Listening to Stik Figa work this Kanye track over reminds one that 1) Kanye is not a very good rapper and 2) quality production is half the battle, if not more, to creating a solid creative track. In a hurry? Skip the first minute of T-Pain's vocoder crooning, and go straight to Stik's verse.
MP3: (originally by Kanye West, feat. T-Pain)
Anyone make it out to Stik's performance at the Jackpot last night? Do share ...
We're going to be hearing about the New York Islanders' possible move to Kansas City until at least September. That's when New York will play an exhibition game at the Sprint Center. Until then, we'll be reading news stories like the one in yesterday's Kansas City Star or today's Long Island Business News.
But the stories contradict each other. The Star says the Islanders have an out. The Business News story calls the contract "iron clad." I'm pretty tired of all of the speculation, especially knowing these words of wisdom from Field of Schemes author Neil deMause: "You don't leave New York for Kansas City." deMause is probably right given the NHL's lack of success in Midwestern markets. What good does an empty but new arena with 72 corporate suites do when everyone's broke?
I just can't help but think of Kansas City as the fat girl that the NHL is using for practice sex.
Richard Tripp is having a bad run of luck.
Tripp, as some of you may know, runs an organization called Care of Poor People. Twice a year, around Thanksgiving and Easter, with the help of tons of volunteers, he puts on an enormous potluck dinner and lays out tables and tables of donated clothes and toiletries. Sometimes a band plays. It's a party, and lots of poor people walk away with some much-needed supplies.
If you see the guy in the photo on the right, don't tell him that Dateline's Chris Hansen and the Perverted Justice crew are waiting to catch a predator.
Seriously, when I saw this story on Fox 4, my first thought was this guy's totally taking his stolen sixer of Mike's Hard Lemonade and six cartons of smokes to rendezvous with some 14-year-old girl fat 40-year-old guy that he's been graphically chatting with. Who steals a six-pack of Mike's? She He didn't ask for wine coolers? I can hear Hansen now. "Have a seat there. I want to ask you some questions."
It's your lucky day, kids of artistic breed!
In a rather unorthodox but totally cool pairing, Raleigh, NC band Annuals is giving away tickets to their shows, along with a "gift from" a museum near you.
Between now and Monday, March 2, when the band plays the Record Bar, you can register to win two tickets to the show plus a gift certificate to use at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art gift shop. (Museum admission is free.)
Enter the contest at the Annuals site.
And whether art museums are your thing or not, grab this free MP3 from the band's latest album, Such Fun.
MP3: Annuals, "Confessor"
Local PBS affiliate KCPT Channel 19 announced today that Kliff Kuehl (pictured) has been hired as the station's new president and CEO. The deal ends an eight-month search to replace Victor Hogstrom. Kuehl starts April 6.
To work here, 47-year-old Kuehl leaves behind PBS station KNPB in Nevada. Before he shot shows in Reno just to watch them die, he ran the PBS affiliate in Waco, Texas, where he's from. (The Star's reliable Aaron Barnhart gets Kuehl's CV out of the file cabinet in more detail, though he leaves out the Rotary Club.)
A look at KNPB's programming schedule shows that out west, pledge-drive types like their shows a little more rugged. But the station also caters to more sensitive souls. For example, there's The Beauty of Oil Painting, in which, the station's Web site promises, "Gary and Kathwren Jenkins guide viewers through the process of creating a beautiful floral painting from start to finish in each 30-minute
episode."
Public-affairs programming seems not to command the same priority in northern Nevada than it does here, so pay attention to what show you talk about next time you call in a pledge to KCPT. Otherwise, Kansas City Week in Review might make its guests pick up a brush and interpret the news on canvas instead of through tight, Midwestern-polite smiles while host Nick Haines asks for "a little bit of color."
If you're in the habit of picking up the humongous, five-dollar-plus Sunday edition of The New York Times, chances are you do in part for the New York Times Magazine, which has some of the best writing and profiles this side of the New Yorker. (For instance, check out this excellent profile of basketball player Shane Battier two weeks ago.)
