My favorite Neal story happened on our next-to-last night there. These four girls came into the bar who would have been ugly as hell anywhere else on earth, but in Dutch Harbor looked OK. They were WAY out of place though-these were not crabbers, they were not natives, and they weren't the typical processor workers (who tend to be Filipino). Neal explained that they were Coast Guard Observers. I am still not sure what the fuck they're supposed to do, but from what I can tell, Coast Guard Observers are naive and stupid and fuck a lot of crab fishermen.
The funny part is that these girls recognized me, and came up to talk. They were all fans, and one of them told me that she was afraid to try anal sex because of my first book. I told her I didn't give a shit about her problems. Since they were the only attractive and single girls on the island, I guess they thought this meant they got to fuck me. No chance. I said I'd fuck a whale, not some annoying fat bitch who won't shut the fuck up. I think I made a bottom dragger joke or something, and then ignored them. Of course, Neal the Eel was all into them. I told them that he was experienced with anal, and he did the rest, scooping them right up.
The next morning, we went over to the Time Bandit. When Andy got into the captain's chair, he got this weird look on his face and then erupted in a rage.
Andy "Oh goddamnit! Who fucked in my fucking captain's chair?"
Tucker "Neal. No doubt!"
Andy "NEAL! Come clean this fucking chair, it smells like anal sex up here!"
Tucker "I'm pretty sure he fucked her in the ass. She was looking for anal last night."
Drew "It actually smells like shitty pussy, I think."
Andy "They do this all the time. All those fucking girls want to get fucked in the captain's chair. I need to fucking Saran Wrap this thing at night."
Fourtner, Elliott, and D-Girls Then there's Mike Fourtner. Mike's one of the few non-captains on the show who gets a lot of camera time. That's because he is just a real upbeat, positive, and gregarious guy on camera, which is pretty much exactly what he's like in real life.
Even more than that, he's a great guy. For example: One night at the hotel bar pretty much the entire Time Bandit crew was there with us getting shitty drunk. When it came time to go, I picked up the tab, and I noticed something immediately wrong with the bill.
Tucker "What the fuck is this? Call the waitress over; she obviously made a mistake. There's a Shirley Temple on the bill."
Fourtner raised his hand sheepishly, "Uh, yeah, that's right. That's mine."
I was so confused.
Tucker "Are you fucking kidding me?"
Fourtner "I'm driving tonight."
Tucker "We can walk to the next bar!! There's only seven miles of roads on the whole island!!!"
Fourtner "Yeah, but still. I'm the driver."
Tucker "OK fine, but when you're the DD you drink water or something, not Shirley fucking Temples!"
Fourtner "What can I say? I like the taste."
I made him pose for this picture: So he may be a fucking dork, but still legitimately one of the nicest guys I've ever met. The type of dude you'd want to marry your sister or something. Which makes the next story that much funnier: If you watched Season 7, you know all about Elliott, the captain of the Ramblin' Rose. He's a young guy, 27 or so, and his was one of the new boats. Like all young guys who are getting their first shot at something, his insecurity manifested itself in over-cockiness and stupid arrogance. Andy, trying to be politic, said, "He has a lot of enthusiasm." Whatever. I'm not even criticizing him-we've all been like that in our lives at some point, me especially-but the fact is, he looked a little bit like a douche on the show because he's a LOT like a douche in real life.
One night, Elliott was at a table with some of the Discovery Channel production assistants, some of his crew and assorted others-one of them being a Time Bandit crewmember, Travis. I don't know exactly what happened, but apparently Elliott was being a complete douche to one of the Discovery Channel girls, rubbing all up on her and grabbing her tits and shit, and she got pissed. Travis told him to stop because he was making everyone else at the table uncomfortable. Elliott responded to this reasonable and calm request by actively trying to pick a fight with Travis. It was clear what was going on: Elliott was pissed at this girl for fucking him in private but dissing him in public, and instead of getting pissed at her, he directed his anger at Travis.
