In The Year 2025....

I have been writing on Substack for over a year on my Omaha Buzz music blog. I enjoy the simplicity of using this format and the ability to choose what I see and have sent to me. I am not leaving social media at all, but I find myself less interested and engaged with what I see. I was a big fan of algorithms; they really worked out for me. I understood the usefulness. Give me a little bit of people I know and follow, some of the news I want, some music things, and some absurd things. That worked for me. That is not really the case these days. It’s a mess, and it’s only going to get worse. And there are people leaving, and I want to try to keep up with them.

At the record store and in talking with other record stores and small businesses, people are starting to get their email lists up to snuff. It’s not a matter of if social media just collapses to being useless for us, but when. This past year I have spent more time following blogs and emails and reading those. The things I choose. The one downside is you do lose out on some of the random information you probably would not think is useful to you but is kind of useful to you. The upside is less scrolling and more taking some time every day to read and move on. So, no, I am not going to leave social media, but I am going to post weekly here for anyone who cares, and I hope to find more people doing just this also that I want to care about and read.

So, here we go. This is what I got into this week.

New Year, Old Things

I am not opposed to New Year's resolutions; I have done them. This year I am just trying to reset some things. I was pretty happy with the routine I had at one point in the past few years but have fallen out of some of that. One major thing was that I used to walk the Omaha Zoo every week. I always would get there right when they opened on Thursday, be first in line, and zoom out and go the opposite way of everyone else and have the zoo to myself for thirty or forty minutes before I ran into the masses, and then I would head out. I did that for a handful of years, and last year I decided I was going to mix it up and try some other spots and such. I did a couple of months at Vala’s Pumpkin Patch, which was nice, but then I never really found any spots that truly gave me a long, consistent walk every week. I walk in random places pretty much daily and explore, but I need that five-mile walk every week. So, on January 1st, I did my first zoo walk in over a year, and it was wonderful. I got to see my favorite sea lions. I am pretty sure the tiger looked at me like, ‘Where have you been?’ and I got to see the cool new Hubbard Orangutan house. I really like the designs on the walls and such in there. The one thing that bums me out is the old silverback gorilla statue that we as kids took pictures on, and your kids took pictures on, is now perched up high where your grandkids will not be able to take pictures on it. They have a new, smaller stature. I am sure there is a reason for it.

One area I have been exploring lately is some of the trails and area’s around Papillion. I make a weekly trip to Alamo and Costco out that way, so figured why not walk some of the areas at the same time. I have mostly walked the Prairie Queen area, but dipped my toe into Walnut Creek before a lunch this week, and look forward to digging more into that area. I also like that new development area by Prairie Queen. I usually hate new development, and that one really should not be appealing to me, but I think the mixed styles, the closeness of all the spaces and weird little intertangled web of it all is interesting.

I took two of the young people in my life out this week on separate trips as they are out of school. On one trip, we went to the new Prehistoric Putt out in the old Nobbies building. We have been going to all of this company's places for years now: the pirate one in Council Bluffs, the old PPP, and Medieval Putt out in Elkhorn. This new one is massive with, I think, four courses, an arcade, a restaurant, virtual laser tag and more. We played a round of putt putt, and did laser tag. I am a purest of both Putt Putt and Laser Tag, so the methods here don’t fully appeal to me, but are fun. The courses are more for fun, games that happen in the middle or before putting and photo opportunities. I like to play some straight-up competitive putt putt. The kid loved it though. The virtual laser tag is really slick, but I like exploring actual builds that people have put together.

On the other trip we were going to go to The Museum of Shadows, and I have not been there yet. They were closed because the power had been going in and out because a trash truck went into a sinkhole in downtown Omaha. So, we once again went to putt-putt, and this time Fat Putter. This is my second or third time here, and this is owned by the same company that owns the courses mentioned above. This one is very photo opportunity-oriented, and you spend more time playing the games on each hole than actual putting. I think the main purpose of this is that after 6 PM, it is 21 and over and makes a great space for drinking, corporate events, and friend outings. I did not win the putt-putt here.

Afterward we checked off a restaurant on my list that I have not been to. Roma’s in Bellevue I have driven by many times, but I really did not know what was happening inside. It had a much newer vibe inside than I figured; it must have been remodeled recently. Or maybe the place isn’t as old as I have it in my head. Anyway, we had great service (noticeably good service), and the pre-dinner bread was homemade and some of the best I have had at an Italian place. There were a LOT of options on the menu, and it was hard, but I went with one of my standbys, which was tortellini in white sauce. My second go-to is ravioli, and one of my dining partners had that, and I tried it in the red sauce, and that will not make my decision-making any easier next time. I also have to say the leftovers warmed up the next day were as good as the night before. It made for a fantastic lunch.

I had to start off the year with my favorite ice cream. I stumbled on Tipico Helado on 27th and Q streets on a walk some years ago. I think it was the first week they were open, as there was no signage yet, and I had to open the door and talk with my hands to see if they were open, because my dumb ass still hasn’t learned Spanish. That should probably be my resolution. Anyway, I ended up with ice cream and go there quite frequently. My favorite is the marzipan flavor, but sometimes I will go with some of the fruit sorbet types they have. Pretty rarely, though, as if I make the bike ride from Benson to South Omaha, I am going to get my favorite. It looks like they have expanded to West Omaha now, and I see their trucks all over town. For me, though, sitting at the picnic tables in the off-the-beaten-path neighborhood is where this ice cream will probably always taste the best to me.

You can read my thoughts on new release music and shows coming up in Omaha at my Omaha Buzz site. I do want to put some music observations here, though, that do not fit there. This week I revisited a couple of nostalgic artists and albums from me. The first was The Ramones' album Brain Drain. Rhino reissued it on vinyl this week (thankfully on black vinyl, as they tend to do silly colors for their Start Your Ear Off series). It’s not considered a good Ramones album, and I get that. When I was 16, though, I went and saw Pet Sematary at Westroads 8. I fell in love with the theme song from The Ramones and went and saw the movie two more times in the following weeks just to hear it. This is prior to on-demand streaming, of course, and I do not think the album was out yet. I did end up buying the album, and I wore that cassette out. I was mainly a hair metal kid at this point, who also dipped into heavier artists like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Ozzy, Savatage, King Diamond, and stuff like that. So, this may have been my introduction to the band. Either way, I still knew the words to every song, and when I played this album, it was like only a week had gone by since that tape finally bit the dust. We will see how many times that gets played in the future.

The other artist I spent a lot of time with this week was Sananda Maitreya, who you would know better as Terrance Trent D’Arby. Sananda still makes music, and it tends to be large bodies of work, hours long and with a lot going on. I have been following a long, and while they are a lot, there are also some gems in there. He just released a new live album this week, which has some of these songs in the mix but also a lot of his classic songs as well. So this was a really fun listen for me, as I haven’t seen him live since the 90s. He is 62 years old, and I assume he is not playing a large venue here, so it’s not a pristine recording, but it serves its purpose. His voice has some age on it, which I already knew, but man, when he sings the old songs, they still sound great. Most people think he only had one (maybe two good albums) and then disappeared. I think his best album was the third album, Symphony or Damn. If you were to ask me what one of the most overlooked albums of all time was, it would be that. He put out a couple of solid albums after that also. Anyway, if you are a fan or want to see what Sananda has been up to and not dig into a three-hour-long album, check this out.