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Before I get started with today's podcast, I want to give a special shout out to Spooky

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Savart. If you guys don't know who he is, he goes on Instagram or Instagram Reels or TikTok,

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and he just makes quirky little videos where he finds, he records whatever he wants and

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people love it. People keep calling him homeless, but he's not actually homeless.

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And then there's this thing he does, right? Where he'll get keys, he'll look for faucets out in

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public areas, and he'll see if they work. Nine times out of 10, they do. Sometimes they'd work

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stronger than others. And every time he does, he has a little catchphrase going, yeah dog. And then

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he does a little dance. Good for him. Anyway, I wanted to talk about something that I've been

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looking into this week. This week, I had a lot of stuff on YouTube recommended, and I used to be

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big into pirating and stuff. Not pirating movies, but the actual concept of pirates,

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you know, the golden age of piracy and so forth. Let's talk about how dark it really was though.

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Before I get started with this episode, I want to debunk one thing right now,

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which is pretty funny to me actually. The thing is, I used to be a big fan of pirates, pirate movies,

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Pirates of the Caribbean, bullshit like that. But the thing is, there's one thing that a lot

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of people for some reason think is very common, which is walking the plank. That didn't really

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happen. Like almost at all. In fact, it was exclusively done for people who were attempting

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to mutiny a ship, but they failed. And it happened maybe a few times in recorded history. It happened

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more in fiction than it did in real life. What was more common was keelhauling, which was admittedly

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far worse, where you just get dragged underneath the ship and your body is just like beat to crap

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because you're being carried underneath the ship. Which is covered in barnacles, lacerating your

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skin and you'd most likely die of infection, drown, or suffer for a really bad head injury.

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It's not easy, okay? It's fucked up. But I don't know why I had to dispel that rumor. Anyway,

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welcome back to the Voodoo Podcast. This week I'm tired. I'm just tired. Not for the reason

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you think. If you hear the echoing, a lot of stuff has moved around and this week has been eventful,

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but I can't go into that. I will be blunt though. I thought by now podcasting would have paid more,

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but I mean it does. It does enough. What I do like is the freedom that I have to say whatever I want

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and talk about whatever I think is interesting. Which this week is the golden age of...

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What's the term? Piracy. The golden age of piracy basically. Okay, but let's actually talk about what

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was so dark about it, right? Well, one of the most common methods of execution wasn't...

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It wasn't just straight up shooting them or anything. The gore factor is usually left out

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of movies like Pirates of the Caribbean and in fact a lot of Hollywood things, they just don't

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get it right. It wasn't swashbuckling, sword fighting, shooting. It was more of a display of

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brute force and a lot of gore. Basically what they do is a lot of shit. They would intimidate

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the people that they were trying to rob and if the robbers fought, or if the rob E fought back,

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well then all hell would break loose. You'd get shot in the stomach, kicked over the bow of the

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ship and sharks would eat you. Stuff like that was pretty common. And back then anyway, holy shit.

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But there was another thing too. Either people who attempted to mutiny, which if you don't know

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what a mutiny is, basically you're trying to take over the ship along with other people and if you

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failed it was bad. It was very bad. They had this common thing where... You know, they had this

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common thing where... I forget what it's called. They have marooning. There we go. Where what they

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do is they leave you on a sandbar. It's not an island. It's a sandbar during low tide and they

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would give you something to drink and a gun. That's all they would give you. Now if you know

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anything about the ocean, when it's low tide and you're on a sandbar, you're already in a bad place.

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The problem being is when the tide rises, you will drown. Period. But that's what the gun is for. In

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fact, the whole point of the gun and the drink that they would give you, most likely rum,

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what they would do is... It's a way of saying goodbye. It's like saying kiss your ass goodbye.

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This is where you end. Very, very, very rarely did you survive that. In fact, you didn't. Period. I

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don't... I haven't done any... I haven't found anything that says that people would survive a marooning.

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And normally it wasn't just one guy. It'd be a whole bunch of them. Or if it was really bad,

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yeah, it'd be one guy. But yeah, that's... It's fucked up thinking about it because, you know,

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you get one bullet and that's for you. And the last drink and that's, you know, celebrate your life.

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Unless you want to get keelhauled, in which case... I'd rather be marooned to be honest because that

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way you just get drunk and shoot yourself in the head. Like, that's the end, right?

