Kirsten Paludan knows pressure. She played Jesus Christ Superstar’s Mary Magdalene in Kansas, where people take biblical happenings somewhat seriously. She has performed Sheryl Crow tunes at the Holiday Inn on the Plaza, aware that the mammoth head of Crow’s former paramour Lance Armstrong, plastered to the American Century building across the street, could angrily have gone Pac-Man on her…
The wheel world: Regarding David Martin’s Kansas City Strip, “A Real Gas” (May 4): I lived and worked as a bartender in Westport for two years without a car. Kansas City does not care about residents who do not have vehicles. The ‘burbs want to separate themselves from urban residents. Service-industry people who get off work late at night do…
Some things actually improve with age — wine, whiskey, hunky TV newscasters. Back in the mid-1980s, WDAF Channel 4 anchor Bob Thill could have been the inspiration for the title character in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. Both men lorded over top-rated newscasts while sporting porn-star mustaches and perfectly coifed hair. But Thill, unlike the fictional Burgundy, had…
I’m betting that David Glass doesn’t do a damn thing. Let me clarify. I’m betting Glass won’t make any significant changes. It’s so clear what’s happening, we all should have known. I’ve been looking over statements made by Glass in the last several weeks and nowhere has he specifically said that Allard Baird is on the hot seat. It’s been…
Not Exactly Skinhead Spam Missouri state Rep. Maria Chappelle-Nadal paints with a broad brush. When a North Kansas City man sent her an e-mail encouraging lawmakers to crack down on illegal immigration, Chappelle-Nadal responded by accusing the sender of some serious hatin’. As in white supremacy. On May 4, Greg Montgomery, a multimedia technician who lives in North Kansas City,…
Coming Friday to a theater near you: Tom Hanks and a self-flagellating albino! Adapted for the screen from the best seller by Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code tells of an elaborate conspiracy by the Catholic Church to suppress dangerous information about its main man, Jesus. (Hint: The Carpenter wasn’t celibate.) Unable to get past page one of the book,…
Dennis Jonon lined up for his final race of the day at Grain Valley MX Park the same way he always does: crooked. He wore a red-and-yellow jumpsuit, a silver crash helmet and a three-digit number on the back of his uniform for identification. But most here recognized him by his posture. The 17-year-old from Spring Hill lined up…
KRS-One’s recent speech (documented on this blog) at KU had quite the impact on the local scene, or so it seems, judging by the activities organized by the ‘heads over at HipHopKC.com. Citing something called “The Ninth Overstanding,” forum “avatar” NRG (who is actually Necia Gamby, the mother of rapper Joe Good) at HHKC posts a list of activities that…
Today, I have no firsthand experiences to speak of, so I’m going to turn the wheel over to … Michael Douglas, star of firecracker Hollywood classics Romancing the Stone and Disclosure. “If you need a friend, get a dog.” Yo Kansas City, Michael Douglas here. I’ve been watching your hip-hop scene and comparing it with what’s going on in the…
When I told my coworkers today that I had met the guy who drives the ’80s sedan with the slogan “PENTECOSTAL CLUBBIN’ HIGH SOCIETY STYLE” emblazoned on the back windshield, I was met with blank stares. Didn’t surprise me — I’m the only person around here who knows what’s going on. (Yeah, all those bylines you see in the paper?…
FRIDAY Pin-Up Bowl They say this place is like the Empire Room, but with 12 bowling lanes. If that doesn’t draw you out to the Village West Legends complex in West WyCo like a winged roach to a 9-year-old girl’s cheek, then consider this: I will be there. $2 domestics and $3 wells will be there, too, along with bowling,…
This just in from Depeche Mode’s publicist! I don’t know about you, but in my book, “laryngitis” means “I got shit-hammered on my birthday (Dave’s was May 9), took a bunch of drugs, fell out of the first-story window of a stranger’s Super 8 motel room, wandered along the highway until I passed out, and was awakened by an armadillo…
