2004-02-25..1:53 p.m.

Got the funniest email from Drummer Boy today involving the sentence "In a nutshell: the book is about how pirates were bummers," which just killed me.

He's just finished this book called Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition, so gave me a quick run-down on how pirates and most sailors for that matter in the 17th century were almost all exclusively homosexual and living in an unprecedented and unique all-male society without any hinderance from rules or social taboo. According to this book, although they were almost exclusively gay, virtually none were at all effeminate. Then it goes on to reccount the many torture methods pirates used. Apparently after one captain had beaten them on his bad side into conscious submission; he would slit their belly open, pull out some entrails, and nail them to a post then take a torch or a branding iron, and burn the poor victim. As the victim ran away from the torch, he would inevitably unravel his own intestines still nailed to the post.

Utterly repulsive. The intestines part, rather than Camp Pirate. The pirate thing is not at all a startling piece of homo-social history. It makes rather a lot of sense, not just in the locked away at sea w only Mildred the Hunchback Tea Girl sense; rather the promises of violent conquest, and ripped men in tights (consequence: the gay fascination with sailors?) would be enough to get any red-blooded man going. Even the language of piracy is so very homo-erotic: rigging, plank walking, mast climbing, Man overboard. Sod the men, it�s enough to get me going. I may have to pick up a copy. Sharpen my swashbuckling studies. Brush up on the business of buccaneering.

See? This is the guy I quietly adore. Sodomy? Pirates? Together at last, he shouts!

Well the Ravonettes were entirely disappointing. They were the �Very Special Guests� of some club night that was singing it�s last goodbye, so special in fact, that they were allotted an entire thirty minutes of play time. That�s right! Thirty whole minutes! And we only had to wait two and a half hours to see them! And because it was the big so long of a club night the place was TEEMING with underage underclothed punkass children throwing up in corners and getting it on under tables. Indie-superior much? O baby yes.

The Ravonettes themselves weren�t so bad. Sharin Foo told some kid who (I think) flashed her (they could have just been heckling) to Fuck Off. Surin Rose looked like he was about to have a hernia, fetishising the guitar as he does. Poor Rav�s though. Possibly 9% of the crowd was there to see them, and were all cranky and fed up by the time they got on stage. It can�t be nice knowing that. I did meet Surin though. Rather nice bloke, if a little vague. Also ended up meeting this mad French broad and her posse of Spanish kittens, who were brilliant good fun! Will possibly see Billy Childs with them Friday. If I do, it�ll be a gigtastic week for Meeps. Cornershop and Kinnie Starr at the Water Rats tomorrow. I actually going to bail on this one, however, I feel the need to wipe the burning after taste of wasted time.

feeling bountiful and shiplike, meep