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It could have been much worse. There was another method they had, right? Where they'd put a rope

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around your head and they would start twisting it. Twisting, twisting, twisting, applying more

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pressure. Have you guys ever, like, gotten a piece of rope and started twisting it? You'd see how it

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gets all tense. Now, imagine a rope much bigger than that attached to the outside of your head.

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What this would do, unfortunately, if you tighten it enough around a person's head,

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their eyes would pop out. This is in an era with very poor hygiene and even worse medicine. So,

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you can imagine what that does to a person. You know, and it was around these times that

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we would also have, you know, you got ships at sea, you got pirates, and okay, let's say these are

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the illegal guys, you know? These are the guys who are pirates. They're criminals. What about the

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law-abiding citizen? What about the ones who never interacted with pirates and were just doing their

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job, you know, pirate, like piloting a big ship? Well, in many cases, they were out in sea for

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months on end with very little food and only, only their, their compadres, only their men by their

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side. There was a lot of, you know, a lot of stuff at sea that happens that is, you know, strictly

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between the men and they, they don't tell that to anyone else. Having said that, there is something

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that is very ominous. Things of the, things of the times, okay? Signs of the times, basically.

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Lighthouse Keepers. If you guys have seen the movie The Lighthouse, you know what I'm talking about.

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There is nothing scarier to me than schizophrenia and mental illnesses that make you go insane.

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I've always discussed that on this podcast and this is gotta be one of the most terrifying ones,

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the most terrifying examples, being lighthouse keepers. Because here's the thing, the way that

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the lighthouses would move, like the light bulbs themselves, they'd basically be suspended in rivers

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of mercury, like a really, really deep amount of mercury. And it wasn't, it wasn't healthy to breathe

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in all the fumes. You know what mercury fumes do to you? They slowly deteriorate your mind. They

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make you go a little crazier. So when you're basically on a, when you're on a cabin on stilts

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out in the middle of the sea, close to shore, close enough to shore that you gotta guide people around

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rocks. You know what I mean? But you know, you're basically letting them know, okay, you're near,

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you're close, but that's not okay. Okay. Moving on. Okay. Imagine having to tend this giant fucking,

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basically river of mercury that slowly the fumes are driving you nuts and they just start eating

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away at your sanity. It's actually insane. Again, if you guys have never seen the movie The Lighthouse,

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absolutely watch it. At first, I honestly thought it was about them going insane because of the

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isolation. That's part of it as well. But that's not the only thing. You know, the contributing

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factor is the mercury fumes. And if you look into the history behind it, a lot of them that finally,

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you know, switched or finally were, were actually given up. A lot of these big lighthouses were

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owned by big companies that the, if the company went under, they just never told the lighthouse

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worker and they would work themselves to death. It was fucked up. There's actually a very famous

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story regarding this subject that I highly recommend you guys look up. It's much more

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terrifying than any movie you've ever seen because this actually happened. And it's very well

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summarized, well documented. Thankfully. The thing is lighthouse keepers had to do a daily log while

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they were working. And it wasn't just one light, one lighthouse keeper keeping documents on everyone

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else. Everyone else had their own eyewitness accounts. They would take measurements of wind.

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They do a lot of stuff while they were there. They kept busy, but that didn't stop them from

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slowly going mad, which was exactly what happened in the smallest lighthouse tragedy. It's a well

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documented phenomenon and it's brutal as hell. Like absolutely brutal. Basically a man who was

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working with another one, another lighthouse keeper, both of them were working shoulder to

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shoulder and they were doing fine until one of them had passed away. The problem is because they

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were inhaling the mercury fumes, the person who was left alive was essentially going insane because

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he would always see the corpse there. He actually built a makeshift coffin for the corpse, but he

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wasn't, you know, he wasn't good at working with wood. So what ended up happening was at some point

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there was a big storm that hit and it actually broke the casket. It broke it wide open and the

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corpse was just there on display, which really fucks with your mind if you don't know anything

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about that. And there's this thing right in the medical field that if you're surrounded by bodies,

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basically you become, it affects you mentally really, really badly. In fact, I also noticed

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another thing about this topic, right? A lot of people talking about the golden age of piracy and

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life in the high seas, you know, stuff like that marooning life, I guess. When I talk about the

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golden age, I mean the literal golden age, there's an actual timeline. It's the 1600s through the

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1700s. A lot of people don't actually know that. Like they just kind of have this general idea as

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to everyone being in like the Victorian era, something like that. You know what I mean?

