Overheard: 180 Days Sober

Two guys sitting in adjacent bathroom stalls talking shit about sobriety while, apparently, shitting:

Guy #1: "I drank myself into a coma. Woke up the next day, got a dog, and decided to be sober. Stayed that way for 180 days."

Guy #2: "That's it!"

The Drunken Boat

Valdez Harbor, crack of dawn.

Surviving journal fragment, providing a pretty accurate picture of what it was like hanging out with Donald Kilbuck in the late 1990s:

July 1, 1998 - In the early evening, I was surprised by a knock at the door. I looked through the peep-hole and saw Donald Kilbuck laughing his ass off in the stairwell for no apparent reason. He's tired of his job in Valdez and has returned to Anchorage. Further questioning revealed his Native Corporation Check is due so he won't have to worry about work for awhile.

He plans to use the money from his check to ferry his van to Kodiak where he'll stay until his next Native Check arrives. Then he will use that money to deliver himself back to Anchorage. Well, we all need something to do.

I ended up joining him on a spontaneous 6-hour drive to Valdez where he planned to deliver a bag of clothing to his friend, Patrick.

The roadtrip scenery was beautiful as always, but especially so considering the sunny weather, there was none of Valdez's characteristic rain. We rolled in to town around 2:00 a.m. & hung out at Ihe Sugarloaf Bar which is owned by the Village Inn (Donald's workplace for the past month). 

Posted above the bar, for all to see, was a chalkboard with the message, "Today's Specials" painted on the top section of the frame. Instead of drink prices, the board said, "You're In Good Hands With Allstate - Jon D. Gilliom" & then my phone number! Donald's doing obviously. I have no idea how long it had been up there.

I was pleased to learn the bar did not close until 4:30 a.m. & started in on beer by the pitcher. Donald was determined to wait around until 3:30 a.m. & then go wake Patrick up & give him a ride to work (he works at the Sugarloaf too). The bar was a lot of fun & there were a lot of cool fishery workers in town from all over the country.

By closing time, Donald returned without Patrick. Apparently it was Patrick's night off & he did not appreciate the wake-up visit at all. As the bar began to close, a fellow named Chris offered to take us out on his boat, so we bought a six pack to go, the bartender charged us $18.00 for it! He claimed that since the bar was technically closed, he could get in a lot of trouble for selling. We were drunk enough to go through with the transaction.

At this point, we weren't sure if Chris was bullshitting us or not, but we were just going with the flow. Who cares? Sure enough, once we arrived at the dock, Chris pulled the battery out of his car, stuck it in a boat, and we were off.

As the sun came up, we were taking turns steering the boat around Valdez Harbor. It was beautiful and invigorating. When the beer was gone, we returned to the dock, reattached the car battery, and I offered to buy Chris breakfast in exchange for the boat ride. By now, it was after 7:00 a.m. and we were on our way to Sunday morning breakfast at the Totem Inn.

Donald & Chris in the cabin.

Chris, our Captain.

We really ordered up at the Totem Inn, but by the time our food came, Chris was face down on the table. I don't think he ate a bite of his breakfast. The restaurant became very full as the Sunday morning crowd was arriving. Chris was drawing a lot of looks and comments. I can't believe they didn't kick us out. Donald and I just laughed and ate as if everything were normal. We were super hungry and not about to leave, no matter how many people were staring.

When we were finished, we carried Chris out. Luckily he was able to vaguely direct us to a friend's house (or we interpreted it that way). We left him laying on the front porch and then began our three hour drive back to Anchorage.

Cantwell

Out in the middle of nowhere, Cantwell, Alaska hosts an annual music festival. It is pretty much just two days of drunken revelry. It's completely unadvertised. People just know about it by word of mouth

It's right off the freeway in a huge open area. The only structures are a stage, a full blown bar, and a line of port-o-johns.

Everybody just pitches tents or lives in their vehicles for the weekend.

Highlights from the year I attended include:

Dancing on makeshift tables.

