From Stark
Google has spurned Bellingham–difficult as that is to believe.
Kansas City, Kansas–the lesser known, much smaller Kansas City across the river from the one in Missouri, is in the spotlight today.
Google chose that city in the nationwide competition for rollout and testing of a new ultra-high-speed Internet service.
We’ll be getting comment from local officials and private-sector activists later today.
If this is ruining your day, you could console yourself with this little musical tribute to Kansas City–altho the song does not specify which Kansas City. This is not the well-known and admittedly excellent Wilbert Harrison hit–it’s an earlier recorded version by Little Willie Littlefield. I discovered it and him just a few minutes ago. See if you like it.
UPDATE: The song makes reference to “12th Street and Vine, with my Kansas City baby and my jug of Kansas City wine.” According to Google Maps, 12th St. and Vine would be in Kansas City, MO. There is no such intersection today, but it looks like the streets around there have been reengineered since Little Willy and Wilbert’s day. Apparently traffic engineers with no sense of musical history did some realignment and urban renewal that eliminated this intersection.
They did create streets named Ella Fitzgerald Lane and Basie Place, among others in the area, so we can’t be too hard on them.
Kansas City Kansas has a 12th Street, but no Vine.
Sad news! This would have been really good for Bellingham, and I really enjoyed the video too…
Thanks, Lefty. Did you notice the subtle lyrical change between Little Willie and Wilbert Harrison? Little Willie’s version was a tad more risque.
In the 1960s, Brenda Lee had to change the lyrics again:
“Crazy little women” becomes “crazy little men.”
This is great for Kansas City. A bit sad initially for Bellingham for all the work that went into it, but out of over 100,000 cities who submitted, someone had to win.
I’m still thrilled and proud by all the work and community support around this initiative.
And last time I looked, people are flocking to Bellingham….not Kansas City. So it’s all good
WHAT ABOUT THE LAKOTA RESERVATION ? BELLINGHAM IS SO PROVINCIAL AND SELF CENTERED
Maybe we should have touted our BBQ…then again touting dining in Bellingham is also a fool’s errand…
http://local.yahoo.com/results?stx=best+bbq&csz=Kansas+City%2C+KS