I am trying to take your cash...

Count Blah *blah*

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Doors at 7 p.m. with the show to start promptly at 8 p.m.

The Moon Seven Times' set will begin at 10 p.m.

Advanced tickets ($10) available via www.theHighdive.com



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"Did you hear Don Gerard tried to do some crazy jump and fell down and broke his hip?"
"Actually, at that age typically it is the case the person's hip breaks first and then they fall."

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For Kenny

During my adolescence I thought of Kenny as being some incredible entity from an entire other universe in which I could never be a part and only gaze upon in awe from afar.

Now he comes up and shakes my hand and tells me he sometimes reads this blog...it is like meeting Clark Kent, but somehow knowing he is really Superman, but you cannot let on.

There are a couple of Vb worthy quips in here, I think...

(click on it for a bigger version)

Get 'Em Before They're Gone...

Lately I have been listening to the two Steve Pride discs Geoff issued on Spur/Parasol and - if I do say so myself - they really are stellar works. As only a grand or so of each were pressed (and I am not optimistic either will ever be re-issued) I highly recommend you earmark $15 of your stimulus bonus bucks and pick up the pair.

Alternative country-rocker Steve Pride formed backing band His Blood Kin in 1990 with former Moon Seven Times bassist Don Gerard and Titanic Love Affair guitarist Jay Bennett. Throughout the early half of the decade, the group shared stages with the likes of Uncle Tupelo, the Jayhawks and the Bottle Rockets, helping kick-start the coming insurgent country movement but earning little of the attention won by their contemporaries; after recording a series of demos, Pride eventually dissolved His Blood Kin, with Bennett going on to join Wilco. A Pride solo album, Haint, followed in 1997; a collection of unreleased early material, Pride on Pride, appeared two years later. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide

Content provided by All Music Guide © 2008 All Media Guide, LLC

"Well we came to came to see the bright lights, but they don't shine no more...blinded by the glitter of the halos we wore..." -- Goodnight Abilene

"...and the marching band played a refrain that sent my senses reeling - 'You've Lost That Loving Feeling'..." -- The Last Bar In Town

Save The Date - August 22

Soul Asylum at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.


Soul Asylum Tour Dates Dave Pirner Dan Murphy Lincoln Park Zoo Chicago Jammin' at the Zoo

She Really Is Excellent

Dear Sarah,

Congratulations on being recognized as one of the Teachers ranked as Excellent by Their Students for Molecular and Cellular Biology/Life Sciences and College of Medicine courses taught in Spring and Fall 2007. The School of Molecular and Cellular Biology would like to acknowledge your accomplishments at our awards ceremony and reception...

Come on do what you did...roll me under New Madrid...

• The U.S. Geological Survey says 796 earthquakes have occurred in the U.S. to date in 2008, including 21 on the level of 5.0 and three at 6.0.

• Illinois experiences one earthquake a year on average. Only one quake in 20 years causes damage.

• The last reported damage-causing earthquake measured 5.0 and centered in southeastern Illinois near Lawrenceville and Olney in June 1987.

• Serious damage occurs from a quake only once in every 70 to 90 years in the state.

• The Illinois Geological Survey says devastating earthquakes in the Central U.S. occur only once in every 700 to 1,200 years.

• The last major quake in the Midwest happened Halloween 1895 and was centered just south of Charleston. The magnitude was estimated 6.8 and people as far away as Pennsylvania reported feeling the tremor. Sill, no one was killed or injured and no buildings collapsed.

• The New Madrid Seismic Zone, of which portions of Illinois are a part, experienced three huge quakes estimated at more than 8.0 on the Richter Scale during the winter of 1811-12. The region was sparsely populated so only a few injuries are known. But, the force appeared to reverse the course of the Mississippi River for a time and rang church bells in Boston. The power opened fissures, formed lakes, uprooted and snapped trees, sunk or raised large sections of land more than 20 feet and affected 600,000 square miles.

• USGS scientists think a major quake occurs on the New Madrid Fault about once every 500 years. In 2003, the USGS predicted a 7 percent to 10 percent chance of an earthquake of the magnitude of 7.5 to 8.0 occurring along the New Madrid Fault in the next 50 years.

