KC Confidential

Frankly, I didn’t know WHAT to expect…

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There, I said it…

Was talking to Wild Bill Nigro the other day and we agreed that if Craig Glazer was alive today, he would have long since fired up his chainsaw and written at least a half dozen columns predicting the doom and gloom for the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl chances.

Long as we’re on the subject, as an aside, he’d undoubtedly have suffered some major gambling losses betting on the team. He’d be reminding us dismissively of how bad KU football still is (and Bill Self will soon be gone), how K-State is a “nice little team” that nobody outside the area gives a second thought to, and he’d be on the MU Tigers bandwagon, especially given their reasonably winnable remaining games.

Ah, but all that college ball would pale in comparison to the dashing of his Chiefs hopes.

Cuz Craig would have been riding that bandwagon from the get-go…just like about everybody else in this town with a hankering for pigskin, beer and politically incorrect football cheers.

I told Nigro the other day that the Chiefs were risking quarterback Patrick Mahomes suffering an even greater injury by playing him his with that bad ankle.

For which they got basically nothing but back-to-back losses at Arrowhead.

Speaking of Nigro…

After texting me a half dozen or so images of animated ghosts with captions like, “I see dead people” and saying the Scribe  was “trying to make a comeback thru” me – he posed the question: “Who do you think Craig’s hitting on in the after life?”

Don’t have an answer for that one, but the lesson to be learned for anguished Chiefs fans is something like, “Don’t count your chickens until the eggs are hatched.”

Because at this stage of the game, the entire Kansas City is in peril.

As Craig liked to say, “Think about it.” Continue reading →

What kind of crazy, fucked-up world do we live in where Bernie Sanders has a heart attack and comes back stronger than ever?

One in which Elizabeth Warren is busy snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

The best line of the night?

When Bernie said what the people want – that 71% – want Medicare For All.

It is about the voters, right? That Trumps all the triangulation, right?

And speaking of Trump, Warren was so busy worrying about future Republican attacks that she wouldn’t admit Medicare For All would raise people’s taxes. Yes, it would be a net win, but when you can’t answer a direct question over and over again…

You lose your credibility.

And that was Warren’s key.

Does she think we can’t do math? Have Republicans toxified the word “tax” to the point where no one can utter it? Our country runs on taxes, taxes are good.

As for government waste…every business has waste, Amazon built distribution infrastructure and then tore it down when it was clear there was a better solution. The government can’t even throw out food. As for the private sector always doing better, how about those for-profit prisons, incentivized to house offenders, with less oversight than publicly-owned prisons with no profit motive?

Some things just should not be in the private sector.

So Tulsi was labeled a favorite of the right in the NYT and she can’t get over it.

Then she immediately starts talking about the downsides of impeachment and I think the NYT is right. She’s toast, she’s got to go.

As for Amy Klobuchar… I can’t put my finger exactly on why she bugs me. She’s a self-satisfied nerd. It’s like Lil Nas X saying he’s the great hope for saving music. Huh?

Beto’s got to go. He has no chance of winning.

Castro barely talked, kick him off the stage.

Kamala… She tried to attack Warren, as she did Biden in that previous debate -but it turned out Warren was on her side – made Kamala look bad.

Buttigieg. He lifted himself up to the top, surviving tier. He’s young, he’s educated, he’s smart…it’s just that he can’t run the police department of his own damn town, he can’t run on his experience.

Steyer?

Too late, sorry.

And no charisma to boot. So you made your money in banking, why should we listen to you? Why don’t you add something to society, build something, create something other than wealth? Continue reading →

Pistol Pete

I’m not sure I buy into that axiom about nice guys…

On that note, one of the nicest Kansas City Star guys I’ve ever known – Jim Fitzpatrick – fired both barrels of his sawed-off journalistic shotgun into the second nicest Star guy I ever worked with Pete Grathoff.

So yeah, even nice guys can be a bit cranky.

