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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 2, 1999)
/\'^r'FlJTERTAINMENT F Street Recreation Center to rebuild for the future More space, services expected from new facility By Diane Broderick Staff writer A 4.5 million renovation and expansion project aims to transform the F Street Recreation Center into something more all-encompassing - a com munity center. The center, 1225 F St., will undergo a $3.5 million renovation project that would make it capable of handling more people of different age groups and offering more services. Another million will be put toward property acquisition, so the center will be able to expand its size. In its history, the Rec Center already has gone through several major transformations. It started as a fire station, which was then re tooled to serve as a senior center. In the late ’70s, it expanded to include another major segment of the population - children - and assumed the title it still holds today: The F Street Rec Center. “We are probably the most culturally, genera tionally, financially diverse center in the city,” Karla Decker, the center’s director said. Morning programs for seniors and afternoon activities for children are the center’s two main ser vices. Inside the center, pink walls surround two pool tables, long tables on wheels, a foosball table and several folding chairs. Its walls are adorned with chalkboards, signs announcing such upcoming events as the Senior’s Valentine Potluck, and photo collages bringing to memory past occurrences, such as Faces of Kwanzaa ’98. Regular programs for seniors include a weekly choir group that visits various nursing homes and a walking group that meets twice a week. It also pro vides seniors a dose of healthy competition. “They shoot pool, and they play cards - and some of them can do it seven days a week,” Decker said. Children’s activities include touch football, pool, basketball, a yo-yo club and tutoring Various special cultural holidays also are cele brated, including Kwanzaa and the Lunar New Year, the largest celebration of Asian culture, she said. One of the center’s more ambitious programs is its PLAY camp - Positive Learning Activities for Youth - which takes place in the summer. It originally was offered five years ago exclu sively to children with behavioral problems, Decker said. “Those children especially need structure, or else they’ll just lose everything,” she said. But its scope was widened, and now is open to children in kindergarten through sixth grade who live or go to school in cen sus districts specific to the area. In the past, the summer camp has been located in Lincoln exclusively, but for next summer a new approach has been planned. A University of Nebraska-Lincoln staff member at the center had worked with children in Scottsbluff, which Decker says has a 50 percent Hispanic population. Camp planners were dis cussing the cultural differences between the two groups of children, and it sparked an idea. “We said, ‘We ought to pop our kids on a bus and take them to Scottsbluff this summer,’” Decker said, “and a lot of people found the idea intriguing.” A series of trips to western Nebraska are planned for the camp. The children will learn about a specific sub ject each week, then visit places that will give their learning a context u— We are probably the most culturally; generationally andfinancially diverse center in the city” Karla Decker F Street Rec Center director “By the time that they get to these places, they will know what they’re looking at,” she said. And though the variety of programs available from the center is consider able, renovation pro ject planners hope that with some work, the center will be able to do much more. Construction on the recreation center and its surrounding areas will begin in the fall, said Lynn Johnson, the project’s manager at the Park Heather Olenboski/DN THE CURRENT F STREET Recreation Center, located at 1225 F St., will undergo construction and a major expansion this fall. and Recreation Department It will become a community center - its name not yet determined - within about two years, with involvement in four neighborhoods all within about two miles of the center, he said. The existing center will mainly be built around and touched up because of its solid struc ture, Johnson said. But surrounding buildings will be demolished or partially demolished, and Johnson said that in its place will stand a new cen ter, almost eight times larger than the current facil ity. A gym, a game room, an aerobics room, indoor and outdoor tracks, offices and meeting rooms are just a few of the new sen ices that the center will be able to offer, once completed. The project arose out of a desire to make that area of Lincoln a more appealing place to live, Johnson said. “If you look at the demographics of that area, it’s the lowest income-pcr-cupita area of the city.” The level of living is lower in this area of town because of a widely distributed mixture of college students and low-income