KC Confidential

Delivery trumps ideas…

This is why Roger Ailes was so powerful. He realized politics was show business. Fox News was exciting to watch, irrelevant of the content. He didn’t necessarily put on the best talent, but the talent that would interest and intrigue the viewers most. Megyn Kelly was a superstar on Fox, but she was a failure on NBC. And speaking of show business, why in the hell was this debate so long? At the end, the only people watching were reporters.

Who will then frame the issues for the public, oftentimes incorrectly.

Give Bernie Sanders credit for pushing back on the questioners. That’s right, they were taking Republican talking points, putting the candidates on the defensive. It’s time for Democrats to lead.

But first they must be stars.

Talk to any big time music exec. Talent is abundant, but is the act a STAR?

Don’t forget they call it show BUSINESS, which means it’s all about selling, and if people don’t buy, you’re toast.

Like my buddy John Hickenlooper. His delivery was execrable; his speech was halting. Whereas Marianne Williamson evidenced some kind of weird charisma – you can see why she became a cult hero – not that her campaign will have any legs.

The process started with a presentation by Steve Bullock. He was totally together, he delivered the best introductory speech. But as the show, and it was a show, wore on, there was something off about him. His fake smile bugged me, but (my wife) nailed it, he was CONDESCENDING! You’ve got to be likable first and foremost.

Buttigieg hesitated, like he didn’t have his coffee. What he had to say was good, his closing speech was one of the best, but he never delivered that energy. He didn’t seem ready for prime time.

Bernie?

Bernie’s a rock star.

The only problem is rock is dead. What are the odds that Bruce Springsteen will have a number one pop single today? NONEXISTENT! Times have changed, even if Springsteen has not.

That’s always a question, whether you change with the times, but in music if you move towards what’s popular, you undercut your credibility. Your hardcore fans abandon you; you end up in purgatory, waiting for the next hit, which might never come.

Bernie’s act is not new.

He broke in 2016. Like Elvis Costello. Someone unknown who arrived fully-formed selling a new and different product. Sure, Bernie was around forever, so maybe he’s more like the local band that makes it big, after thousands of gigs. This is why Buttigieg failed, he hasn’t been in the game long enough. And the system worked against Bernie in 2016, the DNC wanted Hillary. Bernie was FM when the DNC wanted AM.

But now everybody’s on FM. And this is what the DNC does not understand. Continue reading →

For fans in need of a “FAST & FURIOUS” fix this summer…

You’ll have to wait until next May when number nine in the franchise finally opens.

Until then there is a new action-packed SPIN-OFF coming your way this weekend. And it sure has a lot of the elements of the actual series.

It’s kinda like when “ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY” sidestepped that franchise three years ago.

Hence “FAST & FURIOUS PRESENTS: HOBBS & SHAW”.

Here federal agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) reluctantly partners with former British special forces assassin-turned-mercenary Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham.)

Their target, cyber-genetically enhanced anarchist Brixton Lore (Idris Elba) who has gained control of an insidious bio-threat able to actually alter humanity forever!

Here I am trying to make sense of the plot, but this movie isn’t about story development. And it certainly makes no pretense along those lines. Instead ‘Hobbs & Shaw’ is basically your summer whoopass action entry that definitely delivers on that front.

Matter of fact it over-delivers to the point where the action never stops and it all seems to run together. Continue reading →

“The entire Kansas City Star isn’t much bigger that the first section of the Arizona Daily Star.”

That’s how Tucson’s newspaper stacks up against the local paper of record, in the words of one Star subscriber.

In addition to having no fewer than a dozen ad inserts, Tucson’s daily has a full-sized A section, that includes a wide variety of news stories without one single headline with the word Trump in it!

Seriously. Actual news about topics like border security, digging up gangster John Dillinger who was captured at a downtown Tucson hotel, clashes at last night’s Democratic party debate and a 10-year-old girl that dragged a toddler to safety.

And get this, no pushy, preachy editorials talking down to readers.

What will they think of next?

Followed by a healthy, 16-page Nation & World section.

Complete with stories about California requiring presidential hopefuls to show tax returns to be on the ballot, a coming interest rate cut, two-pages of food and recipes and – get this -just two non derogatory headlines with the word “Trump” in them.

Go figure.

Followed by a comprehensive eight page sports section, including feature stories about how former Chiefs star Tony Gonzalez “revolutionized” the role of tight ends and a piece remembering New York Yank‘s star Thurman Munson who died in a plane crash 40 years ago.

