Captain Jack's Pirate Hats

Ahoy Mateys!

It's finally done. The First EVER real Davy Jones Hat.Since 2006 When Pirates Of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest came outpeople have been after me to make a Davy Jones Hat. And I did, howeverit was a fresh looking hat, not one that has been on the bottom of theOcean for years. As you may or may not know, there never was a realcostume one made for the movie, it was all CGI (computer generatedimagery) or "movie magic". For a hatter, making this hat with all it'srich textures, colors and shape presented lots of challenges. Afterover 70 hours of hands on production, sculpting, painting, and shapingit is finally here, and I am very pleased with the results. I handcrafted over 200 barnacles and coral, added razor clams, fan coral,moss, seaweed. mold and lots and hours and hours of hand painting. Theresult can be see in the attached advertisement. This hat is notidentical to the movie CGI hat, it is simply my version. Get the wordout, if you know any one interested. I will only be making a few ofthese. they will be autographed and numbered. They will be a piece ofwearable art. I will be selling them through ebay auction. I apologizeup front to the  20+  people who's names and contact information I washolding in order to notify you first, but I lost that list. In thislight, it is only fair that I auction the hats rather then sell themout right to the first buyer.

Thanks. -Jeff MacKay, Master Hatter

Captain Jack arrested at JFK on Weapons ChargesShare

Today at 6:55pm

Now THAT is dramatic! This is the 2nd tale of amazing things that have happened to me as Captain Jack Sparrow. Well, truthfully this one happened the day after I played Jack Sparrow in New York City. Where do I begin?

It was June 2006 and Rebecca was pregnant and we were expecting Wilde to be born on the 13th of June. On June 8th we found out about a Pirates Of The Caribbean Look alike Contest being held by FAO Schwarz and toy company Zizzle, with a grand prize of a new 2007 Volvo XC90 to be held on that same day, June 13th. Normally I would have been very excited about the opportunity to possibly win, but I was focused on my wife's condition and the up coming arrive of our son. So I didn't plan on going. Rebecca insisted that I GO. She said that this was our chance to win $50,000. the equivilant cash pay out. We looked online through Expedia.com and found a last minute inexpensive flight. Rebecca said " This is meant to be, Go! WIN! I'll hold off on the baby, this will make a great story."...yeah

I booked a hotel and flew into New York on the 12th of June. I was traveling light, just a carry on backpack and my gun case. My gun case has my sword and my flintlock pistol, and two pocket knives. The Flintlock and sword are for my Jack ensamble, the pocket knives are for... well, attached to my pockets when walking the streets of New York. (like many of you male readers, I've carried a pocket knife since I was old enough to own one and was in boy scouts. I grew up with knifes and have had one in hand for chores everyday of my life without ever posing a threat to anyone. Ok back to the story. I checked my gun case at the Portland OR airport following correct proceedures, and the case was sent to new York with no incidence. Stowed safely in the belly of the Plane from point A to Point B.

I arrived, checked into my hotel and went out to do a little recon. I visited FAO Schwarz the day before the event to get my bearings. I went and had dinner, went back to my hotel laid out my costume, wig, make up, and accessories and went to bed. The contest was from 3:00-5:oopm and was actually to be a "look alike contest for Jack, Will and Elizabeth" and was a timely publicity event prior to the soon to open POTC: Dean Man's Chest, opening on July 7th.

I arrived a couple hours early, having walked the 10 blocks from my hotel to Times Square. The walk was quite fun, as walking through a crowded city as Jack Sparrow can be, Though I must admit that New Yorkers seam a bit more cut off, like they are busy with their own stuff, or have blinders on.. or maybe they see so much stuff that is "out there" on a daily basis that they are a little jaded. You definitely get more reaction in Portland, San Francisco or Los Angeles.

I'm one of the first to arrive, but more and more people do over the next 2 hours and when they actually have us move from a mob crowding the door and into a line, I end up about half way back. I have a great time standing next to Ron Rodriguez who looks very much like Johnny Depp. His outfit was not as close as mine, many little things wrong, but man... he looks like Johnny. I wasn't worried. This is a Captain Jack Sparrow Look alike contest not a Johnny Depp look alike contest. There are some other good Jacks, Toby Markham for example is in attendence. He has the other best Captain Jack's Costume, right up there with mine. I'm thinking it will be between him and me. He and I. Us two.

