Riverfront Times, December 22, 2021 by Riverfront Times

America’s #1 comedy club Delivering Laughs for Over 35 Years

WESTPORT PLAZA NEW YEAR’S CELEBRATION Three shows! 5pm, 7:30pm, and 10 PM! The 10PM show will include party favors and a champagne toast at Midnight!

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NEW YEAR’S CELEBRATION Three shows! 5pm, 7:30pm, and 10 PM! The 10PM show will include party favors and a champagne toast at Midnight!

JAMES JOHANN

MAY 11 Assata Storm

Semi-finalist on NBC’s “Last Comic Standing” in 2015. His Dry Bar Comedy Special, “Clean & Unfiltered” has over 7 million views

“Paying For The New Trailer” (Blue Collar Comedy Tour) starring Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy. The Slackers Tour

JON REEP

MATT ISEMAN

“Last Comic Standing” Fox Sports Net Show “The Best Damn Sports Show Period”

Netflix’s “Brad Paisley’s Comedy Rodeo” Amazon Prime “Ginger Beard Man”

Host of “American Ninja Warrior”

January 27-30

January 6-9

BRENT TERHUNE

ROB LITTLE

Host of the podcast “Field Trip” and a touring comedian

January 6-9

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January 13-16

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RIVERFRONT TIMES

DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

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MARCH 6-12, 2019

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Welcome to the Ranch We will be serving up farm to table style dishes from our favorite local restaurants to cure your hangover with a hearty meal. This year will be bigger and blazing saddles better by far as we’ve reimagined the whole experience! So lace up those chaps, dust off those cowboy hats and get ready to roll up your sleeves. No hard work, just play at this year’s Brunch on the Ranch!

TRANSFORMING THE FACTORY INTO THE FRONTIER RIVERFRONT TIMES PROUDLY SUPPORTS STRAY RESCUE OF ST. LOUIS BY DONATING A PORTION OF TICKET SALES FROM UNITED WE BRUNCH.

PRESALE TICKETS AVAILABLE AT

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RIVERFRONT TIMES

DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

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THE LEDE

PHOTO BY THEO WELLING

“I get people yelling at me: ‘Good job! Good job!’ We’ve had people give us things in the mailbox, thanking us every year — stuff like that. We’ve had church groups say that is one of the best they’ve seen ... That makes it feel good.” JEFF STEVENSON, PHOTOGRAPHED OUTSIDE HIS “GINGERBREAD HOUSE” HOLIDAY DISPLAY IN THE LINDENWOOD PARK NEIGHBORHOOD ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16 riverfronttimes.com

DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

RIVERFRONT TIMES

A New Reality

he medical marijuana industry is still building in Missouri, but plenty of people are already looking toward new goals: legalizing psychedelics to treat levels of trauma that legal weed can’t fix. For this week’s cover story, staff writer Danny Wicentowski introduces you to the doctors, patients and political activists pushing lawmakers to catch up to studies showing the benefits of substances such as psilocybin. And whether they succeed or not, some aren’t waiting. Danny’s piece explores the layered issues at play as the resurgence of psychedelics arrives. —Doyle Murphy, editor in chief

TABLE OF CONTENTS Publisher Chris Keating Editor in Chief Doyle Murphy

E D I T O R I A L Managing Editor Daniel Hill Digital Content Editors Jenna Jones, Jaime Lees Food Editor Cheryl Baehr Staff Writer Danny Wicentowski Contributors Eric Berger, Jeannette Cooperman, Mike Fitzgerald, Eileen G’Sell, Kathy Gilsinan, Reuben Hemmer, Ryan Krull, Andy Paulissen, Justin Poole, Jack Probst, Richard Weiss, Theo Welling, Ymani Wince Columnists Thomas Chimchards, Ray Hartmann Editorial Interns Phuong Bui, Zoë Butler, Madyson Dixon A R T

& P R O D U C T I O N Art Director Evan Sult Production Manager Haimanti Germain

COVER Are You Experienced? Seeking relief and disembodiment, Missouri users of psychedelics hope new scientific research — and one day, legalization — open more eyes to the beyond Cover illustration by

TYLER GROSS

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C I R C U L A T I O N Circulation Manager Kevin G. Powers E U C L I D M E D I A G R O U P Chief Executive Officer Andrew Zelman Chief Operating Officers Chris Keating, Michael Wagner VP of Digital Services Stacy Volhein www.euclidmediagroup.com N A T I O N A L A D V E R T I S I N G VMG Advertising 1-888-278-9866, vmgadvertising.com

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HARTMANN Gold Rush It’s time to divvy up St. Louis’ NFL bounty — let the orgy begin BY RAY HARTMANN

re you ready for some political football? The kickoff is moments away. Thanks to the town’s new moniker — Home of the Smartest Lawyers in America — St. Louis is rolling in more than half a billion unexpected dollars that have fallen out of the sky with no instructions for their distribution. How sweet is that? Found money — giant stacks of it — liberated from the vaults of the rotten-rat robber barons of the NFL cartel. Including a nice chunk from Lord Voldemort himself. St. Louis doesn’t need to be dreaming of a green Christmas this year. It’s here. And never in the history of any city has there loomed such a bedazzling combination of so much money and so little in the way of rules or precedent as to how it should be spent. The plan is for the politicians to figure out how to divvy up the haul. What could go wrong with that? My personal alternative would be to take the estimated $514 million and simply divide it equally between the residents of the city and county, including me. It’s just math. You take $514 million and divide it equally between 1,004,125 county residents plus 301,578 city residents (the 2020 U.S. Census Bureau numbers). That’s $393.66 for every person — adult and child — in the two jurisdictions who paid for the Dome. It’s clean and easy and certainly would stimulate the local economy like nothing we’ve ever seen. I’m kidding. That isn’t happening no matter how fair and logical it might seem. Instead, let us return you to our presentation of “Robin Hood and His Band of Merry Politicians.” It’s all going to be played out at something called the St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority, or RSA, an en-

The dome is paying off. | PAUL SABLEMAN/FLICKR tity previously known to roughly 0.003 percent of the city-county populace. This is where the story becomes theater of the absurd. I’m as wonky as the next guy, but I’d be lying if I said I knew much about what, if anything, the RSA does beyond owning a domed football stadium. The RSA does not manage the Dome at America’s Center and its events — that falls to Explore St. Louis (a.k.a. the Convention and Visitor Commission). Also, the RSA is not to be confused, as it often is, with the St. Louis Sports Commission, a not-for-profit that energetically attracts and promotes sporting events, such as the 2021 U.S. Olympic gymnastics trials, for the region. Everything at the RSA website is communicated in the strange dialect of government-ese. The two main tabs are “About Us” (all about government) and “Enabling Legislation” (also all about government). Want to know from whence the RSA and its “authority” came? Why that’s simple — it’s right there in the enabling legislation: “67.650. In each city not within a county and in each first-class county with a charter form of government which adjoins such city not within a county there is hereby established a joint ‘Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority.’” You recognize that St. Louis jargon. A guy goes into a bar, meets a

girl and asks where she’s from. “I live in a city not within a county,” she responds. “That’s coincidental,” he says. “I happen to live in a first-class county with a charter form of government that adjoins a city not within a county.” To which she says, “How about that? We’re practically neighbors.” And if things go well, they talk merger. In any event, the RSA is governed by a board of eleven members, five appointed by the governor of Missouri and three each by the mayor and county executive. Shockingly, pretty much all of the nice people who served on the RSA — and did whatever it did or didn’t do — were serving on expired terms. Imagine that: No one had gotten around to paying attention to the fact that the terms were expired. But the RSA is obscure no more. Now that it actually has a thingsto-do list — and that list includes “hand out $514 million” — the RSA is the political equivalent of the hottest new club in town. It is the place to be seen giving out large sums of cash. That’s good work if you can get it. Statutorily, the RSA is required to spend its cut of the deal — whatever that turns to be — exclusively on improvements related to the Dome. Presumably, that definition will be tested and modified, which may or may not be interesting. Also, there are some individuals and entities that get to lay claim on actual losses suffered because

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of the Rams’ move. If those don’t leap to mind, you can be forgiven. Put it this way: We aren’t called Home of the Smartest Lawyers in America for nothing. Ditto for answering this question: “How the hell did our lawyers get 35 percent of a settlement that large?” It’s all good. After all, the fun part will be watching the politicians go at it. Word on the street is that Governor Mike Parson has suddenly taken an active interest in St. Louis and has been asking all sorts of folks for recommendations for filling those five state seats. Until now, Parson’s plan for St. Louis has been simple: Have as many guns and as few masks as possible. But money changes everything. Suddenly, the governor wants a booth in the VIP section of Club RSA. In this context, it is helpful that Mayor Tishaura Jones and St. Louis County Executive Sam Page are well established as political allies. Jones’ three selections plus Page’s three selections equal one more than Parson’s five. So, any plans the governor might have to convert St. Louis into a ranching community might need to be put on hold. Still, both Jones and Page ominously told the media that their respective legislative bodies — the board of aldermen and county council — wouldn’t be participating in splitting up the loot. Presumably, that applies just to the broad question of which large entity gets what proportion of the dough. Imperfect as they are, the legislatures need to provide at least some balance and transparency, such that it is. No matter what happens, this already promises to become our own little Super Bowl of greed when it comes to anyone who makes money off government now, in any capacity. And there will be lots of others wanting to join the party. Just remember I’m the one with the $393.66 solution. n Ray Hartmann founded the Riverfront Times in 1977. Contact him at rhar tmann1952@gmail.com or catch him on Donnybrook at 7 p.m. on Thursdays on Nine PBS and St. Louis In the Know with Ray Hartmann from 9 to 11 p.m. Monday thru Friday on KTRS (550 AM).

DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

RIVERFRONT TIMES

NEWS

Eric Schmitt’s Allies in Pressure Campaign Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI

issouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt is celebrating his attempts to dismantle the state’s COVID-19 health protections. That mission — which has been met with dismay by health experts — got some support last week in the form of an irate cop berating a school bus driver over masks and the state treasurer warning school districts that he would not approve bond deals unless they fall in line. Both instances show just how chaotic things have gotten in the wake of a Cole County judge’s ruling last month that found COVID-19 orders issued by local health authorities to be unconstitutional. The legal impact of the ruling is under dispute, but that hasn’t stopped Schmitt and others from using it as a cudgel to end health mandates at a time when a new variant of the virus appears to be linked to spiking case numbers amid the holiday season. The controversy has embroiled school districts and local governments, and, despite the legal uncertainties, it’s already created confusion on the ground. In the Rockwood School District on December 10, an Arnold police o cer berated a school bus driver and threatened to report her for asking the kids on her bus to wear masks. Footage of the incident, obtained by KSDK’s Casey Nolen, shows the o cer arguing with the bus driver through the door. “OK, I’m going to report you,” the o cer says. ou’re going against the law, you know that, right?” The bus driver begins to respond with no, but the o cer keeps going: “There’s an executive order by Eric Schmitt saying you

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Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt has waged war on COVID-19 health orders, and he’s got supporters, official and random. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI cannot wear a mask,” he says, and adds, “In the state of Missouri, you don’t have to wear a mask — it’s optional.” The bus driver responds, “OK.” Of course, as attorney general, Schmitt doesn’t have the power to issue executive orders — that’s the sole domain of the governor. Nevertheless, Schmitt has made it clear that he views the Cole County decision as an ironclad ruling; meanwhile, other school districts, including those in the Kansas City and St. Louis regions, maintain that the attorney general’s opinion is not legally binding and that the legislature has already given school districts the right to issue health orders. It’s not just random cops coming to the aid of Schmitt’s strongarming policy position: Last week, Missourinet revealed that Missouri Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick has quietly lent the power of his own o ce to advance Schmitt’s pressure campaign against school districts: In a December 15 interview with reporter Alisa Nelson, it patric confirmed that he is helping enforce Schmitt’s demands by making the end of COVID-19 health orders a requirement for districts applying for a special bond refinancing program.

DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

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Run through the treasurer’s office, the program would otherwise save districts thousands or even millions of dollars over the lifetime of their bonds. Even with the legal issues still unsettled, Fitzpatrick’s involvement has created financial leverage in Schmitt’s ongoing war against pandemic health orders. On Thursday, Karl Matt, the superintendent of the North Platte R-1 School District in Dearborn, told the Missouri Independent that Fitzpatrick’s decision to make the district’s financial future contingent on its COVID-19 protections had taken him by surprise. Matt noted, t’s a little bit di cult to reconcile how the two things go together.” North Platte is one of four districts to agree to the treasurer’s new requirement, the Missouri Independent reported Thursday. The debt refinancing will save the district $972,000. The district faced a di cult proposition osing out on the bond deal may have delayed improvements and forced the district to seek increased taxes to make up the shortfall. The full price, though, includes doing away with masking and COVID-19 safety rules. Fitzpatrick has defended his actions by say-

ing the o ce’s bond program is entirely discretionary, and that he can make up the requirements as he sees fit which ust so happens to be in line with the goals of Missouri’s AG. As for Schmitt, his spokesperson told the Missouri Independent that he appreciates the treasurer’s tactics in obtaining compliance, and is “pleased to have Treasurer Fitzpatrick with us in this important fight. hat fight is still ongoing, but there are so many moving pieces — and so many lawyers involved — that it’s not clear where they’ll land. Schmitt insists the Cole County ruling is a binding order of law, but school districts like that in Lee’s Summit have blasted the position as fundamentally baseless. ou have no legal authority to direct the District to cease and desist what it is doing to mitigate D. ou cite no such authority in your letter, because there is none,” Joe Hatley, an attorney for the Lee’s Summit R-7 School District, wrote in a response letter to Schmitt on December 10. he letter continued, our invocation of ‘rights’ untethered to an obligation to exercise them responsibly invites lawlessness.” n

Mixed Reception to New Jails Head Written by

RYAN KRULL

Anthony Sapone and Ami Amore’. | ANTHONY SAPONE

Sentencing in Artist’s Murder Written by

DOYLE MURPHY

carjacker who killed a St. Louis artist pleaded guilty last week in federal court and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Demario Hunter, 35, of East St. Louis shot James “Anthony” Sapone in March 2019 in a parking lot off of Cherokee Street. Hunter and two accomplices, Surrayah Hill and Hill’s cousin Keombra James, were trawling the neighborhood that night, searching for someone to rob, according to Hunter’s plea agreement. Sapone and his fianc e, fellow artist Ami Amore’, were headed to their car, a 2013 Ford Escape, at about 9 p.m. when the trio of carjackers was passing by, federal prosecutors say. Alerted by the ash of headlights when Sapone clicked the remote start on the Escape, Hunter moved in. He admitted to confronting Sapone with a 9mm. A struggle ensued, and Sapone was shot. According to the scenario laid out in Hunter’s plea, James tried to get into the Escape, but Amore’ fought her off. unter ri ed Sapone’s

pockets as the wounded man lay dying, and then he, Hill and James ed in their vehicle with ill driving, prosecutors say. The three were charged in Sapone’s killing in September 2019. Cases against Hill and James are still pending in federal court. Amore’ spoke to the Riverfront Times in 2019 as she and other artists prepared for an art show in tribute to her murdered fianc . “I really just want people to get the message to not squander your days away on things that don’t matter, she said at the time. ou can take a negative and turn it into a positive.” Sapone was best known for his photography, often working with CGI digital artwork and incorporating music into his pieces. The show after his death, titled Transcendence — The Art of Ami Amore’ and Anthony Sapone, was a way for Amore’ to give Sapone the gallery show he never thought he would have. In a letter sent December 15 to the court and written in advance of Hunter’s sentencing, Amore’ described the excruciating grief she felt after the fatal attack. “Grief is like a virus that just doesn’t go away,” she wrote. “It sneaks up on you for any or no reason at all. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t miss him.” She wrote that she replays the events of that night in her head and has often wondered about Hunter and what brought him to do what he did. “I want to believe you are an in-

Hunter rifled Sapone’s pockets as the wounded man lay dying, and then he, Hill and James fled in their vehicle with Hill driving, prosecutors say. herently good person, who made some bad choices in life and that you did not intend to pull the trigger and kill anyone that night, but you picked the wrong people. I want to believe that you care about all the lives you have affected, not just my life, but your own with your family, friends and let’s not forget your two accomplices that night,” she wrote. “Only you know.” Nearly three years since that night, Amore’ wrote that she has struggled with what happened but that she has also made a choice. “I know nobody will understand this, but my choice here is to forgive you for what you did,” she wrote, addressing Hunter. “Not for you, but for me. It takes too much valuable energy to hold onto hate and anger.” n

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hen Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah became the new commissioner of the city Division of Corrections in September, she took control of an organization that in just the past year had experienced national news-making uprisings, accusations of a culture of detainee abuse, and potential lawsuits from the federal government for civil rights violations. In an interview with the RFT, ClemonsAbdullah says she wasn’t interested in “Monday morning quarterbacking” the mistakes of past administrators. Instead, she listened to detainees and staff and figured out what improvements she could implement immediately. “I came to the conclusion that first things first, we need to improve the food,” Clemons-Abdullah says. The City Justice Center, the city’s primary jail, worked out a deal with their food service provider to bring more nutritional food into the facility, including more fruit and less “filler.” Before taking the job overseeing St. Louis jails, Clemons-Abdullah was an associate warden at a federal prison in Arkansas. Other reforms she says she’s implemented at the CJC include making it easier for detainees to call their families. Clemons-Abdullah also says the jail’s administration is doing a better job facilitating communication between detainees, the public defender’s office and judges. “I think my biggest thing is … being able to communicate openly with the public defender’s office to expedite things,” Clemons-Abdullah says. “We communicate with judges and say, ‘Hey, we got these guys. We need to move their court dates up. We need to get them seen.’” Clemons-Abdullah says that she occasionally pops into the CJC unannounced at night and goes “cell to cell” talking to the detainees. “They’re seeing that I am willing to listen, but I’m not willing to listen to nonsense,” she says. “You’re not gonna cuss at me, you’re not gonna talk crazy.” Alfred Long, a pastor and life coach who has worked for years with men in the CJC, says that on Clemons-Abdullah’s first day on the job she dropped in unannounced as a group of detainees were having a graduation ceremony for a Continued on pg PB

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workshop he had been running. “It was really impressive,” Long says. “It lifted the morale of the men because it showed that people really cared about them.” Long adds that “[Clemons-Abdullah] definitely has a hard job. It won’t happen overnight, but I have seen some small changes.” Others who have a vested interest in the CJC are pessimistic, describing the past three months at the CJC as more of the same. “In terms of the tangible product on the ground and how it compares to the previous administration, I would say that our office on the whole thinks that it’s now a little more difficult to see our clients [in the CJC],” said Matthew Mahaffey, the head of the St. Louis Trial Office of public defenders. Mahaffey says that under ClemonsAbdullah the CJC has implemented policies preventing lawyers from taking photographs of their clients in the CJC. Mahaffey called the policy “kind of preposterous and I think unconstitutional. If we have clients who are complaining about either the treatment there or if they had an experience related to their case prior to being brought to the jail, we need to be able to document that as part of our defense.” As far as communication between the public defender’s office and the head of the city Division of Corrections, Mahaffey said “I have never received a direct email from [Clemons-Abdullah], ever.” Additionally, there continue to be reports of detainees being abused by staff. Maureen Hanlon, a staff attorney with ArchCity Defenders says, “We have had recent reports, as of last week, of people being assaulted by corrections officers with chemical weapons.” Such reports would mirror past allegations at the CJC, which is facing a lawsuit from three detainees who say in late 2020 and early 2021 they were locked in mace-filled rooms as well as maced without warning or reason. The three detainees are being represented by Arch City. One woman, whose son has been in the CJC for almost eighteen months, tells the RFT that her son, who she talks to almost daily, has seen few changes in his situation at the CJC. Hanlon says, “One big problem in the jails from our perspective, is that an enormous number of people are held in either solitary confinement or near solitary confinement.” Some of this is the result of COVID-19 lockdowns that have been slow to ease up. “I have not seen any improvement on that front,” she adds. Hanlon also pointed out that a federal prison is like a long-term care facility, where people stay for such a long time that the administration gets to know

New St. Louis city corrections commissioner Jennifer Clemons-Abdullah says jail improvements have begun, but critics aren’t so sure. | ALFRED LONG their needs. However, running a jail is more like running a hospital emergency room, where no one knows who is coming in at any minute and the dynamics and needs are constantly changing. Hanlon says that “only time will tell” how well Clemons-Abdullah’s most recent job in the federal Bureau of Prisons has equipped her for her current role. Clemons-Abdullah for her part says that the biggest difference between working in the federal system versus St. Louis corrections comes down to one word: money. “Because the federal government is what it is,” she said. “You know, we always had money.” Looming Oversight Clemons-Abdullah’s first three months on the job coincided with increased interest from the mayor’s office and the Board of Aldermen for outside oversight of the CJC. On Monday, Mayor Tishaura Jones signed into law legislation passed earlier this month by the Board of Aldermen that would establish a nine-person Detention Facility Oversight Board. This board will have the ability to investigate allegations of wrongdoing at the CJC. In addition to that new board, Jones’ office has also announced a proposal for a more extensive Division of Civilian Oversight. Mayor’s spokesman Nick Dunne tells the RFT that while the mayor supports the oversight board, she believes it doesn’t go far enough and “needs more teeth to be truly effective.” Dunne says that the Detention Facility Oversight board mirrors the Civilian Oversight Board for city police. The COB has subpoena power, but only with a majority vote. Such a high bar, Dunne says, is why in the COB’s most recent public reports it makes no mention of having issued a single subpoena. The mayor’s proposed Division of Civilian Oversight would have the ability to investigate allegations of wrongdoing in city corrections and policing. The division would have the ability to issue subpoenas at the director’s discretion or with a majority vote of the volunteer board. n

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DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

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DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

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THE BIG MAD Axes to Grind Arch enemies, marred murals and the biggest O’Toole in the box Compiled by

