The Pitch: September 2018

SEPTEMBER 2018 I FREE I THEPITCHKC.COM

ALSO

NEON DREAMS:

WHAT DOES THE GUTTING OF DST

A QUEST TO PRESERVE THE

SYSTEMS MEAN FOR KC?

BRIGHT LIGHTS OF OUR BIG CITY.

AND

BY APRIL FLEMING

A MOSTLY JEWISH DELI FOR A MOSTLY NOT-JEWISH CITY.

CARLOS MENCIA

BRET MICHAELS

THE CLAIRVOYANTS

THE OAK RIDGE BOYS

SEPTEMBER 7

SEPTEMBER 15

SEPTEMBER 22

SEPTEMBER 29

PRESLEY, PERKINS, LEWIS & CASH

ANDY GRAMMER

SHAMROCK FC MMA

RICK SPRINGFIELD

OCTOBER 5

OCTOBER 6

OCTOBER 13

OCTOBER 27

Join us in the Star Pavilion for our thrilling upcoming shows. Get your tickets at Ticketmaster.com or visit the Ameristar gift shop to receive $5 off the standard ticket price with your mychoice® card.

Must be 21 or older to gamble. Must be a mychoice® member to receive mychoice discount. Must be at least 18 or accompanied by an adult to enter Star Pavilion. Tickets available online at Ticketmaster.com or at the Gift Shop (service charges and handling fees may apply). No refunds/exchanges unless canceled or postponed. Offer not valid for persons on a Disassociated Patrons, Voluntary Exclusion or Self Exclusion List in jurisdictions which Pinnacle Entertainment operates or who have been otherwise excluded from Ameristar Kansas City, MO. Gambling problem? Call 1-888-BETSOFF. ©2018 Pinnacle Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved.

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THE PITCH | SEPTEMBER 2018 | thepitchkc.com

CONTENTS

THE PITCH

Publisher Stephanie Carey Editor David Hudnall Digital Editor Kelcie McKenney Contributing Writers Tracy Abeln, Traci Angel, Liz Cook, Karen Dillon, April Fleming, Natalie Gallagher, Roxie Hammill, Libby Hanssen, Deborah Hirsch, Larry Kopitnik, Angela Lutz, Dan Lybarger, David Martin, Eric Melin, Annie Raab, Aaron Rhodes, Barbara Shelly, Nick Spacek, Lucas Wetzel Little Village Creative Services Jordan Sellergren Contributing Photographers Zach Bauman, Chase Castor, Jennifer Wetzel Graphic Designers Jennifer Larson, Kelcie McKenney, Katie McNeil, Gianfranco Ocampo, Kirsten Overby, Alex Peak, Vu Radley Director of Marketing & Promotions Jason Dockery Senior Multimedia Specialist Steven Suarez Multimedia Specialists Becky Losey Director of Operations Andrew Miller Multimedia Intern Kate Scofield Design Intern Danielle Moore

CAREY MEDIA

Chief Executive Officer Stephanie Carey Chief Operating Officer Adam Carey

VOICE MEDIA GROUP

National Advertising 1-888-278-9866 vmgadvertising.com

DISTRIBUTION

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Additional copies may be purchased for $5 each, payable at The Pitch’s office in advance.

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Application to mail at second-class postage rates is pending at Kansas City, MO 64108.

COPYRIGHT

The contents of The Pitch are Copyright 2018

by Carey Media. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part by any means without the express written permission of the publisher.

The Pitch 1627 Main St., #600, Kansas City, MO 64108 For information or to share a story tip, email tips@thepitchkc.com For advertising: stephanie@thepitchkc.com or 816-218-6702 For classifieds: steven@thepitchkc.com or 816-218-6732

30 6 GET OUT

22 New Currents

36 Drink This Now

9 QUESTIONNAIRE

24 CAFE

37 Eat This Now

Your September Agenda What to do and where to be this month.

BY DAVID HUDNALL

Katie Mabry van Dieren The Strawberry Swing curator and founder discusses bringing arts and crafts to the community through the Troost Market Collective.

BY KELCIE MCKENNEY

10 NEWS

The Life and Death of a Hometown Company What the gutting of DST Systems means for Kansas City.

BY DAVID HUDNALL

18 FEATURE

Neon Dreams Nick Vedros’s quest to preserve Kansas City’s vintage signs.

BY APRIL FLEMING

Could a trip on the Missouri River strengthen our connection to it?

BY TRACI ANGEL

On Broadway Opening night for Kansas City’s new Jewish deli.

BY LIZ COOK

ZACH BAUMAN

The Bohemian at Nomads.

BY LIZ COOK

The Grilled Asparagus and Smoked Gouda sandwich from Ash & Bleu Cheese Company.

BY APRIL FLEMING

30 FOOD

Fresh Eyes The Troost corridor is developing, and food is leading the charge.

BY LIZ COOK

30 DRINK

Gone to the Dogs With Bar K, Dave Hensley and Leib Dodell have created a riverfront haven for dog owners. (Yes, the Kansas City riverfront.)

BY APRIL FLEMING

30 The Outskirts

Sampling the beers at KC’s new suburban breweries.

BY LIZ COOK

COVER

Jan’s Liquors, Belton, MO. Photo by Marc Hayes. thepitchkc.com | SEPTEMBER 2018 | THE PITCH

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CONTENTS

38 ARTS

The Struggle is Real “Overture: The Musical” digs up and dramatizes the history of the Kansas City Philharmonic.

BY LIBBY HANSSEN

40 MUSIC

Enter the Dragon Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin’s Phil Dickey leans in to blockbuster synth pop — and life in Kansas City.

BY DAVID HUDNALL

42 Blessed

Six years into its existence, local noise-rock trio Bummer has finally released its first LP, Holy Terror.

BY AARON RHODES

44 SAVAGE LOVE

Sex by Proxy What’s the difference between a surrogate partner and a sex worker?

BY DAN SAVAGE

46 EVENTS

Your September Calendar Kick off fall in KC.

Letter from the Publisher September always seems to be the busiest month of the year. If only there were enough days in the month to pack it all in. If you live in Kansas City and don’t have plans every single weekend in September, you are not trying hard enough. (And if you need help, consult our cultural recommendations on page 6 and our full calendar beginning on page 46.)

Luckily, we’re only throwing one Pitch event at you this month. Everyone has time for pizza. You can celebrate Pizza Week with us September 10-16.

Stretchy pants here I come!

We’re also in the final few days of voting in Best of KC. Be sure to cast your votes by September 10 at thepitchkc.com/bestofkc18. Thank you to everyone who has already voted and made this the absolute Best ballot year we’ve ever had. We look forward to seeing you at our Best of KC party on October 4, where we will unveil the winners. Get your tickets now — we’re loading this event up with some extra-special surprise guests as well!

And stay busy, Kansas City!

Cheers, Stephanie @queenofquirky #OurPitch

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THE PITCH | SEPTEMBER 2018 | thepitchkc.com

A photography exhibition spanning the entire history of the medium.

Open late Thursday & Friday nights Admission is FREE

Kansas City, Mo | 3 blocks from the Plaza

This exhibition is supported by the Hall Family Foundation in honor of Keith F. Davis. Additional support provided by the Campbell-Calvin Fund.

Attributed to Louis-Auguste Bisson, French (1814–1876). Bull, Lumousin breed, ca. 1850.

Daguerreotype, 4 1/4 Ă— 6 1/2 inches. Gift of the Hall Family Foundation, 2017.44.3.

GET OUT

September Free State Festival

Open Spaces

Through October 28 Multiple locations openspaceskc.com

This citywide public art event, the first of its kind in Kansas City, is hard to wrap one’s head around. Dozens of artists — local, national, and international — will perform or install art at dozens of metro locations over the course of nine weeks. This includes public spaces (Swope Park is a hub) as well as performing arts venues, galleries, and old buildings. Your best bet is to start at the website — openspaceskc.com — and figure things out from there.

Punch Brothers

Sunday, September 9 Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts kauffmancenter.org

Led by mandolinist and cheeky Prairie Home Companion host Chris Thile, Punch Brothers recently dropped album number five, All Ashore — another collection of classy, curious, and worldly bluegrass. Madison Cunningham opens.

September 17-23 Downtown Lawrence venues 2018.freestatefestival.org

Author Michelle Tea, comedian-actor-activist Cheech Marin, and filmmaker Kevin Wilmott (BlacKkKlansman) are among the names assembled for Lawrence’s Free State Festival, now in its seventh year. Some of the events in this week-long cultural mishmash are free; others will run you between $5 and $30 to get in the door. Check the website for details and the full schedule.

Beck, with the Voidz Monday, September 17 Starlight Theatre kcstarlight.com

Beck continues to release elegant, avant-garde pop albums, his latest being last year’s Colors — the thirteenth of this Californian’s career. Here, he’s supported by The Voidz, fronted by former Stroke Julian Casablancas.

Counting Crows, with Live Tuesday, September 11 Starlight Theatre kcstarlight.com

It has been a quarter of a century since Counting Crows released its breakthrough album August and Everything After, a fact that will rightly fill many millenials with tremendous existential dread. This tour celebrates those songs — “Round Here,” “Omaha,” and, of course, “Mr. Jones” — and features fellow ‘90s alt-rock hitmakers Live as openers.

King Tuff

Sloan Monday, September 17 Riot Room theriotroom.com

Riot Room blesses KC power-pop heads with a Monday night doubleheader. Inside: the 1990s and 2000s

for

$10 FREE PLAY

TEXT “PAYOUT1” TO 797979.

GET $ 10 IN FREE SLOT PLAY!

New Lucky 7 Club members only. Must be 21. We reserve the right to modify or cancel. See Players Club for complete details. Message & data rates may apply. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-522-4700.

thepitchkc.com | SEPTEMBER 2018 | THE PITCH

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GET OUT

Canadian titans Sloan, who recently released their twelfth album, titled, appropriately 12. On the outdoor stage: Kyle Thomas, aka King Tuff, whose grimy pop anthems brush up against psych, garage, and classic-rock riffs on their way to the chorus.

Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, is out September 18, and she arrives in Lawrence a week later for this reading.

TICKETS

Iron and Wine

Friday, September 21 Arvest Bank Theatre at the Midland arvestbanktheatre.com

The whispery folk of Iron and Wine’s 2002 breakthrough The Creek Drank the Cradle has given way to bigger sounds over the last decade and a half: raucous roots-rock on 2007’s The Shepherd’s Dog; broad pop melodies on 2011’s Kiss Each Other Clean; blueeyed soul on 2013’s Ghost on Ghost.

Time is a flat circle, though: Iron and Wine’s latest, Beast Epic, is a return to the peaceful commune vibes of the band’s early 2000s recordings.

Go to thepitchkc.com/tickets to find the hottest events in KC.

The Tequila Experience September 8, Hush

Andrew Bird with the Kansas City Symphony

Saturday, September 29 Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts kauffmancenter.org

Violin virtuoso, beloved whistler, and all-around neo-folk heartthrob Andrew Bird is no stranger to classical settings. At this Helzberg Hall show, he’ll pull from his deep back catalog of highbrow-but-accessible songs, fleshing them out with assistance from the Kansas City Symphony.

THE WHISKEY EXPERIENCE September 29, Hush

Leslie Odom, Jr.

Saturday, September 22 Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts kauffmancenter.org

Since his Tony Award-winning role as Aaron Burr in Hamilton, Leslie Odom Jr. has gone on to release a jazz album, act in a few films, and pen a book, Failing Up. Here, he’ll perform various songs from his Broadway career (he was also in RENT), backed by the Kansas City Symphony.

Sarah Smarsh

Tuesday, September 25th Library Hall libertyhall.net

The Kansas writer (and long-ago Pitch staffer) Sarah Smarsh has emerged as one of white rural America’s progressive voices. Her debut book, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and

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THE PITCH | SEPTEMBER 2018 | thepitchkc.com

Lil Pump

Sunday, September 30 Arvest Bank Theatre at the Midland arvestbanktheatre.com

It is a testament to our fractured media landscape that, despite the fact that he has 2 billion streams (and counting) and a $8 million deal from Warner Brothers, you most likely know very little, if anything, about the south Florida rapper Lil Pump. Just 18 years old, Pump is part of a cohort of hiphop stars that rose to prominence on Soundcloud, have face tattoos and pastel-colored hair, and whose names start with Lil. You’ve been waiting for the sequel to the punk movement? It’s here, and you’re too old to understand it.

Do you need a ticket platform for an upcoming event?

Email us at stephanie@pitch.com.

QUESTIONNAIRE

community. We asked van Dieren about that and more.

Instagram: @strawberryswingkc @troostmarketcollective

and

Hometown: KC Current neighborhood: 49/63 — Troost Avenue Lawn Tell me about the beginnings of the Strawberry Swing? The Swing was started in August of 2011, eight years ago, and was formed from an Etsy team of KC makers lead by Heather Baker. I took over the Swing in 2014. We didn’t have anything like it in the Midwest that celebrated the handmade movement, and Strawberry Swing did just that. It is now one of the top indie craft fairs in the world.

KELCIE MCKENNEY, MURAL BY CARLY RAE STUDIO

QUESTIONNAIRE

Katie Mabry van Dieren THE STRAWBERRY SWING CURATOR AND FOUNDER DISCUSSES BRINGING ARTS AND CRAFTS TO THE COMMUNITY THROUGH THE TROOST MARKET COLLECTIVE. BY KELCIE MCKENNEY

As curator and owner of the Strawberry Swing, Kansas City’s beloved indie craft fair, Katie Mabry van Dieren has helped put #shoplocal on the map around here since taking over from founder Heather Baker in 2014. But van Dieren also has a new nonprofit that’s already showing a lot of promise: the Troost Market Collective.

You may have noticed some new murals around the 31st and Troost area? Troost Market Collective — on which van Dieren has partnered with Crissy Dastrup — fostered the creation of those works, each of which were painted by local, community-based artists. The nonprofit has been working closely with the KC Catalytic Urban Redevelopment Initiative over the past two years and hopes to open up the first Troost makerspace by the beginning of 2019. On Saturday, September 22, the organization is hosting Troostapalooza, a celebration of art, culture, music, local food and drink, and

“STREET ART IS ONE OF THE GREATEST FORMS OF PROTEST AND OF LETTING VOICES BE HEARD.”

What’s changed over the last eight years? There were only 16 makers at the First Holiday Swing, and I was one of them.

Last year, we had more than 125 makers. It’s so fun, and everyone involved is just lovely and lighthearted, from the musicians to the food truck owners to the makers. I’ve watched countless local stores open up that sell the makers’ products since 2014, and it’s so wonderful to see our city come out and support its small businesses.

What is your craft? And what isn’t? I love all the crafts! I sell jewelry, stationary, and sometimes baby accessories on my Etsy site, but I don’t have much time to create new products because running the Swing and co-founding a non-profit and being a mom and a wife doesn’t leave me with much spare time. Some of my product photos on my Etsy site were taken in 2013 with an iPhone 4, if that gives you an idea.

Tell me more about the Troost Market Collective. Its mission is to create equitable economic opportunity for creative entrepreneurs, inspiring future generations through innovative partnerships and programming.

We envision a diverse community hub of creativity and expression where all people are able to be their most true selves, are empowered to expand local economies, and can enrich the landscape for all in participation.

