Category Archives: Hearne_Christopher

Lots of things to elbow around today, so let’s get started…

ARE CONCERTS AT LIVESTRONG WORTH THE DAMAGE?

Did you see Matt Donnelly‘s sum up about the horrendous field conditions last night at LIVESTRONG Sporting Park, home of the soccer team formerly known as The Wizards?

"LIVESTRONG has recently hosted two concerts on its turf, and the wear and tear has turned the once pristine grass into a total nightmare," Donnelly writes. "Throughout the game, players and coaches were seen tamping down large chunks of turf that made the potholes in Lawrence seem small."

Should Sporting Kansas City plan to continue raking in extra dough on concerts, they need to do one of two things or both.

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So many bases, so little time…

SAY WHAT?

The on-air, quote of the month honors for August goes to 610 Sports host Nick Wright.

For his triple diss of blogger Tony Botello, radio chick Darla Jaye and NewsRadio KMBZ.

"(Tony) has a weekly spot on Hate Radio 980 with all 63 I.Q. points of Darla Jaye."

******

*******

THEY SUCK PERIOD

Craig Glazer‘s pal Sam Mellinger, sports columnist at the Star, tiptoes around saying pretty much the same thing as Glazer about this year’s Kansas City Chiefs.

"Maybe it’s not as bad as it looks," Mellinger’s column today begins. Later adding, "Whatever plan coach Todd Haley and the Chiefs had for this preseason turned into a bag of stink."

Now here’s Mellinger’s hedge…

"If the Chiefs beat the Bills in the opener, this is all forgotten, wasted energy, we move on."

Glazer’s take on Mellinger’s Bills theory?

"No way. The Bills are a real bad team and we’re playing them at home. So we could beat ’em and it could be one of our three or four wins. But then come the losing streaks. This team is a train wreck."

Is Glazer prepared to eat crow if the Chiefs make the playoffs and go to the Super Bowl this season?

"If that happens, I will walk naked down Shawnee Mission Parkway in Fairway at midnight with my head shaved."

Uh, stay tuned…

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I’ve said quite a few positive things about Groupon the past two years…

Following its entry into the KC market, business owners I interviewed spoke highly of it. Said the people who buy Groupons – half off coupons usually – are upscale, bring friends, spend  money, tip well and become repeat customers.

And with hundreds of thousands of locals on Groupon’s email list, it’s also good advertising, businesses say.

With rare exception, members of the comments crowd totally disagreed.

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This just in, from Jardine‘s jazz club owner Beena Brandsgard…

I mean, Beena Rajalekshmi. I mean, Beena Raja. Due to popular demand, the jazz club diva with the musical last names has added an additional Marilyn Maye show to this week’s mix.

"I added another show tomorrow at 5 p.m.," Raja says. "Because of the call volume."

Early reports from Roger the Plumber and Tracy "I got banned" Thomas are that Maye’s show is the best ever. Roger and Thomas celebrated their birthdays Wednesday at Maye’s show at Jardine’s.

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Summer’s almost done, but it’s still not too late to check out your friendly, neighborhood drive in movie theater…

You’re out under the stars, holding court in the front of your car, the bed of your pickup and/or in the lawn chair of your choice. The massive outdoor movie screen glaring back at you.

Kind of like a poor man’s Starlight Theatre…

Or as the Web site driveinmovie.com describes it – celebrating "the presence of the past." Which worked for me since my trip to KCK’s Boulevard Drive In Saturday entailed watching this year’s sendup to the 60s sci-fi hit, "Planet of the Apes."

While affording me the opportunity to grill the longtime owner of the "world’s greatest drive in theatre," octogenarian Wes Neal.

Starting with the quadruple bypass heart surgery he had on his 82nd birthday.

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I didn’t fare too well asking venerable Boulevard Drive In owner Wes Neal for his most twisted tale…

I mean, c’mon. Kids sneaking up on the movie projector, making finger puppets on the screen?

That’s it?

Nearly 60 years of lording over one of Kansas City’s top passion pits and no streaking stories, no shootouts, no plane crashes, no public sex. Just bunny ears on the big screen. Pretty pathetic.

Turns out there was one thing that jumps out….

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Forget who won or lost yesterday’s on-air tete a tete between 610 Sports host Nick Wright & sports media blogger Greg Hall…

The inside baseball nature of the confrontation probably left most listeners wondering what to make of it. That said, readers of KC Confidential were likely all-too familiar with the subject given most of Hall’s coverage of Wright went down right here over the past two years.

