobody knew how to Google?

SATURDAY, MARCH 9. It’s windy and chilly, although still nice for March. On the sports front, the Blues lose to the Rangers 4-0. As for City SC, it still can’t notch a W, ending its game against Austin with another 2-2 tie. So unsatisfying.

SUNDAY MARCH 10. Everybody’s outraged about a video that shows a 15-yearold girl beating the crap out of another girl in the shadow of Hazelwood East High School Libs of TikTok blasts the mainstream media for not covering the attack — even though it just happened Friday afternoon and everybody’s scrambling over the weekend to line up basic facts. Naturally, when the Post-Dispatch and local TV news outlets cover the story, the media critics move the goalposts to wonder where national media outlets are in this case of Black on white violence. Oh, they’ll come, impatient Libs of TikTok. They will come.

—Ryan Krull

Spotted in St. Louis last week: your own personal Slider Jesus. | RYAN KRULL

WEEKLY WTF?!

SIGN WATCH

When: 9:34 a.m. February 26

What: a long-awaited street sign where once there was not one

Where: at the corner of Morgan Ford and, uh…. well, that’s a tricky one

How many people saw this sign before it was approved and hung up: We’re betting at least five!

What happened within minutes of this photo being taken: A street worker replaced the sign with a properly spelled one.

Next Time: The city should hit up the RFT for proofreading services. Our copy is always innaculate.

15 SECONDS of FAME TREE KILLERS OF THE WEEK

AMELIA AND ARTHUR BOND III

In St. Louis, Arthur Bond III and his wife Amelia run in privileged circles. She’s widely respected for her decade-plus running the St. Louis Community Foundation; he’s a nephew of former Senator Kit Bond.

But in Maine, the duo is apparently public enemy No. 1 (and 2) after Amelia confessed to trespassing on a neighbor’s property and applying herbicide to her trees. The neighbor’s lawyer alleges that Amelia Bond sought to kill the trees to improve her own waterfront views — and used a herbicide brought in from Missouri to do it.

The couple agreed to pay $215,000 in a consent decree with the state of Maine, as well as another $1.5 million to settle claims with their neighbor. But traces of the herbicide Amelia Bond applied have reportedly been found at a public beach in the area — and officials in Maine are now calling for charges to be brought against the couple, according to the Penobscot Bay Pilot

The herbicide, Alligare, is now “in our park,” said Select Board Chair Tom Hedstrom. “It’s on our beach, where our citizens, our children, our pets go.”

The local governing board voted unanimously to refer the matter for criminal charges. And we can’t help but conclude the Bonds made a critical error here: They assumed Maine was like Missouri, where herbicides and pesticides are a local industry and anything goes. Maine now hopes to show the world that it’s not.

Remembering an LGBTQ Media Legend

Journalist Colin Murphy has a legacy so monumental, he even has two monuments in the cemetery. We’ll get to that story in a moment.

While he discovered and nurtured many writers and activists, I think it’s safe to say his two main media protégés are Colin Lovett and myself. Lovett, his dearest friend and media partner, published a thorough obituary after Murphy’s death on February 22, which meticulously detailed his work founding #Boom Magazine and his many awards and accomplishments. It was exactly the obituary Murphy wanted.

With that taken care of, and in the spirit of the dual monuments and dual protégés, I have a different story to tell, one about our operatic and tumultuous history. Murphy would roll his eyes when people whitewashed their personal histories when honoring the deceased, and more than anyone, he knew that wouldn’t be my approach. Plus, he loved a good show.

Murphy had taken an interest in my writing about 15 years ago after reading my stories on MySpace. He persuaded Vital Voice publisher Darin Slyman to add me to the glossy magazine’s roster, at which time Murphy became my editor. And he was a tough editor, sending my pieces back repeatedly until they met his standard. I grew a great deal working with him.

I bounced around the country for a few years, still submitting stories to Vital Voice. I had moved to San Francisco for the second time to try to salvage a relationship, then ricocheted to New York to try to get over it. In 2014, I returned to my adopted hometown for my third St. Louis run, oblivious to the news that the Vital Voice team had recently split in two, with Murphy and Colin Lovett forming the rival #Boom Magazine. I somehow missed the drama, distracted by my collapsing marriage and unmoored existence.

During my time in California, I observed a tidal pool at low tide and found two hermit crabs battling over a half-inch scrap of seaweed. As an experiment, I dropped in a third hermit crab, and before it even landed, it had its claw on the seaweed, too. I was that third hermit crab when I returned

to St. Louis, suddenly engrossed in a bitter battle I didn’t even know about moments earlier. It wasn’t just me, though. It felt everyone in the LGBTQ community had to pick a side in the media war. I’d chosen my side unwittingly, just by showing up to the Vital Voice weekly meetings.

The Vital Voice and #Boom rivalry was like Chevy vs. Ford, Coke vs. Pepsi, or Apple vs. PC, only far more personal. We vigorously competed for breaking news, threw shade and sometimes tossed a wrench in the other’s plans. It was the greatest show in Queer St. Louis because there was always drama and intrigue. For instance, when Slyman published my first book, Delusions of Grandeur, which chronicles much of this time, #Boom sent a spy to the splashy release party to retrieve two copies, as I learned years later. I recalled the story in my second book, House of Villadiva: “Darin publishing a book at the height of the media wars, we knew we were probably in it. Our spy came in carrying two books and I asked, ‘Are we in it?’ and she replied, ‘Oh yeah.’ We opened it up and there we were on the FIRST FUCKING PAGE!” Colin Murphy later laughed. “I said ‘I gotta go home and read this thing.’ Then as we were walking to the car we kept passing all the gays carrying the book and we’d give them serious side-eye.”

After years of not speaking, Murphy extended an olive branch when I was named editor of Out in STL, the RFT’s LGBTQ sister publication, in 2017.

“Congrats on joining the exclusive

Continued on pg 8

Amelia Bond tried to play by Missouri rules. | BUSINESS WIRE

We suspect a subcontractor saved some bucks by skipping that whole spellcheck thing. | RYAN KRULL

Colin Murphy. | COURTESY COLIN LOVETT

COLIN MURPHY

Continued from pg 7

club of editors for STL LGBT publications,” he wrote. “It’s a small but storied group and we stand on the shoulders of giants who prepared the ground since Mandrake launched in 1969/70. Always defend and encourage your writers when possible, edit gently, but without fear; make the hard choices and keep your community at heart, and when you fuck up, correct, apologize and move on. Lastly, if you thought writing put a target on your back, be prepared for double criticism. I know you have a thick skin so you’ll be fine. Best of luck.”

And just like that, the hatchet was buried and a profound friendship blossomed.

To the outside world, the goings-on of our city’s LGBTQ community may seem as consequential as that scrap of seaweed I mentioned earlier, but for me and Murphy, the study of this tidal pool was our life’s work. We followed (and participated in) political struggles, activist actions, the arts, including drag, and the community machinations. St. Louis is a soap opera of big characters with long histories of collaboration and conflict, and we’d discuss the players and backstories. He’d call when a situation arose that impacted the community, and it was like a meeting of the elder stakeholders. The conversations we had, so rich in camaraderie and in shared interest and experiences, are unlike conversations I’ve had with anyone else. It’s hard to imagine anything coming close.

We had a shared sense of nostalgia and a love of storytelling. Murphy had an enormous wealth of historical knowledge. For many years, bars were essentially the only places queer people could be themselves, and he told me many fascinating bar stories. Tales of mob-owned gay bars that operated like speakeasies and police raids. He was the one who first told me about drag queen Midnight Annie, whose cremated remains were interred in the wall of Clementine’s, a Soulard gay bar that closed in 2014.

While determined to fight his cancer diagnosis, he was sober about his prognosis. We had a series of calls that were akin to his exit interview, until he no longer felt up to it. His only request was that I not publish until after he passed.

“I was diagnosed with HIV in 1991,” Murphy said last year. “Seven years before the cocktail. Everyone we knew was dropping dead. We all thought we were dead men walking. We were all on Social Security Disability, and Clem’s would cash our checks.”

Murphy’s then-partner of six years was very sick with AIDS, and committed suicide in 1988. Murphy expected to die soon, and had a double headstone made for him and his partner, but the gamechanging cocktail came out in 1999. “Thirty-two years later and I’m still here,”

he said. He was with his second partner, Kurt Ross, for 22 years, and they were legally married for 10. Ross passed away during the pandemic, but before that, Murphy decided he should be buried with Ross, so his name now appears on two headstones in one cemetery.

I asked him about his early interest in journalism, and he said it began when he was the editor of his high school yearbook. He discovered the gay community during his first year in college. “I then just majored in being gay. I discovered the bar rags and thought, ‘I can do this!’”

While many decried the Vital Voice and #Boom war as being terrible for the community, Murphy said LGBTQ media wars were nothing new. “We had so many publications, Show-Me Guide, TWISL, MO Pride, Les Talk, SLAM, Vital Voice… In the ’90s especially, the editor’s letters would talk shit like you wouldn’t believe! There were five publications, and they all hated one another.”

Murphy was five years older than me, which seemed significant initially and then like nothing.

We’re the last of the era before queer people were assimilated, coming of age when even having sex was illegal, and when doing so often became a death sentence. A generation for whom merely surviving is an achievement. Murphy never took our collective achievements and rights for granted and constantly warned young people against being complacent. In his final years he witnessed the clock being turned back with the right’s war on trans people and drag queens.

When my Grandma Andoe died, my brother Joe said it felt like there was one less blanket on the bed. I think of that quote often when someone passes, and it captures how I’m feeling now. Murphy was on my personal board of directors, someone who was there with guidance and perspective. He filled an irreplaceable role in my life.

I was working on this piece in the den when my 29-year-old houseguest Bryon Dawayne Pierson Jr. sat down to visit. He moved away to build his tech empire last year, but stays with us when in town.

He spoke of his morning run, the exciting date he had planned for the afternoon, and then to my surprise, brought up Murphy. I wasn’t aware he knew of him.

“Did you hear that Colin Murphy passed away? I feel like he was someone who was always working behind the scenes. Whenever something was going on, he was a part of it.”

This small tidal pool feels lonely without Murphy’s claw on the other end of the seaweed, but hearing Pierson’s words, for me, was a sign his reputation was recognized even by younger generations, and his substantial contributions won’t soon be forgotten. A man worthy of two tombstones, two protégés and two obituaries. n

A public celebration of life for Colin Murphy will take place from noon to 6 p.m. on Sunday, March 24 at Just John Nightclub.

Gun Laws Already at Work

St. Louis Police say a new aldermanic bill requiring permits to openly carry is having an impact

BY RYAN KRULL

Last August, the St. Louis Board of Aldermen banned the open carrying of firearms for anyone who isn’t also packing a concealed carry permit.

But even though police aren’t enforcing the law yet, they say they’re already seeing results.

“On the surface it does appear there is a decrease in the open carrying of firearms,” says St. Louis Metropolitan Police Sergeant Charles Wall, echoing comments that Police Commissioner

Artica Gets the Boot

The beloved 22-year-old festival is now on the hunt for a new home — soon

BY SARAH FENSKE

Every year since 2002, with just one exception, the Artica festival has set up on a patch of land just north of Laclede’s Landing and transformed the largely abandoned riverfront acreage into a wonderland for one weekend and one weekend only. The explosion of creativity has been described as St. Louis’ Burning Man — made all the more amazing because it’s long taken place on land owned by a local bank.

As Lohr Barkley, president of Artica’s board of directors, explains it, each year Artica has gone to the site’s owner, and each year they’ve gotten permission. That’s been true throughout various permutations of ownership.

But in the past year, the most recent owner, Busey Bank, sold the land to cargo company SCF Marine. And this year, SCF Marine said no.

That leaves Artica with no choice but to find a new home, 22 years after they first set up at Lewis and Dickson avenues near

Robert Tracy has recently made in public forums. “It’s possible with the amount of attention this legislation has gotten, there’s been a preemptive move, where you are seeing less open carrying.”

The ordinance, which was the brainchild of Ward 8 Alderwoman Cara Spencer, was seen as one of the few ways in which St. Louis could tighten regulations on firearms in the city without running afoul of Missouri’s very lax gun laws. In addition to making all gun owners apply for a permit before open carrying, it has the added effect of knocking teens out of the open carry category entirely, since the permits are limited to people 18 and older who’ve been honorably discharged from the military and, in the general population, those 19 and older.

Perhaps due to the fact that Spencer is likely to run against Mayor Tishaura Jones (and finished second to her last general election), many of Jones’ allies were initially skeptical of the bill — and Jones’ father, Virvus, was outspoken in his opposition.

But now, eight months later, Spencer says there is reason for cautious optimism that the ban may be having

its intended effect.

“We’ve seen a dramatic drop in people open carrying weapons, particularly kids,” Spencer says. “It’s increased the perception of safety.”

She stresses that right now she can only speak anecdotally. But the ordi-

the Cotton Belt Freight Depot. And finding land ideally suited to host Artica’s 140 artists and their 50-plus projects — including Our Lady of Artica, the festival’s signature structure, a 49-foot sculpture that is burnt to the ground to close each festival — is not an easy proposition.

“We’re exploring every option,” Barkley says.

Barkley says SCF Marine told him it plans

nance took effect near the end of a summer when kids walking casually around downtown with alarmingly large guns was a sight too common for comfort — both in terms of resident safety and the general optics for the city — and those sorts of pictures just haven’t been showing up online as of late, even amid the unusually warm weather.

The impact could increase as police begin enforcing it. Wall says they plan to do that soon.

The delay in enforcement, he says, stems from a provision in the ordinance that requires the department to keep records of any contact officers have with individuals under the auspices of enforcing it and to submit data about those interactions to the Board of Aldermen on an annual basis. This required the department to alter some policies and procedures, including generating a new form for officers to fill out when they stop someone under the ordinance.

As for when actual enforcement will take effect, Wall says that will be in “short order.”

“It’s a priority here, absolutely,” he says. n

the fire department, and with big chunks of the roadways along the riverfront now barricaded, Barkley isn’t sure if any nearby site could work. They also need a fair amount of acreage, big enough for the projects that artists build. Ideally, they’d like to stay within sight of the Arch, too. “It gets to be a pretty specific list,” he acknowledges.

In some ways, Artica’s organizers always knew something like this could happen. “There’s never been a guarantee,” Barkley says. But the timing is a bit of a bummer; Artica has seen big growth in recent years and recently hired a (part-time) executive director, as well as designating other paid roles within what had previously been almost entirely a volunteer effort. “I was really excited about this year and what that could mean,” Barkley says.

to do something with the site in the coming months, although, as he notes, “It’s entirely possible there won’t be anything happening October. We still can’t use it.” (A representative for SCF Marine did not return a call seeking comment yesterday.)

And so they’re looking — but where could they go? They’d like to stay close to the river, but they need good access (roads, parking) for both festivalgoers and

And so he and other board members are looking, and making phone calls, and asking for ideas. Yet despite all the current uncertainty, Barkley is sure of one thing: Artica will take place. Come the first weekend of October, art will be made and celebrated and enjoyed — even if our Lady of Artica doesn’t make the move. They’re at a point, Barkley says, where everything (except perhaps the date, since they’ve already locked into the first week of October) now feels negotiable — even that signature art piece.

“We’re looking at everything we possibly can,” he says. “If it changes the nature of the festival, so be it.” n

Alderwoman Cara Spencer’s legislation is already having an impact. | BRADEN MCMAKIN

Artica has become St. Louis’ version of Burning Man in its 22 years on the river. | STEVE TRUESDELL

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

Plea Deal for Cherokee Slaying

“Eight years won’t bring my son back,” the victim’s father says

BY RYAN KRULL

An emotional scene played out in a St. Louis courtroom on Monday, March 11, as a 20-year-old pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and heard directly from the family of the teenager whose death he caused.

