Ron's Big Life Update - November 1994

(written November 10th:)

Like hi. It's an overcast Wednesday morning in Tucson, which is a very unusual thing. (Normally, it's not Wednesday at all.)

Happy belated Halloween. If you're like me, the belated part doesn't mean much because you still have six bags of Milky Ways left. And I discovered that it's very difficult to eat a whole bag of Milky Ways in one sitting.

Not impossible, just difficult.

I think that I partook in a pretty good Halloween costume this year. My blonde friend Jill and I went to a party as Nicole & OJ Simpson. We made a quick trip to the Salvation Army store and picked up an old black dress for $3.50. Jill actually looked pretty good in it, but then we ripped it to shreds and covered her in fake blood. Mmm mmm good! For my outfit, I piled four pairs of socks on my shoulders (under the blue T-shirt), wrote "32" and "SIMPSON" on the back of the T-shirt, drove to the airport to get some Hertz stuff so I could make a Hertz name tag that read "HI! MY NAME IS O.J.", got a plastic knife, one glove, a Nerf football, and a 1-pint carton of Minute Maid orange juice. Oh, and that black stuff you put under your eyes.

And then we covered me in fake blood also. Woo-hoo! Such bad taste! Jill and I were very proud, indeed.

If you haven't already heard, Tom Jones is back. He's got a killer new song called "If I Only Knew" (produced by Trevor "Art of Noise, Yes, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, ABC, Seal, Buggles" Horn, so it's sonically unbelievable). I love it, and I'm hoping that the rest of the country loves it also.

As for research stuff, I think I'm at the point where nobody knows (or even cares) what I'm doing. Including my advisor. Oy.

Don't forget to tune into KXCI a week from Friday - the next Crap From The Past airs, and it's gonna be huge. Details to follow.

Later, grizzly dudes.
Ron

(written November 10th:)

Like, hi. And thank you for the continued negative feedback concerning my truly tasteless Halloween costume. Next year, Jill and I WON'T be OJ and Nicole. We've learned a valuable lesson here - that I am not at all believable as a football player. It'll never happen again...

Had an amazingly good weekend. Went out dancing Friday night, which was fun. Saturday - UA Homecoming football game (We won, but it was ugly. The best play by far was the 97-yard interception that we ran back for a touchdown. I can't believe that we moved up in the rankings after Saturday.) After the game - big party. I mean BIG party! Including an entry for the It's A Small World file. Lemme 'spain. ("No, not enough time. Lemme sum up." - Princess Bride)

About a year and a half ago, I went out with a few friends to see the Sick and Twisted Animation festival, where I discovered that my wonderful song, "Mutilator", as recorded by Deth Boat featuring me on vocals, turned up in a short animated film. Needless to say, I was speechless when I heard myself screaming at the top of my lungs on the big screen.

As fate would have it, I wound up sitting next to a very attractive woman in the theater (which was my idea, actually. I said, "Let's go sit over by that attractive woman.") We talked a little bit during the movie. I found out that she was from Colorado, and overheard another girl in the same row say that this woman was her 117 T.A. Unfortunately, I lost her in the shuffle after the movie and didn't get her name. Fooey. A quick scan through the course catalog revealed that there was only one 117 class offered in the entire school - Art 117. I figured that they (the art department) might have a big display case with pictures of the graduate students (like Opt Sci), but they didn't, and I abandoned my search after that.

("So Casey, can you play "Wind Beneath My Wings"...")

Fast-forward to sometime in July, when KXCI is playing Disco Music in the streets of downtown Tucson during Downtown Saturday Night. ("Downtown Saturday Night Fever"!) My co-host (Steve "Starsky Suave") and I are decked out in full 1977 regalia. He looks divine in his black/powder blue frilly shirt and pants, and I look resplendent in the same outfit that I wore for Halloween two years ago. (I mix tenses. Please forgave me.)

We take turns mixing songs and announcing silly things on the mike. At one point, Steve takes a break to go dance with a lady-friend of his who stopped by to say hi, while I mix a few songs. Crimes of fashion were committed, and fun was had by all.

