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Vic Socotra

Author: Vic Socotra

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March 12, 2017 Vic Socotra

Life and Island Times: Time Travel

I had thought about entitling today’s piece with some combination of the words spring, forward and suck but decided against it. As expected, we woke up later than normal to discover a dreary and surprisingly cold and windy morning too late to dress for services, so instead went to the local coffee shop on Forsyth […]

March 9, 2017 Vic Socotra

The Medium is the Message (Part 4)

I topped up the tulip glass- close to the last glass- of the remaining bottle of Willow Happy Hour White and walked back to the scene of the séance. I was dialed in, and a pleasant soprano voice came on the line: Karen Anderson, Evidentiary Medium. In my mind I had an image of how […]

March 8, 2017 Vic Socotra

The Medium is the Message (Part 3)

(Former Deputy Sheriff, award-winning author and evidential medium Karen Anderson). After yesterday’s outing- the independent account of strange happenings in the Ford Island Dispensary- I am going to reiterate the obvious: There is stuff out here in the world that I do not either understand, or for which I have no plausible explanation. The Macaroon […]

March 7, 2017 Vic Socotra

The Bunk Room

(Crater left by the detonation of a Japanese aerial bomb in the Ford Island Dispensary in December, 1941. You are looking out the front door to the company street that leads to the hangars and the headquarters to the left, and the barracks to the right. The Bunk Room is above and to the left […]

March 6, 2017 Vic Socotra

Arrias on Politics: A 350-Ship Navy

The President wants to add $54 billion to the DOD budget next year, and expand the Navy to 350 ships; and expand the Army, Air Force and Marines. Several retired admirals and generals opined that it won’t really work, and that once Washington DC reality sets in, there’ll be universal recognition of that “fact” and […]

March 6, 2017 Vic Socotra

The Medium is the Message (Part Deux)

OK- you are just going to have to bear with me on this one. It requires a bit of a deft touch, since there are two clear paths by which I might spin this memory. I could be my usual snarky self and play it for laughs, mocking a profession of seers and mystics that […]

March 5, 2017 Vic Socotra

The Medium is the Message

Remember those words? The phrase was introduced in Marshall McLuhan’s book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, published in the dim and distant days of 1964. I was a young teen at the time, basking in the bourgeoisie pleasures of suburban Detroit. We had some problems at the time- perhaps you have heard of them? […]

March 3, 2017 Vic Socotra

Life and Island Times: Sandy Shoes

the big cities we have left behind fatten, grow old, increasingly coarsen, they become poisoned, and parts of them and their people wither survivors often think of the old days when the nights and days jumped like they never had before that even when they slept they gave off light, electricity and soothing rollicking sounds […]

March 2, 2017 Vic Socotra

Life and Island Times Thoughts on Backroad Motorcycle Towns

The riders traveled far away from big urban cities in order to putt to and through small and middle sized towns. As the years passed and the miles ridden soared, more and more of these places appeared to be shattered or shadows of their former selves. These towns were places where the promise of American […]

March 1, 2017 Vic Socotra

Life and Island Times: Epilogue

Suburbs like back country places cannot exist without roads. Country roads were and remain about connections while suburban ones are about isolated islands of safety and quiet away from the perceived peril and noise of the inner urban city. For many motorcycle riders, suburban roads lead to boring houses with boring lawns and a boring […]