Still, I was more than a little surprised, given that both these guys are shoe-ins to land the poster child gig alongside the definition of the word “milquetoast.”

Not in a bad way, mind you. Cuz while  neither of them would ever be described as “macho,” there’s nothing wrong with that.

And to my knowledge they probably had little more than incidental contact at the newspaper, given that most sports dudes come in far later in the day and were quarenteened in a part of the old headquarters far removed from the main newsroom where “Jimmy C” used to hang.

That said, who doesn’t like looking at a grisly car wreck…or a nerd pillow fight?

So it is that in a recent column, Fitzpatrick wondered aloud about who the dozen rich dudes were that choked out 100 grand each to play golf at the Kansas City Country Club with Tom Watson, Jack Nicklaus and Lee Trevino. That Grathoff had reported on in the Star.

Fitzpatrick managed to flesh out three of ’em – Don Wagner, Alan Atterbury and Tom Devlin, but fell short of the mark in fingering the other nine.

Which didn’t stop Jimmy C from calling out Pistol Pete for being lazy and not serving up the nine names even thought Fitzpatrick couldn’t find ’em either.

“I said Pete Grathoff – who writes under the ‘For Pete’s Sake’ handle – is one of the laziest reporters I’ve ever seen,” Fitzpatrick wrote, adding, “Let me explain: Continue reading →

Directed by Ang Lee.

Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.

Starring Will Smith—in DUAL roles no less!

With all that talent going for it….frankly, I expected more than what turns out to be a pretty routine sci-fi action thriller.

“GEMINI MAN” has Will Smith playing the DIA’s (Defense Intelligence Agency) most valued hit man. A pro-assassin who has terminated more than 70 targets during his proud sniper career with the agency.

But age and especially CONSCIENCE is getting the better of him as he calls it quits and…

Takes up fishing!

Circumstances now have another assassin coming after Smith. A younger type who looks very much like Smith!

A clone of HIMSELF! How can that be?

For the answers you’ll just have to watch the film. No spoilers here. Continue reading →

As sports cheers go, the tomahawk chop’s always been kinda lame…

Not as lame arguably as drunken Chiefs fans who slather on war paint and don indian headdresses, but still lame nonetheless. Speaking of which, has it occurred to anybody that playing dress up to try and like Sitting Bull might be the equivalent of wearing blackface?

I digress.

At this point in time, we pretty much all know political correctness is out of control.

So rather than getting overly caught up in a guilt trip, maybe we can just agree that if it makes people who’s great, great grand pappy had a hand in giving George Armstrong Custer a really bad haircut – and it ticks them off to see inebriated football fans in American indian drag – why not just let it go?

Ditto for the the chop. I mean, what’s the point?

A few years back one Chiefs season ticket holder put it this way:

“(The Chiefs) should stop playing the music that encourages the chop, they shouldn’t encourage that,” he said. “The inescapable mistake they make every week is when they play that music – the old Hollywood music from when the indians were about to attack and kill all the white people – the movies played it when the indians were coming to take the white women away.”

The between the lines messaging on KC’s hokey Native American getups, war chants and chops, a) our football thugs are gonna scalp yours; b) and they may take the white women.

The reason for the current spate of tomahawk chop bashing; Native American St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Ryan Helsley; asked the Atlanta Braves not to distribute foam tomahawks in Game 5 of the playoffs. Atlanta then put the kibosh on the tomahawks and agreed to not play the chop music when Helsley was playing.

Their reward for doing away with the bad juju: St. Louis obliterated them. Continue reading →

Talk about a Breech of etiquette…

Word that Waddell & Reed is axing more than 150 employees and crossing the state line from Kansas to Missouri with the remaining thousand or so, raises an interesting question:

What’s to become of the world famous Trans World Airlines’ Breech Academy?

Once upon a time, Kansas City had more going for it than what’s left of Hallmark, Kansas City Southern, Sprint, AMC and Cerner.