DANIEL HILL

elcome back to the Big Mad, the RFT’s weekly roundup of righteous rage! Because we know your time is short and your anger is hot: O’Toole Again: The search for a new police chief to replace the retiring John Hayden is ongoing, and it doesn’t seem to be going that great. The city’s Personnel Department rejected all but two internal candidates, and one of them is none other than Mr. “The police own the night” himself, Lt. Col. Lawrence O’Toole. This unwelcome news arrived December 19 through a front-page story from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Erin Heffernan, who revealed a behind-the-scenes look at the search — and it’s got all the classic features of St. Louis’ fabulously dysfunctional government systems. Let’s recall: In September 2017, O’Toole oversaw the mass “kettle” arrest that would brutalize dozens of protesters and bystanders. It was an action for which he later infamously proclaimed victory about owning the night, but among the people caught in the storm of fists, knees and tasers was Luther Hall, an undercover officer beaten by his fellow cops. This year marked multiple criminal trials of those now ex-officers. Two pleaded guilty and one was convicted at trial. The timing, therefore, feels perfectly awful for O’Toole to be one of two finalists for chief. What gives? Ah, seasoned political observer that you are, surely you will not be surprised to know the answer is Very Dumb: Citing City Hall sources, Heffernan reported that four external candidates had not been given written tests — needed to advance in the hiring process — because the city’s Personnel Department “had not found a way to test candidates virtually because of concerns over the internet connectivity in the department’s offices in the Carnahan Courthouse and security concerns about cheating.” It is a sentence that gets worse the more you think about it, or, for instance, about how thousands of school children have spent the last two years taking tests without much incident. There is some good news: The Civil Service Commission voted on December 20 to direct the department to find a way to upgrade their internet for virtual testing, but it’s not clear where the chief selection

process goes from here — and whether St. Louis will really get Chief O’Toole 2.0. Careful With That Axe: In its ongoing bid to take over the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, New York City-based hedge fund Alden Capital has turned to the last refuge of the spurned sociopath: litigation. Last week, Alden sued the Post-Dispatch’s parent company, Lee Enterprises, claiming that Lee broke their own company’s bylaws when they refused to seat three Alden lackeys on their board. This is a complicated business story, laden with the ridiculous high jargon of corporate America, but let’s be honest: a Google image search for “Alden Capital CEO” tells you all you need to know. The dude is Patrick Bateman, and Patrick Bateman is trying to get Lee to come up to his Manhattan apartment for a night cap. Lee tried to let Alden down easy by saying that the invitation for the drink had “paperwork issues” which, sadly, meant Lee had no choice but to decline. But now Alden — not one to let itself be let down easy — is really pressing the issue with their lawsuit. Lee is going to have to get more creative with their excuses ... either that, or go get an axe bigger than the one Alden is concealing rather poorly beneath its raincoat. Arch Enemies: What is built in St. Louis does not stay in St. Louis, and Las Vegas is clearly proof of that. Fox 2 recently showcased Vegas’ sparkling 80-foot Arches that bear a striking resemblance to our very own beauty, and we have one thing to say: Size does matter. Our beloved Gateway Arch stands over 600 feet tall and can be spotted from near or far with a famous “There’s the Arch” utterance, but Vegas’ puny twin arches had to add purple sparkling lights to stick out along the city’s bustling streets. Our Arch doesn’t need all the flashy lights to shine, nor does it need a second to share its glory. Las Vegas wants what St. Louis has, and we can’t fault them for that. The Arch truly is a beacon of the Lou’s greatness — Vegas just wants a piece of the action. Go Front Yourselves: On Saturday night, a certain white nationalist hate group who shall not be named vandalized the Black history mural on Washington University’s South 40 Underpass, spray-painting over images of prominent black leaders in an act that mostly just drove home the point of Detroit artist Jonathan Harris’ brilliant and recently viral “Critical Race Theory” painting. We at the RFT have better things to do than waste too many words on such losers, so we’ll keep this succinct: Get the fuck out of our city, scumbags. Your hate isn’t welcome in St. Louis. n

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DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

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nside the salt room, Scott ic ey ew above the bright e panse of his own consciousness. is eyes were closed. weighted blan et pressed his body into a recliner. In his arm, an IV delivered a few do en milligrams of etamine to his bloodstream. is mind was somewhere else. ain’t gonna lie, was very skeptical,” recalls Mickey, a -year-old business owner who runs a chain of head shops in rural Missouri. Before ketamine, the Rolla native had spent much of his life gripped by a deep social anxiety that made crowded indoor spaces, even a trip to the grocery store, intolerable to the point of brea down. He had gone to a psychiatrist. They prescribed him the antidepressant Xanax, but he says it felt li e wrapping your head in a blanket.” So, one day this past ctober, he went to a different doctor, one located in a compact strip mall opposite the Saint Louis Galleria in St. Louis. Ketamine is undergoing something of a renaissance. First synthesi ed in , the substance has been used for decades as a surgical anesthetic, and not just because of its ability to safely render a person unconscious. For reasons scientists are still studying, the introduction of ketamine releases the mind to dissociate — that is, to be blissfully unaware, in all sensation and memory, of the physical trauma happening to

their body. owever, with smaller amounts of ketamine, a person can experience that disassociation without the amnesia. That experience, as shown in the growing body of scientific research and widening availability of treatment options, acts as a profoundly effective antidepressant. But it’s not just ketamine that holds such promising possibilities for treatment. Currently, a combination of state and federal laws block patients from using an even more powerful line of psychedelics, substances that have long been used in indigenous rituals and which are well nown to the crowd of self-e perimenting psychonauts” for their mind-expanding effects. For Mickey, attending music festivals in his twenties had brought him into contact with hallucinogens like LSD and magic mushrooms, but it had been many years since he had taken a psychedelic trip. That day at the clinic in St. Louis, as the salt vapors owed, he found himself settling into a comfortable chair and listening to the music coming from

the wall spea ers, the melody soft and meditative. was sitting there, they started the IV, and I just got this little bit of a tiredness that came over me, he says now. t was li e, ‘Oh, I could probably lay back and get comfortable.’ When I laid my head against the pillow, it was li e a light switch. t was, boom, there was, ying. nd there was no fear to it.” e remembers loo ing down at an endless landscape beneath him. He says, “I started thinking about my an iety why do get uncomfortable in various situations ew close to the ground and saw this dar spot in the center of this snow-covered region. instantly new that it was either trauma or something that had happened in my life that created that inside of me.” s easy as thin ing, ic ey ew down to the dar spot, and e changed energy.” The spot turned light, and, he says, “as it happened, would feel the release of this incredible weight. Today, he describes it as one of the most powerful sensations of his life. e was sold. nce had tried it once, was li e, lright, ’ll ta e the pac age.’

fter decades of legal restrictions and fear mongering, mericans are finally coming around to the notion that psychedelics are legitimate medicine. ven as the law and science lag behind, people in Missouri like Scott Mickey are already embracing ketamine; and these aren’t hippies or followers of the

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sort of LSD utopia envisioned by imothy eary in the s these are simply people in pain. During a recent visit to the Radiance Float + Wellness clinic in Richmond Heights, psychiatrist Dr. inia homas wal s through a short hallway to the salt room, the same room in which Scott ic ey tuned in, dropped out and started ying through his mind. he bac wall, built of roc salt bric s, is lit with cool blue lights. ier on a table features a friendly message, “Enjoy your K-Cation,” beneath a photo showing a line of multicolored cottages on a perfect beachfront. Thomas founded the clinic in , one year before then-President Donald Trump signed the federal ight to ry ct that made some classifications of drugs, including ketamine, open to therapeutic use if patients had exhausted D -approved treatment options. t first, homas says she considered ketamine treatments as an option of last resort. ut two ey events shaped her current stance that ketamine is for everyone. irst came issouri’s legali ation of medical cannabis. n , Thomas began prescribing medical marijuana licenses to hundreds of patients across the state through virtual appointments. Quickly, she says, it became clear that people were see ing more substantial relief than even highpotency cannabis could offer. hey wanted it to cure their depression, P SD, their pain, migraines. hey wanted it to cure

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PSYCHEDELICS Continued from pg 15

everything,” she says. “People put so much hope in it, but this is just a plant.” Thomas says she began suggesting ketamine as a possible treatment for her medical marijuana patients’ more serious health needs. Around the same time, the pandemic hit — and with it, the crush of isolation, job stress and the ever-present tragedy of the rising death toll. She believes the pandemic in amed a mentalhealth crisis that was already burning out of control. “Even high-functioning people have suffered so much loss in the pandemic,” she notes. “I just thought, ‘Why should you have to fail other antidepressants before trying something like ketamine?’” These days, Thomas’ ketamine patients hail from across Missouri. Like her patient Scott Mickey, many travel to the St. Louis clinic, sit in a comfortable chair in the salt room and let reality melt away through six to eight sessions over the course of a month. Those sessions are followed by a “maintenance” of additional booster infusions. The treatments are not cheap: Single infusions run about $350, and the full “package” of shots and boosters can cost more than $2,000. However, some patients never step foot in the clinic. With virtual doctor’s appointments, Thomas can prescribe and mail “Trip Kits,” which come with an eye mask, aromatherapy, a ketamine nasal spray and a one-month supply of KetaChew ketamine lozenges; the kit also comes with a journal divided into sections for patients to write down their emotions, insights and visions encountered during the psychedelic experience. Although the antidepressive effect of the ketamine can feel instant and last weeks, Thomas says that those improvements aren’t permanent. That’s why she recommends patients undergo booster infusions or self-administer ketamine via the nasal spray or lozenges at home. But Thomas argues that ketamine is just the beginning. She points to recent research on other psychedelics long demonized as “party drugs” showing breathtaking potential for treatment of PTSD and addiction, particularly when paired with psychotherapy. Recent clinical trials on MDMA — a.k.a. the rave drug Ecstasy — have put the substance on track for FDA approval for therapeutic

Dr. Zinia Thomas presents the items in a “trip kit” for her ketamine patients. The psychedelic is increasingly seeing use as an anti-depressant. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI use in 2023. The treatment Thomas is most excited for, though, is psilocybin. “Ketamine is a synthetic, and it has similar benefits to psilocybin, but it’s short-lived. There’s more maintenance required; it’s a little bit more like any kind of pharmaceutical,” she says. “Whereas you can do a one dose of psilocybin, and treatment-resistant depression can be eliminated.” Thomas isn’t just shouting into a void. In 2019, the FDA granted two psilocybin clinical trials “breakthrough therapy” status, and one year later a ballot measure made regon the first state in the nation to legalize psilocybin for therapeutic purposes. But in Missouri, medical professionals, patients and activists seeking to legitimize psychedelic treatment are struggling to overcome old legal barriers — and the legacy of the War on Drugs.

e know more about the therapeutic effects of psychedelics than ever before, but legally, they’re stuck in the past. Despite research suggesting psilocybin can capably treat depression — an April study in the New England Journal of Medicine found no significant difference” between groups of patients treated with a common antidepressant and psilocybin — the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration still considers it a Schedule

1 illegal narcotic. That designation means, by law, that psilocybin has “no currently accepted medical use” and carries a “high potential for abuse.” hese definitions were birthed in 1970 with the passing of the federal Controlled Substances Act, and it amounted to an early salvo in the generations-spanning crackdown on drug use in America. Schedule 1 narcotics include a hodgepodge of different types of substances, from heroin and bath salts to cannabis and psychedelics. But even with the passage of the federal Right to Try Act in 2018, the DEA has fought physician attempts to prescribe Schedule I drugs like psilocybin outside of approved clinical trials. (Meanwhile, ketamine, a powerful psychedelic in its own right, is considered a Schedule 3 non-narcotic substance.) In 2021, these decades-old schedule designations have little in common with current research. And the restrictions have sharply limited scientists’ ability to uncover more evidence that these substances deserve to be reevaluated. “It’s an absurd catch-22,” says Eapen Thampy, a lobbyist and legalization advocate in Missouri. “At the end of the day, there are some drugs that are very dangerous and addictive and damaging,” he argues. “Those are not psychedelics and marijuana.” Thampy has spent years trying

