The Pitch: August 2021 by The Pitch KC

August 2021 I FREE I THEPITCHKC.COM

HAPPY 200TH BIRTHDAY, YOU RIDICULOUS STATE!

CELEBRATION—AND RECKONING—ON MISSOURI’S BICENTENNIAL

High Society

Steven G. Brings The Brawn

Hell to the Chief

BY LIZ COOK

BY BEK SHACKELFORD

BY BARB SHELLY thepitchkc.com | August 2021 | THE PITCH

THE PITCH | August 2021 | thepitchkc.com

CONTENTS

THE PITCH

Publisher Stephanie Carey Editor-in-Chief Brock Wilbur Content Strategist Lily Wulfemeyer Associate Digital Editor Savannah Hawley Music Editor Nick Spacek Film Editor Abby Olcese Contributing Writers Emily Cox, Liz Cook, Barbara Shelly, April Fleming, Deborah Hirsch, Brooke Tippin, Beth Lipoff, Dan Lybarger, Anne Kniggendorf, Adrian Torres, Aaron Rhodes, Allison Harris, Rachel Potucek, Vivian Kane, Kelcie McKenney, Shawn Stewart, Bek Shackelford, Joseph Hernandez, Lucie Krisman, Elliot Lee Scott, Nina Cherry Little Village Creative Services Jordan Sellergren Contributing Photographers Zach Bauman, Joe Carey, Chase Castor, Caleb Condit, Travis Young, Jim Nimmo, Chris Ortiz Contributing Designers and Illustrators Katelyn Betz, Austin Crockett, Jake Edmisten, Lacey Hawkins, Angèle Lafond, Bianca Manninger, Alex Peak, Frank Myles, Jon Tinoco, Jasmine Ye Director of Marketing & Promotions Jason Dockery Account Manager John Phelps Director of Operations Andrew Miller Editorial Interns Aubrie Lawrence, Emily Standlee, Jacob Martin Design Intern Nidhi Shenoy

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DISTRIBUTION

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Jody Rogers of BlackSheep Bubbles KC at the corner of 63rd & Harrison.

4 LETTER

16 Eat This/Drink This Now

30 FILM

6 POLITICS

18 CULTURE

32 EVENTS

20 In Media Res

36 KC CARES

Letter from the Editor A Banner Year BY BROCK WILBUR

Hell to the Chief Our police chief is drinking from a poisoned well. But Rick Smith isn’t going anywhere BY BARB SHELLY

8 FEATURE

Pushing the Envelope Missourians whose missions made our modern era BY AUBRIE LAWRENCE

12 FEATURE

Welcome to the Show-Me Hate At 200 years old, Missouri continues to embrace its extremist personality BY BARB SHELLY

14 DINING

We Live in a Society Choices over coherence challenge the Crossroads’ latest nightspot BY LIZ COOK

Baked goods at The Russell and The Handshake Drug at The Campground BY APRIL FLEMING

Confidence Man What Steven G.’s meteoric rise means for brawny men everywhere BY BEK SHACKELFORD

Keeping KC Up to Date, Steve Kraske’s journalism legacy is still being written BY ALLISON HARRIS

24 Collective Soul

Photo Jim Nimmo

Bicentennial Blockbusters Celebrating 200 years of gifted Missouri filmmakers BY ABBY OLCESE

August For more events, visit thepitchkc.com/ calender BY EMILY STANDLEE

I Support the Girls BY BROOKE TIPPIN

38 SAVAGE LOVE In the Straights BY DAN SAVAGE

Nelson-Atkins’ Testimony explores elaborate bonds between art and audience BY EMILY COX

26 Textual Frustration

With “Tinder Live,” comedian Lane Moore looks for a perfect match in each city BY ANNE KNIGGENDORF

28 MUSIC

Into the Frying Pan Liam Kazar bounces from music to cooking and back again BY NICK SPACEK

Missouri Est 1821

by Dave Bowman / DesignTurnpike.com thepitchkc.com | August 2021 | THE PITCH

LETTER

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR A BANNER YEAR BY BROCK WILBUR

As we look back at Missouri’s 200-year checkered past and share our hopes for the future, there is a vague sensation that a fraction of our celebration is absent. Out of these two centuries, one full year was robbed from us. How do we reclaim even a small personal shard of the year denied us? One of my friends here in KC took a gigantic, wacky stab at it. And, by jove, he cracked it. Michael Coggins co-founded a mail-order steak business called Holy Grail Steak Co. back in 2018. Outta the gate, it was a rough ride. Shipping high-end beef around the country while maintaining supply lines was a logistical nightmare. Then, a global pandemic hit. And a two man beef-by-mail local business did juuust fine. To give back to friends and family, and to have an excuse to see everyone he missed in the last year, Coggins decided to throw a Banner Year Party. What does that mean? Well. It’s a type of party that I’ve never attended before, and will [hopefully] never attend again. While 2020 was stripped from us, that did not stop the world from turning. Major life events happened. Holidays passed by. Plans were abandoned. The Banner Year Party was a way to take a sliver of that back, and to celebrate what was stolen with a crowd of enthusiastic friends and strangers. To that end, each attendee was invited to make a physical banner to hang on a wall at the party, with the event closest to their heart displayed for all to share in. Coggins enlisted a friend to help make gigantic banners for those who wanted them. (Joe Ianelli of PlugYourHoles. If you have banner needs, I highly endorse his work.) Coggins wasn’t stopping at a simple

THE PITCH | August 2021 | thepitchkc.com

themed party. Nay, dearest reader, he went all out. He rented out the entirety of The Truman—a music venue that comfortably fits 1400 people, and where I’ve seen some of my favorite rock bands in the world. This was not a party just for his immediate social circle, but a celebration for all of KC. At 6 p.m. on a Saturday night, the doors to the Truman opened for anyone in KC. Inside, free beer, DJs and bands—including KC’s jazz-funk group Satori (who, for the record, can rip a sax solo). The Urban Cafe food truck pulled up to a loading dock. All of this, free to all, in celebration of having made it this far. Not as individuals, but as a powerhouse collective. Michael’s wife Tricia, a nurse who worked in a KC hospital through pandemic while pregnant, met us when we arrived. We thanked her for putting on this shindig. She offered the bemused response: “No. This is all Michael. This is all… a Michael thing.” My wife and I were dressed as cats and carrying pumpkin bowls filled to the brim with candy. Our banner was hung in the corner for Halloween—the event from 2020 we hated missing the most. We spent the rest of the party walking around and trick’r’treating the guests. We made friends with the crew who had come to reclaim their St. Patrick’s Day. A pal I hadn’t seen in forever didn’t recognize me with ears and a cat tail. [Kim, you’re fine.] The room was decked out with banners ranging from missed birthdays, to the birth of children, to the adoption of pets to… the very weird. A non-sequitur Kim Jong-un Spring Break(?) banner was a highlight. As was a corner that combined a banner for comedian Bo Burnham’s 30th birthday (as

highlighted in his recent special) and an opulent set-up based on The Office’s “It is your birthday.”, featuring mood lighting and a table filled with birthday cakes for guests to self-serve from. One sign simply celebrated the return of Boba Fett and Baby Yoda. A few hundred people filled the space that night. Looking around the room, I barely knew anyone… for the first time at a party since February of the year previous. I made new friends?? At the end, we picked a winner via a round of cheers. Amid the noise, spontaneously, two different couples got engaged. No one knows who one of the couples is even though Coggins tried to give them the grand prize of $500 of prime steak for a banner they spent 20 hours hand-making. [If you got engaged at a stranger’s banner party, get in touch with me. They have meat for you. You must know who you are.] It was chaos. It was unpredictable. It was strangers and wild and it was the first night in forever where I had no idea what would

happen next. In that moment, I felt that KC was finally back. And I took something back for myself. I got my Halloween. Find a way to grab what was stolen from you, and let’s move forward to the heavenly sounds of drunken cheers and sax solos. Pitch in, and we’ll make it through,

thepitchkc.com | August 2021 | THE PITCH

POLITICS

Illustration by Jasmine Ye

HELL TO THE CHIEF OUR POLICE CHIEF IS DRINKING FROM A POISONED WELL. BUT RICK SMITH ISN’T GOING ANYWHERE BY BARB SHELLY

Kansas City’s police department has had five chiefs over the past two decades, not counting interim appointees or the current occupant. If you average out their tenures, a good expectation for time of service is five and a half years. Current Chief Rick Smith will reach four years in August. It’s hard to see how either he or the city can hold out another year and a half.

THE PITCH | August 2021 | thepitchkc.com

The smoke-and-mirrors illusion of Kansas City having one of the nation’s best police departments has been smashed into bits over the last year or so—the latest blow being a “scorecard” that ranks the department 495th of 500 nationwide. Police Scorecard doesn’t pretend to be an academic study, and its creators acknowledge that their scoring is based on a set of “common principles”—such as not

arresting people for low-level offenses— which lean toward a progressive mindset. But the scorecard used police departments’ own data to make comparisons about funding, use of force, and unsolved crimes, and the information it contains is important. The scorecard found that Kansas City police killed 32 civilians from 2013 to 2019—a rate of four fatalities per 10,000 arrests, which is higher than 98% of departments. “Once police decide to make an arrest, they’re more likely to use deadly force in Kansas City than almost any other city in America,” the scorecard’s creator, Samuel Sinyangwe, said during an appearance on KCUR’s Up to Date talk show. Those deaths—and other brutal cop actions caught on video—claw at Kansas City’s Black and brown residents, its young people, and older leaders in a way that I’m not sure the chief and his supporters understand. When you see news footage of teenagers being tear gassed, as happened during last summer’s protests on the Plaza, or you see video of an officer thrusting his knee on the back of a very pregnant woman lying on the ground, those images stick. When police move into a neighborhood and shoot someone, people don’t forget. And when the police chief is silent, or when he refuses to remove officers who have been accused or even charged with crimes while on the job, whole segments of the community stay angry. “I think things would be different if indeed he was willing to condemn the behavior of those who have been accused,” says Damon Daniel, president of the AdHoc Group Against Crime. It’s not that Smith doesn’t care about Kansas City and public safety. “I want Kansas City to get out of the top 10 most violent cities,” he tells me, referring to FBI Uniform Crime Report rankings. “I think that’s a terrible stigma for Kansas City and our community.” He ticks off some of the things the department is doing to win hearts and minds, like bringing back community relations officers, holding summer youth camps, and hiring social workers in police stations. “So it’s not just about enforcement, it’s about those other avenues too,” he says. But Smith tells me that, just before we talked, he sat in on a meeting with commanders to discuss shootings. “We were talking about an incident where there was a retaliatory shooting on a house and there were a hundred shell casings in the front yard,” he says. “A hundred. Does anyone grasp the amount of firearms and amount of shooting that takes, and the amount of time it takes to shoot a hundred rounds at someone?”

This is what his officers are up against, Smith says. He talks about this level of threat when I ask about the community anger over shootings and use of force incidents. “I think we do everything we can to try and train, to not have to shoot somebody,” Smith says. “But the amount of times we encounter people armed with guns is way out of proportion to what it was when I first came on 35 years ago. And we are going to be engaged with people who are violent at times, and they’re violent towards us.” Fair enough. Kansas City is awash in weapons, and the role of the police in confronting armed, violent criminals cannot be understated. But some of the citizens that Kansas City police officers have been accused of treating brutally include a pregnant woman, a transgender woman, and a 15-yearold boy. An officer fatally shot a 47-yearold man who was trying to flee after being stopped for a minor traffic infraction. Another officer shot a man as he sat in a pickup truck in his own backyard. Smith says he’s terminated police officers in the past. He doesn’t want to give a number, because, he says, that will give critics yet another reason to sling arrows at the department. “I am trying not to fight people,” he says. “I understand I’m the focus. But if you notice, I haven’t publicly said a bad word against any of the people who have said things against me. And I don’t plan on doing that. My plan is to run the organization, and to give this organization and this city the best police department possible. That is my goal.” Smith was sworn in as chief Aug. 15, 2017, following the abrupt retirement of his predecessor, Darryl Forté. Although respected by many in the community as Kansas City’s first Black police chief, Forté, now the Jackson County sheriff, reportedly had become increasingly withdrawn and mercurial within police headquarters. Morale was low and the Board of Police Commissioners wanted a change. The board narrowed its search to Smith and two candidates from out of town. One candidate withdrew from consideration at the last minute, leaving Smith and Keith Humphrey, the chief in Norman, Oklahoma, as the finalists. The police board Chairman at the time, Leland Shurin, and then-Mayor Sly James voted for Humphrey. The other three commissioners voted for Smith, including Nathan Garrett, who only a few weeks before had replaced Alvin Brooks on the board. Smith held the rank of major at the time. He had three decades of service in the department. “When Smith came in, people were

POLITICS

thrilled,” says Betsey Solberg, who got to know Smith through her work as chair of the Kansas City Police Foundation, and remains a supporter. “They thought he was honest and trustworthy. He was, and I think still is, really popular with the officers.” Not everyone was excited, though. Civil rights and social justice leaders worried about Smith’s close relationship with the local chapter of the police union. Jean Peters Baker, the Jackson County prosecutor, was dismayed about Smith’s lukewarm support of the Kansas City No Violence Alliance—a violence reduction program that had shown initial success, though it later struggled. Smith questioned the program’s usefulness as a major and dismantled it when he became chief. He says the department is working collaboratively with the prosecutor’s office, federal law enforcement

tion runs well.” Maybe he’ll stay. The man is stubborn. And he is for the moment protected by a group uniquely immune to community pressure: the state-appointed Board of Police Commissioners. But police chiefs tend to leave abruptly in Kansas City. And so it is worth thinking for a moment about a police department without Rick Smith. There is no quick fix. Kansas City’s police department is governed by a board whose members, except for the mayor, are elected by the Missouri governor. And the current governor shows a stunning disregard for the city’s priorities and problems. The department’s administration and police board have spent years bathing in self-congratulation and seem bewildered by criticisms. Police officers have become accustomed to a chief ’s

WHEN THE POLICE CHIEF IS SILENT, OR WHEN HE REFUSES TO REMOVE OFFICERS WHO HAVE BEEN ACCUSED OR EVEN CHARGED WITH CRIMES WHILE ON THE JOB, WHOLE SEGMENTS OF THE COMMUNITY STAY ANGRY. agencies, and community partners in something called the National Public Safety Partnership, although few people in the city know what that is. Neighborhood groups and others began complaining soon after Smith’s appointment that he wasn’t as visible as Forté, who had made a point to be present in crime-impacted neighborhoods. Concerns mounted in June 2018, after police officers fatally shot three people on the same day. Smith told reporters the officers “did what they thought was necessary.” “I just wanted people in this city to know our officers are dedicated to go out here and protect the citizens of this city,” he said. But where Smith sees officers protecting the people, others see a chief defending the force at all costs. The gathering resentment bloomed into full outrage last year after cops used tear gas and rubber bullets on protestors after a police officer murdered George Floyd in Minneapolis. Calls for the chief ’s resignation have continued ever since. Smith says he has no plans to resign. “My philosophy is I want to work and spend time running this organization,” he says. “And this is what I feel like I’ve been hired to do, is to make sure this organiza-

protection; the resistance to anyone who changes that pattern will be fierce. Gwen Grant, president of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City and one of Smith’s fiercest critics, wants the chief to be replaced with someone from outside. “I think it will require a strong person with high-ranking law enforcement experience,” she says. “A person who will subscribe to more progressive forms of policing. I don’t think that person is here in Kansas City.” “Perhaps it’s time,” agrees Daniel, the AdHoc Group Against Crime president. “Perhaps it’s time for a fresh set of eyes.” But talk of Smith’s successor is premature. He says he wants to work with the community. “I think we all want the same things,” he says. “We all want to save Kansas City.” The time for alliances has probably passed. “He needs to be gone,” Grant says. “He doesn’t have the kind of relationships where he can say, ‘we as a police department hear you and we need to make some changes.’” The well has been poisoned. The question now is how long Chief Smith and his bosses on the police board are willing to drink from it.