He's worked on the Bering Sea for years, so there is no doubt Elliott is tough, but he's not a big dude. Travis is a big, freakishly strong dude. I fear no man, but I'll say this: if I ever had a conflict with Travis, I'd do everything in my power to solve it peacefully. Travis was totally calm the whole time, but Elliott was either too drunk or too angry or too stupid to back down. This was not going to be a good situation. Impressively, Travis wasn't taking the bait. Elliot continued to push. Finally, Travis stood up, threw his hands up in the air in exasperation, and yelled across the bar: Travis "WHY ME!? WHY?? WHY ... ME!?"
Howls of laughter from the bar. About half the bar had been paying some sort of attention to the events in the corner by this point. Elliot yelled something angrily and pointed his finger at Travis. Travis rolled his eyes.
Travis "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WILL SOMEONE PLEASE COME AND SHUT THIS MOTHERFUCKER UP!?"
Fourtner "I'll handle this."
Fourtner is a big guy, bigger than Travis, big enough to pass for an NFL linebacker, and at least a foot taller than Elliott. If Fourtner told me to leave a bar, I'd leave the fucking state. Fourtner strode across the room and pushed Elliott out the door. Angry words were exchanged in the hallway for a couple minutes. Nothing worse than that happened however, and things basically went back to normal.
Elliott eventually came back in, he talked to the girl for a second, then she stormed out and Elliott followed. Bunny followed them out to see what was up. She returned 30 seconds later.
Bunny "It's relationship drama. I went out there and I heard him say 'you fuck me, and then you treat me like that?' He was almost crying."
I would make fun of Elliott getting punked by a soulless Hollywood D-girl, but I've been there too. Being tough enough to fish the Bering Sea and dealing with LA girls are NOT the same thing, brother.
The Egg Ambush Our last day on Dutch Harbor rolled around, and we got up early, had breakfast with the otters and eagles and sea lions for the last time, and then got our bags and got ready to leave. We had a 3pm flight out of Dutch Harbor, but before we departed, there was one more mission for us.
The whole week Johnathan had been telling us about his plan to get revenge on another boat. You see, one of the new boats on the show this year, the Seabrook crew, had snuck onto the Time Bandit and painted a red lightning bolt-which I guess is their logo-on the Time Bandit crane. This pissed everyone off, but Johnathan especially. He told us his plan to get them back basically EVERY SINGLE DAY since we met up with him in Anchorage. Here it is, translated from Bering Sea Hamburglar to English: "We're going to get everyone in town onto the Time Bandit, and ride by and throw every goddamn thing we have at them. Eggs, paintballs, fireworks-we're going to dump it all on them and ruin their fucking lives. You don't ever fuck with the Time Bandit! You want a fight, we'll give you a fight! You bring a knife, we bring a fucking Howitzer!"
Seriously, we must have heard this speech like ten times. It was motivational at first. Then it was annoying. So I started making fun of him.
Tucker "What if the eggs block out the sun?"
Johnathan "THEN WE FISH IN THE SHADE!!!"
Anyway, the night before, Johnathan was emphatic that we get to the Time Bandit no later than 11am, so we could all be there and take part in the ambush. No argument from me.
That morning, we were a bit late, so we didn't get in a cab until right at 11am. This shouldn't have been a big deal-there's only seven miles of road on the island; it doesn't take more than ten minutes to drive anywhere.
Cab driver "Where to?"
We immediately realized something: We don't know the actual name of any of the docks. How the hell would we give the taxi driver instructions? Even though Dutch Harbor isn't a big place, one of the few things it does have-aside from thousands of bald eagles that eat trash-is a lot of docks. It's basically all docks and processors, so you can't just say, "Take me to the docks." There are ten different sets of docks, all over the island.
Tucker "Do you know where the Time Bandit is docked right now?"
Cab Driver "The what?"
Tucker "The Time Bandit."
