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Glazer: Chiefs Give Sneak Preview of How Bad This year’s Team Is
As your humble scribe and friend, I told you just the other day the Chiefs are not very good…
That they would be lucky to win 6 games this season. Last night they started by showing off just how bad a team can be. Yes, it’s pre-season, but it’s ALWAYS PRE-SEASON for this failing franchise. They couldn’t have looked worse. NOTHING looked decent. Nothing. Defense rated an F-minus – they couldn’t even stop the Tampa number two or three quarterbacks from picking up long third down throws. Our offense well, it was not at Arrowhead. As I write this the game is still stinking up my screen. I am doing the Chong show, but took time out to watch this "mess’ we call the Chiefs.
Let’s see what else.
Caitlin: New reality show “Russian Dolls”: Flash or Trash or Both?
Since I’ve been done with school for awhile now, I’ve decided that the television and I should recommit.
It’s been years since I have followed any sitcoms or weekly reality shows—and if you are wondering, the answer is yes. Some college students actually do study.
So last night my girlfriends and I celebrated with a long night of bad TV. I don’t know what dudes do on their game or poker nights, but I have a feeling that they don’t top our girl parties. Reclining chairs, coronas with limes, burritos, booze, and gossip—only during the commercials, of course.
Beer in hand, I successfully re-communed with my TV….
Today: Newsosaur Examines Star Parent McClatchy & Newspaper Woes
While Jimmy C‘s away, the mice will play…
I don’t know what exotic locale vanquished politico / Star editor turned blogger Jim Fitzpatrick escaped to the past two weeks. All I know is he wasn’t around to nail this journalistic diddy to his cross. And that it would have been smack up his alley. A column by Newsosaur, the "Musings (and occasional urgent warnings) of a veteran media executive, who fears our news-gathering companies are stumbling to extinction."
The proposition at hand: "Will business model stabilize for newspapers?"
The departure point being the disastrous situation at McClatchy, parent company of the Kansas City Star.
"Quizzed by securities analysts last week about his company’s disappointing financial performance, the best McClatchy boss Gary Pruitt could say was that he hopes the newspaper “business model will stabilize” at some unspecified point in the future. But it will not," Newsosaur begins.
"And it had better not, if Pruitt intends to save what’s left of his newspapers, where relentless cost cutting has halved the headcount of his flagship Sacramento Bee to some 700 increasingly nervous souls in the last three years."
It may feel to Pruitt like he’s in the 19th inning of a really bad Royals game, but don’t expect a walkoff homer.
Sounds Good: Mardi Diaz@Bottleneck, Farm Aid@ LIVESTRONG, Pitch Awards@Uptown
What a month for music in KC…
Last week, My Morning Jacket decimated the Uptown’s face.
Then Kanrocksas dropped its bomb on KCK’s punk ass.
Coming soon is Steely Dan at Starlight, Bon Iver at the Uptown, and Jane’s Addiction at LIVESTRONG.
Not to mention Yonder Mountain String Band and TV On The Radio.
But first, some old school musical legends would like a word with you…
Jack Goes Confidential: ’30 MINUTES OR LESS” For Slacker Comedy
If you’re going to film a low budget, 83 minute-long, R-rated slacker comedy in Grand Rapids, Michigan you better make it a funny one…
Especially when you’ve got Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg fresh off his THE SOCIAL NETWORK success in it! And guess what, ZOMBIELAND director Ruben Fleischer kinda sorta gets it done. Which makes me wonder whether his co-producer Ben Stiller didn’t have a hand in pulling it off?
The story has Eisenberg playing pizza boy Nick who’s constantly racing against the clock to deliver the goods to customers before the 30 minutes or its free deadline is up. He usually blows it. Nick’s best bud Chet—played by Aziz Ansari—has improved his status in life by becoming a teacher.
And Nick’s confession though that he schtupped Chet’s little sister hasn’t helped their buddy relationship much.
Today: The Top 10 Kansas City Radio Afternoon Drive Shows for July
The radio ratings war is played on many fronts…
The most important; morning and afternoon drive.The weekdays when tens of thousands of Kansas Citians are in their cars going to and from work listening to the radio. KCFX’s Slacker won the morning drive in men 25-54 and The Rock’s Johnny Dare and Mix 93.3’s Rocket & Teresa were tops in women 25-54.
Now let’s see how p.m. drive stacked up in men 25 to 54…
There’s no shortage of heavy hitters past and present here. The Buzz’s Lazlo, WHB’s Kevin Kietzman, KCFX’s Skid Roadie, 610 Sports up-and-comer Nick Wright and KMBZ news talkers Mike Shanin & Scott Parks.
