The Pitch: September 2020 by The Pitch KC

THE PITCH | September 2020 | thepitchkc.com

CONTENTS

THE PITCH

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

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Chief Executive Officer Stephanie Carey Chief Operating Officer Adam Carey

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26 5 LETTER

22 Womxn Collectives

KC CARES

6 FUTURES

24 Something’s Brewing

38 SAVAGE LOVE

Letter from the Editor Here’s your future BY BROCK WILBUR

Dismantle the Police Imagining what law enforcement could evolve toward. BY EMILY COX

10 Pining for Dining

In the near future, what will restaurant adventures look like? Choose your own. BY LIZ COOK

Representation fuels business development in KC. BY KELCIE MCKENNEY

Local beer will continue bubbling up. BY JEREMY DANNER

26 NEWS 30 EAT

17 Correcting Back to Correctional

32 MUSIC

Moving from punishment to rehabilitation trickles down to save our community. BY MAYOR QUINTON LUCAS

National Multiple Sclerosis Society. BY BROOKE TIPPIN

Size queens, too-small butt plugs, diaper play, and other quick-and-dirty q’s answered. BY DAN SAVAGE

Convention Intervention Our Loews Hotel project faces disaster after the world abandons conventions. BY BARBARA SHELLY

12 Reinventing Sports

Options for where our competitive spirit could expand next. BY JOSEPH HERNANDEZ

Eat and Drink This Now Restaurant at 1900 now offers elegant dining as carryout. BY APRIL FLEMING

Stephonne is the Future of KC’s Sound An unrequited love with queerness itself. BY NICK SPACEK

“THE FUTURE OF KANSAS CITY” Katelyn Betz

thepitchkc.com | September 2020 | THE PITCH

THE PITCH | September 2020 | thepitchkc.com

LETTER Christopher Washington (left) with the rest of the team, reopening The Drunken Worm on 39th Street. KROWN CONCEPTS

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR HERE’S YOUR FUTURE BY BROCK WILBUR

The Portland indie-punk trio The Thermals has an album called The Body, The Blood, The Machine which is a concept album about Christianity. While containing plenty of tracks that seem to spit in the eye of God, or at the very least at religious institutions that many of us were raised within and those assorted disconnects, there is an overwhelming sincerity to the songs—and their reframing of Biblical stories as first person, emotionally manipulative events. It’s an album of break-up songs if your shitty ex-boyfriend was the dude who created the universe. He made a lot of big promises but mostly negged you and turned you and your friends against each other. A real jerk with a sociopathic ego problem and magic powers. The opening track “Here’s Your Future,” is about various people throughout the Bible and how they reach out to God with requests—receiving responses of how they’re going to be punished for their dedication to His cause. Their punishment for loving Him is to hear how badly their life will end for doing so. Before they do so. Just to rub salt in the wound. (Unless, for example, you’re going to be turned into a pillar of salt. Then there’s no wound. Just the salt.) It sounds like some real high-andmighty bullshit (literally), but as a blistering 2:30 long rock song, I have never been able to listen to it without crying. It carries a dismantling tone that you’d probably associate with the smallest Beatles song, while also being pissed-off as hell. I am writing about it now, without lis-

tening to it, and I am crying to the thought of it. Yes, I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS; BACK OFF DAD. The final verse of the song mixes a thrashing wall of guitar feedback with the singer’s voice breaking to pieces over the crushing plea of these lyrics. God told his son, “It’s time to come home I promise you won’t have to die all alone I need you to pay for the sins I create” His son said, “I will, but Dad... I’m afraid.” And then the song just cranks everything to 11 and blows out your headphones. It is the most fun/least fun moment in all of rock music to me. I don’t know why it gets me like it does. Or, until recently, I didn’t. There is a Biblical quality to the current moment; perhaps bleakly because it does feel like we are living in some form of the End Times. We are in a moment where if you were to ask “Hey, what does my future look like?” there is a better than decent chance God would have some real bummer-ass news for you. Such is the case of most stories in the Good Book, and certainly is the tale of fragile humanity as a whole. At the start of the month I lost my friend Chris Washington. He was one of the head bartenders at The Drunken Worm on 39th Street and one of my best friends in the world. An incredibly smart, empathetic, and wildly athletic dude. This whole thing got him out of nowhere. For days on end, it felt like this was just some odd joke that

he’d played without realizing that it was not gonna go over well. Like he was gonna jump out from behind a curtain and say, “Oops, I really misjudged that joke, but I’m totally still here!” Of course that flawed punchline never came. I’ll never see him again in any way. He just ceases to be, and that should be against the rules. There is no good world where Chris can just be taken away from us on a whim. Nothing in 2020 is fair, but it is worth noting for the record: This isn’t fair. We met with his family when they came to town to make final arrangements. I’m not sure they understood why it was that my wife and I spoke as if we were his best friends, but the truth is that C-Wash was best friends with everyone who knew him. Losing him was a painful reminder that this is all still so awful, that our future is still very dark, and that we could lose anyone/anything at any time. His son said, “I will, but Dad... I’m afraid.” None of us can have a foundation in 2020. It’s all sand moving under our feet. Where is Chris’s future? Why is he no longer in mine? Who knows what next week will look like, especially right now? Who writes your story? What if we could avoid the inevitable? What if this could turn the corner and flatten destiny’s curve? What if this could be better? This spawned the current issue of the magazine that you’re reading. We asked some of our favorite writers to explore what they think the future of Kansas City looks like. What are the best possible versions of what we could be in the next five to ten years? What are the practical steps it would require to get there? What takes KC from being simply the 38th most populated city in the country to being one of the top ten places to live in the United States? As someone who moved here after a decade in Los Angeles because I saw KC as a rising star, I see that evolution written in this city’s blood. Are we “The Next Austin,” like so many like to say? Probably. Let’s hope that we stay atop our infrastructure needs better than them. Are we the only place where I could have met someone as wonderful and pure as Christopher Washington? Clearly. Are we ready to tackle our issues head on; those items speed-bumping our progress towards being a destination city? Most assuredly. Here’s our look at how things could get better. Here’s how we could share a higher, brighter path forward. Here’s your future. Pitch in and we’ll get through,

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FUTURES

DISMANTLE THE POLICE IMAGINING WHAT LAW ENFORCEMENT COULD EVOLVE TOWARDS WORDS BY EMILY COX, ILLUSTRATIONS BY KATELYN BETZ, PHOTOS BY TRAVIS YOUNG

In the future, there will be no police in Kansas City. No more armed officers escalating situations with gun violence. No cops to harass people making consensual choices with other adults about drugs and sex. No traffic cops on power trips with racial biases. No sheriffs, either, evicting people from their homes. In the future, everyone will have access to safe and healthy homes. Everyone will have food to eat. Schools will have all the resources needed to educate children, who will all have the potential for bright futures. Health care will be available for the physical and mental needs of everyone.

THE PITCH | September 2020 | thepitchkc.com

If someone hurts you, there will be community mediators trained in transformative justice. You can call on people amongst your friends, your family, your neighbors who will be prepared to step in and hold one another accountable, to address the conflict’s roots, to help prevent it from happening again. To facilitate actual justice. If people have what they need, there won’t be burglaries to bust, or trespassers to pursue. If people learn that caring for one another is more important than competing with one another, and have healthy outlets for anger and avenues to heal trauma, there will be dramatically few assaults and interpersonal violence to address.

Maybe that future feels intangible, impossible. But the steps to get there—to get to a future where everyone is free from the terror and harassment of living in a police state, where everyone (and I mean everyone) is entitled to housing, food, health, care, respect—begin now. •

•

Jenay Manley, a leader with KC Tenants, has tried to play by the rules of our current system. Five years ago, the father of her children abused her, and she called the police. “I thought if I pressed charges,” she says, “he’ll know that you don’t do this to people, and it’ll never happen to anybody else. And then it happened.” He then abused the woman he was next with. When she and her children recently faced homelessness, she made the choice to return to her ex. “I knew it was domestic violence or homelessness, so I chose to deal with my body and my mental wellness in order to give my kids a house.” He has now hurt her again, and she is once again press-

ing charges, out of a lack of alternatives. “I’ve done it the way they say you do it! I’ve done it that way, and it did nothing,” says Manley. “It did nothing to make my kids have a better father. It did nothing to make them feel safe or secure.” In our future free of police, Manley says, “hopefully we are healing our communities instead of just punishing them for the traumas that have been put upon them and they are now putting upon others because they have never been healed.” Instead of punishment, we need transformative justice—justice that transforms harm from the root. “It is a long-term healing situation, where he has to own what he’s done, not just to me, but what my kids saw,” says Manley. “Transformative justice is therapy for me, for my children, it is therapy for him, it is holding him accountable.” At the same time, she continues, “Justice is not all about him. He’s not the one who needs justice. A jail is not justice. It leaves me and my kids behind. All they care about is him being behind bars. And that doesn’t

FUTURES

do anything for my children’s self-esteem, that doesn’t do anything for my children’s relationship with their father later on, if they choose to have it. Transformative justice is parenting classes if they decide that’s what he needs. It’s giving him the space to really know that he did wrong, and also the space to know it’s okay to say that you did wrong.” “For me, transformative justice is every single person who got hurt in this situation gets to voice that and how they can be healed,” says Manley. “What are the roots of what he did? What made him violent? What made him okay with hurting me? What made him okay with his kids seeing that? It seems like he needs some healing. Just putting him in jail isn’t going to heal anything. It’s not going to make me better, it’s not going to make him better, it doesn’t do anything.” “I’ve heard people say, oh well if you were assaulted, or if your kid was assaulted, or if someone killed your kid, what would you do?” continues Manley. “The truth is, I don’t know what I would do. But I know that the cops don’t actually make it so that

those things don’t happen. My goal is not to punish someone who hurts me. It is to stop people from hurting me. And the cops, all they do is enforce a punishment.” Defunding the police is an opportunity to fund housing. Envisioning the future, Manley says, “I would like to see land trusts, I’d like to see guaranteed housing for everyone, I’d like to see a safe place for my kids, I would like to know that I don’t have to move back into an apartment with someone who abused me five years ago because we have to afford to live.” •

