The Pitch: March 2018

MARCH 2018 I FREE I PITCH.COM

INSIDE • The UMKC Crossroads Conservatory debacle • Zooming in on KC’s “diverse by design” schools • Kansas’s fuzzy CBD logic • The mysterious noise rap of Young Mvchetes

NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND

UNDER THE STREETLAMP

LISA LAMPANELLI

ALMOST KISS & KC/DC

MARCH 2

MARCH 16

MARCH 23

MARCH 24

SHAMROCK FC MMA

TRAVIS TRITT

LITTLE RIVER BAND

CHICKS WITH HITS

APRIL 7

APRIL 27

MAY 4

MAY 11

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.

Free Live Entertainment 8:30p –12:30a ACCIDENTAL MOGULS • March 2 PHIL VANDEL • March 3 RETROACTIVE • March 9 STATE LINE DRIVE • March 10 2ND HOUSE • March 16

JJ & THE ALLSTARS • March 17 HUDSON DRIVE • March 23 GROOVE PILOTS • March 24 FADED STRANGER • March 30 FLASHBACK • March 31

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. Must be at least 21 to enter Depot #9. Tickets available online at ticketmaster.com (service charges and handling fees added by ticketmaster.com), or at the Gift Shop. 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 | March 2018 | pitch.com

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

FEEL-GOOD FUN FOR EVERYONE

CLASSICAL CONCERT

JOYCE DiDONATO SINGS BERNSTEIN and BERLIOZ Friday and Saturday, March 16-17 at 8 p.m.

Sunday, March 18 at 2 p.m.

Michael Stern, conductor Joyce DiDonato, mezzo-soprano ›

YOU’VE NEVER HEARD JOYCE LIKE THIS!

BERLIOZ Le corsaire Overture BERLIOZ La mort de Cléopâtre BERNSTEIN Songs “Greeting” “Music I Heard with You” “What Lips my Lips have kissed” BERNSTEIN Symphonic Dances from West Side Story Tickets from $35.

Sponsors include the Kansas City Marriott Downtown.

CLASSICS UNCORKED: AT THE MOVIES Thursday, March 8 at 7 p.m.

Jason Seber, David T. Beals III associate conductor Epic movies need epic music. We’re rolling out the red carpet to celebrate great orchestral repertoire from silver-screen blockbusters such as “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Apocalypse Now,” “Black Swan,” “Amadeus,” “The Shining,” “Moulin Rouge,” “Fantasia 2000” and more. After the concert, enjoy a complimentary glass of wine or champagne and mingle with Kansas City Symphony musicians in Kauffman Center’s Brandmeyer Great Hall lobby.

Most tickets $25.

Sponsored by BMO Wealth Management.

CLASSICAL CONCERT

MOVIE + LIVE ORCHESTRA

Friday and Saturday, April 13-14 at 8 p.m.

Sunday, April 15 at 2 p.m.

Friday and Saturday, April 20-21 at 8 p.m.

ADDED PERFORMANCE: Saturday, April 21 at 2 p.m.

Sunday, April 22 at 2 p.m.

BEETHOVEN, TCHAIKOVSKY and BERNSTEIN

Michael Stern, conductor Kansas City Symphony Chorus, Charles Bruffy, chorus director Eldar Nebolsin, piano and Joe Rogers, vocalist BERNSTEIN Anniversaries BERNSTEIN Chichester Psalms TCHAIKOVSKY Concert Fantasy BEETHOVEN Choral Fantasy A joyous celebration of hope and inspiration with your Symphony and Chorus. Tickets from $25.

BACK to the FUTURE in CONCERT

Jason Seber, David T. Beals III associate conductor Experience the thrill of the ’80s cinema classic “Back to the Future” on a huge screen in Helzberg Hall with your Kansas City Symphony performing the entire fun-filled score live! This production also features additional music by composer Alan Silvestri written especially for the film’s 30th anniversary. Adult tickets from $40 and youth tickets from $25. ©2009 Paramount Pictures. ™ CBS Studios Inc.

ORDER NOW (816) 471-0400 / kcsymphony.org pitch.com | March 2018 | THE PITCH

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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, 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 Jada Escue, Kirsten Overby, Kelcie McKenney Director of Marketing and Operations Jason Dockery Senior Multimedia Specialist Steven Suarez Multimedia Specialists Jada Escue, Becky Losey Director of Operations Andrew Miller Social Media Specialist Savannah Rodgers

CAREY MEDIA

Chief Executive Officer Stephanie Carey Chief Operating Officer Adam Carey

VOICE MEDIA GROUP

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

DISTRIBUTION

The Pitch distributes 35,000 copies a month and is available free throughout Greater Kansas City, limited to one copy per reader. Additional copies may be purchased for $5 each, payable at The Pitch’s office in advance. The Pitch may be distributed only by The Pitch’s authorized independent contractors or authorized distributors. No person may, without prior written permission of The Pitch, take more than one copy of each week’s issue. Mail subscriptions: $22.50 for six months or $45 per year, payable in advance. 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@pitch.com

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QUESTIONNAIRE

Alley Gage A local makeup artist, now one of the faces of Sephora.

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STREETSIDE

Hometown Mall Can local makers help revive our dying malls?

BY ANGELA LUTZ Best Laid Plants Is CBD legal in Kansas?

Nobody seems to know.

BY DAVID HUDNALL

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NEWS

Running on Empty Why is Johnson County Community College eliminating its renowned track program?

BY ROXIE HAMMILL Dance with the Devil UMKC’s new Crossroads arts campus was a lock. Then along came the governor with a pair of bolt cutters.

BY BARBARA SHELLY Managing Diversity Families that once fled the Kansas City school district are staying put. But it’s on their terms.

BY DAVID MARTIN

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Next Chapter Novel’s new East Crossroads space represents more than just a change of scenery.

BY APRIL FLEMING

Check your Head The drawings and sculptures in Myriam Mechita’s “Darkness with Blue Sky” address ecstasy, miracles — and beheadings.

BY ANNIE RAAB

FOOD

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DRINK

Patience, Please BKS Artisan Ales is making great beers. But they’re not easy to come by.

BY LIZ COOK

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Don’t Get Too Comfortable Plaza newbie Parkway Social Kitchen tries to ride the comfort-food wave.

BY LIZ COOK

Sunflowers and Rainbows C.J. Janovy’s No Place Like Home unearths the forgotten stories of the fight for LGBT rights in Kansas.

BY DAVID HUDNALL

CAFE

ARTS

Live Through This A cancer-centric collaboration pairs local arts luminaires with Gilda’s Club Kansas City.

BY LIBBY HANSSEN

PAGES

For advertising: stephanie.carey@pitch.com or 816-218-6702 For classifieds: steven.suarez@pitch.com or 816-218-6732

COVER

10th and Baltimore, by Chase Castor

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THE PITCH | March 2018 | pitch.com

CONTENTS

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Tokin’ of Appreciation Trippin’ down memory lane with Michael Brewer & Tom Shipley ahead of their 50th anniversary show.

BY DAVID HUDNALL

Cat Video Black Panther is a gamechanging superhero movie (but not for the reasons you might think).

BY ERIC MELIN

MUSIC

Full Plate James Dewees of Reggie and the Full Effect is a busy man these days.

BY AARON RHODES Knives Out Topeka noise-rap crew Young Mvchetes emerges from the shadows.

BY AARON RHODES

FILM

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CALENDAR

Going Out How to spend your March.

Letter from The Publisher It’s been a long time since I’ve written for print.

And to be honest, it’s not at all like riding a bike; this is my third attempt at trying to say something meaningful here.

The problem is, I want you to like me. But the reality of the situation is, there’s a chance you won’t.

In fact, some of you might flat out hate me and my team at times. But that’s part of what makes The Pitch so important.

My husband, Adam, and I bought The Pitch because we believe it is a critical voice for Kansas City, and one that deserves to be locally owned. Sometimes critical voices challenge us, pushing on uncomfortable issues. Sometimes those stories aren’t easy to read. Sometimes they aren’t “likable.” But they are necessary.

That’s why, for the first time in my life, I’m OK with you not liking me. (Fine: I’m working on being OK with you not liking me.)

No matter your feelings, I want you to share them. Call, text, email, tweet (though preferably don’t start some weird thread on our Facebook wall). Tell us what you think. I want The Pitch to be as much your independent voice as it is mine, or David’s, or the amazing team of writers you’ll find in these pages.

To help ensure I don’t tank this thing, I’m heading to Portland soon to meet with my fellow Association of Alternative Newsmedia publishers. I’ll likely be that annoying student in the front row who raises a hand to every speaker. I’ve already blown up the group’s listserv with 10,000 questions. (I’m pretty sure I owe a bunch of people drinks.) I hope to come back with a bunch of really cool ideas that we can implement here in Kansas City with our small but tenacious team.

Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy our first-ever Taco Week, which we’ve been hard at work putting together. And after you’ve stuffed your face with tacos, start saving some room for April’s Bacon & Bourbon.

So stay tuned, we’re just getting started.

Cheers, Stephanie @QueenofQuirky #OurPitch

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QUESTIONNAIRE

KELCIE MCKENNEY

Alley Gage LOCAL MAKEUP ARTIST, NOW A FACE OF SEPHORA

For its holiday advertising campaign, the beloved French cosmetics chain Sephora hired from within, so to speak. The company encouraged its 11,000 North American store employees to apply to be models in ads featured in Sephora store windows and a print and social-media campaign. Roughly 1,000 employees responded. Alley Gage, a senior makeup artist who works at a handful of Sephoras in Johnson County, was one of only 10 selected — and the only model from the Midwest. Get to know the girl in Sephora’s window.

Instagram: @alleygage Hometown: I grew up in Overland Park.

Current neighborhood: I live off Red Bridge, in south Kansas City. I really like it, too.

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THE PITCH | March 2018 | pitch.com

What did you do when you first saw your portrait up at Sephora? There was a reveal party with my coworkers and friends, and when I saw it, I stood there with my mom and cried. My mom said, “What would 13-year-old Alley say?” Because I was really severely bullied when I was growing up, so it was this moment of, like, You made it through all these things and now you’re the face of this beautiful company, and it was this super surreal thing.

Your drink: Black cold brew from the Roasterie. It’s my jam. I feel like I can taste the caffeine pouring into my veins. It’s really great.

How did you find out you’d be in Sephora’s campaign? The email went to work, so my best friend, Danielle, called me. She said, “You’re going to New York.” And I was

like, “For what?” She was like, “You’re going to be in the window. You’re in the holiday campaign. You got it!”

When did you first start using makeup?

I started using makeup when I was 11. I have a very cool mother.

What does Kansas City need more of?

More Ubers [and] public transportation in general. In Kansas City there are so many cool pockets, and if there was a way to weave things together, how cool would that be?

What is your soapbox? I think my soapbox is that not everyone’s path is the same.

You should go do what fills your heart and makes you excited to be alive. That, and wear lip liner! It’s the number one thing that’s neglected with makeup.

What is the last thing you laughed at?

My boyfriend singing me Britney Spears. It was amazing. He sang “Born To Make You Happy” on Instagram with a filter just to make me laugh, and it was spectacular.

How does makeup help with self-expression? I think makeup catches a bad

wrap — like you’re being vain or you’re being superficial, you’re hiding yourself — but for me, it’s my war paint. That’s why I put on makeup: I get ready to face the day.

I am currently binge watching... The Office is always on loop. It’s my favorite show; it captures my humor no matter how many times I’ve seen an episode.

Your favorite social media platform?

Instagram. I love to see through the eyes of another person. I think it’s a really great way to put yourself in someone else’s shoes.

The last book you read? Radical Self Love, by Gala Darling. It awesome. It’s also a really good book to read if you’re a single person because it teaches you how to be solid within yourself.

What’s your hidden talent? Rapping Childish Gambino and making beef jerky.

I’m an eclectic gal.

What makeup trend should we be on the lookout for? I think the biggest thing is really soft and polished makeup. In the last couple years, makeup has been a little

QUESTIONNAIRE

bit more graphic and intense, and I think [future] makeup is going to be more effortless and soft.

presents

What’s your guilty pleasure? Chocolatecovered gummy bears. I’ve gotten many people hooked.

The best advice you ever got? To go where you’re called. I always felt like, for me, I had an unconventional path in life. Listen to your inner voice and go where you need to. It has not failed me yet.

“I THINK MAKEUP CATCHES A BAD WRAP — LIKE YOU’RE BEING VAIN OR YOU’RE BEING SUPERFICIAL, YOU’RE HIDING YOURSELF — BUT FOR ME, IT’S MY WAR PAINT. THAT’S WHY I PUT ON MAKEUP: I GET READY TO FACE THE DAY.” ALLEY GAGE

The makeup artist inspiring you now?

Olga Tomina, @tominamakeup. Her work is insane. She does really beautiful, fresh, soft work, but her eye makeup is always elaborate and beautiful.

Who did you want to be when you grew up? Baby Spice. I was so obsessed with her.

When I was in kindergarten, I wrote my name as Emma on papers because I wanted to be Baby Spice.

What’s your greatest struggle right now? Time management is so hard, and right now I’m in the process of starting my own YouTube channel, balancing work, balancing a social life, being involved with church. It’s hard to find enough hours in the day.

Where’s dinner? This is such a hard question for me, because I love food and I love to try food. Ever since I went to New Orleans last summer I’ve been on a shrimp and grits kick. So, shrimp and grits from Summit Grill.

Your favorite products right now? Nars Super Power Matte Pigments: I can eat a cheeseburger with it, and it doesn’t move.

Tarte Park Avenue Princess Contour and Bronzing Palette: I can do my whole face with it in one; it’s a beautiful palette. Drunk Elephant Baby Facial: it’s like a peel in a bottle, and it gives you refreshed, retexturized, refinished skin.

What makes Kansas City special to you? I think my favorite thing about Kansas City is that it’s such a supportive community.

There’s this really deeply rooted, supportlocal mentality that I really love.

How does living in the Midwest change the way you approach beauty trends?

The Midwest woman is much more functional with makeup. I think a lot of people think you can’t do makeup beautifully in a quick amount of time, but you really can.

Best of Missouri Life Market Fair at Powell Gardens April 28-29, 2018 Join us at the beautiful Powell Gardens, Kansas City’s botanical garden, for a market fair featuring Missouri-made products you can buy straight from the artists and producers. Peruse dozens of booths with everything from artisan products to good eats right off the farm.

Other Entertainment Includes: • Historical reenactors such as Mark Twain and Daniel Boone • Professor Farquar’s Great American Medicine Show • Special flower display with 44,000 bulbs • Kids crafts and education programs • Food trucks

For more event information, visit MissouriLife.com/market-fair-info General admission tickets are available at the door.

Vendor booths are available at MissouriLife.com/market-festival.

Worst beauty trend of 2017? Overlymattified skin. pitch.com | March 2018 | THE PITCH

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STREETSIDE

CHASE CASTOR

Hometown Mall CAN LOCAL MAKERS HELP REVIVE OUR DYING MALLS? OAK PARK THINKS MAYBE.

