Riverfront Times - November 1, 2017

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NOVEMBER 1–7, 2017 I VOLUME 41 I NUMBER 44

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT

KEVIN THE OWNER OF CHEROKEE’S MOST ECCENTRIC RESTAURANT IS DOUBLING DOWN ON THE PIZZA BIZ BY NICHOLAS PHILLIPS

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“I don’t understand the protests at these businesses here, because the businesses haven’t done anything. It’s between the guy that got killed and the cops. These businesses here and these people haven’t done nothing to nobody.”

—RichaRd Black, photogRaphed in the centRal West end duRing its halloWeen paRty on octoBeR 29

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TABLE OF CONTENTS FEATURE

12.

We Need To Talk About Kevin

The owner of Cherokee’s most eccentric restaurant is doubling down on the pizza biz Written by

NICHOLAS PHILLIPS Cover photography by

SARA BANNOURA

NEWS

CULTURE

DINING

MUSIC

5

21

31

43

The Lede

Calendar

Your friend or neighbor, captured on camera

Seven days worth of great stuff to see and do

9

24

Better Salaries, Better Police?

Film

36

Side Dish

Mayor Lyda Krewson makes the case for Prop P

Robert Hunt views a half-dozen highlights from the St. Louis International Film Festival

How Steve Ewing went from rock music to hot dogs

9

26

38

After Her Fiancé’s Arrest, a Visitor

Danny Barnett and Nyeisha Muldrew say their experiences have left them leery of law enforcement

Stage

Titus Androgynous reminds us that Shakespeare doesn’t have to be a chore, writes Paul Friswold

27

Galleries

Art on display in St. Louis this week

6

Tasting Room

Charleville Brewing Co. is serving up really good food along with its beer, says Cheryl Baehr

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First Look

Sarah Fenske joins the line out the door at BLK MKT Eats, while Melissa Buelt tries the small plates at Pig & Pickle Eatery

Amateur Professionals Never Say Goodbye details KSHE’s early years

46

Homespun

Ashley Byrne Bedroom Ballads

48

Out Every Night

The best concerts in St. Louis every night of the week

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, Lauren Milford, Thomas Crone, MaryAnn Johanson, Jenn DeRose, Mike Fitzgerald Editorial Interns Katie Hayes, Melissa Buelt Proofreader Evie Hemphill

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NEWS

9

Mayor: Better Salaries Mean Better Police Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI

L

ast week, as a crowd of protesters milled about the sidewalk outside St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson’s home in the Central West End, familiar protest chants momentarily gave way to shouts of “fuck Prop P!” — a reference to the ballot measure to be decided by city voters on November 7.

For opponents of the measure — a half-cent sales tax that would raise $19 million annually in revenue, about $13 million of which would go toward police compensation — the issue is nothing less than a referendum on the department, its leadership and the certainty that kettling and pepper-spraying people during mass arrests isn’t a great example of police work.

But for Krewson, the referendum is anything but symbolic, and in an interview with Riverfront Times, the mayor pushed back on the argument that the measure represents weak medicine for the city’s policing failures.

Those criticisms, she says, ignore the tangible challenges facing a chronically understaffed department that’s relied too long on overtime to make ends meet. That’s particularly true now that voters in St. Louis County have passed their own Prop P — yes, the two measures are identically named — which will increase county police salaries by about 30 percent.

“The pay disparity is something that is, for one, not fair,” Krewson says. By next year, a rookie St. Louis County cop can expect to earn about $52,000 in salary. A new city cop, by comparison, currently makes about $42,000. Passing the city’s Prop P would raise metro officers’ salaries by around $6,000 Continued on pg 10

Danny Barnett and Nyeisha Muldrew watch a November KSDK news story detailing Barnett’s arrest for the beating of Huan Le. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI

After Her Fiancé’s Arrest, a Cop Came to Visit Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI

O

n January 22, while her fiancé was still in jail for a brutal robbery he didn’t commit, Nyeisha Muldrew found herself being stalked and chased through a south city neighborhood. Her pursuer was a plainclothes St. Louis police officer named Josh Hill.

Muldrew didn’t know that at the time. The man just turned up at her house in Gravois Park around 9 p.m., just as she was loading three of her kids into the family’s truck. “He walks up to my window and says, ‘I’m a police officer, I’ve been watching you for a while,’” she tells RFT. He didn’t give her a name.

She asked him why he was watching her. “He was like, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it. You’re in good hands.’”

That didn’t reassure Muldrew in the least, and she drove off with her kids in the backseat. The man followed her.

Muldrew claims she sped through stop signs to escape, eventually making it to a nearby Quik Trip, where she begged for help. There, a group of concerned customers confronted Hill and managed to run him out to the parking lot.

Muldrew’s mother, who had followed the chase in her own vehicle, pulled out her phone and snapped a photo of the license plate as he escaped. Muldrew called 911.

Hill’s employment as a St. Louis police officer ended the next day. A police spokeswoman would not say whether he was fired or resigned. In May, he was charged with fourth-degree assault over the incident. (Hill’s lawyer did not return multiple calls seeking comment.)

On October 18, the former St. Louis cop pleaded guilty to the charge, a misdemeanor, and was sentenced to one year of unsupervised probation.

While the sentence has concluded the criminal case, Muldrew says she’s still shaken. “He could have killed us,” she says. Her family is traumatized.

She says her kids are now scared of the police. “I really don’t feel justice was served at all.”

On a deeper level, for Muldrew, the past twelve months have provided a riverfronttimes.com

showcase of injustice — with trauma that began even before a creepy cop turned up at her house.

Two months before the incident, Muldrew’s fiancé, Danny Barnett, had been arrested and charged with second-degree robbery — accused of a particularly heinous crime that left a 66-year-old Vietnamese immigrant fighting for his life. Already on probation, Barnett was jailed on a $20,000 bond he couldn’t pay.

Barnett ultimately spent more than eight months in jail before the Circuit Attorney dismissed the charges against him on August 4, three days before the scheduled trial. It took another month before a judge could resolve Barnett’s probation status. He was finally released on September 25.

Today, although Muldrew’s mystery visitor has a criminal record and Barnett is a free man, the couples’ questions linger. Both now wonder how the tentacles of the justice system could have gotten so tangled around a single family.

“The bottom line,” says Barnett, “is I’m being framed and she’s being harassed by the same people that’s supposed to protect and serve.”

NOVEMBER 1 - 7, 2017

Continued on pg 11

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IF YOU WITNESS AN OVERDOSE (Alcohol or other drug)

Don’t Run Call 911 No Arrest No Prosecution No Conviction

Missouri’s “Good Samaritan” law protects people who call 911 from arrest & prosecution for possession of drugs or paraphernalia

Under this law, the person who actively seeks emergency medical help in the instance of an overdose (or other medical emergency) and the person experiencing the medical emergency will be protected from minor drug and alcohol violations.

THIS LAW PROVIDES IMMUNITY FROM: POSSESSION

Possession of a controlled substance, drug paraphernalia, imitation controlled substance or an altered ID

MINORS

Purchase, possession of alcohol or sale of alcohol to a Minor

VIOLATION

Violation of a restraining order, probation or parole

PUBLIC NUISANCE

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STALKING Continued from pg 9 On a weekday in October, Muldrew rests her head on Barnett’s arm as he loads a video on his phone’s web browser. He’s pulled up a KSDK story from November 16, 2016, broadcast just days after Barnett was arrested and accused of punching Huan Le in the face on October 24.

“New tonight,” the video begins, “a man is in custody accused of attacking and robbing a man in a popular business district. Now, the victim’s children say they hope their father will get justice.”

News of the attack had shocked the Cherokee Street neighborhood.

Le had come to America as a refugee in 1979; on that Monday he had been taking a walk through an alley around noon, near Cherokee and Ohio Avenue, where he owned a store. According to police incident reports, surveillance footage shows Le trying to walk past a black male, described as about 6’2”, thin build, medium complexion.

The cameras caught the man hitting Le with a single punch to the face, which knocked the older man to the ground instantly. The assailant then took Le’s wallet.

Barnett lets the KSDK clip continue to play. The report cuts to interview with Le’s son, Vu, expressing gratitude for the community’s help — a GoFundMe campaign raised more than $14,000 for medical costs — and that the culprit had been caught. This is justice, Vu tells the KSDK reporter.

His father, “deserves to know who did this to him.”

But Barnett says the cops got the wrong guy — and that they have their own shoddy work to blame.

“That was dirty, negligent cop work,” Barnett says. “Instead of going to find the perpetrator, you lock an innocent guy up.”

The case appears to boil down to one key witness, identified in a police report as a St. Louis Juvenile Court security guard. The guard never claimed to witness the attack, but he did have access to one of the surveillance cameras that captured the incident. After seeing the footage, he claimed to remember seeing the suspect sitting across the street on the day of the attack, looking “suspicious and out of place.”

In a supplemental report filed November 7, a city detective showed the security guard a photo lineup of possible suspects. The guard didn’t recognize any of the options.

Crucially, in the same report, the detective notes that the guard “advised me that he thought the suspect was

already arrested.” The reason for the assumption? The guard thought he had seen two police officers talking with a suspect in front of the juvenile building. He was “quite sure this was the person responsible for the robbery.”

Following the lead, the detective spoke to the two officers. Like the guard, the pair believed they’d found their man, saying the person they spoke with seemed suspicious. “The subject lied about his identity and would not cooperate with officers,” the report continues. One of the officers thought the man had similar shoes to the suspect on the surveillance video, as well as a similar “demeanor” and “walked the same way.”

The detective returned to the security guard and offered to conduct a second photo lineup. This time, they included the mug shot of the man the officers had interviewed — a man on probation for drug possession named Danny Barnett. The guard declined.

“He advised me to that he did not need to see a photo spread due to him seeing the suspect on video,” the detective writes. The guard said he’d already “got a good look” at the suspect when he spotted him talking to the officers.

Four days later, after police picked up Barnett on a warrant for a probation violation, the guard apparently changed his mind. He looked at the photo lineup that included Barnett — but the result was negative.

The guard “was unable to identify Danny B. based on this set of photographs,” the report notes.

Still, within days, the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office charged Barnett with second-degree robbery, and shortly afterward upgraded the charge to first-degree.

It’s possible that investigators uncovered additional evidence to make their case, but since the charge was ultimately dismissed, the case is now sealed. The incident reports that Barnett acquired (and subsequently provided to RFT) don’t mention any actual eyewitnesses. When then-Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce issued the criminal charge on November 13, the probable cause statement mentioned only that an officer “was able to speak with a witness who saw the robbery on surveillance video” — apparently the security guard — and that the witness was able to “positively identify” Barnett. Never mind that the security guard had been unable to ID Barnett in a photo lineup.

To Barnett, the police work was baffling. Why, he wonders, didn’t the investigators didn’t do more to interview the victim? As the November

2016 KSDK report proves, while Le was badly injured, he was able to talk.

“Thank you very much everybody,” Le says weakly to the camera. “I am better right now. Thank you so much.”

“He could talk,” Barnett says, replaying the clip. “Why didn’t they go back?”

Le died the following February. In an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, his grieving son, Vu Le, said he believed the beating left his father too weak to continue his cancer treatment. He wanted the charges against Barnett upgraded to murder.

But no additional charges were forthcoming. Instead, six months later, the city’s new circuit attorney, Kim Gardner, delivered the news to the Le family in person: Her office was dropping the charges against Barnett.

Prosecutors never said they had the wrong man, only that they couldn’t make the charges stick. In a press release, Gardner explained, “With the death of Mr. Le from cancer, any opportunity for identification evidence disappeared.”

Vu Le was incensed at the circuit attorney’s handling of the case.

“Kim Gardner’s office blamed my father dying as a cause of her dismissing the charge and letting the perpetrator go,” he told the Post-Dispatch. “It’s insulting to my family. My dad’s life mattered.”

Reunited after nearly a year apart, Muldrew and Barnett both harbor suspicions of law enforcement. For her part, Muldrew has no doubts about her fiance’s innocence. She says that he was on the phone with her during the time of the robbery. Barnett also claims that witnesses can place him at a barbershop around noon on October 24.

But it’s not just the questionable investigation and last-minute decision to drop the case that have them angry. It’s Josh Hill, too. In interviews, Muldrew and Barnett raise the possibility that the ex-officer’s bizarre behavior was somehow connected to the robbery case.

“Lightning doesn’t strike in the same spot twice, we all know that,” Barnett notes.

In a response to questions about possible links between Hill and the case against Barnett, Circuit Attorney’s Office spokeswoman Susan Ryan tells the RFT that Hill had nothing to do with it. She says “there is no connection as far as we can see” between Muldrew’s relationship to Barnett and the cop’s conduct. She also defends investigation that landed Barnett in jail.

In a statement, Ryan tells RFT:

We understand that Mr. Le’s family is grieving, and we are heartbroken over their loss. We, too, would like to hold the right person accountable for this terrible incident.

