Thursday 24 July 2008

At 31 I Was the Captain of a Galleon - I was Poseidon's New Son

A snippet. Stephen Malkmus, of Pavement fame, once wrote a song called The Hook, which starts off with the immortal line: "At age 19 I was kidnapped by Turkish pirates - Mediterranean thugs..." I was just listening to it for the first time in a few years.

And by coincidence, I just posted over at my long-running rpg.net thread about Pirate Gith.

The D&D gods seem to be trying to tell me something. It's time, they whisper seductively in my ear, to run a game about pirates...

We had no wooden legs, or steel hooks/we had no black eye-patches or a starving cook/we were just killers with the cold eyes of a sailor/yeah just killers with the cold eyes of a sailor...

3 comments:

  1. Looks like you're in the wrong one of the two Wilderlands groups. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Young Jim, as a lad
    He looked for adventure
    Calamity, danger, whatever was free
    So when he turned ten, he packed his belongings
    and he left home to find his destiny
    Jim just a boy, who's
    Head full of legends
    Of dungeons and dragons
    And pirates and stuff
    So that summer he snuck on a schooner
    To harpoon tuna
    And get real buff
    The Captain he said
    There's danger ahead
    We need some brave men
    To sail and then
    We'll find us those pirates
    Stop them with violence,
    To make the ocean safe
    Once again."

    [Chorus]
    Cleaning up the oceans
    Captain Hampton and his crew
    Trouble in the seven seas
    He'll know what to do
    Captain, he hates rubbish
    To him pirates are just soot
    Scallywags and scurvy dogs
    Are crushed under his foot.
    Captain Hampton, Captain Hampton
    Ahoy, Ahoy
    Pillaging the Pillagers
    Triumphantly he'll sail away

    Now, seven weeks into the trip
    And Jim was sick to death
    Of being sick
    Some kind of action he wanted
    As he searched the seas
    For everyday was the same old... stuff
    The night he felt like jumping ship
    But then he heard a crash
    Hit the starboard side of the ship
    And bumped him out of his bunk
    Onto his bottom
    Our heroes drew their swords
    As the midgets swarmed aboard
    The pirates surprise attack
    The tiny buccaneers
    Caught us by surprise
    As we tried to battle back.

    [Chorus]

    La la la la la la la, la la la la la la.
    La la la la la la la, la la la la la la.
    La la la la la la la, la la la la la la.
    La la la la la la la, la la la la la la.

    Captain Hampton, Captain Hampton
    Ahoy Ahoy
    Pillaging the Pillagers
    Triumphantly he ran away!

    --The Aquabats, "Captain Hampton & the Midget Pirates"

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm no expert at older editions, but if you run this online, I'd be entirely happy to play, just be prepared for someone whose experience with AD&D is minimal and entirely theoretical.
    If, of course, you'll have me.

    ReplyDelete