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Intro

 

By Cira Riedel

 

 

 

Jason has been an integral part of the European snowboarding scene for as long as we can remember. As he himself so beautifully puts it, he has been kissing his own backside for the past ten years … he started working for Onboard back then, in the old rock and roll times. He then returned to England and founded Document Mag, got involved in Modart magazine and eventually became editor-in-chief at Method Mag, the print version. In other words: Jason is an all-rounder. He has worked as an art director, photographer, filmmaker, magazine editor, TV presenter and a pizza delivery boy. He has been skateboarding for 22 years, snowboarding for 16 and has been learning to surf for 18 years…. What could be next? Learn surfing, so he says.
Jason surprised us with a text that has little to do with action sport or anything similar. It is a piece of fiction about an extremist, a charismatic “green” president of the United States. The text is smart and conveys the “yearning for power.“

 

www.methodmag.com

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Green World, Blue Planet

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By Jason Horton

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Illustration by Jenay Loetscher

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They say that ‘Behind every great man, there is a greater woman.’ I beg to differ. We met in the summer of 2004, inter-railing around Europe. It was a freakishly hot summer (that was back when the word freakish still meant something) and as our train meandered through the Swiss Alps, it felt like our compartment was the hottest place in the world. Not that I cared; sitting opposite me was the hottest guy, and his eyes, twin suns, were boring into this very 21-year-old all-American girl with such ferocity that pretty soon the hottest, wettest place in the world was between my legs. After a ridiculously short amount of small talk, we jumped off at the next station. By the time the train blew its whistle, I was blowing his, and we groped and ran and rolled and kissed and stripped and fucked our way down the hill to the waiting lake. I swear there was a ‘tssssss’ sound and clouds of steam as we dived into the water. By the time we emerged, we were in love.

And so passed the best summer of my long life. In between all the fucking, kissing and swimming we slowly unwrapped each other; discovering our shared interest in politics, commitment to environmental issues, our hatred of George Bush, and our secret, shameful addiction to Lost and Starbucks. Cocooned in our sleeping bag under the stars, nights passed in minutes as together we put the world to rights. Pessimistic and pedantic by nature, I would reel off the world’s multitude of woes; he, icily perceptive and decisive, would reel off the solutions with a clinical clarity that made my head spin. Global warming? Dependence on oil? Population explosion in India? Female circumcision? Who really blew up the Twin Towers? Whatever the sticky subject, he had the slippery solution. When I asked him one day what he wanted to be in life, he suddenly became very solemn: “I think I am destined to be President.” My first impulse was to giggle, but it was clear he wasn’t joking. Those feral eyes that had bored holes into me on the train now glowed white with conviction, burning down the walls of my cynicism and converting me into his first disciple.

All too soon it was time to fly back to the States, back to college, and lives that, for the next few years at least, would be passed on opposite sides of a continent. On our last night in Europe, sunrise slowly bleached out the stars, and he told me that he’d come here only to find me, just as surely as I had come to be found by him. The only difference between us was that for him, the future was as clear as the past was to me. Cheesy? Not when he said it, which I guess is why he went so far in life. If he told you Santa really did exist, your soul would ache to believe it.

The college years passed by, and the world kept turning and churning. My friends and I would sit in our non-chain coffee shops drinking our Fair Trade coffee, deploring Starbucks, the disgraceful morality of our administration, and trading our shocking gun crime and SUV emission statistics like the pampered middle class liberals we were. Except now I found myself repeating his sermons, word for word, as if they were my own. And the reactions I got were mixed, to say the least…As my best friend Hannah put it: “Jane, what you said about how legalizing abortion 30 years ago was the real reason crime fell a decade ago blew me away, but your ideas about ‘means testing for motherhood’ were just fucking ruthless!”

Not that Jack would have said that much, of course. As he put it, “truth is a powerful drug – you have to be careful with the dosage.” And he should have known: a journalism major at Princeton, by graduation his searing critiques on war, welfare and everything between had been published everywhere from The Economist to Rolling Stone, yet what appeared in print was always a compromise on the version he shared with me. A year later, we were living together in LA. Here, the hot young writer switched to radio, becoming the hot young talker. The words that had captivated his readers in print were now electrifying a growing army of listeners on his late night talk show, All the Answers. ATA’s format was simple: anyone with a controversial opinion, whether it was for nuking Iran, impeaching the president or opening the Mexican border, would get to state their case… and face a cross examination that would systematically dismantle their argument and, in rebuilding it with his own unique, seductive logic, either vindicate them or totally humiliate them. For the listeners, the fun part was never knowing which way he would swing. Jack remained an enigma: was he a conservative? Liberal? Fundamentalist or atheist? Republican or Democrat?” Nobody could guess, he wasn’t telling, and so each group would gradually come to claim him as their own.

