The Food Apocalypse Arrives

It occurs to me that I have readers now who may not know much about my cookbook. So I thought I should tell you a little about it (new site here.)

I can’t remember when I had the idea. It was probably in the Nineties. A little voice in my head told me to write the world’s unhealthiest cookbook and call it “Eat What You Want and Die Like a Man.” I coined that phrase, regardless of where you may have seen it since. I thought people were getting too damned self-righteous and contentious about food. People actually get angry when you talk about meat and lard and eggs and so on, and that’s insane. A person who can get angry about the food another person eats is a controlling person with no sense of boundaries. It’s nobody’s damn business what you eat.

Aside from that, the Food Nazis are attacking our culture. We accumulated a lot of food knowledge over the centuries, and these self-appointed dictators are erasing it from our memory. Want to know the real way to make a fried egg? You fry bacon in a cast iron skillet and fry the egg in the grease. Want to know what kind of shortening real biscuits are made with? Bacon grease. Or lard. The best pie crusts are made with lard. The best fries are cooked in beef fat. People have forgotten things like that, because of the damn Food Nazis. There are many dishes that simply can’t be made well without unhealthy ingredients. There is no such thing as a good, healthy cheesecake. There is no such thing as a good, healthy brownie. There is CRAP which people PRETEND is good. But it’s not.

I get sick of hearing people who don’t know what good food is, perpetuating the tired, transparent lie that you can cook just as well with healthy ingredients. And it irritates me that they’ve managed to get their awful vegetable grease and lowfat milk and so on into products like ice cream and cookies, which exist solely to taste good. It’s like putting a Prius engine in a Ferrari. It does not work.

Obviously, you shouldn’t eat fattening food every day. But what if you do? Isn’t that your right? Of course it is. You have a right to eat what you like. What you don’t have a right to do is to tell other people what they can put in their bodies. It’s a horrifying encroachment on a person’s most basic rights. Today they tell you you can’t drive an SUV or own a gun or eat a pizza. Tomorrow, they tell you which books you can read.

Once in a while, just for the experience, you should eat really good food, and sometimes that means food that’s loaded with fat or sugar or white flour or salt. And I can help you do that.

Even though all this is true, the food isn’t really the point of the book. The point was to have an excuse to write humor essays. I really let loose. I had a ball. I wrote a macaroni and cheese recipe in the voice of Hunter S. Thompson. I wrote doughnut recipes in the voices of Al Franken and Bill O’Reilly. I wrote a French fry recipe in the voice of Christopher Walken. Here’s a taste.

Soon we’re in Steve’s living room, and I’m sipping my Campari—which is a little strong, but I say nothing, because Christopher Walken is a gracious guest—while a couple of my boys hold Steve’s head under the water of his fifty-gallon fish tank.

Steve has tetras. Tetras and those other little—what do you call them?—dwarf cichlids. Little pansy fish that don’t even fight. I realize it is a matter of taste, but me, I always went for the heavy artillery. Oscars. Piranha. Small sharks. Some people feed their carnivorous fish goldfish. I fed mine Yorkies.

I cannot abide a small defiant dog that looks like a Slinky.

I give him a few minutes of that—in, out, gasp for breath, in, out, gasp for breath—while I check out his CD collection. I’m an LP man myself. Gotta have vinyl. Gotta. But he has some good stuff there. Hot Fives and Sevens, remastered. Sweet. Needs a little Bobby Vinton, of course, but maybe his tastes haven’t matured to the extent where he can fully appreciate the subtleties of “My Little Neon Rose.”

When the time is right, I have my boys pull his head out and sit him on the sofa and get him a towel and some Bosco. He has Bosco in his cupboard. I respect that. That bought him some points. I’m a Bosco man myself. Some guys like Ovaltine. That’s okay, I guess. I shot a guy in the face for drinking Ovaltine. Once. But I was young. Full of hormones. Exuberant. I would never do that now. Today I would be satisfied with slamming his head on the counter a couple times.

So I sit next to Steve and put my arm around him, and I ask if the Bosco is to his liking. And of course, it is. I showed my boys the right way to mix it. None of that business with the dark smear around the bottom of the glass, with spoon marks in it. The key to a good Bosco is thoroughness. The KEY, amigo.

I have a rule. If I see streaks of undissolved syrup in my Bosco, I got to snap somebody’s pinky toe. I don’t care whose. Finding the culpable toe is not my department. They can draw straws if they want. But somebody’s toe is going to snap. When they hear that snapping sound, it really drives the message home. Call it a mnemonic device. Snap two or three pinky toes at one shot, and you’ll be drinking well-mixed Bosco for a good five years before you have to snap another one.

“Steve,” I said, “it’s not that I don’t like your work. Truly, I am nothing if not a patron of the arts. Especially my first true love, which is the dance. I think you know my history.” And I got up and gave him my best Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. Lovely man, Bojangles. Got that monicker because he ate a lot of fried chicken. I prefer Popeye’s. But let’s not reopen that can of Pandora’s worms.

That’s the kind of thing I wrote. I’m thrilled with it. This is what I wanted to publish, back when I was only able to sell the Nigerian spam book and the caveman book. I wrote those books because I had to. I wrote this one because I wanted to.

If you bought the self-published version of this book, I thank you, but I have to tell you, you still need the big-time version. It’s longer. It has more recipes. The recipes are better. And the writing is better. The first version doesn’t compare.

I hope you’ll give it a try. I believe in this book more than I believed in anything I put on bookstore shelves in the past.

Just for reference purposes, I’ll close with a list of the chapters.

Chapter 1 – Ribs
Chapter 2 – How to Smoke Your [Boston] Butt
Chapter 3 – BBQ Beans, Texas Toast, & the Inevitable Blazing Saddles Reference
Chapter 4 – Breakfast as a Mind-Altering Drug
Chapter 5 – Chicken-Fried Rib Eye on a Huge Biscuit
Chapter 6 – Grease Burgers
Chapter 7 – Cornbread and Navy Beans
Chapter 8 – Turducken: Flight of the Hindenbird
Chapter 9 – Aged Prime Steak Cooked on a Propane Griddle
Chapter 10 – Champagne Chicken With Fettuccine in Cream Sauce
Chapter 11 – Smoked Pork and Andouille Jambalaya
Chapter 12 – Pizzeria-Style Baked Ziti With Sausage
Chapter 13 – Stuffed Hog With Apricot Glaze
Chapter 14 – Unauthentic White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Chili
Chapter 15 – Super-Giant Fried Patacon Tacos
Chapter 16 – Deep-Fried Chinese-Style Honey-Garlic Chicken
Chapter 17 – Rotis and Jamaican-Style Goat Curry
Chapter 18 – Doro Wat - Ethiopian Chicken Stew
Chapter 19 – Hash Brown Casserole with Cheddar and Sour Cream
Chapter 20 – Dreadfully Fattening Macaroni and Cheese
Chapter 21 – Twice-Fried Fries Cooked in Beef Fat
Chapter 22 – Perfect 10-Minute Street Pizza
Chapter 23 – Peach Cobbler
Chapter 24 – Yeast-Raised Fried Doughnuts With Coconut/Banana Sauce
Chapter 25 – Coconut Flan
Chapter 26 – 540-Calorie Brownies
Chapter 27 – Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Hot Fudge Dessert/PMS Remedy
Chapter 28 – Blueberry Butter Cheesecake
Chapter 29 – Baklava With Cheesecake Filling
Chapter 30 – Red Lager and Room-Temperature Brewed Ale
Chapter 31 – Five Greasy Pieces: Quick Recipes for the Hopeless

