PIRATICAL GUIDELINES--SPREAD 'EM FAR AND WIDE

JOURNAL OF JEREMY LASSEN, 32, Unofficial Ship’s Doctor, Hot Antho. (BURDENSOME. Captured 9 Aug. of this year) Put its Capt. ENNUI and first officer SLOWE to the sword when they suggested simultaneous submissions. “No simultaneous submissions,” shouted the cook and the coxswain, dancing arm-in-arm. BURDENSOME, renamed HOT ANTHO for its fast batteries, flares, and exciting night life, accompanied our other ships under our Capt. JASON WILLIAMS after putting half the crew to land for insubordination. The rest agreed that five cents a word, 2 copies of the HOT ANTHO log, and a share of future booty was a good seaman’s wage. Capt. DOUBTER continued with the main fleet under the black flag despite the severity of his wounds. On 27 September Capt DOUBTER passed on to Our Lord, but not before muttering these odd words: “3,000 words shall be the lower limit and 10,000 the general upper.”

Shortly therefore, HOT ANTHO got under weigh at 2 P.M. to accompany INAPPROPRIATE SUBMISSION and REJECT WITH PREJUDICE under the command of Capts. VANDERMEER and VANDERMEER, our only pirate couple, on a raid toward the Upper Halves. Capt. WILLIAMS had received this coded command by way of trained seagull, but it proved as indecipherable to us as it would have been to the French and British frigates somewhere behind us in pursuit: “email submissions to peglegparrots at hotmail dot com in word or rtf format.”

At 4 P.M. the pilot put the boats of HOT ANTHO ashore about 2 miles N.N.W. of the little port town we meant to ravage. The coordinates for attack had again been writ in code (“POB 38190, Tallahassee FL 32315 USA”) and this may have thrown the pilot, who shouted out “disposable manuscripts only, with SASEs for reply,” which we all took to be an old gypsy curse. But we made off with some gold coins and the food we had been sorely lacking.

At 7 o'clock the following morning, merchantman BORING STORIES appeared off HOT ANTHO’s starboard bow. Capt. WILLIAMS signaled for a broadside, followed by boats with anchors and hawsers to take BORING STORIES without damage, but because of the outlawed simultaneous submissions that hove into view and the sea breaking over the ship this proved impossible and several boats were overset and lives were lost attempting it. The decision was made to breach BORING STORIES’ hull with cannon, and soon she was sinking, to much cheering. Capt. WILLIAMS noted that “HOT ANTHO was made for this! Adventure and intrigue and bravery. That’s what we want. Do you find this fun Lassen? I tell you, I want fun like this for HOT ANTHO.” After much conferring, Capts. WILLIAMS, VANDERMEER, and VANDERMEER decided to continue to raid up and down the coast, chasing ships, from the period of Nov. 1 to Feb. 28 of the next year. At which time, HOT ANTHO will cease reading and pillaging and find the main pirate fleet at the appointed meeting place. Then shall the world tremble before our assembled might! Arr!