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Saturday, December 29, 2018

Lockhart's Top LaFonds Volume 54

Hello friends, here are your weekend links:


I feel like there are a lot of missing puzzle pieces here.

Bloodthirsty bitches are really coming out of the woodwork.

Domestic violence in the dollar store parking lot.

PacNW police departments will never be the same.

Is a high IQ a benefit to police work?

Tony and his boys navigating the integration of public pools in 2018.

James and Ishmael wish you all a very merry Christmas! (Video looks a little naughty, I didn't watch it!)

A wrestler is pleasantly surprised with his boxing effectiveness against two innocent, unarmed, oppressed minors.

The climate has a major role in Plantation America, and it will again.

Get your Murderbowl guesses in before the end of the season!

James reviews a children's movie, I believe this film performed poorly at the box office, axiomatically due to the unworthiness of the paying audience.

Tony doesn't live in Slavicon Valley like I do, so that's probably why he doesn't know that a Google exec was already busted for having an "ownership relationship" with a woman.

James predicts the future of the US Military, looking at the Vietnam War as a key transition point.

We all need an internal coach, like Ray, pushing us to keep going.


You can see James' books in the BOOKSTOREbut they are rapidly falling to the censor's hammer.  Now some -banking- troubles have held up his royalty payments.  


Many fine titles are available as pdf books through his main website.


Support James in his Plantation America work by becoming a Patron, or donate straight to the man through Paypal, because you love James and his work.


(c) 2018 Lynn Lockhart

Thursday, December 27, 2018

Archetypology

Characteristics of the Mythic Pulp Hero by James LaFond


I began trying to break down the elements of Robert E. Howard’s specific major heroes, characters who were protagonists in at least two tales each. Then I decided to just begin the process and let the reader make his own choices.

I have ranked each of the seven Major Howard Heroes in each of seven characteristics.

The characteristics are:

Positive
Prowess: masculine aptitude
Identity: singular [not collective] racial identity [1]
Magnetism: persuasiveness and willpower
Wits: intuition and cunning

Positive-Negative 
Passion: undisciplined striving
Wrath: driven vengeance
Duty: severity of his personal code of behavior

The characters are listed below in the order of their popularity with their defining characteristic. Each character is awarded a 7 for his primary characteristic. The rest of the numbers may be used more than once, for instance with Conan scoring a 5 each on passion and magnetism and Kane scoring a 5 each on duty and magnetism but a 2 on passion and a 4 on wits. The table below is intended to demonstrate if the primary characteristic of a character correlates with his popular standing. Most interesting will be the aggregate scores for each character assigned by the readers and if those correlate with popularity.

Click HERE to rank each hero!


Howard Heroes


HeroPrimary
Characteristic
ProwessIdentityMagnetismWitsPassionWrathDuty
Conan the CimmerianProwess755
Solomon KaneWrath54275
Steve CostiganPassion7
El BorakWits7
King KullMagnetism7
Bran Mak MornIdentity7
Kirby BucknerDuty7


Note
1. Howard’s use of racial identity tended to be one of alienation, of Conan the Cimmerian never meeting a Cimmerian in 20 tales, of Kull, King of Valusia, being an exiled Atlantean sentenced to death by his people, of El Borak the Texan living among Afghans, of Solomon Kane the Englishman passing most of his tales in Africa, of Bran Mak Morn representing his dying race as their last king as he lives and strives largely apart from them, of Kirby Buckner strongly identifying as a white man yet saving a black man from the cruelties of a white mob or of Steve Costigan identifying strongly as a crew member of The Sea Girl but arguing with his captain, fighting his mates and adventuring largely alone.

(c) 2018 James LaFond

Monday, December 24, 2018

Down-Low in Lovell

A bit of creative history, by Riley.


Nice looking woman, she raised her brows and surveyed her own face. Oval and fair with a sprinkle of freckles across the nose. "I am so fucking weary of my cute-ass face."

She was lovely, truly. Little fat, and lean with prominent veins against the muscle. Breasts too, though she tied them down. Nothing flashy, but she could drop a Chevy master cylinder, 12-month warranty, into your hand on demand. She was agile. The latest smart woman at Parts-R-Us down on Highway 36. Nothing much at all like Lydia, the receptionist for the county Lawyer-Predator sited in Lovell. She spun a whiskey and rocks on a supple wrist, watching the lights within. She'd meet up with Chancy down by the bar in a little bit. The Mexican girl who cleaned up for the lawyer worked the motel too, and said some city boys came in with a white Indian.

Lydia was a svelte one, with well styled hair doing its job. Her bones were good, and a touch of Slavic showed. Not Trump level Slavic, but for Lovell, Wyoming, hot. She did a line and thought of the lawyer's baby, aborted a month ago now. She could use some city-boy jive, just to pick her up some. Chancy wasn't much help, protecting her hymen as she did, plus her three cheerfully homicidal brothers patrolling around the fringes. "The man who lays that will walk a minefield," she thought. "Still, she's the closest thing to a pal I have. I just wish she didn't love me so."

The bar sign was a neon martini glass, tilted to the universal angle and hung improbably above a door fit for a bait shop. Big City rocked on his boot heels and looked over by Bad City. "That must be night-life here I'd guess." Bad City examined the highway stretching past, looking for threats, glancing back into the lot behind them, at the Fish Belly Lodge where Pale Indian slept. "If you can hear Willie Nelson, in my experience, it's safe to enter. And Willie is what I hear." They scurried across, and sidled on through the door.

Lydia looked in the mirror and elbowed Chancy, "Game time...heads up."

"Oh shit, Lydia. The short one looks mean as a snake!" Chancy said.

"They all fall. Let's just plumb their depths. The big one is checking me out." 

Otis Shotwell got up and headed for the head, freeing up Lydia's left side and Big City moved right in, "How is it to be lovely, he asked her. Out here on the plains all alone." It's always lonely for a man, lost in beauty.

"Oh fucking barf Lydia, this is, I'm gagging here."

Bad City noted that beauty is a questionable quest. Chancy eyed him as one might a buzzing rattlesnake. "If I said something like that to you, you'd make me explain it," she said.

