Fayette Factor: Melonheads Gather

With Grunge copycat suicides having been of recent concern, we may wish to throw out some lifelines from October 21st through 27th, as Melonheads gather.

Shannon Hoon - 1995
Richard Shannon Hoon (September 26, 1967 – October 21, 1995) was an American singer-songwriter and musician. He was the lead singer of the band Blind Melon until his death from a cocaine overdose in 1995.

The singer of the band Blind Melon, grew up in Lafayette, Indiana, was a three-sports athlete in high school, joined a band, and then left for Los Angeles where he eventually formed Blind Melon.

His Fayette Factor continued when after music success, another Lafayette native, Axl Rose of Guns 'n Roses, asked Hoon to join him on an album being recorded in 1991-1992.

Hoon died from a heart attack brought on by cocaine use on October 21, 1995. He was found dead in New Orleans in the band’s tour bus.

Every year on the Saturday closest to Hoon’s birthday, fans called Melonheads make the trek to his grave for a weekend of commemoration.

Hoon's grave is near Lafayette, Indiana.

A coincidence of date and situation?

Exactly 20 years to the same week, another rock music star allegedly died by cocaine overdose, also being found on his band's tour bus.

The famed photo of Stone Temple Pilot's Scott Weiland by SGranitz mirrors Chris Cornell's and Chester Bennington's often-displayed "Jesus Christ Pose."

Scott Weiland - 2015
Scott Richard Weiland (born Scott Richard Kline; October 27, 1967 – December 3, 2015) was an American musician, singer and songwriter. During a career spanning three decades, Weiland was best known as the lead singer of the band Stone Temple Pilots from 1989 to 2002 and 2008 to 2013. He was also a member of supergroup Velvet Revolver from 2003 to 2008 and recorded one album with another supergroup Art of Anarchy.
As the lead singer of the Stone Temple Pilots, Weiland fronted it from 1986 to 2002 and again from 2008 to 2013. In addition to his most recent band, the Wildabouts, Weiland was part of the group Velvet Revolverfrom 2003 to 2008.

Weiland, 48, was found dead on his tour bus on December 3, 2015, in Bloomington, Minnesota, before he and his band The Wildabouts were scheduled to go on stage. He was 48. Police searched Weiland's tour bus and confirmed there were small amounts of cocaine in the bedroom where Weiland was discovered dead. Police also found prescription drugs including Xanax, Buprenorphine, Ziprasidone, Viagra, and sleeping pills on the tour bus. Additionally, two bags of cocaine were found and a bag of a green leafy substance. Tommy Black, bassist for The Wildabouts, was arrested by police on suspicion of possession of cocaine, although the charges against him were later dropped. Despite the discovery of drugs, no underlying cause of death was immediately given, although the medical examiner later determined it to be an accidental overdose of cocaine, alcohol, and methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA); the examiner's office also noted his atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, history of asthma, and prolonged substance abuse in its report.

News of Weiland's death quickly spread throughout the internet with many of his fellow musical peers, including his former band members along with fans and music critics throughout the world sharing their condolences, tributes and memories. A day following his death, his former bandmates in Stone Temple Pilots issued a statement saying that he was "gifted beyond words" but acknowledged his struggle with substance abuse, calling it "part of [his] curse". Weiland's ex-wife Mary Forsberg, released an open letter about her ex-husband, his addictions and not being a good father to their children. Forsberg said, "I won't say he can rest now, or that he's in a better place. He belongs with his children barbecuing in the backyard and waiting for a Notre Dame game to come on. We are angry and sad about this loss, but we are most devastated that he chose to give up. Let's choose to make this the first time we don't glorify this tragedy with talk of rock and roll and the demons that, by the way, don't have to come with it."

In the wake of Weiland's death, Chris Cornell dedicated a December 4, 2015 performance of "Say Hello 2 Heaven" (which Cornell had written for his late friend Andrew Wood) by Temple of the Dog to Weiland.

Grunge is Suicide

The essence of some things are one in the same.

Grunge is suicide. Suicide is grunge. Grunge began with a suicide.

Rich Larson's thoughts in "It's Not What You Think" are worth quoting, and the full article should be read completely. Here is one passage that is instructive.

A truer historical insight has never been written.

Temple of the Dog

Rich Larson's essay was written after Chris Cornell hanged himself but before Chester Bennington had done the same thing on Cornell's birthday. It captures his generation's anguish. It looks for peace and understanding. Read it all. 

The gravestone of Kristen Pfaff of Hole

My previous writings here at Twilight Language sync with Larson's.

It's not too late. It's not about blaming. Grunge began with a suicide.

Kurt Cobain thought it would end with a suicide.

He was wrong.

Even Nirvana lives on. Just ask the Foo Fighters.

The Order of the Pug: Mogs, Grunge, and Hanging Suicides

The Pug is a breed of dog with physically distinctive features of a wrinkly, short-muzzled face, and curled tail. The breed has a fine, glossy coat that comes in a variety of colors, most often fawn or black, and a compact square body with well-developed muscles. Pugs were brought from China to Europe in the sixteenth century and were popularized in Western Europe by the House of Orange of the Netherlands, and the House of Stuart. Source.

