[NOTE FROM THE CHIEF: It's time for a greatest hits piece once again! This time, I've selected one of my favorite articles from our (pardon the pun) resident professional bum, Slocomb Jones]
Just because you’re a bum doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy the finer things in life. Alcohol. The outdoors. Cinema. One of my favorite things to do at the peak of my bumming career was to sneak into the drive in. One time, I live behind screen 4 at Sam’s Family Drive-In from Godfather to Godfather 2. I left after Michael had Fredo killed.
Throughout my travels, I’ve seen lots of movies…mostly on department stores TV’s, which can be a pain because security usually throws you out ten minutes into the movie. So, as an expert on cinema and as a tenth degree black belt in the art of bum-fu, I feel more than qualified to present, what I consider, the top ten bum films of all-time.
10. City Lights – For the longest time, I though the movie player this was busted, because I could see the little guy talking to the blind girl, and all I heard was piano. One time, I got so drunk, I couldn’t hear people talk for two weeks…then I realized I had a pencil broke off in my ear. Anyway, this is every bum’s dream come too: you fall in love with a girl who loves you for who you are. Here’s the problem: bums don’t have dreams. That why we’re bums! It’s the profession for the non-dreamer.
It gets a low ranking because he made me cry at the end. Bums don’t cry. We don’t.
9. (tie) Rocky – Rocky Balboa was one bounced rent check away from being a mentally-challenged bum, but Apollo Creed changed by giving him a million to one shot. Here’s where it’s like real life: when bums get a chance to do something great…we fail. Just like Rocky. He lost. Like a true bum. In Rocky II, he stopped being a bum and I stopped caring. Call me when he’s back on the streets broke and fighting AIDS patients in the gutter. That’s a real bum.
9. (tie) On The Waterfront – I’ve never seen it, but I guess it’s about a guy who always says he’s a bum. Thing is, I guess he’s always crying about. Oh yeah, well boo-hoo. Stop whining. Another boxer who can’t win a fight. I can’t stand these kind of bums. Face it, you’re a bum. Embrace it. Don’t run from it. Change is for other people. Spare change is for us.
7. E! True Hollywood Story-Corey Haim – Wow, talk about a documentary! A guy who has it all to pawning your engagement ring for pizza cash. That proves that no matter what, some people just have the gift of bumness in them. It’s in their DNA. I like to think that I’m one of those people. I know Corey Haim is. Handle your shit, Corey. Handle. Your. Shit.
6. Young Guns II – A true story about a gang of homeless guys who run amok. I would be afraid to be homeless back in the 19th century without the luxuries that bums enjoy today. This movie reinforces two very key rules of bum life.
1.) You can’t trust anybody. Even your closest friends will shoot you in the back.
2.) When you’re a rambling old man…no one takes you seriously. Even if you’re Billy The Kid.
Plus, the film has the best bum quote ever: “You asked me if I have scars? Yessir, I have my scars.”
5. Down and Out in Beverly Hills – This is every bum’s dream come true. Get taken in. Don’t have to work. Get to fool around with the housekeeper and wife. Free food Living the high life without forgetting who you are as a true bum. In fact, I moved to LA after this movie came out, but I couldn’t find Beverly Hills. I ended up in Sliverlake and was taken in by porn producers. I didn’t stay long. The best part of this movie is that they got a real life bum to play the bum in the movie!
4. Curly Sue – This movie proved that homeless people are cute, clever, and just looking to get by. This film did a lot to improve relations between the homed and homeless population for several weeks after the films release, but eventually things went back to pre-Curly Sue levels, which hurts the overall ranking. This film could have made a global impact, but, like anything bum related…it fell short.
3. Life Stinks – Perhaps no other film in history showed how hard it is to be bum. Even Mel Brooks couldn’t make it funny, despite his best effort. Had he put singing Nazis and the Ferris Bueller guy in it, he might have had something.
2. Hard Target – If there’s one person you don’t want to cross, it’s an out of work sailor. Next time you think about messing with the crazy looking bums…I want you to picture Chance Boudreaux. That’s right, the toughest bum this side of the Orient. With ass-kicking skills to boot. When you come across a bum with chiseled abs and a well-coiffed mullet, you give that dude your last quarter. Otherwise, he might just kill you and steal your woman.