Bon appetit.

The Mall is Mine

While I was watching a show about hunting on a game ranch, I saw ads for another show, called “The Best and Worst of Tred Barta.” Have any of you heard of this guy?

I used to read Sport Fishing Magazine, and he had a column in it. To read it, and to look at the lean, buff, crewcut-wearing guy in the photo, you would think this guy was a super badass fresh out of the Marines. Duke Nukem, brought to life. He talked about how unbelievably sharp his hooks were, and how fanatical he was about this or that aspect of tuna fishing. He made fun of other fishermen for being wusses. The impression you got was that if you fished on his boat, everything would be shipshape and Bristol fashion, to an anal retentive extreme. He came across as the ruthless, indefatigable, super-meticulous Darth Vader of fish.

Then I read a piece by a guy who fished with him. As I recall, he said the boat was a mess and the radio was held in place by tape. And the operation was a Chinese fire drill from beginning to end.

A few years back, I caught a show where Barta stalked some sort of animal–deer, I think–with a bow. Where was Duke Nukem? I saw an old guy with a gut and glasses, with grey hair that needed a trim. And he kept missing. His son was with him, helping out. They seemed like any suburban dad (or granddad) and son, confused and ineffective on a rare excursion into the wilderness. And he wore the camo the way Mike Tyson wears a business suit.

I don’t know what to make of this guy. Is he the poser to end all posers, or is there something to him?

I just read that he has a new project. I kid you not. He wants to track a wild pig and kill it with a knife. Maybe he has already done it. Hmm…looks like he has. Some guy on a forum claims he watched the show, and that Barta and guide had dogs chase two pigs down for them, and then the guide held the pigs while Barta stabbed them. Can that be right? Seems unbelievably stupid.

I am not particularly brave around [live] pigs. I know how it feels to have an angry sow come after you and send you clambering up a fence. Still, give me a big sturdy assistant and a small enough pig and the right number of vicious dogs, and I think I could manage to bring home the bacon. I don’t know whether Barta’s act impresses me or not. I guess I would have to see the video.

There is fun macho, and then there is intervention-time, child-custody-losing, TRO-in-the-making macho. I could be totally happy sneaking up to wild pigs and blowing their brains out with a nice modern rifle. My macho needs do not require me to fight wild pigs naked in a UFC octagon. No, I save special times like that for oiled midgets.

Maybe Tred Barta is Steve Irwin, after turning to the Dark Side. Steve Irwin used to grab unsuspecting animals and annoy the crap out of them. Barta goes one step further, knifing them on camera. Maybe next time they should use background music from West Side Story. Breeze it, buzz it, easy does it…turn off the juice, Tred! I just have a feeling that some day we’re going to see video of the cops blasting this guy off the side of his house with a water cannon.

I have a great idea. I’ll do a similar show, aimed at suburban guys who don’t have time to drive out into the woods and molest legitimate game. I’ll have a crew film me while I break into Petsmart and bludgeon the puppies.

GUIDE: Watch him, Steve! I’d hate to lose a good man to a rogue Yorkie!

ME: [in full camo, with face paint, waving a machete at a pen full of inbred wiener dogs] DENTUSOS! BAD LUCK TO YOUR MOTHERS!

GUIDE: What?

ME: Quick! Hand me the ringer!

GUIDE: What?

ME: IT IS A GOOD DAY TO DIE! [slips on puddle of urine--possibly my own--cracks head on shelf covered with Kong toys]

GUIDE: That’s too bad. Let’s gut him before he spoils.

Next week on Outdoors With Steve H.: Steve fires up the gas-powered edger and cleans house at the petting zoo!

One great thing about me: I am totally frank and open about the fact that I am a wuss. As I have often said, I am not trying to compensate for anything, not because I’m secure, but because I’m positive my inadequacies are too grave to yield to compensation. This is why you will never see me stab a pig to death on camera. Although I am open to the possibility of waterboarding.

As always, you are welcome to weigh in with your ludicrous opinions, which I will ridicule and discard.

Om my God

I don’t understand why everyone thinks the Dalai Lama is such a great guy. He’s angry because the Chinese are oppressing Tibet, and instead of being all enlightened about it, he’s threatening to resign!

Is that childish, or am I crazy?

I’m wondering what “resign” means when you’re the Dalai Lama. “I refuse to stand around with a crazy grin on my face, pretending I know something everybody else doesn’t. I refuse to moan about peace without providing any constructive answers. I refuse to do photo ops with Richard Gere, who I hope is reincarnated as a gerbil. And later on today, I plan to to put on pants for the first time in my life and eat a big bloody steak.”

Just guessing.

Apparently, reincarnation figures into it. He refuses to be reincarnated again. Fine with me. Good riddance. People are sick of the Bushes and Clintons after two iterations. This guy has been hanging around for, what? Couple thousand lives? Move on, buddy. Give someone else a chance. They can’t screw up Tibet any more than you have.

It’s time for Groundhog Day to come to an end, Bill Murray. Even the NCAA is against redshirting. Get off the wheel, my little karmic hamster. Time to shuffle off this mortal Habitrail.

I have a news flash for the Lama. Your behind is going to be reincarnated whether you like it or not. You apparently do not understand the way it works. I’ll explain. The monks find themselves a kid, and then they interview him, and the interview goes like this.

MONK 1: Who’s a cute little Lama? Who’s a cute little ancient soul? OUCH! The little bastard bit me!

MONK 2: I don’t think this is the one. Observe how he flicks boogers on the sacred scrolls.

MONK 3: Don’t get too close. The little creep flung its bowl at me and nailed me in the ajna chakra.

