The Pitch: October 2022

6

POLITICS

Broken Heart of the City

Who controls the future of Columbus Park?

BY LAUREN TEXTOR

Columbus Park is a cultural hub in Kansas City featuring a diverse, close-knit community with a rich historical background. Located in the heart of the city, this neighborhood endures growing pains while residents question the efforts of predatory developers. Uncertainty of the future plagues the area, as the preservation of Columbus Park is called into question.

4

PHOTO

All Aboard

Love Boat: Ghost Ship to sail through the West Bottoms

BY CHASE CASTOR

12

CULTURE

Armchair Detectives

Generation Why celebrates 10 years of true crime podcasting

BY LAUREN TEXTOR

14

UNTUC’D Uncoupled’s Tuc Watkins dishes on stardom, surrogate dad-dom, and surviving an apocalypse

BY MICHAEL MACKIE

16

CULTURE

Principles of Pot

Ganjiers: The new certified experts on cannabis

BY HANNAH STRADER

18

10

POLITICS

Devil May Care

Satanic Temple’s KC legion builds community, supports bodily autonomy

BY LAUREN TEXTOR

For an organization that calls themselves Satanists, they sure do love and support thy neighbors a little more than their religious peers.

The Satanic Temple and its legions in Missouri do some not-so-spooky work this October by engaging in community outreach and encouraging bodily autonomy. Find out why the devil in KC may, actually, care.

22

16

CULTURE

Principles of Pot

Ganjiers: The new certified experts on cannabis

BY HANNAH STRADER

As legal medical cannabis gains prominence in Missouri, Ganjiers advocate for an educated clientele. Modeled off of wine sommelier courses, Ganjier training sessions explore the intricacies of cannabis, from its cultivation to its consumption. Have you assessed what you want out of a high and how you are going to obtain it?

29

Smells Like Queen Spirit

How local perfumery For Strange Women will trap your scent

BY GRACE WILMOT

19

Manic Panic

Horror host Terrible Tim takes his show to the national stage

BY ANNA PERRY-RUSHTON

20

FOOD & DRINK Pasta-tively Perfect

Zero Zero Handmade Pasta’s new storefront offers delicious twists on the taste of Italy

BY JORDAN BARANOWSKI

21

Eat This Now Almond Frangipane Croissant at Banksia

BY SARAH SIPPLE

Drink This Now Sunday Dress at Nostalgia Room

BY DREW WINDISH

Mise en Place Blackhole Bakery’s Alyssa Bailey on Dough Diversity

BY KATE FRICK

24

MUSIC Merely Players

Bluegrass band The Matchsellers reformat their latest album for the stage

BY NICK SPACEK

25

Hitting the High Notes

Local musicians find creative spark with cannabis

BY HANNAH STRADER

26 EVENTS

October Calendar

BY THOMAS WHITE

28

LOVE & RELATIONSHIPS

Keep Them Coming Sex ed can’t be ignored

BY KRISTEN THOMAS

Savage Love BAH Guys

BY DAN SAVAGE

30

KC CARES KC Cares Bra Couture KC

BY BETH LIPOFF

Cover by Cassie Jones and Miro Pavlovic

via Satanic Temple

Courtesy Derek Gilman

Zach Bauman

All Aboard

Editor-in-Chief

Brock Wilbur

President & Chief Operating Officer

Andrew Miller

Director of Marketing & Promotions

Jason Dockery

Associate Editor

Steph Castor

Community Manager

Sarah Sipple

Music Editor

Nick Spacek

Film Editor

Abby Olcese

Calendar Editor

Thomas White

Little Village Creative Services

Jordan Sellergren

House Designers

Miroslav Pavlovic

Cassondra Jones

Contributing Writers

Emily Cox, Liz Cook, Barb Shelly, Beth Lipoff, Michael Mackie, Kristen Thomas, Kala Elkinton, Michael Cripe, Jordan Baranowski, Tyler Shane, Justin Burnell, Emeline Hutton, Lauren Textor, Sophia Johnson, Isaac Biehl, Caroline Rose Newman, Nina Cherry, Adrian Torres, Patrick Moore, Kate Frick, Hannah Strader

Contributing Photographers

Zach Bauman, Chase Castor, Travis Young, Jim Nimmo, Chris Ortiz, Destiny Frack, Barry Meitler, Archana Sundar, Angela C. Bond, Anna Perry-Rushton

Contributing Designers and Illustrators

Alex Peak, John Alvarez, Jake Edmisten

Editorial Interns

Grace Wilmot, Ivy Anderegg, Drew Windish

VOICE MEDIA GROUP

National Advertising

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DISTRIBUTION

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COPYRIGHT

The contents of The Pitch are Copyright 2022 by The Pitch LLC. No portion may be reproduced in whole or in part by any means without the express written permission of the publisher.

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LOVE BOAT: GHOST SHIP TO SAIL THROUGH THE WEST BOTTOMS By Chase Castor

Love Boat: Ghost Ship w/ DJ Sheppa Saturday, Oct. 29, 2022

The Ship 1221 Union Ave. Kansas City, MO 64101

Courtesy Love Boat

CHICKEN TACOS & NACHOS GAELS PUBLIC HOUSE & SPORTS

Broken Heart of the City

WHO CONTROLS THE FUTURE OF COLUMBUS PARK?

By Lauren Textor

Driving through Columbus Park in the summer is like entering Kansas City’s ver sion of the secret garden. It’s only about two miles off I-70, but it somehow feels like its own world.

A hybrid of Little Italy and Little Viet nam, Columbus Park is home to some of the best restaurants in the city, the Harri son Street DIY Skate Park, and century-old buildings. Several residents lovingly refer to it as “Sesame Street” due to its close-knit community of colorful characters.

Down the street from the Vietnam Cafe are The Don Bosco Community Centers, where adults at every level of learning can participate in its English as a second lan guage program. Walk down Missouri Ave. from Holy Rosary Catholic Church, and you’ll find Garozzo’s Ristorante. And, of course, in the cul-de-sac green space that separates the neighborhood from Berkley, there’s the community-built skate park that attracted the attention of the Tony Hawk Foundation.

Many of Columbus Park’s family busi nesses have been here, in the heart of the city, for generations.

Garozzo’s was opened in 1989. The much-beloved Vietnam Cafe is immi grant-owned and run. Vocci Italian Foods has been around for over 50 years and is now owned by Greg Falzone and his hus band, Chuck Lowry-Falzone. The couple has lived in the neighborhood for 15 years.

“When anyone comes by my house, they wave,” Lowry-Falzone says. “They say hello. I’ve got good neighbors. If someone new moves in on my street, I tell them ‘hi.’ I tell them to make sure they come down to Vocci and get their welcome package. This is the neighborhood we want to have. I know pretty much everybody on my block. They know pretty much everybody on their block.”

Swoon Cookies founder and owner So fia Varanka Hudson moved the business to its current location in Columbus Park over two years ago.

“Over 50% of our staff are immigrants from all over the world, so it’s a great mix,” she says.

Café Cà Phê owner Jackie Nguyen de liberately chose the neighborhood as the location for her brick-and-mortar business and her new home.

“When I first moved here, there weren’t too many places that I felt familiar with, or that really spoke to me except for Columbus Park,” Nguyen says. “I saw that there was no

coffee shop in the area. And then, when I did more research, I found out that it was a huge area for Vietnamese refugees. The Don Bosco Centers in Columbus Park work with a lot of Vietnamese. There’s a Vietnamese tailor, a Vietnamese travel shop, a Vietnam ese hair salon. I felt like my shop would en hance the neighborhood instead of gentri fying it.”

The café, located on East 5th Street, is already brightening up the neighborhood with a fierce dragon mural. It’s bold, col orful, and perfectly in line with Columbus Park’s vibe—a great example of how busi nesses can carve out a space for themselves in the area without suburbanizing it.

The Sewing Labs rents space from The Don Bosco Centers at 526 Campbell Street. Within those brick walls, the first floor is occupied with sewing machines and fab ric. The full-size commercial kitchen and the basketball gym on the second floor are rented out by other local businesses and organizations. The Sewing Labs offers ba sic sewing programs, kids’ stitch camp, in dustrial production classes, machine rent als, and Open Sew Fridays. Partial and full scholarships are also available on a limited basis to make programs and events more accessible.

“Sewing can bring you so much finan cial dignity, but also emotional dignity,” says The Sewing Labs Executive Director Eileen Bobowski.

The line for Café Cà Phê’s grand opening stretches down the block. (Right) Café Cà Phê owner Jackie Nguyen takes a seat at the new brick-and-mortar.

Photos by Zach Bauman

Vietnam Cafe was honored by Mayor Quinton Lucas for its contributions to KC’s Vietnamese community. Photo by Zach Bauman

This neighborhood prides itself on history and has been careful to preserve as much of it as possible. A significant chunk of its preservation is thanks to the legwork of resident Kate Barsotti—a local artist and the Columbus Park Community Council president. She has been proud to call the neighborhood home since 2002.

“We moved here because we wanted a real community, and we got one,” Barsot ti says. “It’s not perfect, but that’s what we got.”

Former resident Ryan Bernsten worked with Barsotti as part of a leadership training program at the University of Missouri-Kan sas City.

Barsotti maintains the Columbus Park website while Bernsten recorded podcast interviews with neighborhood residents to preserve its oral history. The three-episode neighborhood segment is a part of Bern sten’s 50 States of Mind Soundcloud chan nel.

Bernsten moved out of the area in De cember 2021, but he still feels strongly con nected to it.

“My dream house is in that neighbor hood,” he says. “I would move back there

in a second. It’s one of those things where I had to get on the homeowner train while it was still relatively affordable for me. But I was gutted to leave, and it took a lot of arm-twisting for me to finally do it, because I really found a place where I respected the people, and I respected the history. I believe in how they think about themselves not just as a neighborhood, but as a community.”

Columbus Park has all the makings of a popular arts district. Authentic restaurants, green space, and nearby galleries should equal up to a successful River Market-ad jacent locale. Although it’s garnered more attention in recent years, the area also expe riences high crime and a lack of accessible residential and commercial expansion.

Its problems today are rooted in a his tory of poverty, redlining, and predatory developers.

A Historic District for Those In Need

Columbus Park is well-known as a neigh borhood with strong Italian ties. The Holy Rosary Church was completed in 1903 and became a popular gathering site for

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Greg Falzone began making ravioli at Vocci when he was 11 years old. He and his husband, Chuck LowryFalzone, now own the business. Photo by Zach Bauman

community events and worship. Karnes School was completed in 1915. It was the largest grade school in the city at the time of its opening, with Italian and Jewish stu dents making up 98% of the student body.

In a time when Italian immigrants were dis criminated against because of their nation ality and religion, Columbus Park became a cultural enclave for families to settle.

Lesser-known is that Garrison School was built in 1890 for Black students. The Gar rison Field House was built between 19131914, becoming the only settlement center in Kansas City for Black residents specifically.

In the early 1950s, large public housing projects were constructed in the city. One of these was Guinotte Manor in 1954, which required the demolition of large parts of the northern and northeastern sections.

Vietnamese refugees arrived in the 1970s, partially due to the nearby Don Bo sco Centers and Holy Rosary Church. The neighborhood still has one of the largest Vietnamese populations in the city.

The mix of cultures and customs is part of what Columbus Park owes to its increas ing popularity today, as well as its local ly-owned businesses and its eccentric vibe. It’s also likely the reason why the city regu larly puts its problems on the back burner.

“You know, I’m not sure we’re cool yet,” Barsotti says. “It’s funny to me because it’s basically the same place it was when we moved in, but now it’s hip. Now it’s trendy. It’s like, it’s the same place that you wouldn’t come to after dark five years ago.”

Barsotti says that she doesn’t know if newcomers’ interest in the area is sustain able, but that she welcomes an increase in activity because she believes it makes the neighborhood safer. She expressed con cern over the high number of overdoses, car break-ins, and shootings.

“It’s really hard to get the city to care about this part of town,” Barsotti says. “It’s hard to get them to take the violence seri ously and figure out what’s causing it. It feels like they think it’s normal for certain parts of town to be dangerous or to have vi olence. And so no one’s shocked anymore. And we are. It affects us. I mean, I’m just ap palled every time.”

NIMBY stands for “not in my backyard,” and it’s a pejorative term that’s often used to label neighborhood advocates as overly involved and territorial. Columbus Park’s neighborhood advocates are used to hearing that everywhere in Kansas City experiences crime and problems with developers.

