KC Confidential

Guess they never read “The Tell-Tale Heart”

Someone with no guilt is a sociopath. They may be nice to others face to face, but they’ll do whatever it takes to get what they want, casualties be damned.

We live in a sociopathic society.

How did this happen?

First, America lost its place as the inviolate, the undisputed leader.

It started with Nixon and then Trump put a stake in its heart by removing the U.S.A. from compacts under the notion of “America First.”

Just like “Loughlin First” and “Huffman First” and “Rich But Not Famous First.”

You don’t get there by luck. And to stay there you have to continue to employ an edge. They try to assuage their guilt via charity. But even Trump didn’t complete the circle on that.

They feel they’re entitled.

And we eat it all up until we don’t.

It was Reagan and the global economy that blew this country up.

Reagan made greed good,

Michael Douglas just articulated it in a movie.

Suddenly there were people richer than the rest. And by time we hit the 21st century it was clear you could not get to the destination unless you had certain privileges. Mostly, an elite education and connections.

Funny how everybody at Harvard not implicated in this scandal helps each other.

As for getting an MBA, that’s what it’s all about – who you meet, who you can leverage – what you learn in the classroom is nearly irrelevant.

And then came globalization.

Inevitable and to our advantage. But not everybody’s advantage. If you weren’t educated, you were left behind. Oh, we heard about lottery winners, athletes, but the rank and file saw their gigs go overseas and suddenly they couldn’t afford the lifestyle they were accustomed to. They ended up divorced and on drugs.

But the elite considered them throwaway people. Not only the right wing elite, the left wing too.

That’s why Hillary lost, she was out of touch.

The scary little thing is the left wing elite is still out of touch. They think they earned their position. They worked hard, round the clock, and they want the benefits.

As for those people in front of them, they’re bending the rules, so why shouldn’t they?

Bill Gates is lauded for his philanthropy today, but let’s put him on the stand and ask him why he charged computer companies for Windows even if they didn’t put it in the box.

Or Steve Jobs.

Cancer got him, but we want to know about his anti-poach agreements. Continue reading →

A bier is just a beer, right?

Stay with me here…

Say you’ve just returned from a great European vacation and you loved the beers overseas. And now you’ve luckily found the very same brew in the import section of your local liquor store.

Just ONE problem!

It doesn’t quite taste the same here as you remember it did in Munich, Prague, Paris, Amsterdam or Berlin.

Your imagination or is there more to it?

In my opinion, probably the latter.

That’s because U.S. laws forces international breweries  to add preservatives to bottles and cans for retail in the USA.

Hence the brew you loved overseas will most likely never quite taste the same here.

The same does not hold true for similar imports sold in Canada, Mexico or on cruise ships,

There you get the real thing.

In other words the German biers brewed under the Fatherland’s strict ‘Purity Law’ (which prohibits additives)  STAYS pure—except here.

PROST!

Which begs the question as to what my personal choices are for beer?

It used to be BECK’S. Continue reading →

John Hickenlooper‘s following the Jimmy Carter playbook…

And Carter may (not) be the best ex-President – as opposed to one in office – but one thing’s for sure, he won.

We underestimate winning.

It’s a long road to the top if you wanna rock and roll and AC/DC lit up bars throughout Australia before they shook the world years later. It’s what you do in the trenches when few are watching that matters. And then you’ve got to find a way to win.

Jimmy Carter used the Allman Brothers and the rest of the Capricorn crew.

Never underestimate the power of rock and roll.

It brings people together and spews out bucks, which were used in the ’70s to fire campaigns. Not only Jimmy Carter’s, but Jerry Brown‘s too.

And now Hickenlooper has Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats on his side. They played his launch rally in Denver.

Not that you paid attention.

The coasts are betting that you’re not paying attention.

They can’t stop making fun of Hickenlooper’s name and his lack of recognition. But have you ever heard of Barack Hussein Obama? I mean, to make fun of someone because of their name… Hell, I wish Alicia Keys and John Legend went back to their original monikers. If you’re not proud of who you are, your message is compromised. You win on identity. You make mistakes, you apologize for them and you carry on.

