Archive for April, 2008

Apr 30th 2008 The Wisdom of Chris Martin, part 1

As a Great Prophet, Chris Martin seems unable to open his mouth without some nugget of Holy Wisdom tumbling out. In this series, we will look at just a few of the gems that The Church of Chris Martin have taken as their Proverbs.

 
On U2 - “I just want to make something I can put next to ‘The Joshua Tree’ and feel proud.”

“To me, they’re like Mount Everest or the Taj Mahal or the Sears Tower. They’re a great, great thing. And if you’re going to do something, you may as well aim to do something great. I’m not saying we’re better than them. I’m just saying if you’re going to aim for anything, you might as well aim for the best.”

“U2 can be beaten. For me it’s no different from the film Rocky. You study your opponent. And I regard them as opponents.”

On Radiohead - “I think if you imagine Radiohead going through a jungle clearing a path, then we’re the ones who are probably just criminally paving it. I always see Radiohead as the braver people.”

On Fame - “After being with Gwyn I’ve realised everyone is human. We really build people up as if they are from Mars. Hollywood seems as accessible as Mars.When I started meeting celebrities it was depressing because you can’t believe in the mythology of people any more.”

On the success of his band - ”I gleaned that it doesn’t matter if you’re in one of the biggest bands in the world, it doesn’t mean you’re very good.”

“Let me be clear: We’re an incredibly arrogant band and we believe in ourselves above all others. But we also acknowledge that there’s no way we can take credit for where we are. I didn’t design my larynx, if you want to go right back to Square 1. … So we work very hard to capitalize and validate what we’ve been given. Because we have been given it. It’s not graciousness, it’s just honesty.”

“It’s very depressing, but it’s very healthy. We always have this bubbling level of vitriol. Maybe it’s something to do with my haircut. Maybe we’re too feminine for the masculine and too masculine for the feminine. That’s the great thing about people who hate us. We can suck out the energy and make it into something positive.”

On his balls - “I went through a weird patch, starting when I was about sixteen to twenty-two, of getting God and religion and superstition and judgment all confused. I think a lot of our music comes out of that. I definitely believe in God. How can you look at anything and not be overwhelmed by the miraculousness of it? Everything from that carpet to your nose to my balls is amazing. In fact, my balls are a particular miracle.”

No Comments » Posted by drobbingdon / Doctrine

Apr 26th 2008 REVIEW: United 93 (2006)

Violence: Some (Terrorism)
Rasism: None
Homophobia: None
Blasphemy: None

There are some films that are just important for the world, not created for entertainment, but as an examination of the human spirit in the face of extreme circumstances. United 93 is one of those. It ranks up there with Shindler’s List, Titanic and Cocoon.

Untied 93 has come upon us soon after the fact. Some feel too soon after the fact. But whatever you feel about the moral issues, as a movie, it is a staggering Tour-de-France.

Writer/Director Paul Greengrass says Untied 93 is a fictionalized retelling of what happened on 9/11. At the same time it depicts the ‘fog of war’ better than any documentary on the subject could. There’s no political slant here, and there’s no finger pointing – except where the finger should point, at all the Islams in the world.

Untied 93 has been cast for a documentary feel, and there’s barely a familiar face on screen. Ben Sliney, national operations manager for the FAA at Kennedy Airport and actually in charge of the command center on 9/11, appears, playing himself. This casting decision adds an eerie sense of realism. However he’s rubbish at acting, and his performance actually lets the movie down.

The movie’s clear on what is really important in life. This collection of strangers came together to confront an unthinkable threat. Valour in the grim face of death shows heroism above human capability, and resides within the spiritual. They asked themselves, are we going to sit here waiting, or are we going to do something? As Chris sang, “If you never try, then you never know.” I think there is wisdom in that.

The only problem I had was that much of the movie was filmed with hand-held cameras, and the person in charge of the movie camera panned too fast and my stomach got nauseous.

9/11 should never be forgotten. Each generation has a duty to pass down religious fundamentalism, racial prejudice, bigotry, and genocide to the next. I think people NEED TO BE REMINDED of what happened on 9/11, it being hardly ever mentioned in the media. This movie does it’s job and for that I am greatful.

Perhaps it is distasteful to make a blockbuster movie so soon after the real events. But if it is going to produce top-notch infotainment like Untied 93, I say –

“LETS ROLL!”