MONK 1: Here, put some of this on it.

MONK 3: “Karm-On: Apply directly to the chakras.”

MONK 2: Their commercials are vexing, but their product really works.

MONK 1: So what do we do with his holiness, here? [dodges flying incense holder]

MONK 3: Well, we can assume he’s the One. Or we can go home, sell the monastery, become Baptists, and get actual jobs.

MONK 1: Dear God. I cannot go back to selling area rugs.

[PAUSE]

MONK 2: Welcome back, enlightened one! Your Rolls is waiting! [puts the new Lama in a headlock and drags him toward the door]

MONK 1: I’ll call Steven Seagal.

Why resign? Why not just retire? After all, you’re over sixty-five, and we already have a new Lama. Of course, I am referring to Lama Obama, AKA the Dalai Obama, may his rice cakes never grow rancid. Heals the sick, raises the dead, and walks on bottled water. Parts the Potomac while reversing male pattern baldness. The Dalai Lama is old and busted. Lama Obama is the new hotness. Rumor has it Tim Russert is carrying his child.

The Lama is getting a little foggy in the head anyway. He is inviting the Chicoms to come in and vet his operation. He says, “Check our various offices …They can examine my pulse, my urine, my stool, everything.”

Yes, I believe Reagan said something like that during the SALT talks. “Trust…but verify my stool.” I know little about business, but I have a feeling most executives don’t propose a merger by inviting corporate raiders to audit their excrement.

My daring bet? The Lama has failed to make the Chinese an offer they can’t refuse.

I wouldn’t tell the Lama how to run his [current] life, but I would be very hesitant to give up a high-paying gig where my job description consists of “dodder around in a sheet looking vaguely stoned.”

If he does quit, I am willing to be a Lama temp and serve out his term. I mean, there would be changes. I would be unwilling to wear the signature orange sheets, except in front of the press and maybe on Halloween. And that vegetarian craziness…that’s got to go. Nonviolence is not a problem, as long as the Underlamas respect my legal right to carry a piece.

Anyway, I am available. My stool is already on file.

A couple of things have gotten my attention over the last day or so. First, the disturbing trend toward militance in the textile hobbies.This is just too weird for me to swallow. I know someone who knows someone who knits. And the person who knits writes books about knitting. And I am sure they are the finest books you can possibly own, and I intend no criticism whatsoever, and I hope you buy as many knitting books as you can carry. Just so we are clear on that.

But I took a look at this person’s website. And it nearly gave me nightmares. Because apparently, there is a global community of militant punk knitters. And…I swear to God, you can check this out for yourself…they have started calling themselves “fiber artists.” And the impression I get is that they have factions that battle like the Judean liberation activists in The Life of Brian. Like Stalinists and Trotskyites. Like upright, virtuous consumers of the wonder that is Miracle Whip, and the low-foreheaded, baby-eating scum that slurp the foul, rancid, French excretion known as Mayonnaise.

You capitalize “Mayonnaise,” right? Maybe not. It’s named after a place, damn it. But then we don’t capitalize “hamburger.” Or “johnson.”

I’m trying to imagine what punk knitters do. Maybe they knit stuff into each other’s flesh, in a gruesome fiber updating on the punk practice of wearing safety pins inserted in the skin. Maybe they knit sweaters with obscene slogans, although it’s hard to imagine what could pass for obscene these days. Obscenity used to be easy. Now you really have to work at it. We live in a time when the biggest risk you face when peeing on a cross is that Uncle Sam might cut off your allowance.

I remember a quaint era when knitted goods didn’t have to make a statement. Although some did. Some made the statement, “My mom makes me wear mittens in September, so push me in the mud.” Some made the statement, “I am a grown man who likes clothing with reindeer on it.” Others, such as a wool hat worn in August, made the statement, “Lock your doors and don’t make eye contact. Because I am a crackhead.” But that was pretty much it. Back then you couldn’t really look at a knitted item and come away with the wearer’s opinions on things like Eurocentrism or eating disorders or Halliburton.

The thing that I fear is that radical knitters (not my phrase, believe it or not) are going to start using their powers for evil. Any day now, a radical knitter upset about the price of yarn is going to knit himself a pantsuit from cordite and set himself off at a major sporting event. And then the world will be sorry it ignored me and called me a goof and blocked my important IMs. You know who you people are. You’ll be sorry when people in food courts and subway cars start losing limbs to exploding radical-knitter suicide pants.

I’m also upset about the new idea, which predictably comes from California, that we should recycle and drink our own toilet water.

Actually, Kentucky was here first. I have relatives in a town called Stanton, and it’s upriver from a town called Clay City. And if I recall correctly, the intake for the Stanton municipal water supply is just downstream from the Clay City poop tube. Now, obviously, the poop is cooked or seasoned or perfumed or something. It’s not like it goes straight from the toilet into somebody else’s Jack and Coke. But at some point in time, some of the water people drink in Stanton was, in fact, in contact with poop. So I guess Stanton is all green and carbon-neutral and stuff. Or maybe Clay City just has a small poop footprint. Science has always baffled me.

I love the term “footprint,” by the way. Today I saw someone use it in connection with water. A “water footprint.” So I have decided to jump on the footprint bandwagon. Here is my new term: “BS footprint.” If you’re going to read my writing, beware, because I have a really big BS footprint. And I have no plan for becoming BS-neutral. You have been warned.

I guess the poop plan isn’t that bad. I mean, I’ve drunk water from creeks, and we all know what fish do in it. And apparently they plan to pump the water onto the surface of the ground and let it filter through aquifers and so on. It’s not like there’s a tap attached to your toilet bowl. I think I’ve identified the real problem with water from poop. They TOLD us about it. Why couldn’t they keep it to themselves, like chicken companies that throw tumors into the sausage grinder? I’ll bet I’ve eaten five or six hundred chicken tumors, and I enjoyed every one, because I had no idea I was eating it. You know what? If you’re positive the poop water is safe and clean, hook me up to the system right now. But have the common decency to lie to me. I don’t think I’m out of line when I tell you I can’t handle the truth.

I demand a pleasant and comforting lie. I believe I have that right. The Good Book says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” and I lie practically every time I open my mouth. So while I may be a total coward, you can’t say I’m inconsistent.

I’m cool with water from poop. I just hope the radical knitters aren’t opposed to it. I don’t want them to start climbing up on water towers, unfurling angry, misspelled knitted banners, and detonating their cordite underwear.

Honestly, sometimes I wonder who’s really running the world. God, or Tim Burton.

