Frida’s here and the smoke is here, and the heat is coming. It’s July 11, 2025, 68 F locally, 93 F pitched as the day’s high. I stepped outside to check it all out and smoke jumped into me and kickstarted my sinuses into broken water line mode. I ditched the outside work planned and vacuumed instead.
My spouse last used this vacuum. Like many Boomer Americans, we are over vacuumed. A cranky, ancient Hoover is on standby along with some Black & Decker Dustbuster copy cat, and a central vac system. I was using the central with the power head. This system features three outlets and a 30-foot long vacuum hose.
The hose was tangled into several knots. As I untangled it, I grumbled to myself about my wife’s tangling habits. I’d just untangled her hair dryer cord and her Apple laptop cord. This seems to be a world of tanglers and untanglers. Knotters and Unknotters.
Firings, tariffs, lies, and bullshit highlight the Trump news day cycle. More flooding struck several states; more wildfires have forced evacuations. The biggest news circulating at the mo seems to be Trump’s efforts to coerce Brazil not to enforce due process in their nation by slamming them with a 50% tariff. Such a law and order person, isn’t he? Yeah, that’s snark.
Today’s song is “Ride Captain Ride” by Blues Image. The song was popular in the U.S. in 1970. I recall being with my friend, Scott, and talking about the song, as he was supremely enamored with it. It’s a mellow rock tune and one that invoked a faraway cast to his gaze. I heard that he died of a drug overdose a few years later and have always wondered if the song about sailing to another world was his secret fantasty. Come on, we all have them, those secret fantasies. Before I move on from the song, I want to mention, this is the only Blue Image song I know.
Off to pursue my not-so-secret writing. Have the best Frida available. Cheers
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.
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
Michael Seidel, writer 