John Brewer and Miles Bonny at the Blue Room I’ve already written a column on this, so I won’t belabor any of the points made therein other than this one: you should go. Atmosphere and Mac Lethal at the Beaumont Oh yeah, and Brother Ali and Los Nativos. I just wanted homeboy Mac to be in the headline. You can,…
Depeche Mode, in (perhaps) better days. Pitch correspondent Andrew Miller was in attendance at the Depeche Mode concert last night, which, as you’ve probably already heard from an irate coworker, ended prematurely and with guitarist Martin Gore singing the closing songs in Dave Gahan’s sudden absence. Here’s his report: The first three songs, “A Pain That I’m Used To,” “A…
One hunky cover. You’ve picked up today’s Pitch and seen that a virtually unheard of band is on the cover. Don’t freak out. We at the Pitch realize that we don’t have a record of putting much local music on the cover. We’re working to change that. The Pomonas may not be as big as the Architects or anyone else…
When it comes to the bar scene, theme nights — Mardi Gras Night, ’80s Night, Goth Night — perhaps err on the lame side. Not so with the bimonthly Cajun Night at Johnny’s Tavern (410 North Second Street in Lawrence, 785-842-0377), which begins at 6 on the first and third Wednesday of every month and covers all the Bayou bases:…
The Barbie Diaries Gift Set (Family Home Entertainment) Battle in Heaven (Tartan) The Best of Rocky and Bullwinkle: Volume 1 (Sony Wonder) Big Momma’s House 2 (Fox) Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist: Season One (Paramount) The Facts of Life: The Complete First and Second Seasons (Sony) Grandma’s Boy: Unrated Edition (Fox) If Only (Sony) Late Spring (Criterion) Life Goes On: The…
If you’ve gazed at a record player and imagined you could scratch as well as the next guy, you’re not alone. Guitars, drums, bass — all these instruments appear to require real skill or at least blisters. But who can’t drop a needle? The problem is, cutting beats and transplanting samples isn’t that easy. It takes work. And practice. And…
Fateless (THINKFilm) I’ve no patience for the Holocaust docudrama — didn’t even see Schindler’s List till years after its 1993 release, to my parents’ everlasting shame. And so it was I avoided Lajos Koltai’s acclaimed adaptation of Imre Kertész’ Nobel Prize-winning autobiographic novel; are we not already gorged on the grim concentration-camp movies that fall off the assembly line with…
The Birds This crossdressed pantsing of Hitchcock’s classic gives us Late Night at its best … and worst. When the troupe members shake together Hollywood satire, chintzy drag glamour and bitchy wit in a cocktail of a half-dozen set pieces, the show’s a heady gas. Too often, however, this Birds substitutes showy pop references for actual jokes and relies heavily…
Charlotte Cain: Recent Paintings Emulating the tradition of East Indian miniature painting, Charlotte Cain appropriates Indian motifs such as lotus blossoms, crescent-moon shapes and fernlike foliage to create delicate, authentic-looking images. The most intriguing are tile-sized and placed together to create a large square that appears to be one piece; in fact, it’s made up of 12 individual paintings that…
I AM THE SHIT, brags one installation in Archie Scott Gobber’s show Ready or Not. And who are we to doubt him? The largest (5 feet tall, 25 feet long) of four visibly handcrafted pieces, it provokes a laugh and a question: Is he serious? In a word, no. “It’s sort of a ludicrous statement,” Gobber says. “What is shit?…
We’ll deal with Ry Kincaid’s funny and lashing new play, In This Corner, and its star turn from Sam Cordes, a teenage actor who burns through scenes like a brand through cowhide. But first I have to ask: Can good people say retarded? I’ve wondered about this since a junior high choir trip, when, at an Olathe Long John Silver’s…
Art School Confidential is like every movie pilfered from the Saturday Night Live playbook. The slight giggles of a four-minute sketch are wrung into two-hour yawns. The work upon which it’s based, a four-page excerpt from a 14-year-old comic book called Eightball, is a goofy, clever lark about the freaks and geeks who populate art schools. It was written and…
