Be entertained on the Ghoul Bus. The tour passes Kansas City’s landmarks as Kansas City history, legendary paranormal activity and infamous mafia mayhem stories are theatrically told. Arrive at 10 minutes till 6PM and 9PM for prompt departure, tour lasts over 2 hours. Reservations required. Fridays, Saturdays, 6 & 9 p.m. Starts: Aug. 20. Continues through Nov. 13, 2010 Tags:…
It would be weird if a drink slinger from St. Louis won the Greater Kansas City Bartending Competition. Sure, the challenge — the Midwest’s biggest —is open to barkeeps outside this region, but we hope the title stays local. That shouldn’t be hard. Kansas City mixologists dominate the roster, representing such classy establishments as McCormick & Schmick’s, Bluestem, Firefly Lounge…
Lolcats are acceptable on your desktop, but please don’t hang one on the wall. For actual fine art (plus jewelry and plush toys) inspired by — and helpful to — cute animals, place some bids at the 14th Annual Art Unleashed, a live and silent auction benefiting the Humane Society of Greater Kansas City. More than 400 pieces go on…
She & Him fans fall into two types: (1) Those who know that M. Ward had a thriving solo career before hitting the Starbucks rack, and (2) those who don’t. Ward’s achingly beautiful acoustic ballads have floated around the outer rings of the music sphere since his 2001 release, End of Amnesia. Since the singer and songwriter hitched himself to…
Dear Mexican: Oye, I’m a Mexican con un pie aquí y un pie allá, and I have to admit that it is difficult to be a Mexican these days. I’d like to make the argument that it is one of the worst times ever to be a Mexican. I even think it is worse now than it was in the…
No Damn Trespassing, Beware of Mule!” warns the hand-carved sign posted near the country cabin of Tennessee recluse Felix Bush (Robert Duvall), whose abrupt decision to re-engage with the larger world propels Get Low, an imperfect but rewarding new film. It is 1938, and Felix has been in a self- imposed exile for 40 years. (“The first 38 are the…
Memoryhouse’s glacial compositions are soft-focus smatterings of dreamy reverb, cast in sonic pastels. But don’t dismiss the Ontario duo as another exponent of mere lo-fi. The band’s debut EP, The Years, demonstrates a wider range than most of the scuzz emitting from basements and bedrooms. It’s also more pensive than the beach-romping records of Memoryhouse’s peers, perhaps because band member…
A pleasant, minor-key romance, Darko Lungulov’s Here and There has the unadorned integrity of a classic joke. There’s pleasure in watching the conceit unfold, which is sweetened by an unexpectedly poignant payoff. Veteran bit player David Thornton headlines as Robert, a surly boho graybeard who has given up jazz saxophone for full-time depression. Unemployable and out of crash pads, he…
Adapted by Rob Reiner and Andrew Scheinman from Wendelin Van Draanen’s novel, and set in a late-’50s America rooted more in that era’s sitcoms than in reality, the film’s coming-of-age love story follows its hero and heroine from second grade to junior high. Juli (Madeline Carroll) loves Bryce (Callan McAuliffe) from the moment his family moves in across the street….
