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Thrift Shop Find No. 1
Found at a Goodwill in Ft. Wayne, Indiana
33-1/3 cents
Shiver My Timbers! by Captain Hook and his Christian Pirate Crew (c. 1975); Get Hooked records
Fundamentalist Christian ventriloquism is a fine art in America, and the late Captain Hook was one if its most successful practitioners. A biker from Indiana who lost a leg and an arm when he wiped out his motorcycle, Hook was born again in the hospital and began a TV ministry that lasted nearly two decades. (It's still visible on UHF in some corners of the country, thanks to the efforts of his widow, usually billed as Mrs. Hook.) Towards the end of his life, Hook amassed enough support to broadcast from suitably tropical settings in Hawaii.
This record jacket reads in part "Aye, we're out to shipwreck the devil! Now, listen mates. . . and ye will discover why I became a Christian pirate!" Though the record is missing, the track "A Story With a Happy Ending" is doubtlessly Hook's personal story of how, after "a very serious amputation," he saw the light. Hook's dummy Sharkey would sing and flirt with the girls in the viewing audience and--as the times changed--would perform rap songs with titles like "It's Not Always Cool to Go With the Flow." Satan (portrayed on the record album holding a picket sign reading "Unfair") must have rejoiced when the Captain set sail for that final harbor in the sky.
Richard Von Busack