There’s a restaurant in Rapid City called the Pirate’s Table. It’s one of those “themed” eateries, wherein the decor, the menus, and the wait staff are all similarly modeled on a common theme. The Pirate’s Table is based, obviously enough, on all things piratical: you eat seafood and drink grog at dimly lit tables hidden in tropical alcoves whilst being served by extras the Treasure Island.
I hear the food is both quite good and quite expensive, although I myself have been there. I just don’t get the concept of a themed restaurant. Perhaps this is due to my knee-jerk reaction against that level of kitsch: if I want to eat overpriced food surrounded by Pirates of the Caribbean wannabes, I might as well be at Disneyland first.
However, I also have to admit that I simply don’t understand the idea of basing your dining experience on piracy either. I’m not sure what it is about criminals famed for acts of theft, rape, and murder that one is meant to find particularly appetizing (and perhaps more to the point, whether it would be wise to collect so many people who do in a single location). You wouldn’t theme an eatery on, say, mafia-themed executions, would you?
Oh… never mind.
I’m getting off-topic.
The Pirate’s Table airs a number of laughably bad commercials on the local channels. One of them features a dude dolled up to look Captain Jack Sparrow, who proceeds to invite the viewer to dine with him with a breathy delivery that I suppose is meant to seems mysterious and ever-so-slightly dangerous, but comes off more like Stevie from Malcolm in the Middle. I’ve never paid much attention to them, except for tonight, when one of these spot aired while I was watching TV with the Ladybug.
“Dad!” she shouted. “Is that that guy?”
“What guy?” I asked.
“That guy,” she repeated.
I tried to figure out what she meant. Given that the various Pirate of the Caribbean movies have been playing nonstop on a gazillion different cable networks, I ventured a guess in that direction.
“Jack Sparrow?” I asked.
“No,” she said, and then unexpectedly burst into song:
“You spin me right round baby, right round, like a record baby, right round, round, round,” she said.
“That guy,” she added.
I stared at her blankly, until a vision of Dead or Alive flashed before my eyes:
“I think you may be right,” I concluded.