Jonathan Cruz was 19 when he was gunned down in a car outside of a barber shop on Cherokee Street in the City of St. Louis in July 2021. In court this morning, his family stood on one side of the courtroom in front of Circuit Court Judge Katherine Fowler. To the other side was Neptali Mejia, who was 18 when prosecutors say he was a part of the group that killed Cruz. Prosecutors negotiated an eight-year sentence in exchange for Mejia’s plea.

But Cruz’s family members weren’t happy with the deal.

“Eight years won’t bring my son back,” said Cruz’s father, Leo Rubio, who was the first of the family to

speak. He said the sentence should be longer.

“He says he’s too young,” Rubio said, referring to Mejia. “My son was too young, too.”

Judge Fowler stressed that she wanted the Cruz family to take as much healing as they could from their time addressing Mejia and the court. The judge has in the past employed restorative justice practices in her courtroom, in which the person guilty of a crime often avoids prison time and instead works with a victim or the victim’s family to in some way make amends. Fowler signaled she was open to that in this case. However, given the Cruz family’s desire for Mejia to serve time, it is unlikely to occur.

Members of the Cruz and Mejia families were once close, often celebrating birthdays together, said Cruz’s mother, Maria, speaking through an interpreter. She said that circumstance compounded the tragedy, explaining that Neptali knew full well the pain Jonathan’s death would cause the family.

“I was sick to my stomach when I found out that my brother was murdered,” said Jonathan’s brother, Ivan. “I was even more sick when I found out Neptali had something to do with it.”

Neptali had previously been charged with first-degree murder, armed criminal action and unlawful use of a weapon — charges serious enough that an eight-year deal would

have been unlikely.

But the murder charge was amended down and the other two were dropped, which may be related to the fact that Cruz’s slaying was assigned to detective Tommy Mayer in the waning days of his career. Since retiring and moving to Fredericktown, Mayer has refused to testify about cases he investigated, claiming he’s in ill health, which has at times complicated the work of prosecutors. In this case, however, Mayer was successfully served a summons, which would have required him to show up to testify. Whether he’d do so in a compelling way, however, is not clear, nor is whether his involvement — or lack thereof — had an impact on the outcome.

The RFT and ProPublica went indepth on Mayer’s refusal to testify in an investigation published last year.

Cruz’s mother, Maria, said that when she and her husband split up, her son lived with his dad but still came to visit her every day. She added that she can still recall the specific details of the day her son died. She remembers the last time she called him, at 7:45 p.m., but by that time he was already dead.

Along with other family members including his brother Ivan, Jonathan ran a food truck business. Ivan explained that the truck had a lot of contracts in the coming days and that right before he died Jonathan said he wanted to look good on the job, which

was why he went to get a haircut on Cherokee Street.

It’s been previously reported that the killing of Cruz was in retaliation for the murder of another man who was found dead in a car near Cherokee Street in August 2020.

According to a police probable cause statement issued at the time of Mejia’s arrest, the then-18-year-old Mejia admitted to police that he was the driver of a car carrying the people who shot at and killed Cruz while he was in his vehicle.

Last July, prosecutors filed a motion to revoke Mejia’s bond, writing that they’d been made aware of a video posted on social media in which Mejia rapped about having killed Cruz.

Ivan Cruz said in court that he often went by the restaurant where Mejia worked and that he always gave him a tip. But shortly before his brother was killed, Ivan went to the restaurant but Neptali wasn’t there, which was unusual.

Speaking directly to Mejia, Ivan said: “You weren’t there because you were out with your friends getting ready to murder my brother.”

It is unclear when Mejia will begin serving his sentence. A sentencing assessment report still needs to be completed. The next hearing in the case is June 11.

After the Cruz family spoke, Fowler asked Mejia if he had anything to say. He said he didn’t. n

Gabe McKee, left, and Dave Blum work to remove debris inside the fire-ravaged Sk8 Liborius on Sunday, March 10. North city’s famed “Skate Church” burned last June, but volunteers have tirelessly worked to clean it up. On the next volunteer cleanup day, Blum says, they should be able to remove almost all the remaining debris from inside the church. | ZACHARY LINHARES

One Singular Sensation

A Broadway Rave brought a host of would-be Broadway stars to Delmar Hall to sing their hearts out

Photos by ZACHARY LINHARES

Words by SARAH FENSKE

Theater kids took over Delmar Hall on March 1 for an electric Broadway-themed rave. The national tour made a stop in St. Louis to celebrate popular Broadway musicals such as Wicked, Hamilton, Hairspray and Rocky Horror Picture Show. Illuminated by rave lights, attendees sang along to every song. The theater lovers came from all over St. Louis, with a wide range of costumes on display. There were perhaps as many shows represented bytheir attire as by the showstoppers they sang. In this evening filled with camaraderie and fun, the drama was all the good kind: a knock-em-dead ballad, a perfect dance step, a delicious lyric. n

Red State Refugees

Refugees

Fed up with Missouri politics, some St. Louisans are building a new life in Illinois — without even leaving the metro area

BY KALLIE COX PHOTOS BY ZACHARY LINHARES

Jeffrey Ricker and his partner Michael Wallerstein lived happily in the City of St. Louis for 18 years.

Then things in Jefferson City took a turn.

In February of 2022, Ricker and Wallerstein moved from their home in Botanical Heights across the river to Collinsville, Illinois.

Some of the reasons for the move were mundane, Ricker says: Houses are more affordable on the other side of the river and they wanted to escape the hustle and bustle of the city as they grew older. But the tipping point was the Missouri legislature and its regressive actions.

“In the time that I lived in the state it was never a terribly liberal place to begin with, but it just got more and more conservative and less and less welcoming,” Ricker says. “Unless you’re, well frankly, straight, old and white.”

For Wallerstein, the slow slide backwards made him uncomfortable. He decided he didn’t want to support Missouri’s laws with his tax dollars.

“It feels threatening to me,” Wallerstein says. “It’s just a step in the wrong direction.”

Ricker and Wallerstein represent just one example among many couples, families and activists who are making the decision to leave red states in pursuit of a place where they have more political safety. Nearly half (47 percent) of respondents to a 2022 survey by the National Center for Transgender Equality considered or were considering leaving their state because of laws targeting the transgender community.

Things in Missouri have only gotten worse since 2022. Another survey, this one by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, ranks Missouri among the worst states in the nation in terms of state-level commitment to LG-

BTQ+ equality in its new State Equality Index — even worse than Florida.

Missouri has been described as “ground zero for the fire-hose of anti-trans legislation” by journalist Erin Reed, who tracks and analyzes anti-trans legislation nationwide. This session, advocates are tracking the progress of 40 anti-trans bills in the Missouri legislature, according to independent research organization Trans Legislation Tracker. That follows 2023’s fourth consecutive record-breaking year, which saw more than 308 anti-trans bills introduced nationwide, including more than 40 in Missouri.

Beyond that, Missouri lawmakers are also contemplating a bill that would make drag performances a felony. The state has failed to add sexual orientation and identity to laws that bar discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations, despite more than 20 years of attempts by sympathetic legislators. Abortion has been outlawed in Missouri since the state’s “trigger ban” went into effect in June of 2022.

“It just kept getting worse and worse,”says Wallerstein.

The good news is that, unlike many other residents of deep blue cities stranded in red states, for St. Louisans, fleeing is relatively simple: You can leave the state without even leaving the metro area. And Illinois could not offer a greater contrast to Missouri.

Missourians in Exile

St. Louis has a unique relationship with “the other side of the river.” Folks from Illinois will drive across the Mississippi to buy fireworks and cheaper gas and to experience all the “big city” has to offer. And while folks from the Missouri side have historically come to enjoy the strip clubs that are banned in Missouri, they also often cross the river for different, often more dire reasons.

In the mid-1800s enslaved people in

Continued on pg 17

After years in St. Louis, Jeffrey Ricker, left, and Michael Wallerstein are now at home in Collinsville.

RED STATE REFUGEES

Continued from pg 15

Missouri would flee across the river to escape to the free state of Illinois. In recent years, the two abortion clinics just over the border have done a brisk business holding the line after the fall of Roe v. Wade. And in recent months, folks have fled to Illinois for a different reason — protection from Missouri’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

Wallerstein grew up in Chesterfield and lived in St. Louis for most of his adult life. He built and rehabbed multiple houses, and generally he considered the city the perfect place to be.

But the longer Wallerstein lived in the city, the more conservative the state became.

“Being a gay person, being someone whose rights seemingly can be taken away made me uncomfortable,” Wallerstein says.

Ricker and Wallerstein didn’t want to move away from their family and friends in the area, so moving nearly 20 minutes from the city to Illinois was a perfect solution. Wallerstein says it was a way for them to support their beliefs with their taxes.

“I have zero regrets. I still have access to everything I loved about St. Louis, my friends, my family, but I don’t feel like I’m supporting a state that doesn’t support me,” Wallerstein says.

Joe Thebeau and Gina Dill-Thebeau lived in St. Louis for nearly 30 years. But, after watching the legislature attack transgender rights year after year, they decided to move 10 minutes outside of Belleville on the Illinois side of the river. Their two adult children are trans and they decided that they didn’t want to give their tax dollars to a state that didn’t support them.

“I don’t want to pay taxes to a state where they would like to not see my children exist or help them with healthcare,” Dill-Thebeau says.

It’s tough out there for young adults, Thebeau says. And he and his wife wanted to live somewhere their adult children could always count on coming back to if they needed to.

“I think the breaking point for me was when we realized that it was real for our kids. As a parent your kids go through things and sometimes you give it time to see if it’s going to stick,” Thebeau says. “But this is all real. And I don’t think those on the far right think it’s real. And I don’t have the energy or the time or any interest in teaching them that their church, or whomever is telling them what to think, is wrong. This is real and we had to do what we did to get away from people in denial of reality.”

Thebeau and Dill-Thebeau didn’t want to give up their votes in Missouri, but ultimately after watching the poli-

who is also trans and non-binary, will be safe enough to start a family of their own in St. Paul.

“It was a tough decision to leave. But my partner and I are thinking about starting a family and we couldn’t risk it,” Ballard says. “It felt like too much of a risk to try to stay somewhere where I didn’t even know for sure that I would be able to find a doctor who would support me as a trans man pursuing pregnancy.”

While Ballard misses his community (and favorite eateries) in St. Louis, he sees a stark contrast in state politics in Minnesota, which is a sanctuary state for transgender individuals seeking gender-affirming healthcare.

He now works remotely for the organization, so he is still fighting for his home even though he has moved away from it.

“It has been important for me, making the choice to leave physically, but to stay and continue to fight through my work,” Ballard says.

Pamela Merritt also made the choice to leave the state even while continuing to fight for her community. Merritt has worked in various roles supporting reproductive rights for years and currently works as the executive director for Medical Students for Choice.

Merritt grew up in St. Louis County, left for college and returned to the area in 2003. She lived in the city’s Shaw neighborhood for years before moving to the Metro East.

She still considers the St. Louis area her home and calls herself a “Missourian in Exile.”

A Different Kind of Diaspora

Merritt saw the writing on the wall for Roe v. Wade after the 2016 presidential election, and in 2018 she became increasingly worried as states began to enact trigger legislation.

Missouri had its own trigger ban in place, and the ramifications of what that legislation could mean for her and her family as an abortion rights advocate drove her decision to move across the river.

She takes pride in living in an area that has not one, but two, abortion providers, and where her rights as an activist are more certain.

tics go from bad to worse starting in 2016, they decided staying wasn’t an option.

“You can only vote so hard,” Thebeau says. “At the end of the day the votes didn’t even matter because they didn’t even put some of this stuff to a vote.”

Micah Ballard, director of development and finance for the St. Louis Metro Trans Umbrella Group, reached a similar conclusion. In August 2023,

Ballard made the difficult decision to leave his home in St. Louis for St. Paul, Minnesota.

“As legislation continued to come out, and we saw that the attacks were moving from being just focused on trans youth to slowly trying to figure out how to take healthcare away from trans adults, we just decided it wasn’t an option to stay in Missouri,” Ballard says.

He hopes that he and his partner,

“I love the certainty of knowing that these rights are not just subject to target practice every session but that the debate in Springfield is over whether to expand access and to expand rights,” Merritt says.

The analysis to decide to stay or leave was difficult, Merritt says. But the first night she spent in Illinois she slept like a baby, when she hadn’t slept well in years.

Illinois Representative Kelly Cassidy (D-Rogers Park) hopes to pass legislation to support more families

Top, Rabbi Daniel Bogard and Rabbi Karen Kriger Bogard have been traveling to Jefferson City to testify against anti-trans legislation. They try to shield their three kids, bottom, from the hate they get.

RED STATE REFUGEES

Continued from pg 17

making the decision to move over the border.

Last month, Cassidy introduced HB 5152, which would provide a $500 tax credit to new Illinois residents fleeing their home states. The bill is specifically focused on healthcare providers seeking to provide reproductive or gender-affirming care or people seeking such care, whether as patients themselves or the patients’ parents or guardians.

Cassidy was inspired to introduce the bill when she saw an influx of new families moving into her district, which includes Rogers Park and Edgewater (near Chicago).

“This is an uncountable diaspora,” Cassidy says.

Cassidy is hopeful not only that the bill will pass, but that it will assist people forced to move.

“I feel very strongly about this. I think that it is unconscionable that other states are creating literal medical refugees,” Cassidy says. In Illinois, she adds, “I think that we’ve made clear what we want to be and I think this is a great way to evidence that we want to [be a state that] protects these rights.”

Fighting to Stay

To most people, the son of Rabbi Daniel Bogard would seem to be having a perfect childhood. Bogard says the 10-yearold is popular, excellent at sports, accepted by everyone in his family, and raised by incredibly supportive parents. There’s just one problem.

The boy is transgender in the state of Missouri.

The Bogard family has received death threats, likely due to Rabbi Bogard’s very public advocacy for his son. (The RFT is not providing the boy’s full name at his family’s request.) Bogard has been making the trek to Jefferson City to testify against anti-trans legislation for the past five or six years now.

“Genuinely the only hard part about having a trans kid is that your government is at war with you,” Bogard says.

Bogard lives in the same house he grew up in and works as a rabbi at the congregation he grew up within, St. Louis’ Central Reform Congregation.

“We are fighting to stay, even as we watch so many of our friends who also have trans kids flee the state,” Rabbi Bogard says. “It’s really been stark this year to look around and realize that my family were the only ones left of all the other people who have been organizing, who’ve been showing up and testifying. They’ve left or they’re leaving.”

The totality of the bills weighs on the Bogard family, and may ultimately be the reason why they leave the state.

Where to Live in the Metro East if You’re a St. Louisan Fleeing Missouri

BY RFT STAFF

As Missouri moves to criminalize drag performances and block medical care for transgender youth, some lifelong St. Louisans are eyeing the other side of the Mississippi River. After all, unlike most deep blue cities in blood-red states, St. Louis is within a metropolitan area that straddles two very different states. Just one highway exit past Busch Stadium lies Illinois, where abortion is legal, strip clubs are plentiful and no one is coming after transgender rights.

Now, if you genuinely start scouting the Metro East for a move, you may be alarmed to realize these suburbs are largely very different from your neighborhood in St. Louis. But we believe there’s a perfect Illinois town for every fleeing St. Louisan. Read on for our suggestions.

If you like Florissant….

You should consider Belleville

There may be a few more golf course neighborhoods on the Illinois side of the river, but these two communities have a lot in common: attractive Victorian homes, a charming downtown district and growing racial diversity.

If you like Maplewood….

You should give Alton a try.

Like Mapleweird, Alton has a vibe that’s cool and funky, with a great mix of people and interesting businesses. And it has one big advantage over its south city-ish counterpart: Its placement on the Mississippi makes for sensational river views.

If you like Kirkwood….

