KC Confidential

Was a time Kansas City Star columnist Jason Whitlock was a go to guy on significant matters of race and sports…

Think about it.

Like the time when long-in-the-tooth shock jock Don Imus uttered the words “nappy headed hos,” propelling Whitlock straight to the couch of Oprah Winfrey. There have been other high profile media moments, but they seem to be growing fewer and farther between.

Oh sure, Big Sexy drew some fire during the Jovan Belcher murder-suicide incident at Arrowhead just over a year ago. But clearly that was based on his ties to Kansas City and the Chiefs and his 16 year newspaper career.

Nope, Whitlock may be in a better place financially for the time being at ESPN, but his recognition that he has almost no more bridges to burn – and retain a halfway decent sports journalism paycheck – seems to have caused him to mellow and tone down his once vitriolic rhetoric. To the point that he’s no longer out there fanning the flames of racism like he’s been wont to do, lo these many years. Continue reading →

Deny, deny, deny…

That’s a strategy some folks employ for almost any situation – any prickly situation – that they don’t want to admit to or have to deal with.

And face it, when it comes to pending music format changes, not may radio stations like to come clean until they’re darn good and ready. No sense giving their employees advance notice so they can find another job (and possibly leave the station in the lurch for a few days or weeks).

Nope, it’s far easier to plot one’s course, then spring the new listening format on everybody after the proverbial t’s are crossed and i’s dotted.

So when Jack Poessiger speculated here quite recently that changes may be in the works at Alice FM – the AAA station at 102.1 on the FM dial – he took some grief from Alice stationalities who scolded, while assuring that nothing of the sort was in the works.

Nope, the Kansas City Adult Album Alternative station was doing just fine and was ready to steam into the bright future of kicking public television station KCPT’s Warrenburg AAA import, The Bridge 90.9 FM’s butt.

Just one problem… Continue reading →

And now, the rest of the story…

It’s not every day that Overland Park’s 22 year-old New Theatre Restaurant has to cancel its opening night performance. But that’s exactly what happened last Wednesday for the kickoff performance of the classic play Harvey starring Judge Reinhold.

The same Judge Reinhold who hooked up in 1982 with Eddie Murphy for Beverly Hills Cop, co-starred in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and appeared in those goofy Beethoven mutt movies in the 1990s and early 2000s. He’s also the 56 year-old Hollywood has been who the New Theatre signed to be the token “name” star in its 10 week run here of the Jimmy Stewart classic.

That is until a last minute dustup last week resulted in Reinhold bailing on the New Theatre and causing it to cancel for the first time in the company’s history, what was probably a sold out opening night performance. Continue reading →