BY ANGELA LUTZ

“Welcome to my little shop,” Tara Fay says, from behind a booth inside an Oak Park Mall storefront. Wearing royal blue heels, high-waisted jeans, and a vintage Metallica tee that shows off an array of colorful tattoos, Fay’s busying herself sorting thrift finds she snagged in Omaha the

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THE PITCH | March 2018 | pitch.com

previous evening. She somehow seems right at home here in this suburban mall, where she recently opened her clothing company, Peaches Vintage Collective, inside Boutique in a Box, a space for high-end, local retailers.

The Oak Park location is Fay’s third for Peaches, with the other two at River Market

Tara Fay (center) recently opened a new Peaches Vintage Collective location at Oak Park Mall.

TEN LOCAL VENDORS NOW RENT SPACE AT BOUTIQUE IN A BOX.

Antiques and Bella Patina in the West Bottoms. She started selling vintage about a year ago, largely pulling items from her own closet. With a retail background including a stint at Buffalo Exchange, Fay says seeing her business grow has been a “dream come true.”

She’s also an expert stylist, so if you love that black blazer adorned with multicolored race cars but aren’t sure how the hell to pull it off, she can offer pointers.

Fay’s personal style and enthusiasm are bringing sorely needed energy to the mall at

STREETSIDE

a time when online shops threaten its retail model. (The owners of Independence Center, for example, recently defaulted on a $200 million loan.) In a hope to turn the tide, Oak Park is drawing on local makers.

After a successful trial run over the holidays, Boutique in a Box space now boasts more than 10 local vendors who rent their spaces for anywhere from one weekend to a full year. The current lineup includes Local Legend, Sjokolade Fine Artisan Chocolates, Veil Haus, Emily’s Closet, KC Beard Co., Retro Kings KC, KC Hard Goods, Alchemy Bath Co., loKCal Urban Apparel, and RSeven Trade Co. Inside, the store feels like a miniature village, with the vendors drawing on each other’s energy.

According to Troy VanHorn, owner of Local Legend, which specializes in vintage men’s clothing, Boutique in a Box draws people to the mall who wouldn’t normally come there. VanHorn got involved with the project early on, and his company has helped round up new vendors and played a major role in its early success. So has social media.

“Kansas City is very locally driven, and Oak Park Mall knows they need to hit the local market,” VanHorn says, adding that with all of the Boutique in a Box vendors’ social media followers combined, roughly 50,000 people have heard about their move to the mall.

So far, so good for Fay. Her curated collection — classic band tees, leather jackets, kimonos, sparkly dresses, and even the occasional Royals shirt —is attracting a new audience out here in the burbs. Still, she’s not giving up her urban pop-up presence; she has an all-vintage fashion event planned for March 4 at Enhance Your Art (2800 Cherry), the day after the official grand opening of Boutique in a Box on March 3. As the mall’s only vintage vendors, she and VanHorn are both excited to introduce a new generation to recycled styles. Strangely enough, Oak Park Mall — arguably a vintage institution in the year 2018 — is beginning to seem like the right place for such discoveries to take place.

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Best Laid Plants IS CBD LEGAL IN KANSAS? NOBODY SEEMS TO KNOW.

BY DAVID HUDNALL

Perched behind the counter at Into the Mystic, Eddie Smith — gray beard, wavy hair, a black shirt beneath a soft black vest; Dr. Jacoby minus the menace — radiates a vaguely guru-like spiritual positivity.

“I love those singing bowls,” Smith says to a customer browsing his Mission, Kansas, shop. “I just love the way they move energy around the room.”

In addition to crystals and candles and Tibetan prayer flags and books about herbal alchemy, Smith’s shop sells cannabidiol, or CBD. People use CBD — it’s sold in oil, lotion, powder, tincture, and pill form — to relieve arthritis, anxiety, and various other medical conditions. If you live in the Kansas City area, you might have noticed an influx of places retailing CBD in recent years: head shops and alternative medicine outlets, as well as businesses like The CBD Store, which are devoted almost exclusively to the product.

Last May, a Mission Police Department detective walked into Smith’s shop and seized about $4,000 worth of his CBD products. His offense? Selling CBD that contained trace amounts of THC, the psychoactive compound in cannabis that gets you high. Much of Smith’s CBD inventory came

from American Shaman, a local company that manufactures the product. But American Shaman — and, by extension, Smith’s shop — was abiding by a federal law, part of the 2014 Farm Bill, that says CBD is legal so long as it contains .03 percent THC content or less.

Kansas authorities, though, seemed to be taking the view that products containing any amount of THC were illegal.

“After the raid in Mission, rather than fight Kansas, we decided to start making oil with zero THC,” says Vince Sanders, CEO of American Shaman.

The company now supplies all its Kansas stores with this product. (It distributes its products nationally and has over 60 storefronts in 11 states.) Smith began stocking his shelves with the non-THC CBD. Things returned to normal.

Then, in late January, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt handed down an opinion on the matter of CBD in Kansas.

Following a tortured and mazelike examination of state and federal laws, Schmidt declared that, “Under Kansas law it is unlawful to possess or sell products or substances containing any amount of cannabidiol.”

(Part of Schmidt’s rationale seemed to be a

Mar. 16

One Night of Queen performed by Gary Mullen and The Works

The spirit and passion of rock icon Freddie Mercury and the band Queen, comes to life on stage.

Apr. 7-8

TAO: Drum Heart

Featuring explosive taiko drumming and innovative choreography, direct from Japan.

Tickets on sale now!

jccc.edu/CarlsenCenter | 913-469-4445 NO ONLINE FEES | FREE PARKING | WINE & BEER AVAILABLE

pitch.com | March 2018 | THE PITCH

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STREETSIDE

ITS A

REAM

KC's Friendly Neighborhood smoke shop 2016 proclamation by the DEA that lumped cannabidiol in with marijuana, despite mountains of scientific studies contradicting this view.)

“So, we went from being allowed to sell .03 percent, to being allowed only to sell zero percent, to now where we have the AG saying, ‘Actually, you can’t sell it at all,’” says Sean Pickett, attorney for American Shaman. “The AG doesn’t understand the law, and we’re sending him a letter explaining our position. While we fight this, we’ll be sourcing all our Kansas CBD products from juniper instead of cannabis, but anything seized by authorities will be subject to civil litigation due to [the store’s] economic loss.

And if any shop owner is arrested, there will be a filing.”

The ACLU of Kansas has also called for lawmakers to step in and settle the matter.

In the meantime, Schmidt’s opinion puts shops like Into the Mystic, which generate a not-insignificant percentage of their income from CBD, in a precarious position. Interestingly, Schmidt’s opinion seems to have been solicited by the Johnson County District Attorney’s Office.

“We were getting calls from citizens asking us whether it was legal to possess CBD or not,” says JOCO prosecutor Steve Howe. “Our interpretation [last May] was that products containing any THC at all were illegal. After that [the raiding of Into the Mystic], we asked for the attorney general’s opinion on it, because we wanted more clarity on the law. And, as you saw, what we heard back is that CBD is a controlled substance and therefore illegal under current law.”

Smith says his lawyer has called around to counties all over the state, and none are actively enforcing the law as interpreted by Schmidt — except Johnson County, where his store sits. But he’s still selling CBD (the non-THC variety) despite Schmidt’s opinion. A glass case full of oils of various flavors rests beside the register, and near the entrance sits a rack of CBD-infused edibles.

“The whole goal of this shop is to get people off pharmaceuticals,” Smith says.

“Whether through CBD, yoga, meditation, human connectivity classes, or herbs. CBD healed my arthritis. It helps people with chronic pain. I’m not going to deny my customers that.”

Howe says his office is still evaluating how to proceed now that Schmidt has weighed in.

“We haven’t closed any shops, and we haven’t executed any search warrants,” Howe says. “I don’t know what he [Smith] is selling over there right now. I’m not going to say right now how we’re going to move forward on this.”

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THE PITCH | March 2018 | pitch.com

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Running on Empty WHY IS JOHNSON COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE ELIMINATING ITS RENOWNED TRACK PROGRAM?

BY ROXIE HAMMILL

It’s a 17-degree afternoon in January, and, save for a couple of bundled-up runners, the outdoor track at Johnson County Community College is predictably deserted.

The steeplechase water pit — a rare amenity for a community college program — is dry. Former JCCC runner Nick Cole gives a quick tour of the school’s track and field grounds, which includes a 400-meter track and a three-mile cross-country course. Then it’s back inside to the warmer confines of the school’s indoor track.

“Some of my best friends to this day came from this program,” says Cole, who ran for JCCC back in 2004 and 2005. “Friends I’ll keep for the rest of my life.”

Those friendships are likely to outlast the grounds on which they were forged. The college’s administrators and trustees decided last year, rather quietly, to end the track and cross country program at the school.

Come June, bulldozers will rip up the lanes of the outdoor track and tear out that steeplechase pit.

Cole and other alumni, community supporters, and coaches were stunned by the news. And they still don’t understand the rationale behind the decision. Why cancel a program that has been around 32 years, has 88 top-ten national finishes, 95 conference titles, and whose women’s track team has twice won the “Triple Crown” (cross country, indoor, and outdoor) in regional competitions?

“They say it’s about money, but this is the third-largest college in the state, in one of the richest counties in the country, and the only junior college with an indoor track, outdoor track, and cross country course all on the same campus,” Cole says. “Yet they couldn’t find a way to manage these nationally competitive programs on a lower bud-

get? Get real.”

For the past two years, JCCC’s biggest news has been about a major building project, the $102 million Facilities Master Plan that will add tech and arts buildings, renovate others, and give the campus front entrance a new look.

The track and the cross country loop on the campus’ west edge were included in that plan when it was first discussed in January 2016 and for several months afterwards, along with options on how to upgrade them.

By May, design consultants offered the possibility of relocating the track to the southwest corner of campus, closer to the crosscountry course. Soccer and softball fields would replace the current track.

The last presentation on the building

Former JCCC athletes Blake Koger (left) and Nick Cole are spearheading an effort to change the minds of JCCC trustees and administrators.

plan, in October 2016, still showed a track.

But that was soon to change.

The next mention of the track in JCCC Board of Trustee minutes is March 2017, when Randy Weber, vice president of student success and engagement, announced the program would close. Transcripts and minutes show no other back-and-forth about terminating the program, and there was no separate vote about the decision; it was considered as part of the larger building plan package. The decision was followed by a press release April 5 announcing the resignation of coach Mike Bloemker. “With that announcement, the college has decided to discontinue its men’s and women’s cross country and track programs, effective at the end of the 2017-18 academic year,” the release said.

That there was no public discussion prior to discontinuing the program is especially vexing to track advocates.

“Was there ever a real effort to investigate the impact that it is having in the community?” wonders Brian Batliner, former assistant coach at JCCC. “If there is evidence pitch.com | March 2018 | THE PITCH

11

NEWS On March 10, alumni and track supporters will walk the JCCC track in protes.

of that, I haven’t seen it.”

Another former track team member, Blake Koger, of Olathe, questions why there wasn’t a more spirited debate by the school’s governing body.

“A 32-year program, there’s certainly an emotional tie there,” Koger says. “If I had been on the board, I would say, ‘Let’s at least run it by some people.’ They should probably check with the general public or those who have ties to the program and test the waters first before closing the program.” (Among those who will be affected is the St. Thomas Aquinas High School track program, which lacks its own track and has used the JCCC track since 1988. Aquinas athletic director Sarah Burgess says there are no good alternatives on the horizon so far.)

Trustees and former trustees say eliminating the track program was discussed in various committee meetings and during consideration of the master plan, even though summary minutes of those meetings may not reflect it. The college, trustees say, has never put individual program closures up for public discussion in the past.

“We have hundreds of programs,” says Greg Musil, who was chairman of the trustees when the decision was made. “Every time you adjust one or eliminate one, if you’re going to have a specific agenda item for it — it just becomes pretty difficult to do.”

Musil adds: “I’m comfortable we gave enough notice and had input and enough public meetings that this decision wouldn’t have changed even with the demands for notice we’re hearing now.”

There’s a long and complicated list of reasons given for killing off the program, and just about everyone asked has a different take. Trustee Lee Cross, who said he opposed the decision in discussions, lays much of the blame on cuts to state funding under former Kansas Governor Sam Brownback.

Bloemker, JCCC’s most recent track coach, says the school had not kept up with rising costs for team travel and equipment, and the outdoor track was in need of resurfacing and storage space for hurdles. He’d

12

THE PITCH | March 2018 | pitch.com

asked for funding increases in recent years but hadn’t had any luck.

“It was hurting us in recruiting,” Bloemker says. “It was a frustrating situation for me. I’d gotten the feeling the last two or three years that they weren’t that interested.”

Administrators and trustees say eliminating the program was necessary to stop a fee increase that would have been needed to keep it going. That would have added $1 per credit hour to the $16 per hour they pay in student fees.

“We made a strategic decision to do fewer sports and do them the best we can,” JCCC president Joe Sopcich said at a recent trustee meeting where some track advocates asked the board to reconsider.

But why track and not the others?

“Cutting all sports has never been a consideration,” Weber says. Athletics benefits students, Weber adds, and “also draws in the community in ways other programs don’t.” He notes that it’s not uncommon to see hundreds of youth teams and their parents at the fieldhouse and soccer complex on a weekend.

Whereas demand for the track isn’t as high. When the college looked at requests for groups using its athletic facilities, it found the outdoor track lagging behind the indoor track and soccer field, which can be used for other things, Weber says. There hasn’t been an official meet on the outdoor track since 2010, perhaps because meets have gone to newer tracks in the conference that can charge a gate fee. (The college will keep the indoor track and cross-country course to rent to community users.) Ultimately, it seems, much of this boils down to the fact that JCCC can make more money renting out the soccer field than the outdoor track.

Sopcich and others define the mission of a community college as a place to provide an affordable education to students dealing with work and life setbacks. Former trustee Henry Sandate says the college is a “savior” to those students.

“I understand the [track] alumni’s pas-

“WE MADE A STRATEGIC DECISION TO DO FEWER SPORTS AND DO THEM THE BEST WE CAN.” JCCC PRESIDENT JOE SOPCICH

sion, believe me,” Sandate says. “If they sat in those meetings I think they would understand when we’re talking about educating minorities, educating single moms, educating dads who lost their jobs and are going bankrupt and can’t pay the mortgage. That puts it all in perspective. It was the right decision.”

Sopcich gave a similar reasoning. “I’m never going to raise the cost to a single mom with three kids struggling to get by and ask her to pay more in tuition so we can have an athletic program,” he said at the meeting.

“I’m not going to do it.”

But Batliner and company say that reveals a poor understanding of the community benefits of track and field. These are not pampered athletes, they say, but kids trying to bring up their grades and skills to perhaps have a shot at a four-year university they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford.

