Some of the news that is fit to print

Hidden Vaders

You may have heard of Hidden Mickeys? They are Mickeys hidden throughout the Disney theme parks. I mentioned that I was at the Washington National Cathedral yesterday and discovered that there is a hidden Vader -- Darth Vader, no less -- in the Washington National Cathedral in the form of a gargoyle on the northwest tower of the Cathedral. (Technically, they call it a grotesque.)  Here is a PDF from the Cathedral telling you exactly how you can find it. And here is a photo of it.

The Cathedral's Web site tells you why it is there -- as they were finishing the building, they held a contest hold for children to design decorative sculpture for the Cathedral.

Word of the competition was spread nationwide through National Geographic World Magazine. The third-place winner was Christopher Rader, with his drawing of that fearful villain, Darth Vader. The fierce head was sculpted by Jay Hall Carpenter, carved by Patrick J. Plunkett and placed high upon the northwest tower of the Cathedral.

So... a long time ago in a Cathedral not so far away...

 

Falalala la...

We are being very cultured this afternoon by going to the nearby Washington National Cathedral to hear the Cathedral Choral Society sing Beethoven. (Read more about Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. here and here and here.) Our wonderful neighbor, who works for the British Embassy, sings in the chior. Yet somehow we just don't do enough of these kinds of things, so I'm really looking forward to it.

As you can see, the building is just stunning sitting at one of the highest spots in Washington overlooking the rest of the city. What a great place to hear music!

New news

My boss always says, "You can't spell news without new. Therefore news must be new."

Somebody should let the WP know. Just today (second item), the paper has a item about the Amsterdam gay beating of Washington Blade executive editor Chris Crane and his boyfriend. He posted his item on the Blade's blog on May 6. Even I posted on May 9. Hmmmm.

Star Wars: I'm feeling better now

Yes! I'm feeling guilty about having failed to resist the Star Wars hype -- even proclaiming that I would not even see episode III because I was so disgusted with episode II. And I feel guilty that I am just too weak to resist. I'm so weak that I'm now seeing  midnight showing.

But that is why it is always good for there to be people out there who are even freakier then I am. (Thus explains the existence of Jerry Springer.)

This from the WP's Star Wars blog -- yes, you heard that right, a Star Wars blog, which they creatively named the 'Sith' Sense. What a great idea is that?

The line for "Star Wars" at Washington's Uptown Theater has begun. I spoke this morning with line organizer Adrienne Maul-Sari.  That's right, her last name used to be Maul until she got married and decided to hyphenate. She legally changed it after developing an attachment to Darth Maul from "The Phantom Menace."

Ahhh! I'm feeling much better about myself, thank you very much.

AI filibuster

Some press releases are just too good to be true... such as the following from the Concerned Women for America...

What if They Filibustered American Idol?

Washington, D.C. – Concerned Women for America’s (CWA’s) chief counsel Jan LaRue, with tongue firmly in cheek, compared the Senate Democrats’ refusal to give the President’s judicial nominees an up or down vote to the Fox hit TV show, American Idol, in her description of this nightmarish scenario:

Paula Abdul, Simon Cowell and Randy Jackson, the regular judges on Fox’s American Idol, were replaced for one night by none other than Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and the Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada).

If you think Simon is cold, you should have seen these guys. There was only one contestant on the show. Even though he was a smash hit, millions in the audience were denied the right to vote on the performance of an Italian-American singer named Francis Albert Sinatra.

REID: Why is Fox picking a fight by sending us contestants like this? Why are they refusing to move on to less controversial contestants? They want to make us look like obstructionists. … He’s just giving a big wet kiss to Italians on the far right. AUDIENCE: Shut-up and let us vote!

SCHUMER: Well, his voice is clearly out of the mainstream. The extreme way he expressed the lyric—the extreme snapping of the fingers on his extreme right hand—he’s sending an extremist message to the far-right-handed…He’s obviously pandering to the far-right extremists who want to force extreme music on the rest of us in the mainstream. I mean, how extreme—“The Lady is a Tramp”—a not-so-subtle extremist attack on women’s rights.

AUDIENCE: Shut-up and let us vote!!

KENNEDY: We fought the, ah, Revolutionary War, or, ah, the Civil War or some, ah, war, I didn’t fight but heard about it, so that all singers would finally be protected by the Constitution. But this nation will never be America until we free ourselves from the domination of Italian singers… I have here in my mainstream left hand the lyrics of songs this Sinatra person has sung that reveal a narrow intolerance for the rights of others… That’s Life is clearly an attack on choice.