"Never explain and never apologize," Bad City said, "Want a drink?  Your nipples are looking at me, right through your top. They're staring at me!"

"They've never seen your like before, stranger. They'd like a closer look," Chancy responded.  "Bartender, two shots of Jack with a water back." Chancy poked Bad City in the ribs with a gentle finger, "are you as tough as you seem?"

Otis Shotwell had returned, and now sat beside Bad City, "She's a fucking dyke, dude."

"WHAT! You smelly-ass miner trash. I won't fuck your sorry ass and that makes me a dyke?" Lydia said?

"I don't think of myself as all that tough," Bad City said. "I try to stay smooth."

Lydia laid her finger against Big City's nose. "We should walk out to the parking lot. I have a Ford SUV with talented seats. There's room for all." They rose and walked out into the night, Otis yelling something after them. Lydia tripped on the threshold and face-planted on the sidewalk. "Clumsy bitch," Big City muttered. Bad City rolled her over and began staunching her bloody nose. Chancy snatched the handkerchief away and took over, murmuring in Lydia's ear and walking her off towards the new red SUV parked in a dark corner of the lot.

Big City looked at Bad City, and Bad City looked right back. "Our work here is done." It is, you know. And they slid back across the road, over to the Fish Belly, tip-toeing so as to not wake Pale Indian.

(c) 2018 Riley

Saturday, December 22, 2018

Lockhart's Top LaFonds Volume 53



This story is in stark contrast to the video James and I discuss on Ep 48.

A book review, learning about aggression and collapse scenarios from a South American violence guy.

Learn about assessing and responding to panhandlers, beggars, vagrants and assorted zombies.

You may not think James is an art critic, but he is.  The Wyman Park Dell videos are still my favorite, I don't know why they don't have a million views.

Tony asks a hard question and James doesn't disappoint.

Slowly but surely, people who feel persecuted by statues will come to find out that EVERYONE WHO EVER LIVED WAS RACIST.  What could this possibly mean?

The benefits of a beard in combat.

Porch pirates sighted in the wild.

Movie & NFL talk with Well Read Ed.

A pair of movie reviews, a title short, maybe one of you can name the film?

The magic of Christmas in Harm City.

If you are a cop, or any one really, my advice is to not ask questions you don't want the answer to.



You can see James' books in the BOOKSTOREbut they are rapidly falling to the censor's hammer.  Now some -banking- troubles have held up his royalty payments.  


Many fine titles are available as pdf books through his main website.


Support James in his Plantation America work by becoming a Patron, or donate straight to the man through Paypal, because you love James and his work.


(c) 2018 Lynn Lockhart

Friday, December 21, 2018

‘Casting El Borak & Bran Mak Morn’

What Actor Would You Cast to Play Howard’s Normal Size Heroes?


Casting for Howard’s normal stature characters would be much easier than for Conan, Kull or Kane, who were all described as much taller than any Hollywood leading man.  Both of these heroes are compactly muscled, athletic and tough, suggesting heavy bones.  I will make three picks for each character, understanding that those selected for one would do for the other as picks 4-6. Selections are from current actors as a plethora of normal size leading men star in action flicks.

Bran Mak Morn


All British picks and an Aussie:
4. Jason Statham, for his athleticism
3. Daniel Craig, who does ruthlessness well in various roles
2. Mel Gibson, who essentially played Bran Mak Morn in Brave Heart
1. Christian Bale, possibly the best actor alive young enough to play physical roles and of a perfect appearance for the Pictish king.

El Borak


3. Sean Penn, because he looks wind burned and has apparent negative energy
2. Jeremy Renner, the man who played the lead in the movie Wind River
1. Vigo Mortenson, for his horsemanship and athleticism, even though he may be a bit too tall.

(c) 2018 James LaFond

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Hello Again! - Crackpot Podcast 48

Hello Again!

The Crackpot and sidekick have been away for a long time but we have sorted out our schedules and technical issues and we return to bring you a short episode full of comedy!  We hope you enjoy it.

The Crackpot Podcast features prolific writer and cultural critic James LaFond, and Lynn Lockhart, a heavy twitter user.

YouTube:



Audio:




00:25  Technical difficulties, thanks to Phil and Colin
01:40  Spingola Speaks (Hour 1, Hour 2)
03:00  Site outage
06:00  BOOKSTORE, censorship
08:35  Catch me on twitter
10:37  Tyson Fury, fixing fights
17:10  The future of fight content from James
18:20  Broken ribs, Ruth Bader Ginsburg
23:03  West African public officials, Sino-African master race (don't miss the video)
25:19  Professor Nude Protest
33:00  Baltimore lawsuit
38:38  Detroit vs. Baltimore violence
39:40  Fighting crime in Brazil


(c) 2018 Lynn Lockhart

Saturday, December 15, 2018

Lockhart's Top LaFonds Volume 52

Good afternoon, here are your weekend links!

I think White Indians is my favorite non-fiction book in progress.

Banjo will use only as much force as is absolutely necessary, but he will want to talk it out.

Anarcho-tyrrany uses the tools at hand.

James assesses a very interesting site, as they try to thread the needle between their slave owning and slave laboring ancestors.

A quick boxing update, Adonis Stevenson.

Go shopping with the Ghetto Grocer.  This was one of the first things I thought about doing with James, taking him along to all the ethnic groceries around here and getting some video.  Maybe someday!

Do you find yourself yearning for Ragnarok?

James has discovered memes, and directs you to the Taboo You Facebook page to see some that were developed by a LaFondian friend.

I have never seen this movie, but if you are a fan of Milius' Conan, you need to read James' take.  (James - I noticed that you did not use your normally wide array of euphemisms in this article.)

If only we all had James' serenity when contemplating YouTube academics.

Baltimore area readers should certainly not take advantage of the City's munificence here.

A fun news round-up with Jeremy Bentham. 

Commoditization and consolidation of markets are the economic principles requiring slavery, ironically, Helper's arguments are materialistic in themselves.

Please, James, won't you stop predicting the future?

