Nelson Cooke

Thanks kindly, Duchess, and thanks again for your entry on my Blarg. I hope my book sells well too, though lopers here: I'd be flattered if some "fell off a boat" while you were sailing past.

It's a comedic, modern-day pirate novel called "Pirates of Pensacola." St. Martin's Press is publishing it using an alias for me (for reasons I'm sure are obvious to you, shipmates). For plot summary and reviews and stuff like that, drop anchor at PiratesofPensacola.com. If any of you lopers buy the bastard, I'll send you a bookplate (fancy publishing word for sticker) with a hand-writ inscription on it.

Has anyone ever been there? I'm obsessed with it. Its brief piratic history told crappily by me.

There's a goth bar called O/ Zone on the way, though it sounds like (all due respect) the kid is not going to shine to drinking Shirley Temples there with you. There's also the notrious Key West City Cemetery, a tourist attraction that delights all ages (except the very old) known for epitaphs like “I Told You I Was Sick” and “At Least I Know Where He’s Sleeping Tonight” on the stones. Most important, Florida's also got TV and text messaging.

Shipmates, I'd tell you that the following book, due out in April from St. Martin's Press, is the best-written and funniest pirate book of all time. But as I wrote it, that wouldn't be too objective. Pirates of Pensacola

I'd pay ten bucks to see a Rambo pirate flick. Granted that ten bucks would be stolen, but still, I'd pay it.

This isn't so much as a statistic, but irony. Dana says it was the puny ration of grog that irked the Navy men most of all, and ranked among their chief motivations for going on the account. Ironically, many of these men had enlisted in the Navy in hope that the very same grog limit, as well as the job’s regular hours and strenuous exercise, might provide an asylum for their alcoholism.

That's some right good thinking, and researc. Thanks kindly, brethren. I'd now savor telling that self-proclaimed maritime expert I know he's not so smart. Unfortunately he is an expert shot.

Corsair, I know we're all thieves here, but, just so as to avoid yet another five or six years tacked onto my sentence if and when the bastards catch me, can this material be reprinted or put up on websites without any kind of copyright violation?

I know calico's a kind of cotton. But everyone wore it in Jack's day. It wasn't rare at all. It'd be like called Polyester Jack. A smart guy I know "hypothesizes" (the smart bastard loves that word instead of just "thinks") it's because Jack Rackham's cotton shirts were spotted with blood and gunsmoke--and spotted red and black is the dictionary definition of calico. Kinda like the cats. Historians, ahoy. Please don't tell me the smart bastard is right as usual.

This is off topic. No, wait, it's not. I've seen guys sporting them in pictures with pirates. NOSE RINGS? What is the deal with those things historically-speaking (and I can't accept it's that they look cool).

Title: PIRATES OF PENSACOLA Writer: Keith Thomson Publisher: St. Martin's Press Publication Date: 4/1/04 Amazon link with plot summary/reviews "A swashbuckling parody, Pirates of Pensacola is a fine breezy read, filled with laugh-out-loud scenes and some high seas drama. Who wouldn't crave the pirate lifestyle? You get to rob, cheat, carouse, brawl, drink, chase wenches and then rob some more, carouse some more...what a life! How about cutting these rogues some slack instead of a noose? To this book, I give my favorite mock-pirate toast: 'Bottoms up, shot glasses and lasses!'" - Richard Zacks, best-selling author of The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd "Set in modern times, Pirates of Pensacola follows our poor, nebbishy accountant hero into a life of waterlogged crime on the high seas. Best emerging comic novelist for a good long while, with touches of classic Rafael Sabatini and the most imaginative Hiaasen." - Jeff Danziger, political cartoonist and author of Rising Like the Tucson "With rum, eye patches, peg legs, and a wisecracking parrot in need of a twelve-step program, Pirates of Pensacola blends all the conventions of the pirate genre and creates a novel of comic genius and originality. Keith Thomson is a shrewd and funny writer with a big future ahead of him." - bestselling author Linda Fairstein

If the author needs it, I am definitely available for research.

The Mythtory site is a great read and highly informative at the same time (you don't often get both at once). It corrects a lot of clichés and misnomers that sure as hell need correcting. For instance, my personal pet peeve: Arg. The only time I ever say "Arg" is when I hear it used to death by pirate wannabes when it shouldn't be at all (that having been said, if it's in a story, and the story's good, I'll excuse it). Good work, shipmate.

I read the Zacks book Pirate Hunter. The details and the writing are so good, it brings you back in time as good as any book, let alone one about pirates. As pirate books go, it's about as compelling a story--how Kidd got screwed over by Limey aristocrats--that's been out in a while.

Silverbones, I gave yer music a listen. Good stuff, mate. Were I to sing me crew'd use me for a jib. Yer CD'll work better.

Have any of you lopers made a run at the Treasure of Lima on Cocos Island (Costa Rica). I read the gold the great pirate Capt. Thompson left there's worth over $100 million? (That'd go a long ways toward paying off my tipple and sporting house tabs)

What's the Requiem Shark, are there a lot of big words and, if not, where can I steal it?

I'll take most any woman unless she's got a siamese twin. Unless the twin's hot, of course. Or buying.

Buckets, is there any way we could endorse a run company and get free liquor? I don't really got a plan, but you seem smart, and, well, I'm just tossing it out there in the event there's a way to get free liquor.

I say they're banging on the barrels cause the barrels are empty and the fool skeletons want grog. I say they're fools, cause the stuff'll just spill right out of them since they got no skin or guts or nothing--a total waste of alcohol. I'd say we should kill 'em but the boney bastards're already dead.

I'd want a doxy.

The reason I wear one...well I'll get to that in a sec. First, of course there's a reason. You'd have to be a nancy boy to wear one just for the look. I've heard the eyesight thing (helps opposite eye (why Captains wore just one--cause they had telescopes)) and know some lopers whose reason is the tradition. But it my case, the prong in mine can pick a darby. It also can take out an eye—it's a last line of defense, particularly useful in the sporting houses where you got to check your weapons at the door.

To us growing up he was like Ruth or Gehrig to them kids up North.