researching 17th century piracy tonight. came across this:
One popular pastime amongst pirates was the mock trial. Each man played a part be it jailer, lawyer, judge, juror, or hangman. This sham court arrested, tried, convicted, and “carried out” the sentence to the amusement of all. (x)
how widespread could this have really been? how would it have gotten passed from ship to ship? can you imagine a pirate crew at a tavern, bragging to another pirate crew about how good they are at playing pretend? why was their go-to game “legal system”? were they performing incisive satire? is this some sort of pirates-only inside joke that’s been lost to the ages?
update: the mock-charge in the mock-trial was piracy
they used to pretend to try each other for piracy
as a stress relief
ok but it’s got to have been a lot of fun to be the pirate defense lawyer, for the pirate accused of piracy, to attempt to argue to the pirate judge, in front of a jury of pirate peers, that your client could not possibly be a pirate
(me, unshaven and wearing a ragged trenchcoat, shaking a rusted-over flac player at passerby) anyone got a spare drop? any brostep drops? can anyone spare a nice bass drop?
(nonchalantly drops a dissonance-spiked chord played on the sawtooth midi preset while grinning)
(hurriedly flipping on the record function with shaking fingers) thank you for your generosity, thank you, thank you, you have no idea how much this means to me (i look up to you with hopeless eyes, the dub-spark of life within weak and oily like the end part of a wet reverb)
don’t drop that bass all in one place….. heh (puts hands in pockets and throws more shitty sawtooth chords at you as I walk away, my own player blaring flac rare bass boosted skrillex tracks)