Couched in Terms You Can Understand

I had a lot of fun on Nowlive last night. Mike was in top form, and Moxie stuck it out for the duration. Which was very impressive, given that I stayed on the air for hours. I was going to quit after 90 minutes, but Moxie persuaded me to stick around a short while longer, and I ended up in a marathon session.

Reader BigWyo kept trying to call in, but he had technical problems and had to put up with a certain amount of heckling from the chatters. Thanks for trying, dude.

One of the more interesting topics covered: intelligent choices to make when you’re obese and know you’re going to end up physically “welded” to a couch. I can list a few of the more important ideas.

1. Choosing an obesity couch is a pivotal task in your life, like selecting a design for a tattoo, buying a Costa Rican timeshare, or picking a life partner. Make sure you choose wisely. Consider things like your skin’s natural tone and whether you prefer an absorbent couch or one that sheds fluids. And remember, once you and the couch are one, it’s too late to think about lumbar support.

2. Speaking of tattoos, a couch can be helpful when you’re nervous about committing. If you’re just not sure you want to be marked for life, have the artist tattoo a section of the couch near your body. That way if you get tired of the design, you can always replace a fabric panel or cover the tattoo with a throw pillow.

3. If you’re in a bad marriage and you and your partner are both morbidly obese, make sure you don’t become welded to different ends of the same couch. It won’t do you much good to divorce if you’re three feet away from each other, bickering over the remote and trying to steal each other’s food.

4. Try not to allow your entire family to become welded to couches. Someone has to have mobility in order to be the enabler. Those Ding Dongs won’t carry themselves home from Costco.

5. Don’t waste money on a convertible couch. There is no way you’ll be able to open it, and the mattress will become a home base for the rats and roaches that depend on your crumbs.

6. If you’re on a budget, consider becoming welded to a recliner. They’re cheaper than couches. Added bonus: when it comes time for the paramedics to take out a wall and use a forklift or crane to remove you from the premises, it will be much easier to load you onto the flatbed.

Here I am, Catching a Lift to Costco7. If you’re politically progressive, try to become welded to a couch from IKEA. They’re gay-friendly. Possible alternative: become welded to a futon.

Is it okay to make fun of huge people with tragic weight problems that will eventually kill them? Yes. And here is the reason. There is no way they can run fast enough to catch me. Although if one of them comes after me in an electric cart, stick a fork in me, because I’m done. Some of those things cruise at upwards of twelve knots. I’m serious. The other day I saw one with a blower on it. Of course, that guy was trying to catch an ice cream truck so he could jack it.

It was the first time I had ever seen a “drift” obesity cart.

We also discussed my notion of buying a late-Fifties GM truck and restoring it, but nobody cared.

We talked a little bit about the tasing of Andrew Meyer, and I think most of us agreed that it was merely a good start. I don’t know much about police procedure, but it seems to me that tasing would have to be more effective and satisfying if combined with pepper spray. My condensed version of his Youtube video is getting lots of interest. I have had several comments describing me as “ignorent” and “an ase.”

Here, in case you missed it earlier this week. I promise, it will brighten your morning.

Okay, someone start the flatbed. I have to get to Costco before they run out of giant diapers.

Originally posted at Hog on Ice.

I know I’m behind on columns, but I have a bunch of irons in the fire right now. I haven’t forgotten about you.

Here’s an example of some of the things I’ve been doing. It’s an educational cooking video I made to go along with my upcoming book, Eat What You Want and Die Like a Man - The World’s Unhealthiest Cookbook.

Enjoy.

Dear, dear friend. I must apologize for my neglect. I know it has been weeks since last we chatted, and you must have been terribly hurt that I failed to keep in touch. Please. Forgive me. And ask me to come in, for God’s sake. Don’t make me ruin our joyful reunion with a lesson on basic manners.

I’ll just sit here on the couch while you hustle into the kitchen and make me a nice cold Stoli and Bosco.

IMMEDIATELY.

I lost touch because I was busy. New movie–perhaps more on that later–and I’m also branching out into cooking. I did this thing on the Internet. A video featuring a chicken.

You laugh? Oh. Please. Tell me you laugh WITH me. “Friend.” I come here to relax and have a Bosco with a favorite chum. Don’t tell me I have to get up now, shake the lint off the ice pick, and have Benny and Seymour come over. And J-B Weld you to a vertical surface.

The front of the fridge, perhaps. Is that stainless? Nice.

Oh, you just find chickens funny. A personality quirk. I had a cousin who was the same way about donkeys. Of course, he was retarded. But okay, okay. I forgive you. Now hurry up with that Bosco, because Christopher Walken is a man finds it hard to be congenial when he is parched.

Thank you. No, it’s fine. Really. A little ice would have been nice. A little ice, and you could have blended it for me and put it in a nicer glass with some fruit garnish and maybe a paper umbrella in it. I think that is just common sense. But you know me. Ever the gracious guest.

I had this same problem a few months back when I paid a visit to Martha Stewart. She served me U-Bet instead of Bosco and thought I would not notice. And I got a little cross, and she cracked wise, and I’m afraid we danced a bit. Heavy into muy thai, Martha is. You would not suspect it from her size. And I’m sorry to say her expertise availed her little. But I was gracious, like I’m trying to explain. While she was out cold, I dabbed the little flecks of blood on her Vera Wang blouse with a laundry pen. Those things really work. Although not if you throw acid on a guy, because then there are holes.

U-Bet. Foul. Who drinks that stuff? Jews, I guess.

Don’t get the wrong idea. Christopher Walken is a diehard ally of the Chosen People. It has been said of me more than once that I have kreplach in my soul. But here’s how it is. I don’t tell them about diamonds or kabbalah. And they don’t tell me about chocolate sauce.

So. The chicken.

The truth is, I had no desire to do a cooking video. It was not supposed to go down like that. What really happened was, this chicken and I had a beef. This chicken, I felt, had failed to show me the proper respect. So I dealt with it. And before I could dispose of the evidence, a camera crew barges in. Which happens when, like me, you are a matinee idol and your life is public property.

I was standing there with a dead chicken and blood all over my hands, so I had to do something. Otherwise, you know what happens. TMZ.com. I’d get the Brad Garrett treatment.

You can’t slap them around, unfortunately. You have to turn on the charm. You can’t just say “Drop that camera, you strunz, or so help me God I’ll sew your head onto this chicken and sell you to a circus.”

What did the chicken do to arouse my wrath? It slashed my tires and sent pizzas to my house. What do you think it did? How many things can a chicken do? It crapped in my yard. Up in Golden Beach.

Don’t even ask me where it came from. When I visit my vacation home in South Florida, nothing surprises me. I assume it was a Santeria chicken. You know. That Cuban voodoo garbage. Those people can’t make a move without a chicken on the payroll.

