About a half hour ago, Kanrocksas‘ website went blank. The following is all that remains there:
“Due to insufficient ticket sales, Midwest Music Festivals and Kansas Speedway have decided to cancel the 2013 Kanrocksas Music Festival scheduled for June 28th and 29th.
There are no plans to reschedule the event at this time. Continue reading
Early afternoon game on Sunday, perfect weather – a little overcast with a nice breeze – and a standing room only crowd of 20,000+.
To make things even more electric, Roger Espinoza was on hand as a special guest for the coin flip. He just finished up his first EPL season at Wigan, which made a late, improbable rush to win the FA Cup.
From the get-go this game was a cracker. Continue reading
It’s back to the desert southwest, this time to Santa Fe, New Mexico…
One hour north of the Breaking Badlands of Albuquerque, it’s amazing how many refugees of Kansas City (even Lawrence and Topeka) one can run into in this sleepy tourist and artist enclave.
With a population of only 60,000 and change – around 100,000 for the county, I’m told – it’s a land of intriguing restaurants, modest desert climes and more junk Native American art and jewelry than you can shake a stick at. Continue reading
Graduation time. When today’s youth begin their birth-assured death march toward tomorrow’s uncertain life. They walk across the stage, diploma in hand, head held high, a smile on their face, ready to tackle the future.
If they’re graduating from high school, their life is just beginning; they’re nervous about leaving home, about the strange “adult” nature of college. Almost everything that they thought was important isn’t any longer. (And never really was.)
If they’re leaving college, they’re likely thinking about crippling debt, a perpetually awful job market, and what story they can invent for their friends that doesn’t end with them living in their parents’ basement, waiting tables and self-medicating at night with discounted wine.
If they’re graduating anything below high school, fuck that. That’s not a real graduation. Continue reading
Been awhile…
Seems like forever since KC Confidential last put out a casting call. So like, we’re due, right?
I won’t bore you with the particulars, other than to say, if you have an interest and a hankering to write about food, music, theater, the arts, local news, politics, media – you name it. Continue reading
Lauren Drain
It wasn’t pretty, but it prepped me for a move to the Kansas City suburb known as Lawrence. Wanting to make the most of my exile I contemplated going undercover at the Westboro Baptist Church.
You know, that bastion of fear and loathing, known to most primarily for its endearing slogan, “God Hates Fags.”
Never happened. Continue reading
“It’s not looking good for Obama, today his teleprompter took the Fifth” — Jay Leno…
Of all the scandals plaguing Obama the one that really ticks me off most is his war on the press.
I expect the IRS to do the kind of stuff they’re doing against Tea Party groups. Why not? Every President in the “Modern Era” has used the tax collectors as their own personal “Stasi.”
And the lies about Benghazi, I don’t even know that the Administration is lying. They may just be that incompetent where National Security matters are concerned. So I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt on that one.
However, Obama and his cronies criminalization of investigative journalism is an affront to everything this country stands for. Continue reading
Once more I’m in the unhappy position of writing harsh things about someone whose work otherwise has my unqualified admiration…
Readers may recall my earlier piece on Whitney Terrell’s ‘The King of Kings County,’ a brilliant novel of manners set in Kansas City’s upper crust.
This time I’m squaring off against a critic named William Deresiewicz who wrote an essay a year ago in The Nation on Kurt Vonnegut. (The essays he penned on Joseph Conrad for The New Republic and on elite colleges for The American Scholar are so good I have shared them with many friends and acquaintances.) Continue reading
I can’t believe they’re up to No. 6 already…
Who would’ve thought it possible when THE FAST AND FURIOUS kicked in some 12 years ago? If there’s ever been a film series that’s stuck to its formula of fast cars, leggy women and emotionless dialogue, then this is it. Continue reading
With less than two weeks until Wakarusa kicks off down on scenic Mulberry Mountain in Arkansas, tickets are getting scarce.
Will they actually sell out? No, I doubt it. But many of the more desirable camping areas are at capacity, and the way it works at Waka is that you purchase your camping spot separately from your ticket.
My point is, get your tickets now! Here are the bands I’m most excited to see:
Snoop Lion, Son Volt, Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, Allen Stone, Calexico, Dispatch, Bombino, Moon Taxi, Yonder Mountain String Band, to name but a few.
This is going to be a festival where I get to see lots of bands I’ve never seen before, which is always fun. And I’ll be sending in tales from the road, so stay tuned.
Until then, here’s a couple things to keep you occupied… Continue reading
Seven years ago, I was delivering pizzas in the evening, driving a forklift after midnight, and spending my days sending emails to my editors at The Pitch Weekly politely inquiring about the status of my most recent check. (They weren’t BIG checks, mind you—I was but a humble calendar contributor for the most part—but it was MY money, damn it, and they were terrible about paying on time.) I was dating a patient girl who later became my wife and we lived in a crumby apartment in Lee’s Summit. Most of my television consisted of late night Quantum Leap marathons, aided by the interminable haze that can only come from a gigantic jug of Carlo Rossi Chablis.
