I met Mac Dre the day after he got out of prison in 1996. By that time, he was already a Bay Area folk hero, and I was assigned to write a cover story on him for 4080 Magazine. We hung out with Dre’s mother, Wanda Salvatto (aka Mac Wanda), at her crib in Vallejo, California. We laughed a lot,…
A week and a half after the Arcade Fire’s triumphant appearance at New York’s CMJ Music Marathon — a four-day stint that included packed shows, a flattering profile in The New York Times and, reportedly, major-label interest — the band’s Win Butler and Régine Chassagne are way the hell up in Bar Harbor, Maine, hiding out at Butler’s parents’ house,…
Oh, that Johnny Depp. Played in some dime-a-dozen rock bands, did some average television, made a few cutesy little movies. Whatever. The guy’s popular, but so’s toilet paper. Easy, ladies — put the pins back in the grenades; just kidding there. Depp is the finest screen actor of his generation — possibly of our time — and his penchant for…
Margo Channing cracked wiser. And her devious protégée cooked up better schemes to steal the limelight. Still, half a century after they lit up the screen, the principals in All About Eve would likely get a charge out of Being Julia. Actually, the new movie’s origins predate the Bette Davis-Anne Baxter classic. Set in London in 1938, Julia derives from…
If you’ve ever gone line dancing with a gaggle of amputees on crank and hallucinogens, you’ll recognize the feeling engendered by viewing Alexander. This broad, bold, ambitious film by Oliver Stone presents itself as a fairly straightforward endeavor, but its rhythms quickly go strange, and its participants hobble and flail out of synch for nearly three hours. The movie frequently…
Marriage is so gay: C.J. Janovy’s “Behind the Veil” ( Janovy, November 18 ) epitomizes a major problem in the gay community: Not enough gays and lesbians understand how important it is to win the right to marry. Many public and private employers provide medical coverage to the spouses of their employees, but most employers do not provide coverage to…
The Islamic Society of Greater Kansas City maintains a Web site that lists KC-area mosques, helps local Muslims find jobs and explains the Quran to curious non-Muslims. It also maintains a guestbook, in which visitors can leave messages for the site’s administrators. What follows is a sampling of those messages. Where is the prayer time list? Assalam-alai-kum. This is a…
Paul Thomas, the owner of Justrite Stamp and Seal Company at 1301 Grand Boulevard, expected to feel insulted. On November 15, Thomas got an offer from the city of Kansas City, Missouri, for the land where Justrite has stood since 1959. The city wants the parcel to accommodate the Sprint Center, the new arena to be built using the proceeds…
The Strip wants to report an alien abduction. No, this meat patty didn’t see strange lights in the sky or witness the kidnapping of a human being by space-hopping, big-eyed, bulbous-headed, anal-probe-wielding extraterrestrials. We didn’t actually see the subject of the abduction get carried off. But we’re sure it happened all the same. And here’s the irrefutable evidence. Subject name:…
Raymond Borkholder lounges placidly on a vinyl chair in a clinic that looks like a dungeon crossed with a 1970s condo. Chains dangle from the ceiling above rows of similar recliners. Medical tape binds Borkholder’s arm to slabs of orange foam. Hanging from the chain above him is a glass bottle filled with an amber liquid the consistency of…
Alcohol is our anti-drug, and on the gloomy, rainy day after the election, we needed plenty of it. We got an early start on our own returns when the Night Ranger bosses took the staff out for some consolation drinks around 4:30. Afterward, we headed to Buzzard Beach, which hosts Cinderella Wednesdays. From 3 until midnight, while DJs Steve Tulipana…
Sometimes I eat out strictly for pleasure. That means I don’t have to force myself to be keenly observant, completely cognizant and acutely aware of all the little details that go into writing a restaurant review. In other words, I stop thinking. And when that happens, the strangest things sometimes pop into my mind. Like song lyrics. I was eating…
