Uneducated Former Children Sue Pink Floyd

he disturbingly enduring English space-rock band Pink Floyd has come under fire this week, thanks to a lawsuit filed by twenty former children who sang on the band’s 1979 hit “Another Brick in the Wall.� According to lawyers for the now-adults, Floyd never paid them for their services, and also didn’t bother to use them on the band’s 1983 follow-up The Final Cut, which sucked hard because of it.

“These children gave minutes of their time, time that could have been spent in the classroom learning about fish, to contribute to this album, with only years of local notoriety and a permanent place in rock ‘n roll history as their reward,� explained the former-children’s lawyer, Theodore Chuck. “It’s time this injustice was rectified, and by that I don’t mean ‘put up your bum.’ As I’ve explained to my clients time and time again, that’s not what ‘rectified’ means.�

While recording the track for their hugemongously successful 1979 album The Wall, Floyd’s management recruited the children from nearby Islington Green School, offering the school’s music teacher Alun Renshaw 1,000 pounds and “a shot at Debra,� a reference to one of the band’s roster of loose groupies. The teacher insists that aside from getting his rocks off with the Floyd groupie, he wasn’t compensated in any way for the children’s appearance on the album. The 1,000 pounds apparently went to the school itself, which it reportedly spent on adding windows to the grim, lightless building which had originally been used as a slaughterhouse.

“We were just going to go over how they make pickles that day,� explained Renshaw. “So I figured what the hell.�

School officials were mortified when they discovered their students’ involvement in a song with the lyrics “We don’t need no education, we don’t need no thought control, no dark sarcasm in the classroom – teachers leave them kids alone.�

“We just thought they were terribly hackneyed,� explained Islington’s headmistress Margaret Maden. “And at the time we were worried that this song would inspire British children to take less interest in their education. But what we quickly learned was that Pink Floyd only inspired prolonged attention in the heavily stoned, and except for those jokers who sang on the album, the rest of England’s children quickly went back to their studies.�

Those jokers, however, went about their own not learning with a passion, sure they would be able to coast through the rest of their lives on their association with the psychedelic prog-rock band. The academic habits of the twenty children involved, already questionable, took a turn for the worse after the song’s astonishing success. The children then felt like they needed to respect their newfound roles as spokeschildren for a generation, and feared being branded as sellouts if they were to learn their multiplication tables. Repeated efforts by teachers to point out that nobody in the outside world even knew who they were met with consistent failure. Convinced that stoners everywhere were praising them for their anti-establishment stance and their collective position on dark sarcasm in the classroom, the children succeeded in failing to learn anything for the rest of their academic careers.

After Floyd refused to prolong the children’s careers through more backup singing opportunities, Renshaw attempted to wrong that right with the children’s follow-up album in 1981, We Don’t Need No Hygiene, Neither. But without Pink Floyd’s publicity machine the album was doomed to fairly poor showing, selling few copies. Worst of all, Renshaw learned he’d been beaten to the punch by some knob over in Langley, Canada, and was personally sued for stealing a bad idea.

Though thoroughly uneducated, the now-adult claimants are clear on their expectations for a delayed slice of the Pink Floyd pie.

“I don’t know, I think we should get a million, trillion pounds,� offered former schoolchild Roary Mills. “A kapchillion maybe.�

“No way,� argued fellow former child Paul Richards. “I’m not getting ripped off. I won’t settle for anything less than twenty-five pounds.�

Should the matter go to trial, Mills believes the legal process will involve throwing fruit at the band until the truth is revealed. Richards, on the other hand, believes the judge will turn Pink Floyd upside-down and shake them until enough money falls out for everyone to buy ice cream. Stan Chancey, the group’s expert on the legal system due to his having seen a courtroom drama on television years ago, explains to the others that a jury of their peers will decide Floyd’s fate, meaning the jury will be made up of assorted British rock ‘n roll legends.

Chancey envisions seminal British rockers like Eric Clapton, Ray Davies and the Rolling Stones delivering their verdict via an electrifying supergroup courtroom concert the likes of which the world has never seen. If the jury decides in favor of the band, Chancey explains, look for them to reprise the obscure George Harrison classic “Not Guilty,� especially if Harrison himself is on the jury. If Floyd are found guilty, however, the band may compose a brand-new tune to unveil at the verdict reading, with a title something like “They’re Guilty,� which will likely feature each of the jury members singing a line of lyrics in turn, sort of like the Traveling Wilburys or that big Dylan benefit concert years back.

Chuck, who has long since given up explaining the British legal system to the former children, hopes the settlement will be large enough for him to retire and never have to deal with the uneducated ever again.

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Like every other American Idol fan, I was sorry to see Sanjaya Malakar go from the blockbuster TV talent show last week. I have to believe anybody with that many A's in his name is destined to be a star, so if it doesn't happen here and now, it'll happen some other time, some other place. Maybe in Bollywood. Mad props to Sanjaya for keeping it going as long as he did. All of us brothers with more looks than talent know what it's like to coast on pre-teen chick love.

