{"id":20111,"date":"2020-09-26T22:39:38","date_gmt":"2020-09-26T22:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/?p=20111"},"modified":"2020-09-26T22:43:52","modified_gmt":"2020-09-26T22:43:52","slug":"point-loma-snake-farm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/point-loma-snake-farm\/","title":{"rendered":"Point Loma: Snake Farm"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: Yesterday, we did a run of Marlow’s view of the current travails in the Republic we served. Today, the sky is gray. The big aerial parade over Washington has been postponed again due to weather. They hope to launch again tomorrow. We will see. In a curious way, the airshow seems to presage the course of the election. If we don’t get perfect conditions, we will at least have a spectacular show. Since everything is political, we will have a prelude this weekend with the nomination of a prospective Supreme Court Justice. It is a lifetime appointment. Although the President has not made his decision final, they are already smearing a likely candidate for her temerity in adopting two kids from Haiti. The accusation in its early stage is that the children were stripped from their birth parents and shipped to this land of plenty. It does not appear to have the sordid aspects of the slime smeared on Justice Kavanaugh, though it does have a scent of kidnapping. I have no idea why a good and honorable person would permit the Swamp to romp through their lives. It really is interesting, isn’t it?
\n– Vic<\/p>\n

Author\u2019s Note: I admire Vic for his perseverance in putting out the weekly Postcard from the Swamp. It has made me think of ways to lampoon a whole bunch of tempting assholes masquerading in the raiments of the pure defenders of the rights of all Americans. Yeah, and I\u2019ve got some waterfront property in Arizona to sell you cheap, along with the Golden Gate. Back in the day, we took a family trip down to Florida and visited a bunch of the tourist traps, to include the Alligator and Snake Farms along old U.S. 41 (aka Alligator Alley) on the way down to the Everglades and the Keys. The feeding of live chickens to ravenous alligators and then watching pythons squeeze them to death was an exotic if now disgusting spectacle for an 8-year old in 1965. I let that memory lie dormant for years and then one day, I heard this song by RWH, and it all came back into focus. We could have a lot of fun with this in our own cynical ways \u2013 tattooing a new member of the Snake Farm each week or so \u2013 but that takes a lot of energy and attention to detail. Still, it might be worth doing since it does have a high, smart-ass factor, which is nice.<\/p>\n

Snake Farm<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"PL_092620-1\"
\nRay Wylie Hubbard<\/p>\n

This song is by Ray Wylie Hubbard.
\nAnd no, it is not \u201cRedneck Mother\u201d but in many ways even more classic in its cynicism. Ray Wylie Hubbard (or RWH) has been around for a long time, and has outlived Jerry Jeff, Waylon, Townes van Zandt and a few other Texas country contemporaries. It was Jerry Jeff who made \u201c\u2026Mother\u201d famous even in the introduction for then young songwriter RWH way back in 1973 which, if you do the math, was really a long fucking time ago for those of us old enough to remember.<\/p>\n

Aside from its potential sly political aspersions, the song itself is remarkable for its simplicity, at least in the debut version which is RWH bending the strings and singing in his laconic, near-monotone narrative style, and a solo percussionist pacing his signature no-nonsense driving bluesy Texas beat playing a snare with a brush, and shaking a maraca masquerading as a rattle snake\u2019s tale \u2013 genius. The first version when he introduced the song to an unsuspecting live audience is the best, so if you dare, click on the YouTube link below:
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