KC Confidential

Will the Winter of 2011 / 2012 be a record breaker?

It’s looking that way so far, says KSHB TV waether wonk Gary Lezak.

"To date, we’ve had .4 of an inch of snow," Lezak says. "And the lowest snowfall ever was 4.5 inches in the winter of 1922-1923. So we’ve got 4.1 inches just to get to the lowest season ever, but there’s no sign of that now."

Hence the bear market on show shovels, snow blowers, driveway ice melting chemicals – even winter coats!

However, that could change.

It’s getting late but "I still think it’s going to happen, but the next three weeks are critical," Lezak says. "I think there are two or three storm systems coming between now and February 10th."

Stay tuned…

Think things are bad in Kansas City, it’s no cakewalk in Lawrence these days either…

That according to businessman John Kiefer, the owner of Kiefs Audio / Video and numerous shopping center and real estate properties around the city.

"Look at the last few months in Lawrence," Kiefer says. "Sears is going to close – that’s an 80,000 square foot store. Old Navy is going to close – that’s a 20,000 square foot store. Borders is gone and nobody’s leased that space. Blockbuster had a pretty good size store on 23rd Street and they’re gone. And downtown people are going in and out like crazy."

And the days appear numbered for big box stores like Best Buy, Kiefer says.

"Best Buy today is starting to be labled by the students as a fancy ass Radio Shack," he says. "What do they even have in audio? They don’t even have sound rooms. Best Buy has a problem because they’re the last remaining (audio/video) specialty store. Now if KU was the only good basketball team in the country, who would they have to play?"

Any signs Lawrence may be poised to mount a comeback?

"Well, we like to brag that we are," Kiefer quips. "We have 80,000 people in Lawrence with half of them either students or student affiliated."

However, Lawrence’s vaunted downtown is rapidly turning into Aggieville East.

"It’s called the Central Business District," Kiefer says. "But every building that goes vacant turns into a bar, a restaurant or a game store."

Retail is dying because while students and shoppers can price shop most goods on the Web, ‘You can’t buy food and liquor on the Internet," Kiefer says. "Look at what’s there closely. There’s very little retail."

Which brings us to Lawrence’s, uh, sports economy.

Kiefer is bullish on KU Football, "because we have a new coach who has a tremendous record with guys in the pros," he says. "Last year couldn’t have been worse and we have a weaker schedule this year, so we’ll win some games. Our last coach (Turner Gill) left us with some good players in the backfield but no offensive line. So even though people criticize our last coach, he did a good job but our alumni didn’t want to wait."

Kiefer’s take on Missouri leaving the Big 12?

"Who cares? I don’t. Our rivalry was a wonderful thing, but there was no rivalry in basketball and in football they beat us. The last time we had a basketball rivalry was when they had Norm Stewart."

There’s good news and bad news concerning the state of jazz in Kansas City today….

Mostly bad, actually, but let’s start with what passes for the good. Asked on KCUR FM this week to characterize the state of "modern jazz" here, piano man Mark Lowrey was upbeat…if measured.

"It’s kind of like if a tree falls in a forest kind of deal," the former pizza delivery dude said. "There’s a lot of output but not a lot of support."

As evidenced by the recent closings of both Jardine’s and 1911 Main and the financial woes at the Mutual Musicians Foundation.

In Jardine’s case there’s obviously more to the story, but clearly times have been tough on local jazz. For example Jardine’s owner says she had instituted an across-the-board pay cut last fall for the musicians that performed there – with the lone exception of Stan Kessler‘s band the Sons of Brasil.

Ironically, Kesssler was the one who reportedly called the band boycott of Jardine’s after the owner called the police on his stepson.

Hey, at least things have been colorful.

Meanwhile, Theater League honcho Mark Edelman has been casting about, looking for a full time home for his two year-old syndicated jazz radio show, the 12th Street Jump.

The hour-long program started at the Mutual Musicians Foundation as the 12 O’Clock Jump until a falling out with management over the rent sparked a move to the Downtown Marriott. Hence the name change.

That ground to a halt early last fall owing to the hotel’s remodeling.

A deal fell through to move the live show (which airs Saturdays at midnight on KCUR) to Jardine’s, so Edelman struck a deal with 1911 Main downtown. However that ground to a halt when 1911 closed at year’s end.

Edelman’s show originates now in a studio until a new home can be found.

"We’re looking for another venue," he says. "But I don’t want to jump into something – it’s got to be something that will last.

"The show’s now on eight radio stations around the country and we continue to do it every week. But we’re focussed on the broadcast of it not the live show. That’s the most important thing. I mean, we love playing to a live audience, but the rooms we played hold 60 people, and on the radio we’re playing to a live audience of 2,500 to 3,000 people.

