Omaha makes history...again

It's been three weeks now since John Ewing Jr. took the oath of office as Omaha's mayor...breaking the color barrier in the process of replacing Jean Stothert, the former City Council member who, in 2013, shattered the mayoral glass ceiling here in town.

I'm glad he's in there.

And I'm excited about Ewing surrounding himself with people who have a better grasp on how to handle the city's road reconstruction projects than Stothert and her people did. (I mean, if you're going to make a street repair, why not make sure the repair lasts a long, long time?)

A little bit about him:

Ewing turned 64 on 4-18-2025; he became the Douglas County treasurer in 2007 and had that job until he became Omaha's newest mayor. Before his stint as treasurer of Nebraska's most heavily-populated county, he spent 25 years in the Omaha Police Department...eventually becoming deputy police chief.

He could've been a US representative here in this House district (known as Nebraska's Blue Dot)...but in 2012, incumbent Lee Terry Jr. (he used to be on Omaha's City Council, too) nosed Ewing out by 4,197 votes.

High school sports fans around here might remember Ewing from his days at Northwest High School, where he was on the football and boys' basketball teams.

Just before the 6-9-2025 swearing-in, JWE talked about looking forward to being able to be mayor and wanting to "tell the people about the great progress we are going to make to economic development and addressing the issues we talked about, affordable housing." He believes in building good coalitions, because, to him, that's "the best way to get things done because then you're partnering with people who do the work and you're partnering with the people who are the beneficiaries of the work as well." Can't wait to find out what's in store for the Big O and its 52nd mayor!

Sources include Wikipedia and www.ketv.com.

I'd never been in a parade before...

Until 7-13-2024, that is.

Seen parades on TV and in person in the past...but I'd never marched in one until last week.

I'm on a couple of committees at our church, and one of the things we wanted to do was take part in this year's Heartland Pride Parade.

And I'm glad I participated alongside thousands of other people.

I mean, for all the many, many things that make us unique individuals, we're still one...we're still members of the human race.

Tomorrow's the day!

This could've taken place in January 2017...except the need to replace the transmission on the car I had at the time (a 2006 Ford Taurus SEL that I bought in June 2007) came first.

Instead, it's going to happen tomorrow at 9:15 AM at the Miracle Hills Surgery Center (11819 Miracle Hills Dr., Suite 201, Omaha, NE 68154).

The mission: To remove the cataract from my left eye.

Quite a few things during the intervening six years and two months delayed the surgery...from the need to continue building a retirement fund to 2020's successful enrollment in Medicare to my having to buy a replacement car in April 2021 to retiring from my factory job in October 2022. But now, I'm ready for Dr. Matthew Brumm to come after that cataract.

A followup will ensue this coming Tuesday at 8:30 AM at Brumm Eye Center's north office (6751 N. 72nd St., Building 2, Suite 105, Omaha, NE 68122).

After all this...who knows? All I want is to see better...so that I can, among other things, drive at night again.

Now...it's your turn. Have you faced cataract surgery (or surgeries) in the past? What was it like? How'd you fare?

Thanks for reading "Boston's Blog!"

The countdown is over

I needed to let you know that, due to a bunch of personal issues (most of them job-related, some related to finances, some even church-related), I've decided to stop holding the Ragtime to Riches Festival. The continuing pandemic sure hasn't helped, as it wiped out what would've been the 2020 and 2021 R to R events. Still...I'm thankful for everyone who attended the festival since its 2005 inception, and I'm thankful for every performer who did the festival. Haven't dropped music for good, because I'm still going to the Pink Poodle Steakhouse in Crescent, IA to perform on the last Sunday of the month. (Hope to see you there!)

To John

One day late last month, I looked in the obituaries section of the Omaha World Herald. And I was shocked to find John F. McIntyre's name in there.