•

This isn’t about one broken department— but an entire system of control destroying lives and communities. Police are the enforcers of structural inequality in our society. If you believe that Black lives matter, it is critical to understand that our system of policing and prisons is killing Black people, and upending families and neighborhoods. “It’s a myth that is intentionally perpetuated that the police are here to protect

and serve,” says Ray Billis, a co-founder of Black Rainbow, a new local collective working for social justice. “They don’t protect and serve—specifically for low-income and Black and brown people. They terrorize people, they criminalize people, they don’t do anything to decrease the harm in our community. We specifically use the word ‘harm’ as opposed to ‘crime,’ because we see crime as a political category.” Police and prosecutors are selective on what crimes are pursued and punished. Who is made criminal? The War on Drugs has been waged for decades against non-violent, low-level offenders in poor communities of color. While white people and Black people use and sell drugs at the same rates, whites are incarcerated at a rate of 450 per 100,000, and Black folks are incarcerated at the staggering rate of 2,306 per 100,000. That’s a lot of fathers being taken away from their children because they were pulled over with a joint on them. And once branded a criminal, it follows you for the rest of your life. You are relegated to a second-class status, losing access to jobs, housing, educa-

tion, public assistance. Cops also face very few consequences for their actions. Qualified immunity shields police officers from liability for harm they cause. Their powerful unions, which historically are in opposition to the values and goals of actual labor unions, ensure officers have little accountability and often work to resist reforms. Cops have incentives to harm and harass community members— like making a bad arrest at the end of their shift so they can rake in easy overtime pay doing paperwork. That’s really a thing. And there’s little recourse in the courts: the Supreme Court has stripped Americans’ 4th Amendment protections around unreasonable search and seizure. Okay, so the police are a problem. So how do we handle the harm happening in our communities right now? As of this writing, 122 people have been murdered in Kansas City this year. We are on pace for 198 murders in 2020. Our previous record year was 1993, with 153 homicides in KCMO. This is a genuine crisis. And the police thepitchkc.com | September 2020 | THE PITCH

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are incapable of solving it. Under KCPD’s watch, we have had 100+ murders year after year. As KCPD’s budget has risen, so has gun violence in our city. Police have proven themselves unable to prevent murders or even to find those who commit them—the current clearance rate is only 43 percent. “We think that interpersonal violence is a very, very serious issue that does need to be solved,” says Billis of Black Rainbow. “We think that the way to solve that is not by increasing policing. What are the relationships that people have with systems that create a need to commit violence? What that means is, what can we do to make people not have a need to commit violence?” “We also think that homelessness is violence,” continues Billis. “We think that food insecurity is violence. We think that miseducation and diseducation is violence. The accumulation of systemic violence that is imposed on Black people and brown people and low-income people creates these conditions that force people to have to commit violent acts for survival.” Attempts to curb gun violence in our city without addressing systemic violence, like poverty and racism, will ultimately fail. “We, as abolitionists,” says Billis, “aren’t foolish, by any means, to think that we can pull cops off the street and release all the people from jails and that everything will be awesome. As abolitionists, it is our job to think about harm. And we came to this idea and this belief of abolition because we are concerned with the harm that takes place, the interpersonal harm and violence, that takes place in our communities. What it means to be an abolitionist is wanting to actually solve this harm that takes place in our communities.” Abolishing police and prisons is a longterm process of community transformation. The call to abolish police is a call to abolish harm and violence. If you are worried about the murder rate in Kansas City—don’t look to the police for answers. In addition to their failure to prevent homicide, the police also commit it. KCPD’s

THE PITCH | September 2020 | thepitchkc.com

“A lot of people, when they hear ‘abolition’ or they hear ‘defunding,’ they associate it with an absence,” says Billis. “When really, what we’re saying is we want more presence. We want a presence of more positive institutions and services that actually protect and give life and give opportunities to people. We’re not advocating for absence, we’re advocating for presence.” statistics on homicide explicitly exclude “officer-involved shootings.” According to data compiled by the Kansas City Star and the Washington Post, KCMO police officers have killed 73 people since 2005. Seven people have been killed by KCPD so far in 2020 alone. “The people who are most concerned with gun violence and harm in our communities should be the people most interested in the idea of abolition,” says Billis. In July, Black Rainbow and a broad coalition of other local organizations including KC Tenants, One Struggle, NAACP, and the Urban League, released an open letter to Mayor Lucas with demands that include cutting KCPD’s budget by 50 percent and redirecting those funds to housing, healthcare, and education. “Right now we spend $273 million dollars on police. We think that that’s absurd, irrational, outdated.” says Billis of Black Rainbow. That amount represents a whopping 38 percent of the city’s budget. Kansas City is required by law to spend 20 percent of its operating budget on police—and this coalition says we need to scale back to the minimum. Their letter pointed to the statistics.

“From 2012 to 2018, KCPD’s budget has grown an absurd 28 percent (an increase of over $50 million) while the violent crime rate has risen 42 percent. It is clear: Increasing an already bloated police budget does not reduce crime.” Among Black Rainbow’s other demands: “We want Chief Smith, who has a history of racism and violence towards the Black community, fired immediately,” says Billis. “We want to suspend the use of paid administrative leave for cops under investigation. We want KCPD to withdraw participation in police militarization exercises.” Reforms have not worked. Putting more money into the police department by doing things like funding body cameras or mandatory trainings are wrong-footed. Investing in community safety means divesting from the police. “What we propose is divesting from the institution of policing that has never been truly proven to decrease harm, to decrease poverty, to decrease violence,” says Billis. “Instead, we propose to invest in life-affirming institutions, whether that be mental health, health care, education, housing, any of these types of institutions that have actually been proven to decrease interpersonal

violence in our communities.” Manley is clear: “Every dollar that goes into policing is a dollar taken away from poor people. Every single dollar is a dollar taken away from the solutions that we know would help.” In talking about how defunding the police will work, Manley says, “It’s our elected officials job to do the legwork and the research. I’ve been doing research, I’m not getting paid for it, I’m doing it. So why are they not? And instead you tell me that defunding the police sounds radical and absurd—it sounds radical and absurd for us to continue to have police officers that we know have guns and are going to kill us!” The threat of violence is never going to be the way to stop violence. Manley says, “Stop the traumas that happen in our education system, stop the traumas that happen in our houses when we’re children, stop forcing women to stay in abusive relationships to pay their bills or to watch their children. Our children wouldn’t be dealing with these traumas as adults without resources, and maybe—maybe, violence would not be repeating itself, if we invest in our people.” Abolition is making police and prisons obsolete by reimagining how we relate to one another. INCITE, a network of radical women of color organizing against violence, paints a portrait of an abolitionist future: “We seek to build movements that not only end violence, but that create a society based on radical freedom, mutual accountability, and passionate reciprocity. In this society, safety and security will not be premised on violence or the threat of violence; it will be based on a collective commitment to guaranteeing the survival and care of all peoples.” Kansas City, can we commit to caring for one another? “A lot of people, when they hear ‘abolition’ or they hear ‘defunding,’ they associate it with an absence,” says Billis. “When really, what we’re saying is we want more presence. We want a presence of more positive institutions and services that actually protect and give life and give opportunities to people. We’re not advocating for absence, we’re advocating for presence.” The abolition of police and prisons is as necessary as the abolition of slavery was. We will look back on this era of violent policing and mass incarceration and wonder how we let such injustice stand for so long. We will look back on this system of racial control, and grieve and honor the millions of people who were harmed by it. In the future, Kansas City, we won’t be beholden to a cadre of people with guns who wield power over the rest of us. KC will be home to well-resourced schools, to equitable health care, to plentiful good food on everyone’s tables, to people who collaborate and care for one another. It is time to imagine the possibilities—and bring them into being.

thepitchkc.com | September 2020 | THE PITCH

FUTURES

PINING FOR DINING IN THE NEAR FUTURE, WHAT WILL RESTAURANT ADVENTURES LOOK LIKE? CHOOSE YOUR OWN. BY LIZ COOK WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY FRANK MYLES

The year: 2025. COVID-19: Years in the rear-view mirror. Your roommate Samira: starving. “No more studying,” she says, closing the Existential Algebra textbook on your hand. “It’s the weekend. We’re young, we’re fun, we’re tolerably attractive. We’re going out. Also, it’s like 8 p.m. and all I’ve had to eat today is a Cinnabon Coke Zero.” “That’s not my fault,” you say. “Just get an Observation Pizza or something.” She collapses theatrically onto the futon. “I’m not getting pizza. I went on one Tinder date with an e-bike delivery guy, and now he’s magically the one dispatched to the apartment every time I order in.” “There’s always the Home Depot Pro Café,” you say, mostly as a joke. Samira snorts. “Like we could even get a table. You’ve gotta reserve that shit two months out. Plus, they’ve got a dress code, and I’m not in a black-tie mood. They’ve gotten so pretentious since they switched to the lobster tasting menu.” You sigh and slide the textbook into your backpack. “Fine. Where then?” “There’s a new worker-owned collective on Troost that’s supposed to be good. Or—” She pauses, bracing herself. “Your favorite.” To go to the worker-owned collective, jump to page 2 To go to the KCI airport Chili’s, jump to page 3

THE PITCH | September 2020 | thepitchkc.com

PAGE 2

The “worker-owned collective” is a small but homey café called The Magpie. At the entrance, a man with a gray ponytail and a warm smile gestures you over to an enormous wood communal table lined with low, mismatched armchairs and squat chenille poufs. An older couple is already seated there, picking over a bowl of what look like fried onions lacquered in deep brown. The man holds the bowl out to you, and you tip out a small handful to be polite. One bite reveals they’re not onions—the morsels are lighter and crispier, indecorously coated in a blend of smoked paprika and herby za’atar. “These are awesome,” you say. “What are they?” “Mealworms,” the man says. Before you have time to process this, a dark-haired server in a red skirt streams from the kitchen and drops a plate in front of him—tacos dressed with tiny cubes of fresh peaches and jalapenos. You notice the server has a couple tattoos with the new glitter ink: fronds of a Weeping Willow tree streak gold down her bicep like fireworks. “Grasshopper and crispy shallot tacos,” she tells you, mistaking the direction of your gaze. “The chef this month’s on an insect kick.” “This month?” She stares, pressing her tongue into the side of her cheek as she tries to suss out

whether you’re messing with her. “Yeah. We all rotate jobs. I’ll move to the dish pit next week, and I’ll be working on new recipe development after that.” “And that… works?” She shrugs. “Well enough. There’s been a front-of-house/back-of-house rivalry at every other place I’ve worked. Here, it’s just our house.” An electronic chime sounds somewhere in the kitchen as the door from the street flies open. A tall man wearing an N-95 mask strides in and Samira shivers. “I know I should be used to it,” she says to you quietly. “And I’m glad people mask up

when they’re sick now—but I still have, like, a trauma response when I see one of those.” If you tell Samira, “They’re the reason we got the 2020 pandemic under control,” jump to page 4. If you tell Samira, “Wish we could have got everyone to wear them when it mattered,” jump to page 5.

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“Hi-welcome-to-Chili’s-home-of-the-ImpossibleTM-Baby-Back-Rib.” The greeting spills out of the hostess in one breath, words smashed into one another like a German hex. Somehow, you still hear the trademark.