Track, with its long list of running, jumping and throwing events, draws kids of all socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, says J.J. Wannamaker, past president of the Kansas High School Track Coaches Association. “Young kids don’t have to have a lot of money to do it,” he says.

Single moms can benefit, too.

Jalisa White of Paola, for example. In 2011, White, then Jalisa Brice, had planned to study nursing as a recruit to a track program at a Wichita school. But after finding out she was pregnant, she instead went to JCCC for a year of online courses.

The track idea never left her, though, and watching the 2012 Olympics relit the fire. Remembering her recruiting talk with Batliner, she joined the team as a walk-on for a semester before securing a scholarship.

Now a neonatal nurse at a local hospital, White says the track coaching staff supported her through sicknesses and babysitter scheduling difficulties. The scholarship made it possible for her to limit work and spend more time studying while still making ends meet.

“I wanted to get back to that athlete I was prior to having the baby,” White says. “It pushed me not only to lose that baby weight but also show that just because you have a baby that doesn’t put your life on hold. You can still go and reach your dreams.”

On March 10, Cole, Batliner, and other alumni and supporters of the track program will hold a meet of sorts at JCCC. Over a thousand people have expressed interest in walking the college’s outdoor track that day as a sort of protest — the hope being that they might still somehow change the minds of the trustees and administrators.

In a hallway outside JCCC’s indoor track, Cole shouts to be heard over the din of the youth indoor soccer games being played.

“What kind of message does that leave,” he asks, “when you tear up the track that the community uses?”

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pitch.com | March 2018 | THE PITCH

13

NEWS The governor’s unwillingness to support plans for a new campus means UMKC Conservatory students will continue to inhabit aging facilities.

BARBARA SHELLY

Dance with the Devil WHO’S TO BLAME FOR UMKC’S CROSSROADS CONSERVATORY DEBACLE?

BY BARBARA SHELLY

The orchestra pit at the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s White Recital Hall is so shallow that recently a lanky conductor’s head kept popping into view during a performance.

That’s just scratching the surface of the hall’s deficiencies, says Diane Helfers Petrella, interim dean of the Conservatory of Music and Dance. White Hall has no wing space for performers to enter or exit. The wooden floor violates the standards of the National Association of Schools of Dance.

There is no space for dressing rooms.

“There are high schools in this area with better performance spaces,” says Helfers Petrella.

We descend a flight of stairs in the aging building that serves as the home base for a conservatory that is highly regarded for its faculty and programs, but constantly loses talented students because of its decrepit facilities.

On this floor, practice rooms are the size of closets; there are 30 of them for an enrollment of about 550 students. It’s typical to see 30 or more musicians lined up waiting for a space. Percussion instruments and concert pianos fill the beat-up hallways;

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THE PITCH | March 2018 | pitch.com

there is no place else to store them.

We keep going. A dance studio is battered and stuffy. “Like a dungeon,” Helfers Petrella says.

The interim dean gave a longer and even more depressing tour to members of Missouri Governor Eric Greitens’ staff last spring. Greitens was unmoved. A few weeks later, he obliterated UMKC’s meticulously assembled funding plan for a new conservatory with his trademark nastiness.

“Politicians are addicted to spending your money,” he said in a veto message June 28. “This year, they passed a bill that would put taxpayers on the hook for over $75 million to build and run a conservatory for dancers and art students. I’m vetoing the bill, and I’m ready to fight them on this.”

In those three sentences, Greitens demonstrated how little he knew about the plan for a new conservatory for the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Or about Kansas City.

Or higher education. Or the arts in general.

To begin with, the “art students” part was all wrong. If Greitens, a political neophyte,

“THERE ARE HIGH SCHOOLS IN THIS AREA WITH BETTER PERFORMANCE SPACES.” DIANE HELFERS PETRELLA (ABOVE), INTERIM DEAN OF UMKC’S CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC AND DANCE

had taken the time to learn anything about Kansas City, he would have understood that students of fine arts and design attend the Kansas City Art Institute, which is not affiliated with UMKC. The UMKC Conservatory enrolls students in disciplines such as instrumental studies, jazz studies, music education and, yes, dance.

Greitens’ dismissive veto message also painted a worst-case scenario of the project’s cost and ignored its potential. The new conservatory was to have been located across the street from the gleaming Kauffman Center of the Performing Arts. It would have drawn students from around the world.

“A fountain of youth,” one backer called it.

“Kansas City’s Juilliard,” others said, referring to the famed music academy in New York City. It was to be a signature triumph for a reviving downtown.

Greitens either didn’t know any of this or didn’t care. Then and now, the Republican governor’s connections to Kansas City’s political and civic leaders are virtually nonexistent.

Before Greitens’ veto brought everything to a screeching halt, plans to relocate UMKC’s Conservatory to a new downtown location had been gliding along. Led by Julia Irene Kauffman, who pledged $20 million in foundation dollars, UMKC raised $48 million in private donations. The Downtown Council secured a city block of land in the shadow of the performing arts center. All that remained was for the state of Missouri to support a public university by matching the privately raised funds.

The General Assembly had created such a path in 2012, when lawmakers approved the “50-50 match” to fund capital projects for colleges and universities. If schools could raise private funds for worthy projects, the state has a mechanism for funding the remainder.

But Missouri was facing its usual budget crunch last year. Boosters of the downtown conservatory knew a $48 million appropriation in one chunk was too much to ask for. So they proposed spreading the cost over multiple years by authorizing revenue bonds.

Jolie Justus, a former state senator who now serves on the Kansas City Council, expected resistance from the legislature’s sizeable contingent of fiscal hawks. She visited the Capitol to lobby for the funding, and was surprised to be greeted with almost universal enthusiasm.

“I didn’t have anything to do,” Justus recalls. “Everybody was already on board.”

Rep. Noel Shull, a Republican from Clay County and a retired banking executive, sponsored the bill in the House. He still refers to the project as “a dream.” The Republican majority leader of the Senate, Mike Kehoe of Jefferson City, carried the legisla-

NEWS The proposed site of the downtown campus.

tion in that chamber.

When the votes were taken, it wasn’t even close. The House supported the bill 117-39, and the Senate vote was 28-4.

“It was one of the only times I can remember when rural Missouri, urban Missouri, Republicans, and Democrats all came together,” says Warren Erdman, a Kansas City Southern executive and former chairman of the University of Missouri system’s Board of Curators.

All that remained was the governor’s signature.

Since taking office six months before, Greitens had shown more interest in jetting to out-of-state meetings with donors than he had in visiting Missouri’s largest city.

Mayor Sly James waited weeks to get an audience with him. Invitations to connect with the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Council, and other groups were met with silence.

“We have asked for meetings and haven’t gotten any,” Pam Whiting, the chamber’s spokeswoman, tells The Pitch.

“I haven’t seen a significant relationship between Greitens and any leader in Kansas City,” says Justus.

If anyone could have gotten the governor’s ear, it was thought to be Erdman. A former chief of staff to then-U.S. Senator Kit Bond, Erdman is a go-to person in Missouri GOP business circles. But Erdman tells The Pitch that he never talked directly to Greitens about the conservatory. Instead, he dealt with the governor’s staff.

“Certainly after the bill was passed, there was a concerted educational effort,” Erdman says.

People in Kansas City and the university system wrote letters and provided documentation to Greitens’ office. Erdman arranged the tour for staffers and met with them several times. “They were always very open to what I had to say,” he recalls.

But as the weeks passed with no word from the governor, the key players got nervous. On a Wednesday in late June, everything fell apart.

The University of Missouri System’s Board of Curators announced it was withdrawing the request for state funding. An official news release and statements from leaders gushed with false cheer. The project would be better off with private financing, they said. Construction could begin sooner.

The university wouldn’t have to continually seek bonding revenues from the legislature.

There would be a “reallocation of resources” and more entreaties to donors. University leaders would be ready with a new financing plan in September.

From the point of view of the legislature, where support for the conservatory was still strong, it looked as though the leaders of the University of Missouri system

were sucking up to Greitens. By pulling the project, university brass removed any possibility that lawmakers might embarrass the governor by overriding a veto. Perhaps, the thinking went, Greitens would return the favor with more generous appropriations for higher education.

With state funding no longer in play, Greitens had no need to veto the bill. But he did, with a flourish. On his Facebook page, Greitens displayed a photo of a bill with the word “veto” slashed across it, and followed up with his “dancers and art students” message.

September passed with no financing proposal from university leaders. In late January, local journalist Kevin Collison broke the news on his blog CitySceneKC that Kauffman was pulling her $20 million pledge. Her foundation had already extended its deadline several times. The vision of a downtown conservatory seemed to have been dealt a death blow.

The news sent UMKC spinning furiously into damage control. Interim chancellor Barbara Bichelmeyer and university system President Mun Choi co-authored a curious op-ed in The Kansas City Star. While half the piece was devoted to sounding a legitimate alarm about Missouri’s stingy investment in its flagship university system, the leaders also attempted to reassure Kansas City readers that a new conservatory would somehow be realized.

“We have been hard at work with renewed energy as we develop new ideas on how we might accomplish the project,” they wrote. “Rest assured, it continues to move forward. Expect word on those new developments soon.”

And so we wait. “We’re evaluating all of the options that are available,” Choi tells The Pitch. “We recognize [the conservatory’s] stature nationally and internationally. We believe in this very deeply.”

Although the university system announced in mid-February that C. Mauli Agrawal, vice president for academic affairs at the University of Texas at San Antonio, would take over as UMKC’s new chancellor in June, Bichelmeyer remains the point person for a conservatory plan, Choi said.

The downtown location remains a possibility, he said. So does a site on the Volker campus. A scaled-down version of the grand downtown campus plan seems likely. “We’re always looking for efficiencies where we can,” Choi says, “but we can’t undercut the academic purpose.”

Legislators who backed the original project say they’re ready to take another run at state funding, but they favor the downtown location.

“My sense is there is still interest in the House and Senate to provide legislation that would enable the conservatory to move

forward with the original plan next to the Kauffman Performing Arts Center,” Shull says.

Jason Holsman, a Democratic senator from Kansas City, says he also thought a funding plan could be revived for the downtown location, although it seems likely the pause may extend until the new UMKC chancellor is on board.

“We were in drive and now we’re in neutral,” he says. “The good news is we’re not in reverse.”

But Choi says he doesn’t foresee looking to the state for funding any time soon. If curators had hoped to curry favor with Greitens by pulling last year’s proposal, it didn’t work. The legislature and governor cut the state’s budget for higher education by 9 percent last year, and Greitens has proposed an additional reduction of nearly 8 percent this year. “I don’t believe we’re in a position to request additional financing from the state,” Choi said.

He said the university system would reach out around Missouri and the nation for alumni and other donors with a passion for the arts and Kansas City. But Choi is no longer predicting when the financing will come together. “Right now we are not in a position to have a target date,” he says.

“There may be a breakthrough a month from now, or it may take a while longer.”

While awaiting that breakthrough, it’s worth wondering whether things might have turned out differently last year if Kansas City leaders had found a way to build relationships with the aloof new governor.

As much as Greitens would like to think his fame as a former Navy Seal and author had spread far and wide, few people in these parts had heard of him before his longshot run for governor. Business leaders in the St.

Louis area, where Greitens lives, had donated to his veterans’ charity and joined him at black tie events over the years. Campaign finance records show donors from St. Louis far outpacing Kansas City in one measure he appears to value: campaign contributions.

But donors’ generosity doesn’t seem to have bought the St. Louis area any favors — or even access. The governor has poured ice water on the idea of state credits for a Major League Soccer stadium in St. Louis. And some legislators from the area say they’ve seen no sign that he works well with their business groups.

A politician seeking to build a legacy as a great governor would work to cultivate relationships, starting with leaders of his state’s largest cities. But apart from the one that threatens his political career — a creepy affair with a hair stylist in St. Louis — Greitens puts no energy into relationships in Missouri.

Kansas City Mayor James, whose face time with Greitens begins and ends with a barbecue lunch a year ago, doesn’t waste time wondering if he and others could have done something better or differently with the conservatory project.

“No, because that’s not his agenda,” James says. “His agenda is to get to D.C. It’s all about slashing and cutting and burning.”

Erdman, in a telephone conversation, sounds rueful. “We had the private money,” he says. “I felt like we had a window of opportunity to take advantage of that.”

The legislative support was a significant achievement, Erdman says. “I don’t think we could have done a better job with the legislature.”

And the governor?

“I’m sure we could have done something better,” Erdman says. “I don’t know what it could be.”

Only Greitens knows. And good luck getting him to talk. pitch.com | March 2018 | THE PITCH

15

SECTION NEWS

ZACH BAUMAN

Managing Diversity FAMILIES THAT ONCE FLED THE KANSAS CITY SCHOOL DISTRICT ARE STAYING PUT. BUT IT’S ON THEIR TERMS.

BY DAVID MARTIN

A short history of Kansas City Public Schools after Brown v. Board of Education: White people left.

It’s a complicated story. White families did not leave all at once. Some waited until the 1970s, when the buses started rolling.

Others departed when a white state senator led an effort to break off a piece of the district and attach to the Independence school district. The secession may sound like something that happened when Nixon or Reagan was president. It was 2007.

In the end, white flight proved unstoppable. By 2010, the year the district closed almost half its schools, total enrollment had fallen to a quarter of what it was in the 1960s.

What remained is a high concentration of poverty and students of color. Today, the district is 57 percent black and 28 percent Latino. The district qualifies for a

16

THE PITCH | March 2018 | pitch.com

federal program that provides free meals to every student.

But across the district, middle-class families — yes, white middle-class families — are finding ways to stay in neighborhoods west of Troost Avenue without having to send their kids to private school.

In Waldo, parents and community members lobbied the district to reopen an elementary school. Give us a school, the neighborhood said, and we’ll send our kids.

Families kept the promise. Now in its fifth year, Hale Cook Elementary School is operating at capacity, with a student body that’s 63 percent white.

New charter schools are also attracting families that might have moved to Johnson County once the kids were ready for kindergarten. Crossroads Charter Schools runs three schools inside the downtown loop.

Citizens of the World Kansas City leases a

building near the corner of Broadway and Armour boulevards.

Citizens of the World opened in 2016 to students entering kindergarten and first grade. Today about 225 students attend the school, which will to continue to expand as its initial classes advance in grade level.

One third of Citizens of the World’s students are white, which may not sound like much. But at most Kansas City Public Schools, whites are in a distinct minority; they represent less than 10 percent of the total enrollment. Some charter schools that operate in the district are even more intensely segregated.

Citizens of the World’s diversity is not an accident. School officials set goals for different racial categories and try to keep the number of students who receive free and reduced-priced lunches at 50 percent, which is more in line with the state average than

Kansas City Public Schools.

Citizens of the World is part of a trend in K-12 education known as “diverse by design.” These schools use geographic preference areas and other tools to build student populations that are racially, culturally, and socioeconomically diverse.

In urban education, though, “diversity” is a ticklish concept —a goal that seems to be achieved only when white professionals feel comfortable putting their kids in the schools.

