Episode 33 - Pieces Of Eight

welcome to this episode of the wolf and

the shepherd today we're going to be

talking about

pirates and we've entitled this pieces

of eight

and uh naturally i haven't been informed

exactly why it's called

pieces of eight so uh explain to me why

we're calling this pieces of eight

well pieces of eight was a phrase

i think most people remember from the

parrot repeating long john silver's

parrot

in um robert lewis stevenson's treasure

island

ah well see that would that would mean i

had to have read that and when you say

long john silver's i just think of the

fish

right yeah yeah well pieces of a

um is actually a real term it

um was based upon spanish coins pesos

that circulated along

with a lot of the other hard currency in

the previous american colonies

and back then cutting money wasn't

illegal

and it was expected that if you wanted

to make change

people would actually literally cut the

coins into different pieces

wow and so the easiest way to cut the

coin up

is obviously having it then having it

again and then having the rest of those

pieces

so you'd have eight pieces when they're

like a nursery rhyme or something like

that

two bits four bits six bits a dollar or

something like that maybe that's

kind of the same thing two four six

eight so there's your pieces of eight

because no i've never heard of it

no well maybe that's just an american

thing yeah maybe

but anyway that's why the british called

the spanish dollar a piece of eight and

that's

literally where those um that where that

phrase comes from like i said uh long

john silva um

he yeah he did have a wooden leg yeah he

his power just used to take pieces of

fight

pieces of fight um

like that so almost like your wife's

constantly asking you for money all the

time his parrot was always just had

money on the mind

well yeah maybe i don't know have you

have you not seen the movie treasure

island you don't need to read the book

there's movies out nowadays

you know if if i have it's been so long

ago since i've seen it i don't remember

it i

i do remember kind of vaguely a movie

being out about it

in fact i think disney made it uh

i just don't remember the movie at all

i'm not i'm not 100 sure to be honest

i've seen the movie i think it might be

a false memory

yeah yeah but but we are sure there is a

movie

no no okay

well i think i might make that up i

don't know if there is a movie there

must be a movie there's gonna be a baby

treasure island yeah i'm sure i've heard

it's gonna be a treasure island sure

yeah

cutting edge research is normal anyway

so um

the earliest documented instances of

piracy

uh basically revolves around the

exploits

of a group called see people see people

see people can't you yeah so so way back

then i mean they were already

being gender non-specific yeah and this

was about

the 14th century as well and it was they

were woke back then

yeah and it's um i think mainly around

the

mediterranean these sea peoples were

threatening the ships sailing in the

mediterranean

gotcha um but yeah why they were called

sea peoples i don't know you could

you could have thought they might have

come up with a little bit more inventive

name than sea peoples

yeah that that's uh pretty lazy that's

lazy riding

yeah i don't know if the people on the

boats kind of looked at the people on

shore and went look it's the land

peoples yeah

the land people and yeah of course back

then you know there's only birds in the

sky we don't have any air people

yeah i guess the same people would look

up and there's a plane flying over like

oh there's air people

well other than the ufos well yeah yeah

yeah yeah

it's the air but those were space people

yeah

well they don't know they come from

space they don't know about the world

outside of the earth

outside of the sky oh that's a good

point yeah

um but there is also another theory that

suggests

pirates as much as we understand them in

terms of movies books cartoons

uh originated in tortuga around the 17th

century so that's like

just about 300 years later and they

actually started off as hunters

um but became pirates because the

government um would actually pay groups

of them to attack and loot

spanish ships okay so it's kind of like

organized government-funded piracy

right now mercenaries yeah exactly kind

of similar to the irs nowadays

yeah basically so the irs they're yeah

pirates yeah

yeah yeah well since the 18th century

actually pirates have been idolized and

romanticized in books

although they weren't necessarily always

renowned for being very nice to people

the kind of whole image you know pirates

kind of took on

