The Pitch: January 2, 2014

January 2–8, 2014 | free | Vol. 33 no. 27 | pitch.com

a d n i K

g v i n i l a l t He Hy

lutions. e to 2014 fitness reso id gu ’s al du vi di in ed A flaw al l

By Davi d Hu dn

January 2-8, 2014 | Vol. 33 no. 27

HOW ABOUT

E d i t o r i a l

Kinda HealtHy living

Editor Scott Wilson Managing Editor Justin Kendall Music Editor Natalie Gallagher Staff Writers Charles Ferruzza, David Hudnall, Steve Vockrodt Editorial Operations Manager Deborah Hirsch Events Editor Berry Anderson Proofreader Brent Shepherd Contributing Writers Tracy Abeln, Liz Cook, Adrianne DeWeese, April Fleming, Larry Kopitnik, Angela Lutz, Dan Lybarger, Nancy Hull Rigdon, Dan Savage, Nick Spacek

LUNCH

F O R

HALF OFF ?

a r t

Art Director Ashford Stamper Contributing Photographers Angela C. Bond, Barrett Emke, Chris Mullins, Lauren Phillips, Sabrina Staires, Brooke Vandever

P r o d u c t i o n

Production Manager Christina Riddle Multimedia Designer Vu Radley

a d v E r t i s i n g

Sales Manager Erin Carey Senior Classified Multimedia Specialist Steven Suarez Multimedia Specialists Collin Click, Sharon Donat, Becky Losey Director of Marketing & Operations Jason Dockery Digital Marketing Manager Keli Sweetland Digital Marketing Specialist Lisa Kelly Sales and Marketing Assistant Anna Brescia

We got a head start on your 2014 fitness resolutions. Sort of. b y dav i d h u d n a l l

c i r c u l a t i o n

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Circulation Director Mike Ryan

B u s i n E s s

Accounts Receivable Jodi Waldsmith Publisher Joel Hornbostel

ex plo r er s

s o u t h c o m m

Chief Executive Officer Chris Ferrell Chief Financial Officer Patrick Min Chief Marketing Officer Susan Torregrossa Chief Technology Officer Matt Locke Business Manager Eric Norwood Director of Digital Sales & Marketing David Walker Controller Todd Patton Creative Director Heather Pierce Director of Content/Online Development Patrick Rains

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n a t i o n a l

Charlotte Street’s award winners plant their flags at Grand Arts. by liz Cook

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a d v E r t i s i n g

VMG Advertising 888-278-9866, vmgadvertising.com Senior Vice President of Sales Susan Belair Senior Vice President of Sales Operations Joe Larkin

l ate blo o mer

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Questionnaire feature agenda art shop girl café fat city music d a i ly l i s t i n g s savage love

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january 2- 8, 2014

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The Pitch SuGAR RuSH returns February 20 at the Promise Event Space.

Celina Tio opens THE BELFRY January 9.

No, SAMA ZAMA restaurant is not for sale, owner says.

Questionnaire Performing Arts

S a b r i n a S ta i r e S

Jenny Prohaska

Founder, Lucia Aerial

Hometown: Leawood Current neighborhood: The Crossroads What I do (in 140 characters): Founded Lucia

Aerial Performing Arts, an aerial school where we teach, perform and create aerial art. During the day, I work as a forensic psychologist.

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“I just read …” The Gift of Fear, by Gavin de Becker.

The best advice I ever got: Understanding that

you have control only of yourself, and even that is hard to do.

Mott’s pecan pie

Worst advice: “It’s OK, just lie.”

do like running.

What’s your game? Not a game person, but I

My sidekick: Ryan Maybee! My dark knight. He pushes me to be better.

What’s your drink? Well, since Ryan Maybee

My dating triumph/tragedy: Not letting the one

Where’s dinner? The Rieger is our kitchen.

My brush with fame: When I was a psychologist at KU Med, I was the media rep for the psychiatric issues that came up regularly in the news. It was fun and challenging to try and boil down a complex psychological concept to a coherent sound bite.

is my man, I’d say anything from Manifesto!

What’s on your KC postcard? Vintage photo of the Crossroads’ Main Street, early 1900s

Finish this sentence: “Kansas City got it right when …” We voted for the streetcar!

“Kansas City screwed up when …” It instituted

the 1 percent earnings tax on those working in KCMO but living in Kansas.

“Kansas City needs …” More unique boutiques and fewer chain stores.

“In five years, I’ll be …” Growing my aerial

school, teaching kids about art and fitness, and creating opportunities for them to develop into confident adults.

Each week, Pitch Street Team cruises around to the hottest clubs, bars and concerts. You name it, we will be there. While we are out, we hand out tons of cool stuff. So look for the Street Team... We will be looking for you!

I have go.

My 140-character soapbox: I’m not a fan of people asking for handouts. If you need something, offer to do something for them in return.

ot Country Cold Nights, H VooDoo @ ow Cr rt with Ba

an aerial number.

Who’s sorry now? We both lived.

“I always laugh at …” Puppy videos.

forming Arts and selling out all of our shows on our first run, all before we were 12 weeks old.

“I can’t stop listening to …” The National.

For more on Lucia Aerial, see luciaaerial.com.

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What was the last thing you had to apologize for? Kicking a ballet dancer in the face during

My recent triumph: Founding Lucia Aerial Per-

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january 2- 8, 2014

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Kinda Healthy Living We got a head start on your 2014 fitness resolutions. Sort of.

By David Hudnall | Photography by Brooke Vandever

I

was at my gym — TheGymKC, in midtown — not long ago, and my lower back was sore.

It has been sore approximately half the time since the 2011 afternoon when I hurt my back carrying a window air-conditioning unit up two flights of stairs. I was 28. Now I’m 31, an age that seems too young to be griping every other day about back pain.

Usually it’s a dull, low-grade ache, but I had played pickup basketball a few days before and awakened the following morning struggling to turn over in bed. After several days of amassing sympathy — hobbling around the office, whining to friends — I heard it suggested that my back might be less prone to these problems if I, you know, exercised it. Maybe, the thinking went, if I regularly activated those muscles, rather than twisting my body in grotesque ways to avoid using them, things would improve.

How had I not thought of that? Also, how does a person exercise his lower back?

So I was lurking around the gym, trying to identify which machines might do the trick.

Most workout machines have an illustration of a human body on them, emphasizing the muscles targeted. I moved casually from station to station, stealing glances at the drawings, striving to appear aloof. Eventually I found what looked like a match for my aching back.

I still had to figure out how the thing worked. I looked for another typical gym sight: a three-step illustrated explanation indicating what your body should be doing while you’re using a given machine. This wasn’t a straightforward butterfly or shoulder-press piece of equipment, though. It involved a very elaborate harness. So I stood there and examined it with my hands crossed over my head, pretending to catch my breath in between reps of an extremely vigorous routine.

After about a minute, I felt confident that I could strap in. I stuck the pin into a low weight, stepped in and positioned my arms and legs where I thought they were supposed to go. Then I tried to move my torso forward,

as instructed. That didn’t work, so I tried moving. Nothing. I figured that maybe I’d set the weight too high, so I adjusted it to the lowest possible setting, then tried again.

Nothing. Went backward. Nothing. I adjusted my arms to the other side of the bar they were resting on. Nope.

I stared at the illustrations — artwork designed to be intuited in an instant, without the aid of words — but my tiny brain just couldn’t process what it confronted. Finally I disentangled myself from the machine and stood next to it like an idiot, staring at my feet to avoid the gaze of the hundreds of other gym members. That’s when I had my revelation, my rock-bottom moment: I need some outside help here.

B

ecause I belong to a gym, where I’ve gone about three times a week for the past three years, I’ve deluded myself into believing that I’m improving my body. But on closer examination, I’m not doing much there.

I do three rounds of four workouts: arm curls, a rowing machine, an incline press and a holdbarbells-while-I-squat thing that I’m pretty sure I invented. I flail on the elliptical trainer for the length of a podcast. I rarely sweat. And in the past year, without my changing any aspect of my lifestyle, I’ve gained about 10 pounds.

About that lifestyle: There’s room to rein in some excess. During the day, I behave pretty well. I eat things like granola and eggs and wheat toast, and I make fruit-and-vegetable smoothies with a Magic Bullet. But come 6 or 7 p.m., I turn into a monster. Crazed with hunger, my body demands huge, salty, fatty meals, and I oblige it. I drive to a taco shop or a pizza place or to Oklahoma Joe’s (pro tip: Avoid the line and call in the order). And I eat until my body tells me that it can’t handle more food.

Often the food is gone before this signal arrives.

I’m reluctant to disclose how much I drink because there are some people out there, like doctors, who might infer that I have a

drinking problem. I do not have a drinking problem. I don’t crave liquor in the morning, and I don’t drink to silence demons, and I don’t require alcohol to fall asleep at night.

I drink mostly because going out to bars and shows usually seems like the most fun thing to do. If I’m addicted to anything, it’s to having fun. And in my time on earth, drinking has proved to be a very effective way for me to have fun. If I had to honestly answer that doctor’s-office question about how many drinks I consume in a week, most weeks it’d be in the 25–30 range. On a Christmas-break type of week, we might be getting up into the low 40s.

“I’ll tell you how you could lose a little weight,” a health-conscious friend said recently. “You’re not gonna like it. You just have to drink less beer. If you stopped drinking beer, I bet you’d lose 20 pounds.”

But that gets into my whole theory about the tyranny of healthy living. Stay with me for a second. There’s that story from World War II about Winston Churchill’s advisers coming to him and suggesting that Britain cut funding for the arts in order to pay for the war. Churchill refused, saying, “Then what are we fighting for?” — the idea being that a country without the arts is hardly a country worth saving.

That’s roughly the way I feel about my lifestyle as it relates to fitness. Yes, I want to be healthy, look good, live long. I want to win the war. But I’m not willing to cut funding for delicious pies and cakes. If I can’t drink nine beers on a Friday night and stop by the gyro truck on the way home, that sounds like a shitty life to me. I’d rather be a fat fuck than give up those freedoms.

I realize, of course, that there’s a middle ground. I’m not an unreasonable man. I’m willing to make concessions in order to lose weight and gain muscle. I’m willing to eat healthier dinners. I’m willing to curb some of my drinking, or drink a different kind of alcohol. I’m willing to exercise more strenuously.

I’m willing, in other words, to get the help

pitch.com

I need. So recently — more recently than that bad day at the gym — I looked up some people in town who know about this sort of thing.

