Okay, to kick things off…..it is an indisputable fact that the most rabid sin-bashing fundamentalists are often the worst offenders when it comes to their “pet” sins. And I’m not just talking about your high profile examples like Haggard and Swaggart, or the plethora of secular crossover baby Christian celebrities who make their fortune off of recounting their sinful pasts in front of packed audiences (a whole other annoying subject for another time). I don’t know how many familiar church faces I’d see stroll into Priscilla’s when I worked there, how many dogmatic future church leaders would end up knocked up, shacked up or get caught getting a blowie in the parking lot…….not all of them of course, generally a small percentage of the whole, but the common thread that ran through 99.999% of these shameful examples was their fervent and outspoken hatred of the very sins they got caught committing. They are usually the same people who will also tell you that it’s wrong to question your church leaders. Although hypocrisy seems to be the cornerstone of much of evangelical Christianity, it’s no excuse to dismiss the entire faith, I’m simply raising awareness. The knee-jerk fundamentalist you know who rails the loudest against homosexuality, masturbation, pornography or alcohol probably has an issue with it because it is a problem for them (or they have no problem with it and use it to mask some other sin…. i.e. the morbidly obese anti-gay preachers). How much better would it be if they just came clean, admitted their humanity and got on with their lives? Anyway, the main focus of this post isn’t to ramble on and on about church-dads with secret stashes of porn, it is simply to focus on one heinous example that has personally impacted me recently.
I’m not an idiot. I know that my dog likes to get on my computer when I’m not around and sling shit about the hundreds of people who end up at my blog when they Google phrases like “where to take unsaved friends” or “should I stay with my unsaved girlfriend”. I let it go on because I figured at some point she’d screw up and I’d get to out her for the hypocrite that she is. Well that day finally came last week, so think of these photos every time you read her bullshit and think she must be right just because she’s cute….
That is my parent’s dog Brutus. I am babysitting him while they are on vacation. My whore of a dog NOT ONLY decided to share a bed with him, she got into some perverse gender confusion and started humping him about fifteen times a day. The pictures speak for themselves. Be sure to bookmark this page and refer to it the next time she starts acting so superior to everyone else.
Like I said, all of that crap isn’t the only focus of this post. My girlfriend was in town from Richmond over the Thanksgiving holiday and it reminded me how cool it can be to showcase your town for a visitor. Kansas City is a decent sized city, and after living here most of my life I take it for granted that there is plenty to see and do. Living here you tend to forget that something like the Plaza Lights are impressive by anyone’s standards. Even though I wouldn’t count KC as a bustling hub for tourism, there are tons of “touristy” things that I generally don’t do until someone comes to town.
Case and point…. Arthur Byrant’s BBQ. I cook world class BBQ, so I rarely buy it from a restaurant. But Bryant’s is world renowned….if you’ve seen ANY of the Food TV or Travel Channel shows highlighting the BBQ meccas of Kansas City, Memphis or the Carolinas, you’ve seen Bryant’s. So I thought it was probably C.H.U.D.-worthy during this visit. I do have a love/hate relationship with the place….. in my experience you have a 50/50 shot of getting decent food there. When it’s an off-day you get overcooked beef or undercooked pork….but when it’s ON it is, without exception, the favorite BBQ of my entire life. Our sandwich was an okay example of what Bryant’s has to offer, but it was good enough to win a new fan during our visit. You love or hate that sauce…..there isn’t anything else like it on earth. And Bryant’s sauce is only good on Bryant’s BBQ….I never use it at home just because it isn’t close to the same thing. Brisket for brisket, pork butt for pork butt, I think my food runs circles around theirs, but there is something about the combination of their meat, sauce, and fresh-cut, lard fried french fries that is magical. Be warned, if you decide to visit Bryant’s, their burnt ends and pulled pork are terrible……they stew them both in their sweeter sauce, which defies all BBQ logic…..I can’t figure it out.
Our next stop on that Wednesday was the famous Liberty Memorial and Museum….
I’m sure there are plenty of World War I memorials in the United States, but Kansas City has the only WWI memorial AND museum. And with the recent renovations, the museum is world class……we’re both museum nerds (actually, I’m a museum SUPER-nerd) and we both thought that it rivaled the Holocaust Museum in DC as far as presentation, layout and content. WWI is the forgotten war…..not many people you meet know anything about it at all, and when I was getting my undergrad at UMKC my entire history minor was comprised almost solely of WWI classes. It is my firm belief that every war-mongering hawk who supports the idiocy of the Bush administration should get knee-deep in the guts of WWI……the comparison we drew to the Holocaust museum was not only due to the style of the exhibit, but also due to the fact that the war was one of the darkest and saddest periods in modern human history. Just like WWII, our elementary and high school history books paint the picture that the United States was the savior of the day, and tend to gloss over the period before our involvement. The Liberty Memorial Museum does a great job of showing the entire timeline of the war and the grim reality that my favorite professor referred to as “the family food fight that served up ten million dead”. We truly are lucky to have this museum, I can’t recommend it enough if you live here or are visiting.
So that was pretty goth of us…..feasting on the flesh of dead animals and sauntering over to the war museum……but the rest of the visit was far more light-hearted and festive. Dave & Busters, fancy food at Bluestem, Dim Sum, Whole Foods, a Thanksgiving family extravaganza at grandma’s, the humongous Asian grocers in the River Market, and of course…the Plaza Lights. Not to mention discovering the wonderment that is buying thrift store clothing now that I can find something that fits……
The last thing worth mentioning was a lazy, snowy morning in beautiful Weston, Missouri. If you live here, you really need to get out there if you haven’t been recently. It is the true Missouri “small town” experience for residents and visitors alike. Especially if you visit during a holiday weekend when the snow is falling…..
Oh sure, it’s kind of cheesy with all of the knick-knacky shops and antique dealers……but put your jaded side on hold long enough to show up for a nice midwestern breakfast at the local lodge and then lube yourself up with 25 cent sample shots at the McCormick Distillery General Store, and free tastings at the Pirtle Winery….
We love the Pirtle Winery! Weston is great, but it’s even better with a little bit of a wine buzz as you stroll the chilly, quaint streets….. Believe it or not, we do have some good wine here in the midwest. Sure a lot of it is on the sweeter side, but there are also shining examples of big, bold (although not multi-dimensional) dry reds to enjoy.
So anyway, nothing groundbreaking here…….a whorish canine revelation and your regular bloggy sort of tourism report. I hope everyone is having a great holiday season so far, mine has been wonderful. Not sure what I’ll have on my mind between now and when I leave for Richmond for the remainder of the holidays in a couple of weeks, I find the best way to blog is to never plan too far in advance.
Oh yeah, go and buy a TruckerFish t-shirt!
Unsaved Loved Ones 
