KC Confidential

Maybe it’s just me…

But honestly, I don’t see how much longer the Kansas City Star can go on feeding newsprint readers day-old front page national news, while apologizing for being an additional day behind on local news.

You know, like who won the Kansas City Royals game the night before.

Forget trying to sell Royals fans those cheesy-looking Star umbrellas – just the facts, please. Sure Royals games on the West Coast can run late, but last time I checked, we live in the Information Age.

Seriously, how can the Star expect folks to shell out hundreds of dollars a year for the pleasure of holding their news in their grubby, little hands, if darn near half of it was on TV or online the day before and the other half”s a mix of filler, stories other news organizations wrote and two day old “game stories.”

Six months is a long time to pull up short when Royals Mania has this town (and Lawrence) agog and nobody wants to pick up their sports page and read on the front page that if they want to know who won, etc, they need to go online.

If they wanted to go online – or already had – they wouldn’t need to be notified of that fact on a piece of paper.

Nor would they need to turn to Page 4 to read a game story describing how the Royals lost to Seattle two days ago.

Just like they probably didn’t need to gaze at the front page of today’s Star to learn that a judge sentenced a dude from Kyrgyzstan to death over the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.

The bottom line:

It’s 2015, no excuses – make it happen – newspaper readers want all the news that’s fit right there in their driveways, each and every morning.

Say what you will about the worldwide web, print is still where the money is – make it happen.

Git R done!

The Harry Truman Library was closed Wednesday because of air conditioner problems and miserable heat.  Dewpoint Defeats Truman!

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It’s so hot, I’d take a glass of lemonade from Bill Cosby.

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I’m resting this week because I’m in charge of delivering lip balm to Mick Jagger at Arrowhead. Continue reading →

Most of us have several major credit cards…

Visa and MasterCard are the main ones in todays crazy, credit-friendly world. And they try and give you as many cards as you will take – that is if your credit can handle it.

In the beginning many cards are zero interest for months or even a year, then the fun begins. Even if you pay on time and keep your limits decent, the company – the bank – can raise your interest payments for no reason. Sure, they’ll send a letter saying we raised it because you have too much credit.  Nice.

And today the rates can go as high as 29.9 percent.

That despite the fact that most banks pay no more than 1 percent interest on CD’s and even less on savings.

Meaning nothing.

During the tough economic climate of  2007-2009, credit card companies went to work on almost everyone. In my case, I was never late but they raised the rate on some cards from 8 or 9 percent to 12 and higher…with lower limits.

Many of my friends got hit up to the 29 percent mark.

And when you call, credit card companies give you lip service but no help really. Continue reading →

Stop the presses…seriously?

They don’t make front page stories like they used to. Come to think of it, what’s a front page story anyway other than a relic of the past?

However because tens of thousands of Kansas Citians still get at least a portion of their daily news from the Kansas City Star‘s print edition, it speaks to the news judgment of the organization  as well as to its allocation of the remaining meager resources.

Which brings me to Monday’s front page feature on Horton, Kansas.

In addition to being a year late in being reported, certain key details were either reported in error or missing in action. Details that probably would have rendered the story less front page worthy.

For starters the Topeka Capitol Journal reported essentially the same story last June, describing how millionaire Marcus Lemonis – host of CNBC reality show The Profit found his way to the tiny town in northeast Kansas.

However in Star reporter Eric Adler’s account, the reason Lemonis  came to Horton – then later decided to try and help – was “because the mayor all but beseeched him to come.”

Not so in the Capitol Journal‘s more thoroughly reported account.

“Lemonis’ involvement dates to December (2013), when an 88-year-old World War II veteran and business owner in Horton was jailed because he couldn’t afford to make repairs to a downtown building to bring it into compliance with city code.

“The story went viral, and Lemonis tweeted an offer to pay for the repairs. On his TV show, Lemonis invests his own money to help turn around struggling small businesses.”

Pretty major difference. Continue reading →

INSIDE OUT Progression Image (3 of 7). CHARACTERS – Character creation begins with modeling, a process of translating the character’s overall form into the computer. These forms are then articulated to allow them to move. If called for, hair and clothing are added. The final step, shading, involves applying textures, colors, patterns and other material properties that will add complexity. This image shows the characters fully modeled, articulated, shaded and ready to be placed in a scene. ©2015 Disney•Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

INSIDE OUT is so much more than your typical animated family comedy—EVEN by Pixar standards…

It’s also Pixar Animation Studios first new movie in two years.

It’s captivating, bittersweet and, of course, colorful.

INSIDE OUT’s intriguing story follows 11 year old Riley as she tries to cope with the trauma of her family’s move from Minnesota to San Francisco where her dad is about to start a new job.

It goes without saying the ordeal is a lot to take for a tween.

The challenges of a new school, new home, new friends, new lifestyle, a new hockey team—you get the picture.

That’s a lot to digest for a young girl’s brain. Continue reading →

You can’t play the role of an underdog forever…

At some point in time, success not only breeds success, it breeds things like jealousy, distrust even. Such seems to rapidly be becoming the case with the darlings of last October, the Kansas City Royals.

In the space of but a month the team went from a collection of nobodies to somebodies. And when the 2015 baseball season unfolded in  April, when they picked up pretty much exactly where they had left off, those somebodies started to become household words.

As evidenced by the fact that seven out of the eight starting position players in this year’s All Star Game  look to be Kansas City Royals.

I don’t have to tell you how high the city is riding on Royals fever.

The other day I spoke to an exec who used to ride herd over the Royals radio network who had once confided in me he had not attended a single home game, even though he had all the access in the world to the best seats in the house.

“I watch every game I can on television now,” he said last week, “I’m dying to go to a game and I’m outside now wearing a Royals jersey.”

Hey, times change.

However Cinderella is no more. Continue reading →

This Royals voting thing is getting out of hand.  They just won the New Hampshire primary.

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The St. Louis Cardinals are being investigated by the FBI after allegations of hacking into the Houston Astros computer database.  The Cardinals front office immediately went to their default whine of babbling something about umpire Don Denkinger.

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A Jackson County jury finally cleared Sluggerrr of injuring a man during a hot dog toss at Kauffman Stadium.  The man was watching the scoreboard instead of what was happening on the field….or as we call people like that: Milwaukee Brewers.

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It’s not often the audience get to party with the cast on stage…

Unless you’ve got friends in very high places that rarely happens, and even then, not with an actual, drink-serving bar right before a Tony winning Broadway musical.

I’s going down all week at the Kauffman Center for Tony-winning musical “Once.”

“The show starts at 7:30 p.m. on weeknights and the auditorium opens a half hour before the show,” says Theater League head Mark Edelman. “So if you walk in at 7 p.m. , you can go right up on stage and order a drink while members of the cast sit around the bar  on stage playing Irish music and singing.”

The stage bar will be selling drinks, but you don’t have to buy, Edelman notes.

“Some people just go up to be a part of it and listen to the music,” Edelman says. “Because you’re right there in the middle of the cast playing music and singing.” Continue reading →