KC Confidential

Chalk one up for Father Time and the Internet…

In a matter of days, a 33 year-old Westport institution – David R. Spivey Books, Maps & Fine Art – will take it’s place in the history books.

"I’m alright, I’m just retiring," says Spivey. "I’m in the process of selling everything."

Spivey sold the building at 825 Westport Road to neighbor Joe Zwillenberg of the Westport Flea Market.

Spivey’s Web site says, "David R. Spivey has been buying, selling and appraising old maps, rare books and fine art since 1978. Over the years, Spivey’s has grown to be the largest old map, print and book dealer in the Midwest…We have five floors of maps, prints, fine art and books. Our building dates to 1910 and sits on the old Santa Fe trail in historic Westport."

The liquidation is being held in the form of an online auction ending January 4th and 5th.

"It’s sad," Spivey says. "But I can’t do anything anymore, I’m confined to my bedroom. I’m 75 but I feel like I’m old."

Spivey’s favorite item?

"Actually my favorite thing was a document concerning the Territory of Kansas from 1853," he says. "But I donated that to the library."

Memories? Spivey has plenty.

"It was a fun business," he says. "It was a lot of fun, but like a lot of businesses, the Internet changed things. And people who didn’t know very much and had very little experience could go online and learn and see everything. They didn’t have to come to my store anymore."

From a health standpoint, "I have Alzheimers, I’m afraid," Spivey says. "It’s hard for me to remember."

Prior to breaking into the map and doc racket, Spivey spent 30 years working with the juvenile court here.

Any famous celebrtity customers?

"Yeah, remember that woman that sang, ‘a brand new pair of rollerskates’- Melanie? She came in. And there was another guy who was a writer for Richard Nixon and his name began with an ‘S’ – oh, Safire – William Safire. He was in a couple times."

The love of Spivey’s life "ran off with somebody right after my cancer operation 15 years ago," he says. "Her name was Patty."

Spivey’s high point: "Oh gee, I don’t know. My memory’s shot."

The low: "Probably now, closing it down."

Next up:  "I’m becoming a movie expert," Spivey quips. "I’m watching movies every night – all day and all night."

To the majority of KC Confidential readers and commenters, I salute you…

Instead of one or two word, anonymous putdown comments (like a certain local blog) or allowing no comments at all (like another), KCC gets mostly some pretty entertaining and thoughtful comments. The "stage names" may shield their identities, but most KCC commenters think things through and bring something to the table in the way of suggestions and/or criticism.

They may get carried away with the ALL-CAPS button or unleash an ungentlemanly word here or there, but for the most part they’re an important ingredient to the overall mix of ideas and viewpoints on this site.

Then there are the odd haters…

Let me rephrase that – the twisted, sick-sounding commenters who darken this site on occasion with crude language, scary senses of humor and vile expressions. Often directed towards Craig "meet me after school" Glazer.

While these outbursts are fairly rare, a little goes a long way.

They’re disturbing to read (before I can delete and/or block them) and it’s kinda frightening to think there are losers like this actually walking about free in society. And the sad reality is that all it takes is one loser to mess up the sandbox.

So I’d like to apologize for the odd such comment that slips into the site. We are still working on the transition to a new format that will allow for better screening of these idiots.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep Glaze under control and look forward to moving forward, sans the depravity.

In an open letter to Kansas City jazz musicians, Jardine’s owner Beena Raja reached out Christmas Day in an attempt to mend fences and restore sanity to an out-of-control situation that has resulted in the club’s going dark much of the past three weeks.

That after Raja found a handful of her staff drinking illegally at the club at 4 a.m. Thanksgiving morning. Jardine’s general manager / cook then resigned. Two staffers were fired, a third walked out and confusion over what had gone down lead other staffers to believe they too had been fired.

An incident with one server, whose father is a leading member of the local jazz community, resulted in the father calling for other musicians to boycott Jardine’s.

It’s been downhill from there.

Will Raja’s reaching out to musicians work? Is it too late?

Here’s Raja’s late night letter:

"To All,

You don’t know the facts of why this happened.

