Author: Vic Socotra

Loaded Words

(Loaded Words on a Belt Buckle) I had hoped to wrap this string up this pleasant summer morning. The Ornamental Concrete Workers were up early, blasting off to their weekly golf outing, and the view from the balcony across the blue pool and into the greenery was so captivating that I drifted off in contemplation. […]

Music Festivals

(Original Goose Lake International Music Festival Poster, 1970) It is about forty years to the day, give or take, that the Woodstock Nation broke out the tokes and rolled like sweet smoke across the American consciousness.   I wasn’t there, not hip or mobile enough in 1969, but a lot of us jumped on that […]

Rules for Radicals

(Cover of the 1971 Issue of Rules) There is enough about Saul Alinsky to write a damn thesis about.   Hillary Clinton did at Wellesley was kind enough to lock it up while she and her husband lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. It was not as explosive as one would think, a little more […]

Pulling the Plug On Grandma

(Saul Alinsky, circa 1970)   Jiggs drove our of here on his 18-inch tires this morning on sexy wheels and surrounded by clear-coat deep blue metallic flake youcould drown in. If Ford is in trouble, at least it is the only major car company in the US not owned by Uncle Sugar.   Jiggs is […]

The New Caduceus

  I don’t know how Heckle and Jeckle bear it. They are the feral black cats with white socks that I work for down at The Farm. They peered at me with minor irritation as I struggled to open a new bag of cat chow.   I was in seersucker and still the sweat rolled […]

Big PInk Barbeque

(The Barbeque of Bounty)   It is draining away, this marvelous summer, but it was a Sunday with substance. The heat was here, shimmering, fir the first time. The water was still cool from the night, and stayed that way for most of the day, even as the temperature soared.   There have never been […]

Birthers

(Birther view of the President’s Certification of Live Birth) There are only two directions in the islands- toward the mountain, or Mauka, or toward the sea, Makai.   That is an oversimplification, or course, since on the island of O’ahu, you can also head Ewa (West) or Diamond Head (East), or Windward (NE) or Leeward […]

Birthdays Barbeque

(BBQ Beans in Authentic Styrofoam Cup with Plastic Spoon) I have a pal whose Dad has the same birthday as mine does- they are both in their late 80’s now, and they have done it again. My pal is close enough that he will be able to give his congratulations in person. I sent flowers […]

The Day the Music Died

(Far East Network Microphone)   This cycle about Bobbie K. Hubbard will come to an end today, though my memories of him will not. Hubs crossed over the great change in South East Asia, and in his final gesture to eternity, decided to stay there forever in the quiet cemetery in Angeles City, Republic of […]

Grave Diggers

(Clark Cemetery, Angeles City, R.P.)   A long time ago, in a place far away, on this very day of the year, the Army Air Crops dispatched Colonel Paul Tibbets on a special mission. There are pictures of him waving from his hastily-christened B-29 serial number 44-86292 Enola Gay just before take-off.   He and […]