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There was also this misnomer or this misunderstanding of pirates and people

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always think that, you know, they were out in the seas for, you know, months or years at a time,

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basically living on the boat. When in reality, they would really go from port to port over and

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over again, just kind of in between. And a lot of the ports that were available to most sailors,

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most people who are, you know, boating, they would not be friendly to pirates, which, you know,

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makes sense obviously. You don't want a bunch of criminals coming up and just taking everything.

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And pirates in turn don't want to be surrounded by police and law-abiding citizens. They want to be

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with their own kind. You know what I mean? It is what it is. There's two kinds of people in the

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world, I guess. And it's funny thinking about people getting the two mixed up. It's like,

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where did you think they would go just randomly? Do you think they're going to end up in the Los

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Angeles harbor just going, yarr, harr, harr, you know? Speaking of which, that's another misconception.

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Did a lot of pirates go, yarr, you know, that arr, arr, matey, you know that thing? It is kind of true,

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but it's more of a, it's a regional thing. It's a, it's a regional accent. Most people just spoke

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regular English back then. If not English, there were other languages they spoke, but a majority of

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the time pirates weren't stuck here in, you know, English speaking countries. They would actually go

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down, you know, different continents. Anything with a shoreline can be invaded by pirates.

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Invaded by pirates. And there's another thing, one sad thing that I want to dispel a lot of people,

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myself included, kind of thought that pirates were, you know, more open and free, right? Like if you

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were of any race, it didn't matter. Pirates were racist. Okay. I didn't, I don't know if you had to

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you had to know that, but pirates regularly traded slaves. The difference is they, they were way more

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brutal with the slaves. In fact, it's almost, it's not so common knowledge that pirates kind of helped

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to start the sugar plantations in some countries because of the amount of slaves that they brought.

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Some of them who were free men to begin with that were now slaves. It's, it's brutal. It's kind of

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fucked up, but why even talk about pirates, you know, piracy and the, again, the golden age of

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piracy? Why even talk about it? Well, there's this thing, right? I've always thought this thing,

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and a lot of people do follow my sentiment. Those who don't follow history are doing it repeated.

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I got to tell you right now, that's never been more true than with the pirate age, because a lot

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of people get so much wrong. In fact, there are modern day pirates. They're nowhere near as

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romanticized as the ones back then, because the ones today have modern day technology. They got

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AK-47s, tiny inflatable rafts that they take, they used to go really quickly on big ships and just

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take over everything. It's still a thing. There's still a lot of pirates out there. It's just not

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as glorified nowadays, because we can see it for what it is. It's just thievery. That's all it is.

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You know, it blows my mind that some people still wanted to be a pirate back then,

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but it's more understandable back then because it was a different time period. You can get away

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with a lot more, and you had to be smart still. Okay, one last thing that I want to debunk,

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or at the very least get into. Not even one last thing. There's quite a few.

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The pirate captain, the captain of the ship, what did you think they did? When I say captain,

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you think of the leader of the crew, right? You think of the guy that was in charge of everything,

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the guy that was steering the ship. Sure, that's something they did do, but what else did they do?

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What else were they in charge of? Were they in charge of looking through everything? Were they

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in charge of diversifying the gains that they got whenever they were stealing from ships? No,

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they didn't do any of that. A ship captain is just that. They guide the ship to where it's going to

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go next, but what they did do is they guided the men during fights. Whenever there was fights,

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they needed leadership, and the captain was there to work as that. But in reality, the one who did

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everything, the guy who was actually pulling the strings and paying the workers, feeding them,

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and making sure that no one was dead on the ship, was the quartermaster. In fact, the quartermaster

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had more power over the people than the captain himself. The captain was paid a lot, sure. He was

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paid double what the rest of them were paid, but here, let me put it this way. The captain, double

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the pay, the quartermaster, pay and a half, the woodworker, or the, what's his name? Guy with the

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saw, basically. The guy who could craft and fix the boat. Payment and a quarter, one times four,

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you know, 1.4 of the salary, and the surgeon would be paid the same. The rest, they got an even

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salary. Basically, it was evenly distributed amongst the crew members, but the thing that does

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get me that I was surprised about was piracy, back then, at least, did pay handsomely.

