All Credibility Shot, or Concert By Hypocrites
7/7/07
Hey Al Gore, why this day for these Live Earth concerts? Is there a specific reason for this date? Perhaps there's a better date on the calendar? Oh, I dunno... perhaps, hmmm... let's see here... EARTH DAY!??!??!
In any case, I've been watching through not much of the morning, I mean a concert on TV at 9 a.m.? Yes, I understand how time zones work but I had to sleep! Finally got to watching and pretty good stuff so far.
Duran Duran was cool. Chili Peppers were the best! Ohhhh man. Saw them on Lollapalooza like, awhile ago, on the 2nd ever festival tour and they've remained one of the best (non-Dead) shows I've ever seen!!!
Anyway, liked the keg tops to form the background design for the Wembley stage. Totally cool. (edit: actually, I think they're the tops of 55 gallon oil drums.) And wow, that new stadium is amazing. I remember seeing the old one in Live Aid and this and that and this new one's more like a huge modern stadium. Completely different.
Now we're into live tunage from "Live Earth New York."
Problem. East Rutherford, New Jersey is NOT in New York.
Kevin Bacon, when he came on stage to announce KT Tunstall, yelled, "Hello New Jersey!"
But I thought this was "Live Earth New York." Nice lie. Yes, yes, I know, technically Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands serves as the venue for this event but damn now, come on, is it really bad or wrong or too difficult to say "Live Earth New Jersey"????
Dear New York City, I love you and all but GET YOUR OWN STADIUM for football and concerts. Sheesh.
Who is this band called Kenna? (Is it a band or is that the dude's name, like Prince?) They/he kicked things off and they're/he's great! Lead singer dude reminds me of that kinda crazy politician Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil. (Hmmm... are they playing, or did they play in Sydney today?) Except this Kenna dude said to the crowd, "You guys realize you're a part of history now." How so?
Since it's way early on, I'm not sure who else is gonna be playing except I remember hearing Madonna's name for London and The Police and Bon Jovi, I guess for the Meadowlands. Many more, to be sure.
Here's a problem, though, with this whole deal. Wait, first, Live Earth is a good idea, maybe... if it is able to raise awareness and more people begin to change the way they live in order to benefit the Earth. Somehow I don't think many people are gonna change significantly enough especially to balance out A) below...
Problems: A) musicians that travel around for tours use more fossil fuels in a year, in some cases, than the regular citizen uses in five or ten years! Holy cow. That's amazing. I'm shaking my head at how these are the people advocating for a cleaner Earth. Uhhhh.... so the message is: "Be kind to the Earth, people, but we're still gonna go on being horribly unkind in certain ways." Absolutely hypocritical. I tell ya what, just make your music and not tour more than in your local area and then you can tell people they should help save the Earth, k?!
(Question: why wear a long sleeve shirt and pants in July in New Jersey?!?!?!?
Am I the only one who believes that shorts and a short sleeve shirt is basically mandatory for summer and other times of warm-hot weather? Long sleeves and pants?!?!? No. I'd seriously rather die.
I guess it just goes to show how much of a beach bum I am... but I'm not really anymore since I don't spend time at the beach, but growing up that was life and it hasn't left me. Summer = shorts and short sleeves. No excuses. (Man, I need to move back to NJ, especially the Shore!))
ANYWAY... getting back to the Problem with these concerts...
B) I wasn't planning on this one but I heard on the news yesterday, oh, on Glenn Beck, so not the news, per say, but it was said that the most serious cause of Global Warming is actually animals. And since we, the American people, eat more animals than anywhere on Earth, the demand is so high that so much of the atmosphere is destroyed by, ummm, I'm not sure of the exact specifics but here's one deal -- forests that suck in CO2 get bulldozed in order to plant crops to feed to the animals that people consume. Plus all the oil used by trucks to transport food around and the vehicle emissions by those trucks. The higher the demand for animals for food, the more Global Warming takes place. But at these concerts they're serving meat. DUH!!!!!!!!!! So that's bad.
and C) on the TV screen and in the stadiums on big banners to the right and to the left of the stage, they're promoting a service allowing you to send a Text Message on a cell phone in order to get your name on the TV scroll or on a scrolling message screen above the bands. Fun enough, right. No harm.