And then, while in line, I get to see Toby in front of me up before the three judges. He has the Captain Jack down. His got the swagger, the hand movements, voice isn't quite right, and he's much too pale, but still.. he is very very good. I'll be the first to admit, I didn't have the voice either. I didn't have the mannerisms as well as him. I realize that out of the 60+ Jacks, Toby will probably be the winner.

My Turn comes and the first thing out of one the judges mouth as she addresses me is "what, did you have an accident with your bronzer?" Totally threw me off. yes I was tan. I had tanned up for the event, and with only a couple days notice I used a bit of spray on tan. It was not however any darker, oranger, or more "off" than Jack's in the first POTC movie. In any event I didn't recover. I answered their few questions, did my best Jack one liner when they requested and moved along heart sunken. I knew they had not given me the attention, asked the question the same way as they had Toby. There was no "positive vibe" between me and these three people. I watched Ron do his time up there. He didn't try the voice. He seamed a bit shy. His costume was not so great and he had a ridiculously big hat, but... damn he looked like Johnny Depp... Then came a silly , very "campy" Jack Sparrow. I mean Jack on the extreme "Swishy" side of Jackness. Imagine Captain Jack Sparrow as a female impersonator. The Judges, especially my favorite, ate it up. And as he left the stage I watched as the judges all exchanged head nods. Oh No! No way!..

Waiting for the remaining Jacks, the two Will Turners and couple of Elizabeths was excrutiating. The original idea was to pick the best Jack Sparrow ( Volvo winner) The Best Will Turner ($2500.) and the best Elizabeth ($1000.) but since they had such a poor turn out for the supporting cast, Zizzle decided to award the top three Jack's. Do I have a chance at winning something? They announce the Winners: #1 Ron Rodriguez, Toby Markham, and Christopher Lee...something or other. While they are taking the winners out side for pix and to show Them the car, a young lady, some assistant comes up to me and gives me a Zizzle Toy voucher for some Pirates of the Caribbean toys and tells me " this is for you Mini Jack". I said "Mini Jack, what?" She said "you got 5th place, The judges called you Mini Jack". I guess 5th out of 60 some Jacks is not as bad as it could have been. Not as Good as I would have liked. Poor Ron has to figure out how to get the Volvo XC90 back to Southern Cal. Tuff luck... I was starving so I ate, hung out, picked out my toys and decided I should call home. By the time I called I was unable to talk with Rebecca. But as she hadn't called.. I was sure the baby hadn't come yet. I just want to go home. I went back to my hotel and packed. Got up the next day and did some shopping, walked around New York a bit and took a cab to the Airport for my evening flight.

Here is where the story gets good, thanks for reading all the background, it was setting the stage for what comes next... So I check go to the ticket counter, I check my gun case (same contents as before) The ticket counter attendant asks " does this case contain a fire arm?"

I answer " yes it does". Q "Is it unloaded?" A."Yes it is" Q "Is the Case locked?" A "Yes It is locked". She says "Ok take this over there and send it through the scanner. Have a nice flight". I take the case over to the scanner and send it through. The Scanner operator looks at it briefly and passes it on. he is now looking at the next bag in line. The case comes down to yet another Airport Security personel. He says to me "Is this your case?" A " Yes" He says " It looks good. Hang on though, we have to have the Port Authority Sign off on it." and then he makes a call.

About 10 minutes later a Police Officer from NYPD Port Authority shows up.

Q "Is this Your Case"

A "yes officer"

Q Do you have the key?

A. " yes officer"

"Please Open The case and stand back"

I comply and he looks over the contents

Q " is this firearm functional?"

A " yes, If you have gunpowder, shot, a flint, a ramrod, none of which I have".

Q "Do you have a permit for this gun?"

A " It's a flintlock, I didn't think you needed..."