Cab Drvier "Never heard of it. Is that a crab boat?"
Tucker "Uh ... really? You don't know the Time Bandit?"
Cab Driver "Nope."
I guess if you live in Dutch Harbor, the last thing you want to do is watch a TV show about crab fishing.
Tucker "OK ... uh ... do you know the Northwestern? It's docked next to them."
Cab Diver "Oh sure, I know where that boat is."
We went past the airport and down the docks to where the boat had been all week. We saw the Northwestern ... and then a huge empty space where the Time Bandit had been all week.
Tucker "God damn it! We missed it! We fucking missed it! They already fucking left. I fucking knew we were late. FUCK!!!!!"
I was PISSED. Not only was the ambush going to be fun, but to be completely honest, I kinda wanted to be on the actual show, and this was pretty much my only chance. God knows I wasn't ever going to actually work on a fucking crab boat, especially not after the 24-hour pukefest on the way in.
Drew "Let's keep looking. Maybe they just moved the boat again."
Tucker "They've already left! Fuck! We're fucked. This sucks. Let's just go to the airport. Fuck it. We lost."
Drew "Drive a bit further down the dock."
Thank God Drew was there. I would have given up. He had the taxi driver go around for ten more minutes as I pouted and cursed under my breath ... and then as luck would have it, Drew was right: There was the Time Bandit, docked, but hidden behind a random building.
We got onto the Time Bandit, happy as pigs in shit. But Andy was the only one there.
Tucker "Where is everyone?"
Andy "Buying eggs."
Tucker "Still?"
Andy "You've never seen Johnathan when he gets obsessed with something. He can go overboard. Here they come."
We went down to the deck. Johnathan burst out of the truck, hands raised triumphantly.
Johnathan "We spent 500 fucking dollars! We bought every fucking egg on the island!! Two thousand eggs!! We're going to ruin their lives!!"
That's when I took this picture. If you look in the middle, you see the egg that Johnathan threw at me in mid-air: The Seabrook knew there was going to be some kind of retaliation; they're not stupid, plus the Discovery crew had to make sure they were on the boat when it happened so they could get it on film. I don't know if they knew ahead of time exactly what was going to happen or when, but I do know they weren't prepared for the biblical shitstorm of eggs that was about to rain down on them. It was so epic, Discovery Channel scrambled the helicopter to film it! I had done some serious shit in my life, but never anything cool enough that a helicopter had to record it.
This was not a half-assed assault. We distributed people all across the boat, with enough egg ammunition in each place. We'd thought out not only the initial ambush, but how to counter the possible counter-ambush. There were two paintball guns on the boat. Scotty was perched up in the crow's nest with one, and Justin had one next to Cameron on top of the crab pots. Their job was to shoot anyone on the other boat who tried to throw anything back at the Time Bandit.
At 11:30am, with camera crew ready on both boats, we left the dock. We slowly passed by the Ramblin' Rose, which was docked next to the Seabrook. The crewmembers who were on deck literally dropped what they were doing and stared in disbelief at the thousands of eggs we had laid out all over the boat.
Andy "Leave the Ramblin' Rose alone. They're not the enemy today!"
As we approached the boat, the crew of the Seabrook was busy readying the ship to head out to the fishing grounds. We all crouched down and hid behind whatever was available. Andy slowed the Time Bandit to a snail's pace. I can throw an egg pretty far, but Andy, being the expert captain that he was, pulled up alongside the Seabrook at a distance of under five feet. At this distance, a little girl could hurl an entire carton on deck.
Four crewmembers who were on deck stopped what they were doing to look at us, confused as to why our boat was so close.
Crew member "Hey! What in the hell is all this?"
Andy's voice came over the Time Bandit's loudspeaker: Andy "FIRE!"
And our eggs blotted out the sun.
