Riverfront Times - August 16, 2017

AUGUST 16–22, 2017 I VOLUME 41 I NUMBER 33

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ALL THE RIGHT

MOVES For jockeys at Fairmount Park, the stakes are higher than ever Written by

MIKE FITZGERALD Photos by

ZIA NIZAMI

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TABLE OF CONTENTS FEATURE

12.

All the Right Moves For jockeys at Fairmount Park, the stakes are higher than ever

Publisher Chris Keating Editor in Chief Sarah Fenske E D I T O R I A L Arts & Culture Editor Paul Friswold Music Editor Daniel Hill Digital Editor Elizabeth Semko Staff Writers Doyle Murphy, Danny Wicentowski Restaurant Critic Cheryl Baehr Film Critic Robert Hunt Contributing Writers Mike Appelstein, Allison Babka, Sara Graham, Roy Kasten, Jaime Lees, Joseph Hess, Kevin Korinek, Bob McMahon, Nicholas Phillips, Tef Poe, Christian Schaeffer, Mabel Suen, Lauren Milford, Thomas Crone, MaryAnn Johanson, Jenn DeRose Editorial Interns Quinn Wilson, Sara Bannoura, Taylor Vinson, Sabrina Medler

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Written by

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NEWS

CULTURE

DINING

MUSIC

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The Lede

Calendar

Your friend or neighbor, captured on camera

Seven days worth of great stuff to see and do

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28

Lawsuit Targets Scottrade Earmark

Alderwoman Cara Spencer wants to stop the city from paying for renovations at the home of the Blues

Film

Robert Hunt considers The Hippopotamus

Strange Folk Is on the Move

The festival said it was moving to Lafayette Square Park, but something got lost in translation

A lawsuit between the taxi commission and a horse carriage operator gets city intervention

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AUGUST 16-22, 2017

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B-Sides

Side Dish

Three decades after “Walking on Sunshine,” Katrina Leskanich marches on

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Mike Herr Continual Debrief

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NEWS Scottrade Earmark Triggers Suit Written by

DOYLE MURPHY

T

he St. Louis Blues owners can’t renovate the Scottrade Center with taxpayers’ money, because that would violate the state constitution, a new lawsuit argues.

The $64 million project was approved by the city’s Board of Aldermen in February. Work has already begun, but the lawsuit claims the aldermen voted for the deal under the false premise that the city owns the arena and is responsible for its upkeep.

“That’s false,” says Alderwoman Cara Spencer, who brought the suit along with former City Counselor James Wilson and former state Rep. Jeanette Oxford. “The city doesn’t own the building. We own the land.”

According to the suit, the city retains only “bare title” to the property, which essentially gives it zero control for the site during the 50-year life of the agreement.

The Blues parent company pays $1 in annual rent and zero property taxes, even as it collects the profits. But it also takes on responsibility for maintaining the building, including renovations, the suit says.

The lease, signed in 1992, makes that part “very, very clear,” Spencer says. But that critical bit of information wasn’t clear to aldermen who were debating the project earlier this year, she says.

That’s because they did not have a copy of the lease.

Spencer says she and others have tried to get the document for months, even filing an open records request that has yet to be fulfilled. They were eventually able to get copies through an undisclosed source, she says.

“When I finally got my hands on the lease, I was disgusted,” Spencer says.

Continued on pg 10

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Alderwoman Cara Spencer is suing the city over its “gift” to the operators of Scottrade Center. | PHOTO BY QUINN WILSON

Strange Folk Festival Is on the Move Again

S

trange Folk Festival will take place the weekend of September 22 in Lafayette Square Park — or at least that’s what the paying vendors have been told.

But though all the promotional materials and vendor applications claimed up until last week that the event will occur at the city park, organizer Autumn Wiggins has yet to secure the actual permits and requirements. Those who represent the neighborhood don’t anticipate her acquiring them any time soon.

After receiving inquiries from Riverfront Times, Wiggins updated the event’s website to remove the park location. With just a month before the event, Wiggins confirms she’s pivoting to a new location. She says she’s op-

AUGUST 16-22, 2017

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timistic about a place that she is not ready to announce just yet.

The Strange Folk Festival has had a multitude of homes in the last few years. From its original location in Wiggins’ hometown of O’Fallon, Illinois, to a one-time event in Union Station and then to Lafayette Square last year, Strange Folk has been a festival on wheels. Wiggins enjoyed the Lafayette Square location last year, but wanted to move it to Lafayette Square Park to combat the heat and to create more opportunities for art.

“The streets aren’t good for us,” Wiggins says. “We like to do a lot of atmospheric installations and we like shaded walking paths. We’re just trying to create this really chill atmosphere in a park.”

Wiggins spoke with the city officials and the parks department last October and inquired about the availability of the space for her event this fall. After she talked to the officials, she took

their conversations to mean that the park had been properly reserved.

“There’s no timeline to get this and this and this by this date,” Wiggins says. “When we reserved the park with the city there were no instructions to say now get your support letters. We thought we did everything we needed.”

The process, however, is not that simple. To secure an event in the area you need to acquire letters of support from the Lafayette Park Conservancy, the Lafayette Square Business Association and the Lafayette Square Restoration Committee, and you must acquire a special events permit and a permit from the Parks department. As of press time, Wiggins was zero for five.

Though Wiggins chalks this up to a “miscommunication,” officials have been in contact with her about the requirements since May, says David Merideth, president of the Lafayette Square Restoration Committee.

And it doesn’t look like Wiggins will

be able to meet these requirements any time soon. Alderman Jack Coatar, who represents one-half of Lafayette Square, says it’s simply not possible for an event of Strange Folk’s size to occur in the park. Because it’s entirely maintained by volunteers from the Lafayette Park Conservancy, the park is “not equipped to handle a 30,000-person event,” Coatar says.

It doesn’t help that Wiggins has lost favor with the Lafayette Square entities. Last year, the Lafayette Square Business Association and the Lafayette Square Restoration Committee met with Wiggins to discuss the event.

They agreed to let Wiggins host the festival under two conditions: first, that neighborhood businesses would get free booths at the event, and second, that Wiggins would donate $5,000 to the neighborhood committee. Tamara Keefe, president of the Lafayette Square Business Association and owner of Clementine’s Creamery in the area, says that Wiggins didn’t come through on either.

Keefe says all the local neighborhood booths were “segregated” off to a side street, and thereby didn’t receive much business last year. (Wiggins defends the set-up, saying that “it made sense to put them where they were.”) Keefe also says that Wiggins had promised not to have duplicate businesses of the neighborhood ones, but failed to make good on that promise. Keefe, for one, found herself competing against another ice cream vendor.

In addition, Wiggins backpedalled on the $5,000 donation. She tells RFT that there was “no paperwork” and that after the event she “never heard anything about it” from the Lafayette Square Restoration Committee.

(In recent weeks, following pressure from Coatar, Wiggins has donated the $5,000 to the neighborhood committee.)

Neighborhood leaders say they were surprised to see Wiggins continue to promote the event as occurring within Lafayette Square Park, even though “she’s been told in no uncertain terms that she will not be able to do this in Lafayette Square Park,” Merideth says.

Wiggins has since changed the website to say “location TBA.” “As of right now we want to be open about what’s going on: We are definitely having Strange Folk, all of our bands are lined up — the festival is basically ready just to drop in somewhere,” Wig-

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Autumn Wiggins in Lafayette Park last year. Wiggins plans to move her festival. | DOYLE MURPHY gins says. “We want to let people know where it is as soon as we get the green light.”

Wiggins has looked into Kiener Plaza downtown as a possible venue.

Though Alderman Coatar agreed it would be a “great location,” he suggested the necessary street closures may be a problem, especially on the same weekend as a Cardinal’s game.

Coatar has offered to let Wiggins host the event in Lafayette Square on the streets, as it was last year, as long as she would promise to intersperse the booths for local businesses and cooperate with a few restrictions.

“Lafayette Square is very interested in having the event again,” Coatar says. “We thought it was a great event and it was well-attended, but I guess the organizer didn’t want to go that route.”

Wiggins says she believes that the new locations she’s considering have advantages over Lafayette Park.

“We are not going to compromise on what our needs are for logistics,” Wiggins says. “Strange Folk has happened in all kinds of places. I know we have other localities and I want to have it where I want to have it, because I think I know what’s best for the vendors.”

Nevertheless, Keefe questions why it’s taken Wiggins this long to acknowledge the fact. Emails from the city to

Wiggins in June made clear the park was a no-go.

“She’s misleading all of these vendors and collecting money when they think it’s going to be in one place in a certain kind of environment and it’s not,” Keefe says. “She’s using the reputation of the neighborhood to lure people in and spend money.”

However, Wiggins insists that her vendors are her top priority. She didn’t want to “panic” vendors before she had a location locked down.

“We decided to let everybody have their summer not to worry about it,” Wiggins says. “We’re letting our vendors know right now what’s going on.

We don’t anticipate that they are going to have any problems with this location at all. Our vendors are super dedicated and they know it’s going to be great no matter where it is.”

As for the new location, Wiggins hopes to announce in the next few weeks. She’s in the process of getting these permits and “everybody’s at the table now.” Though the location change caused some frenzy, she’s actually excited about the new home.

“Every single place that I envision Strange Folk in has a completely different feel to it,” Wiggins says. “On one hand we were bummed out, but on the other hand it was totally serendipity.”

—Sabrina Medler riverfronttimes.com

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City Joins Horse Carriage Fight

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Scottrade Center is the home of the St. Louis Blues. | FLICKR/PAUL SABLEMAN

GRILL

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SCOTTRADE EARMARK Continued from pg 8 The lawsuit points to a portion of the agreement saying the Blues owners are responsible for “all sums for maintenance, repair and replacement of improvements...”

The city signed the deal in 1992 in part to rid itself of the $800,000 it was paying annually to maintain the crumbling Kiel Auditorium. It was considered a financial benefit to taxpayers back then, but opponents of the latest agreement to fund the renovation say the $64 million in bonds pledged by the city would only benefit the owners of the Blues.

And that’s a violation of a provision of the state constitution that bans the use of public money to enrich private entities, the suit alleges.

“The situation is akin to that of a woman who owns land, who leases full use of her land to a family for 50 years, retaining only bare legal title,” according to the suit. “The family builds a big house, then halfway through the lease complains that she should buy them a big-screen TV and swimming pool for their house simply because she is the ‘owner.’”