And the King of the Beasts is…
Glazer: The NFL Starts Tonight, My Picks to Win it All
Tonight’s the night so many of us have been waiting for THE NFL BEGINS…
Kinda like "Batman Begins." Or maybe not. This is preseason and doesn’t count, but we love football so much we just want to see the players play. Even the lowly Chiefs will likely have a decent crowd at Arrowhead tomorrow. Maybe even 45,000. That would be a great start for them. Past years preseason games have drawn 30-40 thousand tops. They haven’t had any sellouts in years during the regular season. Aside from some phony numbers in the paper. But those include season ticket holders who aren’t at the game. And then some.
So who are THE teams this season?
Hearne: WHB, Kietzman Retake High Ground in July Ratings, KMBZ Slips Again
How appropriate that the battle for sports radio supremacy in KC would be a see-saw affair…
In June, 610 Sports upstart Nick Wright nosed out WHB strongman Kevin Kietzman by a tenth of a share point in men, 25 to 54, from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. It was a monumental victory, that somehow or another WHB made sure – via microscopic ratings adjustments for Royals game overlaps – proved to be short-lived.
But make no mistake; the days of WHB putting clown suits on Wright and 610 appear to be in the rearview mirror.
In June Wright came in fourth with a 6.8 share to Kietzman’s 6.7.
The latest?
Today: Travel Channel Brings Royal Gorge Vote to Westport Flea Market Today
Plainly put, the Travel Channel wants to manifest a cult experience to the hallowed Westport Flea Market.…
Got that? The Travel Channel, for crying out loud!
Somehow – don’t ask – the cable channel that wants to spirit us away to exotic, restfull, amazingly beautiful locals – has determined that its devotees have somehow become enamored with people who eat ridiculously large portions of food in ridiculously short periods of time.
Make sense to you? Me neither.
Hearne: Slacker & KCFX Widen Lead Over The Rock & Johnny Dare in July
Let’s narrow down one of the more hotly contested radio ratings contests, shall we?
One that raised more than a few eyebrows in the June rankings in men, 25 to 54 during morning drive, 6 a.m. and 10 a.m., Monday through Friday. Remember? KCFX FM‘s Slacker nosed out Rock 98.9 FM force-to-be-reckoned with Johnny Dare for the top slot.
A ratings fluke? Apparently not.
Donnelly: Kanrocksas 2011 Wrap Up
So what’s my takeaway from the inaugural Kanrocksas festival at the Legends?
First, I have a question:
What was the actual attendance? No, wait, even better:
How many tickets were really sold?
I’d like to know.
If you can answer that you win half of a happy hour cocktail and 30 minutes of meaningful conversation with none other than KCC godfather Hearne Christopher, Jr.
On to the observations…
Donnelly: Muse@Kanrocksas Day 2, August 6, 2011
Day two of Kanrocksas boasted what I considered the better lineup of the two days – Muse, The Black Keys, Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, Cage the Elephant, and a bunch of others.
If you can’t tell, I’m more into the rock than the electronic and hip hop stuff.
Saturday night’s headliner was the band I was most looking forward to, English prog-rockers, Muse. I mean, how can you go wrong with the band that Queen’s Brian May called "probably the greatest live act in the world today"?
You can’t .
Muse emerged to warning sirens blaring, right on time at 11 p.m. – just like nearly every other act of the weekend, the on time part, not the sirens – and they were coming hard right off the bat, with one of their biggest hits, “Uprising.”
Too bad the crowd was probably half that of the previous night for Eminem…
Today: New Local Radio Ratings Champ & The July 2011 Top 20
Buckle up radio ratings junkies, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride…
The July digits are in, so let’s take a quick look and we can make some closer examinations later. To that end, here are the Top 20 KC Radio Stations for July in adults 25 to 54, Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to midnight.
I know, I know, they don’t include the high dollar infomercials, Royals games and weekend filler. But this is where 90 percent of station’s revenues come from and where they suit up their best and their brightest, the personalities you love and/or love to hate.
So here we go….
Glazer: All That Glitters is Not Golden When it Comes to Trading Gold
There’s Gold in them there hills, was the battle cry in the mid 1800’s for people to go to California, pick up some nuggets, get rich and end all of their problems…
At that time gold was under 20 bucks an ounce, now its $1,700 an ounce.
And with what looks like stock market crash number three of the decade – and who knows how bad this one gets? – once again, it’s all about gold.
Hearne ADVISED ME NOT TO DAY TRADE GOLD TWO YEARS AGO.
I didn’t listen.