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to convince members of Missouri’s conservative-majority legislature to warm to the notion of drug reform. (He’s also found himself a target of drug laws himself, as he’s currently awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty last year to federal charges involving marijuana tra c ing. hampy declined to discuss his criminal case for this story.) While several drug legalization bills have been proposed in recent years — including a marijuana-focused Right to Try bill that failed to pass — it was a public vote via ballot initiative that ultimately legalized medical cannabis in 2018. But Thampy believes that mounting evidence produced by clinical trials, as well as vocal support from veterans, could make the difference for Missouri lawmakers on the issue of psychedelics. One lawmaker, Kansas Cityarea Republican Representative ichael Davis, filed ust such a bill this year, though it failed to pass out of committee. The bill sought to amend Missouri’s state-level Right to Try bill by allowing eligible patients to seek out Schedule I drugs; the bill would also expand eligibility beyond just the terminally ill to include “debilitating” and “life-threatening” illnesses — seemingly encompassing conditions like depression and PTSD. “My proposal protects the liberty interests of Missourians who be-

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lieve these drugs offer valuable options in the treatment of numerous conditions,” Davis said in a statement after introducing the bill. While that version of the bill failed to gain momentum, Davis says he plans to refile it for the 2022 session. Appearing as a panelist during a November drug policy conference hosted by Thampy and the political action committee Crossing Paths, Davis pointed out that the Republican Party has already made the first move e had President Trump and congressional Republicans supporting a bill that would allow this at the federal level.” ur bill, Davis continued, would bring this down to the state level, to allow patients to have access to these psychedelics that can assist them with their pain.”

he law of the state is one thing, but it’s the law of nature that truly governs the field of psychedelics. Psilocybin grows out of the ground in mushrooms. The Amazonian sacrament of ayahuasca is brewed from vines. DMT — what some call the god molecule can be distilled from wild plants, if you know where to look. At a recent meeting of the Psychedelic Society of St. Louis, some three dozen members gather in a pinball and billiards hall connected to a pizza restaurant. Several members of the society introduce themselves as psychonauts,” a term to describe their pursuit of mystical experiences through drugs; others say they’ve been self-treating various mental and physical ailments with psychedelics for years. Their accounts of psychedelic experiences often seem to share metaphors, particularly around the notions of ego and death During the meeting, several members describe journeys through mental spaces where egos are dissolved or crushed. fter leaving their bodies, they soared the cosmos, traversing what one society member calls an infinite abyss of love. thers say they undergo the terror of death, only to be ung into a purely spiritual state as the trip fully kicks in. ou feel your body as an outside entity,” one man says, describing a D e perience. ou feel yourself take your last breath and die.” Dan Conner, a self-described psychonaut and member of the

Brain scan images show neural activity from two subjects after taking a “large dose” of psilocybin in a Washington University study. | JOSHUA SIEGEL society, says his personal journey into psychedelics began several years ago after taking twenty grams of dried psilocybin mushrooms — a hefty dose, he’d later realize, but one that exposed him to the potential of a visionary e perience” that went beyond just heightened sensations of color and music. here are no other drugs, outside of psychedelics, that make you become a better human being, more loving, more kind,” he says. Conner says he looks forward to the future legalization or decriminalization of psychedelics, but he’s worried that attempts to treat these substances like pharmaceuticals could end up missing the point. He points to the trend of microdosing SD, ostensibly allowing a user to remain functional while enjoying some visual effects and euphoria — but without the need to set aside six hours to journey across your mind’s inner cosmos. ut that’s where the magic happens, that’s where the work gets done,” Conner emphasizes. he experience is the healing, not the chemical.” Will Wisner, an Iraq War veteran who returned home with PTSD and survivor’s guilt, is also wary of attempts to integrate psychedelics into the medical system that’s failed so many veterans in the past. In recent years, Wisner has traveled outside the U.S. to undergo ayahuasca treatments, a physically draining psychedelicritual experience that involves a shaman and can take some sixteen hours per session. Wisner is far from the only vet-

eran to make the journey, but he stresses that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has nothing to do with it. ight now, we are in a situation where we are a veteran space helping veterans, and we’re going to do what the VA will not, or cannot, do, he says. his is a spiritual thing. I wouldn’t want to do ayahuasca with any doctor.” fter a pause, he adds, nless it’s a witch doctor.”

cientists are still grappling with what, exactly, a psychedelic experience represents. Is it something like a dream? A hallucination? The mind putting itself on the psychoanalyst’s couch? Where does the mind go during an out-of-body experience? How can it observe itself? For now, there are so many more questions than answers. hat we do as humans is we make up a story about what we’re perceiving,” observes neuroscientist Dr. Joshua Siegel, who is part of a team of clinical researchers at Washington University currently studying the effects of psilocybin on the brain. According to Siegel, the stories we tell ourselves contain real significance. hile accounts of being separated from the ego or ying over your own consciousness might seem like nebulous hokum, Siegel notes that the number of people reporting similar themes during psychedelic experiences can’t be waved off. go dissolution is fundamentally important from the therapeutic standpoint, he says.

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core feature of psychiatric illness is you’re stuck in a maladaptive behavior, like depression, addiction, anxiety; the very experience of exiting your ego and your consciousness seems to help people to break the habit of behavior. No matter how they interpret it, e periencing your own death, ying like a bird, either way it can be useful.” ut the mechanism for these experiences remains unclear. Dr. Ginger Nicol, a psychiatrist who leads Washington University’s psychedelics research, points out that science still can’t say whether the mystical experiences often described during psychedelic trips are required for the therapeutic effects to take hold, or something else entirely. s a psychiatrist, the human e perience is really important, but mechanistically, and at the clinical level, can we measure that?” Nicol says. f we can engineer it with a type of psychotherapy that targets a certain type of behavior — or if we could measure that experience — we could learn a lot about the human condition and what’s it like to be alive and conscious.” The duo’s latest work involves a brain mapping study using subjects in the midst of a psilocybin trip. While the study involves a relatively small number of test subjects, Siegel says each test produces a very large amount of data on each subject, and on how brain networks are changing from before, to during, to after a large dose.” For Nicol, the ultimate goal is to use psychedelics as a precision medicine, targeting specific conditions with the right drug for the ob. ut after decades of restrictions on research, science is still far from cornering the truth on what a psychedelic experience actually represents. e’re trying to understand what’s happening to the brain during something subjective,” Nicol admits. oth she and Siegel acknowledge that, even with the use of FMRI brain imaging, it’s possible that psychedelics are changing the brain’s structures in ways researchers haven’t yet taken into account. For the researchers, that possibility could be skewing their results. t’s a fair uestion. ven with cutting-edge technology and detailed neural mapping, do we actually know what a brain on drugs looks like? s what we’re visuali ing in the data actually the whole story?” icol wonders. t’s the irony is what we’re seeing reality?” n

DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

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CAFE

[REVIEW]

A Labor of Love Padrino’s serves up delicious Mexican flavors from the former South Grand home of Mangia Written by

CHERYL BAEHR Padrino’s 3143 South Grand Boulevard, 314-282-0357. Mon.-Thurs. 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Fri. and Sat. 11-1 a.m.; Sun. 8 a.m.-9 p.m.

hristina Robles knows how ridiculously large the burritos are at Padrino’s. Nearly the size of a standard loaf of ciabatta, these “burros,” as Robles and her cohorts call them, are so jaw-droppingly massive, they seem as insurmountable as an ascent up Mt. Everest. It’s not gratuitous, however; the burritos have to be so large to contain all of the fillings stuffed inside. Tender chicken, seasoned steak, plump shrimp, rice and refried beans — the contents of the Burro Campechano, are like a threemeat combination platter, with all the trimmings, wrapped up in a our tortilla. s if that wasn’t over the top enough, the entire burrito is covered in molten cheese dip that pools at the bottom of the plate, begging you to dip every bite into this rich concoction. If food is how restaurants show affection, a Padrino’s burrito is a long, tight bear hug from a doting Mexican grandma. This is exactly what Robles hoped to achieve with Padrino’s, the three-month-old restaurant she owns with her husband, Enrique, and their longtime friends Ciro Trapala and Rafa Rosas. Spanish for “godfather,” the name Padrino’s is supposed to evoke not simply a family relationship but the experience of being welcomed into a Mexican home kitchen, where stu ng you to the gills is the way you’re shown love — the sort of experience Enrique Robles, Trapala and Rosas had growing up in their own households in

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Padrino’s is already making an impact with dishes such as pollo feliz, crispy tacos with chicken, fajitas, margaritas and birria tacos. | MABEL SUEN Mexico. Their desire to share that feeling with diners in their adopted hometown is the foundation of Padrino’s, which opened on South Grand in a portion of the former Mangia taliano this past September. fter moving to the United States many years ago, all three men separately found themselves in the restaurant industry: Enrique Robles in the front of the house, and Trapala and osas in the itchen. fter settling down in the St. Louis area, the three became friends, and they often talked nostalgically of their Mexican upbringing and the food associated with it. Christina Robles saw this passion for food and hospitality in her husband and his friends because she had it, too. Having worked in the restaurant industry for many years herself, she’d always dreamed of getting back into the business and fantasized with her husband about opening a place of their own one day. In 2019, Enrique Robles realized that dream when he opened the Southampton restaurant La Catrina, with business partners Jerry Reyes and Steve Resnic. However, this May, he decided he wanted to step out completely on his own and, after

DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

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Tacos de pescado, or fish tacos topped with cabbage, pico de gallo and chipotle sauce. | MABEL SUEN partnering with Trapala and Rosas, he and Christina Robles set out on a new restaurant venture. That dream became even more of a reality once they found the former Mangia storefront. Thrilled to take over a portion of such a storied part of St. Louis restaurant history, the four got to work converting the space into a vibrant dining room. Mexican artwork hangs from the red and

yellow walls, wooden tables dot the shotgun dining room, and a bar — complete with three frozen drink machines — takes up half of the space. If the atmosphere makes the room feel lively, it turns positively festive once the food is added to the scene. Like the Burro Campechano, the Burro Vallarta is an equally massive culinary undertaking. Tender, whole jumbo shrimp,

From left: Ciro Trapala, Rafa Rosas, Enrique Robles and Christina Robles. | MABEL SUEN

Fajitas Padrino’s are part of the over-the-top experience. | MABEL SUEN

Margaritas are made to impress. | MABEL SUEN

of the Mexican ground sausage is stuffed with cheese between two our tortillas, then griddled on a attop until the meat and cheese form a gooey, chili-infused masterpiece. Though this is simple pleasure — fat, salt, carbs — the cinnamony spice of the chorizo seasoning adds depth that counters the richness. The chicken enchilada, too, balances the easy pleasure of juicy shredded chick-

en baked inside a tortilla with a verdant green-chile sauce that brightens the entire plate. The chimichanga at Padrino’s hits exactly the spot you want hit when looking for the sort of easy, fried meat-and-cheese glory that Tex-Mex so beautifully delivers. Mounds of mildly seasoned ground beef are wrapped in a our tortilla, then deep fried so that the exterior forms a beautiful golden

dusted with just a bit of chili spice, are wrapped into a fresh our tortilla with refried beans and rice, then topped with a delectable sauce that’s akin to a milder, thinner sour cream. Two people could easily split this feast, though giving up half to share might be more difficult than downing the entire delicious dish on one’s own. chori o uesadilla is pure, decadent oy. generous portion

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shell. Mild, white cheese dip covers the hefty fried spectacle, and guacamole, sour cream, shredded lettuce and pico de gallo adorn the plate. It’s pure Tex-Mex joy. Padrino’s excels in this sort of unapologetic comfort fare. n appetizer simply called Cheese and Meat needs no further introduction. Ground beef, mixed into velvety queso dip, evokes Super Bowl parties and Crock-Pot appetizers, while fajita nachos are like the classic bar fare with an exclamation point. Here, a platter of tortilla chips is positively smothered with seasoned ground chicken, bell peppers, onions and cheese dip, making it impossible to eat daintily. No matter; you’d be compelled to devour this decadence even in polite company. However, Padrino’s can also deliver on restrained, traditional dishes as well, such as its several varieties of street tacos. The al pastor and shrimp versions are particularly excellent; for the former, mouthwatering marinated grilled pork is paired with juicy pineapple, while the latter features plump, perfectly grilled shrimp drizzled with a warm chipotle sauce. The carnitas, too, show Trapala’s and Rosas’ culinary gifts. The succulent, slow-cooked meat drips in its own juices; white onions are simmered with the pork, infusing the jus with sweetness. That Padrino’s can deliver on such simple preparations as the street tacos and carnitas shows that there is real substance behind the fun, over-the-top portions and easy fare that the restaurant is quickly becoming known for. Christina Robles emphasizes this, noting that, at the heart of every chimichanga, burro and cheese dip are the beloved dishes and cooking styles her husband, Trapala and Rosas learned from their families in Mexico and still cook to this day in their own home kitchens. To them, the over-thetop portions and cheese-covered dishes aren’t a diversion from that, but rather embody its very essence, that when cooking for someone, the point is to show as much love as you can fit on a plate — and then pile on even more.

