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Latest Update: September 17, 2001 by Ben Marcus

12:02 ALASKA TIME MONDAY SEPTEMBER 17, 2001 SOMEWHERE NEAR PORTAGE GLACIER.

It's a dark and stormy night and it is the best of times and the worst of times, and that is enough of that.

I just made a long, dark, stormy drive from the Alyeska Prince Hotel to Portage, looking for a place to sleep. I'm parking the same place Gus and I slept a couple of weeks ago, but now I am solo. I don't even have Ike with me. I do have my computer to talk to and the BBC World Service to listen to, so it could be worse.

It's the best of times and the worst of times.

I spent today going back and forth between Turnagain Arm and the Alyeska Prince Hotel, which is a very nice hotel. It was designed by Japanese, for Japanese so it has style. A lot of cherry-wood, a lot of nice touches. I have rarely seen a nicer hotel. And it was nicer because it was mostly deserted.

Here comes a great big truck pulling up next to me. Is he sleeping here too? Not quite so lonely that way, I guess. It's lonely out in all this space.

I went to the Alyeska earlier in the day and used the data link in their pay phone. I found that I can call the Anchorage AOL number toll-free which is going to save me $6 an hour, and that adds up.

I worked on this and that and went down to Turnagain Arm around 15:30 to watch the bore. I talked to that same amped-out skier/surfer dude that I had talked to a couple of weeks ago, then watched him catch a wave and ride it for awhile. This was a Four Star bore today and it was okay. A little more oomph than the day before, but it's going to have to be a big jump up to a Five Star bore to make tomorrow anything special. Where is the big rumble I remember from last time?

When the skier/surfer dude came back in I got some contact numbers for the local Red Bull people. They sponsor an annual Alaska Extreme Skiiing competition every year, so I'm going to contact them and see if they're interested in the BoarderCrossOver idea.

I did call them from the Alyeska Prince but got only message machines. I went up to the bar to find a TV and ended up hanging there until 23:00. I played Scrabble with the bartender and his girlfriend and was the only customer in the bar, all night.

I got some work done and watched Braveheart and CNN and packed it up when the bar closed down.

Now I'm here in some dark parking lot, listening to the BBC World Service and thinking about tomorrow.

Tomorrow is going to be a telephone day. I have to call a bunch of people for a bunch of different reasons. I need to talk to people about the Santa Cruz article and the Specialty Event article and the Red Bull people. Hopefully the hotel will continue to be empty and I can take over that enclosed phone booth and turn it into an office.

Now I'm going to sleep. I'm beat.

10:18 ALASKA TIME MONDAY SEPTEMBER 17, 2001 PHONE BOOTH AT THE ALYESKA PRINCE HOTEL

Now it's a clear and sunny morning, after a dark and stormy night. Woke up in Williwaw Salmon viewing parking lot with a dead battery and lots of clouds and glaciers and waterfalls all around, with lots of migrating salmon in the creeks.

That big rig last night turned out to be a large RV towing a trailer two ATV's behind. I convinced the owner to give me a jump. For a few minutes I thought my battery was completely dead and I was screwed, but then it finally took and I had a nice chat with this guy while the battery charged.

He had a giant RV and was heading for Homer to go fishing. The whole time I was talking to him I was thinking that this guy with his giant RV and two ATVs, times about a couple million more like him = the World Trade Center bombing. At the bottom of all of this is America's dependence on Middle Eastern oil, and our history of meddling in their politics, from Palestine to the Shah of Iran to Desert Storm to the current situation in Israel. And the reason we are so dependent on Middle Eastern oil and the reason we have to meddle with a place we would ignore like Africa otherwise is that we drive around in giant RVs towing two ATVS. We waste oil as if it were water.

Of course I didn't say this to the man driving the huge RV with the two ATV's in back because he was a nice man and he was giving me a jump start.

This man worked with cranes at Prudhoe Bay and so we traded a few stories about the haul road and ANWR and all that, and I'm still thinking, ñWhy does this guy need an RV the size of a fricking battleship, with TWO ATVs on the back?î But of course I didn't say that and he couldn't read the thought bubbles over my head, so we parted friends.

Am I wrong about all this? I don't think so. America tries to be the good guy, but we still have hell to pay.