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The airport dining room is lit like a stadium. The customers don’t seem quite real. Along one wall, three men in identical gray suits lift Calzone-Crusted Taquitoritos (sponsored by Amazon Prime) to their ash-colored faces in unison. The longer you look at them, the more spectral their bodies seem to become. You sense that they have always been here. You sense that they will never leave. “Let’s jet,” Samira mutters under her breath. “I forgot how much this place gives me the creeps.” “Your table’s already set,” the hostess says in a monotone. “It’s happy hour. $5 Mudslides.” She plucks at her sweaty red uniform polo, trying to unstick it from her back. She’s glistening with a layer of something shiny and damp, even though the airport is chilled to a frosty 62 degrees. “Yeah, I actually just remembered I left my car unlocked, so—” Your mouth dries up. “But you must stay,” the hostess says. “Everyone stays.” You realize with a start that her eyes have no pupils—they’re just flat, green discs. “No, we really can’t,” you say. “Right Sam? Sam?” You grab Samira’s elbow and dig your fingertips into the fleshy crook of her arm. She nods without looking at you. Her eyes are fixed on the TV above the bar, which is broadcasting the airport arrivals board. As if on cue, every single flight switches over to DELAYED. “Welcome to Chili’s,” the hostess says again. She’s even shinier now, a human candy apple. She lifts her hands in prayer and tendrils of transparent mucus trail from her arms. “Every hour is happy hour.” The End

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“They make me feel better, honestly,” you say. “I mean, they’re the reason we got the 2020 pandemic under control, right?” “Right?” Samira says, a little too loudly.

“Can you imagine if we hadn’t stopped the spread and successfully lobbied Congress to pass that hospitality and entertainment industry relief bill?” Everyone in the restaurant swivels slowly in their seats until they’re looking directly into the camera. (It’s 2025. Cameras are everywhere.) “Well, Troost would look different,” you say, scanning the menu. “Like half of the restaurants on this block would be empty storefronts.” Samira starts tallying changes on her fingers: “The recession would have lasted

with your neighbors and listening to your server tell you about a cocktail she’s workshopping—a dupe of something she tried on her vacation. When you’re done, you wave your phone over the integrated touch screen in the table to pay. There’s no tip to calculate; everyone at the restaurant makes a living wage. You stride out onto the street and into a muggy September night, full and happy. The staccato chime of a bicycle bell breaks the silence, and Samira jerks your shoulders back just in time. A cyclist whips past so close, you can feel the wind ruffle your hair.

way longer. The city would have negative money. Mayor Q probably wouldn’t have gotten a second term. Hell, we all might still be paying out of pocket for health care.” “Dystopian shit,” you say, shrugging off the bad vibes. You have a nice meal chatting

“Jesus Christ. You almost walked right into the bike lane.” You follow her along the sidewalk, breathing in the thick, heavy scent of exhaust and smoked meat and heat-scorched asphalt. The whole block is lit up like a

Christmas display; neon OPEN signs and beer lights and golden streetlamps warm the pavement. The city’s been through a lot, but tonight, it feels fully, defiantly alive. “OY.” Samira shouts. She’s climbing the steps of a city bus that pulled up while you were daydreaming. “You coming?” The End

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“Wish we could have got everyone to wear them when it mattered,” you say. “Then maybe this wouldn’t be the only restaurant for a mile.” “Or maybe it wouldn’t be this expensive,” Samira whispers, pointing to the touch screen menu embedded in the table. “I get that they have to pay for their employees’ health care, but $30 for three tacos?” Your stomach growls as if in protest. “Let’s go somewhere else.” “There is nowhere else.” “Ugh,” you say. “I guess it’s pizza after all.” You push open the door and stride out into the street. The blare of a car horn punctures the silence, and Samira jerks your shoulders back just in time to save you from being flattened by a boxy hatchback the color of an infected wound. “Jesus Christ. You almost walked right in front of a Kia Soul.” At the corner, she checks something on her phone and groans. “The next bus isn’t for 50 minutes. Goddamn Flat Andy.” You swear. The city slashed the transportation budget after the unchecked pandemic and years-long recession. The new mayor, a cardboard cutout of Andy Reid, has stood idly by while the city bleeds. “Just our luck,” you say, eyeing the darkening sky. You wish you’d worn more comfortable shoes. And maybe brought an umbrella. “May as well just walk. You coming?” The End On Twitter @lizcookkc thepitchkc.com | September 2020 | THE PITCH

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Kris Johnson is a running back and wide receiver on the Glory. Johnson and the rest of the team are going to play a pivotal role in the future of sports in Kansas City. NATALIE MCMULLIN

REINVENTING SPORTS OPTIONS FOR WHERE OUR COMPETITIVE SPIRIT COULD EXPAND NEXT BY JOSEPH HERNANDEZ

Kansas City sports are blessed. In the past decade, fans saw Jimmy Nielsen be the hero with at least one broken, freaking rib as his penalty shootout saves helped Sporting KC capture the MLS Cup in freezing temperatures. They saw “what speed do” when the Royals won their first World Series in 30 years. They saw God reincarnate as Patrick Mahomes when the once-in-a-generation quarterback broke every curse on his road to leading the Kansas City Chiefs to win their first Super Bowl in 50 years. While COVID-19 makes us question the future, some things are guaranteed. Mahomes will be here for at least the next 12 years, which means at least six more championships. The Royals have loads of young talent to lead the way. Sporting KC is a perennial playoff contender and should stay that way. So what’s next for Kansas City sports? This city is a sports town, as evidenced by the loyal fans who braved the weather for

THE PITCH | September 2020 | thepitchkc.com

the Chiefs’ championship parade, the fans who paid $40 to put a cardboard cutout of themselves at Kauffman Stadium, and the Children’s Mercy Park sellout streak Sporting KC held. No one knows what the future holds, so we’re taking a look at some things that just might happen in the next five years. Feel free to revisit and laugh at us in five years when our predictions are wrong. Ball so hard I think that I’m Kobe The one major sport that doesn’t have a professional presence in Kansas City is basketball (yes, the Missouri Mavericks count). Once upon a time, Kemper (now Hy-Vee) Arena hosted the NBA. The Kansas City Kings were here for 13 years, having some fun along the way. Future Hall of Famer Nate Archibald led the league in scoring and assists in its inaugural season, the first time any player accomplished such a feat. Cotton Fitzsimmons earned Coach of the Year honors in 1979, as the Kings went 48-34. The

same season saw Phil Ford named Rookie of the Year. The Kings even made the Western Conference Finals in 1981 while finishing the regular season 40-42. That’s as good as it got, as it only had four winning seasons. Outdrawn by the Kansas City Comets in attendance and general manager Joe Axelson’s hatred for the city led the team back to Sacramento in 1985. Years later, The Rock would sing about the Los Angeles Lakers beating them in May to The Beatles’ “Kansas City.” In the final game here, fans wore masks that mocked Axelson. A dummy made in his image was passed, kicked, and pummeled around the arena. Chants of “We Want Fat Axe,” and signs reading “Nuke Sacramento,” and “Kill Axelson,” were spotted among the 11,371 in the arena. Such a fitting end. We don’t know when a professional basketball team will return, but it’ll happen. A Bleacher Report article from May 18, 2018 reported that an unnamed NBA executive said to Kansas City native and thenSEC Network employee Jarrett Sutton that a team will make its way to Kansas City at some point. Sutton, now affiliated with the NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans, said that significant progress happened since 2018. They’ve been in discussion with Mayor Quinton Lucas and other city officials on what it’ll take to bring a team here. They’ve talked to Bob Kendrick, President of the Negro League Baseball Museum, and have received his support in naming the team the Monarchs. The league views Kansas City, along with Seattle, as one of the most valuable markets remaining. There’s a vacant television market that the league would capitalize on by expanding here, as it would have the same reach as the Royals. “Kansas City is definitely a hidden gem, and it’s a great sports town with a big market in the Midwest that makes a lot of sense,” Sutton says. Is he wrong? The city proves time and time again that it cares about basketball, as the Kansas Jayhawks draw big crowds when they play at the Sprint T-Mobile Center. The venue is in the NCAA’s rotation for March Madness. Kansas City also holds the record for most tournament games hosted at 134. The NCAA comes here because it knows the city cares. The Midwest also has next-to-nothing when it comes to the NBA. The closest team Kansas City has is the Oklahoma City Thunder, which is over five hours away. One could count the Chicago Bulls, but they haven’t been enjoyable to watch since Dennis Rodman skipped practice to appear on WCW Monday Nitro with the nWo. It might take some time for the city to warm-up to an NBA team, as the season runs in-between

Liz Sowers is the quarterback for the Kansas City Glory. Her twin sister, Katie, is an offensive assistant coach on the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers. NATALIE MCMULLIN

the NFL and MLB, but once it does, the team will never leave. Women’s Everything, please Speaking of basketball, what about the WNBA? Rumors swirled in Dec. 2006 that the Charlotte Sting would be sold and moved to Kansas City. Instead, the Charlotte Bobcats announced on Jan. 3, 2007 that the Sting would cease operations after the fundraising effort to move the team here failed. There haven’t been discussions of expanding the WNBA as the league’s focused on strengthening its current teams, but when it’s time, Kansas City needs consideration. There is a market for women’s sports, and it’s a shame it took people this long to see the value women in sports bring. At one point, Kansas City saw what a women’s professional team was capable of doing. FC Kansas City was one of the first teams introduced when the NWSL began on November 21, 2012. It made the playoffs in the first year and won the championship in 2014 and 2015. The U.S. Women’s National team had four hometown players on its road to winning its third World Cup in 2015, showing the world just how good Kansas City’s team was. Life was good until it wasn’t. Key players missed the 2016 season. Ownership issues forced a sale to a new owner that wasn’t local. The writing was on the wall that FC Kansas City’s time was up, and in 2017 the NWSL announced that the team was relocating to Utah. Not the way a team that won two titles quicker than the other professional teams in town deserved to go out. When does a women’s professional sports league come back? The answer is already here; you just haven’t heard of it. The Kansas City Glory, associated with the Women’s National Football Conference, began its journey Aug. 2019 to be the area’s premier opportunity for women in football.

