JoshuaRed

Ooo Ooo! I know this pic! I have it! Damn...let me dig it up and find the info.

I dunno, I greatly enjoy Rediker's work, in fact it's one of my most dog-eared books (Between the Devil & The Deep Blue Sea). Sure, he does inject a lot of himself into the text, but it works because his persona and beliefs seem to gel nicely with the pirates. Pirates were just proletarian joes who were fed up and decided to take matters into their own hands before they died.

In one room it's the 5-Day EXCLUSIVEMEGADOPPLER forecast. In the other room it's Disney's 3 Musketeers. (the new animated one w/ Mickey and friends) And here I sit in the middle room enjoying Sinatra on Itunes.

I have a great book called "Captured By Pirates" that is a collection of nothing but firsthand accounts of sailors, captains and passengers who were captured by pirates. Probably 2/3 of the book is accounts from the 19th century, mostly around Cuba. I'll see if I can find some good "Tidbits" from them to post! Incidentally I feel the need to correct an error in my above post - on closer inspection it seems that Capt. Gordon was in command of the RN Guardship stationed at Jamestown. It was his Lt. Maynard and half his crew that were "loaned" to Spotswood to man the private sloops Spotswood leased specifically to hunt Blackbeard. I don't think Gordon was actually on the second sloop the day of the battle, but was writing the letter based on how his crew reported back to him. Either way, a RN sailor was shot being mistook for a pirate.

There's nothing unique to pirates that wasn't common among all seamen of the time. They were a niche of people that were in constant flux between piracy/merchant/naval/privateering/fishing, etc. Anything that was normal for a sailor of the time would be normal for pirates. They played the same instruments, sang the same songs, wore the same clothes as the rest of the maritime world. So if you broaden your search to music from 1680-1730 I think you'll have a lot more to work with.

Hehe I can see a whole contest developing as to who finds the best hero avatar. Perhaps a comic book discussion in Beyond Piracy is in order!

Yeah but I've learned far too many fascinating things to ever go back to being an Argh Pirate. :) Hey LOOK - It's Nick Fury! John, I've sort of reached that very conclusion to dig deeper than ever and tumble headlong into that hole.

This is too CUTE - my son, (almost 3) is obsessed with his brand new Smilin' Jack! He literally has not let him out of his grip all night, and even insisted on taking him to bed and fell asleep holding him. All evening he made him run around the house, and played "put his hat on - take his hat off" about 1,000 times. He introduced him to his other little pirates, and had him comandeer both the candy jar and his Megablocks pirate ship. I love it!

LOL yeah I got the obligatory raised eyebrow and "sooo.....I take it you're a fan of Pirates of the Caribbean" at the checkout counter.

WOOHOO I got the entire Series 1 collection tonight! I went into Suncoast and they had FINALLY received their first shipment, so I grabbed one of each. I'm very impressed with 'em, though the face on the Smilin' Jack isn't very good. My son seemed quite taken with the pirates, so I gave him Smilin' Jack and kept the rest fer me onesies!

I'm just guessing here, but probably by whatever means it took to get the attention of a passing ship. Flags, lanterns, guns, signal mirrors, etc? Banging pots and pans? And of course the speaking horns....

You're quite welcome! I've got some other interesting tidbits forthcoming.

Also looks like the chap 3rd from the left is wearing his cocked hat backwards, as mentioned somewhere else on this board.

I recently came across this telling quote while researching Blackbeard. During Blackbeard's final minutes in the fighting with the Royal Navy men on Maynard's sloop, the second Navy sloop, The Ranger, closed with Blackbeard's sloop and boarded it to clear out the remnants of his crew. It was here that one of the Ranger's crew was shot by another member of the Royal Navy, This was by Capt. George Gordon (in command of the Ranger during the engagement) in a letter he wrote dated Sept. 14th, 1721 to the Lords of Admiralty. This is pretty clear evidence that pirates of the time looked no different than any other seaman, be they Royal Navy or otherwise.

William Dampier also noted how he was forced to beat his Lt. George Fisher with his cane on the Roebuck.

Oh Merry Merry Merry....ye either said too much or too little thar!

Look for "Captain Kidd" by Scissorfight. Wicked good!

I recently saw a chap with a nice "tarred" hat. It was a felt blank that he painted with black oil based paint. Looked great! I've got some asphalt coating I'll be experimenting with, along with some rustoleum.

Why thank you hon! Look everyone - Christine said I look good! My day is MADE! Thanks luv - I'd give ya a kiss, but this is the closest emoticon we gots:

Only rule is we gotta keelhaul & maroon him first:

Of course it would be sacrelige to have a redheaded pirates thread without a tribute to the greatest of all time! The lovely Maureen O'Hara:

Look I was right! From the NECA site: And take a look at THIS! http://www.necaonline.com/newbarbossa1.html

Dude you could be my long lost brother!

lol I can't be the only one...Will whar be yer picture? ?

For any fellow comic book readers, Top Cow's "The Darkness" character has a new one-shot issue highlighting his ancestral pirate, which you can read online here: The Darkness: Black Sails