Riverfront Times - November 29, 2017

NOVEMBER 29–DECEMBER 5, 2017 I VOLUME 41 I NUMBER 48

The Next Defender

Ferguson compelled Blake Strode to come back to his hometown. Now he’s ready to run the law firm leading the fight for a more just St. Louis

BY DANNY WICENTOWSKI

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THE LEDE

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PHOTO BY THEO WELLING

“I love animals. If you come a lot, the ducks like to come hang around you. I think in a way they get attached to you, sort of like pets.

“We always had dogs when I was growing up. I had a dog until I came to seminary. So I guess they are kind of like my pets.”

—Seminary Student Sandy Walker, photographed in ForeSt park on nov. 26 riverfronttimes.com

NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 5, 2017

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TABLE OF CONTENTS FEATURE

12.

The Next Defender Ferguson compelled Blake Strode to come back to his hometown. Now he’s ready to run the law firm leading the fight for a more just St. Louis Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI

Cover by

KELLY GLUECK

NEWS

CULTURE

DINING

MUSIC

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19

23

37

The Lede

Calendar

Your friend or neighbor, captured on camera

Seven days worth of great stuff to see and do

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22

Top Prosecutor Blasted ‘Femi-Fascists’

Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner makes a surprising new hire: a judge with staunchly conservative views

Mad About Chew

Cheryl Baehr is raving about the delirious debauchery at the Mad Crab

30

Stage

Side Dish

Robert Hunt finds The Killing of a Sacred Deer wallowing in New Cruelty

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Protests Target Galleria

A Black Friday demonstration at the mall in Richmond Heights results in seven arrests

Kelly Nyikes, the new bar manager at Sardella, wants to facilitate conversation

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First Look

A new Mediterranean fast-casual concept comes to Clayton, while Eni’s Pizza brings Balkan-style pies to Princeton Heights

32

Food News

India Palace prepares to say goodbye to one of the coolest spaces in town

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NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 5, 2017

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Born Free

The STL Free Jazz Collective has one focus: musical improvisation

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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

New Top Prosecutor Blasted Feminists, Liberals Written by

SARAH FENSKE

S

t. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner won her seat one year ago in part by vowing to change the status quo — becoming the first black woman elected as the city’s top prosecutor even as she affirmed that Black Lives Matter and the criminal justice system was broken.

Last week, she hired as her chief trial assistant a man with beliefs more in line with Fox News than the progressive movement.

Originally appointed to the bench by Missouri Governor John Ashcroft, St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Robert Dierker famously wrote a book ten years ago that blasted “femi-fascists” and “illiberal liberals.” The Tyranny of Tolerance: A Sitting Judge Breaks the Code of Silence to Expose the Liberal Judicial Assault aimed to do just as its title promised, with chapters taking on “the cloud cuckooland of radical feminism” and liberals “tying the criminal justice system in knots over endless death penalty procedural questions.” He even managed to throw in a defense of Roy Moore (albeit before the recent accusations that Moore romanced high school students — at the time, the Alabama judge had merely been ousted from the bench for refusing to take the Ten Commandments down from his courtroom).

Dierker’s hiring triggered public criticism from Alderman Scott Ogilvie, who notes that the judge has never disavowed any of the opinions he expressed in the book — and that he seems to have a particular antipathy for women.

Black Friday Protest Targets Galleria

P

rotesters briefly shut down the St. Louis Galleria in Richmond Heights during Black Friday holiday shopping. Chants of “no justice, no profits” and “stand up, fight back” rang out a little after 1:30 p.m. after groups of protesters gathered at an upper level above the food court. As protesters marched through the mall, stores began closing; protesters walked into some that hadn’t closed and demanded they do so. The mall eventually closed around 2:30 p.m. but reopened about 40 minutes later after protesters left the property.

Police gave a dispersal order by bullhorn by police after the protesters marched back to where the demonstration began. After the dispersal order, seven people were arrested, including state Representative Bruce Franks Jr. (D-St. Louis).

Organizers declared the action

over when the arrests were made.

After leaving the mall, a group of protesters gathered at the Buzz Westfall Justice Center in Clayton to wait for those arrested to be released, which happened in the early evening.

Continued on pg 10

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The Black Friday protest was part of a boycott by clergy and protesters from the No Justice No Profit movement. After 22 people were arrested during a September 23 protest at the Galleria, the group urged further action targeting the area’s commerce.

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Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner has hired Robert Dierker, right. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI/RANDOM HOUSE

DIERKER Continued from pg 8 “I think it’s just a terrible decision,” he says of Dierker’s hire. “It’s not just that he has political opinions I happen to disagree with. It’s that many victims in the criminal justice system are women, and he seems to downplay the idea that women can even be victims of sexual harassment. If he doesn’t have a clear conviction that everybody in the workplace deserves to be respected, you wonder if he even has a clear sense of what kind of actions against women should be prosecuted.”

Indeed, a 1999 RFT story goes deep on a legal decision by Judge Dierker on a case where a woman’s boss badgered her for sex. He allegedly groped her and grabbed her and even exposed himself to her. She denied his advances, and in time, was fired.

Dierker, then the court’s presiding judge, dismissed the woman’s claim. Under Missouri law, he wrote, proving “intentional infliction of emotional distress” requires showing conduct that is outrageous — “i.e., conduct which is regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in a civilized society.” Wrote Dierker, “Mere solicitation to begin, or renew, a sexual relationship is not such conduct. There must be more.”

Continued Dierker: “Plaintiff would seek to have the Court impose a duty of care on persons inviting others to engage in sexual relationships. Plaintiff’s attempts to inveigle the Court into a realm which is best left to church and family is supported by neither reason nor authority.

“Absent outrageous intentional conduct, resulting in substantial, objective injury — or legislation imposing a standard representing the will of the people — the courts

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cannot and should not attempt to regulate behavior in this peculiarly private area.” In other words: Sexual harassment is a matter for the church and for the family — not for the courts.

In a statement, Gardner said that Dierker is aligned with her vision for criminal justice reform.

“While I fundamentally disagree with Judge Dierker’s characterization of feminist activism and other issues outlined in his decade-old book, I believe his body of work on the bench is the best measure of his ability to follow the law and separate his personal views from his work,” she continued. “Regarding those folks who think this isn’t a good move for the City of St. Louis, I question their silence for all these years while Judge Dierker determined the future of people’s lives as a judge. I have confidence that his addition to my office is a positive move for this community, otherwise, I wouldn’t have made such a bold decision.”

As for Ogilvie, he says that Dierker has been on his radar for years, but that voters have agreed to retain him. Now the situation is different. “Everybody made that decision before,” he says. “Now it’s just her decision. It’s not a question of whether everybody is comfortable with his views. It’s a question of whether she’s comfortable with them.”

Dierker has sat on the bench since 1986. He turns 70 in 2018, which means he would be forced to retire under state law. Gardner’s job offer gives him a second act.

And Ogilvie fears the hire can only damage morale at the Circuit Attorney’s Office, which has already been rocked with many departures in the last year.

“I think he has made a lot of questionable statements about a lot of people,” he says. “And I think she should change her mind.” n

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NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 5, 2017

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The Next Defender Ferguson compelled Blake Strode to come back to his hometown.

Now he’s ready to run the law firm leading the fight for a more just St. Louis

I

BY DANNY WICENTOWSKI

n 2013, more than a year before their scrappy law firm catapulted to national prominence, Thomas Harvey and Michael-John Voss finally sat down to hash out the future of ArchCity Defenders. The two attorneys were in agreement. To really make a difference, the firm would have to grow. And, when it did, they shouldn’t be the ones to lead it.

They had scribbled out the idea for the nonprofit firm on a napkin as law students at Saint Louis University, and, along with their classmate John McAnnar, they kept the idea alive even after graduating in 2009. They were idealistic. They were also angry.

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From their earliest assignments as interns assisting on criminal defense cases, the trio had become increasingly distraught at the patterns they saw. Whether in the city or county court systems, their clients were overwhelmingly poor and black, with circumstances placing them outside the help of the state’s overworked public defender system. These were not hardened criminals, but regular people living one interaction with police away — one traffic stop away — from being arrested on “failure to appear” violations for missing previous court dates. And once in law enforcement’s grasp, they were being jailed by the thousands, destroying families and weakening communities, merely because they couldn’t afford to pay

NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 5, 2017

fines and bail fees.

Of course, the three were not the first law school students to take a hard look at the criminal justice system and see endless lines of impoverished minorities staring back. But where others move on to cushy corporate jobs and stable salaries, the trio set to embodying ArchCity Defenders’ mission statement with fervor — “Combating the criminalization of poverty and state violence against poor people and people of color.”

The mission was far too big for three lawyers (even with a collection of interns and volunteers offering assists). That much was obvious in 2013. But the prospect of expanding the organization wasn’t just about raising funds or hiring attorneys. In the minds of

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its founders, it also meant finding someone to take the reins, someone who’d lived the battles they were fighting.

“If we’re going to be ... a racial justice organization, that’s going to serve predominately low-income communities of color, we need to have leadership that’s more reflective of the community we serve,” Harvey remembers thinking at the time. All three founders are white.

“If we are going to be true to our principles, that was something we needed to do.”

The plan would have to wait: The next four years would find ArchCity on the front lines of court battles challenging everything from modern-day debtor’s prisons to the indiscriminate use of tear gas.

For Blake Strode, a post-law school fellowship turned into a chance to helm St. Louis’ scrappiest law firm. | KELLY GLUECK

With Harvey as executive director, the firm made its name in the wake of protests that rippled across the region in August 2014.

The protests, sparked by the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, drew intense scrutiny to the sprawl of court systems in the 91 municipalities scattered across St. Louis County — their penny-ante harassment of minority residents providing a vivid backdrop to the mantra that “Black Lives Matter.”

As the firm’s stature increased, ArchCity Defenders went from being mostly a three-man show to an indispensable source for both activists and policymakers trying to fix St. Louis’ criminal justice system. Word about its good works spread.

In Boston, that word reached a

St. Louis native attending one of the most prestigious law schools in the world. His name was Blake Strode.

On September 25, 2014 — the same day that the Ferguson police chief delivered a stilted video apology to Michael Brown’s family — the Harvard student emailed ArchCity. “He wanted to see if there was any way to return to St. Louis after he graduated,” recalls Harvey.

On a recent weekday, sitting behind the desk in his fifth-floor office within the decommissioned Christ Church Cathedral, Harvey clicks through his inbox, finally finding the old email. “He and I talked a little bit, and we started exploring ways to bring him here,” Harvey says, noting, “We didn’t

have enough money to pay someone, certainly not a Harvard graduate.”

Harvey can’t help but smile at the improbability of it all. Strode — who has just been named the firm’s incoming executive director, replacing Harvey — felt in some ways like the answer the co-founders had been looking for ever since they dreamed up their firm almost a decade ago. If anything, he was almost too good to be true.

“That wasn’t what I was envisioning, having someone who was from St. Louis, went to Harvard and wanted to come back,” says Harvey. “I don’t think I ever could have imagined someone like Blake.”

At the height of his career as a pro athlete, Blake Strode was around the 300th best tennis player in the world. He had twice taken a wild card spot in the U.S. Open by triumphing in free-for-all national playoffs that pitted him against other hopefuls across the country.

But despite a mean forehand and speed, by late 2012 Strode found himself at a crossroads. He was clawing his way up the rankings, but not fast enough for his liking.

In three years, his exploits as an athlete had earned him less than $60,000.

So Strode went with his backup plan: Harvard Law School.

“All my life I’ve had the dual track thing, school and tennis,” says Strode, now 30, in an interview at ArchCity’s offices.

Continued on pg 14

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BLAKE STRODE Continued from pg 13 The son of a minor league pitching coach (his dad, Lester Strode, is now the Cubs’ bullpen coach) and an educator with University City’s Parents as Teachers organization, Strode’s childhood found him bouncing between various towns in St. Louis County before settling in Bridgeton, where he attended Pattonville High School. He then attended the University of Arkansas on a full academic scholarship. By the end of his collegiate athletic career, he’d been named an All-American. He also graduated magna cum laude with degrees in Spanish and international economics.

Growing up, Strode had idolized Arthur Ashe, and he dreamed of fighting his way up the ranks of the world’s best tennis players. He threw himself into the professional circuit.

“It’s a difficult sport to make a living in,” Strode concedes. “There’s no draft, there’s no teams, and you’re sort of on your own until you reach a certain point.” He never reached that point.

“I didn’t get to play all the slams.

I didn’t become the top ten in the world or anything like that, but it was still a fulfillment of one of my childhood dreams. I got to travel the world. I think I played on every continent except Asia.”

Strode pauses, and flashes a grin.

“And Antarctica,” he says in a soft-spoken deadpan. “Obviously, there is no tennis in Antarctica.”

Strode’s lanky frame shares the couch with a throw pillow — given as a gift to the firm by a grateful client — which is printed with the cover from a 2014 issue of Riverfront Times, an illustration showing the firm’s three founders as masked comic book superheroes leaping to pummel a cartoonishly evil judge.

At the time it was published, Strode was two years into his studies at Harvard, having finally accepted the admission he twice deferred while pursuing his athletic dreams.

