Toss-up: What’s the better George Michael-affiliated seasonal tune — “Last Christmas” or “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” The former expresses the Wham crooner’s dismay at having his heart regifted; the latter unites him with charity-song staples such as Bono and Sting. Through clumsily expressed sentiments (Thank God it’s them instead of you), these well-wishers implore listeners to feed the…
Nashville Star, which airs later this year on the USA cable network, will follow the trials and tribulations of ten young country-music hopefuls chosen to relocate to the titular Tennessee city. In this cutthroat hoedown at a Big Brother-esque ranch, the participants will work with industry insiders and compete for a recording contract with Sony Music. Before all that,…
Last issue, we listed the year’s hundred best albums. This week, we present the top fifty songs, the individual standout tracks that would make our dream radio playlist. 1 Eminem “Lose Yourself,” from 8 Mile (Shady/Interscope) Nothing courts legitimacy like a starring role in a major motion picture, and mainstream pundits fell over themselves putting Eminem’s place card at the…
It’s easy to presume About Schmidt isn’t much of a movie, because its protagonist, Warren Schmidt, isn’t much of anything. As portrayed by Jack Nicholson, Schmidt looks like someone who used to be Jack Nicholson. This Schmidt, this rinky-dink actuary banished to the wasteland of retirement, can’t possibly be the same man who was once George Hanson, Jake Gittes,…
Sentimental favorite: Regarding C.J. Janovy’s “Sentimental Journeys” (Kansas City Strip, December 19): I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed this article and her previous articles. At least someone else in this city is sane enough to see through the BS that is Kansas City government and waste throughout the nation. Scott Strausbaugh Prairie Village Size It Up A…
The week before Christmas, children swarmed the giant toy playland under the Mayor’s Christmas Tree, mesmerized themselves watching a mechanical Santa behind glass and piled up outside the windows of the fudge factory inside Crown Center. At the Hallmark Gold Crown store, though, a few 6-inch plastic teddy bears sat forlornly on the discount table. Trained Bear (decorated like a…
Something was weird in Courtroom B. The dingy caverns at the Kansas City Municipal Courthouse usually feel like bus-station lobbies, where low-road travelers sit around on plastic benches waiting for tickets to drug treatment or traffic school or, sometimes, jail. No one’s mother seems to have told them to shave or wash their hair or wear something besides baggy pants…
Last month, Kansas City Councilman Ed Ford took a sober look at the city’s outdated liquor code and then ordered up a new law. Ford and his council colleague Teresa Loar had heard complaints about late-night bars’ disrupting residential areas. “When I checked with the city where 3 a.m. bars are allowed, to my surprise, they were allowed everywhere,”…
As if the blow job he enjoyed in a park — and the trip to jail he earned for getting it — weren’t enough exposure for Robert Rowe, he has decided to tell his story to the Kansas Supreme Court. Rowe had just zipped up his pants when a Johnson County park ranger found him with another man in a…