I had a great time doing what I do.I welcome anybody that can take over and do what I have done since 2003. I think you were praising me for a while. Dont forget most of you hated (former Jardine’s owner) Greg Halstead. He was the bad guy. I guess I am the one now. It’s how it is. No big deal.

You need me to leave KC? No. That’s not your call.I am a citizen just like you.

I have paid everyone and treated everyone with respect (musicians and employees) and have paid more to all since 2003 when I took over and have hired more musicians and supported Jazz in this city and made Jardines what it is.

Am I hurt? Yes.

 Did I make a penny. I did not. I worked for you guys.I am happy. I am not complaining.

I am not perfect. I do not claim to be.

I do know most of you. I loved every minute of getting to know you. I spoke and listened.

I know who I am. You may be better.

I enjoyed working with all my employees and you musicians. I did not even know Jazz and still do not.

Yes, I am from India, but very proud to be an American.This country gave me the opportunity to be who I am.

No regrets. You don’t know me. Thanks for the Opportunity that you gave me to get better!! I did it.

You cannot put me down. I refuse to. It’s my style, my faith, my truth and my integrity and I was not trying to prove that to you. I don’t care at this point.

 This journey may be over. If it is, I will embark on the next one.I am not afraid.

I wish everyone a Happy New Year!!!

Sincerely,

Beena"

Merry Christmas…

It’s been quite a year for KC Confidential. Lots of comings and goings – some planned, others not. But for the most part readers have stuck with us through good times and bad. We’re ending the year on a high note with readership up dramatically from where we were just last spring.

How much are we up?

More than double what we started the summer with, and up 90 percent the past three months and well over 300 percent in the last 30 days.

It’s not been easy.

While some of us – starting with me – may appear at times cavalier covering delicate topics like the three recent suicides, the dramatic fall of Kansas City’s top jazz club or the transgressions of a former colleague, trust me, it’s not that simple.

These are very difficult stories to wade into for the risk adverse, and some of that wading can get more than a little prickly at times – clumsy even. However, we’ve tried to be transparent, while providing an open window into the news gathering process. Instead of playing it safe and waiting for the smoke to clear. The key is following up on the news as it unfolds.

And there is no shortage of critical comments that stand in evidence, challenging some of those stories.

That said, we’ve cracked down to an extent on a handful of the more vulgar, libelous and/or ill conceived entries into KCC‘s comments section.

We’re not running a sewer here, nor a haven for very small brains attached to very big mouths.

I’d like to take a moment to salute two of KCC‘s more frequent targets, The Star and The Pitch.

Make no mistake, they’re both quite easy to bag on. The Star because it’s the dominant source of news in Kansas City and because all too often, it acts like it -they’re control freaks by nature.

In the case of the Pitch, mostly because it’s fighting a difficult battle for survival. Yeah, they’re a bit full of themselves at times as well – less so lately – like mindlessly churning out "best of" awards, while making no attempt whatsoever to try and make the winners – even the deserving ones – appear truly credibile. Which they easily could do.

Despite the doomsayers and it’s critics, the Star has a lot to offer and is going to be around for a long time – probably what passes for forever. The Pitch on the other hand could very well go the way of the Johnson County Sun, and that would be tragic.

Can you imagine living in a print media / pop culture media world lorded over by a publication as vapid as Ink?

Let’s not wish that on ourselves.

With luck, the Pitch‘s new owners in Nashville will survive long enough to weather this economy and the dwindling, younger readership. Do we really want to rely on a single corporate entity – the Star – for the lion’s share of our formal news and information?

As we move forward into a new year – KCC’s fourth – I’d like to thank all of you for hanging with us. With luck, we’ll have plenty of edgy, funny, entertaining – at times maybe even insightful – news and opinions to share with you in 2012.

That’s the plan, anyway. Thanks for sharing your time.

It’s gonna be hard to top Brandon Leftridge‘s tongue-in-cheek, holiday gift suggestion of a totally real Opossum…

Or Jack Poessiger‘s dream holiday meal of a "crisp" Christmas Goose. But I’ll try. Shouldn’t be too hard to make it a little easier on the gift givers as well as the recipients.

Let’s start with the $12.50, handmade, pewter Atahualpa bottle stopper at Hobb’s in Lawrence.