M

y first stop was Biofit, a fitness operation at 12076 Blue Valley Parkway, in Overland Park. Its founders, Scott Heffner and Justin Prier, are certified personal trainers. Prier is also a physical therapist who favors a neuromuscular approach, which is unusual in the profession. (Heffner and Prier initially bonded over a shared enthusiasm for muscle-activation techniques, which identify and eliminate muscular issues that cause restricted motion, pain and injury.) Biofit’s comprehensive approach makes it attractive to athletes seeking rehabilitation and endurance training — it counts Chiefs players, college tennis players, high school golfers and Olympic athletes among its clients.

But Biofit also works for a schmo like me, who wants to ease a trouble spot and is looking for a little guidance on better workouts and nutrition. The process is necessarily slowgoing. I didn’t do a lick of exercise on my first visit. Prier and I talked over my goals (“Look kinda better with my shirt off”), and then he took me through a range-of-motion assessment. (Prices run anywhere between $45 and $99 per session.)

“If some part of your body is weak, other parts of your body are compensating for it,” Prier told me. “So one of the first things we do with clients is a range-of-motion assessment to see where their deficits are.”

It was a simple evaluation. For example, I was asked to turn my left hip a certain way, then turn my right hip a certain way. As I complied, Prier noted the differences. Among other things, it was revealed that I have some seriously bizarre deficits in my left ankle; it moves about half as well as my right ankle, and I could barely balance myself for longer than a few seconds on my left leg. “So when we start working you out, we take continued on page 6 january 2- 8, 2014

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Waist

Not

Why run toward a better body when you can crawl? The Pitch’s first Fitness Crawl, January 25–February 4, lets you sample workouts from Bikram Yoga (910 West 39th Street), Synergy Fitness (4233 Roanoke Road), HealthRidge Fitness (17800 West 106th Street, Olathe), Wellspring School of Allied Health (9140 Ward Parkway), Sylvester J. Powell Community Center (6200 Martway, Mission), Brazil Academy (11441 Strang Line Road, Lenexa), Cave Bouldering Gym (3150 Mercier), Next Level Fitness (4013 Sterling), Leonardo Peçanha Nova União (1737 Oak), Kansas City Ballet School (500 West Pershing Road), and Brass Boxing & Fitness (7110 Wyandotte). Sign up (and see the full class schedule) at fitnesscrawl.com.

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january 2- 8, 2014

Kinda Healthy Living continued from page 5 those irregularities into account,” Prier said.

The next step: muscle-activation technique, which seeks to jump-start those weak muscles. So Prier had me lie down so that he could target those nerve and muscle areas by massaging them or having me resist pressure he applied to those spots. The idea is that this sends signals to the spinal cord that those muscles haven’t been working properly, which in turn awakens them.

From there, the actual workout begins.

Biofit is big on resistance training, but the regimens are tailored to the clients’ personal goals. “It’s just a matter of you telling us what you want — whether you want to run a marathon or you want a six-pack or bigger muscles,” Prier said. “We’ll figure it out. You just show up, and we’ll take you through the workouts and get you there.”

Prier also continually stressed the importance of nutrition, an ongoing source of confusion for me. On my third visit to Biofit, I was given a body-fat-percentage test.

Heffner took my height (6 feet 1 inch) and weighed me (191 pounds), then used an instrument that grabbed at and measured the excess skin in various parts of my body. Then that information went into a formula, which determined that I have 16.2 percent body fat — 159 pounds of lean mass, 31 pounds of fat — which, I was surprised to learn, falls in the “healthy” range. We agreed that 10 percent body fat, which would drop me to about 180 pounds, would be a reasonable goal to set.

I then took the opportunity to pepper Heffner with a variety of nutrition-related questions.

How many calories per day should I be shooting for?

“For you, at first at least, I’d recommend

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3,000 calories per day, assuming you’re engaged in moderate activity — exercising three to five days a week. Of that food, I’d recommend 30 percent proteins, 20 percent fats and 50 percent carbohydrates. And obviously, it’s important to remember that 3,000 calories of fish, chicken, brown rice and sweet potatoes is different than 2,800 calories of pizza.”

What’s an ideal breakfast?

“There’s that saying that you should eat like a king in the morning, a prince in the afternoon and a pauper at night. And I think that’s mostly true. So for breakfast, maybe crack four eggs, do just the egg whites for two of them, have a couple pieces of wheat toast, maybe some potatoes or hash browns, maybe a little turkey breast.”

What’s a good lunch?

“Today I had boneless, skinless baked chicken, Broccolini florets and roasted garlic couscous that I made at home. Smoothies and shakes are good for lunch if you don’t love vegetables. Throw in an apple, banana, berries, spinach — you can put a lot of greens and veggies into a smoothie, and the taste is masked by the fruits.”

What’s a good dinner?

“Maybe a salad with some grilled shrimp or salmon, an oil-based dressing, and some tomatoes and peppers.”

Is it better to eat a bunch of little meals throughout the day or eat three square meals?

“Personally, I prefer eating throughout the day because it stabilizes the blood sugar and keeps you from having that huge desire to gorge at dinner.”

What’s the healthiest kind of alcohol to drink?

“Straight alcohol — the less mixers the better. Think about a margarita. They add all kinds of sugars and juices to those things on top of the alcohol. You have a big margarita at dinner and you’re adding 1,000 calories to the meal.”

Clockwise from left: Prier and Heffner, of Biofit; Prier; McQuinn showing us the ropes.

Is vodka healthier than whiskey?

“Not in any way that significantly matters.”

Are there any especially effective ways to lose weight in my bulging stomach?

“You really can’t target body-fat loss. When you start losing weight, you lose all over. But if you have more weight to lose in your stomach, it’ll seem like it’s harder to lose. That’s because there was more there to begin with, so it takes longer to lose it.”

Hard truths. But on my way out the door, Heffner did give me one bit of advice with a little sunshine in it: “I think the 80–20 rule is a pretty good one to go by,” he said. “Stay locked into these healthy foods about 80 percent of the time, and the other 20 percent of the time, you don’t have to feel guilty about going out for pizza and beers. You can be realistic about this stuff. You know, I’m not going to go to my daughter’s birthday party and not eat the cake.”

B

efore he was a personal trainer, Derek McQuinn played college football at MidAmerica Nazarene University. He transitioned from that into a career on the professional wrestling circuit. He went through the Harley Race Wrestling Academy in Eldon, Missouri, and spent seven years knocking around the Midwest as “Dangerous Derek.”

He even made it onto a couple of WWE events, playing the bad guy against the league’s superstars. His signature hold was the “Spear of Mass Destruction.”

About a year ago, McQuinn relocated from the Lake of the Ozarks to Kansas City, where he was raised. He trains clients at Excel Wellness Studio, at 11705 College Boulevard, in Overland

Park. His fitness philosophy is, not surprisingly, informed by intense sports.

McQuinn is one of about 60 or so “masterminds,” personal trainers in the United States who have studied under Todd Durkin, a San Diego–based strength-and-conditioning expert who has coached elite football players such as Drew Brees, LaDainian Tomlinson and Aaron Rodgers. Durkin’s philosophy — and, by extension, McQuinn’s — is to “train the Joes like the pros.”

“The best-conditioned people in the world are professional athletes,” McQuinn told me.

“So why not train the way they do? The idea is that you can simulate those guys’ workouts without doing 500-pound lifts. The reason they have bodies like they do is because they’re using all their muscles when they work out.”

What that translates to are workouts with an emphasis on core strength, balance, joint integrity, hand-eye coordination — and very little rest. Our first session went from a five-minute treadmill walk to rounds of jumping jacks to “dirty dogs” (a crouching thing in which you bend your leg out like a dog urinating) to tossing around a medicine ball to walking lunges with dumbbells to a bench press on a Swiss ball to — I honestly can’t remember because I had to cut short our first session when I started seeing stars. (I don’t recommend skipping breakfast before attempting a Todd Durkin–inspired workout.) I plopped down on the closest exercise bike and asked for a minute. Then I went into the restroom because I thought I was going to vomit. But instead I just sat in there trying to lose the dizziness. I glanced at the mirror.

My face looked like a glass of milk.

That experience and the subsequent soreness served to hammer home just how little my bullshit workout routine had been doing for my body as a whole. It had basically called out a number of muscles that probably assumed

they would never be asked to function in any sitting in a roomful of attractive women and looking like a gangly, sweaty, uncoordinated meaningful way. clown has never seemed like a confidenceAt our second session ($55–$65, depending forward way to spend an hour. So I have reon the package), McQuinn took me through what a normal person, a person whose body sisted yoga, even as more and more people I know and respect have embraced it. The way was not in a state of prolonged atrophy, would have completed on a first visit. He’s a fan of I see it, if I’m going to fail at exercise, I’ll fail in the privacy of my home or at the gym at the TRX, suspension-training products made by a most off-peak hours available. company born of the Navy SEALs. Essentially, But the point of this project was to get me you use some simple tools along with your out of my comfort zone, so I scheduled a pribody weight to achieve better results than vate session with a yoga instructor at Maya you get from exercise machines. I simulated Yoga, 215 West 18th Street, in pushups while standing by the Crossroads District ($75 tying a cord to a bar above and behind me, lowering Afterward, she said I had for an hour). I figured such a consultation would limit my myself and pushing my“good body awareness,” humiliation to one witness, self back upright. Toward as opposed to an entire class. the end, I placed around but I’m pretty sure she But the minute I showed up, my waist a gigantic rubber I saw that my plan was illband, which was tied to a was just being polite. conceived: The instructor, a pole, and then I ran forward woman named Jordan Ryan, as far as I could before being was preposterously beautipulled backward. McQuinn ful. And now there was nowhere for me to hide. likes to stick to a formula of threes: Do a “push” Ryan practices a style of yoga called exercise (like a pushup), a “pull” exercise (a Ashtanga, so that’s what we did during our pullup), and then something for the lower session. “There are hundreds of different styles body (a squat or a lunge). of yoga,” she told me. “You just have to find Again, all this was done at a pretty rapid-fire pace. That’s part of McQuinn’s philosophy of what works for you.”

