hurricane

Certainly don't blame them there...no as long as distance is maintained no need for them After three or four days of my crewe not showering (we don't go for those new fangled inventions) that should be no problem at all. You do have to come to Searle's Raid sometime - we are in a narrow ancient city street crammed next to one another shooting our hearts out. Powder in the eye - now that's authenticity. :) -- Hurricane

Glad to hear things will be as last. We had five shooters who were going to be very sad as no one was going to add flashguards to their dogs. -- Hurricane

What kind of powder do you shoot? And how much is it? If I have it in stock, I can bring some. If it isn't I can reimburse, no problem. Thanks for helping us out, sir! -- Hurricane

Good questions. I hope the answers are posted. For instance, if flash guards are required I won't even need to bother packing the guns down to Key West. If you find out Vintage, let everyone know. By the way, at the event in Key Largo on the 24th of this month, we have no stinkin' rules. (muhahaha) -- Hurricane

One final update - another member has chimed in. Here is our preliminary measurements: The Catt & Fiddle/Hurricane's Tent: 18 x 25 Diosa's Tent: 15 x 15 DB/Buxom: 14 x 20 Booty/Jill: 12 x 15 Cutter/Io: 12 x 15 Sully: 12 x 14 Great Scott & Drop Dead: 14x20 That should do it for us. -- Hurricane

So true, so true. If the buccaneers were to properly boucan in period, you need green allspice trees for the deck to roast on. That's what gave the meat it's flavor. By the way, there was a great show on PBS I think about pirates (Global Traveler) = there is only one place you can still get period boucan and its just outside of Port Antonio in Jamaica. The Chief of the Maroons owns the place. The best part was, it showed exactly how to do it to period, right down to how the allspice wood is laid out and the pig split and cooked. Now I have to add that to my travels so I can see it down period style. But the problem here is that many would say, "well, that's a modern interpretation... where's the documentation. They are living history. The Maroons still live history. They don't need documentation. But many here insist on it and it has to be back then. Not a cook who was taught by his father who was taught by his father, etc. for 300 years there. I will always be fine with close enough. I am neither a degreed historian or archeologist. So I will let innovation and imagination kick in whenever original documentation isn't there. -- Hurricane

Uh, actually I live in Melbourne, a couple hours north. :) -- Hurricane

Well, if we're talking about getting involved in a land war in Asia, apparently not. This is a hobby. It is indulgence. There's nothing wrong with that. But as a hobby we all take it to such an extreme. Sometimes Twill is worse than sitting in a bar during a college football game. This is, in the end, not real life for any of us. I wonder if car collectors get into these tizzies or people who collect stamps? :) -- Hurricane

A fun read, thanks for it! :) I often wonder what our forefathers would think of us, re-enacting their time. Obviously, they didn't have any time to re-enact any period, for their own was hard enough. No time for playing any role or dressing up as any other period when the one you're in is a life and death struggle. Hhm. I've always thought we're all a bit bored in our modern day world. So we fill our time with hobbies that interest us. These are, after all, just hobbies. Few of us here get paid for our expertise or for even our time re-enacting or performing publically. And the world doesn't change because we put all this effort into "getting it right." And I always wonder how we would feel if 200 years from now a bunch of re-enactors gather to portray 9/11. Do tragic events soften with age, or is it our own desire to immortalize them in the name of being historical reverent? This may sound insane to us now, but I think not any more than the survivors and the families of those killed on the battlefield would be aghast at us re-enacting battles of the civil war where tens of thousands were killed or maimed in a day. -- Hurricane

Rules are rules. Being from Washington, I know these are real standup folks - The Lady was built on a shoe string so it's not surprising she got a surplus engine. And yes, kudos to them for not wanting special waivers. That, me boys (and girls) is a class act. -- Hurricane

Cannons are always welcome as are arms. We will be there Friday around 2 and will be setting up then if you want to stop by. We're staying on the property so we'll be around all evening as well. We expecting 100 or more kids,so the more booms the better! Our main cannoneer is out of commission because of an automobile accident and can't work our gun. -- Hurricane