"You know who this guy is?" asks Hobb’s owner Mark Swanson. "He was the last Inca emperor."

Who doesn’t need something like that to jam into their favorite bottle of Mezcal?

Looking for something at a higher price point? Not a problem.

For a mere $56.50 Hobbs will sell you a lovely set of six Whisky Stones and a pair of hip-looking glasses to put them in. Sound bogus? Hold on.

"You get the whiskey rocks really cold and then you put them in your drink and they make it colder without dilluting the whisky like ice," Swanson explains. "This is a cool deal for a whiskey drinker."

Lest you assume that any old backyard rocks will do, Whiskey Stones are "soapstone cubes" designed by Andrew Hellman, a big fan of single malt scotch. Hellman found that natural soapstone chills drinks owing to "its unique ability to retain temperature for extended periods of time" without scratching the glass. The stones are milled in Perkinsville, Vermont by the oldest soapstone workshop in the United States.

Let’s move on to an old boyhood favorite, Space Food Sticks. They sell for $3 each at Urban Outfitters.

Space Food Sticks were a snack first sold in the late 1960s by Pillsbury. Think of them as the gummy forefathers of today’s granola bars. And they were the first solid food eaten by a NASA astronaut – Scott Carpenter to be exact – aboard the Aurora 7 in 1962.

To be honest, after trying one recently, I can’t for the life of me recall what I ever saw in them besides the name and the fact that they were a whole lot cheaper back then. They taste kinda like a grainy Tootsie Roll.  But as "out of this world energy sticks" go, I can’t think of a better stocking stuffer.

Now something that’s pretty cool for the friend who smokes cigarettes; the My Smokeless Electronic Cigarette. Here’s the spiel:

"My Smokeless elecrtic cigarettes utilize advanced technology to give you the same smooth, satisfying burst of flavor just like a traditional cigarette, but without the negative health risks. No flame, no ash, no tar, no harmful toxic chemicals; just nicotine, flavor and water vapor."

For around a hundred bucks or less you can buy a rechargeable cigarette married to replaceable nicotine cartridges (in varying strengths) and smoke up a storm on airplanes, in bars and restaurants or at your office. And blow the smoke right into the flight attendant, server or your bosses faces.

It’s crazy…

Puff on the electric cigarette and its tip glows fiery red – just like the fake flame atop Liberty Memorial – and you get a strong jolt of nicotine. Then what comes out of your lungs and mouth when you exhale looks exactly like real smoke, but it isn’t. Go figure.

You can buy them online or at kiosks in malls like Oak Park.

Have a great Christmas and holiday!

The past three weeks have been tough for Jardine’s founder Greg Halstead…

Halstead opened Jardine’s in 1992 as a restaurant and bar, but within months realized he’d made a mistake. The joint was losing money and Halstead called his pal Ron Schoonover – the former manager of Kansas City’s Playboy Club – to ask advice. Schoonover was running a successful jazz-themed bar and restaurant downtown called The Phoenix. He greenlighted Halstead’s idea of adding jazz to Jardine’s mix and the rest is history.

In 2003 Halstead sold Jardine’s to its longtime manager and current owner Beena Raja.

And as Jardine’s 19th year nears – as turbulant as things have been – it remains Kansas City’s leading jazz club.

What Halstead doesn’t get is why Fox 4 News in particular took such an interest in the story. He ran into Fox 4 reporter Kathy Quinn at a local restaurant recently and discussed the matter with her, he says. Halstead declined to say exactly what was discussed in that conversation.

However, Quinn’s daughter Kaitlin was one of the three servers Raja says she found partying at Jardine’s at 4 a.m. Thanksgiving morning. Raja says the servers were consuming alcohol, illegally after hours and had not paid for their drinks.

Fox 4 did not disclose this potential conflict in the reports about Jardine’s I saw that it aired.

"They just butchered the place," Halstead says of Fox 4. "Channel 4 was the one who was all over it. But like, who gives a (damn)?"

Did Fox 4 go too far?

"Let me put it this way," Halstead says. "I was upset about it. I mean, it’s just a jazz club. This isn’t Jack Dempsey’s in New York."