At the crosswalk the other day, I noticed something peeking out from the usual pasting of fliers on the light pole in front of me. It looked like an address label. In a nondescript font was printed “OUT OF IRAQ” — a plea unlikely to persuade any policymakers who might happen by. I had that familiar “Why bother?” feeling…
Kansas City has taken an economic hit as groups such as La Raza have withdrawn their conventions over a spat with Mayor Mark Funkhouser. It’s a shame to waste our revitalized downtown, so the Department of Burnt Ends has compiled this list of lesser-known groups and conventions that could call Kansas City home. Anthrocon Web site: Anthrocon.org The world’s largest…
Hello, Kansas City! Maybe you’re here visiting for the Big 12 tournament. Or maybe you live here. Either way, chances are, you might need a fresh introduction to this place. Downtown, where all the hype and buzz are concentrated this week around the Sprint Center, things are looking mighty different than they have in … ever. The work on our…
After wrapping up its recent tour, New York group the Scissor Sisters announced that it would be taking the next two years off to work on its next installment of Solid Gold-era pop. To tide you over, European DJ and producer Simon Iddol and his Internet label, Wha!?, have put together a mashup tribute to the group’s sophomore LP, Tah-Da….
Dear Mexican: Mexicans are angry that the United States might protect its own borders and make it harder to sneak into this country and, once here, to stay indefinitely. Let me see if I correctly understand the thinking behind these Mexicans. Let’s say I break into your house. Let’s say that when you discover me in your house, you insist…
The only time that my WASPy mother acknowledged having a smidgen of Irish blood in her veins (a great-great grandfather was an Irish Catholic) was St. Patrick’s Day. She would be full of blarney then, all right. The woman who hated cooking would suddenly get ambitious and prepare a hunk of corned beef with cabbage for dinner. I like corned…
Letters, February 21 Talk Is Easy This goes out to the shit-talking hard-on who bad-mouthed Jason Harper and various others within the Kansas City music community and who was too much of a fucking coward to even put a name on his or her own shit-talking. A wise man once sat me down and told me something. He told me…
“Cypha2-IBJ (feat. S.H.A.D.O.W. and Shady Pacino)” by CES Cru from CES-Philes Vol. 1: MCs Godemis and Ubiquitous, who work the mics as CES Cru, released their debut, Capture Enemy Soldiers, in 2005. Since then, the group’s dedicated following has shown that CES is a rare local hip-hop act that can not only draw fans but also have them chanting the…
“The Ballad of Jack Dolan” by Tullamore from Wild and Wicked Youth: Back in 1700, Scottish outlaw James MacPherson, sentenced to death for his freebooting crimes, composed a final song and offered his treasured violin to anyone who would play it at his execution. When no one volunteered, he smashed his instrument over the hangman’s head and leaped off the…
“Smash Out Windows” by Cretin 66 fromBurnin’ Rubber Outta Hell’s Garage: “It’s like a flashback to 2001 in here!” Cuzin Mike is in front of a packed house at the Riot Room. The grizzly-voiced bassist and Throttlers lead singer kicks his band into its next tightly wound, punk-speed, rock-and-roll fast break. I edge back to the bar area because the…
Biographical Landscape: The Photography of Stephen Shore, 1969-1979 American photographer Stephen Shore’s exhibition includes more than 150 images of ’70s-era parking lots, motel rooms, restaurants, highways and other familiar road-trip images from across the country. Anyone who has been on a road trip knows these images by heart. The exterior photographs of filling stations, desolate dirt roads, billboards and other…
Art Sinsabaugh spent his career chasing the ends of the Earth. Sinsabaugh taught photography at Chicago’s Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology from 1949 through 1959, and then at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign until he died in 1983. “At some point, I became aware of the unbelievable infinite detail on the horizon; this is what…
