Pirates of Wentzville

I mentioned that the Renaissance Faire takes place on the edge of the metro area. The town is named Wentzville. It's best known for a major highway junction, a huge General Motors plant and endless, soulless strip centers. To their credit, though, they have a park large enough to hold this event. 

For the last couple of years they've had a man wandering around who does a spot-on impersonation of Johnny Depp's role as Captain Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean series. He's a chick magnet. Probably has experience as a model, too. Always keeps his eyes on the camera.

This has been an awful week at work but now it's break time. Up to Chicago this morning - our son gets his second masters degree tomorrow. This one is in education; the other was computer science. Mom and dad are pretty proud.              

Pirates Of The Midwest

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What Captain Jack Sparrow has to do with the Renaissance in general and 16th Century Lyon in particular is, well, not obvious. This well-made impersonator was wandering the grounds of the Faire, swigging heavily from a bottle of water, stomping over to the champ d'honneur and taking fake pot-shots at the knights.

There was a witty novel a few years ago called Bear vs. Shark. Who would win a fight between a bear and a shark? Similarly, who would win a fight between a mounted knight in armor and a pirate armed with cutlass and pistol? My money is on the waterborne contestants.

Booty

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"Professor, what's another word for pirate treasure?"

"Well I think it's booty" "booty" "booty, that's what it is."

- Professor Booty, The Beastie Boys

Yesterday brought the 2012 edition of the St. Louis Idiotarod. It is a farcical play on the Iditarod, which also started yesterday. That's the annual dog sled race from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska, which, I want to tell you, is one long, cold and empty way. In the local version, teams of five people decorate shopping carts in all sorts of silly ways, pretending that four of them are pulling like sled dogs and one is the musher. It's for the benefit of Operation Food Search.

Some of the themes are a little hard to figure out. This one obviously has something to do with pirate booty, as well as the American slang use of that word. More to follow.

STL DPB will be on automatic mode the rest of the week. Posts with Idiotarod photos will be uploaded in advance and I won't be able to leave comments. I've got a ton and a half, possibly a ton and three-quarters, of work to do. Friday is a travel day. Fresh posts and comments will resume Saturday night (maybe) or Sunday morning (for sure) our time from Tamarindo, Costa Rica. YAY!