Crack Pitch clubs editor Berry Anderson snapped this photo at Eighth Street and Walnut. She also spied another sign on Southwest Boulevard across from Manny’s. Let’s get this straight. The Kansas City Star’s answer to falling stock prices, declining circulation and company-wide layoffs isn’t providing better coverage of Kansas City — it’s bribing readers with a $25,000 grand prize? Categories:…
Al Green
While I was visiting Indianapolis this week, my younger brother wanted to go out for dim sum. “It’s served in this dumpy little restaurant on the west side of town,” my brother said, “but the food is really good.” I was game, so we drove to the dumpy little restaurant, Shen Yang, out near one of those dying suburban malls. The building…
So Thanksgiving is over and even though the turkey leftovers aren’t even finished, we’ve now begun a 28-day binge of holiday Christmas music and lights and other crap. Frankly, a weekend of Christmas would be plenty for me — but enough has already been written about the over-hype and deluge of those aspects of Christmas. I want to focus on…
Tony’s Kansas City runs with the rumor that skeleton-humping Chiefs quarterback Tyler Thigpen is dating 38 the Spot Simpsons quiz master Holly Starr. No wonder the charity dates for “southern gentleman” Thigpen and Starr are double dates. You totally won’t be a third wheel if you bid on Starr or Thigpen. Well, maybe if Thigpen brings along his skeleton. McClatchy…
This awesome lengthy comment was left by commenter Tman in response to CharlesFerruzza’ call for Thanksgiving horror stories. I assume loyal Fat City readers have already seen it, but damn, it bears repeating: One year my two sisters and I met in our parents home to share a Thanksgiving lovefest … We all live far apart, save for Mom and…
%{}% By OWEN MORRIS This may not sound cool but it is. In many countries they sharpen knives by using converted stationary bikes. Here’s a list of twelve of the cooler knife bikes. This post goes live about 9 a.m. About half an hour later, it will be year’s busiest moment of online shopping. This is going to be a…
In the 1970s, San Francisco had the first openly gay man to be elected to public office on its board of supervisors. His name was Harvey Milk, and one of the things he did best was organize protests. A movie about his life is coming out here December 12, and if you’re one of the people who showed up at this…
I usually hate it when people put up their holiday lights the second that Halloween is over. It’s like, come on. We still have to slog through Thanksgiving first, so just hold off on your holiday displays until after the only pure, noncommercialized American holiday we have left. But then I saw these lights at the corner of 103rd Street…
Each Thursday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in forgotten and bewildering crap culled from area basements, thrift stores, estate sales and flea markets. He does this for one reason: Knowledge is power. Lady, Be Lovely: A Guide to Beauty, Glamour and Sex Appeal Author: Edyth Thornton McLeod Publisher: Wilcox and Follett Date: 1955 Discovered at: KCK estate sale…
Going out to eat for Thanksgiving? Hope you have a reservation: Plaza restaurants are pretty booked around the 6:30 p.m. Plaza lighting ceremony. Plaza III Steakhouse (4749 Pennsylvania, 816-753-0000) plans a traditional meal for $21.95 a person. McCormick & Schmick’s (448 West 47th Street, 816-531-6800) offers its regular menu, along with a traditional Thanksgiving menu, for $24.95 a person. Sister…
After you’ve had your fill of turkey, pie and family, head down to Westport for some quality time with the Phillips family. The Architects — siblings Brandon, Adam and Zach Phillips, plus their musical brother Keenan Nichols — will tear up the stage during the Riot Room’s Thanksgiving Blowout. Bopping along to those rough-and-tumble punk songs about pills and rebels…
In central Asia, in what is now the Russian republic of Tuva, nomadic herdsmen centuries ago developed the mysterious art called throat singing. The eerie music starts with a single person emitting a steady, low note while humming a whistle-like melody and, finally, adding a third rhythmic thrumming sound. Some masters of the form tap into their harmonic gifts when…
The Mu Omega Chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority underwrote $8,500 in scholarship funds last year, thanks in part to its annual Ebony Fashion Fair. For this year’s fundraiser, the local women’s service group (in tandem with Ebony magazine) parades Christian Lacroix, Sarli, b. michael and more. The show — called The Runway Report: What’s Hip, What’s Hot, What’s…
In 11 years, Prospero’s Books (1800 West 39th Street, 816-531-9673) has logged two locations, three owners, more than 700 in-store musical performances, countless poetry open mics, 200 readings, nine self-published books and one very public book burning. To toast Prospero’s survival in a tough business, owners Will Leathem and Tom Wayne are celebrating with a month of discounts and activities…
“It’s very easy to tell a story that’s too long,” says Tim Harvey, membership coordinator for the Independent Filmmakers Coalition of Kansas City. “So it’s kind of nice to have a contest where the only requirement is time.” Said premise drives IFC’s third 357 Film Festival, so called because entries are limited to three, five or seven minutes in length….
If you’ve been shopping for a worthy charitable benefit — say, for the expansion of a prenatal diagnostics center at Truman Medical Center — but were hoping for something hipper than just donating some scratch to the Salvation Army, tonight’s Naughty & Nice holiday party at home accessories importer and retailer Black Bamboo (1815 Wyandotte, 816-283-3000) evokes the sexy spirit…
Nug Life. Sound familiar? If you were a regular at any of DJ Clockwerk’s gigs — most notably, the popular ’80s Ladies’ Night at Jilly’s — you would have noticed the logo emblazoned on his and his crew’s all-occasion T-shirts. A skater, record spinner and screen printer, Clockwerk — real name Brian Scott — started the Nug line more or…
Jayhawks fans who still haven’t recycled the empty beer bottles from the University of Kansas’ national championship run in March are about to experience the true meaning of a hangover — a team that plays like it hit the taverns before it hit the court. This year’s title-defending squad looks more like the Bad News Bears than the team that…
Sicilian-born filmmaker Frank Capra arrived on these shores at age 6 and pursued the American dream with an unabashed passion, populating the silver screen with a succession of earnest, upstanding, good-hearted everymen like Longfellow Deeds, Jefferson Smith, John Doe, and George Bailey, central figures in a canon of flag-waving, heart-tugging, tear-jerking mush unrivaled in American cinema. Don’t just wait for…
It’s been a little more than seven years since funnyman Dave Attell visited the Isle of Capri casino and The Kansas City Star building, cruised around with strippers and bail bondsmen, then closed down Westport while taking shots with locals taping Insomniac for Comedy Central. Since then, the comic’s comic from Queens, New York, has made appearances in the movies…
Tonight, as Americans stagger home from Black Friday shopping and as newscasters scowl at the early numbers and warn us that “this looks like an unmerry holiday for retailers,” you could talk to your family. Or, better yet, consider hitting the Westport Coffee House (4010 Pennsylvania) for the latest in a new breed of Kansas City improv: shows that pair…