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FEATURE

PUSHING THE ENVELOPE MISSOURIANS WHOSE MISSIONS MADE OUR MODERN ERA BY AUBRIE LAWRENCE, ILLUSTRATIONS BY KATELYN BETZ

The motto of Missouri is “Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto,” which means, “Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law.” At times, this has been aspirational at best. But those who have taken it to heart—the people that persevered through all the hardship, who led civil unrest movements, who created art, and who made an effort to improve their world—have accomplished so much. In the 200 years since this state became part of the Union, many influential people have called this place home, or at least have made a name for themselves here. Missouri has always been a hotbed for change and those who seek it. One of the state’s many nicknames—“The Lead State”—derives from its unrivaled mining and production of

THE PITCH | August 2021 | thepitchkc.com

lead. Considering how many leaders have emerged from within our borders, perhaps we should be referred to as “The Lead State.” Here are a few of our most exemplary humanitarians—shaping not only our land, but our nation as a whole. The Civil Rights Activists Jon D. Barnett began his life struggling with his sexuality. Growing up in Colby, Kansas, he was told that those who were different “weren’t easily embraced.” But he couldn’t live in hiding. At 19, Barnett moved to Arizona to live with his brother, and to come out of the closet in relative safety. In 1978, he moved to Kansas City and began working at the Metropolitan Community

Church. It was there that he started to fall in love with the Kansas City queer community and met his partner, Michael. By 1986, gay men in Kansas City were losing loved ones at high rates to AIDS. Barnett, who was writing regularly for The Alternate News, a gay publication in KC, decided something needed to be done. Joined by a handful of men, he formed an ACT UP chapter. Within 30 days, the group began plastering flyers around town, putting ads in popular gay publications, and protesting about the lack of response and homophobia surrounding AIDS. He wanted AIDS research, education, and patient care to be the state and federal financing’s top priority. In December 1989, Barnett co-founded the Human Rights Ordinance Project with fellow ACT UP/KC member David Weeda. They advocated for an ordinance that would prevent discrimination for those who had AIDS and HIV that were facing medical discrimination based on their sexual orientation. It wasn’t until April of 1990 that their wishes started to become a reality. Ordinance #65430—legislation that outlawed discrimination against people who tested positive for HIV—was introduced by Councilwoman Katheryn Shields and Mayor Richard L. Berkley. It passed that November. A month later, Barnett ran for the Kansas City Council. He garnered 11% of the votes in the primaries but did not win the seat. Still, he considered it a victory. In June 1991, he began writing for The Lesbian and Gay News Telegraph and was appointed to Mayor Emanuel Cleaver’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Concerns. The commission completed surveys and created a report for the mayor filled with recommendations, including the need to add “sexual orientation” to the KC civil rights ordinance; that passed in 1993. While Barnett never planned on becoming a gay rights activist, he certainly became a memorable one that made KC better for the future of the LGBTQ+ community. In 2020, his experience fighting the AIDS pandemic yieleded invaluable advice for the community during COVID-19. •

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DeRay Mckesson is just starting to make his mark on history. Born and raised in Baltimore, he was always an advocate for issues surrounding children, youth, and families. Motivated by the death of Michael Brown in 2014, he followed his calling to Ferguson and became an early leading figure in the Black Lives Matter movement. “I was one of many people who stood in the streets and used my platform online to help people all across the world understand what was happening about not only the death of Mike Brown, but what was happening across the country,” Mckesson said in an interview with PBS in 2020. “You know, you think about, ‘what does it mean that we live in a country where a third of all the people killed by strangers are killed by a police officer?’ We think about issues of mass incarceration, the racial wealth gap. All of those things are things that I spend every day fighting to make sure that we bring equity and justice into the world and the fight continues.” In 2015, Mckesson co-founded the non-profit Campaign Zero with Samuel Sinyangwe. The data-based platform provides solutions backed by evidence that could end police violence. Mckesson and Sinyangwe are also co-hosts on the social justice podcast Pod Save the People. The Women’s Rights Activists One female pioneer that deserves the respect of greater renown is Luella St. Clair Moss. Moving to Columbia in the summer of 1893, her husband Franklin interviewed for the position of president at the Christian Female College (now Columbia College). When Franklin died in November of that year, Moss was offered the job. She was the first woman in United States history to be appointed a college president. During her presidency, she increased enrollment, bought new buildings, and doubled the faculty. Moss was elected the first president of the Missouri League of Women Voters in 1919 and in 1922—just two years after women were given the right to vote—ran for the congressional seat in the Eighth District. Even if she won the nomination for the Democratic Party, she would still have to beat the Republican incumbent, Sid Roach, who had won by a landslide in 1920. Fortunately, she received good press all around. In his book, It Happened in Missouri, author Sean McLachlan says that the Moni-

FEATURE

You Belong At... teau County Herald, a Republican newspaper, called her “a clever woman … capable and sincere,” and added, “while there is much feeling against women holding office in Missouri, not much can be said about the two men who will run against her in the primary.” Moss was able to win the nomination for the Democratic Party, but narrowly lost to Roach in the general election with 45.5% of the vote. Instead of reeling from the defeat, later that year she would become the first woman to hold a seat on the Columbia Board of Education. •

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When it comes to the fight for reproductive rights, Alyce Faye Wattleton from St. Louis is one of Missouri’s fiercest advocates. After seeing the negative effects of poor healthcare for women, she became the president of Planned Parenthood in 1978. She was the first woman to hold the office since the organization’s founder, the first African American, and the youngest person to hold the position. During her 14 years as president, she became a powerful lobbying force to stop those looking to block access to reproductive choices. With Wattleton as president, Planned Parenthood significantly expanded it’s access to reproductive healthcare services—from 1.1 million patients in 1978 to approximately 5 million in 1990. Today, Wattleton is the co-founder and director of EeroQ, a quantum computing company. The Inventors & Innovators Born into slavery on a farm in Diamond, Missouri in 1864, George Washington Carver always had an affinity for plants. But it wasn’t until 1897—just a few years after attending college at Iowa Agricultural College at Ames and becoming the first African American to earn a Bachelor of Science—that he began using that affinity to change the United States’ perception of cost-effective farming. At the request of Booker T. Washington, Carver headed the new Agricultural Experiment Station for Black people at Tuskegee Institute. He called the opportunity “the key to unlocking the golden door of freedom to our people.” It was in this position that Carver altered the productivity of farming. He taught poor farmers to feed hogs acorns

instead of pricey commercial feed, and use sapric soil to improve their fields rather than fertilizers. He learned that years of growing cotton on the same fields depleted the nutrients of the soil and resulted in a lower crop yield, and that planting peanuts, soybeans, and sweet potatoes would restore the soil. Finally, he came up with the idea for crop rotation—a practice still used today. But these are not the only things Carver is remembered for. Contrary to popular belief, Carver did not invent peanut butter, but his work helped establish peanut butter as a staple in many American homes. Carver did find and create 325 uses for peanuts, 108 for sweet potatoes, and 75 products derived from pecans. Chili sauce, meat tenderizer, instant coffee, shaving cream, talcum powder, a rubber substitute, and Worcestershire sauce are all credited to Carver. He also developed over 500 dyes and pigments from just 28 different plants. Without some of Carver’s inventions, the farming industry in the United States would never have evolved into what it has become. •

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Born in St. Louis, Hadiyah-Nicole Green didn’t think she’d be working on a cure for cancer. She had planned on improving fiber optics after interning at NASA. But after her aunt and uncle died of the disease and the long-term effects of cancer treatment, she took the knowledge she had from working with lasers during her internship and developed a cancer treatment that has no observable side effects. The therapy involves injecting gold nanoparticles into tumors. When lasers are directed at the tumor, the particles warm up and start to vibrate. The heat destroys the tumor cells while keeping healthy cells alive. The treatment has shown 100% tumor regression on mice with a form of skin cancer. If human clinical trials go well, this treatment could be used on a variety of different forms of cancer as a tool that helps save lives. In 2016, Green started the Ora Lee Smith Cancer Research Foundation to help raise money for human clinical trials. That same year, she received a $1.1 million grant from the Veteran Affairs Historically Black Colleges and Universities Research Scientist Training Program, a feat that is hard to

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FEATURE achieve at the age of 39. To donate to her research, visit oralee.org. The Artists Maya Angelou was a master of words from Missouri. The famous poet not only changed the art form but is also known for her incredible work for the civil rights movement. Growing up in St. Louis, Angelou had a rough childhood. She was sent away to live with her grandmother after her parents split up in 1928. Then, when she was just 7-years-old, Angelou was raped by her mother’s boyfriend. Traumatized, she stopped talking for years on end. She eventually started speaking again at 13. During World War II, Angelou moved to San Francisco and became the first Black cable car conductor. She only held this job briefly, as she had bigger things right around the corner. In the mid-1950s, Angelou’s career took off. She acted in shows like Porgy and Bess and Calypso in Heat. Angelou also released her first album, Miss Calypso. As time passed, Angelou continued to star on Broadway and earned Tony and Emmy nominations for her roles on TV, all while being a civil rights activist and a member of the Harlem Writers Guild. In the ‘60s, Angelou spent much of her time in Africa exploring pan-Africanism. She became a close friend of Malcolm X and worked with him to establish the Organi-

THE PITCH | August 2021 | thepitchkc.com

zation of Afro-American Unity when she returned to the United States. In 1969, Angelou released her memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. It became an influential piece of literary history and the first nonfiction book written by an African American woman to become a bestseller. The book remained on The New York Times’ paperback nonfiction bestseller list for two years. After she died in 2014, President Barack Obama called Angelou “a brilliant writer, a fierce friend, and a truly phenomenal woman.” The Politicians President Harry Truman. Obviously, that’s the one everyone knows. But there are two politicians whose histories we shouldn’t let slip away. First, defying the odds of the time’s politics was Anna “Annie” White Baxter. Even though she was unable to vote because she was a woman, the Jasper County Democratic Convention nominated her for county clerk in 1890. She won against the Republican opponent Julius Fischer by over 400 votes. The Republican Party saw the loss as an outrage and Fischer filed an election challenge. The newspapers of the time claimed that Fischer and the Republicans were doing this to draw attention away from the election fraud that hap-

pened in Carterville, and only the “blindest partisans” would disagree with the election results. Regardless of the reasons behind the opposition, Baxter prevailed when her day in court came and the election results were upheld, making her the first woman in Missouri history to hold public office. Baxter was deemed an exceptional county clerk by citizens and the press. In 1908, Baxter was named state registrar of lands by the Missouri secretary of state and remained in the position until 1916. In 1922, Baxter was named financial secretary for the Missouri Constitutional Convention and in 1936 she was a delegate to the Democratic State Convention. In her roles, she opened the door for the women’s suffrage movement in Jasper County and inspired women across the state. •

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Police brutality has long been an impetus that ignites Americans to enter the political arena. So too was the case with William Lacy Clay Sr. After being arrested and coerced into confessing to a crime he had no connection to, Clay was convinced that “survival and political influence are inseparable in American society.” From that moment on, he committed himself to gaining political

influence as a way to enact change, as he believed the only way to fix the system. In 1953, Clay graduated from St. Louis University with a B.S. in history and political science, and was drafted for the Korean War not long after. While serving in Alabama, Clay faced and witnessed even more discrimination, which became the basis for his political future. Clay returned to St. Louis and won his first elected office in 1959 as an alderman. As a local politician, he was active in the civil rights movement and led several protests that led to his arrest. In 1968, Clay entered the Democratic primary for the open congressional seat. He defeated five other candidates for the nomination and earned 41% of the votes. Clay’s campaign received national attention because the Missouri House election featured two Black candidates—unheard of for the state. He beat his opponent, former St. Louis circuit attorney Curtis Crawford, making him the first Black person to represent Missouri in Congress. During his congressional career, Clay was one of the founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus and continued to be a vigorous advocate for civil rights for American citizens as well as foreign countries. He oversaw and sponsored a number of social bills, including the Minimum Wage Increase Act of 1996.