Bernsten says this is the easiest narra tive to construct, but it’s nowhere near true.

“I think it’s really easy for people to portray Columbus Park people as NIMBYs,” he says. “You know, they’re not that at all. They’re organizers. And they like to help people in an organized way. They want them [the city’s officials] to work as hard as they’ve worked over the past decades.”

Nguyen says that while she hasn’t ex perienced violence, she is aware of the ar

ea’s high volume of gunshots, break-ins, and theft. She says she believes most problems result from a lack of community resources.

“My vehicle was broken into twice, and I’ve seen other people’s cars get smashed into,” she says. “On the flip side, I’m starting to know the entire neighborhood already. A lot of people walk their dogs. I feel like I feel safe all the time. I don’t feel like I’m in dan ger. I feel like those instances of car breakins and stuff are out of desperation.”

“Back then, believe it or not, they [Guinotte Housing Projects and Chouteau Court Housing Projects] were connected by an overpass walkway over I-35,” he says. “We got a lot of back and forth—criminal activity between both the public housing projects. Columbus Park was kind of sand wiched between both of them.”

Schriever says the police felt supported by residents, but the residents sued the Hous ing Authority of Kansas City over the criminal

available to them to make a difference.”

During his time at Columbus Park, Schriever developed strong ties to the neighborhood, despite never living there. He trusted the residents and hoped that they trusted him.

“They are the eyes and the ears 24/7 down there,” he says. “They see it all; they know it all. They just have to have an avenue to get that information to the police, and then have trust and faith in us that we’re going to take that information and work it.”

For its part, the Housing Authority went under a massive revamping that cost over $175 million, restoring local control in 2014. Although the Housing Authority has improved, the neighborhood’s relationship with the police department has become more contentious.

“I got spoiled because I thought that’s what community policing was, and we were always going to have that,” Barsotti says. “I think he [Schriever] prevented a lot of crime because he spent time in the neigh borhoods with the kids. And if he saw a kid going sideways, he would be like, ‘Hey, let’s go to the Boy Scouts,’ or, ‘Hey, let’s go to basketball.’ Everybody knew him; he always showed up to neighborhood meetings. He would always answer his email. And then Jim moves on. And all of a sudden, it’s all different. Like, we were asking for the same level of service, and they [the police depart ment] laughed at us at one neighborhood meeting. I remember this vividly. They’re like, ‘We don’t have the staff for that. What are you guys expecting?’”

Executive Director of Housing Author ity Edwin Lowndes says he’s unable to an swer why there is a high concentration of crime in the neighborhood.

“My question is: is there any more crime in the Columbus Park neighborhood than in any other neighborhood in Kansas City? I don’t have that information or that data,” he says.

Historically, Lowndes says, much of the crime was perpetrated by outsiders to the neighborhood who were passing through. His suggestion to residents is to rely on their close-knit ties to keep the neighborhood safe.

Community Services

Jim Schriever held a variety of titles in Co lumbus Park in his 30-year career. He was assigned to the area on all watches as a district officer, spent six years in the pub lic housing projects, and then worked as a Community Interaction Officer for the Cen tral Patrol Division before retiring in 2015.

Schriever recalls the tension between the homeowners and the public housing tenants when he was assigned to the area in 1987.

activity. As he remembers, this was part of the catalyst for the Housing Authority to be taken over by federal receivership in 1993.

“The Guinotte Housing Projects were postwar row houses,” Schriever explains. “They were just square boxes that looked like modified double-wide trailers. There was nothing unique about it; the structures had no character. It was the way that the system was that you were putting people with social and economic struggles on top of others with social and economic strug gles. And there were no services or anything

“It literally is ‘if you see something, say something,’” he says. “Make sure that you’re reporting activity, even if the Kansas City Police Department, because of their opera tions, can’t get to you immediately because of the nature of the crime. We have an ex cellent relationship with the Kansas City Police Department in working in the entire Columbus Park neighborhood.”

Pollution in Solution

Many of the “solutions” proposed by the city, its agencies, or development authori ties put the emphasis and responsibility on the residents. The knowledge that no topdown change is coming makes for a bleak outlook on the future.

Barsotti and her neighbors are ex hausted by their constant vigilance.

The Holy Rosary Catholic Church is a historically important gathering spot for the Italian and Vietnamese populations in Columbus Park. (Bottom) A community garden. Photos by Zach Bauman

“There are times when I think about leaving, usually after a shooting or some thing that’s near us,” she says. “It makes me so sad. We had two houseless people killed by the tracks a couple of weeks ago. I just get so sad about it. Because it feels so compli cated and so hard to solve. And then I get mad that I feel forced out.”

Barsotti is no longer convinced that the community’s problems are solvable by the police, although she does have sympathy for the city’s lack of local control over the department. Kansas City doesn’t have the power to appoint its members of the Board of Police Commissioners, who oversee the department—instead, the mayor and four other members appointed by Missouri’s governor get to call the shots.

Similarly, the neighborhood is also de prived of local control over who chooses to develop there, and frustrations are mount ing with the empty promises that residents have received over the years.

“I think some developers look at that area [the skate park], and they just see dollar signs,” says long-time resident Dan Wayde. “They want to maximize how much they can get for it, and some aren’t as concerned with how it affects the neighborhood or what is the value of the development to the neigh borhood. A lot of them just pay lip service. They say things like, ‘Oh, we’re gonna make a community garden here.’ And instead, it’s a place where they dump their trash.”

In 2021, a houseless encampment popped up on a “brownfield” at Chouteau. Its 2018 Olsson site assessment identified 10 recognized environmental conditions signaling the likely presence of hazardous substances or petroleum products. Despite this, the city would not assist in relocating the encampment.

Bernsten says, “It was a designated toxic site, and the neighborhood was warn ing, ‘Hey, this is not a good thing.’ The city wouldn’t listen. And then, all of a sudden, the city cleared it.”

Emergence Emergency

Columbus Park residents are also frustrat ed that neighboring areas like Berkley and Beacon Hill have experienced an economic boom while their home stays stagnant.

Lowndes says that Beacon Hill has ex perienced more development because it has more land.

“Conversely, when you look at what’s going on in Columbus Park, you’re limited as to what is available to redevelop,” he says. “And then there has been a considerable amount of redevelopment on the western side of Columbus Park. There are new apart ments that have gone in; there’s new retail that has gone in the Columbus Park neigh borhood. So I don’t think that has been ig nored. I think it’s just what is available and what you can do with it. As far as our vacant land, we had an agreement through the city and then, in turn, the Land Clearance for

Redevelopment Authority (LCRA).”

Lowndes cites the Housing Authori ty’s agreement with the city and LCRA as the reason for the development hiatus but could not clarify who is in charge of specific properties. Lowndes did share that Colum bus Park Developers is the “master devel oper” in the area and that it has been work ing with the LCRA for the past several years.

In response to residents’ concerns about the continued vacancies, the Housing Authority has promised to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) for months. Lowndes says that the Housing Authority plans to issue the RFP by the end of September, al though that may be delayed until October.

Skating the Line

Some residents are also pushing for rede veloping the Harrison Street DIY skate park.

Ben Hlavacek, one of the park’s found ers, once lived in Columbus Park. Now he is a Turner resident who travels to build skate parks professionally all over the U.S., but he remains an advocate for the DIY to remain in its current location.

“We can build a new park somewhere else, but generating that same sense of space and inclusiveness and community is some thing that happened organically and is not very easy to replicate,” he says.

sphere,” he says. “It’s a patchwork quilt of concrete which pinballs you through its ar ray of hairball features with massive speed if you know the lines. I’ve built and skated parks from coast to coast, and it remains one of my all-time favorites.”

The DIY is in the city’s right of way, while the 6 acres of undeveloped land (which has caused many disputes) belongs to the Housing Authority.

Solving The Puzzle of Who Owns the Future

Individual residents and city officials pos sess pieces of this puzzle, but no one ben efits unless all of this information is shared. Who are the predatory developers with their feet on the neighborhood’s throat?

Columbus Park, the heart of the city, has its arteries clogged. Despite the best ef forts of its residents, the area is continually taken advantage of by those who value pay checks over people.

Individuals won’t be able to make any further meaningful progress without the help of their more prosperous neighbors calling for action. The city needs to overhaul Colum bus Park’s infrastructure. Developers must be held accountable for empty promises and step up to do the necessary financial work.

For years, the neighborhood’s resi dents have been toiling solo to keep the area safe and desirable. Some haven’t lived long enough to see the fruits of their efforts. Cur rent inhabitants hope this won’t be the case for them, too.

“One of the reasons I got involved is I knew people who came before me,” Bar sotti says. “I know Phyllis Trombino; I know Rosalie Strada. And I was like, ‘Oh, it’s my turn.’ I mean, there’s an obligation because I know their contributions. And those con tributions outlasted them.”

Barsotti is the latest in a seemingly un ending lineage of Columbus Park’s dedicat ed proponents. For decades, its neighbor hood advocates have volunteered their time to make the community better, knowing they may never witness the change they’ve worked so hard to accomplish.

“Our RFP has been delayed for vari ous reasons, including market conditions, coordination with the city, and ensuring the community is involved in our process,” Lowndes says.

Fourth District City Councilman Eric Bunch understands there is a dispute be tween the Housing Authority and a poten tial developer who believes they have the first right of refusal on the property. He says that the city has invested significantly in this area, although long-term solutions are needed for housing.

“We’ve provided several hundred thousand dollars in capital improvement at the district level, which my colleagues and I have awarded for playground equip ment, lighting under bridges, and business,” Bunch says.

Taylor Stetler became involved with the DIY in 2015 when the park was in its early days.

Skaters originally used the road barri ers on the street for quarterpipes and from there began cleaning the acres of greens pace up. They dug out the ground inside the cul-de-sac and poured the concrete bowl—a massive undertaking for a couple of young adults with a tight budget.

“After we managed to pull that off, I was hooked,” Stelter says. “For the next few years, most of my free time was spent work ing and skating up there until moving away in 2017 to build skateparks professionally.”

At the end of 2021, Stelter resettled in KC. Harrison Street DIY is still his favorite place to skate in the metro.

“It’s entirely different from any skate park in the area in its terrain and atmo

The Housing Authority and Columbus Park’s developers owe it to the neighbor hood’s residents to be more transparent. After months of interviewing (or attempting to interview) residents, developers, and city officials, it’s still unclear who’s calling the shots in this corner of Kansas City.

The development plans remain murky, the residents remain frustrated, and the pathway forward is still littered with obsta cles. You shouldn’t have a legal background to understand what’s going on in your neighborhood. Private interests shouldn’t rule public lives.

This isn’t just a call to action—it’s a challenge. It’s time for anyone with devel oping interests in Columbus Park to honor their promises and give the community the prosperity it deserves.

“You couldn’t really have better neighbors back there,” resident Dan Wayne says of the skaters.

Photo by Zach Bauman

Far from being the demonic doomsday cult that its critics imagine, The Satanic Temple (TST) is a non-theistic religion that provides empowerment and com munity. It welcomes members from all backgrounds to assert their religious rights and bodily autonomy.

In Missouri, there are four branches— or Legions—of the Temple: Kansas City, Mid-Missouri, Springfield/Ozarks, and St. Louis.

Kansas City Legion’s Vice Commis sioner VRap (who operates under a Sa tanym) has been a member of TST for two years.

“I have been an atheist my entire life,” VRap says. “And I have seen that my reli gious friends have that sense of commu nity within their religious organizations. And that’s something that you miss as an atheist.”

TST has given VRap the sense of be longing that she was missing, along with an atmosphere of acceptance that was ex tra comforting for her as a queer woman.

Now she’s helping to organize meet ings and get-togethers for other members. TST offers a variety of activities, including

movie nights, art gallery trips, museum tours, a monthly book club, and an arts and crafts club.

For the past three years, Legion mem bers have also marched in KC Pride.

“When people go out there to protest pride—like the Westboro Baptist Church— they can yell ‘go to hell’ to us all day long,” Minister Pandora Stolas says, laughing.

“We can take it.”

Instead of summoning Beelzebub, members of The Satanic Temple Missouri channel their energies into volunteering.

Satanists put together care packages for their local houseless communities and organize donation drives for domestic vi olence shelters, food pantries, and animal shelters across the state.

Members are especially proud of TST’s Sheets for Satan project.

In sexual assault cases, investigators often collect victims’ sheets for evidence, leaving some individuals without any bed ding. The Legion donates bed linens to the Kansas City Police Department to alleviate this concern.

