Tag Archives: Hearne Christopher Jr.
Today: My Jogging Date With Jim Nutter Sr. by Bill Nigro
It’s said that Omaha has it’s oracle…
In the wilds of Kansas City, we have a gentleman by the name of James B. Nutter, Sr. A local real estate tycoon who some say is a kingmaker. Having reportedly picked mayor after mayor, city councilman after city councilman. Mr. Nutter has been a bit more low key the past few years but that doesn’t mean that inquiring minds don’t still want to know who the man with the polically Midas touch is picking in the upcoming mayoral finale between Sly James and Mike Burke.
Enter (somewhat) nosey Westport businessman and neighborhood jogger dude Bill Nigro.
Nigro likes to stop in on Nutter at his Westport office from time to time and chew the neighborhood and political phat.
Today: KC Bars & Restaurants to Throw ‘Party of the Decade’ for Sly James Sunday
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This just in…
In a Kansas City mayoral race that could end in a photo finish, an association of approximately 150 local bars and restaurants has thrown its support behind attorney Sly James and is putting its mojo where its mouth is. In addition to posting and distributing campaign materials in their places of business, the Kansas City Business Rights Coalition is throwing a pre-election victory party for James Sunday at the Beaumont Club in Westport.
"It’s Sunday night from 6 p.m. until midnight," says KCBRC head Bill Nigro. "It’s going to be a big service industry night with predominantly restaurant and bar people. There’ll be free beer and pretzels, two bands and a DJ and free admittance to the party for people who have a Kansas City Health or Liquor card. And The Federation of Horsepower is the main act – that’s one of Johnny Dare’s favorite local bands."
Oh, and one more thing…
Hearne: Sporting KC Lands US Men’s National Team, Stadium Deal w/ Lance Armstrong
This just in…
Sporting Kansas City’s Robb Heineman just announced via Twitter that the team has inked a deal to name the team’s spanking new stadium Livestrong Park.
A formal announcement will go down at the new stadium at 1 pm, reportedly with Lance Armstrong present.
"A portion of all @LIVESTRONGPark revenues will support the partnership," Heineman tweeted. "You will be a part of something"
Today: Westport Flea Owner Joe Zwillenberg Evokes Playboy Past
You never know what kinda cats are gonna leap out of a 40th birthday bash bag…
Take Westport Flea Market owner Joe Zwillenberg‘s Friday at The Record Bar in midtown. Open bar, kickass band, wall-to-wall local celebs – like the Mayor of Mission Hills, Dole White, David Fromme, Jennifer Janesko, Mark Mazzarese and Andy Lewellen, co-owner of Lew’s and The Well in Waldo.
Speaking of which…
Lewellen and Zwillenberg were college chums at MU back in the days when Tiger basketball coach Norm Stewart still loomed large and Snapple was considered marginally hip. So naturally, who better than Lewellen to pound out a killer Zwillenberg war story to commemorate Joe Joe’s big day .
"Every time we would go I would pick out the hottest girl in there and tell Joe, ‘That girl’s totally in love with you.’
Car: Here’s What’s Wrong with The Kansas City Star’s Automotive Section
To put it plainly, The Star sold out…
Once upon a time, the gentleman who writes car reviews for the newspaper – Tom Strongman – was a straight down the line automotive journalist. Never cutting edge, but legit.
No mas.
A few years back the Star decided to follow the money and circle the journalistic wagons around its key remaining local advertisers. As in car dealers. To do so, it needed to abandon what remained of its automotive objectivity. So it relabeled the weekly sections as advertising – just prominently enough to claim the high road but low key enough that most readers wouldn’t notice.
Very slick…
Car: Stuff You Won’t Learn About at This Week’s KC Auto Show
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Here’s the deal…
Check back a little later and I’ll take you down the long and winding road of this year’s Auto Show at Bartle Hall. I’ll touch on the hotties, the notties, what to expect and the unexpected. But first, a few words from Speeding Ticket lawyer Casey Raskob from the April issue of Car and Driver. You know, a little news maybe you could use.
Starting with the "biggest truths about why and whom cops give tickets to."
""Realistically, when it comes to tickets, sports cars come first, then motorcycles," Raskob says. "Anything that makes speed obvious. It doesn’t have to be expensive, it just has to get their attention; put a wing on your Civic.
"Rich guys go second.
Car: Great Kansas City Auto Show; You Are There
Forget today’s annual Star front page Auto Show suck up…
The newspaper got the ad money, the readers get the puff piece. In the form of a bit of inconsequential reporting about some cars offering better mileage with gas prices rising.
Think of it as a journalistic rebate on the advertising, because there’s nothing new that passes for front page news.
I mean, really.
The reality is – but for a couple of already reported on electric cars – this year’s show is about like every year’s. Except for a handful of distractions for the kids to free up parents to be courted by the cars.
