Dogfighting impresario Michael Vick has left the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. I’ll miss knowing that the closest thing Kansas City had to a real quarterback was just 50 minutes away — even if he was locked in a cell for squandering his fame and fortune for the nonstop thrill of dog-against-dog combat. Then again, the Chiefs did just trade…
The circuitry of my brain has just been rewritten a little. For the deluxe rerelease of Pearl Jam’s debut album Ten (now 18), MTV2 got various artists to do covers. It’s very commercial and most of them suck (Hoobastank? fuck you), whatever. But, for some reason, Minneapolis indie rapper P.O.S.’s contribution, a cover of “Why Go,” is blowing my mind….
Conversation is an under-appreciated art in a society more concerned with who can fire off a better 140 character text in Twitter (answer: Fat City can.) But Twitter won’t get you far on a first date or a dinner party with strangers. What is needed in these scenarios is that fine art of jokes, anecdotes and witty facts. But where…
%{}% We are all hippies now: Look, the simple fact is that when actual U.S. suburbs, as seen in the horrible embarrassment to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,American Beauty, begin experiencing drug-related violence by Mexican gangs, you are totally allowed to say that U.S. drug policy is broken without being this guy: I tried to find a…
Now that the festival is over and folks hangovers are wearing off, the really good shit is coming in. The past few days I’ve been enjoying living vicariously post-facto through KJHK’s SXSW blog. If I tried to do the same thing through the Ssion’s blog for Vice magazine, I’d probably turn gay, have a heart attack and die a glamorous,…
Recently, 4:20 enthusiasts Shanin & Parks have begun fobbing off T-shirts to anyone willing to whisper “cooter” to them. We were shocked to see these shirts turning up everywhere. For example, we never expected to see a Shanin & Parks shirt … on a life-sized cardboard Shaquille O’Neal. Categories: News Tags: KMBZ, Shanin & Parks, Shaquille O’Neal
Pauline Fujita was a typical grad student who spent many a night guzzling coffee and studying. Until one day, she realized that she loved the brew in the cup more than the info in the book. Thus, a graduate-student determination to figure out what makes coffee coffee. Her paper, Science on a Grande Scale, was published more than two years…
Kansas City’s In the Pines plays its first show in nine months — its first show with all members on their feet.
Flickr: Katie Spence If 64 games of basketball is not enough competition for you, those brackets are also useful for pitting food against food. Specifically meat. Food blog So Good is running a 32-item “Meat Madness” tournament, asking its readers to vote on who will advance. The four regions are red meat, poultry, seafood and pork, with voting open 24…
Armando Diaz, a Latino stone mason, found damning evidence that J.E. Dunn Construction Co. made a sham of minority-hiring goals when it subcontracted work on the H&R Block headquarters. But an appeals court says Diaz has no recourse. In an opinion filed yesterday, the Missouri Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling against Diaz Construction Co. and the Kansas…
I wasn’t able to talk to Colby Garrelts on Monday because his restaurant Bluestem was closed, but I did get a hold of him yesterday. He sounded winded, which is to be expected from a man trying to prep a large dinner while fielding dozens of congratulation calls. “It’s a little stressful but it’s awesome,” he said, referring to the…
Marc Conklin, the former chief administrative officer for the Kansas City, Kansas, Board of Public Utilities, committed suicide at his home last night. The Kansas City Kansan reported the story first early this morning. A BPU spokesman confirmed the story to me this morning. In October, a Wyandotte County grand jury indicted Conklin and Rodney L. Turner, a 68-year-old lawyer…
%{}% After a hiatus, Venus in the Kitchen is back with musings on appreciative customers and the personal-chef business in this economy. Starbucks keeps rolling out new products. Expect its premium ice-cream to show up in grocery stores in the next month or so. Ladies — it’s not too late to get a pair of Rachel Ray’s “Yum-O” Ugg boots….
We have a housing department again, which is nice. And the city seemed well on its way to getting its assets back. Remember how a federal judge ordered that a receiver control all of the city’s properties and its loan portfolio until the city’s housing program gets its shit together? And how the city paid $350,000 to hire Chicago-based experts…
The recession hasn’t hurt Club Skin (1037 Northwest 435th Road, 816-732-5683) at all. The Holden, Missouri, all-nude, adult-entertainment franchise is opening two new locations by the Lake of the Ozarks and needs to staff them before the weather warms up and people head to Party Cove. Which means Club Skin needs a House Mom, stat. Ideal candidate possesses: The desire…
Thursday night the Kansas City Repertory Theatre is doing something for people who have lost their jobs. The Rep is giving away tickets to the 7 p.m. performance of Winesburg, Ohio to those who show proof of unemployment at the will-coll box office. Winesburg, Ohio is an award-winning musical based on Sherwood Anderson’s story of wanting to escape small-town Midwestern…
The border around that YouTube video is green. Like money. I received a press release today about the St. Louis band Living Things, which did something kinda outrageous at SXSW last week. The band burned money on stage. Several times. The stunts were done in protest “Wall Street’s dirty ways” according to the release. The band also had this to…
Kendall and I attended last night’s WWE Monday Night Raw show at the Sprint Center, along with Crap Archivist Alan Scherstuhl. I’m an old school fan from the days when Jake “The Snake” Roberts tried to wipe the smirk off “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase’s pampered, ugly mug. Hell, I even stuck with them through the Doink the Clown…
Yesterday afternoon, I finally tracked down “Dorothy,” the woman behind the Life in Oz cartoon (drawn by Travis “Foxymoron” Fox) aimed at raising money to fend off book-banning conservatives. Dorothy’s real name is Kristin Schultz. She’s a stay-at-home mom in Overland Park (her kids are in the Olathe School District) who’s tired of seeing classic books challenged and removed from…
Tonight at 6:00 p.m., Mayor Mark Funkhouser’s gonna spit some mad freestyles on KPRS 103.3 with host Sean Tyler. Just kidding, he’s going to be talking about the budget, because like President Barack Obama, he’s on a bit of a media blitz right now. In the press release, Funk says, “As the nation’s oldest African American operated radio station, KPRS…
If someone had mentioned “the bathysphere” to use yesterday, I’d have pictured an atmospheric ring of bathtub scum suspended in high orbit. But apparently, the capital-B Bathysphere is a music blog based out of Columbia, MO. And we’re glad we know about it now, because it’s freakin’ nice. Its got quite a concert reviews archive — many in CoMo, but…
Remember the name Cary Silverman. The 22-year-old senior at the University of Missouri may not be the next Bill Gates, but he’s definitely going to be somebody. This business management major from Kansas City watched a couple of friends sneak booze into a movie screening so they could sip liquor with their popcorn and had an epiphany: alcohol-flavored popcorn! It may…
