Blue Grotto
(6324 Brookside Plaza, 816-361-3473). Cerveza barata (that’s “cheap beer” for you Americanos) from 2 to 6 p.m. All Mexican bottles cost $2.75. Mondays-Thursdays, 2008 Tags: Night & Day
Archives: August 2008
For the Shorteez
Drinking on Thursday night doesn’t have to be just for lushes and sweaty kickballers. Olathe’s Flying Monkey Brewery (311 North Burch) throws a beer-tasting fundraiser from 5 to 8 tonight. Proceeds will go to Marillac, Johnson County’s only children’s psychiatric treatment center, which provides mental-health services to boys and girls ages 6 to 17 with severe emotional and behavioral issues….
Wild West Hop
The West Bottoms used to be known for its stockyards. Now, most people go there for haunted houses or underground clubs. But this afternoon, it’ll be known for hydraulics. From noon to 9 p.m., Union Press screen printers (1219 Union) will hold a block party and a lowrider contest. Union Press owner Zach Lovely estimates that about 70 lowriders from…
Buy This School
Attention real estate investors, speculators and bargain hunters — have we got some deals for you! It’s no secret that over the past three decades, the Kansas City, Missouri, School District has closed at least 30 of its buildings. Some were sold and some were torn down, but others were simply deserted. We can’t tell you exactly how many buildings…
Massive Night
I knew Robin Powell could sing, but I didn’t know how well. Not until roughly 8 p.m. last Thursday, when her high-plains nasal drawl began creeping through the rafters at McCoy’s as her band, the Last Call Girls, helped kick off the 2008 Pitch Music Showcase. Nominated for the first time in the Country/Bluegrass category, the Call Girls are a…
Tropic Thunder
Early buzz out of Hollywood pegged Tropic Thunder, directed and co-written by star Ben Stiller, as the end-all and be-all of movie-biz parodies — a savage beast with a rough touch featuring Tom Cruise in a career-resurrecting role as bald-headed, big-gutted, foulmouthed studio boss Les Grossman, who does the fuck-you dance like nobody’s risky business. “Savvy” and “authentic” were but…
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
George Lucas, that greedy visionary, is now in the infomercial manufacturing business — the pitchman forever selling rehashed product to successive generations of younger and younger Star Wars fans raised on fond memories of a saga that peaked in 1980. As Star Wars movies go, The Clone Wars is minor to the point of irrelevance. Lucas, this time working with…
Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Leave it to Woody Allen to make a romantic comedy in which all the major players end up either single, homicidal or trapped in safe, boring marriages. Talk about modern love! Yet, from those unlikely materials, Allen has crafted a wry and thoughtful film about the peculiar stirrings of the heart that is certainly his most accomplished piece of work…
Henry Poole Is Here
Diagnosed with an unspecified fatal disease, Henry Poole (Luke Wilson) retreats into the numbing sunshine of suburban Los Angeles, buying a cruddy house and waiting until his daily diet of doughnuts and liquor eventually does him in. Directed by Mark Pellington (taking a break from thrillers such as Arlington Road), Henry Poole Is Here tells the quasi-spiritual tale of how…
Brick Lane
Nazneen, a young woman from Bangladesh, is transplanted unwillingly to London and is estranged from her rural home, beloved sister and much older bear of a husband. As the rapidly changing post-9/11 racial politics of England take shape around her dingy housing estate, a handsome young convert to radical Islam (Christopher Simpson) rocks Nazneen’s world. With a limited budget, Gavron…
Bottle Shock
Ham-fisted and half-assed, this story of the early days of California winemaking (circa 1976, the year “California defeated all Gaul,” as Time put it back when West Coast vino trumped France’s) is unsure whether it’s a dark comedy, an oenological thriller or an overwrought “true life” underdog melodrama. So instead, it’s a little bit of all those things, uncorked and…
Dubstep vs. Hip-Hop Session #1
Like a burgeoning field of thought in physics, dubstep is fluid, unpredictable and hard to fathom. It leads listeners in unexpected directions across steady-rolling waves of sub-bass, through spark showers of twittering beats. Born in the U.K. out of the garage scene and informed by reggae, dubstep is a strange soundtrack for a hip-hop show, especially one in Kansas City,…
The Coast
