Yearly Archives: 2011
Today: The Racial Profiling of America’s Pub in Westport
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It’s no secret many Westport property owners and merchants want America’s Pub to curl up and die.
Their fingers tightly crossed that owners of Manor Square will not renew the predominantly African-American themed dance club’s lease at year’s end.
"I bet they won’t be there after their lease is up at the end of the year," says one Westporter.
America’s Pub attorney Harris Wilder has another take.
New Jack City: SPICE RADIO Talks Dirty, Strokes Listeners!
SPICE RADIO‘s dubious slogan promises, "Where The Audience Comes First."
They’re not kidding!
The free SiriusXM subscription that came with my new Mercedes expired just a few days before Howard Stern‘s contract ran out. But after he renewed, I renewed.
Then came a notice that there would be a channel shuffle of stations and new ones added. So the other evening I really checked it all out.
That’s when I came upon SPICE RADIO, complete with its adult stories, language and reality & X-rated phone calls, which tops Playboy‘s radio channel by a country mile!
OTC: The Top 10 Reasons Greg Hall Left KC Confidential
Read ’em and weep…
10. Craig Glazer’s scandalous tales of juggling 20-something babes enticed Hall into trolling Westport. Haven’t seen that white boy since.
9. Hearne promised Hall a Fiat 500 but the delivery date turned out to be December 2015…in Rome.
8. The Kansas City Star called, "Hall?…Sorry, wrong number.”
7. The Kansas City Star called Hall back, "Would you like to purchase a subscription?”
Glazer: Click Your Heels Time, There’s No Place Like Home
Was talking to my on-air buddy Johnny Dare last night…
Had one of our better talks. Hard to believe he’s been on the radio for nearly two decades. And I’ve been a weekly guest nearly the entire time. Yep, he was in his 20’s and me in my 30’s back then. We both agreed we’re lucky to have had the careers we’ve been blessed with.
Sure there are always other mountains to climb, but with Johnny he’s hit all the high marks; top on-air guy in KC, a TV gig and more to come.
We all know my story.
Today: KCTV’s Katie Horner Not Just On the Exit Ramp, She’s on the Party Train!
Sometimes stories spring from odd and unusual circumstances…
Take the latest on fading-fast, KCTV weather wonk Katie Horner. I was recently asked to profile her for a local magazine. Nothing controversial, mind you. Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact. So I made several attempts to contact her at Channel 5 and at what I believed to be her home phone number.
Nada.
After not hearing back for more than a week, I thought the better of it and given the rumors that KCTV was not renewing her contract and moved on…profile-wise.
Sounds Good: Matt & Kim@Beaumont, Lyle Lovett & John Hiatt@Uptown, Bluegrass@Crossroads
Me: "Are you going to cut my hair when I get out there? You can do a box, right?"
My brand new barber: "Sure man."
Me: "I’m serious dude. I need a trim."
My brand new barber: "No."
Me: "But you’re official now, you got your license. Of course it’s only valid in Boise and the greater Treasure Valley area, but it’s legit, right?"
My brand new barber: "Yeah, totally."
Me: "And a hot shave?"
My brand new barber: "Nope…"
Glazer: Down & Out in Kansas City. What Else is New?
For a team that showed some promise in April, the Kansas City Royals got completely shot down in May…
Now it’s late June and the Royals are finally where they feel most comfortable – in LAST PLACE. On a positive note, they are 5-5 in the last 10 games and it’s worth noting that former last place team Minnesota went 9-1 during that same period.
Hey, at least the Royals have tried to compete and gain our interest lately.
Hearne: Will O’Dowd’s Rescue Power & Light’s Raglan Road?
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Who better to ride to the rescue of a beleaguered P&L Irish pub than the dudes in the green hats at O’Dowd’s?
That’s the rumor, anyway. Based in no small part on the fact that the Power & Light District is suing upscale pub and restaurant Raglan Road for more than $600,000 in back rent.
The $64 million question: should O’Dowd’s takes the plunge, will it become the third area O’Dowd’s, joining the ones on the Plaza and at Zona Rosa?
Donnelly: Sporting KC Tally First Goal, Win In LIVESTRONG Sporting Park
Sporting Kansas City opened their new stadium last week in front of a sell-out crowd, but were unable to score any goals. The game ended 0-0, begging the question, "Who is going to score the first MLS goal in LIVESTRONG Sporting Park?"
That question was answered in the 31st minute on Friday night by rookie striker CJ Sapong, who finished off a Graham Zusi set piece by flying horizontally through the air and getting his left boot to the ball, knifing it past San Jose keeper, Jon Busch.
"It was something we’ve been working on for quite some time," said KC coach Peter Vermes of the goal. "We have guys that we feel like if they get to the right places, they can stick the balls in the back of the net. That goal that CJ scored, I only saw it once but I would say that was an incredibly athletic goal to be able to basically be parallel in the air to the ground."
Hearne: He’s Out! Ex Star Sports Scribe Jeffrey Flanagan Flies KC Coop
Missing in action on Fox Sports Kansas City…
Former Kansas City Star sports gossip columnist Jeffrey Flanagan. Flanangan’s column – Flanny’s Take – more-or-less dropped from site the latter part of May. He did however post a "Minor League Report" after a month or so writing hiatus.
So what’s the deal? Word is Flanagan pulled up stakes and moved back to from whence he came.
"Steve Penn at the Star told me that he was called back home several weeks ago to Minnesota or Wisconsin," says Stanford’s Craig Glazer. "And the word is, he’s not coming back. Steve said he saw him the day before he left and that (Jeff) told him that, given the situation at the Star, there really wasn’t much here for him anymore. He told Steve he had a couple sports books he wanted to write."
Flanagan declined to comment.