A review of Sicario (beware spoilers).


You can see James' books in the BOOKSTOREbut they are rapidly falling to the censor's hammer.  Now some -banking- troubles have held up his royalty payments.  


Many fine titles are available as pdf books through his main website.


Support James in his Plantation America work by becoming a Patron, or donate straight to the man through Paypal, because you love James and his work.


(c) 2018 Lynn Lockhart

Monday, December 10, 2018

Casting Kull and Conan

What Actor Would You Cast to Play the Iconic Barbarian Usurpers?


Two Conans have already been cast in film as well as at least one TV casting, which I have not viewed. This is a hard part to cast as actors tend to be smaller than non-actors, especially smaller than athletes and all of Howard’s characters were athletes. Kull is certainly the Conan prototype and was cast in a TV movie, which was very bad and starred a TV Hercules.

Many artists in comic and on book cover art, have done Conan and one him well. The two most prominent efforts were by Boris Valejo, who employed bodybuilders as models and whose art had much of the pose about it, and Frank Frazetta, who seemed to have painted form his mind’s eye, presenting a darker, wilder more menacing Conan, best exemplified by his painting Rogues in the House..

The two movie actors cast as Conan were Arnold Swarzenegger, who was very much in the buff, mechanical posing mode of Vallejo, and Jason Momoa, a half-Polynesian man who looks much more the part of the black-haired prehistoric Gael of Howard’s imagination than the Austrian Arnold. He also possesses better acting range. All three movies were travesties in terms of their writing and reflect almost nothing of Howard’s vision or setting.

Now, If I were going to write a Conan movie script who would I suggest be cast as the lead?

This is a difficult casting job, so I will approach it chronologically.

In Howard’s time the movie should have certainly starred Johnny Weissmuller, the best of the a Tarzan actors, a real champion athlete with very limited acting range but a suitably barbaric accent.

In the 1950s and 60s, long after the death of Howard and his pulp medium, when the Conan character was enjoying revival, the best pick would have been Clint Walker, who more closely represented the physique and face and hair color described by Howard than any other actor on this list.

In the 1970s and 80s Arnold was the best man available for the job, despite being too short, brown-haired and mechanical.

In the 1990s and 2000s the best actor available would have been Adrian Paul, the man who played Duncan McLeod on the Highlander TV series.

In the current age I really like Jason Momoa, possible as the best Conan of all.

That said, the movie with room to be made, that could be based directly on the plot of a single Howard work, would be one about an older king Conan, either combining The Phoenix on the Sword with The Scarlet Citadel or using The Hour of the Dragon. An alternative script could be made of Beyond the Black River, The Black Stranger or The People of the Black Circle, which would involve and older Conan. For this part I would suggest Ray Stevenson, who played Titus Pullo in HBO’s Rome, Frank Castle in Punisher: War Zone and Irish mobster Danny Greene in Kill the Irishman.

(c) 2018 James LaFond

Saturday, December 8, 2018

Lockhart's Top LaFonds Volume 51

Hey everyone, here are your weekend links!


A movie review showing that the Poz has always been with us.

Coaching notes on Tyson Fury.

Advice on self defense, Shades and Blades.

Here's some of that old Harm City flavor.

If you believe that laws against animal cruelty are just another form of white supremacy, you've come to the right place!

The Baltimore crime blotter is horrifying, as usual.

Baltimore public schools are exhibit A for homeschooling.  Catch the Crackpot's sidekick talking education on Myth 20!

James has had 30 books in process as long as I have been reading.  Right now he has 30 in process and about 15 awaiting editing!

In a "civilized" world, that Obama-looking dweeb would have paid for that comment with his life.

Bryce Sharper wants help shopping for books.  Please see the BOOKSTORE I set up, using 9 broad categorizations of James' work.  Find more of what you love!

James assesses BLM and the French Spring.

Don't miss this fun video of James and friends making a double-ended bag for boxing training.

You can see James' books in the BOOKSTOREbut they are rapidly falling to the censor's hammer.  Now some -banking- troubles have held up his royalty payments.  


Many fine titles are available as pdf books through his main website.


Support James in his Plantation America work by becoming a Patron, or donate straight to the man through Paypal, because you love James and his work.


(c) 2018 Lynn Lockhart

Thursday, December 6, 2018

Casting Solomon Kane

What Actor Would You Cast to Play the Puritan Swordsman?

The actor must be tall, angular of features, be between 40-60 years of age and able to project a high level of menace. The most difficult aspect of casting Kane would be the need for a powerful voice, not oft used, but available.

7. Vincent Price had the physical stature and angular face to play the ghostly avenger, though his voice approach might have limited the character’s heroic appeal.

6. Christopher Walken, in his role of the Hessian in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow could have made a fine Kane.

5. James Coburn, more than any actor on the list other than Peck, would have the necessary deep, stentorian voice to do Kane in his full wrath.

4. Nick Mason suggested Mathew McConaughey as an angular-faced man with a wide acting range and I quite agree.

3. Vigo Mortensen, based on his performance in Eastern Promises, and due to his athleticism and angular features would be an excellent Kane.

2. Clint Eastwood, in High Plains Drifter, essentially did play Solomon Kane as a spectral avenger, though his voice lacks the stentorian quality.

1. Gregory Peck playing Solomon Kane would not be far from either his roles in To Kill a Mocking Bird or in Moby Dick and might be combination of the two. Peck had the perfect appearance and voice for Solomon Kane.

(c) 2018 James LaFond

See our episode of the Crackpot Podcast featuring Nick Mason, all about Solomon Kane!



Wednesday, December 5, 2018

‘To Ease Various Evil Men of their Lives’

James LaFond's impressions of The Blue Flame of Vengeance by Robert E. Howard

This unpublished story is barely or almost a novelette, the length at which Howard would thrive. The author obviously felt like he had developed Kane into such a powerful character in his unfinished sketches set in mainland Europe, that he completed this pirate story set in England and festooned with no supernatural elements. The story, however, did not sell, even though its core was the vengeance against evil men embodied in the saying unveiled first in the highly successful Red Shadows, “to ease various evil men of their lives.”