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One of many mock-ups for possible KC NBA jersey designs, created by local basketball advocate Tim “KC” Canton. TIM “KC” CANTON

The team hasn’t played due to COVID-19, but this is a team that can be a cornerstone for Kansas City sports. Glory president Vicki Kestermont was inspired by watching the Kansas City Titans, a former women’s pro football team. She was in awe at seeing women compete at such an intense level. Through word of mouth, the participation and excitement for the Glory has grown. Mentioning Kansas City’s women’s football team lights up everyone’s eyes. City council members were intrigued when she talked to them. She and her executive board have met with the Chiefs on multiple occasions, who have shown a lot of interest in the team and the growth of women’s football. “The natural progression is women’s football. I have no doubts that our stands will be full and that the Kansas City Glory will be very well known,” Kestermont says. The Glory won’t be the only women’s professional sports team in town in the future, but it’s one that Kestermont expects the city to embrace in no time. With the NFL supporting girls’ flag football and partnering with the NAIA and Reigning Champs

Experiences to make women’s flag football a collegiate sport, the next step is for women’s tackle football to claim a stake in the growing ground of professional sports. It’s the next step for Kansas City sports. Sports of an electronic nature Not one single person on the planet has an answer to when the pandemic will end. Traditional sports won’t return to normal anytime soon. Getting totally blasted outside Arrowhead Stadium five hours before kickoff will happen again at some point, but it might be a while. The bubble for the NBA and WNBA is working, but it’s impossible to predict what happens when they all leave and return to a society that doesn’t take precautions seriously. Knowing all of this, how do we fill the sports void in our hearts? E-Boys and E-Girls, it’s your time to shine. Esports, the term for competitive multiplayer gaming, has picked up a lot of steam. What was once considered a nerd hobby is now a legitimate outlet for people to socialize with like-minded individuals, profit off their talents, compete, and make themselves famous. The time for shaming someone for playing 47 days worth of Overwatch is over (that someone is me). Gamers make bank. Streamers like

“Traditional sports won’t return to normal anytime soon. Getting totally blasted outside Arrowhead Stadium five hours before kickoff will happen again at some point, but it might be a while. The bubble for the NBA and WNBA is working, but it’s impossible to predict what happens when they all leave and return to a society that doesn’t take precautions seriously. Knowing all of this, how do we fill the sports void in our hearts?” Tyler “Ninja” Blevins raked in $500,000 a month on Twitch. Players in the Overwatch League have a minimum salary of $50,000 and up to $5 million in prize pool money to earn throughout the season. The contract also includes health insurance, a retirement savings plan, housing, and outside sponsorships opportunities. Breaking into a competitive esports

league is tough. For instance, there are 67 players in the League of Legends Championship Series for the summer. There are over 8 million concurrent players, according to Riot Games. Even if the number stopped at 8 million, only 0.000000838 of the game’s population is playing professionally. Those 67 players have an average salary of $410,000, near the average MLS salary. thepitchkc.com | September 2020 | THE PITCH

THE PITCH | September 2020 | thepitchkc.com

FUTURES

Gabriel Muñoz (left) takes a selfie with supporters at the Kansas City Esports Expo on Jan. 5. COURTESY GABRIEL MUÑOZ

Kansas City has a spot with growing esports organizations. January saw the first Kansas City Esports Expo take place at Overland Park Convention Center. Described as gamer heaven, it hosted tournaments for pro and casual gamers in Super Smash Bros., Fortnite, Call of Duty, and Street Fighter. There would’ve been an enormous gaming presence at Planet Comicon if not for the pandemic. The Kansas City Pioneers, the city’s first esports team, started as Lorenzo Browne’s vision and with long-time friend Sam Kulikov’s help, built it into what it is today. July saw the Pioneers secure enough funding to create teams in Rocket League and Gears of War, where they’ll be competing against heavily-funded esports organizations for big money. Kansas City Esports, started by Gabriel Muñoz, is the reward for his efforts in starting the first esports organization back in the 2000s, called PDS Tournaments. He didn’t have the funding back then, but now the organization has a practice range at HyVee Arena, where they rent out spaces for gamers to practice. They’ve hosted events, such as the Quarantine Cup, which was a huge success. Muñoz is the creative director at Kansas City Esports. The tournaments organized sees him and Operations director Jeff Wilson come together. The goal when they formed in 2015 was to create a space for people to come in and practice their gameplay. The smallest of goals ended up with the

biggest of dreams, as competitive gaming has a future here. “We want to bring involvement to Kansas City. We also want to pump up the communities that exist here,” Muñoz says. It’s vital to Muñoz to support the community instead of working by himself. These are the communities he hopes to stand by and support as it expands. He sees the organization assisting by promoting the many different gaming communities in the area. It’s more than posting events. It’s spotlighting a gamer by streaming their gameplay and letting them spread their wings by sharing more about themselves to the community. Muñoz hopes by doing this that it helps upcoming gamers realize that they can go pro. The more gamers that make it professionally from this city, the more likely it is that the city gets the recognition it deserves. Up-Down has taught this city that there are talented gamers here. They just need exposure. Looking forward to anything at all This isn’t a definitive list of what the future of sports will look like in Kansas City. There’s so much that can go right or wrong in the next five years. For all we know, there can be a brand new sport that takes the world by storm invented at Loose Park. Maybe sports cease to exist and everyone just has to deal with us bragging about being the last Super Bowl champion. But whatever the future of sports holds, Kansas City will play. thepitchkc.com | September 2020 | THE PITCH

THE PITCH | September 2020 | thepitchkc.com

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CORRECTING BACK TO CORRECTIONAL MOVING FROM PUNISHMENT TO REHABILITATION TRICKLES DOWN TO SAVE OUR COMMUNITY BY MAYOR QUINTON LUCAS

[Editor’s Note: As we asked what the city looks like moving forward, and how we fix some of the largest problems facing our community, we thought it prudent to ask the person most directly tasked with overcoming those pitfalls: Mayor Quinton Lucas. The Pitch and our columnists have our own opinions on what should be done, but none of us sit in a position to discuss what could actually come to be in the years to come. In watching a city plagued by gun violence that will almost certainly set a new homicide record this year, as federal agents are being redirected to the city, we wanted to hear what the most informed individual in the situation had to say about what we’re up against and where he intends to lead us.]

Alpho-David. Alfuh-Davit. Alpha-Davit? It took him awhile to get it right—not because he couldn’t pronounce the word, but because he couldn’t read it. When he finally got it, we were both proud. Affidavit. It’s entirely possible that this man’s inability to read played a significant role in a long series of misguided decisions that ultimately landed him in Auburn Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in New York. I met this student in my final months of law school in upstate New York; I taught him and his classmates a Constitutional Law course for two hours each week for a semester, and I learned more from them than perhaps any other group of people I’ve been surrounded by in my life.

Criminal Justice Reform In recent years, our country has rightfully engaged in serious discussions surrounding criminal justice reform and has slowly begun to ratchet back some of the damage caused by the war on drugs that existed throughout much of my childhood. As we work to implement reform—at all levels of government—we must take seriously these two responsibilities: 1. Helping provide low-level offenders an opportunity to get back on their feet, rather than throwing them in jail; and 2. Reimagining what happens inside of jails and prisons for offenders who are already there. My philosophy on prison is simply this: You should go there if you murder someone, if you shoot at someone, if you stab someone. You should not go to jail if you failed to pay a parking ticket, were busted with a small amount of marijuana, or couldn’t afford an alternative option like diversion. A lot of people who get caught up in the system spend the rest of their lives trying to climb out—with little luck. We need to move beyond sending people to prison because our legal systems allow small infractions or unpaid fines to compound upon each other to the point of incarceration. We’re working in Kansas City on imple-

Mayor Quinton Lucas meets Dwayne Wright, the first person he pardoned under his Mayoral Marijuana Pardon Program. MORGAN SAID

menting real reform measures, creating an alternative means of accountability for violations that previously resulted in incarceration, and rejecting overly punitive measures that disproportionately harm poor Kansas Citians. We’ll continue to rectify today the policies that allow prison to turn into the end of a person’s life, so that in the future, it may serve instead as a turning point. Providing Second Chances In what I hope becomes nationally transformative, I’ve introduced an ordinance to establish a Kansas City Administrative Tribunal that would oversee parking tickets and other non-violent city ordinance violations similarly to how the Kansas City Municipal Court does—with this important distinction: incarceration would never be imposed in any part of the process payment or collections process. Instead, fines would be civil in nature, with unpaid fines and interest going to one’s tax bill. Earlier this summer, the City Council overwhelmingly passed my proposal to remove marijuana violations from the Kansas thepitchkc.com | September 2020 | THE PITCH

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Mayor Quinton Lucas in his office at City Hall.

FENGXUE ZHANG

City Code of Ordinances altogether, because the City should not be in the marijuana policing business. I’ve also created a Marijuana Pardon Program and have issued my first pardon. And the Council also recently passed my ordinance compelling the Municipal Court to provide, at minimum, 20 percent of non-violent indigent defendants the opportunity for diversion—helping ensure poor people aren’t burdened by the legal system. Usually, people who can afford a lawyer can have them negotiate diversion, help them get good deals, and avoid some of the aggravating penalties that come from even small municipal ordinance violations such as a parking ticket, but there are thousands of Kansas Citians who don’t have that opportunity. Now, more people who can’t necessarily afford a lawyer must still be provided diversion opportunities in lieu of other, oftentimes more punitive or expensive, penalties. In a future Kansas City, the past doesn’t unreasonably follow people into their future. No one will be in our County jail because they were arrested after having a warrant out for their arrest because they couldn’t get off work to show up for their court date because they couldn’t afford to pay a parking ticket 18 months back. Instead, they’ll receive an opportunity to set up a payment plan, or maybe serve an afternoon of community service, if they can’t pay the ticket. We will continue working toward a streamlined set of legal parameters that do not discriminate based on race or economic status. Nobody is above the law, but more equitable laws can be in our benefit—to not only decriminalize poverty, but also allow law enforcement to focus more on more violent, serious crimes. Correcting vs. Punishing There are violent criminals and we need them off our streets. That’s not the question before us today. Instead, we ought to ask our policymakers—myself included, especially as Jackson County moves toward building a new jail—how do we ensure jails and pris-

THE PITCH | September 2020 | thepitchkc.com

ons are catalysts for correction, instead of places of only punishment? Over the past several months as we’ve confronted COVID-19, many in our community have come to realize—perhaps for the first time—the psychological effect of isolation, and how that loneliness can quickly spiral into depression or anxiety. But at least we, on the outside, have a release. We can talk to our friends or partners, go on walks, listen to our favorite songs, eat our favorite foods. We must approach our incarcerated brothers, sisters, and siblings with the understanding that it must be difficult to feel motivated to make better decisions in the current prison setting. A future Kansas City, following the lead

of cities like San Francisco, will not charge exploitative rates for inmates to speak on the phone. The average cost in Missouri for a 15-minute, in-state call from jail is $20.12, and since many individuals are being held pre-trial, these ridiculous phone rates can be disastrous for those who cannot afford to make calls to post bail, build their defense, or make childcare arrangements while awaiting trial. If the goal of incarceration is truly to correct and rehabilitate, then those incarcerated should be able to contact their families and receive legal counsel, without companies and governments driving up the price to cut a profit. I think back to my “affidavit” student, and how he likely lacked the resources necessary to get him caught up in school or to address any sort of reading disability. According to a Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, nearly 68 percent of inmates in state prisons did not receive a high school diploma and 66 percent reported having a learning disability. A future Kansas City will ensure all inmates are provided the opportunity to earn a GED or continue their education while in prison—with programs that provide employment opportunities for them after they get out. Included in that should be extra support for those with learning disabilities, mental health resources, and individualized guidance to plan for life after incarceration. For both victims and perpetrators, incarceration is often an inadequate tool for

curbing violent crime. Many believe that a person who is released from incarceration often becomes a worse, not better member of society. This can lead to retribution, or a continuation down a life of crime—the only unobstructed path they can take. Our corrections system must return to its original namesake—correcting. I still teach law classes, now at the University of Kansas. At the end of each semester, I tell my students: good luck to you, I have confidence in your future careers, and if I can ever be helpful, don’t hesitate to reach out. At the end of each semester I taught in prisons, both in New York and in Kansas, I could only sign off with a simple: I wish you well. Even though they were also students just the same—capable of learning, problem solving, and hope—the current system of “corrections” we provide leaves me at a loss. When I leave these students, what systems of support—if any—are in place to carry the futures of these men, who will undoubtedly have many more difficult years ahead of them? I sincerely hope for a future in which some of those students may walk free; may get to know how it feels to be enamored by a book, be a grandfather; or may even get to use some of the lessons they learned in my class to help someone else. Mayor Lucas and his mother, Quincy Bennett, standing outside of the Black Archives of MidAmerica Kansas City. FENGXUE ZHANG

