Unfortunately I had to put my plans for world domination on hold for a couple of weeks due to a really bad head cold and ear ache (pretty lame excuse you say?  If you had seen what I was coughing out you might think differently!)  Anyway, all that is almost over, just a bit more crap to get out of my sinuses and the ear is still a bit tender but should be back to normal in a couple more days.  So I wasn't all that productive in the past little while even though I tried to get some admin stuff done - actual studio work wasn't really possible because of the ear thing and concentration difficulties but I did start on something completely new which was inspired by a very unexpected email from an old friend - more on that later.  And what this "admin" stuff involved was often a lot of web/channel surfing and convincing myself that it was all part of the recovery process. 
Nice one, huh?!

But this little break of sorts did allow me to get back in touch with "current events", something I often ignore, not really intentionally, it kind of just happens that way.  So I was channel surfing a bit and feeling a lot of self-pity because nobody in the world had ever had such a bad cold as the one I was suffering and I stumbled across some "breaking news" on CNN.  Apparently there had just been a tremendous earthquake in Chile which had not only killed a lot of people and destroyed a lot of stuff but had also sent shockwaves through the Pacific Ocean which caused a few Tsunamis which could lead to further death and damage in other Pacific Rim countries.  Wow, I thought, and all of this only a few weeks after the catastrophe in Haiti!  It seems like Mother Nature woke up on the wrong side of the bed in 2010! 

But I am not poking fun here, events like this are truly tragic and the survivors need help, that is clear and it has been great to see the willingness to lend a helping hand coming from so many other countries throughout the world in the form of relief workers, food and medical aid, security forces etc.  Real help.  Not just some lame attempt to "raise awareness" - if you were not aware of the situation in Haiti at least a day or two after it happened then you must be militantly trying to avoid any kind of contact with the world around you and probably live on a deserted island somewhere or maybe deep in the wilderness in a self-made log cabin completely cut off from the outside world.  Which I guess brings me to my actual point.   "We Are The World 2" or whatever they're calling it.  Are you kidding me?!!!

Although the first version in 1985 had its flaws and the need to "raise awareness" even then was a bit in doubt considering that international news was obtainable by radio, TV, newspapers etc., the concept of a few pop stars getting together for a marathon recording session to churn out a single that would be sold with the proceeds going to help the cause they were singing about was kind of new and novel.  And music actually could be sold back then!  But to have a group of has beens and "almost famous" pop stars getting together to record an inferior, auto-tuned, rapped, version of the same song 25 years later to "raise awareness" about a situation that everyone in the world knew about within 24 hours of it happening is really pretty ridiculous.  If these people really want to help why don't they just quietly take out their cheque books and throw some money in the pot.  Or better yet, hop in their private jets and head on down to Haiti and start digging through the rubble in search of survivors!

I think this video puts the whole situation into perspective best of all:

Huey Lewis - I AM THE WORLD