She gravitated toward Ashtanga, in part, efficiency. “To me, it makes more sense to do because of its discipline. (The practice asks you five minutes of intense exercise, where your whole body is working, than do 40 easy min- to attend a session six days a week; Saturdays, full moons and new moons are days of rest.) utes on the treadmill,” he said. “Plus, at least to “I like that it’s kind of humbling — it makes me, it’s way more fun to use these fitness toys and techniques that a quarterback would use you look at yourself, and it’s not something to train than to sit at some exercise machine.” you can easily flirt with,” Ryan said. “It’s a style that asks you to be equally strong and flexible. I think some people might argue that it requires too much exertion, but for me it’s suppose it might go without saying that I’m not a particularly flexible person. There has the perfect balance.”

Ryan gave me a little background about never been a time in my adult life when I’ve been able to touch my toes. Also, the idea of the lineage and history of Ashtanga, but she

I

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McQuinn at Excel Wellness (left) and Ryan at Maya Yoga didn’t push the spirituality aspect of yoga too hard. I asked her if she thought it possible for somebody who doesn’t buy into the mysticalspiritual side of yoga to get a lot out of it. “Absolutely,” she said, “anyone can benefit from linking movement and breath. That’s what’s so wonderful about yoga, that you can take it however deep you want to take it and make your own relationship with it.”

I’m still a little unclear on how easy Ryan took it on me. Afterward, she said I had “good body awareness,” but I’m pretty sure she was just being polite. More than a few times, she demonstrated fairly simple-looking poses that I nevertheless struggled to re-create with my own limbs and torso. Imagine sitting next to somebody who draws a rectangle on a sheet of paper and asks you to do the same. Now imagine that you respond by drawing a squiggly triangle. That’s about what I was doing half the time.

Still, even though I sweated through my shirt — and beads ran down my face and splattered onto the borrowed yoga mat — Ashtanga seemed like an activity I could get reasonably better at with a little perseverance. Only once, during a forward fold, did I feel like I might tip over and pass out. You will not faint in front of this woman, I repeated to myself. You will not faint in front of this woman. So I did at least find a mantra.

At the end of a yoga session, you lie on the mat on your back, in silence, for five minutes, spacing out, letting your mind wander. “Some people really struggle with this part — the sitting still and being silent,” Ryan said. At that, at least, I was an old pro.

E-mail david.hudnall@pitch.com january 2- 8, 2014

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JANUARY 2-8, 2014

“Untitled” by Miles Neidinger

FIRST FRIDAY HIT LIST

H

appy New Year to the city The New York Times called a culturally rich metropolis … four years ago. We’re confident that things have only gotten better, especially First Friday.

The gallery offerings January 3 include a new set of sculptures by Detroit native Herbert Williams III at Plenum Space (504 East 18th Street) that transport you into his journey through life events — and the people along the way — and expresses them through a lens of mythology and folktales.

Using colored pencil on colored paper, Tom Sciacca has created lurid, posterlike images paying tribute to the old-time sideshows and seedy circuses that roamed the country. His Sideshow Serenade at Todd Weiner Gallery (115

West 18th Street) taps into the sideshow-banner tradition through humor and affection, noting that the banners were often more satisfying than the attractions they advertised.

For almost two years at his Jones Gallery (1717 Walnut), David Jones has exhibited lesserknown but highly skilled artists. At January’s Gateway Forward Art, you are sure to find something striking, including hand-forged iron, bronze and silver works by George Rousis.

City Ice Arts (2015 Campbell) opens The Anatomy of the Palace of Wisdom by Miles Neidinger, who is fresh from an installation at New York City’s Flatiron Building. The KC exhibition is a showcase of mixed-media works referencing both his experience as a child helping his parents gut and remodel their home and the 1790 William Blake poem “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” known for the quote “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”

Today is the final call for the clay-based exhibitions Contemporary Talavera Uriarte, Paul Donnelly & Rain Harris: Confluence and The French Connection at Belger Arts Center (2100 Walnut) and Ceramic Top 40 at Red Star Studios (2011 Tracy).

Continuing at Leedy-Voulkos Arts Center (2012 Baltimore) are All the Same by Joe Gregory and Fiber — Glass, with wall-hung quilt-type art by Debbie Barrett-Jones and Kim EichlerMessmer, and glasswork by Dierk Van Keppel.

Also new is the third-annual group exhibition juried by P&M Artworks, Divine. Twenty-four artists show here, including Thomas Woodward, Rachel Forrest and Joe Bussell. Lovers of neoexpressionism will delight in seeing a collection of work in the main gallery from one of the movement’s founders, the late Tony Naponic. Naponic graduated from KCAI in 1974 and had six major solo shows throughout the

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Midwest from 1976 to 1985. He was also a part of 14 group exhibitions at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Gorgeous & Outrageous: The Art of Tony Naponic is up through March 1.

Finally, on Leedy-Voulkos’ lower level is an “interactive, social, traveling art experiment infusing attendees in a performance art experiment.” The Fishnets Experiment: Chapter 3 features photographers Jenifer Cady, Megan Wyeth and Tom Styrkowicz; short films by Andrew Pritzker/Qikfinger Films; dance performances — and you. Rane Bo Nutsch Cross of Paraplui Productions promises a “loose framework and platform from which professional or amateur artists can collaborate and create work, to provide anyone with an excuse to play and be the true expression of their spirit.”

— TRACY ABELN

Daily listings on page 22 january 2- 8, 2014



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9

art

ExplorEr s

T

he Charlotte Street Foundation’s Visual Artist Awards Exhibition presents a formidable challenge for the host gallery: connecting disparate artists, genres and mediums in a coherent way. Grand Arts is up to that task. Though each of this year’s award winners maintains his or her own aesthetic, this show reveals a shared preoccupation with manipulating images and figures in order to reimagine them in new lights and lives.

Mike Erickson’s imaginative paintings outgrow the clean lines of his flat acrylics and invite us to reconsider recognizable forms.

“Friends Entangled With Enemies, Enemies Entangled With Friends, This Is Confusion.

Friends Entangled With Friends, This Is Not Confusion” is perhaps the most straightforward of his pieces, depicting a coiling mass of snakes. Venomous corals curl labyrinthine around harmless kings, enemies disguised by friends.

Erickson’s titles aren’t subtle, but their delirious length mandates a separate contemplation. Consider, for example, his “A 5th Century Greek Vase With a Depiction of a Visit I Made, to Consult the Oracle at Delphi, About My Nagging Doubts Regarding the Official Story Behind the Boston Marathon Bombing, This Is an Ongoing Issue in My Lives.” Here we see Erickson playing with time and suggest-

10

the pitch

january 2- 8, 2014

Charlotte Street’s award winners

By

plant their f lags at Grand Arts.

L i z C ook

ing that, in ancient artifacts, we might find a these figures, filtering skin color and clothing through the ruffled white rips. remedy for postmodern confusion.

“Port Antonio Market #5” captures a man But verbal context isn’t necessary to aplooking back over one shoulder, his dark skin preciate Erickson’s technical mastery: the crisp fields of color, the minimalist presen- sparking static against the white shreds.

Smith leaves his eyes exposed, peering, tation of the vase on the plinth. He riffs on haunted, out of the mask at us. The other the austerity of museums, contrasting rigid two “Port Antonio” pieces on display excise visual structures with the warmer, more fluid depiction on the vase itself. The scene skews expression, drowning the hollows of eyes and mouths in monochromatic pools. Each of proportions playfully: The oracle smiles, bare feet dangling from her perch. Her visitor is a these pieces, however, is electric; his figures hapless cartoon of a man, his muppety mouth glimmer like mirages in the shadowy Port Antonio marketplace. turned comically downward, his arms lost in Grand Arts seems to have staged Erika the folds of his garment. Erickson rejects the Lynne Hanson’s work in a athletic bodies and aggressensory acceleration chamsive poses we expect from Charlotte Street ber. Thick black curtains Grecian art in favor of squat Foundation secret her pieces away figures and casual postures.

Visual Artist from the gallery’s ambient Across the gallery, Paul Awards Exhibition light and sound; instead, Anthony Smith engages in Through February 1 our soundtrack is of waves a similar reimagining. His at Grand Arts, 1819 Grand, crashing and rolling along a adorned prints manipulate 816-421-6887, grandarts.com beach (from her video “But ordinary figures (marketof the relationships between goers from Port Antonio, the measurements of its space and the events Jamaica) into shimmering, threatening specters. Smith picks apart the images with of its past”). Colored halogen lamps supply much of the lighting in the room, filtering our a ceramic tool, crafting tiny tears in the surencounter with each piece through moody face of the print to lift his subjects out of their setting — his version of picotage. The colors and long shadows.

Hanson undertakes a digital exploration of process creates a kind of full-body mask for

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From left: a Hanson weaving, an Erickson vase, Smith’s “Port Antonio Market #5” landscapes, combining inkjet-printed screenshots of national parks with weavings, bead work and object arrangements that reimagine them in another medium. It’s a process that can seem, at times, opaque. Her screenshots and beadings cohere along loose themes of time and memory but keep us at an emotional remove — we consider these artifacts from an anthropological distance, as if they were relics from an alien world.

Hanson’s weavings are notable exceptions, engaging us with pointed curiosity.

The loose fibers and sunset-streaked colors of “potential future views from the past; apparently smog has something to do with it” evoke palpable nostalgia for these places.

The weave structure is no less complex and beautiful. Her crafts emphasize the human hand in each exploration.

The winners of the 2013 Visual Artist Awards energize and elevate the mundane to strange new heights in their imaginative reconstructions. Grand Arts invites us to share in that exploration, and we’re happy to encounter new worlds along with them.

E-mail feedback@pitch.com

Shop Girl

Happy New Hair

More shampoo, less shampoo, no shampoo? Help!

By

N a Nc y Hul l R igdoN

O

ne of my earliest hair memories is Wolf Girl, a game I played as a little girl with my older brother. We’d flip my hair over my face, a move we thought transformed me into a wolf. When I realized that other kids didn’t do this, I knew there was something different about my hair.

There was simply more of it — much more.

But I had no reason to complain back then. I had great hair: long, dark, smooth, extremely thick. It was great for all sorts of cute little-girl styles: pigtails, braids, you name it.

Things didn’t take a dark turn until middle school — already one of the most traumatic parts of the human life span. A furious and coarse kink overtook about half my hair. Owning it was frightening. Taming it was impossible. While other kids were struggling with acne, braces and other physical awkwardness, I was in my room crying over my white-girl Afro gone wrong.

By high school, my horrible hair had earned me some cruel nicknames. I got straight perms a few times. They didn’t work.

Late in high school, though, an incredible thing happened: My hair turned good again.

