In Basses, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles Part 2 – Trains, Jason writes:
People think that they are very funny — One of the most annoying things about carrying a bass around town is having grown people gape at you, slack-jawed like drugged cattle, as you struggle to get from point A to point B. You know how cattle all slowly turn their heads and stare at you as you walk past them on a country road? That’s just what your fellow commuters do.
After staring for a while, a light bulb goes off in the back of their commuter minds.
“Hey,” they think. ” should make a humorous remark directed toward that person carrying that strange thing! What a great idea!”
They close their gaping mouths, wet their lips, and blurt,
“Did’ja ever think of playing the piccolo? Haw haw haw haw haw haw haw haw!”
this so reminds me of riding the T to gigs back in Boston. My favorite moment was when a fellow bassist and I were riding back on the Green Line from a rehearsal with our basses on one of those tiny little cars, and we received this exact same comment about how we should have picked the flute. Because the face on my friend after that one was priceless – looked like he just took a sip of 2 day old Pabst Blue Ribbon where someone dropped their coals in. I laughed out loud and our stand-up comic erroneously thought she was hilarious.
Some others I’ve heard whilst dragging my bass through the snow:
- Is that a body in there?
- Is that your canoe?
- That’s a big cello/guitar/whatever!
- How do you get that in your car/a taxi/on the train?
Every single time. Like clockwork. Try it. Walk down a busy street with a double bass in a case and see what you get. You will be running home frantically searching for the Absolut in no-time.
I get the same sorts of inane chatter from having a homophonically similar famous boxing legend.