1. The Big Lebowski – For some people, it’s Citizen Kane. For others, it’s some stupid French movie. For me, this is the best movie ever, bum or no bum. Why? The Dude. Jeff Lebowski. The greatest bum of all-time. No job. Hangs out with Vietnam Vets. Doesn’t pay rent. Bowls. Enjoys drugs and alcohol. Loves Credence. Hates The Eagles. Gets women. Pure bum. Jeffrey Lebowski, the millionaire Jeffrey Lebowski was wrong. Our revolution is not over. The bums may always lose, but when we lose…we win!
- Slocomb Jones has been a professional bum for over 50 years. In April 2007, he officially announced his retirement as a bum, and has segued into a successful second career as a retired bum and part-time bum coach/advisor. Ironically, he’s busier now that he’s retired than he’s ever been in his entire life.NOTE: If you liked this article, there's more cinematic rants in our Film Article Archive. We got some sonic rants in our Music Article Archives. Finally, the best rants of all are always political (well, depending on who does the ranting), and we give it our best shot in our Political Article Archives!!!
You know that last scene in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?
The one where Jack Nicholson is laying on the hospital bed, turning on the drool factory?
Here’s a kick ass guy, throwing piss and vinegar at the people who try to hold him down, and in the end, he ends up a zombie.
Pretty sad stuff. Now, I’m not saying Tonto Balboa was even remotely cool enough to shake hands with the guy who sold another guy the tongs that were used to carry Jack Nicholson’s jock strap, but still – it’s pretty amazing how being whipped can take somebody to a whole new level of pathetic behavior.
And, when I say whipped, I don’t mean “pussy whipped.” Nobody’s ever been taken into intensive care from an ill-timed duck from a set of aggressive labia.
Being whipped applies to any gender beating another down until whatever spot of personality they once possessed is just plain gone. Tonto moved in with Stephany, a worthless piece of spunk who (aside from turning in posts with the quality and frequency of a constipated, plague-infected monkey) seems to almost delight into hollowing out what small quiet corner of self-dignity the disgraced pugilist once had.
How do I know?
I’m a mime, folks. When you don’t talk, you pay a hell of a lot more attention to what people do, how they expose their true intentions. I offer this list of warning signs of whippitude to you, my Internet morons, so that you may save your loved ones, co-workers, hell – even strangers on the street from a fate worse than being alone: being stone cold whipped.
1) Increased irritability - When someone you know no longer thinks that setting small pets on fire is funny, take a second look at them. Odds are, they’re riding the Whipping train. Or maybe it’s their pet. Sometimes it’s hard to read ID tags when you’re reeling after twelve Lemon Pledge cocktails.
2) Ridiculous Attempts at Self-Improvement - I’m not talking about losing weight, or upgrading your meals from week-old Chinese food you found in a dumpster to things you buy at a store (though those are lame in their own way), I mean stranger things, like when I broke into Tonto’s apartment and found a highlighted copy of “Fifty Ways to Spice Up Your Love Life” in a locked drawer. (P.S. Tonto, it doesn’t matter how expensive your lock is when the wood it’s attached to is cheap ass Formica)
3) Lack of Dreams - Ever since I’ve met Tonto, he’s been talking to anyone who would listen to him, pitching his plan to launch a series of themed restaurants called “Tacos with Tonto.” Some kind of Tex-Mex-Indian-Chuck-E-Cheese abomination.
Now, all he can yammer on and on about making avant-garde films with Stephany. Sad, sad, sad.
4) Extreme Pressure on Others to Love the Whipping Party - “Isn’t Stephany great, Linus?”
“Don’t you love how she styled her hair with a fork and some bacon grease?”
“Look at this post – can’t you see how the humor pours out of her like wine?”
The whipped individual is like one of those Scientology cult members who gets so far up on the ladder that all the major secrets of the religion are revealed to be complete and utter crap.
Angered by being lied to, their only consolation comes from persuading others to piss away their time and energy with bullshit.
Don’t play their game. When you get bombarded with their questions, say, “He/She/It is a truly something…”
If you get constantly attacked with more attempts to curry your favor, take drastic measures. Cut off one of their fingers, or something.
Got any other clues on how to see the whipping scars? Leave a comment!
- Linus is a world renowned mime artist whose productions “She Walks with Ghosts”, and “Sleep” have won him several international awards, such as the Deburau Prize He also served fifteen years in Oregon State Penitentiary for grand larceny. He trained in Paris at the International School of Corporeal Mime and will beat up anyone who has a problem with it.
