Professor Death

that is the most massive flag i've EVER seen that wasn't some mass produced polyester thing... totally awesome.

i feel your pain, wes. i'm doing almost zero colonial stuff these days. rev war was too snooty for me, now f&i is getting that way. i'd have to say pirate is my favorite thing going right now. its so laid back but you still get people doing it right, and researching. definitely get in touch with the thatcher tribe and friends in st. louis, you're closer to fellow buccaneers than you might have suspected......

they was sportin' thare "colors", yo.

just.....wow. thats the only word to describe this weekend, WOW. you buggerers who failed to show up THIS time better make it next year, you have a whole 12 months to hear of the "things" you missed. sublimities too profound for mere words. a big hats off to Ty Winchester for going the extra nautical mile for us barbarians at the gates, when you consider the price of everything on the island, and that we got more than 95% of the events i've been to give us, we really were spoiled. will Michael, or Kate-Not-Mrs. Bagley, PM me Ty's snail mail address, so I can send him a thank you card also, i've never felt so pampered and worshipped and dreaded in my entire life, all at once. I eagerly await our learned chirgeon's report in his journal on the day spent in the Port Royal of the great lakes. next year: more pillagers, more killing, more fun and carousing! awwww yeah!

ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!???? you PROMISED this episode would be forgave and, more especially, FORGOTTEN. besides, whats a little tent burning? you make it sound like something really awful happened. i was on my good behavior, truly. i swear it.

aye! at bushy run, they usually have a garden hose attached to a board nailed to a skid out in the field, so you can take a sort of open air shower. good eats, definitely. can someone post the recipe for the dinner we had saturday night, that mexican dish and beef was to die for. and the monster cookies, i had one of those before work today. i'm definitely interested in going back next year.

i was really immpressed with the event. the numbers of real 18th cen. reenactors warmed my savage heart. the fort was awesome, really was cool having that in the background. saturday was the hottest day i can remember, stifling. today i officially declare the first saturday of june 2010 to be "the day southern illinois was worse than f----ing irag day". also the fiirst time i've just sprawled out and slept half the day. lazy, shiftless native. you can take the native out of the paint, but you can't take the paint out of the native. definitely was nice meeting some of the folks i see here on the pub. and of course a big hand for thee thatcher tribe for hosting and all the guys and gals with the wonderful feast. and of course can't forget monster cookies, either. william, i expect to hear a TRUTHFUL account of your pillages with the professor. nothing else will do. and bosun carl to have located a replacement for the glass horn i pilfered from him, er, WANTED to pilfer. next up: pictures?

count the professor of death-ness in, of course. sam.

although "most" of us it seems tend towards a generic english portrayal of piracy/naval life, i'm curious what sort of documentation (read IMAGES) some of you may have found that show what say some mediterannean, indian, arabic, spanish, italian, dutch sailors would have worn. we got to talking about this at our last event, and while i usually am an indian (feather head) i like the idea of not having to shave and paint all the time, but thought it'd be cool to do a different bit of a portrayal. the new-er portrayal of "jamal, the somali pirate" was even discussed. but seriously. i can't find that much about these other locales, though from reading johnson's i gather that there would likely have been a large number of sailors from india and the ottoman empire on a ship operating in that region, whether it was a pirate or merchantman, soooo...............

A race?! to escape the pirates, i assume. i say we heave to and give chase in marks rowboat and the canoe, and fire the swivel at em and so forth for awhile, til they outpace us, which i'm sure they will...... mature sorrority girls/women are ok too, i'm an equal opportunity plunderer, who does not discriminate on reasonable basises of age, race, language, or religion, or national origin. "come heah, wench!" as long as they don't act like the wedding party did , i'm up for socializing with whoever. are we still going to board em this time? if so i can make up some fake gold and silver bars for us to loot.....