No Comments » Posted by drobbingdon / reviews

Apr 24th 2008 St George’s Day

englandflag.gif

Yesterday was Saint George’s Day, and all around the world, Englishmen and women gathered to celebrate their proud cultural heritage. Coldplay, England’s top artistic (and spiritual) export, were no exception.

martinfamily.jpegThe four group members, their wives and their many children, gathered at Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow’s London pad for an afternoon of revelry, and a break from their punishing schedule of marketing the new LP. They enjoyed a few ales and partook of the traditional St. George’s Day festivities. These included -

  • bobbycharlton.jpgRe-watching the 1966 World Cup Final - Everyone must say “They think it’s all over - it is now!” at the appropriate moment. Extra kudos can be earned by wearing a Bobby Charlton comb-over wig, or by going to a foreign country en masse, getting blind drunk and fighting with the locals.
  • Voting Tory - Two children are chosen, and each must make a speech before the other guests. One is dressed in fine clothes and must talk in a plummy accent of traditional values, the monarchy and a hatred of foreigners. The other is dressed in rags and must mumble about the workers, the welfare state and the Colonies (AKA Scotland, Wales and Ireland) in a northern accent. Then a mock ballot is held, and the loser is ceremonially beaten.
  • Saluting George Best - One person (the “George Best”) must drink alcohol until they pass out. Bizarrely, they are then saluted as a hero as they are stretchered into the ambulance.
  • lizard-queen.jpgA Minute’s Silence for the Queen - The Queen is a German enchantress who has somehow managed to bewitch the English into believing that she is somehow more than human. They not only give her money, but even the lives of their sons. She represents nothing that is progressive, equal or sane, yet grown Englishmen will still weep over their Christmas dinners as she reads a speech written by someone else, without any emotion or theatrical flair.
  • Parading the Frenchman - Over the preceding weeks, the children (often with help from the adults) have constructed an effigy of a Frenchman. At the end of the day, this effigy is paraded around the group, either in a wheelbarrow or merely dragged by the arms, and all must hold their noses as though the smell was unbearable. Finally, the Frenchman is set upon by the children, who tear it limb from limb as the adults chant “Agincourt! Agincourt!”

indianchef.jpgWhen the fun was over, what else was there to do but to all sit down to a meal of traditional English food - a macrobiotic, organic Chicken Tikka Masala, specially created by their private chef, Farouk Sanddu.

No Comments » Posted by drobbingdon / news

Apr 23rd 2008 You Too?

BEHOLD - THE LAMB OF GOD!

Bono seems to have predicted the coming of Chris Martin, just as John the Baptist predicted the coming of Jesus, the prophet before him. If you don’t believe me, read these lyrics and then SHUT UP!!!

I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For

I have climbed highest mountain
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you

Saint Bono claims to have climbed the highest mountain. Yet Christ Martin asks “how long must I climb up this mountain of mine?” The mountain is OURSELFS, and if we think we can ever stop climbing, we are wrong.

I have run

He understands the importance of keeping fit. After all, obesity rates are rising.

I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with you

The city walls are St. Bono’s confusion - “Confusion never stops, Closing walls and ticking clocks” (AROBTTH 5:3)

But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for

Saint Bono is looking for the new Messiah (Chris Martin). He will be “On a hilltop, On a sky-rise, Like a firstborn Child, Defeat darkness, Breaking daylight” (AROBTTH 6:4)

I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing in her fingertips
It burned like fire
This burning desire

He is talking about the Sacred Feminine here. Like in Da Vinci’s Code. Chris Martin is not afrain of his femine side, saying he loves his wife and being all melodramatic, but he’s masculine as well, getting mad and kicking off at photographers and that.

I have spoke with the tongue of angel’s - (1 Corinthians 6:1)
I have held the hand of a devil

It was warm in the night

Chris Martin acnowledges his good and bad sides too - “When I counted up my demons, Saw there was one for everyday, With the good ones on my shoulder, I drove the other ones away.” (PARACHUTES 10:1) - but he has sent his bad ones AWAY, not snuggled up to them like some sorta weird pervert!

I was cold as a stone
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for

I believe in the kingdom come

Hidden track on X&Y!

Then all the color’s will bleed into one
Bleed into one

This is Nelson Mandelas’ dream of a RAINBOW NATION. That RASISM IS WRONG is one of the Sacred Tenets of the Church of Chris Martin. It’s just really not on.

Saint Bono was a lot younger when he wrote this song, but he still looks good for 65. He probably does a lot of exercise.

Well yes I’m still running

You broke the bond’s and you
Loosed the chain’s
Carried the cross
Of my shame
Of my shame
You know I believed it

But Bono remains chained, powerless. He is not the one to loose ALL of our chains, release us from our shame. It is Chris Martin who carried the cross for us. This is true; Bono tells us ‘I believed it’.

