St. Louis News Blog

Last year Riverfront Times crowned BABES (Belleville Area Biking and Eating Society) St. Louis' Best Bike Club, giving a special shout-out to the annual Donut Trail Ride.

Which brings us to this week's public service announcement: The 2009 26-mile doughnut ride rolls this coming Sunday morning.

Wikimedia Commons

This dude will have to make room in his spandex for the donut ride.

"Time to make the donuts...or better, time to sample the fruits of labor made possible by those who consistently sacrifice their early morning, unselfishly giving of themselves and their chance to sleep in," says an e-mail from BABES. "We must honor those who get up so early to make the donuts."

In case you missed some of them, here are the ten most popular posts from last week, May 11-17, 2009.

The Five Most Offensive Cardinals-Cubs Shirts
Users of the social bookmarking website Stumble Upon flocked to this post, which outlined some outrageous baseball shirts.

Father of Strangled Family Has Girlfriend in Florida
The saga of Christopher Coleman -- the Columbia, Illinois man whose wife and two sons were found strangled in their home -- continued, as police reported that he had a girlfriend in Florida.

I'll Be Damned, That Alleged Sex Offender Was My Dermatologist!
Jerome Aronberg, suspected and charged with sodomy of juveniles, was the dermatologist of blogger and RFT managing editor Ellis Conklin -- and a lot of our readers.

Police Fingerprint Father of Strangled Family
The Major Case Squad continued its investigation on the slayings of Christopher Coleman's family, fingerprinting the man last week.

Did Darius Miles' Outrageous Ride Lead to Pot Bust?
National sports blog Deadspin picked up on this post, showing some of the cars that show the East St. Louis native and NBA player just doesn't know how to keep a low profile.

Last call for street lit!

A new edition of the paper will be out later tonight or tomorrow, so today's the last time I'll post an excerpt from Keisha Ervin's books. Ervin was featured in last week's cover story, "Lit Up," which chronicled the booming market for street/urban/ghetto fiction. (Note to any of you budding authors out there -- I've already heard from a bunch -- to get in touch with literary agent Brenda Hampton, visit her Web site.)

Today's selection comes from Ervin's most recent title, Finding Forever. It's a saaaaaad one. Ervin calls it her "twist" on A Walk to Remember. Whitney and Koran, old high-school sweethearts, are reunited many years later. They fall in love again. But complications beyond their control ensue. Whitney has a big secret she's loath to share...  

One of the main things haters of street lit like to harp on is the super-graphic sex scenes. (Because tweens and teens devour this genre.) Keisha Ervin's books contain scads of sex scenes. In my current cover story, "Lit Up," she explains: "It's actually getting harder for me to write [them]. I've done so many, it's gotten to the point where I now save them for the end."

Ervin's novel Torn is a love story about St. Louisans Mo and Quan, who've been together for ten years but are obviously painfully unhappy. In this scene Mo gets it on with a new love interest named Boss. Mo shows up to meet him in a club wearing nothing but a trench coat and patent-leather pumps. They steal away to a deserted pool room to do the naughty-naughty -- which goes on for, oh, five pages. Don't worry, I'm not going to give you everything.

So...enjoy...?

After dishing out a heavy scene or two in our street-lit excerpts #1 and #2, I thought I'd end the week with a lil' lighter passage. Today's choice comes from Keisha Ervin's third book, Mina's Joint.

This novel was my favorite of all. It tells the story of Mina Matthews, an up-and-coming St. Louis hair stylist with lots of ambition. At the start of the book, Mina is engaged to one Andrew Wellington, the son of Mayor Andrew Wellington, Sr., who is running for Governor of Missouri. Andrew Jr. is a Class A Jerk -- and definitely not husband material. (My cover story this week has a few more details on that front.)

Mina's Joint has numerous plot twists, which I won't get into here. Instead I've picked a selection from early in the book, where Mina's mother and aunt head for the country for the "first meeting" with Mrs. Andrew Wellington to talk about wedding details.

Yesterday we gave you a sampling of street lit from Keisha Ervin's first novel, Me & My Boyfriend.

Today you get a hit of her second book, Chyna Black. As you can read in this week's cover story, "Lit Up," Ervin hit pay-dirt with this little number about a high-school dropout who gets knocked up, and then caught up in a whole lot o' baby-mama drama.

Chyna's is pretty much Ervin's life story. "I always tell people it's 75 percent true, 25 percent made-up," says the St. Louis writer.

For the excerpt, take the jump...

Today marks the publication of my latest cover story, "Lit Up." It's a profile of the 27-year-old St. Louis author Keisha Ervin, starlet of a wildly popular category of fiction known as street lit.

Never heard of the genre? Also known as urban fiction, urban lit and ghetto lit, it's one of the highest-circulating fiction categories at libraries all over the metro area, and sells like hotcakes at area bookstores such as the locally-owned Black Visions Books (9971 Lewis and Clark Boulevard) and First World (657 Northwest Plaza) as well as at the nationally-owned chains.

