HUNGER

HUNGER (MADAME BUTTERFLY, THE TOUHILL)

I have come here for art; paupers deserve to have our souls nourished by beauty too. In fact, I'd argue that the hungry especially appreciate beauty -- there's nothing else satiating the spirit or dulling the senses. Next to me, some well-dressed people converse. I can smell their wealth. It's an aftershave, a deodorant, a breath mint. If only I could figure out a clever way to hit them up for a little cash. Surely they're good for it. Tonight's performance being Madame Butterfly, their conversation turns to contemporary Japan. And what are the social conditions of Japan today? Oh, they work much harder for much less than we do here! They are unhappy, those Japanese. They have a hard time understanding how happy we are here in America. How could Americans be so happy? It seems impossible to them, that kind of happiness! Sinful! "Sir, you are American?" I imagine them asking me. "Can you believe how happy you are?" My hungry brain formulates its imaginary reply: "Indeed! If happiness is hunger, than I am very, very happy! There is so little room for anything else; only happiness, joy, bliss!" Then I would inquire about the money: "Perhaps to buy something to eat. If not, then may I nibble on your arm, your thigh? May I gnaw on you the way you've been gnawing on my brain?" And all the while that breezy stench, simultaneously attractive and repulsive.

THE POSTMODERN PUGILIST'S MIDNIGHT THEATRE

THE POSTMODERN PUGILIST'S MIDNIGHT THEATER(MIDNIGHT SPARRING, PANDA ATHLETIC CLUB, NORTH BROADWAY) There's no air-conditioning in here; just a stale mugginess that lingers, contained within these sheets of brick and glass-block windows, after a humid week. But this is Steve Smith's boxing club; of course there's no air-conditioning. In fact, this is Steve's world. Without him, it wouldn't exist. Steve's one of those rare personalities who creates around him a universe of his own design. This world suggests a grittier America, somewhere between 1933 and 1967 -- but a slightly surreal version. It has less to do with time, more to do with mythology. Steve takes elements of American mythology and manipulates them into fantastical theater. In this way, he is a kind of artist, creating around him what he wants to see that isn't already there. And like an artist, he's able to make it believable. So it is more the idea of a grittier America, Steve's idea of it, and in that world there wouldn't be air-conditioning in a boxing club like this one. Now Steve's in the ring sparring with another boxer. They shuffle around, sneak in a few punches, shuffle around. The only thing separating this scene from a George Bellows lithograph is the protective headgear. Steve goes "tsk" through his teeth with every punch -- punches that aren’t brutal, and aren't meant to be. We're here for the theater more than the fight. Steve's opponent exits the ring, leans against the wall and lets loose a blast of vomit. Then another. When I catch up with Steve later I ask if the guy's all right. "He's okay," Steve says. "He always throws up."

NO GOOD FOR COFFEE

NO GOOD FOR COFFEE(MUSTANG SALLY’S CLUB 64 EAST, EAST ST. LOUIS) I’m immediately greeted in the most extroverted way by a strung-out coquette. Her plastic mouth laughs so close to my face that her squinty eyes go vertical. There’s no way out. There’ll be no looking around for me; conversation takes on the rosy feel of minimum-security imprisonment. Can she have some coffee too? Sure, have some terrible coffee. She reminds me of a woman I met at the King’s Motel on Valencia Street in San Francisco. She’d stand in her doorway draped in a threadbare bathrobe and ask, “Got a cigarette for me today, Blondie?” No one at the King’s Motel was ever awake before noon. Those were days carved out of futility and horror. Minutes pass without incident. Talk of prison, her ex-boyfriend, growing up with chickens. Finally she realizes I’m a dud. “Listen,” she says. “Gimme twenty bucks.” Practically demands it. She just needs the twenty bucks. I don’t have twenty bucks. She’ll take whatever I have. She’ll take fifteen bucks. “Let’s see what I have here,” I mumble, fingering through my wallet. “I have five dollars. How about I give you three?” Look of disgust. Smoke from the accident still rising off her carcass. She takes the three bucks. I can feel her disappointment. We’re both swimming in it.

