When a Wyandotte County jail guard hands a new female inmate two threadbare bras and two pairs of frayed panties previously worn by dozens of women, reality sinks in: Crime doesn’t pay, and neither does the Unified Government when it comes to new underwear for the accused. The jail recycles inmates’ underwear to prevent panty envy from escalating to theft…
Jessica Brake returned to the Kansas City, Kansas, party house after receiving a phone call about the girl she’d left behind. “You need to come back and get Nicole (not her real name),” the caller said. “They’re messing her up bad.” As Jessica waited in the driveway, she glimpsed a stranger stumbling among a group of teenagers in the front…
While it’s news that Tasty Thai has opened out in the Northland’s burgeoning suburbs, Kansas City’s historic Northeast area has been the center for Southeast Asian cuisine for some time. One of the city’s best-known Vietnamese restaurants, the Kim Nguyen Deli, operated for more than a decade at 522 Campbell. The corner building is now home to the Vietnam Cafe…
I don’t mind traveling to get a really good dinner. And when the goal is excellent Thai food, I’m conditioned to head south into Johnson County. The same little suburban communities that twenty years ago were home to the city’s dullest restaurants now offer a United Nations of choices, including some of the best Thai restaurants in town: the…
8 Thursday In a Brooklyn neighborhood where stray cars are taken in more often than stray cats, a young Eddie Lama, the subject of the documentary The Witness, went from cat sitter to cat lover to vegetarian to animal rights activist. Despite the fact that his cat-sitting experience was sparked more by a desire to get to know the…
Retro lounge culture still grips the nation. The martini craze shows no sign of disappearing, and independent films like Swingers and Croupier have racked up sizable profits while their progenitor, the Rat Pack classic Oceans 11, is being refashioned for Brad, Julia and Matt. Though most of the Rat Pack is gone, two performers endure who didn’t make that…
When Shifra Stein was hired as the first female entertainment reporter at The Kansas City Star in the 1970s, it was as much for her scrappy attitude as for her writing skills. Outspoken and frank, she once noted in a restaurant review that the food in one eatery “tastes as bad going down as it did coming back up.”…
I’ve been looking so long at these pictures of you that I almost believe that they’re real. Those are the opening words of The Cure’s “Pictures of You,” and they set the perfect mood for Patrick Marber’s Closer at the Unicorn Theatre, where several scene changes are scored to the band’s dark and lovelorn anthems. The line is also…
Lately, “modern jazz” has become a euphemism for either the overproduced imagemongers who have gained a firm grip on the commercial end of the FM dial or the often incoherent ambient ramblings of amateurs. Real artists such as bassist/composer Ben Allison rarely receive recognition outside the constrained circles of connoisseurs and aficionados. Riding the Nuclear Tiger, Allison’s fourth studio effort…
Back in the day, Shuggie Otis’ Inspiration Information must have sounded almost-but-not-quite weird. That would explain why next to nobody bought it when it was released in 1974 — and why it has since become a cult favorite. The album is now remembered (well, at least by its publicity campaign) as a lost soul classic, but it’s more like a…
At hardcore and metal shows, mosh-pit activity accelerates as the pace of the songs slows, a correlation that seems to defy logic. However, there’s a reasonable explanation for this phenomenon: It’s physically impossible to thrash along with the stampeding beats of the genre’s finest drummers, and the breakdowns’ focused power allows listeners to move at a comfortable pace, stomping and…
Rod Stewart’s Human bears an ironic title, given that the title cut that leads off the album sounds like the great rock rooster demoing a Christina Aguilera song. Robotic backing beats skitter underfoot while Stewart (whose vocals are produced separately on some songs) mechanically rattles off his lines. It would be surprising if he memorized enough of the shallow lyrics…
“There’s another band playing I forgot to tell you about,” says a breathless Richie Restivo, who has just reeled off a list of participants for Stand Against the Hand II, his second annual benefit concert for the Kansas City battered women’s shelter Hope House. “They are called When Good Robots Go Bad.” Actually, this whole benefit could be billed When…
In a city with a rich jazz history and an impressive pool of current players, it’s easy to lose perspective, to forget that the musicians who play in local jazz clubs could tour the nation instead of remaining in Kansas City. During his travels, Pat Morrissey drew rave reviews, such as the high praise he received from Bernard Jacoby, the…
It wasn’t long after I first moved to the great state of Kansas that I realized nearly everyone had a Kansas story. Not the “I was once in a tornado in Dodge City” variety, either — I mean once-removed tales, such as “my dad played drums with Kerry Livgren” or “my aunt dated David Hope in high school.” Even now,…
Doubtless, this isn’t the first article about Spoon to feature the above headline, and it probably won’t be the last. Not only is the music press repeating this punny Soundgarden nod, but it also has been discussing Spoon’s freshly released Girls Can Tell in universally glowing terms. Critics have nearly unanimously asserted that this record was worth the wait (the…
On her 1985 debut, Step Into the Light, Patty Larkin hinted at the wit that would flower on subsequent albums with a song called “Caffeine.” A few years later, the mortgage attorney she met to hammer out her home purchase offered her coffee, asking whether she’d had enough caffeine. It took Larkin a moment to understand that he was slyly…
Van Gogh was a lunatic who cut off his ear. Picasso was a self-absorbed cur who abused women. Warhol turned out to be a weird, desperate loner, Basquiat a doomed junkie. Try as he might, shriveled little Toulouse-Lautrec failed miserably at romance. As for El Greco’s explosive affair with that Spanish firecracker … Have we missed anybody? If you’re…
With In the Mood for Love, Wong Kar-wai solidifies his stature as the subtlest and most idiosyncratic of Hong Kong directors. In an industry best known for its accessible, crowd-pleasing comedies and action films, Wong has turned out a series of increasingly risky dramas that make little or no concession to the most obvious elements of popular taste. His…
Director John Herzfeld’s 1996 feature, the droll and underrated 2 Days in the Valley, was a more than adequate counterbalance to the catastrophe of his first feature, Two of a Kind, a 1983 John Travolta vehicle that, together with Moment by Moment, put its star on the fast track from superstardom to obscurity. Now Herzfeld is back with 15…
“I didn’t think I got a chance to prove who I was. The thing I would like to know is why…. I thought Carl and I were closer, but he had to do what he had to do. When it was done it really sent me out to lunch, and we haven’t spoken since.”— Gunther Cunningham, on being fired by…
The Big 8/12 Basketball Tournament has called Kansas City home since 1947. That is going to change in 2003, when the event heads to Dallas’ new $350 million downtown arena. Why would the Big 12 Conference flush more than fifty years of tradition down the Texas pipeline? The answer is because Texans swagger and Kansas Citians stagger. The unofficial Texas…
Swing Time Out and about: I was disappointed in Deb Hipp’s article about swingers at Tootsie’s (“Body Snatchers,” February 22). I fear that Ms. Hipp’s prejudice and use of generalizations will only fuel an environment of mistrust in the club. Until recently, Tootsie’s was one of the few clubs in Kansas City that played a good mix of dance music….
Director’s cut: January’s drama featuring mayor Kay Barnes as a skinflint more worried about fountains than Kansas City’s bustling movie industry already has a March sequel. Apparently, the Kansas City Film Office might not shut down after all if the City Council approves a scheme to turn it over to private funders after keeping it alive for one more year….
