Wed, 11 Aug 2021 10:23:48 -0700WeeblyWed, 18 May 2016 10:21:59 GMThttp://alaskandude.com/where-in-the-world-is-ad/the-truth-about-escorts-on-craigslistReturning to Alaska after a good stretch of traveling, or an extended hiatus can feel a bit like diving head first into the twilight zone...There's really no place quite like it, and the weirdness it breeds unquestionably stands alone. 
Or maybe it's just me...

Like the mighty salmon, I came home last week for the first time since October of last year. With a nephew on the way in a couple of weeks, three nieces that need reminding what their crazy bearded uncle looks like and the need for a change in scenery, I was due to see some mountains. Unfortunately with the limits of my youthful sobriety, it seems I've retired from commercial fishing for the time being, but who knows? Anything can happen.

In any case, on with the story.

​Here I sit in Anchorage, with a very real need for some marginally reliable transportation for the time being. Now a rich kid I am not, so I look to the best resource I know of for a cheap vehicle: CraigsList. I punch in the specifications I'm looking for and immediately find a gloriously neglected and abused 96 Ford Escort within my price range. I called the man selling it and less than an hour later I was standing in front of what was left of its rear bumper, negotiating the price for this first prize shit box of a car and fiddling with an old jack to replace a shot rear tire. 
With the new tire in place I trade the nice man $350 cash for a key and paperwork.
Bargain.
Half way home the alternator is fried. I left it for the night and in the morning was joined by an old friend and fixed it on the Road. It ran great all the way to the DMV where I hoped to make my new rolling death trap as legal as possible.
​
Now it doesn't really matter where you're from, the DMV is a miserable experience. Long waits in uncomfortable seats, disgruntled/sadistic government employees behind the counters, absurd fees and taxes coerced from your wallet for the basic need to get to work... It's a law of the universe: the DMV just sucks.
So the next time you're sitting there waiting, ever so patiently, for your number to be called, wishing you were ANYWHERE but here, I'd like you to recall this tale.

I handed the paper work over to a young lady behind the counter with a sign that said "In Training" in black and white. I noticed she was so new her eyes weren't entirely lifeless yet...but it was only Monday. She did some clicking and clacking on her keyboard and said she needed to consult her manager, and scurried away into a back room with my papers. I waited about a half an hour before giving up and sitting back down to wait. I was at their mercy.
A few minutes later, a professionally dressed man in his 40's sits down next to me and says my name. Assuming he knew me from the old days I answer in the affirmative, at which point he states clearly "I'm with the Anchorage Police Department and we have a warrant for your arrest."
"You're fucking kidding me?'
"Nope, we had her stall you until we could get here."
"That bitch. Look, I'm not pissed off, I'm sure whatever this is about will get resolved, but I'm trying to do stuff here, this is really inconvenient."
"I know, and thank you for not spitting on me, but we need to get going."
I got up and saw 2 more cops standing by the door. One in uniform and another in plain clothes and light body armor underneath.
After a few minutes of lackluster details I'll spare you, I was cuffed and riding in the back seat to the holding tank. All in all, they were really quite decent as far as cops go. 
Sitting in seating about as comfortable as the plastic lawn chairs in the 5th circle of hell, I stared at a flat screen in the corner watching reality TV shows for four hours. A white guy with a shaved head and a mask of facial tattoos was talking to the guards like they went to high school together. A drunk native gal was yacking violently into a garbage can.
I thought back to how much worse it was the last time I was in the pokey, when they wouldn't let me leave until I blew a zero. 
I was really missing the DMV.
Finally my bail was posted for the bench warrant from 2007 I didn't even know existed. I stepped outside and rolled my first cigarette in over 8 hours. 

This is how I got arrested for picking up an Escort off of CraigsList.
 ]]>Mon, 06 Apr 2015 05:59:45 GMThttp://alaskandude.com/where-in-the-world-is-ad/keys-disease

When I started this travel blog, the thought never once occurred to me: What happens when I'm sitting still? In point of fact the very notion of NOT traveling has always seemed like a distant and remote concept, like being dead only more boring. I mean sure, lots of folks do it, and I probably would too at some point, but not for a long long time. But these are unlikely circumstances I have found myself in, at least by my standards. I have maintained sobriety for nearly 4 months now, I actually OWN stuff, registered and insured in my own name...almost like a real grown up!


