LA Times lays down BBQ schmooze

The bottom line for those of us trapped here in the Cowtown: We’ll pretty much take whatever good PR we can get...

 So huzzah to former Star scribe Catharine Hamm’s “A hearty helping of Kansas City BBQ” story in last week’s Los Angeles Times.

“Please don’t tell the family this, but they’re not the only reason I return to Kansas City whenever I can. I love them, of course, but I can talk to them on the phone,” the story begins. “We can e-mail. We can Twitter, for crying out loud. But barbecue is something you have to do in person. And it is best done here in the Heartland.”

What sets Hamm’s story apart from the standard issue smoked meats soliloquy is she explains that she’s not going to belabor Gate’s or Bryant’s.

“…because you cannot top perfection,” she writes. “But you can compete with it. And in this last trip – and two before it – I ate my approximate weight in barbecue just to see if I could find a contender or two.”

In addition to, uh, hamming it up, Hamm brings out a few interesting factoids, like that there are “about 80” BBQ joints here and while KC is about half the size of LA it has but a sixth the population.

There’s more…

“Before you begin your trek, you should know about the three distinct personalities of the areas we’ll be visiting,” Hamm writes. “First, there’s Kansas City, Mo. It’s the big red dog, the place that was once wild and woolly, where machine politics and the Mafia proliferated. ... KCMO may remind you of your niece who seems so lovely when she’s around the grown-ups, then sneaks away to do the fandango at the local naughty place.”

Kansas City as a “naughty niece,” who knew?

Next comes KCK.

“It’s sort of the stuttering second cousin to KCMO,” Hamm says. “It tries hard. Sometimes it succeeds, oftentimes it doesn’t. It’s not as large and not as prosperous as KCMO, but it does have some great barbecue.”

Not too harsh – hey, KCK has suffered worse indignities.

Now brace yourselves ’cause here comes Johnson County – or “Oklahoma” as my in-laws used to refer to it when taking friendly shots at my move to south Overland Park.

“It comprises several towns, has top-drawer schools and multimillion-dollar houses,” Hamm says. “It’s been called cupcake land, but it also has plenty of barbecue, so that counters the accusation of suburban bland.”

Hamm anoints Fiorella’s Jack Stack and Danny Edwards – no arguments there. But she threw me a curve when she name dropped a place I never heard of, Brobecks Barbeque near 107th and Roe.

“Please, purists, don’t hurt me,” Hamm pleads. “I tried Brobecks in Johnson County, which opened in November 2007, and I liked it. A lot. The problem: Brobecks is not, strictly speaking, Kansas City barbecue. Instead, it relies on rubs and not sauces – although it has sauces too.”

Sadly, Hamm’s final note confirms what some KC barbecue aficionados have known for some time, that the once mighty Hayward’s has changed

“I’ve been a big Hayward’s fan almost since it opened in 1972 about two miles north of where it is now,” she says.” I’ve never had a bad bit of barbecue there, but that night wasn’t the best I’ve ever had...”

Very gutsy – it’s not easy taking a local BBQ institution to task. Now here’s a reward for the Hamm-ster’s bravery:

Check out Hope Loehr’s new Adam’s Rib at 9148 Santa Fe Drive in Overland Park. The former Hayward’s manager is fast fading from best-kept-secret status to KC masterpiece!

Wonder lays down
Michael Jackson tribute

How intense was Friday’s Stevie Wonder show at Starlight? Very.

“When first announced, Stevie Wonder’s concert Friday at Starlight Theatre was seen as significant for being the celebrated hit-maker’s first show in Kansas City since 1986 at Kemper Arena,” writes KC Confidential’s Brian McTavish. “Call it history with a little ‘h.’

“Then Michael Jackson died on Thursday – only a day before Wonder’s show at Starlight – and the resulting pop-culture shockwave instantly imbued the gig with a previously unimagined magnitude. Call it History.”

History, indeed…

“If the show came down to a single scintillating interval that provided the catharsis that so many were looking for, it was when Wonder and company kicked into the immediately recognizable introduction to Jackson’s universally adored dance hit, ‘Billie Jean,’” McTavish opined. “The incredibly cool part? Except for a well-placed MJ-like ‘woo-hoo-hoo!’ or two from Wonder, the main man kept quiet and let the audience solely belt out the song in its entirety. It was a brilliant and inspirational gesture, allowing the fans to pour out their love for Jackson and claim him as their very own when they needed to most.

“As the music faded, audience members shouted: ‘We love you, Michael!’”

Anatomy of a movie review

Just how thrilling is America’s new No. 1 movie, Transformers 2, as media types like to call it?

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…..

That was Star movie scribe Robert Butler’s reaction to the practically nonstop special effects explosion and robotic battle action thriller. Butler actually fell asleep on the job while reviewing it last week during one of the film’s most intense battle scenes.

After KC Confidential reported the snooze online, the Star held up Butler’s promised-to-be-online-by-noon review for more than two hours! When it finally surfaced – voila! – it began with a confession by the critic.

“Something is seriously amiss when a movie as noisy and frenetic as ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ is so boring it puts you to sleep.”

Then things got a little weird.

“But I’m not ashamed to admit it: I think even I might have caught a few ZZZZs near the end of Michael Bay’s latest,” Butler continued. “Not so much sleeping as resting from the onslaught.”

Huh?

Readers unfamiliar with KC Confidential’s reporting were likely to wonder as to all the asides about how much sleep Butler did or didn’t get during the movie. The only thing missing: what or whom he dreamed about.

One final mystery…

When the print version came out, Butler’s alibi second paragraph was nowhere to be found.