KC Confidential

Jay Leno & Ray LaMar

Here’s a funny one…

Did hear the one about the chicken that – hold it -I mean, the column that Kansas City Star “public editor” Derek Donovan wrote about the importance of the restaurant inspection reports business reporter Joyce Smith runs regularly in the newspaper?

Perhaps you’ve seen them? Too bad for you if you haven’t because they’re “vital,” Donovan purports. I’ve got a question for the D Dog:

If running those mini vignettes about the restaurant workers who get dinged for not wearing hairnets or touching something with a bare hand are so indispensable, how come nobody at the newspaper thought to publish them until I spanked Smith for blowing a front page story about the closing of the fabled LaMar’s Donuts?
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The end of a fabled coaching era is approaching for KU basketball…

So says sports scribe Craig Glazer. That after Kansas coach Bill Self‘s rumored marital woes and comments this week indicating that he may be open to an offer to coach in the NBA.

“Wow. He sounded very interested,” Glazer says. “But you know, in defense of Bill Self, he’s given KU a decade and he’s already arguably the best coach KU has ever had.

“You want me to be honest? I think if Bill can get back to a title game and win it – and that could happen this year – I think he could be done at KU. I mean, can you blame the guy? They’re going to pay him a truckload of money. My gut is he’s going to leave KU within three years and it could be this year.”

Self let the cat out of the bag in an interview in the Oklahoman Monday. Continue reading →

I wasn’t really sure how to go about writing a final chapter for the smartman…

Witty beyond belief at times, shockingly crude and crass at others, the comments section dude whose real name was Marti Dolinar was a piece of work. And as I pointed my Fiat Abarth towards the highway heading to the smartman’s funeral, Lynryd Skynyrd’s Free Bird began to play. Continue reading →

Chef Patrick McDonnell

My my, such sensitivity…

I’m talking about some of the reader reactions to Pitch foodie Charles Ferruzza‘s somewhat caustic review of spanking new Prairie Village mini movie and dining plex, Standees.

First, let me say, calling out a restaurant on the basis of poor execution and a substandard finished product is totally fair game. And Ferruzza was right on target there.

Second, based on my recent experience, Standees was in sore need of being called out.

Now on to the quarrelsome commentary by Pitch readers – some with apparent vested interests in Standees or its current chef – which while off topic at times, ultimately proved insightful.

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Anybody else sense that there may be something fishy going on at Starlight Theatre?

I mean, Starlight head dude Bob Rohlf was there 28 years and then five years back he retires and all but anointed his successor Denton Yockey.

Then all of a sudden this week, wham bam!

Just like that, Yockey is mysteriously out with no explanation other than Starlight’s board is reorganizing and dividing his duties (like Rohlf’s before him) in two. Continue reading →