KC Confidential

I’ve always been more than a little skeptical…

You know, about this Secret Santa business. For a couple of reasons, starting with I met and got to know the dude who played the role for just under 30 years. And I got a closer read on him, like the time he heartlessly dropped the hammer on a local single mom photographer for basically little more than minor league pissing him off.

He did so, after calling me one weekday afternoon at the Kansas City Star bragging about being on a private California beach and boozing with Alex Karras. Karras was a former footballer who played Mongo in the movie Blazing Saddles and knocked out a horse. I was supposed to be impressed. I was, but not in a particularly good way.

Still for people of the Mike Murphy generation – the former KCMO AM talk show host who died two years ago – “Secret Santa” was a BFD. Which was exactly the way Stewart wanted it and got it.

Which ties in with another reservation I had about Stewart’s motives. Continue reading →

How many times must we re-plow the same unartful furrow before getting it right?

According to internet blogosaurs like Tony – you know, the local dude who prides himself on the (over) use of catchy terms like “awesome TKC tipsters” and “dead tree media” – there are no limits on what should be allowed in the comments sections of online blogs and news and entertainment websites. The sky’s the limit, or perhaps better said, the bottom of the barrel.

Having little apparent understanding of  journalism, legalities, let alone what passes for good taste – or even the mere recognition that any boundaries whatsoever exist – these untrained, unrestrained bloggers open their arms wide to embrace crass, depraved screeds from anonymous posters with undeclared agendas…regardless of how abhorrent.

Common sense, civility and the slightest nod to good taste are out the window in the interest of “free speech.” That said, remember free speech does not include shouting fire in crowded venues, nor does it absolve one of criminal and/or civil liability. Continue reading →

Mission accomplished…

It wasn’t easy, but the friends and family of former KC boxer Tommy Morrison did indeed prevail and he was buried very quietly in a Sulphur Springs, Arkansas cemetery alongside members of his family.

“He has a headstone and everything and his mother was allowed to bury his ashes and so forth,” says former Morrison backer Susan Martin. “I think his wife Trisha figured out that nobody was going to buy his ashes and nobody was going to go to her tour stops where she was going to talk about the past two years of Tommy’s life and she was supposedly going to sell whatever she had to sell.”

A brief refresher:   Continue reading →

Think of it as a Big 12 / SEC bragging rights showdown…

Missouri vs. Oklahoma State on January 3rd. The near Big 12 champ going up against the near SEC champ.

The chance to show the world that the conference MU jilted, it never should have left. To demonstrate that 10-2 in the Big 12 trumps 10-2 in the SEC.

That Missouri’s successes this year were based in no small part on luck, being in the right place at the right time against teams like Texas A&M that were down on their luck. That Missouri lost to the only two good teams it played that were healthy.

And that’s what makes January’s Cotton Bowl matchup next month so appealing.  Continue reading →