"We call it the 12th Street bump because when you look at the local ratings on KCUR there’s a bump. We think that 300 to 400 people are listening to it here."

In a perfect world, where would Edelman originate the show from?

"You know what would have been a great room is that room that closed at 15th and Walnut. I think it closed. I saw Howard Iceberg there and the Pitch did live concerts in there."

But back to the state of KC jazz…

Owing to Kessler’s band boycott, KC transplant Julia Othmer had to cancel her sold out shows at Jardine’s over the holidays. However Othmer’s about to make good late next month at Nica’s 320, at 320 Southwest Boulevard on Wednesday February 22 and Saturday February 25th.

Could Nica’s become the future home of the 12th Street Jump?

Stay tuned…

So many rumors, so few facts….

With Kansas City’s top jazz club stuck in limbo, it’s time again to saddle up and see where  – if anywhere – things have progressed. As the world turns.

For two long jazzless months Jardine’s has remained mostly closed, following a fallout between owner Beena Raja and a pair of senior staffers that snowballed into a musician boycott and local tabloid TV beatdown.

Net result;  Raja got trapped off base and the club’s been mostly dark since Thanksgiving.

From the get-go a number of suitors  emerged to buy the club. However the longer it remained closed, the tighter buyer’s wallets grew, and to date a final sale remains up in the air with three or more groups vying to make a deal.

First came the friends of Barclay Martin group. Followed by former Sprint bigwig Paul Wilson. Then a pair of gay dudes who convinced the Pitch and Fox 4 it was a done deal.

At this stage of the game though, anything could happen, and the players are still playing.

"You know, a lot of people are playing and I’m sitting tight," Raja says. "Everybody can play, it’s my club. You know, everybody is talking and I’m still waiting and I’m okay. I’m not a genius but everybody else seems to be, so let them."

For now, it looks like a horse race between the gay dudes and Wilson and three other central figures in the game.

The three being, former Jardine’s owner and founder Greg Halstead, landlord American Century and of course, Raja.

May the best men and/or women win!

It was bound to happen…

The track record’s clear; Westport does not look favorably on black nightclubs or large assemblages of black people.

Then again, what mainstream shopping and/or entertainment district in KC does?

Certainly not the Power & Light District, infamous for its exclusionary admittance policies. And not the Plaza, that made its intentions known long before KC mayor Sly James did a faceplant last summer to avoid whizzing bullets.

And now America’s Pub, the midtown entertainment district’s last black dance club, is no more.

"It’s not very mysterious, the landlord didn’t want America’s Pub as a tenant anymore and you cannot make someone lease space to you," says the club’s attorney Harris Wilder. "It’s that simple. It closed New Year’s weekend – the last night was New Year’s Eve."

It’s no secret many Westporters felt America’s Pub was an urban youth magnet and wanted it gone. Just like prior Westport clubs that catered to a black clientele, Club 504 and Karma.

Remember when a massively inebriated Brian Euston went down for the count outside America’s Pub two years back?

Not that America’s Pub went down without a fight.

"Well, since the liquor laws in Kansas City, Missouri are so byzantine – so difficult – we did investigate moving into the Chili’s space on the other side of the parking lot," Wilder says. "But even though it’s only 50 feet away, it would have required applying for a new liquor license. And the reality is unless you’re in the 20 square block area downtown, the exempt zone, you are subject to getting consents from neighboring landowners and the density requirement, which has to do with how many taverns are allowed to exist in that area. And there will never, ever be another 3 a.m. liquor license in Westport unless they change the law."

So why not move to another part of town?

"Well, first they had a very good, long run in Kansas City," Wilder says. "Remember they’ve been America’s Pub at that location for 18 years. And it’s no secret that the ownership group in St. Louis is very disappointed with how they were treated in Kansas City. And they’re in the process of regrouping and deciding what if anything they will do in the Kansas City market. They wanted to move (but) they wanted to stay in Westport."

Let’s put all of the cards on the table; did America’s Pub get the boot because of blatant racism?

"We were never given a reason," Wilder says. "There was no explanation – just, ‘We’re not renewing your lease.’ and ‘We’re not willing to pay for your liquor license.’ "

Aside from the issue of America’s Pub running a black club in a white entertainment district, there was a human toll, Wilder says.

"You’re talking about 30 people’s jobs," Wilder says. "This is not just, ‘Great, we got rid of the black club.’ And if you read the comments section there are people who think that’s the best thing in the world. But what about the people that are unemployed now? And that they (were) employed on the whim of the landlord. Where was the social message about those people’s employment?"

Which brings us back to the question of racism.

