Tag Archives: Hearne Christopher Jr.

It’s easy to be critical of the Kansas City Star…

Look how often I partake of the sport. And not because, like hundreds of others, I was laid off in the ongoing financial bloodbath newspapers are enduring in an era where mostly just oldsters continue to read print publications.

Nope, I have a long track record of criticizing the Star, dating from my years spent building and running the Pitch and including years at the paper. It wasn’t always an easy feat, but on dozens if not hundreds – of occasions I followed up on under or misreported Star stories with columns attempting to set the record staright or tell the story behind the story.

I’ve also passed along some attaboys to the newspaper and this is one of those times.

So allow me to say that a year after Robert W. Butler was laid off, his freelance replacement Jon Niccum is kicking butt and doing a splendid job of reviewing movies for the entertainment section.

The former Pitch and Lawrence Journal World  editor has raised the Star’s movie reviewing bar to new heights.

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Time’s running out for a ‘savior" to rescue Plaza area jazz joint Jardine’s…

That is, if its hard to get 3 a.m. liquor license is to be salvaged. Whether the intention is to do a jazz, blues, dance, gay bar – you name it – it won’t be easy to reopen the space at 4536 Main if the license lapses.

"It expires at the end of July," says Regulated Industries head Gary Majors. "It’s one license and a 3 a.m. license. Typically they have 90 days once it expires to reapply."

And you can pretty much forget someone new coming in and getting a 3 a.m. license without working something out with beleaguered Jardine’s owner Beena Raja.

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There’s been no shortage of hooting and hollaring about KU football and new head coach Charlie Weis...

Last year’s slogan for KU’s football team was "Believe." Which worked just fine for the two meaningless, winning games at home against McNeese State and Northern Illinois. From there however the Jayhawks went 0 and 10 against K-State, Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Baylor, Missouri and every other team they faced.

It was ugly and cost KU coach Turner Gill his job.

Which brings us to sexy new head coach Weiss and the hopes and dreams of the KU football faithful who can scarely remember the good, old days when the head coach was "phat" and abusive to student athletes and delivered winning seasons and bowl games.

So how high are those high hopes lately?

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They’ve got their work cut out for them…

It may sound like no big deal – other than the Nazi-like rules and regs about talking and texting – but when Alamo Drafthouse takes over the AMC Mainstreet later this week (after AMC gets kicked to the curb), there’s gonna need to be a whole lotta remodeling shaking going on.

That is if Alamo intends to sell enough upscale food and booze to its patrons at the downtown movieplex to make a profit.

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You know it’s an ugly divorce when the CEO gets nasty and goes public…

For months rumors have flown about a pending nasty split between KC-based movie giant AMC Entertainment and Cordish Company. According to a source heated-beyond-belief emails were exchanged between AMC honcho Gerry Lopez and the operator of the Power & Light District.

Extremely heated.

Which explains why rather than simply divvying things up – AMC’s Mainstreet and the Midland by AMC – AMC was kicked to the curb in favor of the tiny Alamo Drafthouse. Embarrased in its home town no less (to the extent that the Chinese-owned firm ever gave a you-know-what about KC since the money lenders – including Bain Capital – took over a handful of years back.

How ugly did it get?

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Funny how everybody with a keyboard becomes an expert when a news story breaks…

Take Crown Center closing its fountains this week to public bathing. On one hand you’ve got a local blogger claiming a "TKC exclusive" because he says he was first to "break" the news. Hello. When a large, local corporation makes a grand announcement and sends out press releases that’s not a scoop.

Then there local TV stations to whom capturing a live body on location comes first. To the point that a nearby snowcone truck sales dude’s opinion of what the fountain’s closing means to KC got front-and-center treatment.

Ridiculously, Fox 4 News even managed to get a local lawyer to say that if a "kid was running around there and slipped and bumped their head I probably would not take the case."

The idea being, why would Crown Center close its fountain over minor liability worries?

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Here’s what I’m talking about…

The Crown Center fountains controversy is a perfect example of what’s wrong with much of what passes for journalism today. Media organizations sending random, often rookie reporters to cover a story in which they have no background or history. They’re armed only with the intention of answering the very basic questions of who, what, where, when and – if we’re lucky – why.

The latter often being the most telling, but least told part of the news story.

