Here are the songs played on Thursday, Feb. 26

Sharp and Harkins Band ” High Heels” album title To each His Own

Depeche Mode ” Wrong” album title Sounds of the Universe  Available April 21

Ari Hest ” Dead End Driving” album title Twelve Mondays, available March 10

Last night I was trapped for about four and a half hours!  It was incredible that I was able to survive.  No, I wasn’t trapped in a well or stuck under some large kitchen appliance.  It was even worse.  My internet and cable were down!

I was sent back to the stone age.  After about 20 minutes I realized I should keep a journal of this awful experience.  Here it is:

5:30pm: I turn on my television to see what’s on Comedy Central.  No connection.  No big deal.  I’m sure it will be fixed in a few minutes.

5:33pm: Still no television.  I go to my computer to surf the web.  No internet.

5:35pm: Call to my cable and internet provider.  I hear a recorded message that they are aware of the problem and are working on it.

5:36pm: Still no t.v.

5:37pm: Decide to do some laundry since I can’t surf or watch television

5:40pm: Still no internet

5:41pm: Make a few phone calls to friends and  family to talk about my horrible situation

6:02pm: Still no internet or t.v.

6:03pm: Flip through the latest New Yorker and start reading article about Rahm Emanuel.  Have the burning desire to look at his Wikipedia page.

6:04pm: Internet still down can’t look at Wikipedia

6:06pm: Vacuum apartment

6:17pm: Damn!  Still no internet or t.v.

6:20pm: Put clothes in the dryer

6:22pm: You guessed it, no internet or t.v.

6:25pm: Play with my cat, Baxter.   He asks how the White Sox did in their spring training game.

6:26pm: Forget the internet is down and try to check White Sox score for Baxter

6:27pm: Call more friends to waste time

7:07pm: It’s too cliche to say I rearranged my sock drawer.  Instead I reorganize t-shirts by color and then by logo.

7:15pm: Yell at television for not working

7:16pm: Yell at computer for not being able to provide me with internet

7:18pm: Call from phone solicitor who wants to hang up with me because I’m too clingy

7:35pm: Take clothes out of dryer, fold and put away

7:45pm: Start to accept that I might miss the new episode of 30 Rock

7:50pm: Attempt to play Gin Rummy with Baxter

8:01pm: Realized Baxter is a cheater at Gin Rummy

8:02pm: Think about television and internet but don’t check to see if they are back

8:02pm and 30 seconds: Check to see if service has returned

8:03pm: Consider go to workout room

8:04pm: Eat Skinny Cow Ice Cream Bar instead

8:05pm: Phone rings.  Wrong number but spend 20 minutes telling stranger my woes

8:25pm: Think about what I used to do before internet.

8:26pm: Attempt to go to internet to type into Google: “What people did before internet”

8:28pm: Cry

8:30pm: Play game of checkers with Baxter

8:35pm: Damn!  That cat is good at checkers

8:40pm: Wonder what funny comments Tina Fey is saying to Alec Baldwin

8:45pm: Baxter and I act out some of our favorite scenes from 30 Rock

9:15pm: Brush my teeth and wash my face.  I guess I’ll have to try to go to sleep

9:20pm: One last check.

9:20 and 10 seconds:  HALLELUJAH!!!! THE INTERNET AND TELEVISION ARE BACK!!!!!

9:21pm until ?: Surf stupid stuff on-line and flip through television channels way past my bedtime.

Over the weekend I was a “celebrity” server at the United Cerebral Palsy dinner and auction. One of the auction items was a one hour personal training session with former UW Track stars and Olympic runners Cindy Bremser (first female All-American ever at the UW, 4th in the women’s 3000 meters at the 1984 Summer Olympics, Silver medal at the 1983 Pan-Am games in the women’s 1500 meters, etc) and Suzy Favor Hamilton (9 NCAA titles, US Olympian in 1992, 1996 & 2000, etc). 

I bid.  I won!

Suzy was not at the dinner, but Cindy agreed the the “training session” would be a group run with the team that I train with. So once the weather breaks, me and all my friends will be hitting the road with 2 of the best runners ever to come out of Wisconsin.  I told Cindy that if by chance I could actually beat her (yeah, right!  I had a couple of beers in me at that point), I would have material for my blog for the rest of the year (did I ever tell you about the time I beat…)

I just read an unbeilevable news story about a county solicitor (fancy word for lawyer) who couldn’t make ends meet when he didn’t get his expected cost of living raise. So he got a second job–at Wendy’s!

