Blogs

By CAROLYN SZCZEPANSKI

Do it for the athletic bragging rights. Do it to combat global warming. Hell, do it for the drinking buddies, discounted ice cream and free breakfasts.

Saturday marks the start of the third-annual Bike Week, a series of events hosted by the local cycling community to inspire more Kansas City residents to travel on two wheels.

Every week, scores of area cyclists get together for evening rides and bike-oriented activities. But for the next 10 days, advocates are upping the ante with commuting convoys and daily rest stops along popular travel routes. Even if you’re not the spandex-sportin’ type or the air in your bike tires is from 1995, there are plenty of reasons to ditch your car in favor of more eco-friendly modes of travel.

Just a few of the more entertaining Bike Week festivities include:

• Get ready for a week on two wheels with an Urban Bike Safety Workshop in the Crossroads on Saturday morning.

• Take in a game of FRIZ -- ultimate Frisbee on bikes -- just north of the J.C. Nichols Fountain on Monday evening.

• Hit up a bike-friendly happy hour at McCoy's and then ride to the downtown library on Tuesday night for a screening of Triplets of Belleville.

• Help raise awareness about cyclists who have been injured or killed at the annual Ride of Silence on Wednesday.

• Check out trendy fixed-gear bikes at a track stand and skidding contest at Volker Bicycles on Thursday night.

• Ride the bus for free in Kansas City and Johnson County all day Friday, if traveling with a bike.

• On Saturday, bring your own donation or browse the wares at a sunrise bike swap meet at Acme Bicycle Company and stick around for the Tour de Cowtown ride later in the evening.

• End the week with a little divine intervention on Sunday afternoon, with a Blessing of the Bicycles, hosted by Family Bicycles in Brookside.

Need a little extra incentive? For those who sign up through the Web site for the Car-Free Challenge, awards will be doled out to folks who log the most trips by bike. Not to mention, there's more than personal bragging rights at stake, too.

Earlier this week, the Missouri Bicycle Federation released its first-annual Bicycling and Walking Report Card — and the results ain't pretty. Although the cycling ranks are swelling and the industry brings in more than $1.2 billion to the state's economy every year, Missouri is lagging far behind other states when it comes to safe streets and the number of cyclists traversing them. The overall grade for the Show-Me State: a decidedly embarrassing D.

So do it for the policymakers who don't take bike concerns seriously. If nothing else, consider it a one-week holiday from sky-high gas prices.

By CRYSTAL K. WIEBE

Before debuting its new line of celebrity martinis to the public, the Brick included some favorite patrons in a special taste test. On the menu: 12 vodka drinks featuring such flavors as Ginger Peach, Lemon Mint and Blueberry Pomegranate. Taste testers wrote down their comments and suggested which national or local celebrity each drink should be named for. The new martini menu comes out on Friday.

Click here for a slideshow.

By Justin Kendall

The season for the airing of grievances is upon us. Saturday night, Julianne Donovan will throw her fifth and most public Festivus party yet.

This year’s observance of the anti-holiday popularized by this episode of Seinfeld 10 years ago will take place at 8 p.m. at the Urban Living Center, 1705 Baltimore. A suggested donation of $5 gets you food and drink from Scrape the Plate catering and a chance to thumb-wrestle your way to a trophy. Proceeds from the event will go to AIDS research.

“If you come in and don’t give $5, then you’re a butthole and a grievance should be written about you,” Donovan says.

In preparation for Saturday, Donovan and friends have been designing thumb-wrestling costumes. “We have a lot of weird-looking thumb wrestling costumes that I’m very excited about,” Donovan says. Watch out for “the gimp with ball gag,” the creepy Grandma and the Hare Krishna. Donovan admits that the Krishna is “politically incorrect,” but he got his name “because he’s anatomically correct.”

“He has more than a flower to give you,” Donovan says.

This year, the winners of the feats-of-strength contest will take home “massive trophies,” Donovan says. The losers — just as in modern-day youth sports — will get “participant” ribbons. This year’s competitions include:

• Thumb wrestling

• Strongman, Yeah Right: a test of strength to see who can hold an 8-pound weight in his or her outstretched arm the longest

• Hipster Hula Hoop: a battle to see who can Hula-Hoop the longest while drinking, smoking or whatever hipsters do

• Chicken Limbo: a duel of contortionists to see how low you can go

• Pain H2O: an endurance test to determine who can hold his or her breath with a head in a bucket of ice water the longest

The night will culminate with the airing of grievances. “A lot of times, guests get a little pushy about it,” Donovan says. “They want to see what other people are saying.”

