Ahoy Mates!

[<mc cutcheon>]

It' my dad's 60th bithday and we are celebrating by taking a cruise to Alaska. Well the Bon Voyage is on the way. I'm typing this from sea. So far smooth sailing. They say that 80% of Americans are obese. I think that all 80% of those Americans are on this ship. I was a little overwhelmed and was wondering how we were going to stay afloat. Some of the people here seem to have come on this cruise for the sole purpose of eating. There are enough restaurants that you can eat in a different one every day of the week voyage. When we first boarded many people trambled to the buffet. My family and I went to the top deck for drinks. There is a pool and all that and a band was playing Stayin' Alive in the sunshine. It was good to be back together with the whole family....After dinner we went to the Monte Carlo Casino. Rachael my sis, my brother Zac and my dad all put down $500 for chips. I wandered off to get a free drink. Everything is getting put on the cabin bill, so it's FREE! Rachael asked why i didn't want to gamble. i told her it's a low addiction of the common man. I wish i had some money to play Black Jack. it's no fun to just watch from the sidelines.... There is a bar called Checkers that also doubles as disco. The DJ is crap and there wasn't anybody there. i sat in the corner drinking free beck's. The recipts are adding up and my pockets are getting stuffed...for a night cap the pills came out. My brother broke his leg and my sister had a surgery so they have trouble sleeping. They have Vicodine, Percaset and valium. when they weren't looking I stole a few pills from each bottle. I'm not in any pain, but it always helps to be prepared...This morning i got up and went running. The weather has changed and it's a bit cool now but the senery is breathtaking....I was going to sign up for the ping pong turnament thinking I'll teach these grandmas something, but when I got there there were three asian guys with their own paddles in cases. They were doing strecthes and warm up exercises. I play tennis and carry my racket in a case, but this is the first time I ever say ping pong paddles protected by expensive leather. I was out of my league... This is .75 cents a minute and I type slow so i gotta go. i mean i know it's free because it all goes back to the cabin but I'm starting to feel a little gulity, because I'm now going to the Duty Free to sign my name away on a few bottles of booze.

[<rosie>]

sounds like a blast.
my dad designed a cruise ship for princess cruises in the 80's.
coming in from the channel from alaska to vancouver, the ship sank , but no died only slight injuries.
have you seen wildlife?

[mccutcheon]

Tomorrow I'm taking a glacier helicopter excursion. I'm lookig at the brochure. It says all helicopter passengers weighing more than 250 pounds will be subject to an extra charge of 1/2 ticket price. I hope I don't get a fatty next to me. The next day we are going up to a glacier for a dog sled. Hopefully for the dogs sake there won't be any 250 pounder for them to pull....getting 5 individuals who have nothing in common but shared blood lines together is an intersting socological condundrum. trying to organize the whole family to meet and eat at the same time is proving diffuclut. This doesn't detere my father though, who keeps telling me to "wait here". While he goes to search the ship, a vessel of over 2,000 people and 12 decks, the rest of the family arrives and my dad is now lost. to keep my sanity I just keep smiling and "wait here"....some man is video taping the buffet. I was trying to get a piece of fresh fruit and the man was getting a close up shot of the mound of mashed potatoes. As I was walking out with my banana he put down the video and grabbed his camera to snap a photo of his wife taking the first bite, diving into a her heaping plate.

[h.]

Wow! Checkin' out my homeland. I hope you see more beautiful and memorable things than fat people filming the buffet.
I think you will find the mountains plunging into the sea breathtaking. And the glaciers... well I've already told you my favorite part of flying in to see my family is the last 45 minutes where it is a sea of blue green. I love that.
Shit. you are making me miss home, even if I bitch about it.
I'll go in August though. And see the pretty stuff for a week. Just long enough to want to come back to my new home.
Have fun, Mc!
Can I listen to your music while you are gone?

[<rosie>]

h.
cn i borrow mc's collection?
no scratches, i promise.

[mccutcheon]

no she can not! fuck that rosie i know how you make them skip! well we are all drunk and i just cased in my chips. mums asleep. my dad lent me some bucks and then i went up. after paying him back I'm still up $100. Rachael and my dad are still playing black jack. they are good. play for hours and win loads.

[h.]

m not going to get involved with anything aside from my own stuff. If rosie has stuff, it's cause I copy and burn.
Have fun all of y'all.
That goes for you too, Rosie. I love your new house.
M jealous.

[<ROSIE>]

don't be nuts! i wouldn't do that. i heard about how all your cds got stolen after a drunken night at kincora's.
i have a business proposition for you mc.
on june 24, djing. can we talk about it.
thanks h. right now these russian guys are putting a new roof on it in the rain. it is loud and they look in on me sleeping showering etc. they get here at 6 am, mc hours, fuck that! I NEED SLEEP.

have you gotten to sit at the captain's table? leave that to foxey rachel. shuffle board?
lots of older people i bet. isn't there a disco with fine show girls?
which ship is this?

