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Carmelo Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire join James Dolan onstage to play kazoos. For charity.

Carmelo Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire join James Dolan onstage to play kazoos. For charity.

On Thursday night, toward the end of his band’s opening set for the critically acclaimed and widely beloved classic rock outfit The Eagles, New York Knicks owner James Dolan asked Knick forwards Amar’e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony up on the Madison Square Garden stage to play kazoos. Melo and Amar’e joined Henrik Lundkvist and Garden regular John McEnroe in an attempt to break a Guinness World’s Record for the most kazoos played in one building at the same time.

The charge was inspired by Dolan’s idea for a more annoying, but far less environmentally harmful version of the spectacularly successful but water-wastin’ Ice Bucket Challenge, which admirably has helped raise millions for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, better known as ALS and Lou Gehrig’s Disease. If over 6,000 people joined in with the kazoos on stage, Dolan pledged that he would donate $100,000 toward the cause. We’re not sure why the billionaire that signed Jerome James to a $29 million contract needed the whole kazoo thing to go down before busting out his checkbook for that amount, but every penny counts, and we applaud Dolan’s efforts.

If you would like to donate to help research needed to make ALS a thing of the past, please follow this link.

Stoudemire documented the evening on his Twitter page:

The New York Post revealed Dolan’s plan over the weekend, in an aside we must have missed:

We’re told audience members will each be given a kazoo upon entering the arena and that the stunt, a world record attempt, will take place at around 7:15 p.m. during the song “Governor’s Blues,” which includes a kazoo solo.

Just everything about that paragraph should have you tossing out exasperated sighs.

“Governor’s Blues” was written in response to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s alleged participation in the needless closing of lanes on the George Washington Bridge, purportedly in response to Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, NJ refusing to advocate for Christie’s re-election in 2013. Dolan explained his lyrical response in these hilarious tones, to the New York Times:

“I’m an artist, and an artist doesn’t worry about being politically correct when I write.”

Dolan is also a billionaire, and not unlike Adam Sandler’s character in ‘Funny People,’ his band is obviously bought and paid for, as opposed to some sort of “let’s go over and jam on Jim’s helipad, the acoustics are amazing!”-ethos. He is using his business partnership with longtime Eagles manager and entertainment power broker Irving Azoff to secure an opening slot that his band clearly does not deserve in either commercial nor musical terms. In the building he owns.

Or, more specifically, the building that James Dolan inherited.

Singing hacky blues is easy, and this hack should know. Modern technology allows anyone with a credible guitar, amplifier, and Ibanez Tube Screamer combination to parlay some pentatonic licks in some garbled, inauthentic facsimile of a facsimile of what the devotees of Stevie Ray Vaughn (who was not inauthentic, but his legacy is a litany of these lunkheads) forced on a clearly uninterested North American public. Luckily these dad bands are usually relegated to working pool halls or chain restaurant rib joints on the weekends.

Dolan, because he has money, has fleshed out his band of ringers to include instruments that go behind guitar, bass, drums, and occasional keyboard and annoying Little Walker-shaming harmonica. And because he thinks his privilege can make a difference, he feels it necessary to lend his brand of artistry to the Trayvon Martin tragedy, in a widely-panned song.

So, yes, this continues to be a sad joke. And while we don’t get understand the tangential line between trying to break a record for most kazoos played in one building at the same time and raising money for Lou Gehrig’s Disease, at least Dolan isn’t onstage singing about the Knicks. We actually would prefer his kazoo playing to his singing full stop, despite his high end lesson with acclaimed vocal instructor Don Lawrence. “He’s Mick Jagger’s vocal coach!” Dolan excitedly told the New York Times last week, dropping names until the end.

This charitable part – not the privilege nor the Trayvon songs nor the delusion that James Dolan got anywhere musically or professionally based on merit alone – is just fine.

A bunch of rich guys playing kazoos on stage, doing a goofy job opening up for the Worst Band Ever, and possibly raising some money for ALS along the way? This is more than passable, and if your awareness has been raised, kindly offer what you can afford in efforts to stop this cruel, terrible disease.

In other news, fellow Irving Azoff clients Steely Dan will open up a three-night stand at New York’s Capitol Theatre on Friday night, ending their 56-date summer tour. A kazoo, to date, has yet to be played at any of their 2014 shows.

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Kelly Dwyer

is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!