No harm?
Earlier the broadcast on Bravo ran a PSA with Holly Hunter listening to an mp3 player (probably one of those evil ipods) and promoting downloading music tracks rather than buying an actual CD. That's cool with me. I mostly download now. In the past ten years, besides new Grateful Dead family stuff, I've purchased about ten CDs, all used. Downloading does save on oil it takes to deliver to stores, to deliver to your home plus packaging. Downloading is good while CDs are bad.
But what about cell phones? Live Earth is telling people to text their name using a cell phone. Can't send your name in through an internet website but you can use a cell phone. Cell phones are made from petroleum. It takes oil to deliver cell phones to stores. One usually uses oil to drive to a store to buy a cell phone. When thrown away they contribute to filling up a landfill. When thrown away they also can harm the environment due to toxic metals contained within.
Now, how much oil is used when a person has a land line and the same regular 10 or 15 year old phone plugged into the wall?????
So, Live Earth and Mr. Lockbox Gore, great idea, huh, the encouraging of people to use cell phones???!!! (i truly hate to criticize people and especially hate to call names but -- whoever came up with the cell phone idea is a moron.)
Awareness is a wonderful thing. Coming from hypocrites really makes me not care about what they're saying and I'll go listen to others for advice and encouragement to be kind to the Earth, thanks.
(great music, though... Keith Urban just fired up the Stones' Gimme Shelter... not bad... with special guest Alicia Keys. Wow, pretty freakin' sweet!!! Marketing himself as Nashville country is quite foolish. He's more Bruce Springsteen than he is George Jones.)
More updates later? Not likely. I'm not gonna watch this all day... I don't know what an Akon is and I'm not sure I care. And speaking of music I don't care about, someone named Ludacris just came on stage. Time to watch some baseball. But later I'll be diggin' a bunch more of today's music... but I'm completely sickened by the hypocrisy.
6:33pm addition -- Dear Melissa Etheridge, did you not get the note that this is not a war protest concert? Ummm, hello? This is for the environment and yes, war affects the environment... but hello?!?! You must not have gotten the memo. Now go away. Wait, I'm sorry, that's mean. Go away, please.
6:50 pm addition -- Sundance Channel is rollin' tonight's Wembley action... Nice! unlike Bravo which is playin' Giants Stadium with a taped highlight during band changes. Foo Fighters playin' a great set now! Sweet! Blows the crap outta that loudmouth in the Meadowlands. So much cooler!!!
7:05 pm -- Dear Alicia Keys, East Rutherford, New Jersey is not in New York City.
Hey Al Gore, why this day for these Live Earth concerts? Is there a specific reason for this date? Perhaps there's a better date on the calendar? Oh, I dunno... perhaps, hmmm... let's see here... EARTH DAY!??!??!
In any case, I've been watching through not much of the morning, I mean a concert on TV at 9 a.m.? Yes, I understand how time zones work but I had to sleep! Finally got to watching and pretty good stuff so far.
Duran Duran was cool. Chili Peppers were the best! Ohhhh man. Saw them on Lollapalooza like, awhile ago, on the 2nd ever festival tour and they've remained one of the best (non-Dead) shows I've ever seen!!!
Anyway, liked the keg tops to form the background design for the Wembley stage. Totally cool. (edit: actually, I think they're the tops of 55 gallon oil drums.) And wow, that new stadium is amazing. I remember seeing the old one in Live Aid and this and that and this new one's more like a huge modern stadium. Completely different.
Now we're into live tunage from "Live Earth New York."
Problem. East Rutherford, New Jersey is NOT in New York.
Kevin Bacon, when he came on stage to announce KT Tunstall, yelled, "Hello New Jersey!"
But I thought this was "Live Earth New York." Nice lie. Yes, yes, I know, technically Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands serves as the venue for this event but damn now, come on, is it really bad or wrong or too difficult to say "Live Earth New Jersey"????
Dear New York City, I love you and all but GET YOUR OWN STADIUM for football and concerts. Sheesh.
Who is this band called Kenna? (Is it a band or is that the dude's name, like Prince?) They/he kicked things off and they're/he's great! Lead singer dude reminds me of that kinda crazy politician Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil. (Hmmm... are they playing, or did they play in Sydney today?) Except this Kenna dude said to the crowd, "You guys realize you're a part of history now." How so?
