Archives: February 2009

Daily Briefs: Service Pack 2

We’re back. I know, right? I never thought I’d be spending my mornings writing up news roundups again, but then you’d also never think that after all the negative publicity surrounding their venture in the hiring and retention of pedophiles, the Catholic Church would move on to the recruitment of actual Nazis. But here we are. After pedophiles and Nazis,…

The scary, money-sucking 12th Street bridge still isn’t fixed

So a friend and I are driving into town from up north the other day, and it’s one of those days when the city looks particularly run-down. My friend’s a little cranky about this because, after all, it’s depressing. Going south on I-35 around the bluffs, she looks out toward the West Bottoms and says, “What’s going on with the…

The Give-a-Shit List

Coming up this week: Planning for the six-year anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a vision session on the future of 18th and Vine and sounding off on jerks who leave their trash rotting on the sidewalk.  Categories: News Tags: food policy, Iraq war, jazz district, Jolie Justus, mental health, trashy jerks

Valentine’s Day, Halloween…they’re all the same

John Landsberg, of the Bottom Line Communications blog, was listening to last Friday’s edition of  the “Restaurant Critics Panel” on KCUR-FM’s Walt Bodine Show when he caught an on-air flub by the broadcasting legend. Walt was introducing the theme of that day’s show — romantic dining spots for Valentine’s Day — when he named the holiday as Halloween instead of…

Goodbye Yahooz, Hello Coyote Grill

It’s official: Before the end of this month, the PB&J “cowboy” restaurant, Yahooz, in Leawood’s Town Center, will be known under a different, but familiar name. Yahooz, which began serving “contemporary cowboy cuisine” in February of 1998, when PB&J opened the venue, has reportedly seen too many months of flat sales. The restaurant will close for a few days to…

Killa City: Police find two more bodies

The Kansas City Police found two more people shot to death this afternoon. Police arrived at the 1800 block of Paseo around 2:15 p.m. View Larger Map Witnesses tell the police that the blue Pontiac Grand Am was parked in a lot for two days. Anyone with info should call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-8477. Categories: News Tags: homicides

Missouri lawmaker wants to shut down elementary school cage fighting

Missouri state Rep. Bryan Stevenson hates small business owners like myself. Stevenson wants to shut down my new business venture, the Extreme Elementary School Fighting Championship. Earlier this week, Stevenson introduced HB 606, which increases the regulatory authority of the Office of Athletics for mixed martial arts contests and prohibits youth under eighteen years of age from competing in a…

Free Download: A Soulcrate Valentine

Looking for that perfect song to dump a bitch? Download the anti-valentine anthem by Soulcrate Music. Members of Mac Lethal’s Black Clover Posse, the Soulcrate boys from South Dakota tell off a chick who brushes her teeth with barbecue sauce and who’s looking more like Drew Carey than Halle Berry. : Soulcrate Music, “A Soulcrate Valentine (the Anti-Valentine Anthem)” Categories:…

BPU handed out 21 no-bid contracts

%{}% The black eyes keep coming for the Kansas City, Kansas, Board of Public Utilities. Yesterday, a legislative audit was released showing that the utility company failed to seek competitive bids for 21 of 25 contracts valued at more than $50,000. I’d heard for a couple of years that the BPU wasn’t bidding contracts. Finally, a legislative audit report from…

One good thing you can do this month

In the last decade, HIV infection rates among black men and women in the metro, and especially in Jackson County, have exploded so quickly that Good Samaritan Project officials found it comparable to sub-Saharan Africa. Any city in a developed nation receiving such a distinction should be ashamed of itself. Tomorrow’s National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness day, so here’s some ways to…

New Shows Announced at the Pistol

The Pistol issued a Myspace bulletin full of concert alerts. Here’s a list of acts booked to perform at the West Bottoms rock club in the coming months: —Broken Spindles, 9 p.m. Feburary 14 —Expo 70, Sounding the Deep, Plante and Idyll, 8 p.m. February 19 —Ryland Bouchard, Emperor X and Drew Danburry, 9 p.m. March 3 —Mythical Beast, Expo…

Friday Night Highlights: Bacon ‘n Be/Non

If you’re out and about tonight in the Crossroads vicinity flitting about betwixt galleries hither and yon and happen to be in the mood for beats, bizarrity and bacon, drop by Midwestern Musical Co. at 19th and Locust around 9 p.m. for an intimate performance by the one and only Bacon Shoe. Later, if you’re feeling frisky, head down to…

Jon Stewart: McCaskill married to a wildebeest

Jon Stewart thinks Claire McCaskill will cut you. Hey, I’ve heard that before. The latest edition of The Daily Show’s “Custerf#@k to the Poor House” featured “ol’ mad dog McCaskill,” as Stewart calls her. “Raised by wolves. Sold to vultures. And married to a wildebeest,” Stewart touted.  Claire Bear’s hearing about it today. Her latest Tweet: “On a lighter note…

Calorie information does affect peoples’ habits

With obesity the problem it is in today’s society, there are several schools of thought on how best to eliminate it. Ideas range from promoting exercise to banning certain foods. Somewhere in the middle lies the plan New York City’s Board of Health passed unanimously this past October. All chain restaurants must now post calorie data on their menus. Some…

TheDirty.com: Revenge served immediately and immaturely

TheDirty.com is a site where people post pictures of ex-lovahs, random douchebags and assorted skanks, with commentary, for the world to see. It’s like HotChicksWithDouchebags.com and a radio station’s “Fuck-you Friday” all rolled into one immortal ball of ‘net haterism. The site is organized by city, and it looks like Kansas City has had a page since December 2007, judging…

Makeovers that aren’t extreme, just pointless

Not to beat a dead-horse about Eight O’Clock coffee, but it was nice to see it get some press this week and beat out Starbucks. But what drove me to buy it in the first place a couple odd years ago was not the fact that it was getting lots of accolades (it wasn’t) but that it had the coolest…

Restaurant suspending: Jones Bar-B-Q

When barbecue restaurants starting going under in Kansas City you know the recession is bad. Today is the last day for Kansas City, Kansas, barbecue joint Jones Bar-B-Q which is “suspending” operations after 15 years in business. Owner Deborah Jones told the Kansas City Kansan that while she holds hope of reopening later this year, she’s “been advised to close…