The Summer Vibes Never Die

 On Sunday, 15 June 2025, I do what we all do. I wake up and check in on the world.

Then I see this beauty, shot at a Beirut rooftop club:

 

“Missiles in the sky, but the summer vibes never die.” Sun emoji.

Click the link for the funky beats and Baker Street-level sax solo: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DK5Z41RMRkz/ 

Netanyahu, of course, is hiding out in Greece right now. The Israeli Air Force One is apparently called “Wing of Zion.” Maybe he wanted summer vibes too.

The water is for the coffee is taking too long to boil. 

Meanwhile, back in my country, one Minnesota Democratic lawmaker has been killed, another injured. The presumed killer was the head of a security company called “Praetorian Guard,” but was apparently debased to living with a roommate, an old buddy. His CV said he’d worked for “the world’s largest convenience store chain” as a flex, meaning he had managed a 7-Eleven. Said roommate seemed to be a Papa John’s employee, and now the image everyone is going to remember of that poor bastard is him crying and reading text messages to the news cameras as he sweats through the Papa John’s polo stretched over his gut.

The suspect was experiencing “mental health challenges” per the local sheriff’s office. “Challenges.” 

I got baked last night and made post-midnight eggs au gratin with hella hot sauce. Probably a bad idea.

There’s probably still shit going on in Los Angeles, but Trump had a birthday rally in DC so all eyes were there, with troops failing to march in time to generic rawk and roll music that sounds suspiciously AI-generated. Sponsored by Coinbase, Palantir, UFC (natch), and Scott’s Miracle Gro. 

Miracle Gro.

Who’s been sending me messages? Seoul, Paris, Kyoto, and New York all send their regards, or at least their memes. I send back a picture of the pool outside (there are summer vibes, we must remember, even if it’s the bleak and rainy monsoon season here) and I have to ask myself whether to use the sunglasses emoji, or to playfully allude to the fact that I want to use the sunglasses emoji. 

The signs at the other rallies read “No Kings!” and I genuinely can’t figure out what this means. General dissensus, I suppose. I don’t see much in the way of concrete policy goals, mostly just one big frowny-face emoji.

Meanwhile, marines are detaining US citizens in Los Angeles after storming elementary schools, cops firing, point blank and with intent, at an Australian journalist reporting on the scene, Latino cops roughing up Latino protesters, LAPD and LASD shooting rubber bullets at each other, and Brian Wilson is dead.

 

But I repeat, “summer vibes never die.” Brian Wilson, at least you were given the dignity of being called profoundly mentally ill, not challenged. 

I really shouldn’t have had those late-night eggs.

The coffee is almost ready, though. 

What they tell you, five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, one thing you can taste. Zero things you can vibe on, summer or otherwise.

I don’t know that that necessarily works. 

But I hadn’t even noticed my foot was bleeding.