The Pitch: July 2017

NEWS: Who

will right the wrongs of an East Side gas station’s environmental negligence?

JULY 2017 I FREE I PITCH.COM

PAGE 10

FAT CITY: The sun

always rises at John’s Space Age Donuts.

Happy Medium

PAGE 32

With The Pitch's Steer & Beer on the way, we pair some new (and old) favorites.

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JOHNNYSWIM

THE TEMPTATIONS

LEE GREENWOOD AND CRYSTAL GAYLE

JULY 14

JULY 21

JULY 28

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the pitch | July 2017 | pitch.com

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Contents

QUESTIONNAIRE

Danny Rotert What the Burns & McDonnell senior strategic consultant learned from Bill Clinton and Emanuel Cleaver.

the pitch

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Sports

Unbroken at the Break July’s Royals power rankings: Can this team get more reliable than its barbecue nachos?

By Angela Lutz

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32

Politics

The Hate State Kris Kobach sets out to fill Kansas’ coming Brownback void.

fat city

Round About 6 a.m.

John’s Space Age Donuts turns 50 this year, but it’s new again with every sunup.

By Barbara Shelly

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photos By chase castor

News

Oil and Water Who will right the wrongs of an East Side gas station’s environmental negligence?

By David Hudnall

A Safe Place at Last?

A new project in KC sets out to help asylum seekers.

By Traci Angel

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streetside

Stay Here How far will KC bend its rules to accommodate the short–term rental movement?

By David Hudnall

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46

Fine, Finer, Finest Corvino Supper Club and Tasting Room: brilliance across an array of prices.

The Incredible Shrinking Screen How I learned to stop worrying and love David Lynch on my iPhone

By Liz Cook

By Eric Melin

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49

All Hail Hale — and Kale Canihaveabite finally opens wide.

Crushing it with Gee Watts, staying fresh with Garbage, and July’s concerts.

Café

Fat City

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Shop Girl

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Off Display Anson DeOrnery handles art most of us will never see.

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By David Hudnall

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First Person

As Down Under, So Up Top Summertime play and mortal thoughts at Rosedale Park

By Lucas Wetzel

20

Cover Story

Grease, Meet Foam When you want a burger and a beer, start with these five pairings.

By April Fleming

Music

By Angela Lutz

Relaxing for Two Bellying up to my first prenatal massage.

Profile

Film

PLUS

The Pitch’s Burger Week is here (page 28), Steer & Beer is coming (page 24), and so is voting for our Best of Kansas City issue (page 53).

By Angela Lutz

Editor Scott Wilson Staff Writer David Hudnall Proofreader Brent Shepherd Contributing Writers Tracy Abeln, Traci Angel, Liz Cook, Karen Dillon, April Fleming, Natalie Gallagher, Deborah Hirsch, Ron Knox, Larry Kopitnik, Angela Lutz, Dan Lybarger, David Martin, Eric Melin, Annie Raab, Aaron Rhodes, Barbara Shelly, Nick Spacek, Jennifer Wetzel, Lucas Wetzel Art Director Christie Passarello Contributing Photographers Zach Bauman, Chase Castor, Chris Mullins, Jennifer Wetzel Graphic Designers Katy Barrett-Alley, Amy Gomoljak, Abbie Leali, Liz Loewenstein, Melanie Mays Publisher Amy Mularski Director of Marketing and Operations Jason Dockery Senior Classifieds & Multimedia Specialist Steven Suarez Multimedia Specialists Becky Losey, Ryan Wolkey Office Administrator and Marketing Coordinator Andrew Miller

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Chief Executive Officer Chris Ferrell Chief Financial Officer Bob Mahoney Chief Operating Officer Blair Johnson Director of Human Resources Becky Turner Executive Vice President Mark Bartel Vice President of Content/Communication Patrick Rains Vice President of Production Operations Curt Pordes Creative Director Heather Pierce

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

Distribution

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

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

copyright

The contents of The Pitch are Copyright 2017 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.

The Pitch main phone number: 816-561-6061 The Pitch address: 1627 Main, Suite 700, Kansas City, MO 64108 For information or to leave a story tip, e-mail: tips@pitch.com For calendar submission consideration, e-mail: calendar@pitch.com For classifieds: steven.suarez@pitch.com or 816-218-6732 For retail advertising: amy.mularski@pitch.com or 816-218-6702

Art

When a Wall Unites KCK’s diverse, historic murals.

By Jennifer Wetzel

Hot Hand At Kiosk, Cristina Muñiz is a rising painter on a roll.

By Tracy Abeln

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Stage

House Rules A Fringe veteran and a first-timer share a common goal: make winning theater.

By Liz Cook

The Pitch:

Powered by PT’S COFFEE

on the cover

Been to Max’s Burgers and Gyros?

Maybe it’s time. See page 20.

Photo by April Fleming pitch.com | july 2017 | the pitch

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questionnaire

“I just read ...” Neil Gaiman’s American Gods What’s your hidden talent? Pen-spinning from my formative days as a high school debate nerd.

What’s your guiltiest pleasure? An abnormal affection for alliteration. I come by it honestly. My old boss, Rep. Cleaver, carries a torn-up, dog-eared thesaurus. It rubbed off.

The best advice I ever got: Things are generally made better with more light, less heat.

My sidekick? My dog, Scout, has been through thick and thin with me.

What is your spirit animal? The raccoon that sleeps on my porch every night. Pudgy, comfy and deceptively clever.

Who is your hero? I’ve met and worked for some very admirable people in my life, but my hero is my dad.

Who (or what) is your nemesis? The guy that runs an illegal dog-sitting business out of his house next door. Seriously, that guy.

Danny Rotert

What’s your greatest struggle right now? Assembling IKEA cabinets for a kitchen remodel. So many parts!

Senior strategic consultant at Burns & McDonnell Twitter handle: @rabbitsandgoats Hometown: Kansas City, Missouri. I went to Raytown High School.

Current neighborhood: Columbus Park What I do (in 140 characters or less): I try to help governments better listen to the people they serve, improve their processes, innovate where they can and tell their story.

What’s your addiction? Buying midcentury furniture and lighting fixtures that I think are supercool but ultimately have no place for. It is ridiculous.

What’s your game? Responding way too much to Twitter trolls. I’m like a dog with a bone.

What’s your drink? Whiskey, neat. Lately, I’ve been enjoying Sons of Erin Irish whiskey put out by Restless Spirits in North KC. Worth a try if you haven’t.

Where’s dinner? Well, my new favorite was Freshwater, which was recently destroyed when it failed to yield to an oncoming car.

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Lots of tragedy in the accident. Rooting for [owner] Calvin Davis and his restaurant to come back even better. Great staff, perfect wines, and exciting food.

What’s on your KC postcard? When I worked for Congressman Cleaver, there was a moment in the KCUR studios when he got down on his bad knee so Walt Bodine — then mostly blind — could feel his face and say hello. Maybe not a typical postcard, but an image about as Kansas City as it gets.

Finish these sentences: “Kansas City got it right when ...” We remembered we are a great city. Encouraged by the exceptional Mayor James, we’ve turned a corner and now seem to get far more right than we get wrong.

“As a kid, I wanted to be ...” A marine biologist or an astronaut. I am neither of those things.

“In five years, I’ll be ...” Taking transit across a brand-new Broadway/O’Neil Bridge to catch a flight from a brand-new KCI. I am hoping we can embrace these generational projects to take another step toward being an even better Kansas City.

“I always laugh at ...” The outtakes at the end of movies. Why can’t the movies themselves be that funny?

“I’ve been known to binge watch...”

Mystery Science Theater 3000

“Kansas City screwed up when ...” We went all in on mega highways at the expense of neighborhoods, streetcars and people. We weren’t the only city who did it, but, man, we did it with gusto.

“I can’t stop listening to ...” Currently on the turntable stack are Stevie Wonder (Talking Book), Fleetwood Mac (self-titled), A Tribe Called Quest (People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm), Leonard Cohen (You Want It Darker).

“Kansas City needs ...” To not get scared and not turn back. After a surge of progress, there is a tendency to return to the basics. I hope we don’t.

“My dream concert lineup is ...” I think the lineup mentioned above would do the trick. Sadly, both Phife Dawg from Tribe and Cohen died last year, but still a solid lineup.

My dating triumph/tragedy: Some of each My brush with fame: Worked the Clinton campaign and got to hang with Bill for a day as he crisscrossed a bunch of tiny towns in North Carolina. It was hot and muggy, but the man was dressed to the nines, full suit.

When asked, he said, “This may be the only time some of these folks will ever see a president visit. I should look the part.”

My soapbox: Having worked for her, don’t get me started on the sexism and misogyny that in the end kept us from having our first female president.

What was the last thing you had to apologize for? This questionnaire not being nearly as funny as it should be.

Who’s sorry now? You may be for making it this far in this thing.

My recent triumph: Kansas City was just named a 2017 All-American City due in large part to its Turn the Page program that works to improve the reading skills of our youngest residents. I am pretty proud to say I was there in the mayor’s office when that idea was born.

the pitch | july 2017 | pitch.com

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sports

If there’s an award for best Royals superfans, Richard and Sam are crushing the competition for it, besting the dudes who wear cat-print singlets to every game, the man who hoists life-size moose antlers above his head when Moustakas bats, or that fella who for some reason perches in the upper deck dressed as an eagle. Fun fact: My husband and I have never been on Crown Vision, but because our season tickets are only a few rows in front of Richard and Sam’s, our outstretched arms have made the occasional cameo.

7. All-Star Salvy For the fifth year in a row, Salvador Pérez, the Royals’ charismatic catcher, is heading to the All-Star Game. Known as much for his trademark “Salvy splashes” and Instagram antics as he is for his Gold Glove–winning defense and iron-horse stoicism behind the plate, he remains the Royal to love, in Kansas City and beyond — prompting Sports Illustrated to name him the face of the team earlier this year.

Unbroken at the Break

Some seats are more crown than others.

July’s Royals power rankings: Can this team get more reliable than its barbecue nachos?

by Angela Lutz

For the Kansas City Royals and their fans, this season has not gone according to plan. In the last year before the team’s World Series– veteran core disbands, spring began with high hopes for one more stab at postseason success.

So far, though, the boys in blue have spent most of their time in last place in the dreadful American League Central, with an offense so lethargic it makes my nap-addicted cats look like Rickey Henderson and Willie Wilson.

Even so, as the All-Star break approached, the Royals were showing signs of life, finally putting the ball in play and keeping that line moving. At the halfway mark, then, here are my power rankings for the team: a look at the players and moments that make it worth watching — along with a few other things that remain as annoying as Joe Buck saying “Bumgarner.”

1. Jason Vargas After missing most of last year recovering from Tommy John surgery, Vargas is back on top of his game — in fact, he’s pitching better than ever, having spent most of the season with either the best or second-best ERA in the American League. Royals color commentator Rex Hudler has dubbed him “Dr. Vargas” for his ability to carve up the plate, and indeed the man’s surgical precision has baffled batters and kept him in Cy Young contention.

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2. Whit Merrifield In addition to being my favorite hobbit, Whitley Merrifield has quietly become one of the most exciting members of this team’s offense. The 28-year-old fan favorite was a single shy of hitting for the cycle against Detroit on May 29, and his recent hitting streak stretched to 19 games, the longest in the majors to that point in the season.

Whit has also bulked up, adding 20 pounds of muscle to his frame. His efforts seem to be paying off in extra-base hits and home runs, making everyone in the Shire proud.

3. Eric Hosmer The Royals’ three-time Gold Glove–winning first baseman has finally stopped sucking.

After a miserable start that made me question whether Hosmer, who is a free agent after this season, actually hated money, his batting average is finally respectable, and he’s driving in go-ahead runs instead of swatting into double plays. Hosmer appears primed either to help the Royals make another postseason run or to secure himself a fat contract with another team (and maybe both).

4. Royal dong party It’s become a refrain as tired as covfefe: The Royals don’t hit for power. But that’s not axiomatic this season, with a lineup on pace to hit 183 homers, shattering the old team record of 168, which was set in 1987. Mike Moustakas is

leading the way, vying to break Steve Balboni’s team record of 36 (an admittedly paltry stat).

Salvador Pérez is right behind him, having smacked his 100th career dong this June — and his first career grand slam.

5. Jorge Bonifacio (and his resting bitch face) This 23-year-old rookie is off to a promising start in the big leagues. What’s most exciting about Bonifacio is his power — since being called up in mid-April, he’s been a home-run and RBI machine, helping revive the Royals’ sleepy offense. Sure, his defense could use some polishing, but whether he botches a play or nails it, his adorable resting bitch face is a welcome addition to right field.

6. King Richard and #SignGirlSam If you watch Fox Sports Kansas City, you’ve probably seen King Richard and Sign Girl Sam. He looks right at home in a golden, jeweled crown. She rocks a personalized jersey, with her distinctive hashtag on the back.

Perched upon their foldout thrones, several rows behind home plate, they’ve become a fixture at every home game — and Sam’s extensive portfolio of clever signs has ensured they get lots of love from the Royals camera crew. She has pieces of poster board prepped for every imaginable situation, from “Hip, hip, Herrera” to “Raised to be Forever Royal” to my favorite, “Whit makes this a Merri-field.”

8. Cheesy corn brisket-acho helmet I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Fuck your diet. Kauffman Stadium’s cheesy, meaty, sloppy calorie catastrophe comes in a full-size plastic helmet and weighs as much as the possum in your storm drain. It’s the ideal snack to smother your sorrows when the Royals just can’t get it done. Just carrying the thing back to your seat makes you feel like a winner: As you strut this pending assault on your colon through the concourse, heads definitely turn. You will feel like a minor celebrity — until you finish it, when you’ll feel something else entirely.

9. Esky magic In a move that seemed more nostalgic than strategic, Ned Yost put Alcides Escobar, lean batting average and all — back in the leadoff spot for most of May. Esky is an unconventional leadoff hitter, but in 2014 and ’15 the Royals were 91-55 when he batted first. In fact, in the latter season, the team was 4217 when he swung at the game’s first pitch.

Unfortunately, this year “Esky magic” boosted the Royals to just 15-14 for the month of May. It was an improvement over April, sure, but still not enough to get this team back where it needed to be.

10. Alex Gordon It pains me to rank Alex Gordon last, because he seems like such a nice guy. And his defense is still top-notch — no one prowls Kauffman Stadium’s vast outfield and makes the impossible catches it demands seem easier than Gordo does. But his bat has become a liability, with his average remaining below .200 and his run production lurking in the Timmy Lupus range.

Historically, the Royals are usually better after the All-Star break, so my hope remains strong that Gordon stays on trend. This team needs runs, especially his.

the pitch | july 2017 | pitch.com

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politics

The Hate State

Kris Kobach sets out to fill Kansas’ coming Brownback void — and enlarge the state’s woes.

by Barbara Shelly

For all of a week, Kansas basked in the narrative of being the state that had seen the light. Thanks to action by its Legislature, Gov. Sam Brownback’s failed tax-cut experiment was finally history. Kansas had shown a perplexed nation that some leaders had remembered how to place common sense and quality of life ahead of ideology. Moderate politicians owned the day.

Then Kris Kobach announced he’d be making an announcement.

The GOP secretary of state swept into Thompson Barn in Lenexa with his wife, Heather Kobach, and their five daughters. He talked about his love for his family and for Kansas. He said the state’s greatness had been obscured by “petty partisan bickering.” Kansas deserves better, he said. And with that, the good week was over: “Today,” Kobach said, “I’m announcing my candidacy for governor.”

With a supportive audience applauding frequently, Kobach proceeded to outline a vision much darker than what Kansans have already endured under Brownback. The tax cuts and the endless budget deficits would come back. Cratered services would have dirt thrown over them. Legislative sessions would never end. And, driven by Kobach’s tireless aggression toward immigrants, Kansas would become the hate state.

Kobach’s announcement, complete with a meet-and-greet and some questions from the media, consumed 44 minutes. Unless you crave jaw-dropping hypocrisy from a demagogic politician, the video is nothing you need to pull up on your screen. Of course, I watched the whole horror show, and I can’t unsee its terrors. So I’m going to cleanse my brainpan by sharing Kobach’s presser with you. Pick your favorite quote and tape it to your voter ID — assuming you’re not one of Kansas’ diabolical election fraudsters.

Here he is, decked out in a dark suit and an aqua-colored tie, blasting Kansas “politicians” — as though he weren’t one himself — and sucking up to Donald Trump. Because, if this governor thing doesn’t work out, maybe the White House still has a place for him.

“Instead of debating ways to put Kansas on the leading edge of the economic recovery that is occurring in the United States and that President Trump is leading,” he bloviates, “we have a Legislature in Kansas that on Tuesday passed the largest tax increase in state history.

