The Ukulele Russ Memorial Amphitheater - The beginning

Over the past year it has finally come to this. Now with the trees gone and stumps cleared my vision of my amphitheater is coming alive...oh and the cabin I'm going to build for me and the lady, but most importantly the amphitheater.

I have spent a year cutting down all the trees and slowing hauling them out. This winter I was out there on snowshoes logging for hours. It was so cold outside that I was start sweating and once that moisture would reach the outside of my coat it would freeze and create a frozen crust on me. Three hours was about all I could take before I would start completely freezing.

It is wild to see how 12 hours on a small bulldozer can change everything. This was a field of stumps just hours ago. Now it is time to move all this over burden into the natural depression in my hill to form the backdrop for the amphitheater.

These pictures are of only a portion of the land I cleared and are not of the amphitheater location. It will be revealed over the next couple days.

Now that I am finally done running the chainsaw (I went through five tanks of gas in the last day of cutting) I can give my ukulele hands a break for a day before I have to play my gigs this week.

THURSDAY - Botanical Gardens - University of Alaska Fairbanks - 7pm

FRIDAY - Listen into 660am KFAR as I join Steve Floyd for Fairbanks's Problem Corner

http://rssplayer.crystalmedianetworks.com/player/radio/kfaram

Private party in Delta Junction - 8pm

SATURDAY - The Marlin - 10pm! - FAIRBANKS!

Winner winner salmon dinner!

There is something about the feeling of being able to feed yourself that is satisfying. I have been fishing this spot on and off for years and it is the kind of fishing hole that you either show up at and get yourself a fish in 15 minutes, or you fish for a whole day and get nothing. This was not one of the latter. My favorite part of this particular fishing experience is that I decided within hours that I needed to eat a 1/2 of one of the fillets raw. It was most excellent.


A few nights on the road and then the building of the Ukulele Russ amphitheater begins. It will be epic to say the least. I'm off to Anchorage for tomorrow night at the Blue Fox Cocktail Lounge at 10pm and a Sunday dinner show at the world famous Denali Salmon Bake.

It even smells like the 1970s!

Let us take a step back in time into the early 1970s when functional meets...that funky 70s smell. Welcome to the 1971 Aristocrat truck camper. My new road home. It isn't any Jim D'ville Airstream camper, but it will have to do. Plus I got it for $500. This guy is not complaining.

The ukulele / truck revolution

When the threat of your man card getting revoked gets thrown around because you play ukulele and have a prissy dog you have to do something. The most natural course of action is to go out and buy the largest truck you can find and then drive it fast... everywhere.

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.