KC Confidential

This isn’t exactly breaking news…

Far from it, still I think it’s worth noting that while nice guy Chiefs superstar Patrick Mahomes‘s brother Jackson is crass and lame, his wife Brittany is only incrementally better.

That’s not saying much.

Yet while she’s not trying to jam her tongue into random dude’s faces, nor a gawdawful hip-hop dancer, she is a partner in crime to Jackson and some of his lame misdeeds. And she does seem to encourage his poor judgement, and defends him from those who roll their eyes.

On top of which, Brittany engages in her own fair share of poorly thought out acts, like spraying champagne on Chiefs fans in freezing cold weather and buying tacky, wildly expensive Chanel baby gifts.

In other words, both Brittany and Jackson are polar opposites of Patrick.

Patrick is a dream-come-true, model citizen, who represents the Chiefs and KC almost perfectly. And in this day and age, that kind of talent coupled with those skills only come around a few times in a generation. Let alone in our little flyover corner of the world.

Think George Brett minus the pine tar, hemorrhoids, huge ego, and bad temper.

So yeah, it’s easy for many Cowtowners and football freaks to give Brittany a pass.

But isn’t it time for her to look in the mirror and think a few seconds before she says or does something crass and stoopid? Continue reading →

Homelessness is hitting close to home in Lawrence…

And it’s not pretty. Downtown has long been a refuge for trendy locals and Kansas Citians with a penchant for the hip lifestyle. Forget KU basketball, think upscale small town living, a stones throw from KC.

Now set aside those idyllic images, and get your head around the hundreds of ‘homeless’ types descending on a post COVID college town. And they’re taking a toll on Lawrence’s charming downtown.

To the extent that wooden pallets are now in play to create what they’re calling a pallet shelter village to house some of the scary-looking transient types that have taken up residency in small settlements like the one behind the original Johnny’s Tavern in North Lawrence.

By day, they’re largely invisible, but as evening approaches they drift onto Mass Avenue unsettling downtown merchants, and leaving drugs and bodily fluids in their wake. So much so, that the fabled downtown toy store installed a water spigot to hose down its sidewalk out front.

And while winter temps may send many of them south and west, the city appears reluctant to enforce laws on the books that might prevent loitering, littering and licentiousness. Activities that are scaring off a number of the clean cut family types.

One local – who asked his name be withheld – thinks the problem is out-of-control.

“I don’t think, I know,” he says. “Because I’m reading people on Facebook talking about how unruly they are. The transients use the free local busses to go places where they can panhandle or scout out places to crash. Last week around 2 p.m. this homeless guy walked into our office building into a restroom off the lobby, and took his shitty pants off and tried to clean himself. He left his underwear on the floor and then walked out.”

“And there was a woman panhandling outside the entrance to Dillon’s with a bunch of kids. And the next day, a different woman was there with the same kids, and there was some guy in a truck or a van watching them. I’m telling you, the police are too busy to deal with it all.”

Word on the street is that people in California and places where homelessness runs rampant are telling people to come to Lawrence, the businessman says. Continue reading →

Time flies when you’re having fun…

That said, chances are, for  convicted Hereford House honcho Rod Anderson it’s been crawling…slowly.

That’s because 10 years ago, Anderson was sentenced to 15 years slam time for setting the original Hereford House downtown ablaze. That after launching failed eateries in both Westport and Lawrence and the downtown location was a run down money loser.

So heralded was Anderson as a civic leader at the time, the judge who sent him away all but apologized to him at at his sentencing.

That is, until prosecutor Jess Michaelson put things in perspective by chastising Anderson for not taking a plea deal and saving taxpayers the expense of trying him for five years. And for not admitting his guilt, and continuing to profess his innocence years after his dastardly deed.

The “funniest:” thing I recall:

When Anderson sent the dudes in to torch the place, he told them how to disable the antiquated burglar and fire alarm. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to Anderson, a Hereford House staffer had recently installed a state-of-the-art alarm that busted them royally.

Anyhoo, while Anderson was trying to wriggle out of  his conviction, he got legions of civic leaders to write letters to the judge about what a prince among men he was.

