Glazer: Baltimore Riots Torpedo Stanford’s Comic

Posted on April 29, 2015 by admin
Rain Pryor

Rain Pryor

Freddie Gray was just hanging out when cops made eye contact with him… 

Gray has a lengthy criminal record with over 20 arrests since 2007 for selling drugs, burglary,making drugs, assaults, the list goes on. Clearly he’s a low level thug at age 25, with two arrests just weeks before an incident in March.

Gray ran when cops just looked at him. He had a concealed weapon on him, a knife. And that’s pretty much all we know thus far.

Gray was placed in the back of a police van, cuffed. 

And he was reportedly injured in a wreck the week before.

Did police cause the spinal cord issues that lead to Gray’s death, or was it the wreck and ride in the back of the van? 

Nobody really knows at this time.

One thing is clear, Gray was not an innocent young man on his way to work or school or anything close to any of that. Did he deserve to die or be killed? Of course not, but what actually happened remains unknown.

The result:. The worst riots seen in Baltimore since Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in 1968.  Continue reading →

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Hearne: Unanswered Questions Linger in ‘Duke’s on Broadway’ Rape Story

Posted on April 29, 2015 by admin

Dukes-on-Grand-windows-smashed-SIZED_1429570753144_17118131_ver1.0_640_480Don’t expect the Duke’s on Grand rape story to go away anytime soon…

There are just too many crazy twists and turns and unanswered questions. Starting with the gaggle of employees who hung out illegally drinking after closing hours to party with owner Dennis Skeen, a former hot dog salesman and the alleged perpetrator.

And that the 23 year old woman victim had been drinking illegally for nearly three hours with Skeen and the other employees who left only minutes before Skeen did the nasty.

In another odd twist, it was three homeless men who say they spotted Skeen taking advantage of his passed out employee and who called the police. One of the homeless gents told KCTV that Skeen threatened them by waving a gun after he dragged the woman’s lifeless body out of sight into a back room. Continue reading →

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Hearne: The Second Coming of Joe Posnanski?

Posted on April 28, 2015 by Hearne Christopher Jr.

UnknownTalk about too much of a good thing…

Now that the Kansas City Royals are requiring locals to pay much closer attention, I find myself perusing their game stories in the Kansas City Star far more often. Which generally entails reading what beat writer Andy McCullough has to say – which trust me, is usually a mouthful.

Take today’s game story account of the Royals win at Cleveland:
“A desolate ballpark came alive as Mike Moustakas traipsed back to the Royals dugout. A series of high-pitched catcalls echoed through the barren confines of Progressive Field as Moustakas searched for fresh lumber. A lone voice implored him to hurry up. He did not listen.”

Or Sunday’s loss at Chicago:

“Edinson Volquez handed the baseball, the object that betrayed him in the sixth inning of Sunday’s 5-3 loss to the Chicago White Sox, to Royals manager Ned Yost. 

Before he exited the diamond, Volquez turned and patted the chest of third baseman Mike Moustakas, the other principal participant in an inning marked by agony.” 

Maybe I missed it, but when did Royals wrap-up stories morph into soap opera style melodramas? When did covering what happened in a game take a back seat to over-the-top, breathless nerd overkill?

Former Star sports scribe Joe Posnanski was the master of this genre. Continue reading →

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Hearne: Bill Self Teams With Former KU Wild Man for Lawrence Eatery

Posted on April 27, 2015 by admin
Scot Pollard

Scot Pollard

Maybe Bill Self  will stick it out here in Lawrence after all…

I still have my doubts. However it is possible that the KU basketball coach’s philandering days are behind him. And that coaching at the level of an NBA practice squad is starting to grow on him. Hey and living in a $2 million plus mansion wearing, a really snug rug and getting Botox treatments is enough for a dude who came humble origins. Living in a fishbowl with only a small handful of decent restaurants might suffice.

Which may explain why Self is teaming with former KU star Scot Pollard, reportedly to start a new biz at 18th and Mass just south of downtown Lawrence.

Rumor is Polard and Self are planning to open a restaurant there.

And while at first blush a sports bar might make sense, all that glitters in that category ain’t gold. Just ask former KU football star David Lawrence about his year-old, ghost town eatery Legends.

What makes more sense would be to open a second Salty Iguana. Continue reading →

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New Jack City: No Obamacare for Comcast-Time Warner Deal

Posted on April 27, 2015 by Jack Poessiger

ComcastTimeWarnerCableMerger053114I thought I’d never say this but a tip of the hat to the Feds for putting the squeeze on Comcast’s proposed buyout of Time Warner Cable…

A merger that was good for consumers?

If you believe that then just look at what these type of mergers have done in other industries.