But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for -
I still haven’t found what I’m looking for…

No Comments » Posted by drobbingdon / Doctrine and interpretation

Apr 22nd 2008 New Coldplay song causes instant weeping

“Tears stream down your face…” (X&Y 4:22)

 

Chris Martin has claimed that the fourthcoming Coldplay album, Viva la Vida, includes “the greatest song ever written”. But if the results of Scientific Tests are to believed, you might still end up in tears. For the song, Death and All His Friends, instantly causes uncontrollable sobbing in anyone who hears it.

cdscientist.jpg“We have tested it in every possible circumstance, and so far no-one has been able to make it past the second verse without blubbering,” a top expert said. “We’ve played it to everything from monkeys to shrews - if it has a tear duct, it’ll wail. In fact, we didn’t even know that fruit-flies could cry, and they seem to be secreting a greyish liquid through their carapaces in a grotesque pastiche of their emotional human masters.”

harry-nazi.bmpWe even played it to a Nazi. He broke at the end of the chorus, whimpering like a prick. Only one other person that we tested managed to suppress their lamentations any further into the song - the “popular” “singer” and world-renouned rhyming slang, James Blunt.”

Archpope-in-Cheif Dean Drobbingdon is declaring it a miracle. “There is simply no way that a piece of music can have an affect that is so profound. There are stories of ancient temples and cathedrals that had such perfect form that they could produce tears, but nothing on this scale. The important thing is its testability. This is a piece of art that can produce an inexplicable effect, repeatedly and on demand. What we are looking at here is scientific evidence of the existence of God.”

 

classroom-1.jpgBut even its being an officially-sanctioned supernatural religious phenomenon hasn’t stopped some people thinking of ways that it could be put to more practical use. Expect Coldplay to allow the track to be used in anger management sessions (allowing the release of pent-up emotions), rape alarms (not only immobilising the attacker with bitter sobs, but probably ruining his erection too), and for teachers, the song having been proven to take a class of 30 working-class children from an intense hysteria to a pathetic anguished whimpering in just under 42 seconds.

They won’t be allowing everyone to use it, however. It’s no surprise that the military has made enquiries, but not just any military. We’re talking about the Chinese military.

connie-olympic.jpgBeijing are hoping to use it against Olympics protesters, who have found considerable support in the West. “It is a perfect weapon,” a person said, “It will look to the world’s media that they have simply been overtaken by the emotion of seeing this flame, and all that it represents.”

Ironically, the Viva la Vida track entitled Chinese Sleep Chant does not have any known side effects. Any sedative effect experienced will be the standard amount found in all of Coldplay’s recordings.

No Comments » Posted by drobbingdon / Did you know!? and news

Apr 19th 2008 “Fix Y’all”

Then, the USA went to war, and so did The Cold Mountain Singers. They returned to performing upon their return, but they were different men, older and wiser, with a new found urgency to spread their message. Their repertoire had changed too, to incorporate original compositions.

Jim Gilhooley said about the inspiration for Fix Y’all: “Darned if ah don’t know where it came from. I was huddlin in some darn trench with my brother, German shells a-flying over our heads. Then all of a sudden, there comes this strange silence, an all the guns quit shellin, and the sunshine began to break through the clouds and smoke. The tune, the words, everything, began to play in ma head, and I had to rush to git everything writ down in time. It was like it was being channelled through me, comin down from the Most High. I looked up to the sun, and instead ah saw a bright glowing face, with short and curly mousey hair and big blue eyes. He had no beard, and when he spoke it sounded a darn site more english an middle-class than ah reckoned for. He said that it would all make sense one day. Before he disappeared he said “Make Trade Fair.” Ah guess ah didn’t know what to make of that.”

This track was recorded live in Nashville in 1954 during a successful month-long residency. Their star was still in its ascendancy, but a darkness had entered their act. It was only a matter of time before they were to be torn apart.

1 Comment » Posted by drobbingdon / Church History and Did you know!?

Apr 18th 2008 “Yeller”

Tom and Jim Gilhooley (AKA The Cold Mountain Singers) were born on Cold Mountain Farm, Hatchenchubbee, Arkansas, in 1916, the twin sons of an itinerant Polish railroad labourer and an alchoholic seamstress of Scottish extraction. They were raised by both parents on their run-down farmstead until the depression began to bite, and their father left in 1931, never again seeing his boys.

