by Uncle John’s
NO STRINGS ATTACHED
Philippe Quint is a Grammy-nominated classical concert violinist who routinely plays at such vaunted venues as Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. In 2008 he played a concert in Dallas, and after flying home he took a cab from the Newark Airport to his house. Unfortunately, he left something behind in the taxi: his violin. His $4 million, circa-1723 Stradivarius violin. Usually, when things get left in the back of a cab, they’re gone forever, but amazingly, Quint’s extremely valuable violin was tracked down by Newark police in just a few hours. Quint gave his cabbie, Mohammed Khalil, a $100 tip, and played an impromptu concert for about 50 drivers in the Newark Airport’s taxi holding area.
The Stradivarius is synonymous with “priceless violin,” but there are other great violin makes out there, such as Goffriller, made in Venice in the late 17th century. Robert Napier of Wiltshire, England, owned one with his four siblings, who inherited it from their mother, who played it during World War II as a member of a troop entertainment troupe called the Ebsworth Quartet. In 2008 Napier took the violin to a dealer in London, who appraised the instrument at £180,000 (about $280,000). Napier took the train back home, and after getting off at Taunton Station, he realized he no longer had the violin with him—he’d left it in the luggage rack by his seat. Despite a £10,000 reward and lots of press coverage, the violin never materialized.
Yo-Yo Ma is probably the most famous cellist in the world (go ahead, name another one). But even he isn’t above losing a stringed instrument, even one as huge as a cello. In 1999 Ma took a cab to New York’s Peninsula Hotel to prepare for a concert in Brooklyn. He put his cello in the cab’s trunk, and when he arrived…he left it in the cab. The instrument was made in Venice in the 1730s and valued at about $2.5 million. Amazingly, police and Taxi and Limousine Commission workers found the instrument in a little over three hours—just in time for Ma to play his concert.
David Garrett is a classical violinist with pop music leanings—he has celebrity good looks (fans call him “the David Beckham of the violin”) and he likes to do covers of Nirvana, Coldplay, and Michael Jackson songs in his stage shows, which are frequently broadcast on PBS. As one of the wealthiest and most notable violinists in the world, Garrett can afford to use only the best instruments, such as a Guadagnini. He had one until 2008. At the end of a concert at the Barbican Centre in London, he finished playing, went to walk off the stage, and tripped…falling onto his 236-year old, $1.2 million instrument.
HOW MUCH WOOD COULD A WOODCHUCK CHUCK?
The Abenaki Indians of what is now New England considered the woodchuck their maternal ancestor, “a wise grandmother who taught them to fish, hunt, and build canoes,” according to nature writer Sy Montgomery. The beloved—and relatively rare—rodents generally kept to the woods. But when white settlers arrived, they cleared the woods, killed the woodchuck’s predators, and planted crops that happened to be the kinds of foods that woodchucks, also known as groundhogs, loved to eat.
Suddenly, woodchuck populations exploded and the little guys that once seemed so wise and cute now seemed a bit less of both. This is
not entirely surprising; animals that eat and dig as much as a woodchuck don’t often make friends among farmers. Soon enough, pretty much everyone in New England agreed that woodchucks were awful and far, far too plentiful. In 1883 the New Hampshire Legislative Woodchuck Committee declared the woodchuck “absolutely destitute of any interesting qualities.” As a result of the committee’s thorough investigation, the legislature moved to offer a bounty for each dead woodchuck the citizens of the state could procure.
BAD, SANTA
Up on the housetop. When Santa grew that beard of his all those centuries ago, he didn’t think about how it would affect his rappelling. But he learned the hard way one warm November night in 2007. At a Christmas tree–lighting ceremony in front of a Conroe, Texas, shopping mall, Santa was all set to emerge from the top of the 80-foot-high sign and rappel down the brick wall. The dozens of revelers chanted, “Santa! Santa! Santa!” And then Santa (aka rock climber James Bosson) emerged and started his descent. But his beard got stuck in a latch. Try as he might, Santa couldn’t free himself. The kids were getting anxious. Finally, someone tossed a knife up to Santa and he started cutting. As white, fluffy bits and pieces of beard fell to the ground, it almost seemed as if it was snowing in Texas. But try as he might, the beardless Santa couldn’t get the hair out of the latch; he wasn’t going anywhere. Eventually, the fire department came and freed him. And Santa learned a valuable lesson about beards and rappelling.