Now fast forward again to this cool party on this past Saturday. This is not the usual Opt Sci crowd, so I am very pleased (the circle of friends gets kind of stifling after a while). Not more than five seconds after I've stepped in the door, I wound up being introduced to a very attractive woman, Margaret, and her friend, Amber. We talked and danced the whole night (yes, the party was so good that people danced), and afterwards went to Coffee Etc. (open 24 hours! And they serve pancakes too!). It was only after a few hours of conversation that I realized that Margaret was the one I sat next to at the movies, and also the one who danced with Steve at the Disco Vortex! Yaa! Small world, indeed!

("So, Casey, can you play "Everything I Do, I Do It For You"...")

Margaret and I saw "Frankenstein" last night, along with a few of her friends. The movie was fair, but the company was excellent, and as always, I'll keep you posted.

And I like the new Tom Jones song so much, I put it on my answering machine.

If you have any requests for this month's Crap From The Past show (which airs this Friday), let me know.

Today's high: 74.

Brr!

Later,
Ron

(written November 18th:)

"Hi ho!" - Kermit the Frog

Had another groovy weekend, including a Thank God It's Friday, a Saturday in The Park, and Another Pleasant Valley Sunday.

Friday - had dinner with a friend of mine, who I hadn't seen in a month.

Ran into some other friends of mine at the restaurant. Small world, I suppose. Then did a killer Crap From The Past show. I think I'm onto a new feature that I could very easily do every show - the Torture Chamber! What happened is that I wasn't getting very many phone calls, so I threatened to play parts of Barry Manilow's "Even Now" album unless I got phone calls. Apparently, people didn't think that I had the chutzpah to actually play Barry, so I played Copacabana (the ultra-extended mix) while taking irate phone calls live on the air. People were truly upset, and the whole bit was hilarious. I decided to do this every show now, and I have tons of music that will make people scream - "I Am Woman", "You Light Up My Life", and the coup de grace, "Feelings" by Morris Albert. Oh, I am so looking forward to my next show...

Saturday - watched our football team lose on national TV. It was a really good game to watch, though; both teams had sorely deficient defenses, and the final score was 45-28. Usually, our defense kicks butt and keeps the scoring down - yawn!

Saturday night - another killer party, this time at Eric's house. The two ladies that I met at last week's party showed, and brought along three more women, which is a big plus for Opt Sci people like myself.

Sunday - awoke late, went to brunch at 2, hung out and read the rest of the day.

And now, the part where you, the reader, get to partake in the creative process itself... It's... Write The Blues Song! I'll start:

I wanted to make a samwich/But my bread it done turned green.
I wanted to make a samwich/But my bread it done turned green.
I got me plenty o' meat/But nothing to put it in between.

Now it's your turn. Send your verses to me. When it makes millions, I'll be sure to include you in the royalty checks.

And finally, how do you think people would react to a bumper sticker that says "Beam me up, Jesus"?

Ron

Ron's Big Life Update - October 1994

(written October 6th:)

If it's not getting over 90 degrees today, then you must not be living in Tucson. Today's high - only 91! That's ten degrees cooler than last week! And tomorrow won't even break 90! Rumor has it that we'll be into the low 80s by the end of the week! WOO-HOO!! I can tell that fall is here because I unsealed my windows this past weekend, and I've been keeping them open at night. This is a very good thing, and I'm just praying that it doesn't get over 100 again. (We had 99 days over 100 degrees this year. A new record...)

My wrist is healing very nicely - I now have a cool scar about an inch long on the top of my left wrist. It looks like I slit my wrist without reading the directions first...

I saw "Red Rock West" with Nicholas Cage. (Rather, Nicholas Cage was in the movie; I saw the movie with Christina.) Pretty good, and much better than I expected. Although it's no "Time Cop"...

