Juneau – Day 1

Bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks! BOLLOCKS! Typical lying Yanks, you just can’t believe them can you? Whether it’s convincing your idiot suppository of a Prime Minister an illegal and immoral war is not, or whether it is lying to you about screening the Rugby World Cup Final, to me it is all the same! As one might have guessed I am very pissed off at the moment! I am also looking for the fastest way out of Juneau – it has become soured and I want to be somewhere else!

At the time of writing I still don’t know the outcome – that will come later.
I will try to moderate the invective and recount my day, although I can’t promise it might be in full force by the time I catch up with now! I feel cheated and annoyed! (I am also aware of the heavy use of exclamation marks!!)
I was out by 8:55 and headed for Heritage Coffee for the morning jump start and to make a list of postcard recipients. I promised everyone on my contacts list a postcard and decided I would do this from Alaska. It might not be from Juneau though.

Juneau is a quaint little city with some lovely buildings and some ugly ones. It also consists of the greatest concentration of jewellery shops I have ever seen. The taxi driver told me this on the way into town and I have witnessed it for myself. They are all shut now as it is closed season and there aren’t any idiot tourists flocking off the cruise ships to buy tons of the stuff. It is a bit weird because one end of the town is just shut down and all the windows empty. Some of the gift shops are still open but quite a few of them are also shut.

Anyway, getting back to the point. Having made my list and knowing how many postcards I require I went in search of them. I was sorely disappointed as they were 90% crap – unless one is amused by lame jokes about bear doo doo or some other equally pathetic cartoon rendition of some other item of wildlife. I was after some decent pictures of stunning scenery to send to people and failed dismally. I gave that up as a bad job and went in search of breakfast. This I found in a little cafe down near the water front. Having consumed that; I had a stroll to the bus stop in Main Street. After standing about for two minutes the bus was ready to depart so I got on and paid my $1.50 fare. This is a standard fare and good for the length of the bus’s route.

The journey to Nugget Mall (locally pronounced “mawl”) took about 30 minutes and took a lovely little detour to Lemon Creek where it turned around and came back again. Lemon Creek consists of a trailer park and what I took to be a correctional facility – I took it as such because there was a very high fence topped with copious quantities of razor wire and an observation tower poking over the top. Nugget Mall was obviously named after some allusion to the gold rush which swept the Klondike and Yukon and not for being a lump of gold. A pile of crap would be a better description but I suppose Crap Mall would not have the same appeal.

Popular Hollywood and sanitised TV deception would have us believe all American shopping malls are big, spacious, neat, clean, warehouses of copious quantities of shops selling everything we could possible want or dream of – well at least what moron-mags tell us we need and must have to be considered a proper human being. This is not true. The Nugget Mall is the turd hidden in the nugget - the nugget being the surrounding scenery. Beside and behind the Mall is an array of small penis vendors, i.e. Dodge, Ford, Chrysler & Lincoln big ugly overblown tin box sellers. The whole complex was dirty, rubbish strewn and generally depressing especially when it is surrounded by snow capped and tree covered mountains. It made me feel like looking for a Samaritans office – but I couldn’t find one. The only bright spot was the “Pet Show”. (It made me chuckle as the signs on all the doors read: No Skateboards, No Roller Skates, No Smoking and No Pets!)

I asked a couple heading in the door with a beautiful looking Great Dane bitch – her body came up to my waist – where I might find Marlintines – the “sports” bar. They gave me very good directions which took me straight to the place. Yippee I thought, found it in plenty of time. Imagine my chagrin when I found the door locked and the sign which said they didn’t open until 16:00 (well it said 4:00 because I think most people around here would have trouble with the 24 hour clock).

Bastards! It will all be over by then! I realised I should have asked if they were showing it live – although as the rest of the world doesn’t exist there are no such things as time differences! I tried telephoning the place only to receive a recorded message about some other blood sport show they were screening; boxing or wrestling or game shooting or live televised murder – I can’t remember which. I found a Yellow Pages and depleted my pile of quarters ringing some other bars in Juneau in the vain hope of seeing some real sport as opposed to the commercially dictated nancy-boy excuses for competition they show here.

[An observation: I have seen little TV on this trip – even when provided with a part-wall sized TV in some of the hotels I stayed in – the inclination to even switch one on does not occur to me. A sports channel was playing in the pub where I had my meal last night and my only conclusion from that is: all the viewers suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder. Couple that with the wonderful success one can achieve as a TV editor and producer if one suffers from epilepsy – then you have American sports TV in a nutshell (case more like – thank you again Basil Fawlty). Interrupt this with nauseating adverts about how Ford can reduce your penis size if you buy one of their eight litre four wheel drive all terrain masturbation motors, that just about rounds it up in my opinion.]

The upshot was I wasted four hours of my life wandering around a couple of depressing malls waiting for this Marlintines place to open.

Eventually it did and I headed into the dingy dive – it was – but I didn’t care if they were going to provide what I wanted, some proper sport which didn’t stop – or rather got stopped – for a commercial break every ten minutes. (In case one didn’t know: Yes they do stop what are supposed to be competitive games of sport (games for children) for commercial breaks! That is how four twelve minute quarters of “football” (shite) actually last three hours if one is stupid enough to attend and pay to see it. Why? The only thing to do to keep oneself occupied is eat. Not surprising they are a bunch of lard-arses.

[Diversion: Whilst I was wasting my life I decided to eat something – mainly because I was hungry – and whilst doing so I became fascinated by the waitress who served me. She was a fat ugly biffa whose gut was so huge that her belly button (gaping depression) looked like a mouth chewing when she waddled about – I do not exaggerate. Fortunately the uniform (tent) she was wearing was opaque – although the depression was clearly visible – otherwise I would have embarrassed myself completely. Yes, I consider vomiting in public an embarrassment.]

