The outhouse and a frog's ass.

Here is a new video I just got done with editing. I am getting better at this video thing. Just give me a couple of years and I should e half descent.

This is the time of year every Alaskan is waiting for. The time of year when the sun crawls higher in the sky (we are gaining 7 minutes of light a day), the days grow longer, and people start to emerge from their cabins and humble abodes to bask in the midnight sun.  This is also the time of year I'm reminded how living with an outhouse isn't all it is cracked up to be.

During the seven months of winter outhouses aren't that bad. "But you have to go outside in the winter to do your business" one might interject.  This is true, however, blue sheet foam is a god sent and if you make your toilet (I use that word loosely) seat out of foam it will be instant butt temperature once you press your cold cheeks onto it. It really is a miracle of modern science. The trick is keeping the rest of your body covered from the elements. This is harder than it sounds, trust me.

Some other various disgusting things occur around the outhouse during the winter, but they cannot hold a candle to what is in store for the summer outhouse user. Flies. Evidently poo is fortafied with all the essential nutrients for flies and other insect type creatures... go figure... Nothing says I hate my life like running out to the shack on a hot day and having to slap the seat several times and then run away while the cloud of flies that you scared make their way for the exit. Anyone ever seen the movie Ghoulies from the 80's when the monster jumps out of the toilet and kills the guy taking a crap? Well it is kind of like that with less danger of being eaten by a toilet bowl sized monster.

The stalagmite has fallen and the era of flies is upon us. God help us all.

Just a few more weeks of clearing trees by myself and I will be ready to bring the bulldozer in to start the creation of Alaska's only ukulele festival with it's crowning jewel, The Ukulele Russ memorial amphitheater. It is going to be quite epic and HUGE!!! Lucky for me it is quite far out in the willy-wacks. Can you say, "no one to complain about the rocking"?. I thought so.

Russ catches dinner

What can I say?  I caught dinner! Most of you who know me are wondering what the hell did I shoot.  Not so fast. This is about bananas. Catching bananas from great heights.  I think you will be slightly amused and disgusted at the same time.  My lovely beautiful wife is the camera lady / commentator. The saw man is my awesome and talented sponsor Tom Parse of Hokukano Ukuleles.  I am the banana snatcher.

I'm still on the journey for a new computer. Lucky for me the awesome laptop I bought at Sam's club crapped the bed a few days into owning it. I all ready have to send it in to the manufacturer and I haven't owned it a week. Arg... first world problems.  I might have to resort to not using my GoPro for video for a bit until I get this computer thing sorted out.

This is my last slow week (slow meaning not a lot of gigs I still have a ton of other stuff to do) before my gigs ramp up again.  Last week was fun playing at the Fur Rhody in Cantwell / Mudbug boil and the Rance Lentz fundraiser at the Clearwater Lodge in Delta Junction.  Two awesome events and they even had a jackass playing ukulele at both of them. I'm serious. A hoofed four legged creature... Okay... ya got me. It was me.

Back to the lot. I am nearly done chainsawing the forest to a nice open field.  Plans to take all the stumps and turn them into a huge half doughnut berm that towers behind the stage of my amphitheater are looking good. Imagine the world's most exclusive ukulele getaway in the heart of Alaska's interior complete with amphitheater? Now that is what dreams are made of.  More to come.

Photos from Melbourne

I figured I would post a few glamour shots taken by my friend Nick Pitsas from Melbourne, Australia. This guy knows how to capture a moment for sure. Also he likes pho. Go figure that I am into pho too. Noodles my friends of the Asian variety. Yum. I mean this is in the most heterosexual way, it was friends at first pho. Haha I like the ring of that. Pho friends.  Needless to say my time in Melbourne was well spent meeting some cool people. Thanks Nick for the photos. They came out great. Now only if I can work on my fake Aussie accent. I always turn to my standard Crocodile Dundee lines. "You call that a knife?"

I like how in all of these pics I am sporting different red Deep Springs College t-shirts.  Oh? You don't know of the most exclusive club that is Deep Springs College? I suggest you look it up. You will like what you see.  Plus on top of being completely awesome they have rocking red t-shirts with catchy designs. I'm serious. Check them out. You won't be disappointed. A place where great minds of the future are molded.

Australia and Hawaii

Sorry for the slow updating on the old website here... I have been having too much fun flying around on planes, hanging with my ukulele colleagues, and enjoying the Hawaiian beach sand between my toes with a ukulele in my hand.  That's right, not only did I have an awesome time at the Melbourne Ukulele Festival I got to hang with my wife at my ukulele sponsor's place on Hokukano Ranch on the big island.  Living 3300' up a mountain in a private 32 square mile ranch is something I didn't realize was on my bucket list.  It is checked off now and I believe I will have to do it again.

First off, Australia was awesome.  The ten hour flight from Honolulu... not so awesome, but it was all worth it. I had so much fun actually meeting some of my fellow professional ukers.  IT was my first real straight up ukulele event instead of working folk / arts fests and being the "ukulele guy" this time I was awash in a sea of ukuleles.  It was a refreshing experience and I can't wait to hopefully do it again next year. :)  The second highlight of the trip down under was the flying foxes...Raven sized bats.  I am not kidding.  They are serious and mean business.

