A friend of her friend was 'dog-sitting', ie she was asked to feed and look after a family's dog whilst the family was on holiday. One day she arrived at the house to find the dog lying dead, but still warm. She phoned up the family, who thought there may be some hope as it was still warm, so they asked the girl to take it to the vets. But how was she going to get this presumably quite large dog to the vet, which was a train ride away? She looked upstairs and found a suitcase. Put the dog in the suitcase, then made her way to the station. The escalator was broken down, so as she was busy lugging the suitcase up the stairs a man came over and offered to help her, but she initially declined his help. It was obviously quite a struggle to lug the case to the top so finally she let the man carry the case up to the top. When he reached the top, he ran off with the case.
Urban myth if you ask me but a good one.
Any one know any 'urban myths' associated with the music?
The dog had probably eaten a Strad he found lying in the street, left there by an absent-minded genius who left it there after busking for charity.
Honestly though, I would have loved to see that man's face when he opened the case. Of all the things you wouldn't want to steal...
Phantom will relate to this one: Oakland. Bad Ass Oakland, Califormia, 1960's. Greyhound bus depot, the neighborhood of considerable crime. Very bad ass alley cat captured and placed in suitcase. Suitcase planted on sidewalk outside bus depot. Carload of crooks, scoping out the area for potential victims, can't pass up an abandoned suitcase sitting all alone. One block later, getaway car screeches to a halt, four doors simultaneously flung open, disgorging 4 crooks, and one really p*ssed alley cat! Then there's one Bruce Flood, owner of 1948 Studebaker. But that's another collection of urban myths that are really true, only no one will believe them.
I heard the same story, only it was in the country and it was a bobcat in the suitcase. Which was obviously untrue, since it is impossible that anyone could stuff a bobcat into a suitcase.
Urban Truth is this case. In 1965 I was asked to play the box in a pub in Bromley by Bow - East London. I arrived at the pub to play a few tunes for the Guvnor, only to discover that my one year old Paolo Soprani had been stolen from the back of my van. I had made one stop en route to the pub where I left the van unattended. I went to the police..no hope. The next evening I was driving through Whitechapel, two mile away from the pub. I spotted a man with an accordion case on the other side of the street. It looked like my case and he looked wrong carrying it.....if you get my meaning. I quickly parked up and went searching for him. I found him in a fruit shop where he was trying to sell the box to the shop owner. The laughable thing was, he then asked me if I was interested in buying. When I broke the bad news to him and showed him my name on the case, he offered to to take me to a nearby club and buy me a drink. Needless to say I declined his offer. Just glad to get the box back, and yes, I got the job in the pub.
I heard one that purported to be true, that went something like this:
A British family a good few years ago were abroad with an elderly member who fell ill and knew his days were numbered. He - and they - were desperate to get out of the country they were in, where local death duties / funeral costs / whatever were swingeing, back to Britain so they would not lose a fortune when he popped his clogs. A detail of the story suggests to me they were in Southern Europe somewhere.
Soon after eating a plate of strawberries, the old boy died suddenly while they were still in the wrong country. Grief was followed by some serious planning and to cut a long story short they managed to smuggle the corpse through every border and checkpoint, either wrapped up in a seat or in the boot, without getting rumbled. And so they got home.
The journey had taken its toll, and the family certainly didn't want the corpse to get ripe on them before the pathologist came round, seeing they wanted to make out he'd died in Britain. So they bunged him in the freezer. Before the pathologist was due to come round, they thawed him out. So far, so good.
He did his visit, probed about, fished up some stomach contents and said he'd report back.
Next day or so he was on the doorstep. "Hello, there was just one curious thing I wanted to ask you about. Your late father-in-law had evidently eaten strawberries just before he died. How could that be? It's well before their season."
The wife said without batting an eyelid, "Oh, they were in the freezer..."
Well, True Story - an Irish cook I knew did die on a travelling offshore oil rig on tow when it was a few days out of Capetown and he was put in the cold store for a couple of days until they were within range of a helicopter.
