The Pitch: August 2020

August 2020 I FREE I THEPITCHKC.COM

G.I.F.T. Program is Finding Ways to Uplift Black Businesses

Sarah Kendzior Deconstructs Americana

How Five Kansas Citians Beat COVID-19

BY HANNA ELLINGTON

BY DAN LYBARGER

BY CELIA SEARLES

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CONTENTS One of dozens of artists at Union Station’s new Graffiti Attic opening.

Read about it online at ThePitchKC.com.

THE PITCH

Publisher Stephanie Carey Editor in Chief Brock Wilbur Digital Editor Kelcie McKenney Music Editor Nick Spacek Film Editor Abby Olcese Contributing Writers Emily Cox, Liz Cook, Rachel Potucek, Barbara Shelly, April Fleming, Deborah Hirsch, Brooke Tippin, Roxie Hammill, Archana Sundar, Beth Lipoff, Riley Cowing, Edward Schmalz, Celeste Torrence, Ameerah Sanders, Dan Lybarger, Vivian Kane, Jen Harris, Kara Lewis, Orrin Grey, Adrian Torres, Reb Valentine, Aaron Rhodes Little Village Creative Services Jordan Sellergren Contributing Photographers Zach Bauman, Joe Carey, Chase Castor, Caleb Condit, Travis Young, Beth Lipoff, Jim Nimmo, Rebecca Norden, Angela C. Bond Graphic Designers Austin Crockett, Jake Edmisten, Lacey Hawkins, Angèle Lafond, Jennifer Larson, Katie McNeil, Danielle Moore, Gianfranco Ocampo, Lauren Onions, Kirsten Overby, Alex Peak, Jack Raybuck, Fran Sherman Director of Marketing & Promotions Jason Dockery Account Manager John Phelps Director of Operations Andrew Miller Editorial Interns Joseph Hernandez, Celia Searles Multimedia Intern Hanna Ellington Design Intern Katelyn Betz Marketing Intern Whitney Henry

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Chief Executive Officer Stephanie Carey Chief Operating Officer Adam Carey

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DISTRIBUTION

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The Pitch 3543 Broadway Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64111 For information or to share a story tip, email tips@thepitchkc.com For advertising: stephanie@thepitchkc.com or 816-218-6702

JIM NIMMO

28 FEATURE

Stripped Down and on the Bound On boudoir photography and a mission to love myself

BY KELCIE MCKENNEY

32 MUSIC

KC’s Infinite Playlist What summer jams are ‘Citians rocking amid the world burning down?

BY NICK SPACEK

34 MOVIES 4 LETTER

Letter from the Editor Do you hear the people sing?

BY BROCK WILBUR

6 NEWS

G.I.F.T. Offers Support to Black Businesses The fight for racial equality has boosted Black-owned businesses, but it won’t fix their problems forever

BY HANNA ELLINGTON

19 DRINK

Drink This Now The Deadeye Diaz at Drastic Measures

BY APRIL FLEMING

20 GAMES

Saving Throw vs.

Pandemic Challenge Plaguelife activated a new rabid fandom for D&D

BY ORRIN GREY

12 More Than a Number

22 ARTS

16 FOOD

24 How Politics and Identity are

Stories from locals who fought COVID-19 and won

BY CELIA SEARLES

Bruncheon Roulette Weighing The Pros And Cons Of Corona Communal Mimosas

BY LIZ COOK

18 EAT

Eat This Now Sonoran flour tortillas from Yoli Tortilleria

BY APRIL FLEMING

Accepting your Cinematic Blindspots No time like the present to finally watch some movies you should have seen by now

BY ABBY OLCESE

36 KC CARES

The Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault

BY BROOKE TIPPIN

38 SAVAGE LOVE

Yet again, the impossibility of monogamy.

BY DAN SAVAGE

Adib Khorram is Not Okay Darius Deserves Better author benefits from strong writing community

BY BETH LIPOFF

Bizarrely Disconnected in 2020 An interview with Hiding in Plain Sight author Sarah Kendzior

BY DAN LYBARGER

COVER: BLACK LIVES MATTER MURAL IN KCK BY ANITA AND LUCKY EASTERWOOD Travis Young thepitchkc.com | August 2020 | THE PITCH

3

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I try to never kick-off a piece with a cliché.

But on rare occasions, there’s no avoiding it.

So when I say “The winds of change have begun to blow,” it is because there is simply no option more fitting for where we find ourselves; and such language is the language of shared understanding.

If you’ve been reading our coverage of local and national news over the last few months, either in this magazine or daily online, it has almost assuredly been one of dozens of outlets reflecting an incredible sea change in how our country functions, and how we see ourselves. And, more importantly, where we want to exist moving forward.

The last few years have resulted in some accelerationist, galvanizing events on a massive scale. The rise of certain politicians and

under Barack Obama would have lead to dozens of politically motivated investigations. And my frustration with how those behind it are continuing the President’s status of “Teflon Don” in seeing absolutely none of it stick, or even slow him down.

These last few years have been difficult.

I’ve been screaming at brick walls. I’ve been unsure as to why no one will engage me in good faith arguments, or even consider that they’re sticking up for the absolutely dumbest piece of shit that has ever walked the face of the Earth—a man who would never give a shit if they lived or died—and simply made this silent agreement to support the further criminal enterprise of someone who is in such cognitive decline he can barely read.

Then, a switch flipped. 2020 happened.

I’m seeing the radicalization on so many levels. I’m seeing people not just change their minds, but change their entire stance on how this country functions. I

have difficulty processing just

I know who got woke to the Black Lives Matter how many folks

movement and have accepted that incredible change needs to come.

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THE PITCH | August 2020 | thepitchkc.com

the rejection of their policies has divided our nation into a position where the very nature of facts or reality have become points of hardlined political division. We are sitting here, watching a plague claim the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans, and a large percentage of folks are opting to believe, not scientists, but rather a man who owned a failed casino, and his side-kick who spent 1999 raging against the Disney film Mulan because it scared him too much. You know: Brain Geniuses.

Since 2016, I’ve engaged friends and family members in fairly aggressive debates about the nature of the people who run our country. Which choices that seem to only benefit themselves, which choices that prove cruelty is the point, which choices that, say,

Everything went the direction that you’re aware it has gone. And in the months that followed, I’ve seen something miraculous.

Not just a small shift, but an intense radicalization. The people around me who I felt were stonewalling the truth have suddenly become activated. So many I worried I was losing confidence in have re-emerged as goddamned champions of fellow man.

And this all stems from watching just how completely fucked this has all become.

As the pandemic continues and states are re-opening, re-closing, enforcing, and unenforcing measures, it’s become clear— this was a failure at the top level. I, too, once expressed a form of anger towards the people I saw that were returning to work at a time it was dangerous, or saw people angry

that this shutdown seemed to help nothing.

Yeah. It’s true. And it has equally absolved me of anger that was misspent on my fellow citizens. The whole point of this shutdown was the give the government time to slow the spread and find a solution. Those in charge instead opted to make it political fights. We’re currently backing out of the World Health Organization and trying to cut out the CDC from having oversight of data because of stupid, stupid political choices. We were all let down on the same scale by the same people. This could have been solved by now, and a guy who had a cameo in Home Alone 2 is preventing our country from literally surviving this.

I’m seeing the radicalization on so many levels. I’m seeing people not just change their minds, but change their entire stance on how this country functions. I have difficulty processing just how many folks I know who got woke to the Black Lives Matter movement and have accepted that incredible change needs to come.

My own father, who a few weeks ago tried to tell me that “You can’t just live in your basement, you need to get out there and not be afraid,”... he now runs a private Facebook group in our hometown for outing businesses that aren’t abiding by mask laws. He’s naming and shaming to protect our town, and thousands of people are behind him.

I’m sobbing. I can’t believe how quickly so many of us snapped out of the partisan bubble and realized that COVID-19 doesn’t give a shit about how you vote.

I’m proud of you. I’m proud of us. I cannot wait to see how much more we wake around socio-political issues in the days and weeks to come.

Contact us with story ideas at tips@thepitchkc.com

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G.I.F.T. OFFERS SUPPORT TO BLACK BUSINESSES THE FIGHT FOR RACIAL EQUALITY HAS BOOSTED BLACK-OWNED BUSINESSES, BUT IT WON’T FIX THEIR ISSUES FOREVER BY HANNA ELLINGTON

The recent outrage and protests centered on racial inequalities are ushering in a new era for Black business owners. While support has prompted an uptick in clientele and donations for some local Black-owned businesses, some fear that the momentum won’t last and businesses will suffer as a result. With little help outside of consumers, the root issues that perpetuate inequality in Kansas City’s local Black communities signal that there is more work to be done.

Baking is a family affair for Xandria Andrews, who established Miss Sweetie’s Bakery

6

THE PITCH | August 2020 | thepitchkc.com

after a lifetime of learning from her mother and grandmother. Her gooey peach cobbler pound cake and rich German chocolate cake have been a momentary distraction from the harsh reality of COVID-19 and protests for equality in recent months.

“It is a breath of fresh air, especially during this time,” Andrews says. “We still kind of get to come together and bake, and it’s inspired my younger niece to start baking at home as well. It’s just pulled us even closer together.”

The survival of her business during

Generating Income for Tomorrow. Brandon Calloway (left) and Cornell Gorman.

COVID-19 has been nothing short of a miracle as 41 percent of Black-owned businesses shut down between February and April, according to a Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research study.

The Paycheck Protection Program— which launched in March alongside the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act—was designed to provide cash to businesses to help pay employees. The majority of Black-owned businesses failed to qualify for the initial $500 billion in loans, likely due to 95.8 percent of Black-owned businesses have no employees past the owners, according to 2012 U.S. Census survey.

Of the nearly 5,000 known PPP loans distributed across the area, only 24 Blackowned businesses received funding, according to a study by a University of Missouri-Kansas City researcher.

In an effort to bridge the gap, some corporations have created funds specifically for Black-owned businesses. PayPal pledged $500 million to help Black-owned start-ups, Google committed $175 million, and Apple created a $100 million program partially focused on economic equality.

“Black small businesses, they don’t al-

CHASE CASTOR

ways configure into the plans to get the funding that they need to actually survive,” bakery owner Andrews says. “You might be able to launch, but in order to survive, you may not always have the main tools and resources needed to do so.”

The buying power of American consumers became a movement within itself as protests against police brutality and racial inequality following George Floyd’s death recently gripped the nation. Lists of Blackowned businesses circulated the Internet, and many Americans pledged to #BuyBlack in an effort to support businesses that have been overlooked in the past.

“I noticed that I have more white people than before asking me questions like ‘What’s your menu?’ or just donating to me; just out of the clear blue sky,” Andrews says.

Other entrepreneurs, like atelier Sean Horton, noticed that consumer movements like #BuyBlack create a new divide between patronage of different beliefs.

“You have a Black Lives Matter movement, and then there’s another coin to that,” Horton says. “The other side to that are the caucasian people against Black Lives Matter saying ‘We’re not going to support Black busi-

NEWS

nesses.’ Not saying that the movement is not needed, but at the same time, it does affect business. It affects everybody’s business, to be honest.”

Starting and maintaining a business is difficult for any business owner. For some Black entrepreneurs, a lack of capital combined with a lack of financial backing and inheritance can end their dream of being a business owner before it begins.

Black KC residents are disproportionately impoverished, with a poverty rate of nearly 25 percent, according to 2018 U.S. Census data, as compared to a nearly 12 percent poverty rate for white residents.

Kansas City has a checkered past when it comes to treatment of Black residents. In its founding, Country Club Plaza developer J.C. Nichols divided the city between Black and white through a process known today as redlining. Defined as the practice of discrimination in morgatge lending, redlining continues to impact local communities to this day, specifically in relation to Troost Avenue.

On the east side of Troost Avenue, an average of 36 percent of people live in poverty, according to Zip Atlas data. On average, more than 75 percent of residents living on the east side of Troost are Black. On the west side, where the average

Xandria Andrews (right), owner of Miss Sweetie’s Bakery and her mom Brenda Andrews

of white residents is 91 percent, an average of 5 percent of people live in poverty.

The generational and physical divide has caused a gap in wealth between residents of different races living in Kansas City. In Jackson County, Black residents have an average household income of $36,509, nearly $30,000 less than white residents, according to 2018 U.S. Census data.

CHASE CASTOR

other things like that more important? And we’re not being able to fully invest like we wanted to.”

Yet money isn’t the only problem Blackowned businesses face. Lack of community support, resources, tools, and marketing can all prove detrimental to a business, which is apparent to custom-clothing maker Horton.

“One thing that we lack is support,”

“The door has been shut in my face several times. I feel like there should probably be additional help or resources to help

people of color, women, to help us. We are slighted in these areas, and it’s so hard

to compete. Even if you have the best idea, the best concept, and your business plan

could be immaculate, wonderful, and well

thought-out, you just don’t have the edge to bridge you over to the other side.”

Sean M. Horton in his Raytown atelier

CHASE CASTOR

Outstanding financial obligations and business setbacks have been an integral part of Material Opulence, a ready-to-wear streetwear brand created in 2013 by Renauld Shelton II. “Every year-and-a-half to two years, we run into a setback as far as financially,” Shelton said. “We kind of have these setbacks where life kind of got in the way of priorities.

The business started to come into question about being the most important thing, like are taking care of my son and my home or

Horton says. “We lack support financially, we lack support as far as getting our goods to the market, and I think we lack support as far as patronage goes as well.”

Bakery owner Andrews had her fair share of these same challenges when opening her bakery, she says.

“The door has been shut in my face several times,” Andrews says. “I feel like there should probably be additional help or resources to help people of color, women, to help us. We are slighted in these areas, and it’s thepitchkc.com | August 2020 | THE PITCH

7

NEWS

so hard to compete. Even if you have the best idea, the best concept, and your business plan could be immaculate, wonderful, and well thought-out, you just don’t have the edge to bridge you over to the other side.”