So, against my better judgment, let’s take a look.

Frankly, I’m not sure who "won."

Hall wisely pimped Wright into bringing him in the studio rather than calling in over the phone where it would be easier for Wright to steamroll him. And to a large extent, Hall’s strategy worked. Listeners who contacted me – ages 30 to 60 – felt Hall came out on top. But not by a landslide.

A closer listen while transcribing the confrontation, showed that Wright had the better arguments, but got distracted and wasn’t able to hammer home his points as well as he might have.

Example…

Wright started by nailing Hall for calling him a coward and accusing him of plagiarism. Which clearly Hall had done in the past week.

But Wright allowed Hall to wriggle free by saying that he never used those exact words.

True enough, but to borrow a line from former KCTV investigative reporter Dave Helling, here’s the "Truth Watch" on that.

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There’s a difference between news sources and news stories…

Between tweeting rumors to a handful of people and gathering facts and reporting a story through a major media outlet to a large audience. Anyone can tweet a rumor. Running down the story and reporting it responsibly is an entirely different animal.

So it is that 610 Sports host Nick Wright took umbrage at being called out by local sports blogger Greg Hall.

"Nick Wright Claims Chiefs Scoop That Was Not His To Claim And He Knew It," Hall’s headline reads.

Three problems…

First, Hall assumed Wright had read a bare bones tweet last week from a local with fewer than 40 followers.

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And now, the rest of the story…

Look, I get that most readers, sports fans and people with things going on in their lives besides penning vitriolic comments under assumed names don’t much care about who got some news scoop first.

Just the facts, ma’am and they”re happy.

An earthquake jolts the East Coast, who cares if Fox or CNN reported it first. People want the full, accurate story, the news. Not touchdown dances and gotcha stories claiming some kid with a microscopically small twitter account spread an unconfirmed rumor a couple hours before the actual news was reported.

It’s silly.

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As concert reviews go, writer Hampton Stevens coverage of Kanrocksas in The Atlantic was something of an anomaly…

"A Rock Festival, as Seen for its Trash," reads the headline.

"On a sweltering night five days ago, the thick, newly-trampled grass of the Kansas Speedway was glazed by multicolored confetti, fallen steamers, shards of popped balloons, and luminous, half-spent glow-sticks," Stevens begins. "The white stage lights were glinting off the hundreds of aluminum cans and plastic bottles that once held water, soda, sports drinks, liquor and beer.

"This was the waste of the inaugural Kanrocksas Music Festival, which boasted an impressive lineup that included Eminem, Muse, Flogging Molly, Primus, Kid Cudi, A Perfect Circle, D12, Okay Go, Cage the Elephant, and Ween."

Stevens even bestowed a Kanrocksas "prettiest trash" distinction on The Flaming Lips – a "high honor…made even more impressive by the presence on the bill of Bassnectar and Girl Talk, whose audiences also know a thing or two about popped balloons and glow sticks," Hampton quipped. "The Lips’ trash was so pretty, in fact, it was almost a shame to see the janitorial teams from City Wide Maintenance come to clean it up. But come they did, just as their crews in red tunics did after every one of the almost three-dozen performances at the two-day event."

The flip side of all that, uh, "pretty" trash: The porta potty action.

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We’ve got a funny news media in this town…

And I’m not just talking about the Star – Kansas City’s 800 pound gorilla – although count them in. The situation with young black kids hanging out in mostly white areas where they’re not wanted has been going on for years. More than 10.

None of this is  new. And with rare exception, It’s not about buzzwords like "flash mobs."

I covered this at the Star for years in my column. More often than not when no one else at the newspaper was covering it. So allow me to shoot from the hip for a minute to make a point.

I can’t tell you how many times over the years I reported on the problems with young, urban blacks at AMC’s Ward Parkway theaters. I haven’t been out there at night this summer, but they still have the signs posted in the mall obviously pointed directly at those problems.

I covered the exact same troubles off and on for years at AMC’s Crown Center theaters. One night I got pelted from behind by kids in the crowd just walking down the sidewalk. They didn’t know who I was, just some lanky, white loser dude. City busses were brought in to load the kids on when the movies were over and transport them back to the inner city.

Sound a little racist? Crown Center sure as heck didn’t want those kids ’em hanging out front of the mall twidlling their thumbs.

