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Archive for June 6th, 2009

eric on Jun 6th 2009 Around Seattle, Listen, Music, Travel, Video

A quackless duck without wings? OMG! It’s a GOOEY-DUCK!

Yesterday, Ryan, the kids, Sarah and I headed out to west Seattle to Lincoln Park. Aside from the normal “slides and swings” there is, after a bit of a walk, a beach.

The weather was pretty crappy, which is strange because it’s been super sunny lately. Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable time.

While on the beach, we kept seeing streams of water shoot up from the ground. Some were only a few inches high, but others were a couple of feet!

The accepted speculation was that it was the bladder of a kelp plant. But oh that was not exactly correct.

Ryan did a bit of research and discovered that they were geoducks! You pronounce it “gooey-duck,” though I don’t know why. This is strange because I had no idea I lived so close to this famed beast of the sea!

When I was a kid, much of my knowledge of the outside world came from Dr. Demento. Geoducks are no different. The song, apparently called “The Geoduck Song,” was performed by Pierymplezak, though don’t ask me how to pronounce that (or why you would want to).

The lyrics to this song are, roughly:

You can hear the digger say
As he’s headed for the bay
I gotta dig a duck, gotta dig a duck a day

Cause I get a buck a duck
If I dig a duck a day
So I gotta dig a duck,
Gotta dig a duck a day

Dig a duck, dig a duck,
Dig a gooey duck
Dig a duck, dig a gooey duck
Dig a duck a day

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that digging a duck is totally not vegan.

But the song is fun.

Want to hear it?

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For some reason they play it twice. Once in English and then in Japanese. Life is so awesomely surreal sometimes.

And here you can see some crappy video I shot of the geoduck in action!