And when he tried to appeal his sentence two years later, it was revealed he’d injected nearly $400 grand into the dilapidated, old building and tried to collect $2.4 million from the insurance company.

Not the stuff civic leaders normally do.

But wait, now that I’m back in KC, I went to the popular Shawnee Hereford House to get an update on Anderson. After all, 10 years into a 15 year sentence – maybe being a boy scout in prison – was he’d be able to secure some sort of parole deal.

Or maybe not.

Because Anderson was “sentenced without parole.” Meaning he’s got like five more years before his get outta jail free card matures.

Shortly after Anderson’s prison time began, KCC reported his wife Camellia had taken the Hereford helm and was running things. Yet some woman named Mary Holland is identified online as the owner?

Calls to Camellia at various Hereford Houses and its corporate office were not returned. Continue reading →

I had to see it first hand…

More than a year after my old, home-away-from-home Mayfield, Kentucky was all but wiped off of the map I got around to going there last week to relive my earliest days in business. That, and to witness first hand how badly the infamous December 2021 tornado had ravaged my tiny former town.

The second anniversary’s coming up in four months, but in general, around 1,300 “homes, businesses and places of worship” had been destroyed in Mayfield. Including most of the quaint, all-brick downtown where I worked, shopped, learned how to drink moonshine and eat delicacies such as country ham and  “brains and eggs” – in the “dry county” of my lost youth.

The news reporters were long gone, and the remaining rubble was mostly under control. However, arriving late at night I got totally lost searching for a town that was no longer there. My hotel, the Wingfield Inn had plenty of rooms available, and its pool was open, despite that half of its giant sign was still missing – the half that faced the entrance I drove in on – and it still had funky-looking padlocks hanging on the doors of its lobby entrance.

Mayfield Milling – the grain elevator I learned how to grade grain at and hang with farmers is still standing – but closed – with workers busy removing the twisted remains of giant grain bins that bit the dust in the storm,

There really wasn’t that much left to see, so back I went to the quaint Mayfield Country Club – where I’d encountered my first “beer machine” in the early 1970s – to find out first hand what had happened from locals. Continue reading →

I interrupt this divorce to bring you a message about the sad demise of the Pac 12…

Most local followers of the Big 12 Conference seem to be besides themselves with joy over having swiped on Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah at the expense of the once-mighty, century-old sports conference on the West Coast.

I get it, chalk one up for the flyover crowd.

Because after losing Texas and Oklahoma two years ago and flirting with death for the second time in recent years – after Missouri and Texas A&M bolted  theBig 12 for the SEC and Nebraska for the Big Ten and Colorado for the Pac 10 – the shoe was finally on the other foot.

That after college football powerhouse USC and hoops icon UCLA told the Pac 12 last year they’d be leaving after this year for the Big Ten.

The bottom line: Money talks and tradition and ethics walk.

At long last the good guys in the Big 12 – had a chance to, not just survive, but profit from the current chaos.

Those chickens came home to roost late last week when football powerhouses Oregon and Washington left the PAC 12 for the Big Ten and our Big 12 landed Utah and the Arizona schools.

Huzzah!

“The Big 12 is now the Big 16, let’s go, we did it!” crowed KCMO 810 AM morning show host Pete Mundo. “After months of drama, months of rumors, months of speculation, the Big 12 reportedly is picking up this week, Arizona, Arizona State and yes, Utah…Here’s a conference that over the last 15 years, if you’re a Big 12 fan, you have watched this conference be called dead, on death’s doorstep – it was going to cease to exist – and now the Big 12 Conference is solidly in the No. 3 position of power conferences. This truly amazing stuff. And it’s one of those things, if you’re a Big 12 fan, that makes you want to pinch yourself.”

Trouble is, Mundo’s wet-dream-come-true, comes at the expense of smaller schools like Oregon State and Washington State, that like KU after Mizzou bolted for big bucks in the SEC, found themselves unwanted by the Big Ten. Not that long ago, KU chewed its fingernails to a nub over how long the Big 12 might survive. And now those Pac 12 schools are facing an even worse fate.

