Whistles through Customs?

AnnaDMartinez · Post by **AnnaDMartinez** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 4:04 pm

Has anybody had a problem with this? Just wondering.

MarkB · Post by **MarkB** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 4:09 pm

Hi Anna

None of us in the Windsor, Ontario, Canada, or our friends coming from the Detroit area have had problems with their/our musical instruments, crossing the border.

Both agents on either side of the border are more worried about proper photo ID, and birth certificates etc., and your destination has to be precise. "Not" just going to travel hither and yon.

Mark

AnnaDMartinez · Post by **AnnaDMartinez** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 4:14 pm

Whoops, my mistake, thanks for the good information, but what I really meant, other than putting my foot in my mouth, is: "Has anybody had a problem with customs when sending it via Express Mail?"

MarkB · Post by **MarkB** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 4:35 pm

You should never whistle while going through customs. You will draw to much attention to yourself. The agents have no --- repeat--- NO SENSE of Humour--even before September 11th.

Some people in this world -- the unenlighten, think whistling is a bad custom and think us whistlers are more like terrorists with musical instruments.

Mark

_________________
"In any corner of the earth where solitude and imagination go hand in hand, people learn soon enough to love music."
Stendhal (1783-1842) Life of Rossini

[ This Message was edited by: MarkB on 2001-10-11 18:37 ]

AnnaDMartinez · Post by **AnnaDMartinez** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 5:01 pm

Ah, Mark, I've experienced the "Whistler Terrorist" syndrome all summer here in Deadwood and I was just playing in the street and trolley stops (and giving whistles away). The second time I almost got busted for making free music, I gave a SweeTone to a lovely kid who was enjoying it, up crept the cop car, and the bald-headed, bullnecked gorilla called the KID over and asked her (poor kid was scared half to death) if I had SOLD her the whistle! I probably should not have bawled that cop out but at 55, I think I'm entitled to take on a whippersnapper now and again! He threatened me with an "verbally assulting an officer," bust. Guess what? There's no law here in SD that's aginst it! This place is outrageous, and I got bawled out by other folks who don't live here for calling him a Nazi! All summer, and maybe they will be making a law against giving whistles to little kids who end up in casinos twiddling their thumbs while their parents throw away nickles and quarters. I consider myself a guerilla warrior here, and will keep giving whistles away and running from the coppers. Makes me want to use the 1968 definition of "Pig" again! However, on the legal buskers day here, I cleaned up, made some good money. Then again, I'm the only musican around here whose weapon holds up to wet and cold without damaging it. It only took me three days to straighten my frozen fingers out, and a few days to heal the blisters on my lip. It's pretty scary and pretty silly, all at the same time.

_________________
Let it shine!

[ This Message was edited by: Anna Martinez on 2001-10-11 19:04 ]

livethe question · Post by **livethe question** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 5:13 pm

Anna,

How about if we pick some weekend and a bunch of us come up and do a "whistle in". It'll drive them crazy. We can all gather in one place and then split up and go to different places in town. If we all get busted we can pack the jail and practice our fingerings on our "air whistles". They'll soon let us go 'cause they won't know what to do with all us crazies. It'll have to be next year for me. I'm still healing after breaking my leg and wrist down on the Pine Ridge Reservation back in June. What do you think? A whistle in next spring or maybe at the summer solstice?

MarkB · Post by **MarkB** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 5:15 pm

Hi again Anna

Your double five, so am I, last month.

It seems that by your last post here, you need some kind of incursion in Deadwood ---well a tinwhistle convention anyways, a stealth action disguised as a social gathering.

While one group of whistlers is being harassed by the p---, another group pops up on another corner, and so on and so on. We could pool our money and pass out Sweetones.

How many are of them. They couldn't watch every corner.

Mark

AnnaDMartinez · Post by **AnnaDMartinez** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 5:50 pm

Yucky Poo! Sorry about the double posts!