Mr. Le had indicated to police that he didn’t see the perpetrator’s face either before or after the assault (the perpetrator assaulted him from behind). I can’t answer the question as to why police did not go back to interview to Mr. Le in the hospital to gather a follow up statement. If anyone has any information about this case, we encourage them to contact police or prosecutors.

As for Barnett, he actually agrees with Vu Le — to an extent. Had police done their jobs interviewing the elder Le when they had a chance, he says, they might have figured out they had the wrong guy.

“Two families were torn apart due to the injustice of poor police work,” Barnett says. “On one hand, a man was attacked and the perp remains at large. On the other hand, a man was falsely accused and jailed.”

Barnett and Muldrew are just beginning to put their lives back together. They were supposed to get married on December 29, but whatever savings they had went to Barnett’s defense attorney. Barnett lost his job, and Muldrew had to pick up a second one while raising three kids by herself this past year.

When Muldrew looks at what happened to her family, all she can feel is frustration and anger. She remembers people staring at her in the supermarket and on the street, treating her like a pariah, like the fiancee of a murderer. The stigma still holds.

And then there’s Hill, still out there on probation without even a requirement to check in with a parole officer.

“The justice system is total bullshit, that’s exactly how I feel,” Muldrew says. “They came to my house and took Danny away from us for a whole year, but this officer comes to my house and chases me and my kids down, and for a year he gets to have a probation?”

To Muldrew, Hill’s behavior still doesn’t add up. He didn’t hit on her or make sexual advances when he showed up at her house. He was behaving like a cop on duty, with a “calm demeanor, bold, not afraid,” she says.

The closest she ever got to an answer came during a court hearing in July, for a restraining order she’d filed against Hill. Both Muldrew and Hill attended the hearing. She remembers the judge calling on Hill to explain his actions that day. She says Hill’s answer was, “I’m a man, she’s a woman n and she’s cute.”

County officers will get a sizable raise under its Prop P, passed in the spring. | KELLY GLUECK

KREWSON Continued from pg 9 and add $4,000 annually to their benefits. (The raise would also increase firefighter salaries.)

Krewson concedes that without the county’s pay raise on the horizon, the pressure on the city to act “would not be the same.”

Still, she notes that pay disparities among the region’s various police departments have been a problem for years. And in the face of opponents who want to send the police department a message, the mayor says, the pay disparity is “untenable if you’re trying to run a good department and keep and attract good officers.”

The St. Louis Police Officers’ Association, which represents around 1,100 city officers in collective bargaining with the city, backs Prop P, saying that an in-house survey of 300 members found 70 percent considering changing jobs.

Also supporting the measure is the Ethical Society of Police, which represents black officers. ESOP’s president, Sgt. Heather Taylor, is frequently critical of the department, but last week she penned an impassioned defense of Prop P, noting that low pay is driving more and more of the city’s black officers to other departments or out of police work entirely.

The question of accountability has also proven a sticky subject.

Opponents point to Comptroller Darlene Green’s audit of police overtime payments, which found that hundreds of thousands of hours could not be verified. A coalition of protest organizers, civic riverfronttimes.com

activists and some city officials are collecting signatures to trigger a state audit of the police department, a step they say is necessary before any pay raise.

As for Krewson, she says she would “not object to a state audit.”

She says that she looks forward to seeing an update to Green’s overtime audit “in the near future.”

With next Tuesday’s vote fast approaching, the campaign for Prop P is in full swing. A TV ad had has begun airing in local markets, and supporters are ramping up their pleas for votes.

Notably, Prop P notched the endorsement of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial board, which last week called the measure the “best way to stop abuses and improve police performance,” while arguing that protesters are deploying “misguided” logic in trying to block pay raises to police.

And Krewson notes that it’s not all about police. Prop P would also increase the city’s business-use tax, raising $4 million that Krewson has promised will fulfill a broader definition of public safety, one that encompass mental health services, vacant building demolition and summer jobs programs.

Those funding areas, says Krewson, “are not afterthoughts, they are integral” to the measure’s overall purpose.

Still, the mayor acknowledges the divisiveness of giving police a raise. “I hear what [opponents are] saying, but I think that voting no on Prop P is not the way to get better training. How many officers will we be short next year at this time if we vote no on Prop P? It’s not a way to get a safer city.” n

NOVEMBER 1 - 7, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

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Kevin McGinn, being nice to a customer.

(It happens.) | SARA BANNOURA 12

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NOVEMBER 1 - 7, 2017

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W

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT

KEVIN

THE OWNER OF CHEROKEE’S MOST ECCENTRIC RESTAURANT IS DOUBLING DOWN ON THE PIZZA BIZ BY NICHOLAS PHILLIPS riverfronttimes.com

hen Kevin McGinn insults customers, it’s primarily through the phone.

They call Kevin’s Place, his pizzeria on Cherokee Street’s Antique Row, and he greets them with a blast of anxiety: “Hellothisiskevinspeaking.” McGinn himself always answers. After all, he’s the sole employee: the order-taker, cook and the driver.

(Yes, that means he sometimes hustles out on deliveries while pizzas are baking; yes, while his front door is propped open; yes, while guests are dining in and unsure of his whereabouts. He just leaves. Then he comes back.)

Although McGinn is calm and witty during most transactions, he expects customers to be ready with their exact order during a rush. If they dither on the phone, he may grow impatient, curse, and hang up. Below is a sampling of things he has uttered at such moments, according to various customers and McGinn’s own memory: “Look, I can’t help you right now, I’m busy!” [Click.]

“If you say ‘um’ one more time, my head is going to explode.”

“I run this business, not the city.”

[Click.]

“Dumb bitch, go back to school and get an education.”

“My customers are geniuses.”

One disgruntled reviewer complained on Zomato, an online restaurant-review site, that McGinn lost his temper and labeled all city residents “tattooed drug addicts.” (The restaurateur denies this, insisting his actual words were “tattooed dog-loving freaks.”)

It is a miracle of American commerce that Kevin’s Place is still open — and in fact, just celebrated its tenth anniversary last month. For one thing, fewer than half of all restaurants make it that far, a 2014 study suggested. For another thing, the radical honesty of Kevin McGinn defies every norm of customer service. Yet somehow, it’s working.

McGinn, 60, is by no means the first restaurant owner to vent frustration at customers. Recall Ali Yeganeh, the authoritarian soup vendor in Manhattan who inspired “the Soup Nazi” character on Seinfeld. Consider, too, the national restaurant chain Dick’s Last Resort, which boasts of its “outrageous, surly” servers. Here in the Midwest, Chicago is home to both Ed Debevic’s, an old-school diner offering a “side order of sass,” and the Wieners Circle, a hot dog stand where the staff berates the late-night crowd.

Continued on pg 14

NOVEMBER 1 - 7, 2017

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Yet in most of these cases, the whole thing is schtick and spectacle. It’s a gleeful trampling over the maxim that The Customer Is Always Right. And everybody’s in on the joke.

Not so at Kevin’s Place. If McGinn sounds hot-tempered, that’s because he is. He doesn’t filter his feelings. He knows that it costs him some revenue, and occasionally he apologizes. But he’s always himself.

“All I’m doing is saying the things you’d like to say but aren’t allowed to,” he explains. “My customers either love me or hate me, and I don’t care which it is. I do the best I can.”

His rawness sets him apart from the artists and creatives who dwell on Cherokee Street. Practically everyone in the neighborhood would qualify as eccentric by the standards of mainstream culture. The

younger crowd tends to be self-consciously so; they value expression, originality and weirdness. McGinn isn’t aiming for weird. That’s just a label he earned accidentally by delivering pizzas on a giant tricycle, talking to his adopted cat and hanging out shirtless in a dining room that’s adorned with multiple portraits of Marilyn Monroe.

Nearby merchant Cherri Elder, co-owner of Elder’s Antiques, suggests that his quirks don’t even matter.

“It’s Cuckooville down here, honey,” she says, “and he’s the full cuckoo package. It’s never a normal experience. Good pizza, though.”

And that’s objectively, scientifically true: His pizza is a treasure.

It’s done St. Louis-style: thin crust, tangy provel mix, baked in a brick oven, then sliced square-wise. Its fragrance fills the entire block. He takes pride in it. But to get a taste, you need to be prepared for all kinds of emotional weather.

McGinn refuses to set timers on his ovens. | SARA BANNOURA

The pizzeria’s decor includes Antique Row merch and portraits of Marilyn Monroe (who reminds him of an ex-girlfriend). | SARA BANNOURA

“He’s temperamental, like a cat with rabies, but lovable,” says Jennifer Smith, a candlemaker who sells her wares across the street at the Heirloom Room. While McGinn does get embroiled in shouting matches with neighbors, she says, he can also be quite charming. She recalls his demeanor during the solar eclipse last August when many Antique Row merchants spilled onto the street to peer up at the sky.

“He was like a different person that day,” recalls Smith. “He was joking, he was smiling. He was wearing shoes.”

These days, McGinn has his sights set on a whole new neighborhood: He has rented a commercial space in Northampton, adjacent to a building where he lived briefly as a kid. His plan is to open a second Kevin’s Place there.

But he’s reluctant to hire another employee, so he vows to work 90 hours a week and run both restaurants himself.

“It’s Cuckooville down here, honey, and he’s the full cuckoo package. It’s never a normal experience.”

Can he pull it off? Various friends, neighbors and customers believe he can.

As one Yelp reviewer wrote: “Kevin is like Superman, if Superman was kind of awkward and drove a Corolla.”

Over the summer, McGinn appeared in a major motion

picture that played in cinemas across the country.

His cameo comes exactly an hour into Kidnap, starring Halle Berry. Berry’s character has a young son who gets abducted into a car by a shady couple. The couple speeds away, but Berry the mother-heroine chases them, all the way out to their remote home. Berry creeps into the house and glances at some framed photographs atop the mantel. McGinn is in one of those photos.

How? The actress who played the shady female kidnapper is Chris McGinn, Kevin’s sister. The production staff asked the St. Louis-born thespian to bring in her old family pictures to use for that scene, so she dug up a shot from years ago of her and her brother.

(When Kevin found out, he pleaded to be introduced to Berry; Chris laughed and said, “Sure.” The meeting is still pending.)

Chris remembers all the injuries her brother suffered while they were growing up in St. Mary Magdalen parish in south city: That time he broke his shoulder playing hockey. The time his buddy stabbed him in the neck with a knife (which may not have been an accident).

Or the time the siblings got into a skirmish and Chris poked him in the eye with a pencil. (Its graphite tip is still lodged in his eyelid, and still visible, to this day.)

Most vividly, though, she recalls his entrepreneurial fire: By age nine, he was hawking copies of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on South Kingshighway at Chippewa.

A few years later and two and a half miles north, he got a job at Pagliacci’s pizzeria by lying about his age. (When they discovered he riverfronttimes.com

was twelve, not fourteen, they fired him.)

He later found work at Rugerri’s on the Hill, where the legendary Stan Kann was still playing the organ, and then at Steak ‘n’ Shake.

Once he earned his driver’s license, he delivered for Imo’s. He was so focused on his cash income, he would even wash and iron the bills.

“He was always very ambitious, very driven, just trying to be self-sufficient,” says Chris.

In 1979, when Kevin McGinn was 22, he and a friend launched their first brick-and-mortar venture, Bugsy’s Pizza, at 2810 Chippewa. They did well enough to add a second location, but the partners had a falling out and split up the business. McGinn renamed his wing of it Circus Pizza, which grew to four locations.

But he swore he’d be out of the pizza racket by his 30th birthday, and made good on that promise: In 1987, he sold Circus Pizza and became a cab driver. (McGinn credits his stint as a cabbie with enough knowledge of city streets to obviate any need for a map or GPS while on deliveries.) He started buying cars and leasing them out to other cab drivers. Then he moved full time into car rental.

But his destiny smelled like pizza. One summer Sunday in 2007, he ate brunch at the Mud House cafe on Antique Row, the eastern half of Cherokee Street. He was scheduled to start a new job the next day as a sales rep for a construction firm.

After brunch, he strolled west up the block and noticed an empty storefront. A century before it had

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The patio of Kevin’s Place affords a peaceful respite from kitchen chaos. | SARA BANNOURA

KEVIN’S PIZZA Continued from pg 15 been a cigar shop. He wondered if he could rent the space for cheap.

While standing there, he called the owner to inquire and learned the rent was even lower than expected. He reserved the space, without even stepping inside, and opened Kevin’s Place in October 2007.

“My friends said, ‘You’re doing a really good job avoiding getting a real job,’” he recalls.

McGinn threw himself back into the pizza world. A lifelong bachelor, he says, “I don’t have kids; my business is my kids.” He furnished the dining room with various wood pieces from Antique Row. He also hung up pictures of Marilyn Monroe, who reminded him of a sweetheart he had while at Bugsy’s in his early twenties.

“I thought it’d be a good karma thing,” he says. “And Marilyn’s not so bad-looking.”

Online reviews soon trickled in.

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Customers raved about his pizza, which explains in large part why he’s still in business: He’s good at it.