That, after their longtime traditional rivals fled the Pac, leaving them in a financial crisis.

In other words, Mundo’s joyous celebration comes at the direct expense and loss to four colleges that like KU a few years back are not just worrying about their futures calamities, they’re living them out in real time. Continue reading →

Thumbing through Wednesday’s Arizona Republic I found myself a bit stunned…

For starters, the Republic is based in Phoenix which is five times the size of Tucson and more than double Greater Kansas City.

And that kinda math matters.

That said, the once mighty Kansas City Star was once one of the country’s most profitable newspapers – prior to McClatchy taking it over and failed leaders like Mark Zieman and Mike Fannin ran it into the ground.

Make no mistake, they aren’t the only newspaper dudes to suffer the harsh realities of going from being wildly successful to becoming red ink machines. Then again, it’s not like they did a killer job of bucking those downward trends.  Quite the opposite.

Take  a haunting trip down memory lane with me on this fairly fat print Republic.

It has four reasonably large sections.

An A section has the expected gaggle of headlines like, “Trump enters not guilty plea;”  along with “Book tells of water’s power over people;” “Two Valley restaurants cited for numerous health violations;” “Body found in remote area near Saguaro Lake;” “Utility found liable in Oregon Wildfires;” and “Actor Treat Williams dies after motorcycle crash”

Twelve pages and not too bad.

The Valley & State section has only six pages, but is still respectable with stories ranging from a hotel in Mesa that looks pretty average, but for three years has been doubling as a refuge for “people experiencing homelessness.” It also houses an “Opinion Section” with stories like, “Headlines wrong on Ariz. water future” and “Fuzzy math is just one problem for school vouchers.” And the killer headline, “What made politics so toxic? Blame this little-known divide”

Not too shabby. Continue reading →

This just in…

Hold on to whatever you wish, I’m heading home.

So get ready.

After three years in Tucson (Oro Valley), I’ve had enough. I shoulda known better when I packed up my stakes, sold my house in Lawrence and moved to KC in preparation for a return to the Arizona desert.

Some of you may recall I graduated from an all-boys school in Sabino Canyon and went to the University of Arizona. Then I got a super low draft lottery number and joined the U.S. Navy as a Seabee.

Afterwards, I retuned to the Kansas City Board of Trade and my family firm, and spent a year in Mayfield, Kentucky (the infamous tornado town) learning how to grade grain, run a grain elevator, party with farmers, drink moonshine and eat country ham

But when COVID hit, I returned to Tucson.

I’d always loved Tucson and wondered if I’d missed my chance in life to embark on an Arizona adventure. Instead I followed in my father’s footsteps, before veering off on my own, running a local record rag called The Pitch, then stepping into a larger limelight and writing a highly read column at the Kansas City Star.

I had a ton of fun, put the grabs on a six-figure salary with expenses and worked hours of my choosing, where I could pick topics that were edgy, newsy or just plain dumb.

It was a dream job and I will forever be in debt to former Star publisher Jim Hale and fledgling editor Art Brisbane.

Anyway, three years ago the time seemed right, so I came back to Tucson, just in time to catch what my wife swears could have been a fatal bout of COVID, a few days before Christmas 2020.

Other than being a bad flu – I was in bed for seven or eight days, and out of it – I had none of the widely reported fatal COVID symptoms…although I did pass out when it first hit.

In January 2021 we had a nice garage fire in a brand new home that resulted in us living at the nearby Conquistador resort for a couple months. Later, when I got around to looking into car selling jobs here with Honda, VW, you-name-it, I found out the hard way; that even as a halfway young-looking oldster, I could not get a job.

They don’t want people dropping dead in 115 degree heat on a hot parking lot.

Because between May and  late September, chances are you’ll be out sitting under a tiny umbrellas in high 100-plus heat, and dealers prefer to hire younger dudes, like Brandon Leftridge. That despite that I had a heckuva sales track record at BMW, VW and Honda as usually the top or No. 2 salesman.

Long story short, that hurt…

I didn’t move here to retire,  I came to work, and I really like cars and car sales.

There’s more… Continue reading →