Crack Pitch clubs editor Berry Anderson snapped this photo at Eighth Street and Walnut. She also spied another sign on Southwest Boulevard across from Manny's.
Let's get this straight. The Kansas City Star's answer to falling stock prices, declining circulation and company-wide layoffs isn't providing better coverage of Kansas City -- it's bribing readers with a $25,000 grand prize?
While I was visiting Indianapolis this week, my younger brother wanted to go out for dim sum. "It's served in this dumpy little restaurant on the west side of town," my brother said, "but the food is really good."
I was game, so we drove to the dumpy little restaurant, Shen Yang, out near one of those dying suburban malls. The building didn't look familiar to me, but the faux Colonial-style doors and the spartan interior of the restaurant looked vaguely familiar. As I bit into a shrimp dumpling, I wondered if I had eaten there in the past.
So Thanksgiving is over and even though the turkey leftovers aren't even finished, we've now begun a 28-day binge
of holiday Christmas music and lights and other crap. Frankly, a weekend of Christmas would be plenty for me -- but enough
has already been written about the over-hype and deluge of those aspects of Christmas.
I want to focus on other food-related parts of this jolly season.
Tony's Kansas City runs with the rumor that skeleton-humping Chiefs quarterback Tyler Thigpen is dating 38 the Spot Simpsons
quiz master Holly Starr. No wonder the charity dates for "southern gentleman" Thigpen and Starr are double dates. You totally won't be a third wheel if you bid on
Starr or Thigpen. Well, maybe if Thigpen brings along his skeleton.
McClatchy Watch wonders if an unnamed Kansas City Star journalist is posting on AngryJournalist.com and isn't a fan of publisher Mark Zieman. Hat tip to Will Not Be Televised.
Anheuser-Busch's Clydesdales are moving -- but not to Belgium or the glue factory.
Union Station is begging for a down payment on a cheeseburger ... again.
Nick Sloan breaks down Kansas City's best sports rivalries. MU-KU? Chiefs-Raiders? Royals-Cardinals? My vote: David Glass vs. Royals fans. But Arrowhead Addict vs. "Harm" Edwards is getting good.
This awesome lengthy comment was left by commenter Tman in response to CharlesFerruzza' call for Thanksgiving horror stories. I assume loyal Fat City readers have already seen it, but damn, it bears repeating:
One year my two sisters and I met in our parents home to share aNow that, my friends, is a horror story. Thanks, Tman.Thanksgiving lovefest ... We all live far
apart, save for Mom and Dad.
So far, so good. We share laughs. My father can only remember all of my
mistakes and we all laugh heartily about the stories.
Fast forward to Thanksgiving Dinner, at my request we are having primerib. We all agree that turkey sucks. We sit down. Pass dishes. Make
yummy sounds.
I take my first bite of meat. It lodges at the bottom of my esophagus.
I am a fast eating pig by the way. Before I notice the stuck meat I
have already followed with another large bite of meat and some mashed
potatoes. I wash this down with water, big gulps. Kaphloooom!!! There
is no place for the water to go but back out the entrance. I spit water
all over my plate. I am unable to catch my breath... with all the water
coming up. I stand up and make "blahk, blahk" sounds. Both of my
sisters jump up and attempt the Heimlich. Neither have arms long enough
to reach around my chest. My older sister begins punching me in the gut
attempting to dislodge (i guess). Her punches feel like a four-year-old is
throwing ping pong balls at me.
While I am being wrestled and beaten by my sisters I am truly in apanic. I have yet to secure a breathing pattern. My parents are sitting
motionless, still in their dinner chairs. I am pointing to my Dad's
face and then pointing to the phone on the wall. I do this motion
several times. He is froze and NEVER understands that I am instructing
him to call 911. I point to my Mom's face then to the phone. She does
not move. I don't even think she blinked. I push my sisters away and
begin to catch my breath.
I am in excruciating pain. The meat stuck at the very bottom of my esophagus is lodged and my body's natural response is to apply internal
pressure to push it through to my stomach and to create gobs of phlegm to
lubricate.
Once I start breathing, my father starts asking me if I want to go tothe doctor. I am staring, breathing, and he is asking me if I want to
go to the doctor. HELL YES I DO.
As we walk to the car the food dislodges. We return to the house and
sit at the table.
All of these events occurred within 2 minutes.
Sitting at the table, no one is interested in eating. My older sister
goes out on the enclosed porch and returns with a small yellow coffee
cup. Within minutes she is in tears of fear and laughter. Not the
normal kind.
