Citation Needed - Stede Bonnet
Episode Date: December 19, 2018Stede Bonnet (1688[1] – 10 December 1718)[2][3] was an early eighteenth-century Barbadian pirate, sometimes called "The Gentleman Pirate"[4] because he was a moderately wealthy land-owner bef...ore turning to a life of crime. Bonnet was born into a wealthy English family on the island of Barbados, and inherited the family estate after his father's death in 1694. In 1709, he married Mary Allamby, and engaged in some level of militia service. Because of marital problems, and despite his lack of sailing experience, Bonnet decided he should turn to piracy in the summer of 1717. He bought a sailing vessel, named it Revenge, and travelled with his paid crew along the Eastern Seaboard of what is now the United States, capturing other vessels and burning other Barbadian ships. Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here. Be sure to check our website for more details.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
So Hawkeye is a bad guy now?
No, no, not a bad guy.
He's like, um, he's like John Wick, kinda.
The candle guy?
What?
Y'all, hello mate, he's Y'all.
Jesus.
What?
Hey Cicil, hey Tom.
Yeah, hey, what are you doing with the costumes?
What's happening right now?
Well, you like it?
I look here, I'm beating Eli at his own game.
This week's show is about steed bonnet, the, the gentlemen pirate.
So I figured we'd just beat him to the punch and the shed, but go ahead.
Yes, yes.
And I, yeah, I was dressed like this.
I just, I have to admit, though, this is going to really, hey guys, what's up?
Yeah, nice costumes. Oh, hey, you like dude, you're, this is gonna really. Hey guys, what's up? Yeah, nice costumes.
Oh, hey, like dude, you're dressed normal.
What's happening?
Normal for Eli.
Right.
Hey, we thought you're gonna do like a pirate thing,
maybe like a pirate, like iPads, or a pirate.
Oh, you know, I mean, Steve Bonnet's story
isn't really a pirate story.
So much as it's a story about like being careful what you wish for, you know, like Steve
spends his whole life wanting to be a bad guy and then, you know, he ends up a bad guy,
like lives the life of a bad guy and genuinely bad bad guy.
Okay, wait, so so you're just normal now, but trust me afterwards. Oh,
When listeners listen back to the old episodes and they hear this intro, they're gonna freak out
They're gonna be like what you know the whole time, trust me. It's gonna be really hilarious. I'm gonna hit the head
I will be right back. Hey, um find out after what their Eli what are you talking about what?
Eli What after what they're Eli, what are you talking about? What Eli?
What after what? So like best case scenario he's talking about killing himself, right? Is that best case? That is the best that is best case
Absolutely. I quit the call forward Hello and welcome to Citation Needed.
The podcaster we choose to subject, read a single article about on Wikipedia and pretend
We're experts because this is the internet and that's how it works now
I'm Cecil and I'll be shivering these timbers, but I'll need a crew of prime mates
Prime mates get it anyway. Oh, first off two men who put the curvy and scurvy Eli and you
Thank you. I'll have you know
I am getting into
character for my trump biopixies old thank you now five six two thirty five
nailed it
and
and also joining us tonight to men who'd be forced to walk the plank before the
ship left port noa and
tom best time to walk dude i've narrowly escaped being forced to walk the plank on Delta. Yeah
Yeah, you know, maybe if the plank didn't look like a sick diving board and running jack knives into the ocean wasn't awesome
We wouldn't have this problem
So you're definitely right. We have this problem
Awesome now before we begin tonight
We'd like to thank our patrons, without whom we'd have to
turn to the podcast form of piracy, attacking people with bigger shows and hoping someone
takes our side in the drama.
The dollar killed my grandma.
There you go.
There it is.
And if you'd like to learn how to join their ranks, what killing you guys, grandma?
Okay.
If you'd like to learn how to join their ranks, be sure to stick around to the show with that
of the way.
Tell us Noah, what person place thing, concept, phenomenon, or event will we be talking
about today?
Well, that depends on whose pronunciation we go with.
We will be talking about the gentleman pirates fail if you do it. We're going to be talking about steed bonnet, the gentleman pirate fail if you do it.
We're going to be talking about steed bonnet, the gentleman pirate. Okay. And, uh, and that is how we are going to pronounce it.
So if you don't like it, you can blame Noah.
I always do.
