Mark Summers has a beef with the pirates who are seizing cargo ships and taking hostages off the coast of Somalia: They’re ruining his bad name.
For years, Mr. Summers has been donning frock coats and plumed hats and rakish red scarves and tucking blunderbusses into his belt to transform himself into Cap’n Slappy. That’s Pirate Capt. Slappy to you, mate.
His alter ego symbolizes a spirit of freedom, he says: the romance of the open sea, self-reliance, defiance and loads of jolly good fun with a barrel (or two) of rum. At least, it did until real pirates had to come along and wreck it all.
“There ought to be a different word for pirates in their current incarnation,” says Mr. Summers, who co-founded the annual Talk Like a Pirate Day. In an aggrieved posting on his MySpace page just after Navy Seals rescued an American captain held hostage by pirates, Mr. Summers suggested some alternative nomenclature: sea-thugs, boat-muggers, kelp-festooned kidnappers. “I got a huge response,” he said, “from people saying ‘amen.’ Or ‘aaaar-men.’ “
Bastages. But whatever you do, don’t snigger.
OK, I’ll start. How about Maritime Community organizers?
Doddfranks
Commerce Intervention Specialists, a subsidiary of Man Made Disasters, Inc.
Frankenbeans?
I guess “sea kittens” is already in use.
Seaborne Income Redistribution Specialists.
Capt. Slappy?
Seriously this is taking getting stoned and listening to Buffett way too far.
As for those other guys over in Africa, here is another musician who wants to go on tour.
Overseas Contingency Operational Opponents
Splodeyaaaarghs!
Or perhaps we could just go all Tarantino on ’em and use “Salty Dogs.”
Nothing that a nice yardarm party or two won’t fix. Couple more .50’s to the heads will help, too.
Capt. Slappy? Who does he think he is? Charles Johnson?
Other Defined Redistributionist Ocean Culture
(ODROC)
We could just call ’em chum.
Gangsters in boats. Hostis Humani Generis.
US Navy target practice. Shoot on sight.
Or:
I’m liking Ron Paul’s proposal for Congress to issue Letters of Marque and Reprisal, although this particular Congress would probably soil itself at the thought of it.
I’m liking Ron Paul’s proposal for Congress to issue Letters of Marque and Reprisal, although this particular Congress would probably soil itself at the thought of it.
Nice idea but it is not practical. Letters of Marque let private individuals organize ships and attack the merchant ships of another nation, with a split of the loot captured to the state that issued the letter of marque. No one is going to go to Somalia to capture “prizes” of crappy speed boats, a few RPGs and some AK-47s.
But I am all for offering bounties or incentives to private groups to end the piracy. I am also for some Navy fighters straffing and bombing Somali ports every time there is another incident (until it stops).
I’ve wondered why we haven’t put a submarine in those waters. Imagine the pirate’s surprise when one surfaced just between them and their prey. Not that there’s deck guns anymore, but the panic level would be hilarity.
“The Progressive Navy” in it’s purest form.
No one is going to go to Somalia to capture “prizes†of crappy speed boats, a few RPGs and some AK-47s.
I’m willing to bet that Congress would find more than a few takers. There’s more to life than just material possessions.
Can’t we just call them Seafaring Congressmen? Because y’know, POTUS is already being used.
Bwahahahaha.
Ship? Convoy? Downed? Torpedoed? Warship bombed? Sunk? ‘Splodey? Who knows? Who cares?
Ha! Gotcha!
The facial incoherency of this article makes it, on the one hand, impossible to credit at all (that could be, we note, the point of the incoherency to begin with) and on the other hand, impossible to ignore altogether (for the hilarity!). So much humor, so little time.
Wait a second. He’s pretending to be a pirate and is upset that [i]real pirates[/i] are making [i]him[/i] look bad? Isn’t that just a wee bit silly? Not too up on his history, I’d say.
So, when his new Talk Like A Nazi day rolls around, is he going to be upset about all those Romper-Stomper Stormfront lads messing up his “good” name?
…and did I violate Godwins law? Hmm.
Greetings:
Quoting: “…tucking blunderbusses into his belt…”
And I thought he was just happy to see me.
“Pirates of the Caribbean,” while quite entertaining, set back history about 500 years. The vast majority of Pirates in history were brutal narcissists, psychopaths or common thieves with bigger ambitions, even the ones with Letters. The whole idea that those Somalian dick weeds are giving piracy a bad name makes me want to stick my head in a vise grip and squeeze until something pops.
OK, that could be the nine days of chest cold meds talking.
I vote for “man-caused events at sea”.
“Undocumented longshoremen.”
I call it ‘Fred’ …
“Water Boarders”
There ought to be a different word for pirates in their current incarnation
Yeah, because the historical ones in the Caribbean were nice guys, right?
Pirates have always been murderous, throat-cutting bastards, “Cap’n”.
Heh, I like the recommendations, but Sigivald is right. Even cyber-pirates aren’t that pleasant. But regarding the Somali pirates, I’d say they seem even more justified than some of the others by comparison. Their relative living conditions are worse than ever. Not to say that what they’re doing is right. Just comparing them to the “historical” image of pirates.
There’s also a number of videos over at Newsy.com starting from when the Somali situation hit the mainstream press to today for those interested. The latest is at http://www.newsy.com/videos/pirates_on_demand/, but they have a number of other ones in their archive.