Where are the Troost Market Collective’s new murals? We moved two of the original murals on the north end of the street into Thelma’s Kitchen at 31st and Troost, which is KC’s first donate-what-youcan cafe. There are two new murals in their place, so make sure you visit our Instagram or go visit them in person. Also, look forward to us crossing the street and participating in a new project at the Firestone Building at Linwood and Troost.

How are you keeping diversity at the forefront of the conversation on Troost, and what are you doing to make sure minority artists and voices are heard? In forming TMC, we were intentional on who we brought in to lead our board. Our board members are diverse, with strong ties to the community. The Community Mural Project is a way to highlight our city’s diversity as well. Street art is one of the greatest forms of protest and of letting voices be heard. We invited people we met on the street and artists who had a tie to Troost to share what the past, present, or future of Troost meant to them on the walls between Linwood and 31st on Troost.

What’s going on with Troostapalooza?

Troostapalooza aims to celebrate the community, bringing together neighbors, small businesses, and entrepreneurs to engage with attendees. It serves as a means to coalesce the community and raise awareness and funds for the nonprofits along the corridor with the support of local businesses.

It’s a free, family-friendly event located on Troost between 29th and 30th streets.

What gets you on your soapbox? #shoplocal and #shopsmall. And, in this climate of America, I cannot not speak up and out about the inequalities in our country. The historical inaction and intentional divestment that benefited white men and impacted all businesses on the Troost corridor led us to where we are today. As a privileged white woman, I feel called to action.

What’s your guilty pleasure? Mezcal cocktails.

What would you tell your younger self? Don’t suck your thumb; it will give you buck teeth.

What’s the best advice you ever got?

Though I never met him in person, and he’s been dead more than 100 years, I tend to use a WWMTD (What Would Mark Twain Do) attitude when it comes to making decisions: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines.

Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.

Dream. Discover.”

What is the last thing you laughed at? My two-year-old Teddy. He is full of beans. He literally gave himself a mud bath in the rain last night, and it was glorious ... until I had to give him a real bath.

What’s your greatest struggle right now? TIME MANAGEMENT. Help, please? thepitchkc.com | SEPTEMBER 2018 | THE PITCH

9

NEWS

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A HOMETOWN COMPANY WHAT THE GUTTING OF DST SYSTEMS MEANS FOR KANSAS CITY. BY DAVID HUDNALL

It wasn’t so much a question of if the layoffs were coming. It was a question of when.

DST Systems, one of the largest private employers in Kansas City — indeed, one of the great business success stories in the history of the city — had been acquired, in January, for $5.4 billion. The buyer was a Connecticut-based firm called SS&C. That SS&C was a competitor was especially bad news for DST employees. Many positions in Kansas City would become redundant after the two companies merged.

It didn’t happen right away. For five months, DST employees went to work with the faint sound of knives sharpening in the distance. How many heads would roll? Who would be saved?

The answer arrived first thing on the morning of Tuesday, June 26. In one building — DST maintains several offices scattered across downtown — workers were asked to gather their most critical personal belongings and led to a conference room that had been reassembled into a sort of layoff assembly line: last names beginning with A–D here, E–L there, etc. Directing the proceedings were human resources representatives with unfamiliar faces — contract workers who specialized in layoffs, perhaps, or SS&C employees flown in for the occasion.

Having been informed their positions had been eliminated, effective immediately, employees were instructed to turn over their work badges, company credit cards, and any other DST property they possessed. They were told the remaining personal contents in their desks and offices would be packed

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THE PITCH | SEPTEMBER 2018 | thepitchkc.com

up by their managers and shipped to their homes. Employees were then handed a large white envelope containing the details of their severance packages and escorted off the premises by plainclothes security.

Armed guards stood alert in the lobby.

The number of DST employees let go is believed to be right around 1,000, though no official numbers were released. Many of the newly jobless repaired that day to nearby bars like the Quaff and the Peanut, establishments that have long relied on DST for their customer base. They ordered drinks, shed tears, and talked about their time — in many cases, decades — at the company, the friendships formed, the memories shared.

Local media stopped by, having heard about the layoffs, but few of the now-former employees were willing to speak freely. Most had signed severance agreements barring them from talking to reporters. All had been very specifically reminded on their way out the door not to discuss the day’s events with the media.

Nevertheless, I have interviewed more than 25 current and former employees at DST Systems, both prior to the layoffs of June 26 and after. Their individual experiences vary — some are devastated, some are relieved, some who survived remain tense — but in the aggregate they tell what amounts to the same tale. It’s a story about a firm that lost its way after its founder departed. It’s a story about how public markets in this age of unrestrained capitalism prevent hometown companies from doing good in their hometowns. It is, above all, a story about the grotesque expanse of inequality that lies

ZACH BAUMAN

between the winners and losers in corporate America in 2018.

The winners: DST executives who engineered the sale and are now cashing in on compensation agreements granting them unimaginable wealth.

The losers: everybody else.

•

•

•

If you have lived in Kansas City long enough, you likely know somebody who works at, or used to work at, DST Systems.

Headquartered in Kansas City since its founding in 1969, DST was until recently one of the largest employers in the metropolitan area, with nearly 5,000 local employees and another 8,000 worldwide. (The number of local employees is likely down below 4,000 now, though DST has not released the exact number of layoffs and did not respond to repeated requests to comment for this story.)

DST’s impact on Kansas City over the last 50 years has been almost immeasurably immense. The company epitomized a Midwestern version of business success: large, quiet, boring, conservative, sturdily led.

DST began as a unit inside another vener-

able local company, Kansas City Southern Industries; it created software to monitor freight on Kansas City Southern railroads.

Before long, it began deploying its technology to track mutual fund transactions.

This innovation proved revolutionary in the emerging world of information processing systems. DST grew rapidly and was eventually spun off and taken public in 1995.

Its clients today include financial services giants like American Funds, T. Rowe Price, Fidelity, and Invesco. It also maintains records for firms in the healthcare and insurance industries.

The man who started DST and built it into a 13,000-person global operation is a Kansas Citian named Tom McDonnell.

“There are few people in the history of Kansas City who have made an impact, particularly in the downtown area, that surpasses what Tom McDonnell has done through DST,” former Mayor Emanuel Cleaver said of McDonnell.

It would not be difficult to make the case that downtown Kansas City owes its current renaissance more to DST Systems than it does artists reimagining lofts in the 1990s or the construction of the Power &

Light District in the 2000s. In the 1980s, when businesses were fleeing downtown for the Kansas suburbs, DST went the other way, reinvesting in the urban core. The company, which eventually launched its own real-estate subsidiary, transformed the west side of downtown, buying up old buildings around Quality Hill in which it housed its growing workforce. In all, DST revived — through historic rehabs and new construction — almost 40 buildings in downtown Kansas City.

“DST made a commitment to downtown at a time when downtown was on its heels — and long before the revitalization that started in the last decade,” says Joe Reardon, president and CEO of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce. “The company’s decision to keep its headquarters downtown, renovating a number of different buildings, its support for the development of Quality Hill, its renovation of a number of historic buildings in that district, paved the way for the vibrant downtown we see today.”

Buying up all that property was a business strategy, and, given the prices buildings fetch downtown these days, it can safely be deemed a wise one. But civic purpose was also baked into those plans. In the late 1980s,

the company turned several old Quality Hill buildings into a campus for nonprofits. It received tax increment financing (TIF) from the city, yes, but at a time when TIF was being used in Kansas City the way it was intended: to correct blight so daunting that developers actually needed an incentive to build.

And DST often reinvested that TIF money in its neighbors. The Kansas City Business Journal reported that, in 1992, DST used 30 percent of its TIF proceeds to “make grants to others in the district who needed help improving building facades and streetscapes.” Phil Kirk, the former chairman of DST Realty, put together the deal that transformed a crumbling Bank of America building at 10th and Baltimore into what is today the Central branch of the Kansas City Public Library.

“It was, on the whole, a very positive use of TIF,” says Kansas City Public Library director Crosby Kemper, an otherwise vocal TIF skeptic. “Phil and Tom saw the value in reviving downtown through a public institution like the library.”

DST Realty was also instrumental in the efforts to renovate Union Station and thepitchkc.com | SEPTEMBER 2018 | THE PITCH

11

NEWS

The Heart of America Japan-America Society presents the 21st annual

Saturday, October 6, 2018 10 a.m.–7p.m.

Johnson County Community College 12345 College Blvd.

Overland Park, Kansas

Ki–Spirit

Adults – $15 Students (with proper ID) – $10 Childern ages 6 to 13 – $5 Children 5 and under – Free!

For more information and to purchase tickets visit

kcjapanfestival.org

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THE PITCH | SEPTEMBER 2018 | thepitchkc.com

the surrounding properties along the Pershing Road corridor, such as the National Archives, the Kansas City Ballet, and the onemillion-square-foot IRS processing center.

Roughly half of the land on which the Power and Light District, Sprint Center, and H&R Block headquarters now sit was purchased piecemeal by DST Realty in the early 2000s and sold back to the city in 2004. But DST hardly turned a profit on the deal. It sold those 25 parcels to the city at cost.

“That was a critical piece that gave us ability to assemble land, remediate it, and get ready for construction,” city manager Wayne Cauthen told the Star at the time.

Suffice it to say that Cordish Companies — the Baltimore-based owner of the Power & Light District as well as One Light, Two Light, and other Lights soon to rise into our skyline — does not share this spirit of civic solidarity. The company recently demanded (and received) from the city a 100 percent property tax abatement for 25 years on a 300-unit luxury apartment building and a $17.5 million tax break for a parking garage.

Being a publicly traded company — as DST has been since 1995 — does not lend itself well to the kind of community-oriented approach DST took under McDonnell, though. When you are a public company, your duty is to your shareholders, and most of those shareholders 1.) do not live in the community in which your business is based and 2.) wish to see consistent, ever-rising profits. Handing out subsidies to the coffee shop next door, or buying up distressed assets and selling them at cost are, in the eyes of sociopathic capitalists, unnecessary acts of philanthropy. It’s the type of thing that can draw the attention of corporate raiders and activist hedge funds, entities that buy up stock in a company and then use their power to demand the short-term maximization of profits.

Over the years, DST has fended off hostile investors, some of whom were, as the Kansas City Business Journal put it in 2011, “put off by the significant amount of assets on [DST’s] balance sheet that aren’t reflected in earnings, such as its $1 billion portfolio of publicly traded securities and nearly 3 million square feet of real estate, including office space.”

In other words: these investors didn’t like the fact that DST was investing in piddly Kansas City buildings that failed to show quick quarterly returns.

“That’s the real problem with a company like DST going away,” Kemper says. “For a long time, Tom had a sympathetic board.

He’d made the company very profitable, and they had money to spend. But when you lose control of a company that size, you lose control of your ability to invest in your city.

Those outside shareholders didn’t understand the long-term value of DST’s investments in the city.”

AT DST UNDER HOOLEY (ABOVE), CIVIC GOODWILL DISSIPATED, BENEFITS WERE SCALED BACK, RETIREMENT FUNDS WERE MISMANAGED, WORKERS FELT EXPLOITED, AND LAYOFFS ALWAYS LOOMED.

NEWS

In 2009, McDonnell stepped down as president of DST. He stayed on as CEO until 2012. His departure was widely viewed as related, at least in part, to demands of a board that did not share his enthusiasm for investing in Kansas City’s future.

“I think the new board is driving toward the idea that executives have less community involvement and work just for the shareholders,” Kirk told the Business Journal at the time.

McDonnell was replaced — as president, and then as CEO — by Steven Hooley, who notably does not hail from this community. Hooley comes from Boston, where he worked for a company that DST later acquired. Talk to enough people who’ve worked at DST Systems, and a distinct and unyielding impression swirls into focus. Under McDonnell, DST was generally perceived to be a community-oriented local company where employees enjoyed job security and relatively generous benefits. After McDonnell — the Hooley era — the civic goodwill dissipated, benefits were scaled back, retirement funds were mismanaged, workers felt exploited, and layoffs always loomed. The baseline of shared prosperity and civic obligation at DST faded away.

Things would never be the same.

•

•

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40 + Artists Live Music Kids’ Art Activities Face Painting Beer Wine Food

k, Best of

ice Taylor Kub Artwork by Show 2017

In 2010, not long after Hooley assumed the role of president at DST, the company announced it would be laying off approximately 750 workers — the first substantial round of cuts in its history. It was the height of the Great Recession, and the company’s revenues were down three percent.

“That was a very uncertain financial time for most companies, and I think we all understood the need for the move,” a current employee says.

But DST also began to hack away at costs in subtle ways that did not make it into begrudging press releases. DST had long provided free health insurance to employees. (“It was the best coverage I’d had since I served [in the military],” one former employee says.) In 2012, DST eliminated this policy. Employees now paid a premium for more expensive coverage. Those costs have risen every year since.

“Last year, my policy increased $90 per month,” a recently laid-off employee says. “Which is a lot when you’re getting the same coverage. I don’t know if McDonnell and [Tom] McCullough [the longtime COO who retired in 2009] were eating that cost before, and Hooley and the new team decided to stop eating it and instead pass the costs along to us, or Hooley made some kind of change to the plan that was not visible to the employees. But whatever it was, we have

seen an increase in our healthcare costs each of the last six years.”

Salary increases were delayed and reduced. Certain paid holidays were eliminated. Employees could no longer carry paid time off (PTO) over from year to year.

Employees who reached their 20th year with the company were no longer rewarded with a sixth week of vacation. And so on. And as the layoffs piled up, those who remained found themselves assigned to workloads that previously required three employees.

“We would have these annual performance reviews, and we’d be told by our superiors that we weren’t meeting expectations,” a former employee says. “They put me on a probationary period. I was verging on suicidal territory just trying to keep up with my work and the two other people whose work I inherited after they were laid off. Finally, I was able to prove to management that I had done 143 percent more work than the previous year. They gave me a two percent raise.”

Says a former supervisor on the development side: “They would fire a bunch of senior-level software engineers and outsource their jobs to Bangkok or Hyderabad. All of a sudden, I’m spending my whole day teaching an entry-level person in India how to do my job. And then they [DST] come for my job. That’s it in a nutshell.”

The company de-emphasized recruitment, training, and research and development, employees say. Interns who showed promise had no position to step into. Job openings remained unfilled for months and months.

“It turned into a total sweatshop mentality,” says an employee who started with DST in the early 1990s. “They were turning it into this revolving-door type of place where they hire young, entry-level people, work them to death until they leave, and get new ones. Like replacements in a war.”

Then there was the retirement plan debacle. DST has long had a unique retirement plan. Half is a participant-directed 401(k) — meaning employees decide for themselves where to invest. The other half is a profit-sharing plan that is managed by an investment advisory firm appointed by DST — meaning ordinary employees have no control over where that pool of money is invested.

It’s this latter half that is currently the subject of a class-action lawsuit in the Southern District of New York, owing to the fact that the firm DST appointed to manage its profit-sharing plan — Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb Inc. — invested heavily in Valeant Pharmaceuticals. At the end of 2014, 30 percent of DST’s profit-sharing plan was invested in Valeant.

(At one point, according to the lawsuit, almost 50 percent of the profit-sharing plan was invested in Valeant.) Another way of saying this is that, at the beginning of 2015, a full 15 percent of every single DST employee’s retirement benefits was tied to the stock performance of

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NEWS

Valeant Pharmaceuticals.

There is a reason why prudent investors — in particular, managers of retirement plans and pension funds, on which thousands of people rely for their livelihoods — diversify their investments across multiple companies and industries. If you have a disproportionate share of your assets in one stock, and that stock tanks, you are screwed.