It could have come from any direction. Daisy Fuentes lives on one side. On the other, Walter Mercado. You know. Mercado. The Puerto Rican astrology fegeleh. It’s like Jeanne Dixon and Arianna Huffington had a baby with Liberace.

I guess you’re not a Univision fan. Just as well. Not everyone is ready for the subtleties of Porcel and the gatitas.

This chicken was wandering around the compound, and I was sitting on the deck trying to enjoy a Bosco while Benny buried a midget under my poinciana tree, and I kept yelling. “HEY. CHICKEN. DON’T DISRESPECT MY YARD, MY FRIEND. DON’T TAKE US TO THAT PLACE THIS EARLY IN THE DAY, WHILE THE HOLE UNDER THE POINCIANA TREE IS STILL OPEN AND I HAVE YET TO FINISH MY BOSCO.”

And the chicken looks right at me and drops a giant load on my salvia divinorum. Which Mickey Rourke was planning to make into a refreshing salad.

Mick still lives with me. Out of necessity. You want some more Latin? “Dementia pugilistica.” Sounds like one of Caesar’s girlfriends or the name of a gaudy shrub, but it’s actually the sad, sad aftereffect of Mick’s tragic infatuation with the squared circle. He wanders around under the mango trees, in his rollerblades and bikini briefs, feinting and bobbing and occasionally pawing at the cobwebs, to remove them from the foliage. And of course, the cobwebs aren’t really there. Any more than the giant orange hamster named “Morris” that dances in the living room of the caretaker’s shack while Mick hangs from his gravity boots, trying to watch MTV Cribs.

Salvia divinorum is highly hallucinogenic, so it exacerbates Mick’s delusions, but Mick says it’s crunchy and delicious, and I figure, what’s the harm? Mick likes it, and Morris says he enjoys the company. The other day Mick said he was having a tea party for Morris, Abraham Lincoln, a guy in a diver’s suit, and a talking beaver. I don’t know whether they drank the tea or smoked it.

So anyway, this chicken had to be dealt with. I’m talking buckwheats. Because if I let him get away with this, soon everyone would think they could crap in my yard. Right now, I limit that privilege to Mick, and that’s only because there’s no choice.

Oh, at first I gave the chicken a chance. I said, “I’m giving you an out. You got forty-eight hours. Put it in the wind. Leave Golden Beach. Go to Rome. Visit the Vatican. Pray to the Santeria god you abandoned back at Walter’s house. Just put it in the FREAKIN’ wind, chicken, or else…I got to do you, too. Like the midget under the poinciana tree.” And I would have let him go. Only he didn’t listen. In fact, he gave me the high hat. The high hat, from a stinking two-bit Cantinflas-watching voodoo chicken. It was too bad I didn’t have any new boys on hand, because this would have been a great chance for one of them to make his bones. Only they would have been chicken bones.

So anyway, I whacked the chicken. Told it I was Godzilla and it was Japan. And after I whacked it, the film crew wandered in, and I did what any seasoned performer does. I improvised. And I let the crew guys taste it, and I saved the rest. And the next day, I wrapped it in a copy of El Miami Herald and sent it to Walter Mercado with a note reading, “Next time a Santeria chicken craps in my yard, this is you, amigo.”

And that is the sad story of the chicken. The Santeria chicken that, hopefully, became a proverb and a warning. At least over at Mercado’s house.

Okay. I have to go. Mick is in the car, and I had to take the keys and roll the windows up, so he’s probably getting a little warm. If I leave the keys, he tends to lead the cops on meandering low-speed chases and then claim Morris was driving. Perhaps you have a little Gatorade I could take him? Or Powerade? Yes, orange is fine. I would rather have Mango Xtremo, which is Mick’s favorite flavor, and frankly I find your failure to keep it on hand thoughtless, but let’s not start with the criticism again. It gets my blood pressure up and makes me tense, and there is only so much room at the base of the poinciana tree.

Maybe if you’re lucky I’ll come back and tell you about my new movie.

Until then, my friend, boat drinks. Yes?

Yes.

I’m back!

Very sorry I haven’t been updating. I had a deadline on a new book, and I was doing PR for my last book, and I let this site go. But things are returning to normal, and I plan to start doing new columns and updating again.

So you’ll know what I’ve been working on, I’m giving you a sample. My publisher decided it wanted a funny take on cavemen. Long story. I’ve explained elsewhere. I decided to give it a shot, and we signed a deal, and the book will be published in October, coinciding roughly with the premiere of the GEICO caveman series. My editor, Gary Goldstein, named the book Just Chew ‘Til it Stops Kicking, taking the name from the subtitle of the “food” chapter.

I’ll show you the quick introductory material I wrote in order to land the contract. It has been polished up a bit since I first wrote it. The rest of the book is pretty similar. It may not be a monument in the landmark of American literature, but I had fun writing it, and I think you’ll get a few laughs out of it.

INTRODUCTION

Last year, I received a peculiar email. A man claiming to be a regular reader of my website said he had made a special discovery of great importance to humanity. He said he had tried to interest the mainstream press in it, but they had blown him off. Because I had written about controversial subjects such as the deplorable lack of pension and insurance benefits in the little-person erotic entertainment industry, he felt that I would be more inclined to have an open mind.

I am not sure he realized I was a humorist. I get that a lot. I probably wasn’t the best person for the job. However—having no life—I decided to pursue the matter. And before you know it, he had offered to pay my travel expenses, if I would just fly to Arkansas and hear him out.

I soon found myself on the tarmac at Hot Springs Airport, strolling past the ever-present chickens and pigs as they gleaned discarded French fries and bits of slaw from the side of the runway. Inside the terminal, standing as far as possible from the drug-sniffing dogs, I saw an elderly, bespectacled man holding up a cardboard sign reading “Graham.” That was my first glimpse of my host, former Cambridge archaeologist Wilfred P. Drambuie-Mason.

In the parking lot, he cleared away the empty pint bottles and Grateful Dead cassettes that filled the passenger seat of his aging Volvo, and he drove me to the nearest Motel 6, where he had already prepared my room. On a card table sat an Eighties-vintage slide projector filled with images related to his work. He sat me in a desk chair and began showing slides. At first I was a bit uncomfortable with his terse lecture style, but we both began to loosen up as the drinks he mixed took effect.

DRAMBUIE-MASON:

[clicking projector remote] Do you see?

ME:

Yes.

DRAMBUIE-MASON:

[click] Do you SEE?

ME:

Yes. Say, what’s that odd, slightly bitter taste in my frozen Margarita? I kind of like it.

