Northern Exposure

Day The First:

This week the I Hate Blogs blog is coming to you from somewhere in Alaska. Probably whatever bar in Anchorage I was able to find that had  wi-fi. Perhaps you are asking yourselves, “Since when do they have an Alaska Comic Con?” Well they don’t.

I’m actually here on family business -specifically the disposal of my father’s remains. He’s been dead for well over a year now -we’re sort of a family of procrastinators. We’ve already taken care of the stake through the heart, dismemberment, and incineration. All that is left is to scatter the ashes on the far side of several thousand bodies of running water and we will be reasonably assured that he will not cause us any more trouble. Though perhaps choosing a place called Resurrection Bay to scatter his remains is not the wisest choice.

No doubt many of you are wondering where the connection lies between Alaska and life-long Staten Islander, Bob Wegener. Perhaps he was a great outdoorsman, you wonder. Perhaps he loved the rugged beauty of this last great wilderness, and reveled in it’s awesomeness, visiting every year to hike, explore, and experience the many natural wonders. Many of you, I am sad to say, would be grossly mistaken.

As far as I know, my father has been to Alaska exactly twice in his lifetime. Once on a cruise with my mother, and once with my brother.  On both trips the majority of his time was spent on boats and in bars playing games that involved downing one’s cocktail every time a sperm whale surfaced, or somebody clubbed a baby seal.

Growing up with my dad was a bit like growing up with Sammy Davis Jr., minus the tuxedo, no one was Jewish, and my father wore more jewelry. Underage drinking was encouraged, if not required, and when my youngest brother and I started smoking, dad was delighted. “Finally!” he would say. “Someone to help me shut your mother up.” If the Wegener family had a coat of arms it would have to include a bottle of liquor and a tumor.

When I was 19yrs old I took my father’s very heartfelt advice to “move far away, and only come back for those holidays that you can’t think of excuses to miss.”  As a result, I haven’t really been involved in anything family-oriented for the past decade. It is equal parts startling and satisfying that many old neighbors do not recognize me when I visit the family home.

So when it came to planning this little adventure it was left to my mom who likes to leave most of her major decision making until late at night, after several glasses of scotch, and a sibling who is incapable of organizing his life enough to move out of my old bedroom, let alone an excursion for five, 4 time zones away.

And so airline tickets were booked days before the flight, there were no real hotel rooms waiting for us, and the plan to “rent a boat to take out into Resurrection Bay, where we’ll dump dad’s ashes,” is only now in it’s embryonic stages.

For me, this is close to unbearable. Being rather prone to fits of anxiety that leave me unable to do much more than stare at the wall and drool on myself, I like to work things out in advance. No surprises for me. No sir. When I went to San Diego, and Toronto before that, I had it all planned out months in advance. Tickets were purchased when they were still cheap, books and whatnot were shipped weeks before the shows, and everything was arranged so that all I had to do was show up, and everything was taken care of.

Being out of the decision-making loop on this one though, I am emersed in the chaos of my family and flashing back to those awful trips we took when I was a kid, aimlessly shooting out into the Pennsylvania wilderness in search of a cheap motel whose vacancy sign was still illuminated. Because of that whole anxiety thing, the lack of organization literally makes me nauseous, which in turn makes me angry, and prone to saying things that I will later regret. So I’m just going to sit here and silently stew in my own juices for a few more days and then go home.

Day The Second:

Alaska, or at least Anchorage, smells like pee. I don’t know why that is, and I don’t mean it as a judgment, but I can’t escape it. It’s a very distinct odor, and since I was riding a New York subway just a few weeks ago, I know what that smell is.

It’s also freezing fucking cold up here! Not winter cold, but rather like someone left the air conditioner turned on too high. Uncomfortable, but not quite unpleasant. When the sun does break through the clouds, it is brutal. I’m surprised everyone doesn’t have pneumonia.

Day The Third:

I’m in a place called Seward, a small town located at the head of Resurrection Bay. Seward, you will be fascinated to learn, is the starting point of the famous Iditarod Trail , which leads to Nome, more than one thousand miles away. Thus it is also a HUGE tourist trap -the town is therefore lame as hell, but the mountains surrounding the bay are gorgeous.

I have come to learn that Alaska has only three major terrain features, 10,000ft. mountains, moose infested bogs, and asphalt. The places composed of asphalt are the only parts conducive to human habitation.

Alaska is strikingly beautiful, yet at the same time utterly forbidding. Being surrounded on all sides by nature (EXTREME Nature) you really start to feel just how indifferent the Earth is toward people. We’re just one more kind of animal wandering around on top of it. I think Tolkien wrote about this, and I’m sure many others have as well, but this is the first time I have every truly felt it myself. It really sort of sucks. I suppose if I were the religious type I might spout off about the glory of God’s work -this being one of the few bits of His work left we haven;t taken a steaming dump on. Yet. But since I’m not that type, I just feel very small and insignificant. That’s not a bad thing -it’s good to be reminded just how unimportant we are.