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Here's what things got, here's where people got it right. In the modern day world, I want to stress

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this out. Crime does not pay in the modern day world, okay? However, back then, one successful

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run, one successful plunder, could give a man an entire year's worth of pay. In fact, more than

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that. Working on a ship as a regular human being, as someone who is a law-abiding citizen, you would

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get a decent amount, you would get okay amount, but that would be considered minimum wage compared

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to what pirates were making. Pirates were making a shit ton of money, and well, the only problem

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they had was they couldn't really put it in a bank. However, that's, you know, there's a whole

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rumor about like, oh, we bury the treasure, and that didn't happen. Pirates spent their money,

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they spent it well. On prostitutes, on liquor, a lot of liquor, mostly rum, people know that one,

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and just having a good time, basically. Pirates were people who were adventurous. They were

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people who wanted high risk, high reward, you know what I mean? And the reason they were paid so much

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is because there was a very, very likely high amount, a very big chance that in the plundering,

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they were going to be very, very hurt. The peg leg was a real thing, okay? And the funny part is,

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now we're talking about things that we got wrong, let's talk about things we got right, you know,

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I mentioned that earlier, but this is one thing they got right. They did get paid a lot.

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Pirates were basically rich. They would have flexed all their money. I hate saying that,

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but you know, that's, that's kind of accurate. And pirates can easily buy like hundreds of slaves

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individually. I'm talking about a regular pirate, not a, not a captain. But the funny part is,

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if you were with the pirate crew and you were done, there was no harm, no foul. At that point,

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you'd sign a contract every time we were about to start a plunder, but once it was done, you could,

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you could get off the ship and just go either join another crew or just relax a bit, you know? In

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fact, most pirates actually spent a lot of their time on land enjoying their wealth. A lot of them,

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when they went out to plunder, it was a one-off thing. It was, you know, like, oh, we heard a

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merchant vessels coming this way and it'd be like, get on the boat, man. We're going to go get it.

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Three or four days later, they'd come back and that was it. They had a successful plunder. They

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would go to somewhere else, somewhere where they could lay low for a bit, maybe fix the ship if it

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needed repairs. The only problem is they could not get repairs near where they, where they stole,

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where they stole items from. Basically, the East coast of the United States was a good example

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and Spain, places like that. They couldn't go there. They had to go places like the continent

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of Africa on the edge where they could get their ships repaired and, you know, no questions asked.

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The problem is because they had to go so far to get repairs, they did last a bit more longer on

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the boat and at that point some people would die from their injuries, which again, you were being

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paid more than anyone ever had in their life. So you did have, damn, the moment I started saying

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that piracy pays is the moment the FBI calls me to shut up. Anyway, let's move on to the next topic.

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Anyway, so pirates were well known throughout the Mediterranean, throughout all these places,

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right? Throughout the 16 to 1700s, right? That's a whole hundred years where they could do whatever

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they want. Their names are spread. You have people like Stede Bonnet, who was one of the most notorious

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pirates who ever lived, who originally started as the gentleman pirate because he never hurt anybody.

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His whole thing was he goes into the ship, he goes, hi, we're going to take your valuables. We don't

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want to hurt you guys, but if you guys make it rough, then, then we're going to have to, but we

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don't want to hurt anybody. But that was his reputation. Stede Bonnet never hurt anybody.

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Up until the end of his career, because afterwards he was trying to 1v1 Blackbeard, which is not an

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easy thing when you're not an experienced pirate, especially Blackbeard, because surprisingly,

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people don't know this about Blackbeard. He wasn't that financially successful. In fact,

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he was a great leader, but aside from that, that's pretty much all he was. He was illiterate. He had

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a father who died when he was young, but Blackbeard also did have this thing where he would light

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matches, put them in his beard and he'd make a quote unquote smoke screen, which made it look,

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it made him look more fantastical than he was, which is why his name is so legendary. But there

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was another reason for this. The reason he did that is so that the smoke would obscure the vision of

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whoever was attacking him. And let's say someone has a flintlock pistol and shoots at him. They'll

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miss his head. That's the point. The point is he's essentially in a cloud, you know, he's essentially

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got a fog, a shroud around him. And admittedly, it was brilliant. All you would see through it was