A HOWITZER FOR THE IRISH

A HOWITZER FOR THE IRISH(JULY 29, 1849; THE ST. LOUIS WHARF) The riot died down until the mob reassembled that night. Two or three hundred volunteer firefighters and anti-Irish nativists clamored toward Battle Row, toward the wharf, where the Irish immigrant and dock-labor boardinghouses were, pushing a howitzer cannon stolen from a steamboat called the Missouri, to show they meant business. Earlier that day a fistfight broke out after an Irishman had heckled the firefighters while they fought a steamboat blaze that was spreading across the levee. Someone began throwing rocks. Others joined in. Mayhem ensued. It didn’t go so well for the Irish. Outnumbered, they retreated to James O’Brien’s saloon, where they defended themselves with weak volleys of pistol fire. When police arrived to cart culprits off to the “calaboose,” the saloon was demolished; so was Murphy’s Boarding House, Shannon’s coffeehouse, Gilligan’s on Cherry Street and Terrence Brady’s coffeehouse on Fifth and Morgan. But that was earlier. Back to the howitzer: Having loaded the weapon with “slugs and boiler-iron punchings” -- scraps, anything they could find -- a madcap contingent lumbered down Morgan Street. Neither the mayor nor the police department (now reinforced by 50 new volunteers) could persuade the mob to give up their cannon. Nothing could. Not even the pouring rain. (Based on descriptions in Lion in the Valley, by James Neal Primm, and in the Missouri Republican, Tuesday morning, July 31, 1849.)

MOTORCYCLES

MOTORCYCLES(MESHUGGAH, THE LOOP) She’s excited for the motorcycle season to begin. It isn’t driving them that she likes, it’s getting a ride on the back of them. She likes taking sharp turns (the faster the better), being out of control, the excitement of panic. I’ve met other girls who feel the same way and never understood it. On the other hand, I’ve never met a guy who likes the back of a motorcycle, no matter how much of a motorcycle enthusiast he is. Is there a man alive who likes to be a passenger on the back of someone else’s motorcycle? -- who would choose to be a passenger over driving? I can imagine a census being conducted that might reveal something essential about our differences. Which might in turn illuminate all the previously inexplicable hare-brained misunderstandings between the sexes. We’ll all go, “Of course! It’s because women like to ride on the back of motorcycles and men don’t!” Then we can live happily. Men won’t feel the need to leave toilet seats up and women won’t complain about it when we do, because, well, we’ll never do it again. Meanwhile, piped-in Bob Dylan plays over the chatter. Which song is this? Can’t place it. And I thought I knew his entire repertoire. But nobody knows Bob Dylan’s entire repertoire. Not even Bob Dylan.

MOTORCYCLES II

MOTORCYCLES II(MESHUGGAH, THE LOOP) Bob Dylan’s on the sound system: “Brownsville Girl.” You can listen to Dylan sideways, upside down, backward, invisibly -- every song is like something funky making its way through a house of mirrors, distorting and contracting as it moves along. In this manner it composes a perfect reflection of the absurdity we call “life.” That’s one man’s opinion anyway, and still it only tips the iceberg. The only thing we knew for sure about Henry Porter is that his name wasn’t Henry Porter. Why does that lyric say so much about more than Henry Porter? The Motorcycle Girl says she doesn’t know, doesn’t like Bob Dylan, thinks he’s funny looking. She had a boyfriend she left in Columbia last week. It was a road trip gone wrong, and when they got into an argument over “some little bullshit thing,” he demanded she stop the car. He got out and she hasn’t seen him since. He didn’t like riding on the back of her motorcycle, as it were. Back to motorcycles. What are they, she asks, if not a last-ditch effort to escape? But escape from what? To arrive somewhere else, start all over again?  “This time I haven’t the heart for it the way I’ve had it in the past,” she concludes.

She said, “Welcome to the land of the living dead.”/You could tell she was so broken-hearted.

But she’s talking to herself now; I’ve exited the dialogue unknowingly. If there’s an original idea out there, I could sure use it right now.

RAVOLA!

RAVOLA!(BENTON PARK) Ravola. Now there's a troubled soul. At night he sneaks down the service stairs like a timid Slinky, passing through yellow pockets of 60-watt light in his scarlet nightgown. By day he's a social worker. Or nurse, or something. A caretaker: a taker o' care.

