Gone postal: After reading the letters in the August 8 issue, I was semioutraged enough by the complainers that I felt the need to add my opinion. I think the Pitch is a refreshing, insightful and amusing newspaper, and the fact that it’s free adds to its charm. So a writer played a tasteless joke on its readers, who haven’t…
We hear that funny-business kingpin Stanford Glazer wants to be Kansas City’s mayor, but so far he’s not saying so in front of an open mic. “I’m concerned about our town, and I’m just looking around, considering a lot of things right now,” says Glazer. He’s the father of junior comedy kingpin Craig Glazer, whose own threats to run for…
At the first of this month, Kansas Senator Sam Brownback sat through two days of hearings on whether the U.S. should attack Iraq. A ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Brownback heard testimony from a Desert Storm general, a United Nations weapons inspector, Ronald Reagan’s secretary of defense and Bill Clinton’s national security advisor, among others, all of which…
Steve Kilgore’s idea came to him one morning in 1987, when his pager suddenly vibrated on the coffee table, disturbing his wife, who had long suffered menstrual cramps. “You son of a bitch!” she snapped, according to Kilgore. “All you ever think about is your job.” Kilgore, a regional manager for a cable communications company, glanced toward his wife in…
Jury: Predicts 3 percent annual growth in revenues and occupancy for downtown hotels Economic Development Corporation head Andi Udris: Cites a 6.5 percent decline in downtown occupancy (not including the Phillips, which is underperforming) Jury: Says the President will have a market value of $106,000 a room Kansas City, Missouri, Finance Department: Says no downtown or Crown Center hotel has…
Alice Everest has been a proud Eagle for thirty years, and like the most dedicated of her compatriots, she wears that pride on her chest. Specifically, she wears a brown shirt that’s emblazoned with an eagle. Her earrings have eagles on them, too. Beads hang from the eagle-rings. It’s an unimaginably sweltering August afternoon, and Everest does her best to…
Now that Webster’s Restaurant (see review) is helping to lure suburban diners, is it finally time for a restaurant renaissance downtown? The Dallas-based real estate firm Simbol Commercial is crossing its corporate fingers. The company’s Rick Williamson hopes that a local or national restaurant operator will want to open a dining room in the Fidelity Tower, a 35-story building at…
I know only a handful of women who don’t have careers. Even the ones who stay home with their kids don’t wear white gloves and hats to “take lunch.” But at the height of America’s sexual revolution in the late 1960s, there was something wickedly fun about mocking bored suburban housewives and their long, lingering lunches at the country…
Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s Kandahar feels like a documentary. The movie’s main character is a journalist who speaks simultaneously into the camera and into her Dictaphone. Background noise often muffles dialogue, and awkward silences provide punctuation. But Kandahar — set in 1999 — is not a documentary; it feels that way because it’s so closely linked to current events…
Argentine tango and Kansas City seem an unlikely match. But in just a couple of years, the two have become quite compatible, says tango enthusiast Korey Ireland, chief instigator of a series of tango classes through August 29 at the Midtown School of Dance. “At events like Fedora’s Wednesday-night dances with the band Tango Lorca, there are probably 100-150 people,”…
Up to a certain point, Paul Marino’s story is a familiar one, especially to any single guy in his 20s who likes playing with his joystick. Four years ago, Marino and his pals would leave their offices on a Friday night and go to another friend’s workplace, where they’d play Quake, the enduring first-person shoot-’em-up video game, till the sun…
The alley that runs parallel to Massachusetts Street between Eighth and Ninth streets in Lawrence is splotched with gray paint. It’s as if a city worker picked up the wrong bucket, then accidentally splashed gray patches on top of the cream-colored walls. But artist Molly Murphy tells a different story. The workers are covering up stickers and posters that she…
“I have goals for the future, but I’m not really attached to them. It’s one of the interesting things I’ve learned over the last year. It’s called detaching yourself from the outcome of things. It doesn’t mean don’t set goals. It means just don’t be so attached to them.”— Tony Gonzalez, ESPN GH: Is this some kind of new California…
The Kansas State football program is embroiled in one of the nastiest fights in its history — and it has nothing to do with who’s going to start as quarterback. The battle is between radio teams as two veteran announcers part company and set up competing broadcast booths. Two play-by-play broadcasts are planned for K-State’s opener against Southern Cal on…
The sad-eyed, tough, lovable-seeming canines on Dog House Music’s cover provide the perfect visual representation of Gary Primich’s gritty, junkyard-graceful harmonica work and Waitsian woof, especially the way his baritone fades into a throaty growl at the end of phrases. Like a lonesome stray, Primich knows the importance of howling till the hurting’s gone. Primich himself has been forced to…
Florence Dore is a literate singer/songwriter. Let the record show that this phrase is being used carefully, because 1) it implies that singer/songwriter types tend not to be particularly literate, and 2) it might turn off a large portion of Dore’s potential fanbase, who’d respond to that adjective with a snort and a “la-de-da.” But Dore comes by it honestly…
After listening to the Topdog/Underdog soundtrack, one can’t help but have a better understanding of the black man’s long struggle in America. In Suzan-Lori Park’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, hip-hop and blues tracks add tension to the story of two brothers in search of their identities. The stage show, which just ended its acclaimed run on Broadway, starred Mos Def and…
Miles Bonny is one of the area’s truly enigmatic artists, issuing music under a variety of aliases and assumed names that make his presence heard, if rarely seen. Bonny’s latest hour-long solo coaster ride, Dino Jack Crispy, merges jagged rhythms, odd bird noises and an occasional freestyle. On the most accessible track, “Words Are Cheap,” Bonny delivers a flowing mantra…
Linkin Park’s people — its publicists in particular, but its fans as well — would like you to know that Linkin Park is not like those other meathead, nü-metal outfits, the ones we’ve all been mocking for three years running. Linkin Park’s members, they’ll tell you, are different, man! They’re hip-hop dudes at heart! Now, we’re going to set aside,…
Allison Moorer is one of the finest singers and songwriters working in Nashville today, a claim easily supported by her powerful new album Miss Fortune. Both her lush, groove-goosed arrangements and her husky, humid vocals (she reminds some folks of what Cher would’ve sounded like had the diva grown up in Alabama and taken singing seriously) mark Moorer as a…
Back when it wasn’t uncommon to see an actual music video on MTV, much less a video from someone who’s not exactly photogenic, it was impossible not to grin at Tom Petty’s clips. There was “Into the Great Wide Open,” where miniature Heartbreakers and a relatively monstrous Petty narrated the story of rebel-without-a-clue Eddie as portrayed by Johnny Depp; “Runnin’…
In an era dominated by radio-ready remixes of ’80s hits, the Roots’ commitment to improvisation and musicianship provided hip-hop with a life-sustaining breath of fresh air. With that goal accomplished, members of the Roots have started to resurrect other forgotten elements of soul’s glorious past. ?uestlove gets the ball rolling with his new disc, Babies Makin’ Babies, a collection of…
In generations past, Detroit was synonymous with substantive, if sometimes saccharine, soul music. Currently, the Motor City stands for overly indulgent, though mildly addictive, rap-rock, garage-punk blues and urban decay. The Detroit Cobras isn’t a motorcyle gang patrolling the city’s crime-riddled streets; it’s a band that brings divergent musical worlds together. It all starts with lead singer and former exotic…
With a surname like Keys, young Alicia was obligated to become either a locksmith or a piano player. At the age of seven, she opted for the latter, practicing religiously and writing her first song, “Butterflyz,” at age fourteen. Six years later, she included that composition on her debut album Songs in A Minor, which combines her classical, jazz…
