Riverside Chats

On today's show, Maria Corpuz is in conversation with Jewel Rodgers - a poet, artist and placemaker from North Omaha. She was a Buffett Scholar at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and went on to receive a Master’s in Real Estate Development from New York University. She was nominated for best performance poet at the 2022 Omaha Entertainment and Arts Award. Her multi-sensory poetry collection “Wax Over Water” received a Populus Fund Grant in 2023 through the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in New York, and she’s a 2023 fellow at the Union For Contemporary Art in Omaha. 

Rodgers is a youth poetry coach at Culxr House with the Nebraska Writers Collective. She also founded PlaceMade, a resident-led group creating community spaces on vacant lots in North Omaha.

Money is nice, right? It’s fun to buy things. But there are contexts where you’d hope that the equation is more complicated than dollar equals result, like medicine or politics. In particular, Nebraska has been the focus of several concerns about the line between money and political results. Today Jack Gould from Common Cause Nebraska is in conversation with Tom Knoblauch about the influence of lobbyists and special interest groups in our state legislature--as well as what can be done to improve the problems of money in our politics.

Drew Shuck sings and plays the drums in local punk band Bug Heaven. Adam Haug produces beats as Haunted Gauntlet for emcee Conny Franko in

On today's show, Maria Corpuz is in conversation with Drew Shuck and Adam Haug about the Omaha DIY music scene, the process of remixing “Survived By,” and what to expect at their upcoming concert. This episode comes with a content warning, as it contains discussion of mental illness and suicide.

Last year, author, screenwriter, and host of Studio 360 Kurt Andersen joined Riverside Chats to discuss his two volume explanation of America, Fantasyland and Evil Geniuses. In that conversation, he mentioned that he was working on a third part to this series, which would be fictional. He wouldn’t give away any details at the time, but it turns out that he was working on Command Z, a new 8 part web series directed by Steven Soderbergh. The show follows a team from the 2050s who can transport their consciousnesses back into people today to try to reverse the trends leading to catastrophes of climate, economics, income inequality, and more. Today Andersen is back in conversation with Tom Knoblauch about how the series came to be, what Soderbergh could bring to the Andersen's diagnosis of the American present, and then how a show like this can impact viewers in a bleak political environment.

All episodes of Command Z are available now at commandzseries.com.

Today Heidecker is in conversation with Tom Knoblauch about artifice and authenticity, how he harnesses both, and the decision to bundle them in his Two Tims Tour, which you can see at the Admiral on August 23.

Nebraska prides itself on its Unicameral, which in theory reduces partisanship by forcing cooperation and moderation. That is, unless it doesn’t. In the headlines from this year’s legislative session, a common concern was whether partisanship had finally overtaken the body. Was this a breaking point? A sign of the future? Just a fluke year? It can be difficult to tell in a vacuum, so today's show has Tom Knoblauch in conversation with attorney Wes Dodge to parse through what happened, why it happened, and what it means for Nebraska going forward.

Satire uses exaggeration to critique something about the world we live in, but what happens if the world is crazier than any satirist can come up with? How does one parody, as Kurt Andersen has put it, "the greatest self-parodists of all time"? On today's show, Tom Knoblauch is in conversation with Geitner Simmons, author of the new book, Android Run, a sci-fi thriller with a heavy dose of satire to discuss the societal role of fiction, journalism, and the pervasive absurdity no one can escape.

BFF Omaha, formerly known as Benson First Friday, is a nonprofit arts organization whose mission is to build community through art engagement. BFF started in June 2012, and was named the first official Creative District in Nebraska in 2022. On today's show, Michael Griffin is in conversation with Annie Butler, production manager and the advocacy chair, and Petfest founder Zach Schmieder about the annual showcase of local and national musical acts within the Benson community.

Petfest 2023 is on August 19 at the Petshop Gallery in Benson.

The HALLINS Corporation is a nonprofit whose mission is to stimulate constructive change in underserved communities through art and culture. It was founded in 2016, and puts on both the Omaha Jazz Experience and the LOVAM Jazz Festival. The Omaha Jazz Experience is a ticketed jazz concert that raises for the Hallins Corporation. This year’s show is this Saturday, July 22 at Stinson Park and will feature Grammy-winning saxophonist Najee.

On today's show, Michael Griffin is in conversation with Lanesa Ballew-Holt and Shontell Prince about the event, its cultural aims, and what to expect this year.

Think of the last fruit or vegetable you ate. Do you know where it was grown? Who cultivated it? Harvested it? Transported it to the grocery store? Could you begin to guess all of the people and places involved in making sure that apple or celery or bok choy made it to your plate? When the food production system is global, it can be easy to forget that it’s possible to grow produce right here at home.

Today Maria Corpuz is in conversation with Stephanie Finklea and Alex O’Hanlon, two urban farmers who are involved with a number of organizations promoting food sovereignty and agriculture here in Omaha. Finklea is the owner and founder of Black Chick Farm. O’Hanlon is a coordinator at Free Farm Syndicate. Both cofounded Omaha Sunflower Coop and collaborate on Blazing Star Seed Cooperative, which aims to teach seed-saving skills and provide free seeds to the community.