Pirate Mode Unlocked

A seed was planted in my mind the last time I had a Pirates of the Caribbean marathon. That was a long time ago, long before the fifth movie came out. I was watching the movies while unpacking boxes upon boxes of books to sort onto bookshelves in our "library," aka media storage room, which these days sits empty until such a time as the walls and floors are redone. Wow, that was quite a while ago. Anyway, I was being productive while having a good time: watching the movies with a little black strap rum, and it was warm and rainy outside. But as much as I was trying to engineer a good mood, I couldn't help but notice a sense of diminishing returns every time I revisited this franchise. It wasn't the movies' fault.

You laugh. Okay, I'll admit the franchise itself might be the quintessential example of sequels having "diminishing returns," but I am not here to be a film critic. I meant that the social experience of watching them seemed less and less fun each time, and here I was, drinking alone, commemorating better days. It was simply a for-old-time's-sake fling this time. The worst part was that even talking about the movies with friends elicited nothing but crickets and tumbleweed as a response. It's hard to explain, but I felt like movies in general--but these movies in particular--were less and less fun, because of the people around me.

We used to bond over movies. We used to happily wait in line on opening night to see the latest blockbuster, then go to the bars to discuss our wish list for what the next sequel should include. We used to make an event out of getting a group together to watch movies. Hell, I took a road trip once to watch all three extended editions of The Lord of the Rings back-to-back at the Captain's Quarters. It was Saturday, November 11th, 2006. Epic. Movies used to be fun.

Now, the best I can hope for is a temporary, jejune escape from the hardships of real life. Just hope the movie doesn't implode from its own plot holes, and watch with half apathy, half guarded optimism. That's the best we can do now?

Star Wars: Episode VIII: The Last Jedi is the pinnacle of how un-fun people have made the movie experience. It is the least fun movie for me to talk about, the least rewarding, the least appealing. To talk about, I said. Because of the people. It's a bizarre, unfortunate microcosm of how discourse in our society in general has degenerated into polarized, knee-jerk reactionary extremes. We used to have fun. With this movie, however, people are using it as a litmus test for something deeper, and it's weird and unnecessary to get to nasty about it. With this movie, it's like people can't even handle disagreement. No, not disagreement. It's not like we're debating politics, but people sure act like it. No, it's not disagreement--it's that people can no longer seem to even accept that you might have had a different level of enjoyment than they did, whether you loved or hated it. The problem is that people turn disagreement into something personal. Politics or Star Wars, if you have a different take, it turns into an ad hominem attack. It's surreal. If you disagree with someone, it's because of some fundamental character flaw on your part. People are getting melodramatic about the slightest... slight.

It's exceptionally unpleasant to engage anyone (in my experience) with regards to The Last Jedi, but that's the extreme opposite end of the spectrum. The bigger problem is that, with almost everything else, no one seems to care at all. We used to make it a social experience. The hype, the anticipation, the sharing, the discussing. And listening to the soundtracks in the car to accompany our own antics and escapades.

In the early days of this blog, the content was largely about film music and whimsical thoughts such as these.

In 2018, whimsy is forbidden. No, just worry about cancer, permanent nerve and spinal damage, deteriorating health that eludes diagnosis, more cancer, and myriad other, sobering concerns. Car trouble, home repair trouble, small-business trouble. Lawyers and doctors and clients and childrearing. The "diminishing returns" are about how life just gets harder as you go along, not about how movie sequels are weaker with each new installment. In 2018, this is where I am. Trying to recover from the Hell that was 2017, and for that matter, 2015.

In 2018, whimsy is forbidden. Most of my friends are long-distance and don't care about what I think anyway. But I'm going ahead and making a whimsical-overdrive blog post.

March 7, last year, the day before the Accident. After three weeks straight of stress and no time off, Juliet took Liam to give me the house to myself. I mainly wanted to organize the house as much as I could in that one day, but also felt like having a Pirates of the Caribbean marathon to sort of guide the tone of the week to come. I found that thinking of watching those movies sounded even less rewarding than the last couple times I watched them, so instead, I just blasted the Complete Recordings of the scores while blitz-cleaning the house as diligently as I could... with a little rum, of course.

You see, I couldn't even bring myself to face the disappointment of my own inspiration. I soured on the films before even putting them in the DVD player. So I just listened to the soundtracks and worked. And that was, tragically, the last remotely good day I would have for a long, long time to come.

Months later, with Juliet on the mend, I had occasion to watch the fifth movie, which was playing in theaters at the time. Juliet wasn't feeling up to it, still not fully herself, but someone else was watching Liam, so I thought it would be my only chance to go see it. So, I went by myself.

It was the first time I went to the theaters to watch a pirate movie alone. The first movie came out, I was at Truman State University. It was the talk of the town. The second movie came out right at the tail end of my time at BGSU; it was my victory lap after an abysmally, legendarily awful experience as a grad student, and it was the herald of the personal freedom that lay ahead of me. The third movie came out when I was building assets for a new life in Kansas City. The fourth movie came out after I had started all over in Austin.

Each movie was a different city for me, biographically speaking. A different set of friends, though with some overlap of certain individuals. Each time a Pirates of the Caribbean movie came out, I was being glorious in some way or another, each in a different chapter of my life. By the fifth one... this was the first time a new POTC movie came out and I had been living (basically) in the same place. But there was no one to watch it with me. And no one even talked about it on social media, or on the phone. It was like the movie didn't even exist. (Then again, considering the sour grapes of Star Wars conversations these days, maybe that's a good thing.)

