Posts Tagged ‘Neal E. Boyd’

While Tom Carnahan is poised to collect millions of dollars from Washington windbags for wind, Linda Doss, 72, mordantly described our country as “Gone downhill.”  Doss, who commutes between her apartments in Maplewood and in Puerto Vallarta,  boasted that in Mexico her electric bill every two months is about $12,  cable is $19 and telephone service is $18.  “I spend about eight months there,” she told her friend Sandy Shoults.

Whenever I feel I’m getting out of touch with a city – a fear that haunts all news people, I take a long walk along Manchester in Maplewood. which rocks with the blaring out of a little video shop and chop shops, the smell of Tex-Mex food of tiny dineries, the Ho-Made food served up at the Tiffany diner, a Childhood Center, where Linda Henke teaches the kids how to grow food and to make their own breakfasts, Maplewood-Richmond Heights High where the cagers enjoyed two successive state championship seasons, Kalb Electric and Scheidt Hardware remain there since right after the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, Saratoga Lanes has been around more years than anyone remembers, an 1840 clapboard house on Woodside is crying out for a rehabber who’ll plunk down $125,000, the sweet fragrances of spices waft from Penzey’s, a spinoff of a German company,  Maplewood residents still mourn the loss of Golde’s Department Store and now have to trudge to Maplewood Commons’ Walmart and Sam’s.  There is a no-nonsense chief of police, Steve Kruse, who is still infatuated with his yesteryear Chevy Lumina.  Nowadays, Monarch Restaurant and Jive ‘n Wail are credited as the two anchors that have attracted 50 new businesses to the strip, between the 7200 and 7900 blocks.  It was at Jive ‘n Wail where a conversation between husband and wife was overheard. “Honey, tomorrow I’m going downtown to my broker.”  She darted back, “Stock or pawn?” When I walked along Manchester – the original U.S. 66 for 10 years until 1936 – I became just another face in the crowd – a crowd that takes me at face value.  It might not be the real St. Louis, but brothers and sisters, it’s real. My walk was interrupted by a flash over my iphone from Contemporary Productions’ Angela Gregory, who wrote that her boss, Steve Schankman, will present “Finale’s Encore” at the JCA to memorialize his shuttered Finale Jazz Club in Clayton.  It stars on various nights – Neal E. Boyd of “America’s Got Talent”, Steve Davis and his “Memories of Elvis”, Charles Glenn, Kim Massie and the Fabuious Motown Revue. For tix,  call (314) 721-9090 or lforrester@contemporaryproductions.com.

Winner of the 2008 “America’s Got Talent”, Neal E. Boyd, who shared the evening’s bill with soul singer, Al Green, harkened back to his gaffe duriing the winning segment. He chirped,  “My fly was open and when I went on camera, someone alerted me and I turned my back to the audience and zipped it up.”  Belma and Harris-Stowe State University’s Henry Givens boasted that there are now 2,000 students there.  Other faces in the crowd of 632 guests were: Joanne and Chuck Knight; Karen Lorenzini with hub Tim Lane; Neiman-Marcus restaurateur Lucy Bommarito with Tony Mazzola; Peabody Energy’s Fred Palmer with his wife, Gayle; Karen and Jasper Noto; Marsha and Bill Rusnack, who took Clark public and Ameren UE’s prez Tom Voss with his wife, Carol.  The evening’s thunderstorms took its toll here, but Voss said, “Only 17,000 outages and no tornado yet.” (Hello?)

BTW, savvy Linda Martinez of counsel and partner at Bryan Cave, was dubbed “Woman of the Year.” Jan Albus, exec director of Variety, said she anticipated that $1 million will be raised from the event to help children with physical and mental disabilities.  At 6:45 p.m. the hotel’s sirens sounded and flood lights blinked warning that something dangerous might be happening. Some people began running through the lobby. Then, an announcement on the p.a. system informed that all was well and it had been a power failure in the hotel’s system.

GALLERY OF PICTURES AT EVENTS;

Kacie Starr Triplett, the excruciatingly self-promoting St. Louis alderman, has sent out an e-mail to her supporters (and pretty much everyone else) asking us to “Join President Obama and Me at an Event for Senator Claire McCaskill.”  The columnist is less surprised at the hint of hostess than at the fact that Triplett managed to mention McCaskill at all. Meanwhile, McCaskill  has tapped hometowner Neal E. Boyd, winner of America’s Got Talent, as a “special musical guest” for her March 10 dinner here with the Prez.