“I loved tennis,” he stresses. “I loved all the challenges of it. But there was this other part of me that I wasn’t attending to.”

In his last year in law school, Strode was leaning toward taking a policy-oriented position in Washington. Then Ferguson officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown.

Amid the chants for justice for Brown’s death — which a grand jury would ultimately decide didn’t warrant criminal charges — was 14

RIVERFRONT TIMES

After founding ArchCity Defenders in 2009, Thomas Harvey (center) and Michael-John Voss (right) set the non-profit’s aim on poverty and homelessness. | CHUCK RAMSAY/ ARCHCITY DEFENDERS a consistent thread of complaints about the way that local police departments squeezed fines from poor black residents. And even more disturbingly, behind those departments were municipal governments that survived by generating 20, 30 or even 50 percent of their revenue from those fines and fees.

“I was sort of watching everything unfold from a thousand miles away,” Strode recalls. “A friend of mine sent me this Randy Balko piece, and he said, ‘Have you heard about this ArchCity Defenders place?’”

The piece, written by Washington Post columnist Randy Balko, was titled “How municipalities in St. Louis County, Mo., profit from poverty.” About 14,000 words long, it featured the three founders of ArchCity Defenders in what amounted to starring roles. Here were attorneys actually helping people trapped in unconstitutional court practices that set bail without hearings to determine whether detainees had the ability to pay it.

After reading the story, Strode emailed Harvey. “It all happened very quickly,” he says.

Within two weeks of their first email, at Harvey’s suggestion, Strode applied for a Skadden Fellowship, a sort of “legal Peace Corps” funded by a giant national law firm. Each year, two Skadden fellowships are awarded to recent law school grads, each lasting two

NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 5, 2017

years. The fellowships pay for them to work pretty much anywhere they want. Strode decided he wanted to work for Harvey in St. Louis.

The fellowship pays each attorney for two years at a $50,000 annual salary — or roughly $100,000 less than what Strode’s classmates were earning at corporate firms.

“There’s a point at which people tend to choose a private firm path or the public path,” Strode says. “I decided fairly early on in my law school career that I was firmly rooted in the public interest camp.

I didn’t do any ‘Big Law’ interviews during the time I was in law school; that was not the path I was going to take.”

The year 2014 brought in around 200 applications for the fellowship, about 30 from Harvard alone. As with the U.S. Open playoffs, though, tough odds turned in Strode’s favor. He took one of the two coveted spots.

And so after graduating Harvard in 2015, Strode moved back to St. Louis to start at ArchCity Defenders in September. By then, the firm was embroiled in its biggest case to date — a class action lawsuit accusing the north-county municipality of Jennings of running an unconstitutional debtor’s prison.

Strode, all of 29 years old, was thrown into the lawsuit with veteran civil rights attorney Stephen Ryals. It didn’t take long for him to start turning heads. Over the next

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year, Strode went from learning the ropes of federal litigation to sitting at the negotiating table, hammering out settlement terms on monetary damages for hundreds of clients.

To Harvey and others’ joyful astonishment, Strode, Ryals and attorneys from two other legal clinics made it work. A judge signed off on the terms, and ArchCity Defenders emerged from the negotiations with a $4.7 million settlement.

Talk to the lawyers who’ve worked with Blake Strode, and you’ll start hearing the word “brilliant” a lot.

“He’s got a brilliant mind,” says Michael-John Voss, who notes that Strode didn’t get much of a grace period while going from law school student to Skadden Fellow to fulltime staff attorney.

“At first, he was spending like 80 hours a week to catch up on the backlog,” Voss remembers. “There were 200 documents filed in the Ferguson debtors’ prison case alone. It was impressive. There were over 30 civil rights cases, and he naturally fell into the role of managing them.”

SLU law professor Brendan Roediger had first met Voss and Harvey when the co-founders were still in law school. He’s watched the firm expand into the plucky, punchy voice for the underdogs around St. Louis.

“I was initially mad when I met

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Blake,” Roediger jokes, “because I thought I was the best lawyer-tennis player.”

Like Voss, Roediger was initially impressed by how quickly Strode tore through the backlog of pending cases. The two attorneys eventually worked together on the Jennings settlement, which produced $1.2 million in legal feels to be split between ArchCity, SLU’s legal clinic and a third legal aid group, Equal Justice Under Law. The remaining $3.5 million pot was directed to around 500 people whom Jennings had jailed over unpaid fines and fees, providing about $1,500 for each day the detainees spent behind bars. In a separate settlement, Jennings also agreed to alter its court policies for how it would enforce fee collections in the future.

“He litigates like he’s been litigating for a decade,” Roediger says of Strode. “It’s a combination of analytics and confidence. He wins like he’s won before, and loses like he’s lost before.”

To Strode, the first year on the job was like “drinking from a fire hose.”

“I was learning, in practical sense, how to practice law,” he says.

“I was engaging with our clients for the first time and doing a lot of intakes, getting a lot of client narratives and translating those into pleadings. And then the Jennings settlement became a model for us on what we seek to achieve out of the debtor’s prison litigation.”

It was a lot to juggle. And while Strode dove into the deep waters of litigation — simultaneously representing indigent clients in municipal courts around St. Louis County — he started building connections with local activists, particularly with the St. Louis Action Council, a coalition of protesters, activist

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Strode’s public role has seen him co-moderating debates with activist Kayla Reed, an example of the firm’s “non-legal advocacy.” | DANNY WICENTOWSKI groups and established social justice organizations.

In a more traditional law firm, Strode might have been encouraged to keep his battles in the courtroom.

“One thing I appreciate so much, and something that is so unique about ArchCity Defenders, is that it’s just not the way things work in most legal organizations,” he says. “I’m a big believer that all of the problems that we face, including the legal problems, are really at their core political problems. I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but I think that the way ArchCity Defenders engages in advocacy is a reflection and part of that belief.”

On June 16, 2016, Strode got the chance to speak directly to the political side of the problem — not as a candidate, but as co-moderator of an unprecedented series of debates organized by ArchCity Defenders and local activist groups. Strode was joined by Kayla Reed, a Ferguson protester and community activist, and the two grilled candidates for both the Circuit Attorney’s Office and St. Louis mayor.

Their questions were intentionally framed around the aftermath of Ferguson and the Black Lives Matter movement.

After their debate experiences, Reed and Strode, activist and attorney, started meeting up at Mission Taco Joint every few weeks, passing ideas back and forth on the state of St. Louis. Last year, Reed joined the board of ArchCity Defenders, and it wasn’t long before Harvey confided that he was planning on leaving the firm to help create a national bail-fund organization. Harvey hinted to Reed that while the firm was willing to conduct a national search for its next director, he was also considering a certain former Continued on pg 16 tennis pro

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BLAKE STRODE Continued from pg 15 on staff.

Reed held her tongue, though she says she tried to plant the idea in Strode’s head that he should be the one to take over for Harvey.

“I think Blake has earned this right to lead ArchCity Defenders,” she says. “I remember, after I learned that his fellowship was only for two years, that every time I saw him I would say, ‘This is why you can’t leave, this is why you can’t leave, et cetera.’ And then one day he just kind of said, ‘I’m not leaving, that’s not going to happen.’”

In early November, Strode stands on the wine-colored rug beneath the vaulted ceilings of what used to be a sanctuary on the second floor of Christ Church Cathedral. Behind him, arranged in a semi-circle, Voss, staff attorneys and the plaintiffs in the firm’s latest class action lawsuit face reporters who have gathered for a press conference.

At a podium, Strode announces that the firm has just filed a class action lawsuit against city of St. Louis over the “unspeakably hellish and inhumane conditions” at its Medium Security Institution — better known as the Workhouse.

“Detainees in the Workhouse are subjected to conditions that include infestations, extreme temperatures, overflowing sewage and more,” Strode says, adding that the vast majority of inmates at the Workhouse aren’t yet convicted of a crime. The plaintiffs in the suit allege they lived in sub-human conditions, with dozens sharing toilet and shower facilities and breathing in mold and waste.

One man detained over the summer said that Workhouse guards and staff were well aware of the filth and mold, and that kitchen workers told him, “If you see the mice feces, just scrape them off.”

The latest lawsuit follows the strategy ArchCity Defenders has been refining for years. The strategy doesn’t begin with the idea for a lucrative class action lawsuit, but with individual clients, regular people in need. In Jennings, those clients were being jailed for bench warrants and shaken down for traffic ticket revenue. For the Workhouse case, the firm’s attorneys found clients as they attempted to bail out inmates during the heat wave last summer that pushed temperatures inside the facility to 125 degrees.

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RIVERFRONT TIMES

While Harvey departs St. Louis to fight the cash bail system, ArchCity’s latest class-action lawsuit targets the city Workhouse. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI Thomas Harvey, though, is not standing with the attorneys and plaintiffs behind Strode. Casual in a cozy gray cardigan, he’s sitting in the final row of seats, watching the next executive director of ArchCity Defenders command the room.

The past year has seen Harvey focusing his efforts on the cash bail system. For many defendants, being held on a $500 or $1,000 bond presents little obstacle to freedom.

If they don’t have the cash, surely they know people who can pool the funds together.

But that’s not the case for those mired in true poverty. They don’t have the cash or the connections.

Back at his office, Harvey weighs in on the subject with palpable frustration.

“There was a time when we took the idea of liberty and not throwing human beings in cages seriously enough that the presumption was, whoever is charged with a crime, they be brought before the court, told what they’re going to be charged with, told what their charges were, and released on a promise to come back on the day of court,” he says, tapping the table for emphasis. “It’s very hard for even lawyers to remember that in the American legal system, the presumption is no bail.”

In the city of St. Louis alone, more than 1,000 people are in jail because they don’t have money for bail. Across the country, that number is as high as 450,000, says Harvey. He wants to reach as many of them as possible, and in January he’s going to do so as the new national director of strategic relationships and advocacy for the Bail Project.

NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 5, 2017

It’s a massive step up in terms of scale. While ArchCity Defenders has mobilized bailout campaigns in St. Louis — this year, the firm raised $40,000, enough to free 25 people from the Workhouse and the city’s Justice Center — Harvey has his sights set far, far higher.

Modeled on the Bronx Freedom Fund, which has been running in New York City for more than a decade, the Bail Project will use a $16 million fund to bail out a projected 160,000 people in the next five years. The money will be “recycled” as the cases are adjudicated and the bail amounts returned to the organization, and individual community funds will be set up in 40 jurisdictions, including St. Louis.

Leaving St. Louis is both a bitter departure and a sweet reunion for Harvey. He met his wife at the University of Missouri while he was studying for his master’s in French literature. She was studying Spanish. Academic careers being what they are, the couple found themselves flung to different parts of the country, and they’ve essentially lived a long-distance marriage since 2007. He’ll be moving to Los Angeles, where she is a Spanish professor at California Lutheran University.

His exit, though expected by his cohorts at ArchCity Defenders, still hurts. (Both Kayla Reed and Director of Advocacy Jacki Langum offered virtually the exact same commentary: “We’re grieving.”)

This will be the second departure for an ArchCity Defenders founder, as John McAnnar left St. Louis in 2015 to become general counsel for the temp agency run by his father in South Carolina.

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Under Harvey, the staff has swelled in the past three years.

Donations and grants poured in after Ferguson, increasing revenue from around $80,000 in 2013 to just under $800,000 one year later. Harvey was able to hire more lawyers; ArchCity now has nineteen fulltime employees, who are supported by dedicated volunteers and a rotating cast of interns hailing from all corners of the country.

While continuing to deploy attorneys on criminal defense cases, ArchCity Defenders is ramping up its civil rights work. The firm filed six civil rights suits in 2017 alone, bringing the number of such cases that are pending to nineteen, among them a massive class action suit against thirteen county municipalities. The cases — Harvey’s legacy as director — will fall to Strode and Voss when Harvey formally steps down on January 1.

With Harvey gone, Voss will become the sole remaining founding member of ArchCity Defenders — the last of the original superheroes who graced the RFT cover in 2014, back when the firm was little more than three lawyers with meager experience and lots of guts.

“It’s a personal loss to me,” Voss says of Harvey’s move. He still vividly remembers sitting down with Harvey at Cafe Ventana, the two law school students tossing around ideas for a project that seemed beyond their abilities and resources, but felt like the right thing to do.

That mission — fighting for the poor, the overlooked, the exploited — will continue. Voss will make sure of that. And, yes, Strode will make sure of that too. St. Louis has plenty of room for new heroes. n

DECEMBER 21-23

Thu & Fri at 7:00pm, Sat at 2:30pm David Robertson, conductor

Celebrate this holiday season with the beloved music of John Williams.

With a career spanning over six decades, he has composed some of the most popular and recognizable film scores in cinematic history.

It promises to be an unforgettable concert experience featuring music from E.T, Schindler’s List, The Cowboys, Superman and Star Wars.

Arrive early for photos with Star Wars characters

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19

WEEK OF NOVEMBER 30-DECEMBER 6 Spokane. Performances take place at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and at 3 p.m. Sunday (December 1 to 17) at the Gaslight Theater (358 North Boyle Avenue; www.stlas.org).

Tickets are $30 to $35.