A homely bit of international Cold War cloak-and-dagger, starring badly dressed bureaucrats instead of chic spies, Farewell is based on a vital early-’80s espionage break involving the KGB, the French intelligence agency DST and the CIA. Heads of all concerned governments appear in the film, but more attention is paid to the domestic lives of the reluctant agents as they’re…
Though he’s certainly gathered a grassroots following in his 35-year career, Alejandro Escovedo and his keenly sketched portraits of love and loss have never received the attention they deserve. Born to a family of Mexican-American musicians (Sheila E. is his niece), Escovedo got his start in the mid-’70s with Bay Area punk act the Nuns before moving to Austin and…
Dear Kansas: We know change is harder than last year’s cider and slower than Lynn Jenkins. After all, it hasn’t even been a decade since you caught up with Missouri and let liquor stores do business on Sundays. But it’s high time to rethink another absurd blue law: your fatwa against happy hour. In case you’re really hammered on full-price…
Technology has improved nearly every aspect of our lives and now it has been applied to humankind’s greatest venture: the search for cheap drinks. The Pitch’s parent company, Village Voice Media Holdings LLC, has partnered with GoTime to bring you Happy Hours, the premier smart-phone application for finding drink specials wherever you are and whenever you’re looking. Your phone informs…
Bars and restaurants across the city were locked in a race to capture your drinking dollars before anyone ever uttered the word recession. From slightly sleazy to subtly swanky, and from Gladstone to South KC and all points in between, comes our list of the 20 best happy hours in the metro (on the Missouri side of the state line,…
In the basement of Liberty Hall, Fourth of July frontman and songwriter Brendan Hangauer offers only vague, distant mutterings about his band’s excellent new album, Before Our Hearts Explode! This is frustrating. As fans of the beloved Lawrence folk-rock band know, Hangauer can be scarily articulate. His best songs — usually acerbic, confessional dispatches from doomed relationships — hit on…
The black-and-white video for “All Hell” is a Midwestern rockabilly fantasy, heavy on leopard-print-wearing dancers, sledgehammers and PBR. But it also embodies Them Damned Young Livers’ lifestyle. “A dude in Minneapolis once said to us, ‘Everybody else always sings about it, but you guys live it,’” drummer Bob Lyons says. “We are in it as much for ourselves as anything…
The photographic cardboard cutout of chef Jasper Mirabile Jr. in the foyer of Jasper’s Restaurant is so lifelike that one night I actually spoke to it. It isn’t the only such likeness of the chef in town. Since Jasper Jr. — friends and family call him J.J. — and his brother, Leonard, opened the current incarnation of the family restaurant…
Hippolyte “Paul” Delaroche was a 19th-century French painter who specialized in historical scenes. His reputation, founded on razor-sharp accuracy and attention to detail, was undercut by his most famous statement. Upon seeing the world’s first daguerreotype, he wrote, “From today, painting is dead!” The exclamation point drives home how wrong Delaroche was. Painting outlasted daguerreotype technology and today coexists peacefully…
Debbie Goodall, president of Metropolitan Community College–Business and Technology, once arrived for work in the back of a pickup truck. It was about five years ago, on a morning of heavy rainstorms. The Business and Technology campus sits deep inside Executive Park, a collection of commercial buildings perched on lowlands near Interstate 435 and Front Street. On her way to…
Feature: “Banned,” August 19 Drunk Responsibly Years ago, I used to somewhat frequent Westport, and I very much enjoyed having some drinks with friends. What people are failing to realize is that it becomes necessary to show a little common sense when consuming moderate amounts of alcohol. The majority of patrons and business owners alike want some type of order…
Everyone grumbles over the Chief’s losing seasons but if you were a real football fan you’d know that KC brought home a national championship last year, thanks to the ladies of the Kansas City Tribe. But even being a winner doesn’t mean things are always good. The Tribe were the 2009 champions of the Texas-based Independent Women’s Football League, but…
Eight months after Wesley Binder was killed, family and friends have raised thousands of dollars in reward money for information leading to his killer. Binder was found dead in his driveway on the 8900 block of 60th Terrace in Raytown in December, 2009. His body showed signs of blunt force trauma to the head. Categories: News Tags: St. Luke’s United…
Once again the residents of North Carolina wake to face another gray morn in the bitter, barren moonscape that is their lives. Their community colleges languish behind Hesston College in Washington Monthly’s annual community college rankings. Imaginary calls made to several North Carolina residents were not returned for comment, save for one man who – after I informed him of…
Timothy Cloud, a 63-year-old transient nut job from northern California, got his hands on some baby powder earlier this year, and decided to scare some civil servants. Cloud sent letters containing talcum to the Kansas City Social Security Administration office, as well as offices in New York and Baltimore and the White House. He didn’t hide his identity very well…
