Radio War Nerd #290 — The Hunt For Tom Clancy, with Matt Farwell
Guest: Matt Farwell, writer & journalist
Recorded: July 30, 2021
Writer & Afghanistan war veteran Matt Farwell [RWN EP #196] returns to the show to talk about his new project, "The Hunt For Tom Clancy" about the US Empire's court novelist (and Great Satan to all true War Nerds out there).
Check out Matt Farwell's serialized-substack-book The Hunt For Tom Clancy. Buy Matt's book "American Cipher: Bowe Bergdahl and the U.S. Tragedy in Afghanistan". Read Matt's articles at New Republic. Listen to our last talk with Matt, RWN episode 196.
Also: Check out the book "As You Were" by Matt's friend David Tromblay.
*Images discovered by Matt Farwell at the George W. Bush Library:
* * *
Buy John Dolan's book "The War Nerd Iliad" and his audiobook "Pleasant Hell".
Interlude music by Brendon Anderegg. Check out his group Mountains here.
Total time: 1:26:03
Comments (17)
About taste of a persistence hunted kill? Once you've gone from Douglas Adam's 1st stage of civilization (HOW shall we eat???) to his 3rd stage (WHERE shall we do lunch?), you get a bit spoiled... I don't bow hunt- An animal that is dieing horribly and slowly is loaded with things I don't want to eat. We did special effects for an archery company several years back. The owners were AMAZINGLY good with a bow. And they told us they hunted deer exclusively with rifles for that reason. A fraction of a second to a few seconds dieing vs. a few minutes, a quarter of an hour or even more bleeding out while running hard makes a difference in taste.
That business of the Penobscot native Americans running deer down by greater endurance rather than shooting is called "persistence hunting". This was a fairly common method of hunting big game from the old stone age through a few groups presently still practicing this in Africa and even Central America. Works best if you can tag team the animal, a couple of humans take turns until the animal is worn out. Some hard core hunters still DO manage it single handed. https://youtu.be/826HMLoiE_o David is wrong about Bushman being the "last/only" ones still doing it. Some euro descended Australians have STARTED doing it again during this century... Works on imported deer, camels, feral swine. Kangaroos, not so much!
Thanks for the info! I've always wondered if exercise produces lactic acid. Wouldn't the animal taste awful once you finally run them down and eat them? I guess taste wasn't a priority in the Stone Age.
Hey what was that poem about animals talking about their flaws in a self-deceptive way? Not on this episode but wanted to look it up
Swift's "The Beasts' Confession" https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45265/the-beasts-confession
Bezos allegedly deposited his larva in the three passengers who came with him, or at least thats what I heard
Could someone give a link to the other memes from George W Bush library you talked about?
Just updated this post with the other two images.
Amazing episode!
Matt fuckin rocks
This is a great episode and Matt is an awesome guest. But the title is misleading. The Clancy discussion is hardly 1/4 of the episode's runtime.
Afghanistone is as good a protomeme as it is despicable
I think the artillery museum is in St Petersburg not Moscow
Love this interview. Matt is a hoot
He really is. Which is amazing considering the grim stuff he talks about.
The Tigray newsletter was fabulous.
Thanks David.