the Journal of all things Duckhuggeresque

Just wanted to drop a note here on this rarely used blog to say that I've started posting daily comics over at http://bellowslandia.blogspot.com

Every day I'm posting a "journal" entry from the Bellowslandian character Hinble Lantern's perspective. I'm not sure how far I'm planning on going with this, but for now I've just reached the 9th day. I'll post it as an example below.



Hope some of you may come and follow it via Blogger or it's RSS feed, indeed. 

If you would like to start from the first entry.
I'll post that link here now: http://bellowslandia.blogspot.com/2011/07/hinbles-diary-1.html

I just realized that it might be worthwhile to post a little blurb to LJ about my latest radio show, FYI for the few peeps who watch me here / give a rat's ass. But yes, It is called the "Trembling Timber Lounge" and is a unique mix of experimental/ambient noise music mixed with some old scratchy records (organ music, polkas, old country stuff, crooners, children's music, fairy tales, hunting tips, banjo ditties, and other oddities as such). I'm doing less back-announcing and more of an absurd poetic type of thing in the breaks. Just finished up the second installment tonight and the playlists, along with full MP3 archives of the shows, are posted up to the show's blog: http://tremblingtimberlounge.blogspot.com



Also, if anyone has any comments about the show or music when you listen back to it, don't be shy about posting comments on the playlists. I have allowed for anonymous comment posts, so you don't have to be a user of Blogger to leave behind your thoughts n' impressions. This show is a bit of a new format for me (although it has elements similar to previous shows I've done on KAOS). So far it's going well... but it's still very much an experiment.

So here is the drawing of Mohammed and Buraq that I drew for this May 20th occasion.



 I feel very strongly that free speech should never be shut down due to violent threats alone. I also feel quite strongly that, while you may have the right to be offended, no one has the right to not be offended! The fact that people threaten violence (and carry through in many cases) is despicable to me and thus I happily drew my own little blasphemous piece of Mohammed parody art for Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!

Let me get one thing straight though. I have nothing against individual Muslim people. I know many that I consider quite wonderful people. I do take issue with many points of the Muslim religion, however. It is similar to issues I have with many other organized religions that hold doctrine over reason and tout an authoritarian suppression of humanity.

Keep in mind also, while today I'm targeting the Muslim prophet in my art... parody of sacred and religious topics is nothing new in my art. I have quite a many cartoon parodies I've drawn of Jesus over time (for example). Seems only fair that I draw one of Mohammed, eh?

( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. )

So I'm wrapping up things here dealing with my trip to Japan such as painting my luggage. I might blog about those things here soon over at my Miyazaki exchange blog. I did want to post about this here though. In the early morning hours of the 12th (after my last blog post here) I filmed a little video down at the Allyn Pier right around the time of the sunrise. That's been uploaded to You Tube now and I'll post it here:



You might also notice that it's been two weeks since my last radio show... so, sadly, my mp3 archives for that show are now all offline. I may be doing some kind of podcast type thing from Japan if and when I figure that out in more detail. I do have software for it, but I just need to do some test runs on doing shows with it. If those do happen they'll likely be posted to my Miyazaki blog.

Once I leave on the 30th, I may not stop in here all that often... we'll see... blogspot blogs do seem easier to follow though, whether it be via a blogger account that you yourself have or by following the rss feed through readers n' such.

It's funny, the longer I've lived in Olympia, WA the less time I've really spent up in Mason County. Before recently it seems like I would only visit my mother's house in Allyn every once in awhile and usually not for very long. It's strange contrasting that with how frequently I would come back to visit my home town in the few years following my initial move to Olympia in 1997.



Ever since high-school I had developed a sort of mysterious love of the Mason County region that I spent a majority of my childhood in. The fact that so much of this area is blanketed by thick layers of pine trees and the like. The smells, sights and sounds... so many pockets of this area are thick and dripping with a rich feeling. There's nothing quite like seeing heavy fog drifting through early morning trees here... I remember seeing that sight after returning from a week long trip I had taken down to the more desert-like locale of Bend, Oregon with a friend. While the trip there was enjoyable... the feeling of returning to those foggy Mason County hills made me indescribably happy!



I think of this all now as I prepare myself to leave not just Mason County but also the entire country behind for a school year. It's somehow appropriate that I return here before leaving to Japan though. While my connection to Olympia has indeed become a deep one, over the twelve years that I've lived there... the connecting roots I have with Allyn, Grapeview, Belfair, Tahuya, Dewatto, and all these other Northern-Mason county town-lets run even deeper. It's like I needed to come back here and spend some time with them... like I need a way of grounding myself briefly before taking flight.



Next time I go back to Olympia (most likely within a few days) I will retrieve my bicycle and bring it back to Allyn with me... try to do some riding around the area here for the first time in a long time (I remember how I used to ride my bike 30 minutes down Highway 3 to North Mason High School every day). Maybe I'll take a few random drives in my car out to some hidden groves and haunts. I'll add some new paint to those old weathered memories before striking out to make new memories in a landscape, climate, and culture likely to be immensely different from the one I know and love here.