By 2014, ATA had gone Prime Time on ABC. And with looks and camera presence that matched the voice, the cult of Jack soon went global. Every time the shit hit the fan somewhere in the world, Jack’s phone rang off the hook. In the English-speaking world, “What would Jack say?” had become the default catchphrase for any tricky political or moral dilemma. During the primaries of 2015, every would-be president was kissing his ass and the catchphrase of the hour became “Who would Jack vote for?” As always, when badgered by the press for his personal allegiance, a wry, knowing smile would be the only answer. I had little more success; one rare night when I had him to myself, I asked him who he’d vote for if he voted (he didn’t). Eyes flashing mischievously, he replied, “I’m more interested in the next election than in this one.”

2016, election year, was also the year when climate change finally went from, “it’s gonna happen” to, “it’s happening”. Bringing in the New Year, a Tsunami ripped through the Indian Ocean that was double the size of the ’05 wave. In spring, New Orleans, Sacramento, Miami and New York saw flash floods on a scale not seen outside Bangladesh. Images of bloated corpses floating past the Statue of Liberty flooded the nation’s TV screens, sending the nation into a state of terror that was like a 9-11, Cuban missile crisis and Wall Street crash rolled into one. Not that it stopped Laird Hamilton from coming out of retirement to ride the biggest storm surge ever seen, a 70-foot mountain of water breaking 100 miles off the San Diego coast at Cortes Bank. That summer, the world slowly popped, crackled and spat like a pig on a spit. For the first time in eleven thousand years, the European glaciers finally surrendered their grip on the skyline. In autumn, vast earthquakes ravaged California and levelled Tokyo, killing three million and making refugees of many more. Sea levels rose, coastal property prices plummeted. Insurance companies went bankrupt. Stock markets staggered, stockbrokers threw themselves off tall buildings. Climate change ‘experts’ multiplied faster than category five storms. Environmentalists blamed politicians. Politicians blamed China. Inevitably, the global economy coughed, groaned, and staggered, bankrupting nations and wiping out a million personal fortunes in the process. Africa, already so used to the tender mercies of its climate, suffered drought that in better times would have had western pop stars and politicians flying over in droves for photo-ops galore, but not this time round – the West had too many problems of its own.

With all of this going on, it was no surprise to see Al Gore bag the ’16 Presidential race. Since his ‘06 documentary An Inconvenient Truth and ‘09 sequel An Indisputable Lie, Gore’s popularity had soared to ever-greater heights; even though he was now in his late 60’s, the planet-saving fire in Al’s belly was burning hotter than ever. What was surprising was his choice of Vice President… Jack, the man with all the answers.

I’d like to say I was in the loop but truth be told, I wasn’t. Gore, a regular and popular guest on ATA, had become an even more frequent visitor to our home. I knew they agreed on many issues but at that time Jack hadn’t even taken sides, let alone launched a political career. It was a crazy time, seeing him go from talk show host to the 2nd most powerful man in America overnight, but nobody else seemed to object – the American public were as delighted as they were surprised. When I asked him if it was even legal for a Vice President to be hired this way, he said, “Back in 2000, Fox News announced Bush had won the election before the polls were done. The other TV networks, not wanting to appear slow, quickly followed their lead. Even though it was actually a draw, Al had already lost. I guess he learned a valuable lesson that year – make a big enough entrance, and your battle’s half won.”

Well, the battle may have been won but the war was only just starting – Al and Jack’s war to save our planet from mankind itself. There were no two people better for the job. During Al’s two terms in office, the USA became a very different place. With environmental meltdown now the biggest threat in the minds of the American public, the ‘War on Terror’ that his old pal Bush had set in motion was no longer needed to keep the people scared and the military rich. Gore wasted no time in reversing the USA’s traditional role of global peacekeeper/bully and instead offered the olive branch to former sworn enemies. Once a few gracious apologies were made and non-aggression pacts signed, it was amazing how quickly the so-called ‘War on Terror’ was won. Military spending, which had peaked at a trillion dollars in 2010, was slashed by 80%. Meanwhile, all remaining budgets for weapon development was channelled into ‘environmentally friendly’ weaponry – Electromagnetic and Directed Energy Technology that simply blew up eardrums and circuit boards, rather than men, machines and cities.

