James and Lynn talk about banned books, especially The Logic of Steel (pdf).
The Crackpot Podcast features James LaFond, a high country forager, and Lynn Lockhart, an expert on snack food.
Audio:
YouTube:
01:00 James' embarks on his travels, internet safety, a new website
05:40 Book suppression, The Violence Project, The Logic of Steel
07:55 Banned books: Autumn in a Dying City, The Logic of Steel, The Fighting Edge, Barbarism vs. Civilization
15:35 Why is LaFond dangerous? Luke Ford interview
20:30 James condemns political violence, favors time traveling Native Americans coming to slaughter left and right
21:35 The Logic of Steel, Mr. Kenny, statistics
34:32 What does the Norman Bates grip mean?
39:30 Don't get Boned, The Boned Zone
44:40 Castalia House
47:05 Supplicant Song, The Violence Project
Your weekend links are a double, last weekend was super busy for me, sorry about that!
This place sounds like James' proverbial candy store!
My favorite fact about the swastika is how much trouble hate-crime hoaxers have drawing it (remember, right angles, left hand spiral!). Here in Sub-Contintental-California, I once saw a car with a large swastika drawn on the hood, along with a multitude of Hindu idols and ornaments in the cabin.
James has a take on child abuse that I have never heard before and that rings very true. An investigator into the matter was found dead. This is very real and occurs at every level of government and around the world.
James covering the Harm City beat from the Rocky Mountains, violence against police is on the menu.
Advice on love from the Khan, coming soon to a podcast near you. James says women are not capable of honor, but of course, Penelope is a fictional character. The Khan on how to be a leopard among jackals. The Khan explains a woman's role.
Pedestalization is an Anglo-Saxon habit, so says Gottlieb Mittelburger.
Being an adult at age 21 implies a need for 21 years of training, not an instant transformation.
Buy a book, many fine titles are available as pdf books through his main website. You can buy James' books through Amazon, but they are rapidly falling to the censor's hammer. Now some -banking- troubles have held up his royalty payments.
We are slowly working on Amazon alternatives but in the meantime, support James by becoming a Patron, or donate straight to the man through Paypal, because you love James and his work.
This is as minimal and as compelling as it gets. No “tweaking” to make it sound more interesting like we might come to expect from modern books or movies, it’s just raw and atmospheric and real.
Don’t expect to spend days or even hours reading it the first time. You can get through all of it, the forewords and background and historical context and the actual diary, in about 30 minutes of reading. But I find myself picking it up again and again; the last time with a calendar of the Pacific war next to it.
A hand-written diary picked up on a battle-torn Pacific island after all the Japanese on the island were dead or captured, passed on to someone else, translated and typed up while the memories were still clear, it has the feel of half a chapter of Henri Charriere’s Papillon; the translation is not perfect, the diarist was not a skilled writer. He just says what he is feeling, tells what he did while the bombs crashed around him, and with each reading you get a little more of his mood..
The writer is a young, loyal, frightened, courageous petty officer attached to an Imperial Japanese Navy anti-aircraft artillery unit on the island of Biak during the American invasion. You get a sense of the kind of propaganda that he had been fed by some statements he makes. He has never been in close combat with his enemy, and yet of the American troops he says “…. the enemy are known to be weak in maneuver and will cry and flee when attacked …..” Each time a Japanese aircraft flies over, they're told that it sank an American ship. Maybe you HAVE to believe that sort of thing in that situation...
Perhaps someday, someone will be able to use the clues in the diary to get this information to his family. But in the meantime, we can get a sense of the fear and hopelessness of a Japanese soldier coming to the realization of just what magnitude of a “sleeping giant” Japan has awakened from its slumber...
Here is a short episode to talk about some of the summer's news developments, as well as some explanation from James for our lighter podcasting schedule.
The Crackpot Podcast features nomadic writer James LaFond and suburban mom Lynn Lockhart.
Audio:
YouTube
00:40 Trump economy and Big Ron - hangover interlude
04:20 Back to Trump economy
08:42 Katyn Monument, Jersey City, The Long Walk, The Way Back
12:44 Shelters for the Self, notice, movies about WWII in the Pacific are made by rightists such as Mel Gibson and Clint Eastwood
15:48 Dissipation
24:10 Sean's Man Weekend
26:04 Machete dueling
30:12 Frederick County, Maryland, manumissions in the 19th century
More tales of seedy Baltimore from (I believe) Nero the Pict.
