Forwarded by Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, and with an introduction by Pulitzer Prize winning humorist Dave Barry, Pirattitude! is 200-plus pages of tips, hints and information guaranteed to swash the buckle of every would-be pirate.
With chapters covering such diverse topics as choosing your pirate name, piratical fashion and pirates in the dating scene, Pirattitude! is your one-stop shop for everything you need to know to pillage and plunder in your neighborhood, whether you live in Walla Walla, Washington or Boise, Idaho (which, being landlocked, is hard to sail, but a real pirate doesn't let that stop him)
Pirattitude! was recently featured in the September 2005 issue of Maxim Magazine (honest-we only read the articles!) on page 92. We take no responsibility for blindness resulting from this article-er, issue. Arrrg.
John and Mark recently took time out from their busy promotional tour to file this exclusive interview as friends and supporters of Keep To The Code.com.
Warning: Put down hot and/or messy liquids before proceeding. We will not be responsible for ruined keyboards or messy monitors.
The place: A table in a dimly lit neighborhood tavern in the mind. At the table are Mark Summers, known to the world as Cap'n Slappy, and John Baur, known as Ol' Chumbucket. Together, they invented International Talk Like a Pirate Day, celebrated every September 19. They conjured up the idea during a racquetball game. They have been riding the crest of unexpected celebrity ever since, feeling a little like a couple of pastry chefs surfing a wave--it's a great ride, but it was nothing like what they'd expected to do.
We asked them to interview each other. Here is the result, showing why maybe that was a bad idea.
JOHN
Everyone knows "how" we started Talk Like a Pirate Day, at least everyone who cares. We've told the story a million times, so let's not go into the "how" again. If they want to know, they can check out our Web site. Instead, let me start by asking "why?" Why did the idea of a holiday where everyone in the world talks like a pirate for one day catch on? Wait a second, I think the question answers itself. "A holiday where everyone in the world talks like a pirate for one day?" That's funny!
MARK
Hey! If you're going to answer your own questions, this won't be much fun for me!
JOHN
Sorry. Carry on. Why do you think it's become so popular?
MARK
People everywhere want to have fun. You can buy things to "entertain" yourself, but real fun is something that comes from within. International Talk Like a Pirate Day is an open invitation to just shake off the norm for one day of the year and play pirate! Of course, some folks have managed to make a festival out of it by stretching Talk Like a Pirate Day into Talk Like a Pirate Weekend to Talk Like a Pirate Week. Like someone said, "All things in moderation--especially moderation."
But why pirates? I mean, I was there, I know why we started talking like pirates the day we invented the holiday, but I don't think it would have worked if we had picked anything else. There's just something about pirates that everyone loves. If we'd invented Talk Like a Guy from Cleveland Day, that wouldn't have flown, would it?
JOHN
Oh, no. You're absolutely right, We stumbled into maybe the one perfect idea we'll ever have. Because pirates...it was just perfect.
MARK
But why?
JOHN
Talking like a pirate isn't just about words--it's about the attitude. Talking like a pirate lets you swagger, growl, and act like people who didn't give a damn about anything. They were the freest people on earth.
There's no attitude in "Talk Like a Guy from Cleveland Day." It's just not funny. And if you've never been to Cleveland or know anyone from there, how would you even know how to do it? No one could identify with it. So thank God we happened to stumble onto pirates, or none of this would ever have happened.
MARK
Absolutely. It's fun to swagger. Most people--the vast majority--live lives with very little swagger on a daily basis.
JOHN
I thought the quote was, "people live lives of quiet desperation."
MARK
Whatever. This is a new quote, "People live lives of very little swagger." You may quote me. This gives them a chance.
JOHN
So how do they do it? For people who have been piratically disadvantaged, who want to learn to talk like a pirate, how do they start?
