Johnathan "There gonna be girls there?"
Tucker "Who the fuck are you talking to? I'll make sure the sturdiest whores in Alaska come out."
Johnathan "There better be. We're going out to sea, there's nothing but ugly for a month."
Tucker "I also got us a $500 bar tab at Chilkoots."
Johnathan "500!?!?! That's not nearly enough. We'll go through that in an hour."
Tucker "An hour?"
Johnathan "Oh yeah. Shots are $7 a piece up here."
Tucker "So?"
Johnathan "40 or 50 over the course of the night, it adds up."
Tucker "50 shots at $7 a piece is only $350, dumbass."
Johnathan "No you stupid fuck, 40 or 50 per person. There's ten of us, add in beer too. We've had 5 grand tabs before."
Tucker "50 SHOTS PER PERSON?!?"
Johnathan "Oh yeah. On a heavy night, we'll go through a bottle of Crown apiece. Sometimes more."
Tucker "Dude-that's insane!"
Johnathan "You sound like my fucking doctor."
PART 2: THE ANCHORAGE PARTY AND THE $200 BEAR MACE SPECIAL.
The day finally comes. We all arrive in Anchorage on various flights. I'm the last one to the hotel, and by the time I show up, everyone is already in the hotel bar drinking with the Time Bandit crew. Fourtner hands me a beer: Fourtner "You all have no idea what you're in for, do you?"
Tucker "Have you ever thought that you're the one who should be worried?"
Fourtner "Yeah, yeah. Be ready-we're going to get you as drunk as 15 Indians tonight."
Almost immediately, Johnathan orders up a round of shots and hands one to me.
Johnathan "Here you go, pretend you're a man." It's Crown Royal, obviously. And Crown Royal is whiskey. And I fucking hate whiskey, for good reason.
Tucker "I'm allergic to whiskey."
Johnathan "Jesus Christ. Alright, get Little Lord Hayfever over here a vodka shot."
Fourtner "And some Benadryl too."
OK, OK. I can play that game too. Johnathan says something about what the set-up at the bar is, and how he hates big crowds or some bullshit.
Johnathan "So, is there like a VIP at this thing for us, or what?"
Tucker "A VIP!?! No one can touch the fancy crab boat captain!!"
Johnathan "I don't mean it like that!"
Tucker "I don't think this DIVE BAR in ANCHORAGE, ALASKA has a VIP room, but we can stop and get some velvet ropes for you if you want. We'll have the crew rope off a four-foot area around you and carry it around as you walk, so no matter where you go, you'll have your own VIP right there with you."
Nils "And Fourtner can stand there with a clip board, so when people come up to talk to you, he'll check and see if they're on the list. If not, they can't even speak to you."
Tucker "But it'll be empty. It'll just be an obviously blank sheet, but he'll check it for every person who comes up to talk to Johnathan or get a picture or anything; 'What's your name? Lemme check. Nope, not on the list.'"
Nils "No, it'll be blank, except for two names; Moses and Rae Carruth's dead baby."
Tucker "And we can have someone who does nothing but yell out the rules for getting into the VIP, like 'Do you love chain-smoking, Crown-Royal-pounding, crab-eating captains? Is the sea your mistress and the bar your slut wife? Then step into the VIP. He has only two rules: no drama and no pants.'"
Johnathan "YOU CAN'T FUCK WITH ME LIKE THIS! I'M A CRAB BOAT CAPTAIN GODDAMNIT!!!"
We gave as good as we got for another hour or so, and once everyone warmed to each other, we started trading stories. Fourtner tells one about when he got tired of crab fishing, and decided to try something else for a while, so he got a job delivering mail. He hated it, and decided to quit and go back to fishing the day he found himself chasing a dog down the street, spraying its ass with mace as it ran away. Somehow the combination of alcohol and bravado leads Johnathan to bet me I can't get someone at the bar later that night to take bear spray in the ass.
Tucker "Are you kidding? Done."
