The Priceless is right: The first time I read”Ask the Boss Bitch,” I figured it was too good to last. The woman is smart, hip and hilarious. I’m a white man in my late forties but found myself agreeing with the Boss Bitch on nearly everything. I will certainly still read the Pitch to find out what’s going on about…
This week’s crush, by the numbers: 12 Number of years that Beth Guinta has been sewing (and boy, are her hands tired). 60 Hand-sewn, Vargas-pinup-inspired, curvaceous and film-noir-sexy dresses in Guinta’s closet. 2 Items Beth Guinta won’t make for herself but buys new: sweaters and shoes, which are always high heels. 2 Piercings in Guinta’s nose. 150 Dreadlocks on…
Ezekiel Rubottom became a late-night punch line last July when the former meth addict and hip-hip MC misplaced his recently amputated foot. Rubottom had been storing it on a porch in a 5-gallon bucket of formaldehyde. Lawrence five-oh, thinking it may have been evidence of a crime, seized the foot temporarily. After becoming national news, Rubottom spent a year traveling…
A couple of weeks ago, the Strip took a road trip to Topeka to watch the sentencing of disgraced Westar Energy big shots David Wittig and Douglas Lake. What a spectacle! There was the sight of Wittig, former Master of the Universe, entering the courtroom wearing orange prison togs and ankle cuffs. The defendants’ loved ones clutched Kleenex and cursed…
More than 2,000 people gathered at Ilus W. Davis Park north of City Hall in Kansas City, Missouri, last week to call attention to immigration issues and to protest legislation in Congress. See photos here. Categories: News Tags: kansas city, missouri, News Story
Seventy-four-year-old Stan Glazer climbs atop an avocado-green ’66 Lincoln Continental with suicide doors. He and his 38-year-old wife, Lori, seat themselves high on the Lincoln’s rear end, feet dangling into the backseats, and prepare to surf the Brookside St. Patrick’s Day parade. “Is this how Truman did it?” Glazer says and laughs. Three years ago, Glazer lost his bid for…
George Jones is one of this local blogger’s heroes. There’s a new old kid on the blogging block. His name’s David Cantwell and his blog is called Living in Stereo. Check it out. Cantwell is a local English teacher and he’s also a senior editor at No Depression, the classy, nationally distributed country, rock and alt-country mag. Actually, Cantwell’s site…
Things are better in Abelene. I’m home sick today, beaten down by the clouds of oak pollen lumbering about in the air outside, and being thus disconnected from the local scene here in my convalescence (and not a little prone to narcissism when under the weather), I’m going to talk about myself. Ladies and gentlemen, I have been cited. Not…
King Freddie My will is broken. I have just spent over an hour watching the commercials people sent in to 98.9 the Rock in hopes of winning $20,000 and getting their creation on TV. There are a whopping 300+ commercials on the site as of today. I watched, I don’t know, I quit keeping track after the 19th one I…
Remember that badass hip-hop open-mic showdown I wrote about a couple weeks ago? Of course you do, suckas. Well, tonight is Round 2 of that event, called Tell It 2 Da Mic, hosted by the very large and very genial F.L.O. and starting at 8 p.m. at the Vietnam Veterans Hall at 30th and Walnut. It’s too late to sign…
I’m still struggling to reclaim my honor after telling everyone that the Happy Mondays were going to play the Grand Emporium on Wednesday night, but the club’s owners won’t return my calls. Let me state for the record that when I called the office Wednesday afternoon, I made the receptionist go and ask her boss whether the Happy Mondays that…
Nine Black Alps. Well don’t I feel like a chump. Not only were the real Happy Mondays not booked to play the Grand Emporium last night (see yesterday’s entry), the band that was supposed to play – and canceled – was some band from Springfield-fucking-Missouri whose name no one has been able to tell me. I’ll post something here when…
