DANGEROUS DUDE COMING TO A NEIGHBORHOOD NEAR YOU!!!!!! BOLT THE DOORS AND HIDE THE WOMEN!!

Two posts in one day, great day in the mornin it's like manna from heaven for you rubes. Just don't get your hopes up that it will be a common occurrence. I've got  more important things to do than fire off literary gems for your amusement........or something.  I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to join in on the media frenzy over George Dudley. In case you haven't heard, Dudley walked out of the WyCo  courthouse while one of his guards, from Larned State Hospital, aka the nut house, went to the bathroom.  The other guard or Orderly was off getting the van.  Dudley finished his sentence, not his first mind you, way back in 96.  The state deemed him a habitual sexual predator and committed him to the nut house for an indefinite period of time. The media has sounded the alarm, as they should, but they couldn't resist the urge to scare the cowboy shit out of their viewers, by making it sound like Jason   from Friday the 13th was wondering the streets of kansas sans hockey mask. While Georgie Boy definitely needs to get caught, there are far more dangerous people roaming the streets.  Now here's the rub. George went down for a level 7 offense.  For those of you not familiar with the Kansas sentencing grid, a level 7 is just about as bottom tier least severe a felony as there is.
I've got to assume that the state got lazy, and rather than build a solid case on this freak, they let him plead down, all the while intending to hit him with the habitual sexual predator act, thereby taking away the need to actually try a case that would  put him away for a lengthy sentence.  So he does a nickle, they tuck him away in the booby hatch, pat each other on the back and declare the public safe and served.

Not so fast Skippy, and not really so safe. Since Dudley isn't a convict, he gets transported like a patient. Street clothes, no chains, cash in his pocket, a credit card he later used at 39th and Main, and Oliver and Hardy in charge of watching him.  Is he a danger, sure he is, but he ain't exactly Hannibal Lecture. I'm not even sure they can charge him a felony for walking away, beings he served his bit already. Unless this shit heel is totally crazed, I highly doubt he is going to start bum rushing kids on the playground or hiding at the bottom of the ball pit at your local McDonalds waiting to grab  some hapless child like Jaws, anytime soon.  More likely he is trying to get as far away as possible. Eventually he may get around to his old tricks, but chances are he will get caught PDQ.  In the meantime, the media can focus on scaring the bejesus out of  viewers, rather than doing some actual work and questioning why this guy wasn't prosecuted properly the first two or three times he offended. They need to address the issue the courts have when it comes to sex offenders. They want to treat them for a disease, a mental disorder, rather than lock em up and toss the key. So these freaks  catch a case, fuck some kid up for the rest of his or her life, and the courts send them off for a short stay. Give em some treatment  in a sexual offender program, then cut em loose. After they catch on that the treatment isn't overriding some Chomo's urge to molest a kid, or rape a woman, they pass the buck and send em to the state looney bin. And you get what we got with George. 

Okay, that's a wrap. See you clowns in the funny papers.

A natural death to make way for progress.

There is a haunting beauty to be found in many of the decaying buildings in this city. They remind me of  the elderly, largely ignored, taken for granted. Like our old folk, we wait on these buildings to die. Eager to replace them with something new. A road, a bridge, another structure of some kind or other. Progress, give it a name. We put our old people in the ground to be forgotten by the next generation. We bulldoze our past,to make way for something new. We move on, until the day  it's our turn to become a distant fading memory.

Over 100 years of history, first one purpose, then another. Eventually  outliving it's usefulness.

Time leaves its mark. We grow old and gray, not much to look at, barely given a passing glance. The stories we could tell die with us. Just like the stories that still reside in this  old building. It began life at the turn of the last century as an old folks home for couples, at some point in time it became a seminary. Now it sits on a hill falling apart and forgotten.  Even in its present state, like some aging once beautiful woman, if you stop long enough to look, you can see what once was. If you stop long enough to really look, she can still take your breath away. Old and graying falling in around itself, forgotten if it was ever remembered in the first place.
Countless people in this city can tell you all about a building that sits on the plaza, among dozens of buildings that look exactly the same.  Only a handful can tell you where this building sits, 21st and Tracy, even fewer can tell you what it was, or who built it and why. She was constructed for $42,000.00 in 1904.

A new road , a new bridge, progress edges ever closer. Before long she will be gone, taking her stories with her. All across this city history is dying a slow death.  For us death is inevitable, and I suppose it's the same for most buildings.
From old hospitals...........