Call it “Investing 101: Don’t Put Too Many Eggs In One Basket.”

SEC guidelines, in fact, require mutual funds investing more than a quarter of their assets in one industry to disclose that strategy to investors. Even DST’s own plan statement warns employees about diversifying their 401(k): “If you invest more than 20% of your retirement savings in any one company or industry, your savings may not be properly diversified,” it reads. And yet DST’s profit-sharing plan invested more than that in a single stock: Valeant Pharmaceuticals.

Valeant was a Wall Street darling until, very suddenly, it wasn’t. Its strategy of buying pharmaceutical companies and then jacking up the prices of the drugs it acquired — in one case, it raised the price of a heart drug 525 percent overnight — was predatory and repulsive, but the financials looked great on paper. Valeant’s stock rose sharply as it continued its acquisition spree and triple-digit percent price hikes.

DST was there from the beginning.

Its profit-sharing plan began investing in Valeant in 2010, the same year Valeant’s new CEO Michael Pearson embarked on this aggressive strategy. By July 2015, Valeant’s stock was trading at $258 a share. DST’s position in the company — that is, the value of the profit-sharing plan — was worth $415 million.

Then came the fall. Spurred by public outrage over the drug price hikes, multiple federal agencies and state prosecutors began investigating Valeant. The probes revealed massive fraud at the company. Valeant had also amassed $30 billion in debt — three times its revenue. Investors fled. The stock tumbled.

Investing 101 (or, perhaps, 201) would advise retirement plan managers to realize gains before they evaporate. So, as Valeant’s share price grew, a prudent manager of DST’s profit-sharing plan would have sold off a portion of Valeant, realized the gain, and reinvested it. But the managers at Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb Inc. did no such thing. They let it ride. Then Valeant’s stock dropped to $15 a share, and DST’s retirement plan lost nearly $400 million in value in a few short months.

The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, alleges breach of fiduciary duty on the part of DST Systems and Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb. (It describes the latter as “a battered investment manager that has been mired in litigation and plagued with

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THE PITCH | SEPTEMBER 2018 | thepitchkc.com

redemptions, dismal performance and director resignations in the face of poor investment performance.”) The suit details the firm’s “opaque” and “shockingly reckless” investment in Valeant and goes on to accuse DST brass of having conflicts of interest that resulted in the plan participants — DST employees — paying Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb a “grossly excessive” 1 percent flat fee to

in a company that turned out to be the Enron of the pharmaceutical industry. It gets worse from here.

•

•

•

On May 31, 2017, DST received $2 million from the Missouri Department of Economic Development in support of DST’s pledge to

ZACH BAUMAN

manage the profit-sharing plan.

“Flat fees for traditional asset management mandates are exceptionally rare,” the lawsuit states. “DST’s $750 million institutional account easily could have negotiated a much lower fee [with Ruane, Cunniff & Goldfarb].”

James Miller, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs in the case, tells The Pitch: “The DST profit-sharing plan was largely being run as a clone of Seqouia Fund, which Ruane runs for high-net worth individuals who can absorb the losses that come with risky investments. So DST was paying Ruane this high management fee, and Ruane was in turn investing DST retirement funds imprudently — as though the money belonged to high-net-worth individuals, rather than the employees of DST.” To sum up: the DST board wildly overpaid money managers — to the tune of “tens of millions of dollars,” according to the lawsuit — using the retirement accounts of its own employees. Those money managers then lost hundreds of millions of dollars after investing DST employees’ retirement funds

DST’S RETIREMENT PLAN WAS INVESTED HEAVILY IN WHAT TURNED OUT TO BE THE ENRON OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY.

create 400 jobs in Kansas City.

“This will mean 415 new, good-paying jobs with a company that embodies innovation, and represents the best of corporate citizenship,” Kansas City Mayor Sly James said at the time.

Not exactly. For starters, a year before, DST had laid off approximately 150 people in Kansas City.

One month after Missouri wrote that $2 million check, a company-wide email informed DST employees that staff reductions were taking place in multiple DST departments and locations, including Kansas and Missouri. This was, evidently, due to DST’s recent purchase of a DST-adjacent company called BFDS. The sale was a family affair. Before Steve Hooley became CEO of DST, he was the CEO of BFDS, from 2004 to 2009. At the time of DST’s purchase of BFDS, its CEO was Jay Hooley — Steve’s brother.

“Many, though not all, of the reductions were the result of synergies and duplication of work between the BFDS and DST organizations,” Vercie Lark, head of financial services division at DST, wrote in an email to employees at the time.

Steve Hooley described the purchase of BFDS using word choices that approach corporate satire: “As part of our integration strategy, we believe we can bring these two organizations together in a way that drives significant enhancements to the client experience, improves our ability to execute on key initiatives, and unlocks meaningful synergies that enhance value for DST and its shareholders.”

Yet more layoffs — in financial services and DST’s health and enterprise services organization — were announced internally in October 2017. Then came the announcement of the sale to SS&C in January.

After the deal was finalized, in April of this year, Hooley and other executives began announcing their departures from DST. In 2017, Hooley earned $7.5 million in total compensation — an amount more than 100 times as large as the median DST employee’s salary.

But selling DST, and selling out Kansas City, is where the real money is. By virtually every metric, DST became a worse company after Hooley was appointed to lead it. But that matters not in the diseased swamp of corporate America. Hollowing out DST entitled Hooley to obscene wealth: $38 million in stock options, plus another $28 million in golden parachute compensation. Various bonuses cited in its Securities and Exchange Commission proxy statement could add millions more to Hooley’s payday. He now enters the ranks of the super-rich.

A handful of other high-level executives also cashed in. According to SEC filings, chief financial officer Gregg Givens left with stock holdings totaling $8.5 million, plus another $7 million in golden

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parachutes compensation. General counsel Randall Young’s stock-and-parachute combo totaled $12 million. Beth Sweetman, the chief HR officer who administered all those layoffs and benefits cuts, walked with more than $5 million — $3 million in stock options, $1.9 in severance, and a $600,000 stock grant. She worked at the company for less than five years.

The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN, requires companies to give 60-day notice to Missouri officials before eliminating more than 500 jobs. Though DST refuses to comment on the number of people it laid off June 26, it is known to be well over 500.

Despite this, the company gave no WARN notice to the state.

Nor did anyone at DST contact TeamKC, whose mission involves connecting displaced local workers with new jobs in order to keep them in the KC metro. As the Star noted in a July 9 article, other local companies, such as Sprint and Teva Pharmaceuticals, have worked with TeamKC following layoffs. DST’s senior director of global talent acquisition, Douglas A. King, is even a member of the TeamKC advisory board. But neither King nor anybody else in a leadership role at DST apparently even considered the value of offering outplacement services to the thousand Kansas Citians whose jobs had been eliminated.

Correction: at least one DST employee was extended this courtesy. In addition to his millions in stock options and golden parachute compensation, chief financial officer Gregg Givens received a $25,000 lump-sum cash payment for “anticipated outplacement counseling services.”

Best of luck to Gregg.

•

•

•

What now for DST? What now for KC? As a 2015 Washington Monthly article noted, “Empirical studies have shown that when a city loses a major corporate headquarters in a merger, the replacement of locally based managers by ‘absentee’ managers usually leads to lower levels of local corporate giving, civic engagement, employment, and investment, often setting in motion further regional decline.”

At DST under Hooley, much of this has already come to pass. It will continue now that DST has been bought by an East Coast firm; SS&C has openly stated that layoffs at DST will be ongoing through December. Even the Chamber of Commerce is having a hard time putting a positive spin on the situation.

“We certainly hope the company’s commitment to Kansas City continues,” Reardon says. “However, since the company’s headquarters is now in Connecticut, there is a chance that we could see that

commitment diminish.”

The most realistic-seeming outcome for DST I’ve heard predicted came from a rank-and-file guy who’s been at the company for 20 years. He survived the June layoffs and describes the aftermath as chaotic: understaffed teams, massive knowledge gaps, confusion about the details of the restructuring.

“Most folks think SS&C had no idea what exactly they were buying when they bought DST,” he told me. “That may be true. But the long-term contracts DST has for many of its clients are probably appealing — they will cover the bills on some of SS&C’s other ventures. But if we stay the course, it’s going to be a hard sell in a few years to get those clients to renew. When that happens, SS&C will probably just break it up and sell whatever is left.”

He described DST as a place where “once-cutting-edge technology became embarrassingly outdated” and innovation died on the vine. Many others I spoke to for this story had a similar perspective: at some point, DST fell behind and could never get back to where it once was. Even relatively low-level employees expressed great frustration about this. Why couldn’t DST spend more money on research and development? Why couldn’t it innovate?

Why would a company that wanted to thrive cut the benefits of its workers? Why would it lay off so many people? Why would it dismantle the sense of community that had been fostered over the previous 40 years?

The answer — that, as a public company in the United States of America, DST operates inside a broken and depraved capitalist system that is foundationally incapable of factoring human lives into its decision structure; that the economic violence inflicted upon these workers was not the unfortunate byproduct of naive or hapless leadership but rather a deliberate strategy rooted in banal but intransigent greed — was at once too simple and too dizzying to contemplate.

“When I started [at DST], I naively figured that we worked for our clients and their satisfaction was the most important thing,” that same rank-and-file employee told me. “But as time went on, and the Toms [McDonnell and McCullough] left the company, it was obvious that Hooley’s only concern was the bottom line, the board of directors, and the stock price.”

Still, he continued, “At the end of the day, I’m guessing DST probably isn’t any better or worse than most big companies.”

He might be right about that. But that doesn’t make 99 percent of us any less doomed.

Email: david@thepitchkc.com.

Twitter: @davidhudnall.

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17

SECTION

FEATURE

NEON DREAMS CHASE CASTOR

NICK VEDROS’S QUEST TO PRESERVE KANSAS CITY’S VINTAGE SIGNS. BY APRIL FLEMING

Nick Vedros was 17 years old when he bought his first camera: a 1969 Nikon F, from Crick Camera. Nearly 50 years later, Vedros — a professional photographer whose client list includes Apple, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Capital One, among others — recently found himself at Crick once again, though under very different circumstances. It was late 2017, and the store was going out of business — a victim of photography’s transition to digital. A friend told Vedros that the store’s classic mint-green neon sign was about to be sold for $100.

“I thought, Oh, god,” Vedros recalls, still baffled at the lowball offer.

Vedros quickly contacted Crick co-owner Bill Thomas with a higher number and shortly thereafter became the proud owner of the ten-foot vintage neon sign.

Collecting is not new to Vedros. His home, which looks like something out of an architectural magazine, features collections of rare vintage photography, cameras, and

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THE PITCH | SEPTEMBER 2018 | thepitchkc.com

VEDROS’S GOFUNDME CAMPAIGN TO HELP RAISE MONEY FOR THE MUSEUM PROJECT CAN BE FOUND AT WWW.GOFUNDME.COM/ THE-LUMI-NEON-MUSEUM.

art deco era microphones. But the Crick sign, as well as the sudden knowledge that others like it are rapidly disappearing from Kansas City’s urban landscape, sparked a new drive in Vedros.

“I started thinking we could take an outdoor space — maybe an alley in the Crossroads District — and completely neon it out,” he says. “People could walk through the alley or drive through the alley, and it’d be a strong part of First Fridays.”

Vedros was quickly talked out of that idea. Friends like neon expert Curtis Shaddox explained that the signs were likely to be stolen, and if they escaped that fate, they risked damage from the elements and would require restoration every ten years. Also, neon signs tend to be a lot larger than they seem when illuminated in the night sky — too big to be appreciated in a small public space like an alley.

But the alley idea ultimately was the seed for a bigger dream. Over the past several months, Vedro has assembled a group of friends and entrepreneurs into a board of directors for a vintage neon museum in Kansas City. In addition to the Crick sign, Vedros has purchased or otherwise acquired 16 more vintage Kansas City signs, with plans in the works to pick up many more.

Vedros’s vision is for the Lumi Neon Museum, as he’s calling it, to be housed in a downtown or Crossroads space with a big enough footprint — and tall enough ceilings — that visitors will be able to view the museum’s collection from the distance required to fully appreciate them. He thinks ceilings 40 feet or higher will be necessary. The Fun House Pizza sign from Independence that Vedros and Shaddox recently acquired is 30

NEWS

feet tall. The 1961 Firestone sign that used to adorn the shop at 75th Street and Wornall Road is nearly as large: each letter is about three feet tall and two feet across, meaning the sign alone requires 75 square feet of space for proper display.

The collection has come together in a piecemeal way, owing largely to Vedros’s mix of charm, persistence, and passion for the project. He’s made contact with sign owners by walking into their businesses, making a phone call, or, in the event the business has closed, hand-writing a letter to whatever address the owner has listed with the state.

(The latter is how Vedros acquired the 4 Acre Motel sign from Hickman Mills Road in South Kansas City).

Vedros plans to continue hunting for signs while working to get an official 501(c) (3) nonprofit designation. Nonprofit status, Vedros explains, is critical for the museum.

Once it’s in place, sign owners can donate their property to the Lumi in exchange for a tax credit. The Bob Smith Motor Company sign at 63rd and Wornall, for example, was recently put up for sale at a price of $9,500. Smith could donate the sign for its full appraised value of $12,000 and write that amount off of his taxes as a donation.

Smith gets the money, his sign is preserved, and the Lumi gets the sign. In Vedros’s eyes, at least, everybody wins.

Vedros requested that The Pitch not publish a detailed list of all of the Lumi’s acquisitions, though he acknowledged a few of the icons in his collection so far, including the Stephenson’s Restaurant sign (Independence) and the Crest drugstore sign (Belton).

Vedros likewise didn’t want to reveal anything about storage while the museum is being planned. Individual signs can fetch prices anywhere between $2,000 to $10,000 (sometimes more) apiece and are thus frequent targets for theft — despite the fact that substantial equipment like cranes are often required to move them. Vedros also wanted to leave off the record the name of a potential partner museum, one whose own collection would nicely complement a collection of neon signs. He says that the for-now-unnamed partner has reached out to the city with the belief land might be donated for the project.

Vedros’s dream acquisition? That would be the Katz Drugstore sign — a big, black cat with “Katz” in cursive lettering. One of these once hung like a beacon near Westport Road and Main Street, in Midtown. Vedros isn’t aware of anyone who owns one besides Katz descendant Ward Katz. If Vedros can’t find one, he says that he would like to have a replica built (and Katz, he says, is enthusiastic about the idea).

Vedros hopes to have the Lumi open with two years, though he does add a caveat: “Keep in mind: I’m a hopeless optimist.”

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KC NEON IN THE WILD The Queen City Motel, 11402 E US Highway 40, Sugar Creek, MO A magnet for crime and drug activity, the Queen City Motel was torn down following its closure in 2015. The sign was recently removed, and its whereabouts are unknown.

Blue Springs Bowl, 1225 US-40, Blue Springs, MO The Blue Springs Bowl sign is one of the metro’s most beautiful and well-preserved.

8220 Hickman Mills Dr, Kansas City, MO The 4 Acre Motel is currently for sale, which puts its sign in the “endangered” column.

The I-70 Drive-IN, 8701 E Highway 40, KCMO. Still open. Just across the highway from Kauffman Stadium.

