Blogs

The dead, as far as I'm aware of, have not risen from their graves and begun to feast upon the living, but if they ever did, the Zombie Squad would make sure you were prepared for the undead cataclysm. That, you see, is their mission:

Tim and Eric Awesome Tour...Great Job!

I'm pretty damn sure Tim Heidecker knows karate; for Christ's sake, he held his breath for thirty minutes. If that doesn't say karate master, well, then you must know something I don't.

That needs a bit of background, I suppose. Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim were kind enough to grace St. Louis with their presence Monday night, or at least grace the capacity crowd at Off Broadway with hot dogs, pizza and vomit. Many of you will know those two from their show Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! which airs on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, or from their previous show Tom Goes to the Mayor, also on Adult Swim. Their comedy has been likened to the works of Andy Kaufman and Monty Python due to its absurd nature.

The end of season three of MTV reality show Rob and Big left loyal fans asking a lot of questions.

What happened to the mini-horse?

Who was going to keep Meaty?

Will Rob and Big ever be back together on screen?

Since I moved to St. Louis less than a year ago, I've been in three minor car accidents, none of which were my fault. My ride was hit while it was parked near the Loop, I was rear-ended at a stop light, and, most recently, one of those airport parking shuttles changed lanes without checking its blind spot and clipped my passenger side doors. Now I'm on a first name basis with the guys at the body shop.

I know it's cliché to say when you move somewhere new that the drivers are terrible, but I think I have a pretty legitimate case here. Given my experience, I can confidently contend that Missourians drive like savages.

I have often asked why. Initially I speculated the Mad Max impersonations were the result of a city-wide frustration at having so many useless stop signs and inefficient traffic lights. As I've gotten to know the area, however, I have come to strongly believe that everybody is driving shit-faced. With the piss-poor public transit and cab service and the city's unquenchable thirst for Budweiser, I always thought I had a pretty sound hypothesis.

On Wednesday, came vindication. The federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration released the results of a survey of more than 127,000 people across the nation, asking if they'd driven under the influence in the past three years.

Shot and edited by Anastasia Folorunso on April 12, 2008 at the Schlafly Repeal of Prohibition Festival, held at the Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood.

What a weekend. Here's what you missed:

The Alice Rose of Austin, Texas played Friday night at Lemmons in South St. Louis. Click over to A to Z to read more.

On Friday night, the wind was whipping down Washington Avenue, but that didn't stop the club crowd from heading out. Here's a recap from Joseph Olk:

Friday Night and It's Windy

It is 10 p.m. on Washington Ave. and it's colder than it should be. All previous knowledge tells me that this is a cloudy night in mid-October, but my phone tells me it's the eleventh of April. I'll trust my phone.

Stepping into the Dubliner offers a reprieve from the wind. The Cardinals are on every television and the crowd is in a boisterous mood, we must be winning. A pair of Irish-accented gents, known as the Fleadh Brothers, are setting up in a corner; they will shortly be filling the bar with damned catchy Irish folk songs. When the music begins to play, the crowd is still wrapped up in the game, but as the mandolin and guitar start grooving heads begin to bob and feet begin to tap.

Exiting, I walk on down to the Flamingo Bowl; the night is still young for the bowling alley/martini lounge, but I need a drink and a martini sounds amazing. Not to mention, when I drink martinis I feel as though it is 1947 and some rich dame is having me snoop for her dead husbands killer. The bowlers up at the lanes run the gamut, as far as skill is concerned, and more than a couple drunken gutter-balls are thrown. I finish the olive and move on to figure out where the party's at.

[Update published April 15, 3:00 p.m.: I've uploaded an mp3 file of Curtis Lyle reading from Answer Back; the link is below (search for "Lyle")]

The tribute to Donald Finkel -- yes, that's my dad -- Monday night at Duff's Restaurant in the Central West End drew nearly three dozen poets, each of whom read their favorite Finkel poems.

A slideshow of photos by RFT staff photographer Jennifer Silverberg is available here.

A couple of shots to give you a taste:

The top one's of two of Dad's best drinking buds, Pete Genovese and David Clewell. Genovese published my father's chapbook-length poem "Beyond Despair," an exploration of the River Des Peres, on his Garlic Press imprint. Clewell, a member of the first class of Washington University's Graduate Writing Program, is one of Dad's closest friends.

The lower shot is of Curtis Lyle, who utterly astounded me with his reading of a section from Answer Back, a book-length poem published in the late 1960s. The poem, which begins as an exploration of caving (a longtime obsession of my father's), blooms into a diatribe on war, racism, myth and art.

Howard Schwartz and Peter Carlos recorded the event (audio and video, respectively; I'm trying to get a clip of Curtis Lyle's reading to post here).

[Update published April 15, 3:00 p.m.: Here's Curtis Lyle reading from Answer Back]:

In the meantime, here's the evening's musical interlude, provided on CD from Marty Ehrlich, a brilliant reed player and friend of Dad (who used to babysit me). Marty couldn't make it in person, so he sent this:

And finally, one anecdote, to justify the headline on this blog post:

Spring weather in St. Louis saw the metro area's residents stretch out in the sun. After dark, there were clubs, concerts and, leather contests to attend.

