Brave Combo delivers their 2009 Christmas Present: a holiday music collection with a Texas twist

When Brave Combo’s Arjuna Contreras handed me a copy of the band’s latest release last week, I knew I was in for an experience. I also knew that I wouldn’t be able to write an objective review about their Christmas Present -- a straight-up collection of holiday music with the classic Combo twist.

Talking about Brave Combo gets me all misty eyed and sentimental about my college days because many of my college nights were danced away at their shows in Dallas and around Texas.

Brave Combo hails from my college town of Denton, Texas, and around the turn of the 1990s, my college buddies and I were a part of their underground nuclear polka movement. Which beats the heck out of saying we were polka band groupies.

Heck, we were polka band groupies before polka band groupies were cool. Now Brave Combo has people like Bob Dylan appreciating their work and doing covers of their music (like “Must be Santa” on Dylan’s “Christmas in the Heart”).

To their credit, Brave Combo loves all of their audiences equally, as they have for the past 30 years. Keyboardist, guitarist, accordionist, and singer Carl Finch founded the band in 1979, and 31 records and 2 Grammy awards later they’re still making music that transcends audience genres and generations.

In three decades, Brave Combo has done more things to a polka than a husband might his wife of 30 years (but in a kind, connubial way) -- and that’s just for fun on the weekends. But one cannot limit the description of the band’s music to such narrow confines.

True, some of their songs sound like what might’ve happened if the Ramones had ever collided with a polka, but Brave Combo’s work stretches far beyond the boundaries of traditional classification. They’re more of a recipe: start with your choice of salsa, meringue, rock, cumbia, conjunto, polka, zydeco, classical, cha cha, or the blues. Add a whole lot of tempo, one appreciative audience, shake well, and voila: Brave Combo.

Like any nutritious diet rich in fruits and vegetables (Finch is a vegetarian), Brave Combo is best absorbed fresh and unprocessed. Their CDs are well-produced and fun to listen to, but they simply do not do the band justice. No, in my opinion Brave Combo should be devoured live, because that’s when they’re at their absolutely action-packed and unforgettable best. Course everyone who’s seen them live winds up buying their CDs so they can remember the experience (it’s like going to a circus and having a recording of it to take home with you).

If you can’t get to see them because you aren’t in Texas or don’t happen to be on their national parade route, hold tight. Every now and then Brave Combo will come to your house thanks to the wonders of modern technology, which they harness for live-streaming performances.

In the mean time you can familiarize yourself with their music by purchasing any one of CDs in their expansive collection -- all worthy of your attention.

I recommend you start with their latest release, Christmas Present....a compilation of holiday classics with a raucous twist, including a burlesque Bump and Grind version of Winter Wonderland; a samba-style O Christmas Tree; a We Three Kings cha-cha-cha; and the Must Be Santa song that Bob Dylan’s been busy making famous himself with a remake this year.

The first time I listened to the Christmas Present CD I thought, “Now here’s what Saturday Night Live needs for music this month." I’ve been singing along with it ever since.

Memories from the kitchen: the science of smelling and the stirring of deep memories

Charlie's note: WOW! What a thought-provoking piece are you about to read. This post --another splendid essay by guest blogger Dr. Ellen Weber -- is about the relationship between the 'nog and the noggin; between the scents and the sentient being. You'll find plenty of food for thought below (and links to even more good reading throughout the essay). Gentle reader, I give to you the art-of-scent....

AROMA'S PATH TO BRAINPOWER BOOST

by Dr. Ellen Weber

And oh how I love spices... I relish their rich aromas and flavors, which have summoned the gods... I am wooed by the earthy-dry-fruity-perfumy grassy-acrid-flowery-musky-woodsy pungencies that are sifted from nature and distilled by our imagination. (Charlie Fern ... Memories from the kitchen ...)

Who hasn't had a memory flash of grandma's kitchen when you smelled an apple pie? Or have you recalled a warm family gathering because cinnamon bun aromas send their flavors by to tease your nostrils? Memory magically reappears when you breathe in certain scents of soap, causing you to experience the flooding back of a forgotten holiday. Or when chemicals permeate the air, you may recall a specific workplace setting.