NOTE: If you liked this post, there's more "advice" in our Crime Article Archive. If you didn't like this article, perhaps we can comfort you with our Music Article Archive. Or, if you just need a few more minutes to kill before your boss MAKES you do that dumb project, there's always our Sports Article Archive!!!
When I was a kid did I look at myself in the mirror and say, “Man, someday I’m going to run the coolest non-chain video store the world has ever seen!” Of course not!
My goal was to be a bank robbing outlaw. As I grew older, my dreams shifted towards music and a more wide-ranging view of mayhem.
But I’ll tell you, one goal that I achieved was to never, ever… EVER find myself in an office environment. It’s quite simply “a living death.”
Trust me, I know of what I speak. As part of a plea bargain back in ’86, the judge made me join a temp agency and I served six weeks of hard labor working in a nondescript office for a company selling some stupid product. To be honest, I made it my point to not know what exactly it was that the company did or sold.
There's a lot of crummy jobs and departments in any given company. In fact, I've taken the liberty of presenting the six worst departments in YOUR company:
6. Collections – You really need to be a special kind of asshole for this job. Basically, you sit on the phone all day calling strangers and try to guilt and bully them into paying their bills that they clearly have zero intention of paying.
To succeed in collections, it's imperative that you're a high school dropout and have a threatening phone voice. It's a bonus if you have personal experience dealing with collections yourself on the other end of the phone debating topics like child support, cable bills, and free-market trickle-down economic reasoning for "if you shut off my gas, I'll find out who you are and kick your muthafuckin' ass, I swear to God!!!"
5. Inside Sales - Wow, these people are the scourge of the planet. It's their job to talk you into parting with your money in exchange for something that they're telling you that you need. If they're really good at it, by the end of your experience they'll have you thinking that the whole things was YOUR idea. Lots of substance abuse makes its way through the cubicles of the department. Coffee may be for closers as far as the movies are concerned, but in real life: cocaine is for closers, and cheap booze is for the non-closers.
4. Customer Service – Working is customer service is for the man or woman with no real job skill set at all. It's your job to sit dow, shut up, and take it! It's like collections in that you spend most of your day on the phone, but at least the collections person can fight back.
Customer Service have to spend their days apologizing for their company. A professional bitch.
3. Accounts Payable – Fan of Dr. Phil and Oprah? Well, good news!!! There’s a seat waiting for you in Accounts Payable. Even better (or worse depending on your size) that seat has a perfect “U” shape to it right in the middle from the 300 pound pair of butt cheeks that occupied it for 17 years prior to you.
The Accounts Payable office is the place where all things living, breathing, organic, and otherwise with any shred of life go to die between the hours of 8am and 4pm. Don't fool yourself, once it's dead, it doesn't come back at 4:01 pm. It's the office where fad diets, $11 salon hair cuts, and Kenny G rule the roost.
2. Mail Room – The place where an ambitious young buck gets his foot in the corporate world? The perfect setting for a big budget comedy starring a guy who was only kind of funny on SNL? The true artery and heart of any business? Nope x3.
It's the place for the marginally retarded and two-week ("going strong") sober to completely fuck up the most basic of tasks: taking a word, like a name, for example, and mixing it up with another name... let's use another name as an example.
1. Human Resources - The true bottom of the barrel here folks. There's nothing worse than an idiot who thinks that everyone else around him or her is an idiot. That idiot, ladies and gentlemen, is your HR Director.
To them, the office is their supermarket checkout line and it's their task... their corporate jihad, if you will, to make sure that the magazine racks are lined with incessant crap about people you work with and all the details of their mundane existence (c'mon... like I care that the fat woman in Acct. Payable is a Mormon. Does this surprise anyone?!).
- Vans McCoy was knocked out at a Dead Kennedys show in the early 80’s and has been a cultural expert ever since. He has spent time in several small bands over the years. He sang for The Magnificent Cox, played bass in Manson’s Ranchers, and was lead guitarist for Televised Execution. He’s spent 347 days in local jails throughout the country and is now gainfully employed managing a local video store.
So, as usual, Tonto’s putting some top shelf journalism on the page. Scaring you Internet nerds into paying more money than you have on basic essential goods.
Fuck him.
Sure, he says he’s moving out of his studio, which I lovingly refer to as “The Devil’s Glory Hole” into a one bedroom apartment with running water and windows and shit. But this is what he didn’t tell you: he’s only moving because he’s going to swallow what miserable excuse he has left for pride and shack up with his Vicodin-addled blow-up-doll: my nemesis, Stephany Ericson.