What it all comes down to is compromise. If I were to continue with regular updates on this blog while not traveling it would devolve into nothing more than a beach bum making alot of noise that even fewer people would bother to read about. This is not to suggest that life has become uneventful lately, but compared to my life a year ago, this is painfully slow and about as exciting the sandwiches you get in the drunk tank. 


While it might seem as though my existence has slipped into something akin to public access television, it turns out to be a critical quiet period in which to finish my book, which is what all this dribble is about to begin with. So when I go 3 months without updating anything here...I promise it's not out of laziness. Though I am quite lazy.


With all that said, I feel a few anecdotes would be appropriate, this is, after all, an "update".


After about a thousand dollars (US) and a truck load of self education/ingenuity I now have a fully functioning solar system on board my sail boat, and produce more power than I can possibly use. Complete with deck lights, cabin lights, coffee, and reliable internet, its become more than an "outside dog" such as myself could hope for. I'm quite pleased with my floating bachelor pad.
A friend offered me a submersible fish light with a 20 foot cord. I had never even considered such a thing, but it seemed like it would be worth a try, if nothing else I would be able to get a gander at the various nocturnal critters around my boat. And boy howdy what a toy it has become. The first night I hung it from my stern I spent an hour or so watching different bait fish come and go, and even a small leopard ray cruise by. Retiring to my cabin to cook some eggs around 2:30 in the morning I was alerted by a large splash behind my boat. I flew out of the hatch to find a pod of 5 bottle nosed dolphins playing in the light. The splash I heard was only one of a series of full body breaches they were making. Jumping in the air and flipping around, wrestling underwater with each other, pushing my zodiac back and forth, toying with the glowing LED stick with their noses...for 40 minutes I watched the spectacle in awe. I half expected Shamoo to join in at any moment. I considered stripping off my shorts and jumping in the water with them, but decided it was enough to watch, they didn't need my help to have a good time. I did wish to hell I had caught some bait fish to throw them. I've seen Flipper, and it never hurts to have dolphins for friends.
Yes, the fish light does a remarkable job of bringing company in up close and personal. I awoke last night to find a school of hundreds of yellow tail snapper swarming me, and tonight I threw a bag of chum (think frozen fish burger) over to see what would happen, and the result? Jaw dropping. Yellow tail, mangrove snapper, blue runners, all in a frenzy, boiling the illuminated water and filling the murky darkness beyond it. When people say "there's plenty of fish in the sea" they aren't talking about relationships, it's a direct reference to my boat. And a damned accurate one at that.


Now I would be lying if I suggested I weren't growing restless. Even in a place as awesome as this, the hunger to go yonder is ever present, and growing. But this book is the measure of my life to this point, and it must be completed before new shenanigans are initiated. Writing is but one of many things I have found to be challenging in sobriety, and I'm having to relearn that which came so easily before. If ever there were a time and place to button it up, this is it, so please bear with me as I toil, and I promise to have my first assault on the english language in print this summer. 
Or my name's not AD.

---

]]>Sat, 31 Jan 2015 21:19:58 GMThttp://alaskandude.com/where-in-the-world-is-ad/slow-news-day1Everyday I come to the library to charge my laptop and check my email. The solar system on board my sail boat is not equipped to do anything more than run my navigation lights and bilge pump...yet. But soon I will be able to dispense with the time wasting and stream line my days to peak efficiency and maximize my fishing, writing, productivity on the boat renovations, and, of course, napping. Fundamentally, if you're in the Keys and working your ass off, it's time to sit back and reevaluate your life because something is seriously wrong.


I myself have several irons in the fire at the moment, and in the coming weeks at least one will reveal itself as a viable means of support while I work on bigger projects. None of which involve punching a clock of any sort, as I am simply not wired that way. Alot of folks like to throw around the word "lazy" in regards to my lifestyle, and my only response to that is a simple dare to abandon any sort of security and make your own way in the world. It's easier to walk on pavement than through the woods, and of the two, one is certainly more lazy than the other; its also a helluva lot more boring. 


The settling down is harder to get used to than I thought it would be. There are times when something small and simple will launch my mind into the past to relive something from the Road. A cave I camped out in, a party I wound up at, friends on a beach in Mexico, watching pretty girls walk by in a New York City park, discovering some small creature I had only read about before, the endless hours of beautiful solitude on the side of the Road with nothing but my thoughts for company. Sometimes I can't close my eyes without a tidal wave of pictures and voices and feelings flooding my mind. Now without alcohol to tone it all down, my only hope is the completion of my book to find a measure of peace until I begin traveling again. 


