Jack London - An Inspiring Example for Adventure

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by SaltyMonkey

The problem I have with the story and with McSenslees view is the romanticising. Its intrusive and projects your own identity and manipulates the world instead of really being apart of it with respect. McSensless should have known better and should have prepared better if he really believed and respected that lifestyle and value. He should have respected the culture around him. Instead he imposed an unhealthy conscious and he deserved what he got. I'm not forgiving or changing that cold hearted comment.

He was in his early 20's! Get it?

Trying to figure out his life and still a little upset that the world and it's people including his parents weren't all perfect, etc

[SaltyMonkey]

Originally Posted by Cap Erict3

It would seem sharing a tome with a she ape might relieve your nausea. Been a while huh?

No. I just gots done reading a good book and am lookin' for another.

[SaltyMonkey]

Originally Posted by thomm225

He was in his early 20's! Get it?

Trying to figure out his life and still a little upset that the world and it's people including his parents weren't all perfect, etc

ummmmm...so?

[Cap Erict3]

I know my tastes and time for literature change as time goes by. Page turners that I could not put down in days gone by have no interest for me.

This forum actually gets most of my reading time. When resting from a project, over my morning coffee or when the boat is quiet in the early hours, I scan my subscribed topics, the latest in timeline and see how the latest delivery is going. Occasionally I post in my monosyllabic way but I discard twice more than I post after review.

While literature can fill idle time with fluff or philosophy it is as much a matter of taste as the right mate. While some are sated with fluff, adventure or romance others demand an describable depth and purpose.

Neither you nor I can decide what floats another's boat in the literary world.

I am just glad that it is there to inspire some of us to be better than our base nature.

[thericksster]

After all that criticism I'm afraid to suggest reading my book. I never read any of the books you mentioned. The only book I ever read was Kon Tiki. If you you enjoy a little adventure, a little romance and a little comedy try "A Pacific Story" by Rick E.Gerg that's me.

[Paul Elliott]

Salty, I know you won't care one little bit, but I do feel sorry for you. There is so much beauty out there that you have apparently chosen to reject.

[SaltyMonkey]

Originally Posted by Paul Elliott

Salty, I know you won't care one little bit, but I do feel sorry for you. There is so much beauty out there that you have apparently chosen to reject.

Not really, Paul. There is the real world as it is, the crows, wrabbits, and turkeys I feed. I've learned a lot from them. The stories I write. The music I've neglected to write. Figuring out the rest of my life, and what you will, if it's at all possible someday -- retirement. Reading is apart of it, but I've read too much of what you say to know it doesn't hold memory or ingrain in the heart. Circus tricks. That's not to say modern literary fiction doesn't do the same. Good God, what passes for lit these days is as much a crime -- you know, the endless drawing room angst where you never feel angst and never care for their angst by angst another word.

I was trying to find a summary to share with you the other day. The best I came across was this, paraphrased a bit because I have no memory anymore:

People read stories for two reasons:

1) To learn about ways of survival that they didn't already know.
2) To find assurance that there is something in life worth surviving.

Well, ok...that's all and good. You might say some of those mano stories might reflect that. But I say...

"Stories should rip the heart out of your chest and shove it back in your face and make you eat it, because you aren't gettin' that you gots a damg heart and you need to face that fact and cry like a baby monkey and pee your pants!"

SaltyMonkey has spoken -- hey! thats me!

[buzzstar]

Originally Posted by SaltyMonkey

Yeah well, buzzstar, I made a sh**t load of money withthat grinder guy on the street corner. I ended up with 60% profit while the grinder guy got only 38%. 2% went to the cop on the corner. That's how I could afford my first boat, and this here banana tree, and my book wall conversion.

This literary venture no longer floats my boat, and I am sure it is music to no ones ears.

Apologies only to the real people behind the images.

BTW, the monkey usually gets just 10%, from which all operating expenses are deducted, so you indeed did well until that lawsuit when you bit some kid over a slug.

[SaltyMonkey]

Originally Posted by buzzstar

so you indeed did well until that lawsuit when you bit some kid over a slug.

Oh...didn't think that was a bad thing. but um, I gotsz me some offshore bite insurance just in case.

[RaymondR]

Jack was lucky, his books were written in the days before GPS, volunteer marine rescue services, communications satellites, coast guard helicopters, HF radios with DSC, etc. If his heroes got into the same scrapes these days we would consider them negligent morons??

[buzzstar]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

Jack was lucky, his books were written in the days before GPS, volunteer marine rescue services, communications satellites, coast guard helicopters, HF radios with DSC, etc. If his heroes got into the same scrapes these days we would consider them negligent morons??

That statement somehow resembles calling Melville lucky because he wrote Moby Dick before Greenpeace existed.

[sailorcherry]

I lived aboard at Jack London Square for a few years.

Many a night, often at sunset, I would sit on the dock or in the cockpit to take in our amazing million dollar view on a shoestring budget. I had one of the best slips; right on the estuary with unobstructed views looking up it, the turning basin and the San Francisco skyline with the Bay Bridge. Many of those nights I reflected on how fortunate I was to live in this cool bit of history, especially as a sailor.
Sometimes, on my way back to my boat, I'd have a beer in the same old dirty wooden bar he frequented, just next door to my gate. Was I slouched over the bar with a pint reading, writing or chatting it up, at the very spot he sat over a century ago after yet another long day working on the Snark?

I would sometimes imagine Jack London as one of my dock neighbors, over for a sunset cocktail and wonder how would he describe these colors, scents and sounds made from these birds, people, small boats, ships and fog horns before us?

I was also there for some of the protests. It felt appropriate as JL was a social activist. I would hear the helicopters right above my mast covering the hundreds of people less than a mile away and again I would think if him and wonder. That really made it all become full circle.

What a great contributor to American literature!

[SaltyMonkey]

Originally Posted by sailorcherry

What a great contributor to American literature!

and a contributor to capitalism and SF gentrification such as that JL Square which none can afford.

*Yawn

JL = trite

[buzzstar]

Originally Posted by SaltyMonkey

and a contributor to capitalism and SF gentrification such as that JL Square which none can afford.

*Yawn

JL = trite

"'Behind every great fortune there is a crime.'
Honore de Balzac
French realist novelist (1799 - 1850)"

Typical modern socialist tripe. If JL Square were free, not expensive, the occupancy would be no greater or more human, just decided by biased bureaucrats inviting more corruption. Just because the socialists liked Balzac does not mean he was one of them. He was definitely not, as you know.

[SaltyMonkey]

Originally Posted by buzzstar

Just because the socialists liked Balzac does not mean he was one of them. He was definitely not, as you know.

More YAWN. We were talking about JL. Your whatever-logic doesn't pass the sniff test.

I bet you are one of those nims that makes an argument like:

"That sailor over there dumps trash in the ocean, why are you picking on me for dumping my trash? Its ok."