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After reading Bruce Clark's response to Rodney Diehl's profile request,
I had to laugh.

For so many years now I have tried to show off my collection only to
hear, "Can't you see these in a museum?" or "Why keep such expensive
things, only to catch dust?"  The one that really gets me is when they
ask to hear the Edison Maroon Gem (if it ever goes that far) and then
say, "My god, that sounds like a nightmare."

I decided long ago that it must be me who is weird, not my guests with
their 30-year mortgage,  two kids, one cat, one dog, and a 9-to-5 job
that will reward their retirement with a diamond watch and a party that
no one remembers in a month or two.

I set out to enjoy life's journey with an adventurous spirit in my early
20's and have never looked back nor regretted my initial decision in any
way.  Social security was never a concern and still isn't.  I traveled
the great Amazon through South America, living with the vanishing
indigenous tribes, writing about them, and photographing them.  As I
observed these amazing people living the simplest kind of life, I
realized that the picture that had been painted for me back home was not
the real life, and that the real life was in the spirit of adventure.

I never ended up on the cover of the National Geographic, but I
fulfilled a childhood dream.  I am telling you this here, because no one
cares about my interesting life, just as they do not care about our
amazing music.  I have always called the music from my large double-comb
disc boxes "music of the angels."  Those people who chew their gum and
talk about their grandchildren while the disc is plucking the combs are
lost to the beauty, and it is too late to educate them.

Brad Butler
Costa Rica