you know this kind of story but kind of

persona romanticism

did you have a dream of being a part uh

you know the

only things that i can really remember

about pirates

was playing the game sid meier's pirates

and

man i love the computer game yeah well

there was a computer version there was a

sega genesis version

uh i want to say there was an

xbox version i think i can't remember i

think they might be

but uh i i used to play that sid meier's

pirates like it was

just i mean i'd stay up nights just

all night long playing that game totally

love that yeah

and you know kind of had some of those

things in there about

uh you know the government or whatever

giving you a letter of marquee and

you would get titles and all this and go

on missions and

and do all that fine buried treasure it

was a

it was a fun game real fun game well now

we've kind of

uh decided that we're not sure if the

movie treasure island

exists but it probably does exist right

um how many kind of fictional pirates

from like uh

i don't know books movies etc can you

kind of think of off the top of your

head well what's the

johnny depp character in uh pirates of

the caribbean or caribbean depending on

how you want to say the name

uh you know i can think of him i can't

think of what his name is

it's been years since i've seen any of

those movies captain jack sparrow

yeah captain jack sparrow yeah see now

that you say it yeah

i can i can remember that then of course

you got the

captain hook from peter pan right yeah i

mean that pretty

pretty famous pirate there uh then you

got

one-eyed willie from the goonies uh you

know you

you don't actually meet him of course

he's dead but the whole basis of the

goonies is

you know finding his ship and his

treasure and all that so

so you got that pirate yeah and i

already gave you one

which one the one from treasure island

oh that's right

treasure island that was a movie right i

don't know oh

we we should look that up maybe ask siri

no

yeah long john silva not long john

silvers

yeah well yeah well then there's captain

d's too

who captain d's well that was another

restaurant that was kind of like

john silver's i thought you're on about

fictional pirates oh yeah boy he's a

fictional pirate i mean he was the

dude that was up on the little marquee

saying you know hey come in and eat some

hush puppies and some

you know cheap white fish and french

fries so

and i believe that's all the pirates i

can think of off

the top of my head right there were

actually a lot

and as usual i got bored after about

five or six so

kind of stopped writing past that point

but um there was a pirate called

jack shandy who was um now is this a

real pirate or a fake pirate

fake pirate oh fake he was from a book

uh called on stranger tides which is um

that provided the uh i think the

inspiration for the fourth pirates

of the caribbean movie oh okay yeah

gotcha and um

you've heard of the book twenty thousand

leagues under the sea right yeah jewels

yeah well captain nemo he was the pirate

in there oh

okay well i didn't realize it yeah i

forgot i've forgotten i mean

there's definitely a movie because i

remember uh watching that

and the other one i think was journey to

the center of the earth

that's about digging holes yeah digging

holes a little bit deeper than our

friend bill

souls but yeah anyway so

across my research especially among the

fictional pirates

i came up with a whole lot of myths and

catch phrases pirates

used to maybe didn't used to say and so

okay i wanted to do our usual question

and answer

oh here we go no chance enough getting

the correct answer

so i'm trying to guess whether or not

these are

real or fake yeah sayings but we'll also

educate our listeners because

the facts on here are actually facts

according to the first page of

google yeah search results anyway

so first one did real pirates have

parrots yes no

uh accounts of real man you know i was

i was just i was sure that they

they had birds i'm not saying no pirate

has ever owned a parrot

but there's no accounts no documented

accounts of real pirates ever having

parrots

that's disappointing and actually

outside of long john silver i don't know

if there's any

pirates fictional pirates who had

parrots either i don't know if that

character

is so infamous or notorious that that's

where the whole parrot thing comes from

because when you think of parrots you

think of

you know the whole yeah think of the

parrot on the shoulder just like the

wooden leg you know

john silva had the wooden leg and you

think a pirate's having

you know that was extremely

disappointing it wasn't it yeah

um which brings me on to did pirates

