So, below you can find information I first posted on this homepage during high school and my first year at college. It's quite amusing to read. While I am not abandoning my belief that my high school band, the Vladimir Zhirinovsky Fan Club, will one day revolutionize the music industry and the world, we haven't played together for almost a decade, and are now living all over the place. Nonetheless, I'm keeping this page up for sentimental reasons.
So, background... I grew up on the south side of Chicago (Gage Park), and moved to Darien, IL (southwest suburbs) in 5th grade (1989). I graduated from Downers Grove South high school in 1997 and started at Valparaiso University that fall. I studied in Reutlingen, Germany, in the spring of 1999. I graduated from Valpo in 2001 with a degree in meteorology. I got my master's degree at Colorado State and my law degree from Northwestern Law. If you want to contact me, google my name and you'll come up with my work email.
Personal stuff from circa 2000... Well, as a meteorologist, I love storm chasing. I also love music. I am a member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity (Kappa Sigma chapter), and I play piano (mostly jazz) and a little guitar. I've played in the following bands (some for little more than an hour, some for two or more years, some only in conception): Rufus T. and the Fireflies, the Vladimir Zhirinovsky Fan Club (of which you can read more below), Hypersonic, Men and Rape (it's an inside joke; trust me, there's nothing to be offended about), ßß!, KGB, and the Groove Daemons. I have recorded with the VZFC, KGB, and the Groove Daemons (email me if you'd like to buy a CD for $5). My favorite artists are Camper Van Beethoven, They Might Be Giants, the Pixies, and Thelonious Monk. Other than that, I love playing softball and ultimate frisbee, and am a huge Chicago sports fan (especially the Cubs, which means of course I hate the White Sox). Anyway, I think that's anything anyone would want to know just by visiting my webpage. For fun, scroll down below the professional stuff and read what I put on this page in high school (and updated during freshman year in college)...
And, professional stuff... I'm now a lawyer. Go ahead and hate me.
Russ was the lead singer (if you call that singing) and
keyboardist for the Vladimir Zhirinovsky Fan Club
, a band local to Downers Grove, Illinois (a suburb of Chicago). He also played keyboards for
another local band called Hypersonic. He once resided in Alumni Hall at beautiful Valparaiso University in lovely Valparaiso, Indiana, home of Valparaiso University. There he was involved in an up-and-coming band called ßß!. For more about ßß! (including how to pronounce it), click here. Besides jamming
with the bands, he also enjoys playing hockey and 16" softball (if you don't live around
Chicago, don't worry about the 16" softball thing). Russ's favorite albums
are They Might Be Giants' Apollo 18, Camper Van Beethoven's Telephone Free
Landslide Victory, the Pixies' Doolittle, and Spoon's Kill the Moonlight. His favorite movie is the Big Lebowski (for now), his
favorite television show is the Simpsons, and his favorite book is The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner. His favorite poem is T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J.
Alfred Prufrock." He likes Picasso paintings and loves the Chicago Cubs.
So there you have it, folks... All you ever needed to know about one-third
of the band that will one day revolutionize the music industry- the Vladimir Zhirinovsky Fan Club.