No Country for Old Men (Paramount) “A horror comedy chase” is how a grinning Tommy Lee Jones describes No Country for Old Men in the making-of — meanwhile, his fellow actors add to the list such adjectives as “a very primitive ride,” “a rabbit chase through Texas,” and “a very powerful story about violence.” Or, in short, “a Coen…
You’ll know in the first few minutes exactly what Patapon has going for it. There’s the goofy premise, which casts you as the tribal god Patapon, lord of a band of creatures called, imaginatively enough, Patapons — little savages that are basically eyeballs with arms and legs. Then there’s the visual style: Most of the game’s figures appear as…
. . . And Justice for All: Special Edition (Sony) Appleseed Ex Machina (Warner Bros.) August Rush (Warner Bros.) Bee Movie (DreamWorks) Black Widow (Fox) Dan in Real Life (Buena Vista) Def Comedy Jam: D.L. Hughley (HBO) Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes Volume 3 (Fox) Hitman (Fox) Housewife, 49 (Acorn) Lil’ Bush: Resident of the United States: Season One (Comedy…
%{}% By JEN CHEN In case you missed last night’s episode of The Real Housewives of New York City, here’s a rundown of the activities by onetime Fort Scott resident Alex, who didn’t make much of an appearance. She and her Simon, gay/not-gay husband are still in St. Barts. They prefer it to the Hamptons, you know, because there, they…
By C.J. JANOVY Homegirls carried the day yesterday, the first day of the Big 12 Women’s Basketball Championship at Municipal Auditorium. Yeah, Mizzou pulled of a big upset win over Oklahoma. But the homegirls who were clearly the most hardcore were the folks from Ames. The Cyclones played the first game yesterday, but at 10 p.m., fans dressed in…
%{}% By CHRIS PACKHAM Very landslidey: Amidst the wall-to-wall coverage of Eliot Spitzer’s love/hate relationship with prostitutes, you may have missed Barack Obama’s victory in the Mississippi Democratic primary yesterday. On the Republican side, John McCain remains the GOP presidential candidate. Expect a Rovian twist when McCain turns his biggest weakness — his 18 decades of life — into an…
By DAVID MARTIN Carva White, an ex-convict who has relied on candy-hawking children to support his itinerant ministry, is being sued by two landlords and the city of Kansas City, Missouri. The Pitch documented White’s activities in a 2006 feature story about the churches and charities that solicit donations by pestering motorists at stoplights. The story described how White’s sons…
By JEN CHEN Last Friday, Jared Allen’s new bar had its grand opening. Located on Southwest Boulevard (in the former California Taqueria space), the bar serves up Jared Juice — fruit punch and Everclear — and sports the motto, “Wine ’Em, Dine ’Em, 69 ’Em.” Jared really likes his jersey number. Going up or down? That’s not…
By ERIC BARTON Prosecutors in Lawrence today charged two men with the slaying of Anthony Vital, the rapper who was the subject of this cover story in The Pitch last June. Major C. Edwards Jr. and Durell A. Jones face charges of first-degree murder. Vital’s widow told The Pitch last summer that Edwards had picked up Vital the night he…
By JUSTIN KENDALL Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline announced today that he has appointed Robert E. Arnold III and Timothy E. Keck special prosecutors in the Paul Morrison criminal misconduct case. What Kline’s office omitted from a press release about the appointments was that Kline hired Keck to work in the Johnson County District Attorney’s Office when he…
By JEN CHEN Apparently, I’m the only person in town who didn’t realize that High School Confidential was set here. (That explains the big Star feature that I saw but didn’t read). The show, which premiered last night on the WE Network, follows 12 girls through their four years at Blue Valley Northwest. When I first read about it here…
%{}% By CHRIS PACKHAM KC Blaze isn’t a basketball team. The Sprint Center finally got a tenant this morning: a fire that broke out in a seventh-floor utility room. They also used to teach cow husbandry: Thieves stole a mounted cougar from a trophy case at Hickman Mills High School. According to KMBC Channel 9, it was stuffed and mounted…