Let’s take a look….
Today: Comic Ralphie May Storms Out on Stanford’s Shows After Showdown at Channel 41
Make no mistake, pretty it was not…
Size XXL funny guy Ralphie May stormed out of Kansas City Tuesday, no-showing two sold out comedy shows at Stanford & Sons in The Legends. That following two days of ill health and ill-advised put downs of Stanford’s owner Craig Glazer.
"Well, shockingly I’ve worked with Ralphie for about 10 years and consider him a friend in the way that you can be friends with comedians," Glazer says.
On May’s Web site, he apologized to fans – but not Glazer – and vowed to return to Kansas City soon.
Here’s how it went down, drugs, threats of fisticuffs, insults and all…
Hearne: Pitch Editor Plants Mythical Schmooze on Tony
About this week’s Pitch cover story…
The one about blasphemous blogger Tony Botello. The dude here on KC Confidential the comments crowd can’t say enough kind words about. The writer who single-handedly reinvented the term "cup half full" where Kansas City is concerned.
That guy.
New, out-of-towner Pitch editor Joe Tone set aside the intense acrimony of Pitch writers like Nadia Pflaum and laid a massive, journalistic kiss on Mr.T. Nevermind the over-hyped "Exclusive!" splashed across the paper’s cover. I mean, really.
It’s not like’t Tone cornered Osama bin Laden, scored a phoner with the Unabomber or talked Star editor Mike Fannin into a one-on-one about his twin DUIs or assault conviction.
Today: Soreal Design to Reopen in Uptown Shoppes
One of the KC’s hippest home furnishings and designer decor depots is mounting a comeback…
Soreal Design – housed in its 1980s and 1990s hey days in the historic Warwick Theatre at 3927 Main – is reopening in therecently rennovated Uptown Shoppes at 3600 Broadway in midtown. That according to Uptown Theater main man Larry Sells.
"Soreal Design is putting together a co-op for furniture, design and artwork," Sells says. "So we’ll rent 200, 300 and 400 square foot spaces to small up-and-coming dealers. And Soreal is one of the players."
Soreal closed years ago but much of its inventory, including its trademark art deco and pop culture art and furnishings remained in the old theater, as if frozen in time.
Until now…
Today: Kansas City Gets Booby Prize in March Esquire, Maria Cries Foul!
Tired of reading and hearing about what former Kansas Citians favorite barbecue is?
Anybody really care, besides restaurant owners? Or that we’re the fattest city, best place to raise a family, etc. Yeah, we’ve got the Chiefs, Paul Rudd and a couple of secondary movie comics. And for what it’s worth, the Plaza.
Almost forget the Royals, but they’re infamous.
Will we ever break out of this boring, uninspired PR nightmare?
Thanks to "Kara In Kansas City, Missouri" in the March issue of Esquire, we just did.
Car: The Italian Job Comes To Olathe, Mini Cooper Killer Splashes Down
The Italian Job has landed…
It’s more than a little ironic that the movie that put BMW’s Mini Cooper on the map was 2003’s "The Italian Job." Now that Italy’s spanking new Fiat 500 looks to be the car that wipes said MINI off that very map. The 500 comes into the marketplace for between $4,000 to $6,000 less money than similarly-optioned MINIs with better mileage on regular fuel and equal parts style and smile.
Trouble is, no one around these parts has so much as caught a glimpse of the 500, let alone driven one
Until now.
Today: How KC’s Mayor’s Race Played Out & What’s Next for Dirty Tricksters
One of KC’s most influential business and civic leaders handicapped Tuesday’s mayoral contest for KCC…
And as some of you have noted, he didn’t quite get it right.
"Maybe your civic heavy hitter would like to weigh in on the chances of the Royals winning a World Series and the Chiefs getting into the Super Bowl!" cracked BarKeeper in the comments section. "Maybe sports is his strong suit, ’cause politics ain’t."
So, as promised, let’s take that trip back to the Horse’s Mouth and check out The Explanation.
"What happened was Mike Burke beat Deb Hermann up north worse than I thought he would," he says. "Mike Sanders had endorsed Hermann and (longtime political kingmaker) Jim Nutter gave her his financial support. And I thought that would translate into something more than it did. And Jim Rowland got nothing out of Freedom. You pay for that endorsement but it was worth nothing. So if you take what I missed on those two and add their votes into the other candidates – Burke and Sly James – that’s where I went wrong."
Hearne: Star Stumbles, Puts Pirate Broadway Grease Gear On Sale
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It’s no secret that times are tough at 18th and Grand…
Anything and everything is for sale these days for a price. Sunday comics, business listings, death notices. But there are limits, as the newspaper learned today the hard way after KC Confidential noticed it was hawking merchandise festooned with photos purloined from Broadway Across America’s production of "Grease" at the Music Hall.