Music connection - I got to know him when he had been on another rig at a time when we had mostly Irish crews and we often had a session onboard.
You are trying hard for the physic hijack aren't you wolfbird? But it probably was Schroedinger's mother in law, I bet he would have liked to see that kind of relation half dead, confusion arose only when it was changed due to political correctness in the publication.
Well, I'd prefer to bend the thread onto epigenesis and give Richard Dawkins another kicking, TMB, but I'm quite taken by the idea of scientist's trying to explain electrodynamics using dead /alive family members....
Free Reed, a very similar story happened to me - years ago, not long after I started work at St.Mary's Hosp, Paddington. It involved my pushbike. I hadn't long been in London so failed to take the good advice of buying a D-Lock for the bike. I used a pathetic little combination lock. One day after work I went out into Norfolk Place to cycle home - no bike. The bike got nicked of course, and saddened me immensely because I had actually built the bike.
A few days later, being skint at the time, I was roaming the streets of Paddington and Lisson Grove - I was calling into pubs to try to get some part time work. I actually got a job in one of the pubs, so on my way home walking up the Edgware road I saw this joker on my bike! - he was waiting at the lights at the junction of Church Street and Edgware Road. I couldn't believe it and I doubled back so I could cross back over the road where he was waiting. As I passed, I turned toward him, put both legs astride the front wheel and grabbed the handle bars, and said while he was still surprised, "Where did you get that bike?"
He claimed he bought it off someone else, etc.... Now he was quite a big burly young geezer and I didn't fancy my chances against him should it get physical, so I just stood there holding onto the big demanding he give me it back, shouting and making a huge scene, filled with righteous indignation. This must have gone on for several minutes out in the middle of a busy junction. The lights had changed several times and cars were swerving round us to get past, pumping horns. And all the while there was me shouting at the top of my voice, "give me my f*cking bike back you thieving bast*rd!" And him coming back with "how do I know it's yours?" (He was clutching at straws by this time.) And I pointed out several idiosyncratic little bits about it cos I'd made it. By this time he was getting very nervous lest the Old Bill turned up to investigate the commotion, so at one point he got off the bike and handed it back to me, saying he bought it at the market for a tenner an 'e wos robbed anyway, as a Parthian shot. Yeah right.
But I got the bike back. And a part time job. Lucky evening.
So maybe my story and free reeds go to show that coincidences do happen - similar themes happen in human - or canine or feline - experience, be it things getting nicked then retrieved or dead bodies ending up in containers...
amen.
Just a footnote on my story..I asked the shop owner to call the police but he said it had nothing to do with him and slung us both out of the shop. The guy then pleaded with me to let him go saying that he just got out of the nick, and offered to buy me a drink. I let him go but not before I got his name/address from an envelope in his pocket. Over forty years later I still remember it....Coleman Fisher...Went back to the same police station and told them I caught the guy who stole my precious accordion..never heard anything. Incidentally the Guvnor that I went to play for eventually moved to Holloway and took over The Favourite and the rest as they say is 'history'.....
You can find many, MANY urban legends described, analyzed and -- where possible -- verified (or not) here- http://www.snopes.com/
Just to bring this thread a little bit closer to on-topic: American folk singer John McCutcheon put an urban legend to music, in a song he wrote called "The Red Corvette." The story goes that a man sees an ad in the newspaper for a practically brand-new sports car (or some other similarly desirable vehicle) selling at a ridiculously low price, in this case $65. He can't help but be curious, so he contacts the seller, who turns out to be a very pleasant middle-aged woman; she assures him there's no misprint in the ad and invites him to come see for himself.
The man goes to the woman's house, and sure enough, there's the car, in pristine condition and everything working fine. He decides to take the plunge, pays her $65, and as she hands him the keys and title, he begs her to tell her what's wrong with the car.
Here's the last verse:
Says she, "I'll be 60 come Tuesday
"And I've lived here with my husband, Earl.
