KC Confidential

Remember this one?

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

That’s what’s wrong with today’s Kansas City Star. Make no mistake, they still face the same obstacles other newspapers are struggling with like disappearing print profits and readership. They can rack up millions in online ads, but what keeps the lights on are those plastic condom encased thingamajigs oldsters fish out of their driveways every morning.

You know, think they still call ’em “newspapers.”

And they can run all the ads they want promising readers new directions, expanded coverage and other changes – despite a staff that’s been reduced by 90 percent the past 10 years – but until they pull their heads out of the sand editorially, it’s going to remain a death march.

Seriously.

We live in a fairly conservative part of the country where midwestern values don’t always line up across the board with liberal, left coast, politically correct leanings.

So why continue to try and jam those philosophies down readers throats? Continue reading →

It’s the biggest windfall his sales department and out-of-state station owners that can ever remember…

This from sales executive who’s been in the area for decades.

Whoever says politics aren’t good for the economy doesn’t know what they’re talking about!

You say you’re fed up with the massive onslaught of political commercials?

Wel,l the bad news—or make that good news if you’re a media type—is that the various campaigns still have a war chest in reserve. And they’re planning to unleash them in the form of last minute media buys during these final two weeks prior to election day, November 6th.

And why is Kansas City so blessed with massive political TV campaigns when markets like Wichita, Topeka, Columbia—even St. Louis proportionally are not?

The culprit is our state line. And with highly visible and important races playing out in both Kansas and Missouri the media blitzkrieg is centered here.

Why, you ask?

Simple.

If you’re trying to reach Kansas voters living in the metroplex you’ve got to pay to reach their Missouri counterparts as well. Continue reading →

“Houston, ‘The Eagle’ has landed”

That’s the monumental sentence spoken in 1969 that rocked the world.

But if you thought you knew the story—THINK AGAIN!

FIRST MAN is the (sometimes tedious) biographical drama of Neil Armstrong‘s journey to becoming the first man to step on the moon.

It is a personal look at a brooding and troubled man dealing with the loss of his young daughter due to brain cancer and his challenging climb to become the most famous astronaut of all time.

FIRST MAN is an extraordinary story of sacrifice as LALA LAND and WHIPLASH director Damien Chazelle explores the emotions and heartbreaks leading up to that giant leap for mankind.

Casting Ryan Gosling as Armstrong was a wise move by the movie makers who include Steven Spielberg as the film’s co-executive producer.

There’s just something about Gosling that feels right for the part. Continue reading →

Like I said the other day…

Despite the grotesque exaggerations and distortions of what appear to mostly be sophomoric, youthful indiscretions, in today’s political world it doesn’t take much to cook public figures like Brett Kavanaugh‘s goose.

Or anybodies, for that matter.

Even the beloved Stomper‘s all’s fair in love and politics philosophy – where anyone who doesn’t offer up fist bumps to the canniest dodges and lowest, well struck blows is considered naïve – this all seems a little cold.

So I’m still having a hard time seeing this dude make it onto the Supreme Court.

The microscopes are so heavily zoomed in on Kavanaugh’s lost youth that I’d be surprised if someone doesn’t show up on Anderson Cooper testifying that he passed gas in 7th grade study hall sexually compromising a 13 year-old girl. Continue reading →

I’m sick of reading how funny and great Saturday Night Live is…

Chevy Chase must have a new publicist because suddenly he’s everywhere. Most notably in the Washington Post where he laments that no one will hire him – that Lorne Michaels won’t let him host SNL because he’s too old.

And then Chevy goes on to say SNL sucks.

It does.

Welcome to the modern media era, stuck in the past.

Never forget, this is the same media that missed Trump – all the papers – so why should you trust them on anything else now? They’re disengaged, and in the case of Fox, manipulative. But they’re far from right – they’re cheerleaders at best – they do not have their finger on the pulse.

And that’s what stimulates us, the zeitgeist. It’s why we go to see a new act, tune in to a new TV show. “Roseanne,” “Murphy Brown” – good in their heyday, but hit radio is not playing Debbie Gibson, never mind Nirvana.

