Editorials by Bob

This coming Monday, September 19, is International Talk Like A Pirate Day.

The event is the brainchild of Mark "Cap'n Slappy" Summers and John "Ol' Chumbucket" Baur, co-authors of Well Blow Me Down! (see the link at the immediate right).

I had the privilege of meeting both of the Pirate Guys (as they like to be called collectively) in last spring's production of Hamlet at Albany Civic Theatre. Mark directed the show, creating what I consider the most visually interesting production of the play that I'm aware of (and essentially fathering a really wonderful little community of lunatics in the process), and John played the Player King (the same role as that played by Charlton Heston in the Kenneth Branagh version, though John played with much most gusto) to my mentally-deficient Player Flutist. (I also had the role of Osric, played with greater subtlety in the aforementioned movie by Robin Williams, though that's not germane to this discussion.) Both men showed themselves throughout to be really great guys.

(Okay, yes, this is yet another link for books written by acquaintances I met during Hamlet, like last week's review of Tabitha: An Improper English Romance. I would have let this article wait a few weeks, for that reason and others, if not for The Big Day coming up. But don't worry, as there can only be so many of those; in fact, I'm pretty sure the Pirate Guys, MaCherie, and I are the only published authors in that gang.)

Mark even managed to sneak a little "in-joke" to Talk Like A Pirate Day into the production. It's a little complicated to explain here, but let it suffice to say that it was subtle, and never failed to get a laugh even if the audience had never heard of Talk Like A Pirate Day.

If you really love the Pirate Guys, you can also buy their new book, Pirattitude, at either the Amazon link to the right or the Overstock link below.

In the interest of full honesty, I haven't yet been able to actually read either of these books. I did have arrangements to get a copy of Well Blow Me Down and have it read by today, but it was lost before I could lay hands on it and there wasn't time to make new arrangements. I do feel that I can recommend both books, though, based on excerpts, other reviews, and what I was able to glean on the Pirate Guys' character during my time on the show.

And lest anyone (particularly parents) worry that this might promote actual piracy... don't. It really is just good fun. I can find the potential evil in just about anything (read back a few entries if you don't believe me), but it really takes a shallow view of this event to not see the real meaning: just plain silly fun, suitable for the entire family. After all, a book forwarded by Dave Barry can't take things too seriously.

Oh, and I might as well throw this in, just for good measure:


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