Take the airlines where Delta gobbled up Northwest. United acquired Continental. USAirways took American (but kept the AA name.) And Southwest landed AirTran.

Has the public benefited?

Of course not. In most cases the opposite has been the case. Continue reading →

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Glazer: Royals Fever Sweeping KC, Killing Area Nightlife

Posted on April 27, 2015 by Craig Glazer

eric-hosmer-alex-gordon-mlb-tampa-bay-rays-kansas-city-royals1Kansas City is in a DEEP love affair with the hometown baseball team…

When the Royals play it’s stop what you’re doing and watch the game time.

Kansas City wants to ride the Royals bandwagon in the worst way to try and gain some damn respect. That’s pretty clear. Now we’re a town that loves our two big pro teams, the Chiefs in the NFL and the Royals in MLB.

Both teams have been trapped in Nowhereville for decades.

While the Chiefs sometimes back into post season play, they haven’t won a playoff game in more than two decades. And for the Royals until last year, make that three decades.

We’re used to never hearing or seeing much about our teams on ESPN because they haven’t been important enough.

Well, now one of them is.

And not just because the Kansas City Royals were in the World Series last year, they started off this season with seven straight wins – and even better – now they’ve become controversial with big, bench clearing brawls.

Now the Royals have got a little bad boy in them, like me. Continue reading →

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Lefsetz: Music First, Stardom Later

Posted on April 25, 2015 by Bob Lefsetz

1428707766_katy-perry-467I can’t get an Apple Watch, but every celebrity known to man has been seeded one to make them look cool…

Who’s using who? And if you think it’s the musicians who are coming out ahead, you own no Apple stock.

Used to be different.

Players weren’t rich. They were in it for the dope, the sex, the hang and the music. It was a lifestyle. What did Donald Fagen sing in “Deacon Blues”?

“I cried when I wrote this song, sue me if I play too long”

There are no blues in popular music today. No one’s crying, unless it’s about the loss of recorded music revenue as they charge a zillion dollars for a ticket.

Once again, watch this video:

In it you’ll see how rich Jay Z and Madonna and the rest of the Tidalites truly are. Turns your stomach, makes you lose sympathy. Continue reading →

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Steele: Why Did Anti-Sprint Tweet Become The Star’s Top Story?

Posted on April 25, 2015 by Rich Steele
Marcelo Claure & J Lo

Marcelo Claure & J Lo

About that dustup over Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure‘s use of the king’s English…

Apparently, Brett Schulte, an LA-based social media consultant that no one had ever heard of, tweeted the following:  “I think they meant @marceloclaure for an MVNO. He’s so outclassed he can barely speak the language. @sprint sucks.”

For those who might not be aware, Twitter is designed for people who like to send moronic insults. I have received a few already today, but I lack the ethnic mojo to take out my tweeting morons.

Claure, by contrast, seems to have it. He tweeted back, “YOU are an ignorant racist. You should be ashamed of yourself and your dumb comments.”

Incredibly, this trivial exchange resulted in the top story on the Kansas City Star’s Friday Email blast, headlined, “Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure calls writer of Twitter comment ‘an ignorant racist.'”

For the record, Claure is a Bolivian native with a seemingly French name. He hails from a wealthy family going back several generations and speaks with a slight accent.

As to his race, I haven’t seen a DNA breakout, but he looks pretty white to me. Continue reading →

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Hearne: Skeen & Wife Wanted to Buy ‘Duke’s on Grand’

Posted on April 24, 2015 by Hearne Christopher Jr.
Dennis Skeen Selling Jersey Dogs in Westport 2012

Dennis Skeen
Selling Jersey Dogs in Westport 2012

Saturday’s downtown sports bar rape story just keeps getting weirder…

For starters, turns out alleged rapist Dennis Skeen is married. Add to that, sources say that Skeen and his wife Michelle have been trying to buy Duke’s on Grand, the downtown bar where this sordid whole mess went down last weekend. On top of which, Duke’s liquor license has now expired – all of which may make it a cold day in hell before Duke’s reopens…if ever.

But before we delve into the particulars of those new details and more, let’s clear up some embarrassing misinformation put out earlier today by Kansas City Star columnist Mary Sanchez.

“Many will probably question what the woman was doing having drinks alone with a man after hours,” Sanchez wrote. “Maybe she was an employee. Maybe she was a customer. Maybe she was too gullible.”

Maybe Sanchez should have checked with police before she wrote her column.