have

hooks or wooden legs not all of them i'm

just talking about right yeah

so you're talking about the amputee

pirate right if

there's an amputee so i i would say

no to the hook yes to the wooden leg

well although it's been exaggerated

somewhat by hollywood

some pirates did actually rely on these

types of prosthetics so yeah they were

documented accounts of pirates

having false limbs uh see what i did

there i made it to where i couldn't miss

that

question there's no half points in this

game

that's just the second wrong answer got

you okay all right

oh for two did pirates say

shiver me timbers no

uh yeah they did

the freight the phrase uh shiver me

timbers

is actually based on real nautical slang

um because timbers that that's um i

think the wooden support frames of a

sailing ship

okay and when it got into rough water in

the heavy seas the ships would like

obviously be

thrown up and down right and when they

got dropped really hard

uh those wooden timbers would shake and

that's where the phrase shiver me

timbers came from

shiver the timbers okay yeah that makes

logical sense

i'll believe that did pirates drink rum

yes yes yes uh do you know where rum

comes from how they make room

uh the liquor store yeah exactly because

there's one not far from

yeah yeah so about 200 300 years ago

pirates

uh used to come inshore and they used to

come to north tarrant

county where the shepherd and i live and

actually go to the liquor store purchase

rum and take it back to the

um ships and prove us wrong prove us

wrong they did well

actually rum it comes from distilling

sugar

right sugar cane see sugar is good for

something yes yeah

um and it was actually pretty cheap to

transport so it became a

pretty staple export and it bought in

good money

um so many of the ships which the

pirates attacked

uh had a lot of rum on board okay um

which you know of course they stole and

although they sold most of it

uh they also drank a lot of it well

absolutely

yeah why not participate in a little bit

of the spoils i mean if it's

if it's all 100 pure profit why not

drink a little bit of it

right here's a good one actually okay

did pirates bury their treasure

no no well it probably happened

occasionally

uh but it was the exception to the rule

um pirates didn't necessarily expect to

live very long

so you know when it came to like

planning for retirement planning for the

future it wasn't really a priority

right you know so yeah they they may

have but again can't be proven

yeah i i can't see them bearing it i i

see them

going ashore spending all their money

you know having just a little bit left

in their pocket heading back out to seed

to go

you know yeah rob and pillage and go

find some more

yeah but um

yeah because that's obviously where the

whole treasure map thing comes from so

they can remember where they buried the

treasure but

whenever you see those maps on the

cartoons it's always very simple it's

kind of like got a picture of an island

which you and i could even draw

yeah well except for the palm tree

[Music]

and then it would have like about 10

footsteps and then a big x mark in this

spot and it's like

that's exactly where it is so i'm just

going to yeah so

why even bother with the map yeah i

can't remember that yeah yeah you

shouldn't be burying the treasure yeah

but if you've been drinking a lot of ram

you can sometimes get a little bit foggy

headed that's a good point

that's a good point yeah right last one

okay

pirates make people walk the plank

ooh and that's not a euphemism

i would say

yes it's no evidence

so disappointing yeah their preferred

punishment

uh was actually oh what was it called i

think it was called something like keol

dragon

k-e-e-l oh dragon and it's um where

they'd actually tie you to a rope and

drag you underneath the ship

right assuming assuming you'd kind of

drown on the way but yeah

that was the punishment so really it's

just kind of drowning it's just

an inventive way to do it can't you also

picture them just throwing people

overboard though i mean

you know if the ship's clipping along

you're out in the middle of the ocean

and they you throw somebody overboard

there's no way they're gonna

survive so yeah it doesn't really make

for a good pirate story that doesn't ah

it doesn't

yeah that's why i'm a little

disappointed in the whole walk the plank

thing didn't happen

yeah so um moving on come

by the way that that segment was

extremely disappointing to me

i just wish all those things were true

yeah

that's that's pretty much you look at

pirates but other than the fake limbs

pretty much well no shiver me timbers

they didn't say [ __ ]