It’s outrageous.”

In the world according to Kobach, all that ails Kansas can be pegged to three factors: corruption, taxation and, yup, illegal immigration.

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His idea of corruption is actually pretty tame. Politicians, Kobach says, hang around Topeka too long. He cites Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Democrat. Hensley was first elected to state office when Kobach was just 8 years old. Now Kobach is 51.

“I think it’s time to retire him,” Kobach says, vowing to work for term limits if he becomes governor. (Hensley will fire back later with a statement pointing to Kobach’s frequent moonlighting as an anti-immigration lawyer: “When he’s not using the state airplane to travel to political functions, he’s working with white supremacist hate groups to intimidate minorities and immigrants.”) Kobach also says lawmakers shouldn’t be allowed to jump directly into lobbying, though a reporter will later point out that some of his supporters in the room had done just that.

Next, a tirade about the Legislature’s reversal of the severe income tax cuts that Brownback and lawmakers enacted in 2012. This he equates to thievery. “They steal it, they take [money] from your pocketbook,” he says. He repeats the thoroughly discredited canard that “Kansas doesn’t have a revenue problem.

It has a spending problem.”

He knows this because he himself has cut the budget of the secretary of state’s office by a third since his first election, in 2010. And it was painless! All he did, Kobach says, was wait for baby boomers in the office to retire and then eliminate their positions. The aging of the boomer generation, he says, presents “a historic opportunity” to shrink the size of government. Also, his office saved lots of money by using email instead of snail mail to transact business.

Kobach seems oblivious to the point that record keepers in the secretary of state’s office are likely more expendable than, say, child-abuse investigators or environmental inspectors — both in short supply in cashstarved Kansas. His office, he tells us, is doing more with less.

“As you’ve probably heard, we’re prosecuting voter fraud,” he says, pausing for a swig of bottled water. “Yeah, so much for the argument that voter frand doesn’t exist. We now have nine convictions and counting, including many people who voted twice and many people who voted while being noncitizens.’

Actually, only one person in Kansas has been accused of voting while not holding U.S. citizenship. The other wigglers in Kobach’s dragnet are mostly older people who unwittingly broke the law by voting in two places where they held property. And his total of nine cases falls far short of the rampant voter

Kris Kobach

fraud that Kobach warned about when he persuaded the Legislature to grant his office prosecutorial powers.

Still, this is Kobach’s political raison d’etre, so on he goes. “As many of you know, I’ve spent much of my life fighting against illegal immigration,” he says before talking about his role in crafting repressive antiimmigrant laws in states such as Arizona and Alabama. “I’ve also had the honor of personally advising President Trump both before and after the election,” he says. “And is he doing a good job? Yes, he is.”

But, to his dismay, Kobach tells his audience, his home state continues to harbor illegal aliens — his preferred term for immigrants. In fact, “Kansas is the sanctuary state of the Midwest.”

It especially grates on Kobach that young undocumented immigrants — the so-called dreamers — can attend Kansas colleges and universities at in-state tuition rates if they’ve lived here for a certain number of years, attended school in Kansas and met other conditions. “We are the only state [in the Midwest] that rewards illegal immigration by giving in-state tuition to illegal aliens when our own students are barely able to afford college,” he says.

Gesturing toward his daughters, Kobach counts himself among the Kansas parents worried about paying for college. And yet the state provides “hundreds of millions of dollars in the form of legislative subsidies to illegal aliens who only have to pay one-third of the price [of tuition].”

To borrow one of Kobach’s favorite words, his argument is outrageous. Only 686 undocumented students are getting the break for in-state tuition, and most are at community colleges. They are not costing the state “hundreds of millions” in subsidies or getting a two-thirds price break on tuition. Rather, they are paying the same rates as their high school classmates. And the prohibitive tuition rates Kobach is so concerned about are a direct result of the failed tax cuts that he is promising to restore.

Without providing a breakdown, Kobach asserts that Kansas spends $424 million a

year on services for illegal aliens. That’s the same tally contained in a 2013 report from the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a vehement anti-immigrant group that Kobach has been allied with over the years. FAIR arrived at its total by sweeping in costs for education, medical care, criminal justice and anything else it could find.

The report’s accuracy is dubious, and many of the costs laid at the feet of undocumented immigrants — including education — can’t be undone by state action. But when he is governor, Kobach tells his followers, there will be no more “welfare” for “illegal aliens.” Kansas law enforcement personnel will work hand in hand with federal immigration agents to get undocumented people out of the state. Employers will hire only U.S. citizens.

Amazingly, Kobach wraps up by telling supporters he will bring “principled idealism” back to Kansas. This he defines as “idealism that treats every person, born and unborn, able-bodied and disabled, young and old, rich and poor, equally ... as a valued creation of the almighty God.” Unless, that is, one of God’s children arrives in Kansas as an undocumented immigrant, in which case said sacred creation will be treated as a menace to be eradicated.

To sum up, Kobach’s campaign platform consists of restoring the tax-cut yoke that the Kansas Legislature just managed to shake off, reducing the budget by waiting for baby boomers to retire, running out veteran lawmakers with term limits, and cleansing the state of illegal immigrants. Not exactly the stuff of greatness. In fact, except for some savings of postage stamps, Kobach’s speech didn’t include a single workable idea. His platform, like his résumé, is hateful and craven.

It’s comforting to speculate that Kansas voters will reject Kobach’s attempt to convert their state into an impoverished wasteland where immigrants would be unwelcome — and probably wouldn’t want to live anyway.

But these same voters gave Brownback a second chance in 2014, when it was clear the sun wasn’t shining in Kansas, as the governor claimed. And Kobach has won his secretary of state races by big margins in two election cycles.

Kobach is already out with a professionally prepared video introducing his family and himself. “Kris Kobach has always run toward the problem, never away from it,” a narrator says. “He’s always taken action, always led, never given up.”

Now we see an action shot of Kobach splitting wood. He raises a hatchet above his head. “Sure, sometimes he shakes things up a bit,” the narrator intones. Kobach lowers the hatchet, splitting a log down the middle.

“But isn’t that what Topeka needs?” the narrator asks.

Only if you hate Topeka. Only if you hate Kansas.

the pitch | july 2017 | pitch.com

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news

“It was like toxic sewage mixed with gas,” Taylor says. “You couldn’t breathe in there.

You couldn’t be in the building.”

Taylor and Dixon started asking around about the smell. They soon learned what many residents of the area already knew: that petroleum contamination coming from Taylor and Dixon’s next-door neighbor had been quietly poisoning the neighborhood for years.

Tiara Taylor and her husband lost their first restaurant to gas fumes.

Oil and Water

zach bauman

Who will right the wrongs of an East Side gas station’s environmental negligence?

by David Hudnall

Tiara Taylor ducks out from behind the counter at Smaxx and slides into a booth.

It’s just before 5 p.m. on a Thursday — not typically a busy food hour. But restaurants are scarce in the 18th & Vine District, and Smaxx has been doing brisk business since Taylor and her husband, Brandon Dixon, opened, six months ago. Paint-stained laborers jaw at one another over baskets of fried food. Framed black-and-white photos of Negro Leagues baseball games and old KC jazz legends dot the walls. A speaker system tuned to Hot 103 is blowing out bangers: Migos’ “Bad and Boujee,” Future’s “Mask Off.” “We ended up in a historically black neighborhood that was really ready for a place like ours,” Taylor says. “People are like, Where you been? So it’s been beautiful. But it was a long way getting here. We got dragged through the mud on the way here.”

In 2013, Taylor and Dixon bought a

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property at the northeast corner of 31st Street and Cleveland Avenue with the intention of renovating it and opening Smaxx there. Taylor grew up not far away. She saw opportunity in the location.

“It’s a prime spot,” Taylor says. “Thirtyfirst is a major street. Something like 25,000 cars roll by there every single day. And there’s nothing between Van Brunt and Prospect where you can get food. We were excited. We were going to bring good food, new life to that corner.”

Before long, though, hints emerged that the property wasn’t a simple fixer-upper.

The day after the couple pulled out the floorboards to install a grease trap, they returned to find what Taylor calls a “chemical smell” in the air, and the grease trap was coated in a mysterious ooze. They asked a contractor working in the space if he knew what the substance was. He didn’t. They called the fire department. Taylor says the fire department

told them to call the local branch of the Environmental Protection Agency.

“The EPA guy tried to tell us that we probably had a disgruntled employee who dumped this sludgy ooze down into the grease trap,” Taylor says. “We were like, What? So we cleaned it out. But the next day it was back. The EPA came back again and said the same thing. We were like, We think this could be a problem. Do you think we should continue building this place out? And he told us not to worry. He said, ‘Finish your construction.’”

So that’s what they did. They put the floorboards back down and, for a while, forgot about the ooze and the smell. They knocked out walls in the kitchen, installed new equipment and blacktopped the adjoining lot for parking. Then one day in November 2014, after a heavy rainfall, they arrived to find that an overwhelming odor permeated the building.

Since at least 1967, and likely well before that, there has been a gas station operating at 3814 East 31st Street. Today, a vintage redand-white pole still rises high into the air near the curb. In vertical lettering, it reads: “GAS 24 HRS.” The gas station operates under the name Inner City Oil, and a company called Zill LLC has owned it since 2003.

Three years after Zill took ownership of this gas station, nearby residents like Beverly Cheadle, at 3023 Cleveland, began to complain of gas smells in their houses. Inner City Oil is located at the top of a small hill. It slopes north, and Cheadle’s home is downwind of it. She’s owned the home since 1956 and can’t recall a time when a gas station wasn’t operating at the top of the hill.

But it was only in 2006 that the gasoline odor materialized in the home, says her son, Kevin Cheadle.

“That’s when we first experienced this smell,” Kevin, who lived in the house from 1964 to 1982, says. “It was very new, very obvious. We called the fire department out, and then they got DNR involved.”

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources, the Kansas City Fire Department, and Kansas City Water Services investigated the problem in April 2006. It was determined that a break in the sewer main had allowed a mixture of groundwater and petroleum to make its way into sewer lines that connected to nearby residences. Because of its proximity, Inner City Oil was considered the likely source of the contamination, but the investigation yielded no conclusive evidence tying the gas station to the problem.

Repairs were made, and petroleum stopped flowing into the sewer main. The problem seemed to go away.

As a result of the April 2006 activity, though, the MDNR referred the case to its “tanks section,” which regulates underground storage tanks. When you pump your gas at a gas station, it’s usually coming from a UST, which is a huge, cylindrical vat installed in the ground underneath the pumps. Until the 1980s, most USTs — which often hold 10,000 gallons of fuel or more — were made of steel. That turned out to be a bad idea. The steel corrodes, allowing the gas inside to seep into the nearby environment, contaminating soil and groundwater.

In September 2006, Zill was ordered to replace the old steel tanks on its site with new ones made of fiberglass. Massive pe-

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news Emergency-level contamination didn’t keep Inner City Oil from continuing to operate.

troleum leakage was discovered during this removal process. As a subsequent MDNR report noted: “Although 805 tons of petroleum-impacted soil was removed from the site and properly disposed, Zill LLC was unable to remove all of the contamination.”

Years passed. In 2011, Zill consented to a $23,000 judgment for failing to comply with the state’s UST laws. In 2013, the MDNR ordered Zill to conduct what’s called a “site characterization.” Complaints about gasoline odors had persisted in the neighborhood, and the state wanted to know the full extent of the contamination. The findings have not been encouraging.

The area surrounding Inner City Oil is not a land of prosperity and opportunity. Both the median household income and median home value in its Census tract fall in the bottom 10 percent for the state of Missouri.

A fifth of residents over the age of 25 never graduated high school. More than a quarter of the population lives in poverty. Ninety percent of residents are black.

Hyperlocal cancer rates are a harder statistic to come by. Ask around, though, and cancer seems to be as present in this neighborhood as boarded-up windows and unemployed men.

Charles Gines, owner of Gines Cleaners, a half-block down from Inner City Oil, has leukemia.

“I think it’s from the water — I think there’s something in it,” says Gines’ daughter, Kessa Gines, from behind the cleaners’ counter. “I told my dad for years not to drink the water here. I only drink bottled water when I’m working here.”

Mary Johnson, 65, has lived at 3006 Mersington, downhill from the gas station, for 45 years. She doesn’t trust the tap water, either. Johnson says that, after showering, members of her family would often break out in hives and bumps that would later turn black. Her husband died of prostate cancer, and she’s battling breathing problems. These days, Johnson drinks bottled

water and, to bathe, boils tap water before dumping it in the tub.

“There’s been something wrong with the water for many years now,” she says. “A lot of people around here have headaches they can’t get rid of. My neighbor, Carol, is on a drip for pain from the headaches.”

I can’t find Carol, but a block over, up a porch lined with green putt-putt-course carpet and past a screen door, I meet Vivian Wade and her son, Ricardo. Vivian is 97 years old and has lived in her Cleveland Avenue house since the presidential administration of Harry S. Truman. Ricardo is 64 and was born in the house; he lives a few blocks away on Linwood now.

Framed family photos line the walls of Vivian’s time-capsule living room. Most of the people are dead. Vivian’s husband (and Ricardo’s father) died of multiple myeloma while living in this home. Ricardo’s sister died of leukemia while living here. Vivian suffers from dementia and was recently diagnosed with colon cancer, Ricardo told me.

He also said that, when he moved back into this house for a few years in 2005, he began to suffer constant and intense headaches.

“And my mom was having the same thing,” Ricardo says. “And ever since then, she’s been deteriorating. That’s why I’m trying to get her out of this house. She doesn’t want to go. She doesn’t understand that this house, this neighborhood — it’s no good for her anymore.”

you’ve got going on in your restaurant? You couldn’t stand in there for two seconds because the smell was so strong. We were going to be a restaurant. We were going to have open flames in there. Ain’t nobody gonna pass your inspection when it seems like the whole place could blow up at any minute.”

Taylor and Dixon were not alone in finding themselves suddenly assaulted by petroleum vapors. Two months later, in January 2015, three properties down the hill from Inner City Oil reported similar concerns.

Two of the properties were the same ones that had been affected back in 2006. Again it was determined that a broken sewer line was allowing petroleum to flow into the sewer main, causing vapors to migrate into five properties in the area.

Zill, owner of Inner City Oil, had been paying a third-party entity to collect soil and groundwater samples in the area, per the MDNR’s 2013 order. But after the incidents of late 2014 and early 2015, the MDNR declared the situation an emergency. The state set up monitoring wells in the area, many of which were found to contain liquid petroleum. It ordered Zill to put together a work plan to immediately begin addressing all facets of the contamination. Zill was also required to pay for off-site lodging for those affected by the contamination.

But Zill dragged its feet and failed to act on the order. (It has since begun complying.) So, in August 2015, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster sued Zill on behalf of the MDNR. A month later, Koster and Congressman Emanuel Cleaver stopped in for a visit at Taylor and Dixon’s would-be restaurant, TV camera crews in tow.

“We’re asking the court to force this gas station to immediately begin and complete a remediation plan for the neighborhood,” Koster said at the time. “Or, in the alternative, we’re asking them to remove all the gas from their underground storage tanks and stop selling gas in this neighborhood. If they can’t be a good neighbor, we’re not going to let them continue to contaminate this area.”

That was nearly two years ago. Today, the state’s lawsuit remains unresolved, Koster lost his run at the governorship, and Inner City Oil is still selling gas on 31st Street.

When their place at 31st and Cleveland became too overtaken by fumes to finish construction, Tiara Taylor and Brandon Dixon locked it up for a month and prayed the vapors would pass. When the couple returned, they found traces of rust on their new equipment. A brickish-red film had settled on the stainless-steel products in the kitchen.

“We had built our restaurant, basically,” Taylor says. “By that point, we were almost done. We were trying to get approval from the health department. But who’s going to pass your inspection when that’s what

What’s the holdup? Right now, the pouredsyrup pace of the proceedings is the result of a maddeningly circular dispute between the state and a state-administered fund regarding how much money is available to clean up this mess.

If the state — that is, the Missouri Attorney General’s office, acting on behalf of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources — is ever able to extract money from Zill, it will in all likelihood come from an obscure program called the Petroleum Storage Tank Insurance Fund, or PSTIF.

In Missouri, if you want to store gas in a tank system, as all gas stations must, you are required to be insured. Many gas stations opt to insure themselves against potential petroleum leaks through PSTIF. To participate in PSTIF, a gas station like the one owned by Zill pays a surcharge on all petroleum transported into MIssouri. That surcharge is collected by the Department of Revenue and deposited into the state treasury. When your petroleum tank malfunctions and an environmental crisis occurs, you call PSTIF, just as you would call your car insurance company if you rear-ended somebody. Assuming PSTIF decides your claim is valid, it will give you money to pay for cleanup and other third-party damages.