Nils "Seriously though-can we go seal clubbing tonight?"
Fourtner "Probably."
Nils "Sweet! Do you think I could club a baby seal to death using another dead baby seal?"
Before we can go to the party at the bar where the tab and fans are, we have to go to the local radio station to do an interview. Damn near twenty of us take the limo and once there, they take me and Johnathan up to the booth for the interview.
It was a pretty standard interview; I showed up way too drunk, they begged me not to curse because of the FCC, I did anyway, etc. (you can see the whole interview on www.tuckermax.com/kfat). At the end, I had to get one more joke in at the drive-time DJ's expense: Tucker "Hold on-you're a black guy from Mississippi, you can read AND you have a job? You must be the star of the state. They must have a statue of you down there."
That's not even a line I would write about, except for the reaction that Johnathan gave. He went out of the booth and said: Johnathan "Did you hear what he just said on the air? He's fucking crazy!!"
Tucker "Hold on-you work on a crab boat in the Bering Sea, and you think I'M crazy?"
After that, it was on. We get to the bar and it is packed with people; I have no idea how many were there. I spent at least two hours doing nothing but taking pictures, signing shit, and doing shots with random people, progressively getting drunker and drunker. That's all fine and dandy, but I still had a bet to win. The bar had a DJ with a microphone, and he kept yammering all sorts of gibberish. I got hold of it and got to the important tasks at hand: Tucker "Does anyone want to have their ass sprayed with bear mace?"
Shockingly, no one responded. This is Alaska; the unofficial state motto is, "someone here is ready to do anything for money": Tucker "OK, for $100. Who will do it for $100?"
No one.
Tucker "Fine, $200. Who will take bear spray in the ass for $200?"
No takers.
Tucker "Jesus Fucking Christ, $200 is what America paid for Alaska! Someone here HAS to be willing to get bear spray in their ass for that price."
Finally, some random guy agreed.
Guy "$200 cash?"
I show him the money.
Guy "OK, I'll do it. I'm in the Army, I breathe CS gas all the time. How much worse can this be?"
Everyone cheers and gets ready to watch. Then I think about something I had not considered.
Tucker "OK ... does anyone have any bear mace?"
Like an idiot, I'd left that part out of my calculations. Thankfully, we were in a place where bear attacks actually happen, and someone produced a canister of bear mace.
Tucker "We have the bear mace! Everyone, to the deck!!!"
Bear mace is just a very strong form of the same pepper spray you can buy for your key chain. But it's called "bear mace" for a reason: It is strong enough to stop a bear. Keep that in mind as I describe this next scene to you.
I don't know how many followed me outside, but there had to have been at least 150 people packed onto the deck. I pulled the dude aside and explained the rules to him. Completely arbitrary rules that I made up on the spot.
Tucker "OK, here's what you have to do: drop your pants and bend over. I'll spray the bear mace on your asshole, you get the money, and you're golden. Sound good?"
Guy "I have to drop my pants?"
Tucker "Of course, dumbass. I'm not spraying your clothes for $200. I can do that for free. The bear mace has to go onto your bare asshole."
He agrees. Right there, in 10-degree weather, this guy completely drops his pants, bends over right in front of me and spreads his ass cheeks. [This is the part of the story where I don't make a gay joke, and you make all the obvious ones for me. Well, I have two things to say: 1. Who do you think you are?, and 2. What gives you the right?]
I bend down and get about two feet from his butt-close enough to smell his poorly-wiped ass-all but stick the bear mace nozzle into his bunghole, and let loose. The guy took about a half-second of spray, then jumped in the air and turned around to face me. Since I am an asshole, I did the only thing that made sense: I kept hosing him down. In his crotch. And his chest. And face. Until the canister was empty. And then for some reason, I threw it over the fence, like I was trying to dispose of the evidence of a crime or something (and yes, there is video of this as well: www.tuckermax.com/mace).
