Coldplay//Sparks

I don’t know what my problem is. It all started with James telling me that Coldplay played a really incredible set at All Points West.

Then, in Costa Rica, Annie mentioned to me that she had been listening to a lot of Coldplay (which queued me to pump up the Buckley, who of course, their sound is a complete rip-off of).

Then, a few days ago, on a train to my Grandma’s house down the Jersey shore, I found my fingers dialing up the random Coldplay tracks that I still (for some reason) had on my iPod.

This lead me in turn to start daydreaming to a time when I really did like Coldplay, circa Parachutes/A Rush of Blood to the Head. During the spring/early summer of 2002, I went on a cruise with my cousin (who just got engaged this weekend—congrats, Kel) and my aunts to the Bahamas. This trip was weird for a few reasons, but most of all, I was just coming off my serious alcoholic year and was basically drunk the whole time. We got to Nassau for a day off the boat and I basically broke off from my family and cruised all the liquor shops, which each had their own tasting bars. I’d go to one shop and they’d give me three shots of different tropical rum varieties (Pineapple and Coconut—yum). I’d drink those and then go to the next place, where they’d give me three more. I’d go to an internet café and talk to my friends in Michigan over AOL Instant Messenger, totally shitfaced, declaring myself over and over again to be “Tropical G.” I ended up hammered with my cousin and a few aunts in the casino/resort Atlantis, watching them play the slots and drinking frozen Pina Coladas. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

How Coldplay fits into this ridiculous story is that every morning , I would walk around and around the deck of the cruise ship with my Discman (pre iPod, homez!) listening to either Coldplay or Kings of Convenience (obviously heavily in my sad drunk stage). What’s weird also--I found out later that Royksopp did a kickass remix of “Clocks.” Universe mashup!

Anyway, I really did like these songs, even if now I feel a little embarrassed at their obvious cheese-factor/extreme mainstream popularity (here are my snob tendencies revealing themselves). I’ve been trying to get over myself though lately. My first step was proclaiming my love for the Grateful Dead to the entire internet. Let this be my second.



Sparks.mp3

I promise you this;
I’ll always look out for you.
That’s what I’ll do.