And last but not least… Continue reading →

They say,  beggars can’t be choosers…

And once upon a time, things like the separation of church and state used to matter.

A similar principle used to exist in the world of serious news journalism. At the Kansas City Star of old there was an imaginary – and yet in many ways, very real – wall between the news and the advertising sides of the biz.

Reporters on the second and third floors of the building cringed at the thought of interacting with unwashed ad folks on the first floor. The very thought of mixing (or diluting) the core values of independent thought and news reporting with the pay-for-play staffers was abhorrent.

Sure, the department heads and editors had lines of communication with the sales schlubs, but writers were kept at arms length and with the odd exception. Outside of the likes of KU, Hallmark Cards and civic leaders like former UMB head honcho R. Crosby Kemper Jr.  people  respected the journalistic independence accorded to the news side of the biz.

No mas…

Those imaginary walls melted away over the past 10 years as ad revenues plummeted. Now they’ve all but disappeared. These days, everything seems to have a price tag on it – so-called ethics be damned.

And just when it seemed the ship of state could sink no lower…

“They’re asking local arts organizations to donate to the Star so they can afford to hire an arts writer,” says Theater League honcho Mark Edelman. “I mean, these  (critics)are the people we used to live in fear of.”

Because a bad review in the Star could render a given musical, play or symphony performance dead-on-arrival, Edelman says. Continue reading →

“It’s too late baby

Now it’s too late”

Carole King

Politics is show business for ugly people. And you’ve got to play by show business rules.

Show business is all about preparation, getting the act, song, movie, TV show, ready and then marketing it so people will be aware of it and buy it.

And you always want to be first, and you want to eliminate all chance.

You want an upward curve, even if you start low and slow.

You want no lulls. You want to keep people interested, by teasing them with new information on a regular basis.

You want to control the narrative.

And what is the narrative the Democrats are trying to sell?

Damned if I know. The only thing they can agree on is they hate Trump.

I hate KISS, but that doesn’t keep them off the road, playing to empty arenas – their fans support them. And speaking of KISS, Gene Simmons is one of the greatest marketers of all time, a complete blowhard, but he’s making it work for himself and the band.

Maybe he learned it all from Neil Bogart, who changed his name from “Bogatz,” to give the right “impression.” Bogart failed on his first attempt, trying to sell a record of Johnny Carson routines, it went instantly into the cut-out bin, but then he pivoted to disco and Donna Summer and KISS.

And Bogart was a showman, full of crap. Seemingly everything he said was inflated and wrong. Remember when there were four simultaneous KISS solo albums and Neil said they were instantly gold? The press bought it, even though all of them but Peter Criss‘s came back.

You see it’s all about perception. Sell the myth, not the facts.

It’s more important that Elizabeth Warren be seen as a fighter against the man than any specific policy position. People don’t go that deep. CONGRESS doesn’t go that deep! Did you read the New Yorker story on Al Franken?

His accuser told boldfaced lies, there was history disputing her account, but she got out there first and what she said ruled, even though she was working for a pro-Trump radio station. Once again, the Democrats reacted, and now they’re doubling-down, can’t see why they were wrong.

Kirsten Gillibrand, YOU’RE HISTORY!

The press said Trump was losing because he brought up the “i” word before the Democrats. But Trump knows you get ahead of the blowback, you make the first punch, and you load the media with so much b.s. that it can’t keep up.

Meanwhile, the public doesn’t know the difference between impeachment and conviction and Nancy Pelosi seems as old as she really is. She’s Perry Como after the Beatles. Doesn’t she realize THE RULES HAVE CHANGED?

Happens in entertainment all the time.

Suddenly you can’t sell hair bands. Suddenly hip-hop is burgeoning. And if you fight the tide, you drown. Oh, little fish can still swim in their own private backwaters, but if you’re playing for everything, if you want to run the table, you’ve got to be looking to the future, not the past!

Trump speaks to the public. Pelosi speaks to insiders.

That’s why AOC gets so much traction. Continue reading →

He’s one of a kind…

Continue reading →

We were space-crazy…

Sure, JFK promised we’d go to the moon, but no one really took this seriously until Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth.

This was the era of the cold war.

There was supposedly nothing worse than living in the U.S.S.R. They oppressed people, their economy was challenged…so how in the hell did they beat us? Not only going into space first, but completing an orbit and landing on…LAND?

This was positively scary.

Kinda like today, but totally different. Today we’re worried about nationalism, the division of countries, the disdain for immigrants and science. Yesterday we were worried about the Russkis taking over the world.