Including interest, the 30-year bonds would ultimately cost the city nearly $106 million. So far, city Comptroller Darlene Green has refused to sign off on the transaction to issue the bonds, asking all parties to find another way to pay

for the renovation. She argues in a statement to reporters that the city can’t take on more debt for non-essential services, especially when the city’s credit rating has been downgraded twice in less than six months.

The suit names the city, the city Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority, the Blues and Kiel Center Partners. St. Louis City Counselor Michael Garvin issued a statement last week that points out the funding went through multiple approvals in the city before it was signed by then-Mayor Francis Slay. He declined to comment on specifics of the suit, but said the city would “vigorously defend” its ordinances and agreements.

Spencer says the city doesn’t have enough money for basic services, including policing or maintaining the thousands of vacant houses it truly owns and controls.

The suit is not an attempt to stop the renovation, Spencer says. She describes it as a way to “reset” the arrangement and consider other options. One solution is to create regional sports authorities that could spread the costs for projects such as this, or the failed bid for a downtown soccer arena, more fairly across all the people that use them, she says.

“The city makes up one-tenth of the entire region, and we happen to be the poorest one tenth,” Spencer says. “We cannot afford to subsidize the funding of these entertainment venues alone.” n

or nearly a year, the enforcement of any rules governing horse carriages in St. Louis city have been snarled by an ongoing lawsuit between a carriage company and the Metropolitan Taxicab Commission, or MTC. Now, thanks to a St. Louis County judge’s ruling last week, the city of St. Louis will join the fray. That sets the stage for what could be an actual legal reckoning between the ever-squabbling parties.

How did we get here? Basically, the MTC has staked out a somewhat contradictory position on whether it has the right to issue vehicle-for-hire licenses and enforce street codes on anything other than taxicabs. The horse carriage company, Brookdale Farms, insists Missouri law doesn’t give MTC the right to regulate its business. MTC insists just the opposite.

The confusion over vehicle-for-hire regulations goes way back, but escalated in September 2016, when the MTC issued a cease-and-desist order on Brookdale Farms. MTC accused the Eureka-based company of running unlicensed carriages and working in dangerously high levels of heat and humidity, violating MTC rules.

Brookdale disputed the accusations, and one month later the company sued MTC in a St. Louis County court.

The lawsuit argued the agency had no authority to enforce any of its rules on horse carriages, and St. Louis County Circuit Judge Kristine Kerr agreed — saying that MTC could only regulate vehicles with taximeters. That would exclude horse carriages by definition.

Although Kerr’s ruling only concerned Brookdale, MTC decided to stand down. An MTC lawyer later cited Kerr’s order in a response to an animal rights attorney’s inquiry, writing: “We are under a court order from Judge Kerr in St. Louis County not to enforce the carriage portion of the code.”

After RFT revealed that MTC had retreated from its role as a regulator, Brookdale’s lawsuit suddenly emerged from dormancy. In June, a St. Louis city attorney filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit.

Still, the matter of who’s in charge remains complicated.

For example, in the midst of a brief arguing that the city should be allowed to represent its interests in court, the city acknowledges that the MTC doesn’t seem entirely happy with shouldering the burden of regulating horse carriages.

“There is some indication that MTC

would not strenuously object to being relieved of the duty and expense of regulating the horse carriages,” the city states in motion filed last week.

However, as noted later in the filing, St. Louis also believes it stands to benefit from ensuring that the cost and burden are split between the MTC and the city health department, which conducts inspections on horse stables and monitors the animals’ health.

The city’s motion also includes evidence that MTC enforcement officers have continued to ticket Brookdale carriages for violating the commission’s vehicle for hire codes — the

same codes, mind you, that Judge Kerr ruled couldn’t be extended to vehicles without taximeters. Because of Kerr’s ruling, “at least” ten citations are frozen in St. Louis Municipal Court.

Two of those violations come from the same day last August, when an MTC agent issued tickets to two drivers for operating without an MTC license and for working the horses on a day when the heat index hit 102 degrees.

The city’s court filing includes copies of emails the MTC sent to Brookdale owner Jerry Kirk earlier that day, warning of the high temperature. The paperwork records one Brookdale car-

riage driver explaining to an MTC agent why she was on the street despite the heat advisory: “My boss told me to keep working.”

In an interview last Thursday, Brookdale owner Jerry Kirk disputes the allegations described in the ticket. He also denies ordering his drivers to work despite the high heat index. “I don’t believe for one second that the driver said that,” Kirk says.

The city’s motion to join the case was granted last Tuesday. A case management conference for the lawsuit has been scheduled for August 31.

— Danny Wicentowski

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ALL THE RIGHT

MOVES

For jockeys at Fairmount Park, the stakes are higher than ever Written by

MIKE FITZGERALD Photos by

M

ZIA NIZAMI

ike James never knew his father.

C.H. “Rusty” James, a thoroughbred horse jockey, died in 1962 after an accident during a race in Decatur, Illinois. Mike was just nineteen months old at the time.

The younger James chuckles at the irony that he himself has spent his entire adult life — nearly 40 years — as a thoroughbred jockey, in spite of the way his father died. He doubts his father would have wanted him to follow the same career path.

“He would have tried to discourage me from doing it, because it’s such a rough life. It’s such a rough profession,” James says.

“It’s hard, it’s dangerous, you know. You really don’t want your children to grow up and do something that you do that is so dangerous.”

James, 56, is a survivor.

After riding in more than 12,000 races — winning 1,200, and counting — James has endured a broken collarbone, broken pelvis, broken right femur and more concussions than he can remember. Married five times, the father of five is mulling whether this year at the nearby Fairmount Park racetrack will be his last.

James admits it’s getting harder to stay in the business, in large part because of the economic struggles facing the industry. At Fairmount, the number of race days has dwindled to only two per week, purse sizes remain small relative to the bigger tracks around Chicago, and the proliferation of legalized gambling in Illinois and Missouri — as well as countless other entertainment options — has bitten deeply into the horse racing industry’s profits and market share.

There is also the matter of age. James is the oldest jockey at Fairmount, and one of the oldest in a grueling profession in which most participants quit before they turn 30. There are jockeys out there older than James — the legendary Cowboy Jones raced into his early 70s — but they are few.

James has already quit horse racing three times to make his living as a long-haul truck driver, but the sport keeps calling him back. “Riding a race is a feeling you can’t really describe,” he says. “It’s you and the horse and the other people around you.

Continued on pg 14 It’s not for the faint-hearted, believe me.”

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AUGUST 16-22, 2017

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Apprentice jockey Brooke Stillion rides at Fairmount Park. Stillion is one of about two dozen jockeys who race at the track.

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13

Mikes James and his horse Maelstrom edge out Victor Jadhir Bailon and Wallstreet Josh for the win.

ALL THE RIGHT MOVES Continued from pg 13 Veteran jockey Mike James.

His father, shown below, was a jockey who perished after a racing accident.

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At the end of the current season, James says he will take stock and decide if it’s the right time to hang it up and move on to something else.

Maybe start all over again, this time as a horse trainer.

“My body is telling me it’s time.

My mind and my heart are telling me it’s not,” he says. “It’s kind of a catch-22. I’m trying to face reality and it’s hard to do. I would like to do it as long as I possibly can.”

James stands in the kitchen of the tidy Collinsville house that he shares with his mother Nancy. He wears a sleeveless T-shirt. In the shirt’s front pocket: a pack of L&M cigarettes.

James admits smoking is bad for him, and that family members hassle him for it, but the habit has its purposes. He nods to the refrigerator a few feet away.

“If I quit smoking my head would be in there 24/7,” he says.

A

mong professional athletes, jockeys are the worst-paid and suffer the worst injuries.

The winning horse’s owners get 60 percent of the purse, while the winning jockey gets just 10 percent. That means the winning jockey of a race with a purse worth, say, $5,000 gets $500.

And not everyone wins, of course. The horse owners finishing second and third get 20 and 10 percent of the purse, respectively, with those winnings further cut by fees usually paid to agents and equipment valets. This leaves precious little for the jockeys. At Fairmount, a second-place finish earns a jockey just $70. Third place scores $60. Everyone below that takes home $55.

In 2012, Ramon Dominguez was America’s top-earning jockey.

He rode horses that won pursues totaling more than $25 million,

earning him an estimated $2 million. However, the great majority of America’s 1,300 jockeys earn between $35,000 and $40,000 per year. Some apprentice jockeys at smaller tracks earn so few prize dollars they must take second jobs to support themselves, according to CNN Money.

The relatively low pay for most jockeys is one thing, but the toll on the body can be even worse.

The trick to being a successful horse jockey is to be both light and strong. Even though there is a premium on lightness, jockeys know that weighing too little will undercut the tremendous strength needed to control the enormously muscled, often temperamental and unpredictable horses they are riding.

But maintaining that strength while remaining light is a tightrope act for most jockeys, a job demand that requires tremendous self-discipline and knowl-

riverfronttimes.com

edge of their own bodies.

While there is no real maximum weight for jockeys, most try to stay under 116 pounds. To keep their weight down, especially as they get older, jockeys resort to a variety of tricks and techniques.

They smoke cigarettes. They spend hours in saunas or run endless miles swaddled in towels and rubber sweatsuits. They follow extremely low-calorie diets in which breakfast might consist of a single egg, lunch a salad and dinner small portions of broiled chicken and rice.

When jockey Victor Santiago takes his wife and kids out for ice cream, he sticks with a bottle of water.

“You got to be tough on that part,” Santiago says, adding, “I don’t mind doing it.”

Alcohol is something jockeys almost never touch, which can make socializing with non-jockey

AUGUST 16-22, 2017

Continued on pg 16

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ALL THE RIGHT MOVES Continued from pg 15 friends difficult, says apprentice jockey Brooke Stillion, who lives off a diet consisting of “a lot of salads and hard-boiled eggs.”

James Bielby, 49, has been riding as a jockey for 32 years. The hardest part about staying in the game, he says, is “getting older and keeping your weight down the same you did when you were sixteen.”

What’s his secret? “Whatever you have to. A lot of exercise.

Watching your weight. I don’t eat breakfast. I don’t eat lunch.” As for dinner, Bielby says with a wink, “I eat it and throw it back up.”

