I do love Slimfast and the exceptional work he has randomly done in our community. He took all the crap Lazlo gave him and still showed up at Fuel every Friday night! He is now succeeding in the morning on Afentra’s Big Fat Morning Buzz. We in Lenexa love Slimfast, and those who don’t can take their bowl of f-off…
Those heavy-lidded bulldog eyes. That Mr. Clean dome. Those lawman’s shoulders and nonabortion-records-snooping hands. How could Paul Morrison not be voted in as Kansas’ new attorney general? Thanks to Kansas voters, we don’t have to imagine a world in which Morrison is not the top Sunflower State cop — a job that, he neatly pointed out, should be nonpartisan. Is…
When we heard that people were collecting signatures to get Charles Wheeler to run for City Council, we longed to hear the 79-year-old interviewed on KCUR 89.3’s The Walt Bodine Show. When that didn’t happen, we made up our own transcript. Walt Bodine: And good morning to you. We’re ready to dive off into a fascinating subject.* Co-host Martha…
Satan will be happy with me for telling you that Slayer has announced its winter tourdates, and February 3, they’ll be tearing it up at Memorial Hall. (Thanks to vigilant clubs editor Megan Metzger for being the first to find out. She gets first prize for the day.) Not even the pretty flowers can lift Chris Adolf’s black cloud. Fishing…
First order of business: I’ve started a MySpace page to represent the Pitch Music Section online. I pretty much had to. It was either that, or continue using my personal account to contact and be contacted by musicians and promoters. It was all very good and personable, but I also felt vulnerable. I don’t need all the musicians in town…
To start you off today, here’s a blurb by Andrew Miller on a really good local band. For various logistical reasons, it did not make it into print, so I posted it today because the show’s tomorrow night. — Ed. Rock bands don’t need much of a reason to throw a party, and at first glance an EP release seems…
I don’t have much personally invested in the Appleseed Cast. I like them well enough, I guess. But when some critic tries to take down a local band with arguments so off base as to seem pulled out of a jar like raffle tickets, I gotta rally ’round the family. So, Appleseed fans, go here and give this Matt Emery…
The Ant Bully (Warner Bros.) Criminal Minds: The First Season (Paramount) Dane Cook: Vicious Circle (HBO) The Ellen DeGeneres Show: DVD-licious (Warner Bros.) Foo Fighters: Skin and Bones (RCA) Hot Wheels Accelerators: The Ultimate Race (Warner Bros.) Joan of Arcadia: The Second Season (Paramount) Jamie Kennedy’s Blowin’ Up (Paramount) Little House on the Prairie: Special Edition Movie Boxed Set (Imavision)…
By now, you’ve probably heard about Bully. It’s the game that was supposed to finally ruin America’s youth. Crusading lawyer Jack Thompson, the self-appointed schoolmarm of the videogame industry, called it a “Columbine simulator” and tried to block stores from selling it. Lou Dobbs — who hasn’t seen a videogame he liked since Galaga — labeled Bully an example of…
Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (Warner Bros.) At long last, Richard Donner’s much-whispered-about “original version” of Superman II sees the light of day, and it quickly joins the ranks of the reconstructed Touch of Evil, Apocalypse Now, and Blade Runner as films made superior in the recutting and retelling. It’s an entirely different movie now, one shorn of the…
Anna Karenina (Kino) Arrested Development: Seasons One-Three (Fox) The Best of the Scripps National Spelling Bee (ESPN) Beverly Hills 90210: The Complete First Season (Paramount) Cinema Paradiso (Weinstein) The Fallen Idol (Criterion) Freak Out (Anchor Bay) Jag: The Complete Second Season (Paramount) The James Bond Collection: Volumes One and Two (MGM) LoudQUIETloud: A Film About the Pixies (Music Video Dist.)…
In the gangsta pantheon, nobody gets more respect than Tony Montana. Consider all the homages: Not one, but two rappers have named themselves after Montana (Scarface of the Geto Boys and Tony Yayo of G-Unit), and Nas borrowed Montana’s slogan for his breakout hit, “The World Is Yours.” Indeed, the plot of the 1983 remake of Scarface practically wrote the…
