I Feel Really Sorry for Those Dead Pirates

by Rebecca Schoenkopf

Since when does America hate pirates? Nobody roots for the British Navy; it’s like rooting for the Inquisition. We name all our sports teams after pirates. We go on rides about pirates. Once a year, we talk like pirates. America LOVES pirates! But they totally shouldn’t take hostages, or be about to shoot one in the back. You take hostages, and be about to shoot one in the back, you are going to get shot in the head. Barack Obama had to shoot you in the head, pirates, or he would have become Michael Dukakis.

I feel really sorry for those dead pirates, who, again, should neither have taken a hostage nor been about to shoot him in the back. But sweet Jesus! Somalia! Sprawling land of starvation and brutish misery! If it weren’t for the hostage-taking and back-shooting, I would tell you to hijack those ships and sail with freedom the wide blue seas, and I would cheer you every time you outwitted us! You could be heroes, just for a day.

Here in my peaceful Mid-City Los Angeles neighborhood, I’m waiting eagerly for my jacarandas to bloom and my sole worry is whether I’ll actually get dressed today, and possibly leave the house, and did I pull the organic boneless chicken breasts from the freezer too soon? Have they ... sniff sniff ... turned? My Victory Garden is coming in; I’ve got bell peppers the size of garbanzo beans. They are adorable, and in a week I shall make cacciatore.

The closest I’ve ever come to pirates was the neighborhood kids in Anaheim who were constantly breaking into my house and jacking my shit—cash I kept in case Katrina happened, weed I couldn’t exactly report stolen, and the DVDs I bought my son for Christmases and birthdays, along with anything else they could boost. I did not like being constantly robbed, but those kids weren’t starving and so had no excuse. They just wanted my weed and to hang out in my bed (which they would remake afterwards, thinking I wouldn’t notice their girlfriend had left a scrunchy). Basically, they were assholes.

We have a long way to fail before we face real, unremitting danger. With bizarre exceptions, our children aren’t kidnapped, raped and murdered. It’s their rarity that makes them news. Of course, being the worrying type, I like to remind me that we’re only four missed meals from breakdown.

Since Somalia went rogue, with no government capable of maintaining its territory and borders, European companies have been dumping toxic waste off its shore, in addition to pirating all the country’s fishing stocks. According to reports, the pirates themselves started out as a kind of vigilante Coast Guard—kind of like those old dudes in Stockton who are arming up and setting out in their Toyota hatchbacks in search of bad guys for shootin’. Really, you have to admire that. Or at least I do. It’s the kind of can-do-ism Americans think we invented; it’s what we think makes us exceptional, when really if we looked in the mirror searchingly enough we might see we’re no longer hardy pioneers. Goodness, I get in high dudgeon if I have to pioneer parking—even if I get to see the Ruby Friedman Orchestra afterward for my reward.

During one of the many totally awesome presidential debates last year, Sen. John McCain made the bizarre assertion that Pakistan was a failed state.

Pakistan is a terrible place to be unless you’re one of their Taliban friends, but “failed state” actually has a specific meaning: that the government has become so weak, it can no longer perform basic functions like security, education and sanitation. It becomes a dystopian nightmare, ruled by thugs driving Hummers, the ride of choice for all thugs everywhere.

Somalia? That’s a failed state. If your best hope for putting food on your family is getting a handout from pirates, you live in a failed state.

And that’s why I like taxes. Or at least I like them for you.

Click here for the Ruby Friedman Orchestra's “Sub-Acid Sweet Songs.”

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