From: crisisweasel@gmail.com   
      
   [------------------------------------------------------------------------   
   --]   
      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   
    [-----------------------------------------------------------------------   
    ---]   
      
           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   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)