Terroists of Penzance

Here I am shirking an assignment and my patriotic duty: to spend 9/11 not watching something about 9/11. Something that will make me hate terrorists, hate the administration, feel proud to be an American, hate America, salute NY’s emergency services, get angry that nothing has really changed, feel guilty for not being on one of those flights, salute those that died as heroes, make martyrs of them, get all giggly cause you think the Armageddon is a comin’ or feel sorry for yourself cause you live in such a screwed up world. Just take your pick; I’m sure you can find some media to reinforce it.

Me? I watched Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. It’s a great movie. It has to be some sort of miracle to have made such a decent flick from a ride. I can’t wait until the second one comes out on DVD.

(Here is where I set aside my unused history degree; I don’t feel like beating down the particulars on this one.)

Standing at the nexus of terrorists and pirates makes me wonder if 400 years in the future will there be a movie romanticizing our current situation? I mean it must have royally sucked to live in the Caribbean in the 1600’s, pirates or not. Sure you had nice beach front property but you’d probably be a slave or have some disease or get killed by a pirate or never get enough to eat or whatever. But when Johnny Depp and Legolas get all swash and buckle, it looks grand. Who wouldn’t want to be a pirate? You get to hang out with Keira Knightly and wear great hats.

Not to mention the role reversal. Aren’t pirates supposed to be bad guys? Outside the law, stealing, raping and pillaging. Last time I checked that’s some pretty bad crap. But the British (who were no saints; who is really?) always look like jerks or worse. We root for the pirates to pull off derring-do, get the girl and have a moral code. I’m almost sure that only one of those really occurred in real life and it was probably less than moral.

It will be very interesting to see how the future deals with this time. Will our suffering and strife be a source of entertainment? I could imagine that in 400 years there will be a great hologram where you can play the part of the heroic hijacker. And just to keep it all “Hollywood,” before crashing the hijacker will be able to parachute out at the last minute yelling “Yippie-ki yea!,” land then kiss some girl in a burka.

Dude, this post probably put me on some sort of list.