The stronger and deeper Howard developed Kane, the more his buying market pushed him to embed the character not only in exotic locales but in a supernatural horror matrix. The character development is had from the vantage of a hard, impetuous man of passionate type, an honorable duelist named Jack Hollinster:

“The man reminded Jack, more than anything else, of one of the great gaunt grey wolves he had seen on the Siberian steppes.”

This is a telling scene in which Howard basically takes the adventure writer Jack London, and makes him an Elizabethan duelist, a man who had traveled the world shocked by Kane’s otherworldly nature. In other stories there are intimations that Kane is himself a supernatural force, a spectral avenger such as Clint Eastwood’s character in the western horror film, High Plains Drifter.

The Blue Flame of Vengeance is the best examination of the Kane character, a tale which even begins with a quote attributed to Kane, and while it is on its face a pirate yarn, it is in fact a horror tale with Kane as the specter:

“The face was rather long, was smooth-shaven [suggesting the knights of a previous age and not the sea dogs of the age the story was set in] and of a strange pallor which together with the somewhat sunken cheeks lent an almost corpse-like appearance…”

Solomon Kane, though, was an animate ghost with eyes that “gleamed vibrant” like ‘ancient ice” invoking the Black Riders he faced in a just-abandoned draft, and the doings of Kane inflicted horrid trials on evil men and simple hard men. The sympathetic character in this story is not so much Jack, who is a bullish hothead, but the pirate captain’s first mate, Allardine, who continually urges moderation upon his two sadistic masters, who ignore him, and attempts to lead the crew from disaster in the face of the folly of those who outrank him, only to be abandoned by the men he advocated for. Allardine is the modern man who sees clearly the folly of the mechanistic class of worldly masters, of the slavishness of the common class, and dimly senses and rightfully fears the extra-human consequences of mechanistic folly represented by Kane.

Kane has some great lines such as, “Are you not a stench in the nostrils of God and a black smirch on the books of men?” brilliantly juxtaposing the aspects of his dual nature.

He also claims, in a drab, corny manner at book’s end to be the avenger of the helpless, and the innocent, even of mistreated animals. In Kane, Howard tapped into the same justification for vengeance that our current media class traffics in, by casting every possible enemy of the mindless collective as child molester or a rapist.

Kane then vanished into shadow.

(c) 2018 James LaFond

Tuesday, December 4, 2018

‘My Sour Friend’

James LaFond's impressions of The Right Hand of Doom by Robert E. Howard

The Right Hand of Doom is not highly regarded, even by fans of Howard. However, in this reader’s opinion it is the very font of Howard’s unique ability to present the psychic aspect of sorcery after the Promethean tradition, not placing the sorcerer as the mercurial trickster but as the lit mind of one who sees clearly the unseen puppet strings of the human world and manages to tug them enough to impose his will in the face of all of Man’s mechanistic affectations to being beyond the reach of the fates, furies and saviors which negate our willful actuality.

In this case, Kane is not the worker of vengeance, but the judge of the avenging deed as a callous fop, John Redly, boasts by the tavern lights that he has betrayed “Roger Simeon, the necromancer” and Solomon Kane, self-appointed judge and executioner of men, casts a shadow of words over the scene:

“I say,” said he in a low powerful voice, “that you have this day done a damnable deed. Yon necromancer was worthy of death, belike, but he trusted you, naming you his one friend, and you betrayed him for a few filthy coins. Methinks you will meet him in Hell one day.”

In heroic fashion, loyalty is chosen over society even by the man who sees himself as the very avenging hand of God. This points to a theory which Howard holds forth in his fiction and has recently been articulated by Jason Reza Jorjani in Prometheus and Atlas, a metaphysical deduction that sees our human consciousness as a cork plugging the bottle of our subconscious, which knows that powers beyond our conscious ken impinge upon our lives and that only stepping beyond the bounds of society may one enter the realm of evil to combat it where it lives.

The revealing of Kane as a person who acts on impulse and piously refuses to reflect internally is combined with one of the most horrific scenes sketched in fiction, establishing Simeon the necromancer as the prototype of the swords and sorcery villain, the man of extra-human will.

(c) 2018 James LaFond

Saturday, December 1, 2018

Lockhart's Top LaFonds Volume 50

Jameslafond.com has been down for a full day now.  I don't know anything about what has gone wrong or when it will be back.  I have some good stuff in draft here, so come back and visit!



James finds Netflix titles potentially worth watching.

Want to document urban blight?  James gives tactical defense advice and don't miss Banjo's notes on the actual photography.

A pair of movie reviews show how far the retconning has gotten in less than 100 years.

A murderbowl update, Baltimore is working on expanding territory, perhaps causing a temporary setback on the scoreboard.

The question on the origins of PTSD provides a starting point to explore the pressures on the modern warrior and the coping mechanisms available to him (or unavailable).

James' Harm City Journals are an anthropological gold mine, how else would you learn the meaning or even existence of this term?  Choose any title from the Harm City store, you can't go wrong.



Compare and contrast, Detroit vs. Baltimore.  Listen people, FBI crime statistics are all well and good, but you must understand, all violence is local.

Add to James' excellent review of this book the knowledge that over the last two generations, the population of the US has grown exclusively by immigration; that the prospect of a stable or slowly declining population is terrifying to governments and central bankers; contemplate the resources and labor wasted on housing that is essentially disposable, houses that would cook their inhabitants or freeze them within days of a loss of electricity; the intentional neglect of infrastructure of every kind, from the roads to the electrical grid; the refusal to manage the most basic renewable resources, such as forests and grasslands, in favor of banning grocery bags; the intentional and inadvertent poisoning of municipal water supplies; the permeation of plastics and medications into every fluid molecule on earth... suicidal just about sums it up.

You can see James' books in the BOOKSTOREbut they are rapidly falling to the censor's hammer.  Now some -banking- troubles have held up his royalty payments.  


Many fine titles are available as pdf books through his main website.


Support James in his Plantation America work by becoming a Patron, or donate straight to the man through Paypal, because you love James and his work.


