Pulling into Westport, I couldn’t help but wonder what else could happen while on KCCGD assignment. The sting of day’s events so far revealed itself in broken pieces on my bumper leftover from some dingus backing into my car at 7 Eleven. That little reminder laughed at me as I walked by it while I made my way toward the barspot. Kansas State football hit the crossroads earlier today and took a wrong turn. But I was at Westport and not in Crossroads district. And this was Harpo’s.
Harpo’s is a Westport mainstay and supports many different disciplines in the art bar-durgery. There is space for live music, patio gatherings, party gatherings, and of course sports. For some reason, it is also a watch party spot for Missouri football. There are 2 big screens, one upstairs and one downstairs as well as a sprinkle of small TVs around the bar area inside. Sport-wise, they could use an upgrayedd. The extra ‘d’ is for a double dose of high definition television.
The service and games there are in no need of such idiocracy. I didn’t have any food, but I was eyeballin’ the popcorn bin. Too bad there were no season shakers. What did shake me, however, was the cute waitress working the bar there. I think it was the camo capri pants that did me in, only because it’s cool to say camo capri. And as for the use of camouflage, the Buck Hunter II game provided about 1 minute of joy. I wish I would’ve played the other games there including: The basketball toss, the football toss, golden tee, and various touch screen games. Silverstrike bowling needed its ball buffed as the screen was blank and I think broke.
The crowd Harpo’s was unusually split. I walked in there expecting some major Mizzou lovin’ like at the KCCGD opener but what I got was some black, gold, red, and white all mixed together. There was even competing ‘Go Big Red’ and ‘M-I-Z-Z-O-U’ chants (I will ignore the Pitt State and Northwest Missouri State chants). I was beginning to think as the night went on that there were more Nebraska fans. Although the douche bag, fancy pant wearing, belligerent Nebraska fans behind me may have influenced me.
Wasn’t this place a Missouri bar? What gives? I’m beginning to believe Krizzou when she says there is no bar that Missouri fans can go to enjoy the same kind of spirit that K-State fans get at Rusty’s or the kind that even Iowa fans get at The Other Place. So I’m calling out you Missouri fans. It looks as if it’s your year, so get out there and actually congregate at a bar and cheer and do fight song dances and drink and be real fans. Your team is showing up. It’s time for you to.
K-State forgot to show up for its game. The hype leading in was that KU played cupcakes and K-State should take its momentum from the Texas game and edge out the Jayhawks. What we got was an almost exact repeat from last year. Freeman was way too excited, we couldn’t really stop the run, and we dished out many turnovers. Hats off to KU, though. They’re offense is for real and they can hang a quality win up. Even though they had two weeks to prepare. I think I’ll just watch Jordy over and over to make things better.
The marquee matchup was Nebraska at Missouri. The only kind of passion that Nebraska ended up showing was more from the popped collar wienies at Harpo’s then the Huskers on the field. Nebraska was just plain overmatched. They couldn’t make up for any aspect of the game. Missouri’s offense is what they say they are. What shocked me was the Defense putting it to Sam Keller. Total rout. Although I do have to question the fake field goal at the end, but hey that might have helped place the Tigers at #11 this week.
What a wreck of a day. Congratulations Missouri and Kansas for being ranked (#11 and #20 respectively) and being the only two teams undefeated in the Big 12. It was easy to say this Yeti had the blues (BLECH). Harpo’s really was more of a regular bar than a sports bar, so I closed out the night at Blayney’s to drown the sorrow. It cheered me up a bunch and the Hipnotics covering Cream’s version of Crossroads ironically capped the day nicely. Better luck next year Wildcats, and yes will be looking for revenge on the basketball court in a couple of months.