FEAR & LOATHING

FEAR AND LOATHING(The Grind, Central West End) His theory went like this: Hunter S. Thompson was, in fact, not dead. No suicide had occurred; no bullets had been discharged into his head, nothing like that had happened. James believed that Thompson was actually alive and well and living in San Miguel de Allende. “Wouldn’t that be a Thompsonesque thing to do?” He searched my face for assurance. None found. Having for some time now lived with the impression that I knew nothing at all, I didn’t have the wherewithal to answer. I told James this; it didn’t register. A warm night breeze blew through the open door into the pool room. Through the large plate-glass windows you could see the swarms of people loafing around the tables outside. I asked James how the job search was going. He winced, shrugged. Nothing yet. An outrage. Even Jeff had finally found a job. Jeff: the most famously unemployed person we knew. The man who’d reached celebrity status for his gentleman-pauper routine. Now he had a fine job and new tabs on his license plates, ending an era in our little neighborhood. It wasn’t that James was underqualified. Nor was he undersearching. Just too long living anxiety-ridden -- one of many I knew in similar predicaments. “I’ve been focusing on points other than St. Louis,” he said finally. “I just might have to finally leave this dying city.”

STEVE'S NEW BAR

STEVE’S NEW BAR(The Real Bar, soon to be the Royale,  South Kingshighway) Steve says there needs to be a new sign outside. Something illuminated and irrepressible. An old-fashioned one, maybe, or leastways a little classic: neon lights but not so outdated that it ain’t swank. Modish even. Nothing too gaudy. Or maybe.... Something to light up the night sky, or at least this patch of curb along Kingshighway. Something like Steve’s car, his ’71 T-bird with the suicide doors: bold, seductive, enigmatic. Josh and I stand outside Steve’s new bar, enjoying the last of the afternoon’s waning sun, admiring the radiant automobile that lounges there, its unusual aerodynamic, its strange and magnificent color, curious green. They don’t make that color anymore. What color is that, exactly? Batman would drive a car like this, if it were black, and so would Elvis. But there needs to be a new sign outside. Steve just bought the place. There’s a venerable wooden bar, vintage 1930s or ’40s. There’s an unnerving picture of a clown hanging on the wall. The kind of thing that gives children nightmares, Steve’s father says. I’m one of those children, I admit. Laughter. “I’m naming the place after my favorite car,” Steve says. “I’ll have to buy another Oldsmobile now.” A customer arrives. An old and new regular already.

BENNIE SMITH

BENNIE SMITH(Saturday night, BB’s Jazz, Blues & Soups) He’s on his way to Arizona, he says. Quit his job as an editor, off to begin a new life. I’m trying to identify what’s so disturbing about his demeanor: Something’s simmering in there. I get the feeling that at any moment the guy might erupt: He’s just as likely to put his foot through a wall as change the subject to poetry. On stage, Bennie Smith. “I heard Bennie had a heart attack a couple of months ago,” I say, making conversation, “I heard his equipment got stolen while he was in the hospital.” My new acquaintance is dismissive, surly. Something’s definitely pinching his nerves. Or maybe it’s me. Having just come from an ultimate-fighting match, I’m sensing violence everywhere, like a bad song you can’t get out of your head. Just then a storm of inspired guitar blows through the room. The place is packed now. Not so strange, being a Saturday night, especially considering that it’s Bennie Smith on stage. Photos of musicians line the walls like ghosts, even though not all of them are dead. Bennie is anything but dead. Same goes for his guitar, and his band. They fall into the next number gracefully, effortlessly: Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me.” It jumps, does tricks, buys you a drink. Benny’s face is serene, buddha-like. The music pacifies my irascible new friend - and me, at least temporarily.

