Big surprise

They're back--and it's down to Chris vs. Jordin. Chris is safe--are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Okay, they were; Jordin is also safe.

So they're not letting anyone go, because it's a charity night. They're adding tonight's votes to next week's votes, when two people will get booted off. It makes me laugh; but Idol's always been good at keeping us guessing even when it's the supposedly predictable voting stage. And it's a totally appropriate thing to do.

Bono's the guest artist next week; it should be a great show. What a good role model, an artist who's actually informed about what he chooses to speak out about; his video clip is sincere and touching.

They close the show with the contestants singing American Prayer. It's one of the better moments of the night, it seems like they're all putting something extra into it.

What a unique show tonight; Idol's totally cheesy sometimes, and I wish they were smarter about some things. But give them credit for trying to do something good and different, when they could've just kept counting the money all the way to the bank.

Even if in many ways this is their least interesting group of finalists, the show's enough of a phenomenon that they can still make up for it with smoke and mirrors most nights.

Tonight, they added some substance as well.

Annie Lennox and past Idols

Ryan says they've raised almost $30 million already--wow. Ryan then is talking to a producer who says they're having problems, he wastes some time, goes to Simon to give them a chance to fix the issue.

Which seems to have something to do with going to Ellen; they fix it, and she introduces Annie Lennox, singing Bridge Over Troubled Waters. I wonder if they tried to get Simon and Garfunkel.

It's a great song and she sings it well; not really sure what else there is to say; they intersperse some clips toward the end of Lennox with more African kids. I wonder if any of the kids will ever see a copy of tonight's show.

If I owned a travel company, I'd buy an ad tonight with package deals to Africa.

Then it's kids saying thank you; which segues into the AI announcer thanking their corporate sponsors.

If you want to read more about the issue of poverty in Africa, the United States, and other specific parts of the world, Professor Jeffrey Sachs has some suggested material (his articles are all in PDF form).

For no particular reason, here's my list of contestants from past years who weren't strong enough to make the top 6 their, year, but who I think would make the top 6 this year:

-Jennifer Hudson, Season 3 (duh)
-Jon Peter Lewis, 3 (he's at least as good as Chris)
-Anwar Robinson, 4 (great voice)
-Nadia Turner, 4 (one of the all-time great performers)
-Mandisa Hundley, 5 (the original LaKisha)
-Lisa Tucker, 5 (a bit like Jordin, although not as good)
-Ace Young, 5 (yes, he was cheesy--but better at it than Chris and Phil)

Celine and Elvis and Madonna

Ben Stiller does more silly singing; then there's a funny clip of the Simpons, with Simon auditioning and Homer et al. judging. It's hilarious, ends with Simon falling through the trap door we all wish they actually had on the show.

Ryan mentions thanks to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which in some ways is doing more than the U.S. government to fight poverty and disease in Africa. It's got an endowment of over $30 billion at the moment; there's a rule in the U.S. that if you're a charity you have to donate at least 5% of what you have each year, which means--thanks, Wikipedia--they probably distribute around $1.5 billion a year.

Back to the theoretical point of this show, the contestants--LaKisha stands up, and... she's safe. Which I'm glad about; even though I picked her to have the fewest votes this week, I like her.

Randy narrates a clip about an 'emotional survival kit' they're distributing to poor kids in America; the kit has things like colored paper and markers. It reminds me of a stat I've heard a few times and often want to cite to parents I see ignoring their kids on the subway, that one of the major differences between poor kids and middle class kids is something that seems pretty easily correctable:

Research tells us that in their first three years of life, children from low-income families have, on average, been exposed to roughly 30 million fewer words than children from professional families. The result? The disadvantaged three-year-olds have vocabularies of about 525 words, and their advantaged peers have vocabularies of just over 1,100 words.22 When these disadvantaged children enter kindergarten, they will learn new material less quickly and easily than their middle-class peers.

Next up, the much-hyped Celine Dion 'duet' with Elvis. Whoah, somehow they project him onto the stage, it looks like.

It's medium-Elvis, neither young and slim nor old and bloated. All in white; maybe that's why they dresed the Idol contestants that way. They're singing his If I Can Dream; it's okay, they chose the song more for its words than its melody, which is average at best.

[After the show I did some quick Internet research; there are articles out there speculating it was some kind of hologram. Apparently during rehearsals they used a stand-in, but tonight it looked to me they did use some sort of digital technology. I'll post something as soon as I can find a definitive article. Which means it probably will not have been written by some kid in his basement].