“Killing Off Our Friends,” by the Coast, from Expatriate (Aporia Records): When it comes to skinny, handsomely disheveled Canadian indie-boy guitar bands, there are far worse places to go than the Coast, which nails its homeland sound. The opening track off the Toronto band’s debut, Expatriate, sounds like a sonic pillow fight between Broken Social Scene and Arcade Fire —…
Michael Hurley
Michael Hurley “Knockando,” by Michael Hurley, from Ancestral Swamp (Gnomonsong): Michael Hurley has been a practical joker of sorts for much of his 40-year career, heaving bricks at the stuffiness of the New York folk scene and penning hobo-folk classics such as “What Made My Hamburger Disappear.” But the 66-year-old songwriter and fiddler is also a tireless romantic with a…
Phill’s Choice
Phill Kline’s anti-abortion zealotry didn’t keep him from getting his ass handed to him by voters last week. With Kline surely thinking about his next move, the Department of Burnt Ends offers him a choose-your-own-adventure-style future. Click here to help Phill find a new job. Click here to write a letter to the editor. Categories: News Tags: Columns, Department of…
Murder by Death
“’52 Ford,” by Murder By Death, from Red of Tooth and Claw (Vagrant): There are very few bands that can make Nick Cave sound about as menacing as Nick Carter, but Murder by Death might just be on that short list. On its latest full-length, Red of Tooth and Claw, the Indiana foursome delves deep into its obsession with death,…
Langhorne Slim
“Rebel Side of Heaven,” by Langhorne Slim, from Langhorne Slim (Kemado): If folk pseudonyms were like Web addresses, Langhorne Slim would have been snatched up shortly after the invention of the Internet. True to his name, Langhorne makes barefoot folk Americana with a voice to fuel front-porch stomps and sunset hymns, evoking both a less-screechy Jack White and Nashville Skyline–era…
My Morning Jacket
“Evil Urges,” by My Morning Jacket, from Evil Urges (ATO): When My Morning Jacket appeared on Saturday Night Live last May singing about a Peanut-butter pudding surprise, the long-haired rockers in the band appeared to be indulging their inner Prince to orgiastic extremes. Turns out Evil Urges, the Kentucky band’s new one, isn’t all that kinky — for the most…
Stik Figa aims to make hip-hop fun again
“Twentyfourseven,” by Stik Figa, from Stik Figa and Lenny D present Twentyfourseven (Datura Records): John Westbrook Jr., a 25-year-old rapper known as Stik Figa, recently totaled his car. He’s unemployed. And yet, he’s happy. On a recent weekday, Westbrook’s contagious laughter fills the interior of a fast-food joint thicker than the smell of fresh french fries. We’re at Max’s Hamburgers…
Chefs and owners make adjustments in a rough economy
A beautiful and vaguely familiar face passed my table at the Blue Grotto (see review) one night recently. I fumbled, trying to remember who she was. “It’s Thelma Oliver,” she said, grabbing my hand. I was so happy to see her that I practically jumped out of my chair. I hadn’t seen Thelma in more than a year, since I…
The Virgin Mary hasn’t yet appeared at Blue Grotto, but give it time
I’ve always felt that Kansas City, because it has plenty of underground caverns, needs more grottos. One of my favorites is the Grotto of the Virgin Mary at 3520 Garner in the Historic Northeast. After an apparition of Mary appeared to the homeowner two decades ago, she had a stone-and-concrete grotto built around a department-store mannequin and surrounded it with…
At the Nelson, Siah Armajani bridges cultural divides
Siah Armajani’s politically effective exhibition at the Nelson confirms that enthusiasm for Jeffersonian democracy isn’t always homegrown. One of this nation’s most important public-art figures, Armajani was born in Iran in 1939 but is now a naturalized U.S. citizen. In commissioned work all over the country, he typically suggests the ideals of a society that encourages open dialogue among its…
Chris Koster election analysis: Cynicism and good hair win
Cynicism works. Polls are crap. Good hair wins. These are the lessons to take from the Democratic primary in which a former Republican emerged as the nominee for Missouri attorney general. The winner, state Sen. Chris Koster, captured 784 more votes than Margaret Donnelly, a state rep from suburban St. Louis. Koster ran a bold campaign. He used the slogan…
Anecdotal evidence aside, facts don’t support the “anchor baby” myth
Dear Mexican: As a Mexican, I’m always ashamed of the fact that a lot of Mexican women come to the United States just to have babies and use this country’s welfare. I know a lot of them that just keep having children, and they do not pay a dollar for the hospital care. They even lie about their marital status…
Find The Pitch