THURSDAY 11/30 A Jewish Joke It’s a big day for Bernie Lutz, one half of the comedy writing team Lutz and Frumsky. He and Morris Frumsky have a new film about to premiere, but that’s suddenly no certain thing.

Bernie learns that he’s been named in the press as a possible communist, and that means Joe McCarthy is sure to come calling. In a panic, Bernie tries to convince the press that he’s an apolitical man who only cares about comedy, but as one-time employers and allies abandon him it becomes clear that being funny might not be enough to save himself.

Still, he might be able to save himself if he rats out others as communists — whether they actually are or not. Phil Johnson and Marni Freedman’s oneman show A Jewish Joke follows Bernie for one interminable afternoon as he questions everything he knows about himself and considers ruining friends’ lives to save his own.

The New Jewish Theatre presents A Jewish Joke with Johnson in the sole role. Performances are at 7:30 p.m.

Wednesday and Thursday, 8 p.m.

Saturday and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday (November 29 to December 10) in the Wool Studio Theatre at the Jewish Community Center (2 Millstone Campus Drive; www.newjewishtheatre. org). Tickets are $41 to $44.

FRIDAY 12/01 Grand Prix The St. Louis community of art galleries has its times of stability followed by periods of flux, the same as every creative scene. These recent years have seen more upheaval than might be healthy — but in the wake of change comes something new.

Monaco, an artist-owned gallery attached to the space that houses the Luminary, is hopefully the first such new growth. The cooperative Monaco has twelve founding members, among them Amanda Bowles, José Garza, Allison Lacher and LAB:D

Steel Magnolias

Stray Dog Theatre gives the gift of Steel Magnolias. | JUSTIN BEEN

(Lindon Barrois Jr. + Addoley Dzegede). Monaco opens with the group exhibition Grand Prix, which features work in all media from the founding collective. The inaugural show opens with a free reception from 7 to 10 p.m. tonight at Monaco (2701 Cherokee Street; www.monacomonaco.us). Grand Prix remains on display through December 30.

A Behanding in Spokane Carmichael is approaching the closure he’s been pursuing for the past 27 years. He’s in a cruddy hotel room, waiting for his meeting with Toby

BY PAUL FRISWOLD

and Marilyn, who say they can help him. All Carmichael needs is a hand out — specifically his left hand, which was severed from his arm more than a quarter-century ago. He’s been pursuing his wayward appendage all the while, and now he’s close: Toby and Marilyn claim to have Carmichael’s hand, and they’ll sell it back to him for the right price. But can a man fixated on what he doesn’t have and two people who’ve sunk so low they’re selling necrotic body parts in dumpy hotels successfully close any deal?

Martin McDonagh’s black comedy A Behanding in Spokane puts you in the room for the dead-end deal of the century. St. Louis Actors’ Studio continues its season with A Behanding in

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Robert Harling’s slice-of-Southern-life play Steel Magnolias inspired a hit film that continues to be a favorite of women everywhere. The faithful are familiar with the plot, but for those that haven’t seen it, here goes: Shelby Eatenton and her mother M’Lynn live in a small Louisiana town, the center of which is Truvy’s in-home beauty parlor. Truvy’s regulars — the Eatenton women; Clairee, the widow of the former mayor; and Ouiser, a wealthy curmudgeon — are joined

by Annelle, Truvy’s new apprentice from out of town. Over the next three years the ladies grow closer as Shelby gets married, risks her life to have a baby and then falls seriously ill.

Life changes in big ways for some of them and in small ways for others, but throughout they only grow closer. Stray Dog Theatre presents Steel Magnolias at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday (November 30 to December 16) at the Tower Grove Abbey (2336 Tennessee Avenue; www. straydogtheatre.org). Tickets are $25 to $30.

SATURDAY 12/02 Here.Now. Together.

If you’ve spent any time waiting in a public space, you’re no doubt aware of everybody’s digital addiction. In movie theaters, waiting rooms, lobbies and queues we bow silently to our phones, connected to the world but untethered from each other. It’s a weird way to go through life, particularly during this season of togetherness. The Washington University Dance Theatre fights back with its fall showcase, Here.Now.Together.

Artistic director David Marchant and

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SAINT LOUIS

CALENDAR Continued from pg 19

ORCHESTRA

guest choreographers have crafted a show that celebrates the completely analog human body in movement and communication with other human beings. Here.Now.Together. is performed at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday (December 1 to 3) at Washington University’s Edison Theatre (6445 Forsyth Boulevard; edison.wustl.edu). Tickets are $10 to $20. Leave your phone at home.

Holiday Pops Robert Hart Baker, Conductor

Friday, December 8, 2017, at 8pm William D. Purser Auditorium Logan College of Chiropractic 1851 Schoettler Rd. Chesterfield, MO 63017

PROGRAM The Philharmonic’s long tradition of ringing in the holiday season with a festive evening of orchestral favorites continues with special guests, the Lindenwood University Choir.

In the spirit of our musical celebration, we ask you to again support the U.S. Marine Corps’ wonderful “Toys for Tots” campaign.

As this concert sells out quickly, be sure to place your ticket order early.

TICKET PRICES Tickets are $20.

All seats are general admission.

For Tickets & Further Information

(314) 421-3600

www.stlphilharmonic.org

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RIVERFRONT TIMES

Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberly Middle children have long read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and thought, “Yeah, great, Elizabeth Bennet got everything she wanted and more; what happened to that voracious reader Mary Bennet?”

Playwrights Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon have at last provided an answer with their Austen-inspired comedy, Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberly. Mary Bennet has always been unfavorably compared to her two older and two younger sisters, but now she strikes out on her own.

When the holidays provide her an unexpected romance, Mary for the first time is allowed to shine. Can she stop reading long enough to seal the deal? The Repertory Theatre St. Louis has the answer. Miss Bennet is performed Tuesday through Sunday (November 29 to December 24) at the Loretto-Hilton Center (130 Edgar Road; www.repstl.org). Tickets are $18.50 to $89.

neighborhood welcome the curious to take a guided tour of some of their finest front rooms from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday (December 2 and 3).

The tour starts at Gene Slay’s Girls & Boys Club (2524 South Eleventh Street; www.soulard.org), where there will be a holiday bazaar, plus food and music. From there you’ll board a heated shuttle bus that will take you and your guide to the participating homes, where you’ll meet homeowners and learn about what it’s like to restore a home without a camera crew filming everything.

Tickets are $25 to $30.

SUNDAY 12/03 Soulard Holiday Parlour Tour

WEDNESDAY 12/06 The Outhouse The Film

There are now roughly two dozen TV shows about buying homes, rehabbing them and then decorating them (often with shiplap, whatever that is). It puts a lot of pressure on those of us who can’t really get into decorating for the holidays, even if we sometimes long for boughs of holly. There’s a way to scratch that particular itch with only a minimal effort — the Soulard Holiday Parlour Tour. Generous and houseproud residents of the historic

When hardcore punk was sweeping through the American underground scene in the early 1980s, venues willing to book punk bands were thin on the ground. American Legion outposts, VFWs, backyard parties and broken-down park gazebos were the norm. And then, way out in a cornfield outside Lawrence, Kansas, the Outhouse appeared. A grim cinderblock building with no stage, no bar and nothing to break, the Outhouse became legendary among

NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 5, 2017

Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberly lets Mary Bennet finally shine. | LON BRAUER

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touring bands for its wild crowds and its remote, slightly menacing location. Gwar, D.R.I., the Melvins — the greatest of the greats played the Outhouse, as did locals (Paw, The Micronotz) and up-and-comers, such as our town’s own Ultraman. But by the late ’90s the neighboring farms and local police had had enough, and the Outhouse shut down. Brad Norman documents the rise and fall of the legendary club in The Outhouse The Film: 1985-1997. Using contemporary interviews with the bands that played there (everybody from Fugazi’s Ian MacKaye to Ultraman frontman Tim Jamison shows up), the promoters and the punks who called it home, Norman captures the joy and freedom that came from music. The Outhouse The Film screens at 8 p.m. tonight at the Schlafly Bottleworks (7260 Southwest Avenue, Maplewood; www.webster.edu/ film-series). Tickets are $5.

Planning an event, exhibiting your art or putting on a play? Let us know and we’ll include it in the calendar section or publish a listing on our website — for free! Send details via e-mail (calendar@riverfronttimes.com), fax (314-754-6416) or mail (308 N. 21st Street, Suite 300, St. Louis, MO 63103, 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.

FILM

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[REVIEW]

Wallowing in New Cruelty Yorgos Lanthimos’ new film is intellectually empty Written by

ROBERT HUNT The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Written by Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou.

Starring Nicole Kidman, Colin Farrell, Alicia Silverstone and Barry Keoghan. Opens Friday, December 1, at the Landmark Tivoli Theatre.

I

t’s hard to tell exactly what to make of The Killing of a Sacred Deer — or even how to categorize it. It has the makings of a horror film (violence, blood and a supernatural threat), but the characters show no signs of fear or terror. It has a vague air of satire hanging over it, but in such a flat, listless way that it seems more tired than witty. It’s compulsively watchable, but intellectually empty. Like director Yorgos Lanthimos’ last film The Lobster, it’s flashy but superficial, odd enough to hold your interest but leaving you with nothing.

The movie is about Steven Murphy (Colin Farrell), a successful heart surgeon. (The first shot is a lengthy close up of an operation in progress, just to catch your attention.) He has a beautiful wife, Anna (Nicole Kidman), two children, Kim and Bob, an impressive home and an apparent obsession with expensive wristwatches. His family is unaware that Murphy also occasionally spends time with Martin (Irish actor Barry Keoghan), an awkward teenaged boy who gradually inserts himself into the doctor’s family, first as a bad-boy love interest for Kim, but eventually as a more threatening presence.

The plot is loosely inspired by Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis; Lanthimos makes the connection clear by letting us know that Kim wrote a school paper about the play. Martin

Anna (Nicole Kidman) and her family are in danger of being cursed to death. | JIMA (ATSUSHI NISHIJIMA), COURTESY OF A24

Everyone speaks slowly and without emotion, as if they were being fed their lines through an earpiece or learning them phonetically. becomes increasingly demanding, even trying to arrange a romance between Murphy and his mother (Alicia Silverstone in an awkward cameo). When Murphy’s son is suddenly paralyzed, Martin finally reveals his intentions: His father died during an operation performed by Murphy, and in revenge he has placed a curse on the doctor’s entire family. Anna, Kim and Bob will endure a series of torments — paralysis, starvation, bleeding from the eyes — and die within days unless Murphy kills one of them to balance Martin’s loss.

Despite the excesses of its revenge plot, Lanthimos stages

everything with a chilly distance. Just as The Lobster lifted its post-civilization atmosphere from Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451, Sacred Deer pulls a lot of its visual style from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (with a pinch of Eyes Wide Shut), borrowing the earlier film’s methods — long tracking shots, atonal music — regardless of whether they connect to his story. The hyperactive musical score and severe design sometimes overshadow the events on screen, and the film often seems like a random assemblage of ideas from other films, like a psychological thriller broken down and re-written by an AI program.

No matter how excessively baroque the story becomes, Lanthimos handles everything with curious ambivalence, treating the performers like expressionless puppets. Everyone speaks slowly and without emotion, as if they were being fed their lines through an earpiece or learning them phonetically. While the characters in The Lobster spoke like that too, that was a fable about spiritually broken people living in a dystopia. You could accept it as part of

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the generic ambiance. Here it just seems odd.

Dialogue is blunt, to the point of meaninglessness. Farrell talks about wristwatches and watch bands. Menstruation and masturbation are brought in as conversation starters. Keoghan offers a monologue about his method of eating spaghetti. Every line and monologue is delivered with confidence, yet the characters don’t even seem to be aware of what they’re saying.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer is methodical, even artful in a clumsy way, its outer surface of almost comical blandness hiding its misanthropic core. Lanthimos, like other self-important European filmmakers sometimes lumped together as the New Cruelty movement, enjoys the abuse and torture of his characters, while pretending that something else — society, or perhaps you, the voyeuristic viewer — is forcing his hand. It’s a sham; the deadpan irony of his film should not be confused with a moral perspective. It’s shock value made banal, and the deliberateness of its execution isn’t enough to render it meaningful. n

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The “Angry Combo” includes corn, potatoes and sausage, along with seafood boiled in your choice of seasoning. The “Whole Shabang” mixes three for a buttery blend. | MABEL SUEN [REVIEW]

Mad About Chew U. City’s new boiled seafood restaurant is a debaucherous good time Written by

CHERYL BAEHR The Mad Crab

8080 Olive Boulevard, University City; 314801-8698. Mon.-Fri. 3-11 p.m.; Sat.-Sun. noon-11 p.m.

W

hen you walk into the Mad Crab, you’ll notice some things are different.

A few are obvious: There’s butcher paper on the ta-

bles instead of cloths. People are eating with their plastic-gloved hands straight out of a bag, palming whole red potatoes and hunks of andouille sausage Henry VIII style. There are no plates, no flatware and the prevailing way to drink a beer seems to be out of a plastic cup with a straw.

It’s a wild scene, yet there’s something else at work that is so unique — so outside the norm of 21st-century dining — it takes a while even to register. And then, covered with seafood-infused butter up to your elbows, laughing with everyone at the table, you realize what’s going on: No one is on their phones.