Now by time the U.S. put a man in space, it was Alan Shepard, and he didn’t even fly around the Earth. Shortly thereafter, the U.S.S.R. put a man in space for an entire day! It wasn’t until almost a year after Gagarin that we had our own astronaut flying around the earth, three times, and that man was John Glenn. The first is always a hero.

And then we were off to the races.

We followed space like you follow the Internet. Only there was much less information. There was much less information on everything in the 1960s, which is why everybody knew about the war, and the protests could get notice.

But then came Gemini!

Two men in space at the same time! At this point we knew the routine, Mercury, Gemini, Apollo.

Now I’m not saying every Gemini flight garnered the attention of the first, but it was on TV. The last Apollo flight was not, by then it was de rigueur, after you’ve been to the moon…

But we were still building the blocks.

So we had space food. Continue reading →

Live like it’s 1969, die like it’s 1969…

Forget that Woodstock ’99 was a disaster – so was the original edition. Sure, there was great music, over-attendance and peace, but the systems were in no way capable of handling the crowd. From ingress and egress on the roads, to food, to porta-potties.

And financially, it took the movie to put it in the black.

Who wanted this formula replicated?

Certainly not the rural burgs that were inundated with festivals thereafter.

Can you say Powder Ridge?

No one wanted a festival in their backyard. They saw it as a nuisance. Ironically, the children of these elders feel the same way. The Baby Boomers who wanted to show up, camp and smoke dope, now don’t want their children and their children to be able to do this themselves.

Which is one of the reasons promoters buy the land their festivals run on.

Like AEG with Coachella, and Live Nation with Bonnaroo. Sure, there are financial considerations, but you don’t want to be beholden to anyone, you just want to do your show.

But it’s even worse. You’ve got the town elders.

What about all the cash a festival generates?

Well, at this point it’s mostly within the confines of the gig. And the rest of the town is overrun for the better part of a week, with “undesirables” camping and pissing everywhere and if food and merchandise is sold, there’s none for the locals, who can’t leave their houses.

No wonder it’s so hard to get permission.

As for a gig at a racetrack…

The only one that works is the Electric Daisy Carnival in Vegas. Insomniac invests in so much infrastructure, its attendees don’t mind. But just plunking down a show in some venue not prepared for it? That’s not enticing to the audience.

And that’s the unspoken issue with this (new) iteration of Woodstock.

If the show actually happened would anybody want to come?

The modern festival is more than the acts, people go to shoot selfies and hang. So the environment must be enticing.

And there’s only a thin layer of acts that will draw people irrelevant of the location, and they weren’t on the bill for Woodstock.

You’d need to have Ariana Grande and Drake and maybe Lil Nas X to generate the excitement to get kids out of their abodes – and believe me, festivals are about youngsters. The oldsters can’t tolerate the discomfort. They want to pay for elbow room and access, can you say VIP? Continue reading →

They’re killing the golden goose…

Because price matters. Otherwise everybody would use an iPhone and a Mac, but Netflix is not a premium product. It can’t win appealing to a sliver of the public, it needs all of it.

This is how the publishing industry killed digital books.

Despite the hosannas of Boomers boasting that they saved the physical book, it won’t be long until they lose the war. You know change…it looks like it’s never going to happen, you laugh at the predictions, and then overnight, it takes hold. Can you say digital photography? Can you say internet connection?

People had been using digital cameras for years, but they were expensive.

Just like people were communicating via bulletin boards utilizing low speed modems with arcane software.

But non-traditional consumer camera companies, like Panasonic and Sony and Samsung, put out products while Nikon and other high-end manufacturers sat by, as well as the everyman’s company Kodak, and then in a year, digital eclipsed film. Just like that. Kinda like AOL turned everybody into an internet user, they made it easy.

Now we had a similar situation in the music business, with the iTunes Store. At first the labels considered it a joke, being Mac-only. But then when sales far exceeded expectations and distribution included Windows, suddenly this sideshow was throwing off revenue… And what did the labels want to do? RAISE PRICES!

And who said they couldn’t?

STEVE JOBS!

The labels are greedy, short-term thinkers, why else would Universal have stored all those masters in an unprotected facility? The music business was always run on intimidation, but finally it came up against someone who wouldn’t play that game, Apple kept prices low until consumers were hooked, then they jumped from 99 cents to $1.29.