The Junky’s Christmas (Koch) They just aren’t cranking out claymation Christmas specials like they used to, which makes this a welcome gift. Nicer still, it has heroin! A mixture of stop-motion animation with a little puppetry and some live-action shots of William S. Burroughs (who may himself have been a Muppet), this tale of a junky scrambling for a Christmas…
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas More leave-the-kids-at-home musical fare from the Barn Players of Mission, an often surprising outfit whose shows tend to rise above the community-theater norm. This time it’s the once familiar, now nearly forgotten story of whores, politicians and everything else for which rich Texans lay out the cash. (Well, not quite: There aren’t any Saudi…
Cryptozoology: Out of Time Place Scale A cryptid is a creature like Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster — that is, lost, rumored or thought to be extinct. Cryptozoology is a science — or pseudoscience, depending on whom you ask — that studies such creatures. A real-life cryptozoologist named Loren Coleman joins 17 artists from around the world in a…
One hot summer night when I was 11 years old, I wandered alone in the field next to my parents’ house. There, I saw a creature standing on its hind legs that was part raccoon and part fur-covered toddler. The animal ran away before I could figure out what the hell it was, but I’ve never forgotten it. The…
A few words from the Most Bitter Old Man in Kansas City, a corduroyed schlump blustering on and on just two seats away from me all through the Lyric Opera’s remarkable production of Hamlet: “Goddamned ridiculous.” And: “This is a travesty.” And: “This makes Guignol look like genius.” As Ophelia lamented gorgeously, a glittering soprano mourning in a dreamscape…
Pity Max Skinner, emasculated over his lamb chops. On a gray afternoon at a London hot spot, his gloating superior unveils a plot to poach his most lucrative client, divesting him of a six-figure bonus in the process. The bummed out bond trader hands in a resignation letter and the keys to his company BMW. “Better to die on…
Time perhaps scrambling it’s for Alejandro González Iñárritu to stop his narratives. After making an exciting debut in 2000 with Amores Perros and its gimmicky, Tarantinoesque tinkering with structure (which seemed fresher en Español and grounded in gritty Mexico City locations), González Iñárritu apparently decided to devote his feature-film career to telling stories in disconnected fragments. In theory, it’s an…
Once an actor gets big enough to take whatever kind of role he wants, it makes sense that his biggest stretch is the part of a man with no power over the world around him. Such a vehicle — a nice movie — means to tone down or subvert the very mania that first gave the star his juice….
When I remembered the magical candy counter in my late father’s hometown (see this week’s Café), I thought of another culinary connection to that place. The little town of Lockport, New York, is right outside Buffalo, where Buffalo chicken wings were invented. My old man missed out on that historic event because he moved to the Midwest in the 1950s….
A brief season of cheap, mass-produced, bulk-packaged candy has just ended. October always brings flashbacks of my Halloween forays as a kid. I’m not talking about my own trick-or-treating in those flimsy five-and-dime costumes that tied in the back like a hospital gown. I’m thinking back to my days as a conniving teenager, when I agreed to escort my…
We went to the Red Balloon on a recent Friday night for the legendary karaoke, but we stayed for Mammary-Fest ’06. Research Assistant Tracey observed: “I can’t help but notice that many of the women at this bar have enormous breasts.” One example of this, on a bar stool near us, wore a boob-baring top and black pants. As a…
This week brings a little something extra for area DJs. No one would disagree about the sad state of the circulation of vinyl records in Kansas City, but Necia Gamby (founder of Hiphopkc.com and Joe Good’s mama) has never been short of extracurricular activities for the Kansas City hip-hop community, and this time there’s love for record wreckers. From…
