The beauty is surrounded by depressing, industrialized blight and decay; nothing is what it initially seems. When we landed, everyone was so stoked to see an eagle. I snapped like twenty pictures the first day. I eventually stopped. There are fucking eagles everywhere. There are so many eagles on the island, they outnumbered all other birds. Not only that, they’re disgusting, vile creatures. They basically live out of the dumpsters. Johnathan said he was so tired of looking at them, he hated eagles now. He called them trash birds, and joked that he tries to hit them with his truck. To me, this picture perfectly symbolizes Dutch Harbor:
I know I kinda expected that Dutch Harbor would be this raucous, drunk brawl of violent fishermen, but it wasn’t at all like that. It was a pretty chill week, actually. We spent six days and nights in Dutch Harbor, and a lot of that time was spent exploring the island, or taking pictures or just hanging out and relaxing. Part of the reason for this is that the nature of crab fishing has changed dramatically with the implementation of seasonal quotas over the last decade. They’ve effectively cut the crab fleet from 250 boats to 80 boats. That’s a lot fewer drunk fishermen. Also, Dutch Harbor authorities made a conscious effort to eliminate that sort of behavior. They even closed the legendary bar on the island, The Elbo Room. Johnathan said he knew of at least 10–12 killings that happened at the bar, and that he was glad it was closed, “Eventually, you get tired of picking the glass out of your skull from people hitting you in the head with beer bottles.”
But even though Dutch Harbor wasn’t like the old days any more, we did drink. A lot. And there were some pretty funny stories.
Nils & Keith
The second night on the island, we were in the hotel bar. Pretty much everyone you know from the show was there too: the Time Bandit crew, the Harris Brothers, Eddie the Samoan, Keith and his brother, Sig, and the Northwestern crew, you get the idea. Here’s the thing about them: Everyone is pretty much exactly like they are on TV, which makes it pretty much the opposite of all other reality TV. All the personality traits and conflicts and foibles you see—they are all real.
Except for one person: Keith, the captain of the Wizard.
It’s not that Keith was fake or anything like that. The thing about Keith you don’t realize from the show, because you rarely see the captains or the crews in the same room together, is that he REALLY stands out from the rest of the fishermen. For example, everyone in the bar either drinks beer in bottles, or whiskey, or both. Keith drinks red wine. And wears a turtleneck. And has a huge ’70s mustache. And just has a way about him that is very different. If I hadn’t seen the show, I’d think he was the general manager of a chain restaurant. Something about him was just … off.
I couldn’t pin it down until one night it was pretty close to last call and Nils, Drew, Bunny, and I walked out of the hotel bar. Keith was in the lobby talking to Fourtner, who was waiting to give Captain Andy a ride back to the Time Bandit. We said hi to Fourtner, and Keith walked past us and right up to Nils. I’m going to transcribe the dialogue as I heard it, and let you make your own judgments:
Keith “Hey there. How tall are you? Are you taller than Fourtner? I think you are.”
Nils “Sure am. I’m 6’5”.”
Keith “Mmm, I like you tall boys. Especially when you throw back those shoulders and stand tall like that.”
Nils “Uh … yeah.”
Keith “You guys can really push stuff around, tall guys are always so big and strong.”
Nils “Nice to meet you.”
I couldn’t believe what I just heard. Fourtner’s eyes went wide, like meth-head, anime wide. Drew got visibly nervous. I just kept walking.
Tucker “Did that just happen? I have the worst gaydar in the world … but did what I think happened, just happen?”
Nils “Oh yes. I grew up in the Bay Area, stuff like that used to happen to me all the time.”
Look, I’m not making any accusations or saying anything. Keith is married with kids. I’m just telling you what happened. That exchange is verbatim, and you can take whatever you want from it.
But of course, I’m an asshole, so I didn’t let it end there. The next night, we were in the same bar, all drinking and talking and having fun, like always. I decided to take it up a notch, so I called over the waitress.
Tucker “We’d like to send Keith a glass of red wine, what’s his favorite?”
Waitress “Oh, Liberty School cabernet.” She didn’t even pause. She knew it immediately.
Tucker “Awesome. Put it on our tab, and tell Keith it’s from ‘the tallest guy in the room.’”
Waitress “The tallest guy in the room?”
Tucker “He’ll understand.”
About thirty minutes later, the waitress returned to our table. With a Coors Light for Nils, from Captain Keith.
Johnathan “Jesus Christ.”
Tucker “Dude, you’re so in.”
Nils “I don’t want to be in!”
The funny part about this whole charade was that when we would tell other boat captains and crews about it, they steadfastly refused to believe it, even when Fourtner would back us up. Most of them can’t stand that floating pedophile—some, like Johnathan, openly loathe Keith—but not one of them was biting at our story. It was kind of heartwarming, in that charming, old school, hyper-masculine kind of way. Sure, Keith is a total fag, but it’s not like he’s a gay or something!