You should look at Edwardsville OK, so it’s a little “bougie hoosie,” and your kids better brace themselves for Drive Your Tractor to School Day (yes, it’s

a thing). But Edwardsville is the closest thing the Metro East has to St. Louis’ affluent Missouri suburbs. Not only is every third person here a lawyer, but you’ll find lots of young families and nice newer homes. Indie St. Louis restaurants like Chava’s, Sauce on the Side and Clementine’s have opened here — joining Cleveland-Heath, long one of the better restaurants in the entire metro.

If you like Des Peres….

Try Glen Carbon

In Des Peres, you’re used to being in Kirkwood’s shadow and Glen Carbon has a similar relationship with Edwardsville. No need for an inferiority complex: Both cities are genuinely nice, especially if you’re into cul-de-sacs and a pleasant suburban lifestyle.

If you like Brentwood….

Think about Fairview Heights.

It’s got every chain store you could ever want, decent schools and a mall. Heaven for suburbanites!

If you like Chesterfield….

Your jam may be O’Fallon, Illinois. Not to be confused with MO’Fallon, O’Fallon, Illinois, has all the suburban amenities you could desire, from a huge soccer complex to a huge rec center to a giant indoor driving range. Sound familiar? Plus, they’ve got some decent bars and Peel Pizza.

If you like Crestwood….

Try Collinsville

Yes, it’s known for that giant ketchup bottle and something to do with horseradish. But at its heart Collinsville is a relatively affordable town with a population that’s

slowly becoming more diverse and a dead mall. Does that ring a bell?

If you like Eureka.…

Take a look at Troy

It’s got two truck stops, five churches and every fast food restaurant your heart could ever desire. Thanks to that great highway access, it’s also only 25 minutes from downtown St. Louis. Good for people on the go.

If you like Festus.…

Mosey over to Highland

OK, so this may not be a true-blue liberal’s dream. They’re probably banning the same books here as in Jefferson County. But they’ve got some big-ass demolition derbies at the Highland Speedway. Who could resist?

If you like St. Ann….

Check out Granite City.

This blue-collar enclave for steel mill workers has seen better days, but the housing is affordable. And hey, there are two roller rinks!

If you like Tower Grove South.…

Maybe just go straight to Chicago

We hate to break it to you, but nowhere in the Metro East is as reflexively progressive as the neighborhoods around Tower Grove Park. If you truly want a place where people share your values, you might have to move a lot farther north — like, say, Andersonville.

Or you can change hearts and minds one neighborly conversation at a time. You won’t be the only St. Louisan resettling in the Metro East. You may just start a movement.

Maplewood across the Mississippi? Alton might be just the spot for you in LGBTQ-friendly Illinois. | VIA FLICKR/PAUL SABLEMAN

The year-in, year-out debate and nature of the legislation being introduced in Jefferson City amount to an effort to remove the possibility of existing as a transgender person in the state, Rabbi Bogard says.

“In places like Texas, Family Services has begun opening up investigations into the loving families of trans kids. And that’s terrifying, when your government comes after your kid,” Bogard says. “So something like that would be a red line for us. This year, they had [something like] six different bills around trans kids using bathrooms in public schools. That might be something that would just make it impossible in a practical sense to stay here.”

The wild part of this anti-trans legislative push, Bogard says, is that there’s no other area in his life where it’s difficult to have a trans kid, and there’s nowhere else in his child’s life that makes it difficult to be trans.

“He lives in a world where he has so many friends, he’s so popular, he’s always sleeping over at someone’s house, or they’re sleeping over here. He’s great at athletics, his school loves him and supports him, his synagogue loves him and supports him, his entire family,”

Rabbi Bogard says. “There’s no one in our lives who we’ve become distanced from because my kid is trans. So he lives in this amazing bubble, and even with all of that, if we can’t protect him from his government, we can’t stay.”

At least once a week, Rabbi Bogard gets a call from a parent whose kid has recently come out as trans. The conversation he has with them is different depending on whether they are calling from a red state or a blue one.

“Having a trans kid and living in a blue state is really no big deal. It is harder to have a kid with ADHD than it is to have a kid who is trans,” Rabbi Bogard says. “Unless you’re in a red state, and then the fact that your kid is trans is about to define every aspect of your civic reality.”

One of the families who called Bogard is M’s family. The Riverfront Times spoke with M and her family on the condition that we don’t include her name because her parents fear anti-trans targeting.

M is a freshman in high school in St. Louis, and her parents are business owners who are very involved with the community, but anti-trans legislation has made it difficult for them to stay in the area.

It is now illegal for M to obtain gender-affirming medical care in Missouri. Her family now drives her to Peoria, Illinois, some two and a half hours away, for care. That means missing school. The stress of the antitrans legislation and the looming fear that someday the Missouri legislature could try to separate child from parent have driven both M and her mother to seek therapy.

Before M shared her identity with her family, she was anxious, depressed, cutting and attending a religious school.

When M opened up, her parents were immediately supportive, but the timing put them in a race against the Missouri legislature. They had just 11 days before medical care for trans youth would be banned in the state. That forced them to seek medical care before M was maybe ready, her mom says.

“I needed A, time to process it, and B, time to learn and research and just find resources, but it was all put in this pressure cooker,” M’s mother says.

Now M and her family have been thrown into an “underground railroad” of sorts. They met with a local doctor, but it had to be under the guise of something else because of the ban. He wrote them a prescription, M’s mom says, but even that could cost him his license.

“It just felt ridiculous and totally unsound,” M’s mom says.

The clinic they go to now feels a little “fly by night” to M’s mom. “I don’t trust that I’m getting the best medical care for her, it makes me nervous,” she says. “Yet if I look at where she has come on this journey, all I know is I’ve

children in the area, but they are seeing this network of support grow smaller and smaller as more families flee the state.

M’s family is fighting to stay in St. Louis, but is preparing for the worst. They sold a house to liquidate assets for a potential move and obtained passports. They have also found a website that offers alternatives to HRT if the official drug is banned completely, and M’s mom used Bitcoin to order an emergency stock of hormones from overseas that she hopes they never have to use.

“I just need to get her to 18,” M’s mom says. “Then I can send her somewhere and she can live her life and be safe.”

M doesn’t want to leave St. Louis, but fighting to stay is taking its toll.

“This would be, easily, one of the highest points of my life had this not been an issue,” M says. “Everyone is panicking and freaking out because not only is my state turning against me, the whole country is.”

Home, Sweet Home

Despite the fact that moving from St. Louis to the Metro East means moving from a dark red state to a deep blue one, in some ways, such a move involves leaving a staunchly liberal area for a more conservative one. St. Louis twice elected Cori Bush as its congresswoman while many of its Illinois suburbs are represented by Mike Bost, a staunch Republican endorsed by former President Donald Trump.

never seen my kid happy, ever, until now. I am not about to let somebody take it away now.”

M is thriving at a new school, making friends and volunteers with a group that helps refugees. But the politics of not only the state, but the nation, weigh on her. She is hyper-aware that her rights could be taken away at any moment.

M worries that the anti-trans bills that are being proposed will be detrimental not only to her, but to her other friends.

“I’ve kind of struggled all my life just to be me. Once I get through one situation, the next arises, and it’s like no matter how far I get, someone’s always there to knock me right back down,” M says. “I wouldn’t have to deal with these struggles if I were just a normal cisgender kid. But all these people are genuinely convinced that I’m being experimented on or I’m part of this mafia that’s trying to brainwash children.”

She also fears that lawmakers will seek to separate her from her parents, just because they’ve supported her care. “I’m always worried that I’m going to be separated from them,” she says.

M and her parents are in support groups with other trans parents and

These suburbs also feel drastically different from city life, and are home to cul-de-sacs and chain fast food drivethrus instead of vegan restaurants and corner bars. They’re also statistically whiter and straighter than St. Louis.

Ricker and Wallerstein were worried about these differences, but ultimately they found home and community on the other side of the river.

Ricker notes that the couple was given a literal sign when they were looking at houses across the river.

“I remember there was a billboard on the side of the highway that said, ‘Welcome to Illinois, where you can still get a safe legal abortion.’ And I thought, you know, that was something of a sign as far as where I felt better being,” he says.

Wallerstein encourages anyone looking to make the move not to be afraid.

“I thought it was gonna be hard to meet other gay couples here. I thought it was gonna be very conservative. I have been shocked at how liberally we’ve been treated here,” Wallerstein says. “My fears in moving away from St. Louis city to Collinsville were unfounded. It seems very open-minded and I haven’t felt threatened in the least bit here. I have zero regrets. I would do it over and over again.” n

Pamela Merritt left St. Louis’ Shaw neighborhood for a home in Illinois in part over Missouri’s abortion ban.

CALENDAR

BY RIVERFRONT TIMES STAFF

THURSDAY 3/14

From the Lou and Proud

The Gateway City’s very own homegrown holiday, 314 Day, is finally upon us — and St. Louis is ready. Terrell “Young Dip” Evans and Tatum Polk created 314 Day back in 2006 with the hopes of bringing the city together and showcasing the positive things happening here, and the now region-wide holiday is increasingly a big deal, celebrated by individuals, organizations and businesses throughout the metro. And the city has already been celebrating, in fact, with festivities having kicked off on Saturday and continuing through the week. The holiday brings a plethora of deals from a wide variety of local shops and restaurants, as well as a number of special events. They’re even lighting up the planetarium with a special 314 Day illumination created by local artist Marley Billie D that will be visible from March 13 to 14. To celebrate, throw on your St. Louis gear — Cardinals, Blues, SLU, Arch Apparel — and grab a slice of St. Louisstyle pizza, some delicious gooey butter cake and top it off with a Vess soda or a Schlafly beer. Looking for a full STL-inspired day? Head on over to the Gateway Arch for a group photo, spend the day enjoying deep discounts on attractions at Union Station (1820 Market Street) and check out the Made in STL 314 Day Short Film Ex-

hibition at the Arkadin (5228 Gravois Avenue). If none of that is your speed, you’re in luck, as there are scores more options for ways to champion the Lou. To view a complete list of events, celebrations and special deals from local businesses, visit thestl.com/314day.

Never Confide in a Journalist

On Thursday, March 14, novelist and St. Louis native Jeff Hoffmann will be at the Novel Neighbor (7905 Big Bend Boulevard, Webster Groves) reading from and talking about his new book, Like It Never Happened. The novel centers on a group of high school friends who commit an unspeakable act of violence (you’ll have to read the book to find out what it is), and all agree to swear themselves to secrecy. But decades later, one of the friends dies in a motorcycle accident, and at his funeral the other three find out that their deceased friend spilled the beans to his wife — and his wife is a journalist! Sounds to us like these guys are screwed. Doors open at 6:30

p.m., and Hoffmann will sign books after the reading. The event is free. More info at thenovelneighbor.com/ events.

FRIDAY 03/15 St. Paddy’s Pre-Party

How better to kick off what looks to be a wild St. Patrick’s Day weekend in St. Louis than with a little low-key culture?

The Delmar Maker District hosts its Third Friday event on Friday, March 15, and that means fun for the whole family. People with kids will want to orient themselves to the Magic House’s Made for Kids (5127 Delmar Boulevard), a spinoff of the popular Kirkwood children’s museum that normally costs a few bucks to access but is totally free tonight from 5 to 8 p.m. People less interested in dodging snot-nosed brats or making their own rocketship or jigsaw puzzle can instead head to Third Degree Glass Factory (5200 Delmar Boulevard) from 6 to 10 p.m., with promises

of a cash bar, DJ Cole Coleman and the first annual “Stein Grab”: “Buy a ticket, surround the table full of unique steins. Set your eyes on your favorite. When we say go, grab it!” Sounds great for grabby people! The first of two rounds kicks off at 6:30 p.m. Admission is free. And since you’ve parked anyway, why not mosey over to the Craft Alliance (5080 Delmar Boulevard) or the adult version of Made (5127 Delmar Boulevard) to see what they have cooking? More details at delmarmakerdistrict.org/thirdfriday.

SATURDAY 03/16

Puff, Puff, Paint

Show your love for St. Louis by enjoying a relaxing Puff N’ Paint with Introspectrum Events on Saturday, March 16, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Conflux Co-Learning Space (8221 Minnesota Avenue) — and yes, the “puff” in that name means cannabis is involved. Participants, who must be 21 and older, will be guided through a fun evening of painting specially selected St. Louis cityscape designs (the theme,

You never know what kind of party animal you’ll meet at Dogtown’s annual St. Patrick’s Day celebration. | BRADEN MCMAKIN

Puff N’ Paint will put your stoned art skills to the test on Saturday. | VIA FLICKR/ELSA OLOFSSON

after all, is STL Love). Tickets are $60 and include all materials — a 16-by-20 canvas, easels, aprons, paint, brushes, a light charcuterie spread, fun music and your choice of an edible or preroll to really get the party started. Feel free to BYOCannabis as well. Vaping

and dabbing are allowed inside, and there will be designated smoking areas outside. There will also be beverages for purchase including coffee, bottled water, beer and wine — or BYOB. Come experience your not-sotypical Paint N’ Sip with a little puff,

puff, pass. Tickets can be purchased at introspectrumevents.com.

The Wearing o’the Green

St. Patrick’s Day starts early this year, as the 55th annual Metropolitan St. Louis St. Patrick’s Day Parade begins at noon on Saturday, March 16. Organizers promise marching bands, floats, huge cartoon-character balloons and 5,000-plus marchers making their way from Market and 20th Street to 8th Street. This year, for the first time, you can view the excitement from an all-inclusive, 21-and-older tent dubbed the Leprechaun Lounge. The VIP lounge will offer live entertainment, food by Salt + Smoke, beverages and a climate-controlled tent. The lounge will be open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and tickets are $95. Details at irishparade.org.

SUNDAY 3/17

Doggone It

Perhaps your liver is not yet ready for this news, but this year, both of the city’s longstanding Irish parades take place on the same weekend, and the wilder of the two goes down on Sunday. That’s because the Dogtown St. Patrick’s Day Irish Festival is committed to March 17 whether it falls during the weekend or not — and when it’s a weekend, everybody just

WEEK OF MARCH 14-20

parties even harder. This year, the festival will start at 9 a.m. with food and drinks from numerous vendors, live music, family-friendly activities and games, as well as the annual Ancient Order of Hibernians parade, which will include more than 90 floats with Irish dancing, music and salutes to Irish history and culture. The festival offers three zones: the Bud Light Party Zone, located at Clayton and Tamm, offers live music from 1 to 5 p.m.; the family zone at Oakland near Tamm, with Irish music, family-friendly activities and games; and the Irish Culture Zone, with traditional food and Irish music at St. James the Greater. Full details at dogtownunited.org.

WEDNESDAY 03/20

Where the Boys (Who Like Boys) Are

New to the area or just a homebody who needs to get out more? Queertown Underground’s monthly queer mixer will offer an opportunity for LGBTQ+ St. Louisans to find community at Platypus (1155 South Taylor Avenue). The event, which will be held on Wednesday, March 20, from 7 to 10:30 p.m., boasts booze, snacks and a motto: “Dance. Drink. Eat. Meet. Be.” There is no cover to attend, and if you can’t make it, the next mixer is already set for April 17. n

Third Friday at the Delmar Maker District is the perfect place to make some (blown glass) friends. | RFT STAFF

Jeff Hoffmann’s new book proves what we already knew: You just can’t trust a journalist. | AMY MCCONNELL

St. Louis’ homegrown holiday, 314 Day, will be bigger than ever this year. | JENNIFER KORMAN

Even Better Than the Real Thing

Chris Bertke, the Sultan of Seitan, serves faux meat so delicious, even carnivores clamor for it

Chris Bertke has a tendency to look frazzled, but if you watch him at work in his new open kitchen on the high-trafficked crook of Morgan Ford and Gravois, there’s a grace and calm about him. He’s delicate with his herbs, he slices his subs and breads gently. He moves about behind the counter like Mister Rogers at his puppets. If it weren’t for the punk rock on the stereo, you might think to roll out a sleeping bag and a doobie.