Stolas says that TST tackles taboo top ics in its volunteer work. “A lot of churches

do volunteer work, but where we differ is that we’ll do things like Menstruation with Satan, where we donate menstrual prod ucts to women’s shelters, because those are products that are often not thought about,” she says.

On an international level, The Satan ic Temple is coordinating donations for Ukrainian refugees to ensure their safe transport and accommodation.

Its Sober Faction meetings provide peer support for those suffering from ad diction.

2018, TST sued the state of Missouri on be half of plaintiff Judy Doe.

Missouri law previously stated that anyone seeking an abortion must be given the opportunity to see an ultrasound of the fetus and hear the heartbeat 72 hours be fore the abortion is performed. Addition ally, the health care provider was required to give out a booklet that said human life begins at conception.

The group asserts on its website that “that the mandated imposition of religious opinions upon Satanists seeking to ter

Even a Satanic temple thinks Roe v Wade ruling is wrong

—The Satanic Temple (@satanic_temple_)

TST even offers After School Satan, a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) based program.

“There is a traditional Satanic miscon ception that we, you know, are evil,” VRap says. “And we sit around and we do some sort of black magic or—God forbid—blood sacrifices or something of that nature. And that is wholeheartedly untrue.”

While members of TST do engage in rituals, they’re actually pretty wholesome.

Minister Kai Ricinus Darkwood says outsiders are often confused by the termi nology because TST is nontheistic.

“Basically, there’s a psychology to do ing these kinds of rituals,” Darkwood says. “A lot of people here come from religious backgrounds. It’s kind of a cathartic thing for them. But, in general, doing these ritu als kind of helps you connect to an idea or purpose. A lot of our rituals are building up self-confidence and getting rid of trauma and pain that we’ve endured in our lives.”

VRap explains that TST uses the figure of Satan in a literal form to represent an adversary.

“We do not literally believe in Satan,” she clarifies. “If you’re curious, go to The Satanic Temple’s website, look at our ten ants, look at what we’ve done. The term Satanic—when you’re labeled that, usual ly it’s done to entice fear and hatred. And that’s what we’re trying to take back. It’s one of those terms that is often lobbed to shut down a conversation. That is not what we’re about. We’re an atheistic community just trying to fight for plurality and fairness. And to give atheists a voice in the same legal regard as Christians have had their voices heard.”

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, TST’s mission has become even more timely. In

minate a pregnancy violates TST’s deep ly-held beliefs of bodily autonomy and sci entifically-reasoned personal choice.”

Missouri’s trigger law has outlawed abortion except in cases of medical emer gency. Even in the case of rape or incest, abortion is illegal—an infringement on basic rights that TST vehemently opposes.

TST attracts a lot of attention for its name, aesthetic, and activism, but Stolas says that members are conscious of the or ganization’s image.

“You know, you don’t hear about a lot of our volunteer work because it’s not publicized on purpose,” she says. “We will go out and shovel snow for elderly or dis abled people. But we’ll just say, ‘Hey, we’re a church group,’ because we’re not there to give Meemaw a heart attack. We’re there to help people.”

Yes, we live in a hellscape. But TST continues to oppose anti-abortion legis lation, push for the separation of church and state, and organize community volun teering. And that’s the opposite of the tra ditional devil-may-care attitude. The devil does, it turns out, care.

CONTACT

Legion Commissioner Adrian Karras: adrian.karras@ thesatanictemple.org

Nevin Morrow, Congregation Lead of TST Missouri: tstmo@ thesatanictemple.com

Minister Kai Ricinus Darkwood: Krdarkwood@gmail.com

A RMCH A IR

D E T E C T IV E S

By Lauren Textor

Nothing helps the mind unwind like a podcast with an hour’s worth of gory details on the most appalling true crime cases ever recorded.

Have you heard of Lamonte McIntyre, who was wrongfully convicted of a Kan sas City, Kansas double homicide in 1994? What about Ali Kemp, a 19-year-old murder victim from Leawood, Kansas? The Butch er of Kansas City? The 1988 explosion that killed six KC firefighters?

Today, everyone and their grand mother has a true crime podcast. But Gen eration Why has been covering true crime stories, including the ones happening right in our own backyard, for the past decade. It all began with Aaron Habel, Justin Evans, and some straightforward audio skills.

In 2011, Evans served on the jury for a first-degree murder trial. An exercise in civ ic duty became the jumping-off point for 10 years of conversations, followed by millions of listeners.

“Being called in for jury duty, a lot of us have never experienced that,” Evans says. “That whole experience, and just what we think we know about the court systems and our legal system, was very eye-opening to me. Jury duty—or jury selection—was Monday morning, and I put a man away for life by Thursday. I just wanted to tell the world, this is how it really is. It’s not like Law & Order. It’s not like CSI. It’s actually kind of mundane and weird and I don’t know… emotionless.”

Habel’s interest in true crime was fu eled by his grandmother, who was an avid

reader. Around the same time Evans was ex periencing a real trial, Habel was watching The Staircase, a 2004 documentary about a novelist accused of killing his wife.

“When we first started out, the first 20-30 episodes—we were on gaming head sets, just chatting away over Skype or some thing,” Evans says.

While the entire show is a collaborative effort, Habel is in charge of much of the re search while Evans takes point on the audio production and editing.

“As we found out, the people in the system aren’t always the best people to crit icize it,” Habel says.

As pioneers in true crime podcasting, Habel and Evans have certainly earned their badges as armchair detectives.

In March of 2022, they traveled to Hol lywood to live record an episode sponsored by NBC on its limited series The Thing About Pam. The crime drama features Renée Zell weger in the role of Pamela Hupp, a convict ed murderer serving a life sentence in the Chillicothe Correctional Center in north western Missouri.

“I like to find the stories that have a hook, that have a message, or that are just completely wacky like Pamela Hupp,” Evans says. “You can only cover so many the-hus band-did-it stories.”

Despite their fascination with true crime, Habel and Evans keep in mind that they’re discussing events that have hap pened to real people. Their conversational approach has a structure and sometimes even a moral.

Take Episode #293, for example. Ariel Castro kidnapped and tortured three young women between 2002 and 2013. Although he’s the instigator of the crime, he’s not at the heart of the episode. Evans and Habel have decided to instead focus on the survivors: Amanda Berry, Mi chelle Knight, and Gina DeJesus.

ing, and I wasn’t there to look after him.’ His nonstop search, and all the hurdles he faced, especially with law enforcement.”

One thing Evans and Habel have learned from their years of true crime re search is that each case has to be evaluated individually.

“The case of Jerry Tobias (Episodes #311 and #312) was obviously confirma tion for me that our system is completely whacked out,” Evans says. “But then there are other cases where the police work is phenomenal, the investigation is smooth, and they are able to get this person caught within days. And you have to give credit where credit’s due.”

“I think at the end of the day, the best thing we can do is to point out when we feel like there’s been good work done, point out when there are things that we feel are wrong, and also point out where we feel like the system could do a lot better,” Habel agrees.

The perpetrators of the crimes covered by Generation Why aren’t homogenous, but certain trends are glaringly obvious.

“I definitely feel like men are danger ous,” Habel says. “So I think that’s some thing that women should think about. What are the leading causes of death for women? Men are up there.”

Many of their devoted fans agree, but find comfort in the podcasters’ sensitivity to the macabre.

Instagram user @magpie_33 com ments on a post about Generation Why’s 10-year celebration show: “I mainly listen to true crime and, after hundreds of hours [of] crime perpetrated by men against women, it’s hard not to feel a certain way toward men. Listening to you guys reminds

“It shows the strength of people who have to endure the unthinkable, the most horrible situation you can imagine, and then they’ve come out, and they can actu ally stand up on a stage and talk to people about it,” Habel says. “I’m in awe of their strength.”

Another one of Generation Why’s most memorable episodes is on Jaryd Atadero (Episode #171), a toddler who went missing while on a hiking trail in 1999.

“Somehow, along the way, they [the adults] lost track of Jaryd, and he went miss ing,” Habel says. “He would be missing for many years before they found his remains. And so that’s kind of a mystery. But it’s also a story of the journey that his father took, having to go through all the guilt that he felt. Having to deal with ‘my kid went miss

me that there are thoughtful, nuanced men out them [sic]. What you do matters for so many reasons.”

Patreon subscriptions to Generation Why help fund the team, but 5% of each subscription is also donated to charity. Over the years, many different charities have received sponsorship from Gen Why, but one of the podcasters’ favorites is End the Backlog, which pushes for testing for all rape kits to ensure justice for survivors and their communities.

Generation Why recently celebrated 10 years of trailblazing on Sept. 8 at Screen land Armour with special guests from True Crime Garage, Crimelines, Truth & Justice, Once Upon a Crime, and True Crime BS.

Contact: generationwhypodcast@gmail.com

GENERATION WHY CELEBRATES 10 YEARS OF TRUE CRIME PODCASTING

“As we found out, the people in the system aren’t always the best people to criticize it.”

Untuc’d

UNCOUPLED’S TUC WATKINS DISHES ON STARDOM, SURROGATE DAD-DOM, AND SURVIVING AN APOCALYPSE

By Michael Mackie

Tuc Watkins would like you to know he’s an early-to-bed, early-to-rise kinda guy. That would explain why the versatile actor was so bright-eyed and chatty for our in terview—a Zoom call that was scheduled at 8:30 a.m. PDT. “I’m a morning person,” he says, beaming. “And so are my kids.”

Over the years, the Mission, Kansas native has found his niche playing various everyman roles—uh, along with the occa sional con man or zombie. A relatable and reliable character actor, Watkins got his start in the daily grind of soap operas, where his good looks, charisma, and untapped come dic charm won over adoring viewers.

From there, Watkins pinged and ponged through various recurring roles on beloved hit shows like Desperate Housewives and Parks and Recreation. Even though Wat kins hadn’t publicly come out yet, he was playing a fair share of LGBTQ+ characters. In 2013, Watkins appeared on Marie Osmond’s short-lived talk show, Marie, to reveal his big news of becoming a new surrogate father to twins. During the interview, Watkins also casually peppered in the backstory of how he had always wanted kids—oh, and he was gay. This came after years of dodging ques tions about his sexuality and who he was seeing. At the time, it was big news, but Wat kins chuckles about it now. “Can you believe I came out on The Marie Osmond Show of all places?” he recently told Thrillist. “The Marie Osmond Show! I told an Osmond!”

More high-profile roles soon followed, including Watkins’ most recent appearance on Netflix’s new series, Uncoupled. In the comedy, he plays Colin, a buttoned-up, New York financial whiz who deftly announc es—during his surprise 50th birthday party, no less—he wants to leave Michael, his real estate agent partner (Neil Patrick Harris), af ter 17 years together. (Yes, it’s a comedy. We swear.)

The eight-episode series—co-created by Sex and the City’s Darren Star and Modern Family’s Jeffrey Richman—allows Watkins the chance to play the antagonist for once, even though he doesn’t view his character as the villain. While Colin may have just up ended Doogie Howser’s (Michael’s) life, he does so in the midst of his own middle-age, existential crisis. A will-they-or-won’t-theyget-back-together storyline ensues.

The Pitch recently chatted up Watkins, who was an open book about everything from giving up red meat a few years ago to growing up in Johnson County. He even spills on dating boyfriend (and former costar) Andrew Rannells and his worst role ever (it involves fisticuffs and Rick Spring field).

The Pitch: Good morning! Cheers! It’s early out there in L.A. We hear you’re in the midst of rehearsals. What are you rehearsing for now? I’m rehearsing for the West Coast premiere of The Inheritance at the Geffen Playhouse. Did you see it on Broadway? It’s kind of a big deal. Maybe you should come out to the West Coast? It won all the Tonys last season. It’s one of those two-part, 7-hour plays. It’s a gay play. It’s essentially what the current generation of young gay men owe their forebearers—the generation that came before them. It sounds like health food, but it’s dramatic, it’s sexy, and it’s a lot of fun. I’ve never been part of a two-part play—like Angels in America where you see the first play on a Tuesday and see part two, on, like, a Thursday.

We started rehearsing and we are not going to be ready [laughs]. There’s no way to do a 7-hour play in six weeks of rehears als. But it’s exciting. I love it when things go wrong on stage, and I love the puzzle of get ting out of that. I welcome it.

Are we neighbors? It feels like we’re neighbors. Where did you grow up in KC? I grew up in Mission and Prairie Village. When I’m back there, I go to Planet Fitness on Johnson Drive. I swam for the Mission Marlins and was always on my bike on John son Drive. We lived at the top of that huge hill—well, back then, it seemed huge—off 51st Street.