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FEATURE

WELCOME TO THE SHOW-ME HATE AT 200 YEARS OLD, MISSOURI CONTINUES TO EMBRACE ITS EXTREMIST PERSONALITY BY BARB SHELLY

On Jan. 6, 2021, as Missouri’s bicentennial year was just getting started, Josh Hawley thrust the state into the spotlight with a fist pump. We all remember that afternoon. A conspiracy-fueled crowd gathered outside of the U.S Capitol in Washington D.C., convinced of Donald Trump’s bogus claim that the presidential election of a couple of months earlier had been stolen from him. Hawley, Missouri’s junior senator, drew a cheer as he walked by on his way to work. A few days earlier, he had announced he would challenge the certification of legitimate Electoral College results that awarded the presidency to Joe Biden. Trump’s followers—with their QAnon symbols, Confederate flags, and Nazi symbols—saluted Hawley for that. Hawley saluted them back with that raised fist. A news photographer captured the moment and within an hour the image was everywhere. In the days following the Capitol insurrection, I received a lot of messages from people who live in other places. The common thread was, “What is wrong with your senator?” It was as though people couldn’t understand how a state famed as the birthplace of plainspoken Harry Truman and very recently represented by a Democratic senator, Claire McCaskill, suddenly birthed this frightening aberration. But Missouri has always served as a cradle for right-wing extremism. Missouri is the state where a bust of Rush Limbaugh occupies a place of honor in the state capitol. It is the base from which Phyllis Schlafly mobilized brigades of conservative women in the 1970s to slam the brakes on passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. It is the home of Mark and Patricia McCloskey, who became instant rightwing celebrities last year for brandishing firearms at Black Lives Matter protesters who were marching past the McCloskey’s St. Louis home. It’s unfair, of course, to define a state by its outliers. Mark Twain, Maya Angelou, and Walter Cronkite also heralded from Missouri, to name just a few. But, two centuries after its founding, Missouri is increasingly embracing its reactionary personality.

THE PITCH | August 2021 | thepitchkc.com

Every day the headlines serve up some new outrage: A new law claims to invalidate federal gun legislation. The governor frets about an imaginary scenario in which federal agents knock on people’s doors and browbeat them into getting the COVID-19 vaccine. Having all but paused abortions in the state, some lawmakers are now crusading against birth control. McCaskill, who was senator for 12 years before losing to Hawley in 2018, says she saw the craziness coming in the runup to the 2016 Presidential election. “I had a front row seat, watching what was happening in our state,” McCaskill says. “The culture wars, along with tapping the vein of grievance, is such a powerful combination outside of the urban areas.” No one knows better how to monopolize grievances than Trump. He won Missouri by a 19-point margin in 2016, and stands as the titan of its Republican party today. “Trump masterfully knew to market himself as someone who got their angst, got their grievances,” says McCaskill. “Screw all the politicians, screw Washington. I’m the one who’s going to be your savior. And, by gosh, in rural Missouri, that’s what he

er-Markel, a political science professor at the University of Kansas who studies extremism. “They would burn their house down, so their family had no place to live. And that’s what helped radicalize the right. It really dates back that far.” A deep distrust of the federal government slices through Missouri’s history. In the 1950s, racist, anti-Communist preachers with Missouri ties—like Bill Beeny and Billy James Hargis—beamed

cult, and hate group activities. In the 1960s, Robert DePugh, a pet vitamin entrepreneur from Norborne, Missouri, channeled his hatred of Communists and government into the violent survivalist movement remembered as the Minutemen. Don Gayman, a pastor who espoused a theory that Jewish people descended from a union between Adam and Satan, established his base in Schell City, Missouri, in the 1970s. He became an inspiration for the

“THE FAR RIGHT GENERALLY AGREES ON ONE THING: WE HATE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. THE REASONS WHY THEY HATE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ARE DIFFERENT DEPENDING ON THE STRAIN OF FARRIGHT EXTREMISM, BUT THEY ALL HATE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.” was to people.” But Missouri—once known as the nation’s bellwether—has been an aggrieved, alienated kind of place almost from its birth in August of 1821. In the years leading up to and during the Civil War, it harbored pro-slavery guerrilla fighters who resisted Union occupation and battled with anti-slavery fighters in Kansas. Union commanders retaliated by forcibly displacing fighters and their families and confiscating their property. “They wouldn’t just come to arrest them and take them to jail,” says Don Haid-

incendiary propaganda over the airwaves, alleging Communist infiltration of universities, civil rights groups, and the federal government. “Basically they were saying not only that the Soviet Union is going to infiltrate the U.S., but that they’re infiltrating the U.S. government,” Haider-Markel says, “and we can no longer trust our government, our democracy, to do the right thing, and we’re going to have to take things into our own hands.” That message, carried to its extreme, has manifested in a long record of militia,

Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord, a sprawling white supremacist cult based in Arkansas and Missouri through the mid-1980s. Seven years ago, a dissipated former Ku Klux Klan leader, Frazier Glenn Miller, crawled out of a small town in southwest Missouri, drove to Overland Park, Kansas, and fatally shot three people whom he wrongly assumed were Jewish people. “The far right generally agrees on one thing: We hate the federal government,” says Haider-Markel. “The reasons why they hate the federal government are dif-

FEATURE

The St. Louis Gun Couple and The Man Who Would Be Traitor.

BIANCA MANNINGER

ferent depending on the strain of far-right extremism, but they all hate the federal government.” Reflexive abhorrence of the federal government drives a lot of the insanity we see in Missouri today, like the attempted nullification of federal gun laws. “That runs deep in Missouri,” says McCaskill. “This idea that the government can’t tell me what to do, that I have the right to my gun and I have the right to shoot people on my property, and I have the right to tell the government to go pound sand. Those are the green shoots of extremism.” For a glimpse of extremism in full bloom, look no further than the race for the U.S. Senate seat that long-time Republican office holder Roy Blunt is vacating after this year. One of the announced candidates is former Gov. Eric Greitens, who got elected in 2016 partly by running TV ads showing himself in military gear blowing things up, and then blew himself up with a sex scandal and campaign finance irregularities. Another is state Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who spends most of his time and tons of taxpayer money launching quixotic lawsuits against the Biden administration and the federal government. A third contender is the aforementioned Mark McCloskey. Because nothing

defines “leader” in the 200th year of Missouri’s statehood like a belligerent, camera-loving lawyer who “defended” his property from the threat of peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters. And Sen. Hawley? He whined about his book deal being “cancelled” by a major publisher after his role in the Capitol insurrection. Some of his benefactors deserted him and expressed remorse for their role in his meteoric rise to national office. But Hawley is unlikely to pay much of a political price for his salute to the faces of insurrection. Because, in ways that matter, he is a true son of Missouri. He exemplifies its defiance and its corroded populism. He understands that extremism can reap political rewards. Missouri in 2021 is reeling from one of the nation’s highest COVID-19 infection rates, unceasing gun violence, decreasing life expectancy, and a stagnated economy. Its legislature and governor have denied health insurance to low-income workers, even though voters called for them to expand Medicaid eligibility. But we have our guns and our glory and we are keeping the federal government at bay. Happy 200th Birthday, Missouri. Bring on the fireworks.

s a s n a K g n i p e e ! K n a e l c r i a s ’ y t i C HERE’S NEWS TO CELEBRATE: Kansas City’s ground-level ozone is trending downwards. That might sound strange—having a robust ozone layer is good, right? Location makes all the difference. The layer of ozone far above the Earth protects us from ultraviolet radiation; ozone at ground-level is a man-made component of smog. Karen Clawson, the air quality program manager at Mid-America Regional Council (MARC), says the ozone

“Oftentimes, poor air

quality and ozone can’t be seen, which makes outreach and education work so important.”

reduction is largely thanks to Westar and KCPL, now Evergy, installing emission controls or decommissioning power plants over the years, and the rise of energy-efficient vehicles. But we’re not in the clear. “Oftentimes, poor air quality and ozone can’t be seen, which makes outreach and education work so important,” Clawson says. We all know those classic pro-environment calls to action: walk, bike, carpool, and ride the bus. MARC is reminding us there’s more we can be doing, and driving habits are a good place to start. For example, use cruise control, avoid harsh stops and starts, knock out multiple errands in one trip, and travel with a light load to increase your vehicle’s fuel efficiency. “The ozone is created when volatile

organic compounds and nitrogen oxides react with sunlight and heat,” says Clawson. So, if you’re burning fuel or exposing the vapors to the air, wait until after sunset. This includes filling up your gas tank— plus stopping at the click so it doesn’t overfill—and using lawn equipment. And now that we’re back in our gardens this summer, opt for electric lawn equipment whenever possible and avoid using starter fluids on the grill. A charcoal chimney, or even a natural gas grill, is 100% the way to go.

As we all work together to reduce our ground-level ozone, MARC offers fantastic educational resources on their website at airqkc.org, @airkc on Twitter, and SkyCast, which provides daily updates on KC’s air quality.

SPONSORED BY THE MID-AMERICA REGIONAL COUNCIL / WRITTEN BY LILY WULFEMEYER

thepitchkc.com | August 2021 | THE PITCH

DINING

WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY CHOICES OVER COHERENCE CHALLENGE THE CROSSROADS’ LATEST NIGHTSPOT B LIZ COOK

It’s been 16 months since I filed my last restaurant review. Back then, I had no idea what the city’s dining scene would endure— or what it would look like when it came out on the other side. “The other side” is a moving target, but restaurant sales have been booming for months as diners unleash their pent-up pandemic demand. It seemed like a good time to reenter society and take stock. So I entered Society, the buzzy restaurant-meets-bar-meetsdance-club that opened in the former Crossroads home of The Jacobson this May. I started with the basics—with the two questions I ask myself about each spot I visit: What is this restaurant adding to the city? and: What is this restaurant trying to be? I struggled for a long time to answer the first question. Eventually, I landed on “extremely fast cocktails.” I’m still working out the second one. I know what Society says it’s trying to be—Society says a lot of things. My interest in the restaurant was piqued by a press release that mocked Kansas City’s “boring wood-paneled steakhouses and played-out speakeasies” and positioned Society as an “art-forward” alternative “hailed as ‘one of the freshest concepts in a while.’” (The quote was unattributed. I don’t know who’s doing the hailing, but I suspect the call is coming from inside the house.) All of the restaurant’s promotional copy is written from the perspective of a 15-year-old who just discovered negging. Society, the website promised, would offer the city something NEW. Society would be “unlike the cramped, pretentious, dimly-lit cocktail bars popular in the previous decade.” Society would have GLAMOR and LUSH OPULENCE and would NOT VALIDATE PARKING IN THE NEARBY GARAGES. Society would have MASSIVE SCREENS, and some of those screens would be playing ART. “Finally,” the website promised, “an elevated entertainment concept in Kansas City.” Finally!

THE PITCH | August 2021 | thepitchkc.com

You can imagine my surprise when the fresh, elevated concept turned out to be truffle fries and chocolate lava cake in a neon-trimmed dining room that evoked a Gadzooks in a suburban mall circa 1998. The restaurant is the unwieldy brainchild of the Trident Investment Group, the Overland Park-based restaurant group that also owns Westport Ale House, The Fall, and (before its April 2020 closure) Parkway Social Kitchen. For Society, Trident has leaned into an eclectic vibe, starting with the restaurant’s ransom-note logo—a jaunty mix of serif and sans. Every square foot of Society has An Art, from the epoxy resin bartop striped like the Solo Jazz cup, to the gold-painted support pole appended with branches to look like a tree. On the dance floor, I spied a large, gilded cage for influencers to take photos in. As an objet d’art, it seemed a little on-the-nose. The dining room has been fully transformed from its Jacobson days. The walls are black, but coated in projector screens and enormous flat screen televisions mounted in even more enormous beveled picture frames. All of those screens are displaying Art™, most of which is indistinguishable from an early aughts iTunes visualizer. Chef Juan Jimenez, who Trident brought over from Parkway Social Kitchen, developed the restaurant’s menu, which is a confused mix of pub sandwiches, American sushi, and top-dollar entrees. The starters are what Jiminez and his staff do best. I’m not usually excited about calamari

($14), but Society’s version was a fun grab bag of squid, banana pepper, and jalepeño rings. The breading on all three was crisp and light, and the lemon aioli was creamy and bright. The tater tots ($9) were similar to a version served at Parkway: less tot than large potato croquette, with crisp outsides, melty middles, and a decent kick from the “molten ghost pepper cheese”. Some of the other dishes are Parkway ports as well, though they’re marginally less expensive than their predecessors. The caramelized prime rib sandwich ($20) tasted identical to the version I had at Parkway in 2018, flaws and all. The bread is still too soft, and the “caramelized onion cream cheese” is still too meek. But it’s fine; it’s upmarket Arby’s. The burger ($16) would have been great were it not slathered in an aggressively sweet “onion marmalade.” The steak fries served alongside were crisp, puffy, and seasoned like potato wedges from a school cafeteria (I mean this with genuine reverence). The menu calls them “truffle fries,” and Society’s director of operations, Mike Hollrah, told me on a fact-checking call that the kitchen uses truffle oil in the preparation. If they do, it’s in homeopathic quantities—I couldn’t taste it, and truffle oil is not known for its subtlety. My advice is to drop “truffle” from the menu. The fries are great as-is. The large-format entrees were less successful. The pan-seared scallops ($32) were nicely crusted but overcooked, and the accompanying risotto was clumpy and

Above: The creme brulee, ghost pepper tots, Crossroads roll, and prime rib with truffle fries. Opposite Above: The WAP/Wet Ass Peach cocktail. Opposite Right: A light installation hanging over the bar. ZACH BAUMAN

choked with cheese. The apricot-glazed half-chicken ($21) was well-spiced, with an herby crust and fragrant glaze. But the chicken skin was flabby, the breast meat was chalky, and the paste-y mashed potatoes looked like they’d been doled out with an ice cream scoop. I kept asking myself: who is this menu for? At Parkway Social Kitchen, which had a midcentury dining room with Don Draper vibes, these entrees made a kind of sense. Here, they feel too heavy and out of step with the atmosphere. Does anyone really want to eat half a rotisserie chicken while DJ Ashton Martin bumps club music? Some of the lightest options here are the sushi rolls, most of which are either tempura or vegetarian. The rolls were also, on my first two visits, square. I assumed they had been formed in a mold, but Hollrah assured me all of the sushi was handrolled. The kitchen’s clearly still working out technique. The Crossroads Roll ($16) looked pretty, draped with beef carpaccio and studded with crispy capers. But the roll itself was surprisingly bland. All I noticed was the neutral crunch of jicama. The Dynamite Roll ($14) at least tasted like something—mostly, like the sticky-sweet hoisin and spicy mayo drizzled liberally (but elegantly) on the plate. The version I tried