McGinn mixes his own sauce and tops his pies with your choice of either mozzarella or a blend of provel and five other cheeses that he grinds himself. (He declines to divulge his trade secrets by getting more specific.) He bakes everything in his brick oven by feel; he refuses to set timers. Then he cuts the pizzas in squares, as all self-respecting St. Louisans do.

Of course, he wasn’t pleasing everyone at first.

“If you like provel, check it out,” wrote one customer on Zomato in May 2009. “Otherwise, I would go somewhere else. Plus, it didn’t help my confidence in the place when I walked in on a Friday night and found the owner/cook laying down on a couch watching TV.” For several weeks in 2011, McGinn fielded phone orders from a hospital bed. He told everyone he couldn’t make any food. He

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was recovering from abdominal surgery.

Like many sexagenarians, McGinn endures a host of health problems. He soldiers on while wearing knee braces, ankle wraps and wrist bandages. He sometimes shrieks in pain if he makes a wrong movement or burns himself. A couple years ago, he thought he felt symptoms of a stroke, so he shuffled a block east to LeMay Furs, where proprietor Shirley DeMay gave him cayenne powder to drink. (He later told a physician he got it from his “witchy doctor.”)

Despite such ailments, he keeps long hours. Kevin’s Place is open every single day. Up until the last Fourth of July, he was claiming — probably with some hyperbole — that he hadn’t taken a day off in more than six years. (That would’ve implied a streak of 2,200 plus days at the grindstone, including six straight Christmases.) The largest component of his business is carry-out, which gets a boost

“It didn’t help my confidence in the place when I walked in on a Friday night and found the owner/ cook laying down on a couch watching TV.” from Slice, an app that lets people order online from mom-and-pop pizzerias.

He has hired a few helpers over the years, but his most constant companion is his cat, Venus, a.k.a.

LL Cool Cat. He took her in after the tenants living above his space

grafton

Towboat Days NovEMBER 4-5 graftoN HARBOR

The pizzeria, at 2111 Cherokee Street, was a cigar shop in the early 1900s. . | SARA BANNOURA moved out and abandoned her.

Some diners have complained about her presence and other hygienic issues, such as McGinn’s fondness for going barefoot. (The eatery’s most recent health rating with the city was a “B,” but it has been “A” for six out of eight ratings since 2012.)

Because he’s a one-man show, he rarely sits still. He used to deliver food on a large tricycle fitted with a plywood rack on its rear.

However, thieves broke the chain lock and stole it.

That wasn’t the first instance of theft. On February 7, 2010, while he was hauling out the garbage, a man snuck into the dining room, grabbed a flatscreen TV and dashed away with it. (Police interviewed a suspect but did not charge him.) In July 2015, burglars broke in through a window and stole some keys. He says they also went into his cooler, gobbled down his strawberries and took some chicken wings. (“I mean, I know my wings are good,” says McGinn, “but they’re not that good.”)

Throughout his pizza career, McGinn says, he has been mugged a half-dozen times. Most recently, on a February night in 2012, he drove two extra-large pizzas to a house in Gravois Park. It looked vacant, but McGinn walked up on the porch anyway. A man appeared from the alley and pointed a shotgun at him, ordering, “Give it up.” McGinn handed over the food and $54 cash. According to the police report, it was the fourth robbery of a pizza deliveryman on that block in a short time.

These kinds of crimes, plus the stress of running his own business all alone, leave McGinn a bit on edge.

“He has good days and bad days, just like the rest of us,” says a nearby merchant on Antique Row who asked that his name not be published. “Only on Kevin’s bad days, it sounds like he’s going to fire a grenade launcher at someone.”

Regular customers know this, and support him all the same.

Wrote one Zomato reviewer in 2012: “He’s not superficial. Take ’im or leave ’im. I’ll bet the main folks talkin’ the crap are steady ordering!!”

Wrote another reviewer on Google three years ago: “I know and love Kevin — and he offends me every time I call.... You have to realize that you’re buying great food from a Don Rickles (without the cheerfulness). It’s part of the fun.”

Two winters ago, McGinn got a call from Thaddeus Brija, a financial advisor who lives nearby. Brija started to talk, but McGinn said the call sounded odd and asked if they were on speakerphone. Brija had to admit the answer was yes; he figured there might be yelling, and at that moment, he had friends over who were huddled around to hear the interaction first-hand.

Brija is a loyal patron who counsels patience for first-time customers.

“As long as you know how to order,” Brija says, “the man makes a hell of a pie!”

McGinn knows he has an abrasive reputation, and plays off of it.

His recent flier depicts a picture of an angry gargoyle and the message: “We’re running a business, we just happen to sell pizzas and do a pretty good job of it. So get with the program. —Kevin the Pizza Nazi.”

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17

KEVIN’S PIZZA Continued from pg 17 His ad in a recent Saint Louis City Edition proclaimed, “If you’re not eating Kevin’s pizza, you’re probably eating crap!”

“I throw weird stuff out there,” he explains, “and it’s amazing what you get back.”

Sometimes, he pushes too far.

Take customer Dick Pointer, who lives across from the Lemp Mansion and is a well-known personality and storyteller in Benton Park. Pointer and McGinn became friends and one night went for a drink at the Venice Cafe, where Pointer soon had a small audience wrapped up in one of his tales about a former St. Louis Blues hockey player. Right at the climax, McGinn interrupted him.

So Pointer tried to build up the narrative again — and again, McGinn interrupted.

Annoyed, Pointer gave up. McGinn urged him to continue, but Pointer replied he wasn’t some kind of “circus monkey” who entertained for coins. So McGinn reached into his pocket and started tossing quarters at him.

Pointer was not amused. A tense silence ensued. McGinn left, and they’ve barely spoken since.

Still, Pointer says, he appreciates odd souls, and counts McGinn among his favorites.

“There’s not another person like Kevin,” says Pointer. “Not American, not Russian, not Chinese.

Nope.”

Almost every neighbor of Kevin’s Place has a “Kevin Story.”

Kaylen Wissinger, founder of Whisk bakeshop a half-block away, has three.

Story No. 1: In November 2012, Wissinger and a colleague were trying to fit their convection oven through the front doorway. McGinn pedaled by on his tricycle. He awkwardly parked it and, without introducing himself, helped them muscle the oven inside. Then he left.

“I don’t think he even said goodbye,” she says.

Story No. 2: McGinn still rents out about 30 cars through his second business, Custom Car Rental.

Occasionally, he parks one or two on Cherokee Street proper, which then blocks customer parking. This practice has become a bone of contention between him and certain neighbors, confirms Xena Colby, co-owner of South City Art Supply and president of the Cherokee Antique Row Merchants Association.

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At one point, McGinn heard through the grapevine that Wissinger had bad-mouthed his parking habits at an association meeting. (She denies this.)

He came into her shop and confronted her. She protested that he had his facts wrong. He left.

Story No. 3: A long time after that episode, she called McGinn to order a large pepperoni. He said, “Well, that’s boring!” and hung up on her. She wasn’t sure if he was kidding, so she walked down fifteen minutes later. The pizza was ready, and his vibe was friendly.

They were back on good terms.

In sum, she says: “I appreciate him...I guess?”

On the northwest corner of Mardel Avenue and Hereford Street in Northampton, a new pizzeria is waiting to be born. The storefront is connected to a set of apartments where McGinn lived as a kid (he remembers sleeping out on the balcony during hot summer nights). He hasn’t opened yet, but a plastic “Kevin’s Place” sign gleams in the window. All he needs now is the right paperwork at City Hall.

He does not, however, think that he needs another employee.

“I’m not anti-people,” he says.

“I just haven’t found anyone I’m comfortable with.”

To run a second location, he’ll need to close the Antique Row store at certain times and alternate between the two. This would require working 90 hours a week, he estimates, but he’s willing to do it.

When he talks about the new eatery, it’s clear he’s delighted to be back in his old neighborhood. He may have dabbled in cab-driving and lived in various places around the St. Louis area, but McGinn is a south city pizzaman, through and through.

Nothing stops him — not weather, not holidays, not even reminders of his own mortality.

One of McGinn’s schoolmates back at St. Mary Magdalen was Donald J. Hoffman. Hoffman grew up to be the founder of Elicia’s Pizza, which now has five locations, one of them just a mile from Kevin’s Place. McGinn always considered Hoffman a competitor, and admired his work ethic.

In July 2010, Hoffman died. McGinn donned a suit and tie and headed to the funeral.

Looking back on it, he says, the ceremony was “rough.”

He also mentions, in passing, that on the way to the funeral, he delivered a pizza. n

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CALENDAR

WEEK OF NOVMEBER 3-8

Saint Louis Ballet dancer Amy Herchenroether in Giselle. | COURTESY SAINT LOUIS BALLET, PHOTO BY PRATT KREIDICH

BY PAUL FRISWOLD

FRIDAY 11/03 Living Proof As strange as it seems to us in the West, Japanese artists in the nineteenth century did not view their own drawings as individual works of art. They were “thinking on paper” or creating visual aids for wood carvers and printers who would create the actual work of art: the woodblock print. But despite their creators’ misgivings about the artistry, drawings by master woodblock printers such as Utagawa Kuniyoshi and Katsushika Hokusai are indeed works of art. Living Proof: The Art of Japanese Draftsmanship in the 19th Century, the new exhibition at

the Pulitzer Arts Foundation (3716 Washington Boulevard; www.pulitzerarts.org), collects more than 80 such “throwaway” drawings that capture the artists’ work in their own hands, with corrections and alterations that demonstrate how they thought about and edited their projects “in camera.” Living Proof is on display November 3 through March 3.

Giselle Saint Louis Ballet opens its new season with the romantic and haunting French ballet Giselle.

The titular Giselle is a peasant girl who is wooed by Albrecht, a nobleman in disguise. Unfortunately, Albrecht is already betrothed to

another, and Giselle has a weak heart. Albrecht isn’t bothered by his fickleness until he’s caught between the two women and Giselle dies from a broken heart. Matters only get worse for Albrecht when the vengeful Wilis appear.

These vengeful spirits were once women, but all died from broken hearts, and they intend to punish Albrecht by dancing him to death. But can a pure love from beyond the grave save him? Saint Louis Ballet performs Giselle at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday (November 3 to 5) at the Touhill Performing Arts Center (1 University Drive at Natural Bridge Road; www. stlouisballet.org) on the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus.

Tickets are $34 to $59. riverfronttimes.com

Theo Welling: Portraits For the past couple years, Theo Welling has had a weekly gig photographing and interviewing St. Louisans for the Riverfront Times (there’s that full disclosure). Every week the paper publishes the photo, and accompanying commentary from his subjects, as “The Lede.”

Welling has spoken with short-order cooks, kids, acrobats, artists, yoga practitioners — pretty much anybody who is willing to share something about their life. As documents, they’re interesting, but as a barometer of what St. Louis

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CALENDAR Continued from pg 21

TUESDAY 11/07 On Your Feet!

worries about, believes, celebrates and condemns, they’re fascinating.

Welling’s best shots are familiar and startling, reminding us that for all the ways we’re different, we’re also recognizably the same. Theo Welling: Portraits, an exhibition of his favorite images, opens with a free public reception from 6 to 9 p.m.

Friday, November 3, at the Dark Room (3610 Grandel Square; www. thedarkroomstl.com). The show remains up through December 31.

SATURDAY 11/04 Full Moon Festival Let’s get right to the important bit: Schlafly is going to roast eight whole hogs. The reason for this pork-stravaganza is the Full Moon Festival, which celebrates the harvest moon.

The fest takes over the front lot at Schlafly Bottleworks (7260 Southwest Avenue; www.schlafly.com) from 4 to 9 p.m. today, with live music, bonfires, a variety of Schlafly’s seasonal beers and, it bears repeating, eight whole hogs. Guests can purchase Porkin’ Pig Platters with pulled pork sandwich and two sides for $12 or buy items a la carte. And to add a little spice to the day, a chili cook-off will be contested during the party by five local chefs, including returning champion Dale Beuchamp of Half & Half. Admission is free, but you’ll need money to eat and drink.

Cirque du Soleil Crystal For its new show Crystal, Cirque du Soleil abandons the circus ring to take to the ice. Acrobats and ice skaters come together to create the story of a young woman who escapes to the world of imagination. A hockey game unexpectedly incorporates ramps to allow the players to take to the air, and then changes again into a giant pinball machine. Crystal, the heroine of the tale, performs a ballroom dance with a partner suspended in the air while she skates below. Cirque du Soleil presents Crystal at 3:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 1 and 5 p.m. Sunday (November 4 and 5) at the Family Arena (2002 Arena Parkway, St. Charles; www.familyarena.com). Tickets are $25 to $160.

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On Your Feet tells the story of Emilio and Gloria Estefan. | Matthew Murphy

Jurassic Park Say what you will about the film Jurassic Park (those dinos should have had feathers; Jeff Goldblum should have done a nude scene), but it is a crowd favorite, and John Williams’ score for it has become so great a cultural touchstone that a wheezy version played on a melodica has become an internet favorite. The St. Louis Symphony does everyone a solid by performing the score live in sync with a screening of the film at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday (November 3 to 5) at Powell Hall (718 North Grand Boulevard; www.slso.org). Conductor Gemma New will lead the symphony for the evening. Leave your damn melodicas at home. Tickets are $43 to $80.

