Vic

Kids liked Vic, because he would listen to them. They rambled like the energy of youth shook their thoughts free from the bearings of logic. Vic appreciated the stream of consciousness of an earnest child. Reality weaved in and out of fantasy and memory for them, and he was fascinated by how they easily navigated those disparate shores. To children all things were possible because all times were now. There was no future to lose track of your plans in, or past to regret the fading of. They never ran out of time because their youth was eternal, Peter Pan and Wendy hand in hand. Vic watched his nephew look to where the sea met the sky, blending colors, sure he would see Captain Hook's ship appear on the limitless horizon.

Vic had listened to punk most of his life, and people had it all wrong. They characterize it by the desolate origins; the financially, socially and educationally deprived tribalists rejecting their traditions even as they create them. All explanations ran to nihilism, but Vic felt the exact opposite. He recognized the desire to forge a new, attainable aesthetic. The willing of a reality that did not otherwise exist, a place where they could excel, like the lost boys in pajamas and cast off remnants stepping into the air to fly. Superficially it was dissonant, petulant music, but the philosophy behind it was hugely optimistic.

Everywhere Vic looked he was told stories of winners winning. Even when sabotaged by their own short comings, their victories were just returning to the status quo. To Vic punk was the story of losers succeeding, and he saw that in the amorphous world of the young.