hurricane

Does anyone have the schedule of activities going on inside the fort this year? I am trying to coordinate it will all the other activities going on at the annex this year. If possible, I want to be able to clear the stages during the battle each day so everyone can be directed over to the fort or onto the WOLF.

A full schedule would be great but even the times fo the battles would be helpful. Want to keep the synergy going so people don't miss anything at either location.

-- Hurricane

Yes, and it's going to be packed this year. Never a dull moment, either at the fort, the annex or in town.

-- Hurricane

The latest schedule has been added to the Pirates in Paradise site.

New this year:

• Two performances of the Tryal of Anne & Mary, 11 a.m. each day on Friday and Saturday at the Truman Annex stage.
  
• Coloring with Uncle Don - kids will be invited to color with Don Maitz. Just hope they don't go outside of the lines. That will be Saturday at 10.
  
• Historic tours... each evening in town.
  
• Best Dressed Little Wench and Pirate contests - Sunday afternoon on the kid's stage.
  
• the BUBBA Home Brew Battle - sample 100 different batches of homemade brew and choose the winner.
  
• the Tall Tales and Freestyle Tall Tales contests, Saturday and Sunday.
  
• Tons of new vendors and food merchants along the Waterfront.
  
• Period weapons display on Friday along with lecturers.
  

I think those are the highlights. Check the page using the link below:

http://www.piratesinparadise.com/schedule/index.html

-- Hurricane

That would be it from my camp, except the two Animal mentioned. If the other two make it they will be paying their way in and playing guest all day.

-- Hurricane

I think the point was that while there were guitars, they aren't the six string acoustics we play or even remotely similar. It's akin to saying a modern trumpet can stand in for a horn of the times. And I've seen some playing acoustic/electrics that would look more at home with The Beatles. I know of no references to one ever being aboard ship, as was noted earlier, it would have been fiddles, drums, horns and perhaps a fluted instrument of some type.

My whole original point is that most musicians who show up at events are re-enacting the music correctly, either because of incorrect instrumentation, modern arrangements, different melodic structures or contemporary playing styles. I fall into this category, certainly, as I play an tenor guitar which wasn't even invented until the 20s, 1920s that is. But I don't pretend to be representing the period style of music, either.

Hawkyns, I so hope I can check out your resources while at PiP. They sound wonderful!

-- Hurricane

I think the point was that while there were guitars, they aren't the six string acoustics we play or even remotely similar. And I've seen some playing acoustic/electrics that would look more at home with The Beatles. I know of no references to one ever being aboard ship, as was noted earlier, it would have been fiddles, drums, horns and perhaps a fluted instrument of some type.

My whole original point is that most musicians who show up at events are re-enacting the music correctly, either because of incorrect instrumentation, modern arrangements, different melodic structures or contemporary playing styles. I fall into this category, certainly, as I play an tenor guitar which wasn't even invented until the 20s, 1920s that is. But I don't pretend to be representing the period style of music, either.

Hawkyns, I so hope I can check out your resources while at PiP. They sound wonderful!

-- Hurricane

Unfortunately, no. The only reference to that in terms of numbers is a list of occupations and the people who held them before the earthquake, which included one architect,two barbers, four blacksmiths, two bricklayers, five butchers, a slew of carpenters, 14 chryrurgeons/chandlers, coopers, cordwainers, one drugster, fishermen, goldsmiths, gunsmiths, a hatmaker, one ivory turner, lots of merchants and mariners, two pewterers, a pipemaker, four sailmakers, shipwrights, a dozen or so tailors, watermen and wherrymen, and lots of victuallers, vintners and tavern-keepers, two of whom were female.

More useful to show the breadth of professions rather than the distributions. Also, there is a note that many of the "free" men and women would have been indentured for 10 years upon their arrival in Jamaica.

-- Hurricane

Port Royal always had a large supply of womenfolk.

In 1662 in Port Royal, there was about two men for every woman, 400 men, 200 women, 90 children. These are free men and women.

By 1692, there were 1,600 free men, 1,400 women and 1,000 children, living in roughly 2,000 structures. The balance of the population, roughly 1,0000, composed of an equal amount of men and women.