The city offers a certification for women, minority, and disadvantaged business enterprises to provide more opportunities to underrepresented businesses. Certified businesses have access to local contracts, like with Kansas City Area Transit Authority, according to the city’s website. There are more than 700 businesses available on this list, with 295 having minority-owned certification.

Dr. Shelley Cooper used to have this certification. Although it got her foot in the door, she says she lost out on opportunities to larger corporations that weren’t necessarily the right fit for the contracts. She owns and operates Diversity Telehealth, an accessible alternative to in-person healthcare founded in 2015.

“Even though there are minority-owned,

Dr. Shelley Cooper of Diversity Telehealth in her office in the 18th and Vine district.

Maurice Thomas III and Renauld Shelton II of the clothing brand Material Opulence.

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THE PITCH | August 2020 | thepitchkc.com

CHASE CASTOR

CHASE CASTOR

women-owned, disadvantaged business enterprises that can provide the service, the big guys always get it,” Cooper says. “When smaller companies do get something, it’s a much smaller amount and project, and I think more attention needs to be given to small businesses, especially in Kansas City where tax dollars are being spent. Black-owned businesses are being overlooked.”

Three former business owners know this all too well. What started as a Facebook post on April 30 has transformed into Generating Income for Tomorrow (G.I.F.T.), a group hoping to support businesses in low-income areas by creating economic opportunities, according to their website.

“Chris made the post April 30, and May 1 or 2 is when I had my first conversation with him,” Executive Director Brandon Calloway says. “At that time, the Ahmad Arbery story hadn’t come out yet. The Breonna Taylor story hadn’t come out yet. And George Floyd hadn’t been murdered yet.”

“This is nothing new, we were going to do it anyway because of the already prevalent systemic racism that we saw,” Calloway says.

“But, what we’ve already seen is that, with everything going on right now, with the national protests on systemic racism and it coming into the spotlight, people are not being able to ignore it.”

Generating Income for Tomorrow was born after Christopher Stewart posted on the Black Owned Businesses of Kansas City Facebook page. In his post, he wondered how the group could invest in Black-owned businesses if all 15,252 group members invested $10 each.

Calloway saw the post and said he knew this was an opportunity he needed to join.

The third member, Cornell Gorman, is a

lifelong friend of Stewart’s. Days after the initial post, G.I.F.T. was born. Their mission is to be an asset to Black businesses by helping with the good and the bad that come along with business ownership, along with creating economic opportunities and decreasing the wealth gap, Calloway says.

“Based on the climate that we’re currently in in America right now, Black America, we kind of feel like we’re not getting a fair shake,” Marketing Director Cornell Gorman says. “Through it all, there’s a feeling that we go through banks and we’re not getting loans at rates as other ethnicities. We’ll take out the guesswork, we want to give Black Americans a fair shake, and we know without a doubt that you’re not dealing with any type of bias or stereotypes.”

Giving a fair shake to local businesses is what motivates their outreach to area businesses. After their founding, G.I.F.T. reached out to Miss Sweeties Bakery, Sean M. Horton Atelier, Material Opulence, and Diversity Telehealth, among multiple others, to brainstorm tangible and useful goals for helping these businesses.

The ongoing protests and discussions surrounding racial inequality have revealed decades of racial inequality that is all too familiar for Black entrepreneurs. The G.I.F.T. organization wants to be a part of the solution, but Gorman said they know they can only do so much.

“The issues that we deal with as Black Amerians is deep, it’s big, it’s wide, and there’s not a one-thing-fix-all type of deal,” Gorman said. “The G.I.F.T. organization won’t correct all those pains that we deal with in the Black community. It won’t correct all the oppression that we’ve dealt with. But, it’s a piece of the puzzle. It’s a huge piece of the puzzle.”

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NEWS

CELIA SEARLES

MORE THAN A NUMBER STORIES FROM LOCALS WHO FOUGHT COVID-19 AND WON. BY CELIA SEARLES

We have all opened our phones, turned on the news, or listened to the radio and felt our heart sink as more and more COVID-19 cases were reported in the Kansas City area the past five months. As the numbers continue to climb, it’s easy to become desensitized to the individual stories and experiences of those in our community who are suffering at the hands of COVID-19.

We wanted to put a name and a story to the numbers we see in our news coverage.

In our efforts to continue to social distance, mask up, and stay home as much as we can, it’s important to hear from those who have been on the other side of the virus. Here are five Kansas Citians who have battled COVID-19.

Aimes Schalles Aimes had tuned out of news coverage during his trip to San Francisco and Portland in mid-March. Like many of us, “when you’re on vacation you don’t pay attention to news much,” Schalles says. The Lawrence business owner didn’t suspect the trip would give him COVID-19, but on the plane ride home he developed a sore throat. When he arrived home, he quarantined himself.

After being turned away from the emergency room and county health department, he found himself in Lawrence Memorial Hospital’s triage department on March 18th.

The only reason he qualified for testing was because he had recently traveled to places where the virus was already widespread.

“They had to suit up for testing,” Schalles says. Schalles was the second confirmed case

12

THE PITCH | August 2020 | thepitchkc.com

in Douglas County.

After receiving his positive test results, Schalles and his roommates were spooked.

They decided together to all hunker down and let Schalles use the whole house to isolate in, even at the risk of exposing the others. “We had an ‘all in this together’ mentality,” Schalles says.

Schalles experienced a sore throat first, and later had a headache, digestive issues, and lost his sense of taste and smell for three weeks. “I took a shot of apple cider vinegar, and it didn’t even taste like water, it tasted like nothing,” he says. Schalles explained that symptoms didn’t seem to overlap with one another: as one ran its course through his body another would be introduced. He didn’t experience any shortness of breath, but would complete breathing exercises for his mom on FaceTime.

One of the strangest symptoms Schalles experienced was severe confusion. “It was like dementia,” he says. He thought that people were speaking to him in a different language and had trouble completing tasks.

By March 23, Schalles started to feel better and received an antibody test that revealed a high number of antibodies. From there, he began donating plasma twice a week and has continued in the three months following his recovery.

The most frustrating part of the experience emotionally was the intersection of Schalles being a transgender man and the healthcare he received. Upon arriving at the hospital the first time, his previous name was listed in the hospital’s system, and upon learning that fact, the nurses and doctors that took care of him only referred to him by

his “dead” name—the name from before his transition. Fighting for your health is hard enough, but fighting to be represented as your true identity is a whole other layer that nobody should have to do—whether or not you are fighting an illness.

When the hospital released information about Schalles’ condition to KDHE in a press release, he continued to be misgendered, which began to seep into his personal life.

He was referred to as, “A woman in her 30s who just got back from the west coast.” The public misgendering caused nearly 50 people from Schalles’ past to reach out and personally misgender him. He recalls lots of, “Hey

You don’t want the guilt of wondering who you could have infected if you have the virus, he explained.

Abbigail Singer Longhaulers. That’s what COVID-19 patients who have had the virus for over eighty days call themselves. Over twenty thousand Facebook users are a part of the online group titled, “The Longhaulers,” created for support, information swapping, and experiences to connect some of the virus’ loneliest sufferers.

Abbigail Singer is a 22-year-old Kansas

“We had an ‘all in this together’ mentality. I took a shot of apple cider vinegar, and it didn’t even taste like water, it tasted like nothing.” girlie!” type messages in his inbox following the release of the KDHE statement.

One of the main problems, aside from the social and mental implications of being misgendered, is that in the case of COVID-19, the makeup of your blood is extremely important in how the virus is looked at in an individual. Since beginning testosterone, Schalles’s blood makeup is that of a 40-year-old man, despite being a transgendered man in his 30s. This makes him more susceptible to high blood pressure and blood clots. Since COVID-19 is a vascular disease that often is directly affected by blood clotting, the consistent misgendering of a patient not only puts them emotionally at risk, but physically as well.

Schalles has made a full recovery since his encounter with COVID-19, but living in Lawrence presents its own challenges. “I’m afraid of the 20-something college-age kids,” he says. He remembers how he felt at that age, “invincible.” Schalles is worried about the many residents of his town that will not be thinking of the greater good and instead, prioritize going to bars, parties, and other public spaces instead of staying home and protecting themselves from spreading the virus. “It just terrifies me being in a college town right now,” he says.

The biggest takeaway from Schalles’ experience is to, “be a good neighbor,” he says.

City native who is one of many in that group.

She suffered from COVID-19 infection for over ninety days, and only in the past month has tested negative for the virus.

On March 25, Singer was exposed to the virus at a wedding and by March 30, was exhibiting flu-like symptoms. By April first, she received her first positive test result and entered into her first 14-day quarantine.

Over the next fourteen days, she experienced breathing problems and fever. Singer began experiencing “breathing attacks” where she, quite literally, couldn’t breathe.

One night she woke up to one so terrible she began to dial 911 but fainted before she could connect. As someone who lives alone, the fear of the severity of this virus began to set in.

After Singer’s first 14-day quarantine, she began feeling better and assumed she had beat the virus. Feeling just tired and sore, she assumed residual effects were running their course. She began venturing out into the world slowly, visiting her parents’ house and the grocery store.

By the beginning of May, Singer began experiencing unique symptoms: foaming at the mouth and coughing up blood. She decided to get a second test just to be safe and was shocked when on May 13, she received her second positive result. Singer was the first person in the Kansas City area to be a

NEWS

Courtney Forkum at a KC facility.

COURTNEY FORKUM

“I’m an introvert,” Singer says. But despite enjoying her time alone, not having someone to support her at home

was extremely difficult: not being able

911 in her moment of need, how great it would feel to just get a hug, how to reach

lonely it is to be throwing up with no one beside her to hold back her hair.

double positive case.

This discovery led to many questions: Had Singer recovered and contracted the virus for a second time? Had Singer never recovered in the first place? Is the immunity many thought they had after contracting the virus a hoax?

As Singer underwent her second 14-day quarantine, her breathing got considerably worse, and she ended up going to the hospital for x-rays of her lungs, thinking she also had contracted pneumonia. While no additional diagnosis was confirmed at that time, her medical team noted a cloudy look to her lungs: what they perceived to be COVID-19.

On May 22, Singer had a fever again that didn’t break for an entire month (yes, you read that right). Because it was not con-

sidered high enough-grade to be admitted into the Emergency Room (never got over 102°), she continued to fight the virus at home in her North Kansas City apartment, completely alone.

“I’m an introvert,” Singer says. But despite enjoying her time alone, not having someone to support her at home was extremely difficult: not being able to reach 911 in her moment of need, how great it would feel to just get a hug, how lonely it is to be throwing up with no one beside her to hold back her hair.

By the end of Singer’s second quarantine, she was still running a fever and experiencing breathing problems that only got worse. She began trauma counseling provided by the CDC to cope with the psychologthepitchkc.com | August 2020 | THE PITCH

13

Think you have COVID-19?

BY HANNA ELLINGTON

NEWS

What next?

Simply put: wait and see. You’ll likely get your results within a week of testing, so until then, stay away from everyone else and monitor your symptoms. Stay in contact with your doctor if they worsen. Keep an eye out for emergency signs, like trouble breathing, chest pain, or confusion. Again, we’re aware that these are symptoms of too many other medical complications, but make sure you don’t write off the signs just because of this.

ical effects of the virus, and she is currently on four different anxiety medications to cope. Singer notes that these medications do little to actually help her, as the psychological experience of being sick and isolated is very different than the normal anxiety she is usually treated for.

On June 5, Singer went for a third test.

Inconsistencies in the testing center she went to at the Clay County Health Department deemed her results inconclusive, yet the presence of COVID-19 symptoms allowed her to receive a presumed positive result.

By June 11, Singer’s breathing improved dramatically, but she was left with debilitating fatigue and weakness. Battling weakness to get daily basic tasks done is one of the most isolating parts of the experience. “Sundays are the worst day of the week for me,” Singer says. It’s the day her family drops off groceries to the front door of her apartment and getting up to move them inside and put them away takes all her energy for the entire day. “I have only taken one shower standing up this entire time,” Singer says.

The rest of June, Singer experienced extreme insomnia and vivid nightmares, something many other longhaulers have validated through their Facebook group. She notes it as the lowest point mentally throughout the experience and recalls only getting 30 minutes of sleep a night. She was recently put on medication to help her sleep, which has improved dramatically.

Singer was tested for a fourth time on July 7 and finally received negative results.

The next steps? Extensive bloodwork to see how her body is faring and whether or not the virus is truly gone.

Don’t count on Singer venturing out of her apartment anytime soon. Though she may not be actively fighting COVID-19, nobody knows how long she will be fighting the effects of the virus. “My immune system is severely compromised,” Singer says.

I’m feeling better…

You are considered safe after three days with no fever and improved symptoms 10 days after first appearing. If you were asymptomatic, having no symptoms for 10 days post-test is the goal point.

Communicate with your doctor as a follow-up test may be in order. A possible follow-up that some are engaging with includes going to local private clinics and testing centers like Quest Diagnostics. Not only are they offering COVID-19 tests for reasonable prices with exceptionally fast turn around, they’re also capable of providing antibody tests. The data on whether antibodies are going to protect from reinfection is up in the air, but if you have proof that you’ve had it, that’s valuable information in a war where every piece of information could save lives.

Tony Wallace After attending a wedding, celebrating his birthday at a local bar, and traveling to Florida, it was no surprise when Tony Wallace contracted COVID-19.

On June 20, Wallace attended a wedding where over ten attendees later contracted the virus from the event, but Wallace was left unscathed. Three days after the wedding, Wallace celebrated his birthday at a local bar in Overland Park. The next day, he, his girlfriend, and eight friends all traveled to Florida.

