Latest Update: September 8, 2001 by Ben Marcus

11:00 ALASKA TIME SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 8, 2001 THE NEAR PAW RV PARK

MONEY
Croissants and bagels for the Bear Paw.

It is a very nice day. The sun is out and there isn't a visible cloud. Alaska is hard to beat on days like this. Hope we get a couple of these for the bore attempt.

Went to the Police Station first thing hoping to get my DVDs. I didn't. They belonged to a woman who had thrown them in there by accident and came back to pick them up.

But I filed a police report and got some commiseration. Oh well.

Now I'm at the Bear Paw hacking away. Not many e-mails this morning, considering how many I sent out yesterday.

Now it's just time to work. Got to hack, hack, hack away at that Santa Cruz story, try to make some progress and then finish it off during the Tidal Bore attempt.

Sure is a nice day.

Just took some photos of Ike lollygagging around in the sun and with the nice people who run this place. They are Friends of Ike.

One of the guys here listens to an Internet radio station that plays lots of 60s oldies. Right now it's "Cherish" by the Association.

Colin is trying to convince his friend Charlie Russell to come from Yakutat.

The more the merrier, I say. Just hoping to find someone with a good inflatable boat.

I smell like fish.

It's 17:26 now and I should be getting over to Nautilus. I just spent many hours working on the Santa Cruz article and doing other stuff. I transferred all my fly-fishing gear from my old crummy Haute Route vest to my new, high tech Patagonia vest. The Haute Route vest is now demoted to bait-casting gear.

I tried on the Patagonia wading boots and they are butter. They fit like they were custom-made for me. They fit perfectly, they are light and they are perfect.

The Bear Paw lady is fussing with her crummy printer. I am trying to print five copies of this notice:

RIDE$ TO ANCHORAGE

From now to the end of $eptember

Now that everyone is leaving town, some may need a ride from Valdez to Anchorage.

I will drive my 1999 Ford E-150 van to Anchorage and back for US$200.

$100 is for the gas, $100 is for the driver, which is me. And I'm an excellent driver.

The van has a bed frame in the back but four people can ride comfortably, and as many as six can go. The van smells a little fishy, but so do you.

Two passengers can even sleep on the bed for the six-hour ride to Anchorage, and you know you need some sleep after a long summer of fish processing and packing.

I am driving to Anchorage September 13, for sure, but that ride may be full. I may not come back to Valdez after that, but I could do a trip or two before then, if anyone is interested. And I could be convinced to do some after the 18th, if needed.

If anyone wants to go between now and the 13th, contact Ben Marcus at Nautilus Foods. The van license plate is 4EXY148. Leave a note on the windshield. Or send an e-mail to TheBenM@AOL.com

I kicked a French woman with a Manchester, England accent off the computer to print that thing, and she left. I feel bad. Nothing should work that shoddily these days. If Patagonia can make a high tech fishing vest, H/P should be able to make a better printer.

It's 17:30. I'm going to distribute those flyers around to strategic places, then go cut fish.

Today I went to the Pawn Shop to track down my DVD case, but it wasn't there. I tried to trade my O'Neill 7 mm Diving Suit for two freezer suits, but the guy wouldn't bite. I was going to give one to Gus. He may make a career out of working in cold, frigid places. I'm not going to.

What else? Made it to the historical transition point in the Santa Cruz story. I need to find someone from the Santa Cruz historical society who can help me with the past.

I want to get this thing done. It's flowing so far, but from long experience I know that what I have now will probably be very different when it is done.

21:30 ALASKA TIME SEPTEMBER SATURDAY 8, 2001 THE PIPELINE CLUB

I'm not working tonight, not at all. I'm hanging out in the Pipeline Club with a guy I am calling Freddie "Change my First Name Because I'm still on Probation" Feldman and Terrance McNamee, both of whom look like longshoremen. "I disagree," says Probation. "I look like a fisherman."

I saw these two coming out of Eagle Foods when I was running around with my "Rides to Anchorage" posters. Probation had a big bottle of Paisano red wine and it was a nice day and there was a definite Tortilla Flats vibe in the air. I was supposed to be heading to the plant to work and earn money, but the plant sucks, so I chose to be a slacker instead.

Probation is the fishermen who I gave up my bunk for two nights ago. He'd just gotten off a fishing boat and needed a steady place to sleep. Terrance is The Guy in the Watch Cap who I have talked about before.

These guys diverted me from a night of fish guts and 70s super rock. They wanted to drink and get high, but all we did was drink. We actually went to the Fish Plant looking for Gus and the weed. I went inside to post my Rides to Anchorage sign while Probation went to jack up Gus for the weed. It didn't work. "He said ïIt's in the speaker,'" Probation said. Which is an answer right up there with "What's the frequency, Kenneth?"

What speaker?

Anyway, we just wanted to be outside and walking around on an absolutely spectacular, crystal clear, blue-sky day in Valdez. Today was one of the best days I've seen here, which is probably why I didn't go to work and why I'm in the Pipeline club buying dinner for everyone with the $100 Gus gave me.

We drove all the way over to the Marine Terminal, just to see what we could see, and all we saw was the other side of Valdez Harbor. A day like this really makes you wonder what it is like to go poking around out in Prince William Sound. Jacob just gave me the rundown on setting a purse seiner. He was fishing off Allison Point a few days ago, where I had seen all the silver salmon jumping on the other side.

I just got my French Dip. The waitress is cute.