Thank you for the re-assuring information on the Prof...... I will bring a stake and chains just in case........also does he prefer raw meat to cooked meat ?........... do wot! thats so, like, you know, UNCIVILIZED! don't worry, i never pillage and plunder my friends, nor hack and maim my peers, or......well, you get the drift. all others are fair game tho! i'll bring some rum to compensate your loss of plate for the fine canvas shelter. as an indian i'm so used to sleeping on the ground though, canvas is a seldom used luxury except when it rains or snows......

Don't worry about the Professor, he is all bark and no bite (and mostly just a warped sense of humour). But if it will help you sleep better, we'll keep him at the opposite end of the line of tents from you. As an FYI, we'll be staying in our wedge, which is about 8 feet by 9 feet and we have the tarp shelter (which sleep one comfortably, and two closely) available as a loaner should anyone need or want it. Thank you for the re-assuring information on the Prof...... I will bring a stake and chains just in case........also does he prefer raw meat to cooked meat ?...........

i've always wanted to go to this event as a native, but if ye souris family be going, i'll be up to go too.... as a native pirate! argh! everyone i know whos gone to this event says they love it, i'm looking forward to it. i'll be getting that linen out to ya michael, once i scrounge up a box...... this should be a pillage tyme.

theres a firefighting museum not too far from where i live, the minute i walked in the front door i knew wot i saw, a large ax with a crescent shaped blade and a spike similar to a spear ax. massive head. the guide said it was from the late 1600s, "specifically made for firefighting". of course i knew better, but didn't try to argue the point. besides bad manners, they probably wouldn't have let me grope the ORIGINAL english boarding ax we see everyone carrying these days. i took pics with the camera phone, unfortunately i can't seem to Do anything with camera pictorials.

a cultured goat? goat for play? oh boy, its time for me to compose a rhyme about this scene. hmm, let me think of a good one....

thats hilarious i wish i could have made it, but this time of year is the busiest here at UPS, work before play. maybe next year..... we had an auction last year at an event i was at, we had all these HOTT, i mean smoking hot, college foreign exchange wenches show up with their bf. so i declared we would have a slave auction and sell them off, nobody else wanted to be the auctioneer, so i did it, "who will give me 2 deer hides? ok, 2 hides and a pound of shot? ok, now i hear a musket over here, are you sure sir, don't you want to examine the merchandise first?" and ended up selling the one to my co-chief for.... my own spare musket. then we had "the wenching post", which was a riotous tyme in its own right. i know i laughed for at least 5 hours straight that night. makes me want to go to florida just for the ambience.....

ok, we got our little pyratin' gig coming up next year and i been thinking about a few things we could do to add to the scenario, and one thing i thought up was things on the boarded ship to loot. i have a SMALL collection of repro period coins, but i figured we probably should show them taking the "non-treasure" things, like textiles, food, a keg, all the arms and ammunition, sails, rope, etc., etc. however, i know well the public's obsession over "pirate treasure" and thought it might be interesting to make some fake ingots of gold or silver. i have a can of silver paint from making wooden safety weapons, so i thought about using that to paint some 2"X2" boards to look like silver bars. heres my question: what size were those bars coming out of the spanish mines and ports? i've handled modern precious metal ingots, and i can well imagine how heavy they might have been. since the reals were supposedly struck from those bars, i reckoned that a 2X2 is about the right size. maybe i'm off here. then HOW LONG would they be? again, they were being hauled out by mules and slaves, so they couldn't be THAT huge, right? i've never seen any period silver or gold bars in person, or read any dimensional descriptions, which is why i ask. i'd like the "props" to be as right as possible, even if it is just wood. plus we won't have to go diving if they fall in the water, like if they were made out of brass or aluminum from the scrap bin at work.....