MARK
You just have to conjure up what we call, "Pirattitude." It's a growl in the belly and a glint in the eye. It's a swagger and a stare and a mighty, "ARRRRR!" Let "Arrrr!" be your pirate talk starter kit. Then, as you learn more and more nautical words and phrases you can fold them into your pirate speech. Like, "Ahoy, ye land lubbers! I'll be splicin' the mainbrace afore two bells and if ye scurvy sorry excuses for a sea monkey want any rum, ye'd best move smartly!"
JOHN
I like the "me hearties" gambit for beginners as well. Just add the words "me hearties" to any sentence. "Fill it with unleaded, me hearties." "I'll have a pepperoni pizza, me hearties." "The doctor will see you now, me hearties." Then add a few "arrrs!"--but not too many. A few "arrrs" go a long way--and ahoys and avasts, and the rest will just start coming to you naturally.
Dare we also suggest eye patches and other props? It is, after all, TALK like a pirate day, not dress like a pirate day.
MARK
Eye-patches are a tremendous costume piece but say goodbye to depth perception. Last year at our annual Talk Like a Pirate Day Party, a young blind man came with an eye-patch on. That was funny. When he put on the second one--that was hilarious! We called him "Two Patch" for the rest of the night. However, accoutrements are not needed.
Order Pirattitude! So You Wanna Be A Pirate! By clicking the above link
JOHN
So now we're the guys who started a holiday, which puts us in some pretty rare company. When we started all this, did you ever think we'd end up where we are. And, while I'm on the subject, where are we?
MARK
We are just slightly to the left of where we were when we began this humble endeavor-and perhaps forward just a little--but not that far from the same place. In fact, I am sitting in the same room at the same computer listening to the same Katie Couric on the same Today Show that I have since all this pirate stuff took off three years ago.
Did I ever think we would end up where we are today--with all this "sameness"--when all this started? The answer is, "sure."
Now, here's a little question for you--it's a two-parter as well.
What "Pirattributes"--it's a new word to go along with "Pirattitude"--What pirattributes do you most admire in famous pirates and when you become as famous as they are, what "Pirattributes" do you think future generations of pirates will admire in you?
JOHN
First, let me be more specific in my question, because I can see you're going to be deliberately evasive unless I pin you down. Did you suspect during that fateful, June 6, 1995, racquetball game, when we came up with the idea for Talk Like a Pirate Day, that it would lead to us having written a book being published by an actual publisher that people have heard of before? Or that we'd become very small-bore celebrities, interviewed around the world? Because I sure as hell didn't.
What DID you expect?
MARK
Alright Mister! The answer is, "I thought we would just have a day when we could call our friends and say, 'Arrrr!' into the phone and hang up. That's it." Now I find myself flittering about like the progeny of the unholy coupling of a Vegas Showgirl and a Whirling Dervish of Death--with real imitation blunderbuss action! Big surprise to me--who'd a thunk it???
Now answer my question--What pirattributes do you most admire and think you'll be remembered for?
JOHN
You yourself have reminded people that our little holiday is called TALK Like a Pirate Day, not "Commit Felonies Like a Pirate Day." So pirates, even those glorious scalawags of the golden era, were not people to be admired in the sense that we admire, say, Mother Theresa or the Dalai Lama. Let's run through this: Mother Theresa and the Dalai Lama, good. Blackbeard, bad. Clear on that? Okay. But: Blackbeard, cool and exciting. Mother Theresa, incredibly holy but probably a little boring, I'm sorry to say.
So I don't think we want to talk about "admiring" Blackbeard's insane ferocity or Black Bart's cold-blooded precision or stuff like that. Stede Bonnet's fashion sense? Maybe.
The second part of your question supposes that we'll be "famous," whatever that means. I don't know if we'll ever rise past the level of "oddity." But I do think the pirate's attitude of not caring about convention or what other people think of them has been very useful to us. Sometimes while we're in the middle of an appearance or performance I take a step back, look at us, and go, "Man, this is weird." But I don't really care.