Instead what viewers and readers get more often than not are a handful of inconsequential man-or-woman on the street takes and maybe a thin veneer of reasons and or answers with little to no followup or probing questions.

In short, news lite.

Now read automotive giant Bob Lutz‘ take on the practice of journalism today from his new book Car Guys:

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It only took Crown Center 14 years to get a clue….

Because it was back in the summer of ‘98 that the Kansas City Health Department cautioned the Hallmark-owned upscale shopping center about allowing “swimmers” in its fountains.

Actually, I was the one who called attention to the situation after learning that Hallmarkers were derisively referring to the outdoor fountain as the “Crown Center Country Club,” owing to it’s popularity as an inner city kiddie magnet.

Funny thing was, after years of doing everything it could to shoo kids and urban teens away from its movie theaters, the last thing Crown Center wanted was throngs of urban youth and their parents publically bathing right outside its front door.

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Let’s see, Mexican wedding and honeymoon, solid week of hard labor exiting Prairie Village house and a ton of time unpacking and planning for a Lawrence getaway…

That shit takes time, ladies and gentlemen. Time away from writing, but let’s ramp things back up a bit after a lazy Sunday afternoon reading.

The New York Times was delivered yesterday in error in place of Sunday’s Star. Was I bummed? A little at first, maybe, but not for long. I’d almost forgotten how good a job those guys do. You know, the guys that former Star editor and publisher Art Brisbane has been taking to task these past two years. And doing a fine job of it, I might add. Readers of past Brisbane columns may recall how prosaic he can be, but I doubt they recollect he had such sharp teeth.

They do now in New York.

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Never say never, right?

Well, almost never. But what’s left of the ship of state that was once Kansas City’s finest jazz club – Jardine’s – appears poised to tumble off a cliff from which there will likely be no return.

Sources say the club’s last and most-prized assets – it’s 3 a.m. and 1:30 a.m. liquor licenses – are poised to expire between now and July. And should they expire, liquor industry insiders say, it will be nare but impossible to replace Jardine’s all-important, 3 a.m. liquor license.

"I think one (license) expires at the end of June and one in July," says former Jardine’s co-owner and manager Pat Hanrahan. "I don’t remember which is which."

As for the prospect of someone buying the club and maybe – just maybe – reopening it as a jazz joint, "I talked to Beena a couple times earlier this week and there’s a couple of people who have looked at the space recently," Hanrahan says. "And I know one guy is still interested, (he’s) from out of town. I think they still have a few weeks to go on the liquor license. And I know American Century has shown it to five or six different people."

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Nothing like a little hyperbole in the headline to get things rolling, right?

That said, let’s move on to the issue raised by Jack Poessiger and the head of Alamo Drafthouse about texting in movie theaters. Because while I agree with the Gentle German that in the most extreme cases he likes to cite texting can be rude. However two wrongs don’t make a right, right?

And kicking people out of movies without refunding their money because they looked at their cellphone is wrong.

First let’s have some fun.

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Remember the Alamo?

You will soon. However, any number of prickly questions remain unanswered regarding the changing of the guard at AMC’s Mainstreet downtown. A switch from hometown exhibitor AMC to Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse.

Chief among the questions: what will become of the Mainstreet’s three large downstairs auditoriums once Alamo unveils its elaborate food and drink menu? A menu that puts AMC’s meager Cinema Suites and Fork & Screen offerings to shame.

With more than a dozen appetizers, more than a half dozen pizzas and a wide array of salads, wraps, burgers, sandwiches and entrees, the $64 million question is, how will Alamo deliver its goods to moviegoers jammed into the larger, downstairs auditoriums with traditional stadium seating?

It’s one thing to pass a hotdog or beer down the aisle at Arrowhead, quite another to try and balance a serving of Spaghetti Squash and Pomodoro Sauce and a pitcher of Skinny Girl Sangria while trying not to step on anybody’s toes.

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Talk about a whirlwind two weeks…

One minute I’m standing on a beach along the Pacific Ocean in Cabo saying, "I do" to a judge marrying me in Spanish while butchering my first name…a week later I’m masterminding the sale and a move from my home in Prairie Village to Lawrence via Topeka. That’s a lot to love, especially given it was squeezed into not much more than the space of a single week.

But you know they say about distance lending perspective.

