We start with an erroneous title, since that is our summer theme. We just crossed the ides of August, a time of traditional somnolescent solace that comes with the realization that the Autumn winds are being packaged up in where- Saskatchewan? For shipment down here to the Tidewater of Virginia.

So, this was an organizational meeting that featured Socotra House Creative staff addressing management guidance for a busy Fall, production of an exicting new 45-year old project, and an election that will likely have an influence on the Judeo-Christian culture of what we used to laughingly call “The West.”

Naturally bot Legal and Marketing had their stuck-ees in attendance. DeMille had already divvied up the tasking to keep it simple. Fore example, stalwart Splash was taksed with maintaining a scratchpad of the stories as they flew by in the overnight and daily barrage.

He keeps them loosely organized by “region” and “hierarchy within region” for handy use.

Local stuff is on top to close out the week, and he had a few lines on his glowing pad he waved with a certain languid summer motion.

“Here is some of the deals they want us to be aware of. Not concerned, of course, since that would be alarmist. Just concerned.” The letters were high-lit in a bright color we did not recognize at the picnic table:

Pro-Hamas Protesters Storm Harris rally in New York

RU SRBM strike on Odessa, response to Kursk incursion

US, Egypt & Qatar pushing IS-Hamas to cease-fire

Hamas won’t attend Doha meeting to discuss

CA man indicted for aircraft export to Iran

China claims large Taiwan spy net crushed

Those were just the overnight items. There was a lot more texture to each line, and some that just conveyed odd stuff. Like, “wind and solar nationwide generated more electricity than coal through the first seven months of the year.” That is from “preliminary data” compiled by the people we employ at something called the Energy Information Administration.

We are in general agreement that is a good thing and that we should have some. There is, of course, some speculation about whether it is accurate, or the preliminary stuff can be quietly suit-cased if it is not useful to whatever is going to happen tomorrow.

Like the drug thing. We have been looking at that issue on several levels, both social and potentially personal. The bit that floated about Matt Perry yesterday caught us unawares. There was general consensus that we knew the actor had died at a youthful age in an unfortunate accident in his Hollywood hot-tub. It was flashing again yesterday since indictments against five people who were involved in providing Matt the Ketamine drug that killed him.

The quick report was that some $57 thousand bucks were spent on the endeavor for a drug that costs less than $12 a vile for one of the Doctors who was reported arrested. Splash had that one in the loose jumble of fentanyl-related stories topped by the announcement from the folks at Medicare that a completely unexpected program to reduce the cost of ten commonly-prescribed prescription drugs was going to be in effect for a few days immediately before November 5th, which we understand is still scheduled for some event, we forget which.

The Palestine thing is not simmering but on full boil, though the eddies and swirls of controversy sweep across the Ukrainian invasion of Russia down to the dusty streets of Gaza. Famed political strategist James Carville is looking a little long in the tooth these days, but he was quoted as saying the opposing party was only supporting Israel because that religious group has a lesser melanin content than the Palestinians.

Our last conversation with a real Palestinian on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem featured his complaint about Hamas and the Intifada strike they called to ruin Israeli tourism, so we understand a little of the ambiguity in the whole thing.

It is all wrapped up in our politics which is twined through all the issues. Including the Production Meeting. Topic this morning? A possible name-change to the Next Big Thing at Socotra House.

We mentioned it before. The Chairman started this enterprise some 45 years ago with an idea he borrowed unintentionally for a project that would become what some of us laughingly term his “life work.”

It was a parody of a parody genre at the time, completely in keeping with the one we are in now. It was a series of daily stories intended to divert attention from something real, inconvenient and painful at the time. An American Embassy had been seized in Tehran. Fancy building, Marine guards. It was a violation of a few international laws. American diplomats and support personnel were held as hostages for more than a year. US forces were dispatched to look ominous and eventually military action was undertaken.

At that time, Iranian pilots were still being trained to fly what was then a white-hot aircraft called the F-14 Tomcat, and some were pretty good. So there was a little confusion about who was who and what was what. The Chairman had listened to a comedy album popular at the time. It was by an intensely funny ensemble called “The Firesign Theater,” and featured an amiable but hard-boiled private detective they called “Nick Danger.”

As opposed to now, the Chairman had no idea what he was doing. In fact, he didn’t intend to do it. It wasn’t a “for profit” gig, and he borrowed the name to create his own haphazard saga of a tough private dick working the mean passageways of an aircraft carrier underway in search of the evil The Fat Man, supported by a buxom Australian beauty named “Matilda.”

The ship had just come from Perth, so you may understand some of the emotion contained in a couple thousand four-day romances.

The series was warmly welcomed at the time since things were unsettled enough to have four or five thousand sailors orbiting around the North Arabian Sea, on, above and below the waves and out of sight of land for more than a hundred days at one point.

Anyway, the current situation brought those days back with a vengeance. A book of the cartoons that had appeared with the episodes turned up with an actual endorsement from VADM Bob Kirksey, and it seemed like a useful vehicles to have some fun with the shenanigans of the last five decades of regional excitement.

You know. “The Shah is OK! Persia is a help against Russia!” then, “Death to America! Jihad now!” and some other stuff that turned into the 9/11 thing, and the GWOT and “Nation Building!” as a means of trying to get around the whole religious war thing until we got tired of it and realized the value of importing large blocks of voting people to shout “Death to America” in Dearborn, Michigan. That used to be a Polish town in Detroit.

Apparently it is happening in Minneapolis, too, but we are easily confused.

Anyway, the Chairman had an old copy of “Nick Danger” that he is interested in having Christine and her crew of artistic folks do up with a shiny flashy cover. With a new name. He had borrowed “Nick” and thought he could eliminate any potential confusion by calling it “Dick Ranger, Third Eye.”

This is what we are trying to work with. But we are on the case, and like the first stirrings of the rising wind that will accompany the next 80 days that may determine the fate of the West.

Or something. There may be some volume in the process. Stay “tuned.”

Copyright 2024 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com