( ending note: Allyn polulation estimate 2,312. Wiki entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allyn,_Washington )

Today is 09-09-09... as in Nein! Nein! Nein! I don't need to get anymore fillings in my mouth now!! That's right... Just got back a little bit ago from my final appointment at the dentist's in Belfair, WA. They put in the last filling that will be needed before I head off to Japan at the end of the month. It's a relief to know that stuff is all taken care of now... It will certainly put one of my more major health concerns to rest... although this all shows me that I gotta' really keep a closer eye on care for those little chompily bits there from here on out.

Driving back to my mother's house after the fog in my head from the nitrous cleared, I noticed in the mirror a slight impression on my face of some kind of dental tool or such... perhaps from the clamp thing put in during the procedure... funny. It was pretty much all faded away by the time I got home and settled in a bit.

Big thanks to everyone at Dr. LePere's office including the good doctor himself for being so kind to me through all this. It's been a bit of a grueling ordeal having all this work done at once... but I'm able to pull through with a smile on my face... even if that smile has a much larger percentage of metallic glint and missing teeth now... heh!

Alright... so September the 6th I turned 32 years old. Spent most of the occasion up in Shelton with my family there. Briefly drove down to the Tumwater Costco with my father to procure some luggage for use in my upcoming Japan trip. Then I went back to my old apartment in Olympia later that evening to prepare for my radio show... and also watch a movie with my roommate Luke ("Inglourious Basterds" by Quentin Tarantino, which I enjoyed... yes).

Tonight it was... and now gone by... the very last "Chuggypig Unlimited Express" radio show for a long time. As a special treat, I cued up a bit extra and extended the show by an hour (going from 11pm till 2am instead of 1am). Funny, even with the extra hour it almost seemed to go by at least as fast if not faster than previous 2 hour shows. Had a little scare in the beginning, before starting, when the internet was screwing up campus wide... but it somehow magically cleared up just on time for my show to start (and my live playlist to start updating) as if on cue or something! Everything was smooth going from there!

The mp3 archive and playlist can be reached here:
http://www.duckhugger.com/cue-playlist/cue-2009-09-07.html

That will be up there for two weeks and then I'll have to take it down (according to stodgey DMCA rules n' all that garbage)... so you might have to go through a dry spell of radio related things from me for a while, for sure. Although, it's worth mentioning (if I haven't before) that I'm considering doing some podcasts from Miyazaki, Japan while I'm there. Perhaps some kind of show where I partially talk about my experiences while I'm there, share sound recordings I'm making on my portable digital recorder, and playing some new and old music finds (I'm taking a 1 TB hard drive over with me to store my library of music on so I can have it available away from home).

We'll see how that goes... you can follow my activity on this blog here and my Japan exchange-stay blog at Blogspot... but yeah, those of you who have enjoyed following this show while it ran (or other shows on KAOS I've done over the past 12 years)... thanks for tuning in!!

It's time for a nice long break...

Earlier in the day, around 6pm, I went over to hang out with my friend Charlie. Met him at his house and found out that they were having a show there later in the day... but first we kicked it down to Quality Burrito to get some food-stuffs. Both of us coincidentally ordered the same menu item... Emma's Codpiece Burrito... rather I should say that this is what I order EVERY time I go there... but I digress. We yammering about things n' stuff... I looked through some sketches and drawings he had done throughout the year including some cool comics that he's been doing on a weekly basis. You should follow that linked text and check them out if you have the time. We also discussed quite a bit about my, ever looming-closer, trip to Miyazaki Japan... him sharing with me experiences of his own trip to Japan as an exchange student a few years previous when he was in Kobe.

After eating, we made it back to the Finger Complex for the show... Charlie made some coffee and we sat around drawing with others coming and going to join us in drawing activities at that table every now and again. It's nice because both going to shows and drawings random illustrations... neither of these things I've been really able/willing to do as much really. It was really nice to be in that environment though... entertaining, social, and productive as it was for me. I'll post those drawings here now, yeh:



This is the first one I drew up. Some cowboy wading through murky water greeted by a goose... or is that just a head... perhaps a goose snake? The water looks kinda' sloppy on this one. I do like the line quality from this new pen that I'm using though.



The second one I drew... I'm picturing this as a scene going on at the bar of a nightclub or something. The lights in the background made for an odd/fun touch... I imagine them as some kind of "intoxicating party-lights" or the like... I do feel like this is a little cluttered... It's a problem a lot of my drawings have... when I try to cram in too many details.



This one is the last one I did... It's partially in response to seeing how cluttered the one before it was... tried to make something very simple and intentional with good black and white balance. Despite the surreal and warped look this has in spots... I pictured it as an illustration for an economics magazine or something, as I was doodling it up.

