Pirated Youth

I came home today and turned on the TV to keep my parrot company. What do you know was on, but Pirates of Penzance with Kevin Kline?

Whatever my other plans, they were immediately forgotten. I was three years old when this film was released, and it was literally the only VHS my parents ever bought. Having watched it easily a thousand times before the age of five it left an indelible mark upon my all-too-impressionable psyche.

Oh, where to begin? There is the obvious weakness for all things piratical. Pirate boots? Check. Billowy poet's shirts? Check. Men in tights? Check. Captain's coats? Check. There is also my weakness for groups of men singing together. Jodies? Yep. Gilbert & Sullivan choruses? Yep. Red Army Choir? Yep. Soccer chants? Yep.

But that is not all. No, no, no. Kevin Kline's Pirate King affected little me in ways that probably weren't legal. Remember what I said about Commander Riker? Um, yeah. That pales in comparison. Take any heart? Take mine! It is purely his fault that I have prediliction for sweater-chested men with intelligence and a taste for absurdity. And poofy guy-hair. To this day, the archetypal manly-man in my historically based masturbatory fantasies is the Pirate King.

There is the Pirate King kidnapper version, and I the fair maiden. Nevermind that I get seasick when faced with any body of water larger than a bathtub. There is the Pirate King and his woman equal, vanquishing foes together. There is the Pirate King and the bounty hunter who hunts him ruthlessly. (Perhaps I should write these out and make myself a career as a romance writer). And there is, naughty of naughties, the Pirate King and his female orphan ward. Stop! I think I see where we are getting confused. When you say "orphan", do you mean a person who has lost his parents, or "often" frequently? I am an orphan frequently. Yes, yes, I am.

Tellingly, I never identified with simpering Mabel but rather even at that young age with Louise Gold's brassy Edith. I think she may have been my first positive female role model. She was not pretty -- and she knew it -- but that didn't leave her so desperate that she'd take anyone's crap. Funny how I grew up to be just like her.

Now where's my Pirate King?

Come, friends, who plough the sea!
Truce to navigation
Take another station
Let's vary pirac-y
With a little burglar-y!