There’s a black transfer on the wall as you walk in: a silhouette of a pig wielding a cleaver, two humans cowering in fear. You get the point and you are glad to be here. For all the menace of the illustration, Vegan Butcher & Deli feels like a safe place to be. Everything is OK on this corner; no harm’s being done.

I’m good with that. And because I do believe in a future where my brain isn’t woefully compartmentalized when it comes to eating animals, and my stomach doesn’t believe their products are essential for life, I’m bringing out the band for Bertke. In his actual world, vegan food is the first choice be-

cause, the way he makes it, it can be insanely good. With him in the kitchen, that world feels possible; the future feels like it’s here.

But this is the thing I always wonder: Is the principal goal to outfox the rapacious carnivore or simply coax them to the gentler side with toothsome, meat-mimicking soy and wheat products? (He happens to do both). And then, on the other hand, what do vegans think when they bite down on a “short rib” bánh mì and its meatily

threaded, perfectly stringed and has exactly the right chew? Is this like despising cake but loving cakey? Hating green, but wearing the vest because it looks so good with those mustard pants? Oh, whatevs. Compartments again.

And it doesn’t matter right now. We are here, surely, to talk about taste, about satisfaction, regardless of how it’s produced. And Bertke is a wizard.

He was a wizard before, when he headed the kitchen at Utah Station and people couldn’t get enough of his Crack Tacos, and he may — in his very own brick-and-mortar, which opened in November — be more of one now. For instance, with a wand and a waft of sea kelp, his cured carrots become lox. By working his magic on soy protein, his beef has just the right bounce. For example, if not for the wimpy jalapeños, that aforementioned bánh mì — a special the day we went — was impressive. Bound tight in parchment with daikon, carrot and a delicious woodsy smear of mushroom pate, it was pretty darn

5003 Gravois Avenue, no phone. Wed.-Sat., 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

BY ALEXA BEATTIE

VEGAN DELI & BUTCHER

PHOTOS BY MABEL SUEN Continued on pg 24

Chef-owner Chris Bertke.

The Italian cold cut sandwich is topped with faux ham, turkey, pepperoni, provolone and a host of garnishes on a hoagie.

VEGAN DELI & BUTCHER

Continued from pg 23

close to Mai Lee’s. (Those weedy jalapeños could be hotter.)

Even he seemed surprised by the result.

“Yeah, wasn’t that nuts?” he says, and goes on to talk about the process: “I began with a soy and wheat base. I made a blob, added oil for richness, braised it, let it sit, gave it an oil and spice bath …”

That’s when I ask if he has a background in chemistry.

“No,” he says. “I like to drink and, late night, the fucked-up ideas come.”

While Utah Station had a fast-food bent, Bertke’s latest venture riffs on an East Coast deli. So, yes, there are bagels and lox (the bagels come weekly from New York); yes, there are cold cuts tucked into buns with cheeses and pickly peppers; and yes — you heard it right — there’s a Maine “lobster” roll. It’s kind of a beauty. Actually it’s two rolls — two buns a-bulge with a juicy amalgam of jackfruit, hearts of palm (clever), celery, onion and a faintly sweet Thousand Island mayo.

Bertke keeps some of his tricks up his sleeve. He will only say that his cream cheese materializes from a secret whip of tofu and coconut oil, and that most of his meats have something to do with seitan treated in unusual ways.

“I have no recipe books,” he said. “And I don’t read.”

It’s a small shop, but clean and bright. Two high-tops, a few benches, an exposed brick wall. Fans of Bertke’s to-go-only frozen pizza will be pleased to see the packed stand-up freezer. It’s a pizza version of a DMV number dispenser; almost everyone seems to take one (although, in this case, no one looks grim).

It’s easier to do pizza tricks in St. Louis, where Provel isn’t an oddity but the thing. Don’t know how many decades it’s been since my lone taste of that processed cheese product, but from memory, at least, I couldn’t tell the difference from the vegan version. Had Bertke’s way, I liked it. I wasn’t as worried about the cheesy, liquidy slick. Nor was I worried about the circular ’kerchiefs of salami, the knots of herby sausage. And afterward, once I’d scarfed seven-eighths of a Spicy Italian and still felt spry, I asked myself: Is the “real thing” really worth it?

The clientele at Vegan Deli & Butcher is interesting. For every ear gauge, there’s a silvery head. But the day I went, Gen Xers (if that’s what I “untechnically” am) were in short supply. By appearances, on that day at least, my generation — which should know better — doesn’t. Except for Bertke, who hasn’t eaten meat in 30 years.

Later that day, after my initial visit to Bertke’s green kingdom, I told my son,

who has been mainlining meat since he was two, that there was half a Reuben in the fridge. As he opened the door and reached in, my poker face was mint — expressionless, a little bit bored.

It’s a fat hunk of a sandwich, but tender: lovely, fresh marble rye (picked up each morning from Marconi Bakery on the Hill) clasping a juicy, saucy bundle of junipery corned beef, vinegary kraut and a rosy Thousand Island dressing.

“Dang, Mum,” he said, biting in. “This kicks.”

I didn’t say a word. n

The Reuben comes with faux corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Thousand Island dressing on rye bread.

The Cuban offers the chef’s riff on smoked ham, roasted shredded pork, Swiss cheese, pickles and mustard on pressed bread.

The Maine lobster roll comes with creamy “lobster” salad, paprika and green onion on a buttered and toasted bun.

SAUCED

Bird’s the Word

Chuck’s Hot Chicken serves Nashville-style spicy eats from a former Courtesy Diner location

BY LAUREN HEALEY

After two recent fried chicken joint closures — Chicken Out and Sunday Best — the arrival of a new place to get our fix is more welcome than ever. The fourth St. Louis-area location of Chuck’s Hot Chicken opened February 27 at 3155 South Kingshighway Boulevard in the former home of Courtesy Diner.

What started as a single storefront in Maryland Heights specializing in Nashville hot chicken has experienced remarkable success — including being named a Sauce Best New Restaurant of 2021 — and is now franchising locations around the St. Louis area, and even one in Wichita, Kansas. (The other storefronts are in Rock Hill and O’Fallon, Missouri.)

“We did a soft opening last weekend and

THE RFT’S

ST. LOUIS-STYLE PIZZA PICKS

Sure, it gets a bad rap from outsiders, but when you’ve grown up with it, few things taste as great as St. Louis-style pizza. Sure, it’s not quite pizza under the Italian (or even New York) definition of the term (you’d need mozzarella for that, not a “processed cheese product”), but this distinctly local fusion of nachos, flatbread and, yes, pizza, can satisfy. Here are our favorite five places to experience this made-in-St. Louis treat.

Guido’s Pizzeria and Tapas

A mainstay on the Hill serving both Italian and Spanish cuisine, Guido’s (5046 Shaw Avenue) also offers a damn good St. Louis-style pizza. You can get your pie with mozzarella, Provel or a blend of the two. The circular pie is topped with hand-pulled hunks of fennel-inflected sausage that are so big they’re practically meatballs, cheese scorched to a perfect golden-brown color and sauce with a delightful backheat. A classic.

Pirrone’s

At Florissant’s 44-year-old Pirrone’s

our grand opening this Tuesday, and it’s been quite a Tuesday,” says Warren Hamilton IV, the owner of the new location who previously served as general manager at the Rock Hill storefront. “Sometimes those are slower days, but we’ve got a buzz going right now with people in the neighborhood and kids from the school next door.”

Hand-breaded, cooked-to-order chicken available in spice levels from 0 to 6 is the mainstay here, served in sandwich form on buttered brioche, as well as tenders and bone-in wings, which both can be served alongside pearl sugar liege waffles. The chicken is plump and juicy with a lightly crispy breading made with a proprietary blend of spices and an oil-based Nashville hot sauce. The housemade ranch and honey-sriracha aioli are great for dipping or drizzling, but the blue cheese and Chuck’s sauce, a barbecue/honey mustard hybrid, are also popular sauce options.

The fully rehabbed space is about 1,100 square feet inside, although seating is only available on the 400-square-foot patio, which has eight picnic-style tables with room for nearly 70 guests.

“We fell in love with the old Courtesy Diner, so we’re happy to be a part of it and bring a historic building back to life,” says Hamilton, an industry veteran who has

With multiple locations in the metro area, as well as one in Wichita, Kansas, Chuck’s has proven itself a runaway hit. | LAUREN

been cooking full-time for the past 20 years, including a stint as the executive chef of FitFlavors. “We put a lot of love and renovations in this place. We did a lot of interior changes with all brand new equipment, but we tried to keep as much of the exterior as we could with the classic white brick. We redid the signs, but otherwise tried to keep

that diner look as much as possible.”

As for the already evident success of the budding franchise, Hamilton says: “The quality speaks for itself — it’s as simple as that.” n

The restaurant opens at 11 a.m. Tuesday through Sunday, closing at 8 p.m. each day but Sunday, when it closes at 7 p.m.

Pizza (1775 Washington Street, Florissant), the sauce has a distinct orange hue that only looks radioactive; it’s instead a tangy blend of slightly sweet tomatoes and zesty Provel. The squares here are positively carpeted with toppings, with so much sausage that the pepperoni has no place to go but atop it.

Nick & Elena’s Pizzeria

At Nick and Elena’s Pizzeria (3007 Woodson Road, Breckenridge Hills), the St. Louis-style slices are perfection of the form, with a cracker-thin, golden-brown crust that’s sturdy enough to support the heft of the pizzeria’s housemade sausage without losing its structural integrity. These pies are available in your choice of either mozzarella or Provel — but go with the Provel, obviously.

BJ’s Bar & Restaurant

BJ’s Bar & Restaurant (184 West Washington Street, Florissant) has the distinction of having been honored multiple times for serving the best St. Louis-style pizza in the region — without actually using Provel. The crust here is the star of the show, with a flaky crispiness reminiscent of a non-pizza pie. Delectable.

Imo’s Pizza

The pie at Imo’s Pizza (multiple locations including 1700 Delmar Boulevard) is the one many transplants find themselves craving: the thinnest of crusts, the toppings that go all the way to the edge, the blistered bubbles of Provel. Love it or hate it, Imo’s is St. Louis.

HEALEY

ZACHARY LINHARES

Lookin’ Like a Snack

Bacaro brings a Venetianinspired cicchetti and aperitivo bar to Noto in St. Peters

BY MEERA NAGARAJAN

Bacaro, the new cicchetti and aperitivo bar from the team behind the ever-popular Noto Italian Restaurant, a Sauce Best New Restaurant of 2020, is officially open as of Wednesday, March 6, following a soft opening the prior weekend. Bacaro is in the same building as Noto at 5105 Westwood Drive in St. Peters, just downstairs and toward the back of the main restaurant.

The upscale space is decked out with Italian marble, beautiful stone-topped tables, warm lighting and enough space for 75 inside, with an upcoming patio that should have room for an additional 25 guests. Their vision was to create a Venetian-inspired aperitivo bar — a spot where people could sip on spritzes and Amari and snack on cicchetti, or snacks.

The beverage portion of the menu was executed by bar manager Travis Shook, who took inspiration from coowners Kendele and Wayne Sieve’s vision for Bacaro. The cocktail list has a range of approachable drinks like the Blackberry Bellini with blackberry puree, Amara, spiced simple syrup and prosecco. (An off-menu white peach version is also always available.) There’s also a creative Caprese Martini with sun-dried tomato-infused vodka, bianco vermouth, radicchio-basil-balsamic shrub and saline for a more savory option. The Venetian comes with a mix of Contratto red bitter, Antica Rosso vermouth, Contratto Rosso vermouth and Bordiga gin.

“It’s like a more bitter and intense Negroni. It’s popular in Venice; we discovered that every hotel and little place had their version of this, vermouth or vermouths and bitter liqueur, and we added gin for taste,” Kendele Sieve says.

Of course, there are spritzes, and you can even create your own spritz by selecting from a list of aperitivos like Aperol, Pilla Select (similar to Campari) or Italicus (flavored with bergamot), to name a few.

For riffs on classic cocktails, look for a vanilla-infused Knob Creek 9-year whiskey paired with a 25-year-old balsamic in their Italian Old-Fashioned, which gets topped with Frizzante club

SAUCED

soda, orange bitters and Demerara brown sugar syrup. The Bacaro Negroni comes with espresso bean-infused gin, Pilla Select apertivo, Antica Rosso vermouth and Nocino liqueur, which is made from green walnut and orange bitters.

Shook, who started at Noto just four months ago, wanted to help launch Bacaro particularly due to his interest in making amari — like his Robarbaro, featuring a Chinese rhubarb that carries a smoky note, plus other ingredients like toasted white oak, cherry bark, cinnamon, elderberry, elderflower and other light florals, for a total of 19 ingredients. Another housemade option on the list that he helped create is the Felsina, which is made with apricot, honey and bitter orange peel for a more citrus-forward profile. He also worked on a house red bitter, similar to an Aperol but without any artificial coloring, just spirits, roots and sugar, for a more pared down mix. Also, look for familiar bottled options of amari like Amaro Nonio, Strega, Vecchio Del Capo and new-to-market products like Centum Herbis, an herbaceous, mint-forward amaro on the shelf.

Rounding out the beverage menu are Italian sodas like an Italian cola, which comes in a beautiful glass bottle, as well as other flavors like lemon and blood orange. A trio of NA cocktails are available, including the Danielle, with Lyre’s Dry London spirit non-alcoholic gin, which they infuse with rosemary and then mix with lime, cinnamon simple syrup and New Orleans bitters, which carry notes of star anise, wild cherry and hibiscus — all garnished with a sprig of rosemary. A selection of Italian beers like Birria

Morretti and Poretti lager are also on the menu.

The food menu focuses mainly on cicchetti, or snack-style small plates, and was a collaborative effort between Wayne and Noto executive chef Justin McMillen, who joined the team early this year. Here, similar to Noto, which is certified by the Associazione Vera Pizza Napoletana in Naples, commitment to sourcing unique and special ingredients both domestically and from Italy is on full display.

This commitment is evident in the Armatore brown anchovies that come delicately draped atop hard-boiled eggs and an herbed aioli; these egg bites taste like a Caesar salad with anchovies caught in the Tyrrhenian Sea just off Italy’s Amalfi Coast. Look for more eggs on the menu in the ouvo cicchetti section, including a version topped with caviar or salted cod. Another specialty from the Armatore brand is the wild-caught bluefin tuna, which gets folded with a dill-caper aioli and topped with fresh arugula and sliced, boiled egg, served on white Pullman loaf in the tuna tramezzini sandwich.

You’ll also find a selection of dips, including the whipped ricotta dip that’s topped with extra virgin olive oil, cracked black pepper, marinated olives and fresh herbs like chive, dill and parsley; or the Verdura Dip, with sun-dried tomato and cannellini bean hummus, a fiery orange base that’s topped with a roasted and marinated mixture of vegetables and garnished with herbs. Both are served with crostini and are substantial snacks. Light snacks like the adorable spritz setup comes with potato chips, marinated olives and Taralli or round breadsticks,

which is the perfect trio when sipping on a classic Aperol spritz.

“We’re tapped into resources so we can buy more unique things,” Wayne Sieve says. Their mortadella is one such find, a domestic version made by an Italian family in New York that is served on a crostini with whipped ricotta and topped with toasted pistachios. The menu features cheese and charcuterie boards as well. Cheeses like a mild mountain gorgonzola from the Alps, a Toma riserva, Ciresa fontina and meats like coppa, porchetta, mortadella or bresaola are also offered.

Whether you’re popping in for drinks ahead of a Noto reservation or going to Bacaro just for spritzes and snacks, it is sure to be a popular destination as it brings a unique, Venetianinspired experience like nowhere else in the St. Louis area. n

Bacaro is open 4 to 10 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and does not take reservations.

Baccaro’s food menu is chock-full of cicchetti, or snack-style small plates.

