The Kansas City Star reprinted a George F. Will column about climate change roundly derided as a pile of stink-poo upon its publication. Will’s column first appeared in The Washington Post on February 15. The bow-tied conservative took aim at the “eco-pessimism” surrounding the “hypothetical” calamity of climate change. Will concluded his column by stating that “there has been no…
Congratulations to Johnson County Community College’s Kelly Conwell, who won the central region’s student chef of the year award at the American Culinary Federation Conference this past weekend in Schaumburg, Illinois. “I was absolutely completely happy just to even get to regionals and to win — oh my gosh. Winning is great,” she tells me. Conwell had to beat out…
%{}% Bill Hicks used to say that he went to dance clubs once a year to remind himself why he didn’t go the other 364 days. That joke came to mind as I was reading this state of the club scene report written by a self-proclaimed dork like myself. When Kansas City with a Russian Accent talks about subs, I’m…
Paul McCartney has been a longtime activist in ridding the world of landmines and the Aquarium Drunkard blog is picking up the torch. Next week, the blog will post up RAM on L.A., a free, track-for-track recreation of Paul and Linda McCartney’s 1971 LP, RAM, with the hopes of generating money for the cause. Until then, download a couple of…
%{}% I’m a man of action. When I’m not throwing myself across the hoods of moving cars, such as my girlfriend’s moving car, and also this one time, Justin’s moving car, I’m doing arm curls and ab crunches in order to get myself into shape for activities like leaping over small barriers such as fire hydrants and newspaper machines, parkour-style….
The U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, in Kansas, is one potential site to which Guantanamo Bay (Check out this week’s feature story “Guantanamo’s Last Days”) detainees could be transferred. U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback toured the site on December 4 and declared that it wasn’t secure enough to hold Guantanamo’s prisoners. On January 28, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius sent a…
For the past ten months or so, I’ve been slagging the world’s stupidest bands. I haven’t singled out any metal acts for ridicule, for good reason: Metal is the best fucking genre imaginable. Exceptions to that statement: “Metalcore” acts with Pantera-worshipping verses and pansy crooned choruses; that glammed-out ’80s bullshit and the even less talented modern-day sleaze merchants who want…
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. I do this for one reason: Knowledge is power. Like Lambs to the Slaughter: Your Child and the Occult Author: Johanna Michaelsen Publisher: Harvest House Publishers Date: 1989 Discovered at: Good Will, North Oak Trafficway…
James E. Rincon really, really likes child pornography. The 41-year-old Kansas City man pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to downloading child pornography from the Internet. But he wasn’t just into receiving child pornography. Rincon fashioned himself the J.J. Abrams of child porn. Rincon’s computer wasn’t working in November 2005, so he took it to Tech Guys in Overland Park….