So now I'm in the glassed-off phone booth in the Alyeksa Prince Hotel which will serve as my office today. The hotel is mostly empty and Beethoven is on the PA system and this could be a fun, easy day of being a cyber-bum.

I bought a $50 phone card this morning, and I hope it last long enough to get all my work done.

I have lots of phone calls to make and e-mails to send: Pat O'Neill at O'Neill
Jim Foley for the Santa Cruz article
Paul Naude at Billabong
Gary Dunne at Rip Curl
Al Weimers for the Santa Cruz artile
CJ at Red Bull for the BoarderCrossOver deal.
Cassie at Red Bull for the BoarderCrossOver deal
Marcel Soros for the Santa Cruz article.
Peter Mel for the Santa Cruz article

I'm also trying to find Wayne, the guy who started Hard Cloud, to be my designated anonymous dot-commer for the Santa Cruz article, and I need his e-mail address.

Jim Phillips sent me some contact information for Jim Foley, who a lot of people point to as being one of the most innovative Santa Cruz surfers of the 50s. When I met Miki Dora in France in 1980, he told me to tell Peter van Dyke: ñI've gone the way of Jim Foley.î

Or maybe it was Chuck Foley. I don't know.

Etc. Etc. I'm going to be in this chair in this glassed-off phone booth a lot, so I'll go get some breakfast now, get organized and then try to get some work done.

Later I'm going to check the Five Star bore that will come through at right around 17:16. I'm going to try to set up a meeting with Cella Baker and the Red Bull people in that bar tonight, because it's a nice place to be-when it's empty.

Then I'm heading back to Valdez, and getting out of Alaska on Tuesday. Time for other, warmer places.

By the way, the drive from Portage up to Girdwood this morning was spectacular. Full Immigrant Song scenario, if you get the picture: sunlight and clouds and fjords. This is quite a place.

12:00 NOON: I'm eating seafood chowder and bread in the cafÚ now. This place is a ghost town. I'm cleaning up all the stuff I have so far for the Santa Cruz article, and hoping for more. I'm lagging on this thing. I should have invaded Matt Warshaw's house and used all his materials and been by a phone for a couple of weeks. Oh well. Maybe I can fake it.

The Alyeska Prince Hotel is really, really nice, especially when you have it all to yourself.

Here's the tentative plan for the rest of my life:
1. Tidal bore today.
2. Drive to Valdez tonight or tomorrow and stay there tomorrow night.
3. Leave Valdez Wednesday morning and head for Tok and the Canadian border.
4. Looks like I won't be able to take the ferry home from Haines or Skagway, so I guess I'll drive back through Canada and aim for the Kispiox by the end of September.
5. Drive back down the Cassiar most likely and then aim for Montana.
6. Dan is going to be in Kalispell on October 11, so I'll aim for that.
7. After that? God knows.

Bye for now. Keep those cards and letters and e-mails coming.

13:39 ALASKA TIME MONDAY SEPTEMBER 17, 2001 THE GLASSED-IN PHONE BOOTH AT THE ALYESKA PRINCE HOTEL

Crap, in that short a time I lost my brand-new, $50 phone card. I went to lunch, had some soup, pitched my Boardercrossover idea to a couple of pretty girls and when I looked for my phone card, it wasn't there.

Unbelievable.

Oh well, maybe it will turn up in one of my many pockets.

Idiot.

I did find my other pair of sunglasses by the way, when I cleaned out the van to take the Turks from Valdez to here. So that's good news.

I lost my $50 phone card, in less than an hour, before I wrote the numbers down.

Crap.

Idiot.

What next?

Hawk thinks Nukes are next, so I guess it could be worse.

We just IMed.

TheBenM: SO WHAT?

penguinsurf: You gonna join the Marines, go kill some terrorists?

TheBenM: NAW. I KNOW WHAT THE RESPONSE SHOULD BE.

TheBenM: I POSTED IT ON AGGROVILLE.

TheBenM: IT'S JUST PAYBACK FOR WHAT WE DID TO THEM. JUSTIFIED IN A WAY.

TheBenM: I figured out how to solve this wholeterrorism deal, and give payback for what happened in New York.