Bulimia used to be a big problem for jockeys, James says, but he believes it’s less of a problem now.

“I’m fortunate I never had to, and never did,” he says. “But I’ve known a lot of people who have done it.”

In his early days as a rider, James says, he had a jockey friend who regularly purged. When the jockeys would hang out, the friend would scarf down grocery bags full of food. “He’d sit there and eat almost a whole bag of food and drink a whole liter of pop,” James recalls. “And he’d get up after he was done and go to the bathroom and get rid of it, sit back down and start eating again.”

James has lived a hard life, and his face is etched with the creases and grooves to prove it. But after nearly a lifetime of fighting to rasp his weight down to a tight 110 pounds, yet remaining strong enough to control 1,200-pound animals surging at 40 miles per hour, he has the sway-backed build of a college wrestler: V-shaped torso, thick upper arms and sinewy, wedge-shaped forearms.

James attributes his long career to his high metabolism, which has

enabled him to avoid extreme diets or other techniques to keep his weight low, though he admits it’s been a battle to get his weight where he wants it.

“I’m feeling better about myself because I got the weight back down, but it took me five years to do it,” he says.

James is one of about two dozen jockeys who are riding at Fairmount Park this season. Some of the more established jockeys, such as Santiago, supplement their incomes by driving up to Chicago for Friday races at bigger tracks such as Hawthorne Race Course and Arlington International Racecourse.

A powerful camaraderie binds the jockeys together after months or even years of racing against each other. But those friendships never get in the way of the jockeys’ intense desire — and economic need — to win every time they mount a horse for a race.

The stakes go even higher than money. Between 1940 and 2015, at least 154 jockeys died on U.S. race tracks, according to the Jockeys’ Guild. In addition, 71 jockeys are being helped by the Permanently Disabled Jockey Fund, a charity set

up by the Guild. But the injured jockeys only receive about $1,000 a month from the fund.

One of the jockeys being helped by the fund is John Capizzi, 69.

Capizzi had won more than 1,000 races in his 35-year career as a jockey. But in June 2014, Capizzi suffered a severe spinal injury when the horse he was exercising around the Fairmount track suddenly pulled up and fell.

Capizzi was taken to Anderson Hospital in Granite City, then moved by air ambulance to St. Louis University Hospital.

“The only time I get to ride in a helicopter and I don’t remember it,” Capizzi says.

Capizzi spent three months in rehab and today moves with the aid of a walker. Adjusting to his spinal injury has been hard, he says.

“You can’t get away from the inside of your head,” he says.

“I wish the horse had killed me rather than go through this. All my liberties got taken away. I can’t drive. Everything I do is a job. Taking a shower is a job. My bowels and bladder are so messed up, it’s terrible.”

I

n the morning at Fairmount Park, on the days between races, the track is nearly quiet. A stiff breeze rolls in waves through the infield grass. Off in the near distance you can hear the calls of songbirds, and then further away, the steady rumble of cars and semis on nearby Interstate 255.

Apprentice jockey Brooke Stillion is giving a workout to some of the thoroughbreds stabled next door to Fairmount’s one-mile dirt track.

She rides them hard, pushing them to gallop at a brisk clip in a practice known as “breezing,” which boosts their fitness and tests their readiness for racing.

Of the jockeys who compete at Fairmount Park, Stillion stands out for a few reasons. For one thing, she’s the only apprentice at Fairmount this season. Still in her second year as a jockey at age 29, she’s gotten a late start in a game whose players usually are riding professionally by their late teens.

She’s also a woman. Just ten percent of American jockeys are female. Stillion is the only woman riding at Fairmount this year.

“It is tough being a girl in the sense that not a whole lot of train-

riverfronttimes.com

ers give you a shot,” says Stillion.

“So you have to work extra hard to prove yourself.” She adds, “For trainers who don’t want to give me a shot, I always try to beat their horse in the race.”

As a little girl growing up in California, Stillion loved horses — something unique in her family.

Of her parents, she says, “I begged them to get me a horse. I carried little stuffed horse animals around.

I don’t know where that comes from.”

Stillion got into jockeying in a roundabout way. She started out riding hunter-jumpers in California, but then became friends with a few of the jockeys who rode at a local racetrack. She wanted to learn how to make a horse gallop, but didn’t like it and moved on.

In her twenties, she moved to Oklahoma, where she found herself working on a farm. Something clicked for her, and the idea of racing horses for a living started to make sense.

“And I fell in love with it,” she says.

Her family didn’t get it. “For the longest time they kept asking when

AUGUST 16-22, 2017

Continued on pg 18

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“For the longest time, they kept asking when I was going to get a real job,” says Brooke Stillion of her family. “They didn’t like the danger aspect of it.”

Brooke Stillion is a rarity: a female jockey.

ALL THE RIGHT MOVES Continued from pg 17 I was going to get a real job,” she says. “They didn’t like the danger aspect of it. But it’s really funny; now they’re starting to really get into it.”

These days, she thinks about the impact she can have on younger girls.

“I like to promote racing,” she says. “Not many people know that females can do this. Because there aren’t that many.”

Stillion laments the fact that her season has been filled with nearmisses. “I’ve had ‘seconditis,’” she says. “I’ve run a bunch of seconds.”

Still, she says, “My horses keep running second, which is better than last.”

In her first year, the other jockeys freely gave advice.

“This year they’re not so nice,” she says. “They’ll help me if I have

a question, but they’re not as willing to lend out information, advice, you know.”

A few weeks before, in a daytime race at Fairmount, James’ horse cut in front of Stillion’s as they were coming around the turn, causing Stillion to check her horse. Each jockey blamed the other for the mishap. Stillion filed a protest, and track officials ruled in her favor — mightily pissing off the older jockey.

Stillion says she’s nearly forgotten the incident.

“That’s old,” she says. “I put it behind me and I’m just moving forward now.”

T

horoughbred horse racing is known as the sport of kings, but for decades dark clouds have been gathering over it.

Horse-riding has a rollercoaster relationship with the public. When a superstar horse like

American Pharoah — which won the American Triple Crown and the Breeder’s Cup in 2015 — captures headlines, the sport enjoys a huge burst of popularity.

But these surges of interest are short-lived and have done little to arrest the sport’s steady decline over the last four decades.

A January 2016 Harris poll showed that only one percent of Americans listed horse racing as their favorite sport. It stands out as the nation’s thirteenth most popular sport, behind swimming and track and field. Three decades earlier, four percent of Americans chose it, and it notched a ranking as the nation’s eighth most popular sport.

What’s more, the money wagered on horse racing has dropped steadily. In 2003, Americans wagered $15.2 billion on horse racing. By 2015, that number had fallen to $10.6 billion, according

to a study by the Jockey Club, the breed registry for thoroughbred horses in the U.S. and Canada.

Fairmount Park Racetrack, which opened in 1925, is one of five active racetracks in Illinois, and the only one outside the Chicago area. (Missouri lacks horse-racing tracks entirely.

While it is legal to bet on a horse race in the Show Me State, the limited number of racing days allowed under state law has convinced investors that opening a track here won’t make economic sense.)

Fairmount Park as recently as 1997 offered as many as 232 live racing days per year, including harness racing. But harness racing ended there in 1999, and the legalization of riverboat casinos in Illinois nearly a decade earlier immediately began siphoning away gamblers eager to partake of slot machines and

other less-complicated forms of wagering.

Fairmount Park’s racing schedule has dropped from five days per week to only two — Tuesday afternoons and Saturday nights.

John Sloan, a racetrack spokesman, recalled that when he began representing Fairmount two decades ago, the number of thoroughbred racing dates was 100.

Now the season covers 42 racing dates running from May through September.

Sloan blames the reduction in race days on a nationwide shortage of thoroughbred horses, in turn caused by the advent of slot machines at other racetracks.

These so-called “racinos” have “been an enormous success revitalizing tracks around the country,” Sloan says. “So we can’t compete, because those tracks have so much more revenue. We can’t compete in purses as much

riverfronttimes.com

as we’d like to. So it’s tougher and tougher to get good horses to run.

That’s one reason we have fewer dates than we once did.”

With smaller purses, tracks like Fairmount have a harder time attracting better-known horses and jockeys, which means Fairmount doesn’t get the media attention devoted to larger racetracks.

When the season ends in September, more established riders like Santiago and James commute to Hawthorne Race Course, near Chicago, whose thoroughbred racing season ends in December.

Fairmount’s supporters have for years been trying to bring slot machines to the racetrack. In February, the Illinois Senate seemed to favor a bill to expand casino gambling. The measure would have allowed Illinois racetracks to install slots and other video gambling devices.

“We have Continued on pg 20

AUGUST 16-22, 2017

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19

James Bielby loves racetrack camaraderie: “It’s a bunch of sick sons of bitches.”

Gregory F.X. Daly Collector of Revenue

Public NOTICE Suits have been filed on the properties listed on the Collector of Revenue website.

www.StLouisCollector.com Collector of Revenue Office St. Louis City Hall Room 109 1200 Market Street St. Louis, MO 63103-2895 Phone: (314) 622-4105 | Fax: (314) 589-6731 Email: propertytaxdept@stlouis-mo.gov Hours of Operation: Mon. - Fri., 8:00am - 5:00pm

ALL THE RIGHT MOVES Continued from pg 19 to get purses up and we have to put a better product on the race track,” racetrack president Brian Zander said in a newspaper interview at the time. “To the extent that we’ve been trying to get this done to compete with the states that surround us, we are a long way from the finish line — to use a horse-racing term.”

Like so much else in Illinois, however, the latest effort to bring slots to Fairmount Park and other tracks fell victim earlier this year to partisan politics and the state’s long-running fiscal mess.

On May 31, the Illinois General Assembly ended its regular session without passing a budget.

It wasn’t until early July that the Illinois House overrode Gov. Bruce Rauner’s veto of an earlier spending plan — providing the state with its first budget in more than two years.

O

n a steaming hot afternoon in July at Fairmount, however, the challenges facing the track seem a long way off.

It’s Horse Hooky Tuesday, and hundreds of people have flocked here to enjoy cheap beer, an afternoon in the sun and the excitement of watching the fabled “Sport of Kings” up close. They also enjoy the chance to win a few bucks by betting on the races at the track, or those being televised from tracks around the country.

Lorraine Tallevast of St. Louis has been visiting the track for many years with her family.

