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Me, An Influencer? Right

The Gun Thing

I’m sometimes asked why I don’t try to “monetize” this website — i.e. earn good money from it — because many people consider me something known as an “influencer”.

I’ve always thought the word’s closest synonym was “product pimp”.

I supposed I have influenced people to some degree;  certainly, this email’s theme is by no means uncommon:

“Kim, before I started reading your blog, I thought I was doing okay, I mean with my guns.  I kept my dad’s old service revolver in the drawer next to my bed (which I hadn’t fired for over a decade, by the way).  I had an old Marlin .22 rifle for dealing with pests on my property, and a 12-gauge shotgun that Dad used to go bird-hunting with.  I doubt whether I had more than a couple boxes of ammo for each.
“Then I found your blog because of the Pussification  essay, and as I read more and more of your writing, something changed in the way I look at guns.
“Now I have about 15 handguns of various calibers,  six (SIX) .22 rifles ranging from a “sporterized” Ruger 10/22 all the way up to an Anschutz 54 (which I use for competitions — yes, I compete in NRA Smallbore now).
“Don’t ask me about centerfire rifles.  I started with a .30-30 lever gun, and now own several mil-surp Mausers (thanks to your continuous praise for them, my favorite is a Venezuelan in 7×57) as well as another four in various calibers.  I’m not much into shotguns, although I did buy a couple pumps which I keep around the house and garage, just in case.  You know what I mean.
“But that’s not the worst, even though my wife of thirty years has put her foot down and refuses to let me put another safe in the spare bedroom which is now where I clean and fiddle with the guns.  The worst is that I’m running out of space to store the ammo.  Every year on National Ammo Day I buy about ten thousand rounds of various sizes, and that’s not counting .22 ammo which I buy on pretty much a monthly basis, a few thousand at a time.  I don’t know why because I think I have close to 100,000 rounds of .22 stored up, but I shoot so damn much of it, I’m scared of running out.
“My life has become much more enjoyable, but I am now considerably poorer.  And it’s all your fault.”

If that’s what being an influencer means, then I guess I am one of those.  What gets in my way is that I have always steadfastly refused to endorse any specific product, simply because I don’t want to paint myself into a corner.  What if I’m (say) a Savage endorser, and I hate one of their new products?  I should point out that I’ve been approached on several occasions by various manufacturers, but as soon as I lay down my conditions, the offers are withdrawn.  (I told one guy that I couldn’t understand why he was interested in me when practically every writer in the gun mags was sucking his dick already.)

So I guess I’ll never become one of these product pimps, either by choice or because, as far as I can tell, all my Loyal Readers have personal arsenals and ammo supplies which exceed that of the writer above and they don’t really need much “influencing” at all.  The market for my influencing, in other words, is almost non-existent.

There is one group where I have been a major influencer, but I’m saddened to have been one.

Over the past sixteen or so years I have probably taught close to two hundred women to shoot, and I’m sorry to say that at least a third have been women who were being victimized by vengeful ex-boyfriends or ex-husbands, and who felt the need to protect themselves by owning a gun to fend off these pricks.  I taught them to shoot, and helped them pick the gun which suited them the most, and in a couple of cases actually lent them one of my own guns if they couldn’t afford one right way.  One girl, who was 19 at the time and was in danger from some asshole stalker, kept my loaner gun for three years  until she was finished college and got her first job.  Then she bought the gun from me out of her first paycheck.  (In case you’re interested, it was a Ruger SP101 .357 Magnum and I charged her a hundred bucks for it.  It’s not like she became a thoracic surgeon or something.)  She was/is an outstanding shot, and she still writes to me on occasion, sending me pics of her latest targets.  I pity the fool.  

Sorry, I veered off the topic there for a moment.  Back the the influencer thing.

I admit that I’d like to make money off this website — I mean serious money — but it seems that most of these other product pimps do their thing on FaecesBook, Twatter or InstaCrap, and I refuse to be part of those platforms [200 reasons omitted].

Whatever.  As with so many things, the price of entry to this game isn’t worth the possible reward, so I’ll never become one of these people.  I can’t say it bothers me that much.

Oh, and Samuel, if you read this post, I took the liberty of cleaning up your grammar and taking out the insults.  And let me know how that new P938 works, willya?