[martino]

ahh, the pleasures of boating. i envy you, mc.

last summer i went on a birthday party cruise up the rhine, the dj was swell, the people were great, and at that point i made up my mind to get rich so as to be able to treat people to a cruise at one point too.

so i guess i can say i envy your dad even more than i envy you, mc. on the other hand, youth has its advantages too i suppose...

[mccutcheon]

I'm in Juneau, Alaska. Coming in here was fucking breathtaking, I was outside on the deck and was like fuck, God's country. It gave me the chills, the I realized I was in shorts and a tee shirt looking at snow covered mountains and glaciers....Today I lost in the first round of a free throw contest. All you had to do to advance to the next round was make one basket out of three chances. I swear the ship moved every time I took a shot and stayed still for all the smug 16 year olds who made all three baskets. I'm starting to fell like that kid Max in rushmore- enthusiastically trying all activities and failing miserablly. The sports cordinator hung her head in shame and all she could say was, "aw Matt"...in Juneau there is an old time salon where they have a gun from Wyatt Erbe haning over the bar. After the OK correl the goverment put out a warrent for his arrest and a posse on him. He came up to Alaska to become a Marshal....So I'm in the sky flying high over glaciers and snow covered mountains and the turbalence is getting pretty bad, it was a very bad time to remeber I am afraid of hieghts.

[Jack Chiefton]

he didn't fucking come to alaska to be a marshal. he fucking came to alaska to live peacefully with his wife and gold.

[Jack Chiefton]

wyatt earp is another classic example of a narcissistic bloke with a shiny badge and gun.

[mccutcheon]

I'm in gold rush boomtown Skagway, Alaska. A beautiful tiny town surrounded by mountains and water, a once lawless place full of gamblers, prostitutes and drinking- a Pax Acidus type place...I'm taking a train into the back country. Alaska really does feel like the final frontier- but with bears instead of Klingons...I was talking to my sister last night. She said she might join a dating service. I'm not sure how a 28 year old could get so desperate. Her shrink thinks it's a good idea. I was just just starting to feel sorry for her when the conversation continued. She said a lot of her girlfriends in Dallas were thinking of doing the same thing. Seems the girls in Dallas are honry and single (and lonely?) Sometimes wehen then go out they play a game: you can't leave the club until you kiss someone. Sounds sad and stupid to me. Rachael said she told her friends about her older brother-ME. She said I was handsome like a male model and had a great sense of humour but I was poor. The girlfriends were horrified. Doesn't he have a job?- they wanted to know. Rachael set them staight- Oh he has a job, it's just that he isn't into making money. He even runs a web site that he pays for, without making any profit from it, he actually loses hundreds of dollars a year on it. And what he really wants to do is be a writer. The girlfriends hung their heads and commiserated, another one lost. It's hard to find true meaningful love in this world.... the other night at the ship disco an old man came up to me and slapped me on the back. He was leering at all the girls under 40- about five of them. He said I should get out there and strut my stuff. He said if he was a stapping young lad such as myself he would be out there getting laid. I don't think they allow sex on the dance floor.

[mccutcheon]

Tonight was a bit magical in the cather in the Rye sense- when young holden our hero is out playing catch after dark. My brother zac and I were playing ping pong and it got dark and started rainging and it was very cold. we had a few beers and kept playing into the late evening. zac and I have always had a strained relationship and usually when we play sports it gets ever worse, us both being competitive and the whole older brother younger brother conflicts that go along with life. but this night we must have played 50 games and we talked about life and laughed at life and didn't mention anythingof the past. it just felt really good. and no one got mad. of course I won all the games so i think zac is a better person than me.

[mccutcheon]

I want to thank Brad, Jennifer and Erin who are still in Juneau, for an afternoon of Salmon, drinks and pool sharking. Once back on this ship it was the same old shit- average age over 60. But that isn't being fair to the crew- the crew is international and young and quite fucking hot and sexy I must say. Not that they talk to me. I've met a few and most are nice but i get the underlaying feeling they aren't too happy with their work and just wan to get through it. Feeding all the overweight peope and catering to every geratic complaint and need would put me off life in general as well...while on a cruise the term or verb is "cruising". Some how this reminds me of BIG GAY AL from South Park. it makes me a bit queasy so I think of "little" Al Pachino in Cruising...Right now we are going through Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, one called Thunder Bay- this wonderous blue ice land encompasses 3.3 million acres. The water ways provide access to 16 of these glaciers, 12 of which actively calve iceberbs into the bay. Calve means when huge chucks of ice fall off the glaciers and plunge into the water. it is awe inspiring-I've never been so juiced by nature before in my life. I'm really getting into this wildreness thing, thinking I'm packing up out of the city and gonna become the next Jack London- as I'm making my plans an elderly woman comes up to me on the top deck of the ship.She says to me, "I don't know about this, I don't like this one bit." She is talking about the ship sailing in iceberg infested waters. I don't think she has to worry, we are only traveling at a few knots an hour. She adds, "I mean didn't we learn anything from the movie Titanic. You look like a smart boy, did you learn anything from the movie Titanic?" "Yes," I replied. "I learned Kate Winslet has great tits."