Volume 6 – #10 – October 2003

Holiday Season, 2003, is here. Run for your lives!

I recently saw two biographical profiles on television. One was about Glen Campbell, the pickin’ and grinnin’ country/pop star from Delight, Arkansas and one was about Hayley Mills, the unbearably cute child movie star from England. They have had completely different lives. Hayley spent most of her “high-profile” years making Disney movies and living a rather protected life at home with her parents. It appears she didn’t even hang out with friends much. At her cutest, around age 15, she was the most bankable commodity in Hollywood. The wildest, out-of-control thing she ever did was having an affair with and eventually marrying a movie director that was decades older than she was. So, the Hayley Mills true story was kinda boring. Glen, on the other hand, was drunk and drugged and swinging pretty much constantly. He had a crazy, volatile nature and even married Tanya Tucker. Now that’s entertainment! I guess both Hayley and Glen had charisma in their prime. They must have had something. Hayley had a look and Glen had a sound. I never wanted to be Glen Campbell, but I sure wanted to be Hayley Mills’ boyfriend. There were posters of her all over my room when I was around ten. I just knew we would be together someday, somehow. One day my brother, who is four years older than me, brought a neighbor kid into my room to make fun of my Hayley Mills posters and the neighbor kid said, “Hmm. Nothing wrong with that.” I thought, “Yeah! Way to go, Tommy Arnold! Even though you’re my brother’s age, you can relate to my obsession with this girl. I guess I’m pretty cool, after all.” Maybe my feelings for her were more mature than I thought. Now, Glen Campbell, on the other hand, meant almost nothing to me. And I even played in Delight, Arkansas once and everyone I met claimed to be his cousin. I appreciated his guitar playing and liked most of his hits, especially the ones by Jimmy Webb, but I never wanted to be him or be like him. My parents went to see him perform in Shreveport once (Jerry Reed was also on the bill) and I had no desire to go. I’m sure it was a perfectly adequate show and I bet the sound was good, but I had better things to do. However, I would have gone to Shreveport to see Hayley Mills at the time, even though it was many years passed my crush. Being in the same room with her would still have been exciting, even if she were just walking around on a stage waving. I know it doesn’t make sense to compare my feelings for these two people and I’m sure they were both loved by their mothers, but I would probably still rather go out to dinner with Hayley than Glen. On the other hand, Glen would have much, much, much better stories to tell. You know what? To be honest, I don’t really know where I stand these days. Rules are made to be broken. Long live the broken rules.

One day last month Brave Combo was on its way to play a gig in Hunt, Texas, which is about ten miles west of Kerrville, in the Texas Hill Country. We somewhat reluctantly took the Donut (our old van/bus thing) and, of course it stopped running right between Waco and Temple. We coasted into a grocery store parking lot and wondered what to do. We were still four hours from our destination and it was a Saturday. Out of nowhere a man appeared and claimed to be the best roadside mechanic in those parts. Before I knew what was going on he had our hood up and was calling out numbers to his wife. He then asked me for $150 and said he would be right back with a new alternator and promised to have us back on the road immediately. And, shazam, in just one hour we were cruising down I35 again. It was amazing. Making it to the gig was going to be no problem. We had left Denton a little early anyway. When we got to Austin and turned west toward Kerrville, it started to rain. And it continued to rain hard and steady until we got to Kerrville. The client called from the party and told us to stop in Kerrville because the short road to Hunt was flooded in three places and they were trying to locate a helicopter to transport us and our gear over the flood waters to the stranded party. So they looked for a helicopter and we waited at a McDonald’s for a couple of hours as the rain poured. Finally, the client gave up and told us to go home. It was impossible to get to them and no one at the party could leave. So we drove the 6 hours back to Denton and I wondered what the point of the day had been. When our greasy angel appeared so effortlessly and got us moving again, we felt triumphant. And then the day just fizzled away, or rather drizzled away. I like being fooled, but this was hard to figure out. Maybe there’s no point to anything and all mystical/magical experiences are just coincidences. And if that’s true, then it means that chance, because it’s unpredictable, can be a pretty mystical/magical thing.

On October 18th, I had the distinct pleasure of working in the studio with Shonen Knife, a female garage/pop/punk trio, from Osaka, Japan. They were in the middle of their US tour and stopped at TM Century (music production facility in Dallas that supplies radio stations around the country with all kinds of ready-to-play jingles, topical songs and current hit collections) to record several versions of the eternal party classic, “Happy Birthday To You.” This was the brainchild of my friend, Larry, who works at TM Century. I helped produce the session, which included coaching the singer/guitarist, Naoko (Atsuko plays bass and Mana plays drums) and later added accordion and lead guitar to the mix. You know, if I had a TV show named MY IDEA OF HEAVEN, the synopsis of one of the episodes in TV GUIDE could easily read, “Carl and Shonen Knife rock out to “Happy Birthday To You.” Naoko’s voice is so cool. It’s hard to describe; low and piercing. Anyway, that was fun. And then, later that night, after Brave Combo’s show at Club Dada, in Deep Ellum (Dallas’ once-cool part of town) I went across the street to Club Clearview to catch Shonen Knife live. They were fabulous and surprisingly powerful. I hope their trip to this side of the world was fruitful, interesting and exciting. I’m sure it wasn’t restful.

Speaking of TM Century, Brave Combo is involved in a yearlong project there, recording and releasing original holiday songs. So far, we’ve tackled Cinco de Mayo, Fourth of July, Labor Day and Halloween. And, in fact, you can check out our Halloween song, “The Vampire Twist” by clicking here. By the time May rolls around next year, we’ll have an album’s worth of recorded holiday magic. In the next few weeks we will compose and record songs for Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year’s Eve/Day.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, 350 million turkeys raised in the United States each year have nothing for which to give thanks. For sixteen weeks, they breathe toxic fumes in crowded sheds, as their beaks and toes are cut off to reduce damage from stress-related aggression. At the slaughterhouse, they are beheaded by an electric saw and dumped in a vat of scalding water, sometimes still conscious, if the beheading isn’t complete.* I really feel that someday humans will look back on the treatment of farm animals in 2003 with horror and disbelief and I encourage everyone to investigate what’s involved with putting meat on your plate. And if you can’t stop eating animals, at least research the availability of meat that comes from humane sources; where animals are allowed to be as happy as possible before they’re slaughtered. Thank you for reading this and thinking about it.
*excerpt from an editorial written by Denton resident, Donald Cooley,
published in the DENTON RECORD CHRONICLE, November 2002

BRAVE COMBO RIDDLES:

Q: What did Jeff say to Bubba when he saw a hawk perched on a pole?
A: Wow. Look at that.

Q: How much time does it take for Brave Combo to win over a crowd.
A: As long as it takes.

Knock, knock
Who’s there?
Brave.
Brave who?
Brave Combo

Q: What makes Brave Combo tick?
A: The mother and father Brave Combo ticks crawl around on each other and have sex, I guess

Q: What four fantasy guests would Brave Combo invite to their fancy dinner party?
A1: Jesus, Patty Hearst, Sneezy and Grumpy
A2: George Washington, George Washington Carver, Hayley Mills and Glen Campbell

Q: What four fantasy guests would Brave Combo invite to the beach?
A: Spiderman, any jellyfish, Whitney Houston and Whitney Houston’s bodyguard

Q: How old will Brave Combo be next year?
A: Twenty-five years old

Okay, that’s enough laughing for now. Calm down and do something productive or go to sleep. Be happy and optimistic, but not anxious and hopeful. Everything will be just fine. And if it’s not, who cares? A: Who cares? See you in the funny papers.