Ron's Big Life Update - July 1997 (III)

Yo, Chuck F. (And Pat and Seth, too. But this is mostly music, so you can delete this right now.)

I think the pop music scene is pretty bleak also, but not as bleak as last year. There are a few songs on the radio that I actually like: "Sunny Came Home" by Shawn Colvin (even though it's a rewrite of Sophie B. Hawkins' "As I Lay Me Down"), "Semi-Charmed Life" by Third Eye Blind (the same guilty pleasure as "Two Princes"), "Virtual Insanity" by Jamoqari (sp??), the Babyface/Stevie Wonder duet, "Your Woman" by White Town (I don't think that the opening sample is borrowed from anything), and a few others. The leadoff single from the Brand New Heavies was disappointing, so I'm waiting to pick up the album. Radio right now is not the greatest selection of pop tunes, but I'll take Hanson and the Spice Girls over the shoe-gazing grunge bands any day. (What a production on the Hanson record! It's the Jackson 5 all over again!) And the Spice Girls will last about as long as the New Kids, so I'm not too scared.

On a good day, I can pick up a bunch of pop stations from some smaller surrounding towns, and not one of them carries Casey's Top 40! I'm beginning to get a little peeved, to say the least. Does Casey air in NYC at all?

My idea: a duet between Johnny Cash and Mariah Carey. Cash and Carey! I gotta lay off the caffeine.

I saw "Face/Off" with John Travolta and Nicholas Cage. (I actually saw it with Margaret, but you know what I'm trying to say.) Every aspect of the movie is completely over-the-top-ridiculous. Which makes it very enjoyable, naturally. John T and Nicholas C were excellent, and I must say that John Woo is the king of ammunition. One thumb up.

Glad you liked Glen or Glenda. I agree that Ed Wood made some truly inspired dementia. I knew from the opening shot (some text on the screen that ran into the next scene before you had a chance to read it) that this was a doozie. You've probably seen "Orgy of the Dead", but don't rush out to see it if you haven't. I still think you'd enjoy "Mystery Science Theater 3000", now airing on the Sci-Fi Channel on Saturdays at 5PM and 12AM. There's been a little shuffling of the personnel, and now the filler skits can be unbearably bad, but the movies are still terrific.

No new news on the Crap From The Past front. I'm still flipping around the dial trying to find a suitable station.

Cash and Carey... I slay myself...

Ron

Ron's Big Life Update - July 1997 (II)

From the same creative genius that brought you such legendary breakfast cereals as Grouch-O's, Day-O's, and Barry Manil-O's...

It's the world's first breakfast cereal that gives you the great down-home taste of Meskeet...Meskeet-O's!

(It's been a buggy summer so far.)

This afternoon at lunch I also came up with the idea of Misfortune Cookies ("You will go bald, be found guilty of three misdemeanors, succumb to a life-threatening disease, and die penniless and alone.")

Most of my free time out here has been clogged up with house stuff. I spent the last few evenings mowing the lawn with our !@#$%^&* push-mower (I'll give it one more week and if it doesn't get any easier, it's history.), raking the lawn with our new rake, and taking up the soggy carpet and tiles from our basement floor. Apparently, we have a little seepage problem in the basement, which we've only noticed because we've gotten quite a bit of rain lately. In fact, since I've moved out here in June, the tornado sirens have gone off twice! I'm just guessing that the recent run of storms is atypical, though, and some drain tiles should fix the now-unfinished basement.

Been trying to settle into the usual routines, but they're not going as smoothly as planned. I found out that my free cable expires at the end of the month, so we'll have to tape as many episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 as we can before they pull the plug. I also discovered, much to my dismay, that there aren't any radio stations out here that carry Casey's Top 40 on Sunday morning! No more Casey Kasem?!?!? I'm DYIN', I tell ya... And I got Alanis Morrisette's first two albums on CD. (She had two Canadian albums in the Debbie Gibson/Tiffany vein before she moved to the states and started over from scratch.) They're awful, but I now own them. I'm still flipping around the radio dial to try and find some suitable outlet for Crap From The Past - no progress yet.

Well, fare ye well. And for you Southerners, fare ye-all well.
Ron "Boogiemonster" Gerber

Ron's Big Life Update - July 1997 (I)

Hi. I'm finally settled into my new job and my new house. I'm now convinced that a house closing involves more signatures than anything else in one's life, but it's worth it. After about a week of unpacking, we can see the floor in most of the rooms! I've already mowed the lawn and made four trips to the hardware store, so I can say with pride that I'm a homeowner. Our first trash pickup is this Friday, and I can hardly wait!

We attached our VCR to the wall, and LO and BEHOLD! We have free cable. This marks the fourth (4th) time that I have gotten free cable this way. I must have the "kavorka" for free cable. Now if it only worked for donuts...

I found out that my new job involves a little bit of travel in the short term. I'm heading out to San Jose for two days in August, and possibly Holland (!) at the end of the summer. Woo-hoo!

I needed to pick a job title for my business cards, so I am now a "Senior Advisory Development Engineer," which means nothing, really. I wanted to be "Grand Poobah", but that was shot down pretty quickly.

The phone numbers don't spell anything funny, like PET-BANK or BIG-FOOT, unfortunately.

Hope all is well in your neck of the woods. The next time it snows, think of Minnesota...

Ron "Boogiemonster" Gerber

Ron's Big Life Update - June 1997

Well, HI from Rochester. Spring is setting in; the chipmunks have thawed and we'll be putting away our gloves and scarves any minute now.

