Mood: unsteady

Another Monday is about us in Ashlandia, where the rain falls mainly in the valley, and the streams and rivers swell with the results.

The weather is 52 F, cloudy and rainy. Forecasters warn that today’s high will be 65 F, with intermittent clouds, but it won’t rain. It’s a good coffee and reading day.

As for the world outside of Ashlandia, there were no overnight miracles. The news reports that the ongoing wars are still ongoing, one in Europe, and one in the middle-east. Besides those two, the GOP still wars with the GOP in the US. I don’t look for a quick or happy resolution to the war in the middle-east, but expect it to trudge on as has happened with Russia and Ukraine in Europe.

The GOP war with themselves reminds me of MAD Magazine’s Spy vs. Spy feature, with less humor.

To summarize, led by the hardline Gang of Eight, the Republicans outsted their own guy as Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, even though they’re all part of the majority party nominally known as the GOP. Since booting McCarthy, the House has not been functioning much.

Note: the House wasn’t doing much before losing its Speaker, mostly because the GOP was determined to be the Grand OBSTRUCTIONIST Party. This is largely because a Democrat is POTUS, and most of the GOP’s ideas involve stripping rights from others, banning books, and keeping fossil fuels as the nation’s primary energy source.

Steve Scalise, House Majority Leader, R-La, tried and failed to become the new House Speaker, and withdrew after that one attempt.

Jim Jordan, a hardliner from Ohio, tried and failed after three rounds of voting to become Speaker. Just couldn’t find the votes. He’s considered too hard right and has never been known to compromise. Besides that, he has a poor legislative record.

“Critics of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) have increasingly pointed to this – most notably the fact that he has yet to get a bill signed into law since being elected in 2006.” h/t to UnionLeader.com.

A line during Saturday Night Live’s cold open captured the essence of Jim Jordan’s attempt to be Speaker: “I want to be Speaker so that government starts functioning again so I can shut it down.” That’s the gist of Jordan’s politics. He doesn’t like ‘big’ government.

These wars complicate the world’s already precarious situation. The biggest crises we face in 2023 is growing food shortages and rising food costs, per ReliefWeb. Food shortages are worsening because war is tearing up farms and arable land, and growing extreme weather is damaging crops and disrupting growing seasons.

What a mess we’re in, and so much of it is brought on by our own actions. But just as so many addicts of drugs and addictives are helpless to save themselves, so it seems, are we.

Let’s go on to more pleasant matters, like music.

My wife was telling me a story about a conversation between her and some friends. I thought, “Oh, shit, sparks are going to fly now,” as I laughed, because I knew the husband and wife involved and how they were going to react.

Boom, The Neurons pounced, delivering “Master of Sparks” by ZZ Top into my head, where it remains in the morning mental music stream (Trademark sagging). This feels like a case of needing to play it for others to unloop it from my mental music stream, so here we are, me presenting it to you as Monday’s theme music.

The song is part of the first ZZ Top album I ever listened to, Tres Hombres, from 1973. I was seventeen. My buddy, Scott, brought it into high school art class as part of the established routine of listening to music while drawing and painting. One take of that album and I was smitten.

“Master of Sparks” turned out to be one of those songs that caught my attention as I was drawing because I was struggling to figure out what it was about. “What are they singing, Scott?” I asked. He brought it in, so I thought he’d know.

Sweeping his long bangs off his face, he grinned at me with big eyes. “I don’t know. Sounds cool, though doesn’t it?”

Scott introduced me to many new rock bands during that time, and shaped my musical preferences. Highly intelligent, athletic, and creative, Scott started at our school in my junior year after being tossed out from a well-regarded prep school. We shared multiple classes and were on several sports teams together. We also were both very rebellious.

Taking the question seriously, Scott returned two days later and told me that “Master of Sparks” is telling a story about a ball-shaped steel cage that the narrator was in. My reaction was basically, “Whaaa?”

Scott explained that he and Rick listened to it again and again at Scott’s house, and decided that’s what the song was about. Thanks to the net, I know they were right.

High class Slim came floating in
Down from the county line
Just getting right on Saturday night
Riding with some friends of mine
They invited me to come and see
Just what was on their minds
And then I took my first long look
At the Master of Sparks on high

In the back of Jimmy’s Mack
Stood a round steel cage
Welded into shape by Slim
Made out of sucker gauge
How fine, they cried now with you inside
Strapped in there safe and sound
I thought, my-o-my, how the sparks will fly
If that thing ever hit the ground

Slim was so pleased when I had eased
Into his trap of death
He had slammed the door but I said no more
And I thought I’d breathed my last breath
We was out in the sticks down Highway Six
And the crowd was just about right
The speed was too, so out I flew
Like a stick of rolling dynamite

When I hit the ground
You could hear the sound
And see the sparks a country mile
End over end I began to spin
But the ball started running wild
But it was too late as I met my fate
And the ball started getting hot
But through the sparks and the flame
I knew that the claim
Of the Master of Sparks was gone

h/t AZLyrics.com

Onward, my friends. Stay pos and be strong, and let’s press forward. But first, coffee.

Here’s the music. Cheers