The Pitch: August 23, 2012

AUGUS T 2 3–2 9, 2 012 | F R EE | VOL . 3 2 NO. 8 | PI T CH.COM

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THE PITCH

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A U G U S T 2 3 –2 9 , 2 0 1 2 | V O L . 3 2 N O . 8 E D I T O R I A L

Editor Scott Wilson Managing Editor Justin Kendall Music Editor David Hudnall Staff Writers Charles Ferruzza, Ben Palosaari Editorial Operations Manager Deborah Hirsch Calendar Editor Berry Anderson Clubs Editor Abbie Stutzer Food Blogger, Web Editor Jonathan Bender Proofreader Brent Shepherd Contributing Writers Tracy Abeln, Theresa Bembnister, April Fleming, Matt Pearce, Dan Savage, Abbie Stutzer, Mike Warren Intern Hayley Bartels

A R T

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

P R O D U C T I O N

Production Manager Christina Riddle Multimedia Designer Rafaella Chaves

A D V E R T I S I N G

Advertising Director Dawn Jordan Senior Classified Multimedia Specialist Steven Suarez Classified Multimedia Specialist Andrew Disper Multimedia Specialists Michelle Acevedo, Kirin Arnold, Erin Carey, Payton Hatfield Director of Marketing & Operations Jason Dockery Digital Marketing Manager Keli Sweetland

FI ELD DAY John Gordon is learning what’s at stake with his

C I R C U L A T I O N

Circulation Director Mike Ryan

B U S I N E S S

Accounts Receivable Jodi Waldsmith Publisher Joel Hornbostel

youth program, Boys Grow.

BY J O N AT H A N B E N D E R

S O U T H C O M M

Chief Executive Officer Chris Ferrell Chief Operating Officer Rob Jiranek Director of Accounting Todd Patton Director of Operations Susan Torregrossa Creative Director Heather Pierce Director of Content/Online Development Patrick Rains Chief Technology Officer Matt Locke Director of Digital Products Andy Sperry Business Manager Eric Norwood

N A T I O N A L

A D V E R T I S I N G

Voice Media Group 888-278-9866, voicemediagroup.com Senior Vice President Sales Susan Belair Senior Vice President Sales Operations Joe Larkin National Sales Director Ronni Gaun

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SURE CURE Waldo wasn’t sick, but it’s getting a Remedy anyway.

BY C H A R L E S F E R R U Z Z A

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B A C K P A G E . C O M

Vice President Sales & Marketing Carl Ferrer Business Manager Jess Adams Accountant David Roberts

HI DDEN TALENT

D I S T R I B U T I O N

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Sam Baker first released records in his 50s. It was worth the wait.

B Y M I K E WA R R E N

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C O P Y R I G H T

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PITCH QUESTIONNAIRE PLOG FEATURE F I LT E R ART FILM CAFÉ FAT CITY MUSIC NIGHTLIFE SAVAGE LOVE

MEANWHI LE AT PI TC H. C O M

SEPTEMBER 19

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Rep. Kevin Yoder apologizes for SKINNY-DIPPING in the Sea of Galilee.

JERRY SEINFELD and DAVID SEDARIS are coming to Kansas City.

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QUESTIONNAIRE

Hometown: I am originally from Terre Haute, Indiana, and I went to college and graduate school in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Current neighborhood: Downtown KC Who or what is your sidekick? My iPad and my iPhone

Cafe Racer Exceptional Motorcycle & Scooter Service

1305 Union Ave. KCMO | 816-221-0711 S A B R I N A S TA I R E S

fall 2011 with home visits to urban families to provide support in the area of literacy.

Summer 2012 added more programming at the Waldo Branch of the Kansas City Public Library, where we offered a summer reading workshop for families. We had five families participate and about 30 volunteers.

This fall, we are launching our school-year project called Open Books. This will be held on Wednesdays, from 6 to 7 p.m. at the Waldo library, and at a yet-to-be-determined location in Englewood, in the Northland. At Open Books, parents and kids will work together in a family literacy workshop, with the support of literacy mentors, to practice reading and writing skills.

e ic

Tell us about your work with Pages & Chapters and Open Books: Pages & Chapters began in

mo t

Pages & Chapters

v

JENNY JACKAWAY

Executive director,

P p

nsas cit a K ycle s y er rc o

What TV show do you make sure you watch?

Breaking Bad and Mad Men

take(s) up a lot of space in my iTunes:

The Avett Brothers and Brett Dennen

What movie do you watch at least once a year?

What career would you choose in an alternate reality? A writer What was the last local restaurant you patronized? La Bodega Where do you drink? Westport Favorite place to spend your paycheck: J. Crew or Standard Style

What local phenomenon do you think is overrated? Power & Light District Where do you like to take out-of-town guests?

Union Station and Westside Local

Finish this sentence: “Other than the Kauffman Center, Kansas City got it right when …” They said yes to Google Fiber.

“Kansas City screwed up when it …” Created a very segregated city starting in the early 1900s.

Sideways

What local tradition do you take part in every year? Corn mazes and St. Patty’s Day in

Westport

Celebrity you’d like to ride the Mamba with at Worlds of Fun: Ryan Lochte Favorite person or thing to follow on Twitter: Will Ferrell

Person or thing you find really irritating at this moment: My apartment is super-cold right now.

What subscription — print, digital, etc. — do you value most? Women’s Health magazine

Last book you read: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson Favorite day trip: Weston or any winery Interesting brush with the law? I’m always get-

“People might be surprised to know that I …”

“On my day off, I like to …” Go to a movie by myself and stroll the Plaza. Hey, Rachel ate dinner by herself in Friends. I’m not ashamed.

Describe a recent triumph: We raised over $700 from our book fair with Barnes & Noble in July! I am organizing and promoting our Run for Reading 5k, and this is my first time being a race director. So far, it’s going swimmingly well!

“In five years, I’ll be …” Hopefully finishing my doctorate and watching Pages & Chapters continue to be successful and support literacy among urban families.

Open Books meets from 6 to 7 p.m. Wednesdays, starting September 12, at the Waldo Branch of the Kansas City Public Library. Show up or sign up by e-mailing jenny@pagesnchapters.org.

Like to be super-silly and goofy sometimes.

25825 Edgemore Rd. Paola, KS 913-783-4301 kcwatersports.com

I’m freezing, and I can’t turn the temp up.

“Kansas City needs …” More movies and TV

shows to be set here. It’s a cool city. Why can’t we have a CSI: Kansas City? Just sayin’.

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ting parking tickets, and my car was towed at one point.

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PLOG

TALK TALK

TEDxKC organizer Mike Lundgren previews this year’s conference at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts and reveals the key to a good talk.

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f you haven’t been online in the last three years, it’s possible you haven’t heard of TED talks, the bite-sized presentations that attempt to explain grand ideas or theories in 18 minutes. Starting in 2006, TED (technology, entertainment and design) talks were published free online for anyone with time to burn. Presentations push ideas from experts on topics as varied as global warming, the future of personal electronics, and how to tie your shoes.

The TED organization wasn’t always an educational tool for the masses. Annual TED conferences began in 1990 as gatherings of Alist thinkers entertaining cultural and financial A-listers in Long Beach, California. Bill Gates, James Cameron and Richard Dawkins have given presentations. Anyone wanting to attend had to be vetted through an application process; those deemed worthy were charged four-figure entry fees — $6,000 in recent years.

After the videos were released for public consumption in 2006, TED’s reputation shifted.

No longer a high-minded elitist cabal, TED was seen as a global educational resource. Another significant change: In 2009, the nonprofit began licensing conferences — branded TEDx — to organizers in cities around the world.

Mike Lundgren, director of innovation strategy at Kansas City–based ad firm VML, where he’s a partner, has organized the TEDxKC conference for four years, including Tuesday’s talks at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts (1601 Broadway). An experience at a TED conference several years ago convinced him to organize the local event.

“Kansas City is literally rabid for TED,” he says, noting that Tuesday’s talks sold out in two hours. (The Alamo Drafthouse, 1400 Main, hosts a second showing of the conference a day later, at 6 p.m. Wednesday, August 29.)

“There’s such a thirst for it. There’s an incredible demand for TED and TED talks. It’s grown exponentially each year.”

Lundgren explained to The Pitch TED’s appeal and the challenge of keeping the pesky “elitist” label off TEDxKC. The Pitch: The theme of the conference is “The Long View.” What does that mean?

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THE PITCH

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BE N PA L O S A A R I

Speakers SAMUEL ARBESMAN, scholar at the Kauffman Foundation: The Half-Life of Facts JEFF CARTER, chief strategist for EyeLock Inc.: Extreme Identity JOHN GERZEMA, social theorist, author: The Athena Doctrine JOHN JANTSCH, marketing consultant, author: Rethinking Commitment SHAI RESHEF, president of University of the People: Open-Sourcing Higher Education AMBER RUBARTH, winner of NPR’s Mountain Stage New Song Contest: Music JANINE SHEPHERD, speaker, pilot, author: You Are Not Your Body MAX STROM, personal-transformation and yoga teacher, author: There Is No App for Happiness JULIÁN ZUGAZAGOITIA, director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: The Taste of Art

Lundgren: Some of the problems that are left in the world are these really long-range, longterm, intractable ones that require more of a generational resolve. It seems like the world has just been exasperated by short-term thinking. Politics has become a short-term game.

You have speakers scheduled on a range of subjects, including Janine Shepherd, a paraplegic pilot, and Samuel Arbesman, a mathematician and writer. Is the trick to a good TED conference getting speakers to cover a spectrum of topics?

My goal has always been to find people who are talking about some of the most provocative things right now but also are great communicators. The TED or TEDx stage is storytelling first and foremost. You’ve got to be able to hold somebody’s attention. What you’re trying to do is curate speakers who have ideas worth spreading. That’s the mantra.

How did you decide on these speakers?

I go out looking for them. It’s not good when people are approaching you. Half the people who approach you have some kind of agenda, and they just want to get onto the TED stage to promote that. It [TED] is not promoting your book. It’s not about promoting you.

It’s a huge honor [to be asked to speak]. A good TED talk can be a launching pad for a career or for a book. For instance, Brené Brown, who is one of the top TED talks [on the topic of

pitch.com

Lundgren takes the long view with TEDxKC. the power of vulnerability]. I worked with her agents; they were after me for about six months.

I was like, “I don’t know. Shame and vulnerability? I just don’t think there’s a TED talk in that.” To their credit, I watched one of her presentations and was blown away. I introduced her to a friend who is organizing TEDxHouston.

Her talk in Houston is one of the most-watched talks. This year, she gave the closing talk at the [main] TED conference. She’s gone from relative obscurity to corporations regularly call her and offer her significant sums of money to come speak. That’s somebody we discovered.

TED has been called an elitist organization.

Is that fair?

We could charge a lot for a ticket, and we would have no trouble selling those tickets. But I think that would be a bit of an elitist move. We try to work through sponsorship and in-kind donations to try to get as close to practically free as possible. For your $15 ticket, which is $9 before service charges, you’re getting two parties, you’re getting a T-shirt, you’re getting to come to the event that night, and then there’s a reception afterward. It would be easy to charge $200 or $300 per ticket. We handpick only 20 percent of our audience. The rest is open to the public. That’s very different from TED.

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It was entirely fair in the early days of TED [to say that] it was very elitist. It wasn’t uncommon, and still isn’t, to be sitting in the same row as President Clinton or Bono or Al Gore.

This becomes the challenge. When there’s so much demand to be part of something, how do you manage that? When [TED curator] Chris Anderson took over and turned TED into a nonprofit and then opened the platform up first by publishing TED talks, then by doing the TEDx movement, those two moves alone have netted incalculable returns. There’s a TEDxKibera, and it’s literally in a slum [in Nairobi], and they string together car batteries and play TED talks off somebody’s phone and put it on a screen.

That’s kind of the movement now.

Is it possible to give a TED talk on anything?

Sure. Somebody will come up to me and be like, “My favorite talk was the one where the guy taught me how to tie my shoes. My whole life, I’ve been tying my shoes the wrong way — they always come untied. That talk changed my life.”

Watch a simulcast at new.livestream.com/tedx/ TEDxKC on Tuesday, August 28.

E-mail ben.palosaari@pitch.com

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_________ _________

JOHN GORDON IS STILL LEARNING WHAT’S AT STAKE WITH HIS YOUTH PROGRAM, BOYS GROW.

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ozens of agitated bees hover around Joshua Anderson’s head and shoulders. The farm manager is standing in a former cattle pasture, in the shadow of Nebraska Furniture Mart. He shifts his weight from one work boot to the other, absently flicking at the ear that got stung when the bees were delivered in June to the Boys Grow farm in Kansas City, Kansas.

“I was wearing red,” Anderson says, “which is apparently like being a Chiefs fan at a Raiders game to bees.”

Two 13-year-old boys are also buzzing. Both are digging into the beeswax that connects a pair of wooden boxes where 60,000 bees live. Prince and Deon are eager to show a farm visitor the honey inside.

“When the bees got here, there was a queen bee in a can and, like, 1,000 worker bees all around the outside,” Prince says. “We just had the box and a can of Raid.”

The regimen is still the same today. Neither boy wears gloves or shows any fear of being stung.

Deon’s pith helmet is meant to shield him from the relentless sun, not the marauding bees. On this August Tuesday, the forecast temperature is 104 degrees.

After 10 minutes of labor and a brief chiding

by Anderson, who is wary of the bees’ tightening flight circles, Prince holds out the tip of his knife.

Thick, amber-colored honey sits in a bead the size of a sunflower seed. A lot of work has gone into this little bit of sweetness.

This is the last day on the farm for 12 boys. They are the second graduating class of Boys Grow, a two-year agricultural entrepreneurship program for inner-city kids. The idea is to teach Kansas City, Missouri, children, a few at a time, a set of life and business skills. The primary setting for these lessons is a small KCK farm off Parallel Parkway, the use of which has been donated by a former rancher.

