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America Votes: Apocalypse Now or Later?
Issue 24.2: Electoween 2008
Posted: October 30, 2008

TARGET(TM) Children's Music Festival Probably Enjoyed by Someone. Possibly by Children.

Malcolm Culleton

What kind of diabolical, heartless, sleep-hating force of nature would bring hundreds of young children and their parents to the Columbia Campus on Sunday morning at the usually peaceful hour of 10 o’clock? Target, that’s who.

Apparently this retail giant has decided to give something back to the many children who drive their parents insane by pleading for toys and candy in Target stores nationwide. As part of what was surely some kind of self-serving and shamelessly capitalistic scheme, Target struck a chord in the musical hearts of many local kids (and a nerve in the hearts of many more resident drunks) on Sunday, October 5th, offering a free concert and activities until 5:00 PM. Of course, since young children don’t (usually) have hangovers on Sunday morning, the event started bright and early.

So what was the whole “festival” about? That is precisely the question this reporter asked himself, or rather, screamed out the window of his dorm room (along with a colorful mix of swear words) upon awakening. I was having a beautiful dream. There was music everywhere, and people were dancing... only I soon found out that “everywhere” meant right outside my window, the music was terrible, and I was awake and terribly hung over. After somehow managing to drag myself downstairs and expose my weary body to the sunlight, I was able to find the answer to my question on a gigantic red and white tent: reading.

That’s right, reading. The whole event was some sort of bullshit learnto- read program. As far as I could tell, it probably wasn’t working, because I didn’t see anyone in the audience reading. They probably couldn’t read, because they were only three years old. And the music was too damned loud.

The “lineup” for the event was full of obnoxious performers, including a guy in a really bright orange suit and some amorphous green piece of shit that was trying to dance. As a crowd of socially awkward parents held their disinterested toddlers high upon their shoulders, DJ Wonky- Donk implored them with a goofy voice to “wiggle like a worm” and “shake their sillies out”. During the five minutes that I was outside, I didn’t hear anyone mention reading. The whole event was probably either a really mean trick that the university decided to play on every undergrad who lives near South Campus or a thinly-veiled excuse for Target to sell children’s books to the parents of illiterate three year olds. I could’ve investigated this, but my head hurt, so I went back to bed and swore out the window some more before finally falling asleep right around 5:15, just after the whole thing was over with.

Later, curious to see how well the show was received, I interviewed some kid on my hall.

“Yeah,” he told me. “That shit woke me up, too. What the fuck was all of that about? Children’s music blows.”

Surely, there was someone who disagreed with this opinion. However, that someone was probably wearing a clown suit and/or had his face painted like a tiger, and I was certainly in no mood to try and find him. Amongst all three of my classmates that I talked to, the message seemed pretty clear: stop waking us up, go away, everyone older than seven knows that Target doesn’t care about your kids, and children’s music is completely pathetic and worthless.

Unless it’s Raffi.