okay i just happened to get that one

wrong yeah yeah okay so still

disappointed yeah

i'm disappointed about the parents yeah

do you hear about those parrots that got

kicked out of the zoo

kicked out yeah yeah they uh there was

like five parrots

and they were all cursing at the

zookeepers and at the people that were

coming to the zoo so they kicked him out

of the zoo

oh true story yeah no no like literally

this happened like a couple of weeks ago

no i'm going to tell you a true story

along those exact lines when i when i

was growing up in england the

closest zoo to where we lived was

called colchester zoo and colchester is

in essex which isn't too far outside of

london

well anyway um you know english kids

being the yobs they are

uh actually would teach these parrots

every time they saw these parrots you

know these zoo trips

whether it be day trips or going with

their family whatever would

cuss these parrots to try and teach them

how to cuss right

and so eventually these parrots

discussed all the time and i remember

specifically

uh first time i went to the zoo i went

up to the parrot

and i went like pieces of eight pieces

of eight and it told me to eff off

wow that is a true story

so we're moving on to real pirates real

pirates okay

um can you name any or at least once you

think because some of the ones you're

thinking of might actually be

so off the top of my head

uh i think about

blackbeard that was a that was a real

pirate

he is now what do you know about

blackbeard other than he possibly had a

blackbeard

he had a black beard he was a pirate

i should be able to recognize him in a

lineup yeah and

and that's pretty much the extent of it

well his real name was actually

edward teach well no wonder he went by

blackbeard

well yeah because yeah edward it's not

very interesting

yeah so it's like oh yeah what's your

name yeah edward

or you'll be in trouble once edward gets

hold of you yeah

yeah exactly but he actually intimidates

enemies

by um it coil smoking fuses into his

braided facial hair his beard

and it actually light them so and i

suppose this had a better effect at

night than during the day so when his

enemies kind of swarm approaching it

looked like his face was kind of on fire

wow and he was

he was um a very brutal brutal pirate

but apparently a great fighter

okay and he was actually killed in a

battle uh with a british navy

and legend has it that he received 20

stab wounds

and five gunshot wounds before he was

finally taken down

wow and then they and then they uh

decapitated him i think

um and you know they put i think it was

along the

banks of the river thames in london they

actually put his head

like on a spike or something as a

deterrent towards other pirates

man yeah so that's edward that's edward

oh good old edward woods uh let's see

can i think of another one

uh kid captain kid captain kid

yeah there you go okay now he actually

set sailed

uh right towards the

end of the 17th century i think it was

okay and he um

originally had the assignment to

actually hunt down pirates in the indian

ocean now i think the government

actually again gave him this

gave him this assignment right it's like

hey here's a boat yeah here's some

guys here's some money and and you go

hunt pirates right

but he quickly kind of realized that the

pirates were making a lot of money and

it was a lot of hassle

hunting the pirates so he decided to

become a pirate himself

well probably the smart move yeah and um

what happened to that dude

well at the time there was something

called the british east

india company and it was like i think

the largest

owned kind of like trade company running

that route between india

and britain but apparently attacked some

of their ships and so they're a bit

pissed at him

yeah so he was arrested on the way back

to england where he was kind of tried

and executed

and embarrassingly so he might have

actually been the one who they

decapitate and put his head on a spike

it's either him or blackbeard i can't

remember

okay well one of them did well it

figures the

the two that i can think of it's it's

one of the other yeah it's

probably captain kids now was it was it

captain kid they said

was supposedly and going back to the

whole pirates didn't bury their treasure