After spending time in Ft. Myers for five days, Wallace and his friends returned to Kansas City on June 28. On the flight back home, Wallace began to feel, “like absolute shit.” He suspected that he was just hungover from his time in Florida, but he could barely

You’ve got symptoms. Now what?

So you woke up with a fever, a cough, and/or shortness of breath. Or, you came into contact with someone who tested positive. Let’s agree that this is goddamned stupid that this disease has all the same symptoms as anxiety and allergies at the beginning, so it’s just a real neat time to have any illness at all because “what if?” Regardless, don’t be an ass—stay home. Stay away from anyone and everyone, including your housemates. Wash your hands, wear a mask, quit touching your face, and get to cleaning surfaces as soon as you can.

Let’s get tested.

Get into contact with your doctor. A medical professional will be of much more assistance than a visit to WebMD (and will probably spook you less). If your doctor refers you to get tested, you’ll need to schedule a test through your state’s respective Department of Health. For Missouri, call 311. For Kansas, call 866-534-3463. They can set you up with an appointment at a drive-thru testing site available around the metro area.

14

THE PITCH | August 2020 | thepitchkc.com

The spiders in the corner of Courtney Forkum’s hospital room.

COURTNEY FORKUM

She was isolated from all other patients, in a makeshift “room” made out of drywall and shower curtains in the hospital parking garage. “It’s not bad, but like, there were

daddy long legs in the corner,” Forkum says. keep his eyes open on the flight. “The fatigue was something I have never felt before,” Wallace says.

After returning home, Wallace isolated himself and realized that he may have COVID-19. He didn’t want to put his two daughters at risk, and still hasn’t seen them since he started feeling ill. “It tears me apart,” Wallace says.

Wallace notes experiencing, “COVID to the extreme when it came to symptoms.” Fever, fatigue, cough, diarrhea, loss of taste and smell, and body aches. Despite this, Wallace claims he would take COVID over the flu any time. “It’s mainly because the fever and the intensity of the symptoms weren’t near as severe,” Wallace says.

The curious part of Wallace’s case is that he has remained in close contact with his girlfriend, who ended up testing negative for the virus. She hasn’t gone back to work in the restaurant industry for fear of exposing others, yet the pair is confused as to how only one of them got COVID despite intimate contact. “How does that work? It’s kind of crazy,” Wallace says.

The virus derailed Wallace’s plans for

the summer, including a Worlds of Fun trip with his daughters, Fourth of July celebrations, and just spending time with family.

Despite this, Wallace has a somewhat relaxed attitude about the virus. “It hasn’t been fun, but at the same time it hasn’t been near as bad as the news makes it out to be,” he says.

Andrea Wickerstrom Andrea Wickerstrom was one of the many presumed positive cases in the KC metro area. In late May, Wickerstrom began presenting symptoms of COVID-19 after staying inside for over three months. All it took was working on a puzzle with her sister who had been in a room with many others when taking her medical school board exams.

Wickerstrom still managed to catch the virus after her sister took a shower and decontaminated herself.

On May 22, Wickerstrom and her sister began experiencing digestive issues and a general feeling of discomfort and illness.

Over the next two days, the fever and chills began with “weakness that was overwhelm-

NEWS

You Belong At...

Start a career in les than 18 months. ing,” Wickerstrom says. She slept for 16 hours. “I just couldn’t be awake, my body was too tired,” Wickerstrom says.

As the days wore on, she began coughing and felt discomfort in her lungs, like they were full of water. “If you cough, you breathe better for a minute, but you also have to deal with the pleurisy that comes with it—feeling like you’re being stabbed with an ice pick. It is honestly a lose-lose all around,” Wickerstrom says.

After nine days of Wickerstrom being on round-the-clock Mucinex and Tylenol, her fever broke.

Like many others, the virus took a significant mental toll as well as a physical one.

“It was honestly a mix of total brain fog and realizing that, ‘Well, this is the worst I have ever felt, and my anxiety presents as physical illness,’” Wickerstrom says.

After recovering from the virus, Wickerstrom believes that herd immunity is not possible. “If a relatively healthy 27-year-old is still experiencing fatigue and working on getting their singing voice back to where it was more than a month after recovery. We don’t know how many terrible side effects are going to come from this to plague those who’ve had it for years to come,” she warns.

Wickerstrom believes that the community needs to be doing more to safeguard themselves and others during this pandemic.

Previously impressed with the way Kansas had handled virus containment, Wickerstrom is now disappointed in the way many are returning back to “normal” that is now causing the spikes in the metro area.

“Lord knows I miss doing things,” Wickerstrom says. “The government needs to do more for its people. And has failed us miserably during this time.”

Courtney Forkum Being one of the first cases in Kansas City, Courtney Forkum went through the entire process of having the virus before it was truly on everyone’s radars in the community.

Traveling for work often, Forkum took a trip to Miami and New York City in early March.

At this time, word of COVID was just spreading to the Midwest, so Forkum didn’t see a problem in taking the work trip. She was taking precautions, though, and is not sure when and where exactly she contracted the virus.

She arrived back in Kansas City on Friday, March 13, and by Saturday she had a fever and headache—and fear. In New York, everyone was in panic mode, but back home in the Midwest, everything was completely normal.

Over the first few days, Forkum maintained a moderate fever around 102.5° along with a consistent headache and overall fatigue. By Wednesday, March 17, Forkum’s

coworkers in New York were experiencing the same symptoms and had access to testing. That week, Forkum called area hospitals to see if she could get a test—all of which said they didn’t have access to any tests or procedures for COVID-19. She spent hours on the phone with the Kansas and Missouri health departments.

When her coworkers received their positive test results, Forkum was instructed to assume that she was positive as well and to stay home. As one of the first cases in Kansas City, “it was super isolationg,” Forkum says.

As her symptoms continued, Forkum spoke to nine doctors in the area who were interested in monitoring her symptoms. At this point, the virus was not widespread in the Midwest, so she was in high demand by the local medical community—despite not having access to a test.

The following week, Forkum heard of a few tests available at area hospitals, but when she arrived to get one, she found that they were only for patients who needed ventilators.

In the last three to four days of her symptoms, Forkum developed severe breathing issues and considered going to the Emergency Room. She asked herself, “What is the risk of breaking quarantine to go to the hospital?”

Over a week and a half after her last recorded symptom, Forkum developed a severe cough and coughed up blood for three days. At that point, she went to the Emergency Room to seek treatment. She was isolated from all other patients, in a makeshift “room” made out of drywall and shower curtains in the hospital parking garage. “It’s not bad, but like, there were daddy long legs in the corner,” Forkum says.

During Forkum’s time at the hospital, the medical team did not deem it necessary for her to get tested, but she did receive an antibody test. She developed acute bronchitis from the lung weakness and was put on antibiotics.

By the end of April, six weeks after her first symptom, Forkum finally began to feel better. She had been isolating in her downtown apartment for the entirety of the illness and had not been exposed to another human. “I’m proud I was able to do that,” Forkum says. Through her entire experience with the virus, Forkum and her coworkers kept working from home to keep the company afloat. She needed insurance to pay for her medical costs, so keeping her job was a necessity.

The entire experience of having the virus has made Forkum hyper-aware of the public’s response to the pandemic. She urges members of the community to wear a mask and social distance. And for those still comparing it to the flu, she says one thing, “I’ve never had a six-week flu. Why would you risk someone’s health that could be worse than yours?”

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thepitchkc.com | August 2020 | THE PITCH

15

FOOD

16

THE PITCH | August 2020 | thepitchkc.com

FOOD

BRUNCHEON ROULETTE WEIGHING THE PROS AND CONS OF CORONA COMMUNAL MIMOSAS. BY LIZ COOK

I’ve been fielding a lot of questions about when I’m going back to eating in restaurants.

I usually give one of two answers, both equally true: “When we get our collective shit together” and “Not for a long time.”

On May 15—the day Kansas City restaurants reopened for in-room dining—the metro reported 64 new cases of COVID-19. The day I’m writing this—July 15—the metro reported almost 300.

Real cities have curves, I guess.

I’m desperate to sit in a restaurant again, too, to have a meaningless conversation with a bartender, to make wild plans with friends made possible only by the high of two cocktails and a good meal. I want restaurants to survive. I also want the people working in restaurants to survive. And right now, we’re doing a terrible job keeping them safe.

Since Kansas City reopened, multiple local restaurants, bars, and bakeries have closed down again due to COVID-19 cases among staff. Servers posting on a local restaurant job board say they’ve been ordered to come in for shifts while they wait for the results of their COVID tests. We have a mask ordinance as of this writing, but we also have restaurants unwilling to follow it and customers screaming and flashing guns at those who do. Our state-elected officials are throwing tantrums about their “constitutional right” to eat in a restaurant without wearing a mask. And the positive test rates in Kansas and Missouri are still well outside the World Health Organization’s threshold, suggesting we’ve yet to capture the true scope of the spread.

Meanwhile, restaurants are posting reopening notices assuring us they’re sanitizing their salt and pepper shakers. The biggest transmission risk isn’t surfaces—it’s people, and the viral droplets spraying from their beautiful human faces while they talk and laugh and cough and chew. Most of the promises from restaurants of “deep cleaning” and sanitizing and “air scrubbing” amount to little more than security theater. And many of the people tasked with putting on the show aren’t buying it.

“The nature of a restaurant is that it’s such a breeding ground [for infection],” says Tom Butts, a veteran server at a well-known fine dining restaurant (he asked that I not name the restaurant). “You’re talking about taking these measures that might be effective in the front of the house, but they’re certainly not going to be effective in the back of the house. The kitchen is always tiny, it’s always hot, you’re always slamming into each other, and I just don’t think there’s much you can do to lower the risk.”

Butts returned to work in June when

his employer reopened the restaurant for in-room dining. He resigned after three shifts, citing dehumanizing interactions with maskless customers and safety measures that amounted to “window dressing.” He says two other multi-year employees of the restaurant left the same day.

“If you talk to servers, most servers would tell you, ‘I’m not going to eat out, are you crazy?’” Butts says. “That should tell you a lot right there. We’re the canaries in the coal mine, and the canaries do not want to go down in the mine.”

One bartender at a Crossroads hotel

she was concerned about exposing them to the virus through her work. She says the restaurant was respectful of her decision, but she also expressed frustration at needing an excuse at all. “Younger people are in critical condition in ICUs. People are worried about their own health as well.”

I’m a critic, not a reporter, which means I’m allowed to be a prescriptive scold. So here we go: At a time when cases in both Kansas and Missouri are spiking, none of us should be eating indoors and putting low-wage industry workers without health insurance at risk. None of us should be sipping mimosas

“What am I doing this for? I’m not a nurse.

I’m not helping someone get through an illness. I don’t feel like I’m doing anything brave by waiting tables.” –– Sienna Hansen (quoted on condition of anonymity) agreed.

“It would make me feel more comfortable if patrons actually gave a shit,” he says. “No one seems to actually care. I wish I had a bull horn I could blow every time someone violated social distancing. I had one dude yell at me saying that he doesn’t know a single person who’s had coronavirus. It’s crazy that these people push for us to open the economy back up and then tip us like shit and treat us like shit. I hope we shut back down.”

I hope so, too, though I’m not optimistic. We’ve shifted the burden of public health decisions from elected officials to business owners who have an enormous (and understandable) financial incentive to keep us in the booths. And so the question of customer behavior has shifted, too, in a predictable direction. A month ago, when COVID-19 cases were far lower, we were asking ourselves, “Is it safe to eat in restaurants?” Now, we’re asking, “Will they survive if we don’t?”

“Restaurants were kind of forced to be open,” says Sienna Hansen, a 15-year service industry veteran. “It’s a weird thing to be an ‘essential worker’ and also think: Why? What am I doing this for? I’m not a nurse. I’m not helping someone get through an illness. I don’t feel like I’m doing anything brave by waiting tables, and that’s a tough psychological thing.”

Hansen left her serving job at Café Provence in Prairie Village when she was called back for dine-in service. Hansen’s inlaws are in their 80s and in poor health, and

and deluding ourselves that a 25 percent tip can in any way course-correct for a tiered system of humanity that forces the people least equipped to bear the costs of a viral pandemic to serve as personal risk sponges for wealthy lifestyle dilettantes.

And for what? For brunch?

Fuck brunch. Fuck chef ’s tables and omakase feasts and the resurgence of transactional media tastings. Fuck “returning to normalcy.” Nothing is normal. Fuck “the hustle,” when “the hustle” is code for telling the canaries to shut up and sing.

There’s a tendency, especially among well-meaning civic boosters, to look at the mess we’ve created and decide that participating in it is the only way we can help—that throwing workers and business owners a few bucks while they risk their health and safety is “better than nothing.” Is it though? Even after the reopening, multiple restaurants and bars have closed permanently due to lost revenue. And many prominent industry voices who agitated for large-scale solutions during the shutdown have fallen silent as they redirect their energy to daily survival.

If you push someone out of an airplane, handing them a paper drink umbrella for their descent is not “better than nothing.” It will not stop them from being jelly on the pavement. Anything other than a parachute is insufficient. Irrelevant.

Fuck paper umbrellas. Fuck the fundraisers for hospital bills and endless calls for a la carte giving that will stand as ghoulish

monuments to our collective failure to protect one another. Since the pandemic began, I’ve donated to hospitality funds, virtual tip jars, and a GoFundMe for a local service worker stuck with sky-high bills after his wife died of COVID-19. Let me be clear: each one of those is a policy failure. Affordable health care and subsistence living should not doled out at the whims of benevolent patrons.

Fuck the profound failure of imagination and political will it takes took at an unprecedented global pandemic and economic collapse and think “business as usual” is in any way sufficient. The hospitality industry held out an open palm, and we gave them the cold cruelty of the invisible hand. An economy founded on the principal of beneficent self-interest cannot function when our self-interest is in staying at home. We will not “fix” this fear until we fix the conditions that created it.