Jack Goes Confidential: ‘THE HELP’ is This Summer’s Knockout Oscar Contender!
When you see as many marginal movies like critics have to, it’s easy to become a bit jaded.
So when something very special comes along we tend to go overboard and want to tell everyone about it. And that’s the case with THE HELP, the superb screen adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s # 1 best selling novel.
Set in 1960’s Jackson, Mississippi during the height of the civil rights movement, THE HELP tells of southern society girl Skeeter (played by Emma Stone). She’s returning from Ole Miss, becoming a writer for the local newspaper, but begins to turn the town upside-down when she decides to interview many of the black women who’ve spent their lives as maids, taking care of prominent white southern families. Almost single handedly raising their own kids yet having to use separate bathrooms in their houses.
"They carry different diseases, you know."
Today: Westport Party Czar High Fives P&L District’s Cover Charge Controversy
There are those who say the Power & Light District’s credit card-only cover charge policy is racist…
That locals should boycott the downtown entertainment district because of it. Not Bill Nigro. Funny thing about it is, Nigro has every reason to look for excuses to bag on the P&L. As a businessman who owns and/or has owned any number of nightclubs and/or restaurants in Westport – Kansas City’s former leading entertainment district – Nigro felt former KC Mayor Kay Barnes screwed Westport by granting all those tax breaks to the P&L.
He’s got a point and he’s not alone in that thinking….
But what’s done is done and aside from leveling the playing field, Nigro (and Partner Bill George) want to connect all of KC’s entertainment districts via their KC Strip trolley shuttles for the betterment of partykind.
And that’s hard to do when you have to devote money and resourses to dealing with sprawling, unruly crowds of errant urban youth who gather on hot summer weekend nights causing disturbances and scaring off paying customers.
This summer, those crowds have shifted for the most part to the P&L District and grown in size.
Glazer: How the Comedy Club Biz Works & Why The Comics Hate Me
It’s been clear to me for years the young comics you promote at your local club will end up hating your guts.
Not always, but usually.
We started doing comedy at Stanford’s in 1980. Stanfords in Westport opened in 1975, but my brother Jeff and I didn’t start doing comedy until later. David Naster came to us with an idea of doing it on a regular basis. I’d been to LA and at the Comedy Store. Originally I thought my father Stan and I would perform as well.
So we started it on Sunday nights in our waiting area bar called THE TREE HOUSE.
Star Search: Frink Alert; Dallas Shuts Down Its Version of INK Magazine
One journalist’s nightmare can be another’s dream-come-true…
Take the ongoing battle for survival between Ink and venerable local alt weekly the Pitch. Light as Ink‘s content’s been (and continues to be), the Pitch has been having the rougher go. It was, until very recently, for sale for years by its now-former out-of-town owner. Its longtime editor bailed for the paycheck-friendly seas of the healthcare industry. Its top journo took a powder this past spring. Its page and ad counts are at levels that caused its former owner to audibly wince.
Then there’s Ink….
It’s hard to imagine the content of the weekly Tony likes to refer to as an "ad rag," being any more inconsequential. Outside of its ads, of course – and there is something to be said for that. But now that the Pitch is cleaning up its act under new owners a possible new variable has reared its head.
Might Ink‘s parent, the Kansas City Star close it down?
Hearne: Kanrocksas 2011, The Gnarly, the Obnoxious & the Excellent
Here’s the deal on Kanrocksas….
Forget the official accounts from newspaper reporters who went for free, get majorly schmoozed and aren’t about to bite anything resembling the hands that feed them. I think readers can smell something funny when they read headlines with expressions like "top notch" and "world class" and are unable to locate a single critical comment in the coverage.
Donnelly: Sporting Shattered By Heartbreaking Loss At LIVESTRONG
What an atmosphere Saturday night at LIVESTRONG Sporting Park.
The 17,000-plus in attendance was the most energetic crowd of the season thus far. A packed Cauldron kept the place loud with chants taunting Seattle Sounders’ keeper Kasey Keller all game long.
Sporting’s play was gutty and inspired, especially so when they went down to 10 men after Omar Bravo was shown a red card early in the second half.
Before the red card, SKC dominated possession and created multiple dangerous chances mostly off crosses. Winger Kei Kamara played an inspired 80 minutes, and put KC on top in the 20th minute with a nice header off Matt Besler’s long throw-in (which is becoming quite a weapon).
For 90 minutes of regulation KC battled and scrapped, putting together what I thought was one of their best performances of the season, holding onto that one goal lead all game.
Then with mere moments left in the game, and a scrappy victory seemingly in hand, everything went to shit…