(c) 2018 Lynn Lockhart

Monday, November 26, 2018

‘For God’s Sake’

James LaFond's Impressions of Skulls in the Stars by Robert E. Howard


“He was a tall, gaunt man, was Solomon Kane, his darkly pallid face and deep brooding eyes made more somber by the drab Puritanical garb he affected,”

In this passage, everything about Kane is revealed, that he is lean, mean, haunted or driven and that he has “affected” his Puritan appearance. In later stories it will come to grey light—for Kane is never seen in the brightness of other men’s waking eye—that the “Puritan” was once a sea dog, a pirate employed by his nation as a disposable heroic asset to commit vile deeds on the high seas and in the lands beyond.

He is approached on the road to Torkertown by an innocent child who pleads with him to take the swamp road rather than the moor path, where men were known to be slain by night. Kane, however, is a being of personified vengeance, seeking to purge the taint from his soul left by being party to past deeds by seeking out evil and extinguishing it from the face of the earth, which he wanders as a murderous son of man in his prodigal exile.

It is of interest that Howard begins the Kane saga with a quote from Hood:

He told how murders walk the earth
Beneath the curse of Cain,
With crimson clouds before their eyes
And flames about their brain:
For blood has left upon their souls
Its everlasting stain.

A man’s youthful past as a stain upon his soul is the theme of the entire saga, with the man driven to bloody redemption justified in his actions, as judge and executioner of mankind by the evil that men do. As Kane says, passing sentence on Ezra the Miser for the murder of his brother Gideon,

“A hard thing it is, to sentence men to death in cold blood and in such a manner as I have in mind, but you must die that others may live—and God knoweth you deserve death.”

Audiobook Links






Saturday, November 24, 2018

Lockhart's Top LaFonds Volume 49



If you like this piece about grocery justice, and you find this video interesting, you owe it to yourself to read The Violence Project.

Roosh would call this a neg.

How to interpret the sounds of the jungle.

The Z-Man witnesses the white-flight-urban-blight-hipsters-affright cycle of life, generating real estate commissions, property taxes, developer profits and the deep need for a state security apparatus.

BPD is recruiting at all levels.  Prior criminal record is NOT a disqualifier.

I would propose that it is not enough to be debt-free, you must be among the creditors to enjoy full citizenship.

How a strong neck can serve you in battle, and how it can betray you.

Terrifying phrasing in this book review: the American military is an armed bureaucracy!

The gentlemen from the Myth of the 20th Century were guests of Deanna Spingola, perhaps James will join her soon.

This is the most succinct synthesis of the Barbarism vs Civilization concept.  The book languishes in purgatory, as the Crackpot publisher isn't sure how to proceed with a book banned in it's digital womb.

Don't think of it as a black or white thing, think of it as an American thing...USA! USA! USA!

On border security and the Natural Law.

A Crackpot Mailbox grabbag, a lot of good stuff.



You can see James' books in the BOOKSTOREbut they are rapidly falling to the censor's hammer.  Now some -banking- troubles have held up his royalty payments.  


Many fine titles are available as pdf books through his main website.


Support James in his Plantation America work by becoming a Patron, or donate straight to the man through Paypal, because you love James and his work.


(c) 2018 Lynn Lockhart

Monday, November 19, 2018

‘Each Deathly Eye’

James LaFond's impressions of Death’s Black Riders by Robert E. Howard


Death’s Black Riders is a tiny fragment, an opening scene of pure horror, as the dour Puritan swordsman—an Aryan avenger in Christian disguise—stands before an onrushing image up from Hell, unwavering, not shaken with superstitious dread but rather with the taste of the hunt for evil.

As an image which combines Tolkien’s Nazgul and Washington Erving’s Headless Hessian Horseman, with Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name, the opening scene—for it is a completely realized scene crafted in under 350 words, Kane is uncharacteristically depicted as a horseman.

The power of the scene begs for a full treatment, however, Howard seems to have despaired of selling the resulting story. I am certain had he completed it he would have unhorsed Kane as a self-purification rite before facing not only the rider of the opening scene but those others inferred by the title.  

(c) 2018 James LaFond

Saturday, November 17, 2018

Lockhart's Top LaFonds Volume 48

The Scribe has returned!  Our hero, Sean, was victorious in the ring!  It was a good week!



Bravo to the Champion, well done, Sean!!!

Many thanks to Colin for getting our hero back online!

He's a 78 year old Vietnam Vet and he can tell you about rock apes.

Nero's odd jobs and adventures continue.

Grasping James' odd lack of racism is Crackpot 101.

As your faithful podcast servant, I will try to subvert this new set of rules.

Crackpot Industries is hiring.

Advice on taking up martial arts.

Regular readers should by now become very attentive when James makes predictions.



You can see James' books in the BOOKSTOREbut they are rapidly falling to the censor's hammer.  Now some -banking- troubles have held up his royalty payments.  


Many fine titles are available as pdf books through his main website.


Support James in his Plantation America work by becoming a Patron, or donate straight to the man through Paypal, because you love James and his work.


(c) 2018 Lynn Lockhart

Thursday, November 15, 2018

‘Drowned Unearthly Things’

James LaFond's Impressions of Solomon Kane’s Homecoming by Robert E. Howard


A comparison of the two variants published on pages 379-89 of The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane by Ballantine Books 1998

The eleven verses of four couplets each of Solomon Kane’s Homecoming is the third and final poem of the trilogy which present the character of Solomon Kane as a former captain of Queen Elizabeth’s Sea Dogs, who individually, with great heroics, stood against and even dogged the vast Spanish navy around the world.

Howard reveals his deep historical reading of Kane’s period when he paints the stages of Kane’s dissolution—not all encased in the two versions of this poem but some apparent in the Blue Flame of Vengeance novelette:

  • the betrayal of Sir John Hawkins by Drake after Vera Cruz, when he usurped his leader’s position by appealing to the womanly monarch as a more functional tool of state,
  • the execution of a captain in Terra Del Fuego at the order, rather than by the hand, of Drake,
  • the killing of innocent Spanish subjects in Panama.