“It’s the atmosphere. It’s fun. It’s a cheap day out,” says Tallevast, who sits next to her two young grandsons.

Tallevast recalls how in years past the track would feature many more races. “They used to run all the time,” she says. “I don’t think it will completely disappear. But I think it will get fewer and fewer

Victor Jadhir Bailon and horse The Pegasus Book lead the pack in a recent race.

and fewer.”

Rich Monteverde, an 86-yearold who also lives in St. Louis, has been coming to the track for many years with his buddies.

“It’s something to do for an old guy,” Monteverde says. “You don’t have to spend a lot of money, and it’s camaraderie with the guys.

That’s the big thing. If I break even I’m happy.”

The camaraderie extends to the Fairmount clubhouse. Built more than 50 years ago, it reeks of cigarette smoke. In the hour before racing begins, a few jockeys sip Red Bull while studying the records of the horses and the jockeys they’ll be riding against that afternoon. TV sets mounted on the walls show thoroughbred races taking place elsewhere across the country.

Bielby says he loves the world inside the clubhouse on race days.

You “listen to music, mess around with your buddies,” he says. “It’s a bunch of sick sons of bitches

getting ready to ride.”

Most of the jockeys chatter in Spanish, since the major pipeline for talent these days is from Mexico, Puerto Rico and other Latin American venues.

Argelio Gino Velazquez, 40, who was born in Mexico, came to Fairmount after getting his start in Chicago. Velazquez has been jockeying for more than two decades.

Velazquez says he still loves the sport, but also acknowledges the challenges facing it.

“Before it seems like it was going to have a future,” he says. “Right now, it’s like things are starting to slow down, not many horses running. Right now it pays the bills.”

Victor Santiago, 31, has been riding for eight years. So far this season he’s posted the most wins at Fairmount.

Born in Puerto Rico, Santiago suffered some painful injuries after falling off a horse a few years ago, including a wrist fractured in five places.

“I fell down and a horse coming from behind hit me with his feet,” he says. “I was still walking so I was good. But it took me two months to get back on track.”

There will always be horse-racing and racetracks, Santiago says.

“But the less there are, the tougher it’s going to get,” he says.

“Because there are jockeys already there.”

Santiago came to Fairmount after making his mark at Belmont Park in upstate New York and other major racetracks. Now he has no desire to leave Fairmount or the church in nearby Fairmont City he started with his wife.

At Belmont, he says, “I was doing all right. But my attitude was not right and I was hurting my family a lot and I was wasting my money.

And God made me humble, took everything from me. I lost my car, my house. I lost everything. And then God just opened up and gave me a second chance and opened up the beautiful doors here.”

M

any people naively assume that jockeys are little more than passengers on the horses they ride. But such a notion is as misguided as believing that playing in the NFL is nothing more than a game of backyard catch. Jockeys use every trick and nugget of experience they can to win a race.

In the July 11 race, James won, and Stillion finished third. But after Stillion filed a protest, arguing that James’ horse had cut in too close to hers, James was knocked to third.

Stillion was moved up to second.

“I knew he was going to do it,” she says, “so I was ready in that spot.

He kept trying to come over, trying to come over, and I was already in the turn, and coming out of this turn he dove over and I had to check my horse. Just diving over on top of me.

I could’ve clipped heels.”

For his part, James accused Stillion of making a rookie mistake.

“My horse come down on top of her a little Continued on pg 22

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ALL THE RIGHT MOVES Continued from pg 21 bit. So I was pushed down on her.

She filed against me on her own stupidity,” he says. “It was inexperience on her part. If it was me, I would’ve got out of there. I have a motto, ‘When in doubt, get the fuck out.’”

When the ruling against him was finalized, James angrily headed for the clubhouse and started undressing out of his racing silks.

“I’m taking off,” he said. “I ain’t riding no more. I can do whatever the hell I want to do. She made a mental mistake when she should’ve got out of the spot where she didn’t belong anyway. They punished me for the mistake.”

It’s two weeks later, a Saturday night card at Fairmount, and both jockeys are set to ride against each other in a mile race.

Stillion rides a horse called Taking Cheap Shots, while James is assigned to Nextalast.

Taking Cheap Shots is the class of the field. The horse sprints to an early lead by the turn, fades for a moment coming into the homestretch, but then, under Stillion’s stick, seemingly finds a hidden gear and accelerates toward the finish — a four-hooved arrow slicing through the cool July night.

Nextalast, the horse James is riding, finishes a close second.

As the winning rider, Stillion is handed a trophy, then poses for photos in the winner’s circle with the

race sponsors. She’s beat her case of seconditis — tonight, she’ll pick up at least $500 for the jockey’s share of the first-prize purse.

Smiling and breathing hard, Stillion signs autographs for a small group of fans, including two girls under the age of ten. Stillion hands one of the girls her race goggles.

But the glow of victory only lasts so long. Stillion’s last race of the night is on a horse named Simply Mauvelous. The horse stumbles coming out of the gate and never recovers. It finishes dead last in a nine-horse field.

“It’s kind of deflating,” she admits.

As for James, he rides in four races, and later pronounces himself pleased with his performance — four second-place finishes. “It didn’t go too bad,” he says.

James has big decisions to make, one of these days.

At 56, he is weary, and he doesn’t bounce back as well as he used to.

He is all too aware of the dangers in staying on the track.

“I don’t want to make the mistake of keep riding and to have something serious happen,” he explains at one point. “It can happen tomorrow. I really want to get out on a winning note, and I’d like to get out on a healthy note.

But tonight, he’s laconic. Bonetired yet proud, he is not in the mood to probe his future.

As for retirement, he isn’t ready to commit, one way or another. He says, “I’m still thinking about it.” n

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It wasn’t that long ago that the Central West End — home to fine dining, hip bars and beautiful people — was a neighborhood on the skids. In the early ‘80s sidewalks were ruptured, storefronts were empty and broad daylight burglaries and car thefts were an everyday occurrence. How did the neighborhood, which began as a rural escape for the city’s wealthy elite in the early 1900s, sink so far?

And more importantly, how did it climb out of that 1980s hole? Candace O’Connor answers those questions in her new book, Renaissance: A History of the Central West End. It’s a lavishly illustrated and thoroughly researched tome that charts the birth, growth, decline and resurrection of a neighborhood through interviews with long-time residents, historical records and numerous photographs. O’Connor discusses and signs copies of Renaissance at 7 p.m. tonight at Left Bank Books (399 North Euclid Avenue; www.leftbank.com). Admission is free, but only books purchased through Left Bank will be signed.

FRIDAY 08/18 In the Heights Last year, R-S Theatrics included a short musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda in its season-opening salvo of short plays. This year, the company goes all-out with a production of Miranda’s first big hit, In the Heights. The musical covers three days in New York City’s Washington Heights neighborhood, which is home to a close-knit Latino community. People fall in love, they question what they’re doing with their lives, and momentous decisions are made about the future, all set to a backdrop of rap and salsa music. R-S Theatrics presents In the Heights at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 7 p.m. Sunday (August 18 to September 3) at .Zack (3224 Locust Street; www.r-stheatrics.com). Tickets are $20 to $25.

Continued on pg 26

St. Louis Fringe Fest returns to satisfy your performing arts needs. | ALLAN CRAIN

BY PAUL FRISWOLD riverfronttimes.com

AUGUST 16-22, 2017

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AND MUCH MORE!

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CALL THE SHELDON AT 314.534.1111 OR VISIT THE SHELDON.ORG

Celebrate Black Pride Weekend this Sunday. | MICAH USHER

St. Louis Black Pride celebrates Black Pride Weekend with a host of events this Friday through Sunday (August 18 to 20) at multiple locations. The opening reception takes place at 6:30 p.m. Friday at the Missouri History Museum (Lindell Boulevard and DeBaliviere Avenue), during which inspirational figures within the black LGBTQ community will be honored for their efforts to further the cause. Saturday is also Black Pride Day at Six Flags (4900 Six Flags Road, Pacific), with the official All White After Party beginning at 9 p.m. at the Blue Pearl (2336 Cherokee Street). Sunday is the big day, with an 11 a.m. brunch at Atomic Cowboy (4140 Manchester Avenue), followed by the Black Pride Festival at 1 p.m. Sunday at the intersection of South Sarah Street and Manchester Avenue.

This year’s festival includes threeon-three basketball, a Greek show, a line dance hour and a drag show.

For information on all events, visit www.blackpridestl.org.

For the ultimate in free entertainment, you can’t beat a solar eclipse.

The moon’s perpetual voyage around the Earth will pass between us and the sun on August 21, blocking out the light for almost two-and-a-half minutes across a large swath of America, hence the informal title of the “great American eclipse.” The path of this eclipse will slice right through Missouri from the Northwest down to the Southeast, but will not be fully visible from Downtown, Midtown or most of the central counties. You need to head southwest to Union, DeSoto or Festus to experience the daytime dimming of the sun (which is called “totality”). The closer you get to these cities, the longer you’ll be in darkness, which should arrive around 1:15 to 1:17 p.m., depending on location. Of course, you can’t look up at the sun during this time for fear of eye damage, but there’s an app for that; local libraries, Schnucks stores and numerous civic groups have been giving away eclipse safety glasses throughout the summer.

Planning an event, exhibiting your art or putting on a play? Let us know and we’ll include it in the calendar section or publish a listing on our website — for free! Send details via e-mail (calendar@riverfronttimes.com), fax (314754-6416) or mail (6358 Delmar Boulevard, Suite 300, St. Louis, MO 63130, attn: Calendar). Include the date, time, price, contact information and location (including ZIP code).

Please submit information three weeks prior to the date of your event. No telephone submissions will be accepted. Find more events online at www.riverfronttimes.com.

COMMUNITY VOTING FOR PROMISE ZONE RESIDENTS* Help decide how $550,000 will be spent on projects for community well-being in the St. Louis Promise Zone. Projects will be funded in four areas: Mental Health, Youth Engagement, Peer Support, and Violence Prevention. Community members will review proposal summaries from each area and vote on which projects they want to see implemented.

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7335 St. Charles Rock Road • Normandy, MO 63133

th AUG Wednesday, August 16 • 4 p.m. - 7 p.m.

