Me and Clay Chastain

Dear God save us, he may be coming back.

“I’m heading back to Kansas City to try to change the direction of the city,” Chastain says. “I want to help create the greatest light rail system in the country in Kansas City next March. I’ll be back in a few weeks.”

Will it never end?!? Jesus H. Christ on a crutch!! Haven't we been through enough with this guy?

"Chastain will be petitioning (trolling for babes) to get an initiative before voters (in his Quixotic hopes of someday being Mayor) in March for a rail system that would run from Swope Park and the zoo (drive-by central) to the Nelson (hoity-toity art geeks from JoCo don't ride trains), UMKC (students and academics seem to prefer transportation via bicycles, spandex and unnecessarily streamlined helmets), Plaza (yeah...park the air-conditioned Beamer with the JoCo tags, mingle with the un-washed masses and take a train. That will happen), Westport (drunks hoping to avoid a DUI), Union Station (no one goes there), the new Performing Arts Center (see Nelson above), Sprint Center (Big Empty Glass Wok with a third rate, yet-to-be-named sports team of some sort), City Market (young, gay urban-dwellers who can walk to work and don't need a train) and over the river and through the Northland with stops that would include Zona Rosa (all of the people who shop at Zona Rosa live near Zona Rosa) and on to the airport (people leaving KC in a huge hurry)."

Chastain: “And I have an honest passion to help my country, the people of Kansas City and the planet.”

Oh puhLEEZE! Let me tell you a little story.

It's the early '80s. I'm single, never been married. I'm living in a sweet little studio apartment in Westport just off of 39th and Clark. It's a former single-family dwelling that has been converted into 3 modest apartments. I have the whole ground floor. Nice picture window. Little kitchen. It's fully furnished (I have a fold-out couch for a bed), all utilities paid, rent is $175.00 a month.

The guy who owned Kelly's in Westport lived right across the street. I'd sit on the front porch, sipping an ice cold Killian's Red and chuckle as he mowed his lawn in the 110 degree heat and 80% humidity (my landlord came by and mowed my grass once a week).

Live music was a block and a half away at Parody Hall. We're talking The Morells, The Blasters, local bands like Steve, Dave and Bill or whatever the fuck the Rainmakers used to be called, national acts like Gatemouth Brown and Leon Russell.

Life was simple. Life was good. The place was small enough that I could survey my entire "estate", inventory everything I owned by simply turning my head from left to right. It was all there, within eyesight from my crappy recliner parked in front of my 13" TV. I lived there for 4 years. My longest sustained residency at that time.

Enter Clay Chastain and some business partner whose name escapes me. Suffice it to say Clay was the "idea guy", the other numb-nuts was the "money guy".

I see them one day, outside the house, taking pictures. Clay is doing all of the talking and making lots of hand gestures, like he's trying to convey a concept.

I used to be a friendly, open guy. So I go out and ask what's up.

Clay explains (in so many words) that they have bought the place, they're evicting everyone (including the semi-hot slut on the third floor that I was hoping to nail...we have 30 days), so that he and his partner can "renovate" the place, restore it to a single-family dwelling, paint it in bright Victorian colors and charge some stupid yuppie hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy it so that he and his partner both walk away rich while the lives of the current tenants are left in shambles.

Is this a great country, or what? God Bless America.

Thus ended the Golden Age of Xavier Onassis.

Clay Chastain can kiss my big, white, flabby, suburban ass.

Clay Chastain doesn't care about anybody but Clay Chastain.

"Greed...is good."