The plot is nestled below a hill blighted by concrete pipes, oversized tires and scarred red cattle fences.

It’s the rough landscape of a startup. Founder John Gordon is ready to drive the three-year-old nonprofit’s white bus up that pitted dirt road and into the limelight.

“I enjoy the dichotomy of life,” Gordon says.

On this day, he’s camped out at the Starbucks near 42nd Street and Main. “On the surface, two things that seem very separate can be, in reality, very similar. I look at city kids and farming and think: Why can’t it float?”

This is his unofficial office, the tables often used for business and mentoring meetings while he searches for a more permanent space. He leans in to make a point, and his shoulders bunch under the forest-green polo shirt — the Boys Grow logo visible across the front — that is his daily uniform.

Gordon, 35, has a closely trimmed beard, short hair and a muscular physique not far removed from his days playing as a strong safety at Bishop Miege High School. His smile is disarming, a flash of white teeth through a crinkle at the left corner of his mouth.

Growing up only 13 blocks south of this Star-

bucks, Gordon had the same intensity but, he says, less control. His father was a lawyer, and his mother ran the family business, a furniture-and-design retail operation called Latin American Imports.

Gordon was an impatient kid who wanted to get through school fast and learn only what he thought he could use in his life. He was a disciplined martial arts student who couldn’t stay out of fights outside kenpo practice.

“As a kid, I went to a lot of shrinks and I felt boxed in,” he says. “Those clinical settings never worked out. More and more I’ve realized the philosophy here [at Boys Grow] is about what would have worked for me when I was 13.”

G

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ordon had the first inkling of what would become Boys Grow in Chico, California, in 2008.

Gordon was working for a family services agency that brought in troubled youth for group counseling sessions, which included campfires and day outings. He refers to this as his “Lord of the Flies days.”

“There is always stuff to be done on a farm,” Gordon says. “Life slows down, and you have to take a deep breath. There’s responsibility and discipline and dedication. That’s where this idea for a functional, working type of youth farm started.”

When his mother became ill, in 2009, he moved back to Kansas City. He returned to construction sites where a decade earlier, he was probably the only construction worker in the city who split his time on the weekend between modern dance and mixed martial arts.

“Both are such structured things,” he says.

“You’re either right or you’re wrong. You’re either correct or incorrect.”

Gordon lost a key supporter when his mother died two years ago. After that, the prospect of launching Boys Grow felt daunting to him. But his own volunteerism would ultimately provide the impetus for his organization. Gordon was named the Big Brother of the Year for the state of Missouri that year, and he met Micheal Lawrence, the CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Kansas City.

He pitched Lawrence on the idea of a farming entrepreneurship program geared toward boys from nontraditional or single-parent households.

He was going to distill what he’d learned into a two-year leadership academy.

“We’re a mentoring organization, and we saw it as an opportunity to mentor John Gordon as he got the program started,” Lawrence says.

Big Brothers Big Sisters became Boys Grow’s fiscal sponsor, handling and tracking donations and lending legitimacy to the fledgling nonprofit.

Gordon attended board meetings and met with senior staff as he developed his own board, adding Jenny Kincaid for her marketing expertise and Heidi Hebert to advise him on accounting. Gordon had hoped to work with 12 boys during the initial year. A round of fliers at community centers and schools netted 11 applicants, who became the first class for Boys Grow. This year, 38 applicants (steered to Gordon by Alta continued on page 10

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continued from page 9 Vista Middle School and Lee A. Tolbert Community Academy) were interviewed in April for the 12 spots.

“In reality, we’re trying to farm entrepreneurs as much as plants,” Gordon says. “We’re trying to unleash a whole new crop on the city.”

A

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brown streak cuts between the bee boxes and a nearby chicken coop. A terrified rabbit races past chickens pecking at overripe melons as the farm morning melts into afternoon. A larger, faster-moving black blur gives chase — Agadez, Anderson’s dog.

The three boys nearest the pursuit cheer on the Rottweiler–golden retriever mix, which is charged with keeping away the wildlife that wanders over from the surrounding woods.

Agadez is named for a northern city in Niger, where the Peace Corps posted Army veteran Anderson five years ago. There, Anderson worked with children to plant fruit trees and millet in an effort to increase protein in the local diet.

“It was a group of kids not that different from these guys, Anderson says. “When they said I couldn’t grow something, I just took the kids and we showed them we could do it.”

After his return to the States in 2008, he slung his mandolin over one shoulder and did the work he’d grown up with in Chillicothe, Missouri: farming. He learned organic practices at the University of California Santa Cruz, spending six months living alongside a 3-acre plot. That led to a stint with the Veterans-Farmer Coalition, where he shuttled from an artist’s co-operative in Tahoe to working alongside former Navy Seals teaching inmates to farm at a Nevada prison. Crops remain like signposts where he’s been: Hopi white corn off a reservation in Santa Cruz, Ali Baba watermelons in Iraq.

He’s been working since April of this year to transform the farming practices at Boys Grow, using transplants from his family farm in Chillicothe and installing a dripirrigation system. In 2011, the boys spent hours each day hauling 5-gallon buckets of water from a nearby pond.

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“If we’re going to change the food system, we’ve got to start with the kids,” Anderson says.

Not far from the end of a row of kale, 14-year-old Cesar sits in a green army-surplus tent seeking out shade after one of the three morning work sessions. Depending on the heat, the boys work 30- to 45-minute shifts as part of a three-hour workday, for which each earns a $25 stipend. Cesar sends some of his savings from his biweekly paychecks to his mother, an accountant in Texas. The rest he keeps in a checking account, with an eye toward a pair of Nike KD4s.

When they talk about Boys Grow, the boys unintentionally parrot Gordon’s phrasing.

They extol entrepreneurship. They bring up responsibility and discipline. They are future business-school applicants in cross-trainers, firing as many questions as they are asked.

But they’re still teenagers, and their body language doesn’t always line up with their burgeoning acumen. When conversation slows for a moment, one or two look down and trace slow circles in the dirt with their shoes. But when asked about what Boys Grow has meant to him, Cesar shifts his posture.

His eyes come up from the ground, and his mouth puckers slightly as he thinks about why coming to the farm matters.

“I’m a city kid,” Cesar says. “I love the city, the skyline. I never imagined being on a farm far away from the city. But I have four brothers and sisters. It’s always loud in my house. Here, it’s peaceful.”

The only regular sounds on the 2-acre plot are the occasional passing car, a dusty red mower and sharp laughter from a group of boys gathered in the shade of a tree by the creek that supplies the farm’s water.

The farm is the engine behind a serious food-service business, one that Gordon hopes will eventually fund the organization’s operations. To help get there, these second-year participants are creating a signature item from concept to product. Last year, it was salsa; this year, it’s agave ketchup.

In early summer, Cesar was one of three boys who tested more than a dozen recipes with Gordon at a West Side community center. At the end of that process, the entire class

Gordon, at left, and with a collection of first-year growers checking the bee box for honey (above). picked a favorite, which would be bottled at Original Juan’s on Southwest Boulevard. In addition to providing a portion of the ingredients for the products, the land generates produce to sell at a half-dozen area grocery stores and restaurants. Gordon schedules sales calls, but it is the boys who must present the organization and its products.

“I wanted to create something that kids really do,” Gordon says. “It’s not fluff. It’s not for show. They have to make decisions, and anything they learn, they’ll have to apply directly.”

This year has been an important one for Boys Grow. In February, the organization received its 501(c)3 status and ended its official affiliation with Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Anderson now oversees four seasonal employees. And Gordon is committed to finding a piece of farmland within a 30-minute drive of downtown for Boys Grow to purchase by the next growing season. He wants to build a set of greenhouses, designed by Anderson, to allow for year-round farming. He envisions a permanent structure in which mentors would lead classes on public speaking or Web development. It’s about moving from ad hoc to at home, on an organization campus.

But Gordon is still figuring out just what his organization’s role should be in the lives of the boys who graduate. At 15, most can’t find a job — and in the current economy, neither can their parents. Though Gordon believes that he’s teaching them skills to navigate on their own, his instinct is to keep mentoring them after they leave Boys Grow. His model remains Big Brothers Big Sisters, but right now he’s the only big brother in Boys Grow.

His concern is compounded because what the boys do after graduation will define the program’s success in the eyes of the community.

In an effort to allay that concern, Gordon tested an apprenticeship program this year with a member of YouthBuild (a program for 17- to 24-year-olds that teaches construction skills in conjunction with GED preparatory classes). He discovered that it was difficult

for a teenage boy to act as a supervisor rather than a peer in the program. He has also been in talks with downtown restaurants about the possibility of a three-week culinary summer camp, where Boys Grow participants interested in cooking could learn kitchen skills.

“I know I need help,” Gordon says. “If it’s just me, I’ll be spread too thin.”

I

——————————

t’s a bit after noon on a Saturday, and Cesar stands in front of the Hen House supermarket at 119th Street and Roe in Leawood. His hair is spiked, and he’s wear-

Agadez cools off in the creek while a youth farmer takes a break. At right, a potential 2013 graduate shows off the day’s harvest. ing a pair of royal-blue Adidas high-tops. He scans shoppers as they head for the front door. When he makes eye contact with someone, he’s ready to talk about Boys Grow.

A deft salesman, he extends his left hand toward a pair of blue tents where five of his fellow program participants are grilling hot dogs and hamburgers from Good Natured Family Farms and selling Boys Grow ketchup and salsa.

“It’s good to see kids do something other than hang,” says Diana Endicott, the farm-tomarket coordinator for Good Natured Family Farms. Good Natured has supplied the meat for this cookout; members of the regional growing collective have given Gordon steady advice and support. “This isn’t just about the food. If we support the boys, we get a better community,” Endicott says. “And the kids get to see what happens with a little hard work.”

In four hours, the boys will raise close to $500. Enzo, a 14-year-old with a wicked sense of humor, is in charge of the cardboard ketchup box that is being used to hold the cash.

pitch.com pitch.com

“I hold a dollar and think about all the things that people did with it,” he says. “You hold that dollar and you’re time-traveling.”

“Sell me,” says a blond-haired woman as she steps under the canopy of the blue tent.

“Well, Boys Grow is a … entrepreneurship,” starts Gabriel, a 13-year-old first-year.

He looks at Deon, who moves in to make the save.

“Boys Grow is an organization that helps inner-city kids learn the fundamentals of entrepreneurship,” Deon tells the woman.

Two minutes later, she walks away with a burger and a bottle of ketchup.

Another woman approaches, pushing her cart toward the adjacent bench, where Gordon has been watching his six-kid crew.

“I see you on TV all the time,” says the woman, jabbing her fi nger at the air to accent the last three words. “I see kids who are hungry and in need all the time. You’re doing a wonderful job.”

“I don’t know about all the time,” Gordon says. He flashes that disarming smile.

Gordon kneels down behind the tent to take a quick inventory with the boys and calculate how much they’ve sold over the past four hours. It’s 15 minutes past when they were supposed to quit, but a couple has just walked up to buy a hot dog. Cesar spots them fi rst. He gets their order ready, then turns to his customers and smiles, sunlight winking off his braces.

“Would you like that with Boys Grow ketchup?” he asks.

E-mail jonathan.bender@pitch.com

AU 3 - 2X9,, 2 20 M OG N UT SHT X2X–X 0 102X

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11 5

“It’s P rktacular”

21+

August 25, 2012 Benefitting:

Presented By:

Rehabilitation Institute KC 31st & Main Kansas City, MO

www.baconfestkc.com

2nd Annual

MARTINIS, WOMEN & SHOES FUNDRAISER

Signature Martinis • Door Prizes • Silent Auction • Shoe Fashion Show • Sexy Shoe Contest • Guest DJ

Thursday, AUG 30, 2012 DOORS OPEN at 6PM

The Gallery Event Space (above Bristol’s at 61 E 14th Street, Kansas City, MO)

Tickets: $35

Purchase tickets via PayPal at heartlandandwomen.org

Includes hors d’oeuvres and 2 complimentary beverages of your choice. presented by

Part of the proceeds from 20/20 Campaign will go to Hope House.

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WEEK OF AUGUST 23-29 | BY BERRY ANDERSON

LI’L MONKEYS

16

PAG E

Some locals might tell you that Jazzoo — the Kansas City Zoo’s premier summer fundraising event — is the year’s best party. Those $100 tickets set attendees up with unlimited food and drinks from some of the swankiest restaurants in the city; better-than-average bands play late into the night; and there’s the thrilling chance to maybe see society types partaking in boozy monkeyshines. Isn’t it time for the shorties to get a turn? The second annual Kids’ Jazzoo, 6:30–8:30 p.m. at the zoo (6800 Zoo Drive), is more about the animals, face painting and camel rides than the wine and the prosciutto-wrapped asparagus, but the money still goes to the Zoo Learning Fund, an endowment that has provided $1.5 million in educational programming to some 50,000 kids per year.

Tickets start at $35 (with patron tickets available for guardians who still want their unlimited beer, wine and food). See kansascityzoo.org for details.

ART The Kansas City Artists Coalition lives in the Now.

18 PAG E

FRIDAY

8 . 24

FILM Matthew McConaughey is a killer.

28 PAG E

the pin’ at m i h c g Bi o City Zo s a s n Ka

MUSIC FORECAST Purity Ring hits the Jackpot.

T H U R S D AY | 8 . 2 3 | BUSK YOU

What must a busker do to make you drop a dollar in that guitar case? Deliver an honest, heartfelt performance? Appeal to your guilty conscience? Freak you out with sustained eye contact? The performers working this year’s Lawrence Busker Festival try out their varying approaches from 7 to 9 p.m. at a kickoff meet-and-greet at the Lawrence Arts Center (940 New Hampshire, 785-843-2787). An exclusive stage show precedes an informal gathering where partygoers can meet participants, such as comedian and sword swallower Thom Sellectomy, contortionist Jonathan Burns, and magician and escape artist Bobby Maverick. They and others perform Friday through Sunday in downtown Lawrence.

