Live Earth: More like "Live Ugh"

As you're browsing the site nowadays, you might get hit with one of those advertisements proclaiming that "hot artists" are getting ready to perform at Live Earth, which is supposedly a "concert for a climate crisis." Great; just great-as if I needed more of this global warming apocalypse babble shoved down my throat, now they're recruiting idiots like the Black-Eyed Peas to shout about it? How is Fergie supposed to tell me about the dangers of the ozone layer when she can't even stop peeing her pants?

It's really annoying when you're seeing an amalgam of two things you hate: end-of-the-world Y2K-esque phenomena mixed with John Mayer's pasty white face, leering at me from the monitor. Hey look, Edward Scissorhands is going to teach us about the value of life! That's pretty ironic, because Mayer looks like the type to slit his wrists before he listens to My Bloody Valentine as he cries himself to sleep. You really think he cares about global warming? No, he cares more about how your body is a wonderland. No I'm not kidding; he actually wrote those godawful lyrics.

Clicking on the ad, I found out that Green Day is also attending the event. No surprise; they've manage to hang on the coattails of every drab glam n' glitter event since that shameful rock-opera "American Idiot." These are the same guys who had the audacity to claim they were "punk," only to get spat in the face by elderstatesman and super-punk Johnny "Rotten" Lydon. Yeah, that's the good stuff. Scrolling down, you can see that another familiar attention hog is riding the one-horse ride to hell: Everyone's favorite pop drone, Madonna. Again, I'm not surprised. She probably needs somewhere to hide from the MILF Hunter or something. Or maybe some rabbis are still trying to have her executed.

What did surprise me was Thom Yorke poking his ugly, droopy mug from behind the next page. I almost jumped out of my skin because he's so freaky-looking. Is it just me, or does he suffer form the same drippy-eye problem as Ms. Hilton? Also riding on the "desperately trying to stay relevant" wagon is Willie Nelson, Barenaked Ladies, Linkin Park, Metallica, and...Moby! Well, who'dathunkit!? Bald, effeminate vegan Moby joining the Live Earth brigade? Color me shocked!

About the only thing that garnered some interest in me was The Smashing Pumpkins and the supposed return of Billy Corgan. Everyone else involved in the project can go to hell purely based on the irrevocable fact that they suck or they're outdated. Even the Rolling Stones wouldn't be caught dead in this gig. Keith Urban? The Pussycat Dolls? Is this the best we can do, or is music simply dead? Do you really think that anyone I just named (besides goggle-eyed grassroots Moby) has any real interest in Al Gore's Crusade Of The Righteous and the Strong™?

No, probably not. Let's face it: This event is all about publicity for bands that lack the talent to do some of their sets. Some of them have class and have earned their wings in the past-the Police stick out like magnificent, blistered thumbs on an otherwise scabby hand of atrocious posers. But for the majority, we're stuck with Kanye West and his liberal garbage and his Jesus praisin' and his uppercrust snobbery. I swear, he's what would happen if I took Curtis Jackson, Sean Combs, and a college undergrad majoring in Faux-Intelligence of the Modern World and mashed them all together like some sort of abhorred TV dinner.

If you're a band in this Live Earth gig, you fall under one of these categories:

1) You suck, and this is the only way to get exposure.

2) You're old and irrelevant; therefore, you need some sort of giant venue to kickstart your ass off the dialysis machines.

3) You thought that this would be the perfect time to stage a reunion; see the Police and Billy Corgan.

4) You're Madonna, and you were not shown enough love as a child. Therefore you think it is best to be a pretentious show-off, act in horrible movies, and "collect" children from around the world. Also, see reasons one and two.

I hate Live Earth, and I hate the global warming scare. A part of me hopes that this whole thing is just another Y2K festival of irrational scare tactics and clown-college logic....but another part of me really hopes that the sun melts us all. If this is the kind of selfless promotion that I have to suffer through in the music scene, then please God grant us the swift death that is the ozone exploding into a million tiny fragments.