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FUTURES

Xavier Campbell (left) and Ashley Rudd (right) founded Brown Sugar Collective because they saw representation was missing from other networking events. KELCIE MCKENNEY

having two men at Cherry Pit not work out early on, members put it to a vote and decided to focus on creating a space for womxn and minority artists and makers. “Representation is so important. We get asked a lot, like, can our girl scout troop come in visit? We just want to have them see you all doing your thing. And I think that is huge too. Just the visibility of we’re all womxn running our own businesses, doing this thing. And to us, it kind of feels like a small thing,” Pike says. “But to a lot of people, it’s a big thing.” A need for representation is what fueled the creation of the Brown Sugar Collective, a new networking and collaboration collective focused on supporting Black womxn and womxn of color. Founders Ashley Rudd and Xavier Campbell had attended local networking events, but noticed something glaring missing. “We didn’t see people that look like us there,” says Rudd, who works for Kauffman Scholars and runs her personal-shopping startup and online shop She’s Thrifted. Brown Sugar Collective launched in April of this year with a virtual Lab, where womxn came together to cowork, bounce ideas off each other, and support the projects

WOMXN COLLECTIVES REPRESENTATION FUELS BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT IN KC BY KELCIE MCKENNEY

Coworking is no new trend to Kansas City, and it isn’t hard to find a desk at one of the 20-something coworking businesses scattered across the metro—like Plexpod and WeWork. But womxn-run and womxn-focused coworking spaces are, and these collectives are supporting and uplifting local womxn in business. Kansas City has over 51,000 womxn-owned businesses, according to the National Association of Women Business Owners, and many of them work independently. Ninety percent of womxn-owned businesses in the U.S. have no other employees other than the business owner, according to the US Chamber Foundation, meaning womxn who run their own businesses are often stuck working from home. Firebrand Collective, located in the West Bottoms, was founded in 2016, first as a space for photographers to share a studio, before transitioning to a two-story office filled with private rooms, scattered desks by big windows, and enclosed conference spaces—tailored for womxn.

THE PITCH | September 2020 | thepitchkc.com

“The main thing that we offer is a place, not just a place to work, but a place to work that also has a community built around,” founder and owner Megan Adams says. “It’s filled with womxn specifically who are in the same brain space. That’s really what makes coworking work, and that’s why we spend so much time here really thoughtfully building our community.” Firebrand’s female focus was a direct response to the face that coworking used to be nicknamed “bro-working.” “When you walked into coworking spaces, they were very masculine. They had a masculine energy. Most of their members were men,” Adams says. “So the obvious answer was to create a space that is specifically—it’s not exclusive at all, that’s never been our intention—but it is made for womxn.” Kelsey Pike, a papermaker and art teacher, founded Cherry Pit Collective for similar reasons. Her business Sustainable Paper+Craft needed a studio space with water drainage, but she also missed the collective feel of art school—where other art-

ists could easily collaborate with each other. Maker Village, located at 31st St. and Cherry, was looking to rent out part of their space in 2016, and so the Cherry Pit Collective was formed. Cherry Pit’s members skew more artist and maker, compared to Firebrand’s entrepreneurial member list. Open studio spaces and collective areas are shared between fiber artists, laser cut and enamel jewelry makers, a hat maker, and fine painters, totalling 22 current members. “The intimacy of personal connections is different. Because we specialize in artists and crafters, it’s even more so. Everyone who’s there already has that in common,” Pike says. “But also because we’re womxn-centered. Everyone can feel very safe and comfortable, being themselves, because we know there’s no men there.” The space didn’t start that way, but after Cherry Pit Collective director and founder Kelsey Pike holds a stack of her handmade paper in-between Cherry Pit studio spaces. KELCIE MCKENNEY

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Megan Adams started Camp Firebrand as a way to provide work space and community for working moms. Here she poses with her daughter at Firebrand Collective. KELCIE MCKENNEY

they were working on. Their first in-person event was hosted at Firebrand Collective in July, where Campbell and Rudd are now members. “Within the diverse community, not even just Black womxn, but all womxn of color, there’s so much talent within that realm,” says Campbell, who works for Literacy KC and runs an event planning company called Phenomenal Occasions. “And I feel like, not really like they’re being held back or anything like that, but like the resources; they don’t know the routes to find the resources. Maybe they don’t have the courage or confidence to even get that route. So building a support group for womxn to let them know that they can do it and we’re right here with them.” The virtual labs or in-person events help womxn learn how to file an LLC, get a business license, or connect over shared interests. At one event, a member found the name for her business—thanks to group collaboration. “[Ashley] shared her idea of getting womxn of color together to support one another, and I immediately thought she was onto something pretty great. Once her and Xavier linked, the vision flourished into

what you see now,” says AshleyMarie, founder of Cultivate Vision, a coaching service. “I attended the Brown Sugar Lab in June. I was able to create the framework for my event during the two collaboration hours.” Resources are one of the key benefits of coworking. At Cherry Pit Collective, mem-

bers who are fresh out of art school benefit from seasoned artists sharing knowledge— like ways to market their craft on Etsy, how to promote themselves on social media, and how to run pop-up events. “My business has benefited in ways I never expected. I’ve received more opportunities, I’ve been able to teach workshops, and I’ve been able to collaborate with over probably eight members of the collective,” says Tara Tonsor, Cherry Pit member and artist behind Lost & Found Design. “It widens my mindset about what my business can stand for—not just a maker who sells something to you, but a small business brand that supports the economy of this city and engages in active relationships with other makers. Cherry Pit Collective makes me feel connected.” In August, Firebrand Collective launched Camp Firebrand as a way to create space for working moms. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, members and those who grab a $20 day pass can bring their kids to work. Firebrand offers snacks and “busy boxes”

filled with crafts, pom-poms, and playdough to keep the kids busy, while mom can get work done. “It made sense opening the space up a couple of times a week, just to be kid friendly and to allow parents to bring their kids into a space that is nonjudgmental,” Adams says. “If your kid throws a fit, we all have kids here, and you’re not going to be getting side-eye.” Firebrand plans to roll out more virtual programming, courses, and events later in October. Brown Sugar wrapped up their second social at the end of August and have monthly Labs coming up for networking, collaborating, and creating. Campbell and Rudd are also working towards a nonprofit status. Cherry Pit Collective is considering building a loft in their space, which has ample room due to it’s 30-foot ceilings. The build would double the studio space available. “I think that the future is bringing womxn together, allowing them to use their voices and to discuss ideas, and to find a way forward,” Adams says. “Because womxn are really, honestly the backbone of society.”

WORK IT Firebrand Collective Private offices, hot desks, and day passes available 1101 Mulberry St, Kansas City, MO, firebrandcollective.com Cherry Pit Collective Communal-space Squad memberships available 604 E 31st St, Kansas City, MO, cherrypitcollective.com Brown Sugar Collective Brown Sugar Lab, Sept. 27 — become a member to join Brown Sugar Social, Oct. 22 — open to the public instagram.com/brownsugarcollective.kc thepitchkc.com | September 2020 | THE PITCH

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In thinking about how to talk about this growth (or remaining flat which is still quite an achievement) during this time, I’ve talked to breweries who are actually seeing their revenue and sales volumes increase even though they’ve had to shutter tasting rooms. As someone who sells and markets (and definitely drinks my fair share of) beer for a living, this is encouraging, but what it means in a greater context is that regardless of the industry, folks are going all in on supporting their local breweries, distilleries, wineries, and other makers. In order to capture the business of beer Left: 4 Hands Chocolate Covered Cherry Milk Stout at Flying Saucer. LAUREN SCHURK Below: 4 Hands hand sanitizer producing during COVID-19 shutdown. JEREMY DANNER

directly from their favorite breweries right now is huge and not only will keep businesses afloat, but that support also serves to bolster morale. It’s tough not to smile when you’re loading a couple cases of fresh, delicious beer into the back of someone’s car. Financially, though, this support is absolutely a much needed lifeline. In early April, the Brewers Association sent a survey to member breweries, “…designed to gauge the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent public health and social measures on small breweries. When asked how long they believe they can sustain their current business if social distancing measures remain the same, the majority of the 900-plus breweries nationwide that filled out the survey answered that their business

drinkers who have shifted their consumption from bars and tasting rooms to their couches, backyards, and inflatable pools, craft breweries have pivoted to packaging their beer in crowlers and growlers or, in the case of Alma Mader Brewing on Southwest Boulevard, they’ve brought in small canning machines to offer a wider variety of beers to-go in a package that’s not only better for the beer, but more consumer friendly. Breweries like BKS Artisan Ales have been able to sustain themselves solely through online to-go sales that sell out in minutes every Thursday night. The brewery I represent, 4 Hands Brewing Company out of St. Louis, launched an online store and installed a beer pickup window on the front of the brewery that we’ll continue to operate even when “things are normal again.” I’ll tell you that the support craft breweries have seen by folks who are willing and able to purchase

wouldn’t last more than three months,” Bart Watson, an economist for the Brewers Association, wrote in a article about the survey. He continued, “Based on recent trends, it was likely that 4 to 5 percent of the breweries in the country would have closed in 2020 prior to the shock, so while some percentage of these closures and potential closers reflect businesses that were already struggling, most are brought on solely by this event.” I share this to bum you out, but to present a realistic picture of just how many breweries are in constant danger of closing due to a sudden lack of sales or a drop in profitability. It’s easy to assume that because you see a brewery’s beers on tap all over town or in all the liquor store cooler doors that everything’s fine, but the truth is, many breweries (and businesses in other industries too) are strapped for cash flow when “times are good,” but especially so when “times are bad.”