Tickets to the Busker Ball cost $8 for

adults and $5 for kids. Food, drinks and booze are part of the fest (sold separately). For more information, see lawrencebuskerfest.com.

F R I D AY | 8 . 2 4 | FIBER HUNGER

Relive the plight of Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark when Google Fiber puts on a screening of The Hunger Games. The free outdoor showing is atop the parking garage on 13th Street between Main and Walnut. Doors open at 8 p.m., and the film starts at 8:30. RSVP at fiber.google.com, under “cities.” continued on page 14

F R I D AY | 8 . 2 4 |

WE AIN’T SKEERED

A

ctress and Kansas City, Kansas, native Dee Wallace — best known for her role as Elliott’s mother in E.T. — plays a witch in the upcoming Rob Zombie film, The Lords of Salem. “Rob wrote the part for me,” says Wallace, who was featured in Zombie’s 2007 remake of Halloween. In advance of that, she’s scheduled to appear at Crypticon Kansas City 2012 at the Ramada Inn (1601 North Universal Avenue, 816-245-5500), joining Doug Bradley (Hellraiser), Michael Berryman (The Hills Have Eyes), Alex Vincent (Child’s Play) and a slew of other B-movie familiars. Among the other attractions: airbrushed face gore, a costume contest, and film fests (indiehorror and shorts). Tickets start at $20, and events run through Sunday. See crypticonkansascity.com for a schedule and more details. — C HARLES FERRUZZA pitch.com

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continued from page 13

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Did Count Basie’s sound influence KC, or did the KC sound define Count Basie? There’s no right answer, but you can celebrate the tradition at tonight’s opening of the Kill Devil Club (31 East 14th Street, 816-877-8312), when Pitch Music Award winner Mark Lowrey and the New Jazz Order pay tribute to Basie. The music starts at 10 p.m. and goes fine with the food and the Tanqueray cocktails. Tickets for this Paris of the Plains event cost $40. See popfestkc.com.

S AT U R D AY | 8 . 2 5 | WHERE THE POOCHES RUN FREE

Dog owners, rejoice! KC’s Parks and Recreation Department is opening its second off-leash dog park at Swope Park.

Today’s 10 a.m. ribbon cutting happens just east of the Lakeside Nature Center (4701 East Gregory), on Gregory Boulevard. A free pet fair runs until 3 p.m. and features behavior tips and demonstrations, giveaways and shelter adoptions. For more information, see kcmo.org; click on the “events calendar” on the Parks and Recreation page.

816 THREADS

“I think everything about a Funk Nasty T-shirt represents Kansas City because it’s a hometown piece of artwork, entirely local,” says Adam Vinck. He’d know — he’s the Funk Nasty CEO, and he launches his

S AT U R D AY | 8 . 2 5 |

T I F FA N Y M A R I E B U C K L E Y

Historic Gothic Revival

Adam Vinck wants you to get your Funk Nasty on (see Saturday). clothing line at the Riot Room (4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179) tonight. Accompanying the new designs: a reggae, funk and dubstep program. “Mostly, though, it’s just about doing something this city does best, getting the fuck down for little or no reason,” Vinck says.

Well put! The party starts at 8 p.m. Cover is $5.

S U N D AY | 8 . 2 6 | CHEAP SHOTS

We thought we’d seen it all when the Power & Light District put on service-industry K-Y wrestling earlier this summer.

Bartenders, shot girls and door guys from the block stripped down to their sports bras and compression shorts and slicked up in front of Tengo Sed Cantina, on a Sunday night, in a kids’ bounce house. But that was clearly just a prelude to the real gorillajuicehead action.

MORE See another battle at Bartenders Brawl 2012, a kickboxing and MMA T A INE event in which people ONL .COM H C PIT from Whiskey Tango, Gusto Lounge, and McCormick and Schmick’s (among others) meet in 18 bruising matches. “All fighters train for six to eight weeks at local gyms prior to the event, then are matched by weight and skill and must make a weigh-in the day before they fight,” says organizer Chris Davies. The squared circle is located in the middle of 31st Street, in the heart of Martini Corner. Tickets start at $25, and VIP packages are available.

See martinicorner.com for more details.

EVENTS

GETTING PORKED

B

acon-Fest isn’t just sizzle. It’s a fundraiser for the Rehabilitation Institute of Kansas City, a medicalrehabilitation and vocational service provider that helps kids and adults lead more productive and independent lives. All that baconflavored goodness and Ameristar-brewed beer? That’s just your reward for donating $40 ($50 at the door) per ticket. General admission to the event at 3010 Main starts at 2 p.m. For details, see baconfestkc.com.

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M O N D AY | 8 . 2 7 | LEAN ON ME

Since 1969, the Headquarters Counseling Center in Lawrence has helped people with crisis support and suicide prevention. Four decades into its mission, the place remains volunteer-driven, which means it always needs high-quality staff. “HQCC is looking for empathetic, caring and nonjudgmental adults to join our volunteer counselor staff,” says Kristine Chapman, volunteer director.

“We offer extensive training for volunteers to handle the wide range of issues people contact us about. Previous experience is not

T U E S D AY | 8 . 2 8 |

SO LONG, SUMMER

O

n this, the last Tuesday to enjoy public-pool season, Filter says farewell to the lazy days with “Cannonball,” an original oil painting by Overland Park artist Emily Dubowski. She’s a regular exhibitor at Ward & Ward Inc. (6213 Oak, 816-333-6459), which is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. today. Get more information at ward-wardcustompictureframing.com. needed.” Find out more when HQCC holds an informational meeting from 6 to 7:15 p.m. at the Lawrence Public Library (707 Vermont, 785-843-3833). For more information, see headquarterscounselingcenter.org or call 785-841-2345.

W E D N E S D AY | 8 . 2 9 | HUSTLE AND FLAP

Hip-Hop & Hot Wings is back, y’all. It goes down — cover-free — on the last Wednesday of every month at John’s Big Deck (928 Wyandotte, 816-255-3396), starting at 8 p.m.

The music part: resident DJs Beatbroker, Ataxic and Highnoone. The food part: allyou-can-eat wings for $5, from 8 to 9 p.m. (and half-price after that). “Expect to hear an eclectic mix of breaks, turntablism and classic hip-hip,” Highnoone says. He’s talking Tribe Called Quest, Gang Starr, J5, Big Daddy Kane, Artifacts, the Pharcyde, EPMD, and Eric B. & Rakim — “all mixed, scratched and juggled like back in the day,” he adds. Want more? How about live art with Sikenomics and guest graffiti artists.

The Pitch: Why John’s Big Deck?

Highnoone: Beatbroker, who was one of the original creators, said John’s was one of the first places they looked before choosing the original location, the Peanut [downtown]. Also, the general manager, Chad Sanders, had been coming to watch me spin around town, and he told me he wanted to get something cracking. I have been talking about bringing HH & HW back for about two years now. I guess you could say all of the stars aligned.

Where did the event go?

In a nutshell, everyone moved on with their life. But now that we are grown and established in our careers, it’s time to bring back something that we all truly miss.

What’s different about this new version of the event?

Other than the venue, we are hoping to make this as close to the original as possible.

We are up for any suggestions on how to make it better, so feel free to come up and let us know your thoughts at the next show.

BEST OF SPOTLIGHT: 2011 BEST SEXY MUSICIAN: DREW SIX

What’s sexy about Drew Six? He gives back.

This past February, he was voted Entertainer of the Year by Variety, and he’s recording a song in Nashville (“We Choose Livin’ ”) for that Kansas City charity. The proceeds of the download will go back to Variety, which aims to improve the lives and mobility of children with physical and mental disabilities. Tonight, he begins a new residency at Cactus Grill (11849 Roe, Leawood, 913-345-9933). From 6 to 9, he performs his dreamy solo acoustic sets. Sexy stuff, y’all. Find more of Drew’s gigs at drew6.com.

E-mail submissions to Filter editor Berry Anderson at calendar@pitch.com. Search our complete listings guide online at pitch.com.

pitch.com

A U G U S T 2 3 - 2 9, 2 0 1 2

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15

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ART

THIS IS NOW

The Kansas City Artists Coalition makes

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Left: Joelle Ford’s “Hoops and Loops”; above: Keith Ekstam's “Many Roads to Nirvana — Utopian Landscape Series”

A

question mark punctuates the title of the Kansas City Artists Coalition’s new group show — What Now? — and the phrase itself suggests a little uncertainty, a little anxiety. But the pieces that Janet Simpson, the organization’s executive director, has chosen indicate that most of the invited artists in this memorable exhibition confidently answer: “I am doing this now.”

The KCAC has hosted its annual River Market Regional — composed of juried work by artists living in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Iowa and Arkansas — since 1983.

To mark the 30th occasion of the roundup, Simpson requested current creations from artists E R MO whose works appeared in past regionals. Choosing from among those AT E N I ONL .COM submissions, Simpson PITCH eludes simple retrospection in What Now? (a noble feat in an anniversary program) and also finds common thematic threads.

Colorful abstraction dominates the paintings here. The photographs focus on the intersection of humans and the natural world.

And the sculptors on view have amassed found objects to emphasize rich textures.

At the front of the gallery, two wingshaped forms gleam in the sunlight that streams through the windows. The exterior of Les Christensen’s sculpture “Domestic Disturbance” is covered with stainless-steel flatware. On the surface, tension between the smoothly rounded spoon backs and the pointy fork tines culminates in the dull ends of all those handles. Christensen’s “Envy,” a palm-sized, papier-mâché heart encrusted with turquoise-colored tacks, provokes a similar tactile hesitation. She has left the

ART

pitch.com

Keith Ekstam’s bulbous ceramic pieces tacks’ points facing out, a choice that’s arresting to look at but potentially painful to recall the reclining shapes of the Henry Moore sculptures dotting the Kansas City Sculpture touch. To render these symbols associated Park at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. with love and faith, Christensen has used materials commonly found in kitchens and Ekstam, though, has hidden tiny porcelain forms in the recesses of his larger, wood-fired garages, and her pieces are more powerful sculptures. (The minuscule pagoda in “Many for the everydayness of those elements.

Matt Dehaemers’ submissions are also Roads to Nirvana — Utopian Landscape unself-conscious crowd-pleasers. For Series” is one.) He also has balanced them in Seussian stacks atop the larger forms’ preci“Watered Down,” he has framed scores of plastic bottles, each fi lled with brilliantly pice points. His works, too, push away from colored water, between wooden boards. the traditional in fascinating ways.

Kansas City viewers may be familiar The electric light hidden behind the panel causes the vessels to glow like a Lite-Brite. with local fiber artist Mindy Goodman’s work, which is often constructed of fabric The wall is part of a series that the artist and staples. Here she exhibits colored-pencil created as a statement on the global waand graphite drawings that, like her sculpted ter crisis, and the sheer number of bottles work , fe at u re or g a n ic required to fill the panel shapes and lush textures. is an effective reminder What Now? Reading words like skin of water consumption as Through August 25 and stomach in the drawboth biological necessity at the Kansas City ings’ titles, it’s hard not to and market habit.

Artists Coalition, think of internal organs as O f t he fou nd- objec t 201 Wyandotte, 816-421-5222, you look at these pieces. The sculptors in the show, Joelle kansascityartistscoalition.org nubby forms are covered in Ford demonstrates the most pimply dots, suggesting raw refined sensitivity to form. chicken skin.

Her “Hoops and Loops” Goodman, Dehaemers and painter Jane consists of three horizontal rows of wooden Booth represent Kansas City in the exhibiembroidery hoops, ranging in size from more than a foot to just a few inches across. The re- tion. Other artists hail from St. Louis and sult is like a wiry patch of blond hair growing Springfield and Kansas and Arkansas, and from the wall. In “Double Dipped,” she has there also are River Market Regional alumni who have relocated to other parts of the immersed aluminum-can pop tops in paint and then strung them on ropes hanging from country. This show demonstrates that the KCAC’s six-state area has a history of produchooks on the wall. The delicate but bristling nature of “Hoops and Loops” and the flac- ing artists with strong practices and durable cid suspension of the pop tops in “Double imaginations. The appropriate answer to the Dipped” are a convincing demonstration of question posed in the title of What Now? An how much can be said outside the traditional enthusiastic “Carry on!” pedestal, floor-standing or wall-relief notions of sculpture.

E-mail feedback@pitch.com pitch.com

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Hears: Son, I don’t have it.

When paternal help isn’t forthcoming in The Queen of Versailles, it’s because Dad is David Siegel, the embattled Westgate Resorts founder whose poor decisions drive Lauren Greenfield’s judgment-inducing documentary. By the time that off spring, middle-aged middle executive Richard Siegel, goes to his pops for a handout, he’s at the back of the broke-ass-broke line, behind his stepmother and various of her domestics and friends, and laid-off Westgate employees. Tough titty, kid. Like, really tough. The proudly E MOR flaunted, Florida-grown sci-f i bosom of t hat stepmother, Versailles’ T A E IN epony mous matriarch, ONL .COM PITCH Jackie Siegel — former model and pageant winner and mother of seven additional biological Siegels — is never far from Greenfield’s lens.

But we’ll come back to that.

When the family cookie jar is empty in William Friedkin’s latest movie, Killer Joe, aid arrives in the form of another title character, a homicidal rogue cop.

The last time Matthew McConaughey played a Texas lawman, he was the white hat in John Sayles’ supremely effective 1996 border drama, Lone Star. Times change. The actor’s unfamiliar handsomeness and earnest calm in that fi lm are long gone, spent on mediocre dramas and then overdrawn to make lazy romantic comedies the past decade. As Dallas police detective Joe Cooper, McConaughey uses the familiarity of his multiplex-ready physical symmetry, and a rather less earnest calm, to goad and lull, as he did in Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike earlier this summer. And here again, he’s not just capable but seductive when called on to be oily, onanistic and amoral.