From 1930 until 1988 (and finally 2001) was one of the “big four” majors airlines that was based in Kansas City. At one point it was controlled by legendary zillionaire Howard Hughes. It was eventually acquired by financier Carl Icahn, who took the company private in 1988 and underwent bankruptcy restructuring in the early mid 1990s.

As local writer Jack Cashill will attest to, the explosion of TWA Flight 800 in 1996 set in motion the end of an era, when what remained of TWA was acquired by American Airlines in 2001.

Time flies, huh?

But return with me now to the golden years of TWA and the founding of the Breech Training Academy in 1969.

To a time when smoking hot airline hostesses ruled the airways, prior to the addition of young men and the change in terminology to flight attendants in 1972. In the days when smoking on airlines was still acceptable prior to 1989.

Back in those now repulsive days, if you were a dude and landed a date with a TWA hostess, it was practically tantamount to going out with a super model.

Thus rendering the 25 acres Breech Academy a local landmark. Continue reading →

Ginger Baker was the first guy we saw with two bass drums and the first guy to do an extended drum solo on record…

The band Cream straddled the transition from AM to FM. When the band’s first album came out, the only underground FM radio station that existed was WOR-FM in New York. We were still California dreamin’ on the last train to Clarksville. The Beatles were huge, but we all lived in one big homogeneous musical society.

Of course there were hipsters – as there have always been – like the folkies and blues lovers of the late fifties and early sixties.  There were always people ahead of the scene – but it was much harder then, there was no internet, only true word of mouth – nothing went from zero to hero overnight unless it was played on AM radio, and Cream was not.

The Disraeli Gears album was released in November ’67, the year underground FM radio began to burgeon, with KMPX in San Francisco joining the aforementioned WOR.

Yup, the scene was that small. So most people were unaware of Fresh Cream. And “Disraeli Gears” too.

Then, during the summer of ’68, Sunshine Of Your Love crossed over to AM and the band and the scene exploded.

There were a few renegade radio years back then, before Lee Abrams came along and codified the rock format on FM in the seventies. It was kinda like the internet back in the mid-nineties. There were people who had modems from the eighties, and others who got the word in ’96 and instantly bought computers to play on AOL.

There was no hate, only exploration.

Never forget the influence of public radio back then, especially WBAI in New York. That’s where I first heard Phil Ochs‘s “Outside Of A Small Circle Of Friends.” We twisted the dial, we looked for excitement, we found it, it drove record purchases, but most people were out of the loop.

Of course some people knew Eric Clapton, being blueshounds, knowing his work with John Mayall, but that “Bluesbreakers” album didn’t really blow up until after Cream broke through.

So, you heard “Sunshine Of Your Love” on FM.                             .

Now “Fresh Cream”‘s production was credited to Robert Stigwood, it’s unclear who really twisted the dials, who was really responsible for the sound – but it didn’t have the edge of what came after – it was almost like a blanket was thrown over the speakers.

But Felix Pappalardi produced “Disraeli Gears,” and it was a much better representation of the band’s sound. This was back when stereo was stereo, when instruments were in different channels, when we sat in front of the speakers, put on headphones to get the full effect. This was also when there was so much less on the records, you could hear all the instruments. You could hear Jack Bruce’s voice on “Sunshine Of You Love,” but the key to the track’s success, it’s infectiousness, was that guitar. Continue reading →

They’re all on the same page:..

1. The Bidens are guilty of something and it needs to be investigated.

2. Trump committed no crime.

3. The Democrats are out to get Trump, and they’ve been on this path from day one.

Yes, Trump is positively off his rocker, but one thing is for sure;  he’s an UNSTABLE genius. Come on, admitting that he did it in Ukraine, and then imploring the Chinese to do the same thing publicly? This is not playing by the rules, this is jujitsu.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are afraid of public opinion.

Polling ad infinitum to make sure they don’t step on anybody’s toes and prevent people from voting Democratic in 2020.