Nor would anyone want to be, even if they snuck away for a minute to wash their hands in one of the sinks that line the hallway on the way into the restroom. The atmosphere at the Mad Crab is positively electric, thanks to the loud, upbeat music and lively conversa-

tion that fill the air. On any given weekend night, this four-monthold University City restaurant is filled to the brim with parties of six, eight, ten people, throwing back buckets of beer and devouring shellfish like it’s a backyard barbecue. Nautical-themed decor lines the wood-covered walls, televisions broadcast the game and rows of tables get pushed together to accommodate parties that are the size of family reunions (sometimes, in fact, they are). It’s a party atmosphere, one you’re better off experiencing in the moment than Instagramming for posterity.

Besides, if you aren’t aggressive, someone at the table might snag the last king crab leg.

Owners Victor and Nam Ho were banking on such an enthusiastic response. The brothers, who made their living in the nail supply business, opened the Mad Crab in the former Kim Son Vietnamese Bistro in the heart of Uni-

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versity City’s Chinatown. Though a first-time restaurateur, Victor Ho recognized a winning idea after moving to Dallas and seeing the seafood boil restaurants that had sprung up around town. The brothers hired a restaurant consultant to help them iron out the details for a St. Louis version and got to work turning the former Vietnamese restaurant into a little slice of the bayou.

The concept is simple and straightforward: Think of the Mad Crab as the Chipotle of seafood feasts. You can go the à la carte route, choosing from a selection of seafood such as crawfish, shrimp or lobster, or get a combination seafood boil, which includes potatoes, sausage and corn. All styles are dressed in one of four sauces and spiced on a four-point scale, ranging from mild to “I Can’t Feel My Mouth.” However you customize, your meal will come out

NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 5, 2017

Continued on pg 26

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THE MAD CRAB Continued from pg 23 in a clear plastic bag with some gloves, a few shellcrackers and some forks.

If you’re a purist, the à la carte crawfish in seasoned “Rajun’ Cajun” butter is a good start. The shellfish are on the larger side and served steaming hot — pull them apart and the meat and juices pool out, mingling with the seasoned butter to form an earthy jus. Ordered at a level three on the four-point scale, we found the spice level was still tolerable. Garlic, not chile or Cajun seasoning, is the predominant flavor, so if you want heat, order the hottest level and figure out a way to grab the table’s hot sauce, too.

Shrimp, tossed in the mild lemon pepper sauce, is succulent and tender, showing off just how well the kitchen can prepare seafood. The buttery, black pepper-flecked jus allows the shrimp’s flavor to shine through. Massive green mussels also benefit from the simple lemon pepper preparation, though the hearty garlic sauce — which is more of a puree — serves as a rich, piquant condiment.

For the full Mad Crab experience, though, the combination boils are the way to go. If the price tag gives you sticker shock (priced at $41, $64 and $77 depending on what seafood you choose), consider that one combo at the midrange price point gave our table of four adults enough leftovers to make two additional meals.

What you pay for these feasts in a bag, called “Mad Combos,” is determined by their size and what type of seafood you choose. At the lowest tier, you choose three standard items from options including shrimp, crawfish and mussels.

Formerly a Vietnamese bistro, the space today has a nautical theme. | MABEL SUEN

We barely broke a sweat the spice level; we were too busy reveling in our butter-drenched feast, dipping every last thing we could find into the seasoned nectar.

One tier up includes one premium item (like lobster or crab) plus two standard selections. At the highest level, you get one premium plus three standard items.

On both occasions, we selected the mid-tier boil, called the “Angry Combo.” One night, we opted for mussels, shrimp and one-and-ahalf pounds of king crab legs; on another, we chose two good-sized lobster tails, crawfish and shrimp.

For both, we chose a sauce option called “the Whole Shabang,” a mixture of all the other varieties

(“Rajun’ Cajun,” lemon pepper and garlic), which makes for a buttery seasoned concoction with so much garlic it almost forms a delicious paste. We barely broke a sweat at the medium spice level, not that we would have noticed much if we had. We were too busy reveling in the joy of our butter-drenched (albeit a rather salty one) feast that involved dipping every last thing we could find into the seasoned nectar. Even the French fries that came with my daughter’s chicken Continued on pg 29

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THE MAD CRAB Continued from pg 26

Combos can be customized with your choice of seafood and seasoning. | MABEL SUEN tenders basket weren’t safe, though the real joy came from sopping up that sauce with French bread garlic toast. Yes, we were dipping buttered bread into butter. That’s the sort of debauched behavior the Mad Crab induces.

Outside of the seafood boils, the Mad Crab offers few other options, and those they do serve aren’t nearly as riveting. Chicken wings, prepared with the Cajun seasoning, are nothing beyond standard bar food, and, sadly, the gumbo was a bland miss that lacked any of the warm spices typically associated with the dish. Skip these distractions and just order some extra potatoes and sausage for your seafood boil. The former are perfectly cooked red potatoes that let you use the sauce like gravy; the latter is a plump, mild andou-

ille that adds a savory bit of pork fat to the already decadent mix.

There is no dessert to speak of at the Mad Crab, not that you’d want for anything after such a decadent meal. An ice-cold Corona is the only palate cleanser you’ll need — and even that pales in comparison to the refreshment you get from the packet of wet naps your server gives you to following your meal.

You’ll need about three of them before you feel like you can reach for your phone again — not that you’ll miss it. The Mad Crab is such a deliriously good time you won’t even realize you haven’t been checking it. You’ll be having way too much fun to care. n The Mad Crab

Crawfish boil (per pound) ���������� $6�50 Raw oysters (dozen) ���������������������� $20 “Angry Combo” ������������������������� $63�99

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30

SHORT ORDERS

[SIDE DISH]

For Sardella Barman, Food Is a Way into Culture Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

K

elly Nyikes, the bar manager at Sardella (7734 Forsyth Boulevard, Clayton; 314-7737755), worked in one bar after another in both St. Louis and Chicago. He toiled in the wine and whiskey sales and the distribution business, studied alongside master sommeliers and scored a gig at Chicago’s famed Avec. Yet he still didn’t realize the restaurant industry was his calling — at least not right away.

“I went to school in Wisconsin and graduated thinking I would go to law school,” Nyikes explains. “I came back here, got a job at a law firm and was taking LSAT classes.

When I was in Chicago and working in the industry, I was taking graduate classes, but eventually I had one of those moments where my interests just started to shift away from grad school and academia.”

While working toward law school after returning to St. Louis, he got a job at Brennan’s and found himself moving quickly from barback to bartender even though he had very little experience. The convivial environment appealed to him right away. “I got the sense there that this job is really fun and that it fit my personality,” he says.

From Brennan’s, Nyikes found his way to the Royale, where owner Steven Smith taught him about much more than just drinks. “Steve was such a role model for me in the sense that he truly got what it mean to be a public house,” explains Nyikes. “He created a community and brought back a space

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Kelly Nyikes almost went to law school. Restaurants showed him a better way. | SPENCER PERNIKOFF for talking about politics and culture and what is relevant to the neighborhood.”

Though Nyikes loved working at the Royale and felt a sense of community in St. Louis, he and his wife moved to Chicago so she could attend medical school. There, he found himself getting deeper into the food and beverage world, first at a cheese market and wine bar and then managing a restaurant in Logan Square, where writing manuals and developing training programs immersed him in restaurant culture to an even deeper level.

Nyikes left the restaurant business for wine and whiskey sales and distribution before getting a job offer at Avec, the acclaimed Mediterranean restaurant in

NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 5, 2017

Chicago. There, everything he’d learned — the art of cocktails, the culture of wine, the importance of hospitality — clicked and made him realize that restaurants were where he wanted to be. “It was a massive learning experience. The place was a powerhouse and everyone was so professional,” Nyikes recalls. “Watching [my colleagues] work the floor and see how they created an environment that became a special place in the food scene was so cool.”

At Avec, Nyikes came to a realization that he’d been thinking about ever since his days at the Royale — that restaurants, by exploring food and drink, are a way to experience and understand culture. It was something he’d longed

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for in academia, only to find hiding right under his nose. “You can have a conversation about wine that goes way beyond fermented grape juice,” Nyikes says. “You’re talking about something that comes from a certain place with a certain culture, and when you put that together with food, it creates an experience for the diner and a way of understanding things that really caught fire within me.”

Now back in St. Louis and running the bar program at Gerard Craft’s one-year-old Sardella, Nyikes’ goal is to facilitate that conversation through the restaurant’s beverage program. He’s particularly excited about how he is encouraged to collaborate with the kitchen when creating his bar menu, forging a synergy with the food side of the operation. He loves this sort of experimentation.

Still, in his heart, Nyikes knows that the most important part of the job is connecting with the customers. “That one-on-one connection is what I missed when I was in the sales and distribution business,” Nyikes says. “The cultural experience of eating and drinking and the convivial nature of it is what really appeals to me.”

Nyikes took a break from the bar to share his thoughts on the St. Louis food and beverage community, his passion for natural wines and why he is blessed — and cursed — with a bartender’s tongue.

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

I’m a pretty open book.

What daily ritual is non-negotiable for you?

Coffee, in any of its myriad and spectacular forms. It’s my only consistent ritual.

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

Sailing into my thirties…a healing factor.

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

Going on four months in St. Louis, I’m most impressed simply by the working bartenders of the Continued on pg 34

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The house special, “Eni’s Pizza,” swaps pepperoni for smoked beef. | CHERYL BAEHR

AT ENI’S PIZZERIA, BALKAN-STYLE PIES Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

B

s

rahim Mehmetaj has built a successful life for himself that has nothing to do with the restaurant business. A civil engineer by training who owns a Farmers Insurance agency, Mehmetaj’s day job keeps him plenty busy and puts food on his table.

However, when considering what to with the other half of the Princeton Heights building that houses his insurance business, Mehmetaj felt the pull to honor his family’s legacy of pizza making. In that spirit, he renovated the space, turning it into Eni’s Pizzeria (6203 Gravois Avenue, 314-2077797), which fired up its oven for the first time last month.

“I come from a family of pizza-makers,” Mehmetaj explains. “It dates back all the way to my grandfather in the former Yugoslavia. Until now, it was my cousin in Germany who was known in the family as the pizza guy.”

Named after Mehmetaj’s son, Eni’s Pizzeria features a selection of woodfired pizzas based on old family recipes.

The menu is simple — twelve different pizzas and three salads — and is meant to appeal to the families who live in the

neighborhood.

“I’d like the business to go well, but really, I’m doing this for my family and the families around here,” says Mehmetaj.

The pizzeria is intended to be a welcoming place for parents and children, with an atmosphere that supports a neighborhood pizzeria feel. The warm, open room boasts a beautiful stone wall, electric fireplace and ample seating. A bar that serves beer and wine takes up the back part of the restaurant, just in front of the kitchen, though Mehmetaj notes this is not meant to be a “hangout” bar.

Eni’s pizzas are on the thin side — though not St. Louis thin — and are individual-sized portions. Variations include everything from a Hawaiian pizza with hamburger and bacon to a classic Margherita with homemade sauce and fresh basil.

Mehmetaj’s signature dish, “Eni’s Pizza,” comes topped with olives, green peppers, spinach, tomatoes and smoked beef — a traditional, Balkan meat that is the texture of excellent homemade jerky.

It’s a delicious substitute for the ubiquitous pepperoni.

Everything at Eni’s Pizza is made in-house — the dough, the sauce, the smoked beef — and Mehmetaj is proud of the fact that he preps all of the accoutrements every single day.

“See how this is crisp?” he asks, holding up a green pepper. “I cut this every night. We never use anything from the previous day.”

Eni’s Pizzeria is open every day from 4 n to 10 p.m., except for Monday.

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[FOOD NEWS]

INDIA PALACE IS ON THE MOVE

I

Garbanzo offers Chipotle-style assembly lines, with fresh Mediterranean flavors. | CHERYL BAEHR [FIRST LOOK]

Fast-Casual Concept Comes to Clayton Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

S

ince 2009, Garbanzo Mediterranean Fresh (8143 Maryland Avenue, Clayton; 314-224-5222) has been serving fast-casual, healthful Mediterranean-inspired food to the people of Denver. Now, the growing brand is branching out of the Mile High City, and St. Louis is one of its first stops.

“Our goal is to make you feel brighter on the inside,” says Devin Handler, the restaurant’s director of marketing. “This is nutrient-dense food in a fast-casual setting, but it’s delicious and nutritious. We purposely put the word delicious first.”

Garbanzo follows the customizable model of dining, popularized

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by Chipotle, wherein diners choose a style of entree, protein and accoutrements. It’s speedy, affordable and personalized, but Handler is quick to point out that the restaurant does not take any shortcuts.

“We call ourselves restaurants and not stores for a reason,” he explains. “We make everything in-house — we knead, we bake, we sauté — and every ingredient we use is something your grandmother would recognize.”

Located in the former Companion space on the west side of downtown Clayton, Garbanzo’s latest restaurant is what Handler calls “Garbanzo 2.0,” a reimagining of the brand that aims to underscore its housemade philosophy and refine its image.