The parents and community members who led the effort to open Citizens of the World, a charter school in the heart of midtown, organized in 2013. They called their group the Midtown Community School Initiative.

The initiative began with a small group of families. The Kansas City school district was at a low point. A few years after the district closed 29 schools because of declining enrollment, the state withdrew its accreditation. (The district currently operates with provisional accreditation.)

The organizers decided to create a new

NEWS Citizens of the World is managed by a national network of charter schools that promotes its success in attracting white families.

charter school. They put forth their vision in a request for proposals sent to potential school operators. “Our neighborhoods are unique in that it’s common for a $300,000 home to be on the same block as a low-income apartment complex,” the request said.

“Our neighbors are waiters and lawyers, university professors and college students, disabled veterans and corporate executives.”

Lawyers and professors may live in midtown, but few send their kids to Faxon or Longfellow, its two district elementary schools. The request for proposals lamented the “lack of viable school options” in the immediate area, leading to the “annual exodus of young, middle-class families.”

So how does one create a viable option for professionals with school-age children?

Boundaries.

The Midtown Community School Initiative proposed a geographic preference area: Union Station on the north, State Line on the west, Brush Creek on the south and 71 Highway on the east.

Most of the people who live in this footprint are white. As it happened, the job of managing the school went to a national network of charter schools that promotes its success in attracting white families.

Citizens of the World Charter Schools is based in Los Angeles. The network opened its first school in Hollywood in 2010 and now operates six schools in L.A., New York, and Kansas City.

The “reflecting community diversity” page on the website for Citizens of the World Los Angeles uses colorful pie charts to present the demographics of its three schools. The charts show white students make up at least 45 percent of the enrollment at each school.

A plurality of white students is uncommon in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where the schools operate. At L.A.’s traditional public schools, white students represent just 9.8 percent of the total enrollment. The vast majority are Latino.

THE MIDTOWN COMMUNITY SCHOOL INITIATIVE PROPOSED A GEOGRAPHIC PREFERENCE AREA: UNION STATION ON THE NORTH, STATE LINE ON THE WEST, BRUSH CREEK ON THE SOUTH AND 71 HIGHWAY ON THE EAST.

The organizers of what came to be known as Citizens of the World Kansas City do not shy away from the question of race. Andrew Johnson, a co-founder of the Midtown Community School Initiative, acknowledged the “collective failure of white culture to embrace black citizens into full citizenship” in a 2015 op-ed in The Kansas City Star. Johnson wrote the column after the Kansas City school district and Académie Lafayette, the popular French immersion charter school in Brookside, broke off negotiations to open a high school.

Johnson included some personal history in the op-ed. He described how his father’s family moved just outside the Kansas City district once busing began. “Right or wrong, that was their reality, and my inheritance,” he wrote.

By the time Citizens of the World Kansas City applied to the state for a charter, the organizers redrew the boundaries of the geographic preference area. The new map pushed deeper into the city’s black neighborhoods. The eastern boundary is

now Prospect Avenue. Luke Norris, a South Hyde Park parent and founding chair of the school’s board of directors, says families in the area are 45 percent white and 45 percent African-American.

Diversity, Norris says, is a core value at Citizens of the World. “Diversity for us has been a very founding principle of everything that we do, really with the goal being that students have an opportunity to interact from, but also understand, how other students learn and do that in a diverse environment,” he says. The school also promotes its commitment to personalized instruction and other forward-thinking approaches.

Its application to the state indicates that school officials anticipated holding a lottery for seats. But now in its second year, Citizens of the World is not operating with a waitlist. As a result, students who live in the Kansas City school district but outside the geographic preference may enroll.

Without a boundary to design the diversity, the school isn’t hitting its targets.

pitch.com | March 2018 | THE PITCH

17

NEWS

School officials can’t set quotas based on race. But they have set goals for the applicant pool.

Citizens of the World school provided The Pitch with diversity statistics. The school is 49 percent black, 33 percent white, 8 percent Latino, 9 percent mixed race and 1 percent Asian/Pacific islander. The document indicates the enrollment of black students is running slightly above the target (42–48 percent), while the Latino population is falling below (12–18 percent.) In response, the school expanded the size of its board of directors and asked a Latino executive at Truman Medical Center to fill one of the seats.

Managing the diversity is a continuous process. School officials say they are mindful of their demographics when they make decisions about facilities, field trips, and other aspects of the school.

“It has to be the first priority in every single decision every day,” Kristin Droege, the school’s executive director, says.

“There’s no neat answer to it. It just can’t ever be less important than anything.”

The Kansas City school district closed Hale Cook Elementary in 2009. The ef-

18

THE PITCH | March 2018 | pitch.com

fort to re-open the building at 73rd Street and Pennsylvania Avenue began at a Ward Parkway Homes Association meeting.

“The primary problem we saw was an empty school building in our neighborhood,” says Sarah Darmitzel, a founding board member of the Friends of Hale Cook.

In 2012, Friends of Hale Cook prepared a feasibility study and presented it to the district. Hale Cook, the study said, was an opportunity to capture families who had given up on the district. Blunt in places, the 74-page study noted the “record low” number of white students attending district schools and “escalating numbers” of students who receive free and reduced-price lunches.

Friends of Hale Cook worked with three different superintendents before the district agreed to re-open the school.

Boundaries for the neighborhood school extend east of Troost but not too far.

An initial cohort of kindergartners and first graders met at Hartman Elementary School while Hale Cook was being renovated. The building reopened in 2014. Today, the building offers grades K-5, with a sixth grade planned for next year.

Darmitzel says it’s been surreal to watch the process grow from a seed of an

idea. A mother of three, she’s now a Hale Cook parent. Her eldest is a first grader at the school.

The rebooted Hale Cook drew criticism that families in Brookside and Waldo had created an enclave for themselves. Supporters of the effort say the district benefits from the boost in enrollment as well as an infusion of social capital.

District officials talk about Hale Cook as a success story.

Hale Cook was open by the time Mark Bedell became the superintendent of Kansas City Public Schools in 2016. Bedell says he is proud of the effort of the parents and community members to create a strong neighborhood school.

“What they said they were going to do, they actually delivered on,” he says. “They followed through on it. To this day, they are still supporting those efforts.”

Bedell speaks less positively about the effort to reopen Southwest High School.

A group called Uniting at Southwest is calling for a full rebrand of the Brookside landmark, promising innovation. The organizers emphasize the “problem-based learning” approach the new high school will take. Students will learn by doing rather than shuffle from lecture to lecture.

A hip curriculum is not the only new idea. United by Southwest’s organizers also have thoughts about what the enrollment should look like. Diversity by design is one of the school’s guiding pillars. “We know we want a diverse high school,” says Phyllis Williams, a Uniting at Southwest spokeswoman.

Additionally, the organizers want a level of autonomy from the district that Friends of Hale Cook had not sought.

District officials see in Uniting at Southwest an effort to build a moat. In late January, Bedell spoke at a meeting of the Waldo Tower Homes Association. He encouraged United at Southwest’s supporters to build a case that reopening the school would be good for the district as a whole and not just the people who live near it. “It needs to very inclusive, whatever we decide to do over here,” he said.

Bedell addressed a mostly white audience. One man who spoke at the meeting said he lived near Southwest High School. A Uniting at Southwest supporter, he shared his observation that the high school went downhill after they “bussed in the thugs from Westport.”

Bedell thanked the man for his comments and moved on.

CAFE

Don’t Get Too Comfortable

PLAZA NEWBIE PARKWAY SOCIAL KITCHEN TRIES TO RIDE THE COMFORT-FOOD WAVE.

BY LIZ COOK

A few phrases fill me with instant dread: “The President has tweeted.” “Cash bar.”

And lately: “Elevated comfort food.”

What started as benign ad copy has curdled into a malignant sign that I’m about to pay $20 for mac and cheese served in a cute cast-iron pan sized for the slender paws of a small weasel.

At Parkway Social Kitchen, the latest project for restaurateurs Zach Marten and Bret Springs, the fancy-mac tradition is alive and well. Parkway’s website boasts of “rustic elegance” and “elevated comfort foods,” and the food is, with little exception, comforting. But a timid menu and a disappointing bar program add up to a restaurant that has yet to elevate itself to its potential.

Six months ago, Parkway Social Kitchen strolled into a cozy corner spot on Ward Parkway formerly occupied by Coal Vines.

The restaurant’s floor plan has improved from its Coal Vines days: the new dining

FOOD

room feels convivial and casual, wrapped around a slender bar that enlivens the space without dominating it.

Local restaurant groups Back Napkin and Trident collaborated on the design, which feels like a cozier version of Don Draper’s Park Avenue apartment. The style is subtle midcentury, with plenty of warm wood and channel-tufted black leather. The resulting atmosphere is both upscale and unpretentious, the sort of place where you can imagine a man in cargo shorts sharing tots with a dressed-up blind date.

About those tots: Parkway’s appetizer selection is modest, but the pepper-jackstuffed tater tots — really, croquettes in a t-shirt — are the undisputed star. The ones I ordered arrived seven to a bowl, each the size of a hushpuppy and the color of a deepfried gold medal. The breading was crisp, the stuffing was rich, and the interiors were tender but held their shape. The tots arrived

GIFTS

ZACH BAUMAN

alongside cups of honey mustard and ketchup. Neither of those sauces made a whole lot of sense to me, but the pepperjack was unassertive enough that it didn’t compete.

The dinner menu is an odd mix of midpriced sandwiches and black-tie entrees.

Although much of the menu was already in place when executive chef John Hammack (formerly of Houston’s) climbed aboard, he’s executed it competently. The “gourmet mac and cheese” here almost earns its $16 price tag. In the version I tried, the house blend of pepper jack, cheddar, and

cream cheese melted into a thick, velvety sauce that swaddled each toothy cavatappi noodle. The portion was generous, and the accompanying Caesar salad arrived with attractive, well-seasoned cornbread croutons.

But the flavor profile was more classic and kid-friendly than “gourmet.” I wouldn’t say no to a stronger-flavored hard cheese in the mix — or some more grown-up toppings.

As classics go, I preferred the tuna salad sandwich. The delicate flavors of Parkway’s steamed, sushi-grade tuna shone through the minimalist mayonnaise-and-onion

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dressing; the only adornments were hearty slices of bread toasted an appealing walnutbrown.

Parkway’s bolder offerings — and “bold” here is a fairly low bar to clear — feel less thoughtfully composed. I’m thinking of a grilled chipotle chicken sandwich with an inexplicably butterflied breast. Though the flavors were solid, the chicken was too thin, tasting less like the main event and more like a layer of meat frosting.

The prime rib sandwich was decidedly meatier, piled high with pleasingly pink ruffles of wafer-thin prime rib and plated alongside a savory cup of jus. The “housemade French baguette” was thin, pliable and whisper-soft; I’m partial to a chewier bread for my dips, but it held up well to the jus.

Still, I expected something transcendent given the $19 price tag. The caramelized onion cream cheese spread was too meek — most of the flavor punch came from a cup of uninspiring horseradish sauce that could have been siphoned from a certain fast-food chain.

The sandwiches come with a generous portion of seasoned fries. I sampled a few on each visit, and they were consistently crisp and comforting. Seasoned French fries are the kind of thing that keeps me up at night: show me a thick, spice-rouged fry, and I’ll show you a girl who’s already imagining licking the salt and paprika from her fingertips. Parkway’s fries almost live up to the fantasy. The color is there, but the spice blend needs a boost.

A few dishes highlight a more adventurous sensibility. The braised ribeye chili I sampled on one visit was richly flavored, with tender shreds of steak drowned in a vibrant, rust-red tomato gravy. The New Orleans red bean soup was similarly sharp, blanketing fleshy beans with smoky andouille sausage and untamed heat.

And I had no reservations about the Prairie Farms pork chop, which showcases Hammack at his best. The 16-ounce chop is seared in a wood-fired oven, giving the pork a faintly smoky profile and slightly charred edges. When I ordered it, the apple-bourbon glaze was tangy and molasses-thick, and each bite was moist and fork-tender. I was no less enamored of the accompanying sweet potato slices, which are thick as steaks, roasted until soft and creamy, and brushed to caramel sweetness with a maple glaze.

The Danish baby back ribs were solid, though in a town famous for smoked meats, the standards are perhaps unfairly high.

Hammack cooks them well: the meat is fall-off-the-bone tender, if a little bland on its own. (Without a smoker on the premises, Hammack has to make due with liquid smoke — I’ve zero issue with this method, but he could use a heavier hand). But the star is the house barbecue sauce, which is perfectly balanced: a little sweet, a little

ZACH BAUMAN

Parkway Social Kitchen 616 Ward Parkway 816-214-5616 parkwaykansascity.com

Hours Monday–Wednesday 11 AM–11 PM Thursday 11 AM–12 AM Friday–Saturday 11 AM–1:30 AM Sunday 11 AM–10 PM Prices Cocktails $10–12 Appetizers: $9–17 Entrees: $12–44 Best bet: Come for the tater tots; stay for the Prairie Farms glazed pork chop and roasted sweet potato.

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Bring this Coupon in to any of our locations tangy, a little fruity. An astringent side of dill slaw provides an ideal accompaniment.

I had high hopes for the roasted halfchicken, which at Parkway is brined and wood-fired. I tempered those hopes when my server apologized after I ordered it. “I’m sorry,” she said in a conciliatory stage whisper, “but the chicken has both white and dark meat. Is that OK?” Yes, that was OK. I love roast chicken with a passion I reserve for few things — chubby dogs, dirty martinis. And I’m used to dark meat getting the short shrift. Many diners would prefer the whole chicken were a Lovecraftian assemblage of boneless breasts, flapping limply around the coop like a sedated eel. I expected the leg and thigh meat to be treated like an afterthought.

Instead, they were perfect, the crisp skin lightly kissed by a wood-fired flame.

The breast was the trouble: the flavor was sharp, but the meat was overcooked to a chalky, mealy texture. The sides smoothed things over. I’m still thinking about a forest of tender broccolini draped in a sticky web of grana Padano and a hill of rustic mashed potatoes that were creamy, if a bit underseasoned.

A bigger problem: although Parkway Social Kitchen feels like an ideal place to grab a drink, the drinks aren’t yet worth grabbing. The ambience is cocktail-hour hip in both the main dining room and the lounge, a secluded basement area where jazz trios swing and patrons perch on red velvet couches framed by riveted metal columns and glitzy damask wallpaper. But the cocktails need work. Parkway’s menu has seven permanent options — all of which are sweet, and nearly all of which are too sweet.

The Lady Ella looked great on paper: rosemary-and-pear-infused gin, a stiff ginger liqueur, cranberry juice. In person, the drink tasted harsh and sugary, crying out for tarter, brighter notes. The King of Swing had a bit more body, thanks to a generous splash of St. Germain. But a syrupy sweetness crowded out the other flavors. I could detect neither the characteristic bitterness of the promised Aperol nor the acidic bite of the grapefruit and lime. The Last Word was the best of the drinks I tried, largely due to an assertive warmth from the green Chartreuse that could tame and temper the sweet. Still, I’m not sure I’d order it again — and I like Parkway’s vibe enough that I’d love to sit and sip on something.