"Well, after 30 years wed and without a word said
"He left me for a young teenage girl.
"But with his credit cards left here behind him,
"I knew that he couldn't get far.
"Last night from Florida he sent a wire to me:
"Said, 'I need money, dear, sell the car!'"
I was going to a music store to sell a piano accordion, but when I got to the store, I realized that I had left the accordion in my unlocked car, and in a rough neighborhood no less. So I rushed back to my car, but I was too late, and my worst fears were realized....there were three more piano accordions piled on top of the first.
Urban Myths?
Urban Myths?
My teenage daughter told me this story:
A friend of her friend was 'dog-sitting', ie she was asked to feed and look after a family's dog whilst the family was on holiday. One day she arrived at the house to find the dog lying dead, but still warm. She phoned up the family, who thought there may be some hope as it was still warm, so they asked the girl to take it to the vets. But how was she going to get this presumably quite large dog to the vet, which was a train ride away? She looked upstairs and found a suitcase. Put the dog in the suitcase, then made her way to the station. The escalator was broken down, so as she was busy lugging the suitcase up the stairs a man came over and offered to help her, but she initially declined his help. It was obviously quite a struggle to lug the case to the top so finally she let the man carry the case up to the top. When he reached the top, he ran off with the case.
Urban myth if you ask me but a good one.
Any one know any 'urban myths' associated with the music?
# Posted on May 18th 2008 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: Urban Myths?
There was a Strad in the suitcase as well?
# Posted on May 18th 2008 by lazyhound
Re: Urban Myths?
Good one lazy.
# Posted on May 18th 2008 by Whiddler
Re: Urban Myths?
I can't think of a music related urban myth, but here's one that still has "urban myth" status that's NOT a myth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGVkHl-nBhE
# Posted on May 18th 2008 by gw
Re: Urban Myths?
The dog had probably eaten a Strad he found lying in the street, left there by an absent-minded genius who left it there after busking for charity.
Honestly though, I would have loved to see that man's face when he opened the case. Of all the things you wouldn't want to steal...
# Posted on May 18th 2008 by Joe CSS
Re: Urban Myths?
LOL!!
"The blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds"
I WISH we had newsreaders like that now!
# Posted on May 18th 2008 by Joe CSS
Re: Urban Myths?
"Honestly though, I would have loved to see that man's face when he opened the case. Of all the things you wouldn't want to steal..."
Maybe he just thought it was a nice suitcase...
# Posted on May 18th 2008 by Whiddler
Re: Urban Myths?
Phantom will relate to this one: Oakland. Bad Ass Oakland, Califormia, 1960's. Greyhound bus depot, the neighborhood of considerable crime. Very bad ass alley cat captured and placed in suitcase. Suitcase planted on sidewalk outside bus depot. Carload of crooks, scoping out the area for potential victims, can't pass up an abandoned suitcase sitting all alone. One block later, getaway car screeches to a halt, four doors simultaneously flung open, disgorging 4 crooks, and one really p*ssed alley cat! Then there's one Bruce Flood, owner of 1948 Studebaker. But that's another collection of urban myths that are really true, only no one will believe them.
# Posted on May 18th 2008 by jtrout
Re: Urban Myths?
I heard the same story, only it was in the country and it was a bobcat in the suitcase. Which was obviously untrue, since it is impossible that anyone could stuff a bobcat into a suitcase.
# Posted on May 18th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Urban Myths?
There *must* be pairs of identical twins out there in the trad world, giving rise to all sorts of confusion...
# Posted on May 18th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Urban Myths?
Hahahaha thanks KML, that made me laugh a lot.
# Posted on May 18th 2008 by mehitabel23
Re: Urban Myths?
The stolen suicase with a dead or live animal in it is a variation of the well-known "Granny on the roof rack" story.
NB - Do true stories get automatic priority in the original / variation label game?
# Posted on May 18th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Urban Myths?
yes and yes.