A discussion of James' work on masculinity. I can heartily recommend Man Gearing and Masculine Axis, for what it's worth from a frail. The other two titles are on my eternal and unending to do list, so stay tuned. Here is the link for The Third Eye.
Nero the Pict reports on innocent youth activity in James' forlorn and abandoned stomping grounds.
Buy a book, many fine titles are available as pdf books through his main website. You can buy James' books through Amazon, but they are rapidly falling to the censor's hammer. Now some -banking- troubles have held up his royalty payments.
We are slowly working on Amazon alternatives but in the meantime, support James by becoming a Patron, or donate straight to the man through Paypal, because you love James and his work.
0 Dark 30 or so, and I arose in order to meet a bus headed South at 0530. For $7 (due to my years on the rowing benches) the bus would drop me at Union Station in Denver. I was to sit and wait the arrival of the California Zephyr, due at 0715. She was late, but government dulls everything.
I walked around a little after daylight seeing the city wake up, figuring out the below-ground bus layout and access from the train. The train was late, due to arrive at nine, and I bought a book to pass time within the upscale restored train station. It was done up like maybe the 1930s. You know, the years our country became infested. I seldom come down this way for a very good reason.
Around nine I was hanging back down by the benches at the end of the line. The spot smokers and drinkers sit is the best view of the Zephyr backing down. I watched until it stopped and the Conductors stepped out, then strolled down the platform past all the cars, watching the folks escaping their ride. No Jimmy-Jimmy that I saw. I turned and strolled back, looking hard now. It had been a year after all, maybe that's him wearing coveralls and a hard hat? No, he was the guy in a boonie hat across the tracks, bouncing on his toes and the balls of his feet. In motion, but standing still.
I crossed over and we met up. There was a bright aura of motion about him, so he stood out from the crowd of people around us. I let him know the first bus North was four hours away, and we ate food, drank beer and coffee and generally kilt time until the time arrived.
The bus was fast and plush: wi-fi, bottles of water and a toilet. An hour later he was planted under a shelter with his gear while I ran for the truck in a downpour. Summer in the Rockies.
The old Ford crawled up the last bit of dirt road and we were at the place. Head of the canyon, hanging off the flank of the mountains like a Swallow's nest. Angles everywhere.
I was three weeks off a sprained ankle and sort of limping about, but James was wide awake and looking at stuff. Energy from hell. Like being with a practicing man-at-arms would be, I'd imagine.
***
It was into the 90s during the days, but with low humidity and a breeze the sun gets aggressive on sea level hide. Closer now with less pollution, folks have died for the lack of a hat. As well, the atmospheric pressure is slightly lower and the air is slightly less inspired. For five or so days one will come up short of wind, until the body learns it.
James had swarmed through my shop, dragging a rubber car mat outside and hosing a year's worth of mud and slush off it, leaving it to sun dry and then be rained and hailed upon. Each gas can, wrench, carton, roll of hose, etc. etc., was set up high on something out of the way, then the whole space was swept out. The reflected light level at least doubled, toning down the drab dungeon vibe. James whacked on the heavy bag with my blackthorn stick. I wandered around wondering where everything was.
***
James told me that he had planned to do several hours a day of "light labor" to try to stay loose and maintain form. I told him his ship had come in. I need a secure footpath across the front of my shop, and the stone apron surrounding the building was trying to head downhill. That is no longer the case. I now have a proper path and James has been altitude tuned. Learned about hydration and getting work done early in the cool. A large toad has moved in under the bridge across some drainage, and a new small sub-world has sprung up. Cowboy the dog has embraced the new path, and the James effect lingers in his wake.
We went to a fairly good liquor store, and I got a bottle of bourbon. James got a jug of Carlo Rossi red and a 12-pack of Aggie beer. Nobody's drunk Rossi red and rum on ice out of a Pyrex measuring cup around me lately. OK, no one had ever done that. Baltimore cuisine right here in the high desert.
I worked him daily, mattock in hand like some white slave in the sun. He's in better shape than me for sure. I could let it inspire me off my ass into industry of my own, but there's no way I will let that sort of thing happen. I like taking two hours to wake fully up.