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THE PITCH | SEPTEMBER 2018 | thepitchkc.com

616 N. Scott Avenue, Belton. Jan’s Liquors. Still open.

Bob Smith Motor Co, 215 West Gregory Blvd After 58 years in business, Bob Smith, of Bob Smith Motor Co., is finally selling his car dealership. He says he’d like to see the sign — and others like it — preserved. “We had a lady in a couple of weeks ago,” Smith says. “She told me, ‘If [the new owner] does not keep that sign, people from Waldo and Brookside will not buy any cars. We feel it belongs to us.’”

3421 Blue Ridge Cutoff, Independence. This sign used to sit atop a Texas Tom’s at this location. Today, the business houses Lobito’s Steakburger & Mexican Food.”

The Humdinger Drive In, 2504 East 9th Street It’s not as well known as Town Topic, but the pork tenderloin (and the sign) makes Humdinger worth a stop.

thepitchkc.com | SEPTEMBER 2018 | THE PITCH

21

FEATURE

in floodplains. But, as demonstrated by the Great Flood of 1993 — 50 deaths, $15 billion in damages — nature often wins.

•

New Currents

ALEXIS WEBB BECHTOLD

COULD A TRIP ON THE MISSOURI RIVER STRENGTHEN OUR CONNECTION TO IT? BY TRACI ANGEL

The nearly full moon is rusty orange, its brightness fading, and the only thing I can see looking out toward the Missouri River is a lap of waves and the occasional bounce of a flashlight or headlamp.

It’s 6 a.m. on a late-August Saturday, and about 30 of us have gathered at Platte Landing, in Parkville, canoes and kayaks in tow. We’re the first group of the day who will head out on the Missouri, part of a program overseen by the Missouri Department of Conservation program.

Despite having lived in five different Missouri towns, all of which were within one hour’s drive of the Missouri River, I realize suddenly that I’ve never actually been in its waters. We lift our metal canoe and walk the down the ramp. Our steps become slippery and we clamber into our seats. Paddles penetrate mud smearing the concrete.

Sliding down into the murky water we point the boat’s front east and head toward the pinkening dawn.

•

•

•

It’s been two years since Burr Oaks Nature Center manager Lisa LaCombe began offering these river trips as of MDC’s education programming. LaCombe says when she first took the naturalist post in suburban Kansas City, she envied those who worked in other parts of the state, like the Ozarks, with its access to all those streams and rivers.

Then she read about the MR 340, an annual kayak and canoe race that runs from Kansas City to St. Louis. She signed up in 2015.

“When you spend 340 miles on the river, with little sleep, you see the river in so many different lights, and in ways that

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THE PITCH | SEPTEMBER 2018 | thepitchkc.com

you wouldn’t know if you weren’t out there,” LaCombe says. “It gets really smooth on the water, and in the morning there is fog, and paddling under a full moon has its own beauty.”

In 2016, LaCombe enlisted some volunteers and started offering to the public a variety of river trips: one during the day, one at sunset, a moonlight float, a fall color trip, even an overnight with camping at Fort Osage. By 2017, a few of these trips filled up so fast LaCombe had to institute waiting lists. This year, on the July morning when LaCombe’s office began offering sign-ups (you do it by phone) for my August 25 float, it took only 90 minutes to fill the 96 spots. By week’s end, more than 300 people had asked to sign up. LaCombe’s office had to turn the 200 others away.

After I made reservations for the sunrise float, I agreed to attend an orientation meeting. Initially, I intended to try a solo kayak. But then I thought about the Steamboat Arabia Museum at the City Market, the exhibit featuring a steamboat swallowed by the Missouri and sent to its cornfield grave.

Scary stuff. I decided to cajole my adventurous friend, Alexis Webb Bechtold, who had floated the river before, into joining me in my canoe.

•

•

•

It’s easy to drown in cliche and metaphor when speaking about rivers. They signal journeys, barriers, conduits. Rivers mean life, survival, food, ritual. Believers bathe in ceremonies and honor cremation ghats along the Ganges. Joseph Conrad’s words shroud the Congo. A myriad of animals and plants spring from the Amazon and its ba-

sin. In these images the rivers run free, unshackled from dams. The people who live near them fish and navigate through the water. They build villages and farms in harmony with the floodplain.

While preparing this piece, I scanned river playlists and reserved library books with any mention of “Missouri River” in the description or title. I asked friends on social media for recommendations and received responses from many people I hadn’t heard from in years. They had strong opinions, new perspectives. River talk connected us.

When discussing, or reading about, the Missouri River, you often encounter words like “wild” and “untamed.” A Guide to Canoeing the Missouri River (1999) notes that if you “want a wild roller-coaster ride down a river jammed with snags, logs floating like torpedoes … canoe the Missouri.”

The river has changed much since Lewis and Clark first noted that its “barbed seed” penetrated their “mockersons and leather legings,” giving them “great pain.” The Missouri — 2,340 miles from Three Forks, Montana, to St. Louis, the longest river in North America — owes its current disposition to bureaucrats.

In the early 20th century, federal government officials decided it was time to subdue this flood-prone hydro-beast in the interest of farming and economic development. It used levees and dams as a means of control. The Flood Control Act of 1944 established the Pick-Sloan program, intended to bring benefits via flood control, power generation, and irrigation. It also eventually displaced many Native Americans when Oahe Dam flooded the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River reservations.

Today, the Army Corp of Engineers manages the Missouri. Changing the river’s natural course has dramatically altered the surrounding wildlife ecosystems. In recent years, legal challenges have pitted environmentalists seeking to maintain natural habitats against property owners and farmers

•

•

Kansas City is where it is because of the Missouri (and Kansas) Rivers, but most of us, of course, don’t think of those rivers as destinations. That’s slowly changing, though.

Organizations like Port KC have become more active in working with area mayors and economic development teams to turn attention to the waterfront. Developers and financiers are getting more comfortable with the idea, says Joe Perry, vice president of real estate and development for Port KC. “We’ve turned that corner, and I think the perception has changed,” Perry says.

He mentions area trail planning and regional transit system goals as signs that a focus on river access might grow similarly. The Town of Kansas Bridge north of City Market, the ASB underpass, English Landing Park in Parkville, the River Heritage Trail, Berkley Riverfront Park, and the Weston Bend State Park trail and overlook come to mind, for brushes with, or walks near, the river.

“All of these are fantastic ways to engage [with the Missouri],” Perry says, “but to get on the river is the ultimate experience.”

During an orientation before the trip, we’d been informed that the total distance from Platte Landing to our destination of Kaw Point is about 8 miles. It will take us somewhere between 1.5 and 2 hours. Unlike on smaller Ozark rivers known for Missouri floating, we won’t have to dodge as many obstacles, we’re told. Mostly logs and wing dikes. If we encounter a barge, move to the other side of the river and let it go by. And watch out for Asian carp — they’re startled by boats and might jump into your canoe.

A gentle trip took us that morning where the river wanted us to go. As the Kansas City skyline came into view, we fought a headwind and added some power to our strokes to keep us on track. The sun was shining brightly now. Then Kaw Point — the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas Rivers — appeared in the distance. A sign bearing Lewis and Clark’s silhouettes greeted us. I’ve read their journals, but their voices escape me. Instead I hear harmonica, Rhiannon Giddens, Lykke Li, Tina Turner. I hear the last line of a Tech N9ne song: no funeral, just throw my ashes in the Missouri River.

Out here, it is unavoidable: the river looks different. It won’t ever be the same to me.

“If you help people fall in love with a natural resource, it is easy to get them to care for the natural resource,” LaCombe had told me before the trip. “If [by floating on it], you are part of it, my hope is that you become a spokesperson and stewards of that big, beautiful river.”

She was right.

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thepitchkc.com | SEPTEMBER 2018 | THE PITCH

23

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grow n by h and

made by han d

816. 221 .75 59 | blu ebi rdbi s tro. c om 17 00 Su mmit Street

On Broadway OPENING NIGHT FOR KANSAS CITY’S NEW JEWISH DELI. BY LIZ COOK

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Ever since Broadway Deli opened in May, I’ve been hearing the same question from well-intentioned foodies: “Is it authentic?”

Questions about authenticity rank near the bottom of the utility pile for me.

Ask: Is it delicious? Ask: Is it executed with care? Ask: Will I dream-drool that I’m being chased by a giant, sexy pastrami monster weeks after my visit? (Answers: mostly, sometimes, and no comment.)

But Kansas City’s conspicuous lack of a Jewish deli made those questions of authenticity loom large — more often, among goys who fetishize the idea of the One True Rye. Let owner Bill Fromm be your guide.

Fromm, who founded the marketing and ad agency Barkley, has been dreaming about this deli for over 50 years, and he doesn’t seem too concerned about the bonafides. The deli’s website bears the tagline,

“A mostly Jewish deli for a mostly not Jewish city.” And while the meat is pedigreed — Fromm gets his briskets shipped in from Manny’s Cafeteria & Delicatessen, a 76-year old institution in Chicago’s South Loop — it ain’t glatt kosher. You can order a pastrami Reuben with gooey Swiss cheese sleazed minxily into the meat’s folds (and should, provided you don’t observe kashrut).

A good pastrami sandwich has been tough to find in town since the unfortunate closing of Speak Sandwiches on 25th Street. Broadway’s version is good enough to keep the cravings at bay. The meat’s piled high in blousey ruffles, and if you give your sandwich a little “good boy” pat (not that I’d know), juices glisten at the edges like dew on a lily. The meat itself is salty, tangy, and meltingly moist. The only downside? Broadway’s pastrami is thin-shaved, not thicksliced, meaning fewer fatty bites and fewer stripes of that crusty brown spice bark.

ZACH BAUMAN

Still, I loved “The Original,” which caps a tower of thin pastrami with coleslaw and Thousand Island dressing. The toppings were balanced and daintily applied, though the soft rye bread was a bit overtaxed. If a messy sandwich is a dealbreaker, go with the Reuben instead. It’s one of the few sandwiches here that are toasted, a crucial step that helps the bread stand up to all that beef.

Lightly toasting the bread would go a long way toward nudging sandwiches with weepier meats across the finish line. I wanted to love the Big Sonia, which wedges double-digit layers of soft, tomato-red salami between one slice of rye and one slice of pumpernickel. The flavors were promising, but the spongey bread was impotent in the face of the warm salami’s grease. And for $10 and two ingredients, I expected a home run.

Now seems like a good time to ponder a couple other questions: Is the deli consistent? And, perhaps more importantly, is it a good value?

It depends on the dish — and the day.

Broadway still has some kinks to work out in both consistency and pricing. No-

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ZACH BAUMAN

Broadway Deli 2101 Broadway Blvd 816-207-0077 broadway-deli.com

Hours: Monday–Friday: 7 a.m.–3 p.m.

Saturday–Sunday: 8 a.m.–3 p.m.

Prices: Breakfast $3–12 Sandwiches $8–20

Best bet: Order the pastrami Reuben on rye and grab a side of the noodle kugel for an inauthentic dessert.

where is that better exemplified than in its sides, which range from the meh to the magnificent. Take the latkes, a compulsory deli order and a reasonable $2 accompaniment to any sandwich. Broadway’s latkes aren’t the shredded potato pancakes you might be picturing. Here, they’re more like croquettes, smooth-bellied and chubby as hockey pucks. The innards are soft and evenly textured — more mashed potato, less hashbrown — providing a nice contrast to the crisp outer crunch.

But the quality seemed to vary wildly from day to day. On a weekday lunch visit, my latke was perfectly crisp and fresh, the platonic ideal of “golden brown.” On a later weekend visit, it arrived tough and chewy, as though it had hung out under a heat lamp (or in a fryer basket) too long.

The dark horse side to beat is the noodle kugel, a sweet, eggy custard stippled with plump, golden raisins and crowned with a frill of chewy, crisp-edged egg noodles. Broadway’s version is shaped like a wee cupcake, inspiring in me some latent maternal urge to protect it (mostly from rival forks). It’s also plain delicious: rich without tasting too eggy, subtly sweet but not cloying to keep the focus on the parade of textures. The kugel isn’t technically a dessert, but it’s a fine way to end a meal.

The only true disappointment was the knish, which hit the table tough-skinned and bland. I sawed fruitlessly at its smooth shell for a minute or two before abandoning propriety and rending it apart with my graceless hands. Manmangling that knish was one of the more embarrassing ordeals of my life, and I say this as someone who was once dumped on prom night. The reward for my struggle was a stormcloud of gluey potato rimmed in an unappetizingly gray layer of raw dough.

The matzo-ball soup was better. The broth was clean-tasting, and the matzo was tender and light. Still, one medium-sized dough ball does not a $5 soup make. File under “good, but not great.”

If matzo-ball soup is nonnegotiable for you, the Broadway Combo is a more frugal way to sample it. For $10, you can get half of any basic sandwich, a cup of soup, and a side.

Choose the whitefish salad for your half-sandwich. The whitefish was a brandnew menu item when I tried it, but it al-

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ready has the makings of a best-seller. The ratio of fish to herbs to condiments is mathematically perfect — the mixture is as loose as it can be without falling apart, and each bite balances the fish’s dusky, smoky saltiness with a creamy brightness and vegetal crunch. The result is simultaneously light and rich, good enough to lap from a spoon.

Let us now praise famous dill: the pickle spear, which comes with every combo and sandwich, isn’t an afterthought. These are Manny’s spears, husky boys with a satisfying crunch and a cold snap of half-sour, full-dill flavor.

For now, I’d recommend visiting after 10:30, when the deli starts slinging sandwiches. Although Broadway opens early for breakfast — 7 a.m. on weekdays — the morning menu isn’t as solid. If you can’t wait, order the #9 — a warm, toasted bagel with schmear served alongside three scrolls of lox, a dusting of capers, and some impractically thick ovals of cucumber. When I tried it, the Everything bagel was fresh and chewy, with a soft but sturdy crumb. And the lox was thick and generously portioned enough to make the $12 price tag palatable.

Skip the matzo brei, here a chewy egg pancake sliced into strips and lightly doused with maple syrup. The dish was bland and

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underbrowned, and I suspected the “maple syrup” had married into the Butterworth family. Though it pains me to say this, skip the breakfast burritos, too. The lox burrito was just…OK. The scrambled eggs were tender and politely flecked with lox, but the slender, bare-bones roll-up wasn’t worth $9.

The upside? Breakfast is a less crowded affair. The lines can get long during weekday lunch service (call ahead or order online if you’re short on time). Still, service is generally swift. Broadway Deli has embraced a fast-casual model: order at the register, port a pager to your table, and then collect your tray from the bar when the pager buzzes. At least, that’s how it works in theory. On three of my four visits, an employee dropped the plates on my table before my pager went off.

On two occasions, my meal was delivered

by Fromm himself.

As you might expect from a restaurant owned by an ad tycoon, Broadway’s branding is slick. The walls are coated in sly typographic art (“Shalom means hello. Refund means goodbye.”), and the south wall of the restaurant has photo nooks for “famous people who have eaten here,” “famous people who have not eaten here,” and “regular people who eat here often.”

The ambience is exactly what you’d

hope for from a neighborhood deli. The space feels lively even when it’s half-full, and the open bar and kitchen mean you can camp out on a stool and watch the mesmerizing hula sway of an automatic slicer shaving down a brisket.

I’ve always loved 2101 Broadway, a high-ceilinged space with booming acoustics that once housed Pezzettino Italian Deli & Market. The woodwork’s been painted a sleek black since that predecessor decamped, but a lot of the old infrastructure remains. The tables are still cool white marble, and arched glass deli cases still form a horseshoe around the central bar.