Any lie, you probably also heard this story somewhere else and you're going to pretend
to have read, actually read the article.
Are you ready to get us some tweets, some mean tweets?
He are.
Don't do that.
So, so tell us Eli, who was Stead Bonit?
Well, he was a spoiled, unskilled,
unlikable, entitled little shit who wished so hard
he could become a monster that eventually he did.
See, he, you're not the only one who does biographical stuff on the show. You uh, sure showed me nailed it. So steed was born in 1688 to
wealthy landowners in Barbados and a state he inherited at the age of six when his father died.
The age of 21, he was wed to Mary Alomb, who bore him three sons and a daughter who died young.
That was a hell of a year. Man.
Now, at some point he was awarded the rank of major in the Barbados militia, but it is unlikely
ever served in any real capacity. By all reports, he was lazy, unhealthy, bookish, and weak-willed,
but there was one thing steed loved above all else pirates.
All right, so you got a job as the hero of an iron
Rand book.
Yes.
Spoiler, that means he'll get raped later, but he'll like it.
Fuck.
It's, you know, this sounds just like our current president,
except for you have to exchange
bookish for bourish.
And I think that would be perfect.
He's like a pretty stupid, iron-rand character.
It's pretty stupid.
Now, the reason Steedran off to be a pirate is controversial.
In a general history of the pirates, Jarls Johnson wrote that Bonnet was, quote, driven to
piracy by the discomforts he found in a married state.
End quote.
Okay, okay.
I know this one.
Unhappy with his wife, both full of dudes.
Something, something but pirates.
Disconfertcy found in a married state.
That's what happens when you, the sea is your mistress, I think.
All right, but okay, so the, I feel like though that there is a middle ground between unhappy
marriage and parrot sidekick, right?
Like one doesn't.
There is no.
No, there is no.
Cecil is a great name for a parrot, like we should all have a secret.
Okay, but regardless of whether he hated his wife or being a pirate was the 1700 versions
of a red sports car and fucking your babysitter
in 1717, despite having no knowledge of how to sail
or fight or navigate or anything remotely piratey
steed commissioned a 10 gun slope named it the revenge
and took the open sea.
Hot white, what, did he set sail alone? Because if Hot white, what did he set sail alone?
Because if not like what did he add in the paper for help?
Look like I got no experience necessary or available.
Wages uncertain, muslims scurvy, incompetent leadership and short walks off plans.
What did he call his ship the revenge?
He got to be shitting me,
do you wear a mask and fucking snort
Iocane powder too?
I gotta say though, the first day of being a pirate,
that's gotta be a weird day.
You're just like pulling out of the marina,
all black gunboat, no cargo.
I was watching.
Just like, hey, Steve, what you doing there, buddy?
Did you have, that's a cool new hat.
Did you hurt your eye or something?
What happened?
You okay?
No, no, I'm good.
I'm just gonna take the boat out for a bit.
Just taking it out for a bit with no cargo,
just going around.
No, just cool.
Cruisin' cool. Cruisin cool.
What's that black sheet?
Where would you even get a black sheet?
Where do you find this?
You're becoming a pirate man.
He's becoming a pirate.
He didn't say anything.
He's becoming a pirate.
All right.
So shocker.
At first, pirating didn't go so great.
Seed constantly had to ask his officers
and quartermaster for advice,
which lost him the respect among his crew,
who, and this is a pirate first, he paid a salary.
I'm really.
So this big sheet thing,
the, are you pointing at the sale, the sale?
Ah, yes, the sale, now pray, Talind. I will remember this at review times. I don't think you can get one over on me, but what exactly does that job do?
The sale? What does the sale do? Is that what you're asking me?
Yes, I don't. You really don't know what the sale does?
Of course I know. I'm just making sure that you know the sale.
Right.
Okay.
Well, obviously that's a mermaid signal to let them know when we're near their mermaid spot.
So yeah, and everybody knows, the first one in the water gets all that sweet, sweet fish pussy.
So you want to get ready now.
Well, I'm already naked.
So great, great.
Unrelated note, I quit the pirate ship.
Yeah.
So see, unlike most pirates who pay their crew a split
of whatever they steal, Steve just gave everyone a check
every two weeks, which
As you know back to cast it, they're just like hanging on to these checks the whole boy in the water
Yards you have direct deposits fucking HSBC
But yeah, the fact that they were getting a salary as you can imagine under motivated them to
Capture other ships at the risk of life and life.
