How to Become a Pirate - The 5-Year Plan

Last year, after finishing my undergrad, I humoured my adventurous side and set off on a three month backpacking expedition across Europe. I covered 18 countries, staying in hostels and putting to practice the skills that I acquired through four years of academia - drinking and partying.

One of the greatest aspects of this trip was the opportunity to converse with people from different parts of the world, from diverse backgrounds and who maintained different cultural perspectives. Okay, so 70% of the people were upper-middle class white, Anglo, mid-twenty-somethings - that's not the point (the point is pirates, which I'm getting to).

These conversations usually centered on why we were traveling, where we were going, where we had been, and what we want to do with our lives - you know, traveling small talk. However, every once in a while I would meet a person that would completely alter my perception of the world and human interaction. I call these people Paradigm Fuckers.

The most eccentric and intriguing Paradigm Fucker that I met was a 24 year old from Southern California named JJ. Although I tried to distance myself from the comfort of fellow North Americans on my adventure, JJ is the type of person that captures your attention for various reasons. For instance, in the entire four days that I stayed in Barcelona, I never once saw him sober. 9:30am, still drunk from the night before and avoiding the hangover by downing a 40oz bottle of Spanish beer. 2:15am, drunk, stoned and belligerent. 5:30pm drunk, freshly stoned and experiencing a high that comes along with stuffing your face with undercooked pasta. I wondered how one could exist in a constant state of inebriation, so I asked him. His response: "Life is too boring when you're sober. Being drunk is like experiencing every movie you see with 3D glasses - respectable adults will shun it as immature and idiotic, but it fucking rocks bro!"

At this point, you may be glancing at the title of this article and wondering if there has been some sort of editorial error, there hasn't. The topic of pirates came up with JJ in a fairly unusual way. On my second night in Barcelona during the hostel's 'Happy Hour' (which actually lasted 3 hours), we sat at a small, round table littered with empty plastic beer cups and I finally got around to asking JJ the prerequisite travel acquaintance question: "So what do you want to do with your life?" JJ pushed himself into an upright, soberesque position in his chair, looked me straight in the eyes and declared with zeal, "I wanna be a pirate!" I laughed heartily, slapped the table and repeated his response in a shoddy pirate voice but including the "arrrrgh."

Without employing the literary device of exaggeration, you must believe me when I tell you that it took exactly twenty-three minutes and eighteen seconds for me to be convinced of JJ's sincerity. In the first five minutes, he attempted to prove his honesty with clichés such as "I'm serious" and "I swear, I do." After ten minutes, his travel mate Blake was at our table, informing me that "He's telling the truth, he actually wants to be a pirate." And after twenty-two minutes, I was looking at JJ's myspace page which informed visitors that his interests were "Becoming a pirate - raping and pillaging." Sure, it wasn't proof in the scientific sense but it was proof in the I'm drunk but I'm so serious about this that I'm going to get up from my seat and try to prove it sense, which I often consider to be far more reliable.

When the truth of his statement was verified and my mind had processed the meaning of his occupation of choice, I commented, "That's awesome, you're gonna be a pirate." Now, for those of you that are entranced by Captain Jack Sparrow, Captain Hook and Captain Crunch, I must clarify that I responded positively to a man that expressed the intention to steal, murder, rape and bathe very infrequently. Why is that? There is no doubt in my mind that if JJ had pronounced that he aspired to be a serial rapist I would have reacted very differently. What exactly is it about piracy that is interesting enough to make us forget about morality altogether?

It could be that I was enchanted by the romanticism and mystic of Hollywood's depiction of sexy, adventurous and cunning buccaneers. However, when I excitedly probed JJ for further details, he painted a picture of a pirate's life that was modern, realistic and exceedingly immoral and yet, I found his career ambition to be even more awe-inspiring. He actually had a five year plan! He explained to me, in quite some detail, how he intended to embark on the road to criminal Captain as soon as he returned to his home in California.

The first step in JJ's proposed piracy preparation was to acquire a crew. It seemed to me like he was skipping a great number of steps on the road to becoming a pirate. Although I despise the process and the structure altogether, I have a great respect for those who rise to the top of a pyramid organization - which to me is exactly what a pirate ship would implement. I envisioned a corporate hierarchy where would-be pirates would first have to submit a resume that documents their theoretical experience (e.g. Watched Pirates of the Caribbean, Read Moby Dick, Studied Sailing, Proficient in scare tactics) as well as their practical experience. It seems to me that any progressive pirate captain wouldn't let any scallywag aboard that didn't have at least three years experience in the art of thievery, especially if they didn't yet belong to the union. I asked JJ if he was sure that his first steps shouldn't be getting acquainted with the criminal lifestyle - perhaps getting his feet wet through acts of vandalism, mugging and armed robbery? He accepted that these steps couldn't hurt but were ultimately erroneous, almost like waiting to get your bachelors of arts in music before starting a band.

JJ explained that once a tight crew of promising pirates was assembled, they could pool their money and buy a boat - nothing special, just a floatable fixer-upper. From this barely seaworthy vessel, the newly formed pirate crew would prey on small consumer crafts and fishing rigs and with the profits, they would slowly upgrade their equipment. JJ allots roughly three to four years of small time looting and upgrading until he and his crew will have a high-powered death ship, fully equipped with state of the art weaponry that will instill fear in the grandest of cruise ships. After that, it would all be smooth sailing; nothing but profit and pillaging.

JJ's plan definitely didn't fit into the stereotypical conception of a pirate but just like every other profession in the modern world, pirates have evolved from their original conception. It is extremely probable that you know a modern pirate. In fact, in all likely hood, you are a pirate - according to the entertainment industry, anyways. However, both JJ and I are not concerned with illegally downloading music or movies, we are concerned with the criminal activity of the high seas.

The avant-garde pirates of the new millennium are not peg-legged, parrot keeping, one-eyed, big hat wearing barbarians. They maintain pirate characteristics such as ruthlessness, cunning and a propensity for drinking and danger but they combine these villainous qualities with technology and contemporary weaponry - the end result equating to an aquatic Rambo. Contemporary pirates have traded in swords, sails and cannons for AK-47s, speedboats and rocket launchers. They are known to loot yachts, seize oil platforms off the coast of Nigeria, fire rockets at cruise ships and kidnap sea-bound vacationers for ransom. It is safe to say that pirates of today, as well as those from the past are not nice people. This is what I found so strange about my reaction to JJ's dream job.

Normally when someone says something that even mildly deters from my moral framework, I instantly like them less and I usually verbally reprimand them in an attempt to save their souls. In the case of Captain JJ, neither case applied. In fact, I liked him more, I told him that I thought he was really onto something and I wished him the best of luck. I actually wanted him to become a pirate. I wanted pirates to exist and not only that, but I wanted to be acquainted with a pirate.

Being a pirate is not the only morally bankrupt occupation that I would deem to be interesting enough to warrant approbation rather than condemnation. After giving it some thought, I feel the same way about mobsters, gangsters, pornographic magazine entrepreneurs, hit-men, rock stars, lawyers, and certain types of drug dealers and pimps. I wonder if I can blame this strange phenomenon on the way in which these occupations are glamorized by popular media. Or, perhaps more realistically, these jobs entail a lifestyle of fantasy and excitement that cannot be provided by the average 9-5. I think that we would all like to be pirates and the entertainment world simply provides an outlet for our unrealistic fantasies. The majority of us would not sacrifice our moral values for something as depleted as a life of adventure. Or maybe, just maybe, we all would; we're just lacking the motivation and the 5 year plan.