Finally, the betrayal of the most heroic sea dog, Sir Richard Grenville, who comes to Kane in a dream and helps him fight off African head hunters. Grenville, loyal to Sir Walter Raleigh, was made to sit out the battle of the Spanish Armada with 51 ships so that he would not achieve renown, as he was known as the most courageous of his kind. Later, in mourning his missed chance for national hero status, Grenville took on a fleet of 53 Spanish galleons with a single ship and actually fought with his crew for three days. He was seen—from the decks of the ships which he sent away—being taken prisoner by the Spanish, never to be seen again.

In the poem, Kane is revealed as the spirit of Sir Richard, as he was taken captain and held and tortured by the Spanish as a sinner and then the Turks as a galley slave, very much in the manner of a historical character, Captain John Smith, whose actual a career mirrored Kane’s fictional career. In Howard’s poem, Grenville died on deck, which this reader takes as representing his defeat and Kane’s fictional emergence as the unquenchable spirit of his defiant race. Kane’s extreme celibacy is addressed in the poem, with reference to a woman who loved him who he abandoned, just as Smith abandoned Pocahontas, who like Kane’s abandoned bride, died after his leave-taking. Captain Smith marked the last of the adventurous Spanish-battling sea dogs, reduced to a wanderer and explorer and interface with non-Christian folk. Interestingly, John Smith was castrated when his gunpowder pouch hung before his groin ignited and exploded. This along with his staunch denial that he had sex with the various Indian beauties who attempted to seduce him makes Smith the second historical aspect to the Solomon Kane character, Sir Richard Grenville being the first aspect. Below is one of the eleven verses of the fantastic retrospective poem reviewing the acre of Howard’s most definitive and finite hero, a hero, who never engages in self-examination or soul searching, until he returns to his long-neglected homeland and is finally forced to regard himself in the mirror of his recollecting eye and turns away in a self-shunning departure, putting the avenger to rest in the author’s mind.

Verse 10

"Hands held him hard but the vagrant gleam
In his eyes grew blind and bright,
And Solomon Kane put by the folk
And went into the night.
A wild moon rode in the wild white clouds,
The waves their white crests showed
When Solomon Kane went forth again,
And no man knew his road.”


Solomon Kane, among the pantheon of heroes that sprung from the well of Robert E. Howard’s mind’s eye, might rightly be considered a monster in his own right, a spectral ghost, for certain.











Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Lynn, struggling with the cmputer

The fun part of James' computer problems is the cryptic text messages I receive from him, a previously unknown occurrence. Yesterday, I got the following:

Please thn (redacted) on the bogspot for the donation--I can't email him.
So we see that James has received a generous gift from a reader and that he has found the space bar on his flip phone.

Thank you, Anonymous Friend, we at Crackpot Industries appreciate your support.  If you have anything you'd like to hear us cover once we get podcasting again, please let me know!

-Lynn

Sunday, November 11, 2018

A Crackpot and a Crockpot

James shows you how to prepare two different meals, the first is a flashback to the Hurt Yurt of yore, and the second is in the comfortable home of his gracious host.  Following that, James tells you about his days as a dungeon master witnessing the exploits of the Treacherous Gnome.

Many thanks to the fellow at In These Goings Down for the videos.

-Lynn



Thursday, November 8, 2018

Dispatch from the Crackpot

In case you were wondering, the Crackpot is alive and well, somewhere in the mid-Atlantic, without internet access but with a sparring partner (check out the shiner at the end of the second video).

It's hard to say when we might get to tape a podcast again, a generous reader has sent him a laptop, perhaps we'll manage to connect one next week, in the meantime, listen to my friend, Colin's SoundCloud for some soothing guitar music.

-Lynn








Tuesday, November 6, 2018

‘Cold Scorn with Anger Blent’

The One Black Stain by Robert E. Howard, Impressions by James LaFond


Kane paints a picture of the hero, Sir Francis Drake, turned dastard as he has a rival executed rather than dispatching him with his own hand. This is a retrospective poetic explanation of Drake’s turn away from the seafarer’s life. In other portions of his career the reader is treated to Kane’s disillusion with the System of English Monarchy relieving men of their moral responsibility and heroic status.

All three of Howard’s Kane poems were unsold but should have been used as chapter headings or prologues to his major stories, as they paint a word picture of Solomon Kane as a murderer wandering the world seeking vengeance for others to erase his own stain, at the same time ruing the stain upon his one-time leader’s name and mourning the memory of a real historic hero who was done in to obscurity by Drake and his co-crooks in The Return of Sir Richard Grenville, linked below as an audio.

The One Black Stain consists of fifteen verses of three couplets each and has the effect of elevating Kane to the seat of Judge over Men with Bloody Hands.

Again, in the single verse excerpted below, Kane, the judge, speaks from beyond the bounds of the social system, to the Aryan heart of the besmirched hero Drake, tempting this reader to see Drake as an aspect of Howard’s obsession with ancestral memory:

"More of the man had ye been,
On deck your sword to cleanly draw
"In forthright fury from its sheath,
And openly cleave him to the teeth—
"Rather than slink and hide beneath
a hollow word of Law."

In Kane’s words we understand why the hero prefers a sword above all else—a clean, proximate weapon of the actionist, as Burton said, “the queen of arms,” with the wielder thus king of actors, the sword being a weapon of high risk—and reinforcing the notion that God is and must be outside the human system, not a petty actor within the social strata, but an omniscience from without, compelling redress by agents of his choosing.

(c) 2018  James LaFond









Saturday, November 3, 2018

'A Wild Act of Grace'

A review of Sam Finlay's Breakfast with the Dirt Cult by Lynn Lockhart


Sam Finlay is a great friend of the LaFondiverse, currently collaborating with James on my favorite fiction-in-progress, The Filthy Few.

