The columnist whose writing normally appears in this space has taken a leave of absence to fulfill the terms of a court-ordered anger management program and undergo a full metaphysical detox at the Steve Wynn Center for Philosophical Realignment. Mr. Brown has graciously volunteered to fill in for as long as it takes the usual writer to get his head screwed back on straight.
I have been living in Louie Armstrong’s horn for two weeks now and man is it shiny in here! It is the wildest cave I’ve ever been in and I’ve been in a few. One had bats in it. I learned to speak their language. They were poets. Most of their poems were about bugs. I tried to tell them about Batman and they didn’t believe that was even possible. “How could a man be a bat?” they said in their bat language. They figured he would be too big and heavy to hang upside down and would fall on his head a lot. I said it was just a costume. “Then he wasn’t really a bat, was he?” I had to admit he was fake.
Louie’s horn cave is cool. The brass walls are actual funhouse mirrors. The high notes were stalactites, but I discovered they were Nerf when I hit my head on one. It tickled and thrilled me. It was as if warm love embraced my heart. I felt such joy I wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. Why can’t everyone else hear this? I tripped over a low note, a stalagmite, and didn’t fall but started dancing. Dancing is recovering spiritual balance. Swing is equilibrium!
Bats are smart but they’re terrible dancers. I don’t think they dig Louie. They live at a higher frequency. If they could tune in lower on the dial they’d dig his playing. I’d try to tell them it wasn’t like homing in a moth (the pork rind of the bat world) but a juicy June bug or a mosquito that had just been to a picnic. It fills you up. It takes over your body and makes you weep and cackle with understanding of the meaning of the Universe. It’s Oneness with Being. It’s soul food.
I wondered how Louie Armstrong could walk among us as a redeemer and not be appreciated. He got it early and preached it. Not with his words but with his horn. Words can be misunderstood. Louie gave the world Swing which is Love made audible. Real Swing can’t be twisted to serve an unworthy cause. You can’t Swing and be mean. Groups can’t Swing at each other and go to war. It is perfect Concord.
If I wanted to start a church it would just be Jazz and Swing. Dots on and off the page. They would not be reading from a Good Book but playing from a Better Book. Praying would take the form of dancing. There would be an all-you-can eat buffet. And I need not go into detail about the incense!
The ghost of that incense lingers here in the horn. Years of exhalation provides inspiration! I take a deep breath and guffaw over my image in the brass bell. Soon I am a comet and Louie is the Sun. I am lighting up the cosmos, propelled by divine fire! I am an ecstatic hamster riding on a button rocketing at a million miles an hour! I am an enchanted snowball! There is no night here.
I felt this same feeling sitting on top of a mesa with my ocarina, blowing Louie’s solo on “Potato Head Blues.” An ocarina is a cool flute made of porcelain, which means “little pig.” I saw little pigs trucking on the edge of the mesa in time with the music. I huffed and I puffed and I blew their house down with swing! (The house was made of a medicinal plant growing freely; I huffed and I puffed again!)
Redemption is contagion. Love is a bug! Jazz is the doorknob! Open that door and shake hands with your brother. Do not bother with hand sanitizer. If swing goes viral we will all feel so much better than we do now. A shot of rhythm is an affection injection! Everyone needs to develop Woody Herman Herd Immunity from lashing out with impunity. (Imp Unity means “all the devils are here, singing with the choir.” There is a heavy string section, also.)
Love is our metronome, our gravity. Why choose not to levitate? Don’t think! Just dance! Throw a couch at a mountain! Suppose you were a halibut—what then? Every cat wants to be an antimacassar. Would you rather be a cat or an onion? Earth is the Hell of those who care. Be insouciant! Be happy! Pretend your telephone is made of ice cream! Lick it!
Your name is on a sunbeam. Or a rainbow. Whatever. Just find it! You are a unicorn riding a thoroughbred riding a Clydesdale! Giddy up!
Jazz is better than it sounds. Much better. After my fortnight’s retreat I am due to be evicted from Louie’s gleaming mellow horn. Soon I will be a sojourner in cacophony again. The mass of men lead lives of quiet syncopation; women have a little more fun with it. Changing the station is a desperate search for syncopation.
Stop twisting that dial. Rhythm is everywhere! Just pluck it out of the air and swing to it. Who needs a radio when you are born with radiance? Rejoice! You are a nebula! Ride a trebuchet to glory!
Laughter is the grout, man. You don’t have to get it to dig it. But you have to dig it!
Spasmo Brown (spasmobrown@outlook.com) is a Jazz Shaman. He identifies as a cloud, though he occasionally descends to Earth as fog.