After the Melbourne Ukulele festival I headed east back across the international date line which really messed me up.  Gaining a day?  I arrived a day earlier than I thought to Kona on the big island of Hawaii.  Lucky for me my ukulele sponsor at Hokukano Ukuleles picked me up and brought me to his shop / home.  3300ft up on a mountain side is where I spent my nights.  Days I spent at random beaches with my wife, who flew in the day after me (we were supposed to fly in at the same time but silly me not knowing how time zones work).  I have been to Hawaii before, but I forgot how much of a golden ticket playing ukulele is when on the islands.  It is not only an awesome instrument, but it is a guaranteed conversation starter / friend maker.  Needless to say our trip went well. Ukuleles just make you want to smile unless you play angry metal music.  Thank you Bosko and Honey.  You blew my mind.  Literally.

Also did you know that the big island of Hawaii is actually an Alaskan suburb?  That is right!  The Alaska / Hawaii connection is HUGE.  for example, I played at a house party of under 20 people while I was there.  Only 2 or 3 people at the shin-dig were not from Fairbanks.  Wierd wild stuff.  Jamming with random musicians on a small hard to get to beach... the drummer ended up being the percussionist from Delmag, and awesome Anchorage group. The last frontier needs an island buddy.  That little guy Hawaii.  Now I just need to find a way I can go there during the winters and just hunt pigs and snorkel...and obviously play a metric crap ton of ukulele. That would be sweet.

Back to the pile

So on my days off from being on the road and ukuleleing in general this winter I have been working on my forested lot, the future site of Fairbanks, Alaska's most awesome amphitheater / ukulele retreat. If you build it they will come. I learned that from Kevin Costner.

So I have been over there cutting trees and stacking them up in preparation for next winter.  That is right, I am all ready thinking about next winter and it isn't even March yet.  That is how we do things up here.  Get your work done in time, be prepared, and you won't be up shit creek without a paddle.  You will get minimal sympathy from locals, but they will help you if you are down and out.  That is how it goes around these parts.

I can take about four hours of running my saw before my ukulele hands tell me it is time to quit.  Then I get to stack logs for an hour or two.  Who needs a gym?  Real world exercises.  Every time I put another cut up log on the stack I just think dollar signs.  Around December dried firewood in Fairbanks basically turns into gold.  There are too many jackasses around here that just put off getting ready for the winter until it is all ready in full swing.  That is when I come in on my off days with my big truck and a cord of wood in the back.  Ya buddy.  Who needs a boss when you are your own?

Tons of moose sign and a few hares running around the property.  I am thinking about setting up my game camera in the hopes of snapping a shot of them.  Hope it is a bull moose.  That would be convenient if he hung around until hunting season.  It has always been my dream to down a moose in my own yard.  I have cleared an area larger than a football field in the middle of the wilderness.  It is glorious.  Hopefully the wife and I can get a cabin up there this summer so we can finally be in our own place.  Renting a cabin on the opposite side of the valley where my outhouse actually faces the clearing I am cutting it just a tease.  Even though ever morning when I go out for my morning constitutional I sit there with my bare cheeks pressed up against my foam toilet seat, with my pants pulled up as high as I can to avoid leaving skin exposed to the elements,

The Yukon

It is good to finally be back to the Yukon Territory.  It is the only place in the world that the people understand Alaskans.  Other than our different stance on firearms we are the same in my book.   Stupid borders. Sometimes I think that the Yukon and Alaska should break off from our federal governments and form our own country.  The name of that new country is still up for debate.  I am accepting ideas currently for the new name.  Yukona? Alaskon?  I am open to suggestions.

Friday after my long 10 hour drive of vast expanses of wilderness, one wolf sighting, several moose, and a coyote I made it to the mountain wonderland of Haines junction.  I got to perform an awesome house concert for the home roots concert series.  What an awesome time. Packed room of people intently listening.  Awesome sauce.  There is a recording of the show that I will be posting sections of it once I paw through the tracks.  Good times.

Saturday I did another home roots concert in the wilderness city,  Whitehorse.   It was cool to have an understanding adult crowd that wanted to hear a selection of songs I call, "songs that have lost me work".  It went swimmingly. 

Today I gave a private clinic for some ukulele students here in the horse.  It is such a pleasure to see the light bulb turn on above someone's head once they finally grasp a new concept.  Priceless. 

Will there be a special unannounced performance tonight?  Who knows? Regardless I make the 12 hour trip back to Squarebanks in the morning. Just another day in the frontier. 

Back to Alaska

What a great trip back east.  All of my gigs went swimmingly and now with ukulele strings worn out I return to Alaska.  Time to tie up all the loose ends and start making my way to Boston into the oncoming snow storm.  I got my fingers crossed that my wife and I don't get delayed too long.  It all ready looks like we are in a hotel for one night at least.  This is part of the cost of living in Alaska.

Here is a little photo of what it is like to be in an Alaskan man's dreams... guns... lots of guns... yeah buddy!