Don't you just love benefit shows?

Live Earth, which is supposed to combat global warming, is happening this weekend (or so I'm pretty sure I've seen while rifling through the guide channel on my cable remote), and I'm torn. I'm not sure if this is lamer than Live8 or not! What we have here is another case of "Lame-bands-play-huge-festival-to-supposedly-raise-awareness-of-huge
-social-issues", but does anyone even care (I don't count the people who actually go to these things in "anyone")?

I heard that Radiohead refused to play and that made me pretty happy. 1.) Radiohead are really damn cool, and rejecting this is an affirmation that it's pretty lame and I'm right, 2.) Something about the energy-related costs of putting on this festival (including the hydrocarbons emitted by the performers' jets to fly some collective 200k+ miles to their festival performance locations, etc. When Live8 was all over tv a year ago, I was pretty annoyed, but I was relieved in that I wouldn't have to hear about any more of this shit for another 20 years or so. And what do I hear two days ago? That tons of bands are playing 9 cities or so to unite the masses in an effort against global warming. Maybe our ice caps will melt! Shit, that'd just be another great place to open a beach resort, right? Actually, heat kind of sucks. It's 95 and I don't have A/C and I'm sweating my *you name it* off right now. I'm not opposed to social issues, but a cheesy festival organized by Al Gore and some other guy that brings in the lamest artists on the planet to do it isn't exactly revolutionary. Red Hot Chili Peppers? Do all the 14-year olds on the planet hold the key to reversing global warming? No! They're too busy listening to Panic! at the Disco and watching Spiderman 3! And they're the only ones who might have cared about RHCP aside from a huge (I'll give you that one), but otherwise meaningless segment of the population known as "douchebags". Madonna? Come on. (Beautiful Stranger from the Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me was pretty catchy, but I'm not about to turn off my oscillating fan because of her connection to Live Earth).

If you guys ignore this stuff they'll have to stop putting it on.