Johnathan and the Horses
Johnathan Hillstrand seems like this hardcore badass who’d just as soon fight you as look at you. And that’s true. But make no mistake, he’s a total softie to the people he cares about. When he was at my house in Austin for the Super Bowl this year, I swear to God he spent more time watching the Puppy Bowl than the Super Bowl (I have two TVs in my living room). He’ll probably get pissed I’m going to tell this story, but I have to:
We were sitting in the bar drinking, and even though it was only 4pm, the sun was starting to go down. Johnathan pipes up all of the sudden:
Johnathan “Hey! Who wants to go see wild horses?”
Bunny “I do!”
Nils “What is this, a fucking Rolling Stones song?”
Tucker “Wild horses? This is an island. In the north Pacific. With no trees. There are no wild horses here.”
Johnathan “Like hell there aren’t. Come on, let’s get some carrots and apples and head over.”
Like I said earlier, Dutch Harbor had a fairly substantial military base on it during World War II. The US Military at the time decided to use horses instead of using all gasoline powered vehicles on the island, probably because logistically fuel would have been in short supply but horses had plenty to eat, because a thick covering of natural grasses blankets most of Dutch Harbor. After the war, the military closed up shop on Dutch Harbor, and I guess transporting the horses back was either too costly or otherwise unnecessary, so they were released into the wild. You would think it’d be too cold, and they’d die. You’d be wrong. The herd still exists to this day. And Johnathan knew where they liked to hang out.
This was clearly not the first time he’d gone to feed the horses, because Johnathan went into a long explanation about the herd, what they liked to eat, where they hung out, their social patterns, everything. Johnathan pulled up about 20 feet from them and stopped. He held an apple out the window and waved it around. I asked him which one was Sarah Jessica Parker. The horses immediately recognized what Johnathan was waving and came over to see us. We got out of the truck and fed the horses carrots and apples, which they greedily munched down.
Drew “Horses are really smart. You don’t have to worry about them biting you, they just want the food.”
Tucker “You sure about that? I’ve been bitten by a horse before.”
Drew “I dunno, all the ones I’ve been around have never bitten me.”
And at that exact moment, one of them bit the ever-living shit out of Johnathan’s hand.
Johnathan “OW FUCK GODDAMN IT!”
Tucker “See? Horse
s are fucking dicks!”
Johnathan “I had to pull like hell to get my hand out. That fucker wasn’t going to let go!”
Of course, we mocked him about this:
Bunny “Can you imagine having to go back to the boat later without a finger and having to explain that? ‘Been at sea over 30 years, lost a finger to a horse.’”
Drew “I feel bad for the next folks to come out here and feed them. Now they like the taste of human flesh. They’re gonna find a pile of human skeletons, picked clean.”
Neal Hillstrand
One of the grave crimes against humanity perpetrated on the fans of “The Deadliest Catch” is the systematic editing-out of footage of Neal Hillstrand from ever making the show. After spending a week with the crew of the Time Bandit, I think I am qualified to say that not only is Neal Hillstrand the funniest Hillstrand, he’s the funniest fisherman on the Bering Sea.
There is so much to tell you about him, I’m not sure where to start. He divorced his last wife because she hit him in the head with a shovel. When he was a kid, he had bad teeth, so his grandmother pulled them out. With pliers and whiskey. His dad wouldn’t let him have a real gun as a kid, so he taped real bullets onto the end of his pellet gun, and shot things with that (the pellet hit the primer and discharged the bullet). These are just the things off the top of my head.
Part of the reason he gets edited out of the show is his fault: You ever heard the term “cursing like a drunken sailor?” Neal Hillstrand IS a drunken sailor. Pretty much every piece of footage that the Discovery Channel has of him, he is cursing to such an extent that you couldn’t even bleep the curses, because it would just be a steady stream, like when the emergency signal comes on your TV.
Plus, part of the problem is that the dude drops these vaguely philosophical and always hilarious quotes, but they are hard to understand unless you either know him or they are put into the proper context. For example, after watching Keith hit on Nils, Neal blurted out,”I need some mustard for my hotdog and right now I’m at the same picnic.” Or one time, these people were talking about horse racing, and during a lull in the conversation, Neal said, “Horses don’t like black people.” Or, after cutting the hell out of one of the knuckles on his left hand working in the engine room, he told us he wasn’t upset because, “Who needs a finger when you’ve got a penis?”
But not everything he says is out of the Fisherman’s Yogi Berra manual. Here are some of the funny things he said that don’t require such context:
Neal “What do a nine-volt battery and a woman’s ass have in common? You’re going to eventually put your tongue on both.”
Neal “The Alaska state motto is, ‘When you leave here you’re ugly again.’”
Drew “I think I saw one hot girl at that strip club.”
Neal “Yeah, I think Alaska has a hot girl behind every tree.”
Tucker “What? This is tundra up here. I haven’t seen a tree yet.”
Neal “Alaska has no trees.”
Tucker “I think that dude’s retarded.”
Neal “If not, he had no excuse.”
Neal “I knew it wouldn’t go well with my first wife.”
Bunny “Then why’d you marry her?”
Neal “She was thin.”
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 Tra
vis, 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.”