No matter how much I travel or where I live, I still consider myself a Midwest boy. Are you the same way? I think so. I’m grateful that I came from the Midwest—es pecially living in Los Angeles and New York. I feel like I came from good stock. I appre ciate my father’s sensibility and my grand father’s sensibility. When you work in an industry like I do, I think it’s very beneficial to have a more grounded sensibility—it gets

you through tough times. It helps in so many ways.

Now that I’m 55, it kinda feels like it’s in the rearview mirror a little bit, but it’s always part of who I am.

We know you get back to KC some times—mainly because we’ve seen you out and about. Do you have any favorite haunts back here? Yes! Foo’s (Fabulous Frozen Custard) in Brookside. My kids love Spin Pizza on Main. I used to love going to all the barbecue joints, but I stopped eating red meat about three years ago. My family does not like to hear me say that. My doctor said, for the first time in a physical, “Your choles

terol is slightly high.” And I said, “Well, what do I do?” And he said to cut out red meat, egg yolks, and full dairy. And I said, “I’ll do red meat and egg yolks—but ice cream is my jam. I’m not cutting that out.”

You cut your teeth in soap operas, like General Hospital. We’re guessing you still have ravenous fans who remember you from those roles. They’re not raven ous anymore. They’ve aged. And they’ve calmed down. And that usually happens in New York. One Life to Live was shot in New York, and I found that with shows that were shot in New York, I would get recognized east of the Mississippi. West of the Missis

“I’m not an antagonist; I’m a guy who reached a mid-life crisis and didn’t know which way to turn.”

sippi, not so much. East of the Mississippi is where my soap fans were—on public trans portation. Subways, buses, airplanes—plac es where you can’t walk away.

No, but soap fans are the greatest. They are specific, and they always tell you specif ically what they like. And I love that. Kevin Kline is one of my heroes. He’s from St. Lou is. And he tells the story of how someone in a cab was pulling by and yelled, “I loved you in Pirates of Penzance!” And he chased the cab and said, “What part? Specifically, what part? What part did you like?” I like to hear people’s specifics about things that they like.

Your filmography is lengthy. When was the last time you saw yourself and were like, “Oh, yeah—I was in that particular show.” There’s nothing I’ve done that I’ve, uh, forgotten. But there are a couple of things I’d like to forget. There was a TV show I was in—High Tide, a spin-off of Silk Stalkings, a B-grade NYPD Blue. And Rick Springfield was the star. And I played a guy who got beat up by Rick Springfield. I thought it was a blow to the ego. I got beaten up by Rick Springfield on a bad cop show. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that one. I don’t know if you can even find it. Maybe you could YouTube it?

I did a horror film called Infested. It was The Big Chill, but we all turned into zom bies. It was terrible. And those are the only two where I’d switch the channel. But most I have fond memories of.

Let’s cut to your new series, Uncoupled. Tell us how that role came about. Well, I’ve been trying to work with Darren Star ever since he didn’t hire me for the pilot of Melrose Place almost half a century ago. I made quick work of scheming and plotting and forcing him to hire me for this show. I knew Neil was going to be the star. And play

ing the ex, the guy who breaks up with the star in a show called Uncoupled, isn’t ordi narily the role you really want to get.

But it was really interesting because usually, in a break-up comedy, we see the couple break up in the first few minutes. The ex is a jerk, and the hero moves on and lives happily ever after. But this is a different kind of show. While we do follow Neil as the hero, we also follow Colin, his ex, and see how the break-up affects him. I feel like that’s kinda new. Darren Star and Jeffrey Richman—who have created the show—have written a more nuanced, layered show that’s really funny. It’s not necessarily so one-sided, though— we see how it affects everyone in Neil’s world, including his ex.

There’s an article about how you’re the accidental antagonist in this series. Did you see yourself as the bad guy? No, as far as I’m concerned, it’s a show about a guy who breaks up with his partner of 17 years and how that affects him. I don’t know what the other people are doing on that show.

When you’re an actor, there’s a thing you learn in Acting I, where you don’t judge your characters. That would apply here. I’m not an antagonist; I’m a guy who reached a mid-life crisis and didn’t know which way to turn. That’s a very human thing. He’s not so much the bad guy; he’s a guy who found himself in an untenable situation and didn’t know what to do.

Fair enough. Did you have a favorite scene in the series? Neil had to do some pretty heavy lifting in the show, emotional ly. And he and I are in a few scenes where he had to cry. And what I noticed about Neil that I thought was so fun—he’s a very facile actor, very technical. And when he had to cry, there are shots where he was in profile, and he could cry out of the eye that the cam

era could see—so he could reserve the tears in the eye the camera couldn’t see for other coverage. The only time I’ve ever seen that is on soap operas. Some women can do that. So, what I liked about those scenes so much was that there was lots of unintentional hu mor between the actors in very dramatic scenes.

The show is filled with a who’s-who of names. It was a casting director’s dream come true. Were you starstruck? When Marc Shaiman and his partner came up at the party and sang a song to me. I’ve loved their shows over the years. And they called me by name, and I thought, “Oh, wow—they know my name.” I got a little tongue-tied at that.

And with Marcia Gay Harden, I remem ber saying, “I think one of your coolest mov ies is Miller’s Crossing”—a gangster movie with Gabriel Byrne. And she said, “That was one of my very first movies.” And I was like, “It was?” She’s a theater gal, super fun. And very present. She’s quick to cut up and be sil ly, and then when the camera turns on, she’s right there.

Speaking of casting directors, what series or show are you dying to be on? Even if it’s a cameo role? I love zombie movies. So, I’ve always wanted to be on The Walking Dead. I’ve always felt I would sur vive the apocalypse; that I could be a surviv alist. I always liked going to western camps and wilderness camps. I’ve always felt that should it happen, I’ll be okay. My friend Na than Fillion—we used to be roommates— and we’d sit around and plot what would happen if an atomic bomb hit. Like, what would we do right now? We’ll stop at the gun store on La Brea to get arms, and then we’ll hit the grocery in the valley on the way to the Angeles Crest mountains. We have a

plan if that should happen. I love survival ist shows—dystopian end-of-the-world type stuff. My kids and I are reading and watching The Hunger Games right now.

Any chance we can get you back in Kansas City again for another performance? I actually moved back to KC for three years, from 2016 to 2019. I became a single gay dad through surrogacy in 2012, and I had twins. And when my twins were 3 years old, I was so completely overwhelmed trying to do this on my own and juggle a career that I sort of panicked. And in 2016, I thought, “I need help. I need to be near my family.” So, I moved back to Kansas City and lived in Fair way. While I was there, I did a play at KCRep in Constellations

As soon as I got back there, The New Theatre (and Restaurant) called me and said, “Hey, we hear you’re in town. Would you like to do Mamma Mia next year?” And I said, “You’re so nice to call, but I don’t sing.” And they said, “Oh, that doesn’t matter.” Yeah, I thought, “I’m not your guy.” [laughs]

Finally, do you read The Pitch—are you a fan? When I was younger, before I left Kan sas City, I read The Pitch like it was The Hol lywood Reporter. Like, the industry trade— because, for our town, it kinda was. I feel like I got introduced to what professional act ing was and what opportunities there were through The Pitch.

My friend Jeff Drake wrote for The Pitch in the ‘80s, and now he writes for Central Park, an animated show. He went to Shaw nee Mission East.

Interview edited for content and clarity.

Stills from Uncoupled. Courtesy Netflix

It can be difficult to understand the role of a Ganjier. For those without the knowl edge on dispensaries or how flower makes its way into stores, a Ganjier seems frivo lous. Who wouldn’t want to make mon ey sitting around observing and smoking weed? But much like a sommelier or choco latier, a Ganjier specializes in assessing can nabis buds for qualities like color, density, smell, taste, and overall experience. They’re essentially giving your cannabis a grade.

First, it’s important to note the differ ences in cannabis flower sold legally versus illegally. Oftentimes, buying underground can be a somewhat sketchy experience, even if you know who it’s coming from. Usu ally, it’s impossible to decipher if the flower is a sativa or an indica, let alone what strain it is. There’s no way to estimate the potency of the bud and it’s more often than not dried out, filled with seeds or poorly trimmed.

Sure, you’ll get high when you smoke it, but there’s no telling how it will make you feel. Worse, it tastes like… a leaf you’ve set on fire. Mites, mold or other drug presences can’t be ruled out.

Medical and recreational cannabis strains are completely different. It’s lab tested, quality tested and grown under very specific conditions. Every piece is account ed for in the system and stored in safes un der lock and key.

That is to say that a first time experi ence with legal cannabis can be intimidat ing. You need to know what you’re working with. More important than simply asking a budtender for their recommendation is un derstanding the foundation of the plant to make your own informed decision. Learn ing the parts of the bud and how each inter acts with the other is necessary for making a choice.

“The advantage of [having a Ganjier] is that the more information you have on what you’re going to buy, the better. If it had eyes on it by someone who is certified, I think there’s value in that,” says Morgan Seaman, one of two certified Ganjiers in the state of Missouri. “I want to convey the importance of why you should be in terested and aware of where your cannabis is coming from. Who is growing it, where they’re growing it? And [what is] the im pact it’s having on the Earth, or society or your community?”

So much more goes into judging what makes cannabis “quality” than expected. The color of the stigma (hair-like piec es on the bud that usually show in shades of orange and purple) indicate maturi ty. The opacity of the trichomes (mush room-shaped outgrowths on the bud) become darker as THC forms and breaks down. Terpenes (compounds that deter mine the taste and smell) are essential in determining how a plant will make you feel.

“It’s not necessarily true that THC percentage is what will get you really high. It’s what they call the entourage effect, or

ensemble effect, because it’s a plant. This is holistic medicine, you’re not taking one molecule and treating one singular thing. It’s a whole pantheon,” Seaman said. “Myr cine helps the cannabinoids pass through the blood-brain barrier more easily, and it’s also in mangos and hops. Humiline is in hops as well and has a more relaxing realm of a high, like an IPA. For me, if I drink a re ally hoppy beer, it makes me sleepy. That’s the humiline.”

Seaman explained that the entourage effect is best analogized through alcohol percentage. No one is drinking Everclear to

“The certified level was designed to provide a thorough and robust foundation al base of knowledge to the aspiring Ganji er, where we cover everything from history to botany to science, genetics, cultivation, processing, consumption, assessment, and ultimately sales and service,” Gilman says.

Step two requires traveling to the in famous Humboldt County to conduct live trainings and a final test to receive certifica tion. This gives Ganjier students the oppor tunity to interact with their instructors and meet some of the cannabis industry legends who take part. Friends are made and future

in a variety of different categories.

“There’s a benefit of this community of support. Out of that have come employment opportunities and opportunities for people to relocate or get their foot in the industry because of this connection they made since they went through the program,” Gilman says. “We’ve had so many examples. One of the students that was going through the program last year was the manager of the Arizona Dispensaries Association. He just got hired on as the CEO of this new compa ny in Arizona.”

Unfortunately for Seaman, he has found it difficult to put his expertise to use outside of judging cannabis cups. A cur rent budtender at BesaMe in Smithville, he anxiously awaits more opportunities as the market develops. However, cannabis pro fessionals in the know are slowly becoming more aware of The Ganjier Program and the benefits it provides to consumers.

“I’m very, very interested in meeting them. They’re definitely something we’re aspiring to become and incorporate into our practice and offering as well,” says Dan McCauley, a patient educator with Nuthera Labs. Currently, Nuthera is working on constructing and operating a new space to cultivate their own cannabis plants. In the past, they worked strictly in extracting from flower sourced from other suppliers.

have a relaxing evening, but wine or beer with a lower level of alcohol will create a more rounded experience. This all goes into the initial assessment before any consump tion of the flower even begins.

The Ganjier Program is a fairly new but highly regarded training course for anyone who is interested in becoming informed on more than just smoking the weed. Legacy farmers, CEOs, celebrities, budtenders, and enthusiasts are all signing up to sit through 35 hours of online courses before working in California to gain hands-on experience. Most classes are instructed by some of the most respected and longest-working pro fessionals in the industry.

“Right now we patterned and tai lored the program off of the wine somme lier programs that have been established and existed for the past five decades,” says Co-founder and Managing Director of Gan jier, Derek Gilman. At the time of interview, he was looking forward to seeing the com pany’s filmed feature for The Today Show

plans are discussed. This is how Seaman ended up working on legacy farmer Wendy Kornberg’s land with a fellow Ganjier from Virginia.