For those who have dined at one of the restaurant’s previous iterations in Colorado, the change is noticeable in the aesthetics, not the food. Gone is the restaurant’s signature lime-green color scheme, in favor of a more muted palette of Mediterranean blue and earth tones. A line of booth seating runs down the center of the space while tables and chairs line the length of the room. Accent pillows soften the aesthetic, and glass pendant lamps hang from the ceilings.

One of the other big changes, Handler notes, is that Garban-

NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 5, 2017

zo’s bread-making operation has been brought out to the front of the restaurant, so that diners can watch as their pitas are being made. These warm, fluffy breads can be filled with a variety of protein options, including chicken, beef and lamb gyro meat, falafel and grilled steak. Guests can also choose to have their meal served as a salad, a plate, a “Med burrito” or a flatbread.

Entrees can be dressed with everything from tabouleh to hummus to cilantro sauce, and diners are encouraged to add as many things as they’d like. And if they get carried away and end up creating a concoction that doesn’t work, guests are welcome to return their items and give it another go.

“It’s the Garbanzo Guarantee,” says Handler. “We want this to be accessible adventure and allow our diners to take risks and try new things without having to worry about ruining their lunch.”

If the lines out the door during lunchtime in its first few days are any indication, this will be the first of many Garbanzo outlets in the region.

“Our goal is for our guests to have a truly remarkable experience,” Handler says. “We want you to taste how delicious nutritious can be.” n

riverfronttimes.com

ndia Palace (4534 Long Road, Bridgeton; 314-7313333), the iconic restaurant known as much for its soaring views of Lambert International Airport as its lamb vindaloo, has some shocking news: The restaurant is closing its landmark location and moving to a strip mall in Maryland Heights.

The restaurant, a multiple-year Riverfront Times Best of St. Louis winner, made the announcement via Facebook, offering few details except for the new address.

“INDIA PALACE IS MOVING SOON TO A NEW LOCATION!!!!” the post began. “We thank you for your patronage and we look forward to serving you in our new home at 12322 DORSETT ROAD, MARYLAND HEIGHTS, MO, 63043. On the west side of I-270!!”

A date for the closure of the current location and reopening at the new space was not given.

The space on Dorsett is the former home of Standard Brewing Company, which closed in April.

The airport-adjacent landmark in Bridgeton was the original location of India Palace. Though a sister concept opened in downtown St. Louis in early 2014, that restaurant closed in 2016.

Originally the home of a 1970s era Polynesian-themed restaurant, India Palace embraced its predecessor’s Pacific Island decor, infusing it with a South Asian flair reminiscent of a long-lost civilization. Partially, the fusion of cultures and the scent of spice and coriander fueled the exotic feel, but the air of mystery also came from the fact that the restaurant itself seemed like a relic of times past.

Located at the top of an underutilized office building adjacent to an old Howard Johnson, India Palace was the bright spot in an otherwise drab part of town. You walked in at ground level, entering a dingy office building reminiscent of the kind of place you’d go to for a scam job interview, and pressed the elevator button, hoping that the machinery still had enough Continued on pg 34

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INDIA PALACE Continued from pg 32

KELLY NYIKES Continued from pg 30

oomph to carry you up to the eleventh floor. Those doors closed and you said a prayer, but once they opened, they revealed a lush paradise of a restaurant with cavernous rock formations, greenery and gushing waterfalls — the Casa Bonita of Indian restaurants.

Hindu deities competed for attention with the outrigger canoes that decorated the room, but none of them could hold your gaze once the view of the airport lights came into focus. The window tables always were the first to be occupied, and for good reason. (The view was good enough that the RFT even named the place one of the area’s ten most romantic restaurants last year.)

In the midst of this fantastical atmosphere, India Palace served phenomenal subcontinental cuisine, including its signature lamb vindaloo. No doubt, the new digs will carry on this culinary tradition, but will the food be as sweet without those twinkling airport lights?

–Cheryl Baehr

city who run consistent, imaginative bar programs as a statement of craft and quality. This is still not a given across the country, and St. Louis’ professionals do it well.

What is one thing missing or that you’d like to see in the local food and beverage scene?

One exciting trend that I’d like to see more of is the highly specific concepts like Fat Rice, a cool, culinary mashup in Chicago from Macao that takes Portuguese and Chinese cues from its history and geography. Places like this seek to explore the intersectionality of geography, history, regionality, etc.

They tell a story of the multitude of traditions that intermesh our family dramas and underlie the way our ancestors ate and drank and lived.

Who is your St. Louis food or drink crush?

Andrey Ivanov of Reed’s American Table because NATURAL WINES! Who’s the one person to watch right now in the St. Louis food and beverage scene?

I am surely biased here, but I’ve been consistently impressed

by Enoch Simpson from Sardella’s kitchen. He explores fresh ideas weekly, keeps the menu super seasonal and provides tons of inspiration for the bar as we share relevant ingredients both to stay seasonal and also to cut down on food waste.

If someone asked you to describe the current state of St. Louis’ food and beverage climate, what would you say?

There’s a lot of interest and passion for what’s going on in the restaurant/bar industry. Forgive me, but people are hungry for concepts that can offer that unique trifecta of strong food, service and atmosphere. The emergence of local, independent leadership groups has allowed St. Louis to emerge from a complicated culinary past with a new food and beverage identity built around authentic concepts and well-sourced ingredients. That said, certain traditions remain well rooted, which is not all bad; having fun with our roots is a great way to engage across generations.

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34

RIVERFRONT TIMES

NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 5, 2017

If you were not tending bar, what would you be doing?

Sitting at one.

Name an ingredient never allowed behind your bar.

Sour mix.

What is your after-work hangout?

While I rarely get out much after work these days, I greatly appreciate Taste for their Monday and Tuesday $7 classics menu.

What’s your edible or quaffable guilty pleasure?

With booze, I’m really only guilty of having a fairly predictable bartender’s tongue; I like bitter flavors: Amari, Chartreuse, Besk and the like. They often dominate my cocktails before I’m eventually saved by my colleagues and friends who work to normalize my proportions.

What would be your last meal on earth?

I don’t really have a favorite meal in the traditional sense. I am, however, sure that I’d very much prefer to prepare my own last meal, in a nice kitchen, of which I’m fairly well acquainted. The beverage would be wine. A white and a red… something unique. n

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36

RIVERFRONT TIMES

NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 5, 2017

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MUSIC

37

[PREVIEW]

Born Free Since its inception, the STL Free Jazz Collective has focused on one thing: musical improvisation Written by

THOMAS CRONE The STL Free Jazz Collective

7 p.m. Saturday, December 2. 14th Street Artist Community, 2701 14th Street. Free.

314-898-5444.

T

hough keyboardist Jim Hegarty considers himself the introvert of the STL Free Jazz Collective, he’s also the group’s de facto bandleader, having put together the six-piece group in advance of its March 2015 debut at the late, lamented Tavern of Fine Arts. A resident of St. Louis for about twenty years, Hegarty had gigged with most of these players and knew the rest.

Matching personalities and skills, he was able to recruit the exact sextet that he hoped could do two things: reference St. Louis’ lengthy, impressive history in free/improvised jazz, and, as importantly, not be held to replicating it.

Onstage, he says, “we take it very seriously, but it’s not any one person that’s leading the music. That’s one of the most important things, the philosophical background of this band. Philosophically, this is a place for people to come together and they’re all equal and they’re all contributing. We collectively arrive in some spot just by doing it. There isn’t anyone telling anyone else what to do, and we all value each other.”

In addition to Hegarty, the band includes poet Michael Castro; Baba Mike Nelson on trumpet, shells and vocals; Jerome “Jay Dubz” Williams on alto saxophone; electric bassist Paul Steinbeck; and drummer/ percussionist Gary Sykes. Castro’s role is central, as he sets the pieces in motion through his poems; each player then builds off of the feel of those words and, soon, the improvised piece is off and running. Even when he introduces a poem that the group has heard before, the band’s

Each performance by the STL Free Jazz Collective is wholly unique, and even made up on the spot. | COURTESY OF THE BAND treatment is different every time.

“One of the reasons that I wanted Michael Castro in the group is that I wanted it to have some kind of text,” Hegarty says. “I thought that it would give us something to connect with.”

In a different yet complementary vein, “I think Baba brings an interesting visual component, with his shells. He’ll walk out into the audience as he performs and I like that, too. He’s a little more of a showman.”

Nelson (whose first music teacher, in sixth grade, was the World Saxophone Quartet’s Oliver Lake) dates back to the days of the Black Artists Group of the 1960s. In keeping, he knows a thing or two about this approach.

“When Jim came up with this idea, it was not to try to re-do what BAG did, but keep alive the spirit of collective improvisation,” Nelson says. “That’s how we approach the music. Jazz is the best way to describe it, in that when you hear this expression, it does have a jazzy feel to it. We collectively improvise off of the point that Michael begins our session; each song is a session.

We don’t know what that will look or sound like when we walk onto that stage. But we listen to the music and listen to what Michael’s saying and think, ‘How can I transform the feeling of the poem, the rhythm of

the poem, the feeling that I’m feeling from the the poem?’ This is all that you’re digesting.”

Nelson describes the process as “the ultimate improvisation.”

“It’s being in the moment, being totally receptive,” he says. “You’re not forcing yourself out there, you’re not learning licks. I’m listening, having the courage to put an idea out there and make mistakes.”

Typically, the group will perform two sets on a given night. The first, Hegarty explains, is often the longer of the two – about an hour at most.

Then, after a brief intermission, the band will return and put in another 45 minutes or so. Within those two sets, the band often finds a form of communication — one that the audience may sense, but that’s mostly being shared spiritually across the six minds/bodies on that stage.

“The conversation of the STL Free Jazz Collective is a different conversation,” Nelson says. “It’s whatever I want to express, but it’s all stemming off of what Michael’s saying in his poem and the colors that we get from his poem. You can’t structure that.”

At its best, he says, “it feels like passion, like making-love feelings.

It’s the energy. A very powerful energy.”

Hegarty agrees. “When you’re clicking, you almost feel as if you

riverfronttimes.com

weren’t a part of it, though you know you are,” he says. “You see your hands playing. It gets a little weird.”

The weirdness, it appears, shall continue, as the band is affirmed to sticking together. Even if a member can’t make a gig, they’re simply not replaced and the group plays short a man. That’s the commitment level at play here.

They’re also a bridge, linking those who track back to the BAG days to those growing up in jazz today.

They appeal, says Nelson, to “free-thinking players. Young guys coming out of music conservatories doing totally different things with their instruments. New Music Circle gets with those players and tries to nurture them. What we’re doing is also appealing to those free-thinking musicians. They see guys older than them telling them: ‘It’s okay.’”

“My feeling is that they’re like my brothers,” Hegarty says. “We give each other hugs. We feel that way about each other. There’s a sense of value and respect. It’s a little like a sports team, in that we’ve all arrived with our talents in this space. It works when everyone else is there.

“So it’s not exactly a family; there’s no mom and pop, but we really are brothers. And I imagine they’d say that, too.” n

NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 5, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

37

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40

HOMESPUN

BEN DIESEL / THE STARS GO OUT Get Splitfaced bendieselstl.com / thestarsgoout.com

E

ach fall, the local pop-punk quartet Ben Diesel opens up its big, goofy heart and performs a show in benefit of the Ronald McDonald House. But rather than play a standard-issue set of originals, the band hits the woodshed to prepare a 45-minute covers set. For the past two years, Ben Diesel has, briefly, embodied those twin pillars of modern pop-punk: Blink-182 and Green Day. Those California bands are the Beatles and Stones of that particular sub-genre: You can love them, hate them or choose sides, but you can’t ignore their influence.

“They totally matter,” says Ben Diesel singer and guitarist Dan Kelley. “At the time we did the Green Day set, we were a trio. We were thinking, ‘What is within our reach? What would sound good as a trio? What would people like?’ Ah, Green Day! That would be great!”

For Kelley, who also plays drums in Bassamp and Dano, Green Day provided a formative moment in a young punk’s life. “They hold a special place in my heart — at their 2001 Pageant show I got pulled up on stage to play drums for the Operation Ivy cover, ‘Knowledge.’ No matter how much eyeliner they put on, I’ll always love them.”

For its latest release, Ben Diesel channels a punk relic older than even Green Day: that of the split seven-inch, wherein bands each take a side of vinyl and fans get a two-for-one experience. For the cleverly and appropriately named Get Splitfaced, the band has partnered with St. Charles-based quartet the Stars Go Out for a more grown-up version of a split: This one features four tracks from each, and while the album will be initially available as a download or CD, the bands plan on releasing it on vinyl in the near future.

The partnership between bands works on a few levels. Primarily, both show a reverence for that melodic, charging brand of pop-punk mentioned above — these eight tracks, four apiece, sit nicely together and show the energy, harmony, heart and wit that give the style its grounding. But the bands also show the variety of the form — Ben Diesel’s side is sophomoric but smart, with a wit that can be withering, while Stars Go Out channels a more stratospheric slice of the genre, with lyrics that are a bit more searching and heart-on-sleeve.

One is the class clown, the other is the sensitive type, but they both play well together.

