New York City is world-famous for its farming – who could forget that episode of Sex And The City where Kim Cattrall said that pasturage rotation was like men, or the memorable moment on NYPD Blue when Arthur Fancy wanked off a pig?
OK, so New York probably isn't the farming capital of the universe, but that's not going to stop Willie Nelson, John Cougar Mellencamp and Neil Young from hosting the first ever Farm Aid New York concert in September. Farm Aid New York will strive to highlight the need for more organic food, sustainable practises and efficient energy sources in today's modern world of agriculture. It's thought that the anthem of Farm Aid New York will be a re-written version of Frank Sinatra's New York New York that'll feature the line "Start spreadin' the news/ I'm using mechanisation and computer technology coupled with intensive crop management as a substitute to chemicals in an attempt to reduce my the use of herbicides, fungicides and insecticides in comparison to conventional farming methodologies."
Poor New York – this summer London is getting all the fun. All the big names like Madonna, Spinal Tap and, um, Razorlight are playing the landmark Live Earth concert at Wembley and, if that wasn't enough, we've also got the creepy Princess Diana memorial concert to frantically try to avoid. This left New York with nothing apart from an overtly violent videogame basing itself there, a waxwork of David Beckham and Ricky Martin, king of Puerto Rico. Ricky bloody Martin.
Clearly something needed to be done, and so in stepped Farm Aid – brainchild festival of convicted hippy pothead Willie Nelson along with John 'Please stop calling me Cougar' Mellencamp, rightly unfamous everywhere apart from America Dave Matthews and Neil Young – is coming to the 480-acre Randall's Island between Manhattan and Queens on September 9. It'll be the first Farm Aid concert to be held in New York in the history of Farm Aid, possibly for the reason that New York is to farming what breakcore laptop electroclash is to Atchison, Iowa. But, according to E! Online, Farm Aid is more than welcome to the Big Apple:
How did organisers settled on the most urban of settings for the latest barn dance? New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will field that one. "The city strongly supports sustainable family farming through our Greemarket program—which has nearly doubled its locations over the past five years—and it's an honor to be hosting Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Farm Aid for their 2007 concert."
And a number of special activities are to be planned throughout New York to mark the coming of Farm Aid. For example, all of Central Park will be dug up an used to grow potatoes, the Charging Bull statue on Wall Street is to have a set of working, lactating udders installed so that the public has access to an unlimited amount of lukewarm unpasteurised milk and Donald Trump has promised to chase Rosie O'Donnell round the streets in a combine harvester for two weeks until Farm Aid begins.
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