Actually, it turned amazing. Seemingly overnight, it thinned a necessary amount and took on an altogether new silkiness. Sure, hormonal swings of the teen years can lead to drastic hair changes, but to me, it felt like someone, somewhere, for some reason, had answered my every wish.

The adult years of my hair have gone pretty well, though I’ve grown neglectful. With as much hair as I have, washing and drying it can be a nearly one-hour ordeal, so it has become a low priority. Washing every few days has given way to washing once a week. I can get away with it because my hair is thick and not very oily. Luckily for me, top knots are in.

I justify my laziness with the doctor-backed message that unless your hair is oily, there’s no reason to wash it frequently. A hundred years ago, washing hair once a month was common, and 50 years ago, a once-a-week routine was the norm. It’s hard not to view frequent hair washing as yet another example of unnecessary excess in modern culture.

And your average hair-care product is already a study in ingredient excess. I recently tried to read the lists on the back of a few runof-the-mill shampoo and conditioner bottles.

The longest word among the countless polysyllabic compounds was methylchloroisothiazolinone, a preservative that the American Contact Dermatitis Society awarded the unfortunate title of 2013 Contact Allergen of the Year.

So I decided to try a more natural approach to hair care. Online, I found a simple recipe with a few household items — baking soda, vin-

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Wallace’s dos don’t necessarily include this stuff. egar, coconut oil and water — and headed to my kitchen. Seemed simple, but my hair emerged a greasy mess. Apparently, I had used four times the proper amount of coconut oil. (Even simple recipes require that you actually read them.)

I sought out Kim Wallace for advice. As the Kansas City woman tells it, she went “greenerslash-cleaner” beautywise several years ago, while she was writing the natural-beauty beat for Topeka-based Natural Home, a magazine later renamed Mother Earth Living. She confirmed my suspicions about the ingredients in common shampoos and conditioners.

“A lot of your standard hair- and skin-care products have very harsh detergents, and some of the sulfates are the same ingredients found in high-powered washes used to clean the under-hood of cars. We don’t need that sort of detergent on our skin and hair,” says Wallace, who now runs her own beauty blog at kimberlyloc.com.

I reached my own conspiracy-minded conclusion: Mainstream hair-care companies intentionally load your hair with horrible stuff so that you need more of their products to keep your hair decent.

Wallace has tried the household-item haircare recipes, but she sticks with clean shampoo and conditioner brands that she trusts — ones that use organic ingredients and fair-trade standards. Occasionally, she adds an applecider-vinegar rinse or an argan-oil treatment to her routine. The overall result, she says, is that her hair stays very soft.

I decided to copy her regimen. I went to my local natural grocer, Green Acres, in the

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“Everyone here has switched to that,” she told me. “It is incredible.” With pleasant ingredients such as blackberry, sugar beets, pumpkin and sunflower, I was sold.

My inaugural washing and conditioning went uneventfully, and I do think that my hair is shinier, though I could be looking for it. I may try one of Wallace’s home-remedy treatments, if ambition strikes.

My quest to take my hair back to nature will go down as only the latest peculiar chapter in the odd story of my hair, but I think I’m permanently off the nonorganic stuff. It just feels right.

Now I’m ready for the next chapter: seeing what happens when I try to turn my nearly black hair blond.

E-mail feedback@pitch.com pitch.com

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White Horse Pub proves that there’s nothing bland about British cuisine.

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Ch a r l e s F e r ru z z a

White Horse Pub • 10221 North Oak Trafficway, 816-500-7472 • Hours: 11 a�m�–10 p�m� Monday, Wednesday–Thursday; 11 a�m�–11 p�m� Friday–Saturday; 11 a�m�–7 p�m� Sunday; closed Tuesday • Price: $–$$

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f I were planning to open a British-style pub in the metro, I’m not sure I’d choose a location on the periphery of Gladstone — the Clay County hamlet famous for In-A-Tub, Hayes Hamburgers and Chili, and the China One Buffet.

Then again, legendary statesman William Ewart Gladstone, who served four terms as British prime minister during the Victorian era, offers a modest link to the United Kingdom. If e r Mo that historical reference isn’t enough, there’s the life-size fiberglass t a ine Onl .com statue of a traditional h pitc Coldstream Guard (in red tunic and tall fur cap) standing at attention at the entrance to the two-month-old White Horse Pub. The imposing figure adds unexpected drama to a place that could otherwise pass as a modest neighborhood restaurant anywhere in the United States.

The dining-room walls — lined with framed photos and artistic renderings of Twiggy, the Beatles, Rowan Atkinson, Dudley Moore and HRH Elizabeth II (of course) — make the point with slightly more subtlety.

You have to expect a certain amount of theatricality here; the pub’s owner, Toby Corder, was raised in London, the son of popular BBC soap opera actress Daphne Green. (She had a long run on the Emmerdale TV serial.)

Corder is a veteran of corporate restaurant chains (including Waffle House and TGI Friday’s). He met his future wife when they were working at a summer camp. “My wife was originally from Kansas City, Kansas,” Corder says. “And when we had an opportunity to move here, we did.”

English cooking is often dismissed as one of the lesser European cuisines, but that notion raises hackles with Corder, who blames the food rationing that accompanied World War I and World War II for the bland British diet.

“When I was growing up in London, I passed six pubs, one Chinese take-away, one Greek café and an Indian restaurant every day,” he says, “and the food was delicious in all of them.”

Corder’s White Horse P ub of fers a modest British culinary repertoire — fish and chips, bangers and mash, shepherd’s pie — and at least two dishes inspired by its former colony India, such as a hearty bowl

AngelA C. Bond

Café

clientele is culled mostly from the immediate neighborhood and not, sadly, from Heathrow Airport. Corder’s fish and chips are very tasty, but they would be even more intriguing if of chicken tikka masala and, on the starter list, a tandoori chicken quesadilla (topped Maggie Smith and Sir Ian McKellen were sitting at the next table, nibbling on Scotch eggs with mozzarella for true international flair). and bad-mouthing Harry But the White Horse, Potter scripts. which bills itself as “a litWhite Horse Pub C o rde r s ay s he w a s tle spot of Britain without Fish and chips ���������������������$10 warned that Northlanders crossing the pond,” doesn’t Bangers and mash ���������������$9 wouldn’t order lamb, but pretend to be too grandly inShepherd’s pie���������������������$10 he says he’s selling a lot ternational. The menu also The Full Monty ���������������������$9 Sticky toffee of it. If you’ve tasted the offers crispy fried chicken bread pudding �������������������� $5 White Horse Pub’s excellent wings (available in Buffalo shepherd’s pie, a casserole sauce or a tandoori version); of fragrant ground lamb, a quintet of burgers (beef, turkey, chicken, lamb or nonmeat); salads; vegetables and a crust of fluffy real mashers, and a British breakfast, called “The Full you can understand why lamb would be a Monty” here, featuring two eggs, a banger, hit here. The lamb burger is also excellent.

Corder’s banger sausages and mashed British bacon, Heinz baked beans and a grilled potatoes are also outrageously good. “My tomato slice. sausages are made from free-range pigs,” “It’s especially popular with expats in the Corder boasts, “made to my specifications.” community,” Corder says of the Full Monty.

They are very good plump sausages, “To be honest, I don’t think that Heinz beans snuggled under a blanket of shiny brown are very good, but we have customers degravy. voted to them. It’s a sentimental thing.”

The White Horse Pub’s dessert list isn’t You can’t help but like this joint, even if the

Clockwise from above: bangers and mash, Island Style burger, sticky toffee pudding

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elaborate. And because I’m starting to look like a free-range pig myself these days, I was wary of ordering anything from it. But Corder is a slick talker, and before I knew it, I was spooning up an excellent sticky toffee bread pudding — pillowy soft and not too sweet — and the baked-apple fruit crumble served with a warm house-made custard that was as pretty as it was tasty: the Keira Knightley of baked sweets.

The service is quick and attentive. (It helps that Corder’s son, Toby Jr., is one of the waiters and watches over the dining room with an eagle eye.) And the prices are almost scandalously inexpensive. None of the entrees costs more than $10.

There aren’t many British-style restaurants in the metro, but the White Horse Pub is appealing enough to “cross the pond” — or, in this case, the Missouri River. Be on your best behavior, though. I’m still not sure that the stern-looking Coldstream Guard isn’t really watching.

Have a suggestion for a restaurant The Pitch should review?

E-mail charles.ferruzza@pitch.com january 2- 8, 2014

the pitch

13

MISSOURI’S SMALLEST BREWERY

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the pitch

january 2- 8, 2014

t’s official: Ernesto Peralta is closing the four-year-old Country Club Plaza location of Blanc Burgers + Bottles. He plans to be out of the space at 4710 Jefferson by January 31 — so that he can return the restaurant to Westport.

As I reported in a November Fast Pitch post, Peralta had already leased the former Simply Breakfast location at 4120 Pennsylvania. But he didn’t want to confirm Blanc’s move until he had negotiated a release from his Plaza lease.

Peralta and Highwoods Properties, which owns the Plaza, have come to an agreement, allowing Peralta to begin moving furnishings and equipment away from Jefferson Street by mid-January.

“In a perfect world,” Peralta says, “we’ll be open in the new Westport location by mid-February.

“We will not be adding to or minimizing the Blanc menu for the new restaurant,” Peralta says. He adds that the new restaurant will be closer in style and concept to his Leawood location at Mission Farms.

Peralta says he has no regrets about moving the original Blanc Burgers + Bottles to the bigger, more expensive (and less visible) location on Jefferson.

“The Country Club Plaza is a very iconic location for any restaurant,” he says. “And we did very well there in the beginning. But after the economy faltered, people started being more economical in their dining decisions. We felt it was time to return to a smaller venue where we could also stay open later.”

Peralta, who joined forces with Kansas City–based Leap Hospitality in September, says the new Westport Blanc is going to serve food until midnight every day. (The

pitch.com

Celina Tio rings in

Trading spaces: Blanc’s Peralta Plaza location stayed open until 10 p.m. during the week and until midnight on Friday and Saturday.)

The new restaurant’s footprint is smaller than the Plaza venue but slightly larger than the original Blanc (which was at 419 Westport Road, in the space now occupied by the Westport Café and Bar). It seats 95 patrons. Peralta says he’s letting his Plaza staff reapply for positions in Westport, but he figures that the new Blanc will use the same number of employees as the larger Plaza operation because of its later hours.