Halfway through the Idol contestants--remember them?--come out and just stand behind Celine and 'Elvis'. I really think FOX is making a mistake with this, it visually sends the message that the six finalists are just background. I wish they'd been more part of tonight's show.

Madonna next, in Malawi. Interestingly, I got into a conversation with a waitress I met the other day whose father was from Malawi. She was pretty upset with the whole Madonna adoption thing; apparently there's a long tradition in Malawi of families taking kids in, to pay for their education and help give them a better life.

But after that the kid goes back to his/her family; instead of the kid cutting ties with his/her birth family forever.

Kelly Clarkson's back

After the break a bunch of stars talk about how many funerals they've gone to--Julia Roberts, Tom Cruise, all the rest mention anywhere from like 2 to 5. Then, a man from Africa comes on the screen... he's been to 290 funerals.

A lot of the deaths are children who had malaria; Ryan says a pack of tablets that costs less than $2 can save 4 children. A lot of what Columbia Professor Jeffrey Sachs talks about in his book is how truly simple and cheap things, like the tablets and mosquito netting, can make such a big difference, essentially allowing people to have a fighting chance at life.

Back to Ellen, who introduces Kelly Clarkson, doing Up to the Mountain. If you watched American Idol's first season or caught it on Idol Rewind, you'll know how far she's come--she always had talent, but now she's got presentation and confidence.

If you're inspired by tonight's show and want to do more than make a donation, Professor Sachs has some tips. Not surprisingly, none of them are quick or easy:

The single most important thing you can do is to make sure that your government is following through on its existing commitments to support the Millennium Development Goals. At the Monterrey conference on Financing for Development, the industrialized country governments committed themselves to providing official development assistance equivalent to 0.7% of their gross national income. To date, only five countries have achieved this goal, though six others have set out timetables to reach 0.7% by 2015.

Meeting 0.7% is critically important because only governments are capable of mobilizing the resources needed to achieve the MDGs. The Millennium Project has shown that the MDGs can be met using resources already promised – from 0.45% to 0.55% of gross national income. As a concerned citizen, the best thing you can do is to help convince your government to meet its promises on aid.

What to do:

Write your political representatives: Tell them that you support the Millennium Development Goals and the Millennium Project's recommendations for achieving them. Feel free to use our facts, figures, and ideas from our talking points to help support your arguments. Click here for sample letters you can use.

Organize letter-writing campaigns: More is always better – you can amplify your voice by enlisting other people in the campaign to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Reach out through personal networks and community groups.

Write letters to local newspapers: Send a letter to the editor to help you reach a larger audience of people. The web site of RESULTS.org has a number of useful tools that can be adapted to help you target both politicians and media outlets in your own country.

Join existing networks, such as the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, which has national chapters in many countries that are mobilizing around the Millennium Development Goals.

If you want to write a letter to Newsday, here are the guidelines.

You can also send an email to letters@newsday.com.

Ellen steps up

Ford commercial is the contestants in Mustangs, to Crazy Little Thing Called Love. It's totally forgettable; but is followed by this montage of a ton of celebrities lip synching to Staying Alive.

Funny, a number of them happen to be stars of FOX shows. There's also LeBron James, ex-Friends stars, ex-SNL stars, Ryan, Shaq, Hugh Grant, Dr. Phil, Eric McCormack, Goldie Hawn, Ms. Piggy... I'd list more but I'd blogging this live, it's hard enough avoiding misspellings yo.

Ryan keeps saying the results will shock us--I'd be more convinced if he hadn't also said that at the end of last night's show. Phil Stacey is safe; then another Ryan/Simon Africa clip. 14 family members live in a house the size of a tent--10 of them are AIDs orphans, my gosh.

Simon walks out saying it's intolerable; he really seems shaken. They take one of the women they've visting, Ruth, to the hospital--she's collapsed and it doesn't look good. Simon takes a pretty active role in getting her out of there; but Ryan says she dies two days later.

Ellen says she's personally donating $100,000 and challenges the rich people out there to match that; wow. Aside from 1-877-IDOL-AID, you can also donate at https://www.idolaid.com/.

Josh Groban sings Raise Me Up, with the African Children's Choir. It's sincere and heartfelt; there's a great image of him surrounded by the little kids, in their bright yellow and purple dress. This is probably my favorite performance of the night; the kids all have big, bright smiles, and the words of the song totally fit.