“We were harvesting hothouse grows of Ice Cream Cake, these big purple, really beautiful buds. We had harvested proba bly a hundred or so pounds, and you could smell that from up on her ridge. We spent maybe two days harvesting that and hang ing them when it started raining,” Seaman says with a sigh. “It was not great. All of it molded. It was very heartbreaking, but that was the lesson. It’s not all happy sunshine and rainbows, it’s tough work. You’re at the mercy of nature and you don’t really have much control. You have to just plan and prepare.”

Beyond the training, Ganjiers tend to go on to become leaders in the industry, either offered promotions due to their ex tensive knowledge or becoming judges at cannabis cup competitions where brands and cultivators battle it out for the top spot

“I think that working with a Ganjier is something that Nuthera Labs would be su per interested in,” McCauley says. “What’s different about cannabis and the Ganjier versus a wine sommolier is that they get to talk about more effect-driven results, rath er than just ending with the taste profile of the plant or product… I think that’s where the market is going to be headed. On a lot of levels, even in a rec market, it’s driven by a medical need. I think a lot of people who participate in our rec market are self-med icating in certain ways and would benefit from the little tidbits of information that could help them better choose what works best for them.”

If any of this seems intimidating, don’t worry. It’s a lot of information and all of it is still in the process of being disseminated to patients. The most important thing is to understand what you want out of the plant and ask your trusted budtender to guide you through terpenes and their effects.

“Cannabis is big and it touches so many things. Ultimately, cannabis is going to be in so many different products. It has the potential to replace any product that is cur rently being produced by petroleum, wood processing and so on. So, when it comes to people trying to educate themselves about this, [they should] find a topic that inspires them,” Gilman says.

He encourages new patients and the curious to begin researching before going to the dispensary to have a better knowledge base. What interests you? Science, botany, taste, culture, or just a really good high?

More important than simply asking a budtender for their recommendation is understanding the foundation of the plant to make your own informed decision.

The Ganjiers grade cannabis products. Courtesy Derek Gilman

Smells Like Queen Spirit

By Grace Wilmot

An intermingling of cool days between warm remnants of a Midwest September conjures memories of damp earth beneath fallen leaves and smoky, sweet marshmallows over a crackling wood fire.

The same could be said about For Strange Women’s perfumes. Meticulously crafted and poetically described for their predominantly online clientele, Kansas City’s women-owned and gender-neutral indie perfume brand illuminates land scapes and atmospheres buried deep with in the subconscious.

When Jill McKeever conceived For Strange Women almost 14 years ago, per fume creation served as an antidote to the burnout she’d experienced in film and mu sic production.

“I was able to go in every direction, and it fit together instead of dead-ending. It was an expression of everything I liked. You just never know what’s going to stick some times,” McKeever says.

What started as a solo Etsy endeavor has grown into a three-woman business with a loyal online following, and, more recently, a public storefront in the Cross roads. Within a few months of starting For Strange Women, McKeever accepted that in-house production would require a few more hands. For a while, she relied on sea sonal assistants, and a few stuck around. Tara Milleville—head of production and or der fulfillment—handles the tape gun with frightening efficiency. “Tara has been quite consistent...she’s the boss now,” McKeever says.

Ash Miyagawa—illustrator and de signer currently based in Chicago—assists McKeever with the brand’s delicate and timeless designs. McKeever discovered Miyagawa while she studied at the Kansas

City Art Institute. She was working across the street at Oracle KC, as well as Lulu’s and Mildred’s, and McKeever assumed she was three different people.

“She still works the same way,” Mil leville chimes in while packing orders. “She still does the work of four people.”

McKeever’s reluctance to expand has been conscientious. She has rejected op portunities to sell to larger companies, such as Urban Out fitters, to preserve the quality of her product and brand. The only way to nav igate natural ingredi ents is by minimiz ing their scale. For Strange Women per fumes use essential oils, resins, and plant extracts, and these supplies are vulnerable to weather, war, and other disruptions.

of cooking in a pot with sandalwood and is therefore more difficult to come by. So how does McKeever decide on ingredients? Much like her start-up days, her process re mains highly experimental.

sweet resins. The melange evokes images of album covers and sepia tones from ad vertisements from the ‘90s. “That one’s a little weirder; it’s not as concrete or literal as some of my other scents,” McKeever says.

FOR STRANGE WOMEN

“I have a catalog of scents in my mind. I work with between 200 and 300 scents. There are themes. I remember how they all smell and how they interact with others,” says McKeever, who claims to have syn esthesia.

115 West 18th Street, Suite 107 Kansas City, MO 64108

Hours: Open Tuesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. and Friday from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

“And if something is not possible to make, we discontinue that perfume—or several—and replace them with blends that we know we can sustain longer,” McKeever says. “There are a few European and Jap anese manufacturers that make the best products on the market for natural and syn thetic ingredients, and that’s kind of it.”

Whereas lavender is extremely acces sible because it’s easily grown and easily distilled, an attar—commonly presented as rose or jasmine—requires several days

For Strange Women’s site en courages clientele to accustom them selves to a thematic understanding of scents, too. Patrons can choose fragranc es based on season, scent profile, and feel ing, such as “healing/grounded” or “seduc tive/obsessed.” And for those of us seeking a more straightforward guide to our perfect scent, the site features a quiz designed to do just that.

“Most of my perfumes are a nostalgic reference to something I miss or remember in my life–experiences I’ve had or places I’ve been,” McKeever says.

Every month, in alignment with the new moon, McKeever creates a new scent. Her most recent is called “1993,” which in terweaves amber with spice and patchou li. It’s earthy and playful, with top notes of

Nonetheless, Milleville wore a test batch of “1993” out, and a 40-somethingyear-old passerby asked, “Who smells like high school?”

“Winter Kitty,” one of For Strange Women’s earlier scents, is described online as “the scent of a house cat returning from a winter walk with chimney smoke and brisk air captured in their fur.”

McKeever’s fragrances often emulate the natural: forest, mountains, or the ocean. She seeks to attune individuals to the sub tleties of the earth. She has three gardens at home for vegetable, medicine, and aromat ic purposes. She advocates for cultivating a relationship with plants and learning to rec ognize how they communicate their needs.

“If you don’t have a connection with nature, you’re not going to respect it,” she says. “I’m not Wiccan, but there are a lot of Pagan principles at work in what I do.”

For Strange Women’s scents are avail able as solids and lip balms, as well as oils. Additionally, the shop carries essential oils, elixirs, candles, and incense. And if you’re absolutely enraptured by a particular scent, decorative amulets allow infinite accessibility.

Three women who capture the wild spirits of the earth in the form of elixirs and perfumes? To answer your burning ques tion: no, they are not witches.

HOW LOCAL PERFUMERY FOR STRANGE WOMEN WILL TRAP YOUR SCENT

They’re not witches. Courtesy For Strange Women

Manic Panic

By Anna Perry-Rushton

It’s a gloomy Saturday evening with dark clouds hanging overhead and a cool mist of rain trickling down. Perfect weather for a seance… err… glance at Tim Sweeten, bet ter known as Terrible Tim, the World’s Most Horrible Horror Host.

Kansas City has a long and rich history of horror hosts that date back to the 1950s with Gregory Grave’s show Shock Theater on KMBZ and Marilyn the Witch with The Witching Hour. In the early 1960s, we had Penny Dreadful’s show Son of Chiller and Mike Murphy’s Murphy’s Monstrous Movies in the 1970s. Crematia Mortem was the last true horror host in the 1980s with Creature Feature, and after 25 years, she passed the torch to Terrible Tim and his show, Drive-In Movie Maniacs

Terrible Tim put on a small horror con vention that would go on to become a year ly event and the highlight of Kansas City’s spooky season. He brought celebrities to

town and showed their movies, providing a chance to meet and mingle with horror movie characters like Alex Vincent (aka Andy Barclay), who starred in the Child’s Play franchise.

Around this time, Tim started kick ing around the idea of actually putting a production together and really digging his heels into the horror host gig by creating Drive-In Movie Maniacs, a show that fea tured the trials of tribulations of Terrible Tim’s life, from getting in a wrestling match with Jerry “The King” Lawler to luring Gal lagher for a cameo. Tim put together a team of like-minded individuals, and off they went. He added some local talent to the mix with Blade Braxton, who portrayed the “Midnight Rose.” Josh Reinhard directed, filmed, edited, and added special effects for the show. Rod Zirkle kept Terrible Tim looking terrible with his makeup, and Kelli Mollencamp created Tim’s costume from

scratch. The Haunted Creepys provided the soundtrack for the show and antago nized Terrible Tim in the episodes. The se ries also found its biggest supporter, Brian Short, who is the COO of TV25 and added the show to his line-up of weekly enter tainment, growing Drive-In Movie Maniacs from a local to regional sensation.

In 2019, Tim hit pause to address some personal health issues. In 2021, his best friend and cast member Blade Braxton passed unexpectedly, and Kelli Mollen camp died of cancer. It wasn’t until Septem

ber 2022 when Keith Van Sickle got Tim out of the house and back into his makeup for the Slash and Bash convention, which re connected Tim with the horror community and marked nearly three years since he had first donned his creepy clothing.

Terrible Tim has risen from the grave and dusted himself off. Now the show is set to debut nationally on Yoo Too Ameri ca. From humble beginnings to 70 million households, the true haunt is only just be ginning.

HORROR HOST TERRIBLE TIM TAKES HIS SHOW TO THE NATIONAL STAGE

Terrible Tim is terribly terrifying. Photo by Anna Perry-Rushton

Pasta-tively Perfect

By Jordan Baranowski

There are many premium pasta options in Kansas City, and one of them just got a lot easier to sink your teeth into. Zero Zero Handmade Pasta, previously only available at farmer’s markets and through a one-day-per-week online order, has a new storefront—and expanded inventory—that you can find in the Westside neighborhood.

Located in what used to house Ibis Bakery, Zero Zero still offers their pas ta-of-the-week pickup and delivery every Thursday through their website, but the newly-opened store allows them to play with many more pasta options than before. Co-owner Leah Steinberg loves the versatil ity it allows them to have.

“Our delivery service started building a little following, but it could be tough if someone fell in love with one week’s pasta,” Steinberg says. Since Zero Zero was work ing with fresh pasta, they previously oper ated on a single pasta-of-the-week format, meaning favorites would cycle in and out of rotation. “[Now] we’re able to keep several different varieties on hand—if you’ve had one you like through us, you’ll probably find it in our freezer,” she says.

Along with Steinberg, the culinary mind behind Zero Zero is Mitch Fagan, who has always enjoyed cooking as a hobby. Like many of us, Fagan took his interests to the next level during the early stages of the pan demic as he and Steinberg started refining recipes inspired by a 2019 trip through Italy. Fagan began a deep dive into the process and methods of traditional pasta making, and the two quickly realized that they had some delicious recipes on hand that they wanted to share.

“It started through a commissary kitchen in the West Bottoms, and we were amazed by how many people signed up for our first few deliveries,” Steinberg says. “We hadn’t even really planned on ever opening a true ‘shop,’ but we walked past the space, saw it was open, and looked into it on a whim. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up.”

The storefront helps highlight one of the main appeals of Zero Zero: the fresh ness of their pasta. They work with several local producers; their eggs come from Cam po Lindo Farms, much of their seasonal produce comes from Urbavore Urban Farm,

Hours:

Open Tuesday through Thursday from 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. - 7 p.m. Closed Sunday and Monday.

and their flour comes from Marion Milling Company. Rather than most pasta you’d find at the grocery store, Zero Zero’s pasta isn’t dried; it’s frozen. It can go directly from the freezer to the stove. Just get some boil ing water and drop it in.

When talking to Steinberg about Zero Zero’s most popular options, it seems clear that they specialize in pasta varieties that double as little pockets of goodness. She mentions a lemon-garlic agnolotti as their most popular item, alongside a corn and mascarpone ravioli. She also helpfully de scribes the difference for pasta rookies. Though both varieties are pockets, ravioli is made by layering a sheet of pasta, fillings, and a second sheet of pasta on top before cutting the squares. Agnolotti is made with a single long, thin sheet of pasta, to which you add a filling, fold the pasta over the top, and pinch the ends closed before finally cutting it to shape.

