KC Confidential

I’ve been there for both the rise and the fall…

Now sadly, it  looks like I may be around for the funeral of Kansas City’s only true alternative pub The Pitch. Make no mistake, there’s nothing here to feel good about. Time passes and cool things come and go. Still having been responsible in no small part for both the evolution and the survival of The Pitch – from record store rag to alternative rag, it does weigh on me.

That despite my many critiques in my columns in the Kansas City Star “celebrating” the newsweekly’s sophomoric approach to its annual “best of” issues. That and the odd dust up with paper thin skinned former Pitch editor C.J. Janovy.

All of which takes nothing away from the contributions made by hundreds of contributors to the Pitch over its decades long existence.

Unfortunately the recently converted to monthly “magazine” appears to be hanging by a thread.

Continue reading →

And now, the rest of the story…

So much gloom and doom over the Kansas City Chiefs of late. Chillax, people. Tis the season to be jolly. Not angry or heartsick because a bunch of our hired gun, from out-of-town, millionaires lost a half dozen games to some other city’s from-out-of-town, hired gun millionaires. That’s no reason to bah humbug away our daily lives.

Hey, we still have the Plaza lights, right?

Seriously though…

How many NFL teams are there, 32, right?

Which means that without fail, like 97 percent of the cities with pro football teams flunk out each and every year.

So effing what?

What are the pitiful souls who live in those 31 loser cities supposed to do – curl up and die? Of course not.

It’s a game, people, just a game.

And from what I could tell, Sunday’s ill fated Chief’s loss to the New York Jets was a heckuva fun-to-watch, closely-contested game. Not something to cry our eyes out over. Not something that cast a pallor over the entire town. Continue reading →

Can we talk?

It’s time to lower the flag to half mast and admit that one of Kansas City’s most highly touted annual events is well past its prime…

For 88 years the vaunted Country Club Plaza has strung mostly old-fashioned Christmas bulbs along the outline of its Spanish style edifices and labeled it a world class sight to behold.

Generations of we locals have pointed to the Plaza lights with awe and pride, boasting of it to people worldwide.

But let’s not forget that when the tradition began there was no ceremony, no pomp and circumstance – just a single strand of colored bulbs stretched across a single building.

Five years later somebody decided to make a “ceremony” of it and hype the mere decorating of a local shopping center as a not-to-be-missed annual event.

To put that all in perspective here’s some of the other  stuff that was making the headlines in the year 1925 when the Plaza lighting tipped off.

The first motel opened in California; Sears Robuck opened its first store;  “The Great Gatsby” was published as was Adolph Hitler’s book Mein Kampf. Oh yeah, and Mount Rushmore was dedicated.

Little wonder the Plaza lights didn’t garner much if any attention.

Yet from that humble start the lighting grew into a Thanksgiving tradition that attracts thousands to the Plaza.

How many thousands?

Because Cowtowners are given to exaggeration,  the owners of the Plaza conspired with a complacent local news media to hype the event as a phenomenon that drew upwards a quarter of a million attendees.

Until 2003 when UMKC statistics professor Zeng Yong’s students and volunteers joined forces with Waldo businessman Gary Evert to – for the very first time – actually count the crowd.

Net result: 30,000 and change.

The Plaza immediately backed away from the bogus crowd numbers and ceremony sponsor KCP&L ditched its 200,000-plus crowd boasts.

Which brings us to the heart of the matter…

And that’s the sad reality that stringing old fashioned Christmas lights doesn’t cut it in the 21st Century. Continue reading →

The 2017 holiday movie season is right around the corner…

The official kick-off being Thursday, December 14 at 7:00 p.m.

That’s when Disney officially launches STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI with Mark Hamill returning as Luke Skywalker—and sadly the final performance by Carrie Fisher as Leia.

(Take note that members of several theater-circuit loyalty programs will have an hour jump on the blockbuster. They’ll be able to see it as early as 6:00 p.m. on December  14.)

Then practically EVERY theater will then grind the movie AFTER its initial 7:00 p.m. showings and all day on the 15th.

Counter programming on December 15 will come from the animated FERDINAND, Woody Allen‘s WONDER WHEEL and Guillermo del Toro‘s THE SHAPE OF WATER starring Sally Hawkins.

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Wednesday, December 20 brings Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart and Jack Black into action with JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE.

And Hugh Jackman stars as P.T. Barnum in the musical production THE GREATEST SHOWMAN.

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Then just two days later on December 22 the movie floodgates open with half-a-dozen MORE holiday titles. Continue reading →

Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid says it’s his fault…

Not quarterback Alex Smith’s. The Chiefs have fallen apart, losing five of the last six games. Reid simply says, “I have things to fix and work on. We have to play better.”

That’s his lame story folks.

The Chiefs are on the road to face the New York Jets Sunday.

Here’s the shocker; Kansas City is favored by 3 1/2 points to win!

This is the same Chiefs team that has no offense and a terrible defense…favored…on the road, no less. Yikes!

While the Jets are not a threat to even win their division, they’re better than the last three teams that defeated the Chiefs – and KC was favored huge in those losses to the Giants and Bills.

Reid states the obvious: That the offensive line has been off its game, thus no running game or the ability to protect Smith. His wide receivers have bnot played well.  Oh, and our defense needs to improve.

Right.

Plus the usual, that we had a great week of practice.

Reid is under fire to replace Smith with rookie sensation Patrick Mahomes.