That’s “Democratic,” I said. The right wing code is the DEMOCRAT party. Listen closely, all the Republicans say that, including Trump. They want to take the imprimatur, the meaning of “democratic,” away from the Democratic party, and they’re doing a good job of it.

Now one thing the left wing media does not understand is, it’s been vilified to irrelevance by the right. Listen to Fox News, seemingly every night Tucker Carlson excoriates the New York Times and the Washington Post. He nitpicks, says they’re duplicitous and need to apologize. And if you had this message hammered into you every night, you’d believe it.

That’s right, the right has neutralized facts.

Everything’s up for grabs, even that which has been proven. Global warming? Anything involving science? It’s undecided. As for Biden’s activity with Ukraine re his son…every newspaper has debunked it. Everybody wanted that prosecutor gone, not only the Americans, but once again facts don’t matter. You can twist them anyway you want to, because there’s no one true source.

The battle for hearts and minds is fought in only two places…Fox News and online.

That’s it, done. As for the radio talk shows like Rush…that’s so last century.

And online, you can pretty much say whatever you want, as long as you don’t threaten someone or break the law.

So what we’re fighting for here – and the Democrats don’t understand this – is hearts and minds. The Democrats think it’s the 1950s, as long as their position is right, that’s all that matters.

They don’t advocate, they don’t fight for it. Continue reading →

There have been memorable portrayals of the Joker through the years…

Certainly Jack Nicholson in 1989 comes to mind. And Heath Ledger’s Oscar winning portrayal in 2008.

This weekend Joaquin Phoenix as ‘Arthur Fleck’ is deeply disturbing on many levels.

And make no mistake, “Joker” is NOT your typical superhero movie—FAR FROM IT!

Director Todd (“Hangover”) Phillips takes the ‘Joker’ to a deeply dark level as a small-time party clown with ambitions of becoming a stand-up comedian. But that’s not to be.

At this point, let me insert the R-rated warning from the MPAA:

The ‘Joker’ is….”rated R for strong bloody violence, disturbing behavior, language and brief sexual imagines.”

So what exactly do we have here?

To my way of thinking, “JOKER” is a deranged trip into mental illness leading to human disorder and outright madness.

Joaquin Phoenix is in the title role giving the performance of his career. Not that it’s a pretty one, but strong enough that it will not only earn him a Best Actor nomination—but he will most likely win it!

His uncontrollable high-pitch laugh alone is enough to creep you out. Continue reading →

How do you lose a Presidency?

Very slowly, then all at once.

This is not a new story. Donald Trump has been flirting with disaster from before his inauguration. Sure, his base loves him, but as the Donald so famously said, if he shot a person on Fifth Avenue, they wouldn’t convict him. Blind devotion.

But that’s not the entire country.

And that’s not the United States Congress.

Now if you’re a student of the game, you know that public figures do their best to never go on the record, to never commit. Even Elizabeth Warren in the last debate…they wanted to know if her health plan would raise taxes…she avoided the question. Once you own something, you’re subject to the slings and arrows. And this works in both directions.

Sure, you’re afraid of your constituency, but also you’re afraid of your record.

Despite a President who verges on being a king, who has eviscerated the concept of checks and balances in government, the conventional wisdom is you can’t piss off the public. Not only the Republicans believe this, but the Democrats too.

The Republicans are afraid they’re going to be “primaried.” This is the downside of gerrymandering. It’s clear a Republican is going to be elected, it’s just a matter of which one, and if you move to the center, if you’re reasonable, there’s a good chance someone further right of you will challenge you and emerge victorious. So you don’t say anything that will piss off your base…until you have to go on record.

I’m not talking about going on TV.

TV has lost all credibility. Trump has been the greatest thing to happen to print, now app, journalism by the usual suspects. In other words, the NYT and the WaPo have triumphed, have increased their footprint. If they thought like techies as opposed to the old wavers they are, they’d forget about profits and think about mindshare. Hell, you cannot turn on cable news without a talking head, left and right, quoting what writers in these papers said. Continue reading →