Comfortably Numb

Nothing like witnessing a massive global musical and political event from the sweaty interior of an office building to render it almost completely powerless.

From the looks of things, there was a whole bunch of rocknroll going on yesterday. MTV News’ coverage of Live 8, like the Video Music or Grammy Awards, was a full-on mobilization. Eight hours of live television doesn’t come cheap, or easy, as was made evident by the hours of meetings I spent cramming for this one. Still, AOL had the broadband exclusive, and credentials were thin, so I was holding down the fort. Which loosely translated means, while my colleagues were updating passports and packing currency converters, I wasn’t going anywhere.

All I can tell you is that I started somewhere around 6:30 yesterday morning. The bonus about being an executive producer is that I can change MTV.com at my discretion (thinking being that, after ten years at The MTV, my discretion’s pretty good). So I made some early-morning updates, went for a run, and headed in.

The building was a ghost town. It was dark and warm. The air was unmoving. I found a fan, and fired up my machines. I watched R.E.M. from London on my PC, Green Day from Berlin on my G4. MTV’s coverage began airing around noon. I watched Jay-Z, Pink Floyd and Stevie Wonder. But I may as well have been watching a music video, or a DVD. Despite the unprecedented connectivity, I felt completely disconnected.

My colleagues Jonathan, Rachel, Rich, Vincent, and Owen, performed brilliantly for almost twelve hours of news updates. Our pro-social initiative, Think!, looked amazing.

And who knows, maybe Sir Bob’s little brainstorm will succeed. Definately seems a little fishy that Africa, given its blackness, could be the only continent not gaining prosperity. (Not.) Seems odd that Iran would receive $170B in aid, but Bush can’t find $50B for the entire continent of Africa. (Not.) Maybe those eight white guys on a golf course somewhere in Scotland will think twice when they gather later this week.

Cross your fingers. And take a nap. That’s what I’m gonna’ do.