The Talegate Podcast

S1E2 - José Gaspar

October 06, 2020 Harrison the Florida Man & Aaron the Cheesehead Season 1 Episode 3
The Talegate Podcast
S1E2 - José Gaspar
Show Notes Transcript

Every year since 1904, Florida has hosted the largest Pirate Parade in the world in celebration of the infamous pirate, Captain Jóse Gaspar. The Talegaters interview the ghost of Gaspar himself to get the first-person account of this local legend. 

The Legend of Jóse Gaspar dates him as an 18th Century pirate captain and former captain in the Spanish Armada. However, the legend itself has only been in circulation since the early 19th century. Is there any truth behind his swashbuckling stories of terrorizing the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico? 

It is believed his legend was first fabricated as part of a ploy to lure tourists to a luxury hotel in Central Florida, but perhaps there a grain of truth behind the story. In the wake of this larger-than-live adventurer, the Gasparilla Pirate Festival has become an annual part of Floridian culture. A Mardi Gras styles celebration has beads, pirate garb, parades, and a huge pirate invasion as hundreds of boats sail into the Bay.

Check out more on these topics by listening to The Talegate Podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or any other fine podcast directories; and please rate, review, and subscribe. OR simply follow the link our user-friendly website at www.thetalegatepodcast.com! Also, be sure to follow us on Instagram @thetalegatepodcast and write us with your own stories at TheTalegatePodcast@gmail.com.

Support the show

THE TALEGATE PODCAST

Episode 3: Jóse Gaspar


Part 1: Introductions


FLORIDA MAN: Howdy folks, and welcome to The Talegate!


CHEESEHEAD: For those of you just joining us, we’re on a roadtrip across America to uncover the mysteries behind tall tales, fairy tales, folktales, fishtales, & urban legends, one interview at a time.


FM: We inherited a truck from our late Granny May only to discover that the crystal hanging off the rearview mirror was more than decorative. It is a Dowsing Pendulum leading us to the good folks behind the tales we all grew up with. With that, I’m Harrison, the Florida Man. 


CH: And I’m Aaron, the Cheesehead. Today we come to you from the sandy beaches of Tampa Bay, FL. Where the seabirds are only outnumbered by the snowbirds.


FM: But before we get down to business, what we drinkin’ today, Cheesehead?


CH: Today’s brewskies are called “Invasion Tropical Pale Ale” by Cigar City Brewery, who, by the way, gives a great brewery tour. Not too spendy, either.


FM: Duly noted. Alright, let’s see what this one’s about.


CH: It weighs in at a mild 5% abv. Kinda fruity, Kinda fun. Type of beer you’d grab on a hot day, not unlike this one.


FM: Yea, ain’t terrible. Now, for those who don’t know, Ybor was a city founded in 1885 by Spanish cigar manufacturer, Vicente Martinez-Ybor, and annexed by Tampa two years later. Since, this historical district has been known as “Cigar City” to which our brewery of the hour pays tribute. 


CH: They have other solid beer, as well, including Maduro Brown Ale and Jai Alai IPA.


FM: And they have one of the best beer names of all time.


CH: Hard to top the “Invasion Tropical Pale Ale,” it’s literally named after a pirate invasion.


FM: They have a beer called “Florida Man.”


CH: And I stand corrected. Speaking of Pirate Invasions, however, our guest today is right on the nose. Allow me to introduce Florida’s very own legendary pirate, and I’m not talking about Jack Sparrow.


GASPAR: Ah holá. Soy Jóse Gaspar, como sabes. Pásame una cerveza.


FM: Sure thing, amigo. Aqui tienes.


CH: Florida Man, you know Spanish?


FM: Hablo poquito.


CH: Nice.


GASPAR: Gracias, colegos.


FM: De nada. It’s so cool we have an actual pirate on our show--a ghost pirate anyway. I grew up with stories of you!


GASPAR: No doubt you’ve heard the tales of my swashbuckling exploits on the high seas, ransoming royalty for treasure beyond your wildest dreams, keeping España on its little cerditos! 


FM: I meant more like the stories surrounding the annual Gasparilla Pirate Festival. You know, a bunch of boats, beads, parades. Drunken pirates barfin’ all over the streets. 


GASPAR: Ay, si. I am usually one of them.


CH: Right, I’ve heard of the Gasparilla Pirate Festival. But why is it called “Gasparilla” and not Gaspar?


GASPAR: I am a man of many names, you see. Jóse Gaspar, “Last of the Buccaneers,” even Ricardo Coeur de Lion. Gasparilla is simply my pirate alias, meaning “Gaspar the Outlaw” more or less. 