William J. Harrison Education Center

16

THE MARKETPLACE KIDS’ KITCHEN Cooking with STEAM, presented by SCOPE

4415 Natural Bridge Avenue • St. Louis, MO 63115

th AUG Tuesday, August 15 • 2 p.m. - 5 p.m.

St. Vincent Community Center

15

THE VILLAGE

HEP C HOPE® MUSIC STAGE

3140 Cass Avenue • St. Louis, MO 63106

th AUG Thursday, August 17 • 3 p.m. - 7 p.m.

North County Transit Center

17

3140 Pershall Road • Ferguson, MO 63135

th AUG Friday, August 18 • 8 a.m. - 11 a.m.

18

Saint Louis County Department of Public Health 6121 North Hanley Road • Berkeley, MO 63134

th AUG Saturday, August 19 • 11 a.m. - 2 p.m.

Mary Ann Lee Technology Center

19

Photo by Steve Truesdell

Photo by Steve Truesdell

1313 North Newstead Avenue • St. Louis, MO 63113

To vote, you must be a St. Louis Promise Zone resident and 11 years of age or older. Residents can only vote one time.

*The Promise Zone encompasses St. Louis City wards: 1 - 5, 18 - 19, 21 - 22, 26 - 27; and parts of St. Louis County, including the communities of: Bellerive Acres, Bel-Nor, Bel-Ridge, Berkeley, Beverly Hills, Cool Valley, Country Club Hills, Dellwood, Ferguson, Flordell Hills, Glen Echo Park, Greendale, Hazelwood, Hillsdale, Jennings, Kinloch, Moline Acres, Normandy, Northwoods, Pagedale, Pine Lawn, Riverview, University City, Uplands Park, Velda City, Velda Village Hills, and Wellston.

The Ultimate Food Experience TasteSTL.com

www.ReCAST-STL.org /ReCASTSTL

OF

CHESTER

@ReCASTSTL

F

TS

SUNDAY 08/20 Black Pride Weekend

MONDAY 08/21 The Great American Eclipse

AR

tage Festival takes place from 5 to 10 p.m. Friday, and 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday (August 18 to 20) at the World’s Fair Pavilion in Forest Park (www. stlworldsfare.com). Admission is free, but bring money for concessions.

RESTAURANT ROW

•

riverfronttimes.com

JOHN PIZZARELLI

LD

AUGUST 16-22, 2017

STELLA ARTOIS CHEF BATTLE ROYALE

BLACK VIOLIN

IE

Back for its fourth year, the St. Louis World’s Fare Heritage Festival hopes to surpass last year’s record crowd, which was more than 25,000-people strong.

The fest has a good shot at succeeding on that front, with an expanded entertainment lineup on two stages, a mixology challenge, a small armada of food trucks and more than twenty eateries on Restaurant Row, a large ramp with bike and skateboard demos, Paint Louis’ graffiti wall and a children’s area. There are even plans for a Ferris wheel this year.

The St. Louis World’s Fare Heri-

CÉCILE MCLORIN SALVANT

HUDSON-DEJOHNETTE, SCOFIELD, MEDESKI & GRENADIER

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St. Louis World’s Fare Heritage Festival

BÉLA FLECK & ABIGAIL WASHBURN

RICKY SKAGGS & KENTUCKY THUNDER

KS

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NEW SUBSCRIPTIONS ON SALE NOW!

PA R

Union Avenue Opera closes its 2017 season with Hänsel und Gretel, the fairy tale opera composed by Engelbert Humperdinck (the nineteenth century German composer, not the English pop singer of the 1970s). It’s directly inspired by the well-known folk story collected by the Brothers Grimm, which means it includes starving children, weird magic, an evil witch and a touch of murder. Among its other sterling qualities are a Dew Fairy, a

CHESTERFIELD

For more information, please call 314-615-0508 riverfronttimes.com

AUGUST 16-22, 2017

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&

Hänsel und Gretel

SEPT 15 - 17

SATURDAY 08/19 STL Legends Game If you have fond memories of former St. Louis Cardinals player Fernando Tatis (he once hit two grand slams in the same inning, the only MLBer to ever do so), or still get a thrill of excitement thinking about John Tudor’s indomitable run during the 1985 pennant race, you’re in luck. The STL Legends Game features almost a full team of Cards legends taking on local celebrities and media personalities in a seven-inning game at 1 p.m. today at the River City Rascals’ CarShield Field (T.R. Hughes Boulevard and Tom Ginnever Avenue, O’Fallon, Missouri; www. rivercityrascals). Scheduled to join Tatis and Tudor are Jim Edmonds, Rick Ankiel, Brad Thompson, Kerry Robinson, Skip Schumaker and Jason Isringhausen. Tickets for the game are $20, and they’re going fast.

OF ST. LOUIS

Y

The fringe festival paradigm was established in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1947, but the format continues to be relevant. The idea is that a disparate assemblage of performing artists — be they dancers, actors, storytellers or musicians — gather to present a number of rapid-fire performances in a short amount of time. It may just be the perfect entertainment for our modern, short-attention-span lifestyles.

This year’s St. Louis Fringe Festival takes place Friday to Sunday (August 18 to 20) and Thursday to Saturday (24 to 26) in Grand Center (North Grand and Lindell boulevards; www.stlouisfringe. com). Acts include headliners ERA Theatre, Ashleyliane Dance Company and A Song for Vanya (a musical adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s drama Uncle Vanya), but don’t sleep on the undercard.

Matthew Marcum brings Pollock: A Frequency Parable ($15), his avant-operatic performance about painter Jackson Pollock, to St. Louis from the San Francisco N.E.W. Festival; Tesseract Theatre Company debuts its one-woman show Hot for T-Rex ($15), which is about a brash writer of Dino-Erotica; and Same Difference Productions offers its instructional guide to living a normal life, Stop Bein’ Weird ($15). Admission varies per show. If you’re considering attending more than one show, take a look at the many bundle passes available, good for everything from a three-show student pass ($35) to the All-You-Can-Fringe pass ($150), which gets you into every performance.

TASTE

THE SHELDON CONCERT HALL

• C IT

St. Louis Fringe

heavenly host of protective angels and Humperdinck’s deft incorporation of German folk music in the score. Union Avenue Opera presents Hänsel und Gretel in the original German with English supertitles at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday (August 18 to 26) at the Union Avenue Christian Church (733 North Union Avenue; www. unionavenueopera.org). Tickets are $30 to $55.

COMMUNITY VOTING OPPORTUNITIES

CALENDAR Continued from pg 25

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FILM

[REVIEW]

Consider the Hippo Written by

ROBERT HUNT The Hippopotamus

Directed by John Jencks. Written by Blanche McIntyre, Tom Hodgson, John Finnemore and Robin Hill. Based on the novel by Stephen Fry. Starring Roger Allam, Emily Berrington, Matthew Modine and Fiona Shaw. The Hippopotamus is available on disc from Lightyear, and on several streaming services.

S

tephen Fry is a national treasure. Okay, he’s not our national treasure, but even on this side of the Atlantic, there are plenty of opportunities to observe the English renaissance man as he pursues more than a few of his seemingly infinite interests. He’s done Shakespeare, played a hobbit, hosted quiz shows, written five novels and three memoirs, narrated video games, written a weekly technology column for the Guardian and made documentaries on subjects ranging from gay history to Richard Wagner. Even Mrs. Stephen Fry, the Twitter account of his (entirely fictional) “poor downtrodden wife” holds the interest of more than 100,000 followers.

It’s tempting to see a little of Fry — or at least the dark id of the author — in Ted Wallace, the hero of The Hippopotamus.

In fact, when the film began, I thought it was Fry providing the off-camera narration. It’s not, but the film is based on Fry’s second novel.

Our protagonist here is a oncelauded poet who has become a bitter, hard-drinking theater critic. As played by Roger Allam, he also recalls the late Christopher Hitchens, minus the politics. He’s disheveled but fueled by a reservoir of strong opinions and an overflowing disgust for much of the world, both sentiments given frequent expression in rude but colorful language. He

28

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states that a young woman “may have been conceived on a visit to Middle-earth” and describes a disagreeable idea by explaining that “the notion hung in the air like a piss-filled Hindenburg.”

The Hippopotamus is a satire on mysticism and belief that is part comedy of manners, part Agatha Christie mystery highjacked by P.G. Wodehouse. It begins when Wallace, having lost his position after staging an intervention from his seat during a particularly egregious production of Titus Andronicus, has a chance encounter with his goddaughter Jane. Jane has been diagnosed with cancer, but claims to have been miraculously cured by her teenage brother David.

She asks the skeptical Wallace to visit her family estate to confirm her brother’s alleged powers, so he dutifully heads for to the country manor of the fabulously wealthy Lord Logan (an underused Matthew Modine), a long estranged friend. Stumbling through the countryside, Wallace is more irritated than shocked by his godson — and less by his miraculous claims (and related sexual obsessions) than by the discovery of the young man’s struggling efforts at poetry.

As directed by John Jencks, The Hippopotamus is a modest, straightforward film, carried largely by strong performances from Allam and Fiona Shaw as Lady Logan. It saves its ambitions for the ideas overflowing Fry’s novel, its satiric disgust at contemporary life and its measured humanist skepticism about unconfirmed miracles and shaky beliefs.

The film hints at Wallace’s redemption (the title alludes to a T.S. Eliot poem, which points out that the creature, despite his imposing presence, is “only flesh and blood”). But it’s at its best when it simply lets him vent his outrage at half-baked ideas, at bad poetry (“You don’t wait for inspiration to vomit bliss over you”), at the world at large.

There is redemption at work in The Hippopotamus: A humble film is saved by the sardonic outpourings of its bigger-than-life hero. n

AUGUST 16-22, 2017

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In addition to the high-tech pour-your-own brewing system, highlights at Tapped include wood-fired pizzas and a killer kielbasa. | MABEL SUEN

[REVIEW]

Drafted

Grea

Tapped brings solid grub — and liberating beer technology — to Maplewood Written by

CHERYL BAEHR Tapped

7278 Manchester Road, Maplewood; 314899-0011. Mon.-Thurs. 4-11 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-midnight; Sun. 11 a.m.-10 p.m.

20 SOUTH20BELT | |BELLEVILLE, | 618.257.9000 SOUTHWEST BELT WEST BELLEVILLE, IL |IL618.257.9000 www.beastcraftbbq.com www.beastcraftbbq.com 30

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AUGUST 16-22, 2017

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I

f you want to know why a place like Tapped needs to exist, consider the scene that played out during one of my recent visits. A gaggle of beer bros had gathered in front of the restaurant’s self-

service taps and were engaged in a robust conversation designed to show off their esoteric knowledge.

