Category: Advice

What Price History?

Advice, The Gun Thing

From Reader Ranger:

When to restore an old gun versus keeping it with honest wear? For example:  I have several old firearms.

1.) Old heavily worn SMLE, lots of interesting carving on the furniture, but the barrel might as well be a smooth bore. If i remove anymore rust, then fire the rifle I’ll start seeing daylight thought the side of the barrel. Originally I bought this for a song to convert to a modern De Lisle through one of those kits Rhineland Arms sells, by the time I got around to buying the kit (also putting the money together) Rhineland Arms stopped selling the conversion kit.

2.) A between-the-wars commercial 1911A1, which I picked up for a song. It looks like the previous owner had taken a belt sander to it. The rampant Colt is half gone and the serial number is barely visible. Before I dare fire it, I would replace the barrel, grips (broken), and replace all the springs, at a minimum. Of course since I like to shoot, I probably would get a gunsmith to lower and flare the ejection port, fit modern sights, and put some finish on the exterior. This would probably remove the faded Colt, etc. In other words, I’d probably spend the equivalent of buying a new Springfield 1911A1 to turn old steel into new. At the same time, I would be destroying another little piece of history.

The SMLE is easy:  turn it into a “mantlepiece gun” — put it up on the wall somewhere as a decoration, and give the old war weapon a dignified retirement.  There’s no point in “fixing” it, because the history is too important — why lose that piece of history when you could take the same money and get a new gun for about the same price?

As for the 1911,  I say the opposite:  go for it, and fix it up;  turn it into a shooter.  Frankly, from the sound of it, the gun has been all but destroyed, and as such it has little real intrinsic value, especially as it wasn’t a service piece.  By all means replace all the innards (don’t forget the firing pin) and get it running.  Oh, and you may want to talk to a gunsmith about the serial number:  for some reason, the fuzz don’t take too kindly to an anonymous gun, and it may be necessary to redo the stamping (along with a certified notification for future use).  Also check for frame cracks, because from all accounts the poor old thing has been horribly abused.

It’s an interesting conundrum, isn’t it?  And thanks for the letter.

Sound Advice

Advice, SHTF

Kurt Schlichter tells us to be self-reliant (or, as he calls it, “rooftop Koreans”) during times when the SHTF, and lo, he speaketh da troof.

I suspect that the majority of my Readers have long since decided on that course of action — and if they haven’t, they’re either disarmed Brits (cricket bats are not much use on rooftops) or else Murkin denizens of liberal enclaves where they’ve been told to “leave it to the police” — and pretty much have  to do that because their local gummint has made the Koreans’ AR-15s illegal.

For discussion in Comments today:  assuming that possession of eeeeevil-looking AR / AK rifles is verboten  in your locale, what would be your alternative “rooftop” gun?  State gun type and chambering, please, with reasons.

“Dear Dr. Kim”

Advice, Pussification Parade

Dear Dr. Kim:
I’m having trouble figuring out what it is to be a man in today’s world, what with all the talk about “oppressive patriarchy”, “toxic masculinity” and so on.  I’ve tried reading a few self-help books, but none of them seemed to help much — in fact, the suggestions they make seem to be designed to make me… well, less of a man and more like a woman.  Do you have any ideas? — Browbeaten, London

Dear Beaten:
Let’s just start by addressing a few core principles.

First:  men don’t buy books to improve themselves;  they buy books to improve their stuff.  So manuals about fixing  small-block Chevy engines, cleaning a Colt 1911 pistol, photography techniques or improving one’s golf swing — all these are about the only acceptable “self-help” books one should find in a man’s bookcase (right next to the novels of Ernest Hemingway, Wilbur Smith and John Masters, as well as to history books written by John Keegan, Paul Johnson and Victor Davis Hanson).

Second:  most “self-help” books of the kind you speak are written by women bent on “improving” men or else by their camp followers, girlymen psychologists and so on, all with the same objective (as you seem to have discovered):  making you behave more like a woman.  They (and their writers) are to be avoided at all costs.  The only modern-day exception to the above is the brilliant Jordan Peterson, whose “12 Rules For Life” are probably all you’ll ever need on the topic of yourself.

Third:  most self-help books you’ll read will dispense bullshit nostrums like, “Don’t get angry” or “Maintain a pleasant attitude.”  Let me tell you right now:  there’s nothing at all wrong with rage, provided that you don’t take that rage out on anyone who didn’t cause it.  Many great inventions came about because a man said, “Oh, for fuck’s  sake!” and after destroying his laboratory, felt better and then kept on trying.  Omaha Beach was not taken by GIs who maintained a “pleasant attitude”, but by a bunch of pissed-off men who were sick of being used for target practice by Nazis.  (And if you think that today’s feminized society is not using you and other men for target practice, you’re fooling yourself.)

Finally, let’s look at the heart of the problem.  Unless you are a serial killer or -rapist, or someone who works in HR, or someone who votes Democrat (some overlap), there probably isn’t much wrong with you.  I suspect from the whining tone of your voice that you’re one of the Millennial generation, and therefore probably didn’t have a full-time father when you were growing up.

That’s not your fault, of course, but it means that you’ll have to rely on the support of other men — what we used to call “good friends” in my day, and not “my crew” or “bros” — and it’s an old adage that much wisdom can be found in the counsel of friends.  (Also a lot of bullshit, but at least their advice will be based upon knowing something about you, as opposed to self-help writers who don’t.)  Just be aware that the advice you receive from this source will likely be short at best, or even monosyllabic.  “Dude, you need to quit after six shots of tequila”, or “That chick is fucking up your life”, or “Have another beer.”  I know, that all sounds like crap advice, but it’s no worse than the bullshit you’ll read after dropping twelve bucks on something called “How To Be A Better Man In Today’s World”.