Eleven trustees, all appointed by the governor, sit on PSTIF’s board. State statute mandates that three of those seats are occupied by members of certain departments.

There’s a trustee who works for the Department of Agriculture, one from the Office of Administration, and one from the Department of Natural Resources.

PSTIF’s quasi-governmental status presents several conflicts in a case like Zill’s. For example, will Katie Jo Wheeler — the PSTIF trustee who represents the MDNR — recuse herself because Zill is being sued on behalf of that entity? Wheeler declined to comment, citing the pending litigation. For insight into PSTIF’s unusual position in this litigation, Wheeler suggested I call Carol Eighmey, PSTIF’s board-appointed executive director.

Eighmey said she preferred to let the court documents speak for themselves.

Those documents don’t paint a pretty picture of what’s going on, though. According to a brief filed by the state, PSTIF and the state cannot agree on the amount of money that is still available from PSTIF to satisfy the claims against Zill. The disagreement stems from competing interpretations of state law and Zill’s participation agreement with PSTIF. The state seems to believe PSTIF’s liability is $4 million, while PSTIF is arguing that the liability is only $3 million.

Additionally — and somewhat incredibly — PSTIF stated in those negotiations that its legal defense costs could draw down the amount of money available for cleanup and third-party damages. In other words, PSTIF argued (according to the state) that it could use Zill’s insurance policy to pay Zill’s attorney, and that whatever is left afterward is all that is available to the victims of this environmental disaster.

As the attorney for Mary Johnson and other Cleveland Avenue residents who have recently filed suit against Zill over the gas leak, Brian Madden has had a front-row seat for this ongoing dispute. His case has been consolidated into the state’s case for the purposes of pretrial discovery. Madden, too, declined to comment, but directed me toward his court pleadings. pitch.com | july 2017 | the pitch

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Calling the situation “absurd,” Madden wrote in April: “There has been no cleanup or payment to the Missouri citizens who actually happen to live [in the area impacted by the Zill spill], yet PSTIF dollars are being spent on defense costs for Zill. ... PSTIF is apparently taking the position it can spend all coverage dollars on defense costs and leave nothing for cleanup or compensation.”

Missouri Rep. Brandon Ellington doesn’t represent the affected neighborhood in the legislature — he’s one district over — but he has been more outspoken than any other local elected leader on this issue. (The state representative for the district in which Inner City Oil sits is Randy Dunn, who recently resigned to take a job in another state and did not respond to a request for comment.

Neither did Kiki Curls, its representative in the Missouri Senate.)

“It’s one of the cloudiest situations I’ve ever dealt with in terms of clear transparency,” Ellington says. “Zill pays into this fund. The fund is supposed to pay for the cleanup. I’ve been asking questions for two years now, and I got no good answer for you as to why PSTIF hasn’t paid up yet.”

The attorney general’s office — now under the Republican leadership of Josh Hawley — is “taking all measures available to ensure cleanup occurs,” spokeswoman Loree Anne Paradise says. “We strongly believe PSTIF funds should be used to clean up this hazard and protect the people of the region — not to pay lawyers.”

Nevertheless, there is no shortage of lawyers getting paid.

When Taylor and Dixon filed their own lawsuit against Zill, in January 2016, they were surprised by the gas station’s response.

Zill countersued them and several other third parties — including the Kansas City, Missouri; the Land Bank of Kansas City; Kansas City Public Schools; and the previous owner of the gas station — alleging that all these entities had also utilized underground storage tanks in the area and thus could have been responsible for the widespread petroleum leaks at issue.

Zill’s attorney, Brian Mouber, did not respond to multiple requests for comment, but court documents show that Zill hired an expert to conduct a ground-penetrating radar study of the area around the gas station, and that an “anomaly” was found on the Smaxx property. Based on this, the court granted Zill permission to dig up Taylor and Dixon’s parking lot.

“They were hoping maybe there was a gas station on our property a long time ago, and that there was still a tank under there, and that’s what the problem was,” Taylor says.

“They tore up our parking lot and found nothing. After that, they had to settle with us.”

The settlement was reached in April of

this year; Taylor declined to comment on the amount.

In August 2016, Zill reached another settlement, with Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church, located a block down the hill from Inner City Oil. Whereas Taylor and Dixon took the money, ceded the property and opened their restaurant in a more stable part of town, the church is sticking around. After the second wave of petroleum leaked into the neighborhood, in late 2014, Pastor Kevin Smith held a meeting at the church and announced that he intended to essentially form a class action against Zill. He paid for a lawyer, who then hired experts to test the ground and water in the neighborhood.

“Few if any of the people in this neighborhood have the means to hire a lawyer to pay for those things,” Smith says. “I told the neighborhood that the church would pay the legal costs.”

In the end, Smith never filed the suit and received what he says is $300,000 from Zill, which was then distributed among the church and four neighboring homeowners.

The church now owns those homes. It also recently picked up about 15 other homes in the neighborhood from the Land Bank for a price Smith calls “significantly below cost.”

Smith has since formed a nonprofit, Urban Success Development, that seeks to revitalize the neighborhood north of Inner City Oil. Smith says USD is working with the EPA to begin the process of properly cleaning up the contamination.

“I want to see this area thrive again,” Smith says. “My hope is that if the PSTIF money ever comes through, it will go toward making this a greenfield again, instead of a brownfield.

That’s my hope. Reality tells me — I worked in a law firm for 25 years — that, as far as the state’s suit goes, a few lawyers will get paid, a couple of experts are going to get paid, a few palms will get greased, and people will mostly try to forget about this entire mess.”

Two doors up from the church in the direction of the gas station, the Cheadles still own their home at 3023 Cleveland. Eleven years after first reporting the fumes, they have yet to receive any financial compensation. After the second petroleum release, in 2014, Kevin finally convinced his mother to move out of the home.

“That second time, it was like somebody had walked through the house with a gas can and poured gas everywhere,” Cheadle says. “I couldn’t get the Health Department or DNR to go on record stating that the home was safe to live in. So that was enough for me.”

Cheadle says he’s now paying $1,000 a month for his mother to live in a home in a different part of the city. When he moved her out, he was hopeful that money from the state would eventually be available to pay for those relocation costs. He’s still waiting. But on Cleveland Avenue these days, patience is very rarely rewarded.

the pitch | July 2017 | pitch.com

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“Asylum is a human right,” Valdez says.

A Safe Place at Last?

zach bauman

A new project in Kansas City sets out to help immigrants seeking asylum in the United States.

by Traci Angel

The women and children are crammed together, in what asylum seekers called hieleras — Spanish for “ice boxes.” In these small rooms where the U.S. Border Patrol holds them, they wait for days or weeks — sometimes becoming ill, usually suffering from hunger — for an interview with a U.S. asylum office, hoping for permission to come into the country. The fluorescent lights are left on. The thermostat is kept very low.

The hints are there: You should self-deport.

At a center like this in Dilley, Texas, Ramon Valdez of Kansas City saw this scene over and over. He managed the CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project there, helping to coordinate legal representation for up to 2,400 women and children who were seeking asylum. These private prisons, set up under the Obama administration, are used to detain asylum seekers, many of whom have fled violence and corruption in their home countries in Central and South America. To escape gangs or crime or persecution, they undertook a risky journey. At the end of it, in these cold, bright cells, Valdez met people whose hopes had begun to erode.

The CARA project, at the border, allows lawyers from across the country to represent those who most need it. Its database tracks immigrants being held, and helps to reunite family members separated during the journey.

An extension of this project is under way in Kansas City. In June, Innovation Law Lab, a nonprofit based in Portland, Oregon,

opened a Center of Excellence here. (Law Lab has placed centers in Atlanta and Charlotte as well.) Valdez joined in May. “We are training local lawyers on how to work an asylum case, and reaching out to women and children previously represented by the CARA Project to connect them to pro bono help,” Valdez says.

The majority of detainees go through the system alone, making them more likely to miss a hearing or misunderstand some vital part of the legal process. Projects such as Law Lab’s mean to prevent clients from drowning in procedure — and to prepare them for potential raids.

“The difficult thing with our region is that we have large, vulnerable populations living in rural communities, and it is extremely hard for them to find help,” Valdez says. “Keep in mind, these people did not enter illegally. They were interviewed and vetted by the government’s asylum office, and it was determined that their lives were in danger and they were paroled in to be able to apply for asylum.”

He goes on: “Centers of Excellence is us wanting to hold their hand even after they are being released. Lawyers are expensive.

The courts are confusing. A lot of people fall through the cracks, and we are trying to make a network of attorneys who can take on those cases, just like CARA, but defend them not at the border but where they are seeking asylum.”

“Lawyers are expensive. The courts are confusing. A lot of people fall through the cracks, and we are trying to make a network of attorneys who can take on those cases.”

Ramon Valdez

Not surprisingly, asylum seekers with representation, or who have been advised of their rights, have a better chance of being granted asylum. The lawyers working for them can also keep tabs on judges who create what Valdez calls an “ecosystem” — those who tend to deny asylum cases.

According to statistics from TRAC Immigration, an independent group that gathers information about federal immigration enforcement, Kansas City ranks below average when it comes to granting asylum. From 2011 through 2016, area immigration judge Paula Davis decided 314 asylum claims. She granted 115. Judge John O’Malley decided 248 such cases from 2011 until he retired in 2015, but granted asylum just 76 times.

In all, Kansas City judges over that period denied 60 percent of asylum seekers; nationally, judges rejected just under half, according to TRAC. Jonathan Willmoth, an immigration lawyer and adjunct professor at the University of Missouri–Kansas City’s law school, warns against reading too much into those numbers. He points out that only two judges were counted by TRAC to reach that conclusion. He contends that Kansas City sees “the same sort of statistical breakdown that we see in the rest of the country.” The real takeaway, he adds, is in line with what Valdez says: Asylum seekers who are not represented have a lower likelihood of success, as do those who are detained during the process.

Of course, the other factor now skewing recent data is the arrival of the Donald Trump administration. Under the new president, who made hardline immigration and refugee policy a centerpiece of his campaign, the federal government is “focusing on everyone,” Willmoth says. “There is an unwillingness to close cases and prioritize criminals over non-criminals.”

“It’s very tense right now,” says Valdez, a paralegal who has lived in Kansas City for five years. His grandparents moved to Los Angeles from El Salvador, where they fled civil war there in the 1980s. From California, Valdez’s parents made their own flight, leaving behind their fear of urban gangs and resettling in Marshall, in northeast Missouri.

“Asylum is a human right,” Valdez says, quoting the 14th Article of the Declaration of Human Rights, as set up by the United Nations. “What these individuals go through for safety is overwhelming. To me this isn’t a political issue. These people have not broken any domestic or international laws. It is heartbreaking to see them not having the assistance they need since it is such a complicated and expensive process, so our objective is to reach out and hold their hands every step of the way. For free.”

The COE is seeking legal advocates, lawyers and Spanish speakers. To help with the project or make a donation: innovationlawlab.org. pitch.com | july 2017 | the pitch

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STREETSIDE

Airbnb host Lance Pierce says the city’s proposed ordinance should reconsider apartment dwellers.

Stay Here

How far will KC bend its rules to accommodate the short-term rental movement?

Zach Bauman

by David Hudnall

How to disrupt an industry, Silicon Valley– style: Skirt existing laws, operate illegally, lure customers with convenient technology, maintain low costs by avoiding the taxes and regulation required of existing competitors, declare your business so different from those competitors that all rules must be rewritten, and cede very little ground when you finally come to the bargaining table with the government. The goal: to reach monopoly status, à la Google or Amazon — big enough that the federal government is too cowed by your success to consider breaking you up.

Ride-sharing companies Uber and Lyft charted this path. Before them, Amazon made similar maneuvers. Now Airbnb and other short-term-rental (STR) apps are waging the battle worldwide.

The debate has recently been taken up in Kansas City. Soon, we’ll have an ordinance for how to govern and regulate STRs. The only question is how far Kansas City will cram its beak into the business of STR operators.

Perhaps you are fuzzy on what an STR is? The City Plan Commission, which heard public testimony on the proposed ordinance

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in early June, certainly was. It pushed back a vote on whether to recommend the ordinance after it became clear that several of its members had only a vague notion of what Airbnb does. The commission is due to vote in August, following a crash course from members of city staff who spent nearly two years writing the ordinance.

Lance Pierce, one of the pro-STR speakers at that meeting in June, offered to show CPC members around the Airbnb properties that he rents out to visitors, so that the commission might better understand the issue. After the meeting, I tracked Pierce down and asked if I could take him up on that offer. A week later, I met him outside a top-bottom duplex he recently purchased in the Southmoreland neighborhood. He’s fixing it up and plans to rent both apartments on Airbnb.

Pierce, 31, is a former “innovation leader” at Hallmark, and he possesses a strong entrepreneurial streak, as one might associate with such a job title. In 2010, his roommate moved out of the two-bedroom West Plaza condo that Pierce owned. Instead of finding a new roommate, Pierce

“The overriding issue is protecting our city’s neighborhoods and people’s way of life.”

Diane Binckley, city planning

set up an Airbnb account, posted photos of his apartment and put the room up for rent, aimed at people coming to Kansas City for short stays.

“I met a ton of great people from all over the world: London, Australia, China,” Pierce says. “We’d sit and chat and drink tea for a little while in the morning. Some of the best advice I’ve ever received was from Airbnb guests who stayed in my apartment for a night or two.”

Over the past seven years, Pierce has slowly built a small STR empire here. He now owns eight properties across the city, all of which he rents through Airbnb. Pierce’s evolution as an Airbnb host mirrors the company’s grand ambitions. What was once an app connecting wanderlust-afflicted adventurers with apartment dwellers looking to make a dent in their monthly rent payments has substantially professionalized.

Airbnb now nudges its hosts — who are not employees but independent contractors — to foster a cleaner, more hotel-like experience. Coffee and travel talk on the couch are out; absent hosts and lockboxes with door codes are in.

In many large cities, Airbnb has accelerated dire housing shortages, in effect cutting supply for residents, driving up prices and turning properties once counted as longterm housing stock for locals into miniature hotels for out-of-towners. For this reason, many cities have begun drafting their own ordinances regulating Airbnb and other STRs, such as Homeaway and VRBO. Kansas City is a fine town, and most would agree it is enjoying a cultural upswing. But there are no mountains here.

There is no sea. There’s no Broadway, no Bourbon Street. Tourism demand for shortterm rentals isn’t what it is in, say, San Francisco. And though buying a single-family house in Kansas City is tougher lately — ask anybody who has bid on a three-bedroom the past year — there’s no reason to believe that the city’s housing market will go bananas the way those in Portland or Austin or Boston have over the last decade. What works as Airbnb policy elsewhere, then, may not be what works best here.

KC’s proposed STR ordinance has been revised a couple of times since it was released to the public this past winter. The city has taken the approach of drawing a distinction between owner-occupied permits (meaning the person renting out the space owns the property and lives there at least 270 days a year) and non–owner occupied permits (meaning the person doesn’t live full time at the residence; Pierce’s properties would fall into this camp).

Among the new burdens on those who seek to rent out their homes on a shortterm basis: • Permit fees ($100 the first year, $50 every year after that for owner-occupied; $259

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STREETSIDE

the first year, $50 every year after that for non–owner occupied) • Non–owner occupied permit holders are required to obtain approval signatures of 75 percent of all adjacent property owners. If you can’t get 75 percent of your neighbors to sign off, you must pay $569 and go through the usual process of applying for a specialuse permit.

• All hosts are required to install and maintain smoke and carbon-monoxide detectors, per city building codes.

• If you live in a multi-family housing unit (an apartment complex, for example), you can’t rent out your place as a shortterm rental.

Citing “strict limits on how often one can share their homes as well as the requirement to get a signed affidavit from adjacent neighbors,” Airbnb’s Midwest public-affairs manager, Benjamin Breit, says KC’s STR ordinance as written “would create one of the most restrictive and burdensome short-term rental regulatory structures in the country.”

Breit adds: “We welcome regulations, but they should be simple and fair. Our KCMO host community encourages the city to go back to the drawing board.”

Most local Airbnb enthusiasts I spoke to aren’t taking quite such a hard line. Steve Mitchell, a lawyer who has been using Homeaway to rent out the carriage house behind his Hyde Park home since 2009, says this latest version of the ordinance comes close to meeting his satisfaction.

“I think it’s wonderful that the city sought ideas from people like me and genuinely seems to want to find a modern, realistic, workable ordinance for regulating this new world of short-term rentals,” Mitchell says.

