KC Confidential

Think of it as the ultimate Jayhawk tribute…

It’s no secret Saturday Night Live funny guy Jason Sudeikis bleeds KU blue. Sudeikis even wrote an SNL sketch for Jack Black that was set in iconic Lawrence bar The Wheel and has been known to sport KU shorts on the show’s set.

Not to mention he’s been seen around Lawrence while here to attend basketball games with his fiance, actress Olivia Wilde.

Now sources say Sudeikis and wild are taking it to the limit and planning to marry here in Lawrence, possibly at the historic Eldridge Hotel downtown. Continue reading →

Lemme tell you what I mostly know about Carol Burnett…

Along with Lucille Ball she was one of my mother’s favorites. Two looney ladies of the 50s, 60s and 70s – Burnett being the one who did the Tarzan yell.

Coupled with the fact that Thursday’s Burnett show at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts could sell out and the Pitch even recommended it, that speaks volumes for the staying power of the 79 year-old comedy legend.

What to expect? Not your standard issue senior citizen standup comedy show.

Burnett’s 90 minute throw down is – mostly anyway – an anything-could-happen Q&A session with the audience. They ask, she answers. It went down in Tucson recently late last month. Continue reading →

There’s a school of thought among some Kansas City Star reporters – past and present – that fired former columnist Steve Penn‘s lawsuit against the newspaper didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hades…

Penn got the ax a year and a half ago for including passages from press releases in his some of his columns.

But Penn didn’t just quietly get let go as is usually the case, the newspaper fired him, then burned him at the public stake.

That was then. Continue reading →

This just in…

How did this one fly under the radar for so long? Turns out Wyandotte County export Eric Stonestreet – of “Modern Family” fame – has hooked up with late night television talk show host Jimmy Kimmel have joined forces.

In the uh, meat biz it would seem, according to the National Enquirer. Continue reading →

It’s gotten to be kinda like Groundhog Day, you know, the movie…

Every handful or so of months the powers that be at the Kansas City Star issue some sort of interoffice memo about how things are looking up and even toss in a cocktail party for the ad execs to celebrate. And then – whammo! – the next thing anybody knows, here comes another round of layoffs and or cutbacks.

Bait and switch? You make the call.

The latest? Continue reading →

Finally…

At long last somebody with a nose for news finally pinned former KCUR FM host Jabulani Leffall down long enough to ask – and get – the long awaited answers to tough questions as to why he bailed on the station with no warning at the end of his show a few weeks back.

And the answer is – drum roll, please – he’s nuts. Continue reading →

To dope or not to dope, that is the question…

Whether tis less nobler for athletes like Lance Armstrong and A-Rod to engage of the use of performance enhancing drug, testosterone and steroids in pursuit of big bucks and record setting physical feats, or for aging boomers as a means of being buff and staying “young,” as scribe Craig Glazer has often suggested.

A report last night on CNN, “Chasing Youth,” took the opposing view. Continue reading →

Now it can be told…

What did Clay Chastain think of antediluvian Kansas City Star columnist Charlie Gusewelle‘s recent hit piece on the Union Station and light rail activist?

“I was shocked,” Chastain says. “I’ve been shocked by some things but never in my 20 some year career have I ever been shocked like this. Gusewelle writes heartwarming stories about his animals and his time in Paris and I always thought he was just this kindhearted person.” Continue reading →