According to Kelley, a chance booking brought these bands together, while a few lineup shifts brought them closer. “We met these guys when we were randomly paired together to play a show five or six years ago,” Kelley says. “We never played together that much, but a year or two ago I hit them up to play a show at the Heavy Anchor. It just kind of went from there. We’ve done a few weekend trips together, including twice this year.”

When it came time to record, Ben Diesel turned to Stars Go Out singer and guitarist Joe Maestas, who also runs a recording studio out of his construction busi-

40

RIVERFRONT TIMES

NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 5, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

ness. A lineup shift left Ben Diesel drummer-less, so Maestas got behind the kit and helped them finish what they started. He became a full-fledged member, and his presence was so integral that they scrapped the earlier recordings.

“Joe is real pop-punk at heart, so he just totally got the energy,” says Kelley. “I will say Joe is a better fit for our sound. He had the songs ingrained in him anyway.”

That energy translates onto Ben Diesel’s tracks, most of which rely on the interplay between Kelley and fellow singer and guitarist Jason Koch. Opening cut “The Left Can’t Meme” carries a title that wouldn’t have made sense three years ago, but the song’s lyrics about divisiveness and miscommunication will probably have resonance during future election cycles as well. Koch’s fascination with internet culture extends to “An Open Letter to Jason Tate,” which name-checks the founder of AbsolutePunk.net, who personally banned Koch from the site.

Maestas recorded all the tracks on Get Splitfaced, but he shines as he steps forward on the Stars Go Out side of the split. Along with his wife Julie (bass), his brother James (guitar) and drummer Frank Ciccone, Maestas finds the middle ground between atmospheric and visceral, like Hum bashing out a Buzzcocks cover. Opening track “The Way I See It” works its way up from slow, fuzzy churn to its snappy, buckshot rhythm, and Maestas’ vocals are able to show both force and fragility.

For Kelley, the split release is a way to emphasize these bands’ bond, but it’s also a good reminder that this style of music has legs beyond your favorite bands from junior high.

“Every time I put together a show, I’m like, ‘Man, I don’t know if I know enough bands to play with us,’” Kelley says. “Then I find twenty — that happens every time. I think there is a lot of this going on around town, it’s just that you don’t see it until you look for it.”

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42

OUT EVERY NIGHT

THURSDAY 30 BRONCHO: 8 p.m., $12. Off Broadway, 3509

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Blackus 9 p.m., free. Schlafly Tap Room, 2100

JULIEN BAKER: w/ Half Waif 8 p.m., $16-$18.

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

BUTTERCUP: w/ Traveling Sound Machine,

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Bagheera 9 p.m., $7. The Heavy Anchor, 5226

MASE, LIL’ KIM: 8 p.m., $40-$60. The Pageant,

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

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

DAVID OLNEY: 7 p.m., $15-$20. The Stage at

MEST: w/ Mr. T Experience 8 p.m., $24-$26.

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

Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar

925-7543, ext. 815.

Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

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w/ Pogo Funk, Westend, Nite Owl & DJ Stan the

FRANKIE VALLI & THE FOUR SEASONS: 8 p.m.,

Man, Zeus Rebel Waters, Apollo’s Daughter,

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Beastmode, DJ O.B. Juan, DJ Knine 8 p.m., $10.

St Charles, 636-896-4200.

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Louis, 314-833-3929.

tory, 2500 Ohio Ave., St. Louis, 314-776-7600.

PAUL BONN & THE BLUESMEN: 9 p.m., $3. Ham-

JEREMIAH JOHNSON BAND: 8 p.m., free. Ham-

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

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5565.

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

Alligator Wine and Friends, The Scratchtones,

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Julien Baker. | VIA THE PARADIGM AGENCY

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

STATE BEAUTY SUPPLY’S 50 YEAR BASH: w/ Sam Villa, Chrystofer Benson & Ruth Roche, Dr. Zhivegas 8 p.m., $30-$75. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

TORREY CASEY & SOUTHSIDE HUSTLE: 8 p.m., $5.

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

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

WARD DAVIS: 8 p.m., $15-$45. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505.

WE CAME AS ROMANS: w/ The Word Alive, Escape The Fate 7 p.m., $20-$23. The Ready Room, 4195 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314833-3929.

FRIDAY 1 CAROLYN MASON: 5 p.m., $10-$15. National

Players, The Scandaleros, Big Mike Aguirre and the Blu City Allstars, Grooveliner, DJ Alexis

Julien Baker

Dec. 1, 5 p.m.; 5 p.m., $15-$25. Old Rock House,

9 p.m. Saturday, December 2.

Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Boulevard. $16 to $18.

314-726-6161.

For Julien Baker, songs are prayers liberated from sanctimony, scarred by her own fundamentalist Christian upbringing, illuminated by little more than piano, gleaming (sometimes flaming) electric guitar and devastating string arrangements. And then there’s that voice: Newcomers will hear Adele, maybe, or Ellie Goulding, but with an ineradicable Tennessee twang that grounds her in a landscape rich with conflict and beauty.

As she sings on this year’s riveting debut album Turn Out the Lights, she’s finding “comfort in failure, singing too loud in church, screaming my fears into speakers.” Prayer, as a Danish philosopher once wrote, is about changing the nature of the one who prays. And Baker’s voice and songs will change you.

Triple Threat: Two openers join Baker for this date: eerie electronic-pop artist Half Waif and dark, falsetto-drenched songwriter Adam Torres. Both merit your attention and early arrival.

–Roy Kasten

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

SHARON BEAR & DOUG FOEHNER: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

SHIVER: 9 p.m., free. Nightshift Bar & Grill, 3979 Mexico Road, St. Peters, 636-441-8300.

STEVE REEB & ROSS BELL: 3 p.m., free. Hammerstone’s, 2028 S. 9th St., St. Louis, 314-7735565.

STL FREE JAZZ COLLECTIVE: 7 p.m., free. 14th Street Artist Community, 2701 14th St, St. Louis.

SUNSET SNST: w/ CaveofswordS, daytime television 7 p.m., $8-$10. The Firebird, 2706 Olive St., St. Louis, 314-535-0353.

TRIGGER 5: 4 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222.

WINTER WOLVES: A BENEFIT FOR THE ENDANGERED WOLF CENTER: w/ Conjuror, Tombstalk-

Blues Museum, 615 Washington Ave., St. Louis.

CAVE STATES: 7:30 p.m., $12-$15. The Stage at

chester Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis,

er, Vimur, Stonehaven, Terranaut, Ectovoid,

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

OPEN TAB BAND: w/ the Diamond Cut Blues

314-726-6161.

Nucleus, Agrinex, Hrafnskrald, Stagecoach In-

925-7543, ext. 815.

Band 9 p.m., $5. Way Out Club, 2525 S. Jeffer-

VINYL THEATRE: w/ Patternist 7 p.m., $12-$15.

ferno, Animated Dead, Emaciation 5 p.m., $20.

COAT OF MANY COLORS: A TRIBUTE TO DOLLY

son Ave., St. Louis, 314-664-7638.

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

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

PARTON: w/ Jenny Roques, Little Rachel, Town

PHILLIPALOOZA: w/ Funky Butt Brass Band,

0353.

Y98 MISTLETOE SHOW: w/ All Time Low, Fitz

Cars, Cassie Morgan, Cara Louise Band 8 p.m.,

Falling Fences, The Mighty Pines, The Service,

$10. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis,

Alligator Wine and Friends, The Scratchtones,

SATURDAY 2

314-498-6989.

Crate2Crate Sound System, Jakes Leg, Mada-

BOO BOO DAVIS & THE BUMBLE BEE TRIO: 10

Arena, 2002 Arena Parkway, St Charles, 636-

FANTASIA: w/ Demetria McKinney 8 p.m.,

hoochi, Mom’s Kitchen, Sean Canan’s Voodoo

p.m., $10. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S.

896-4200.

$56.50-$76.50. Peabody Opera House, 1400

Players, The Scandaleros, Big Mike Aguirre and

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

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

the Blu City Allstars, Grooveliner, DJ Alexis 5

CEMETARY GATEZ: A TRIBUTE TO PANTERA: w/

SUNDAY 3

HOLLYWOOD UNDEAD: w/ Butcher Babies 8 p.m.,

p.m.; Dec. 2, 5 p.m., $15-$25. Old Rock House,

Conquest: A Tribute To The Metal Gods, Out-

ADVENT VESPERS: 4 p.m., free. Second Presbyte-

$29.50-$32.50. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd.,

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

come Of Betrayal 8 p.m., free. Pop’s Nightclub,

rian Church, 4501 Westminster Place, St. Louis,

St. Louis, 314-726-6161.

RAW EARTH: 8 p.m., free. Stone Spiral, 2500

401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-

314-367-0366.

OLD SOULS REVIVAL: w/ Polyshades, Mother

Sutton Blvd., Maplewood, 314-335-7388.

6720.

COLD WAR KIDS: w/ Sir Sly 8 p.m., $29.50-$35.

Meat 9 p.m., $3. The Ready Room, 4195 Man-

RISE AGAINST: w/ Biffy Clyro 8 p.m., $35-$40.

COLTER WALL: 8 p.m., $12-$15. Off Broadway,

The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis,

42

RIVERFRONT TIMES

NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 5, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

and the Tantrums, All American Rejects, John Rzeznik, Lights 6 p.m., $9.81-$79.95. Family

[CRITIC’S PICK]

Bad Boy Holiday Jam

Ah, the holiday season is upon us again. Time to break out the mistletoe and the menorahs and the trees we keep indoors — and, of course, the P. Diddy-approved hip-hop legends. That’s right, this year St. Louis launches what will hopefully become a winter tradition with the Bad Boy Holiday Jam, bringing the Queen Bee herself, Lil Kim, alongside fellow Bad Boy Records mainstay Mase. The former is working on a new album set for release in 2018; super-producers Pharrell Williams, Metro Boomin and Mike Will Made It are rumored to be involved. The latter’s

story is a little more complicated: Mase has retired from the rap game twice now — initially in 1999, to become a pastor, and then again in 2007 after a brief return as the self-described “Bad Boy gone clean.” Neither retirement would last, and in 2013 the rapper announced that he was working on his first album since 2004, titled Now We Even. Years have passed without that album coming to fruition, with no clear end in sight. Maybe he’ll lead the prayer portions of the night?

Adults Only: All kidding aside, this 21-and-up affair promises to be a night of throwback hip-hop from two of the genre’s ’90s luminaries. Expect a damn good time.

–Daniel Hill

314-726-6161.

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

DAMIEN ESCOBAR: 8 p.m., $3-$65. The Sheldon,

Blvd, University City, 314-282-5561.

3648 Washington Blvd., St. Louis, 314-533-9900.

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

DEAD MAN’S CARNIVAL: TOM WAITS TRIBUTE

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

SHOW: 8 p.m., $15. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp

KYLE LUCAS: 7 p.m., $12-$14. Fubar, 3108 Lo-

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

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

EVANESCENCE: 7 p.m., TBA. Peabody Opera

THE REVIVALISTS: 8 p.m., $25-$35. The Pageant,

House, 1400 Market St, St. Louis, 314-499-7600.

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

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

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: w/ Deep Sleeper, The

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

Cinema Story, Red Foreman, Kary Middleton

436-5222.

7 p.m., $4. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St.

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

Louis, 314-498-6989.

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

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

436-5222.

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

MCCAFFERTY: w/ Heart Attack Man 7 p.m., $12.

436-5222.

8 p.m. Saturday, December 2.

The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Boulevard. $40 to $60.

314-726-6161.

! u o y ank

Th

VOTED ST. LOUIS’

2017 BEST OF ST. LOUIS Readers Poll

BEST PLACE TO SING KARAOKE

Karaoke Thursdays with KJ Ray Ortega

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

NEVER SAY GOODBYE: THE KSHE DOCUMENTARY:

WEDNESDAY 6

2 p.m.; Dec. 10, 2 p.m.; Dec. 17, 2 p.m., $12.95-

BOB “BUMBLE BEE” KAMOSKE: 8 p.m. Beale on

$15. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis,

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

314-726-6161.

7880.

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

THE DREAM SYNDICATE: w/ Elephant Stone 8

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

p.m., $20-$25. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave.,

MONDAY 4

2017 BEST OF ST. LOUIS Readers Poll

ST. LOUIS’ BEST WINGS

FRESH PRODUCE: THE BEAT BATTLE: first Wednesday of every month, 9 p.m., free. The

Ahzidal 7 p.m., $15. Fubar, 3108 Locust St, St.

Monocle, 4510 Manchester Ave, St. Louis, 314-

Louis, 314-289-9050.

935-7003.

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

THE GREEN MCDONOUGH BAND: 7 p.m., $5. BB’s

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

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

621-8811.

314-436-5222.

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

JASON COOPER BAND: 10 p.m., $5. BB’s Jazz,

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

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

5222.

436-5222.

WEDNESDAY NIGHT JAZZ CRAWL: 5 p.m. continues through Dec. 27, free. The Stage at KDHX,

DUSTBOWL REVIVAL: 8 p.m., $10-$12. Old Rock

3524 Washington Ave, St. Louis, 314-925-7543,

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

ext. 815.

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

RUNNER-UP

St. Louis, 314-498-6989.