Predictably, as soon as the bear mace hit the air, it cleared the area. The entire deck went from packed to empty in less than five seconds. Instead of running like everyone else, I did the smart thing, and immediately rubbed my itching eyes-with the very hand I used to spray the bear mace. Awesome. Great job, you fucking moron.
The next 30 minutes is something of a blur, probably because I couldn't see out of my swollen, capsaicin-filled eyes. Bunny said that I looked like I had the worst case of conjunctivitis ever, so she took me to the bathroom to wash out my eyes with clean water. At the time, I remember thinking, "Damn, if rubbing my eye with my finger did that, I wonder how fucked up the other guy is?"
I found out immediately: The bar bathroom was small. It had two sinks, a mirror, one toilet and one long piss trough. There was a mop sink in the floor behind the door, with a nozzle about waist high. In the mop sink, completely and utterly naked, stood the bear mace guy with his entire penis and ballsack jammed up against the nozzle, sloshing arctic cold Alaskan water all over the bathroom, like when you put your thumb over a hose and crank the spigot wide open. I wasn't sure what to say, then I remembered something.
Tucker "You forgot your $200."
He slowly turned around to face me. I'm not sure he really even recognized me. His eyes were so red, I would say he was crying, but that's not accurate-it's more like his soul was pouring out of his ocular sockets. There was so much snot coming out of his nose, it looked like brain matter. You ever see video of people who get pulled out of collapsed buildings after earthquakes? He looked like one of those people. He was in so much pain and agony that shock had overtaken his senses and his body had port-holed and shut down all but the most basic survival systems. He looked like a living war crime.
He slowly turned around and maneuvered his ass so the water nozzle basically wedged in his butt. I reached the wad of bills out to him. As the freezing cold water shot through his ass crack and sprayed over the bathroom counter, he pitifully reached his hand out and took the money. Realizing he didn't have any pockets to stash his winnings, he just stared at me, then turned back around and put his balls back on the cold water.
I hope that this will be the only time in my life I gave a wad of cash to a naked man.
I took my iPhone out for a picture. Then I stopped. I just couldn't. This dude was in so much pain, he wasn't even human anymore. I had sprayed bear mace over every inch of his genitals-don't you think I'd caused enough suffering? I didn't ALSO need to get a picture of him to extend the suffering beyond that night and that bar. And yes, it is funny when I read that sentence out loud to myself.
After that, I somehow got roped into a conversation with a bunch of Alaskan natives. I said something about Eskimos or whatever, and then got a long elaborate lecture about all the different types of Alaskan natives. Apparently, there are big differences between Eskimos, Inlanders, Aleuts, etc.
Tucker "I don't understand-firewater is still firewater, even if it's cold. You're telling me there are different types of mud people?"
They didn't think this was as funny as I did. They kept trying to explain the differences to me, but it made no sense. Also, I was very drunk and didn't give a shit.
I have to say one thing about Anchorage though: There were WAY more hot girls than I anticipated. Well, there were at that bar on that night anyway. I was super impressed. My penis counted at least five girls it wanted to see the inside of.
So what happens? OF COURSE, some girl outside my penis's starting five ends up back in the limo with me. How? I don't know. Apparently, she was an aggressive bitch to the other girls, and I didn't notice. I blame alcohol. So does my penis. It refused to stay up with her when we tried to fuck in the limo. And then again when we got back to the hotel, though I'm not blaming alcohol for that one.
Girl "What's wrong?"
Tucker "I don't know."
Girl "What the fuck? You can't fuck me because you drank too much?"
Tucker "No, I don't think it's alcohol. I've drunk way more than this and still fucked without a problem; the only explanation is you. You're just not attractive enough to get my drunk dick excited."
I was kinda kidding, but not really. I planned to just go to sleep for a few hours, then wake up and fuck her later, no big deal. But she wouldn't stop annoying me and complaining. I told her to shut up and go to sleep. She decided she didn't want to. I laid her options out: comply or leave. She seemed to think there were other options for her, even though I distinctly listed only two. So I solved that problem: I took all of her shit and threw it out in the hallway. Clothes, purse, shoes, everything.