But in Soderbergh’s ass-o-rama, the pleasure of McConaughey’s turn was in seeing

FILM

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him choose oil, onanism and amorality. Tracy Letts’ Killer Joe screenplay, based on his 1991 play (the eventual Pulitzer Prize winner’s first), gives no quarter to any of its actors, no room for subtle gradations or much choice at all. Hired-gun Joe is a 2-D satanic figure, meant to drive the story’s gothic shocks while reacting to the ugliness that summoned him to the fun house. McConaughey’s obvious good time — the sole reason to risk personal debasement by sitting through Friedkin’s Southern-fried mess — threatens to become contagious once or twice. But the layered, grinning menace he brought to Magic Mike dissolves here into simple actorly relish.

Killer Joe, though, is the sort of project — loud, pushy, baroque in its degradations — designed to lure comeback-hungry or redefinition-ready actors to the relish tray. So Gina Gershon attracts magazine mini-profiles by appearing in her fi rst scene naked from the waist down. Discreetly unmentioned in various “Hey, we remember Gina” pieces is that she’s stuck (not for the fi rst time) in a from-the-waste-up movie, one in which her character must felate a KFC leg after having her nose broken.

More naked more often is Juno Temple, miscast and then molested by Friedkin as she squirms through her baby-doll role. Also miscast: Emile Hirsch, as the loser son and brother who hatches the story’s contractkiller insurance scheme. Never miscast: Thomas Haden Church as the film’s low-life paterfamilias.

So, right, back to paters.

As The Queen of Versailles opens, director Greenfield asks time-share magnate David Siegel why he’s building a 90,000-squarefoot house. “Because I can,” he says, in that ask-a-stupid-question tone only the male voice ever properly achieves. At that moment, on camera, he is enthroned — as in sitting on a big, gilded chair made to look like a throne. Also as in imperturbably and unimaginably and unthinkingly wealthy.

At left: David and Jackie Siegel. Above, from left: Hirsch and McConaughey.

(The Siegels’ fi xation on France’s Versailles makes you long for The Dark Knight Rises’ French Revolution-loving Bane to drop by.

Viva la Christopher Nolan’s disjointed politics after all.)

For the rest of Queen’s alternately amusing and offensive 100 minutes, Siegel undergoes considerable perturbance and must imagine a less wealthy life. What he never quite does, though — even after the lights go off in the megalithic Las Vegas tower he has put up with his own money, even after his swollen family is forced to fly commercial (“Who’s my driver?” Jackie asks a blankfaced Hertz attendant as she rents a car) — is stop behaving unthinkingly. He gives the appearance of deep rumination, stewing in a dim, banker-box-cluttered room in the 26,000-square-foot home he wanted to leave (a glossy, dog-shit-strewn, marbleized Costco of a place) and barking at his kids and his wife to turn off the lights. (Now he’s barking at Greenfield, whose finished movie prompted him this past spring to sue her for defamation.) But his failure ever to consider a life of less spending (he admits, late in the movie, that he never saved any money for his kids to attend college) illustrates a particular cul-de-sac on the gold-paved road to 2008’s fi nancial meltdown.

As though, four years after Wall Street took a trillion-dollar dump on Main Street, further illustration was required. So Greenfield wisely clings to Jackie, who moves easily through a house where her face seems somehow to be pictured on every vertical surface — and whom you still believe when she says, at documentary’s end, that she’s not a stupid person. In a movie that doesn’t quite transcend the feel of another the-richare-ha-ha-crazy reality series, compressed to an easy running time, she transcends her own tackiness. Almost.

■ pitch.com

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Waldo wasn’t sick, but it’s getting a Remedy anyway.

BY

CHARLES FERRUZZA

Remedy Food + Drink • 500 West 75th Street, 816-361-9788 • Hours: 11 a.m.–10 p.m. Sunday–Thursday, 11 a.m.–11 p.m. Friday and Saturday • Price: $$–$$$

friend of mine called the other day to tell me how much she liked a new restaurant and saloon in Waldo. “I’ve been telling all my friends that they just have to go to Recovery.”

She may well have friends who need to go into recovery (who doesn’t?), but the actual name of the place she likes is Remedy Food + Drink. Atit Patel and Aaron Michaelis should consider calling their next venue Recovery — a great name for a fresh juice bar, I say — but the owners of Remedy Food + Drink are strictly focused on this project, a Chicago-style gastropub.

Now, a dozen people have tried in recent years to explain to me the concept of a gastropub, all without success. So when I heard that someone had opened one meant to be “Chicago style,” I almost had to check into recovery myself. But Patel, a former investment banker, distills the concept with reassuring succinctness. “It’s a bar that puts a serious focus on the food,” he tells me. “It’s not just cheeseburgers and french fries.”

There are cheeseburgers and fries here: beautiful, crisp, hand-cut fries. There are even corn dogs. But chef Max Watson’s corn dog isn’t state-fair food. His menu’s version is a chubby, finger-length frankfurter, handmade and dipped in a feathery cornmeal batter, then deep-fried and served with a punchy concoction of stone-ground mustard and honey.

Watson, formerly of Room 39 and Port Fonda, is just 27, and he’s about to show a little youthful restlessness with an October menu remodel. He says quite a few things are coming off the list, but not the big sellers: those appetizer-sized corn dogs, the eggplant fries and the deviled eggs. His fried chicken is staying put, too. The restaurant opened in June, but Watson already understands his customer base. “Some of them are serious foodies who want to know where every ingredient comes from,” he says. “Others just want a sandwich and a beer.”

Not all that long ago, pretty much everyone who stepped into this ecologically friendly, glass box building wanted a sandwich and a brew — hold the sandwich. For many years, this space was occupied by a popular neighborhood bar and grill called Kennedy’s, which was never noted for its cuisine. When Patel and Michaelis bought the business, they decided that this stretch of Waldo already had plenty of traditional saloons serving familiar saloon food.

They were right: Waldo didn’t need another Kennedy’s. So they consulted Room 39’s Ted Habiger and Andy Sloane, who proposed a limited, stylish menu made with locally sourced produce and meats.

The best idea that Habiger and Sloane sold to Remedy’s owners was to hire Max Watson, a former Room 39 sous chef and a man with a lot of big ideas. Even if some of those ideas — Sunday brunch is one — are on the back burner.

“Max is eager to start that project,” Patel

ANGELA C. BOND

A

meat-free salads, there’s a daily vegetarian special, made with the latest in-season desays. “Brunch is his favorite meal of the day, liveries from local farmers. (Last week, those options included a beet salad and a berry and he loved making it at Room 39. The probsorbet.) I tried — and liked — a plate of carrot lem on 75th Street is, we don’t have enough food storage space yet. Our kitchen area is fettuccine tossed in fresh mint pesto. It was especially good with this restaurant’s most very, very small.” popular starter: “fries” of sliced eggplant, It’s big enough for the popular sous vide “water oven,” which cooks food in plas- battered and deep-fried and sprinkled with sea salt, then drizzled with local honey. Also tic submerged in a hot-water bath. It’s the among the appetizers are falafel and some hourlong soak in the sous vide that permits Watson to prepare one of the most unusual variation on the deviled-egg motif, though the jewel-like creations I tasted last week meatless creations in this beef-loving town. were better with the ruby“We wanted at least one colored snippet of smoked vegetarian entrée,” Watson Remedy Food + Drink salmon that was available explains. “And since Atit Corn dogs ........................$6.50 that day. is very inf luenced by the Eggplant fries .................$6.50 Watson says most of the culinary pubs he visited in Pork shoulder ................$14.50 meals served at Remedy are Chicago, I checked menus in Cauliflower steak .........$12.50 shared by patrons who are that city to get inspiration.”

Free-range there to imbibe a cocktail or Apparently, they like fried chicken .....................$12 two. The entrée list is approAngel-food cake .............$6.50 cauliflower in Chicago. And Brownie waffle ...............$5.50 priately understated, with a Watson’s cauliflower “steak” selection of five imaginative is certainly inspired. Even choices. There’s also a trio of someone who detests the hard, bland vegetable that Mark Twain called robust à la carte meals: a 20-ounce, bone-in ribeye; a pound of peel-and-eat shrimp; and “nothing but a cabbage with a college education” (someone like me) should be suitably fried chicken.

Because it’s labor-intensive, a decent impressed. It’s a lengthwise slab, cooked until the flesh is fork-tender but not mushy, breaded bird is a rare species on bar menus. then sautéed in a pan until lightly golden and But Watson is proud of his better-than-decent fowl, which he marinates for a day in tart pickle dappled with a spoonful of tahini. Watson serves it on a terrific salad of garbanzo beans juice, then cooks in the sous vide (bagged with garlic, buttermilk and herbs) for three hours. and grilled radicchio, tossed in a dressing of After it comes out of the bath, he rolls the yogurt and the oil created by freshly roasted cooked bird in seasoned flour and deep-fries herbs (including coriander, mustard seed and fennel). It’s nothing like a real grilled steak, it for two minutes to create a golden, crispy and it isn’t supposed to be. And it’s nothing crust. I ordered the three-piece combo one night, and the server asked if I wanted it “mild like cauliflower, either. or spicy.” When I couldn’t make up my mind, Remedy isn’t going to cure the urge for meat, but it has one of the city’s more he whispered, “The spicy isn’t very spicy.”

That’s putting it, well, mildly. “We’re still vegetarian-forward menus. Besides three

Brownie, meet waffle.

pitch.com pitch.com

working on that issue,” Watson told me later.

“It’s not as spicy-hot as we want it to be yet.

But we don’t want it too fiery.”

Two of the chicken pieces — served in a bowl — were moist and delicious. The wing was tough and dry, but two out of three ain’t bad. And customers so far are in agreement: Among the most-ordered dishes, the chicken is second only to Watson’s slow-roasted pork shoulder. The pork was one of his specialties at Port Fonda. It’s a smaller portion here, coated in a brown-sugar rub and served with pillowy hominy and bitter kale leaves. “The sweetness of the rub bridges the tartness of the kale,” Watson says.

The chef knows a good combination, and he has spotted another one in the two talented cohorts working his kitchen: 31-year-old Rob Mitchell and 27-year-old Andrew Heimburger.

They don’t mind whipping up a batch of fresh béarnaise sauce (served with the fries) on short notice or aiding Watson in some of his clever culinary solutions.

Watson’s home crew consists of two youngsters and a patient wife (“I’m not home a lot these days,” he says), a kindergarten teacher.

It was her idea to put a Mason-jar terrarium on every table. “A self-contained ecosystem,” reads the label on each lid. “Please do not shake or open.”

“Has anyone tried to steal one of these?” I asked my server one afternoon. “No,” he said.

His voice turned a little solemn. “But some of our drunker patrons do shake them. Or throw them.” The concept here may be green (“We recycle our glass and our cardboard,” Patel told me), but this is still Waldo, a peculiar ecosystem all its own.

Remedy fits the liquor-swilling landscape pretty well, though. The joint has some truly accomplished bartenders, and there’s a base of patrons who appreciate a little cleverness on a menu — people who may even be able to explain gastropubs to the rest of us.

Of course, a little clever goes a long way, and there’s a touch too much on the dessert menu.

I’m thinking of the thick slab of angel-food cake I tried one night. It came with a glossy jumble of dehydrated strawberries, which were living out a strange half-life in a sticky jam.

I didn’t recognize the taste of strawberries, fresh or dried.

Far better is Remedy’s signature pastry, a waffle made with chewy brownie batter and served luxuriously hot and topped with a scoop of potent, house-made apple-bourbon ice cream. And I do mean high-octane — you can taste the Jim Beam. For nondrinkers, there’s a less sassy but still rich mascarpone ice cream.

A couple of these sweets, and you’ll be ready for a remedy, all right: a diet.

Have a suggestion for a restaurant The Pitch should review?

E-mail charles.ferruzza@pitch.com A U G U S T 2 3 - 2 9, 2 0 1 2 T H E P I T C H 21 M O N T H X X–X X , 2 0 0 X T H E P I T C H 1

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n what was billed as a fi ve-star restaurant in Normandy, France, I once looked a waiter in the face and said, Plus fort fromage. Asking a Frenchman to bring me the strongest cheese available was a questionable decision, and I have rarely shown similar audacity since.

So I’m a bit measured when I ask Alberto Santoro — most people just call him Berto — to choose a cocktail for me. It’s the beginning of a Thursday-evening happy hour at Extra Virgin, and the barman known for his Old Overholt Manhattans feels me out.

“What do you like?” Santoro asks.

I tell him I like it all. I want him to make me the drink he was thinking about when I walked up. Santoro nods.

“I got it,” he says. He puts fresh strawberries in the bottom of a pint glass.

“Is that yours?” asks Jason Burton. The owner of the Lab, a beverage consultancy and coffee playground, is joining me for drinks and a bite of Extra Virgin’s pork belly.

“Actually, it’s mine,” Santoro jokes.

“Shebang,” he adds, lifting both hands back, palms up, as he steps away, drink finished. The result is bright but balanced — a red stop sign for whatever it was I had been talking about before my first sip.

Santoro, a finalist in Sunday’s Paris of the Plains bartending competition, has made me a modified version of the cocktail entry that earned him one of the contest’s 12 spots.

The strawberries are joined by Plymouth gin, Jerry Thomas’ Own Decanter Bitters, freshly squeezed lemon juice, mint syrup, and a strawberry and red-peppercorn shrub

When Santoro fills a glass, you drink whatever’s in it. (house-made drinking vinegar) — topped with Boulevard Wheat. Santoro plans to crack his 12-bottle stash of Boulevard’s Saison-Brett (what he calls his “secret weapon”) and homemade bitters now aging in the space above the restaurant.

“I went up and tried it after a day, and it was right there,” he says.

In front of Burton, he places a more savory cocktail: Hayman’s Old Tom Gin, Pimm’s No. 1 and Thatcher’s cucumber liqueur. It’s the kind of drink you might order after a day of hunting lions on an African savanna.

BY

JON AT H A N BENDER

Burton, a loquacious drinking companion, takes a sip and slips into a moment of silent reverence.

