Bugs Bail to Bonham Beats
Mormon Crickets & Led Zeppelin -
April 29th, 2009
No longer reserved for dope-smokers and devil-worshippers, Led Zeppelin tunes are now being used as insect repellents against annoying arthropods in northern Nevada. Called Mormon crickets, the pests don’t only destroy crops and infiltrate homes: they may very well support the idea of plural marriage.
In 2006, a Tuscarora, Nevada, resident discovered that blasting hard rock helped drive the bugs away. To this day, blasting Zeppelin is the town’s best known method of keeping the little bastards at bay. Entomologists have yet to investigate whether this is due to the songs themselves, the music’s vibrations, or that fact that Mormon crickets just don’t like to rock out with their spermatophores out.
|
14
|
Otto Orkin’s age when he borrowed 50 cents from his folks to start his own company. Most boys his age were either cutting grass or building lemonade stands, but not Otto. No, he was whipping up a batch of his own high-test rat poison and selling it to farmers. Today, psychologists would think young Otto was a future serial killer, but back then he was just a-hustlin’. Today, Orkin’s pest-control business serves more than 1.6 million commercial and residential customers. |
I like heavy music, I call it rock. I like Zeppelin, I’ve only heard a couple you know, they’re okay.
 |
|
|
John Lennon, Beatle
|
 |
Apparently, Mormon crickets aren’t the only ones who aren’t crazy about Led Zeppelin.
 |
Coda
|
noun. 1. The concluding passage of a musical movement or composition. 2. Led Zeppelin’s ninth studio album, released two years after the band broke up.
Shield-backed katydids caused the famine that nearly wiped out the first Mormon settlement in Utah in 1847. After ravaging the wheat crops, the katydids (called Mormon crickets henceforth) were eventually devoured by hungry gulls. Today, a large sculpture of a Mormon cricket stands in Gilgal Sculpture Garden in Salt Lake City. Very weird.
 |
Any time is a good time to get the Led out. |