Mayhem, Frank, Dingz and Dezy should all sneak over to Saudi Arabia, hijacka Saudi Airlines 747 and crash it directly into Mecca.

The terrorists made a symbolic act when they took out the World TradeCenter (capitalism will topple), someone from America should do a similarlysymbolic act and crash a 747 directly into that big, black stone the Muslimsall walk around during the haj.

No one but the Mayhe

penguinsurf: I have to agree, in a way. That's certainly how they see it, anyway. But the chance for peaceful solution collapsed with those towers. It's going to get very ugly. You should stay in Canada, away from the nuclear fallout.

TheBenM: YOU THINK THERE WILL BE NUKES?

TheBenM: ANTHRAX BOMBS?

TheBenM: I GUESS I CAN LIVE OFF OF MOOSE.

TheBenM: LIFE DURING WARTIME.

TheBenM: IF THEY ATTACK AMERICA ILL SHOOT AT THEM. HOPEFULLY PAKISTAN CAN CONVINCE AFGHANISTAN TO GIVE UP BIN LADEN, BUT I DONT THINK THEY WILL.

penguinsurf: What do you think W will do if they set off an antrax bomb in D.C? ICBMs away.

TheBenM: AT WHO? THAT'S THE PROBLEM. WE DONT EVEN HAVE A GOOD TARGET YET.

penguinsurf: I know. It's just fucking awful. I haven't had this deep sense of dread since I did duck-and-cover drills during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

TheBenM: it'll blow over, i think. this isnt war against a nation. TheBenM: this is us going after 50 people who pulled off an amzing act of terrorism.

penguinsurf: What's the device called that measures windspeed?

TheBenM: no nations are involved. just individuals.

TheBenM: anemoneter

penguinsurf: Yeah, but W and his ilk want to kick some ass.

penguinsurf: You're the man. Thanks.

TheBenM: i was kidding. not an anemomneter. Sea otters are anemoneters.

TheBenM: We consumes too much oil. We waste it. That is at the bottom of all of this.

penguinsurf: Anemometer

TheBenM: Something like that. Im trying o convince this hotel to do a combined snowabord/tidal bore event.

TheBenM: It could be really fun.

penguinsurf: Great idea. Springtime?

TheBenM: Yep. I'll send the proposal. I've got the tides and everything figured out.

TheBenM: This place is beautiful and the hotel is very very nice.

penguinsurf: You should get a longboard and try it, so you can speak first-hand.

TheBenM: I almost did yesterday. Might today. It's pretty tempting. It's so damned weird.

TheBenM: Do you have any contacts at ESPN or Fox?

TheBenM: Read the propsoal. I think it's great. This is really quite a place.

TheBenM: Osama bin Laden may have changed the course of history and how many people can claim that.

TheBenM: He's a clever man. Wonder if the Chinese and Russians are behind him.

TheBenM: What about contacts at EsPN and Fox? I think this would be worth televising.

penguinsurf: I think the Chinese and Russians are afraid of him. One thing that might come from this: All the old enemies (USA, Russia, China, Germany, Japan) teaming up against the muslim hordes.

TheBenM: I dont know about that. I think he may be getting nudged by others.

Really one of the most brilliantly succesful things I have ever seen.

penguinsurf: I don't have contacts, but I certainly know people who know people at ESPN. I'll see what I can do.

penguinsurf: Think about it: they took down two of the tallest, most conspicuous buildings in the US with KNIVES.

TheBenM: thats what i mean. brilliant.

penguinsurf: Someone on TV called it "low-tech, high-concept" terrorism.

TheBenM: Yep. That stuck with me. Great call.

TheBenM: Like he was talking about a movie.

penguinsurf: Yeah. Like "The Blair Witch Project."

TheBenM: equally frightening and surreal and impossible to believe.

TheBenM: If youre gonna get payback, that's the way to do it. Kind of like my Surf News thing. Go for the juggular.

TheBenM: Read the proposal right now if you can. I want your opinion.

penguinsurf: I'm doing a little thing for Outside that's due this afternoon. Tonight, if I have time.

penguinsurf: My brother's on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire tonight. He'll pretty much just be in the background.

penguinsurf: He gets to the hotseat next Monday.