Santoro is just back from the Tales of the Cocktail festival in New Orleans, where he helped represent Manifesto in the Bar Brawl, cranking out 1,000 cocktails in three hours alongside Ryan Maybee, co-owner of the Rieger Hotel Grill & Exchange and Manifesto.

There, he also discovered a heretofore latent love of hats.

“I’ve never been a hat guy, but I haven’t taken a hat off for two weeks,” Santoro says, shrugging his shoulders at the idea.

Tonight he’s wearing a black pageboy cap, which dips and bobs as he works the center of the rectangular wooden bar that’s the focal point of Extra Virgin. A small dishwasher blows out steam beneath the wineglasses as drink orders roll out of a small black machine.

The bar had started filling up by 4:45 p.m.

Fifteen minutes later, it’s hard to fi nd a seat. One of the last goes to fellow Paris of the Plains competitor Jenn Tosatto, a mixologist at the Rieger. She and her sister take the places at one corner, next to Burton and me. She’s wearing a tuxedo T-shirt cut to show off the dog collar around her neck.

(The leash is in her purse.) Santoro starts mixing her drink before she can ask for one.

“Shebang,” he says again, then puts the glass in front of her.

“Got any predictions for the competition?”

I ask Santoro.

“Pain,” he says.

E-mail jonathan.bender@pitch.com

DRINK UP

T

he five-year-old Greater Kansas City Bartending Competition has grown into the Paris of the Plains Cocktail Festival, a weeklong celebration of KC’s revitalized cocktail culture. Three can’t-miss events from the lineup: • If you’ve seen any of that revitalization up close, you’ve recently had a drink made with bitters. But it’s a talented chef who can figure out how to work bitters into a four-course dinner.

You’re in good hands with chef Howard Hanna, who co-owns the Rieger (1924 Main) with Ryan Maybee. The restaurant’s Angostura Bitters Dinner ($90) is from 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday, August 23.

• “Horsefeathers” sounds like the name of a screwball comedy from a bygone era, but it’s actually a classic cocktail made with whiskey and ginger ale. Chris Conatser, who won the contest in 2008, is behind the bar to crank out that drink from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. the same evening at Grünauer (101 West 22nd Street). Your $5 cover also gets you a Snuff Jazz performance.

• The namesake cocktail competition is Sunday, August 26, at the Uptown Theater (3700 Broadway). What to expect: 12 mixologists competing onstage for a $1,000 purse. Conatser is a favorite, but nothing’s sure as long as the Farmhouse’s Arturo Vera-Felicie, who took home the crown in 2009, is in the house. In addition to the drink-shaking: a burlesque show and tasty bites from the Local Pig. Tickets ($25) include one drink token. See popfestkc.com for details.

22

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OINK UP

S

mell that? That’s bacon, and it’s coming to your town. Bacon-Fest, the annual fundraiser for the Rehabilitation Institute of Kansas City, is set for Saturday, August 25. Head to the facility’s parking lot (3010 Main) from 2 to 5 p.m. to munch on bacon dishes from a dozen local restaurants and area butchers (including Local Pig and Paradise Locker Meats). Wash them down with bacon vodka and beer from four stations throughout the event.

Tickets cost $40 in advance or $50 at the door. VIP admission ($100) buys you an extra hour of beer and bacon, access to the VIP tent, and a T-shirt and a commemorative cup to take home. See baconfestkc.com. pitch.com

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23

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THE PITCH

A U G U S T 2 3 - 2 9, 2 0 1 2

MUSIC

HIDDEN TALENT

Sam Baker didn’t start releasing records until he was in his 50s. It was worth the wait.

BY

MIK E WA R R E N

T

wo years ago, Texas songwriter Sam Baker performed in Kansas City as part of the Folly Theater’s Cyprus Avenue series, and toward the end of one of his big, painful folk songs, a quiet calm enveloped the room.

It was the kind of song that opens up a previously undiscovered cavern of loss in the heart.

Audience members dabbed at their eyes; some simply covered their faces with their hands. As the last chord died away, an enthusiastic fan called out a request for an even more devastating tune, and Baker simply looked up, shook his head, smiled a little and said, “Aww, ma’am … that’s just piling sad on top of sad.”

That evening was a surprise for both audience and singer: the former confounded

by Baker’s obscurity, the latter awed that a relatively full house was so familiar with his music. “These are all pretty hidden songs, and I’m a pretty hidden artist,” Baker tells The Pitch. “I didn’t start doing shows till 2004.”

Prior to 2004 (the year Baker’s debut album, Mercy, was released), the Itasca, Texas, native was an unknown talent, working as a project manager building apartments. But listen to the 58-year-old and you hear a natural: a distinct voice conveying a hint of Guy Clark’s compressed storytelling, a touch of John Prine’s humor (and his “Hello in E MOR There” heartbreak), and a giant splash of Townes T Van Zandt’s lean prose A E IN ONL .COM and wide-open spaces.

PITCH Baker’s songs consistently reach for the visceral and the true. In “Baseball,” the common details of a baseball game — a woman with a blanketwrapped baby in her arms, a husband buying a Coke for his thirsty wife — butt up against lines like Well, there’s soldiers, in the way of harm.

“I went to a kids’ baseball game,” Baker explains of the song. “We were about to jump in on another war, and I just wrote down what was going on. The kids are happy.

They’ve got good uniforms on. They don’t throw very well. They don’t catch very well.

They don’t care. They’re completely happy to be there — the parents and the fans, too. It’s just family, and they’re all completely enjoying that moment.” The chorus of “Baseball” — just four words, Boys laugh/Boys play — is full of impossible stretches and pauses that boil the song down to something far less simple. In every song, Baker’s phrasing is as important as his words. And his leap from Tuesday-night banality to midnight-blue mortality is one of his defining strengths.

Mortality is perhaps a less nebulous idea to Baker than most. On a visit to Peru in 1986, the terrorist group Shining Path planted a bomb on a train he happened to be riding. A German family in his train car, including a young boy, was killed; Baker barely survived. The effects of that South American tragedy inform not just Baker’s lyrics but also his delivery.

M US I C

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“Coming out of that, I had a brain injury,” he Present in his moment: Baker. says. “For a while, I couldn’t remember certain of a kid getting a burr haircut every week, it’s nouns. I’d have to Rolodex through a bunch of words till I got one that I thought was right. a legitimate view of the world.”

It’s not uncommon when performing And sometimes it would be right, and somefor Baker to tell wild road stories, tales of a times it wouldn’t be. My guess is that part of drunken Hank Williams or even an occasional my cadence is a habit of looking for words … or ragged, broken pun. “I love humor so much not trusting that I’ll have the word that I want, and I’ll have to retrieve it and replace it with because it’s hard to be anywhere else when you’re laughing,” Baker says. “If you laugh something that’s more accurate.” at a joke, I think you have to be present. The As host of the KCUR 89.3 radio show second we laugh, it’s hard to be worried about Cyprus Avenue and the Folly series that bears something that happened five years ago or two its name, Bill Shapiro has been an enthusiasyears ago, or your kids or your grandparents tic supporter of Baker and his music. “Sam’s stuff’s pretty heavy, just like life’s pretty or husband or wife, or what’s going to happen heavy,” Shapiro says. “He reaches inside and tomorrow. You’re compelled to be present just at that moment.” he does it with grace.”

This weekend’s Folly show helps mark But it would be a mistake to think of Baker as a mournful man. Onstage between songs the 30th anniversary of the now 112-year-old Folly narrowly escaping the and on the phone, the man is wrecking ball. (Without the practically raucous. Shapiro Cypress Avenue Live: financial rescue that ocremembers: “The first time Sam Baker curred three decades ago, I met Sam is when I brought Saturday, August 25, the theater would have behim in [for the Folly show] at the Folly Theater come just another downa few years ago. I always go town parking lot.) Baker has down to the sound check taken an interest in the history of the theater, to be sure it’s going to sound right. I got up which over the years has played host to vaudeand extended my hand, and he walked right through my hand and gave me the warmest ville, burlesque and adult movies. “Every human emotion has been onstage there,” he bearhug I’ve ever had.” says. “And I think every naked human body Baker knows that audiences want a little laughter, and his off beat sense of humor part has been shown from that stage.”

For his set, Baker promises plenty of as-yetdrives some of his best songs. The song unrecorded material. Of the new stuff, he of“Change,” for example, features a barber fers an explanation that’s probably not far from without a nose. “That was actually true,” Baker says. “That’s the way it was so long ago his own personal philosophy. “Sometimes I do sad on sad, but sometimes I do happy on in Texas. Things like that were considered not happy and goofy on goofy,” he says. “I think out of the ordinary. His name was Pops, and it’s OK to stack things, one on top of another.” he didn’t have a nose. And it sounds goofy.

Now, for Pops, I think it was probably a terrible thing. But to see that through the eyes E-mail feedback@pitch.com pitch.com

MONTH

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25

MUSIC | STREETSIDE

GOOD CLEAN FUN

Trying to stay wholesome at Parkville Days.

BY

D AV ID HUDN A L L

Does this look like a hotbed for sin?

I

s it possible for a 30-year-old man to attend a carnival by himself without being perceived as a pederast or some manner of pervert? The short answer is no. An individual with extraordinary charisma and grace might successfully navigate such terrain, but these qualities elude me. Still, I am not a pervert, not really anyway, and so it was with a clear conscience that I jumped on Highway 9 Sunday afternoon and cruised solo to the 44th annual Parkville Days festival.

Parkville is one of the most charming cities in the Kansas City metropolitan area, a white-shuttered, low-speed-limit hamlet tucked away off a northern bank of the Missouri River. When I have daydreams about starting life anew in some small town where my past can’t fi nd me, the town I imagine bears resemblance to Parkville. And yet, I never go there, busied as I am by my duties as a music journalist and barfly gadabout.

But a man can do only so much gadabouting!

Good, clean fun is the promise of Parkville Days, and I was determined to seize that rectitude, soak it in, and let it dilute the sinner’s blood that flows through me.

I missed the parade, which was held Saturday, but downtown Parkville was still buzzing Sunday afternoon with young families and wild-eyed packs of tweens. There are two primary attractions at Parkville Days: the carnival rides they plunk down in a parking lot off South Main Street, and the bazaarlike rows of booths, stands and tents closer to the river, in English Landing Park.

Along the vendor path, an old man in a blue mechanic-style jumpsuit and a hat that read “Korea Veteran” sat on a lawn chair.

Before him was a table of curious objects: means of conveyance constructed from beer cans. A Miller Lite train, a Hamm’s plane, 26

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Bud cans shaped like the Mayflower. The man’s name was Lee. “I retired from the railroad almost 20 years ago, 1993, and started making these,” he told me. I took one of his business cards, which identify him only by his first name.

It’s not all f lowery dresses and kettle corn and bee products at Parkville Days.

The vendors are more corporate than you might expect: booths hocking Cutco, bath fitters, Prudential insurance, aluminum siding, gutter protection. Snore. Other than my man Lee and an ice-cream place shaped like an ice-cream cone, there wasn’t much in the way of commerce for a man of my tastes. “I want Dippin’ Dots, I want Dippin’ Dots, I want Dippin’ Dots,” a little girl on a pink training-wheel bike whined at her mother. Purple pompoms splashed out from the sides of the bike’s handlebars.

A few minutes later, scooping at some Dippin’ Dots in the shade of the Super Slide, I spotted a ride called the Cliff Hanger. I’d tried out variations of all the other rides — the Ferris wheel, the Ali Baba, the zerogravity one where centrifugal force pins you to the wall — at different amusement parks over the years. But I’d never been on a Cliff Hanger, which is like a horizontal Ferris wheel. Instead of sitting in a carriage, you lie on your stomach with your arms stretched out ahead of you. Like a hang glider. Or Superman. And it goes round and round, superfast.

A police officer strolled past and eyed me for longer than seemed routine; I couldn’t continue lurking alone in the shadows. It became clear that I had no choice in the matter: I bought four tickets for $4 from the ticket booth, and I marched up to the Cliff Hanger line. A young couple and their 5-year-old son

stood ahead of me, waiting on the attendant.

The woman sensed my presence, glanced over her shoulder and politely smiled. Then she drew a sort of triangle with her gaze: downward, to the open air on my left, then over to the open air on my right — empty spaces where she expected to find a child or maybe a significant other. Nope! Just me! Then her gaze moved up, her brow slowly furrowing, to my horrible, grimacing, idiotic face.

The attendant, a gruff guy in his mid-20s, in a black tank top and with a tattoo on his shoulder, returned and waved us in, interrupting my shaming.

“You go back there, way in the back,” the attendant told me. “Nope — all the way back.” It was three people to a gondola, but I was the only one in my gondola. He opened the hatch, I lay down, and he locked me in. I stared ahead, vulnerable and helpless, paralyzed by the steel bars bolted down around me. There was a mechanical whir, we were elevated a couple of feet, and the ride began.

At fi rst, it was like a merry-go-round, but then we gradually tilted vertical, and by the end, we were circling around at wild diagonal angles, like a plane about to crash.

The gears of the machine were grinding and screeching, and I was thinking about how, if I saw on the five-o’clock news that some carnival ride at a street festival had malfunctioned and some of the passengers had died, I would not be particularly shocked. But I was already up in the sky, flying, and what happened on this run of the Cliff Hanger was beyond my control. I opened my mouth as wide as it could go and drank in the rushing wind like it was water jetting from a spigot.

E-mail david.hudnall@pitch.com pitch.com

MONTH

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MUSIC

RADAR

M U S I C F O R E CAST

BY

Other shows worth seeing this week.

D AV ID HUDN A L L

T H U R S D AY, A U G U S T 2 3 Goomba Rave Back to School Edition with Riff Raff, Lil Debbie, Tyga Style, DJ G Train, Maal A Goomba: 9 p.m., $10. The Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-841-5483.

Mickey Hart Band: The Granada, 1020 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-842-1390.

