One man. One pile. One destiny.

This is the wood pile that never ends.  Sometimes a guy just has to put down his ukulele and get down and dirty.  Who wants to pay someone else for wood when I can cut my own?  I don't know which is worse, the size of the wood pile I have to cut, split, and stack or the large amount of extra timber I'm going to cut off this particular lot.  It is the only way to get rid of the mosquitoes.  They are kind of like the infected people in that Will Smith movie "I am Legend".  You just need to create an area with no shade.  That at least keeps them away during the heat of the day.

The bugs aren't that bad as long as you keep moving.  Once you stop to take a picture it is game on.  How long can you sit still while you are being eaten alive?  

MONSANTO CAN SUCK MY UKULELE

I did my part to stick it to mansanto this week.  I picked 20+ pounds of nature's goodness, fiddleheads.

Today was spent cutting next year's fire wood and sharpening my chain saw.  10+ cord to go. should have enough for two years or more.

Memorial Day - the day the leaves came back

The leaves all came out the day I get home from a five day work week on the road.  Nothing better than coming home to this and 70+ temps.  To think two weeks ago it was 38F.

When I sit and think about the sacrifices that others have made so the rest of us can live in relative comfort and freedom here in the United States I kinda get all choked up and teary eyed.  To think that if the soldiers of today and yesterday weren't there to protect my freedoms I would not be fixing my three wheeler today nor would I be heading out to re-cut a 15 year old overgrown trail with my mini chainsaw.  I wouldn't be rocking an outhouse that overlooks the beautiful Spinach Creek valley.  Most importantly I wouldn't be able to make a living as a full time ukulele entertainer if it wasn't for them.

So a tip of the hat to the great members of the military, past and present.  Without you there wouldn't be room for me or my ukulele.

Happy memorial day everyone!  

You need CORE STRENGTH!

Most people believe that ukuleles are all huki laus and Hawaiian shirts.  This is far from the case.  I adhere to a different thought train that there is a mind / body connection between the operator and their ukulele.  The easiest way I can show people is with this video of me balancing on an exercise ball chair and playing "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor at the same time.  You gotta have it... The eye of the tiger.  Persistence and repetition.  

Hopefully this will shed some light on what I'm talking about.

Any questions?

AL GORE PLEASE SEND SOME GLOBAL WARMING! NOW!

Whoever is praying for snow, for the winter to continue, or to cheat us out of Summer please stop.  Two weeks until June and we are still getting snow.  I love Winter and all, but I did move up here so I could have two seasons; Cold as hell and slightly warm / comfortable with a tiny slice of brown / break up season.  Not this 33F for a high today in mid-May when it is supposed to be nearly 70.

I take this week off from gigging and this is what I get?  Cold, snow, wind, and endless sun.  How can it not be warm when the sun is out for 20 hours?  I just don't get it.  If it keeps snowing I'm holding Al Gore personally responsible.  I moved up here since I heard global warming was coming, this is far from the case.  I guess I won't go out and purchase coastal property here in Alaska just yet.  The truth is... I'm cold and want God to turn on the nice weather switch.  Hunting is no fun when it is this cold.    

Your Typical Alaskan Front Yard

Like every good Alaskan I obviously have a ton of random crap in my yard.  The thing is... you never know when you will need a half broken pallet, an extra sheet foam toilet seat, or some Xbox 360 guitar hero controllers (I'm trying to learn the secrets of guitar and thought this was like the cliff notes to play guitar... I was wrong)?  Okay. perhaps I don't need a yard full of tarps covering mystery items and metal racks with water jugs, but it is always exciting to find what the snow has been hiding for half the year.  It is like Christmas in Spring!  In my own defense I do have several vehicles in the yard however they all run.  I will get right on getting some broken down ones though so I can be more authentic.

It is nice to have most of the week off.  I'm just running the "Gig Simulator" over at the Marlin tonight in Fairbanks.  I'm going to go glassing for bears after work tonight.  3am Three wheeler ride into the yonder hills looking for the apex predator of the sub-arctic.  Yes, please.  It should be light enough by then to see for miles.

1977 TOYOTA CHINOOK

After driving for 500 miles I have finally made it back to Fairbanks.  I thought that after leaving for a week that spring would finally would be in full swing.  It has started for sure, but it is still going sloooooow.  We are still in the middle of brown season.

Now I am back in Squarebanks and am taking it easy.  Time to do the spring clean up outside around the cabin.  Speaking of that... I rediscovered my banana yellow 1977 Toyota Chinook in my yard.  Started first try.

I will post more of my yard gems on the blog this week.  Learn the tools needed to survive in the last ukulele frontier.

SEWARD IS AWESOME SAUCE

Seward, Alaska  has to be one of the most beautiful places in the known world on a clear day.  The cruise ships are in the bay and even though it is drizzly like it usually is you can't beat the view from the bar. Time for this ukulele player to go for a run and prepare tonight's gig. last night was packed and tonight should be yet another dance party.  Let the "Pants off, Dance off" begin.