thing wasn't it captain kidd that was

supposedly the one that put the treasure

on oak island

that you know the history channel's been

looking for for 10 years and haven't

found anything

i don't know ask siri oh okay

well something else for us to look up

that uh by the time we finish this we

will forget about it and move on and

never look up now

if you can name any other famous ones

other than the few more i can kind of

remember from looking up

they might they might be real they might

be fictional but because i didn't

research it

it's anybody's guess gotcha so who else

you got

uh sir francis drake he must have heard

of him yeah the name rings a bell yeah

well he was nicknamed

my pirate by queen elizabeth the first

um he was actually a sea dog privateer

in this i think

now i don't know whether the name sea

dog came

from him being called a sea dog or it

was called a sea dog because that's what

they were called so i don't know which

came first there the kind of chicken or

the egg thing

right you know but it was a sea dog

private

life sorry privateer licensed by the

english government to attack and loot

spanish ships so another one

added to the list do the government

actually used to you know

employ pirates right well people to do

pirate-like activities to attack

i mean contract labor is always cheaper

they had less risk

and actually and actually later on he

actually helped england defeat the

spanish yamada

oh wow yeah cool so uh

yeah so he was a good guy yeah yeah

not bad now and his head didn't end up

on a spike no

i don't know what happened to him past

that point wouldn't it be ironic if it

did

yeah and he's there he's the only one

that was the one no i'm pretty sure it

was on him no it was either captain kid

or blackbeard okay

one of those two but we're not gonna

find it yeah if um

if any of our listeners actually want to

bother looking it up

send us an email or when this episode

goes live on youtube maybe leave a

comment with a link

i'm not i'm not going to follow it but i

just want to see if anybody can actually

be bothered to look it up

so um i figured i'd finish with like two

female pirates okay

and this story didn't go the way i

wanted it to go but it's still

quite an interesting story but you know

isn't it nice that the pirate world

doesn't you know

separate out male and female it's equal

opportunity i mean

anybody can be a pirate so that's good

well

i think well now you actually named some

chinese female pirate earlier didn't you

oh yeah when you said we were gonna you

know do this pirate thing i said there

was that you know

supposedly i i can't remember her name

but she was supposed to be the most

uh the best pirate i guess is the best

one yeah she was you know she she had

the the most people under command

had the most treasure all that i mean

checking off all the pirate boxes but

yeah some chinese woman you know long

ago or whatever

but not last week yeah not last week not

last month

definitely not in 2020 i mean the whole

age of covid would not let the pirates

do their thing exactly can you imagine

you know you're pirating 2020 and you're

like hey

put your mask on here put your mask on

now we're gonna go

rob and pillage and steal but don't do

it without a mask on we don't want you

catching the coved

yeah i mean the parts can be hard enough

to understand as it is without that mask

over

true face yeah yeah didn't think of that

i wonder if they're mass people or gator

people

oh yeah of course if they get the big

long beards it might be hard to

get the gator up over there for those

people for those listeners who aren't

really into hunting or anything

the shepherd is not talking about an

alligator explain to the listeners what

a gator is oh the

you know the gator is that basically

like a bandana that the cowboys would

wear you know you pull it up over your

nose

and kind of handy storage right there

around your neck

yeah down well anyway the

two female pirates i came across and

then i am popped up

more than once on the first page of the

google uh

search maybe your chinese lady was on

the second page of google which i didn't

maybe

find it but anyway anne bonnie and

mary reed hmm okay well they actually

met

after bonnie's ship uh sees mary's [ __ ]