Because according to Kansas City Police, the 23 year-old woman in question was indeed an employee of the downtown sports bar where the unseemly event went down. Nor was she having drinks alone with Skeen, as other Duke’s employees left the bar only minutes before the alleged assault took place. Continue reading →

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Leftridge: Ventura Poised to Destroy Royals’ Season

Posted on April 24, 2015 by Brandon Leftridge

volquexfightKansas City Royals’ ace Yordano Ventura needs to knock this shit off…

In case you missed the highlights from last night’s late inning victory against the Chicago White Sox, here’s what happened: In the seventh inning, Chicago’s Adam Eaton hit a comebacker to the mound that Ventura fielded cleanly before throwing to first for the out. In the middle of the play, however, before Ventura threw to first, he unleashed a very clear “FUCK YOU” as Eaton made his way down the line. This resulted in an altercation at the end of the inning in which both benches cleared, and several players from both sides were ejected. This was the second ejection for Ventura in as many games, and the third incident sparked by the pitcher in the past month.

Yordano Ventura is acting like a total dipshit and someone needs to tell him to fucking cool it. Continue reading →

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Hearne: Boonville a Vacation Destination, Seriously?

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Hearne Christopher Jr.

Screen Shot 2015-04-23 at 1.30.56 PMBoonville, Missouri a vacation destination?

No way, trust me – I’ve vacationed there (if you wanna call it that) – more than once even.

Yet here comes Smithsonian Magazine positioning Boonville up there alongside legit small town getaways like Nantucket, Massachusetts, Stuart, Florida, Port Townsend, Washington, Estes Park, Colorado and Cooperstown, New York.

Which of course is insane.

To the extent it calls into question the Smithsonian’s credibility as a research center.  And after reading the mag’s description of Boonville, one has to wonder if story’s author even bothered to visit. She did get a nice photo from the town’s tourism office.

For starters, Smithsonian writer Bess Lovejoy bogusly claims Boonville was “settled” by the sons of famous frontiersman Daniel Boone.

Au contraire. Continue reading →

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Hearne: There’s Lots More to the ‘Dukes on Grand’ Rape Story

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Hearne Christopher Jr.
Dennis Skeen

Dennis Skeen

There’s almost always more to the story than what you get in newspaper and TV news….

Take the young woman who passed out Saturday and allegedly was molested by skeezy downtown restaurateur Dennis Skeen.

Buried in the loosely-but-widely reported particulars of the story were the details of what lead up to Skeen being spotted by passersby doing the dirty deed in the Dukes on Grand sports bar around 6 a.m.

More to the point, exactly what went down between 3 a.m. when the woman told police that after a couple beers Skeen fed her two shots and she can’t remember anything else.

“I heard she was a 19 year-old stripper,” says an entertainment source who asked not to be named. “That’s what some of the bar people have been saying.”

Actually, according to police, the woman in question was 23 and an employee of Dukes. Continue reading →

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Starbeams: Next Up @ The K, Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs Anyone?

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Kelly Urich

7507764_GConstruction workers in China dug up 42 fossilized dinosaur eggs.  They’re being carefully removed and shipped to a breakfast buffet at Kauffman Stadium.

                                                       *******

Aramark addressed concerns about sub-par food and claims of molded buns at The K.  It’s safe to say every baseball fan feels like they’re jamming a wiener in our buns.

                                                       *******

Despite the problems they say food sales at the park have doubled, primarily because of the Royals hot streak.  Winning has done for them what 4/20 Day does for Taco Bell.

                                                        ******* Continue reading →

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Paul Wilson: Olathe PD Unleashes SWAT on Sleepy Suburbs

Posted on April 22, 2015 by admin

Police_standoff_in_Ola57ec2bb4-a208-4c9e-837a-f0c301ff80b20000_20120530223641_640_480Talk about the Big Bang…

On April 13th, the Olathe PD issued a memo to residents in the neighborhood around Winterbrooke and Sheridan Bridge alerting them to a training exercise that would take place between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. today.

Focused on a vacant house at that intersection, it alerted residents that they may hear one or two loud sounds, “consistent with an explosion” and possibly notice the presence of “large police trucks and armored vehicles.”

Hardly a normal sight for this quiet neighborhood. 

A less publicized exercise took place about three months ago, alarming several residents. I received the tip from Chris and Crystal Grohs, the owners of Kansas Coffee Company, who sent me pictures of the scene as they drove by.

“I think this is the last thing children and adults need to be seeing in their back yards,” Crystal said. “Such violence is blasted on social media, TV and it’s not a positive way to improve the relationship between the general public and law enforcement.”

I happen to agree.  Continue reading →

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Steele: Why Bishop Finn Had to Go

Posted on April 21, 2015 by Rich Steele

Catholic Bishop ChargedAllow me to put my biases out in the open…

Bishop Robert Finn is quite possibly the saintliest man I have ever met. He is everything a good bishop should be: kind, wise, prudent, and faithful. The kind, wise, and prudent part local progressives could tolerate.

The faithful part set their teeth on edge.