In atmosphere alone, Parkway Social Kitchen is a novel addition to the Plaza. It’s rare to find a space that feels both Chiefsgame casual and date-night cool. But diners have more than a few nearby options for comfort food at fine-dining prices. To live up to Parkway’s promise, Back Napkin and Trident may need to spend less time elevating the classics and more time elevating what makes their food and drinks unique.

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ZACH BAUMAN

Next Chapter

NOVEL’S NEW EAST CROSSROADS SPACE REPRESENTS MORE THAN JUST A CHANGE OF SCENERY.

BY APRIL FLEMING

When people describe the five-year-old Westside restaurant Novel, they inevitably use words that allude to its modest confines.

Intimate. Romantic. Cozy.

These descriptions are plenty accurate.

But they describe an atmosphere that owners Ryan Brazeal and Jessica Armstrong never intended for their restaurant. Despite all Novel’s genuine charms — from the rich, warm wood that lines its walls and floors to its location in a turn-of-the-century shirtwaist house in one of the city’s most desirable neighborhoods — the couple is ready to leave it behind. They are eager to leave it behind.

“We outgrew the space before we opened the doors,” Brazeal says, sipping coffee six weeks before he plans to close those very doors and relocate Novel to the East Crossroads. “Our reception in Kansas City exceeded my wildest expectations.”

The Westside space (previously home to Lil’s) just happened to be available at a time when Brazeal had moved to Kansas City from New York and was looking to open his first restaurant. Operating in a 100-year-old residential home meant he had to tailor his menu to accommodate such an atypical dining space. The kitchen is small, the corners tight. A stairwell separates the kitchen and many of the guests. If Novel was a sleepier type of restaurant, such quirks might have been easier for Brazeal and Armstrong to stomach. But the place was

22

THE PITCH | March 2018 | pitch.com

a hit right out of the gate. And what many guests found charming about Novel were the exact same things giving the owners logistical headaches.

“The staircase is in the middle of the house,” Brazeal sighs. “That I-Beam is in the way. Whenever it rains, water comes through the ceiling. Utility bills are three times the rent. Some people love it, but the [main complaints] are: It’s too small, it’s too tight, it’s too hot, it’s too cold. To run a successful business, you can’t have people turning around and walking out.”

And so, on Saturday, March 24, Novel will serve its last meal at 815 West 17th Street before hopping a mile east to 1927 McGee, in the East Crossroads. There, Novel will inhabit a space that Brazeal and Armstrong own and that they have designed from the ground up.

The move represents more than just a change of scenery. Brazeal and Armstrong are aiming to shed Novel’s reputation for being a fussy, special-occasion type of spot for romantic dates. They mean to appeal to a broader base of customers. They want larger parties than two or four. They want groups of men to feel like this is a spot for them.

Ditto for groups of women. They are clear: This is a different restaurant.

Designwise, that is plenty clear. The East Crossroads space looks nothing like the old Novel. The wood paneling has been swapped out for clean, modern lines, a white granite

“WHEN WE OPENED, WE DIDN’T HAVE ANYTHING TO PROVE. NOW, I FEEL LIKE PEOPLE HAVE EXPECTATIONS — EVEN INFLATED EXPECTATIONS — OF WHAT THEIR EXPERIENCE IS GOING TO BE LIKE.” RYAN BRAZEAL

bar, lots of natural light, and a palate of neutral tones. A 50-foot-long, five-foot-high tile mosaic mural designed by artists Peregrine Honig and Laura Redlen — an homage to the Crossroads and downtown — lines one of the restaurant’s walls. The restaurant will seat about 62 diners, with additional patio space opening up when the weather’s nice.

Brazeal’s East Crossroads menu is less of a departure. It will continue to be a smallplates-centric restaurant. Many of the menu items, though, will be more focused and less precious, Brazeal says. He believes the time is right to showcase his growth as a chef.

“It’s about taking some of the chef ego out of it,” he says. “We’ll keep [starters and small plates] fun, but then we’ll add some pastas, and with the entrees I just want to exhibit a little more focus, take away some of the more extraneous components of the dish. Maintain the complexity, but make it a little more elegant and pure, and perhaps in doing so, make it more approachable.”

Brazeal says he’ll be able to achieve this, in part, because the restaurant is no longer in a position where it must offer less conventional proteins — lamb’s necks, pig’s trotters — simply to make ends meet. Those cheaper meats (which allow for higher profit margins but are time-consuming to prepare) won’t disappear from the menu, but customers at the new Novel can expect higher-end cuts of meat like premium strip steaks.

“I don’t want to tell the customers how to eat,” says Brazeal. “If you want to pick and choose from the starters and create a tasting menu of smaller plates, you can do that. But if you’d rather follow a standard format and order an appetizer, entrée and dessert, you can do that. The customers get to design the type of experience that they want to have.”

Armstrong, an accomplished pastry chef, will be more physically present at the new Novel. Because of space limitations on 17th Street, she was often working on desserts during the day in the restaurant’s basement; a Novel chef or cook would typically plate for her. In the new space, Armstrong will be able to plate her own desserts during service. She also aims to make some changes to what she’s offering Novel’s customers: larger, more creative desserts that push her talents further.

The couple knows the risks involved with moving to the Crossroads primetime.

“It’s exciting and daunting,” Brazeal says.

“When we opened, we were unknown. We didn’t have anything to prove. We felt like underdogs. Now, I feel like we’re more established, and sometimes people have expectations — even inflated expectations — of what their experience is going to be like. We need to live up to those, and that’s something we push every day — not resting.

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DRINK

LIZ COOK

Patience, Please

BKS ARTISAN ALES IS MAKING GREAT BEERS. BUT THEY’RE NOT EASY TO COME BY.

BY LIZ COOK

Stanning for BKS Artisan Ales, the fourmonth-old brewery in what we are now calling East Brookside, can be deeply frustrating. Although the beers are ready for the limelight, the business seems trapped in a perpetual state of rehearsal. The brewery doesn’t fill growlers, citing quality control and production volume concerns. It doesn’t sell beer flights, though the tap list is long enough to demand one. Cans and bottle releases are limited — BKS may have only one option for beers-to-go, when it has one at all. And the small, sunny taproom is only open four hours a week.

I love these beers. But I can’t help but feel like I’m watching Lin-Manuel Miranda opening Hamilton as a one-night engagement at the YMCA. Still, the brewery has a couple things going for it over others twice its age: quality and variety.

Owners Brian and Mary Rooney tap eight beers each weekend, often rotating in

26

THE PITCH | March 2018 | pitch.com

a special release or experimental version of one of their signature beers. Count on having a couple Belgians, a couple IPAs, a milk stout, and an English mild ale to choose from.

Although hopheads are well-represented here, they have little reason to stray from the Antithesis, a rock-solid Midwestern IPA that clocks in at a sneaky 6.8 percent ABV. The mix of Chinook, Mosaic, and Simcoe hops in the version I tried gave Antithesis bite without sacrificing body. While this beer might not convert IPA haters, it will go a long way toward convincing them the style doesn’t have to be a palate-punisher. Here, the bitterness is balanced with a soft, sunny sweetness: pale malts do for the hops what the Police did for Sting.

The other hoppy ales I tried were bold, but a little less complex. The Counterculture IPA was a cover model, pouring an opaque yolk-yellow and bearing strong resemblance to a mimosa. But the flavor profile was

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blunter than I’d hoped. The Tiny Clouds, a 4.5 percent hoppy blonde ale, was similarly one-note, with an almost metallic tang from the intense Citra hops.

The sour styles are more consistent. If I were left to my own bad impulses (and the taproom were open a little longer), I could easily drink a case of Fleur de Citra, a dryhopped and soured saison-style ale with tart lemon notes and round, juicy flavors. Citra and Azacca hops added body to the beer without too much bitterness.

I was equally infatuated with the Vacation Island, a rotating sour taking inspiration from different vacation drinks — on my visits, Bahama Mama, Blueberry Pina Colada and Cucumber Margarita. I’m still dreaming about the Cucumber Margarita, a wholly unique beer at the top of my “Drop Everything And Drink” list (nevermind the acronym) when it shows up on the menu.

The cloudy sour balanced the mouthwatering aroma of a Sour Patch Kid with the clean, slightly savory notes of a garden cucumber. Each sip teetered between sweet and sour, bursting with brisk citrus flavor and vegetal freshness. Credit to the Rooneys for ensuring this comes in below 4 percent ABV, because this is exactly the kind of beer I want to “session.” (Has there ever existed such a perfect, Frank-Luntz-grade euphemism for binge drinking?)

Many of BKS’s limited releases have the appeal of permanent fixtures. I’m thinking of a special batch of Rockhill and Locust, a rendition of the brewery’s signature English mild ale that added Oddly Correct’s Paupa New Guinea Waghi Valley coffee to the mix. English milds are often too thin for my taste — it takes some eccentric malts to keep things interesting. But at BKS, the infusion of complex coffee lent the beer a welcome bitterness and a rounder mouthfeel. The result was a beer with as much character as its paler castmates.

Even the rare misses are novel enough to be worth sampling. I’ve pledged allegiance to BKS’s Holstein Milk Stout before — the rich coffee and chocolate flavors and silky smooth texture make this the platonic ideal of the style. But I missed those cranky coffee notes in the Maple Holstein release, which was packed with maple flavor but too sweet for a full pour. A four-ounce tasting glass — the kind you might find on one of those elusive beer flights — would be ideal.

BKS works in mysterious ways, and those ways don’t yet include catering to fussy fans like me. For now, more patient drinkers can enjoy a beefy taplist full of lively beers.

For the rest of us, there’s good news: the Rooneys are already working on expanding their space to up production volume, and they’re testing Sunday hours in March. With a little luck, this promising brewery might soon have the time and space to welcome the audience it deserves.

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“Blowing Our Minds”

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Sunflowers and Rainbows C.J. JANOVY’S NO PLACE LIKE HOME UNEARTHS THE FORGOTTEN STORIES OF THE FIGHT FOR LGBT RIGHTS IN KANSAS

BY DAVID HUDNALL

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The Pitch Kansas City

28

THE PITCH | March 2018 | pitch.com

“Often,” C.J. Janovy writes of the gayrights activists in her book, No Place Like Home: Lessons in Activism from LGBT Kansas, “these citizens knew they would lose, or that they might win at city hall but that their victory might be reversed by angry petitioners. But part of the point was to engage in a few months of debate that brought news coverage, forcing their friends and neighbors to think about things that had never occurred to most people in these communities.”

It’s one of many passages in the book illuminating how the lives of activists, wherever they may live, are often so very Kansan: hardscrabble, precarious, requiring of pluck, persistence, and faith. No Place Like Home was published in January by University Press of Kansas, an academic imprint, but Janovy’s book reads mostly like a work of boots-on-the-prairie reporting. (She is currently a reporter and editor at KCUR and was editor of The Pitch from 2000 to 2010.) Janovy traverses the state and tracks down the most vital and compelling voices in the fight for LGBT rights during the es-

sential decade leading up to the legalization of gay marriage in 2015. She dusts off their stories and serves them up to us in bright detail: an economic development director ambushed by bigoted locals in Trego County; the formation of a gay-straight alliance at a Hutchinson high school; grassroots efforts to expand LGBT rights in places like Manhattan, Salina, and Roeland Park; and, of course, the neverending legislative battles in Topeka.

In late January, Janovy gave a reading at the Lawrence Public Library attended by several of the activists profiled in No Place Like Home. A few days later, she dropped by Monarch Coffee to chat about the book.

The Pitch: One of the things that struck me about the book was how granular it is — how it really drills down on the tiny, often-forgotten details on which movements hinge. A blizzard in Topeka gives reporters the extra day they need to untangle some intentionally confusing anti-gay legislation. Somebody votes a certain way because they don’t want to

“WHEN I STARTED DRIVING OUT INTO KANSAS AND MEETING THESE INCREDIBLE PEOPLE, I FELT A GREAT RESPONSIBILITY TO TELL THEIR STORIES.” C.J. JANOVY

PAGES

lose their chairmanship of some committee. Was it important to you to capture that level of detail?

Janovy: That’s the stuff people I talked to told me mattered the most. I’ve always believed that what happens in state capitals is so much more important to real people — to citizens — than what happens in Washington. And those details you mention, that’s how statehouses work. Most people don’t even know who their state reps are, but they make these huge decisions that really, truly affect your life. And my feeling is that, if you’re paying attention to those details, everything that goes into those decisions is just as dramatic and important as what happens in Washington.

Not to make this about The Pitch, but many of the stories in the book took place during the years you were editing The Pitch. Was that one of the ways you found your way into these stories?

Really, not much in the book comes from my Pitch days. We did some stories about Jerry Johnston, who was one of three pretty high-profile, media-hungry ministers that was pushing the marriage-amendment [which banned gay marriage] bandwagon in Kansas. I remember I wrote about him in 2005, when we got the first intimations that he might have some money trouble.

Judy Thomas at the Star did a whole series of stories on him that exposed him for the charlatan he was. I also wrote a column in 2004 saying gay marriage was the dumbest idea I’d ever heard.

How come? It wasn’t our issue, marriage.

It was kind of foisted on us in 2004, when [George W. Bush advisor Karl] Rove and the GOP saw it could be a great issue for them to get their base out. For me, and for many others, we just didn’t want to get fired from our jobs or kicked out of our apartments for being gay. We wanted access to healthcare and public accommodations. The marriage issue felt like a distraction from that.

Why did you decide to write this book, and when? There was this weird two-year moment between 2013 and 2015, where you had these inconsistent laws. [In 2013, the Supreme Court found unconstitutional a federal law restricting marriage to oppositesex couples, but it changed little for states — including Kansas and Missouri — that had passed legislation banning gay marriage.]

I thought, This is a very strange moment in American culture. And I also felt that there

was no better place to write about it than Kansas. We’re in the middle of the country, we’ve got Westboro [Baptist Church, famous for its anti-gay rhetoric] in Topeka, and we’re a state that holds a kind of mythical place in the American imagination. I knew people would be surprised by these stories.

I was working at KU at the time [as director of communications at the university’s medical center], and I guess I missed writing and reporting, too. And then when I started driving out into Kansas and meeting these incredible people, I felt a great responsibility to tell their stories.

It’s kind of an unusual book in that you tell these separate stories that relate to the same topic — the battle for LGBT rights — but that are usually connected only by their sense of place: Kansas. Was it a challenge not to have a strong narrative thread running through the book, or was that freeing? Yeah, in some ways it’s a little like a dozen Pitch cover stories thrown into a book. That’s partly because that’s just the way I knew how to write. But it’s also because there were all these different fights, different events, different dynamics in all these towns I write about. Because of the hyperlocal nature of activism, each town had its own different story.

The word “lessons” is in the subtitle of the book. How much do you view it as a “how-to” book? Or as a reference for future activists in whatever civil rights battles come next? I think there is plenty to learn from the people’s stories in the book, and I think probably what you take away from the book depends on which stories you find most personally relatable.

But I do think there are three big themes, if I had to list. One is prepare to lose. In many of these stories, people lose twice or three times before they get a win. But with each loss, you win new friends and allies. The second lesson, or theme, is to be gentle with your allies. They’re humans, they’ll say stupid stuff, but fighting with them takes energy away from fighting the real fight. Three is just: Do something. Everything helps. There are spots in the book where somebody sends an anonymous card of congratulations or bakes lemon bars or some other small gesture. Trying to make a positive change takes everything. It takes organizers. It takes big personalities that can appear on TV and make your case.

But the lemon bars make a huge difference, too.

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Check Your Head THE DRAWINGS AND SCULPTURES IN MYRIAM MECHITA’S “DARKNESS WITH BLUE SKY” ADDRESS ECSTASY, MIRACLES — AND BEHEADINGS.

BY ANNIE RAAB

Finding a common thread through the many materials used in “Darkness with Blue Sky” is, at first, a disorienting task. Ceramics, a series of pencil drawings, actual dirt, and an image made entirely of drilled holes might lead one to believe the artist has suffered some kind of mixed-media identity crisis. But French-born Myriam Mechita hasn’t made a successful decades-long career through a lack of focus. In fact, she has used the same visceral childhood experience to push the limits of her practice as she continues to press down on the same themes. Currently exhibited at Rockhurst University’s Greenlease Gallery is a collection of work from Mechita’s breadcrumb trail that leads us to her core philosophy: holiness, pleasure, and wisdom are often (maybe always) born of pain.

Mechita was deeply affected as a child by a reproduction of Fra Angelico’s “Beheading of Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian.” The Italian painting depicts the death and simultaneous birth into canonization of Cosmas and Damian. Two saints lay slumped on the ground, their disconnected heads wreathed in a golden halo. An executioner stands poised with sword over shoulder, aimed at a middle-ground figure who kneels and bows at the acceptance of their fate. Something clicked in Mechita’s six-year-old brain that lit the first spark of her artistic inklings.

Since then, she has expanded the decapitation theme in her work to explore the invisible line between pain and pleasure.

The beheading theme comes through in the ceramic faces that point up from piles of mulch on the gallery floor (more on that later). Earthly pain takes a form different from transcendent pain, visually described as either an incomplete or redacted body, or holy figures twisted into shapes of agony.

Wisdom is represented in scabby pencil drawings, like the bowed head in “Vinci’s dream,” where a woman sprouts nine extra eyes on top of her black hair, the eyes framing her bruised face. This image laughs at the tidy representation of a third eye, placed neatly on the brow above the original oculars. Wisdom, as Mechita suspects, is also a grotesque burden on those who earn it.

“Darkness with Blue Sky” is a show of contrasts. The seriousness of the subject matter is punctured by moments of dark humor. “Lucky River” — a glossy ceramic dog head on a minimally sculpted glass body — interjects moments of haphazard re-

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THE PITCH | March 2018 | pitch.com

VINCI’S DREAM, BY MYRIAM MECHITA

Myriam Mechita

“Darkness with Blue Sky” Greenlease Gallery (1100 Rockhurst Road) On view through April 7 during regular gallery hours, from noon to 5 p.m. on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

composition via two contrasting materials.

Sculptures like this make it easy to imagine the executioner has suddenly changed her mind, or approached decapitation (recapitation?) as one would a blank Mr. Potato Head: by shoving two incompatible parts together to create a Franken-version of the original thing.

If there is an omniscient being governing the universe, its decision to make

sexual pleasure resemble religious worship suggests an eccentric sense of humor.

On the south wall, the artist has installed a pointillistic version of two veiled figures by puncturing even, equally sized holes in the plaster — a method Mechita refers to as “drill drawing”. (According to Anne Austin Pearce, the gallery’s curator, the origin of Mechita’s drill-drawing method comes from a group exhibition wherein the artist was denied the same drawing tools provided to her male counterparts. To which she responded: “Fine. Give me a drill.” The rest is evident.)

This image is best viewed from the far side of the room — forcing us into reverence — where the size and effect can be understood.

The figures are caught in Bernini-inspired ecstasy, necks thrust forward, lips parted in religious orgasm that if not for the veils would evoke something much more sexual.

Is this a miracle discovered in architectural residue, or a window for inviting voyeurism?

It’s probably easiest to see all these themes converge in the stunning “I’m on a long way.” In this large drawing, two weathered hands hold the face of a young man who appears caught in the important moment when suffering transmutes to wisdom.

His closed eyes are white-hot in the blackand-grey fog, lit as if by a direct beam from heaven. Any features, wrinkles, and textures disappear from the surface of the face of the light. Intimacy is captured in the aged hands, in the thumbs pressed over the glowing eyes, in the evocation of the trust, solitude, and heartbreak that inherently belongs to those who love and are loved. And none may be more loved than those who exhibit flaws familiar to our own, the flaws we addressed or ignored on our individual paths to wisdom and experience.

The term “losing one’s head” is traditionally seen as a criticism of lunacy and irrational thinking. But what if the head is all that remains, smiling broadly atop a pile of mulch and glitter? Then, this could signify that rational thinking is the only kind that exists, and a pile of sparkling garden fodder is — in an irrational, perhaps even ungoverned universe — as good a place as any to mull over immortality. Toward the end of my viewing, I squatted down to meet the bodiless “Carry smile” budding out of the glitter-mulch pile. It grinned sleepily, dopily, perhaps understanding there is some pleasure that only comes when we lose our heads.

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Live Through This

A CANCER-CENTRIC COLLABORATION PAIRS LOCAL ARTS LUMINARIES WITH GILDA’S CLUB KANSAS CITY.

BY LIBBY HANSSEN

TIFFANY MATSON

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THE PITCH | March 2018 | pitch.com

Cancer is everywhere, unavoidable. Statistically, everyone you know and everyone you’ll ever meet will be impacted by cancer within your lifetime, whether personally or by a loved one’s diagnosis.

Gilda’s Club Kansas City was formed six years ago in recognition of these grim facts. A branch of the national organization named after comedian Gilda Radner (who died of ovarian cancer in 1989), the midtown location is a place for people living with cancer, and their families, to find support, education, advocacy, and social opportunities — all free of charge. The organization is growing locally: it served 475 members in 2015; 875 members in 2016; and 1,501 members in 2017. (Members include persons who have received a cancer diagnosis, caregivers, or family members.)

In an effort to raise community awareness about its services, Gilda’s Club Kansas City recently partnered with an assortment of arts-scene stalwarts: Charlotte Street Foundation, Owen/Cox Dance Group, poet Jen Harris, and composer Stacy Busch. Together, they’ve created “Collective: Our Stories of Cancer,” a cohesive performance of music, dance, and spoken word that aims to translate the experiences of Gilda’s Club members. The production runs March 2-4 at La Esquina (1000 West 25th Street).

Harris conducted interviews with members, collecting 11 stories. Though she recorded and transcribed the interviews, the piece draws on more than just the participants’ words. In constructing the narrative, she considered not only the “finite bits of information” the participants shared, but also “the way they cringed, or choked up, or the way they went completely silent and couldn’t talk about it anymore.”

“It is truly something that redefines a lot of people’s lives, the way they live, and what they live for,” Harris says. “In seeing the subtlety and the nuance of what they were experiencing, that allows me to translate not only what they literally said but the feeling that imposed upon me.”

Jennifer Owen and Busch observed the interviews, too, helping shape their artistic responses. “Each story was very different,” Owen says, “but they all shared a certain

strength of character and resilience that was very powerful. Unless you go through something like this, you don’t realize how strong a human spirit can be.”

Owen is not only choreographing for the five professional dancers, but also creating a work involving a Gilda’s Club member — an eight-year-old girl who recently lost her father.

Busch, whose work includes acoustic and electronic composition, has worked extensively with voice, and she conceived much of the structure and the form of the performative elements. She also set aside one poem to be sung by Liz Pearse.

Harris performs most of the poetry, though. Voted Best Spoken Word Artist by The Pitch in 2017, she brings words into the performative realm, on stage with the musicians and dancers.

As with all of Gilda’s Club events, a licensed mental health professional will be on hand at each performance and during the talk-back afterwards. “People might want to talk with the artists, but also process things a little after something so emotional,” says Gilda’s Club Kansas City executive director Siobhan McLaughlin-Lesley.

Transmitting the stories through these art forms makes them more accessible to the public, says Harris, because we are not “a culture that is very excited about being vulnerable in front of one another. But if I’m able to take a shard of truth and frame it with a cadence and emotion, then the public has more of an opportunity to be there with me and with them…the people who have been lost and the people who have survived.” (Some of the artists, too, have experienced the impact of cancer, with loved ones, friends, and coworkers, so it’s not solely performative. In some cases, it’s personal.)

Cancer’s a heavy subject, but the performance is intended, ultimately, to be empowering. The goal of Gilda’s Club is, after all, about living with cancer.

“I think art touches people,” says McLaughlin-Lesley. “We want [the audience] walking out feeling that through education and action they can have hope and live well through — and beyond — ­ cancer.”

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Tokin’ of Appreciation TRIPPIN’ DOWN MEMORY LANE WITH MICHAEL BREWER & TOM SHIPLEY AHEAD OF THEIR 50TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW.

BY DAVID HUDNALL

Neither Michael Brewer nor Tom Shipley is technically a Kansas City native; Brewer was born in Oklahoma, Shipley’s from Ohio.

But they landed here in 1968 after a stint trying to break into the music business in Los Angeles. “We saw the lifestyle out there and pretty quickly realized we were not Hollywood guys,” Shipley says. They knew a couple locals who wanted to start a production company. Kansas City, they figured.

Why the hell not?

Brewer and Shipley, as their folk-rock duo came to be named, had cut a record, Down in L.A., and they made KC their home base while they toured the campuses, clubs, and coffee shops on the Midwestern folkie circuit. (Steve Martin, then doing his banjo-comedy routine, sometimes opened for them.) A few years later, they landed a hit: the zeitgeisty hippie-folk ditty “One Toke Over the Line,” which shot up to #10 on the American charts (and #5 in Canada). They hobnobbed with the likes of David Crosby, Jefferson Airplane, and Jerry Garcia (who played guitar on a song from their 1970 album, Tarkio) and threw some pretty big beatnik parties, including a famously massive one at Loose Park. In the late 1970s,

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THE PITCH | March 2018 | pitch.com

Brewer and Shipley split up, though they reunited in 1987 for a show at Starlight Theatre and have performed intermittently ever since.

On Friday, March 9, they’ll celebrate the 50th anniversary of Down in L.A. with a show at the Uptown Theater, with support from locals the Nace Brothers and Bob Walkenhorst. Brewer and Shipley remain Missouri residents — they live in Branson and Rolla, respectively — and I checked in with them separately to talk about the good old days and the upcoming celebration.

Pitch: Tell me about moving to Kansas City in 1968. What was that all about?

Shipley: Well, when we were still in L.A., we would tour the Midwest, and we played at this place in Kansas City called the Vanguard. Everybody played there. It was at 43rd and Main. And a couple of our friends at the Vanguard said, “Come here, settle here, we’ll start this production company together and start putting together shows.” We were essentially homeless at that time. When we toured, I’d bring camping gear and stuff.

So we said, Sure.

“THE DRUGS WERE PRETTY FREE-FLOWING IN WESTPORT BACK THEN.” TOM SHIPLEY

LIVE MUSIC

Brewer: We’d played the Vanguard in ‘67 over Christmas and New Year’s, and our opening act was Steve Martin. It was a really fun couple of weeks. The Vanguard guys wanted to form a company and they needed somebody with a record, and we happened to have one. So together we formed Good Karma Productions there in Kansas City and started touring the heartland. Good Karma was kind of like the Pony Express: it only lasted a couple of years, but it seems much longer than that.

Where’d you live?

Shipley: We lived at the Good Karma offices when we first got there. That was also at 43rd and Main, caddy corner from the Vanguard.

Michael was on the first floor, I was on the second, and Danny Cox was on the third floor. Danny was a big singer on the folk circuit at the time. He played at the Vanguard a lot. Then we moved out to Raytown.

Brewer: The reason we left L.A. in the first place is because we wanted to live in the country. But there’s not a lot of nature at 43rd and Main. So our manager at Good Karma found this place on 15 acres with woods and a two-acre pond out in Raytown. There was a shack I lived in on one side, and a shack on the other side that Tom lived in. We called it Happy Acres. It’s totally developed now, of course. There’s condos around the lake, with a big Japanese bridge and gazebo.

You guys left Kansas City in 1974. How come?

Brewer: Again, it was wanting to live further out in the country. One day we came home to the property in Raytown — this was after “One Toke” — and somebody had stolen the mailbox with our names on it and the tree stump that it was attached to. I suppose they were probably fans. But we were like, Maybe it’s time to get out of town. We’re country guys. We like the ticks and the chiggers.

Shipley: Once the “One Toke “money came in, it didn’t matter where I lived. I was on the road 250 days a year. And I’ve been a fly fishermen since I was a kid. In Kansas City, I’d often drive down to the Current River to fish. I found a house down by Rolla, which I like because there’s a university here with a good engineering school. So you don’t have to drive far to see people from all over the world. But I can also go fly fishing a couple times a week.

How did it happen that Jerry Garcia played on the Tarkio album?

Shipley: We were recording in San Francisco in the same studio at the same time as the

[Jefferson] Airplane and the Dead. And between all the studios there was a communal area, and we got to know Jerry that way.

Plus, our bass player, John Kahn, played bass with Jerry when Jerry wasn’t playing with the Dead — on some of those David Grisman albums. Anyway, we were all hanging out and burning weed in the common area one day and it was just one of those deals where everybody would play on everybody else’s records. There was no money being exchanged or anything. I think that’s what made San Francisco so cool in those days.

You guys played a pretty huge show at Loose Park, correct?

Brewer: Yes. About 30,000 people showed up. There was one police officer [laughs].

He was a friendly guy. This was right after Woodstock, so everybody knew to behave. People were parking on lawns and driveways all around the park. It made the national news. I remember seeing Walter Cronkite on TV saying there had been two big events in the U.S. that day: Sly and the Family Stone kept a crowd waiting for three hours and riots had broken out, and Brewer and Shipley threw a free concert in Kansas City and 30,000 people showed up, and there were no incidences. We were hoping for a couple thousand people. It turned into a real “be-In.” The PA couldn’t handle it, and half the people couldn’t hear the music. But it was a great time. I think somebody even gave birth somewhere in the crowd.

Brewer and Shipley reunited in Kansas City in 1987. How’d that go?

Shipley: We hadn’t played together for about six years. I just reached a point where I couldn’t tour anymore. But we got offered

what was — to us — a lot of money, and I needed it, and Michael needed it, and so they flew us in and we played a show at Starlight that sold out after just a couple days. After that, we started doing weekend-warrior type of stuff — a week and a half of shows in Colorado or on the East Coast, instead of these big, long tours. And we continue that to this day.

What’s up with the show at the Uptown?

Brewer: Fifty years! Well, I guess time flies when you don’t know what you’re doing.

We played the Uptown many times over the years. We’ll do every song we can remember, and we’ll have some old friends joining us.

The Nace Brothers are going to do a special acoustic show. It seems like it’s shaping up into a big ol’ party.

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Where would you get weed in Westport back in the day?

Shipley: [Laughs] Well, I won’t give you his name because he still lives in Kansas City, but my main guy did janitorial work at venues around town, like at the Cowtown Ballroom and a couple other places. Drugs were pretty free-flowing in Westport back then.

That’s what was so cool about it. It didn’t have that North Beach aura, and it didn’t have that Village thing going on. It was just a couple pubs, some folks hanging out and smoking. The other place you could get weed in Westport was the Temple Slug. Several years back, my sons moved to Kansas City, and while I was helping them move in I figured, what the heck, while I’m here I’ll get a new piece, a new pipe. So I went to Temple Slug looking for one. But all they were selling was futons. I was seriously bummed.

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PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

Full Plate

WITH REGGIE AND THE FULL EFFECT (AND SEVERAL OTHER HIGH-PROFILE PROJECTS), HOMETOWN-BOY-MADE-GOOD JAMES DEWEES IS A BUSY MAN THESE DAYS.

BY AARON RHODES

James Dewees is a New Yorker these days. After a lengthy stint in Long Island, he moved to Buffalo this past August to be closer to his bandmates in his long-running side project Reggie & The Full Effect. But as a member of Coalesce and the Get Up Kids — two local groups whose audience turned national — Dewees has long been a familiar face around Kansas City and Lawrence. (He also joined pop-punk superstars My Chemical Romance as a touring keyboardist in the years before that band hung it up.)

Reggie & The Full Effect released its seventh album, 41, in February, on Pure Noise Records. Reggie fans will not be disappointed: 41 has gut-wrenching emotive rock knockouts, some big-name emo collaborations, and the riotous return of Dewees’ pseudonymous alter-ego bands Common Denominator and Fluxuation.

(Not to mention a jokey cover featuring

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THE PITCH | March 2018 | pitch.com

Dewees mimicking the pose Adele struck on her age-referencing album 21.) When I called Dewees in mid-February, he was back in Lawrence meeting up with the rest of the Get Up Kids and preparing for Reggie’s upcoming month-long tour opening for Senses Fail, which stops at the Granada in Lawrence on March 22.

The Pitch: It took me a second to catch the Adele reference on your new album’s cover. Would you say you’re a fan of hers?

James Dewees: [Laughs] Oh, of course. Her records are amazing. She has such an amazing voice.

So it’s a pretty playful parody then?

Yeah, it’s funny ‘cause it just all happened in, like, a minute where I was trying to come up

“I THINK EVERYBODY FROM THE OLD-SCHOOL SCENE GETS ALONG BECAUSE OF THAT MUTUAL RESPECT WHERE WE HAVE FOR EACH OTHER. GOING AND PLAYING VFW HALLS AND SLEEPING ON FLOORS AND ALL THAT.” JAMES DEWEES

with the name of the record, thinking about it while listening to Adele. It happened to be 21 and I was turning 41, so it was like “Oh, that’s what I should do!”

Did you know when you brought back Reggie for the previous album that you’d want to do another? You know, I never really know. I just write music all the time, between all the different bands and all the different projects I’m working on. Reggie songs just creep their way in, and when you get to a certain number of songs, it’s time to go record them. I’m not releasing an album every year or anything like that, because it’s a side project and it’s a fun project, so when the songs are there I record them and put out a record and tour for a while, then I always have to go back and do the Get Up Kids or work with the [My Chemical Romance] guys on stuff and all that.

I’d read that [Black Lodge Studios engineer and producer] Ed Rose retired after working on the last Reggie album.

Who helped you record 41? Yeah, I got in right at the end. I was very fortunate. This time I did it with Ray Toro from My Chemical Romance, the guitar player. When we

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were working on the final My Chem record we kept threatening each other that we were gonna do a record together, so when he did his solo record, I did a lot of the piano for it. Our trade-off was that he would record Reggie.

because you’ve grown as a songwriter, or has the shift in style been a conscious decision? I think that after doing this for 20 years my songwriting, of course, has changed, but at the same time I haven’t forgot how to write that stuff.

It’s pretty cool thinking about how you and Jarrod [Alexander, touring drummer for My Chemical Romance] both started off in heavy hardcore bands, and now you’re working together on this project. Oh yeah, it’s awesome. It’s really funny because we’d met before we played in My Chem — back in Coalesce days, when Jarrod played in The Suicide File.

On the Common Denominator track on this record, “Trap(ping) Music,” were there any specific rappers you were trying to channel? Of course. O.T. Genasis. We used to listen to [“CoCo”] before we would go on stage because that song is so funny.

Did you guys hit it off or was it just kind of in passing? I think everybody from the old-school scene is still friends and gets along because of that mutual respect where we all appreciate what each other are doing, you know? Going and playing VFW halls and sleeping on floors and all of that.

I’m guessing that when you were touring with MCR, you ended up meeting some more “rockstar” types that didn’t have that background. It’s really interesting because you meet a lot of people that appreciate where they are, and you also meet a lot of people who don’t appreciate where they are. Like it just kinda got handed to them. But you can tell the difference between the people that stick around for a long time and the people who are only in the scene for a year or two.

“The Horrible Year” reminds me of the Get Up Kids sound, but the composition is a little more theatrical. Do you think you picked that up from playing with MCR and other big acts? It’s not really the size of the acts that matter, it’s just the music that inspires me. I’ve always been a big fan of musicals and I love classical music. That’s what I studied in college. It’s just like being a fan of all types of music and letting these types of music encompass me when I’m writing and feeling out where I wanna go.

That’s sort of the reason I blended in so well with My Chem, since we’re into the same styles of music.

I saw that you mentioned that the song “Maggie” sounded to you like an old Reggie song mixed with a new Reggie song. What’s the difference between the two eras? It kinda took the vibe of the Promotional Copy record and made it into a big chorus. Old Reggie was all half-time choruses like “Maggie” is, which is kinda like me recording the demos on a four-track and being like, “Ah, I’m just gonna put a half-time chorus here.”

Do you think the new stuff is different

Are there any other sounds you’ve been hoping to explore at some point?

I’ve been doing some stuff with Doug Robinson, who is the singer of the band The Sleeping. That’s a lot more shoegazey-electro, and we’ve got a few songs now. We want to get a couple more done before we try to put it out. It’s another thing where it’s a passion project, so we’d be putting it out just for ourselves and to share with fans.

I’ve also seen you post about another project called Soul Patch. What’s that about? OK, so Soul Patch I was invited to join by Keith Buckley from Every Time I Die, and it’s our nineties cover band in Buffalo. It’s me, Stephen and Keith from Every Time I Die, our friend Joe, our friend Jeff, and our friend Nico. It’s amazing. It’s fun to play those songs because I was in high school and college when all those songs were popular.

What bands are you guys covering?

We do Pearl Jam, New Radicals. Basically every hit from the nineties. We’re playing Smashing Pumpkins, Alice In Chains, Harvey Danger. The setlist is, like, 35 songs long.

Do you think that’s gonna stay a little Buffalo secret, or will you be taking that on the road? It’s purely a Buffalo thing.

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What are you looking forward to most about the upcoming tour you have with Senses Fail? I’m looking forward to just being back on the road and doing Reggie. It’s always a fun time, and Buddy from Senses Fail and I have been friends for almost 20 years. I was friends with him since before he was 18 years old. And it’s a tight group.

Some of the Senses Fail guys are from Buffalo too, so we all know each other.

The Get Up Kids hinted at recording new music back in late 2016 on Facebook. Any update there? We’re still trying to kinda figure some stuff out, but it’ll happen. Don’t worry. I know for a fact it’ll happen.

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1/17/18 3:25 PM

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Knives Out AARON RHODES

TOPEKA NOISE-RAP CREW YOUNG MVCHETES EMERGES FROM THE SHADOWS.

BY AARON RHODES

Jackson Street Lofts is a former Catholic elementary school that sits about 100 yards from the Kansas State Capitol, in Topeka.

The building was renovated in 2015 and chopped up into apartments, many of which retain the school’s spacious green chalkboards. Up the spiraling metal stairs from one of these classrooms-turned-living-spaces is a makeshift studio where the members of Young Mvchetes often meet.

You might also call it a hideout. Since the noise-rap crew released its self-titled debut a year ago, a cloud of mystery has hung around Young Mvchetes. Who were these guys? The only names credited in the Bandcamp notes were Young Mvchetes and Maadcxmmander. A cryptic Young Mvchetes Twitter page materialized shortly after the release and began sending out Bandcamp links and photos of handwritten introductions to local music heads. Savvy friends and a handful of fans have pieced to-

38

THE PITCH | March 2018 | pitch.com

gether their identities, but this article is the first time Young Mvchetes members have acquiesced to having their names published.

The group’s de facto leader, Kody Stadler, says there were two reasons for the initial cloak of anonymity. One was to allow the art to be appreciated separate from the artist — to completely remove social politics and music-scene popularity contests from the equation.

The other was self-doubt. They wanted to be able to silently step away from the project if it wasn’t received well or, worse, openly mocked. But while Young Mvchetes’ debut effort may be a little on the nose at times, it’s hardly embarrassing. Across the EP’s seven tracks, Stadler tackles America’s societal ills one by one, constructing run-on bars and shrill, impassioned rhymes critiquing media consumption, police brutality, and government corruption. Producer Kyle Werner (Maadcxmmander) constructs chrome-

IMPASSIONED RHYMES CRITIQUING MEDIA CONSUMPTION, POLICE BRUTALITY, AND GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION.

plated boom-bap beats that successfully recall those of hip-hop pioneers Public Enemy with a few modern flourishes tossed in.

With Stadler and other Mvchetes’ raps slicing through the high end and Werner’s instrumentals stomping through the low end, everything in between — distorted guitars, metalcore-style growls — sounds like complete and total warfare.

Stadler and Werner, I’m told at Werner’s Jackson Street loft, played in a high school rock band together. They chuckle and cringe a bit recalling those days, divulging their past enthusiasm for Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, and other grunge and punk acts.

In college, Werner got interested in producing electronic music and began performing under the name Boba. Stadler gravitated toward hip-hop. (He has a hearing impairment that makes it difficult to do traditional vocal work, which made rap a more practical form of self-expression.) They decided to team up for an EP together. During the initial recording process, Stadler realized he enjoyed the dynamic of having a group, so he invited friends Bryan Kincade and Nikki Williams (aka Slick Nik) to contribute verses to the project. Stadler says he considers anyone who contributes a member of the

MUSIC

crew, so he counts himself, Werner, Kincade, Williams, Devon Hanna (who assists with production) and Preston Walker (who often deejays their live shows) as Mvchetes.

About those live shows: in the summer of 2017, after the debut had been up on Bandcamp for several months, the group released two singles and performed its first show, opening a Studio 785-sponsored block party in Topeka’s Oakland neighborhood. The DJ introducing Young Mvchetes flubbed their name, and their music drew some wild stares, but the songs proved to be just as sharp in the live setting. Ebony Tusks’

“Track 01 (They Got Us On Camera).” Along these lines, Young Mvchetes also recently released the LGBT EP, whose cover features a Polaroid photo of the Equality House, the rainbow-painted nonprofit center that sits across the street from Topeka’s infamously vile Westboro Baptist Church. Here, the crew swaps out the bone-crunching blasts of experimental hip-hop in favor of ambient pieces soundtracking a series of interviews Stadler conducted with young LGBT people in Topeka about their struggles and triumphs.

The concept isn’t unlike two inter-

We’re mixing things up!

Do you recognize this rap collective?

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Martinez Hillard, another Topeka rapper known for fiery, genre-smashing live shows, says he and Stadler are close and often talk shop about performing.

“This is not me tooting my own horn,” Hillard says, “But I think what I really appreciate about the way Kody and Bryan perform [is that] I feel like they took a lot of really strong lessons from what we do [in Ebony Tusks] in terms of crowd engagement. But again, I think when I watch them, I see something that’s really unique to them.”

Stadler and Hillard have also bonded through local activism, in particular the protests and community meetings that have followed the fatal shooting by police of a man named Dominique White in East Topeka last year. White was briefly memorialized in Young Mvchetes’ music video for

ludes that appear near the tail end of Young Mvchetes’ debut. On these “intercepted conversations,” as Stadler calls them, Stadler gives an account of a nightmare in which he witnessed a friend being slaughtered by monsters while he stood nearby, paralyzed in fear. He says it was inspired by a real dream he had as a child, but repurposed as a metaphor for a call to action. It’s Young Mvchetes’ way of saying that rapping about injustices and spreading awareness is all fine and good, but real-world action will be required sooner rather than later. But with three socially conscious EPs under their belt, and a fourth on the way — all in just over a year — Young Mvchetes could hardly be accused of inaction. They’ve planted their flag in the bloody Topeka soil, and it damn sure isn’t a white one.

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pitch.com | March 2018 | THE PITCH

39

FILM

FILM STILL FROM ‘BLACK PANTHER

Cat Video

BLACK PANTHER IS A GAME-CHANGING SUPERHERO MOVIE (BUT NOT FOR THE REASONS YOU MIGHT THINK).

BY ERIC MELIN

So much of the advance press surrounding Marvel’s Black Panther, the first superhero movie written and directed by a black man and featuring a predominantly black cast, has been about representation. I can count on at least two hands the number of times I’ve read articles that go something like: “After the success of Wonder Woman, Hollywood is finally realizing there’s a market for minorities in this genre too. It’s about time!”

And, yes, these statements are absolutely true. For those with a binary view of movies and why they’re made, the success or failure of any big-budget movie can be

40

THE PITCH | March 2018 | pitch.com

measured in its ability to make money. But there’s so much more to Black Panther than a shrewd movie studio finally recognizing the value of an untapped market.

In its setting alone — the fictional African nation of Wakanda — Black Panther removes the “American” from the AfricanAmerican experience and liberates its main characters from a shared history of hundreds of years of violent oppression. Wakanda may look like a “shithole” to the rest of the world (or at least our current POTUS), but a cloaking device hides the fact that the county is actually decades beyond anyplace on Earth,

with futuristic science and technology and a rich African culture of living in peace. Put simply, Wakandans are smarter and more advanced than anyone else on the planet.

Writer-director Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station, Creed) delivers most of this Wakandan mythology in a mysteriously narrated CGI-heavy opening montage that echoes Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies. A meteorite containing a vibration-absorbing miracle element crashed into Wakanda ages ago, and now He Who Controls The Vibranium Controls the Universe (or something like that). Coogler attempts to give Wakanda as portentous a backstory as LOTR’s Mordor or Dune’s Arrakis, which is a bold move, for sure. But even bolder than that is the director’s insistence on tweaking the typical fantasy origin story by leaving the cozy realm of escapism and instead reflecting modern issues — in a superhero-action movie entertaining way, of course.

On the surface, Black Panther is about Prince T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), who

THERE’S SO MUCH MORE TO BLACK PANTHER THAN A SHREWD MOVIE STUDIO FINALLY RECOGNIZING THE VALUE OF AN UNTAPPED MARKET.

FILM

STREAMING NOW

The Cloverfield Paradox (Netflix) An unoriginal sci-fi mess stitched together from better movies, retrofitted for the J.J. Abrams Cloverfield universe.

Altered Carbon (Netflix) A plot-heavy new series that marries hollow pretentiousness with lots of violence and nudity, plus a wholesale theft of Blade Runner’s futuristic noir production design.

Good Time (Amazon Prime) One of the best movies of 2017, it’s a riveting first-person thriller about a New York criminal (Robert Pattinson) with fluid morality who thinks he’s doing the right thing.

Dirty Money (Netflix) Alex Gibney produced this fierce and timely limited doc series about corporate misdeeds.

Episode 2 features Leawood’s convicted felon and notorious predatory loan shark Scott Tucker.

Mosaic (HBONow) This fascinating limited series from Steven Soderbergh deconstructs how we view murder mysteries, seeing events from the POV of multiple characters. An absolute must-see.

Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams (Amazon Prime) Occasional brilliance is reason enough to check out this spotty but ultimately rewarding sci-fi anthology of adapted and updated Dick short stories.

The Polka King (Netflix) Jack Black is charming in this pleasant diversion, a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction crime story about a real-life polka bandleader who led a remarkably successful Ponzi scheme.

Ingrid Goes West (Hulu) Aubrey Plaza stalks social-media influencer Elizabeth Olsen in this surprisingly emotional and prescient black comedy.

Wormwood (Netflix) A masterful, challenging doc series from Errol Morris that uses cinematic reenactments with big-name actors to elevate the character study of a man obsessed with a government cover-up of his father’s mysterious death.

becomes King after his father’s death (which took place in Captain America: Civil War), holding off a challenge to the throne by an American black-ops soldier nicknamed Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan). But it’s really about the leader of a superpowered country (who also happens to possess a literal superpower) steeped in isolationism realizing he has a moral responsibility to move the entire planet forward. It’s the polar opposite of the regressive nationalist political movement we are living through now.

Sounds preachy, maybe? It’s not. Black Panther’s screenplay (by Coogler and Joe Robert Cole) is a natural outgrowth of its premise and a desire to integrate the African-American experience so the audience has someone to identify with. In a rare nod to complicated morality, that person happens to be the “bad guy.” Before he was Killmonger, he was Erik, a basketball-playing, outsider kid growing up in Oakland. Erik tragically loses his father at a young age and carries that bitterness as a badge of honor that leads him to T’Challa. Without getting into spoiler territory, it’s enough to say that Killmonger represents a more extreme version of the actual Black Panther Party’s views than does the actual superhero Black Panther. He seethes violent, righteous anger, and wants revenge for reasons personal and institutional, even name-checking slave ships in one jaw-dropping moment.

As in any Marvel film, there are fight scenes, car chases, and flying spaceships, but its Afro-futuristic sense of production and costume design adds a unique dimension to Black Panther, even if some of the action can be as bombastic and hard to follow as many of its predecessors. It’s nice to see traditional African culture informing sci-fi design with absolute confidence.

Also welcome are the film’s heroic female characters and its slyly integrated endorsement of STEM education. Leticia Wright virtually steals the movie as Shuri, T’Challa’s 16-year-old sister, who just happens to be Wakanda’s most brilliant engineer and computer scientist. Think of her as an ornery teenage Q from the Bond series, and you’re on the right track. Wright doesn’t just make science cool for a new generation; she is the very definition of a courageous role model who stands up for what’s right.

Still, Coogler refuses to cater to easy heroics. In the middle of all the subtle cultural inversions and positive messages, we see how easily the seeds of division can be sown not just between citizens, but between friends, allies, and loved ones. Early in the film, as these lines are being drawn, the parallels to our current political climate aren’t quite so clear. But when one character uses fear and hate to divide and conquer, many people fall in line surprisingly easily, succumbing to their own irrational anger. The first post-credits sequence even takes place

at a UN conference, and is about as much of a direct response to Trump’s nationalistic rhetoric at last September’s embarrassing UN General Assembly speech as you can get.

So yes, Black Panther represents a longoverdue leap forward in black representation in movies, and it has all the action and fighting and gadgets you’d expect from a Marvel movie. But it also directly engages with the dynamic of what it means to be African vs. African American. The film challenges accepted identities of AfricanAmericans by offering an alternate reality that doesn’t just adhere to fantasy; the line between the “good guy” and the “bad guy” is still very thin. Those outdated conceptions of black and white just don’t apply anymore.

The amount of meta self-awareness and general storytelling rule-breaking in the Netflix movie A Stupid and Futile Gesture is not only admirable, it’s 100 percent fitting for its subject matter.

By its nature, the film is a biopic. But since it’s a profile of National Lampoon cofounder Doug Kenney — the man most responsible for defining the anarchic attitude of an entire generation of influential comedians and writers — it takes the piss out of the tired biopic form at every opportunity.

Old-man Kenney (Martin Mull) narrates, making fun of himself at every opportunity, and pointing out all the incongruities he can, such as the age of the actor (47-yearold Will Forte) playing Kenney from his college years up until his untimely death at 33 (which, of course, also means old-man Kenney never existed). Later, an onscreen list of timeline falsehoods, composite characters, and misattributed stories flies by at lightning speed — a unique move for a film that director David Wain (Role Models, Wet Hot American Summer) knows is being viewed on Netflix, where one can pause it and actually read them all.

Comedy heroes Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, and John Belushi are played by current actors who look almost nothing like them and are given very little screen time, which is a bit disorienting. Joel McHale, however, has plenty of time to grow into his role as his Community rival/co-star Chevy Chase. He not only perfectly channels the cocky onscreen personality that made Chase instantly famous, but also gives him some unexpected depth.

Even as it rips the biopic, A Stupid and Futile Gesture remains one. But it captures Kenney’s penchant for chaos and destruction both in his comedy and his personal life, making the case that they were one and the same. By living the way he wrote, Kenney might very well have changed the face of comedy forever. pitch.com | March 2018 | THE PITCH

41

EVENTS

MARCH 1

MARCH 6

Tuck Everlasting, The Coterie Theatre

JAMES WILLAMOR

MARCH 2 Heartbroken: A Tribute to Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, RecordBar Steve Winwood, Uptown Theater Collective: Our Stories of Cancer, La Esquina

MARCH 3

CHEERS! FROM

Lorde, Sprint Center Uncorked: KC Wine Festival, Union Station

MARCH 9

AIDS Walk Open Mini-Golf Pub Crawl, Missie B’s and other Midtown locations

Lady Be Good: Celebrating Women in Jazz, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

KC Roller Warriors, Memorial Hall

Brewer & Shipley 50th Anniversary Show, Uptown Theatre

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THE PITCH | March 2018 | pitch.com

MARCH 8 TEDxWyandotte 2018, Kansas City Kansas Community College

Kick Ball: An Improvised Movie, Tapcade

Apparel

Bully, with Melkbelly, RecordBar

Bowling for Rhinos, Premier Bowling AWOLNation, The Midland The Iron Giant, Alamo Drafthouse Murder Mystery Dinner, Sinclair’s Restaurant KC Oscar Party 2018, Screenland Armour

Jon Batiste, The Madrid Theatre

MARCH 10 40th Annual Westport St. Patrick’s Day Run, Westport Snake Saturday Parade, North KC Chief Keef, The Riot Room KCXW: Unleashed 2018, State Street Project Jim Jefferies, The Midland

MARCH 5

MARCH 11

Dorothy, RecordBar

The Oh Hellos, RecordBar

Jazz Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, American Jazz Museum

MARCH 12 SuicideGirls: Blackheart Burlesque, The Truman

SECTION

pitch.com | March 2018 | THE PITCH

43

EVENTS

MARCH 13

MARCH 17

P!nk, Sprint Center

St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Midtown & Westport

k.d. lang, Uptown Theater Above & Beyond with Spencer Brown, The Midland

Bad Bunny, The Midland They Might be Giants, The Truman

Kansas City Fairytale Ball, Kansas City Marriott Country Club Plaza

MARCH 15

Miranda Lambert, Sprint Center

Lights, The Madrid Theatre

The Elders 16th Annual Hoolie, Knuckleheads

An Evening with Glen Hansard, The Truman No Place Like Home, Hilton President Hotel

MARCH 16

HALF HOUR FREE

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MARCH 16-18 Galactic, Uptown Theater A Century Of Bernstein: Joyce DiDonato Sings Bernstein and Berlioz, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

MARCH 18 EYEHATEGOD, Cro-Mags, Altered Beast, Devil’s Den, The Riot Room Champagne Cinema: SAY ANYTHING, Alamo Drafthouse

MARCH 19 - 25 Taco Week, Port Fonda, Mission Taco Joint, Harvey’s At Union Station, El Fogon, The Well, Unforked, Red Door Woodfired Grill, Taco Republic, ClusterTruck, The Lucky Taco

MARCH 19 Eagles, Sprint Center Wasted! Free film screening, Kansas City, Kansas, Public Library

EVENTS

MARCH 20

MARCH 25

Anderson East, The Madrid Theatre

Andy Grammer, The Madrid Theatre

Season to Risk, Sie Lieben Maschinen, Ex-Acrobat, RecordBar

Mike Jones, The Riot Room

200 Years of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Alamo Drafthouse

MARCH 22 Supersuckers and Drivin’ N’ Cryin’, Knuckleheads Sip It and Dip It Fundraiser, Strawberry Hill Museum and Cultural Center

MARCH 23 Hot Club of Cowtown, Knuckleheads The College Takeover Tour, KCKCC Performing Arts Center Franco Escamilla, The Midland

MARCH 23-25 Yo-Yo Ma, Pines of Rome and Bernstein, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

MARCH 24 FET!SH, Davey’s Uptown Rambler’s Club Mowglis, RecordBar Breakfast with the Easter Bunny, Strawberry Hill Museum and Cultural Center, KC KC Roller Warriors, Memorial Hall Around the World in Eight Whiskeys, Lifted Spirits Distillery

The Sweet Spot: Mardi Gras Edition, Prohibition Hall

MARCH 27

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MARCH 29 Disney on Ice Presents Dare to Dream, Sprint Center Howard Iceberg & The Titanics, The Ship Christopher Cross, The Madrid Theatre

MARCH 30 A Tribute to the Kings of Power Pop: Badfinger and Big Star, RecordBar

MARCH 31 Kansas City Oddities & Curiosities Expo, KCI Expo Center Rostam, RecordBar Music and Art at the Museum, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art

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2001 CHEVROLET IMPALA 2014 RAM 3500 2009 PONTIAC G6 2007 MAZDA 3 2006 LINCOLN ZEPHYR 2001 DODGE Grand Caravan 2011 NISSAN ALTIMA 2011 DODGE Grand Caravan 2003 HONDA PILOT 2003 SATURN VUE 2012 CHAPARRAL Hertiage 2007 NISSAN SENTRA 1993 GMC SUBURBAN 2001 CHRYSLER PT CRUISER 2011 HONDA CIVIC 2017 TAO 150CC 2007 TOYOTA PRIUS 2010 KIA FORTE 1998 PONTIAC TRANS SPORT 1997 CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO 2008 HYUNDAI ACCENT 2002 DODGE DAKOTA 2008 YAMAHA YZFR6 2016 HARLEY-DAVIDSON FLHX 2014 KIA FORTE 2015 TOYOTA SCION TC

VIN#

2G1WH55K919377582 3C63RRGL0EG185877 1G2ZM177994186166 JM1BK32357176709 3LNHM261X6R660408 1B8GP24391B240465 1N4AL2AP5BN411439 2D4RN4DG9BR690656 2HKYF18483H563514 5GZCZ63BX3S809709 4APKB2022C1001080 3N1AB61EX7L704315 1GKFK16K8PJ752623 3C8FY4BB41T636254 19XFA1F90BE004921 L9NTELKD1H1052566 JTDKB20U373258376 KNAFW4A33A5065435 1GMDU06E7WD246372 2G1W12M8V9314726 KMHCM36C68U062457 1B7HL48X92S715269 JYARJ06E68A039197 1HD1KBM12GB656971 KNAFK4A63E5136984 JTKJF5C79FJ011728

YR MAKE/MODEL

2016 KIA FORTE 2006 HONDA PILOT 2000 PONTIAC GRAND AM 2006 NISSAN ALTIMA 2001 NISSAN MAXIMA 2002 TOYOTA CAMRY 2003 DODGE NEON 2016 POLARIS GENERAL 1999 BENTLEY ARNAGE 2007 CHEVROLET SILVERADO 2002 TOYOTA CAMRY 2003 LEXUS GX 2013 VOLKSWAGEN JETTA 1998 PONTIAC TRANS SPORT 2000 MERCEDES-BENZ SL 2001 NISSAN MAXIMA 2006 CHEVROLET COBALT 2010 POLARIS RANGER 2009 INFINITI FX35 2004 CREST III PONTOON 2008 TOYOTA CAMRY SOLARA 2016 POLARIS RZR 2004 CHEVROLET CAVALIER 2007 SATURN OUTLOOK 2001 VOLKSWAGEN NEW BEETLE

VIN#

KNAFK4A64G5616955 2HKYF18666H517511 1G2NF52E5YC543126 1N4AL11EX6C267798 JN1CA31D01T614076 4T1BE32K92U574517 1B3ES56C23D246089 3NSRGE993GH108595 SCBLB51E5XCX03023 2GCEK19C571665610 4T1BE32K92U574517 JTJBT20X230015030 3VWDP7AJ0DM245913 1GMDU06E7WD246372 WDBFA68F4YF193893 JN1CA31D51T607821 1G1AL18F267853261 4XAVH76AXAD825620 JNRAS18W29M154017 MAU024878404XXXXX 4T1FA38P28U157085 4XAVBE874GB666945 1G1JF12F347120150 5GZER137X7J102130 3VWDD21C91M467908

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.

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

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or online www.CrOwdsysteMs.COM pitch.com | March 2018 | THE PITCH

47

WALK OFF THE EARTH

THE BLACK ANGELS

WITH SPECIAL GUEST: THE BLACK LIPS

MARCH 14

MARCH 21

ERIC JOHNSON

ATMOSPHERE

MARCH 23

MARCH 24

JOHN MUELLER’S 1950’S DANCE PARTY APRIL 28

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. All shows are 18 & up.

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.