DRAMBUIE-MASON:

Nothing to worry about. A little seasoning I picked up during my studies in Oaxaca. [click] Do you see?

ME:

How did these glowing butterflies get in the room?

DRAMBUIE-MASON:

I should have warned you about those. They’re quite harmless. Unless you provoke them.

ME:

I had no idea butterflies could sing. Get outta here, you little gadgets!

DRAMBUIE-MASON:

Blast. I forgot the duct tape. I’ll have to keep a careful eye on you.

ME:

I feel fine, Mommy. Let me know when the pancakes are done.

The gist of the story is this: while exploring the hills overlooking an agate quarry near the remote town of Chicken Bend, Drambuie-Mason made a startling find. There, on the walls of humble, soot-stained caves, he found primitive art and picture-writing dating back to five million BC.

Using state-of-the-art linguistics software developed by NASA in the search for extraterrestrial life, he managed to translate many of the image-series into modern English. The result? A spellbinding narrative of primitive life, in the voice of “Hal,” a Miocene Era everyman.

Drambuie-Mason’s translations overturn one historical preconception after another. They show that early man inhabited central Arkansas long before better-known sites such as Africa’s Olduvai Gorge. That more than one race of primitives occupied the area during that time. That giant creatures thought to have become extinct at the end of the Cretaceous Era were in fact alive and well in Arkansas’ jungles, rivers, and inland sea.

I shivered as Drambuie-Mason recounted Hal’s stories about prehistoric life (although that may have been my body’s reaction to the herbs he put in my drink). I marveled at tales of Hal’s encounters with other primitive races with which his kind shared the American heartland. I gaped with wonder at Hal’s complaints about dinosaurs using his relatives as throw pillows.

Controversial? Certainly. Likely to be linked by cynics to to Dr. Drambuie-Mason’s well-known penchant for cappuccino colonics laced with peyote? Without doubt. But then controversy also followed Titanic producer James Cameron when he presented an astounded world with Jesus’s swingset. And we all know how that turned out.

At the end of the lecture, or rather the following Tuesday, when I awoke naked under a nearby overpass, I decided to help Drambuie-Mason by writing this book. It‘s a collection of items from Hal’s diary, expressed in his own voice. In the pages that follow, Hal covers just about every aspect of caveman life, from tool-making to hunting to strategies for not becoming a velociraptor stool.

All that awaits you, and more. But before we begin, a sample. A brief excerpt from Hal’s voluminous works. To accustom you to his voice and prepare you for the crude “essays” that lie ahead.

Wednesday July 9

5,000,037 B.C.

Man, what a morning. Some days it barely pays to leave the cave.

I got up and walked outside, and right away I realized I’d stepped in something. Tyrannosaurus pie. Up to my waist. Great. Just when you’ve rolled in all the right stuff and gotten your scent the way you want it, something like this happens. And tyrannosaurus is last year’s smell. The guys down by the big communal fire are going to have a ball with this.

Like any rational person, I hooted and beat my chest and flailed my arms. Then I pulled myself out and went to check on the mastodon jerky I set out to dry yesterday. Naturally, it was gone. A whole day of hunting and gathering, shot to hell.

I can’t stand tyrannosauruses. I wish I could figure out some way to kill the darn things. Unfortunately I have a one-inch forehead and zero capacity for abstract thought. Maybe my grandkids will come up with something, if there’s anything to this “evolution” stuff. The Andersons claim their nephew has no protruding brow ridge. Smug bastards. I think they held him down and beat it in with a rock.

Invasive medical procedures to modify your body purely out of vanity seem idiotic and primitive to me. Surely we’ve made more progress than that.

I decided to go down to the tar pits and see if there was anything worth pulling out and dragging home. And of course, the good stuff—the bison and elk—had already been picked over.

I found one of the neighbors sinking into the goo. Herb Peters. He was pretty upset. I thought about whacking him with my club and making some more jerky, but…cannibalism? It’s so Oligocene Epoch. It’s just not hip any more.

I pulled him out, and then we put on the usual aggression displays and went about our business. He just hopped up and down and made barking noises, but I stepped it up a notch by throwing dirt in the air. I think he was impressed.

I better not catch him stealing my material.

I found some pretty berries on the way home. I wondered, should I pick these and feed them to the family? I decided against it. All the other times we’ve eaten these things, a whole bunch of people died. My wife Susan thinks there might possibly be some connection.

Women. They’re good for grooming your back hair and cooking your meat and all. But they’re basically two udders in search of a brain.

I went over to see the chimps, to find out if they had found any good termite mounds to raid. I got nowhere with that. Frankly, they were distant. I know what the problem is. Here we are, standing more or less upright and using language, and well, look at them. Stuck in the past. Running around on all fours like a bunch of creodonts. If they were only a little more open to intermarriage, crap like this wouldn’t happen to them.

And now they feel resentful.

Some of those chimp chicks are hot. And it wouldn’t hurt them to marry up to a full biped. But I guess old ways die hard. Chimps are big on tradition. When a chimp comes up with a new way of doing things, do they pick ticks off him and bring him dead lizards and make him feel special? Hell no. They pull him apart and throw his head in the tar pit. Schmucks.

I could tell my club made them feel inferior. Is that my fault? It’s not like I was waving it under their noses. And it’s not a status symbol. It’s a tool. I mean, yeah, I decorated it with some green stuff that came out of an antelope spleen, and it’s probably the most bitchin’ tricked-out club within a day’s walk, but dang, can’t a guy have a little style? What am I? Amish?

I swear, chimps have absolutely no game. I don’t mean to sound like a racist or anything.

Long story short, I ended up bringing home bear dung again. And of course, I caught hell from Susan. She’s always putting me down because no one in her family has opposable big toes. She thinks I’m too stupid to be a good provider because my forebrain is so small. Always with the size jokes. Great way to build my confidence when I’m psyching myself up for a mastodon hunt or something.

I told her, it’s not like I’m a monkey or anything. I’m not like my grandpa, who ate with one foot while using the other to pick his nose. With effort, I can pick up and manipulate small objects. Big deal. She’s not perfect. Her mom has posture like a gorilla. She actually has calluses on her nipples.

The kids got on my back, too. Literally. I brushed them off with my club and told them there were chimp kids who would give anything for a handful of fresh bear dung full of undigested blueberries. It’s loaded with antioxidants. But you know how kids are these days. If it isn’t mastodon or bison, they turn up their noses at it, which is saying a lot, considering the way their noses look to start with.