SUNDAY 11/05 Cranksgiving Somehow, we got to that point in the year when Thanksgiving is right around the corner. For far too many people, the impending holidays are a time of stress because they don’t have enough to eat. But this Sunday, you can help them out.

The twelfth annual Cranksgiving invites you to enjoy a bicycle ride of five, ten or 25 miles, during which you’ll buy some non-perishable food to donate to Food Outreach. Last year’s Cranksgiving riders brought back more than 18,000 items, the largest donation

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in the country. Registration starts at 8 a.m. this morning at the Schlafly Tap Room (2100 Locust Street; www.bworks.org/cranksgiving).

It’s free to participate, but organizers ask that riders buy a minimum of $15 to $20 of food.

Thomas Struth: Nature & Politics We live in a high-tech world in which we can communicate instantly with someone on the other side of the globe — or even orbiting in space on the International Space Station — without really understanding how such technological marvels occur. We may as well be victims of Arthur C. Clarke’s Third Law: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” German artist Thomas Struth reveals how scientists and engineers perform their magic tricks simply by showing you where the magic happens. His monumental photographs reveal the research spaces and installations where science reshapes our world every day.

Thirty-five of Struth’s visually dense photographs make up the new exhibition Thomas Struth: Nature & Politics at Saint Louis Art Museum (1 Fine Arts Drive; www.slam.org).

The show features robotics laboratories and aeronautical centers that appear to be sets from a big-budget sci-fi movie, but they’re really just office spaces for some of the most intelligent people on earth. Thomas Struth: Nature & Politics will be on display November 5 through January 21.

Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine went through the charts like a bolt of lighting in the early ’80s, but the Cuban-American band had a long road of weddings and bar mitzvahs before they could get a record deal. On Your Feet!, the musical based on Emilio and Gloria Estefan’s life and music, tells the story from the beginning. It’s a story of love, parental disapproval, the American music industry’s prejudice against Spanish-language songs and the Estefans’ belief in each other, backed by the propulsive sounds of Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood.

On Your Feet! lights up the Fox Theatre (527 North Grand Boulevard; www.fabulousfox.com) Tuesday through Sunday (November 7 to 19). Tickets are $35 to $105.

WEDNESDAY 11/08 Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck’s characters George and Lennie have worked their way into the American consciousness.

The two migrant farm workers have dreams of getting their own spread and living happily after, as pure a definition of the American dream as you’re going to find. But Lennie is too strong for his own good, and unable to control himself because of his mental disability. George watches out for him, because Lennie is a magnet for trouble — and trouble is relentless when you’re a migrant worker, then and now.

SATE closes its “season of adaptation” with Steinbeck’s own stage adaptation of Of Mice and Men. Performances take place at 8 p.m.

Wednesday through Saturday (November 8 to 18) at the Chapel (6238 Alexander Drive; www.slightlyoff. org). Tickets are $15 to $20.

Planning an event, exhibiting your art or putting on a play? Let us know and we’ll include it in the Night & Day section or publish a listing in the online calendar — for free! Send details via e-mail (calendar@ riverfronttimes.com), fax (314-754-6416) or mail (6358 Delmar Boulevard, Suite 200, 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.

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24

FILM

[REVIEW]

Slip into SLIFF For the next ten days, St. Louis is the film capital of the world Written by

ROBERT HUNT

T

he St. Louis International Film Festival returns this Thursday, November 2, with a basketful of new and classic movies.

Multiple films are shown daily at venues across the metro area.

Tickets are $10 to $13, with select special screenings ranging in price from free to $25.

We’ve reviewed a half-dozen offerings. Visit www.cinemastlouis. org to view the entire schedule.

Axolotl Overkill 4:30 p.m. Fri., Nov. 3 & noon Thu., Nov. 9 Landmark Plaza Frontenac Cinema Watch sixteen-year-old Mifti and her friends as they drink, smoke, get high, have sex, visit clubs, lounge around hotel rooms barely dressed and pose intensely while listening to Gil Scott-Heron records. Then watch them do the same things all over again. And again. Directed by 24-year-old Helene Hegemann and based on a novel she wrote when she was approximately the same age as her protagonist, Axolotl Overkill is loud, meaningless and in love with its own emptiness, wallowing in its random moments of squalor like a spoiled adolescent trying to convince everyone she’s the baddest kid on the block. The nicest thing you can say about it is that no axolotls were actually harmed during the making of the film.

Future ‘38 7:15 p.m. Fri., Nov. 3 & 2 p.m. Sat., Nov. 4 Landmark Tivoli Theatre The contrived premise behind director Jamie Greenberg’s tolerably lightweight comedy is that it’s a lost film from the 1930s (introduced

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An AI challenges the world’s best player of a Japanese game in Alpha Go. | COURTESY OF CINEMA ST. LOUIS

by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, no less) about an American agent sent 80 years into the future to keep foreign enemies from developing the Formica isotope. Essex (Nick Westrate) finds the world of 2018 to be a very strange place where people communicate over video phones (the on-line switchboard is manned

by Blade Runner’s Sean Young) and search for information over a system called the “electro-mesh” (the answers come out on ticker tape). Much of the comedy is of the “weren’t-people-in-the pastso-naive?” variety, only slighter more polished than your average local improv show, but it’s mostly harmless fun. My favorite part was a barely noticeable visual moment that revealed that people in the future really do eat Dippin’ Dots!

The Cinema Travellers 7:30 p.m. Fri., Nov. 3 Webster University’s Browning Hall Less a narrative than a respectful and even a bit enraptured act of observation, The Cinema Travellers follows a group of film exhibitors as they bring their creaky old mobile projection booths into the most rural corners of India. Enduring scratched prints and rusty, antiquated equipment, they find dwindling crowds and technological changes are pulling their livelihood out from under them, yet they

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persevere. If you’ve ever spent time in a projection booth, the images of spinning take-up reels and burning carbons will bring back a past that has become — for better or worse — as outdated as the Model T or the 8-track tape. But just as I was wondering if the characters — who include the operators as well as a cantankerous old projector repairman who hopes his new method of rewinding reels will bring him fame — were aware that their machinery had become almost extinct in most of the world, we see one of the subjects take the plunge and make the first steps toward digital conversion. Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya have made a sad and thoughtful film about the very nature of the medium and the strange combination of dedication and technology that brings images to life.

Stormy Weather 4 p.m. Sat., Nov. 4 Washington University’s Brown Hall The plot of this 1943 film is razor-thin — it’s a familiar backstage story about the rise to fame of a talented tap dancer (Bill “Bojangles” Robinson) and a beautiful singer (Lena Horne) — but Stormy Weather could have filled the spaces between its twenty musical numbers with dramatic readings from the 1910 Sears catalog and still

rank as one of the best Hollywood musicals ever. Forget the story; the attraction here is the collection of the greatest African American entertainers of its — or all — time. The great Fats Waller performs “Ain’t Misbehavin,” while Lena Horne delivers the title song in a production number that features local legend Katherine Dunham and her dance troupe. The standout, however, is a segment Fred Astaire called the greatest moment in a movie musical, in which Cab Calloway’s “Jumpin’ Jive” becomes a vehicle for the Nicholas Brothers to tap, leap and slide across the stage as if the world was their own personal trampoline.

Alpha Go 6 p.m. Sat., Nov. 4 Webster University’s Browning Hall In 2016, an artificial intelligence program called Alpha Go challenged the world’s greatest player of the ancient Chinese game Go to a five-game tournament in South Korea. Director Greg Kohs’ Alpha Go is an account of the software team that created Alpha Go, the day-to-day drama of the match, and the many people — scientists and players — who got wrapped up in the drama of the game. Alpha Go makes a fatal error, however, by failing to offer even a superficial explanation of the game or its rules.

DID YOU KNOW:

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A family battles leukemia in When I Was 6, I Killed a Dragon. | COURTESY OF CINEMA ST. LOUIS The film has much in common with the crowd-pleasing mechanics of a sports film, but when observers get excited about one player’s move or show alarm at a particular play, there’s nothing in the film to back up their reaction. It gives some sense of the emotions at stake in the man-vs.-machine conflict, but doesn’t provide enough information for the viewer to understand them. We’re just expected to go along with their enthusiasm.

All The Rage 1:15 p.m., Sun., Nov. 5 Tivoli All the Rage is both personal diary and documentary profile, as filmmaker Michael Galinsky (with co-directors David Beilinson and Suki Hawley) tells the story of Dr. John Sarno, whose controversial medical theories involve treating pain by having patients recall emotional trauma from their past, while also documenting how Sarno’s practice had helped him personally. Like most subjective filmmaking of this type, much of the project’s success relies on how much you can accept Galinsky’s first-person style and whether you trust him as a guide.

Simple in concept and execution, the film makes a persuasive case for Sarno’s views — complete with celebrity endorsements from Larry David and Howard Stern — while also allowing Galinsky’s proximity to the center of the story to give it a more personal face. It would be easy to dismiss this as narcissism — that’s an inevitable quality of diary-based documentaries — but All the Rage works on both levels,

telling an intimate story about the filmmaker and his family, but going beyond the first-person mirror to make a convincing case for Sarno and his ideas.

When I Was 6, I Killed a Dragon 8:30 p.m. Sun., Nov. 5 Webster University’s Browning Hall Bruno Romy was one of the co-directors of The Fairy, a 2011 French comedy with a visual style that some compared to Keaton and Tati, but which I found irritatingly twee.

Much of the same whimsical slapstick style is applied to Romy’s latest film, but this time the emotional stakes are higher. The result is a deeply felt but profoundly playful celebration of life and courage.

The film begins when Romy and his wife Annabelle learn that their six-year-old daughter Mika has leukemia. Romy, a doting father, decides that he and his daughter will collaborate on a film about her medical treatment, recording the family crisis but preserving the comic techniques that come naturally to him. From a worrisome subject, Romy creates a lively jumble of a film, a live-action cartoon with silly costumes, sight gags, animation, musical numbers and, at its heart, a courageous heroine who encapsulates the film’s loony spirit even when she’s at her weakest. I was reminded of another French child-heroine, the mischievous star of Louis Malle’s Zazie in the Metro, but with a sense of gravity and genuine affection. Mika turns the unusual combination of a dark subject and a goofy narrative approach into an emotional triumph. n

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[ S TA G E ]

Murder Most Fun YoungLiars paints Shakespeare with a broad, bloody brush in Titus Androgynous Written by

PAUL FRISWOLD Titus Androgynous

Written by William Shakespeare. Adapted and directed by Chuck Harper. Presented

by YoungLiars through November 11 at the Centene Center for Arts and Education (3547 Olive Street; www.yltitus. brownpapertickets.com). Tickets are $20.

I

n a minimally set, fourth-floor space that doesn’t really even offer a stage, YoungLiars theater collective tries to wring every last laugh out of Shakespeare’s grisly tale of revenge and justice, Titus Andronicus. The resulting play, renamed Titus Androgynous, is more like a high-speed mugging, with the cast tearing the best parts of the story out with their teeth, then storming the stage to spit blood, stab one another and gleefully upend all pre-conceived notions of Shakespeare as “serious business.”

Also, there’s musical narration.

Titus Androgynous is adapted and directed by Chuck Harper, and it is wonderfully crass. Anything that isn’t violent or lascivious has been excised, and by the time it’s over the stage and the cast are awash in so much fake blood that you suspect Fangoria magazine is an official sponsor. It’s a sugar rush of bad behavior performed with a wink and a feral grin.

Paul Cereghino wears multiple hats, composing the music and then performing it live on keyboard (with live percussion and scoring duties handled by Michael Ferguson), as well as narrating the show through genuinely funny songs and stepping in to play a few minor roles. He opens the show with some musical exposition that explains the duality of theater: Actors play multiple roles, he says,

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Tamora (Maggie Conroy) and her paramour Aaron (Erin Renee Roberts) last longer than most in this bloody production. | VALERIE GOLDSTON to show “how we’re all connected, and because it’s cheaper.” And then we’re off and slaying.

Jonah Walker is our Titus, back from the war against the Goths with a heap of prisoners and looking to relax in Rome. There’s an unexpected struggle for the role of emperor, which Titus settles with a vote. The new ruler Saturnanus (Isaiah de Lorenzo) announces he’ll take Titus’ daughter Lavinia (Rachel Tibbets) as wife. Her betrothed disapproves, and then Titus slays his own son when the boy tries to stick up for his sister. The moment Titus commits that first murder, Saturnanus appears horrified — our first clue that war has driven Titus insane. Murder follows murder follows murder, until almost everybody is dead. Walker gives Titus an unsettling serenity in this whirlwind of blood; he’s sangfroid about the sanguine nature of events around him. Killing a man, severing his own hand — this is how the world works for him.