Here's what you missed...

Cursive, Capgun Coup and So Many Dynamos at were the Gargoyle on the Washington University campus last night, Sunday, April 6.

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Early Sunday morning, thousands made their way to Downtown St. Louis -- even a tired-looking Gov. Matt Blunt -- for the Go! St. Louis Marathon. See pictures here.

Karl Gilpin, Russellville, Mo, finished first in the marathon for the second consecutive year. He finished with a personal best and new course record, 2:24:51.

Matthew Chesang topped the half marathon for the second consecutive year as well, with a new course record, 1:08:36. Last year, Chesang finished 1:09:02.

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On Saturday night, The Safes, The Chapters and The 75s were at the Bluebird. We have video and a review in our A to Z blog.

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Also on Saturday night, the Mr. Midwest Leather contest was held in Midtown. See the pictures here.

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Saturday morning saw the rows of produce, knock-off sunglasses and Cardinals gear being sorted through by shoppers in Soulard Market. Very early Sunday morning, booze was on the menu on South Grand.

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Sunday afternoon, the Loop was an attraction for shoppers and dancers and drummers.

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Here's what you don't want to miss this summer.

Under the impression that the restaurant offered a limited food menu as late as 1 a.m., we awarded Terrene "Best Late Night Dining" in this year's edition of Best of St. Louis. In fact, Terrene's kitchen is open no later than 11 p.m. We still love 'em, though -- and we stand by our "Best Outdoor Dining" pick!

-Tom Finkel

Not in this instance, allegedly.

Congratulations to all who had "25 days" in the How Long Will It Take to File a Josh Hancock Wrongful Death Lawsuit Pool.

And kudos to those who singled Newman Bronson & Wallis as the local personal-injury firm.

Pat "We Offered to Call Him a Cab" Shannon's middle-of-the-night phone call to St. Louis police chief Joe Mokwa was what we in the trade like to call a "red flag": Someone was gonna sue Mike Shannon's Steaks and Seafood in the wake of the fatal drunk-driving misadventure; it was merely a question of who and when.

Along with Mark Bronson, Claude F. Clayton Jr., Keith C. Kantack and J. Kristopher White, all of Tupelo, Mississippi; and S. Ray Hill III, of Oxford, Mississippi, are reportedly listed as representing the plaintiff, Dean Hancock, Josh Hancock's father.

Shannon's has company: Listed as co-defendants are the tow-truck company whose vehicle Hancock's rented SUV plowed into and the driver of the disabled car the tow-truck driver had come to the aid of.

In the Post-Dispatch's story, reporter Heather Ratcliffe quotes the lawsuit as saying:

"The intoxication of Joshua Morgan Hancock on said occasion was involuntary."

-Unreal

So your Mardi Gras celebration was impeded by the cold. Your hands froze to your beer bottle. Ladies shouted, "Throw me some beads and I'll show you my heated socks! Wooo!" That's rough. And, of course, today the weather's beautiful. You can be bitter about the hand that fate has dealt, or you can embrace a new kind of celebration: the President's Day bacchanal. "But," you sputter, "the day's half-over and I haven't made any plans!"

MappyHour 2.0 to the rescue. The latest confirmation that booze + technology = awesome, MappyHour gives viewers a handy interactive map of the city's taverns. Just click on the wee beer bottles, and you'll get addresses and phone numbers. There are some fixes that need to be made — like removing several long-closed venues from the map — but the concept is nifty. (Other cool "GoogleMap mashups" include the New York Times' incredible city map and a guide to hot peppers 'round the globe .)

The only bummer about MappyHour is that it's not super-comprehensive (and the majority of the mapped locations are missing drink-special info). But no worries — the site is set up in wiki format, so you (yes, you!) can register with MappyHour and contribute. So go out tonight, raise a glass to your favorite president, and ask your bartender about specials. Then go home and get Mappy.

-Brooke Foster

You might think there would be something vaguely off-putting about drinking in a bar furnished with the trappings of an old church. But as I sat at the Church Key -- where everything from the light fixtures to the floor was salvaged from St. Aloysius Gonzaga -- there didn't seem to be anything odd about ordering a whiskey.

The odd thing was that it was 11 p.m. on a Thursday and the bar was empty. Of course, this was Thursday, October 12, and the Cardinals had taken a beating by the Mets. The bartender assured me that, just an hour earlier, the bar had been full of people watching the game. But after the game ended, she said, the patrons were all so disheartened that they went home.

The footrest below the bar is made up of kneelers, the bar itself comes from the old choir loft, and the booths are the old pews. These have crosses carved on the sides, but other than that, nothing really screams out "church."

Carrie Bellon-Wappel, one of the owners, recently found some drinks recipes with names like Blood of Christ and Blood of Satan, but these did not make it onto the cocktail menu. "We decided to go in a different direction," she says carefully.