Neil Peart the drummer for Rush once said something to the effect of any time he was experiencing any personal turmoil he would immerse himself in playing his drums. His tortured soul could find salvation in banging 2 sticks around. While I can't pretend to be anywhere near as gifted or talented at ANYTHING as he is playing his drums, the same does hold true for me. When I find my proper groove on the key board to tell a story, or sit patiently behind a rifle to make a perfect shot; the whole of the world falls away, and nothing else can exist. Myself and the object of my focus are creation in its entirety which the universe obediently revolves around, and my soul is laid bare to perform the task for which it was made. 
And this is peace.]]>Sun, 25 Jan 2015 05:22:20 GMThttp://alaskandude.com/where-in-the-world-is-ad/1

The rigging clinks against the mast as the sail boat rocks gently in the night breeze, the new moon is a rusty sliver on the horizon, the fish are biting; mostly trash fish and baby snappers, but it doesn’t matter. I clutch a cheap cigarette in my lips as I carefully pull another salt water cat fish off the line and toss it back into the inky water. I rebait with a stinky frozen shrimp, hoping it will be the one to land a keeper. Flicking it out of sight beyond the reach of my anchor light I take a drag, watching the smoke curl up and disappear around my rod tip. When I’m out of bait, my boat will rock me to sleep in the cradle of her bow, where I will sleep the sleep of the dead. There is no one in the world who can tell me what to do. I am my own master, and I am generous to myself.

This is my life. At least for the moment. And it’s a damn hard thing to not appreciate considering a month ago I was rolling around on the plywood floor of a shack, wishing I was dead. I think it’s fair to say I’ve come a long ways in a months time.

No longer do I wake up with bandages, or in jail, or rolled up in a rug, or naked on a beach clutching an empty bottle. No longer do I shake my aching head while turning out the empty pockets which had money in them the night before. No longer do I text carbon copy half shot apologies to whomever I might have pissed off during my blackout.

At least I haven’t for 37 days now. And I hope to hell I don’t tomorrow.

My boat commands the majority of my attention. I’ve just finished replumbing the bilge, and the cockpit scuppers will be next. After that, the battery banks for the solar panels….As far as it feels like I’ve come, I have a very long ways to go yet. Walk a mile into the woods and you have a mile to walk back out. There are no short cuts.

Working on my boat helps. The AA meetings help. Writing helps. Doing literally everything I neglected for the sake of a jug of rum helps. To be too busy partying or nursing a hangover to work on my book is an excuse of the past, and I intend to keep it there. With the ideas, goals and aspirations, I feel like the sky is the limit, and the only thing that can stop me is myself. I still have no idea what I will be capable of sober, but I do know how to find out.

I have to admit I had mixed feelings about writing a post on my sobriety here. But I’m glad I made the decision I did. My father would call it “dirty laundry” and not fit to share with anyone breathing. I don’t see things that way. I know for a fact that alcoholism is romanticized, I myself am even guilty of boasting with prideful stories and ridiculous pictures. I haven’t sat down and crawled through it yet, but I’d be willing to wager 90% of this blog has been created under the influence. I was even drunk when I came up with the name. The scary thing is its true entertainment value (I mean seriously, who climbs light poles?).

So if you must call it something, call it the straight laced ying to the slobbering drunk yang. But the sharing of it demanded to be done as much or more so as the thing itself. And the emails would make Paul Bunion weep. Staggering emails I can hardly keep up with have poured in over the last week and a half. Thanking me or confiding in me their own struggles with substance abuse, or those of loved ones. Damned serious stuff.

It’s said that everything happens for a reason. If this is true, and even one of these emails is legitimate, and even just one person can find value in the experiences I’ve shared to this point, then the last 2 years I have fought the universe to keep this blog alive will not have been a waste. A greater success I could never have dreamed of.

To those who have chosen to share with me in kind: Keep fighting the good fight. Let me know how I can help.

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]]>Sun, 11 Jan 2015 04:06:54 GMThttp://alaskandude.com/where-in-the-world-is-ad/shockingly-soberI am the Alaskan Dude, and I'm an Alcoholic.
These words (or their approximation) are among the last I would have ever expected myself to utter. But there I was. Sitting in my first AA meeting. My head swimming and my guts churning; the old familiar sensation of my body demanding a spicy bloody marry. Or 4. But it was not to be. No, an hour before my mind had been made, and I'm not the sort of man to fuck around. So now let us time travel as best we can to around 12 hours into the past, and examine the chain of events leading up to my sitting in a room full of strangers with the most unfamiliar of sensations...a tear welling up in my left eye.


