Mark "Cap'n Slappy" Summers & John "Ol'Chumbucket" Baur Founders of Talk Like A Pirate Day
It started with 2 guys. John Baur and Mark Summers. And that really should be all you need to know about the origins of Talk Like a Pirate Day. They’re guys. Not men, with responsibility and suits and power ties. They’re guys, with all that that implies. But here are some of the details.
Once upon a time — on June 6, 1995, to be precise — they were playing racquetball, not well but gamely. It wasn’t their intention to become “the pirate guys.” Truth to tell, it wasn’t really their intention to become anything, except perhaps a tad thinner and healthier. As they flailed away, they called out friendly encouragement to each other -”Damn, you bastard!” and “Oh, jeez, my hamstring!” for instance – as shots caromed away, unimpeded by their wildly swung rackets.
On this day, for reasons they still don’t quite understand, they started giving their encouragement in pirate slang. Mark suspects one of them might have been reaching for a low shot that, by pure chance, might have come off the wall at an unusually high rate of speed, and strained something best left unstrained. “Arrr!,” he might have said.
Who knows? It might have happened exactly that way.
Anyway, whoever let out the first “Arrr!” started something. One thing led to another. “That be a fine cannonade,” one said, to be followed by “Now watch as I fire a broadside straight into yer yardarm!” and other such helpful phrases.
By the time their hour on the court was over, they realized that lapsing into pirate lingo had made the game more fun and the time pass more quickly. They decided then and there that what the world really needed was a new national holiday, Talk Like A Pirate Day.
First, they needed a date for the holiday. As any guy can tell you, June 6 is the anniversary of World War II’s D-Day. Guys hold dates like that in reverence and awe so there was no way they could use June 6.
Mark came up with September 19. That was and is his ex-wife’s birthday, and the only date he could readily recall that wasn’t taken up with something like Christmas or the Super Bowl or something. They also decided — right then and there on the court on June 6, 1995 — that the perfect spokesman for their new holiday was none other than Dave Barry himself, nationally syndicated humor columnist and winner of the Pulitzer by-God Prize.
One day in early 2002, John chanced upon Dave Barry’s e-mail address. As the entire universe knows, Dave Barry is a syndicated columnist and the author of somewhere between four and 6,000 books and the second funniest man in the universe. Dave is like a whole parade with brass bands and elephants. Ambition suddenly burned bright, and sending e-mails is a very easy thing to do. Which is why they finally got around to contacting him.
The first e-mail introduced them, and told him about their great idea — Talk Like a Pirate Day. They knew he wouldn’t be able to resist. Then they offered him the only thing they had, the chance to be official national spokesman for the event.
Surprisingly, they had an answer in a matter of days. It’s a great idea, he said, (actually “very excellent” were his exact words, in case you’re keeping score.) But then he asked the fatal question.
“Have you guys actually DONE anything about this? Or are you counting on me to carry the ball here?”
Very perceptive of him. The way they answered would be crucial in bringing Barry aboard. They decided on the truth, with a lot of ass kissing thrown in.
“Well, we’ve talked like pirates every Sept. 19, and we’ve encouraged our several friends to,” John wrote in reply. And Mark put it in perspective when he wrote, “We are dinghy-sized-talk-like-a-pirate kinda guys, but you, Dave … you are like a frigate-huge-sized-talk-like-a-pirate kinda guy.”
In early September, John got a phone call from the feature editor at the local paper, someone he had worked with for several years before leaving the newspaper business…
“John, I was editing this week’s Dave Barry column and it’s about … Is this you?”
It was. The nationally syndicated columnist and Pulitzer Prize winning writer of “distinguished commentary” (the Pulitzer committee’s description, not his own) became convinced of the great potential of such a holiday. Or maybe he had run out of fresh column ideas and didn’t want to do another one on toilet training his infant daughter. Either way, he had written the column.
And hell broke loose.
You can visit their site: http://www.TalkLikeAPirate.com for the full story, the aftermath, cool links, crew members, photos and fun stuff.
You may also want to check out their newest book: The Pirate Life: Unleashing Your Inner Buccaneer
The Pirate Life Book
Experts in areas of pirate lore, pirate philosophy, and pirate fashion sense, the book presents a hilarious guidebook guaranteed to have landlubbers swashing their buckles in no time!
- Shoot up the corporate ladder with your newfound pirate panache.
- Discover how pirate-hood provides a solid platform for power and political gain.
- Dive right in to the dangers and delights of dating pirate style.
- Raise a family—and see how pirate tactics will keep your li’l swabbies in line.
- Learn how to write your own pirate romance novel. Really, how can you beat that?
Wear your Living Like A Pirate Gear and get a FREE BEER!
and head on over to ticketmaster and get a ticket for the Zac Brown Band Concert, then meet the crew, get a FREE BEER, and enjoy the concert!
Can’t wait! Should be a great day.