If you, like me, skipped the telethon last night for other things (like sleep), the Washington Post has run an overview of last night's fundraiser. Link. Excerpts:
"George Bush hates midgets!" Chris Rock quipped last night during "Shelter From the Storm: A Concert for the Gulf Coast."
The rest of the political commentary was more subtle during the one-hour celeb-studded appeal for hurricane relief, telecast across all of the broadcast networks and a slew of cable nets. . .
Randy Newman, for instance, kicked things off with his song "Louisiana 1927," chronicling the great flood of 1927, in which, according to various reference sources, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers assured the public that the levees would hold, only they failed. Sound familiar? More than 500 died; more than 700,000 were displaced; the Red Cross supervised 154 relief camps, housing and feeding more than 325,000 refugees. . .
[Kanye] West tried to send a musical message last night, adapting his "Jesus Walks" with lyrics about how he would feel if he were left homeless and at the Superdome. But, honestly, so much of the song got bleeped because of the use of profanity and the repeated use of a racial slur, it was a garbled mess. . .
Jack Nicholson was the brightest star in the telephone-answering firmament, seen at one point singing "Maria" from "West Side Story" to a caller from Atlanta, who we hope gave a lot of money in return for getting personally serenaded by Jack.