theres a funny joke i heard about parrots, its not "g" rated though. so i'll censor it this lady goes and buys a parrot, the seller of which tells her, "well you need to know it came from a whore house". she thinks it over and buys it anyway, and takes it home. while she's cooking in the kitchen she hears it say, "hey wanna F----". shocked she just stands there and looks at it for a second, then shrugs it off. her kids come home and the bird says, "hey girls, customers". she laughs it off. when her husband comes home, it says "hi bob". i told that to a couple dullards once, they never got it. i thought it was hilarious. still do a guy i worked with had a virtual menagerie in his house, including some small kind of bird, which had babies. he offered me one or all of them, but i didn't have a cage, or money to buy one. i was going to get chicken wire at lowes and some 2X2 boards and make my own cage, and keep em in the basement where the furnace was, and the temperature stayed pretty decent even in the coldest of temps, but never did..... one of the biggest reasons i wanted to get a parrot originally was for the feathers, indians like feathers. i managed to pick up a few from a friend that fit my nose, but when i found out how expensive they were, i kinda gave up on it. i located a bird store near here, and approached the owner about some feathers, but she refused, even offered to buy them or work in the shop, she still refused. she said that HER feathers had "magic in them". i realized i might be in the company of some whack job and excused myself, especially after she started talking about them biting off my fingers . no macaws for me!

I was seriously considering buying one at one time. then i saw..........THE PRICE!!!! holy shinto, theres no way i could cough up a thousand bucks for any kind of pet. then they told me that they have to be kept at a certain temperature or else they'll "expire", which has always been a problem for a cheapskate native like me who keeps the thermostat turned down in the winter when i'm not home (and only slightly above when i am there). maybe i'll just go to south america and buy one illegally and smuggle it in like all the dealers do, it'll be cheaper and i can have a vacation to see some head shrinkers too..... if i lived where it's warm i'd definitely think about it though.

Apologies? For what? Damn it!!! Did I miss a chance to take offense? of course, you should be offended by my very existence! i saw you over with the ponsies and spake as tho ye were not a pyrate, then i logged in here and see you be a moderator, thats all. but by all means, feel free to be offended by anything and everything i say or do. especially if its period correct buggerers. anyway, back to the subject at hand, they ARE tiny ships, i saw the santa maria in columbus, i'd be hard pressed to go out on a small lake or river in that size boat, much less the atlantic ocean. those guys were manly. or forced....

apologies then! i see you are a seasoned man of the sea, undoubtedly familiar with the pirate brethren website. i'm relatively new to pyratin, like i said..... well, its only "certain people". theres a lot of good reenactors over there, they just usually tend to keep their mouths shut, and the snivelers have the run of the place. my psycho ex-gf joined there just to harass me, and she's always trying to trash me on it. she's a liar and a hypocrite though, i could tell you some stories lad , plus, theres a gaggle of em who make it a point to counter every post i make with some stupid tripe about their "feelings" and politically correct nonsense. its one of the reasons i LOVE this time period and the pirate forums, everyone here seems more laid back than that one. plus interested in the reality of history too....... right! come on lad, theres pyratin to be done! argh!

Hey! be this the same quartermaster james from over on frontier folk? i mean, whimpering ponsies and stalker ex-gf message board? it is i, blackfish! sam

Does anyone here have any period pics of hammocks onboard ship, or information on how to make one? In south america i seen the old blanket and rope method, just thrown together any old way. is there a particular GAoP style hammock though? sam

I think attitude has a lot to do with it-both from the person seeking advice and the person giving it. some people really know their stuff and talk down to everyone else, and some people are right no matter how farby they are. we need to accept that none of us is perfect, heck look at they polyester rev war uniforms for the bicentennial that everyone just KNEW were the stuff to have 30 years ago. its always a learing experience. if i'm wrong, i'm willing to be corrected, and i want to learn as much as i can, but even i get a little riled when some know it all gets pompous with me. is it possible that pirate isnt a clearly defined time period? i mean we had jean lafittes pirates in the war of 1812, so..... in my mind, pirate gets mostly cut off as far as the 1720s or so, but thats just me. sam