MARK
Question to you: If you were a pirate who sailed around solving mysteries with your dog and a handful of friends, what would you call your pirate ship and which studio would you have your agent submit the treatment to first?
JOHN
First, if I were a pirate I wouldn't be running around solving mysteries, unless the mystery was, "Where's the treasure?" And I'd leave the dog at home (you know my dog, a friendly and good natured canine with the brains of an after-dinner mint), and as for "a handful of friends" in the crew, that's probably more than I actually have. My crew, more or less, is you. Do you see yourself as Daphne or Velma? Wait, no, don't answer that.
Oh, I know Oprah would suggest that the "real" treasure is the friends we make in life. That's easy for her to say, since she already has more money than god. Me? I'll take the booty. Not Oprah's booty, mind you, not that she's offering, but gold and jewels and all the usual stuff.
So, if you had that kind of money, would you, like Oprah, use your wealth to hassle and berate store clerks who don't meet all your demands, or would you use your power only for good?
MARK
Why can't you do both? Wait. Did you say something nasty about Oprah? That's it, Mister! Them's fightin' words! If Oprah has, in fact, berated a store clerk, said "store clerk" most assuredly had a sound berating coming! But to answer the gist of your question, if I had THAT kind of money, I would pretty much do the same with it that I do with my meager earnings now--only on an obscenely grander scale. The berating of store clerks I do for free to maintain my "amateur" status.
So, back to piratey questions--if you were to die a pirate death, what kind of death would you want it to be?
JOHN
A piratey death, huh? Well, I suppose I'd want it to be something bold, swashbuckling and somehow noble, something that Orlando Bloom could do in the movie based on my life. Got it. I'd want to die of a clean cutlass wound on the deck of a burning ship while fighting a desperate duel against incredible odds, giving my life to enable the escape of my crew and--I don't know, maybe some nuns and orphans, or--better!--a beautiful young princess or duchess who has fallen madly in love with me and leaves tearfully, knowing I'm giving my life for her. They escape with the gold from the Spanish Navy, ruining the Spaniards' plan to wipe out the pirate brotherhood in the Caribbean, and returning the royal young woman to her unworthy husband, a callow fop who doesn't deserve her but who takes a lesson from my sacrifice and becomes a better person for it, trying to live up to my example. Sort of "The Sea Hawk" meets "Mr. Roberts" by way of "A Tale of Two Cities." THAT would be a death that would make my name live on in song and story forever after.
Although ideally, I'd have to go with Woody Allen and say I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve immortality by not dying.
Speaking of Woody Allen (who has made a movie or two in his life), what is your favorite pirate movie, and why?
MARK
My "REAL" favorite pirate movie by far is the recent "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl" because it is the best cinematic embodiment of the spirit of International Talk Like a Pirate Day. The story and performances capture the whimsy, daring, creativity and sense of adventure that make Pirates so attractive to your average Joe and Josephine.
There are so many good ones, but another all-time favorite would have to be by French director, Fifi La Langoustine entitled, "L'odeur de Pirates des Poissons." La Langoustine was a student of the great German filmmaker, Fritz Auch-Hummer who once met a man who sold Swedish director Ingmar Bergman a nice pair of shoes. Wait. Come to think of it, it wasn't a very good pirate movie at all. In fact, you sat through the whole movie watching a clock tick away on granny's nightstand until at the end of three grueling hours a pirate comes into her bedroom and she makes a big show of holding her nose--like he stinks more than your average Frenchman? C'mon! That movie was terrible!
JOHN
For me, the sentimental favorite will always be "The Sea Hawk," the 1940 Errol Flynn classic. That was, I'm pretty sure, the first pirate movie I ever saw, back when I was about eight. Watched it on TV with my family, and of course I loved it in part because my dad did. It's just a lot of fun, like any Errol Flynn movie. That guy could swash his buckle like nobody's business. Throw in Claude Raines and Alan Hale and you've got one hell of a movie.