I was invited out to a bar by my soon to be business partner. Of course only a drink or maybe two. There was alot to do the next day, and getting ripped was not on the agenda, only a light social engagement with some friends. 
As the rum flowed things began to take their predictably unpredictable turn for the catastrophic. At some point towards the end of the evening the world began getting fuzzy...then it just went away. As it so often does.
I can't tell you with any exact detail the events of that night, only what I was able to piece together from text messages I received from people so pissed off they wouldn't even speak to me directly.
I came to in the cabin of a tuna boat. I was naked. Still drunk. And as I staggered around looking for my shorts, at a total loss as to how I got there. The last thing I remembered clearly was ordering another round at the Dead Animal Bar. I could manage to dredge up a few blurry snap shots from the recesses of my mind: the meat rack of a strip club with a hideous looking meth head rolling around naked on the stage, hearing someone yelling about a phone, chugging a mysterious gin and tonic that tasted like shit. None of it had any context, and I couldn't find my phone.
I discovered my partner to be's truck in the drive way of the house the tuna boat was docked at. But no partner to be seen. Inside was my phone containing a whole slough of angry text messages. They were confusing and I was still too drunk to make any sense of them. I stumbled back to the boat and sat on the transom to assimilate exactly what was going on. The sun was blinding me as I scanned the bulk of the messages. It wasn't good. Apparently my exploits the night before included but were by no means limited to: getting kicked out of a strip club for being too friendly with a dancer, being involved with a stolen cell phone (which still makes no sense to me), stealing my partner's truck and running it up and down the overseas highway in a blacked out stupor, and having the police called on me no less than 3 times. One of which by my would be partner and another by the friend I was crashing with.
Just like that, in the wake of a respectively typical night out, I had destroyed absolutely everything I had going for me here. I had no place to stay, no partner to go into business with, no friends, no resources, and the truly fucked up thing about it all? I couldn't even understand why...it was, after all, just another night. 
And this is when I had my moment of clarity. "Holy shit. This is rock bottom..."
Indeed it was. And I hit it so hard I didn't even bounce.
On the front porch I found my 2 small leather bags which held my earthly belongings and started walking. I was still drunk and not sure where I was going, but I knew one thing for sure: My drinking days were over, this was the end of my rope. 
The sun was blazing overhead, and my body was screaming at me to replace the booze it was sweating out in the heat, when I came to the public library. I walked in and pulled out my laptop to look up the local AA hall, praying it wasn't too far. The website had a phone number listed in the head line, so I dialed it and walked outside to smoke while I asked a stranger how to go about not drinking. While it rang I looked up and sure as shit there it was, right across the parking lot. I could have put a rock through it's window from the library steps.
I grabbed my stuff and sat outside until the next meeting started. 
I didn't know what to say, so I didn't say much of anything. I just sat and listened. And after the meeting was over I sat outside and waited for the next one. And then the next one. I felt like shit, and in the bathroom mirror I saw nothing but a death mask of myself. After the last meeting of the day it occurred to me that I would need a place to sleep, and luckily right behind the meeting hall was an abandoned house. I tried every door to find them locked. The place was buttoned up tight. In the back yard I found and old shed. The door was open and inside I found it to be filthy with rat feces every where and the back wall rotten to the point of half of it missing entirely.
I spend the next week going through the DT's on the floor of that abandoned shed. Alone, without so much as a blanket for comfort. Tortured with horrifying hallucinations,the few hours a night I could manage to sleep were filled with twisted nightmares, chasing the rats out with screams and pounding my fists on the plywood floor, feeling the ants crawling on my arms that didn't exist. I made 3 meetings a day without fail. They were my anchor. Without them I was lost. I could no longer see any future with or without drinking, my only redemption was within those walls with the strangers who had been where I was and had seen what I was seeing. 
On my 11th day of sobriety a senior member of AA discovered me in the shed and called the police. After a moment he cancelled the call but informed me that if I were caught there again I would be going to jail. And so I slept outside. With concrete for a mattress and a dirty shirt for a pillow, I was robbed of the only shelter I could find. I still made 3 meetings a day.
After 2 weeks in the program I was able to buy an old truck, to serve as transportation and shelter until I could improve my means ever further. After 2 nights of sleeping in the parking lot of the public library next to the meeting hall, a sheriff was kind enough to inform me if I was seen sleeping in my truck or using the library's internet after hours I would go to jail. And so every night I would park in seemingly unpatrolled lots and neighborhoods for a few hours at a time, then get up and park somewhere else. Constantly on the dodge in my truck I couldn't afford to register, trying to sleep without going to jail. I still made 3 meetings a day.
At the time of this writing I have 25 days clean and sober. I'm still averaging 3 meetings a day, though I am busier getting my shit together now, so I can't make them all. 
Today I bought a sail boat. She is 27 feet long with an 8 1/2 foot beam and a twin keel. She needs alot of work, but I'm just the man for the job. As she is moored a few hundred yards off shore I have also acquired a 10 foot zodiac with a 2 horse motor to shuttle back and forth to land when ever I need to, and fish when ever I am hungry or the mood strikes me.
As things stand I am reinventing myself. Learning how to live all over again. And learning also who my real friends are. I waited until I had a full week sober to tell anyone what was happening, and the responses of overwhelming support have left me baffled. From offers of monetary assistance to shelter to advise to simply telling me they are proud. It's nearly more than I can write about.