EXHUMED: w/ Arkaik, Tyranny Enthroned,

TUESDAY 5

KJ Kelly’s Saturday Night Karaoke Dance Parties

Continued on pg 44

200 N. MAIN, DUPO, IL

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NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 5, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

43

GoMusicSTL

Your Local Musical Instrument Store

THIS JUST IN Continued from pg 43

THIS W

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ADVENT VE

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Acoustic, Electric Guitars, Amps, & More

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Louis, 314

BOO BOO D

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700 S. Bro

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way, 3509 BRUXISM

[CRITIC’S PICK]

St. Louis, MO 314-721-3944

Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue. $20 to $25.

314-498-6989.

R I V E R F R O N T T I M E S. C O M

44

RIVERFRONT TIMES

NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 5, 2017

BUTTERCU

Bagheera

7 p.m. Wednesday, December 6.

read more at

Schlafly T

314-241-2

The Dream Syndicate. | CHRIS SIKICH

The Dream Syndicate

music

Astro Blac

It can be easy to look at band reunions as get-rich-quick cash grabs and barrel-scraping nostalgia fests — the Eagles and its Hell Freezes Over tour is patient zero for this particular outbreak. But when it comes to bands like the Dream Syndicate, which broke up in 1989 and reunited for occasional tours in 2012, there wasn’t much cash to be had the

Anchor, 5

first time around, and presumably modest returns this time. The band’s jangly psychedelia has been updated over the years — band leader Steve Wynn has kept a respectable solo career all the while — and this year’s How Did I Find Myself Here? shows a nod to the band’s past and an eye to the future.

Stone In Love: Elephant Stone, a Montreal-based band that mixes American psychedelia with Indian classical music, opens the show. –Christian Schaeffer

5226.

CAROLYN M

National B St. Louis.

CAVE STAT

The Stage

Louis, 314

CEMETARY

W/ Conqu Outcome

Pop’s Nigh

Louis, 618

COAT OF M

PARTON: W

Cars, Cass

Dec. 1, 8 p

Ave., St. L

THIS JUST IN

OF MICE & MEN: W/ blessthefall, Fire From The

COLD WAR

BLACK LABEL SOCIETY: Sun., Dec. 31, 8 p.m.,

Gods, Cane Hill, MSCW, Fri., Feb. 9, 7 p.m.,

$29.50-$3

$42-$45. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave.,

$23.50-$27. The Ready Room, 4195 Manches-

Louis, 314

East St. Louis, 618-274-6720.

ter Ave, St. Louis, 314-833-3929.

COLTER W

BRUISER QUEEN AND TRISTEN: W/ Summer

OVER THE RHINE: Fri., Feb. 16, 8 p.m., $20-$25.

Broadway

Magic, Fri., Jan. 19, 8 p.m., $10-$12. Off Broad-

Blueberry Hill - The Duck Room, 6504 Delmar

6989.

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

Blvd., University City, 314-727-4444.

DAMIEN ES

CALEXICO: Sun., April 22, 9 p.m., $25. Blueber-

PIGEONS PLAYING PING PONG: W/ Joe Hertler &

The Sheld

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

the Rainbow Seekers, Wed., March 14, 9 p.m.,

314-533-9

University City, 314-727-4444.

$12-$15. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St.

DAVID OLN

A DAY TO REMEMBER: W/ Papa Roach, Falling

Louis, 314-588-0505.

Stage at K

in Reverse, the Devil Wears Prada, Fri., Feb.

R.LUM.R: Thu., Feb. 22, 8 p.m., $15-$18. The

314-925-7

23, 7 p.m., $29.50-$49.50. Chaifetz Arena, 1 S.

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

DEAD MAN

Compton Ave., St. Louis, 314-977-5000.

0353.

SHOW: Sun

JAKE MILLER: Fri., April 20, 7 p.m., $20-$35.

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: W/ Deep Sleeper, The

3509 Lem

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

Cinema Story, Red Foreman, Kary Middleton,

THE DREAM

THE KILLERS: W/ Alex Cameron, Fri., Jan. 19,

Tue., Dec. 5, 7 p.m., $4. Off Broadway, 3509

Wed., Dec

7 p.m., $25-$95. Chaifetz Arena, 1 S. Compton

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

3509 Lem

Ave., St. Louis, 314-977-5000.

ST. LOUIS INDEPENDENT COMEDY PRESENTS: A

DUSTBOW

KRIZZ KALIKO: Wed., Jan. 10, 8 p.m., $15. Pop’s

SPECIAL HOLIDAY COMEDY SHOW WITH A RIDICU-

$12. Old R

Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis,

LOUSLY LONG NAME THAT WE COULDN’T FIGURE

314-588-0

618-274-6720.

OUT HOW TO SHORTEN: Thu., Dec. 21, 9 p.m.,

EVANESCE

THE LIL SMOKIES: Sun., Feb. 18, 8 p.m., $10-

$5. The Heavy Anchor, 5226 Gravois Ave., St.

body Ope

$12. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis,

Louis, 314-352-5226.

314-499-7

314-588-0505.

THESE FADING VISIONS: W/ Dreaming Awake,

EXHUMED

MAT KEARNEY: Mon., April 2, 8 p.m., $27.50-

Anima Animus, Bridges, Jacob Veninga, Tue.,

Ahzidal, M

$30. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St.

Jan. 23, 7 p.m., $10-$13. The Firebird, 2706

Locust St,

Louis, 314-726-6161.

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

FANTASIA:

MOD SUN: Wed., Jan. 24, 7 p.m., $18-$20. Pop’s

TREVOR NOAH: Fri., May 11, 7 p.m., $45-$95.

8 p.m., $5

Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis,

Peabody Opera House, 1400 Market St, St.

1400 Mark

618-274-6720.

Louis, 314-499-7600.

FAUVELY: T

riverfronttimes.com

SAVAGE LOVE DEVASTATION

BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: I’m a straight man in a live-in relationship with a beautiful woman.

There are no sparks in bed, and it’s been more than a year since we’ve had sex.

She says, “I’m sorry, but I’m just not interested.” Sometimes she asks me if I’m disappointed, and I say something like “I miss sex.” And she says: “Maybe someday. But the important thing is we love each other, right?” Before my last birthday, she asked me what I wanted as a gift. I replied, “A soapy handjob.” That would’ve been the most action I’d had all year. But when my birthday rolled around, all I got was a speech about how she loved me but was not in love with me. My question: In the year 2017, how does a straight man make it clear to the woman he’s with that sex is important to him without coming across as threatening? If I told her I’d leave her unless our sex life improved, she’d probably “put out” to save our relationship. She has abandonment issues, and I fear she would be devastated if I left her. I only want to have sex with someone who wants to have sex with me, not someone I’ve coerced. What do I do? I love her, but a sexless relationship isn’t what I want or signed up for.

Sexless Over A Perplexing Year There’s being sensitive to coming across as threatening and wanting to avoid even unintentional coercion and being cognizant of the ways women are socialized to defer to men and the ways men are socialized to feel entitled to women’s bodies, SOAPY, and then there’s being a fucking doormat. She

isn’t in love with you — she told you so herself — and she’s never gonna fuck you or soap you up to get you off. If you don’t want her putting out to keep you, then don’t give her the option. That means ending the relationship.

There’s nothing unreasonable about wanting a romantic relationship that’s both loving and fully sexual, SOAPY. Your girlfriend’s issue may be a mystery — maybe it’s her (she’s incapable of being in a loving and fully sexual relationship), maybe it’s you (you never turned her on or you did something that murdered her libido) — but you’re not obligated to stay in an unsatisfactory relationship indefinitely because your girlfriend will be devastated if you leave.

Also, devastation is a two-way street.

If you dump her, SOAPY, her devastation will be immediate. If you stay, you’ll be the one devastated — but your devastation will be gradual, taking years, like the erosion of coastline or the destruction of our democracy. She’s a lot likelier to get over the devastation she’ll feel if you leave than you are to get over the devastation you’ll experience if you stay.

Hey, Dan: A man impregnated me about a month into our relationship. He is adamantly against having the kid, as it’s too soon. I really don’t want to have an abortion — I have religious and moral beliefs against it. He states that since one parent doesn’t want the kid, I am wrong for even considering keeping it. Am I wrong? We’re both around 30, and this is my first pregnancy. Do I have the right to continue with the pregnancy? I feel like we’d be great parents. He’s already left me because I wouldn’t make a decision within a week. It’s tearing us apart.

Opposing Opinions On Pregnancy Situation I’m going to sidestep the whole no-abortions-for-religious-and-moral-reasonsbut-premarital-sex-is-not-a-problem issue. This pregnancy isn’t tearing you apart, OOOPS, it tore you apart. He already ended things — he left you — which was a shitty thing to do, perhaps, but within his rights. It is absolutely within your rights to continue with the pregnancy — it’s your body, it’s your decision. And while he will be on the hook for this kid financially if you decide to have it, no one can force him to do the work/experience the joy/clean up the vomit that comes with actually fathering this child. I’m sorry you’re in this position, and here’s hoping you have the love and support you need to raise a kid if you decide to keep the baby, and here’s hoping he comes around.

Hey, Dan: I am a straight woman who just started fucking a hot, younger male coworker. The sexual tension between us was out of control until we stayed late one night and screwed on my desk. Since that night, we’ve hooked up a few more times. We grope each other in the office daily, as the “fear” of getting caught is a real turn-on for me. The problem is that he has a live-in girlfriend. He told me they are in an open relationship, so being with me isn’t cheating. As per their arrangement, he won’t tell her about me, but if she finds out, he won’t lie. How do I know if he’s telling me the truth or if he’s saying these things so I’ll keep sleeping with him? She comes to work events with him, and I feel guilty because she is sweet and obviously adores him. Also, being coworkers adds another layer of issues. The sex is amazing in part

45

because he’s too immature for me to consider romantically. I’d love to keep seeing him for sex, but I don’t want to help him hurt someone else. Can I fuck him guilt free?

Not A Heartbreak Helper P.S. I’ve already caught him in some minor lies. For instance, he said one of the rules of the open relationship is no sex in their apartment. Guess where we last fucked?

I’m going to let those who object to coworkers fucking — unless both are partners in the firm with equal tenure, power, and salaries — debate that issue in the comments thread while I address the issue you asked me to address: Can you know for sure whether he’s practicing ENM, aka “ethical non-monogamy.”

Short answer: No, nope, you can’t — and the signs don’t look good. While some couples have DADT agreements — outside sex is allowed, but they “don’t ask, don’t tell” — the DADT thing makes it hard for their thirds to verify that the relationship is actually open and they aren’t a party to cheating. So you have to trust the person you’re fucking — and if they’ve given you reason not to trust them (like lying about other stuff) and/or demonstrated that they aren’t honoring the other rules of their supposedly open relationship (like fucking in the apartment they share), well, then they’ve demonstrated their fundamental untrustworthiness. Basically, NAHH, if he’s lying to her, he’s probably lying to you, too.

So you can fuck him — but not without guilt. mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage on Twitter

STREAK’S CORNER • by Bob Stretch

riverfronttimes.com

NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 5, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

45

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Riverfront Times

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46

RIVERFRONT TIMES

You’ve Been Very Very Naughty.

SANTA LIKES THAT! ST. PETERS

SOUTH CIT Y

MID COUNT Y

(70 & cave springs, s. outer rd.)

(at grand)

(3 miles east of westport plaza)

open until midnight fri & sat

open until midnight fri & sat

1034 venture dr.

636-928-2144

open until midnight thurs - sat

NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 5, 2017

3552 gravois

314-664-4040

riverfronttimes.com

10210 page ave.

314-423-8422

PERSONALIZE YOUR MASSAGE BODY EXFOLIATION & GROOMING FOR MEN! Time for Summer • FULL BODY MASSAGE

• FULL BODY MASSAGE Body • SOFTGrooming!

SENSUAL TOUCH TANTRIC • FULL•BODY MASSAGE

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• SOFT SENSUAL TOUCH

314-236-7060 • INCALLS LIKEITXXXHOTT@AOL.COM • OUTCALLS TO YOUR HOTEL/MOTEL, HOME & OFFICE 314-236-7060 LIKEITXXXHOTT@AOL.COM

100 Employment 110 Computer/Technical

Systems Performance Engineer

@ Mastercard International Inc (O’Fallon, MO) F/T Rspnsbl for undrstndng prfrmnce reqs from biz analysts & prepare project plan & frmlate prfrmnce test strtegy. Rspnsbl for Prdctn Prfrmnce Analysis & Tunings of JEE prdcts & pltfrms. Reqs a Mster’s dgree, or frgn equiv, in Cmptr Scnce, IT, IS or related, or rltd, & 2 yrs of exp in the job offrd, as Cnsltnt, IT Archtct, or rltd. Altrntvly, emp will accpt a Bachelor’s deg, or frgn equiv, & 5 yrs of prgrssvly respnsbl exp. Exp must inclde 2 yrs w/: Apache; WebSeals; Tsting prfrmnce w/ ntwrk ltency, bandwidth, geoloctins, expiratn headers, load balancer & CDN; Optimizing perfrmnce using caching/compression technqs; Splunk, Dynatrace, LoadRunner or JMeter; TCP/ IP sockets; congestn; utilizing JEE design patterns. Emp will accpt any suita combo of edu, training, or exp. Mail resume to Pushkala Lakshmipathy @ Mastercard, 2200 Mastercard Blvd, O’Fallon, MO 63368. Ref MC35-2017.

