Yes, Louis, I do know

I wish I were in New Orleans right now.

Since 2006, I've been able to get to New Orleans at precisely this time of year, from the first Saturday of Jazz Fest until the following Friday morning. Then I would wend my way back to DC, usually by car, to be home in time for the monthly Big Boy Little Band gig at the Zoo Bar that Saturday.

During that week, I'd go to Jazz Fest, attend a pig roast, play harmonica with a legendary musician in the Quarter, jam w/ a well- named chanteuse at an annual party also in the Quarter, eat like a king (one of the ones that eat really well, not some deposed one in prison or something), take some meaningless pictures and get home happy and rested for a change.

I could do this because of the generosity of these two friends I have, a married couple who seemed to enjoy my company as well as the company of a motley parade of artists, bohemians, musicians and the kind of eccentrics one finds thriving in New Orleans like banana plants in the Garden District.

This year I can't go because of too many reasons- more than one, less than twenty, and it's, as they say in shrink circles, OK. I guess. But I sure miss my friends (let's call them the Freeland- Archers: not their real names, but I wouldn't want them to be embarrassed), the two best reasons to go to New Orleans.

There's a slightly better than slim chance I can get there next month, I'll keep you posted here, and do some paid photography and see my friends. I won't go to Jazz Fest, not a big loss, really (see Thursday's blog) but I'll still do the other stuff. Well... not the jam w/ the chanteuse, but that's not a huge loss either. The best thing will be spending time with my friends and the legendary musician, whose name is Irving Banister, by the way. His real name.

So, yeah, Mr. Armstrong, I do know what it means to miss, etc.