Yeah.
There's a break room full of minimum wage pirates all kind of pissed off and lazy.
It's like, yeah, Steve, I see that the cannon guys are in the weeds.
I see that, but I'm on my 15.
This is my time.
It's just like, no, no. Cannons are for closers.
Put that down.
Yeah.
Close but Thursday.
I just, I love the idea that these are real pirates and they're all looking at each other
when he's explaining this and shit.
You know, he's like, all right, look, the money's good, but I'm not doing the secret Santa
thing or the picnic.
Okay.
Yeah.
Who signed up for cups?
Fuck you, man.
You.
All right, but after those initial sort of bumps in the road, Steve seems to start to get
the hang of the whole pirate thing. I mean, he had to the coast of the colony of Virginia
and he captures and plunders for ships. He only burns one of them because it was from Barbados and he didn't want them to go back home and tell on him
He's doing great. So he heads to New York and takes two more ships and then back to the Carolinas where he takes another four
But Jesus, but here's the problem being a pirate when you're attacking unarmed merchant vessels is
It's pretty easy. I mean they don't want to fight Steve didn't know how to fight so everybody won and on top of that
Steve was the gentleman pirate. I mean there was no raping
He kept a full library on board that his hostages had access to
According to some sources he even cooked them like fancy meals and read him his poetry and stuff
Which meant that maybe just maybe a few people he captured were like, no you're such a great
pirate steed, you sure did pirate me steed, I am pirate it.
Back in their ship up to it's his.
He sounds about as much as a pirate as that Mr. Potato head guy from the
booties. He's like, But if you don't want to get pirated, why'd you dress your ship up like that?
That's on you.
I don't know.
I feel like though, if he was going to read me a poetry, I might just go, hey, can I get
raped by a different pirate? No, but look, but this is obviously this is a pattern for him because he just, he had
a bunch of hostages and he's like, look, guys, I've never captured anybody before.
Have you guys been a captive?
You know, that whole library, no shit.
No shit.
I will get also, but it, well, I got you.
It's the big white bed sheet sheet really a mermaid signal or what
Basically, it's my entire existence the pirate but that'll change
To the end of the year when
Steed unfortunately encountered a Spanish man of war now for the non boat nerds in the audience man
Awards especially the Spanish ones were the ROTC kids in your high school
of ships. Like, you're supposed to be a good thing, but you had a feeling that they really
just like enjoyed killing people and like you want that on your side and good for them
for finding their thing, but it's just there's so much eye contact. And I don't think
they like you. Sorry. Sorry. I'm on. All right. Anyways, so the man or encounter goes how you'd expect the Spanish man of war
kicks the shit out of state.
He's injured half of his crew is killed and he barely escapes to the pirate den of Nassau.
What the fuck was he planted to pirate from a man of war? He's like, oh hey fellas, just do another pirate thing cool
everybody gather around. Great, two, three, four. I am the very
model of a modern major giant, Blam!
What the fuck, man? Did you shoot me? I'm piloting you.
What the fuck? I was about to do a whole thing.
We're doing a number. It's a famous one
Gilbert and Sullivan
Jesus Christ still trying to dance a little bit.
I started singing and I started going.
I just started dancing.
I couldn't help it.
One guy on the man award doesn't shoot him.
Oh, I was going to let him.
I want to see what's going on.
Where's this going?
Two or three little mates from school. I'm a conno. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I don't see this guy. Where is this going? Two or three little maids from school. I'm gonna come.
Okay.
God.
Yeah, I don't know guys, like I'd feel bad for him, but after a bad day of work, he gets
to take a cruise to the Bahamas.
That's, this is his bad day.
Like, I'd kill half of my coworkers for a turkey sub in a lukewarm latte.
So, okay, okay.
Okay, first of all, it was barely more than a third of your coworkers.
And secondly, the latte was hot when I bought it from the store, Tom.
I don't have control over distance.
Yeah, I don't know what you can't do right now.
I don't know what you can't do.
Synergy.
Right.
So, steed is rolling around on a hammock in NASA when who shows up, but arguably the second
greatest pirate in history, Blackbeard.
Okay, wait, wait.
Who's the first greatest pirate?