DINING

was 80% rice, the filling a tiny porthole in a vast white cruise ship. It was also plated with tempura shrimp tails protruding from each end, like a kind of crustacean CatDog. I formed a new hypothesis: at Society, everything is a sandwich, for art reasons. How else to explain the chocolate lava cake ($10), which was both crowned with ice cream and swimming in a melted moat of it? (Ostensibly, the moat was crème anglaise, but it was too thin to coat a spoon.) The lava cake is the only dessert Society doesn’t make in-house, but the others aren’t much better. The crème brûlée with “seasonal berries” ($12) turned out to be a single raspberry floating in a lake of soup-y, unset custard. One nice thing about Society is that it’s easy to leave. Service on all three of my visits was swift, attentive, and friendly, and everything came out of the bar and the kitchen suspiciously fast. That’s partly thanks to Blade Moore and Amanda Norwood-Strieby, who collaborated on the cocktail menus at Society and The Scarlet Room next door. All of Society’s cocktails are pre-mixed and served on tap, a choice that allows bartenders to better manage busy weekend crowds. The drinks look great on paper and in person, though most taste flatter and sweeter than their ingredients list would suggest. The White Peach Hai ($12) was a syrup-y blend of sauv blanc and sake that promised yuzu and grapefruit but only delivered peach. And the Oaxacan Smoke Show ($13) had a fun burnt-sugar nose, but

GET OUT Society and The Scarlet Room 2050 Central St 816-643-3300 societykc.com | scarletroomkc. com Hours (Society): Wednesday–Thursday 4 PM–12 AM Friday 4 PM–1:30 AM Saturday 10 AM–1:30 AM Sunday 10 AM–12 AM (The Scarlet Room) Friday–Saturday 4 PM–1:30 AM Prices (Society): Cocktails: $11–14 Appetizers: $9–18 Sushi: $12–16 Entrees: $14–40 (The Scarlet Room): Cocktails: $15–20 Best bet: At Society, sip a “Backhanded Compliment” on the patio and graze on the calamari or burger. In The Scarlet Room, snag a seat at the bar and order the “WAP (Wet Ass Peach).” On Twitter: @lizcookkc

the mezcal and habanero were dulled by a deluge of sweetness. It was also garnished with a desiccated brown lime wedge. This is admittedly a fussy complaint, but with pre-made cocktails, the bar has time to inspect the fruit. A couple cocktails fared better with the on-tap treatment. The Oleander ($12) was well balanced, adding lime, ginger, and hibiscus to a gin and vodka base. And the Backhanded Compliment ($12; patio-only) was acid-bright with pineapple and grapefruit. It was my favorite of the drinks I tried. Cocktail fans will have better luck in Society’s adjoining lounge, The Scarlet Room, where the lights are low, the music is lower, and the décor is (comparatively) understated. Crossing the threshold from Society to Scarlet did not, as the website promised, usher me “into a vibrant, intoxicating world of light, color, and opulence.” But it did usher me into a red-toned room with a cheesy fake fireplace topped with cheesy fake candles topped with a cheesy flat screen playing early-aughts screensavers. I would have loved all of that stuff if Trident didn’t insist on taking it so seriously. The drinks here are made to order, and they’re almost universally better than the ones on tap next door. They’re also significantly more expensive. The WAP (Wet Ass Peach) ($17) was summery and fresh, with a luxe, meringue-like foam. And the Tiki-La ($17) sexed up the standard tiki sweetness with mezcal and a savory red pepper bite. Still, I’m not sure Kansas Citians will thrill at paying Monarch Bar prices for Cheesecake Factory vibes. I kept thinking about the mocking copy on Society’s website. The thing those “boring wood-paneled steakhouses” and “played-out speakeasies” have is an identity. It might be predictable, but at least it’s coherent. Society can’t seem to decide what it wants to be. For all its bluster about creativity and innovation, the restaurant seems content to repackage decades-old trends at a high price point with uneven execution. It doesn’t have a point of view— just an ego. (A reminder, I guess, to PR types: if you’re going to come out swinging, you’d better have the goods). Society started brunch service last month, and the cheery patio and prime Crossroads location are likely to keep attracting new diners. The restaurant’s going to need a stronger sense of purpose and progress to keep them coming back. At least, that’s my contention—really, my hope. I hope diners want more than lava cakes and dynamite rolls. Kansas City’s culinary scene has so much more to offer. But restaurants are businesses, after all, and they’re ultimately going to give us what we ask for. We…live in a society.

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thepitchkc.com | August 2021 | THE PITCH

DINING

EAT THIS NOW WORDS AND PHOTOS BY APRIL FLEMING

The most difficult items to serve in a restaurant are the ones everyone can make (or the ones everyone thinks they can make). A humble cookie rarely makes it onto a dessert menu—even on kids’ menus. Perhaps this is why we seem to be taking for granted the items behind the glass at The Russell.

the Baked Goods at The Russell 3141 Main Street, Kansas City, MO 64111

Baker and co-owner of The Russell, Heather White, has certainly received attention for her baking. In a former life back in Vancouver, she owned a cupcake shop that she started with her friend Lori Joyce. Their success parlayed into a reality show, The Cupcake Girls, that ran for a few seasons beginning in 2010. Since relocating to Kansas City with her husband, the attention has been less direct. She and Amante Domingo have quietly built a remarkably good and consistent neighborhood restaurant with the Russell. Most of the words spilled about it are devoted to the wood fire hearth, the meats roasted over it, and the restaurant’s ambiance—all deserving things. Maybe you don’t know it yet, but you need one of White’s cookies, and you should probably stop wasting time already. Also good: the cupcakes, tarts, and Rice Krispie treats. White embraces the familiar, offering desserts and treats like soft sugar cookies heaped with buttercream frosting and rainbow sprinkles, ultra-rich bourbon brownies, and snickerdoodles that are basically their own nostalgia portals, among a lot of other tempting items. But if you have to get just one lonely item, it should probably be the Oatmeal Cream Pie. Like its Little Debbie inspiration—a bit sad and floppy in comparison to White’s tribute—this whoopie pie features two outrageously soft, alarmingly large oatmeal cookies (without raisins, appreciated). The two cookies sandwich about a half a cup of near-perfect buttercream icing. You will think, “there’s no way I will eat all of this,” but then you do. You’ll see. They are treasures.

DRINK THIS NOW the Handshake Drug at The Campground 1531 Genessee St, Kansas City, MO 64102

Offering outdoor “cabins,” a holiday market, and a parking lot bar with genuine appeal, Chris Ciesel and Cristin Llewellyn demonstrated that they were among the most creative restaurateurs throughout the long COVID-related restaurant closures of 2020 and 2021. These offerings kept guests coming despite abbreviated hours and some limited availability, and it wasn’t until July that the restaurant’s dining room actually reopened. We’re appreciative of that work, recognizing that alternative programming is no small thing.

We’re pretty excited though that they have now (cautiously) stepped back into full service, because it’s in these cozy confines that owner Chris Ciesel’s cocktails—and their presentations—shine as much as they deserve to. One standout from the Campground’s now fully open menu is the Handshake Drug, a bright gin-based drink ideal for hot summer days. The drink is also noticeable for its fruit-forwardness, which Ciesel doesn’t typically tend towards. The cocktail is in a lot of ways a tribute to Chicago, Ciesel’s hometown. It starts with two Chicago specialties: Koval barreled gin and the aromatic spirit Leatherbee Besk (a far more tolerable aromatic spirit than it’s cousin, Malört), which Ciesel macerates with fresh pineapple. To the uncreative mind, this combination seems like it would repel even insects, but it really does work. To that, he adds the poblano-tinted Ancho Reyes Verde, pineapple honey, lemon, and orange cream citrate. It’s topped with chipped ice, which Ciesel makes right at the bar for each drink. Bringing the Chicago theme full circle, the cocktail is named after a song by Wilco, one of Chicago’s best known bands.

THE PITCH | August 2021 | thepitchkc.com

While Ciesel doesn’t favor fruity drinks, this cocktail shows he should probably just make more of them. It’s fresh and tart, but also floral and complex. It also looks similar to a tequila sunrise but comes without the sickly sweetness or hangover. The Handshake Drug is a great way to help take in the space again, or maybe enjoy it for the first time.

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thepitchkc.com | August 2021 | THE PITCH

Confidence Man WHAT STEVEN G.’S METORITIC RISE MEANS FOR BRAWNY MEN EVERYWHERE BY BEK SHACKELFORD

Barber: Ailele Ighile; Wardrobe Stylist: Vanne McMillan; Wardrobe Assistant: Teresa Brooks Monté Law

THE PITCH | August 2021 | thepitchkc.com

or over a decade now, Kansas Citian Steven Green, who goes by Steven G. professionally, has found himself behind the camera. Whether he’s staging, shooting, or styling a model, Green is generally the one peering through the viewfinder. But in February of 2020—with the same type of charismatic confidence he displays in his photography and professional styling skills—Green springboarded into the deep end of the modeling agency. Luckily, he’s a good swimmer. Green’s first photoshoot as a signed model was a photo campaign for Rihanna’s lingerie line, Savage X Fenty. Unsurprisingly, he went viral, but not just because of his wicked good looks. Unlike the vast majority of male underwear models, Green is “brawn,” a new industry term for men-of-size. In the Savage X Fenty shoot, he is shirtless, unedited, and glowing. He took up space with enough confidence to make you think he was a seasoned model. But more than that, he made brawn men across the world feel seen and showed the importance of body positivity for men, too. “I think that society has created a notion that women find [a] particular body type attractive, and that they don’t find any other body type outside of

CULTURE

that attractive,” Green explains. “What the Savage X Fenty opportunity brought about was that people do [find plus-size body types attractive]. We are all different. The world represents so many different people. You can have a gut and man boobs and still be attractive,” says Green. Since the Savage X Fenty shoot, Green

agents direct messaged Green on Instagram, he began to seriously consider a professional modeling career. As a photographer, he already spent a lot of time in the fashion world and he liked the idea of using his image to promote diversity and inclusion for men. “Being a photographer, working with models, I knew the ins and outs of modeling already from a perspective of getting those gigs,” says Green. “So I just decided randomly at 2 a.m., ‘I’m gonna just apply to some agency.’” One of the mission statements of a modeling agency Green applied to, Bridge Models, really complimented his own goals. “As our name suggests, the ethos of the agency is to ‘bridge the gap’ between standard and plus size in the fashion industry,” says the agency’s About page on their website. “The plus size sector has seen some exciting changes in the last twenty years and there is still vast capacity for growth. At Bridge we are proud to be part of the continued change to promote diversity and healthy, positive role models.” Just two weeks after his 2 a.m. revelation, Green was signed to Bridge Models with both their U.S. and London offices, which is how he got his Savage X Fenty shoot.

GREEN’S FIRST PHOTOSHOOT AS A SIGNED MODEL WAS A PHOTO CAMPAIGN FOR RIHANNA’S LINGERIE LINE, SAVAGE X FENTY. UNSURPRISINGLY, HE WENT VIRAL, BUT NOT JUST BECAUSE OF HIS WICKED GOOD LOOKS. has been featured in several different campaigns for brands such as Nike, ASOS, Gymshark, and Citi Trends. Now that the world is slowly opening back up post-pandemic, he’s beginning to travel more for modeling gigs. Although Green’s success as a model may have seemed like it happened overnight, he says that leading up to his big break, he mastered the art of self-portraits and used himself as a model on his social media account. This allowed him to showcase his skills as a stylist, but he wasn’t thinking of modeling professionally. “I utilized myself and my personal Instagram platform to showcase different looks and creative things like street style,” says Green. “Then from there, randomly, producers and casting directors started reaching out to me for modeling gigs. During that time, I wasn’t a model and was more interested in promoting my style services.” As more and more producers and

Since then, Green successfully completed another campaign for Savage X Fenty, is working on a campaign for Fabletics, and has been nominated for Emerging Male Model for The Full Figured Fashion Awards (www.theffias.com) and Best Male Model for Kansas City’s People’s Choice Awards. Green continues to push for diversity and inclusion in modeling, especially when it comes to plus-size representation for men. While he may seem to radiate confidence now, Green has had his fair share of insecurities he has had to work through. “I think there’s many instances where, even in the sense of dating, I may not have pursued someone because I didn’t necessarily have the confidence in my size,” says Green. “Like going to the pool for instance, I would leave my shirt on versus taking it off because I wasn’t confident in my body.” Overcoming these self-esteem hurdles is a big reason Green became a model himself. He has become the representation he

did not see as a young person. “A lot of times, people who are of size don’t pursue a lot of their passions, and they don’t pursue a lot of the things that are really within their purpose because they don’t have the confidence and they are struggling with insecurities,” Green says. “But that representation is a driving force to reaffirm who they are: If they can do it, then I can do it too.” Whether it’s through his skills as a stylist, photographer, or model, Steven G. strives to elevate people of all sizes to have the confidence to see their full potential. “My vision is to see a culture of people embracing the divine connection of who they are and why they exist,” says Green. “I’m on a mission to tell the authentic story of others, utilizing my platforms, passions, and purpose.” You can follow Green’s modeling journey on his Instagram @theofficialsteveng, and view his photography on his webpage at www.stevengphotos.com. thepitchkc.com | August 2021 | THE PITCH

CULTURE

Kraske hiking Glacier National Park in 1976.

IN MEDIA RES KEEPING KC UP TO DATE, STEVE KRASKE’S JOURNALISM LEGACY IS STILL BEING WRITTEN BY ALLISON HARRIS, ILLUSTRATIONS BY KATELYN BETZ

KCUR’s Steve Kraske has helped to shape the very language of our local and national history, and his reporting has had a huge impact in the Kansas City area. Kraske, a student of a more traditional era of journalism, is now raising a young and hungry generation of journalists, always consciously considering the ways the industry is changing for better or worse. Since 2002, Kraske has been the host of KCUR’s wildly popular Up To Date, a current events radio show where he features guests and tackles issues of all size and scale—from politics to entertainment to health to education. He’s also a professor of journalism at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, a husband, and a dad. Of course, he first gained notoriety in Kansas City for his political reporting and eventual editorial board position at The Kansas City Star, where he wrote for 27 years, before accepting a buyout in 2019. A look back through Kraske’s bylines at The Star shows how tuned in he was (and continues to be) to both local and national politics. He urged readers to remember the name Quinton Lucas in 2015 as an upand-coming local leader, and issued an eerie warning from before the 2016 election that Donald Trump would stick around for Kraske with President Barack Obama in 2008.

