Axe Grinder

Don't Say I Didn't Warn You

When I was a kid I used to watch sports every second I could steal away from school, and when I wasn't actually playing sports. I'd sit and watch the Sonics and then head across the street, to Richmond Beach Park, to shoot hoops, take on all-comers and dream that I was Gus Williams, DJ, Downtown Freddy or, later, Magic, Jordan or Bird.

These days I get a similar urge when reading about drinking or when I hear songs about drinking, say 40-Ounces to Freedom or something from Flogging Molly. And that's not a good thing because I could be driving, at any hour of the day, headed somewhere important, and then a song comes on and, damn it, where's the nearest bar. Maybe that's an exaggeration because I try to apply the nothing before noon rule, no matter the day or the celebration, but then, it's always noon somewhere, right. Tough deal this abstinence by the hour.

So I have an invitation and a warning here: you should read McCarthy's Bar by Pete McCarthy, but you shouldn't do so prior to noon or you'll be in a pub in Butte before you know it and that could turn into an all-day train wreck. You were supposed to be going fishing, remember? But Pete McCarthy is an excellent writer, mostly because he puts himself into interesting situations and he's keenly aware of his surroundings. And he isn't afraid to speak with anybody, which means he hears some big-time stories. And he shares them with us in his perusal of Ireland, which is the foundation of McCarthy's Bar.

McCarthy has a golden rule as he travels from Cork to Donegal—never pass a bar with your name on it. So he hits every McCarthy's he can find, as well as other dark and inviting pubs and he pens unbelievable stories along the way. He's super witty and if you pick up this book (remember I warned you) you're going to laugh outloud. Clever man this McCarthy.

Take his opening salvo for instance: "The harp player had just fallen off the stage and cracked his head on an Italian tourist's pint. There was a big cheer, and Con the barman rang a bell on the counter. St. Patrick's Day, and McCarthy's bar was heaving."

Who wouldn't want to be there?

And this, from his opening chapter: "The women all have pierced noses, but there is only one with dreadlocks. She has a non-English accent that I can't quite identify through the music and whif. Maybe she's Irish. Dublin, perhaps; or maybe Belfast? She's in leggings, like the pregnant twenty-year-old in the tie-dyed vest next to her. Leggings. Bloody hell. Imagined by fatties everywhere to create a slimming effect, they make the average body look like a sackful of hammers."

These things don't end. For instance: "Because of the time and care lavished on the pouring of a pint of stout, the trick in Ireland is to order your next one five minutes before the previous one is at an end. That way there's be no uncomfortable drinking hiatus; but it takes a day or two to become reacclimated to this. While I wait for the half-poured pint to settle, I get talking to the guy next to me. Mancunian hard knock; two ear studs; powder-blue eyes; feathered hair longer at the back than on top, in the manner of rural New Zealand or vintage Rod Stewart. A mullet, I believe it's called, which seems hard on the fish.

"He tells me he's an ex-roadie for Manchester bands and asks me do I know the roadies' mantra? No, I don't.

If it's wet, drink it; if it's dry, smoke it;

if it moves, screw it; if it don't move,

sling it in the back of the van."

Clear, concise, hatch-matching knowledge

We're moving into big-time hatch season in the northern Rockies and that means anglers could soon be perplexed by emergences of Baetis, Callibaetis, caddis and pale morning duns.

Murder, love and pills spilled on the Alaska landscape

There’s something about reading other people’s impressions and descriptions of places I’ve been that brings back a slew of memories and makes me want to compare my mind’s description against their penned observation to see what shakes. Maybe that’s my attraction to Alaska author John Straley’s crime novel The Music of What Happens.

I’ve spent a good portion of my life in Alaska, not nearly enough in my opinion, but a solid stint and I relate to Straley’s descriptions of boats, tides, weather, wildlife, corruption, generosity, danger and wildness. I also enjoy reading his descriptions of Alaska towns, including Juneau, Sitka and Tenakee Springs. Identifying with his descriptions takes me back to my teens and 20s when I spent summers, beginning at age 16, sliming fish and cruising the ocean on a variety of boats.Straley's book is a page-turner. If you have any interest or connection with Alaska, this one is for you.

But I’d probably like Straley’s books whether I’d ever been to Alaska or not—he’s a talented writer who winds great plots with interesting characters, making each page turn easily to the next, to the point where you may be resting in bed, wanting to read more, only to turn to the clock and read 11:59 on a work night when you have to be to the office at six.