F R I D AY, A U G U S T 2 4

From left: King Tuff and Pretty Lights

Hearts of Darkness, with the Good Foot

A couple of Sundays back, Hearts of Darkness took home the 2012 Pitch Music Award for Best Live Act, an outcome that came as a surprise to roughly nobody. Despite playing around town on a regular basis, the local funk-Afrobeat crew almost always draws large, eager crowds.

There’s a lesson here for bands: If you want people to come out to your shows, it helps if you play music they can dance to. The Motown revivalists in the Good Foot are not unaware of that fact, making them ideal openers for this record-release show, which celebrates HOD’s latest LP, Shelf Life.

Saturday, August 25, at Knuckleheads Saloon (2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456)

Thee Water MoccaSins, with Olivetti Letter and Be/Non

Thee Water MoccaSins singer and guitarist Billy Smith is living out in New York City (and on tour as a crew member with such acts as Slash and Smashing Pumpkins), so the electro-psychrock band can get together for shows only every so often. This Riot Room gig is one such affair.

The MoccaSins are joined here by fellow psych dudes Be/Non and by Olivetti Letter, a new-ish local outfit that adorns its dark-toned indie rock with pretty-lady vocals. (I recommend starting with the excellent “Waiting,” which you can find on the band’s SoundCloud page.)

Thursday, August 23, at Riot Room (4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179)

Diverse Plays Michael Jackson

“I can honestly say it’s my favorite show to play,” says bandleader and trumpeter Hermon Mehari of his band Diverse’s annual tribute to

Michael Jackson. The concept enters its third year Friday at RecordBar and features an array of special guests, including members of the Good Foot and Hearts of Darkness, Anthony Saunders, Lee Langston and Reach. Crossing my fingers for an “Off the Wall” or maybe — long shot — “Stranger in Moscow.”

Friday, August 24, at RecordBar (1020 Westport Road, 816-753-5207)

Pretty Lights, with Araabmuzik and Paul Basic

Derek Vincent Smith, aka Pretty Lights, receives slightly less shine than electronica contemporaries Bassnectar and Girl Talk, but I am sensing that might be changing as a result of his hitting the festival circuit pretty hard the last year or so. Pretty Lights’ sound is a mingling of deep bass drops with funk, soul and hip-hop samples. Befitting its name, the mash-ups are enhanced by sensory-overload stage visuals: LED panels, light cubes, lasers, the whole deal.

Thursday, August 23, at the Midland (1228 Main, 816-283-9921)

ShowYouSuck

One of the more fascinating aspects of hiphop’s evolution in recent years is the way it has absorbed, and been absorbed by, a subculture previously defined by indie-rock music. You can see this osmosis in effect with a character like Chicago’s ShowYouSuck, who, like this show’s openers Greg Enemy and Ebony Tusks, is comfortable in plaid clothing and jean jackets. (And not baggy jean jackets like Dr. Dre would wear in a Dr Pepper commercial; I mean the type of form-fitting, smartly aged kind worn by people who hang out at

F O R E C A S T

28

the Replay.) Aesthetically, ShowYouSuck values fashion and humor — a recent mixtape is titled One Man Pizza Party 2: Mo Slices Mo Problems — over street cred and boasts, and fans of Das Racist ought to find his clever party-rap endearing.

Friday, August 24, at the Replay Lounge (946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676)

Purity Ring

Moody electro-pop group the Knife is the most obvious touchstone for Shrines, the recently released debut LP from Canadian duo Purity Ring; both acts assemble their sound with ethereal female vocals, glassy synths and throbbing robotic bass lines. Add Purity Ring’s inventive and infectious use of hip-hop beats, and you’ve got the kind of genre-bending that’s irresistible to music critics — including this one.

Monday, August 27, at Jackpot Music Hall (943 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-832-1085)

King Tuff

I love a wild garage-rock show, but I also find that the bands too often are one-trick ponies, bogged down in the same old stomps, the same old jangly chord progressions. This is why I’m big on Kyle Thomas, the one-man band known as King Tuff. Tuff ’s songs are raw and scuzzy but also concerned with more outside-the-garage notions like melody and pop sensibility — in particular, the glammy power-pop vibes of the late 1970s.

Sunday, August 26, at the Replay Lounge (946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676)

K E Y ..........................................Best New Music, Y'all

.........................................Record-Release Show

............................................................. Falsettos

................................................. Canadian People

..................................................... Horns Aplenty

........................................................ College Kids

................................................ Punks Screaming

.................................................. Locally Sourced

......................................................... Glow Sticks

..........................................................Guitar Hero

.........................................................Psychedelia

.............................................. Rampant Drug Use

................................................ Pepperoni Lovers

pitch.com

Dawes: Crossroads KC at Grinders, 417 E. 18th St., 816-472-5454.

Bobcat Goldthwait: 7:45 & 9:45 p.m. Stanford’s Comedy Club, 1867 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-400-7500.

The Nadis Warriors, Nmezee, Clandestine: The Granada, 1020 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-842-1390.

Sounds for Tomorrow Fest with Cloud Dog, Tony Gaines, Sideways Glance, Maka, the Bus Co., the Potlickers: A fundraiser for the American Cancer Society, 4-9 p.m. South Park, 1141 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-832-7920.

S U N D AY, A U G U S T 2 6 Dead Prez, Les Izmore: The Riot Room, 4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179.

Chelsea Wolfe: 10 p.m. Jackpot Music Hall, 943 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-832-1085.

M O N D AY, A U G U S T 2 7 John Hiatt: Uptown Theater, 3700 Broadway, 816-753-8665.

Lyle Lovett and His Large Band: Yardley Hall at JCCC, 12345 College Blvd., Lenexa, 913-469-8500.

Huey Mack, JAMS: The Granada, 1020 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-842-1390.

W E D N E S D AY, A U G U S T 2 9 Black Stone Cherry, Stellar Revival, Obsidian: The Beaumont Club, 4050 Pennsylvania, 816-561-2560.

Rose’s Pawn Shop, Cowgirl’s Train Set: The Granada, 1020 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-842-1390.

FUTURECAST AUGUST THURSDAY 30 Umphrey’s McGee: Crossroads KC at Grinders FRIDAY 31 Journey, Pat Benatar, Loverboy: Livestrong Sporting Park, Kansas City, Kan.

SEPTEMBER

..................................................................Gloves

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S AT U R D AY, A U G U S T 2 5

T U E S D AY, A U G U S T 2 8

..................................................Pick of the Week

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The All-American Rejects: 8 p.m. KC Live Stage at the Power & Light District, 13th St. and Grand.

Bobcat Goldthwait: 7:45 & 9:45 p.m. Stanford’s Comedy Club, 1867 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-400-7500.

Puddle of Mudd: VooDoo Lounge, Harrah’s Casino, 1 Riverboat Dr., North Kansas City, 816-472-7777.

Shiner, Ghosty, Simple Lines: The Granada, 1020 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-842-1390.

Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives: 9 p.m.

Knuckleheads Saloon, 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456.

Tech N9ne: Crossroads KC at Grinders, 417 E. 18th St., 816-472-5454.

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SATURDAY 8 Y’allapalooza: 3 p.m. Livestrong Sporting Park, Kansas City, Kan. SUNDAY 9 Twin Shadow: The Granada, Lawrence THURSDAY 13 Powerman 5000, Swill, Syn City Cowboys, Razorwire Halo: The Beaumont Club

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p SIGHTS, SOUNDS, IMPERIAL FLAVOR 1531 GRAND, KANSAS CITY, MO (816) 421-0300 - www.czarkc.com

NOW HIRING

FOOD BY

TUE - TacoTuesday w/Czar-rita specials WED - Indie Hit Makers Showcase w/Industry Q&A Panel from 6-9:30pm w/Host Mike Borgia/Gurerilla Movement Showcase 10pm-Close THUR - Philly Thursday’s/Hot Caution w/Vi Tran, Katie Gilchrist & friends FRI - Fish Taco Friday’s w/Czar-rita & craft beer specials

FRI 9/14 ZZ Ward • SAT 9/22 Jealous Sound SAT 11/10 Neil Hamburger 1ST FRIDAY EVENTS FEATURING LOCAL AND REGIONAL ARTISTS EVERY MONTH!

VENUE HOTTEST in Johnson County

LIVE MUSIC 5 NIGHTS A WEEK • OPEN TUES-SAT NO COVER, 4pm - Midnight

WEDNESDAY AUG 22

RICK BACUS TRIO 7-10PM THURSDAY AUG 23

JUSTIN ANDREW MURRAY OPEN JAM 8-11PM EVERY WEDNESDAY Lonnie Ray Blues Band EVERY THURSDAY Live Reggae with AZ One

FRIDAY, AUGUST 24TH

The Patrick Lentz Band - 10pm SATURDAY, AUGUST 25th Camp Harlow - 5pm The Magnetics- 10pm NIGHTLY SPECIALS

FOOD AND DRINK

PATIO & DECK BANQUET & PRIVATE PARTY FACILITY

FRIDAY AUG 24

CARTER SAMPSON 5:30-7PM KNOCKKNEED SALLY 8-11PM SATURDAY AUG 25

BROCK ALEXANDER 5:30-7PM CROSSEYED CAT 8-11PM TUESDAY AUG 28

DAVE HAYS BAND OPEN JAM 8:30PM-12:30AM SERVING JON RUSSELL’S AWARD WINNING BBQ

SERVED FROM 5PM - 10PM

135TH ST. & QUIVIRA

12056 W. 135th St. OPKS 913-239-9666 www.quasimodokc.com pitch.com

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NIGHTLIFE Send submissions to Clubs Editor Abbie Stutzer by e-mail (abbie.stutzer@pitch.com), fax (816-756-0502) or phone (816-218-6926).

Continuing items must be resubmitted monthly.

T H U R S D AY 2 3 ROCK/POP/INDIE Jackpot Music Hall: 943 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-8321085. Remerra, Oils.

Jazzhaus: 926-1/2 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-1387.

My So-Called Band.

Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676.

LongShadows, 10 p.m.

BLUES/FUNK/SOUL B.B.’s Lawnside BBQ: 1205 E. 85th St., 816-822-7427. John Paul’s Flying Circus.

Jazz: 1823 W. 39th St., 816-531-5556. Grand Marquis.

Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. Tad Robinson, 7:30 p.m.; Kenny White, Living Room session, 8:30 p.m.

Trouser Mouse: 625 N.W. Mock Ave., Blue Springs, 816-2201222. The Bluz Benderz.

ROOTS/COUNTRY/BLUEGRASS Czar: 1531 Grand, 816-421-0300. Buffalo Clover, Mike Borgia & the Problems, Lullwater, 6 p.m.

Kanza Hall: 7300 W. 119th St., Overland Park, 913-451-0444.

Adam Thomas.

KC Live Stage at the Power & Light District: 13th St. and Grand. Craig Morgan.

Mike Kelly’s Westsider: 1515 Westport Rd., 816-931-9417.

Great Scott.

BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS B.B.’s Lawnside BBQ: 1205 E. 85th St., 816-822-7427. Mardi Gras in August.

Bulldog: 1715 Main, 816-421-4799. Brodioke, 9 p.m.

Buzzard Beach: 4110 Pennsylvania, 816-753-4455. Trivia, Ladies’ Night, 7 p.m.

Czar: 1531 Grand, 816-421-0300. Hot Caution Thursdays, 10 p.m.

Double Nickel Bar: 189 S. Rogers, Ste. 1614, Olathe, 913-3900363. Texas Hold ’em.

Fuel: 7300 W. 119th St., Overland Park, 913-451-0444. Bike night.

Hamburger Mary’s: 101 Southwest Blvd., 816-842-1919. Charity Bingo with Valerie Versace, 8 p.m., $1 per game.

RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Trivia Clash, 7 p.m.

Saints Pub + Patio: 9720 Quivira, Lenexa, 913-492-3900. Ladies’ Night.

Sherlock’s Underground Coffeehouse & Pub: 858 State Route 291, Liberty, 816-429-5262. Karaoke, ladies’ night specials.

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

Westport Flea Market: 817 Westport Rd., 816-931-1986. Trivia.

FOLK The Brick: 1727 McGee, 816-421-1634. Attic Wolves, Nobody Parties But Rod.

OPEN MIC/JAM SESSIONS Double T’s Roadhouse: 1421 Merriam Ln., Kansas City, Kan., 913-432-5555. Blues Jam hosted by RocknRick’s Boogie Leggin’ Blues Band, 7 p.m.

The Indie on Main: 1228 Main, 816-283-9900. Open mic, Low Dough Beer Night, 8 p.m.

Jerry’s Bait Shop: 302 S.W. Main, Lee’s Summit, 816-525-1871.

Jerry’s Jam Night, 9 p.m.

Quasimodo: 12056 W. 135th St., Overland Park, 913-239-9666.

Justin Andrew Murray Open Jam.

DJ Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676.

DJ Short Pants the Boss on the patio, 10 p.m.

M E TA L / P U N K RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Dear Landlord, the Murderburgers, the Rackatees, 9 p.m.

ACOUSTIC

REGGAE

The Phoenix: 302 W. Eighth St., 816-221-5299. Michael Schultz.

Afrobeat: 9922 Holmes, 816-943-6333. Reggae Rockers, 10 p.m.

JAZZ

SINGER-SONGWRITER

Star Bar at Pachamama’s: 800 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-841-0990. Floyd the Barber with Tommy Johnson, 8:30 p.m.

WORLD

Coda: 1744 Broadway, 816-569-1747. Elaine McMilian’s Songbirds Circle.

VA R I E T Y

The Levee: 16 W. 43rd St., 816-561-2821. Live Reggae with AZ-ONE.

The All-Star Rock Bar: 7210 N.E. 43rd St., 816-452-2660. Family Night with Jason Dean the Magician, 9 p.m.

COMEDY

F R I D AY 2 4 ROCK/POP/INDIE

Improv Comedy Club and Dinner Theater: 7260 N.W. 87th St., 816-759-5233. Greg Fitzsimmons, 7:30 p.m.