# Posted on May 18th 2008 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: Urban Myths?
Urban Truth is this case. In 1965 I was asked to play the box in a pub in Bromley by Bow - East London. I arrived at the pub to play a few tunes for the Guvnor, only to discover that my one year old Paolo Soprani had been stolen from the back of my van. I had made one stop en route to the pub where I left the van unattended. I went to the police..no hope. The next evening I was driving through Whitechapel, two mile away from the pub. I spotted a man with an accordion case on the other side of the street. It looked like my case and he looked wrong carrying it.....if you get my meaning. I quickly parked up and went searching for him. I found him in a fruit shop where he was trying to sell the box to the shop owner. The laughable thing was, he then asked me if I was interested in buying. When I broke the bad news to him and showed him my name on the case, he offered to to take me to a nearby club and buy me a drink. Needless to say I declined his offer. Just glad to get the box back, and yes, I got the job in the pub.
# Posted on May 18th 2008 by Free Reed
Re: Urban Myths?
"The stolen suitcase with a dead or live animal in it is a variation of the well-known "Granny on the roof rack" story."
So, does that explain why quantum physics is so difficult ? Schroedinger got it wrong ? It should really have been Schroedinger's Granny ?
# Posted on May 18th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Urban Myths?
I haven't see that whale footage in years. It's still a riot. LOL
# Posted on May 18th 2008 by Fishmonger
Re: Urban Myths?
Nice one, Free Reed.
I heard one that purported to be true, that went something like this:
A British family a good few years ago were abroad with an elderly member who fell ill and knew his days were numbered. He - and they - were desperate to get out of the country they were in, where local death duties / funeral costs / whatever were swingeing, back to Britain so they would not lose a fortune when he popped his clogs. A detail of the story suggests to me they were in Southern Europe somewhere.
Soon after eating a plate of strawberries, the old boy died suddenly while they were still in the wrong country. Grief was followed by some serious planning and to cut a long story short they managed to smuggle the corpse through every border and checkpoint, either wrapped up in a seat or in the boot, without getting rumbled. And so they got home.
The journey had taken its toll, and the family certainly didn't want the corpse to get ripe on them before the pathologist came round, seeing they wanted to make out he'd died in Britain. So they bunged him in the freezer. Before the pathologist was due to come round, they thawed him out. So far, so good.
He did his visit, probed about, fished up some stomach contents and said he'd report back.
Next day or so he was on the doorstep. "Hello, there was just one curious thing I wanted to ask you about. Your late father-in-law had evidently eaten strawberries just before he died. How could that be? It's well before their season."
The wife said without batting an eyelid, "Oh, they were in the freezer..."
# Posted on May 18th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Urban Myths?
Well, True Story - an Irish cook I knew did die on a travelling offshore oil rig on tow when it was a few days out of Capetown and he was put in the cold store for a couple of days until they were within range of a helicopter.
Music connection - I got to know him when he had been on another rig at a time when we had mostly Irish crews and we often had a session onboard.
# Posted on May 18th 2008 by Bren
Re: Urban Myths?
You are trying hard for the physic hijack aren't you wolfbird? But it probably was Schroedinger's mother in law, I bet he would have liked to see that kind of relation half dead, confusion arose only when it was changed due to political correctness in the publication.
# Posted on May 18th 2008 by TMB
Re: Urban Myths?
Well, I'd prefer to bend the thread onto epigenesis and give Richard Dawkins another kicking, TMB, but I'm quite taken by the idea of scientist's trying to explain electrodynamics using dead /alive family members....
# Posted on May 18th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: Urban Myths?
Free Reed, a very similar story happened to me - years ago, not long after I started work at St.Mary's Hosp, Paddington. It involved my pushbike. I hadn't long been in London so failed to take the good advice of buying a D-Lock for the bike. I used a pathetic little combination lock. One day after work I went out into Norfolk Place to cycle home - no bike. The bike got nicked of course, and saddened me immensely because I had actually built the bike.