"As I said, it’s very hard to get inside other people’s heads," Wilder says. "Let’s put it this way. I think the facts speak for themselves. The negotiation process was the least professional I have ever seen from a landlord. And I would add that America’s Pub’s owners made numerous, repeated, sincere efforts to communicate with the landlord and all they got was a no."

This is what’s lame about print journalism today….

By most measures Washington Post reporter Sally Jenkins’ exclusive interview with disgraced Penn State football coach Joe Paterno was a grand slam homerun. It’s what newsroom editors like to call, a "great get." Which is that’s understandable, except for one thing.

Jenkins sacrificed her journalistic soul by writing a sugar-coated, Joe Posnanski-like schmooze piece rather than playing it straight down the middle, asking the tough questions and convincing readers that her mission was not to spare the rod.

Posnanski, I’m sure you recall, was notorius for being brilliantly effusive but traveling ultra light when it came to doling out hardnosed criticism.

Remember however, this was supposed to be a hard news interview.

However, it’s clear from reading Jenkins’ story hat she telegraphed her mission to Paterno. It’s pretty obvious from her writing that Paterno understood in advance that it would be a sympathetic work with but a handful of lightly-asked questions to which he would be able to respond with grandfatherly-like, naive answers that would largely go unchallenged.

Sally Jenkins is no Bob Costas.

In Costas’ interview with alleged child molester Jerry Sandusky – Paterno’s former coach who is accused of multiple indecencies with children during his time at Penn State – Costas set the standard for being just polite enough to keep the inquisition going, but tough enough to drill down past the bullshit.

Jenkins did not.

Instead she immersed herself in what too many sportswriters and journalists today mete out in abundance; flowery, cookie-cutter language and treatment that passes for great writing but poor reporting.

Take the story’s lead sentence:

"Joe Paterno sat in a wheelchair at the family kitchen table where he has eaten, prayed and argued for more than a half-century. All around him family members were shouting at each other, yet he was whispering. His voice sounded like wind blowing across a field of winter stalks, rattling the husks."

What is this, a Charles Dickens novel? Now check out the lead on CNN‘s report on Jenkins’ masterpiece.

"Legendary football coach Joe Paterno, who was ousted from Penn State University over an alleged child sex abuse scandal, told the Washington Post he felt inadequate to deal with the initial allegation of abuse."

Notice the lack of artifice compared to Jenkin’s flowery intro?

It’s like this, many, if not most of the people I’ve met in the newspaper biz are really writers not reporters.

Oh sure, they may go by the title reporter – it comes with the job – but there’s a huge difference between somebody who loves to write about stuff and somebody who loves to dig deep into a story to try and get to the bottom of things. Someone unafraid to ask tough questions and deal with the fallout.

It’s not easy and it goes against most writer / reporter’s wanting to be a nice guy grain.

Remember former Star staffer Dan Margolies? Former Pitch main man David Martin?

Those dudes could write, but their principle aim was to break news and let the chips fall where they may. They didn’t attain their reps by pussyfooting around and bending every which way but loose to ensure the subjects of their reporting would be pleased with their approach. Let alone the finished product.

Who really cares, for example, that the Post reporter had dinner with the Paterno family and watched as they passed the mashed potatoes?

“You know, he didn’t want to get specific,” Paterno told jenkins. “And to be frank with you I don’t know that it would have done any good, because I never heard of, of, rape and a man. So I just did what I thought was best. I talked to people that I thought would be, if there was a problem, that would be following up on it.”

Never heard of "rape and a man," Please.

Where were the Bob Costas-like followup questions painting Paterno into the obvious corner for more specifics as to why he didn’t take further steps to bring things to a head with Sandusky rather than blithely passing the information on to somebody higher up the ladder at Penn State?

Especially when Sandusky continued to hang at the school with young kids in tow.

Instead, Jenkins pretty much let Paterno off the hook with a nonchalant treatment of his statement that, to this day he’s unwilling to judge Sandusky, saying, “I think we got to wait and see what happens."

After more than a decade, the waiting is over.

On and on the interview continued with Paterno’s son weighing in that his dad is not the victim, wife Sue saying that she’d have gathered a bunch of guys and punched Sandusky in the nose, and a ton of unrelated hooey about how underpaid Paterno’s been over the years and how many Academic All Americans he’s had.

It’s one thing to be embroiled in writing Paterno’s biography like former Star sports columnist Joe Posnanski. However Posnanski’s getting paid a reported $750,000 to kiss up to Paterno and ensure that the book gets down. If he comes down too hard on Paterno before the book’s done and the Sandusky scandal is fully vetted, who’s gonna buy the book? The answer being practically nobody.

So Posnanski has to walk on his tiptoes.

That’s a far cry from being in the position Costas was with Sandusky and Jenkins was with Paterno.

Whole whole different kettle of fish.