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his eyes, but even then you kind of know where his head was. Truth is you wouldn't really see his eyes,

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but you'd see little bits of match heads and you would think they're his eyes, which it's kind of,

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what's the term? It's kind of like a peacock effect where they open their tail and there's a bunch of

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eyes. It's that effect. It's actually, it's actually brilliant. I've never seen a person use it then or

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since, you know what I mean? So we've established at this point, pirates were well known through

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1600s, 1700s. There was a big period of it, right? So how did they keep doing it? How did people

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always get plundered by pirates? If you know that the pirate ship is coming, your instinct is to run

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away, right? That's the point. Pirates were famous and they knew it. So whenever there was a pirate

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ship, they would disguise as a regular merchant vessel, one that was absolutely loaded with goods

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ready for the trading. Cause there was a thing that they did back then, right? If you're in the

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middle of the sea, you want to trade with someone, you want to get more materials. And what the pirates

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would do is they would actually cover their cannons with a canopy. Try saying that three times fast.

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They would try to cover it, but I can't say it one more time. Okay. Anyway, they would blanket

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over them from a distance. It looked very good, very convincing from up close. It was very clear

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that it was just a tapestry painted to look like wood, but the moment that they got too close and

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they noticed, well, it was too late to do anything about it. The flag as well. The famous iconic skull

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and crossbones was a very crude rag. Basically they would make it on the fly. You'd have someone

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who could stitch it. One guy in the crew could stitch it. That's it. His whole point was to make

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the flag, but they never actually raised it unless they were within close proximity of someone close

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enough that they couldn't escape. That's where the canopy comes in as well. What you do is you

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disguise yourself and you would also put as much items on the surface of the boat near the edge

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where anyone with a telescope could see you from a distance and they'd, they'd see you waving them

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down saying, Hey, we want to trade. And they would approach you thinking that it was just going to be

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a basic trading. And here's where the best part comes in. As soon as you are within,

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the term was 576 paces, something like that. Basically within, what's the term again?

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Within, wow, I'm struggling to remember the word. There's a term for it. When a gun, okay,

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point blank range. That's what it's called. When you're in point blank range, then they would remove

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the canopy because at that point, every single cannon would be aimed at your boat. And you

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would not be able to escape the moment those are fired. Every single one's going to hit.

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You might as well surrender. That's the point though. And the problem is other boats try to

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do the opposite. It's a chameleon effect where other boats in order, like these are people who

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aren't pirates, people who weren't pirates would disguise their boat with cannons. Unfortunately,

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these cannons were fake. They were made of wood and they could not fire. They were not good for

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defense. They were good for quote unquote deterring pirates. The problem is pirates are smart. They

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know, they know a bluff when they see it. So it was very easy to just, you know, paddle right up to

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them and go money or your life. That's it. Here's the fun part. You would be surprised to see

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the reaction of the people that were being robbed. Some of them, not all of them, but some of them,

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we're very glad to see pirates, which is something I never thought I'd say.

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The reason being is one thing. Think of it like this. There are sometimes boats where the captain

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is a major asshole and everyone hates him, but they can't do anything about it. So when the

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pirates come, they give them a chance to do what's called ramshacking where was it term ramshacking?

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Basically, I don't remember the term, but basically what they would do is they would tie up the

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captain and they would give the crew options. They would say, do you have anything to say about your

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captain? And a lot of them would roast the out of the captain. And unfortunately this usually

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led them to captain dying, just straight up dying. The worst, the offense, the worst, the response.

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And in some cases they would be keel hauled, which we mentioned at the beginning of the episode.

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You do not want to be keel hauled, especially in a moment where anesthesia and disinfectant is not a

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thing. Everyone is dirty. Everyone is dying from infection. If you get cut, it's a bad time. But

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imagine being the captain turning around and seeing your entire crew say, fuck that guy, you know, all

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of them saying that essentially your entire crew has become pirates and the captain is gone. You,

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in this case are gone. The problem is at this point, your entire crew has become pirates.