Only losers don’t have faults. Winners are flawed, but we get behind them because of their character.

I’m left of left.

But this week has me questioning the progressives.

If you can’t smack down anti-Semitism, the game is rigged.

If we all don’t begin on the same starting line, we can’t win.

The holier-than-thou standing up for Ilhan Omar have lost me.

Like AOC. And even Bernie. Continue reading →

About Ilhan Omar’s anti-semitic comments that’ve been stirring bi-partisan outrage …

The two most egregious:  Her Tweet, “It’s all about the Benjamins baby,” in reference to U.S. support for Israel.

And again last week,  “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.”

If Louis Farrakhan and Hitler had a baby, I don’t think that that kid could hate Jews any more than the demure, self-assured Ms. Omar.

That said, the freshman congresswoman has yet to call for the construction of concentration camps.

She’s merely saying that politics are infused and corrupted by money – in this instance, money from Jewish interests.

George Soros – a real life James Bond villain, who kinda looks like it and maybe  would more iff he had a white cat – pours immense sums of money into anti-Jewish causes.

Perhaps Ms. Omar has never heard of Mr. Soros.

But if you ask me, the real issue here, is free speech.

Because the body politic is infested with money on both sides of the political spectrum. Continue reading →

They never make a movie about the way guys really are…

You can see beefcake, men who love ’em and leave ’em, men who abuse women, but they don’t make a flick about the people I know.

They do in Paddleton.

The average guy can’t get laid, is probably afraid of girls, has a good heart and would never step out on you, for fear he’d never find anybody else.

These are the good guys women are looking for, but don’t want.

You’ve heard there are no good guys left? That’s wrong.

Not that Ray Romano and Mark Duplass are winners in this flick.

Romano is afraid of the cute coworker who asks about his weekend. You’d figure this is a perfect opportunity to connect, but it’s easier to brush her off and angst about it later. As for Duplass…he’s got a go-nowhere job in a print shop. And he ain’t gonna take you out for dinner someplace other than McDonald’s.

Yes, these guys are losers.

And I’m not saying most men are, but there are so many true characteristics here.

Like the wearing of shorts. I’M GUILTY!

I doff them in the winter, unlike a lot of people I know. But I see it as a perk of living in L.A. I see it as a perk of being in the music business – the one that used to exist, not the one we’ve got now, where the musicians dressed in street clothes and didn’t own a suit.

Now that’s the techies.

Here, the shorts are representative of yearning to be a boy, to not grow up.

Or as my childless friend Jake says…without children you’re a kid forever! You can be silly, you’re not married to your job, you’re footloose and fancy free, even if the rewards come with aging.

But Romano and Duplass are still addicted to kung fu movies.

They can do all the moves. They’re like best friends from high school. But they met as adults Continue reading →

When did the Academy Awards show lose its edge?

On Sunday night, that’s when.

The opening number by Queen followed by Tina Fey, Amy Pohler and Maya Rudolph was alright…I guess.

But it felt more like the Grammys meets the Emmys —INSTEAD of the once mighty Oscars!

The show cried out for a host in the worst way.

A “he” or “she” – anybody who could add some edgy, and comedic glue to the evening.

….bet they’ll have a host next year. Continue reading →

It takers guts and brains to do what Lara Logan has done…

Many  conservative news outlets are reporting that the former 60 Minutes correspondent is coming into the light for the first time on the liberal bias of the 4th estate.

Logan’s home base for over a decade was CBS (and 60 Minutes) doing hagiographies of various officers and military personnel at war in the Middle East. Her politics, have been centrist and she never pretended otherwise.

Logan is known for her courage under live fire, persistence, intelligence, work ethic, not to mention a spectacular, you know, cleavage.

These attributes endeared her to her former bosses at CBS and to troops on the ground in the theater of our many wars over the last two decades – where some soldiers are e rumored to have joined the fight to get a glimpse of Logan in a t-shirt.