SOMETHING’S BREWING LOCAL BEER WILL CONTINUE BUBBLING UP BY JEREMY DANNER

The first all employee meeting I attended at Boulevard Brewing Company was during the Great Recession in 2008. I remember sitting through financial and marketing presentations (pretending to understand what things like EBITDA meant and wondering why folks kept calling beers “brands”) before Boulevard’s founder John McDonald spoke to close out the meeting and send us all to the bar for a beer. Always the optimistic pragmatist, John ended his talk by telling us, “You know, they say that people drink when times are good, but when times are bad, they drink more. I think we’re gonna get through this.” I don’t know who “they” are, but I think they’re right. John was right as well. The brewery did survive and continued to grow over the next decade. In fact, the last decade has been a period of unparalleled growth for the craft brewing industry. According to the Brewers Association—a Boulder, Colorado-based trade group of brewers, breweries in planning, suppliers, distributors, craft beer retailers, and individuals particularly concerned with the promotion of craft beer and home brewing— there were 1,500 craft breweries in operation in 2008. By 2012, that number had reached over 2,000. Skip ahead to 2014, and Kansas City saw Martin City Brewing and Kansas City Bier Company open within days of each other. Before 2014, Kansas City had a handful of brewpubs, but apart from Boulevard, it was

THE PITCH | September 2020 | thepitchkc.com

tough to find locally brewed and packaged beer on liquor store shelves. Over the next six years, Kansas City would experience a rebirth of the craft brewing scene. Today, we have over 30 breweries operating in the area, with several more in-planning and even breweries that have opened during a global pandemic. Nationally, there are over 8,000 craft breweries brewing over 26 million barrels (31 gallons) of beer, accounting for roughly 14 percent of the total beer market. Even as overall beer sales have been in decline, dropping 1.6 percent in 2019, craft beer is on the rise gaining 3.6 percent volume growth during the same period. This all brings us to the past few months of a global pandemic closing down bars and restaurants, eliminating jobs, crippling the economy, and killing over 160,000 Americans. I believe we’ve definitely reached what John was referring to when he talked about “when times are bad.” And yet, recognizing the severity and tragedy of all of this, I’m going to continue talking about beer, because what’s happened for some breweries is actually quite remarkable given the awful context. Will I attempt to draw focus away from how serious and dire things are right now? Hell no. But I will tell you that some breweries (and other alcoholic beverage producers) have actually seen an increase in revenue or have remained flat, something I’d consider a victory of sorts.

FUTURES

Left: Alma Mader’s new canning line. NICK MADER Below: Curbside pickup window at 4 Hands Brewing Company. NICK MADER

Moving forward, I expect to see breweries to continue to open, but not nearly at the clip we’ve seen over the past decade, and I think most will open with goals of becoming small, neighborhood or destination breweries, as opposed to wanting to conquer the market with regional or national distribution. This “shrunk down” business model allows brewers to retain control over their beer as it relates to storage and service, which translates to complete command over the quality chain as well as carrying the benefit of a higher profit margin by selling all of their beer in what’s often referred as “own-premise”—the practice of selling all of the beer at the site of production resulting in 100 percent of the profits staying in-house.

While I absolutely encourage you to buy beer from your favorite local breweries when you can, I think it’s still incredibly important to support local grocery and liquor stores as well as your favorite bars that carry craft beer. These businesses employ your friends and neighbors and still represent a ton of sales for the breweries that do distribute their beer. Additionally, patronizing local retailers allows them to support a less consumer facing, yet still very necessary, tier of the beer business, distributors. Without distributors, who often employ much larger local workforces than breweries, given the size and scope of their business, everything would fold. I’ve always said that craft beer is a team sport, and we all rely on and benefit from the successes that suppliers, distributors, and retailers have. I have no idea what the next few weeks or months hold for our region, the nation, and the world, as I’m just a college dropout who’s been fortunate to land a series of super awesome gigs in beer. But I do know that I’m going to drink some local—however you’d like to define that—beers tonight, and I hope you do the same.

THIS OCTOBER, BUY ONE-GET ONE DEALS AROUND KANSAS CITY THEPITCHKC.COM/BOOGO thepitchkc.com | September 2020 | THE PITCH

FUTURES

CONVENTION INTERVENTION OUR LOEWS HOTEL PROJECT FACES DISASTER AFTER THE WORLD ABANDONS CONVENTIONS BY BARB SHELLY

It’s cocktail hour on a Tuesday evening, and I am social distancing at the new Loews Kansas City Convention Center Hotel. This is not difficult. My husband and I are two of just four guests at a bar meant to seat dozens. The place is gleaming and well stocked. The two bartenders on duty are charming; we enjoy a long conversation with one about his new kitten and puppy. It feels like we’re getting a private showing for a swank place, except that we’re not. At this moment, guests should be shoulder-to-shoulder at this bar, buying drinks and helping to fulfill the promise of the 24 stories and 800 rooms above us. The $325 million downtown Loews Hotel was supposed to be the piece that would com-

THE PITCH | September 2020 | thepitchkc.com

plete Kansas City’s convention infrastructure. Build it, and guests and exhibits would soon fill the adjacent Bartle Hall and other sites around town. Visitors would spread their tourist dollars around at restaurants and attractions. Disaster, however, got here first, in the form of a worldwide pandemic. After years spent assembling a byzantine—and risky— financial package, then fighting off a citizens’ revolt over public incentives in the package, it was Kansas City’s great misfortune to open a hotel and conference center at a time when no one is traveling or conferencing. The grand opening date was supposed to be April 2, with more than half of the rooms booked with guests in town for a vol-

leyball tournament. Instead, it opened June 1, with just a trickle of guests, mostly people from around the area wanting to get out of the house for a night or two. What could be more microbe-free than a never-used hotel room? On the evening I visited, a terrace on the seventh floor was deserted, the adjacent bar dark and locked at 5 p.m. Staffers told us it would open later in the week, when the latest ripple of staycation guests arrived to take in whatever action is or isn’t happening in downtown Kansas City. (This is the place in the story where I was expecting to insert a comment from someone in Loews management, probably a rehash of earlier statements about the com-

Loews Hotel’s seventh-floor terrace is empty: No conferences, means no guests at the convention center hotel. TRAVIS YOUNG

pany’s pride in the hotel and its commitment to Kansas City. I was told through a communications person, however, that Loews would have no comment. Maybe because it’s too hard to put a positive spin on a situation this bad. Just my guess.) Loews is just one star in Kansas City’s galaxy to be brought low by a pandemic that started in China. But it is a big, bright star. And so it stands as a monument to the risk the city takes when it risks the public’s money and trust to woo visitors from distant parts. Kansas City’s attempts to become a vis-

FUTURES

“The $35 million bond was all anybody talked about,” Shields says. “But then they said, ‘oh yeah, there’s this catering contract.’ It grows exponentially. This is a huge payment of city dollars that I think was for no purpose except to hide the fact that we weren’t just putting in $35 million on the deal.”

itors destination have been visited by bad luck in the past. The city’s first convention center, Convention Hall, opened in 1899 and burned to the ground a year later. In 1979, hours after top international architects visited Kemper Arena and praised its design, Kemper’s roof collapsed in a rainstorm. Still, in a show of what leaders at the time dubbed the “Kansas City spirit,” workers rebuilt Convention Hall in 90 days, in time to host the 1900 Democratic National Convention. Kemper Arena’s roof got repaired. And the city’s leaders have held on to the belief that civic pride goes hand-inhand with buildings meant for tourists and visitors. In the last 25 years, Kansas City has ex-

A drink at Loews Hotel’s swanky bar feels like a private showing—even though the bar is built to seat dozens. TRAVIS YOUNG

panded Bartle Hall twice, helped developers renovate the hotel now known as Kansas City Marriott Downtown, and put taxpayers on the hook for revenue shortfalls at the Power & Light District. Every city-backed bond issue and tax break is an outgrowth of the magical thinking that developers promote and that elected representatives, and sometimes voters themselves, eventually buy into. That thinking says that Kansas City is always one step away from becoming a tourist mecca—or at least competing with the likes of Denver and Indianapolis. Before work began on a $150 million new ballroom for Bartle Hall, a leader told a reporter for The Pitch that the new addition would double the city’s convention business. It didn’t. So the builders and financiers and dreamers set their sights on a new convention hotel. That would do it, they said. Katheryn Shields, the city council member who chairs the Finance Committee, was running for office in 2015. She opposed the city’s subsidies to the hotel at the time, because she didn’t believe the rosy projections about convention traffic. At least one model assumed the city would double its number of room nights. “How are we going to get so many conventions we double our room nights?” Shields asks. We won’t, not any time soon. Hotels, restaurants, and tourism attractions are uniquely vulnerable to shocks in the economy, and the coronavirus is a shock of immense magnitude. So far this year in thepitchkc.com | September 2020 | THE PITCH

FUTURES

Kansas City, taxes from hotel revenues have fallen by about 80 percent, and restaurant revenues by nearly 45 percent. Visit KC, which promotes conventions and tourism, says 128 meetings, with the potential of 286,000 guests, have canceled since March. But that won’t stop contractual arrangements from coming due for the new Loews Hotel. For the city, that begins with debt service on a $35 million bond that it sold— about $2.6 million this budget year, according to Tammy Queen, Kansas City’s director of finance. When they approved the financing package, city leaders said the payments would come from the convention and tourism fund, which collects taxes from tourism

THE PITCH | September 2020 | thepitchkc.com

and restaurant activities. City council members in 2015 also agreed to pay management and catering contract fees for the hotel—a contractual obligation that received little notice at the time, but which Mayor Quinton Lucas now says could amount to as much as $100 million over 20 years. “The $35 million bond was all anybody talked about,” Shields says. “But then they said, ‘oh yeah, there’s this catering contract.’ It grows exponentially. This is a huge payment of city dollars that I think was for no purpose except to hide the fact that we weren’t just putting in $35 million on the deal.” The catering fees were also supposed

to be paid from the convention and tourism fund, but Queen says that account was out of balance even before revenues cratered in the pandemic. Sales taxes from restaurants and hotels had dipped a bit, and the city kept piling more obligations on the fund. Now, it looks like Kansas City will have to transfer up to $5.1 million from the general fund to the convention and tourism fund to pay Loews-related expenses, Queen says. A comparison isn’t completely fair, because investments in convention and tourism business are supposed to help local businesses and generate sales tax revenues. Still, it’s tempting to think about the many ways the city could use an additional $5 million

this year to help the hundreds of families struggling to afford decent housing. It could build about 30 modest homes on vacant lots, for example. It could double the current $2.8 million allotted for minor home repair, and still have money left to pay for health inspectors to investigate unsafe conditions in rental units. As it is, Kansas City must meet its obligations for Loews and other tourist facilities, even though it will gain few, if any, benefits in the way of increased business and sales taxes. Visit KC, which is, after all, in the business of promoting hope, notes that as of August 1, 56 events it helped to book are still on track to take place this year, with a possible

attendance of 30,000 visitors. That’s about one-third of what had been booked. A number of conventions booked dates in Kansas City for the first time, in anticipation of the Loews Hotel being open, Visit KC officials tell The Pitch. Those include the American Occupational Therapy Association, the Kubota Tractor Corporation, and the African Methodist Episcopal Church. They are booked far enough out that they could still take place if the COVID-19 threat dissipates enough for people to gather. For now, the friendly bartender at Loews sets about drawing a beer for my husband and mixing a whiskey cocktail called the “horsefeather” for me. Across the lobby, staffers are busy preparing a brasserie

