Category Archives: Hearne_Christopher
Star Search: Where’s Whitlock?
Remember my headline last January?
“Jason Whitlock to depart Kansas City Star?” Continue reading
Hearne on the Street: It’s so stinky in Platte County that…
Platte County Landmark main man Ivan Foley’s sniffer was so recently wronged that he aired the problem out in last week’s newspaper…
To the extent that was possible, naturally. Now for this week’s update.
“I talked about thew horiffic stench along Interstate 29 about a mile south of the dearborn exit,” Foley writes.
Foley’s mission: “Solving the mystery behind that disgusting odor.”
To drive home his point with readers, Foley waxed a bit poetic in describing the scurrilous Continue reading
Hearne: Lezak on ‘How Hot it is, how hot’s it’s gonna get?’
Who better than top-rated KSHB TV weather wonk Gary Lezak to weigh in on the question of the day…
That being, what-the-eff is up with the preternatural summer weather pattern the Cowtown’s been experiencing?
“Well, this weather pattern isn’t going to change,” lezak says. “It’s the same one I predicted in my LRC (Lezak’s Recurring Cycle weather theory ) last fall. We have what we call evaporation – it’s basically the evaporation from all the moisture in the soil and from air coming in from the Gulf of mexico and in the plants – especially all the corn and soybeans in our area. Continue reading
Hearne: Whitlock to Return to Star?
The $64 million question: which theorist is smarter, me or fellow former Star scribe Jim Fitzpatrick?
OK, OK – I’ll cede the point to Fitz. But what I’m really talking about is which of us will end up being correct where the immediate future of Jason Whitlock is concerned. Me or Fitz? In case you didn’t notice, Fitz column today says Whitlock’s goose is cooked at 18th and Grand. Mine implies it may just be a case of him soaking up vaca days before he reemerges for the Chiefs and Big 12 football and basketball.
The envelope, please… Continue reading
Hearne on the Street: The Games People (in Waldo) Play
Say this about the Lewellen Brothers commandeering of the nightlife scene in Waldo…
Neighboring bars and restaurants may grouse about the business home runs known as Continue reading
Get Lucky: Is it Proper Etiquette to Visit Stripper GF at Work?
Good morning, gorgeous readers!
Is it hot in here, or is it just you? Continue reading
Comment of the Week: KC Girl Hammers INK for Lame Hottie Contest
The KCC reader comments consensus re Ink’s Hottest Reader contest, as fleshed out this week by Tony: lame. The KC Star-run weeekly panders to the young adults the newspaper fails to attract with lighter-than-air journalistic fare. “Ink is looking for … Continue reading
Comment of the Day: Predator Star Weighs in on Mel, Glazer, Camel Dung Shovelers
Sonny Landham Says: July 16th, 2010 at 1:01 pm edit “Mel Gibson obiously dislikes Jews, due to prior statements about a year ago. The present ‘tapes to his wife’ has not been proven to be Mel Gibson. It sounds like … Continue reading
Hearne: Will Wizards Name Go Way of the Wiz?
Was a time Kansas City’s Major League Soccer team was called the Kansas City Wiz...
“The Kansas City Wiz, You Gotta Go!” was the team’s short-lived marketing battle cry. Short lived on two counts; in the case of the slogan, because the Lamar Hunt family put the kibosh on the blatantly obvious potty humor. And later the team backed down from electronics retailer Nobody Beats the Wiz and went from Wiz to Wizards.
All that went down during and shortly after the team’s glorious first season in 1996 when a superstar named Preki patrolled the pitch.
And while there has been plenty of speculation about naming rights deals at both Arrowhead and Kauffman stadiums, not much has been said about the pending possibilities for the Wizards new home next season in KCK.
How about a possible team name change to the KC Sprint? Continue reading
Hearne: Battle of Westport 2010
There’s more to former Kansas City mayor Kay Barnes red ink machine than meets the eye…
Not only will the Power & Light District cost the city and taxpayers millions in subsidies to pay off bonds issued to pay for it, further financial hits are being taken by other parts of the city and businesses. Take the Plaza and Westport nightclubs and restaurant that have closed, are poised to or have suffered sharp business drop offs since P&L’s opening.