99 cents. Ever notice no car is advertised at a round number? How it’s always something 99? Even gas! Our minds trick us into thinking $3.249 is equivalent to $3.24. But the truth is it’s only a tenth of a cent from $3.25.

And going back to books, did you see that Pearson is going digital first on textbooks? Physical was killing them. They got no revenue on resale. And prices were so high, sales were less frequent.

Instead, they went to the subscription model. That’s right, for less than print you get something that can be upgraded on a regular basis, like a streaming music service. Your subscription to Spotify, et al, is not a fixed picture, but a constantly rolling enterprise that adds new titles on a regular basis…and as long as you keep paying ten bucks a month, you can hear them.

Ten bucks. Spotify is a public company under earnings pressure. It could immediately raise prices, but it would start hemorrhaging customers. If it’s under ten bucks, it’s a throwaway. Once it eclipses that number, you start to think about it. I mean there are months when we barely watch Netflix, but we don’t cancel. But if you’re counting your pennies, supporting a family, every little bit counts and you look for alternatives that are good enough, like Android and Windows.

There’s a huge market in good enough. Continue reading →

So many questions, so few answers…

The “exoneration” of Kansas City Chiefs scumbag Tyreek Hill raises more questions than it answers.

For starters…

Does anyone really believe Hill’s an even halfway standup guy, apart from his on-field athletic performances?

Of course not, how could they?

Then again, did Hill deserve to take what could have been a football career-ending hit sans indisputable proof that he abused his young son?

Perhaps not.

Then again, letting Hill off scot free, given the circumstantial evidence, his track record of abuse and over-the-top crude threats he unleashed on his now-former girlfriend  doesn’t exactly seem just either.

So local Chiefs fans and sportswriters are left with little, other than lame tap dances and feeble excuses.

Case in point. Continue reading →

What kind of crazy, fucked-up country do we live in where Republicans can’t even admit Trump’s tweets were racist?

One in which the right is functioning like a Mafia family – where it’s not about right or wrong – but protecting its members.

This is like asking a parent or sibling to turn in a family member for criminal behavior. The Unabomber’s brother turned Ted Kaczynski in, but I don’t think you’re gonna see that altruistic behavior these days.

There will be a day of reckoning. You don’t want a formal record of egregious behavior. Today everything’s tracked, there’s evidence everywhere, so heinous choices will surface, to your detriment. You know the old saying, “It wasn’t my fault, the boss made me do it!” The truth is today many bosses do require shady behavior, or else you get fired, but if you’re a Congressperson aren’t you held to a higher standard? Shouldn’t you be guided by morality?

Oh, you right wingers, don’t parse the language, that’s what’s wrong with our nation. Bill Clinton saying he didn’t have sex with that woman. He should have just admitted it and gone on. Hell, that’s Donald Trump style, and it’s been working for him, but it seems he finally stepped over the line.

How do I know this?

His tweets are headline news on Fox News and the Wall Street Journal.

Most of the time Trump’s bad behavior is buried in these right wing outlets – if it appears at all – but this is too big a story to ignore.

Then again, if you’re racist, you take Trump’s side.

Meanwhile, the above news is eclipsed by the efforts of Al Green.

No, not the singer/preacher, rather a House member, who filed articles of impeachment Tuesday night.

Who do we blame?

NANCY PELOSI!

Because she’s lost control of the narrative. I don’t see how we impeach Trump for his racist tweets, but this is what happens when you don’t impeach him for his law-breaking evidenced in the Mueller Report.

Oh, don’t get your knickers in a twist you righties. Continue reading →

The news is good…

No, make that VERY GOOD for fans of 1994’s animated “THE LION KING”.

Not only has Disney expanded the telling of the Circle of Life from an hour and a half by about 30 minutes, the filmmakers have pretty well stayed true to the original story.

And that’s a good thing as they may have just extended a few scenes here and there.

But it’s still telling the story of the young lion prince named Simba fleeing his kingdom only to learn the true meaning of life as foreshadowed by his father Mufasa.

The big difference?

Under the masterful eyes of director Jon Favreau we are now treated to fabulous live C.G.I. action within new game-changing photorealistic naturality,

While that’s a mouthful, it simply translates into the film being a visual masterpiece for (just about) all ages. Continue reading →

We interrupt this super-serious column to bring you a lighthearted look back…

The recent angst filled comment by Paul Wilson – remember him, the comments dude-turned-writer-turned-expatriate – reminded me that we are approaching the one year anniversary of the passing of Craig Glazer.