My plans are to gain a toe hold in the commercial fishing industry here (stick to what you know, right?), and explore the salvage diving on my own. I still have no money, and how I will be able to make the repairs to my sail boat or begin salvage diving remains to be seen. But one thing I have learned in this last month is without the drunken fog clouding my mind and body, I have no limits. One day at a time I will put my shit together. And it will be a magnificent achievement.
Am I done traveling you might ask? My answer would be a resounding NO. With my sobriety in it's infancy, for now I must focus on other things, but soon...soon I will return to the Road. With a clear head and even stronger back, with far more to look forward to than the next stretch of highway ahead of me. For now I heal and I build.


]]>Wed, 26 Nov 2014 19:46:14 GMThttp://alaskandude.com/where-in-the-world-is-ad/slow-news-day

Things have been going quite well here. The weather unfortunately is largely influenced by the weather up north, which I'm sure everyone is aware sucks at the moment. While it takes more than a winter storm on the east coast to make it uncomfortably cold here, the temperatures have dipped as low as 65 degrees lately. More than ok with me, but the wind that has come with it has been anything but agreeable. Not only does it make the water rough for fishing, but the shallow seas here become muddied up with the silt from the bottom very easily. The end result has been a disappointing lack of cool shit happening. 


On a brighter side, I accidentally caught my first tarpon the other day night fishing for snapper in the canal. With the light tackle it put up quite a fight. Running half way down the canal when ever it wanted I must have spent 20 minutes bringing it in. After a few pictures he swam free no worse for the wear. The next day I ate barracuda for the first time as well. A baby really, maybe 18 inches long, it was some damn fine eating fish. I don't believe I'll be passing another up. 


At the risk of sounding like a very boring guy here, I'll have to conclude this update as it is...just not a helluva lot going on. But I promise I'm enjoying the quiet time. 


As soon as the water clears up I should be able to start posting more legit underwater photos. I'm actually kind of excited about that. 

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]]>Fri, 07 Nov 2014 23:41:14 GMThttp://alaskandude.com/where-in-the-world-is-ad/why-the-keys-are-the-bees-knees

My first time seeing the Florida Keys must have been 2009. At the time I was an affable young man under the impression that I was some sort of bad ass nomad on an epic journey...I had alot to learn still. I wound up spending about a week in Big Pine in a house on a canal with some new friends who had rented it for their vacation, and they were kind enough to invite me along. Lord only knows why. We went fishing and partied as the keys are so well suited for, and I began to develop an impression of the tropical archipelago, one that still proves true to this day, and as near as I can tell will always be at least somewhat accurate...until global warming sends these islands to the bottom of the shallow sea. In short: "This place place is for me!"


After parting company with the nice folks in Big Pine I caught a ride into Key West where I was in for some more profound experiences. Key West is an island measuring 2 miles by 4 miles, and yet within the confines of this tiny rock there are over 500 bums at any given time. The sheer mass of homeless there make it exceedingly difficult for anyone in my position to find what you might call shelter, there is no where to hide your gear, and no where to lay low and sleep. Every inch of reasonable real-estate that would suit a man's needs is occupied. This would test my ingenuity. 