PHOTO BY MEERA NAGARAJAN

Sweet Child O’ Dine

Flower Child will bring ‘good for you’ fast-casual food to Frontenac

BY SARAH FENSKE

Awell-respected Phoenix-based restaurant group is bringing one of its fast-growing concepts to Frontenac — its first Missouri location.

Flower Child, which is currently under construction in the previous home of a St. Louis Bread Co. at 10336 Clayton Road, right next to Frontenac Mall, has the same fast-casual vibes as the restaurant it’s replacing. But the offerings are much more California fresh than Midwestern carb-loading. The counterservice restaurant positions itself as “good for you” and accommodating to vegans, vegetarians, gluten-free eaters and more.

As such, highlights include the Mother Earth Bowl (“ancient grains,” sweet potato, portobello mushroom, avocado, cucumber, broccoli pesto, charred onion, greens, red pepper miso vinaigrette and hemp seed). There’s also glutenfree mac and cheese; chicken enchiladas with guajillo chile, smoked gouda, poblano cream, and organic black

SAUCED

bean; and a Brussels Sprouts & Organic Kale salad with grapes, pink grapefruit, white cheddar, smoked almond, apple cider vinaigrette and organic apples, naturally.

Fox Restaurant Concepts says it’s been looking for a way to bring Flower Child to the Midwest (the only other loca-

FEBRUARY OPENINGS & CLOSINGS

BY PAULA TREDWAY

OPENINGS

Up Late (6197 Delmar Boulevard)

The Shaved Duck (2900 Virginia Avenue)

Motor Town Pizza (8029 Dale Avenue, Richmond Heights)

Chuck’s Hot Chicken (3155 South Kingshighway Boulevard)

Amaizing Arepa Bar (500 North 14th Street)

Smoke & Kettle (5420 Old Collinsville Road, Fairview Heights, Illinois)

Hot Pizza Cold Beer (610 Washington Avenue)

Capriotti’s Sandwich Shop (9532 Manchester Road. Rock Hill)

Drake’s Come Play (8135 Dale Avenue, Richmond Heights)

Mr. Souvlaki (3301 Meramec Street)

Boba Cha Cha (7403 Manchester Road, Maplewood)

Cate Zone Chinese Cafe (24 Four Seasons Shopping Center, Chesterfield)

Manileño (3611 Juniata Street)

Sauce on the Side (6155 Trace Parkway Drive, Edwardsville, Illinois)

Southern Grace Coffee (20 Meadows Circle Drive, Lake Saint Louis)

CLOSINGS

Chicken Out, Kirkwood

Sunday Best, St. Louis

222 Artisan Bakery & Cafe, Edwardsville, Illinois

Cursed Bikes & Coffee, University City

Weber’s Front Row, Webster Groves

Blue Violet, Edwardsville, Illinois

tion that could conceivably be considered Midwestern is in Oklahoma, and therefore only Midwestern from the perspective of people in Phoenix).

“We are thrilled to bring Flower Child to St. Louis,” says Sam Fox, Fox Restaurant Concepts founder. “Frontenac has been on our radar for quite some time

due to its central location within St. Louis County, easy accessibility, and lively community.”

The restaurant plans to be open by summer and offer lunch and dinner seven days a week. Fox Restaurants says it will hire 80 workers to bring you all that organic gourmet goodness. n

Flower Child is renovating what was previously a St. Louis Bread Co., with plans to move in by summer. | COURTESY FLOWER CHILD

Up Late’s Delmar location is now open for business. | MABEL SUEN

A Magic (Mushroom)

Bullet

Missouri lawmakers have tried and failed before to legalize psilocybin for therapeutic purposes. Will this be the year they succeed?

BY KALLIE COX

When State Senator Holly Thompson Rehder (RSikeston) first heard about the idea to legalize psilocybin for therapeutic use, she was adamantly opposed to it. But the more she learned about the drug and studies on its uses, the more intrigued she became.

“I was so impressed,” Rehder tells the RFT, “and just amazed at the outcomes that these other studies were showing for people who had chronic depression, substance use disorder, PTSD — it’s amazing.”

That change of heart led Rehder to introduce SB 768 this session, which aims to legalize psilocybin, the drug that puts the “magic” in magic mushrooms, for therapeutic use among veterans. The bill had its first reading on January 3; it is the companion bill to HB 1830, which Representative Aaron McMullen (R-Independence), introduced in the house. Both bills have moved out of their respective committees with “do pass” recommendations.

If passed, these bills would allow veterans over 21 years old with diagnosed mental disabilities such as PTSD or depression to use psilocybin in a clinical setting as part of a study with a medical professional. Rehder’s bill would further grant $3 million dollars to Missouri universities and medical research agencies to study the impact of the drug on these mental health issues.

Already, a growing body of research supports the approach. Bethany Mealy, a therapist with a private practice, offered written witness testimony in support of McMullen’s bill.

“The science of the effectiveness of psilocybin use for mental health diagnoses leaves no room for interpretation other than that it is extremely

effective. During my time as a facilitator on the second arm of the phase 1 psilocybin study, I witnessed such transformation,” Mealy wrote. “I can’t help but think of one participant in particular who was an EMT. He came to this study because he was feeling immense burnout and suffering from PTSD-like symptoms due to his work. This individual left this study feeling like his slate had been wiped clean and reported significant reduction in his PTSD symptoms.”

With a treatment so effective at helping those at a higher suicide risk, Mealy asked, how can legislators oppose the bill in good conscience?

“Psilocybin can be a lifesaving medicine. It can also be a life-altering medicine in terms of symptom reduction and clearing. The science is there,” Mealy wrote. “Psychedelics are a catalyst for healing, and they are showing to be a catalyst that can expedite healing as well [as] provide healing that runs deep. Please, please, please consider supporting HB 1830, peoples’ lives depend on it.”

This isn’t the first time Missouri lawmakers have attempted to legalize the use of psilocybin in a therapeutic setting. State Republicans in both the House and the Senate have filed similar legislation the past few years, with 2023’s attempt primarily championed by State Representative Tony Lovasco (R-O’Fallon). But when legislators tried to pass the bills last year, they

“Psilocybin can be a life-saving medicine. It can also be a lifealtering medicine in terms of symptom reduction and clearing. The science is there.”

were blocked by opponents who didn’t want to legalize magic mushrooms. These representatives tanked the bill on the last day of the legislative session, Rehder says.

“Honestly, it’s because they equate this to your psychedelics of the ’70s and not what it is today, which is a therapeutic remedy for chronic depression, PTSD and substance use disorder,” Rehder says. “It’s done in a clinical study. It’s not like somebody can go pick up mushrooms at the same place they are picking up marijuana.”

Sponsors were initially met with the same block this year, Rehder says, which is why the bills were tailored to

serve veterans specifically. Since then, Rehder has spoken with some of the representatives who were strictly opposed to her bill who now say that, while they won’t vote yes, they also won’t block it.

So sponsors of the legislation are hopeful that this will be the session such a measure passes. While psilocybin may not work for everyone, veterans — who are historically at a higher risk of suicide — deserve to be able to access treatment without the government standing in the way, Lovasco and Rehder agree.

For his part, Lovasco was also skeptical of the treatment when he first heard of it, he says. But after diving into the research he learned that it holds a lot of promise and hope for veterans who are otherwise struggling. It may take some time before the legislation passes, but everyone he has spoken to about it is at least open to the idea, he tells the RFT.

“A lot of folks just need that kind of experience of talking to folks, seeing the actual evidence, the medical experts’ testimony makes a big difference,” Lovasco says. “You hear ‘magic mushrooms’ and you think about recreational drug use, which is not at all what this is about. And so, quite frankly, I think it’s just a matter of educating people in the General Assembly about the realities of this actual medicinal product in that clinical setting.” n

Psilocybin has shown great promise in treating a host of mental health woes including depression, PTSD and substance use disorders. | VIA FLICKR/TALAKAY PAKAY

CULTURE 35

A Cut Above

St. Louis-based film editor will make it a double at South by Southwest

BY PAULA TREDWAY

St. Louis film and commercial editor Lucas Harger is headed for Hollywood — well, Austin, Texas, for now.

Harger, a partner and supervising editor at Outpost, which is part of the St. Louis-based film production company Bruton Stroube, has not one but two sports documentaries, Clemente and Lions of Mesopotamia, playing at the 2024 South by Southwest film festival, which runs this week through Saturday, March 16.

“I’m pumped!” he exclaims. “It feels good.”

Harger describes SXSW as a celebration of filmmaking, a celebration of the stories in a “microcosmic way.”

“This is definitely the first premiere festival that we’ve been to,” he says. “We’ve been to a couple other festivals, like B- and C-level festivals. But in the States, it’s really South by Southwest. It’s really like the premier film festival and we’ve never had a feature get into a festival of this caliber.”

Clemente tells the story of Roberto Clemente, the first high-profile Latino player in Major League Baseball. The documentary shows how he opened the door for generations of Latino baseball players but also highlights his fight for social justice and racial equality and his commitment to society’s marginalized and underrepresented, as well as his death in a plane crash while seeking to help victims of the 1972 Nicaragua earthquake.

Lions of Mesopotamia tells the story of the Iraqi national soccer team’s journey to become Asian Cup champions in 2007 during the bloodiest days of their country’s civil war. SXSW says the film showcases the “untold story of war, football and redemption and when all hope is lost, love and humanity can prevail.”

Harger says both films were in post production with his company for about two and a half years. His work focuses on the “post house” services offered by Bruton Stroube, which involve bringing a film to its completion.

”We’ll get pulled into the process at some level of production, whether it’s 50 percent shot, 80 percent shot or whatever,” he says. “We’ll get in there and start breaking down the story, breaking down the different elements that we have, and then we’ll be able to speak to Production and be like, ‘It would be awesome if we could get this and this.’”

Though sports are just one of the genres of films that Harger works on, he says he can appreciate the deeper meaning behind the stories. He believes both films call the viewer in and asks them to be better. “I love watching films like that, and I love making them,” he says.

Harger believes the sports documentary genre is currently in its golden era due to the amount of amazing stories it tends to inspire.

“Sports just provide an immediate hook, or there’s always something at stake with athletes in athletics, whether it’s a competition, bettering their lifestyle, bettering their life situation and circumstances,” he says. “There’s just always something very interesting happening in the world of sports and storytelling.”

Harger describes both films as going way beyond sports arenas. Of Lions of Mesopotamia, he says, “It’s a very rich and deep story, really about Iraq from 2000 to 2007, and everything that was happening in that country as told by the Iraqi National Team. Then

Greenville University, where he received a degree in music business.

“I moved [to St. Louis] and just started freelancing and working with small businesses doing some graphic design and web development, some of this, some of that,” Harger says. “But I’ve always had an affinity and obviously an appreciation for not only filmmaking, but also the editing.”

Shaping thousands of minutes of footage into a compelling story is Harger’s favorite part of the filmmaking process, and lucky for him, 10 years ago, he was hired at Bruton Stroube as an editor.

Clemente reaches outside the specific sports bio docs genre, and starts to hit tones in moments that are greater than the sum of its parts.”

At Bruton Stroube, Harger cuts broadcast and web commercials for nationally recognized clients such as Enterprise, Anheuser-Busch, Famous Footwear, Amazon, Microsoft and more. Harger and the Outpost team are also currently working on three other feature documentaries and a multi-hour episodic documentary series.

“There’s just a lot of momentum around documentaries,” Harger says. “Obviously we’ll always do commercials because commercials are our passion and our pride and joy, but then we get the opportunity to tell these stories. We’re getting more opportunities and bigger opportunities and being able to really start to hone this space as a destination for premiere documentary post production is really exciting.”

Harger’s love for documentaries and films started when he was a kid back in Michigan filming sponsorship wakeboard videos for his friends.

“That’s kind of where I started to get into filmmaking, if that’s what you want to call those — I would definitely not call them films — but that’s where I got into the craft of it,” he explains.

From there he went to college, transferring a few times before graduating from his fourth and final college,

“Documentary has always been my passion,” Harger says. “The genre of documentary is really the editor’s playground, the editor’s medium. You just have your hands in so many aspects of the filmmaking. You can set the tone, the pace, the aesthetic, and a lot of times, doc editors are also given writing credit. There’s just so many more aspects and the editor really sits at the hub of documentary projects. I just really liked that, I liked having more responsibility, I like having more input than a scripted editor does. I just liked the challenge of pulling a thread of a story and seeing what happens.”

Even so, commercials still hold a special place in his heart. “It’s a much quicker cadence between those projects, you can actually get something completed in like a week or two versus three or four years,” he says. “You get an opportunity to collaborate with a lot more people, you get an opportunity to see your work get delivered and an opportunity to hone different aspects of your craft.”

While at Bruton Stroube, Harger has worked on more than 10 feature films. He won an Emmy for cutting The Road Through Warroad, a nationally broadcasted documentary for NBCSN, and a Silver YDA award for his work on Sleep Well My Baby at the Cannes Film Festival.

“It’s very exciting because it’s the next step in getting [these films] onto a major platform and getting [them] in a wider distribution than you can by self releasing,” Harger says of festivals. He’s especially looking forward to being at South by Southwest.

“It’s also exciting because the work is being celebrated,” he says. “It’s going to be a good time to go out there with the team and see [them] on the big screen. It’s one step closer to what we really want, which is as many people as possible watching these films as quickly as possible.” n

St. Louis film and commercial editor Lucas Harger has not one but two sports documentaries playing at the South by Southwest film festival this month. | COURTESY BRUTON STROUBE

MUSIC

Anchor’s Hooray

The Heavy Anchor celebrates 13 years of bringing community, live music and drinks to south city

BY STEVE LEFTRIDGE

It’s six o’clock on a Thursday evening at the Heavy Anchor, the friendly south city dive bar and music venue on Gravois just down the road from Bevo Mill. A handful of tipplers are scattered around the place — one at the bar, one at a table, one at a booth — drinking out of the Heavy Anchor’s signature Mason jars far below the room’s pop-fly-high ceilings and surrounded by the nautically themed paintings that cover the walls.

Those paintings — ocean waves, squids, narwhals, sailboats, lighthouses — were commissioned by the Heavy Anchor’s co-owners, thirtysomething married couple Josh and Jodie Timbrook, who opened the bar in 2011. “Every mural is from a different person,” Jodie says. “We put an ad on Craigslist saying we’ll buy you pizza and beer if you paint the walls.”

Elsewhere in the bar area, patrons can play a variety of games: An old Sega console is hooked up to a TV in one nook, a foosball table sits in another and two dozen board games (Operation, Sorry!, Battleship) are stacked next to an Aerosmith pinball machine. And a door on the back wall leads to a totally separate room, a 174-capacity music venue ready to rock with a sizable stage and a set-tostun sound system.

Two nights after my initial visit with the Timbrooks, two stellar St. Louis roots-rock bands, Western States and Nic Gusman & the Coyotes, played blistering sets to teeming crowds in the back room, while the front bar area filled up with Saturday night revelers, making for two separate establishments. Just before Western States took the stage, however, Josh lifted a two-car garage door, a remnant of the days when the space was a carpet store with the sales floor in the front and storage in the back, and suddenly the two spaces became one rock club. This multifunctionality and playful

community spirit are key to the success of the Heavy Anchor as the Timbrooks prepare to celebrate the bar’s 13th anniversary this April. The two Illinois natives (home cooking alert: a cardboard cutout of Michael Jordan stands watch over foosball games) started the Heavy Anchor back when they were dating in their mid-twenties and had zero experience working in bars, let alone owning or running one. “We said, ‘We spend a lot of money in bars. Let’s try to open our own,’” Josh tells me. “But we had no experience and no money.”