Because I think it’s appropriate  at this stage of the game,to point out that the beloved comments dude who went by Harley was in fact our beloved Scribe.

As in, Craig.

You may recall that Craig pleasured himself by inventing characters with funny names to populate the comments sections that followed his KC Confidential masterpieces.

And like Paul, Craig measured his writing success by the number of online responses he got.

At one point I noticed that in looking at the IP addresses of Craig’s colorful comments crowd, that they originated in the Fairway area during the day (where he lived). And at night they came the Legends area in KCK after he migrated to Stanford & Sons comedy club.

When I confronted Craig, he reluctantly confessed.

Whereupon I busted him here on KCC for all to see; and they went away for all time, never to be heard from again.

And that was that…or so it seemed. Continue reading →

The Great 2019 KC Star Apology Tour is in the books…

Journalistic tap dancing at its finest, by sports columnists Sam Mellinger and Vahe Gregorian over a previously missing eight minute segment of sleazebag Kansas City Chiefs star Tyreek Hill going off on his girlfriend.

Something about them being embarrassed because Tyreek didn’t fully cop to beating the hell out of her and and their son as KCTV’s original three minute edit seemed to imply.

“I should have known better,” Mellinger winced after spending four paragraphs blaming his “mistake” on KCTV and its reporter Angie Ricono.

“I’ll get better from this,” Mellinger vowed…

No more jumping the gun with incomplete information like pretty most mainstream news organizations did to that clean-cut kid from Covington High with the MAGA hat on who was assaulted by a pushy Native American oldster.

“I pride myself on restraint and nuance and taking a step back in this job,” Gregorian blathered -= five paragraphs in to his cornucopia of excuses and rationalizations. “I submitted to a snap judgment on fragmentary information.”

The bottom line:

Both men apparently caved to sports talk and social media Chiefs zealots – apologists who somewhat obviously could care less about what Tyreek did or didn’t do, long as he suits up for the Chiefs first Super Bowl run in half a century.

And this just in… Continue reading →

Been awhile since the days of the once popular popular cop-buddy comedies…

Arguably the top of the line date back to “48 HOURS”, “LETHAL WEAPON” and the “BEVERLY HILLS COP” series.

Well, there’s a new one in the genre opening this weekend.

The main difference being its enhanced dose of visual violence—hence a strong R-rating.

(The ratings board’s extension warns: “violence and language throughout, some sexual references and brief graphic nudity.”)

“STUBER” is set in present day Los Angeles where grizzled undercover cop Dave Bautista gets a hot tip on a big drug delivery about to go down.

There’s just one problem! Continue reading →

We live in an age where anybody and everybody gets to rewrite history…

Usually for the worse, depending on your politics or point of view.

For example, pretty much all of the “founding fathers” have been discredited over their tacit participation in slavery. Tear down their statues, paint over their murals, retire their mascots and – while we’re at it – remove their names from universities, cities, etc.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Singer Kate Smith‘s classic rendition of “God Bless America” – the song that won her a Presidential Medal of Freedom – is taking a bullet because earlier in her career she sang songs that have been reinterpreted as racist.

Iconic American actor John Wayne – a dude born in 1907 – was recently pilloried for his comments in an ancient Playboy magazine interview that are considered racist or homophobic today. Comments that didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow at the time.

Yet while modern day oldsters like Joe Biden – even Barrack Obama – are allowed to recant their views on controversial topics like gay marriage and abortion, the Duke, Smith, George Washington even Franklin D. Roosevelt don’t have the luxury of being around anymore to explain away their past views.

Nor is nefarious Civil War era badass William Quantrill  – the dude who burned, looted and pillaged Lawrence, Kansas.

But wait!

Turns out those primitive Jayhawks may have gotten their just desserts. Continue reading →

We’ve all seen the video…

Again and again over the past 2 years, there they are – Robert Mueller and wife Ann Cabell Standish – coming down the opposite side of the street. crossing, hesitating to let a jogger run by, then stepping into a church.

But Robert Mueller will sit in front of Congress – not God – in a few weeks.

And there he’ll explain yet again, his findings in the Mueller Report.

So we’ll be looking forward to a more detailed explanation of “Not, Not Guilty”.

Mueller’s prosecutorial sins are legion.

Which in no way cover his more recent transgressions, ethical and moral.

His legendary, documented suppression of Brady Material (Exculpatory Evidence) in pursuit of convictions vis a vis the truth has literally resulted in the death and incarceration of however many innocent defendants. Continue reading →