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We all make mistakes…

And some of you like nothing more than to document mine. Be it a lowly typo or spelling error. Fair enough. But within reason, KC Confidential has been reasonably transparent about allowing readers to have their say. Even against our/my better judgement.

That said, how lame and transparent is it when Kansas City’s paper of record writes a story about a prickly subject – a curfew aimed at young blacks on the white-as-can-be Country Club Plaza – and puts it to bed tonight sans the ability for readers to register a comment.

Not one.

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I wanted to start this off with something like, "Nobody likes a lawsuit"…

But I’d be lying.  Lawyers like ’em.  People who work at law firms must as well. It’s a paycheck. Judges probably like ’em. People who think they’re gonna win, kick somebody’s ass and / or make a boatload of money undoubtedly like ’em.

So how about this instead? People who get slapped with lawsuits don’t like em. They cost money, take lots of time and sometimes you lose. Meaning more money, more time and more stress.

When Louie Wright, president of Local 42 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, filed a defamation lawsuit against blogger / KC Confidential contributor Tony Botello this week, Botello wasn’t happy.

"I am both ill-equipped and completely unprepared to face a lawsuit of any kind…" he emailed the Pitch."This probably means the end of the blog."

Wait! The end of Tony’s Kansas City? No way! Really?

"Not anytime soon but it’s definitely a possibility and it shows people the real stakes of the game," Botello shot back.

"Well, if they do hit me with the multi-million dollar verdict, I think that makes it pretty much open season on me," he says. "So it wouldn’t be worth it."

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Forget about the so-called local sports talk radio war…

Jock sniffers have waged those for decades and will continue until the end of days, as long as know-it-alls roam the radio dial. I mean, how easily entertained are we when a sleepy, bored Jason Whitlock calling into Nick Wright‘s show on 610 Sports causes local bloggers to behave like they just witnessed the Thrilla in Manila?

Hyperbole aside, are local sports fans really that bored? Well, it is Royals season.

But what amounts to a family blood feud errupted yesterday on KMBZ host Darla Jaye’s show…

No Whitlock-like pussyfooting around, this was the real deal. Blogger and KC Confidential contributor Tony Botello was doing his weekly stint on Jaye’s show and talking about getting sued for defamation when all hell broke lose.

"Nick Wright called him – he’s the son of the guy who’s suing Tony – and Darla pretty well stayed out of it and it was just an assslapping between those two guys," says earwitness Jack Poessiger. "It was hard hitting radio."

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First adults, then dudes, but leave us not forget the all-important, sought after women listeners…

Trust me, everybody wants a piece of this action. And don’t take that the wrong way. To that end, let’s look at the Top 10 KC stations in women listeners, 25-54, 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday.

For the uninitiated, this is when 90 percent of most station’s  revenue is derrived. Where its heaviest hitters slug it out for money, power and glory. Morning shows next.

Now hang onto your crucifixes because you may be in store for a huge surprise…

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Nothing like being A over Tea Kettle in a financial freefall….

That pretty much describes the current state affairs in of the newspaper industry. Publishers continue to talk of better days ahead – after our long, national nightmare – the coming-soon, double dip recession. Which naively ignores the long term downward prospects of the print news industry.

Bringing us to the mandatory one week staff furloughs announced at the Star.

They went down this week as both suggested and predicted by KC Confidential. With a 32 percent earnings drop in its 2nd quarter, McClatchy had to make some serious cuts. No question. But forcing Parrish to do the dirty work one month into her KC Star honeymoon would have placed her in a very unsavory position.

Getting rid of two highly paid columnist positions was likely a savings. Especially given the axing of one.

Now let’s do some math on the furloughs. Which are forced, unpaid, one-week vacations. Vacations that have to be taken between now and year’s end.

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Prediction realized…

Last December I asked:  "Does Steve Rose to the Star mean Death to the Sun?"

Today that rhetorical question was answered by the Sun‘s parent NPG Newspapers of St. Joseph.

"Everybody has to be out of the office by noon today, former Sun publisher Rose told me around 11 a.m. as I drove to Oklahoma City. "I got the official word on it three days ago."

Rose parents, Stan and Shirley Rose founded the suburban Johnson County weekly more than a half a century ago.

"It’s a very sad moment for me," Rose says. "And it’s sad for my mother who is alive and well – she started the paper with my dad – and she’s pretty emotional about it."

The unfortunate reality being, like any number of print pubs, the Sun was destined to set, Rose says.

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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.

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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?

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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…

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