The Timbrooks are a cute couple. As I sip on Four Roses across the table from them, Josh is wearing a Heavy Anchor T-shirt on a frame suitable for a defensive tackle, and the willowy Jodie sports a Blondie tee. In the early brainstorming sessions, they considered naming the bar the Bird and the Bear, which would have matched the couple’s physicalities. (“I’m glad we didn’t do that,” Josh says.) Ultimately, they wanted a logo that was visible and marketable, hence an anchor, which shows up on the nautical murals, bar merchandise and the couple’s matching tattoos. At this point, Josh pulls up his pant leg to show me the anchor inked onto his calf.

As we talk, the Timbrooks, who married in 2011, tag team every an-

“We were so young and had no assets. All we had were crappy cars. We went to banks for a loan, and they were all like, ‘No.’”

swer, finishing each other’s sentences as they talk about their history. Jodie went to school for music business in Illinois and worked jobs in the Austin, Texas, music scene before moving to St. Louis. “I’m not a musician, but I liked being in the scene,” she says. “I had a love and passion for it but wanted to stay on the business side of things.”

Josh was also a music major in Illinois, focusing on both performance and recording. In 2010, he played bass for Americana singer-songwriter Samantha Crain’s band, criss-crossing the country on tour. (Josh no longer plays music professionally, although Jodie wants me to know that he’s a

good singer. “He has a nice voice,” she says fondly, patting him on the shoulder.) Their separate paths took them to the same place: working at the nowdefunct Jupiter Studios in St. Louis, where the two met and, in short order, fell in love.

Almost immediately, the pair hatched a plan to open their own bar, despite having no idea what they were doing or any capital to do it with. “How the hell do we do this?” Josh remembers saying during those lean years. “I was doing drug studies for money and was literally writing out our business plan while getting my blood drawn.”

By the end of 2009, the pair was getting serious about their startup but kept running into financial roadblocks. “We were so young and had no assets. All we had were crappy cars,” Jodie says. “We went to banks for a loan, and they were all like, ‘No.’” Eventually, they turned to family for help (“We made a whole PowerPoint presentation,” Josh remembers with a laugh), but mostly got up and running with blood, sweat, tears and maxedout credit cards.

“We were stupid,” Josh says.

“Oh, we were so stupid,” Jodie echos before amending the thought. “Well, we were risky, not stupid.”

The risk paid off. After an effort stalled to acquire the space formerly

Owners Josh and Jodie Timbrook will celebrate the Heavy Anchor’s 13th anniversary this April. | COURTESY PHOTO

occupied by Radio Cherokee, the couple looked into a Craigslist posting for a bar called Antarctica, the space that would become the Heavy Anchor. “It was like an underground venue,” Jodie says. “Everything was white with these preschool-looking chairs,” an aesthetic that Josh compares to the milk bar in A Clockwork Orange. But the couple knew right away that they had found their spot. “It wasn’t up and running. We were looking around with flashlights,” Jodie remembers. “But we walked out after touring, and I just looked at Josh and said, ‘This is it.’”

“We lucked out because [the previous owner] had done all this work in the building,” Josh says. “Built a bar, had a cooler, had sinks. Everything we couldn’t afford to do ourselves.” The couple’s dream had been to open a bar, not a music venue. But with the additional room in the back already equipped with a stage, and with Josh’s music background, they found themselves entering not just the bar business but the live-music business as well.

The learning curve was steep. “We had to learn the entire business,” Jodie says. “You have the unfun part. Payroll, taxes, all the legal permits. We had to learn all that stuff.” For weeks, the couple had to scour the neighborhood surrounding the bar to collect property owners’ signatures in order to get a liquor license. “Every day, I would wake up, paint the bar, drive around getting signatures,” Josh says in describing the 70-hour work weeks of the early days. “I had to fix plumbing, get barstools, chairs, figure out legal aspects, sound gear.” Jodie remembers their first booze order to stock the bar. “It was only a couple grand, but we thought it was so much!” she says. “Now it’s that much every week.”

As we talk, the raucous sounds of a comedy troupe rehearsing for that evening’s show prompt Josh to hop up and shut the door leading to the concert space. Bringing in sketch comedy is one of the ways that the Heavy Anchor has kept things interesting, which Jodie says has been a goal from the beginning.

“It sounds cheesy, but part of the name ‘Heavy Anchor’ is that we want to be an anchor in our community,” Jodie says. “We always wanted to do community-focused events. We did farmers’ markets for years. We want to be a welcoming and inclusive place. You have to stay relevant and diversify your events. What is the draw? What makes you different?” Sure enough, a glance at the chalkboard calendar

above the bar speaks to the variety of daily events, with upcoming music shows, comedy showcases, trivia nights and art themes that encourage guests to get creative. For instance, Collage Night will see the bar filled with magazines, scissors and glue with which folks share libations and construct their own collage masterworks.

On the music side of things, Josh books all the bands, which can itself feel like a full-time job. From the beginning, the two or so shows that the Anchor hosts each week have consisted of what Jodie calls “stuff we like,” which primarily means all-original bands that play indie rock, punk, metal and experimental music. “It’s gotten a little more heavy in the past couple of years,” Josh says, although bands like Western States are also bringing in heartland rock and alt-country styles.

But for all the programming, the couple see the friendly, welcoming atmosphere they have built as their biggest achievement. “We pride ourselves on that,” Josh says. “We have yet to ever have a real fight in the bar.” A neon sign above the bar gets to the heart of the bar’s requisite manner: “Calm the Fuck Down.”

So how did the Heavy Anchor survive the pandemic? “We almost didn’t,” Josh says, describing days of shutdowns and layoffs and curbside booze. “We were lucky enough to partner with our neighbors, another husband-and-wife team, who have a patio out back.” He’s talking about the Arkadin Cinema, the adventurous microcinema next door to the Anchor. During the pandemic, the Arkadin set up an outdoor screen in the courtyard and the Heavy Anchor sold the drinks.

These days, the Anchor is back up to six employees besides the Timbrooks, including the terrific singer-songwriter Bobby Stevens, who switches roles among bar manager, performer and open-mic host. The Timbrooks now own a home a couple of blocks away from the Anchor.

On Saturday night, as the music blasts from the back room, Josh and Jodie stay busy behind the bar. One gal orders a round of Three Broomsticksinspired Butter Beers. One dude orders a Sweater Weather, the Anchor’s tequila-based specialty drink. Two guys next to me debate about Huey Lewis, of all things, while slugging PBRs. All the while, the Timbrooks keep moving amid the vessel they have created, occasionally checking in with each other, the steady co-captains at the helm of a prized community anchor. n

FILM

[FESTIVALS]

True That

This year’s True/False highlights included many films coming soon to a screen near you

BY CLIFF FROEHLICH

After 21 editions, the True/False Film Fest — or simply T/F — needs no introduction to cinephiles, especially to that savvy subset of moviegoers devoted to nonfiction filmmaking. Unfolding over four days in late winter, T/F annually takes over the college town of Columbia, briefly transforming midMissouri into the center of the documentary universe. Despite its unlikely locale, T/F has long ranked among the finest doc fests in the world: Filmmakers adore the festival for its large, receptive audiences, and filmgoers appreciate not just its well-curated selection of nonfiction work but also its convivial atmosphere, walkable venue footprint and affordable price.

The recently concluded T/F, which ran from February 29 to March 3, featured the fest’s usual bifurcated mix of high-flying offerings that will eventually appear on streaming platforms

and under-the-radar films whose rarefied subjects and/or formally challenging aesthetics will likely limit their reach to the festival circuit. The beauty of T/F is that the fest’s broadminded audiences embrace both kinds of work with equal ardor: As the Tide Rolls In, a contemplative portrait of the residents of the tiny Danish island of Mandø, is just as capable of filling the cavernous Jesse Auditorium as the world premiere of FX/Hulu’s provocative Spermworld

Despite T/F’s undeniable programming acuity, you’ll certainly not love every film at the fest: Outright clunkers are rare — this year, of the 17 docs I saw, only the maddeningly discursive sr qualified as irredeemable — but T/F’s willingness to confront audiences with “difficult” works guarantees that not every film will have wide appeal. This was my 14th T/F, and although this edition featured fewer transcendent jaw-droppers than past fests — I’d classify most of the docs I encountered as more good than great — even the films that left me largely indifferent (23 Mile, Boyz, Flying Lessons, Magic Mountain) offered their share of beauty, insight and surprise.

Let’s start this selective survey of the 2024 T/F with a few films to which you’re certain to have access.

Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss’ Girls State, which debuts on Apple TV+ on April 5, serves as a fine com-

panion piece to the directors’ Boys State (2020), with both films examining American Legion-backed programs designed to teach U.S. government to high schoolers by requiring them to build their own executive, legislative and judicial branches, and compete for office. The film documents the 2022 Missouri gatherings of both boys and girls — the first time the events were jointly held — at Lindenwood University in St. Charles. Although the two programs occur simultaneously, they remain strictly separate, and the film makes clear that the retrograde and feminized Girls State lacks some of the real-world engagement that characterizes Boys State. The participants quickly recognize the inequity — they want to discuss abortion rights, not decorate cupcakes — and that undercurrent of tension flows through and energizes the film.

Lana Wilson’s Look Into My Eyes, which will appear in theaters via distributor A24, takes an unexpectedly respectful and affecting look at a halfdozen New York-based psychics. Although there are occasional moments of humor, the film never turns its subjects into figures of fun, as skeptical viewers might initially expect. Wilson neither validates nor debunks the featured psychics’ supernatural abilities, but those who consult with them appear to derive real psychotherapeutic benefit from the often riveting sessions the director captures. (The catharsis

that many of the clients experience is reminiscent of the acute emotional reactions that Marina Abramovic elicited in The Artist Is Present.) The readings in the film form its core, but the personal stories of the psychics often prove just as compelling.

Angela Patton and Natalie Rae’s Daughters, which will stream on Netflix, provides a unique perspective on the U.S. prison system by focusing on an innovative program called Date with Dad, in which inmates are allowed to host their daughters at a dance after completing 12 weeks of group therapy that requires them to grapple with their previous failings as fathers. The impact of incarceration is seen most acutely in the four daughters that the film features, and the doc adroitly toggles between their stories and their fathers’ therapy sessions. Like the program, Daughters culminates in the dance: a largely joyous affair that nonetheless combines equal measures of tenderness and resentment, elation and sorrow. Although it extols the success of the Date with Dad program — 95 percent of participants avoid a return to prison — Daughters bravely ends with a realistically painful coda: The most open-hearted and adorable of the daughters, now seen years after the dance, has grown distant and uncommunicative in the face of her father’s long sentence.

Inevitably, a few of T/F’s high-profile

Girls State was a highlight at this year’s True/False, and debuts on Apple TV+ next month. | COURTESY OF TRUE/FALSE

films proved mild disappointments.

Jazmin Jones’ Seeking Mavis Beacon, which will be distributed theatrically by Neon, chronicles the filmmakers’ long pursuit of the woman whose image was used as the basis for the fictional character featured in the educational software program Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. Mavis, though not a real person, oddly evolved into something a Black icon, and Jones (with collaborator Olivia McKayla Ross) wants to find and honor Renée L’Espérance, the real-life woman whose face was originally featured on the program’s box (and eventually within the program). Because Jones and Ross, who remain front and center throughout the film, are undeniably funny, intelligent and hyper-articulate — not to mention outlandishly costumed — the film manages to entertain, and its imagery often dazzles. But the legitimate grievance

Seeking Mavis Beacon explores — the uncompensated exploitation of the model’s image in the software program — is a slender thread on which to hang a feature film, and Jones never manages to persuade me that L’Espérance merits all of this attention.

Union, co-directed by a documentary dream team of Stephen Maing (Crime + Punishment) and Brett Story (The Prison in Twelve Landscapes), similarly underwhelms, despite the considerable talent of its filmmakers and the importance of its subject. A vérité look at the efforts of Amazon workers to unionize at one of the company’s Staten Island facilities, the film concentrates too much on process and never gives us sufficient insight into the people organizing the union, which is led by the charismatic if impolitic Chris Smalls. Just as problematically, the conclusion of the film

seems rushed, and a welter of explanatory titles vainly attempts to tie up loose ends.

Union remains without a U.S. distributor at present, but given the filmmakers’ reputations and the pressing labor issues it addresses, the doc will inevitably find a home — just not on Amazon Prime. The fate of other T/F features is harder to predict, but I’d encourage you to seek out this quartet of currently unattached films:

Ralph Arlyck’s I Like It Here: My favorite film at the fest, this lovely personal doc contemplates the intimidatingly serious topics of aging and mortality, but the narration is wryly funny, and the old friends and neighbors with whom the filmmaker visits confront the imminence of death with humor and equanimity.

Rachel Elizabeth Seed’s A Photographic Memory: Another intensely personal documentary, the film — which is formally impressive — explores the life and career of the filmmaker’s mother, Sheila Turner-Seed, a photographer, journalist and audio storyteller who died when her daughter was only 18 months old.

Jennifer Wickham, Brenda Mitchell and Michael Toledano’s Yintah: This unapologetically inspiring advocacy doc recounts the decade-long Sisyphean struggle of activists in the Wet’suwet’en tribe to prevent a pipeline from crossing its never-ceded territory in British Columbia.

Thomas Charles Hyland’s This Is Going to Be Big: Putting-on-a-show docs are legion, but this irresistible charmer movingly recounts the story behind a theatrical production at an Australian high school for teens with physical and developmental challenges. n

Seeking Mavis Beacon explores the quest to find the woman whose image was featured in the educational software program Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. | COURTESY OF TRUE/FALSE

Animal Behavior

Kung Fu Panda 4 lacks the joys of the franchise’s earlier installments

BY CRAIG D. LINDSEY

Kung Fu Panda 4

Directed by Mike Mitchell and Stephanie Ma Stine. Written by Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger and Darren Lemke. Opened March 8.

Kung Fu Panda 4 reminds us that animated movie franchises should really end after the third one.

I’m still kinda mad that Pixar gave us one of the best movie trilogies of all time with the Toy Story saga, then served up a meh fourth installment in 2019. The same goes with the Shrek franchise, already running on fumes when DreamWorks dropped the Justin Timberlake-enhanced Shrek the Third, churning out the It’s a Wonderful Life-ish Shrek Forever After in 2010.

Forever director Mike Mitchell also directs the newest Panda adventure,

which also feels like an unnecessary remake. I was definitely getting major Zootopia vibes with this installment, as beloved roly-poly Dragon Warrior Po (Jack Black) teams up with shady, crafty fox Zhen (Awkwafina) in order to stop the Chameleon (Viola Davis), a reptilian sorceress who goes on a looting and plundering rampage by shape-shifting into other animals, including Po’s first-movie foe Tai Lung (yes, Ian McShane is back!).

If you’re expecting the Furious Five to join Po on this, Po conveniently explains to villagers at the beginning that they’re on “super-cool, kungfu missions.” Considering how little screen time the characters got in the last film, I guess DreamWorks had a hard time convincing Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan and the others to come back to basically voice cameos.

Dustin Hoffman does return as crotchety Master Shifu, who’s mostly there to press Po on finding a Dragon Warrior replacement so Po can assume his new title as “spiritual leader of the Valley of Peace.” (How much are you willing to bet that Zhen plays a crucial part in that?) Po’s neurotic, adoptive goose dad (James Hong) and biological panda dad (Bryan Cranston) from the last movie also return, teaming up to follow Po secretly. We also get a possibly problematic influx of Asian voices playing nefarious characters, including Oscar-winning comeback kid

Ke Huy Quan as Sunda, the pangolin leader of a den of thieves, and Daily Show correspondent Ronny Chieng as a smartass, ship-owning fish shooting one-liners from a pelican’s gullet.