It appears that my friends are entering a new stage in their lives. Over the last two years, I came to terms with the fact that all of my friends were getting married. This is no longer the curse that it once was to me, and I have accepted marriage as a natural phenomenon, not to be feared or dreaded. Well, I think the next phase is upon me, with the announcements of two pregnancies in the last two months. Uh-oh...KIDS. Oy! To me, a baby is an administrator of sleep deprivation therapy, and a breaker of all that is technologically dear to one's heart. I see my CD collection and an inquisitive child as mutually exclusive. Of course, I'm thrilled for the parents-to-be. It's just that once again, I've been left in the dust; I just recently accepted that they're all married, and now they're going to be parents. Oy! Someday, I hope I have the patience to be a daddy, but right now things don't look so good.

(Congratulations again, Jon. You are a more brave man than I. It's time to hide the good china...)

And in the music world, I have a new discovery - Barenaked Ladies. (I can hear you all snickering, since I've known about barenaked ladies for some time now.) They're five guys from Canada who thought that "Tonight - on our stage - Barenaked Ladies" would look pretty funny on a sign and would get people to walk in off the street. They're like Crowded House with a sense of humor, and that's a very good thing. Lots of acoustic guitar, strong hummable songs, a terrific lead vocalist who sounds like the guy from the Housemartins (who?), and not a hint of big hair or spandex. They have songs like "Be My Yoko Ono" and "Not The King of Bedside Manner", and two albums: "Gordon" (1992) and "Maybe You Should Drive" (1994). They rule. You should buy them.

And our football team won again. We stomped on Oregon State, 30-10. The school paper's sports section has been covering the football team extensively (no surprise), and on Friday ran the headline "Beavers not to be overlooked". Two points for someone on the staff - how did this headline get past the editors???

For you Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans, the U of A's own Gallagher Theater will be showing an MST3K episode on the big screen next Wednesday. Free admission and T-shirts and stuff. I'll be there 48 hours in advance to ensure that I get a ticket. And with the upcoming Thanksgiving Day MST3K Marathon on Comedy Central (and my VCR), I'll have enough bad movies to last the entire year! Woo-hoo!

And finally, Wayne, the guy who owns Disk Jockey Entertainment, sold the company to Bob, who owns Desert DJs. I now belong to Bob. In selling off the company, Wayne sold most of his equipment, and I was able to buy a nice little system for about 80% off list price. So I now have everything hooked up to my home system, including a microphone and a 12-volt lamp. Frivolous is not in my vocabulary...

And write back to me. I don't particularly enjoy listening to myself type, and it would be nice to read other people's ASCII characters every once in a while.

Later, grizzly dudes (last night's Simpsons was amazing, by the way),
Ron

(written October 6th:)

I think I've outdone myself. The following is a letter that I sent out to Tucson Cablevision. I think you'll like it...

Dear Sirs:

I have a suggestion for your company that would potentially benefit all of your customers.

I have received quite a few junk-mail solicitations, and heard more than my share of Tucson Cablevision radio commercials, all of which inform me that your company provides the best TV entertainment around because you offer the most channels. Well, after subscribing to cable TV for a summer and discovering that the majority of your channels offer little or no intelligent programming (Atlanta Braves baseball? Or that motorcycle-jumping sport that's always on ESPN2?), I will probably never subscribe to any pay-TV service again.

There is one channel, however, that consistently produces offbeat, intelligent programming, and is not offered by your system. Owing to an advertising campaign of years past, "I want my BBC."

The British Broadcasting Company produces comedies that are truly funny, eclectic programs that are hosted by real people who take pride in their show's content, and unquestionably the best documentaries in the world. It would be an enlightening experience indeed to see a television personality who wants people to pay attention to his words, not his hair.

I would like to see the BBC offered as a channel on Tucson Cablevision. As an alternative to the typical mindless trash on television, the BBC would certainly be the best TV entertainment around.