THE PITCH | August 2021 | thepitchkc.com

a long time. As a member of the media, he can be heard as a caller-in on CSPAN segments throughout the decades, covering Kansas and Missouri senate and gubernatorial races in-depth and shaping the area’s political narrative for a national audience. A career and a legacy like Kraske’s doesn’t happen overnight, though. He had a drive to work hard and a personal passion for journalism’s search for truth from an early age. Somewhere between fifth and eighth grade, he says, he knew exactly what he wanted to do. “My father was a writer of children’s books and an editor of Minnesota DNR’s [Department of Natural Resources] Wildlife magazine. My mom was very active in behind-the-scenes political stuff. I think I’m sort of that perfect combination of mom and dad.” He explains of his attraction to both politics and journalism: “It doesn’t happen very often. So many of my students really struggle with where they want to wind up [and what] they are aiming for. And I was just very lucky. I knew really quickly that I wanted to go into journalism.” At first, Kraske wanted to cover sports, which he did throughout college. But by the end of his journey at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he developed an interest in government reporting and politics, which is where he began his career

post-graduation. “I was in Freeport, Illinois to start off, which was not a town that I was dying to live in. And then my second stop was in Dubuque, Iowa, [which] was a beautiful town. I had some great friends there on the newspaper and that was really fun, but I wanted to get to something like The Kansas City Star,” he says. “I wanted to cover politics at that newspaper eventually, which [I did].” A pretty lucky break and a tip from a friend led to Kraske’s initial placement into a position covering politics at The Star, he explains. “My former colleague in Dubuque and friend, Mike Hendricks, called me one day and said, ‘There’s a job here covering police. You ought to take it.’ And I said, ‘You know, Mike, I don’t want to cover cops.’ He goes, ‘Listen, it’s a great beat in this town. There’s a lot going on. Take that for a couple of years, and you can work your way up into government stuff.’ And sure shootin’, I was here for a couple of years, and then a [position] to cover the Missouri general assembly opened up.” It was at The Star that Kraske’s reporting grew in scale and readership as he chased gubernatorial races, presidential races, and national presidential conventions. Kraske’s legacy—both as a journalist and an educator—is one he is proud of, he tells me.

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He says “being recognized in Kansas City Magazine a year or two ago for being one of the ‘50 Most Powerful People in the City’” was one of his proudest moments. “That my journalism was having some level of influence ... that was cool.” But he didn’t begin his career for accolades, he explains. “One thing I’m really proud of is that I got through my newspaper career and into my radio career being an honest broker to the best extent that I could. I could look at myself in the mirror every day, thinking I tried my best to present the information as fairly as I could.” The pursuit of the absolute and objective truth is something Kraske does not take lightly. As his career has evolved over the years through a decline in newspaper readership, an era of burgeoning distrust of the media goaded by an anti-news president, and then a rise in public radio listenership, objectivity has remained a pillar of his reporting. But journalism’s ever-changing landscape makes it difficult to know what to expect for future generations. “So many people look at the media these days as being jaded, and it’s slanted, and it’s this, and it’s that, and there may be some truth to that,” he says. “But in my

experience, I was fortunate in working at The Star, where the emphasis was to be fair and to present balanced stories and to do your best to be honest. And I’m glad I had that opportunity, because anything else wouldn’t have suited who I am.” As local newspapers have lost readership and funding, journalism has become tougher to navigate emotionally. Combined with the general stress of covering the news, this leads to high rates of depression and anxiety among journalists. This emotional distress is something Kraske dealt with first-hand at The Star, although he was fortunate enough to keep his position. “Working at The Kansas City Star for the last 15 years when there was round after round after round of layoffs was crushing. Seeing good friends and really talented colleagues heading out the door because the newspaper wasn’t making as much money as it once had was depressing,” Kraske says. “You were constantly looking over your shoulder to see what was going on and keeping an eye on how the paper was holding up. No one enjoyed that. That wasn’t fun for the editors. It wasn’t fun for the reporters.” Kraske as a child, with his father Bob, back in 1959.

thepitchkc.com | August 2021 | THE PITCH

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However, Kraske is optimistic for a new generation. And with his leadership at UMKC’s student paper, we also have reason to be. I personally benefited a great deal from Kraske’s advice, editing, lists of AP style mistakes not to make, and mentorship as I began my journalism career. I first met Kraske, my professor, during my sophomore year at the University of Missouri at Kansas City. After somewhat abruptly switching my major to communications, I felt anxious about taking an introduction to journalism class, afraid to admit I didn’t know much of anything about journalism writing. Right away, I was calmed by Kraske’s cool demeanor and fact-based approach to writing, which worked well for even the most nervous beginner. I also learned quickly what an impact Kraske has had on journalism at both a national and city level as I became more involved with our school’s journalism program and newspaper, UMKC’s University News. Our paper’s faculty advisor, career journalist Bill Bell, lauded Kraske’s legendary status to the class and reminded us to always take advantage of what an incredible resource he is.

THE PITCH | August 2021 | thepitchkc.com

“He really inspires me,” says Bell about Kraske. “Nobody from his generation, for the most part, is still practicing journalism. They’re all gone, but he’s still there. I really admire him.” Kraske helps students to navigate a sometimes daunting career field for seniors

wasn’t sure if I was taking the right path or not. But during my time with Kraske in his classes, he taught me that there was a place for me in journalism and that there were a variety of ways that I could make a good influence on it.” “Steve Kraske is the nucleus of the

“THE WHOLE CADRE OF JOURNALISTS COMING OUT OF UMKC WHO FIND THEIR WAY IN THE BUSINESS... AND ARE ABLE TO DO GOOD WORK: THAT’S WHAT I’M ALL ABOUT,” KRASKE SAYS. “IT’S A GREAT WAY TO END A CAREER. WORKING WITH SO MANY TALENTED FOLKS.” nearing graduation and trying to find their footing in the professional world. “Kraske is someone who has really helped me become the person I am today in the journalism world,” says Adeta Chareunsaub, U-News’ social media editor. “Before taking journalism classes at UMKC, I

College of Arts and Sciences and all things communications at UMKC,” says student and U-News reporter Lawrence Brooks IV. “From the first day I entered his intro to journalism course in the fall of 2020, I knew that my life as a journalist would be forever influenced by his tutelage, and

UMKC was the right place for me. He has challenged me in ways that I didn’t believe was possible and I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to have him as a professor and mentor.” UMKC’s communications program is incredibly lucky to have someone with an outlook like Kraske’s as we all navigate uncertainty in the world of journalism. He seems to feel lucky to have us, too, noting that his students are the proudest part of his legacy. “The whole cadre of journalists coming out of UMKC who find their way in the business and get great positions, and have important roles, and are able to do good work: that’s what I’m all about.” Kraske says. “It’s a great way to end a career. Working with so many talented folks.” While the journalism industry is much different now than it was when Kraske began his reporting, his impact remains significant. He’s known all over Kansas City and respected nationally for his reporting and editorial writing. At Up To Date and as a professor at UMKC, he’s found a way to continue doing what he does best and shape the careers of young people as passionate as he is.

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COLLECTIVE SOUL NELSON-ATKINS’ TESTIMONY EXPLORES ELABORATE BONDS BETWEEN ART AND AUDIENCE BY EMILY COX

When was the last time you saw a local, living artist’s work featured in an exhibition at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art? It’s a trick question. Before June 5 of this year, it hadn’t happened. The Nelson is reimagining their relationship with the local arts community as they launch a new initiative, KC Art Now, to celebrate local artists and their art. The first exhibition under this program is Testimony: African American Artists Collective. The African American Artists Collective (AAAC) formed in 2014 around a table at Gates Bar-B-Q. The collective has grown to 150 artists who live in Kansas City or who have ties here. When the Nelson invited the collective to exhibit there, 35 of those artists answered the call. Half of them created new work specifically for the exhibit. “The museum always had a great respect for the artists in our community, [and partnered with artists for programming], but work on the walls just carries a different kind of weight and sends a different message,” says Stephanie Fox Knappe, the Samuel Sosland Curator of American Art at The Nelson-Atkins. She continues: “To see Kansas City artists celebrated in the same way as Caravaggio

THE PITCH | August 2021 | thepitchkc.com

or Monet or any contemporary artist globally is really wonderful.” That is to say, they are on the same walls as these renowned artists. There is a certain validation happening here. When The Nelson-Atkins announced that they would be showcasing local, living, Black artists in this new exhibition, it was news. Whose work is shown on the walls of this museum, and any museum, has always been political. This is one step towards breaking down some of those institutional barriers that disproportionately value certain kinds of art (cough cough, paintings made by Europeans a couple hundred years ago). •

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Testimony, as an act, works best in chorus. Whether in court or in church, testimony doesn’t happen on its own. It’s many voices speaking their truths, offering evidence, and building a story. As you enter the gallery, you enter a manifestation of the collective: “This is the AAAC,” says Knappe. “These are the artists who know each other, who have conversations with each other, who visit each other’s studios, who wrestle with ideas together, who

are engaged in social justice together.” The show’s title, “Testimony,” came out of the interviews that museum staff had with participating artists. “We were just talking about their practice and what it means to be a Black or African American artist,” says Knappe. “The notion of how important it is for artists to speak their own truths, to not have them mediated, to not have their experiences told from another’s perspective, was something that just came up again and again. This notion [considers] art as a testimony.” To that end, Knappe and others at the Nelson decided to forego the typical curatorial comments on the wall placards. Instead, each placard features comments from the artist themselves. “Because we were so focused on the notion of testimony and one’s own truth,” says Knappe, “it felt like if we were really going to embrace that fully, it wasn’t my place to be necessarily an interpreter, or to say, ’Actually what the artist meant is this,’ or, ‘This is what the artist wanted you to know.’” The artists had just a mere 70-90 words to work with—the same as any placard space throughout the museum. They had to carefully consider the way they used this space, according to Knappe, who gave this advice: “As you’re approaching these labels, these written testimonies, think about standing in front of your work with a good friend or a family member, and what would be the thing you are whispering in their ear?” They were further counseled by one of Knappe’s colleagues, Ariana Chaivaranon, the interpretive planner on the Testimony team. Some artists gave helpful history or

context for their work. Harold David Smith wrote about his piece “Friday Night Blues,” about how getting together with “the brothers” on Friday nights has shifted from talking about sports and work to a more “bluesy, melancholy feel.” The stunning mixed media canvas evokes that late-night melancholy of two longtime friends smoking Newports and drinking Colt 45s. I can feel them mulling over decades past in a hazy basement as if I’m in the room with them. Other placards left me wanting more information. One of the first artworks you see as you enter the exhibition is “Embraced Promises,” a quilt with a Black mother hugging her son who holds a Black Lives Matter sign lowered in his hands. They stand together against a blue, star-spangled background. Artist Kim Alexis Newton writes on the accompanying plaque, “My work fuses emotional journeys with a time-honored tradition.” She goes on to write about a mother’s fear of losing her son, about love and the pursuit of happiness. But there is no contextualization of the time-honored tradition of quilting. This quilted piece fits into a powerful legacy that goes back to Egypt and includes the formidable artists Harriet Powers and Faith Ringgold. The medium has been used by generations of Black women and has been historically relegated outside of “fine art.” While the visual of mother and son with the colors of the American flag makes for a potent image in and of itself, this work deserves to be situated in that lineage of Black women artists working with quilts. In Michael A. Brantley’s painting, “A Seat

CULTURE The Testify exhibit, on display at Kemper.

at the Table,” we see five Black folks poised as servants, painted in black and white. The central figure, a Black man with Rastafarian locs and white-gloved hands holding a silver-domed serving dish has his mouth covered with a shiny, translucent mask. Draped over his forearm is a cloth featuring the only color in the work, painted like the American flag on the exterior, while the Confederate flag peeks out from the interior side. Brantley’s commentary on the plaque next to his painting is brief, reading only: “Anatomy of progress, visibility, and identity within integrated spaces.” Painting a group of servants under the title “A Seat at the Table”—that oft-used metaphor in dialogues about racial inclusion—is a potent commentary about just what that table might look like and where people stand in relation to it. But in a painting so ripe with symbols, understanding hinges on viewers

DANA ANDERSON

spotting and connecting those points of reference and their layered meanings. “The Fife Master” by David Stevens is a triptych of sepia-toned photographs of an older Black man sitting on a bucket outside a shack, playing the fife. There are stories in the photographs and contained in the subject himself. But Stevens doesn’t choose to share them, or even who this man is, instead only writing that his photographs capture relationships, that he has a bond with his subjects. This gives us more questions than answers: Who is the fife master to him? The sepia-toned photographs also suggest an older photography process, but that, too, remains a mystery. Leaving a museum curious—being sufficiently moved by artwork to want to know more—is not the worst thing. This strategy of using only the artists’ words is perhaps a rebuttal against museums acting as holders of ultimate knowledge, against their supposed authority and neutrality. But this feels like an overcorrection that makes these artists’ work less impactful than they could have been. Talk to me about their lineage in art history—place them there and give them the respect they are due. Introductions, context, and biography are provided in many settings—think of a public speaker or an introduction to a novel. This added information need not undercut the power of the main event, nor suggest that the work presented is insufficient. Instead, introductions usually suggest a certain status: These artists have earned being discussed and celebrated. The word “testimony” stands solid in the show’s title as a noun. An object hanging in the air, having been given, waiting to be received. It can’t exist in that limbo; testimony only exists in relationship. A speaker and a listener. An artist and a viewer. Speaking one’s own truth is a beautiful, vital process. But what if you are speaking in a language that others don’t understand? Sometimes there is a gap between truth-telling and truth-receiving. Every truth spoken is filtered through our own knowledge, experiences, and biases. There is no pure understanding; no one-to-one telling and receiving

ratio. So, how can these truths best be received? Is the expression or the reception more important? Here, the curator and artists foreground the expression of their story, hoping the audience can meet them where they are. Or be curious enough to dig deeper. •

