Five-Year Old Child Prodigy Channeling Frank Zappa

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Ezra and Zoe Weinbaum of Hollywood, Florida are finally ready to accept the fact that they may just have a child prodigy on their hands. Their son, Zach, has shown musical talent almost since he was able to coo, and now he has taken up the strange activity of turning his bicycle upside down and playing it as an instrument.

A young Frank Zappa, who was another child prodigy, plays bicycles as instruments.
A young Frank Zappa plays bicycles as instruments on The Steve Allen Show.

“We bought him that bike for Christmas this past year, when Zach was four,” said dad, Ezra, “and we put training wheels on it so we could teach him how to ride it. Almost immediately, he demanded we take the training wheels off.”

Zoe chimed in, “At that point, we thought, ‘wow, Zach is going big boy on us pretty fast,’” she said smiling. “Little did we know our child had no intention of ever getting on that bike to ride it.”

Instead, say the Weinbaums, Zach found an old pair of knitting needles in his mom’s sewing basket, went outside to the bike, turned it upside down, and began to play songs on the spokes of the tires.

“We were flabbergasted,” said Ezra. “We wondered if our son was somehow ‘different’ than all the other kids on the block.”

Zoe says her mom, Eva came over one day and noticed Zach in the garage ‘playing the bike’ as usual and threw her hands to her face “Oi vey, where did he learn to do that?,” Eva asked?

“I don’t know,” replied Zoe. “He just started doing it. We have no idea what would make him do such a thing. He refuses to ride that bicycle but will come out here most of the day and find ways to make it sound like music. We are stumped.”

“I’ve seen this done before,” said Eva, “on an old television show in the 60’s called The Steve Allen Show. I watched a young musician named Frank Zappa play two bicycles as a drum set, a horn, and even a cello. I think Zach may be channeling Zappa.”

The two women looked at each other in disbelief. “I don’t believe I know who Frank Zappa is,” said Zoe.

“My God,” said Eva, ignoring her daughter’s ignorance of the genius that was Frank Zappa. “If this is true, your lives are going to change forever.”

Eva smiled. “So? He becomes famous, what’s so bad in that?”

“No, no, “said Eva, “have you ever heard Frank Zappa play the cello on the spokes of a bicycle tire?”

P. Beckert
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