Save The Mermaid. Save The World.
I'm sure most of you tuned into American Idol's telethon show on Wednesday (if you missed it you can check out the best and worst parts here) and saw what an odd hodgepodge of segments they weaved together. But, strangely enough, most of it seemed to work. The amazing performances given by Annie Lennox and Kelly Clarkson definitely helped raise the overall quality of the show, but my favorite part was by far "The Simpsons" parody.
Idol Gives Back has raised over $60 million to date to aid children and young people suffering in Africa and the US. This is an amazing feat, especially with the majority of their audience being a younger, usually more "tight on funds" type crowd. I mean I was even moved to raid my "Ketel One Fund" jar and donate ten bucks (Challenge: Match my $10, donate at AmericanIdol.com).
The most amazing part to me, however, is that there are still those critics that come out and say that this was just a publicity stunt. Personally, I like to believe that Simon and the gang really genuinely felt like the show had really benefited their lives over the past few seasons and wanted to give back.
Wayne continues with his AI rant after the jump...
But if even they were all a bunch of schmucks that just wanted to do the show to get good PR, who the fuck cares? At the end of the day, they have helped saves thousands of lives and that's all that matters. Well that and at least Sanjaya wasn't there to taunt us with his ridiculous hairdos. I kid.
I did find it a little bit amusing that they kept showing videos of Simon, Ryan and Randy visiting New Orleans and several impoverished areas of Africa. From that touching footage, they cut to a video segment with Paula's humanitarian-activity video and the voice-over said something like, "Paula visited a Los Angeles community center, right around the corner of the American Idol studios." Either they must keep her on a short leash or her back condition keeps her from flying that far. Either way, I'm pretty sure a number of international incidents were avoided by keeping her here in Los Angeles.
One more thing...
I watched "Object of my Affection" with Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd this weekend. For the first half of the movie I was trying to remember what I liked about this film. I'm sure when I saw it the first time at eighteen, the positive depiction of a gay man struck a chord with me, but the story was slow and annoying eight years later. It also looked and sounded like it was made in 1991 not 1998, with its late-eighties fashion and royalty free elevator music. The last thirty minutes of the film won me back a bit and then came the best part; during the credits I noticed the name Hayden Panettiere, who of course now plays the cheerleader on NBC's Heroes. We quickly jumped back to the beginning of the movie to find a cute little 8-year-old Hayden playing the part of Mermaid in a school play. Her face looks exactly the same.
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desertboy says:
Dude you have "risen" bad grammar to a new level!