Wait, those are real guns!
Captain Stache and I were unmaking the lines on my sailboat one day. We were about to dip into some blue water runs. This was Stache’s first time on an actual sailboat, I insisted he come to Florida to go on a run. We were heading out of the Harbor, from the Indian River Lagoon to the Channel Lock at the Cape. We were just going sailing, and it was just us and the dogs. He wasn’t the only Appalachian Pirate that I took sailing during those years. Real sailing, takes alot of time to learn. You can see photos of my sailing trips on this site – it’s not AI, it’s me and the guys running a 30 foot Catalina and doing real bareboat sailing. The only deep blue boat I’ve Captained was a Cornish Cutter – I still have access to sail that boat on charter since I helped rebuild it’s hull. I’ve sailed on the Atlantic, the Gulf and even got my sailing license for the Mediterranian and Seychelles. I earned my Skipper license in Houston, sailed what was then the Gulf of Mexico and even earned my Chartermaster certification. Along the way, I picked up most of the major ASA and live NauticalED certifications. I have several years of sailing under my belt – if I had not moved back to Appalachia, I was only 100 hours away from my Six-Pack. I’ve been to the West Indies, Jamaica and St. Kit. Stache was also in the West Indies. The reason sailing was important to the core Captains was that we wanted to distance ourselves from festival style pirate culture, learn the real culture and to, quite frankly, not be a fucking bunch of hypocrites.
While I’m a mountain kid, my Grandfather was a Captain out of Palmico Sound – he was on that vessel for about 20 years before moving inland and marrying my grandmother. Her first husband was moonshiner, so it seemed to fit for her. Grandfather Bill told stories about growing up on the sound – life wasn’t easy. They gathered rain water in halved cut 50 gallon drums, put a tap on the bottom and layered it in diesel to keep the mosquitos out of it. “That was an old sailors trick”, he’d remark over a can of Old Milwualkee. At a young age, he expressed to me the importance of ‘being something’, rather than ‘acting like you were something’. As a Captain, he was critical of ‘lake culture’, golf yuppies and ‘pontoon boats’. “Anyone can boat on flat water, a monkey can do it – skill is when the waves hit the bow and it’s turnin’ ya, which this way, that this way – that’s real, not this stuff here.” As a Marine Welder, he took those skills, applied them to support a family of nine he didn’t sire and worked until the day he left. These are the types of men than raised both the men and women of the Appalachian Mountain Piracy.
Along the way, in addition to sailing and rafting, the Appalachian Mountain Pirates picked up motorcycle touring. Some how, this all bled into hiking, prepardness and switft water rescue classes for some.
I remember the first day an Asheville festival type got on our boat. He wanted to go out with the ‘Pirates’ – he came dressed for Bonaroo. What really got him was after we put-in, he noticed our pistols in our Astral PFDs. “Oh my god, Oh my God, OH MY GOD, wait are those real guns?” he asked. Too late to turn back, we were already in the swift run of the French Broad, I turned to him and simply said “Yes, they are.” I didn’t entertain his fear, I was on point to read the water ahead and it was getting swift. We could all smell his fright – sure he was thinking all kinds of things, being on our boat wasn’t one of them. In my mind, my version of a pirate was not his version.
So what is his version?
I imagine it’s close to what I saw in Tampa, something like Gasparella – a drunken larp fest of festival pirates. Gasperilla, Festival or Shanty pirates are not pirates – well, they look like pirates, but they are what we call PINOs (Pirates in Name Only). Some of the guys do HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) and they do perform at festivals – however, they are using live steel (or real steel I shoud say) and it isn’t the ‘Unicorn City’ style of LARP fighting. Don’t get me wrong, we have fun, but ‘only for fun’ wasn’t what Captain Ed taught us – he was very big on Heinlein’s concept of the Compentent Person (we say Competent Man around here just to piss off the Asheville folks … people don’t like real men these days). Sure, I’m aware some of the guys and girls like to go do that stuff, but I also personally know they can handle real shit when asked to do so. I’ve seen everyone of them go down Section 9 of the French Broad. Also, most of them are veterans – I know that they know what to do when the chips are down. I’d trust them with my life, I wouldn’t trust a fucking party pirate for dick – just saying.
