Barack Obama vs. the Pirates of Witchita

October 17, 2008 10:35 AM

A cry went up. The Audacity had pulled astern of us, and dropped anchor, and pinned us with her swivel guns. I heard a snap of cording, and a thump, and then the man Obama stood on our deck, still gripping the rope he had swung over on.

Join the protagonist as he travels with the man Obama, does battle with the Ronpaul and meets such figures as Lord Nader the Beltway Lord, Brother Sharpton, Greenspan the Green and Schwarzkopf the Bear-sark. There are a few stories posted and an update with a promise of more to come!

posted by Biblio (45 comments total)

I was initially just going to give this a what, but it's actually pretty awesome.
posted by Caduceus at 10:47 AM on October 17, 2008

Yeah, that was surprisingly compelling for what it was.
posted by davejay at 10:56 AM on October 17, 2008

Nice. Now I'd like to see a retelling of the tale of the original Barak, who was the prophetess Deborah's military leader, and defeated the Canaanites.

Although, obviously, in this version he would defeat the McCainaanites.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:58 AM on October 17, 2008 [14 favorites]

He sang of Romney Three-faced, the Great Salt Pope, who wields the spiked and golden miter of Moroni and has twelve thousand brides, all fashioned, through surgery and sorcery, to look like Jessica Alba.

Awesome.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 10:59 AM on October 17, 2008

That was great.
posted by mrbill at 11:07 AM on October 17, 2008

Barack Obama and the Thunder Zeppelin - Barack Obama vs. the Pirates of Witchita

Also see:
Obama at the Gates of Detroit, Chapter 1
Obama at the Gates of Detroit, Chapter 2
Obama at the Gates of Detroit, Chapter 3
posted by lyam at 11:09 AM on October 17, 2008 [3 favorites]

"McCainaanites"
posted by DU at 11:10 AM on October 17, 2008

*First link should read: 'Sequel to the Pirates of Witchita. Duh.
posted by lyam at 11:10 AM on October 17, 2008

Political-Maritime slash? I'm going with



what
posted by GuyZero at 11:10 AM on October 17, 2008

Is it Slash? Isn't slash supposed to be homo-erotirc fan fiction? I haven't read them all but I sincerely hope this doesn't devolve into that.
posted by lyam at 11:13 AM on October 17, 2008

You know what? That there was a pirate's treasure of awesome writing!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:14 AM on October 17, 2008

Awesome.
posted by mothershock at 11:16 AM on October 17, 2008

This is pretty good. No homo-erotic shit here.


I was entertained, good way to add some levity to a somber Friday.
posted by teabag at 11:28 AM on October 17, 2008

Isn't slash supposed to be homo-erotirc fan fiction?

Yes. Yes it is. This is not slash. This is just awesome.
posted by Caduceus at 11:29 AM on October 17, 2008

I didn't realize Terry Gilliam was doing a movie about Obama.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 11:33 AM on October 17, 2008 [2 favorites]

Absurdly sublime.
posted by emjaybee at 11:43 AM on October 17, 2008

... his hand came away gilded with dust, for Obama cries tears of molten gold.

Awesome.
posted by gurple at 11:52 AM on October 17, 2008

It's like all the noble goodheartedness that I ever felt when I was reading Lord of the Rings, but infused with the childlike hope that I'm trying not to have about this election.
posted by redsparkler at 11:57 AM on October 17, 2008

Six, seven minutes of video, tops. HD camcorders, rust bucket props, just a dash of CGI and lots of single source lighting and crushed gamuts. Please, please.
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:05 PM on October 17, 2008

That was all kinds of awesome.
posted by daHIFI at 12:16 PM on October 17, 2008

Wow. Just... wow. Three different kinds of tropes mixed together into a mold of solid win.
posted by mephron at 12:18 PM on October 17, 2008

The story is continued on rpg.net, but unfortunately requires registration. They're being copied to the SomethingAwful forums.

The later ones aren't quite at the same level of genius as the earlier but still have some good moments:

Lieberman spoke hesitantly. “The prophecies say that in the Time of Portents, in last years of the Ican calendar, the House of Red must hold sway over all fifty states, or doom will fall upon us all. You know this. It is why I came to you, leaving my rightful place in the House of Blue. But they never mention you by name, only by allegory. Perhaps another…”

“What other?” the Mac Cain asked, with black joviality. “Who else has the sense and the strength to unite the feudal states? Who else can raise an army fit to match steel with your old friends and this new upstart? Huckabee? A senseless god-botherer who cares more for his pet Wulfgerat than for his people. Giulliani? Perhaps, if he would ever leave off this constant brooding over his fallen towers. Romney? Dangerously insane. Thompson? Is that old Dragon even still alive? No,” he said, with finality. “If it must be done, then I must do it. There is no other.”
posted by outlier at 12:22 PM on October 17, 2008

The story is continued on rpg.net, but unfortunately requires registration. They're being copied to the SomethingAwful forums.