Some facts on Health from the UN's Millennium Project:

-Every year six million children die from malnutrition before their fifth birthday.

-More than 50 percent of Africans suffer from water-related diseases such as cholera and infant diarrhea.

-Every day HIV/AIDS kills 6,000 people and another 8,200 people are infected with this deadly virus.

-Every 30 seconds an African child dies of malaria-more than one million child deaths a year.

-Each year, approximately 300 to 500 million people are infected with malaria.
Approximately three million people die as a result.

-TB is the leading AIDS-related killer and in some parts of Africa, 75 percent of people with HIV also have TB.

The facts on malaria reminds me that if you haven't already, check out the video and photos of President Bush dancing and playing the drums with a group from Africa at the White House at an event to draw attention to the problem of malaria.

It had everyone in the office cracking up; but as a few of my friends noted, even as you laugh at how silly our president looks, you're kindof reminded of how very human a person he is, and it all actually winds up being kind of endearing.

I don't know, maybe Karl Rove planned the whole thing. He's got some experience with dancing himself, after all.

Rascal Flatts and Appalachia

Ellen's on screen, the running Sanjaya theme continues with her making a joke about his hair before introducing Rascal Flatts. Who's good; sings My Wish, it's pleasant to listen to and the lyrics aren't overly-sappy.

I'm never quite sure why Idol has these big stars sing--isn't it just a reminder that the contestants themselves, except for Melinda and Jordin and possibly Blake, just aren't very good singers?

I mean, it's like the WNBA having NBA players come out at halftime and play a quick game....

If I was running a network I'd counter-program Idol with a concert series; there's been quite a few nights this year when I'd totally channel surf to something like that.

The co-founder of MySpace--owned now by FOX--is introduced in the audience for some reason, and then it's another video clip, from Appalachia. You get an idea of the deep poverty in the area when Paula says only 5 families at the local elementary school aren't on free lunch, and the school can only afford $500 a year for books.

Did I miss something, or did Idol not tell us how they're going to distribute the money they raise? Just curious as to whether the videos are focused on the specific communities and programs that will be helped, or whether they're just an illustration of how widespread poverty is.

The Census Bureau has a page on Poverty in the U.S.; here are some facts:

-The official poverty rate in 2005 was 12.6 percent

-In 2005, 37.0 million people were in poverty

-The poverty rate in 2005 for children under 18 (17.6 percent) remained higher than that of 18-to-64-year-olds (11.1 percent) and that of people 65 and older (10.1 percent)

Jack Black and Carrie Underwood

While Idol's at commercial, some facts on foreign aid via Professor Sachs:

At the Monterrey Financing for Development Conference in 2002, world leaders pledged “to make concrete efforts towards the target of 0.7%” of their national income in international aid. In today’s dollars, that would amount to almost $200 billion each year.

In 2005, total aid from the 22 richest countries to the world’s developing countries was just $106 billion—a shortfall of $119 billion dollars from the 0.7% promise. On average, the world’s richest countries provided just 0.33% of their GNP in official development assistance (ODA). The United States provided just 0.22%.

People do know that the U.S. provides a lower percentage of aid than countries like Denmark, Luxembourg and the UK, right? It's shameful; let's see if at some point tonight AI points that out.

Ryan pretends to get someone random from the audience up to introduce something, instead Jack Black bounds up. He grabs the mike and pushes Ryan out of the way, it's a pretty hilarious bit--starts singing Seal's Kiss From a Rose. The audience goes nuts; people either love this guy or think he's an idiot, I tend to laugh.

Randy makes fun of Black's weight in a mock critique, Paula says the School of Rock called they want their diploma back, Simon says you were better than Sanjaya as they cut to Sanjaya in the audience cracking up.

Seal shows up in a telegraphed 'surprise', he glares at Jack Black and then says that was the best rendition I've ever heard. Simon's cracking up as Black starts doing a bit of Whitney; definitely the best part of the night so far.

Next, Blake stands--and he's safe. Interesting, since he was inexplicably in the bottom three last week. I guess they're going do this one at a time to stretch it out over tonight's 2-hour show; next is Carrie Underwood singing I'll Stand By You.

I gotta tell you, I didn't really like Carrie when she was on the show--but since she's made a career out of just singing what she does best, country music, I've grown to like her. It's a good rendition of an easy song to sing well; the video clips are of Carrie with African kids, many of whom are crying.

Again, it's no documentary--she goes to a cemetery with some of the kids, everything's in slow-mo and shot in soft-focus. But it's pretty effective television.