Padrino’s Burro Campechano ..............................$11.99 Tacos de Carnitas ................................$10.99 Quesadilla Especial ............................... $8.99

DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

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WEDNESDAY, 12/22/21

SUNDAY, 12/26/21

BUTCH MOORE 4:30PM SEAN CANAN'S VOODOO PLAYERS PRESENTS: VOODOO LED ZEPPELIN 9PM

ANDREW DAHLE 2PM ERIC LYSAGHT 9PM

THURSDAY, 12/23/21

SOULARD BLUES BAND 9PM

KEVIN BUCKLEY 5PM JESSE FARRAR (OF OLD SALT UNION) & FRIENDS 9PM

MONDAY, 12/27/21

TUESDAY, 12/28/21

ERIC LYSAGHT 9PM

FRIDAY, 12/24/21

CLOSED - CHRISTMAS EVE SATURDAY, 12/25/21

CLOSED - CHRISTMAS EVE

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DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

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MONDAY-SATURDAY 11AM-9:30PM SUNDAY 11AM-8:30PM

SHORT ORDERS [FIRST LOOK]

Au Naturale Grand Spirits brings natural wines and Italian-inspired snacks to South Grand Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

ne day before they opened their highly anticipated wine shop, Grand Spirits Bottle Co. (3194 South Grand Boulevard), Natasha Bahrami and Michael Fricker received the most delightful omen. A sweet brown-and-white stray puppy was running around their neighborhood, begging for someone to take her in. Bahrami and Fricker didn’t hesitate. “We found her on Tuesday just running around the streets super malnourished, in bad health and horribly dirty, so we snagged her and are going to keep her,” Fricker says. ou can’t find a shop dog the day before you open your shop and not realize it’s fate.” Little Nebbiolo, also known as Nebby, may make a visit to Grand Spirits more charming, but it’s not the main reason to visit this stunning natural wine shop and bar, which opened to the public on December 15. In addition to running the successful Cafe Natasha’s and the Gin Room just down the street, Bahrami and Fricker have been working tirelessly for the past year to create a bastion of natural wines and Italian-inspired snacks, something they felt was missing from the Tower Grove East neighborhood where they live. “During quarantine, I wanted a small shop close to the house to be able to go to and just grab a couple bottles of wine without having to make a Schnucks run,” Fricker says. wanted it to fit in with what we did, which is something curated and centered around natural wines, and there was nothing really around that focused on that in the Tower Grove area. 33 [Wine Shop & Bar] does that, but they are still a drive, so I had a dream one night that we owned a little bottle shop. I woke up and said, ‘We are

going to do this.’” For Fricker, Grand Spirits is the extension of a passion for natural wines he developed a few years ago in France. There, while eating and drinking with fellow industry professionals who were into natural wines, he felt something click. As he explains, these wines appealed to his chef background (Fricker has an extensive culinary background which includes high-end properties around the country such as Cielo and Cinder House at the Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis). And once the spark was lit, he dove headfirst into learning everything he could about their history, production and tasting notes. Grand Spirits is the result of that

Michael Fricker is excited to share his passion for natural wines. | PHUONG BUI

“I had a dream one night that we owned a little bottle shop. I woke up and said, ‘We are going to do this.’”

Nebby keeps an eye on things at the new Grand Spirits Bottle Co. | NATASHA BAHRAMI deep dive. As Fricker explains, the purpose of the shop is not simply to be a place where people can buy natural wines, but an opportunity for education in a welcoming, judgment-free space. He believes this is particularly important because there is some controversy and misinformation around natural wines, and he hopes to dispel some of these myths. “It’s kind of a dirty word in the wine world, and it’s pretty divisive,” Fricker explains. “I get the question constantly, ‘If these wines are natural, does that mean

that all others are not natural?’ The word itself can be divisive and misnomered. In trying to figure out a way to define what makes a natural wine, we are focusing on clean agricultural processes where people are either certified or practicing organic and biodynamic methods and being biodiverse in the fields. During vinification, these wines are using natural yeast, and post-vinification, winemakers are not adding sulfites or preservatives. e’re focusing on clean practices and doing things intentionally and with

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detail and on sustainability.” To that end, Bahrami and Fricker have curated a substantial selection of natural wines, focusing on bottles in the $16-$25 range. Guests who choose to enjoy a drink at the shop have their choice of tastings ights, glass pours, mezcal and whiskey tastings, and vermouth service. Food-wise, Fricker is offering a simple menu of small plates centered around imported Italian goods. Four rotating vegetarian items will be available during every service, including a conserva of artichokes served over Calabrian chili ricotta, as well as blackbean hummus. Fricker has also created a menu of Italian sandwiches, such as prosciutto with olive tapenade, carameli ed figs and arugula. Charcuterie boards will also be available. “There’s a lot going on, and it’s really fun and interesting,” Fricker says. “This feels like the natural culmination of what I have done over the past ten years.” n

DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

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DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

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“There is an aspect of pop tiki that is controversial, and rightfully so.”

[FOOD NEWS]

Tiki Time Pop-up supper club the Mainlander brings nostalgia to St. Louis’ dining scene Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

hen Blake Askew thinks back on what inspired him to get into food in the first place, it all goes back to his nostalgia for a bygone era of dining — one that he hopes to recreate with his new pop-up series, the Mainlander (themainlanderstl.com). “I always had this desire to go back in time, which is what drew me to restaurants in the first place,” Askew says. “I got serious about cooking in my mid-twenties, and I read everything I could get my hands on — cookbooks, memoirs of chefs. For me, it all really goes back to that period in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s when my parents and grandparents were dining out and experiencing these things I didn’t get to experience. That interested me and drove me into the type of food I wanted to make and the chefs I wanted to work for.” An Effingham, Illinois, native who moved around the country for his dad’s work all through his childhood, Askew moved to St. Louis last year from San Francisco, where he had lived for the past decade. There, he worked in the restaurant business, cooking in upscale restaurants around the Bay Area, from classical French eateries to modern American kitchens to Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant group. At each property, he honed his techniques and developed a passion for fusing flavors from various culinary traditions, all the while dreaming of having a restaurant of his own one day that would capture the restaurant nostalgia he was so drawn toward. As he got more and more serious about opening a spot, he realized that doing so in San Francisco, or California at large, was going to be an impossible feat. Every facet of the process was so prohibitively expensive (Askew notes that the going rate for a liquor license in San Francisco is $1 million) that he knew, even if he was able to secure the investors needed to open a business, he would be so beholden to other people’s visions that it would dilute what he wanted to do. He and his partner began thinking of other cities that might be more accessible in terms of starting a business, and the more and more places they considered, the more St. Louis seemed like the right fit. Not only had Askew lived nearby in Effingham for several years, his maternal grandparents hailed from St. Louis,

The apple daiquiri is one of the tiki-inspired drinks that will be served at the forthcoming pop-up, The Mainlander. | COURTESY OF BLAKE ASKEW and he had many fond memories of visiting them during his childhood. Inspired by that connection, he and his partner visited the city last fall, and decided to take the leap and move across the country a few months later. Since arriving in St. Louis this past summer, Askew has been working as sous chef at Rob Connoley’s acclaimed restaurant, Bulrush. There, he has not only immersed himself in learning abut Ozark cuisine; he’s also received an education in all facets of the St. Louis food and beverage scene, including seasonal ingredients, producers and makers. With the support of Connoley, Askew has also been able to begin sketching out ideas for what will hopefully be his eventual restaurant concept, the Mainlander, which will make its debut as a pop-up at Bulrush on Saturday, January 8. “Rob has been generous, not with just me but with everyone else on his staff,” Askew says. “He has this desire to make a place where people can explore their own ideas and have it be a bit of an incubator. Things don’t start and end with what we do at Bulrush. We are all people and have our own ideas, and he wants to be a part of that and push it forward. He has a really generous spirit, and I’m going to take advantage of that opportunity to do what I do.” As Askew has dived deeper into the Mainlander concept, a few things have become clear to him. First is the transportive, aesthetic component he hopes to create. Believing that people go to restaurants for the overall experience, Askew hopes to recreate the pop tiki Polynesian Midcentury vibe his parents and grandparents got to experience. Places

like the storied Trader Vic’s, Don the Beachcomber and St. Louis’ own longgone spot, the Mainlander, all inspire his vision, as do more modern iterations of the style that he used to frequent while living in California. Another element that has come into focus for Askew is the food. Having cut his culinary teeth on fusion cuisine, beginning with his first job in Houston and throughout his tenure with Wolfgang Puck’s restaurants, Askew is passionate about mixing what are typically thought of as Eastern and Western flavors and is inspired by culinary styles found throughout the globe. To this end, he says that diners at the Mainlander pop-up series can expect dishes like steamed mushroom dumplings, crawfish hand pies, skewers of meat cooked over a personalsized tabletop charcoal grill and smoked duckling with a savory take on the ’70sera ambrosia salad. As for drinks, Askew is drawing inspiration from classic tiki beverages, but he is infusing them with a Midwestern spirit by using local ingredients. Cocktails include a punch made with rum from the Missouri distillery Nobletons, an apple daiquiri based around apples from a local orchard and a paw-paw-based libation. What Askew is most focused on, however, is making sure he hits the right note with the Mainlander. Conscious of the problematic history of the tiki phenomenon in terms of appropriation, exoticism and cultural insensitivity, he wants to be clear that he is not simply resurrecting the form but reimagining it in a respectful manner. “There is an aspect of pop tiki that is controversial, and rightfully so,” Askew

