Flickr: plindberg Kaliber might be the best of the near beer lot. It’s hard to see a fellow beer lover suffer. But not even a surprise 12-pack of Pabst’s NA (sold at a grocery store near the Lake of the Ozarks) could raise the spirits of a pregnant friend. At the end of the day, even the potential king of…
Photo by Brooke Vandever Sean Malto will be on the radio today. Last week, The Pitch ran a feature-length profile of Kansas City-based pro skateboarder Sean Malto. The 22-year-old was fresh off a $200,000 win in the finals of Rob Dyrdek’s Street League DC Pro Tour (read the Malto story by clicking here). Today, Malto is the featured guest on…
If the Jayhawks fly east, where do they land? The latest college conference realignment rumors from Texas’ Orangebloods.com has the Longhorns looking at the ACC. Who cares about Texas? Not me. But if Kansas and Missouri fans were hoping that the Jayhawks and Tigers might be breaking away from Bevo, hold tight. Orangebloods’ Chip Brown writes that KU and Mizzou…
Todd Zimmer Metal foursome Wrath and Ruin has survived what usually kills most acts: the loss of a vocalist. Following a series of events the band is reticent to discuss, it found itself in need of a new singer. Longtime area promoter Dean Edington was eventually recruited to take the spot behind the microphone, and the band will officially release…
John Danforth is a man of two minds. John Danforth, the former U.S. senator from Missouri, leads two lives: statesman and partisan hack. Danforth the statesman criticizes the Republican Party for catering to the religious right. Danforth the partisan hack endorsed Jim Talent, whose voting record the Christian Coalition graded at 100 percent, in a 2006 U.S. Senate race. Danforth…
Happy 28th Birthday, Amy Winehouse. Virgo/Virgo Rising* (Aug 22-Sept 22): You’d think as the light wanes to the Fall Equinox next week, so would your energy. But, no, you’re going against this grain of thought. With Mr. Mercury moving through your first house of personal presentation until September 25, restlessness sleeps with you. Well, sleep is what you want, and…
Chekhov famously decreed that a gun shown in Act 1 must be discharged before the final curtain. His point being that there can be no empty threats or unfulfilled promises in drama. What Act 1 sets up, the final act must fulfill. Perhaps a corollary can be added for suicide notes prominently displayed. The guns in Bryan Moses’ new play,…
As the leader of Austin-based folk-rock act Okkervil River, Will Sheff writes clever, concise pop songs with a sharp eye for lyrical detail. The group’s latest LP, I Am Very Far, is a departure from the concept-heavy nature of its previous three releases and finds Sheff in the producer’s chair for the first time. The album has a giddy, unhinged quality;…
Funny thing, American exceptionalism. After record ratings for the World Cup, we finally seemed to be getting over that whole soccer vs. football thing. But in the world of auto racing, the division pretty much comes down to the United States vs. Everybody Else. NASCAR’s brand of closed-body stock-car racing is mostly a local phenomenon, having evolved from racing hot-rod…
Zaarly doesn’t have a garage. So many huge tech companies have origin myths centered on guys tuning up their dreams in California garages. Hewlett-Packard ran commercials that touted its launch in a Palo Alto garage. Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started their company in a Los Altos garage. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the Web goliath’s…
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, with Sky Smeed and Robby Vee Jason Isbell played the George Harrison role in Drive-By Truckers for the early and middle ’00s: a hungry young songwriter fighting for album space alongside the Lennon-McCartney duo of Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley. He eventually left the band and pursued a solo career, but not before writing…
I didn’t think twice about asking three women to join me for dinner at the three-month-old Elsa’s Ethiopian Restaurant last week. And, honestly, it never occurred to me that because two of them are professional interior designers, they might have opinions on the restaurant’s décor. As it turned out, Jan and Carol Ann had more than opinions. They had suggestions…
Clay Hughes grew up in Waverly, Kansas, a small town near enough to Lawrence that he could pick up the tail end of heyday-era KLZR 105.9 (the Lazer) on his radio dial. “Hearing bands like Nada Surf, Spacehog, Ben Folds on the Lazer in junior high, that was when I first really got into music,” the 28-year-old singer-songwriter says. “That…
A couple of my co-workers have been so eager to see the newest innovation in soda vending machines — the Coke Freestyle dispenses more than 100 Coca-Cola brand beverages — that you might think it was the Second Coming. Or maybe something that hearkens back to an old-fashioned soda fountain. Before technologically superior machines made fountain drinks accessible to anyone…
Angela C. Bond Silver, gold and bronze — winning beers will be paired with a special menu at the Beer Kitchen on Sunday. The Beer Kitchen No. 1 restaurant in Westport will host a beer dinner, featuring five medal-winning brews paired with a special menu created by Wkc corporate chef Michael Peterson, this Sunday, September 18, at 6:30 p.m. The…
One of the best movies ever made about a restaurateur was the 1945 drama Mildred Pierce, based on a hard-boiled James M. Cain novel about a waitress who ambitiously, tirelessy builds a small empire of home-cooking restaurants — fried chicken and waffles were among the popular menu items. Former Kansas City resident Joan Crawford won an Academy Award playing the…
Arrowhead Pride posted the above video of Buffalo Bills receiver Stevie Johnson torpedoing Kansas City Chiefs safety Eric Berry. The block takes place in the upper-right corner. It tore the second-year safety’s ACL and ended his season. Was it legal? From what I’ve read, yeah, it was. But it looks bad when a guy is diving helmet-first low on someone….
Neighbors Go This might be a Category 1. In the midst of the discussion concerning Hurricane Irene, The Wall Street Journal snuck in a new metric for measuring the severity of a storm — the Waffle House Index. In the piece, Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate explained that whether a Waffle House is open and serving its full…
In July, nutbag Kansas City preacher Lou Engle claimed that the May 22 EF5 tornado that ripped through Joplin “was a sign that God’s redemptive judgments are beginning to be manifest concerning the shedding of innocent blood and abortion.” Not so fast, as college football analyst Lee Corso would say. A prophet named Chuck Pierce is claiming that the tornado…
Oh hell naw. Word on the street, or should I say the rumor has it, is that Guns N’ Roses is gonna be rolling out a fall tour in the days ahead. So far, Axl Rose and his band — which includes no other original members but does include former Replacements bassist Tommy Stinson — are pinned down only for…
Improvised comedy podcast Superego is currently in the middle of its third season. The lead duo of Jeremy Carter, PhD, and Matt Gourley, PyT, rarely perform live, which makes their appearance at this weekend’s Kansas City Improv Festival that much more of a must-see. You can catch Superego Friday, September 16, and Saturday, September 17. Saturday’s performance will feature SNL’s…
K2 is illegal, and the KCPD will bust you for smoking it. Just a reminder from Kansas City Police Chief Jim Corwin that all synthetic drugs are now illegal. They have been since August 28, but the chief must have felt the need to say so once again on his blog. The ban covers K2, K3, Syn, and Spice, which…
