The Notorious Tuba Incident
Foreshadowing? More like aftshadowing…
“I reckon Uncle Rudy got more than he bargained for.”
The early 2oth century music scene was alight with excitement, a never before seen enthusiasm swept over people like a hysteria driven by a then infant technology: recorded studio music and live performances. Frothing and frenzied, young upstart musicians gathered like packs of jackals at any opportunity to show off, or even sometimes feign their entertaining skills and creative abilities. Rife with competitiveness, one-ups-manship spiraled out of control, with the spectacle becoming ever more complex, and even dangerous.
For barely more than a tinpan of hot food and a brief moment in the glow of the spotlight, these young men and women were willing to risk certain humiliation, exploitation, their reputations, and sometimes even their teeth…
“He didn’t realize she held the World Record until it was too late.”
*farts for 3 full minutes straight on a single inhale*
Uncle Rudy never had any delusions of grandeur of flailing his way to fame, and he was already quite wealthy from his career as an advisor to the Governor. Indeed, he was the primary financial benefactor behind countless musical endeavors, from all of the instruments, the recording studios, to the live venues including the jazz club at the world famous Butthole County Fair (now a permanent venue called the Greasy Skillet Jazz Club, under the purview of the Butthole County Historical Society). It’s doubtful that he ever turned a profit, nor even intended or cared to, it seems he simply did it as a humanitarian gesture, although some of our research suggests that it may have been part of a much larger and far more complex prank that may have yet to come to fruition. Uncle Rudy lived only to laugh, and his jokes were never outcracked except for one time. A tragedy-turned-comedy known as The Tuba Incident.
Judy performing in pre-Castro Cuba as a sex magician
Rudy made a sport of rubbing elbows with the scrappy, whacked out riff-raff musicians that made up such amalgamous groups as the Rowdy Rudies and the countless satellite acts they spawned. While he never truly mastered any single instrument (though he could definitely pick a banjo), he loved to dabble a bit on all of them and sit in on recording seshes and live performances alike, picking up whatever random instrument left unplayed by the others and filling in the gaps. After all, he paid for all of them and damned if he was going to miss any chance to summon a wheezy guffaw! Seemingly austere at times Rudy would only rarely take the spotlight, preferring to cover as much ground as possible with his jokes and pranks by taking full advantage of the misdirection afforded to a tertiary character.
“Harken! Hear Ye! Hasten Hither for a Hullabaloo of Horn and Hind!”
Sound vs. Pound. Oom-Pah vs. Boom-Bah. Low Brass vs. Fine Ass. The Tubador vs. The Derriere.
Ascetic as he may have been, even he got caught up in the competitive frenzied, ever-present pressure to always push up against the boundaries: you either move the boundaries or you get squished. Egged on by no other than his own creative mania, Rudy took a wager with a shadow’s promise and bit off far more than he could ever chew: a contest known as a Brass ‘N’ Gas against the Ineffable Yet F-Able Judy Patootie.
The rules were simple: 2 musicians, 1 tuba. One blows in the small end of the tuba, while the other farts into the wide end. Whomstever could produce the louder, more powerful blast was the winner. *
Judy Patootie was also an excellent singer
“Now, Blow your foghorn in the wide end while I toot back.”
Judy Patootie had been kickin’ around various juke joints with the Rowdy Rudies at that point, and had established herself as the premier foghorning world record champion**, a title she had claimed merely months before Uncle Rudy unwittingly challenged her to a gusty duel. And she was still very much in prime fighting form! Rudy gave his most heartfelt attempt, indeed he was trying to “woo her bottom” with a brassy, bassy love song, thinking she would be an easy opponent to blow away. Matching his enthusiasm, Judy let out a (for her, rather modest) retort that reverberated through that tuba, concentrating down smaller and more compressed as it travelled backwards through the hefty horn. The results for poor Uncle Rudy were devastating: the shockwave of the focused blast completely shattered and destroyed all of his teeth instantly.***
“All’s I’m Sayin’ is that ‘She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain’ is Clearly Referring to a Lady Orgasmin’.”
“…’She’ll be shoutin’ Hallelujah when she comes!’? C’mon, man!”
It would seem ironic, or at least unexpected, to a casual observer that Rudy had been planning for this moment for many years, though probably not for reasons you might guess. A chronic jokester and habitual line-stepper, Uncle Rudy knew that it was an inevitability reaching near certainty that one day he would land a scathing wisecrack on the wrong Rudie, and deservedly get the teeth punched out of his mouth. Eastern philosophers use Uncle Rudy’s story as a prime example of the consequences of running up one’s karmic debts, and they point out that Rudy lost every single tooth at once. Mere punching couldn’t accomplish this, not in one shot like how Judy did it.
“Please Perceive, Plebeian: Proper Prior Planning of Preposterous Proportions Prevents Premature, Piss-Poor Pranks.”
Over a decade in the prototyping, a very special set of false teeth were custom crafted by the finest orthodontic engineers this side of the Mississippi, at that time. In their workshops and laboratories they toiled, financed by a wild eyed madman with a single goal: laughter. Of course this meant a finely tuned, ‘space-aged” decades ahead of its time engineered version of novelty wind-up chatter teeth. A unique alloy of reclaimed mine rails and diamond aero gel, Rudy’s chattering choppers were over-engineered yet nearly indestructible mastercrafts, able to withstand a steam locomotive straight to the face.