“My main remaining problem with the ordinance is how restrictive it is about multifamily structures.”

Pierce also takes issue with the multi-family restriction. “Most Airbnbs in town are in multi-family buildings,” he says. “I’m atypical — most Airbnb hosts I know of live in an apartment and rent out their spare room.

Why should these [STRs] only be allowed in duplexes and single-family homes?”

Diane Binckley, a division manager of the city’s Planning and Development Department who helped draft the ordinance, says it’s about guarding against apartment buildings being bought and turned into de facto hotels.

“The overriding issue is protecting our city’s neighborhoods and people’s way of life,” Binckley says. “We want to allow the sharing economy and short-term rentals to thrive here, but in a way that’s respectful of other property owners.”

Local hoteliers and traditional bed-andbreakfast proprietors have slightly different objectives. They want to see the playing field leveled. As Southmoreland on the Plaza innkeeper Mark Reichle said at the June CPC meeting: “I’ve been in business 27 years, generating and paying money to the city.

These entities [STRs] are operating as a business also. They should be paying all relevant federal taxes, local sales taxes, state sales taxes, lodging taxes. And they should have to adhere to the same fire safety, alcohol-use, food and zoning codes as well.”

He added: “I’m operating at a disadvantage under the current structure because short-term rentals are not required to meet the same requirements I am.”

Kurt Mayo, the executive director of the Hotel and Lodging Association of Greater Kansas City, echoes Reichle’s points.

“We’re not concerned about somebody renting out a room in their house,” Mayo tells me. “But you’ve got people out there buying buildings and condos strictly to conduct a lodging enterprise. That’s a hotel — which, fine. But a real hotel is subject to ADA compliance, health-department inspections, fire inspections and taxes. If you’re a downtown hotel, the sales and tourism taxes right now add up to 16.975 percent, plus an arena fee for the Sprint Center of $1.50 per room. So I’d say that’s our main concern: fairness in taxes.”

Pierce notes that, unlike many local hotels, “We [STRs] don’t get tax subsidies or abatements. We’re not at the table for those conversations.” Still, he says he has no problem with the city taking a tourism tax as it does for hotels. Neither does Mitchell.

“Every short-term-rental person I’ve talked to in Kansas City is absolutely OK with paying a hotel-motel tax,” Mitchell says. “That’s a charge that’s easily passed on to the consumer. We have no problem paying those taxes.”

Unfortunately for the city’s tax coffers, it’s unable to collect such a tax right now, per state law. A Missouri House bill that sought to fix this problem failed to gain adequate support in the most recent legislative session.

“We think something else will come up in next year’s session,” Binckley says. “Until then, we would still be able to regulate and manage them [STRs] but not tax them.”

In the meantime, Binckley; city staff; CPC members; Planning, Zoning and Economic Development Committee members (who will review the CPC’s recommendations); and the City Council (who will ultimately vote on the final ordinance) will likely be hearing a lot from Mitchell, Pierce and hundreds of other local residents who have been enjoying the extra scratch brought by renting out extra rooms or entire homes.

“There is a renaissance of housing happening here, and in a lot of ways the city is trying to take this new and different concept and shove it into the ‘hotel’ box, and then it’s surprised when it doesn’t fit,” Pierce says. “Of course it doesn’t fit. You need a new model.”

“It’s like Uber,” he adds, not incorrectly.

“When you go to a city and they don’t have Uber, it’s like, What kind of backward economy is this?”

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profile

DeOrnery’s solo show includes no visible art.

Off Display

zach bauman

Anson DeOrnery handles art most of us will never see.

by David Hudnall

A couple of years ago, Anson DeOrnery moved a Willem de Kooning painting out of a house in Omaha. It was hanging in a dimly lighted den — it had been there for years — but had recently sold at auction for $32 million.

“It didn’t look that impressive when I first saw it,” DeOrnery says. “But the room where we moved it to pack it up had a big glass ceiling that brought in all this light, and that’s when it really jeweled. It was an amazing, beautiful painting. But then I had to wrap it in plastic, put it in a crate, seal the crate and send it off to some private collector in London. I think about that a lot, how I’m probably one of the few people who will ever see that painting.”

They’re not all masterpieces, but DeOrnery regularly gets to breathe in great works of art, if only for a few short minutes, as part of his profession. He runs an art-handling business, DeOrnery Fine Art Services, and was previously employed by ARTworks of Kansas City, which is in the same line. He crates art, hangs art, transports art, installs

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art. Sometimes he’s hanging art in the lobby of a prestigious local law firm. Sometimes he’s moving art into a climate-controlled storage room in a Mission Hills mansion.

The experience has given him a particular vantage point — an insight into the back end of the art world in Kansas City.

“Until I got into this industry, I didn’t really understand the economics or the motives behind a lot of the art market,” DeOrnery says. “Some of the biggest collectors in town, you go over to their house and they’ve got incredible art just sitting on the floor or crated up in their basement. It’s not even a status symbol at that point — it’s just purely an investment.”

The idea that much great art goes unseen outside private collections informs Shades, a solo exhibition DeOrnery put on in June at the Kansas City Artists Coalition, in the City Market. For the show, lighting in the space is kept low, and an audio recording of a preposterously fast-talking cattle auctioneer provides the soundtrack: DoIseefivehundredIsef

“Until I got into this industry, I didn’t really understand the economics or the motives behind a lot of the art market.”

Anson DeOrnery

ivehundredDoIseesixhundredThere’ssixhund red? On the walls are blue packing blankets of the kind DeOrnery uses on the job. The fabric is nailed tightly to the wall, obscuring objects that may or may not be art. You’re encouraged to touch the objects and wonder what lies under the blanket. Only DeOrnery knows. As he asks in his artist’s statement for the exhibition: “Is it a thrift-store velvet painting of Elvis or a Monet? Could it be a common flower pot or Ming vase?”

DeOrnery, who has a shiny, shaved head and wears black-rimmed glasses and is generally mischievous-seeming, is a frequent pointer-outer of social and economic forces that push art deeper into the realm of commodity. Earlier this year, he staged a “show” at the Inside Outsider Gallery, in downtown Frankfort, Kansas, two and a half hours from Kansas City. Online, DeOrnery posted to his various social-media pages photos of the show, which featured boxed crates hung on walls beside framed copyright certifications. But the show wasn’t actually put up at the Inside Outsider Gallery, says Andrew Schell, who runs the space.

“He asked me if he could use the name of my gallery to promote his show, and of course I was game for that,” Schell, who is also an art handler by profession, says. “My understanding is that he took those pictures in some other space when he was deinstalling a show, though I’m not even sure if that’s true.”

The conceit was that DeOrnery was selling only the copyright to several of his own paintings. In this perverse scenario, the buyer would own the copyright for a piece of art but not the actual artwork. In fact, the buyer would never be allowed to see the artwork, and would therefore be unable to confirm its existence. Only after DeOrnery’s death could the work be viewed.

“I’m a lawyer’s son, and I love copyright law,” DeOrnery says. “Artists almost always retain the copyright to their work, even when other people buy it and sell it. I thought it would be interesting to try to get people to invest in my art, sight unseen, like a total bet. It would be worth it if I turned out to be Damien Hirst or Kara Walker or Jeff Koons or whoever. But otherwise it’s just a ridiculous waste of money.”

He adds: “Although my father told me later that the copyrights may be invalid unless there’s an image of the artwork.” He shrugs.

On July 28, DeOrnery will open a new installation at the Lawrence Art Center, called Deluge. It’s a commentary, he says, on “social media as a fantasy.” Meanwhile, until DeOrnery’s copyrights reach Koons status, he’s still hustling, working his art-handling day job. Lately, though, he’s thinking it might be good to diversify DeOrnery Fine Art Services.

“I want to buy a space and get into the art-storage business,” he says. “That’s where the real money’s at.”

the pitch | july 2017 | pitch.com

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BEER IS BETTER WITH FRIENDS

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first person

Nicholas Moeder still has a presence in the park.

Jennifer Wetzel

it circled the hills and bluffs beneath the main course, this newer layout was shorter but more challenging than what was now “Up Top,” with its thick groves of trees, sharper drop-offs and varying levels of soil erosion. With 36 holes spread over 55 acres, and the sport becoming increasingly popular in the Midwest, Rosedale Park was on its way to becoming one of the sport’s top regional destinations. In 2009, Rosedale was one of seven area courses featured in that year’s Disc Golf World Championships, hosted that year on both sides of the state line. A sleeper destination for disc golfers for years, Kansas City was now officially on the sport’s greatest stage.

As Down Under, So Up Top Summertime play and mortal thoughts at Rosedale Park

by Lucas Wetzel

By most measurements, Rosedale Park is one of the happiest places in the city.

On weekends and summer evenings, families gather at its picnic shelter for barbecues and birthday parties. Children climb on the jungle gym, teenagers skateboard, and couples play tennis. Neighbors walk their dogs behind the softball field, where adult teams send the ball high into the floodlights but rarely manage to complete a defensive play.

Also, from dawn until dusk every single day, there is constant disc golf.

But there’s something else here, too. Spend enough time in Rosedale Park — among its trees and its hidden contours, or even at the center of its disc-golf course — and you’ll occasionally feel the presence of death.

For those of us from this corner of Kansas City, Kansas, Rosedale Park is a place of legend. I remember being driven there as a kid, the car cresting the Mission Road hill to reveal people playing soccer, flying kites or stretched across picnic blankets. Legends are not all sunny, though; as we grew up, we were instructed to avoid the park after dark.

(By the late 1990s, following years of neighborhood complaints, the city had installed “head-in parking only” signs to discourage the park’s reputation as a cruising site for men.) And unless you were a fool or a seri-

18

ous pyromaniac, you didn’t want to be anywhere near Rosedale Park at any hour on the Fourth of July.

The first 18 holes of disc golf were installed in Rosedale in 1984, a year or so after my first visit. Disc golf is similar to regular golf, except that it’s played with a Frisbee as the projectile and a metal basket as the target. You throw from a concrete tee pad toward the baskets, each of which is marked with a flag. Unlike the golf of Sunday-afternoon nap television, this form charges no green fees and needs no costly equipment. It can get technical and competitive, but anyone can play — it’s a pleasantly mindless way to relax outdoors and get faded with your friends.

It was in just this way that I rediscovered Rosedale Park as a teenager. In high school, my friends and I played disc golf on Friday afternoons, completing in 15 tosses what would take us only three today. After the round, we’d sit on the bleachers behind home plate and try to figure out which of our classmates’ parents might be out of town — not an easy task in the era of pay phones and pagers. On the way home, we’d pick up a sandwich or a slab of ribs from the barbecue counter that had just opened in the gas station up the road. The place would go on to become quite famous, but at the time we didn’t know what it was called.

In 1997, a second course opened at Rosedale. Referred to as “Down Under” because

Even though he didn’t live to see the 2009 contest hosted by his hometown, Brock Barrett helped put Kansas City disc golf on the map. As a member of the Kansas City Flying Disc Club, he had volunteered with the design, landscaping and maintenance of the Down Under portion of Rosedale.

Brock’s friends in the KCFDC recall him as a lanky, bleach-blond sidearmer who could be found at Rosedale almost every day and was quick to lend instruction or an extra disc to a beginner. He was often joined by his dog, Zeke. He loved the band STS9.

I knew Brock only by reputation — he and his father, Mike, had worked on my parents’ home-rebuilding project in 2007.

That same summer, at an Independence Day gathering with his family, Brock died when a 4-inch mortar exploded in front of him. He was 25 years old. On Saturday, July 7, 2007 — the date of so many weddings that summer, thanks to its lucky-seeming numerical alignment — Brock’s family held his funeral. They invited friends to join them at Rosedale Park afterward to play a round Down Under, where some of his ashes were to be scattered.

Even though I never met Brock, I can picture his face clearly. I know it because I often pass a laminated photograph of him Down Under, mounted within a ring of stones near the Hole 12 tee pad. Beneath Brock’s photo is a stone inscribed with his name and a short poem. Plastic tournament badges — his own and those of friends — dangle beneath the photo like dog tags.

A dozen or so discs used to lay scattered or planted in the dirt, but over time they yielded to the elements and were discarded.

An American flag is stretched between two tree branches, sun-bleached but otherwise intact. I’ve walked by the memorial a hundred times, but it still catches me off guard.

The climb up from Hole 11 is steep, and by the time I get there I’m usually out of breath.

With the sun streaming through the trees, the memorial can look almost cheerful.

But in the early morning or the twilight, it appears more solemn. Looking at Brock’s

smile in the photograph, you get the sense he’s only just departed, still looking for a disc that rolled outside his usual field of play.

Brock’s memorial is not the only one of its kind at Rosedale Park, the site of at least two other shattering events.

On Saturday, April 26, 2008, 28-year-old Steve Baumgartner died when he lost control of his street-luge vehicle and veered into a tree. A Navy petty officer first class from Iowa who was on leave at the time, he had been training here for an unsanctioned tournament to be held at Rosedale Park the next morning.

He was wearing a helmet and protective padding. The tournament was canceled.

Today, a small cross draped in flowers is planted beside Rosedale Park Drive, near the site of Baumgartner’s accident. It appeared around the same time as the crash, though the memorial bears no name.

And on Sunday, June 16, 2013, 27-year-old Nicholas Moeder was playing a wee-hours round of disc golf with a friend when he stepped on a downed power line. The friend tried to pull him clear, but by the time police arrived, Moeder was already dead. The line had been knocked over by a strong storm the previous day and reported, but it had not been removed. The Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas, and the Board of Public Utilities later settled a lawsuit with Moeder’s mother.

Today a lone Frisbee is drilled into the utility pole near the site of Moeder’s death.

The pole stands almost exactly between the final basket of the main course and the first tee pad. Occasionally, you see flowers wrapped around the utility pole.

Each time I play disc at Rosedale, I think of these three men, who shared common ground in the park but never knew one another. I think about their families. I want to tell them that their sons are not forgotten, that their enjoyment of life, the simple pleasure they took from being in this park, remains evident even to strangers.

One night this spring, I went to Rosedale to play a round of glow disc, an activity made possible by taping a small LED light strip ($3 a pair at Dynamic Discs) to the underside of a Frisbee. I was in my favorite back pocket of the park when rain started to fall. At first, this didn’t stop me — I like playing in a light rain, or before or after a storm — but the first flash of lightning gave me pause. I remembered Brock, Steve and Nicholas. I headed for the car.

I sent a last disc toward the parking lot and thought about life as a Frisbee in flight: You take aim as best you can, but there’s no predicting where the thing will land. The arc can be long and graceful or unfairly interrupted by some unexpected force. Either way, there is flight.

the pitch | july 2017 | pitch.com

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6/22/17 4:57 PM

, e s a e r G Foam

cover story

t e e M

, o g u o y r e v e rence, wher

a r o f y r g n u h . . . e r a u o y e r e th . r e e a b r o f y t s r i h t d n a r e g r u . b e v i f e s ith the w a L o t o d l a From W

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cover story

N

estled up right next to pizza, the hamburger is first among few equals, a culinary invention to rank with humanity’s richest achievements.

It’s both singular and all-purpose, a vehicle for chefs to demonstrate originality and prowess as well as a tool for pacifying cranky children and the most surefire cure for hangry grown-ups. You can swoon for a burger dressed with blue cheese and bacon. You can find greasy bliss in the onion fog of a diner. You can grill your own and feel like a blueribbon winner. And even when you believe that, when it comes to this most elemental of foodstuffs, the great is the enemy of the good, you find one more example of meat-between-buns transcendence.

Which is to say that KC can never have too many burgers.

The same goes for beer, of course. (This is the point of The Pitch’s annual Steer & Beer Festival, coming August 5 to Waldo, the unofficial seat of KC burger power.)

With these truths in mind, then, I set out to find five worthy but perhaps less routinely celebrated KC burgers. With each discovery (or rediscovery), I’ve suggested a local beer — not coincidentally, the local beer I ordered with said burger. You might think I’d be tired of burgers after this trek, but in fact I’ve already started craving seconds of these numbered but unranked beauties. You’re welcome.

1.

Walsh’s house cheeseburger, with KC Bier Company’s Dunkel

walsh's corner cocktails

howard's grocery, cafÉ and catering

Walsh's Corner Cocktails, 304 West 85th Street Walsh’s Corner Cocktails is, not to put too fine a point on it, a dive. What makes it an excellent dive is its burger, especially when you eat it with KC Bier’s nutty, smooth Dunkel, making your meal a thoroughly Waldo affair. The burger starts with meat sourced from the legendary McGonigle’s Market and butcher shop, just up the road on 79th Street. It’s topped with onions and a pimientolike spreadable cheddar, which staff here have told me comes from Wisconsin, “in a bucket.” That’s as unpretentious as it gets, and really, they had me at spreadable. But to eat one of these isn’t to make a show of slumming — this burger is delicious. And, at $7.75 with house-cut fries (and $1.50 off if you’re here on a Wednesday), it’s also a bargain.