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says. “There is a lot of validity to the controversy, and we are trying to navigate that. This is a process, and we see the pop-ups as an opportunity to workshop and see how people respond and what they are into. We want people to get that transportative experience, where it feels like you are walking into something different and disconnected from without using religious idols or stealing from other cultures. There are a lot of Pacific Island people and immigrants here who have been imitated in these fantasy ways, and that is problematic. We’re trying to create something that is in a transportative aesthetic that gives people the idea of being on vacation without completely lifting from other cultures or through fetishizing and exoticism.” Askew sees these pop-ups as a way to transparently work out these issues, and he looks forward to the conversations that he knows will lead to an evolution of the Mainlander. The intimate setting lends to such interaction; the January 8 dinner, which will take place at Bulrush, is limited to two, twelve-person seatings. Tickets can be purchased through the Mainlander’s website, themainlanderstl. com, where prospective guests can also sign up to receive updates about upcoming events. The price for the dinner is $88 per person, inclusive of drinks. Like Bulrush, the Mainlander has a zero-gratuity policy, eschewing traditional tipping in favor of building in a living wage for its staff into the price of the meal. Askew notes that this is very important to him, as he sees it as a way to address historical inequities and power imbalances in the hospitality industry. For all the weight of these complex issues, Askew insists that the Mainlander is, at its heart, a lively, fun, boozy experience. He looks forward to seeing how the series goes with his sights set on a standalone concept someday — one that he hopes will give St. Louis diners not simply a taste of a bygone dining form but an immersive experience that will transport guests to another place and time. “There is a fantasy aspect to it and a frivolous, over-the-top aesthetic that makes you feel like you’ve escaped from the mundane,” Askew says. “That’s what you are looking for when you go out to dinner and it is snowing outside. Why do you go out in that? Because you are getting something you can’t get everywhere else. That feeling is a destination, which is what we are really going for.” n

DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

RIVERFRONT TIMES

DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

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ST. LOUIS STANDARDS

For more than 70 years, Tony’s has set the standard for fine-dining in St. Louis. | ANDY PAULISSEN

[ S T. L O U I S S TA N D A R D S ]

All the Best From its new home in Clayton, Tony’s still sits at the top of St. Louis’ dining scene Written by

CHERYL BAEHR

hen James Bommarito ticks off the list of things his dad, Vince, pioneered in the St. Louis restaurant scene, it stops you in your tracks. Tableside service, wine lists, valet parking, crumbers, wine glasses preset on tables, closing on Mondays — so many facets of the way St. Louisans dine out that are taken for granted as “just the way it is” can be traced back to his father’s innovations. Even the baked potato.

e were the first restaurant that brought the baked potato to St. Louis,” Bommarito says. “He couldn’t get anyone to eat it because people thought sour cream and chives wouldn’t be to their liking. Eventually, he changed the name to crema and chives so people would try it, and it worked.” he details of fine dining aside, there is no denying the broad impact the late Vince Bommarito and his iconic restaurant, Tony’s, had — and continues to have — on St. Louis dining. The gold standard against which all other restaurants are judged, Tony’s has become shorthand for food and beverage elegance, occupying a special place in the hearts and minds of St. Louis diners in a way that no other restaurant does. With international acclaim and numerous accolades under its belt, including the Mobil 5 Star and AAA Four Diamond Awards, it’s taken for granted that Tony’s always was, is and will continue to be the city’s undisputed beacon of fine-dining. If there’s one person who doesn’t

take Tony’s status for granted, it’s James Bommarito. Now captain of the storied ship, Bommarito is in charge not only of the restaurant’s day-to-day operations but of his father’s legacy. It’s a duty he does not take lightly, considering how hard his dad worked to create such a world-class property from its roots as a humble spaghetti house, beginning when he was just a teenager. “Really, this all started in 1949,” Bommarito says. “My grandfather had passed away, and my dad had to look for something to do for a living. My grandfather had owned this building that had a kitchen in it, but it was more of a billiards room and cigar shop. My dad didn’t really want to do that, so he asked his mother if he could open a restaurant. She was a little reluctant at first and was going to sell the building, but he managed to talk her into it.” At the time, the elder Bommarito was a senior at St. Louis University High School, so he enlisted the help of his aunts and uncles to run the restaurant during its

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breakfast and lunch service while he worked with his teachers to get his schoolwork done by noon. This went on for about six months until he graduated and went into the business full time. Even at that young age, and without experience in the hospitality industry, Vince had big dreams of having the finest talian restaurant in town, so he traveled around the city, and eventually the country, visiting restaurants that were better than his and picking up ideas on how he could improve. Over time, those experiences helped him elevate Tony’s from a red-and-white-checkered-tablecloth breakfast, lunch and dinner spot called Tony’s Spaghetti House into an increasingly elegant, highend evening affair. He eventually renamed the restaurant Tony’s Stea ouse to re ect the change, and ultimately dropped the latter part to simply Tony’s, a name he felt re ected a more formal e perience. By the 1960s — due in part to the restaurant receiving a

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DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

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Longtime guests Judy and Tom Walters are happy with the new location. | ANDY PAULISSEN

Tony’s serves elegant entrees, like the stuffed quail and petit filet. | ANDY PAULISSEN

The main entrance welcomes guests to the new Tony’s. | ANDY PAULISSEN prestigious award — his dream of having the best restaurant in the city was coming true. “It was a struggle for him,” Bommarito says. “Getting started and not knowing anything about the business and learning the hard way was di cult, but he was totally dedicated and had a vision to have the best restaurant in St. Louis. Sooner than later, he had the best Italian restaurant in the entire U.S. and one of the best in the world. He had this intense pride and was going to do whatever it took to be the best.” Bommarito inherited that drive from his father. Though he always understood that Tony’s was part of his birthright, he did not set out to get into the restaurant business. Instead, after going away to college at Rice University in Houston, he got a job with AnheuserBusch, working in New York City and Los Angeles. When his family took over food and beverage operations at the then Savvis Center and Trans World Dome, his dad asked him to come back to help out with the business. He hasn’t left since. Now the only remaining namesake left running the restaurant (his brother, Vince Jr., left a few

years ago to get into another business), Bommarito feels the weight of the restaurant on his shoulders every night. This has been especially heavy for the last few years, when he began thinking seriously about moving the restaurant from its downtown home on Market Street to a new location. “I had a lot of sleepless nights when this opportunity surfaced,” Bommarito says. “I knew we needed to move, but I didn’t know what to do. I’d been to so many places around the U.S. and came up with a lot of ideas, but I didn’t know if the rest of St. Louis would like them. I was extremely nervous about our transfer to Clayton. I knew what we were doing would be very cool, but I had no idea if anyone else would like it.” The news that Tony’s was relocating to Clayton may have initially been greeted with shock, but as soon as diners got to see the stunning new digs, they breathed a sigh of relief. Not only was Bommarito able to translate the Tony’s experience in the new location, he may have even improved it. With its chic main dining room, mezzanine bar and enclosed and heated outdoor patio, the new restaurant acts like three different properties

Owner James Bommarito and chef Pete Fagan carry on the legacy. | ANDY PAULISSEN under one roof. Still, what makes Tony’s Tony’s — the service, the food, the ambiance — remains fundamentally the same. “We try to satisfy as many senses for guests as we can,” Bommarito says. “I think when you can do that, it creates a much more pleasant experience for our guests. I truly believe that if there are two restaurants — restaurant A and restaurant B — and they have the exact same food but the other items in restaurant A, like the service, ambiance and how well the restrooms and oors were maintained, are better than those in restaurant B, people will swear restaurant A has the better food.” Providing hospitality at that level, day in and day out, is a commitment, Bommarito says, and it requires him and his staff to never be off their game, even for a moment. Though he understands the mystique of Tony’s that lives in the minds of St. Louisans — even ones that have never dined at the restaurant — he does not feel that he can rest on that repu-

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tation. Instead, occupying such a prominent place in the pantheon of great restaurants carries with it the responsibility of exceeding those expectations. When he sees the smiles on his guests’ faces and hears the compliments as they walk out the door, it lets him know he’s doing something right and fills him with pride, both for what his father was able to achieve and what the restaurant continues to achieve under his watch. “We don’t take anything for granted,” Bommarito says. “We start over every day in this business, and the people who come through this door tonight don’t care about what happened last night. They are the only reason we are here, and it’s important to remember that. I get a little nervous every night before work, but if I didn’t, I’d think something was wrong. My main objective is to exceed every person’s expectations that comes through that front door, and if I don’t, I take it personally. have butter ies every day that I come to work.” n

DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

RIVERFRONT TIMES

DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

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REEFERFRONT TIMES [HIGH CRIMES]

Joint Session How evolving marijuana laws led to St. Louis’ newly signed weed decriminalization bill Written by

DANNY WICENTOWSKI

n 2018, attorney Bret Narayan stood before the St. Louis Board of Aldermen and urged the members to “strike at the heart of the two-tiered justice system that we have now” — and to approve a bill that would effectively legalize marijuana in St. Louis. That bill would fail. But three years later, on December 13, Narayan watched as St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones signed into law the most sweeping cannabis decriminalization bill in the city’s history. Now an alderman himself, Narayan had sponsored the bill, which amends the city’s local ordinances to decriminalize possession of up to two ounces of cannabis for adults 21 and older, and repeals punishment for the cultivation of up to si owering plants. In an interview, Narayan admits that in some ways the bill “does not go far enough” — particularly on the issue of expungements for people with previous city marijuana convictions, a component Narayan had planned to include but was dropped over legal concerns that it con icts with state law. “We wanted to go back and make sure no one who was still living had to deal with a marijuana related conviction at the municipal level,” he explains. “We didn’t want to leave folks behind.” But passing imperfect cannabis legalization bills with limited scope is exactly how St. Louis has reached this point. In 2013, St. Louis’ Board of Aldermen voted to decriminalize cannabis, making it a municipal violation that could be resolved with a fine but doing so preserved the “two tiers” of injustice that Narayan lambasted in 2018. That year, a pair of proposed bills at the Board of Aldermen pitted two visions of decriminalization against each other.

Alderpersons Bret Narayan and Annie Rice look on as St. Louis Mayor Tishaura signs a marijuana decriminalization bill into law on December 13. | DANNY WICENTOWSKI One measure sought to prohibit the city and its police department from committing any resources to citing people for small-scale weed possession. The other left the law in place, but reduced the fine to . t the time, arayan testified in favor of the more ambitious bill: The “two tiers” of injustice he described in his remarks to the board represented the two different ways the justice system treated people accused of marijuana crimes: Those who could afford attorneys often had their charges amended or dropped, and those who couldn’t paid the fine, but they then lived with a conviction on their record which could impact their future job and housing prospects. The two 2018 bills divided the board. The sponsor of the more aggressive bill, Alderwoman Megan Green, clashed with the board’s president Lewis Reed, who had filed his more limited proposal to lower the fines for a violation. In the end, the board in 2018 punted on Green’s effort to essentially defund the city’s marijuana prohibition, and instead passed Reed’s bill, which lowered the cost of a violation but ensured police could still use the odor of mariuana as a legal ustification for “probable cause” before a search. Narayan’s 2021 bill doesn’t outright ban police from using the presence or smell of marijuana as probable cause, but it does stipulate that police can only initiate “a brief stop for the sole purpose of

determining whether an individual is a ualified patient. In that case, even if the subject of the stop doesn’t have their medical card on them, or if the o cer is unable to verify that they are patient, the next step isn’t arrest, but a summons for a court date: “If an individual appears at any Court date with proof that they are a ualified Patient, the matter shall be dismissed,” the bill states. Narayan says the bill was only introduced after lengthy consultations with both the city’s legal counsel and police o cers themselves. The compromise is intended to prevent o cers from using marijuana as a pretext for detaining people for the mere presence of cannabis, but without preventing cops from responding to more egregious situations — such as driving under the in uence or using marijuana illegally in a public space, or in other cases where cannabis possession is taking place amid more serious crimes. Attempting to broadly ban police from investigating marijuana odor as “probable cause” ran into further legal problems, Narayan says. He notes that similar attempts to do so in other states have led to “costly litigation” for both the individuals fighting the criminal charges and the municipalities defending their laws. “This was an attempt to be proactive,” Narayan says of his 2021 bill. “If you have a medical card, there’s no evidence that you committed a crime based on the odor