Those murders are aided by Katy

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Keating, who plays both Roman and Goth, but drops everything to run and get her rolling cart of special effects. These include buckets of fake blood, instant stumps for Lavinia’s arms when her hands are chopped off, dummy heads and a wide assortment of sharp household objects. All of the cast is in white pancake makeup with heavy black circles around their eyes that accentuate most expressions, but Keating in particular displays a remarkably joyous bloodlust while she’s loading her fellow cast members’ mouths with blood capsules or handing over a sword.

Ellie Schwetye and Amanda Wales play both heroic sons of Titus and glowering sons of Tamora, the captured Queen of the Goths who becomes empress. As Gothic boys they kill the emperor’s brother Bassianus (Mitch Eagles), then bro-down with an intricately choreographed handshake. After raping and mutilating Lavinia, they repeat that handshake with her dismembered hands, because bros be-

fore hoes, right dudes? Throughout the play characters revel in their atrocities, underlining the horrors of a culture at war. Also, it’s funny.

If there is a flaw in the show, it’s minor. Ferguson’s enthusiastic drumming occasionally drowns out someone’s lines, and a few laughs are lost. This is a shame because everyone in the cast is great, but Ferguson redeems himself: His musical partner Cereghino interrupts his own death scene to ask the drummer why he’s laughing at the performance. Ferguson replies with a standing “fuck you” and a cymbal crash.

So Titus Androgynous is relentlessly funny, violent and crass. But is it art? Yes. Recent Shakespeare productions have been uniformly traditional with period clothes and much reverence. YoungLiars are here to remind us that Shakespeare is for everyone, including and especially the crowd that relishes cheap jokes, cheaper special effects and a lake of blood, liberally splashed about. n

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Yvonne Osei, Seeing Double Double, 2017. Textile design. | COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

Yvonne Osei: Tailored Landscapes

Brandon Anschultz: Time Won’t Give Me Time

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Opens 6 p.m. Sat., Nov. 4. Continues through Dec. 16.

Yvonne Osei takes over the Adam Aronson Fine Arts Center for her exhibition Tailored Landscapes — literally. Her large-scale photo installation occupies the length and breadth of the gallery, the two-year-old indoor gallery located at Laumeier Sculpture Park. The German-born artist has been photographing Laumeier throughout the past year; these images are then manipulated to create patterns reminiscent of the brightly patterned textiles of her Ghanian culture. Osei’s manufactured figures comprise people observing the park’s sculptures, roads and the backdrop of greenery that surrounds Laumeier, but these elements only become apparent at close range.

When America elected a dimwit with a cult of personality, the nation made a clean break with progress. For artist Brandon Anschultz, the about-face recalled his boyhood in the early ’80s, which also featured a popular dimwit in the White House. The gay community emerged from the underground to conquer the world of music and art, but a sense of oppression increased as AIDS ravaged many big cities — and the leader of the free world laughed it off. That sense of deja vu informs Anschultz’s new exhibit Time Won’t Give Me Time. The show at Cherokee Street’s newest gallery reveals a more personal, less restrained side of the artist as he summons his own memories of possibility laced with dread for the future in sculptures, painting and works on paper. riverfronttimes.com

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Charleville Brewing Company’s Hoptimistic IPA pairs well with a house-cured meat platter, beer-brined wings in buffalo sauce and the “Wake and Bake” burger. | MABEL SUEN

[REVIEW]

Tasting Room Charleville Brewing Co. isn’t just a place to drink. It’s also serving delicious food Written by

CHERYL BAEHR Charleville Brewing Co. & Tavern

2101 Chouteau Avenue, 314-241-4677. Sun.Thurs. 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Fri.-Sat. 11 a.m.-10 p.m. (Bar is open until midnight.)

W

hen Jack and Joal Russell opened Charleville Vineyard back in 2003 the only beer they cared about were the six-packs their patrons

tried to smuggle into the Ste. Genevieve winery. The husbandand-wife team had a policy of not allowing outside booze to be consumed on their property, but that didn’t stop the beer drinkers — who mostly came at the insistence of their wine-enthusiast significant others — from showing up with a private stash of suds.

Jack Russell saw an opportunity. The vineyard owner had been playing around with home brewing after receiving a kit from his son one Christmas. Since he already had the equipment and a surplus of product, he began offering his beer at the winery and was immediately struck by its popularity. Even after increasing production, he couldn’t keep up with demand, finally bringing on seasoned brewer Tony Saballa from nearby Chaumette Vineyard and Winery to help him make beer.

In the years that followed, Charleville Vineyard added the label “microbrewery” to its name and became known for its beer as much as its wine — if not more so.

Area-wide distribution followed, but the Russells could not help but feel that they had tapped out on Ste. Genevieve’s tourist-oriented market. Why not bring their beers, and a brewpub experience, to St. Louis?

There was just one problem with their plan: The Russells did not want to do food. Granted, falling into beer had worked out well for them, but they knew better than to open a restaurant with zero experience. Fortunately, they had friends in the industry who were seasoned veterans in that department, Paul and Wendy Hamilton of 1111 Mississippi, Vin de Set and Moulin Events (among other successful ventures). With the Hamilriverfronttimes.com

tons on board, the partners at first entertained the idea of opening a small window inside the brewpub so patrons could grab food at their leisure. However, as their plans took shape, they decided upon a full-service concept, opening Charleville Brewing Co. & Tavern this past May. One catalyst for the full-service concept was the space itself.

The large, open room that houses Charleville Brewing Co. sits on Chouteau Avenue across a side street from Vin de Set. Alone, it seats at least 150 people; add in the patio, and capacity can reach 200 guests. For the Russells, the thought of trying to accommodate that many people out of a small food window seemed like a recipe for disaster. They settled on a traditional brewpub concept that would allow their patrons to sit

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CHARLEVILLE BREWING Continued from pg 31 back and drink beer — not stand in line — while waiting for food.

Indeed, Charleville Brewing Company is a place to relax, a comfortable space that the Russells and Hamiltons dramatically transformed from its former life as an engine repair shop. When they took over, the building was windowless, caked in grease and pocked throughout from industrial-strength acid. You’d have no idea of that history walking into the current digs, however.

The warm space has glossy new cement floors, huge windows that look out onto Chouteau and a massive wooden bar and tasting counter that runs nearly its entire length. Exposed brick and beams and St. Louis-inflected décor, including a fleur de lis and an original city plan, decorate the walls.

Moulin executive chef Ryan Luke and Charleville Brewing Co. chef Matthew Allsup created a menu that combines the sort of hearty tavern food you’d find in a British Isles pub with comfort specialties straight out of a Southern grandma’s kitchen. It’s not all folksy fare, though: Some twists give the food a cosmopolitan touch, like the tangy Asian glaze coating the plump, beer-brined chicken wings. The sweet and spicy sauce is like the best parts of the Korean hot paste gochujang and a sweet and tangy barbecue sauce. It’s a beautiful marriage of styles.

Instead of the usual hot dogs, too, the corn dogs at Charleville Brewing Co. are filled with lobster meat and garnished with a crisp sweet and sour slaw that cuts through the deep-fried richness. The taste is a Maine summer carnival.

The “South Side” fried chicken

For dessert, Charleville offers carrot cake with cream-cheese icing. | MABEL SUEN livers benefited from a bright carrot and cilantro slaw and fiery sriracha aioli. However, the texture was tough and dry, possibly the result of being cooked a bit too long, though they arrived after our entrees. Perhaps they had been sitting in a window. It’s a pleasant enough idea that would work if better executed.

Bruschetta, a reliable crowd pleaser, comes in several styles, and guests are encouraged to mix and match from a selection that includes a wonderfully pungent goat cheese topped with roasted red peppers and whole cloves of soft, roasted garlic. The earth and tang from all components work in beautiful concert. The brie and apple butter is an equally worthy selection, and I appreciated the texture

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that the spent grain granola garnish added — though the cranberries in the granola added a bit too much crunch. They were like rock candy.

Flavor-wise, though, it’s a delicious and classic combination.

Charleville’s hand pies may be its best menu offerings. The flaky, fried pockets are somewhere between a biscuit and an empanada.

The “Chouteau Shepherd” version is a fun riff on a shepherd’s pie, filled with ground beef, potatoes, corn, peas and onions. It’s delightful, though the version that blew me away was a veggie option, stuffed with black bean and sweet potato. The spicy concoction gives off the same fiery perfumed flavors you get from biting into a samosa at an Indian restaurant. I can’t think of anything I’d rather

pair with the brewpub’s wonderful beer.

Chefs Luke and Allsup wanted to up Charleville’s sandwich game by offering familiar options with distinct toppings. A simple pulled chicken sandwich is anything but with its peppered goat cheese spread, tangy chimichurri and giardiniera toppings. The spice is subtle, but it creeps up nicely.

Likewise, instead of a standard pub burger, Charleville’s signature is the “Wake and Bake,” a plump ground beef patty topped with tender pork belly, a sunny-side-up egg and hollandaise sauce. When the salt and pepper that seasons the ground beef is your relief from the richness, you know it’s an up-tothe-edge decadent dish.

Continued on pg 35

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of award winning favorites buffet of award winning favorites The tasting room includes a spacious dining area. | MABEL SUEN buffet Entrees are equally hearty and well executed. Meatloaf, liberally seasoned with Thanksgiving spices, is made from beef, pork and lamb, then wrapped in bacon. A ketchup and balsamic glaze enlivens the dish. Chef Luke’s specialty, fried chicken, is both smoked and fried, infusing the meat with earthy flavor that adds dimension to the pleasantly straightforward salt and pepper breading. Both come with rustic mashed potatoes laden with so much butter, they take on the color of the noonday sun.

My favorite main course is the house-smoked pastrami, a dish that tastes like what would happen if Austin seceded from the state of Texas and plopped itself in the middle of Manhattan. Fat-striped brisket is smoked to the point of almost falling apart, its Texas-style crust replaced with coarse black pepper. It’s Katz Delicatessen in cowboy boots.

Why you’d want to end on anything but this glorious note is questionable, though a molten s’mores

the Charleville Brewing Co. for a bite to eat, you’d have no idea the food side of the operation came second. The Russells may not have envisioned themselves as restaurateurs. Then again, way back, they didn’t even envision themselves as brewers. It’s funny how they have a way of stumbling into success. And these days, they certainly don’t have to worry about folks trying to sneak anything into their delightful restaurant — except a very healthy appetite. n Charleville Brewing Co. & Tavern

Beer-brined fried wings �������������� $10�99 “Wake and Bake” burger ����������$11�99 House-smoked pastrami������������� $15�99

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35

36

SHORT ORDERS

[SIDE DISH]

A Rock Star’s Second Act: Hot Dogs Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

S

everal years ago, after playing a gig with his band the Urge, Steve Ewing was struck by what he saw as a missed opportunity — and it had nothing to do with music.

“We’d finish playing a show and I would turn to my guitar player and ask him, ‘Why are we not feeding people here?’” Ewing recalls. “We’d be in a bar, the show would let out and all of these people would be looking for something to eat. They’d end up at White Castle or some place like that, and I couldn’t help but think that if there was something to eat here, they’d eat it.”

Before becoming the namesake of the popular restaurant Steve’s Hot Dogs (two locations including 2131 Marconi Avenue, 314762-9899), Ewing achieved fame as the frontman from the Urge, the St. Louis-based outfit that shot to fame in the mid-1990s. As Ewing toured the country playing shows, he could not help but notice the vibrant street food that made latenight eating an exciting endeavor.

“All over, especially in places like Chicago, New York and New Orleans, vendors were feeding people outside of show venues,” Ewing explains. “At all hours of the night, there was always something to eat.”

While living in Los Angeles in the early aughts, Ewing had a front row seat to the city’s burgeoning food truck and street food scene.

When he moved back to St. Louis in 2006, he was busy with his music by night, but he needed something to do during the day. A food cart, like the ones he’d frequented in L.A., seemed like the right idea.

36

RIVERFRONT TIMES

Steve Ewing started with a cart in north St. Louis. Now he has two restaurants. | SARA BANNOURA “I decided to do hot dogs because they seemed like the best way to start for someone like me who has never been in the restaurant business,” says Ewing. “I looked at a place like Woofie’s, which was doing Chicago dogs, and I wanted to take it to the next level.”

Ewing began Steve’s Hot Dogs as a simple hot dog cart operation that he set up outside of a soap factory in north St. Louis. The success of the cart propelled him to up his game. He began doing more gourmet options and took his cart to festivals.

All the while, Ewing was eyeing a storefront on the Hill that he thought would be the perfect location for a restaurant. When the woman who was leasing the spot decided to shutter her business, Ewing swept in, took over her lease, bought her equipment and opened the first permanent location of Steve’s Hot Dogs in 2011.

Not long after, Ewing was approached by the owner of the Royale, who asked him to open a second spot next to Tick Tock Tavern in Tower Grove East. Ewing set up an Indiegogo campaign to raise startup funds and was overjoyed when he met his modest fundraising goal in no time. Within a month and a half of launching the

NOVEMBER 1 - 7, 2017

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campaign, he opened his second location and has never looked back.

Ewing admits he was not much of a culinarian growing up, but he feels at home as restaurateur, even if it happened by chance. “I never thought I would be in the food industry,” says Ewing. “But business-wise to me it was so interesting and fast-paced.”