Ishmael showed up to visit and take the drifter over into Utah. He is a constant, like a human prime number. A lost culture in human form. He slept out on the deck at night in a Mercedes-like folding chair, listening to the cattle wailing down in the valley, buck snorts as the deer boys crept about mossy horned and "something with a fluffy tail that got close." Heard a cow Elk too. Just one, just once. Ishmael was limping around too, but he has two robo-knees and a good excuse.
We held some temperance meetings and shot the shit until we were tongue tied. James had been planning to use Ishmael as a sort of fork lift due to his size, but he was feeling his wounds and had not the LaFond enthusiasm for dirt work. Despite all that, it got done. We'd ride to the store, twenty miles daily for the mail, paper and Gatorade. Zero humidity and temps of 90 allow one to drink liters of Gatorade and water, yet never piss. Mountain Magic! We'd made the store run on Friday, and I realized I'd been a bad host to both James and Ismael. We'd been up at the house all week and I hadn't shown them around much.
I hung a right on Highway 36 out of the store and headed west up the Big Thompson Canyon towards Estes Park. In the Rockies, an open space ringed by mountains is called a park, think South Park. It is a glorious drive up through sheer canyon walls. Bighorn sheep kick rocks down at you as they defy gravity like mammalian house flies, prowling the crags. I turned off the main road at Drake onto the best bike road I know of. World class biker killing curves, always climbing, gaining altitude on up through Glen Haven past the Glen Haven Inn, a virtual English inn run by two genuine English poofs. GREAT establishment! On upward, finally through some of the most devious switchbacks ever, where I nearly dropped my bike more than once, and then topping a pass to reveal Estes Park suddenly like some kinetic postcard 2,000 feet below us.
We coasted on down through the estates and condos. High dollar stuff, and we could go there, if we behaved. The traffic was crawling through crowds of white peoples on vacay. We wound up at the Estes Brewery, where we saw our first Dindu. He had three or four mesmerized white people with him that he was instructing. He only said MF once, so was obviously tamed, maybe even educated. James was over the moon. He felt at home.
We had burgers and beer, then drifted on back downhill on Highway 36 back through the canyon. We held another temperance meeting, and the next day was spent shooting. Ishmael had an old school M14, I had 308 stuff too plus shotguns and 9MM stuff. We shot awhile, and it wound up shooting rocks off fence posts with a 22 target pistol at around 15 yards. Ishmael the sand-bagger, "I hardly ever shoot handguns," damn near beat me with my own pistol.
The next morning, Sunday, James and Ishmael headed off to Utah. Life quieted down to the normal silence, and my Wife emerged from her safe room. Cowboy the dog stared off down hill after the guests, having been charmed by James with beef jerky.
Too much testosterone, three men on the place. That was my Wife's assessment. I thought the level was optimal, me. You can live with folks half your life and all, but don't ever think that means you know them completely.
An indentured German warns his countrymen against coming to Plantation America, a voyage and fate as dangerous as any faced by the later-arriving African slaves.
Boxing skills can serve you in self-defense, but your psychological development is more valuable still.
Advice for training with a full size baseball bat. Remember to bring your glove and ball!
I have to admit, this chick got under my skin. There wouldn't be room for both of us in the Khan's household, that I can tell you. If His Greatness would grant my wish, I would see her stripped in the public square, her head shaved in ritual humiliation and then made to beg for scraps at the gate of the city for the rest of her cursed life.
Buy a book, many fine titles are available as pdf books through his main website. You can buy James' books through Amazon, but they are rapidly falling to the censor's hammer. Now some -banking- troubles have held up his royalty payments.
We are slowly working on Amazon alternatives but in the meantime, support James by becoming a Patron, or donate straight to the man through Paypal, because you love James and his work.
Could This Be the Man that Kull, Conan, El Borak and Black Vulmea Were Modeled Upon?
A recent reading of Bust Hell Wide Open: The Life of Nathan Bedford Forrest, an excellent book by Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr., brought to mind two things, first, Howard’s literary depiction of the battlefield personae of such heroes as Kull, Vulmea, El Borak and most of all Conan. Secondly, it reminded me of a little known and touching tale by Howard, titled, For the Love of Barbra Allen, in which a Texas man recalled his experiences riding with Forrest in the Civil War.
Below are the unifying heroic threads that seem, to this writer, to suggest that Howard was deeply affected by the heroism of his conquered nation’s greatest hero.
