We Won’t Say the World Is Coming to an End, but . . .

Woodstock ’69. Woodstock ’99. Three days of peace, love and music. Three days of rampage, assaults and commerce. The Age of Aquarius. The Age of You’re Scaring Us.

Back then, there was Vietnam, civil rights, Nixon, the establishment--a lot to stand against and get worked up about.

Well, it’s no different today. Like, well, having only a 56K modem and not being able to download Internet porn fast enough. Injustices like that. No wonder they rioted!

And just as Woodstock ’69 provided figures to lead the fight--Country Joe McDonald, Grace Slick, Sha Na Na--so did Woodstock ’99.

We’re talking, of course, about Fred Durst, whose struggle for the common folk is lived out daily in his roles as a multi-platinum recording artist, stripper consort and vice president of multinational corporation Seagram’s Interscope Records. The Limp Bizkit frontman led the Woodstock crowd with the rallying cry of “Break stuff,” and after they tore apart the Peace Wall--a plywood surface painted by concertgoers in what was meant to be an evocation of the original Woodstock’s communal spirit--he surfed the crowd on a chunk of it.

He took the show on the road, too, getting fans at concerts to throw garbage, shout the F-word, flip the finger and generally make this a better world in which to live. At least he’s not wasting his time like Bono or Perry Farrell with their efforts to get world leaders to forgive Third World debt. Like anyone cares and junk.

So who better than Durst to be singled out in Pop Eye’s annual year-end roundup? This year we retire the Jarvis Award (named in recognition of Pulp singer Jarvis Cocker’s disruption of a Michael Jackson spectacle) and inaugurate a new prize--chunks of the Peace Wall itself, bestowed upon the deserving doers of dubious distinctions.

And the largest, splinteriest section goes to Mr. Bizkit.

CROSS TO BEAR: Sean “Puffy” Combs experienced a spiritual awakening and soon gave a demonstration in turning the other cheek. Unfortunately, it was Steve Stoute’s cheek he turned--as he and some associates allegedly assaulted the Interscope Records executive in retribution for the airing on MTV of a video featuring Combs hanging on a cross. Combs later apologized to Stoute and pleaded guilty to a harassment violation.

APOCALYPTICA: Maybe it’s the coming millennial end of the world and all that, but Combs wasn’t the only one mixing pop music and religion in ‘99:

* Ma$e, a Puffy protege, announced that he was quitting rap to “follow God.”

* Sinead O’Connor (somehow you just knew her name would come up here) once ripped up a photo of the pope on TV. Would Mother Bernadette Mary approve of that? That’s the name O’Connor took in April when she was ordained as the first female priest of the renegade Catholic group the Latin Tridentine Church. “Anyone who knows me knows that what I have done makes perfect sense,” said O’Co . . . um, Bernadette Mary.

* Given the historical tie to intolerance of Salem, Mass., you’d think folks there would be a little cautious about witch hunts. But the Salem school board actually initiated an investigation charging rocker Rob Zombie with promoting Satanism. The case stemmed from a school’s suspending a student for wearing a Zombie T-shirt that sported a picture of the devil and the numerals 666.

* Jerry Falwell’s National Liberty Journal charged that the woman-oriented Lilith Fair concert tour promoted paganism and lesbianism. Journal senior editor J.M. Smith identified Lilith as the culprit who tempted Eve with the apple and sexually seduced her. “Christian parents are advised to consider the Lilith legend, should their children become interested in the concerts,” Smith wrote.

* Before joining David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar in the ranks of ex-Van Halen singers, Gary Cherone fired off a missive, posted on the Web site of religious right anti-abortion group Rock for Life, attacking Eddie Vedder for his activities in support of abortion rights.

* Bono penned an introduction to a publication of the Book of Psalms, noting that “David was a star, the Elvis of the Bible.”

M IS FOR THE WAY . . . : There’s nothing like the love between a mother and her son, and how better to express it than with a lawsuit? That’s what Debbie R. Mathers-Briggs did in September, filing against her son Marshall Bruce Mathers III, best known to the world as rapper Eminem.

Angered at being portrayed by the star in interviews as an unstable drug abuser who was always on the move while raising him, she slapped him with a suit asking for more than $10 million for defamation of character.

Oh yeah--he also said in interviews that his mother was quick to file lawsuits.

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL: Eminem was also under attack from the National Football League, which had been airing a commercial using a snippet of the rapper’s hit “My Name Is.”

Upon hearing the rest of the song, with its references to sex and violence, a league official stated, “This isn’t an association we want anybody to remotely have.”

A spokesman for the rapper responded, “Eminem’s life goes on.”

ON ICE: Meanwhile, one of the top sports-crowd-pumping songs of recent years, Gary Glitter’s 1972 hit “Rock and Roll Part 2” (you know--”na na na-na-na-na HEY, na na-na-na”) was dumped from the arena playlists of several National Hockey League teams after Glitter was convicted by a London court in November of downloading child pornography from the Internet.

MANSON? WE THOUGHT YOU SAID “HANSON”: In the rock equivalent of jumping off a building and then suing the owners because they didn’t stop you, Hole fired its management team and then sued them for, among other things, subjecting the band to “public ridicule” by allowing it to tour as the opening act for Marilyn Manson. While on the trek, Hole leader Courtney Love seemed shocked at Manson’s demonic theatrics, as if she’d had no previous awareness of his act. Probably more troubling to Love was appearing in front of crowds that were sometimes hostile and often indifferent to her band.