The empty hallway leading to the Convention Center would be bustling in another world without COVID-19. TRAVIS YOUNG

restaurant for a delayed opening. The place is all dressed up, but the guests aren’t showing up for the party. Maybe everything will get better soon. People will get over their fear of flying, and companies will decide that meetings need to take place in person instead of by video conference. The convention calendar will fill up. The city will meet its expensive obligations toward the Loews Hotel financing. The old “Kansas City spirit” will come through once again. Or maybe all of that is more wishful thinking. thepitchkc.com | September 2020 | THE PITCH

EAT

Eat and Drink This Now Restaurant at 1900 Now Offers Elegant Dining as Carryout BY APRIL FLEMING

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has forced chefs and cooks of all styles and skill levels to become increasingly more creative and nimble to keep their establishments afloat. It’s an evolution of the business that no one wants or asked for—yet even so, many chefs have proven themselves exceptionally adept at this form of crisis transition, offering customers incredible food and service, while managing to keep their staff members safe. It’s nearly impossible work, but somehow, they wake up and do it every day. This is the foreseeable future of restaurants as we know it. The excellent work being done at the Restaurant at 1900 is no secret—since its opening two years ago, its chef, Linda Duerr, has received an accompanying two James Beard nominations for Best Chef: Midwest. Her

THE PITCH | September 2020 | thepitchkc.com

restaurant specializes in elegant, approachable seasonal fare with exceptional ingredients— and it absolutely was never intended to be a carryout operation. Yet quickly, this remarkable chef and staff have made it one of the city’s finest with its “1900 at Home” service, with special touches that make eating at your own table feel like an extravagant experience. Monday through Saturday (depending on the time), customers can call in lunch or dinner orders and can add bottles of wine from the restaurant’s special reserve, or boozy and booze-free cocktail kits so specially packaged that opening them feels like opening a gift. But oh my lord, this food: The lobster roll off of the lunch menu, for example, features ultra-fresh lobster poached so perfectly that it melts in your mouth, placed on a but-

Above: The lobster roll. Right: Cheesecake tart. Bottom: An Ocean Water Gimlet. ZACH BAUMAN

ter-crisped bun with tangy heirloom tomatoes. Also hard to pass up is a dish of adobo cornmeal-crusted shrimp accompanied by a tempura-fried squash blossom so crisp, so airy it seems unreal, all atop a heap of bright, citric jicama-melon slaw. Pastry chef Elizabeth Paradise’s superb desserts are also nearly as perfect to look at as eat, including a creamy cheesecake tart topped with poached stone fruit and ripe cherries, along with a brown butter crumble and pistachios. It doesn’t feel quite right to call what Duerr and her team are offering as carryout, but if nothing else these past 7 months have all been about redefining pretty much everything. If this is carryout, then may very well be the best carryout Kansas City has ever seen. The Restaurant at 1900 1900 Shawnee Mission Pkwy, Mission Woods, KS therestaurantat1900.com

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MUSIC

When I describe Stephonne Singleton’s voice as another instrument in the music on his latest EP, SIS: Side A, it feels like I’m being overly reductive, considering the dynamism of songs like “Want Me,” which contain delicate subtleties and bombastic largess within the span of three and a half minutes. The musician, however, sees it as an outgrowth of how he learned to appreciate music. Growing up, Singleton says, it was always playing in his house. “My parents had a huge record collection, and I would just play the records all of the time,” Singleton recollects. “In my parents’ record collection we did listen to a lot of R&B and jazz, so there was always Isley Brothers or Luther Vandross or Anita Baker or Phyllis Hyman playing, but we also had Barbara Streisand records and we had Beatles records. When my mom was home, she would cook and she would play records and light incense and it was always on in the car. When I was in my room after school, I turned it on. I would make mix tapes on the radio.” The musician also credits his local public library to furthering his musical education. “I was always encouraged to explore new things,” explains Singleton. “We would go to the library every week, and I would check out CDs from there because we didn’t have a lot of money. It was before streaming services, and so I just got in the habit of checking out all of these CDs so I think I discovered Bjork and Massive Attack and so many different musical acts through that. As far as genre, there’s really never been a limit for me.” When Singleton was seven, he joined the adult Catholic choir at his church, and began to learn about how each voice forms a

THE PITCH | September 2020 | thepitchkc.com

An intimate conversation with the artist of the hour. PAUL ANDREWS

STEPHONNE IS THE FUTURE OF KC’S SOUND AN UNREQUITED LOVE WITH QUEERNESS ITSELF BY NICK SPACEK

part of a larger whole. “I didn’t really have the theory behind that yet, but it really shapes how I hear things,” he continues. “By 10 or 11, I started writing in a notebook and it was so crazy, because I would literally hear all of the lines of everything. I would hear whole compositions, so I would memorize my melody in the way that everything sounded. Then, I would just write it down in the book. That’s all that I had, so I would pressure myself to remember these things vocally. I think that’s why the voice is such a big part of everything for me—because, at one point, it was literally all that I had to make known to people what it was that was in my head.”

That changed when Singleton went to Benedictine College, where he received his Bachelor’s in Music, where he learned a lot about himself, but also expanded his palette of musical knowledge. Being classically trained there, he says, you learn so much about voice, levels, and dynamics. “Afterwards, I was like, ‘What was I thinking?’ especially when I look back at my debt,” Singleton jokingly laments. “But I added Debussy and Mozart and Chopin and, gosh, Grieg and all of these amazing people to my lexicon of musical knowledge and ethos.” Lest you think that Singleton is a dyedin-the-wool classical singer, he name-checks

a diverse array of those already present in the aforementioned lexicon: “Missy Elliott and Timbaland and Nirvana and Jonathan Davis and Korn and Aimee Mann and Sarah McLaughla—I added all of that stuff together. I got a really full scope.” It was combining those years of radio and pop music, along with what he learned in college, which led to Singleton’s current musical awakening. At first, the classical training almost stood in the way of what he wanted to do. While it took him a while to let go of his classical, operatic training, along with the control that implies, when he did, it was freeing. “I was able to get out of my own way and then really express what was inside and express more of my soul—which is pain— and then everything kind of comes together,” Singleton admits. Musician Mick Ronson once referred to some of his work as “sad bangers,” a term which has now come to be personified by songs like Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own.” They come from a place of hurt, but through finding power in pain, experience catharsis. This is definitely something which can be applied to Singleton’s music. “I’ve been through a lot of childhood trauma,” the musician explains. “I think growing up Black in mostly white Catholic schools and being queer in Catholic institutions has definitely added to depression and anxiety through a lot of my life.” In college, Singleton discovered the power of using music as a way to get things out there, however obliquely. At the time, he was part of a pop-folk duo—think John Mayer or Michelle Branch doing acoustic

thepitchkc.com | September 2020 | THE PITCH

MUSIC

Stephonne Singleton in his element. PAUL ANDREWS

He also says the song is about having an unrequited love with queerness itself. “Because I’m queer, right?” asks the musician rhetorically. “I love the gay community. I love sex. I love boys. I love all of these things, but I was in an imminent situation where that is not reciprocated to me as a Black man.” Singleton points to the fact that he’s done drag in this community as part of Late Night Theater, and feels that he’s given a lot of himself. When Singleton is onstage, everyone claps and everyone is happy, but when he would leave the stage to take off his makeup, he would once again feel as though

ha!’ moment hits them. I love that.” While Singleton has been somewhat pigeonholed as an R&B singer, thanks in part to his debut album, Caged Bird Sings Songs About Red Beard, SIS: Side A draws a lot from those ‘90s rock influences we talked about early in our conversation, and that’s not a coincidence, he says. “It’s definitely how I heard these songs in my head as I was writing them,” Singleton explains. “I’ve always leaned toward making something that expresses all of my influences. It’s the strangest thing because, all of the weird dynamics of everyone that I’ve mentioned to you doesn’t make any sense all together, but for some reason, ‘Want Me’ was everything. It was R&B and rock colliding. It was Jonathan Davis or Nine Inch Nails, but it was also Prince, hints of jazz, and some

“I’ve been going through this thing where I’ve realized that I am enough as an artist, I am enough as a person, as a Black man, as a queer man—and that was huge, that healing and that journey for me to finish this EP. I think that it’s a perfect example of coming to that conclusion. It’s concisely me.” jams—and smitten with his musical partner. “One of the first songs we wrote was called ‘The One Thing,’ and it’s all about tripping over the one thing that you can’t have,” Singleton explains. “I was secretly in love with this guy, but I couldn’t tell him, so my way to deal with it was to write this really catchy, awesome song that he liked. I was like, ‘Okay. Whew! It’s out!’” From that spark came a fire of creatively-fulfilling, emotionally-honest material, Singleton says: “That led to me writing about my relationship with my dad, and that led to me writing about depression. That led to me writing about casual anonymous sex as a gay man that doesn’t have access to it in Kansas—having to go through all of these weird places and apps and craziness.” That said, while 2010 was a massive rush of songwriting for Singleton, with the musician writing a song nearly every day, he describes it as “one of the most manic, crazy, dangerous times” in his life. Afterward would come a suicide attempt, but, he says, it was the songwriting which got him through it. “If I hadn’t been writing songs about what I was going through—trying to make sense out of it—I would be dead, no mistake about it,” Singleton openly admits. “What really got me through it and got me through

THE PITCH | September 2020 | thepitchkc.com

after that was just that I wasn’t finished yet. I hadn’t accomplished what I wanted to with music. I hadn’t yet been able to make someone feel like Kurt Cobain or Sarah McLachlan or Alanis Morissette or Billie Holiday made me feel.” As Singleton puts it, what music did for him was get him through some really, truly dark night of the soul circumstances. As he hadn’t done that yet for for someone else, he found a way to carry on, in order to help someone in the world that looks like him: “People in the world that that were queer but didn’t know how to come out in their communities. People that were raised Catholic or super-Christian, that couldn’t tell their mom or their dad for fear of being thrown into conversion therapy or being beaten to death.” The musician sums it up by saying that he has to write to live, and SIS: Side A’s first single, “Want Me,” was the culmination of all that. “My frustration with being a Black queer man and having doors shut on me in relationships due to the fact that I was Black,” Singleton says with determination. “It was okay to have sex with me, but it wasn’t okay to acknowledge me as a person when the lights are on or in the day when everyone else was around.”

he was invisible again. “I really felt invisible to men in the community—to a man, in particular, who had pissed me off for the last time,” Singleton explains. “I wrote ‘Want Me’ about him, from his perspective, to make sense out of what was happening. I had to get all of that out. The cool thing about a song is that you have to be so concise, because you have five minutes. All of these crazy thoughts and possibilities and places your mind can go that you take and make it so that they’re accessible and simple for other people to relate to their situations, too.” It’s not something which Singleton set out to do, but he feels that, as he’s written more, it’s a skill that he’s honed. While the musician doesn’t want to generalize his personal experience into fact, he loves the way in which the accessibility of the words can change their meaning. “I can become the subject of ‘Want Me,’ and I can be the person that wants to be wanted but doesn’t want to be wanted at the same time,” Singleton says. “I think that you have to find a way to get the attention of listeners where there are layers so, while they’re definitely nodding in agreeance to the bass and to the kick and to the snare, they’re also like, ‘Whoa! Wait, where did that line come from?’ and then then an ‘A-

funk.” Everything collided in a way which Singleton had always wanted it to. What he wanted to do was express these songs in the rawest way possible, because he feels musicians can get in their own way with overproduction, a thousand instruments, or words that no-one knows, trying to make alliterations and metaphors that will go over people’s heads. “I just wanted to cut all the bullshit out,” laughs Singleton as we wrap up our nearly hour-long talk. “I had met Johnny Hamil, Ben Byard, Adam McKee, and Justin Mantooth through the recordings of Caged Bird Sings Songs About Red Beard, but they rode with me and stuck with me. We had this connection and they trusted me, my energy, and these songs that I delivered to them. They just gave me themselves and that’s all that I wanted. I just wanted them to give me what they heard from these songs. It was really important for me to highlight the song because the song is enough. I’ve been going through this thing where I’ve realized that I am enough as an artist, I am enough as a person, as a Black man, as a queer man— and that was huge, that healing and that journey for me to finish this EP. I think that it’s a perfect example of coming to that conclusion. It’s concisely me.”