I know, I am ranting again, I will be again soon.

I was greeted by some redneck behind the bar (I assume one can still get a red neck from frostbite) who asked me what he could get me. “The Rugby World Cup Final” I replied, to which he asked “Is that football or baseball?” The word “fuckwit” jumped into my brain in big angry red letters, pulsing menacingly. I controlled the motor response to blurt this at him and explained in my “best behaved” voice that I was told last night they would be showing the RWC Final and, as it had already happened, when would they be re-running it? This is a proper WORLD Cup, that is: it is contested by countries from all over the world – different ones – not some stupid shitty “World Series” which is only contested by Yanks playing an idiot version of rounders! He had a problem understanding the word “rugby” and I elucidated a little not wishing to confuse the retard. The upshot was they had no “rugby” coverage there mainly because they didn’t know what it was let alone how or when it was televised. I could sense this was a disaster and came to the conclusion that these people, if confronted with anything approaching culture, would rapidly throw a bear skin over it and shoot the shit out of it with armour piercing bullets. I should have realised this when Ryan told me that during his interview he was asked if he hunted or fished. The reduction of wildlife is not a sport or a pastime, “it’s a goddam god given right!” At times it is a little like being in Norfolk with mountains.

By this time I was feeling depressed, dejected, cheated, frustrated and near to tears – my hopes and expectations dashed and shattered like a porcupine’s skull under the wheels of a fuck-off 16. I turned to go not wishing to display the obvious disappointment I was feeling. “Don’t you want a beer before you go?” asked Mr. Candidate-for-Homicide-in-the-First-Degree. “I most certainly do not!” I replied in my best On Her Majesty’s Command real English loaded with enough scorn to dissolve a Fort Knox door (thank you Mother) and walked out.

Feeling as gutted as the Timber Wolf and Brown Bear exhibits they had in glass cases in the Nugget Mall I headed back to the bus stop. Might as well piss off back to Juneau and pour out my venom via the keyboard. Which reminds me; I must stop hitting these keys so hard. If I broke my laptop that would cap it all off.

I got the bus and two stops in an Inuit guy got on and sat two seats from me. I will be kind and pretend he was being sent home following an industrial accident. He works at the local distillery and whilst undertaking some vital and dangerous maintenance operation fell horribly and awkwardly into one of the vats. Obviously traumatised they found some old grubby clothes to put him in and sent him home with full pay. The guys took up a collection to get his bus fare home.

O why did I ever leave Canada – where they have heard of rugby – and maybe England isn’t such the rip-off place I remember it to be. I had a little longing for civilisation.

[Another observation: How good are the levels of literacy in the US? The reason I ask is that Americans seem to have some need to read any signs, labels or titles out loud. Why is this? I know they are all fond of their own voices and have two volume settings: “Off” – occasionally, and, “Loud” – nearly all the time. Is this a throwback to some school teaching method, or does the mouth just automatically engage? (I favour the latter.) It is most odd as I have witnessed them doing it on their own and to each other in couples and groups. Perhaps I have just witnessed a high degree of partially sighted people being taken on trips by one sighted person. I don’t know. I wonder if there is any empirical study on this handicap.]

I got off the bus in Main Street and consoled myself with a Heritage Coffee whilst walking back to the hostel. As soon as I got back I started writing this up and now I will console myself with the wonderful booby prize of: a stick with a bit of shit on both ends! I will consult the Internet to find out the result of RWC 2007 knowing there is no way I can get to see the match without knowing the outcome. Even if I wait the 24 hours required for contractual reasons and download it from the RWC site, the first thing I will see when I hit the site is “England retain title” or “Springboks regain title” and the surprise/joy/elation/disappointment/dejection will be instantly delivered and destroyed. I just hope Charlie got to watch it all in Jasper – he would have had more chance as they know how to sit the right way on a lavatory and that it is wrong to marry and breed with your daughter. Hope you enjoyed it Charlie. I tried & failed miserably in Buttfuck Alaska.
More later...perhaps.

Well, I have booked my way out of here. On Monday I fly to Anchorage. At least they have roads and railways out of there and I should be able to get up to Fairbanks and see the Northern Lights. I have also booked a few nights in a hostel so I will have a place to stay. I couldn’t get connected to the Internet via the wireless network in the hostel because they have had their carpets cleaned and have fans going all over the lounge. The wireless network kept losing its network ID and my laptop couldn’t connect to it due to poor signal – so I was saved the temptation of finding out (one shouldn’t need to ask) as I had to use the PC in the lounge to book everything. I was going to travel by ferry again but the next ferry to anywhere wasn’t until the 4th of November – too long – and trying to fly anywhere nearer, like Cordova or Valdez (which has roads out of it) took me via Anchorage anyway – so that is where I’m going.

I did quickly check my emails to get the confirmations of my flight and hostel booking – all ok – and my Dad had sent me an email with an attachment on it. The picture was the Nike poster showing the England rugby squad standing on the cliffs of Dover with the strap line of “Not without a fight!” and it brought all my disappointment back to me. No problem Dad, it isn’t your fault I know the intention was good... more than could be said for the lying bitch in Marlintines. I still resisted the temptation to look, so the surprise, whatever the outcome was, is still there. I just don’t know what to do with it. I will ponder.

I am going to go to bed now and tomorrow I will see what bits of Juneau are still open for me to look at and visit, at least they can’t shut the scenery!