I fear for the next generation. When I was a kid and my dad brought home dung, I took it and thanked him for it and called him “sir,” or a guttural noise to that effect. These kids today, they have no idea what it’s like to grow up in the tail end of an ice age and have to work for a living. Spoiled punks. Back in my dad’s day, they would never have gotten away with it. My brother Manny had an attitude like that. And guess what happened to him? Jerky. That’s what old-time dads were like.

I miss Dad. I still use his femur to open Brazil nuts.

Late last year I received one of those subtle clues that I am old and at any moment, likely to die. It happened when I stupidly tried to ride a bicycle.

Right away, you can see how foolish I was. A man my age does not ride a bicycle. A man my age gets a giant tricycle with a huge basket for groceries, and his grandchildren buy him tassels for the handlebars, and he rides it back and forth to the drugstore when he needs a fresh box of diapers. And he rides in the middle of the street so traffic backs up behind him for miles, and he can’t hear the honking because he has ear hair.

You’ve seen this guy. If you live in South Florida, you’ve seen thousands of him. He’s like Agent Smith in The Matrix Revolutions. He rides up and down the road ringing his bell, muttering, “Get out of the way, Mister Anderson. I have to get to Costco to purchase Metamucil.”

That should be me, but I had this crazy idea that I could buy a ten-speed just like the one that was stolen out of the storage closet at my mother’s condo in 1983, and that I could hop on and ride without problems.

First of all, “ten-speed” is no longer part of our language. There is no such thing as a ten-speed. There are twenty-four-speeds and twenty-seven-speeds. But it sounds stupid to call them that. So we now label bikes by class. Here are examples.

1. Road bikes. This is what ten-speeds turned into when they started jacking up the number of gears. They have droopy handlebars, and seats resembling an ashtray on a pole. If you ride one of these you are required by law to wear a stretchy shirt with a lot of advertisements on it. Because when you wear a shirt like that, and you wheel your big jiggly Jell-O behind around your neighborhood at four miles an hour, weaving and holding a lit cigarette, people think you’re a professional bike racer.

2. Mountain bikes. These are heavy-duty bikes with springy suspensions, lots of gears, and huge knobby tires built to take the punishment of leaping from cliff to cliff in the Rocky Mountains. Naturally, people buy them to ride on flat city streets in places like Phoenix and Detroit. They’re the bike equivalent of SUVs. You know how SUVs are. You pay five thousand dollars for extra transmission parts, so you can have the four-wheel-drive traction you need. To back out of your paved driveway in Fort Lauderdale. To the best of my knowledge, no one outside of a Mountain Dew commercial has ever actually ridden a bike on a mountain. Except maybe on “Jackass.”

3. Comfort bikes. This is like a La-Z-Boy recliner on wheels. The handlebars are high, so people can see your shiny bell. The seat is low, so you can straddle it with both white loafers on the ground. A really good one has a place to mount a beer cooler.

I went to a bike store, where the thirty-year-old guy who waited on me called me “sir,” and I took a few bikes out in the parking lot and rode them around to see what worked. I tried a comfort bike, but it was disappointing. The TV kept slipping off the handlebars. It was very comfortable, but it might as well have been equipped with a bullhorn repeating the warning, “DANGER! OLD MAN APPROACHING!”

I tried a road bike with drop handlebars. Not a hardcore road bike, but a special one for geezers, with a slightly less miserable seating position. And still, my face was an inch from the front tire, and my rear end was so far over my head it was technically in front of me. A couple of times, I actually ran over it.

The third thing I tried was a flat-bar road bike. This is a road bike with straight mountain-bike-style handlebars and a seat that’s supposed to be really comfy because instead of being the size of a hockey puck, it’s nearly as big and soft as a clenched fist. It was faster than the comfort bike and it seemed more comfortable than the road bike, so I bought it. Then the sales guy started crying because I reminded him of his grandfather.

I put a GPS bike computer on it, so when I finally got run over or had a coronary, the cops could upload the bike’s path to a computer and see where I came from. So they’d know where to dump the body. And I put blinking LED lights on the front and back of the bike, so people would be able to see me and avoid hitting me. Or, given the way Miami drivers think, see me in time to aim.

I was very surprised to learn that the same bike which seemed so comfortable in the parking lot was torture to ride for ten miles. It bent my wrists. Well, actually, my fat bent my wrists. And the grips pressed into my hands and made them numb. And the seat was like sitting on a doorknob. That’s a big deal. I got on the Internet and read about it, and it turns out bicycle seats make a lot of men impotent. I want no part of that. I want to become impotent the healthy, normal way. I figure I have about three months left. I want to make the most of them.

After months of buying accessories, I’ve gotten it to work. I have a Hobson seat, which is hornless and has separate halves to provide independent support for mammoth middle-aged buttocks. I had to butcher my bike to get it to work, but it was better than flying to China. To buy new genitals removed from a political prisoner. Chinese transplant genitals are like their other exports. Not as good as American, but you can’t beat the price.

I also got Ergon grips, which spread the pressure out and reduce the hand pain from unbearable to annoying.

I refuse to wear a helmet, and I’m pretty sure I’m violating the law by wearing Bermuda shorts instead of the highly extroverted John Kerry kind. Nobody needs or wants that much information about my lower body unless he has a name ending in “MD.” Comfort is important. But you must also think of the children.

I guess I’ll be out there again tonight. Now that the bike works, I’m out of excuses. Damn the luck. In case you see me while you’re driving, let me apologize now for taking up so much of the lane. I’d ride on the sidewalk. But I’m not sure it can support my weight.

See this page to find out what this “pirate” crap is doing on my site.

One of the most annoying things about pirates is the way they talk. They use strange words, and they often growl as though struggling to overcome constipation. But if you want to be a full-throttle bull-goose pirate, you’re going to have to step up to the plate and master the lingo.

Here is a useful list of some of the most important terms and their definitions, presented in the order in which I made them up.

1. Ahoy - A corruption of the Yiddish word “oy,” which means something like “geez” or “criminy.” Many early pirates were Jewish, and upon sighting a juicy cargo vessel, they would exclaim something like, “OY, mateys, break out the shabbos goys!”

2. Arrrrrhh - You will also see this spelled “aargh” and even “yarghh.” This is the “aloha” of pirating. Probably the most useful item in the pirate vocabulary, because it can mean almost anything. Here are a few examples.
a. Hi.
b. Bye.
c. I am relieved.
d. I am angry.
e. I have a migraine.
f. Pull those knees up and hold my beer for me.
g. Are you going to eat that weevil?

