Today is August 21, 2022. For six hours yesterday I studied the Voyage of the Snark, and Martin Eden. When I read Martin Johnson was a crew member on the Snark, I went into a deep trance. I am convinced I am channeling Jack London. Something happened to him on that voyage.
John Presco President: Royal Rosamond Press
“Another belief prominent while she was growing up was Spiritualism, and she determined she had a gift for predicting the future and communicating with the dead. (In this regard, though he absorbed her political views, her famous son would later much disagree.)”
“Eight months before Pear Harbor, Otto contacted a Jewish screen writer who some say was pixielated. In three days, Dameon Gallstein wrote HELLZAPOPPIN. starring Ole Olson, and Chic Johnson, These two clowns shamelessly ripped off the identity of the most hated couple in the world, Martin and Osa Johnson, whose real cannibal footage blew everyone’s mind, even Hitler’s, who sent a German destroyer to destroy these inferior people who kept him up at night in terrible dreams. This movie was pre-Psychedelic. When a young Ronald Reagan saw it, he stood up at the premiere and said it should be banned! Years later he would apply his opinions to the Hippie Movement.
Bill Caldwell: Five words launched Martin Johnson on a South Seas voyage By Bill Caldwell wcaldwell@joplinglobe.com Sep 15, 2018 1 of 6
Many area people are aware of Martin and Osa Johnson as filmmakers who traveled Southeast Asia and Africa through the 1920s and 1930s. Their hometown was Chanute, Kansas, which today houses the Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum.
Yet well before the couple’s expeditions, Martin Johnson’s first journey led him on a South Seas voyage that propelled him into the world of explorers. He was born in 1884 to John and Lucinda Johnson in Rockford, Illinois. The couple moved to Lincoln in north central Kansas, where the father set up a jewelry store. Martin Johnson was a restless child who loved exploring and reading dime novels. Skipping school and running away from home via Union Pacific trains that passed through Lincoln were not uncommon.
In 1898, at age 14, he ran away and arrived in Chicago. Always enterprising, he found a job caring for horses headed for export to England. He worked as a groom, accompanying the horses to the East Coast and then to Liverpool, England. While in New Jersey, one of the horses fell sick, which gave Johnson the chance to explore New York City. He saw the sights and sent his parents a letter on Waldorf Astoria stationery informing them he was to ship out to Liverpool. The horses were delivered to England. Johnson then traveled across England and crossed the Channel to visit Paris.
He returned to his parents’ home in Independence, Kansas, and worked in his father’s jewelry store. His father had begun selling Kodak cameras. During his trip, Johnson had toured the Kodak factory in Rochester, New York. He learned how to take photos, process film and print photos.
In 1906, he ran across a magazine article describing author Jack London’s plans for a round-the-world voyage on a 45-foot yacht. He recalled he sent a letter, saying, “I was the man he needed. I told him all I could do, and some things I couldn’t do, laying special stress on the fact that I had at one time made a trip from Chicago to Liverpool, London and Brussels, returning by way of New York with 25 cents of the original five dollars and a half which which I had started.” Four days later, he received a telegram: “Can you cook? Jack London.”
“Sure. Try me,” was Johnson’s reply. While he waited, he took cooking lessons from a friend. Eleven days later, he received a letter offering him the job. The crew was six people: Jack and Charmian London; Capt. Roscoe Eames, Charmian London’s uncle; Johnson, who would be the cook; Paul Tochigi, a Japanese cabin boy; and Herbert Stolz, a Stanford athlete. Their yacht, the Snark, was constructed in Oakland, California. Complications from the infamous 1906 San Francisco earthquake, overspending by Eames and a shipbuilding strike plagued the Snark. It was ready to sail on April 23, 1907, almost seven months after the scheduled departure date.
As Johnson wrote, they set sail without a crew because everyone was too seasick to work or care. Problems beset the voyage from the start. Engine problems, hull leaks, no electric lighting and an out-of-commission bathroom hit within days. Eames turned out to be no navigator. Yet the Londons persevered westward. On May 8, they sighted Mauna Loa in Hawaii. Becalmed, they were towed to Oahu by a tugboat.
The Cruise of the Snark – Wikipedia
Through the South Seas with Jack London: Johnson, Martin: 9781549715235: Amazon.com: Books
Bill Caldwell: Five words launched Martin Johnson on a South Seas voyage | Local News | joplinglobe.com
Anatomy of a Rogue Wave is the first hardboiled detective story I began. It has the salty taste of London, Pynchon, and Fleming. I began it before I identified the man sitting next to my grandmother as being Norbert Davis, who Ludwig Wittgenstein wanted to meet. They will meet in my story, a psychological thriller modeled after the movies that Joan Crawford appeared in. I came up with…The Joan Crawford Hour. I mention Jack London’s boat. The London quote in ‘No Time To Die’ looms large, as my sister, Vicki Presco, said it was our sister’s time to die in the Carmel Pinecone.
I have to keep reminding myself that I am the surviving artist and writer in my family – and my ancestors got my back! Mark and Vicki Presco, Shamus Dundon, and Heather and Patrice Hanson, are not creative, are backstabbers and parasites, like Cynthia at the Belmont…
Rosamond Press 