CH: And the festival? Sounds like Mardi Gras with the parade, beads, and what have you.


GASPAR: I believe Mardi Gras was the inspiration. The Gasparilla Pirate Festival has always been hosted by Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla; Krewe is in their name after all. My festival has been celebrating piracy and plunder as far back as 1904. In fact, the Parade of Pirates has grown into the 3rd largest parade in the New World. 


FL: New World? In the United States, you mean?


GASPAR: Ah, si si. You must pardon me. Time flies when you’re a ghost, you see. If you seek more information on the Gasparilla history, There is an annual exhibition at H.B. Plant Museum here in Tampa. I actually go there to haunt sometimes so I don’t forget my own history. Otherwise, I fear I may fade into obscurity. Rather sad, I must say.


FM: Yea, sounds pretty rough. How ‘bout we save you a trip to the museum and talk about your past here and now? I mean, if you’re up for it.


CH: Yah. We’ve gotten ahead of ourselves, talking about modern festivals and the Ghost of Gaspar. Tell us more about Jóse Gaspar the man, the legend.


PART 2: History of Jose Gaspar


GASPAR: My humble story begins in Seville, España, in the year 1756. I was a rapscallion of a lad, always getting into trouble with the law.


CH: Ah, the hijinks of youth. What’d they get you for? Underaged drinking? Stealing baked goodies?


GASPAR: Kidnapping a 12 year old girl and holding her for ransom.


FM: Jumpin Jesus. You kidnapped a 12 year old?


GASPAR: Only to trade in for money.


FM: Yea, that makes it all better. And how’d that work out for ya?


GASPAR: Muy mal. My options were prison or enrollment in the Spanish Navy.


CH: I’m assuming you took the latter?


GASPAR: Jes, I have written many letters in my time.


FM: I think he said “Latter”


GASPAR: Ah jes jes, I climbed the ladders of success, as they say. But let me continue: I joined the Navy. I started as a mere navy officer and rose to lieutenant, capitain, and, finally, admiral of the Atlantic Fleet in no time.


CH: Pretty impressive. No wonder your sea prowess is so widely revered.


GASPAR: By 27, I was such an asset to the Spanish navy that I was assigned to accompany the Court of Charles III in 1782. Then they caught me.


CH: Let me guess, stealing royal jewels?


GASPAR: Ay, if only it were so simple as jewels. But alas, I stole the heart of the king’s daughter-in-law. 


FM: Oh. And I’m guessin’ he didn’t take a likin’ to you?


GASPAR: The King? No, no, no, you got it all wrong, colego. He loved me and he took no issue with me stealing his daughter’s tender young heart. He did seem to take issue however when I stole the tender young hearts of several other women. 


CH: Yah. That’ll do it, alright. What happened next?


GASPAR: What happened next was when I took my first real step towards becoming the infamous pirate standing before you today. The broken-hearted daughter-in-law and prime minister framed me for stealing crown jewels. So, facing almost certain death, I commandeered El Floridablanca and sailed to Captiva Island, Florida, and I made a choice. Voy a mi bola.


CH: Looks like you got off scott free.


GASPAR: Not so much, I am afraid. They burned my house to the ground and murdered mi mama y hijo pequeño.


FM: Yikes.


GASPAR: With nothing left to lose, I vowed to have my revenge. And thus great Gasparilla was born! Over the next four decades, I stalked the Atlantic coast of the New World and Caribbean, plundering over 300 ships and slaughtering all before me without mercy!


CH: You butchered every last one of them?


GASPAR: There were some exceptions, of course. I spared the attractive ladies. 


CH: Naturally.


GASPAR: As well as wealthy individuals worthy of ransom. And so my exploits continued. For a brief time, I even partnered with notorious buccaneer, Jean Laffite.


FM: Sounds like you lived one hell of a life. But all good things must come to and end. And I reckon this ghost of yours ain’t a product of natural causes.


GASPAR: Ay. Many years had passed since I began a life on the high seas. I had changed a lot and so had Florida. From España to Bretaña. From Bretaña to Estados Unidos. 


FM: Yea, if you look at Florida’s history, it’s been owned more times than me in a FPS.


GASPAR: FPS? Is this some new kind of ship?


FM: Nah, don’t worry about.

  

GASPAR: Anyway, by 1821, I was planning my retirement. Seeing a barco británico gordo, I could not help myself and embarked on one last raid. The Union Jack was lowered and replaced by a US flag. It was a trap. Alas I, a once mighty pirate captain had become like Icarus, flying too close to the sun.


CH: The U.S. nabbed you, huh?


