By CHRIS PACKHAM
Sunglasses of Justice: Were you aware that the Big 12 came to town on Thursday? The Kansas City Star noticed that a giant crowd of people "descended" on downtown KC yesterday. The article is practically lashed together with terrible CSI: Miami-grade plays on words:
• "So when hungry fans showed up in the zone it was a slam dunk."• "For businesses at the Power & Light District — and those beyond — it also was game time."
• "So the saloon decided to serve breakfast at 8 a.m., one of the few downtown operations to do so. The decision hit nothing but net..." (Italics added for emphatic Horatio Caine delivery.)
Even though everyone's been calling the project "The Power and Light District" since, like, the Spanish-American War, the Star's headline says "Fans flock to new Kansas City Live district." The Cordish Company, the district's developer, coined the in-my-opinion retarded name "Kansas City Live." HAHA, Joyce Smith takes her cues from press releases. My annoyance with lazy news writing is palpable. No -- literally palpable, in a medical sense. It's manifested as a lump on my shoulder, like a sty. I can move it around under my skin. Sometimes it talks! I'm calling him Shecky.
Shecky says this is gross: A filthy old school bus driver is accused of kissing and inappropriately touching a 15-year-old girl Wednesday, but the story is made creepier by reporter Dave Dunn's flair for sleazy entendres:
"66-year-old Earl Moorning was ticketed for assault after the girl who attends Genesis School said he gave her much more than just a ride Wednesday morning."
GROSS, DAVE DUNN, now I need to show the counselor on the doll where your news copy groped me. C'mon. "Much more than just a ride" sounds like a song lyric Diamond David Lee Roth would write about a sexxxy tour bus operator before ripping it out of his spiral pad and starting over. And w/r/t your vaguely attributing that line to the girl: She totally never said that.
Baby with the bongwater: Area hippies gave police much more than just a peace sign when their marijuana grow-house was discovered in connection with a stolen car investigation. That doesn't sound nearly as gross as Dave Dunn's news copy, so I want you to randomly picture Wilford Brimley naked while I explain that, while police were waiting outside for a search warrant, the suspects inside set the house on fire in an attempt to hide the evidence.
Mattel Recalls Easy-Bake Meth Lab "Toddlers Test Positive For Crack Cocaine" is a great headline, on par with something like "Hitler Smothers Dying Child's Baby Duck." You shouldn't administer aspirin or crack to children under 5.
I don't have kids, but that sounds about right. Anyway, a Kansas City woman was arrested for giving three toddlers crack cocaine. So I guess the only crack she'll be smoking... is jail crack.Showing 1-3 of 3
Joyce Smith never met a press release she didn't like -- or copy word for word. She's a journalist like Old Codger is relevant. I can't wait to hear about the next Dairy Queen grand opening. Yummy.
Editors,
I am an old man but I remember back in the 1970's when we would go downtown to then descend to the River Quay area, and we really descended, boy, what with having a snootful at some bent-nose joint in downtown proper first and then trying to stagger across the Broadway bridge to the Quay, often falling and rolling those last several yards. Hoo boy! Those were the days...was that the Broadway Bridge or the Hon. Charlie "I Stole Everything That Wasn't Nailed Down" Wheeler Bridge? Makes no never mind now, I expect, though, truth be told, ol' Charlie would come along as often as not; hell, I expect that Charlie being with us kept us from being blowed up, he always seemed to steer us to the bar or eatery that wasn't going to go 'ka-BOOM!' that evening...
My point here is that downtown is the highest geographical landmass for at least a 2 mile radius - where the hell are all baggy clothes wearing, trash music listening young whipper-snappers descending from, that's what I want to know?
From Mars, maybe? 'Descended', my ass. I'll tell you what's descended is the Kansas City Star's ability to right clean and cogent sentences, that's what descended, that's what�s drooped, that's what flagging, if you will.
Or, god damn it, even if you won't!
Respectfully,
Old Codger
Raytown, MO
p.s. i saw what that lame blogger wrote about the waitresses in that story about the block head's new bar-b-que joint: i don't think the blogger took into account the latest trendy festivities (I heard this from my grand-niece, on the q.t.): that's right, you heard right...our big prize tonight is fifty American Dollars to the girl with the most exciting, no, NOT the most exciting mammalian protuberances...which would be sexist, but the most exciting blown up belly! And here comes de wata...!
My grand-niece assures me that we're reentering a rubenesque women phase in our culture, wherein we celebrate the lovely form descended from MickieD's, Jackinthe Belly and other fast food fashions. Who am I to say? Maybe the lame blogger simply was not up on current cultural phases. Hell, man, if it weren't for my grand-niece, I wouldn't know what I'm talking about.
Good day to you.