If I eat one more chocolate dessert, my face is going to look like one of the balloon-head figures in a Fernando Botero painting. I once read an interview in which the Colombian-born artist recalled being so poor that he survived by eating “painter’s soup” — a cheap concoction of chicken innards, chopped onion and water. Botero said it rarely…
FRI 11/19 Playwright Rick Schweikert had taken a break from his craft. But then he discovered something so alarming that he had to get back to work. And still, even after multiple nationwide performances of Un Becoming, he says, “I can’t believe I’d ever write a play about hysterectomies.” Un Becoming explores the medical establishment’s propensity toward unnecessary hysterectomies, focusing…
THU 11/18 That rush we coffee snobs feel isn’t from our fourth venti mocha of the day but rather from anticipating Tim Wendelboe’s arrival. The current World Champion Barista and three-time reigning Norwegian Barista champion, Wendelboe has climbed the caffeinated mountain and come back down bearing the secrets of great espresso, which he shares Thursday at LattéLand (4771 Jefferson). From…
MON 11/22 Joe Cahn, self-proclaimed Commissioner of Tailgating, returns in his 40-foot RV stocked with homemade jambalaya to hold a tailgating party for (and to shamelessly devour the barbecue of) Chiefs fans in the parking lot at 1 Arrowhead Drive before the Chiefs-Pats game on Monday. Call 303-665-4200. — Jason Harper Courting KU Don’t knock the rock chalk. FRI 11/19…
FRI 11/19 A few words and phrases invariably make us think of hopelessly gauche fashions. There’s wearable art, usually a creative way of saying “overpriced tie-dye,” and edible clothing, which unpleasantly evokes digestible underwear. Kansas City metalsmith Robyn Nichols displays art we can wear and clothes we can eat at A:MAZE: An Exhibition of Silver, Sugar and Horsepower Friday at…
Getting a cease-and-desist order from a personal-lubricant manufacturer might be a sign that your life has gone horribly wrong. For Astroglyde, it was only a slight inconvenience. When Astroglide, the lube company, put the kibosh on its stage name, Astroglyde the slippery DJ duo came up with a quick fix. Now known as Astro (Gaby Dershin) & Glyde (James Bem),…
Thursday, November 18 We love that South Park episode in which Mr. Garrison tries to get fired for being gay. He brings in a new assistant, Mr. Slave, and performs acts in class that make the students uncomfortable — such as introducing Lemmiwinks, a gerbil, to Mr. Slave’s intestines … the hard way. The boys complain to their parents, who…
When we visit the set, there’s only one week left before the hip-hop musical Living the Dream is scheduled to begin, and director Natasha Brown’s cast of young actors is full of energy. Maybe too much energy. Between takes of a lengthy dance routine, the performers (ages 14 to 22) are still bouncing off the walls exuberantly. The matronly director…
Daddy Says Good art and art that you want to hang above your sofa are not the same thing. The work in Lori Raye Erickson’s solo show Daddy Says is a case in point. Are the two paintings of injured women — the first reading “Mommy Fell” and the second adding “Again” — good? Yes. But in spite of…
Amelia Bedelia Over the course of thirty Amelia Bedelia books, author Peggy Parish put her titular housekeeper in the employ of various dotty families. The domestic’s most notable trait is her literal, concrete take on the world; she’s the kind of person who, when told to strike a match, hits one with a hammer. For Theatre for Young America’s production,…
Some people just aren’t very nice to the KJHK Waxclash. They steal the annual DJ battle’s lunch money. They diss its mother, give it charlie horses and derisively call it the “Wackclash.” Ah, but as long as people still show up to the event, those B-boy bullies will always get theirs in the end. The competition has been plagued in…
Ja Rule’s last outing, the Christmas 2003 quickie Blood in My Eye, was so terrible that he deserves credit simply for showing up a year later — and even more credit for realizing that Blood’s raw, mix-tape-style format did his pedestrian rhymes a grave disservice. Reloaded with plentiful pop hooks, high-profile guests (R. Kelly, Jadakiss) and the gravelly croon Ja…