SNL worked because the players truly were not ready for prime time.

They seemed uncontrollable, like they were gonna jump out of the screen and trash your house. Michaels was not the ringleader, that was Belushi. The producer barely controlled the cast – he was being dragged along – a Canadian in New York, a fish out of water.

Now he’s in the Hamptons, lionized – now Lorne is the establishment.

That’s one thing Kurt Cobain had right. It had to be punk, it was about image and belief and today’s SNL has no soul.

It’s just a place to see famous faces riff on the news with no viewpoint.

I watched the Matt Damon’s cold open.

At first I was smiling, then I realized it was not going anywhere. More like a college troupe having fun off the grid, like Corky St. Clair with the hometown players of Blaine, Missouri.

I mean I’ve got to call crap on this.

Does anybody even watch the show live anymore? I haven’t in eons.

I just wait till Sunday morning for the clips. Which usually aren’t laugh out loud funny, but are dangerous.

Unlike John Oliver‘s “Last Week Tonight.” Continue reading →

For the five years I’ve been writing for KC Confidential I’ve been subjected to an incredible amount of personal abuse…

Abuse from a troll by the name of first Harley and then Boom Boom.

I was in good company though. Because everyone else who has posted or commented here was slammed by him on a regular basis.

Harley/Boom Boom/Jo-Jo only dealt in odhominem attacks. He attacked me for coming from a moneyed background and he attacked Paul Wilson and Chuck Lowe for not coming from a moneyed background.

The attacks were unheard of in their ferocity and length. For example a 1,500 word post might draw a four-thousand word comment in response.

And no one was lambasted more than Craig Glazer – usually about his pro football picks and his rather checkered career career with law enforcement.

So imagine my surprise when I heard that H-BB-JJ had fallen strangely silent at the very moment the Glaze  went to that big comedy club in the sky.

Hearne then told me that he had busted Craig early on in his tenure writing for KCC for writing comments under fictitious names in response to his own posts.

And not only did Glaze and Harley appear to be around the same age, had the same Johnson County upbringing and same ethnicity (Jewish), Harley’s politics matched someone with Craig’s background. Plus the troll calling himself Harley had the same superficial knowledge of pro sports, entertainment and politics that would be consistent with Craig’s own life experiences. Continue reading →

Mark Judge (left), Brett Kavanaugh (right)

Let me be perfectly clear…

From the get go Democrats have done Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh dirty. No two ways about it, regardless of whether the claims against him are true or not.

Lost in this unseemly process has been the longstanding legal assumption that folks are innocent until proven guilty.

Ah, but that concept bit the dust when the Me Too movement attained liftoff this past year.

Because no longer do actual courts get to try these sort of cases, the court of public opinion is now the adjudicator of innocence and guilt.

And guilt trumps innocence something like 10 to 1 in this new court.

Will equilibrium ever return? Probably – look at the Salem witch trials – but clearly no time soon.

That said, Lefsetz column about preppies is spot on by my measure.

Need I remind you that I hail from that world?

So, it matters little that Kavanaugh was a virgin until after college. I went to school with a ton of virgins who exhibited behavior as crude and crass as you can imagine. Continue reading →

Everybody knows the prep school kids are the worst offenders…

You think we live in an homogeneous society, all starting from the same line, with the same information, with melting pot backgrounds and various pluses and minuses that balance out in the end.

You’re very wrong.

I went to a melting pot high school. There were only a handful of African-Americans, but no truly rich people, but some from the projects. I grew up 50 miles from New York City. Partook of New York media. I thought I knew what was going on.

Until I went to Middlebury College.

I went to Middlebury because it was in Vermont, had its own ski area, was coed and prestigious. It just seemed like another step in the endless road forward of life.

But I was wrong.

I learned a lot at Middlebury, but almost none of it was in the classroom. You see 45% of Middlebury students came from prep school.

They were self-confident. They knew the game. And they were much better read than us public school denizens.

That’s right, you get a much better education in a prep school.

Forget secretary of education Betsy DeVos and vouchers. That’s for the religious, the poor and what’s left of the middle class.

Those with money like DeVos send their kids to prep schools.