Big news:

1. I got a new job with Seagate Technologies in Minneapolis, MN. They make computer hard drives, and I think they have something like one-third of the world's market share. They have 90,000 employees worldwide, and I think that's more than Kodak. They're starting an optical disk drive group, and that's my background. My last day at Kodak is Friday the 13th (I laughed, anyway), and I start at Seagate on Monday the 23th.
2. I bought a house in Richfield, MN. Margaret and I have to live somewhere, so we figured a house was the way to go. We found a nice little 2-story 2-bedroom house, built in 1920, 1600 square feet, 0.23 acres, separate 2-car garage, basement, and immaculately maintained. We are quite pleased, needless to say. It needs practically no work on it - just some mundane stuff like cleaning the gutters. We're aiming for a June 27 closing, if all goes as planned.

Aside from yet another move across the country, not much else is going on. My radio show ("Crap From The Past") has its last installment in Rochester next week, and then my next big project will be to crack the Minneapolis radio market in my spare time.

As fate would have it, Margaret hates Rochester, so we're both looking forward to the move. My history over the past few years: Rochester, Minneapolis, Tucson, Rochester, Minneapolis. I better hang onto my t-shirts, because fate tells me that my next move is back to Tucson...

Talk to you soon once I get a new e-mail address in MN,
Ron "nearly everybody was Kung Fu Fighting" Gerber

Ron's Big Life Update - May 1997

Hopefully, you caught yesterday's episode of the Simpsons, which contained some of the best TV parodies that I've ever seen on the small screen. We saw The Big Easy and Miami Vice revisited as Chief Wiggum, PI. We saw My Mother, The Car reinvented as Grampa Simpson, The Love Tester in Moe's Tavern (complete with laugh track). And The Simpsons Variety Hour lampooned Laugh-In and one singularly heinous show from 1977: The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, featuring Replacement Jan (kudos to Eve Plumb, who wanted no part of this atrocity). I actually own a copy of the first Brady Bunch Variety Hour (thank you, Eric), and I have read more than one review describing it as the worst sixty minutes of television that have ever aired. Although you've probably heard this story from me (or someone equally as goofy), I will tell it again...

In 1977, a full four years after the Brady Bunch was cancelled due to slumping ratings, some producer thought it would be a good idea to bring them back. They contacted the producers of the Donny and Marie show, who were kicking ratings butt at the time. The D&M producers agreed to throw something together, and throw something together they did. The result was the worst costuming, dance routines, special guests, scripts, and singing that have ever graced the small screen, and it shocks and horrifies to this very day. The parody that Matt Groening's crew did on the Simpsons was 100% dead nuts accurate, down to the blatant misuse of special guest stars (Tim Conway in the Simpsons, Tony Randall in the BBVH) and the odd use of animal costumes. I only wish that more people had seen the original Brady Bunch Variety Hour. (Come on over and we'll fire up the VCR.) I'm in the process of transferring the soundtrack to the first BBVH onto CD, so you can sleep soundly tonight knowing that I'm using my magical superpowers for good, not evil.

Naturally, this will all appear in this week's Crap From The Past.

Later,
Ron "Next week is the season finale" G

Ron's Big Life Update - April 1997

Yo, sez I.

Nothing crucial to report on from Rah-chester, just a howdy-do.

I don't suppose any of you caught...

1. An outrageous dance routine on the Drew Carey Show set to the Tower of Power's "What is Hip?",
2. The closing credits of the Simpsons, set to Bob Marley's "Jammin'",
3. The Average White Band concert, which I attended last night (these guys had hits in 1975 with "Pick Up The Pieces" and "Cut The Cake" and are probably the funkiest white guys on the planet),
4. Either the upcoming Bruce Cockburn show or the George Clinton show, neither of which has occurred yet (quite a month for concerts in Rah-chester),
5. The movie "Grosse Pointe Blank", which I thought stunk, despite having seen it for free.

Margaret and I spent the past weekend in New York, visiting Manhattan on Saturday and Long Island on Sunday - both firsts for Margaret. Now she can say she's seen the Big Apple. The Long Island trip was an engagement party for a friend of ourselves, and it turned out to be much more tasteful than we expected. No big hair and sequins, unfortunately, although the band was a couple of guys with a guitar and a whole lot of programmed synthesizers. "Give it up for Phil and the Casiotones..."

Just wanted y'all to know that we're still alive and it's still 40 degrees in Rah-chester...

Stay warm,
Ron "one guy named Tony was Kung Fu Fighting" Gerber

Ron's Big Life Update - March 1997

"Only when things are no longer there do you realize where they once were." - my brother, Ken Gerber, 1997.

Hello. Contrary to popular demand, I have not fallen off the face of the world, try as I might. I was recently approved to work overtime, and I have been putting in 50-55 hour weeks at work for the last month or two. It's not a lot of fun. To make matters worse, my boss just accepted a position at Seagate in Minneapolis. (Seagate makes hard drives, and is starting up a program to get into optical drives.) No successor has been named yet and the rest of my group and I are scrambling to absorb all of my boss's responsibilities, which are many. My life is not too good right now.

Margaret, on the other hand, is fine and says HI.

If you've sent me e-mail in the last two weeks, it bounced and I never received it. We upgraded one of the Kodak servers and wrought havoc on the e-mail accounts of anyone who had punctuation in his ID. Feel free to forward me some of your junk e-mail, since I've been doing without for about two weeks.

More later, once I've gotten some more sleep. (I think I'll break 60 hours at work this week...)

Ron "Life sux" G