Obviously, the only entertainment in town besides the drinking establishments was making babies. :)

-- Hurricane

They wash up on shore here quite regularly after a good storm. Three years ago (if I recall), a woman pulled a 24" length of gold chain out of a dune which had been battered by storms. Kind of cool to know that it's all out there. The mother load (the Queen's dowery) has not yet been found. It's said that the treasure aboard would make the Atocha seem like nothing. Just as chilling, a thousand people died on the beaches that I'm looking across to right now. A horrific night indeed.

- Hurricane

I think that's very true, Master Roberts. There is only slight differences in the mores of the times, but human nature hasn't changed much. We still have hookers and drunks. We still have bar fights. We still have those who will never behave. And that is the glory of our world, frankly. The good, the bad and the ugly.

Today, the hookers in Orlando carry paper cups from fast food restaurants. At least that's what Diosa told me when I moved here. Hookers in Vancouver BC look like Pretty Woman hookers. Easy enough to tell the difference, though I wish everyone would wear thigh high boots, but I digress.

-- Hurricane

That indeed must have been fantastic.

-- Hurricane

That would have been cool, sir. I think that would be an amazing experience to hear that set up with just candlelight. I'll check out Red Priest - love Baroque.

-- Hurricane

This relic was found about 1,000 feet offshore from where I live. It's valued at a cool $885,000. Love living on the Treasure Coast. For history buffs, the ships sank somewhere between the Sebastian Inlet and the Fort Pierce Inlet. Treasure continues to be found, including occasionally washing ashore. A lady last year in Vero Beach found a 76 carat emerald on the beach.

Here's the complete story on the find.

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2010/oct/27/vero-beach-mother-daughter-team-find-solid-gold/

-- Hurricane

It would depend how one defines a drinking establishment, hence the discrepancy. The official deeds of the town pre-quake only list 19 taverns in Port Royal. Then there are the punch houses and bordellos... but their number was smaller than this estimate, if only based on the fact that there were 6,500 residents living on 49 acres of land. By that math, there would have been 700 drinking establishments in that small space. Even if you take out the slaves and the children in the census it would be 300 bars. I haven't seen anything in the island documents that puts it at that. I think a lot of that is legend. It certainly wasn't 19, by any stretch, but the town just didn't have enough commercial buildings to hold 300 bars.

-- Hurricane

There in lies part of the problem in recreating a period pub with music. Guitars wouldn't have been around, certainly not in their present form. The concertina wasn't invented until 1829. It makes me crazy to see a supposed period performance with an electric bass or guitar. Few people want to listen to a fiddle and a drum together (or even apart, in some instances :). And an exact recreation of the music wouldn't really be very audience friendly. Let's face it, a bunch of drunks singing off key isn't that interesting. You can see that at a local karaoke bar.

Hurricane

Geez, I should learn their stuff. It would save me time remembering all the lyrics of other songs. Not my particular taste.

-- Hurricane

Foxe, it may have just been me who has my hair down when I'm whoring. That's what I get for imbibing in Hazelnut Rum in the Northwest. Can't separate myself from the hookin'. :)

Hurricane

Yes, they are arcane. I am checking with Total Wine which is the Costco of booze here, with 2000 different types of hard liquor. Otherwise, I found a place in New York which ships free for orders over $99.99.

-- Hurricane

Came back from our Oregon performance and must say, I have fallen in love with Rogue Hazelnut Rum. It has a lovely fragrance and flavor of roasted hazelnuts. It's a great straight drinking rum. Couldn't believe a bunch of beer brewers could come up with such a great distilled product. The bottle has Blackbeard on it. Their white rum has Jean Lafitte. Kind of adds to the experience.

http://www.rogue.com/spirits/rogue-hazelnut-rum.php

Now all I have to do it find it in Florida or have it shipped from New York of all places.

-- Hurricane

Here's a couple questions about Taverns and Behavior. First, would the average visitor to a port side tavern know which ladies are for sale and which just work in the establishment (or are they the same?)? Secondly, in a rough area like Port Royal how could a person run a tavern when you had no official police force/ town guard to prevent a group of pirates from simply killing the tavern owner, stealing his merchandise and drinking for free (or at least being so intimidating that the tavern owner allows them to drink for free and take a share of his profits)?