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thepitchkc.com | September 2020 | THE PITCH

KC CARES

KC CARES NATIONAL MS SOCIETY BY BROOKE TIPPIN

The woman with progressive multiple sclerosis who struggles to button her shirt in the morning, yet is determined to stand up and dance at her granddaughter’s wedding. The new mother recovering from a relapse and unable to walk, wondering what her baby’s future holds. The father struggling to say his child’s name. The painter feeling their grip loosen. The avid cyclist feeling her balance go. MS can be harsh. Unfair. Overwhelming. An unpredictable disease of the central nervous system that can affect everything the body does, always taking away, never giving back, and always threatening to take again. MS remains a fact of life for nearly one million people, but the breakthroughs are just beyond their grasp. What began with one woman’s vision and commitment is today a 50-state network leading a global charge to create a world free of MS. MS was neglected and poorly understood when Sylvia Lawry started the Society in 1946. But together, as a movement, the MS Society has reshaped life with MS. They have paved the way for all of the nearly 20 treatment options available today, none of which existed just 30 years ago. They have brought the world together to set standards for diagnosing MS quickly and accurately, and to crystallize the distinction between relapsing-remitting and progressive MS. The MS Society has funded over 1,000 early-career researchers who have since been behind nearly every breakthrough and treatment. They continue to ensure that the voices of those with MS are always heard—in courtrooms and boardrooms where they fight for access and affordability, in media where they tell their stories, and in the halls of power where they make their needs known. With the cancellation of hundreds

THE PITCH | September 2020 | thepitchkc.com

of fundraising events nationwide, the National MS Society stands to lose one-third of its annual revenue, that’s more than $60 million in vital funding for research, services, and advocacy. All the National MS Society’s events have moved virtual, including their well-known Bike MS event. Bike MS: Kansas City typically has around 1,300 cyclists ride together from Olathe, KS to Lawrence, KS to raise awareness and funds to end MS. This year, the event has been transitioned to Bike MS: Inside Out which pulls together 55 other Bike MS rides across the country to virtually ride inside your home, ride your own route outside as far as you want, or just to ride around the block. There is no fundraising minimum or fee to sign up. To take part of Bike MS: Inside Out visit nationalmssociety.org/bike-ms-2020 and prepare to ride on September 26th. Another way to support National MS Society is by purchasing a bike themed shirt through Charlie Hustle. Charlie Hustle has partnered up with the National MS

Above: Cyclists participating in Bike MS 2019 ride KENT RUBY PHOTOGRAPHY Below: Ashley Martin, sporting new Charlie Hustle shirt, Team captain for SO.MUCH.FUN. for bike and walk teams CHARLIE HUSTLE

Society to create unique Communi-TEE. A portion of the proceeds from each shirt will benefit the MS Society in its mission to stop MS in its tracks, restore what has been lost, and end MS forever. The campaign will go through September 26. You can purchase a shirt or two online at charliehustle.com or at their store on the Plaza. If one person’s passion and perse-

verance can launch a movement that’s led to more breakthroughs than the world has seen for any other neurological disease, imagine what the MS movement can achieve today and how much of a difference your support can make. We can be the generation that ends the disease and changes life for millions of people affected by MS today.

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Contact Stephanie Carey at stephanie@thepitchkc.com

thepitchkc.com | September 2020 | THE PITCH

SAVAGE LOVE

SAVAGE LOVE SIZE QUEENS, TOO-SMALL BUTT PLUGS, DIAPER PLAY, AND OTHER QUICK-AND-DIRTY Q’S ANSWERED. BY DAN SAVAGE

Dear Dan: I’m a 35-year-old woman. I recently discovered I’m a size queen. (Is it OK for me to use this term?) This has been brewing for a while as I have dabbled with purchasing larger and larger cucumbers and fucking myself with them after a good wash. I use a condom and tons of lube, and it’s been amazing. Are there any safety or health concerns I should be aware of? I’m moving away from fucking produce and purchased my first sizeable toy. I see safety tips online for men who like large toys in their butts, but I wanted to know if there is anything I should be aware of as a vagina-haver. I mainly partner with men, but am expanding to date women and I’ve been fisted only once by a woman and absolutely loved it. Finding I Lately Love Enormous Dildos Dear FILLED: So long as you’re taking it slow, FILLED, so long as you’re using lots of lube, so long as you’re playing with toys that have flared bases and were designed for insertion play, and so long as those toys are made of body-safe materials like silicone, then you’re doing everything right. And yes, FILLED, you may use the term “size queen” to describe yourself! Dear Dan: I’m a longtime fan of your column and your podcast. Recently a discussion came up on Facebook, and I was curious as to what your take on the situation was. It was about diaper play: A group of people seem to think that enjoying this kink is the same thing as being a pedophile or engaging in “pedo-lite” behavior. Another group—myself included—believes that it is simply an expression of a kink between two consenting adults, and therefore isn’t the same as pedophilia at all. I was curious as to what your take on the situation was, or if you had any suggestions on how to approach this topic with the first group? Thank you, wishing you all the best! Wandering Ethical Terrain Of Nappies Employed Sexually Dear WETONES: Does fucking someone who’s wearing a dog collar count as bestiality? Of course not, WETONES, because dog collars no more turn consenting adults into dogs than diapers turn consenting adults into infants. And the disapproval of strangers on the Internet not only won’t stop an adult who wants to wear diapers from wearing diapers, WETONES, that disapproval makes wearing diapers all the more arousing because the transgression and “wrongness” of wearing diapers makes wearing diapers arousing— not for everyone, of course, but for most people who are into wearing diapers. Which means your disapproving friends are playing right into the pervy hands/crinkly rubber shorts of all the diaper lovers out there. And while it’s true that some people who are into

THE PITCH | September 2020 | thepitchkc.com

age play are also into diapers, WETONES, it’s not true that everyone into diapers is into age play. For most people who get off on diapers it’s the humiliation of being a diapered *adult* that turns them on, not the fantasy of being a child. Dear Dan: Here’s a quickie: If a woman is attracted to cis men and non-binary humans (who can have either a penis or vagina) but that woman is not attracted to cis women… would that woman be bi or pan? Labels are not super important to me, Dan, but I’m calling on my friendly neighborhood sex advice columnist for help just the same! Loves All Bodies Except Ladies Dear LABEL: While bisexual was once commonly understood to mean, “attracted to both sexes,” the Human Rights Campaign’s online glossary now defines bisexual as, “emotionally, romantically, or sexually attracted to more than one sex, gender or gender identity.” That same online glossary defines pansexual as, “the potential for emotional, romantic, or sexual attraction to people of any gender.” While on the first read there doesn’t seem to be much daylight between those two definitions, LABEL, there actually is some difference between being attracted to “more than one [gender]” and being attracted to “people of any gender.” And while a lot of people use bi and pan pretty much interchangeably these days, the bi label is probably a slightly better fit for you, LABEL, seeing as your libido disqualifies all members of one gender—your own—from emotional, romantic, or sexual consideration. Dear Dan: I’m a queer man who’s starting to bottom again after ten years of being on top. I have a butt plug that my anus keeps pushing out, even though I’ve tried relaxing and lots of lube. It feels great when it’s in, and then there it goes! I need tips! But not just the tip please. Exciting XXX Toy Or Projectile? Dear EXTOP: The butt plug you’re using is too small. Like other recovering tops before you, EXTOP, you made the mistake of purchasing a small plug because you didn’t think your ass could handle a medium or large one. But butt plugs are held in place after the widest part slides all the way into your ass, past your anal sphincters, and then your sphincters close around the neck of the plug, aka the narrow part before the flared base. But if the wide part isn’t much wider than the narrow part—if you bought a plug that looks more like a finger than a lava lamp—then the anal sphincters will push the plug back out. Or, even worse, they’ll send the plug flying across the room when your sphincters contract at the moment of

orgasm. Do yourself and your wallpaper a favor, EXTOP, and get yourself a bigger plug. Dear Dan: I am an avid reader, and I incorporate much of your advice in caring for my patients. I have tremendous respect for you and your column. Nonetheless, I must raise a concern about a small comment on in your response to COVET, the woman who was wondering about getting together with a new partner for sex despite social distancing: “Life is short,” you wrote, “and this pandemic is going to be long.” The lockdown is indeed difficult, Dan, but the concept that “this pandemic is going to be long” leads too many of us to feel as if the pandemic will never end. Impatience is driving some people to risky behavior that can be otherwise avoided. With attention to safety measures, we can reduce our risk of infection, as well as emotionally survive until a vaccine is available. Patience with the pandemic is analogous to the perseverance that Londoners used to get through the bombings of WWII. Practice All Necessary Deeds Especially Masks Isolating COVID-19 Dear PANDEMIC: Thank you for sharing, PANDEMIC! Dear Dan: I got into my Lyft at 6 a.m. this morning to go to the airport. My driver was an older man with a southern drawl. The Savage Lovecast was playing on the radio when I entered his car and I thought he was going to turn it off when he realized it was still on, and I was already planning to ask him to turn it back on if he did. I’ve had some heartfelt beautiful and rich conversations with my Lyft drivers and I thought we would bond over our shared love of your show. I was literally sitting in the backseat thinking, “This is so great, we are so different but we have at least one thing in common, I wonder how long has he been a listener, and could he be a Magnum subscriber too?” Then I realized the episode playing was the one I was listening to the previous night as I fell asleep... and then I realized my phone was connected to his car’s Bluetooth. Oops. Love you, Dan! Sheryl In TEXAS! Dear SIT: Thank you for sharing, SIT, and thanks for turning a new listener on to the Savage Lovecast! Question for Dan? Email him at mail@savagelove.net. On Twitter at @fakedansavage.

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