Just like music.

Ewing took a break from the hot dog business to share his thoughts on the St. Louis food and beverage scene, food crushes and his love of whipped-cream-covered cheesecake.

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

I’m a homebody. I’m out a lot, but I like hanging in when I can.

What daily ritual is non-negotiable for you?

Early-morning gym session. It sets the rest of the day in motion.

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

Teleportation.

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

Lots of niche restaurants and new small concepts.

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

A couple of years ago I would have said ramen, but we are killing it now!

Who is your St. Louis food crush?

Guerrilla Street Food.

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

I like David Bailey’s concepts.

Which ingredient is most representative of your personality?

Brown sugar. Sorry, couldn’t help it!

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

Playing music, of course! Or music production.

Name an ingredient never allowed in your restaurant.

Coconut.

What is your after-work hangout?

Tick Tock Tavern or Sandrina’s.

What’s your food or beverage guilty pleasure?

Food, it’s takeout Chinese.

Drink, Bulleit Rye straight.

What would be your last meal on earth?

An entire chocolate chip cheesecake with ALL the whipped cream! n

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BLK MKT Eats offers sushi rolls so big they could take on Chipotle burritos and likely win the battle. | SARAH FENSKE

PHOTO BY ED ALLER

8 S . SARAH ST REE T, ST. LOUIS 31 4-535 -0551 WWW.THESCOTTISH A R MS.COM

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On day one, they ran out of food. On day two, a line of customers was waiting when they first opened up for the morning — and the day ended with yet another sell-out situation. Clearly, the owners have tapped into pent-up demand, even in a part of a town with numerous lunch options.

It’s not just those giant “burrito-size sushi rolls.” Cousins and co-owners Kati Fahrney and Ron Turigliatto offer three choices for every carefully considered combo: bowl, salad or roll. The only difference is whether you get your flavorful piles of fish, flesh and veggies rolled or served atop lettuce or rice.

Of the half-dozen options we tried, all were incredibly tasty, with bright flavors and perfectly chosen sauces. Try the Hawaiian-style “Shake Poke,” which, in the bowl version, is a rice-based riff on the poke that West Coasters have been swooning for. Or the “Seoul Delicious,” which combines grilled chicken with kimchi slaw, pickles, carrots, crispy shallots and gochujang mayo. It works in any of the three possibilities. The menu also includes three different “nacho” options for those who want to try a trio of combinations on top of wonton chips.

The restaurant is designed for takeaway; there were just four stools and a single chair on the day we visited, although the communal table could clearly hold a few more.

(Make that very few — if the place stays this popular, there’s simply not many other places for customers to stand.) It’s stylish, bright, light and seemingly perfectly designed to be replicated in dozens of other locations — a smart, tasty Chipotle or St. Louis Bread Co. for the 2017 era.

Our only complaint about BLK MKT Eats, in fact, is the busy corner it’s located on. It’s tucked between Kaldi’s and Yiro/Gyro in the Gerhart Lofts complex at Forest Park and Vandeventer, and while the renovations to the lofts (which also provide a home for Narwhal’s slushie bar) are a welcome addition to the neighborhood bordering Saint Louis University, the streets are already busy, with convenient parking in shorter supply than many St. Louis neighborhoods. BLK MKT Eats seems likely to squeeze the few spots in evidence even further.

The silver lining is that BLK MKT Eats’ website promises that you’ll soon be able to order online and get your food delivered — an intoxicating prospect. In fact, ever since gulping down our “Seoul Delicious,” we’ve been refreshing our browser to see if delivery is an option yet.

Yes, this is the restaurant we’ve been waiting for. The shame is that we’re not alone in that.

BLK MKT Eats is open Monday through Saturday from 11 a.m. until they sell out. It’s currently closed on Sundays. n

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HAPPY PEOPLE SARAH FENSKE WITH CLEVELAND HAPPY PEOPLE HEATH GIFT CARDS GREAT DRINKS at the signature of106 main st. • edwardsville,lancing il il , le fering at BLK MKT Eats (9 S. GREAT DRINKS il sv 106 main st. • edwardsville, il 618.307.4830 ward il ed• edwardsville, main . •st.

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FunFood,Ha reatD

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• edwardsville, 106 main st. il • edwardsville, 106 main st. il il you might think you’re lookm eath.co dh30 an.48 el07 ev8.3 cl61 www.clevelandheath.com www.clevelandheath.com www. www.clevelandheath.com 618.307.4830www.clevelandheath.com 618.307.4830 618.307.4830 ing at a sushi roll.

After all, the eath.com 106 main st.www.clevelandheath.com • edwardsville, w.ilclevelandhjulienned www.clevelandheath.com www.clevelandheath.com ww vegetables, rice and cuts 618.307.4830 106 st. • edwardsville, il 106 main st.main • edwardsville, il www.clevelandheath.com of protein are all wrapped tightly 618.307.4830 618.307.4830 106 main st. • edwardsville, il www.clevelandheath.com www.clevelandheath.com in a thin sheet of nori, just like the 618.307.4830 www.clevelandheath.com Japanese-inspired treat.

But once you get one of these babies in your hands, you’ll realize how wrong you were. These rolls don’t have the radius of a silver dollar — more like a coffee cup. They’re about the size of a Chipotle burrito, in fact, and assembled in much the same way. Rather than a sushi chef formally practicing his craft, BLK MKT Eats offers an assembly line of workers, placing orders with speed and precision.

It’s a good thing they’re fast. Since 618-307-4830 opening two weeks ago on the westWWW.CLEVELANDHEALTH.COM 618-307-4830 ern edge of Midtown, BLK MKT Eats 106 N. MAIN | EDWARDSVILLE, IL WWW.CLEVELANDHEALTH.COM has been swamped with customers.

106 N. MAIN | EDWARDSVILLE, IL

RIVERFRONT TIMES

NOVEMBER 1 - 7, 2017

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Carina Flesch (at left) and Ryan Lewis have opened Pig & Pickle Eatery inside the former home of Atlas Restaurant in DeBaliviere Place. | MELISSA BUELT [FIRST LOOK]

Small Plates — for Sharing Written by

MELISSA BUELT

A

t their previous restaurant in Springfield, Illinois, chef Ryan Lewis and general manager Carina Flesch sometimes struggled to educate customers about the concept of small plates.

“It was kind of a foreign concept there because no one else did small plates,” Flesch notes. But at Pig & Pickle Eatery (5513 Persh-

ing Ave., 314-349-1697), their new Southern-inspired concept in the DeBaliviere Place neighborhood, they’ve had no such trouble. “I’ve noticed a shift in that,” says Flesch.

For chef/owner Lewis, small plates are a conduit to enjoying your time when you go out.

“I always think that food is meant to be shared, meant to be enjoyed, and not just meant to fill you,” Lewis says.

Lewis began his culinary journey at eighteen. Originally from Bethalto, Illinois, he opened Driftwood Cocktail & Eatery in Springfield and ran it for three years before deciding to return to his roots in the St. Louis area. Now 33, he felt like a good opportunity to make a change. He was looking for a spot in a residential neighborhood when he found the storefront that held Atlas Restaurant for fourteen years.

Lewis and Flesch first met in

lunch dinner brunch cocktails craft beer

late 2012 when they worked at a cafe together. When Lewis opened Driftwood in September 2015, Flesch joined the team as general manager. She now holds the same title at Pig & Pickle.

Rather than being separated by appetizers and main dishes, the Pig & Pickle menu is instead organized by the main ingredient, vegetables, chicken, pork, beef and seafood, and is categorized by gluten-free, vegetarian and vegan options.

Everything they offer has been sourced locally. (The only thing they don’t make in-house?

The bread for the French toast.)

The pair say they were lucky to maintain relationships with a few producers they worked with previously in Springfield.

“That’s another thing we kind of drive on ... having those relationships with the farmers and everything,” Lewis says.

In conceiving the menu, Lewis

says he gets an idea in his head and plays around with it. Lewis says he likes to use unusual cuts of meat in order to highlight something new.

He’s gotten proficient at butchering animals and makes a point of using the whole thing. Even the carcasses are used for stock.

“In the three years we were open at Driftwood, I was breaking down eight to ten birds a week,” Lewis says.

If the customers understand that everything is made from scratch, they have a bigger appreciation for what they are eating, Lewis says.

“I’ve heard tables comment, especially recently, they have never eaten food like this before,” Flesch says.

Pig & Pickle is open for dinner Tuesday through Saturday 4:30 p.m. until 10 p.m. Last weekend, they started serving breakfast on Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. n

[FOOD NEWS]

AUTHENTIC MEXICAN opened its doors in Ballwin FOOD on October 26,ON 1967.

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given to the place by founders Marv Gibbs and Clint Tobias, who launched their brand with the idea of providing an alternative to the burger-centric fast food spots that had opened in McDonald’s wake. At the time, their roast beef, ifty years ago, as KSHE began fill- ham and turkey sandwiches cost just 69 ing the airwaves with the sounds cents each. of “Sweet Meat,” an even sweeter According to “LC” lore, Gibbs and ToEVERY $20 MORE meat began filling ourOR bellies. bias had to change the name two years SPENT PER TABLE It wasn’t called Lion’s Choice (multi- later; a hotel chain had already tradeple locations including 14919 Manches- marked the brand “Red Lion.” In its 2 8 1 2 C H 636-394-8564 E R O K E E S T R E E) Twhen | ( 3 1 4 ) 2place, 4 0 - 5 9they 9 0 settled on Lion’s Choice as a ter Road, Ballwin; CHAPARRITOSSTL.COM the beloved boutique roast beef chain reference to a term from their childhood that meant “the best.”

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42

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MUSIC

43

A scene from KSHE’s 1974 Kite Fly, a huge event in Forest Park during KSHE’s early days, at which then up-and-coming act KISS performed. | PHOTO VIA MARQUEE MEDIA AND MARKETING

[ROCK DOCS]

Amateur Professionals New KSHE Documentary Never Say Goodbye Details the Station’s Early Years Written by

THOMAS CRONE

D

uring the early days of KSHE 95, DJs were able to set the mood of their shift, in part, through the use of a large lamp sitting on the console.

As programmers rolled in, they were able to manipulate that

lamp’s brightness in order to hit just the vibe they wanted in the air studio. For several decades, this humble lamp, looking like a refugee from a church jumble sale, was only known to a few intimates of the station.

Until now.

Ron Stevens, an afternoon drivetime host at KSHE from 1968 to 1976, is offering the rabid KSHE audience a fulfilling, nostalgic love letter in the form of Never Say Goodbye: The KSHE Documentary, a 94-minute work that exhaustively covers the station’s earliest days. It debuts Wednesday, November 1, at the Moolah, with an evening that will feature appearances by a number of the early jocks that helped define the station’s sound. A few of them even had a laugh with Stevens about the aforementioned lamp.

In an amusing, entertaining,

half-hour conversation, Stevens admits, “It’s interesting that you mention the lamp. There were a few people in the film who mentioned that, how much time we spent discussing the lamp. But notice everyone talking about it!

That lamp meant something to every guy on the air; it was symbolic, as Ted Habeck said. Because ours was a relaxed, fun presentation.

Not the typical, high-powered radio broadcasting approach of that time. And that lamp helped set the tone.”

It’s Stevens’ ability to luxuriate in the details that makes Never Say Goodbye such a fun view, full of rich bits of St. Louis music history, with KSHE, obviously, central to the narrative. Stevens, too, as the co-producer/director/editor/writer of the film is key, helping to drive the piece as the tale’s narrator.

Unsurprisingly, his wife and longriverfronttimes.com

time creative/professional partner, Joy Grdnic, is also featured — she hosted KSHE’s morning drive show Joy in the Morning beginning when she was just a teenager.

Knowing that KSHE was steaming toward its 50th anniversary as an album-oriented rock station, Stevens knew the time to create a film about its birth had a natural deadline. In September 2016, he “made the commitment to do this” he says. “I started saying it out loud, which is the first step to getting started. Then people started suggesting others for the team,” including co-producer and director of photography Jack Twesten.

Securing his key technical personnel, Stevens approached the station, which provided him some archival material, with the proviso “that it had to meet their minimum technical standards.”

NOVEMBER 1 - 7, 2017

Continued on pg 45

RIVERFRONT TIMES

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KSHE DOCUMENTARY Continued from pg 43 Along the way, Stevens collected 38 hours of shot material from 44 interview subjects, which he painstakingly transcribed in preparation for the editing phase; included is novelist Bill Addison, the very first voice on the air in 1961, during its pre-rock & roll days — alongside a host of former jocks.

Among the other dozens-strong interviewed was former DJ Joe “Mama” Mason. With Stevens’ work focusing on the station in the ’60s and ’70s, Mason just barely slipped in, having joined the station in 1979. While he departed to another local station for a six-year stint in 1987, Mason says, “for most listeners’ collective memories, my entire rock tenure of fifteen years all defaults back to KSHE.” A longtime commercial/broadcast producer with an extensive, national list of credits, Mason joined the station young, as almost all of the DJs were when hired on by then-general manager (and father figure) Shelley Grafman. But unlike others — including Stevens, who was booted off the air during his first hour of KSHE broadcasting, only to be hired to a weekend stint a year later — Mason arrived as a rarity: a guy with actual air experience.