The story is continued right on that blogger site:

Barack Obama vs. the Pirates of Wichita
Barack Obama and the Thunder Zeppelin
Obama at the Gates of Detroit, Chapter 1
Obama at the Gates of Detroit, Chapter 2
Obama at the Gates of Detroit, Chapter 3
... and that's all, except for a promise for more chapters that was put up on Tuesday.

I hope so. This might be the most entertaining thing I've read in six months.
posted by anastasiav at 12:29 PM on October 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

And also :

He sang of Lord Gore: how he gained the power to speak the language of beasts by killing the god of werewolves, and how he called the last seven living griffins to him, and harnessed them to a chariot, and flew to the moon.

Yeah, it's got a beat I can dance to, this does. (Who's responsible?)
posted by From Bklyn at 12:30 PM on October 17, 2008

Oh I'm sorry, I'm projecting my thoughts onto the internet again. Carry on.
posted by The Whelk at 12:33 PM on October 17, 2008

God damn them all
I was told we'd cruise the skies for Republican votes
We'd fire no guns
Shed no tears

Now I'm a broken man on an Iowa pier
The last of Clinton's Privateers
posted by sixswitch at 12:34 PM on October 17, 2008 [7 favorites]

The man Obama sighed. “King George has declared Canada to be an abomination, and bids his scythe-planes to harry it away from our border. The land, you ken, not the people. Every month a flight of planes takes wing from Fort Worth and makes the trek across the whole country until they reach the border. Many fall along the way, to the RonPaul's guns or the thunderbird's talons, or simple storms. When they arrive, the few survivor's dive at the ground and carve furrows in the tundra with their wing mounted blades until they exhaust their fuel.”

“And then?”

“Then they crash, and die,” Obama said with disdain. “Until the next month, and a team of brave young fools arrives to try and flagellate the earth itself. And so it will continue, until the world ends, or the northern half of the continent surrenders and sinks beneath the waves. It is a senseless thing, like so much that happens in these last days.”

“What do the people of the north think of this?”

“The Canadians are not like us,” Obama said shortly, and would speak no further on the matter.

beautiful.
posted by geos at 12:36 PM on October 17, 2008 [2 favorites]

The story is continued right on that blogger site

The rpg.net episodes come after the Detroit ones: Obama's mighty battle with Ronpaul, the Mac Cain's dark quest beneath the Alaskan ice, Depp's pilgrimage through the ruins of New York to consult the Oracles ...
posted by outlier at 12:39 PM on October 17, 2008

He sang of fey Kucinich, who loved the queen of Faerie so much that he ceded her the great redwoods of California in which to make her court, and went to dwell there with her, and put up a girdle around the forest so that no man who enters can ever leave.

Is that not true?
posted by jtron at 12:45 PM on October 17, 2008

I have been assured that he lives their still, in a city of silver and marble, and that all that dwell there are immortal, but cursed never to know laughter or joy, and there is no music allowed but Air Supply.

Sounds like my high school reunion.
posted by Meatbomb at 12:48 PM on October 17, 2008

This is pretty great. Thanks Biblio!
posted by maryh at 12:50 PM on October 17, 2008

He sang of Dame Hillary, and how she summoned up Old Man Coyote, and tricked him into wearing a manacle on his paw, and refused to release him until he taught her the secret of Skinchanging. The trickster-god denied her until she killed all his seven and seventy mistresses, and cut off his tail, and starved him for forty seven years.

“Is that true?” I asked.

“True enough,” Barrister said.

I loved this so much! Thanks!
posted by The Light Fantastic at 12:53 PM on October 17, 2008

I was prepared to dismiss post this out-of-hand and ignore the links, but the comments in this thread made me reconsider.

It is, indeed, made of awesome and win.
posted by lekvar at 2:02 PM on October 17, 2008

This is a riot, and appropriate for our time.

I personally loved the News Skim Comics that Jay Pinkerton did in 2004. Those were definately right for those times as well, and also hysterically funny.

"Groktor proposes replacing the Kerry and Bush humans with identical robot duplicates!"
"And do you HAVE identical robot duplicates?"
"Well.... no."
"No. And does that technology even, you know, EXIST, Groktor?"
"I'd... have to check..."
"It doesn't."
"Ah."
"Stay with me on this, now. Is it possible you're just an idiot?"
"I suppose that's possible, yes."
posted by phearlez at 2:18 PM on October 17, 2008

You know it's good, when despite itself, it sucks you in. I usually hate over the top trash, but this reminds me of everything I loved about sci-fi and fantasy when I was a kid.