Another commercial, so some fast facts on poverty, via the United Nation's Millennium Project:

More than one billion people in the world live on less than one dollar a day. In total, 2.7 billion struggle to survive on less than two dollars per day. Poverty in the developing world, however, goes far beyond income poverty. It means having to walk more than one mile everyday simply to collect water and firewood; it means suffering diseases that were eradicated from rich countries decades ago. Every year eleven million children die-most under the age of five and more than six million from completely preventable causes like malaria, diarrhea and pneumonia.

In some deeply impoverished nations less than half of the children are in primary school and under 20 percent go to secondary school. Around the world, a total of 114 million children do not get even a basic education and 584 million women are illiterate.

Simon's devoted to Divo

They show the contestants on the couches, have Melinda stand up and say she's safe, then oddly enough cut straight to a video of Paula at a Boys & Girls Club in LA last week.

I don't know; the show is definitely overproduced, and has lost the YouTube-like edge that made it so interesting to watch. It's nice, again, to highlight these problems, I just wish this video wasn't so sappy.

Cut to Ellen, who introduces Simon's Il Divo group singing Somewhere. Holy cross-promotion, batman! These guys are the definition of cheese; I mean, their voices aren't bad, but there's nothing authentic about the group, they were literally made-for-tv.

And my gosh, when one of them waggles his eyebrows at the camera you just have to laugh out loud.

There are images of sad-looking children holding candles projected on a screen behind them, which morphs into a brief montage on-screen. Really, Idol's acting like they've just discovered poverty and we need to listen to them educate us.

Which, of course, is the perfect segue to Dr. Phil showing up to tell us to call in.

Ben and Africa

The parade of random celebs continues, with Ben Stiller doing a little bit via video where he pretends to not know he's on camera at first. For some reason he's sitting in front of a bookcase; then he starts singing, poorly--the gimmick is you're supposed to call 1-877-IDOL-AID to get him to stop.

If only that worked when Chris sings....

More clips of Ryan and Simon in Africa, the 4th different show they've shown some of the kids, but it's still emotionally affecting when one of the kids starts crying after talking about how he's an orphan. It's pretty jarring when they cut from this video back to Stiller singing badly for a few seconds, before cutting to another commercial.

Much of what I think about the problems in Africa stems from the work of Professor Jeffrey Sachs, who runs the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Bono's cited him as his intellectual mentor; if you want a good introduction to why Africa's been mired in poverty for much of its history and what can actually be done to help, check out his very-readable book, The End of Poverty.

It's nice that America Idol is focusing some attention on thise issue; it'd be nice if it weren't so fluffy--I mean, why not give Sachs a few minutes to talk?

He'd tell you Africa's poorer then the rest of the world not because people are lazy or governments are corrupt--but because compared to everywhere else its soil is uniquely bad, its rainfall is uniquely unpredictable, its diseases are uniquely harsh.

So why don't Africans just move somewhere else, you might wonder?

Well, many of them did... we were all originally Africans, after all. It's only fair that we now try and help those still living in the motherland.

Wowza

Idol Gives Back starts with the contestants all lined up in white like an old-style musical, and Ryan flubbing the opening.

But because he's a perfectionist he redoes it, which is cool. It's always nice when mistakes are acknowledged on live TV and corrected, rather than just ignored, leaving the viewer wondering if that just happened.

Then, Ryan announces they got 70 million votes last night, which is startling; and great, since FOX was donating 10 cents for each vote (capped at 50 million, alas).

Ryan then throws to Ellen DeGeneres at the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall. It makes me laugh because as I've written before I think FOX should shake up the show and replace Ryan with her. She's good, cracks a few jokes before introducing--Earth Wind and Fire?!

Okay; the judges are always yelling at the contestants to sing younger, FOX executives are worrying about the show losing younger viewers, so it's the perfect choice. Sheesh.

EWF is fine, nothing memorable; they then shift gears with a look at the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, with Randy tooling around town talking to people about the amazing devastation. Two years later and people are still living in shacks; if nothing else, at least American Idol has gotten this back on the country's radar screen.

Hmm, Quincy Jones has apparently written Time to Care just for Idol; the power of this show never ceases to amaze me, which is why it saddens me that this year's been so bad. They show the contestants talking to Jones on tape, who says he was blown away by their singing; and then they all come out live to sing.