“I was always on the air as a disc jockey, although I also did some commercial and promotional production when I was putting myself through college,” Mason says.

“Even though I was only nineteen when I started, I had already been working in the radio industry since I was sixteen. I moved out at seventeen, and had worked onair at KCFM (93.7 FM) when I was eighteen, so I came to the station as a ‘working professional,’ unlike most of the other guys, many of whom were hired right out of high school and started sweeping floors or digging ditches, and then worked their way up to an on-air position.

“KSHE was an under-funded, ‘what you see is what you get’ operation,” he adds. “The building itself even looked like kids took over a storage shed of the 66 Drive-in and made themselves a radio station that was staffed by...well, kids themselves. I started at nineteen; others at eighteen or even seventeen. The oldest on-air staffer was maybe 26. So there was a lot of trust, and a lot of self-identification with the DJs.”

That feeling, Mason says, accounts for why so many young folks gravitated toward the station.

And why so many of them still dig its brand, even if it’s a very different animal today.

“KSHE stood for rebellion,” he says. “Rock was fun, loud and often talked about drug usage, partying, disrespect for authority, dislike for school, et cetera. And our parents hated it, which made us like it even more. It wasn’t at all a station for adults. It was for kids. Kids back then were different from today’s kids, but they were still kids.”

As for the kids on the air, many of them tell similar stories: how their first shift, or two, involved nerves so severe that they didn’t know if they’d make it through.

The responsibility given by Grafman suggested that “somehow we knew that since he’d given us this autonomy, we had to figure this out ourselves. Here you had disc jockeys sixteen to nineteen years old, running a radio station.

And by 1976, it was known around the globe.”

Attrition happened: DJs left for other stations, pursued careers in other forms of media; many were sacked and rehired by Grafman, who was always listening, a phone call away.

“All of us had been there,” Stevens says, “part of the ‘second chance club.’ You come back, say ‘I’m sorry,’ and within two weeks, you’d be back on the air. We were young and when we screwed up it meant more than just standing in the corner. You were taken off-air, you were told, ‘You shouldn’t have done that.’”

Insider stories like this fill the documentary, which, like the station itself, Stevens believes will find an audience.

“There’s this connection you feel, this shared history with the station,” he suggests. “It’s something that listeners are very curious about.”

Stevens notes that the film’s subtitle of “Inspired Amateurs” and its cryptic “Volume 1” tag is intentional. For him, telling the story through the ’70s was the mission of Never Say Goodbye — but there’s plenty of material for a continuation of the KSHE story.

“I used that ‘Volume 1’ line as a challenge to whoever tells the story of KSHE in the ’80s,” Stevens says. “It’s a great story, too, but not a story for me to tell.”

The story of that lamp, meann while? That’s all Stevens’.

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46

HOMESPUN

ASHLEY BYRNE Bedroom Ballads ashleybyrne.bandcamp.com

L

ocal singer-songwriter Ashley Byrne admits that she has no real plans to make it big as a musician. Working by day at a mortgage company, the 24-year-old also has no grand delusions of striking it rich. Still, when she posted her debut solo release Bedroom Ballads on Bandcamp in late September, it came with a shocking price tag: $1,000 for the nine-song album. In an age where music is routinely devalued, was Byrne’s album and price point a get-rich-quick scheme or meta-commentary on artistic commodification?

Quite the opposite, says Byrne. In fact, she was surprised that anyone found the album in the first place.

It was posted with no fanfare or press releases; in fact, she only made it public so that her backing band could learn these songs — songs that Byrne was still fiddling with.

“I told them, ‘Guys, these aren’t the final cuts; I don’t want you to download them or get married to them or anything. I want to be able to change things,’” says Byrne.

But as it stands, Bedroom Ballads introduces a mature, and still maturing, artist. While the album’s palette is relatively bare-bones — just Byrne’s voice and MIDI keyboard parts recorded into GarageBand — she displays delicate command over both instruments and deploys them with precision in these elliptical and sometimes diaristic songs.

Over drinks on a perfectly brisk late-October evening, Byrne relays her musical history, which began with folk and rock-centric bands in high school and college. Byrne describes her most recent (and still ongoing) band, Monkey Girls, as a dream-pop act “like Blondie meets Cocteau Twins meets Alvvays.”

For her solo work, Byrne leans toward what she calls “singer-songwriter, love-ballad folk” like Vashti Bunyan and Carole King. And while romantic love and its many entanglements pop up on the album, it was a different kind of relationship that encouraged Byrne to begin work on a solo project after many years working as part of a band.

“I wrote my first song shortly after my grandfather passed away, who I was very close to,” she says. “And it just came out of nowhere; after I wrote that song I used a different part of my voice that I don’t normally use.

I usually sing higher, and I tapped into this different sound. After that song, I decided ‘I’m writing an album.

I need to do this for myself.’”

That song, “In Dreams,” comes early on this album.

Her original version of the song included clips of her grandfather talking to Byrne, though she eventually excised them because it was “too hard to keep listening to over and over again.” She does, however, have another recording that merges their voices — an album of Christmas songs recorded not long before her grandfather’s death last December.

“He could sing!” she says. “He had a voice like Bing Crosby or Dean Martin — very deep and handsome and strong. Everyone in my family says I must have gotten my voice from him.”

Byrne’s vocal gifts, which take center stage on this

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Ashley Byrne says the album is still a work in progress. | COURTESY OF ARTIST recording, owe more in their development than just genetics. Opening track “Lived Long” introduces Byrne as a soloist in a church choir, her multi-tracked vocals settling into sometimes austere harmony against a well of reverb and a subtle, tremolo-heavy keyboard pattern.

It’s a fearless way to open her first solo outing, and on the rest of the album she drifts from coy delivery to steely resolve. Whatever mood she channels, Byrne doesn’t flinch or pull punches.

She studied vocal performance at Truman State University, where she “felt very much like a black sheep in school,” having never taking music theory or classical training before. “I just knew that’s what I loved to do — that’s what I did with all my free time in high school, so that’s the skill of mine that I want to develop most.”

And while she didn’t pursue operatic music past college, her ability to modulate her voice is an ongoing process, as if the depth she channels in her lyrics has found its complement. “The deepness was more somber and a little more commanding, and it wasn’t me saying, ‘Listen to me, trying to sing pretty and sing these pretty melodies.’ It was, ‘Listen to me; hear me; I have something that I actually want to say.’

“Even just the themes on this album, and actually, lyrically, what’s on this album is super personal and something I have even been nervous about,” she continues, remarking on some of the songs’ more naked and unfiltered moments. “I know my family is going to listen to it, and you have ‘You Don’t Know My Name’ on there.” (In the song’s deceptively lilting chorus Byrne chides a lover, “You asked me if I came, but you don’t know my name.”)

Byrne says that the album is still a work in progress — she claims that she wrote the last song just last week and may swap out some songs — but that she’s ready to stake her claim as a solo artist with Bedroom Ballads, even if it means charging quite a bit less than $1,000 per album.

“It’s a commitment to me being completely myself and putting it all out there,” she says.

—Christian Schaeffer

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OUT EVERY NIGHT

THURSDAY 2 BULLY: 8 p.m., $15. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

CHICAGO FARMER: w/ Emily Wallace, Hillary Fitz, Drew Jameson 8 p.m., $15. The Bootleg, 4140 Manchester Ave., St. Louis, 314-7750775.

ECHOSMITH: w/ Banners 8 p.m., $24-$29.

Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

JOE METZKA BAND: 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-4365222.

KIM MASSIE: 10:30 p.m., $10. Beale on Broadway, 701 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-7880.

LORDS OF ACID: w/ Combichrist, Christian Death, En Esch, Wiccid 8 p.m., $25-$28. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

[CRITIC’S PICK]

MARC BROUSSARD: 8 p.m., $22-$25. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

Ghoul. | PRESS PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE BAND

PSYCHOSTICK: w/ Kissing Candice, Raven Black 6 p.m., $15-$17. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

THE WRECKS: w/ Vesperteen, The Technicolors 8 p.m., $13-$15. Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

FRIDAY 3 ANTHONY GOMES: 8 p.m., $15. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

BEN FOLDS: 8 p.m., $32.50-$35. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

BROTHER JEFFERSON BLUES BAND: 10 p.m., $5.

BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

COFFEE BREAK: w/ Ken Warner 4 p.m., $7.

Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

Ghoul 7 p.m. Friday, November 3.

Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Avenue; Sauget, Illinois. $20 to $22. 618-2746720.

Two traveling bands of costumed metal monsters will be making a mighty ruckus at this show, but only one actually produces music as maniacal as its stage persona would imply — and that band is Ghoul. Sure, Gwar is a spectacle virtually unparalleled in the annals of metal music. And sure, Ghoul doubtlessly cribbed many notes from Gwar, having come onto the scene nearly two decades later. But whereas Gwar’s music has often seemed like something of an afterthought to the wacky performance art taking place on the stage, Ghoul simply fucking shreds. The Oak-

land-based group takes influences from thrash metal and death metal in near-equal parts, producing a toxic stew of lightning-fast riffs, blood-drenched vocals and pummeling drums that appeals to even the most discerning of headbangers. Through it all, the band manages to keep its tongue planted firmly in its cheek — a rarity in a scene that can sometimes be a bit too self-serious.

But Really Though: OK, maybe we went to far when we called Gwar’s music an “afterthought” — the band has only increased in musical proficiency as the years have gone by, and we’re not trying to hate. Stick around after Ghoul for one of the best shows in all of metal; you won’t be disappointed.

—Daniel Hill

ERIC FOREMAN AND THE RENAISSANCE BAND: 5 p.m., $10-$15. National Blues Museum, 615 Washington Ave., St. Louis.

Choir Vandals, The Longshot 8 p.m., $10-$12.

Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

kee St., St. Louis, 314-696-2888.

GOT VILLAINS: w/ Fangs 8 p.m., $7. Foam

The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-

BRIAN CURRAN: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues &

SAVED BY THE 90S: 8 p.m., $10-$12. The Ready

Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis,

535-0353.

Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-

Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-

314-772-2100.

THE PEOPLE’S KEY:: 8 p.m., $15. The Stage at

5222.

833-3929.

GWAR: w/ Ghoul, Doyle, U.S. Bastard 7 p.m.,

KDHX, 3524 Washington Ave, St. Louis, 314-

CHEROKEE JAZZ CRAWL: w/ Miss Jubilee, The

TAKE ME TO THE RIVER: MEMPHIS SOUL AND

$20-$22. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave.,

925-7543, ext. 815.

Shake Em Up Band 12:30 p.m., $7. Foam

RHYTHM & BLUES REVUE: w/ William Bell,

East St. Louis, 618-274-6720.

WAKER: 8 p.m., $12. Blueberry Hill - The Duck

Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis,

Charlie Musselwhite, Bobby Rush 8 p.m.,

JAKE’S LEG: 9 p.m., $7. The Bootleg, 4140 Man-

Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., University City,

314-772-2100.

$40-$45. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St.

chester Ave., St. Louis, 314-775-0775.

314-727-4444.

HOT MULLIGAN: w/ Super Whatevr, Hold Close,

Louis, 314-726-6161.

JAMES ARMSTRONG BAND: 7 p.m., $10. BB’s

WAYNE NEWTON: 8 p.m., $65-$95. River City

Ursa Major, Biff K’narly & the Reptilians 8

THAT RAT & THE DIRTBAGS: 10 p.m., free. The

Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St.

Casino & Hotel, 777 River City Casino Blvd.,

p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson

Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis,

Louis, 314-436-5222.

St. Louis, 314-388-7777.

Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

314-833-3929.

KUNG FU CAVEMAN: 9 p.m., free. Nightshift

A TRIBUTE TO DICK GREGORY: 2 p.m., $15. Har-

Bar & Grill, 3979 Mexico Road, St. Peters, 636-

ris-Stowe State University, 3026 Laclede Ave.,

KEYBOY: 8 p.m., $10. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

SATURDAY 4

MICHAEL MCDONALD: w/ Marc Cohn 8 p.m.,

ARKELLS: w/ Irontom 8 p.m., $15-$18. Blueber-

441-8300.

St. Louis, 314-340-3366.

$26.50-$92. Peabody Opera House, 1400 Mar-

ry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd.,

LUNA: 8 p.m., $20. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp

TRIO OF PARKS: w/ Man The Helm, Goodbye

ket St, St. Louis, 314-499-7600.

University City, 314-727-4444.

Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

Old Friend, Your Last Chance 8 p.m., $7. The

MODERN ENGLISH: 8 p.m., $20. Off Broadway,

BLUES TRAVELER: 8 p.m., $30-$35. Delmar

MICA PROJECT 5 YEAR ANNIVERSARY SHOW: w/

Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St. Louis,

3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-

Brothers Lazaroff 7 p.m., $25. Kranzberg Arts

314-352-5226.