Here comes Santa Claus. It happened again in 2011 at a shopping mall in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Throngs of children were awaiting Santa’s grand entrance from the three-story-high ceiling. “Here he is!” said the mall announcer over the intercom. The kids cheered when a harnessed St. Nick began rappelling down. Then his beard got tangled in the ropes. As he was struggling and wiggling, the announcer tried to get everyone to join her in a rendition of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” but the kids were transfixed on the dangling Santa. “Magic can happen,” she said. “Magic can happen if you guys sing!” Magic didn’t happen. Quite the opposite, actually, when Santa had to remove his hat—revealing a head of brown hair. Some of the children screamed. Santa finally got down, but by that point, the magic was all gone.
Christmas wrapping. Santa did it again a year later at the Broad Street Mall in Reading, England. This time, Father Christmas (as they call him in the UK) was played by British soldier Steve Chessell. On his way down to the floor, his beard got impossibly stuck. After it became clear that Chessell wasn’t going anywhere, the jovial mall announcer asked, “Father Christmas, are you going to stay up there, Father Christmas?” Father Christmas gave a sheepish wave. “Well,” said the announcer to laughter, “shall we go on and switch on the lights anyway?” So they did, and everyone enjoyed themselves while Santa and his tangled beard hung over them like a Christmas ornament. Forty minutes later, another soldier (in camo, so he was hard to see) rappelled down and freed Santa.
Santa baby. Christmas Day 2007 ended badly for one Santa. He got drunk and decided to take a joyride through Hollywood. When police arrested him in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, he was wearing a Santa hat, plus “a wig, a red lace camisole, and a purple G-string.” Quipped one deputy: “We’re pretty sure this isn’t the real Santa.”
It must be Santa. In 1999, during an otherwise ho-ho-ho-hum afternoon of kids demanding stuff from St. Nick, a mom named Kelley Fornatoro placed her baby on the big man’s lap at a Woodland Hills, California, shopping mall. The baby started crying. “Why don’t you put your arm around him to calm him down?” Fornatoro suggested. Santa (whose name wasn’t released) grudgingly sat for the photo. When Fornatoro went to retrieve her baby, Santa asked, “Was it worth it? Was it worth it for you to torture your child for a picture? You must be an evil person!” Fornatoro called him rude. “You shouldn’t be around children,” she added. She then threatened to file a complaint with the mall manager. “You can complain about me if you want, but I am Santa Claus!” replied the man who was not Santa Claus. “I am the best person in the world! I am good!” He then started pulling off his Santa garb—hat, wig, beard, coat, belt—piece by piece, flinging them this way and that. Then—as parents covered their traumatized children’s eyes—mall cops arrived and escorted the tank-top-clad former Santa away.
NEARLY NUCLEAR WARS
Late on the night of October 25, 1962, a guard at an Air Force base in Minnesota spotted a dark figure climbing the fence surrounding the base. The guard shot and killed the mysterious figure. The fence was wired to detect intruders, and the culprit’s fall set off the alarm. But the fence was incorrectly wired, and the alarm set off a second alarm hundreds of miles away at an Air National Guard base in Wisconsin. F-106 fighter jets armed with nuclear missiles immediately prepared to take off toward the Soviet Union in response to the intrusion. But the nuclear strike was quickly called off after an i
nvestigation determined the identity of the fence-climbing spy: It was a bear.
On January 25, 1995, a team of Norwegian and American scientists launched a research rocket off the northwest coast of Norway. It contained equipment to collect data on the aurora borealis, or northern lights. The rocket was noticed by radar operators at the Olengorsk early-warning station in Russia, who mistakenly identified the small, unarmed rocket as a submarine-launched nuclear Trident missile headed for Moscow. The news was sent to Russian president Boris Yeltsin, who, for a moment, was ready to hit the “launch nukes” button. Fortunately, minutes later, the radar operators noticed that the “missile” was heading away from Russia, and determined that it wasn’t really a threat. The rocket collected its data and landed safely on an Arctic island a half hour later. Ironically, the scientists had notified the Russian government of the rocket launch weeks in advance, but the information had not made its way to the early-warning radar operators or Yeltsin.