All that said, you can take heart in this proven fact:  you are not alone.  After venting my own rage in an invective-drenched rant called The Pussification Of The Western Male, I was astonished by the number (literally thousands) of men who wrote to me and said, “I thought I was the only guy who thought like that.”  (Hundreds of others, whom I can only suspect were academics and similar such girlymen, were not  pleased by what I’d written, but even they were outnumbered by the women who wrote to me and, figuratively speaking, wanted to bear my children.)  Millions of men feel the same way that you do:  puzzled, bewildered, irritated, enraged and so on.  Seek them out, and find comfort in their company.

I know that by dispensing any advice on this topic I run the risk of sounding like someone who’s written a self-help book — I haven’t — but of course you may feel free to ignore anything I’ve said above.  Unless it enraged you, in which case… you’re welcome.

Quite Right

Advice

Brit TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp has been making waves:

Kirstie Allsopp has been vocal about her desire to ban homework in the past, and today the presenter hit out again, branding it a ‘waste of time’.

…and I agree with that, completely.

However, it’s what else she says that’s the best advice anyone can give:

The Location, Location, Location host, 47, who has two sons Bay, 12, and Oscar, 10 with husband Ben Andersen, took to Twitter to respond to new figures released today, which revealed a ‘decline in reading for pleasure.’
According to the research, just over half (52.5 per cent) of eight to 18-year-olds read for pleasure in 2019, down from 58.8 per cent in 2016.
…
She wrote: ‘No evidence that under 10s gain from homework AND kids hate it, parents hate it and teachers hate it.’
‘Homework is an absurd hangover from another time. Much, much better to focus on reading, reading, reading and more reading.’

Yup.  Back when we homeschooled our three kids, the only mandatory exercise we imposed was three hours’ reading per day, no excuses, no “I’ll catch up tomorrow” or any of that jive.  Three hours straight, and the kids had to read outside their rooms (no distractions), whether in the library (where there was no TV) or, if the weather was suitable, outdoors.  For reading choice, there was my humble book collection (e.g. Bookcase #1 in the library):

…but the kids could also get their own, and the monthly trip to Barnes & Noble was a delight.  There was no spending limit other than self-imposed, but the books had to be text-only, i.e. no coffee-table picture books, comics or manga etc.

The kids could study other subjects, and did, but the reading was non-negotiable.  Kirstie has the truth of it:  all three of our kids are scarily literate.

Absentee Parents

Advice, Music

Many years ago, my boss came into my office and said:

“Ever hear of a band called Whitesnake?”
“Sure;  plays hard rock, the lead singer is ex-Deep Purple’s David Coverdale, and so on.  Why?”
“My daughter won two tickets to a Whitesnake concert in some competition, but I can’t face going with her because it’ll be too loud.  Would you mind taking her?”
“Nope.  Gimme the tickets.”

So I took his 14-year-old daughter to the concert, which was okay as concerts go, and then discovered that — surprise, surprise! — the tickets included backstage passes and a chance to meet the band.  (I guess she’d forgotten to tell her dad about that little bonus.)

Anyway, all went well:  Coverdale and I chatted awhile about Deep Purple and such, she got all the autographs, and that was that.

I was reminded of that occasion when I was reading a series of articles about how David Bowie is supposed to have bonked a couple of underage groupies (among many others) back in his early years, and more recently too.

 

…and in similar vein, how Led Zeppelin did same with some “baby groupies”, also back in the 1970s.

 

No shit.

Listen to me tell it:  I played in a (vastly-less successful) rock band back in the 1970s, and even though we were never groupie-bait to the extent that the big guys were, there were plenty of opportunities to get up to (or more correctly, into ) mischief.

Which leads to my my main question:

WHERE WERE THESE GIRLS’ PARENTS?

How could they be so ignorant as to think that unaccompanied young girls were not going to get into trouble in the heady, loud and licentious atmosphere that was a rock concert?  How could they allow their adolescent daughters to go by themselves or (worse still) only accompanied by their giggly friends?  (For those still unclear on this aspect of parenting, let me explain:  without the presence of parents, one kid can get up to mischief;  two kids can get up to mischief-squared;  and multiple kids will — not can —  get into Hiroshima-scale trouble.)  As Jimmy Page memorably said: “Everyone knows what they come for.”   Groupies gonna groupie, as the modern idiom goes.

I’m not excusing the musicians for doing this stuff, but remember, most of these bands were (and still are) themselves only a few years older than the baby-groupies.  Asking young musicians to behave with decorum in such circumstances is an exercise doomed to failure — as is expecting young girls to behave with restraint when coming face-to-face with their sweaty heroes in the excitement after the concert.

Let me get even more explicit.  When a fresh-faced young girl presents herself to a whacked-out musician, don’t expect him to ask her for ID before he fucks her.  And he is going to fuck her.

It’s just stupid for people to clutch their pearls and accuse these now-septuagenarians of statutory rape committed half a century ago.  Leave them alone.

Young people are going to fuck up.  What’s needed is responsible adult supervision — just as I provided to my boss’s daughter on that occasion.  So if any of you are faced with a similar situation, either with yer kids or yer grandkids, act accordingly.  Somebody has to be the grownup, and it might as well be you.