• Scientists estimate the likelihood of a damaging quake measuring 6.3 or greater in the Midwest in the next 15 years at 40 to 63 percent. The likelihood is nearly 100 percent one will occur in the next 50 years.

Chloe & Sarah's Chicago Experience

F-Minus

Peanut Gallery - Saturday, April 5, 2008 - Cubs 9, Astros 7

Out Today

...I have to go pry a gun out of some cold, dead fingers.

Just Can't Get Enough

I will never cease to be amused by this whole situation...

Hoops Pics

(I do not know what is up with the black and red hair on all the kids...Will's is really just kind of sandy brown)

...these things always seem to show up about a month after the season ends.

Cool!

13

Created by OnePlusYou - Free Online Dating

Illini Hockey Hardware

Come on out and Cheer on the Illini one more time.

Tuesday, March 25
6:30-8pm
at the UI Ice Arena

There will be a special presentation at the beginning of this event.
Everyone will then have a chance to meet the players AND SKATE with the team.

Admission is FREE; Skate rental $1.00

Championship T-shirts and Illini Hockey programs will be on sale to support the club.
Players will also be signing autographs.

Go Illini!
38-0
ACHA & CSCHL Champs

http://www.campusrec.uiuc.edu/skating/publicskate.html

David A. Bagger
Lead Assistant Director, Campus Recreation

Local officials and the Pittsburgh Penguins hockeyjail and two elementary schools.

We went to New York City, saw famous people up close, almost got peed on at Coney Island, did not shoot the freak, I got my haircut by the barber who has been cutting hair longest ("but you can't cut hair longer, Don, only shorter!") in downstate Illinois...however, this is all you're getting...sorry.

I am the one on the left

You Guys (& Gals) Are FIERCE!

$1270.00

(so far)

THANK YOU, FRIENDS!

UPDATE - On Saturday, March 8, 2008 265 participants at Lake of the Woods in Mahomet (unofficially) raised over $65,000 for Special Olypmics Illinois - Eastern Prairie.

(2007 totals 225 plungers raised $55,000 and way back when I first started plunging in 2002 35 plungers raised $8,400...I think I raised over $1,000 of that total)

Project Runway

Victoria Beckham is totally the Rush Limbaugh of Project Runway.

















...and am I the only one who kept hearing the lines, "There's absolutely no organic flow-through"; "Ugh. Deliver me from L.L. Bean" and "Don't mind her. She's still upset because somebody dropped a house on her sister" in my head throughout the season?

...tip of the hat to Kim Robeson for Christian images.

Perfection

38-0-0

Found Fotos

Halloween - 1993? 1994? Pig & Bear

(note clever (sic) "Robert Smith in 'Why Can't I Be You?' video" aspect of costumes)
photos by Jim Coffin

Find Don (age 13)

Disclaimer - two individuals (who are twins and shall remain nameless) - nearly peed their pants laughing while viewing these photographs. You have been warned...

Blast from the Past...

I recently re-read this column I wrote a few years ago and actually chuckled at my own "hilarity"...Please feel free to let me know I should get over it already...

Don Gerard’s Acoustic Blog
“Urine For A Good Read”
– or – “The Lawn Arranger!”
Illustration by David King

It is a Herculean task delivering a full page of peerless prose every 14 days, however, a “Community Column” such as this is a vital component of the very essence of our American way of life. I unhesitatingly confess it is temping to consider emancipating myself from the burdensome shackles of being the scribe responsible for the written discourse upon which future historians will undoubtedly one day cite as one of the primary journalistic cornerstones of the 21^st century in Downstate Illinois.

However, I also understand with the great power (that which arises from being the most wildly popular and critically heralded essayist in the region) also comes great responsibility.[i]

That having been said, this installment (as with each every-other-week’s offering) contains yet another matter which will surely incite the local citizenry – from pundits to post-hold-diggers – to ponder, perorate and pontificate:

My dog’s urine.

A couple of years ago I rather suddenly settled on the notion it was imperative I adopt a puppy from the Humane Society. While I had never actually had my very own pooch, per se, I felt fairly well-equipped with a rudimentary knowledge of the basics (feed, pet, take for walks, save plastic grocery sacks to pick up poop, etc.).

