Student Life Archives

Bernell Dorrough

Dear Friend,

You are cordially invited to witness the story of our illustrious family, the Corleones. On Tuesday, November 25, the Tivoli Theater will be kind enough to show “The Godfather,” parts 1 and 2, in all their big screen glory. (The Corleone family denies any ties between the title “Godfather” and illegal organized crime activities.) A measly eight bucks will get you into the showings, which start at 1:00 p.m., and an extra four dollars will get you some Cicero’s pizza at 7:30. Hey, it’s not Mama’s meatballs, but what is?

If you’ve never had the privilege of viewing our life story, you’re in for a real treat. But don’t take our word for it-these flicks received 13 Academy Awards between them, including the Best Picture Oscar both times. It’s not hard to see why-our family has been through some ups and downs, but we’ve always endured. In the first film, you’ll see Connie’s wedding (it’s too bad what happened to that nice Carlo fella-car accident, we’re told), Tom Hagen giving that nasty Hollywood producer the final say “from the horse’s mouth,” if you will, and younger brother Michael making his first hit-er, really giving McClusky and Solozzo a piece of his mind (we knew ya had it in ya, Mike). The second film is no less amazing. This director type, Francis Ford Coppola (a nice Italian kid, himself), does a great job showing Michael’s consolidation of power alongside the young Vito’s rise. Hey Frankie, we’ve got a fresh young actor named Johnny Fontaine we’d like to introduce you to. The man can sing like a nightingale! Anyway, come down and see us this Tuesday. The whole family’s gonna be there. Sonny’s been feeling a little under the weather since his encounter with machine guns on the causeway, but Mike’s gonna make an appearance, and Fredo’s always good for a laugh. Two great movies and fresh, hot pizza for a total of 12 dollars. Now that’s an offer you can’t refuse.

Your friends and “business partners”

Bernell Dorrough

Story of the Year
Page Avenue
Maverick Records
For fans of: Blink-182, the Used, Vendetta Red

Grade: C
Final Word: This story’s been told many times before.

Being from St. Louis myself, it would be nice to say that local boys Story of the Year have made in “Page Avenue” a promising major label debut. But, like fellow St. Louisans Greenwheel, who also record for a major label, Story of the Year have made an album that amounts to nothing more than bland alternative rock, made for immediate airplay and for even more immediate disappearance.

Story of the Year, formerly Big Blue Monkey, have been around for some time. Their debut, produced by Used producer John Feldman, is a mix of pop-punk and screamo, alternating quiet and loud parts with melodic vocals and aggressive screams. It’s a formula that has been doing well for bands like the Used and Vendetta Red lately, and Story of the Year doesn’t do anything to set itself apart from the rest of the pack. The first single, “Until the Day I Die,” which is doing well on radio and MTV2, sounds like nearly anything else one might hear on 105.7 The Point or any other mainstream alt-rock station.

The album is produced in such a manner as to remove any rawness or emotion from it whatsoever. The jagged edges are filed off of the guitars, and even when vocalist Dan Marsala seems to be screaming his heart out, it is compressed so perfectly that it just seems like another piece of the pop-punk puzzle.

The only excitement comes on the final track, “Falling Down,” which includes guest vocals from Toby Morse of the similar but far superior H20, as well as Ray Cappo of straight-edge heroes Youth of Today. Both of those bands have achieved, long before, what Story of the Year sorely lacks, and their presence makes it even more evident that this Story has been told many times before.

Bernell Dorrough

If I didn’t make pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving from scratch using fresh pumpkin, I might be banished to a field with the weather-beaten scarecrows.

I can’t remember precisely how it became a family tradition, but for a long time, since Brendan was a young sprout, pumpkin pies in our house have always been made with fresh pumpkin, which makes for a distinctly delicious pie. When he and his brother were young, we always painted a couple of pumpkins for Halloween in addition to carving a big Jack-o-Lantern. After Halloween passed, we washed away the paint, split them and baked them to yield pumpkin for pies.

Any pumpkin which has not been carved will do, but some produce better results. Our search for pumpkins for pie started out a bit hit-and-miss. We discovered that the deeply creased, darker colored pumpkins (often not very good for carving) yielded more flesh. Eventually we discovered some marketed as pie pumpkins-they tend to be smaller, thicker-walled and result in drier, more flavorful pulp.