You say the rest is found on rpg.net and/or something awful? I looked but didn't find.

I love Obama's tears of gold. Nader the Lame. Awesome.
posted by Xoebe at 2:58 PM on October 17, 2008

You say the rest is found on rpg.net and/or something awful? I looked but didn't find.

Links in my post above although at least rpg.net (and maybe SA) require registration. And another sample, because I can't resist:

The Scarlet Lady was unmoved. “They are all gone then? Even…” She hesitated. Some names were never said. “Even Him? Even his Shadow?”

“Mr. Che—“ The General paused: he wasn’t quite that drunk. “The Grand Vizier is at his imperial majesty’s side, night and day. Only his careful and loving ministrations keep the Emporer alive.” He sipped his awful, awful wine and shuddered.

“What of Rove?”

“The Roving Man has played his last tune in these halls, I fear.” The General sneered into his glass. “That ought to have been our first clue that things were about to turn sour: Rove just disappeared one night. Vanished into thin air. He left with nothing but the clothes on his back, his golden flute, three nubile serving women, and half the treasury.”

“A tidy severance package indeed.” The Scarlet Lady steepled her fingers. “I’m sure that old Rover is already singing sweet lies into the ear of some other Lordling by now. Or perhaps leading children off to drown. It matters not. ”
posted by outlier at 3:51 PM on October 17, 2008

I'm so glad you like these! Yes, I found them over on SA, and also immediately dismissed them until I saw the jaded denizens of the Laissez's Fair sub forum gushing over them.

As for Stan Rogers, all I can say is:

May the Audacity of Hope rise again!
posted by Biblio at 4:54 PM on October 17, 2008

"perhaps it was his armor, each chain link of which had been forged from the smoking remains of the Liberty Bell."

and

"The next day we could see the source of the light; a pillar of fire twenty feet high, gripped in an enormous green hand, twice the height of a man.

Barrister gasped, “That... That’s the—“

“The Lady,” Obama agreed. “What little of her we could salvage.”

Pure over the top insane goodness. There's a certain perfection of absurdity and gilt language there. The heavy symbology, the SF/Steampunk/Whatever setting, the horrible purple prose, it all combines to make something that should be terrible, something that should stand as a new definition of bad, and yet is somehow good. A bit like the chili cheese fries at Weinerschnitzel.
posted by sotonohito at 6:31 PM on October 17, 2008

We can shut down the Internet now, because its purpose has been fulfilled. (As soon as the last two Canticles are posted.)
posted by Michael Roberts at 7:24 PM on October 17, 2008 [1 favorite]

Why do I get the odd feeling that this will be the only surviving oral report of the Vast Americana in 4,607?
posted by The Whelk at 9:13 PM on October 17, 2008

While many contemporary scientists disregard the more fantastic elements of the Obamariand, some radical researchers find truth in the story.

"We're on the verge of discovering something. Something real! " thus bellows the head Historologist, John Zhou-Stein at the Golden Maw dig, " There is clearly evidense of a great site here." Mr. Zhou-Stien brushes off his pants and then goes back to his Lemmingo Dig Reports. Doctor John is one of a small but vocal faction in the Historicalist profession who belives that the Obamariad was based on fact, and that the barren land of Golden Maw was the site of a great city during the Vast Americana.

"Totally Impossible" Says Jennifer Des Chenes-Benez, head of Historicalism at Miami-Central. "We have access to thousands of Pre-Deluge records and none of them, none of them, point to Golden Maw being anything less than a frozen wasteland."
posted by The Whelk at 9:27 PM on October 17, 2008 [3 favorites]

We can shut down the Internet now, because its purpose has been fulfilled....

Are you insane? This is only a small promise of the coming Singularity. I assure you it will get much better than this, this is only a little taste.
posted by Meatbomb at 11:57 PM on October 17, 2008

Reading the additional stuff posted on Something Awful, I realized that I would buy this in smartly bound book form. I actually need to buy it, I suppose, to read by candlelight and lull myself into pleasant dreams.
posted by redsparkler at 12:41 AM on October 18, 2008

Nice. Now I'd like to see a retelling of the tale of the original Barak, who was the prophetess Deborah's military leader, and defeated the Canaanites.

You do remember that Barak was such a pussy God had to send a woman to do his job for him, right?
posted by EarBucket at 5:20 AM on October 18, 2008

Flipping amazing.
posted by chrisamiller at 1:14 PM on October 18, 2008