Though they’d assembled in front of the section devoted to stouts and porters, a couple of them wandered over to the IPAs, likely pontificating on the virtues of New Zealand hops versus U.S. Cascade ones. As the group made their way back to their table, one lingered and — after looking around to make sure he was completely alone — dumped his glass. Then he walked over to the fruit beers and poured himself a blood orange radler.

I could be entirely off base here, but I’d bet the farm that this noble imbiber of what’s basically the beer version of orange-ade didn’t advertise his choice to his buddies for the same reason I’ll choke down a 1000 IBU brew after being beersplained by a cicerone: shame. We can debate whether this is an internally or externally motivated

phenomenon, but for some reason, the act of drinking — one of the most intimate and subjective things a person can do — comes with the notion that there is a right and a wrong way to do it. Ask for white zinfandel and you have bad taste. Put cream and sugar in your coffee and it’s sacrilege. Request a straightforward, decidedly unhoppy lager and, well, you obviously know nothing. In certain sets, the snobbery can be palpable.

Lindsay and Ryan Reel didn’t explicitly set out to buck this phenomenon and create a craft beer safe space, but it’s a welcome byproduct of their quest to bring a new beer and wine tasting experience to town. After visiting a self-pour wine bar in New Orleans, Lindsay Reel was floored by the setup that allowed her to taste a wide range of wines without the investment of an entire bottle, or for that matter, an entire glass. She was certain she riverfronttimes.com

had a great idea for a restaurant.

Though not industry professionals (she’s a pharmacist; he’s worked in retail management), the Reels had always dreamed of opening a restaurant and bar, but they weren’t willing to put their careers and life savings on the line for anything less than inspired. Once Lindsay Reel experienced the New Orleans wine bar, she knew she’d found just that. She began doing research on self-pour systems.

The Reels knew that, in a beer-loving town like St. Louis, they would have to find a way to serve both wine and beer on tap, but it took finding the I-PourIt system to figure out how to do both. That accomplished, they set to work developing a beer-centric tasting room concept.

If finding the system was difficult, finding the right location proved easy. The Reels were regulars at the Continued on pg 32

AUGUST 16-22, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

31

TAPPED Continued from pg 32

TAPPED Continued from pg 31 Maplewood restaurant A Pizza Story, so when that spot closed, they knew it would be perfect for Tapped. They connected with the owners of A Pizza Story and worked out a deal to take over the storefront and purchase the wood-burning pizza oven, recipes and other restaurant infrastructure. After giving the place a light remodel, the Reels opened their first-of-its-kind in Missouri tasting room in early May. A self-pour bar might inspire images of out-of-control debauchery, but Tapped is subdued and orderly. Upon entering, patrons show identification and a form of payment. They’re then given a watch-like wristband with a fob. A wall of 48 beer taps lines one side of the room (roughly eight wine taps are on the other side in the corner), each with its own woodframed electronic tablet listing the beer’s name, style and tasting notes. To pour a beer, you simply grab a glass from the shelf below the taps (yes, beer nerds, they offer different glassware for different styles), scan your fob on the tablet of your beer of choice and drink away. You’re charged by the ounce, so you can have as little or as much as you like — just not too much.

The system will cut you off after you’ve consumed 48 ounces.

Beer, and particularly regionally-produced craft beer, is why you visit Tapped, but the Reels wanted the food to be more than an afterthought. Drawing inspiration from the low-key pizzerias they’ve frequented on trips to California wine country, the pair created a menu of upscale bar food anchored by the wood-burning oven left over from A Pizza Story. Though they bought the former tenant’s recipes, Ryan

Framed art recalling the city’s rich brewing history lines one wall. | MABEL SUEN The “Tapped Mason Jar Salad” includes romaine lettuce, bacon, egg, red onion, tomato, a four-cheese blend and house vinaigrette. | MABEL SUEN Reel tweaked the dough, adding in Six Mile Bridge hefeweizen, which gives the crust a yeastier flavor and heftier texture. It serves as the base for several different pies, including a margherita that pairs a basil pesto drizzle with fresh mozzarella and sliced tomatoes. Though not authentic like its predecessor, it’s a respectable, pleasantly gooey riff on the classic.

An asparagus and coppa pizza delivered both ingredients as promised, though the latter was more like thick-sliced ham than the paper-thin charcuterie I’d hoped

for. A blend of five Italian cheeses provided ample goo, though it also masked most of the other flavors on the pie. It’s a fair option, though I’d opt instead for the “Tapped BBQ,” a well-executed version of the ubiquitous barbecue chicken pizza that features a piquant bourbon-based barbecue sauce as the base. Red onions add texture and punch, and ranch dressing provides a cooling factor for this sneak-up-on-you spicy dish.

In addition to pizza, Tapped serves updated takes on traditional bar food, like excellent disc-shaped

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Spinach artichoke Rangoon is a take on crab Rangoon that replaces the crab and cream cheese with rich, though not especially flavorful, spinach dip. Another appetizer, the Bavarian pretzels, are exactly what you’d want at a beer hall — plump, pillow-soft and covered with salt.

A whole grain Continued on pg 33

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AUGUST 16-22, 2017

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mustard sauce is provided for dipping, as is a creamy, though generic, nacho cheese-style sauce.

Tapped’s wings are plump, juicy and covered in a delectable spicy bourbon glaze that tastes like a cross between bourbon barbecue and soy sauce. Red pepper flakes are liberally incorporated in the glaze, giving it a heat that is significant but not obnoxious.

A selection of sandwiches is also available, including beer-battered cod served on a hoagie with straightforward tartar sauce. The fish has a pleasantly crunchy texture; my only issue is the way it’s engulfed by the large bun. The stars of the plate are the jalapeño-flecked hush puppies, which should be a dish in and of themselves.

You could get the “Killer Hoagie,” stuffed with a gigantic kielbasa and sauerkraut. Then again, you could also get the sausage and kraut plate, which would allow you to feast on two pieces of this magnificent sausage. The kielbasa is not house-made; Ryan Reel admits they simply buy it and cook it, though that shouldn’t take away from this glorious, maple-essenced beast of a sausage. The meat is grilled to the point it splits open, revealing pockets of char and grease that beg

to be paired with a beer. This is the best thing at Tapped.

Actually, I take that back. The best part of Tapped is made clear in a little tidbit Lindsay Reel explained to me. When she and her husband were putting together the restaurants’ drink selection, they were encouraged to carry certain beers that were the top sellers at other restaurants around town.

They agreed. But to their surprise, these beers have sold significantly less than some of the other labels.

Lindsay Reel attributes that to how easy it is to try different things at Tapped; the investment in a twoounce pour is so low, she posits, it encourages people to delve into unfamiliar territory. When they do, they often find something they like even more than their standard go-to.

I like her theory, but I’m convinced there’s another reason for the discrepancy: When left to make our selections in private, we’re guided not by what we think we should drink, but instead by what we want to drink — as long as our friends aren’t looking. n Tapped

“Tapped Wings” ..................................$9 Margherita pizza .............................. $12 Sausage and kraut ...........................$17

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T

hese days, Marie-Anne Velasco is busy with Nudo House (11423 Olive Boulevard, Creve Coeur; 314-274-8046), the much buzzed-about ramen restaurant she just opened with business partner Qui Tran. However, to the acclaimed chef it seems like just yesterday she was climbing the corporate ladder in the world of international finance.

“I was working at a bank after graduating from school with degrees in linguistics and international finance, but I decided one day that I was going to take some time off and travel through Asia,” Velasco recalls. “Then I realized, ‘You know what? I don’t think I’m going to come back.’”

For Velasco, the switch from finance to culinary school wasn’t as big of a departure as it might seem.

The Montreal native describes the house she grew up in as the gathering spot for her family. It was rare that someone wasn’t over at her house cooking, and large parties with food laid out on tables were regular occurrences. “I don’t know of any other way to grow up,” Velasco says. “There was always an aunt or a grandma coming over saying, ‘Eat this’ or ‘Can you make that one thing again?’ It’s just how it always was.”

While Velasco worked in restaurants throughout school, she never considered the industry as a career. Instead, she devoted her studies to linguistics and international finance. However, cooking was never far from her mind, her go-to when she needed to decompress.

“The whole time I was in school I would have friends over during finals so I could cook for them while

Marie-Anne Velasco of Nudo House is a native of Montreal, and a former banker. | SARA BANNOURA

we studied,” Velasco recalls. “It’s always been my way to relax.”

After getting her high-profile banking job, Velasco found herself unfulfilled. She gravitated to the kitchen as a way to express herself creatively. Eventually, she recognized it was more than just a hobby; it was her calling.

Upon returning to Montreal, Velasco enrolled in culinary school and, after completing the program, worked at top restaurants everywhere from London to San Francisco to New York to the Dominican Republic. She made a name for herself in the culinary competition circuit and returned to Montreal where she trained as a sushi chef.

Her sushi skills brought her to St. Louis, where she worked for the Ritz-Carlton before leaving for

a chef de cuisine position at the Chase Park Plaza. From there, Velasco was recruited to teach at a local culinary school, where she relished the opportunity to share her knowledge with aspiring students.

Around the time she started teaching, Velasco began frequenting Mai Lee, deeming its pho the best she’d had outside of Montreal. As she became a regular, she got to know Qui Tran, son of its founders. The two became friends, often talking about ideas for restaurants.

Velasco and Tran kept in touch even after she moved to Chicago, though Tran had a plan for reeling her back to town. “He called me about six months after I was all moved in and said, ‘Hey, do you riverfronttimes.com

still want to open a shop?’” Velasco recalls. “I rolled my eyes and told him I’d just moved, but Qui has a way of making you want do things like uproot your whole family and jump into this sort of thing.”

After agreeing to partner with Tran on a ramen restaurant, the pair spent five years developing the concept, traveling from New York to Los Angeles researching different techniques and noodles.

In L.A., they were connected with esteemed ramen master Shigetoshi “Jack” Nakamura, who agreed to come to St. Louis and serve as their mentor. “We couldn’t believe we got to spend time with him,” Velasco says. “He gave us all his secrets.”