2.

Howard’s house burger, with Boulevard Brewing Company’s Tank 7

Howard's Grocery, Cafe and Catering, 1701 Oak The signature burger at Howard’s Grocery, Café and Catering is what put this restaurant on many a downtown diner’s map, and what keeps it among the Crossroads’ busiest lunch destinations. Between halves of a Farm to Market bun are two juicy, char-grilled patties made with beef from Golden Rule Meats in Walker, Missouri.

The burger is topped with gooey, rich, house-made American cheese (if you don’t believe in American cheese, prepare to have your principles shaken by Craig Howard’s version) and freshly made seasonal pickles. Yes, it all sounds a little artisan, but what counts is the flavor, which is outstanding. So it’s well matched by Boulevard’s Tank 7, that heady, peppery farmhouse ale that delivers its own flavor wallop.

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3.

Hank burger, with Free State Brewing Company’s Copperhead Pale Ale

Hank Charcuterie, 1901 Massachusetts Street, Lawrence Using hormone-free Cedar River Farms beef, Hank Charcuterie’s namesake burger illustrates chef Vaughn Good’s vision of thoughtful, as-local-as-possible ingredient sourcing. It also attests to his gift for flavor. There’s a highfalutin thesis to be written about the umami perfection on display here, but Good is just a Kansas boy at heart, and for all the calculation that may have gone into it, his burger simply aims to please the hearty Midwestern palate. (This noble ambition has also long animated Free State Brewing Company, making its beer a natural complement to Hank’s menu.) This he does, thanks to Alma (Kansas) cheddar melted on the patties, and those patties resting in a bed of caramelized onions and bacon. A single-patty version is available on the happy-hour menu, but it’s hard not to order the double when you’re here for lunch or dinner. Whatever the hour, it goes perfectly with Free State’s enduringly popular, lightly hoppy Copperhead Pale Ale.

4.

hank charcuterie

westside local

Jalapeno & Jam burger, with Torn Label’s Alpha Pale Ale

Westside Local, 1663 Summit Strictly speaking, jalapeño cream cheese and house-made strawberry jam don’t belong on a burger. But Westside Local’s audacious attempt to simultaneously spice up and fruitify a tender slab of grass-fed beef isn’t just gilding the lily. For one thing, I’ll always accept more heat from any KC kitchen that wants to challenge the bland local palate. For another, this thing is crazy rich — meaty and creamy and just sweet enough to remind you it’s summer. The major hoppiness of Torn Label’s Alpha Pale Ale stands up to this burger’s bold flavors without making a show of force.

5.

max's burgers and gyros

The Big Max, with Crane Brewing Company’s Orange Gose

Max's Burgers and Gyros, 8240 Wornall Road Fresh and made to order, the burgers at Max’s Burgers and Gyros on Wornall Road deliver everything you want from a tiny, old-fashioned diner. (Not quite that oldfashioned: The original Max of Max’s Auto Diner is long gone). You choose one, two or three hockey puck–size patties, and what emerges from the kitchen is flavorful, well-seared and juicy without being messy, topped with classic fixings: crunchy iceberg lettuce, sour pickles and mayonnaise, cozied inside a soft bun. Max’s is a small, mostly outdoor diner, so you’re not forsaking a postcard experience if you take your order to go and eat your burger with an ideal beverage: Crane’s Orange Gose. This sour beer smells almost as good as it tastes; add just a hint of salt, and it’s your gooey burger’s best friend.

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DISTRICT POUR HOUSE + KITCHEN

Meat, the New Boss

The Pitch’s Steer & Beer returns to Waldo August 5.

The Pitch’s Steer & Beer event delivers exactly what it promises — burgers and brews. But this second-year festival (Saturday, August 5, at the Waldo Outdoor Pavilion, 74th Street and Broadway) works a little differently than our recent grab-and-eateverything-you-see extravaganzas, Taste of Kansas City and Bacon & Bourbon. Because only competitive eaters are gastrointestinally equipped to down multiple full-size, topped-and-spiced specialty burgers within a four-hour window, the burgers are sliders, and the prices have shrunk accordingly, to the $3-$5 range.

Festgoers vote with their wallets: With each burger purchased, you receive a ticket that can be dropped into the ballot boxes on a participating restaurant’s table. (VIP guests receive a free slider and a bonus ticket.) Last year, Amerisports Pub took the trophy for its seared, peppered burger with Thai-banana ketchup and caramelized onions. This year’s contenders include Dempsey’s Burger Pub in Westport and District Pour House and Kitchen, which will bring a slider-ized version of its signature “D. Burger”: farm-raised ground beef, bourbon barbecue sauce, smoked Gouda, thick-cut bacon, hand-breaded onion rings, a roasted jalapeño pepper, greens and tomato, on a Farm to Market brioche bun.

“The D. Burger represents us because it is very approachable and comforting,” explains District executive chef John Magno.

“The elements of the burger are nothing but the best.”

Speaking of the best, Magno won the Culinary Fight Club steak competition last September, qualifying him for the World Food Championships in November, where he took ninth place in the Steak Challenge.

“I haven’t been in a burger competition, yet …” he says, trailing off as the sound of him sharpening his chef ’s knife in preparation presumably achieves a speed-metal tempo.

So, if the fancy burgers will cost you a few bucks, what do you get for the price of admission? For one thing, a commemorative Steer & Beer tasting glass. More important, you get access to more than 100 beer samples to pour into it. (Watch the Steer & Beer Facebook event page for beer reveals.) In addition to the burgers and the brews, there’s a little “beyond,” in the form of booze. Tom’s Town will be serving Pendergast Punch (gin, pomegranate, strawberry and orange), while PRP Wine will feature its most popular red, Chevalier de Bayard. PRP’s website touts its Chevy as “an ideal accompanist to spicy meals such as chili and goulash,” but even if none of the Steer & Beer chefs incorporate chili or goulash into their recipes, a PRP spokesperson assures us that it “definitely pairs well” with burgers. Bon appetit!

Steer & Beer is sponsored by Topgolf and X105.1. Advance tickets are $30 (GA) and $40 (VIP); doors open at 12:30 p.m. for VIP guests and 1:30 p.m. for GA.

the pitch | July 2017 | pitch.com

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café

A plate of whipped chicken liver is among the best small plates here.

Fine, Finer, Finest

Corvino Supper Club and Tasting Room shows brilliance across an array of price points.

zach bauman

by Liz Cook

I know: You’re tired of hearing about the Corvino Supper Club and Tasting Room.

Since the restaurant’s May opening, foodies and industry insiders have waxed rhapsodic, Yelpers have yelped, and publications (including this one) have genuflected before this latest downtown admixture of fussedover food and sexy décor.

It’s enough to make a critic suspicious.

It’s enough, in fact, to almost disappoint a critic who finds that the devil doesn’t need an advocate here. No, not every dish lives up to the hype. But even if the food wasn’t consistently good — and it is often delightful — the easygoing hospitality alone would make the experience worthwhile.

Michael Corvino, former executive chef at the American, and his wife, Christina Corvino, have set up shop in the recently renovated Corrigan Station building in the Crossroads.

Their endeavor — which stretches across an enormous first-floor space (it once housed a post office) — amounts to a Choose Your Own Adventure book in restaurant form.

Diners can schmooze over cocktails in the trendy-casual Supper Club, double-fist burgers off a dressed-down late-night menu in the bar, or flex expense accounts in the swank and intimate Tasting Room.

The largest of these options is the Supper Club, a 74-seat dining room with a small

stage on the east end. There’s live music every night, but the Corvinos aren’t trying to compete with nearby jazz clubs. The mix is eclectic and unpredictable. A bossa nova ensemble played during my dinner one evening, a solo cellist the next.

Though the menu offers a small selection of large-format entrées, the Supper Club’s signature is small, shareable plates.

“Small” and “shareable” may seem oxymoronic, but the dishes are neatly apportioned for group dining. My table of five split 11 plates one evening without coming to blows over the last bites.

The Supper Club feels modern and a bit masculine. It’s speckled with cool concrete columns that accentuate the 16-foot-high ceilings, the tabletops are matte-black Masonite, and the walls are a subdued gray. The moody palette seems appropriate for the restaurant’s de facto mascot, a raven (in Italian: il corvino). But it also serves as a lightduty sensory-deprivation chamber; just when your eyes are ready to read drabness, the food and the fresh flowers buzz your vision with Wonderland vibrancy.

That buzz doesn’t stop with what you see.

Michael Corvino — together with chef de cuisine Dina Butterfield and sous chef Andy McCormick — addresses your other senses with a Supper Club menu of creatively woven

If you’ve got the scratch, Corvino’s Tasting Room is can’t-miss Kansas City dining.

textures and flavors, many of which draw influence from French and East Asian cuisines.

The appetizer-leaning options were among the strongest dishes I sampled on my visits. I would have gladly eaten a tray of the oysters, which arrived dressed with a savory dashi mignonette and rings of raw shallot. Ditto a salty, satisfying puck of ruby-red steak tartare with a generous smear of smoked béarnaise and a spindly pumpernickel cracker. For the Supper Club’s take on sablefish brandade — salted black cod whipped into a cottony spread — Corvino forms the fish into rounds and coats them with sourdough crumbs.

Think fish tater tots, each golden-brown bite the size of a thimble. The accompanying dipping sauce, a sunny pool of runny egg yolk and tarragon, transforms each fluffy bite into a rib-sticking indulgence. But my table’s unanimous favorite was a creamy mousse of chicken liver slathered over a plate-sized Parmesan cracker and dressed with radish slices, anchovy and sticky shards of “crispy honey.”

The honey amplified the liver’s mild, almost caramel-tinged sweetness.

Some of the entrée-leaning plates would benefit from a few tweaks. The crispy pork ribs should have been a home run — fried garlic, fish sauce and a coating of crushed peanuts pummeled the meat with bold flavors. But the ribs themselves were a bit tough, and much of pitch.com | july 2017 | the pitch

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the fat was unrendered. The brisket Bolognese was comforting but not quite worth its $24 price tag. Its buckwheat noodles were firm and flavorful, and the ragù was richly seasoned (if a bit oily), but the inventions promised on the menu — spicy mustard and ginger — were either absent or else so faintly present as to remain undetectable.

I wanted to love the fried chicken ssam (Korean for wrap), boneless purses of breaded chicken served with lettuce for wrapping.

The chicken was lager-gold and conspicuously tender — I had to do a double take to make sure it was cooked through — but each nori-dusted piece was too large to be fully enclosed by the wrapper, making the result more lettuce taco than ssam. The lettuce, perhaps intimidated by the hunks of meat, was a limp hindrance. One prefers a more flavorful (and firmer) perilla leaf.

If you’re part of a group, two small plates per person is a good rule of thumb. You can select dishes as you go, or let the server set the pace. We ordered all of our plates up front and asked the server to course them out for us. They arrived in a sensible order — raw meats and mousses first, heartier pastas and hot dishes on their heels — but they piled up quickly, making the meal feel too rushed to savor. (Then again, too much goodness too fast is a nonhardship complaint exclusive to a certain kind of diner.)

Another quibble: The attentive service here can occasionally border on the intrusive. Each time I lifted my water glass, a server apparated from some shadowy crevice to mop up the fresh ring of condensation it had left on the table. This gesture — swabbing invested with the furious, unbroken concentration of an Olympic curler — began to seem adversarial, as though I were insulting Corvino’s fine surfaces. Ahead of my third visit, I considered packing a coaster from home.

Corvino offers complimentary carafes of still or sparkling water (given the millennial memes about mainlining LaCroix, I’m sur-

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prised more local restaurants haven’t jumped on the carbonation wagon), but if the liquid you prefer is the cocktail, start with the Gateway Station, a sweet-tart blend of cognac, muscat, fresh berry and bubbles. In the dog days of summer, spring for the Toki Time, a dangerously smooth sip of cool cucumber, Japanese whiskey, ginger and honey.

The Supper Club’s cocktails are $12, which puts them firmly in the “splurge” territory for people like me. Thankfully, smaller appetites (and bank accounts) have a place at the bar, too.

The beer markup is low for fine dining, and you can sip on a cold, $3 draft of Hamm’s without judgment. (Craft beer options run $4 or $5.)

For a more casual experience, aim for the weekend late-night menu and the hamburger, a justifiably celebrated bite that seems mechanically engineered to meet your cravings three beers in. It exceeded mine. I’ll take Corvino’s diner-thin, charred-edge patties over a slab of Thick Pink any day. (Come at me: Medium rare is for steaks, not ground chuck.) At $10, the burger is a bit pricier than your greasyspoon go-to, but the flawless execution makes it more than fair. The supple, house-made sesame-seed bun is toasted just long enough to stand up to two Muenster-sleazed patties, sour dill slices and a crown of half-charred, halfcaramelized onions.

Order the fingerling fries on the side. The spuds occupy that fabled neutral zone between crunchy fry and puffy house-made chip. The fingerlings are sliced thin enough to crisp easily in the fryer, thick enough to leave a few chewy (never mushy) pockets. The bowl makes a generous serving for two, and the fries come with the requisite aioli and a spoonful of deep-brown XO, a Chinese condiment incorporating dried scallops and shrimp.

If you’re looking for a more luxe experience, book a spot in the Tasting Room, an 18seat, semiprivate space that allows a fine view of both the kitchen and the street. That experience starts at $105 a person, with wine, cocktail or mocktail pairings available for an extra

Left: the brandade; top: the justifiably celebrated burger; above: the Gateway Station

Corvino Supper Club and Tasting Room 1830 Walnut 816-832-4564 corvino.com

Hours

Dinner: 4–11 p.m. Tuesday– Thursday, 4 p.m.–1 a.m.

Friday and Saturday

Prices

Cocktails: $12 Small plates: $8–$25 Entrées: $28–$65

Best bet: Sip a Toki Time and split the whipped chicken liver and brandade with a friend.

Stick around for the late-night menu and indulge in a burger (and a Hamm’s).

fee. The menu changes nightly, but expect 11 to 12 courses spaced thoughtfully over two and a half hours. Every detail is deliberate, from the room-specific servers (shout out to Jennifer, exceptional and unpretentious) to the coursespecific dinnerware (on my visit, I spotted a few handmade ceramics from the Object Enthusiast) to the souvenir menu wrapped in ink-black paper and sealed with silver wax (stamped with a raven seal, of course).

Highlights from my visit included a puffy chive doughnut, a sous vide King salmon trimmed with brunoised celtuce and a bowl of fresh-sliced kampachi fish swimming with paper-thin slices of Serrano chili and bitter nasturtium in a brew of infused coconut milk — Corvino’s spin on leche de tigre.

If you have a party of two, request the chef ’s table — the high-top table affords you an intimate view of the kitchen and Corvino’s plating techniques. Bonus: The chef himself will bring over your dishes and talk you through each course and component.

The Corvinos themselves are an integral part of the restaurant’s charm. Michael Corvino’s gentle, aw-shucks presence sets a relaxed tone for the meal, devoid of the pomp and bluster popularly associated with the chef ’s coat. On my visit to the Tasting Room, Christina Corvino arrived during the fifth course to share stories and complimentary glasses of the wine the couple served at their wedding (a fruity 2014 Chardonnay from the Abeja winery in Walla Walla, Washington). I suspect it’s a nightly ritual — a bit — but the effect is warm and genuine-seeming regardless.

What I caught myself raving about after the meal was the first dessert course, a delicate balance of sharp flavors that exercised every taste bud. Pastry chef Amanda Schroeder, an alum of the American who studied under Nick Wesemann, married an earthy goat-cheese ice cream, a tart rhubarb curd, a rich smatter of black walnuts and a herbaceous spray of fresh lovage. The dessert bridged from the savory courses to the sweet with uncanny adroitness.

When a $105 dinner isn’t in the cards, you can still sample Schroeder’s creations in the Supper Club. Skip the “lemon bar,” which had a messy, puddinglike texture and a blunt flavor when I ordered it. Satisfy your citrus craving instead with the “pina colada,” a subtle, summery blend of coconut and caramel anchored by a moist cake gorged on fresh lime. The stout-cake sundae is another success, thanks to a stiff whiskey sauce and caramel-sticky fingers of moist, stout-infused cake.

When you can muster the scratch, Corvino’s Tasting Room is can’t-miss Kansas City dining.

