The vet offensive: Regarding David Martin’s “War Games” (February 5): I feel that the funding needs to appear for this landmark. My father is a World War I historian who has been to Ypres and Passchendaele in Belgium and to Verdun, France — places where MILLIONS of British, French, Canadian and German 16- to 20-year-olds were killed in senseless slaughters….
The Strip wants to thank KCTV Channel 5 and its recent Internet pervert series for teaching this meat patty some important lessons. First, never believe a 14-year-old chat room skank who insists you won’t get in trouble for coming over and re-creating the money shots from your favorite porn download. Second, if you’re caught in a sting by a television…
Turner White, the president and CEO of Union Station, caught the eye of a well-wisher before a Kansas City, Missouri, City Council meeting in January. White and the man shook hands and shared a moment delighting in a front-page headline from the previous day. A dinosaur, The Kansas City Star had reported, was moving into Science City. Since opening…
The most hated judge in Kansas considers his words for a moment and then says, “I don’t know how to say this without sounding arrogant, and I don’t mean it that way.” But to hell with appearances. Judge Terry Bullock knows full well what led him to the hot seat he now finds himself in. “There are people who have…
With luv day (also known as VD) looming on the horizon, we’ve had just one thought as we’ve been subject to a barrage of red and pink floofy items in the most commercialized holiday since Christmas: Thank God we’re single. Not that we’re necessarily opposed to dating or smug coupledom, mind you, but we’re enjoying not being beholden to anyone…
Gary Worden was in the publishing business before he decided to open a restaurant in Parkville, the Argentine-style steakhouse, Piropos. Worden had parlayed his interest in diving and flying into two glossy magazines, the eleven-year-old Dive Training: The Monthly Magazine for New Divers and Their Instructors and Flight Training Magazine. He sold the latter publication to the Aircraft Owners and…
If there hadn’t already been a Kansas City saloon called Missie B’s (which isn’t named after a girl, by the way), actress Missy Koonce might have been tempted to name her new nightclub after herself. She wouldn’t have been the first show-business blonde to have taken that route. During the height of Prohibition in the 1920s, the brassy, Waco-born vaudeville…
SAT 2/14 If you were to don white leather chaps without the customary pantwear underneath, your ass would be hanging out like Janet Jackson’s right breast. Good thing Har Mar Superstar avoids such acts of indiscretion by wearing red briefs under his chaps. Underwear and a layer of sweat tend to be the only things clinging to Har Mar Superstar…
2/12- 2/15 Once upon a time, documentaries showed things that happened. They were lived, filmed and possibly narrated. Take one look at the films being screened at the True/False Film Festival this weekend in Columbia, and one thing becomes clear: Filmmakers aren’t following the rules. In Confederate States of America (3 p.m. Sunday), Lawrence filmmaker Kevin Willmott shows what the…
WED 2/17 Everyone loves crafts, especially kids. There’s nothing more satisfying than making a big mess and having something to show for it, especially if the product is a soft and cuddly little friend who speaks in a falsetto. On the other hand, those who have attempted to decorate with glitter know that nothing is worse than the constant sparkle…
DAILY Don’t head down the stairs to Raytown Recreation (10012 1/2 East 63rd Street) expecting bar food and dartboards to accompany your late-night session of billiards. The only recreation to be found in this basement pool hall comes in the form of ten tables, some balls and some cues. There are no coin-operated tables in this family-owned throwback. For $6.50…
THU 2/12 The Dominguez High School in Compton, California, is the kind of institution where, as student Ebony Norwood-Brown says in the new film, OT: Our Town, “everything comes out crappy or not at all.” What happens when the high school puts on Thornton Wilder’s Our Town as its first play in twenty years is the subject of Scott…
Bobby DuSoul has certain goals in mind when he makes a mix tape. Or, more specifically, a make-out mix tape. “You understand the scenario, right?” He asks. “You’re sitting at the bar, drinking Jack and talking, and then you leave the bar and maybe you end up in the same car. You’ve got a little space you’ve got to fill.”…
Thursday, February 12, 2004 Does it feel as if you’ve been going through the same motions day after day? Don’t get bummed. Focus on the Zenlike meditative qualities in your repetitive daily life. If that doesn’t make sense, go to the Spencer Museum of Art (1301 Mississippi Street on the University of Kansas campus in Lawrence) to appreciate the art…
“I like animals,” says Jeannot Painchaud, artistic director of Quebec’s Cirque Éloize “but not onstage.” With the big names in the U.S. circus industry under fire from animal-rights groups, Cirque Éloize (pronounced sir-kell-waz) shows what a circus looks like without lions, tigers and bears. Painchaud, one of the troupe’s founders, says audiences should recognize parts of a traditional circus,…
It was only a few days ago that Shane Carruth, software engineer-turned-filmmaker, was ready to walk away from the money on the table and keep his movie—78 minutes’ worth of cheapo celluloid that had, in a Utah instant, become as valuable as strands of gold. He had stopped answering his cell phone, stopped checking e-mails. He had stopped listening to…
Over wonder what happened to the Montagues and Capulets after Romeo and Juliet offed themselves? Me, neither. But I’m sure glad someone did. Playwright Sharman Macdonald, whose After Juliet is having its U.S. premiere at the Coterie Theatre, assumes that her mostly teen audiences have already absorbed Romeo and Juliet somewhere — if not in school then perhaps by…
Yeah, the name’s a spoonerism of town drunks. But we can forgive that. The music hits a pleasant, boozy stumble now and then, but these KC boys aren’t nearly as sloppy or as stupid as such a handle implies. In fact, Rock Incorporated is damn near tasteful, with jittery jangle-pop, mild alt-country seasoning and melodic lead lines that, thank God,…
The Bagsbys are completely cracked. And I love it. Few people will take Martian Love Call seriously, but it’s nevertheless fun to see the inmates running the asylum. In this case, it’s David and Steve Bagsby making “cartoon jazz” as the Snap-On Voles. It’s music that my five-year-old might love — if I had a five-year-old. But I’d be willing…
Usually we listen to local albums this religiously only when we have crushes on members of the band. In this instance, such crushes are lacking, but This Tyrant Is Free sounds so much like our favorite late-’90s indie rock — Pavement, Palace Brothers, the Halo Benders — that we’d listen to these guys even if they came from, like, Portland…
Kevin Jacks Band would sound perfect if you stumbled into it at a bar you’d never been to before. The band’s debut starts off mellow, with Lee’s Summit singer and guitarist Kevin Jacks revealing his more introspective Big Head Todd side, before things get dirtier. By the time “Free” hits and Jacks is yelling, I’m free to fuck whoever I…
Jangle rock peaked about two decades ago, but Based on a Blue Story is a nice reminder of why people liked it so much the first, second and third time around. This Kansas City five-piece is centered on the harmony vocals of songwriters John McKenna and Nick Nave, who channeled the dusty, sweet harmonies of the Jayhawks and the ’60s…
The biggest pain in the ass about jam bands is that they all classify themselves as unclassifiable. It’s a poker-faced proposition, particularly when a band ruthlessly plunders one style to feed another. But here’s a hint, folks: That tripping hippie on the dance floor knows the difference. With its debut indie release, Notorious B.A.G. , Brother Bagman borrows from the…
I watched Schizopolis this past weekend. I figured the movie would help me decipher the untold complexities of Namelessnumberheadman. The band is, after all, named after a character in the Steven Soderbergh film. What I got instead was a crotch shot of an escaped lunatic with no pants on. Score. This didn’t tell me much about Namelessnumberheadman, other than confirming…