We all know that the easiest way to take pasta to the next level is with a delicious sauce, and Zero Zero’s got you covered on that front as well. They keep a number of varieties of housemade sauce in stock, but

1702 Summit Street, Kansas City, MO 64108

ZERO ZERO HANDMADE PASTA

ZERO ZERO PASTA’S NEW STOREFRONT OFFERS DELICIOUS TWISTS ON THE TASTE OF ITALY

all you’ll really need is their best seller: a parmesan-cream sauce, seasoned to per fection with white pepper and garlic. Feel free to drink it straight from the jar.

The new store allows for a few other fun wrinkles, but the big one is how things change on weekends. On Saturday, you can actually sit down at a number of small ta bles in the shop for Zero Zero’s pasta of the week, served fresh with a side of housemade focaccia. Nothing goes with fresh pasta and bread like a glass (or three) of wine, and that’s coming soon—Fagan is also a certi fied sommelier, and the team is working on getting their liquor license in place within the next few months so customers can en joy a curated wine selection with their meal.

They’re also looking for opportunities to do pop-up events with other local busi nesses and to continue to grow their oper ation. If you’re craving some carbs for your evening meal, Zero Zero is a great place to check out. You might even call it a pas ta-tively perfect destination.

Almond Frangipane Croissant at Banksia

BY SARAH SIPPLE

Banksia 105 W. 9th St. Kansas City, MO 64105

If you consider yourself a croissant connoisseur, this over-the-top almond crois sant from Banksia should be next on your list.

Delicate outside layers dusted with powdered sugar unravel to reveal a sweet, cream-like almond filling in side the pastry. The magic here is the Australian frangipane filling. A generous help ing of frangipane and the classic buttery pastry layers combine for a soft inside and crunchy outside, perfectly paired with a mild black coffee or smooth oat milk latte.

Co-founders Rob and Kate Joseph moved from Australia to Kansas City in 2012 and opened Banksia Australian Bakehouse & Café in 2018. The namesake honors a bright and sturdy native Australian flower. Australian influences are found in the de cor, the table markers, and naturally, the menu. Vegemite Toast, Australian Meat Pies, Pavlova, Lamington, and more grace the menu in addition to breakfast and lunch sandwiches, salads, and baked goods.

Sunday Dress at Nostalgia Room

BY DREW WINDISH

Location and hours to be announced

Lawrence, KS, makes quite a name for itself when it comes to its drinking culture alone. But in an offshoot maker shop east of Massachusetts Street, the spirits don’t have to haunt the social atmosphere.

The Nostalgia Room spe cializes in temperate drinks that prove rightfully approach able.

One such favorite, the Sunday Dress, readily seizes a summertime wistfulness ap propriately fitting for the name of the bar. The berry aroma of the blueberry balsamic base mixed in with the warm tones of basil hops and cascara tea come together to form an earthy finish.

The flavor is a perfect handhold as the season changes—a deep aura with a sprinkle of bee pollen throwback to the previous season—it’s a phantom kiss good bye promising summer’s return, one that you can share with all your friends.

The Nostalgia Room is a fully temperate bar and lounge coming to LFK in late October 2022. Hours and location are to be announced soon.

Sarah Sipple

Drew Windish

An assortment of weekly pasta varieties found at the Westside storefront.

Courtesy Zero Zero Handmade Pasta

Alyssa Bailey likes gluten. And she should. She’s the pastry chef and head baker at Blackhole Bakery, best known for their interstellar mochi do nuts and their brioche cinnamon rolls. We dished about the best gas station pastry, KC dream collaborations, home pantry musthaves, and beyond. Bailey is hard-working, humble, always on the lookout for her next in spo, and has her fair share of guilty pleasures.

What are your comfort foods when you get done baking? What do you crave? My favorite comfort food is probably Taco Bell, which is a horrible answer. I don’t go there that much, but I love it. And I love soup—matzah ball soup; it’s one of my fa vorites.

What is the difference between puff pastry, traditional laminated croissant dough, and phyllo dough? Croissant dough versus puff pastry: croissant has yeast in it. The puff pastry is steam-raised. So, there’s steam in there, and it pops the layers, but there’s no actual leavening in puff pastry. It is laminated the same way with the layers of butter. Phyllo is a com pletely different type of dough that I’ve actually never made from scratch. They have these huge tables for stretching phyl lo—you need all the special equipment. We don’t have space back there for that. I think it’s a very specific skill. Like, I think I’d have to practice.

What collaboration do you think would be magical for Blackhole, and for you, personally? Who is doing cool shit in KC? Sura Eats. We’ve talked to Keeyoung Kim before about doing a collaboration, and it hasn’t happened yet. I would love to do something with him. I think that would be really fun. We’re like, “Hey, you know, we have lots of different types of doughs. What could we do together? With some bulgogi, or whatever, you know?” But I know he’s a really busy guy.

How did you get into making mochi do nuts? We had been watching tons of videos about Japanese street food, and that’s where we first heard about them a long time ago.

We were like, “That looks so delicious.” I love mochi ice cream. I’ve always loved mochi, and we didn’t have anything gluten-free here, so I was like, “We should just try it and see.” And then we messed around with the recipes we found, combined a bunch of stuff, came up with something, and it turned out.

What’s the best pastry at a gas station? Oh, usually, if I’m at a gas station, I would get a donut. Yeah, I usually get an old-fash ioned.

What are three pantry items at home that you can’t live without? I love grits, so I have a lot of polenta. I have like a million kinds of beans. And this is awful—I proba bly would say I get those French’s crunchy onions, and I put them on, like, everything. Salads, whatever—I sprinkle them on all the things.

An old-fashioned donut with French’s onions? I would probably like that. I would eat that. That sounds great.

Can we convince people that that’s a donut? I bet we could. I played around with an old-fashioned in our recipes before, but we don’t have space or the staff here yet. But someday I think we’d like to do that, you know?

Mise En Place is a series of questions, answers, recommendations, and culinary wisdom from the food and drink masters that push KC flavor further. The following answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Merely Players

By Nick Spacek

When the Matchsellers’ Andrew Morris started writing songs for the bluegrass band’s latest album, The Wishful Thinker’s Hall of Fame, he didn’t intend for it to become the project it did, although fans of the band’s music shouldn’t be surprised. The Matchsellers have gone above and be yond with their music in the past, such as 2018’s Bluegrastronauts, whose shows saw the group dressing as time-traveling space rangers and telling stories in between songs about the future in outer space. There’s also Morris’ 2020 solo album, One Fine, Sweet & Sunny Day, wherein the musician created a podcast to tell the story of a machine be coming a sentient being and attempting to kill him.

On this latest recording with Julie Bates (fiddle/vocals), Brian McCarty (mandolin), and Brandon Day (bass), Morris didn’t want to make an album with an arc or a story or a concept.

“I was getting burnt out,” Morris says. “I sort of didn’t wanna do it anymore. I wanted it just to be a bluegrass record.”

As things go in life, it didn’t quite work out the way Morris was planning. When he was hanging out with his buddy, Hank Tilbury, who did the album art, Tilbury ex plained to Morris that he’d actually made a Facebook business page for The Wishful Thinker’s Hall of Fame.

“I started talking with him about this whole concept and was like, ‘Man, that’s great, that’s so cool, that’s such a great idea,’” Morris explains. “That opened up the worm hole, and it was like, ‘All right, I gotta do this one more time. I gotta try again to make this whole multimedia concept thing happen.’”

Thankfully, Morris says it wasn’t that difficult to come up with the different char acters who populate the titular hall. He de scribes the process as a surreal free associ ation between his childhood growing up in Indiana and the Matchsellers’ touring on the road.

“We met all sorts of weird characters,”

recalls Morris. “We toured full-time for about seven years and stopped at all sorts of weirdo little places. It was kind of nice to be able to do the project because all of the characters— these people that I had met on the road or these interesting places like Sehnert’s Bieroc Cafe in McCook, Nebraska—I was able to not let those places remain just a fog of memory.”

Morris says that part of the appeal of taking The Wishful Thinker’s Hall of Fame from just a regular album to a conceptual multimedia piece was being able to revis it some of these characters and people and things and give them a new life.

Given that this was based on an idea Tilbury had nearly three years ago, Morris made sure to get his blessing, and the artist gave the musician free rein to do whatever he wanted to do, which was crafting an album that now includes portraits of the inductees, QR codes to visit some of the places men tioned, and a one-weekend-only perfor mance of a play in which an induction cer emony contains “a rift in the fabric of reality between the real and the irreal.”

That play, which takes place at the end of October in a secret location, looks to be something quite unlike anything Morris has heretofore attempted, although it’s not been without growing pains.

“We did a little test run of trying to do it live where I would read from the booklet, and it just didn’t quite connect sort of how I wanted it to connect,” Morris says with some regret. “It just felt like I was up there just reading from this book.”

Given that the test run was done with a small crowd of only ten people, and it just didn’t quite go the way Morris wanted it to go, one has to expect it would go even more poorly with a large crowd. So, the musician went back to the drawing board and wrote what is now a play.

“It’s gonna be this award/induction ceremony, and we are gonna have these big blowups of the characters,” explains Morris. “It makes sense: it’s a wishful thinker’s hall of

fame. All these people wanted to come to the induction ceremony, but they just couldn’t quite make it.”

Each of the blowups will feature a mask of the character, and the three other mem bers of the band will all rotate, reading a character’s story, and then one person will go out and take the mask off of the giant pic ture of the person, and then assume the role of that person and act out their life story.

“That’s only gonna get us halfway there,” Morris stops to clarify. “You do that enough times—that’s novel for maybe a third of the way through the play, but then it starts to get a little old, and I wanted it to go somewhere.”

Morris continues to explain the rest of the performance of The Wishful Thinker’s Hall of Fame in a way that is definitely “a little bit complicated,” but essentially, what happens is these characters start to be differ ent shades of Andrew Morris, and then True Lions’ Alison Hawkins swoops in as a witch character called the Arbiter of Irreality, and then things get very heady.

“Us trying to create this wishful think er’s hall of fame; it’s kind of like a paradox,” Morris says. “A wishful thinker would nev er actually go through with making a hall of fame, so we are creating something that should not exist.”

Morris is pretty frank in admitting—as a reason for straying from his original plan— that it’s knowing and attending performanc es of other musicians like Dimension Bill Ed wards, Freight Train Rabbit Killer, or Calvin Arsenia, who frame their music and present it in a way where you just want to go see it.

“I think I was just a little tired,” Morris says. “Everybody gets a little burnt out doing stuff. But you know, once the idea’s there, I feel like I kind of have to do it. I have a bit of responsibility because it’s like, ‘If I don’t do this, it’s just not gonna exist. Man, that’d be so cool. It just would be a real bummer if it just didn’t exist.’”

Before Hank Tilbury gave Andrew Mor ris the idea for The Wishful Thinker’s Hall of Fame, the plan was just to make a regular old record and play some bluegrass. Now, here we are with an art project, backstories for characters, and an impending two-night performance. It’s more than Morris original ly planned, but as he says at the conclusion of our call, once you have the idea and it’s a good one, you have something of a responsi bility to that idea to make it happen.

The Wishful Thinker’s Hall of Fame is out Oct. 28.

You can purchase the album along with tickets for the play at thematchsellers.bandcamp.com

Performances take place at a secret location on Saturday, Oct. 29 and Sunday, Oct. 30.

BLUEGRASS BAND THE MATCHSELLERS REFORMAT THEIR LATEST ALBUM FOR THE THEATRE

The Matchsellers’

Hitting the High Notes

LOCAL MUSICIANS FIND CREATIVE SPARK WITH CANNABIS

By Hannah Strader

Marijuana has an undeniable reputation of inciting laziness and fatigue in users, but the creative aspects of certain strains continue to move and inspire musicians. From the early days of jazz, Black musi cians were using cannabis to slow time and change their perception for better sound improvisation. This and the plant’s associa tion with Mexico led the United States to the War on Drugs, but that is a whole separate story.

Locally, the lines on cannabis are blur ry. A vote on recreational weed has just been placed on Missouri’s impending November ballot, and medical dispensaries seem to be popping up on every street corner in KC. Our Kansan neighbors tend to run in a more underground market, most of their imports hailing from Colo rado at discounted pric es for trimmings or homegrown bud.

Still, you can bet artists will continue to find ways to ingest cannabis, using it to their advantage. Some bands prefer to only make music that way.

“It’s all we do,” says Camer on Morse, a guitar ist for metal hardcore band Severance USA. “When we write, we sit in a room together just completely stoned. I really don’t know what it would be like sober. Honestly.”