Peralta thinks his timing is right. This stretch of Pennsylvania already boasts the popular Port Fonda restaurant and is getting, later in 2014, Julep (a new cocktail lounge created by Beau Williams and Keely Edgington) and Ça Va, Howard Hanna’s champagne bar.

“I feel that Westport is really on the cutting edge again,” Peralta says. “It’s very cool, a real local destination point that attracts both young hipsters and empty nesters. It has the best Kansas City has to offer right now.”

Port Fonda’s success, however, has upped the ante on Westport’s parking. Peralta says he plans to offer valet parking and to designate a certain number of parking spaces in the circle drive in front of the restaurant.

“I’ve learned a lot over the last four years,” he says. “I wish I had known then what I know now. But the knowledge is going to help make the new Blanc a better, stronger restaurant. It’s going to be a fresh, young, vibrant place.”

E-mail charles.ferruzza@pitch.com

a new year downtown.

O

n the last Thursday in December, the bar in the Belfry — chef Celina Tio’s casual saloon and coffee bar, adjacent to her seven-month-old Collection restaurant at 1532 Grand — was vibrating with activity. The concrete floor was being scrubbed, and the bar, which had been e r Mo created out of old r e c l a i m e d wo o d panels, was being t a ine Onl .com polished.

Liquor of pitch every variety was being stocked behind the bar. Tio was gearing up for that night’s soft opening.

January 9 marks what Tio says is a grand opening for the conjoined Belfry and Collection. The venues’ names are taken from gathering places in the private boarding school in Pennsylvania that Tio attended as a youngster. She had hoped to open the Belfry soon after Collection opened last summer, but construction delays slowed the process.

The ca sua l Bel f r y feat u res t wo menus, both different from what’s offered at Collection. Breakfast to-go items are available from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., with coffee (just coffee — no lattes or cappuccinos) from Oddly Correct, the Broadway Café and the Roasterie (among others).

For the less morning-inclined, Tio is planning Belfry memberships. Forty bucks for the first year gets you a personalized, etched specialty pint glass and a liquor discount on certain nights.

— C.F.

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15

Music

Late BLoomer

Scott Hrabko’s debut album has been

By

nearly three decades in the making.

N ata l ie G a l l a Ghe r

Y

ou’ve probably never heard of me,” singer-songwriter Scott Hrabko warns in a note attached to a copy of his full-length debut, Gone Places. “My musical career has been a textbook example of bad timing, missed connections, stops and starts and detours.”

Indeed, there have been plenty of detours on Hrabko’s musical journey. He started playing when he was 25, picking up a guitar after college and getting involved in some punk e Mor and electronic bands.

By the mid-1980s, one of Hrabko’s first bands, t a e in Onl .com a cowpunk outfit called h c it p the Splinters, was playing a few shows around town — some with a young Iris DeMent, who was, Hrabko says, “a lot more rockand-roll back then.”

“I started writing songs, and right away there were sort of low-pressure situations where we could get gigs,” Hrabko says from an armchair inside a Brookside coffee shop.

“The Grand Emporium — it was a club on Main Street where on Monday nights they would just let bands play. The Splinters played there, and that’s kind of where we got started. We met Iris somehow — I don’t know, I think she worked at a restaurant there somewhere. She was writing songs and just starting out, and we wound up singing together and did some songs at Parody Hall downtown. That’s another club that doesn’t exist.”

I n p e r s on, H ra bko’s cou nte n a nce matches his humbly written introduction.

He’s ordinary-looking in a Bill Clinton– takes-a-day-off kind of way, with deep-set sea-green eyes and a head of hair that’s a little more salt than pepper. He’s dressed in a monochromatic blue plaid shirt and jeans, paging through a newspaper at a tiny, window-side table at Aixois.

Hrabko is 53. He gives up that information with a reluctant laugh. He’d rather just say “middle-aged.” I tell him that he’s welcome to give me a stage age, but he waves off the comment. He’s a little self-conscious, perhaps because it’s slightly strange for him to start a music career at this point in his life. But that’s what he’s endeavoring to do with the December-released Gone Places.

Recorded a nd produced most ly at Hrabko’s home, with the exception of a few tracks, Gone Places is the second album that Hrabko has ever appeared on. (He was included on a 2005 album by local cover band the Original Sinners.) And if one of its 13 tracks sauntered through the overhead

16

the pitch

january 2- 8, 2014

Barrett emke

M us i c

Hrabko will take you Places. speakers of a local bar, you might wonder, “Where have I heard this before?”

“I don’t necessarily belong to my era, in many ways. Sometimes I wish I was part of another era,” Hrabko says. “Sometimes I write songs where I actually pretend that rock and roll never happened. As much as I love rock and roll, it’s kind of blotted out a lot of music that happened before.”

Hrabko’s debut sounds like a record belonging in rotation between Buck Owens and Willie Nelson. It feels familiar, the way a classic country album would. Hrabko has forsaken anything resembling punk and electronica: Part blues, part western swing, Gone Places is an album filled with slide guitar, pedal steel and jangly piano notes.

“It’s really the last 10 years,” Hrabko says, “that I’ve decided that’s where my home is and that’s what I am.”

The songs seem to have been made for jukeboxes or car-stereo sing-alongs on long road trips. Most of Hrabko’s tunes are about the road, recalling places he has been — and a few he has made up. Some of them are new; others stretch to the early 1990s.

“This is the thing that is absolutely torture

pitch.com

for me about music: Nothing ever comes to me in one piece,” Hrabko says. “It’s always, like, there’ll be a line. It was tougher than jerky in Albuquerque. Those lines will just sit in a notebook, literally for years, until I have a place to put them. Writing for me is like juggling these little moments, these little scraps that I come up with over the years, and putting them together in some way.”

The little moments on Gone Places tend to refer to women lost and found and blues picked up along the way. Hrabko can count Lyle Lovett as a contemporary; he shares a number of vocal and stylistic qualities with the Texas singer. Lyrically, though, Hrabko seems to have taken lessons from John Prine: With folk-taught wisdom, Hrabko is too witty to sound completely heartbroken. On the standout track “Lonely Satellite,” Hrabko calls out cheerfully: From a frozen phone booth in Nevada/I can hardly hold the dimes/I dial your number, honey/A little humbler every time.

Hrabko, a video editor for a market-research company, understands the peculiar situation he’s in. He glances grimly out the window.

“It’s really a terrible time to think about a career in music. There’s such a flood of stuff. And a lot of it is good,” Hrabko says.

“I was looking at a lot of stuff around here that came out this year and I was like, ‘Well, I should have just waited or something. It’s just going to get lost in the shuffle.’”

He goes on: “I mean, I have no great credentials to throw at anybody. Every band I’ve ever started lasted, like, two years, so there’s really not much to say. I even quit music a couple times because I was just so fed up, you know? But I just had these songs, and I had to get them out there.”

Everything on Hrabko’s Gone Places is, like the man himself, understated. It’s an elegant, confident debut album from an artist who sounds like he has always belonged, as though he has always been around. It’s such a subtle offering that, yes, it would be easy to miss.

“I’m not trying to be a big star or anything.

I’d just like to stay busy making music,” Hrabko says. “That was my goal before the album ever happened. I just wanted to write great songs. That was always my goal. And in the end, I can’t decide whether they are or not. … It’s sort of like, ‘I exist. I wrote these.’

It’s a marker. Hopefully there’ll be more, too, now that I’ve started.”

E-mail natalie.gallagher@pitch.com

pitch.com

january 2- 8, 2014

the pitch

17

WHERE THE BEST MUSICIANS IN THE WORLD PLAY

KNUCKLEHEADS F re e S h u tt le in S u rr o u n d in g A reth e a

JANUARY: 2: American Aquarium 3: 4 Fried Chickens & a Coke 8: Fast Johnny Ricker 9: The Dead Girls & The Choosy Beggars 10: The BelAirs & Barnaby Lights 10: Slick Nick Schnebelen 11: Kilroy’s Elvis Birthday Bash Sara Morgan - GL

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TRIBUTE SHOW 19: Michael Martin Murphey

For more info & tickets: knuckleheadshonkytonk.com 2715 Rochester, KCMO

816-483-1456

18

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january 2- 8, 2014

music

Sad BaStardS

American Aquarium’s B.J. Barham loves

By

what he does — even if it sounds depressing.

N ata l ie G a l l a Ghe r

I

t’s a miracle that American Aquarium has survived these past seven years. The band’s five members carry a reputation for fast living, playing more than 250 shows a year. And lead singer B.J. Barham certainly sounds weathered.

Barham’s rough, whiskey-stung vocals push against twangy guitar notes and rowdy drums on 2012’s Burn.Flicker.Die. Despite the bleak title, Burn gave American Aquarium a new beginning. The confessional honesty and hopelessness of the album’s 12 tracks connect with listeners in the way sad songs always seem to do.

Ahead of American Aquarium’s Thursday show at Knuckleheads Saloon, we dialed up Barham at his home in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The Pitch: I heard that Burn was supposed to be the band’s last album. What has kept you going?

Barham: It [the album] almost rejuvenated supposed to be the guy that got a real job, you know? And I became a musician. So for the the band, really, putting out a record that first couple years, needless to say, my parents we were so proud of — that, in turn, other people really dug as well. This was the first weren’t the most supportive.

I think over the past couple years, my partime where everything that needed to happen ents have finally gotten it. They’ve been to a happened. We put out a record that we were super-pumped about, and we put everything couple sold-out shows, where a thousand kids are screaming the words to the songs. After we had into it because we really thought it was one of those shows, my dad just said, “I get it.” gonna be our last record. And then our fans got You’ve been in this business for a long time. ahold of it, and it turned out to be their favorite record. It just really reinstilled in us that this is What’s the most valuable thing you’ve gotten out of all the years? really what we’re supposed to do.

Music’s been my way to kind of find who Why do you think people respond so positively I am. I’ve gotten to travel. I’ve gotten to see to the stuff that really breaks your heart? three continents. Music’s allowed me to see as Nobody wants to hear about country bands much of the world as I can, and for a redneck being happy. That’s what pop music is for. If from Reidsville, North Caroyou’re listening to this genre lina, that’s pretty good. I’ve of music, then you’re listenAmerican Aquarium found out who I am because ing for sad-bastard songs.

Thursday, January 2, at of traveling. I’ve found that You want to hear about the Knuckleheads Saloon just because you’re born a heartache. certain way, just because Our past four records you’re born in a certain family, that doesn’t have all been about girls, breaking up with mean you have to do exactly what they do or girls, and this record was our breakup record with the road. It’s still very much a breakup think exactly the way they think.

