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| Louis Armstrong: The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong  
Label: Time LifeReleased: 2006  |
In the post-apocalyptic world of 2010, the children are not clamoring for fake punk rock and Insane Clown Posse. They have learned that John Lennon’s pipe dream of a plain vanilla Utopia was nothing more than drug-induced madness. There is no more Starbucks and all the senior citizens who relocated to Florida to retire early were the first ones to be swallowed up. The president of the United States is S. Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-Fil-A. Life is decent, yet an underground revolt has started in the ashes of the former Time Life headquarters.
The building, now in ruins, stands charred and desecrated. However, the complex hid an underground vault, now exposed as Truth to those who managed to find their way to the remains. In that vault was thousands of unsold copies of The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong, a two CD/single DVD package that offered up the jazz great’s seminal hits for the umpteenth-billionth time in a snazzy package complete with expected booklet. Many survivors swarmed upon these box sets and took them to heart. Soon Satchmo was the new face of the Time Life Revolutionaries, despite the fact that the man had been dead for decades.
All the former punkers and death metal fans who were formerly too busy to actually be bad asses as they were serving time in front of Auntie Anne’s at the local malls were now allied in cries of “Satchmo, Satchmo!” Every day they’d play both discs in this set, beginning with “What a Wonderful World” and closing with “Lazy River.” They blasted Armstrong’s genius from any speaker they could find, making sure that “Bucket’s Got a Hole In It” and “Joseph ‘N’ His Brudders” hit the auditory canals of anyone within a 100 foot radius. They held up flags with Satch’s face emblazoned on them and walked the sidewalks in sandwich boards that decreed Armstrong the New Hope.
This did not sit right with President Cathy. It was all he could do to get “Lazy ‘Sippi Steamer” out of his mind when he wasn’t wrestling with the demons that “Hello, Dolly!” brought about. Every time he turned on the TV, some Satch Pirate was broadcasting the box set’s DVD over the airwaves. Yet again there was the clip for “High Society Calypso” and “Basin Street Bules.” Cathy’s beloved cow armies that ran daily parades in the streets chanting “Eat Mor Chikin!” were becoming less effective by the minute due to the Satchmo saturation. Sales of chicken nugget party trays were down 40%. No one even wanted the waffle fries any more. Damn that Armstrong.
Day in and day out, the gravelly-voiced songs that were fully remastered in deluxe widescreen sound were beamed out across the airwaves to everyone. Bootleg copies of the box set were mass produced and soon the government was overthrown completely to the strains of “Makin’ Whoopee” while the video for “Now You Has Jazz” was projected across the front lawn of Chick-Fil-A’s HQ. The people had spoken. The Satchmo uprising had taken full hold of the nation’s conscience. Everyone was really stoked to see the New World rising up from the ashes of Corporate Suffering. Nothing could stop the Army of Louis, Dolly.
And then the new season of “American Idol” began and everyone turned into zombies. The end.
jthompson@bullz-eye.com