I found a nice sandy spot between 2 hotels called Simonton Beach, and on it was a very large bathroom facility. It had a covered porch that came in very handy. Using a stretch of 550 cord I strung my backpack up into the framing of it's rafters for safe keeping while I scouted around. Not an easy task considering my gear weighed a little more than me at the time. But I managed to conceal it well enough. My thought was that anyone who could manage to get it down had earned what ever they wanted from inside. 


I spent several hours into the afternoon scouting for a place to camp. I might as well have been looking for a snowman. It simply wasn't to be found. And so as I sat on the concrete steps of the public bathroom on the beach casually smoking a cigarette when a thought occurred to me...why not under the bathroom itself? The beach was deserted when I started digging down around the foundation. I made a hole big enough to poke my head in and saw the space I had to work with. And it was very doable. I stripped down my pack and hauled my gear in a piece at a time until I had made a camp for myself in a corner. It was cozy enough, damn near like a cave really, and best of all, nobody would bother me. And so I spent a week and a half there living under that shitter. Every time I left popping up out of the sand like an over sized meercat, and every time I came back burrowing down like carheart clad gofer. 
My first night in Key West was on St. Patrick's day during spring break. The party seemed to roll on forever, and it was my first real experience in the hard core party scene. I learned alot that week...hell, I never even knew a naked mechanical bull riding contest was a thing. But there it was, in all it's glory.


I made money in Mallory Square weaving roses from palm leaves and selling them to the tourists. It kept me fed and drunk and I made friends with remarkable ease. By now more than half of those friends are all dead. Including the girl who taught me to weave the roses. She was always fond of using a bogus Boston accent. Such is life, she's probably better off now anyways.


My next time coming to the Keys I was bound to be a fisherman in the tropics. And I was. I did a full 9 month season of lobster and stone crab on board the heaviest hitting boat in the lower Keys. I "lived" out of Cudjoe Key and fished out of Big Pine, with a little 80 cc motorcycle to scoot around on. I worked my ass off. Turning 550 to 600 pots a day, pulling 12 to 14 hours a day, and only making $150 flat rate, I paid my dues. But it was a helluva experience, and one I wouldn't change too much of. Ultimately I was there chasing a girl, and at the end of my season when I would need to find something else to do, things between us disintegrated. And I left paradise to go back to Alaska for salmon season. It was a decision I have always regretted. Girl or no girl, this is as close to "home" as I've ever seen. I never should have left it.


The Keys are remarkably similar to Alaska in many ways. The one Road leading in and out is very Alaskan, the fishing/drinking culture, everyone is from somewhere else, the ragtag "nobody gives a damn what you do" mentality...yes, the Keys are a tropical Alaska. Only improved in some ways. It has palm trees, girls, cheap rum, wet water year round, and the fishing industry is far easier to break into here. Indeed, anyone willing to do much of anything at all can do quite well for himself. It's actually so easy to make it here I sometimes catch myself waiting for the other shoe to drop and end the good times...but it never happens. You don't need shoes in paradise. 

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]]>Sat, 01 Nov 2014 21:54:53 GMThttp://alaskandude.com/where-in-the-world-is-ad/a-keysey-couple-of-months

It's never my intention to leave the blog unattended for so long at a time, the neglect is an unfortunate consequence of keeping it...you can't write when you're busy living the stories you write about. And so it is with a heavy sigh that I must tell you now; many of the stories I cannot share, at least not to any extent of detail. As tempting as it might be, I must maintain the "PG-13" status. And sometimes that's a real bummer.


The original plan in coming down here was to run a man's commercial fishing operation, which proved to be the stuff of pipes as soon as I arrived. Which was fine. I'm quite accustomed to plans falling apart...also a great motivator for not making them. Some of the best things in the world you will never see coming, I enjoy being broadsided by awesomeness.
I flew into Miami from Anchorage and a friend from  Islamorada in the upper Keys scooped me up and hauled me south. I crashed on his couch for a couple of weeks and had an amazing time tuna fishing, partying, making new friends, and ultimately ending up meeting the guy I would be going into business with. The whole project is still in it's infancy, so I prefer not to elaborate too heavily, but it involves commercial fishing and salvage diving. Together we are building something great here. And it's damned exciting. Ideally it will develop into something I can leave, travel, and if I survive what ever third world hell hole I delve into, return and pick right back up where I left off. We shall see.