Their mother struggled through, scraping a meagre existance from the dusty soil, supplimented by occasional sewing jobs. Tom and Jim learned to amuse themselves with bible reading and by singing traditional songs, accompanying themselves on guitar and banjo. They were soon a popular turn at the Waverley Saloon, and began to attract attention from the city.

By 1938, the boys were a successful act, playing to audiences throughout Arkansas, and begining to make a name for themselves. This track is believed to have been recorded in 1939, and is one of a mere handful of tracks that are known to have survived.

{The distinct similarity of some of these songs and the work of the contemporary group Coldplay is currently the subject of a major legal proceeding, and I am unable to comment further at this time.}

No Comments » Posted by drobbingdon / Church History and Did you know!?

Apr 17th 2008 Are you ready for the Spiritual Revolution?

 

According to these guys, the first single off Viva la Vida will be Violet Hill, and will be released on May 6th.

No Comments » Posted by drobbingdon / news

Apr 15th 2008 The Church vs New York magazine

It looks like the Church of Chris Martin’s daring critique of the state has finally come to the attention of “the Powers that Be”.

New York magazine have published what can only been seen as a vicious attack on the Church of Chris Martin. This week’s Vulture column features a blatant pastiche of the Church’s Viva la Vida post.

First, the piece “borrows” the track-by-track breakdown format. Next, they mock our assertion that “Lost” was inspired by the hit TV show, claiming that it contains ridiculous “lyrics” about “Kate, Locke and Sayid”.

But the biggest affront comes in their description of 42: “Some have speculated that the title of this upbeat track is an allusion to Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as Martin is an admitted fan of the book.” For “some”, read “The Church of CM”, AKA “me”.

“Actually,” the piece continues, “It’s a tribute to the 42 people who currently hold the Guinness World Record for the largest number of persons to fit in a car at once (the Moss Bay Majorettes from Jacksonville, Florida, who crammed into a Jaguar XJ6 in August of 1984).” New York magazine seems to have forgotton that Chris Martin is English, and unlikely to be concerned with small towns in Florida, Louisiana or even Wisconsin, as the “article” claims.

So what can we make of this? Is New York magazine so chronically short of ideas that it needs to mock an honest religion? And if you want a religion to ridicule, what’s wrong with Scientology?

Or is what the Church is saying SO DANGEROUS that the New York intelligentsia need to SILENCE us? Do they need to crucify someone, just because we have found the new Messiah, JUST LIKE THE LAST TIME? It’s not like we denied the Holocaust or anything!

{The Church of Chris Martin will return with “What Holocaust?” - stay tuned!}

No Comments » Posted by drobbingdon / news and site news

Apr 15th 2008 In My Face

In my place, in my place
Were lines that I couldn’t change

The lines which he could not change are the lines of prophecy in some of the books in the Old Testament. These appear to predict a coming saviour, or messiah. While Christians believe that Jesus was this Messiah, Jews are still waiting.

I was lost, oh yeah
I was lost, I was lost

Amazing Grace, a traditional hymn - “I was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.” Interestingly, it was the sweet sound of Coldplay that saved this wretch, too!

Crossed lines I shouldn’t have crossed

The Cross - need I say more? (Also remincent of Ghostbusters.)

I was lost, oh yeah.
Yeah, how long must you wait for it?

Not long. Chris, the Messiah, is with us TODAY. (The Jews are wrong.)

Yeah, how long must you pay for it?

Probably a reference to Christ throwing the money-changers from the Temple. However, some commentators have interprited this as a reference to the increasing popularity of peer-to-peer filesharing programs such as Napster & Kazaa.

Yeah, how long must you wait for it?

Depends on your internet connection, really.

Oh for it
I was scared, I was scared

To me, it sometimes seems that we all bear the scars of modern life. On a deeper level, Chris has been scared by the jags on the crown of thorns and the nails through His hands.

Tired and under prepared
But I wait for it
If you go, if you go
Leave me down here on my own

“Down here” is, of course, to Chris, the Earth. He is looking up to his heavenly home and pleading with God, his Father, to give Him a chance to SAVE UOR SOULS. Consider Christ’s words upon the cross - “My Father, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Then I’ll wait for you (yeah)

Sing it
Please, please, please
Come back and sing to me
To me, me
Come on and sing it out, now, now
Come on and sing it out, to me, me
Come back and sing it

In my place, in my place
Were lines that I couldn’t change
And I was lost, oh yeah
,

And here we come to the true meaning of ALL of Coldplay’s songs - OH YEAH. Because while the government, our parents and schoolteachers all say NO to us, Chris affirms and says YEAH. We DO live in a beautiful world.

1 Comment » Posted by drobbingdon / interpretation

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