Green Felt Moss and Sound of Rain

Cancelled again, the salt of the air. We bundled like dognuts (dognuts, not doughnuts) from the train, tumbled along the platform as the train departed, taking with it the salt from the air. The landscape spoke with a grimly voice: The planet is dying. But fear not. George Clooney, Edward Norton and Chris Martin are on the case.

(Chris Martin once said: Would it really be possible to start Nazi Germany if you'd just been listening to Bob Marley's Exodus back-to-back for the past three weeks and getting stoned? Would the idea of the Holocaust seem so appealing?)

(He also said, of Brian Eno: He's the cleverest man in the world since Bob Marley died and John Lennon died.)

The landscape needs more superheroes.

How to Become a Superhero.
No.1: Get yourself genetically modified.
The disadvantage of this method, of course, is that the public is both ignorant and highly suspicious of anything genetically modified. So if you were to take this route to superherohood you would do well to call yourself Captain Frankenstein. Or The Death Ray.

Because death will take you, you have no need to worry about the planet dying. Chris Martin will take care of it. And that bird from Greenpeace, Cat Dorey.

People called Catherine who call themselves Cat? Please.

Chris Martin in his bright blue SUV took the bend past his local Knightsbridge shops and, with his wife elsewhere, was distracted by the neon London lights that, after all this time, still had the power to seduce him. The words on his hand (‘remind self that self is self is self - we are all one to the power of the universe and the answers are in/on our hands - we can all do it together’) were swamped by the sudden rush of sweat as a result of that too tight bend that Chris, safe in his SUV, failed to consider as he gazed a trance into the hallowed forms of flashing signs and the illuminatori of the Knightsbridge set. The planet was dying and all Chris could think about was his Oshkosh bio-degradable nappies that, once used, could then be used to sow vital rice and grain plants for the people of Africa, young Apple’s mess a perfect underlay of fertiliser made, as it was, from the finest organic baby food, perfect for the (re)cycle of life and all those who sail in her (the vast Titanic-like vessel of life, that is). A huge tapestry network blanket of fair trade nappies, pre-fertilised by the offspring of the great and the good, rice and grain and trees for all, a lasting legacy of the triumph of acting together as one and actively, you know, doing something positive about the future. Don’t knock it. But before all that, before the actual, physical spread of the offspring, so to speak, of his offspring across the barren tundra landscape burning beneath African skies, Chris Martin slammed his gigantic SUV into the back of a small goods van that, unfortunately for Chris, was being driven by some big spiky bastard who had no time at all for what he often referred to as ‘falsetto faggots like that twat from Coldplay’. Chris, leaping from his SUV (leaving Apple unprotected, a sitting target for all manner of right-wing anti-fair trade terrorists etc.), flashed the back of his hand as a gesture of peace. Unfortunately again for Chris, the previously mentioned swamped ink had run together to form not a message of hope and oneness, but the words ‘you dozy fat fucking gimp – why don’t you drive properly?’ It was, as all later agreed, a freak, million-to-one occurrence and the height of unfortunateness, given the situation of Chris’s then situation.

(The trouble with any kind of negative take on Chris Martin and his ilk, is that you (not me, you) could end up sounding like Jeremy fucking Clarkson. This is, after all, fiction. One shouldn’t read too much into it.)

After his crash debacle, his brand new biblical baby and his wife acting herself to all sorts of honours, Chris decided, with all things considered, that it would be best to call it a day. Retreating to his poolside home of dog house built of straw, he licked his wounds and rued the day that he decided to get too big for his bones. Outside his kennel, buried beneath the pile of finest organic pet food beef, was the manifesto that he and Bono had drafted only two weeks before.

How to Become A Superhero.
No. 2: Put fish in barrel. Shoot.
A great way of bigging yourself up until you are so full of bluster and self-righteous ha-ha that, even though you’re aware of the fact of being aware of your own useless, impotent situation, you can fool some of the people some of the time into believing that you are a hero to be reckoned with. The disadvantage of this method is that you could easily be exposed. Well, so what?

The Bono/Martin Manifesto - Points 1-4:

No. 1.
I/we (Bono and Coldplay (well, Chris)) will tell popes, dictators and presidents where to get off not just through the power of our great songs, music, lyrics and performances but also through the power of going right up to them and telling them where to get off. You fuck with pop stars, man, and you pay the price.

No. 2.
We will also endeavour to welcome within our ranks all manner of other big faces who can help us to further our cause(s). Yes, we understand that, since the death of that intellectual giant Marley, the intelligence quota of pop stars has taken a dive but, at the least, we can welcome, surely, the likes of Eno, Byrne, Stipe, Baez and Bragg. Note: Don’t ask Mark E. Smith to join us. Apart from the fact that he hasn’t got the world’s ear in the palm of his hands like we have, he once said of me, Bono: “Bono? My window cleaner’s got more to say for himself than that cunt.” Which wasn’t a very nice thing to say. At all. One day I/we will make him pay.

No.3.
In the future all things will be green and beautiful like they were in the past. No more war. No more unnecessary deaths. No more corporate conglomerates raping our women and putting up nude pictures of our children on the internet. No more America. No more damn Yanks making our lives such an unending rollercoaster of misery with their big yappy voices and their stupid fat arses and their obsession with slimming and looking beautiful. Those warmongering arsehole fat cunts. As Harold Pinter said: “I want to communicate to you that/War is bad/And terrible/In case you didn’t know/And that all wars are started/By the Yanks/Who/As everyone knows/Are despicable villains/And really fucking stupid/In case you didn’t know.”

No.4
All could be okay if only we could condense the words of this rum manifesto and get them whittled down to a size where we could get people to wear them on the back of their hands. Or on their foreheads. Stencils that say: Future for all fight back against globalisation smash the state and the lying liars who tell lies. Oh, what a reversal of the elements of capitalism and that. We’ll show them. Public people in public spaces making their views known to the public. It’s in our hands, brothers and sisters, it’s in our hands. Or, rather, on our hands.

Dognuts. The train departed the station. The salt in the air, gone. We tumbling down the platform like dognuts, those crystalline acentic particles that resemble, under a microscope, ship’s wheels. Or, instead, the large nuts on the sides of fire hydrants. Big red dognuts. Attractive, authentic and built to last. That was us, dognuts. Yes, the planet may be dying, but us, the dognuts of rail station and tumble, will go on forever. Watch us roll there Chris, you just watch us roll!