Another constant: the kvetching about parking. True enough, spots are scarce in the neighborhood. For what it’s worth, I made four visits at varying times and never had trouble finding street parking right in front of the deli on northbound Broadway.

Plus, the deli validates parking for the 22nd Street garage.

And if you have to park a couple blocks away, is working off some of that pastrami such a bad thing? It may not be convenient — and it may not be cheap — but when Broadway Deli is good, it’s worth any logistical and financial headache.

That’s the “authentic” truth.

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thepitchkc.com | SEPTEMBER 2018 | THE PITCH

29

FOOD

Fresh Eyes ZACH BAUMAN

THE TROOST CORRIDOR IS DEVELOPING, AND FOOD IS LEADING THE CHARGE. BY LIZ COOK

Spend any time around urban planners and you’re likely to hear them talk about the need for “eyes on the street.” They’re quoting Jane Jacobs, the urban activist who wrote The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

Jacobs saw eyes on the street as the key to safe, thriving neighborhoods — and she was careful to specify she meant the eyes of residents, not police officers.

But getting those eyes can be tricky in parts of the city that haven’t seen the economic development (or municipal investment) enjoyed by predominantly white areas. How do you inspire people to stay out and stay involved when there’s nowhere for them to go?

On Troost, a few local restaurateurs are trying to supply an answer. Over the past couple of years, the avenue has seen a surge in both foot traffic and new businesses. Boards are coming down from shop windows; neon signs are flickering back to life.

And drinking and dining establishments seem to be leading the charge.

Last November, Ruby Jean’s Kitchen and Juicery opened up at 3000 Troost. Two months later, Rashaun and Justin Clark opened their Urban Café on the corner of Troost and 41st. Since then, both businesses have boomed — in the Clark’s case, so much so that they outgrew their location. They’re moving a little further south, but they’re staying on Troost.

A couple other restaurateurs have followed suit more recently, giving residents of the Troost corridor even more options for

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THE PITCH | SEPTEMBER 2018 | thepitchkc.com

“WHEN WE FIRST OPENED, PEOPLE WERE LIKE, ‘OH, IT’S TROOST, YOU DON’T WANT TO BE THERE TOO LATE — YOU’RE GOING TO GET ROBBED OR SHOT,’” GIBSON SAYS, SHAKING HER HEAD. “IT’S NOT LIKE THAT. IT’S NOT LIKE IT USED TO BE.”

dining out. In April, Fannie’s African and Tropical Cuisine, the city’s first West African eatery, opened next to the old Urban Café location. And in May, Reggae Kitchen, a Jamaican restaurant, opened along the 55th block of Troost.

To Cecil Edwards, chef-owner of Reggae Kitchen, Troost was an obvious choice.

“The area is growing — it’s growing a lot,” he says. “Some friends of mine told me it was a good spot and to check it out.”

Edwards, who was born in Portmore, Jamaica, has integrated his home country into every aspect of the restaurant. The walls are painted in the saturated greens and yellows of the Jamaican flag, and a PA system pulses softly with reggae music during dinner service. The dishes are mostly traditional fare inspired by his upbringing — “lots of spices, lots of seasoning, lots of flavor” — but he will adapt the spice level to customers’ tastes.

The menu varies (check the whiteboard behind the counter when you come in), but recent highlights include curry goat, jerk chicken, and cow foot. If you’ve never tried cow foot before, don’t let the image deter you — Edwards’s trotters are slow-simmered to break down the cartilage, yielding a sticky, glossy stew with concentrated flavor. For the peak cow experience, pair it with the oxtail. This is one of Edwards’s best dishes: the meat is fall-off-the-tail tender, and the sauce is luxuriously silky and rich. A side of traditional Jamaican rice and beans — creamy and well-spiced — makes this stick-to-yourribs fare.

Although the restaurant has only been open a few months, Edwards says he’s already seeing some of the benefits of Troost’s growing foot traffic. Reggae Kitchen is wellpoised to capitalize on it. The restaurant

stays open late — until 10 p.m. on weekends — and Edwards is in the process of acquiring a liquor license so he can add a bar (until then, diners can enjoy Jamaican sodas, coconut water, and housemade pineapple and ginger beer.)

When I ask him how he likes it on Troost, he tells me he hasn’t had any problems on the block — except parking. “But they still find ways to come here,” he says with a grin.

A few blocks north, Fannie Gibson has had a similar experience. “The neighborhood has been so supportive,” she says.

Gibson runs Fannie’s African and Tropical Cuisine with her husband, Kelechi Eme. They both have roots in West Africa — Gibson is from Liberia, Eme from Nigeria — but they had a hard time finding the food they loved in Kansas City.

“There’s other African restaurants here, but nowhere that actually had our kind of dishes,” Gibson says. “So we decided to just open one.”

Although the couple live in the Northland, they quickly zeroed in on a location on Troost. If they were going to open the first West African restaurant in town, Gibson figured, they might as well pick a central location.

But some of her friends and customers were skeptical.

“When we first opened, people were like, ‘Oh, it’s Troost, you don’t want to be there too late — you’re going to get robbed or shot.’” She shakes her head incredulously.

“It’s not like that. It’s not like it used to be.”

Still, the neighborhood’s old reputation made them cautious. Initially, they planned to close the restaurant at 6 p.m. on weekdays so they wouldn’t be at the restaurant too late. Now that they’ve been in the space for a while, they’re more comfortable. Gibson says that they hope to expand their hours within a few months.

For now, Fannie’s is an ideal spot for lunch or a carry-out dinner. Gibson is a skilled cook and turns out flavorful renditions of staples from several West African countries. The jollof rice is a crowd pleaser — her version of the classic dish combines parboiled, tomato-rouged rice with spices, mixed vegetables, and a choice of proteins.

It’s a hearty meal: a little savory, a little spicy, comforting as a hug.

But Gibson likes to steer new customers toward foods they might not have tried before — say, the cassava leaf soup. Order it with fufu, a starchy dough made from plantain flour, and tear pieces off with your fingers for dunking.

Honestly: order it all. The menu at Fannie’s is extensive and replete with high-quality dishes you won’t find anywhere else in Kansas City. When I tried it, the goat-pepper soup had a complex, fragrant broth that cushioned surprisingly tender chunks of

FOOD

Fannie’s African & Tropical Cuisine 4105 Troost Ave 816-832-8454 fanniescuisine.com

Hours: Monday–Thursday 9 AM–6 PM Friday–Saturday 9 AM–7 PM Sunday: 1 PM–5 PM

Reggae Kitchen 5535 Troost Ave ZACH BAUMAN

goat meat (Gibson’s secret: “I cook it until it’s so soft that even a baby can eat it.”) And the kenkey, a fermented maize dumpling, had the texture of masa and the slight tang of sourdough; it was the ideal complement for a generous portion of spiced fried tilapia served with a ramekin of housemade shito (a pepper sauce that originated in Ghana).

Gibson’s shito is cola-brown, with a subtle onion flavor and a slightly fruity heat. It’s

hot, but it’s not overwhelming.

That’s deliberate. Although a few of the dishes here are traditionally spicy, Gibson, like Edwards, is happy to modify the spice level for different customers’ tastes. She says she wants to make sure people “from all walks of life” can enjoy her cooking and experience West African cuisine.

I ask her what advice she’d give to a business owner considering a move to

Troost.

“I think they should do it,” she says without hesitation. “I tell my friends all the time [Troost] is changing. It’s bringing more people to the city, it’s developing, and I’m proud to be a part of that development.”

She glances at Eme, who’s filling a glass of water behind the bar, and smiles. “We’re very, very happy to be a part of that development.”

From full service to express drop-off and everything in between, you can rest assured that you will get the menu and service you need to make your celebration a success!

816-492-6191 reggaekitchenmo.com

Hours: Monday–Thursday 11 AM–8 PM Friday–Saturday 11 AM–10 PM

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thepitchkc.com | SEPTEMBER 2018 | THE PITCH

31

DRINK

APRIL FLEMING

Gone to the Dogs WITH BAR K, DAVE HENSLEY AND LEIB DODELL HAVE CREATED A RIVERFRONT HAVEN FOR DOG OWNERS. (YES, THE KANSAS CITY RIVERFRONT.) BY APRIL FLEMING

The parcel of land that is now home to one of the happiest places in Kansas City was once so overgrown and rife with waste and trash that it was civically classified as “found,” which is another way of saying nobody had even considered developing it for anything.

But Dave Hensley and Leib Dodell saw potential. Yes, it was located underneath the Heart of America Bridge. But it was

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THE PITCH | SEPTEMBER 2018 | thepitchkc.com

also riverfront property, adjacent to Berkley Riverfront Park. It seemed like an ideal spot for the concept they’d been trying to get off the ground: a dog park where owners could hang out, eat, and drink.

As of mid-August, that concept is a reality: Bar K is open for business. It’s many things in one: a large outdoor dog park (complete with a dog splash pool and dog climbing wall, among other play features); a

land reclamation project; a restaurant; a coffee shop and bar; a place for outdoor games; a training and grooming facility; and a dog adoption center.

Experiencing Bar K, it’s a wonder nothing like it has ever been tried in KC before.

But getting here took a while. Hensley and Dodell forged a close working relationship with Port KC, which saw potential in the concept early on and ultimately negotiated a long-term ground lease on their behalf with the city of Kansas City. In the meantime, they opened the Bar K “lab” out of a warehouse in the West Bottoms. A visit to this temporary indoor facility — The Pitch wrote about it in 2017 — was a dose of pure fun.

Dogs ran up and down custom-made ramps and played in a baby pool full of tennis balls while their owners drank beer and mingled

nearby.

“I think [at the lab] we learned that people really needed a space to hang out with their dogs where their dogs are treated like family,” says Hensley. “So many times, if you go out and have a drink or go out to eat, your dog gets left at home. That’s not how you would treat a family member.”

Hensley and Dodell worked with Clockwork Architects on the design of the new facility, which utilizes reclaimed shipping containers in a unique configuration that provides restaurant, balcony, patio space — even a beer garden — that all feed out into the sprawling dog park. Once construction began about a year and a half ago, a number of other partnerships emerged, including with J. Rieger and Company, Messenger Coffee, and Purina (which bases

DRINK

Bring this Coupon in to any of our locations some of its operations in the KC area).

One of the crucial elements of Bar K’s model lies in its staffing. Specially trained workers are on hand to monitor dog behavior and clean up after the pups. Staff watch out for problems between dogs, a constant source of anxiety and frustration for many people who visit traditional dog parks.

“We have our own training, and we’ve hired people who have experience with dog behavior,” Hensley explains. “We learned [while running the lab] what warning signs look like and how to make sure dogs are having fun.” He adds that once customers can see that their dogs are having fun, their owners relax, which in turn further relaxes the dogs.

Bar K also, of course, has plenty to offer owners in the way of relaxation. Two full bars — one centered inside of the restaurant and one in the beer garden — serve custom cocktails from a menu designed by Ryan Maybee (Manifesto, J. Rieger and Company). Choose between the “Purebreds” (classic cocktails) and “Hair of the Dog,” which includes coffee cocktails, Bloody Marys, and mimosas.

Hensley describes the restaurant’s menu (developed by chef Joe Shirley of Überdine) as healthy-casual, with a focus on responsibly sourced ingredients. Breakfast items, wraps, salads, bowls and sandwiches typify the offerings. There are also some local collaborations, for both pet and owner: Meshuggah bagels and ice cream from Betty Rae’s for the humans, Purina dog meals for the canines. (Dogs are permitted on-leash on the deck and in the beer garden, though they are not allowed inside near the kitchen.)

Hensley and Dodell eventually want to bring Bar K to other cities, but for now they’re incredibly satisfied to see their vision finally come to life.

“Our goal was to create a joyous space for people to hang out with their dogs,” Hensley says. By that metric, at least, Bar K is already a full-blown success.

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over “lacing” and “mouthfeel” will be asked to do push-ups in the parking lot.

The best beer by a landslide is the Bomber Brown. This is an easy-drinking, American-style brown ale that’s not tipped too far in any direction. Sirois’s brown marries a smooth, dependable maltiness with enough bitterness to keep it interesting. You can imagine drinking a few of these without getting bored — and at $5 a pint, that’s not hard to do.

Callsign’s taproom is a pleasant enough place to drink them. The building used to house a tire-patch factory, and tall ceilings with arched wooden rafters give the space the look and feel of an airplane hangar. The décor is subtly military-themed — flight paddles shaped like airplane propellers, a chalkboard wall that supports the troops — but nothing’s overly jingoistic. To date, I have seen zero velvet paintings of flagdraped bald eagles shredding electric guitars with their Freedom Talons. Plus, there’s snacks. So put on some khakis, grab a suitcase of cheese balls, and go to town on a sensible brown.

New Axiom Brewing Co. LIZ COOK

The Outskirts SAMPLING THE BEERS AT KC’S NEW SUBURBAN BREWERIES. BY LIZ COOK

Kansas City’s had an explosion of craft breweries over the past few years, and if the number of openings slated for the rest of 2018 is any indication, we still haven’t reached Peak Beer.

But let’s be honest: not every new brewery is gonna be a revelation. And as the craft beer boom spreads further out of the city and into the ‘burbs (and beyond),

checking them all off your list can become a logistical and financial headache.

Completionists, take heart: I have done the grueling work of visiting three of KC’s newest suburban breweries — in North Kansas City, Lee’s Summit, and Blue Springs — to help guide your visits. Here’s the beer (or beers) to order at each while you stamp your brewery passport.

Callsign Brewing North Kansas City doesn’t exactly have a dearth of craft breweries. But Callsign Brewing, a two-month old brewery and taproom, is filling a no-frills niche on the city’s more industrial east side. Owner and Air Force vet Steve Sirois brews sturdy beers for sturdy livers: the two most popular picks here, the Blonde Bombshell and the Bomber Brown, clock in at 6.5 and 5.9 percent ABV, respectively. The whole operation seems allergic to craft brew snobbery. This isn’t the place for wild yeast and frivolous fruits; you get the feeling that anyone caught fussing

If Callsign had an antithesis, it might be New Axiom Brewing Co. The Lee’s Summit brewery is a playground of bold flavors and risky experiments. And although the brewery has only been open for a month, the tap list is already long enough to indulge the imaginations of each of its three brewers: Mac Lamken, Devin Glaser, and Sean Householder.

New Axiom’s one of my favorite breweries to open this year, but a disclosure’s in order: these are assertive brews, and some of the flavors are polarizing. A flight or a short pour is an ideal way to test your palate for the Crimson Bog (a cranberry sour with strong notes of cereal and vanilla) or the Rooted Rye (a brick-colored ale that blends the sharp herbal bite of root beer with the

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spicy-sour tang of rye).

The best pick for a full pint is the “Anyways. Haze.” New England-style IPAs are having a bit of a moment right now, which is good news for people with taste buds. (My elevator pitch: NE IPAs are the first 10 seconds of a stick of Juicy Fruit.) New Axiom’s version is true to style, with a hazy golden color and a soft, round sweetness. It’s also packed with fruit flavor: if you’ve ever wanted to dry-hop a bucket of Trolli Peachie O’s, this is the beer for you.

If IPAs aren’t your speed, try the Grisette Nouveau, a crisp table saison (think: lower ABV) with a dry, effervescent finish and a slight earthiness from the rooibos tea.