Sincerely,
Ron Gerber

I wonder if I'll get a response...
Ron

(wirrten October 11th:)

Ooog. I spent 7 & a half hours in production at KXCI yesterday. First I went home from lab at 3, then spent an hour and a half cueing stuff up on my VCR, then dragged my VCR and armfuls of tapes through rush hour traffic down to KXCI, where I spent the next seven + hours dubbing, cutting, pasting, and putting together the most excellentest drops in the entire world. (Drops are the fancy name that radio people give those amusing little snippets of funniness between songs, etc.) I have about twenty Casey Kasem drops, most of them taken from a 1979 American Top 40 episode. He unflinchingly says, "Disco is the pop music of tomorrow.", "I'd like to take everybody doing evil in the world and turn them on to the positive energy of disco dancing.", "Well, I don't know that roller skating to a disco beat will end crime in the world, but it couldn't hurt.", "This is to show thanks to Boy George for just being himself (on KXCI.)", "We listen to all types of music, but we're especially inspired by Culture Club.", and "Matthew, here's your long-distance dedication."

And I came up with possibly the best radio bit ever. It uses that last "Matthew" drop, and it goes something like this:

Ron "Boogiemonster" Gerber: Well, let's check the Boogiemonster mailbag, shall we? This letter is from a 43-year old musician in Woxahatchie, Texas. He writes, "Dear Boogiemonster, I am a 43-year old musician, and I haven't had a hit on the charts since 1984. After my ground-breaking single, "Break My Stride" fell off the charts, I never had another hit. I released a second album, but the only person in the entire world who bought it was my mom. I even earned a distinction as the only artist named "Matthew" ever to hit the top 40. So can you please play "Break My Stride" to revive my sagging career? Thanks. Signed, Matthew Wilder."

Casey Kasem: "Matthew, here's your long-distance dedication."

-Break My Stride plays.-

I have to actually look up Matthew Wilder's age and hometown, but you get the idea. The true beauty of that bit is that I can do it every week with a different first name and a different washed-up artist. (It may not work out as well as this one, though. I couldn't think of anyone named Renee, for example.)

I think this bit is truly a thing of beauty, and you radio people (Kenny, Pat, and Seth if he ever decides to get his lazy creative butt in gear) are welcome to try it out. If I've only learned one thing in the eight years I've tooled around in radio, it's that Casey Kasem-worship is a healthy thing.

The smaller the numbers, the bigger the hits...
Ron

(written October 20th:)

How-dee! Oy, what a day yesterday! First, we had our biannual (diannual? Anyway, it's twice a year) sponsors meeting. We fly reps from the very large corporations that give us money out to Tucson, we give talks and lab tours, and we eat like kings at a fancy hotel. To a starving grad student like myself, the free food is the best part, and is something we look forward to for about six months.

Well, in between talks yesterday, I managed to wash my car and look at a drum set (saw an ad). I decided that I want the drums, and will be picking them up today. Woo-hoo!

And after dinner was over, I went to see Bruce Cockburn. (He's like Jackson Browne, only Canadian.) Bruce rules!

And now I'm very very sleepy. I guess that's what happens if all you do the day before is sit around and eat. (This explains why ancient France is no longer around.)

Gotta boogie,
Ron

(written October 21st:)

It was &^$%##%&*())!! cold this weekend! It was 10 degrees warmer in Chicago, they tell me. No need to worry, though; we'll be up in the mid-80s by Friday.

Speaking of the mid-80s, Crap From The Past went very well on Friday. I played 12 requests out of 30 songs, so that's 40% requests. Not bad at all, considering that I didn't do any publicity at all for the show. The number of phone calls during the show has been doubling with each show, with no signs of slowing down. (You can see that it will be a ridiculously large number, fairly soon. And extrapolations are never wrong...)

And our football team won, if only 10-7. We almost lost, but we somehow managed to snatch victory from the intestines of defeat. We beat the same team 9-6 last year in a snoozy game...

I went to lunch yesterday with Meghan. She's a new addition to the friends-of-Ron roster, and she's VERY cute. (We technical people would say that she's maximally attractive.) She has two exams this week, and will be a basket case until the weekend. More to follow, hopefully...

Does anyone know how to do least-squares fitting in MATLAB? I need to fit my data to an ellipse.

