The pig has landed and it ain’t pretty

Editor's Notebook

By Jamie Bate, jbate@sierrasun.com
May 1, 2008

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Those of you scouring the horizon for a giant flying pig — and $10,000 — can stand down.

As reported here in Wednesday’s Sierra Sun, pigs indeed do fly — at least one as tall as a two-story house and as wide as two school buses. That giant inflatable porker was trotted out during a Roger Waters gig at the Coachella music festival in Indio, Calif. last weekend. Although the big pig was being tended by a crew holding ropes, it ended up floating off.

Festival organizers offered a $10,000 reward plus four Coachella tickets for life for the safe return of Roger’s pig.

But when things go bad for a huge inflatable pig, don't expect it to be pretty. The helium-filled swine was found in tattered halves in the yards of two couples a few miles from the festival grounds, according to the Associated Press.

On Tuesday, the pieces of the plastic carcass were examined. To make sure it was the same swine and not another giant inflatable pig, investigators looked for the words “Don't be led to the slaughter” written on it and a cartoon of Uncle Sam holding two bloody cleavers. The other side reads “Fear builds walls” and the underside reads “Obama” with a checked ballot box.

“That's definitely our pig,” festival producer Bill Fold concluded with certainty.
Susan Stoltz found a plastic heap in her driveway Monday, but said she didn't know what it was until she read about the missing pig in the local newspaper.

“My kids are going to think I'm so cool,” she said.

Another resident of the same neighborhood, Judy Rimmer, said she found a piece of the pig draped over a front-yard plant.

The two couples will split the ten-grand cash reward, Fold said.

And the rest of us can now definitively say that pigs can fly.

Jamie Bate is the editor of the Sierra Sun. Reach him at jbate@sierrasun.com.