The deeper you venture into Wonderland at 2720 this weekend, the curiouser and curiouser it will feel. The organizers at Xhibition Art (Lola Von Ella, Mimi Le Uke and others) are promising three floors of immersive erotic art experience. The theme: Alice in Wonderland, with a “decidedly adult twist.” All guests are strongly encouraged to…
When St. Louis-born burlesque artist Jeez Loueez staged her first annual variety show here several years ago, she had to recruit performers of color from other cities. There weren’t enough locals. But this Friday, she says, about half the acts in her show, “Jeezy’s Juke Joint,” will be homegrown. With the Saint Boogie Brass Band…
Adria Nicole, 40, is a presence — physical, metaphysical, even olfactory. On a bitterly cold night in January, she welcomes me into her office at the Nebula co-working space off Cherokee Street. Her scent is beguiling. Is that…sandalwood? Frankincense maybe? I don’t ask, not yet. As we wend our way through the building to her…
Charlotte Sumtimes talks, walks and acts like it’s the 1920s. She’s a middle-aged drag queen running St. Louis’ underground jazz scene, rubbing elbows with bootleggers and staying clear of the Klan. She drinks bathtub gin, she curses, she fights, she meanders on cobblestone streets past breweries and brothels. In reality, Charlotte shares a body with…
Lesbian bars have been disappearing across the U.S. for decades, and St. Louis is no exception: In the past five years alone, Novak’s, R Bar, Absolutli Goosed and Lilly’s Music & Social House have all shuttered. We sat down with Kristen Goodman, former co-owner of Lilly’s Music & Social House, to find out why that…
There’s a superstition, particularly in the South, that eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Eve will bring good luck. So at the dawning of 2018, Dianna Watson, the head chef at Crafted in Tower Grove East, decided to add her favorite version of them to the menu: black-eyed-pea fritters. Her plan was fairly simple: She…
If you’ve been out on the prowl recently — whether that entails seeking Mr. Right, seeking Mr. Right Now, carousing in after-dark homo hot spots or exploring the internet’s ever-booming global gay boomtown — there’s something about gay men you can’t help but notice: As a group, we are aging. Unlike other groups, however, we’re…
This piece is an addendum to our longform feature, “Dustin Does Dallas,” which appeared in our Spring 2018 issue. On June 28, 2017, police near Dallas, Texas arrested Dustin Mitchell, a former St. Louis-area con man, for falsely presenting himself as an attorney. He spent six hours in jail, then his wife bailed him out.…
On the morning of June 28, 2017, the doorbell rang at the luxurious townhome of Mr. and Mrs. Dustin Mitchell. The couple assumed it was a delivery, and Dustin answered the door in his pajamas to find an entire SWAT team there to arrest him. “What’s going on?” exclaimed Lacey McCullough as she watched her…
I’m a proud, homegrown St. Louisan. This city is like my own emotional hot-tub party: The water is warm and full of all my favorite people. I’m comfortable and relaxed. I feel validated here, too, in certain ways, but there’s another type of validation that’s rarer — and requires venturing into the unknown. Last winter,…