So when I called the Kansas City Star on Friday afternoon at the height of my chaotic moving experience, the least of my worries was when and if I’d be able to transfer my newspaper subscription to T-Town. Not that the nice woman from South America or wherever the Star has outsourced such matters had a clue. All she knew was that the transfer would require someone at a higher pay grade to determine if I would be allowed to continue receiving the physical newspaper long distance. Or be relegated to reading the paper’s Web site free-of-charge like most of you – as Tony might say, dirtbags – probably do.

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Tis the season…

To go swimming, of course. And with Memorial Day weekend in the rearview mirror, the heat is on for locals to sign up at local swimming holes, hit the country club or in many cases…head to Oceans of Fun. You know, that paragon of pay-per-swim "amusement park" located near Liberty alonside former Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt‘s other brainchild, Worlds of Fun.

Here’s how Wikipedia describes Oceans:

  "A tropically-themed water park that opened on May 31, 1982 in Kansas City, Missouri to celebrate World’s of Fun’s 10th year anniversary. At the time it was opened it was the largest water park in the world. It is owned and operated by Cedar Fair Entertainment Co."

Which doesn’t, of course, speak to the "experience" awaiting families and swinging singles in search of giant slides, wave pools, "lazy rivers" and the like.

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The Cow is, well, wow…

It’s no secret that Kansas City refugee and syndicated shock jock Erich "Mancow" Muller is agast at the fattening of America, specifically Kansas City. Confirming our "rankings" in all of those "fattest city" magazine "surveys." And further, that’s been hammered home to him during his frequent homecomings of late to his all-time favorite concert venue, Knuckleheads Saloon.

Let’s flesh it out a bit.

 "The women at Knuckleheads were shockingly fat," Mancow says. "Here’s what it is; I mean, I’ve had every expert imaginable on my radio show and I know why we’re fat. because our food is great and it’s cheap, that’s why. Everybody’s fat because they’re eating fat, cheap food."

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Just when devotees of newspapers thought it was safe to go outside…

It’s been an incredibly tough four-plus years for newspapers and magazines. And not just because of the dour economic landscape. The Kansas City Star has laid off hundreds – going from a staffing of more than 2,000 employees 10 years ago to around 700 today. The city’s second largest print player, the Johnson County Sun, is no longer even in business having been shuttered by its area owner that had invested millions in buying and running the suburban weekly. The Pitch was fire saled off to an out-of-town buyers a year ago after years of churning out red ink, its long term future yet in doubt.

And now comes news that the vaunted New Orleans Times-Picayune is poised to enact massive staff cuts and reduce its newspaper circulation from daily to just three days a week this fall. To which I now suggest that you read it here first.

How few times a week can a daily paper publish and remain viable, I asked former Star publisher Art Brisbane in February of 2009.

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It was the best of times and the worst of times…remember that one?

This time out however we’re talking about Saturday’s Rainmakers show at Knuckleheads in the East Bottoms, not the French Revolution. And while it was clearly the age of foolishness, it was hardly the age of wisdom.

Not according to the Kansas City-bred, Chicago shock jock Erich "Mancow" Muller.

"It was fantastic," Mancow says of the show. "I tell you, Bob Walkenhorst‘s hair was gray – which is startling – but they’re still a great band. They’re as good as they were in 1986."

When the Rainmakers took the stage Saturday, Mancow was Johnny on the Spot.

"And the first thing Bob did when he walked out was reach down and shake my hand," Mancow says. "I was front-and-center with my belly against the stage and quite honestly, I was surprised he recognized me."

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What to think of the deal by Chinese company Wanda to buy local movie giant AMC?

Well for starters, that nothing is sacred in the world of high finance and international business. As promised – but not reported locally until recently by KCC – Wanda president Wang Jianlin had boasted in a speech last year that "his company would ‘shock the world’ with an acquisition to be made within the year."

Well, it certainly did come as a shock to Kansas City that one of its prized corporate possessions would no longer be under local (or domestic) ownership and control. After all, AMC employs about 18,500 staffers and owns 346 theaters.

And while undoubtedly the Chinese will want things to remain intact where AMC’s domestic and international business is concerned, it does make one wonder how much longer those two and three connection international flights to the Cowtown will make sense to Wanda execs. Especially given that Kansas City is hardly an entertainment hub.

So we’ll see.

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