Truth is, the world’s falling apart like a cotton candy tuxedo in the rain. Chaos is on its way, and it feels marvelous! If you want to be around when the bomb drops and the blood pools waist deep, you’ve got to be crafty, be frugal, and know how to get what you need to survive without paying too much, or at all.
Here are some basic items you can get without paying top dollar:
1) Food - Now, some privileged sons of bitches like Tonto may think nothing of sitting down night after night to dull themselves into a food coma at someplace chic – like, say your local neighborhood Sizzlers.
But that’s not you and me, right?
Here’s the tip, the mantra: Anything is food. Anything.
Cardboard can taste just like bologna if you cook and spice it right. Neighbor keeps feeding his prissy cats Fancy Feast? Take it! Food!
Rats, raccoons, cockroaches, spiders? Food!
Just avoid people and pets. Too many questions, and too much preparation required.
2) Alcohol - Any serious reader of this site has memorized my time-honored tricks on how to find and make your own alcohol.
Here’s the reason behind drinking hair tonic versus spending twenty bucks on some vintage wine: they both deliver the same result. You’ll still be reeling, you’ll still dazzle the world around you with Technicolor vomit, and life for a brief, brief moment will seem almost bearable.
3) Weapons - You don’t need a compound bow with all the bells and whistles. And put down that ivory-handled butterfly knife, cowboy. Getting an expensive sword or gun or whatever isn’t gonna save your ass when the shit goes down.
Take it from me. I’ve woken up to the soundtrack for my execution more often than Tonto’s taken canvas naps. And, what do you think keeps me out of the obituaries while my would-be killers silently give up their breathing habit? Not a fancy-ass gun.
Simple stuff – rocks, wire, plastic bags, used condoms.
4) Company - Listen up, Romeo. You can purchase the most expensive clothes, drive the flashiest car, and entertain the ladies at the swankiest restaurants, but that won’t help ya seal the deal.
Women want their men to have a certain dangerous quality about them.
Good news: being dangerous costs next to nothing. That means you don’t have to worry about impressing them, or paying their astronomical hourly fees. Just be exotic and a little bit crazy. Negotiate their price for a Captain Crunch by shaking a headless chicken at them. Serenade them with a song you’ve written and play it on a drum made from a monkey’s head. They’ll be so enthralled by your mysterious charm or just plain scared that you’ll be scoring in to time flat.
Any other ideas on how to save some pocket change? Leave a comment!
- Linus is a world renowned mime artist whose productions “She Walks with Ghosts”, and “Sleep” have won him several international awards, such as the Deburau Prize He also served fifteen years in Oregon State Penitentiary for grand larceny. He trained in Paris at the International School of Corporeal Mime and will beat up anyone who has a problem with it.
I know it… financial times are tough. It’s like trying to get up for the 10th against Larry Holmes after absorbing a left hook to the temple when all you want to do is check in for three months on the four legged stool in your corner.
Granted, I’m now a full-time writer and will pretty soon be able to afford the move from my studio apartment to an actual, honest to god, one bedroom apartment. Yes! Full sized refrigerators from here on out!
No more bending over to get stuff from the freezer!
Ah, but I didn’t get there on great writing alone. No, no, no… you have to make the necessary changes to your budget to achieve financial freedom. The first step is deciding what to buy on the cheap and what products not to buy on the cheap!
Things to not buy the cheap version of:
1. Q-tips – Trying to clean your ears sucks. Especially when your Q-tips breaks off in your ear. Or when the cotton somehow unravels off the end of the plastic tube and gets lodged in your ear. Or when you lose your toothbrush and a wet Q-tip is the next best thing and the cotton flattens out the moment water makes contact.
2. Tattoos – Pretty cut and dry here. There’s not much in the way of clever words that can accentuate this point better than just showing a few examples:
3. Soda – Anything less than brand name soda is battery acid with some sugar. Store brand soda was designed with two purposes and two purposes only:
1.) saving you forty-five cents.
2.) removing mold from your shower.
4. Toilet Paper – It might have been my 18th or 19th pro fight, regardless, I was taking on Miguel Humberto at a medium-sized venue in Miami. Clearly, I was facing a local fighter and was brought in to (hopefully lose). Tonto wasn’t playing that game in Miami.
It’s pretty common in situations like that for the visiting fighter to be put in the worst dressing room/basement/broom closet they can find for you and this was the case that night in Miami.
