As a youth, I had a bizarre fascination with pirates, not so much with anything related to their craft or their folklore…merely their dialect. For some reason, folks tend to regard anything said in a pirate accent as humorous, regardless of how inflammatory or insensitive the remark. It’s like, “Well, he’s not serious. He’s speaking as a pirate.”
Luckily for me, my penchant for speaking in pirate tongue was shared by several of my closest friends.
It was my buddy Chris West who first clued me in to the marking of September 19th as International Talk Like a Pirate Day. We celebrated with an appearance on John Lechner’s “Late Night Diesel Powered Cinema of Laughter,” a Milwaukee-area cable access TV show, powered by the musings of the real-life Van Wilder, John Lechner of Waukesha. I appeared as a pirate. Chris…I’m not sure. And actually, now that I think of it, I don’t know that our appearance had anything to do with International Talk Like a Pirate Day. I think we just went on the dude’s show (which was filmed in my other friend Sam’s basement that night) and I dressed as a pirate. Like I said, I had a bizarre fascination.
Anyway, each year, my friends and I exchange a few pirate pleasantries on this day. I encourage you to do the same. Its fantastic! And hey, it’s America! This is the kinda stuff that makes our country the best in the world.
If you have yet to board this pirate ship, you can be fully initiated HERE. And even if you have been a player since 1995 (when this day was formed), you’ll still find this page useful.
Sammy “Bearded Beast” Inch – The Rage of Dead Man’s Shore!…out.
Generate your own pirate name HERE
At the very least, today is a day to celebrate one of the finest pieces of television comedy ever:
[YouTube: TBS]
