Oddjack Cultural Oddsmaker: Live 8 Odds

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Today’s Oddjack Cultural Oddsmaker comes courtesy of Geoff Wolinetz, satirist, diarist, and anarchist of Yankee Pot Roast. Mr. Wolinetz engages us with a breakdown of odds for this weekend’s Live 8 concert, which no one seems to have any idea what the concert is about. Famine? Amnesty? WTO? Scientology? We guess we’ll have to wait and see.

After the jump, Geoff puts on his OxFam handicapper’s hat, his crowdsurfing pants, and feeds the world a heaping spoonful of fun Live 8 things to bet on this weekend.

On May 31, 2005, former Boomtown Rat and co-organizer Bob Geldof announced his plans to organize his third worldwide concert, Live 8. You may be asking yourself, “What is the point of Live 8? Didn’t we accomplish all of this 20 years ago with Live Aid? I still have my t-shirt.”

Well, according to Geldof, Live 8 is not Live Aid 2. Like Leonard, Part 6, this “sequel” is meant to stand on its own merit. Live 8 will bring together over 100 different musical acts in 10 different cities and is scheduled just before the July 6-9 meeting of the G8 leaders in Edinburgh, Scotland. It is a coordinated musical effort to get the G8 leaders to start tapping their feet and humming along, thereby canceling African debt, injecting new money into the continent and “delivering trade justice.” Whatever that means. Hey, Bono’s gonna be there!!

Whenever this many people come together to lend their support to a cause, there are invariably some shysters looking to take advantage of them, protesters to voice their opposition to the “man,” (no matter who the man actually is) and ensuing general wackiness. Who wants some action?

CONCERT ODDS

· Any band will commit to the as-yet-determined line up for the Moscow show: 120/1
·Russian metal band Autograph will reprise their performance from “Live Aid”: 7/1
· Someone will use the pick up line “How’d you like to relieve the African debt in my pants?”: 1/5
· Coca-Cola will plunk down a brief case full of cash to be the “Official Soft Drink of Live 8”: 3/1
· Bono will scream something completely unintelligible between songs and the audience will scream in agreement despite having no idea what he said: 1/300
· Philadelphia Eagles fans will throw D batteries at the concert performers at Art Museum: Even
· AOL Music’s webcast will crash from all the traffic directed to the site: 7/2
· An impromptu “Ebony and Ivory” duet by Rob Thomas and Stevie Wonder: 17/1
· Blood will pour out of my eyes while listening to an impromptu “Ebony and Ivory” duet by Rob Thomas and Stevie Wonder: Even
· Nelson and Winnie Mandela will reconcile with an open mouth kiss (ala Michael Jackson/Lisa Marie Presley) on stage: 200/1
· Rolling Stone will proclaim this “The Concert of the Decade”: 1/10,000,000,000,000
· Spin will marginalize the event with a Chuck Klosterman column and complete lack of coverage: 5/1
· This concert will inspire “Hands Across America 8”: 14/1

FUN WITH THE OVER/UNDER:

· Price of a bottle of water: $6
· Percentage of things made of hemp (excluding actual narcotics): 73
· Times President Bush will be called a criminal: 65.5
· Times President Bush will be called a war criminal: 49.5
· Port-o-Johns set ablaze: 16

· Ounces of hair product that Bono uses: 22
· Shout-outs by Bono to Kofi Annan: 3
· “Mourn you ‘til I join you” shout-outs by Bono to Pope JP the 2: 4
· Protesters: 150,000
· Protesters protesting issues that are totally unrelated to the cause Live 8 is advocating: 100,000
· Food consumed by concert goers (in pounds): 250,000
· Number of starving Africans food consumed by concert goers could feed: 750,000