The Machine’s Pump Volume 25 – #3 – March 2022

Okie-Dokie! There we all were, each of us minding our own business, enjoying the possibility Covid was on its way out and starting to feel just a little less anxiety about the future. But, no! A dumb-ass, with way too much time on his hands, Vladimir Hitler, decided to destroy a neighboring country! You’ve heard about this, right? So here we are, tossed back into the pit of despair, consumed by worry for the people of Ukraine and, generally, pretty pissed-off that our moment of relief was thoroughly gutted. Are you with me? Is this also how you feel? I’m sure it is. Man, what a difference a month makes. You know, all these “smart leaders” want to go backward. That seems to be a common theme with insecure jerks who have autocratic tendencies. They’re nostalgia freaks, trying to restore some lost grandeur. Look at Mussolini. He wanted to “Make Italy Great Again” and return to the days of the mighty Roman Empire, with fearless devoted warriors. Mussolini said he was the only one who could “fix” things. Sound familiar? The same with Hitler. The same with Stalin. The same with Qaddafi. The same with Pol Pot. And the same with Putin; convince the uneducated/ignorant folks, who are easily manipulated, that moving toward the past, rather than the future, is good. You know, if someone starts talking about restoring the values of the good ol’ days, run as fast as you can the other direction. On a positive note, most ego-driven dictators meet disappointing, if not horrifically grisly ends. Dictators and Autocrats suck at history!

To no one’s surprise, I’ve been feeding a beautiful stray/feral Siamese cat behind the Brave Combo World Headquarters in downtown Denton, for about eight months. She’s been showing up almost nightly, around 10 pm, and I always have food for her. And often she will come if I call. But I can’t get within five or six feet of her. She growls and hisses. But she also gets pregnant and she was growing larger by the day. So, the pressure has been on to catch her and, ultimately, have her spayed, of course. I’ve been enticing her inside on occasion and she’s been following my lead, as I’ve moved the food further and further in. So, one night, she was more trusting than usual and I lured her in enough to get behind her and shut the door. This was it! There was now a quite wild, as in “not tame” probably pregnant, cat, who, I was pretty sure, had no idea what a litter box was, trapped in the office.

Now what? She freaked out and I stood there and wondered what the future held. It wasn’t long before I found out. 24 hours later, there were five cats in the office. The cat I trapped, who I call Skitty (Siamese kitty), and her four newborn babies, three Siamese kittens, and one not-quite-developed orange sorta kitten, not moving. It was obviously never alive and one of the living, crying babies we also noticed, was not with the other two. Skitty did not want us there, so we respectfully left her alone to take care of business, realizing she had just given birth before we walked in, but returned shortly to check on things and noticed that lone kitten was still alone and not moving. I quickly scooped it and the dead blob kitty out, without getting slashed, and it was still alive but very cold. So, Jane, my wife, stayed at the office and warmed the kitty while I rushed to Petco for some formula and a nursing bottle. I made it back in record time and the kitty started eating and responding, flexing her paws and becoming more animated. We immediately took her home and set her up in a warm space and started feeding her every couple of hours. She was doing really well. Our hopes were high. Until they weren’t. She only lasted about ten hours, then curled up and died. Just like that. A very sad and dark moment. But we decided Skitty had rejected her for a reason and made our peace with it, figuring she knew more than we did. Shortly after that we went back to the office and heard two kittens crying, which we thought was a good sign, but we could not find Skitty and one of the kittens was wedged in an awkward space and looked as if it could not move. The other was free but crying. After searching the office, we found Skitty under a chair, not concerned about her wailing babies. So we thought this was normal, freed the trapped kitten without touching it and made sure they were both on something soft, turned up the heat, and left, sure that Skitty would get back to them. We stayed away an hour, came back, and found her with the kittens, which was a relief, but one was behind her, while the other was nursing. But they were all together. I think you know where this is going. We left for a short while and when we returned it was clear that Skitty was, indeed, rejecting another one. Again we scooped it up, took it home, tried to get it warm, but it was too late this time. Another perfect-looking Siamese kitten was dead. There was just one left, which seemed to be in very good shape. But, again, on coming back, found that baby by itself, crying its head off and it had worked its way to a cold part of the floor. Without hesitation, we grabbed it and took it home. And right away found someone at the Denton Animal Shelter willing and eager to take it and start what care was needed. We were and are confident the little fighter will make it. Other than that, it’s been a crushing few days. Now it’s usually just me and a wild, scared Skitty in the office. How long does it take for the Stockholm Syndrome to kick in? Of course, she’s also peeing and pooping somewhere and I’m guardedly optimistic she’s using a big nature center I set up for her. I’ve had luck with this before, acclimating an outdoor cat to a littler box, but this is mucho challenging. She hasn’t destroyed much yet, except for everything I had in the big window at the front of the office. She wants out and three of her newborns are now buried in the flowerbed by our catio (cat patio). Okay, enough about this. It’s an active situation, as they say.

The re-release of GIRL, the album we recorded with Tiny Tim, twenty-five years ago is happening on Record Store Day, April 23, 2022. Double album! Pink vinyl! New photos and notes! Very few pressed!

Normal gigs are starting to peek at us from around the corner, so be sure to watch our itinerary often. As well, we might just decide to live-stream something with not much notice, so stay Brave Combo aware.

During the pandemic I spent lots of lonely hours learning how to make primitive videos, mainly with my phone or iMovie, on my desktop. I already had a pretty good camera, so I didn’t have to buy a bunch of new gear, which would have been super hard to find anyway, with the supply chain issues. At the same time, we’ve been slowly wrapping up a whole new album of stuff. Covid put the brakes on it, just as we working on the final few mixes. So, now everything is happening at once and I have made or am making videos for each new song. As well, I have about 25-30 more videos I plan to share with you over the next few months. Two videos a week for however long it takes to post them all and promote them. Let’s call it something like THE BRAVE COMBO 2022 VIDEO SERIES. Or maybe CARL’S BIG WASTE OF TIME. Whatever, working on videos is a good way to relax, while worrying about having a wild animal trapped in my office. Here you go! Enjoy!