GASPAR: Si, I was greatly and thoroughly nabbed. With nothing but death standing before me, I tied anchor to my waist and shouted, “Gasparilla muere por su propia mano, no por la del enemigo!” Gasparilla dies by his own hand, not the enemy’s, and I leaped into the cold depth of the sea with my cutlass raised to the heavens. They hung my crew in New Orleans.


CH: We’re actually heading there soon. Want me to pass on anything to your fallen brethren? 


GASPAR: No need, for my best men were not cut down aboard el Floridablanca that day, as they were left ashore to bury my treasure should death befall me.


FM: You don’t happen to recall where exactly they buried this treasure of yours, do ya?


GASPAR: Perhaps near Peace River and or a nearby swamp. I was too busy dying to notice.


CH: Now, my research indicates a curse, where if you stand alone on a deck in Tampa Bay, the ghost of Gaspar will seize you, tie an anchor to your waist and vanish with you into the deep blue sea. Is this true?


GASPAR: Perhaps once upon a time, but I am a changed Ghost. No longer a spirit of vengeance, but a spirit of festivity! Of celebration! Of companionship! And of course of drinks! A spirit of spirits, one might say.


FM: My kind of spirit.


PART 3: Evidence of Jose Gaspar


CH: You left quite the legacy Mr. Gaspar. But how do your exploits hold up against history?


FM: Now, I actually wrote a senior thesis on The Legend of Jóse Gaspar during my history undergrad. I check out primary and secondary sources, and I gotta say, there is little-to-no historical evidence to backup your legend. There was no Jóse Gaspar written in Spanish, English, or American naval logs of the time nor were there any real evidence of your piracy.


CH: Interesting. So Mr. Gaspar, you are real. You are a right here, a genuine pirate ghost. How can it be that your legend doesn’t hold up? How do you take to your legend being discredited?


GASPAR: The criticisms are fair.


CH: So “Jóse Gaspar” isn’t real?


GASPAR: Oh, Jóse Gaspar is real as the barnacles on mi culo.


CH: Gross.


GASPAR: We can even agree that my name has been assumed. What’s in a name, anyway? You see, after the first hundred years as a wandering spirit, you begin to lose touch of what was real and what has been embellished. Fact and Fiction become one and the same. There is always a grain of sand before the pearl, they say. Many a fish tale has been spoken in my wake but likely based on...whoever I was before fantasy grew into fact in the minds of the populace. 


CH: That actually makes a lot of sense. You’re more or less the idea of Jose Gaspar.


GASPAR: Ay, colego. Actually, the name of Jose Gaspar only first went into ink at the very beginning of the 20th century. My stories were originally printed as part of an advertising campaign promoting Charlotte Harbor and Northern Railroad Company. Brochures of my adventures were given to travelers using the Plant System railroad and Boca Grande Hotel.


FM: Seems like your stories spread like wildfire from there, ‘cause the Gasparilla Pirate Festival was born only some short years after them publications. 


CH: Haha, that’s tourism for yah.


GASPAR: No broma. Despite my dubious authenticity, locals and tourists were so taken to the tales that some unfortunate historians unwittingly took it as fact. One such historian was Francis B. C. Bradlee from Salem, MA. 


FM: Yea, I’ve heard of that guy, Francis weren’t stranger to swashbuckling stories. His great grandfather was Josiah Bradlee, an American privateer during the War of 1812. 


GASPAR: Precisely. Upon Francis’s 1923 publication of Piracy in the West Indies and Its Suppression, he mentioned me and thus my legend was accidentally legitimized.


CH: That’s pretty crazy stuff. One aspect about the original brochure baring your name was the image they used. 


GASPAR: Muy Guapo l, Si?


CH: Handsome yes, but less a = and more a modified image of Van Gogh’s self portrait. Just look at it. I mean, you’d think if they were really trying to sell you as a legitimate pirate they may have thought twice about trying to pass off your face as one of the most widely recognizable and influential self-portraits of all time.


GASPAR: Ay, but the ploy worked, no? Tourists lapped it up like un gato con leche.


CH: Touche.


PART 4: Farewell


CH: Well, this has been enlightening. I love your level of transparency (no pun intended) in relation to all the fantastical stories surrounding you. 


GASPAR: My pleasure. 


FM: Anything you wanna say to listeners before ya go?


GASPAR: Si, colegos. Remember: Muere por tu propia mano, no por el enemigo!


CH: Ah, words to live by...or...die by?


FM: Feel free to shoot us an email at thetalegatepodcast@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram @TheTalegatePodcast for photos mention earlier, cast info, updates and more!


CH:  And, as always, be sure to return in two weeks for our next episode, which is sure to be a Devil of a good time.


FM: See ya later, Talegaters!