Finlay's book is an pseudonymous memoir; our hero, Tom Walton, falls in love, goes to war, and comes home a changed man, physically, mentally and spiritually.  Breakfast with the Dirt Cult gives you a heady mix of Army training, combat and comic relief, romance with the world's smartest stripper and the fruits of the author's expansive reading and contemplation.  Some of those fruits will be familiar to LaFond readers, as Finlay has a penchant for the virtues of barbarism, contempt for the "unblooded elite" that exploit him and his men, and an enduring appreciation for the imperfect and often infuriating Army, cherishing the masculine development, camaraderie and the opportunity to put his life at stake and thereby feel alive.

For many years, I shied away from reading any contemporary authors, especially works of fiction, I haven't watched a movie in years, at home or in the cinema.  Sam stands alongside James and other contributors here as living men worthy of your time and attention today, before they join the ranks of the Great White Dead.  Breakfast with the Dirt Cult, Reverent Chandler, Poet and many others you'll find in these pages would also make great films.  They don't have a lot of explosions or exotic scenery.  These are movies that could be made affordably and that would be compelling to American audiences, and they might even drag me back to the theater.

Breakfast with the Dirt Cult gets five stars from me, and I will be ordering a few copies for veterans on my Christmas list.




.




(c) 2018 Lynn Lockhart

Lockhart's Top LaFonds Volume 47

James is offline for the time being, technical problems, so visit here for some Robert E. Howard posts and other good stuff.


The Khan is doing movie reviews now!

James integrates the Taboo individuality of his earlier writing on masculinity with the basic human unit of tribal identity.

This fellow has a lot of LaFond access lately, more than your humble blog- and podcast-servant.  Enjoy a spooky Halloween zombie story, and James' views on superheroes and comics.

You need a crusading order to perform a hostile take over.

Span the chasm between intellect and action, focus on what is within your grasp in the sliver of freedom that remains to you.

You need to understand aggression, especially the earliest signs of it, and train with weapons, including and especially improvised weapons.

Murderbowl update, Baltimore is still in the game!

You can see James' books in the BOOKSTOREbut they are rapidly falling to the censor's hammer.  Now some -banking- troubles have held up his royalty payments.  


Many fine titles are available as pdf books through his main website.


Support James in his Plantation America work by becoming a Patron, or donate straight to the man through Paypal, because you love James and his work.


(c) 2018 Lynn Lockhart

Thursday, November 1, 2018

Main Site on Ice

"computerwipedofflineuntil"


A deep state actor has crashed James' laptop in the middle of a Windows update.  As a result, he is unable to get online and post on his main site, jameslafond.com, for an indefinite period.  I have some good stuff saved up to post here, and may receive SMS from him, specially encrypted by omitting any spaces, so come back and check in.


-Lynn, Chief Blogservant of Crackpot Industries

‘A Wanderer on the Face of the Earth’

James LaFond's impressions of The Castle of the Devil by Robert E. Howard

The character of John Silent, an English mercenary travelling through Germany to Italy to seek employment as a ship's captain, is compellingly and sympathetically written, as a man of the world, a man who abides convention and hierarchy even if they be evil. He meets “An Englishman? And a Puritan by the cut o’ the garb,” as he takes the forest road past the castle of a man supposed to be the very devil, a certain Baron Von Saler.

The stranger answers his hail and, strangely among heroes of fiction, refuses a ride on the back of his countryman’s horse, stating that honest men walk, a statement he makes in at least one other story.

“I am Solomon Kane,” the other answered in a deep measured voice. “I am a wanderer on the face of the earth and have no destination.”

Kane is a person destined not to where, but to what and to whom. Kane pities the horse and also seeks purity of action through unilateral transport, seeming to appear everywhere on foot. One is tempted to postulate that the Caine character played by David Carradine in the Kung Fu  television series was based on Solomon Kane, as every episode begins and ends with this man footing it enigmatically into and out of the troubled life of men.

Kane has just taken down a boy from the gallows, he admits to the horrified John Silent, and welcomes meeting the baron and his men at arms as they pass beneath his castle, for Kane has right on his side and fears nothing that is wrong. Kane is a hero [an actionist with stakes] with the uncompromising ethos of a superhero [a collective actionist without stakes]. In many ways the twisted collectivist do-gooders of superhero fiction may be seen as a bastardization of the Kane character. The differences are two:

1.  Kane is not superhuman in physicality, but rather extra-human in psychicality, physical equaled by various villains but as morally beyond their ken as superman is physically beyond the means of the paltry villains he squashes

2.  Kane maintains his internal morality as superior to the social morality and does not hand over his bagged villains to the sheep of men and their sheepdogs, but rather removes them from life before God and returns them to their master, Satan.

Kane is above all, in the eye of modernity, a blasphemy, a walking embodiment of all that Technological Civilization curses as wrong and is, at the same time, profoundly non-Christian, despite his austere Christian affectations.

Kane is Beowulf wearing a judge’s habit.

Despite being unpublished, even unfinished, The Castle of the Devil most boldly proclaims in Kane’s own words, his trade in death:

“It has fallen upon me, now and again in my sojourns through the world, to ease various evil men of their lives. I have a feeling that it will prove thus with the Baron.”

John Silent is appropriately aghast, being a man of the world as he is.

I am more of a mind to complete this unfinished story than any other Howard fragment I have yet read.



(c) 2018 James LaFond

Monday, October 29, 2018

'No Fat or Woffle'

A five star review of Twerps, Goons and Meatshields from Phil B.

I will start off with the “bad” things about this book. I am doing this because people usually put the bad things at the end of the review and leave the reader with a final impression that is negative.

Firstly, this book, other than the cover illustration contains no illustrations. It is true that a picture tells a thousand words and there are a few points in the book when a diagram would have clarified things enormously. In defence of the book, such illustrations would greatly add to the cost. They are not easy to produce and line drawings in particular are time consuming and hence expensive to have commissioned. Fortunately, Mr LaFond provides links to YouTube clips demonstrating the techniques and explanations contained in the book. A very sensible compromise. 

Secondly the book has been compiled from numerous articles that Mr LaFond has previously published on his blog and the writing contains some grammar and spelling mistakes. Occasionally some sentences need reading a few times to understand what the author is trying to say. If you are a Grammar Nazi, you will hate this book but to dismiss it on this basis is a mistake. It could have done with a review by an editor before publishing but again, that would add to the cost. The glitches are minor and do not detract from the overall good impression the book made on me. 

