Saturday 9

(Link in meme-roll) 

All of Me (1932) 

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here. 

1) In this song, Louis Armstrong calls his girl "baby." What's the last endearment someone used when speaking to you? 

Uhm. It was probably one of Beast's caregivers calling me "hon" or "sweetie." Or Beast, but I can't understand his words most of the time. Does Sparky calling me mom count?

2) He sings that losing his love made him cry. Do you cry easily? 

Not as much as I used to, but still more than "normal people" do apparently.

3) Louis was born in New Orleans, a city famous for music and cuisine. What's something you love about your home town? 

The town in which I was born is full of good history that I've only really learned once I moved far away. My current town (where I live) has a award-winning water-ski team. I mean, I really don't care, but we don't got much. Maybe the fact that Capone used to hang out here?

4) At age 11, Louis unwisely fired a pistol during a New Year's Eve celebration and was sentenced to 18 months in a juvenile detention facility. It was there that he met music teacher Peter Davis, who believed in Louis and taught him to play cornet and bugle. Tell us about someone who believed in you and made your life better. 

Ironically, this sounds like the sort of behavior that would fit right into my current town... Anyway, I have been blessed to be white in the U.S. and raised by and around people who thought I was amazing. My parents went without a lot of 'things' to make their kids' lives full of possibility. [I simply cannot imagine ANYONE in my pretty-much white town getting arrested for shooting a gun off]

5) Louis would say that arrest changed his life for the better because it was at the detention center that "me and music got married." After his release, he began playing on street corners, or in honkytonks ... any place he could hone his skills. What is something you have worked hard to be better at? 

I have been working hard all my adult life to be a better person, to be understanding and kind and useful. Often Sometimes it feels wholly futile, but I at least know I'm a better-rounded person than I was 25 years ago even if no one else agrees.

6) In the late 1920s, Louis led a jazz band called The Hot Five. His wife, Lil, believed he was too talented not to receive star billing. He just didn't feel ready. She went behind his back and convinced the management at Chicago's Dreamland Cafe to advertise: "The Hot Five, featuring Louis Armstrong: The World's Greatest Trumpet Player." It worked! At the end of the gig, Okeh Records signed him to a recording contract. Can you think of a time when, like Lil, you were glad you asked for forgiveness rather than permission? 

I have 100% started living this lately, mostly because I've learned not to worry so much about what others (those I don't care about) think. Do the thing, apologize later.

7) In 1932, the year this record was popular, the son of aviator Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped and killed. This famous case inspired Agatha Christie to write Murder on the Orient Express. Have you read the book? Seen the movie, the remake or the miniseries? 

I have read the book a few times. I think I've seen the movie? The old one, nothing made in the last 4 decades. 

8) Another aviator was in the news in 1932. Amelia Earhart flew 14 hours from Newfoundland to Londonderry. What is the longest flight you've ever taken? 

The longest single stint on an airplane were the trips to Germany, about 8 hours-ish. Mostly we were not staying in Germany, just changing planes to go on to somewhere else. Once to Rome. Once to Moscow. Once to Athens. Maybe elsewhere, I don't remember anymore.

9) Random question: You have the opportunity to travel safely in a time machine. Would you go back to the past, into the future, or say, "no thanks, I'll stay in 2022?"

What a quandary! Probably past, my my OWN past, just to visit, and only back to about 1980.