This is probably the most important part of the story. I hope I can explain it well enough for readers to understand. It connects essential pieces of information together.
In the second half of Chapter 6, I wrote about how the song “One Slip” from the Pink Floyd album A Momentary Lapse of Reason reminded me of that awful night with Carl Palmer in December of ‘73.
Recently I heard something during the song “One Slip” from “Live Delicate Sound of Thunder 2019 remix” on the Official Pink Floyd youtube channel. At 5:02, I heard Gilmour say, “Expose…you have it all”. That means I was to expose Palmer for what he did to me. “You have it all” means that I could use the AMLOR song lyrics and artwork to prove it’s true. Gilmour was helping me tell about that night and get justice way back in ‘86 and onward. Now I do believe that AMLOR is a concept album also and a precursor to the TDB.
I didn’t know about or listen to the album A Momentary Lapse Of Reason (AMLOR) until after The Division Bell (TDB), and I was shocked. I couldn’t believe how “One Slip” brought back vivid memories of that creepy night with Palmer and two people. The song was meant to alert me in ‘86, but I didn’t get the message. I didn’t hear the song then.
Through the Pink Floyd newsgroup back in ‘95, I found out that the words Publius and Enigma were in the artwork for the 1994 MiniDisc release of A Momentary Lapse of Reason. The word “PUBLIUS” had been inserted into the photo of the man in the rye field. The word “ENIGMA” appears in the lower corner of the picture of the man standing on the edge of the cliff. I wrote about that earlier and showed the images. That was to alert me and other fans that there were clues within AMLOR lyrics and artwork.
During the song “Sorrow” from AMLOR, the lyrics “One world, one soul time pass, the river rolls” the drumbeat sounds just like the beat from Asia’s “Heat of the Moment.” And that’s when the clue of the pillars is shown on the screen behind the band during The Division Bell tour. (I explained that clue earlier) I think I already gave my interpretation of “Sorrow”song lyrics earlier in the story.
The first lines of the 1982 hit song “Heat of the Moment, by Palmer’s band Asia are “I never meant to be so bad to you.” On the original AMLOR album and the current 2017 Remix and Edit 2021, during “Sorrow,” listen at 4:21. After “One world, one soul time pass, the river rolls” there’s a break, and then you hear Gilmour speak the words “It’s not enough it’s not enough…to say I’m sorry”. Palmer’s apology with the song “Heat of the Moment” was not enough to excuse him for what he did to me. And, of course, Palmer isn’t listed as the writer of most Asia songs; that would be too obvious. It was his longtime friend John Wetton who wrote most of the Asia songs.
In a relatively recent interview on YouTube, when talking about the making of the AMLOR artwork, Gilmour said that he told Storm Thorgerson, the art director, that he wanted a picture frame without a photo in it, to sit on the nightstand next to the bed. That’s a clue to help me be believed when I tell this story.
In the album cover artwork for the 1987 AMLOR with the hospital beds on a beach, one man is sitting on a bed. In some earlier artwork, he’s breaking a stick in half, and in others, he’s holding a mirror. There is a maid shown carrying towels which could refer to a hotel.
The beach is a reference to the 1978 Emerson Lake & Palmer album called Love Beach. In some photos for the album, ELP are shown fully clothed, standing in water above their knees.
A Momentary Lapse of Reason was updated and remixed, and reissued as part of the Later Years box set released in December 2019. A standalone album was also released on 29 October 2021. On the cover of the most recent issue, it shows the beach covered in water from the tide, and the man on the bed is shown looking at the water that is rising over his ankles as though he knows he’s sinking fast.
There is an October 2021 YouTube “A Momentary Lapse of Reason Album Cover Shoot (2019 remix audio),” and the song “Signs of Life” is used.
When the child-like view of the world went, nothing replaced it… Nothing replaced it… Nothing replaced it…
I do not like being asked to… I do not like being asked to… I do not like being asked to…
Other people replaced it… Someone who knows
In Chapter 6, I tell the story about the hotel incident with Carl Palmer, the bed, and the other two people who were telling me to get into it and why they wanted me to. I was asked over and over by three people. That awful night my childlike view of the world went. Other people replaced it, and David Gilmour is the someone who knows and wrote about it all to help me get justice.
That horrid night, Palmer was desperate to get a photo of me in bed with him and another woman, most likely to be used to help his image and to defame me because I knew too much about him. I cried, got away, and no photo was taken. When you love someone, it’s a shock to be mistreated so badly in one moment.
It was awful. Those words in the song are distressing for me to hear, even after all these years. But they were meant to remind me about what happened and to expose Palmer for what he did. After the incident, I told Palmer he was perverted, and then I left that hotel room. I was brave and stood up for myself even after I felt embarrassed by crying so hard and feeling so devastated and heartbroken.
“Someone who knows.” I believe Gilmour was told about what happened, by our mutual friend Chris Adamson who worked for both Emerson Lake & Palmer and Pink Floyd. I stopped going to see Pink Floyd and Chris in 74. Chris might have wanted to know where I was. Maybe he saw me in the ELP Manticore film and realized I was being used as a beard by Palmer.
Greg Lake and Pete Sinfield wrote the Emerson Lake & Palmer song “Closer to Believing” in ‘77. The song is about a relationship that ends badly, and the woman’s world falls apart, but the guy supposedly still loves her and desperately wants her back. And it mentions a moment that changed everything between them.