Forest stood under enemy fire 179 times and was seriously wounded four times.
He had 34 horses shot from under him and was proud of having killed 35 enemy men in retribution.
The Texan Adam R. Johnson recounted Forrest saying to him, when frustrated over the loss of his horse staying his sword from Yankee throats, “Johnson, catch me a horse.”
Those who dismiss Howard’s fiction as pure fantasy on the level of human realism—which it is manifestly not—often point out that one man besting a gang of men in combat is unrealistic. Improbable, yes, unrealistic, hardly. I might recount dozens of tales of my friends and associates clearing out roomfulls of combatants by themselves but would be best served relying on “promiscuous saber slaughter” in Forrest’s first sword fight of the war, in which he personally slew nine men, one with a gunshot and the others with his sword. In the same melee he shot an officer and then trampled him with his horse and effected his capture, as he was engaged by this man and three others at sword’s reach upon the backs of their plunging horses.
Forrest having his men drive back a rioting mob with the flats of their swords, on page 43 of Bust Hell Wide Open is repeated by Kull and Conan in Howard’s fiction. During this affray he personally beat the piss out of a brawny Irishman who challenged his authority.
On pages 55-56, incidents are told, which would repeat throughout Forest’s career, of women appealing to his sense of chivalry to go punish the enemy for outrages or to save their men from torture and death, are found in the career of Conan numerous times, most stridently. Forrest, Kull, Solomon Kane and Conan had an overwhelming commitment to protect and avenge women, with no less than 21 slave girls, queens and princesses saved by Conan’s bloody hand. Most graphically, in relation to Forrest, was Conan’s adventure Beyond the Black River, in which the women on the frontier ask the hero to save their men. Interestingly, Conan is seen from the vantage of a woman as often as from his own egocentric perspective. The Conan character—and Howard tested this with Kull—actually forms largely through his interaction with the frail sex, above even his interaction with the supernatural. This is reflected in Forrest’s abdication of moral authority in the presence of women of character in need and of his wife, publicly attaching his operant masculine authority to the cause of a wronged woman—which would, by definition, be any woman self-sacrificing enough to marry such a man as he. This crudely chivalric union is included in almost all the Conan stories.
Reminiscent of El Borak is Forrest, on page 58, coolly taking aim at a Negro teamster who was banging away at him with a firearm, and killing the man dead with one shot.
What those who knew Forrest said over and over again, was that he took on a frightening transformation when in battle and that his eyes could be baleful in the extreme. He was a kind of man that people quaked before when his ire was up. Howard repeats this in For the Love of Barbara Allen and throughout his fiction, particularly in his Conan yarns, where he concentrates on the hero’s character as reflected in his own eyes.
Below are some quotes from a much underrated story, The Pool of the Black One:
‘Are you a merman, that you rise up out of the sea?’ she asked, confused by the candor of his gaze…
***
Conan turned toward the others. But for a slumbering glitter in his eyes, his bearing was unchanged.
***
‘Are you mad, to ask?’ laughed Conan, coming swiftly toward his erstwhile chief. His lips smiled, and in his blue eyes danced a mad gleam.
***
…he faced his foes. The dancing recklessness was gone from his eyes. They blazed like blue bale-fire; his mane bristled, his thin lips snarled.
In the treatment of Conan as a blue-eyed, black-haired and bronzed-skinned man of ancient European type, Howard actually predicted what geneticists have discovered a century later, that such men stood as a prototype of Aryan and Amerindian races alike in the mists of deep antiquity.
The way he addresses this, and the inner character of the man, is to write in such a way as to convince the reader that at least a drop of Conan’s blood runs in our veins despite our domestication. Two of his tools are the totemic imagery of the face, thin lips and mane invoking an image of a wolf or great cat. Indeed the passage preceding the quote likens him so, “rebounding like a great cat.”
The eyes though, strike deeper. His heroes move like panthers, roar like lions, spring like a tiger or plunge into conflict like a wolf, but their eyes, and those of their arch enemies evoke the depths of the sea, the gulfs we fear, the setting sun, the deep night, the blue sky loved by free men and the many fires that stalk our puny lives, those of extinction, of creation and of transformation. The transformative glare of the last Aryan hero, Nathan Bedford Forrest, lives still in Howard’s unforgettable prose.