After seven years as President, Gore’s Global Marshall Plan was well underway. A new generation of agreements between leading industrial nations were signed. China agreed to vast reforms that would come to be known as the ‘Great Leap Backward’. Economic nooses were tightened around polluter states and corporations alike. Poor countries were leaned on to slow their population and industrial growth. Envirostudies became the core subject in all schools. In American society, consumerism quickly became a dirty word, just as communism had been 60 years before. Jack led by example, converting all government transport to electric and turning the White House into a model of self-sufficiency. Polluter taxes continued to rise, gasoline prices soared, and electric cars emerged as the new American vehicle of choice. Overnight, people suddenly seemed to realize that cycling wasn’t just something you did indoors for a workout; it was actually a pretty good form of transportation. Attitudes were changing, fast.

So when Gore stepped down in ’24, the minds and hearts of America had long been won. And when Jack announced his candidacy, never before was a landslide so assured.

His national address, watched by 40 billion people worldwide, saw Jack surrounded by a vast sea of stars and stripes. Behind him, a montage of hyper-real CGI clips flashed up on vast vidscreens, following the mood and tone of his speech word for word. A lush garden, filled with an impossible array of brightly coloured flowers, fruits and birds. A beautiful, naked couple embracing.

“Yesterday, a little boy asked me if I believe in Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden.”

Scenes of the great lakes, pristine forest flipped to Native Americans serenely surveying vast herds of buffalo, flipped to Pilgrim Fathers leading rosy-cheeked families west in covered wagons, flipped to grim-faced prospectors hacking rocks during the Gold Rush.

“I told him this, “son, we were given paradise on earth, and by eating from the tree of knowledge, we set ourselves on the path to destroying this great gift.””

Factories belched smoke and fire. Pasty faced children of the Great Depression huddled together in rags. Anti-war protesters skirmished with riot police. Teen soldiers ripped apart by shrapnel, ghetto gang-bangers mown down by Uzis.

“We can never go back, but we can change our ways. Use our knowledge and wisdom to build a new Garden of Eden, right here in the United States of America.”

The screens cut to a rosy-cheeked family in their sunny, leafy suburban home. Caucasian at first glance, at second they seem to embody a blend of racial types. Dad busy fixing solar panels to the roof. Mum, about to climb into her SUV, hesitates, shakes her head, and climbs on her old bike, smiling. Their two kids, impossibly angelic, pull weeds from the vegetable garden. Cut to a ‘closed’ sign being pasted across gates of a grimy power station, while in the background an army of wind-turbine blades begin to turn.

Jack’s eyes, radiating wisdom and self-belief, burned into the collective consciousness of the American public, just as they had burned into me 20 years before. They were spellbound.

“But it is not enough to save our land while the rest of the planet goes to hell; only by saving the planet can we save ourselves. To create a new Eden, we must become global gardeners…”

Patriotic, brave and trigger happy, the American people have always been happy to embrace a glorious cause, provided they are given plenty of flags to wave. With the seed of a New Eden planted, they embraced Jack’s vision heart, soul, body and mind. While the media provided ever more saturated cover fire, Jack escalated every policy Gore had initiated.

At home, society was transformed. In recognizing the damage greed and materialism had been doing to the planet, we came to understand what it had been doing to our bodies and souls. Once a sick, obese creature wallowing in the excrement of its own excess, in one generation, society had become a healthy, vigorous puritan. Violence, envy and sloth, the sores of its former corruption, were gradually healing.

Abroad, threats to the environment were even greater, as were the measures taken. In 2025, the Global Environmental Alliance was formed. Rogue polluter states were given ultimatums via the GEA to reduce industrialization, halt population growth and promote agriculture… or face the consequences. Crippling sanctions were only the beginning: in 2029, after several years of failed diplomacy, India’s status as the world’s worst Super Polluter was crippled in a matter of hours by energy blasts from EDEN3, a third-generation DET satellite. The energy unleashed was phenomenal, yet buildings remained intact and human casualties were minimal: a few hundred planes falling out of the sky here, a few thousand life-support systems failing there. That was the short term. Later, the famine, disease and civil war that inevitably followed saw India’s vast population halved: a chilling warning to other troublemakers. For the rest of us, it sparked a huge moral backlash that divided society and nearly tore apart the GEA. “Have we lost our humanity?” I asked him afterwards. “Yes” he replied, “I think we did. We had to.”