ON THE BUS

ON THE BUS(97 Delmar-McKnight) Tuesday night again, already sinking. The 97 lumbers westbound up Delmar. The boredom is real. Even the lady quietly knitting heaves an empty sigh. She’s folding inward, deflating, collapsing into her needles. Bus lurches to a stop. Door swings open. Presto! *WHY “M.”? M. Crazy-Hair! Every night for the past week I’ve ridden this bus, always at a different time. And every night he gets on at the stop just after mine. Wordlessly, he shuffles down the aisle, trembling slightly, each step deliberate, brittle. He takes the seat in front of mine, carefully places his plastic bag beside him. Surprising that he sits so close: Usually lunatics avoid other lunatics. Or maybe he’s not. What’s in the bag? Another universe, maybe -- one he carries around with him, just like our universe is carried around by someone on some other bus. Maybe his birth certificate, maybe his pet mouse, a tiny landlord, his lawyer. A Farmer’s Almanac. Fourteen acres and a small pond. Next year’s seasons. There he sits, profile reflected in the window, looking like a dead poet. His face speaks of the eastern seaboard. “Who are you?” I wonder. “Why do you follow me? Do you have some wisdom to pass along? What’s going on in there, behind that mug?” He turns, gazes at me. Evidently I’m asking too many questions at once.

THAT'S CHUCK FUCKIN' BERRY!

THAT’S CHUCK FUCKIN’ BERRY!(Blueberry Hill, The Loop) Then Chuck Berry comes out onstage -- Chuck fuckin’ Berry! -- dressed in baggy pleated pants, a wild shirt and a polished bolo tie that glistens under the lights, his hair brushed back, looking like the coolest thing you’ve ever seen, sounding as beautiful and familiar as your own mother’s voice. There he is -- the human personification of the music that changed the world, goofing off with his band -- which looks pretty unglamorous comparatively -- ordinary guys who just happened to be walking down Delmar when someone handed them instruments, said, “Think you could play these things, like, right now?” There he is, with guitar, delivering cavalcades of the distinctive sound that made him famous, making it look too easy. But he’s working. The sweat streaming down his face testifies to that. He says something about not knowing what to do about an itch when he’s playing guitar with both hands. Crowd laughs. He could make any joke and the crowd would laugh. Because, well, he’s Chuck fuckin’ Berry! Imagine what it must’ve been like in 1955 -- imagine you’re some knucklehead kid, bored to the point of simmering outrage, made a halfwit by the tedium of your environment, driving along in your dad’s 1952 Ford and Maybellene comes on the radio and you hear it for the first time. It must’ve seemed like the world turned different colors -- or maybe that was the moment when the world went color. So why doesn’t he play it?

THE DOG WHISPERER

THE DOG WHISPERER(TOWER GROVE PARK) Others shuffle past with streams of anxiety floating in their wake, but she presents a beatific otherworldliness. Her movements speak of peacefulness and goodwill. Like a monk. Like everyone’s mother. Her eccentricity is irrepressible, one of her most charming traits. She can tell you what your dog is thinking, for example. Closing her eyes, she makes whispery movements with her lips. She’s in council with something -- a telepathic three-way connection between herself, her Higher Being and the dog. A few minutes pass this way. Then she opens her eyes, gazes thoughtfully skyward and delivers her diagnosis: The dog is uncomfortable, awkward in a crowd of people today. The dog wants to go home, the dog feels underappreciated. All the while the dog smiles broadly at her, attends to her every word, in complete agreement. “Listen to your dog,” she lectures. “Dogs can sense danger, and they’re very good at telling the character of a person.” They say comparing a dog’s sense of smell to a human’s is like comparing seeing in color to seeing black and white. Maybe they can smell trouble, bad character, on and on. Must be a frantic world for dogs.

GAS

GAS(The Hi-Pointe) The band is wrapping up as the Cars’ “Drive” plays over the sound system. We left Dave P. downstairs with his lemon tonic water to inspect the lost driver’s licenses pinned to the wall. We arrived too late. Spent too much time at the Atomic Cowboy, where nothing could’ve been more out of place then the three of us. Waste of time, that was -- for the Atomic Cowboy and for us. Jay disagrees, says it wasn’t a lost night. “People shouldn’t insulate themselves so much,” he begins. “Whether an ethnic group or clique -- like goths, or punk rockers, or anybody -- it’s natural to be around people who share your passion about the same things. But if you only surround yourself with those people and you’re not open to being exposed to a diversity of interests and you completely conform to the thinking that’s in that group -- whether it’s religious, political or whatever -- it’s stifling. People need to make an effort to get out and mix with other people.” Through the window looms the enormous Amoco sign. The price of gas has gone down. Finally.