Fatty "SHUT UP! ONLY ONE!"
Tucker "OK, so you aren't morbidly obese. That's good. I guess."
We talked about her weight for a while, and though it was obvious she knew she was overweight, she kept trying to avoid facing the issue by re-directing the conversation to non-sequiturs.
Fatty "Well, what about who I am, like, as a person? Doesn't that count at all?"
Tucker "Of course it does. It's very important. In fact, I'm sure you have a lot of inner beauty ... it's just hard to see under lots of blubber."
Fatty "I don't have blubber! I'm in shape!"
Tucker "Well ... round is a shape ... but it's not a GOOD shape for a woman."
Fatty "I'm not round! I go to the gym every day!"
Tucker "Do you do anything there?"
Fatty "YES!"
This morphed into a conversation about weight, BMI, societal perceptions of women, female body issues, etc., etc. I kept playfully teasing her, she kept taking the bait, and then we moved into the issue of guys, and how they interact with her.
Fatty "I don't understand, lots of guys will fuck me, but they never want to like, hang out with me at bars and take me out and stuff."
Tucker "They probably can't afford to take you to a meal."
Fatty "Shut up! I don't eat that much! Seriously though, why don't more guys want to take me out? I'm a nice girl. I'm fun."
Tucker "You're kidding right?"
Fatty "No. You don't think I'm fun?"
Tucker "That has nothing to do with it. Have you ever heard the saying 'Mopeds are like fat girls; they're both fun to ride until your friends see you'?"
Fatty "That's terrible!"
Tucker "It's also true. I can't be the first person who's told you this."
Fatty "I'm not fat! I maybe need to lose a few pounds ... Seriously, you don't think I'm FAT do you? I'm only like ... 165 pounds!"
This girl was fun and sweet and nice, and I really did like her as a person. But she was still a delusional fatty, and she was still engaging in some of the most desperate, validation-seeking behavior I've seen in a person. She knew she was fat, she knew I knew she knew she was fat. She just wanted to hear the opposite from me so she wouldn't have to feel bad in the morning about housing two Char dogs with everything and an 18-pack of Miller Lite the night before. This left me really with only one choice: playfully ignore the intent of all her questions and then openly fuck with her until she cracked.
Tucker "Just because it says '165 lbs,' on your driver's license does not make it true. I am 185, and I'd bet the bar tab that you're within 10 pounds of me. You're 165 if your thighs are hollow."
Fatty "I'll get on a scale right now!"
Tucker "Even if you are, you're like 5'6". I guarantee your BMI is past the 'Obese', and has moved into the 'Can Only Leave The House With A Crane'."
Fatty "I'm not 5'6", I'm 5'9"! And just because I'm a little overweight doesn't mean I'm fat!"
Tucker "AHHAHHAHAHAHAHAA! A 'little' overweight? I'm not blond, my hair is just yellow! I'm not a drinker, I just pound alcohol! Do words have meaning to you??"
Fatty "I'm not that fat!"
Tucker "I'll say this: I've played sports my whole life, I'm still in great shape, but if we were fucking, I wouldn't let you get on top because I'd fear for my internal organs."
That pretty much crushed her. She almost started crying. I had to quickly backpedal, because even though my buddy was close to closing his deal, he is a slow closer, and it looked like we were all going back to their place. I wasn't about to put all this grenade work in, only to lose it at the last minute and have the thing explode all over me, like some fucking amateur.
I tell her I was joking (I was, but only a little), and we get back on good footing. We all go back to their place, get some beers-I make sure it's light beer, because I'm trying to help here-and talk about other things. As soon as my friend and his girl go into their room, she brings the conversation back to her weight. She even goes so far as to ask me for diet advice.
Tucker "You can't go on a diet. Diets don't work. You have to change your lifestyle. But staying a healthy weight is not hard, you just have to make your health the starting point of eating decisions, and eat the types of things humans are meant to eat, and avoid the things we aren't."
Fatty "OK, like what?"
Tucker "Well, let's start with the easiest. You know what processed sugar is, things like high fructose corn syrup?"
Fatty "Yes."
Tucker "Stop eating it."
Fatty "It's not that simple."
Tucker "Yes, it is."
Fatty "But candy is so delicious!"
Tucker "Are you just baiting me into jokes now? Look, if you cut processed sugars out of your diet, and changed nothing else, you'd lose 10 pounds in three months. And if you stop eating white carbs altogether-things like rice, potatoes, bread, etc.-you'll lose 20. You could easily be 30 pounds less, changing really only those things, and not even working out more."
Fatty "But I love bread and potato chips!"
Tucker "Yeah, I can tell."
Fatty "Fuck you!"
