Huck Forest: Many fans have been asking me to give them a little background about myself, and the Cubby Creatures were kind enough to create this web page for my little blurb. I'm sure many of you don't realize that I am a small town boy because of the cosmopolitan demeanor and street-wisdom I display on CubbyVision (remember Episode 4: The Search for Bonemaker?). But it's true. I was born Huckleberry Steve Forest in the very small town of Ned's Bog, California (pop. 78), which is also where I spent my first 16 years.  The Bog (as we Ned's Boggians refer to it) is very close to Point Reyes, up around Inverness. It is a rather remote location and not many have heard of it. Some of you might think that small town folk can be somewhat eccentric, but, all things considered, my upbringing there was surprisingly normal. My family lived in a geodesic tree house that my father, Chet Forest, designed. He started out just wanting a dome but he got a little carried away and before he knew it he had a sphere made out of bamboo and hemp fiber.  Being an innovative guy, he decided that he would hoist the thing into the air with massive hemp ropes and pulleys. He did this all single handedly because he was inspired by Ed Leedskalnin, the man who spent 28 years building the Coral Castle all by himself.  He said to himself, "If that guy can spend 28 years of his life carving out blocks of coral with simple hand tools and making a castle, then, by golly, I can spend a few months figuring out how to hang a geodesic orb made out of bamboo from two giant redwood trees in a gigantic net woven from hemp fiber!"  And he didn't just say this to himself, but also to the entire family, several times, often somewhat abruptly. Ultimately he succeeded in his effort with the volunteer help of 2600 Andean natives who were recommended by a Bavarian filmmaker who lived nearby (he had apparently used them in a film of his and had them in town for a little shindig).  In any case, in less than three weeks the Forests had their own unique home. My parents had an interesting reason for choosing these living arrangements. Although they were kind of like back-to-the-landers, they also believed they should live in as high a place as possible.  Their justification, at least the way my mother, Sunbird Forest, put it, was to be "as close to the moon and it's curative powers as possible." They would also claim that the closer one was to the moon the better one's cognitive functioning was. I can hear my dad now. Perhaps my brother and I would be shoveling manure into the bio-refabrication chamber (a little thing my mom crafted out of some coffee cans and an old version of Mattel's Merlin) and one of us would complain about the high winds or the constant fog. Suddenly, dad would appear and point at the newly risen moon. "It's making us better and better!" he would say.  Terry might roll his eyes and suck his teeth, which would only egg Dad on. He would adopt his pontification pose (his head slightly cocked and hand on his chin) and say; "You see that water there in that ocean--it's massive! Bigger than anything on earth! Therešs only one thing in the solar system that moves all of that water -- the moon! And you know that 90% of your body is water, including your brain, kiddo.  That moon works on your brain just like it does Mother Earth's.  Us being up here so high -- you may think it's strange or inconvenient, but there's a point to it: the moon is working on us more than it is most people, and it's always stirring your water around! None of those neural fluids are going to be stagnant with the moon nearby. They'll always be churning and something good can't ever get stuck on some corner or buried. You'll be able to use more of what's up there!" As you can see, my parents held some pretty provocative views. I sort of went off on a sidetrack there about Dad. I'll conclude by saying that Mom and Pop were some highly influential people. In fact, I still try to get up into some higher elevations on a regular basis to get my juices flowing. But, I'll steer this barge-like bio back to more familiar channels. Some of you might be wondering how I came to be the Lo Chang master that I am. I can say that I didn't start out wanting to be a Lo Chang master.  