The last frontier

Alaska: Land of moose, bear, and mountains. Everyone expects eskimo or dog sledding jokes, but those are corny. We are ARTISTS. Dad humor and puns are beneath us.

Day drinkin’?

We left Seattle at 8:30PM, and the sun was still blazing when we arrived in Anchorage at 11:30 p.m. It’s only dark for about two hours a day during the summer, and it’s incredibly disorienting.

There’s an old saying “the crazies come out at night”, but when night time is light time and you actually see all the craziness, you truly begin to appreciate how accurate that statement is.

Around 12:30 a.m. we were walking around our hotel when an overweight native man came prancing out of an alley wearing nothing but lacy underwear. He gummed a lollipop suggestively and raised an eyebrow as if to say “want a piece of this?”. We quickly darted across the street, but of course the guy could see our every move. It’s impossible to slink away when it’s high noon. It was at that exact moment we realized how much debauchery needs darkness.

There’s just something undignified about being wasted in the sunlight. Ideally, it’s black out when you’re blackout. When we saw dudes stumbling around that first night, our gut reaction was “Damn, how’d they get trashed so early?” but then we’d remember it was nearly 2 a.m. It’s even worse for comedians. If we bomb at a show, we can’t just disappear into the night. We can’t even walk off into the sunset. We walk straight into the spotlight.

Short on time

The total duration of our trip was 48 hours, so we had to pack a lot of activities into a little time. The drive would’ve taken 43 hours each way, so we of course said “Nuh thank you” and bought plane tickets instead. We flew in Thursday night and left Saturday night.

We awoke on Friday the same way we went to sleep: bathed in sunlight. After the previous nights weirdness we were ready to see things in a NEW LIGHT. We first hit some local landmarks to get a feel for the history.

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We then moved on to a farmers market to try out the local cuisine.

After eating, we ubered out of town to actually get a look at nature. Our Uber driver’s energy was one atom above comatose. It was as if he himself had just awoken from winter hibernation.

All of his local ‘fun facts’ were depressing. When we asked about hiking trails, he warned “There are homeless camps in the mountains and a lot of murders happen out there”. When we asked about hiking and biking, he said “the homeless people steal bikes and stockpile them. Maybe 300 or more. I don’t even know what they do with them”. We were really excited.

The Great Outdoors

Alaska’s natural beauty is stunning. We went to the Potter Marsh Bird Sanctuary and saw grand mountain views and closeups of wildlife.

A nice middle aged couple started chatting us up on the boardwalk. They were super friendly and knowledgeable about Alaskan wildlife. They pointed out moose tracks, showed us where bears roam, and named just about every bird in the state. And then they began to descend into weirdness.

The husband would be telling a story and all of a sudden stop, jerk binoculars to his face, and shout “Babe, look! It’s a (insert bird name)!!”.

The guy would also hock huge loogies in the middle of stories. One was so powerful he gripped the railing, leaned back, and lunged forward to spit it out (with quite an impressive arc). He then dusted himself off and strolled back over, casually farting with each step. We’re curious at what age we’ll begin doing old guy shit like that.

At a certain point, behaviors better define mens age than numbers. Saying “He’s in his 70’s” is vague. But saying “He keeps a bowl of butterscotch hard candies on the coffee table” is as precise as carbon dating. So, next time someone asks about age, answer with behaviors instead of numbers.

And last, but not least.

Animal Lovers

People had immense affection for animals and the outdoors in Alaska … but they seemed to love dead animals. We mentioned going whale watching and someone excitedly yelled “Oh! I heard one washed up on the beach in Juneau!”. They yearned with all their being to journey 850 miles for a rotten carcass.

You may think we’re joking about joy in seeing animal remains, but we’re not. The couple we met earlier wouldn’t stop talking about “calf kills” (bears killing young moose). Apparently, these are recorded events and if you witness one, it’s like winning the lottery. While telling the stories, they could scarcely contain their excitement. Their enthusiasm was bubbling over so vigorously we thought they were becoming aroused.

They even escorted us to the end of the boardwalk where the remains of a moose lay. With the pride of a child showing off a new bike, the guy pointed and beamed “See there? That was a moose. It got killed earlier in winter”. All that remained were clumps of hair with dirty bones strewn about.

The guy continued “We come often to check it out. Even in the winter when it was just 10 degrees we’d see it change. We even saw a hawk fly away with part of a limb once!”. For us, ‘watching the gradual decomposition of a moose’ is last on our ideas for romantic dates,  but for this couple it was the height of marital bliss.

The comedy scene

The Anchorage scene was small and tight. Then again, the comedy world in general is smaller than you'd think. We had just done shows in Portland and Seattle, and some of those comics already knew the Anchorage comics. It’s always awesome to have a warm welcome because everyone's a friend of a friend.

In terms of shows, they have weekly and monthly mics/showcases in Anchorage and the audiences vary by season. During winter, the locals come to all of the shows. During summer, the locals stay home to avoid all the tourists and the tourists go to all the shows.

Showtime

The show was on Friday night at the Hard Rock Cafe. The audience was fun - a lot of tourists pop in and fill the place up during summer. There were 3 Matt’s, 2 Dan’s, and one Kass on the show. We now book shows exclusively based on the repetition of performers names.

We and the Matt’s did 15 minutes apiece, the host (Matt) and Kass knocked out 5 apiece. We really enjoyed sharing the stage and spending time with the Alaskan comics before/after the show. As always we were thankful for the hospitality and being treated so well by our local hosts.

Until next time

Coming into Alaska, the plane was packed. Going out of Alaska, the plane was empty. The math simply didn’t add up. New arrivals were either starting fresh lives off the grid or getting killed by bike hoarding murderers in the woods.

Our flight departed at 12:40 a.m. Although there were enough empty seats for every passenger to have their own row to themselves, I was lucky enough to sit next to a guy who smelled like a medley of stale budweiser and ashtray. I excused myself to ‘use the restroom’ before takeoff and never returned to that seat.

We got back to Seattle around 5 a.m. and picked up the van from long-term parking. After catching a few winks, we fueled up at IHOP and hit the road for Missoula, Montana - where we did our first two-man show.