Nakamura also made an ob-

AUGUST 16-22, 2017

Continued on pg 37

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RAMEN Continued from pg 35

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servation that proves prescient when considering how popular Nudo House already is. “He told us that he had no doubt we were going to make it,” Velasco says. If the throngs of satisfied patrons are any indication, his prediction is coming true.

Velasco took a break from Nudo House to share her thoughts on the St. Louis dining scene, where you’ll find her after a long day at work, and why she’s proof that not all Canadians like the cold.

What is one thing people don’t know about you that you wish they did?

I’m a Canadian who is allergic to the cold.

What daily ritual is non-negotiable for you?

Kisses and cuddles from my two little boys.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?

Reading minds. Maniacal laugh.

What is the most positive thing in food, wine or cocktails that you’ve noticed in St. Louis over the past year?

Camaraderie.

What is something missing in the local food, wine or cocktail scene that you’d like to see?

Easy to get to, higher-end drivethru food.

Who is your St. Louis food crush?

Loryn Nalic of Balkan Treat Box. She’s so cool.

Who’s the one person to watch right now in the St. Louis dining scene?

Hana Chung of Byrd & Barrel.

I wish her much success. She’s a cook’s cook.

Which ingredient is most representative of your personality?

Eggs.

If you weren’t working in the restaurant business, what would you be doing?

Living on a farm, growing my own food and having lots more babies.

Name an ingredient never allowed in your restaurant.

What?

What is your after-work hangout?

My bed.

What’s your food or beverage guilty pleasure?

Champagne and pizza.

What would be your last meal on earth?

Montreal late-night Chinese food n and poutine.

The Sweet Divine’s sharp new look comes from co-owner Jenna Siebert, who designed it herself. | TAYLOR VINSON [FOOD NEWS]

THE SWEET DIVINE IS BACK FROM THE FIRE

T

en months after flames gutted the Sweet Divine (1801 S. 9th Street), the Soulard bakery is back in business.

The local favorite went up in flames last October due to a malfunctioning compressor under a refrigerator. The fire left the dessert shop homeless — although owners Jenna and Jason Siebert continued to bake out of McArthur’s Bakery in the Loop. The two also traveled on their food truck, Georgie, reporting their daily locations through social media.

But that cobbled-together system has come to an end. On August 3, the bakery reopened its doors to its renovated home, which Jenna Siebert says she personally designed.

The new space offers a more open concept, inviting customers to be a part of the Sweet Divine experience.

Customers will be able to see bakers working in the back and frosting in the front as soon as they walk in the door. The storefront seats about twelve guests, with high-top seating right next to the decorating table, as well as a pink couch for the ultimate cupcake and chill.

If that’s not enough to entice you,

The Soulard bakery’s delicious treats have been featured on Cupcake Wars. | TAYLOR VINSON the Sweet Divine Bakery is adding to its menu, bringing back croissants, more cupcake selections and special treats like chocolate truffles, as Feast Magazine first reported. Lead pastry chef Tim Kutterer is also working on gluten-free donuts and blueberry muffins. The shop has partnered with Park Avenue Coffee in hopes of bringing in a larger breakfast crowd.

And that’s not all: The store will also be selling fresh flowers, so customers who buy cakes to-go can have something

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special to accompany them.

The aim is to make it a cool date-night spot. Says Jenna Siebert, “Seeing my vision come to life has been an amazing feeling. It’s like having a baby here. This is like our rebirth. There’s no place like home.”

New hours for the Sweet Divine are Tuesday through Thursday from 6:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The shop is closed on —Taylor Vinson Mondays.

AUGUST 16-22, 2017

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AUGUST 16-22, 2017

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yung and Dong Moon were at the top of the restaurant business in their native Seoul, employing roughly 100 people at a massive operation that was frequented by business leaders, politicians and the elites of South Korean society. For Kyung Moon, however, the call of the American dream was strong. He packed up his family and set up to create a new life in the United States.

Those dreams were realized last month, as the Moon family launched the second location of their popular Korean barbecue restaurant, Seoul Garden (10441 Olive Boulevard, Creve Coeur; 314-569-4123). However, as their son Sean explains, it was a tough climb getting here.

“My parents came here for the American dream, but we lost everything,” he explains.

The family’s bout of misfortune started not long after they arrived

in the United States. They were enjoying the success of their first American venture, a small Korean restaurant in Los Angeles, but their business was burned to the ground during the city’s 1992 riots. Because everything they owned was lost — including their insurance documents — they were left with nothing.

Not one to give up, Kyung Moon next moved his family to Portland, Oregon, for another restaurant opportunity, followed by Anchorage, Alaska, where he operated a tour company. When that business dried up, he relocated again to Maryland to become a long-haul truck driver. In his mind, his life as a restaurateur was squarely in his rearview mirror.

But the trucking business brought the Moon family to St. Louis and also back into the restaurant business. About eight years ago, the Moons heard that the longtime owners of Seoul Garden, the Korean restaurant in St. Ann, were looking to sell, so they jumped on the opportunity and reenergized the failing business.

The success led the family to expand their brand. They opened the fast-casual Korean fusion restaurant Kimcheese in Chesterfield in 2012, with a second location in Creve Coeur two years later.

This June, the Moon family decided to move the Creve Coeur

Kimcheese downtown and open a second location of Seoul Garden in its former home in Creve Coeur. Like the original spot, the new Seoul Garden serves Korean barbecue cooked on a tabletop grill, as well as a variety of dishes that are prepared in the restaurant’s kitchen. Look for barbecue classics like kalbi, or marinated short ribs; bulgogi, or marinated ribeye; and pork belly, as well as several stews, varieties of kimchi and noodle dishes. As is customary, a comprehensive selection of banchan, or small side dishes, are served with every barbecue entree.

The Creve Coeur Seoul Garden has a rustic aesthetic, with wooden booths and tables and minimalist Korean decor, such as fermentation vessels and artwork. The restaurant is full-service but moves quickly for those looking to grab dinner before catching a show at the nearby movie theater.

With a second Seoul Garden under their belt and a budding Kimcheese franchise underway (including an upcoming food truck of the same name), the Moon family is confident that they’ve finally put all of those bumps in the road behind them and are on a clear path. And if Seoul Garden’s delectable Korean barbecue is any indication, their good fortune is St. Louis’ as well. n riverfronttimes.com

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39

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Watch Party August 26th!

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WEDNESDAYS: Live Local Music THURSDAYS: Live Music 8 PM & DJ until close FRIDAY & SATURDAYS: Live bands on stage & DJ’s in the Green Room 10 PM

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new country-themed bar is set to open this fall in place of Pastimes, which was featured on Spike TV’s Bar Rescue in 2015, yet was unable to be rescued. Game 6 Honky Tonk Joint (756 S. 4th Street) is gearing up to bring a Nashville-style restaurant/bar to downtown St. Louis.

The new establishment is the creation of brothers Ryan and Jeremy Binkley. Jeremy Binkley has been a general manager at Paradise Park in Nashville, a honky tonk bar, for about eight years. His experience will be combined with Ryan’s marketing and promotion chops to get their project off of the ground.

Located only three blocks from

Busch Stadium, the bar’s name is meant to commemorate the World Series game won by the Cardinals in 2011 to bring the team a world championship. “When you just mention Game 6 you immediately get put in this good mood and excitement,” Ryan Binkley says, “and that’s kind of what we wanted to capture.”

He explains that in St. Louis and the Missouri area there are a lot of country fans that don’t really have anywhere to “call their own.” The duo aims to change that.

“We hope that one day down the road people will be wondering, ‘What took us so long to get this place going?’” he says.

Upon opening, Game 6 plans to service patrons at least four nights a week, and every night that the Cardinals play.

Game 6 is set to feature live country music from local musicians as well as various acts out of Nashville. The restaurant will serve lunch and dinner with a variety of foods such as burgers, sandwiches, salads and wings.

Game 6 is actively looking for country artists to perform. Ryan Binkley says the restaurant is hoping to open to the public in September/October. For now, renovations are underway on the inside and the windows and entrances are covered with construction paper and fliers that read, “See y’all this fall.” n

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AUGUST 16-22, 2017

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41

MUSIC [PREVIEW]

®

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S

hakey Graves says there are three types of songs: ones he sits down to write and kind of forces out; some he literally wakes up singing; and others that are like puzzles, where it’s up to him to piece together seemingly unrelated parts.

“I always wanted my music office to look like I’m trying to solve some big mystery,” he says, “like a crime that happened twenty years ago, and there is red string everywhere and I’m like, ‘What ties this to that?’ I’ll come up with a melody and sit on it for two years, find out it goes over this little poem I wrote two hours ago and suddenly it transforms into this full-blown creature.”

The Austin, Texas-based singer-songwriter (real name: Alejandro Rose-Garcia) is perhaps best-known for his solo act, for which he sings, plays guitar and beats a kick drum with his heel.

Adding to the image of a vagabond musician, he’s often blearyeyed and sweating through a wife beater, appearing very much hungover and wrung-out. But there’s no denying he plays his gritty brand of blues and folk with authentic emotion — and that it’s captivating.

Nowadays, Rose-Garcia plays with a full band for about half of each set. He played alone earlier in his career mostly out of necessity, he explains. As a self-taught musician, it took him many years to find bandmates he trusted and

Shakey Graves got his start musically in middle school when his first girlfriend broke up with him. | PHOTO VIA BIG HASSLE PUBLICITY wanted to play with every night.

“Doing anything feels better with company,” he says.

Rose-Garcia first picked up a guitar when he was twelve or thirteen years old. “I had just gotten my poor little middle-schooler heart broken by the first girlfriend I ever had, so it started as a ploy to woo this girl back,” he recalls. “It was like, ‘I’ll learn how to play guitar — then she’ll love me.’ I spent this very bummed-out summer that I picture as, like, a Batman montage. But really it was just this wimpy stupor where I was listening to rap music because I couldn’t deal with anything that had emotional lyrics in it, lifting these eleven-pound weights

trying to get swole and trying my damnedest to play this guitar.”

He wasn’t a fast learner, but early on he discovered the ability to manipulate his own emotional state by changing from a major to a minor chord, and also that layering recordings made his then-meager guitar skills sound bigger. Somewhere along the line, he started making a hell of a lot of noise for just one musician, playing rhythm and lead simultaneously by using an unorthodox fingerpicking technique that took a long time to develop.