Right before getting my hands wrapped, I had to take my pre-fight dump and found that the promoter furnished me with a roll of low-grade, dark-brown, single-ply, un-perforated “toilet paper” for my using.
He might as well as just had sandpaper caked in Tabasco sauce. Taking care of the paper work proved to be more difficult than Humberto that night… it took me less than three rounds to send Humberto packing that night, but more than three weeks to heal up after the pre-fight dump.
5. Cups – I’m not talking the drinking kind, I’m talking the nut protecting kind. If there’s one part of your body that you should spend top dollar on EVERY TIME, the region just below your belt line is that body part. Take it from someone who used to get punched for a living.
6. Macaroni and Cheese – Sure, when given the option of ten boxes for a dollar, you can live for 3$ a month, but what’s the real cost.
There’s no bargain on Earth that comes with powdered cheese. Not one! Macaroni and Cheese should not be flaky. It should not be chunky… and the worst chunks of all are when you have a ball of what seems to be powdered cheese but only the outside is wet and the middle is all just specks of cheese dust.
I know times are tough, but if you insist on cheap Mac and Cheese, at the very least don’t cut corner on the toilet paper!
- Tonto Balboa, real name unknown, is a former prizefighter with a record of 48-10. He is best known for getting his ass royally whupped by Larry Holmes in Madison Square Garden. Since then, Balboa has toured the country as a salesman, attempting to cash in on his 1/64th Native American heritage, by selling Indian artifacts. He is currently the editor and chief (after all, he is Native American) of Tonto and Friends.
NOTE: If you liked this article, there's plenty of tips for life and whatnot in our Ask a Pirate Archive. Can't afford a rental? Well, you can read about movies in our Film Review Archive. So poor you may have to resort to crime? Get some quick tips in our Crime Article Archive!!!
I know my loyal Internet fans have been heartbroken over my silence these past few months. Rest assured, Schmooz has been touring all over the state of California, laying down lyrics that pierce the hymen of the status quo, ya dig?
I'm gonna let ya in on a secret project that's been keeping me active up and down the land of movie stars and oxygen bars: I've put together some legendary soul singers: Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, Ron Isley, and myself. We've been traveling from Barstow to Buttonwillow, from Redding to Redondo Beach, from Salinas to San Diego, with legions of sensual sisters in tow.
Our purpose? Knocking down the man's cold efforts to take away loving for all through Prop 8.
Here's the way I see it: strangers who give this law the time of day are living pretty miserable, non-loving lives. They see their loins as half-empty, ya dig? What we do is offer these broken creatures the loving they crave, as long as they give back loving in turn by voting no on 8.
It's been mighty exhausting work, let me tell ya. Isley pulled his back out after tag-teaming two wild Christian cougars in Yorba Linda. They went home liberated, though.
Michael McDonald's perfected this sensual trick where all he has to do is clamp his lips on a lady's soft places and sing into their scented flesh. No matter how many times he does it, it still drives them wild. So wild, a couple of women in the Modesto, CA PTA dug their nails about half an inch down his back.
It's a lot of sacrifice, but we'll do anything for justice.
And, of course, for lovers who love women, that's where my sisters of sensuality make their sultry scene. They know all the shivers and pleasures that hide inside a cold heart, and they enjoy bringing joy to the disenchanted.
Now, I make this plea to you! Donate your mind, your spirits, your sweet and sour loins to the banner of equality. Go out there and copulate with at least ten people today who may be voting for Prop 8. Don't offer your cookies until their swear , I mean - really swear, to reconsider after you soothe their savage beasts.
Love on, dear readers. Love on....
- Reginald Thurgood is known to his legions of fans as "THE SCHMOOZ," an international Rhythm and Blues singing sensation who has made love to thousands of women across the planet and loves to share every poetic detail. He answers all questions on love and relationship...as he is an expert, baby.
I braved the fierce Huntington Beach, CA elements this wicked and rainy morning to stand with me fellow citizens as the minutes ticked by before the polls be opened. Sure, a casual sort would putter away the experience with an absentee ballot, but this be no ordinary spot 'o voting. This be history. Every moment in this line was violent with history.
I was bedecked in me finest XXL crimson silk shirt, a pair of simple jeans, and me beard was brushed and shiny, festooned with dozens of hand-made ribbons.
With tensions high as they be, I eschewed me blade for a sharpened walking stick as me waiting companion, and listened to the sounds of citizens meeting strangers, connecting to one another through stories of their little ones, or what churches they attend, or the weather.
