Eight-year-old Billy Madson writes: Dear Pollstar.com. With all this talk about North Korea having nuclear weapons, what would happen to all my favorite bands and artists, like Green Day or Tori Amos, if Kim Jong-il ever pushes the button and unleashes total worldwide destruction?

Not to worry, Billy! For America has a plan – a plan that was first conceived back during the Eisenhower administration – that will ensure that all popular artists, including Oasis, Neil Diamond and Maroon 5, survive the ravages of war.

First off, even while your family receives the first warning of impending nuclear holocaust, specially trained civil defense employees will be rounding up all performers with at least one top-ten hit under their respective belts. That’s because, even in a time of untold disaster, our government realizes the importance of preserving our pop culture.

But that’s only the first step, Billy! While your father is hustling you and your family into your own bomb shelter located under the swimming pool in your back yard, government officials will guide big name acts like Paul McCartney and U2 into custom-built bomb shelters that are located deep beneath the Earth’s surface. These facilities are accessible through secret tunnels connecting the shelters with all major concert venues. For example, the tunnel at Madison Square Garden is located behind the third concession stand on your left when you walk through the front entrance. Needless to say, all these shelters are guaranteed to withstand a direct, 100-megaton detonation that will most likely destroy everything on the surface within a 50-mile radius.

However, Billy, it will take more than secret tunnels and specially marked back stage laminates if our musical heritage is to survive for generations to come. While your father is busy fighting off your neighbors who never took the time to build their own bomb shelters; while he’s arguing with your playmates’ parents, perhaps even grabbing his gun and firing off a few rounds to show them that “he means business,” government officials will lead our culture’s most popular entertainers, like The White Stripes, Destiny’s Child and the Eagles, to their well-equipped, apocalyptic sanctuaries.

Of course, it takes more than bunkers buried under miles of concrete and steel to ensure the survival of a Jimmy Buffett or an Elvis Costello. That’s why each bunker is packed to the brim with all the food and necessities needed for the perpetuation of their individual lifestyles. Yes, Billy, while you and your family are huddled in the dark fighting over the last chunk of SPAM and ten-year-old, freeze-dried cheese, you’ll take comfort in knowing that your favorite artists and bands are receiving all the caviar, champagne and tobacco products needed to keep them healthy and fuel their creative muses in preparation for that time when they will be able to emerge from the shelters and take their rightful places as musical leaders of a war-ravaged world.

So, you see, Billy, there’s nothing to worry about, despite what you might hear from the liberals running the news media. In the event of a nuclear catastrophe, your favorite bands and artists will be absolutely safe in their secret underground facilities, where they will continue to live in the manner to which they have become accustomed to. Room service, gofers, bling – it all comes together miles beneath the surface to guarantee that the creative minds belonging to acts like Adema, Dave Matthews Band and Judas Priest will be preserved so that they may entertain and enlighten the lives of those who crawl out from underneath the wreckage and ruin ultimately resulting from global warfare. Yes, Billy, all your favorites will survive, if not thrive, if the unthinkable happens and the human race becomes nothing but a nuclear-charred shadow of its former self.

That is, unless your favorites happen to be support acts. After all, there’s something to be said for the survival of the fittest.