From there, I spent an hour explaining eating and nutrition to her. I explained how all the common ideas behind diet and nutrition are wrong and perpetuated by a corporate machine that only cares about profit, I went over things like why humans shouldn't eat grains and processed sugars, why organ meats and certain fats are good for you, how certain types of exercise can be counterproductive, how to use controlled fasting to lose weight, gave her a basic introduction to the ideas of Weston Price and described paleo eating, etc. I'm not sure of the precise things I said to her-I was "grenade fucking" drunk and don't really remember, plus I'm constantly learning more about this. I can't remember where my informational state was at that point in my life.
I do remember that it was turning her on. I don't know if it was because she was impressed by my fancy smart talking, or because I was talking about food, or maybe I just smelled like bacon. But for whatever reason, she was very turned on by the end of my little instructional session.
Yes, I'll tell the truth: We fucked.
I blame alcohol and testosterone.
The next morning, my buddy collected me and we left. He tried to tease me about it: Tucker "Fuck you, this is your fault!"
Friend "HAHHAHHAHAHAA! I never said you had to actually fuck her!"
Tucker "You took so long to close your fucking deal, I got too drunk to resist. You owe me asshole. You owe me. BIG. Like her."
Friend "It couldn't be that bad."
Tucker "Dude, I woke up afterwards to her eating a bag of Doritos in bed, watching 'Gilmore Girls'."
Friend "HAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHHHAHHAHA."
Tucker "She had the audacity to claim that she was going to start losing weight, but she wanted to finish the junk food she'd bought already. She said she didn't want to waste anything."
Friend "HAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHHHAHHAHA."
Tucker "The worst part is she didn't even offer me any."
THE DEADLIEST VACATION.
Occurred, January 2011.
[WARNING: If you are one of the few people in America who have never seen the TV show "The Deadliest Catch", this story will make about 80% less sense to you, and you might want to skip it. The show is easy to explain-it's a reality show about Bering Sea crab fishermen-but that explanation does no justice to the characters and situations the show reveals. You should watch a few episodes not only to help you understand this story, but also because it's awesome. If you're one of those fucking people who've never even HEARD of "Deadliest Catch" because you don't own a TV, I'm not sure how to relate to you, and I'm not sure why you're reading this book.]
PART 1: THE INVITATION.
Because my real email address is in my books and on my website (and has been there for almost ten years now), I get a lot of email. Every possible type of email you can imagine getting, I've gotten, as well as a bunch you'd never even think of. I thought I'd seen everything that can come over email. Then on November 5th, 2010, I got something I never could have expected: From: Mike Fourtner .
To: Tucker Max .
Subject: Deadliest Catch.
Tucker,.
Don't know if you watch much TV or not, but in your Beer in Hell book, you referenced American Chopper, so I know you watch a little bit of Discovery Channel.
My name is Mike Fourtner and I work on Crab Fishing boat out in the Bering Sea in Alaska. I work on a boat called the Time Bandit, one of the boats featured on Discovery Channels TV show Deadliest Catch. Just wanted to let you know that we are in the middle of Filming Season 7 of Deadliest Catch right now and your Beer in Hell book was quite the topic of conversation this season. A friend of mine, a girl of course, gave it to me to read. Lets just say that at 2 am while I'm in the captains chair driving the boat to our next set of crab pots, I would start laughing out loud and very hard!! A few times Andy or Johnathan, our captains, would get up to see what the commotion was and I had tears in my eyes as I was trying to explain what I just read!!!
We've all come to the conclusion that you are basically a very highly educated Alaskan Crab Fisherman at heart ... ... the only difference between you and us is the degree you hold ...and the smarts to never have done what we do for a living!!
Not sure if you're into fishing or not, but if you ever come to Alaska we'll take you out for a day on the Time Bandit to catch some halibut or salmon. Bring the friends and we'll supply the Alaskan hotties. If we get enough of them, we might have a full set of teeth between all of them! Call if you ever want a trip on the Time Bandit ... .....360-[redacted] Thanks for the laughs!!
Mike I almost fucking shit myself in excitement. "Deadliest Catch" is, after "The Wire", my most favorite TV show ever. I've been watching this show for six years, and I've seen these incredibly tough guys battle ridiculous temperatures and 40-foot waves and all that shit to haul in the delicious crab that I love to eat so much. I'd be really excited if they were fans of my book, but fuck that-they're inviting me to fish with them? And not just any boat-this is the Time Bandit! That's the coolest boat on the show! Are you kidding? That's like Michael Jordan asking me if I want to play some pick-up basketball with him.
The first thing I do, before I get too excited, is make sure it's real. This is the internet after all.