Even the smell of a funeral home evokes recollection, although not always one you'd choose. Simply put, smell stirs deep memories, increases brain chemicals such as serotonin, and alters emotions in the human brain.

Your sense of smell likely goes underrated, though, if as many people do, you use visual first to decode your world. A surprising reality, since smell enables you to gather key facts from any setting. Researchers affirm how different scents influence sensibilities - from well being to difficult decision-making. One recent study showed participants on a tight budget, who splurged on new clothing, when they smelled fresh chocolate chip cookies. Not exactly an ideal recipe for recession woes, as much as one perhaps to stoke an appetite for caution.

Sour as Lemon Juice or Sweet as Syrup?

The ability to smell offers an interesting dimension to life. One that could easily go unnoticed, in spite of the fact that humans distinguish more than 10,000 unique aromas. Is lunch today sour or sweet? Was that beverage bitter or salty?

Speaking of drinks, wine experts harnessed and identified many different categories of scents in an attempt to organize and standardize distinctive flavors in an aroma wheel for wine tasting. The idea was to provide a common language for odors rarely spoken of in similar ways.

It's still difficult to describe any aroma, though, and we tend to disagree on good or bad scents. Yet different flavors impact our brains in strikingly similar ways. Even if you don’t drink caffeine, for instance, aromas from coffee beans likely leave you with a sense of well being. The same is true for chocolate, vanilla, and scents from freshly baked bread. You may not be aware that the olfactory bulb near your nasal sinus connects to a cranial nerve, or that impulses sent to your brain’s temporal lobes create an aroma, but you'll often link scents to different reactions stored in your amygdala.

Research shows brains as better able to distinguish smells than previously thought. Scientists observed rat brains to identify coffee aroma effects on 17 genes in the brain. In addition they found that several brain proteins changed in ways that calmed rats under certain levels of stress. Furthermore some scientists suggest that caffeine aroma may be stimulant enough – even without drinking a cup of coffee.

Smell Can Cause Risk or Create Healing

About 3 million American lack a strong sense of smell through injury or age, and that impairment can lead to disaster. Smell something burning, and you’ll likely rush to turn a stove off, or unplug an empty kettle.

Smell gas and you’ll contact experts who can determine if your pipes have sprung a dangerous leak. Open the fridge and smell an odor in order to toss spoiled meats or clean out unsafe casseroles. Can you see where impaired smell can create hazardous situations?

Increasingly psychologists and other brain experts recommend aromatherapy, such as lighting candles or heating essential oils that stir emotions and inspire imaginations. Benefits of oils from sandalwood, peppermint, lavender and white fir, stretch from healing emotional upsets, to reducing stress, to increasing productivity. Not bad dividends for an average nose. Scents that trigger a variety of reactions from the brain, play key roles in healing people from horrific traumas. Through flavors that evoke positive memories, scents tend to bypass left brain thinking, and boost endorphins, that improve moods and alter right brain activity.

Research suggests several theories about how and why we crave some smells, repel others, since odors influence people differently. Yet experts generally agree that certain smells boost brainpower, through altered moods, and promote alertness while reducing stress. Could any aroma boost your brainpower today?

Dr. Ellen Weber is director of the MITA International Brain Based Center for renewal in Secondary and Higher Education. She is an author, blogger and columnist who shares her expertise with audiences worldwide -- through her writing, lectures and appearances on radio and television. Dr. Weber's experience includes extensive work in multiple intelligence research and teaching at the high school and university level. Dr. Weber is author of the eBook "MITA in the Classroom and Beyond." For more information, visit www.mitaleadership.com.