At this point the Officer is on his walky talky calling for back up.

he asks me my business in New York, and I explain to him all about the contest, I show him the poster, I show him pictures on my camera during the 15 minutes while we wait for another NYPD Port Authority Officer to arrive. He walks up. " Is this the guy" and he scutinizes me and then turns his attention to the case " No permit." he starts to pull the sword from it's sheath.

The other cop gets out his pocket leatherman tool and using the measurement on the side starts to measure the blade. I say " The blade is 27 inches long". They both look at me. They confer and one gets back on the walky talky. Officer 2 starts asking the same questions that Officer 1 asked and so I give him the same answers, Though he acts even more suspicious of me than the first Officer. Another 15 minutes and a NYPD Officer, obviously higher in rank than the other two, shows up. "What do we have here?"

Officer 2 " He's got a firearm with no permit, he's got a sword with a 27 blade, he's got two pocket knives..."

The Commander looks at me sternly " why are you in New York?"

I try to explain it to him and while doing , I accidentally leaned towards him to show the pix on my camera. he takes a step back, his hand on his holster and commands me to step back. Which I do. I say to him as well as the other officers, "I was checking this case as checked baggage. It is tagged with a firearms tag. I've done everything exactly the way I'm supposed to..."

The Officers confer again and come to the decision " Assume the position" like right out of a cop show. I guess they assume by now that everyone in our society just simply knows what that position is. They hand cuff me. One Officer takes the gun case the other takes my carry on, and the three off them march me through JFK Airport out to their Police Cruisers. They take me to the Port Authority Station. They make me take off my belt, my shoes, empty my pockets, and put me in a holding room, handcuffed. Where I am held for several hours. During which time police keep peeking in. Some shake their heads, some just look disapproving. One time Officer 2 shows up to chat with me and tell me I'm in" big trouble" and that they " do things differently in New York than Portland" " They don't allow people to travel with weapons". I cam comforted a bit during this time by the fact that I can hear two officers in the ajacent room flipping through books. I hear the pages turning and I hear one say " No, I can't find anything on Flintlock Pistols... I don't think that one will stick". Then I hear " ...apparently you don't need a permit for a flintlock.." I breath a little easier. Finally the officer in charge of the Port Authority night Duty show up an introduces himself. He is holding on of my Captain Jack Sparrow Impersonator business cards with my picture on it, and my camera. "Let me get this straight. You are an actor?"

A "yes"

Q " you were in New York For two days to do an event?"

A "Yes Sir"

Q " These things in question are your props?"

A "exactly"

Q " What worries me is that you might have done some other mischief while you were here. why do you have these pocket knives?"

A " Honestly? Protection".

He says "That's what we are here for."

Now, I could have explained to him my beliefs and statistics about how the police often show up after the fact in life threatening situations.. I thought better of it and said nothing.

He looked me over again and thought for a moment. "If you were to leave here tonight and then be contacted by the DA's Office, would you come back to New York?..."

A"yes"

"...because this is in the DA's hands now. I'm gonna keep this one of your knives. You don't need to carry two... and it still concerns me. Your other option is that I book you, throw you in Jail tonight and you get a hearing in the next couple days when they can schedule it."

A " I'll come back, if they contact me. I'd like to go home. My wife is supposed to have our baby any time now..."

They gave me and my luggage a ride back to the airport. My flight was long gone. The airline that I was flying was nice enough to rebook me onto a flight first thing in the morning. They even had a locker that they could hold my gun case in until the next morning.

The interesting thing. they would give the case back to me and I would need to go through the same process again. 1st, Submit the case at the ticket counter. 2nd have it scanned , and 3rd have NYPD Port Authority sign off on it. The first two parts went fine, as expected.... boy was I nervous about step 3. Here came the NYPD Officer. Not the same one as the night before. I was holding my breath.

Q " Is this your gun Case?"

A "yes Officer"

Q " "will you please unlock and open it?"

A "yes Sir"

I do and he looks things over. " Are you a Revelutionary War reenactor or something?"

A " yes, a Pirate re-enactor and Jack Sparrow Impersonator>"

"Cool, have a good Flight".