And Eli, if you say Edward Kenway from Assassin's Creed 4, I'm going to murder you with a fucking blunt
cut as I swear.
No, no, it's a Chinese lady.
Yes, it is.
Ching-sheh.
She was a boat prostitute who just like started stealing the other boat.
Yeah, she did.
She did.
For that episode coming soon, I guess.
Leave it to the prostitute who tacked the little man in the boat.
But it's your her canons go off every time, though.
That's.
Yeah, but that, that is a story for another day.
So steed because blackbeard is there.
Totally fan girls out. Like blackbeard isn't just the most So, steed, because Blackbeard is there, totally fan girls out.
Like Blackbeard isn't just the most famous pirate steed has ever met.
He's probably one of the reasons he became a pirate.
He's also everything that steeds not.
Like he's handsome, a great fighter, a great sailor, fearless, and fearsome.
I mean, Blackbeard used to set his beard on fire when he walked onto ships he captured.
That's how bad he was.
Yes, he was.
If guys had set themselves on fire at Toph,
then Michael Jackson was bad.
So bad.
You know,
you know,
what the fuck is,
after all this, his name was Blackbeard.
Like, if I light my fucking beard on fire
I think that's the thing that defines my beard now
To be a fire beard like lame face or small
Beard you bet you kind of imagine though that's what it was like
He had been trying to make flame beard or fire beard work for all of those fucking years
He's like yes, it's black, but also it's on Jesus Christ, you guys are missing the fucking point.
So guys, it's like, dude, it's not gonna be a thing.
Just let it go.
It's not gonna be a thing.
I'm gonna make flame beard a thing.
You can't make this a thing.
What about wild card?
Could I be the wild card?
I'm gonna be the wild card.
I'm gonna be the wild card.
Hey, fuck you.
I'm got puns too.
There's last stuff I do on this ship.
All right.
By the way, before we go any further, Eli, I want to be super clear here.
If you come out for the live show in Dallas with your beard on fire, people's thought will
not be, man, is he a badass pyro?
Okay, just we will find that out.
Won't we?
I will sing a song about how he's a bad guy.
He does that.
I'm a very model.
Oh, I'm a bad ass pyro.
Now, here's a bad guy. He does that. I'm about a very model. Oh, I'm a bad aspire. Now, here's the crazy thing.
To Steve's total surprise, Blackbeard, the pirate, is super nice to him.
Like, he invites him to come recover on his ship and offers to have one of his officers
take over all the pesky, you know, ship sailing bullshit that Steve doesn't like anyway.
And at least in Steve's mind, they become the best of buds.
They capture ships together.
Steve's crew doesn't get all meldy with black beard
or steed anymore, because black beard will fucking kill him.
It's the best.
I just like imagine like Steve just like,
furiously like taking notes, like wiping blood off the parchment
like, oh, kill them, got it, got it.
I can totally get rid of that guy in HR now.
Okay, that's gonna save him.
Of course, that's good.
Did Steve have like an intent or something?
Like, what the hell are you saying?
That's being blunt, table it as basement.
Yeah.
Well, Eli keeps staring longingly at me between sentences.
So it's time to take a quick break
for something we like to call apropos of nothing. Oh no!
Here he comes, here he comes.
It's the dread pirate black bee!
No!
Indeed it is!
Now listen close, if you hold your lives dear, take all!
Okay, I'm here, Edwin.
I'm here.
Sorry.
I was at the back of the boat when we started and that is, whoo!
That is just so far.
Oh, that is so far.
Is it?
Far? Yes, it is.
Stay, stay, stay.
Steve, what are you doing here? I thought I told FirstMate Smithy to keep you below
Ducks.
Sorry, I just turned my back, but like a second, just boom.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, who is he?
This?
Well, this is Steve Bonnet, the gentleman pirate.
And his best friend!
We are not best friends.
Don't do this, Edwin.
I'm sorry, the captives.
Okay?
First of all, I told you to call me Blackbeard.
Sorry, sorry.
Blackbeard, everybody.
Blackbeard, my friend.
Okay, I'm sorry.
You're the dread pirate black beard,
and your friend is named Horse Hat,
the nice guy pirate.
It's Steve Vaughn and the gentleman pirate.
I will come.
Steve, Steve, come on, buddy, Steve.
Come on, Steve.