Of what I was blissfully unaware was the fact a dog’s kidneys produce a discharge which possesses a pH-factor only slightly less acidic than Loren’s “Tatelines” column the week the NCAA voted to cut the bottoms out of the peach baskets.[ii]

Also, the females or, as dog breeders love to say (and more than just a bit too much if you ask me), “bitches” are far more damaging to lawns. This is because bitches[iii] opt to distribute their toxic discharge in a more concentrated location as opposed to the males who prefer to spray it all over the place.

[NOTE: Former acquaintances need not thank me for resisting the undeniable urge to elaborate on the irony/coincidence.[iv]]

So, I am in my backyard last weekend with a 20-pound sack of Re-Turf-O-Turf Turf-building Turf Patch. Have you never had the pleasure of padding the primrose path of lawn patch I will apprise you of its distribution process:

A) The “Oh, No! My clothes dryer has thrown up all green lint all over my lawn” stage. This effect is achieved by dumping the dry mixture of ground-up, recycled newspaper, fertilizer and grass seed in one’s yard.

B) The “Oh, No! My lawn looks like the alley behind Kam’s the day after Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day” stage which occurs after one soaks the whole mess thoroughly. The bilious, viscid mixture must remain damp throughout the germination period[v]. To insure proper sogginess is achieved the lawn must be watered at intervals of, oh, every 12 minutes.[vi]

Speaking of watching grass grow, I was recently informed of how the cadaver labs at the University of Illinois’ Medical School, windowless and without clocks, are (for lack of a better term) “a real time suck”.

I was quick to point out it sounded not unlike being inside a casino in Las Vegas. With the exception of in lieu of surgically-enhanced, dramatically coiffured cocktail maidens endlessly fetching complimentary, water-downed highballs there are instructors in white lab coats (the stiffs with their skin peeling off is pretty much the same in both, however, the difference being the ones in Urbana are not sitting at slot machines with plastic cups full of nickels).

Should the grass actually take I suppose I will need to instruct Ivy (she is my bitch[vii]) to “go potty” somewhere other than on the lawn. Perhaps I could designate an area in which I put some pea gravel[viii] upon which she may “do her business”.

Speaking of Ivy (she is the bitch[ix] in my profile photo), we currently take her to a veterinarian with one of the most renowned reputations in the area for both quality medical care and somewhat questionable “bed-side manner” (I would never be so crass as to reveal her identity in print, but I will give you a hint by revealing her surname is the same as that of a popular brand of instant soup[x]).

During my (then even more so) snowy-coated mutt’s first visit the VMD addressed her as “Ivory”. When I corrected her mistake (amongst the hounds in Ivy’s litter were a pair of mongrels named “Homer” and “Wrigley”…Get it?) she paused, then looked at her and said, “Ivy? That’s not a good name for you at all. You should be named ‘Ivory’.”

Still, the good doctor keeps our baby[xi] healthy so she might continue to drop more acid than Ken Kesey and, like a Merry Prankster, I will continue to attempt to grow enough grass to keep up with her.

Don Gerard owns a lot of records – yes, “records” – by the Ramones, the Clash, the Descendents, Husker Du, the Dickies, Big Black, Die Kreuzen, the Jam, Nine Nine Nine, the Replacements, et al and deeply, deeply regrets resorting to using Hippie analogies. Yeesh.

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[i] “With great power comes great responsibility” is a registered trademark of Marvel Comics. Any similarity between Spider-man and Don Gerard is purely coincidental. Except, of course, for the whole “Power = Responsibility” stuff.

[ii] Were I to broach the subject of the composition of dog crap I would have most assuredly made a Bill O’Reilly reference.

[iii] Okay, so it IS kind of fun I must admit.

[iv] Oh, I think you know who you are.

[v] Approximately equal to that of the duration of the NBA season.

[vi] Or water once for every third time Dick Vitale mentions “Duke” or “Coach K”.

[vii] Ha!

[viii] Ha!

[ix] Stop it! You’re killing me!

[x] …and rhymes with “Schmlipton”.

[xi] You thought I was going to say “bitch” again!