On November 9, 1979, computers at three American military control centers all displayed the same grim news: Soviet nuclear missiles were on their way. Officers immediately put missile launch sites on alert, and 10 fighter jets took off to shoot down anything suspicious. However, before launching a counterstrike, officers at the three bases decided to back up the information they’d received. Satellite data across the country showed no signs of Soviet missiles in the air. It turns out that a training tape of attack scenarios had been placed into the computer running the military’s early-warning system.
BOTCHED BUNGEE
On a clear Sunday morning in Perris, California, in 1991, bungee jumping instructor Hal Irish went up in a hot-air balloon to do a demonstration jump for his students. He secured one end of the cord to the basket, the other end to his harness. Then he took the plunge. The cord extended to its full length before gently pulling Irish back up in the air, but somehow the harness became disconnected from the cord… and Irish kept sailing up into the air before he fell back down 70 feet to his death—the first fatality in bungee jumping.
•Erin Langworthy, an Australian college student, and her friend were backpacking through Africa on New Year’s Eve 2011 when they decided to go whitewater rafting and then bungee jumping at Victoria Falls in Zambia. Langworthy was secured to the cord on a bridge 365 feet above the Zambezi River. She jumped off and spread her arms like she was supposed to, and then the cord snapped and Langworthy hit the water hard. She was able to shield her head with her arms just before impact. Next thing she knew, she was caught in the rapids with 20 feet of the cord still attached to her ankles…which were also attached to each other. Remembering a lesson from that morning’s rafting trip, Langworthy put her feet in front of her to avoid hitting the rocks. She tried to get to the riverbank, but the cord became snagged on something—she actually had to swim under the water to free it, twice. She then made her way to the riverbank, where rescuers treated for severe bruises, a broken collarbone, and damaged lungs. “I felt like I’d been slapped all over,” said Langworthy. She said she’s not in any hurry to try a second bungee jump. The icing on the cake: Langworthy landed in “crocodile-infested waters” (even though no crocs had been spotted that day).
•In May 2002, Alberto Galletti and his girlfriend, Tiziana Accorra, arrived at Lorenzo Illuminati’s Umbria, Italy, bungee-jumping park, but it was late and Illuminati had closed for the day. The couple begged him to reopen; Galletti, a member of Italy’s elite Folgore army parachute regiment, really wanted to take Accorra, a college student, on her first bungee jump. Illuminati agreed, but only if the couple paid an extra fee. They paid up and got strapped in for a tandem bungee jump off a bridge that had seen thousands of jumps without incident…until this one. Tragically, not one but both snap hooks opened when the cord reached full length, and the lovebirds died together.
HELLO, DOLLY
In May 2011, on his very last day of high school, 18-year-old Tyell Morton of Rushville, Indiana, put on a hooded sweatshirt to hide his face from security cameras, entered his high school carrying a large cardboard box, and went into a girls’ restroom. He opened the package—took a life-size sex doll out of it, propped the doll up inside a stall, and left.
Security staff saw a hooded figure enter the school with a large box and leave again a short time later without the box—and immediately called the bomb squad and evacuated the building. It was several hours before the sex doll was discovered. An investigation led to Morton, and he admitted what he’d done, explaining that it was a senior prank. The response: Prosecutor Phil Caviness charged him with institutional criminal mischief—a felony that carries a sentence of up to eight years in prison.
After public outcry from all over the country—there were even “Free Tyell” websites set up—Caviness eventually agreed to a diversion program that would see Tyell’s charges dropped if he stayed out of trouble for one year. Tyell, who had never been in trouble with the law, met the requirement in August 2012—and his prank was finally over.
DEAD MUSICIANS
Jeff Buckley (1966–97). The up-and-coming rock star was in Memphis, Tennessee, to record some new music with his band. On the night before recording was to begin, Buckley decided to take a swim in one of his favorite spots in the North River Harbor along the Mississippi River. A roadie, Keith Foti, was there with him, but opted to stay dry. Buckley was in a good mood, though, and jumped in the water fully clothed— heavy boots and all. He was doing the backstroke while singing Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” when the wake from a passing tugboat approached. Foti turned away to shield a guitar from the wave. When he turned back around, Buckley was gone. His body was found five days later.