Then came Logan’s infamous Benghazi story on 60 Minutes. Continue reading →

Enough with the overwrought hyperbole…

That’s basically my take on the voluntary, paid departures recently announced at the Kansas City Star.

No need for handwringing here. The fact that a handful of writers – mostly at or near retirement age – are golden parachuting their way out of a highly untenable situation at the newspaper is, for them anyway, undoubtedly a relief.

Because going from more than 2,000 employees to around 200 the past 10 years has hardly been a joy ride.

Not after having to endure countless rounds of  out-of-the-blue, not-so-voluntary layoffs.

Remember the infamous “Hunger Games” debacle I wrote about a few years back?

The one where award winning investigative reporter Karen Dillon and a younger reporter were left to decide among themselves which would walk the plank?

At this stage of the game most of the dearly departing are senior citizens when it comes to buying movie tickets. What did anybody think – that they were going to die on the job or something? Continue reading →

Think the Academy Awards has lost its luster?

Continue reading →

Suffice it to say, Royals legend Frank White is up the proverbial creek…

The youth who basked in the glow of the old Municipal Stadium and went on to become an eight-time Gold Glove winner over 18 star studded years playing for the hometown baseball team is in what appears to be the worst shape imaginable.

Somewhere along the way things went horribly wrong for White and his wife.

The former all star second baseman’s blunt criticism of the team during its 1o0 losses season stretch precipitated a nasty falling out with the team. One that reportedly resulted in his PR schmooze salary being cut from $150,000 to $50,000 a year.

Feeling disrespected, White bailed in 2011 – the same year his part time color commentary gig with Fox Sports ended with him being replaced by a kiss ass broadcaster.

In his subsequent book, White vowed never again return to Kauffman Stadium.

These days he can be found coaching first base for the lowly Kansas City T-Bones and as Jackson County county executive.

Neither of which seem to have proved lucrative. Continue reading →

Corporations are the enemy…

I would have expected this message to come from the arts first, but the arts have been infiltrated like PBS. Whether it be corporations supporting that which the public does not, or musicians sucking up to the man to get paid.

But AOC doesn’t get paid. She was a bartender before.

I didn’t see this coming. The youth stole America from the man in the 1960s and then retreated after Kent State, licking their wounds. Then Ronald Reagan legitimized greed and for 40 years we’ve seen a separation between corporations and the regular folk, between rich and poor.

The income inequality gap keeps widening and we’re told to pay fealty to the “job creators” as we lower their taxes and incentivize them while they laugh all the way to the bank.

Then again, it was Mario Savio and the rest of the student protesters who ignited the ’60s, the musicians came later, in an era where you didn’t think you could make that much money. Actually, the money came later, with albums and 90/10 live deals. But music reaches people better than speech – can you say “Eve Of Destruction” or “Ohio”?

But for the past few decades its been about sponsorship in the music business.

Get some of that corporate money. Whether it be the Amex or Citi pre-sale or the whiskey or telco signage. Acts thought there was no cost. Never mind the chilling effect, they’ve been left behind, lost to the change of time as the wheels of society keep grinding.

Trump illuminated the change.

That America wasn’t what the pundits and media said it was. Instead, there were millions of voters disenchanted with the way things were going who were angry that they were left behind in an era of globalization. Sure, they liked their flat screens and smartphones assembled elsewhere, but they were wary of not having jobs, angry at those who took them away, blaming not the corporations themselves as much as the foreigners and immigrants.

And then came the Trump blowback.

When the enlightened youngsters were sick of their forefathers selling out to the middle, and the aforementioned corporations. Yes, it’s a left and right issue, both take the corporate money, are beholden to the man. But the youngsters…we’ve been reading about their college debt, their inheritance of the national debt and their lack of opportunity for years – but like digital photography, it took this long to reach maturation.

Kodak went out of business overnight, as did the old way of thinking of things, the old guard and the corporations. Continue reading →