Water Worked

Hip-hop MC Priceless Diamonds grew up boosting clothes and turning the occasional trick. She swears she’s leading a straighter life now, but we figure she’s still learned lots of life lessons. So listen up, y’all.

What do you think of Destiny’s Child’s song “Cater 2 U”?

I love that song, because in order to keep a boss like Jay-Z or any other boss, you gotta cater to him. You gotta do what the other women aren’t doing. She’ll keep her hair fixed, rockin’ the hottest outfits. I cater to my man. That’s why I can’t get rid of him. Once you cater to ’em, you cannot get rid of ’em — even if they do got somebody on the side — because they’re gonna be spoiled.

To cater to your man on a budget? You just cater with what you got. Cook little gourmet, homemade meals — fried chicken, green beans, potato salad — and have them waiting for him, have the house clean, have the candles lit. And do whatever he asks when he gets there.

There’s an office party coming up. How do I avoid getting crunked and fired?

I used to get tore back. I figured out it was because I was mixing colors: I would start with vodka, and by the end of the night I was on Hennessey and Remy. Then I’d be blacked out. If you start out drinking wine, drink wine all night. If you start out drinking vodka, drink vodka all night. I had to learn my limit the hard way. You gotta have mind control. I’m having three drinks and that’s it, unless I want to end up lying on my back somewhere. They got a new wine out called Menage a Trois — go with a nice glass of white wine. When you want to go hard, stick with the same color all night. Don’t end up on your back.

Got a question only Priceless can answer? E-mail her at bossbitch@pitch.com.

Water Worked

Schlitterbahn — the name of the Texas water-park empire that wants to build one of its splashy namesake sites in KCK — is a German word that means slippery road.

That was just one of the revelations at the September 15 press conference where Schlitterbahn officials announced their plan to locate a new, $300 million water park and resort right across Interstate 435 from Great Wolf Lodge, also an indoor water park and resort. The Schlitterbahn would be an “engine of economic success,” bringing jobs as well as tourism dollars and property-tax revenue to the area.

More than once, we considered the possibility that we were actually in the opening scene of a Christopher Guest film.

Grinning Unified Government spokesman Don Denney welcomed Schlitterbahn’s Jeff Henry to Kansas City by asking the crowd to shout “Schlitterbahn!” in unison on the count of three. “One … two … three … ,” Denney encouraged. “Schlitterbahn!” yelled the crowd.

Henry spoke about his company, a family business started by his father. He explained the signature concept known as “transportainment” — a canal system enhanced by conveyors that allow visitors to travel around the park without having to leave their inner tubes, which we have to admit is pretty sweet. He explained that a
river walk would be enclosed so people could enjoy it year-round, and that an estimated 50 million people live within eight hours of the site, making Schlitterbahn a mighty tourist destination.

That’s when Gary Henry joined his brother onstage and asked, “Would you buy a used car from this guy?”

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Then Mayor Joe Reardon fielded a few questions from the press, most notably, “Why would you bring a water park here when we already have a water park?”

Reardon explained that the Schlitterbahn would complement, not compete with, the Great Wolf Lodge. KCK would be a place that people associated with water adventure. Who wouldn’t come to a city where it is possible to stay overnight at one water park and also have access to another water park right across the street? (Such tourists would even have a third option: Oceans of Fun!)

Actually, based on the artist’s drawings of what the park might look like, we’re banking on the likelihood that many travelers will come to KCK after mistaking the Schlitterbahn for a real, live Ewok Village.

Jeff Henry then came back because some folks wanted him to talk about the true mission, the true meaning, of his family’s business. This park — with its unnatural waterways and synthetic treehouse lodging — is meant to teach kids about ecology. About conservation.

It made perfect sense to us: In those dry seasons when nearby farmers’ crops are withering in the Kansas sun, farm kids will be coming to the water park, glad there’s a place to learn about that wacky H2O.

Pucking Around

The National Hockey League visited Kemper Arena Saturday night, and we had two tickets to the event, an exhibition game between the St. Louis Blues and the Nashville Predators.

We figured it was a great opportunity to test the city’s interest in the NHL. Pro hockey has been kicked around as a possible main attraction at the Sprint Center, which is set to open in 2007. So, in the ultimate test of the market, we tried to scalp our tickets.

The event did not sell out, so every scalper was at a disadvantage. Most tickets had a face value of $40, but one scalper told us he was happy to get $30 for a decent seat.

Ticketless fans reveled in the buyer’s market. “I’m light,” a middle-aged man told a scalper as he approached the arena with a female companion. The man, who appeared to have means, seemed to enjoy the opportunity to barter with someone as theoretically streetwise as a scalper. “That’s all I got left, dude,” he told another, after lobbing a lowball in an effort to bring down the price. “I’m going to be light for beer.”

Our seats were in the upper bowl in the arena, making it highly unlikely they’d fetch even three-quarters of their value. (We planned to send the proceeds of any sale to the Alternative Newsweekly Foundation, an industry nonprofit that is assisting the staff at Gambit Weekly in New Orleans.) Plus, we had no idea what we were doing.

At one point, we walked against the grain of pedestrian traffic along Genessee Street. Holding aloft the tickets, we felt like Susan Sarandon flashing her saggy peace sign at the Oscars a few years ago. “You’re going the wrong way, dude,” a man said as our shoulders passed in the twilight.

We decided to lurk near the ticket office. Another guy with a bad seat was there, looking for $15 but willing to settle for $10 or maybe less.

We chatted with another scalper about the prospects of an NHL team in KC. The scalper, who would not give his name, said he believed that this area would support a winner, a team “that had some dynamite behind it.”

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Kansas City, the scalper noted, was within driving range of Iowa and other neighboring states without major-league sports franchises.

“When your team’s winning, people will drive all the way down from Nebraska, because there’s nothing to do in Nebraska,” he said.

At one of the ticket windows, we encountered several unhappy faces. The party of five had arrived with tickets to the 2004 NHL exhibition game at Kemper that had been canceled because of a labor dispute. (Unable to reach a bargain, NHL players and owners lost the entire 2004-05 season.) The ticket holders had failed to seek refunds, falsely believing they’d be honored when the game was rescheduled. A guy in the group, wearing a Blues jersey, took his frustration out on a cigarette, inhaling violently.

We offered him one of our tickets. He accepted with thanks. A woman in his party then passed a credit card through the ticket window and bought a four-ticket block for $100.

With the other ticket still in hand, we went inside the arena. Entire rows in Kemper’s upper reaches were empty. But the people who had come seemed knowledgeable, cheering when St. Louis killed a two-man penalty advantage in the first period.

The announced attendance was 12,686, substantially lower than the sell-out crowd of 17,285 that had watched an NHL exhibition at Kemper in 2003. It was hard to believe that the owner of the Predators — one of the teams mentioned as a possible resident of the Sprint Center — would come away thrilled by the idea of moving his team here.