Going Rogue
Sitting around in isolation can cause 1) insanity 2) a deep and profound insight into the nature of life.
I’m voting “TWO.”
I am gradually realizing that Western Civilization, in the form of plastic scale model kit building–as it is now, in its current form–is for the birds.
I have no chicken in this race. I have no fat on the fire. No dirt on the visor. Nuttin’. I just want to make toy airplanes and play with them, and, dammit, I’m going to do that. I have no firm ground under my feet, because I’m an American, descended from Jamestown settlers and fully invested in America and burgers and all that stuff.
But my DNA is more English than plenty of old-time Airfix fans who’s ancestors just weren’t motivated enough to go to the howling wilderness of America and practice some imperialism on dey ass.
Is that my fault?
I’m not a British Subject, but I’m into the sticking together and the painting with the brush and the lack of gear and I do not always need “more power.” I can’t imagine anything that could cause me to use a power tool on a plastic kit, other than my beloved Sonic Scrubber, but that’s different.
But, while I have a certain “primitivism” in common with my English friends, I do not share their passion for the carving of weeblies from styrene stock and the gluing of greeblies into cockpits and wheel wells–and, to top it off, I do not give a rip about fat wing edges or any of that.
We’re through the looking glass now, people, and I think I see the source of the problem. I have read this lovely book:
And I realize that the British modeller (two ls…no apostrophe) has been dedicated since the very beginning–since the first FROG Penguins waddled and croaked into existence– to building little instrument panels and stuffing stuff into wheel wells in 1/72 scale plastic model kits.
Really. They have.
So I say to them, “shine on, you crazy diamonds,” and I say that I’ve had quite enough. As God is my witness, I will never build “detail” into a model again unless I actually want to do that. No more wifely duties for me. No more leaning back and thinking of England.
Men of Harlech… SING, MAN…Men of Harlech…SING, DAMN YOU!
Enough is enough, eh?
Yaar, my very mixed genes, English, Irish, French, and a bit of native American, I know influence my history of modeling. I love aeroplanes for their history, form and colors. My worst experience with current paints, was with mission paint, a beautiful dark blue that turned purple straight out of the bottle, damn their eyes. Not so much now for super detail and excruciating paint schemes. I’m at a loss for mojo to engage right now, due to medical meds that make one weak in body and mind, that will take another month or so to go the fuck away. Meantime one reconsiders what’s the most FUN.
My blue turned purple when my lovely missus gave me an “Ancestry.com” kit to spit in and a promise that I would soon learn what tribe I descended from and perhaps earn me some of that sweet, sweet Indian Casino money.
I was aghast to discover that I come 100% from the Tribe of Captian John Smith, despoiler of Native Maidens and so on. I am, according to my carefully assembled family tree (assembled by me and for me) a direct descendant of Edward Longshanks, who is famous for having the intestines cut out of William Wallace while he was still alive.
But I’m descended from one of his daughters, so if anybody around me is missing their innards, I’ll not be taking credit for it.
I build war machines, not because they represent history or imperial power, many of the war machines are elements of the worst humans have done. Japanese planes which bombed China, German tanks that rolled over countries, British ships which subjected many away from their shores to their world view, American planes which dropped nuclear bombs, and on and on.
I build war machines plastic models, i think because i see in a small scale the amazing scale of human ingenuity, of progress, of scientific and technological marvel. It connects me to the unbound Prometheus of industrial production which makes an airplane wheel possible from the provenance of rubber to the vulcanization process, through its assembly in a factory. I build also because as a man i am attracted to power and action vehicles. What a great frustrating hobby.