Arthur Graham’s Reviews > The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time > Status Update
Arthur Graham
is 72% done
It was late Saturday night, as I recall, when we learned that Frank Oliver had officially won the tournament -- by one fish, ahead of the balls-out poor-boy crew on Lucky Striker.
— Aug 26, 2026 07:15PM
Like flag
Arthur’s Previous Updates
Arthur Graham
is 76% done
I took that fatal dive off the straight and narrow path so long ago that I can't remember when I first become a felon -- but I have been one ever since, and it's way too late to change now.
— 27 minutes ago
Arthur Graham
is 75% done
It is extremely difficult to concentrate on the cheap realities of Campaign '76 under these circumstances.
— Sep 01, 2026 07:02PM
Arthur Graham
is 75% done
We are living in very strange times, and they are likely to get a lot stranger before we bottom out.
— Aug 29, 2026 07:03PM
Arthur Graham
is 72% done
Looking back on all that, my only feeling for deep-sea fishing is one of absolute and visceral aversion. Hemingway had the right idea when he decided that a .45-caliber submachine gun was the proper tool for shark fishing, but he was wrong about his targets. Why shoot innocent fish, when the guilty walk free along the docks, renting boats for $140 a day to drunken dupes who call themselves "sport fishermen"?
— Aug 28, 2026 06:26AM
Arthur Graham
is 72% done
The anglers assured me it was all a great thrill, but on the evidence, I couldn't believe it. The whole idea of fishing, it seemed to me, was to hook a thrashing sea monster of some kind and actually boat the bastard. And then eat it.
— Aug 27, 2026 07:14PM
Arthur Graham
is 71% done
It was not a good scene to confront with a head full of acid. We drank heavily, trying to act natural, but the drug set us clearly apart.
— Aug 26, 2026 06:54PM
Arthur Graham
is 70% done
Sixteen months of straight politics had left me reeling around on the brink of a nervous breakdown. I needed a change, something totally different from my normal line of work. Covering politics is a vicious, health-ripping ordeal, so this unexpected assignment to "cover" a deep-sea-fishing tournament off the Yucatán coast of Mexico was a welcome relief from the horrors of the campaign trail in 1972.
— Aug 26, 2026 07:38AM
Arthur Graham
is 67% done
Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men's reality. Weird heroes and mold-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of "the rat race" is not yet final.
— Aug 19, 2026 07:41PM
Arthur Graham
is 66% done
What ever happened to the Beat Generation? The question wouldn't mean much in Detroit or Salt Lake City, perhaps, but here it brings back a lot of memories. As recently as 1960, San Francisco was the capital of the Beat Generation, and the corner of Grant and Columbus in the section known as North Beach was the crossroads of the "beat" world.
— Aug 07, 2026 06:01AM
Arthur Graham
is 65% done
A journalist dealing with heads is caught in a strange dilemma. The only way to write honestly about the scene is to be part of it. If there is one quick truism about psychedelic drugs, it is that anyone who tries to write about them without firsthand experience is a fool and a fraud.
— Aug 06, 2026 05:54PM
Comments Showing 1-1 of 1 (1 new)
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Arthur
(new)
-
rated it 4 stars
Aug 26, 2026 07:16PM
(cont.) I wrote this down in my notebook as we roamed round the dock where the boats were tied up. Nobody urged us to come aboard for "a friendly drink" -- as I heard some of the anglers put it to others on the dock -- and, in fact, there were only a few people who spoke to us at all. After a week of mounting isolation from this scene I was supposed to be "covering," I was hung on the dark and ugly truth that "my story" was fucked. Not only did the boat people view me with gross disapproval but most of them no longer even believed I was working for PLAYBOY. All they knew, for sure, was that there was something very strange and off-center, to say the least, about me and all my "assistants."
reply
|
flag