Oh, you're so lucky, he is holding me back.
Enter.
He's holding me back.
I give 100% permission to let him go.
Please let him go. I
Fight him now nobody is gonna fight steed. Okay, I'm black beard. You're being pirated by me anyone want to fight me
No, okay, okay well done
Smitty why don't you take steed back below decks for some lunch and I will finish up here
You sure you don't need backup? Yeah, I'm good
I'm good steed. I'm good. I'm good
You're probably best friend. No not not
Smitty can you come on now master on it. Let's get to some lunch. Okay, do we have any of the 1702 wine?
Hi, I can't I can't read but we can yeah love the 1702
So good.
[♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪
And we're back.
When, last we left, Eli was proving reincarnation to be true.
What happened next
uh... so
justice to the blackbeard's bromance is in full swing
king george extends his act of grace
now the act of grace was basically king george saying
hey
there's way too many fucking pirates i'll tell you what
turn yourself in now no harm no file
i'll pardon you and your crew and I'll let your ship join my Navy,
so you can still do pirate stuff to the Spanish.
You just work for me.
You're like a one-way pirate.
Yeah, totally trustworthy.
I'd go for it.
The first one to sign up is the fucking slow kid
from making a murderer.
Yeah.
It's true.
Also, free piece of legal advice here.
Never talk to a king without a lawyer present.
Just don't, just don't sign anything.
Yeah, not that the lawyer would help very much.
You're just in line for that obviously fake pardon, but you're like, oh, what's, what's that noise in the next room?
Where we get the part?
Are they practicing the guillotine?
Do you need to practice that on nobody?
Horse with a half a torso on a rope runs by. Okay. Okay. That's weird. Do you need to practice that? Oh, nobody?
Horse with a half a torso on a rope runs by, okay.
Okay.
So you went to Harvard.
You went to Harvard.
Right, so Blackbeard is like, hey, steed, buddy,
you're not really cut out for this pirate thing.
Why don't you take the king up on this?
And steed is like, will you come with me and hold my hand
and stop being a pirate too? And Blackbeard is like, sure, buddy, we'll both not be pirates anymore. Yeah, we'll
all stop. But you should, you should stop first and I'll stand and watch. So, so proud
of you, big guy. No, you know what? I'll just, I'll stand here behind this, um, ocean.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm just hoping.
Yeah.
Also, don't make deals with famous pirates without a lawyer, president.
Or, no.
Or deals with a lawyer without a king and a pirate and a lawyer, president, on your team.
So they both go to bath, North Carolina, and they both get their pardons and agree to
never be pirates again.
And while Steve is waiting
for his letter of mark from the king so he can like officially attack the Spanish, Black
beard whom huge surprise has absolutely no intention of no longer being a pirate, quietly
sneaks off to where their boats are parked, strips down steed ship, maroons his crew,
and sails away.
Yeah. And when he comes back, there's just one hubcap spinning like a coin.
Pirate ship up on blocks.
Right.
Just, you know, for everybody, there's a quick summary.
The pirate stole the other guys boat.
That's the pirate did.
Oh, also was he a scorpion crossing a river?
Yeah. Oh, also was he a scorpion crossing a river? So, Steve goes full, John Wick and swears revenge.
So he runs out, he rescues his maroon crew and a little paddle boat and then chases after
Blackbeard except, problem is his ship doesn't have any food or supplies anymore and he doesn't
have any money to buy those things.
And suddenly he goes, oh shit, I totally got this pirate thing.
Now I see why you do the plunder and shit.
This is making sense now.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So like right there on the beach,
Steve Bonnet becomes a pirate,
like just so he can restore his ship and take his revenge.
He robs a couple of other crews in the harbor
and then changes the name of his
ship. He changes his flag. He pretends to be someone else and he goes out and search
a black beard leaving behind a trail of looted vessels. And this time he's not fucking
around. I mean, he beats his men when they disobey him. He kills people. He even cuts out
the salary bullshit and starts just splitting his plunder with his men.
Okay, he is now pirating at a much higher level.
I don't want to say I approve.
I will say his business cards make more sense now.
I love it.
The salaries are there though, right?
You said the meeting is like, okay, we're instituting beatings.
I'm a kill anybody who complains.
Also, casual Fridays are over.
You guys have abused that.
Really Mickey, your dick out.