While that whole operation is in the works a man must live, and eat, and have a place to stay. And so I found myself working on a stilt house duplex renovation gig. So far it's been good to be active, well fed, a comfortable place to crash, and with a handle of sailor jerry on hand at all times, it's a damn hard deal to improve on.


Last week being the 10 day event in Key West known as Fantasy Fest, I was somewhat less than productive. Together with two lady companions some amazing times were had, and that is literally all I can say about that here.  

With such a long time between updates, it gets hard to work the small anecdotes into the bigger picture, so I'm afraid this is probably one of the shittiest posts I've ever done. And I'm sorry to be cheating you out of the smaller adventures that make up the big one. Like taking down a 5 foot iguana, or smuggling a live chicken into a bar, or catching my first lobster with my bare hands. But at the moment this is really the best I can do. And offer the promise of a proper update soon that should be a good deal more entertaining.


The book is coming right along....  
 

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]]>Thu, 28 Aug 2014 11:33:50 GMThttp://alaskandude.com/where-in-the-world-is-ad/the-perils-of-down-time

Some of you may be less than familiar with the habits and behaviors  of the animal known as the "Commercial Fisherman". So allow me to expound on this subject to some degree of detail, that you may better understand this bearded creature from the sea. 
When a man comes off of a fishing boat -particularly after a bad season- he tends to have a good deal of steam to blow off. And your average fisherman is an expert at blowing off steam. Oh my how the steam has been blown. 
I started with the usual business when visiting Anchorage, old friends that are only seen once every year or two are called upon to descend on downtown and Spenard like the brutish drunken savages we are; on the mission to get kicked out of or close as many bars as possible. And we don't mess around.
At some point is the chaos an old fishing buddy turned brother in law "The Dirty Russian" invited me to join in on some manual labor breaking down booths at the fairgrounds in Fairbanks. Now Fairbanks in the summer time is one of my favorite places to kill brain cells. I couldn't say no. We agreed to meet up the next morning and I would catch a ride with them up north -about a 7 hour drive-. Things became complicated however, as I was too drunk to meet them -or answer my phone- when they left. Undeterred to partake in the shindigs of the interior of Alaska, I took to the side of the Road with my new pack and rifle in hand. The pack was to conceal the half gallon of Sailor Jerry's Rum, and the rifle...well...you just never know. Right?
I made it in fine time, never waiting for more than 2 cars at each stop despite what I must have looked like and the fact that I was obviously armed. I love hitchhiking in Alaska.
The good times rolled hitting one of my favorite bars The Midnight Mine and a couple of others I can never seem to remember the names of, only vague impressions of the heavy handed bartenders and their mesmerizing cleavage that seems to go on for miles...
The next day sweating out the booze under a glaring sun in what must have been 80 degree heat, we helped the carnies tear down the last of the tents and booths. It was a good reminder of why I'm not a carnie any more. 
After a couple of days back in Anchorage I got a call from my old friend Niels -whom some may know from some reality show about a gun shop called Wild West...another fine example of why I don't watch TV- inviting me to Seward to go fishing and hang out at his cabin. It had been years since this happened, and it was my moral obligation to heed the call. No time was wasted in getting wasted. That evening we pulled into Seward and straight into The Klondike. There must have been 7 or 8 of us there, most of us former Marines, and after my third or fourth drink I started looking around for trouble; I didn't need to look far. Within 10 minutes I was doing shots with 3 old fishing buddies, each of us there independently. Weak minds think alike. After a few progressively louder and sloppier hours, Niels and the posey left for the cabin leaving me with the fishermen and the whole of Seward to devastate. My decision to not join them may not have been the best judgment, but sound judgment is rarely my style. At this point in the night time frames and details become fuzzy at best, but this much I know for sure: I wound up climbing a light pole on the street, now wrether I had my shirt off to start with or threw it down to the crowd below me is unclear, but when I had my boots back on the pavement I definitely had blood all over me. Something sharp on the pole must have caught my hand and unzipped my palm. I remember asking a bartender for some duct tape and her handing me a wad of bar napkins, so I ordered a couple more drinks. Things get fuzzier as we moved on the The Pit. A bar outside city limits where they aren't obliged to keep the business hours dictated by the city of Seward. In my experience it's the second worse place in the world to end your night -second only the The Mecca in Kodiak-. 
I recall having the presence of mind to know I had 6 hours from the time of injury to get my hand stitched up, but not how long it had been or how much I had drank in between. It's probably safe to say a lot of both. Leaving my friends at The Pit I caught a cab to the ER for 6 stitches under the index and middle fingers of my right hand, and from there...I woke up on the floor of the cabin. 
The next 2 weeks would be variations on this theme. Getting kicked out of bars, abusing the locals, ranting at the film crew around the fire, harassing tourists, and a huge variety of drunken debauchery and shenanigans not fit for even this blog. 
A unique aspect of all this is the cabin itself. Every window facing the Road in front has neon beer signs hung in it, with such a collective effect that one simply cannot help but conclude that it MUST be a bar. And indeed it is stocked with booze as well as any bar, and with such a friendly inviting atmosphere...it is essentially a glowing bug light for drunks. There is never a shortage of random people showing up to party. 