OUR LADY PEACE: 8 p.m., $30-$35. Delmar Hall,

6161.

Center, 501 N Grand Blvd, St. Louis, 314-533-

WIDE AWAKE: w/ Summoning The Lich,

6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

BOO BOO DAVIS & THE BUMBLE BEE TRIO: 10

0367.

Hollow, Broken Youth, Torn at the Seams 6

SECONDARY CD RELEASE SHOW: w/ New Lives,

p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S.

RAW EARTH: 8 p.m., free. San Loo, 3211 Chero-

p.m., $10-$12. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St. Louis,

48

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[CRITIC’S PICK]

Modern English

It’s happened a million times in a million cities, towns and college dance parties: The world stops, the future opens wide, and praise-be-to-all-chiming-guitars-and-Bo-Diddley-beats, every defense melts and every voice belts out every word. In 1982, Modern English’s titanic hit “I Melt With You” made for one of pop music’s most hopeful, unifying moments. And for the last 35 years, every time the Essex, U.K., band has taken the stage, collective

nostalgia becomes pure, total joy. Of course, Modern English is more than that singalong-to-end-all-singalongs.

Crafty, dreamy and tensile all at once — and this year’s Take Me to the Trees is better than any new-wave journeymen’s album has a right to be — the music of Modern English can still melt you.

I Mend With You: This spring, Modern English cancelled numerous U.S. dates as guitarist Gary McDowell recovered from emergency surgery. McDowell is bac,k and so is one of the ‘80s very best bands.

—Roy Kasten

314-289-9050.

2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

SUNDAY 5

MONDAY 6

ARCH ECHO: w/ Aviations, We The Victim,

GOLD ROUTE: w/ Safe Bet 7 p.m., $10-$12. The

Timeless Corridor 7 p.m., $12-$15. Fubar,

Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-

3108 Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

0353.

DANCE WITH THE DEAD: w/ Gost 8 p.m., $13-

NIGHT SHAPES: 8 p.m., $7. The Sinkhole, 7423

$15. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis,

South Broadway, St. Louis, 314-328-2309.

314-498-6989.

PERPETUAL GROOVE: 9 p.m., $15-$18. Old Rock

EMBRAL: w/ Eric Hall, Moonrace 8 p.m., $7.

House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St.

SOULARD BLUES BAND: 9 p.m., $5. Broadway

Louis, 314-772-2100.

Oyster Bar, 736 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-

ERIK BROOKS: 8 p.m.; Nov. 12, 8 p.m.; Nov. 19,

621-8811.

8 p.m.; Nov. 26, 8 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s,

THIRD SIGHT BAND: 8 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues

2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

& Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-

GENESIS JAZZ PROJECT: 5 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz,

5222.

Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis,

TIM ALBERT & STOVEHANDLE DAN: w/ Randy 7

314-436-5222.

p.m.; Nov. 13, 7 p.m.; Nov. 20, 7 p.m.; Nov. 27,

GRIFFIN HOUSE: 8 p.m., $18-$20. Blueberry

7 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St.,

Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd.,

St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

8 p.m. Friday, November 3.

Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue. $20. 314-4986989.

University City, 314-727-4444.

LOVE JONES “THE BAND”: 8 p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz,

TUESDAY 7

Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis,

DEAD HORSE TRAUMA: w/ Ektomorf 7 p.m.,

314-436-5222.

$10-$12. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Lou-

MOTOGRATER: 7 p.m., $12-$15. The Firebird,

is, 314-535-0353.

2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

DEATH FROM ABOVE: w/ The Beaches 8 p.m.,

NATIVE HARROW: 8 p.m., $7. Foam Coffee &

$27.50-$30. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd.,

Beer, 3359 Jefferson Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-

St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

2100.

JAMAICA LIVE TUESDAYS: w/ Ital K, Mr. Roots,

PRIMUS: 8 p.m., $32-$52. Peabody Opera

DJ Witz, $5/$10. Elmo’s Love Lounge, 7828

House, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-499-

Olive Blvd, University City, 314-282-5561.

7600.

KIM MASSIE: 10:30 p.m., $10. Beale on Broad-

PUBLIC: 9 p.m., $10-$12. The Ready Room,

way, 701 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-7880.

4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

LO-PAN: w/ Lazerwülf, Dead Country Gentle-

PUMPKINSEED: w/ Sunset Over Houma 8 p.m.,

men, Ox Braker 7 p.m., $10-$15. Fubar, 3108

$7. The Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St.

Locust St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

Louis, 314-328-2309.

NAKED MIKE: 7 p.m.; Nov. 14, 7 p.m.; Nov. 21,

SOUL REUNION: 4 p.m., $10-$15. National Blues

7 p.m.; Nov. 28, 7 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s,

Museum, 615 Washington Ave., St. Louis.

2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

SOUL REUNION: 10:30 p.m., $7. Beale on Broad-

SIRUIS BLVCK: w/ ReAck, Family Medicine,

way, 701 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-621-7880.

Oreo Jones, Blood Handsome, Indiana Rome 8

VOODOO BLUES: 4 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s,

Continued on pg 50

! u o y ank

Th

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736 S Broadway • St. Louis, MO 63102 (314) 621-8811

fri. november 3

CHA WA 10PM MARDI GRAS INDIANS FROM NEW ORLEANS sat. november 4

AQUADUCKS

FUNKY HORNS FROM NASHVILLE 10 pm

[CRITIC’S PICK]

sun. november 5

VOODOO MAMAS PART 2 10 FEMALE FEATURED BANDS

Patrice Rushen. | PHOTO VIA THE ARTIST

starting at 2pm

Patrice Rushen

wed. november 8

VOODOO PLAYERS TRIBUTE TO

9:30 p.m. Saturday, November 4.

THE ALLMAN BROTHERS 9pm

The Sheldon Concert Hall, 3648 Washington Boulevard. $40. 314-533-9900.

Crate-diggers, soul aficionados and collectors of smooth grooves understand the value of Patrice Rushen, even if the general public may only know of her in passing. A lithe and versatile vocalist and a jazz-tutored pianist, Rushen cut a path through the mid-‘70s and early ’80s by combining Chic’s elegance and Herbie Hancock’s

thu. november 9

AARON KAMM AND THE ONE DROPS 10pm

OUT EVERY NIGHT Continued from pg 49

314-436-5222.

p.m., $7. Foam Coffee & Beer, 3359 Jefferson

merstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-

Ave., St. Louis, 314-772-2100.

5565.

SKEMATA: w/ Drugchage, MOM 8 p.m., $7. The

MARGARET & ERIC: 4 p.m.; Nov. 15, 4 p.m.; Nov.

Sinkhole, 7423 South Broadway, St. Louis,

22, 4 p.m.; Nov. 29, 4 p.m., free. Hammer-

314-328-2309.

stone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-773-5565.

ST. LOUIS SOCIAL CLUB: 8 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz,

MILD HIGH CLUB: 8 p.m., $12. Blueberry Hill

Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis,

- The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd., Univer-

314-436-5222.

sity City, 314-727-4444.

SWINGIN’ UTTERS: 8 p.m., $13-$15. Blueberry

THE NTH POWER: w/ Ghost Note 8 p.m., $14-

Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar Blvd.,

$16. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis,

University City, 314-727-4444.

314-588-0505.

A TRIBE CALLED RED: 9 p.m., $12-$15. Old Rock

PEELANDER-Z: 7 p.m., $15. Fubar, 3108 Locust

House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

St, St. Louis, 314-289-9050.

WEDNESDAY 8

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Fender Rhodes-driven funk. Will Smith made hay by stripping her “Forget Me Nots” to serve as the backbone of “Men in Black,” but the wealth of groove and poise in her prime-period cuts — “Haven’t You Heard,” “Feels So Real” — make digging through her catalog worthwhile.

That’s What Friends Are For: This concert is billed as “Patrice Rushen & Friends,” so expect a full stage as Ms. Rushen holds court from behind her keyboards. —Christian Schaeffer

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SAVAGE LOVE DEGRADING GAMES

BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: I am a pretty handsome gay (I have been told) and I am dating a gorgeous man. I am 34, and he is 31. I am bottom only, and he is top only — so it’s a good match. But here is the thing: He noticed that I have a rather small penis.

I am under the average, and his dick is quite big and long. Since he discovered this, he fancies about “humiliating” me about my “small pee-pee.” He would even like me to show it to his friends. I am not ashamed of the size of my penis.

But I wonder what this idea means for him. Is it a common turn-on for some top guys to imagine that their partner is smaller than them?

Humiliated Over Tackle P.S. English is not my mother tongue.

I apologize for this.

I don’t have a problem with your English — it’s doubtless better than my [insert your mother tongue here]. I do have a problem with your potential boyfriend.

Small penis humiliation (SPH) is a kink popular enough to have spawned a porn genre. And it can be a very good thing for guys whose erotic imaginations transformed their anxieties about having small dicks into a kink they enjoy.

But you are not one of those guys.

You’ve got the exact right attitude about your dick — indeed, all men everywhere should embrace their dicks the way you’ve embraced your own. Big or small, HOT, your dick has all the same nerve endings as that big and long thing on the guy who might

be your boyfriend someday (but who’s definitely a presumptuous asshole right now).

As with most kinks — bondage, cuckolding, foot fetishes, diapers, pup play—subs/bottoms are way more common than Doms/tops. So it’s usually the guy with the small dick who initiates small penis humiliation games with his partner, HOT, not the boyfriend with the bigger dick and/or the girlfriend with the pussy and/or the bigger dick.

But the issue here isn’t stumbling over a rare small penis humiliation top in the wild, HOT, but whether or not you’re into it. Are you into power play?

Do you like being degraded? Does the thought of this dude ordering you to show your dick to his friends — friends who presumably want to see your dick — turn you on in any way? If the answer is no, no, and FUCK NO, then tell your potential new boyfriend to stop making fun of your cock. If the answer is maybe, maybe, and maybe under the right circumstances, then talk it over with him and work out when, where, and how you’re willing to indulge his SPH kink.

If you stay with him, you’re also going to need to have a conversation about consent. SPH isn’t something you surprise someone with. Like most kinks, it requires advance discussion, the setting of limits and the consent of both parties.

Hey, Dan: I’d like to have my fiancé come on my pussy and then have someone else lick it off. (1) Does that fall in the realm of safe sex for the extra person involved? (2) How do we find that person? Is there an app to meet a third or how do we find swinger parties in our area? Is that a degrading thing to ask

someone to do?

Personally Understands Serious Sexual Yearnings 1. Nope. Various sexually transmitted infections could be contracted by the extra person and/or passed on to you and your fiancé. There’s low to no risk for HIV, PUSSY, but the act nevertheless falls outside the realm of safe sex.

Very little actually exists in the realm of purely safe sex. There’s always risk, we can mitigate for those risks, we can make sex safer, but save for solo and cyber, sex is rarely ever 100 percent safe.

2. This is technically three questions, PUSSY. You find that person by putting ads on hookup sites and/or by putting yourselves in places where you might meet that person, i.e., pick-up joints, sex parties, swingers clubs. There are lots of apps out there for couples seeking thirds, you can even advertise as a couple seeking a third on big dating sites like OkCupid. It is a degrading thing to ask someone to do — but since there are lots of people out there into erotic degradation, that’s a potential selling point.

Hey, Dan: I am in a relationship with a lovely and amazing man. Everything could be really good, if only his father would stop being a creep. He’s constantly telling me how beautiful, smart and attractive I am. Last year around Christmas, his father commented that I have an “erotic” voice. A few days later, I received an email from him. Attached was a poem about my singing, where he called my voice “angelic” and “pure.”

It made me really uncomfortable and I told him that I don’t want to receive poems from him and that he should

51

stop complimenting me all the time.

He didn’t. When I told him again to stop commenting on my appearance, he responded that I must not like myself very much. I talked to my boyfriend’s mother, and she said she’s “given up” and ignores her husband’s behavior.

It turns out that he behaved similarly with ex-girlfriends of my boyfriend’s brothers. I’m so angry and don’t know what to do. My boyfriend supports me, but it’s hard to talk about the topic, because it’s his father.

Fucking Annoyed That He Engrosses Rightfulness I’m curious what your boyfriend’s “support” looks like, FATHER. Does he tell you privately that his father is a creep and that he wishes his dad would knock this shit off? Or does he tell his father directly that he’s being a creep and insist he knock it off? The latter is support, the former is not.

I’m thinking there’s a reason your boyfriend’s brothers only have ex-girlfriends — you don’t speak of any currents, FATHER, a highly revealing detail — and it’s not just because their dad is a creep. It’s because no one in the family is willing to stand up to this creep. Not his wife, not his children.

If your boyfriend refuses to run interference and/or shut his father down, I would advise you to join the list of exes. However “lovely and amazing” your boyfriend might be when you two are alone, if he’s useless in the face of his father’s sexual harassment, you’ll have to DTMFA too.

Listen to Dan’s podcast at savagelovecast.com. mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage on Twitter ITMFA.org

STREAK’S CORNER • by Bob Stretch

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Ref MC33-2017.

120 Drivers/Delivery/Courier

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