Somewhere in Virginia, Phill Kline is smiling. Sedgwick County District Judge Clark Owens denied Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller’s request to dismiss 19 misdemeanor charges for allegedly failing to get an independent second opinion for late-term abortions that he performed. “While Phill Kline testified that he would like for all abortions to be outlawed, his investigations made no attempts to…
If the multitalented Tommy Davidson hasn’t been quite as visible since the groundbreaking sketch-comedy show In Living Color went off the air, he’s been no less busy. In addition to featured roles in Booty Call, Woo and Juwanna Mann, as well as a seriocomic turn in Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, Davidson spent five seasons voicing beleaguered patriarch Oscar Proud in the…
The austere (2004 Baltimore, 816-221-2626) opens two exhibits of paintings — Walking in Paradise by Barbara Rogers and Atmosphere, Color & Light by Douglass Freed. Whereas Freed’s explorations of open space, reflection and form approach the level of abstraction, Rogers’ lush palette and vibrant compositions attempt to address chaotic nature itself rather than creating pastoral simulations. The opening reception is…
Moving can be a pain, what with all the packing and lifting and inevitable swearing involved. Fortunately for the gay and gay-friendly partiers in Lawrence, the relocation of the weekly Pride Night has gone off without a hitch. Check out Pride Night’s new digs and frugal door fee tonight at Wilde’s Chateau 24 (2412 Iowa in Lawrence). Even though the…
Rubberbandance isn’t a real word, but it’s fun to say. After getting a reputation for being a rubber-band man, choreographer Victor Quijada got some other elastic-bodied performers together and founded the Canadian Rubberbandance Group. Sporting jeans and sneakers, his rubberbandancers stretch, snap, spin and bounce in a style that fuses break dancing, ballet and hip-hop movements. Tonight at 8, the…
Louis Szekely chose to use a helpful pronunciation of his actual surname as his stage name, performing his top-tier stand-up across the country as Louis C.K. After spending his early career writing for the cream of late-night talk shows, The Late Show With David Letterman and Late Night With Conan O’Brien, he moved on to the short-lived Dana Carvey Show…
Levee Town, Motif Jam, the Unusual Suspects, Connie and the Choirboys and Rockin’Rick are getting together at Blayney’s for a benefit concert for Penelope, a member of the Unusual Suspects, who is undergoing treatment for malignant melanoma. Dance the day away and help with her medical expenses. Sat., Feb. 28, 2-8 p.m., 2009 Tags: 68, Night & Day
Lipizzaner Stallions are a rare breed of horse from Italy. During World War II, the entire stock was nearly wiped out, but General George S. Patton stepped in. A team of the beautiful white horses and their well-dressed riders will perform two shows at the Sprint Center on February 28. Sat., Feb. 28, 2 & 7:30 p.m., 2009 Tags: Europe,…
Ten Skies plays like a daydreaming afternoon spent staring at the clouds. The leisurely, meditative nature of this activity might be compromised if heaven-gazers had to get up and move every so often, so director James Benning supervises the movement. Ten Skies breaks into 10 10-minute reels, each depicting aerial activity above a different spot in Val Verde, the California…
This year marks the 20th anniversary of celebrated local band Season to Risk. It’s also the 22nd year of Kyle Frick’s battle with Ewing’s sarcoma, which he was diagnosed with at age 16. This weekend, Season to Risk reunites to play a benefit for Frick, who was a doorman at the Hurricane (between recurrences of cancer) from 1993 until the…
The signs at the edges of Kansas City, Kansas, may proclaim it home of track star Maurice Greene, but if you ranked the most accomplished natives of that city, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone more worthy than Ed Dwight. A renowned Air Force test pilot, Dwight was the first African-American to be chosen for the U.S. astronaut candidate training…
The sound of helmets hitting hardwood can’t be replicated on the small screen. The larger-than-life personalities of Kansas City’s roller-derby women aren’t easy to box up, either. But Roller Warriors, a seven-part documentary, offers a quick-paced introduction to the local league and a glimpse into the lives of women who strap on the knee pads and duke it out on…
China is a mystery to most Americans, but contemporary cinema is ideally suited to cutting through our differences to illuminate what we have in common. Billed as “an exploration of what makes a family in changing China,” the 2009 Kansas City Chinese Film Festival sets out to do just that, leading off with the 2003 feature Warm Spring, in which…
Technology has completely ruined the mystique of the talking car. Sure, back in the ’80s, when David Hasselhoff was at the wheel, saving the world and fighting his goateed evil twin, it was cool to hear that English teacher’s voice coming out of a Pontiac Trans Am. But on the new Knight Rider, the effect is of just a really…
Made in Livorno, Italy, Tuaca is a 70-proof, orange- and vanilla-flavored brandy. According to legend, the liqueur was first prepared for Lorenzo the Magnificent, the 15th-century Medici family member, who likely didn’t mix it with Red Bull. This evening, celebrate the drink that makes a better bomb than Jagermeister when Tuaca presents the Body Art Ball Evolution at the Uptown…
