A few other things happened while I was gone last week which I forgot to mention. The Reader announced a number of management shifts June 2 including Summer Miller rising to the esteemed position of Editor in Chief -- a well-deserved promotion, methinks, though I don't know what the difference is between "managing editor" and "editor-in-chief" except maybe Publisher John Heaston will be out of her hair… somewhat. Summer's ascension made room for City Weekly Managing Editor Andrew Norman to come over to The Reader and take Summer's old job (I assume Andrew quit at the CW? Imagine if he didn't...). Maybe the strangest announcement, however, was that The Reader purchased The Pulp, a weekly newspaper that was part satire, part criticism and thoroughly confusing. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, though one would presume Heaston traded a handful of Stacy's Car Wash coupons and whatever spare change he had in his pocket for all of The Pulp's office equipment/computers/stationary and former Pulp publisher Al Johnson, who will now work selling Directorio Latino, the Spanish-language phone book Heaston prints with ABM in South Omaha. "We'll be continuing all of The Pulp's advertising contracts and we've already started talking with their writers. The last issue of The Pulp as a separate publication hit the streets yesterday," Heaston said in a memo to Reader writers/staff. No idea what that means. What I do know is that right under the Omaha World-Herald's nose Heaston is quietly building a small publishing empire that already includes El Perico, Today's Omaha Woman and a bunch of other magazines and websites. Can Voice of the New City be next? It might be too late -- a QT video found at www.omahavoice.com has ominous overtones.

Hot show tonight: Omaha/Lincoln band The Terminals takes the O'Leaver's stage with Chicago band MOTO, while California singer-songwriter Adam Derry is at Sokol Underground with Kyle Harvey and Reagan Roeder. Derry apparently used to live in Omaha and bills himself as "this generation's James Taylor." Not quite, but the promoter tells me the show has already pre-sold very well. See you at O'Leaver's (if I'm able).

-- By the way, the webboard is down for server upgrades. Check back tomorrow if you have something on your mind.--