Later,
"Ron" Boogiemonster "G"

(written October 24th:)

Goot morning! This Monday most certainly feels like a Monday.

Hope you had a good weekend. I did. Spent a good portion of the weekend playing drums at Eric & Julie's house. Julie and I figured out the guitar and bass lines to a whole bunch of tunes; it looks like our band will be playing covers of the Greg Kihn Band and the Shoes. (Band name: The Ultra-Violet Catastrophe.)

Also saw Priscilla Queen of The Desert again. And it's still funny. And

our football team won - we moved up to #11 in somebody's poll.

Why am I all yawny this morning? Bleh!
Ron

Ron's Big Life Update - September 1994

(written September 8:)

Happy New Year, my butt! I was standing out in Times Square for three days before someone told me that the ball doesn't drop for the Jewish new year! Since when?? I guess I'm not gonna need these Jewish new year's resolutions...

Ron

(written September 9:)

Happy Labor Day! May none of us go into labor any time soon...

I'm sorry to say that you all missed the greatest party ever. Tucson has this thing called Downtown Saturday Night every other Saturday, and it's a big-ol' festival thing where you can walk around and buy chachkis and eat and listen to bands, etc. Well, the good folks at KXCI have participating in the last few of these, and this past Saturday, we put on Downtown Saturday Night Fever, featuring "Starskee Suave" and Ron "Boogiemonster" Gerber as hosts of the Disco Vortex! We were in full '70s regalia (I still can't fathom how people actually danced in platform shoes; I'm still limping this morning...) and we looked resplendent! Oy! We had about 80-100 people dancing in the streets to such timeless classics as "Ring My Bell", "Le Freak", "Play That Funky Music", and "Dancing Queen". It was a little surreal, but a lot of fun. Boogie On Reggae Woman...

In other news, don't see "Wyatt Earp". (Did I already tell you this?) It goes on and on and on for over three hours, and it was awful. I thought that the funniest part of the movie was his first wife, whose name was something weird, like Euwina (or something close to that). Euwina Earp? That's funny! But alas, the rest of the movie sucked rocks.

But you should rush out and see "Smile" (from 1974, on video). It's a fairly scathing commentary on society, from the point of view of the contestants in a teen beauty pageant. It's hilarious (Leonard Maltin called it one of the most underrated films of the '70s; I guess it didn't do very well when it came out). It's got Bruce Dern, and a teensy part by Melanie Griffith. Two thumbs up.

Have you bought the new Seal album yet? What are you waiting for?

Keep your feet in the ground, and your head in the sky. You pick 'em, we count 'em down.

Love and kisses,
Casey Kasem

(written September 15:)

HAPPY THURSDAY! And I suppose, HAPPY YOM KIPPUR! (Did I tell you how three years ago I had "Happy Yom Kippur" written on a cake that I brought to dinner?)

I saw a great Australian film last night. It was "Priscilla - Queen of The Desert", and was about three drag queens in the Australian desert, and was the funniest movie I've seen in a long time. It won Most Popular Film at some of the big worldwide film festivals (the names of which escape me), and deservedly so. The film is just opening nationwide, and is definitely worth shelling out $7 to see. A 10. Four stars. Two thumbs up. I laughed, I cried, I saved $7 because I had free passes. But I'd pay $7 to see it again.

All else pales in comparison to Priscilla, so I don't have much to report. Back to you, Maury.

Ron

(written September 19:)

Hi, all. Do any of you remember a problem with my wrists? I might have mentioned something to some of you, but I don't remember who. Anyway, I had them looked at and finally (after 7 years of on/off problems) had them diagnosed. The doctors said that I have teensy little growths on both of the wrist joints, like little bubbles of tissue. They're called "ganglions", and they're about the size of a contact lens. There's an easy surgical procedure to remove them, so I had the left wrist operated on this past Friday. The procedure was done under general anesthesia (a new experience for me), and now I have this HUGE bandage on my left arm; it looks like I'm wearing a boxing glove. I've learned how to do most of my daily activities with just my right hand, but tying shoelaces and putting on after-shave still give me a hard time. I get the huge bandage replaced with something smaller tomorrow, and then I get the stitches out a week from today. I'm thankful that my car has an automatic transmission! I get the right hand fixed in about two months; I should practice doing things with my left hand once it heals.

