Sep 6, 2025 • 2 min read

Propane

Dethe selfie in a sunflower shirt with sunflowers in the background

Today’s rewrite (I will get to other things soon) is of J.J. Cale’s song “Cocaine.” Usually attributed to Eric Clapton, who had a hit with it. We were having a BBQ at my housing co-op to celebrate signing a new lease with the city for the land under our building. Now, the city does not own the land, it being land stolen and unceded from the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh speaking peoples, the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, which should be returned to its rightful owners, but as a practical matter we still have to deal with the oppressor in control. And they haven’t made it easy, we’ve been trying to renegotiate this lease for over five years (some co-ops have been at it for much longer). And there will be more renegotiations in the future, but for now it was worth celebrating a minor win.

As we were cleaning up, a couple of lines of this popped into my head, and the rest came with very little effort. It’s like this was the song it was always meant to be.

Propane

If you wanna grill meat You’ve got to turn up the heat Propane If your beef is ground And you want it browned Propane

[chorus] She don’t fry She don’t fry She don’t fry Propane

If you got some wings You want to grill those things Propane Forget what work’s about Just get the grill out Propane

[chorus]

You’ve got steak on the bone You won’t eat alone Propane Don’t forget it’s gas You better light it fast Propane

[chorus x 2]

I haven’t done any grilling, or much cooking, for the past week as Vancouver has been both too hot to function and hazy with smoke from forest fires. My poor cats have melted into little furry puddles in the heat. But there is the possibility of rain in the forecast, so hopefully things will cool down and the smoke will clear. It doesn’t look like enough rain to actually help with the forest fires much, which is awful but unsurprising. I mean, it’s almost, but not quite, too hot to make zaru soba.

shallow ceramic dish with cold buckwheat noodles topped with green onions and shredded seaweed, a small ceramic bowl of dipping sauce nearby

I hope that Summer treated you well, and you avoid the worst of back-to-school-shootings season. Covid is real and surging, so mask up. And remember, we’re all in this mess together, so treat each other well. In the end, each other is all we’ve got.

Oh, and as an update to my earlier post about Red and Paperclip, Paperclip has learned to love the new cat tree.

Grey cat curled up on the highest perch of a cat tree

Red still holds on to the old ways, preaching the Gospel of Box.

Black and white cat curled up in a shallow box

Thanks for dropping by.

Post by: Dethe Elza 💜