Simple, American talk. A pirate forgets how utterly normal and plain the world be for the land-lovers at large. Theirs be not the harsh life of the sword, the hour-long primal scream session ye instruct for a pirate crew out of touch with one another. It be a calming sort 'o feeling. Makes one glad to be out in the world, seeing mankind face to face. The line passed. I huddled into me voting booth, jabbed the punch card with a brisk, unmitigated passion, and collected that rare and glorious sticker: I voted.
Before I left the polling place, I spied a lone "Yes on Prop 8" banner, parked on the wet grass. It riled me blood. Polling places are holy ground. No politics of any kind can lurk there. To do so merits the wrath of a skilled swordsman.
With a single toss, I lifted the vile sign into the air, and before it made its way back to the soggy earth, I slashed it to pieces with me sharpened walking stick. Behind me, the line erupted into applause.
I blushed, took a simple bow, and left.
- Melvin the Pirate has written a number of self-help books, such as “The Treasure Map of Desire,” and “Which Wench is Which?.” He lives in Huntington Beach, CA with his partner and prize mastiff, Belvedere.
This ship ‘o state is charged and ready to make another mighty decision come the morrow. I trust all ye have registered for the historic occasion. Cast your ballots with courage, and cast with the desire to put the bad tidings behind us all. Again, to those Californians bonny and fair, I remind ye to look deep in yer hearts and strike down Proposition 8.
As a pirate, a therapist, and man who loves a good and honest man (a man with a penchant for flannel and bringing me homemade shortbread cookies in bed), it’s time to show the world that we be more civilized than they think. Besides, more pirates than not care for the male caress; ye really don’t want a blood storm of disenchanted ne’er do wells on yer hands.
This I vow; there be no fury like a pirate denied a good gay wedding.
To the mailbag!
Dear Melvin.
Why should I vote? It’s pointless. I live in a state where my choice for president is always picked, and every time I vote on the propositions, the crappy ones still get chosen, and the good ones get buried. My voice isn’t heard, so why bother?
Disgruntled in Decatur
Well, Disgruntled, I know too well the isolation and futility that can come from the democratic process. Don’t lose the small blossom of hope, however.
What voting is meant to do is to stir ye on to read as much information on all sides of the issues and bring divested knowledge into ye world. Being angry with the political mindscape means yer paying attention. Combine that fury with political activism, and ye’ll be striking down the heads of ye enemies with the noblest of purpose.
Dear Pirate Therapist,
I’ve got a huge problem. Every time I find myself at a party, I can’t stop bragging about my life. My hot wife, my fast car, my corporate account, how many sit-ups I can do in a minute. It just drives everybody crazy. How can I change my behavior before all my friends refuse to invite me to another social gathering?
The Big Shot in San Diego
Dear Big Shot, Here be an idea: Shut yer goddamned hole.
Just shut the wind bag that makes gloating its purpose the way a bakery makes bread.
Try this. Before ye arrive at a party, put about twenty caramels into ye gullet and chew them twice, then bite down on the candies and do not swallow. After about five minutes of pressure, the caramels will bind ye teeth together, making it nigh on difficult for a word to come forth from ye lips.
Ye’ll have no choice but to listen to other people all night, nodding and offering them a friendly pat or a kind eye.
Dear Melvin the Pirate,
As the Captain of me vessel, I find the hardest task to undertake be not the bloody purpose of battle, but with personnel affairs for me crew. For example, I’ve got a first mate who’s been nothing but useless since he began his new responsibilities, and yet the thought of demoting him back to cannon duty makes me so nervous I can barely keep me breakfast down. How can I summon the courage to send him back to the brass monkeys?
Captain Graves, the good ship Icarus
My condolences to yer plight, Captain Graves. It be much harder to be kind than it is to solve a problem with the edge of yer blade.
It’s time to take a deep breath and have a chat with yer first mate. Find out what he wants out of pirating, and offer to help him with his dreams. Odds are, ye’ll discover pretty quick that first mating’s not what fills him with purpose.
However, if ye discover that yer first mate wants to be the new captain of yer ship, slice his throat to the bone without pause, without remorse, and toss his vile body into the dark, briny deep.
- Melvin the Pirate has written a number of self-help books, such as “Making Yer First Mate Yer Best Mate,” and “A Time to Rape, and a Time to Respect Wenches.” He lives in Huntington Beach, CA with his partner and prize mastiff, Belvedere.