Until Saturday night, check out this admittedly “obnoxious” and horribly acted YouTube video inspired by The Neverending Story.

By CAROLYN SZCZEPANSKI

Photos by Michael Boles

For the past eight months, a group of urban cyclists have been sprucing up a long-forgotten storefront at 31st and Troost. It's the building with “Niece’s Bags” still painted on the glass-fronted entryway. They’ve been pulling up old floorboards, building a storage shed and collecting donations and tools since last summer. This weekend, it will reopen in the tiny shop space as the 816 Bike Collective.

Joining hundreds of bike collectives around the globe, the aim of the 816 is to rescue and repair old or abandoned bicycles and give them away in exchange for money, volunteer manpower or other friendly barter. If other cities are any guide, with a dedicated, non-commercial space to do repairs, host events and distribute bikes, more folks will start pedaling -- and the community of earth-friendly commuters grows.

Check it out when it opens Saturday from 3 to 7 p.m.

By JASON HARPER

A small patrol of Pitch went down to Kansas City Live! at the Power and Light District this afternoon to catch the St. Paddy's revelry. U2 was playing over the PA and rain was leaking through the roof. Here's what else was happening. (Some photos have *magical* enhancements.)

Bono's favorite place to get a taco

I'm still confused by some of KC Live's decor.

If you don't leave your inhibitions in the minivan, the giant cowgirls will come to life and kill you.

We saw sorority types.

Bitch, you smell like wet dog!

Dude, if she suffocates in that bag, you can't take her home. It just wouldn't...be right.

We saw boogans, too, like these girls, who were showing their boobs to this guy's camera (fortunately, we were on the other side).

And this older fella wearing a Looney Tunes leather jacket and jester hat.

More jester-hat action from cousin Jeb, who has been drinking since 9 a.m. but hasn't brushed since '96.

And then we saw security escort this dude to the exit, presumably for having had a few too many and not behaving himself like a proper day drinker.

Who's up for going to Westport later!?

By PETER RUGG

Are so few people reading that it has come to this to get them interested?

In what his press release describes as “an effort to encourage the public to read the book Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace, One School at a Time,” Steve Oakes is undergoing a three-day fast. Oakes — a circulation associate at the Kansas City, Kansas, Public Library — is hoping you will, too. Or at least read the book before March.

The book, now on The New York Times nonfiction paperback best-seller list, is by American nurse Greg Mortensen and writer David Oliver Relin. Near death when he finished his climb up K2, the world’s

second-tallest mountain, Mortensen was sheltered and nursed back to health in the Pakistani village of Korphe. In return, he promised to build the town’s first school. The school evolved into the Central Asia Institute, which has since constructed more than 50 schools across rural Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Inspired by the book, Oakes decided it would be better to bring Mortensen to Kansas City and start a fast of his own. He hopes others will join in the fast and throw some money at the Institute that they otherwise would have spent on food.

Mortensen is scheduled to present two programs on March 4 regarding the book. Oakes’ fast will start the Saturday before, so hopefully he’ll still be conscious when the author arrives. For more information, click here to e-mail Oakes.

It’s not as though Tom Wyker (second from left in this photo) was moonlighting as Johnny Invisible Skater, but somehow, a driver didn’t see the 30-year-old as he road his skateboard home from McCoy’s in Westport on Saturday, October 27. In the alley between Teadrops and Harpo’s he was mowed down “hit-and-run style,” says Zach Wilson. “He was pretty messed up, in intensive care at Truman. Dislocated his hip, broke a vertebrae, chewed up his leg pretty bad. So we’re throwing a benefit party for him and his doctor’s bills.”

Wilson was hit by a car years ago and had two back surgeries to fix the damage. “That’s what put me out of the game. The guy actually stopped, surprisingly enough. But I didn’t get a thing out of it. A bunch of fuckin’ bills.”

Tonight, the “Never Say Die” benefit party for Wyker, with music by the Sticktights, the Dirty Dawgs, Devil Rides Out and Seedlove, is at Mike’s Tavern, 5424 Troost. Ten dollars at the door gets you a raffle ticket to win prizes donated by local businesses like McCoy’s, Musician’s Friend, various tattoo parlors and every skate shop in town. And Mike’s is donating ten percent of the bar proceeds to Wyker. So get out, drink up and be careful skatin’ home. – Nadia Pflaum

STUFF TO DO THIS WEEKEND FOR LESS THAN THE COST OF A DOWN-PAYMENT ON A CHEESEBURGER
If you’re like me, you’re nearly broke enough to consider applying to be Jerry Mazer’s intern and breaking into the subprime cheeseburger loan market. (I just totally squicked myself out even writing that.) Of course, I do have my own milk crate to sit on and, according to my girlfriend, am more than capable of talking in a wheedling, whingey voice. This would not be a paid internship, would it? You’d be sitting on your milk crate outside Barnes & Noble right next to Jerry, so you could totally absorb Jerry Mazer’s Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Non-existent Cheeseburgers, and he would be all hot and sweaty, and people would shout “GET A JOB!” at you all day.