I'm not a big Simon Cowell fan anyway. Simon and me go way back. I blew away the competition on American Idol back in the second season auditions, but Simon managed to rig everything against me. I didn't even make it to the show because the prick made some argument about the video from the security camera not being "network quality." I did a cover so ass-blasting amazing of "Hot Blooded" that Foreigner took out a court order that forbid me from ever singing it again, 'cause it made them look like chumps. Simon kept me out of the contest by voting against me, because he was the only judge. I don't know where Paula and Randy were, I guess they were probably in their hotel rooms. Security wasn't understanding enough to let me climb up on their balconies and audition for them, 'cause that dick Simon had me thrown out.

I've been destined to be huge star since I was conceived, and I'm not just talking about the porn industry. I'm talking a cross-media star of unstoppable magnetism and Q-rating power, like Jamie Foxx. You remember him, he was famous a couple of years ago. But mine is the kind of fame that is like a big cosmic secret that only I know about—right now. Soon it's going to be busting out of every galactic orifice there is. Guys will go to see my movie because I'll be running around shirtless in it, shooting terrorists, and girls will snuggle me under their arms on the way to school on the cover of their Trapper Keepers. I'll be shirtless there, too. I'm assuming that anti-shirtless Alamo Cruise legislation will be overturned by then.

When I'm super-famous, I'll have to dress the part, and I'm already way ahead on that front. I have an extensive collection of baseball caps and sunglasses. Some I bought even before I did my American Idol audition, just because I liked them. Like my "Mega-Ninja" hat, or the one that says "Hard Cock Inspector"—imagine being a lady and seeing that coming at you. You know it's a police detective and he's got an extra-hard cock for you. But they probably don't let you wear something like that in Scotland Yard because they make you were those stupid Sherlock Holmes hats, but I think Scotland sucks anyway and don't want to go there when I'm famous.

If I get into a fight with the Pavarottis, too, I'll know how to handle myself. A lot of celebrities like to kick Pavarotti ass because they want to keep their pictures from being taken, but I don't care about that. I just want to kick a lot of ass to show I'm from the streets. But after I kick all the Pavarotti ass, I'll let them take pictures of me. I'll even sign their tits, if they want me to. If they aren't girls, I suppose I'll have to sign something else, but that's going to cost them.

Shit. Why didn't Simon just let me go on the show and let the fans choose me? This "getting famous without really doing anything" would have been so much easier. Maybe I can change my name to Alamo Hilton.

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If there's any bar out there, buy everyone a drink and put it on my tab. I'm rolling in it, and this time it's not pigshit. I've got more money than I know what to do with since I was declared a disaster.

It's not even based on my physical appearance this time. I recently had a weather phenomenon happen to me that has never happened before. The guys at the meteorological society called it "isolated catastrophe," which is fancy talk for my own private tornado. It happened in my apartment about three weeks ago, but I didn't notice the damage done to my apartment until two weeks ago, it didn't look much different. I sort of remember being lifted a few feet off the ground while I was sleeping, but you never know, it could have been some form of ESP materializing in my unconscious mind. But the state is paying me $500, and I'd much rather have that than mental powers.

I qualified for disaster relief, the first time any single person has ever done that. Though there was a married couple one time in New Jersey, but that may be just a rumor. It's a pretty sweet deal for me, that's all I know. I'm supposed to use the money to clean up my apartment and seek counseling or something, but fat chance. I'm going to blow a fourth of the money on cheese, and the other half I'll invest or just buy luxury items with.

I'm going to spend my money smartly, though. People think money is about buying things you want, but that's for amateurs. Really smart money people know you use money to make more money. They call that investing, or maybe they call it something else, but investing is a real word. You make your money work for you. You use a little money to give the impression of a lot of money. That means buying nice clothes, like a purple suit made of silk and a hat with a giant feather. Then people know you're a high roller.

I've already got my luxury things picked out. I want to buy a car with silver wheels—I thought about gold wheels, but people might steal those. You have to keep silver wheels polished all day, so I'm going to buy a $300 spank rag. Maybe I'll buy two of them, but I suppose I could buy a whole box of monogrammed napkins to do the same job. I also have my eye on a few other expensive things, like a perfume that smells like loose change and a toaster so ritzy it refuses to make toast.

It would be nice to have money, I know that. I get so sick of heating my apartment with hot water bottles and going to the bathroom out the window. Gas, electricity, indoor plumbing—they sound like pretty nice things. So I'm going to invest this money right so I can make some real money later on, keep it flowing in. One of these days I'll have that kind of money, the kind where you don't have to wear the same T-shirt with the DeFranco Family on it for years. I'll have to borrow some food to live on for a while, until the money pays off. I don't want to make the mistake of eating the cash like I did last time I came into some money.

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