MTV Presents Supersize the Band.

One thing that distinguishes New York from other cities is the weirdness you run into. Go for a walk through Bryant Park one night and you'll find David Blaine standing atop a forty-foot pole. Wander Times Square and discover Criss Angel encased in a block of ice. And, for the next few weeks, head down to the Hudson and see a rock group encased inside a giant bubble.

A security guard told me it's a publicity stunt for a band called Cartel. They'll live in the bubble for twenty days, supposedly to write and record their new record. I plopped down in a chair to watch them, and discovered something really weird. They're trying to publicize a rock band, yet the bubble is soundproof.

Now, this strikes me as pretty stupid. There are thousands of potential fans visiting these guys, but we can't hear a note they play. We sit there and watch them like a silent movie. We see them fiddling with their instruments, but not one plink filters out.

More important than the music, evidently, is the advertising. The bubble is covered with signs for multinational corporations: Dr. Pepper. KFC. Wal-Mart. Pretty much a laundry list of bastards. Hoping the band's cool will help erase their bad reputations.

KFC actually claimed fried chicken was part of a low-carb diet. Until they bowed to public pressure, one meal there gave you three days worth of trans fat. Wal-Mart is famous for paying its workers so badly they still qualify for welfare, and routinely locked their cleaning crews in their stores to make sure they wouldn't scurry off. Dr. Pepper isn't any worse than any other soda, but it's still just flavored sugar water.

To be fair, the band seemed nice. While I was there, they gave a street kid part of their dinner. They signed autographs for some teenage girls from Staten Island celebrating a birthday. But they're responsible for their marketing, and the companies they're selling truly suck.

Instaed of letting the cool rub off on the contemptible, then, let's do it the other way around. Let the bad reputations rub off on Cartel. Because, apparently, this is a band that couldn't care less about its fans.

Right before I left, they got a delivery from KFC, which they naturally washed down with Dr. Pepper. The scene struck me as familiar, until I realized it was straight out of "Supersize Me." In that movie, Morgan Spurlock ate junk food for a month, three times a day, until his internal organs started to fail.

I don't know how Cartel's stunt is going to end. Maybe they'll come up with a great new record. Maybe they'll make millions of new fans. But maybe their kidneys will shut down.

If I were them, I'd talk to my Public Relations guy. Maybe it's not too late to stand on a pole.