It was said that he could simply wind one of his ears to spring load the chattering mechanism, then tongue a button on the roof of his mouth to activate the obnoxious chattering. Always ten steps ahead, Rudy had several working models to choose from after the Tuba Incident pulverized his real teeth, replete with features ranging from the ability to mimic smells, play as notes on a xylophone, or even breathe flames! Meticulous planning paid off big in what would have been a tragic disaster; all-in it took about a week for Uncle Rudy to recover enough to go about his day to day antics, and after a month he was back to it, rejuvenated and worse than ever before.
Morose with guilt, Judy Patootie finally mustered the courage to face the poor, broken shell of a man she had hurt so much, her woeful cloud made heavier knowing she destroyed an iconic smile of a legendary jokeman. Even more, Rudy owned the club, studio, all the instruments & equipment, paid for all the catering, and was a hero to the swarthy ranks of Rowdy Rudies she was part of. Surely he would be a bitter, resentful, angry mess that would hold it against her forever. Or so she thought…
“He didn’t care about getting his teeth punched out anymore, and got ten times worse.”-Aunt Judy at her wedding speech
Aunt Judy, bespectacled & bedazzled at her wedding to Uncle Rudy
It was almost as if something resolved within him, as if some solution had miraculously appeared absolving a lifelong dread. In a sense, she had freed Rudy from the ever-present specter of getting his snarky mouth punched through the back of his head. Unable to resist any and all chances to crack a joke, no matter how awful or distasteful, Uncle Rudy lived on the razor’s edge of maniacal hilarity. He existed in the spirit of the joker card, wild and untethered, able to beat any comers, matched only by another rare joker. Sometimes that makes certain types of people really angry, enough to flip the card table over then shit their pants from the exertion and go home crying, then their girlfriend comes over later crying and apologizing to everyone, basically just a huge mess.
“Her whistle was the sweetest sound I’d ever heard. I can still hear it ringin’ in my head after all these years.”-Uncle Rudy at Judy’s Country Music Hall Of Flatulence award ceremony
Enabled by his newly installed lease on life, Rudy’s confidence and energy were palpable. His swagger was more swanky, his ribaldry even raunchier, and Judy just couldn’t resist. She fell in love with him harder than a banana cream pie right in the vagina. Soon thereafter they were married in the Butthole County Fair Wedding Chapel & Tattoo Parlor, and well you know how the rest of that story goes…Yet still, there’s a tiny frayed loose end, a nagging insistence that smacks of a well hidden riddle…perhaps.
It’s for you to discern on your own, dear reader, because even this author has to wonder: did Uncle Rudy plan it all along?
Fun Facts about the Tuba Incident:
- The Tuba Incident featured prominently in the design considerations of what are now modern workplace safety regulations, and would be pivotal in the formation of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Brass ‘N’ Gas events have evolved into ensembles, rather than competitions.
- The original tuba, aptly named “The Incident Tuba“, is displayed as the centerpiece of the historical collection at the Greasy Skillet Jazz Club at the Butthole County Fair.
- Fragments of Rudy’s original teeth were discovered by our tenacious research team, enough so that we were able to obtain sufficient viable DNA to get a nearly complete mapping of his genes, made possible through the efforts of our dedicated team of geneticists at our Genetics Research Facility in Antarctica.
- We are pleased to soon be offering miniaturized Uncle Rudy clones! Take home a clone of your very own some day by Signing Up to our Newsletter, or fastrack it with the Miniaturized Clone Waiting List.
* Our research revealed that the Brass ‘N Gas competitive circumference peaked at the Tuba Incident and slowly tapered off, to eventually become a more cooperative ensemble where participants were judged on harmony and composure. This was due to the shockwave of fear that went rippling through the musician community after the Tuba Incident, resonating as not only the talk of the town, but of the ‘hole county.
** Foghorning, also colloquially known as ‘hog-whistling’ in certain local parlance, is the art of sucking air in through the rectum, and then sort of “whistling”, in tune. “Fog” referring to the ‘inhaled’ air, and “horning” to the subsequent blast. Skilled foghorners were up there with cowboy ballad whistlers in their ability to evoke deep emotions of a difficult road ahead, or homesickness for a place that never existed. Judy held the world record for being able to sustain the longest, loudest “note” on a single “breath”, in perfect pitch. (author’s note: the title has since been claimed several times since Judy, butt is currently held by Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty. Onika’s myriad contributions to the music world have gilded her posterior in the halls of the Lost Library of Congress.)
*** Our research uncovered an interesting fact, based on Judy’s publicly available competitive foghorning stats, the data indicate that during the Tuba Incident debacle, she used barely 10% of her potential power level. Data indicates that 30% of her blasting potential would have the crushing power of a saltwater crocodile’s bite, at 50% it would have liquified his skeleton, and at 80% and above, the laws of physics start to blur into quantum calculations. The maths show objectively that Rudy was lucky to have walked away from that only having lost his teeth.