But there’s nothing second-class about dropping into the Supper Club after 10 p.m. some weekend for a burger and a band. The music is stirring, the atmosphere seductive — and I can guarantee from experience that no one will give you side-eye for ordering a $3 Hamm’s (or leaving a ring under it for a minute).

the pitch | july 2017 | pitch.com

6/22/17 5:01 PM

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the pitch | July 2017 | pitch.com

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6/22/17 5:33 PM

fat city

All Hail Hale — and Kale In Brookside, Canihaveabite finally opens wide.

by Angela Lutz

Kathy Hale’s new restaurant in Brookside has been a long time coming. I first heard whisperings about its opening sometime last year — though Hale, a well-known chef with an established clientele, had already been selling her healthy grab-and-go meals for some time on a made-to-order basis. In March, her brick-and-mortar location finally opened its doors, serving organic entrées, salads, sides and soups.

When I stop by one steamy June afternoon, my energy reserves have been absorbed by the great solar sponge of our stifling Midwestern heat. Upon entering I feel immediately refreshed by the small space’s mint-green and orange walls, though the blast of commercial air conditioning doesn’t hurt. Neither does Hale’s seemingly boundless energy. She mixes up a fizzy beverage she calls a “cocktail without the booze,” a combination of fizzy water and blackberryflavored balsamic from the Tasteful Olive.

It tastes savory and refreshing, the kind of thing I’d want to share with someone.

Indeed, the restaurant’s name, Canihaveabite, echoes what I say to my husband whenever he’s devouring something delicious but is contractually obligated to split with me, until death do us part. It also highlights Hale’s philosophy on food: Just because something is good for you doesn’t mean others shouldn’t covet it.

“Food can taste fantastic even if it’s healthy,” she tells me, as we get comfortable at a table in the sunny café. “It’s all about the taste.”

Hale’s ever-changing menu showcases her versions of familiar flavors: a vegan lasagna, a cashew meatloaf, Paleo chicken soup, meatball sandwiches. For summer, she’s planning to add a smoked-chicken wrap, as well as bento boxes that contain all the makings of a complete meal. The premade items are primarily intended for carryout; Hale tells me some people stock up on frozen entrées a month at a time, supplementing with fresh salads and sides each week. Counter service, similar to that at a coffee shop, is also available for anyone who wants to dine in.

“Eating healthy should be easy,” she says.

“We’re all busy, and it’s hard to find the time to eat good food.”

Hale’s definition of good food involves high-quality, organic ingredients. She sources as much as she can locally: Her bread is from Gabrianna, a local French bakery, and she stocks her shelves with kombucha from

Lawrence’s Kanbucha, and Balance Superfood Shots from Roeland Park. When I ask her which area farms she uses, she rattles off a long list: Stony Crest Urban Farm provides peppers, greens, herbs, tomatoes and squash; kale, chard and mint come from Woodland City KC; WoodMood Garden grows her sweet potatoes, collard greens and asparagus; and City Bitty Farm provides her beautiful micro greens. She gets beef and chicken from Chapman Creek Cattle Company and David’s Pasture, respectively.

“We should know the story behind our food,” she says. “It’s all about how it’s grown.

Think seasonally, and look at the food before the calories or the labels.”

With Hale’s seemingly intuitive knack for combining flavors, it’s easy for her diners to put the food first. I take home a dish that layers organic red lentils, butternut squash,

“food can taste fantastic even if it’s healthy.

It’s all about the taste.”

Kathy Hale

celery, Anaheim peppers, onions, rainbowchard stems and garlic, topped with cashews and chipotle-infused olive oil. I also pick up a side of cumin-roasted sweet potatoes.

The potatoes are seasoned just enough to enhance their flavor, not overpower it, and after a quick 15 minutes in the oven, the squash dish is light and mildly spicy, with the cashews providing a pleasant crunch.

On another visit, I try the cashew meatloaf, which comes loaded with Chapman Creek’s grass-fed beef, mashed mushrooms, carrots, celery and onions, dressed with Dijon-cashew cream sauce. It’s savory and filling, and it’s so popular with Hale’s regulars, they call ahead to make sure it’s available. Dialing her up might be the closest Hale’s customers get to making a chore out of healthy eating — and that ease is exactly what Hale always had in mind. pitch.com | july 2017 | the pitch

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fat city

Round About 6 a.m.

John’s Space Age Donuts turns 50 this year, but it’s new again with every sunup. photos by ChaSe Castor

John’s Space Age Donuts doesn’t seem like the sort of enterprise that has — or much needs — a Facebook page, though have one it does. For 50 years, the shop (8124 Floyd, Overland Park) has anchored a modest commercial duplex at the southern tip of downtown OP. Longtime neighbor Villa Capri, the night-shift carbo yang to Space Age’s deep-fried dawn-patrol yin, went away awhile back — replaced by the ultimate admonishment against fried dough, Simple Science Juices — but John’s endures. The doughnuts aren’t oversized or postmodern. The business isn’t about innovation. It is instead a testament to family tradition, intergenerational word-of-mouth and reliable satisfaction. Your older sister or your dad, or maybe your dad’s dad, started coming here a long time ago — buying and consuming fresh doughnuts made by the same people, day after day — and so you did, too. It’s an ideal stop for the young suburban driver with a freshly minted license and a corresponding need for legit destinations.

And it’s a fine place for the older you to snack on America’s proletarian pastry and let it soak up your nostalgia.

The hours and the offerings go unchanged; there’s nothing you need to verify online. John’s is simply there. And you are simply glad.

32

Nearly every day you’ll find someone parked out front waiting for the shop to open. Many are regulars looking for a spot at the bar to sip coffee and read the paper.

John Taylor rolls out dough on the store’s “newest” piece of machinery.

This roller arrived here in 1988.

the pitch | july 2017 | pitch.com

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fat city

Inside the humble doughnut shop, production starts at 3 a.m. on weekdays and 2 a.m. on weekends.

John lays out doughnuts and holes, which he cuts by hand. “I’m a little faster than the machine,” he says.

John transports freshly rolled chocolate dough. John’s makes 100 dozen doughnuts on a weekday and 200 dozen on weekends. It takes 100 pounds of flour and 6 gallons of water to make 100 dozen.

John’s son, Matt, puts a rack of cake doughnuts up to cool.

He’s been working at the shop for 22 years.

John cuts out doughnuts on a table from his family’s original shop, Dixie Cream Donuts, which was located at 31st and Troost. A lot of the equipment and racks here came from that shop, which opened in 1960.

pitch.com | july 2017 | the pitch

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fat city

Matt glazes doughnuts fresh out of the fryer, then adds sprinkles.

John (left) and brother Rodney own and operate the shop. You can find them there every day it’s open. Left: Matt adds sprinkles.

That classic drippy glaze: John’s Space Age hasn’t adjusted a recipe since the day it opened.

Rodney serves one of the regulars as the sun comes up again over the shop.

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the pitch | july 2017 | pitch.com

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pitch.com | July 2017 | the pitch

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shop girl

Relaxing for Two Bellying up to my first prenatal massage

by Angela Lutz

I park a few blocks from the well-manicured building and walk to the door in the sweltering heat. Just outside my destination — Spa on Penn, a sleek new Westport establishment on the same block as trendy spots Port Fonda and Ça Va — a man is using a green watering can to cool a bed of flowers. In this age of automated sprinklers, I find this sight oddly charming. Then I open the door and I feel my shoulders tense. I’ve come for a 60-minute massage, but first I have to face down a familiar nemesis: spa anxiety.

Despite the calming ambient music and the refreshing aromatherapy, my brain still finds a way to work itself into a frenzy. I’m a bit neurotic, you see. And not for the first time lately, I hope that I haven’t passed this trait down to my son.

I’m expecting my first baby in mid-July, and truthfully, I’m more than a bit neurotic.

So, while it’s been exciting to focus on some-

36

one other than myself for a change, I’m upset that no one told me just how weird pregnancy was going to be.

Among the unwelcome developments: In my first trimester, I developed a strong aversion to Greek yogurt. I couldn’t even look at the stuff without wanting to run out of the room. Then, during the second trimester, I felt the first gentle kicks from the avocadosized being that was growing in my body — an alien sensation that drove me to exile my skinny jeans in favor of maternity pants and leggings. I haven’t worn anything without a broad elastic waistband since January. Actually, that’s not unwelcome at all.

Now I’m just weeks away from giving birth, and pregnancy has become not only strange but also uncomfortable. My son’s movements are more recognizably human.

That is, they’re antagonistic. He’ll jab me with, I imagine, one tiny elbow in response

I feel the baby wiggle.

I imagine he’s enjoying this sudden influx of endorphins as much as I am.

to some motion of mine he doesn’t like, or he’ll get the hiccups while I’m lying in bed at night. As he has gained mass, I’ve picked up new back and hip pain — I grunt like a linebacker every time I get up off the couch.

Like I said, nobody told me it was all going to feel quite so odd. No one warned me that there would come a time when I wouldn’t recognize myself — not just physically but emotionally and spiritually as well.

Maybe a prenatal massage will help?

At first, I worry that the employees at Spa on Penn have made me as an impostor. Maybe it’s the way I cringe at the word pamper, which reminds me too much of the hundreds of diapers I’ll start changing next month. Then I worry that, rather than judging me for being reluctant to spoil myself, they’re appalled by my having booked this massage on a Monday afternoon. Shouldn’t I be at work, earning health insurance or something?

Clearly I need this massage more urgently than I thought. The French parenting book I’ve been reading clearly states that a zen maman pops out a zen bebe, but throughout this pregnancy I’ve been anything but zen. If the book’s logic holds, my child is going to have the temperament of George Costanza.

In a compact dressing room, I strip off my clothes and slip on a white bathrobe, which barely closes around my ample belly.

Down the hall, the massage therapist directs me toward a dimly illuminated room and instructs me to lie on my side. After she steps out, I hang up my robe, climb under the sheets, and wrap my arms and legs around a body pillow, willing the heated massage table to melt away my anxiety.

When my massage therapist returns, she warns me that she wields “very firm pressure” and says I should let her know if her touch becomes too much. I assure her this is a good thing. Indeed, as she starts on my neck and upper back, her fingers do seem superhumanly strong, as though they’ve been reinforced with steel. The sensation is so smooth and continuous that I can’t focus on anything else, and I finally begin to relax. I feel the baby wiggle. I imagine he’s enjoying this sudden influx of endorphins as much as I am.

I’m impressed that this side-lying variation effectively covers all of the sweet spots a normal facedown massage would hit, including my thighs and lower back. Anyone who’s experienced the dull repetitiveness of a mediocre massage can really appreciate the varying pressures and techniques of a good one. This is most definitely a good one.

Soon my hour is up, and I have to step out into the bright heat again. Dazed and blinking, I’m not sure where I parked my car. Would a zen maman forget such a thing?

Maybe a zen maman wouldn’t care. I don’t know, but at least the massage allowed me to pretend otherwise for a little while.

the pitch | july 2017 | pitch.com

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art

We paint murals to celebrate and honor this community. It’s amazing when people discover one on a whim. I love the idea that you have something to celebrate, that celebrates your community, but also it’s accidentally there — you can find it on your own, marvel at it. It doesn’t matter who or what did it — it’s there. It enlightens community.

It gives people a sense of pride. That is a positive. It’s not a panacea of all of the problems a community has, but it can become a place that empowers people to try to make sure that somebody gives a damn.

Do you have issues with people destroying the artwork with graffiti?

In marring it, they are usually not trying to destroy it. They are actually trying to incorporate what they do in it. In one instance, this kid put his stuff in a little box. You wouldn’t even have noticed it — they were blending it in. The tags were trying to emulate some of the things that these artists had done. They were trying to create. These kids were looking and learning.

When a Wall Unites

Faus: “Even if they are gone tomorrow, there are a lot of people who knew they were there.”

José Faus on KCK’s diverse, historic murals

Jennifer Wetzel

by Jennifer Wetzel

“There is this great thing that happens when people come to see the mural. People are driving by and they get such joy that people are coming to see something there.” This is how the artist and muralist José Faus sums up the relationship between the vibrant, expansive artworks that adorn many of downtown Kansas City, Kansas’ old brick buildings, and the citizens and visitors whose presence and history are reflected in them.

The murals tell stories to and about a community, and they appear thanks to the input and labor and art direction of residents who often are intimately familiar with those stories. One need not be a master painter or illustrator to participate in the making of a mural. Skill helps, but murals are about local history and perspective, the public and the personal. The images may change as they progress, absorbing different viewpoints and then applying them to public spaces. The resulting mural not only changes the look of

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its neighborhood but also showcases the pride of its residents — in the history on display, and their ownership of it.

I talked with Faus about the importance of public art and how communities are involved in the stories, history and processes that go into creating a mural.

The Pitch: How does a mural change the landscape of the community?

When we started painting the Argentine mural, the whole other side of the street facing the wall had become overgrown. Two weeks in, we started painting this mural. We heard this loud chainsaw and saw it poke a little hole through the bramble, and within a week the guy had cleared it out and said, “I want to see this mural. I want to see what you guys are doing.” By the time we got done, all the way down that strip, which was two blocks long, people had cleared it out, and we could see the houses. We could see people. It was a really beautiful experience.

“it enlightens community. It gives people a sense of pride. That is a positive.”

José Faus

How do you go about coordinating a mural and recruiting volunteers?

You never have an absence of people wanting to help. The schools realize that it’s a good tool to engage kids. There is always somebody that wants to be a part of it. For people who are thinking about doing it, there is a process, a business model. There are the technical aspects of the wall. But I’m always open to share information — it’s no secret. It’s a conversation about art, how they come to art, what art means to them and how they can focus.

I’ll talk to anybody. Art will get you through times of no supplies better than supplies getting you through times with no art.

How would you like to see your legacy as a Kansas City, Kansas, muralist?

We did something here that people still value.

Somebody had the idea to celebrate this community, so we did these murals. But it also says, yes, you can make a living in the arts. It also says it has a value beyond what you set out to do. Even if they are gone tomorrow, there are a lot of people who knew they were there. There are people who got joy out of it.

There is a broader life that we have besides the weaknesses that we see in each other. We have rich lives. They are complex sometimes, and that is what the murals celebrate, and we celebrate a positive aspect of that, but we also address the negative things.

KCK has many other murals, but this list makes a good tour of vital pieces, particularly in the Rosedale, Argentine and Armourdale neighborhoods. All addresses are in or around downtown Kansas City, Kansas. (Also, the regionally produced film Called to Walls highlights local muralists and musicians; see calledtowalls.com.)

the pitch | july 2017 | pitch.com

6/22/17 4:31 PM

sunflower mural

art

Genesis Mural

(945 Minnesota Avenue) For this piece, funded by the Kauffmann Youth Advisory Board, children did 90 percent of the work, laboring four hours a day, five days a week for 10 weeks.

The art direction was led by the kids’ ideas, centering on their perspective of the path of life (see: a circus roller coaster).

636 Minnesota Mural (636 Minnesota Avenue)

Originally painted flat on panels, the artwork here incorporates spiritual elements of American Indian culture, specifically the Huron, also known as the Wyandot people. Lyda Conley, a Wyandot-American lawyer, was instrumental in the legal preservation of the Huron Indian Cemetery in downtown KCK.

Hmong mural

Hmong Mural

(749 Minnesota Avenue) Visually narrates the history and culture of the Hmong, both traditional and contemporary.

636 minnesota mural

Sunflower Mural

(901 North Eighth Street) This building used to be the printing house of The Kansas City Kansan. The mural shows a press operator printing the final edition of the newspaper, which ceased publication in 2009. The sunflower is the Kansas state flower; the letter-pressed “K” imagery reflects the paper’s font. genesis mural

Father/Son Mural

(Allis Court and Ann Avenue) This parking-lot mural shows the fragile relationship between a father and a son and how communication between them can be misunderstood.

Vaquero Imports Mural (826 Minnesota Avenue)

father/son mural

Represents Mexican-Americans and features folkloric dance, fashion, religion and mortality.

pitch.com | july 2017 | the pitch

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art

Tienda Mural

(932 Minnesota Avenue) The camera film strewn throughout the mural represents the passage of time. The figures show a chronology of world events and their effect on minority groups. On display are depictions of industry, classism, racism, war and diversity.

armourdale mural

tienda mural

Anthology of Argentine Mural (East 30th Street and Woodland Avenue)

This expansive mural, which covers a 20-foot-tall, two-block-long wall, chronicles the histories, hardships and lifestyle of Argentine residents, Beginning with depictions of the Osage, Kansa and Wyandot American Indian tribes, the art continues with the rise of industrialization and the middle class and depictions of racism and classism, the influence of the railroad, the impact of the 1951 flood on the region, and the cultural diversity of the people who settled and now live in Argentine.

rosedale mural project

Silver Ave Mural

(South 24th Street and Silver Avenue) Summer, spring and fall are represented here, and the likenesses of local volunteer mural painters are shown. Hummingbirds, the harvest and the environment are also strong themes.