This Sunday, the magazine will contain a special extra treat for us -- a field report on Justus Drugstore. If you can't wait until then, the article has been online since Wednesday.
Though the tone is a little talk-downish ("Missouri is more about barbecue than ginger-brined pork with apple foam") the overall message is that great local food with great local sources can be done anywhere -- even Smithville, Missouri. Or, as the magazine puts it, that it's possible to "connect the region's tables to its farms."
Jonathan Justus sounds like his usual self. "The satisfaction of building a community around food has been rewarding
spiritually, if not yet financially. 'This restaurant is completely and
totally built on philosophy,' Justus said. 'Cause it sure as fuck isn't about money. It can't be.' Yes, the fuck is bleeped out but the fact that Justus is not afraid to drop F-bombs in front of a NYT reporter is great. (Only one person has ever been allowed to say "fuck" in the paper -- Monica Lewinsky in the Starr Report.)
This marks the second time in less than a month that the Kansas City area food has been featured in The New York Times. Kansas-side residents Jason Day and Aaron Chronister were interviewed for their bacon explosion right before the Super Bowl.
When we (and by "we," you know I just about always mean "I" -- all the more so in this case) at Wayward headquarters saw the publicity e-mail subject line "COLLECTORS' EDITION OF DOLLY PARTON'S BACKWOODS BARBIE SET FOR EXCLUSIVE RELEASE AT ALL CRACKER BARREL LOCATIONS MARCH 23," a part of us rejoiced.
What was this part, you ask? Isn't it obvious? It's the part of us that has always -- we're talking since shortly after birth (though Jungians would argue since long before that event) and persisting despite the ravages of time -- been transfixed by Dolly Parton's hair. Not.
Now, don't get me -- I mean us -- wrong. It's not as though every little piece of Parton news sends us into a deep meditative trance where the only three things that exist are the primitive base unit of the unconscious (the id, in Freudian theory) and those hovering, beckoning, unknowable planetary orbs. But the mention of "Barbie" triggered memory of that childhood impulse to strip the raiment of any available clothed doll, male or female, and examine the a plastic simulacrum of the ideal human form revealed.
Our id will have to wait. Backwoods Barbie is not the name of a new line of (swooningly) anatomically correct Dolly Parton dolls but rather the classy, wholesome and deservedly legendary country singer's new album, which, as the PR spells out so clearly, is SET FOR EXCLUSIVE RELEASE AT ALL CRACKER BARREL LOCATIONS [Monday] MARCH 23.
Our only recourse is to drive to the nearest Cracker Barrel and console ourselves with a system-shocking dose of Sawmill Gravy and hot buttered biscuits. Simulacra, yo.
At the Oscars, Bill Maher encouraged film fans to watch more documentaries. Project Save Justice, showing here Sunday, is not the best place to start, however.
Retired professor Donald C. Shields will be in town with a short documentary about the politically motivated prosecutions conducted by the Bush Justice Department. A professor emeritus at the University of Missouri in St. Louis, Shields and a co-author studied federal investigations of local officials and found that 85 percent of the targets were Democrats.
Shields is related to one of the Democrats. His sister, former Jackson County Executive Katheryn Shields, was the subject of a wide-ranging federal investigation. In 2007, a jury acquitted Shields and her husband, Phil Cardarella, of mortgage-fraud charges.
The politicization of the Justice Department is a serious topic. But for a couple of reasons, concerned citizens may want to pass on the March 1 event at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church.
Team hotels in plaza or elsewhere?? Any insight?
I'd give anything for that cocktail, hold the tail.
I'm sorry, but I can't get into a sport that allows a 0-0 tie to…
BORING.
Agree w/Abe, mint remains the one to beat. I'll be interested to see how the…
MLS All-Star Game logo being painted on side of Crossroads building
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Boulevard and Sierra Nevada join forces for Terra Incognita, which hits shelves Wednesday
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Phoenix will headline Buzz Beach Ball in September
Shatto's Cookies & Cream milk is still out there
Can't decide which urban farms to hit? Start here.
Aixois Brasserie celebrates first birthday in a spirited fashion