Do you still love what you do? record. I wrote the record, the standpoint of Passionately. There’s a lot of times in this it being the road we were breaking up with. It business where you don’t get paid, or if you [the road] was the longest-lasting relationship do get paid, it’s just PBR. The first five or six I’d ever had, and we were parting ways.

On “Cape Fear River,” you talk specifically years this band was together, we made zero money. I lived in a storage unit for a few years about your dad and about getting out of town and trying to make him proud. What’s your re- here in Raleigh. It’s one of those things where you give up a lot of stuff just to appease the lationship with your dad like now?

We have a really wonderful relationship. I muse, to prove to her that you want to put in come from a really small town in North Caro- the work. I’ve done this professionally for eight years and, hopefully, I’ve got 20 or 30 left in me. lina called Reidsville, and it’s just like any I heard you guys are working on a new album. other small farm town in America: It’s povertyI’m currently over halfway done writing stricken, and every parent wants their kid the new record. Hopefully, I’ll be done with to do better than they did. I’m the first guy it in January or February, and we can start in my family that went to college, and I was

pitch.com

A new age of Aquarium dawns. recording it in April or May. I think this is the first happy record I’ve written, and by “happy,” I mean the subject matter is a bit more upbeat.

The songs still sound depressing. When I’ve described it to people, I say that I’m writing happy songs for people that love sad songs.

For the first time in my entire life, I’m in an extremely happy place.

e-mail feedback@pitch.com

J a z z B e at Brett Jackson & Friends, at take Five coFFee + Bar

Four years ago, Lori and Doug Chandler opened Take Five Coffee + Bar and have since built it into a suburban weekend jazz oasis. Friday, Take Five celebrates its anniversary with champagne, cake and, more important, the music of Dexter Gordon — as played by Brett Jackson & Friends. Jackson’s rich tenorsax tone and winding, lyrical, consistently fresh solos place him among the brightest young forces in Kansas City jazz today. Trumpeter Ryan Thielman, bassist Dominique Sanders, drummer John Kizilarmut, and veteran pianist Chris Clarke (whose keyboards give weight to any ensemble and are always a delight to hear) join Jackson in celebrating jazz legend Dexter Gordon.— Larry Kopitnik Brett Jackson & Friends, 8–10 p.m. Friday, January 3, at Take Five Coffee + Bar, 5336 West 151st Street, $5 cover.

APPEARING LIVE THIS WEEK wednesday 7PM TRIVIA open blues jam fri 1.3: DINNER SHOW AT 6PM WITH THE ROMAN ALEXANDER BAND 10PM REX HOBART & THE MISERY BOYS, THE BULLHAULERS, OUTLAW JIM & THE WHISKEY BENDERS sat 1.4: 10PM KONZA SWAMP BAND, LOU SHIELDS - OMB, OLD SOUND, GYPSY SPARROW wed 1.8: 1ST ANNUAL POOR DECISIONS AWARDS OPEN MIC TELL-ALL SHARE YOUR WORST DECISIONS OF 2013

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Music Forecast Neiv is kind of creepy. The Italian trio makes dark, synthed-out rock that would suggest Talking Heads if Talking Heads had exhibited goth inclinations. In Neiv’s videos, bassist Lorena, keyboard player Jennie, and guitarist and lead singer PJ — none of the members use last names — are either entwined in some sort of sexily depressed three-way (“Isola”) or glaring threateningly at viewers through gobs of black makeup and body paint (“Let Me Cry”). Neiv’s new album, the hopefully titled Euphoria, is due out this month. This RecordBar stop is one of only nine U.S. dates, so if you have a thing for Italians or eyeliner — or, especially, Italians in eyeliner — you should pencil this in.

Friday, January 3, at RecordBar (1020 Westport Road, 816-753-5207)

Kid Sister

The Invisible World

A couple of years ago, after nearly a decade of making music, local indie-rock band A Dead Giveaway decided to take some time off.

When the foursome eventually regrouped last year, they found that their sound had changed, which necessitated some rebrand-

ing. In August, the band, now called the Invisible World, released its first new material since the members reunited. Though the Invisible World has a scarce four songs living on the Internet, those tracks add up to a promising start. The gentle folk pop of “Cars,” with its whistled harmonies, is charming and wistful, and “Wandering Man” adopts a dark edge with slinky electric-guitar notes. Whether you want to reminisce or rediscover, this should be a fun night. With GasTown Lamps, Dsoedean and Jonathan Theobald.

Saturday, January 4, at Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club (3402 Main, 816-753-1909)

Let the Beat Build

Wednesday marks the second installment of local rapper Reach’s new open-mic series, Let the Beat Build. As always with

f o r e c a s t

the pitch

january 2- 8, 2014

n ata l ie G a l l a Ghe r

Neiv

The Chicago-by-way-of-Los Angeles MC Melisa Young, better known as Kid Sister, is on the rise. She’s the, uh, younger sister of DJ Flosstradamus, who produced her highly anticipated, soon-to-arrive album — no word yet on a title or an official release date, just confirmation of its existence and the promise of a 2014 release. Kid Sister has collaborated in recent years with some big names in the hip-hop world, including Kanye West, Danny Brown and Riff Raff. Recently, she also debuted a new music video for her song “Bed Breaker” and a fresh track called “Hoes in This House,” both of which earn points for their smooth flow and dance-club energy. If you’re looking for a Saturday-night party, this is it.

Saturday, January 4, at the Riot Room (4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179)

20

By

Kid Sister the ever-busy MC, there’s a catch: The first of the night’s three sessions is structured, featuring Reach and a few selected guests and regular collaborators performing some freestyle raps and beats to get the crowd warmed up and to set the tone. The second session is open to the public, but instead of one microphone, there will be three — the better to emphasize on-the-spot group freestyles. The third session is what Reach calls a “wild card,” something special he cooks up to close out the evening. No matter if you’re a poet, a rapper or just a spectator, you’ll definitely be engaged.

Wednesday, Januar y 8, at RecordBar (1020 Westport Road, 816-753-5207)

K e Y

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Not Enough Eyeliner in the World

Not for Kids

Indie Rock

Kinda Scary

Locally Sourced

Wild Card

Dance Party

Getting the Band Back Together

Italy Represent

Hip-Hop

Freestyle

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january 2- 8, 2014

the pitch

21

AGENDA

continued from page 9

Thursday | 1.2 |

CHIEFS PLAYOFF GAME

ART EXHIBITS & EVENTS About Face: Contemporary Portraiture | Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 4525 Oak, nelson-atkins.org

COMEDY

Otto and George | 7:45 & 9:45 p.m. Stanford’s Comedy Club, 1867 Village West Pkwy., KCK

Lynn Benson: Sidetrip | 12-4 p.m. Saturday, Kiosk Gallery, 3951 Broadway

SPORTS & REC

Crown Center Ice Terrace | 10 a.m.-9 p.m., $6 ($3

Celebrating Picasso: Through the Lens of David Douglas Duncan | Nelson-Atkins

skate rental), 2450 Grand

Museum of Art, 4525 Oak

The Ice at Park Place | 11 a.m.-10 p.m., $7 ($3 skate rental), 117th St. and Nall, Leawood

Charlotte Street’s 2013 Visual Artist Awards Exhibition | Grand Arts, 1819 Grand, charlottestreet.org

KU vs. West Virginia women’s basketball | 7 p.m.

Allen Fieldhouse, 1651 Naismith Dr., Lawrence

Edgar Degas Pastels | Nelson-Atkins Museum

of Art, 4525 Oak

Midnight bike ride through Christmas in the Park | 7 p.m. Longview Lake Campground, 10711 W. Scherer, makeyourdayhere.com (check-in 5:30 p.m. at Frank White Sports Complex, 3901 S.W. Longview Rd., Lee’s Summit)

DAY SATUR

1.4

Red Dog’s Dog Days | 6 a.m.

Allen Fieldhouse, 1651 Naismith Dr., Lawrence

MORE

EVENTS

ONL

INE

AT

M PITCH.CO

dy’s es ses In KC pr ain . g a k c Lu

UMKC vs. Idaho women’s basketball | 7 p.m. Swinney

Recreation Center, UMKC, 5100 Rockhill Rd.

tivolikc.com

Chiefs vs. Colts AFC Wild Card Game | 3:35 p.m. Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, on NBC

Old Salt Union | 9 p.m. Davey’s Uptown Ramblers

Club, 3402 Main

FOOD & DRINK

Sage & Sour, Rocket Blue Opera, Sextonic Plates | 10 p.m. RecordBar, 1020 Westport Rd.

Indoor farmers market | 4-6 p.m. Cottin’s Hardware

Nicky Scruggs | 8 p.m. Mestizo, 5270 W. 116th Pl.,

Think 2wice Thursdays with Brent Tactic | Gusto

Lounge, 504 Westport Rd.

Friday | 1.3 | PERFORMING ARTS

Store, 1832 Massachusetts, Lawrence MUSIC

American Aquarium | 8:30 p.m. Knuckleheads Sa-

loon, 2715 Rochester

Braingea, Hyperbor | 10 p.m. Replay Lounge, 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence

Joe Cartwright Trio | 9 p.m. Green Lady Lounge,

Leawood

Lester “Duck” Warner Project | 7 p.m. The Blue

Lawrence Arts Center, 940 New Hampshire, Lawrence

Bram Wijnands Duo | 6 p.m. The Majestic Restaurant,

First Friday Story Slam | 8 p.m. The Uptown Arts

Roger Wilder Duo | 6 p.m. Chaz on the Plaza, 325

COMEDY

931 Broadway

Ward Pkwy.

NIGHTLIFE

Massachusetts, Lawrence

Brodioke | 9 p.m. Bulldog, 1715 Main Feel Good | 8 p.m. The Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire,

Grand Marquis | 7 p.m. Jazz, 1823 W. 39th St.

Lawrence

Late Night Rendezvous, Tyler Gosnell | 7 p.m.

Luxury Bump | 10 p.m. Firefly Lounge, 4118

Czar, 1531 Grand

Scott Moyer Band, Casi Joy, Potters Field | 8 p.m.

The Riot Room, 4048 Broadway

22

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january 2- 8, 2014

Classical piano featuring Anna Han, Sarah Rasmussen, Zhou Mingtian Yang, Chaeyoung Park, and Professor Jack Winerock | 6 p.m.