There’s not much funk on this bad boy, but there’s enough for Lee’s Summit.

New Axiom’s taproom is sleek but cavernous, tucked inside a corporate-feeling strip off Highway 291. It’s also both dog and kid-friendly — in nice weather, you can lounge on a large outdoor patio and drink in the crisp sea? air from one of the city’s luxurious manmade ponds.

East Forty Brewing Co. New Axiom Brewing Co. 949 NE Columbus St, Lee’s Summit newaxiombrewco.com

East Forty Brewing 1201 W Main St, Blue Springs 816-988-8127 eastfortybrewing.com

City dwellers, I hear your whining from here: Blue Springs is so faaaaaaaar. Well — I’ve got both good news and bad news for you. The good: East Forty Brewing Co., a three-month-old brewery in the cute core of Blue Springs, has the kind of ambience that will make you want to stay a while. The bad: it’s gonna be an expensive Lyft.

East Forty has a cozy, lived-in vibe (lots of barnwood and live-edge tables), and locals are already camping out here for solid pizzas, soft pretzels, and beers with more IBUs than Lucille Bluth. Hops are the bumper rails on the bowling alley lane of brewer and founder David Mann’s brews.

If you like pale ales, you’re in luck. The brewery’s flagship pale, Quarter Quarter, has a clean, fresh finish and a flirty, guava-adjacent nose. Tropical hops give the beer a little heft without punishing your palate. But my pick — both for audacity and execution — is the Calm Me, Maybee, an American IPA fragrant with honey and lavender. There’s no way around it: this beer, uh, tastes like weed. But the honey and lavender soar over the top, blunting the hops’ jagged edges with a cuddly, cloudlike softness.

IPA skeptics along for the ride might enjoy the Second Breakfast, a full-bodied porter that tastes like an Oreo McFlurry, or the Blackberry Dog Days Summer Wheat, a thin-bodied but easy-sipping brew voted Most Likely to be an Alcoholic Seltzer at its high school graduation. Beer skeptics might enjoy the atmosphere, too: East Forty offers ciders, wine, and cocktails on top of its taps.

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DRINK

Drink This Now

THE BOHEMIAN AT NOMADS

When the late-summer heat gets sticky and sleepy, I think wistfully of spring — when gardens were lush with hopeful blooms, when the city air didn’t taste like asphalt, when I could step outside without immediately acquiring the smell and sheen of the kid manning the Twinkie fryer at the state fair. I crave something fresh and light, something with as few ingredients as I have fucks left to give. And lately, I’ve been craving The Bohemian, a cocktail that Andrew Olsen (currently bar manager at Rye on the Plaza) developed for the menu at Nomads Coffee and Cocktails.

The Bohemian at Nomads is an approachable combination of gin, elderflower liqueur, and fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice served in a Collins glass with a citrus slice the size of a pool float. Raise the glass to your lips and you inhale a fresh, floral aroma that’s lively and light. Part of the drink’s appeal is its streamlined ingredients list. Bartenders have been riffing on the recipe for years — some add egg white, others a dash of Peychaud’s bitters.

But Olsen’s version is sleek as an otter.

“I’m a firm believer in a lot of modern classics,” he says. “Things that are low in the quantity of ingredients but high in the quality.”

That pared-down approach means each element has to be in perfect balance. J. Rieger Co. gin fits the bill, given its less busy botanical profile.

So does Giffard’s wild elderflower liqueur, which is a little less sweet (and a lot more floral) than St-Germain. The result is a graceful, elegant cocktail that tastes bright, juicy, and dangerously un-boozy. It’s the kind of drink you think you’re nursing slowly, until you glance down and realize you’ve siphoned up the whole glass like a hose-nosed tree shrew.

It’s also $8, which is a little less pricey than cocktails at similar joints.

Even if you’ve had this drink a hundred times, Nomads’ version will give you something new to admire.

—Liz Cook (Twitter: @lizcookkc)

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ANDREW PARK

EAT

Eat This Now

THE GRILLED ASPARAGUS AND SMOKED GOUDA SANDWICH FROM ASH & BLEU CHEESE COMPANY

Bethany Helms’ vintage Ash & Bleu Cheese Company trailer pops up at various places around town, but the easiest place to reliably find it is the Overland Park Farmer’s Market on Wednesday and Saturday mornings.

There, you can taste and purchase fresh farmstead cheeses from places like Hemme Brothers Creamery in Sweet Springs, Missouri, and Prairie Fruits Farm in Champaign, Illinois. We’re here this month, however, to recommend Helms’ grilled cheese sandwiches, made with Ibis Bakery’s perfect chewy sourdough. (Helms herself is an Ibis alum.) Though you can order the very good “Plain Jane,” which comes with three types of cheese (including Hemme Brothers cheese curds), or a wonderful ham and cheese with fried egg, our favorite is the grilled asparagus and smoked gouda sandwich.

Served on Ibis sourdough that’s been buttered and crisped to perfection on the griddle, the sandwich features thin spears of tender, farm-fresh asparagus, gooey smoked gouda and — because it’s a cheese truck, after all — house-made roasted red pepper cream cheese. It is crunchy, savory, and tangy: cheese heaven.

—April Fleming (Twitter: @aprilfleming)

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thepitchkc.com | SEPTEMBER 2018 | THE PITCH

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ARTS

The Struggle is Real “OVERTURE: THE MUSICAL” DIGS UP AND DRAMATIZES THE HISTORY OF THE KANSAS CITY PHILHARMONIC. BY LIBBY HANSSEN

A prolific performer and songwriter, Krista Eyler once wrote a tune called “Favorite Sounds in the World,” inspired by the mental image of a woman on a staircase listening to an orchestra tune up. Eyler let her mind wander and began to think maybe there was more to this woman’s story. Maybe this woman lived in Kansas City. Maybe the orchestra was here, too.

Some research introduced Eyler to the history of the Kansas City Philharmonic, and as she dug deeper, she realized it was perfect fodder for a musical. The Philharmonic, which operated from 1933 to 1982 (it preceded the present-day Kansas City Symphony), was financially insecure throughout much of its existence.

But this economic peril brought together a dynamic set of folks determined to keep it alive. Eyler honed in on one particular season — 1953-54 — and, along with Barbara Nichols, started writing a script.

They ended up with “Overture: The Musical,” a behind-the-scenes look at the people, passion, and creativity required to operate a major arts organization. It premieres September 21 at the Arts Asylum.

A song, a struggle, and a love story make up the foundation of the show. Appropriately, “Overture” begins with the aforementioned orchestra-tuning song, sung by a character named Lily (performed

by Eyler), who works in the Philharmonic’s office. Lily is desperate to be involved with music, though she is losing her hearing.

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She’s also falling in love with Christopher (performed by Joel Morrison), the Philharmonic’s assistant conductor, who has become disenchanted with the art form.

“I needed someone who was frustrated in his position and had kind of lost his whole love for music,” Eyler says of the

character. “I’m such a big fan of old book musicals, where there’s always a romance.

I love those kinds of stories because they seem kind of redemptive to me.”

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with the orchestra. Eyler admits to taking some poetic license, though as a former reporter, she did her research first. Using William Everett’s history of the Philharmonic, Music for the People, she tracked down newspaper articles and interviewed

living relatives. Some lyrics in the musical (Eyler wrote the lyrics and the music, but collaborated with Nichols — who directs — on the script) are pulled directly from newspaper stories and fundraising letters (pleas, really) from the time.

“When you’re writing anything that surrounds people who were real-life Kansas Citians, you have to do your best to honor the facts you have in front of you,” Eyler says.

Among the Kansas Citians portrayed in “Overture” are German-born Hans Schwieger (Chris Halford), the orchestra’s charismatic conductor from 1948-1971; office staff member Inda Beasley (Kay Noonan); and Richard Wangerin (Kipp Simmons), the orchestra manager. The Philharmonic generated real-life romance, too: Beasley and Wangerin eventually married (though they later divorced).

Members of the Philharmonic’s Women’s Committee were instrumental in keeping the organization afloat, and we also meet some of those key players: Marie McCune (Erica Baruth) and Clara Hockaday (Stasha Case), who, with Enid Kemper, founded the Jewel Ball. The Kemper family isn’t represented in the musical,

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Eyler explains: “They [the Kempers] did so many amazing things for Kansas City. But I wanted to give attention to names that hadn’t necessarily been recognized in current times.”

“Overture” is a full-length production: 17 songs that Eyler, along with Michalis Koutsoupides, orchestrated and arranged for an eight-piece ensemble.

Inspired by the classics of musical theater — Rodgers & Hammerstein, Jason Robert Brown, Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber — Eyler also draws from the works of Frederic Chopin and Anton Dvorak. “Those are things that my musical heart gravitates toward, so I always hear them in my ear,” she says.

The show’s first act was staged as a teaser at Fringe Fest earlier this summer and was the fourth-highest-attended show of the festival. They’re hoping for that same enthusiasm at the Arts Asylum. The Philharmonic, Eyler says, was “a labor of love and time and effort” — a group of people who came together to, as the show states, “save something beautiful” in Kansas City. In bringing that story to life with “Overture,” Eyler and company are doing much the same.

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MUSIC

Enter the Dragon SOMEONE STILL LOVES YOU BORIS YELTSIN’S PHIL DICKEY LEANS IN TO BLOCKBUSTER SYNTH POP — AND LIFE IN KANSAS CITY. BY DAVID HUDNALL

Phil Dickey is most associated with Springfield, Missouri, where his band Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin was based for more than a decade. But he lives in Kansas City these days — he moved here about a year and a half ago, with his wife, Grace Bentley, and their young son. They were in Waldo for awhile, and they’re currently renting a place in the historic Northeast. Grace works for the Johnson County Library, and Dickey is a stay-at-home dad.

“The toddler scene in KC is legit,” he told me recently. “Much better than Springfield.”

SSLYBY achieved medium indie-rock fame in the mid-2000s, recording a handful of well-received albums (Broom, Pershing, and — my favorite — Let It Sway) and inking some nice licensing deals, including one that landed the band’s song “Oregon Girl” on the then-quite-popular teen drama The O.C. By 2012, though, SSLYBY was ten years old and beginning to slow down. (The following year, John Cardwell, the other songwriter in the band, left the group.) Dickey was working at Moxie Cinema, the small art-house movie theater in Springfield. One of his coworkers was a young filmmaker named Brook Linder, who had made some of SSLYBY’s music videos.

“Brook was working on this school project where he was making kind of an

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‘80s movie, and he wanted it to have an ‘80s soundtrack,” Dickey says. “This is before Stranger Things. We kinda missed our chance to cash in on that, I guess. But anyway, we started writing the soundtrack for it while we were at work. I would make the popcorn, and he would start the movies, and then there’d

be nothing to do for two hours, so I’d bring a keyboard into the breakroom and we’d make music together.”

Linder moved to Los Angeles shortly after that — he’s since directed videos for Grimes, Beck, and Spoon, among others — and the project fizzled out. SSLYBY released

a couple more albums, then Dickey moved to KC. Doing the dad thing gave him some free time to comb through old demos, and one day Dickey stumbled upon the movie-house tracks. He tinkered with a few of them and sent one of the songs, “Bad Boy,” to Linder, who was working on some promo videos for

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Ryan Adams’ Beats 1 Radio show at the time.

Linder snuck the song into one of the spots, and management seemed to like it.

“People were like, ‘What’s this song?’,” Dickey says. “But we couldn’t tell them. We didn’t even have a name for it or anything. So that was a moment. I told Brook, ‘We really need to finish this project.’”

With the help of Bentley and Dickey’s sister, Sharon Bowie, they began culling songs and refining the sound of the project, which they dubbed Dragon Inn 3. (The name comes from a Springfield Chinese restaurant where Dickey used to hang out.)

Though Dickey sings in SSLYBY, he ceded vocal duties in Dragon Inn 3 to Bowie and Linder (who sent in their vocal tracks from Springfield and L.A., respectively) and Bentley (who recorded her spots in their Waldo garage).

Double Line, the resulting album, is out this Friday, August 17, via American Laundromat Records. True to its ‘80s inspiration, Double Line is heavy on synthy earworms — a little bit John Hughes, a tad chillwave, a touch of Swedish pop. (I’m particularly fond of the saxy adult contemporary turns in “Murder in the Third.”) And in keeping with the project’s cinematic roots, each song on Double Line has an accompanying video.

Some of those videos were made by Kansas Citians: Conor Tierney directed “Bad Boy” and Pat Vamos directed “Murder in the Third.”

In August, the project came full circle when Dickey and Bentley went down to Springfield to screen the Double Line videos at Moxie Cinema, where many of the songs were conceived. But that’s pretty much the extent of the touring behind the album.

There’s parenting to do back in the City of Fountains.

“I know, like, 10 people in Kansas City, and most of my friends are toddlers,” Dickey says. “But we love it over in the Northeast. I just figured out where the Crossroads is. It’s great!”

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THE WHITE THEATRE AT THE J Jazz Musician Dan Thomas | Sept. 2 Camelot the Musical | Nov. 3-18 5801 W. 115th St., Overland Park, Kan. TheWhiteTheatre.org KANSAS CITY REPERTORY THEATRE Last Days of Summer | Sept. 7-30 Spencer Theatre, 4949 Cherry St., Kansas City, Mo. kcrep.org | (816) 235-2700 AMERICAN JAZZ MUSEUM Will Matthews | Sept. 14 at 8:30 p.m.

Blue Room Jazz Club americanjazzmuseum.org UMKC CONSERVATORY Conservatory Orchestra | Sept. 14 at 7:30 p.m. $8 per person, White Recital Hall KANSAS CITY SYMPHONY Beethoven’s Triple Concerto | Sept. 14-16 Kauffman Center | (816) 471-0400 STARLIGHT THEATRE Chicago – The Musical | Sept. 14-16 at 8 p.m.

The Illusionists – Live From Broadway Sept. 28-30 at 8 p.m.

4600 Starlight Road, Kansas City, Mo. (816) 363-7827 THE COTERIE THEATRE Becoming Martin | Sept. 18-Oct. 21 Crown Center, 2450 Grand Blvd., Kansas City, Mo. thecoterie.org LYRIC OPERA OF KANSAS CITY West Side Story | Sept. 22, 23, 26, 28 and 30 Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts kcopera.org | (816) 471-7344 FOLLY THEATER JAZZ SERIES Ramsey Lewis and Urban Knights Sept. 27 at 8 p.m.

300 W. 12th St., Kansas City, Mo. FollyTheater.org | (816) 474-4444 KANSAS CITY BALLET The Wizard of Oz Tickets on Sale Now! Opens Oct. 12 at the Kauffman Center KCBallet.org | (816) 931-8993 KAUFFMAN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS Chanticleer | Oct. 24 at 7 p.m.

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All across the country, people will stand together this September to fight hunger. It's a month to spread the word, take action and work together to find a solution.

Will you join us?

Here are a few ways you can help.

September 4-8 Fill the Fridge Perishable Food Drive

Help KSHB-TV fill the fridge by donating perishable food items at select Price Chopper stores.

September 11 9/11 Day of Service

Volunteer at Harvesters on this national day of service to honor the victims, survivors and those who rose up in service in response to the 2001 attacks.

September 22-29 Our Community CAN Food Drive

Become a hunger champion by adopting your neighborhood and collecting nonperishable food for Harvesters.

September 29 Community-Wide Volunteer Day

Volunteer alongside your friends and family for a day dedicated to helping the hungry.