We all decide to go visit 92-year-old Grandmother in the care home. As we
ride we all begin to notice the older sister's increasing level of
intoxication. A 30 minute ride gave her plenty of time to medicate. She
reveals that she has a poem she wrote and plans to read to Grandma.
Keep in mind, when she drinks her persona and voice mimic a 9 year old
girl.
Grandma is precious. She has her wits but is woefully deaf andlulls in and out of sleep. My drunk sister whips our a full page,single
space poem and begins reading it to Grandma. We all smell the booze and
notice the girly recitation. The parents have exited the room, finding
their oldest's child's behavior to be unbearable.
I am standing at Grandma's feet. My younger sister is near her legs.
The POET is near her shoulder. Grandma is propped up with pillows.
Younger sister and I are making small talk with Grandma all the while
the POET is in full recitation. Grandma gets a pained look on her face
and in her weak voice says "please go, go." Younger and I gave her a
squeeze on the foot and leg and then immediately realized that Grandma
was having an unfortunate unplanned shit. We exited immediately.
The poet continued reading the poem as us siblings moved to the
hallway. We listened as the drunken poet continued to recite the poem
amid her own gagging and awking.
The recitation sounded like a personbeing squeezed against a wall by an elephant. "Ahhgg, uhhhjjj, the
doves...uh, uh." My parents had shown up in the hallway and we all were
bent over laughing so hard we were dead silent. Finally we heard
"grandma, grandma, uhgg uhgg..." The Poet emerged from the room red
faced and gasping.
It's not over yet.
The staff cleaned Grandma up and brought her out to the visiting area.
She laughed and apologized. We treated her like a queen. The Poet sat
down beside her and started the entire poem over again. It was brutal.
As we exited, I got to the car first and found several more gulps of
booze in the coffee mug. I poured it out on the grass.
During the exit ride from the parking lot I heard the poet say "hey,
that's not nice."
When we got home my father gave me a hug for the first time in my 33
years of life.
By OWEN MORRIS
In the 1970s, San Francisco had the first openly gay man to be elected to public office on its board of supervisors. His name was Harvey Milk, and one of the things he did best was organize protests. A movie about his life is coming out here December 12, and if you're one of the people who showed up at this month's protest against California's gay-marriage ban, which attracted hundreds of sympathetic people to the J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain on the Plaza, you might want to see it. But this time, protesters ask that you avoid the Plaza.
I usually hate it when people put up their holiday lights the second that Halloween is over. It's like, come on. We still have to slog through Thanksgiving first, so just hold off on your holiday displays until after the only pure, noncommercialized American holiday we have left.
But then I saw these lights at the corner of 103rd Street and Metcalf in Overland Park.
Each Thursday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in
forgotten and bewildering crap culled from area basements, thrift
stores, estate sales and flea markets. He does this for one reason:
Knowledge is power.
Lady, Be Lovely: A Guide to Beauty, Glamour and Sex Appeal
Author: Edyth Thornton McLeod
Publisher: Wilcox and Follett
Date: 1955
Discovered at: KCK estate sale
The Cover Promises: Foot stretching!
Neck powdering! Widow's peak maintenance! Desperately seizing your
hand before it opens the refrigerator!
Representative Quotes
Page 13: "When a woman forgets to
say 'thank you' for some act of courtesy, the man should verbally
remind her of her bad manners, or lack of good ones, whichever you
prefer!"
Page 199: "I wonder what makes some
women think they can wear tight Levis of clingy denim and
wild-patterned blouses or sweaters when they are built like Big
Berthas."
You're riding through the river valley, and up ahead you see a squat white building behind an inn on the side of the hill. As you approach the door, you see the remnants of fast food meals overflowing trash bins. The scent of microwave pizza floats on the air. Stepping inside, you are faced with glowing screens bidding you to register your identity. A small child in a green wizard cloak scurries by you. What do you do?
If you're into role playing, you sign up and spend four days at the Best Western on Southwest Boulevard.
Royals fan sprints on the field, steals rosin bag
Oklahoma Joe's ribs named the best in the country by The Daily Meal
Story celebrates with a pig roast and other weekend possibilities
Don't mess with the Army, feds remind two local businesspeople
Soundgarden's sludgy sound, last night at the Midland (review)
Homer's Drive-In: the oldest drive-through in the metro
KCPD will breathalyze patrons at Tanner's tonight
Kansas House ignores Brownback, Senate, goes home early for long weekend