The Musical Concern
Robert Pollard
Elephant Jokes
(August 11, 2009 – GBV Inc.)

Imagine you’re a rice farmer in rural India – a young, second-generation farmer with a family to feed and scary story to tell. Your father told it to you just as his father told it to him. Once every 48 years the gates of Hell swing wide, unleashing an uncontrollable horde of ravenous rats. They appear suddenly, and in the space of a few hours ravage your crop, leaving your paddy stripped clean, your prospects bleak.

As much as it might appear to be a plague straight from the Bible, truth is, it’s all about bamboo. Once every 48 years the bamboo plant makes a grand play at reproduction. The stalks fruit, the fruit drops, and the seeds therein scatter; thus the circle of bamboo life continues. This fruit is abundant; it’s been 47 years since the last drop! And since bamboo reproduction only gets two shots per century, "abundant" may be construed as an understatement.

The rice farmer’s wife gathers a basketful, cuts it into chunks, and boils it in a soup – a soup that is also a powerful aphrodisiac. There’s still plenty to be had, so the rats get in on the fodder. They literally gorge and screw like there’s no tomorrow. With extra-sexy food at the ready, the rodent population sores to a bazillion overnight, and guess what? All the bamboo fruit is soon devoured; leaving a swarming, hungry, flood of vermin to do what they must: eat the rice.

So goes the handiwork of Nature: repulsive, magical, and awesome.

It’s a proven, scientific fact that the natural forces at play in the rice fields of India are the exact same as those swimming in the chemical soup of Robert “Bob” Pollard’s brain. Even so, many would prefer a blind eye in the face of science. Many would love a single-word study.

Prolific.

Now we’re talkin’!

Bamboo, the Pied Piper of Famine (A year ago today)

JH