Arrrrrrr Matey
If you couldn't tell by the multitude of name drops (oh, you know, and the fact that you know me) I live in San Francisco. Funny thing about San Francisco right now: pirates are HOT. Possibly even HOTT, it's hard to tell.
[Side note: pirates may be big in other places right now too, but I live in SF and rarely even travel to the distant land of Daly City, so I can't really comment on trends in other citites.)
(This used to be a picture of a skull and crossbones, which has apparently been taken down. For originality, I'm choosing to not replace it.)
But they sure are the shit 'round 'bouts these parts - so much so that I've completely OD'd on pirate theme birthday parties after having gone to a bazillion since March. I even have two eyepatches, a hook, a hat, a sword, the requisite striped shirt (but only if you're not already wearing a puffy one) and even a parrot to sit on my shoulder. OK, lying about the parrot, but it turns out people are willing to call a rubber ducky a parrot for costume purposes when at a pirate theme party.
The point being that pirates are really cool right now and everywhere you look is pirate this and pirate that (mainly pirate emblems on hipster t-shirts, but I digress.) But I kinda have to wonder why. Now, I've seen the Urban Outfitters shirt like everyone else and I get that "Pirates Arrrrrrrrrrr Cool," but they kinda aren't. Don't hate me now, just bear with me for a moment.
Along with the surge in hipsters wearing pirate emblems on shirts that are too tight and/or too short, there also seems to be a huge surge in real pirate activity. No folks, I don't mean "real" pirate activity or software pirating or any of that lame ass shit. I mean pirates who are pillaging and plundering off of the Somali cost.
Like this story:
click me!
or this one:
now click me!
or this one:
click me too!
or this one:
don't forget to click me too!
or this one:
last but not least!
get the point?
It's really interesting to me that, when we have an example of actual pirates actually pirating in our own day and time...why are people still all about them? Pirates don't really seem all that cool to me when you put them in context. Now, I understand that I'm deeply in the minority here (the minority may in fact only consist of me,) but I think the whole pirate thing is alternately totally lame and seriously tragic. Sure, those Urban-Outfitters-shirt-shopping-theme-party -having-hipsters are most likely not connecting (or aware of?) the Somali pirate attacks with the skull and crossbones across their chest, but isn't that the point? That they're not thinking about that? That they're glorifying and mythologizing that?
It just makes me think. What the pirates are doing in Somalia is equal to or less than the havoc that ye olde pirates dealt in. Which means the pirates that people are brazenly wearing are sort of even worse than the ones today. Pirate Blackbeard (no Jesse, not Baldbeard...) was hated and feared for a reason - motherfuckers ripped shit up. Sure, I guess that's part of the allure, but it's really simplifying and denying the majority of the issue at hand.
Yeah, I "get it," but I really don't. What's so cool about pirates anyway?
And, Jesse, before you answer, I already know what you're going to say. Grog. And I just don't really have an answer for that.
[Side note: pirates may be big in other places right now too, but I live in SF and rarely even travel to the distant land of Daly City, so I can't really comment on trends in other citites.)
(This used to be a picture of a skull and crossbones, which has apparently been taken down. For originality, I'm choosing to not replace it.)But they sure are the shit 'round 'bouts these parts - so much so that I've completely OD'd on pirate theme birthday parties after having gone to a bazillion since March. I even have two eyepatches, a hook, a hat, a sword, the requisite striped shirt (but only if you're not already wearing a puffy one) and even a parrot to sit on my shoulder. OK, lying about the parrot, but it turns out people are willing to call a rubber ducky a parrot for costume purposes when at a pirate theme party.
The point being that pirates are really cool right now and everywhere you look is pirate this and pirate that (mainly pirate emblems on hipster t-shirts, but I digress.) But I kinda have to wonder why. Now, I've seen the Urban Outfitters shirt like everyone else and I get that "Pirates Arrrrrrrrrrr Cool," but they kinda aren't. Don't hate me now, just bear with me for a moment.
Along with the surge in hipsters wearing pirate emblems on shirts that are too tight and/or too short, there also seems to be a huge surge in real pirate activity. No folks, I don't mean "real" pirate activity or software pirating or any of that lame ass shit. I mean pirates who are pillaging and plundering off of the Somali cost.
Like this story:
click me!
or this one:
now click me!
or this one:
click me too!
or this one:
don't forget to click me too!
or this one:
last but not least!
get the point?
It's really interesting to me that, when we have an example of actual pirates actually pirating in our own day and time...why are people still all about them? Pirates don't really seem all that cool to me when you put them in context. Now, I understand that I'm deeply in the minority here (the minority may in fact only consist of me,) but I think the whole pirate thing is alternately totally lame and seriously tragic. Sure, those Urban-Outfitters-shirt-shopping-theme-party -having-hipsters are most likely not connecting (or aware of?) the Somali pirate attacks with the skull and crossbones across their chest, but isn't that the point? That they're not thinking about that? That they're glorifying and mythologizing that?
It just makes me think. What the pirates are doing in Somalia is equal to or less than the havoc that ye olde pirates dealt in. Which means the pirates that people are brazenly wearing are sort of even worse than the ones today. Pirate Blackbeard (no Jesse, not Baldbeard...) was hated and feared for a reason - motherfuckers ripped shit up. Sure, I guess that's part of the allure, but it's really simplifying and denying the majority of the issue at hand.
Yeah, I "get it," but I really don't. What's so cool about pirates anyway?
And, Jesse, before you answer, I already know what you're going to say. Grog. And I just don't really have an answer for that.
posted by La Doña at 3:58 PM
3 Comments:
So a pirate puts a steering wheel down his pants and walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Sir, why do you have a steering wheel down your pants?" The pirate says, "Arrrrrgh It's drivin me nuts."
When you put it that way, it's kind of the equivalent of walking around with a shirt that says "My great great grandfather drove a slave ship." Just not cool. Why one got mythologized and one got shunned is for the historians to debate, I guess.
Or better yet, my great aunt was a member of the Hitler Youth. No joke. That's the bizarre side of the family, and yes, she married in.
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