Culture, Health & Fitness, Videos

Mr Pike – 69 Years Old & Fighting Fit!

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By Max Musson:

I watched a short video again recently and memories of Mr Pike, the Mate on the Elsinore, from Jack London’s novel ‘Mutiny on the Elsinore’ sprang to mind.

Here’s how Jack London describes Mr Pike: “… Huge he was in all conscience, broad-shouldered, heavy-boned, and, despite the profound stoop of his shoulders, fully six feet in height … a splendid figure of a man”

“I stole a look at his gnarled hands. Any finger would have made three of mine. His wrist would have made three of my wrist … He weighed “Two hundred an’ ten (pounds) … [b]ut in [his] day, at [his] best, [he] tipped the scales close to two-forty.”

“What impressed me particularly was the mental and muscular superiority of these two officers. Despite their age–the mate sixty-nine and the second mate at least fifty–their minds and their bodies had acted with the swiftness and accuracy of steel springs. They were potent. They were iron. They were perceivers, willers, and doers. They were as of another species compared with the sailors under them.”

In the video above, the older bearded white gentleman responds inoffensively when a fellow passenger on an American bus begins to speak to him, accusing him of being racist. In return the sixty-seven year old White man is treated to a stream of verbal abuse and as he moves away from his his seat to the front of the bus in order to calm things, the black passengers on the bus sense weakness. They begin to jeer calling him “pinky” and urging his black adversary to “beat his white ass”.

What happens next is reminiscent of Jack London’s Mr Pike, and the astonishment of the racist black passengers is palpable “Hey, THAT’S not supposed to happen!”, one can almost hear them say, as the unexpected happens and one of their’s gets his comeuppance.

Let this be a lesson to all who have passed state retirement age and begin to think that they are over the hill. Jack London’s Pike is an inspiration to all men of ‘a certain age’ and I would heartily recommend ‘Mutiny on the Elsinore’ as an inspirational read.

By Max Musson © 2013

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6 thoughts on “Mr Pike – 69 Years Old & Fighting Fit!”

  1. Michael Woodbridge

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    Fine, but why do Americans think it all right and normal to use such deeply offensive language? Has their society desensitised them of all dignity and self-respect?

    Yet not so long ago, a Washington official got the sack for describing someone as “niggardly”. Ironically, he was reinstated by being able to claim that he was homosexual. Western Spring must maintain our cultural standards by eschewing such gutter language..

    I’m sure we can make our points perfectly well without giving further currency to such cultural degeneracy.

    1. Max Musson

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      I don’t think all Americans regard it as normal to use offensive language, the White man featured in this video does not resort to profanities until he has been repeatedly sworn at by his negro attacker and still does not do so to any great degree until after he has actually been attacked.
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      Apart from the White man’s voice, almost every other voice heard in the video comes from the negro attacker and/or other negro onlookers. They are the ones for whom profanity seems to come naturally.
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      I am sorry if the language depicted offends you Michael, but we have not endorsed the language used and so I fail to see how presenting this video in the context we have can be construed as ‘giving currency’ to ‘cultural degeneracy’.

  3. Michael Woodbridge

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    I’ve mixed with the roughest criminals imaginable, including Negro murderers, so I’m not a wilting violet when it comes to bad language. I just don’t think it should be repeated on our website because it gives it further currency and encourages the kind of prurience that has done so much to corrupt our society. There’s a well established method of bleeping out bad language from documentaries.

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