OK, now for the positive things about the book. This book is very modestly priced and is pure lean meat with no fat or woffle. It does not “explain” the history of stick fighting (hint – mankind has been bashing each other over the head with thigh bones, sticks and suchlike for a few million years). There are no oriental Dojos claiming to have invented the style and Mr LaFond does not attempt to waste time, effort and paper on claiming such history. He has devoted the book to telling you what to do and how to do it in clear and straightforward language. His expertise shows through with many references to avoiding injury and strains caused by moving incorrectly, poor defence or overextending the body to building up the stamina and strength needed by the student. Very, very few books will safeguard the reader with such advice. Clearly Mr LaFond has been there, got the T shirt and has developed a deep understanding of the subject matter and it shows throughout the book. For the safeguards and injury prevention alone, it is worth its modest cost. 

Mr LaFond also describes the injuries and accidents that he has suffered with a dark humour which again is refreshing in such a book. It adds to his credibility and demonstrates that he is not an “All talk and chalk” instructor who never makes a mistake. He is, in essence, saying “learn from my mistakes”. 

This is a “doing” book. You COULD read it like a novel but would not leave you with much understanding of the techniques or skills explained in the book. Read a chapter or part of a chapter, get on your feet and go through the exercises explained and described to learn how to stick fight. In this way, some of the techniques that seem confusing at first become self-explanatory and understandable. 

There is a glossary to explain what the various terms mean that he uses throughout the book and a training syllabus to take the reader from beginner to advanced which follows the development of the skills in the chapters of the books to assist the reader in a progression of skills, stamina and strength. This is useful so that the reader does not try to take on too much at once or attempt techniques that need to build on a foundation of basic techniques to cause the reader to become discouraged and/or injured. 

There are a series of discussions (questions and answers) taken from the comments on Mr LaFond's blog after the main body of the work and these are valuable because they expand on the main body of the book. The book simply and clearly lays out instructions to achieve proficiency in the techniques and the questions and answer discussions, if inserted into the relevant chapters, would tend to break the flow of the material. However, the questions are exactly what a student would ask in a formal class and provide an enjoyable and insightful supplement to understand the techniques and put them into context. 

His discussions of real duels and injuries make for interesting if somewhat grim reading. However, this is a combat activity and he does not pull punches or try to varnish the truth of what happens when hard stick meets flesh and bone. The hard practicality shines through and if this shocks you, take up chess as an intellectual activity. This is a martial art, not a sport. 

Mr LaFond's dry sense of humour shows through and there are a few laugh out loud moments which again shows that he takes the subject seriously but can laugh at himself. This is an extremely rare quality that is missing from the other deadly earnest martial arts books I have read. 

One very minor quibble I have is the title. Mr LaFond seems to have written the book for stick fighting competition. I would agree with his assessment that this would take you (if it was a formal martial art) to 1st Dan level (or first black belt) and he says, quite correctly that you still have a way to go before having the skills to compete at high level. I cannot disagree but if you read and practice what he has laid out in this manual and achieved a reasonable proficiency, you will likely be devastating on the street against any adversary that was not armed with a firearm. Which is why I bought it in the first place. 

So, for its modest price it packs a lot of real world practical experience into its covers. It is readable and with the YouTube videos to supplement the written material and illustrate the techniques in real time plus the discussions from the blog comments, it is one of the few books I can recommend unreservedly.

For more books like Twerps, Goons and Meatshields, see the bookstores below:





Saturday, October 27, 2018

Lockhart's Top LaFonds Volume 46

Your weekend links are a double today, because I have some excuse for not being around last weekend.


When the Taboo Man tells you that the tribe is the source of heroism, you must listen.

Don't mistake the knife for the knifer.  Read The Violence Project:



I think James is completely correct here, as well as "T-Jay."  Most everything that looks like a conspiracy, even if it really is a conspiracy, fits in the preservation and promulgation of the SYSTEM.

Attention readers! James wants to know what you think of the Portland heroes, leave a comment and check back!  More wild video footage, a sample of what police deal with, don't make their day any harder!  At 18:10 you can see the female knows what's coming.  She looks at her man and drops her head to her arm.

Fatherless boys share a resemblance, from Baltimore to Ireland.

Nero returns to the US via SF, doesn't stay long.

Hopping around like birds, I am crying.

Machete dueling is going mainstream?

I think these battles are mostly performances for the iPhones but there is potential for evolution into something more serious.

For your consideration, compare and contrast, Mormons and Mexicans.

James has a good voice for the Psalms.

The laws governing slavery in infant America crossed racial boundaries and were driven in part by enterprising black slaveholders.

Fight review: Ali vs Bowe, coaching notes for helping an underprepared fighter for an imminent match.  Banjo and James comment on blade training video.  Your hand strength says a lot about you.  James comments on a system marketed as prison training.

Nerds think living in a computer simulation is cooler than living in a divine creation.

The Shaman of Baltimorean Violence corresponds with good friend Jeremy Bentham.

View Jordan Peterson on with Joe Rogan, if you dare, but be sure to read James' take.

Advice on women - go after the lonely white ladies, and a word on how and when.

What do grizzlies and hoodrats have in common?  What about the country and the urban waste?

Not wolves, but pitbulls.

This "caravan" is a tremendous game of chicken, your blog mistress is betting Trump won't blink.

Murderbowl update - lots of unidentifiable bodies.

The collective vs. the individual... or is there a third way?

An interesting podcast rec and kind words from a listener.

Resist the neutered future - be masculine so your women can be feminine.

James is quite mild in his response here - reality has a misogynistic bias.

James helps you understand anthropologists and their works.

You can see James' books in the BOOKSTOREbut they are rapidly falling to the censor's hammer.  Now some -banking- troubles have held up his royalty payments.  


Many fine titles are available as pdf books through his main website.


Support James in his Plantation America work by becoming a Patron, or donate straight to the man through Paypal, because you love James and his work.


(c) 2018 Lynn Lockhart