The Leavenworth Animal Control Shelter, at 1720 South Second Street, could use the canine equivalents of a Johnny Cash animal shelter tour and multiple stays of execution from the governor, because they’re reporting overcrowded prison conditions this week. Sixteen dogs currently need adoption (including the pup pictured above). You know what Johnny Cash would say – he’d say that he’s wearing the black “for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime, but is there because he's a victim of the times.” In this case the only crime is being too cute, and they’re all guilty.

It’s almost officially the weekend. Unless you’re one of those lucky bastards who are already off work, in which case it’s already the weekend and you’ve got your feet propped up on the coffee table, a Bud Light in your fist. Well, don’t get too comfortable, buddy. There’s plenty to do tonight besides watch a 20/20 investigation.

It's midnight at the Brick, and I'm sipping PBR through a straw because I'm wearing a fake silver mustache. It's a lesson fake mustache wearers learn, lest they end up with a drink full of fake fur.

A guy calling himself “Rollie Fingers” gave me my 'stache. A rosy cheeked fellow in a tie and sport coat who goes by The Commodore tells me my name is either the Silver Fox or the Baron. I choose the latter.

Fingers and the Commodore are ambassadors of the Kansas City Fake Mustache Club, a group of twenty- and thirtysomethings who glue fake mustaches to their faces and hit the bars.

Uh, hey, sprechen ze talk? I’m Harry Ellis, and I’m in charge of international acquisitions at the Nakatomi Corporation.

Hey, I read the papers, I watch 60 Minutes. I say to myself, These guys are professionals, they're motivated, they're happening -- i.e., they wanna do something fun this weekend. Am I right? To put it in my terms, you're here on a hostile takeover, and you grab us for some greenmail but you didn't expect some poison pill was gonna be running around the building.

If you’re part of the X- or Y- Generation, you probably have a fondness in your heart for Dave Coulier -- unless you’re some lame, humorless twat.

In the early 1980s, he was one of the first stars of then-fledgling, now-juggernaut kids’ cable channel Nickelodeon. Coulier helmed the desk on Out of Control, a half-hour fake news show that included tripped-out Monty Python-style animation and kid-approved segments such as “Isn’t It About Time for a Hurry-up?” which sped up tedious chores like homework and haircuts.

Most people know the guy as Joey Gladstone, the wiseacre with a heart (and wavy mullet) of gold on ABC’s long-running sitcom Full House. But he also voiced ´80s cartoons, including Muppet Babies and animated Ghostbusters spin-offs as Bill Murray’s character, Peter Venkman.

The impressionist is in town for a gig June 22-24 at the shiny new Stanford & Son's Comedy Club at Legends in Kansas City, Kansas. I had the infinite pleasure of catching up with one of my childhood heroes for this item in the Pitch Night & Day section. Here’s a full version of the Q&A that readers of the dead tree edition of the Pitch won’t see:

Heads up: Like a man with three testicles, and also like a woman with three testicles, June is swingin’ low with more Fridays and Saturdays than the average month. Dude, look at your June calendar right now: regular number of weekdays, 25 percent more fun days. Sure, today is Third Friday and not Fifth Friday. But the point is, spend money like a three-testicled madman or madwoman, because there’s an extra paycheck this month.

I didn’t know Leslie Noble Ballew. But she was a huge fan of the weekly Trivia Nights at the Westport Flea Market (held on Wednesdays and Thursdays), and anyone who delights in knowing the battles of the Crimean War or identifying TV theme song snippets is just cool, period.

Leslie, who tragically lost her life in the Ward Parkway shooting, had been to every Wednesday night trivia bout since last June. She and her team, the Mindblogglers, sat at the same table, the one in the corner by the railing, in the sunken part of the restaurant. As a tribute, a framed picture of her sits atop the food-ordering podium. Also, the proceeds from the past couple of weeks of trivia went to her memorial fund, with the Flea Market matching the donations. At tonight’s trivia-fest, which starts at 9 p.m., owner Joe Zwillenberg will present the check to her family.