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They've just been given new jobs that pay way better and your boat is gone too. When they take

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the whole boat, you're fucked. That is that simple. And bam, you've just successfully plundered an

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entire vessel ship. That is how pirates did it. It's that simple. There were, it wasn't always the

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case though. Sadly, sometimes people would fight back. Pirates were not nice, period. They weren't

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going to swashbuckle. They weren't going to grab a sword and go, hi-yah, you know, like that wasn't

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the case. They had guns. Okay. It's that simple. If you, if you try to fight back, pull out the

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pistol, shoot him out and it gets worse. Pirates, if you didn't tell them where all your stuff was,

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they would just tie you up and torture you. Like that was absolutely on the table. They would

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torture one guy so the rest of them would see him and everyone would talk essentially. It's worse if

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you don't give up your stuff. Basically, regardless of what you do, if a pirate gets on the boat,

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you've already lost. Pirates were stupidly powerful. Like first off, you got a bunch of cannons aiming

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at your boat, ready to sink it at any moment. You got a bunch of people who have nothing to lose,

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guns, swords, and it's fucked. You know, you're screwed at that point. Speaking of hooks, there's

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one thing that people get wrong. There is no recorded pirate in history that had a hook on his

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hand. That was never a thing. That is entirely fictional. That was never real. Peg legs were real.

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That is... it's funny. It's funny hearing about that. Why was a hook hand was... why a hook hand

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was like a thing? I think it was because of Peter Pan. Captain Hook. Captain Hook was never real.

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Period. That was entirely made up by Disney? I think so, yeah. And I don't know. It's funny

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seeing how works of fiction eventually work themselves into what we think is just common

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knowledge, but it's really not. I just wanted to dispel that. Also, the Mythbusters don't have

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a hook hand. The Mythbusters did an episode where they were talking about how pirates would have a

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patch over their eyes so that they can see in the dark. Never in the history of piracy was that

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recorded. And the thing is, pirates, their captains especially, could write and read. Most of them

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could anyway. And a lot of them would document or dictate whatever they did, you know, just so that

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lasted. But never was that the case. Wow, I just burped so bad. In conclusion, Pirates of the

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Caribbean got a shit ton of things wrong. And I'm still a fan of the idea. It's more of an idealized

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version of piracy, you know what I mean? Which is, it's funny thinking back about how this should

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have been common knowledge, you know? Like, yeah, pirates are just fucking thieves. That's it.

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But movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, a lot of pirate movies have gotten everything wrong.

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There's never been one that's too accurate. There is one thing though. I want to bring up a key

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thing. Jack Sparrow. Okay? It's funny seeing this. Because a lot of people get this detail and they

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don't realize it. When Captain Jack Sparrow is walking in the movies, he's walking like he's

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drunk, but in reality, he has what's called sea legs. Which, when you've been on a boat for a long

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time, there's actually footage of this online. Look up sea legs or walking on a boat and you'll

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see what I mean. Because a lot of the times on a boat, when it's moving and you're under the vessel

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or like inside the vessel walking around, you're going to rock back and forth and your legs are

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going to have to adjust. This is actually seen in every animal that's on a boat for a long period

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of time, especially dogs. Well, especially humans, but you know, dogs come up second place.

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And one more thing, pirates, it wasn't common, but it did happen. Pirates had pets. Parakeets.

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Two recorded counts of parakeets as pets is recorded in history. And that's all we have

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because, you know, thieves normally don't write down what they do. Anyway, that's going to do it

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for this episode of the Meatweed Podcast. If you learned something new, let me know. My email is

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open. Be sure to follow me on Twitter or X, whatever you call it. And I'll see you guys

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next time. Subscribe on YouTube if you're listening there. If you're on New York City Podcast Network,

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vote up this episode. We've recently been getting a lot of episodes at our staff favorites. If

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you're on Patreon, you know, please subscribe there. I want to give a shout out to La H.

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Thank you. And what else? What else is there? We still have the merch shop available. I actually

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still have my books up for sale if you want to look at that. And other than that, I will see you

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guys all next week. Oh, right. Forgot about something. There is an announcement coming up

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next week. I want you all to perk up your ears next week. Save the date. I don't have the date

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saved, but you know, next Friday. It's always Friday these episodes come out. Be sure to save

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the date. We have something coming up. I got an email recently and I've just been really excited

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about it. Also, I want to thank Sage and I want to thank Nick for being on the episode of Cycle Paths

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of Morbid Universe. I want to thank that. By the way, new episode's out now. So thank you all very

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much for listening. I'll see you next week. Bye.