Thanks to longtime Panda writers Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger and Forever writer Darren Lemke, there’s a lot more screwballery popping off in this Panda mission. This is especially true once Po and Zhen head to Juniper City, a bustling metropolis where, in one chase sequence, they run away from the po-po while the soundtrack plays a Chinese traditional music version of Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train.” There’s a sense of quasi-dark, Looney Tunes-style absurdity, as Po interacts with such characters as a deceptively adorable yet clearly sociopathic trio of bunnies. “Violence makes my tummy tingle,” one of them says in a movie that’s generally aimed at kids. (If you do have little ones, make sure you let them know afterwards that violence isn’t a good thing, before they set their siblings on fire.)

While some may see the hijinks as enjoyable, computeranimated tomfoolery, this sequel doesn’t bring anything new to the table. It practically seems like an elongated episode of one of the several Panda spinoff shows that’s been float-

ing around on streaming platforms for years. This one is definitely missing the introspective, revelatory storytelling director Jennifer Yuh Nelson brought to the second (my favorite) and third installments.

Listen, I’m all for shits-and-giggles escapist entertainment. After three Kung Fu Panda movies that gave us a decent mix of hilarity and pathos, however, this derivative, annoyingly predictable volume seems like a letdown. But hey, if you wanna keep your kids busy for an hour and a half by showing them a brand-new story of a rotund panda bear getting his Jet Li on, Kung Fu Panda 4 is waiting for you. n

Po (Jack Black) and Zhen (Awkwafina) team up to stop a villainous chameleon (not a metaphor, the bad guy is an actual chameleon). | © 2024 DREAMWORKS ANIMATION LLC

A Right Royal Romp

New Line Theatre’s Sweet Potato Queens is uplifting, Southern-fried fun

BY TINA FARMER

Sweet Potato Queens Written by Rupert Holmes, based on the book series by Jill Conner Browne. Directed by Scott Miller and Tony L. Marr Jr. Presented by New Line Theatre at the Marcelle Theater (3310 Samuel Shepard Drive) through Saturday, March 23. Showtime is 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, and tickets are $20 to $30. More information at newlinetheatre.com.

Feel-good musicals have the power to lift us up even when the characters and situations are far from our own experience.

Such is the case with Sweet Potato Queens from New Line Theatre. The often laugh-out-loud funny musical about self-acceptance and finding your place in the world is a fluffily tenderhearted, uplifting show that thoroughly entertains.

The story opens with the queens in full regalia — sparkling sequincovered party dresses, feather boas, bosoms and butts exaggerated with

stuffing and teased redheaded wigs topped with bright, plastic tiaras — as they participate in Jackson, Mississippi’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade. The SPQs, as they refer to themselves, are a bubbly, exuberant group with a bawdy edge the crowd cannot resist. The show then moves back about 12 years or so to tell us how this raucous royal court came to be.

Jill, a struggling working-class mom, lives with her philandering, frequently unemployed husband and young daughter in a trailer park. She recently left her job as a customer service rep at Sears, and even though she’s behind on her bills she’s determined to set a good example for her daughter. Her mother criticizes Jill’s every move, while her father, though afraid of and constantly avoiding his wife, is firm in his belief in and support of his daughter.

Jill decides to treat herself to dinner and a beer at the local Chinese restaurant one night and runs into three women, all named Tammy. They and their server George form an unexpected bond that helps them find strength and acceptance.

Talichia Noah is bright, sharp-witted and increasingly self aware as Jill. Noah fills the character with kindness and charisma that wraps every corner of the theater in a big, welcoming embrace. Mara Bollini, Ann Hier Brown and Victoria Pines are wonderfully cast as the oversexed Floozie Tammy, foodobsessed Too Much Tammy and aspira-

tional but abused Flower Tammy. Aarin Kamphoefner and Kent Coffel are affectionate and insightful as George and Daddy, while Bethany Barr and Jeffrey M. Wright lean into the casually mean-spirited and self-centered Mama and Tyler, Jill’s straying husband.

The songs, backed by music director Dr. Tim Amukele and a great band, run the gamut from bluesy rock to Cajun-tinged party anthems to boogie-woogie dance songs and pop numbers with solid harmonies, keeping the tone of the show upbeat despite the turmoil in the women’s lives. The inspiring “Do What Makes Your Heart Sing” and “It’s Me” earn multiple reprises, while “Make a Wish,” “Funeral Food,” “The Promise” and “Mad Dog Twenty-Twenty” are crowd-pleasing celebrations that keep the audience engaged and in good humor.

Too often, stories of empowerment, particularly women’s empowerment, can come across as preachy, judgmental or unattainable. Fortunately, Sweet Potato Queens, directed by Scott Miller and Tony L. Marr, Jr. and based on the book series by Jill Conner Browne, takes a different, more relatable path that’s satisfying and light. The characters are realistically human and imperfect; their determination to thrive is uplifting and emotionally connected, reflecting the universal desire to be loved for being you. If you’re in need of a good time that’s guaranteed to perk up your spirits, you should make plans to join the SPQ parade. n

Ann Hier Brown (top) as Too Much Tammy, singing “Funeral Food” with her fellow Sweet Potato Queens. | JILL RITTER LINDBERG

OUT EVERY NIGHT

Each week, we bring you our picks for the best concerts of the next seven days. To submit your show for consideration, visit https://bit.ly/3bgnwXZ. All events are subject to change, so check with the venue before you head out. Happy showgoing!

THURSDAY 14

314 DAY PARTY: 8:30 p.m., $10. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720.

ALLY HANY ALBRECHT QUINTET: 7:30 p.m., $20-$25. Jazz St. Louis, 3536 Washington Ave, St. Louis, 314-571-6000.

ARTHUR CRITTENDEN + DEANNA SORENSON + SUMMER OSBORNE + DEVON CAHILL: 7:30 p.m., $15. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745.

CASE 44: 7 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

CO1DWIRE, LOU PEPSII, PEEPINTTOMOFFINLAND,

CHIZMO.TV: 8 p.m., $10. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

DIZZY ATMOSPHERE: w/ Richard Tralles 7 p.m., free. Evangeline’s, 512 N Euclid Ave, St. Louis, 314-367-3644.

IN THEORY: w/ Raze The Alarms, All Thats Left 7:30 p.m., $25. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

LED ZEPPELIN II: 8 p.m., $20. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

NATE LOWERY: 3 p.m., $5. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

ON CALL BAND: 7 p.m., $5. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

TOWER OF POWER: 7:30 p.m., $49.50-$89.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer 40 Rd, Chesterfield, 314-423-8500.

TREY LEWIS: 8 p.m., $15. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

FRIDAY 15

ADAM GAFFNEY: 4 p.m., $5. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

BEER CHOIR - ST. PATRICK’S DAY EDITION: 7 p.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521.

CHERRY AND JERRY: 6 p.m., free. Alpha Brewing Company, 4310 Fyler Ave., St. Louis, 314-621-2337.

DR. ZHIVEGAS: 6 p.m., $12. The Attic Music Bar, 4247 South Kingshighway Blvd., 2nd Floor, St. Louis, 314-376-5313.

GUSTER: 8 p.m., $36-$56. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

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

INNER CITY WITCHES: w/ Volition, Shareholder, County Ditch 8 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

JAKE’S LEG: 7 p.m., $15. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

JEREMIAH JOHNSON BAND: 6 p.m., $12. The Attic Music Bar, 4247 South Kingshighway Blvd., 2nd Floor, St. Louis, 314-376-5313.

KALO: 8 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

LIL XAN: 6:30 p.m. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

MATTY MO & THE ROCKETS: 8 p.m., $5. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

PASSIONFRUIT: BELL DARRIS W/ KELVIN EVANS: 6:30 p.m., $28-$35. City Winery St. Louis, 3730 Foundry Way, Suite 158, St. Louis, 314-678-5060.

SCUZZ, GRINDYLOW, WHO GOES THERE, LIGHTS

OVER ARCADIA: 8 p.m., $10. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

SIR CHLOE: 8 p.m., $23. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

[CRITIC’S PICK]

Voivod w/ Prong

8 p.m. Sunday, March 17. The Golden Record, 2720 Cherokee Street. $29.50. No phone.

For more than 40 years, Canada’s Voivod has been pushing the limits of metal to strange and increasingly interesting places, exploring uncharted corners of the universe in a spaceship constructed entirely out of tasty riffs and death-defying musicianship. Founded as a speed-metal act in 1982, the band has come to incorporate elements of thrash and progressive metal in the decades since, forming a blistering sci-fi brew that is pleasing to headbangers and music scholars alike while climbing to the top of Canada’s metal scene as one of the country’s most influential bands. Last year the group celebrated its own considerable longevity with the release

SATURDAY 16

2 PEDROS: AN EVENING OF YACHT ROCK: 7:30 p.m., $20. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745.

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

BLUE MOON BLUES BAND: w/ Kent Ehrhardt 3 p.m., $5. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

BOOGIE CHYLD: 6 p.m., $6. The Attic Music Bar, 4247 South Kingshighway Blvd., 2nd Floor, St. Louis, 314-376-5313.

THE DANDY WARHOLS: 8 p.m., $34.50. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

DAVID GOMEZ: 7 p.m., free. Yaqui’s on Cherokee, 2728 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314-400-7712.

DECIBEL MAGAZINE TOUR: 7 p.m. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

EXTRAVISION: w/ Dee Bird, Ashley Byrne 7:30 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

HELL CAMINO: w/ Mongoose, Thicc Lizzie, Lightning Wolf 8 p.m., $10. The Heavy Anchor, 5226

$25-$45. Backstreet Jazz & Blues, 610 Westport Plaza, Maryland Heights, 314-878-5800.

SUNDAY 17

ALKALINE TRIO: 7:30 p.m., $34-$50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

ANTHONY GREEN: w/ Queen of Jeans 7 p.m., $35. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

BROKEN JUKEBOX: 9 p.m., $9. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

ERIK BROOKS: 8 p.m., $5. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

JOHN MCVEY BAND: 3 p.m., $5. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

OPEN KASKET: w/ Held Tight, Locked Shut, Polterguts 7 p.m., $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

RITTZ: 7 p.m., $20. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720.

SCOTT KENNEBECK AND EMILY KENNEBECK WITH JOHN POWEL WALSH: 7 p.m., free. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745.

A TRIBUTE TO GIRLS GROUPS: 6 p.m., $20-$150. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

VOIVOD: w/ Prong 8 p.m., $29.50. The Golden Record, 2720 Cherokee Street, St. Louis.

MONDAY 18

of Morgöth Tales, which consists largely of reimagined versions of nine deep cuts from the band’s vast catalog in addition to one new song, the title track. Promotional material for the album describes it as covering “40 years of space exploration,” with drummer Michael “Away” Langevin remarking, “It was really exciting for us to revisit a more obscure part of the Voivod catalog, from thrash-punk to prog-metal.” Fans know what to expect by now and weren’t disappointed. The same will surely be said of the group’s appearance at the Golden Record this week.

A One-Pronged Approach: Opening the show will be long-running New York groove metal act Prong, itself a storied band that has been cited as an influence by members of Pantera, White Zombie, Nine Inch Nails and Korn, among many others.

—Daniel Hill

Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-352-5226.

JOSH WARD & BRAXTON KEITH: 8 p.m., $18. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

ONE NIGHT OF QUEEN: 8 p.m., $39.50-$79.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer 40 Rd, Chesterfield, 314-423-8500.

PET MOSQUITO: w/ Rod, NNN Cook, Petty Grievances, Frog Splash, Googolplexia 6 p.m., free. Platypus, 4501 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-359-2293.

PICKIN’ BUDS: 9 p.m., $9. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

RED AND BLACK BRASS BAND: 8 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

REIGN IN BLOOD: A TRIBUTE TO SLAYER: 8 p.m., $10-$30. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720.

UNCLE ALBERT: 8 p.m., $5. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

VINCE SALA / DAVE BLACK JAZZ DUO: 8 p.m., free. Gallery Pub, 4069 Shenandoah Ave, St. Louis, 314-696-2055.

THE WHITNEY HOUSTON EXPERIENCE: 6 p.m.,

ERIC MCSPADDEN & MARGARET BIENCHETTA: 5 p.m., free. Broadway Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-8811.

KIM DRACULA: 7:30 p.m., $32.50. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

LUISA SIMS: 7 p.m., free. Yaqui’s on Cherokee, 2728 Cherokee St, St. Louis, 314-400-7712.

MICHAEL CERA PALIN: w/ Lobby Boxer, The Chandelier Swing, Wise Disguise 7:30 p.m., $12$15. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

NECROT: w/ Necrotic Altar, Snort Dagger 8 p.m., $15-$20. Platypus, 4501 Manchester Avenue, St. Louis, 314-359-2293.

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

TIM ALBERT AND STOVEHANDLE DAN: w/ Randy 7 p.m., $5. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

TUESDAY 19

BLACK FLAG: 8 p.m. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

DEATH LENS: 8 p.m., $18. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

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

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

NAKED MIKE: 7 p.m., $5. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

TOO MANY ZOOZ: w/ Pell 8 p.m., $23. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

THE VERTIGO SWIRL: w/ Bonus Sandwich, Mobile Alien Research Unit, $10. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

WEDNESDAY 20

JACKOPIERCE: 6:30 p.m., $35-$45. City Winery St. Louis, 3730 Foundry Way, Suite 158, St. Louis, 314-678-5060.

JOHN MCVEY BAND: 7 p.m., $5. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

MARGARET & FRIENDS: 7 p.m., $5. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

TOMATO FLOWER: w/ babybaby_explores, Kids, Aura 8 p.m., $12-$15. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

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

Voivod. | VIA THE NOISE CARTEL

UPCOMING

21 SAVAGE: Sun., May 19, 7 p.m., $29.50-$129.50. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre - St. Louis, MO, 14141 Riverport Dr, Maryland Heights.

38 SPECIAL: Fri., May 17, 8 p.m., $35-$65. River City Casino & Hotel, 777 River City Casino Blvd., St. Louis, 314-388-7777.

AARON LEE TASJAN: Thu., April 18, 8 p.m., $20. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

ALANIS MORISSETTE: Tue., July 23, 7 p.m., $39.50-$149.50. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

ALVVAYS: Tue., May 7, 8 p.m., $30-$45. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

THE AVETT BROTHERS: W/ Trampled By Turtles, Sat., Aug. 17, 7 p.m., $55-$99. St. Louis Music Park, 750 Casino Center Dr., Maryland Heights, 314-451-2244.

BILLY JOEL & STING: Fri., Sept. 27, 7 p.m., $69.50$424.50. Busch Stadium, 700 Clark Ave, St. Louis, 314-345-9600.

BIT BRIGADE AND GALACTIC EMPIRE: Sat., May 11, 8 p.m., $22. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

BRITTANY HOWARD: Fri., April 26, 8 p.m., $46$61. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

CAITLIN COOK NIGHT 1: Sat., June 1, 7:30 p.m., $25. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745.

CAITLIN COOK NIGHT 2: Sun., June 2, 7 p.m., $25. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745.

CAN YOU FEEL THE PUNK TONIGHT - A PUNK

ROCK CELEBRATION OF DISNEY: Sat., May 11, 8 p.m., $30-$40. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

A CELEBRATION OF LIFE FOR LISA MCMICHAEL:

W/ Bruiser Queen, Vallencourt, Sewer Urchin, Devil Baby Freak Show, Sat., June 15, 4:30 p.m., $10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

CHEEKFACE: Mon., April 29, 8 p.m., $18. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

CHICANO BATMAN: Thu., May 2, 8 p.m., $28-$32. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

CREED: Fri., Aug. 9, 7 p.m., $39.50-$225. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

DAYSEEKER: Tue., May 7, 7 p.m., $29.50. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720.

DEAD POET SOCIETY: Wed., April 24, 8 p.m., $22. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

DEF LEPPARD: W/ Journey, Sat., July 6, 6 p.m., $49-$550. Busch Stadium, 700 Clark Ave, St. Louis, 314-345-9600.

DIERKS BENTLEY: Thu., Aug. 22, 7 p.m., $30.75$100.75. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre - St. Louis, MO, 14141 Riverport Dr, Maryland Heights.

