Maybe you’re here to check out the Little Feat schedule, or maybe you’ve bookmarked this Web site so you can stay up to date with Biohazard and Buzzcocks. Furthermore, you know you can check in at any time and we’ll have plenty of dates for you. Dates for bands like Ministry and Sepultura, and routings for artists such as Jimmy Buffett and Poncho Sanchez. Yeah, life is good when you have tour dates. Thousands and thousands of tour dates.

But have you ever thought of the unfortunate people in this world? Have you ever considered what it’s like for them to spend each day without seeing a single tour date? Imagine what it must be like for a child living in Iraq or Bakersfield, and having to go through life without the schedule for Mariah Carey or the listings for Atlanta’s “On The Bricks” concert series. It’s not a pretty picture, is it?

Every once in a while you just have to stop and consider those less fortunate than yourself. How do you think it feels to wake up each morning, unable to afford even a cheap dial-up connection so that you can look up the routings for La Ley or Radiohead? Even as you read this, there are people sloshing through humanity’s forgotten backwaters, desperate for even one, solitary date for Cher that might bring a little happiness to their pathetic, irrelevant lives. Gets you right here, doesn’t it?

We can’t change the world. However, if we’ll just spend a few moments each day thinking about those who will never know the joy of seeing their favorite band announce a new tour; will never know the excitement of learning that the Eagles are coming to their town; will never experience the ecstasy that comes with discovering the support acts for Dave Matthews Band and ZZ Top; we’ll come to understand something very important on this crazy, mixed-up planet we call Earth.

Our lives aren’t so bad after all.