Bad Listener (Live Band) 1

The Writing On the Wall (live band - with vocals) 1

Without Wax

Harlequin

Loves Me When I Play My Guitar

Notes on “Consume” a song for America in self quarantine in a time of COVID-19

I’m being sarcastic in this song.  I don’t mean that we SHOULD consume.  I mean to challenge the notion that stuff is what we ’need.’

What do we really need?  Americans are some of the best consumers the world has ever known.  What we can’t consume we throw in the trash.  We have the best conveniences, the most prevalent fast food, the latest technology, the newest and shiniest most appealing stuff on the planet.  We love things.

Our economy depends on us consuming at our current rate.  It’s not really what we produce that makes the engine of the economy run, it’s what we throw away.  This is unsustainable.  

Let’s examine where we are as we see images of grocery store isles emptied of toilet paper — more than anyone would need in years.  Consider the ‘essential’ people who must go to work in order for us to survive — the trash collectors, child care workers, grocery store stock people.  How many of them are making about $15 an hour?

Consume

I wear people out with my passion sometimes.  Don’t get me started about my favorite movies, music, books and ideas.  I can really get going.  

But I try to separate my opinions from facts.  It’s a fact that the Beatles had 5 #1 songs in 1965, and the Rolling Stones had 2.  But it is an opinion that The Beatles is the greatest band of the 1960.  Of course, they were, but that’s just my opinion :-)  

Religion and politics have always been subjects of great passion, but these days we seem to be allowing our differences to divide us.  Opinion and fact are blurred by our passion to make others confirm to our view point.  If you have to twist the facts to convince people of your version of the truth, maybe you should reexamine your motives, and the truth you think you believe.

There’s always room for doubt.

Pawl Wheel

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