What if Herman Melville and Melvil Dewey made passionate love aboard a cruise ship? Would a blog such as this be the fruit of such an unlikely union?

Saturday, May 5, 2012

On Pirates of the Female Persuasion, Part 1: The Beckoning.


Shipmates,

As some of you—those attuned to the ways of the sea*—may have gathered by now, the Dread Pirate Dewey no longer sails under a single mast! That’s right dear readers, this old salty dog has met a fetching female buccaneer, looked her square in the rum-reddened eye, and cried “aye matie!” with a traditional pirate grasp!** 

Now, my most attentive readers well know that I am not one to tell tales out of school, as they say; no! The Dread Pirate is as much known for his chivalry and gentlemanly tact as for his rippling masculine physique and saint-like humility. So why, then, do I pen these very lines describing the most private of personal experiences? Why reveal to the slack-jawed plebs—who love nothing more than the opportunity to tear down their betters in order to assuage their own petty jealousy***— that the otherwise impervious Dread Pirate has a human side? Much like my fictional counterparts,****  would it not be best to maintain a secret identity, a double life as it were, in order to protect not me—the Dread Pirate Dewey needs protection from no mortal hand!—but those weak, merely human vessels with whom I share certain soft feelings? 

These arguments do carry weight, I readily admit, but when one spends every day cavorting in the Caribbean heat with a sun-kissed pirate wench,***** when every night is a Bacchanal feast of fun and rum in the Pequod’s always saucy Officer’s Bar, yea, when every day you feel as happy as a privateer with a dozen newly-split skulls laying beneath your blood-soaked blade, you feel the need to sing to the world of your joy!

It was one of the high holy days aboard the Pequod when I first laid eye upon the Amazon who has stormed the fortress of my heart. We were feasting the Saint, holy Patrick of course, with the traditional libations, when a blinding light tumbled your humble narrator from his perch at the bar! What was that alluring sparkle, that El Doradian glitter of earthly delight visible from 30 paces across the mass of sweaty pirate bodies swimming in the smoky sea of the Officer’s Bar? As you can imagine, I quickly began swinging my mighty ham-like fists about in order to clear a path, and as the sailors were felled like so many giant redwoods, the twinkle that first attracted this pirate’s eye revealed itself—twas the eye patch of the most bewitching female buccaneer this old plank walker has seen! Her patch was so resplendent with the majestic jewels pilfered from the holds of our floating prey that the most precious of rubies were inset with the most cleverly-cut diamonds! Her long blond locks were as shiny as a seal’s hide in late August after years of sea salts and sun that make any real pirate’s hair a thing of envy among even the most discerning land-based salon frequenter! And her shoulders! Oh her sun-browned shoulders! We all know how fetching a brilliantly-coloured parrot is perched upon a pirate’s shoulder—I myself have been known to sport a charmingly-idiosyncratic orange and brown Macao from time to time—but this young lass sported not one, not two, but 7 fully-grown birds across her back and shoulders! The very height of fashion! And oh! how they squawked! What could bring more joy to an old ship pillager’s heart than the sight of this beautiful woman covered in a tropical rainbow of feathers amidst the fumes from the cheap rum? 

And if her raiment was colourful, than her language was even more so! Not an oath under the sun she didn’t know! So we cursed and we caroused, singing all the greatest pirate melodies together in perfect harmony; we drank and we fought, a-swinging our fists together in unison, leveling the rowdy sailors to our left and to our right. The place was demolished, half our compatriots in the infirmary, and our bar bill astronomical. It was a good night. 

 She hails from the sunny stolen lands of Old Mexico, my new-found mast-mate.****** A woman of gentle means, she took to the high seas in search of thrilling adventure and daring do, and lo and behold, she found the Dread Pirate Dewey! So we have been plundering the bounty of the Caribbean trade for over a month now, and our pirate’s pact is a thing all the decent Northern sea-goers fear! Aye, when these honest folk see our colours flying, they run and scream, “Run friends! For here comes our doom! Hide all your jewels, stash all your gold, squirrel away all of your best DVDs, for lo! across the bounding main comes the Dread Pirate Dewey and the Equally-Dread Piratess Dewette!”
         



*And my Facebook page.
**Figuratively speaking that is; I have yet to meet a woman that considers a spit-soaked handshake or guttural pirate noises to be an appropriate method with which to mark the beginning of a romantic relationship.
***You, of course, do not number among these unwashed peasants.
****Batman, Superman, Bill Clinton etc.
*****Although, the Pequod has left the safety of the Caribbean waters for more Northern ports, but that’s the meat for another meal!
******That’s a nautical term. Get your mind out of the gutter.

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