We are anchoring the children's event at the Bayside Grille there. We will be doing a period encampment, games for the kiddies, cannon and gun demos and then a music show. It all day on that Saturday, the 24th on the grounds there, between the restaurant. The demos are out at the "beach"/docks. - Hurricane

No one from our crewe is going - we're busy getting ready for the Key Largo Pirate Fest Oct. 24. http://www.keylargopiratefestival.com/ Hurricane

Fear not, Mission. I got your attempt at a little black humor. Some people don't get it. I'm in trouble all the time here. Life is not meant to be so danged serious. Case in point - Diosa racked herself into a light pole after being sideswiped. Almost killed her. Didn't stop any one of my crewe from making endless jokes about it and what her funeral would have been like if she had the light embedded in her body (at least we could have the services at night). So, I'm with ya! -- Hurricane

That too is my rub. I can't stand the lack of imagination, given the wealth of information out there. It's just so disheartening to see so many Jack imitations, most of which are poor. I'd rather see some originality and broaden the tapestry of an event. I just can't take any more Jacks. Enough, already! Really, why can't someone be Blair or Dog Brown from Cutthroat - those were some interesting characters to work with. Some of the characters from Nate and Hayes would be great too, like Blake... and that's just out of two movies. - Hurricane

Jessi, I certainly did not mean to impune any of the cannon crewes, only the fact that many old timers would have looked aghast at the situation, especially those who have moved through the ranks of cannoneer positions in a more formal environment. Personally, we never shoot our cannon down there because we only operate with one, maybe two people on the gun. We don't trust anyone else in our crewe to have the wherewithall to pay attention enough, so it's pretty much Diosa, Willie or I who have to man the cannon (we were trained by Willie). That's not to say we're haphazard - far from it. But we don't really do the whole drill - we do more of a shipboard drill with a small crewe that's born out of necessity - many cannon, few crewe members to run them during battle. So we run with the two person drill instead of the customary four everyone uses. The crewes there are well trained and what they lack in experience, they lack in very solid judgement. I for one was very, very impressed. -- Hurricane

Boy, is PiP going to make you crazy, Hawkyns. :) Some of the crewes receive training the day before they're on the line. And I don't think there are a lot of exacting standards - the Viceroy (and Harry up until this year) handled everything at the fort. Don't know who was out with the field pieces. Clothing standards create a vanilla experience for the public and absolute accuracy doesn't always educate. Look at poor Patrick. When he does his dead on buccaneer look no one knows what it is, even GAoP re-enactors. Add in the cultural differences, improvisations of dress made necessary by the lack of resources or the fact that pirates often just took what they could off of a dead shipmate, and you have no standards, outside of the very basic ones, which are really pointless, since no re-enactor person worth his salt would not wear these things. As far a the street performer standards that were alluded to here, our clients would never seek the advice of any umbrella organization as to our safety record, abilities or whatnot. We make a pitch (a marketing one) and the client contracts with us based on the pitch. We are responsible for our own actions. We don't have liability insurance for many of these events. And to scare some of you again -- we let little kids hold a cutlass (a non sharp one) and try to lift one of our doglocks. We have never in 26 years had a problem, because we police ourselves with our own rules. They are rules that work for us and may not work for anyone else. To adopt a different set of standards is not in the cards for our group. We don't want to create confusion as in, "oh, this is this event - we have different rules today... now what were they?" Again, we're probably the exception here. We have worked with museums, we have done public performance, we can do re-enactment pretty spot on, we do crazy events in other countries which violate probably anyone's idea of standards here, and we have a lot of fun doing i. And I go back to -- it has to be FUN or why else do it? -- Hurricane

Please accept my resignation. I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member. Groucho Marx

The experience of others who have gone through it before should be invaluable and telling. I could want to jump off a roof and try to fly under my own power but others have shown that it doesn't work. That is our curse of knowledge -- others have indeed done things before and made all the mistakes before. I see nothing wrong with cautionary warnings from those who have been there and done that. I've been in three different non-profits and formed two others. All of them failed for the same reason - the pursuit and corruption of power and the eventual distaste the worker bees have for the decision makers. I think five times tells me (and me only) something. Go to any Homeowner's Association and you'll see it in action every day in America. :) -- Hurricane