Tucker "You can be an annoying bitch if you want, but not around me."
Nils, Bunny and Drew were walking down the hallway as this happened, and watched her pick up her stuff and run off.
Drew "At least he didn't make her leave through the window. He's growing up."
Nils "Judging by her face, he should have."
Bunny "NILS! BE NICE TO THE WHORES!"
I posted this Tweet, then went to bed: For some ungodly reason, Bunny, Nils, and I got up early the next day for breakfast. The only two people awake were Fourtner and Andy Hillstrand, Johnathan's brother and the other captain of the Time Bandit. Andy hadn't been out with us the night before, so instead of being hung over, he was fresh as the morning dew. And even though I'd watched the show for six seasons and seen every episode and knew that Andy was a funny dude, I wasn't prepared for exactly how fucking hilarious he was in person. We spent about 90 minutes listening to him tell some of the greatest stories I've ever heard. Highlights: What it was like growing up with four brothers in Alaska: "We weren't poor, but this was Alaska, so there wasn't much up there. All we had to play with was sand and rocks basically. So we'd put a bunch of sand and rocks into tube socks and hit each other with them. We called'em 'Wammy socks'. Or, when those broke, we'd just have rock fights with trash can lids as shields."
"My dad gave all of us Swiss Army knifes once. It was our prized possession. Then Neal and my other brother popped a bunch of his buoys with it, and he took each one from us, and broke the blades off, and gave it back. Ever seen a Swiss Army Knife without anything sharp on it? Pretty useless."
"That's actually how our boat got its name. Our dad used to say 'I got these five retarded little midgets, I might as well just call the boat the Time Bandit.' It's based on that movie. And the fact that he thought my brothers and I were all retarded midgets."
On his brother Neal Hillstrand, who is also on the show (but you don't see as much of him as you do Andy and Johnathan): "Neal's nickname growing up was 'Neal the eel'. It was because Mom would always find eels in his pockets when she'd wash his britches. She finally asked him why the hell he had eels in his pants-it was because he was eating them. He'd spend days away from home, just hanging out on the beach, cooking eels he'd catch."
On his father's parenting techniques: "Our dad owned a few fishing boats and a cannery. He was tough on us too. He made us work on his boats pretty much from as early as I can remember. He laid it down for us, 'You're going to work, and if you don't like it, go upstairs and suck on your mommy's tit.' I was like, 'Dad, I'm six years old.'"
"Dad had a little anger problem too. He basically hired and fired pretty much everyone in Homer, Alaska several times, including us. One time Johnathan and I fucked up something real bad, and he got real pissed, 'You're fired, and you're out of the family. Change your fucking name!!' I had to move into an abandoned shed out back with Johnathan for six months. We had a fucking blast back there though."
"We have the Time Bandit now, but he was such a fucker, we not only had to buy it from him at market price, he wanted to lend us the money but charge us more interest over what I could get a loan from the bank for. I told him to fuck off and took the loan from the bank."
"Even though we bought the boat from him, he'd still get pissed at us every day, and still try to fire us, 'I'm taking the boat back!' I was like, 'We bought it from you fucker, you can't!'"
"Let's see, what were some of his other words of wisdom? He used to say things like, 'I gave you every means in life to kill yourselves and you've all failed.' Or he would constantly tell us that 'You're all mistakes.' He said he wanted daughters because they were cheaper to raise."
On dealing with the Alaskan natives: "The old time fisherman used to shoot every seal and sea lion they saw. Hated them, because they fucked with the lines. But we can't really hunt most of these animals anymore; they're protected now. But if you really want, you can probably get ahold of a dead seal or something, you just have to get it from a native. The natives, they can kill pretty much anything they want. They'll trade you a seal pelt for a bottle of whiskey still to this day."