Restaurants and industry workers need major government interventions, not bland “rise and grind” axioms. Restaurants need money, not customers. But federal elected officials would rather choreograph a fusty economic gavotte and teach the country to dance than entertain the obvious solution: pay restaurants to stay closed and pay employees to stay home. Our problem isn’t that we don’t know what to do. Our problem is that we don’t want to do it.

The National Restaurant Association and Independent Restaurant Coalition are still agitating for federal relief, including the Restaurants Act, which would in part create a $120 billion recovery fund for restaurants. We could extend the additional unemployment benefits under the CARES Act (due to expire July 31) that have allowed hospitality workers to keep paying their bills on furlough, and we could waive job search requirements for these benefits understanding that workers have a job that they want to return to when it’s safe.

Yes, these interventions will be costly.

No, they will not be more costly than watching the businesses that make the city livable die. But the costs of our apathy will be intermittent—a shuttered James Beard-nominated restaurant one week, a Subway in our neighborhood bar the next—and so we will fail, as we always do, to account for them.

Do I sound like a pessimist? Do I sound like I need a drink? Have one in my honor the next time you’re out. I’m a big fan of tiki cocktails. I love the kitschy paper umbrellas with their toothpick skeletons and comically fragile shades. Enjoy the anesthetizing pleasure of a Sunday morning buzz. Kick up your feet. Have a good brunch. Your server will be with you in a moment. thepitchkc.com | August 2020 | THE PITCH

17

EAT

Eat This Now Sonoran Flour Tortillas From Yoli Tortilleria WORDS AND PHOTOS BY APRIL FLEMING

Sonoran-style tortillas will ruin you on any other kind of tortillas for the rest of your life—truly, after cooking with and eating these, the doughy, thick grocery store stuff practically feels like punishment. We’ve had some access to them through Lawrence’s Caramelo for a couple of years now, but demand for them is so high that they are scarce. But with the introduction of Yoli Tortilleria’s own Sonoran flour tortillas (at 17th and Jefferson Streets in the North Westside) our tortilla prayers have been answered.

Made with pork leaf lard from Paradise Locker (in the world of lard, this is the really good stuff), organic flour, water, and salt, Yoli’s Sonoran flour tortillas are wafer thin and have a perfect al-dente texture. They are also surprisingly resilient to sogginess or breaking. Recommended eating method: toss them on a hot griddle or fry pan to lightly toast each side, then fill with your favorite taco stuff.

As a native of Ciudad Obregon in Sonora, Mexico, Marissa Gencarelli, who co-founded and owns Yoli with her husband Mark, grew up on this stuff. Her family eats them filled with eggs and chorizo for breakfast, in a crispy quesadilla, or with flamegrilled steak and avocado for dinner. But truly, these things are so good you can even eat them straight off the stove.

Yoli Tortilleria, 2828 Guinotte Ave, KC, MO, eatyoli.com

18

THE PITCH | August 2020 | thepitchkc.com

DRINK

Drink This Now The Deadeye Diaz at Drastic Measures WORDS AND PHOTOS BY APRIL FLEMING

Jill Cockson and Jay Sanders know their way around a cocktail; Cockson owns the downtown cocktail bar Swordfish Tom’s and Sanders spent a lot of formative time behind the well at the Rieger and Manifesto. So yes, of course the two make interesting and well-balanced drinks. But what makes their new cocktail bar, Drastic Measures, particularly important and special right now is the focus on hospitality and safety. Even before masking was required in Shawnee (not exactly where you’d imagine one of the metro’s most forward-thinking cocktail bars to be located), it was enforced at Drastic Measures except for when a customer is seated at their table. Requests for personal space are honored. This type of configuration is something Cockson has long preferred, but in the age of COVID it is, practically speaking, an industry-leading practice.

On to dranks! Sanders recommended that I try the Deadeye Diaz, a drink he has been working on for the new bar. Though its base spirit is mezcal, it manages to avoid being in-your-face smoky. Passionfruit juice and lime add bright and tart flavors, while Ancho Reyes chile liqueur adds heat.

The drink is topped with house-made chile and cilantro oils. Another emphasis here is on garnishes that do not need to be touched with bare hands, which rules. It’s assertive but very drinkable, and spicy enough to feel it as the liquid moves down your throat. Sanders says it’s not quite perfect yet, but it’s pretty damn close.

Drastic Measures, 5817 Nieman Road, Shawnee, KS, drasticbar.com

thepitchkc.com | August 2020 | THE PITCH

19

GAMES

SAVING THROW VS. PANDEMIC CHALLENGE PLAGUELIFE ACTIVATED A NEW RABID FANDOM FOR D&D BY ORRIN GREY

I recently got really into Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition. Because if I’m going to get really into a socially-focused role playing game, I’m apparently going to do it in the middle of a pandemic, when we’re all socially distancing (right?), and none of us can actually see one another.

Dungeons & Dragons has been around since the 70s, and over the years I have tried (and mostly failed) to get into just about every iteration of it from the second edition through the present. The latest incarnation is what finally did it for me. But lots of other people are experiencing D&D and other tabletop roleplaying games for the first time in the midst of—and, in some cases, because of—the lockdown surrounding COVID-19.

“It’s been a fun way to set a time to be social and to be creative,” says Liz Nelson, a Kansas City native who got into D&D during the pandemic lockdown. She started playing online as a way to connect with friends while social distancing. “It’s not super taxing, but it feels like we had a night out.”

Nelson and I aren’t alone, either. According to reporting from SyFy Wire, “virtual tabletops” like Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds experienced increases in traffic by as much as tenfold in March, when social distancing first started to go into effect in the United States.

And an informal survey on Twitter and

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Facebook suggests that a lot of the people on my feed, anyway, might actually be playing more in the midst of the pandemic, thanks in part to online options, not to mention factors such as furloughs and work from home making it easier for everyone’s schedules to align.

“I’ve had a lot more people ask me about getting into games,” says Lawrence-based web designer Jeremiah Tolbert who regularly ran games online before the pandemic began. “It’s actually made scheduling a lot easier, too. Prior to the pandemic, I’d have players miss games here and there. Now, nobody ever misses a game.”

D&D player and artist Chris Walton agrees: “Playing online has actually let us game more because it’s easier to line up schedules.” In fact, most people seem to be gaming more, rather than less, as the pandemic grinds on.

It isn’t without its downsides, though.

“The number one thing virtual tabletops are missing is pizza,” Roll20 co-founder Nolan T. Jones told SyFy Wire in March.

“I was saddest to lose music,” Dungeon Master Rob Reeve says. “I time dramatic moments to particular songs. But either I play it on my end and it gets garbled by the mic, or I send them a Spotify or YouTube link and trust that everyone presses play at the same time. No good solution there.”

In spite of the drawbacks of not be-

KATELYN BETZ

ing able to actually get together around the dinner table for a game, playing online has opened up new horizons for many players, and not just during the pandemic. For Stu Horvath, host of the “Vintage RPG” podcast, his regular gaming has definitely changed.

“Irrevocably,” Horvath says. “I have managed to maintain a weekly board game club for several years now, but my ability to commit to tabletop RPGs with my local group before the pandemic had been intermittent at best, thanks to boring adult responsibilities. That changed with COVID-19. Playing online has allowed me

the phone for introverts, like myself.

Yet for those who take to it, online gaming provides more than just a way to play during the pandemic. It provides a new suite of tools that experienced gamers can use, and a gateway for new people to come to the table. Not just because we all have a little more time on our hands now that we’re trapped inside, either. Wizards of the Coast, the subsidiary of Hasbro that owns Dungeons & Dragons recently made a commitment to reduce the racism and colonialism that have been baked into the game since its inception, and to make the whole experience more welcoming and inclusive.

The specifics of this haven’t been entirely revealed yet, but their statement includes walking back “evil” races (like orcs and drow) and seeking new, diverse writers and artists.

They aren’t the only ones, either. Games Workshop, makers of the popular Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000 tabletop wargames, recently released a pronouncement via Twitter. It began, “Warhammer is for everyone,” and ended with, “And if you feel the same way, wherever and whoever you are, we’re glad you’re part of the Warhammer community. If not, you will not be missed.”

For many longtime D&D players, tabletop fans, and dungeon masters, this brings the game into alignment with how they’ve been running it for years. “I’m all for it,” Leeman Kessler, professional H. P. Lovecraft impersonator and mayor of Gambier, Ohio, said when asked about the elimination of “evil races” and the idea of moving away from race-based language and stereotypes in

“My ability to commit to tabletop RPGs with my local group before the pandemic had been intermittent at best, thanks to boring adult responsibilities.

That changed with COVID-19.” to squeeze in lots of games with lots of different people all over the country. I miss playing around the table with pals, but even my local friends think that playing RPGs online is going to continue after the pandemic.”

Online gaming isn’t for everybody, however. “I very much miss the in-person gaming group I have,” author Jonathan Raab says, after admitting that he had tried and failed to get a game going via various online interfaces. “Online games just don’t have the same magic.” Which is understandable: playing via Google Hangouts and Zoom calls can feel a little too much like talking on

D&D. “I think the entire alignment system really needs rethinking.”

Others, though, don’t agree. Might we recommend not getting lost in the many, many replies on Twitter to these new changes.

“Some people are never going to want to give up on wanton murder of goblins,” Tolbert says. “I guess that’s up to them. If they’re worried about it, they can make the game work how they want; that’s the beauty of a roleplaying game. It’s collaborative and unique to each table.”

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ADIB KHORRAM IS NOT OKAY DARIUS DESERVES BETTER AUTHOR BENEFITS FROM STRONG WRITING COMMUNITY

BY BETH LIPOFF

Portland high-schooler Darius Kellner wants more out of life in Adib Khorram’s second novel, Darius the Great Deserves Better. The story continues from the Kansas City author’s first work, Darius the Great is Not Okay.

In this tale, on bookstore shelves August 25, readers get a look into Darius’s school life as a young, biracial, gay man in a world that seems mostly white and straight.

Khorram says he put a lot of himself into Darius—but not everything.

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His Iranian cultural heritage and deep love of Star Trek are both there, but “Darius is a lot more put together than I ever was,” Khorram says.

Khorram, who attended Winnetonka High School, wanted to write something for kids who don’t always seem themselves reflected in popular culture.

“I was very conscious of wanting to write a book that was speaking to people like me, other Iranian-Americans or other biracial kids, and I decided fairly early on to

reject the white gaze as much as possible,” Khorram says. “I feel like so often we just expect our media to cater to us, and we don’t even realize it. I never saw Iranians in books, unless they were terrorists.”

Both Darius and his younger sister find themselves to be targets of bullying and discrimination by classmates and even teachers. In book tour school visits today, Khorram says he’s found current teens to be more empathetic than he remembers as a teenager.

The novel also tackles teen relationships. Darius is dating early on in the book, but he struggles with knowing his boyfriend is ready for sex—because he might not be.

While many literary romances start with a cute meeting and end with happily ever after, “that was not my experience with early relationships,” Khorram says. “I feel like most people don’t meet their forever partner when they’re in high school.

There is a learning curve to being in a relationship, whatever your orientation.

There are skills you have to learn as far as

READ IT Darius the Great Deserves Better On bookstore shelves on August 25 Preorders available adibkhorram.com

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Adib Khorram talks with fellow author Tiffany D. Jackson at YALLFest in Charleston, S.C. DAVID STRAUSS PHOTOGRAPHY

communication and intimacy and when to withhold it.”

Khorram has found support in the local literary community. Normally, he meets up with a group of other authors on Thursdays to write.

As far as institutions go, Khorram lauds Rainy Day Books and The Raven Book Store, as well as, the Kansas City, Johnson County, and Mid-Continent public libraries for connecting authors with the public.

April was supposed to be the first outing for the Paper Plains Literary Festival, a project he’s assisting The Raven Book Store owner Danny Caine with, but the pandemic means the festival will have to wait another year.

“We have had other book festivals before, but none of them were really of the scale that Paper Plains was going to be,” Khorram says.

When it does make its debut, the festival will be a three- or four-day event, supported by grants from the University of Kansas and will feature authors including

Colson Whitehead.

Khorram says he admires many of his fellow local writers, including L.L. McKinney, author of A Blade So Black. McKinney agrees that area library systems have been supportive of local authors and would wel-

find a community of fellow Kansas City novelists, but now that she has, their friendship has been invaluable.

“We all get together every now and then, and we talk about the industry. With publishing, you’ll learn about something

“If I lament about something or I get really excited about something, my family will be like, ‘So what does that mean? Is this something

I

need to be excited about?” come more book festivals in Kansas City.

Something else she’d like to see is publishing workshops that are not just focused on beginning authors, but have something for authors who have some experience already.

McKinney says she didn’t immediately

that’s happening, and you can’t tell the world about it for a year sometimes. So we’ll celebrate each other in our secret publishing ways, and it’s a lot of fun,” McKinney says.

Because writing a novel can be very solitary, having the support of others who understand the process helps.

“We talk about each other’s work. Even if a writer isn’t published, and they’re in our friend group, it’s like, ‘Hey, send me pages.

Hey, have you nudged this agent?’ We’re still looking out for each other. It’s really fun and uplifting, especially in times like now,” McKinney says.

Without that support, “I still think I would be writing. It would be much lonelier but not so much fun. My family is super supportive, but other writers understand particular things,” McKinney says. “If I lament about something or I get really excited about something, my family will be like, ‘So what does that mean? Is this something I need to be excited about?’”

A community of writers have helped McKinney and Khorram feel supported in their work—and more connected in Kansas City. For Darius, in Darius the Great Deserves Better, he’s on a search to find support, too.

“I do hope [Darius the Great Deserves Better] helps readers understand what it feels like to be othered,” Khorram says.