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Several artists grapple with the notion of testimony and with themes of voice, identity, and place. On the gallery’s back wall, a projected video entitled “I Want to Testify” shows dancers sweeping their arms and slowly rolling their bodies through the air in front of Wornall House. It looks every bit the iconic plantation house, all brick and white columns. This is a place where people were enslaved, and the dancers’ broad movements feel like a reclamation of space. The performance was choreographed by Tyrone Aiken, featuring dancers Winston Dynamite Brown and Latra Wilson, with vocals by Hope McIntosh. In another scene, as they dance in front of Troost Lake, we hear McIntosh’s voice: “This plantation watering source sits next to the Paseo and hides secrets in plain sight. And if excavated and unerased, would shed new light on forgotten slaves and indigenous bodies.” This line pushed me to research and learn: The natural spring where Troost Lake now sits was the water source for the Porter Plantation, where Rev. James Porter enslaved 40-100 people in the early 19th century. These scenes are intercut with ones in a white-walled gallery room. As the dancers slowly twirl individually against the white walls, we hear, “I remember being told that museums were for some people, that we would be watched and unwelcome and out of place. Don’t go. Things don’t change. And besides … ain’t none of y’all good enough to be in there anyway.” •

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“What’s wonderful about the collective [is that] in addition to being multi-generational, they’re multi-disciplinary,” says Knappe. “It was both a thrill and a challenge to figure out how we show the work of two choreographers, or three poets, or two musicians. And from the beginning, we didn’t want to simply relegate those performing artists to one evening in the ten-month run, or one Sunday afternoon.” While the effort to exhibit this wider scope of art in a gallery is admirable, not everything fared well in the space. Songs by two musicians were played in separate places in the gallery, but were difficult to hear on a cacophonous Saturday afternoon. Two poets’ words were printed on the wall, but were still visually underwhelming next to all the bright and textured art. The most confusing selection was Kim-

berlyn Jones’ “Kansas City Metropolitan Dance Theatre: A Dance Servant,” a video on a small screen on the wall that seemed like a commercial for the dance studio. While they may do excellent and important work there, the video is not compelling and it detracts from the works around it. These selections felt less like being immersed in a multidisciplinary conversation and more like being chaotically pulled in too many directions. On the neighboring wall are two impressive large-scale works: bold primary colors and crisp geometry in a portrait of Nefertari entitled “Be forever wonderful… Ahmose-Nefertari” by Joseph Tyler Newton, Sr. and “Journey Legacy Series / Black Cherokee: Slyamore, Arkansas, Trail of Tears, Tennessee to Arkansas, 1830-1850” by Sara Sonié Joi Thompson-Ruffin. The latter is a richly detailed tapestry portrait of a Cherokee man in a feathered headdress. These two works honor ancestral lineages that connect Black Americans to these other nations and cultures through a commentary on global diaspora. While some artists engage with history, others look to the future. The Afrofuturistic visual poetry by Glenn A. North, Jr., entitled “Blackness to Affinity: (or) Journey To A Corner of the Afrophonic Multiverse,” delightfully declares: “At lightspeed we are degentrifying Troost / The Gates on Mars is where we go to eat / We rock the moonboots with the Nike swoosh / The woofers in our spaceships drop the beat.” •

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How do audiences receive this testimony, this multidimensional offering to our community? “With the fact that these are local artists,” says Knappe. “They’re out in the community, they’re walking down the street, they’re at the grocery store, they have websites, they have social media.” There are opportunities to connect with the artists to see more of their work, to continue to engage beyond the exhibition, in a way that’s not possible with artists from farflung places. “There’s this electric feeling when you have living artists talking about their work with audience members, and it feels like that’s still tying into that testimony and truth-telling and truth-receiving,” says Knappe. Hearing this testimony is an invitation into a relationship, an invitation to connect to these neighbors of yours. Testimony: African American Artists Collective is currently on view at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art through March 27, 2022. It is free and open to the public. Timed tickets for museum entry can be reserved on the museum’s website, where you can also find a virtual tour of the exhibition. thepitchkc.com | August 2021 | THE PITCH

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TEXTUAL FRUSTRATION WITH “TINDER LIVE,” COMEDIAN LANE MOORE LOOKS FOR A PERFECT MATCH IN EACH CITY BY ANNE KNIGGENDORF

The grande dame you know and love as Missouri is spending her 200th birthday year pampered, petted, and fêted by folks right here at home, as well as admirers from hither and yon. One visitor from yon is comedian, writer, and musician Lane Moore who’ll be at the recordBar August 11 with “Tinder Live.” In her shows, Moore scrolls through her Tinder app in real time, viewable via a projection screen. The audience gets to vote on whether she should swipe left or right, and watch as she messages strangers. Through touring and viewing new cities through the lens of a dating app, she sees the United States much differently. “I just have vague memories of going to Branson as a kid. Everything was western-themed, and the time zone was different. As a child, that is very confusing when you’re trying to watch TV,” Moore says by phone from her home in Brooklyn. For years, Moore has played cities in states that, unlike Missouri, she has no previous relationship with at all. States she wouldn’t even consider paying a birthday visit. “I’m so excited,” Moore says. “Now I understand time zones.” “Tinder Live,” which she’s performed for about seven years, has turned out to be a great way to learn about a location. The show is improvised, but all based on the local Tinder accounts of the city she’s visiting. Moore says, “Anyone who’s ever seen

THE PITCH | August 2021 | thepitchkc.com

men’s profiles on dating apps knows that they’re just a carnival of insanity.” The profile she logs into for the show isn’t quite a fake account, but it’s not completely true to her either; Moore had to veil her identity after people started recognizing her during the performance.

ple,” says Moore. The show also tells her a great deal about the place itself. For instance, when she does the show in Washington, D.C., many of the men are in politics. But she has no idea what to expect of Kansas Citians. “Is a fish photo really big there? Is there one place in town where everyone takes their profile photo?” she asks. “There’s always stuff like that, so it’s fun to discover what that is.” Moore says the show is good-natured. She’s careful to monitor the energy of the man she’s messaging for signs that he isn’t into it. No one will be abused or teased mercilessly on her watch. If “relationships” can count as a schtick, it’s hers. Her biggest project other than “Tinder Live” is her 2018 book, How to be Alone: If You Want To, and Even If You Don’t. The book manages to be simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking with chapter titles such as, “What If This Is as Good as It Will Ever Get: Settling and You!” and “All This Pain Must Be Worth It Because You’re Supposed to Be My Soul Mate.” Moore says: “With ‘Tinder Live,’ with everything I do, I really want people to have better relationships. I want people to connect more and feel less alone.” Audience members have told her they learn things from the show that actually help them find someone. While she’s sorting through profiles on stage, she’ll explain how a man’s representation of himself in a profile picture or a comment he makes to a woman might be interpreted as off-putting by the

“WITH ‘TINDER LIVE,’ WITH EVERYTHING I DO, I REALLY WANT PEOPLE TO HAVE BETTER RELATIONSHIPS. I WANT PEOPLE TO CONNECT MORE AND FEEL LESS ALONE,” MOORE SAYS. After she takes the stage, she pulls up the app on a big screen. She swipes until she finds someone on the outrageous side, then she starts communicating with him. “My messages are as ridiculous as possible,” she says. “It’s totally improvised and I’m being as weird as I possibly can.” The men are typically very responsive to that weirdness—she thinks that’s because of the frustrating and lonely nature of dating apps. Her messages go far beyond the average, “Hi, how are you?” that app users have come to expect. “Really, to have a conversation this funny and this strange is very rare, so I think it does bring this, like, ‘finally’ for those peo-

very people he wishes to attract. Relationships with a city are simple in comparison. But what does Lane Moore look for in a place? “I love a city that embraces dogs and leaves dog bowls out. I love a city that has a lot of murals and has a lot of local art, things like that. I love a good thrift store. I love good vegetarian food.” This is sounding familiar. “That’s what makes it for me, is really good, kind people, really lovely food, lots of dogs, lots of nature stuff. That’s what I zero in on,” says Moore. It looks like she and Missouri may be a match.

thepitchkc.com | August 2021 | THE PITCH

MUSIC

Liam Kazar in his element.

ALEXA VISCIUS

out yet. So I was at a mental stopping point with making music because I found it hard to work on music when I had all this other [unreleased material] sitting around. I sorta hatched the idea of cooking a bit more seriously in August. I spent about four months getting recipes together so that by January, I launched it.

INTO THE FRYING PAN LIAM KAZAR BOUNCES FROM MUSIC TO COOKING AND BACK AGAIN BY NICK SPACEK

Musician Liam Kazar’s career began in Chicago, but in recent years, he’s been based out of Kansas City. This month, his first-ever solo album, Due North, is out on Mare Records—a Kevin Morby-run imprint of Woodsist Records. It comes after a decade of touring and collaborating with top-tier musicians like Jeff Tweedy, Chance the Rapper, and Daniel Johnston. The ten songs on the album have the danceable ebullience of mid-career Talking Heads or David Byrne’s American Utopia tour, along with the collaborative flair of Jeff Lynne during his time with the Traveling Wilburys. This sound is thanks to help from drummer Spencer Tweedy, bassist Lane Beckstrom, keyboardist Dave Curtin, co-producer James Elkington on pedal steel, and Ohmme and Andrew Sa on backing vocals. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kazar started a pop-up restaurant called Isfahan,

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despite having no professional culinary experience. Isfahan pays tribute to the Armenian food on which the musician grew up, while also donating money earned from each popup to a local charity. It’s a wild ride, and I was excited to discuss all of this when I spoke with Kazar while he was in Mount Tremper, New York, near Woodstock. He was there working on an Isfahan pop-up. The Pitch: I imagine that it must be weird now that you can get on the road and go do stuff after this, given that Isfahan was born out of the fact that you couldn’t go anywhere. Liam Kazar: The whole thing has been weird. This was not supposed to be a whole life-rearranging thing. It was just supposed to be something fun to keep me busy while I wasn’t doing anything. Then it turned into a full-on job that I’m managing in tandem with my music job—which is great, ‘cause I was doing

nothing last year. My partner was like, “How about you do something? Just do something.” Going on the road seems like it’s going to happen, and I’ll be happy when that does. This thing isn’t a brick-and-mortar situation, so I can pick it up and put it down when I need to. Going from music to saying, “I’m going to start a pop-up restaurant”—was that born out of restaurant work you’ve done in the past? No, I’ve never worked in a commercial kitchen before this. I liked cooking and before I was going to do music, I had thought about maybe cooking for a living, but I’d never followed through with it. That was just something I was thinking about when I was a kid. I worked on music at the beginning of the pandemic for a while. I finished up my record. Then, when the summer came around, I was done with my record, but it wasn’t

Part of the thing about your pop-up restaurant is that you’re drawing from the food that you grew up with. That seems like a very comforting thing, which would make jumping into the culinary world a lot easier, because you know what flavors you’re going for and how the end result is supposed to be, as opposed to creating something almost from whole new cloth. Right? It was also the fact that it was a food that’s hard to find, particularly in Kansas. I missed that food, you know? If I want dolmas like my mom would make when I was a kid— first of all, those canned ones you get are not good. I tell people about those all the time and they’re like, “Oh, really? I don’t really like those. I don’t like grape leaves.” I was like, “When you make it and you bake it and you drown it in olive oil, it’s fricking delicious.” A big part of it was just missing that food that I grew up with, and not being in Chicago where my mom could make it. I went to Armenia with my sister about ten years ago and I was wanting to pull more out of that part of my family history. That felt more relatable than all the regional different pastas of Italy or something like that. That has nothing to do with me. As a musician, you’ve played with all of these other artists, touring and recording. What was it like starting to record your own music after working with very well-known people? Slow. The process was slow. I really didn’t know what I wanted to do, so it was a lot of time spent in the studio by myself or

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Liam Kazar, Due North Out August 6, 2021

CULTURE

with one other person where I could prevent things from getting away from me too quickly. When you get six musicians into a studio and the clock is ticking, then you just start making decisions and people do their own thing. If you’re not certain about what you want—which I wasn’t, when I was making this record—you can lose whatever aesthetic thing you’re trying to do. But if I’m working with somebody one-on-one and slowly accumulating the song the way I hear it in my head, I can sort of keep tabs on what we’re going for and what we’re doing. Plus, I’m just a total Luddite and don’t know how to engineer my music that well, so the process was slow but I’m happy for it because it came out exactly how I wanted it. I’m really, really happy with where the record is and how everything sounds. It was a long process and James Elkington, who produced the record with me, really helped me figure out what I wanted it to sound like, so I’m happy with it. I know that you were inspired a lot by Al Green when making Due North, but I got this sense of Traveling Wilburys’ Jeff Lynne, in that you’re making music with people you like and just letting that influence you when listening to the record. To-

tally. The two words that I had in my head— with everything that we did, with every session I had, with every time I was making a song—were “joyful” and “vulnerable.” I really wanted to make some music that felt joyful because I had sort of done the really intense songwriter thing. I was writing music like that for a while and I was like, “This doesn’t feel like me. I can’t really relate to this.” I like jumping up and down a little bit at a show, you know? I’d rather people feel loose and fun and enjoy themselves than trying to get everyone wrapped around my finger, feeling every emotion. I’m not trying to not make an emotional connection at all. I just want people to enjoy themselves and have a good time, so I was really trying to write music that would be conducive to that. The first two solo songs I heard from you were “Shoes Too Tight” and “On a Spanish Dune”, which you released as singles last year. When you did those, were you just wanting to make music or were you intending for this to be an album when you started recording? I think I knew I was making a record. I always think about things in terms of records. Records are still what I listen to at home. I love records, so it’s hard for me to not think that I’m working on a record when

I’m writing a song. I throw songs away a lot because I don’t think they’re good enough for the record, but I do tend to think of projects in that capacity. That makes a lot of sense because listening to Due North, the songs are all quite different, but they sound thematically linked. Does one song influence the other? “Shoes Too Tight” and “On a Spanish Dune” were the first two songs I made and after I made those, I was like, “Okay, that’s the north and south pole. That’s setting up what the universe is, and then we’ll fill in the space with the other songs.” “Shoes Too Tight” is the third one on the record, but that’s where it started, and everything was in relation to those songs. There were other songs I had that I got rid of because they didn’t exist with those two songs. You mentioned this was all completed prior to last summer, but when and where was all this recorded? I was at my sister’s studio [Foxhall] in Chicago. My sister [Sima Cunningham] and her partner, Dorian [Gehring]—who engineered a bit of the record and plays pedal steel with me live—have a studio in Chicago and I recorded it there. Some of it was recorded while I still lived

there and then a lot of it was recorded since I moved to Kansas City. From the first tune to the last tune, it’s three years worth of recording in between touring. I moved during that time. I got rid of songs during that time, and it’s just lots of emails and an accumulation—a slow accumulation—of a record. Are you preparing for a tour this fall? I have a small Midwest tour in September and then we’ll see what happens in the fall. I’m definitely planning to tour a lot next year. After touring for so long playing with other folks, what’s it like putting together a band and learning your own songs? Well, I know what it’s like to prepare a set of someone else’s music and how much time that takes to truly internalize it. I try to make it as streamlined as possible and make it so that people can do it on their own time so that once we get together, people can just play and we can just fine-tune little things and not have to go walk through every song. I try and make it as easy as possible, because I don’t mind wasting my time, but I don’t like wasting other people’s time. Liam Kazar’s Due North is out Friday, August 6 via Mare Records.