Julian Dubinsky, Morse’s roommate and singer/guitarist of alt-rock group Daffy in the Bikini Zone, admitted that most of his band smokes, but not everyone.

“We know where to draw the line of what is too much and if someone isn’t com fortable with it, we don’t do it. That’s just bottom line,” Dubinsky says. After a partic

ularly disastrous performance, Dubinsky quit playing shows high altogether.

Jolson Robert, vocalist/guitarist for the alt-rock band Quite Frankly, had a similar stage experience during which he realized he may have pushed it a bit too far.

“When I stood up [to perform], I was so light-headed I thought I was gonna fall over. When I got on stage I was freaking out a lit tle bit,” Robert says. “I forgot every lyric to every song right up until I had to say them. Muscle memory kicked in and I went on au topilot for the rest of the show.”

For bands like True Lions—self-de scribed flossy punk country freaks—it can be about combatting certain aspects of the culture sur rounding live music and defacto bar venues.

“I had been un derage drinking all throughout high school. It was pretty bad for my brain, but it was peer pres sure, and it’s really common,” Alison Hawkins of

True Lions explains. “Over the last five years or so, I backed away from drinking. It makes me feel like garbage, I forget what I’m play ing if I’m in a show. I’m not focused, I feel like shit, it makes me sick. So I decreased alcohol and increased marijuana.”

While moderation is key for some, many of the artists prefer to use it for its calming and thera peutic benefits.

“Weed can af fect people dif ferently. I know it can make some people really shy if they’re in that headspace, but I think it actually helps me to relax and be more open. I’m lucky that it has that effect on me,” Alison says.

“I have to or I just get mad,” Morse says.

For rapper Dominique Hall, known by his stage name as Dom Chronicles, it’s important to stay focused before gigs when engaging with a crowd. Smoking while producing or before DJing sets is ideal.

“It gets me in this cool little flow and makes me think of songs that I wouldn’t normally blend into other songs, or I’ve nev er heard blended into other things. Using techniques I’ve never used be fore, it gives me a little more con fidence to experiment with what ever. Even if I mess up a little bit, it’s cool,” says Hall.

Robert agrees, say ing of his own experience, “I kept unbroken eye contact with the people in the front row and kept giggling with them. Whoever they are out there, they saved my ass by just having a good time with me.”

Taylor Hughes, an electro-pop produc er and multi-instrumentalist named under the moniker pure xtc, finds more comfort in creating music while high. Thus far, she’s been too intimidated to perform while stoned, especially considering everything

she has to do on stage. But she hopes to gain her perfect equation of tolerance, allowing her to do so.

“I like to just take an edible and let it set in. I’ll just be sitting on the couch and an idea that I’ve been blocked on for weeks will suddenly happen,” says Hughes. “It turns off that hyper-criti cal part of me.

Instead of sec ond-guessing myself, I’ll just try the weird idea or hit a note that I haven’t been able to before.”

Edibles tend to be a preferred intake method for vo calists who can’t risk coughing or scratchy voices caused by smok ing. But some times the delay in effect can be a little

“It’s kind of cir cumstantial depending on what the venue is,” Haw kins explains. “If my conserva tive family members are going to be there, I’d rather be sober. Even though I want to smash the stigma, it feels awkward.”

Bob Abernathy, a guitarist and bud tender, feels that nothing is more natural than integrating cannabis into his projects. After all, weed is his work.

“Due to medical legalization and hav ing access to metrology of cannabis, just knowing what I’m getting and how it affects me really does play a role in what I’ll smoke when I’m playing something,” says Aber nathy. “[I use] strains that have sativa-dom inant terpene profiles—so limonine and terpenoline. Stardawg and Golden Goat are the two strains that I can use to sit down and actually focus on music and notice its pres ence in the activity.”

Abernathy expertly summarizes what to expect when experimenting with mari juana in any capacity.

“It’s only beneficial if being in that state is genuinely beneficial to the person in their day-to-day life at that time,” he says. “Your headspace is definitely altered in the same way if you tried to write without caffeine or tried to engage in practicing music without caffeine, which I highly suggest.”

Abernathy continues, “I would say I think that music is the capturing of some one’s point of view, so as you dynamically change your points of view, you’re going to come out with different music and exercise the spectrum of expression that you can en gage in. I think that’s fundamentally a good thing.”

Oct. 7

Mac Sabbath Knuckleheads

Hailing from an enchanted forest in the 1970s where hamburgers grow on trees; band members Ronald Osbourne, Slayer MacCheeze, Grimalice, and the Catburglar, perform faithful Black Sabbath covers with fast-food lyrical tweaks like “Frying Pan” (“Iron Man”) and “Pair-a-Buns” (“Paranoid”). Mac Sabbath’s stage show is a surreal play place of costumes, props, and multimedia—all on a sesame seed bun. The founders of drive-thru metal pull around to Knuckleheads at 8:30 p.m. Oct. 7. Tickets are $18.

OctOber cALeNDAr

By Thomas White

ONGOING

Oct. 1 - 31

MAYA The Exhibition, Union Station

Oct. 1 - 31

American Art Deco: Designing for the Peo ple, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

Oct. 1 - 31

Black Citizenship in the Age of Jim Crow, Liberty Memorial’s Wylie Gallery

Oct. 1 - 16

Akeelah and the Bee, The Coterie Theatre

Oct. 5, 12, 19, 26

Poetic Underground Workshop & Open Mic, Blip Roasters

Oct. 7 - 9

Strauss’ Alpine Symphony, Helzberg Hall

Oct. 7 - 31

The Rocky Horror Show Live, The Black Box KC

Oct. 8 - 31

Art Exhibit: Everybody Eats When They Come to My House, Charlotte Street Gal lery

Oct. 11 - 16

The Crown Live!, Starlight Theater

Oct. 14 - 16

KC Ballet Presents: Giselle, Muriel Kauff man Theatre

Oct. 20 - 30

Tell-Tell Electric Poe, The Coterie Theatre

Oct. 28 - 29

Big Jay Oakerson, The Improv

EVENTS

Oct. 2

¡Oktoberfiesta!, Boulevard Brewery Merchants of the Santa Fe Trail, KC Cen tral Library

Oct. 3

Diana Krall, Muriel Kauffman Theatre La Dispute, The Granada

Oct. 4

Toadies w/ Reverend Horton Heat, Knuck leheads

State of Poetry: The Poets Laureate of MO & KS, KC Plaza Library

Oct. 5

Big Wild, The Midland

An Evening with Butterbean, The Comedy Club KC

Oct. 12

Phoenix

The Midland

You may recall French indie-pop band Phoenix from crushing the charts in the late Obama years with hits like “1901,” “Lasso,” or “Lisztomania.” We at The Pitch are partic ularly fond of their role in A Very Murray Christmas—directed by Phoenix lead singer

Thomas Mars’ esteemed wife Sofia Coppolla. Phoenix is back to their clever-whim sy-filled lyrics over danceable beats while touring in support of their new album Alpha Zulu which features a Vampire Weekend collaboration on their lead single “Tonight.”

Tickets start at $29.50, doors at 7 p.m.

Oct. 6

Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superla tives, Muriel Kauffman Theatre MUNA, The Truman Jukebox the Ghost, The Bottleneck

Oct. 7

Deep Greenwood: The Hidden Truth of Black Wallstreet, Music Hall Relativity Brass Band, The Ship

Oct. 8

Ani DiFranco, Liberty Hall Wolf Alice, The Truman Amanda Fish, Knuckleheads Team Hope Walk, Liberty Community Center

Oct. 9

Knocked Loose, The Granada Dylan Earl and Johno Leroy, Manor Records

Oct. 10

Chiefs vs Raiders, Arrowhead Stadium Jeff Shirley Organ Trio, Green Lady Lounge

Oct. 11

AWOLNATION, Uptown Theater Kid Bloom, The Bottleneck

Oct. 12

Tai Verdes, The Truman Frankenstein (1931), Aztec Shawnee The ater

Oct . 13

Fountain City Comedy Festival, Manor Re cords

Role Model, The Madrid

Oct. 14

Death Cab for Cutie, The Midland Paramore w/ Young the Giant, Azura Am phitheater

Clutch w/ Helmet and Quicksand, Uptown Theater

Oct. 15

Bliptoberfest, Blip Roasters The Dream Police & The Steve Miller Expe rience, Aztec Shawnee Theater

Oct. 16

Chiefs vs Bills, Arrowhead Stadium FKJ, The Midland

Mazim Vengerov, Folly Theater

Oct. 17

RAW Storytelling, The Black Box KC Illuminati Hotties, recordBar

Oct. 18

Marcus Mumford, The Midland Turnstile, Uptown Theater

Oct. 19

Kurt Vile & the Violators, Liberty Hall In This Moment, The Midland St. Lucia, The Truman

Oct. 20

KC Symphony Happy Hour Concert, Helz berg Hall

Lawrence Zombie Walk, The Granada Spooky Skate, Cable Dahmer Arena

Oct. 21

Rockabilly Prom w/ The Rumblejetts, Knuckleheads

Oct. 15

Matt Maeson The Truman

At some point Matt Maeson has popped up on your Spotify playlist. His hits “Cringe” and “Hallucinogenics” are some of the most streamed alternative rock songs of the past few years. Maeson got his start playing maximum security prisons at 17 with his missionary parents before developing his own sound and he now comes to KC in support of his fourth full-length album Never Had to Leave. Tickets start at $25, doors at 7 p.m.

Oct. 14

Lizzo T-Mobile Center

Her new man may be on the the Minnesota Vikings but her new tour brings Lizzo to KC for the first time post-pandemic. The Special Tour will have you saying “about damn time” with a show that exudes positivity and empowerment that’ll have you feeling good as hell. The world’s foremost singer-rapper-flautist will be out here getting loose Oct. 14. Show at 8 p.m. Tickets start at $65.

Beats & Broomsticks: Hocus Pocus in the Park, Zona Rosa

Sister Hazel and Spin Doctors, Ameristar Casino

Oct. 22

25th Anniversary Gala: The New New Wave, Charlotte Street Foundation Yoga at the Kauffman Center, Kauffman Center

KC Mavericks Home Opener, Cable Dahmer Arena

Oct. 23

Dead Poet Society, The Bottleneck

Cory Philips & the Band of Light, Replay Lounge

Oct. 24

Immersive King Tut, Lighthouse Artspace Jayson Kayne, Jerry’s Bait Shop

Oct. 25

Nick Schnebelen Band, BB’s Lawnside Sasha and the Valentines, Minibar

Captured by Robots, The Brick

Oct. 26

King Buffalo, recordBar

Blue’s Clues & You!, Cable Dahmer Arena

Bird Watching-Short Film Showcase, The Bird Comedy Theater

Oct. 27

The Price is Right Live, The Midland

Paula Poundstone, Folly Theater

Segregation, Redlining, and Opportunity

Hoarding: A Case for Reform, KC Plaza Li brary

Oct. 28

Rachel Bobbitt, The Rino

The Marshall Tucker Band, Ameristar Ca sino

Oct. 29

Christian Nodal, T-Mobile Center David Cook, Knuckleheads

Oct. 30

Bridal & Wedding Expo, Bartle Hall

The Milk Carton Kids, Knuckleheads

The Kingston Trio, Folly Theater

Oct. 31

Sammy Rae & The Friends, The Granada

John Carpenter’s Halloween, Screenland Armour

Oct. 25 -26

Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin performs Suspiria

Screenland Armour

Legendary horror composer Claudio Simonetti brings his group of musicians —Gob lin— to Screenland Armour to play a live score for the cult-classic horror film Suspiria in honor of the film’s 45th anniversary. After the film and a brief intermission, Goblin returns to play a set of horror scores accompanied by clips from films like Dawn of the Dead, Demons, Deep Red, and Tenebre. Tickets are $45 with VIP package add-ons available. Both shows begin at 7 p.m.

SEX ED CAN’T BE IGNORED

Between book banning and censorship in schools, it’s imperative that parents feel informed and empowered to take on a role once reserved for gym coaches, biol ogy teachers, and library materials.

Someone I know—in their early 30s— didn’t know how babies were made be cause their parents opted them out of sex education in school. I recently stitched a TikTok of a young Christian couple in which the young man asked his wife, “How are you peeing your pants? You have a tampon in.” A viral conversation on social media that shocked a lot of non-Mormons this year was about “Jump-Humping,” a technique that is supposed to allow young unmarried couples to work around those pesky details of church doctrine.