Chet Baker (1929–88). Baker was an influential jazz trumpeter and singer whose life was marred by heroin addiction and prison time. After his career had stalled, he was making a comeback in 1988, and he was having a pretty good year—musically, anyway. Baker was still struggling with drug addiction. He was staying in an Amsterdam hotel room by himself…and a lot of heroin and cocaine. In the middle of the night, Baker opened the window of the second-story room. Somehow, he fell out and hit his head on a metal post and died. The death was ruled an accident, not a suicide—there was no note. And who tries to kill himself by jumping out of a second-story window?
Les Harvey (1945–72). Ever heard of the Scottish band Stone the Crows? They might have been a lot more popular had a stagehand at the Top Rank Ballroom in Swansea, Wales, been more careful. While setting up for 1972 show, he plugged a microphone cable into an improperly wired amplifier. During the sound check, lead guitarist Les Harvey, whose hands were wet, grabbed the microphone. It was not grounded; Harvey was. He was electrocuted and died instantly.
Terry Kath (1946–78). In 1978 Kath, the original front man for the band Chicago, and his wife were partying at a roadie’s house in Woodland Hills, California. Kath loved guns, and he had two of his favorite pistols with him. At one point, he placed the barrel of a .38 revolver on his temple and pulled the trigger several times. Click, click, click. Nothing happened. Then Kath picked up his semiautomatic 9 mm pistol. “Don’t worry,” he assured them. “It’s not loaded.” He even showed them the empty magazine to prove it. But Kath didn’t check the chamber. There was bullet in it. He put the pistol up to his temple, pulled the trigger, and died.
Randy Rhoads (1956–82). A guitarist for Quiet Riot, Rhoads was also Ozzy Osbourne’s lead guitarist. During a tour stopover at the Leesburg, Florida, estate where Ozzy’s bus driver, Andrew Aycock, lived, Rhoads reluctantly agreed to take a short flight in a 1955 Beechcraft Bonanza. Rhoads was afraid of flying, but he was persuaded to go up because the other passenger, hairdresser Rachel Youngblood, had a heart condition, so Aycock promised not to do anything too scary. But Aycock did do something scary: He buzzed the tour bus where several band members were sleeping. After two successful buzzes, Aycock looped back around for a third one. But he got way too close, and the Beechcraft’s wing clipped the back of the bus. The plane spun out o
f control, took out the top of a tree, and then crashed into the mansion’s garage. It exploded into a ball of fire, and all three passengers were burned alive.
Johnny Ace (1929–54). Ace, a well-known blues singer in the 1950s, was touring with Big Mama Thornton’s band. Between sets of a Christmas Day gig in Houston, Texas, Ace, Thornton, and the rest of the band were sitting around a table. As he often did, Ace pulled out his .22 caliber revolver. He was drinking, which he also often did. According to bass player Curtis Tillman, “He had this little pistol he was waving around the table and someone said, ‘Be careful with that thing.’ And Johnny Ace said, ‘It’s okay! Gun’s not loaded, see?’ And he pointed it at himself with a smile on his face, and ‘Bang!’ Sad, sad thing.’ ”
Once upon a time, there was a rock star who really liked having clean underwear when he was on tour. One night, in order to get to a gig early so he’d have enough time to wash his clothes, he skipped the tour bus and chartered a plane. He also footed the tickets for two of his tour mates, one who had the flu and another who won the last seat in a coin toss. It was February 1959. Ritchie Valens won the coin toss (over Waylon Jennings), the Big Bopper had the flu, and Buddy Holly needed fresh skivvies. The plane crashed; all on board were killed.
UP IN THE AIR
As it approached Singapore’s Changi Airport in 2010, operations were normal on Jetstar flight JQ57. Just before the plane began its descent, the pilot decided that he could turn his cell phone on and check his text messages. As the plane started to nosedive, the copilot warned his pilot that the plane was about to crash; no reply. With 392 feet left before sudden impact, the copilot realized that the pilot had neglected to lower the landing gear. It was too late to release it, so the copilot grabbed the yoke and pushed the plane back into the air, then circled and landed the plane safely. Jetstar officials plan to put warnings about cell phone use in all pilot training materials.