Even though Santa Claus and his old lady have retired for the season, there is still a fatty gift under the leafy green. For the first time in nearly 25 years, Cheech and Chong, the clown princes of substance-impaired slapstick, are on tour.For a decade and a half starting in the early ’70s, the duo rode the counterculture wave, setting…
After middling box-office returns for last year’s The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Disney, which had planned to co-produce film adaptations of all seven Chronicles of Narnia books, pulled out of its partnership with Walden Media. This means an uncertain future for the franchise. For now, people who didn’t catch Prince Caspian in theaters (the numbers suggest that’s most folks)…
In The Great Turning, author David Korten argues that to save the planet, the human species must come together in diverse communities and rise up to replace corporate empires. In Kansas City, Kansas, a multicultural environmental group called Building a Sustainable Earth Community has started trying to meet that difficult but inspiring challenge. This weekend marks the group’s second-annual Breaking…
Quick: Which local mansion has served as both whorehouse and house of worship (no, not simultaneously)? It’s not that swank Plaza bed and breakfast, the Southmoreland. And if you guessed Gladstone Manor, you’d be out some change. Geez, people — it’s the Writers Place, that spacious stone monster at 3607 Pennsylvania. Along with workshops, open-mic nights and educational programs, the…
With her lame pop-up poetry and casual infidelities, Jenny Schecter has earned her reputation as The L Word’s most annoying character. Still, even Jenny haters might have felt sorry for her during the Season 5 finale, in which she watched her treacherous assistant assume control of the film made from her autobiographical book and she discovered the objects of her…
Walk into a bookstore, turn on the TV news, browse the Internet — there’s almost always some new diet plan or weight-loss technique confronting both you and your guilt about not losing those annoying extra pounds. There are two ways to handle this stressful information: Either buy the pills, the exercise machine, the juicer, the weight-loss plan and the miracle…
If you must break up, this is the first rule: Do it in a quiet setting with a sense of dignity. The second rule is to find a venue without the possibility of ever, ever running into someone you know; the only thing more embarrassing than kicking a relationship to the curb in public is having blabby witnesses. Overland Park’s…
Single diners at Bo Lings in the City Market are treated as graciously as a table full of business executives. The cool stone dining room offers prime people-watching to go with classic and modern Chinese dishes. Diners can relax on the patio with dim sum, a book and a cigarette on a Sunday afternoon or talk on their cell phones…
It’s getting harder to find a family-style barbecue joint that still feels as though a local family is running the operation. That’s a big part of the charm of Quick’s. It’s been a Westside institution since 1964, when founder Earl Quick — who learned to smoke meats at Rosedale Barbecue — opened his own place. It’s comfortable, in a 1960s-rec-room…
Lee’s Summit doesn’t have a long tradition of barbecue greatness, but Joe Beauchamp and Brian Donigan’s Beauchamp’s on the Rail (the restaurant is close to railroad tracks) is putting suburban smoked meats on the map. A little more upscale than most area barbecue pits, the restaurant is both casual and kind of snappy. What other barbecue joint offers hickory-grilled salmon…
Anyone remember that gorgeous stained-glass dome that was once the showpiece of the old Harry Starker’s on the Country Club Plaza? The restaurant, now called Starker’s Reserve, is still on the Plaza, but the dome is now in the Northland dining room of this locally owned barbecue chain. (Four Smokehouse restaurants are scattered around the metro.) It’s a classy room…
Artist Molly Murphy created this collection of painted canvases to fit together in larger asymmetrical wall installations. The show approaches the question of connections within art, addiction, compulsion and their social implications. Sat., Jan. 17, 6-9 p.m.; Thu., Jan. 22, 2-8 p.m.; Fri., Jan. 23, 2-8 p.m.; Sat., Jan. 24, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Thu., Jan. 29, 2-8 p.m.; Fri., Jan….
Wanna be a ghost hunter? Learn tricks of the trade from local ghost hunting group P.E.D.R.O. That stands for Paranormal, Encounter, Documentation and Research Organization. This 90-minute class costs $15. Call 913-631-5200 for more info. Tue., Jan. 20, 7 p.m., 2009 Tags: 1630, Night & Day
The Kansas City Clay Guild is a great place to pick up — or even make — a new ceramic bowl. You might even meet the artist who created the container of your next bowl of homecooked soup. Sun., Jan. 18, 5-8 p.m., 2009 Tags: Kansas City, Night & Day
Christmas is long over, and now it’s time to shop for yourself. Or, if you’re one of those annoying Type A people, you can start your 2009 holiday shopping now. Either way, take advantage of deals aplenty during the annual after-holiday sidewalk sale at Independence Center. Fri., Jan. 16; Sat., Jan. 17; Sun., Jan. 18; Mon., Jan. 19, 2009 Tags:…
It’s almost O Day! On Tuesday, Barack Obama gets sworn in as the nation’s 44th president. To celebrate that fact, folks around the country are attending fancy dances this weekend. Tickets to some of these tuxedo-mandatory events cost $150. Lucky for local Obama supporters without a lot of cash flow, the Jackson County Democratic Committee is holding the more economical…
When Bar Natasha closed, the Human Rights Campaign had to find a new spot for its Third Thursday Happy Hour. Firefly Lounge (4118 Pennsylvania) seemed like a good fit. “Co-owner Diana Kander and her husband, Missouri state Rep. Jason Kander, have always been great allies to the LGBT community,” says Christene Main, HRC membership and outreach co-chair and volunteer coordinator….
Are puppies and kitties just too darn fuzzy for you? Consider a lizard. It won’t shed little hairs all over your couch, though it might leave its whole skin there. And it won’t insist on snuggling up with you on cold winter nights — a heated rock is fine, thanks. Get to know all kinds of lizards, amphibians and other…
At the only Kansas outlet of this Arizona sports bar, score $2 domestic pints and wells and $3 Rock Lobster shots. Mon., Jan. 19, 2009 Tags: Night & Day
The Shawnee location of this Lawrence institution opened in 1996. The Jayhawk friendly bars serves up $1.75 domestic pints, $6 domestic pitchers and $3.50 Long Islands today and tonight. Mon., Jan. 19, 2009 Tags: Lawrence (New York), Night & Day, Shawnee
This huge spot holds 645 people and has pool, darts, foosball, poker and $2.25 domestic drafts from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Mon., Jan. 19, 11-2 a.m., 2009 Tags: Night & Day
The new boss gets sworn in at noon today, and he’s likely to be nothing like the old boss. Those of us unable to make the Beltway trip to see Barack Obama take office as president of the United States still have an opportunity to share the moment with friends and strangers — in the Dotte. The 2009 inaugural committee…
Tag team! Weighing in together at some 11 tons of community-theater ass stomp, the warriors of the City Theatre of Independence band together with the board-trodding bad seeds of Olathe Community Theatre Association for a two-theater, two-‘burb, no-holds-barred assault on Tom Dudzick’s dysfunctional family comedy Over the Tavern. Caught in the crosstown onslaught: actors, audiences, ’50s nostalgia, and anyone who…
In this tale of a troubled Buffalo, New York, family in the 1950s— the son questions his Catechism, the dad hates his job, and the sister starts to feel things down there. Fri., Jan. 16, 8 p.m.; Sat., Jan. 17, 8 p.m.; Fri., Jan. 23, 8 p.m.; Sat., Jan. 24, 8 p.m.; Sun., Jan. 25, 2 p.m.; Fri., Jan. 30,…