Old schools...........

 Old churches............

Before long they will all be gone. Replaced by progress. Forgotten. The stories and history covered in dirt.. If it's any consolation, you can always buy some overpriced bullshit in a stucco clad plaza building, that will go out of vogue before you can even get it home. So, there's that..........

One bad tooth ignored, that's how it starts. Urban Blight and Decay.

For those of you who have followed my previous Urban Blight series some of these buildings may look familiar. Every photo was taken yesterday. I revisited a couple of places just to see how much further they had deteriorated. Aside from one or two spots, the rest of the photos are new to this blog. I spent maybe an hour   yesterday searching these places out. In the span of an hour I took about 30 pics, wandered on to a police raid, and found that one of the city's most notorious apartment buildings had been boarded up again for at least the third time in the last 4 years. Unlike my last series on blight I wanted to show the progression of blight and urban decay rather than just a series of random shots taken in different neighborhoods. This series begins where I believe the decay and death of the inner city began.  As the series  progresses I'll try to follow the trail of decay as best I can in the order it's taken place.........Click the photos to enlarge them.

                      One Tooth At A Time.

That's how it starts. You neglect your teeth, ignore that occasional toothache. The decay begins. You lose one tooth. Then another. The neglected rotting tooth infects those on either side of it. The decay spreads. Soon there is nothing left. The first neighborhoods to go are the poorest. Low income, working class, plagued by poverty, gangs, and all that comes with it. Life still goes on here as does the spread of decay.  People are stuck. They can't move away. Who is going to buy a home no matter how well cared for when it sits beside one that is either falling down on itself, or being used as a dope house?  Many of these places have been handed down to sons or daughters. It's all the have. Walking away isn't an option. So they ride it out, stay put, and hope for a promised change that won't ever come.

Most of you won't wake up some lazy Sunday morning and decide " Hey let's take a drive down 31's and Jackson !"  Sure you might catch a glimpse as you drive by the outer fringes of a particular part of the city.  Give a passing glance at a few rundown store fronts, maybe see the tops of a few roofs in the process of falling in on themselves. But you can't really get a feel for the enormity of the problem until you drive up and down the streets. The decay seems to  start in the center and work it's way outward, just like that bad tooth.

Entire blocks are absent of homes, turned into dump sites. The trees and weeds taking back what was once theirs. The only signs of humans, old tires, trash, and utility poles turning gray and slowly being pulled sideways to the ground. No children play in these streets, neighbors don't stand on the sidewalks and share a minute or two of random talk.  Imagine if you woke up tomorrow and found that half the houses on your street were empty, boarded up, falling down. Imagine looking at it day after day.

You don't have to travel to New Orleans. No need to go visit Detroit. This is our Lower Ninth Ward. It didn't take a hurricane or the death of a particular industry. Just the slow erosion brought on by time, a disconnect from one another, a fucked up set of priorities. We, and by we I mean middle class folks, white, black, and any other shade you want to toss in, we moved away to safer, cleaner, newer areas. Now you don't move from one of these neighborhoods, you flee, you run for your life. Or you stay put because you have no other choice. As people leave, the storefronts go empty.

The schools shut down. Playgrounds go silent.

Theater marquees are replaced by gang tags.

The remaining people reside in a deteriorating war zone.

Meanwhile we become enraged and join together over a single building in a cleaner, sexier part of town.  The

Mayor walked the streets of the Plaza yesterday.

When was the last time he walked down Forest in the Urban core?

More to come...........................

One building in the Plaza trumps a city full of historical buildings.

Everybody get in line. No pushing, shoving, or having your doofus friend hold your spot while you make a Latte run. There will be plenty of time for all of you to tell me how fucked up and uninformed I am, so wait your turn. At least half of you are going to think I'm so far off on this one I must be high on Hippy Lettuce, and I may be, but believe me when I say I'm right. I am. And I promise if you chew on this one for a minute or two, you will  come around to my way of thinking. So, what say we get to it.