And now the news...


On the ass end of a 3 day binge in some bar we had yet to get kicked out of I met a fellow with whom I had a great deal in common. We sat over drinks talking a while, and the conversation ended with an offer to work a boat. An offer I cannot possibly even consider declining. Unfortunately -for several reasons- I will be keeping the location of this boat, and the nature of it's fishery somewhat mysterious, at least for the moment. However, I have every confidence it will work out beautifully; even if it does mean some more delay in my travels of Latin America.
So in the wake of all this madness I am preparing to leave family and friends with a far different destination and objective than I had in mind a week ago. 


My next update will surely be a colourful one.

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]]>Sun, 03 Aug 2014 00:15:47 GMThttp://alaskandude.com/where-in-the-world-is-ad/no-cookies-for-adIn Alaskan commercial fisheries the salmon that run in the Kenai River are often affectionately referred to as "Cookies" because they school up in Cook Inlet before continuing up to the spawning grounds to sow the next generation. They are easily recognizable and distinguished from other salmon of the same species and highly desired, especially by seiners in Kodiak. This season there were no Cookies for anyone. Not even AD. Which is a shame, because I've been such a good boy...


One of the great appeals to gill netting salmon is the brief intensity of the season. It's a whirlwind of long hours, sore muscles, excitement, and if it's a normal year you spend about a week rolling into the jaws of the river standing proudly on the deck of a heavy boat, with fish gurry in your hair/beard, betting beers on the weight of the catch. This was not a normal year.


I look back on it now in the past tense like a deep brooding regret. It just never happened. The season total was a fraction of what we were expecting, and we fared better than most boats. Instead of the adrenalin filled awesomeness we were all looking forward to it developed into a 3 week long grind. Fishing 20 hour days (unless the skipper got pissed off and threw in the towel early) for 3 weeks straight to bring in such pitiful loads is enough to make a bearded man weep. At one point in the middle of what was supposed to be the peak of our season we delivered an anticlimactic 96 pounds of sockeye. This is profoundly damaging to a fisherman in a variety of ways. The ego, our faith in the management of the fishery, and of course...our wallet. So I'm going to have to get creative for the different projects this failed season was supposed to be funding. Luckily my creativity is not limited to finding a place to sleep.


On the bright side, we suffered no real calamity. Discounting my bad spell that one night, there were no disasters, nobody got hurt (on our boat), nothing critical broke (excepting our bank accounts), and it really is a helluva lot of fun. So there's that.


Regarding the seizures I spoke of in the last update, the day the neurologist diagnosed me without bothering to look at my tests I threw out the medication I had been on, and did not pick up the new one prescribed. I don't care how long she went to school for, no one tells me how to live my life, and certainly not someone who demonstrates such remarkable ineptitude in their field. A drunken third grader could have performed as well as she did. Maybe better.


Now with my brain recoiling from its chemistry being tampered with, I'm struggling to recover my mind. I am thinking much more clearly, but my ability to not allow my woeful circumstances to put me in a funk is definitely taking a break. And that sucks. Because it's decision making time. One way or another wheels need to start turning in a definitive direction, and making the right call right the fuck now, is critical to how my foreseeable future will play out. Needless to say I'm a little on edge.


For the moment I am playing it safe (unusual for me). Finishing the book even though I have no idea how I will be publishing it, is the priority, as well as assembling a new set of gear for the Road. Taking time to visit with my nieces while I'm in Anchorage is always nice, and there very well may be a week or so coming up soon where I disappear into the woods with my pack and a gold pan. I damn well need it.]]>