1) “Il N’Y A Pas D’Amour Heureux – I was in high school when I first heard this song by the famous French singer, Francois Hardy. She’d covered the original by the composer, Georges Brassens, and had a hit, in Europe, at least. I’ve listened to it ever since. I couldn’t find any English versions, so I wrote my own, from a literal translation. Danny O’Brien (trumpet) and Matt Thompson (drums) also played fabulously, on this recording.

2) “Hungarian Dance #11 by Johannes Brahms – Brahms hung out with Hungarian Gypsies and wrote songs, based on melodies and rhythms he heard them play. One of his most famous compositions, “Hungarian Dance #5,” is well-known to everyone. You’ve heard it a million times. This is a sorta cha-cha rendition. Danny O’Brien, again, contributes some fantastic and haunting trumpet.

That’s all for now, folks. I’m sure you’re relieved. Try to not be depressed about all of the depressing things going on, like the sad/mad cat stuck in my office, and remember that the future has not been written. Now, have a snack!

The Machine’s Pump Volume 25 – #2 – February 2022

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Hey, it’s the month of love and it feels like, somehow, our species is moving further and further away from that concept. Some folks want to go on and declare civil war and get the maximum hate party rolling. That must be quite empowering; to feel like you can express your anger, unfettered; to let it all hang out, as some pseudo-hippies used to say about 60 years ago. The real hippies were the original off-the-grid-folks, rejecting corporate capitalism and its tentacles of evil. Communes began to pop up all over. I remember a cover of LIFE magazine with a photo of some old-looking young hippies gathered around a teepee or something. I didn’t want to do that, but I did want to embrace the counterculture enough to grow my hair long and play music in front of people. And I wanted to stand out in Texarkana as a “with-it” person, which was very easy to do at the time. I mean, you couldn’t get cooler than a kid in junior high wearing mod shirts and wide belts. And very few of my T-town peers followed suit. I saw the Yardbirds when I was in the 7th grade. The Mods and Rockers were starting to blend and there was Jimmy Page, wearing purple bell-bottoms. At the same time, I was becoming aware of how much I lived in a white person’s world, at the expense of those who weren’t white. Social change spoke to me and I dressed accordingly. Music was the pathway to enlightenment and exploration. And, ultimately, the hippies and their peace and love thing won. Not everyone moved to a commune, but almost everyone had to consider shifting their attitudes. Being an old white racist just was not going to be desirable anymore, anywhere, except in the shadows. It was time to start fixing things and making the world a fairer place. The local KKK lodge was no longer the best choice for a teen dance. You know, obvious, positive stuff was happening. Well, the times, they are a-changing again. It’s now okay for everyone to be righteously pissed-off at everyone else and to express that anger anywhere, anytime; to feel happily entitled and give in to white folk’s God-given right to dominate non-whites like nature intended. To let it all hang out. Jeez, what a mess! So, let’s dance!

Speaking of changing attitudes, I wonder if people have lost their appetite for the likes of live music. Has the public become weary of watching musicians and artists showing off on stage? In general, has the population become more agoraphobic and less likely to venture out at night, when the magic usually happens? Can a show at a club or a concert hall even be something special anymore? For touring bands there are two important concerns. Will the audience be comfortable enough to pack music venues again, which is sorta required to make it financially viable for the bands? And will the bands feel comfortable in an enclosed space full of people screaming and singing along, inviting the aerosols to mingle like crazy? Everyone wants to lose themselves in the music. That’s the reason music is there, in person. It almost feels like we’re all gonna have to relearn how to do this entertainment thing. Indoor theaters are struggling, too. Maybe humans don’t want to go to big indoor movie houses much anymore. We’re at the point where actually doing ANYTHING is a hassle. We can achieve so much satisfaction from looking at a screen, screw everything else. I’m just thinking out loud here. I feel it, too. The scene has been getting bored with the old models for a while. How entertainment is defined in 2022 ain’t nothing like it was defined just 20 years ago. It will, at least, be interesting to see what does happen as people start to really emerge from their cocoons. Whatever, Brave Combo loves a challenge. So, keep an eye on our doings, because we WILL be doing something. We signed the lease on our office/rehearsal space for another year.

Check this out! The long-awaited, fancy, double pink vinyl LP, reissue of the Tiny Tim/Brave Combo album, GIRL, is here! It’s a 25th-anniversary celebration, of sorts. A lot of this is out of Brave Combo’s hands, but I have heard that this is a limited release, appealing to serious collectors. One of the LPS is a remaster of the original. The other is a bunch of moments which never saw the light of day until now, including three previously unreleased tracks. If you’re a Tiny Tim freak, this is probably old news.

Brave Combo has started to play in public again here and there and Mardi Gras is almost upon us. So, experience the best of both worlds. Brave Combo’s Mardi Gras Spectacular at the Armadillo Ale Works in Denton on February 26th! We plan to tear it up and hope you might want to venture out and test the waters and experience being entertained. It will be fun, fun, and even more fun! Perhaps you owe it to yourself to attend. I think so.

One more thing. I think I mentioned in a recent newsletter that we’ve been hanging out with the legendary Jad Fair, who shot to indie/punk stardom with his brother, David, in the alternative lo-fi band, Half Japanese. He and I just wrote a song together and have almost completed a video of us performing it. Stay tuned! And, wherever you are, stay warm and healthy!