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   ooooo   ooooo  .oooooo.  oooooooooooo       HOE E'ZINE RELEASE #523
   `888'   `888' d8P'  `Y8b `888'     `8 
    888     888 888      888 888              "Memories with Pink-Floyd"
    888ooooo888 888      888 888oooo8                
    888     888 888      888 888    "             by Ashtray Heart
    888     888 `88b    d88' 888       o               3/21/99
   o888o   o888o `Y8bood8P' o888ooooood8
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        One thing that amuses me is pondering the sheer number of kooks who
 attach themselves to the rock band "Pink Floyd".  Let me tell you about
 some I've seen.

        * Rob "Space Ace" Hulsart.  As best I can tell, his angle is that
          Pink Floyd, and Dark Side of the Moon, are conected to the "face
          on Mars", and that the Floyd are harbingers of extraterrestrial
          intelligence.

        * "Fat Chants".  This strange soul believes that not only was Pink
          Floyd's tireless drug advocacy so suppressed by "The Man" that
          they had to resort to oblique symbolism, but that the Floyd were
          rock and roll's standard bearers of the Crowleyan occult movement.
          His primary source for this is the lyric "Green fields, a cold
          rain is falling in a golden dawn", from a very nice, bucolic, and
          utterly obscure Pink Floyd song, "A Pillow Of Winds", from their
          _Meddle_ album.  "Golden Dawn" happens to be the name of an occult
          tradition, FYI.

        * Stan.  He runs the self-proclaimed "MOST IMPORTANT MUSIC SITE ON
          THE NET!" (caps his).  What he's trying to say is sort of
          nebulous, but he apparently believes there is a giant conspiracy,
          hinted at by almost every rock and roll band in existence, to
          replace all TRUE fans of the progressive rock band "Camel" with
          mind-controlled alien clones.  In this vision, obscure US prog
          group Happy the Man are linked to pornographers are linked to
          Brave Combo are linked to "Weird Al" Yankovic are linked to Pink
          Floyd, via of course the synch between Dark Side of the Moon and
          the Wizard of Oz.  Which brings us to...

        * Andrew Wendland, "the Synch Master".  This Australian chap
          believes that the ultimate truth about reality is revealed by
          listening to Pink Floyd albums while watching movies apparently
          chosen at random, and he will scorn as a heretic anybody who tries
          to convince him otherwise.

        * Denise Sharpe.  The queen of all kooks, and the only one here to
          inspire an entire "FAQ" -- actually in this case FUQ, but you get
          the drift.  She believes that the last, decidedly humdrum, Pink
          Floyd album, "The Division Bell", was part of a series of personal
          messages from Pink Floyd guitar player Dave Gilmour, who is either
          madly in love with her or out to make her life hell, depending on
          which day you catch her on.  She also believes Gilmour has
          communicated with her through a number of other means, including
          the TV show "The Simpsons" and, most notably, by inserting green
          hats in selected boxes of "Lucky Charms" cereal.  What else has
          Gilmour told her?  Mostly that prog-rock drummer Carl Palmer, of
          the recently defunct (finally!) band Emerson, Lake, and Palmer,
          is gay, and is involved in a relationship with Sting.  Why Sting?
          As far as I can ascertain, because Sting's wife is "ugly".

        Denise is one of many to have latched onto a very bizarre and
 disturbing series of conspiracies known collectively as the "Publius
 Enigma".  The source of this "Enigma" has never been revealed, but the
 best guess thus far is that it was started by a member of Pink Floyd or
 someone close to them as a joke -- a joke that has long since been
 abandoned.  Basically, an anonymous poster using anon.penet.fi started
 hinting at hidden profound meanings to the band's last album, "The Division
 Bell", shortly after its release in 1994.  Floyd fans, sick of the lyrical
 vapidity that had been the Floyd's trademark since lyricist & bassist
 Roger Waters departed in 1983, eagerly grabbed on to the chance that the
 album's lyrics might not actually be as colossally STUPID as they seemed.
 When the predictions of "Publius", the anon poster, were validated during
 Floyd's stage show, interest in the Enigma rose to record levels.

        But nothing more came of it.  Publius trailed off into silence, and
 eventually the server he used was shut down by the Scientologists.
 Imposters, none credible, popped up to fill the void.  Gradually, the sane
 fans lost interest.

        That still left quite a few fans, however.  Aside from the
 aforementioned Denise, a few kooks popped up with a uniquely religious
 take on the Enigma.

        Voluminous bible quotations in toe, Norm (his last name eludes me
 for the moment) put forth the theory that the Enigma was closely related
 to the coming apocalypse, and the prize none other than the kingdom of
 heaven.  Witih his Fundamentalist Christian take on things, he went over
 with a bang in the generally blasphemous Floyd newsgroup.  Compared to
 others, though, Norm appeared a paragon of sanity.

        Not so Sandra "Sandy" Benson.  With the help of a few others, she
 perpetrated a massive fraud on credulous Enigma followers stunning in its
 audaciousness and, for a time, its successfulness.

        Sandy set herself up as an alternative to the loudmouthed,
 irreverent, and aggressively casual fans on the Floyd newsgroup (motto:
 "They're just a fucking rock and roll band.").  Sandy offered an ordered
 and polite vision of Floyd fandom -- one that respected new possibilities
 instead of skeptically mocking them, and one that, most tellingly,
 conformed nicely to the Puritan ideal.  Those tired of being made fun of
 for their interests could repair to her strictly regulated outpost, where,
 if you gave sufficient adulation and awe to Sandy, you would be welcomed
 as one of the True Believers.

        Her message?  Gilmour had become a devoted Christian, and was
 working on a new album and tour that minute!  All lies, of course -- but
 like the Enigma, she was saying what the fans wanted to hear.  However, she
 couldn't -- and didn't have the sense to -- vanish at the height of her
 popularity, unlike Publius.  She also couldn't back up her claims.
 Eventually, Sandy began making more and more outlandish claims -- and
 demands.  When pressed, she offered only the flimsiest evidence to support
 her claims, and even that evidence was faked.  Badly.  She started
 claiming that Gilmour regularly flew across the Atlantic in his
 single-engine plane to visit her.  She provided a signature -- forged --
 and a soundfile of a new "Pink Floyd" song recorded by someone who couldn't
 even tune a fucking guitar.  With claims that ridiculous, it was only a
 matter of time before her fall.

        So what is it that draws so many freaks, motherfuckers, and
 undifferentiated lunatics to Pink Floyd?  Part of it is the music.  Any
 band of that stature -- the Beatles, Led Zeppelin -- is bound to draw its
 share of kooks.  Hell, the Bech Boys attracted Charles Manson.  Music is a
 window to the soul, something that touches us where nothing else can, and
 it is easy for the lost and forlorn of this world to interpret it as
 something more.  Part of it is the subject matter -- Pink Floyd have always
 been closely aligned with madness.  So, then, it is not difficult to see
 how the cracked might see an affinity with their music.  Part of it will
 simply remain a mystery -- unquantifiable, never meant to be touched by
 human minds.  So it must be, so it shall be.  Pass me my toothbrush.

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 [ (c) !LA HOE REVOLUCION PRESS!  #523, WRITTEN BY: ASHTRAY HEART - 3/21/99 ]