From: Tucker Max To: Mike Fourtner Subject: Deadliest Catch OK, is this a serious email? Because I am a HUGE Deadliest Catch fan, but I don't want to get my hopes up in case this is a spoof. If it's real, I'm 100% in. If not, FUCK YOU, this was meaner than any shit I've ever said to any fat girl.
We went back and forth on email, and I gave him my number. Almost immediately, a 907 area code came up. That's Alaska. If this is a spoof, they went all out.
Tucker "Hello."
Mike "Hey! This is Mike Fourtner, from the Time Bandit. Is this Tucker?"
It was him. Unquestionably. That was the cheery, perpetually happy voice of Mike Fourtner, the Time Bandit deckhand I'd been watching on TV for years. I talked to him for a while, and then he told me to hold on, someone else wanted to talk to me. A gravelly voice I immediately recognized, but could barely understand, came on.
Johnathan "Hey, is that that fucker who wrote that book?"
Tucker "It's that fucker."
Johnathan "That shit was pretty funny. You coming fishing, fucker?"
For the entirety of this story, all quotes from Johnathan Hillstrand are approximate. It's hard to understand what he's saying, either on the phone or in person, because he sounds pretty much exactly like the Hamburglar. RUBBLE RUBBLE RUBBLE!
I ended up talking to both of them for like 30 minutes, and they were cool as fuck; exactly like they are on the show. We talked about the logistics of me coming up, and by the end of the conversation, not only had they invited me up in January for opilio crab season, they told me to bring friends. I immediately forwarded the email to Nils, then called him.
Tucker "This is real. I just talked to them on the phone; it's their voices. You can't fake 30 years of whiskey and cigarettes."
Nils "This is crazy! Who gets invited to go FISHING IN THE BERING SEA DURING CRAB SEASON???"
I ended up taking Nils, Bunny, and Drew Curtis (who went to high school with me and started Fark.com). I was tasked with figuring out all the logistical details for the trip up to Dutch Harbor. So I did what I always do when I have to do anything that isn't writing, fucking, or fighting-I made my assistant do it.
He spent an entire day figuring everything out, but came to an impasse. Apparently, there is only ONE company that flies from Anchorage to Dutch Harbor. And EVERY single seat on every flight was booked. For the ENTIRE month of January. Ian looked at boats; apparently it takes four days to get there. He even looked at chartering a plane, but it cost some excessive amount that I wouldn't have paid to drink with Jesus himself (and don't say anything about him not drinking-the ONLY thing he drinks in the Bible is wine; you know that guy had to be awesome to drink with).
Here I was, having gotten the invitation of a lifetime to go crab fishing with some of the only people on earth who I admire, and there was no fucking way to even get to where they were. I was crestfallen. I didn't know what to do, so I called Fourtner for ideas.
Mike "Every seat is booked? Makes sense; all the processing plants are flying their people in, plus all the Discovery crews, and they only run two planes a day. Shit-I just remembered: I haven't even gotten my flight in here yet for opies. I live in Seattle, I just come up here for king and opie seasons. Lemme talk to Andy and John, we'll figure something out."
Mike called me back the next day with a plan that blew me away: They were going to charter a plane from Anchorage, and we could ride on it. They'd meet us in Anchorage, we'd all get on the charter and fly to the Time Bandit, then ride on the boat with them to Dutch Harbor.
Tucker "We get to ride on the Time Bandit? Like out to sea and shit?"
Mike "Yeah. There's a ton that goes on that you don't see on the show. You see, we dock the boat in King Cove between king crab and opilio crab season, not in Dutch Harbor. It's about a day's ride or so. Wait till we ride the charter plane from Anchorage to King Cove. There's no airport at King Cove, it's just a gravel runway. There aren't even any buildings there-the one that was there blew down during a storm, and they never rebuilt it."
Tucker "Is this a joke?"
Mike "Oh no. Look it up on Google Maps. If you're really lucky, we'll have to buzz the runway the first time and scare off the bears. That's happened before."
I got off the phone and immediately typed "King Cove Airport" into Google Maps. Holy shit. He was right-there really wasn't anything there but a gravel strip and some utility sheds.
What the fuck have I gotten myself into?
I talked to Fourtner and Johnathan Hillstrand at least every other day for the next week or so as we sorted out all the details and travel arrangements. It was fucking incredible what these guys were doing for us. Granted, they had to charter the plane anyway, but they were going out of their way to help us get there, and aside from some phone conversations, they didn't even know me. What amazing people.
I had to do something to pay them back. Since we got to Anchorage on January 6th and left on the charter on January 7th, I figured I had to take them out that night and do it up right. I got in contact with a radio guy in the Anchorage area (who was friends with Johnathan), and in return for doing a bunch of radio stuff, he helped me set up a party at a bar, got a limo for us, everything.