Myspace Quotes, Pirates Of The Caribbean Quotes at WishAFriend.com

Show the Captain some love this Father's Day and give him true treasure: A Captain Jack's Gift Certificate: http://www.captjackspiratehats.com/giftcertificates.htm or visit The Pirate Trading Co: http://www.piratetradingco.com for lots of loot to plunder... it be riches to fill the good Captains treasure chest to be sure....

For all you Kilt wearing Pirates we bring you a new web store to plunder: http://clantradingco.webs.com/. We bring you the best in Scottish Highland costumes, weapons and accessories.

Ello Maties! This is the little known tale of how Captain Jack was refused entrance to Disneyland. That's Right our beloved Captain Jack was actually denied entry to Disneyland and escorted off of Disney property. How can this be? Well here's the tale. It was early spring of 2004 and Pirates of The Caribbean: Curse of The Black Pearl had come out the previous Summer , August 2003. I had seen the Movie at it's premier and like many of you had struck a chord with Johnny's Captain Jack Sparrow. I had found my alter ego. I had made my first Captain Jack Costume in October to win a local Halloween Costume Contest, which I did, and also met my future wife that night ( though that is another story, or blog). You'll remember that the DVD distribution for the first movie wasn't until December, so I of course had to keep going back to the movie theater to see POTC1 again and again, in order to get the costume down. I had CA Boots make my boots, but otherwise I made everything else. There were no official licensed prop replicas, I had to make my own compass, and most costumers had not quite yet realized this niche market, the shirt, pants, vest and frock coat and hat all had to be made. Pictures of my costume had started spreading and word of my Version of Captain Jack's Hat on the internet and I started to get requests to sell them. I had started my hat business as an off shoot of the costume making process, because I could not find the Movie's hat maker ( latter found out that Penny Rose had the Captain's hats made in Italy) anyway, I researched hat making in the colonial period and found that they were primarily made of felt, (wool, rabbit, beaver or a combination of those fibers) and that they were not typically made of leather... Well no need to give you a history lesson on hat making.. Long story short I made my own hat. As I was getting requests for them I started selling them on ebay and then started a web site (www.captjackspiratehats.com) with 10 different styles of hats, including two styles that I had never seen before and then had copy righted. So spring came and I decided to go to Disneyland with the great idea to go into the theme park dressed as The Good Captain Jack and get my picture taken with lots of people so that I could post them on my web site and to drum up business. I drove straight down from Oregon, stopping only in San Francisco for one day to Windsurf on The Bay, and to visit a costume supply store that I was familiar (with from living in SF for 14 years) and arrived the night before. I suspected that my real weapons would be a problem and so I had bought an replica flintlock pistol and sword and some paints and went to work that night in my motel room, aging and making them both look better than the shiny plastic toys that they started out as. The morning arrived and I woke up and got dressed and made up and drove the three blocks to Disneyland and entered the parking area. I was the first car in the lot and had to wait 2 hours for opening. I must also explain at this point that my car had a giant skull and crossbones plastered on both sides compliments of Naish Windsurfing (my sponsor) and the security guards at parking lot were looking it up and down. Finally a hour before opening I got out and approached the two security officers, that I needed to pass it get on the tram to go to the main gate. They said "where do you think your going Captain Jack?" To which I replied in my best Captain Jack imitation "I believe, I'm going home..."( no not a line from the movie, I know). One of them said " Wait a minute, I don't think so." I was prepared for this and said " It's about my weapons. I assure you they aren't real and can do no harm to anyone.." I showed them that the sword was actually just a hilt glued to the scabbard and the pistol was in fact a plastic toy. " Very nice, they look real." He said. "But that is not what I'm referring to. I don't think we can let you past this point". At which point a white Disney Security SUV arrived and a tall woman got out. As she approached she said "WOW" That is the Best Jack Sparrow Costume I've seen yet". I smiled, pressed my palms together as Jack would and said nodded my thanks. She then continued " I'm in charge of security here and I just can't let you in. I would if it was up to me.... but we have rules". Other park attendees