If you were stuck in traffic on I-35 Southbound last night it was probably because of this:

The worst thing is that the driver actually made it home the night before, when it actually was slick.

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Since there is no large-scale event like an All Star Game planned in Kansas City in the year 2013, I propose to make the 30th anniversary of the movie The Day After the theme for the year. Granted, The Day After is a horrible, poorly acted, made for TV movie, with special effects that make The 7th Voyage of Sinbad look like the Star Wars, but it scared the crap out of millions of Americans and convinced President Reagan to sign a Nuclear Treaty few years later.

The movie demonstrated  that it only takes hours after the nuclear strike for the American Military to disband and start fending for themselves, few days for the food riots to start, and few weeks for most people to lose their humanity and forget the English language. It also showed that the government will be predictably unprepared, a nuclear shelter doesn’t protect against a big gun and that people will still ignore the warnings and go to a movie theater right before being blasted with inexplicably excessive number of nuclear devices.

The idea of using The Day After to promote tourism in Kansas City is not new and not even mine. In his article “Kansas City after “The Day After”” published in the Travel Holiday Magazine in June 1984, John Garrity quotes Richard Pfanenstiel, director of the Missouri Film Commission saying:

“The Day After was the best thing that ever happened to Kansas City, Kansas City looked good”.

then goes on to write:

“If you caught the final 20 minutes of the ABC’s The Day After, last November’s doomsday movie, you probably don’t agree with the above statement. You saw Kansas City as an ash-gray rock pile, a windy moonscape dotted with small fires around which a few radiation-ravaged survivors huddled for warmth. The Day After,  you guessed, would not o for Kansas City what Where the Boys Are did for Fort Lauderdale.

“As of Sunday night,” Kansas City Times columnist Arthur Brisbane wrote after watching the film, “we’re famous as the city ABC blew up.”

Or, as some other wag noted, “There goes the neighborhood.”

“If it weren’t for the honor of the thing,” a television newsman deadpanned, “I’d just as soon have passed it up.” This last remark, of course, paraphrased Mark Twain, the most famous of all Missourians, who predicted that mankind’s folly would bring it to just such an inglorious end.

Others contend that ABC, by blowing Kansas City off the map, actually put Kansas City on the map. The film has now been shown to nearly 200 million viewers around the world. And if The Day After  depicted Kansas City as unlivable after a nuclear strike, its pre-attack footage captured this heartland city at its best: tree-lined boulevards, lush parks crowded with joggers and Frisbee throwers, monumental fountains, fashionable people shopping at fashionable store in the Country Club Plaza. The camera caught them all with an aching poignancy.

Whether Kansas City will be rewarded with a sudden influx of foreign tourists (along the lines of Hiroshima’s sober pilgrims), it’s too early to say. But even the casual visitor to Kansas City could do worse than use The Day After as an approach for a visit.

As you can see, I already completed all the necessary research, made a trip to the Kansas City Library and suffered through the entire 2 hours 6 minutes of the movie (which I have successfully avoided for my almost 20 years in this country), and now I am presenting this concept to the Kansas City Convention & Visitors Association absolutely free of charge. We need to hurry up before Lawrence steals the idea. I propose the following mottoes to be used in the campaign (sample):

• Kansas City 2013: We Haven’t Been Blown Up For Real, You Know.
• Kansas City 2013: We Are Not Mutants.
• Kansas City 2013: Come Visit, The Radiation Is At Almost Gone.

Proposed activities (sample):

• Multiple walking, bus, Segway, Volvo station wagon and helicopter tours will carry the tourists to the sites shown in the movie such as the Liberty Memorial, Plaza, Nelson-Atkins Gallery, West Bottoms, Truman Sports Complex.
• Big screen TV’s placed at these and other locations will be playing the movie as well as the KMBC special “Sunday, Nuclear Sunday” which aired on November 20, 1983, complete with commercials where young Larry Moore, Brenda Williams and non-senile Walt Bodine will discuss now outdated nuclear research.
• Restaurants will offer themed menu items like “Missile Fries” and “Nacho Cheese Meltdown”.
• This horrible song may be used for additional advertising materials.

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If you are planning a trip to St.Louis on a nice sunny day and you don’t feel like taking Interstate 70 for the 150th time, consider the U.S. Route 50 – a slightly longer and slower, but fun and picturesque way of getting there. Once the road leaves the Kansas City area with all of its Lee’s Summits and such, it heads to Sedalia amidst beautiful country landscapes, pothole- and traffic-free.

Sedalia has a nice-looking downtown with many historic buildings and perfectly-functioning Hotel Bothwell, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

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I could’ve used my 800th post on something worthwhile like my thoughts on health-care or bitching about the first day of school moving even closer to the last day of school, but I’ll post another recipe. After all, the health-care is not going anywhere and school already started, but the eggplant season may be over at any time.

This is probably the simplest recipe you will find on this blog. You will need only 6 ingredients: eggplant, tomatoes, flour, (olive) oil, garlic and salt.

When picking an eggplant try to get an evenly shaped one so the slices are similar in size. Slice the eggplant in about 1/4 inch slices.

Dust with flour on both sides…

…salt lightly and place in the skillet on medium-low heat with a pretty decent amount of oil in it. If you salt the eggplant beforehand it will start losing liquid and shrivel.

Cook eggplant on both sides. It doesn’t need to brown, just poke it with a knife or a fork, if it easily goes in – it’s ready. Remove on paper towels and cook another batch.

The eggplant seems to soak up great quantities of oil, keep adding as needed. While the eggplant is cooking, slice some ripe tomatoes.

Assemble the final product-a slice of eggplant, a slice of tomato, pressed garlic to taste.

I ate everything you see on this plate by myself in one setting.

This could be a side-dish, or a Hors d’œuvre, also called “zakuska” in Russian – something that goes well after a cold shot of vodka. Just as good or better on the next day. Keep refrigerated.

Now pour yourself an aforementioned shot of vodka, drink it, eat an eggplant-tomato sandwich. Do you still want to argue about health-care or schools? Repeat. How about now? I didn’t think so. At this point you would start singing a Russian folk song but since you can’t how about this one, it sounds equally stupid.

httpvh://youtu.be/wV3ZRPoJcZw

The rest of the photos:

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*The better-looking photos in this post are taken by my kid.

I usually try to give my travel posts clever (in my opinion) or rhyming titles, but no rhyme comes to mind to name this report about my trip to Minneapolis.

Five months out of the year Minneapolis is an exciting, great-looking, interesting city 500 miles to the North of Kansas City. During the other seven months it closely resembles the Fortress of Solitude – a snow-covered and icy hellhole where people are using an elaborate tunnel-like system to move between the buildings without getting a frostbite. It also houses the first sign of Apocalypse – The Mall of America.

If you are driving to Minneapolis, the longest part of your route passes through Iowa – Khrushchev’s favorite state. Iowa is famous for its old people and various, not always pleasant, smells along the highway. Iowa’s population is so old that just by driving through we temporarily dropped the average age in the state to 68. To fight the smell problem Iowans installed gigantic fans in random places.

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