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of either raw or burnt marijuana — because you are allowed to be in possession of burnt marijuana. Let’s avoid the cost of that.” The bill has the support of St. ouis Public Safety Director Dan Isom. In a November 9 committee hearing, Isom said the 2018 statewide vote that legalized medical marijuana had changed the landscape for law enforcement. “With the constitutional amendment, it is safe to say the simple presence of these small personal amounts of marijuana does not constitute probable cause,” Isom told the committee members, and added that it is “certainly not sufficient to ma e an arrest. Indeed, the passage of the latest bill underscores how legally tricky it can be to create a drug policy that addresses the harm and racial disparities that result from over-policing. hen St. ouis first decriminalized marijuana in 2013, making it a municipal violation, those racial disparities persisted. In 2017, police data showed that the first four years of the new city marijuana policy led to more than 800 citations for possession, with Black people accounting for more than 80 percent of the cases. In that era, the disparities highlighted the ongoing injustice of drug prohibition and the ways money and race revealed the harm of the existing laws. In 2021, Narayan concedes that, even under the new law, the justice system is still split between two tiers: On one side are those with legal medical marijuana licenses. On the other are those without, a group still vulnerable to the long-term impacts of the state’s drug laws. Though limited, the new law — which was passed unanimously on November 23 — signals that local lawmakers are paying attention to the ongoing public embrace of marijuana. Narayan says that while some alders were initially hesitant, their perceptions changes when data showed more than 80 percent of St. Louis residents voted for the 2018 medical marijuana amendment. Part of it was the evolution of the state law, and they realized the the sky wasn’t falling,” he says. “This is proof that when the time is right, legislators that represent very diverse populations can come together to get something done.” n

DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

RIVERFRONT TIMES

DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

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CULTURE [HO HO HO]

[ S TA G E ]

Jazz Legend Denise Thimes to Star in Musical

Dreaming of a Black Christmas

Written by

JENNA JONES

Cocoa Santa brings holiday cheer, representation to St. Louis community

Written by

JENNA JONES

evin olan first donned a red Santa suit eight years ago to ta e photos at his daughter’s preschool with her classmates. e had gone to almart, pic ed up a Santa suit and his beard was still blac . fter he had ta en a few pictures with the ids, his phone started ringing. Parents were calling, saying you don’t often see a Santa of color. nd he reali ed they were right. olan now has a professional red suit, complete with ingle bells and a smile only the real Santa laus could compete with. e travels around the St. ouis area, boo ing events and other visits as ocoa Santa a Santa with a slightly dar er hue, he describes on his website. ach holiday season, olan ta es a brea from his ob at the etropolitan St. ouis Sewer District to spread cheer. t feels good to show representation matters. ’m out there for all that want to come, olan tells the RFT. li e to see the smiles of the small ids and big ids. Sometimes, the adults are even more giddy than the children are. t’s absolutely wonderful to be that person to bring that smile to everyone. ocoa Santa fre uently gets told didn’t now Santa was lac by children something olan chal s up to children famously lac ing a filter and he e plains to them that Santa comes in all different colors and si es, and says he thin s it’s important to have this appearance this year. e’ll as the child if that’s , and then he says the conversa-

Kevin Nolan, known as Cocoa Santa, has brought holiday spirit to the St. Louis area for eight years now. | JUSTIN HOLMES tion usually ows from there. ypical wish lists ensue, as well as ust general discussion of things they want Santa to now. istening is a ey s ill when it comes to being Santa, olan says, something taught to him in Santa School yes, it’s real . e ma es sure to hear what the children are saying, as well as what they’re not saying, and watches for different cues. Santa School taught him to interact with small and large crowds, as well as be an effective storyteller. e also thin s the little details are ust as important as the big ones. hese s ills come into play with one of olan’s favorite memories as ocoa Santa. ast year, ocoa Santa offered oom calls, and a set of parents had arranged for their daughter essica to spea to him. Prior to the call, olan as ed her parents for facts about their child, as he does with every id, and they had told him about essica’s lf on the Shelf, immy. hen ocoa Santa as ed essica how immy was doing, she was stunned. fter the call, essica’s mom sent olan a video of the little girl informing her grandma that she tal ed to the real Santa because he new about immy. ll the small details ma e a real difference, olan says. olan’s family has also oined in

on the fun is wife, loria, doubles as rs. laus, and his children serve as elves that get to pass out candy canes and attend events with him. y wife saw pictures online, and she said, ow, you en oy doing that ’ and would say, es, you should try it ’ olan recalls. ventually got her out there to try. She went to an event and she said, ou now what, understand. understand why you do this. t’s a good feeling to see all the smiles and positive energy.’ t’s a family ordeal now. hen as ed what he en oys about the holiday season as ocoa Santa, olan had his answer right away. s Santa, still am able to bring smiles and delight to newcomers. ’ve been doing this for eight years, and ’m still getting a lot of positive e posure, he says. t’s a good feeling to ust see someone smile a genuine smile, no cause, no effort that’s a good feeling for ocoa Santa to get that from people. ou can also catch ocoa Santa riding around on his sleigh a red eep dec ed out with holiday lights around the St. ouis area. e also has a aceboo page that lists where he’ll be visiting that wee . ead to faceboo .com blac .santa. stl for more information. n

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etro Theater Company’s latest production will bring a St. Louis jazz legend to the stage: Denise Thimes will star in Metro’s musical Last Stop on Market Street early next year. Beginning Sunday, February 6, at the Grandel Theatre (3610 Grandel Square), the musical follows Thimes as Nana, with a press release describing the character as “a veritable force of nature who lives in a world considerably different” from her grandson, CJ, who is reluctantly staying with her. The two embark on a bus ride after Nana notices CJ is too plugged into his tablet and phone. She guides her grandson to connect closer with his roots and “see things that have not been seen.” The jazz singer is no stranger to the stage — she’s won eight awards from the St. Louis Black Rep for both musicals and drama. Thimes has shared stages with musicians including Bobby McFerrin and Clark Terry; she’s sung for Queen Elizabeth II at the British Embassy and performed at the White House for President George W. Bush in 2007. Motown meets hip-hop for a mashup of genres in the musical; playwright Cheryl L. West adapted it from Matt de la Peña’s award-winning picture book. St. Louis-based actor and theater professor Jacqueline Thompson will direct, and Philip Woodmore, a longtime member of the St. Louis music community and executive director of P. Woodmore Music LLC, is the musical director. Thimes will be joined by five other actors on the Grandel’s stage. The production runs 70 minutes and is recommended for ages five and up. Tickets begin at $20 (a virtual option is available). Masks are required, as well as proof of vaccination for those twelve and older or a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of the event. The show will run until Sunday, February 27. Purchase tickets at metrotix.com. n

DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

RIVERFRONT TIMES

[ARTS]

The Rep Joins Regional Theaters in Artistic Caucus Written by

JENNA JONES

onnecticut, Maryland, Missouri and the District of Columbia are all coming together through theater: The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis announced last week it will join a year-long artistic caucus. Four theaters, including the Rep, have hired a group of freelance artists who will participate as key parts of the artistic development teams in each of their institutions. The artistic caucus is made up of theater artists outside the traditional dramaturges or literary managers. The members will scout projects, read new plays and proposals, and facilitate new relationships with artists on behalf of the theatres. DC’s Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre and Maryland’s Baltimore Center Stage all join the Rep in the caucus. A press release details how the four artistic di-

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The Repertory Theatre is teaming up with like-minded organizations from across the country. | PETER WOCHNIAK rectors of color at these theaters — Hana Sharif of the Rep, Stephanie Ybarra with Baltimore Center Stage, Jacob Padron of Long Wharf and Maria Goyanes from the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company — formed a cohort after being appointed to their positions. They have a goal of “creating artistic homes across the country” that are intersectional, inclusive and focused on the liberation of all people. “The four of us have been working to-

DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

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gether formally in these positions for just a few years, but we’ve been informally collaborating our entire careers,” the artistic directors say in a press release. “Our field has long operated through the organic relationships formed amongst theater-makers, and this Artistic Caucus is our latest way of naming that trend and optimizing for it. By combining our intellectual and financial resources and increasing interconnection at every artis-

tic level of our organizations, we are able to force multiply to throw our doors even further open — evolving how we bring artists into our communities towards more equality, more transparency, more accessibility, more trust and more abundance.” A press release says the goal of the caucus is to “support artistic development at all four theaters by making space for more entryways into artistic development pathways, more touch points for artists, more voices in the room, and more visions for what theater can be.” The release adds that by establishing this caucus, the four theaters are “actively opening up the frequently competitive and opaque artistic development process of our industry by engaging artists to help identify projects, paying them for their expertise and positioning the different artistic priorities for each organization as a place of strength and cooperation.” One of the artistic caucus members, Adil Mansoor, agrees. “I am especially excited that the caucus brings together an ensemble of folks interested in curatorial disruption,” Mansoor says. “I appreciate that the strategies and deliverables of our work together weren’t predefined and are coming out of our time together. It’s thrilling to experiment with a curatorial model that resembles a devising process and encourages emergent possibilities.” n

OUT EVERY NIGHT

his holiday season, we’re all about decking the halls of our favorite music venues in a safe and socially distanced manner. By our count, we’re three sets deep into COVID-19 and the new single “Omicron Variant” just hit the first verse. Let’s make it through the show together and sing along: Wear a mask, wash your hands and try to keep at least six feet of space between yourself and others. The CDC says COVID-19 vaccines and boosters are effective at helping protect against severe disease, including the hot new variants. And you know what? Most venues won’t let you in without a jab and the card to prove it, so if you haven’t already, go get that juicy vax. Most spots will take proof of a negative covid test instead, but you might want to call ahead. From a Christmas Eve jazz lesson by Mo Egeston and company to Red Flag’s Holi-Daze local showcase of up-and-comers, St. Louis provides proper motivators to come out of your crawl space for some communal holiday cheer. Also, it’s “boughs,” not balls, of holly. Look it up.