EARTH, WIND & FIRE AND CHICAGO: Wed., July 10, 7:30 p.m., $35.50-$499.50. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

FANGIRL FANTASY: TAYLOR SWIFT VS OLIVIA RODRIGO DANCE NIGHT: Fri., April 26, 8 p.m., $18. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

GARY CLARK JR: Thu., May 16, 7:30 p.m., $49.50-$99.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer 40 Rd, Chesterfield, 314-423-8500.

HOT WATER MUSIC: W/ Quicksand, Sun., June 16, 8 p.m., $40. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

IRON & WINE: Sat., July 6, 8 p.m., $37.50-$47.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

JAMES TAYLOR & HIS ALL-STAR BAND: Thu.,

[CRITIC’S PICK]

Black Flag

8 p.m. Tuesday, March 19. Red Flag, 3040 Locust Street. $30 to $40.

314-289-9050.

The year was 2013, and Greg Ginn, guitarist of the legendary Black Flag, announced that after 27 years of dormancy he would be reforming the band that launched a million tattoos with one-time vocalist Ron Reyes, best known for his work on the Jealous Again EP. But of course, things couldn’t be so simple: Around the same time, former members Keith Morris, Chuck Dukowski, Bill Stevenson and Dez Cadena joined with Descendants guitarist Stephen Egerton to form Flag, which also set off touring and performing the songs of Black Flag. Naturally, Ginn brought legal action against all parties involved, even lobbing a lawsuit at another former member, Henry Rollins, who was not even involved in either reformed band. Ginn ultimately lost, released a dismally received album under the Black Flag name and then kicked Reyes out, replacing him with the group’s manager Mike Vallely, who

June 6, 8 p.m., $39.50-$189.50. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre - St. Louis, MO, 14141 Riverport Dr, Maryland Heights.

JANET JACKSON AND NELLY: Fri., June 21, 8 p.m., $39.95-$499.95. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

JELLY ROLL: Wed., Oct. 23, 7 p.m., $35.50-$155.50. Enterprise Center, 1401 Clark Ave., St. Louis, 314-241-1888.

JJ GREY & MOFRO: Sat., April 20, 7:30 p.m., $220. Chesterfield Amphitheater, 631 Veterans Place Drive, Chesterfield.

JOE SATRIANI & STEVE VAI: Tue., April 30, 7:30 p.m., $49.50-$124.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer 40 Rd, Chesterfield, 314-423-8500.

JUDAS PRIEST: Sun., May 5, 7:30 p.m., $49.50$175. St. Louis Music Park, 750 Casino Center Dr., Maryland Heights, 314-451-2244.

KHRUANGBIN: Wed., Oct. 2, 8 p.m.; Thu., Oct. 3, 8 p.m., $52.50-$89.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer 40 Rd, Chesterfield, 314-423-8500.

O.A.R.: W/ Fitz and the Tantrums, Wed., Aug. 21, 7 p.m., $25-$125. St. Louis Music Park, 750 Casino Center Dr., Maryland Heights, 314-451-2244.

PATTI LABELLE: Sat., May 11, 7 p.m., $59.50$124.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer 40 Rd, Chesterfield, 314-423-8500.

PHISH: Tue., July 30, 7:30 p.m.; Wed., July 31, 7:30 p.m., $59.50-$105. Chaifetz Arena, 1 S. Compton Ave., St. Louis, 314-977-5000.

P!NK: Sat., Aug. 10, 6:30 p.m., $39.95-$299.95. The Dome at America’s Center, 701 Convention Plaza, St. Louis, 314-342-5201.

PORTUGAL. THE MAN: Mon., May 6, 8 p.m., $41$56. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

THE POSTAL SERVICE & DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE:

Tue., May 7, 7:30 p.m., $38-$122.75. Chaifetz Arena, 1 S. Compton Ave., St. Louis, 314-977-5000.

REAL ESTATE: Tue., May 21, 8 p.m., $25. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

ROB ZOMBIE AND ALICE COOPER: Sun., Sept. 1, 6 p.m., $35-$149.50. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre - St. Louis, MO, 14141 Riverport Dr, Maryland Heights.

at the start of 2014, swiftly apologized for the mess and claimed that the group was already at work on a new album. That material has yet to see the light of day — which, frankly, is probably for the best, seeing as how bafflingly bad the last album was. But, on a far more positive note the group’s St. Louis show is part of a tour celebrating the 40th birthday of its seminal second full-length album, 1984’s My War. In keeping, the band will be performing two sets at Red Flag this week: one of My War in its entirety, to be followed by a greatest hits set. Both will be far superior to whatever the hell What The… was supposed to be.

Bruiser King: Prior to his association with Black Flag, Vallely was best known as a pro skateboarder, and within that culture he was arguably best known for an incredible video wherein he single-handedly beats the crap out of no less than four guys who made the mistake of making fun of him while he was plying his trade. Do yourself a favor and google “Mike Vallely fight” to see the real greatest hits.

—Daniel Hill

KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD: Thu., Sept. 5, 8 p.m., $59.50-$89.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer 40 Rd, Chesterfield, 314-423-8500.

LAKE STREET DIVE: Tue., July 16, 8 p.m., $30-$75. Centene Community Ice Center, 750 Casino Center Dr, Maryland Heights.

MELISSA ERRICO NIGHT 1: Fri., April 26, 7:30 p.m., $30. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745.

MELISSA ERRICO NIGHT 2: Sat., April 27, 7:30 p.m., $30. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745.

MELISSA ETHERIDGE AND INDIGO GIRLS: Tue., Aug. 13, 7 p.m., $57-$101.50. St. Louis Music Park, 750 Casino Center Dr., Maryland Heights, 314-451-2244.

THE MOUNTAIN GOATS: Sat., April 20, 8 p.m., $49.50. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

NOAH KAHAN: Tue., June 4, 8 p.m., $49.50-$345. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

SAMMY HAGAR: W/ Loverboy, Sat., Aug. 31, 7 p.m., $35-$499.50. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre, I-70 & Earth City Expwy., Maryland Heights, 314-298-9944.

SARAH MCLACHLAN: Mon., June 10, 7:30 p.m., $40.50-$110.50. St. Louis Music Park, 750 Casino Center Dr., Maryland Heights, 314-451-2244.

SAY ANYTHING: Sat., May 18, 8 p.m., $36.50$51.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

SHANNON AND THE CLAMS: Mon., June 10, 8 p.m., $20-$25. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

SILENT HOLLOW - EP RELEASE: Sat., April 20, 8 p.m., $12. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

SILVERSUN PICKUPS: Thu., April 25, 8 p.m., $150. The Hawthorn, 2225 Washington Avenue, St. Louis.

SLOWDIVE: W/ Drab Majesty, Sat., May 4, 8 p.m., $37.50-$50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

SOFTCULT: Mon., July 22, 8 p.m., $20. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

STEVIE NICKS: Tue., May 7, 7 p.m., $54.50-$996. Enterprise Center, 1401 Clark Ave., St. Louis, 314-241-1888.

SUM 41: Wed., April 24, 7 p.m., $59.50-$69.50. The Factory, 17105 N Outer 40 Rd, Chesterfield, 314-423-8500.

SWANS: Fri., May 10, 8 p.m., $30. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

THE ALARM: Mon., May 6, 8 p.m., $30. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

THE DECEMBERISTS: Fri., May 17, 8 p.m., $42$62. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

THE WALLFLOWERS: Tue., July 16, 8 p.m., $29.50$49.50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

TRAIN & REO SPEEDWAGON: Tue., July 16, 6:25 p.m., $36-$150.50. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre - St. Louis, MO, 14141 Riverport Dr, Maryland Heights.

USHER: Fri., Oct. 25, 8 p.m., $45.50-$295.50. Sat., Oct. 26, 8 p.m., $45.50-$245.50. Enterprise Center, 1401 Clark Ave., St. Louis, 314-241-1888.

VAMPIRE WEEKEND: Thu., July 25, 7 p.m., $39.50-$89.50. Centene Community Ice Center, 750 Casino Center Dr, Maryland Heights.

WAXAHATCHEE: Fri., Aug. 23, 8 p.m., $35-$50. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

WILLIE NELSON, BOB DYLAN, JOHN MELLEN-

CAMP: Sun., Sept. 8, 3:30 p.m., $29.50-$400. Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre - St. Louis, MO, 14141 Riverport Dr, Maryland Heights. n

Black Flag. | ROB WALLACE

SAVAGE LOVE

Power Moves

BY DAN SAVAGE

I have a history of dating men I’m not attracted to physically or emotionally. I always found it weirdly comforting to know my boyfriend was obsessed with me while I had minimal feelings for him. I have explored this in therapy and chalk it up to lack of self-confidence. But a month ago I started hanging out with this guy and it’s the first relationship I’ve been in that isn’t one sided. It’s also the first relationship I’ve been in where the guy wasn’t pushing me to “define the relationship” after a month. This has led to me feeling quite vulnerable and afraid. For the first time in a long time, I’m dating a guy that I not only like but find very attractive and now I’m terrified it will end. This fear has led me to keep my feelings to myself. In previous relationships where I was the one with the upper hand, I found it easier to speak up because I felt in control and didn’t really care if it ended. I am now in a place where I’m afraid to speak for fear of saying the wrong thing. I want to know what his intentions are, but I don’t want to place undue pressure him either. I’m craving more validation than I’m getting from him because I got used to being smothered with validation in all my previous relationships, but I don’t know how to bring this up without making it seem like I am trying to DTR. Any advice?

Naked And Afraid

I wouldn’t chalk up the choices you’ve made in the past — only dating men you weren’t attracted to, only dating men you could take or leave, only dating men you held in what sounds like contempt — to a lack of selfconfidence. Frankly, I’m a little mystified that your therapist endorsed that interpretation. You either had one of those therapists who thinks it’s their job to help clients construct self-serving rationalizations for their shitty behavior — explanations that center their client as victims — or you came up with that rationalization on your own and your therapist never got around to challenging you on it.

So, I’m going to challenge you.

I don’t think you have self-confidence issues, NAA, I think you have control issues. You only dated men you didn’t care about — you only dated men you weren’t attracted to physically or emotionally — because you wanted to have “the upper hand.” You

wanted all the power, all the leverage, and all the control. You not only dated only men you could take or leave, NAA, you seemed to go out of your way to find men who couldn’t leave you. That is not the weak-ass move of a person who lacks self-confidence, NAA, that’s a cold-hearted power play executed by a control freak. I’m glad you got into therapy and it seems to have done you some good — you’re currently dating someone you’re attracted to and for the first time experiencing feelings most humans experience when we meet someone we like — and if that shallow pseudo-epiphany you had in therapy (“I lack selfconfidence!”) helped you make different and better choices, NAA, then it did you some good. But I think you have more to unpack, perhaps with a different therapist.

Zooming out for a second: Lots of us have been there. We were dating someone we could take or leave and realized that person was falling in love with us. When that happens — when someone we could take or leave is a lot more invested in the relationship and wants to have those DTR convos — we need to end things as quickly and considerately as possible. But if we only date people we could take or leave, one after another, then we’re leading people on and, even worse, we’re stealing from them. We’re stealing time and energy they could’ve invested in finding a person who cared about them and wanted to take them. A good person doesn’t do that sort of shit — not to people they care about, not to people they don’t care about, not to anyone.

Alright, NAA, what’s going to happen with this new guy? It’s only been a month, so you don’t know him that well, and most new relationships peter out after a month or two. So, there actually isn’t that much at stake here, at least not yet. Most of what you have is hope: You like this guy and you’re hoping you continue to like him as you get to know him better and you’re hoping he likes you too. But if it doesn’t go anywhere — if you have that DTR convo a month or two from now and you learn he’s not as into you as you are him — you may wind up with a broken heart. But getting your heart broken is proof you have one.

Whatever happens, NAA, don’t return to your old shitty and heartless modus operandi. It wasn’t good for the men you dated, and it wasn’t good for you either. Being open to love means being open to pain. You’re open now. Stay open. It’s better this way. You’re better this way.

My boyfriend, who is a 72-year-old man, wants to gift our personal trainer, who is younger and hotter than me, an expensive piece of jewelry. I felt jealous and insecure when he brought this up and I voiced my concerns to her. She told me that she sees the gift as a token of friendship and nothing more and then added that, as her friend, I should want what’s best for her. My boyfriend is a multimillionaire many times over and maybe I don’t understand how rich people give gifts, as I’m not “from” money, but it seems strange. My boyfriend told me to think of it as a bequest — he’s making bequests in his will to 50 or so people after he dies — but the thought of him asking for her permission to give this gift to her without first asking me makes me uncomfortable. It makes me wonder how long he was fantasizing about giving her this gift and why exactly he wants to give it to her so badly. I need a second opinion here.

Girlfriendly Instinct Flagging This

This man is not your husband, he’s your boyfriend; his millions are not your millions, they’re his millions. I can certainly see why thinking about this gift makes you uncomfortable, GIFT, but I don’t see an upside for you in trying to talk your boyfriend out of giving his personal trainer a gift he’s already promised her. The only leverage you have over him is the threat of a breakup, GIFT, but where will issuing that threat get you? Best-case scenario, your boyfriend rescinds the offer but resents you and your personal trainer, whom you consider a friend, feels jerked around by both of you and distances herself; worst-case scenario, you wind up single and written out of the will — assuming you’re among the fortunate 50 or so — and your personal trainer gets that expensive piece of jewelry and possibly more.

If I may, GIFT, I’d like to address the elephant in the room/question/ gym: You’re worried your boyfriend is only giving this woman this extravagant gift because he wants to fuck her. I can confidently assure you that your boyfriend absolutely, positively, without a doubt wants to fuck his personal trainer. Because no one in the long, sordid history of personal trainers has ever hired a personal trainer they didn’t wanna fuck. But just because someone wants to fuck their personal trainer doesn’t mean they would fuck their personal trainer. Your boyfriend can wanna fuck his personal trainer and give her a gift that essentially says, “I would if I could,” and still wanna honor the monogamous commitment

he’s (presumably) made to you. While legitimately concerning, these two things — your boyfriend signaling to someone else that he would fuck them if he could and your boyfriend remaining faithful to you — are not mutually exclusive.

Though personal trainers sometimes ingratiate themselves to clients by engaging in a little harmless flirtation, very few personal trainers actually wanna fuck their clients — especially their elderly and/or monogamously partnered clients — and vastly fewer actually do fuck their clients. And based on what you shared about that gift-block convo you had with your personal trainer, GIFT, it doesn’t sound like she’s interested in your boyfriend sexually, gift or no gift. So, while your boyfriend may get a little thrill out of giving this woman a piece of jewelry, she almost certainly regards this gift — a gift that, again, was already promised to her — as a very generous tip from a very well-off client that she doesn’t wanna see naked.

My GF and I are great in the sack together — and the floor, and the stairs, and the lawn, and the tent and the fireside — and it feels like we’ve been doing this all our lives, since the moment we took our first breath, and by the time we finally drift off we’re tranced out in a post orgasmic love bubble of such cosmic-eternal elasticity it feels as though our connection has no beginning and no end. The other night in the shower she said I have a “Rolls Royce cock.” Can I put that on my anonymous Feeld profile with her permission? I mean, she’s right. It works a treat. But I feel a bit weird bragging about my own dick like this. Partly because for many years I had what we might kindly refer to as a rapid climax problem. Now that I’ve gotten a little older, those days are behind me, and everything is coming together. So, can I put “Rolls Royce Cock” in my Feeld profile? I got as far as typing it in but then I thought, ugh, seems a bit self-involved. What do you think?

Rapturously Received Compliment

There are places a man shouldn’t brag about his cock — on Zoom calls, on international flights, on main — but a man can brag about his cock on his anonymous Feeld profile. Go for it.

Got problems? Yes, you do. Send your question to mailbox@savage.love! Podcasts, columns and more at Savage.Love