Room, 1616 E. 18th St.

1809 Grand

Four Arm Shiver, 88er | 10 p.m. Jazzhaus, 926-1/2

Echoes: Islamic Art and Contemporary Artists | Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 4525 Oak Impressionist France | Nelson-Atkins Museum

of Art, 4525 Oak

Kaws • Ups and Downs; Dylan Mortimer • Illuminate | Nerman Museum of Contemporary

FILM

London West End Theatre’s Merrily We Roll Along | 7 p.m. Tivoli Cinemas, 4050 Pennsylvania,

Dressed Up | Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 4420 Warwick Blvd., kemperart.org

Pennsylvania

Playe | 10:30 p.m. The Uptown Arts Bar, 3611 Broadway

pitch.com

Bar, 3611 Broadway

Art, JCCC, 12345 College Blvd., Overland Park

Lost and Found: A Group Show | PLUG

Projects, 1613 Genessee

Meet Me at the Museum Tour | 2-3 p.m.

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 4420 Warwick Blvd.

Neeta Madahar: Falling | Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 4420 Warwick Blvd.

SNIPE HUNT | 12-6 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, Percolator, alley between Arts Center and Ninth St., Lawrence Take Five Tours | 6 p.m. Thursday, American Jazz Museum, 1616 E. 18th St., americanjazzmuseum.org

DeRay Davis | 8 & 10:30 p.m. Improv Comedy Club and

Dinner Theater, 7260 N.W. 87th St.

Thieves Guild Drink and Draw | 7 p.m. Fatso’s Public House and Stage, 1016 Massachusetts, Lawrence

Otto and George | 7:45 & 9:45 p.m. Stanford’s Comedy

James Turrell: Gard Blue | Spencer Museum

Club, 1867 Village West Pkwy., KCK

Luke Thayer: The Coffee Shop Tour | 8 p.m. Westport Coffee House, 4010 Pennsylvania FOOD & DRINK

First Friday Lunches | 11:30 a.m. The American Restaurant, 200 E. 25th St., theamericankc.com

of Art, 1301 Mississippi , Lawrence

Friday Farmers Market at BadSeed | 4-9 p.m., 1909 McGee

SportS & rec

crown center Ice terrace | 10 a.m.-11 p.m. $6 ($3

skate rental), 2450 Grand, crowncenter.com

Missouri Mavericks vs. Brampton Beast |

7:05 p.m. Independence Events Center, 19100 E. Valley View Pkwy., Independence ShoppIng

good Ju Ju | 8:30 a.m.-8:30 p.m., 1420 W. 13th Terr.

Liberty Belle | 8:30 a.m.-8 p.m., 1320 W. 13th St.

riptide | 7 p.m. RecordBar, 1020 Westport Rd. SeaKings, Ambulants, Movies About Animals, city Mouth, Minstrel periods | 7:30 p.m. Czar,

W. 13th St.

Urban Mining Vintage | 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Urban Mining

Homewares and Co., 3924 Walnut

Kyle Sexton Band | Fuel, 7300 W. 119th St., Overland Park

Shannon & the rhythm Kings | 9 p.m. B.B.’s Lawnside

BBQ, 1205 E. 85th St.

Stiff Middle Fingers, Mars Lights, the Sluts | 10 p.m. Replay Lounge, 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence

Jason Vivone and the Billybats | Coda, 1744

1616 E. 18th St.

cold Sweat | Jazz, 1823 W. 39th St.

3402 Main

cinemaphonic with DJ cruz & cyan | 10 p.m.

MiniBar, 3810 Broadway

DJ Apollo | 9 p.m. Mestizo, 5270 W. 116th Pl., Leawood Monthly Mayhem: 7 Deadly Sins | Angels Rock

Bar, 1323 Walnut

FooD & DrInK

W. 151st St., Leawood

city Market | 6 a.m.-3 p.m., 20 E. Fifth St.

JLove Band | 9 p.m. The Phoenix, 302 W. Eighth St.

grand court Farmers Market | 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Grand Court Retirement Center, 501 W. 107th St.

Steve Lambert Quartet | 9 p.m. Green Lady Lounge,

1809 Grand

Watch Animaaon Shorts DIY Animaaon Staaons Free to the Public

kcfilmfest.org

Deray Davis | 7 & 10 p.m. Improv Comedy Club and Dinner Theater, 7260 N.W. 87th St.

Brett Jackson & Friends perform the music of Dexter gordon | 8 p.m. Take Five Coffee + Bar, 5336

Lounge, Harrah’s Casino, 1 Riverboat Dr., North Kansas City

January 10, 2014 Friday Family Night at Plaza Library 6:30 PM

Saturday | 1.4 |

otto and george | 7 p.m. Stanford’s Comedy Club, 1867 Village West Pkwy., KCK

Kilroy’s elvis Birthday Bash | 6:30 p.m. VooDoo

Kansas City FilmFest & Reel Spirit

Brodioke | 9 p.m. Bulldog, 1715 Main

Four Fried chickens and a coke | 8:30 p.m. Knuck-

leheads Saloon, 2715 Rochester

1523 W 89th St, Kansas City, MO • 816.363.2700 • wardparkwaylanes.com

nIghtLIFe

coMeDy

Don’t Stop please, good time charlie, Interstate Astronauts | 9 p.m. Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club,

Ward ParkWa y Lanes

Broadway

MUSIc

tyrone clark Quartet | 8:30 p.m. The Blue Room,

9 : 30 pm-1 am

SAT & SUN

1531 Grand

rag and Bone | 8:30 a.m.-9 p.m., 1412 W. 12th St. restoration emporium | 8:30 a.m.-8:30 p.m., 1300

L I V E D J • N E W S O U N D S Y S T E M • PA R T Y L I G H T I N G

SportS & rec

crown center Ice terrace | 10 a.m.-11 p.m., $6 ($3 skate rental), 2450 Grand

Missouri Mavericks vs. Brampton Beast | the Mad Kings, godzillionaire, the Shebangs | 8 p.m. The Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence

7:05 p.m. Independence Events Center, 19100 E. Valley View Pkwy., Independence

Dwayne Mitchell trio | Jazz, 1859 Village West Pkwy.,

UMKc vs. Seattle women’s basketball |

KCK

2 p.m. Swinney Recreation Center, UMKC, 5100 Rockhill Rd.

neiv, Drew Black & Dirty electric, the Summit | 10 p.m. RecordBar, 1020 Westport Rd.

night creation, Meatshank, Midget pounder, rimjob | 8:30 p.m. The Riot Room, 4048 Broadway rex hobart and the Misery Boys, the Bullhaulers, outlaw Jim and the Whiskey Benders | 10 p.m.

Westport Saloon, 4112 Pennsylvania

ShoppIng

good Ju Ju | 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m., 1420 W. 13th Terr.

Liberty Belle | 9 a.m.-6 p.m., 1320 W. 13th St. rag and Bone | 9 a.m.-6 p.m., 1412 W. 12th St. continued on page 24

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january 2- 8, 2014

the pitch

23

continued from page 23 Restoration Emporium | 9 a.m.-6 p.m., 1300 W. 13th St.

THEATER

NINOTCHKA

Dates and times vary.

Urban Mining Vintage | 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Urban Mining Homewares and Co., 3924 Walnut

Best Laid Plans: A Murder Mystery Dinner | 7 p.m. Saturday, KCMT Tiffany Ballroom, 903 Harrison. grimprov.com/kansas-city

MUSIC

A La Mode | 7 p.m. Chaz on the Plaza, 325 Ward Pkwy.

Dead Air | $54/$64, the Golden Ox, 1600 Genessee, kcmysterytrain.com

The Roman Alexander Band | 7 p.m. Czar, 1531 Grand

The Wiz | The Coterie, 2450 Grand, Crown Center, thecoterie.org

Attic Salt, House Rules | The Brick, 1727 McGee

MUSEUM EXHIBITS & EVENTS

Megan Birdsall with Steve Lambert | 8:30 p.m. The

Blue Room, 1616 E. 18th St.

Allie Burik Quintet | 8 p.m. Take Five Coffee + Bar,

DAY SATUR

A Very Fifties Christmas | Johnson County Museum of History, 6305 Lackman Rd., Shawnee

s! laugh Garbo

Citizen Soldiers on the Prairie | Johnson County Museum of History, 6305 Lackman Rd., Shawnee, jocomuseum.org

1.4

5336 W. 151st St., Leawood

Crosseyed Cat | 5:30 p.m. Quasimodo, 12056 W. 135th St., Overland Park

Eboni Fondren Quartet, Sherry & Mike | 5:30 p.m.

Green Lady Lounge, 1809 Grand

Kid Sister, Body2Body with DJ Sheppa | 8 p.m.

The Riot Room, 4048 Broadway

Konza Swamp Band, Lou Shields | 10 p.m. Westport Saloon, 4112 Pennsylvania

Leawood

Mark Lowrey | The Kill Devil Club, 61 E. 14th St. Old No. 5s | 9 p.m. B.B.’s Lawnside BBQ, 1205 E. 85th St.

Philistines, Katy Guillen and the Girls, Filthy 13 | 10 p.m. RecordBar, 1020 Westport Rd.

SeaKings, Ambulants, Holographics | 10 p.m.

Replay Lounge, 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence

Steetz the Animal | 8 p.m. The Bottleneck, 737 New

Hampshire, Lawrence

blers Club, 3402 Main

Real Pirates | Union Station, 30 W. Persh-

Sunday | 1.5 |

FOOD & DRINK

City Market | 8 a.m.-3 p.m., 20 E. Fifth St.

DeRay Davis | 7 p.m. Improv Comedy Club and Dinner

Jazz brunch | 11 a.m.-1 p.m. The Majestic Restaurant,

SPORTS & REC

MUSIC

Theater, 7260 N.W. 87th St.

Crown Center Ice Terrace | 10 a.m.-9 p.m., $6 ($3

931 Broadway

Stan Kessler Quartet | 10 p.m. Green Lady Lounge,

skate rental), 2450 Grand, crowncenter.com

1809 Grand

The Ice at Park Place | 12-8 p.m., $7 ($3 skate rental)

Mark Lowrey Trio jazz jam | 6 p.m. The Majestic

117th St. and Nall, Leawood

Restaurant, 931 Broadway

KU vs. San Diego State men’s basketball |

Lee McBee and the Confessors | 6-9 p.m. B.B.’s

12:30 p.m. Allen Fieldhouse, 1651 Naismith Dr., Lawrence SHOPPING

Jonathan Theobald, Dsoedean, Gastown Lamps, the Invisible World | 8:30 p.m. Davey’s Uptown Ram-

Good Ju Ju | 11 a.m.-4 p.m., 1420 W. 13th Terr.