now bonnie [ __ ] was captain

uh by her lover uh john rackham

okay um and anyway anne and mary became

close i wonder if that guy played paul

paul

old john rackham yeah i don't know

well anyway they became close and they

fought together on a bonnie's ship

well actually john's [ __ ] but it's a bit

presumptuous there that certainly became

hershey

so anyway when they were finally

captured they were sentenced to hang

but they both got stays of execution

after it was found

they were both pregnant really i wonder

if that was uh john

kind of uh populating both of them yeah

could be

now was john executed i have no

clue we did a really bad job doing our

research on this one by

you know worse than normal well this is

it i try and

inspire our listening all right to

actually do their own research if

they're that interesting hopefully

they're as lazy as we are

and then just take our word for it and

uh he was not

executed he escaped in a rowboat

in a rugboat yeah yeah makes perfect

logical sense that's exactly what

happened

okay i might actually have to look that

one up see what did happen

well anyway moving on to today we still

do have modern day pirates but obviously

they're a little bit different

i mean think about the one that uh was

in the tom hanks movie yeah you know the

uh captain i'm the captain now yeah

captain

never seen it captain tom hanks i think

that was the name of the movie

what was that movie called captain tom

hanks that's what we're going with

okay so that's what the movie was yeah

it wasn't the one where he flew the

plane and landed that in the hudson

river

i know it wasn't that movie it was a

different movie yeah yeah

okay well anyway today's pirates

um you know unlike

you know in like centuries gone past

they're actually pretty sophisticated

criminal enterprises

and they a lot of them launch off kind

of mother ships not like ufo motherships

uh to kind of launch their attacks which

is mostly on

oil freighters and oil cargo makes sense

but they're you know

incredibly uh you know heavily armed

um you know i don't know if you've seen

those kind of somalian pirates

one of those kind of like mini kind of

like boats with these machine guns kind

of like attached to them yeah

yeah they look pretty impressive really

unless of course you're on the uh the

end of it yeah yeah that would not be

good yeah but nowadays um the areas

where most of the pirates kick around

around the red sea

uh the indian ocean and i

think it was the waters of indonesia and

singapore

okay now obviously with somalia and it i

think the pirates really came about

because there was so much political

upheaval there

and so it just provided you know like an

ideal lawless kind of hideout because

you know they could basically do what

they wanted and i think it's one of

those things where

you know they kind of play a little bit

of a robin hood type role and bring some

money or money to the people you know in

the ports you know they kind of like

looked upon us heroes type thing give

them kind of a safe haven

so to speak so yeah like hey you know we

know these guys are out there doing some

bad stuff but hey they're turning over

some money to us so we're going to

protect them and

you know try to stay away and not have

the guilt by association but we're also

not going to turn them in but you have

to remember i just completely imagined

that scenario they might have been

completely horrible and murdering and

raping everybody in the pool

as well i like the robin hoods yeah okay

yeah now um

in indonesia which i mentioned earlier

um that you know there are pirates

around the waters of indonesia and

singapore

uh indonesia actually has 17 and a half

thousand islands wow so it's super easy

for the pirates to hide i mean if you

had to take your choice out of

you know seventeen and a half thousand

islands it's gonna be a bit of a

surprise yeah the odds of you saying no

you're not here let's check that one

over there oh there they are

probably not number two so yeah

well actually um modern-day pirates can

make billions of dollars oh i don't

doubt that

um and they've actually been known to

use rocket launchers as well

wow ships like rpgs good for them and uh

in the first three months of uh 2020

they saw an increase of 24 percent over

the same period in 2019 so the house is

actually becoming more prolific and

what era are we in at the moment yeah so

i'm i'm wondering i guess that

you know here in the era of covet yes of

this age okay

there's no stats yeah i mean maybe the

pirates are actually kind of some good

folks and they're like hey we're gonna

just shelter in place here and you know

we don't want to go on some other ship

and catch the covid so right

yeah yeah so i'm waiting for the uh

second and third quarterly reports from

the pirates but yeah that first quarter

was a record breaker well yeah but if

they're all working from home right now

maybe they don't have as good internet

access

and they just haven't kept up with the

reporting yeah that's true

but um although the estimated uh loss i

think it was

annually uh to piracy in those areas

is roughly around 15 billion dollars wow

um yeah that yeah that was a year yeah

it was the annual loss it was about 15

billion dollars most

oil carriers don't actually report uh

the pirate

piracy incidents due to the financial

burden because of the ship owner's file

and insurance

claim their insurance rates uh can go up

by about 30 percent

now can you imagine calling in you know

to your claims hotline

and a guy answers the phone like yeah i

need to make a claim okay well uh what

happened

pirates yeah pirates pirates happened

so i need to go ahead and file a claim i

lost a billion dollars

yeah maybe we can get uh our friend pat

who works for farmers maybe we can get

him to kind of put that in a com

tell these uh bosses that needs to go in

a commercial because you know they do

that uh because we've seen a thing or

two

tagline in the oh yeah in their

commission yeah like in the little

arts yeah and the little farmers

commercial where they got the professor

whatever and he's like oh yeah we

covered that

yeah yeah maybe maybe send him an email

yeah

all right i'll get right on that yeah so

with them modern-day piracy still being

a thing and it's

as i said it's uh actually on the rise

in some areas of the world you've got to

assume

with i'm guessing some of them being

arrested or killed

by you know the police the river police

or whatever that there's got to be

some form of recruitment drive occurring

right

well sure i don't know don't go to like

uh indeed or monster.com and sign up to

be

a pirate i don't think god

yeah i mean you know i'm sure it's not

that popular in the united states but

can you imagine if that really is the

way that it happens i mean you go on

monster.com like

okay uh what am i good at well i can

drive a boat uh

i do have a parrot but i better scratch

that off my resume because apparently

that's not good i can say shiver me

timbers

maybe i should just be a pirate yeah

well thanks for tuning in to this

episode of the wolf and the shepherd we

hope you enjoyed it and we'll see you on

the next one