And I’m not talking about the exclusive NY and L.A. institutions like Trinity and Dalton and Harvard-Westlake and Campbell Hall.

No, I’m talking sleeping away miles from Mommy and Daddy – being formed by the wisdom of the crowd. That’s a reason breakthroughs are rarely from the preps.

You see prep school teaches you how to get along. Sure, you want to excel, but you know first and foremost you want to be a member of the group. That life is long and relationships pay off.

Public school valedictorians dream of future opportunities, prepsters are born to them.

They see education as a game.

The prep school kids taught me that you didn’t have to hand a paper in on time. You could always go to the teacher and get an extension. And it was true!

The prep school kids are the ones who lobbied for a bar on campus.

The prep school kids joined fraternities.

The prep school kids knew what an MBA was, I certainly didn’t.

And you can read on TMZ the inner-workings of seemingly every celebrity extant. But the prep school kids, the true insiders, know that it’s best to remain silent.

Let’s see… The prep school kids taught me how to rip off the Pepsi machine. Continue reading →

As many of you know, there are two things I like to remind readers of….

That I voted for Obama twice and I’m really not much of a sports fan these days. So go ahead, call me a fair weather sports fan.

Speaking of which…

With the Chiefs taking names and kicking butts, even I had to break down Sunday and watch most of the game. Too bad I was like 20 minutes late because I tuned in just in time to miss their second touchdown of the first quarter.

Just as I’d been a “Republican” growing up, I’d been a pretty fair Chiefs fan with 50 yard line seats from the time the team arrived in KC at the old Municipal Stadium until 9 or 10 years ago when former big Chief Carl Peterson began extorting money from season ticket holders on his way out the door.

But enough about me…

The crying shame about this year’s Chiefs team? That long-suffering fan Craig Glazer is pushing up daisies and isn’t around to literally explode with enthusiasm and declare the team Super Bowl bound.

That is until the Chiefs’ defense costs them two or three games in a row at which point he’d likely call out the team as DOA until next season and switch to singing the praises of KU basketball coach Bill Self.

Oh yeah, and ripping KU football while damning MU and K-State’s teams with faint praise.

Sound familiar? Continue reading →

He pointed…

That’s one of the first things you learn in media training, not to. You remember Bill Clinton with his arm outstretched, thumb tucked into his fist – they called him “Slick Willie.”

One thing’s for sure, Beto O’Rourke is not slick.

We need leaders. And there’s a vacuum in the Democratic Party. And give the Republicans credit, anybody who rises above they denigrate, they shoot slings and arrows until that person is perceived as a pariah.

Exhibit #1, Elizabeth Warren.

Somehow, this law professor is against the people, against the country. Do you ever read what she says? She’s the only person in Congress with convictions on the left who seems to put them forth every day. The rest of the elected are worried about their sponsors, their donors, they’re playing a game but our country is not a game.

As for John Hickenlooper, the supposed next President, who is he and what did he do?

And Cory Booker is forthright and then wishy-washy.

And Warren is old.

And the Republicans are so good at the game, they’ve got Democrats themselves hating on Nancy Pelosi. The Democrats are the gang that can’t shoot straight, it’s like fielding a team without a coach, except when it’s the Democratic National Committee, which seems more concerned with protecting its insiders than its members.

And then along comes Beto O’Rourke.

It’s kind of like a rock star.

At first no one’s paying attention. Then you start hearing a few words.

He’s got a unique name, not given at birth. You laugh and wonder where it comes from. And it used to be rock stars were outsiders, with rough edges, outlaws, true to themselves.

And that’s who Beto O’Rourke is. That’s why he appeals. Continue reading →

It’s 2003 all over again…

When hardware was king and just as you got used to your latest iPod they improved it. Only this time Cupertino is behind the curve selling niche items for mucho dinero and Amazon is going downmarket to own the world.

In case you missed it, Amazon just announced a tsunami of Echo products.

Everything from a microwave to a car device and a DVR.

This makes Tim Cook‘s overlabored two hour pronouncements look like yesteryear. That was Steve Jobs‘ game in an old era. Today Amazon dumped so many products it’ll take weeks to digest them.