For Glazer, Flanagan’s departure marks the end of a remarkable, at times bizarre, bittersweet era.
Today: Copper Thieves Break into / Camp Out in Star, Leave Beer Cans, DNA in Toilets
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There’s no shortage of copper stealing stories in the news…
Reports abound about bad guys breaking into buildings and ripping off copper from air-conditioning units and the like. The object of the game; raise some quick cash from the resale of the metal to recyclers.
TV news and the Star cover these sort of stories regularly. Just last week for example, the newspaper reported, "Kansas City is taking aim at the thieves who prey on vacant houses and cause thousands of dollars of damage while stealing $50 worth of copper pipe."
But here’s a bizarre, embarrassing story the Star – for some reason or another – forgot to report.
Sounds Good: ACBs Living Large @ LIVESTRONG & Booty Shakin’ w/ R. Kelly @ Sprint
I know what you’re thinking: Matt, how do you have such good taste in music, but otherwise make highly questionable decisions in all other areas of your life?
Well, I’m glad you asked. That’s a very good question.
First off, I like Billy Joel but not Elton John.
Second I miss the old KCC, you know, the squirrel themed one. (Side note: I can’t give particulars right now, but I’m doing what I can to keep the squirrel related content flowing, so stay tuned.)
Third, I challenge you right now to an eating contest of your choice. Nothing gross, though. So there you have it…
Glazer: To Those of You Who Said Bryan Callen Sucks, Well
Some of you didn’t believe me…
Bryan Callen, who is at Stanford’s next week, is now officially a monster in the entertainment biz. Callen’s landed the lead on this fall’s most talked about new TV series., DEATH VALLEY for MTV.
Bryan plays a sheriff in a town ravaged by crime. However, the bad guys are ALL vampires and zombies. The show is big bucks.
MTV has never spent this much on a series in its history.
Hearne: Support Your Local Jazz Club, Jardine’s Reloads After Marilyn Maye Shocker
Running a small business can be a handful – murder even…
Even when the business you happen to be piloting is Kansas City’s premier jazz joint. Because Kansas City is a total jazz town. Or so we often say.
Well, that’s exactly the case with Jardine’s just off the Country Club Plaza. Week in and week out, month in and month out, Jardine’s showcases the top jazz musicians in Kansas City. Both local and national. From local keyboard player Mark Lowrey to Springsteen drummer Max Weinberg.
Enter the sudden and unexpected hospitalization of legendary KC crooner Marilyn Maye earlier this week.
Jack Goes Confidential: ‘Green Lantern’ Delivers Fun, Summer, 3-D Popcorn Ride!
Hollywood’s going green this weekend…
By breathing new life into DC Comics’ good old GREEN LANTERN! The question is, whether Warner Brothers can elevate the film above its geeky fanboy base?
My hunch?
They succeed, even though this comic book action adventure is squarly targeted to male teens and the early 20’s crowd.
New Jack City: AMC Ends Reserved Seating @ Town Center, Drops Food Req
AMC Theatres is bidding adieu to the reserved seating experiment at its Town Center 20!
Company spokesperson Ryan Noonan confirmed that the Kansas City-based theater circuit will be phasing out the reserved seating-only policy at the South Leawood theater by July 22nd.
"We will be advising our guests of the pending policy change prior to the switchover date through in-theater informational postings," Noonan says.
During the experiment, theater patrons paid a mandatory ticket premium for guaranteed reserved seats, something that many moviegoers enjoyed—especially on busy weekend nights. However, evidently there weren’t enough of them to sustain the policy for the long term causing AMC to kill the program off.
Hearne: Talent Drought Fuels Ratings Decline at NewsRadio KMBZ
You got it, you double it, you don’t got it…
That’s pretty much what has happened to KMBZ 980 AM, Kansas City’s so-called, news-radio station. Two months into KMBZ’s plan to grow listenership by simulcasting on former sister station KUDL’s 98.1 FM signal, the local talk station has gone nowhere fast. Actually, its combined ratings have plummeted
Check out the digits.
Today: Don’t Let the Generic (Sports) Radio Ratings Numbers Fool You
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Anybody can access and look at Arbitron’s 6-plus radio ratings online…
Do a Google search – they’re all right there.
And they’re the only ratings widely available to the general public for a reason. To provide a broad, generalized view of local radio rankings, generate media attention and chit-chat and help keep Arbitron’s name in the game.
That said, everybody in the biz knows that the 6-plus numbers are the least important of all the ratings.
To that end, Arbitron requires radio stations to pay big bucks to access to the critically important ratings that provide the far more specific listener information that advertisers require.
It’s really that simple.
Now let’s take a look at the rivalry between sports radio powerhouse WHB and up-and-comer 610 Sports
Hearne: ‘Paris on the Plains’ Loses a Great One; Kevin Gray Dies of Cancer
They don’t get any better than Greater Kansas City Sports Commission point man Kevin Gray...
Gray died today of cancer, only having learned he had contracted it in March during the Big 12 tourney .
Make no mistake, I had my differences with Gray over the years. Nothing huge. But he was always a gentleman and a good sport throughout. There was just no getting around Gray’s likeability factor – no matter the disagreement.
Did Gray blow smoke up the city and voter’s you-know-whats with a ginned up feasability study about a new arena certain to bring Kansas City an NBA and/or NHL team? Of course he did!
Did we land either one or are we any closer than we were before Sprint Center got built? Of course not!
Hey, but Gray got it done. And while I’m somewhat loathe to admit it, it’s been a great thing for KC.
Glazer: Toeing the Line on KC’s No. 1 Women’s Radio Show @ Mix 93.3 FM
Hey, Johnny Dare rules over men in the mornings (and lots of women as well), but it’s MIX 93.3 that truly has the women listeners.
Case in point…
