The Saint Louis Metro Evening Whirl: The Greatest Newspaper Ever Printed
Wangstas, here's a caveat: Don't mess with the Whirl with the balls its got.
First-degree murderer? This 50,000 subscriber local crime fighting publication says it's your ass! Armed criminal action? You best stop sitting on the edge of the bed and picking your feet in Poughkeepsie (or "East Boogie") 'cause the St. Louis Metro Evening Whirl's got a hunch that you're a yella son of a bitch who better start running. (The actual home website's right here; only problem is you can't access the "more" link at the end of the Leonard Taylor story nor any of the stories "under construction" as the site is still in the process of getting established (siiiiiigh), making this site not particularly worth navigating. This 2004 Riverfront Times article and the Whirl's MySpace page will be of much better help in acquainting you with this uproariously entertaining paper).
The CKLW 20-20 News/Quahog 5 News of tabloid newsprint publications, the Whirl's police blotter-style capsule reporting continues in their 70 year-long standing tradition, still going about nine steps further--nine very risky steps--than blotters in your daily slickly pretentious, impersonal Chicago Tribunes, Washington Posts or my city-of-residence's dearly beloved Post-Dispatch. This November 2006 article from Believer (a great literature mag in print form and on-line published by McSweeney's) chronicles the Whirl's history. Original founder Benjamin Thomas ripped into St. Louis's crimelords seeking mayoral runs and teachers gettin' busy with students (the story that gave birth to the Whirl; two high school teachers brought a group of boys to the country for picnic and were alleged to have sexually assaulted them) with an explicit aplomb that would shock readers today.
These shit kickers do
publish what time of day the crime happened, what color hoodie or shirt
the perp was wearing and what information bystanders who witnessed the
crime gave and all that, of course. But this hemorrhoid tabloid also
makes damn good and sure the perps are, without an ounce of impunity,
torn new rectums, verbally filleted by language hitherto confined only
to Hustler and roasted like Peking duck.
And those rhymes.
From an article about the robbery of Illinois State Representative Wyvetter Younge's house (from the April 1-8 issue):
and, from the same article:
Its publisher, Barry R. Thomas,
does not and will not hold back. In the gut-bustingly hilarious tone
and voice of his writing there's still undoubtedly looming an angry
vigilance even the police don't understand beyond 'protocol'. The
police laugh and crack wise to distract them from how cold their
reality is on a daily basis else risk long psychiatric hospital stays;
Thomas laughs and cracks wise because this crime shit really is
comical. Readers will not be treated to objectivity; they will be
brought to tears laughing with the hip-hop slang and treated to Thomas'
unyieldingly profane and incendiary (but always casually written for
anyone to understand) personal beef toward whom he deems St. Louis's
lowest common denominators. How's 'bout a sample?
hustlas who copped mo' clips, mo' whips and mo' jewels by importing
candy from Mexico have been collared by the Alphabet Boyz.
that the leaders of this crew were Ronnie A. Nelson, 22, and his mom
and dad, Tammy Donty, 42, and Ronnie L. Nelson, 44. There were 13
ballas who were indicted on conspiracy and drug charges March 5.
The Nelson family was
importing hundreds of pounds of weed and blow from Mexico on commercial
trucks. The were in the distribution game and cut 'em wide, cut 'em
long and cut 'em fat.
In addition to being a drug
dealer, Donty kept track of the five-o via a radio scanner and kept a
ledger to record the drug deals and all the C-Notes they were stackin'.
ridin' big by steady slangin' yayo and pot, they were sacked following
a detective's investigation of low-level drug dealers. That probe led
authorities to the Nelson drug ring, and they used hundreds of hours of
surveillance, wiretaps and at least two federal search warrants to
bring them down.
bringing in dope for at least two years in commercial trucks that cross
the border and drop off their Acapulco gold in parking lots of seedy
motels, shopping centers, malls and at least one casino! These were
high rollers who moved more than 500 grams of cocaine and 500 or more
pounds of marijuana.
The high life came to an end
on Dec. 11 when the feds raided the group's stash house, an apartment
in the 4600 block of Loughborough. There police came across Ronnie A.
Nelson, 74 pounds of Jane, two full plastic bags of pot and two
almost-empty bags with broccoli residue (Haaaaa!!!--JS) next to the toilet.
Murderin' mamas and blow
dealin' ya steeze? / For 82 cents, you can peep felonies / 'Cause the
Whirl's jackin' hard in the Capital of Crime / They gon' pop caps in
the 'Lou's sewer slime. Next time you on tha road and you pass up tha
'Lou, pick up a Whirl at a 7/11 near you. Chuch.
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