darwin music awards

     August, 1998, Montevideo, Uruguay

     Paolo Esperanza, bass-trombonist with the Simphonica Mayor de Uruguay,
     in a misplaced moment of inspiration decided to
     make his own contribution to the cannon shots fired as part of the
     orchestra's performance of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture at an outdoor
     children's concert.  In complete seriousness he placed a large,
     ignited firecracker, which was equivalent in
     strength to a quarter stick of dynamite, into his aluminum straight
     mute and then stuck the mute into the bell of his quite new
     Yamaha in-line bass trombone.

     Later, from his hospital bed he explained to a reporter through
     bandages on his mouth, "I thought that the bell of my trombone would
     shield me from the explosion and instead, would focus the energy of
     the blast outwards and away from me, propelling the mute high above
     the orchestra, like a rocket."

     However, Paolo was not up on his propulsion physics nor qualified to
     use high-powered artillery and in his haste to get the horn up
     before the firecracker went off,  he failed to raise the bell of the
     horn high enough so as to give the mute enough arc to clear the
     orchestra.

     What actually happened should serve as a lesson to us all during those
     delirious moments of divine inspiration.  First, because he failed to
     sufficiently elevate the bell of his horn, the blast propelled the
     mute between rows of players in the woodwind and viola sections of the
     orchestra, missing the players and straight into the stomach of the
     conductor, driving him off the podium and directly into the front row
     of the audience.

     Fortunately, the audience were sitting in folding chairs and thus they
     were protected from serious injury, for the chairs collapsed under
     them passing the energy of the impact of the flying conductor
     backwards into row of people sitting behind them, who in turn were
     driven back into the people in the row behind and so on, like a row of
     dominos. The sound of collapsing wooden chairs and grunts of people
     falling on their behinds increased logarithmically, adding to the
     overall sound of brass cannons and brass playing as constitutes the
     closing measures of the Overture.

     Meanwhile, all of this unplanned choreography not withstanding, back
     on stage Paolo's Waterloo was still unfolding.  According to Paolo,
     "Just as the I heard the sound of the blast, time seemed to stand
     still. Everything moved in slow motion.  Just before I felt searing
     pain to my  mouth, I could swear I heard a voice with a Austrian
     accent say "Fur every akshon zer iz un eekvul un opposeet reakshon!"
     Well, this should come as no surprise, for Paolo had set himself up
     for a textbook demonstration of this fundamental law of physics.
     Having failed to plug the lead pipe of his trombone, he allowed the
     energy of the blast to send a super-heated jet of gas backwards
     through the mouth pipe of the trombone which  exited the mouthpiece
     burning his lips and face.

     The pyrotechnic ballet wasn't over yet.  The force of the blast was so
     great it split the bell of his shiny Yamaha right down the middle,
     turning it inside out while at the same time propelling Paolo
     backwards off the riser. And for the grand finale, as Paolo fell
     backwards he lost his grip on the slide of the trombone allowing the
     pressure of the hot gases coursing through the horn to propel the
     trombone's slide like a double golden spear into the head of the 3rd
     clarinetist, knocking him unconscious.

     The moral of the story?  Beware the next time you hear someone in the
     trombone section yell out  "Hey, everyone, watch this!"