December 1st is WORLD AIDS DAY and every year I try to post something to get you all thinking and active. I’ve urged you to watch TV specials which I’ll do again this year as this is a TV Blog after all, but this year I also have a special request for all of you on my behalf.

Since 2002 I’ve participated in various AIDS Rides and have raised over $14,000 for various HIV/AIDS related organizations. In 2008 I will once again hit the roads as part of BRAKING THE CYCLE (my 3rd year) but I’m not asking you for money yet… I’ll wait until we’re actually in 2008 for that!

Here’s how you can help. A few minutes of your time could help Braking The Cycle and their beneficiary The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center (NYC) raise $5,000 toward our upcoming ride.

$5,000 for Braking the Cycle: Nance, a fellow rider ran into a colleague of hers from the University of Victoria that needs 1,000 subjects for an online experiment. The study is about “the impressions people form and retain when they watch videotaped depictions of complex human behaviours and interactions”. The research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and has a nice budget for participants. He has offered to donate $5 per participant to Braking The Cycle. In addition to the $5 donation to our cause, participants are entered into a lottery, with approximately 1/100 chance of winning $100.

Completing the study takes about 20 minutes, and involves watching a short video, performing some word-puzzle tasks, and answering questions about the video. It¹s fun! The study has been approved by University of Victoria’s Human Research Ethics Board.

Click here to participate and help Braking The Cycle. *One thing to know is that as you are downloading a video (which took about 3 minutes on my computer) there is no sign that anything is happening so just hang tight and it will start up. (Thanks to Blake for the tip)

Educate and Activate The Brain Through TV! Here are a number of television events in honor of World AIDS Day.

Friday, November 30
Positive Voices: Women and HIV, 9 p.m. - Showtime
India’s Hidden Plague (With YouthAIDS Ambassador Ashley Judd), 10 p.m. - National Geographic

Saturday, December 1 (World AIDS Day)
The Ride: Seven Days to End AIDS (Marathon), Starting 7:30 a.m. - Logo
MTV’s World AIDS Day Special, 10 a.m. - MTV
Longtime Companion, 10:20 a.m. - Logo
Stephen Fry: HIV & Me, 2 p.m. - Sundance Channel
Beat The Drum, 3 p.m. - Showtime
Behind The Red Door, 3:30 p.m. - Showtime
The Origins of AIDS, 4 p.m. - Sundance Channel
Dear Francis, 5 p.m. - Showtime
I Want to be a Pilot/Positive Voices: Matthew Cusick, 5:30 p.m. - Sundance Channel
In The Gloaming, 5:30 p.m. - Logo

It’s so sad to me that MTV/VH1 aren’t representing more. They used to be huge on World AIDS Day, airing many specials and documentaries and this year basically nothing. I guess they pushed it all on LOGO which is not on basic cable, isn’t targeted toward teens, and sadly gives the impression that AIDS is more of a gay disease than a human pandemic. That’s really frustrating.

The tear jerkers are the movies, Longtime Companion and In The Gloaming. They’re my faves. Documentary wise they all look great; Ashley Judd has worked her ass off over the last few years to educate on AIDS and her films are always incredible. I’m really intersted in the “I Want to be a Pilot” one because it’s interviews with 50 orphaned African kids due to AIDS, you know that’s going to be moving. I liked “The Ride” mostly because it speaks to the rides I’ve done over the past 6 years but 7:30 a.m. is early.

Hope you spend some time this weekend thinking about HIV/AIDS Prevention, Education, and the fight for a cure. Enjoy the weekend gang.

If you happen to be hanging out on Fire Island this weekend with you gays, get thee to Fire Island Dance Festival! Our boys TRAVIS WALL and IVAN KOUMAEV will be performing as part of the Dancers Respond To AIDS program which is part of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

Aside from Travis and Ivan, the roster of performers includes Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Battleworks Dance Company, TheChase Brock Experience, Corbindances, Darrel Grand Moultrie, Jorge Guzman & Willem Devries, Momix, Pascal Rioult Dance Theatre, Tapaholics, Trey Mcintrye Project.

Whoopi Goldberg hosts the event this Friday, July 20th. Wait, does that mean they won’t be in line to get their Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows book? What’s that all about?

To learn more about the event go to broadwaycares.org and to purchase tickets visit dradance.org.

Do you think they would come and dance for the AIDS Ride I’m doing? I could throw a shin-dig and have those two work it out. If you’re interested in helping me raise $3,500 to fight AIDS, please head on over and visit Ducky’s Big AIDS Ride 2007 for more information.

SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE RESULTS SHOW

Let’s not pussyfoot around. Shauna Noland and Cedric Garnder were sent home last night on a semi-bloated hour of So You Think You Can Dance.

Was it time for either or both to go? I’m not sure. I 100% believe it was time for Cedric to go home. He had learned a ton while on the show, he’d grown as a dancer, as a person and scored himself a sweet free ride to the Debbi Allen Dance Academy. Can’t beat that. I think he was proud of his performances and I think that he knew it was his time to go (two weeks ago)…

Shauna on the other hand was totally screwed. There’s a part of me that didn’t mind her going home, but then there was that part of me that thinks she got the short end of that dance stick. Nigel complained that she didn’t grow much during the course of the season and that she isn’t showing the potential needed to stay around at this stage of the game. That may fully be the case but come on… YOU GAVE HER CRAP PARTNERS!

Jimmy was a good dancer, but they had zero chemistry together and never connected. Cedric was like dancing with a first year at Hogwarts. Shauna was Hermione and Cedric, Neville Longbottom. It was never going to work and how could Hermione grow if she’s always left behind because of Neville’s shortcomings? What am I talking about here?

Farewell you two, good luck and sorry but we’ve got to move on!

I’d like to say I so called the Bottom 3, but patting myself on the back seems pointless when there’s more to chat about.
(more…)

SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE Top 14 Perform

First of all let me start by saying I was so happy to see Cat Deeley and the Top 14 kids back in action after that mini-holiday hiatus they took last week. It was like seeing an old friend again, putting on those comfy pajamas, or biting into a bing cherry for the first time all year. You know, things you love and are happy when they come back and they just make you giddy like a school girl…

Before I get into the show at all I want to say that I want to hug, squeeze, kiss, high five, dap, and maybe give a happy ending to Hairspray The Musical Director/Choreographer/This Week’s Guest Judge ADAM SHANKMAN for finally having the balls to say that Danny Tidwell acts like he’s way above this competition! In fact I think the words were, “you dance like you’ve already won this competition.” There was some calling out of sticks being up asses and cockiness and my paragraph has just gone to a whole new level of innuendo but seriously, I WAS SO HAPPY TO SEE SHANKMAN CALL HIM OUT! Amen brother man! Needed to be done but we’ll talk more about it later.

On to the show…
(more…)

In Week 2 of So You Think You Can Dance Season 3 we saw these humdinger of a shirt design.  The simple and classic SYTYCD T-Shirt.

Buy SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE Shirts

*The profits from the sales of my SYTYCD shirts and all of my CafePress items will go to the AIDS Ride I’m doing this fall.  Read more about DUCKY’S BIG AIDS RIDE!