Following tonight's game at Minute Maid Park, the Houston Astros are attempting to set a Guinness Book of World Records record--for number of people playing the harmonica at once:
The idea is for 10,000 fans to play a harmonica at the same time, breaking the Guinness Book of World Records mark for "Largest Harmonica Ensemble." The current record is 6,131 harmonica players last year in Hong Kong.
Here's how it will work. Ten thousand Hohner harmonicas will be given to fans as they enter the ballpark. But not necessarily the first 10,000 fans. You'll have to promise to stick around till the end of the baseball game. No giveaway hogs - fans who show up, grab the bobblehead and leave - will get a harmonica.
"So it won't be first-come, first-served. We're going to use the honor system and trust that the people will stay through the end of the game. We'd like to have a lie detector machine at the doors, but we have faith in the fans," said Todd Sloban, producer of a documentary about harmonicas called Pocket Full of Soul.
After the game, three famous harmonica players will take the field and teach 10,000 fans how to play I'm a Man, by Bo Diddley. The pros are Sonny Boy Terry, Gary Allegretto and Ronnie Shellist.
According to Guinness rules, the crowd will have to play I'm a Man for at least five minutes to qualify as a world record.It's an unlikely place, but a world's record will be attempted Sept. 10 in Minute Maid Park — as soon as the Astros hurry up and finish playing the Dodgers.
If any of you watched tonight's baseball game, you saw the sparsely-populated stadium by the ninth inning. If the Astros think they're really going to get 10K of their fans to stick around to watch the end of a game against a fourth-place sub-.500 team, they're crazy. Houston people have things to do, oil to pump, motorists to shoot at using the gun in their glove compartment. They don't have time to wait to play the harmonica with 9,999 of their friends for five additional minutes.
This idea blows.
32 comments:
It's like 10,000 harmonicas, when all you need is a kazoo.
Hopefully Bushwick Bill will make an appearance.
cc: FB
Seen in the Onion:
"Jealous A.J. Pierzynski Builds Catcher's Mound"
I'm down with the musical fork.
Bushwick Bill? Is he still alive, or is my mind playing tricks on me?
I'm pretty sure the healthy living has kept Bushwick alive and thriving thete in Houston' 5th Ward.
Bushwick update, per Wikipedia:
"According to his MySpace page, he is now a born-again Christian. He has released a Christian rap album entitled My Testimony of Redemption."
Sellout.
So, now he's Burning-Bushwick Bill?
WHAT IS IT WITH ME AND FIRE?
I think you need counseling, Josh.
Also, you need help for your pyromaniac tendencies.
AHHHHHH CARPAL TUNNEL
This year Halloween fell on a weekend...
Bill was on an episode of Martin. He was the leader of a gang of midgets who were after Martin
The old carpal tunnel, she is a bitch. I like to feel the ends of my fingers.
and Mrs FB teaches school in Bushwick. Little known fact...
I always thought "Bushwick" was a, er, euphemism, for a part of his anatomy.
GHETTO BOYZ RULE!!!! STOOPID TORRE!!
and I have to say that this place has gotten verrry strange since we've all (minus karina of course) checked out on the season. All the fire talk, Spanky spitting his game at MB, rob knofings, Bushwick Bill musings, Mike Wallace trade rumors, and much more. I think we have lost our minds.
I like it
"Bill was on an episode of Martin. He was the leader of a gang of midgets who were after Martin"
Can you imagine how much fun it must have been to come up with the idea and write that episode?
Writer 1: "OK Martin says he personally knows Bushwick Bill, and maybe owes him some money... How do we write him into an episode?"
Writer 2: "Wizard of Oz episode?"
1: "Nah - been done before"
2: "Sheneneh's reallllly ugly baby?"
1. "Now you're thinking! But Bill refuses to wear diapers anymore. Something about a rash..."
2. "Gang of evil midgets?"
1. "Bingo!"
Had I been a writer on that show, I would been more like:
1) "Gang of evil midgets!!!"
"Martin vs the Eddie Gaedel Furies!"
I like the irony of clicking "View Full Size" in Blogger profiles to see a "larger" picture of Bushwick.
DB,
Read my mind. . .which was playin tricks on me.
Wait, RBN, are you saying:
At night I can't sleep, I toss and turn/
Candle sticks in the dark, visions of bodies being burned
More fire references! What gives?
ps- Not making light of the tragedy upstate re: fire or anything. Just for the record...
Houston is the armpit of Texas (unless you count Beaumont and Vidor) so this is par for the course. Proud and also embarrassed to be from this state.
@Fred - twisted souls on this site we are. That's what draws us together and I LIKE IT!
WHORES
MB,
I stopped for gas in Ft. Stockton. That has to be close to the armpit of Texas (although very far away from Houston).
I spent a summer in Boostin' Houston a while back ('95) and I liked it. I understand why people don't like it, but it's got a character all it's own.
Downtown Houston is pretty wack though and so is MinuteMaid Park, which is next to downtown. It's all so desolate after 5pm
@RB - To be honest there are a few Texas armpits. Ft. Stockton being a West Texas armpit. At least it's not humid and much more like the scenery from No Country for Old Men. Houston is so humid.
As for Beaumont and Vidor which are close-by add the KKK element to it. Sad but true.
@Fred, there are parts of Houston that are pretty. Especially north in The Woodlands and up by Conroe. You will never get me to like Houston. I lived in Dallas for 27 years. It's sort of like the hatred between LA and San Francisco.
I think we have a Pre-GT going.
Yes, I do count Beaumont.
Post a Comment