RecordBar, 1020 Westport Rd.

Tim Whitmer & KC Express | 4:30 p.m. The Phoenix,

302 W. Eighth St.

Wonderfuzz | Fuel, 7300 W. 119th St., Overland Park

Rag and Bone | 11 a.m.-5 p.m., 1412 W. 12th St. Restoration Emporium | 12-5 p.m., 1300 W. 13th St. Urban Mining Vintage | 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Urban Mining Homewares and Co., 3924 Walnut

ing Rd.

25th Anniversary Holiday Exhibit | Strawberry Hill Ethnic Museum and Cultural Center, 12-5 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, 720 N. Fourth St., KCK, strawberryhillmuseum.org

The Drunken Cuddle, Slow Motion Commotion, the King Devilles | 8 p.m. The Riot Room, 4048

Broadway

Matt Hopper | 7 p.m. The Blue Room, 1616 E. 18th St. Mark Lowrey Trio | 6 p.m. The Majestic Restaurant,

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Monday | 1.6 |

Liberty Belle | 11 a.m.-4 p.m., 1320 W. 13th St.

Verbal Warfare: Mizzery vs. King Verses, Gottem vs. Decoder Hussein, Tone Bone vs. Slugga | 4 p.m.

1616 E. 18th St.

Ninotchka | 1:30 p.m. Kansas City Central Library, 14 W. 10th St.

COMEDY

Last-In-Line | 9 p.m. Mestizo, 5270 W. 116th Pl.,

Convergence: Jazz, Film, Dance and the Visual Arts | American Jazz Museum,

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Crown Center Ice Terrace | 10 a.m.-11 p.m., $6 ($3

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London West End Theatre’s Merrily We Roll Along | 1:30 p.m. Tivoli Cinemas, 4050 Pennsylvania,

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Doo Lounge, Harrah’s Casino, 1 Riverboat Dr., North Kansas City

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the pitch

january 2- 8, 2014

pitch.com

Brother John’s Motivational R&B/Soul Showcase | 7 p.m. The Uptown Arts Bar, 3611 Broadway

Geeks Who Drink Pub Quiz | 7:30 p.m. Rhythm and Booze, 423 Southwest Blvd.

Karaoke | 10:30 p.m. The Brick, 1727 McGee Mondo Beat | 10 p.m. MiniBar, 3810 Broadway Sonic Spectrum Music Trivia | 7 p.m. RecordBar, 1020 Westport Rd.

Trivia with Matt Larson | 8 p.m. Bulldog, 1715 Main

Tuesday | 1.7 |

Tap room Trivia | 8-10 p.m. Waldo Pizza, 7433 Broadway

Trivia Bang Bang | 7:30 p.m. Helen’s Just Another Dive, 2002 Armour Rd., North Kansas City

Wednesday | 1.8 | expoS

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IN ThEATRES JANUARY 10

rick Bacus | Jazz, 1823 W. 39th St. Billy Beale’s blues jam | 10 p.m. Westport Saloon,

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Bob Bowman & roger Wilder Jam | 10 p.m. Green Lady Lounge, 1809 Grand

Busker’s Banquet | 9 p.m. The Uptown Arts Bar, 3611 Broadway

The Colleens, run With It | 8 p.m. Czar, 1531 Grand Hermon Mehari Trio | 6 p.m. The Majestic Restaurant, 931 Broadway

Naughty pines Happy Hour Band | 6-8 p.m. Coda,

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Trampled under Foot | 7 p.m. B.B.’s Lawnside BBQ, 1205 E. 85th St.

James Ward | 6 p.m. Chaz on the Plaza, 325 Ward

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Folkicide, rabbitt Killer, Major Matt | 8 p.m. Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club, 3402 Main

In This Moment, devour the day, Butcher Babies, All Hail the yeti, Before the Mourning | 6:30 p.m.

The Midland, 1228 Main

Let the Beat Build with reach, Approach, Les Izmore, Nate Holt and Brad Williams | 10 p.m.

RecordBar, 1020 Westport Rd.

organ Jazz Trio with Ken Lovern | 9 p.m. Green Lady Lounge, 1809 Grand

Shinetop Jr. | 7-9 p.m. B.B.’s Lawnside BBQ, 1205 E.

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drew Six | 6-9 p.m. Cactus Grill, 11849 Roe, Leawood Matt Snook, Jimmie Bratcher, Garrett Nordstrom | 8 p.m. The Riot Room, 4048 Broadway

NIGHTLIFe

Karaoke with paul Nelson | MiniBar, 3810 Broadway E-mail submissions to calendar@pitch.com rex Hobart’s Honky Tonk Supper Club | 7 p.m.

RecordBar, 1020 Westport Rd.

or enter submissions at pitch.com, where you can search our complete listings guide.

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the pitch

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D a n S ava ge rupture and internal bleeding that could be life-threatening. While that is uncommon, it is an example of how something that appears ‘not dangerous’ could become so given the right circumstances.”

One precaution you could take: Stop relaxing your abdominal muscles and use them — your tensed, flexed abdominal muscles — to protect your internal organs. “There is no risk to the IUD, as it is inside a very small uterus that is in the lower pelvis,” Torres says. “But when someone is pregnant, I recommend no belly punching — not under any circumstances!”

Dear Dan: I’m a 34-year-old straight female. I’m morbidly obese and I have been for most of my life. I’ve never dated. I’ve been on a couple of dates, and only when I asked the guy out. From reading your columns and books, I’m aware that some men are attracted to fat women. But because I never received any real sexual attention as a teen/20-something, I don’t know how to deal with men in a sexual way or in a way that would develop into a relationship. I also think my (lack of) experience has caused me to become bitter toward men. How do I stop being bitter and learn to develop a romantic relationship?

ships are something you learn by doing, so you’ll have to start doing them — start doing men — to learn how they’re done. There are men out there who are into BBW, aka big beautiful women, but folks on Twitter recommended staying away from BBW-focused websites (which tend to be overrun by fetishists) and go with mainstream sites like OKCupid instead.

But maybe dating sites aren’t the places to start.

“More important than worrying about finding people to date who love your size is making sure you love your size,” says Jolene Parton, a fat dancer, sex worker and activist. “Self-love can be the hardest thing in the world for a fat woman, but it’s the best way to inspire others to love you and your body. Getting plugged into a fat-positive community might help you find friends and lovers who love the whole you. Naafa.org and nolose.org are both great places to start.”

So let’s say you’ve learned to love your body and you’re ready to date. What to do about the bitterness? Let it go. Resolve not to punish a man who expresses an interest in you now for failing to kick down your door a decade ago.

Yes, men suck. But women can also be sucky and shallow and judge people on appearances alone. It might help you keep things in perspective — and let go of the bitterness — if you bear this in mind: We all have to make ourselves vulnerable to people we’re attracted to, and sometimes those people respond by shitting all over us. All of us have had our hearts broken or, even worse, ignored, and every last one of us has cause to walk around feeling bitter about men, women, or both. Most people let it go, and you can, too.

One other bit of advice: Be open about being inexperienced. That will attract some guys and scare others off. Good riddance to the ones it scares off, but don’t assume that guys who are interested are necessarily nice guys. Some

By

will be, but some might be manipulators who want to take advantage of your inexperience or your perceived desperation. To help you sort the good ones from the bad ones, convene a small panel of friends to serve as your bullshit detectors. Your own bullshit detectors aren’t gonna be good — they don’t develop until you start dating — so ask your panel to point out any red flags you’ve missed. Good luck!

Dear Dan: I’m a 30ish woman in a lovely GGG

relationship with a man about my age. I’m submissive and masochistic; he’s dominant and willing to inflict some pain. Neither of us has tons of BDSM experience, but we’re enjoying each other.

My question: My boyfriend is into belly punching. I’m happy to indulge him and have started to enjoy it. He likes it when I relax my abdominal muscles. Is this safe? What precautions should we take? Does the fact that I have an IUD factor in? And if I ever get pregnant, should we stop for the duration?

Belly Erects Long Lovely Youknowwhat Dear BELLY: “There certainly are consensual

boundaries that only the person and their partner can know how to navigate,” says Dr. Leah Torres, an obstetrician/gynecologist with a special focus on family planning, “but I encourage safety first always.”

And Torres sees danger in what you’re doing. “Abdominal muscles protect and hold our intestines, liver, spleen, pancreas, etc., in place, and there can be risk involved in blunt trauma such as punches in the abdomen, especially if the muscles are ‘relaxed’ and therefore not protective,” Torres says. “For example, if someone has an infection like cytomegalovirus (mono), the spleen can be more susceptible to injury. Blunt trauma could cause splenic

lationship with a great guy. But he seems to be “feminizing” me, and I hate it! I’ve spent the last decade in grad school. I stayed in shape, but there was no time for significant exercise. I’ve started working out hard, but the going is slow. I weigh about 20 pounds less than my boyfriend. I simply can’t match his level of aggression in bed. He has even joked a couple times about my being more “the woman” in our relationship — and I don’t like that. However, quite frankly, it’s not like I can toss him into bed and have my way with him. I want him to see me as another man in bed. It’ll be another year or two before I really reach his level of athleticism. Any ideas in the meantime?

Not One to Feel Entirely Masculine Dear NOTFEM: Just one: Get over yourself.

Watching a man wring his hands about his fragile manliness — watching a man dissolve into a puddle of insecurity — hardly makes him seem more masculine. (And it doesn’t make him seem more feminine. It just makes him look ridiculous.) And 20 pounds of muscle do not “make the man” any more than being the tosser as opposed to the tossee. Being comfortable in your own skin makes you a man. No, scratch that. Being comfortable in your own skin makes you a person — a decent, tolerable, secure and attractive person. (And a man who’s passive in bed is still a man!)

If your boyfriend says something that annoys you (“You’re the woman!”), tell him to knock it off. But your boyfriend could be joking about you being the passive one because he prefers it that way. If he would rather be the tosser, you’ll need to find a different boyfriend or stop grounding your sense of masculinity in something so arbitrary as a game of who tossed whom farther and who can bench-press what.

Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at savagelovecast.com.

Have a question for Dan Savage?

E-mail him at mail@savagelove.net

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