Hip-hop heads shouldn’t be relegated to nachos and fries. That’s what Adrienne Luna, 24, and Adell Hendon, 27, have decided. The couple — he’s a dancer, server and photographer; she’s a manager at swank Piropos and a really great chef — have always dreamed of opening their own restaurant. But like most young couples, they lack the cash. They want…
Caved In: Prehistoric Terror (Lions Gate) The Dark (Sony) Death Cab for Cutie: Directions (Atlantic) Deep Blue (Miramax) Dora the Explorer: Dora’s First Trip (Paramount) 18 Fingers of Death (MCA) The Greatest Game Ever Played (Disney) Laugh or I’ll Shoot Collection: The Naked Gun, Airplane!, and Top Secret! (Paramount) The Merv Griffin Show: 40 of the Most Interesting People of…
With scrappy warblers like Kellie Pickler and Bucky Covington trying to out-twang each other on American Idol, country music is hotter than a corn dog at a county fair. One reason is that almost anybody can sing it. Even mopes who argue that NASCAR isn’t a real sport have been known to fall back on “The Gambler” when their…
Ellie Parker (Strand) This extremely raw portrait of an actress trying — and failing — to make it in Hollywood showcases Naomi Watts in a wrenching and sympathetic performance. Writer-director Scott Coffey shot the movie over nearly six years, beginning in 1999, before Watts was a household name. Though they filmed only between other projects, Ellie maintains its claustrophobic…
Black Snow Director Barry Kyle, UMKC’s big get from the Royal Shakespeare Company, follows up last winter’s thrillingly inventive Maid’s Tragedy with an adaptation of the Soviet satirist Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel Black Snow. It’s a snug thematic fit with the school’s recent adaptation of The Trial. Steeped in Eastern-bloc absurdism, the play — based on a novel about adapting a…
Blood Work When she was 7 months old, the daughter of Taiwanese artist Jawshing Arthur Liou was diagnosed with leukemia. Liou went on to document her struggle with the disease through the impressionistic images in these three video and sound installations. In “CBC” (an acronym for “complete blood count”), dreamy, soft-focus snowflakes fall while tiny people appear to run between…
In his open letter to America, Wisconsin artist Tom Jones revels in the difference between recognized history and history that’s ignored. Using archival postcards from a collection he began acquiring 16 years ago, Jones, a member of the Ho-Chunk Indian tribe, juxtaposes the familiar — the lyrics of “America (My Country, ‘Tis of Thee)” — with the well-documented but…
Why is Late Night Theatre, our homegrown specialist in pop-culture perversion, good only half the time? Certainly its members are a talented bunch, a clutch of smart, funny performers and craftspeople who — at their best — shake together Hollywood satire, chintzy drag glamour and bitchy wit in a cocktail that bubbles up with so many gags and allusions…
We all want to believe that, even in the most dangerous or frightening of situations, we would have the courage to stand up for our convictions — that we would not name names, that we would not betray our friends or our ideals. Thank God, most of us will never have the chance to find out. German college student…
If you’re craving a Buffalo Deluxe chicken sandwich, you’d better hurry to one of the metro’s 16 Popeye’s Chicken & Biscuits. In two weeks, the experimental sandwich will be pulled from local menus and officially evaluated at the chain’s Atlanta headquarters. “Kansas City is one of the Popeye’s test markets,” explains Jim Eddy, who owns — with his brother, Ned…
I wish I were the kind of person who just hopped in his car and drove to Lawrence for dinner. Lawrence isn’t so far away and it’s a pleasant drive. But the fact is, I’m not one of those spontaneous “let’s drive to Lawrence for dinner” people. I start developing a migraine at the idea of driving to Olathe,…
If its name is to be believed, One80 — the new drinkatorium in Westport — has made a complete turnaround. Considering that its space used to house Natural Wear and a short-lived burrito hut, we’d agree with its geometry-friendly moniker. We actually stopped by three times during the bar and restaurant’s inaugural week. During our first two visits, for the…
