MAYBE CARMEN WILL SING SOMETHING FROM "FANTASIES AND DELUSIONS": Well, it's as official as official gets these days. According to BillyJoel.com:

American Idol Finalists to "Move Out" on Special Billy Joel Episode Tuesday, April 15
American Idol will feature a very special Billy Joel themed episode on Tuesday, April 15 (8-9 PM ET Live) on FOX. The special episode will also feature an exclusive "American Idol" interview with Billy Joel. Joel will also provide a brief history and commentary on each of his classic songs performed live by the seven remaining finalists.

If I were advising the singers, here's what I'd recommend:

Ruben: "Honesty", off 52nd Street. The Velvet Teddybear is a balladeer, and this you-broke-my-heart classic is right up his alley.

Josh: "Shameless," off Storm Front. It's already been countrified by Garth Brooks, so it's the obvious call for him.

Clay: "The Downeaster Alexa," off Storm Front. A wordy, melodramatic ballad. So very up his alley. So's "Leningrad," but that song's aged about as well as Elton John's "Nikita," though not as badly as Sting's "Russians". Clay should make sure to avoid any of the very tempting doo-wop songs off An Innocent Man, because they'll sound crappy without the backing vocals.

Trenyce: "New York State of Mind," off Turnstiles. A lot of AI competitors probably want to sing it, but I'd like to see Lashundra give it a try. Lots of different points on the song where she can show off her range, and it'll be good to hear her sing with her own voice instead of impersonating someone else's.

(I burned a CD this weekend with forty AI performances from the past two years -- a lot of Ruben, Tamyra and Justin, for sure -- and while my main conclusion in listening to the singing was "Damn, Tamyra is amazing in every song," Trenyce's "I Have Nothing" from this year outshined Tamyra's last year. Just a fuller sounding voice that time.)

Kim Caldwell: "Just The Way You Are," off The Stranger. Kim, you're great in your range, but that's not a wide range. This song doesn't have a wide range either, but will give you a few flourish points towards the end. "Allentown" might actually give some opportunities to show off the rough growl, but that song would sound too weird coming from a woman.

Kim Locke: First thought -- "She's Got A Way," off Songs in the Attic. A nice, warm ballad, where Kim can show off her phrasing and control. Problem is that it doesn't end on a show-off point. Hmm. Which suggests an alternative: "This Is The Time," from The Bridge. The classic prom-show theme. Allows for emotional display. Better call.

Carmen: "Second Wind," from Greatest Hits Volume I & II. It's not a song that demands a lot from the singer, which in her case is really, really important. Crucially.

ALL THESE ILLUSIONS JUST TAKE US TOO LONG: Tomorrow may be tax day, but tomorrow is also a day of great happiness as well.

The Thicke album will finally be released.

Who? What?

Thicke, a/k/a Robin Thicke (son of Alan Thicke and Gloria Loring), may well be the future of whiteboy neo-soul -- well, that is, if it isn't Timberlake first.

Thanks to the blessing that is digital cable, Jen and I got hooked on his video for "When I Get You Alone" (listen here, or watch it here) last summer and eagerly awaited the album. Yes, we thought it was damn cool that someone had finally put words to A Fifth of Beethoven. Fo' shizzle, the song rocks. MTV-Deuce and MTV-Jams were playing it every hour, and for sure, the album was soon to follow.

But when was the album coming out? "Soon", they said, in a June 2002 USA Today chat. That date got pushed back from September to November, then from November to January, and then, in March, an April 15 drop date was released

Yes, this album's been delayed more times than View From The Top or the still-yet-to-be-released-even-after-its-September-2001-festival-premiere Prozac Nation, but I'm still optimistic, even if the title has changed from Cherry Blue Skies to Beautiful World.

Look. The album received a four-star review in February from the Philadelphia Inquirer ("To listen to the debut album by singer-songwriter/producer Robin Thicke is to flash back to Prince's psychedelic soul of the mid-'80s, cross the melodic bridge Stevie Wonder built between "black" and "white" music, and let yourself loose in the rich grooves of Michael Jackson's Off the Wall").

And he's Alan Thicke's son! When has that family ever let us down before? (Other than "Thicke of the Night", I mean.) The man's got the "Diff'rent Strokes" theme music in his gene pool. He had a Sprite ad half a year before his album came out.

The album drops tomorrow. We hope.

(So too does Kelly Clarkson's, fyi.)

DO YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS, LARRY? THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU . . . Continuing this blog's fascination with all things Lebowski comes late word that a Russian court has upheld a $10,000 fine imposed on an advertising agency which broadcast a clip of Walter's attack against an innocent Corvette immediately after showing Russia's loss to Japan in the 2002 World Cup on a giant downtown Moscow screen before a large crowd. The government had argued that the clip of John Goodman's crowbar antics provoked widespread rioting by soccer thugs in the wake of the game.

You can read about it here.

