Volume 14 – #10 – October 2011

Anarchy in the USA! It’s building and the super-wealthy movers and shakers just don’t get it. Early this spring, when it became seriously obvious things were starting to change in the Middle East, I wondered if anyone else felt like this would probably happen in the United States, too, except that our dictator is the rich 1% and the members of congress that help keep the 1% safe in its tower. Well, a whole bunch of the remaining 99% is really hurting and I’m sure many of them feel that they have nothing to lose. And that is a dangerous spot to put your enemy in, because when people truly believe they have nothing to lose, their strength doubles or triples. Don’t get into a fight with someone who isn’t afraid of dying. So, I predicted this would happen and it did, but I’m not clairvoyant, just following simple logic. Even if the Occupy Wall Street protest starts to fizzle, the cat is out of the bag. I’m sure plans are being made already for the second wave of protests, in the event that the current one is crushed. The occupiers are too smart and determined to just go away. Whatever, this is exciting stuff. Bring it on. I don’t even care if the demonstrators ever establish some unified “agenda.” That’s not the point. This is stuff on an emotional level, like the villagers coming after Dr. Frankenstein. And I’m sure the police know that once someone dies at their hands the movement will explode. And how do you then handle a million angry people or two million? And the manipulation of social media is better on the side of the angry poor, rather than the complacent greedy. Most of the gazillionairs couldn’t even organize a flash mob in their own offices, but any of the tattered tent dwellers could probably get 1000 people to show up somewhere with just a couple of well-worded texts or tweets. There’s even a small Occupy Denton community set up at the corner of Fry and Hickory, on the UNT campus. So, there you go. I’ll always be on the side of the oppressed, mainly because that’s usually where the smart, talented and compassionate people are. Make love not war, you know. Or even make art not war. Or how about make music, not war. I remember when the pro-Vietnam War camp made those “America, Love It or Leave It” bumper stickers and the Hippies responded with “America, Change It or Lose It.” Well, we are there again. The 1% saying, “Screw you” and the other 99% saying, “Have you ever seen a bunch of ants overwhelm something?” Nature eventually demands balance, whether it’s in the universe, on our planet, in our town, in our house or in our body. It is always restored. A bunch of ants, working in tandem, can become the biggest, most-feared creature on earth. Well, connect the dots. If you are part of the super-wealthy and you’re not frantically researching solutions to ease the pain of the middle class, not to mention the poor, you are an idiot. It seems that accumulating a lot of money, in fact, might make you dumber, if for no other reason, it removes you from reality and seriously messes with your perspective. By the way, if you are a Christian, how can you strive for wealth, considering the Bible says it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter Heaven? And don’t tell me that crap about God wanting people to be rich. If your God is that wishy-washy, you’re even dumber than I thought. Rich Christians should probably be worried Christians. Here’s the proof. Christians believe the Bible and the Bible says that almost all rich people will go to Hell. Wow, the temptations of earthly desires! They’re a big deal and come in many shapes and sizes.

Speaking of revolutions, when I was first starting to buy records, my favorites ones spun at 45 revolutions per minute and were bigger than CDs, but smaller than LPS. It was the perfect format; usually with one song on one side and you would flip it over and there would be another, somewhat less important song, on the other side. It was called a single. At the Melody Shop in downtown Texarkana, singles sold for 99 cents, but there were also discount shops opening up where you could find freshly-released singles for 69 cents or 79 cents. LPs (long-playing vinyl records) contained about 10-12 songs and sold for $2.99 for a monaural version of an LP or $3.99 for the one in stereo. For some reason, as a discriminating 12-year-old, I preferred the mono recordings and it wasn’t totally about the price. I thought they sounded better; gutsier, denser. As time went on, the mono LPs disappeared, so it didn’t matter anymore, but album prices also started to rise to $5.99 at the discount stores. It seems like the Santana album, ABRAXIS, with “Black Magic Woman” was one of the first I noticed selling for more than usual, maybe AXIS: BOLD AS LOVE by Jimi Hendrix, too. Or was it the first Band of Gypsies album? I can see myself looking at them at Barker’s in Texarkana, thinking about that extra dollar. Before long the sad 45 rpm singles were primarily used for juke boxes. People stopped buying them. Eight-track and cassette tapes came along, so one could cruise with his or her favorite album, but singles were just not adapting well to changes in consumer tastes. Radio stations abandoned them for “deep cuts” on LPs and the term “album rock” became a common description of a certain kind of station’s format. It wasn’t cool to play 45s anymore. Eventually, as we all know, digital music invaded and CDs swept vinyl albums off the shelves, which turned out to be the luckiest thing that could have happened to me. Suddenly, I found myself surrounded by racks and racks of cutout LPs, as record distributors frantically unloaded stuff that wasn’t selling. As it turned out, a lot of it was polka music. So, my polka education began and my polka LP collection grew dramatically. How could I turn down albums for $1 and occasionally two or three for $1? No one could resist that, right? Ultimately, CDs hit the scene hard and were initially selling for $15-20 each and that continued to be the norm for almost two decades. But in recent years, as we all know, the tide has changed and now no one knows exactly what’s going on. But, it seems to me that music now costs about what it did 30-40 years ago. A digitally-downloaded single costs 99 cents and the cost of manufacturing CDs has dropped so much, artists can conceivably sell albums for about $5 at performances and still make a decent profit. Funny, huh?

And, speaking of that, Brave Combo will be entering the studio very soon to begin work on our new album, featuring the current six-piece configuration (Jeff, Little Jack, Danny, Ginny, Alan and Carl). It promises to be a significant artistic achievement, as all albums aspire to be, at this stage of the project. And it’s guaranteed to be within your budget. Congratulations!

Guess what? Oktoberfest season is over. We certainly love it, but you can have too much of a good thing. This is definitely a growing scene in the festival world and if I were a young struggling musician and if I could stretch my sphere of cool to include something non-mainstream, I would put together a kick-ass polka band. Whatever, we are returning to the world of musical variety for a few weeks before the holiday season is upon us, so come out and hear our unique style of sound. We’re not like this and we’re not like that, but we’re a little like that and a little like this. Dig?

Speaking of gigs and the frivolities of the rich, Brave Combo is, indeed, playing a weekend of shows with Drew Carey at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, on November 11, 12 and 13. We were invited and we’re going and I’m sure it will all make sense when we get there. Come on out. The tickets are around $100 a piece and we will play about 30 minutes per show, but you also get to see Drew Carey and a bunch of his familiar friends doing funny stuff. However, there are myriad other opportunities to fall under our glorious spell in the coming weeks. Just keep an eye on our itinerary. Dates are added all the time. Stay warm and dry. And it’s okay to cry, even if you don’t know why. Plus, try to have fun in the process! That’s the Brave Combo way, cowboy!