Passing out & sleeping in the dirt.

Worth a close up.

Me in the chair, Todd standing above, Amanda on the right, & our photographer in my lap.

Here is a collage:

Cantwell collage.

[Originally posted on I'm Nacho Steppinstone, Jan. 18, 2004]

Hyder-ized

While driving through British Columbia, Canada, for what seemed like forever on our road trip to Alaska in 1994, we made a Hyderization pit stop in Hyder, Alaska.

The proper entrance to Alaska is through the Yukon Territory, which was still a long way off, but we learned there was a southern Alaskan town called, "Hyder," accessible through British Columbia. It isn't a proper entrance to Alaska because there are no additional routes into the interior, evidenced by the absence of a customs stop.

We were a little road weary from days of driving and decided it was worth the 200 mile detour off the Alkean Highway to check out Hyder. It was probably a once in a lifetime opportunity. I doubt we will ever be back in Hyder. It is absolutely in the middle of nowhere.

Checking out Hyder, Alaska.

Once we arrived, Hyder looked like kind of a wilderness outpost. There were a few buildings (at least half of which were bars) and a lot of mud.

One guy we met there told us they did try to establish a border patrol office at one point in the town's history, but the locals, "shot it up."

There was not even anything to indicate where the Canada-Alaska border was. The guy we were talking to said, "There used to be a sign, but if fell down, eh?"

We decided to celebrate at the Glacier Inn bar & liquor store. The walls were covered with autographed money, originally from miners staking claims, but in recent years it was probably just drunks.

One wall of the Glacier Inn.

While we were there, the bartender, Caroline, was creating a subliminal message to her boss by stapling $2 bills to the money covered wall to spell out, "Fuck you, Buzzy." She said he would never notice and she would laugh about it for years.

"Fuck you, Buzzy."

The Glacier Inn had a tradition called, "Hyderization," the process of, "getting Hyderized," which consisted of drinking a shot of Everclear.

We recorded Caroline's Hyderization rap on the Van Log cassette tape rec (she was able to recite it super fast, an skill she called, "Speed Hyderization"):

What I have before you is a water chaser, this in the other hand, is a house special. You may not taste it or smell it first. You have to knock it back straight one time & one time only... On the count of 3, down the hatch. 1,2,3. Congratulations, you've just been Hyderized with 1 ounce of Everclear 190 proof straight grain alcohol. Here's you card, sign your name to it...Welcome to Hyder & have a nice day. Bingo! We're done! Thank you.

Getting Hyderized.

After that initiation, they provided you with a souvenir card:

My proof of Hyderization.

[Originally posted on I'm Nacho Steppinstone, Mar. 12, 2004]

Snoozin and Losin

Exhausted at the Getty.

Drunk at the taco place.

Remembering 4th Ave.

At the Gaslight w/ Dale.

I don't spend much (actually, any) time in bars these days, but I used to when I lived in Anchorage. I wish I had half the money I've pissed away in Anchorage bars.

My favorite spot was the downtown 4th Avenue district; they had a great selection of working-class dive bars there, never mind the occasional shooting. If you got kicked out of one, or if you were just bored, you could walk down the street and hang out at a different one.

In my mind at the time, 4th Avenue was a magical place where anything could happen. I used to have a ton of 4th Avenue bar stories, but I've forgotten most of them. They were never all that great anyway, once sobriety set in.

When there was music at all, it wasn't too loud, so you could better eavesdrop on people talking shit to each other, which I appreciated.

I'd always tell people how great the 4th Avenue bars were, then they'd join me and nothing interesting would happen. That's about when I realized my ton of 4th Avenue bar stories was more the result of my hanging out there constantly, rather than anything to do with the character of the bars themselves. If you hang out anywhere day and night, you're bound to witness a few interesting occurrences.

Anyway, the 4th Avenue dive bars were a lot of fun at one time, and they gave me something to do in Anchorage, but I probably did persist with it past its prime. Oh well.

