After perfecting my time-travel device, the Deus Ex Machina, I was ready to embark on its maiden expedition — a trip 16 years into the past to save my teenage self from the soul-crushing perils of gloomy music. Specifically, Depeche Mode. The destination was 1990, my freshman year of high school, when I was 15 years old. Introduced to Depeche…
Last week, The Kansas City Star reported that a “Leawood entrepreneur” named Joey Crenshaw was planning to buy the Hurricane, shut it down, remodel it, stick a velvet rope outside and a VIP room in the basement, and make it over as an exclusive, trendy, Plaza-style bar. Gone would be hip-hop, Crenshaw said, and he implied that original local music…
Picture an almond-eyed young woman trying to navigate a sweaty Atlanta club. She’s squeezing through the crowd, bouncing off Lycra-clad booty cheeks, navigating past G’s clinking glasses of purple drink and ice cubes, weaving among gold grills and chrome wheels. That contrast — innocence amid gangsta grit — mirrors Janelle Monae’s presence on a compilation album that recently arose from…
Rolled over: I want to say a hearty thanks to all the voters who thought the teams were really going to leave Kansas City (KC Strip, April 13). Your votes on April 4 allowed the rest of us who voted no to get copulated out of our money. Thanks for nothing. I am appalled that the majority of the people…
As if Mizzou needed another reason to make fun of KU. University of Kansas administrators have deemed the Jayhawk icon “too fun and informal” for use on official campus stationery, business cards or biceps tattoos. To help ease KU’s embarrassment, we’re inviting artists, doodlers and disgruntled KU fans to have some fun with the mascot. Perhaps he needs dress shoes…
Even if former professional in-line skating champion Ryan Allen Carrillo weren’t crushworthy for his looks and athletic accomplishments, he should be applauded just for chucking his rigidly religious childhood in favor of a lifestyle as an openly gay pro athlete. And, of course, there’s that brush with Madonna. Carrillo — a three-time Southwest regional champion, U.S. silver medalist and…
Last week, Mayor Kay Barnes and City Councilman Chuck Eddy tried to punish City Auditor Mark Funkhouser for the crime of having his picture published in this paper. Barnes has reportedly been mad for many months at Funkhouser, who has questioned the city’s debt load and its (lack of) tax-incentive policy. Rather than attack his auditing, though, Barnes and Eddy…
In case you haven’t noticed, we’re celebrating the grand opening of Legends at Village West. Legends is a “lifestyle center” — that is, a shopping mall that tries to replicate the authentic Main Street experience that shopping malls have spent the last 40 years obliterating. Legends received enormo subsidies from the state of Kansas. Sales-tax-supported bonds have paid for about…
When Bernard Brown started his Kansas City law practice in 1982, he didn’t think he’d spend so much time suing and re-suing the same guy. “You expect you clobber ’em once and that’s it,” Brown says. “But then there’s three, four. I’m working on my fifth now. Come on.” Brown’s lawsuits against Bob Balderston — known from TV commercials in…
Today’s seminar on raising venture capital will be presented by a man wearing a long-sleeved checkered shirt, blue jeans and black tennis shoes. “This is dressed up for me,” John Flowers announces at the outset of his PowerPoint demonstration. “Usually, I’m dressed in sandals and shorts and a T-shirt that says something offensive.” Flowers is the 35-year-old founder and CEO…
This may be the strangest item we’ve received since I started working at the Pitch (well, the strangest item that’s transmittable via the Internet, anyway, and isn’t spam), and I wanted to share it with all y’all. The following e-mail was sent to the inbox of the Night Ranger, who forwarded it to me because I am the guy in…
I am in love with Eddie Delahunt. It’s been going on a long time, this passion of mine, and I’m pretty sure it’s unrequited, but that’s OK. The flame will always burn in my soul. I’ve wanted to write about this local Irish troubadour on numerous occasions, but I just haven’t gotten to it yet because I suck. Armed with…
So, Tracy Chapman was over for brunch the other day. I prepared omelets and pommes de terre au gratin. Tracy ate like a starved goat, not talking during the meal. Then, after wiping her greasy lips on the table cloth, she looked up at me with the ol’ stink eye and said, “Give me one reason to stay here, and…