The aristocracy were aligned with the promotion of the Pug as a symbol of their class's social status.

Around 1740, the German sculptor, Johann Joachim Kaendler, master model maker of the Meissen porcelain factory in Germany, was commissioned to create a curious series of sculptures. They were a group of porcelain Pug dogs designed as secret emblems for a German underground Masonic-styled lodge known as the "Order of the Pug." Source.

The Mops-Orden, or Order of the Pug was a para-Masonic society founded by Roman Catholics. It is believed that it was founded in 1740 by Klemens August of Bavaria to bypass the papal bull In eminenti apostolatus* of 1738. The constitution of the Order of the Pug allowed women to become members, as long as they were Catholic. The Pug was chosen as a symbol of loyalty, trustworthiness and steadiness.
Members called themselves Mops (the German for Pug), novices were initiated wearing a dog collar and had to scratch at the door to get in. The novices were blindfolded and led around a carpet with symbols on it nine times while the Pugs of the Order barked loudly to test the steadiness of the newcomers. During the initiation, the novices also had to kiss a Pug's (porcelain) backside under its tail as an expression of total devotion. Members of the Order carried a Pug medallion made of silver. In 1745, the secrets of the order were "exposed" in a book published in Amsterdam with the title L'ordre des Franc-Maçons trahi et le Secret des Mopses révélé which included the ritual and two engravings illustrating their rite.
The Order was banned by Göttingen University in 1748. Loge Louise des ehrwürdigen Mopsordens or Lodge Louise of the Venerable Order of the Pug had been formed the previous year as a student society, mainly drawn from the Hanoverian nobility. The lodge fees and their control over their members formed the excuse for the closure, and after a government investigation, the lodge documents were passed to the University authorities.
While German sources state that the order was short-lived, they were reportedly active in Lyon as late as 1902. Source.

(*In eminenti apostolatus specula was a papal bull issued by Pope Clement XII on 28 April 1738, banning Catholics from becoming Freemasons. It arose from Jacobite-Hanoverian rivalry on the continent. Source.)

"The Lady of the Order of the Pug"

Hard-paste porcelain figure of a members of the Order of the Pug, modelled by J. J. Kändler, made at the Meissen porcelain factory, Germany, ca. 1744–1745

Victoria and Albert Museum, London, museum no. C.796-1936. Source.

The Pug became a subversive emblem of the Enlightenment, and England in particular. Pug dogs came to England with King William III when he was brought from the Netherlands in 1688 by Parliament to replace his uncle and way-too-Catholic father-in-law, James II, who was booted out of Blighty. This "Glorious Revolution" created a constitutional monarchy that was watched over carefully by Parliament. Europe’s intellectuals began to admire this new style of English government and free thinking, and owning a Pug was a subtle way of showing solidarity with England's revolution without getting locked in the stocks or hurled into a dungeon. In Paris, Pugs became associated with Voltaire and Diderot. Source.

Painter and his Pug is a 1745 self-portrait created by William Hogarth (November 10, 1697 – October 26, 1764). He began the portrait a decade earlier. The Pug's name is Trump. Source.

Queen Victoria and her Pug

Duke of York (later George V) who appears to have dressed up his pug as Queen Victoria

The Windsors and their Pugs

The Kennedys and their Pug

Today the aristocracy is not about monarchs, entitled rulers, or even political world leaders, as much as in the past. The elite currently is made up of celebrities of show business, sports, and music, the global point people of the world of entertainment. Right along with them are their Pugs.

Robin Williams (July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014), died by hanging.

Chris Cornell (July 20, 1964 – May 18, 2017), Soundgarden & Temple of the Dog, died by hanging.

Chester Bennington (March 20, 1976 – July 20, 2017), Linkin Park & Stone Temple Pilots, died by hanging.

Shannon Hoon (September 26, 1967 – October 21, 1995), Blind Melon, overdosed by cocaine.

The overlap and copycatting between grunge stars is profound. Why shouldn't Pug ownership be shared too?

Shannon Hoon, Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley (Fayette Factor), Chris Cornell.

More on Grunge Suicides and Copycats, see:


Chris Cornell, Christ, Corn, and the Jesus Christ Pose

Grunge's Copycat Carnage



Joan Jett and the Jesus Christ Pose



Linkin Park's Bennington Hangs Self on Cornell's Birthday



Will Grunge Suicide Copycats Continue?



August 21-22: An Eclipse, Disasters, and Suicides?

Frank the Pug is a fictional character from the movie Men in Black, its sequel, its animated series, and the video game MIB: Alien Crisis. Within the films, Frank has the appearance of a normal pug dog, but he is actually an extraterrestrial in disguise (a Remoolian).

The reach of the Pug is far.

Andy Warhol

Rob Zombie and Dracula

George Clooney 

Mike D’Antonio, founder of Killswitch Engage

Steve Tyler, Aerosmith

Amber Rose

Professor Green 

Perhaps the Order of the Pug still exists, a variant on the rock and roll Illuminati that is the theme of so many conspiracy postings across the Internet?

Special thanks for hints and encouragement from Nolan Void.