“Darius thought he knew exactly who he was and what he wanted, but maybe he was wrong,” reads Khorram’s book description. “Maybe he deserves better.”

thepitchkc.com | August 2020 | THE PITCH

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HOW POLITICS AND IDENTITY ARE BIZARRELY DISCONNECTED IN 2020 AN INTERVIEW WITH HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT AUTHOR SARAH KENDZIOR

BY DAN LYBARGER

Sometimes it’s tempting to wonder if Sarah Kendzior’s observations about the current state of America might not have happened if she had found a better travel agent.

She was in New York on 9/11 and was in St. Louis during the uprising after Michael Brown’s death in nearby Ferguson. She’s also spent years analyzing how dictators in post-Soviet countries like Uzbekistan operate, and has discovered chilling parallels in the rhetoric of President Donald Trump.

Both he and tyrants across the ocean demonize enemies and attack the press if it isn’t sufficiently servile. While there is plenty of news that isn’t fit to print (or post), totalitarian regimes can cause untold damage when they are not kept in check. Because my ancestors fled Germany in the 18th and 19th centuries to escape religious persecution, much of her book seems especially chilling.

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Nonetheless, because she has lived in St. Louis for so long, she has a unique perspective on how issues in the Heartland reflect and influence the rest of the nation.

Kendzior has explored these topics in her previous book The View from Flyover Country and her new book Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America. She’s also written for Politico, The New York Times, and Canada’s The Globe and Mail.

While she may write for readers in the Great White North, Kendzior, who also co hosts the podcast Gaslit Nation, also reveals why she isn’t giving up on America. Many of the issues that have led to the protests now taking place in our streets, as she documents in her books, have been festering for ages. In this abridged version of our telephone conversation, Kendzior reveals how her fellow journalists should cover the Midwest and

how it could become like the Eastern European regimes she used to cover.

Sarah Kendzior protesting at The Arch.

In Hiding in Plain Sight, you point out that the labels for “red” and “blue” states are misleading because in the 2018 elections, Missourians voted for right-wing candidates, but the ballot initiatives like those for medical marijuana could hardly be dubbed conservative. Why do you think that commentators have misread this fact about Missouri?

I think there’s a difference between the ideas that people support and the values they hold and who is running to represent those ideas.

As I lay out in the book Missouri is the dark money capital of America. We foreshadowed the problem of dark money in politics that was to arise nationwide.

And so I think that folks see a lot of

propaganda. We as a state also suffer from gerrymandering and from other attempts to manipulate things. Whenever I see Missouri called a “dark red state” or a “bright red state,” I feel like there’s both the lack of knowledge of history because you know we were the state that kind of swung back and forth between red and blue, which, of course, are newly invented categories anyway.

Within the state itself, there’s diversity of everything, and that includes extreme diversity right across the ideological spectrum from extreme right all the way to extreme left. But occasionally as a state we do come together and agree on things, and you’ve seen that recently in the ballot initiatives that were passed supporting labor movements,

COURTESY SARAH KENDZIOR

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and basically saying, “I don’t support that, like wink wink, white people I’m on your side.” There’s an element of that, and I found that disturbing, too.

But also, during that blue wave, there were people out pounding the pavement for Claire McCaskill, unpaid volunteers.

These armies of workers who are just trying to get change for our state and our country.

It’s been very disrespectful to insult your own base. It also made it harder for those volunteers to tell people, “Look, here’s why you should support Claire McCaskill, other than she’s not Josh Hawley, the Republican.

She won’t destroy your health insurance.” It’s harder to say something to fight for her and say this is why she’s good instead of saying this is why the other person’s worse.

READ IT Hiding In Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America A New York Times Bestseller from Flatiron Books Available now wherever books are sold supporting raising the minimum wage and, of course, supporting Clean Missouri, which elected officials then undid.

And as to why Democrats have a harder time in the last 10 years getting a foothold in the legislature, I think that that’s the result of Citizens United and of dark money and of smear campaigns. I also hold (former senator Claire) McCaskill to account for her own campaign, but I think it’s tougher for Democrats in this environment.

What do you think that McCaskill should have done to keep her seat?

She was up against a lot of challenges because of dark money influence and the backers of [Sen. Josh] Hawley’s campaign, the NRA, and all these powerful forces. But when she attacked her own base, when she basically bought into what the Republicans do, which is to make firm divisions in the state between St. Louis and Kansas City as one entity, and the rest of the state is something else.

She was like, “I’m not one of those crazy liberals from St. Louis.” It had a racial connotation, and there are plenty of people in St. Louis who are black and who felt like she was calling them out, or that she was trying to invoke images of the Ferguson uprising,

You point out in your books that the discord in Ferguson predates the shooting of Michael Brown. This sounds silly, but I found out that former Doobie Brother Michael McDonald, far from being an actual yacht rocker, grew up there in a blue collar family, and he adapted “Takin’ It To the Streets” from a term paper his sister wrote about conditions there.

The issues he and his sister wrote about remain even though the news camera crews have left.

It’s abundantly clear now. It’s not just St. Louis. It’s nationwide. It happened in Minneapolis last night [Note: We talked the day after George Floyd’s death]. It’s heartbreaking to see on its own, but it’s also heartbreaking to see how little progress has been made towards protecting civil rights, towards having real consequences for police brutality, since Ferguson.

It was also painful when there was this incredible exploitation of St. Louis, and especially of the black protesters from the St. Louis metro region. National news just swept in like a vulture and picked at people’s pain and didn’t care that much about the system issues underneath, was just trying to make it look like a wild burning fire, whereas in reality this is a sustained, overwhelmingly nonviolent protest that went on many months. It was usually not covered by the press. It was just covered in a few key weeks.

With the underlying issues, it just sort of showed a lot of folks in the media didn’t care whether they were resolved. In the aftermath are all these commissions formed, and there were all these studies made, but people are still suffering, and they’re suffering worse under the Trump administration and under an increasingly ultra conservative legislature in Missouri, that often likes to target St. Louis and Kansas City as these kind of blights on our state’s purity.

That’s how they sometimes frame it in their rhetoric, and they’re doing that more and more because of coronavirus. We’re [St. Louis and Kansas City] sort of like the land thepitchkc.com | August 2020 | THE PITCH

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of crime and the land of disease. I think of the Lake of the Ozarks as a moment in the sun might have put a damper on that narrative 9laughs), but nonetheless it’s all of us.

It is a very frustrating thing to see because the baseline suffering that people were going through, I mean primarily black communities in St. Louis targeted by the police, it was made into like a cinematic kind of inquiry instead of just you know a genuine problem that people have to live with every day of their lives, whether there are cameras or not.

One of the things you covered in your podcast with Adrea Chalupa was the 2018 election in Kansas, which had somewhat different results, which led Ann Coulter to declare us dead to her. She couldn’t believe that people in eastern Kansas would vote for a lesbian, Native American congresswoman Sharice Davids and would reject Kris Kobach’s hunt for phantom illegal voters.

I think most people don’t actually know how the population of different states is allocated. I think most people don’t know that there are multiple cities and towns, and college towns and whatnot in eastern Kansas versus western Kansas, the same way that whenever I tell someone I live in Missouri, including NPR as I documented in the book, they assume I live on a farm. They assume I read some kind of agricultural life, and then I’ll reply that I live in St. Louis, and they’re like, “Tell me about your farm.” And I’m like, no, I live in a place with three million people. They don’t recognize that.

They just see you know blue and red squares, and they don’t understand that every state is a mix of people. And I think with Kansas, the dysfunction in our political system and the exploitation of people’s fears by the Republicans had taken root in Kansas. That’s why you end up with books like What’s the Matter with Kansas?.

I think that folks had not just seen the

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light, but I think political organizing had really increased, and people had figured out ways to kind of counter the propaganda to bring people together and to get another message out there to boost candidates that were going to represent their interests, like Sarah Smarsh [author of Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth]. She encapsulates that side of Kansas very well.

She came from a multigenerational Kansas family, and in her book, she chronicles the changes that took place over her life when she was a child in the Reagan 80s with the economic hardships and the political expectations. I think Kansans have wised up, while Missouri, on the other hand, is kind of a combo of the dysfunction of Kansas with indicted officials of Illinois.

We have our own struggles to bear, but I think it’s admirable what people in Kansas did.

The passage in the book that made me want to reach for a highlighter was when you described a 2016 Donald Trump rally in St. Louis by noting the difference between the people around the perimeter and when you were actually in the auditorium.

There is a huge difference because in the sense that people were polite. People were behaving “normally.” That’s one of the disturbing things that harkens back to what you said in the beginning of this conversation, where you were bringing up Nazi Germany and how “good people” could engage in horrific things or at least tolerate horrific things being done to other people, if those people are deemed an enemy. And if they have a demagogue encouraging them to say the unspeakable and to do the sorts of things that used to be condemned, that used to make people worry that they faced ostracization if they participated in them. It was a really horrifying thing for me to see that play out in St. Louis. I’ve seen variations on it before but not in an organized way, not with

somebody who was running for president.

And there’s something surreal about the whole atmosphere with the Peabody Operahouse. It’s this old fashioned building. They wanted that glamour. They wanted that image of prestige and refinement, so you have that. And you have Trump’s voice coming out of these megaphones, just blaring and everybody standing there like a captive. It was chilling, and it was chilling to watch people be so obedient to him and to throw away you know whatever kind of values or friendliness or whatever was keeping those dark emotions under wraps in order to please him and be part of that mob movement and attacked the protesters and attack people who disagree with them.

That change happened within an hour, and it shows how dangerous that style demagoguery is. It’s something I’m very worried about as we head towards the election in November, because I think that should Biden win—that is assuming there is an election.

I don’t think Trump has any intention of leaving; he’s going to declare the election illegitimate, and he will encourage his base towards violence. And I worry that’s what he was going to do in 2016 If he had lost then, and I worry about that being carried out with state sanction because now he’s acting as the president, not just as a candidate.

You’ve seen this playbook in the stuff you’ve mentioned about the late Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov. Both he and the President have demonstrated similar rhetoric. You’ve demonstrated this approach can work just about anywhere.

It can happen absolutely anywhere. Every country that experiences autocracy is one that once said, “it can’t happen here.” I think we were particularly reluctant to see it, our officials, especially because America has historically been a democracy, I mean never completely. We were a democracy with Native American genocide, with slavery, with Jim Crow laws.

People want to overlook that when they

put on this lens of American exceptionalism, but every country is structurally flawed in that way. We were never that different to begin with. It’s hard to compare exactly with Uzbekistan because Uzbekistan never had that tradition to begin with.

They went straight from Soviet Russian to being an independent dictatorship.

For their country, even though it is also democracy on paper, the laws were never upheld. We were more in the middle, where we’ve gone back and forth toward progress and then taking steps backwards. The stuff we’ve taken in the last four years, especially, have been horrific. There’s been gutting of institutions, packing of courts, persecution of those who blow the whistle, of those who oppose this administration and then incredible denial that this is even happening, from the media, from politicians.

Every now and again they sort of wake up and they’re like, “My goodness. America is turning into an autocracy.” I’m like, “Where have you been?” There have been people aiming for this outcome for a long time, and in Trump they found their vehicle. The problem is you have to stop this early. You basically have to stop this before it starts because once an autocrat gets in, it’s very hard to get them out because they transform the system so that it serves their aims. It doesn’t matter to them if it’s legal or moral or if it’s never been done before.

All those concerns, this sort of institutional, bureaucratic, sentimental concerns that a lot of officials have, they don’t fly when you’re dealing with autocracy or a Mafia state, which is really I think we’re headed for, a system like Russia, which is a kleptocratic Mafia state. They don’t care, so you should never dismiss any outcome as impossible.

Hiding in Plain Sight documents that eastern European intelligence services have had Trump on their radar ever since the late 70s when he married his Czech-born first wife Ivana. The Czech version of the Stasi was keeping tabs

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on him.

It was very common for all of the Soviet status satellite states or the Soviet Union itself to keep tabs on any wealthy powerful Westerner that was going to come to visit.

Of course, the reason Trump was there was because of Ivana Trump was originally from Czechoslovakia. The documents that I referred to in my book, which were from their own files about Trump from the late seventies, are really strange.

It’s really weird to me that they haven’t been investigated more. There’s only been one reporter, Luke Harding, who I mentioned in the book, who made a concerted effort to find out if there is any truth behind this, or why in the world do these even exist?. It said he had made innovation with the federal government the U.S. Federal government to not pay taxes. It also said he had presidential aspirations. It said he was going to run for president, and then he was going to have three kids with Ivana, that he was contracted to do all this. Two out of those three things happened.

We don’t know about the tax situation or the reluctance for him to share that information or to share his bank statements.

I wonder about this, given that there is this nexus of white collar crime, organized crime, espionage plots, and corrupt institutions, including the corruption of the New York FBI, which could have been one maybe working with Trump in some capacity, whether he was an informant or whether he was somebody who they just sort of looked at his criminal apparatus and decided for whatever reason to look the other way. It’s clear that happened, but we just don’t know why exactly.

I wonder if the answers to that lie in investigating whatever kind of arrangement might have led to him being given exemptions for all sorts of things, whether taxes or criminality or associating with criminals. It’s a very, very strange story, and it kind of mystifies me why it wasn’t investigated, not just by reporters but by Congress.

Many of us in the press tend to gravitate toward Trump’s gaffes, but you don’t have to be a genius to cause great harm. Musolinni’s government was actually incapable of making sure trains ran on time, and Italians suffered.

Some didn’t live to talk about it.

Exactly. That’s been a frustrating thing this time. When I often hear people emphasizing gaffes and mistaking malice for incompetence, which is certainly the veneer he wants to have, or just these kind of asides like, “History will judge you unkindly.”

When [Attorney General] Bill Barr said the winners write history, people were so shocked by the statement. I was like, it’s true.