The experience of others who have gone through it before should be invaluable and telling. I could want to jump off a roof and try to fly under my own power but others have shown that it doesn't work. That is our curse of knowledge -- others have indeed done things before and made all the mistakes before. I see nothing wrong with cautionary warnings from those who have been there and done that. I've been in three different non-profits and formed two others. All of them failed for the same reason - the pursuit and corruption of power and the eventual distate the worker bees have for the decision makers. I think five times tells me (and me only) something. -- Hurricane

I'm a mediocre freebooter. What's a freebooter, exactly? I keep trying to figure it out but I don;t think I have the meaning... That's what I call those who are not with an official crewe, sounds so much more pirooty than freelancer, eh? Hurricane

I don't think it all has to do with elitism. It is being looked at aghast or ostracized because someone doesn't want to go all the way at any level of performance, whether it's street performance or full on re-enacting. For me, I like doing re-enactment to a point. It's fun and it's great to learn from others and educate the public. But I'm not going to forego my hammish performer side and not play with the kids at their own childish level just to be more correct. It's just not me. The only problems I've had is when the more hardcore re-enactors look at me, like -- What's he doing? That's not proper. I thought he was one of us. Case in point - the parade of crewes last year at PiP. Several of the re-enactors looked at me and asked me where my crewe was. I replied we weren't doing the parade -- we were doing other things for the festival. There was that classic - "he's not playing like he should look". Baseline... I do this for fun. And if an activity isn't fun, I won't do it no matter how authentic or correct it is. I know my own crewe damn near mutineed two years ago when we went absolutely proper at all levels -- by day two the ladies were ready to string me up with their stays that they hated so much. So, that whole thing went away on the final day. It wasn't fun for them. I appreciate those that seek perfection and revel in getting it right. Just don't expect me or my crewe to ever be that. We'll come close, we'll fake it when we can or have to, but we love all aspects of the game - from the brash Hollywood rogue and buxom wench to the representations of Sir Henry Morgan and Mary Read -- and everything in between. Just don't expect us to march in a line with all the rest and we're good. -- Hurricane

I would say you're fairly correct there Michael. I've been performing and appearing as a pirate for 27 years, now, but only in the past three have I been pursuing re-enactment level activities. I also think the pirates I know who do this do it for themselves more than any publicity or notice, so it doesn't appear in the mainstream as much as other periods. As Hawkyns said, sometimes it's just disappearing into a piece of land and living the life without the notice of others. Much easier to cover the visibility of a Civil War engagement with a thousand folks than to root out us pirates in our own pursuits. -- Hurricane

Well said and well presented says......... sorry, just coughed up a piece of pork lodged in my chest from the swine flu - or was it dinner. Where was I... oh. Wel said and well presented. I think it is a bold plan and am anxious to see how it pans out. As I said, then we can each decide individually or as a group if it meets our needs. I raise a tankard and say thank ye! -- Hurricane

Well, there's a lot of divergent opinions here. I think the major thing is, that there are well organized groups that already have there way of doing things and don't want to add layers to it. There are freebooters who like to do their own thing and not answer to anyone, save the event they are at and its organizers. Then there are those who like to belong to something bigger, because it can do many more things than smaller entities, which is true enough. We're really kind of running around in circles here and I've done my part to stir the pot. But its like arguing who's right - Republicans, Moderates or Democrats -- there's no answer here. Dutch, it's a good idea you're pursuing this idea. Some of us will love it, some of us will want to change it, some of us will shy away from it. It's just the way we all are. I think it's what makes us all pirates, after all. I don't think many of us would be found marching in a Civil War re-enactment in a line of troops (some yes, I know). But some of us just don't take orders well and we don't assimilate well. We operate on the smaller level and enjoy that freedom. So, I say -- go at it. See what comes of it, and then we can all make a decision based on what you and your organization come up with. Only then is it really the time to say, Yeah or Nay to the idea. It's just that right now, an idea. So let the idea take shape and become a formal proposal. Who knows, we may all just be amazed and can't wait to sign on the dotted line. -- Hurricane