GET THE VACCINE, NOT THE VIRUS. COVID-19 ISN’T OVER. DELTA IS MORE DANGEROUS The variant is 6x more transmissible and easier to catch outdoors.

THE “WAIT TIME” IS OVER The COVID-19 vaccine is tested, safe, and available everywhere.

PROTECT YOURSELF AND OTHERS The KCMO Health Department is working with community partners to offer the vaccine.

GET VAXXED NOW. HERE’S HOW: KCMO.GOV/CORONAVIRUS thepitchkc.com | August 2021 | THE PITCH

FILM

BICENTENNIAL BLOCKBUSTERS CELEBRATING 200 YEARS OF GIFTED MISSOURI FILMMAKERS BY ABBY OLCESE

Milestone birthdays are a time both for looking back and looking forward: recognizing legacy, checking out where we are now, and thinking about what that means for our future. We’ve spent a lot of time in The Pitch talking about the promising future of Kansas City’s film scene (Sav Rodgers, Jill Gevargizian, Jacob and Ben Burghart, we see you!). As our state hits its 200th birthday, however, we thought it would be a good opportunity to expand our gaze and check out the present and past of Missouri filmmaking. A cursory search reveals some surprising regionally-based origin stories for names you might recognize, as well as a few cool tidbits about the locally-established artists you already know. Here are a few greats you can check out to celebrate the Missouri bicentennial through the magic of cinema.

Steamboat Willie, Walt Disney

more. I could tell you about the number of films he produced, but something tells me I won’t have to.

The Long Goodbye, Robert Altman

Kansas City: Robert Altman You can’t have a write-up of Missouri filmmakers without addressing a couple of major figures. One is Walt Disney. The other is Robert Altman. Our very own titan of cinema was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, where he graduated from Rockhurst High School. Altman paid homage to his roots with his 1996 film Kansas City, set during the Tom Pendergast, gin-and-jazzsoaked era of the mid-1930s. The J. Reiger & Co. distillery’s The Hey! Hey! Club is named for the club in Altman’s film, itself a play on the real-life Hey-Hay Club, which dominated KC’s vibrant jazz scene from 1931-1938. Regional history purists could start their Altman journey with Kansas City, but his prolific output covers a variety of genres. Want to stick with the noir vibe? Check out The Long Goodbye. Into film industry satire? The Player is where it’s at. If you need (ostensibly) a family film, there’s 1980’s Popeye, and fans of the New Hollywood movement of the ‘60s and ‘70s have an all-you-can-eat buffet

THE PITCH | August 2021 | thepitchkc.com

to choose from with M*A*S*H, Nashville, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, and many others. Hell, if none of this floats your boat but you’re really into public radio, you can watch Altman’s final film before his death in 2006: A Prairie Home Companion. Truly, he’s got something for just about everyone. Walt Disney Perhaps the Kansas City Art Institute’s most famous graduate, entertainment monopoly creator Walt Disney spent his early life going back and forth between KC and Chicago. Disney was a paperboy for The Kansas City Star as a kid, and as an adult, returned in 1919 to start off his career in cartooning and commercial illustration before eventually becoming… well, you know. Fun fact: Disney had an office near the campus of UMKC in 1936, and created the very first design for the university’s mascot, Kacey Roo. If you want to get into Disney’s work as an animator, you can check out a laundry list of early cartoons on Disney+, including Steamboat Willie, The Barnyard Concert, and

Dennis Hopper Speaking of KCAI, here’s a wild fact you may not have known: Before moving to San Diego at age 13, New Hollywood icon and childhood KC resident Dennis Hopper took classes there. One has to imagine that early tutelage served Hopper well when he became a filmmaker and visual artist, in addition to one of the most interesting actors of his generation. Hopper’s first film, Easy Rider, is, of course, his best-known. If you’re looking for a Hopper-directed movie beyond that (though, considering Easy Rider is a landmark of modern cinema, you should check that out if you haven’t already), there are a few additional spots in his filmmaking career to explore. But, unfortunately, they’re tough to access. The Last Movie, Hopper’s largely improvised follow-up, was panned upon its release but has since gained cult appreciation and is now available on Blu-ray. His 1988 LA gang drama, Colors, is only viewable on DVD. 1980’s Out of the Blue, which stars Days of Heaven’s Linda Manz as a teenage punk who reconnects with her ex-con trucker dad (Hopper), isn’t available in any format, despite its relatively high regard. Columbia: Simon Barrett Short of the True/False Film Fest, Simon Barrett could well be Columbia, Missouri’s biggest homegrown cinematic success story. Barrett is an established genre hand, most notably for his screenwriting in partnership with director Adam Wingard. Barrett’s directorial debut, Seance, was part of 2021’s Panic

Fest lineup, and is currently available on demand with a release on Shudder scheduled for later this year. If you’re a horror fan, you’re likely already familiar with Barrett’s work. If not, you can start with the movie that made him (and Wingard) a haunted household name: 2011’s You’re Next. This mumblecore-adjacent home invasion horror tale follows a wealthy family gathered for their parents’ wedding anniversary, whose weekend together is violently interrupted by homicidal strangers in unsettling animal masks. Barrett and Wingard’s follow-up, 2014’s The Guest, is even better—a stylish thriller with a creepy and smoldering Dan Stevens performance at its center, as well as a breakout turn from future It Follows star Maika Monroe. Andrew Droz Palermo Andrew Droz Palermo is best known as a cinematographer. You can see his gorgeous, sometimes stark, naturalistic work in You’re Next, as well as David Lowery’s A Ghost Story and The Green Knight. As a director, he has only one film under his belt, but One and Two is worth checking out for lovers of cinema and regional sociology alike. In 2014, Palermo collaborated with his cousin, Tracy Droz Tragos, on the heartbreaking documentary Rich Hill, which explores the lives of three teenage boys growing up in poverty an hour southeast of Kansas City. Palermo and Tragos provide intimate portraits of their young subjects, giving them the space to talk honestly about their hopes, dreams, and fears. Palermo shoots rural landscapes with an eye for Missouri’s natural beauty even in the midst of his subjects’ personal trials. More than anything, Rich Hill is a loving film that cares deeply about the people it profiles, and the difficulty of the lives they live.

FILM

Nevada: John Huston Look, we may not have had John Huston for very long (he spent most of his early life shuttling between boarding schools and he renounced his American citizenship in 1964), but dammit, we’re gonna claim him. The legendary director of The Maltese Falcon, Key Largo, and other classic films may have legally become an Irish citizen at age 58, but he’s a Missourian by birth. There’s really not a wrong place to start with Huston’s filmography. If watching Jungle Cruise leaves you jonesing for more boatbased adventures, you can watch The African Queen. War movie nuts can check out The Red Badge of Courage or the documentary Let There Be Light. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, however, may be of particular interest to area film fans, as it’s a very clear influence on Spike Lee and Kevin Willmott’s Da 5 Bloods. St. Louis: James Gunn St. Louis has given us many things. The arch. Gooey butter cake. Provel cheese. But did you know that it also gave us several great directors? It did! One such luminary: one-time

low-budget Troma Entertainment protégé and current big-budget superhero auteur James Gunn. The easy entry point for Gunn would be his Guardians of the Galaxy movies, or, when it releases soon, his gonzo-looking The Suicide Squad. However, if you want an earlier taste of Gunn’s often funny and sometimes nasty proclivities, Slither, his Tremors-esque 2006 horror comedy, and Super, his bluntly violent superhero parody, are excellent places to start. For an even deeper dive, check out his screenwriting work, starting with his schlocky Tromeo and Juliet, and continuing through his treatment of Dawn of the Dead for Zack Snyder. Kasi Lemmons Actor and director Kasi Lemmons is another St. Louis native, though, like John Huston, her time in Missouri was brief. After moving to Massachusetts, she spent most of her early years in and around Boston. Still, she lived in St. Louis until she was eight, and that’s good enough for us. Lemmons started in front of the camera, putting in memorable performances in movies like The Silence of the Lambs and Candyman. In 1997, she wrote and directed Eve’s Bayou, still to my mind one of the most

impressive first films produced by anyone ever. If you still haven’t checked it out after our writeup last year…I don’t really know what else to tell you. Get on it. If you’re looking for additional Lemmons films to watch, 2007’s Talk to Me (starring KC’s own Don Cheadle as real-life talk radio personality Petey Greene) and 2019’s Harriet (about Harriet Tubman) are both readily available and worth your time. Karyn Kusama Before going to New York to get her BFA in film and then moving on to direct several scorchingly great movies, Karyn Kusama was born and raised in St. Louis by psychiatrist parents. Could that upbringing have helped her get insight into some of the memorable characters she’s helped shepherd into being? Who’s to say, but the way she discusses the themes of her films in interviews leaves me inclined to think the answer is yes. Kusama is beloved among genre fans for Jennifer’s Body, a feminist teen horror movie in which Megan Fox’s cheerleader title character is sacrificed to Satan by an indie rock band. Jennifer comes back possessed by a demon, with an appetite for the flesh of leering hormonal boys. 2015’s The Invitation is just as impressive, however, with a slow-burn

plot that sets up a sketchy dinner party and spools it out into a tragic exploration of grief and regret. If watching F9 has you wanting more Michelle Rodriguez in your life, you can check out Girlfight, the movie that made her a star. For extra credit, watch Nicole Kidman completely disappear into the role of a troubled cop in 2018’s Destroyer. George Hickenlooper George Hickenlooper left us at the fairly young age of 47, but he left behind several remarkable movies nonetheless. There’s really only one essential Hickenlooper movie, but it’s a doozy. Along with Eleanor Coppola and Fax Bahr, he was one of the directors of Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse, which chronicled the legendarily troubled production of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Often considered required viewing for would-be film students and cineastes, Hearts of Darkness was released in 1991 and picked up an impressive collection of awards in addition to its oft-referenced cultural imprint. But don’t take it from me, take it from Community, which made an episode-long homage to Hickenlooper’s movie in its third season episode “Documentary Filmmaking: Redux”.

thepitchkc.com | August 2021 | THE PITCH

EVENTS

AUGUST EVENTS

Nominations are closed, and we’ve got to go see a man about a dog. But don’t worry, we’ll be back

September 1

FOR MORE EVENTS, VISIT THEPITCHKC.COM/CALENDAR.

for the voting round!

BY EMILY STANDLEE

SUNDAYS IN AUGUST

Lemonade Park Yoga, Lemonade Park Free Sunday Open Jam, Knuckleheads

AUGUST 12

COURTESY ART GARDEN KC

Wilco and Sleater-Kinney, Arvest Bank Theatre at The Midland Pints on the Patio: The Canterberries, Kansas City Irish Center

AUGUST 13

Free Weekly Art Fair, Art Garden KC, @ artgardenKC Artists are invited to sell wares, network, perform, teach a class, or paint plein-air style in the garden. Booth fees are waived and the event—which takes place each Sunday in August—is free to the public. From 11 a.m. 4 p.m., guests will find over 30 vendors selling artwork and handcrafted ceramics, jewelry, candles, macrame, clothing, and glassware. Plus, we’ve heard talk of face painting and yard games. Food and drink can be purchased from food trucks and PH Coffee across the street in Pendleton Heights. Email hello@ artgardenkc.org for more information.

AUGUST 7-8

The Ascension: A Stray Cat Film Center Fundraiser, Union Library

AUGUST 7

Harlem Globetrotters Spread Game, T-Mobile Center KC Cactus and Succulent Society Annual Sale, Trailside Center Loud & Local, E.H. Young Park Vinyl Revival, Aztec Shawnee Theater Dermot Kennedy, Uptown Theater Tech N9ne, KC Live! Block Rex Hobart and the Misery Boys, The Ship Dogwood Days, Dunbar Park Garth Brooks, Arrowhead Stadium Botanical Brewfest, Overland Park Arboretum and Botanical Gardens The Black Creatures / Kellindo Parker / The Creepy Jingles / Kemet Coleman, Lemonade Park

AUGUST 8

Matt Carrillo, 1747 Summit St. ZZ Top and Willie Nelson, Azura Amphitheater Family Yoga and Hike, Swope Park Trails Sunday Bingo, Red Crow Brewing Co. New Moon Singing Bowl Love Fest, Pop Up Art Gallery

THE PITCH | August 2021 | thepitchkc.com

The People’s Picnic, Swope Park Bandstand Murder Mystery Dinner, Belvoir Winery and Inn All Time Low, KC Live! Block Manor Records Presents, Lemonade Park

AUGUST 13-15 COURTESY KC MYSTIC FAIR AND AIDY ACRES ROGERS

Best of KC 2021

AUGUST 10

Hard Candy Dance Class with Denali, Missie B’s Union Pacific Big Boy No. 4014, Union Station

KC Mystic Fair, Holiday Inn and Suites in Overland Park Now’s your chance to get into everything metaphysical, tarot, or numerology-related. KC Mystic Fair is a three-day event featuring healers and spiritual guides, Henna artists, jewelry, gems, crystals, and handcrafted essential oils and salts. Attendees can expect past life readings from the likes of Doc Cromwell, astrology from Rachel Pearson, and paranormal consultations with KC’s own psychic medium Renee Rau. Admission includes classes and spiritual galleries. Tickets can be purchased in advance or at the door for $6 daily, $10 for two days, or $15 for the weekend.

AUGUST 14-15

Kansas City Taco Festival, KC Live! Block

AUGUST 14

Dog Days of Summer, Shawnee Town 1929 Museum KC Bones, Aztec Shawnee Theater Eddie Griffin, Uptown Theater Sincerely KC, The Black Box Theater Jorge Arana Trio / Abandoncy / Via Luna, Lemonade Park Open Studio Concert Series: Kadesh Flow and Trevor Turla, Raj Ma Hall, rajmahall.org Catch rapper and producer Kadesh Flow, also known as the trombone Super Saiyan, and Trevor Turla, Grand Marquis trombonist and

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EVENTS

jazz aficionado, playing the house down. Bring your own food, drinks, and chairs around 4 p.m., and pay just $15 per person. All proceeds go to the musicians.