The Star posted a dozen photographs taken opening night at the musical by photographer Allison Long. Ostensibly to run with its review of the show. But an advisory invited readers to purchase everything from photos, and coffee mugs to t-shirts and mouse pads – even a "keepsake box" for anywhere from $8.50 to $89.95.
A move placed the Star into competition with the play’s merchandise and souvenir sales.
Hearne: Take The Royals Advice, Boycott Baseball
Everybody’s trying so freaking hard….
You know, to make it appear that somehow this year’s Kansas City Royals baseball season really matters. But in the wide world of sports – in the world of ‘Just win, baby!’ – it does not. Who cares?
It’s painfully obvious that after an eternity of mediocrity and faded hope, the owners of the Royals are either a) ridiculously inept b) could care less or c) all of the above. How else can it be explained?
At least in the days of the lowly Kansas City A’s everyone knew the score; the team was never gonna be any good, so just go out to the crappy stadium every year or three, check out the other team’s stars,slam a stadium steak, laugh at the mule and be done with it.
Get on with your life.
These days however, we have a sports media beast that wants to be fed. But why should we?
Today: Will New Movieplex at 135th & Nall Break Ground, Live to Tell the Story?
Can a fledgling movie exhibitor take on the mighty, Kansas City-based AMC and Dickinson theater chains and live to tell the story?
We may be about to find out. And then again, we may not.
Movie insiders are skeptical about recently reported plans for Vancouver-based Cinetopia to open its fourth movie venue at 135th and Nall in a planned development called Prairiefire at LionsGate. The move would lock the six year-old Cinetopia in head-to-head battle with AMC’s Town Center Plaza (119th and Nall) and Dickinson’s Palazzo (135th and Antioch).
"If they go in there, I think what will happen is what happened to the new theater that closed last year at Zona Rosa," one theater exec says."The competitors will refuse to play day and date with them, and the movie studios will have to decide which theater to give the movies to. So the new theater would only get half of the product.
Today: Key Business & Civic Leader Handicaps Mayoral Contest, Looks at Leaders
Sleepy as this year’s Kansas City mayoral contest has been, it’s about to get a lot more interesting…
Starting with which two candidates will carry their share of the brass ring into the grand finale election ring a month from now. Here’s how one business and civic heavy hitter with a penchant for politics sees today’s ultra-close mayor’s race shaking out:
1st Place: KC mayor Mark Funkhouser with 23 percent of the vote.
2nd Place: Development lawyer Mike Burke with 20 percent.
3rd Place: Deb Hermann and Sly James with 19 percent each
4th Place: Jim Rowland with 15 percent
Hearne: Life After Funkhouser, A Legend Laid Low By Love
King Kong vs. Godzilla; Frankenstein vs The Wolfman; Jennifer Anniston & Angelina Jolie…
The annals of ridiculous rivalries are littered with the corpse-like memories of vicious cat fights between celebrity combatants. In Kansas City few have loomed larger than the one that went down these past four years between Kansas City mayor Mark Funkhouser and First Lady Gloria Squitiro and biting blogger Tony Botello.
It’s hard to imagine an indignity Botello has yet to inflict on the controversial first couple.
Raising the question of how thrilled Botello is with Funk’s election day throttling and if he’ll have to take up golf or ant farming to fill the deep void…
Today: Rumored Streetside Savior Hits Tax Trouble Road Bump
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There’s good news, bad news and weird news where the saving of the music store formerly known as Streetside concerned…
Let’s start with what passes for the good.
Unlike most failed, defunct businesses, Streetside’s phone number in Westport is alive and kicking. Nobody’s answering and no messages have been left but clearly somebody’s hanging onto the more than 20 year-old, number for some reason. Telephone numbers for most failed businesses go away pretty much immediately.
And despite a non-denial denial by Shawnee music store Vinyl Renaissance’s manager about reports it plans to reopen in Streetside’s digs, a funny thing happened. Someone slipped into Streetside’s now empty digs and planted a Vinyl Renaissance sign in the front glass door.
Now the bad news…
Car: Game Afoot, First New Fiat in Three Decades Splashes Down in Olathe
This just in…
After 28 years, Fiat has returned to Kansas City. Fiat of Olathe just received its first new Fiat 500 car – a demonstrator – and plans to complete its dramatic, new Fiat Studio and begin selling new 500s in May.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, beginning next week, locals can visit the dealership (now Olathe Dodge / Chrysler) and test drive the car, says general manager Jeff Briggs.
"It’s a Sport model with a manual transmission and a sunroof and it’s grey," Briggs says. "And starting Monday it will be available for test driving during the weekdays. We’re not taking orders until May. They’ve only made 2,000 cars at this point and the vehicles are not available for sale yet."
