Rob Cimmarusti calls it a "malady" - a gentle label for the cancer he's been told will kill him in the next few months.
But that term is a fair reflection of the attitude the longtime Quad Cities musician, producer, and sound engineer has about the adenocarcinoma that began in his pancreas and has since popped up in the fatty tissue near his abdominal wall. He received his initial cancer diagnosis on February 1 (his 53rd birthday) and has been through chemotherapy, radiation treatments, and surgeries. In an interview last week, he compared the present state of his tumors to a "shotgun blast"; there are too many of them to target with additional surgery or radiation, and because they're in tissues that get relatively little blood, they don't respond well to chemo.
Cimmarusti conceded that his situation is "not good, not hopeful." A few months ago, he said, a doctor in Iowa City told him: "Get your affairs in order. It's going to be a matter of months." His response was to fight: "We're like, 'Well, we're not going to take that.'"
Jason Parris, the booking agent for the Rock Island Brewing Company, knows there is something special about the local bar. "The room feels and looks like a New York club," said Parris. "You can see the history in the room with all of the black-and-white photos of people who have played here. You can definitely see that it's been around for 30 years."