Tax paying – as opposed to taxpayer subsidized – businesses.
It all hit home Sunday as former Westport businessman Jeff Glazer gazed into the window of Kelly’s Westport Inn. Continue reading
Hearne: Pitch Staffer Reflects on 30th, Bumpy Early Days
Hold the party hats and favors…
If ever a 30th birthday celebration rang hollow, the Pitch “Three Decades of Free,” 30th anniversary issue is it. A handful of minor rehashes – celebrating the good, old days during the Pitch’s infancy as little more than a record store rag – were a somewhat interesting. But predictable, formulaic and lacking in any edge whatsoever. Insiders such as myself aside, would anybody really find these lightly-treated schmooze pieces at all compelling?
I think not.
That said, there are stories to be told. And by sheer happenstance, my path crossed today with a woman who former Pitch main man Hal Brody told me over cocktails in 1991, was the sole reason that he did not fold the paper. Continue reading
Hearne: KC Strip to Tony, Don’t Give Up the Ship!
About those empty or sparsely populated Continue reading
Hearne: One Way Street Alert; Star Reader Rep Rips Former Reporter
It’s tangled web time…
A dustup between former Kansas City Star reporter Jim Fitzpatrick and the newspaper’s readers rep (ombudsman) Derek Donovan raises a couple questions.
For starters, how can the Star usher forth into Kansas City, reporting on and at times calling into question the words and deeds of others, while declining to answer to individuals and/or other media when it’s own words and deeds are called into question?
Fitzpatrick, a seasoned journalist, emailed questions to Donovan about a column the readers rep had written regarding the newspaper’s corrections and the fact that they no longer regularly run on Page 2.
“…When the paper devalues the corrections, Continue reading
Hearne: Cut; Legendary Local Movie Critic Dr. Doug Checks Out
This just in, esteemed longtime local movie critic Doug Moore – aka Dr. Doug – has passed away...
“He passed away last night at the hospice,” says KCC movie man Jack Poessiger. “But he was still going strong – attending movie screenings – up until four or five months ago. He’d been at the hospice maybe a month.”
While the Internet renders movie critics pretty much a dime-a-dozen these days, Dr. Doug held something approaching Godfather status for decades, when the only way to halfway matter meant having a major media affiliation. Continue reading
Hearne: Star Snookered by Phony Vanity Fair BBQ Schmooze
Talk about “news” reporting at its finest Continue reading
Hearne: Waldo Village Ready to Rumble in Former Waldo Pets
This just in…
Local businessman Steve Sutton has purchased the real estate formerly known as Waldo Pets at 8011 Wornall Road and is poised to unleash what he plans to call Waldo Village.
“This place was built in 1927 and was (originally) a roadhouse,” Sutton says. “Back in the 1920s this was all out in the country and they didn’t have water. That’s the old water tower (on the south end of the building).”
While Sutton’s game plan is still unfolding, there’s plenty of parking out front and in back and the old roadhouse stage – and massive parquet dance floor – hidden to all but the nosiest pet shop patrons – beckons to a live entertainment operator, Sutton says.
Jardine’s South, anyone? Continue reading
Hearne on the Street: Melissa Gilbert & the Little House on the Cowtown
The cast and crew of Starlight Theater Continue reading
Hearne: Star Foments Bogus Theater Controversy
Is Kansas City getting short shrift when it comes to top touring Broadway musicals?
Big time, if you buy into a recent front page story in the Kansas City Star bagging on Broadway Across America, the exclusive rights holder to producing such shows at the Music Hall in downtown Kansas City.
Hearne: Lawyer for Adult Businesses Vows to Fight
The worst aspects of a now-pending law dropping the hammer on strip clubs and adult bookstores in Missouri:
