The Pitch: December 24, 2015

1 DECEMBER 24–30, 2015 | FREE | VOL. 35 NO. 26 | PITCH.COM

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“BRILLIANT, POWERFUL AND EXPLOSIVE”.

december 24-30, 2015 | Vol. 35 No. 26 E d i t o r i a l

diet fad

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

Kansas City’s new year’s resolution should be slimming its roads. b y s t e v e vo c k r o d t

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Art and Production Director Allyson Peck Contributing Photographers Zach Bauman, Angela C. Bond, Barrett Emke, Chris Mullins, Sabrina Staires, Brooke Vandever

last bite

a d v E r t i s i n g

Advertising Director Mick Moore Senior Classified Multimedia Specialist Steven Suarez Multimedia Specialists Matt Berry, Savannah Cox, Becky Losey, Ruby Wetzel Production and Digital Coordinator Ashley Reed

A ramen revolution, a reincarnated Golden Ox and the rest of the top

m a r k E t i n g

restaurant stories of 2015.

Director of Marketing and Operations Jason Dockery

B u s i n E s s

by charles ferruzz a

Publisher Amy Mularski Office Administrator Jessica Kittams

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s o u t h c o m m

Chief Executive Officer Chris Ferrell Chief Financial Officer Ed Tearman Chief Operating Officer Blair Johnson Vice President of Finance Carla Simon Vice President of Content Patrick Rains Vice President of Production Operations Curt Pordes Vice President Local Publications Mark Bartel Controller Todd Patton Human Resources Manager Stephanie Stein Creative Director Heather Pierce

NOW PLAYING IN THEATRES EVERYWHERE

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Taking stock of Kansas City’s year in music.

c o p y r i g h t

The contents of The Pitch are Copyright 2015 by KC Communications, LLC. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part by any means without the express written permission of the publisher.

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3 Questionnaire 4 feature 9 agenda 10 art 13 film 17 fat city 19 on tap this week 20 new year’s eve events 23 music 2 8 d a i ly l i s t i n g s 33 savage love

meaNw h i le at pi tch .co m The ST. LOuiS FOOTBALL DEAL is fundamentally dishonest, and Kansas Citians shouldn’t have to pay for it.

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Questionnaire

DaviD Fritz

Host of The Pit on KQRC 98.9 (the Rock)

Twitter handle: @fritzakakickass Hometown: Louisville, Kentucky Current neighborhood: Mission What I do: I’m lucky to be hosting The Pit on

98.9 the Rock. My boss is smart enough to know how passionate metal fans are. I have the honor of hosting the loudest hour of radio in KC!

What’s your addiction? Coffee, music and answering questions

What’s your game? My game? Not sure I have one, but sometimes I pretend I’m saving the world.

What’s your drink? Water. Bourbon. Mixed.

Where’s dinner? Joe’s KC! What’s on your KC postcard? Royals win!!!

Finish this sentence: “Kansas City got it right when …” 800,000 showed up for the Royals

“Kansas City needs …” Better pizza! KC has amazing places to eat. I just want better pizza!

“As a kid, I wanted to be …” A football player,

a rock star and a supermodel. I’ve accomplished all of these goals.

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

parade!

“In five years, I’ll be …” Hosting The Pit and The best advice I ever got: Don’t quit a job saving the world. Main priority — stay out of jail. I don’t think I’d enjoy it there.

unless you have a new one lined up. Also, shower daily.

“I always laugh at …” Social-media drama. Save the drama for your mama.

Worst advice: Someone told me I should quit radio and get a “real job.”

“I’ve been known to binge-watch …” Mad Men, My sidekick: Sid, my dog. He’s a mini pinscher Trailer Park Boys and The League.

and kicks major ass.

“I can’t stop listening to …” Lamb of God.

What is your spirit animal? Sid.

“My dream concert lineup is …” Fritztonez and

Who is your hero? Anybody who has served

AC/DC. I have a make-believe band. In my mind, we’re huge! We rule!

“I just read …” This question.

in the military.

Who (or what) is your nemesis? Sid.

tiple sclerosis. It’s not fun. I was diagnosed four years ago.

What’s your guiltiest pleasure? Buying

My favorite toy as a child: Atari 2600! I

Halloween candy knowing that I won’t get any trick-or-treaters. I’ve got a ton left if you have a sweet tooth.

My brush with fame: I’ve had many. Slash has

always been very nice to me. Nikki Sixx was very cool when I spent some time with him.

When I was 12, I met Kenny Rogers. Jealous much?

p

My soapbox: Just do good.

What was the last thing you had to apologize for? Sheesh … where do I start?

Who’s sorry now? Me. I have a guilty What’s your greatest struggle right now? Mul- conscience.

selfies.

What’s your hidden talent? Twerking and

My dating triumph/tragedy: None of your business … although porn star Mary Carey offered to sleep with me when I was doing a morning show. Yeah, I said no.

FIND MOVIE TIMES P ON

was good at video games until skill was required.

My recent triumph: Today I walked on a treadmill for 30 minutes. I am king of the world!

Hear Fritz on The Pit from 11 p.m. to midnight Monday through Saturday on KQRC 98.9 the Rock. pitch.com

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Diet Fad Kansas City’s new year’s resolution should be slimming its roads.

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ransportation victories are hard-won in Kansas City.

City leaders and downtown boosters hail the 2-mile streetcar line on Main Street, slated to begin carrying passengers in 2016, as a long-awaited return to rail transportation for the city. As it stands, a rail line that covers 2 linear miles won’t make a dent in a sprawling city’s public-transportation issues.

The streetcar’s construction has been long, complex and expensive. Yet it will be completed before a much easier and much cheaper transportation innovation — a road diet on Grand Boulevard — is instituted.

Road diets are pretty simple. They require little more than planning and paint. They target wide streets, where vehicle traffic can be channeled into fewer lanes in order to adapt other parts of the road for parking, bicycle lanes and pedestrian walkways. The concept makes streets safer for drivers, bike riders and those on foot.

Grand Boulevard, a perfect candidate for a road diet, is where city planners have intended to realign five lanes to three, for traffic from the River Market to Crown Center.

Under this scenario, vehicles would travel each way in one lane, with a center lane reserved for left-turning traffic. The two excess lanes would be used for on-street parking, wider sidewalks and bicycle lanes.

Change in Kansas City, particularly to the way people drive cars, can be slow. Grand Boulevard’s road diet was supposed to be enacted in 2015, but it has been pushed to next year. The delay has disappointed transit boosters, who had hoped that Grand’s conversion from an overbuilt roadway to a multiuse thoroughfare would be a high-profile example of what could be applied to several other roads.

“Sometimes it’s hard to make a policy shift because it’s easier to keep doing things the way you’ve always done it,”

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says Russ Johnson, a former Northland councilman who termed out of office earlier this year.

Johnson championed the idea of studying the city’s roads to determine which could be slimmed down. He served as the chairman of the Kansas City Transportation & Infrastructure Committee when an ordinance regarding which city streets were eligible for road diets was introduced.

At a December 4, 2014, meeting of the committee, Johnson stepped away from the council dais to testify to the committee he runs on behalf of the ordinance. The measure passed easily. Its result was a lengthy list of four-lane, undivided roadways that city workers would research to determine which were feasible for a road diet. In the end, 92 roads were analyzed and 45 deemed eligible.

Those feasible roads follow a general pattern: They have at least four lanes, no median and aren’t heavily trafficked.

Generally, roadways that don’t have more than 10,000 vehicle trips a day are suitable for conversion to three lanes.

To date, only one road has been redone: Leeds Trafficway, a half-mile stretch from Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard to Stadium Drive. It’s not a well-traveled or visible roadway — not since General Motors abandoned the Leeds Assembly Plant in 1988. An estimated 3,700 cars a day traverse Leeds Trafficway, making it one of the least-traveled streets among the 92 studied.

It’s going to be a long time before other roads are converted.

City planners expect to put eligible roads on diets in conjunction with street-repaving projects, meaning that instead of repainting eligible streets, the city will do road-diet conversions only when roads come up for repaving maintenance.

How often does the city repave its streets?

“Usually, at this stage, with our current budget, you’re

By Steve Vockrodt

looking at 30 years for us to resurface a road,” says Kansas City Public Works spokesman Sean Demory.

For supporters of the road-diet plan, three decades is too long.

S

eattle doesn’t call its conversions road diets.

“It’s kind of negative,” says Seattle traffic engineer Dongho Chang. “There’s a perception that something is being taken away.”

Instead, Seattle planners call the process “re-channelization.” But it’s the same concept, and it’s one that the Emerald City, with traffic congestion far greater than what’s found here, has been employing since 1972. Motivated by safety, Seattle has trimmed 40 miles of its roads, and many more miles are targeted.

In a way, four-lane, undivided roads are already kind of like two-lane roads. Imagine driving in the left lane and getting caught behind someone turning left at an intersection where there’s no dedicated turn lane. You and everyone else bottleneck behind that driver until he or she turns. The cars behind you, their drivers frustrated by the unexpected traffic stop, whip into the right lane, leading to rear-end accidents.

The driver making the turn doesn’t always see oncoming traffic, either, with two lanes of vehicles approaching from the other direction.

“That perpetuates over and over again, and the result is, you have a lot of sideswipes and people who are making the turn feeling pressured so they make the turn quickly,” Chang says.

In 2013, traffic engineers in Seattle noticed that a milelong commuter stretch of 75th Avenue was the site of several vehicle collisions, including a particularly nasty accident.

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A rendering envisions how Broadway on the Plaza would look with a road diet.

By slimming down the number of lanes dedicated to vehicle traffic, there’s enough room on Broadway for bike facilities.

So 75th Avenue went on a diet. Vehicle collisions have dropped by 50 percent since then, Chang says.

Even though Seattle has been doing road diets for 43 years, drivers still resist the change.

“The community actually did a self-polling and pretty much you look at the comments, people were very skeptical upfront,” Chang says. “They said it was the dumbest project ever. After living through it for a few weeks, they said it was better than what was there before.”

Road diets aren’t merely the province of progressive coastal cities. St. Louis has been far ahead of Kansas City in terms of slimming its roads, reconfiguring more than a dozen five- and four-lane roadways into three-lane streets in its downtown and inner-core neighborhoods. Some of those roads have included bicycle lanes.

“It’s a great way to reallocate the space that was there to incorporate all modes of transportation,” says Deanna Venker, commissioner of traffic for St. Louis.

St. Louis doesn’t have a formal program for road diets. Rather, the city dedicates funding when an opportunity arises. Similar to those continued on page 6 pitch.com

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6 AERIAL VIEW

a l ly s o n P e c k

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GROUND VIEW

Diet Fad continued from page 5 in Seattle, projects in St. Louis have met with initial skepticism.

“There’s always a little bit of hesitance for folks that have always had four-lane roadways,” Venker says. “They don’t look at it kindly that they’re giving one of their lanes for a bicycle lane.”

In Sioux Center, Iowa, a decision to do a road diet on a main thoroughfare there was heavily criticized. Prior to the conversion, a poll commissioned by the Iowa Department of Transportation showed that 18 percent of respondents supported the idea, while 45 percent opposed it. The remaining 37 percent were neutral on the issue.

The Iowa DOT’s study of the U.S. High-

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way 75 corridor found that residents were concerned about automobile accidents and speeding on the 25 mph downtown stretch.

The seven-month study before the roadway conversion found that 43 percent of the vehicles traveled more than 5 miles per hour over the posted speed limit and there were 30 crashes, a third of which caused injuries.

After converting the highway to three lanes, there was a 70 percent drop in speeding in the seven months that followed. Crashes fell from 30 to 13 in the same time frame, with no injury accidents.

The conversion seemed to please Sioux Center residents. Afterward, 45 percent approved the new design compared with the 17 percent who liked it when it was just a concept.

pitch.com

Earlier this year, the city of Seattle converted a 1-mile stretch of Rainier Avenue to three lanes to resolve safety issues. The city didn’t wait for Rainier to come up on a street-maintenance budget. Workers just water-blasted the existing paint off and repainted the street. It was finished overnight.

“These projects are very low-cost,” Chang says. “They’re mostly paint.”

Kansas City doesn’t share that view.

I

n Kansas City, cost has been a sticking point for proposed road diets. Demory, the Public Works spokesman, says it costs $6,000 to remove paint from one block of road and another $4,300 to restripe it.

That’s why Kansas City decided to go with

road diets when eligible streets come up for repaving; the roads need to be repainted then anyway.

“I’m very sensitive to budgetary issues,” former Councilman Johnson says. “My resolution said just roll this into your streetresurfacing program. If you find money elsewhere, you can accelerate it. If you don’t have other money, you’re just going to have to wait your turn.”

But even when the city does have the money, it doesn’t always use it. In 2012, the Missouri Department of Transportation awarded Kansas City a $400,000 grant under a federal air-quality program. The money was earmarked for bike lanes along Armour and Benton boulevards. In midtown, Armour makes a good candidate for bike paths and a

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realignment of street lanes. The east-west road has been increasingly lined with new apartments, giving the street something of a community feel.

“Armour is ripe for trying something new, slowing down traffic and, frankly, enhancing the boulevard aspect,” says Nadja Karpilow, vice president of Old Hyde Park Neighborhood Association.

Neighborhood leaders in Old Hyde Park, along with those in the nearby neighborhoods of Squier Park and Center City, have been meeting with City Hall to discuss working on Armour. Specifically, they would like to see Armour Boulevard reduced from four lanes to three, its sidewalks widened, and angled parking and lanes for bicycles added.

Parking availability hasn’t kept up with the boom in apartment units along Armour.

Neighborhood leaders say the city has been slow to move on realigning Armour and has put the $400,000 grant at risk of being reclaimed by MoDOT. “I think there is funding that is available, but it won’t be available forever,” says Hyde Park resident Matt Levi, who has supported changes along Armour.

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Main Street received priority restriping.

City staffers met with neighborhood leaders December 17 to present them with ideas for converting Armour and Benton boulevards.

The neighborhoods were presented with two road-diet options, on which the city is expected to begin work next year.

Certain priorities factor in. The week of December 7, city crews stripped paint off a section of Main between 16th and 18th streets. Main Street was repaved just as major streetcar construction had finished. City crews repainted lanes, including a stripe for parking that was so close to the curb that cars needed to hug the edge of the sidewalk just to stay within the parking lane to avoid interfering with the streetcar (and getting a ticket).

The Kansas City Streetcar Authority received enough complaints about the alignment of the parking stripe that the city’s Public Works Department scraped the lines off and repainted them a few more inches from the sidewalk to make it easier for cars to park.

Kansas City Public Works picked up the tab.

E-mail steve.vockrodt@pitch.com

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9 WEEK OF DECEMBER 24-30, 2015

W ELL , W ELL , W ELL — H A NS Die Hard, violent older brother of Home Alone, and the ultimate Christmas Eve movie, gets a staged reading from Stuffed Buffalo Productions Monday, December 28. That gives you time to refresh yourself on the 1988 classic and bring a little of your stocking cash to this benefit performance, the proceeds of which go to ReStart Inc., which provides shelter and services to homeless Kansas Citians. The 8 p.m. reading, starring Seth Macchi as John McClane and Cody Wyoming as Hans Gruber, is in the Buffalo Room at Westport Flea Market Bar & Grill (817 Westport Road).

Tickets at sbpdiehard.eventbrite.com.

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ART

By

A nnie R A A b

L e f t: K r i s t i e t w e e d , r i g h t: L a u r e n C o L e m a n

Forbidden Touch

Christopher Kurtz’s sculptures demand a tactile response in a strictly hands-off setting.

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atural light streams in through the long windows above the Belger Crane Yard Studios gallery. In the middle of the floor, a thorny bramble reaches for the opposite wall, anchored to the ground on spiny legs that untangle from the busy sculpture. Chaotic at first, the wooden “Singularity” begins to make sense the longer you study it. A seemingly random orientation of shapes and angles reveals its symmetries to the viewer who exercises patience. This most eye-catching piece sums up a lot of Kurtz’s work in the gallery: organic-appearing but finely controlled.

(The show’s title, Orchards, comes from an assessment of Kurtz’s philosophy that he attributes to a friend: His practice is like an apple orchard — wild yet ordered.

The wood here is supple, sanded with a fine grain and an even hand, leaving no splinters on the bar stools, the footstool or the cane. Although the gallery setting forbids touching the art, the chairs look at least as comfortable and durable as anything on the market. “Wind-

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sor Chair,” one of Kurtz’s most formal pieces in the show, is exactly what it sounds like: a wooden chair that presents as stuffy but, up close, shows delicate handling and loving workmanship. Its counterpart, “(A)Typical Windsor Chair,” is what it promises to be; it looks like two Windsor chairs twisting uncomfortably away from each other, connected in a way that suggests an unwanted cell division. There’s wit layered into this work: How has a chair become caught up in an intimate struggle? Or is this where chairs really come from — budding from an existing chair?

This resurgence of old-style craftsmanship and trade learning is permeating the art world, but Kurtz isn’t simply following a trend. “Act Together,” a twisted cedar root painted white and sprouting from a pedestal log, explores a more poetic idea than the decorous Windsor chairs as it suggests two parts of a single source pursuing individual paths, only to converge again. One pivoting branch rises out of the stump and develops an

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From left: “Singularity” and “(A)Typical Windsor Chair” by Kurtz offshoot limb that goes in the other direction.

These two branches grow apart, turning and contorting on different paths skyward. When they meet again high above the initial stump, it’s as if not much has really changed.

The single leg of “Ginkgo Console” is beautiful simplicity, the only support for the piece itself. Balanced against the gallery wall, the work looks half-finished, as if half the table — second leg and all — has disappeared into the wall. Here’s the link between furniture and nature: A ginkgo leaf has but one stem attached to its fan, so why would a second stem be added to a sculpture depicting a ginkgo leaf? Kurtz’s attention to such logic sets his works here apart from mere furniture design. He doesn’t stop at alluding to a naturally occurring phenomenon when he senses it may be possible to re-create its important elements. Function is, by design, secondary, with beauty trumping all.

Orchards presents a certain dilemma. The desire to enjoy a casual interaction with these objects is at odds with the express instruction that they not be touched. You leave the gallery with an almost physical sensation of thwarted curiosity, an unsatisfied itch that distracts well after you’ve driven away. You resisted the urge to feel the smooth wooden surfaces, but you continue imagining what it would be like if only Kurtz’s objects could be made to function in your own space.

Christopher Kurtz Orchards Through January 23 at Belger Crane Yard Studios, 2011 Tracy, 816-474-7316, redstarstudios.org

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film

Carol of the Belles

T

he other night, I decided to rewatch my two favorite movies this year — two movies that couldn’t be more different, except for the love I feel for them. Mad Max: Fury Road is all maximalist gestures, painted in a palette of rust, dust, fireballs and speed — a motor-psycho hellscape out of Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” monster drums and electric guitar included. Yet beholding the mastery, kinetic panache and, yeah, beauty that George Miller marshals from that chaos is like watching a conductor coax Mahler from an orchestra of air-raid sirens.

Carol, my other favorite, is quiet where Fury Road is loud, restrained where Fury Road is orgiastic, anchored in a recent past of suburban comfort where Fury Road cruises a dystopian futuristic desert. What the two movies share — besides a long road journey, and starting by following a male character who yields to a female protagonist — is uncommon command of the medium. Control isn’t just the formal rigor that Carol exhibits from the very first scene but also the stifling exactitude required of its two main characters, whose every public utterance and gesture must be delivered in code.

The movie establishes this as soon as a man walks into a 1950s hotel restaurant and glibly shouts to a young woman across the room. It will take roughly another hour and

Rooney (left) and Blanchett share a secret. a half to learn why the woman and her female companion react with expressions that a more attentive man might read as alarm. The women part, though not in any way that the man might notice; only we register the extra beat as the elegant older woman leaves her hand on her tablemate’s shoulder and the slight nod of the head that acknowledges it.

From there, Carol goes back in time, retracing the steps that led shopgirl Therese (Rooney Mara) and upper-crust wife and mother Carol Aird (Cate Blanchett) to lock eyes across a department-store display of perfect dolls and a toy-train utopia.

It’s as immaculate as the home Carol shares with her husband, Harge (Kyle Chandler, a walking bruise of wounded masculine pride), and their preteen daughter. Carol’s every interaction with Harge seethes with desperation and longing for escape. The rest of the movie is what happens when she falls in love with Therese and tries to get away with her, only to learn that it isn’t enough just to stay secret in public.

The director, Todd Haynes, made the Julianne Moore melodrama Far From Heaven, a fascinating experiment that played like a semiotician’s painstaking re-creation of Douglas Sirk’s brazen Technicolor weepies.

Todd Haynes’ quiet precision makes Carol one of the best films of the year.

It was an affecting movie, but every element of Sirk’s style, from the saturated colors to the use of mirrors, still left a vapor trail of quotation-marked pastiche. Not Carol. Maybe Haynes’ Mildred Pierce HBO miniseries served as practice, but his measurement of every hand gesture, of every isolating frame within the frame, of every glance or line charged with hidden meaning, is achieved with a precision that obliterates air quotes.

Far From Heaven’s interracial romance seemed itself something of a code as it pushed a subplot about Dennis Quaid’s closeted husband off to the side; Carol, adapted from an initially pseudonymous 1952 novel by the late Patricia Highsmith, is painfully direct about the stakes facing its lesbian heroines, who stand to lose children and homes if they drop their cover in a restaurant — or in their own bedroom.

The tension is keenly felt in Blanchett’s exquisitely modulated performance. Pressed to maintain a public façade, Carol is different people as the occasion demands: a doting mom, a coolly poised wife at social functions, a husky-voiced seducer with Therese. The law and social strictures demand that these be exclusive, with Carol’s friend and former lover Abby (Sarah Paulson, making explicit what was implicit in the true-blue Eve Arden gal-pal role) standing as proof of what comes to those who step outside. As the less experienced Therese, Mara has an open face that seems to be processing several contradictory things simultaneously — the opposite of Carol, who must be one thing at a time.

The lush atmosphere that Haynes creates around them with his excellent cinematographer, Edward Lachman, isn’t as sterile as the germophobic bubble world of his 1996 classic, Safe, but it’s very nearly as tense. The screenwriter, Phyllis Nagy, a filmmaker and friend of Highsmith’s who shepherded the project for more than two decades through numerous production setbacks, supplies a taut script that occasionally echoes Brief Encounter, even Lolita. It’s smart enough to hand the hat-tipping statement to a minor character — the difference between what people say in movies and what they really feel — then to play it almost offhandedly. Sharper still (and masterfully delivered by Blanchett) is the gulf of heartbreak between Carol’s two variations of her two-word refrain: “That’s that.”

Given the times and the situation, Carol seems headed for the requisite misery that marked (and marred) fiction about gay characters for decades. But gay readers loved Highsmith’s novel back in the day because it ultimately had no patience for that well-ofloneliness jive, and neither does Haynes’ film.

pitch.com

By

Jim R idl e y

Carol may begin in public with an interrogative, but it ends in public with a declarative all the more dramatic for not being voiced, conveyed with all the passion that the minor chords in Carter Burwell’s gloriously tormented score can muster. And that’s another difference between my two favorite movies this year. Mad Max: Fury Road concludes with the promise of further exploits in its obsessively detailed wasteland. But Carol ends with the advent of a whole new world.

Moppingjay

Joy can’t wring enough out of Jennifer Lawrence.

T

he first 45 minutes or so of Joy, writerdirector David O. Russell’s feature-length attempt to pass the Bechdel Test (A plus, not for nothing), taps into the self-assured giddiness of his previous couple of movies, using three of their key actors. But unlike the sparkling Silver Linings Playbook and its more panoramic but less focused follow-up, American Hustle, Joy abandons its predecessors’ warm, involving chaos to open instead a vein of chilly, syrupy machine oil. What starts as a Wes Andersonian fable — with visual and aural puns and overlapping dialogue and a curious, roaming POV — lurches toward static, humorless melodrama. It’s a puzzling, frustrating disappointment.

There’s no blaming Jennifer Lawrence, who won an Oscar for Playbook, juiced the biggest laughs in American Hustle and is as good here as she has ever been. As the title character, a broadly fairy-tale-ized version of Miracle Mop inventor Joy Mangano — whose last name and other particulars go, as far as I remember, unuttered in Russell and Bridesmaids co-writer Annie Mumolo’s continued on page 14

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film continued from page 13 this-ain’t-all-true-so-don’t-sue-us story — she’s operating as a kind of acting-robot prototype, in keeping with the home-inventor gadgetiness of the plot. To wit: Starry-eyed but tough divorcée invents a mop out of household necessity (Lawrence plays determined), markets it to save her children from poverty (Lawrence plays mommy), is undercut by an evil stepsister and a cloddish father (Lawrence plays screwball), loses to patriarchy and criminality (Lawrence plays angry and sad), and gets in touch with her inner Mafia princess (Lawrence auditions for Scorsese). It’s a lot of acting, but she renders her character as close to seamless as Joy’s increasingly frayed patchwork of themes and types allows.

Themes and types: Robert De Niro, bad dad (good work); Diane Ladd, sainted grandmother (lovely), voice-over narrator (uh oh); Virginia Madsen, bad mom, gentle sufferer of mild mental illness (best part of the movie); Elisabeth Rohm, Cinderella’s mean stepsisters as one passive-aggressive jerk (miscast); Isabella Rossellini, Old World heiress from some other story (from some other movie); Bradley Cooper, smooth operator (smoothly operating).

Plot: Design mop, make mop, try to sell mop, dip mop in tears, rinse, repeat. That’s it. Really.

Joy is a movie about a mop that keeps its user’s hands from getting dirty, made by a director who unexpectedly declines this time to get his hands dirty. With four credited editors, it’s not hard to believe that the rewrites and reshoots reported ahead of the movie’s release were no minor fixes. As the first half’s distinctive pleasures give way to an absurd, tone-deaf climax, then a condescending denouement, you long for a more authentic mess, something that test audiences or studio bosses didn’t demand be cleaned up.

— Scott Wilson

Girl, interrupted

The Danish Girl isn’t the hoped-for advance in transgender portrayal.

A

rticulating exactly what is wrong, insulting and grotesque about The Danish Girl — The King’s Speech director Tom Hooper’s latest bit of corporate Oscar bait — is a job unto itself, and I’m by no means the most qualified applicant. The film is a symptom of a culture in which cisgender people, some gay but mostly straight, take it upon them-

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selves to dictate to transgender people the terms of their own lives. I have no intention of continuing such a pattern in this review.

Instead, I highly recommend Carol Grant’s excellent analysis of the film on Indiewire, in which she explains why the film is, in her words, “regressive, reductive, and harmful.”

(The comments that her review has generated essentially prove her points.)

Trans folks are assaulted, raped and murdered at a staggering rate, even compared with the rest of the LGBTQ community. And within that subset of victims or survivors, trans women of color are the most likely to be affected. (Seven trans women of color were murdered in the first two months of 2015 alone, a horrid pattern that has mostly continued apace.) In terms of more commonplace violence, one need only witness the recent repeal-by-referendum of Houston’s equal-rights ordinance, an omnibus antidiscrimination law defeated with a transphobic smear campaign by the city’s evangelical churches. These are real-world crises that entertainment can’t fix.

On its face, none of this would seem to have much to do with a period film about Europe in the 1920s. This is the story of two Danish artists, Gerda Wegener (Alicia Vikander) and her husband, Einar (Eddie Redmayne), who eventually discovers that he’s actually a woman, Lili Elbe. With the help of an experimental gynecological surgeon, Dr. Kurt Warnekros (Sebastian Koch), Lili elects to undergo an early form of gender confirmation surgery.

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The Danish Girl is a miss.

Due to complications from a second surgery, a vaginoplasty, Lili — spoiler alert — dies.

Redmayne’s performance, while severely lacking, only reflects The Danish Girl’s much deeper structural problems. Yes, the actor engages more in mimicry than in the creation of a rich character. But this could be said for much of the current crop of young British thespians, whose tic-and-gesture indicating is in tune with the stereotyping proclivities of millennial audiences — keep it shallow, cut to the chase. As for whether a trans actor or actress should have played the role of Lili, it’s almost beside the point. Yes, the industry must hire more trans talent, no question. But should anyone play Lili?

One wonders: What is the pressing cultural question to which The Danish Girl’s Lili Elbe is the answer? Her discovery is presented in a kind of shorthand of mini-revelations, touching silky slips and trying on nylons or, in one key scene, looking at herself in the mirror with her penis tucked behind her legs. With Redmayne’s goo-goo eyes and the garish music, The Danish Girl argues in this moment that transgender existence is just a switch that gets flipped, with identification subject to “triggers,” which can be isolated, as if gender and sexuality were reducible to the furtive donning of a negligee or playing in the sandbox with a Tonka truck. These are practically James Dobson talking points.

The film engages with more complex ques-

tions of gender fluidity, only to defiantly cancel them out. When Einar visits a peep show to observe and copy “feminine” poses, the film crosses a kind of Rubicon of gender theory.

It could choose to emphasize the doubleperformativity of the moment, how Lili is patterning herself in part on a copy of a copy because we all do. But no, The Danish Girl insists that Lili is an essence that must be set free, something God made (she says as much), and not a sense of becoming, a work in progress. This essentialism may reflect the experience of some. But there’s a conflation of sex and gender in the way Lili’s life is depicted.

For her, to be a woman is to be passive, a wilting flower practically aching for the grave.

Gerda, meanwhile, is for some reason never seen by Lili as a viable model of womanhood.

Gerda, who desired Einar and Lili, whose art displayed the complexity of their relationship, and who insisted that being a woman and a painter were by no means mutually exclusive, reflects the paradox at the heart of The Danish Girl, the aporia the film seems barely aware of. This is a 2015 movie that conjures trans women as the apex of conservatism, and somehow the wife haunts the story as a figure of queer modernity. Far from being a subversive fillip, this film only shows how clueless it really is.

— Michael Sicinski

Blunt Farce

Concussion hits you with Serious Will Smith until you can’t think straight.

I

f you think a movie centered on establishing a link between pro football and a brain condition disproportionally suffered by NFL players — called chronic traumatic encephalopathy — sounds maybe a little slow, let me reassure you on three points.

One, have you watched an NFL game lately? Pretty fucking slow.

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film Two, Concussion — the bluntly titled, fact-based-ish movie in question — moves along no more lackadaisically than, say, a two-part episode of whatever CSI, NCIS, TGI Crime Day procedural you or your neighbors have made ratings hits. (Also, as in those shows, you get slides and brain matter and re-enactments.)

Three, it’s actually less a story about the collision of precise medical study, athletic grace, male heteronormative ideals of masculinity, and corporate secrecy — that is, it’s not what one would have hoped writerdirector Peter Landesman would have made of Jeanne Marie Laskas’ stunning GQ article “Game Brain” — than it is the uplifting tale of a very serious, very saintly Will Smith scoring a sweet job interview. Merry Christmas, Dad. Smith plays Dr. Bennet Omalu, a real-life forensic pathologist reduced in this telling to a never-ending show of signifiers about his goodness and his outsider status — he’s Nigerian (Smith’s accent is fine), he cares nothing about football in a Pittsburgh portrayed as having nothing else to care about, he drives his BMW to church every Sunday, and his African soulfulness alienates coworkers. A concussion-compromised brain that he analyzes as a matter of routine leads him to question how otherwise healthy people are suffering gruesome declines. Omalu comes to believe that football is the cause. No way, says a series of reliable actors playing ambivalent, football-loving white guys. Yes way, says Omalu, until Alec Baldwin drinks a glass of Louisiana accent, pronounces his love of the game but also his love of science, and agrees to help.

As Omalu gets crank calls, faces hostile foes and finds his job threatened, his gently paternalistic notes on assimilation to a pretty immigrant named Prema (Gugu Mbatha-Raw, good in a borderline unforgivable role) bud into love and marriage. Prema even teaches him how to appreciate football, in an abstract way. The lonely, heroic doctor is at last appreciated. Football players continue to die, however, so the lonely, heroic work goes on.

As more people dispute, then believe Omalu, his vision of America and being American renews focus. And so it is that the U.S. government sees his LinkedIn profile or something and tries to recruit him, whispering about benefits and how it’s time for him to serve his grateful adopted nation with his gifts. But Omalu turns down D.C. and stays in a California suburb, where he’s last seen watching children bash their little helmeted heads together, imitating the sport of redblooded America at a high, doomed cost.

Well, he tried.

— S.W.

AmericAn Hustle The Big Short: too funny to fail.

GOLDEN GLOBE AWARD NOMINATIONS

S

mart, profane and funny, The Big Short is Hollywood’s most welcome surprise of 2015: a hugely entertaining movie about the credit-default swaps that tanked our economy at the dawn of the Obama administration. Somehow, Adam McKay (previous high watermark: Step Brothers; no, I’m serious — it’s desert-island good), directing a screenplay that he wrote with Charles Randolph, has turned the briskly told but fact-dense Michael Lewis book into a playground for highly unlike actors. Method-y Christian Bale, beard-serious Brad Pitt, a spray-tanned Ryan Gosling, a supremely dyspeptic Steve Carell — few share scenes with one another, but, under McKay’s direction (and given terrific support by familiar faces such as Max Greenfield and Hamish Linklater), they convey a super-connected chorus of bafflement and fury. Not one plays a likable person, yet the movie’s key illusion — one of brilliant casting foremost and very good acting second — is that its characters are on our side.

But what side is left to be on? Almost no one responsible for untold fiscal destruction and widespread personal calamity faced penalty, let alone prosecution. We hate the banks, hate Wall Street. We need the banks, which need Wall Street. When the movie ends, you want to find Bernie Sanders in the lobby, then go home and put up an oil painting of Paul Krugman (who this week published a column approving The Big Short on both historic and popcorn merits). You want to figure out why more people aren’t still mad, aren’t still talking all the time about the country’s worst nonviolent habits, and how those habits fire violence of a different sort, ugly and desperate — but not too ugly or desperate to laugh at, at least for a couple of hours.

— S.W.

E-mail scott.wilson@pitch.com

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Bartender’s noteBook

play, dough

W

e’re out of doughnuts,” Jake Randall cheerfully told me last Thursday, December 17, when I popped into Doughnut Lounge, his new Westport shop, just after 2 p.m. “We ran out of everything by 11 a.m.”

That’s fine, I told him: I’m here for the cocktails.

The full bar at Doughnut Lounge doesn’t open until 4 p.m. (when the doughnut cases are scheduled to be refilled with the day’s second batch of fried pastries), but Dominic Petrucci, a full-time bartender at Julep who consulted on Doughnut Lounge’s initial cocktail menu and bar program, walked me through a few drinks. The list isn’t long: just two classic cocktails — an Old Fashioned and a Last Word — and seven house creations.

First, Petrucci served the Slow Jamz, which is essentially an espresso martini, he admitted with a slightly embarrassed smile.

“I think people look down on espresso martinis, you know?” he said. “But I think everything has a place, and it makes sense here. We use good ingredients. We pull a fresh shot of espresso — right now, we’re using something from Guatemala — and we have a milk simple syrup, which is milk, water and sugar. We use a citric acid solution in there, which gives the syrup a kind of citrus quality to it, which is great with espresso. And, of course, there’s vodka.”

The Slow Jamz is served in a coupe glass, with a mixture of espresso powder and chili powder sprinkled over the top. The ab-

sence of thick, syrupy liqueurs and cream gives this drink a light, silky profile. The bitterness of the espresso isn’t diluted, which cuts the sweetness. I could also taste hints of chocolate, though none had been added. This is a sophisticated libation — not the espresso martini your Auntie Bev orders at Chili’s.

Next up was the Eagle Street, a twist on a cobbler — a classic cocktail involving sherry, sugar and citrus. Petrucci’s recipe uses Alvear Pedro Ximénez Solera 1927, orange juice, pineapple juice, and Fernet Branca Menta that the bar has infused with cucumber. This combination is served over ice in a double rocks glass and garnished (as at Julep) with a generous sprig of mint.

“It’s supposed to be a sweet cocktail,” Petrucci said. “It’s almost like dessert, like eating a pie, but it’s not supposed to overwhelm. Plus, this cucumber fernet is delicious and really bright.”

The Eagle Street is one of those drinks that has layers of flavor. I could smell the cucumber and mint before I tasted them, and they balanced the super-sweetness of the Alvear sherry. The profile of the cocktail reminded me a bit of a Pimm’s Cup: summer flavors, heavy taste.

Petrucci’s final cocktail for me — and the one he was most excited about, he said — was a winter warmer called the Against Method, featuring orange bitters, maraschino liqueur, sweet vermouth and Old Tom Gin. It has the same ingredients as the classic Martinez

Doughnut Lounge pairs fried dough with craft cocktails.

By

N ata l ie G a l l a Ghe r

Petrucci (far left) presents his Slow Jamz (above right) and Eagle Street. cocktail, Petrucci said, except he makes it hot, with a rather elaborate prep.

“To serve this drink hot, you could put it in a hot pot to keep the temperature, but over time, it’ll destroy the botanicals in the liquors,” Petrucci said. “You could add hot water, but that’s going to dilute it and make the drink too hot, because the stuff we have here is attached to industrial coffee machines. So instead, what we’re doing is using a double-boiler method.”

Petrucci showed me a large copper container about the size of a wine chiller, which he said was filled with hot water. The cocktail ingredients were combined in a metal mixer, which bobbed around as he stirred until the drink reached a toasty 140 degrees.

He pushed the golden-hued drink toward me. It tasted like a classy version of a hot toddy — molten liquid sunshine.

“It’s only going to get colder [outside],” Petrucci said, “and people are only going to want something that makes them feel better, and this drink is it.”

I agreed. But, Petrucci added, folks shouldn’t get too attached to this menu.

“This first cocktail menu will be in place for a month, maybe,” he said. “The classics will rotate out quarterly, with the seasons, but the signature will rotate out on a whim.

There’s a lot of people in here that have different voices and have a lot of experience

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behind the bar, so to have a menu that reflects what they want to say will be really interesting.”

As Petrucci returned to grilling his bar staff about garnishes, I found Randall. He was still buoyant, despite navigating through a new headache surrounding his server terminals and ticket printouts. I asked him about the bar time, and Randall told me that it was set largely as a precaution.

“For now, we want to do all things well,” he said. “The reason for 4 p.m. bar opening is really to just give us a break [in the day]. We want to figure this out” — Randall gestured to the coffee-and-doughnut-case side. “And then we’ll figure this out tonight” — he waved a hand at the shelves of booze — “and see how it goes.”

He continued: “Soon, I think you’ll see an earlier bar opening. But then again, we had 273 people walk through that door today, and only one of them asked us for a drink. It’s not like we told people the bar is closed, but right now we’re just figuring it out.” He paused and grinned. “Right now, it looks to us like we make a certain amount in the morning. We sell out of those, but we’re open for tea and coffee during the day. And then at 4, the bar opens, and fresh doughnuts come out and everyone is happy.”

E-mail natalie.gallagher@pitch.com D EC E M B E R 24 -3 0 , 2 0 1 5

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fat c i t y

last bite

A ramen revolution, a reincarnated Golden Ox and the rest of the top restaurant stories of 2015

By

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

hat were people talking about in Kansas City’s restaurant scene in 2015?

I can name quite a few things. Ramen.

Bakeries. Pizza. Comeback stories. Barbecue.

But ramen, that dish of kinky Japanese noodles in a full-bodied broth, was the hottest restaurant story of 2015. Why? Kansas City has seen the start of a ramen revolution.

The Columbus Park Ramen Shop — from Happy Gillis Café & Hangout owners Josh and Abbey-Jo Eans — opened in October, and three more ramen venues are slated for the coming year, including Il Lazzarone owner Erik Borger’s Komatsu (at 3951 Broadway) and chef Patrick Curtis’ Shio Noodle (at 3605 Broadway). A ramen restaurant proposed by Summit Grill & Bar owners Andy Lock and Domhnall Molloy is in the planning stages.

But not every new restaurant idea shakes up the town. Old restaurants sometimes die and they’re frequently reincarnated, sometimes with sad results. (There are exceptions to this rule: the Corner Restaurant and Michael Forbes Bar & Grille; the latter reopened in October, five months after a serious fire.) And that brings us to the Golden Ox. At the end of 2014, The Pitch called the closing of the 65-year-old Golden Ox steakhouse “the local restaurant story of the year.”

Now that 2015 is drawing to a close, the news that the iconic steak-and-spud restaurant will reopen in 2016 (much smaller and owned and operated by Voltaire proprietors Jill Myers and Wes Gartner) is a top restaurant topic. Gartner and Myers say that when they open the doors to 1600 Genessee next September (in time for the 2016 American Royal), it will be a very different steakhouse from the Ox in its depressing final days — and that’s a hopeful sign.

Kansas City’s downtown has lost several classic steak restaurants over the last decade — the Hereford House, Benton’s Chop House, the Savoy Grill (which reportedly will reopen, but not as a steakhouse) — and needs an oldschool replacement, although the 10-monthold Cleaver & Cork, in the Power & Light District, is a contender.

A nother old-school restaurant, the 36-year-old EBT — famous for its Continental cuisine and tableside Caesar salads — was another loss to the local restaurant landscape. It’s unlikely that this restaurant, which paid homage to both the long-razed Emery Bird Thayer department store and a long-outdated style of dining, will ever return in any fashion.

But two popular dining venues that were briefly closed for part of the year did return.

Leslie Stockard thought that she had sold her Waldo bruncheonette, the Classic Cookie,

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in March, but she resumed ownership eight months later. Her longtime customers were ecstatic.

So were fans of chef Shanita McAfee Bryant’s tiny Magnolia’s Contemporary Southern Bistro (at 2932 Cherry), which closed at the beginning of the year and recently reopened in a much larger space (at 9916 Holmes), where McAfee Bryant serves her most popular dishes: red-velvet waffles, sweet-potato pancakes, Nutter Butter French toast. I had one of my favorite brunches of 2015 in her spacious new dining room.

What about the restaurants that really closed for good in 2015? To name a few: Sutera’s Italian Restaurant in Westwood, the Thai Place in Westport, Saigon 39 on 39th Street, Morton’s Grille on the Country Club

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Top: Il Lazzarone; above, from left: Golden Ox and Columbus Park Ramen Shop Plaza (after a nine-month run), Huddle House (3959 Broadway), Tengo Sed Cantina (1323 Walnut), Woodswether Café (1414 West Ninth Street), and Sosa’s 39th Street Diner (3906 Waddell).

Some of those addresses remain vacant.

Others were quickly snapped up by enterprising restaurateurs. Alan Gaylin of Bread & Butter Concepts did an impressive refurbishing of the former Ingredient on the Plaza (4807 Jefferson) to create his Spanish-influenced República, serving tapas and paella. Eddie Crane had his own vision for the Haus space, creating a neighborhood saloon he named Ollie’s Local. The Local Pig location is no

longer a restaurant but a bar called Throwback, with console video games.

Another Westport venue that wasn’t empty long was 4120 Pennsylvania, last occupied by a short-lived outpost of Blanc Burgers + Bottles. In a surprisingly fast turnaround, it become a Dempsey’s Burger Pub. Farther north, the former Bulldog Restaurant & Bar, at 17th Street and Main, was transformed into a café and self-service beer saloon called the Ruins.

And a long-vacant downtown venue — 100 East Seventh Street, last occupied by Arun Thai Place five years ago — became the Homesteader Café this past fall.

Two new downtown arcade lounges — Tapcade and Up-Down — offer hand-held victuals for patrons wanting to nosh as they play. UpDown (in the former Hamburger Mary’s spot in the Crossroads that moved to the Uptown Theater a year ago) serves pizza by the slice.

Tapcade serves wraps, wings and fries.

Surprises in 2015: After nearly four decades, IHOP returned to midtown (near KU Medical Center, at 3928 Rainbow); a cheesecake bake shop opened on Troost (Whimsy Cheesecakes in the Flavor Trade Building, at 3000 Troost); communal dining came to Zona Rosa with the independently owned Q Hot Pot (8610 Northwest Prairie View Road); and Vandal’s Punk Rock Club (3740

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Fat C i t y Broadway) became Woody’s Classic Sports Pub, with a damn good menu.

And after I fretted over one of my favorite burger joints for more than nine months, the beloved LC’s Hamburgers in the Northland, reopened — finally! — last March after a 2014 fire closed it for nearly a year.

Pizza? There’s always a place for new pizzerias in the metro, and this year’s bounty of pie shops included two fast-serve restaurants: Pizzeria Locale in Waldo (in partnership with the Chipotle chain) and the independently owned Topp’d, at 3934 Rainbow, the brainchild of pizzeria veteran Chad Talbott.

The biggest pizza news of the year was the opening of Erik Borger’s Il Lazzarone in the River Market. Borger’s first pizzeria of that name, in St. Joseph, is the only pizzeria in the state of Missouri to be officially authenticated as Neapolitan pizza by the American Delegation of the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana. Borger is attempting to get the same rare imprimatur for the Kansas City restaurant.

Papa Keno’s returned to the same location in Westport that it had abandoned in 2008 — the short-lived trattoria, the Boot, briefly occupied the space until Papa Keno’s took over the lease again.

Although Grimaldi’s Pizzeria was founded in Brooklyn in 1990, the popular coal-fired pizza shop was sold to different owners, who turned the business into a national chain. The first outpost in the area opened recently in the Prairiefire complex (at 5601 West 135th Street), in Overland Park.

Doughnut Lounge in Westport, Heirloom Bakery & Hearth (and the soon-to-open UnBakery & Juicery) in east Brookside, Amore Dolci Bakery in midtown, and the rustic Hearth Bread Co. in Weston.

On a bittersweet note, sisters Vicki and Carol LaBruzzo are looking for an owner to take over their busy LaBruzzo’s Sweet Oven, in the River Market. “We’re tired,” Carol LaBruzzo tells me. “We can’t keep up this pace anymore.”

For every restaurant that closed in 2015, it seemed that a new one popped up, and all over the area. These included Beaches Cantina near the airport; Plate in east Brookside; Espirito Do Sol in south Johnson County; Standard Pour in Westport; Mi Asia Bistro downtown (in the long-vacant Willy’s space); chef Derek Nacey’s Blvd Tavern in the Crossroads; and Howard’s Grocery, Café & Catering in the Crossroads.

Another terrific addition to Lawrence’s culinary community: 1900 Barker Bakery Café, known for its selection of crusty breads and pastries, is a fine place for a cup of coffee and fresh-fruit galettes.

Kansas City is still a barbecue town, and the 2015 smoke shacks include KC’s Smokehouse Pub (in the former Swagger location in Waldo (8431 Waldo), a new and much-awaited downtown location for the Blue Springs– based Plowboys Barbeque, and Crazy Good Eats (the maker of The Pitch’s Best Barbecue Pork Sandwich of 2015) in Olathe.

Was 2015 a good year for dining in Kansas City? I’d say it was a very, very good year.

E-mail charles.ferruzza@pitch.com

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Chili cook-off with complimentary beer,

The former Next Door Pizza space in Lee’s Summit was revamped as the Long-Bell Pizza Co. by chefs Jayson Eggers and Aaron Mulder.

Arris’ Pizza, a popular pizza restaurant in Jefferson City that has traditionally served a Greek-influenced pie, finally opened a location in the metro last year, taking over a space at 12812 West 87th Street Parkway, in Lenexa.

It was a very sweet year for bakeries, with the addition of Ashleigh’s Bake Shop and the

On the Rocks $1

Champagne Toast Live DJ Drink & Food Specials

Best of the Midwest, at Bier Station (120

There’s always room for new sweets at 1900 Barker (top) and Heirloom.

Margarita Mondays 99

The R Bar & Patio in Lawrence (the former Jet Lag Lounge) added a chef, Brian Reeves, to the staff, and he took food service here to the stratosphere — nothing too complicated but simply delicious, especially the Maryland crab cakes.

Lawrence also got its own Port Fonda, a spacious outpost of Westport’s beloved cantina. And Massachusetts Street saw the much-awaited reopening of Meg Heriford’s Ladybird Diner, which was shuttered for five months after a fire broke out in a barbecue restaurant next door.

at Gordon Biersch (11652 Ash, Leawood), 5:30–7:30 p.m.

WEdnEsday, dEcEmbEr 30

Empyrean Carpe Brewem glass night, at

Flying Saucer (101 E. 13th St.), 7 p.m.

Old Year’s Bottle Share Benefit, at Grain to Glass (1611 Swift, North Kansas City), $15 donation, 7–10 p.m. Take a favorite Christmas beer to share. Potluck contributions welcome.

E-mail justin.kendall@pitch.com

pitch.com

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NEW YEAR

2016

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New Years Eve

New year’s eve eveNts

in Strawberry Hill

The Colonial Club 322 N. 6th Street KCK

The fun begins @ 7pm with live standup comedy featuring:

JEFF ONYX • DAVE ALAN MIKE WEST • NORM DEXTER ROSS MCGINNIS • STEVE MOSER

a new happy hour

monday through thursday www.facebook.com/bbirdbistro

816-221-7559 1700 Summit St, Kansas City, MO 64108

All events take place Thursday, December 31, unless otherwise noted.

Allegro Ballroom, 7105 W. 105th St., Overland Park, 913-766-6638, valentine@boxofchalk.com, thebignightkc.com: Entertainment by Valentine & the Knights (instrumental set), adult beverages and ball drop; ballroom dancers and singles welcome; $50, 8 p.m.

The All-Star Rock Bar, 7210 N.E. 43rd St., 816-452-2660: New Year’s Extravaganza, featuring midnight balloon drop, champagne toast and live music

by Tripolor; $10, 8 p.m.-1 a.m.

The Belfry, 1532 Grand (16th Street entrance), reservations at events@thebelfrylounge.com: Burger and bakedpotato bar, salad, sides and dessert, vintage beers from the cellar and a midnight tapping of Saison-Brett 2013; options for four flights of whiskey and tasting notebook; $75-$150 per person.

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The Blue Room, 1600 E. 18th St., 816-474-8463: Everette DeVan, Charles Williams with Paula Saunders & Asa Barnes, 7:30 p.m.

The Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence, 785-841-5483: Split Lip Rayfield, Rolling Foliage, Sugar Britches, all ages, doors at 7 p.m.

The Brick, 1727 McGee, 816-421-1634: The New Riddim, the Iron Question, Blondi Brunetti.

The Bristol Seafood Grill, 51 E. 14th St., 816-448-6007: 1 lb. lobster tail or 14 oz. bone-in filet with two seasonal sides, regular dinner menu also available, $58, 11 a.m.-11 p.m.

Californos, 4124 Pennsylvania, 816-531-7878, blackpartykc.com: Black Party XII, with full premium bar with unlimited specialty cocktails, 10-piece heavy-

appetizer buffet, all-night champagne service, $75-$115.

Club 1000, 1000 Broadway, 913-649-0223, heidij@39thstbevco.com, club1000kc.com: Four floors of music, all you can eat and drink, and music by the Zeros and DJ Mike Scott; $95 GA, $125 VIP, 9 p.m.-1:30 a.m.

Colonial Club, 322 N. Sixth St., KCK, 913-371-1103: New Year’s Eve Comedy Night in Strawberry Hill, with Jeff Onyx, Dave Alan, Mike West, Norm Dexter, Ross McGinnis, and Steve Moser, 7 p.m.

Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club, 3402 Main, 816-753-1909: Sundiver, Sharp Weapons and Bummer, $10, 9 p.m.

The DeLeon Event Space, 3235 Gillham Plz.: Open bar, casino tables, two hours of passed appetizers, one

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New year’s eve eveNts hour of passed desserts, midnight champagne toast, green-screen photo booth, 12:30 a.m. breakfast buffet, uniformed KCPD security; $150 per person, $200 VIP, 8 p.m.-1 a.m.

Drunken Fish Sushi Restaurant & Lounge, 14 E. 14th St., 816-474-7177: Four-course dinner special with complimentary cocktail, $45.

Espirito Do Sul, 11900 Metcalf, Overland Park: Brazilian churrascaria, photo booth, 5-10 p.m.

Funky Town, 8300 E. Blue Pkwy., Raytown, 816-737-3865: Dancing, food, live entertainment and champagne toast.

The Granada, 1020 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-842-1390: Hearts of Darkness, Pink Royal, DJ Kimbarely Legal, $20, 7 p.m.

The Grille at Park Place, 5270 W. 116th Pl., Leawood, 913-766-0920, events@grilleatparkplace.com, grilleatparkplace.com: Fireside rooftop countdown to 2016 includes open bar and champagne toast, 10 p.m.midnight; hors d’oeuvres and dessert buffet, entertainment and dancing, 8 p.m.-midnight; $65-$70.

Improv Comedy Club and Dinner Theater, 7260 N.W. 87th St., 816-759-5233: Two shows (late show includes dinner), 21 and older, up to $30, 7:30 & 10:15 p.m.

Jackpot Music Hall, 943 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-832-1085: Miss Amanda’s New Year’s Eve Show.

Jazzhaus, 926-1/2 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-1387: The Band That Saved the World, and the Crumpletons, $7/$10, 7 p.m.

KC Live Block at the Power & Light District, 14th St. and Grand, nye-live.com/kansas-city: Access to 10 bars and nightclubs, all-inclusive food and drink packages at participating venues, live music, DJs, champagne toasts, confetti cannons, a Times Square ball drop and fireworks; silver, gold and platinum ticket options available, $60 and up.

Kick Comedy Theater, 4010 Pennsylvania, 816-806-4000, kansascitycomedy.com. Drink specials and comedy all night.

Knuckleheads Saloon, 2715 Rochester, 816-483-1456: Samantha Fish, the Rainmakers, the Nace Brothers, Katy Guillen and the Girls, Found a Job (performing Stop Making Sense); $90 in advance includes food at midnight and champagne; 8:30 p.m.

Liberty Hall, 644 Massachusetts, Lawrence, 785-749-1972: Foxy by Proxy’s NYE Burlesque Revue, 18 and older with ID, $26/$30, 9 p.m.

Madrid Theatre, 3810 Main, 816-753-8880: White Party includes two levels — entry-only access (18 and older) and unlimited drink access (21 and older), featuring three DJs and aerial performances, midnight cham-

pagne toast, discounted hotel rates, shuttle service, and confetti cannons; all-white clothing/dress requested; $25 and up, 8 p.m.

(Kenny Bania from Seinfeld); individual tickets available as well as dinner and show packages; special New Year’s Eve menu, 8 & 9:45 p.m.

Martini Corner, 31st St. and Oak: Countdown at the Corner, with six participating bars (Tower Tavern, Sol Cantina, the Drop, Barrel 31, Ollie’s and Empire); premium and super-premium tickets available, 9 p.m.

Star Pavilion at Ameristar Casino, 3200 N. Ameristar Dr., 816-414-7000: Liverpool: a Tribute to the Beatles; Change of Heart: a Tribute to Heart; Revelation: a Tribute to Journey; $25 GA, 8:30 p.m.

MiniBar, 3810 Broadway, 816-326-8281: DJ Just, 10 p.m.

Tanner’s Bar & Grill, 7425 Broadway, 816-822-7525: Live DJ, balloon drop, champagne toast; steak dinner reservations include complimentary bottle of Korbel.

One Block South, 7300 W. 119th St., Overland Park, 913-451-0444: Dinner packages available for $150 per couple including buffet 7-9 p.m., bottle of champagne and reserved table for entire night; party packages available for $20 per person including midnight champagne toast; entertainment by DJ Billie Jack (Kanza Hall), Mikey Needleman (Local Tap) and DJ Boogie B & MC Jody (Fuel); college football shown all night.

1x1 Project’s Give Hope to One, Hillcrest Country Club, 8200 Hillcrest, 816-388-0663, jessica@ onebyoneproject.org: The Great Gatsby-themed fundraising party with live music by the Overtones; ticket includes raffle, dinner, open bar and dancing; single ticket $125, two tickets $200; 21 and older only, 8 p.m.-1 a.m.

The Overland Park Ballroom and Social Club, 12170 Blue Valley Pkwy., Overland Park, 913-815-6790, info@overlandparkballroom.com: Boogaloo 7, heavy hors d’oeuvres by Silber Spoons Catering, and midnight champagne toast; $65-$75 per person, 8:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m.

The Phoenix, 302 W. Eighth St., 816-221-5299: Dinner seating starting at 6:30 p.m.; after 9 p.m., no reservations accepted and first come, first served; music by Tim Whitmer & KC Express, $10 per person includes champagne and party favors.

Pinstripes, 13500 Nall, Overland Park, 913-681-2255, pinstripes.com. Family-friendly night with bowling, bocce, live music, and a midnight champagne toast.

RecordBar, 1020 Westport Rd., 816-753-5207: The Conquerors, Various Blonde, Jaenki, 18 and older, $10, 9 p.m.

The Riot Room, 4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179, theriotroom.com. Scumbag NYE with Spinstyles, $10, 8 p.m.

Scottish Rite Temple, 1330 E. Linwood Blvd., thetemple.com. Ten open bars with five or six hours of unlimited drinks included with ticket, eight party areas, DJs, and table service; tickets start at $60.

Snow & Co., 1815 Wyandotte, 816-214-8921: Chill NYE 2015 includes food buffet and midnight champagne toast; $55.99-$89.99 per person packages available.

Stanford’s Comedy Club, 7328 W. 119th St., Overland Park, 913-400-7500: New Year’s Eve with Steve Hytner

Need A Drink?

Topgolf Overland Park, 10611 Nall, Overland Park, 913-562-9713: General bay reservations with space for up to six people, $75; all-inclusive bay reservations for up to six people, with unlimited nonalcoholic beverages, one bottle of champagne, and shareable dishes, $450; 9 p.m.-1 a.m.

Union Station, 30 W. Pershing Rd., 816-460-2020: New Year’s Swingin’ Eve, featuring the Dave Stephens Band and swing-dance pros 627 Stomp; tickets include hot appetizers and midnight champagne toast; hotel packages also available; 21 and older only, $60-$350, 8 p.m.

Union Station, 30 W. Pershing Rd., 816-460-2020, unionstation.org: Noon Year’s Eve in Science City with educational NYE party including science demonstrations, stage shows, robotics fun, maker activities, special guests and a 3,000-balloon drop; $11.50/$13.50, 10 a.m.-8 p.m.

Uptown Arts Bar, 3611 Broadway, 816-960-4611: Artist party, 6 p.m.

Uptown Theater, 3700 Broadway, 816-753-8665: Six-hour open well bar, craft-beer garden, champagne, appetizers, five party rooms, DJs, lasers and a live music by the Beautiful Bodies, $50 early bird tickets, 7 p.m.

The View at Briarcliff, at the Courtyard by Marriott, 4000 N. Mulberry Dr., 816-841-3300: Champagne Chic New Year’s Eve, with buffet dinner and champagne toast; entertainment by Cherry Bomb and DJ Kevin, 6:30 p.m.

VIP Event Space, 160 S. Main, Parkville, vipspecialeventsllc.com. Masquerade ball with music by Shades of Jade, catered appetizers, champagne toast, balloon drop and DJ Milt.

Find happy hours

by time, feature, name or location on your iphone/ blackberry/android.

Check out mobile happy hour app

VooDoo, Harrah’s Casino, 1 Riverboat Dr., North Kansas City, 816-472-7777, voodookc.com: Havana Night, featuring VJ Julian Serrano, DJ Bravo, DJ Lizz, Bravo Latin Dance, Johan + Alyssa; 21 and older only, 9 p.m.

The Well, 7421 Broadway, 816-361-7100, waldowell.com. DJs Vinyl Richy and Kay-Fan, midnight champagne toast; free admission until 3 a.m. to Lew’s and Charlie Hooper’s with ticket; $20 in advance, $30 at the door.

pitch.com

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FUN. FAB. CLASSY. KANSAS CITY

RING IN NEW YEAR’S 2016 AT THE VIEW @ BRIARCLIFF

Dinner Drinks & Entertainment

Cherry Bomb & DJ Kevin Champagne Toast & Balloon Drop at Midnight Party Packages with and without Hotel Room in the Courtyard by Marriott Hotel available.

For more information, Contact Visions KC at 816-841-2362 or info@visionskc.com 4000 N Mulberry Dr., KCMO 64116 |

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Music

Mic Drop

Taking stock of Kansas City’s year in music

By

N ata l ie G a l l a Ghe r

the always-free, usually local weekly concert series there, moved to Blind Tiger. And this coming January 2, the decade-old RecordBar holds the final concert at its Westport location (as owners Steve Tulipana and Shawn Sherrill, unable to renew their lease, search for a new home).

Midtown record enthusiasts will have one less option when Vinyl Renaissance & Audio closes its 39th Street location and consolidates operations in Overland Park.

We also bid adieu to two favorite local acts.

In August, after 12 wonderful and strange years, Jeffrey Stolz and Wallace Cochran — who together make up Drakkar Sauna — slid into retirement with a grand finale at the Lawrence Arts Center. And just this month, prog-rock group David Hasselhoff on Acid performs its final show at the Riot Room.

april fleming

a Hallmark year

W

e’ve built some big memories in 2015.

New bands. New venues. New record stores. New beginnings — and a few goodbyes.

There were live-music moments that we’ll try to top in the new year. We experienced concerts that might not have made headlines but have remained in mind. Here are a few of the highlights.

Say Hello …

It has been a great year for the local vinyl business, with Josey Records — a Dallasbased record-store collective — opening a 6,500-square-foot store in the Crossroads in June. In October, Kyle Maggart — formerly of Hi-Fi Records in Olathe — and his brother, Cole, opened Brothers Music in Mission, offering vinyl, turntables, guitars and other music equipment. And after losing its space on 39th Street in June, Zebedee’s RPM reopened two months later in the Crossroads (at the former Midwestern Musical Co. location) under a new name: Revolution Records.

As Folk Alliance International completed the second year of a five-year Kansas City residency, its new executive director, Aengus Finnan, discussed changes he had made to —

Stevie Wonder wowed KC. and had planned for — its annual conference.

And in August, after a three-year hiatus, Ray Pierce (aka rapper Steddy P) — the founder of Indyground Records — brought his hip-hop music festival, Indy Fest, to the Riot Room.

We also welcomed a new midtown music venue, Blind Tiger, in July. Though largely a bar and a restaurant, it has a large stage that bookers Kenneth Kupfer and Zach Campbell plan to keep filled with rock and punk acts.

And Prohibition Hall, at 1118 McGee, makes its debut December 31 with a music-filled NYE blowout.

… wave Goodbye

We’ve lost some good places this year, too — including two notable jazz venues. In August, Take Five Coffee + Bar shuttered less than 10 months after moving to its new location at Corbin Park Shopping Center, in Overland Park. A month later, the Broadway Kansas City announced its plans to close. (Krokstrom Klubb & Market, opening next year, will replace it.)

In November, the Union of Westport announced its sudden closure at the conclusion of a bitter lease dispute; Mistake Mondays,

Every year, Kansas City chips away at the (unfair) label of “flyover country.” In 2015, a few local bands continued their hot streaks, proving to the nation what the rest of us have known all along.

In June, Independence mother-son duo Madisen Ward and the Mama Bear released their debut full-length, Skeleton Crew, on Glassnote Records. Beautiful Bodies, signed to Epitaph Records in 2014, released Battles on that label in June. In August, Radkey debuted Dark Black Makeup, an album produced by Ross Orton (Arctic Monkeys, the Fall, the Kill) on Little Man Records. Tech N9ne gave us Strangeulation Vol. II in November, a heavy-metal album that further boosts his profile as a crossover artist. And Lawrence’s Taryn Miller — who performs as Your Friend — is set to release Gumption, her first full-length with Domino Records, in January.

Local labels, too, have stayed busy. In September, after a 15-year hiatus, Lotuspool Records hosted its first music showcase, featuring Lawrence singer-songwriter Heidi Lynne Gluck; the label has four releases planned for 2016.

Jeff McCoy has nearly doubled his roster at High Dive Records, with the addition of the Conquerors, Bummer, Fullbloods, Rooftop Vigilantes, Psychic Heat and Berwanger.

High Dive put out five albums in 2015, and four are already planned for next year. And Brenton Cook’s Haymaker Records continues to welcome under-the-radar acts; in 2015, the label released albums from Mysterious Clouds, Piercing Eyes, Be/Non, Hmph, Riala and Sie Lieben Maschinen.

e-mail natalie.gallagher@pitch.com pitch.com

ToTal Recall

Our music writers share their fondest memories — big and small — from 2015.

Stevie Wonder’s band at Mutual Musicians Foundation, October 23

Those present at Stevie Wonder’s epic October concert at the Sprint Center will be retelling their versions of that night for years, but I will never forget the unofficial after-party that I stumbled upon in the early hours of the morning at the Mutual Musicians Foundation.

A handful of Wonder’s accomplished band members — including saxophonist Ryan Kilgore and harmonica player Frédéric Yonnet — joined in the jam session and let loose for two hours. It was one of those experiences that you feel in your bones — the kind of thing that can make you remember why you wanted to write about music in the first place. Limited to around 40 people, the event was, in a word, transcendent.

— Natalie Gallagher

Fleetwood Mac at the Sprint Center, March 28

When Stevie Nicks introduced “Landslide” at Fleetwood Mac’s Sprint Center show in March, I felt my heart sink. She dedicated the song to her late father, telling the crowd that it was his favorite: “He always thought it was written about him,” she said, with that musical laugh of hers. “Of course, it wasn’t, but I let him think that because it made him feel good, and I like to mention him now because it brings him back to me.”

That moment was so real and so touching that it was no surprise to find most of the audience members around me weeping. I thought of my mom, who died of cancer last year; she played Rumours every Saturday morning when I was a child. “Landslide” was bittersweet: I wished I could call her and hold up the phone, but watching Lindsey Buckingham reach over and tenderly kiss Nicks’ hand before the final verse was oddly comforting.

— N.G.

Josh Berwanger interview, December 8

I’ve interviewed countless musicians, but it’s hard to remember one who has been as honest as Josh Berwanger. When I sat down with the former leader singer of the Anniversary in early December, our conversation pingponged around the positives and the negatives — mostly the negatives — of being a working musician and measuring success in the industry. It was a candid, refreshing talk, the kind that’s hard to come by. Berwanger’s rawness was punctuated by the concurrent release of his self-titled EP, a wildly underrated study in continued on page 24

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Music continued from page 23 power pop that finds Berwanger continuing to battle his demons.

— N.G.

Julia Haile at Ça Va, July 2

After a long, self-imposed exile from the spotlight, singer Julia Haile — formerly of the Good Foot, which retired in 2012 — reintroduced herself quietly with a monthlong July residency at Ça Va in Westport. Well, it was supposed to be quiet, but when I wedged my way into a seat at the bar for her first show July 2, the tiny venue was packed with an audience that had been waiting years for the goldenvoiced chanteuse to return. That night was a shining example of just how much Kansas Citians care about their own, and how much support they’re willing to give. (Haile is developing a new musical project with the Elders’ Kian Byrne, guitarist Tim Braun and trumpeter Nick Howell.)

— N.G.

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photos by zach bauman

The Rolling Stones at Arrowhead Stadium, June 27

Unforgettable: Tailgating on a perfect, 80degree summer day before the Rolling Stones’ set at Arrowhead Stadium with thousands of fans. Later, the legendary band lit up the stadium for three hours, showing us what aging into your 70s really can look like. In particular, the band’s performance of “Street Fighting Man” was heaven.

— April Fleming

Stevie Wonder at the Sprint Center, October 23

Stevie Wonder celebrated the Royals’ advance to the World Series by inviting Janelle Monáe onstage. This was after performing Songs in the Key of Life, Wonder’s legendary doublealbum opus, from front to back.

— A.F.

Sufjan Stevens at the Midland, April 21

It was almost too much to hear Sufjan Stevens deliver an achingly lovely set from this year’s Carrie & Lowell, with a backdrop of shimmering landscapes and vintage photographs. — A.F.

Father John Misty at the Granada, April 7

Josh Tillman, who performs as Father John Misty, is an unstoppable showman. He seduced a packed, sweaty house at the Granada on a hot spring day with his best album to date, I Love You, Honeybear. — A.F.

Taylor Swift at the Sprint Center, September 22

A few of our favorites (clockwise from top): the Rolling Stones, Taylor Swift, Sufjan Stevens, and Father John Misty

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Taylor Swift transfixed the crowd throughout the entire evening with perfectly choreographed pop perfection. It was impossible not to get swept up in the spectacle. The Sprint Center audience pulsed with the glowing wristbands of thousands of Swift fans as she opened her show, belting “Welcome to New York” — and I was right there, dancing along.

— A.F.

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april fleming

Music

The People’s Liberation Big Band at RecordBar, December 6

The People’s Liberation Big Band of Greater Kansas City went out, for now, with exuberant flair. After more than seven years at RecordBar, PLBB played three raucous sets December 6, showing a wall-to-wall crowd the fun of outstanding musicians playing uninhibited original compositions layered with wit.

— Larry Kopitnik

Prairie Village Jazz Festival, September 12

The tap-dancing McFadden Brothers joined the Clint Ashlock–led Kansas City Jazz Orchestra to close the Prairie Village Jazz Festival, and they kept a normally sedate Johnson County suburb joyously up past its bedtime.

[Kopitnik helped book this year’s festival.]

— L.K.

Jazz in the Woods, June 19-20

Overland Park’s Jazz in the Woods is this area’s oldest, largest and most financially successful jazz festival. Erudite jazz fans may turn up their noses at its smooth music acts, but I was struck by the diverse crowd that turned out — estimated this year at some 30,000 people.

— L.K.

Kraftwerk lit it up.

Weird Al Yankovic at the Midland, June 30

I’m not often one for turning into a fanboy when it comes to meeting musicians, but getting to say a few words to Weird Al Yankovic after his sold-out Midland show might’ve been the highlight of my life. The show itself was an absolute delight, entertaining as both a spectacle and a musical performance, but getting to meet Yankovic was icing on a very amazing cake.

— N.S.

The Girls Rock Lawrence showcase at the Bottleneck, June 6

The Girls Rock Lawrence camp had 20-plus Lawrence girls, ages 13–18, split up into bands.

They learned how to write and perform an original song in a week. Everyone in attendance at the showcase thought this would be a charming recital, wherein the girls played their songs, and we clapped politely. We were wrong. These girls churned out tunes that were inspirational and imaginative, while also presenting a concert that left me grinning ear to ear for the entirety of the night.

— N.S.

Radkey at the Bottleneck, September 25 Young Jazz Masters program, Mutual Musicians Foundation

Each Saturday, students ranging from grade school through college gather for free music lessons in the historic Mutual Musicians Foundation for the Young Jazz Masters program.

There’s something magical about watching kids learn jazz in the building where Count Basie rehearsed.

— L.K.

Kraftwerk at the Midland, October 9

That thing when you get to see a seminal artist perform but you’re so tired that you can barely stand up and you want just to sit, and you’re afraid you’ll fall asleep — ever had that? Have you also had all that exhaustion wash away the instant the curtain rose, leaving you to sit rapt with giddy attention for the next several hours? Yeah, that’s pretty great.

— Nick Spacek

Radkey packed the Bottleneck to celebrate the release of Dark Black Makeup, and the trio killed it. The vibe was loaded with excitement regarding local kids who had made good, and the Radke brothers seemed to feed off that energy and throw it back out. Their set left me bruised and smiling.

— N.S.

George Clinton at Free State Fest, June 24

George Clinton wasn’t so much performing at the Free State Fest street concert as he was conducting. He handed the reins over to a group of young folks to pump out the funk.

Nobody in the audience seemed to care, and for good reason. The huge crowd that packed the street in front of the Lawrence Arts Center was there to dance for hours, regardless of who was putting out the sounds.

— N.S.

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1515 WESTPORT RD. • 816-931-9417

Dec 23- Nace Brothers Dec 26 - Nealexis xmas Jam Dec 30 - tBa Dec 31 - allieD saiNts NYe Bash w/ scott staNtoN & FrieNDs JaN 6 - BoB walkeNhorst WIFI NOW AVAILABLE!

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every FriDay Night 8-12pM Closed Dec 25 - Merry Christmas Jan 1 & 8 - No Band

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Jan 22 - Doghouse Daddies CheCk out our website for food speCials & upComing band dates!

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music

Music Forecast

By

n ata l ie g a l l a ghe r

davId HasselHoff on aCId, at tHe left Hand of God, Janet tHe Planet, JorGe arana trIo, odd fox

zach bauman

It’s going to be a heavy Saturday at the Riot Room when David Hasselhoff on Acid plays its final show of 2015, which band leader Phil Wolf says is its last before the band goes on an indefinite hiatus. Drummer Brandon Bamesberger is moving to Los Angeles, and rather than replace him, DHOA has decided to hang up the prog-rock cape — except for those occasions when Bamesberger is back in town.

Metal group At the Left Hand of God, fellow prog-rock champions the Jorge Arana Trio, Janet the Planet and Odd Fox are on deck to help with the final send-off.

Saturday, December 26, the Riot Room (4048 Broadway, 816-442-8179)

Info Gates, Ces Cru, Heartfelt anarCHy, Jl B. Hood, Joey Cool

RecordBar hosts its final hip-hop show Sunday before the venue closes for good — or, at least, until its owners find a new location. Rapper Justin Gillespie, who performs as Info Gates, welcomes to the stage local favorites Ces Cru, Heartfelt Anarchy (rapper Les Izmore and producer D/Will) and rapper Joey Cool. Gillespie performs a special set with JL B. Hood, as the duo Breaking Bad News. This is a night of local hip-hop that you don’t want to miss.

Sunday, December 27, RecordBar (1020 Westport Road, 816-753-5207)

trans-sIBerIan orCHestra

It’s not the holidays without Trans-Siberian Orchestra. This year, the grandiose group performs a smattering of Christmas classics from The Ghosts of Christmas Eve. And even the most Scrooge-like among us are not immune to the charm and cheer of TSO’s joyous renditions of “O’ Come All Ye Faithful” and “This Christmas Day.” The Saturday after Christmas, you have two opportunities to extend the spirit

JL B. Hood (left) and Info Gates count down RecordBar’s final days. of the season with a matinee show and an evening performance.

Saturday, December 26, Sprint Center (1407 Grand, 816-949-7000)

steddy P, dom CHronICles, J-IzzIe, seCond Hand KInG, sCotty Wu

Ray Pierce Jr., known as rapper Steddy P and the founder of local hip-hop label Indyground Entertainment, has had a great year.

In August, he revived Indy Fest, Indyground’s annual music blowout, after a three-year hiatus. In November, he released Picture Perfect Broken Home, his first album in two years.

Pierce closes his year Saturday with a host of talented friends, including Indyground signee Dom Chronicles, Second Hand King, Scotty Wu and J-Izzie.

Saturday, December 26, RecordBar (1020 Westport Road, 816-753-5207)

f o r e c a s t

J a z z B e at steve lamBert and ryan tHIelman, at Green lady lounGe

If you want to talk about the best of Kansas City’s new generation of jazz musicians, you’ll have to include saxophonist and flutist Steve Lambert and trumpeter Ryan Thielman, whose tight solos are marked by imagination and invention. Over Christmas weekend, Green Lady Lounge offers four chances to hear them together. Christmas Eve, they’re joined by drummer John Kizilarmut and organist-pianist Desmond Mason. The same group gathers again for the early show Christmas night, and is joined by bassist DeAndre Manning for the late show. Sunday night, the pair leads the Foundation 627 Big Band, and tunes will run the gamut — from Christmas songs to jazz standards and originals.

— Larry Kopitnik Steve Lambert and Ryan Thielman, 8 p.m.

Thursday, December 24; 6 and 9:30 p.m. Friday, December 25; and with the Foundation 627 Big Band, 8:30 p.m. Sunday, December 27; at Green Lady Lounge (1809 Grand, 816-215-2954); free admission at all shows.

K e Y

Pick of the Week

Locally Sourced

Family Friendly

Bang for Your Buck

’Tis the Season

Bring Your Earplugs

Hippity Hop

Christmas Is Forever

Fond Farewell

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28 continued from page 9

CIRQUE DREAMS

THEATER SHOWS AND EVENTS

HOLIDAY SHOWS AND EVENTS A Charlie Brown Christmas | The Coterie Theatre, Crown Center, 2450 Grand, thecoterie.org

Dates and times vary.

Buyer & Cellar | Through Sunday, Unicorn Theatre, 3828 Main, unicorntheatre.org

A Christmas Carol | Through December 24,

Kansas City Repertory Theatre, UMKC campus, 4949 Cherry, kcrep.org

Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play | Through

Sunday, Unicorn Theatre, 3828 Main

Die Hard: A Staged Reading, benefiting ReStart | Stuffed Buffalo Productions, 8 p.m.

The Buffalo Room at the Westport Flea Market, 817 Westport Rd.

Christmas in the Park | 5:30-10 p.m. Longview Lake Campground, 10711 W. Scherer Christmas in Song | Through December 24, Quality Hill Playhouse, 303 W. 10th St., qualityhillplayhouse.com

Thursday | 12.24 | TUES

Good Time Season 3: A Comedy Event for the People | 7 p.m. Replay Lounge, 946 Massachusetts,

.-WED

12.22

Lawrence

.

-23

Xma s get s trip py.

Will C. and the Veterans of Comedy | 8 p.m.

Stanford’s Comedy Club, 7328 W. 119th St., Overland Park

COURTESY OF CIRQUE PRODUCTIONS

Cirque Dreams: Holidaze | 7:30 p.m. Tuesday,

COMEDY

2 & 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, kauffmancenter.org

Holiday Lights on Farmstead Lane | Deanna Rose Children’s Farmstead, 13800 Switzer Rd., Overland Park, drfarmstead.org KC Ballet: The Nutcracker | Through Decem-

ber 24, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, 1601 Broadway, kcballet.org

SPORTS & REC

Cirque Dreams: Holidaze | 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, 2 & 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Kauffman Center for the Performing

The Big Arena Chill Out holiday ice skating | 10 a.m.-7:30 p.m. Silverstein Eye Centers Arena, 19100 E. Valley View Pkwy., Independence

Arts, kauffmancenter.org

MUSIC

Ice skating | 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Crown Center Ice Ter-

race, 2425 Grand

Alex Abramovitz & the Swingin’ KC | 7 p.m. The

Phoenix, 302 W. Eighth St.

Soul Preservers featuring Elgin Smith | 9 p.m.

The Ship, 1217 Union

Saturday | 12.26 |

Olde World Christmas | Noon-4:15 p.m.

Saturdays and Sundays, Strawberry Hill Museum and Cultural Center, 720 N. Fourth St., KCK The Santaland Diaries | Through December 24, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Copaken Stage, 13th St. and Walnut

MUSIC

Brendan MacNaughton | 7 p.m. Jazz, 1823 W.

39th St.

Lambert & Thielman Quartet | 6 & 9:30 p.m. Green

Lonnie Ray | 7 p.m. Jazz, 1823 W. 39th St.

John Paul’s Flying Circus with Dave Hays | 7:30 p.m. B.B.’s Lawnside BBQ, 1205 E. 85th St.

Lambert & Thielman Quartet | 8 p.m. Green Lady Lounge, 1809 Grand

NIGHTLIFE

DJ G Train | 10 p.m. Replay Lounge, 946 Massachu-

setts, Lawrence

Friday | 12.25 |

COMEDY

Lady Lounge, 1809 Grand

Drunken Personal History — Holiday Edition | 10 p.m. Kick Comedy Theater, 4010 Pennsylvania, kansascitycomedy.com

SPORTS & REC

NIGHTLIFE

Flashback Fridays with DJ Gar | Local Tap, 7300

W. 119th St., Overland Park

Lucha Raptor Comedy | 8 p.m. Uptown Arts Bar,

3611 Broadway

The Big Arena Chill Out holiday ice skating |

Chris Porter’s Holiday Show | 7 & 9:45 p.m.

Goomba Nights with Bear Club | 10 p.m. Replay

Improv Comedy Club and Dinner Theater, 7260 N.W. 87th St.

House vs. Hip-Hop Holiday Party, featuring Bill

FILM

Lounge, 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence

Pile and LC | 9 p.m. The Riot Room, 4048 Broadway

Just Spin | 8 p.m. The Tank Room, 1813 Grand

Sherlock Holmes (2009) | 1:30 p.m. Kansas City Central Library, 14 W. 10th St., kclibrary.org

COMEDY

Will C. and the Veterans of Comedy | 7:45 &

9:45 p.m. Stanford’s Comedy Club, 7328 W. 119th St., Overland Park

28

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D EC E M B E R 24 -3 0 , 2 0 1 5

The 107th Street Farmers Market | 10 a.m.12:30 p.m. Grand Court Retirement Center, 501 W. 107th St.

Kid Twist | 10 p.m. MiniBar, 3810 Broadway

10 a.m.-10 p.m. Silverstein Eye Centers Arena, 19100 E. Valley View Pkwy., Independence

Ice skating | 10 a.m.-11 p.m. Crown Center Ice Terrace, 2425 Grand

Truce Tournament & Boxing Day English Premier League Watch Party | 8 a.m.-2 p.m. National

World War I Museum, Liberty Memorial, 100 W. 26th St., thetrucekc.com

F00D & DRINK MUSIC

Louder Than Bombs | 10 p.m. RecordBar, 1020 Westport Rd.

pitch.com

City Market Farmers Market | 7 a.m.-3 p.m., 20 E.

Fifth St., thecitymarket.org

Atlantic Express featuring Hal Wakes | 8:30 p.m.

Knuckleheads Saloon, 2715 Rochester

29

trAns-sibEriAn orchEstrA

Art Exhibits And EvEnts American Epics: Thomas Hart Benton and Hollywood | Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 4525 Oak, nelson-atkins.org

The Center Is a Moving Target: If You Lived (T)Here | Fridays and Saturdays,

COMEDY WORKSHOP

Kemper at the Crossroads, 33 W. 19th St., kemperart.org

in the West Crossroads

Dark Days, Bright Nights: Contemporary Paintings From Finland | Kemper Museum of

Contemporary Art, 4420 Warwick Blvd.

IMPROV - SKETCH STANDUP COMEDY

Faces of Change | Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 4420 Warwick Blvd.

8-week classes beginning in January

Flowers to Frost: Four Seasons in East Asian Art | Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,

The perfect holiday gift for that person who has always wanted to take a comedy class (especially if that person is yourself!)

4525 Oak

Freak Power: Hunter S. Thompson | Lawrence Arts Center, 940 New Hampshire, Lawrence, lawrenceartscenter.org

urd

Gallery Conversations Drop-in Tour | 1 p.m.

Philip Haas: The Four Seasons | Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 4525 Oak

Intimate Riot : Peregrine Honig’s viewer-

friendly interpretation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland | Kansas City Central Library, 14 W. 10th St., kclibrary.org

Rearranging History: Daniel MacMorris and the Panthéon de la Guerre | National World

ma es X giv asp.

O S T tg la s

J o h n Wa l s h

Saturday, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 4420 Warwick Blvd.

ay

6 2 .

2 1

sat

Special Early Bird Prices & Packages

sa

For more information go to

TheSerratedEdge.com

Trans-Siberian Orchestra | 3 & 8 p.m. Sprint Center, 1407 Grand

Millage Gilbert | 9 p.m. B.B.’s Lawnside BBQ, 1205

E. 85th St.

The Grisly Hand, the New Riddim | The Brick,

NIGHTLIFE

DJ Just | 10 p.m. MiniBar, 3810 Broadway

War I Museum, Liberty Memorial, 100 W. 26th St., theworldwar.org

1727 McGee

Joc Max | 9 p.m. The Ship, 1217 Union

J Love Band | The Kill Devil Club, 61 E. 14th St.

Sound Pit Saturday Open Mic | 10 p.m. Uptown

Robert Zakanitch: Ephemeral Beauty |

Lonesome Hank | 7 p.m. Jazz, 1823 W. 39th St.

Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, 12345 College Blvd., Overland Park

Andrzej Zielinski: Open Sourced | Nerman

Museum of Contemporary Art, 12345 College Blvd., Overland Park

David Hasselhoff on Acid, At the Left Hand of God, Janet the Planet, Jorge Arana Trio, Odd Fox | 8:30 p.m. The Riot Room, 4048 Broadway Fine Kettle of Fish, Blarney Stoned, Danny McGraw | 7 p.m. Davey’s Uptown Ramblers Club, 3402 Main

Charlotte Fletcher & Soigné | 8:30 p.m. The Blue

Room, 1600 E. 18th St.

Fresh to Def with Eddie Moore | 8 p.m. The Tank

Room, 1813 Grand

T.J. Miller | 7:45 & 9:45 p.m. Stanford’s Comedy Club, 7328 W. 119th St., Overland Park

Arts Bar, 3611 Broadway

Sunday | 12.27 | COMEDy

Organ Jazz Trio | 6 p.m. Green Lady Lounge, 1809

Comedy All-Stars | 7 p.m. Stanford’s Comedy Club,

Steddy P, Dom Chronicles, J-Izzie, Second Hand King, Scotty Wu | 9:45 p.m. RecordBar, 1020

Chris Porter’s Holiday Show | 7 p.m. Improv

Otis Taylor | 9 p.m. Knuckleheads Saloon, 2715

F00D & DRINK

Grand

Westport Rd.

Rochester

Trans-Siberian Orchestra | 3 & 8 p.m. Sprint Center,

1407 Grand

a

7328 W. 119th St., Overland Park

Comedy Club and Dinner Theater, 7260 N.W. 87th St.

check out FIND

City Market Farmers Market | 7 a.m.-3 p.m., 20 E. Fifth St., thecitymarket.org

HAPPY HOURS BY

time, feature, name or location

SPORTS & REC

Una Walkenhorst | 7 p.m. RecordBar, 1020 West-

port Rd.

Wonderfuzz | 10 p.m. Kelly’s Westport Inn, 500 West-

port Rd.

The Big Arena Chill Out holiday ice skating |

10 a.m.-10 p.m. Silverstein Eye Centers Arena, 19100 E. Valley View Pkwy., Independence

continued on page 30

pitch.com

D EC E M B E R 24 -3 0 , 2 0 1 5

ON YOUR IPHONE BLACKBERRY ANDROID

the pitch

29

30

The haTeful eighT

continued from page 29 Chiefs vs. Browns | Noon, Arrowhead Stadium

Monday | 12.28 | CoMEDy

MusiC

Billy Ebeling’s Country Jam, featuring the Twang Daddies, Bret Hodges and Neal Hudson | 6 p.m. Knuckleheads Saloon, 2715 Rochester

Gospel Brunch, featuring Danielle Nicole Schnebelen,

Samantha Fish, Katy Guillen, Dave Nace, Carl Butler, Shinetop Jr., Sara Morgan, Claire Adams and Jimmie Bratcher | 12:30 p.m., $25, Knuckleheads Saloon, 2715 Rochester

info Gates, Les izmore, D-Will, Joey Cool, Dutch Newman and Alv Diesel | 8 p.m. RecordBar, 1020

Westport Rd.

T.J. Miller | 8 p.m. Stanford’s Comedy Club, 7328 W.

th u

12 .

rsd

25

sPorTs & rEC

The Big Arena Chill out holiday ice skating |

10 a.m.-10 p.m. Silverstein Eye Centers Arena, 19100 E. Valley View Pkwy., Independence

ice skating | 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Crown Center Ice Terrace, 2425 Grand

MusiC

627 Big Band | 8:30-11:30 p.m. Green Lady Lounge,

1809 Grand

Eddy Green, Tyler Gregory, Nicholas st. James | 6 p.m. Replay Lounge, 946 Massachusetts, Lawrence

Geeks Who Drink Pub Quiz | 7 p.m. Double Shift

i set My friends on fire | Jackpot Music Hall, 943

The Hateful Eight, with samuel L. Jackson (above) | Opens in 70 mm at AMC Town Center; review at

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Massachusetts, Lawrence

Louis Neal Big Band | 7 p.m. The Blue Room, 1600 E. 18th St. continued on page 32

pitch.com this week.

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A La Mode | 8 p.m. The Tank Room, 1813 Grand

NiGhTLifE

Brewing Co., 412 E. 18th St.

the pitch

Chris Porter’s holiday show | 7 p.m. Improv Comedy Club and Dinner Theater, 7260 N.W. 87th St.

119th St., Overland Park

ay

Ta We ranti n ste r n- o, st y le

30

Listoff Comedy Podcast | 7 p.m. Uptown Arts Bar,

3611 Broadway

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D EC E M B E R 24 -3 0 , 2 0 1 5

the pitch

31

32 continued from page 30 Robot Monkey Madman, Be/Non, Hillary Watts Riot | 9:45 p.m. RecordBar, 1020 Westport Rd.

Geeks Who Drink Pub Quiz | 7 p.m. Cinder Block Brewery, 110 E. 18th Ave., North Kansas City

Rural Grit Happy Hour | 6 p.m. The Brick, 1727 McGee

1411 W. 39th St.

NiGHtlife

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Geeks Who Drink Pub Quiz | 8 p.m. Green Room Burgers & Beer, 4010 Pennsylvania Kanye vs. Pharrell with Kay fan and Vinyl Richy | 10:30 p.m. The Riot Room, 4048 Broadway

Lawrence

1020 Westport Rd.

Tuesday | 12.29 |

MUSiC

Make Me laugh with tai fu Panda | 8 p.m. The

Clint Ashlock’s New Jazz Order, Organ Jazz trio | 7 p.m. Green Lady Lounge, 1809 Grand

Open-Mic Comedy with Rashaad Wright | 8 p.m.

Jeff Bergen’s elvis show | 8 p.m. Knuckleheads Saloon, 2715 Rochester

Open-mic night | 8 p.m. Stanford’s Comedy Club, 7328

Knuckleheads Saloon, 2715 Rochester

KU Basketball Watch Party | 9 p.m. The Bottleneck,

BBQ, 1205 E. 85th St.

KU vs. UC irvine men’s basketball on the big screen | 8 p.m. Liberty Hall, 644 Massachusetts,

Bar, 1020 Westport Rd.

737 New Hampshire, Lawrence

MUSiC

Kansas City

For other local numbers: 18+ www.MegaMates.com

32

the pitch

D EC E M B E R 24 -3 0 , 2 0 1 5

(913) 904-9974 www.megamates.com 18+ pitch.com

Michael Calderon, Audic empire | 9 p.m. Davey’s

Uptown Ramblers Club, 3402 Main

t.J. erhardt | 7 p.m. The Phoenix, 302 W. Eighth St.

Pitch Weekly

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Boogie Wonderland Disco Revue | 8:30 p.m.

Kansas vs. UC irvine men’s basketball | 8 p.m.

Missouri Comets vs. St. louis Ambush | 7:35 p.m.

Silverstein Eye Centers Arena, 19100 E. Valley View Pkwy., Independence

(816) 326.9936 Kansas City: (913) 904.9977 (816) 326-9926

ice skating | 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Crown Center Ice Terrace, 2425 Grand

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Lawrence

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Red front funnies open-mic contest | 8 p.m. Red

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Wednesday | 12.30 |

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AND REPLY TO ADS Free Code: Pitch Weekly

Geeks Who Drink Pub Quiz | 7 p.m. Sully’s Pub,

5436 Johnson Dr., Mission

Steve Hytner | 8 p.m. Stanford’s Comedy Club, 7328 W. 119th St., Overland Park

The Tank Room, 1813 Grand

FREE TO LISTEN

Geeks Who Drink Pub Quiz | 8 p.m. Local Tap, 7300

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Karaoke Sammitch | 10 p.m. Replay Lounge, 946

All-Star Rock Bar, 7210 N.E. 43rd St., theallstarkc.com

Dating made Easy

Geeks Who Drink Pub Quiz | 8 p.m. Hi Dive Lounge,

lyric lab: Music Open Mic | 9-11:30 p.m. Uptown

John Paul’s flying Circus | 7:30 p.m. B.B.’s Lawnside

Not a Planet, Pink Royal, yotes | 9:45 p.m. Record-

Jake Stanton, Chad Vaughn, JJ Cantrell, Nat Willy | 7:30 p.m. The Riot Room, 4048 Broadway NiGHtlife

Geeks Who Drink Pub Quiz | 8 p.m. The Burg & Barrel, 7042 W. 76th St., Overland Park JoCo Dems happy hour | 5 p.m. Lucky Brewgrille,

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Pamper the Madman, Cher UK | 9:45 p.m. Record-

Spinstyles | 8 p.m. The Tank Room, 1813 Grand

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Geeks Who Drink Pub Quiz | 8 p.m. The Cashew,

2000 Grand

E-mail submissions to calendar@pitch.com or enter submissions at pitch.com, where you can search our complete listings guide.

33

s ava g e l o v e

CoCk LoCked drums after having kids, my husband and I are now enjoying hot kinky sex and the occasional free pass to fuck other people. We couldn’t be happier. I have a friend who was extremely keen for me to cage his cock with the same kind of locking male chastity device that I got for my husband — a fixed-ring stainless-steel type. I have two questions: (1) It took some maneuvering to get my husband’s balls through one by one, followed by his cock, but he managed.

Is it OK for his balls to swell up tight, get cold and go purple when he’s wearing the cock cage and he’s aroused? He says it doesn’t hurt, and he’s wearing it only while I peg him — a couple of hours, tops. I worry that even though he can squeeze into the ring, he might be cutting off circulation and doing damage. (2) My friend couldn’t get his balls and cock into the cage.

His balls never dropped as a child, so he had an operation that pulled them down but fixed them in place. Consequently they sit “high and tight” and can’t be pulled away from his body.

Can you recommend a cage that might fit him?

He’s into total submission and orgasm denial, and he wants to experience long-term forced chastity and to relinquish control of his dick to me. (Hot, right?!) If a cage can’t work for him, are there other toys/methods I can use to give him that sense of surrendered cock and loss of control?

Bitch Ably Locking Lucky Sluts Up Properly Dear BALLSUP: (1) “The first rule of thumb

when it comes to male chastity is this: If the balls go blue or cold, take the fucking cock cage off!” said Christopher Miers, the founder and creative force behind Steelwerks, purveyor of the world’s finest male chastity devices.

“I’m a firm believer in play safe, stay comfortable and cause pain or discomfort only when it’s asked for and nobody is at risk of long-term damage,” Miers said. “So for the sake of their marriage and the longevity of their hot kinky sex life, BALLSUP needs to get her guy a cage that keeps him trapped but still in the realm of safe!”

A short primer for readers who aren’t familiar with male chastity devices: Most are anchored in place by a ring that goes around the shaft and behind the balls. The penis slides into a cylinder that attaches to the top of the ring, and the cylinder prevents erections and can even punish erections. (Some are lined with spikes.) Once the chastity device is locked — cheaper ones with a wee padlock, custom ones with something more artful — there’s no way to remove it (and free the cock) without tearing the balls off.

Back to you, BALLSUP: Miers has been creating custom-made, high-quality stainless-

Rachel Robinson

Dear Dan: After spending some years in the dol-

steel male chastity devices for 15 years, so he’s the recognized expert on male chastity devices here, not your husband. Listen to Miers and toss the device you’re using now and get your husband a chastity cage that doesn’t turn his balls purple. You may have to experiment with some other designs and an assortment of cock rings before you find the one that locks his cock down without choking off his balls.

“I often hear from guys who wear cages made with a one-piece, slip-on-style cock ring that allows them to slip in easily and comfortably, but a lot of guys can remove these chastity devices even when they’re locked,” Miers said. “But a cage with a smaller, more secure cock ring often results in a cock ring that is too tight, especially when the person is using cheaper, mass-produced cages. The best chastity devices are ones that come with a cock ring that can be opened via a hinge or taken apart — then you can get a ring that might be too small to push his balls through using the one-ball-after-the-other method, but because the ring comes apart, getting it on and off is much easier while providing the safety and the inescapability that both parties are looking for.”

(2) “I encountered my first client with the ‘balls not dropping issue’ a few years back, and it is a challenge when it comes to chastity,” Miers said. “For most of these guys, I encourage a PA as a means of anchoring a lightweight chastity device.” (A PA, also known as a Prince Albert, involves poking a bonus hole in the urethra below the head of the cock and putting a ring through it.) “A PA, combined with a chastity device, is the most durable and secure way to lock a guy’s cock up for long-term orgasm denial and forced chastity play.”

But if your friend can handle some pres-

By

d a n s ava ge

sure on his balls, a traditional-style chastity device with a hinged or two-piece cock ring might work.

“Because his balls sit high and tight, it is important that the scrotal gap — the gap between the front of the cock ring and the tube opening — isn’t too tight because this could possibly put more pressure on his balls,” Miers said. “The last option would be a full chastity belt. While some of the belts out there are incredibly sexy and completely secure, experience and client feedback tell me that in the long term, these are not ideal for a guy who wants to be kept in chastity every day.”

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For More Local Numbers: 1.800.926.6000 www.livelinks.com Teligence/18+

Dear Dan: I’m a 29-year-old bi female living on the East Coast, and I’ve been in a relationship for three months. It has been a few years since I’ve dated anyone seriously, and I’m really enjoying it. We have a good relationship so far, and he’s great in a lot of ways, but that’s part of the problem. Next summer, he will be moving back to his hometown in the Midwest. I just started my dream job, so there’s no way I would follow him. I’m uncertain about doing the longdistance thing. Because we’re only three months into this, should I cut my losses and call it quits and move on? Or should I enjoy these next six months and let the chips fall where they may, whether it’s the end of the relationship or the transition to long distance?

Impending Expiration Date Dear IED: Anything could happen in the next six months. You could lose your dream job, this guy could decide not to return to his Midwestern hometown after all, or you could turn on the news and learn that a mega-tsunami 300 feet high is racing toward the East Coast and you have eight hours to get the fuck out before your city is washed off the map — and at that point, your boyfriend’s hometown in the Midwest might not look so bad. (Really! It could happen: youtu.be/Fzm49fUSCPk.) So keep dating this guy because, hey, you never know. What you want and where you want to be can change radically in six months’ time.

Dear Dan: Because you had the ability to make Santorum what he is today (a substance, not a senator), would you promote the new meme that Trump = dump? As in “I have to take a trump” or “I just took a major trump — like a trans-Atlantic-cable trump.”

Gross Old Politicians Dear GOP: I’m Dan Savage and I approve this meme.

Have a question for Dan Savage?

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

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Health Massage

Professional therapists Mon-Fri 10am-10pm Sat-Sun 12pm-10pm Body 60/hr, Foot 40/hr

913-808-5998. 7536 W 119th St. Overland Park. KS

Now HiriNg Follow on Twitter: @Phillips_Jobs Like on Facebook: Hotel Phillips Employment Opportunities Link to apply: http://bit.ly/1nMCMWa

Stylish Apartments in Historic Building on W 39th

for the following full time positions:

• Chief Engineer • Valet • Housekeeping • Night Auditor • Security • Servers

HILTON PRESIDENT IS NOW HIRING

FT Sous Chef FT Line Cook u FT Room Attendant Other Openings available, u FT Concierge call our Job Hotline. 816-303-1696 Pre-screen Interviews: u FT Valet Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday u

u

8:30am - Noon & 1:00-3:00pm

G fonrcerts • IRIN H y Co W it C O taff s N Event S • Kansa

1329 Baltimore

Kansas City, MO 64105

• ketball Events KU Bas porting t Takers ons • S ke ti ic n T e v • n Co • Ushers

Apply in person 4050 Pennsylvania Ste. 111 KCMO 64111 Or online www.crowdsystems.com

Established Steel Tube & Pipe Manufacture

30+ Years & Still Growing Three Shifts of Manufacturing & Shipping Opportunities Available Website only has partial listing of Opportunities

Potential to earn $2K in Monthly Production Bonus Apply In Person 1000 Burlington Street, North Kansas City www.exltube.com EOE 34

THE PITCH

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500 502

ADULT

Adult Employment

BACCALA’ STRIP CLUB NOW HIRING DANCERS Contact Joe 7pm-3am Mon-Sat 816-808-7175 504

Adult Clubs

lifestylesofkc.com House Parties Every Friday & Saturday Night. Hot Tub. Dance Pole. Live DJ. Pool Table.

913-742-0022

512 Adult Phone Entertainment

3000 3034

SERVICES Insurance

AUTO INSURANCE STARTING @ $40 Auto & SR22, Renters, Homeowners, Motorcycle, Business

MO & KS

DeMasters Ins. LLC

816-531-1000 KCinsurance.com

4000

BUY, SELL, TRADE, MARKETPLACE

4028

Miscellaneous

Vegan E-liquid

Experience the only USDA Certified 100% Organic & Vegan E-liquid in 8 naturally flavored options and 4 nicotine levels. Available in KC exclusively at our stores Main Street Tobacco @ 4307 Main Street (43rd & Main) 816-531-4441 AND KC Smoke & Vape @ 1605 Westport Road (Just East of Stateline) 816-931-4434

1102 Apartments for Rent

1108 Duplexes/Townhouses For Rent

KS-KCKS | $475-$575 913-299-9748

DUPLEX FOR RENT

HEAT & WATER PAID...

NO GAS BILL!KCK25 ACRE SETTING. 63rd & ANN, 5 minutes West of I-635 & I-70 One bedroom $475; Two bedroom $575. No pets please. You CANNOT BEAT this value! Don’t miss out on this limited-time offer!

Call NOW! MUCH NICER THAN THE PRICE!

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

816-753-5576

Colliers International, EHO

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MO MIDTOWN $515 816-560-0715 ARMOUR FLATS APARTMENTS Newly remodeled one bedroom apartment available. Great location! Next to bus stop. Gas, water and trash paid.

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1110

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.

T R A E H r u o hang y

Roommates

ALL AREAS ROOMMATES.COM. Lonely? Bored? Broke? Find the perfect roommate to complement your personality and lifestyle at Roommates.com! (AAN CAN) ALL AREAS ROOMMATES.COM. Lonely? Bored? Broke? Find the perfect roommate to complement your personality and lifestyle at Roommates.com! (AAN CAN)

HOUSE • LOFT• APARTMENT • ROOM• DUPLEX

1000

&

REAL ESTATE

1002

ALL AREAS ALL PRICES

2000

EMPLOYMENT

2034

General

CROWD SYSTEMS

FOR KU BASKETBALL SPORTING EVENTS KANSAS CITY CONCERTS CONVENTIONS Event Staff, Ushers Ticket Takers Apply in person: 4050 Pennsylvania Ste.111 KCMO or apply online: www.crowdsystems.com

Classifieds

Short SalesForeclosures-Condos Townhomes-Single Family Homes.

Want to see what your home is worth?

CALL NOW RE/MAX STATELINE Sharon Sigman 913-488-8300 or 913-338-8444

Legal

$99 DIVORCE $99 Simple, Uncontested + Filing Fee. Don Davis.

816-531-1330

2046

913-488-8300 www.FORMLS.com

New & Resale

NOW HIRING

2042

Homes for Sale

Miscellaneous

EXLTUBE NOW HIRING

Established Steel Tube & Pipe Manufacture.

30+ Years & Still Growing.

Three Shifts of Manufacturing & Shipping Opportunities Available Website only has partial listing of Opportunities Potential to earn $2K in Monthly Production Bonus Apply In Person 1000 Burlington Street, North Kansas City www.exltube.com EOE

1100

HOUSING/RENTALS

1102 Apartments for Rent PUBLISHER’S NOTICE: All real estate advertised herein is subject to Federal Fair Housing Act, which makes it illegal to adverise, “any preferences, limitation, or discrimination because of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin, or intention to make any such preference, limitation, or dicriminaton.

We will not knowing accept any advertising for real estate which is in violation of the law. All persons are hereby informed that all dwellings advertised are available on a equal opportunity basis.

pitch.com

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36 Scared? Anxious? Confused?

Help Is Here!

DWI, Solicitation, Traffic,

HOTEL ROOMS

A-1 Motel 816-765-6300 Capital Inn 816-765-4331

816-221-5900 - www.The-Law.com David Lurie Attorney

6101 E. 87th St./Hillcrest Rd. HBO, Phone, Banquet Hall $39.99 Day/ $169 Week/ $499 Month + Tax

NEED SHOES? loafers.com

$99 DIVORCE $99

Internet Crimes, Hit & Run, Power & Light Violations.

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Auto & SR22, Renters, Homeowners, Motorcycle, Business

Simple, Uncontested + Filing Fee. Don Davis.

816-531-1330

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CASH FOR CARS Running or Not! Cash Paid Now! (913) 271-9406

MO & KS DeMasters Ins. LLC 816-531-1000 KCinsurance.com

INDULGE In Your Wildest Fantasies!

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House Parties Every Fri. & Sat. Night

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AUTO INSURANCE STARTING @ $40

Pool, Hot Tub, Dance Area w/pole. Live DJ. Pool Table.

Basketball Court, Vollyball etc..Check out our NEW site

913-742-0022

Vegan E-liquid

Experience the only USDA Certified 100% Organic & Vegan E-liquid in 8 naturally flavored options and 4 nicotine levels. Available in KC exclusively at our stores

Main Street Tobacco @ 4307 Main Street (43rd & Main) 816-531-4441 AND KC Smoke & Vape @ 1605 Westport Road (Just East of Stateline) 816-931-4434

CROWD SYSTEMS-NOW HIRING For KU Basketball-Kansas City Concerts Sporting Events-Conventions Event Staff, Ushers, Ticket Takers

Apply in Person: 4050 Pennsylvania Ste. 111 Or Online www.crowdsystems.com EOE

EXLTUBE-NOW HIRING

Established Steel Tube & Pipe Manufacture. 30+ Years & Still Growing.

Three Shifts of Manufacturing & Shipping Opportunities Available Website only has partial listing of Opportunities Potential to earn $2K in Monthly Production Bonus Apply In Person 1000 Burlington Street, North Kansas City www.exltube.com EOE

Main Street Tobacco @ 4307 Main Street (43rd & Main) 816-531-4441 AND KC Smoke & Vape @ 1605 Westport Road (Just East of Stateline) 816-931-4434

HOTEL ROOMS

A-1 Motel 816-765-6300 Capital Inn 816-765-4331 6101 E. 87th St./Hillcrest Rd. HBO, Phone, Banquet Hall $39.99 Day/ $169 Week/ $499 Month + Tax

CASH FOR CARS Running or Not! Cash Paid Now! (913) 271-9406

99.7% Toxin Free w/n an hour We can help you pass Coopers 3617 Broadway, KCMO 816.931.7222

End of Year New and Used Restaurant Equipment Blowout ...

Deals, deals, deals! Don’t miss out on your opportunity to take some of these beauties home for a great deal!

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AUCTION ENDS: 12/28/2015 07:00 PM CST

WWW.EQUIP-BID.COM 36

the pitch

D EC E M B E R 24 -3 0 , 2 0 1 5

Auto & SR22, Renters, Homeowners, Motorcycle, Business

MO & KS DeMasters Ins. LLC 816-531-1000 KCinsurance.com

Kratom

Powders, liquids & capsules in stock now! Bali, Maeng Da, Green Malay, Indo White, & Borneo Red Vein. Volume discounts available. Don’t settle for the other guys’ fillers!

Available at Main Street Tobacco @ 4307 Main Street 816-531-4441 AND KC Smoke & Vape @ 1605 Westport Road 816-931-4434. KCKratom.com DUI-TRAFFIC-SPEEDING! Kansas & Missouri Reasonable rates!

Susan Bratcher 816-453-2240 www.bratcherlaw.biz

$99 DIVORCE $99

Simple, Uncontested + Filing Fee. Don Davis.

816-531-1330

Vegan E-liquid

Experience the only USDA Certified 100% Organic & Vegan E-liquid in 8 naturally flavored options and 4 nicotine levels. Available in KC exclusively at our stores

Running or Not! Cash Paid Now! (913) 271-9406

NEED SHOES? loafers.com

with friends

foldingcartstore.com

pitch.com > Restaurants > Restaurant Guide INDULGE In Your Wildest Fantasies!

Catering to all lifestles!

House Parties Every Fri. & Sat. Night

Pool, Hot Tub, Dance Area w/pole. Live DJ. Pool Table.

Basketball Court, Vollyball etc..Check out our NEW site

lifestylesofkc.com

913-742-0022

Scared? Anxious? Confused?

Help Is Here!

DWI, Solicitation, Traffic,

Internet Crimes, Hit & Run, Power & Light Violations.

816-221-5900 - www.The-Law.com David Lurie Attorney

CROWD SYSTEMS-NOW HIRING

DUI-TRAFFIC-SPEEDING! Kansas & Missouri Reasonable rates!

Susan Bratcher 816-453-2240 www.bratcherlaw.biz

Apply in Person: 4050 Pennsylvania Ste. 111 Or Online www.crowdsystems.com EOE

AUTO INSURANCE STARTING @ $40

For KU Basketball-Kansas City Concerts Sporting Events-Conventions Event Staff, Ushers, Ticket Takers

Kratom

Powders, liquids & capsules in stock now! Bali, Maeng Da, Green Malay, Indo White, & Borneo Red Vein. Volume discounts available. Don’t settle for the other guys’ fillers!

Available at Main Street Tobacco @ 4307 Main Street 816-531-4441 AND KC Smoke & Vape @ 1605 Westport Road 816-931-4434. KCKratom.com pitch.com

Auto & SR22, Renters, Homeowners, Motorcycle, Business

MO & KS DeMasters Ins. LLC 816-531-1000 KCinsurance.com

foldingcartstore.com Because you can’t carry it all.

Because you can’t carry it all.

EXLTUBE-NOW HIRING

Established Steel Tube & Pipe Manufacture. 30+ Years & Still Growing.

Three Shifts of Manufacturing & Shipping Opportunities Available Website only has partial listing of Opportunities Potential to earn $2K in Monthly Production Bonus Apply In Person 1000 Burlington Street, North Kansas City www.exltube.com EOE

HOTEL ROOMS

A-1 Motel 816-765-6300 Capital Inn 816-765-4331 6101 E. 87th St./Hillcrest Rd. HBO, Phone, Banquet Hall $39.99 Day/ $169 Week/ $499 Month + Tax

99.7% Toxin Free w/n an hour We can help you pass Coopers 3617 Broadway, KCMO 816.931.7222

Vegan E-liquid

Experience the only USDA Certified 100% Organic & Vegan E-liquid in 8 naturally flavored options and 4 nicotine levels. Available in KC exclusively at our stores

Main Street Tobacco @ 4307 Main Street (43rd & Main) 816-531-4441 AND KC Smoke & Vape @ 1605 Westport Road (Just East of Stateline) 816-931-4434