BOOKS: This week
we feature the definitive one volume history on the founding of Australia, The
Fatal Shore by Richard Hughes. When read while sitting on a rickety futon
in threadbare sweatpants while drinking a can of Milwaukee’s Best and eating
off-brand Dollar Store chips packaged in Haiti this is the kinda book that
makes you feel better about your life. Though I must admit after reading page
after page of nakedness, rape, sodomy, flogging and penetration of virgin bush
I’m beginning to think the British misinterpreted the phrase Penal Colony.
…not the virgin bush the first 300
convicts dropped at Botany Bay encountered…fortunately for these girls…
This book also features Sir John Franklin better known as an
ill-fated Arctic explorer and the title character in the book The Man Who
Ate His Boots by Anthony Brandt. While the previous title ended in the
successful colonization and of course ultimate independence of Australia the
latter has the added bonus for misanthropic cynics like me of detailing lives lost,
money squandered and cannibalism resorted to all in the pursuit of a useless
goal- The Northwest Passage. Even in our current age of global warming the
Northwest Passage to the Pacific over Canada, while passable, is still
economically worthless. So as I turn up the heat and crack another cold one it
reminds me to always heed the words of that Bard of the Bowery Charles
Bukowski…
…drunker
words were never spoken…Our first post in the new format is to the right featuring the latest from Hampton Sides and Cardboard Gods by Josh Wilker along with a picture of Sharon Stone for some reason I can't recall right now.
Be back with a story of Native Americans and, what the hell, John O'Hara to boot!
