Listened: "Captains Outrageous" by Joe R. Lansdale

Listened: Captains Outrageous by Joe R. Lansadale Hisownself, 2001 (print pub date), Overdrive.com download.

Another great reading by Phil Gigante.  Another survey of dick jokes by Lansdale. Another enjoyable listen by myself.

Hap Leonard are working as nightwatchmen for the local chicken processing plant.  Hap sees a naked girl beyond the plant's chain link fence getting stomped into the ground.  Hap climbs the fence.  Epic fight ensues between Hap and hopped-up, pilled-up, doped-up, boozed-up assailant.  Hap prevails.  Barely.

Girl's father is chicken plant owner.  Girl's father rewards Hap $100,000.  Hap, of course, wants to decline the money.  Hap ends up accepting the dough and he and Leonard decide on a vacation.  John, Leonard's new boyfriend, convinces them to take a Caribbean cruise.

Hap and Leonard on a cruise ship? No way this can last and it doesn't.

Leonard wastes no time in pissing someone off.  The person in question is the ship's maitre'd who strictly enforces the restaurant's "recommended" dress code. Leonard employs his usual charm of threatening violence.  Before boarding a tender to the Mexican shore the maitr'd apologizes and says the tender returns to the shore at 3 PM.  Hap and Leonard return at 3 PM to find the tender left at 2 PM.

H&L walk the beach. H&L attacked.  Leonard is stabbed.  H&L rescued by machete wielding fisherman. Fisherman tends Leonard's wounds.  Fisherman's Daughter puts H&L up.  Hap puts it up Fisherman's Daughter.

Fisherman's Daughter owes big money to a loan shark.  Fisherman Daughter's booked a pricey charter that pays enough to pay off the Loan Shark.  H&L help on the charter when Fisherman hurts leg.  That was a bad idea. The next day Fisherman's Daughter is found tortured, bloody, and dead.  H&L and jackape charter customer go to jail.  H&L bailed out of trouble by Texas pals including Billy Bob the pig farmer.

H&L return to TX.  Hap stays with Brett now that they are back together.  Guy staying at Hap's apartment is found tortured, bloody, and dead.  I sense a pattern.  So does Hap.  So does Leonard.  So does Billy Bob. 

H&L need both revenge and protection from further attacks.  H, L, and Billy Bob head South to go after the Loan Shark (who is also a big time crime and drug lord).  More violence ensues.  More gay jokes ensue.  More dick jokes ensue.  More moral fretting by Hap.  More worry by Hap. Everything turns out just fine except for the dead guys.

Comments:
1. Leonard likes big dicks.
2. Simile heaven. Lansdale posted something about his simile writing on Facebook a few days ago. Let me find it.  Similies. I like them. I use them naturally becaue the people I grew up with used them naturally. One of my favorite writers was also an influence, Raymond Chandler. He was a master. Hemingway hated them, if I remember correctly. It's a matter of taste, but I like them and have overdone them from time to time, especially early on. They roll out when I write, and then when I go back through I try and cut a lot of them. They can be an excuse for not writing the scene, and sometimes they are a fine excuse for writing the scene. Sometimes it's nice to have a line like: He was so tight when he blinked the skin on his dick rolled back. Or, It was hotter than two rats fucking in a wool sock. These are offensive to some people, and that is the point. To others they are funny, but I have head them both in conversation and have used them in prose. You can also say something that is more benign, and I applaud you.
3. Gratuitous Shen Chuan reference.
4.  The lady at one of the public computers is making very annoying and exhalations.  Kind of like a quiet grunt. Hunnh.  Hunnh.  Hunnh.  I want her to leave.
5. The bad guy is a big time drug lord in Mexico.  But, his security is kinda lax.  Okay, this is a novel and set in written in 2000 or so.  But, nowadays with the high violence level among drug bosses this dude would never show his face in public and have tens of guards around his grounds. 
6.  By the way, Hap sneaks into the Bad Guy's grounds and shoots him and his 7 foot tall goon.
7. I am out of order in this series and do not recall John, Leonard's boyfriend, from other books.  I'm betting Leonard screws up that romantic relationship, too.
8. Hunnh Hunnh Hunnh Very annoying. 
9.  EDIT: I'm listening to iTunes and a Social Distortion tune came on that matches Hap and Leonard's recurring circumstances.