They’re going to take great pains to make sure the other side of the story isn’t told. That was one of the things that motivated me to write the book in the first place is to just have this down in print or available on Kindle in a way that it can’t be destroyed.

Also the work of all the people that I cite in the book is remembered as well, because as of now that side is winning, and people rest too much on what’s happened in the past.

They assume that we as a country will always progress forward, that good will conquer over evil, or the worst are the people who think that these four years were some kind of freak anomaly, and this will just go Obama, Trump, Biden.

And somehow the deep structural problems that underlay this whole crisis are just going to disappear. Even if Trump actually leaves, which would be terrific, we’re still going to be stuck with the wreckage left in his wake, as well as all the problems that helped bring him in: widespread corruption, elite criminal impunity.

We now have an economy in a great depression. On top of that you have coronavirus, climate change, and a lot of people with a lot of money and power who have no interest in solving these problems. They just want to profit off of them. It’s very hard to get the leverage to stop people when they’re in possession of dollars.

That’s what at the heart of the individuals holding up Trump, whether it’s members of the Russian Mafia or people like [Facebook founder] Mark Zuckerberg, these are not good people, and they’re knocking out the public welfare of Americans. They’re not looking out for democracy itself.

The book also explores how the punishment for the crimes that people like Paul Manafort committed is disproportionately low. He’s stolen far more than a fellow sticking up a liquor store could, but he gets an early release.

It’s a tremendous problem, and the periods in American history where we actually prosecuted white collar crime usually lead eventually to actual prosperity for ordinary Americans. You kind of saw that with Wall Street in the early 90s because that crime does affect ordinary people.

It’s part of a broader system of corruption that’s not not just about the theft of money but the theft of resources and the use of violence to get it. They call it “blood money” for a reason. Paul Manafort, in particular, embodies that. He had a lobbying firm that was nicknamed the “Torturers Lobby,” which he shared with Roger Stone and a few others. They represented the most brutal people in the world and helped them steal money. In the process of helping them, God knows how many people died or suffered because of that.

That’s basically what we have now installed in the White House and that makes it even more complex because with white collar crime, people rely on their connections, their networks, their wealth, this sort of veneer of respectability that they’ve often built up before they’re actually prosecuted.

It’s much worse when those people are in elected office because they will abuse law itself, and they will put in their henchmen as Trump did with Bill Bar to carry out legal maneuvers that protect them. It gets really really hard to stop this problem at the roots when they’re able to rip out the protections

that were there to begin with these systems of accountability and replace them with Citizens United and what’s transpired now.

One of the things you did that I thought was really cool is that you have taken your kids to some more of America’s treasures like presidential libraries, parks, and monuments. You’ve shown them more of what this country is about than a lot of youngsters their age would have seen. You address much of what’s wrong with the status quo, but there also seems to be a lot about this country that you still love.

That’s why I’m so angry about what’s happening because I do love this country, and I don’t want to leave it. I want these problems to be fixed so that my children can live in a better version of what we have. This is my home, you know. There’s no other place for me. There’s no other place where I would feel like I belong, and it’s important for me to teach my kids the full history of America.

I’ve got kids in elementary school and middle school. They’re not going to slog through a bunch of books. They read, but they’re children, and it’s more fun for them, and the immediacy of it is more vivid for them when we take them to museums or presidential libraries. Of course, I love national parks, and I’m very worried about what the Trump Administration is going to do to the national parks. I just like to drive around, and I like to do road trips. So I feel lucky that I was able to take my kids. All of these places especially before the coronavirus appeared, making that difficult, if not impossible.

What I want is an honest presentation of American life, and that means good and bad. It’s not a one sided thing. That’s definitely not an anti American thing. I’m anti-corruption, and when I see you know criminal elites corrupting my country, I’m obviously going to speak out about that and tell the truth about it and try to change it.

Kansas City's oldest locally owned brewery greenroomkc.com | 816-216-7682

thepitchkc.com | August 2020 | THE PITCH

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FEATURE NEWS

It’s a Tuesday morning, and I’m naked in front of three strangers.

I’m changing into my first set of lingerie at Tayanna Harris’s Good Bodies photo studio for my first boudoir session. You know, that photo trend where you strip down to your knickers and pose seductively in an effort to feel good about yourself and your body.

“Oh, I love that,” Harris says as I’m draped over a chair, my legs kicked above me.

“Honestly, you look like this devious housewife who might kill her husband and get away with it,” says Katie Camlin, Harris’s photo assistant, who is showing off our shoot on social media today.

It was all I needed for a confidence boost: This faux-housewife was feeling herself.

In May, I wrote a story called “KC artists are being digitally erased: Instagram’s fight against female sexuality is hurting local models, photographers, and our own self-image.”

I spoke with models, boudoir photographers, and mental health professionals about social media’s censorship of female bodies—and the empowerment that can come from seeing your body in the media.

Through talking with these womxn, I

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STRIPPED DOWN AND ON THE BOUND ON BOUDOIR PHOTOGRAPHY AND A MISSION TO LOVE MYSELF WORDS BY KELCIE MCKENNEY, PHOTOS BY TAYANNA HARRIS

realized boudoir was something I needed to do for myself.

My relationship with my body has had its ups and downs. I grew up thin, and as a dancer, I became increasingly aware of my body: small, tight costumes; changing rooms with other girls; how and when your thighs should touch in certain positions. Thinness became synonymous with strength—and since I was already thin, I had passive feelings towards the undercurrent of fatphobia swelling within me.

I remember looking in the mirror during a dance class in high school. The girl next to me had a flat stomach with defined abs. I recall looking in the mirror at my own stomach, which was softer in shape, the word “fat” ringing in my head.

Over the years, my body changed. I outgrew my clothes from year-to-year and watched the number on the scale climb upwards, each new number calling out the word I’d heard when I looked in the mirror: “fat.” I developed a tick: I’d pinch my stomach whenever I thought about my weight gain, subconsciously measuring how my body had changed. Those 15, then 20, then 30 pounds were hardly noticeable to others, but loud to me.

NEWS

Outwardly, I supported body positivity and self love in womxn around me, yet inwardly I ignored the thoughts I was directing at myself. Admitting I didn’t like my body meant I wasn’t “feminist enough,” wasn’t “supportive enough,” and I felt I wasn’t “fat enough” to have a place in the self love movement. After a body dysmorphia diagnosis last year, I had a rude awakening to the harm I had been doing to myself.

I spoke with a number of talented boudoir photographers during my reporting on that May story, and each had experienced a boudoir session of their own. Leah Emerick, a wedding and boudoir photographer, found forgiveness in her session.

“Through seeing those pictures and through seeing myself through my own lens, I started to realize I was ready to make peace with parts of me that I never thought I would,” Emerick says. “I started to forgive my body for not being six feet tall or a hundred pounds or whatever I thought that it should be. I started loving what it does for me, and then started respecting my body.”

When I interviewed Emerick, we did a practice session, to get a feel for what her boudoir clients experience. She rubbed lavender oil on my wrists, guided me through deep breaths to relax, and then hyped me up on how good I was looking—kindly ignoring my greasy hair and lax outfit I’d thrown on that day. She posed me for two shots, which

she threw up on the screen at the end of our mini session—like she does for all her clients—so we could go through them together.

Suddenly I didn’t see that greasy hair, I saw something relaxed, comfortable and, dare I say, beautiful. I had to do it again.

I decided to shoot with photographer Tayanna Harris. As a fellow bi womxn who focuses on body positivity in her boudoir business—her biz is literally called Good Bodies—it felt like the best fit for my self-love journey. Plus, we vibed hard in our interview.

(We collectively said “fuck” 26 times as counted by the interview transcription—mostly about how fucking stupid fatphobia is.)

Before my session, I scheduled a consultation with Bella Fernandez, the model who first inspired my Instagram censorship story. Fernandez is a predominantly nude and lingerie-clad model, who offers modeling consultations for anyone before a boudoir session. In the pre-COVID world, she also offers to attend your session and wear lingerie alongside you to help boost your confidence as you’re trying out poses. That’s what we were planning before, you know, the world ended, or whatever.

But our virtual session was still rewarding.

Fernandez shared some tips: always point your feet during a session (it makes your legs look longer), remember to cut the tags out of your lingerie, and the best poses come from actually touching yourself. Those hands-in-your-hair shots look best when you actually do it. Stroke your arms, trail your fingers across your collarbone, caress your face.

“It just feels nice to just touch yourself, especially because everybody is so starved for touching right now,” Fernandez says. When you feel good, you’ll look good, and your photographer will capture the moment.

At the end of our hour-long consultation, I did a lingerie try-on. Fernandez helped me pick which outfits to wear—ultimately the ones I was most comfortable and confident in—and we practiced some poses.

“Seriously, one of the ways that I got to where I am with posing, I literally just sit in front of the mirror and pose,” Fernandez says.

“Grab yourself a glass of wine, start feeling yourself, and get in front of the mirror.”

The night before my session I did have a glass of wine, but I chickened out and skipped the mirror part. Instead I spent my evening hacking through quarantine-length leg hair, exfoliating, and trying to hype myself up for a day full of near-nudity.

I walked into Harris’s studio the next morning with a pit in my stomach. I was nervous. What if my photos didn’t turn out?

What if I hated the way I looked even more?

But Harris didn’t give me the chance to worry the second we got started. She has a way of making you feel like she’s your best gal friend just gassing you up, who also happens to thepitchkc.com | August 2020 | THE PITCH

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FEATURE

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FEATURE

have a camera on her. Forget about the fact that you’re only in your underwear. Between photos in my first outfit—a one-piece teddy in black and white lace—she showed me the back of her camera, dropping comments like “Look at how cute your butt is!”

I felt good. And I was having fun. I wasn’t thinking about my body—how good or not good it would look—I was thinking about how strong and sultry I felt. I ran my fingers through my hair—like Fernandez recommended—and tousled my effortlessly teased curls by Maddee Stecker, who had also done my makeup and glued on the large, fake eyelashes I was now peering up from under. I

Good Bodies clients and friends where members talk body positivity journeys and swap stories and selfies. A swarm of sweet gals dropped comments on my photos about how great they looked.

DAMN GIRL!!!

It’s so good. Those pointed toes are A+.

WURK!!!!

LYFE!!

that velvet is

Fierce as hell! I adore these!!

I felt good. And I was having fun. I wasn’t thinking about my body—how good or not good it would look—I was thinking about how strong and sultry I felt. felt sexy, and I felt sexy for me.

My second outfit was a teal, velvet, two piece set from Harris’s closet—another perk of shooting with Good Bodies. Harris has a wardrobe packed with over a hundred lingerie pieces ranging from size XS to 4X that anyone can wear during their shoot.

“I had somebody who came in, and she was like, to be honest, buying lingerie felt really daunting for me,” Harris says. “Could you just find something for me? And she just wore everything from the closet. She didn’t have to pay another dime for lingerie, and it worked out perfectly for her.”

Harris walked me through poses that made me feel confident. With my back arched as far as it could go and my booty stretched ridiculously high into the air, I probably could have laughed at myself, but instead I ran with it.

We finished the session with a few nude shots where I wrapped up in a white sheet on the lush bed in Harris’s studio. I felt a little insecure at first, considering I was cooch-out in front of someone I had seen in-person a grand total of three times, but it didn’t last long. Harris peppered me with compliments and started snapping pics; a Lady Gaga song played in the background. I forgot about my exposed vagina.

We wrapped the shoot up, and I put my clothes back on. I was tired, and my back was starting to hurt from all that arching. But on my drive home, I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. I called my partner to tell him how much fun I’d had—too eager to wait the 10 minutes until I got home to share.

Later that day, Harris shared a few of the photos in her private Facebook group for

That smile on my face stretched even further.

A week later, Harris sent me the final photos. It took me a few hours before I worked up the courage to click the link in my inbox—those fears I harbored before my shoot were trying to creep back in, but I shoved ‘em back down.

I’m a little embarrassed to say I immediately started crying the second I saw the first photo. I felt like I was seeing myself for the first time. In these photos was a woman who looked comfortable, powerful, playful, and sexy. Suddenly my body wasn’t this thing that I pinched when I looked in the mirror; it was strong, holding me up in a way that radiated confidence. That woman looked so beautiful, and she was me.

Later that week I brought my experience to therapy, sharing that looking at those photos made me feel like a piece of art—not a woman who couldn’t measure up to the ridiculous standards I or society had put on myself. I wanted to look at myself like that every day. Not just that I was beautiful or confident or strong—because I’m a woman and womxn have multitudes—but like I was a piece of art. Expressive, flawed, independent, and purposeful.

So that’s what I’ve been working on.

Some days I feel as powerful as I did in those pictures, and others not so much; but I’m trying. And I’m learning to love myself a little more everyday. One thing is for sure, I wouldn’t be where I am in my self love journey if it wasn’t for that session with Harris.

So treat yourself—challenge yourself—to do a boudoir shoot at least once. Because babe, I think you’re a work of art, too, and you deserve to see that.

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MUSIC

KC’S INFINITE PLAYLIST

WHAT SUMMER JAMS ARE ‘CITIANS ROCKING AMID THE WORLD BURNING DOWN?

BY NICK SPACEK

Summer jams are one hell of a way to lock a moment in amber. I can’t hear Los Lobos’ version of “La Bamba” without smelling sunscreen, chlorine, and the hint of a nearby snack bar’s hamburgers or hearing my aunt tell my brother and I to stop running next to the pool at the old Piper Lake Club. Alan Jackson’s “Chatahootchee” will always slambang into “Achy Breaky Heart,” and hearing those two songs insantly transports me to the drive home from camp while my mom and grandma laughed and told stories in the front seat of our van while Alan and Billy Ray played on repeat.

