Bad Jokes

Quite a number of years ago, the Seattle Symphony was doing Beethoven's 9th under the baton of Milton Katims. Now at this point you must understand two things:
  1. There's quite a long segment in the symphony where the basses don't have a thing to do; not a single note for page after page.
  2. There used to be a tavern called Dez's 400 right across the street from the Seattle Opera House; a favorite of local musicians.
It had been decided that during the performance, once the bass players had played their parts in the opening of the symphony they were to quietly lay down their instruments and leave the stage instead of sitting there awkwardly while they had nothing to do. Once they got backstage someone suggested they trot across the street and have a few drinks.

After a quick couple of rounds of drinks one bassist said, "Shouldn't we be getting back? It'd be quite embarrassing if we were late."
The bassist whose idea it was to go to the bar said, "Oh, I anticipated we could use a little more time, so I tied a string around the last pages of the conductor's score. When he gets down there, Milton's going to have to slow the tempo way down while he waves the baton with one hand and fumbles with the string with the other."

So they had another round and finally returned to the opera house, a little tipsy by now. However, as they came back on stage one look at their conductor's face told them they were in serious trouble. Katims was furious! After all, it was the bottom of the ninth, the basses were loaded, and the score was tied.
 
There's some movie lore that Back To The Future has an alternate ending where Doc Brown goes way back in time and establishes a community that gets named after him. Man Delorean
 
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