It's really an odd look, everyone in white--full suits for the guys, and the women too. The song's okay; a syncopated feel to it, like they're a gospel group outof Jamaica or something. But it's no We Are the World.

Predictions

Our latest batch of predictions for who got the fewest votes this week--if you're keeping track at home, we were all wrong last week.

If we're all wrong again this week, I'm gonna start using a dartboard.

Eileen Fredes (6 for 18)
-Chris

Anne Machalinski (5 for 18)
-Chris

Jonathan McCarthy (4 for 14)
-Chris

Jamshid Mousavinezhad (5 for 18)
-LaKisha

As always, tune in tonight for live blogging (I'm sitting in for Eileen). And don't forget, tonight's show is Idol Gives Back so it's running from 8-10 pm.

Jordin brings it home

Jordin sings "You'll Never Walk Alone." Nice choice. She sings it very well and gets a lot of applause. She evens tears up towards the end.

I would love Jordin to win. She's the only person left who I think is interesting. And she's likable and young. She also gets better ever week and has some spunk and personality.

Randy thinks her performance is one of the best vocals by anyone in the past 6 seasons.

Paula thinks it's an amazing song to close the night and calls Jordin glorious.

Simon says that she is fantastic.

Can you say new front runner?

Phil goes country again

Molly from S. Carolina asks Phil what he misses most and he says his two babies. Aww.

He's singing "The Change" by Garth Brooks.

This is another karaoke performance to me. Not much to watch, not really in tune. He gets much better towards the end, but I think he's another one that will go soon.

Randy thinks that it's another strong performance.

Paula thinks he's found his comfort zone with country music.

Simon thinks last weeks performance was good, but that last week they heard more of a country tone, which suits his voice.

The judges are liking the male singers much more than me. Although I do think Phil was better than Chris Richardson.

Lakisha sings Fantasia

Lakisha sings Fantasia's "I Believe."

I like her dress. It's classy and kind of Grecian.

Her singing on the other hand, I guess just not my style. It's so theatrical and I don't believe she has what it takes to hit the caliber of Kelly Clarkson or Carrie Underwood. She's missing that key likability essential in any performer.

Randy thinks it's another great song choice.... but not her best performance.

Paula says that she is a powerhouse vocalist. Ooh, but Paula doesn't think Lakisha can sing a Fantasia song.

Simon just says it. The Fantasia version is better.

I think Lakisha will be sent packing soon.

Blake sings "Imagine"

Blake sings John Lennon's "Imagine," one of my favorite songs ever.

He does a nice job. Nothing too fancy though. And as the judges say, not a great performance.

I think he'll be around at least another week and I like him. If he wants to stick around for the long haul, he'll need to step it up a notch.

Melinda gives us some faith

Melinda sings a Faith Hill song, "There Will Come a Day," and as with every other song she performs, she sings it well.

It's not necessarily my type of music, but it's nice and uplifting.

I like her look tonight. Natural hair, interesting necklace, sweet dress.

Randy thinks she's "so dope" and really has it together.

Paula thinks that there's no one like Melinda, that she's "magical."

Simon loves the performance because it's not a copy-cat. He calls it a "vocal master class."

Very nice. And well deserved praise.

Chris Richardson hits the stage

Hmmm...

I'm not going to mince words. Chris Richardson is off key a lot of this song. Sounds more like karaoke than anything else.

He's singing "Change the World," and frankly, I feel like something must change with his singing if he wants to stay on the show.

Randy thinks that he's in it to win it. Okay, so I disagree with the first judge.

Paula thinks it's a great song choice and is happy to see his journey throughout the season. Disagree with judge 2.

Simon feels the competition properly starts tonight, and thinks this performance reminds him of when they first heard Chris perform. "I think you did really well," he said. And I disagree with judge 3.

I must really be in an unforgiving mood if even Simon is nicer than I am.

Next? Someone? Please?

Ah, Melinda's next. Let the humble one save my ears.

Now what?

Well, Sanjaya's gone--and with him about 50% of the drama has been sucked out of this year's show. Unfortunately, half of the finals still remain.

If it weren't for Jordin Sparks, I’m not sure I'd watch; this is definitely the least interesting top six since the first year of the show.

And with Blake and LaKisha in the bottom three this past week, AI's in danger of having two bland, untalented contestants crashing the final four.

Who knows—-maybe somebody will rise out of this morass of boredom and surprise us.

Barring that, I'm rooting hard for Jordin to win over Melinda in what would be a major upset.

Either that, or maybe Simon will smack someone this week.