shrikedyke

So here are some things that fall under the heading of "Leave 'Em Alone, You Horrible Bastards."

First of all, one of my little sister's friends just got busted for downloading MP3s. At 6:30 a.m., people came into the house of this 10 year old boy--without even knocking, you know--and took the family computer. And he's getting hugely fined, naturally. 10 year old kid. Poor George... His parents are mega-pissed at him.

Secondly, Kansas City is just recently starting to slowly rejuvenate the utterly dead downtown area... A bunch of artists moved in, set up galleries in the old freight houses... Now there are lofts being rented all over the area, swanky restaurants moving in, tiny little off-beat places like Birdie's panty shop, Spool clothing, YJ Coffee, Lulu's Noodles, that natural market place on 18th (whatever it's called)... All of them desperately clinging to life, nourished more than anything by one thing: First Fridays. The first friday of every month, when all the galleries in the Crossroads District have their openings and huge amounts of people coming pouring in to walk from gallery to gallery and check out the art. Well, apparently the city is cracking down like a motherfucker on all these galleries handing out glasses of wine without a licence to sell (or give away) liquor. What the fuck, man... Other cities make this work, why is Kansas City being such a bitch? "No, don't come in and breathe life into a desperately cracked-out part of town!" What's even worse is that, since First Fridays have begun to get a little renaissance going, the property suddenly costs twice or three times what it did even last year. These folks can't afford that... Sigh. Makes me unhappy.