THURSDAY 23

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS MARIAH CAREY IS YOU AGAIN: - Playing Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas is You” on repeat for hours 9:45 p.m., free. The Improv Shop, 3960 Chouteau Ave, St. Louis, 314-652-2200. CHRISTMAS CANDLELIGHT CONCERT: w/ Bach Society of Saint Louis Chorus and Orchestra, Nathan Gunn, Mack Wilberg 7:30 p.m., $30-$85. Powell Hall, 718 N. Grand Blvd, St. Louis, 314-534-1700. DJ ALEXIS TUCCI: w/ Umami 9 p.m., free. Sophie’s Artist Lounge & Cocktail Club, 3224 Locust St second oor of . ac , St. ouis, . DR. ZHIVEGAS: - Performing the Music of Prince and the Revolution 8 p.m., $20-$25. Delmar Hall, 6133 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. EL MONSTERO: - he Definitive .S. Pin loyd ribute Experience 8 p.m., $30-$45. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. HOLI-DAZED LOCAL MUSIC SHOWCASE: w/ The Open Books, Roses!Hands!, Rabbit in Red, Brave New World, Moon Watching, Through Burning Eyes, close2zero, Sage Tornado 6:30 p.m., $10-$12. Red lag, ocust Street, St. ouis, . JACK FISTER: w/ The Griddle Kids, Log, Drew Sheafor, Eddie Price, Blaqueberry Puppets 9 p.m., $5. Krutie’s Tavern, 5827 Broadway, St. Louis. JAKE’S LEG: 8 p.m., $10-$12. Old Rock House, 1200 S. 7th St., St. Louis, 314-588-0505. JOE METZKA: 8 p.m., free. 1860 Saloon, Game Room & Hardshell Cafe, 1860 S. Ninth St., St. Louis, 314-231-1860. NICK TWIST: w/ Løstgirl, Bacon Beatz 11 p.m., free. HandleBar, 4127 Manchester Ave., St. Louis, 314-652-2212. PLATONIC LOVERS: w/ Chainsaw Boyz, Rosemary 7 p.m. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. A VERY DYLAN CHRISTMAS: w/ Dylan Triplett 8 p.m., $10-$20. Grandel Square, Grandel Square, St. Louis. XMAS EVIL 2021: - Goth & Industrial Holiday Horror w/ DJ Skeletal, Clayton York 8 p.m., free. The Crack o , live St., St. ouis, .

FRIDAY 24

CHRISTMAS EVE JAZZ LESSONS AND CAROLS: w/ Mo Egeston Trio, Robert Nelson 7 p.m., free. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church Carondelet, 6518 Michigan Avenue, St. Louis, 3143520370. TRAVELIN BAND: 9 p.m., free. 1860 Saloon, Game Room & Hardshell Cafe, 1860 S. Ninth St., St. Louis, 314-231-1860.

SATURDAY 25

JAKE’S LEG CHRISTMAS SHOW: 10 p.m., $15. BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups, 700 S. Broadway, St. Louis, 314-436-5222. NAUGHTY UGLY SWEATER PARTY: w ida ioness Dsav, DJ Homicide 8 p.m., free. House of Soul St. Louis, 1204 Washington Avenue, St. Louis, 314-504-7405. SANTA SATURDAY LATIN XMAS PARTY: w/ DJ Sliq 11 p.m., $20. Oz Nightclub, 300 Monsanto Ave., Sauget, 618-274-1464.

SUNDAY 26

BEEKMAN: w/ Precarious Situation, Unknown & Sailing, uilty Pleasures p.m., . ed lag, Locust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. BIG EASY BAND: - A New Years Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve Party 3 p.m., free. Dog Prairie Tavern, 2348 St. Paul Road, Saint Charles, 636-281-1800.

Pokey LaFarge. | ELIOT LEE HAZEL

EL MONSTERO: - he Definitive .S. Pin loyd ribute Experience 5 p.m., $30-$45. The Pageant, 6161 Delmar Blvd., St. Louis, 314-726-6161. HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS WITH COCO SOUL: 7 p.m., $15$35. The Dark Room, 3610 Grandel Square inside Grandel Theatre, St. Louis, 314-776-9550. PHOEBE ELLIOT: 7 p.m., $20-$25. Blue Strawberry Showroom & Lounge, 364 N Boyle Ave, St. Louis, 314-256-1745. STEDDY P: w/ DJ Mahf, Davie Napalm, Earthworms, arout, P. . . , D hom p.m., . ff Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. TIM DULIN’S RECORD RELEASE PARTY: w/ Ryan Koenig 8 p.m., . he ocal Point, Sutton lvd, St. Louis, 314-560-2778. TRAP SOUL & PAINT: w/ DJ Homicide 5 p.m., $15$58.50. House of Soul St. Louis, 1204 Washington Avenue, St. Louis, 314-504-7405. THE WESTERN SATELLITES: - A Post-Christmas Brunch 10 a.m., free. Das Bevo Biergarten, 4749 Gravois Ave., St. Louis, 314-224-5521. WINTERVERSE KICKBACK: w urphy, erifyd, Tayzian, Mono2x, Nofrntick, Big Preshaa, L.O.E., The Boyz, Nuskii Dubb, King t-Mac 6 p.m., $10-$15. Pop’s Nightclub, 401 Monsanto Ave., East St. Louis, 618-274-6720.

MONDAY 27

ROARING 20S SWING DANCE NIGHT: w/ the Gaslight Squares 7 p.m., free. HandleBar, 4127 Manchester Ave., St. Louis, 314-652-2212.

TUESDAY 28

SAMBA BOM TRIO: - Sounds of ra il with a air of Brazilian Christmas 11 a.m., free. Missouri History Museum, 5700 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis, 314-746-4599.

WEDNESDAY 29

HAZMAT: w ong Sweet inutes, olt, rip Slime p.m., . ed lag, ocust Street, St. Louis, 314-289-9050. POKEY LAFARGE: 8 p.m., $25-$120. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-498-6989. WEASEL WALTER: w/ Scott Looney, Damon Smith, Davis/Eaton/Cheli Trio 7 p.m., $10. Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center, 3301 Lemp Ave., St. Louis, 314-771-1096. n

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DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

RIVERFRONT TIMES

DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

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SAVAGE LOVE OUTWARD BOUND BY DAN SAVAGE Hey, Dan: I’m extremely kinky, with an emphasis on extreme. To give an example, I love long-term and extremely restrictive bondage. Think full-body casts or getting locked up for an entire weekend. I’m a 32-year-old straight male who has been married for five years. In the last year we opened up our marriage because my sexual desires were putting too much of a strain on the marriage. My wife is incredible, and we do many wonderful kinky things together, but I needed more. More frequency, more intensity. Since then, I’ve seen some other women, but looking around I came to the realization that gay men have all the fun! I often see these incredibly intense sexual experiences that I so desire in amateur gay porn or on various gay men’s fetish profiles. I think men have a higher propensity to pursue these kinds of things. I’ve been talking to a guy who shares a very similar set of kinks, and it’s been great. He showed me Recon, which has opened a whole new world up to me. I’m struggling right now. It’s like a battle between my identity as a kinkster/fetishist and my identity as straight. I think the former is going to win, but certain things concern me. I don’t know if I’ll feel repulsed to have, say, a dick in my mouth. And I don’t want the poor guy that I play with to have to deal with my own internal psychological drama. I grew up in a very rural area that was extremely homophobic. I was bullied and called a faggot constantly. I’ve just recently been feeling less shame about being kinky and now there’s this whole other level of shame that I am scared to contend with. Am I silly for considering doing stuff with men even though I’m a lot more attracted to women, just in order to fulfill these kinks? Brooding Over Unmet Needs Daily “I felt very much in this person’s shoes at one point in my life,” said bondage porn star James “Heavy” Woelfel. Just like you, BOUND, Heavy was always turned on by extreme-

ly heavy bondage scenarios. That was the reason he chose “Heavy Bondage For Life” as his porn name. And just like you, BOUND, eavy once felt con icted about getting tied by other men because he didn’t identify as gay or bisexual at the time. “I was really worried that if I played with men that meant my identity had to change too,” said Heavy, looking back at that time in his life. “But seeking out other genders to play with doesn’t necessarily have to change your identity.” Heavy’s identity ultimately did change he now identifies as queer — but he wants you to know that your identity doesn’t have to change. “I view bondage the same as getting together with friends for a round of golf, or shooting hoops, watching a movie or game together,” said Heavy. “I’ve had many bondage encounters that involved sex, but I’ve had even more that were simply about the bondage itself.” What Heavy is suggesting here, BOUND, is that you can meet up with another guy for a heavy bondage scene and enjoy the bondage — and even get off on the bondage — without having “sex.” You can consent to being a guy’s bondage sub for an evening or a weekend without having to consent to sucking his dick or letting him fuck your ass. “BOUND just needs to be direct about what he’s looking for when he reaches out to the guys he might like to play with,” said Heavy. “He needs to have the same conversations he had with his wife about limits, comfortability levels and intentions. And if someone’s pushy about certain things that he’s unsure about, then they’re likely not the right person for him.” Bondage tops on Recon with the kind of gear required to put you in truly restrictive bondage will most likely have heard from other straight and or straight-identified guys who were in it for the bondage, not the sex. If simply getting to tie you up isn’t enough — if a gay bondage top isn’t interested in a bondage-only scene with you — he’ll decline to play with you. “The most important thing is to find good and genuine people to share these kinds of experiences with,” said Heavy. “Bondage is inherently dangerous, especially

So, how do you know if you’re interacting and negotiating with and possibly playing with the right kind of guys? In addition to trusting your gut — always trust your gut — check their references. when you’re the one being put in bondage, and it requires a lot of trust. BOUND needs to make sure he’s putting his trust in the right people.” So, how do you know if you’re interacting and negotiating with and possibly playing with the right kind of guys? In addition to trusting your gut — always trust your gut — check their references. If you’re meeting bondage tops on Recon, you can send messages directly to the guys listed as friends on their profiles. Someone with a lot of friends (and a lot of original play pics) is a much safer bet than someone with no friends or pics, BOUND, but if you’re tempted to play with someone without friends listed on his profile, as to be put in touch with other men he’s played with. If he refuses, BOUND, don’t play with him. “The gay men I played with when I was still identifying as straight were generally very respectful,” added Heavy. “I did have a few experiences where my limits weren’t respected. But thankfully I’m OK and I learned from those experiences.” And Heavy wants you to know that there are women out there who are into intense bondage. “It’s a myth that only men play to the level BOUND is interested in playing at,” said Heavy. “Though I’ve had many incredible experiences with men, I’ve met just as many women that wanted to lock

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me up in the most serious forms of restraint you could ever imagine.” Follow Heavy on Twitter @for_ heavy, on Instagram @_heavybondage4life_ and Only Fans at Heavybondage4life. Hey, Dan: As we come into the holidays, I am dreading having to spend time with my sibling-in-law. They are fake, self-absorbed and delusional. At family dinners, they always serve themselves first. They don’t wait until everyone is served before starting, and they are often finished before everyone is served. They chew with their mouth open and talk with their mouth full. They talk about themselves constantly. They are rapidly approaching middle age and have never held a full-time or permanent job. As far as anyone knows, they have never been kissed or even on a date. At first, I tried to cut them some slack. They are sheltered and don’t really have any friends. Recently, I have taken to muting them on social media so that I don’t have to see their insipid posts. I have also started skipping events with my partner’s family, but I feel guilty when I do this. Also, I feel like it would be inappropriate to tell my partner how I feel. So, what do I do? Continue to suck it up, or further distance myself and risk hurt feelings for being absent? Or do I come clean with my partner and risk hurting them? I don’t know what I would expect them to do other than offer me absolution for missing events. In-Law Lacking Substance If someone has terrible table manners — if someone chews with their mouth open — don’t you want them to serve themselves first and finish before you sit down to eat? As for the rest of it ... it’s hard not to feel sorry for your sibling-in-law, ILLS, but it’s easy for me to feel sorry for them because I don’t have to watch them chew or listen to them talk about themselves. And while avoiding your sibling-in-law this Christmas would be pretty simple (just plead omicron), I don’t see how you can avoid seeing your partner’s sibling in the future — seeing and tolerating and, perhaps, finding some pity in your heart for them. questions@savagelove.net @FakeDanSavage on Twitter www.savage.love

DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

RIVERFRONT TIMES

DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

riverfronttimes.com

DECEMBER 22-28, 2021

RIVERFRONT TIMES

Riverfront Times, December 22, 2021

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