The uproar over the proposed office building on a Plaza corner has more peoples shorts in a wad than that time TKC compared the Waldo Rapist composite to the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The local news outlets have been as excited over this thing as Liberace discovering a dick tree.  Everyone has an opinion on why it would be sacrilegious to build a modern glass structure smack in the middle-ish of Spanish Architecture. I was listening to 3 or 4 clowns on Steve Kraskes show  going on and on about how The Country Club Plaza IS Kansas City. How our history as a city is entwined with a shopping district that few of us ever actually shop at. How important the Plaza is as an entertainment destination, even though most Kansas Citians don't really dine there, or drink there. Oh sure, you might take your significant udder out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory or Plaza 3 once a year. And we all like to go look at the lights around Christmas, Hanuka, Ramadan, Kwanzaa, whatever , pick your poison. And yes the streets are often crowded with posers and drunk women hoping to catch the eye of some sports figure, or spittle if it's Larry Johnson. But the Plaza isn't Kansas City, it's just a small sliver of stores most of us can't afford to buy a pair of socks at. It's like the really hot chick in high school, nice to look at, but not of much use on a day to day basis. She might bat her eyes at you, she might give you a glimpse of cleavage, but at the end of the day, she is going to go with the biggest over privileged douche bag in the school.

Anyone with an interweb connection has chimed in on what a disgrace it is  for someone to suggest  building something on property they own. They being Highwoods.  So I wasn't going to bother with throwing in my 2 nickles. However, by the end of Kraskes show, after every single caller went on and on ad nauseum over how horrible it is to even suggest tearing down  one of the old Plaza  buildings, I'd heard enough. Like a mighty trout rising to take the fly, No Seacrest, I couldn't resist the bait, the pointing out of what is either glaring hypocrisy, total ignorance, or a sense of entitlement. I'm going to go with all 3.  Here's the rub, I don't really care if they put up the building or not. I would even say I agree that the Plaza should stay  looking like it does now. I agree it is a historical part of the city. No problem with the Plaza per say.  I just have one question.

Where was all of the outrage, the face book pages, the radio, news and print soup stirring, before the Plaza conflict? The same people who are so incensed over the thought of a modern building amidst the Spanish Stucco themed Plaza, were as quiet as a group of  Deaf Mutes over the Sprint Center and the P&L district. Or they cheered it on, called it progress. Someone please explain to me how a giant mirror disco ball building lives in peace and harmony, all feng shui and shit, among a downtown that is dominated by Art Deco buildings. Where is all of the outrage over a Jazz District that is nothing more than crumbling facades with a couple of money pits thrown in for good measure.

Historic homes, buildings, places with more history in their bricks and mortar than 10 Plaza's, have been crumbling, dying a slow death in this city for decades. I've given more time and space on this blog to Urban Blight and the death of this city's history than all of the local media combined.  Let that sink in. Give it a minute. You're almost with me, despite yourself. 

In one of the greatest movies ever made, Cool Hand Luke, there is a particular scene, it's really the biggest scene in the movie. Luke gets brought back from another escape. They throw him  in the bunk house, beat up, broke down, tore up from the floor up. Some of the cons crowd around him, all carrying on about a picture he sent them while he was on the run. He is flanked by two flashy looking women in the photo. All smiles, all Cool.  He tells the cons the pic was a fake, he paid to have it taken. Tells them to stop feeding off of him, get their own lives. He tries to make it to his bunk, but he falls and can't get up. He sticks his hand out, looking for a hand up, and they all turn their backs on him. "Where are you now?"  is his money line.
See, it's like this, when Luke was all flash they loved him. Couldn't get enough of him. Then he falls, he is all dirty, beat up, not a trace of flash. They turn their backs, to a man, every last one of them. This city, the majority of it's people, they turn their backs on the dirty old bricks and mortar buildings. The old homes where lives were lived, the backbone of this city, it's reason for existing in the first place. It's just not pretty, no flash, just blood, sweat and tears. In the minds and eyes of most, the real history of this city can't hold up to the stucco , the fashion, and the fountains. 

I know what some of you are thinking, "Why not both? Can't all historical areas of the city be important? Does caring about the Plaza mean we can't care about other parts of the city?"