Since it's way early on, I'm not sure who else is gonna be playing except I remember hearing Madonna's name for London and The Police and Bon Jovi, I guess for the Meadowlands. Many more, to be sure.
Here's a problem, though, with this whole deal. Wait, first, Live Earth is a good idea, maybe... if it is able to raise awareness and more people begin to change the way they live in order to benefit the Earth. Somehow I don't think many people are gonna change significantly enough especially to balance out A) below...
Problems: A) musicians that travel around for tours use more fossil fuels in a year, in some cases, than the regular citizen uses in five or ten years! Holy cow. That's amazing. I'm shaking my head at how these are the people advocating for a cleaner Earth. Uhhhh.... so the message is: "Be kind to the Earth, people, but we're still gonna go on being horribly unkind in certain ways." Absolutely hypocritical. I tell ya what, just make your music and not tour more than in your local area and then you can tell people they should help save the Earth, k?!
(Question: why wear a long sleeve shirt and pants in July in New Jersey?!?!?!?
Am I the only one who believes that shorts and a short sleeve shirt is basically mandatory for summer and other times of warm-hot weather? Long sleeves and pants?!?!? No. I'd seriously rather die.
I guess it just goes to show how much of a beach bum I am... but I'm not really anymore since I don't spend time at the beach, but growing up that was life and it hasn't left me. Summer = shorts and short sleeves. No excuses. (Man, I need to move back to NJ, especially the Shore!))
ANYWAY... getting back to the Problem with these concerts...
B) I wasn't planning on this one but I heard on the news yesterday, oh, on Glenn Beck, so not the news, per say, but it was said that the most serious cause of Global Warming is actually animals. And since we, the American people, eat more animals than anywhere on Earth, the demand is so high that so much of the atmosphere is destroyed by, ummm, I'm not sure of the exact specifics but here's one deal -- forests that suck in CO2 get bulldozed in order to plant crops to feed to the animals that people consume. Plus all the oil used by trucks to transport food around and the vehicle emissions by those trucks. The higher the demand for animals for food, the more Global Warming takes place. But at these concerts they're serving meat. DUH!!!!!!!!!! So that's bad.
and C) on the TV screen and in the stadiums on big banners to the right and to the left of the stage, they're promoting a service allowing you to send a Text Message on a cell phone in order to get your name on the TV scroll or on a scrolling message screen above the bands. Fun enough, right. No harm.
No harm?
Earlier the broadcast on Bravo ran a PSA with Holly Hunter listening to an mp3 player (probably one of those evil ipods) and promoting downloading music tracks rather than buying an actual CD. That's cool with me. I mostly download now. In the past ten years, besides new Grateful Dead family stuff, I've purchased about ten CDs, all used. Downloading does save on oil it takes to deliver to stores, to deliver to your home plus packaging. Downloading is good while CDs are bad.
But what about cell phones? Live Earth is telling people to text their name using a cell phone. Can't send your name in through an internet website but you can use a cell phone. Cell phones are made from petroleum. It takes oil to deliver cell phones to stores. One usually uses oil to drive to a store to buy a cell phone. When thrown away they contribute to filling up a landfill. When thrown away they also can harm the environment due to toxic metals contained within.
Now, how much oil is used when a person has a land line and the same regular 10 or 15 year old phone plugged into the wall?????
So, Live Earth and Mr. Lockbox Gore, great idea, huh, the encouraging of people to use cell phones???!!! (i truly hate to criticize people and especially hate to call names but -- whoever came up with the cell phone idea is a moron.)
Awareness is a wonderful thing. Coming from hypocrites really makes me not care about what they're saying and I'll go listen to others for advice and encouragement to be kind to the Earth, thanks.
(great music, though... Keith Urban just fired up the Stones' Gimme Shelter... not bad... with special guest Alicia Keys. Wow, pretty freakin' sweet!!! Marketing himself as Nashville country is quite foolish. He's more Bruce Springsteen than he is George Jones.)
More updates later? Not likely. I'm not gonna watch this all day... I don't know what an Akon is and I'm not sure I care. And speaking of music I don't care about, someone named Ludacris just came on stage. Time to watch some baseball. But later I'll be diggin' a bunch more of today's music... but I'm completely sickened by the hypocrisy.