TheBenM: I see.

If you like the propsoal, pass it on to whoever.

thanks

penguinsurf: Did you e-mail it?

TheBenM: Yep. It should be there by now.

penguinsurf: Got it.

TheBenM: Read it. its short.

penguinsurf: OK. Will do. When are you leaving Alaska?

TheBenM: Tomorrow. This whole thing was a bust. Just lost a $50 phone card. If this Boardercrss thing developes, then it will have been worth it.

penguinsurf: At least you learned how to gut fish.

TheBenM: Yep, and got a 400-pound security guard mad at me.

penguinsurf: I never did get that whole story.

TheBenM: Just a big dumb hillbilly at the fish factory. Didnt like me for some reason.

TheBenM: Really didnt like me after I called him a white trash hillbilly.

TheBenM: he must have ben reading the thought bubbles over my head.

TheBenM: Guess I'll sign off. Wish I hadnt lost that stupid phone card. Waht a moron. I know to write the numbers down, i just didnt do it right away.

TheBenM: the prpoblem with humans is that deep down, we love war, we just dont want to admit it.



TRAVELS WITH IKE

September 17, 2001
September 15, 2001
September 13, 2001
September 10, 2001
September 9, 2001
September 8, 2001
September 7, 2001
September 5, 2001
September 3, 2001
September 2, 2001
August 31, 2001
August 30, 2001

August 29, 2001
August 28, 2001

August 25, 2001
August 21, 2001
August 20, 2001
August 18, 2001
August 17, 2001
August 16, 2001
August 15, 2001
August 12, 2001
August 10-11, 2001
August 9, 2001
August 8, 2001
August 7, 2001
August 6, 2001
August 5, 2001
August 4, 2001
August 2, 2001
August 1a, 2001
August 1, 2001
July 31, 2001
July 30, 2001
July 29, 2001
July 28, 2001
July 27, 2001
July 24-27, 2001
July 22, 2001
July 18-20, 2001
July 18, 2001
July 17, 2001
July 16, 2001
July 15, 2001
July 13, 2001
July 12, 2001
July 10, 2001
July 9, 2001
July 8, 2001
July 5, 2001
July 4, 2001
July 3, 2001
July 2, 2001
July 1 a, 2001
July 1, 2001
June 30, 2001

June 28, 2001
June 25-26, 2001
June 24, 2001
June 23, 2001
June 22, 2001
June 21, 2001
June 20, 2001
June 19, 2001
June 18, 2001
June 17-18, 2001
June 16, 2001
June 15, 2001
June 14 , 2001

NORTH COAST
March 14, 2001
March 11, 2001

March 8, 2001
March 4, 2001
March 3, 2001
March 1, 2001
February 20, 2001
February 19, 2001
February 18, 2001
February 17, 2001
February 16, 2001


ALASKA 2000
November 19, 2000
November 18, 2000

November 15, 2000
November 14, 2000
November 14, 2000
November 12-13, 2000
November 11, 2000
November 9, 2000
November 8, 2000
November 4-6, 2000
November 3, 2000
November 1, 2000
October 31, 2000
October 29, 2000
October 27, 2000
October 26, 2000
October 25, 2000
October 22, 2000
October 22, 2000
October 21, 2000
October 19, 2000
October 17, 2000
October 16, 2000
October 16, 2000
October 14, 2000
October 12, 2000
October 11, 2000
October 10, 2000
October 10, 2000
October 9, 2000
October 8, 2000
October 7, 2000
October 6, 2000
October 6, 2000
October 5, 2000
October 4, 2000
October 3, 2000
October 2, 2000
October 1, 2000
September 30, 2000
September 29, 2000
September 28, 2000
September 27, 2000
September 25, 2000
September 24, 2000
September 23, 2000
September 22, 2000
September 21, 2000
September 21, 2000
September 20, 2000
September 19, 2000
September 19, 2000
September 18, 2000
September 17, 2000
September 16, 2000
September 15, 2000
September 15, 2000
September 14, 2000
September 13, 2000
September 12, 2000
September 10, 2000
September 10, 2000
September 8, 2000

September 8, 2000

PHOTOS
October 1, 2000
October 1, 2000
September 27, 2000

 

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