Oh man, we just learned it.
We just learned kind of where we were switching.
We were doing, God damn it.
Does he actually catch Blackbeard?
No, see, so he doesn't, because he's not John Wick, he's the dog.
Why would the candle guy have a dog?
I don't even understand which dog.
Who the fuck is the candle guy? Okay, okay, let's just say what does he do, Eli?
Okay, so despite the fact that he was now calling himself be stonet or whatever,
everyone knows it's him and the royal navy chases after him because he's just got a pardon and
promise to stop being a pirate. Also being mad at Blackbeard doesn't give him magical sailing better power.
So he sails the wrong way up a river, gets his boat strainer on a beach and gets arrested
when his own men turn him over for trying to blow up his boat like a suicide bomber.
Whoa, wait, he sailed the wrong way up a river.
What, what, he basically aimed at the side of this?
What are you talking about? It's a river what would he basically aimed at the side of it? What are you talking about?
It's a river.
They'll never catch us alive boys.
Y'all sure, sure they will, sure they will.
Idiot. They're obviously going to cut.
He's over here that I would like you to catch us.
Are you the are you the crew for bead stunts?
In olden days, a glimpse.
That's not all right.
Stop.
That's just that's anything though. That's's not, that's just a different boat music.
I have an pirate now.
So at trial, Steve, like all tragic, crazy people represent himself and does, you guessed
it, a terrible job.
Your honor, I'd like to call my first witness, the sticky, googly eyed sock puppet.
I like to call wack beer.
How'd you get my puppet?
Yeah, pretty much.
You trust it?
Claim his crew made him be a pirate,
but the prosecution has witnesses of him being like,
Hey guys, I'm a pirate.
Me a pirate.
Pirate, pirate, pirate.
Would you just not do a good job of cross examining by the way?
Yeah, the records are out there.
They bring up his parrot.
Grab him by the booty. Right.
Okay, all fair, but still, best career day speaker ever.
Yeah, nailed it.
I the part worst part of the trial.
It's so bad he calls a character witness who's like,
Oh, yeah, Steve, Steve's totally a pirate.
He's like a good guy though
So he's convicted he escapes for like 45 minutes and then he's recaptured
Like a disobedient
You have to call it I'm like stayed get oh, Steve get over here
I am so mad at you Steve. No, you better better not, Steve. You better know, do not.
Do you better a bad boy, Steve?
You just turn sideways.
Still see you. We'll make it eye contact.
Just turn sideways. That's nothing.
Don't stand by the tree, buddy.
Don't stop.
Okay.
But if you're if you're a scape lasts less than like a law
in order episode without the commercials, why included in the biography?
Right?
Like he's telling his wife, he's like, remind him that I also had a large penis
throughout all of this.
To the whole thing.
So while he's in prison waiting to hang,
Steve does not deal well with the prospect of being executed.
And he writes the governor a letter asking that his arms and legs be cut off instead to keep him from pirating.
Oh, yeah, that'd be way better than dying quicker.
Definitely kill you.
So the governor is like, whoa, bummer.
And he delays his execution seven times.
But eventually, it's nothing he can do.
And he's hung for piracy.
And there is still a monument to him and his crew in Charleston.
Hanged, not hung Eli. He didn't get a bigger dick for piracy. That's the picture.
Well, I was only taking by Blackbeard. Well, as well.
Okay, just let's pick our battles with Eli. Let's get into punctuation first before we
get into like which word we use for past
part of the thing.
Great.
I got to say though, I mean, you know, Eli, I'm impressed.
Usually you book and your essays with a lengthy bad source tragic ending and it's the
lengthly, it's the lengthy, badly source tragic ending, isn't Eli?
Yes, it is.
Yes, it's the lengthy, badly-sourced tragic ending, isn't it, Eli? That's what it is. Yes, it is, he's great.
So the part of this story that interests me, and I'm pretty sure all of you, is the friendship
with Blackbeard.
How real was it?
Is Blackbeard just using Bonnet?
Well, one source might have a clue.
In the 1974 book by historian Robert E. Lee, a name which verdibly sings with authenticity.
Yeah.
Well, in his book, Blackbeard, the pirate or the pirate book, we can don't encourage
him.
That's that we don't exactly.
Thank you, Cecil.
