kansas city sucks.

People say they enjoy Kansas City. Find out why.
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chrizow
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kansas city sucks.

Post by chrizow »

not really, but my fiancee and i have been talking a lot recently about how boring kansas city is.  we rack our brains trying to think of somewhere good to hang out - good food and/or good atmosphere and/or good music.  we don't even go out that much, but when we feel like it, we can't think of anywhere to go.  even places we tend to like aren't really cutting it.  

kc has plenty of half-assed "nice" places and more than enough VFW-hall esque dives, but there are woefully few places that just feel "good" to hang out in.  as far as i can tell, no place plays good music.  we've found ourselves wanting to go to lawrence (for shame!) just to go to a place with a nice feeling.  we spent three hours in a nearly-empty 8th st. taproom on a monday night just because it felt good to be in a lived-in place with some nice records being played (by the bartender no less).  

these feelings come and go, but we're definitely in a burned-out, "kc sucks" mentality right now.  the weather isn't helping.
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Re: kansas city sucks.

Post by NDTeve »

Leave.
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chrizow
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Re: kansas city sucks.

Post by chrizow »

NDTeve wrote: Leave.
i'd like to, but i'm just too much of a pussy.  in the meantime, i will use this forum to complain.
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Re: kansas city sucks.

Post by heatherkay »

What kind of music do you like?
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Re: kansas city sucks.

Post by KCMax »

Its Funkhouser's fault. Or Cordish. Or KU fans wearing athletic gear. Or the e-tax.
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Re: kansas city sucks.

Post by LenexatoKCMO »

It sounds like you want to live in a college town - good live music scene, "cool" bars, stores, etc.

Of course there are usually big down sides to that in the form of all that comes along with a smaller town which are often also more isolated.  In some ways KC is a great compromise in that you can live in a 2 million metro with a premier college town only a half hour away or vice versa.  Short of Boulder/Denver or Berkley/SF, its hard to imagine a better combination of the two.  
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Post by ignatius »

Sounds like Austin is for you, which caters to the MTV generation that needs a constant barrage of sensory experiences in order to feel alive.

Take a cooking class, have friends over for dinner.  Check out a show at the Unicorn.   Attend a MUFON meeting (mutual UFO network) and listen to others' experiences - far more entertaining than TV or theatre.  Do the Fight Club thing and visit communal help groups, pretending to have the associated condition,  just to feel alive by listening to people whose lives are worse than yours.   Breed.

Just some ideas for your consideration.
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Re: kansas city sucks.

Post by AJoD »

Where else do you go in Lawrence that feels good?

I like R Bar a lot, despite not liking the food, and I think the bluestem lounge is an A-list "feels good place" for any city.

The Keyhole in Mission is a tiny dive, but has a surprisingly eclectic and to-my-taste jukebox.  Had a very enjoyable late-night-few bourbons there recently with a great playlist.

I'm sympathetic, though surprised to hear Lawrence offers more.  For music, I take it you mean recorded rather than live?

I also like the soundtrack at Harry's Country Club, though it's a more narrow niche.

What about Swagger?  I've only been a couple times, liked it, don't recall the tunes.
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Re: kansas city sucks.

Post by phna »

Cabin Fever? The weather really does suck.

But the snowmen are awesome!
Image

http://www.kansascity.com/934/gallery/1663481.html
Last edited by phna on Wed Jan 06, 2010 1:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: kansas city sucks.

Post by geeman68 »

Wow, with everything around that you can do (pick up a Pitch), watch or participate in, you still need more?  You have to find a dive or bar to sit and hang in to enjoy life?  You can't have friends over to your house/apt for cooking/drinking/playing games, a movie night?  Cooking classes, or other skills classes that are available for couples, etc?  This holiday season was hella busy with holiday parties and events and such and now we're moving into the lull but I still have happy hours to go to with friends and different fund raisers and events and concerts and coffee houses and brunch with friends to go to.  I'm glad I can seem to find fullfillment around me here in Kansas City. 
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Re: kansas city sucks.

Post by dangerboy »

chrizow, your complaints are common among scenesters who have exhausted a scene.  like locusts, after consuming one field you have to move on and start fresh.
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Re: kansas city sucks.

Post by LenexatoKCMO »

Dude, you are probably only a couple years away from that point in your life where all of us start saying "jeezus I have too much shit going on in my life!  Why can't I ever get a night to just sit on my ass at home and watch a movie?".  Its an inevitable part of your thirties.  Hell, there are lots of newer places in town I still haven't tried just because the thought of trying to shoe horn it in amongst family crap, work crap, obligationse to friends, etc. is overwhelming. 
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Re: kansas city sucks.

Post by KCPowercat »

giveus your description of what you want in a place?  Maybe a specific example?
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Re: kansas city sucks.

Post by moosnsqrl »

I can sympathize.  I get the same way.  If you can't move, just travel when it gets bad.  Go somewhere exciting and not only will you rejuvenate yourself, you'll likely appreciate KC more upon your return - if only for it's lack of real traffic!
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Re: kansas city sucks.

Post by DaveKCMO »

yes, travel. that's been my MO. KC is just at the size where there should be more going on, but there's not (primarily because people like the slower pace).

you probably really do need to move up a tier to be satisfied.
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Re: kansas city sucks.