I have zero interest in grooming chil dren, but I want to ensure that under-ed ucated adults gain enough knowledge to successfully navigate sex, love, and rela tionships, thereby passing on better under standings and less stigma to subsequent generations.

The only public school sex education I

received before my senior year Parenthood class at Belton High School was a reproduc tive organs talk in 4th and 5th grade. Two formal lessons at two hours each on what ovaries, eggs, and periods were, and advice to shower daily and treat ourselves to a little chocolate. I guess I was supposed to figure out the rest from my parents or peers.

How was any of that going to teach us how to avoid pregnancy once we had a pe riod, or how to give and receive consent, or that one day we may like touching our gen itals and there’s an appropriate time and place for that?

Current state law in Missouri now re quires discussions about sexual violence and consent. All information given to stu dents must be medically factual and accu rate, even if there’s no standard for what in formation is to be covered, or who qualifies to teach sexual health. School districts have the discretion to teach or omit topics at will. Sex educators may be contracted by schools to come to teach lessons, but they may not be associated with an abortion provider. Only 3% of students report that they receive

any LGBTQIA+ sexual health information or education, according to a GLSEN survey in 2017.

I remember going on a school field trip to the Plaza in eighth grade. We stopped at Barnes and Noble, and I wandered over to the self-help section, which happened to have relationship advice and sexology books. I’d gotten a pretty bad haircut that year, and several kids had taken to calling me a dyke, so, I figured why not skim over a book or two and see what all the fuss was about lesbians.

I read about using vegetables for sex acts safely. I learned what a nipple orgasm was. I got clarification on fisting. For the first time, I understood that oral wasn’t just for a man to receive and that I had something called a “clitoris.”

That day gave me knowledge about my own body. It satiated my desire for the ta boo at a pivotal age. I felt more prepared for what sex would look like one day—when I was ready. I knew I still liked boys, but I was no less curious about what it could be like to be with a girl one day, too. One hour of skimming books written by experts, sitting on a shelf available for me to peruse as I chose, served as one of the best sources of sex education I had in my adolescent life.

Nearly 30 years later, the internet has completely changed access to information. Yes, there is a lot of crazy shit online, but

bodies if they aren’t educated about sex and bodies. Sex education is a human right be cause it directly affects our physical, men tal, and spiritual well-being.

Knowing what sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are, steps for prevention, and how to disclose your status to someone are all vital aspects of health education. And this is just one multifaceted topic. Sex edu cation can’t be summed up in a pamphlet.

It’s vital that kids understand—with age-appropriate clarity—the medical terms for their body parts; that they are in charge of their bodies; that they don’t have permis sion to touch other bodies without consent; and that if anyone tries or does touch them, they can tell someone and feel protected.

You would never blame your kid if they drove down the block and got into an acci dent if you tossed them the keys expecting their hours of playing Grand Theft Auto to suffice as driving lessons.

Studies show two reassuring things I want all parents to know: Your kids will listen to you more than you realize when they are in high peer pressure situations, and when parents are the primary sources of fact-based sexual health info—specifical ly moms to teen boys—they are less likely to have early pregnancies and STI rates go down.

October is Let’s Talk Month, so push through the awkwardness and load your

there is also a lot of factual, science-based information. My favorite sources include scarleteen.com and amaze.org. You can also visit the Brooklyn Public Library web site and gain access to any books that might be banned by your library.

Kids deserve knowledge. There is no way to prepare them for the very big, con sequential decisions surrounding sex and

self and your kids up with facts, books, and websites. Visit plannedparenthood.org or parents-together.org. Get books like Read Me: A parental primer for The Talk by Dr. Lanae St. John and Guide to Getting It On by Paul Joannides. Don’t wait for them to come and ask questions. Use teachable moments and be as proactive as you can. You got this!

Photo by Nicole Bissey. Illustrations by Shelby Phelps

You can find Kristen @OpenTheDoorsKC on Twitter or openthedoorscoaching com. Check out her podcast Keep Them Coming

There is no way to prepare them for the very big, consequential decisions surrounding sex and bodies if they aren’t educated about sex and bodies.

BAH GUYS

Dear Dan: Bod I’m a 29-year-old gay man just shy of five years sober. I’ve had to do a lot of work on myself in recovery to accept and love myself after being dragged to conversion therapy when I was a teenager by my nar cissistic evangelical parents. I met a guy in AA in May who at the time was nine months sober. His sobriety coincided with him com ing out. He’s 27 years old and still unpack ing a lot. He broke up with a girlfriend a few months before we met and I’m the first guy he’s ever dated. I was initially hesitant about getting involved with him, given these pa rameters, but I went for it anyway. The first two months were great. We had great chem istry and great sex, we went on dates, etc. A month ago he hit me with, “I don’t want to be in a relationship as I’m exploring my sexual ity.” My initial reaction was to step back and assume this was the end. However, nothing changed. He continued to initiate affection and even threw me a birthday party at his home with decorations he bought. A week later he hits me with, “I’ve lost the romantic spark but I still want to hang out, have sex, and go on dates.” I’m mainly just thrown by the lack of alignment between his words and actions. Should I just accept this relationship for whatever it is and date other people? The sex is great, but I feel very romantically in volved—four months in—and I’m not sure it’s wise to get more involved.

—Behaves Like A Boyfriend But Excludes Romantic Stamp

Dear BLABBERS: Telling someone to dis engage romantically is easy, BLABBERS. Actually disengaging romantically is hard.

I’ve heard from so many people over the years who were struggling to smother romantic feelings for lovers who did them wrong. People pining away for exes who fucked their best friends, emptied their checking accounts, and refused to respond to their texts. So, while I could tell you to ad

just your romantic expectations downward while you keep fucking this boy, the odds of you being able to keep your romantic feel ings in check—much less smother them— while he’s hosting birthday parties for you and sucking your dick are close to zero. If you keep seeing this guy, the emotional hits (“I don’t want a relationship,” “I feel no spark”) will keep coming.

So, what’s up with this guy? If he acts like a boyfriend and fucks like a boyfriend, why doesn’t he want to be a boyfriend?

Maybe he’s still exploring his sexual ity—maybe it’s just what he told you—and he worries that labeling the relationship, e.g., becoming boyfriend official, is going to limit him. He is a recent refugee from Straightland, after all, and most residents of Straightland have no concept of roman tic relationships that aren’t sexually exclu sive. (Except for straight people who read my column and listen to the Lovecast!) Just because he’s out doesn’t mean he’s up to speed.

Or maybe he’s not gay.

You say he just came out, BLABBERS, but you don’t say what he came out as. You also say the sex has been great, and I believe you. Guys sometimes discover they like having sex with men and then assume they must be gay; they see enjoying sex with oth er men as disqualifying where straightness is concerned. And so it is. But it’s not dis qualifying where bisexuality is concerned. So, if this guy came out as gay because he thought he had to be gay because otherwise he wouldn’t enjoy your dick so much, his lack of romantic feelings for you—if cou pled with ongoing romantic and/or sexual attractions to women—could mean he’s bisexual and heteroromantic (BAH). It’s a thing. BAH guys can confuse gay men; while some BAH guys don’t want anything to do with their male sex partners before or after sex, other BAH guys are open to being “buds.” These BAH guys—BAH guys who wanna hang out, go on dates, host your birthday party—not only confuse gay dudes, they sometimes break our hearts.

Or maybe this guy knows you could be boyfriends without being exclusive (maybe you explained that to him) or maybe he’s gay and not into you the same way you’re into him (also a thing, and a sad one). But whatever his issues might be, BLABBERS, you should see other people while he ex plores/sucks/fucks his way through those issues. And if hanging out with him right now is too painful—if seeing him hurts too much—don’t hang out with him, don’t so cialize with him, don’t take turns sitting on dicks with him. He was honest and direct with you, BLABBERS, and you should be just as honest and direct with him. Getting the boyfriend treatment from a guy who not only insists he isn’t your boyfriend but

also doesn’t have any romantic feelings for you—the gap you perceive between his ac tions and his words—is going to make you miserable if you can’t disengage roman tically, BLABBERS, which you most likely can’t. Tell him you’re not angry, you don’t hate him, and you still like him very much. And that’s the problem: you like him way more than he likes you. As much as you en joy his company, as much as you enjoy his dick, continuing to date or fuck him means

feeding your self-esteem into an emotional shredder.

P.S. Congrats on your sobriety—and while I hope your parents apologized to you at some point, I’m guessing they haven’t, seeing as they aren’t just evangelicals, but narcissists to boot.

Email Dan at mail@savagelove.net Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage New website at Savage.Love!

THE PITCH SEX & LOVE SAVAGE LOVE

Strutting down a runway wearing a glitzy outfit and glammed up to the nines is a pretty big confidence booster—especial ly if you’ve experienced a mastectomy. Bra Couture KC puts survivors front and center by raising funds to help local cancer patients.

“Bra Couture KC is an uplifting emo tional experience for the models them selves… she’s lost her hair, she’s lost her boobs. She’s walking with scars, and her whole entire family has gone through the fear of losing her life to breast cancer to gether. So this is a way of celebrating that survival for her and her family,” says Bra Couture KC Executive Director Sharon But ler Payne.

Making the nonprofit successful hasn’t always been easy.

“We’ve struggled to overcome the word ‘bra’ in the title of our organization. Most people think of a bra as a piece of lingerie, or they think it’s an exotic dance show or a Victoria’s Secret modeling event,” Payne says. “We’re very, very particular about the design of the bras and how that model is styled. Her survivor story is told in a video before she comes out on the runway, so the designs of the bras are very classy and in very good taste to pay tribute to what she’s gone through.”

It’s not just the outfits they sell at their annual auction. Each comes with a pack age that includes amenities like restaurant meals, helicopter rides, and vacation stays. Payne says most go for $7,000 to $12,000.

Payne started the organization 12 years

ago. A breast cancer survivor herself, she’d seen a similar event that her daughter-inlaw, also a survivor, had done in Texas and felt inspired. She went to the University of Kansas Cancer Center with the idea.

“What really caused me to become so committed is when KU came back and said they wanted this event to raise money for uninsured and underinsured cancer pa tients,” Payne says.

That call came when she was in her doctor’s office figuring out her second re constructive surgery.

“I just could not imagine facing the fear of the disease and all of the surgeries that are attached to it, all of the surgical things that can go wrong and have to be redone. I just couldn’t imagine doing that without in surance,” she says.

It’s been wildly successful. In the first year, she hoped to raise $20,000 and end ed up with $90,000. She’s received support from the Royals and the Chiefs, in addition to many other companies in the metro. This year’s event raised $540,000 with a sold-out crowd of 1,200 attendees.

That money buys a lot of things for can cer patients. It can mean a wig, lymphede ma garments, liquid food, shower chairs— anything a patient might need.

It also pays for preventative health screenings, such as mammograms, at plac es like Samuel U. Rodgers Health Center.

And it’s not just breast cancer survivors who participate in or benefit from Bra Cou ture KC’s efforts. Any cancer patient can be involved with them.

The funds now reach beyond KU pa tients. There are also locations at University Health and Research Medical Center’s Sar ah Cannon Cancer Institute. They’ll expand to a new location at Liberty Hospital in 2023. Many patients in these locations are 200% below the federal poverty level.

“A lot of individuals in the underserved community have hourly jobs, and therefore, they don’t get paid if they are too ill to work. We started paying rent and utilities and pro viding food and gas cards,” Payne says.

Jennifer Jones was at a doctor’s ap pointment at Research Medical Center when the friend who accompanied her saw a flyer for Bra Couture KC. She got a $400 gas card and a $100 grocery card—things she definitely needed.

Jones, who lives in the Harrisonville area, had previously had a mastectomy and dealt with a few recurrences.

“With my experience before, it’s so, so difficult to find assistance whenever you’re in a situation like that. People get that di agnosis, and it turns their whole life upside down,” Jones says. “To be able to have an organization like this—I mean, the direc tor of the organization personally reached out to me, and we talked on the phone for probably an hour that day. For her to take that time, I think it’s just awesome to have somebody like that in your corner.”

Jones will share her story in a video during next year’s event.

The glamor of the runway event for the big fundraiser comes from many artists and designers, some local and some not. Payne says they get several of the outfits from the University of Central Missouri’s fashion de partment. She’d love to get even more Kan sas City-based designers involved.

To make it all happen, she needs lots of volunteers to set everything up and help the event run smoothly. Specific volunteer op portunities will go up on bracouturekc.com in January or February for the 2023 event.