Want to help make my Songbird's job in Kenya a little easier?

[thatcrazycajun]

I never cared terribly much about all this American Idol-atry spawned by Fox's hit singing-contest show up to now, so I didn't pay much attention when the special edition of the show called "Idol Gives Back" aired last week. This non-competition special featured appearances and performances by artists including Céline Dion, Jack Black, Earth, Wind & Fire, Josh Groban and fourth-season winner Carrie Underwood, as well as by the current season's contestants, to raise money for The One Project. One's goal is to end poverty, AIDS/HIV and related suffering here in the US and in sub-Saharan Africa—the very region where my Songbird, singing_phoenix, is about to spend two years (or more) working with CDC's Global AIDS Project (GAP).

All this didn't impinge more than peripherally on me until tonight, when I happened to fire up my iTunes software and visit Apple's iTunes Store to find special audio and video segments from the "Idol Gives Back" show being sold, with proceeds adding to the over $60 million the show itself already has raised. Out of curiosity, I downloaded Carrie's video for her rendition of one of my all-time favorite anthems, "I'll Stand By You" by The Pretenders.

The video shows the newly-minted country-western diva and her band performing the song in an actual African village, surrounded by little children all less than 10 years old, some of whom were born HIV-positive and probably barely understand what has happened to them. They smile and laugh and cry when getting the injections that help keep them alive and play with homemade toy "video cameras," as any children anywhere in the world might do. Carrie is also shown sitting by the bedside of an adult HIV patient, holding his hand and weeping. Trust me on this one, folks: this video will grab you by the heart and squeeze—hard—until the tears come. I wasn't a fan of hers before, but if she's willing to put her tremendous talent in the heart of the greatest need like this, I'll become one.

Also available is an audio recording of Groban performing his hit single, "You Raise Me Up," another favorite weepie of mine, with the African Children's Choir backing him. Between Carrie's video and Josh's audio, I was a bawling wreck within minutes. These superstars, and the ones on their way to becoming such, who participated show by their actions that being a real, lasting idol—of song or any other type—is about more than just having a big voice; it's also about having a big heart...not to mention tons of class. What a moving, inspiring example to set for all the wannabe-Idols on the show and elsewhere.

So if you have iTunes on your Windows or Mac computer already, please consider buying some of the "Idol Gives Back" downloads. If you don't, go to apple.com/itunes and get it. If you'd rather not install it, you can donate and watch videos through Fox's official Idol website. (One that didn't get on the show features Monty Python legend John Cleese offering to shave off his mustache of 37 years in return for viewers donating $1 million to the cause. They did, and...!) You'll be helping the folks at The One Project make CDC's job ending the scourge of African AIDS/HIV a little bit easier...and thus my beloved's work as well.