The Prairie Dogg finds the dirt on squatting rats, high tide at “The Sal” and going on a Titanic beer run with Steve Twigger of Gaelic Storm. PD: So do you travel by plane, bus or rickshaw? ST: It’s closer to the rickshaw. We have a fifteen-person passenger van that gets us most places, although it seems a rat has…
The beginning of the end began at the end of another blurry night. No different from the hundreds of other blurry nights in the hundreds of smoky dives in hundreds of towns and cities all over the world. Except this was part one of the requiem. Ah, fuck it. This isn’t Oliver Twist. And no, you whiny little bastard, you…
It was approximately 3:30 a.m. I was sitting in my parents’ basement loading my father’s Hank Williams Jr.’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 CD into my brand-new Dell MP3 player when I realized that my Christmas gift may completely ruin my life. The Dell player is basically a clone of Apple’s iPod, which was far from being first on the market…
It might be a tall order, but what country music really needs these days is a savior. Somebody who’ll grab Nashville by the nape of its perfectly aligned neck and breathe an old-fashioned, whiskey-tinged kiss of life between the Gucci-wearin’, bottled-water-drinkin’ lips of country music. Shelton Hank Williams III ain’t gonna be that guy. At least that’s what the…
At times, there appears to be a good movie struggling to get out from within The Perfect Score. The heist genre has been in dire need of a fresh twist for some time, and substituting misfit high school students for the usual ex-cons, and the SAT answers for the loot, is a nifty idea. The heist itself is nicely filmed,…
Surf’s up. Palm trees sway invitingly in the breeze. The sparkling beaches are amply decorated with bikini babes and surfer dudes. Everybody has a cold drink with a wedge of fresh lime in it. Seen that way, The Big Bounce is as alluring a midwinter pitch for the glories of Hawaii as any tourist board or chamber of commerce could…
Go Westport, young man: Regarding Walter Klammer’s letter about Jim Grow (January 8): My biggest bitch is the statement of the airport displacement and that there is at least an opportunity for fairness. Bullshit! Local politicians know in advance about definite development and therefore buy up property in advance (through someone else or by speculation investment if bought far enough…
What do you do if you’re the mayor and all over town, people are grousing because rich developers are getting a cut of tax dollars intended to benefit folks who ride buses? If you’re Kay Barnes, you go Hollywood! Why is Kay resorting to the boob tube? Well, despite the Pitch’s warning before November’s election (Casey Logan’s “Busted,” October…
New year, new Kansas City government scandal. Call it the Great Housing Crisis of 2004. Just before the close of 2003, the city announced that its Department of Housing and Community Development was $5.7 million in the hole. By committing to projects that weren’t backed up by federal dollars, the city had done the equivalent of writing checks for more…
From the moment he took the call from Wolverine Willie, Jason Whitlock’s substantial finger should have been poised to hang up. Only a couple of weeks earlier, Willie, a frequent caller to sports-talk radio shows, had been banned from Jim Rome’s Jungle for one of his signature parody songs. Rome and many of his followers thought the tune was anti-Semetic,…
We must rescind our previous statement about how much we hate New Year’s Eve, because we just spent a kick-ass one in Washington, D.C. We met up with friends from our White House-intern days (and, no, neither of them is named Monica) and rang in the new year at Buffalo Billiards, a great, low-key bar near Dupont Circle. Our previously…
Several years ago, George Brett was dining at Chappell’s Restaurant and Sports Museum (323 Armour Road) with a friend who came out of the men’s room and loudly announced, “Guess what — your picture is right above the urinal!” Actually, it’s a framed LeRoy Neiman print of Brett, and no insult was intended by the placement of the lithograph. It…
In 1935, after he had lost much of his boxing fortune in the Wall Street crash of 1929, Jack Dempsey — the former heavyweight champion of the world — opened a restaurant in New York City. Located on Broadway between 49th and 50th streets, the unpretentious place lasted almost forty years and set the tone for later restaurants owned…
FRI 1/23 Whoever said “It’s all been done before” never got to see the YoungBlood Brass Band combine a horn line with hip-hop. LL Cool J brought rap and acoustic rock together when he played MTV’s Unplugged back in the day, and, yeah, the Roots cornered the market on hip-hop and live instrumentation, but nobody had the nerve to bring…
1/22-2/28 Once upon a time, we would have said that artist Peregrine Honig could stand to branch out. That criticism is officially no longer valid. Honig, whose watercolors of nubile lasses have earned her fame, presents an exhibit at the Byron Cohen Gallery (2020 Baltimore) that includes some of her trademark watercolors, a handful of forest-themed lithographs (including a…
1/23-1/25 Without a doubt, Sesame Street must stand as the most utopian place in the world, right? In the words of the Yup-Yups, the answer can only be, “Yup, yup, yup, yup, yup, yup, yup, yup.” That’s partly because they know only one other expression, but it’s true nevertheless. Sure, there’s a furry blue guy with an insatiable cookie…
SAT 1/24 Lawyers, mechanics and computer technicians: They all make money by learning specialized skills and then extorting the masses. Some use their talent for good, others for evil. This Saturday, lawyers from twelve firms donate their extemporaneous-speaking skills to the forces of good. In the American Cancer Society¹s Barrister Bowl, they will attempt to entertain rather than convince the…
SAT 1/24 So the Chiefs aren’t going to the Super Bowl. How does one begin to exorcise the sting? How about comfort food and roof-raising? The Kansas City Clay Guild offers up both for a mere $20 donation at a shindig its members have dubbed their First Annual Souper Bowl of Chili from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday at the…
Picture Robert Johnson: a solitary figure out on the crossroads, just before midnight, waiting to meet the devil so he can trade his soul for the ability to play guitar. Now forget all that, because it’s a load of crap. Elijah Wald, author of Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues, will tell you that to…
Thursday, January 22, 2004 It’s hard to find time to do yoga in these hectic modern times. In the Road Runner commercial, that one totally hot lady saves ten minutes a day just by getting a high-speed Internet connection, then uses that time to sit on a mat and take deep breaths. Which is fine for her, but if…
“It resurfaced OK, but it was an unwieldy device,” Owen says as he gazes nostalgically upon a precursor to the Zamboni in No Sleep Till Madison. He’s explaining the contraption to Dave, a teenager who’s videotaping his mentor’s annual trip to watch high school hockey playoffs with former teammates. This great throwaway line arguably describes the film itself. On the…
It’s winter break and all is well. Bedtime looms on the horizon as kids pile into the children’s bookstore that smart parents choose (also known as the Reading Reptile) for an 8 p.m. show. Among the smattering of older people are lots of teenagers. They’re not the teenagers you see on TV. Their hair is dyed pink or clumped together…
On its fourth album, Lamb displays a flair for juxtaposing disparate rhythm elements while maintaining ambient flow, most strikingly on “Angelica,” where an eerie, melodic piano settles into a rhythm with drums united by a keyboard bass line. The playful experimentation allows the instruments to mesh even as the song sounds disjointed — until your ears adjust and your mind…
Bald, bearded guru to Brighton, England’s hip-hop scene, Req is a uniquely odd figure. A self-taught artist and musician, he has participated in every aspect of hip-hop, but he’ll probably be remembered as one of the strangest producers of this music ever. Car Paint Scheme, compiled by Skint Records boss Damian Harris, for whom Req recorded his first two albums,…