Good point, and I've no doubt that many of you probably do care. Sadly there are only a few hundred of you lonely rubes who regularly take time out to read this shit. The majority of the people who are raising a stink over the Plaza, the ones getting air and face time from the media, they could give a shit if some old building gets demolished downtown. They could really not care less about some stately old home on the Paseo, or some craftsman bungalow in Midtown. The majority of the people in this city have never ventured  beyond the commercial districts, the Plaza, the Power and Light district, maybe the City Market area.  So when I see the outrage, and I hear all the sanctimonious horseshit about "Saving the Plaza" from the greedy corporate types, it pisses me off.  When I get pissed off these days, I write. There was a time when if I got pissed off, I'd get in a fight. At 51 carpal tunnel is more appealing than swollen hands and the likelihood of getting my ass handed to me. So write it is.  Over the next couple of weeks, starting  Wednesday, I'll be giving you rubes a history lesson, with pictures and everything, Double M style. It's time for another Urban Blight tour with hopefully a little history thrown in.  Maybe some of the French Poodle crowd will stumble across this humble lil blog and it's humble lil writer. And maybe, just maybe, they will find out that there is more to this city than a half dozen blocks of pretentious stores and overpriced restaurants.  The Plaza doesn't define Kansas City. There are far more important parts of this city  decaying, slowly dying, and it's bigger and more important than one building, in a place most Kansas Citians rarely visit.
 Where's the outrage?
Where are you now?

Fast Eddie Friday......Is that a Daisy Red Ryder?

It's been a minute since my last installment of the non award winning Fast Eddie Friday. After receiving tens of  pleas for it's return I've dusted off the Fast Eddie  photo, the one with the worlds most graceful fat man. So without further adieu........Here we go. Fast and Loose.

Getting shot in Kansas City is a hot topic. Getting shot  for your pants, which probably came from Hot Topic is another matter entirely. A guy is playing with, riding, whatever the terminology, his skateboard in downtown around 19th and main. Two chuckle heads approach him, shoot once and miss, shoot again and hit him in the chest. Skater dood falls to the ground. Robbery in progress......and that's where shit gets strange. As our vic lays on the ground the would be stick up artists take his pants. That's right, his pants. According to the victim his wallet and cellphone were in his pockets. This story is as fishy as a Hippy chicks daisy dukes on the 4th day of a week long Grateful Dead festival. Seriously, who the fuck steals the britches off someone? Are our criminals that desperate? And here's the kicker, skater guy was treated and released. What the fuck? While I'm glad to hear the guy wasn't mortally wounded, getting shot in the chest isn't the same as a paper cut. Using my Sherlock Holmes like powers of deduction, I figure there was something inside this guys pants other than a phone and wallet. No Seacrest. I've seen the garb these skater types wear. I figure the vic had on some of those Hot Topic type shorts or pants, the kind that have a gazillion pockets, maybe a few chains and buckles for accents. The robbers didn't want to spend hours riffling through all these fucking pockets. Solution. Just take his pants.  As for being shot in the chest, treated and released in a matter of hours. Either the bullet was deflected by one of those big silver skull medallions, or Kansas City criminals are too poor to afford bullets and have resorted to using BB guns.  It's embarrassing is what it is.

Fox 4 has a story this morning that caught my eye.

 A guy drives himself to a gas station at 13th and prospect after being shot twice in the noggin and once in the chest. Now this isn't just any old gas station, this is the station where cops fill up their cars. Quik Trip is where they fill up on donuts and free soda pop, but at 13 and Prospect they fill their cop cars.  Here is the money line from the story, "Police said a man, after being shot twice in the head and once in the chest, has refused to talk."  That's right skippy, he refused to talk. Before he clammed up he told the cops he got capped at 53rd and Garfield after stopping to let a female passenger out of the car. Then he tells the cops he aint talking.  Usually when you get shot twice in your head, let alone another time in the chest, talking isn't an option. Generally that is the type of wound that will turn you into an organ donor. If the cops can find the persons who shot this guy, they might want to see if they are connected to the skater shooting. Clearly firepower is an issue with the current line up of gangsta types in the KC area. Hey times are hard, the economy is tough, and decent guns and bullets are apparently hard to come by.  It's rough all over, even for our local criminal types. Shitty guns, piss poor bullets, and pants stealing. What in the fuck is the world coming too?

Have a safe weekend, and if someone puts a gun in your face, hope it's one of the Apple Dumpling Douche Bags that are armed with substandard weaponry.

Remorse.....The most over played word in the english language.