[ This Message was edited by: Anna Martinez on 2001-10-11 20:02 ]

AnnaDMartinez · Post by **AnnaDMartinez** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 6:01 pm

[quote]
On 2001-10-11 19:50, Anna Martinez wrote:
GAD! I love you guys! Yep, I think we should have a Whistle-In here in Deadwood! The solstice sounds great! My living room is small and people would be sleeping on the floor, but I'm a great cook! There's one little main street about five city blocks long, and they town has a population of 1,500 but swells in the summer with the tourists. I think a large part of the problem is that the casino owners are afraid that street musicians will keep people in the streets rather than the casinos. There a couple of sympathetic casino owners and one green beer Irish hotel owner who would help us with a staging area and a place to duck and run and who would claim us all as unpaid employees! The only limitation would be NOT selling any CD's on the street. We'd have to make some friends inside a casino and let them do it! We could ride all over town and play on the trolleys, too!

Jim, heal up, soon. I'll make sure you won't have to run! Mark, lets do it! Whistler's come to Deadwood! Liberate whistlers!

And, not so incidentally for me, somebody else to play whistle with, after being the lone whistler here for ages! (...and Oh, yeah...I'm a genius at PR and media coverage!)

If nothing else, it's really pretty here, and a nice place to be for a couple of days, and you can mooch your way eating through the casinos for next to nothing.

_________________
Let it shine!

[ This Message was edited by: Anna Martinez on 2001-10-11 20:04 ]

LKtz · Post by **LKtz** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 6:10 pm

I want to come too!

Only problem I highly dought my overprotective parents would let me fly across the USA to go to a whistlers "Liberation" party

Caryn

AnnaDMartinez · Post by **AnnaDMartinez** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 6:59 pm

Caryn, you can support it via a GrannyMouse whistler's circle from afar if your parents won't let you visit an old lady like me!

[ This Message was edited by: Anna Martinez on 2001-10-11 21:03 ]

LittleMy · Post by **LittleMy** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 7:00 pm

Hee hee. That whistle-in sounds like fun.

"Busted for making free music," indeed. They should give street musicians an award for urban beautification.

AnnaDMartinez · Post by **AnnaDMartinez** » Thu Oct 11, 2001 7:11 pm

I didn't tell you guys the one about the gun fighter who took too long to die in the middle of the street, did I? Anyhow, a few of the re-enactors managed to take over the middle of the street for short periods last summer, complete with horse pistols and bull whips, I can just see a whole string of whistlers walking down the middle of main street whistlin' "Dixie!" They keep trying to get these gunslingers to stop, but can't, but oh. would they look silly trying to crack a whistler or fifty. Oh. yeah, ther's a number of Native American flute players who would enjoy this, too! There's a law here that says you can shoot on sight if you spot two or more Indian's in town because it might be a war party! Of course last summer, it was the Gun-In with the re-enactors at Kevin Costner's casino. There were seven people with 37 guns, and they all plopped the guns on the bar, and the poor manager was simply blown away! Funny, they let German tourists in shaggy chaps in with thier cap guns, but not world champion mounted shooters and world champion gunfighters! Not that I like gun play, but wouldn't it be much nicer if it were whsitles instead of guns?

Kelhorn Mike · Post by **Kelhorn Mike** » Fri Oct 12, 2001 8:55 am

On a somewhat related note a customer of
ours once pointed out that plastic
whistles (and its true for all wooden
whistles as well) don't set off airport metal detectors. A fairly insignificant
advantage over metal whistles that I'd
never thought about before.

Kelhorn Mike

StevePower · Post by **StevePower** » Fri Oct 12, 2001 3:22 pm

The theme of this thread seems to have moved away slightly from the original question, but assuming it is still relevant....

I regularly mail whistles to the USA, Europe and other parts of the world from Ireland. To get them through US customs, I put a green sticker on the tube (some on this board will have seen those very stickers) stating the type and price of the item in the tube, and signing the form to declare that it is not hazardous etc.

So far, I'm not aware that any tubes have been opened and the mailing times are fairly consistent - so it seems that they do not have any special problems getting through cutoms. I DO hope though (in the interests of all our security) that they are being x-rayed and I wouldn't mind if they are opened.

Take care

Steve