In fact, when I was a boy I wanted to become a nuclear physicist and I spent my time looking at bizarre formulas I didn't understand and gazing dreamily at pictures of J. Robert Oppenheimer. I was captured by the mythos of it all ever since I had seen Mickey Rooney in The Atomic Kid. After I saw it, I could think of nothing for weeks except for mushroom clouds and the green glow of radiation poisoning. And although I eventually changed my path, I think I have always been drawn to displays of explosive power (hence my fondness for Lo Chang). But my path indeed changed and it was because of an unforeseen twist of fate. When I was eleven, I was engaged in a healthy dose of tomfoolery with my friend Akmed Al-Bakir. I think we had been running around an abandoned crypt looking for slimy creatures to frighten Akmed's sister with, when suddenly we found ourselves confronted by who I guess I should describe as the town bully, Chaz Harrington. I describe him that way because, at the time, I didnšt know much about Chaz except for rumors and that everyone was very afraid of him. This was kind of understandable because at age five, he stood almost six and half feet tall and he had no discernable forehead. He had a shaggy mane of greasy red hair and below that, there where two heavily lidded eyes, a hog-like snout and a wide, wet slit that we guessed was his mouth. When we saw Chaz that day he was nine years old and besides the monstrous stature and horrible features, he had also grown a massive pair of tusks that protruded from his cheeks. The guy was just a little bit scary, if you know what I mean, and we tried to run but we were cornered. Chaz was standing there and we could hear a small gurgling sound coming from him. The whole thing became very confusing when Akmed began babbling something about unilateral disarmament and neighborhood relations (he always read too many of his dad's political magazines). Chaz was becoming visibly uneasy and I began to sob. I was sure that we were going to be taken home to the Harrington house as that evening's kill, when suddenly we heard a voice behind us. "Now you listen Chaz! You quit scarin' them boys an' come back an' finish weedin' my garden!" It was Norbert Perkins, the hermetic town druggist, coming toward us with an angry look.  Then we heard Chaz say in a tiny voice: "But I was only playin' Star Wars." Soon they were arguing and Chaz's giant figure was stomping and whining. Then Norbert began to chase Chaz around in a circle and ultimately, frustrated by Chaz's insubordination, Norbert picked up a stone and hurled it at Chaz. It hit Chaz directly in the side of the head with seemingly no effect. However, it also ricocheted and hit me directly on my own head having a great effect. Now when I say it had an effect I'm not just talking about the sharp pain that shot through my nervous system. I'm also talking a strangely lasting impression of the instant the rock struck. It was like a giant chime had been struck, or, perhaps more accurately, it was like one of those huge Chinese gongs had been struck. The cognitive reverberations of the blow were coursing through my psyche. I imagined in that moment an entire scenario that revolved around the deliverance of such a force as to cause similar psychic ripples in the world around me. But rather than being a purely destructive force, I saw it as a force of rejuvenating energy. And I saw myself as the deliverer of such a force. When I regained consciousness, I was back in the tree house and my mom was nursing me back to health by applying a strong smelling poultice to the knot on my head. I was also surprised to see Chaz looming over me as well.  My mother told me that Chaz had brought me home and that I had been out for about an hour. She also told me that my hair had changed color. It had gone from a lustrous dark brown to a shimmering yellow. I immediately rose from the bed and announced to whoever was around that I had discovered my life's path and that I must go to the Orient. Everyone of course thought I was simply knocked silly by the rock, but I knew that something had taken hold within me. I knew that I was to go on a journey. It took me about two years to save up the money and since I was educated in a nontraditional learning center that operated out of a nearby commune, at age sixteen I was able to get a high school equivalency and be on my way to the Orient! I came back a few weeks later because of a general language problem, which I think I described in an earlier interview. But just that taste was enough to propel me to seek out Dildeaux, the Master of Lo Chang. You see, the few people that did understand me in the Orient, after hearing about the energy-force creating art that I sought to learn, either immediately walked away or they immediately suggested that I find Dildeaux. Without getting into it too much, mainly because the teachings of Lo Chang are purposefully shrouded to prevent them falling into the hands of evil, I found Dildeaux and, after years of training, perfected my Lo Chang skills. Although Lo Chang consists of the singular Fist of Fire maneuver, it takes a little while to get it just right. After returning to the Bay Area, I saw fit to bring the positive Lo Chang force to the world at large, or at least to as many people who would be receptive to it.  As you all know, myself and the Cubby Creatures and, shoot, the Cubby itself have made it possible to receive a bit of Lo Chang in your own homes. We call it CubbyVision.  We would have called it Lo ChangVision, but that's a bit unwieldy.  Plus, it's really the Cubbies who made it possible. back to the cast page