3. Avast - An exclamation of surprise, derived from an old Sanskrit phrase meaning, “By Vishnu’s grace I have filled my trousers.” Hindu pirates used to utter this phrase upon sighting Mogul patrol vessels bearing down on them with loaded cannons. The meaning of “avast” has been corrupted down through history to the degree that, like “arrrrhh,” it can mean almost anything. Including “land ho,” “look out,” “good afternoon,” and “ouch.”

4. Belay - A corruption of the word “delay.” “On account of rain, the gang rape on the poopdeck has been belayed.”

5. Heave to - A misspelled reference to seasickness. As in, “The ship rolled, making me stumble. And heave, to.”

6. Batten down the hatches - “Hatches” comes from a Dutch word meaning “pants, “ and “batten” means “pull forcefully.” If you hear this expression on a pirate ship, hide in a lifeboat.

7. Hearties - Sex partners. As in, “Gather ‘round, me hearties, and batten down the hatches.”

8. Swab - A lot of people think this means a lowly pirate who mans a mop. In truth, it means exactly what it looks like it means. Pirates have a lot of earwax.

9. Sea dog - A cat. Pirates aren’t very smart.

10. Shiver me timbers - Another phrase that comes to us from the Dutch. “Timbers” is a corruption of the word “tjimbjers,” which means “nipples.” “Shiver” arose from “shiivjer,” which means “to gently pinch.”

11. Matey - A catch-all term, which can mean “friend,” “stranger,” “enemy,” “salsa partner,” or even “I won the chess game.”

12. Powder magazine - A place below decks where pirates go to apply powder and read magazines.

13. Poopdeck - Where the heads are located.

14. Gunwale - The upper edge of the side of a vessel. Good thing to grab while heaving to.

15. Cat o’ nine tails - A deformed sea dog.

16. Yardarm - An ordinary yardstick, used as a weapon by a pirate on a budget.

17. Binnacle - Where a barnacle used to be.

18. Scuttlebutt - Gossip, or a person who has infected rat bites, or “scuttles,” on his butt.

19. Scurvy - This is a disease which causes body parts to deteriorate and even fall off. The only pirate disease not caused by promiscuity, alcoholism, or filth. Remedied by consumption of vitamin C. A smart pirate always stocks his galley with plenty of Tang.

20. Mizzen mast - Where a mast used to be.

21. Port - The left side of the boat, which traditionally faces the port while the ship is moored. “Moored” means “attached to a fat dirty man who makes fanciful documentaries.”

22. Starboard - The side of the vessel facing the nearest Starbucks.

23. Fifty Lashes - What real pirates call mascara-wearer Johnny Depp.

24. Windlass – All done breaking wind.

25. Purser - During cannon battles, he holds all the man-purses.

26. Winch - What they call a pirate when it’s his turn to be the girl.

27. Doubloon - Inflatable child’s toy: “Avast! Ye broke doubloon!”

28. Rum - Pee. That’s not what it meant to pirates. That’s just my personal opinion of rum.

29. Athwart – Weapon belonging to an effeminate pirate.

30. Bosun - Type of subatomic particle.

31. Booty - What every pirate takes from other pirates by force. Also: treasure.

32. Dock - The ship’s surgeon.

33. Gangway - The way pirates have sex.

34. Lubber - Not a fighter.

35. Seacock - Let’s skip this one.

36. Tack - To assail the enemy. As in “a surprise tack.”

37. Yawl - You guys.

38. Cutlass – Small pieces of chicken or veal.

39. Spinnaker – Short aggravating man who gets high on spinach and punches out your whole crew.

40. Land ho – A ho who works on land.

41. Abaft – Best to go ahead and use this one in a sentence. “The shower was broken, so we took abaft.”
Okay, that covers most of the vocabulary. I know you were hoping for more dirty stuff. You can figure those terms out on your own. Yes, I know. “Blow me down.” Ha, ha, ha. Your pirate name should be “Captain Obvious.”

Don’t get all hung up on vocabulary. After a few years of pirating, you’ll be toothless, so no one will understand you anyway.

You might as well be aware that there are things pirates do NOT say. I’ll provide some examples.

1. Dialogue – Don’t use this as a verb. You can’t say, “Just walk the plank. We’re not here to dialogue.”

2. Downsize – Just say “kill.”

3. Contraception – In addition to having no place in a pirate’s life, this word is really big.

4. Heezy – Example: “This weevily hardtack fried in rat fat is off the heezy fa sheezy.”

5. Velcro – Real men use nails.

6. Feng shui – Come on.

7. Remorse – Pirates don’t have this. They’ll think you’re talking about little fish that stick to sharks.

8. Harassment – Just say “rape.”

9. Tryst – Just say “rape.”

10. Conversation – Just say “rape.”

11. Introduction – Just say “rape.”

12. Deodorant – As confusing to pirates as it is to the French.

You don’t always have to be accurate, especially when talking to landlubbers. Just make it sound nautical and vaguely hostile, like, “Give way, ye whore’s breakfast, or I’ll belay your chafing gear and hoist you by your starboard binnacle.”

Make a copy of this list and stow it in the pocket of your wool pants or sweaty pirate coat. It makes a handy reference and will serve to avoid misuse of terms like “standing part,” “breast ropes,” and “boxing the compass.”

I think it’s time now for some sample pirate dialogue, with translations added.

SAMPLE 1

PIRATE 1: Avast ye swab, go aloft and reef the mainsail.

Translation: Hi, fellow pirate. Climb up and tie down that big sheety thing.

PIRATE 2: Arrrrhh. The French disease has me feeling puny.

Translation: Please get someone else. I have advanced syphilis.

SAMPLE 2

PIRATE 1: Haul on that painter or by God, I’ll have your guts for garters.

Translation: Do me a big favor and pull that rope.

PIRATE 2: Stand by, me hearty.

Translation: Hold on. I just rolled off the cabin boy.

SAMPLE 3

PIRATE 1: Jibber me flinders and spank me for a skarmy blive.

Translation: Jibber me flinders and spank me for a skarmy blive.

PIRATE 2: Three sheets to the wind, and it’s only six bells.

Translation: Congratulations on finding the wood alcohol before I did.

SAMPLE 4

PIRATE 1: Blast my eyes! A pixie in me victuals!

Translation: Goodness! A dead midget in the salt beef!

PIRATE 2: Belay that scuttlebutt and break out the hardtack!

Translation: Everything tastes good when it sits on a Ritz.

Finally, here are some fun terms you may want to look up on your own. Acockbill, bare poles, blue Peter, bum boat, cod-line, dead wood, hard and fast, jack screw, lay forward, lay aft, lubber’s hole, make water, pricker, puddening, and snotter.

Now you know just enough to be dangerous. Put on your bedpan hat and start yammering.