The Machine’s Pump Volume 18 – #9 – September 2015

Eternity. It’s almost too much to ponder. When I was a kid, growing up in a Southern Baptist environment, I heard a lot about life after death and it’s implications, especially as it pertained to Hell. Living eternally in a state of constant torture sounded pretty bad and, even today, when I try to wrap my head around something never ending, I get goose bumps; can’t handle it. For what it’s worth, the threat of eternal damnation, apparently, hasn’t been a particularly effective way of making people “do right,” so it bugs me a little that I ever had to hear about it. Hell just makes no sense it the big picture because it keeps the spiritual world too tied to Earth and the ridiculous, shallow foibles of humans. For me, it’s easy to imagine that we are, in some mystical way, connected to something bigger. It always made sense to me that there’s more going on than we can know from our point of view. The best of what we are exists in such small numbers, that most of us are just clueless bumblers our entire lifetimes. Sorry, but we’re really not that great or special, individually or as a group, and with the recent shift in attitudes toward the causes of climate change we now realize that perhaps we’ve been making a lot of bad decisions when we thought we were doing the right thing. Why do I, as a citizen of The United States, feel so entitled? And what does capitalism do other than promote greed? I’ve lived here all my life and, although I lean way to the left, it’s hard for me to imagine a more communal world, which, in theory would elevate the whole and reduce the individual’s ability to amass wealth and power. None-the-less, a world that’s the most fair to the greatest number of people possible, is the direction we all should be moving, right? Actually, I’m not sure democracy and capitalism can coexist for long. It’s a nice fantasy, that ol’ “Leave It To Beaver” neighborhood (which only a small hunk of humanity ever experienced, yet some see as a place for us to return), but it couldn’t last for long, even if it ever really happened. Too many stumbling blocks were bound to get in the way, like prejudice, income inequality, over population and guns. I guess when we became the heroes of World War II we just couldn’t think of our country as anything but “the one true path.” Our victory sorta screwed us up. Power wins, of course, and the results can be intoxicating. “Mission accomplished” and “We’re number 1!” Maybe it went to our heads. I’m just mulling around my brain and sharing random thoughts with you. I don’t have any solutions to the planet’s myriad problems, but I am willing to do some things to help alleviate suffering and make it a priority, at any cost, to restore the environment. I’m no saint and I can give you a long list of people who would agree and I’m not looking for a pat on the back or anything, but as many of you know, I stopped eating meat (beef, pork, chicken, seafood) over three decades ago. My only motivation was to reduce my contribution to animal suffering. That’s all. It had nothing to do with health. As well, I stopped buying items made from animals (leather, fur) or by animals (silk). This sucked from a variety and convenience perspective. Most restaurants are still meat-driven and most decent shoes still involve leather, but, thankfully, things are changing. Vegan and vegetarian options are starting to pop up where you least expect them. The 2015 State Fair of Texas offers vegetarian corny dogs and now you can even find products made from cruelty-free silk. I believe these positive turn of events are due, in part, to a growing awareness of how destructive our normal daily life has been for about the last 200 years. More and more folks are wondering if the industrial revolution was, in fact, the worst thing that ever happened. It probably couldn’t have been avoided, though. Take Mt. Everest, for instance. Early explorers climbed it “because it was there.” Well, as it turned out, all of those noble explorers, and the ones who’ve followed, have trashed the place, just like humans always seem to do. So, back to eternity. It seems to me, if ever-lasting life does exist, most of us don’t deserve it yet, myself included. One just can’t be too tied to this reality and expect to be automatically rewarded with going beyond it. We have to work at it. And we have to know that we’re supposed to be working at. Again, I’m just thinking out loud here, not meaning to insult any species or anything. What the “hell?” You get my point, if I even had one.

One thing I do know is that we are playing polkas like fiends right now. The world just can’t get enough. It’s gone polka mad! Please consult our itinerary regularly and try to make it out to one of super fab shows. Brave Combo continues to make music one can only hear at a Brave Combo show or from a Brave Combo recording. We are still motivated by the same thing as always; boredom and short attention spans. Our message, if there ever was one, is to “open your mind and think for yourself.” Some answers are more obvious than you might imagine and, by the way, polka is one of those answers.