Arrested Development wasn’t on my radar.
A friend turned me on though, after the original run ended. DVDs were procured, and I watched the full series in a very short period of time because I just couldn’t stop watching it. It was simply that good.
Unfortunately, my tale wasn’t an uncommon one (well, except for the whole journalist/heavy equipment operator drinking cheap wine and watching Quantum Leap at 3am). The multiple Emmy winning show—always lauded by critics and “those in the know,”—didn’t have the ratings necessary to carry it past a third season. The show was cancelled and smart TV fans everywhere were devastated. Continue reading
The handwriting’s been on the wall for years…
After decades as a pioneer and force to be reckoned with in what’s now referred to as the “music software” biz, Kief’s Music is bowing out.
“I’m getting out of the CD business,” says owner John Kiefer. “I’ve kept the place open for the last two years losing money, but I can’t keep doing this.”
Frankly, who would?
Next up: “We are closing out our CDs and record albums,” Kiefer says. “We’re lowering all the prices and we have a large selection of 99 cents and up CDs and 51 cents and up LPs. We have thousands of both and they’re all used. We started changing the prices last week.”
Mr. K’s game plan: Continue reading
The days when how things sounded mattered appear numbered…
What’s left of what once was once the “audio industry” is quaking in its boots and living on borrowed time. That in the wake of retailer Best Buy‘s latest financials. The country’s last surviving, large scale consumer electronics retailer reported a first quarter net loss of $81 million compared with a year-earlier profit of $158 million.
Can the company survive? Continue reading
It seems like only yesterday…
In the spring of 2009 director Todd Phillips unleashed extended scenes of his upcoming summer comedy to an unsuspecting ShoWest (movie) convention audience. The film was called THE HANGOVER dealing with a wild bachelor party in Las Vegas that went terribly wrong. The footage became the buzz of the convention and probably the most anticipated comedy of the entire summer.
Its eventual opening didn’t disappoint.
THE HANGOVER with a total North American box office gross of $ 277.3 million would become the biggest R-rated domestic comedy of all time. Yes, it even outgrossed TED‘s $218.5 million in ticket sales.
Two years later Phillips followed up his blockbuster with the uh, cleverly titled THE HANGOVER PART 2.
Yet while the sequel was a commercial success, many moviegoers felt betrayed. Why? Continue reading
Honesty’s the best policy, right?
So it is that shortly after KC Confidential broke the news about yearling features head honcho Laurie Mansfield being SoCal bound, Star editors decided to level with the newsroom.
“They rushed out an announcement after you posted your story,” says one newsie. “Guess you made it ‘sadly official.’ ”
For what it’s worth, here’s the company line: Continue reading
Well, it was bound to happen, right?
The magic that kept the Royals in first place throughout most of April and a chunk of May has worn off, and we’re left with the sad truth: the unicorn we’d all admired is nothing more than a malnourished horse with a traffic cone taped to its head.
Gone are the comeback walk-offs, the tight-rope successes of an oft-shaky bullpen and the jaw dropping tenacity of a reassembled starting rotation. The offense—which had previously been SO DAMN GOOD at hitting with runners in scoring position—strands men like irresponsible Floridians ditch unwanted pet pythons.
People everywhere are shocked and appalled, because this is just what they expected. (Not that this makes a lick of sense; the thought processes of hardcore sports fans rarely do.)
It’s classic “Royaling.” Continue reading
Menopause the Musical
Let’s get real for a minute…
Understandably, theater critic Robert Trussell has been doing a bit of handwringing over the impending demise of the 26 year-old American Heartland Theatre in Crown Center. After all, losing a high profile, 400-plus capacity theater venue is news and I’m sure there will be more stories to come.
However, dollar signs aside, does American Heartland closing really matter on the city’s pop culture landscape? And why, after 26 years in which the for-profit company supposedly never made a dime, kill it off now? Twenty years ago would seem to have made more sense.
Let’s take a look… Continue reading
A movement is afoot to keep KCI the way it is, instead of updating the airport to be post 911 friendly. The group also wants the world to know that “THEY LIKE IKE.”
*******
The Royals are back below .500 and have lost 11 of their last 14 games. The players say when they were in first place, they became distracted by all of the people in the stands.
Last one out, turn out the…
Once upon a time, something called “stability” existed within the ranks of the newsroom at the Kansas City Star.
No mas.
These days it’s every man, woman and child for him or herself, as a six year gallows march continues with news staffers locked in a quarterly ranks thinning vice, resulting in those who can find work outside the newspaper sending out resumes and job feelers lickety-split.
The latest local casualty of the uncertain times in print journalism:
Features head Laurie Mansfield. Continue reading
Imagine Dragons
Turnabout is fair play…
After months of insisting otherwise, the powers that be at the music fest known as Kanrocksas have done an about face and made single day tickets available to the two day fest on June 28th and 29th at the Kansas Speedway.
The $64 million question being why? Continue reading
