Pirate Week Post #5: Arrr, The Big Wrap Up

I went to the Magic Bag last night w/ Stacey and we saw Gaelic Storm. I'd been wanting to check them out for quite a while and finally got the chance. They're a cool, up-tempo Irish group who play a bunch of fun drinking songs w/ absolutely amazing musicianship. A great Violinist, an accordionist who also played harmonica w/ some amazing Popperesque licks, a hand-drummer who had a really cool set of world drums, a great rhythm guitarist and a piper who, along w/ his traditional pipes, had an electronic bagpipe. I'd read about such things, but I didn't realize what they actually look like. While the chanter is basically the same as an acoustic bagpipe, the drone is produced in some sort of MIDI thing that also does away w/ the bag, leaving an extremely phallic instrument extending from the piper's waist. If you ever get the chance to see these guys, I would definitely recommend it. The only down side was that the inter song shtick was a bit canned. I was alright w/ it though since they are so fucking talented musically.

What does this have to do w/ pirates, you ask? Well, one song as about pirates and the singer even threw in a gratuitous "ARRR!" I assumed he'd benn reading this very blog, but I'm not certain. Anyway, I promised my little story about my Disney World experience, so here it goes. When I was about 4 1/2, we left my 6 month old sister w/ my grandparents at their house in FLA and headed to Orlando. Of course, this was before Mabel lost her leg, in fact it was way back when she could actually use her legs so watching my sister wasn't the problem it would have been later in our lives. At Disney Wold, I went on The Pirates of the Caribbean attraction and was hooked. I absolutely loved it. I even got a Disney pirate hat. A couple days later at my grandparents, I learned that my grandfather was in some sort of pirate re-enactment group. To fully understand this, you must know that the FLA Gulf coast it mad about buccaneers. Everywhere you go, there's some sort of pirate crap and I always loved every little bit of it. Well, my grandpa and his buddies were dressing up (even w/ stage make-up scars and stuff) and riding in a parade. He let me get dressed up and I went along. We were riding in the back of a pick-up truck, when my sweet new pirate ha blew off and I cried like the little boy I was. At this point, some crotchety old drunk dude in full pirate garb said, "Arrr... pirates don't cry about lost hats." here I was thinking they'd stop so I could get my hat, and he totally put me in my place. And he was right, pirates wouldn't cry about a lost hat. Lesson learned, and I was hooked for life, as is evidenced by the fact that Wendy wanted me to asterisk the films on the list below that I own. I went back and did that, and holy shit, I own a lot of this shit.