“Though your world is torn apart. For a moment changes all things”. That part is true.
It should be really obvious now why Gilmour can’t say anything on my behalf before I get the story out. Palmer and his musician friends are the “Dogs of War”; they won’t negotiate or capitulate. They wanted me gone and my knowledge of them dead so that their fame and lies would live on because “discovery is to be disowned.” They unleashed love songs to find me like dogs of war are unleashed to kill.
I’m not a writer, but the song “Learning to Fly” makes me determined to try to tell the story.
Pink Floyd Fans keep wondering why the album A Momentary Lapse of Reason is being pushed on them so much over the years. It’s for a reason. Will Pink Floyd fans finally have open minds enough to believe Gilmour would help someone get justice? What’s so difficult to believe? It’s all there in the music. Just listen…
***
On 09/15/97, the messenger Genesis wrote in the Pink Floyd newsgroup, “A sharpe eye may even see the ringing of a new bell. +”.
In the next post of 09/30/97, he wrote, “If you follow the new “breathe,” you’re listening like never before. A=sharpe<)) eye may even see the ringing of a new bell”.
Next post on 10-13-97, Genesis wrote, “She may know more than you think -)). “A=sharpe<)) eye may even see the ringing of a new bell +”. And “Cross the new hurdle”
The song “Building a Mystery” by Sarah McLaughlin debuted in early September 1997. The lyrics “A cross from a faith that died before Jesus came” were important. Genesis put a + in his messages and the word cross. A “new bell” means a new song. Genesis gave hints about the song, and the song and video for “Building a Mystery” tell of the enigma mystery and how it was building.
The first name of the actor from the video is David. In the video, when Sarah investigates in his absence, she finds that he has been assembling a skirt so decorated as to be lit with stars. Also in the video are buildings that are lit up like dominoes. That refers to the song “Dominoes” by Syd Barrett and the lyrics “Don’t you want to see her proof?” There are many other lyrics in “Building a Mystery” that I can interpret. But I think Pink Floyd fans should know the clue “You’re so beautiful A beautiful fucked up man”. In the song “Lost for Words” from The Division Bell, the lyrics David Gilmour sings are “But they tell me to please go fuck myself. You know you just can’t win”.
Matt Mahurin directed the video but later disowned it with the Allen Smithee credit. Was David Gilmour continuing to help me tell the story by assembling rock stars with clues in their music? It had been going on too long to dismiss as coincidence. The clues had to be given to me and fans secretly. I had to be the one to tell the story first, but the fans weren’t about to believe me or help me get the story out. The media only cares about what the rock stars say and not what some unknown like me says.
I told the Pink Floyd fans newsgroup about it, but they had dissed me for so long, they weren’t about to believe anything I said. They would never admit they were wrong and that they bullied and mocked the person who was trying to tell them the story all along. I was working and building a mystery. I was holding on and holding the story in, but not anymore. I’m writing about it all. I know more than you think.
**
In 1996 I went to see The Who on the Quadrophenia tour. I was still writing to David Gilmour, and I told him that I’d be going to that concert. I wrote “Tell Pete thanks for not hitting me in the head with his guitar at the Grande Ballroom”. It was ’68 or ’69 that I was standing right at Townshend’s feet watching the show. Pete kept swinging his guitar around, and I ducked my head a few times. With the energy from the loud music with his speakers close to me, I almost fainted. We were so lucky as teens to witness these now-legendary bands up-close, like I wrote about at the beginning of this story.
So back to The Who concert in ’96 and in between songs, Pete started talking about Detroit and the Grande Ballroom. I can’t quote him exactly, but it was basically, “There’s a guy in the audience, and I hit him in the head with my guitar at the Grande Ballroom.” I immediately yelled “What!?” out loud. It was like Pete was talking to me. But, he changed the story around because he couldn’t say he almost hit a woman. That wouldn’t be cool. But from what he said, it was apparent that Gilmour got that letter, and he told Pete what I wrote. It was also something I could tell fans so they’d believe I was in contact with Gilmour.
Many fans who were at the concert still remember Pete Townshend saying that. Recently I saw a post on Facebook from a guy saying he heard Pete’s strange comments about the Grande Ballroom. I’m sure I told the Pink Floyd newsgroup about it, and of course, they didn’t care about anything I said.
It was around this time that I got a nasty response from the Pink Floyd fanzine Brain Damage Magazine. I wrote to them telling them as much as I could about the Enigma. They wrote about me in their next issue and said hurtful things. I won’t even repeat what they wrote. I kept a copy of it, though. But I am happy to say that it was their second from last issue of the printed version.
I wrote to Gilmour about it and asked if he would stop them, and it worked. After I wrote to him, only one more magazine issue was printed and sent to subscribers.
No one could ever imagine how I felt with this huge story to tell, and I had nowhere to tell it. I tried rock magazines, radio, and media, but they didn’t take me seriously. The minute I mentioned that I had a story about Pink Floyd, I was immediately brushed off, hung up on, and my letters to publishers went unanswered.
Gilmour gave me some album lyrics, artwork material, my voice on “Breathe,” and these kinds of clues to tell fans, so my story would be believed. That’s all he could do for me then and now. It’s always been up to me to get the story out, and it’s obvious he wants fans to help…
Publius Enigma Solved 