"Pirates of the Caribbean" is also destined to be a classic, a great story, great performances, great action, but I think what I liked best about it was that it single-handedly brought back the pirate movie. The genre was just about dead, and PotC suddenly made pirates on the big screen cool again.
MARK
Okay, since we're talking movies, which of Hollywood's hot young starlets could pull off "sea-sickness" and still retain her sexiness. Be prepared to defend your answer with senseless violence if necessary.
JOHN
Why you would want to know that I can't begin to imagine--but I have to go with Christina Ricci. That girl can just flat out act. She just doesn't seem afraid to try all kinds of crazy stuff, so sea-sickness wouldn't be a problem for her at all. Her work has included everything from dark and twisted stuff like "The Opposite of Sex" to the Walt Disney remake of "That Darn Cat," which includes this immortal line--when asked why her character always wears black, Ricci responds, "Because it matches my soul." How can you NOT like an actress who makes you believe a line like that?
Now will you accept that as an answer, or do I have to kick your ass?
How about you? Who's going to play YOU--Cap'n Slappy--in the film version of your life?
MARK
Oh, if only Fatty Arbuckle were still alive ... I would love to say something like, "Jude Law" or "Will Ferrell" you know, those "sexy" types, but if you demand that I be realistic, I think the only "living" logical choice to play Cap'n Slappy would be Jack Black - he has the kind of malicious glee that is the cornerstone of Cap'n Slappy's character.
Who do you think should play "Ol' Chumbucket" in the film version of your life?
JOHN
I asked my wife, Tori, the Official Lusty Pirate Wench, because she knows me pretty well and seems to like me (after all, she married me) so I thought I'd get a generous but honest appraisal. She looked at me for several moments, then said, "Tom Hanks." Really? "Yeah, Tom Hanks," she said. "Why?" I asked, hoping it would be for his brilliant acting. No. That wasn't it. "He's really normal," she said. "He just seems like a normal guy. A nice guy. Like you."
So there you have it. You're maniacal, gleeful, a creature of protean energies. I'm normal and nice. (Sigh.) Oh well, they said the same thing about Black Bart Roberts, and he did all right.
So let me ask, has this whole pirate thing helped you at all in the wenching department?
MARK
As if my own innate charm, "dance-kata" skills and personal "man funk" weren't enough to woo wenches? Truth be told, the only wenches who have sought out a "personal relationship" with Cap'n Slappy have done so through the relative safety and anonymity of the internet--which is fine. Human touch actually makes me break out in hives and I start to sweat like a Swede in a sauna.
JOHN
"Dance-kata" is a word, I must confess, which has heretofore escaped my attention. Pray explain yourself.
MARK
"Dance-Kata" is the combination of Dance and Karate, what "Gym-Kata" is to the unholy coupling of Gymnastics and Karate--one of the lowest misuses of celluloid in the history of film.
JOHN
I was unaware that anyone had ever coupled either dance or gymnastics with karate, but then again, I don't get out that much, as you know.
But we should probably steer the conversation back to a more PG level, so let me ask what your hobbies and interests are. And what's you're favorite book?
MARK
I assume you are talking about those things that I choose to do to waste a lot of time. I would have to list immoderation in all things and daydreaming as my two all-consuming hobbies.
My favorite book would be, "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking. I haven't read it and really don't know that much about it. But one really has to admire Stephen Hawking for his courageous struggle against scoliosis as well as the heartbreak of psoriasis. Perhaps one day I shall read his book and at that point, gain a better understanding of the Swiss Watch industry.
How about you? What are your favorite hobbies and book?
JOHN
I've actually read "A Brief History of Time." Didn't understand a word after about page 15. I enjoyed it, but I didn't understand a goddam thing. I highly recommend it.