 Phillip Markoff, the med student who killed a craigslist hooker, robbed another, killed himself in his jail cell. Of course the speculation is running rampant. The prosecution claims it was a clear sign of guilt, which implies this guy had a conscience and the guilt just got to be too much. Sounds good, but I doubt it's true, the guilty conscience part.  I've read a few articles that seem to think dude was all bereft over losing his fiance. He did have a bunch of her pictures  around him and had  written her name in his own blood. So according to the prosecution and several news outlets, this scumbag was an enigma, kind of Jack the Ripper meets Romeo.  Might make for a good movie, but those theories mostly self serving horse shit. Which is why you rubes come here, to get the real skinny.  No Seacreast.

Being in jail isn't like being in prison. If you are a high profile detainee, county jail time is even worse than if you are just a regular inmate. SHU program, 23 hour lock down. So there you sit, nobody to talk to but yourself and the hacks, who probably have nothing but contempt for you. So I say our boy took himself out as a last act ,  a self serving grab for attention and to inflict  pain on the ex fiancee and his own family.

But remorse it ain't.

Shaquan Duley, the South Carolina mother who is all over the news for killing her 2 babies with her bare hands, is said to be remorseful. She sobbed in court. The judge, the prosecutor, even the sheriff who arrested her, all seem willing to cut her a little slack.  The explain away her horrific act by alluding that her mother was hard on her, demanded that she man the fuck up, act responsible, be a mother. They say the pressure was too much, she folded under the weight. She snapped. So when she sobs in court, it means she has remorse, she is sorry.

What Shaquan has isn't remorse. She shares something with the Craigslist killer. She has regret. Regret she was caught. Regret that her thin cover story didn't hold water. Regret isn't remorse. If you are capable of taking a life to suit your own selfish desires, you are incapable of remorse.

End of story.

Rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated..........sorry.

I got an email from some fan (douche bag) hoping that my lack of posts meant I had passed on to the great jail house in the sky. While I hate to disappoint someone who took the time to pen a three line email, full of errors, I'm very much alive albeit uninspired. That said, I never consider derogatory emails a bad thing, in fact I kind of like the fact that I can inspire some tub of lard to stop eating chili with his fingers  long enough to express himself.
Since I'm here I might as well phone one in...................

The heat in Kansas City is making folks lose their rabbit ass minds, seriously. I have to drive around in this shit all day long, busy delivering everything from blueprints to spleens, and frankly I'm getting a little tired of the daily near death experience of sharing our dilapidated metro roads with a bunch of wobble heads who believe multitasking while driving is  a good use of time. By the end of the day I'm spewing so much venom, my car window is covered in spittle and my blood pressure is nearing 4 digits. Seriously, the vile shit that comes out of my mouth makes Eminem sound like Mr. Rogers.  In light of my new and improved bad attitude, I've found a new hero.

Steven Slater, the Jet Blue flight attendant who turned into a rice crispie, snapped , crackled, and popped, after a passenger refused to sit her ass down and wait like everyone else to retrieve her bag from the overhead compartment. According to the news, some woman who felt she was above everyone else on the plane, got up and started to retrieve her bag from the overhead. She apparently told Slater to go fuck himself when he asked her to wait until the plane stopped moving. She dropped the door to the overhead on Slaters head. Slater asked for an apology and thats when the woman told him to break one off in his own balloon knot.  Slater got on the intercom, told everyone to go fuck themselves, grabbed a beer from the fridge, hit the escape hatch, slid down the ramp, and went home.

Now you might be thinking that Slater pulled a bone head move, flushed his career down the toilet, and ended up getting arrested to boot.  But this is America, and here, in this country, Slater just made a major climb up the ladder of success. Look for this guy to be all over the morning news shows and talk show circuit. Look for a book, a reality show, whatever. You can bet your ass he will parlay his moment into some serious cheddar. Flight attendants are alot like wait staff, in that they have to put up with a steady stream of mouth breathers, ass hats, and shit heels. Kudos to Slater for not  poppin this pushy beeatch in her soup cooler.

Now I hate to be stereotyping the guy, but I think our boy might be teh ghey, not that there is anything wrong with that. In fact, I figure dude just squashed a major stereotype about teh gheys being sissified. Slater manned up, did a kamikaze on his 28 year career, and then did a Stone Cold Steve Austin by knocking down a stiff cold Bud on his way to sliding down the chute.....( No Seacrest on that entire last sentence).   My point is, Slater finally had all he could take,  rather than tuck tail and take  more  unwarranted abuse, he made a stand.

So today I'd  like to salute a real American Hero, Stone Cold Stewardess Dood, Steven (oh no you didn't bitch) Slater.