You didn’t save any Halloween pumpkins? Whole Foods stores have been selling “pie pumpkins” this fall. So you can still get them!

Preparing fresh pumpkin is not difficult. Split the pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds and strings. If you like toasted pumpkin seeds, wash the debris off the seeds in a bowl of fresh water, rubbing away the goo. Then put the seeds in fresh water to cover with one or two tablespoons of salt and soak for several hours. Drain thoroughly and spread the seeds in a single layer on an oiled cookie sheet. Bake them at 325 degrees, stirring every five minutes until dried and lightly browned. The seeds will continue to dry and darken a bit more after you pull them from the oven.

Put the pumpkin on a pan, skin side up, and into the oven at 325 degrees for about 45 minutes to an hour, depending on the size of the pumpkin. You can tell it is ready when the skin of the shell becomes shiny and soft, almost beginning to collapse. Scrape the pulp from the shell with a spoon and pur‚e in a food processor or blender.

Fresh pumpkin can be kept up to a week in the refrigerator in a tightly covered container, or it may be frozen for several months. You are now ready to make your favorite pumpkin pie, bread, pudding or mousse recipes. The greatest difference is in the taste-hard to describe-but ask Brendan, who prefers fresh pumpkin pie to cake to celebrate his November birthday.

Here are some tips for adapting your recipes if you are accustomed to using canned pumpkin. Fresh pumpkin is more moist than canned pumpkin and may need longer cooking times than your recipe calls for. Just be patient; it will cook. Also note that fresh pumpkin-without the color additives of canned pumpkin-is sometimes more yellow or paler. When the brown pie seasonings are added, the pie color is more of a light brown than the shades of orange you usually see.

Mix the beaten egg yolks with pumpkin, then add spices, sugar and flour. Add the melted butter, evaporated milk and salt to the pumpkin mixture. Fill the pie shell with the mix. If you have too much custard, grease a small oven-proof bowl or dish and put any remaining filling into it and bake this, too.

Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes to prevent crust from becoming soggy. Lower the heat to 325 degrees and bake 45 minutes longer. (If you have a smaller dish of custard in the oven, check it after about 25 minutes as it will cook in half the time.) Check the pie by shaking it lightly. If the center wiggles or still looks shiny or wet, it is not done. Continue to bake checking at 5-10 minute intervals until it seems set in the center. When the pie seems firm, turn off the oven and allow pie to stand in the oven 15 minutes longer so the filling will set. Remove it from the oven and cool on a wire rack. Serve at room temperature with whipped cream.

Pumpkin Pie
Prepare a single crust pie shell and chill well while you prepare the pie filling. Makes one deep dish 9″ or 10″ pie.

2 cups cooked, pureed pumpkin
1 teaspoon cloves
4 eggs, beaten separately
1 tablesoon flour
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup evaporated milk
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon salt

Laura Watson is the mother of regular “Foodnatic” columnist Brendan Watson. He turned the column over to his mother this week because she is a true Thanksgiving expert. Laura is a first-time newspaper columnist, part-time pre-school teacher, a great chef and mother from Chicago, IL.

Bernell Dorrough

Many know the childish glee accompanied with visiting the City Museum, the hearty fulfillment of cheese fries and bowling at Tropicana lanes, or the nostalgic anxiety of trying to roller skate or ice skate. For those seeking greater thrills and less physical exertion, though, one place offers a risqu‚ kind of entertainment for an off-campus weekend outing. Boxers ‘n Briefs is not just a strip club. In Boxers ‘n Briefs, you can leave your troubles outside. So, life is disappointing? Forget it. In here, life is beautiful. The men are beautiful. Even the deejay is beautiful. Beyond the sterile entry room, where a larger than average forty-year-old man bids you a happy viewing, lies a room full of men vying to arouse you, or at least arouse some sort of reaction in you. The following events took place on an unspecified night with a small group of Washington University students.

Upon entering the performance room we immediately noticed a dancer performing a special pole dance off to the right, while his member also swayed to the music. After that expected but still spontaneous moment of shock, the realization soon hit that the music the dancer so erotically moved to was none other than that of Femme Fatale (one of the evening’s karaoke entertainers) snapping and clapping to “Mambo Italiano.” The drag queens came out for a special night at B ‘n B to demonstrate their amazing karaoke skills and their self-important flare for fashion otherwise relegated to the dark corners of Wet Seal and Delia’s.