Earlier today I posted those "Ride to Anchorage" signs over at Peter Pan and Sea Hawk Seafoods, both concerns that seem a little more organized and reputable than Nautilus, although the working crowd is Third World. I also posted those signs at Warehouse Foods and Eagle Foods and we'll have to see what happens. Maybe nothing.

Maybe I'll make some many hundreds of dollars. I am needingk of them.

Jacob just said that "Montana is too crowded." Hmmm.

This is getting all confused. This is what I did today, in order: Snuck out of Nautilus Foods so I didn't have to cut fish or get yelled at by Bug Eyed Boss Fella. Spent most of the day at the Bear Paw, hacking on the Santa Cruz article. As usual, I'm going to write down everything about Santa Cruz and then go back and clean it up.

Here's a sample paragraph:

"Santa Cruz is just Huntington Beach with trees."
Dave Parmenter

The pen is mighty with those Cayucos Mafia guys. They talk loudly and wield a Big Bic and love to stir things up in the surfing world with their little bon mots in word and on paper .

For whatever reason: anger, attention deficit, newsstand sales, the George brothers and Dave Parmenter aren't afraid to hoist infamous ideas up the flagpole to see if anyone will salute them, or torch the flagpole.

Sam George has had a few in his day. He caused some ink to be shed in ??? when he said that Sunset Beach is just not that good of a wave?" Sam described the Hawaiian institution as a "dog and a "sacred cow." He even "went so far as to compare Sunset with San Clemente's T-Street-and not favorably.".

In the 90s, an anti-Australian Sam George slam in SURFER Magazine got brother Matt George punched out in an Australian pub when his jibe made it across the Big Water.

But maybe Matt George had a little karma coming, don't you remember, as he was the guy who got Santa Cruz surfing fugitive Harbor Bill thrown into the clink in the 80s when he Spoke the Unspeakable Last Name, in print, in SURFER Magazine.

More recently, Sam spoke his mind when he was forced to judge between Mike Parsons at Cortes Bank and Flea Virostko at Mavericks for the swell.com XXL first prize. "Snips' wave is 100 miles away from the coast. Flea's is 800 yards from a Starbucks," Sam George said, incorrectly. The nearest Starbucks to Mavericks is in Pacifica, and the quote is a little more infamous coming from a guy stuck living in San Clemente: less than 800 yards from a Starbucks.

Yes, the Cayucos Mafia love to stir it up, but who knows what bee was under Dave Parmenter's bonnet when he unleashed his "Santa Cruz is just Huntington Beach with trees" zinger.

Parmenter probably was commenting on the tempest in a Texas Teapot argument between HB and SC over which town deserved the title of Surf City more. It was kind of a silly feud, but when viewed from a 70s Santa Cruz perspective, Parmenter's slam is right up there with: "We will bury you," "We're more popular than Jesus" and "???????"

Parmenter's quote, examined with Seventies glasses, is infamous. It's wrong, all wrong to someone who is observing Santa Cruz with eyes wide shut and mind tuned into KLRB and the Sounds of the Seventies. As viewed from the colder side of the Point Conception line, with a snobbish, 70s regard, Huntington Beach is one of the most Valley places on earth, the more so because it is Valley by the Sea, defiled commercial boulevards running to a chemical sump called Huntington Beach.

Anyway, that was a rough paragraph or two. I'll try to clean it up.

A trio is singing "500 Miles" on the Pipeline Club stage and I'm telling Probation and Terrance about Ireland and how great the music is there; wherever you go, because the Irish do not tolerate or allow bad music. It's true.

These three musicians are okay. I wonder if their Irish accents are affected.

What else. Where was I? I spent al day in the Bear Paw RV office because it's clean and well lighted and the people are nice. I took pictures of the man and woman with Ike and the woman read my Matt Warshaw article in the Surfer's Journal in one fell swoop. That was nice of her.

Didn't get a whole lot done. Just wrote and rewrote and wrote some more and got all the way to the Cayucos Mafia bit, where I set up the "Santa Cruz is just Huntington Beach with trees," and why that would be so offensive to someone who grew up in Santa Cruz.

In the afternoon I left BearPaw after trying to print those "Ride to Anchorage" leaflets. I went to the Rexall and printed out 10 and also bought some thumb tacks and eyeglass holders for Gus, because I want mine back.

I was driving around looking for places to post the leaflets when I saw Watch Cap and Probation walking along with the wine spody odey. I drove over to Peter Pan and Sea Hawk and posted a few bills, then found Watch and Probation kicking it on an outside swing.

We talked about this and that and I began to pitch FIN to them. They seemed to like it. Probation has a nice little apartment which is included in the $2000 a semester tuition. I think one of the Turks is in there, too. The guy they call Yellow Man.

It's nice to not be cutting fish. Cutting fish sucks. I was doing it to kick some ideas into my head and to make up for being a slacker for so long, but I'm glad I'm not there. The novelty is gone and now it's just a boring grind.

We should go back to Probation's apartment and watch Cadillac Desert or the earthquake video. Both these guys are literary types, and Probation would be a good candidate for Valdez stringer if the Prudhoe Pipeline idea ever happens.

Sure was a nice day today.

I didn't accomplish much today except enjoy a really spectacularly beautiful Alaskan day, as mentioned above. And now I'm at the Pipeline Club, eating a French Dip.

Time to cut out of here and go hang at Probations. I'm through with sleeping at Nautilus Foods, and I might be through with the place. Who needs that kind of crap? The novelty, as mentioned above, is gone.

Now the singer is soulfully wailing through "Spell on You." I wonder if the soulful wailing is affected. Might be.