The Chiefs are now just one game in front of the much better Los Angeles Chargers who are looking like a solid playoff team. Meanwhile the Chiefs look like a lost squad in every area of the game.

Meaning KC badly needs a win to stay in the hunt for a playoff spot.  Continue reading →

The good news; for a third straight game the worst team in the NFL is a 4 point favorite…

As in the Chiefs over the Jets. Of course that’s insane. The Chiefs with Alex Smith and crew have almost no chance on the road at New York. So if you’re a big bettor, get to Las Vegas soon. Man, KC was a 11 point fav over the Giants and 10 over the Bills.

UNFORTUNATELY WE HAVE NO OFFENSE AND WE CAN’T SCOR ANYTHING ON ANYBODY.

The Chiefs were never really in the Bills game yesterday. At home, no offense, NONE.

Not with Alex the Journeyman Smith or is it Alex Gordon?

Smith has lost all confidence and can’t even throw the ball short with any consistency or success. The one time MVP candidate is now a joke. It’s time to for him to go.

AND HE KNOWS IT — YOU CAN SEE IT IN HIS EYES.

Everybody knows now… except Clark Hunt and Andy Reid.

With Smith, the Chiefs likely won’t win another game except maybe Denver. Which is perhaps the only other team as bad as KC. But uh oh, it’s at Denver nevermind..look for a .6-9 finish with Alex and Andy…the offensive genius, right?

Chiefs fans know why Alex is still starting…remember this is a business…Clark and Andy don’t seem to mind how bad you guys feel or what you want. Anyone who has seen Pat Mahomes believes he is the real deal and super talented…NOW. He proved that to me in the preseason.

If Mahomes starts we might still win a few games and take the division. Continue reading →

So you’ve never been to Ebbing, Missouri...

Come to think of it, neither have I.

Because Ebbing, Missouri doesn’t really exist.

However there are plenty of Ebbing-like burgs throughout the Show Me State with similarities aplenty.

Which brings me to producer, director and writer Martin McDonagh’s terrific new dark comedic drama with the lengthy and somewhat puzzling title, THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI.

This is the story of a mother (Frances McDormand) who goes to great lengths to shame the local police department into solving the rape and murder of her daughter.

Dissatisfied with a never ending investigation—or better, seemingly lack of investigation— she makes bold moves. The strangest involves renting three rundown billboards leading into town. Then in large block lettering addresses the police chief’s apparent lackadaisical approach to the investigation.

He’s played to perfection by Woody Harrelson.

Once the billboards are up and the regional TV news crews start covering the mother’s personal fight, all hell breaks loose. Continue reading →

When one of the worst teams in the NFL with a patchwork, stink team beats you…

Even when you’re an 11 point favorite on the road, its over.

The Chiefs may not be in the playoffs now and sure shouldn’t be. Once considered the best in the league, they’re now one of the worst teams in the NFL.

How can they not be?

The team is 1-4 in the last several weeks with no defense and now no offense. We have almost no running game, can’t block anybody, any running back can run over our lineman, missed tackles, dumb calls like the Travis Kelce bomb he threw for an INT, penalties on the rare good runs to bring them back -on and on.

In short, this is a poor football team with little chance to fix anything..why? NO TALENT…ALMOST NONE.

Yes, Tyreek Hill is effective but we can’t get him the ball much. Kelce is a good tight end but still drops too many passes and is not around when a game is on the line. He can’t do anything – again, he is Tony Gonzalez light – his stats but no big wins…EVER.

So sad for our fans. It’s over folks. Continue reading →

Many of you have grown to either love or hate harley/boom boom over the years….but here are some facts that can’t be denied…

1. Harley deposited cash and credit card deposits from glaze’s place in his bank account@

2. Harley has (despite his running down of glazo/bozo’s football picks) always admired glazo/bozo for his balls to pick games ahead of kickoff. But no matter what glazo does versus booom boooom I hope he keeps his sports stories.

3. Harley/booom boom has always enjoyed reading glazo’s stories becaause kc is really a boring town and glazo pointed out the few instance that this town was something other than some cowtown in the middle of the nation.

4. Despite all my critiques about glazo/bozo’s crazy adventures ….booom boom has had more and crazier adventures than glazo could ever imagine.

5. Boom boom has traveled more…been in crazier situations and experienced far crazier situations than glazo…but there were so many I couldn’t fit them in a 500 page book.

6. booom boom has done more partying/dancing/traveling/than glazo but it makes no difference. As we both grow older…it’s just a memory we don’t want to forget because we know life is really pretty short and we only have so many years to create the memories we’ll be talking about for our entire lives. Continue reading →

For more than a decade the NFL’s been the most popular attraction on television…

No mas.

Viewership is dropping like a rock with ratings down 7.5% this season alone and 18.7% since 2015.

For several reasons.

First off, many fans say the games have gotten kinda boring. Are they? Some games are close and exciting like the recent Chiefs-Raiders that came down to the last play of the game (which unfortunately we lost in a heartbreaker).

Yet that game was the lowest rated Monday Night Game ever. What?

The Chiefs were picked this season to be the featured NFL team with six stand alone games at night. Sunday, Monday and Thursday Night games. KC lived up to the expectations with a huge win over the Patriots on game one before a large TV audience on a Thursday night.

And even though KC maintained a winning 5-0 record after the season began and Alex Smith and Kareem Hunt were on fire, somehow the fans were not attracted as much to the Chiefs games as expected.

Why?  Continue reading →