Molding the minds of the next generation one ukulele at a time.

It has been a great few days working with Monica Letner and the students in the music intensive class at the Stellar School in Anchorage.  Here is a pic of me and some of the class!  I have had a lot of fun these past two days exploring the magical properties of music.  I can't even imagine if when I was in school there was some long haired weirdo coming in and talking about ukuleles, drum sets, guitars, chord construction, and quasi-musical Zen.

Being in the big city of Anchorage for a few days has been fun.  We had a great show at Subzero Microlounge last night.  It was good to see everyone having such a good time.  Tomorrow we head down one of North America's most dangerous highways, the Seward Highway.  We have two nights in a row at the world famous Yukon Bar.  I hope the weather is nice.  There is nothing like a nice day in Seward.  I'll be staying a stone's throw from the ocean surrounded by 4000ft mountains.  I will post some pics.

Then Sunday...  The commute home.  500 miles to Fairbanks.  Sunday has been the day I usually try to keep it between the ditches avoiding ice and count wildlife.  Now that winter is gone Sunday will become the day I fish ALL DAY!!!!!  Game on. 

I'm taking "gay" back.

For too long homosexuals have owned the word "gay".  Well, I'm taking it back.  Gay is how I feel on a crisp spring morning with a hot cup of coffee as I look out at the hills that surround my cabin.  Gay is how I feel after I get done with a good show and I'm rubbing myself down with my tip earnings in complete ecstasy on my hotel bed.  Gay is me on my three wheeler whipping down the trails with the wind in my hair and the sun on my back with my super swamper tires... oh yeah, super swampers.  That is soooo gay and incredibly awesome.  

That is what being gay means to me. What does gay mean to you good people out there in cyberland?  What does it mean to you?  

BIG WEEK FOR UKULELEING:

I'm teaching all Wednesday-Friday during the school day along side Monica Letner in Anchorage for the Steller Song Writing program for high school students.  Pruning the minds of the younger generation.

Wednesday night the Parks Highway Band is playing at SubZero Microlounge in downtown Anchorage.
http://subzerolounge.com/anchorage_ak/

Friday / Saturday nights I will be rocking with Dr. Jones at the Yukon Bar in Beautiful scenic Seward, AK.
https://www.facebook.com/yukon.bar?fref=ts 

Ode to the Howling Dog

Tonight is the night.  The night when the Howling Dog Saloon opens for the summer season and the boys and I are going to rock it!!!!  Here is a good Alaskan factoid for everyone.  Back in the late 1970s during the pipeline era, they thought that it was a good idea to spray foam the outsides of buildings and paint it.  They soon realized sometime in the 80s that this probably wasn't the best idea and discontinued outside spray foam for the most part.  There are however some foam rebels still out there today.  I like to call it, Subarctic Stucco.

http://howlingdogsaloon.alaskansavvy.com/

The Howling Dog Saloon is the most northern rock and roll / biker bar on the continent and it ROCKS HARD!!!  It is my pleasure every year to be the guy with the Parks Highway Band that gets to open it up.  It is going to be crazy.  10pm-3am of pure Parks Highway band magic.  Mike Stackhouse, a local legend, will be opening the night tonight for us and tomorrow we have Johny Lungs and Ginger Black coming in!    

May 3rd and it is still snowing.  For the love of the sweet baby Jesus can spring start?  I don't live here in Fairbanks to enjoy the eight months of crappy weather.  It is for the four months of AMAZING weather which usually starts with the Dog opening.

www.ukuleleruss.com - peep the website if you get a chance!

The Moose VS The Nissan Versa

So now we are a few days into May and the snow seems to have finally let up.  We woke up yesterday to about 7 inches of the wet stuff with a high no greater than 39 for the next several days.  Currently we are having the second coldest spring in a 100 years... and it is BOGUS!

Driving home tonight from the "Gig Simulator" I put on at the Marlin, a classy Fairbanks establishment, I couldn't stop thinking about when I had a mustache and I plowed into a moose at about 55mph on my road. I haven't seen a moose near my place in a while and tonight was a night for moosery, or it at least felt like I was ripe for a moose encounter.  I just keep thinking of me in my 2009 Nissan Versa.  I had just paid off my loan on the car two days before and received my title in the mail.  I had the option of taking the full coverage off of it.  Lucky I didn't.

Don't mess with the Versa.  It took out that moose and I drove away without a scratch on me.  The Versa, well, it has gone to a better place.  Where automobiles and moose frolic together in the meadows and muskeg.  They call it Delta Junction, where all cars that almost died get fixed up good enough to last a week of driving and are resold to hunt moose again. There is a lot of wind in Delta Junction.  In Fairbanks there is barely any wind, ever.  That is why the saying goes; Fairbanks may suck, but Delta blows.