From his weapons on the open road, no man should step one pace away – The Havamal
The man on that day of our travels down the river was being impractical about the dangers people face in remote mountain places. While being afloat provides a measure of protection, unfortunately, meth, just plain vagrancy and illegal immigration have pushed crime to a level that we haven’t seen here in years. I wonder how and why people travel into the backcounty unarmed. This is kinda of like the social study I read once about women who said that they would feel more comfortable facing a grizzly, than being around a normal man in the woods. This line of logic is childish at best, deadly at worst. His unrealistic ‘fear’ of firearms (and probably his distrust of us once he realized it wasn’t a party barge) is fairly systemic in Asheville culture. More crime exists in the heart of Asheville that is never repeated or reported. Yet, as the proverb goes, people in Asheville choose to stay ignorant with their heads in the sand about their Appalachian reality. Wishing the tiger away rarely works. This lack of practicality is why one will hear most Mountain Pirates berating Ashevillians. I’m not sure what he though we were – we rarely, if ever, drink on the water (the pilot never does) – sure there is a law on it, but in reason, it’s not practical and could instantly kill everyone.
That was one of the biggest criticsims Captain Ed had about Asheville ‘pirates’ – he would say “They aren’t real men, they are boys pretending to be something they are not, for some reason I don’t know why.” He also remarked that most of the ‘men’ in Asheville were jealous, insecure pussy hounds simply embracing femminism to get laid (which most actual Femminsts can see right through – (ask any woman into actual Witchcraft about these guys, she will have plenty of stories)). Plus, most Appalachian Mountain Pirates have a mean IQ of 144, Captain Cú Chulainn, Ed’s son, placed at 183 – he had the highest IQ of any person that year in his age group for their native state of Kentucky. Most festival kids have a mean IQ of 12 oz.s, that’s about it. So, what are we really about? In case you need a refresher, outside of the Code and the mystical jargon around the Glyph, this is what we are about:
A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.
— Robert A. Heinlein
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn(sail/operate) a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
— Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love (Ref)
“A person must start with a willingness to learn and follow it with long, hard study. I grok that is salutary.”
— Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
The Code we use is more than the actual Metaphysical elements it compromises, it is, for all purposes, a set of rules you can stake your life on. It isn’t ‘radical inclusion’ for the sake of making everyone feel good, nor is it a party trope. The Code runs far deeper than one may realize. Yeah, there is some ‘Woo’ to it’s more estoteric interpretation, but it’s thought out, calculated and masterfully wrought.
Years ago, the Collins Trust purchased the rights to the word “Mountain Pirate” and “Appalachian Mountain Pirate” – we’ve only seen one copyright confliction, and that was from a game designer. The reason the Trust bought thoses words is so that they couldn’t be conflicted by the Asheville party types (or whatever party type we have in Appalachia). The Code is under the Trust, so is the Glyph. The very first use of the concept of πr8 was by Captain Edward Collins in some far off time before I was borne, the next use of the ‘glyph’ was done by both Captain Ed and Captain Balls as mtπr8. Why copy right this stuff? We did this to protect the concepts from the very party crowd that you often see LARPing under the idea of piracy, specifically, we did this to protect the idea of the Appalachian Piracy and more directly Appalachian Mountain Piracy. We are the only group of ‘pirates’ recognized by others in the Heinlein Tradition (C.A.W. (Church of All Worlds), The Pirate Church and Discordianism) (For more on Heinleinian concepts, visit the Heinlein Society).
Again, some of the guys and girls enjoy these pirate parties, I get it – it’s fun. However, at the end of the day, don’t fool yourself – you aren’t a pirate, you are playing at one. However, if you feel it’s time to get real and up your game, give us a call … we are here to help.
