Louis Armstrong

 He married Lucy in the Sacred Heart church, about 75 feet away from my apartment.

I am listening to a NPR show about Louis Armstrong, and changing my opinion of him. I had no idea how many white guys like Frank Sinatra were just rehashing Armstrong tunes like "All Of Me." 

I shouldn't be surprised, as Sinatra probably never wrote a song in his life.

Armstrong up 5 notches, Sinatra down 3, today.

The airport here is named after him. Louis, not Frank...

Love doesn't give you a choice; you marry her.

Neither does show business.

My toes are in the water.

I ordered a new gig bag for my guitar; the thing that I have needed since before the pandemic. My last year of busking had me having to zip the bag from the tail to the head, because if I zipped it the other way it would kink up and the two sides of the zipper become separated, behind where I had already zipped and where it should have been sutured together.

The $35 gig bag that's zipper gave out about a year ago, well the story about it is this:

I needed a gig bag and I called Webb's Bywater Music, and the guy told me that he had Fender gig bags for $35.

I had only around $38 in my pocket.

Webb's is approximately 3.5 miles from my apartment.

If I took a street car instead of walking, I would be short the amount of $35 plus tax.

So, I basically had to walk there, because the money spent on a street car would have made me short that amount.

But, I also wanted to get a Hurricane Lager to walk with.

I called the guy, Mr. Webb, I guess, and asked him if he would sell me the gig bag for exactly 35 bucks, and waive the tax. This way, I could take the street car there, I lied.

That way, I could get a Hurricane Lager and walk there, rather than take the street car.

So, I did so, after he had said on the phone: "That's cool."

Paul, at Webb's music is famous for helping out "the little guy" and, he must have divined my financial situation from the mere fact that I had called asking him if he would knock the tax off...

I walked all the way there, and bought the gig bag.

I took my guitar out of the tattered bag that was wrapped in bungee chords, discarded that; put the guitar in the new bag, which zipped up just fine, and then walked the 3.5 miles back into the Quarter, taking Rampart Street as the last conduit, so I could stop at the stand of bushes, across from the Saenger Theater  to retrieve all of the heavy items that I had left there before embarking upon my 7 mile journey. No use toting a 12 pack of "D" cell batteries, for example, when there would be no need for them along the walk to the music store in The Bywater.

I put all the extra stuff back in my backpack, shouldered the guitar in the brand new bag, and then headed right for the Lilly Pad. It was about 7 p.m. and I was flat broke, having gone "all in" on a gig bag.

I walked the hundred yards to in front of the theater, where Steve Miller was slated to perform.

A group of middle aged men, seeing the guitar on my back in the brand new looking case, asked me if I knew and Steve Miller Band music.

I took the guitar out of the new gig bag for the first time ever, and played "Big 'Ol Jet Airliner" by Steve Miller to the best of my ability. 

That basically meant that I knew the song pretty well up to the middle part, where it varies.

Just as I was reaching that part, the gates parted and people started to rush towards the entrance.

The seven guy's flicked their cigarettes away and then joined the fray, but not before each of them handed me five dollar bills.

So, basically, the first time I took the guitar out of the case, I made enough to pay for the case. Now I wasn't going to the Lilly Pad flat broke, but with a new case, but rather with 35 bucks, minus probably a 5 dollar sack of weed.

That felt like it was just another slice of the New Orleans magic. Here I was calling the guy at the store worried about the 35 bucks. And then I made it back with one half of a song that I was going to screw up badly had I gone any further into it.

But, alas, that bag has had zipper issues and was almost to the point of needing bungee cords. So I just ordered a nice looking one.

This is a step towards going back out to work. I am glad. I couldn't have made myself just do it; I had to wait until I just did it for reasons that are far beyond me. But, it might not be long before I go back out to work.

I will come up with some fake vaccination document in case Lilly accosts me. If I have to make a really good copy of someone else's, so be it. Better than having myself injected with an experimental vaccine, where the experiment is to see if the nono bots will be able to turn me into a "woke" fool.

That's what the vaccine does, I have determined. It just makes you hate Donald Trump. Why the Chinese would have released such a thing is beyond me; but it might have been intended to wipe out the Indian nation, and the Trump thing was just a side effect.

The Indians are supposedly dying from the virus at such a rate that they have to burn all the bodies in a pyre. Another way of saying that they don't value life enough to pay for a coffin, a preacher, etc. etc. 

For a couple dollars worth of gas, just burn them. Why not? Every Indian is basically the same brown skinned, brown eyed thing, with no diversity. I can see how they would just burn their own. They are another race that dreams of coming to America and realizing their dream, but I digress.

But, I will get a fake vaccination proof thing; authentic looking enough to fool Lilly, and then I won't have to worrry.

I forgot what I'm writing about; because it's Saturday and I am drinking and...