I really value Straley’s books and his writing because, unlike, say, Florida writer Carl Hiaasen, Straley somehow blends the unbelievable into truth so that his characters and stories remain believable rather than outlandish. Straley’s books are pertinent, not pure entertainment, so there’s value to the read, an understanding of Alaska issues and a relevant peek into the lives and mentalities of Alaska residents who are, in true life and in Straley’s works, nothing but remarkable.

In The Music of What Happens Straley’s main character, private eye Cecil Younger, is released from a psych ward with a pocket full of prescription, which he promptly abuses,  a direct correlation to the previous days of his life and why he rests on the edge of despair. His therapist suggested avoiding anxiety and to become “stress-free” for a few weeks, but Younger’s commitment to that ends after a brief, shiny walk home when he encounters his single client who promptly shoves a sheered off dental probe against his nose and says, “I oughtta (f’n) kill you!”

Not long after that encounter Younger is in Juneau, caught up in his client’s wicked and weird custody battle, trying to find out why she’s been arrested for murdering a senator, a man she believes was at the heart of a conspiracy to keep her young son away from her. Younger ends up fighting her, fighting and getting beat by her husband, battling and then joining forces with a wicked and whacked out Fairbanks attorney, and dealing with a crazed kidnapper wielding a nine-millimeter as a bargaining stick. Through it all Younger deals with a past love, who happens to be his client’s sister, as they wind through the at once beautiful and hostile Alaska landscape.

The Angler's Coast, by Russell Chatham

I'm probably not much different than you or the next person in line, meaning I sometimes question my luck in comparison to the rest of humanity. Then, one day, for no apparent reason, something happens that makes me feel like I was really fortunate and one example is when friends dropped off a book and left a note saying they'd found it at a Seattle-area garage sale and thought I'd like to read it if I hadn't already. That book: a first edition of Russell Chatham's classic West Coast fishing story, The Angler's Coast (Doubleday 1976).First edition, hard cover, 1976.

I felt obligated to tell my friends that The Angler's Coast is considered a fly-fishing classic and that they dropped off a first edition. I said, "You might want this book back," and they said, "No, that's great that it may be worth something. You keep it." That book won't be sold and it occupies a valuable position on my bookshelf that says as much about some people's generosity as it does about angling.

Another edition of The Angler's Coast is much easier to find and that version was produced in coffee-table style by Chatham's Livingston Montana-based Clark City Press, circa 1990. That edition is a classic, too, and I owned it prior to the standard-sized first edition showing up. I retain that oversized copy because it looks great on the shelf or on a table next to Dec Hogan's A Passion for Steelhead and Kaufmann's Bonefishing, adequate stimulation to book a trip somewhere wild whether you should or not.

In his book, Chatham graces us with 14 chapters about various fishing adventure in the Northwest, ranging from steelhead and sea-run cutthroat on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, to shad on California's Feather and Yuba rivers, and more steelhead and king salmon in California. Especially entertaining are his entries on fishing for striped bass in San Francisco Bay and his run-ins with rats and the police and all sorts of characters. Throughout the book Chatham details his relationship with the late great angler Bill Schaadt who was recently documented in the  DVD, Rivers of A Lost Coast, produced by Skinny Fish Productions. It's fascinating reading about slightly deranged, but highly proficient and dedicated anglers. In one sentence, Chatham says that Schaadt caught 800 steelhead in 1956 from, if I recall correctly, the Russian River. This is also a story about great fisheries lost, which can be a real bummer to acknowledge. However, with that said, this should stimulate anglers to protect what's left, in California, in Oregon, in Washington where the Washington Department of Fish and Game still allows harvest of WILD steelhead, and in British Columbia where fish farming and netting influence the quality and future of steelhead and salmon fisheries.

In truth, Chatham's writing style is lost in many modern day publications and books, especially in the fishing category. And that is a shame; these stories, rather than describing the very rock you might stand on and the number of thread wraps in a General Practitioner, and how to gain four more feet on your double haul—these stories, instead, delve into the

Northwest Trees The Mountaineers Books 246 pages, Softbound, $18.95 Northwest Trees arrived in the mail the other day, for some odd reason. That’s one of the perks of being a writer—authors and publishers want free ink and we scribes serve as a conduit to the public. As an avid reader I’m happy to oblige.