Voice control.

Apple was there first, and now the company is last.

That’s the power of the individual, as in Jobs is gone. But Jobs was famous for turning on a dime, missing the memo and then leapfrogging the competition. Whereas today’s Apple is all about the niche ecosystem based on its brand, and how long will that last?

You can’t even play Spotify on your HomePod, and why buy one of those when you can get a whole music system for two hundred fifty bucks!

I like the cheap plugs, for $25 anything electrical can be voice-controlled. Forget mixing and matching technologies, to quote the seer, “It just works.”

Unlike Tesla.

The cars are riddled with defects in a world where we expect the first iteration to be perfect.

But this is a stealth move by Amazon, with its ecosystem of commerce and entertainment attached. Continue reading →

Goin’ down…down, down, down, down, DOWN!

As Don Nix so famously sang.

What did they used to say, tweeting would save event television? That live was everything?

Utter hogwash.

You’ve got to read the pundits’ comments on why the Emmy ratings tanked. The shows were too sophisticated; they didn’t feature meat and potato actors; the performers are left wing.

Bottom line, NOBODY WANTS TO WATCH!

The music business got over this. They learned it was a world of niches – other than the Grammy Awards – which are coasting on the payments of CBS and will lack innovation until the contract runs out and the whole enterprise craters.

Welcome to corporate America, where no one has a stake and as long as you’re getting paid, you don’t care and the goal is to hit your bonus.

I was at lunch the other day with a futurist that specializes in disruption. And he’s been advising banks, telling them that within five years the banking landscape will look completely different, the internet will rule, that most millennials have never been in a branch and they’re sick and tired of the charges.

And what do the CEOs say they’re gonna do? NOTHING!

Because they’re all on short term contracts and if they take action it will hurt their numbers and their stockholders will freak.

That’s how the techies stole the country in the first place.

Everybody in charge was asleep at the wheel, believing change was never gonna come, that they were entitled to their business.

What kind of crazy fucked-up world do we live in where the hottest medium, i.e. television, has horrific ratings for its awards show?

One in which we all watch different shows and need another life just to watch television there’s so much product.

And why watch?

If you’re interested, the highlights will be all over the web and you can find out who wins instantly.

This is a funny process to watch.

Sports were king, but as soon as people get the right to cancel ESPN they do. Continue reading →

Imagine a kid/family-friendly fantasy thriller that doesn’t bore parents to death….

(Come to think of it, I saw adults jumping several in their seats during our screening.)

That’s what we get from THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS, based on John Bellairs popular 1973 novel.

It’s also worth noting that director Eli Roth has surrounded himself here with worthy players—the type we usually don’t associate with films of this nature.

There’s eccentric uncle Jonathan who lives in this creepy, old mansion down the street. He’s played to the hilt by Jack Black. (and as we eventually find out he is also a warlock).

And there’s whimsical neighbor lady (or is she?), Mrs. Zimmerman, who also seems to have a penchant for magic. She’s portrayed by Cate Blanchett.

Into this rather bizarre 1953 setting moves 10 year old orphan boy Lewis. He’s nicely played by Owen Vaccaro. All he really wants is a normal childhood with his uncle.

What he gets instead is a secret world aligned with witches, warlocks and hell-spewing pumpkins among other devilish surprises.

“Things are quite different here!” Continue reading →

Never let it be said Claire McCaskill isn’t conniving…

After all, Claire cut her political teeth right here in KCMO, tap dancing with  adiabolical dudes like the late Steve Glorioso. And nobody knew how to lay the pipe to political foe better than Little Stevie Wonder.

So in one fell swoop McCaskill was able to – deftly, I might add – execute a high profile, pro-me too maneuver by coming out against Trump/Republican-backed Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavenaugh without overtly alienating conservative Missouri voters. Voters many for whom think he’s getting royally screwed by Dems wanting to derail his nomination until after the mid term elections in November.

Pretty slick, huh?

Once upon a time, media political watchdogs of the past like Dave Helling would have busted McCaskill for her somewhat transparent political maneuver. Continue reading →