AUGUST 15

Maks and Val: Stripped Down Tour, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts Riverfront Heritage Trail Clean Up, Berkley Riverfront

AUGUST 16

Big 816 Summer Party, John’s Big Deck, Drunken Worm, MO Brew, The Levee

AUGUST 18

Bessie Coleman: Aviation Extraordinaire of the 1920s, Shawnee Town 1929 Museum

AUGUST 19

AUGUST 27

Summer Backyard BBQ in Overland Park, Pinstripes Rags to Riches Fashion Show, Swope Parkway Elvis Costello and The Imposters, Uptown Theater Into the Gray, Aztec Shawnee Theater Light Up the Lawn: The Rainmakers, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art Vote for Pedro, KC Live! Block Masquerade Party, DoubleTap KC

AUGUST 28

Arts al Fresco, Kansas City Young Audiences Jeanne Robertson, Arvest Bank Theatre at The Midland Night of the Songwriter, Aztec Shawnee Theater Head for the Cure 5K, Corporate Woods I Love the ‘90s Bash Bar Crawl, Power and Light District

COURTESY JON TROZZOLO

Third Thursdays Backyard Concert Series, MADI Apparel Pottery Pub, Lost Evenings Brewing Co.

AUGUST 27-29

Kansas City SummerFest, 6320 Manchester Ave.

AUGUST 20

AUGUST 21

Early Bird: Charlie Parker at 18th and Vine, East 18th St. and Highland Ave., @kcjazzalive August 29, 2021, marks Charlie Parker’s 101st birthday, and it’s time to celebrate. Reserve tickets via Eventbrite for a walking tour of the Bird’s old stomping grounds at 18th and Vine, where Parker played in the ‘30s. Attendees will meet at the park at 18th and Highland at 9:45 a.m.

AUGUST 22

Black Girl Magic Wine Walk, 18th and Vine Jazz District Carroll County Balloon Festival, Carroll County Ag Center

Four Headed Monster, Aztec Shawnee Theater Light Up the Lawn: Kelley Hunt, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art

AUGUST 21-22

Show-Me Kansas City Pride Festival, Theis Park EMS: Extemporaneous Music Society, 1747 Summit St. Midnight Rodeo, KC Live! Block Voz Portuguesa, Howard’s Farm Berry Acres and The Hilltop Food Tasting, Berry Acres Frenchie’s Finest Brunch, 6235 Blue Ridge Blvd. Phresh Sundays Presents Ben Roy, PH Coffee Kansas City Pride Parade, Westport

AUGUST 29

AUGUST 30

Louis the Child, Arvest Bank Theatre at The Midland

AUGUST 25

Jammin’ on the Green with the Grand Marquis, Shawnee Town 1929 Museum

AUGUST 26

Erin Keeller and the James Ward Band, The Ship The Anarchy Fun Time Show, Westport Coffee House

Stay up to date on the most recent events with our online calendar. thepitchkc.com | August 2021 | THE PITCH

KC CARES

I SUPPORT THE GIRLS BY BROOKE TIPPIN

After losing some weight, Dana Marlow went to her local boutique to get fitted for new bras. When she asked the saleswoman what she should do with her old bras, the saleswoman suggested that unhoused women in need of clothes could use them. This specific need in unhoused populations hadn’t crossed Marlow’s mind before. On her way home from the boutique, she called a contact at her local shelter in D.C. who said that women experiencing homelessness often struggle to access menstrual hygiene products as well. Bras and hygiene products are the most requested but least donated items at most shelters. Marlow posted this information to Facebook to spread awareness and request donations to deliver to the local shelter. In less than two weeks, Marlow received and packaged more than 7,000 products that she took to a homeless shelter in D.C.

some fabulous people doing great work,” Weiss says. “We’ve partnered with over 65 local organizations and delivered over 125,000 products and we continue to expand. We have eight fantastic business partners that serve as donation drop-off sites and help spread the word of what we do in the community.” I Support the Girls recently donated to a client that previously wore a swimsuit instead of a bra under her clothes for a job interview. “Can you imagine how much more comfortable she could have been if she had a properly fitting bra?” Weiss says. “I think menstrual equity is linked to so many other things: health, education, workforce development, and more. No one should have to miss school or work (or anything really) due to a lack of access to products. These products are basic human needs and everyone deserves the gift of dignity. When our basic human needs are met, we are much more likely to

“THESE PRODUCTS ARE BASIC HUMAN NEEDS AND EVERYONE DESERVES THE GIFT OF DIGNITY. WHEN OUR BASIC HUMAN NEEDS ARE MET, WE ARE MUCH MORE LIKELY TO SUCCEED AND CONTRIBUTE TO THE GREATER GOOD.” Marlow’s efforts did not stop there. In March of 2019 she established the nonprofit I Support the Girls, an organization dedicated to helping girls and women experiencing homelessness to “stand tall with dignity” by providing them with essential items including bras, underwear, and menstrual hygiene products. A few years ago, Lindsay Weiss had the same idea as Marlow. She held a month-long menstrual product and bra donation drive out of her own house and was ultimately able to donate products to two shelters and four schools. Weiss reached out to I Support the Girls on Instagram and soon became the leader for the Kansas City chapter. Today she is the KC affiliate director and works to collect and distribute products to eight business partners across the KC metro area. “I have thoroughly enjoyed this mission and have made so many connections with

THE PITCH | August 2021 | thepitchkc.com

succeed and contribute to the greater good.” During Pride month, the nonprofit partnered with Servaes Brewing Company and collected over 1,178 products. Donated products always go straight to a local organization that does direct services with anyone experiencing homelessness, domestic violence, rejection from family members for being LGBTQ+, or similar hardship. Monetary donations go to buying the products that are in high demand. “I am very hopeful that, in the near future, we can see some real policy change from our elected officials to eliminate the tampon tax,” says Weiss. In Kansas and Missouri, folks who purchase menstrual products are subject to taxes that make these necessary items prohibitively expensive for some. According to PERIOD and The Action Network, folks in Missouri pay a 4.2% tax for every menstrual product purchased, netting the state six mil-

Top: Lindsay Weiss, Kelly Barry and Sarah Fustine of Project Homeless Connect. Above: Leah Burzinski, Jen Hurley and Marianne Kunkel at the Big Rip donation site. Right: Lindsay Weiss’s daughter helping to tally up the amount from a donation.

lion dollars in revenue annually. Weiss adds that as a long-term goal, I Support the Girls wants to ensure that “menstrual products are free and readily available at the Kansas and Missouri state and local prisons, and schools.” If you’re interested in volunteering or contributing to the cause, message I Support the Girls on Facebook or Instagram. You can also check out isupporthegirls.org to sponsor a D.A.S.H. Kit for someone experiencing domestic violence, a Slash Kit for a transgender or nonbinary person, or a Flash Kit for someone going through menopause. Depending on the client, these kits will come with bras,

binders, underwear, a three-month supply of menstrual products, and more. And for our awesome local business and organizations: I Support the Girls is always open to creative partnerships that let them keep doing their good work!

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SEPTEMBER 17–19

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thepitchkc.com | August 2021 | THE PITCH

SAVAGE LOVE make a credible threat of divorce, HOTWATER, then you’re fucked. Your wife wants to dictate terms and set conditions—conditions like you’ll only get X from her (X = coming in her mouth) if she gets to do X with someone else—and if her behavior at that vacation house is any indication, HOTWATER, she’s gonna X around with other guys whether you like it not. You can tell her she’s not allowed to do anything like that ever again—you can insist on strict monogamy—but will you ever feel comfortable letting your wife out of your sight again? Will you ever be able to leave her alone with your best friend Groot again? IN THE STRAIGHTS BY DAN SAVAGE

Dear Dan: My wife got drunk at a vacation house we rented with a bunch of friends and cheated on me with my best friend in the hot tub. They didn’t have sex, but they did other things. I wasn’t there, but there were eight other people in the hot tub and the jets were on so no one else saw what was going on “under the water.” My wife told me about it afterwards and I was hurt but also kind of excited. She proposed we “even the score” by asking my friend and his wife to have a foursome. They agreed, but the experience was miserable. My wife and my friend were very into each other and my friend’s wife was willing, but I was having a hard time enjoying myself with a woman I had no interest in while my wife did things for my best friend that she would never do for me. She let him come in her mouth, which is something she never lets me do, and she did it right in front of me. Now she says she will do that for me but only if she can keep doing it for him. This seems deeply unfair. We have kids and I don’t want to get divorced but I’m concerned that I’m going to keep getting hurt if I stay. What can I do? I need … —Help Overcoming Terrible Worries About This Entire Relationship Dear HOTWATER: Hm. I’m not convinced events went down as described, HOTWATER, or that your wife went down as described. Hell, I’m not convinced your wife exists. There are just too many “unwilling cuckold fantasy” tropes in your letter from your wife cheating on you in the most humiliating way possible (with your best friend and in front of other friends), to your wife doing things for another man that she won’t do for you (and doing those things in front of you), to the sexual blackmail your wife is now subjecting you to (she’ll allow you to come in her mouth on the condition that your best friend gets to keep coming in her mouth). And the presence of an inert-bordering-houseplant best friend (did he have nothing to say to you?) with the equally inert wife (did she have no reaction to being rejected by you?) doesn’t make your question seem any more credible. But on the off, off, off chance there is a wife, there was a vacation house, and something happened in a hot tub… If you can’t

THE PITCH | August 2021 | thepitchkc.com

erase my feelings for this new man. This is a difficult situation and it’s hard to talk about it, even with my friends. Do you have any suggestions? —Messy Emotions, Sensitive Situation Dear MESS: You and your ex-boyfriend are still exes, which means you’re free to do whatever/whoever you like. Same for your ex, MESS, and for all you know he has dated and/or fucked another girl, and those experiences helped him realize you were the one he wanted. If he’s the one you want—and if you, like most people, are only allowed to have one—then you’ll have to end things with Mr.

mately have to end things with Mr. Moment because you’re getting back together with your ex—if you have to end things with Mr. Moment for that reason and no other—you don’t have to erase your feelings. You can be sad about that ending and happy about picking things back up with your ex at the same time. And just a little heads up: “Have you been seeing anyone else?” is a question exes often ask each other when they’re thinking about getting back together. You can and should answer that question truthfully, of course, but you don’t have to go into detail. “I briefly dated someone” is an honest answer and enough of an answer. Omitting the part about how you

MAYBE YOU DON’T WANT THE SCORE TO BE EVEN? IF THE THOUGHT OF A “DEEPLY UNFAIR” ONE-SIDED OPEN RELATIONSHIP TURNS YOU ON THEN YOU SHOULD THINK ABOUT SHARING THAT INFORMATION WITH YOUR WIFE. If the thought of your wife cheating turned you on, HOTWATER, you might be able to make this work. And perhaps it does turn you on. You said you were excited when your wife first confessed what she’d done in that hot tub with your best friend, but things went south during the foursome you had to “even the score.” Maybe you don’t want the score to be even? If the thought of a “deeply unfair” one-sided open relationship turns you on—if the thought of getting to come in your wife’s mouth, say, one time for every ten times your best friend gets to come in her mouth—then you should think about sharing that information with your wife. It could be the start of something big—it could be the start of an invigorating sexual adventure. Or it could be the beginning of the end. But seeing as the end seems inevitable anyway … why not go down swinging? Dear Dan: I spent two years with a man I thought I would marry. Then he lost his job in Italy, where we lived, and COVID-19 made it impossible for him to find another job, so he returned to his home country. I would have done the same if I were in his place. I spent the last five years getting my degree,f and as a woman in my field, I wouldn’t give that up to follow a man to another country. But his decision to go nevertheless broke my heart. Two months later, he changed his mind and wants a future with me in Italy. We decided to meet in August to discuss our future, and in the last three weeks, we have exchanged so many messages of love. Then, classically, I met someone else. I explained my situation to him—that I’m going on holiday with my ex and that we are talking about getting back together—and he appreciated my honesty and said that enjoying the moment is more important to him than thinking about the future. A week later we slept together. The problem is that I’m still in love with my ex and I want him to return to Italy and be my boyfriend again. But I can’t

Enjoying The Moment when your ex returns or isn’t your ex anymore, MESS. Whichever comes first. That’s assuming Mr. Moment is still in your life at that point. Mr. Moment could wind up exiting your life just as quickly as he entered it, e.g., he could ghost on you tomorrow, or you could discover something about him next week that dries you up. But even if you ulti-

208 Westport Rd Kansas City, MO 64111

crushed hard on the other guy isn’t dishonest, MESS, it’s considerate. I mean, if it turns out your ex dated someone else that he really, really liked while he was in his home country, would you want him to tell you that? Question for Dan? Email him at mail@ savagelove.net. On Twitter at @fakedansavage.

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Kansas City Pride Community Alliance is planning the Show-Me Kansas City Pride Parade, set for Saturday, August 21 at 11:00 a.m. The roads along the parade route will be closed starting at 8:00 a.m. in some areas along Westport Rd. and at 10:30 a.m. for the remainder of the parade route until 1:30 p.m. If you are having guests over or if you need to leave during this time, please make arrangements before 9:00 a.m. Let your friends and relatives know that roads will be closed from 10:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. This also means that no vehicles can be parked on the street along the parade route. The parade line-up will start at 8:00 a.m. If you have any questions regarding the parade, please call Jordan Hetrick at 303-882-7176 or visit our website for more information about Show-Me Kansas City Pride: www.kcpridealliance.org and @ kcpridealliance on social media.

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NON-DISCRIMINATORY POLICY FOR NON-DISCRIMINATORY POLICY FOR CALVARY SCHOOL CALVARYLUTHERAN LUTHERAN SCHOOL Calvary Lutheran School admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. Calvary does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in administration of our educational policies, admission policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs. CALVARY LUTHERAN EARLY EDUCATION CENTER CALVARY LUTHERAN SCHOOL 7500 OAK7500 STREETOAK • KANSAS CITY, MO 64114 STREET CALVARY LUTHERAN SCHOOL & KANSAS CITY, MO 64114 EARLY EDUCATION CENTER CALVARY LUTHERAN SCHOOL 12411 WORNALL ROAD • KANSAS CITY, MO 64145

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