So many songs evoke sweaty memories of the past, while also letting us make new ones in the present. We contacted a slew of people we feel are interesting voices in the Kansas City and Lawrence communities to talk about a song which they felt encapsulates the summer—either as a season, or one which seems particularly significant to this point in time.

Julia Good Fox, Dean, College of Natural and Social Sciences at Haskell Indian Nations University Pink Floyd, “Fearless” from Meddle During the pandemic, music has been my constant companion—more so than usual because I have been working from home and am not experiencing my typical interactions with co-workers, faculty, students, and co-workers. I lately have been gravitating toward fixtures from my salad days, such as the Big Band era, Linda Ronstadt, Buffy St. Marie, and War. But it’s Pink Floyd that has been on replay. During the early days of the pandemic, I had separate dreams where Roger Waters and David Gilmour each visited with messages of support, so this prompted me to revisit Floyd’s catalog. I’ve connected to “Fearless” this summer, as it is such a song of comfort. The music and vocals are tranquil, while the lyrics tell of a protagonist who stands by their convictions against ignorance. It ends on a hopeful note of personal empowerment. This particular theme repeatedly and assertively appears in Floyd’s later work, but this early recording captures a tone of tentative confidence that matches my current mode regarding getting through this pandemic.

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Michael Dye, bassist for Godzillionaire The Appleseed Cast, “Middle States” from Middle States I had the honor to be asked to tour manage for the Appleseed Cast / Hospital Ships tour

by Chris Crisci and Jordan Gieger in late summer of 2011. It was by far the most fun I’ve had both as a fan and as a friend of all the members of both bands. “Middle States” was unanimously the highlight of every night no matter what song even the die hard fans thought they’d rather hear. In addition to what arguably was the tightest lineup of both bands, Appleseed also had Ted Steven’s of Cursive on this tour in place of Aaron Pilar who had just left the band to pursue owning and operating his own restaurant (Culinaria which is amazing). Minds were blown. Ted even shoved a guitar in my hands to jam with Appleseed near the end of a show in St. Louis. I could have died then.

Anyway, I got to visit a lot of places I’d never been before and got to experience it with my friends playing amazing music for two and a half weeks. Every time I hear this song now, I’m back in the small car Jordan drove or the van Appleseed borrowed from Capybara for this tour, soaking in the sites and the music.

I’ll never forget it.

Ana Cranberry, singer for Sister Rat, anacranberry.com Death Cab For Cutie, “Summer Skin” from Plans The sound of summer’s end resounds in “Summer Skin.” Punctuated by a marching rhythm on snare, a hollowed-out feeling grabs you from the first note of bass. The lyrics transport us instantly to the halcyon days of youth. We would play under the sun until we were dehydrated and sick. We felt our stomachs churn as we realized that the summer wasn’t the only fading thing. Our youth was gently disappearing; the pain of that transition only to reappear in middle age. The story unfolds: I’m fifteen. I’m living out my big summer crush. We kiss under the stars. I’m three hundred miles away from home. We hold each other close. We’re unsure what to do, so we kiss all night. I worry that I’ll lose the memory, but I’ve been given a ticket to my last days of innocence: An unassuming song that hides a cyclone of emotions.

Marion Merritt, owner of Records with Merritt Cat Stevens, “Wild World” from Tea For The Tillerman “Now that I’ve lost everything to you...”

In my Los Angeles, the car was king. For no real reason, we would hop in the car and drive. As the summer wound down, trips to nowhere continued. Most of the rides were in a champagne Cadillac Sedan Deville. That monster rhythmically glided over the paved roads, every bump, pothole, cushioned.

Tonight, toward sunset, we would hit the freeway and head to the beach, stopping at McDonald’s along the way. This ride was not the first time I had heard Cat Stevens’s “Wild World,” but it seemed like the first time the hooks and lyrics penetrated my heart. The gentle, soothing, yet dire warnings of the bad things out there from Stevens, combined with the narcotic of fast food and the magic carpet ride, I could not help but fall asleep in the back seat, and those in the front were free to do exactly what they wanted. I couldn’t tattle on what I didn’t see or hear.

Mark Manning, Coordinator of The Goodcents Teaching Gardens & Host/ Producer of 90.1 FM KKFI’s Wednesday MidDay Medley BLACKSTARKIDS, “Sounds Like Fun” from Surf “Sounds Like Fun” is just a little over two minutes long, but it immediately changes how I feel about my life in the middle

of this landlocked, isolating, depressing COVID-19 pandemic. When I learned this band was from Raytown, Missouri and formed in 2019 by three young friends, Tyfaizon, TheBabeGabe, and Deiondre, I was floored. They are young, but they have such a great, layered sound that moves the listener to many places. It is pure goodness. I just want to jump off the high diving board at the pool when I hear their music, but alas, the pool is closed. The band members all went to the same high school and have been friends for several years. They have released multiple albums on their own label, Bedroom Records.

“Sounds Like Fun” is the opening track of an 11-song album that is beautiful and musical and honest, and from the next generation of musical artists. The band members are sharing stories about their lives with bold primary colors of sound, and they’re not taking themselves too seriously.

The band has said that they are writing music that is the soundtrack of their lives. With Surf as an album title, and metaphor, I want to escape to their world for the summer.

Give me the waves, wash me away!

Jade Green, singer and songwriter for The Black Creatures The Internet, “Come Together” from Hive Mind This song, like anything frontwoman Syd conjures up, is funky and relevant on levels.

Immediately, this song feels like a cool, jazzy

MUSIC

right now. I can mix in and out of this one and never disappoint the crowd or more importantly, myself. Definitely a scorching summer sizzler! The proof is in the pudding. On a side note, this one is listed as a single, I’m sure it’s on an album but in this ADD generation the kids are on singles and we disc jocks have always strived to get the 12” single...

Rocking vinyl in the front yard.

TRAVIS YOUNG

breeze on a summer night, wind through a hammock, that sort of thing. Reading really deeply into it, I’ve repurposed the affirmation “They gon’ get us to come together,” to mean “it is dire and imperative that we work in a coordinated way to solve some many deeply connected social issues,” the way the affirmation is repeated feels like a building of urgency, each phrase before crushed by the renewed meaning and added weight of the following. “What we gon’ do? What we gon’ do?” melodic vocals ask from the foreground, while jazz flute accentuates the short and simple questions and affirmations.

This song feels like it’s telling me to prioritize self-care so I can better build up the communities I am part of, which wouldn’t be all that bad of a message to spread around right now. Don’t forget if you’re gon’ come together, wear a mask!

Ian Sotomayor, aka DJ Proof Childish Gambino, “Summertime Magic” from Summer Pack The track gives me an electric feeling like taking in a summer skyline at dusk overlooking Clinton lake while I’m whipping my ride and pumping it up to “11... one more!”

The sultry vocals by Gambino just take you to another place, maybe enough to make you set aside the craziness of the state of the world currently. The single’s whole vibe is cool and sexy, and I can’t listen to it enough

Karlton Graham, Head Brewer at Kansas City Bier Company XTC, “River of Orchids” from Apple Venus Volume 1 River of Orchids is my summer song of 2020, because it reminds me to drop the technology, slow down, and live presently in the world. It’s the first track on an album that I have fond memories of listening to incessantly the summer of 1999.

This year, I have often thought of and listened to this song again because of the circumstances that the Corona pandemic has put me in. Other than running back and forth to work, day care, and home with little time to do much rather than eat, sleep, work, and clean, this summer has forced to me slow down.

I have spent many many days recently just staying home and taking care of my four year old daughter. Laurel and I developed over time a favorite activity of going for miles-long walks together.

Our objective was always to find “treasure.” Treasure could be anything, really: the pattern on a leaf, a special rock, an interesting cloud, a dropped object, a unique wildflower, or a stick that is also a magic wand all qualified. I now treasure the experience of slowing down and discovering the world around me through the eyes of my best friend and daughter, Laurel Rose.

Wick Thomas, MO District 19 State Rep Candidate & Lead at Wick & The Tricks Janelle Monae Ft. Wondaland, “Hell You Talmbout” from The Electric Lady I’m a huge Janelle Monae fan (I have “Cold War” lyrics tattooed all over me) and “Hell You Talmbout” encapsulates the summer for me. This is what we need to be talking about. It’s time for radical change. The systems in place have failed all but the most wealthy among us.

There’s no more room (there never was) to be complicit in the murder of black civilians at the hands of the police. We need to remove outdated systems that are holding our country back and move forward into a better system that works for all of us. This is the summer. Say their names. thepitchkc.com | August 2020 | THE PITCH

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MOVIES

ACCEPTING YOUR CINEMATIC BLINDSPOTS NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT TO FINALLY WATCH THE MOVIES YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN BY NOW.

BY ABBY OLCESE

I know time has blended together for all of us by now, but believe it or not, it’s been about four months since COVID-19 precautions forced us to spend most of our time at home. By now, you probably feel like you’ve done most of the things on the pandemic checklist. You’ve made sourdough starter and tried Dalgona Coffee. You got really into growing your own vegetables, then got bummed out when the squirrels got to your produce first. You’ve read all the streaming recommendation articles (including our own) and watched every movie on the list.

Or have you? I’ve learned there’s nothing like social isolation to realize I no longer had an excuse to avoid watching all those movies I said I’d get to eventually, but never did. That means you don’t have an excuse either. This is an account of the blind spots— embarrassing and obscure alike—that I managed to fill over the last few months (there are still so many more, in case you think I’m trying to be self-righteous. I still haven’t seen Top Gun).

Try these recommendations to expand your viewing experiences, and maybe even take care of a few oversights of your own.

BLACK FILMMAKERS

Ganja & Hess (Shudder) Ganja & Hess had been on my bucket list ever since watching the great documentary Horror Noire (also on Shudder), about the history of Black culture’s relationship to the genre. Bill Gunn’s arthouse vampire film was remade by Spike Lee in 2014 as Da Sweet Blood of Jesus. The original’s plot is loose, but focuses on an anthropologist, Dr. Hess Green (Night of the Living Dead’s Duane Jones), who develops an addiction to blood after he’s stabbed by his unstable assistant

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(Gunn) with an artifact. When the assistant’s wife, Ganja (Marlene Clark), comes looking for him, she and Green become lovers.

Gunn’s movie is wildly trippy. Ganja & Hess is part exploitation film, part horror movie, and part psychedelic art project, mixed with a bit of anthropology film. It’s almost impossible to follow, as much of the movie runs on dream logic. However, it also contains some incredible standout shots that should be in every aspiring filmmaker’s lexicon. It’s got a score by Sam Waymon (Nina Simone’s brother!) that you’ll want to own immediately. This movie also has maybe the coolest credit sequence I’ve seen in all of horror. Not all of Ganja & Hess works, but the parts that do are transcendent.

The Watermelon Woman (Criterion Channel, Kanopy) Cheryl Dunye’s The Watermelon Woman was among the selection of films by black

filmmakers that Criterion Channel allowed free access to in June. Right now Dunye’s groundbreaking movie is back behind their paywall, but is accessible for free on Kanopy.

The Watermelon Woman follows a Black lesbian filmmaker, Cheryl (played by Dunye), as she works on a documentary about a mysterious fictional Black actress who played a mammy in a classic Gone With the Windstyle drama. Cheryl pumps family, friends, and friends-of-friends for information alongside her friend Tamara (Valarie Walker) and girlfriend Diana (future American Psycho co-writer Guinevere Turner).

The Watermelon Woman is crammed with personality, a time capsule of a variety of mid-90s subcultures. The character of Cheryl is a thinly fictionalized version of Dunye herself, and the director used many of her friends and family in the movie. It’s clear Dunye has a lot of love for her hometown of Philadelphia, where the movie’s set. She

lovingly pokes fun at her lesbian community (complete with awkward karaoke nights and micromanaged feminist volunteer-run reading rooms), and documents the changing face of her neighborhood with incredible detail. The film history aspect of The Watermelon Woman is compelling enough, but Cheryl, her family, and her friends’ shaggy, charming interactions are the real draw.

Eve’s Bayou (HBO) Most of these blind spot movies fall into the category of “films we don’t talk about that much but we should.” I vaguely recall Eve’s Bayou coming out in 1997, and heard it come up on the occasional movie podcast, but that’s about it. Having finally seen Eve’s Bayou, I can’t believe people aren’t yelling at the top of their lungs about how good this movie is every day of our collective existence.

Writer-director Kasi Lemmons’s first

MOVIES

feature, about a black Louisiana family sitting on a powder keg of troubling secrets, is the whole package. It has an incredible script so steeped in family lore and magical realism that it feels like Toni Morrison could have written it. It has a cast that features, among others, Samuel L. Jackson, Diahann Carroll, and an 11-year-old Jurnee Smollett.

The direction is gob-smackingly confident for someone making their first film, with a clear, rich vision. If you haven’t seen this movie by now, you’re forgiven (after all, it took me 23 years), but you should fix that immediately.

HORROR

Phantasm (Shudder) I’ve been a horror fan for years, but I didn’t grow up one. My movie bloodlust didn’t really hit until college. I’m assuming this is the reason I didn’t see Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm until my 30s, while many of my horror-loving friends have memories of

Jordan’s sumptuous adaptation of Anne Rice’s novel, with an adaptation written

by Rice herself, features four of the biggest male stars of the 90s—Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas, and Christian Slater—three of whom make up the points of a very coded vampire love triangle. It feels a little insane that a studio released this movie in 1994. Watch it, if you haven’t. Watch it again if you have.

COMEDY

Candyman (Netflix) Like most folks, I’m excited for Nia DaCosta’s “spiritual sequel” to this 1992 Clive Barker adaptation (whenever we can finally see it). Until recently, though, I hadn’t actually watched the ‘92 Candyman. This feels especially silly considering I grew up in Chicago during the 90s. I was seven when the Cabrini-Green housing project, where most of the film takes place, was torn down.

