These are the Chronicles of Famous Surf Writer Ben Marcus and his trip into the Wilds of the Alaskan Frontier.
Latest Update: September 22-23, 2000

21:40 PETER OTSEA'S HOUSE-JUNEAU, ALASKA

Did Juneau that when you go to Juneau on the ferry with your car, you are stuck in Juneau with your car until you can get a ferry out? You can't drive out. You can't swim out. You've got to take the ferry. And did Juneau that once summer ends, the ferries don't run every day? I didn't know that, Juneau, but I do now. Found out yesterday that I'll be in Juneau until Monday the 25th at the earliest, and if I can't get on standby then it'll be the 27th, for sure. After that, probably on to Anchorage, unless the highway is glaciered over.

But it's nice here. Well, maybe not the weather, but it's nice around the home and hearth of the Otsea family, on Gastineau Street overlooking downtown Juneau and the cruise ship terminal.

It's nice because Margie-his-wife and Peter have two very nice children, and tonight I'm not gonna freeze and I'm not gonna suck down cigarette smoke and I don't have to sleep with Mr. Walther. I'm sleeping under civilized circumstances, in the guest room of Peter Otsea, a friend from Santa Cruz from way back, from the Surfer Dog era. Peter is originally from Switzerland, then New York and he has lived in Alaska for around 10 years. Margie-his-wife's last name is Hamburger, but she made a very nice salmon/rice/salad/ dinner tonight. It was yummy.

They have two nice kids, Calder the boy and Anouk the female, who I call Blondie. Both Peter and Margie are dark-haired and dark-eyed, but Anouk looks like Brigitte Bardot. She's a blonde, blue-eyed little thing. I showed Calder and Anouk my best card trick. Now I own them.

Anyway, spent the day yesterday tooling around Juneau. Went to the ferry building and got the news, then poked around coming back. Stopped at Auke Bay when I saw the very tall mast of a very tall sailboat. I thought it was the Tristan, which I had seen in Sausalito. But it was an even bigger boat called the Cyclos. Biggest, fanciest dang sailboat I have ever seen. Don't know who owns it, but he/she is holding.

I'd like to tell you more about Juneau, but I haven't really seen it, yet. It's all kind of lost in the clouds. From what I have seen, Juneau is a pretty normal place, a city stuck into all the cracks and crevices and canyons in a thin border between mountains and ocean. I remember a postcard on the wall of an office at SURFER, showing a giant avalanche bombarding the town. Not sure where that was. Hope it's not around here.

Caught a glimpse of the Mendenhall Glacier while driving back from the ferry building. Spent the rest of the day lazing about Peter's house, sending and receiving e-mails and thinking about finishing some long-delayed work for swell.com. I need to transcribe a conversation with Jeff Clark, which means setting up the Dictaphone and plodding through it.

I called Final Draft to see about getting a new copy of their CD ROM. I want to enter their Screenplay Competition, and I want to finish Fin and Communications Breakdown. But I can't find my software disc. It'll cost $149 to get a new one, so I'd better look harder. The comp ends on the 30th.

Also called Peter Mel and others, working on Local Knowledge. If I can get all my calls done with a $10 phone card, then that's a good deal.

In the evening Peter (Otsea) and I went to coffee with a friend named John and I rattled off all the projects I was working on before I left. From a distance it sounded like I had a lot going on. I'd love for one of them to actually take root. Then I could find a place in Alaska to haul up for the winter, and work on it. The Cinema San Francisco book would be great, but I haven't heard a peep from Chronicle Books.

After coffee we had dinner and then we watched Year of the Drag In, which Calder liked a lot.

An easy day. Now I'm sitting on a proper bed in a heated house, which is a luxury after the last few days. But that's what traveling on the cheap does. Makes you appreciate the little luxuries.

SEPTEMBER 23 8:21 THE KITCHEN OF PETER OTSEA'S HOUSE.

Sitting in the kitchen, chatting with Peter, listening to Margie-his-wife assembling the children. That's about it. Going to do my laundry and organize the van and do some swell.com work. And hopefully find that Final Draft disc, so I can write the screenplay that'll make me a million so I can buy my little Alaska shack on a river near the sea, and watch the world go by on CNN. And invite all you nice people to come and visit me. And buy a boat like the Cyclos and and and and.

Everyone is gone, and I have the Dictaphone set up and I'm going to transcribe the conversation with Jeff Clark. I sent the tape all the way back east to be repaired because one machine ate it. Now Im hoping it can withstand the rigors of the Dictaphone.

Bye for now. Sorry to bore you.

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