Music Lesson
Take it from a real pro: This letter is in response to “Measure for Measure” of last week (Letters, June 2). I guess the point Mr. “I’ve been playing longer than most of the audience at El Torreon” was trying to make is valid, in that a decent monitor mix makes your experience as a musician more enjoyable. As long as we are tooting our own horns, here are a couple of pointers from someone who has played everywhere from Verizon Wireless Amphitheater to the VFW in Parsons, Kansas: (A) If you cannot execute a decent performance without monitors, you ain’t that good, and you had better learn how to do it because … (B) the day you actually land that dream opening slot for some big band at the Uptown or the Beaumont, you can be sure that your monitor mix will be lame, and if your band is any good, they might even get turned off! You gonna storm out in front of a thousand people?
Curtis Anderson
Kansas City, Missouri
Highway to Hell
Signals make us see red: I enjoyed reading your article about Bruce R. Watkins Drive (KC Strip, “Road Rage,” May 26). Interstate 280 outside San Francisco has signs proclaiming it as the “Most Beautiful Freeway in America.” I think we should put up signs on the Bruce Watkins as the “Most Politically Correct Freeway in America.”
John Minnick
Kansas City, Missouri
Fixing the Flats
Razing rents: Read the piece about the tax abatements for conversion of buildings to condos (David Martin, “Lifestyles of the Rich & Subsidized,” May 26). There is another side to this condo mania that no one either recognizes or feels is serious. That is, the plight of the older resident who does not want the responsibility of home ownership and opts to rent an apartment, and the conversion of that apartment to condo. We moved back to Kansas City in the fall of 2000 and moved into the Carleton on the Plaza. The manager told us that the owners lived in the building and would not take it condo. In the summer of 2004, the owners sold the building to Bob Bernstein, and it was immediately taken condo. We were offered the privilege of buying our two-bedroom, two-bath unit for a price in excess of $225,000. Or we could move. We moved. Thinking that Santa Fe Place at Crown Center was safe because of the condos at San Francisco Tower, we moved there in October 2004. Wrong! We were there about three weeks when the rumors started that condos were coming. Sure enough, in mid-January the letter came announcing condo conversion. Where will all these seniors live and have any amenities? Please don’t say retirement home or assisted living. We really do not want to return to something like our first home that went along with our first job in the big city many years ago.
Bob and Marilyn Lager
Fairway
Crash and Burn
Sandler didn’t fumble after all: Just wanted to thank your wonderful movie critic Robert Wilonsky for ruining a pivotal part of the movie Crash (“We’re No Angels,” May 5). He describes Larenz Tate’s and Ludacris’ characters as carjackers, and not knowing that is extremely important to one of the opening scenes. Mr. Wilonsky seems a little too focused on using his thesaurus and impressing people with his overly poetic analysis of cinema. Great writer, horrible movie critic. Don’t let him go see movies; use him somewhere else in your staff. Oh, yeah: The Longest Yard had lots of funny parts and was a great remake. (Wilonsky trashed it.) On second thought, get rid of the guy! Sometimes movies are made just for entertainment and don’t have to have some hidden deep social meaning to be good; they just entertain. Remember that next time.
Name Withheld by Request
House on Fire!
Join the club: I really enjoyed the article on Deep Fix Records (“Spin Doctors” by Jason Harper, June 2), and it brought up an idea. You should do an article about the other considerable names in Kansas City who are really helping put KC on the map in the house-dance scene. A lot of this has to do with stuff going on outside of town. I was the guy throwing raves in KC when the Deep Fix crew had just started going to parties, and now my wife and I have many records that we’ve produced internationally. Pat Nice and his partner, Jared Wheeler, also have many records out. Plus some DJs, like Paul DeMatteo, are actually traveling to places like New York City, Las Vegas and Miami. There’s a lot of people interested in this culture, and more time should be spent on it in the Pitch.
Justin Lake Whedon
Overland Park