Rosedale Mural Project

(2610 West 42nd Avenue)

rainbow pet mural anthology of argentine mural

silver ave mural

Community volunteers were involved in the artistic decisions of each section of this mural, which was updated in 2015 by the Rosedale Development Association’s Summer Mural Arts program.

Armourdale Mural

(South 10th Street and Osage Avenue) Directed by John Bonifacio Moreno, with Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) themes throughout, this art shows a view of heart, family, faith and the notion that “Perdonar es Amar” (forgiveness is love).

Rainbow Pet Mural

(4468 Rainbow Boulevard) Maria Cocchiarelli Berger, who now co-manages the Museum of Friends in Walsenburg, Colorado, painted this mural featuring a variety of animals in their natural and domestic environments.

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the pitch | july 2017 | pitch.com

6/22/17 4:33 PM

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art

Muñiz among her art, including works now at Kiosk.

Hot Hand

At Kiosk, Cristina Muñiz’s My Hand / Mi Mano shows a rising painter on a roll.

Courtesy Kiosk

by Tracy Abeln

The first time I met Cristina Muñiz, she was gallery-sitting at la Esquina, and her own art was nowhere in sight. A requirement for Charlotte Street Foundation studio residents is to spend time staffing the organization’s gallery shows, and that’s what she was doing that day. But our conversation eventually landed on her practice, which falls into the category of abstract painting.

That discipline leaves some viewers imagining themselves at a disadvantage: We imagine that what’s not figurative must be harder to understand. Assuming we have access to the artist, she might be at a disadvantage, too, should she address our questions.

Painting is a visual medium; why let words complicate the vision or introduce layers of potential misunderstanding? Why explain?

“When I talk about my work, it usually comes up, my hand,” Muñiz tells me the next time we meet. It’s a busy, increasingly well-practiced hand. Since our first conversation, I’ve seen her art in a couple of shows, at Paragraph and Vulpes Bastille. On this day, in early June, she’s getting ready for My Hand/Mi Mano, her first solo show in this area, at Erin and Eric Dodson’s Kiosk Gallery, in Columbus Park. A series of smaller, rough-edged, unstretched canvases are laid out on the floor; other paintings hang on the three walls of her section of the Drugstore Studios, stashed on shelves, hidden under brown paper.

Muñiz is a painter’s painter, interested in brushstrokes, in the paint itself. And asking her to talk about her art is almost redundant. She’s an expert at visual narration — her images enter your eyes and go straight to

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the part of you that shares an experience or a feeling with what you’re looking at.

That storytelling talent has taken time to develop. Some of her earlier art, she says, may have been nice to look at, but those paintings were “hit and misses.” She largely means work made in her 20s and early 30s, when, she tells me, “my narrative wasn’t really there.”

For the viewer, that narrative isn’t necessarily obvious. Yes, there are titles, but Muñiz will tell you that these are just beginning points, a cue to take your time looking at the piece.

“Now that the work is growing with me, I feel more equipped to just give it a title, leave it there in hopes that the viewer’s just going to spend a little time with it,” she says.

“I don’t want it to be so vague or so minimal that it’s just too wide open. I want it to be inclusive to everyone who sees the work or who can appreciate the work, but let them kind of see their own thing.”

You can encounter a large canvas like her “Monkey Grass Memory” and not grasp all that she intends. But can you find an element that looks like a swing set?

Can you pause to take in the overwhelming amount of rosy-taupe quadrilaterals extending from top left to bottom right, concealing and revealing other shapes — like stairs, like stonework — contrasting with a color that might be grass? Do these things trigger a recollection of your own childhood? For me, they do, and I’m glad that this painting, which Muñiz started a while ago and decided to return to, is part of the Kiosk show.

In the studio we look at a sketchbook piece, a thought written down: “Everywhere we went we took the ghetto with us.” It’s another starting point, maybe something she’s seen, a story she’s heard all her life, a memory someone shared. “That’s the first drawing of it,” she says. “Anything else is an active present drawing of the memory of the first drawing. What can be real is putting myself back into that state, the memory of that drawing or that thought. That’s real to me, in this new moment. Then, this is the new thing. It’s not more than or less than, just a new translation of my narrative.”

One recurring narrative about Muñiz is her on-again, off-again art education and career. At this point, she’s clearly on, clearly staying. Encouraged by certain professionals at what became the right times along the way, Muñiz returned to her first ambition, left her home and family in San Antonio, Texas, and enrolled at the Kansas City Art Institute a few years ago. She earned her bachelor of fine arts degree in 2014 and has been able to devote time to painting by landing in a series of studios — Charlotte Street’s residency program, Hoop Dog and, since February 2016, the Drugstore — well known among KC’s visual-arts infrastructure. The connections she’s made the past few years have been invaluable — and a lesson for Muñiz that the moment she’s enjoying is a complex mixture of privilege and sacrifice. Though she has strong family connections back home, she says she would feel as if she were in a vacuum if she tried to make her art there now.

“It just felt more important to stay put here and let my work grow,” she tells me, “to be surrounded by a plethora of people who are doing what they want to do.”

Kiosk’s Eric Dodson sees Muñiz’s paintings as representative of her straightforwardness as a person. They are accessible, he says, relatable. It’s also plain that she’s motivated and productive. She understands herself to have a role — as she puts it during our talk in her studio: “I make the work.”

She makes it, and then she trusts skilled artists and curators such as the Dodsons to put it together in a way that fits a space and makes a statement.

The 15 paintings selected for My Hand/ Mi Mano end up presenting a peaceful, echoing set of stories — stories that deserve pause and attention. Sit a few minutes with her iterations of the memories informing “took the ghetto with us.” Linger over “The Strength of a Brown Soul (La Fuerza del Alma Marrón).”

“If I wasn’t doing it, I couldn’t see myself being useful at all, or functional,” Muñiz says of painting. “I have to do it. It’s like breathing to me. And I’m happiest when I’m in the studio or when I’m remembering what I did — or even before I go to studio, looking at Instagram, seeing a badass painter or a stroke or a couple of lines that I like. I’m like, Damn it, let’s go.”

My Hand / Mi Mano Through July 13 at Kiosk Gallery 916 East Fifth Street kioskgallerykc.com

the pitch | july 2017 | pitch.com

6/22/17 5:04 PM

stage

Van and her cast in rehearsal

House Rules

chris mullins

A Fringe veteran and a first-timer at the 13th annual fest share a common goal: make winning theater.

by Liz Cook

Talk to any Fringe Festival fan and you’re likely to hear a casino metaphor before long. Kansas City’s annual 11-day festival of theater, dance, film and visual art requires a gambler’s spirit. Audience members bet blind on brand-new works. They roll the dice every time they buy a ticket for one of hundreds of festival performances.

But the people with real stakes on the line are the theater artists who participate in Fringe.

“The game starts now — and I think it’s a game,” says Heidi Van, founder and curator of the Fishtank Theatre. Fringe makes some of the logistical aspects easy for producers like her. The festival organizers assign venues and performance times and work hard to promote the festival in general. But it’s up to individual producers to play that game — to break out from the pack and get butts in their specific seats.

Van is an experienced player. She’s been a Fringe regular since 2008, when she produced her first show, The Coppelia Project. The result was a success by almost any metric — she extended the run after Fringe, the Lawrence Arts Center picked it up a month later, and the cast took it on the road for a tour around Florida.

One thing it didn’t do, though, was profit.

“I’m sure I was down $3,000,” Van says of her inaugural Fringe show. “I got my credit card out, and I was like, swipe, swipe, swipe.

I didn’t even think about it.”

She’s wiser now. Van says she tries to do more with less and let invention be her guide, paring down the budget to what she considers essential. For Fringe, that often means marketing. Artists lurk outside shows with stacks of production postcards, pressing them on audience members like Costco samples. Savvy producers learn to search the Fringe schedule for marketing clues with the focus of a blackjack player counting cards. Popular show the same time as yours? Expect a dip in attendance. Popular show right before yours, at your venue?

Expect a boost.

But even a big take at the door doesn’t necessarily mean an artist will come out in the black. Van’s 2015 show, The Penis Monologues, sold out every show at the Unicorn’s Levin Stage — no small feat when the theater seats 152 — and even earned an encore performance at the Fringe Hangover, a showcase of the year’s best-attended productions.

“It’s a gamble.

Fringe is a gamble. And if you like gambling, you should definitely Fringe.”

Heidi Van

Van broke even that time, she says. Tempering things? Not all of the ticket money was actually hers. In 2015, producers kept only 70 percent of their ticket sales — the other 30 percent went to the venue. (In 2016, the split became 60-40.) Plus, The Penis Monologues was a high-budget show. There were makeup artists and hair stylists to pay for a promotional photo shoot. There were performers who’d been promised a cut of the proceeds. The show had several writers, and Van wanted to give each an honorarium.

Van may be a generous producer, but her experience isn’t out of the ordinary.

Actor Andy Perkins was able to cover his upfront costs for Self-Ease, a 2015 collection of technology-linked vignettes — but didn’t make enough to pay the performers, as he’d hoped to do. Jack Phillips, a playwright and four-time Fringe producer, took home $1,400 in ticket revenue (after the venue had taken its cut) for his 2012 original musical, Cultural Confrontation. But he still didn’t turn a profit.

“I would guess I lost a couple thousand dollars on that show,” Phillips says. The production budget was high: He had to buy cospitch.com | july 2017 | the pitch

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stage

tumes, props and a set of expensive wireless mics. But to Phillips, seeing his show on its feet was worth the investment.

“For me, it was about trying to manage my losses,” he says. “I wasn’t counting on breaking even.”

Even on a shoestring budget, producers have participation costs to shoulder.

And applying to Fringe isn’t exactly chump change. Although the cost varies by venue size and the number of performances, the producers I spoke to paid between $350 and $500 to apply — with most at the high end of that range.

Depending on the venue, that can be a comparative bargain. This year, Van’s Fringe show, Liminal Space: A Traveler’s Guide, was assigned to Musical Theater Heritage’s main stage in Crown Center. “That’s a deal,” Van says. “You can’t rent MTH for that price.”

Liminal is an immersive, movementdriven ensemble piece, and it exemplifies her newer, leaner business model. She’s using practical lights, not expensive industrial fixtures. She has applied for a grant to help cover the Fishtank’s operational costs. And she has saved on performance costs by casting her Fringe show with members of the Fishtank’s Summer Intensive program.

Her cast spends the summer training with Van in physical theater and with actor Logan Black in Butoh, an avant-garde brand of Japanese dance theater. As a practicum — call it a work study — they devise the Fringe show.

The goal, Van reminds me, is for the work to sustain itself. No one gets into theater for the plush lifestyle. Still, I can’t help but wonder: Is anyone making money at Fringe?

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“It’s a gamble,” Van says, sounding more excited than wary. “Fringe is a gamble. And if you like gambling, you should definitely Fringe.”

Enter actor and first-time Fringe producer Shea Ketchum. If this were a movie, she’d be wading across a hectic casino floor right now, slinking up to the Baccarat table and inspiring gasps as she throws all her chips at a single hand.

But if you’re picturing it now, replace the high-slitted femme-fatale dress with a pair of burgundy scrubs. For the past three years, Ketchum has worked at local animal shelter Wayside Waifs — a labor that has now inspired a Fringe show.

Ketchum’s first Fringe entry is the second of a three-part series she calls Art With Heart. Part 1 was a production of A.R. Gurney’s Sylvia at the Buffalo Room last year — Ketchum donated the proceeds to Wayside Waifs. It was a success, but Ketchum wanted to go bigger. So this year, she’s upped the ante with an original show, Shelter Stories, and a bigger goal of donating to three area shelters: KC Pet Project, Great Plains SPCA and, of course, Wayside Waifs.

Thanks to her experience, the show practically wrote itself. “I’ve been working at the shelter for almost three years, so I’ve got a lot of stories to share,” Ketchum says. Shelter Stories is composed of a series of family-friendly, stand-alone vignettes related to shelter life and animal companionship. A few are fictional — one scene follows a support group for people who think their cats hate them; another brings to life those highkitsch paintings of dogs playing poker. But Ketchum also means to give her audience a realistic glimpse into what her job entails,

Ketchum seeks Shelter at this year’s Fringe, her first. chris mullins

Kansas City Fringe Festival July 20-30

Shelter Shorts

Unicorn Theatre, Jerome Stage 3828 Main 8 p.m. Saturday, July 22; 6:30 p.m. Monday, July 24; 9:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 26; 6:30 p.m. Thursday, July 27; 8 p.m. Friday, July 28; 6:30 p.m. Saturday, July 29

Liminal State: a Traveler’s Guide Musical Theater Heritage 2450 Grand, Suite 301 9:30 p.m. Friday, July 21; 8 p.m. Tuesday, July 25; 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 26; 8 p.m. Saturday, July 29

from intake to adoption to — the hard part — surrendering the animal.

“It’s the full scope of what a shelter worker would see every day,” she said. (And yes, there’s a live dog in the show — a limelightloving boxer adopted from a shelter.)

Although this is Ketchum’s first Fringe as a producer, she already seems to have internalized some lessons from the veterans. She’s been dog-sitting after hours to supplement her performance budget. She’s keeping the show tight by handling sound, direction and costumes herself. And she’s spending time and money where it counts: on marketing materials — including those pesky postcards.

Still, she has invested plenty of her own money. She used her tax refund to pay the Fringe application fee. And to make her lofty contribution goals, she’s going to need to do more than just recoup her investment.

“It’s a gamble,” Ketchum admits, echoing Van. “And sometimes you have to take a gamble on yourself and your work. So that’s what I’m doing.”

In some respects, she’s already had a lucky streak. Thanks to a cancellation, Fringe has upgraded Shelter Stories to a larger venue for free (the Unicorn’s Jerome stage, where 114 seats means better potential ticket revenue).

And a shelter volunteer who works with Legacy School of the Arts in Olathe let Ketchum rehearse in her dance studio for free.

But with all that risk, who really wins?

The house or the artists?

Van supplies the answer. “Theater wins during the Fringe,” she says. “This is the time of year when we all really rally with each other. Shows emerge, artists emerge — it’s happening. Everybody’s winning.”

the pitch | july 2017 | pitch.com

6/22/17 5:06 PM

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film

twin peaks: the return

The Incredible Shrinking Screen How I learned to stop worrying and love David Lynch on my iPhone

by Eric Melin

I don’t take this lightly.

I grew up watching an average of two movies a week in Kansas City theaters and at area drive-ins. I saw The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi in the 800-seat main auditorium of Overland Park’s longgone Glenwood Theatre, where Darth Vader loomed on a curved, 70-foot-wide, 40-foottall screen. In high school, I worked as a projectionist, staying up until 3 a.m. on a school night to splice reels for Rain Man and screen it by myself to make sure that I hadn’t accidentally turned Tom Cruise upside down.

When DVDs arrived, I spent years buying and watching movies that at last had been restored to their widescreen formatting after decades of shitty VHS pan-and-scan. All of cinema’s history seemed suddenly accessible.

I got a film degree. I became a film critic. I bought a 1080p TV. I repurchased all those movies again (and then some) on Blu-ray.

So, no, I do not take lightly the idea that I recently have found myself watching TV shows and movies on my iPhone.

Allow me to explain.

It did not happen overnight, this setting aside of mobile-sized videos depicting

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animal farts and political memes in favor of what I have unironically referred to as “the art of cinema.” But happen it did, and ultimately for the same reason that humanity failed to ignore Slim Jims and Big Gulps: convenience. I am a weak man and I need my movies and my peak TV. So for the record — and for other film fans struggling with the same moral dilemma — I’m using this space to chart the gradual erosion of my standards and my path toward acceptance. This is how I have grown to love viewing valuable narrative programming on a 5.5-inch screen (and listening through factory-issue earbuds).

I live in what city dwellers generally call “the country.” My internet connection isn’t merely rural. To use a technical term, it sucks. Meanwhile, about four years ago, a couple of indie movie distributors started sending critics like me links to films they hoped would be reviewed — films for which funds for making and mailing DVDs, let alone booking a screening in a local theater, did not exist. I did my part for the little guys, and for my own hunger to see every last thing: I hooked my laptop up to my big-

What was changing was my willingness to accept inhospitable viewing conditions.

screen TV and accepted the link. But every time I went to full-screen mode, the “buffering” wheel of despair would appear, and the movie would stop.