Yesterday I got to hook up with an old buddy from college, who now lives in Anchorage. He took the Widget and I around to see the less touristy parts of town. We also visited the airport to check out the awesome sea-planes, the still flying DC-3’s, and all sorts of other cool stuff with wings. I got one of my very rare pangs of regret for leaving aviation. My friend Steve is flying medivac these days, as well as freelancing as a cargo pilot in one of those DC-3’s, and doing a little instruction on the side. It was great to see him, and we’re planning to hook up again when I go back to Anchorage in a few days to fly home.

Last night I got a bit of good news from Clevinger, regarding Atomic Robo, and the ease with which we are able to get it to folks who actually want to own it:

“Most of you wont care about this, but I’m elated.

“From my publisher’s Diamond Representative –Diamond being, for those who don’t know, the company that distributes comics to North American retailers. . .

“”From now on, you will be receiving automated Purchase Orders when ever the copies in stock drop below a certain amount . . .”"

“What that means to you is that Diamond will stop telling retailers that Atomic Robo and the Fightin’ Scientists of Tesladyne is “unavailable” when it is, and always has been since the day it came out, “extremely available”. So, if you’re one of those poor, dead-on-the-inside souls who’s been waiting a couple months for Amazon.com to send you a copy? That should kick in pretty soon. I know you’d be happy about that if you weren’t so, y’know, dead-on-the-inside.”

While I am very happy about this, I am also a little frustrated with it. Isn’t this exactly how a distributer should ALWAYS do things? Way to be on the ball, Diamond.

Day The Fourth:

It is 6:30am and I don’t know if I’m awake because I fell asleep early yesterday, or if it’s because at this new hotel I’m sharing a bed with the Widget and she thrashes and moans in her sleep like a Baptist taken by the Spirit. It could just be that this is one of the most uncomfortable hotel beds I have ever encountered.

Something that I have been picking up on since arriving here is that many Alaskans are very patriotic, and religious -if the number of church/shacks I see everywhere are any indication. When I say shacks, I mean that literally. There is a lean-to down the street that says “Christ Faith and Fellowship Tabernacle” on it. That weirds me right the fuck out. I’ve noticed in my travels that the further you get from civilization the more popular going to church and pretending to be patriotic becomes. Basically, two activities that are only seen as fun when you live in a place where there is literally nothing more interesting to do.

But we were talking about Alaska. . . It’s huge, it’s pretty, it’s wet. I’m going to go and stand on a glacier later on. A glacier that my car, and especially the airplane that brought me up here, is helping to melt. But like the throngs of other tourists gawking at the big ice cube, I won’t bother thinking about how my lifestyle, or indeed my very presence there at that glacier, works to destroy this beautiful work of nature. because I’m not here voluntarily, I will enjoy feeling smug and superior while I’m at it.

It’s almost 9pm now and I have seen the glacier. Pretty amazing. I would really have liked to hike up to the ice fields above the Exit Glacier, but with my mother and child in tow that wasn’t possible.

For the first time since arriving here I did not feel like I was stuck in a tourist trap. I like how National Parks keep the crap-merchants out. The two towns I’ve visited so far remind me way too much of the depressing tourist towns on the coast of NH and down on Cape Cod. You can practically feel the desperation in the air. Between those two towns was nothing but hard-scrabble villages and lonely mobile homes. Dee-pressing!

We successfully poured my father into Resurrection Bay. There was no boat involved. A semi-retarded chimp would have had the foresight to call or email before we left the East Coast to make sure we had a boat rented for what was supposed to be a big emotional send off. That same chimp would have learned that this week was the Silver Salmon Fishing Derby, and every skiff and trawler for 50 miles was booked.

Instead the retarded chimp had to crouch in the freezing surf and squat down to release the ashes. I was amazed by how much hair he has in his ass-crack and wondered whether he weren’t studying plumbing at school, rather than engineering. Mom informed me that hairy ass crack was standard issue for all men in the Trades.

And so it was with typical irreverence that we dumped my dad in the drink. And since he was the one who taught us how to be wiseasses I think it was fitting.

The Widget and I fly out of Anchorage tomorrow night and head for . . . Georgia. Then after a few hours we fly up to Manchester. It will be about 2pm the next day when we get home. Gosh won;t that be fun!

So I’m going to post this now since I will be off the air for the next two days.

Pics will follow. Promise.

RANDOM SPLENDOR

-Sachiko Kodama: When I Met This Material.

-Atomic Robo & The Dogs of War reviewed by Comics Bulletin.