Oy! Such fun! Actually, the recovery isn't bad at all; I would just like some smaller bandages so I can quit wearing tank-tops (I'm hoping that my huge bandages will divert attention away from my scrawny shoulders!)

And that's what I did this weekend. Oh, and I also saw the Miss America Pageant. Now THAT'S quality entertainment...

No pain, no gain,
Ron

Ron's Big Life Update - August 1994

(written August 17th:)

"Hello." - Richard Nixon, 1963.

I think Mr. Science is in the same stage of his career as Paul McCartney. (not good) If the analogy holds, then Paul is probably recording some really good music and Capitol Records doesn't want to release it. Observe:

Last night, we had some great thunderstorms in Tucson. Blam! Loads of fun! And someone was struck by lightning inside his house; he was putting away the dishes when lightning struck his house, and he got zapped through his dishwasher (he was OK, though). The moral, of course, is to not do the dishes.

Anyway, Mr. Science called in and described his favorite drinking game, called Lightning. Everyone has to stand in the middle of a field with a big metal rod, and if someone gets hit by lightning, everyone else has to drink.

And they didn't air it! Can you believe it? (Although I can't imagine that anyone in their largely female, age 34-75 audience would find that funny...)

Bah humbug.

Hope everything is hunky and dory in your little corner of the world. And long live triple-digit electric bills.

Ron

(written August 23rd:)

"Hi ho neighboroonie!" - Ned Flanders.

We got a big storm on Friday. Big. I mean huge. We had hail the size of quarters. Hail! In Tucson! We had winds of somewhere around 50 MPH and hail! What a blast! It only lasted about a half hour, but it messed up some power lines, and did some wind damage on campus. It was AMAZING! The hail was the most exciting thing yet this summer, and I managed to work it into a Mr. Science bit this morning:

Mr. S: I would have called a few days ago, but I just got out of jail. I can explain...You know how dimples on a golf ball are there for aerodynamic reasons - they decrease the wind resistance of the ball, so the ball goes farther? Well, I was out driving on I-10 on Friday during the big hailstorm, and the hail made all these dents in my car. Well, the wind resistance of my car went way down, and my little Toyota took off like a Porsche! Woo-hoo! I was moving! And a cop finally caught me, and asked, "Son, do you know how fast you were driving?" And I said, "No, my speedometer only goes up to 85." So I spent a few days in jail...

Went to a minor league baseball game on Saturday. The Tucson Toros aren't on strike (unlike some big city teams), so I got to take in another fine American Pastime game. (It's not 100 degrees at night anymore.)

Today is the 83rd day this year that it's been over 100 degrees. I think the record is around 93 days, so we're keeping our fingers crossed and our A/C on High.

Does anyone want to see The Tubes/Missing Persons/A Flock of Seagulls on Sunday? They're all coming to town in one mondo-bizarro triple bill. I am THERE!

Hope the sun is shining and the birds are singing in your neck of the woods. (The birds all got sunstroke and died out here...)

"Later, grizzly dude." - Bart Simpson
Ron

Ron's Big Life Update - June 1994

Howdy hi! The summer solstice is tomorrow, and according to Mr. Science's calculations, the sun will be shining tomorrow for approximately 37 hours.

Had a good weekend out here. I installed a car stereo for a friend (I am now permanently on her good side). The old radio didn't have a "clock" power lead that stayed on when the ignition was off; no clock or presets on the old radio. So the new one can't have any preset radio stations, and the clock comes up at 1:00 when you start the car. The default frequency of the radio just happens to coincide with a horrendous Spanish radio station that only plays Mexican music, which I think is pretty funny.