When wife Laura Vranes and parents Dan and Barbara McIntyre were listed among John's survivors, it hit me: I met John and Laura on Labor Day 2013 (9-2-2013) at Omaha's Tree of Life Sculpture. The occasion was the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area's "Play Me, I'm Yours" street piano art project. By contributing Barbara's old Richardson upright piano to the local exhibit (and enabling Bill Hoover to paint the piano), and with Barb's okay to the contribution in the first place, Laura and John helped make the Omaha Metro's stop on Luke Jerram's "PMIY" tour a tremendous success. The "Boston's Blog" post about the Tree of Life experience ("Monday, September 2, 2013: M-A-G-I-C!") is still up. (Check it out!) John, you, Laura, and Barb enabled so many of us in the Omaha area to have so much fun during "Play Me's" time in the local spotlight. Thank you so much for all the great things you've contributed.

Lookbook #1- "Really Old School"

Things have gotten to the point in the movie-and-TV industry where writers trying to break in (and those who've already established themselves) need to put together a collection of photos serving as an expression of the writers' vision of how a movie or TV series is supposed to look. (Directors have been using this tool for quite some time.)

This collection of pictures is called a lookbook. 

Well, anyway...here's my very first attempt at a lookbook, and it's connected to my very first attempt at a screenplay since 1994, "Really Old School."

The screenplay's logline: 

Inspired by a piece of 1910s sheet music, a modern-day Omaha, NE teenager wants to honor and emulate the tune's author: Her newly-deceased great-grandmother, a ragtime-era composer-musician-bandleader-arranger.

Hope you like this lookbook...and wishing you all the very best!   

 

Well, it was a Valliant effort (and then some)

Last year, when Rob Richards teamed up with the Fremont, NE barbershop chorus known as the Pathfinders to deliver the Rose Theater's annual River City Theatre Organ Society concert, I didn't get to blog about it.

Had to rush right off and go to a church function afterwards.

No such circumstances this time around; I just got back this afternoon from the 2019 RCTOS extravaganza at the Rose.

I enjoyed it...just as I enjoyed the 2018 offering (despite it running overtime and me having to worry about lateness to that church function I committed to).

Still...when this year's bill was announced, I had mixed feelings. (That's my tough luck.)

I was excited to find out Brett Valliant was going to play the Rose's three-manual, 21-rank 1927 Wurlitzer pipe organ. (Saw one of his YouTube videos- the one where he played "Build Me Up, Buttercup-" and got excited.)

And, in 2005, I saw pianist Robert Glaser perform his brand of jazz at Omaha's since-closed Grande Olde Players Theater, which, at the time, put on a monthly jam session for local jazz performers.

Since then, I've loved Robert's way with a tune...his flair for turning a familiar song on its ear (such as "Ticket to Ride").

Today, Robert brought his Sing Sing Swing Orchestra to the venue at 20th and Farnam. Like Brett, Robert and his seven fellow instrumentalists in Sing Sing Swing play up a storm. And the band's featured vocalist, Julie Baker, sings up a storm. 

Julie was the first female performer to be part of a Concert at the Rose since...2011, when another Nebraska big band, the sixteen-member Swingtones, shared the bill with Ballet Nebraska and organ great Dave Wickerham. (At that time, pianist Jennifer Novak-Haar and saxophonists Deb Lund and Sarah Stratton were in the Swingtones.)

Well, if you dig into "Boston's Blog's" archives, you'll find a post built around Lady Gaga's 2016 observation that the music business is a...well, you know, a boys' club. Not just in rock, R&B, pop, and country, either.

And that's why I had mixed feelings (flinch).

So...I bit my tongue this afternoon.

And opened up my ears.

And heard Brett wow the audience with tunes like "Vanessa," "Tango Tedesco," the "South Pacific" gem "Bali Hai," "Atlanta, GA," Pietro Deiro's "Pietro's Return," Disney mainstay "Go the Distance," "Maple Leaf Rag," "Over the Rainbow," "Little White Lies," and "You Raise Me Up..." to say nothing of a medley of selections from a Gioachino Rossini opera, 1817's "La Gazza Ladra," or "The Thieving Magpie."

Almost a century after "La Gazza Ladra" debuted, theater organs started popping up, and the first people to play them in public often took operas and other classical works and adapted them for those Mighty Wurlitzers and competing brands. (They weren't initially called "unit orchestras" for nothing...and Brett showed that today.)

