Legendary music producer Rick Rubin seems like a pretty cool guy. A fella with the flowingest beard-mane, an ear for chart topping hits, a profoundly chill vibe, and a legacy of successful genre-obliterating partnerships with the likes of the Beastie Boys, Run DMC, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, and Johnny Cash…what’s not to like?
In spite of all that, I’ve been something of a Rick Rubin skeptic. Maybe it’s his fingerprints on the “evolution” of some artists toward mass consumption, and away from their most original and authentic songs and sounds. Or perhaps it’s the understandable side-eye we dash at producers whose star seems to outshine those of some artists they are working with… Regardless, it was surprising when recently I heard him on a podcast and found myself nodding enthusiastically, “YASS.”
“Wait, didn’t I click on the R2AK Daily Update?,” you’re asking yourself. There’s an R2AK point here, eventually… possibly…hopefully. Rubin was talking with Malcolm Gladwell about the creative process and his 2023 debut book, and Gladwell quoted a line of Rubin’s prose: “There are countless examples of imitation turning into legitimate innovation. Having a romanticized vision of an artist’s genre or tradition may allow you to create something new, because you see it from a different perspective than those closer to it.” Rubin continues in the interview, “The reason someone imitates someone else is because they love someone else… All of the music that gets made based on loving someone else’s music is a tribute to them.”
They go on to discuss the inspiration that ping-ponged between the Beatles and the Beach Boys—that The Beatles’ Rubber Soul inspired the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, which had the song “God Only Knows” that reportedly gave Paul McCartney the idea for The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Of this, Rubin says, “They weren’t doing that out of competition, it was out of love and inspiration, and it was an upward spiral between them.”
That’s when the lightbulb went on about these ruminations and their relationship to R2AK racers. In the R2AK-spirit of relative facts, here’s something completely unverifiable and at least possibly true: every individual that has cast off the last dockline and set off for Ketchikan in Race to Alaska has done so more out of love and inspiration than of competition. If there’s another boat race where the participants’ recipe calls for ten-parts love for every one-part competitive spirit, I’ve never heard of it.
The people who chose to race to Alaska are adventure artists, inspired by other adventure artists from the past and the present. Talk with any R2AKer, and one of the first things they’ll mention is the other teams. For a race that has built some of its reputation on snark and irreverence, the racers’ words and actions always reveal deep appreciation for their fellow adventurers; respect and reverence and, yes, love for their competitors. From help rendered and fun shared, to others’ stories told and accomplishments uplifted—these adventure artists are out there creating new experiences and memories while simultaneously being inspired by everyone else out there doing the same thing. And in this act, they’re inspiring the next generation of adventurers, regardless of whether or not those artists-to-be will sail, pedal, paddle, or row toward the bell-ringing pedestal on the dock in Ketchikan.
Rubin’s ideas about romanticization and innovation resonate too. R2AK finishers typically need distance to process their experiences or entertain EVER thinking about doing it again. But those who, from a distance and a different perspective, have found inspiration in the efforts and accomplishments of racers past and present—they’re the ones buying boats, refining pedal drive systems (think about how much better the pedal drives are in R2AK ‘23 than R2AK ‘15…), poring over charts, and registering to paint their own R2AK canvas in 2024.
Of course, it’s not NOT a race, and the times when it feels like one provide unquestionable edge-of-your-seat excitement. But I’d wager there have been few, if any, R2AKers in history who signed up primarily to win. Even those competing closely with other teams on the water will be the first to hoist a beer in the direction of their fellow racers, and actually mean it when they say, “The people who beat us are awesome, and the teams we finished in front of are even better!”
Ultimately, like The Beatles and The Beach Boys, what these adventure artists produce out of love and imagination and innovation is a celebration of those with whom they’ve shared the exquisite waters of the Inside Passage, and is finer and infinitely more inspiring to others than any Cobra Kai “sweep the leg” win-at-all-costs competitive spirit could ever hope to be.
Mike and Marty’s Big Ketchikan Finish
That’s a lot of sappy philosophizing. If you’re still with me, let’s end with a nice little R2AK nugget from the last 24 hours. Team Mike and Marty’s Big Day Out arrived in Ketchikan yesterday evening, the tenth boat to finish R2AK 2023 after just over two weeks on the water. Bigtime congratulations to this dynamic duo, who are clearly still the BFFs they were when they left Port Townsend. Here’s a snippet of a conversation they had with the Race Boss after tying up in Thomas Basin to a chorus of cheers from locals, race officials, and fellow racers.
Race Boss: How’d you keep this Corsair going when everybody else kept blowin’ them apart?
Mike: “We stopped in Port Neville for three days…”
Marty: “Not sailing when it was shitty!”
Mike: “Those waves were gnarly. You couldn’t drive them. It was like wave, wave, wave—there were three of them in the length of my hull! They were steep, short, and nasty.”
Race Boss: You said Race to Alaska was harder than advertised? In what way?
Mike: “It was just a lot more pedaling than I expected. A LOT more pedaling.”
Race Boss: What did you find out? What ended up being the scariest part?
Mike: “He found out eight new things he was afraid of!”
Marty: “Any number of things. I learned how to sail [by] sailing to Alaska. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. It was hair-raising out there the first three days. I think a lot of people hit the wall four-to-six days in; I probably hit it on day three. I stuffed one of the amas into a wave in following seas and was like, ‘I can’t do this, I’m not doing well, I’m doing poorly, I don’t know…’ ”
Mike: “He buried the ama to the hatch, and I’m like, ‘That’s it, we’re dead, we’re going over.’ We were doing like 20 at night, we were hauling ass.”
Marty: “It was… thought provoking. That’s why Port Neville was genius. Two-and-a-half days walking around inspecting your navel, eating salmon berries, and looking at crabs in tide pools, plus the vikings [from Unsalted Nuts] made us espresso and taught us axe throwing—that was just what I needed to take it down a couple notches. That was my snapping point. After that, it was all pretty good.”
Race Boss: How was it sailing with someone who didn’t know very much about sailing?
Mike: “He could have fooled me! He did really well, he picked it up.”
Race Boss: What do you find yourself talking about out there pedaling for 12 hours straight?
Mike: “Well, we were saying the Everglades 300 sounds real good. Sounds warm. Movies, music, food, a lot about food.”
Marty: “This guy’s got a one track mind—every time I turned around he was digging in some food bag, being like ‘Meat stick? Meat stick? Cheese stick? Meat stick?’”
Race Boss: What are your plans now?
Marty: “Three showers apiece, at least, to get back to baseline.”
Well done, Mike and Marty! And keep a close eye on the tracker today, race fans, Team Wave Forager looks to be making a massive push to the finish and could be set to win two side bets as the first human-powered finisher and the first under 20 feet.
– By Joe Cline, Editor of 48° North (occasionally known in R2AK circles as Joey Mustache)
Header photo by Jim Meyers