In October, 2006, we played to an intimate gathering at the Belly Up in Aspen. After our set, I went out to talk to anyone to wanted to say hi, and met someone who reported that the last time he’d seen us was at Carnegie Mellon on this date in 1995. A fairly dispiriting and disorganized daytime university show, I nonetheless remembered the afternoon vividly for what happened after we played. Backstage, so to speak, actually some campus room temporarily turned over to us, we were entertaining a local impresario, someone who had booked shows by many of our friends, though never us. He was proudly showing us a trombone he had found at our stage, obviously belonging to a member of the big band that had preceded us, uncovered when chairs and p.a. were taken away. We were appalled and told him he had to bring it back. But we were driving back to Hoboken that night, and didn’t stick around to find out if he did. Now, all these years later, I got the answer: He didn’t. I was having a conversation with the guy whose trombone had been stolen! My disbelief was in no way due to wondering how someone with one arm that ended at the elbow, as was the case with the person I was talking to, handled a trombone. I did something I never do, and told him that I’d like to bring him to the dressing room, that Georgia and James were sure to want to meet him, a bona fide celebrity in our band’s lore. He agreed, and told me that in fact he was something of a celebrity, but I admit it, I was barely listening. So we get backstage, a small room with Georgia, James, members of Why? and an oxygen tank (the altitude in Aspen can make you woozy if you’re not used to it). Georgia and James were as flabbergasted as I knew they would be. We had all sorts of questions about that day in 1995, but the guy was more interested in telling us what had happened to him more recently. Remember Aron Ralston, who was trapped by a boulder hiking by himself in Utah, and cut off his own arm, thereby saving his life? The guy who was played by James Franco in 127 Hours? Did you know he used to play the trombone? Of course, I have no way of knowing this for sure, but I suspect he never had and has never since told this story, after which the first question was “Did you ever get a new trombone?”