Not The Best Of Times

Beauty, Drive Time

Foul Reader Paul G. sent me these links to the Concours d’Elegance Suisse (here for the pre-WWII models and here for post-war) which show some magnificent cars — and a couple of howlers.  Take this 1981 Daimler V12 Double Six “shooting brake” (a.k.a. station wagon  to us Murkins):

Ooooooglay.

On a tangential thought:  I seem to be one of the few people of my vintage who actually enjoyed the 1980s.  I liked the music, I liked the clothing, and I sure as hell enjoyed the lifestyle.  (Remember, for me the 1980s straddled two continents:  South Africa pre-1986, and the U.S. from 1987 onwards.)

The cars were… well, patchy.  On the one hand, you had the pretty ones:

Mercedes 380SL

Ferrari 288 GTO

Porsche 959

And then we had the wonderful Toyota MR2 (“Mister 2”)

…which unfortunately led other Japanese car makers to go all wedgey, e.g.:

Subaru XT

Acura Integra

Come to think of it, even the 288 was a wedge, but an Italian  wedge (which makes all the difference).

Of course, there were also the 80’s cars which were horrible and disgusting:

Plymouth Reliant

Ford Thunderbird

…and we won’t even talk about the Cadillac Cimarron

Let’s go back to the goodies.  First, the boxy-boxy look:

Audi Quattro

BMW E30 M3

Lancia Delta Integrale

Maserati Biturbo — the very definition of

Saab 900 Turbo

Volvo 740/760 Turbo (& wagon  — you can’t use the term “shooting brake” for a Swedish  car, it’s illegal))

Golf GTI

Note that many of the above were quite decent performers — the BMW E30 is one of the greatest racing cars ever made, the Audi Quattro dominated rallying for years, and even the Volvo 760 Turbo had quite a bit of poke — but they’re all still pig-ugly as far as I’m concerned.   Speaking of “ugly performance cars”, though, there were the Murkins:

Ford Mustang GT 5.0

Buick Grand National GNX

Both the above were quite hideous to look at, but at least they were fast.  As were a couple of European entrants:

Merkur XR4i (a.k.a. Ford Sierra GT)

Ford RS200

…which was underpowered — for rallying — but which still managed a 0-60mph time of 3.8 seconds, which compares well to the supercars of today.

Speaking of supercars, the 1980s did produce a couple of sublime models like the Ferrari F40

and the Lamborghini Countach

There were others (the above is by no means a comprehensive list);  but these were the ones that caught my eye at the time.  To my mind, though, no car captures the spirit of the 1980s quite like Toyota’s MR 2.

Go ahead and talk about your  favorites, in Comments.

Sports Update

Funny Stuff, Sports

Someone wrote and asked me why I haven’t celebrated Team USA winning the Women’s Football World Cup recently.  Okay, here it is:

There ya go.  (I think  I got those rainbow colors right…)

Update:  Okay, Alex Morgan isn’t a lesbian:

True Story

Gummint, Marxists

Apparently Rep. Frederica Willams (Communist-FL) was on her way to a speaking engagement when she discovered she’d forgotten to brush her teeth.  She stopped at a Walgreens on the way, and sent her assistant into the store to get her a toothbrush.

“Can I get a toothbrush for Congresswoman Williams?” she asked the clerk breathlessly.
The clerk thought for a moment, then replied, “Sounds like a fair trade.”

OMG — I think I’m going to be arrested for that.

Hooray

Business

I’d like to see a lot more of this attitude:

Gerard O’Shaughnessy posted a job advertisement to hire candidates for social media marketing roles at his online ad agency, Business Marketing Services Ltd (BMS) in West Yorkshire.
The 48-year-old created the brutally honest advert saying ‘mickey takers’ and those who call in sick with hangovers need not apply.
Mr O’Shaughnessy became frustrated after wading through stacks of applicants who didn’t fit the bill for the role, which would see the employee working from 9-3, with free gym access, but would also mean their phone was locked away all day.
After stating the perks of the job, he then highlights that he doesn’t want people who are addicted to their phones to apply as well as weekend party-goers and those with ‘psycho’ boyfriends demanding regular text updates.
Mr O’Shaughnessy has been working at the business for 15 years, and said we are living in a ‘generation of snowflakes’.
He highlighted how previous staff members had ‘complete meltdowns’ after the company made it compulsory two months ago for phones to be locked away each day – only being given back at lunch time and of course at the end of the day.

Give the man a medal.