So yeah... new art... hooray... gotta' get back in the swing of doing this more than once ever month or so. Since I'm planning on including artwork, sketches, and comic creation as part of this year's independent learning contract (for the Miyazaki Exchange)... I gotta' get myself kicked into gear and drawing much more regularly.

Come to think of it... last time I drew a bunch of art was while I was in attendance at the Olympia Experimental Music Festival. Perhaps music events (or just social events) are good for coaxing drawings out of me? Maybe I should get out n' go to things like that more then, eh?

So yesterday I headed up to Allyn, WA in anticipation of my dental surgery to remove two teeth. One of those teeth is one from which a huge filling had fallen out and the rest of the tooth had gradually been chipped away till it was a mere stump. The other tooth, as I've mentioned before, is towards the back of my lower right jaw and has been in a painful state of abscess for this past week. The week of hell was soon to draw to it's close.

I tried to sleep that night... fell asleep in about two different two and a half patches punctuated by waking up in pain... retreating to the dimly lit dining room to nurse the pain with a cold glass of water... looming over the glowing screen of my laptop... looking for distractions to tide me over. The morning finally came and I was too nervous to really eat anything much other than a bowl of cereal. Eating the cereal in and of itself was pretty laborious so I had to take it slowly.

At about 8:15 am I walked across the street to our neighbor Ernie's house. He had offered to help out since my mother was busy that day in driving me to and from the appointment. The drive was pleasant enough despite the nagging pain I felt in my tooth. Ernie took a different, of the beaten path, route to the dental surgeon's office. Along the way we passed by the McCormick Woods golf course where Ernie had worked years before.

Arriving at my appointment in Port Orchard, things got started pretty quick. The oral surgeon was amusingly just as prone to cracking jokes and levity as my dentist back in Belfair... perhaps dental school comes with free comedy classes? The whole thing had me pretty nervous even if I was looking forward to getting the teeth out, seeing all the pliers and other tools laid before me was enough to give me a horrible case of the shakes!

Things started with two different types of local anesthetics being injected in multiple places all over my gum-line. Then quick enough it moved into the actual pulling of the teeth. The first one on the upper jaw went pretty quick and easy... it echoed the reports I'd heard from other people about the procedure being "no big deal" and gave me hope for the next one.

That hope was pretty quickly dashed against the rocks, however, when I realized the local anesthetics weren't really doing much for blocking the pain on my abscessed tooth. He had to yank the hulking molar back and forth a few times and each time it sent ripples of pain through my body making my shaking worse. After realizing it wasn't going to come out easily he decided to just drill through the bastard thing. As the drill went down through the nerves I let out several yelps of pain and clenched my fists tight. The horrible smell was just as overwhelming as the pain. Finally he got to pulling it... or rather... twisting out the pieces one by one. Each time this happened I not only cried out but also began convulsing (although I did my best to hold still).

Eventually it was all over and I breathed a long sigh of relief. Since then it hasn't been too bad. Some aching to a certain degree yeah... but I was able to take a nice long nap after Ernie had dropped me back off at my mother's house in Allyn. Oh yeah... and they gave me a souvenir of the experience. I'll post a couple photos here for you (queasy readers beware).

First you have the adorable little white and golden plastic "tooth fairy" box it comes packaged in:



And then you have the especially magical gruesome contents contained within:



And with that we turn to tonight's show. I guess it might be better if I had just taken this as a chance to recover and rest... but hell!!... this was the penultimate installment of the Chuggypig Unlimited Express that I had left to do. There's no way I wanted to be a weary ol' wuss-pants and miss out on it! Besides, being free of this abscess has left me feeling fairly re-invigorated really! Can't wait to have a nice long sleep now that I'm finished with the show!

Amusing little thing that struck me as funny earlier while I was cueing up for the show... towards the end of the playlist I lined up some cds and unintentionally paired two songs next to each-other one titled "Tell Me Where It Hurts" (by Kevin Blechdom) and another titled "Extraction" (by Lords Of The Outland). As if that weren't enough, the next set included a cd released on a label called "Twisted Nerve". Subtle reminders of my trauma lurking everywhere tonight... and all in a row like that... oh my!!

Anyways, the playlist for the show and mp3 archive is up here now. Hope you Enjoy!:
http://www.duckhugger.com/cue-playlist/cue-2009-08-31.html

P.S. - To the long time listener who called me in to wish well and mourn my departure. Thanks that really made my night!!
To the two douche bags who called up after that... one guy saying "see ya' later queer!" after I hunted down a phone number he wanted.... and another guy calling me a "dickhead" because I wasn't up for taking his request... really... what's wrong with you people!? Is there some kind of petty-malicious-asshat virus spreading around or something? Not that cocks like that would be reading my journal or anything... still... felt I needed to vent a little...