The Agrinautica

   Hola and felicitaciones. I wrote this on some napkins after I pissed on myself at the Dark Bar. Hope you enjoy my nude and improved fit-shaced writing style. ¡Vamos!

   Okay this is not my new writing style, but rather some excerpts from friend Doug's book. No not the Doug that I ran into in Nigeria, though that would have been hilarious indeed. This particular Doug has written a sort of gonzo travelogue about Peru. Inspired, presumably, initially by actual experiences, but I assume he's taken a bit of literary license to bend it into a nice narrative arc. It's hard to tell where the exact truth ends and the crazy shenanigans quite begin but hey that's gonzo journalism for ya and it's an entertaining journey!

   How did Peru get to be called Peru? The Gus will tells you. Is 1522 and Pascual de Andagoya is sailing, Piña Colada in hand, along the coast of Colombia, looking for a tribe called Virú or Birú; and when you is fitshaced and can’t say Birú, why not say 'Perú'? So, a mish-pronounced name of a tribe in Colombia becomes the name of an entire country. ¡Increíble!

   I was thinking of writing a blog post just about the difficulties of bringing in historical backstories when writing about Place, and wanted to reference his writing, as I really like his solution, which is that the story alternates with a "guide book" written by his protagonist's deranged --possibly-insane-- associate Gus. This is tied in by Gus suggesting before the protagonist goes there that they write a guide book together. Anyway so I wanted to reference this and asked him where I might find an excerpt posted and he said there were none, but I could post some. So verily, here are some!

Is 1524 and Pizarro and his brony, Diego de Almagro, is hanging out in Panama, smokin' blunts and talking up Hernan Cortes’ epic Aztec Empire buttkicking adventure, when theys catch that conquistador fever like a bad case of the clap.
   They decides to head out on two exploiditions along the west coast of South America, but after a four year tour of farting around all they accomplish is getting most they crew killed in new and exciting ways. Howevers, on that fateful second trip, they hear wonderful third-hand news about a great city in the mountains, just begging to be looted. . . uh, converted.
   When Pizarro heads back to Spain, King Charles is so impressed that Francisco’s still breathin' he awards him governorship of any cool new lands he finds. Diego de Almagro, remember that name, can’t stick his nose up the king's ass like Frankie does and gets to rule any territories that Frankie thinks sucks.
   Now Pizarro’s ready to kick ass in earnest. He brings his boy band of brothers back with him to Panama, forming The New Kids on the Block of Shathole World Conquest: Francisco is the leader one; Hernando is the charming one; Juan is the tough guy warrior one; Francisco Martin de Alcantara, the donkey-flucking, half-bastard one; and Gonzalo, the homicidal berserker one.

   So now when I reference it tomorrow you'll know I'm not just tripping on hallucinogenic cactii from my boss' cactus garden. You can also read his first chapter here, though I think it's supposed to be preceded by a prologue where he fights a drugged out naked dwarf. And I'd link to somewhere to buy the whole book here but I can't seem to find a link and it's presently the middle of the night in the Americas. Or maybe I am trippin balls and Doug doesn't even exist.

When Pizarro first sets sail, the Inca empire is ruled by Inca Optimus Prime, Huayna-Capac. His badassery stretches almost three thousand miles, from central Chile to modern day Colombia.
   While fighting the tribes in the great green North in Colombia, Huayna-Capac hears about the tall, fartknocking foreigners from the sea. But, sadly for him, he never gets to see the fun of mass genocide unfold in person. He croaks from some shitty disease around 1527. Coulda been smallpox. Coulda been a bad case of gingivitis.

::proceeds to trip out on ayahuasca::