I'm not exactly sre I could put my tongue into my cheek so easily. After all, it isn't as if the American Idol serves a life term or anything, but one shouldn't focus on specifics in these kinds of things. It's just fun! We'll just leave it at that.
Creativity: B+
Factuality: D-

 

AI... too cute by half....

That's what I get for being too calculating! I should have just stuck to my original prediction, which was the correct one! Oh well! This has not been my best year for predictions.
No, Vonzell did not get voted off. Instead, dear Feteroff got the boot.
Bye bye Anthony! Nobody ever would have predicted that he would make the final four, so he did much better than expected, but... he's not the American Idol!

I'd love to see Vonzell be the American Idol -- I think she has much more promise, but my guess is we will have the Bo/Carrie match-up for the finale.

Gay beating update...

Washington Blade executive editor Chris Crain has a follow-up blog item about his gay bashing in Amsterdam, which I mentioned earlier this week -- yes, somewhere between those American Idol posts!

Crain's most recent post focuses on the brouhaha that the beating has caused... and who is to blame.

Crain could easily be bitter, but he takes the high road.

The Dutch Culture Wars should not be fought by shutting down the borders or by using the law to silence those who do not share the country's tradition of tolerance. Such arm-twisting tactics have no place in societies that purport to be open and accepting. If we really believe our own rhetoric — about freedom of thought and tolerance of other cultures and values — then the best response is more openness and more speech, not less.

He hasn't discussed his injuries all that much. I hope he is OK.

AI'05... down to three...

Before I get to last night, our good friend MJ's littl' brother is a junior at the University of Southern California (coincidently, CJD's alma mater) and she was chattin' with him this morning.

He "is telling me about this big party he threw last night -- and this is what he says: 'It was huge. 2000 people showed up. And have you heard of that guy named Ryan Seacrest? He was there and called me because he wanted to come and talk about on some show he has today.'

Some show? Ryan Seacrest, of course, in addition to being the host of AI and syndicated American Top 40 countdown show, also hosts the popular morning drive show on LA's KIIS-FM, so I'm not sure how he is out partying at night, but...

On to last night...
My American Idol voting pool has been suspiciously quiet about last night's festivities. Either everybody is busy or they are just depressed that AI is approaching an end for yet another year... or perhaps they just don't know what to make of last night. Personally, I fall in that final category... despite my pre-vote yesterday...

It seems that everybody only got to do one GOOD song last night -- if you did well on the first song, then the second one sucked... or vice versa. So I'm making a very calculated vote today...

Best performance of the evening: Vonzell... her second song was the bomb!
Weakest performance of the evening: Vonzell... her first song, however...
Most consistent performances of the night: Anthony... who knew!
Who should be in the bottom two: Bo and Carrie... Bo's first and Carrie's second songs outweighed their second and first songs.
Who will be in the bottom three: Vonzell and Anthony
Who should go home: Anthony... He's just not up to par with the rest of 'em.
Who will go home: Vonzell... I just think Anthony will pull young googly eyed girls and the votefortheworst.com folks leaving Vonzell with a trip home

AI... the home stretch...

It's the final four on American Idol. The show is still hours away, but it is already clear who is going to get booted -- poor Anthony Fedorov. (DMV's office calls him three-eyed blind! Harsh!)

Deservedly so at this point. Of the four, he is clearly fourth... or maybe even sixth or seventh.

The only thing he has going for him -- the Web site votefortheworst.com is in his corner! And everybody thinks they had an impact keeping blubberboy in the mix.

After being dropped from our server on Tuesday, we're back, and better than ever. We lost Scott, which is a huge bummer, but out site was also not around for the past 2 days to rally even more support. VFTW never gives up though, and our next target is Anthony. Join us and vote for Clay Aiken 2.0 for the full 2 hours. We may be able to stop the inevitable Bo/Carrie finale yet.

I'll report back when the show is done.

Kids say the darnest things...

I'm at Target Friday buying a cooler for the dog's insulin -- of course! -- and ended up picking up a few other things... including a paper shredder. I have been wanting to get a shredder for awhile because it just makes sense, right? And what better shredder to get than one designed by one of my favorite architects, Michael Graves, who does all sorts of stuff for Target. (Check out the super-fab Graves dog house!)

Anyway, while I was shredder shopping, I heard a kid offer a quote that I never thought I would hear:
"Dad! A shredder! Can I get one? We can shred things!"

Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore!