KC Confidential

The Dallas Texans

Everybody’s looking a story to tell, me included…

But on the front page of Wednesday’s Kansas City Star, the newspaper leaps to an unsupported conclusion that locals are “feeling better” about Boulevard Brewing being sold to a Belgian company. Why? Simply because the Star ran a couple quotes from people with vested interests in maintaining a positive relationship with whoever owns Boulevard?

That hardly constitutes a case study.

Hey boosterism, with rare exception, is the game the Star likes to play.

However that doesn’t justify the front page graphic – ostensibly intended to further ease reader’s concerns over the Boulevard buy out – listing a “sampling” of other “locally grown Kansas City businesses” that got bought out by insiders “over the years.”

Hold it right there… Continue reading →

A belated happy birthday to the Velvet Dog…

The Midtown watering hole turned 19 this past week. Unfortunately it – and sister club the Empire Room – closed mysteriously nearing a month ago. With no explanation other than a pair of “remodeling” signs in the front windows.

A check with the usual suspects – Regulated Industries (aka Liquor Control) and Kansas City’s Health Department – reveal no regulatory reasons for the closings. However local bar owner heads have been shaking. Businessmen who agree that closing two clubs for remodeling at the same time is highly unusual and very unlikely. Especially sans any outward evidence of remodeling work being done.

Which brings us to the question of whether something was amiss between Dog and Empire Room founder Chris Seferyn and partner Vince Rook. Neither have returned repeated calls and in Seferyn’s case, email requests for an interview or comment for upwards of three weeks.

Leaving the quest for reasons and understanding for the mysterious closures an investigative matter.

Now it can be told… Continue reading →

Anybody who thinks KU hasn’t moved on to basketball already has to be a sports agnostic…

Take Tuesday’s Lawrence Journal World, festooned with not one, but two giant front page pics of coveted KU freshman Andrew Wiggins. Talk about giddy, the entire town has gone ga-ga over a high school kid from Canada who’s all but guaranteed to be a one and done wonder.

“Wiggins era of KU basketball begins,” shouts the headline referencing last night’s meaningless game against lowly Pittsburg State.

Question: Since when does a freshman playing maybe five months tops of college basketball qualify as an era? Continue reading →

He may be more than just a little cranky…

He may be a full-time know-it-all, but there’s gold in them thar barbs that music industry curmudgeon Bob Lefsetz dishes out. Check out his latest rants on all things hip:
CROWDFUNDING

Peaked. You hardly even hear about it anymore. Another Internet fad that didn’t live up to its promise.

It all depends on the excitement of benefactors. Right now, they’re elsewhere, and too many are disappointed what they funded did not come to be, or did not meet their standards. Furthermore, those who raised money found out they could fund their project, but could not increase their visibility.

GOOGLE

We have no need for another search engine unless it’s demonstrably better. So far, no one’s done search better than Google, there’s no need to go to Bing. This war’s been fought.

TWITTER

Illustrates how Wall Street is out of touch. Dropouts galore, but the Street can only talk about money. Tweeting is akin to calling for your mommy at Yankee Stadium.

As for the Stadium, we’re all interested in stars. So the most popular on Twitter have an audience, no one wants to hear the musings of the wannabe.

FACEBOOK

Is populated by those who post incessantly and grazers…and dropouts. It’s somewhere you used to go  that you occasionally visit, fearful you’re missing out on something, but you’ve got no allegiance. Continue reading →

Living on borrowed time…

That’s probably the best way to describe this year’s undefeated Kansas City Chiefs football team, says everybody’s favorite Scribe, Craig Glazer.

“You know, there’s a lot of similarities between Missouri and the Chiefs, except for a couple things,” Glazer says. “The Chiefs have great coaching and Missouri doesn’t – there are questions about Gary Pinkel, obviously. And while Chiefs quarterback Alex Smith isn’t Peyton Manning or Aaron Rodgers, he’s a really smart guy that knows the game.

“So the difference between the Chiefs and MU – with both playing a weal schedule – is that the Chiefs found some really smart coaching and Alex Smith – for all his negatives – is a true, true quarterback. he does a lot of smart things that don’t show up on the scoreboard.”

That’s the good news for Kansas City stalwarts…now the bad. Continue reading →

It’s not polite to say, “I told you so,” but…

“Unfortunately, it looks like my original prediction about Missouri is more accurate,” says Stanford’s main man / football scribe Craig Glazer. “I think Missouri’s got a win or two left in them, but they got undressed Saturday. They had a cavalcade of embarrassing plays. Just everything was bad – poor coaching, playing not to lose, the Missouri quarterback in the fourth quarter stopped throwing the football. But once you start playing not to lose, you lose. And they lost to a good, not great South Carolina football team at home.”

Now the really bad news: Continue reading →

All that hand wringing over startup difficulties with the ObamCare website….

It’s beyond obvious what game Republicans are playing, but the media? Hey, short of any government shutdowns, school shootings or high profile sex scandals, they’ll milk whatever they can milkl.

Forget that the Affordable Care Act is in its infancy. But it’s like trying to put the baby to sleep because it wasn’t born housebroken. After all, this is something that – in theory anyway – that’s going to be around for decades to come.

However not everybody is up you know what creek.

Take my old state Kentucky (betcha didn’t know I’m a Kentucky Colonel). Continue reading →