Come to think of it, the year I lived in St. Louis is absent from the list. They should have made a movie just for me that year. Hey, Disney, you still owe me a pirate movie. Writer's strike is no excuse.

Anyway, watching the new, fifth movie... got me thinking. The seed in my mind that was planted long ago was sprouting. The movie was a reunion of sorts, not to talk about the plot or anything, but also because of the timing of each installment of the franchise. It was like revisiting myself. I wasn't so much thinking about the movie as I was thinking about wishing I could visit friends. I was thinking about restoring elements from past chapters of my own life, with people and goals and mindsets thereof, as though getting the Black Pearl back and assembling a crew for a further adventure.

It was a bittersweet but encouraging feeling, and more than a little vague and abstract. Somehow, this movie, Dead Men Tell No Tales, while being somehow satisfying and underwhelming at once, provided a clue to what I needed to figure out before New Year's Eve, before 2018.

As time would wear on, and I would just simply not watch the movies, I thought more and more about the things in life I missed out on while dealing with my wife's series of tragic medical issues. A lot of quality time with people was simply nonexistent, sacrificed on the altar of Survival Mode. But, worse than missing years of my friendships, the thing I was most cheated out of was lightheartedness. You see, other people my age don't have to dread the things I have to dread. Life's diminishing returns. Whimsy is forbidden; the Universe will snuff it out and remind you that you will never be a carefree postgraduate buddy anymore. Picturesque moments of freedom and levity are for other people, as exhibited on Facebook. Other people who don't have breast cancer or spinal injuries or melanoma or undiagnosed toxicity issues lurking around the corner.

So, lately I've been filtering reality to show only the nicest things. Maybe I can be the one to make other people jealous on Facebook for a change. Take that, Cruel Fate.

Yes, I missed the bonds we shared of being lighthearted together. And the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise was a casualty to be mourned. What happened? We were pirates once and young.

Eventually, while my "unfinished business" and nostalgia have combined into cyclical focuses on "modes" of each chapter of my life, based on cities I've lived in, there is a new "mode" my mind wants to go into: Pirate Mode. If each movie connects to a different phase of my adult life, with different groups of friends, and different goals long abandoned, then my idea here is to use these movies, which I haven't seen in a long time, to draw on all of those memories, the goal being to reconnect.

I am to rekindle some friendships, and I'm going to use this movie marathon to start off. The last two or three times I tried to watch those movies, it left me feeling unsatisfied and left out.

Basically, I want to reclaim former glory, the lightheartedness, the whimsy that I've lost. As a thematic return to pre-tragedy days. That, and to see if any of these feelings are still shared, or if sour grapes are all that my friends have left.

Hmph. Listen to me. All that waxing poetic about a stack of DVDs. I really have no real idea what I expect to change simply by sitting on my ass and watching a bunch of mediocre movies, but I just want to feel at least a little younger, a little less dark. I want to be able to worry less. I want a spring of my enthusiasm, a winter of my discontent.

It's time for a marathon. I also recently downloaded the complete recordings of the score to the fourth movie, as well as a couple of the video games. I have yet to listen to them. That will be a treat, and a welcome expansion to my musical library.

Ideally, we would watch them together, like we used to do. Ideally, this marathon would be a way to spend spring break together:



5 movies. 5 rums. 5 nights.

The Curse of the Black Pearl and Captain Morgan. The classic original film deserves the classic original rum. Kirksville, Missouri. Those days were something.

Dead Man's Chest and The Kraken. Obviously, the Kraken rum goes with the movie about the Kraken. Bowling Green, Ohio. There is much to redeem from those spectacularly conflicted times. Last time I checked, this was my favorite rum, and maybe even the most fun of the movies, too. I wonder if my tastes this time around will have changed on both counts?

At World's End and Myers's. I figured it's the darkest movie, so why not the darkest rum? Kansas City, Missouri. When I was at the helm. Never was it more glorious to drive through the rain. Man, I had dreams. Most of them amounted to nothing more than that.

On Stranger Tides and Pecan Street. This movie came out when I was living in Austin, Texas, and I had just discovered this local rum. Much like the film, most of the beloved supporting characters of my life were absent.

Dead Men Tell No Tales and Sailor Jerry. I figure, Sailor Jerry needs to be in the Top 5 rums, and it's a crowd-pleaser, so it's fitting to be paired with this movie which serves as a sort of reunion with the early days while still being a whole new adventure. Something for everyone? Honestly, Myers's and Sailor Jerry could be assigned interchangeably, because I discovered Sailor Jerry when I was living in KC, so that works, too. But this is a good pairing to round things off.



So, that's my suggestion for how to do a marathon properly. It won't happen that way, of course. But what a week that would be.

If 2017 was declared to be the Year of the Bat(man) before that plan was scrapped early on, then maybe 2018 will be the Year of the Pirate.

Are you on board?

It's not about the movies, the music, or even the memories. It's about gallivanting around the city with you, in search of a lakeside tavern with a wooden deck. It's about a forgotten feeling. It's about telling the Universe where to stick it, about telling 2018 that whimsy is not forbidden.

"Wherever we want to go, we go. That's what a ship is, you know. It's not just a keel and a hull and sails; that's what a ship needs. Not what a ship is. What the Black Pearl really is... is freedom."

My tri-corner hat is off to all of you.