Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Piers Morgan apologized to Lady Gaga last week. The talk show host apologized to the pop singer for initially diminishing her role in in the World Health Organization's attempts to raise awareness and money to help fight COVID-19. At first, Morgan was very uncivil. “Has she found a cure?” he tweeted. “Otherwise, we don’t need a bloody singer there.” One great big concert and one hundred twenty-seven million dollars later, the big fat apology came: “This was a great initiative that raised a fortune, entertained people, and will help save lives. It was also a perfect illustration of a major star using their profile properly in this crisis. Congrats and sorry for originally questioning it.”
Over the weekend, another pop star decided to follow suit. This was Post Malone's turn to use his talents to help out. He and his band played an eighty minute set of Nirvana covers and raised almost three million dollars. Did he find a cure or help create a vaccine? Nope. He used his talents to pitch into a fund that continues to grow, and perhaps more importantly take some people's minds off of what is going on outside. 
Back in 1985, an Irish musician had an idea about helping alleviate the famine in Africa. He put together a little show called Live Aid with some of his mates. which eventually raised more than one hundred twenty-seven million dollars to ease the humanitarian crisis across the globe. One hundred twenty-seven dollars. Nice coincidence. Nice job. 
They might have been inspired by the hippies who put together three days of peace, love and music in 1969. Four hundred thousand kids came together to celebrate all those previously mentioned concepts and take part in a concert that spawned a cultural meme. "It'll be the Woodstock of plumbing fixture trade shows!" 
Maybe it's that healing power of music that we've heard so much about. There's a lot of healing that needs to take place out there. 
And all that money won't hurt either. 
Keep on rockin'.