Live Earth

So, I watched about 12 minutes of Bravo's 18 hour broadcast of Live Earth, and am obviously going to issue the final word on the event. Yeah, yeah, I heard the Arctic Monkeys and some bitter guy from the 80's have decried the concert's complete lack of, umm, goals, direction, internal logic, etc., but I'm for it: for me things are important only when Kanye West tells me they are. Diamonds from Sierra Leone, Mike Myers' sense of comfort, global warming--all totally not cool. But I digress. But since I'm digressing can I just say, what's with human parental advisory sticker Tipper Gore being the woman behind the man behind the concert featuring Akon, Ludacris, and Madonna? So, sexual suggestiveness in lyrics is only a problem if you're Prince, or because her kids are all growed up and self-medicating, Tipper's got bigger tofu to fry?

Anyway, here's what I wanted to say about the concert: Andy Summers from the Police is rock and roll's answer to Oscar the Grouch on barbituates; Duran Duran blew the Police out of the water with their "Girls on Film" extendo-jam, totally reordering my 4th grade view of the world; and Chris Rock had the quotes of the night ("Who doesn't love James Blunt?" and "I pray this event ends global warming, like Live Aid ended hunger.")

Also, I heart Al Gore. For someone who says he's "fallen out of love with politics," he sure has a funny way of showing it. His original plan was to do the North America concert on the Mall in DC, but James Inhofe (R-Assholeville) realized scientific consensus is a Democratic conspriuscy and put an end to that partisan chicanery. Instead of going quietly into the good night/panrty lined with Krispy Kreme, Al pretended to capitulate, setting up a concert at Giants Stadium. But then--boo yah! (boo-yah looks only slightly lamer in print than when emitted from my mouth)--secret concert on the Mall. Next to the National Museum of the American Indian, and with non-Dixie Chick country stars Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood. Read: "Fuck you, Inhofe. I bring it with the people who were displaced when your forebears raped and pillaged their way though Oklahoma. I bring it with musicians working in a genre that for years peddled your bullshit. I'm going to kill your Republican majority and eat your children." That's how you play politics, and that's why Gore isn't yet outta the game. He's running. For real he is.