That poor guy who was standing out on deck got it the worst. I think every single one of us took a shot at him. He took one egg right to the temple, and went down like a bag of shit. The rest of the Seabrook crew ran for cover in the front of their boat, where they were protected for the most part.
Andy "Target the windows! Aim for the wheelhouse windows!!"
Hundreds of eggs smashed into the wheelhouse windows. We covered every window in no time. One of the production crew cameramen on the Seabrook side was up there as well, on the outside, filming from their vantage point. I hit him at least twice, and I wasn't the only one who managed to do it. We hit everything. Every last square inch of the ship was covered in egg.
It took until about this point for the Seabrook to start throwing eggs back at us. A bunch of their crew came running out from the front and hurled eggs at us. I think that they were waiting behind cover until we ran out of eggs so they could return fire-not a bad plan-but we just weren't running out of eggs. There's no way they could have foreseen this, either. I mean seriously-who brings two thousand eggs to an egg fight?
The Time Bandit does, that's who.
As our wheelhouse passed theirs, I dumped three entire 18-egg crates on their wheelhouse. It was awesome. Andy floored it and we sped away. A huge cheer went up on deck. I am not exaggerating in the slightest: the Seabrook was yellow. Bright yellow. Barely any red visible anywhere.
We tied up back at the pier and went down into the stateroom to watch the footage from the four cameras on our boat. They caught absolutely everything. It was even better on video.
Tucker "There's nothing more satisfying that an undeniable, overwhelming, total victory."
The Epilogue Pretty much every "reality" show on TV is bullshit. Reality TV and the people on it are more unreal than most scripted series at this point. If they aren't literally scripted like "The Hills" or "The Amazing Race" then at the very least they're completely controlled by the producers to achieve the drama and results they want, like "Survivor" or "Jersey Shore." I don't even think I need to mention what a joke reality "stars" are; that's become cliche.
Before going to Alaska, I knew "The Deadliest Catch" was different. But now that I've been there, now that I've hung out with these guys, now that I've thrown up on their boat and gotten hammered with them and lived in their world, I can tell you with authority that they are no bullshit. Not in any way.
That's the thing about these guys-they were pulling crab out of the sea and ass out of the bars before the cameras came and they'll be doing both well after the cameras leave. These guys aren't in this for any other reason than because it's what they do. THAT is what makes the show so good-it IS real. You can't pretend to fish crab. These guys pull 1,000-pound metal cages out of the ocean in 40-foot seas for three straight days without sleep. And it's HARDER in real life than you can imagine from watching it on TV.
Andy said it best, "Man, the show is cool and all, but it hasn't changed much really. Crab fishermen have always been the craziest, the toughest, the loudest, the best. We were rock stars long before "Deadliest Catch." I could have run a cannery, or fished for halibut or captained an oil tanker or anything like that. That's why I became a crab fisherman in the first place: We make the most money because what we do is the hardest and most dangerous fishing job there is. That's why we do it."
[Note: The best way to see all this for yourself is to look at the pictures on my website (www.tuckermax.com/deadliestvacation). And you can see me and everyone else on the "The Deadliest Catch" Season 7, in the episode called "Sea Change."]
DEDICATION.
I want to dedicate this story-something I've never done before-to Justin Tennison, a member of the Time Bandit crew who hung out with us all week, and passed away a month after we left. He was a truly great guy who went before his time, and that sucks. RIP, Justin.
SEXTING WITH TUCKER MAX: MEAN.
This may come as a shock to some of you, but I have a slightly volatile personality. I don't suffer fools well. And when I'm in a bad mood, I suffer stupid whores looking to sext even worse. It's not like I want to sext when I'm in a good mood. You really think it's going to be sunshine and kittens when I'm pissed off? The girls who persistently annoy me to sext with them find out.
MEAN #1: STUPID IS AS STUPID TYPES.
MEAN #2: THIS BLOWJOB BLOWS.
MEAN #3: HOOKT ON PHON-ICKS.
MEAN #4: WHORE ONSTAR.