Many of these progressives, Catholic and otherwise, subscribe to what the great Whittaker Chambers called man’s “second oldest faith,” the one Adam first signed on for when he bought the line, “Ye shall be as gods.”

To Chambers, a recovering Communist and atheist, these “miscellaneous socialists, liberals, fellow travelers, unclassified progressives and men of good will” were all of a type. Like communists, they believed that man should call his own shots.

Bishop Finn through otherwise.

To understand his resignation, it is helpful to know a little about the world he walked into when he came to Kansas City in 2004. From the beginning, he was not particularly welcome. Continue reading →

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Glazer: Step Aside Haters, Barack Rocks!

Posted on April 21, 2015 by Craig Glazer

saint-obamaBarack Obama will finish his second term as clean a prez as there’s been in decades…

With no real accusations of wrong doings – none that were real anyway. And this president was under a microscope like no other. Social media has come a long ways during Obama’s presidency. Yet even with the constant attacks on the president and his wife, Michelle nothing really landed on Obama’s front door that mattered.

On Obama’s watch the economy came back. The stock market tripled to 18,000 plus from 6,000, Osama Bin Laden got snuffed. Most major combat has ended in the Middle East with a majority of US troops coming home. Health care was finally addressed with Obama Care. Even the price of gas has come down to under $2.50 a gallon.

So, Republicans and Tea Party types aside, what’s not to like? Continue reading →

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Paul Wilson: Global Warming — It’s Hot!

Posted on April 20, 2015 by admin

global-warming_zps24b3462aOver the past decade or two, manmade global warming  – aka AGW – has become a culpable cultural credo…

Yet all too often, the focus has been on the negative side of this much maligned malady.

However as we all know, every dark cloud has its silver lining.

And global warming’s no exception.

If there wasn’t a humorous angle, I’d have nothing to write about. I’d just be sitting here fat, dumb and happy, waiting on the next ice age prediction (like the one we barely survived in the 70’s).

So lighten up, it’s not like it’s the end of the world.  Continue reading →

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Hearne: Anatomy of a Precipitous Sales Slide & The Star

Posted on April 20, 2015 by Hearne Christopher Jr.

IMG_5512Here’s why the economy has nothing to do with the steep slide at the Kansas City Star…

The Greater Kansas City area – the whole shebang, not just the Omaha-sized part – is home to more than 90 new automobile dealerships.

That’s a ton – and car and truck sales are up, up, up – well past the doldrums of 2008-2010.

And guess who one of the largest advertisers in the Star used to be?

You got it, car dealers.

For years the newspaper cultivated relationships with local dealerships and practically minted money via its Saturday and Sunday auto ads. The Sunday action has long since gone away – it didn’t help that classified advertising went almost exclusively online.

So Saturday became Car Day at the Star. Continue reading →

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Hearne: Editor Sees KU Football Team 0-12 in 2015

Posted on April 20, 2015 by Hearne Christopher Jr.
Lawrence Journal World sports editor Tom Keegan

Lawrence Journal World sports editor Tom Keegan

What a difference a year makes…

One year ago Lawrence Journal World sports editor and columnist Tom Keegan preached a doctrine of faith to the KU football faithful: Don’t be so gol dang negative.

Look at the cup half full – have some faith in the future. Clearly Keegan was reaching out to former Kansas basketball coach Roy Williams “whine and cheese” crowd.

That was then.

And now as the fall football season approaches (forget the Kansas City Royals the Journal World didn’t even send a reporter to cover the World Series) once again Keegan is peering into KU’s football future – this time with a startling projection. Startling in light of the fact that KU’s football future has been steeped in hype,  hope and optimism in recent months based on the hiring of new head coach David Beaty.

Now it’s time to forget about Keegan’s previous call for optimism with now fired KU football coach Charlie Weis. Weis’ rewarded Keegan’s faith with a three win, nine loss season in 2014.

Today’s headline reads: “Blame Weis for 2015 Struggles” 

And just like that, a year after chastising KU fans for their negativity, Keegan’s throwing in the complete towel. Continue reading →

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Lefsetz: The 2015 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Sham

Posted on April 19, 2015 by Bob Lefsetz

ringo starr hall of fame apHow did we get here?

Where the only people who seem to care are those desirous of getting third-rate talent inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the old men who are on the nominating committee?

Once upon a time rock and roll ruled the world. They said it would never die.

But it did.

The problem with rock is innovation has stopped. There are some good bands, but they barely test the limits, stretch the dynamics, of those who’ve come before. It’s endless repeats of an old formula. And if you think that’s interesting, you’re probably addicted to your Nintendo 64.

Whereas music has twisted and turned, completely mutated since the core members were inducted.

Now the R&RHOF is all politics. Continue reading →

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