Feb. 24 - 27, 2001

THE JOLLY ROGERS

TRIP TO:

POLAND!

 

On the surface, this appears to be just another story about The Jolly Rogers and their increasingly common international exploits. The truth is, once you read between the lines and get to the real heart – dare I say, soul – of the story you see that it is an account of the marvels of modern technology, a tribute to the warmth and giving nature of the human heart and above all a lasting and poignant testament to the limits of human endurance. Firstly, however, I feel duty-bound to offer my most heartfelt apologies to those who may feel somewhat slighted at the tardiness of this account. To them, I can only say this: you have to remember whom you’re dealing with here. The Jolly Rogers. Such a force of sloth, procrastination and laziness has never been seen before in recorded history. If only we used our powers for good.

But I digress. It all started with an e-mail to our website at Chivalry.com. An exact quote being unnecessary, suffice to say that the aforementioned e-mail pointed out that we were great and asked if we would be interested in a gig in the sun-drenched oasis of Europe known as Krakow, Poland. Always suckers for flattery, we replied with an eloquent "YEAH!" and awaited word of the status of the negotiations being conducted on our behalf by someone on another continent that we didn’t know.

Imagine the surprise when we received word that we were in. Imagine the heated rush for passports. Imagine Kurt’s cardiac arrest when an ACTUAL CONTRACT was faxed to him. A magic time, to be sure.

And so The Jolly Rogers began to make ready for an epic journey into a faraway land. Suddenly, a pothole in the highway to international fame: Mark Stahl, filled with blazing hubris, entered Jolly Roger headquarters. "I will not go with you. When I left you, I was but a learner. Now I am the master!" To a man, we answered in unison: "Only a master of evil, Stahl!" The battle was joined. A massive melee, in the Jeet Kune Do style, was waged. And though The Jolly Roger Dojo and Latte Bar was destroyed in the process, Mark held his own. Another guitarist would have to be found.

It was then that the sun rose on The Jolly Rogers’ darkest night. Sean Foree, a.k.a Sean the Gimp, a.k.a. "Beano" Foree, a.k.a. Sean Beluga came to The Jolly Rogers in this, our most desperate hour. "I will help you. I will sacrifice for the greater good. I will suffer an all-expense paid trip to Europe. I will do this thing, for I am selfless and kind!"

We were back on track. As David Hasselhof is in Germany, so would The Jolly Rogers be in Poland.

The flight was uneventful, mostly because the author slept through most of it. I am told of drinking binges and seeing the British Isles, blah blah blah.

The graceful silhouette of the LOT airlines dirigible touched down on Polish soil. We were met by the radiant Monique who, with our resourceful driver, promptly took us to the exotic Hotel Krakus where we immediately fell unconscious for a few hours.

From this point on, our daily schedule went something like this: wake by 8am to shower and eat breakfast; by 9am begin tours of various points of interest in and around Krakow; at 5pm, eat dinner; arrive to the Shanties 2001 Festival by 7pm; leave the Festival around 12am and go around the corner to the local pub; leave local pub by 3 or 4am. Lather, rinse, repeat. Sleep? We don’t need no stinkin’ sleep!

And so dawned the day of our first performance on foreign soil. Eschewing the normal contingent of Secret Service bodyguards so that we could be closer to the people of this strange land, we descended into a shoulder-to-shoulder mass and moved about as best we could. All too soon came our turn at the microphones, and we were greeted with the kind of applause that can only come from the largest single group of people that we had ever performed for. After wetting ourselves thoroughly, we began. They clapped with the songs. They sang (in Polish) with us. They danced. They drank. My dear friends, for the first time ever in a Jolly Roger performance, there was a mosh pit in front of the stage. Had I more courage I would have leapt headlong into that seething mass and ridden the hands of that mob to wherever they would have taken me. Sadly, I am a coward and can only wonder what would have happened. Instead of boring you with all the sordid details, let me just say this: our experience at this Festival was better than any of us had ever even hoped that it could be. Brian slept with a smile on his face that night, Cliff enjoyed a cigarette and watched the smoke rise into the sweet Polish night, Sean’s eyes glinted with tears of joy, and Chris and Clint held each other a little closer as they slept. And I? I was still able to deliver presents to all the little boys and girls of the world in only one night.

We saw the Wawel (VAH-vel) Castle, seat of Poland’s monarchs. We saw the Salt Mine of Krakow, whose labyrinthine passages, awesome chambers and carved chapels were the closest we would ever come to stepping foot into J.R.R. Tolkien’s Moria. We walked the streets that Schindler’s Jews might have walked, and saw the old city walls of Medieval Krakow. We talked with people whose native language was not our own about politics, literature and culture. We also discovered that Chris can drink a hell of a lot of vodka. No. Seriously. A HELL of a lot of vodka.

Now, in closing, I want to mention the people that truly made our trip into the amazing experience it was: our guides and interpreters, who also became our friends. First I have to thank Simon, whose cyber-surfing brought him to our website and started this fantastic chain of events; he was with us from the very start to the very end. Sylvia, whose company was as invaluable as the assistance she gave in helping us with this trip. Dorota, she walked virtually every street and saw virtually every sight we did, she stayed up as late and got up as early; she was one of the best things we encountered in Poland. There were many others, of course: Agnes, Monique and The Driver (I don’t remember his name, but if you want to see some AMAZING things done with a minivan, he’s your man).

This little story doesn’t begin to tell the whole tale. We saw, and performed in, Warsaw and Wroclaw as well as Krakow. We saw amazing sights and met amazing people in those cities as well. We traveled by car and by train. Afterwards, three of us traveled through Germany and Belgium to see Paris, France and then moved on to beautiful Lucerne, Switzerland where we nearly killed each other before continuing back to Poland to make the long flight home.

There’s a lot left out of this account, but you get the idea. A better trip could not have been had, better people could not have been met and a better audience could not have been played to.

Thanks to all of them.