After quickly seating ourselves a safe distance from the stage, the group watched as the night’s host entered the stage. This sparkling beauty, decked out in a one piece jumpsuit, strutted out with a microphone in hand to speak her first great insight of the evening: “Let me tell you, I’m so uncomfortable with this nine inch dick taped back and sticking into my ass.” Such words are rarely spoken when introducing oneself to an audience, but considering the surroundings, the Mistress of Ceremonies, Taylor DeMornee, did so with a certain grace. On stage Mistress DeMornee quipped about the intricacies of her costume and the delightfulness of the male physique, while having as great of a penchant for the word “bitch” as many Wash U students have for “sketchy.”

The attention of the group soon wandered elsewhere to survey the other guests. At the table nearest to the stage, with a vodka tonic and a pack of Marlboro Reds in hand, sat a middle-aged man sporting an orange, ribbed sweater courtesy of the Gap. He would have appeared to be an average man, save for his somewhat disturbing lazy eyes, $1 bills in hefty supply, and a fondness for a bald B ‘n B employee in hot pants with a likeness very similar to Gollum. Behind the sitting area near the bar strutted Dancers #2 and #3. During the course of the evening Dancer #3 managed to slither side to side while hanging from a horizontal pole like an asp waiting to attack its prey.

After a few more minutes of indiscernible banter, Mistress DeMornee hailed the next act in a roll of thunder as Cleopatra Rain stormed the stage. When it rains, it pours. When Cleopatra Rain (breaking the first rule of open-toed shoes by wearing them with nylons) danced, the crowd tumbled to the ground in utter amazement. Despite her fashion faux pas, the Queen of the Nile reaped the benefits of a flood of $1 bills, many coming from a current day carbon copy of Violet Beauregarde from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Violet dressed in costume as an innocent angel with a tin pail of which no one could quite understand the purpose. The night was full of other interesting people competing in the costume contest: a Warlock no more evil than a professor at Hogwarts, a vampiress with what can safely be assumed as actual blood streaming down her chin, and an employee (who had the night off and no better place to go) dressed as white trash with a mullet wig.

The next performer, one Alana DeMornee, broke out on the stage with great zest and decisively one of the worst prom dresses ever made. But from the perspective of someone who overindulges in Bear Mart M&Ms on a nearly daily basis, I must say that slip of periwinkle and rhinestone was quite becoming on Alana. Of all the queens that night, Alana shined the brightest, owing both to her choice of apparel and her intensity put forth in mouthing the words to remarkable song stylings of Mariah Carey. After a few more rounds from each performer, the night wound to an end. Mistress DeMornee ended a splendid evening by passing out as many free passes to the club as possible, varying between one and six months based on how much she liked you as an audience member.

Once the group had collected enough passes, we left the world of cigarette fog and men in briefs for the sterile entryway with the forty-year-old host. Perhaps the most shocking event of the night occurred when we had the great privilege of seeing the performers, refreshingly exhausted, as they pulled off their wigs and flipped off their heels to reveal their everyday appearance. They bid their customary farewells to the other workers with indifference, for they would not be gone from B ‘n B for very long, and our group embarked on its return to campus. Boxers ‘N Briefs proved to be everything I hoped it to be: the pole dancing, the bitching of Mistress DeMornee, the somewhat disturbing fellow audience members, the angel with the mysterious tin pail, and all the others who ventured to B ‘n B that night. I only have one valid complaint about my experience in that I saw many men in briefs that night, but the boxers were nowhere to be seen. Although Boxers ‘N Briefs lives up to its reputation, it certainly does not live up to its name. To see Mistress DeMornee in action, see her every Sunday night for her variety show starting at 10:30 p.m. Otherwise, go on any other night of the week to experience the entertainment, the trauma, and absolute lack of eroticism that is Boxers ‘n Briefs.

Boxers ‘N Briefs open every day of the week except for Monday and is located in East St. Louis at 55 Four Corners Lane at Routes 13 & 157. For more information, visit the website at boxersnbriefs.com.