In Port Royal, prostitutes wore their hair down. Ladies wore them up. Simple enough, eh. Wish they would do that today.

As for the other question... I honestly don't know. An event like that has never been covered in the literature as far as I know. Not sure why it didn't happen with great regularity. Perhaps the wisest strategy is to keep the drinks flowing so they aren't in a state where they could do much damage, especially if the owner had a thug or two on his own payroll, like the bouncers of today. Still, a good question, sir!

-- Hurricane

We have already put in on our crewe's radar for next year. Won't have to travel to Oregon to perform there so our schedule will be open. Looking forward to it. Looked like a terrific time!

-- Hurricane

Mission, I thought it was a little vague in my mind. I may have been reading elsewhere about the coffee houses and just thought it was a tavern. I do that even in my real life.

Ah, Foxe, you know my pain when someone starts singing "period songs". Plus it always makes me nuts when someone is seeing a capstan chantey or other work song but aren't doing any work. Huh? I can't see a single sailor or pirate sitting in a pub, looking at his mates and saying, "hey, let's sing that song we always do when we're trying to lift a several ton anchor out of a heaving sea. That'd be fun, eh boys? We can always get a whore later." :)

But I digress, which is easy to do when you're in Oregon...

-- Hurricane

Sorry I'm late Hawkyns. :)

I don't have my pirate library with me at the moment here in Oregon, but if I recall, there was a tavern, inn or pub for every 70 people or so in Port Royal at its height. The women had a mouth on them that was far fouler than any truck driver you could imagine in our times. They were brash, bold and complete, well whores. Drinking was to regular excess and the town didn't hold to the same standards of London at the time. It was in its entirety a seaport in its mores and activities. Again, bare with me, recalling this from my rum soaked mind at the time. There was constant crime in the streets, brawls in the taverns, gambling and thievery. There was no standing law there. The militia (in the town's prime) were a few regulars with the rest townfolk. It would have made the Wild West look like a day in Disneyland.

And no, there's no way to re-create this environment. We can't have garbage piling up, have puke on the streets and the floor of a re-enactment bar, the stench of stale beer and poor hygiene, or the years of neglect and abuse.

But, of course, we want to think we can come close, just as we think we're close singing chanteys from the whaling area and calling civil war tents "period tents". I'm not slamming this interpretation, mind you, but these too are either sanitations of the true historical record or are simply accommodations to the mainstream of re-enacting events. It does amuse me that on one hand some hold fast to quoting from original sources only but then bend rules all the time to suit our own needs or the rules and restrictions society has placed on us. How many times have we heard Rolling Down to Old Maui in a "period pub" though its origins are believed to be from around 1858 and no one is really sure of its melody.

The book Hubbub has a great discussion (if I recall) on inns and drinking establishments.

http://www.amazon.com/Hubbub-Filth-Stench-England-1600-1770/dp/0300137567/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1287878836&sr=8-1

Very well done and an enjoyable read, even if you aren't into re-enacting.

I am still waiting for the famed moment in Port Royal when the buccaneer tapped the keg of red wine in the center of the street and invited others to partake. And if they didn't he threw tankards of wine at them, even if they were of the upper station of society. Now there's a moment to re-enact.

Thanks Cascabel, as the director, I knew you'd chime in and tell us exactly what we need. He did such a good job at the part and I'm sure there will be others who could step right and and bring the character to life. If I wasn't such a ham (that's what I was told here in Oregon last night at rehearsal) I would raise my hand right now.

Step up lads. I know there are some good actors in these here waters that would love this plum role.

-- Hurricane

Ahoy all, since Portside Tom is waylaid in Guatemala, we be needing a few extra men to step into key roles for the Tryal. Julie has asked me to post here to see if anyone wants to volunteer. We're tentatively doing the play twice this time, once on Friday at 10 and then Saturday (though that may shift to Sunday)at 11.

If you're available, email Cascabel through the Pub here. Or email me at hurricane@piratesofthecoast.com and I will put you in touch.

-- Hurricane