Stanford’s Comedy Club: 1867 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-400-7500. David Kious, 8 p.m.

Coda: 1744 Broadway, 816-569-1747. The Cosmic Tady Brothers, Clint and Justin Hoffmeier perform songs of Ween, Gemini Twin.

30 2 3 - 2X9, 2 TTHHEE PPI ITTCCHH MAOUNGTUHS TX X–X , 220001X2

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Jackpot Music Hall: 943 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-8321085. Language of Light, Skin Job, Vor Onus.

The Riot Room: 4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179. Meganaut, Jake Briscoe, the Lucky.

BLUES/FUNK/SOUL Barnyard Beer: 925 Iowa, Lawrence, 785-393-9696. The Mad Kings, Radio Romantica.

B.B.’s Lawnside BBQ: 1205 E. 85th St., 816-822-7427. Back Porch Blues Band.

Clarette Club: 5400 Martway, Mission, 913-384-0986. JC the New King of Funk.

The Hideout: 6948 N. Oak Tfwy., 816-468-0550. The Bobby Smith Blues Band, 8:30 p.m.

Jazz: 1823 W. 39th St., 816-531-5556. The Big 3 with John Paul Drum.

Jazzhaus: 926-1/2 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-1387.

SUNU. Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456.

Michelle McBride, 8:30 p.m.

Quasimodo: 12056 W. 135th St., Overland Park, 913-239-9666.

Knock Kneed Sally, 8 p.m.

Trouser Mouse: 625 N.W. Mock Ave., Blue Springs, 816-2201222. Lonesome Hank and the Heartaches.

ROOTS/COUNTRY/BLUEGRASS Czar: 1531 Grand, 816-421-0300. Kris Bell, Band 13, Get Along, Whalen Reads the Manual, Salad Bar Jam, 10 p.m.

Frank James Saloon: 10919 N.W. Hwy. 45, Parkville, 816-5050800. Riverrock.

Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676.

Sky Smeed, Tyler Gregory, the Fall Down Drunks, 6 p.m.

Stuey McBrew’s: 321 S.E. Main, Lee’s Summit, 816-600-5560.

The Vine Brothers.

WORLD Blvd. Nights: 2805 Southwest Blvd., 816-931-6900. Good Fridays: International Party Experience, 10 p.m.

BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS Hurricane Allie’s Bar and Grill: 5541 Merriam Dr., Shawnee, 913-217-7665. Karaoke, 8:30 p.m.

J. Murphy’s Irish Pub and Grille: 22730 Midland Dr., Shawnee, 913-825-3880. Karaoke, 9 p.m.

Missie B’s: 805 W. 39th St., 816-561-0625. Ab Fab Fridays on the main floor, 10 p.m.

Mission Bowl: 5399 Martway, Mission, 913-432-7000. CountryN-Bowl, wear western clothing, win prizes, 10 p.m.-12:30 a.m.

Retro Downtown Drinks & Dance: 1518 McGee, 816-4214201. Trivia Riot, 7 p.m.

Smokehouse Bar-B-Que: 6304 N. Oak, Gladstone, 816-4544500. Happy hour, 4-6 p.m.

REGGAE Californos: 4124 Pennsylvania, 816-531-7878. The New Riddim.

SINGER-SONGWRITER The Brick: 1727 McGee, 816-421-1634. The Sawyers, Chris Darby and friends, Ben Summers.

VA R I E T Y Aftershock Bar & Grill: 5240 Merriam Dr., Merriam, 913-3845646. Battle for Freaker’s Ball.

S AT U R D AY 2 5

DJ

ROCK/POP/INDIE

Aura: 3832 Main. Andy Caldwell, Jeffrey B. Mosaic Lounge: 1331 Walnut, 816-679-0076. Fire and Ice with DJ Allen Michael and DJ Ashton Martin.

The Quaff: 1010 Broadway, 816-471-1918. DJ E. Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676.

DJ Proof on the patio, 10 p.m.

The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-8415483. Sellout.

Coda: 1744 Broadway, 816-569-1747. Promise Makers 7 p.m.

Czar: 1531 Grand, 816-421-0300. Remerra, Le Grand, the Restless Breed, 9 p.m.

Jackpot Music Hall: 943 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-8321085. Broncho, the Dead Girls, the Sluts.

Kearney Amphitheater at Jesse James Park: 3001 N. Missouri 33, Kearney, 816-903-4730. Hells Bells, Eliminator, 7 p.m.

Legends at Village West: 1843 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-788-3700. Flashback, 5 p.m.

One Eyed Jacks: 5044 N.E. Parvin Rd., 816-455-5225. Earl Baker Band.

RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Ms. Gradenko, 6 p.m.; Psychocandy, Into You Like a Train and more, 9 p.m.

Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676.

Major Games, Bummer, Mansion, 10 p.m.

The Riot Room: 4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179. Humans, Arm the Poor, Sri Yantra.

HIP-HOP The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-8415483. Ass Jamz, the Return of Hot Mess with Johnny Quest.

ACOUSTIC Bar West: 7174 Renner Rd., Shawnee, 913-248-9378. Dan Brockert.

RJ’s Bob-Be-Que Shack: 5835 Lamar, Mission, 913-2627300. Acoustic Red Dirt by Jesse Jeffers.

JAZZ

The Majestic Restaurant: 931 Broadway, 816-221-1888. Joe DeFio, on the main floor, 5 p.m.

The Phoenix: 302 W. Eighth St., 816-221-5299. Lonnie McFadden, 4:30 p.m.; JLove Band, 9 p.m.

Take Five Coffee + Bar: 5336 W. 151st St., Overland Park, 913948-5550. Passport with Pat Conway.

pitch.com

BLUES/FUNK/SOUL B.B.’s Lawnside BBQ: 1205 E. 85th St., 816-822-7427. Mama Ray Jazz Meets Blues Jam, 2 p.m.; Ernest James Zydeco, 9 p.m.

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The Brick: 1727 McGee, 816-421-1634. Phase II, Cadillac Flambe.

Jazzhaus: 926-1/2 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-1387.

Sonic Sutra.

Quasimodo: 12056 W. 135th St., Overland Park, 913-239-9666.

Brock Alexander, 5:30 p.m.; Crosseyed Cat, 8 p.m.

RJ’s Bob-Be-Que Shack: 5835 Lamar, Mission, 913-2627300. Bluesberry.

ROOTS/COUNTRY/BLUEGRASS Coda: 1744 Broadway, 816-569-1747. The Silver Maggies, Dead Voices, 9 p.m.

Mike Kelly’s Westsider: 1515 Westport Rd., 816-931-9417.

Toe Jam.

DJ The Quaff: 1010 Broadway, 816-471-1918. DJ Chris.

Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676.

Thrift Store 45s on the patio, 10 p.m.

JAZZ Take Five Coffee + Bar: 5336 W. 151st St., Overland Park, 913948-5550. Barry Mosley Quartet featuring Paul Von Adam.

BLUES/FUNK/SOUL The Phoenix: 302 W. Eighth St., 816-221-5299. Open Blues Jam with Brody Buster.

Trouser Mouse: 625 N.W. Mock Ave., Blue Springs, 816-2201222. Terry Quiett Band.

ROOTS/COUNTRY/BLUEGRASS Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. Outlaw Jim and the Whiskey Benders, 7 p.m.

DJ The Gusto Lounge: 504 Westport Rd., 816-974-8786. Retox Sundays, 8 p.m.

Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-7497676. Sunday Funday with DJ G Train on the patio, 10 p.m.

JAZZ Ironwoods Park: 14701 Mission, Leawood. Free Jazz Concert Series, 6 p.m.

The Majestic Restaurant: 931 Broadway, 816-221-1888. Rich Hill, 11 a.m. Mark Lowrey Jazz Trio open jam session, 5 p.m.

COMEDY

WORLD

Improv Comedy Club and Dinner Theater: 7260 N.W. 87th St., 816-759-5233. Greg Fitzsimmons, 7 & 9:45 p.m.

Missie B’s: 805 W. 39th St., 816-561-0625. Dirty Dorothy on the main floor, 10 p.m.

RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Sonic Spectrum Tribute Series: a Tribute to Fela Kuti’s Africa 70 featuring members of Hearts of Darkness, and more, 7 p.m.

BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS The Indie on Main: 1228 Main, 816-283-9900. Karaoke with KJ David, 9:30 p.m.

MoJo’s Bar & Grill: 1513 S.W. Hwy. 7, Blue Springs. Free pool, happy hour, 1-4 p.m.

The Red Balloon: 10325 W. 75th St., Overland Park, 913-9622330. Karaoke, 8 p.m., free.

Smokehouse Bar-B-Que: 6304 N. Oak, Gladstone, 816-4544500. Happy hour, 4-6 p.m.

M E TA L / P U N K Aftershock Bar & Grill: 5240 Merriam Dr., Merriam, 913-3845646. At the Left Hand of God, and more.

REGGAE Californos: 4124 Pennsylvania, 816-531-7878. 77 Jefferson.

R O C K A B I L LY Jazz: 1823 W. 39th St., 816-531-5556. Lonesome Hank and the Heartaches.

VA R I E T Y

The Uptown Arts Bar: 3611 Broadway. Back to Cowtown Ballroom Music & Cinema.

S U N D AY 2 6 ROCK/POP/INDIE Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676.

King Tuff, Nu Sensae, Black on Black, 10 p.m., cover at door.

Take Five Coffee + Bar: 5336 W. 151st St., Overland Park, 913948-5550. Jazz Jam with Nick Rowland and Sansabelt.

VA R I E T Y Foundation: 1221 Union (at Foundation Architectural Reclamation), 816-283-8990. Tunes for TARA with the Burdock King, Fashionably Late, Jen Lawless, the Walltalkers, Holmes Street, 1-6 p.m.

M O N D AY 2 7 ROCK/POP/INDIE The Riot Room: 4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179. Alistair Hennessey, Words Like Daggers, Conflicts, Embrace This Day.

BLUES/FUNK/SOUL The Hideout: 6948 N. Oak Tfwy., 816-468-0550. Blue Monday Trio.

ROOTS/COUNTRY/BLUEGRASS Barnyard Beer: 925 Iowa, Lawrence, 785-393-9696. Mudstomp Mondays.

JAZZ The Phoenix: 302 W. Eighth St., 816-221-5299. Millie Edwards and Michael Pagan, 7 p.m.

BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS

BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS

Barnyard Beer: 925 Iowa, Lawrence, 785-393-9696. Kansas Fiddling and Picking Championships After-Party, 5 p.m.

The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-8415483. Smackdown Trivia and Karaoke.

Clarette Club: 5400 Martway, Mission, 913-384-0986. Texas Hold ’em, 7 & 10 p.m.

Frank James Saloon: 10919 N.W. Hwy. 45, Parkville, 816-5050800. Karaoke, 6-10 p.m.

Fuel: 7300 W. 119th St., Overland Park, 913-451-0444. SIN. Hotel: 1300 Grand, 816-226-3232. Hotel California Service Industry Night with E DJ Ashton Martin, 9 p.m.

MOR Saints Pub + Patio: 9720 Quivira, Lenexa, 913-492-3900. Free pool.

Wallaby’s Grill and Pub: 9562 S G IN Lackman, Lenexa, 913-541-9255.

LIST E AT N I Texas Hold ’em, 6 & 9 p.m.

ONL M Westport Flea Market: 817 PITCH.CO Westport Rd., 816-931-1986. Texas Hold ’em, 3 & 6 p.m.

The All-Star Rock Bar: 7210 N.E. 43rd St., 816-452-2660.

Monday Mancave: sports, drink and food specials.

The Brick: 1727 McGee, 816-421-1634. Rural Grit Happy Hour, 6 p.m.; Karaoke with Kelly Bleachmaxx, 10:30 p.m., free; Clarette Club: 5400 Martway, Mission, 913-384-0986. Texas Hold ’em, 7 & 10 p.m.

Green Room Burgers & Beer: 4010 Pennsylvania, Ste. D, 816216-7682. Geeks Who Drink Pub Quiz, 8 p.m.

Jazzhaus: 926-1/2 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-1387.

Karaoke Idol with Tanya McNaughty.

RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Sonic Spectrum Music Trivia, 7 p.m., $5; karaoke with Baby Brie, 10 p.m.

Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676.

Sam’s Club Karaoke.

Westport Flea Market: 817 Westport Rd., 816-931-1986. Texas Hold ’em, 8 p.m.

CLUB

OPEN MIC/JAM SESSIONS Bleachers Bar & Grill: 210 S.W. Greenwich Dr., Lee’s Summit, 816623-3410. Open Blues and Funk Jam with Syncopation, 6 p.m.

The Hideout: 6948 N. Oak Tfwy., 816-468-0550. Open blues jam, 7 p.m.

Jazzhaus: 926-1/2 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-1387.

Sunday Salvation with Booty Bass, 10 p.m., $3.

Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. Open Jam with Levee Town, 2 p.m., free.

R.G.’s Lounge: 9100 E. 35th St., Independence, 816-358-5777.

Jam Night hosted by Dennis Nickell, Scotty Yates, Rick Eidson, and Jan Lamb, 5 p.m.

M E TA L / P U N K The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-8415483. Metal Monday.

R O C K A B I L LY

Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456. Bill Kirchen, 7:30 p.m.

T U E S D AY 2 8 ROCK/POP/INDIE RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Atlas, Jared Bond and the Tornadoes, Adam Breckenridge & Brown Sugar Bourbon, 9 p.m.

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BLUES/FUNK/SOUL B.B.’s Lawnside BBQ: 1205 E. 85th St., 816-822-7427.

Trampled Under Foot.

Jazz: 1823 W. 39th St., 816-531-5556. The Garrett Nordstrom Situation.

DJ Coda: 1744 Broadway, 816-569-1747. DJ Whatshisname, service industry night, 9 p.m.

The Gusto Lounge: 504 Westport Rd., 816-974-8786. #Cake with DJ G Train.

