Day 26: Clouds Across The Moon
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 LOUSY TUNES
I had to admit that I never expected to die on the Moon. Traveling to the moon was never really on my to do list (unlike rolling some heavy stones on the Rolling Stones and thinking up other poetic ways of killing rock dinosaurs). Nevertheless it was with a teary sayonara that I and Crispian ended up passing out as we were groggily asphyxiating.
So waking up came as a bit of a shock I have to say. I looked around to see where it was we had ended up, thinking perhaps that this was heaven. And then when I saw the large futuristic stereo equipment I considered the alternative: Hell. The truth was slightly more bizarre.
“Ah. You are awake,” a booming voice said I a turned to see a bizarre creature kicking Crispian to wake him. It was clear this thing knew who was the brains of the outfit. And what a weird creature it was. A man you might say except he had a huge bulbous cranium and head almost as large as his body. Whilst this, and his silver big collared suit made him look strange enough, it was the one prominent right ear which really marked him out.
“Who are you? Where are we?” I asked.
“My name is Deftu.”
“What like the lousy late eighties youth television strand that was the home to the surprisingly aptly name Snub TV. Snub it, I took out a hit on it.”
“It is an unfortunate coincidence. You are in my secret lunar citadel. I am The Listener.”
“I thought that was a now defunct magazine,” Crispian said.
“Another unfortunate coincidence. No I come from a race of cataloguers. It is out job to travel the universe recording all that goes on, and to never, ever interfere.”
“Oh,” Crispian said. ?Like Uatu, the Watcher. I read comics about him. But he always interferes.”
“I am Uatu?s replacement. I have been sent to listen to all human music and record it. And not interfere.”
You can imaginer the look of pure horror that crossed my face. If hell had a physical form, being in Deftu’s alien aspangly sandals would be it.
“Even Northern Soul?” I said, still shocked.
“All of it.”
“Fado?”
“All languages.”
“Mongolian semi-tone harminonic nasal singing.”
“Very popular in the crab nebula.”
“What! You are not just listening and recording. You are distributing this stuff?”
“Oh yes. It is my job.”
It was at this point I realised that I had a greater purpose in the Universe. And that was to save it from this intergalactic A&R guy.
“So how come you are on the moon and no-one has discovered you? We did not see you when we flew over.”
“Ah, I have special cloaking technology that creates a cloud actross my citadel.”
“A cloud, on the moon? That?s ridiculous.”
“That?s what I said to the Rah Band, way back in the eighties,” I muttered, as I tried to see a way of destroying this alien abomination.
THE RAH BAND – Clouds Across The Moon
Imagine the future. Where there is a terrible war pitting man against man in an interminable battle on the moon. I know, it is the product of a lousy imagination, a diseased imagination and imagination that could only belong to one-hit wonders the Rah Band. You see for the conceit of Clouds Across The Moon you have to accept the following premises:
a) There are clouds on the moon which has no atmosphere
b) That the war on Mars will go on forever meaning conscripts never return to see their loved ones
c) In this future there will be a communications system that will be constantly interrupted by storms in the asteroid belt which is neither between the Earth and Mars and equally has no atmosphere for there to be a storm in.
For me this is too much to swallow. Almost as far-fetched as a one-hit wonder band like the Rah?s having a hit with such a stupid record. As it would appear that in the future items as complicated as the modern mobile phone will be out-dated in favour of some sort of sunshine girls operator system. A system where Mars 247 is a phone number. Now consider this: if that is a Martian phone number then there is not much room for number expansion. 1000 phone numbers, no wonder no-one can get through.
The real excuse of course is that the poor sod has legged it to Mars to escape the harridan constantly pursuing him in her ra ra skirt. He has made up the war, his conscription and pretended that it is next to impossible to get through .Christ would you want to hang around with anyone in the Rah Band, especially not the goth bird. Instead you’d get your new squeeze to pretend that there is – ahem – a storm across the asteroid belt. All the while laughing your head off. Clouds Across The Moon = I’m Working Late Tonight Darling to the nth degree.