The solution: I settled for watching these movies on my laptop.

Even then, the wheel sometimes appeared again, leading me to a desperation play. I’d make the browser window even smaller. With my deadline looming, I spent long evenings waiting ... for ... the ... buffering ... to ... catch ... up. This was especially brutal when I sat down to the three-hour French arthouse hit Blue Is the Warmest Color.

For a long time, I lived with this frustration. The experience wasn’t ideal, but my appreciation for a given movie never felt under serious threat. What was changing was my willingness to accept inhospitable viewing conditions. I didn’t know it yet, but my creep toward the smallest screen was well on its way.

I told you before that I’m weak, but I do try to spend time at the gym. Two things are ubiquitous in that climate: free Wi-Fi, and one’s absolute need to occupy one’s mind while on the soul-deadening elliptical trainer.

the pitch | july 2017 | pitch.com

6/22/17 5:09 PM

film

Enter Marvel’s Iron Fist.

This is a dumb show about a dumb guy who makes dumb decisions and is generally not capable of figuring out until almost too late what is immediately obvious to everyone else. I wouldn’t bother with it, except that, nine years ago, I bought into this Marvel shared-universe idea and have ever since been committed to watching it play out, across TV and movie screens, in (mostly) congruent timelines. Among my sacrifices so far: I have half-heartedly witnessed the drastic ups and downs of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. As Van Morrison said, it’s too late to stop now. (Alternately, to quote Neil Young, don’t cry no tears around me.)

At home, I’d put Iron Fist on the big screen. And right away, I’d seen that this level of idiocy would be tough. I’d stopped and started, stopped and started, stopped and started. I’d watched full seasons of better shows, continuing to put off my Marvel duty — until my friend Sally told me that she streams Netflix on her phone at the gym. I didn’t ask her just what she watches in those conditions. But I decided to amend my policy and try Iron Fist Sally’s way.

And lo, the liabilities of this dumb show became assets. The predictability, the eyerolling dialogue, the intermittent kung-fu with no real stakes — all of it now comforted the half of my brain that usually gave itself over to calculating much time I had left to burn 500 calories. And because there were 13 episodes, I found myself actually looking forward to working out. Instead of an awful place full of punishment, the gym was now a space dedicated to facilitating my guiltless consumption of cheesy pop culture.

I’m not saying we should all live this way.

But I have developed some basic rules for knowing when a show or a movie is OK to watch on your phone. They work for me. If ...

1. The visual language isn’t challenging. You can, with minimal effort, interpret what is happening on the screen. (This is a low bar. From commercials to the internet, conventional visual storytelling is utterly second-nature to us.)

2. The frame isn’t full of detail. (Blade Runner is highly detailed. Netflix’s Bloodline, not so much.)

3. The pacing isn’t unique, and the feel isn’t singular. That is, you can stop watching to take a call, then return to the action without consulting Wikipedia.

4. The plotting is not just obvious but is, ideally, reinforced over and over. Not to insult anyone, but a fourth-grader could probably follow it while playing a video game.

5. Any nuance of character is secondary to story.

6. Ditto subtext.

7. The exception that proves the other six rules: A small film that moves you can be far more effective on a big screen, in an immersive theater environment, than a tent-

pole picture full of explosions. But there’s no shortage of material pitched comfortably between intense, unforgettable drama and Kubrickian epic — most of which will, I’m still surprised to report, play just fine on your device.

Now, the iPhone is still not my first choice, but once I let my guard down for Iron Fist, I soon found another candidate for second-tier viewing. With all of its musicvideo montages and heavy-handed (though still welcome) messages of gender and sexual equality, Season 2 of the Wachowskis’ Sense8 was going nowhere for me at home.

But I had too much invested to quit it completely, so I moved it down the screening ladder from my TV to my iPhone. Netflix’s streaming app is one of the best, so this was not a difficult choice. Yes, the cinematography is beautiful, and there are plenty of exotic international locations, but I was more experienced with mobile viewing now and I didn’t worry about missing anything too important. (And now the show has been canceled, so apparently I wasn’t alone.)

Then came Twin Peaks: The Return. When the two-hour premiere hit Showtime, and it was advertised that subscribers could also immediately watch the next two episodes that night. My satellite TV provider, however, didn’t feel obliged to honor this arrangement.

So I raced to my phone, downloaded the Showtime Anytime app, and did the unthinkable: I streamed two hours of David Lynch on my 5.5-inch mobile screen.

OK, that sucked.

But on the other hand, reader, I believe I appreciated the show — with its intimate sound design and its strange narrative rhythms and heavily encoded visuals — just fine on the iPhone. Of course, Twin Peaks gets richer and more rewarding with repeated viewings, so I already knew this first small look-see would not be my only visit. I watched it again at home on the big-screen TV. And my second rewatch of those four hours turned out to be at the gym, sweat in my eyes and the sound turned up full blast through my earbuds.

Let’s call Twin Peaks an emergency exception, then, but also a lesson in the elasticity of my standards. The older I get, the more value I place on my time — I’m running out of it, but there’s no shortage of high-quality scripted (and unscripted) motion-picture content to fill those limited hours, to say nothing of various Marvel Universe offshoots. And I always have a device at hand to address this imbalance.

So do you.

I’m left wondering whether I’ll have any mobile-viewing rules at all by this time next year. If the 2018 equivalent of 2001: A Space Odyssey comes along, I don’t intend to watch it for the first time on my phone.

Maybe the second time. Maybe on my new iPhone 8.

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Film.indd 47 Pitch_7-17_56.indd 47

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the pitch | July 2017 | pitch.com

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6/22/17 5:37 PM

music

Waiting for Watts

Crushing it: Watts

Kansas City rapper Gee Watts prepares two new releases.

by Aaron Rhodes

Gee Watts picks me up in his silver sedan, but the vehicle carrying us is the talkative, articulate rapper’s swift train of thought.

We get on Interstate 35 heading north, and Watts warms up with several topics he finds important in life. He’s tilted back in his seat, steering mainly with his knees, chainsmoking a pack of Camel Crushes. Authenticity, that’s important — the only two people who inspire in him “fanatic” devotion are LeBron James and Kendrick Lamar, he says, and that’s due to their authenticity.

Both display excellence in their trades, he says, and both stick to their moral codes.

But ask him who writes better lyrics than the authentic and important Lamar, and he’ll tell you: Gee Watts.

“If you put up my lyrics on the wall of what I wrote on [his forthcoming release] Caviart and you put up the lyrics to Damn, Good Kid, M.A.A.d City or even To Pimp a Butterfly,” Watts tells me, “nine times out of 10, niggas gon’ be like, ‘Yeah, this is the one Kendrick wrote.’ Nah, that’s me.”

Watts collaborated on a song with Lamar awhile back, called “Watts Riot,” but he made the savvy decision not to release it un-

til after Lamar’s star rose. Watts says they’ve stayed in touch since then; they texted recently.

We’re driving to Kansas City, Kansas, to meet up with Kendall Blakeney, the photographer and illustrator behind the media company HiiFreq. He’s a close friend of Watts’, and he’s been shooting Watts’ music videos and designing his merch and album artwork for years. (Blakeney also counts area artists Dom Chronicles, Aaron Alexander and AyEl among his collaborators.) On the way, we talk about Caviart and his other upcoming project, You Don’t Deserve This.

The latter, he says, will act as a primer for new Watts fans: He’s loading it with bangers and tracks that are lighthearted and easy to digest. Caviart, though, is something else.

“If I was to die, I would want nobody to tell my daughter who her daddy was, what my ideology was, what my philosophy was,” Watts says. “I want her to be able to listen to this CD and gain those answers on her own, from my mouth.”

Part of what drove Watts to work hard on Caviart was a brush with the law he had in 2012, which put him on probation (it’s sup-

posed to end in September) but could have sent him to prison, he says, for a decade.

Incarceration like that would have kept him from seeing his daughter grow up. So Watts holds Caviart dear — he has scrapped multiple versions of the album already and doesn’t want to put out the final product until it can ride strong momentum (thus the creation of You Don’t Deserve This).

There’s reason to believe that the motion he seeks has started. Despite what Watts calls a local habit of people believing themselves too cool to support local artists (yes, it makes him mad), the all-local show he set up last month — called You Don’t Deserve This — drew around 500 people.

A cigarette and a QuikTrip stop later, we pull up at Blakeney’s. Watts wants to review some designs for an upcoming merchandise line to coincide with the release of You Don’t Deserve This. The men reminisce about their partnership, which they agree will continue to grow as the new music emerges. They shake hands and we move on.

Back on the highway, I ask Watts about his parole. One condition of it is drug and alcohol screening. Earlier this year, when he played

me some of his new music at his apartment, he poured himself a wineglass full of Dr Pepper before annotating for me his latest beats and lyrics. It’s gotten easier for him, avoiding what the law now forbids him, but he admits he misses being able to hang out where drugs and alcohol available. An invitation to a recent Royals game had to be turned down. For now, it’s cigarettes and soda — substitutes he resents and looks forward to setting aside.

Our next stop is at A’Sean’s house, across the street from Troost Elementary School.

Watts calls him a “rapper’s rapper,” and he has bounced ideas and new songs off him over the past year. On this day, as on most, A’Sean is joined by producer and fellow rapper J-Tone, with whom he released a collaborative EP at the end of 2016. Their friend Justin Shoniber — another producer — is also at the house. JTone sifts through old soul songs, looking for sampling candidates for future tracks. Watts, A’Sean and Shoniber swap Xbox turns and talk about new music. There are arguments, but they stay friendly, and there is at least one telling consensus: All agree that Atlanta rapper SahBabii, with his unique approach to melody and his absurd imagery, deserves to rise.

Watts listens to some of J-Tone’s new beats, doing a bit of freestyling and playing back rough versions of previously recorded material. One song they go over is “Did It Again,” a recent live favorite that combines a sampled church choir, booming drums and an all-out brag-fest from Watts. An hour or so goes by, and Watts decides that the time isn’t right to do any recording. He and A’Sean slip outside to shoot hoops in the driveway. Watts once dreamed of playing basketball professionally but decided to focus on rapping when he realized that playing ball would result in significantly more time away from his daughter.

Watts and I get back in his car for the last time that afternoon, and we start talking about his legacy. He’s been in the game more than five years now, and regional blogs have steadily posted his music, but he hasn’t tested his fanbase out of state. Still, he’s satisfied that he has achieved something here in Kansas City.

“I made it possible for a lot of people to just be theyself,” he says. “Back in the day, you could not be yourself out here. You’d get looked at crazy if you dressed a certain way.

Now you can just be you.”

He’s not wrong. Area rappers several years ago who weren’t deemed tough or street enough stuck to performing in Westport — where rappers from the hood didn’t get booked. Now, thanks to Watts and some friends — and the internet’s way of advancing the genre’s ongoing evolution — certain coded taboos aren’t quite as restrictive.

The release schedule for Watts’ new projects is still up in the air, but more and more, he’s a visible — and, yes, authentic — part of KC hip-hop’s push toward national recognition. When the time is right, we’ll get what he thinks we deserve. pitch.com | july 2017 | the pitch

Music A.indd 49

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music

You got to do a track with Debbie Harry, too — and now you’re going on tour together.

I know! I’m so excited. I’ve known Debbie for a long, long time. I had the great pleasure of meeting her as far back as the ’80s.

My first band — Goodbye, Mr. Mackenzie — opened for Debbie on her solo tour of the United Kingdom in ’86, ’87? We met in an elevator in Liverpool, or something strange like that, and she has been a really generous mentor in my life ever since.

If I think on Debbie too hard, I really want to burst into tears with gratitude, because she’s provided such a phenomenal role model for me, in my own career, and continues to do so.

There are times — as a 50-year-old in the music business — I am gripped with fear, because I know it’s such an ageist industry, and I wonder to myself, “My God, how much longer can I sustain myself with this life of mine?”

Then I look to her as a beacon of hope, because there she is at 71, still making records, still engaged in the process of being creative, and that’s exciting and inspiring — not just to me but to all women all over the world. To watch a 71-year-old woman do that is a bold statement, and one that we see so very rarely in our culture.

Out of the Corner

Manson: “You can be a freak in the corner and still thrive.”

Shirley Manson trash-talks ageism ahead of Garbage’s tour with Debbie Harry.

by Nick Spacek

Shirley Manson has logged two decades as the singer for Garbage, but that’s only further rarefied her status. Women musicians, she’ll tell you, have long tended to end up on the shelf after age 35 — a habit of the marketplace that hasn’t much changed in the time Manson has been a star. That’s part of what makes Garbage’s co-headlining tour with Blondie both statement and revelation: Manson is 50, Blondie’s Debbie Harry is 71, and both acts still deliver full-strength rock.

I talked with Manson by phone ahead of the tour’s opening.

The Pitch: How did you get involved with the soundtrack to Starz’ adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods?

Shirley Manson: That’s a very good question. I’m not entirely sure how the hell I got involved. [laughs] He [Brian Reitzell, the composer who scores the series] contacted me through Butch [Vig, of Garbage], Butch made the introduction and I just popped over to the studio one day. He gave me an idea of what he was looking for,

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Music B.indd 50

and before I knew it — within a couple of weeks — it was on bloody TV. It was insane — one of the funnest things I’ve done in a long time. I loved working with Brian. He was a hoot — and outrageously talented. He plays nearly everything you’re hearing on that bloody show. It’s mad.

What I thought was great was how good the song, “Chairman of the Bored,” works in that scene. Were you privy to what it was going to be soundtracking, or were you just given a general idea of what Reitzell was after?

He played me the scene, and I just loved the character, Laura. I just thought that she was an extraordinary female character. You know, you rarely see women portrayed in such beguiling and yet somewhat unsympathetic terms, and I loved that. I thought that was really interesting. She’s a very ambiguous character I was really fascinated by, and I had this idea of what I wanted to do on the track, and it matched what Brian had in mind. We just got lucky. It fits really well, and it was a joy to do.

Blondie and Garbage: The Rage and Rapture Tour With John Doe and Exene Cervenka

Tuesday, July 18, at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts (tickets: kauffmancenter.org)

It seems that this tour is the antithesis of so many summer tours, because it’s two strong women vocalists who are over the age of 20-something, headlining a tour.

Yeah, it’s highly unusual. It’s super–punk rock. [laughs] In its own perverse way, I see it as part of the resistance. I really do. It’s very unusual and very sad that it’s so rare. Unfortunately, to this day, women are taught that by the time they’re 35 years old, they’re basically on the scrap heap, and I resist that with every fiber of my being. I resist that ideology, you know, resist that emphasis. Women don’t have to be fuckable to have value in our culture.

I feel very strongly about that, and it saddens me that so many women basically fold up their wings and give up by the time they hit a certain age, because they imagine that they have no cultural worth. I feel very strongly that that’s not the case, and I want to show that by action. I have a great career, as does Debbie, and I feel that’s a great message to send.

It’s seems like it’s very much a thumb in the eye of the patriarchy.

Fuck yeah! [cackles] I love that expression. I might steal that. But I think it’s the fact that, despite the industry, we are still thriving. We have done it absolutely on our own terms and have not had to compromise, and that’s a powerful statement — for any musician, male or female — that you can exist outside the mainstream. You can be the freak in the corner and still thrive. You don’t have to operate on the terms of everyone else.

the pitch | july 2017 | pitch.com

6/22/17 4:03 PM

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Kansas City Pitch Weekly 07-01-17.indd 1

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pitch.com | July 2017 | the pitch 51 6/14/17 10:55 AM

6/22/17 5:52 PM

concerts

july 2017 LUKE BRYAN

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311 and New Politics The Skints

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Tuesday, July 18

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Blondie and Garbage

Le Youth

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Sunday, July 9

Wednesday, July 19

Queen + Adam Lambert

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Sprint Center

Monday, July 10 DJ Shadow

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Starlight Theatre

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Digisaurus

The Bottleneck

52

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thursday, july 27 Vans Warped Tour American Authors, Bowling for Soup, Silverstein, Blessthefall, Memphis May Fire, the Ataris, Hawthorne Heights and Sammy Adams Providence Medical Center Amphitheater

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Gucci Mane Rae Sremmurd, Kevin Gates, Lil Uzi Vert, Playboi Carti, Smokepurpp, Flyover

Mary Chapin Carpenter Sarah Jarosz

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Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

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Providence Medical Center Amphitheater

Tuesday, July 25 Violent Femmes and Echo & the Bunnymen CrossroadsKC

Social Distortion Liberty Hall

the pitch | july 2017 | pitch.com

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THE PITCH | JULY 2017 | pitch.com

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or online www.CrOwdsysteMs.COM pitch.com | July 2017 | the pitch

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