To outsiders, the hip-hop love affair between the Bay Area and Kansas City may seem unexpected. But to those involved, the longstanding connection between the two metros makes perfect sense. Kansas City artists such as Rich the Factor find welcome audiences in areas like Vallejo, Richmond and Oakland. Bay Area rappers such as E-40 and Yukmouth come to Kansas City…
Five years ago, CES Cru was tag-teaming bad guys. The cover of the hip-hop group’s debut album, Capture Enemy Soldiers, showed Ubiquitous (Mike Viglione) and Godemis (Donnie King) basking atop a mound of corpses. On the cover of the duo’s full-length follow-up album, The Playground, which launched Friday, the two MCs are engaged against each other in a laser-blaster hell…
It would be easier to flip a dong than to choose my favorite Vietnamese restaurant in Kansas City — I have several. But recently, I’ve renewed my appreciation for one of my old favorites and discovered a new one. Both are cozy little joints with consistently excellent fare, both in Kansas City’s historic Northeast. At Fifth Street and Campbell, Vietnam…
No one experiences this crowd like Jamie Sanders does. Across the street from the Hyatt Regency Crown Center, on a Friday morning in August, his helmet muffles nearby parents’ warnings to their children about running across the busy street. It also distorts jokes made by middle-aged men with snake tattoos. The helmet ensures that when Sanders does speak, his own…
On the Friday-morning ride to the surgery center, I shouldn’t really be thinking about work. I should be relaxing, telling myself that everything’s going to be just fine. Instead, I’m thinking about health-care reform. I’m not worried about the surgery — it’s minor and routine for women of my age. But I’m dreading my immersion into the American health-care system,…
Dear Mexican: I am a 22-year-old Mexican-American woman, still living with my parents but going to college, working full time and taking care of myself financially. I grew up in a very traditional Mexican household, youngest of four kids, and we were all born in the United States. I’m unmarried but with a steady boyfriend I have been with for four years. My family is proud…
Title: The Counterfeit Candidate: Ronald Reagan’s Backdoor Socialism in California Author: Kent H. Steffgen Publisher: National Issues, Las Vegas Date: 1976 Discovered: at Mission Hills estate sale The cover promises: “Legalized abortion, forced school busing, women’s lib, sex education in the schools, freeing of the criminal, overtaxation, doubled spending, socialized medicine, economic strangulation, land-use control — this is a conservative?”…
Shut Yer Foxhole: July 30 Lots to Cartoon About As a fan of Travis Fox’s earlier work in The Kansas City Star, I am glad to be following him again in The Pitch. However, his July 30 strip continues the pattern of most local media to blame the mayor’s wife for the $550,000 settlement of the lawsuit brought by a…
Whitney Houston didn’t even make it the three songs she had planned for Good Morning America. During the performance, her voice repeatedly cracked, disappeared entirely, and then she cut it short. According to the Daily News, people lined up starting the night before for yesterday’s concert in Central Park. She blamed her appearance on Oprah for her vocal loss: “I’m…
Aaron Lee Walton has a lot to learn about love. Walton, 33, allegedly told a date that he was an undercover police officer and threatened to arrest his date if she didn’t go to his house. Smooth. Can’t imagine why that one didn’t work. The Johnson County District Attorney charged Walton today with battery and false impersonation of a law…
You’ve learned how to paint your face like the Ssion wants you to. You’ve seen what it looks like when hundreds of people join up, painted up like that. Now you can see it all come together on the screen this weekend. The premiere of the Ssion movie, BOY is at the Tivoli on Thursday at 7:30pm. The Grand Arts…
A big bowl of menudo reportedly cures a hangover Your head throbs and every tiny sound resonates through your brain like a power drill. Your your mouth is dry, and you smell like day-old Subway sandwiches. The last thing you want to do after a big night out is go to breakfast the next morning. But you’re not a vampire…
Per the Topeka Examiner, original Kansas guitarist Kerry Livgren — author of classics “Dust in the Wind” and “Carry On Wayward Son” — suffered a stroke yesterday morning is in serious but stable condition at a hospital in his home of Topeka, Kansas, according to yesterday’s Examiner article. In 1980, three years before his 13-year-run with Kansas would end, Livgren…
Fan cans — the color-coded, sports marketing invention from Budweiser — are not finding any fans at Kansas University. It’s easy to imagine several Jayhawk fans purchasing as many blue and red cans as they can get their hands on — and that is exactly what concerns university officials. Jim Marchiony, associate athletics director at KU, told the Associated Press…
Jim Stowers is one of the “most generous people on the planet,” according to Forbes’ list of philanthropists who have given away $1 billion or more (Stowers has given about $1.9 billion, although I have yet to see a check with my name on it). Forbes says: Stowers has not been a member of the Forbes 400 since 2000, but…
DJ Bill Pile was kind enough to shoot us a link to his new u:move mixtape, which is “getting pretty good response,” according to Pile. The mixtape, number 017, has a killer tracklist — a collection of electro-pop, french house and tons of synth — as you can see below: 1) I’ll Get You (Feat Jeppe) – Classixx 2) Gummiband…
Leaders of the International House of Prayer met with the public for the second time (we covered the first), and it doesn’t sound like a lot came out of the meeting other than more denials from church founder Mike Bickle that his church isn’t a cult. KSHB Channel 41 attended the star-studded meeting (Cathy Jolly! John Sharp! Alvin Brooks!). The…
Off-menu items are like the hidden door in the bookcase — you’ve got to be able to tell cashiers exactly which button to push on the register in order to reveal the hidden wonders at your favorite fast food restaurant. Mental Floss published a list of 10 off-menu items at popular fast food chains — but as with so much…
Missed this story from Fox 4 a couple of days ago: An Independence guy popped a cap into a female shoplifter’s arm after she boosted some meat from a Sun Fresh. The guy, Bill Miller, was legally packing heat, and he didn’t have an ounce of regret for using his 9 millimeter on Loucinda Carroll. Fox 4 says the story…
Who did Benjamin Franklin turn to when he was thirsty? Kool-Aid man — at least according to the bizarre alt-history envisioned by The Adventures of Kool-Aid Man. The comic book/product-placement vehicle encouraged readers to follow Kool-Aid Man “as he battles the thirsties (yellow spiky suns with green tongues and mad eyes) through time and on a camping adventure.” Because everybody…
This sign was in the window of a building at 14th and Main in the Power & Light District. Not a lot of information, but a guy working inside the building said it’s the future site of Fran’s Restaurant. Here’s the description on the P&L’s Web site: Fran’s Restaurant is a 24-hour diner, offering upscale comfort food such as pancakes,…
Not to get all M.A.D.D. here, but here’s a scary thought for those venturing out on the highways this holiday weekend: About 66,000 repeat drunk drivers aren’t complying with a state law requiring them to get alcohol ignition locks. You know, the thingy your uncle Charlie has to blow into (or has you blown in) to get his car to…
When it comes to food safety, the question often centers on what should fall under the category of personal responsibility and what are the obligations of corporations and monitoring agencies? That gray area is the issue — as evidenced by the E. Coli outbreak associated with raw Nestle Toll House cookie dough earlier this year. Should people be expected to…