6:33pm addition -- Dear Melissa Etheridge, did you not get the note that this is not a war protest concert? Ummm, hello? This is for the environment and yes, war affects the environment... but hello?!?! You must not have gotten the memo. Now go away. Wait, I'm sorry, that's mean. Go away, please.
6:50 pm addition -- Sundance Channel is rollin' tonight's Wembley action... Nice! unlike Bravo which is playin' Giants Stadium with a taped highlight during band changes. Foo Fighters playin' a great set now! Sweet! Blows the crap outta that loudmouth in the Meadowlands. So much cooler!!!
7:05 pm -- Dear Alicia Keys, East Rutherford, New Jersey is not in New York City.
9 comments:
So few will accept the rampant hypocrisy surrounding Gore and the GW debate.
Hey, I'd like to add you to my Eagle Wing Palace.
I'm here, by the way...
Okay, HERE.
New Jersey was bitchin and moaning all week on how this shebang was called Live Earth New York and not Live Earth NJ.
It's all a bunch of sound and fury signifying nothing anyway.
Nothings gonna change, everybody just gets to feel good about themselves for a day or two.
I think many people will make small changes. Many of those people will forget/abandon their plans in short time. Some will strive to do better. Was history made? Probably not for the environment. Developers who wish to rape the Earth will always be more powerful than the voice of the citizens. Big companies who would rather have less strict regulations will get their way.
The Earth will remain in decline.
We'll die and it'll be in the hands of those after us.
Hooray.
Listing Glen Beck as a news source, "per say" is kind of stupid. So all the animals are responsible for global warming? Really? Is it really just one thing that can be pointed to? "Forests that suck in CO2 get bulldozed in order to plant crops to feed to the animals." Again, really? Urban sprawl and suburban development are much more harmful than crops.
Listing Glenn Beck as a news source would probably be dumb. I didn't really list any source, though. All I did was say what I heard on Glenn Beck... then between hearing it and posting, I did some research and what I heard seems fairly sound -- animals are partially responsible for global warming.
People are so dependent on animals for food so there are so freakin' many cows and pigs (but I'm not sure pigs contribute directly but they do indirectly...)
The increasing number of animals need to be fed stuff that grows out of the ground. In places like the Amazon and elsewhere, forests are chopped down partially so those crops can be planted. The lack of trees globally helps increase temperatures.
And yeah, the raping of the Earth in the form of suburban sprawl and disgusting similar developent, that also contributes.
I never said it was animals alone.
My point was animals are a significant factor in global warming which was one of the primarily issues Live Earth wanted to bring attention to, if not the primarily issue! But they never imposed a ban on selling meat in order to help the Earth. So... that was just one way in which the show was wickedly hypocritical.
I applaud the desire to bring attention to matters pertaining to Saving Planet Earth... afterall, we don't know when Christ will return. We need to plan for 2 seconds from now but at the same time we can also worry about having a nice place for future generations should the event not happen so soon. People's souls are what is most important... but as a side-project, saving the earth is important but there's just something not right about listening to hypocrites tell us to.
Kevin Bacon, when he came on stage to announce KT Tunstall, yelled, "Hello New Jersey!"
I don't know how you feel about this, but i think that it's not amazing when a performer can shout out the name of the town they're in. Come on, all it shows is that you're not completely stoned. Big deal, you know where you are. It's a really cheap way to get applause.
Wasn't there a Simpson's episode with Spinal Tap in concert. One of the guitarists says something like, "We've been to a lot of towns, but nobody rocks like - [pause while he reads the name written on tape on the back of his guitar] - SPRINGFIELD !!!!"
You're right about the ep. of The Simpsons...
When i mentioned Kevin Bacon saying Hello New Jersey... i was pleased that he didn't say New York like Alicia Keys did.
So true, though, that someone yelling where they are is pretty unimpressive... except maybe it's okay when an artist is back in their hometown (or nearby) and acknowledging that. Shows like Springsteen in NJ or the Violent Femmes in Milwaukee, etc, are often much more special than The Cure in Cleveland or Pearl Jam in Poughkeepsie.
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