There is a great party trick you can do with those old five gallon corboys that you see in antique stores. They're like water-cooler bottles but glass, old style. You take two pints of 70 pecent Isoprophyl alchohol (life they rub on your arm before a shot) and dump them both inside after you've washed it out and let it dry.

The fumes are constantly evaporating and they huddle at the top beneath the opening. Lay the coboy on its' side and roll it so the alchohol (or everclear is good) coasts the inside. Then you rotate the bottle getting the fluid in the bottom swirling and allowing the top to spin around in your hand.

Then you can light it one of two ways. If you've never done this before I'd suggest a coathanger with a roach-clip on the end. (when you get better you'll learn how to drop matches in without frying your hand) Strike your clamped match and then take your "L" shaped lighter and slowly dip it into the corboy after the prep I suggested.

What will happen is the Isoprophyl fumes will ignite in one of two ways. Either a bubbling layer of blue flame that will slowly decend to the bottom or if you've spun it right you will get a mind-blowing blue tornado of fire that will dance up and down. The layered effect is accompanied by a low whistle noise like you get when you blow over the top of a bottle. But it's really loud. The tornado effect doesn't give-off much noise but both will also shoot a jet of blue flame about five inches out the top, so keep your hand and face from looking down at it or something stupid. I showed this trick to one moron who used a little gasoline and pliers and flamed the skin off his hand.

NOW...you can do this with the corboy very close to you or even between your legs, but you must keep your hand ready for when the fire goes out. Usually before the whistling, bubbling and flame jet cease, the flame will jump back and forth in an unreal hick-up effect that is like a strobe light BA! BA! BA! BA! BA!...and if you have done it with the lights out, everyone in the room will be fucking amazed.

So once the bottle has done its' last hiccup you want to immediately place your palm over the top to keep the vaccuum inside. The bottle will suck down on your hand, but it doesn't hurt (the flame has burnt out all of the available oxygen thus creating a vaccuum) Keeping the ceal tight, roll the bottle again, and then do the rotation I described before while popping your hand up a little with every other rotation. It's go Fissssst! The air will spin down inside and if you've done it right the second one is usually better than the first.

If all your spinning is as I described, you can get a one-inch wide tornado in the very center that will bulge out at the top going FOOOOF! FOOOOF! FOOOOF! (this is how this party trick get it name "The Funt Bottle") Once you're an expert you can do a series of three or four before you have to stop. What will make it stop is the collection of gasses from its' burning which are heavier than the Isoprophyl fumes. So when it gets like that trying to light it with either the roach-clip way or just dropping matches in won't work. The carbon monoxide gas will extinguish the match be fore it can light the fumes.

So...when it stops lighting, put the bottle in the corner for 15 minutes or so and the evaporating vaors of the alchohol will force the carbon monoxide gas out. Then it's ready to go again. If you do the dropping matches method just be sure to drop it in with your fingers no higher than the top of the bottle and you'll have no worries. The only bad side-product of dropping matches in is that it wil pollute the alchohol eventually to the point that it's contaminated and won't light at all.

Now...I've been doing this for 20 years. As long as the bottle is straight up and down when you light it you'll have no worries. Purer alchohol will work even better but I'd get familiar with how to do this before you go to the next step. The farthest I've safely done this was with Everclear and using a fireplace bellows for about ten seconds (geting a purer air-gas mixture) before we lit it. It was still when it was lit. It was wobbling in circles at its' base when it stopped. And everyone was hiding behind shit in the garage. For a bunch of guys who had done this hundreds of times it was scary. So push the envelope with caution.

Now before I finish this I'll tell you about one that didn't go right. I was in a friend's apartment and saw that he had a corboy. I asked him, "Do you have any rubbing alchohol?" and explained the funt bottle to him. He said "Yah! Right here!" and passed me some of what I thought was Isoprophyl alchohol. .....it wasn't...... it was METHYL alchohol. I did all the right preps and told him what would happen. Then I dropped the match in....

I knew something was bad when I could peel the over-pressure of the blast comming at me. I had just enough time to close my eyes and rotate my head a little before the thing DETONATED right between my legs. It blew a hole all the way through the carpet, the undermat and into the wood below. It also set his couch and my head on fire. Luckily he had a fire-extinguisher and blaster me an then the couch. Neither of us could say anything for about ten seconds. We just stared at this crater in the middle of his living-room. The blast had complely disintigrated the corboy except for the very bottom. And it was between my legs when it went off.

If not for the protection of leather chaps anf motorcycle jacket I think I could have easily killed myself. THANKS FOR THE RUBBING ALCHOHOL MOTHERFUCKER! I yelled at my friend. He bitched about what I had done to his floor. Upon closer examination all of my leathers had dozens of slices that went almost all the way through. I made it out with a cut thumb some singed hair and a parable to tell.

Isopropyl GOOD. Methyl BAD!...VERY BAD! Use some caution and you'll have some really kick-ass fun.


Swazzie