111 for 1

Probably the only existing image of the short-lived, homemade, 
campground bar. Valdez, AK; Summer, 1991.

One fish-less day in Valdez, when work was slow, some campsite entrepreneurs whipped up a homemade bar out of pallets and scrap plywood.

They bought a bunch of cheap beer, a few bottles of whiskey, and a big can of loose-leaf tobacco; then announced the following offer to everybody on the campground (and passing tourists):

One beer, one shot, one cigarette - One Dollar!

What a great deal! Everybody was so happy.

There was no proper shot glass, but huge shots were being poured into an awkward plastic vessel, which I think was the cap from a can of spray-on deodorant or shaving cream.

They wouldn't roll your cigarette for you; you had to roll your own. But at that price, nobody cared. Some people just ignored the cigarette and considered one beer and one shot for one dollar a bargain in itself. It was fun for the few hours it lasted until the police put an end to it.

After the bar was shut down, we tore it apart and burned it on a bonfire. The above photo is probably the only evidence of its existence.

[Originally posted on I'm Nacho Steppinstone, Apr. 15, 2004]

Hit 'Em Again

At the time of the 9-11 attack on New York's World Trade Center, I was working the night shift in a San Bernardino gas station. The maintenance guy (Tony) used to come in at all hours and get drunk in the adjoining mechanics' garage since it was closed down in the evenings. There are a lot of funny memories around that situation, but I thought the funniest occurred the day after the 9-11 terrorist attack when everybody was driving around with American flags on their cars and reveling in lust for revenge.

The day after the attack, Tony was getting drunk in the garage like usual and a friend of his kept coming into the station and asking me, "What's Tony doing? Getting drunk?"

I don't know why he gave a shit, but it was really bothering him. Eventually he returned and said, "We should write something fucked up on Tony's truck since he's in there getting drunk." I didn't have anything better to do, so we threw around a few ideas, finally going with a pro-Bin Laden slogan.  After a little brainstorming, Tony's friend came up with the perfect thing.

As Tony pulled out of the parking lot later that night, his car displayed the phrase, "Hit 'Em Again, Bin!" printed across his tailgate in white shoe polish.

It was pretty funny. He later said people were honking at him and yelling at him all the way home. He assumed it was because he was driving drunk, so he'd slow down and then they'd pull up next to him, flipping him the bird, and yelling at him.

In retrospect, I'm surprised he didn't get shot.

[Originally posted on I'm Nacho Steppinstone, Dec. 14, 2003]

Cheap Thrills: Fire & The Dictionary

In Los Angeles, whenever we were looking for something to do, we often turned to the dictionary. A random word could spark all sorts of fun associations.

One time, we used it to see what we’d write on our tombstones: Sarah's would say, "Faithless," mine would read, "Snake," and Miski's would be "Uncontainable."

Another fun pastime was playing with fire. One night, while cleaning the house, we got frustrated with all our clutter and decided to start a big bonfire in the backyard to burn anything we didn’t need. It turned out we had a lot more to toss on than we thought! After an hour of tossing in old dish towels, ugly clothes, random objects of questionable origin, and even a traffic cone (which took ages to melt), we started to wonder if we really needed any of it at all. We were all pretty drunk, which only added to the hilarity of the situation—after all, we could have easily ended up burning everything we owned!

Sarah Vaquero burning a shirt in the backyard.

When someone brought the dictionary over to the fire, it shifted our carefree vibe. None of us had the heart to toss the dictionary into the flames, so we decided to incorporate it into our game instead.

The rules were simple: one person would stand by the fire, ready to choose something to burn, while two others acted as judges on the sidelines. The person by the fire had to justify their choice for burning that item. But if they paused for more than five seconds or lost their train of thought, the judges would randomly pick a word from the dictionary and shout it at the speaker. The challenge? They had to weave that word into their justification in a coherent and meaningful way.

It was a fun game and it inspired some great arguments for burning shit.

This is what we all looked like in those days.

[Originally posted on I'm Nacho Steppinstone, Dec. 11, 2003]