L. Kent Wolgamott
Entertainment reporter/columnist
Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!
Your notification has been saved.
There was a problem saving your notification.
{{description}}
Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Followed notifications
Please log in to use this feature
Log In
Don’t have an account? Sign Up Today
Sen. Bob Kerrey once ran into my brother in the Minneapolis airport and told him I had the best job in Lincoln.
That may, or may not have been true. But spending 41 years writing about music, movies, art and culture, certainly beat having to actually work for a living.
To that end, “The worst movie is better than the best City Council meeting” was my work mantra, and going to films, concerts, art exhibitions that I really wanted to see, my reward.
Was is the operative word there for I’ve retired from the Journal Star.
There’s no way to summarize 44 years working at the Lincoln newspaper in one column. But my retirement does mark a historical end of sorts.
I’m the last pre-merger newsroom employee — I worked for the family-owned Lincoln Journal for four years before it was purchased by Lee Enterprises. And, I’m the last of the 1995 “original” Journal Star employees.
What I can do, for the last time in the Journal Star, is answer the questions I’ve most frequently been asked over the years: “What’s the best concert you’ve ever been to” and “what’s the best movie you’ve ever seen?”
Both are impossible to answer — for many reasons, from faulty memory and nonexistent record-keeping to sheer volume. I’ve reviewed, at minimum, 4,000 movies and probably seen double that many shows/concerts/performances, etc.
But the most memorable show: that’s easy.
In 1985, I literally sat at the feet of Jerry Lee Lewis as he tore up the Saddle Club, a private establishment on the outskirts of Grand Island that had hired The Killer for a night.
Sitting on the floor a few feet from his piano, plugged into Jerry Lee’s pure rock ’n’ roll was exhilarating to say the least. And that proximity got me some “watch this” grins and gestures from the master entertainer, in what 40 years later, remains my most unforgettable show.
A very close second: the American Ballet Theatre’s 2018 presentation of “Firebird” with dance superstar Misty Copeland and the St. Louis Symphony at the Lied Center for Performing Arts.
As for Pinnacle Bank Arena, if I had to pick a most memorable concert, it would be Elton John’s 2013 show. From the fifth row directly in front of his piano, it was like watching Elton at the Zoo Bar.
At Pinewood Bowl, the choice is Paul Simon, whose exquisite, two-hour career retrospective remains the best-sounding outdoor concert I’ve ever attended.
And, at the now demolished Pershing Auditorium, that honor has to go to Elvis Presley, just weeks before he died in 1977.
Who are your favorite artists is just as hard to answer. But you might get some clues from this list of the “national” artists I’ve seen the most:
Bob Dylan, The Replacements, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, Willie Nelson, Garth Brooks, Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, Def Leppard, Drive-by Truckers, The Hold Steady and, perhaps these shouldn’t count, my friends Steve Earle and Matthew Sweet.
Earle, who I’ve been friends with for 40 years, also supplied one of the off-stage memories that I’m often asked to recount:
Going back to his room in the Hilton after a show so he could play me a song he’d finished a few days earlier, he pulled out a mandolin and hit a few now-famous licks and I became one of the first people to hear “Copperhead Road.”
I also recall sitting in the living room of the southeast Lincoln house he was living in during the filming of “Amerika” with Kris Kristofferson, listening to him play, sing and talk about “Me & Bobbie McGee,” “Sunday Morning Coming Down” and “Help Me Make It Through the Night” with his little kids running around.
Some other fond memories:
Listen now and subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RSS Feed | SoundStack
* Eating McDonald’s hamburgers while sitting in a Papillion-La Vista High School desk next to Matthew Broderick on the set of “Election,” then failing to find Reese Witherspoon in the school library because she blended in with the high school girls.
* Handing water to Joan Jett & the Blackhearts as the sun beat down on the stage at Comstock. Running back and forth a few times left me drenched in sweat. The sweat glued on Joan’s leather pants.
* Sitting in a downtown restaurant with documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker to talk about his Bob Dylan film “Don’t Look Back.”
* Standing alone in a “cathedral” of Jackson Pollock paintings during a private view at the Museum of Modern Art.
* Looking through the peepholes of Marcel Duchamp’s “Étant Donnés” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, then talking with my colleagues in the International Arts Journalism Institute about the still shocking 1966 piece.
* Playing basketball with the Beastie Boys backstage at a Lollapalooza — they could hoop a little — and with Counting Crows at the now destroyed Omaha Civic Auditorium — let’s just say they couldn’t hoop.
* And, in the oddest of them all, bowling with Black Sabbath at the Ranch Bowl. We all sucked.
The other most common query is who is the most famous person I’ve met.
Worldwide, it’s probably got to be Michael Jordan.
Or it could be two Beatles (Paul and Ringo) and five presidents — Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush the Elder and Joe Biden, when he was a senator.
Oh, then there’s a 21-year-old Taylor Swift.
Or perhaps, it’s Nobel Prize winners Bob Dylan and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
This could go on and on and on.
But I also need to mention my coverage of the environment and natural resources and my service on the editorial board, which I hope at least created discussions on, if not influenced projects and policies about Nebraska’s most valuable resource, water.
A thank-you list is pretty standard in pieces like this. In my case, that would be as tedious as Academy Award acceptance speeches that recite a list of names.
So, broadly, it’s 44 years of colleagues and friends at the paper, the curators, venue owners and operators, publicists and local artists and musicians I’ve been fortunate to write about and enjoy their work
But most important, I need to thank you, “my” readers.
Whether you liked or hated what I wrote, thought I was a blowhard and a fool, or agreed with my commentary, I’ve sincerely appreciated anyone who read my work and enjoyed talking with you at all kinds of events, by phone and online.
And, you, the readers, are also the reason I’ve been able to do the best job in Lincoln for four decades.
So, to steal from Elvis:
“Thank you, thank you very much.”
Kent has left the building.
Reach the writer at 402-473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com. On Twitter @KentWolgamott
Love
0
Funny
0
Wow
0
Sad
0
Angry
0
Stay up-to-date on what’s happening
Receive the latest in local entertainment news in your inbox weekly!
* I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
L. Kent Wolgamott
Entertainment reporter/columnist
Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!
Your notification has been saved.
There was a problem saving your notification.
{{description}}
Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Followed notifications
Please log in to use this feature
Log In
Don’t have an account? Sign Up Today