AUDIO: THE WINTERS, CALIFORNIA PIANO DROP
New York City drops a ball, Atlanta, Georgia drops a peach, Mobile, Alabama drops a moon pie, so why not a piano? The town of Winters, California, has a tradition of dropping an old, discarded piano each year. This year’s drop was last Saturday (December 3). After a mini-memorial service during which organizers play Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces,” the instrument was raised 60 feet off the ground by a crane and then dropped, smashing to the asphalt below. Kids even gather afterward to collect the broken bits. Roughly 350 attendees watched this year’s drop. The event is overseen by the Winters City Council. Council member Bruce Guelden said that he considered this year’s drop a success because “nobody died.”
(video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4TJPczbRJw)
* That’s totally Looney Tunes.
* Have they ever considered switching to accordions?
* It was a success because nobody died? Makes you wonder what happened last year.
* 350 attendees ’cause the rest of the town has a life.
* For you younger people, a piano was an early form of synthesizer.
* Dropping a piano – that’s a hell of a note.
* Call it an E-splat.
* If it wasn’t a discarded piano, it is now.
* From Chopsticks to kindling.
* Splinters in Winters.
* It’s like the finale of “Two and a Half Men”, without the fun of Charlie Sheen being under the piano.
* I liked these stunts better when David Letterman used to do them.
CLIP: Woman sings “I Fall To Pieces”, followed by the (poorly produced) piano crashing.