I watched Candyman by myself, at night, with my back to a window, which was a terrible decision, because Candyman scared the pants off me. In keeping with all things Barker-related, it’s exceedingly gory and weirdly kinky. The villain’s origin is complex, his motives are nasty, and his methods are disturbingly carnal. That’s not to say I don’t recommend watching it—this is a fantastic movie. Candyman is a classic piece of urban gothic horror, made even more operatic by its tooclassy-for-this-joint Philip Glass score.

Candyman is freaky as hell, and I’m more interested than ever to see how DaCosta and Jordan Peele update the material. Just not on my own.

watching it at an inappropriately young age. Phantasm, like Candyman, feels like a horror fundamental.

If you haven’t seen this yet, there’s really no time like the present. Phantasm will shake you out of your streaming coma with a squeal-inducing good time. The setup (streetwise kid versus creepy, secretive undertaker) feels like it comes straight out of a Goosebumps book. Where the plot goes from there, however, is almost impossible to describe. Phantasm’s graveyard screams echo down the corridors of modern horror, from the vintage aesthetic and sci-fi elements of Panos Cosmatos to the vintage cars and brotherly bonding of Supernatural. If you’re anything like me, it’ll become your new Halloween viewing tradition, sandwiched right between Return of the Living Dead and Evil Dead II on the itinerary.

Interview with the Vampire (Amazon) Like Eve’s Bayou, Interview with the Vampire feels like one of those 90s movies that just doesn’t get talked about much now.

And again, after seeing it, I cannot believe it doesn’t get discussed more often. Neil

Sherlock Jr. (Kanopy) I’ve been meaning to broaden my Buster Keaton knowledge for years. This titan of silent film is a Kansan, after all, and the namesake of my cat (Buster Kitten). Not to mention, most of Keaton’s films are available to stream for free in some form or another. Clearly, it was time to fix this blind spot. I picked Sherlock Jr., in which Keaton plays a movie projectionist who dreams of being a detective, and is wrongly accused of stealing his girlfriend’s father’s pocket watch.

Many knowledgeable people will tell you that Keaton is a huge influence on contemporary filmmakers ranging from Wes Anderson to Jackie Chan. It takes precisely no time at all to notice that influence. The combination of stunning stunt work and broad slapstick draws a direct line to Chan, Mission: Impossible and even Mad Max: Fury Road. The way Keaton plays with visual depth appears throughout Anderson’s work, especially in The Grand Budapest Hotel. Mostly, though, Sherlock Jr. is 45 minutes of wall-to-wall cinema magic. It’s a quick hit of delight, which we all need right now. You’re not going anywhere, and the movie’s less than an hour. You know what to do.

But I’m a Cheerleader (Criterion Channel) Jamie Babbitt’s But I’m a Cheerleader is a hallmark of queer cinema and a cult classic.

Pride month may be over, but you can enjoy this John Waters-esque skewering of gay conversion therapy any time. I may have raised a quizzical eyebrow at rough-voiced bohemian Natasha Lyonne playing an apple-cheeked cheerleader named Megan, but I got over that hurdle soon enough. Watching a non-drag RuPaul hilariously fail to convert a bunch of young, gay teens (including Clea DuVall and Rufio from Hook!) was all I needed to fall in love with this goofy, surprisingly sincere movie.

What’s Up, Doc? (Amazon) The last several months have been stressful for all of us. I’m a big believer in self-care, and for me, that often takes the form of movies that let me release anxious energy in the form of laughter. You know, like laughter yoga, but better.

If that’s the form your self-care takes, you deserve to experience the daffy 1972 screwball comedy What’s Up, Doc?, starring Barbra Streisand, Ryan O’Neal, and a raft of great 1970s comedic talent. I knew going in that What’s Up Doc? was good. I didn’t expect it to be so good that I actually felt cheated by life for not having watched it sooner. The movie is packed with goofy jokes, and every punchline makes a seismic landing. Streisand is wiley and smart and impeccably dressed.

O’Neal is squirrelly and uptight. They’re great together. Don’t do what I did for years and deny yourself this pleasure any longer.

Watch What’s Up, Doc? right now. thepitchkc.com | August 2020 | THE PITCH

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KC CARES Those benefitting the most from the program.

COURTESY MOCSA

local school districts.

Before the pandemic, kids would walk into MOCSA for the first time with a lot of emotions. They might feel angry, worried, confused, or hurt. But then they see the bright toys in the playroom, the friendly faces of our skilled therapists and staff, they see the sparkling trail of glitter on the carpet from the art therapy room and down the hall, and they start to feel comfortable and they start to open up. But things are different now, and children are at home with all those same feelings and nowhere to go. MOCSA has now shifted counseling to telehealth video or phone sessions with children and families. Art and play therapy requires more flexibility and creativity in this format, but it’s still possible and therapists are still witnessing children’s resilience and healing.

Night Out with MOCSA is an annual fundraising event that typically includes a night of festivities, cocktails, and an auction.

This year, to help keep our community safe and healthy, the event is going virtual on August 28th and it’s shifting from a Night Out into a Night In with MOCSA! Here are ways you can support survivors and be a part of the event:

KC CARES THE METROPOLITAN ORGANIZATION TO COUNTER SEXUAL ASSAULT (MOCSA)

BY BROOKE TIPPIN

Sexual abuse can happen to anyone—a neighbor, a brother or sister, a cousin’s friend. It crosses all boundaries, socioeconomic status, age, and gender. There is no discrimination in abuse. It happens right here, in Kansas City, every single day. More than 80 percent of sexual violence is committed by someone the victim knows, not by a stranger. The impacts can be devastating, not only for the victims, but also for their

36

THE PITCH | August 2020 | thepitchkc.com

friends and loved ones.

The Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault (MOCSA) was founded in 1975 and their 24-hour crisis line, free-of-charge counseling, and advocacy services are available to residents across all six counties in the Kansas City metro.

They also offer community education programs and work with elementary, middle, and high school students in more than 30

Become a sponsor. Various levels available and all sponsors receive a house party package along with other benefits.

Buy raffle tickets. Get one ticket for $25 or five tickets for $100. You might win a set of AirPods Pro. Donate to the silent auction. Art, home goods, experience packages, and gift cards are needed.

Donate money. A $25 dollar donation could fund one month of virtual therapy software for one MOCSA counselor so that kids and adult survivors can access the vital therapy services they need to heal from sexual abuse or assault while being safe at home during the COVID pandemic.

I am a survivor of sexual assault. A few years ago, a friend of mine recommended I check out MOCSA because they provide counseling services free of charge to all survivors of sexual violence and their families. I put it off. I was good at just pushing things down into my gut and if they resurfaced, I would cry about it, curl up in a ball, and shove it back down again. Seemed to work for me, until it didn’t.

When I walked through the doors at MOCSA the first time, I was beyond anxious. I sat in a waiting room with kids and adults, knowing some sick asshole did something terrible to each of us. I waited for my therapist to come to the door and make small talk. And then we would get into it. Cue the feelings, anger, and tears. I went through it all. But every time I walked through those doors, it got easier.

MOCSA was a safe space I could go every week and chat with someone who believed me, listened to me, and guided me to work through what I needed to start the healing. You might be like me and are really good at pushing everything into your throat and stomach for it to live there and feast on you. I promise you in the long run, this will eat you from the inside out. In your own time, I hope you find the strength to pick up the phone and set up a free appointment at 816-531-0233.

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Contact Stephanie Carey at stephanie@thepitchkc.com

thepitchkc.com | August 2020 | THE PITCH

37

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THE PITCH | August 2020 | thepitchkc.com

Dear Dan: Is it terrible to believe you can still have a truly monogamous and loving relationship with one partner after twenty years? Or can we walk into a relationship knowing that within those decades of being together that situations like infidelity or being attracted to another is completely unavoidable? And if we acknowledge that in some cases it’s truly unavoidable, should we mentally prepare ourselves for this possibility during our “monogamous” stage?

Early on in dating?

Hopelessly Optimistic Person Enquires Dear HOPE: Be prepared.

Knowing what we do about infidelity and how common it is over the course of long-term relationships, HOPE, it’s a good idea to have a conversation early in a relationship about what you will do if and/or when one and/or the other and/or both of you should cheat years or decades later. It’s best for this convo to happen at the tail end of the infatuation stage but before you’ve made any sort of formal commitment—you know, after you’ve had your first fight but still at that stage when the thought of ever wanting to fuck someone else seems ridiculous. Committing at that point to at least trying to work through an infidelity doesn’t guarantee the relationship will survive and it doesn’t obligate you to remain in the relationship. But it ups the chances the relationship will survive an infidelity that it could and perhaps should survive.

Because remember… when it comes to cheating… some types are worse than others.

There are differences in degree. If you found out your husband fucked your sister on your wedding night, well, that’s probably not something you’ll be able to forgive. But an instantly regretted one-off on a business trip (remember those?) or prolonged affair after twenty years and two kids and both partners long ago started taking their sexual connection for granted and both allowed it to wither? That’s something you can work past and are likelier to work past if you agreed to at least try to work past it before the kids and the taking for granted and the business trips.

Zooming out for a moment…

The culture encourages us to see cheating as a relationship-extinction-level event—an unforgivable betrayal, something no relationship can survive. Which seems nuts when you pause to consider just how common cheating is. Defining cheating as always unforgivable sets up for failure otherwise good and loving relationships that might be able to survive an infidelity.

If instead of telling us that no relationship could ever survive an infidelity the culture told us that cheating in monogamous or non-monogamous is always serious betrayal—it’s not at all trivial—but it’s something a relationship can survive, HOPE, then more relationships that should survive infidelities would… I hope

you’re sitting down… actually wind up surviving infidelities. The truth is, many relationships don’t just survive infidelities but actually wind up thriving in the wake of the disclosure or exposure of an affair because the healing process brings the couple closer together. (This is not a good reason to have an affair, of course, nor is it the reason why anyone has ever had an affair.) Reinforcing the idea that affairs always destroy relationships: Couples who remain together after after an affair usually don’t talk openly about the cheating while couples who separate or divorce after an affair can hardly bring themselves to talk about anything else.

Now to quickly answer your first questions…

Yes, it is possible for two people to remain monogamous for twenty years. It can be done—of course it can—but there are lots of people out there who think they’ve done it but are mistaken. Some people think they’ve been in successfully monogamous relationships for twenty years have been cheated on—or they themselves have done something their partners might regard as cheating—and the oneoff infidelity or the ongoing affair or the happy endings were never exposed or disclosed.

And your partner is going to find other people attractive—and not in twenty years.

Today, right now, your partner is going to lay eyes on someone else they find attractive, HOPE, just as you will probably lay eyes—but only eyes—on someone else you find attractive. Making a monogamous commitment doesn’t mean you don’t wanna fuck other people, it means you will refrain from fucking other people. If the lie we’re told about love and attraction were true—if being in love with someone left you incapable of finding someone else attractive—we wouldn’t need to make monogamous commitments. We wouldn’t need to promise to not fuck anyone or extract that promise from someone else if being in left rendered us incapable of even noticing how hot your barista is.

Dear Dan: What is the etiquette for breaking up with an escort you’ve been seeing regularly?

A little background: I’m married and have been seeing an escort for the past three years about twice a month. The sex is amazing. We’ve developed a friendship and get along very well. The issue is that I’ve gotten emotionally attached. I constantly think of her and she’s always on my mind. It’s negatively affected my marriage and I need to break it off. I don’t want to hurt her as I have genuine affection but I need to stop seeing her. Do I send a note with an explanation? Or do I ghost and stop sending her text messages?

I’m the one who initiates contact. She never reaches out to me first. Thanks for your advice.

It’s Me Not You

Dear IMNY: Don’t thank me, IMNY, thank all the nice sex workers and sex workers’ rights

advocates who were kind enough to share their thoughts after I tweeted out your question and asked #SexWorkTwitter to weigh in.

The general consensus was for you to send a brief note letting this woman know you won’t be booking her again. A short selection from the responses…

Kalee D. (@GoddessKaleeLA): “I’ve had this happen a few times before and the couple that wrote me a note with honesty were so deeply appreciated. The others, I always wondered what I did wrong or if they died in some freak accident.”

Maya Midnight (@MsMayaMidnight): “I’d be worried if a longtime regular disappeared during a pandemic! Send a quick text or email saying you’re taking a break but you’ve enjoyed your time together. No need for more detail about why. A parting gift would be a nice gesture.”

SoftSandalwood (@SoftSandalwood): “Pro Domme here. Definitely let her know what’s going on, so she doesn’t wonder if you’re OK, if she did something wrong, etc. It’s the job of a pro to understand and respect boundaries. Thanks for a thoughtful question.”

Daddy Lance (@LanceNavarro): “Agreed 100%. The majority of us are deeply empathetic and prefer closure over mystery.”

A final thought from me: sex workers value trustworthy regular clients and FOSTA/ SESTA and the coronavirus pandemic have made it incredibly difficult for sex workers to find new regular clients. Sending this woman a generous final tip—perhaps the price of a session, if you can swing it—would soften the blow of losing you as a regular client and would tide her over until she can replace you.

Dear Dan: That was great advice you gave to “Virgin” in last week’s column. I was a 39-yearold virgin and started seeing sex workers. I found one that had the kind of qualities mentioned by the sex worker you quoted in your column. She was a kind, caring, and compassionate person that I saw regularly for a year. Being with her gave me confidence in my sexual abilities and allowed me to experience physical affection. A little while later I met my future wife.

I was even able to tell her about my experiences with sex workers and she wasn’t offended and didn’t shame me. She was actually intrigued. I hope VIRGIN takes your advice. If he finds the right sex worker, like I did, it will change his life.

One Grateful Client Dear OGC: Thanks for sharing, OGC! Question for Dan? Email him at mail@savagelove.net. On Twitter at @fakedansavage.

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