I saw Speed, an amazing movie. The premise is kinda dumb (a bus that can't slow down below 50 MPH), and the trailer for it looked awful, but the movie was incredible. It's got all the action and tension of Die Hard and The Fugitive. Keanu "Excellent" Reaves (sp?) was pretty good, Dennis Hopper was off-the-wall, and Sandra Bullock (Demolition Man) is a babe. Two thumbs up. Way way way up. I don't think anything else this summer will be able to top this. Not even Beverly Hills Cop 3 or The Brady Bunch Movie. (Moviegoers - be afraid. Be very afraid.)

I leave tomorrow morning for New York. I'll be gone a week, attending a most-excellent wedding in Rahchester. This is gonna be great!

In other news, my negotiations with public radio station KXCI (not the Mr. Science station) have gone fairly well. I will be hosting their Friday night late 70s/early 80s show on July 15th, and I have license to do anything I want, including fancy station IDs, promotional flyers, and whatever else my nostalgic heart can dream up. Mark your calendars - on July 15th, Crap From The Past hits the airwaves. If it goes well, I could either (a) host the existing show about once every 3 or 4 weeks, or (b) get a separate Crap From The Past show if there's room in the schedule. This is gonna be great!

Now I have to get some work done. My boss is gonna kill me if I can't come up with an explanation of why the location of diffracted orders from a grating depends on the azimuthal angle of incidence. Simple as it sounds, it really isn't intuitive at all, actually. Oh well...

Enjoy your respective Mondays, and may your longest day of the year not be a hot and sticky one...
Ron

Ron's Big Life Update - May 1994

A certain Optics PhD student is very happy in Tucson tonight because he passed the oral half of his PhD prelim exams - the Big Exam needed to prove that one is qualified to do real research.

I'm going to Disneyland.

Ron "I think you could hear that sigh of relief on the east coast" Gerber

Ron's Big Life Update - April 1994

(written April 5th:)
Hi, world. March Madness is over, and we Arizonians are very proud of our Wildcats and their appearance in the Final Four. The team arrives back in AZ today, and we expect pandemonium along the parade route from the airport to the campus. Should be good!

I don't know if you heard, but there was some sabotage at the Biosphere 2 experiment here in Arizona. Apparently, two scientists from the last experiment went back and opened five of the airlocks. (Why? Nobody knows yet,although it was most certainly nice outside and I can see why they wanted to air out the place. I had my windows open too.) Well, Mr. Science heard that they're making the whole incident into a mini-series. It will be called "All This And Biosphere II", and will go something like this:

Life for the seven Biospherians was good. There were no traffic jams, no strip malls, and no low riders with megawatt stereo systems. In fact, their only connection with reality was the benevolent window washer, played by Tom Poston. UNTIL... Abigail and Mark, two evil scientists returning from Biosphere II The Previous Generation, paid them a little visit. Tension was high as they -GASP- let in some outside air! Abigail and Mark then fled, and are still running to this day. If you see them, don't make them angry; you won't like them when they're angry. And stay tuned for the sequel, "All This And Biosphere II II".

Ron :-)

(written April 25th:)

Hi from Tucson! Happy Happy Monday Monday! The weather here has gotten unpredictable. We had 45 MPH winds yesterday, and today's high is only 72 (10 degrees below normal). This is weird, since we were in the high 90s last week. No complaints, though.

Mr. Science finally went too far. After almost a year of trying, I finally recorded a bit that pushed the envelope a little too far, and consequently didn't make it onto the air. As you know, former president Richard Nixon passed away over the weekend. We'll all miss him, but there's just one loose end left over from those nasty Watergate days. There's that eighteen-minute gap in the audio tapes, where somebody had erased something. Well, I found out what was on that tape - it was the full length version of Iron Butterfly's "In A Gadda Da Vida". Of course he erased it! Can you blame him?

Well, for some reason (like good taste, and the fact that our listeners seem to take death seriously...) that didn't make it onto the air. I'm not sure if I'm proud or not, but I do know that I'll be back to rated-G material tomorrow. Oh well...

And that's the scoop from the land of sand. (Scoop? Sand? Sounds like a big litter box...)

Ron