families. Johnson said. Decker echoed Johnson’s observations. Right now, she said, there are vast populations not being served very well, including the unemployed, a large immigrant population and people with dis abilities. And the renovations will help tl ic center reach 'more people more of the time, Johnson said. No longer will the day have to be divided between age groups. A greater breadth of social services w ill be offered, which could include job training, public health checks and teaching English as a second language, John^on-said. “This is the end of almost seven years of plan ning,” Johnson said of the project, funded through a program that returns state tax dollars to the city. But when construction begins this fall, the center will have to relocate - temporarily. “We will have to move to another location - we’re not sure where it is,” Decker said. “But we will stay in the neighborhood.” , Monkey Boy searches for the fruits of roots-rock labor By Christopher Heine Staff writer Television and movie producers of the 1970s discovered the monkey was an easy tool to help post-Nixon America laugh again. “Ha-ha-ha. They look just like humans!” the country chirped. The phenomenon seemed innocent enough at the time. But what happened to our youth in “Star Wars” pajamas gig gling at every ape or chimpanzee strut ting across the screen? The adorable primates of “BJ and the Bear,” “Every Which Way But Loose” and “Beneath the Planet of the Apes” left indelible marks on a young Generation X long before they discussed evolution over bottles of Rolling Rock and pot brownies. The band Monkey Boy might just be the primate pathway needed to appropriately assess the lasting effects these playful apes had so many years ago. The group, with its roots-rock Concert Preview TIm Facts What: Monkey Boy Where: Knickerbockers, 901 0 St. When: Friday Cost: $4 The Skinny: Missouri band wants to give you the business - monkey business sounds, will appear at Knickerbockers, 901 O St., Friday night. Some Lincolnites may recognize Monkey Boy’s singer, Jimi Hathaway, from his forma band, Keely Zoo. The monkey business continues. In the case of this Warrensburg, Mo., group, it has seemed to cause a unique form of devolution. Monkey Boy’s debut CD, “H20,” seems to highlight the band’s discovery of water, and more importantly, women. The album encompasses exam pies of male-chases-female in an almost cave-man sense. Hathaway croons about his lusting with a voice that sounds like “Weird Al” Yankovich. And similarly, this man wreaks savage, unintellectual havoc. The opening track, “Paranoid Schizo,” crudely vocalizes his timeless yearning. “Whenever I say goodbye, I just want to kiss you,” he sings. “Whenever I say goodnight I just want to do you. You lying there doing what you always do to me. Lying there... tits in the air... I just want to screw you.” Guitarist Chris Meek said this set of lyrics demonstrates that Hathaway is a “very multidimensional writer.” “He’s one of those writers who can realty put a twist on words,” Meek said. “He has this childlike innocence in one phrase. And in the next line he’s real sar castic and witty.” Members of Monkey Boy are based out of an old sharecropper’s lot near Warrensburg called The Freedom Farm. The band’s lyrics suggest women, when at the farm, don’t feel the need to cover their breasts. One envisions this acreage to be a free-wheeling, throwback soci ety based on the prelapsarian garden of Eden. “We party a lot there after the bars close,” Meek said. The alcohol and the ladies evidently are driving the males just plain homy crazy. However, beer and the female form of our species is not the only thing the Monkey Boys tend to be deeply affected by. They also seem to like ducks quite a bit On their album’s sixth track, “The Pond,” Hathaway pins down the fun to be had with these feathery friends. “Let’s go down to the pond and mess with the ducks,” Hathaway poeticizes. “Let’s go down to the pond... I want to get messed up.” Three tracks later, “It’s All About Dudes,” digs deeper into this theme. Hathaway appears to believe that these dudes are bom leaders. “Wherever you go, Pm sure to fol low,” he sings. “If you ever fly ... Pm fight behind you.” Meek said the songs are indeed inspired by real, live ducks. “It’s a real pastime in Warrensbuig for slacker-types to go down to Lion’s Lake and get high,” he said. “Water is a theme throughout the album, and I think Jimi uses the ducks as a metaphor.” Monkey Boy’s performance at Knickerbocker’s this weekend will mark the band’s first appearance in Lincoln. Meek said the band “wants to be as entertaining as possible.” If nothing else, Monkey Boy will serve as a barometer for the effects of the ’70s chimp-entertainment explo sion. Unfortunately, it sounds like the era of surreal interaction between animals ami humans may have taken its toll on Hathaway. Hie homeless singer 1 ikes to wander from place to place much like a duck or mating monkey. ~ 4 > “Jimi’s one of those people who doesn’t have a home,” Meek said.
