International Talk Like A Pirate Day: A Tribute to Steve the Pirate

And so it’s Talk Like A Pirate Day again, and to commemorate this most swashbuckling of day, I’m going to talk about Dodgeball.

I’ll admit it, I love Dodgeball. It has a great cast, it’s funny, and it has the line “If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!” Chuck Norris is in it; heck, Shatner’s in it.

But my favourite character is Steve the Pirate.

You can’t help but love a character called Steve the Pirate, who wanders a backstreet gym dressed as a buccaneer for no apparent reason. This guy is dedicated – he’s made a life choice and he’s sticking to it, because while it’s eccentric and bizarre, it’s also awesome. Who cares what people think? Steve’s gonna be a pirate and no-one’s going to stop him.

Of course, at the darkest point in the film, when all seems lost and where the forces of body fascism are in the ascendancy, Steve loses sight of this. He cuts his hair, puts on normal clothes, talks like an everyday guy off the street. His dream is killed by a couple of drive-by dumbasses and Vince Vaughan. It’s probably the saddest moment of the movie.

That’s because there’s a Dodgeball spectrum. On one end of this is Ben Stiller’s character, egotistical, image-obsessed, almost fascistic – “We’re better than you!” goes his company motto, monolithic and corporate, impossible to live up to but keep giving us money anyway.

On the other side of things is Steve the Pirate – individualistic, eccentric, true to himself. He talks like a pirate because… Well, we don’t know, we just love that he does it. The fact that he can stop doing in shows that he’s not crazy, he’s just a man who decided one day to live out his dream. That’s worthy of respect, and maybe a little envy. Be true to who you are, even if that means talking like a pirate all day.

Of course, the reason the film gets away with this is because Steve the Pirate is played by Alan Tudyk, who’s great in everything. He’s great playing with toy dinosaurs in Firefly, gets the most emotionally involving moment in Serenity, and he’s the best thing by far to happen to the live-action Transformers franchise. He’s the reason Steve the Pirate works, so this is as much a tribute to Alan Tudyk as it is to the concept of Steve the Pirate. Respect is due.

And so today isn’t just about talking like a pirate. You might not want to talk like a pirate. You might want to talk like a cowboy, or maybe Yoda. And if you do then go for it, because being yourself is important and, frankly, life’s just too short. And yes, I know that’s cliched but it’s also true.

Yarrr!!!

International Talk Like a Pirate Day

I can’t believe I almost forgot this, but today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Does pretty much what it says on the tin, really, so…. YARRRR!!!

Of course, I’m not a pirate. I’ve watched music videos on Youtube, which is guess is copyright infringement, but that doesn’t exactly make me a member of the Pirate Party. I did play a pirate in a sketch at church once – the parrot I had sellotaped to my shoulder kept falling off, so it was heading into Monty Python territory, but at least it was memorable.

I think it was Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow that lead to the modern resurgence in pirate popularity. Jack was a modern day Han Solo figure, and pirate-as-rock-star. It’s a great performance, easily the best thing about the Pirates of the Caribbean films (they really should have gone with Indiana Jones-style standalone adventures, not tried to force it into a trilogy). It’s also romanticising the whole pirate thing, which kinda sugarcoats the historial reality (pirates weren’t nice people). But still, I think people realise that, and besides Talk Like a Pirate day is fun.

Avast behind!

Avast, me Hearties!

Yarrr! It be Talk Like a Pirate Day, ya scurvy landlubbers! This year all true wolves of the sea shall be sending their dubloons and associated booty to Marie Curie Cancer Care, which be a good cause, tho’ they don’t have a boat. And if you be sailing the good ship Facebook, you should be switching yer language settings to ‘English Pirate’, because it be talking how pirates should be talking.

‘Tis a hard life, being a pirate. ’tis a time of recession, and me pieces of eight are getting shorter. I sailed to the American colonies to get me piercings done, and when I ask what it be costing, they said “A buck an ear!” Pirates be good at figures though – 3.141% of us are Pi Rates. It not be easy to cope with tasks like that, having no schooling. I tried to learn me alphabet, but spent years at C. Still, ’tis better than Bluebeard the Pirate, who fell into the Red Sea and got marooned. It got him interested in religion, and now he’s looking forward to Arrrrrrrrrmageddon.

But I need to be sailing off to the horizon now. I have a coconut flavoured chocolate bar beneath me hat – aye, I have a Bounty on me head.

Yarrr!

(Please note, none of the above should be considered an endorsement of digital piracy, which as we all know funds terrorists, is the leading cause of climate change, and was directly responsible for the Napstaaaarrrrrrrrr Wars.)

………

(Serious link to Cory Doctorow’s alternative take on the digital piracy and copyright debate.)

My Parrot Wears an Eyepatch

YAARRRR!!!

Welcome, landlubbers, to Marwhale Matt’s Nautical Blog, twenty-thousand leagues deeper than Davey Jones’ Locker. It be the Official Talk Like a Pirate Day, and so I’m splicing me mainbrace before wrestling a sea serpant to retrieve Hook Hand Harry’s chest of dubloons! Yarrr, ye scurvy dogs, YARRRR!!!

Somedays, blogs just write themselves…

 

Yarrr!

So, today me friend rings me up to tell me the arrangements for his birthday night out, and he’s talking like a pirate. This is officially cool. People don’t talk like pirates enough. Except pirates, funnily enough.

I think this current bout of pseudo-nautical squinkiness is inspired by that seminal example of the sports movie Dodgeball and one of its stand-out characters, Steve the Pirate (played by Firefly‘s Alan Tudyk). Some may say that this film is just an excuse to have a bunch of people hit by balls, cars and wrenches, but hey, any movie that gives Milton from Office Space more work is fine by me.

Of course, this is irrelevant. Historically, there have been several notable pirates, with a long and varied history, a history which has lead to such classic humour as:

Q – What is a pirate’s favourite service provider?
A – Yarrr-hoo.

and

Q – What’s a pirate’s favourite letter?
A – Arrrrr!

And, just because I think this blog is somewhat lacking in its promised comic book content, Jon Valor, the Black Pirate, appeared in James Robinson’s modern classic Starman. Jon, the ghost of a wrongfully executed sailor, was pretty cool, but he wasn’t a patch on the psychotic cockney midget…

Also, check out Captain Jack Sparrow and the Dread Pirate Roberts. If you haven’t seen Pirates of the Caribbean or The Princess Bride, then you jolly well should have.

You know, some might consider this post to be an excuse to link to a bunch of films, comics and TV shows that I like. I couldn’t possibly comment.