Now if only they'd stop showing the same damn Braveheart and Network clips at Sixers games . . .

RABBLE RABBLE! As promised last Thursday, here are the two highlights from last week's 100th episode of South Park.

Eric Cartman, working on a school assignment to determine what the Founding Fathers would have thought of the war with Iraq, has travelled back in time to witness their heated debate over the document he knows as "the Declaration of Independence Day":

Hancock: Mr. Franklin, where do you stand on the war issue?

Franklin: I believe that if we are to form a new country, we cannot be a country that appears war-hungry and violent to the rest of the world. However, we also cannot be a country that appears weak and unwilling to fight to the rest of the world. So, what if we form a country that appears to want both?

Congressman: Yes. Yes of course. We go to war, and protest going to war at the same time.

Dickinson: Right. If the people of our new country are allowed to do whatever they wish, then some will support the war and some will protest it.

Franklin: And that means that as a nation, we could go to war with whomever we wished, but at the same time, act like we didn't want to. If we allow the people to protest what the government does, then the country will be forever blameless.

Adams: [holding a slice of chocolate cake] It's like having your cake, and eating it, too . . .

Congressman: Think of it: an entire nation founded on saying one thing and doing another.

Hancock: And we will call that country the United States of America.

Our festively plump hero shares this insight with the people of South Park, bitterly divided over the right to protest the war:

Cartman: I learned somethin' today. This country was founded by some of the smartest thinkers the world has ever seen. And they knew one thing: that a truly great country can go to war, and at the same time, act like it doesn't want to. [a shot of the crowd] You people who are for the war, you need the protesters. Because they make the country look like it's made of sane, caring individuals. And you people who are anti-war, you need these flag-wavers, because, if our whole country was made up of nothing but soft pussy protesters, we'd get taken down in a second. That's why the Founding Fathers decided we should have both. It's called "having your cake and eating it too."

Randy: He's right. The strength of this country is the ability to do one thing and say another.

Skeeter: Yeah, but . . . if it weren't for all you guys protesting, why everyone around the world would hate the American people instead of just the President.

Gerald: And if it weren't for you people flexing your arms, America could easily get taken over by terrorists or . . . or China.

Via the South Park Scriptorium.

SPACE FLYING TIGER DROP: Following in the footsteps of Jesse "The Mind" Ventura, Michinoku Pro (and former WWE and ECW) wrestler The Great Sasuke has been elected to a seat in the legislative assembly of his native Iwate Prefecture, in the northeastern part of the Japanese island of Honshu.

But that's not the cool part. The cool part is that Sasuke is a masked wrestler, and he's keeping the mask on once in government:

"This is my face," the wrestler -- known as "The Great Sasuke" -- was quoted by the Nikkan Sports newspaper as saying of his black and white full-face mask with bright scarlet streaks and golden wings by the eye holes.

"I won support from voters with this face, and to take it off would be breaking promises," the 33-year-old wrestler, whose real name is Masanori Murakawa, said of his victory in conservative Iwate prefecture, some 460 km (290 miles) north of Tokyo.

Would that other elected officials legislated with masks on.

AMERICAN IDOL STAR POSES NUDE! Only it's not Frenchie. And thankfully, it's not Clay.

The Sonja ("Souna") Christopher of this year's competition, Vanessa Olivarez would rather go naked than wear fur. Read about it here and here, see the video here.

Says Olivarez: "I definitely don't have the body that Pamela Anderson or Christy Turlington do, but hopefully people won't be so offended. But my butt's bigger, so it's cool."

IN THE BIG INNING: The Phillies created 13 runs in the fourth inning today, a team record, only two runs shy of the National League record set by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1952. How did they do it?

PHILADELPHIA 4TH

-Top of the 4th inning
-B Abreu walked.
-J Thome singled to right, B Abreu to second.
-P Burrell doubled to deep left, B Abreu scored, J Thome to third.
-D Bell grounded out to second, J Thome scored, P Burrell to third.
-M Lieberthal popped out to second.
-R Ledee intentionally walked.
-R Wolf singled to right, P Burrell scored, R Ledee to second.
-J Rollins walked, R Ledee to third, R Wolf to second.
-P Polanco walked, R Ledee scored, R Wolf to third, J Rollins to second.
-B Abreu walked, R Wolf scored, J Rollins to third, P Polanco to second.
-J Thome singled to center, J Rollins and P Polanco scored, B Abreu to second.
-S Sullivan relieved R Dempster.
-P Burrell walked, B Abreu to third, J Thome to second.
-D Bell walked, B Abreu scored, J Thome to third, P Burrell to second.
-M Lieberthal singled to center, J Thome and P Burrell scored, D Bell to second.
-R Ledee homered to right, D Bell and M Lieberthal scored.
-R Wolf struck out swinging.

13 runs, 6 hits, 0 errors
Philadelphia 13, Cincinnati 0

The Phightins went on to win, 13-1.