Just had this forwarded to me by email. I'll probably get 20 more copies in the next few days.
By the way, yes, there was a jazz trombonist named Abe Lincoln.
Enjoy.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Each year thousands are people are killed, maimed
or annoyed by trombones. The statistics of head, neck and even shoulder
injuries sustained by reed players, french horn and string sections
seated within reach of the deadly seventh position are truly
shocking ... not to mention forced early retirement due to ever-increasing
hearing problems reported by classical musicians of all types who are
forced to play the music of Wagner, Mahler and Brahms, as well as the
hundreds of alumni of the Herman, Ferguson and Kenton bands and OKOM
devotees of Kid Ory, Jack Teagarden, Abe Lincoln Jim Robinson and Lee
Gifford.
There is current legislation pending in Congress to restrict the sale
of trombones and equip them with child-safety devices. The influential
trombone lobby is, of course, opposed to this. There have even been
several proposals for requiring a so-called "trigger lock" on all bass
trombones! Every year there are reports of hundreds of innocent
children, attracted by the shiny brass and smooth, seductive curves of
an unattended instrument on a stand in the corner of a room or in an
unlocked case who are traumatized for life by the attempts of a playmate
to get a sound out of it, or who may suffer a collapsed lung or the
effects of hyperventilation by trying the same effort themselves! The
owner's feeble "I didn't know the slide was unlocked" is no excuse!
Trombones should be stored out of reach of children.
Efforts to enact a mandatory 10-day waiting period to purchase a
trombone - which would simply allow a reasonable period of time for law
enforcement officials to cross-check the purchaser's name against an
International list of registered trombone offenders and Slide-O-Mix
addicts, have been repeatedly thwarted by the powerful
Conn-Selmer-Yamaha (CSY) lobby. Law enforcement officials are
particularly alarmed over the increase in crimes involving use of the
"sawed-off" trombone or "sackbut." Legislation is also pending in
several progressive states, including New York and California, to make
carrying a concealed alto trombone a Class A felony!
Some Governors feel that there are sufficient laws already on the
books that simply need stricter enforcement - such as the 1932
nation-wide ban of screw-on bells, the indiscriminate use of Pond's Cold
Cream or KY Jelly and unsupervised emptying of spit valves on public
property. Filthy unsanitary habits which will help spread the flu this
year. One popular response to the spread of delinquent behavior is the
imposition of mandatory longer sentences for those using a trombone
while committing a crime ("Use a trombone - Go to jail"). Surveillance
video tapes have proven especially effective in identifying violators of
this statute because career criminals have often tried to avoid
convictions by having their lawyers insist that what eye-witnesses
reported as a trombone was really only an AK-47 or other legal assaul
weapon. Strict enforcement has been especially effective when used in
conjunction with the new "Three sharps, you're out" statutes that have
already been approved by many state legislatures.
Of course the automatic and semi-automatic valved models - both piston
and the middle-European rotary, are much more dangerous than the
traditional single valve trombone. Interpol has also reported the
sudden appearance of of rear-blasting Cavalry models that were thought
to have been completely eliminated during the Great Confiscation
mandated by the 1918 Treaty of Versailles signed by representatives of
every civilized country of the period. You may recall that those
instruments were melted down and became an integral part of the
Trans-Atlantic Telephone Cable that helped to unite America and Europe.
It is believed that the new source of these WMD's are isolated
factories in rural areas of China. The awesome destructive power of the
double trigger bass trombone could never have been imagined by the
founding fathers when they granted us the right to keep and bear horns.
Remember: When trombones are outlawed, only outlaws will play "I'm
Gettin' Sentimental Over You."
(author Albert Manglesdorf)