It's also pretty controversial. Read the story for the details.

Meantime, I thought I'd provide some excerpts from Ervin's books through the next week that the paper is on newsstands.

Today's selection comes from Ervin's first novel, Me & My Boyfriend, conceived and written in her mother's basement -- completely unbeknownst to Ervin's family and friends -- and published in early 2004.

It's a love story of St. Louis 20-somethings Meesa, an aspiring fashion designer who gives up her dreams to become the baby-mama of Black, a hugely successful drug dealer. The couple buys a swish pad in Ladue and births a healthy baby boy, but plenty of things go wrong afterward.  

Blockshopper.com Web site

Slate published an interesting piece yesterday about a legal skirmish between BlockShopper, the real estate gossip site with a big St. Louis presence, and the international corporate law firm, Jones Day, who got its undies in a bunch when BlockShopper reported on the home sale of one if its lawyers.

If you haven't been on BlockShopper lately -- here's the St. Louis version -- it's worth a browse. The site's founders, about whom I wrote a year and a half ago, dispatch teams of reporters to mine municipal offices for real estate data and then publish short pieces on home sales among bold-faced names.

Recently, for instance, the St. Louis BlockShopper reported on an Ameren UE exec picking up a four-bedroom in Creve Coeur and an ex-St. Louis Cardinal selling out in Wildwood.

The site basically takes data in what are already public records and makes it a whole lot more visible to average Joes like you and me.

As you might expect, this pisses off a lot of people. Like the lawyers at Jones Day, who sued. Check out the Slate piece for all the details. (The case got resolved this week.)

Coolest Web find of the week is over at obamiconme.

The site allows you to upload photos to make your very own image similar to the iconic Shepard Fairey poster of our 44th president.

My favorite image on the site is this one of the Big Lebowski, though the poster of Kermit the Frog "Frogress" and Tobias from Arrested Development are good, too.

The Web site also lets you print your image on coffee mugs and T-shirts. That's way cooler than the Obama swag they're selling over at the Post-Dispatch.
 

Spotted on Twitter about 5 p.m. today:

Obesity researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are recruiting families with young children to participate in a new online study.

The catch: the young children have to be, how shall we put this, pleasantly plump.

Researchers want to know how the online program, dubbed Food for Thought, is affecting parents with overweight children who range in age from two to six-years-old.

     

Buckin' broncos and rodeo clowns in drag, it must be the gay rodeo.

Photographer Steve Truesdell headed out to Lake St. Louis on Saturday to document the the goings-on at the always fun, slightly cheeky Gateway Gay Rodeo.

In addition to traditional rodeo events, there were a variety of other activities, such as "pin the rubber on the steer." Music was performed by the Well Hungarians.

Money raised benefits Food Outreach, St. Louis Effort for AIDS and DOORWAYS.

Slide Show

Slide Show

Today's post, found here, is this picture below. (Tip o' the hat to Christian Schaeffer.)

-- Annie Zaleski

Dear Asshole,

I hope you come to your senses or the police stop you before your baby -- and maybe you, too, but definitely your baby -- is seriously injured or killed.

Sincerely,
Ian Froeb

Last week the New York Times devoted its Friday “Havens” feature to Hermann, Missouri, an 1850s “Rhineland Village” of 2,751 people hunkered down alongside the Missouri River. Here’s an enticing passage from the piece:

...the essential gewürztraminer character of the place -- a verdant lightness…envelops the hills, hushes the powerful Missouri, makes the rain fall softly and the leaves gently, and makes even the rock outcroppings crumble like cake.

As the article notes, it’s not only nature but the wineries that draw tourists from across the state to Hermann and its 70 area bed & breakfasts. Oddly enough, we heard yesterday from a Kansas City woman who was left with a bitter taste in her mouth after trying to reserve a room at the very B&B highlighted in the NYT article, the Hermann Hill Vineyard & Inn. Sara Brenner says she and her boyfriend tried to book a $247-a-night room for this coming Sunday but were refused the reservation after the inn staff inquired as to her boyfriend’s smoking habits.

Brenner -- who says her boyfriend, Corey, has lived with her for thirteen years and has never once smoked in their house -- says she told one of Hermann Hill’s employees that the inn’s non-smoking policy wouldn’t be a problem: If Corey craved a cigarette he could drive down the street, have a butt and come right back. The employee said she had to get the owner to approve the reservation. After Brenner didn’t hear back from Hermann Hill, she called again. Eventually she was left the following voice-mail message from the owner, Peggy Hammer:

"Sara, this is Peggy with Hermann Hill. Isabel was here and took your reservation yesterday, contingent on my approval. Corey is not going to be happy here. And it is just our policy that if anyone is a smoker they cannot stay. We want all of our guests to be happy, and I just don't think he will be. We would rather not have him until he quits. Not for us to say he has to quit, but he can't stay here if he is a smoker. So, no, there is no reservation for you here in October."