After a fifteen-minute intermission, the man from Wichita, KS came back to fire up "Wake Up and Live." 

He then turned the show over to Robert and Co.

Sing Sing Swing jumped out of the gate with "In the Mood" before Julie jumped up to sing 1964's "L-O-V-E," Nat King Cole's next-to-last chart single during his lifetime.

"One O'Clock Jump" followed before Julie grabbed the mike back from Robert to sing "That Old Black Magic." The two of 'em teamed up to sing "Chattanooga Choo Choo," and then it was all instrumental after that, with the orchestra teaming up with Brett to do "Sing, Sing, Sing" and an encore of "In the Mood."

Well...what can I say, after they had me moving in my seat to the music?

How about...encore?

A tale of two ragtime festivals (Part 2)

Just going on how the Saturday session of this year's Ragtime to Riches Festival went, I had high hopes about the Sunday leg- the 7-14-2019 turn at Omaha's First Central Congregational United Church of Christ.

In a nutshell, we didn't get the kind of crowd that assembled at the Pink Poodle Steakhouse the day before.

But all four of those who paid to come to see the First Central leg of R to R 2019 still had fun.

At 2:00 PM (Central time), I was supposed to give a workshop. 

I gave it, all right...but it wasn't the one I hoped to conduct.

Ever since last year, I've been wanting to showcase some of the work of four ragtime composers: Sadie Koninsky (1879-1952), Charlotte Blake (1885-1979), Julia Niebergall (1886-1968), and May Aufderheide (1888-1972).

I brought notes with me.

Yours truly forgot to bring sheet music.

So...I went the autobiographical route instead. (Next year, I want to build my concert around works like Sadie's "Eli Green's Cakewalk," Julia's "Hoosier Rag," May's "Dusty," and Charlotte's "That Poker Rag." And leave the workshop to another performer.)

Speaking of concert...Faye Ballard was the first to give one at this year's R to R.

Hers was a workshop in itself; the Champaign, IL native started her concert with favorites "The Entertainer," "Puttin' on the Ritz," "Sailin' Away on the Henry Clay," and "It Had to Be You."

The former University of Illinois-Champaign-Urbana office manager put her tribute to ragdom's Big Three smack dab in the middle: Scott Joplin's "Pineapple Rag," James Scott's "Frog Legs Rag," and Joseph Lamb's "Cleopatra Rag." 

Faye went ahead and did one of May's followups to "Dusty" ("The Thriller") and followed it up with Adaline Shepherd's "Pickles and Peppers." "Raggity Rag" and "12th Street Rag" closed Faye's sixth R to R concert out.

Faye's mom, Erma, gave me the inspiration for my own concert.

Last year, Erma wanted to hear "Angry," a 1925 hit for a singer-pianist named Art Gillham, from me. I didn't have the sheet music with me at the time.

Fixed that here in 2019.

Matter of fact, my version of "Angry" led off a concert consisting of tunes whose titles have just one word apiece: Fellow 1925 hits "Cecilia" and "Collegiate," two compositions from 1927 ("Chloe" and a tune that somebody should've had a hit record with, "Beautiful"), 1920's "Margie," and two rags- Nellie M. Stokes' 1906 "Snowball" and another piece Scott J. came up with in 1902, "Cleopha." 

I felt better about my concert than my workshop, I'll tell you that. I'm glad the concert worked out.

Marty Mincer accompanying Buster Keaton's 1920 short, "One Week," worked out great.

We were hoping Erma and Faye would come back for the 7:00 PM showing of "One Week," and Marty vamped for a while so that the Two Ballards could see the film in its entirety.

Oh, well...

But the audience enjoyed "One Week..." as well as Marty's handling of the music.

The apple farmer from Hamburg, IA had time left in his set to fire off his version of "The Entertainer" before he took R to R 15.0 out in style with "The Stars and Stripes Forever."

Well...now it's back to the drawing board to get the word out about Ragtime to Riches 2020.

Hope you can make it!