KC Confidential

Not everyone at 18th and Grand wants to wait around until it’s their turn to take a bullet…

To the ranks of volunteer newspaper exiters, Joe Posnanski, Dan Margolies & Bill Dalton, add the name Lee Hill Kavanaugh. The touchy-feely, trombone-playing writer has reportedly shocked her editors at the Kansas City Star by giving them the kiss off.

“I think she got fed up, but there’s no official word,” says one Star staffer. “This was totally her decision and I do think (everybody) was quite surprised.” Continue reading →

Once upon a time, it was the Stone Age…

Nobody knew nothing about newspapers in driveways…or driveways even. No one drove Fiats. And what passed for social media back then was probably something akin to some caveman dude clubbing a Raquel Welch lookalike and dragging her back to his hole in the ground for a bit of body painting.

And five buck greeting cards like the one I bought at Urban Outfitters Sunday? That was back to the future stuff.

Unfortunately for hometown card company Hallmark, what goes around comes around and the company’s business model seems to be headed in the direction of those bygone days. Because only the Fred Flintstones of today (and me once, maybe once or twice a year) still buy greeting cards.

The rest of society – under 50 – has mostly moved on, like George Jetson.

Leaving the card counters at Hallmark up you-know-what creek. Continue reading →

From first to worst – and then back – in 20 easy years…

That basically charts the popularity of Ted Owens, the 84 year-old former KU basketball head coach who returned to Lawrence yesterday for a book signing at the Kansas Union Ballroom on campus.

Paired with mega popular current KU coach Bill Self, it was a valedictorian visit, complete with accolades from former KU stars Owens coached during his 19 seasons, like Bud Stallworth and Tony Guy.

It was also essentially a minor rewrite of history and an overly fond remembrance of probably the most disliked KU basketball coach in the school’s storied past. Continue reading →

“Charlie Weis; Wait until season’s end to judge,” reads the headline on KU Sports.com…

While that’s likely how things will play out, football scribe Craig Glazer has a different take:

“Ha! I heard that,” Glazer says. “Well, if his goal is to win one game in the Big 12 – which I suppose would be West Virginia -if that’s going to make everybody happy, start the parade.”

It’s like this: Continue reading →

The similarities between the Mizzou football team and the Chiefs is actually sickening…

Up to a point that is, but “Missouri has got more of an overall game,” says everybody’s favorite pigskin purveyor Craig Glazer. “Compared to the Chiefs they’re more talented and really, they’re closing in on what could be a historic year. I was a little hasty when I dunned them.”

That’s basically what passes for the good news right now.

“But it’s coming down to they need to beat Ole Miss,” Glazer says. “Because with the loss to Texas A&M, they’d be tied with South Carolina and South Carolina would play Alabama because they beat Missouri. But wait a minute, South Carolina has to play Clemson which may be better than them. So even though that game’s at South Carolina, Clemson may well beat them.”

Got that? Continue reading →

Living on borrowed time…

That’s the uncomfortable feeling comedy club main man and football prognosticator Craig Glazer gets every time the Kansas City Chiefs live to tell the story after another squeaker.

“Well, they’re 9-0,” Glazer says. “It’s hard to explain being a Chiefs fan because every game looks the same. But it’s hard to swallow that winning by luck is what’s really going on. We all say it takes luck and talent to win a championship in the NFL and that’s true. but it’s beginning to look like it’s too much luck with the Chiefs and not enough talent – and that’s becoming painfully apparent.”

Take today’s win over Buffalo. Continue reading →

AJ Finney

Now hear this…

At long last, it’s been awhile in the making, but now it’s official; after more than a decade, comedy is returning to midtown Kansas City on November 21st when Stanford’s on Broadway hits the Uptown.

“Despite all the difficult in putting this together, comedy is coming back to Westport and midtown,” says Uptown main man Larry Sells. “And now people can vote with their feet and come see some great comics.”

The club tips off with former KC comic AJ Finney.

“He started out as a local comic and was on KY with Max, Tanna and Moffitt,” says Stanford’s main man Craig Glazer. “Now he has a top 10 iTunes comedy album and is a regular on the Sirius comedy channel. He’s a cutting edge, hipster comic who first got noticed when he won the HBO comedy event in Las Vegas a few years ago.”

Speaking of which… Continue reading →

They say the bigger you are, the harder you fall…

There are however exceptions to such broad generalities, and until this past Tuesday, Mission Hills multi-millionaire B.B. Andersen would appear to be the poster child for such exceptions. Short of having the complete inside track on Andersen’s life story, it’s hard to cite an example of the international businessman and Survivor Season One reality show star ever having slipped.

“He was an amazing, amazing guy,” says attorney Dwight Sutherland. “And he was a major, major donor to the Republican Party and it paid off for him. He got all sorts of government contracts. I mean, he got the bottled water concession for the first Gulf War in 1991 for Desert Storm. He had a condo in Northern Iraq.”

And yet somehow, despite Andersen’s many plaudits, he managed to keep a low profile locally. Continue reading →