Memories from the Kitchen and Other Natural Disasters:

When Food and Friends Collide

Charlie's note: This is the latest installment in an informal and randomly solicited series of guest essays on food and drink (and the sights, sounds, smells and miscellaneous deliverables du jour). Here, the incomparable Nichole Brown talks about her own tastes and truths as they apply to both food and friendship.

by Nichole Brown

When I was growing up everyone I knew basically cooked and ate the same. No matter whose kitchen you were served from, the meal was likely fried, smothered and covered with creamy or buttery goodness. Fried pork chops smothered in gravy. Baked chicken and potatoes in creamy mushroom sauce. Fried okra, fried fish, french fries. Cubed steak in brown gravy with a side of creamed corn. Collard greens cooked with fatback slices and bacon grease. Buttermilk biscuits with butter and molasses. I could go on.

I’ll admit that I enjoyed every calorie and carbohydrate over the years. But when I developed a severe case of acid reflux in my thirties those rich, flavorful meals became my enemy. It’s impossible to adequately describe the burning sensation that slowly climbed my esophageal wall after eating certain foods. Instead of taking "the purple pill" as the doctor prescribed, I sought the advice of a nutritionist who introduced me to an entirely new world of eating.

After weeks of food journaling and experimenting to find out which foods triggered the reflux, I had to give up the Quaker Oats oatmeal packs I had for breakfast most mornings, the Stouffers and Marie Callender's frozen lunches, white rice, white bread, flour pasta, heavy sauces and creams. I now cook my own steel cut oats, make up quinoa recipes and gluten-free pasta dishes. The only food I fry these days is okra. I snack on seaweed sheets and rice chips; I even drink aloe juice.

Not everything I eat is super-healthy, but my food choices are worlds apart from what I used to eat. I’ve grown so accustomed to making healthier choices that I walk past the cookie and chip aisles without hesitation. Still, most people I know cook and eat the same way – except now we’re all healthy food nuts. We’re the Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, local farmer's market and health food store type, more prone to buy fresh fruit and veggies and organic and rBGH-free meats and dairy than processed. It's pretty much the norm these days.

At least that’s what I thought until my oldest friend visited me recently. What should have been simple tasks of making breakfast and lunch ended up being anything but. I went through my cupboards and fridge calling out food options, but she wanted none of what I had to offer. She nixed the steel cut oatmeal with raisins and walnuts. Gave an eye-roll to rice chips with seaweed. No to turkey burgers. No to roasted corn nuts. Wouldn’t even try the C-Boost fruit smoothie and Mango Lemonade. Aloe juice was out of the question, no matter how much I tried to convince her of its benefits to the digestive system.

I take some pride at the one meal she let me cook for her: scrambled (organic) eggs with cheese and turkey bacon for breakfast. Lunch was a different story.

For lunch, she asked for McDonalds, a hamburger Happy Meal, no less. And to make matters even worse, she went out to buy her own supply of potato chips, chocolate chip cookies and orange soda.

I honestly felt terrible that she didn’t like my food and tried to make amends by having dinner in Manhattan. I asked what kind of food she wanted to try, thinking of any number of options from Afghani, Brazilian, Ethiopian Italian to Jamaican, Mexican, Thai, Yemeni. She said Applebees.

*blank stare*

It was my turn to nix her suggestion. In a city with restaurants for every imaginable palate or dietary restriction – she wanted Applebees. Quelle horreur.

I’ve always believed that food brings people together. And eating is one of the most popular social activities. Oftentimes the kitchen is where a crowd gathers at a good house party. But this time, in my house, food created some kind of divide between me and my friend of 33 years. It’s the kind of rift that meant we couldn’t even deal with breakfast before she left to go home. I think we both knew it meant something different to the other. To her, it meant IHOP with pancakes and bacon. To me, Le Pain Quotidien with spinach quiche and fruit.

I learned several things that weekend: that she thinks I “eat weird stuff,” and I think she eats like an 11-year old; that she and I should never plan activities around food; that in my quest to rid myself of acid reflux, I had developed a discriminating palate; and that I had, in fact, become a full-fledged food snob, for which I offer no apologies.

Nichole Brown is the Associate Editor for Corporate Communications at Ogilvy & Mather, one of the largest marketing and communications companies in the world. Outside of work, Nichole dabbles in photography, studies French and samples the many culinary delights of New York City.