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Cheesehead Chatter

The Best of St. Louis? Not everyone thinks so.

Best of St. Louis, September 27, 2007

Long live Provel: The RFT did a hatchet job on the creamy deliciousness of Provel in the backhanded award "Best Use of the Worst Cheese." The assertion that St. Louis-style pizza has no adherents outside of the metro area just shows bad reporting. There are a number of Provel-using establishments outside St. Louis that are fabulous, such as Waldo Pizza in Kansas City, which was featured on the Food Network. Another is Fifth Avenue Pizza in Alma, Texas. Both eateries have courted their share of success with the thin pies, to say nothing of the expatriates around the country like myself who invite friends over to our homes for a taste of one of our city's many culinary innovations.

Give it up, Provel haters. Why don't you move on to brain sandwiches or meat boiled in barbecue sauce — things that truly deserve your snot-nosed scrutiny?
Jason Hitzert, Beaverton, Oregon

Best of St. Louis, September 27, 2007

RFT's favorite comics suck: St. Louis' comedy scene genuinely moves and shakes, a fact mostly ignored by the RFT and not even mentioned once in its woefully incomplete "Best of St. Louis" issue. Three comics who live in the St. Louis area were prominently featured on this season's Last Comic Standing. How many of the RFT-approved local bands or local stage actors mentioned in your "Best of St. Louis" issue were featured on a national television network this year? The RFT's failure to include even one lousy comedy category or mention anything comedy-related in a supposed round-up of everything that is worth seeing in St. Louis indicates that writers and editors need to pay more attention to what is going on in the city they're covering.

A new comedy club, Laughs on the Landing, is open downtown, and that has become quite a point of contention and bitterness among some local comics. Some alternative venues in the city are starting to take shape. Harry's off Kingshighway has a comedy show on Thursday night, which offers rough and edgy humor that might not be presented in a sanitized environment like the Funny Bone at Westport.

Even though the RFT covers a city that is full of professional funny people, the only two comedians recently featured have been the unfunny Brie Johnson and Yakov Smirnoff. So to be covered by the RFT, a comedian either has to be an unsuccessful model willing to look ridiculous by posing topless or a sad, washed-up has-been, entertaining the blue-hairs in Branson.
Brian Dowell, St. Louis

Stage, September 13, 2007

And Kate is clearly disgusted: I was shocked and appalled at "English Classless," Dennis Brown's below-the-belt, homophobic review of The History Boys. Snide remarks like "fruit-filled dessert" are completely unnecessary and degrading. I can respect what artistic issues Dennis had with the play and the production. Perhaps there are other acting choices or directing choices that the cast and crew could have made, but his problem seems to be that he's just uncomfortable with gayness. Hector's character is a complex one. He is a pervert; he does a despicable thing. And yet, he is an important teacher for the boys. What a fascinating, complicated situation — dramatic, one might even say.
Kate MacCluggage, New York, New York

Riverfront Times' editorial department is looking for a painstakingly literate smarty-pants to pinch hit as a proofreader and also to help us maintain our listings database. This part-time position includes a quarterly component heavy on the phone calls, as well as a goodly portion of crucial — if not exactly glamorous — data-entry work. On the other hand, it provides the proverbial Foot in the Door. Applicants must be willing to submit to our legendary copy-editing test, which has reduced many a linguistic whiz to incoherent, tearful blubbering.

E-mail resume and propeller beanie size to kristie.mcclanahan@riverfronttimes.com, or mail to:

Kristie McClanahan
Riverfront Times
6358 Delmar Boulevard, Suite 200
St. Louis, MO 63130
No phone calls, please!