Post by NDTeve »

KCMax wrote: Its Funkhouser's fault. Or Cordish. Or KU fans wearing athletic gear. Or the e-tax.
not enough parking.
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Re: kansas city sucks.

Post by chrizow »

ha, thanks for indulging my whining everyone.  i know i sound like a petulant child.  it's just frustrating i guess, because kansas city has so much potential.  as my hometown, it's just frustrating.
LenexatoKCMO wrote: It sounds like you want to live in a college town - good live music scene, "cool" bars, stores, etc.
maybe, or especially places like the bay area or portland or (if i win the lottery) new york.  we fantasize about these places, then justify our staying here.
ignatius wrote: Sounds like Austin is for you, which caters to the MTV generation that needs a constant barrage of sensory experiences in order to feel alive.
i definitely don't need a constant barrage of sensory experiences.  i'd just like some more options in KC that suit our tastes and proclivities.  if anything, we're homebodies who are typically content with just hanging with friends at home, cooking dinner, watching a movie, gardening, whatever. 
heatherkay wrote: What kind of music do you like?
jazz, blues, indie (good indie, not satellite-radio indie), punk, noise/drone, all manner of weird old scratchy obscurities and outsiders...  as AJoD says, i'm more talking about recorded music than live, but i rarely feel the need to catch any of the shows that come through KC either.  lawrence gets most of the shows i might be interested in, but even the scene there rarely pulls what i would actually go out to see.
dangerboy wrote: chrizow, your complaints are common among scenesters who have exhausted a scene.  like locusts, after consuming one field you have to move on and start fresh.
that's the thing, i'm not a scenester.  i'm not even plugged in to whatever "scene" exists here already.  due to the lack of youth-oriented music culture that appeals to me, we end up at restaurants most of the time.
LenexatoKCMO wrote: Dude, you are probably only a couple years away from that point in your life where all of us start saying "jeezus I have too much shit going on in my life!  Why can't I ever get a night to just sit on my ass at home and watch a movie?".  Its an inevitable part of your thirties.
this is why we haven't pulled up stakes and absconded to the west coast or wherever.  it always comes back to, "well, ____ would be a much cooler place, with a lot more going on, but KC is cheaper and easier and we'll be having kids soon so we may as well just stick it out here." 
KCPowercat wrote: giveus your description of what you want in a place?  Maybe a specific example?
what i would like to see more of are bars and restaurants on the sort of yj's / la esquina / pistol axis.  i'd even settle for a replay lounge / 8th st taproom sort of thing.  also, restaurants like the vinegar hill house in brooklyn - top tier ingredients/preparation in a rustic/hip environment.  at this point i'll take some dude in a knit cap playing some obscure funk and krautrock on a turntable at dave's stagecoach or something.  good music and a comfy environment - not 1990s chic, chicken wraps, and satellite radio playing the shins.
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Re: kansas city sucks.

Post by staubio »

The best justification for not moving to a "hip" town to escape your doldrums? The fact that those towns are filled with people that moved there because they weren't persistent, creative or insistent enough to make their less hip home cities work for them. Sure, these places are really awesome, but they aren't real -- everything feels like it just turned up. There isn't a sense of place, a sense of affiliation, a sense of a generational evolution, like there is in an unpretentious city like KC. Besides, ask anyone that lives in these places. They'll say it is awesome because they are supposed to, but they probably go to the same few bars they are familiar with, are too busy or too poor to take advantage of the scene and are likely unhappy with their choices.

I sympathize with your concerns, but it sounds like we're really two better bars away from being perfect. I agree that I'd like a chill bar scene that wasn't overly "conceptified" or, conversely, completely trashy. Why don't we buy some old warehouse, prop up some blown out speakers in the rafters, hire some art kids to play music, put out some picnic tables and games and open the savior of your KC contentment?
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Re: kansas city sucks.

Post by KC_JAYHAWK »

I'm kind of in the same boat, except I'm single after being in a relationship for 18 mos and I really don't know what to do.  The dating scene in KC is absolutely horrible....I've pretty much given up.  It's especially sucks that most of my friends are married/in serious relationships and I'm freaking 36!!!!!!  I'm doomed :-({|=  Now I just need the housing market to rebound, sell my house this Spring and move to Denver or Austin and all will be good.  :D
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Re: kansas city sucks.

Post by geeman68 »

chrizow wrote: this is why we haven't pulled up stakes and absconded to the west coast or wherever.  it always comes back to, "well, ____ would be a much cooler place, with a lot more going on, but KC is cheaper and easier and we'll be having kids soon so we may as well just stick it out here." 

what i would like to see more of are bars and restaurants on the sort of yj's / la esquina / pistol axis.  i'd even settle for a replay lounge / 8th st taproom sort of thing.  also, restaurants like the vinegar hill house in brooklyn - top tier ingredients/preparation in a rustic/hip environment.  at this point i'll take some dude in a knit cap playing some obscure funk and krautrock on a turntable at dave's stagecoach or something.  good music and a comfy environment - not 1990s chic, chicken wraps, and satellite radio playing the shins.
This is an interesting bit... if you are planning to begin a family, your bar scene will become nonexistent
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