There will be multiple opportunities including distributing food directly to those in need.

Learn more and sign up to participate at www.harvesters.org.

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Blessed SIX YEARS INTO ITS EXISTENCE, LOCAL NOISE-ROCK TRIO BUMMER HAS FINALLY RELEASED ITS FIRST LP, HOLY TERROR. BY AARON RHODES

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One by one, the three shaggy, twentysomething members of Bummer trickle into the band’s practice space, looking every bit the part of the amps-to-11 noise-rock band that they are. The space is in a nondescript brick building just off Main Street, not far from Westport, and the setup is unglamorous. The lobby’s all torn up. I have to dance around patches of waterlogged carpet to reach the bathroom. The band apologizes.

They were all late to arrive for the interview.

They apologize for that, too.

The guys in Bummer have a collective inclination for deprecating humor — selfand otherwise — but on this abominably humid August afternoon, they seem to be on their best behavior. Guitarist and vocalist Matt Perrin later tells me that six years of dogged touring together as a unit has taught them to learn how to deal with each other the way a family does. When I point out that six years is a long time for a DIY rock act to stay together, though, bassist Mike Gustafson brushes it off.

“Ten years will feel weird,” he says. “Six doesn’t feel like anything.”

Still, Bummer has packed a lot into those six years. The band has released four EPs and a 10-inch split, played local gigs almost every month, and toured to nearly every major city in the continental United

States. It has played dive bars and basements and opened for some of the members’ major influences — acts like like Unsane and Big Business — and formed alliances with other young, like-minded noise-rock groups.

Holy Terror is available now online and in physical form via Learning Curve Records (vinyl) and High Dive Records (CD, cassette).

All that — but, until recently, no LP. As of this month, though, we have Holy Terror, recorded in two-and-a-half days here in KC

by Justin Mantooth at Westend Studios.

“I think when bands talk about doing a full-length, it’s just a whole lot different than an EP,” says drummer Sam Hutchinson. “It just makes me way happier.”

The songs on Holy Terror aren’t a rein-

vention of Bummer — maybe that’ll come with album three or four — but these ten tracks represent the band’s most potent recordings to date. Musically, the members have tightened their signature, sludgy sound. Perrin’s throat-shredding vocals and crunching guitars are pissed as ever, Gustafson’s slides and grooves hit at just the right times, and the thundering gallops produced by Hutchinson keep things moving at a brisk pace.

Lyrically, Perrin continues to reflect on his struggles with mental illness while Gustafson maintains his knack for ridiculous and often arbitrary song titles. (“Dimebagged” skewers the clichés of weed culture; “HeXXX Games” is a sex joke.)

“I feel bad ‘cause he’s serious,” Gustafson says of Perrin, acknowledging that his song titles serve to mask the agony beneath the surface.

Holy Terror is off to a pretty good start.

Minnesota’s Learning Curve Records is handling its vinyl release, and several national websites like Metal Injection, Punknews, and New Noise have been writing about it.

Gustafson says he used to take the punkrock approach of not caring about outside criticism, but with age, he says he’s genuinely excited to put the band’s music in front of new ears and hear their thoughts.

But are the members of Bummer letting this uptick in attention go to their heads?

That question is answered as we discuss the upcoming release show for Holy Terror.

“I don’t think we wanna play over 25 minutes,” Hutchinson says.

“Fuck that,” Gustafson agrees. “Just assume people hate your shit and want you to get off stage.”

Fall in love with KC.

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SAVAGE LOVE

Sex by Proxy WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SURROGATE PARTNER AND A SEX WORKER?

BY DAN SAVAGE

Dear Dan: I’m in a pickle. All I want is to experience touch, intimacy, and sexual pleasure — but without freaking out. I grew up with a lot of negative messages from men due to developing early, as well as having some other physical/sexual trauma (no rape or abuse), but the combination has me seriously fucked up. Whenever I get close to physical intimacy with someone, I run away. I actually faked an emergency once and physically ran away because I knew sex was a possibility that night. I’m not a virgin — but in those instances, I’ve been really drunk (and experienced no emotional/physical pleasure). This is not what I want for my life. I want a relationship and love, and to be open and comfortable with someone expressing their care for me in a physical way without panicked thoughts flooding my brain.

I’ve done lots of therapy, which has helped, but not enough. I recently heard of something called a sexual surrogate. From what I understand, it’s somebody who is trained to therapeutically provide physical touch and intimacy in a controlled and safe environment. Are they legit? ––She Can’t Adequately Release Extreme Dread Dear SCARED: Sexual surrogates are legit, but please don’t call them sexual surrogates.

“We’d like to see the language shift back to ‘surrogate partner,’ which was the original term,” said Vena Blanchard, president of the International Professional Surrogates Association (IPSA). “Masters and Johnson originated the concept, and their treatment program was based on the theory that many people had problems that required the help of a cooperative partner, and some people didn’t have partners. So they trained people to work as ‘partner surrogates.’ The media took the term ‘partner surrogate’ and changed it to ‘sexual surrogate’ because it sounded sexier. But ‘sexual surrogate’ implies that the work is all about sex.”

So if surrogate partner therapy is not about sex — or not all about sex — then what is it primarily about?

“Surrogate partner therapy is a therapeutic treatment that combines psychotherapy with experiential learning,” said Blanchard. “It’s a program designed for people like SCARED, for people who struggle with anxiety, panic, and past trauma — things that can distort a person’s experience in the moment.”

Surrogate partner therapy happens in stages, with each progressive stage representing another “teeny, tiny baby step,” as Blanchard put it.

“The client first works with a legitimate therapist until the therapist thinks the client is ready to work with a surrogate partner,” said Blanchard. “You may start by sitting in opposite chairs and just talking. At some point, they might sit and hold hands, practice relaxation techniques, and focus on simple sensations. In the next session, they might touch each other’s

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THE PITCH | SEPTEMBER 2018 | thepitchkc.com

faces with their hands.”

Sex can and does sometimes occur in the later stages of surrogate partner therapy, SCARED, but it doesn’t always and it’s not the goal — healing is.

“By having these repeated safe experiences, in a context where there’s no pressure, and consent is emphasized, and the patient is in control,” said Blanchard, “someone liked SCARED can learn to manage her anxiety, and her prior negative experiences are replaced with positive new experiences.”

While I had her on the phone, I asked Blanchard the first question many people have about surrogate partners: Are surrogate partners sex workers?

“A sex worker offers a sexual experience — that is the primary intention of what is a business transaction,” said Blanchard. “What a surrogate partner offers are healing and education. And while healing and education might also take place in a sex-work environment, and while some form of sexual contact might take place in surrogate partner therapy, the primary intention is different. A patient working with a surrogate partner is there to heal old injuries or break out of bad patterns so they can have a relationship in the future. People go to sex workers for an immediate experience — the agenda is sexual and about right now, not therapeutic and about the future.”

Then I asked Blanchard the second question many people have about surrogate partner therapy: Is it legal?

“There’s no place that it’s illegal,” said Blanchard. “There’s never been a court case challenging it. In California, where surrogate partner therapy is most common, no one has ever in 50 years challenged it.”

If you’re interested in working with a surrogate partner, SCARED, you can contact the referrals coordinator at IPSA’s website: surrogatetherapy.org.

Finally, SCARED, the number of trained and qualified surrogate partners is relatively small — IPSA has just 70 members — so you might need to go where most of those trained and qualified surrogates partners are in order to work with one. (The part of California that isn’t on fire is lovely this time of year.)

“Since there aren’t many qualified surrogate partners available,” said Blanchard, “people sometimes need to travel to another location and work intensively. People will come for two weeks and work every single day with a therapist and a surrogate partner.”

Dear Dan: My partner and I have been together for 11 years and have always had a great sex life. I love his cock, we have similar appetites, and until recently everything was great. But he has always had an aversion to blood. He is a pacifist, a vegetarian, and a recovering Muslim, so as much as

I don’t understand his fear, I would never push him to have sex during my period. The problem is now I bleed whenever we have sex — just a tiny bit, but that’s enough to kill it for him, and the sex is immediately over. We already have enough constraints with differing schedules, kids, lack of privacy, periods. This is a big deal for me, and I don’t know how to deal with it. Any ideas? –– Afraid To Bleed Dear ATB: Turn off the lights, draw the curtains, have sex in the dark, get him a blindfold — and insist he see a therapist who specializes in helping people overcome their irrational phobias.

Dear Dan: I’m a 35-year-old gay man and I’ve been single for 10 years. I’d kind of given up, but suddenly I’ve got a real sweet guy in my life. He’s 24, so we’ll see how the age thing works out. I used to be pretty adventurous with sex, but I feel extremely nervous now. I feel like a virgin all over again — except I’m not turned on. On our first date, we ended up in a public bathroom, where I gave him a handjob (his idea). Last night, we messed around at my place. We kissed and got naked, but I couldn’t get hard. We watched porn.

That always works, but not this time. Finally, he played with my nipples and — presto chango — there was a happy ending at last! (Plus, it was a learning experience. I found out I like having my nipples licked, a lot!) I’m worried this will continue to happen. It’s like I’m thinking too much. I deal with anxiety and depression every day, and this is part of why I’ve been single for so long. I’m not feeling the urge to end the relationship yet, but I’ve been a wreck since we started dating.

I’m attracted to this guy, but I can’t get turned on. Is this like not having the urge to eat when you’re nervous? Do I just need to wait it out until I’m comfortable with this guy, and hope he sticks around long enough to stick it in me? ––Lacking In My Pants Dear LIMP: You’re attracted to this guy, and you’re turned on by him, and you’re capable of getting hard. When he played with your tits— when he licked your nipples — it took the focus off your cock, and your cock instantly got hard.

Do that more, LIMP: more dates with this guy, more rolling around with him, more exploring other erogenous zones. And it’ll help if you can tell him the truth: You’re a little nervous because it’s been a while since you dated anyone.

Once you’re more comfortable with him — once you’re more comfortable seeing someone — your boners will come.

Question for Dan? E-mail him at mail@savagelove.net. On Twitter at @fakedansavage.

thepitchkc.com | SEPTEMBER 2018 | THE PITCH

45

DON’T MISS THE

PARTY SEXIESHT E YEAR OF T

TUESDAY OCT. 9 | 4PM-2AM FREE BUFFET | PRIZES | GIVEAWAYS

6GIR0LS OVER

32nd Anniversary

30 seconds east of the Power & Light District

Party

2800 E 12th St., Kansas City, MO 64127 | 816-231-9696 | kcshadylady.com

EVENTS

September Events For more events, visit local.thepitchkc.com

SEPT. 1

SEP. 5

Zeke Beats, Uptown Theater

SEP. 1-2 Daddy Long Legs, Just Off Broadway Theatre Kansas City Irish Fest, Crown Center Square

SEP. 1-3 Ringo Starr Fine Art Show, Leawood Fine Art

Armani’s Play House Known For Our Entertainment, Got a Event Give Us A Shout.

Santa-Cali-Gon Days Festival, Independence Square

SEP. 2 Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Movie Party, Alamo Drafthouse

SEP. 3 Showgirls • Private Parties • Events • Perfection Globalcartel816@gmail.com – Now Hiring

816-301-6075

Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band, Starlight Theatre

SEP. 4

Girls!Girls!Girls!

Playmates and soul mates...

Napoleon Dynamite Movie Party, Alamo Drafthouse

Amanda Shires with Leah Blevins, Knuckleheads Saloon

SEP. 6

FIRST FRIDAY Bede Clarke – Gypsy Hymns, Belger Crane Yard Studios “(Long Men): The Native Streams and Rivers of the Land” by Joseph Erb (Cherokee), Travois Game Night, AlphaGraphics Kansas City Meredith Host, Bredin-Lee Gallery IN/SIGHT, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art KC Clay Guild Teabowl National, Bredin-Lee Gallery Keep The Music Going, CrossroadsKC at Grinders Polly Alice McCann: Dwelling, Beggars Table Church & Gallery

30 minute Free trial 18+ 816-841-1577 // 913-279-9202 46

THE PITCH | SEPTEMBER 2018 | thepitchkc.com

Kansas City:

816-841-1521

18+ MegaMates.com

Show Yourself More Human, Hilliard Gallery Fine Art and Custom Framing

EVENTS

SEP. 10-16 Brews and BBQ — A Benefit for The Children’s Place, Studio Dan Meiners

SEP. 7 Boy George & Culture Club and The B-52s, Starlight Theatre Matt and Kim, KC Live! Block

The Pitch’s Pizza Week. Participating restaurants include: 23rd St. Brewery, Artego Pizza, Bar Central, Caffetteria, Grimaldi’s, Homeslice Pizza & Pints, Il Lazzarone, KC Kitchen & Pizzeria, and Papa Keno’s Pizzeria.

SEP. 11 Counting Crows and Live, Starlight Theatre

SEP. 8

Maroon 5, Sprint Center

Gardens at Sunset, Kansas City Community Gardens

Gary Numan, the Madrid Theatre

KC Zine Con, Pierson Auditorium UMKC

SEP. 13

Independence Uncorked, BinghamWaggoner Estate

Bullet for My Valentine, VooDoo Lounge

Independence Walk to Benefit the Mission Projects, Beverly Park

Tony Danza: Standards and Stories, Missouri Theatre

Music on Main, Grandview Taylor Swift, Arrowhead Stadium Tequila Experience, Hush Broadway

SEP. 14 Forever Families Gala, Kansas City Convention Center

SEP. 8-9

One of Kansas City's Newest Art Galleries and Studio Spaces 1701 Oak in the Crossroads 14 Private Studios Monthly Exhibitions 816.873.5199 www.hangergallery.com

Lawrence’s signature festival returns

SEPTEMBER 17 – 23

Art Westport, Westport Kansas City Chalk & Walk Festival, Crown Center Square

SEP. 9

V I S I T F R E E S TAT E F E S T I V A L . O R G

Needtobreathe, Starlight Theatre Punch Brothers, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts The Byrds’ “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” anniversary tour, Folly Theater

SEP. 9-13 Alamo Encore: Clueless Movie Party, Alamo Drafthouse

Lupe Fiasco, The Truman

SEP. 14-15 Lied Loves Lawrence: Community Arts & Music Festival, Lied Center of Kansas

thepitchkc.com | SEPTEMBER 2018 | THE PITCH

47

EVENTS

SEP. 14-16

SEP. 17-23

Chicago, Starlight Theatre

Free State Festival, Various Lawrence venues

KC Jazz Orchestra Listening Party, KC Public Library Waldo Branch

Billy Idol, Uptown Theater

SEP. 17

SEP. 18

Iron and Wine, Arvest Bank Theatre at the Midland

HUNNY / Hot Flash Heat Wave, Uptown Theater

Third Friday, Downtown Overland Park

Marvel Universe Live! Age of Heroes, Sprint Center

SEP. 15 Lawson Robers Butterfly Festival, Mr. & Mrs. F.L. Schlagle Library

J. Cole, Sprint Center

Waldo Fall Festival, Waldo

SEP. 18 - OCT. 21

Hallmarket Art Festival, Crown Center Square

Becoming Martin, The Coterie Theatre

Nothing But Thieves, The Truman Y’allapalooza, Providence Medical Center Amphitheater Beck, Starlight Theatre King Tuff, Riot Room

I LIKE LENEXA

48

THE PITCH | SEPTEMBER 2018 | thepitchkc.com

SEP. 21 Fall Out Boy, Sprint Center

SEP. 22 Trevor Noah, Lied Center of Kansas

SEP. 22-23

SEP. 20

UNplaza Art Fair, Southmoreland Park

Union Horse & Reserve: 5 Courses & 5 Cocktails, Ambassador Hotel

Wild West Days, Mahaffie Stagecoach Shop and Farm

EVENTS

SEP. 22-30 West Side Story, Lyric Theatre

The Truman’s 1st Birthday Bash, The Truman

SEP. 23-27

SEP. 29

Alamo Encore: Spaceballs, Alamo Drafthouse

Andrew Bird, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

SEP. 25

Lyme is Local Charity 5K and 1 Mile, Berkley Riverfront Park

Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History, Linda Hall Library

Park2Park Run 2018, Roeland Park Community Center

SEP. 26

SEP. 27

David Liebe Hart, RecordBar The Best of the Second City, Arvest Bank Theatre at the Midland

KU Symphony Orchestra with guest Blake Pouliot, Lied Center of Kansas

West African Drumming Workshop, St. Marks Hope & Peace Lutheran Church

SEP. 30

SEP. 28 Home Brewing Happy Hour, Kansas City Community Gardens

Steve Martin and Martin Short, Lied Center of Kansas

Concerts are held in Helzberg Hall, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.