Interestingly (or maybe not, maybe just coincidentally) my favorite hobby is reading, which ties in to the other part of the question. I don't have a favorite, but there are a lot of books I have read and enjoyed repeatedly. I've read Mattingly's "The Armada" many times, seven or eight anyway, and I've read "The Lord of the Rings" almost every November since 1977. I'm currently working my way through (and enjoying thoroughly) O'Brian's "Master and Commander" series. I'm up to "The Yellow Admiral." Really excellent stuff.
MARK
Speaking of books, we have a book coming out, don't we? A little volume called "Pirattitude!"
JOHN
Yes we do. Nice segue.
MARK
Thank you. Why should people buy it? I'm assuming that people should buy it, right?
JOHN
Yes they should. And not just because I have five children still to get through college. I like to think it's a funny book. I guess we're about to find out if I'm right about that. It also includes a lot more information on how to talk like a pirate, how to get a pirate name, who has pirattitude and who doesn't. How to throw a pirate party, cook like a pirate. And some of it is even probably accurate, although we've said from the beginning that accuracy was WAY down our list of priorities. Given the choice between two possible answers, we went with the funny one every time, regardless of petty issues like which one was "right." Still, the odds say we must have gotten SOMETHING right, don't you think? I mean, it's more than 200 pages.
How about you? Do you think people should buy it?
MARK
Oh hell yes! "PIRATTITUDE" offers the last best hope for world peace and understanding. Wait. No. That's not right. It does, however, give sound financial advice that will ensure that you and your family will live in luxury for generations to come. Sorry. No. I must be mistaking it with something else.
It is, and here I kid you not, excellent toilet reading. The sections are short enough and delightful enough that they can be easily read in just a few short minutes. In fact, I don't think any toilet in the world should be without a copy of our book. And if a section of the book fails to amuse, you'll know what to do with it. We hope a second edition will come out on "super absorbent" paper.
JOHN
Thank you. Charming mental image. Give me a second to wipe it clear from my memory. (moment of silence) There, that's better.
So, at the end of the day (and it is getting pretty late) what do you think we've accomplished? What does it all mean? What, if I may be so bold, is the point?
MARK
"Points" are for people who burst balloons. We've accomplished millions of people smiling for no good reason and it means that for a few minutes--they were happy.
That's not bad.
JOHN
No, that's not bad at all.
MARK
So my last question, because it's not only late in the day, it's last call--where do we go from here?
JOHN
I assume you mean that in a metaphorical sense, and not "where are we going to go when this place closes for the night?"
MARK
Yes, obviously. Stop being pedantic and answer the question. What comes next for the Pirate Guys?
JOHN
Who knows? Not me, and I don't think you know either. This whole thing has been such a wild ride since day one. Admit it, we both thought our 15 minutes of fame would end about 2 in the afternoon on the day our close personal friend Pulitzer prize winning Dave Barry's column first came out back in 2002. And it's just kept growing. No reasonable responsible adult would have predicted any of this, even if we KNEW a reasonable, responsible adult. And yet here we are.
MARK
In a neighborhood tavern? That's not surprising.
JOHN
Okay, now who's being pedantic? My point is, it would have been impossible to predict what's happened so far. There's no chance to predict what comes next.
Ideally, people will be celebrating International Talk Like a Pirate Day long after we're gone. But even if it ends tomorrow--and you know how the world is, maybe there won't even be a tomorrow--but if there is and if the pirate thing fades away, which I don't think it will because pirates are really cool...
MARK
For the love of cheese! Stop interrupting yourself!! If what?
JOHN
Okay, sure. It's been a lot of fun and we hope it's a lot more fun, but if it all ends tomorrow, it's been a great ride and no regrets.
MARK
Amen to that.
_______________
Pirattitude! So You Wanna Be A Pirate? Here's How! is published by Penguin Books/New American Library (ISBN 0-451-21649-0) and will be available beginning in September 2005. Visit TalkLikeAPirateDay.com for more information. To purchase Pirattitude! via Amazon, click the book cover below.
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