It happened in Georgia…where they’re having as many budget problems as we are here in Wisconsin.

This guy makes $93 grand a year, yet needed to get some fill-in hours at the Wendy’s near his house to make ends meet.

I’m wondering if there isn’t a way to make these two jobs complement each other.

He could offer free legal advice while he’s waiting for those fries to heat up. Or maybe he could work out plea bargains for his clients that involve cleaning the grease trap at the restaurant.

Or if a criminal did something really bad, he’d ask the judge to biggie-size his sentence!

Here’s a link to the news story.

Bobby Bryan and the Uptown All Stars at the Memorial Union Rathskellar, Friday night 9:30pm. FREEBIE ALERT! Gabby played a new song from this blues guitar slinger on our show Thursday morning. Look for a new album soon.

Brett Dennen at the Majestic Theatre, 9pm Saturday, with a Triple M pre-concert party before the show.

Dark Star Orchestra at the Barrymore, Saturday 8pm.  Continuing the Grateful Dead experience!

Freaky Band Name of the Week: Ideal Cleaners. On the bill with Dick the Bruiser and the Blind Shake at the Frequency Saturday night. All great names but Ideal Cleaners has to win for its potential for confusion.  Ideal Cleaners is a rock band from Nebraska.

Pat McGee, of the Pat McGee band has a new album coming out  March 10, called These Days.

The album includes a very poignant and personal song called ” Come Back Home”. This was written after his long time friend and drummer , former Army soldier John C. Williams passed away suddenly. The song started off as a reflection of how military families deal with separation. But the song was released, sadly, John’s little brother Blake was killed in Iraq. His platoon used this song as the audio to a memorial slide show they did in Martch of 2088, honoring all those men and women who lost their lives in Iraq in   March 2008 . 

Pat dedicates this song to all those who serve our country with such bravery.

Here’s Pat doing the song along with some artists you might have heard first on the 9:00 News, Ernie Halter and the Benjy Davis Project.

Here are the songs played on Wednesday, Feb. 25

Jeffrey Foucault ” Hello in There” album title Shoot the Moon Right Between the Eyes, The Songs of John Prine download now

Angel Taylor ” Make Me Believe” album title Love Travels, available April 7

Kings of Leon ” Use Somebody” another song from Only By the Night

Did you hear about the Chicago Bears fan who got hit with a $27-thousand dollar phone bill after watching a Bears game on his computer?  You probably know I’m a Bears fan and I’m sure all of you Packer fans are loving this story.

Here’s basically what happened.  Wayne Burdick was on a cruise ship in Miami about to set sail.  He was still in port and decided to watch the Bears game on his laptop computer.  He was able to watch it through a device that picked up the game from his television back home.  It’s totally legal.  The problem was AT & T charged him the international rate for access.

He came home from the trip to find out he owed $27-thousand bucks!  He got the bill drastically reduced but still owes $6-thousand. Eventually he got the whole thing cleared up.

The worst part, the Bears were playing the lowly Detroit Lions.  At least the Bears won, but that was one potentially expensive victory.

I am a diehard Frank Zappa fan. We are a breed apart from most. We are the ones who know this man is more than ” Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow” and ” Montana”. We’re the ones who KNOW his music is genius, the ones who rate his guitar work with some of the greatest. The ones who know he was very active politically and testified before Congress regarding censorship and album ratings. Most of the friends I still have from my  college days are Zappa fans. I own at least 65 Zappa albums.

So it was with great interest that I learned of a new 3 CD set called Lumpy Money. Lumpy Gravy and We’re Only in it for the Money albums PLUS a third disc of rare and unreleased pieces.

Rolling Stone’s website has a version of a song from this collection that radio refused to play in 1968 because if was ” too weird”. You can judge for yourself by clicking here.

If you’re not that familiar with Zappa, here is a video of him doing a song that would be my personal  theme song, “Peaches En Regalia”

In the words of the man himself:

“Knowledge is not wisdom

Wisdon is not truth

Truth is not beauty

Beauty is not  love

Love is not music

Music is Best”

Here are the songs played on Tuesday, Feb. 24

Great Big Sea ” Love Me Tonight” album title Fortune’s Favor, available now

Mat Kearney ” Closer to Love” new album ( no title yet) avalable May 19

Robyn Hitchcock ” Up to Our Nex”, album title ” Goodnight Oslo” available now