“It came from me trying to play these songs I had cleverly recorded to sound like one person, and then actually playing them as one perriverfronttimes.com

43

son,” he says.

The blurry character of Shakey Graves — who is perpetually confused about the time period, sometimes appearing in suspenders and a bowler hat, sometimes wearing a leather rock & roll jacket — was born about ten years ago at the Old Settler’s Music Festival in Austin. Being dirt-poor, Rose-Garcia hid in the trunk of his friend’s car to sneak in. Early in the weekend, he and his friends were approached by a “tripping gentleman who was flying high on LSD.” Their conversation was mostly gibberish, but the man clearly warned them to watch out for “spooky wagons.” They had no idea what that meant, but agreed it sounded like a great name for a guitar-picker.

“So, we all gave each other fake monikers,” Rose-Garcia says.

“There was Spooky Wagons, Solomon Doors and Droopy Weiners, and I was Shakey Graves.”

The name has taken him a long way. Last year, he headlined that same festival, and he’s become a revered figure in Austin, where February 9 is officially Shakey Graves Day. But his sound didn’t really take shape until some time later, when he took a solo trip on psychedelic mushrooms and recorded the whole thing.

“I felt like I was just vomiting songs,” he says. “I wrote, like, five songs in an hour. They all came out fully formed and about the weirdest shit, but I loved it. I always look back on that as my thesis of what I wanted things to sound like.

“There is a certain playful darkness I feel is really encapsulated well by psilocybin mushrooms, a tongue-in-cheek gallows humor that I’ve always sought to sing about,” he continues. “It questions the world around us, whether what we see is there or not, and I feel like, content-wise, that’s what I have to write about — the eternal struggle of identity and the shackles of mortality, so to speak.”

And sometimes those songs just sort of, like, appear. So he stays ready.

“A lot of my work is kind of caught in the wild,” he says. “If an idea swims by you, it’s about having the tools to capture it and remember it.” n

AUGUST 16-22, 2017

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4 2 4 3 M A N C H E S T E R AV E N U E • 3 1 4 - 5 3 1 - 5 7 0 0

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AUGUST 16-22, 2017

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48

B-SIDES

[PREVIEW]

Still Walking Three decades after the release of the inescapable “Walking on Sunshine,” singer Katrina Leskanich marches on Written by

MIKE APPELSTEIN Retro Futura Tour

6 p.m. Saturday, August 19. Family Arena, 2002 Arena Parkway, St. Charles. $45-$95.

636-896-4200.

C

ertain songs find second lives long after after their original release. Katrina and the Waves’ 1985 single, “Walking On Sunshine,” may be the ultimate example of such a song. It did respectably well at the time, hitting No. 9 on the American pop charts.

Rather than fade away, however, it has found a new audience via soundtracks and films — IMDB lists 61 such placements over the past 30 years.

Written by Waves guitarist Kimberley Rew, “Walking On Sunshine” is so over-the-top happy that it’s suitable both for sincere and ironic purposes. In High Fidelity, Jack Black’s cynical record store clerk pops it in the tape player in response to his sensitive coworker’s Belle & Sebastian cassette. Look Who’s Talking used it, but so did American Psycho.

“It’s been in a lot of commercials,” acknowledges vocalist Katrina Leskanich, calling from a tour stop in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. “‘Walking on Sunshine’ would be used for the moment where there’s a switch in the plot from gray skies to blue skies, where it’s all bad but then it’s all good. You’ll have a commercial that says, ‘Bad allergies?’ Then ‘Walking on Sunshine’ starts and they’ll say, ‘Claritin!’”

Leskanich, now Wave-less, is spending this summer as part of the Retro Futura Tour alongside such ‘80s acts as the English Beat, Howard Jones, Men Without Hats, Modern English, Paul Young and former Bow Wow Wow vocalist Annabella. “It’s kind of a cross be-

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Though the Waves split in the late ‘90s, singer Katrina Leskanich continues to sing the hits. | PHOTO VIA PARADISE ARTISTS tween being extremely exhilarating and fairly tiring,” Leskanich says of touring. “Although now that we’re settled in, I’m having some of the most comfortable sleep of my life on the bus. It always takes about a week to settle in. The key is to just be nice, say hello to everybody until you figure out who’s who.”

The product of a military family, Leskanich was born in Topeka, Kansas. “My father was stationed at Forbes Air Force Base in Topeka,” she explains. “That’s where my parents met and that’s where they had the first three of six children.” Al-

AUGUST 16-22, 2017

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though the family moved frequently, Kansas remained something of a home base. “We always always went on our holidays to visit my grandmother and my aunts and uncles, and we would stay with them for usually the month of July,” she says.

Most of Leskanich’s early musical experiences stemmed from being a military kid. In Germany, she developed an interest in music; in the Netherlands, she acquired her first guitar; and in England, she met Vince De La Cruz, who later became the Waves’ bassist. The two of them formed a band and spent a few

years playing the military base circuit. “There were a lot of shout-outs for ‘Freebird’ and ‘Sweet Home Alabama,’ so we played them,” Leskanich recalls. “And we just went round and round doing that for years. In the meantime I was bagging groceries at the commissary and washing dishes in the chow hall.”

It was on this circuit that Leskanich and Cruz met drummer Alex Cooper. Cooper was playing with Rew, who’d recently left the Soft Boys. “Alex phoned and asked if we were interested in being in a band.

I said yes, but we have to bring my

friend,” Leskanich says.

As simply the Waves, the quartet recorded the Shock Horror! EP and two tracks on the Rew solo album The Bible of Bop. Rew usually sang lead, while Leskanich sang backups and played rhythm guitar. These initial recordings were very much in the Soft Boys vein of psychedelic-tinged folk-rock.

They were often a bit dark: The two Waves songs on Bible of Bop are entitled “Hey War Pig!” and “Nightmare.” Even “Going Down to Liverpool,” which appeared on Shock Horror! before the Bangles

covered it, is a deceptively cheerful paean to Thatcher-era recession and underemployment.

“As time went on, Kim was sort of losing interest in being the lead singer,” Leskanich recalls. “Back then it was still a great gimmick to be a woman in a band. So Kim started writing a lot of the material for me.”

“Walking On Sunshine” was the band’s only American hit. The follow-up, 1986’s Waves, failed to sell.

“That’s when the payola scam [happened],” Leskanich says. “Capitol Records was at the forefront. It pretty much shut down any independent promotions that a lot of these companies were doing. And so we used that as an excuse for our second album bombing.” The band still continued through 1997, recording six more albums for various labels and having the occasional successful single (“Sun Street,” “That’s the Way”).

In 1997, Katrina and the Waves’ “Love Shine a Light” won the Eurovision Song Contest for the United Kingdom. “I’ve given up trying to explain to Americans what [Eurovision] is all about,” Leskanich says.

“We had no intention of doing it. I’d never even seen the show before we did it. We were just asked if we had a great pop song for it. It almost worked against us, because we did win it and it went to No. 3 in the U.K. and did very very well all around Europe. But it’s something you can never escape because nobody has won it in the United Kingdom. So every year when it’s Eurovision time, then “Love Shine a Light” will be played and I’ll always be asked about it.”

The Waves split shortly after “Love Shine A Light,” but Leskanich continues to release solo music on her own Katrina’s Web label. She has also co-written travel guides to dog-friendly spots around London and Cornwall, and she is working on her autobiography, Don’t It Feel Good.

For now, though, it’s back on the bus for the Retro Futura tour, which concludes at the Family Arena on August 19. “The Midwest still resonates with me,” Leskanich says.

“You can’t put your finger on why or how it should be familiar, but it just is. It’s been a pleasant surprise to see the moon and familiar things still out here.” n

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(Nestlé Regional Globe Office North America, Inc. – St. Louis, MO) Manage GLOBE info tech projs, incl GLOBE comp sys Sustain Frmewrk & Governance projs across regionl end to ends, streams, people, wrk processes & sys. F/T. Reqs Bach’s dgr (or frgn equiv) in Bus Mgmt, Bus Admin, Mkt’g, Communicatns or rel fld & 2 yrs of exp in job offrd or configur’g & maintn’g SAP. Must also have 2 yrs of exp in fllw’g: wrk’g in envrnmnt w/ cmplx org unit structr set-up w/ delgtd security; Vendor Mgmt & Change & Release Mgmt; proj mgmt invlv’g strategic acct mgmt plan’g, ops mgmt, qualify assurance review, mngerial acct’g, budgt mgmt or invoic’g; &, srv’g as liaison b/t bus & tech aspects of projs on an int’l team incl U.S. & Latin & S Am bus groups. Exp may be gained cncrrntly. Resumes: J. Buenrostro, Nestlé USA, Inc., 800 N Brand Blvd, Glendale, CA 91203.

JobID: SAMS-CPA Sr. Software Engineer (Chesterfield, MO and various and unanticipated locations in US).

9am-6pm (35-40 hrs). Design and develop web applications using JAVA/J2EE with Apache CXF webservices and Spring MVC design pattern. Perform web application build and deployment using shell scripting on UNIX servers. Design and develop applications utilizing Oracle Berkeley database.

Design Schema in LDAP directory server and develop LDAP security access using JNDI. Build and Deploy web based applications using Maven build tool and Gradle script.

Requires Master’s degree (or foreign equivalent degree) in Computer Science or related with 1 year experience in job offered, Java Developer, Programmer Analyst and/ or related. Experience to include Java/J2EE, CXF, Spring MVC, Shell Scripting on Unix Server, Berkeley Database, LDAP Security, Maven, and Gradle. Hiring requirements include background check.

Mail resume to: HR Manager, Technology Partners, Inc., 707 Spirit 40 Park Drive, Suite 120, Chesterfield, MO 63005

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Workforce Management

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Nine antennas will be installed on three rooftop frames at a top height of +/-126 feet above ground level. Any interested party wishing to submit comments regarding the potential effects the proposed facility may have on any historic property may do so by sending such comments to: Project 6117002173-MI c/o EBI Consulting, 6876 Susquehanna Trail S, York, PA 17403 or via telephone at 717-428-0401.

T-Mobile USA is proposing to install new wireless telecommunications antennas on an existing building located at 9500 Lackland Road, Overland, MO. The new facility will consist of nine antennas mounted on the rooftop at a top height of 44 feet above

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