A few days later, being skint at the time, I was roaming the streets of Paddington and Lisson Grove - I was calling into pubs to try to get some part time work. I actually got a job in one of the pubs, so on my way home walking up the Edgware road I saw this joker on my bike! - he was waiting at the lights at the junction of Church Street and Edgware Road. I couldn't believe it and I doubled back so I could cross back over the road where he was waiting. As I passed, I turned toward him, put both legs astride the front wheel and grabbed the handle bars, and said while he was still surprised, "Where did you get that bike?"
He claimed he bought it off someone else, etc.... Now he was quite a big burly young geezer and I didn't fancy my chances against him should it get physical, so I just stood there holding onto the big demanding he give me it back, shouting and making a huge scene, filled with righteous indignation. This must have gone on for several minutes out in the middle of a busy junction. The lights had changed several times and cars were swerving round us to get past, pumping horns. And all the while there was me shouting at the top of my voice, "give me my f*cking bike back you thieving bast*rd!" And him coming back with "how do I know it's yours?" (He was clutching at straws by this time.) And I pointed out several idiosyncratic little bits about it cos I'd made it. By this time he was getting very nervous lest the Old Bill turned up to investigate the commotion, so at one point he got off the bike and handed it back to me, saying he bought it at the market for a tenner an 'e wos robbed anyway, as a Parthian shot. Yeah right.
But I got the bike back. And a part time job. Lucky evening.
# Posted on May 19th 2008 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: Urban Myths?
So maybe my story and free reeds go to show that coincidences do happen - similar themes happen in human - or canine or feline - experience, be it things getting nicked then retrieved or dead bodies ending up in containers...
amen.
# Posted on May 19th 2008 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: Urban Myths?
Just a footnote on my story..I asked the shop owner to call the police but he said it had nothing to do with him and slung us both out of the shop. The guy then pleaded with me to let him go saying that he just got out of the nick, and offered to buy me a drink. I let him go but not before I got his name/address from an envelope in his pocket. Over forty years later I still remember it....Coleman Fisher...Went back to the same police station and told them I caught the guy who stole my precious accordion..never heard anything. Incidentally the Guvnor that I went to play for eventually moved to Holloway and took over The Favourite and the rest as they say is 'history'.....
# Posted on May 19th 2008 by Free Reed
Re: Urban Myths?
You must have inspired him
# Posted on May 19th 2008 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: Urban Myths?
You can find many, MANY urban legends described, analyzed and -- where possible -- verified (or not) here-
http://www.snopes.com/
Just to bring this thread a little bit closer to on-topic: American folk singer John McCutcheon put an urban legend to music, in a song he wrote called "The Red Corvette." The story goes that a man sees an ad in the newspaper for a practically brand-new sports car (or some other similarly desirable vehicle) selling at a ridiculously low price, in this case $65. He can't help but be curious, so he contacts the seller, who turns out to be a very pleasant middle-aged woman; she assures him there's no misprint in the ad and invites him to come see for himself.
The man goes to the woman's house, and sure enough, there's the car, in pristine condition and everything working fine. He decides to take the plunge, pays her $65, and as she hands him the keys and title, he begs her to tell her what's wrong with the car.
Here's the last verse:
Says she, "I'll be 60 come Tuesday
"And I've lived here with my husband, Earl.
"Well, after 30 years wed and without a word said
"He left me for a young teenage girl.
"But with his credit cards left here behind him,
"I knew that he couldn't get far.
"Last night from Florida he sent a wire to me:
"Said, 'I need money, dear, sell the car!'"
# Posted on May 19th 2008 by sts
Re: Urban Myths?
Good one sts, I have always loved that song!
I was going to a music store to sell a piano accordion, but when I got to the store, I realized that I had left the accordion in my unlocked car, and in a rough neighborhood no less. So I rushed back to my car, but I was too late, and my worst fears were realized....there were three more piano accordions piled on top of the first.
# Posted on May 20th 2008 by AlBrown