167 Restaurants/Hotels/Clubs

Health Therapy Massage Relax, Rejuvenate & Refresh!

Flexible Appointments

Monday Thru Sunday (Walk-ins welcome) 320 Brooke’s Drive, 63042 Call Cheryl. 314-895-1616 or 314-258-2860 LET#200101083 Now Hiring...Therapists

HHHHH

Simply Marvelous

Call Cynthia today for your massage. M-F 7-5, Sat. 9-1.

314-265-9625 - Eureka Area #2001007078

Y Y Y Y ULTIMATE MASSAGE BY SUMMER!!!!

Relaxing 1 Hour Full Body Massage.

Light Touch, Swedish, Deep Tissue.

Daily 10am-5pm South County.

800 Health & Wellness

314-620-6386

A Wonderfully ~ Relaxing ~ Intuitive massage by licensed practitioner.

314-706-4076

ULTIMATE MASSAGE BY SUMMER!!!!

Relaxing 1 Hour Full Body Massage.

Light Touch, Swedish, Deep Tissue.

Daily 10am-5pm South County.

314-620-6386 Ls # 2006003746

Y Y Y Y A Wonderfully ~ Relaxing ~ Intuitive massage by licensed practitioner.

314-706-4076 2002030286

HHHHHHH

Experience Line & Production Cooks for Hotel & Restaurant $9.50-12/hr. Email StLouis@LGCAssociates.com For interview times or Call 314-863-7400

805 Registered Massage

Y Y Y Y

Ls # 2006003746

Y Y Y Y Escape the Stresses of Life with a relaxing

ORIENTAL MASSAGE & REFLEXOLOGY

You’ll Come Away Feeling Refreshed & Rejuvenated.

Call 314-972-9998

aaa

SWEDISH MASSAGE FOR MEN! Draping Optional

Call or Text “RFT $70/hr Special”

314-467-0766 11754 Lusher Road St. Louis, MO 63138

aaa A New Intuitive Massage Call Natalie 314.799.2314

www.artformassage.info CMT/LMT 2003026388

2002030286

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SWEDISH MASSAGE FOR MEN! Draping Optional

Call or Text “RFT $70/hr Special”

314-467-0766 11754 Lusher Road St. Louis, MO 63138

aaa A New Intuitive Massage Call Natalie 314.799.2314

www.artformassage.info CMT/LMT 2003026388 Escape the Stresses of Life with a relaxing

ORIENTAL MASSAGE & REFLEXOLOGY

You’ll Come Away Feeling Refreshed & Rejuvenated.

Call 314-972-9998

Health Therapy Massage Relax, Rejuvenate & Refresh!

Flexible Appointments

Monday Thru Sunday (Walk-ins welcome) 320 Brooke’s Drive, 63042 Call Cheryl. 314-895-1616 or 314-258-2860 LET#200101083 Now Hiring...Therapists

HHHHH

Simply Marvelous

Call Cynthia today for your massage. M-F 7-5, Sat. 9-1.

314-265-9625 - Eureka Area #2001007078

HHHHHHH

A

Wonderfully

~ Relaxing ~ Intuitive massage by licensed practitioner.

314-706-4076 2002030286

810 Health & Wellness General

mmmmmmmm

DOUBLE

your pleasure

DOUBLE your fun...

See TWO girls or just ONE. ~ Soft Touch ~ ~ Swedish ~ ~ Deep Tissue ~ Call Breonna 314-500-4755

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vvvvvvv GENTLEMEN’S GROOMING

314-688-2164

500 Services WANTS TO PURCHASE MINERALS and other oil & gas interests.

uuu Send details to P.O. Box 13557 Denver, CO 80201

600 Music 610 Musicians Services

MUSICIANS Do you have a band?

See TWO girls or just ONE.

MUSICIANS AVAILABLE

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vvvvvvv GENTLEMEN’S GROOMING

314-688-2164

5073 Ruskin-1BR $375 deposit

~Credit Check Required~ NORTH-COUNTY $510 314-521-0388 Newly renovated 1BR apts for SENIOR LIVING 55+.

Safe and affordable.

H H H FIRST MONTH FREE! H H H OVERLAND/ST. ANN $585-$625 314-995-1912 SPECIAL-1 MONTH FREE! Great location near Hwys 170, 64, 70 & 270.

10 minutes to Clayton.

Clean, Safe, Quiet.

Do You Need...

A Musician?

A Band?

String Quartet?

Call the Musicians Association of St. Louis

(314) 781-6612

SPECIAL-1 MONTH FREE! Great location near Hwys 170, 64, 70 & 270.

10 minutes to Clayton.

Clean, Safe, Quiet.

RICHMOND-HEIGHTS-MAPLEWOOD $555-$645 314-995-1912 SPECIAL-1 MONTH FREE! Near Metrolink, Hwys 40 & 44 & Clayton.

Clean, Safe, Quiet!

SOUTH CITY $400-$850 314-771-4222 1-3 BR Apts. Many different units.

NO CREDIT, NO PROBLEM! www.stlrr.com

RICHMOND-HEIGHTS-MAPLEWOOD $555-$645 314-995-1912

SOUTH CITY (Unfurnished) $675/mo 314-221-9568 2 br duplex, private basement, hdwds, w&d hookups. $25 app fee, call to prequalify.

SPECIAL-1 MONTH FREE! Near Metrolink, Hwys 40 & 44 & Clayton.

Clean, Safe, Quiet!

UNIVERSITY CITY $795 314-727-1444

SOUTH CITY $400-$850 314-771-4222 1-3 BR Apts. Many different units.

NO CREDIT, NO PROBLEM! www.stlrr.com SOUTH CITY (Unfurnished) $675/mo 314-221-9568 2 br duplex, private basement, hdwds, w&d hookups. $25 app fee, call to prequalify.

2BR, new kitch, bath & carpet, C/A & heat. No pets.

your fun...

~ Soft Touch ~ ~ Swedish ~ ~ Deep Tissue ~ Call Breonna 314-500-4755

NORTH-CITY $295 / $375 314-921-9191 4008 Garfield-1BR apt. $295 deposit.

UNIVERSITY CITY $795 314-727-1444

DOUBLE

DOUBLE

your pleasure

317 Apartments for Rent

530 Misc. Services

We have bookings.

Call for information (314)781-6612 Mon-Fri, 10:00-4:30

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OVERLAND/ST. ANN $585-$625 314-995-1912

300 Rentals

WESTPORT/LINDBERGH/PAGE $595-$635 314-995-1912 SPECIAL-1 MONTH FREE! Nice Area near Hwys 64, 270, 170, 70 & Clayton.

Patio, laundry, great landlord!

Clean, Safe, Quiet.

NORTH-CITY $295 / $375 314-921-9191 4008 Garfield-1BR apt. $295 deposit.

5073 Ruskin-1BR $375 deposit

~Credit Check Required~ NORTH-COUNTY $510 314-521-0388 Newly renovated 1BR apts for SENIOR LIVING 55+.

Safe and affordable.

H H H FIRST MONTH FREE! H H H

2BR, new kitch, bath & carpet, C/A & heat. No pets.

WESTPORT/LINDBERGH/PAGE $595-$635 314-995-1912 SPECIAL-1 MONTH FREE! Nice Area near Hwys 64, 270, 170, 70 & Clayton.

Patio, laundry, great landlord!

Clean, Safe, Quiet.

NORTH-CITY $295 / $375 314-921-9191 4008 Garfield-1BR apt. $295 deposit.

5073 Ruskin-1BR $375 deposit

~Credit Check Required~ NORTH-COUNTY $510 314-521-0388 Newly renovated 1BR apts for SENIOR LIVING 55+.

Safe and affordable.

H H H FIRST MONTH FREE! H H H OVERLAND/ST. ANN $585-$625 314-995-1912 SPECIAL-1 MONTH FREE! Great location near Hwys 170, 64, 70 & 270.

10 minutes to Clayton.

Clean, Safe, Quiet.

RICHMOND-HEIGHTS-MAPLEWOOD $555-$645 314-995-1912 SPECIAL-1 MONTH FREE! Near Metrolink, Hwys 40 & 44 & Clayton.

Clean, Safe, Quiet!

M-F, 10:00-4:30

MUSICIANS Do you have a band?

We have bookings.

Call for information (314)781-6612 Mon-Fri, 10:00-4:30

FILE BANKRUPTCY NOW! CALL ANGELA JANSEN 314-645-5900 BANKRUPTCYSHOPSTL.COM THE CHOICE OF A L AWYER IS AN IMPORTANT DECISION AND SHOULD NOT BE BASED SOLELY ON ADVERTISING.

riverfronttimes.com

FIRST MONTH FREE!

AFFORDABLE SENIOR LIVING (55+)

Newly Renovated 1 Bedroom Apartments $510 Appliances • Energy Efficient Laundry On-Site

HERITAGE SENIOR APARTMENTS NORTH COUNTY AREA 314-521-0388

NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 5, 2017

RIVERFRONT TIMES

47

H VOTED BEST STEAKHOUSE! ••••••••

••••••••

The Changing Pointe at

-2017 Best of St. Louis Readers Poll

Lose weight permanently with Ultrasonic Cavitation, a non-invasive procedure that melts fat away.

TUCKER’S PLACE Soulard u South County u West County

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__________________________________

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FFF For more info call

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VOTED BEST CHINESE!

314-230-4518

~2017 RFT Best of St. Louis Poll~

WONTON KING

If You Witness An Overdose

Dine-In~Carry-out 8116 Olive Blvd~University City 314-567-9997~wontonkingstl.com

b

DON’T RUN, CALL 911

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DATING MADE EASY... LOCAL SINGLES! Listen & Reply FREE! 314-739-7777 FREE PROMO CODE: 9512 Telemates

EarthCircleRecycling.com

Hope for a bright future

Call Today!

314-664-1450

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TTTTTTTTTTT

Shop Patricia’s

EVANGELINE’S Bistro & Music House

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File Bankruptcy Now! Call Angela Jansen ~314-645-5900~ Bankruptcyshopstl.com The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely on advertising.

FIRST MONTH FREE! AFFORDABLE SENIOR LIVING 55+

South City 3552 Gravois at Grand Mid County 10210 Page Ave (3 mi East of Westport) St. Peters 1034 Venture Dr (70 & Cave Springs-Outer Rd)

patriciasgiftshop.com

AUDIO EXPRESS!

19999

Link two phones. 6.2” touchscreen. OEM interface ready.

48

RIVERFRONT TIMES

Save More When We Install It!

6.2” monitor. Ready for steering wheel control interface.

DVD & Flip-Down Monitor

Save $80*

24999

$

10.1” image. FM for headsets.

Step Up To 13.3” Image — $99 More!

Save More When We Install It!

SOUTH: 5616 S. Lindbergh • (314) 842-1242 WEST: 14633 Manchester • (636) 527-26811 HAZELWOOD: 233 Village Square Center • (314) 731-1212 Mon. - Sat. 9 AM - 7 PM; Sunday Noon - 5 PM

some weekends

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9720 Page Ave ~ (314) 423-7300 havelistl.com

$

SWEDISH & DEEP TISSUE FULL BODY MASSAGE

314-620-6386

-2017 RFT Best of St. Louis Readers Poll

Save $170*

Summer!

South County/Lemay Area

SL Riverfront Times — VOTED FAVORITE INDIAN RESTAURANT!

Your Choice! 2018 Multimedia!

Ultimate Massage by

•

Lowest Installed Price In Town — Every Time!

Super Santas Shop Here!

Newly renovated 1 bedroom apartments in North County.

Heritage Senior Apartments 314-521-0388

mon - fri 10 am - 5 pm

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

LET’S SAVE SANTA THE TRIP & BE NAUGHTY!

Earth Circle’s mission is to creatively assist businesses and residents with their recycling efforts while providing the friendliest and most reliable service in the area. llll

GET READY FOR THE HOLIDAYS! FFF

Unless otherwise limited, prices are good through Tuesday following publication date. Installed price offers are for product purchased from Audio Express installed in factory-ready locations. Custom work at added cost. Kits, antennas and cables additional. Added charges for shop supplies and environmental disposal where mandated. Illustrations similar. Video pictures may be simulated. Not responsible for typographic errors. Savings off MSRP or our original sales price, may include install savings. Intermediate markdowns may have been taken. Details, conditions and restrictions of manufacturer promotional offers at respective websites. Price match applies to new, non-promotional items from authorized sellers; excludes “shopping cart” or other hidden specials. © 2017, Audio Express.

NOVEMBER 29-DECEMBER 5, 2017

riverfronttimes.com

AUDIO EXPRESS!

Lowest Installed Price In Town — Every Time!

SWEDISH MASSAGE FOR MEN! DRAPING OPTIONAL CALL OR TEXT “RFT $70/HR SPECIAL” 314-467-0766 11754 LUSHER RD. S T. L O U I S , M O 6 3 1 3 8