“I played the message for fifteen people -- smokers and non-smokers -- and they were all like, ‘Oh my God,’” complains Brenner. “She wasn’t very nice about it. If she had said, ‘Hey, this is our policy, I’m sorry it doesn’t work for you, let me know if you need help finding a new place,’ that would have been one thing. But suggesting that we change our life habits is totally unnecessary. Her Web site does say their place is a non-smoking environment. But she says they don’t allow smokers. And that’s not the same thing. I’m curious as to what would have happened if I had sat in a smoky bar for four hours and came back to the inn. It’s a policy that I don’t see how they can possibly regulate unless they blood-test at the door.”

Peggy Hammer responded to an e-mail inquiry from the RFT after we were unable to reach her by phone. Here’s her reply:

“When you look at our website (hermannhill.com) you will see that we market our inn as a totally non-smoking property. Over the past 12 years of operation we have learned that our guest-driven business demands that will [sic] live up to that promise. Most people understand our policies and realize what ‘non-smoking’ means. There appears to be little middle ground on this issue and major hotel chains are now also marketing themselves as ‘totally non-smoking properties.’ Our staff is proud of our reputation for room cleanliness and we are dedicated to providing our guests with the best possible experience during their stay at Hermann Hill.”

-Kristen Hinman

Spotted on New Florissant Road:

Oh, if only the King of Kings could save us! Or, if not a king, then perhaps a Prince?

-Unreal

By day, he does PR for the St. Louis Science Center. By night, satire. Chris Files, creator of The Files Files, you might say, has it all.

Check out Files’ videos “The P.I.T.S. Campaign” and “Extreme Birdwatching,” and you’ll probably agree that the Science Center, albeit totally awesome, doesn’t allow Files to fully tap his creative neuroses -- and that’s a good thing.

The site is only three-months-old, Files tells Unreal, with much more content coming. Below, are a few outtakes from a brief interview with Files. Watch for more in an upcoming issue of the newspaper.

On filming satire:

My friend Mike Merenda is the cameraman for the videos. He went to Chicago Film School, Columbia College I think it was, and he’s a filmmaker-slash- gas-station-attendant. I guess he’s trying to decide which career path he likes. They obviously both have their perks. He’s great with the camera. We edit the films together. I write the films. I’m in a few. I recruit friends to be in the rest of them. We’re editing the fourth one now.

‘Cyber Talk’ is in a film competition sponsored by Windward Reports -- which, I don’t know what they do, I think it’s make some kind of computer programming -- and the film that receives the most votes wins $10,000…. It’s just one step below Sundance, more like Cannes. But obviously it is the first step on the road to Sundance.

On “The P.I.T.S. Campaign”:

I’d like to think I was the first person to pee in the shower, ever. It’s a trend that’s catching on, let me tell you, just ask my wife.

and

The St. Louis drinking water is great. I just heard this story recently that we have the best tap water in the country. I’m not sure if the P.I.T.S. campaign has anything to do with that, but I’d like to think it does. I fully endorse drinking our tap water as much as I endorse peeing in the shower.

By the way, one of Files’ alter-egos made a previous appearance here on A to Z.

-Unreal

Hand out the cigars and corn whiskey. The STLog family welcomes a new member today: Twelve Angry Fingers, Paul Friswold's unique take on art, music, Ronnie James Dio and whatever else happens to be percolating in his fine mind.

Our friends over at Highway 61 (Revised) snapped a pretty hilarious picture of our "Steal Das Book" issue at Lambert International Airport.

Find the post here -- and knowing them, the promise of a PhotoHunt contest is completely true.

-- Annie Zaleski

Spotted at the corner of Hampton and Pernod:

-Ian Froeb

I haven't received any responses to this query over at Gut Check. Maybe STLog readers know what's up?

Westbound on Highway 40, alongside Forest Park, just past where the mounted police stable their horses, affixed to a tornado-siren pole is a sign reading: "I Love Butter." (Sorry, I couldn't photograph it from my car without risking my or someone else's life.) Does anyone know what the deal is? Anyone?

(A tip of the hat to Annie at A to Z for pointing this out to me the other day.)

-Ian Froeb

For more food-related fun, visit Ian and friends over at Gut Check, the RFT food blog.

-Annie Zaleski

You've probably seen stencil artist Peat Wollaeger's work around town, either painted on random walls or hanging in galleries: albino alley cats, elephants and, most famously, his head shots of dead fat comedians (John Candy, John Belushi, Curly, Oliver Hardy, Chris Farley).

The artist was recently dispatched to San Francisco to design and paint a room at the new Hotel Del Artes, a whimsical hotel near Union Square. The result is "Casa del Luchador," a room honoring Mexican wrestlers.

The time-lapse clip below captures a masked Wollaeger making the murals and aping for the camera. You can catch him this Saturday night making live art at Wall Ball 2007 at Third Degree Glass Factory (5200 Delmar Blvd.; 314-367-4527).

(Disclosure: I'm DJing. More disclosure: I'm going to rock the place most righteously.)

-Randall Roberts