started to arrive and they were all like "look it's Captain Jack, Can we get a Picture?" this happened 4 or 5 times during the half hour that I spent with them in the Parking lot and She was very apologetic and told me that it was for my own safety. I was likely to get mobbed and too many people would want pictures with me. I told them that was exactly what I wanted. She explained that since I was not a Disney Employee there was no way they could vouch for me...in other words, I had not passed their lengthy employment process and background check, maybe I was a whack job and who knows, might actually have some ulterior motive for being dressed up as Captain Jack...anyway she was nice enough to tell me " You can go over to Disney Downtown, It's a couple blocks away, straight down this road. It's an open area shopping center and you can hang out there and take all the pictures you want. I'm really sorry about the Park, But that should at least help out a little". I said a semi disappointed thanks, but headed over to Disney Downtown. I found parking there people were starting to arriving in small groups. A couple, a family of three, a small group of 8 student, another family... and they all came up to me immediately. I spent about another 30 minutes shaking hands, taking pictures with people and signing autographs as "Captain Jack Sparrow as more and more people arrived and Captain Jack was getting surrounded. It was great. I was getting the pictures that I wanted. Then 4 golf carts came speeding up and two security personel got out of each and surrounded the area. One man in a suit and earphone looking very secret service-ish ( want to be) came up with another man and got right up in Captain Jack's space, saying " What are you doing here?" " I thought I might go for a walk today.." I said. "Who are you and why are you dressed like that?" " What this? These are my weekend clothes... my other's are being cleaned, as it were". I said and it was lost on him, as he obviously had no sense of humor and certainly took life too seriously. "You can NOT be here" He said. " Actually I can. I was told by security at Disneyland that I could spend all day here." He puffed up to his whole 6'+, 200+ lbs, face red, veins bulging and said " I am the head of Security for ALL Disney Enterprises in Anaheim, and I am TELLING You that YOU WILL LEAVE IMMEDIATELY, or I will have you escorted off our property!" As he said this rather loudly, the crowd was looking very uneasy. Some people leaving quickly, some gaulking open mouthed in disbelief that their Beloved Captain Jack was being threatened. The Security worked their way through the crowd and now I had 6 large men closing in one me. I looked through them all, made a Jack gesture to the crowd and said " It seams I have overstayed my welcome. Captain Jack Sparrow has to go now" ... and I turned and did a flailing arm jack run that would have done Johnny proud. I must admit that I found it absolutely ironic that Disney later sent out a Casting call for Jack Impersonators to audition for positions in all the Parks. This of course went along with updating the ride and merchandizing the hell out of POTC2: Dead Man's Chest. Disney execs clearly realizing the missed opportunity with the first movie and not wanting to repeat it. It is a strange adventure, my friends. After my Disney experience; I was the First Captain Jack in The USA to do the Pirates of The Caribbean Interactive (www.potcinteractive.com), I flew down and auditioned with thousands of other people to be an extra for POTC2 and 3, made Pirate hats for Penny Rose and for POTC2/3 and a number of Disney execs, as well as for Disney World, I attended the FAO Schwarz/Zizzle Pirates of the Caribbean Look A Like Contest (yet another grand story for another time), Have played Captain Jack at The Portland Pirate Festival, for the Make a Wish Foundation, and for the Opening of POTC2 and 3, and for PyrateCon 2006. While my costume has come a long way since the first one back in 2003 (thanks Kate at Silhouettes/Top Notch Costumes/Perfect Pirate), I'll be the first to admit that there are those impersonators who either look more like Johnny ( hey Ron) or have the mannerisms and voice down more than I would ever care too (Brandon). I do have to say that I was one of the first, definitely the shortest (I'm 5' 4" which prompted the Zizzle judges to call me Mini-Jack), and beyond question the best looking one to get kick out of both Disneyland and Disney Downtown in the same morning. epilog: I left Disney Downtown and went over to check out Johnny's Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and ended up spending the day standing outside the Chinese Theater with the other Costume Character Actors, having my picture taken with tourists and fans and receiving grattuities. I made enough to pay for my trip and buy a new pair of Harley boots across the street. All in all, it was a Great Adventure!