So Lee points out that when Blackbeard was finally killed earlier that same year, a letter
to to bias night, a judge he had
bribed, was found on his person.
The contents of that letter, a promise to Grant Blackbeard, his request to make sure, quote,
the court and jail were gentle to steed bonnet and quote.
And if you had to summarize what you learned in one sentence, what would it be?
Someone needs to write a musical about this.
I can't say they do.
Are you ready for the quest?
As ready as a listener who points out that what that letter said is largely conjecture
based on what night wrote and did at the time and no record of that letter actually exists.
Is that person extra ready?
It was a good sense.
Is that person ready for stuff in general?
That person would be ready, I guess.
Doubly ready.
Okay.
Tom, would you like to give the first question?
I thought maybe I'd wait just a minute and make sure it felt like my turn.
Okay, gentlemen and pirate are not typically occupations or words that go together.
So what other occupation combinations did Steve consider?
A, blood letter and leech collector
Be food taster or sin eater
for C American president Russian puppet
I know with B because either that's a reference. I don't get or you did some bad acid and had a bad day
I don't know that that's not both actually so fine
All right Eli if you and I had a boat,
what would it be called?
A,
boasts and buddies,
B, chums in the water,
C, bro, bro, bro, your boat,
or D, crest friends.
God damn it, you know it's D,
see some,
you know it's D. See some stuff.
You know it's like a D.
Brody McBrote face, maybe.
I don't know.
Good one.
All right, so what would be the most commonly overheard exchange on Eli and Cecil's pirate ship
together that they have?
Would it be A?
Eli, what the fuck are you doing?
I'm setting up the bloody
poop deck. Be Eli what the fuck are you doing? I'm fucking a pile of fabric
hop in on the other side. Or see Eli what the fuck are you doing? I'm setting up
the bloody poop deck and fucking a pile of fabric hop in on either side. Oh, see, it's always the all of the above one.
It's always that.
It's actually not.
It was just the poop deck one.
Oh.
No, it was, you know, it was the scene.
Yeah.
Yeah, you have to, it's me that it's up winning.
All right.
So we just made it through an entire episode about a pirate and didn't make any
R jokes. Was that so fucking hard? A, no. B, because we're comedy show and those aren't fucking
funny. C, so please stop making them or D all of the above. Secret answer Noah, because it's actually not a B C or D or even E F G H I J K L.
I'm a cut and O P were Q. It's way at the bottom. Don't Eli. We just are
a secret answer. Did not see that coming. Classic. Classic on the funny one.
All right. Well, obviously that's wrong.
A multiple level.
So Noah, y'all be the winner this week and you get to decide who does all the work next
week.
All right.
I'm going to go with Heath because he wouldn't have made that terrible joke.
He would have made a clever pun.
They would have been very clever.
I'm sure it's on the schedule.
Yeah.
That's my thing.
Awesome.
Well, I tune in next week for the wild card who makes puns.
All right, well, for Eli, he probably know I'm Cecil.
Thank you for hanging out with today.
We'll be back next week.
I said, I love you Cecil.
He will be an expert on something else between now and then you can fill your ears with all the horrible shit
Tom and I say on cognitive dissonance or all the smart shit that no one he say on God awful movies is skeptic rat and skating atheist
I think Eli is on those shows too. I'm not sure. I don't really know
If you really like to show tell somebody about it retweet it Facebook share it Instagram it, Instagram, heart it, hinder it, whatever.
I don't even know what you do at
social media anymore, but just do something with it.
And if you like to keep this show going,
you can make a per episode donation at
patreon.com slash citation pod,
or leave us a fire star review
everywhere you can, like bathroom stalls.
And if you like to get in touch with us,
check us out, check out past episodes,
connect to us on social media,
or check the show notes, be sure to
check out citationpod.com.
And remember everybody,
Sir Francis Drake is the greatest pirate of all time.
And playwright.
Nope, totally right.
100% right.
And you can't dispute that,
because it's my closing line.
Thank you very much.
[♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪
Hi!
Sleepy, so much pirating today. Hey, sleepy.
So much pirating today.
You did so much pirating today.
Yes, you did.
Lift your arms.
And your legs.
Okay.
All right.
Good night, Steve.
Good night, Edward.
I mean, black beard.
I love you.
Love you too, Steve.
I love you. Love you too, Steve.