Looking back, I suppose this was the point where Jack and I began to drift apart. The magnitude of what we had done to India weighed heavily on my conscience, whereas Jack’s self-belief allowed for no doubts or scruples. In those days I saw less and less of him, so I began to look elsewhere for my answers – drink, religion, gurus… lovers. Troubled by my withdrawal, he was too busy to prevent it. Besides, he had so many other disciples by now. Soon, I avoided his gaze completely.

Time passed. The climate continued to change. Hurricanes, floods, droughts and plagues continued to shake the planet. Public fear was maintained at orange-to-red alert. Jack, whose public appearances by now seemed more evangelical than political, was the one glowing beacon of hope. And, like a disgraced priest making guilty amends for violating his choirboys, society meekly accepted each new law amending past violations of the planet. Soon, every citizen had an ID implant that tracked every step of their Carbon Footprint. Your CF rating became your social status, and if your score dropped into the red, heavy fines and confiscation of property followed.

In 2032, Jack overturned the twenty second Amendment and began his third term, only the second ever president to do so. “Make no mistake,” he reasoned, “we are at war, and no less desperate a struggle do we face as that which Franklin D. Roosevelt and the American people faced almost a century ago”.

On the whole, I think the people were relieved; by now, replacing Jack seemed unthinkable, and nobody even seemed to care that we had just slipped from democracy to dictatorship.

Except for me.

Perhaps if I had been a greater woman, I would have shared Jack’s strength of purpose, stuck by him to the end. Perhaps I would have handled the isolation of life in an ivory tower with a man who no longer told me his secrets, fears and dreams. Perhaps, if I had been less selfish, I wouldn’t have grown to hate a man who had tried to save the whole, big world, and in trying, had neglected our little one. Perhaps, if I had been a little less lonely, I wouldn’t have got involved with the fanatical Christian sect who branded Jack a false prophet. Perhaps, if I had been wiser, I would have seen that they were just using me to get to my husband.

But behind this great, great man was a woman just like everyone else: a weak, fallible human. I failed him, and they killed him, as people will always kill people when great power is at stake. Of course, many more would die in the aftermath, though not I, and none so great as him. Would that the world had stopped with him. But, for a while longer at least, this poor, sick planet keeps turning and churning.

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Igor Podlatchikov

Von Corinne Tâche-Berther
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We got to know Igor through his brother Iouri, who gave his first ever interview as a young snowboard superstar to 7sky People a number of years ago. Then he met our delightful apprentice girl Manuela and fell in love with her … From then on we frequently had the privilege of receiving him as a private guest, occasions on which he was fond of strumming his guitar and catapulted us into his universe with a few songs. Manuela started off as an au-pair for my family, like the other six lasses and lads who did their training with us. We are talking here about Igor Podlatchikov, a man for whom composing comes as easily as putting on a pair of shoes, who knows how to employ his versatile voice to the best effect and whose gifts include a scream … a scream… which you simply have to hear to comprehend! He can entertain a whole bar with his original songs and humour, which on occasion is a little below the belt, gets involved in matters which don’t always concern him and radiates a simplicity and warmth which gains him direct access to the hearts of his fans.

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Lyrics:

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„Green God“ by Idor Podladtchikov
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Miss World, tell me mam
What would be your ideal man
Strong personality
VIP revolving around me
Only me, all the time
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Ok… hm..
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Miss World, tell me now
Aren’t you drifting on a cloud
It’s either this or that
Save the world or be your pet
Oh shove it, it’s a fact
A woman can’t live without love coming back, oh
And you can’t love a man
Who’s getting fat in front of the can
Not giving a damn
Lady, I apologize
It’s either drink or drive
Sugar, Pumpkin honeypie
An all in one guy you won’t find
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Anywhere
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Scibidibi dap - I forgot my line
So it’s doo-wop-a-doo to fill up the time
And a jodeli-jodeli-jodeli-jo oh
Remember now but it’s too late just half a verse to go
So I’ll tell you real fast
Like the way you digest
When your system is a mess
And you’re tripping like you’re on X
To come clean, if you know what I mean
I’m just buying time ’till I know what to sing
Can’t think of anything
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Lady, I apologize
It’s either think or fly
Sunshine don’t go rub your eyes..but
A green god won’t have time for you
Lady, I apologize
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Can’t touch both you and the sky
Sweety, darlin’ don’t you cry..but
It’s either sink or strive
Freeze or fry
Lady you decide
Now don’t you cry
We’ll find a way
To light your night
And dim your day
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