JAZZ Finnigan’s Hall: 503 E. 18th Ave., North Kansas City, 816-221-3466. Abel Ramirez Big Band, 6 p.m.

The Phoenix: 302 W. Eighth St., 816-221-5299. Open Jam with Everette DeVan, 7 p.m.

BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS The Bottleneck: 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-841-5483. Gak Attack, Horror Remix.

Coda: 1744 Broadway, 816-569-1747. Coda Pursuit Team Trivia with Teague Hayes, 7 p.m.

Improv Comedy Club and Dinner Theater: 7260 N.W. 87th St., 816-759-5233. Clash of the Comics, 7:30 p.m.

Jackpot Music Hall: 943 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-8321085. It’s Karaoke Time!

MiniBar: 3810 Broadway. Sonic Spectrum Trivia: the Bizarre, Pop Culture, and Travel, 7 p.m.

The Red Balloon: 10325 W. 75th St., Overland Park, 913-9622330. Karaoke, 8 p.m., free.

Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676.

Replay Horror Picture Show on the patio.

The Roxy: 7230 W. 75th St., Overland Park, 913-236-6211.

Karaoke.

Sherlock’s Underground Coffeehouse & Pub: 858 State Route 291, Liberty, 816-429-5262. Round Robin Card Tournaments.

OPEN MIC/JAM SESSIONS Bleachers Bar & Grill: 210 S.W. Greenwich Dr., Lee’s Summit, 816-623-3410. Open Mic Acoustic Jam. DiCarlo’s Mustard Seed Mexican-Americana Restaurant & Bar: 15015 E. U.S. Hwy. 40, 816-373-4240.

Blues, country and classic rock hosted by Rick Eidson and friends.

Quasimodo: 12056 W. 135th St., Overland Park, 913-239-9666.

Dave Hays Band Open Jam. Stanford’s Comedy Club: 1867 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-400-7500. Open Mic Night.

W E D N E S D AY 2 9 ROCK/POP/INDIE The Brick: 1727 McGee, 816-421-1634. Folkicide Mercury, Boog.

Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club: 3402 Main, 816-753-1909. Red Kate, the Atom Age, the Rackatees, 10 p.m.

The Riot Room: 4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179. One Headlight High, the Strive, the Clementines, Le Grand, Calling Home.

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B.B.’s Lawnside BBQ: 1205 E. 85th St., 816-822-7427.

Shinetop Jr. Jerry’s Bait Shop: 302 S.W. Main, Lee’s Summit, 816-525-1871.

Josh Johnson.

ROOTS/COUNTRY/BLUEGRASS Knuckleheads Saloon: 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456.

Deke Dickerson and the Ecco-Fonics, the Rumblejetts, 8 p.m.

DJ Coda: 1744 Broadway, 816-569-1747. DJ Robert Moore, 10 p.m.

The Gusto Lounge: 504 Westport Rd., 816-974-8786. Life 3-D, 10 p.m.

Replay Lounge: 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-7676.

DJ Kimbarely Legal.

HIP-HOP RecordBar: 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207. Midwest Got Next 5 with Huey P. Nuisance, ThrowbaKc, Statyk, Dana Coppafeel, Dao Jones, hosted by Steddy P, 9 p.m.

JAZZ InterContinental Kansas City at the Plaza: 401 Ward Pkwy., 816-756-1500. Candace Evans Trio.

The Phoenix: 302 W. Eighth St., 816-221-5299. Damon Parker, Southern piano.

COMEDY Stanford’s Comedy Club: 1867 Village West Pkwy., Kansas City, Kan., 913-400-7500. Tim Gaither, 8 p.m.

BAR GAMES/DRUNKEN DISTRACTIONS The All-Star Rock Bar: 7210 N.E. 43rd St., 816-452-2660.

Ladies’ Night and Dance Party with Debby Z. Beer Kitchen: 435 Westport Rd., 816389-4180. Brodioke.

MORE Bulldog: 1715 Main, 816-421-4799.

Liquid Lounge drink specials.

Danny’s Bar and Grill: 13350 College Blvd., Lenexa, INGS LIST E AT 913-345-9717. Trivia and karaoke IN L N O with DJ Smooth, 8 p.m.

M PITCH.CO 403 Club: 403 N. Fifth St., 913-499-8392. Pinball tournament, cash prize for winner, 8:30 p.m, $5 entry fee.

Improv Comedy Club and Dinner Theater: 7260 N.W. 87th St., 816-759-5233. MC Showcase.

J. Murphy’s Irish Pub and Grille: 22730 Midland Dr., Shawnee, 913-825-3880. Karaoke, 9 p.m.

MoJo’s Bar & Grill: 1513 S.W. Hwy. 7, Blue Springs. Pool and dart leagues; free pool, happy hour, 4-6 p.m.

Nara: 1617 Main, 816-221-6272. Ladies’ Night.

Outabounds Sports Bar & Grill: 3601 Broadway, 816-2148732. Karaoke with DJ Chad, 9 p.m.

The Riot Room: 4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179. Stone Brewing Co. Summer Solstice, Over the Top Stone Solstice Finale, 5 p.m.

Sherlock’s Underground Coffeehouse & Pub: 858 State Route 291, Liberty, 816-429-5262. Open jam blues, bike night specials.

Smokehouse Bar-B-Que: 6304 N. Oak, Gladstone, 816-4544500. Happy hour, 4-6 p.m.

Strikerz Entertainment Center: 18900 E. Valley View Pkwy., Independence, 816-313-5166. Ladies’ Night, ladies bowl for free in the Spare Room Party Room, DJ, 9 p.m.

The Union of Westport: 421 Westport Rd. Pop Culture Trivia.

Westport Flea Market: 817 Westport Rd., 816-931-1986. Trivia, 8 p.m.

CLUB

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Bleachers Bar & Grill: 210 S.W. Greenwich Dr., Lee’s Summit, 816-623-3410. Open Blues and Funk Jam with Syncopation, 7 p.m.

Jazzhaus: 926-1/2 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-1387.

Acoustic Open Mic with host Tyler Gregory, 10 p.m.

Tonahill’s 3 of a Kind: 11703 E. 23rd St., Independence, 816-833-5021. Blues, country and classic rock hosted by Rick Eidson and friends.

SPOKEN WORD & POETRY The Uptown Arts Bar: 3611 Broadway. Uptown Poetry Slam with Nightlife Jones.

VA R I E T Y Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club: 3402 Main, 816-753-1909.

Amy Farrand’s Weirdo Wednesday Social Club, 7 p.m., no cover.

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S AVA G E L O V E

CUNNING MATES

Exes Became a Couple

Dear Dan: I’m a 26-year-old queer woman.

I’m about to visit a friend who used to be my 34

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D A N S AVA G E

can go through a phase of being selfi sh and self-centered.”

I agree with Tristan, but I would go a bit further: Your friend — your selfish, thoughtless friend — is taking advantage of you, and because he knows you well enough to sense that meeting his needs is “fun, sexy and meaningful” for you, he figures he can keep getting away with it.

Right now, your relationship isn’t characterized by a healthy give-and-take of pleasure. You’re servicing your ex — or, to put it more charitably, you’re doing your ex a favor. The question for you is how long you intend to go on doing him this particular favor. If the pleasure you’re taking in helping him realize his fantasies is enough, then perhaps you should keep doing him favors.

But would you be writing to me about this situation if it were enough?

Dear Dan: I’m a college-age gay male. Last year, I dated two guys. The first — let’s call him Mitt — I dated for five months. He broke up with me, and it hurt as much as breakups do, but I got over it. A few months later, I dated another guy — let’s call him Paul — for a month. I really liked him, but he broke up with me, too. Then I found out that two days after breaking up with me, Paul started going out with Mitt. They knew I had dated each of them. It was the end of the school year, and I quickly left for vacation. The school year starts back up soon, and I’m still pissed and hurt that they are dating. Do I have a right to be? Should I just get over myself? Should I just do my best to avoid them?

Dear EBAC: Avoid them for now and get over yourself.

Gays and lesbians are about 2-5 percent of the population. I’m afraid that arithmetic precludes us from hewing to the “bro code” — at least in dating friends of exes, exes of friends or exes of exes. We simply don’t have the luxury of being as rigid about this shit as straight people do. The pickings for us are just too slim.

But you have a right to your feelings, and you should go ahead and feel the shit out of your pissed and hurt feelings. Two guys dated you, both dumped you, and now they’re dating each other. That’s gotta sting.

So avoid your exes for now — why salt your wounds by hanging out with them? — but resist the urge to go to war with your exes.

Don’t trash them on Facebook; don’t force your friends to choose sides. Smile and nod when you see them on campus, chat politely if you’re thrown together at parties, and just generally accept their relationship with as much good grace as you can muster.

Remember: The odds that these guys will be together forever are pretty slim. I’m not suggesting that their more-probable-thannot breakup should delight you, only that you might not want to burn bridges because — college being college, gay men being gay men — you could wind up dating one or the other or both of these guys again. Or, more likely, you might want to be friends with one or the other or both of them once your hurt has burned off.

And fi nally, ask yourself what you want these guys saying to mutual friends — some of whom might be gay, some of whom might be into you — if they’re asked about you. Do you want them to say you revealed yourself to be an angry and vindictive psycho when they got together? Or do you want them to say that, although you were obviously hurt when they got together, you were gracious about it, and that while you weren’t the right guy for either of them, you’re a good guy and the right guy for somebody?

BY

Dear Dan: Early in August, a gentleman who boyfriend and who has been my lover when we’ve visited each other since. Sex with him is fun for me, but it’s been life-changing for him. I’m the first person he has ever shared his kinks with: age regression/diapers/submission. He has been ashamed of his kinks for most of his life, and I’ve been completely accepting and have helped him get over his sense of shame. Playing this role in my friend’s life is fun, sexy and meaningful for me. My own tastes, though, are more vanilla. Some of the things that would be most satisfying to me — cunnilingus, him being a little dominant sometimes and, honestly, French kissing — have been absent from our sex. He says he wants to do for me whatever I want, and I’ve told him what I want as clearly as I just told you. But he seems to have some kind of block about actually doing those things. I’ve tried to be very positive about oral sex and not put pressure on my friend but let him know how hot it is for me and how fantastic it makes me feel. But so far, he just won’t do it. I’ve also let him know that I really enjoy kissing with tongue and that it’s pretty much the most arousing thing for me in the world. But he has done very little of that, too. He’s aware of the inequality in what we’ve done for each other and acknowledges that it’s unfair that he has “gotten away with it.” Help!

She Misses Tongue Dear SMT: While I was on vacation last week, sex writer, activist and feminist pornographer Tristan Taormino fi lled in for me.

Writing the Savage Love Letter of the Day in my absence, Tristan gave some advice to a woman in a similar situation (kinky partner being treated to first fantasy-fulfillment experiences but neglecting needs of indulgent vanilla partner): “Your boyfriend has fi nally been able to reveal his desires and fantasies to you,” Tristan wrote. “That’s a big deal, and when it happens, many people

signed himself WHACK wrote to you inquiring whether he should clear his browser history to keep his porn viewing from becoming known to his anti-porn wife, because the wife had noticed an empty browser history and gotten suspicious. Browser clearing is an option, of course, but most browsers also have an option that allows users to browse anonymously without retaining any history, cookies, passwords, etc. Google Chrome calls it “Incognito,” Safari and Firefox call it “Private Browsing,” and Internet Explorer calls it “InPrivate Browsing.” Turn it on before entering NSFW sites and turn if off after leaving such sites and you can build up an innocent-looking browser history without anyone seeing anything that might displease them.

Fanatic About Privacy Dear FAP: Thank you for writing in — and

thanks to the millions of other harried husbands who wrote in to share the good news with WHACK about private browsing features.

To those who accused me of sex-advice malpractice for failing to mention private-browsing features in my response to WHACK: I didn’t know they existed, and for that I blame my husband. If my spouse were a smut-shaming scold who hated porn (if he were more like WHACK’s spouse), I would’ve discovered the private-browsing features years ago.

TO MY READERS: The deadline for HUMP! (my annual amateur porn contest) is just six weeks away! Details about entering HUMP! and about the prizes (grand prize is $5,000!) can be found at humpseattle.com.

Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.

Have a question for Dan Savage?

E-mail him at mail@savagelove.net pitch.com

MONTH

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35

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WILLOWIND APARTMENTS

1, 2 & 3 Bedroom Apartments Starting @ $425

3927 Willow Ave • KCMO 64113 816.358.6764

Stonewall Court Apts 1-Bdrms starting at $395 central air, secure entry, on site laundry, on bus line, close to shopping, nice apts, Sections 8 welcome $100 Deposit (816) 231-2874 M-F 8-5 office hours

August 30th

Manhattan Tour

Building Open House

free wine and snacks from 4:30pm to 6:30pm

NORTHLAND VILLAGE $100 DEPOSIT ON 1&2 BEDROOMS

$525 / up Large 1, 2 & 3 Bedroom Apts and Townhomes Fireplace, Washer/Dryer Hook-ups, Storage Space, Pool.

I-35 & Antioch • (816) 454-5830

Are you out of housing options?

Have Credit Problems? Previous Evictions? Criminal History?

We rent to the rent challenged

Holiday Apartments Studios BRING THIS Downtown Area

$110/WEEK $150/DEPOSIT*

* Restrictions apply

Month to Month Lease!

On Site Loundry Facility Cable TV On Metro Bus Line Route 201

All Utilities Paid

Two Commercial Spaces Ready for You to Make an Investment on Today!

Coffee Shop

Salon Space

Brittney Orellano

Andrea Buettner

$205,000 or $1500/mo

$239,550 or $1000/mo

AD IN FOR $20 OFF YOUR FIRST 2 WEEKS

Holiday Apartments (816) 221-1721

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pitch.com

Bovery Realty Group 913.744.0177 A U G U S T 2 3 - 2 9, 2 0 1 2

Boveri Realty Group 816.806.9492 THE PITCH

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