(816) 471-0400 / kcsymphony.org

IT’S ALL HERE — FUN, FEEL-GOOD MUSIC!

Sean Chen, Noah Geller and Mark Gibbs

Classical Series begins!

Back by Popular Demand!

A Special Performance

Friday & Saturday, September 14-15 at 8 p.m.

Sunday, September 16 at 2 p.m.

Michael Stern, conductor, and Sean Chen, piano Noah Geller, violin, and Mark Gibbs, cello

Added Performance! Monday, September 24 at 7 p.m.

Tuesday, September 25 at 7 p.m.

Jason Seber, David T. Beals III Associate Conductor

Saturday, September 29 at 8 p.m.

Jason Seber, David T. Beals III Associate Conductor

BEETHOVEN’S TRIPLE CONCERTO and SYMPHONIC DANCES

AARON JAY KERNIS New Era Dance BEETHOVEN Triple Concerto RACHMANINOFF Symphonic Dances We kick off the 2018/19 Classical Series in style with Beethoven’s playful Triple Concerto and Rachmaninoff ’s lush and captivating orchestral masterpiece, Symphonic Dances. Tickets from $25.

BEN FOLDS with the KANSAS CITY SYMPHONY

Rock sensation Ben Folds is back by popular demand after several sold-out appearances with your Kansas City Symphony. Hear this one-of-a-kind performance packed with fan favorites like “Brick” plus Folds’ latest orchestral arrangements. Tickets from $50.

ANDREW BIRD with the KANSAS CITY SYMPHONY

The talented multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird delights legions of fans with a distinct indie rock style, blending swing, gypsy, calypso and folk — all delivered with astonishing virtuosity. A classically trained violinist and an expert whistler (for real!), the Los Angeles-based Bird teams up with your Kansas City Symphony for an incredibly fun evening with seating in the round at Helzberg Hall. Tickets from $35.

PIANO PIZZAZZ | Free Happy Hour Concert on Tuesday, Sept. 11 at 6 p.m. at the Kauffman Center. thepitchkc.com | SEPTEMBER 2018 | THE PITCH

49

AUCTION DATE: 10/3/18 MARKETPLACE LOCAL 1000

eDs i F i ss s cLassiFiieeDDs assiF s L a c L c D

2000

2009 Honda Civic

1HGFA16519L007732

2004 Dodge Ram

1D7HU18D24S631031

2007 Toyota Camry

JTNBE46KX73083726

2006 Toyota Tundra

5TBDT44106S518322

2012 Hyundai Sonata

5NPEB4AC0CH311452

2014 Chevrolet Impala

2G1WB5E34E1122675

2015 Honda Civic

19XFB2F97FE081150

2005 Chevrolet Trailblazer

1GNET16S356129373

2005 Ford Five Hundred

1FAFP25155G168742

2008 Chevrolet Aveo

KL1TD66698B199959

2001 Ford Escape

1FMYU02101KF60924

2000 Buick Century

2G4WS52J0Y1197741

2007 Dodge Caliber

1B3HB48B17D350137

2007 Kia Spectra5

KNAFE161875008083

2005 GMC Sierra

1GTHK29U75E289743

2002 Pontiac Grand Prix

1G2WK52J52F233173

2007 Saturn Ion

1G8AN15F17Z123881

2002 Lincoln Town Car

1LNHM82W22Y657132

2001 Ford Ranger

1FTYR14V41PB36046

2003 Acura 3.2TL

19UUA56843A024701

2005 Dodge Durango

1D4HB48N55F551925

2008 Chevrolet Malibu

1G1ZH57B28F201727

2010 Toyota Corolla

JTDBU4EE5AJ066631

1991 Ford F150

1FTDF15Y5MPA01369

2005 Buick Rendezvous

3G5DB03E45S546696

2013 Doge Avenger

1C3CDZABXDN507958

2002 Chevrolet Silverado

1GCHK29UX2E287979

2009 Saturn Aura

1G8ZS57B99F129039

2010 Ford Transit Connect

NM0LS6BN7AT036543

2016 Can Am Maverick

3JBPDAR20GJ003036

2004 Lincoln Aviator

5LMEU88H54ZJ22978

2017 Ford Fiesta

3FADP4BJ8HM143108

2007 Mitsubishi Eclipse

4A3AK34TX7E003258

2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee

1J8HR58257C679549

2012 Chevrolet Cruze

1G1PC5SH7C7113437

2002 Ford Escape

1FMCU04142KD33664

2013 Kia Optima

5XXGN4A7XDG159597

2011 Toyota Sienna

5TDKK3DC1BS109575

2017 Polaris General

3NSRGE992HH868275

2007 Ford Freestyle

1FMDK02107GA38262

2011 Nissan Versa

3N1BC1AP1BL425267

1996 Toyota T100

JT4UN24D4T0030487

2009 Chevrolet Cobalt

1G1AT58H297103842

2012 Toyota Camry

4T1BF1FK6CU132453

2002 Chevrolet Trailblazer

1GNET16S426121858

2012 Nissan Cube

JN8AZ2KR0CT252064

1997 Chrysler Sebring

4C3AU52NXVE023247

2008 Pontiac Grand Prix

2G2WP552281176131

2002 Ford F150

1FTRW08L72KE36176

2005 Dodge Dakota

1D7HW42N65S247946

1996 Nissan 200 SX

1N4BB42D8TC508994

2004 Toyota Corolla

1NXBR32E84Z266370

2005 Chrysler Pacifica

2C8GF78475R301597

2004 Kia Amanti

KNALD124145037832

2013 John Deere Gator

1M0825GEJDM062544

Hemp Oil Tincture, Topical, Edibles, Lotion, Lip Balm and E-Juice

1998 Toyota Camry

4T1BG22K3WU218929

2011 Jeep Compass

1J4NF5FB9BD256315

1998 Pontiac Bonneville

1G2HX52K2WH220765

2000 Isuzu Rodeo

4S2CK58W0Y4357572

400 E 18th Street, KCMO, 64108 • 816-474-7400 Thecbdstores.com

2005 Cadillac CTS

1G6DP567050136993

2000 Chevrolet Malibu

1G1ND52J6Y6186660

1995 Chevrolet Lumina

2G1WL52M6S9174042

2009 Subaru Forester

JF2SH63689H757958

2003 Chrysler Town & Country

2C8GP64L83R215748

2001 Dodge Dakota

1B7HG2AN21S251287

2006 Toyota Corolla

JTDBR32E060071829

Fie i s s a cL

d lassifie c a e c To pla iselamsesnifit ed dve rat c To place To palaacclassified eznt uare veneSm caellrStteis .6732 v d a a classified 816.218 pitrcez h.com advertisement To place

4000

ezS@ua uavern Ste stecvaelln.s 32 .218.67 h.com 16 8 call Steven Suarezez@pitc r a u 816.218.6732 steven.s

BUY, SELL, TRADE

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CONTACT Steven Suarez call Steven Suarez steven.suarez@pitch.com 861-218-6732 816.218.6732 CONTACT Steven Suarez steven.suarez@pitch.com steven@thepitchkc.com 861-218-6732 steven@thepitchkc.com

WANTS TO purchase minerals and other oil & gas interest. Send details to P.O. Box 13557, Denver, CO 80201

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CAN’T AFFORD A VACATION? You can charter my hands to sail you to paradise & still be home in time to watch Seinfeld.

For relaxation massage call Joy @ 816-753-5356 during business hours 10:00 am - 5:00 pm.

OFFICE SPACE FOR RENT 19’ x 21’ office for rent with private entrance.

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Largest seLection of cBD ProDucts in Kansas city!

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VIN#

2004 Harley Davidson FXSTI 1HD1BVB44959137

Colliers International. EHO

KS-KCKS | $515-$615 913-299-9748

YR MAKE/MODEL

3N1CE2CP8EL359130

816-753-5576

CALL TODAY!

VIN# 1N4AB7AP3EN854421

Contact Frank 7pm-3am Mon-Sat 816-231-3150

$400-$850 Rent 1 & 2 Bedroom Apartments & 3 Bedroom HOMES.

YR MAKE/MODEL 2014 Nissan Sentra

BACCALA’ STRIP CLUB NOW HIRING DANCERS

VALENTINE NEIGHBORHOOD

The following vehicles will be sold at public auction on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2018 unless claimed by owner and all tow and storage charges are paid in full.

For information, please contact Insurance Auto Auction at 913-422-9303.

2014 Nissan Versa Note

EMPLOYMENT

REAL ESTATE/RENTALS

WEATHER PERMITTING

Sun 12pm-6pm

@PHILLIPS_JOBS

123 S. mur-Len, OLathe, KS 66062

HOTEL PHILLIPS

1998 Chevrolet Cavalier

1G1JC1244W7127005

2017 Can Am Maverick X3

3JBVGAW2XHK000076

2009 Ford Ranger

1FTZR45EX9PA27509

2016 Nissan Juke

JN8AF5MR2GT608625

2000 Dodge Dakota

1B7GL22X4YS508032

2004 Nissan Murano

JN8AZ08W24W339806

2011 Polaris Ranger

4XAVE76A5BB072147

2008 Mazda 6

1YVHP80C385M48426

2013 Chrysler 200

1C3CCBAB0DN733372

2007 Buick Rendezvous

3G5DA03L17S593298

2009 Chevrolet Malibu

1G1ZJ57B094174917

2001 Dodge Ram 1500

1B7HF16ZX1S660582

2007 Pontiac Gran Prix

2G2WP552071160122

2005 Ford Escape

1FMYU02Z65KA11482

2001 Ford Focus

1FAFP38341W116652

2013 Mitsubishi Outlander

JA4AS3AW4DU015872

2006 Toyota Avalon

4T1BK36BX6U121399

2014 Chevrolet Cruze

1G1PC5SB2E7391404

2005 Chevrolet Malibu

1G1ZT64875F178549

2017 Big Tex LT17 25’ GN Trailer

16VGX2529E6049593

2007 Harley Davidson FLHTCUI

1HD1FC4197Y658854

2003 Mazda 6

1YVFP80D935M18792

2000 Pontiac Sunfire

1G2JB1244Y7157588

2009 Pontiac G3

KL2TD66E09B686942

2007 Kia Rio

KNADE123376221452

2000 Chevrolet Silverado

1GCEK14T0YE211207

2004 GMC Canyon

1GTDT136548151809

2008 K-Z Inc Coyota Rock Climber

4EZTR222789049490

1995 Jeep Cherokee

1J4FN68S5SL565599

2012 Honda Civic

19XFB2F8XCE048971

2018 Nissan Sentra

3N1AB7AP3JY234906

5 miles from Montauk State Park and Current River.

Many of these vehicles run and drive. If you are looking for cheap transportation, don’t miss this auction/sale.

We welcome all buyers. Terms of auction: All sales are “as is” “where is”. No guarantees or warranties. Paper work to obtain new title will be $75.00 Per vehicle. No guarantee that paperwork will produce title.Bidding will be number only. Terms are cash or certified check. Vehicles must be paid for in full at end of auction. No exceptions.

All sales are final. No returns.

NEWto see& what RESALE ALL AREAS | ALL PRICES Want your Short Sales-Foreclosures-Condos Townhomes-Single Family Homes.

CALL NOW 50

home is worth?

Sharon Sigman, rE/maX STaTELinE 913-488-8300 or 913-338-8444 www.FormLS.com

THE PITCH | SEPTEMBER 2018 | thepitchkc.com

Spacious one-bedroom cabin, sleeps four. $ /night

85

25 one-time cleaning fee

$

901-233-4496

INSURANCE AUTO AUCTION 2663 SOUTH 88TH ST. KCKS, 66111 913-422-9303

WH E R E NE I G H BORS A RE B E ST F R I E ND S Eastland Court 816 -363-9684

Senior Apartments Rents Starting at $1,020/mo.

BRAND NEW, 1&2 BEDROOM APARTMENTS FOR THE ACTIVE ADULT (55+)

NOW LEASING!

Free Heat, Electric, Cable, Water & Garbage Small Pets Welcome!

Close to Shopping, Restaurants, and Places of Interest

In-Suite Washer and Dryer

Emergency Call Systems

Central Air Conditioning

Beauty Salon & Large Community Room

Patios/Balconies

Fitness Center

Smoke-Free Living Elevator/Secure Entry

19301 East Eastland Center Court | Independence, MO 64055 eastlandcourt@clovergroupinc.com

Scared? Anxious? Confused?

HELP IS HERE! DWI, Solicitation, Traffic, Internet Crimes, Hit & Run, Power & Light Violations, Domestic Assault

1/2 month off special 1 bed. | 1314 SQ. FT. $1375

Now Hiring in the following departments

BANQUETS GUEST SERVICES HOUSEKEEPING CULINARY FOOD & BEVERAGE

available Jan. 5th 2 bed. 2 bath | 1477 SQ. FT. $1515

816-741-5040 | 2109broadwaylofts.com KS/MO Injuries, KS Divorce, All Family, Juvenile & More

Criminal Defense Attorney

David M. Lurie

816-221-5900 www.The-Law.com

PHOENIX NATURAL WELLNESS, LLC full line of

American Shaman CBD Products NOW OPEN!

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Apply in person at 1329 Baltimore Ave, Kansas City, MO 64105 Questions? Call HR at 816-303-1629

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NOW HIRING ACTORS

EDGE & BEAST HAUNTED HOUSES $9/HR & UP EVENINGS 816-842-4280

thepitchkc.com | SEPTEMBER 2018 | THE PITCH

51

BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE SEPTEMBER 13

SNOW PATROL

MAX

WILDNESS TOUR

HOUSE OF DIVINE WORLD TOUR PART I

OCTOBER 12

OCTOBER 26

TICKETS ON SALE NOW

Tickets available at VooDooKC.com or Ticketmaster.com/voodookc or by phone at 1-800-745-3000.

Located minutes from Downtown Kansas City. Unlimited Free Parking.

Know When To Stop Before You Start.® Gambling Problem? Call 1-888-BETSOFF. Subject to change or cancellation. Phone and online orders are subject to service fees. Must be 21 years or older to gamble, obtain a Total Rewards® card or enter VooDoo®. ©2018, Caesars License Company, LLC.