This year's Kentucky Derby parade will center around comics and animation, E&P reports. Cathy Guisewite, creator of the Cathy comic strip, will be the grand marshal.

My reaction? Ack!

Guisewite, who surprisingly doesn't resemble cartoon Cathy at all, is finally marrying off her ever-flustered heroine in 2004 after admittedly running out of ideas on how to keep the poor woman single. Compared to other Jackson Browne-tanked comic strips out there, that's not a bad twist. But is Guisewite really the most popular American cartoonist post-Schultz?

Maybe. She certainly has her fans. Googling Guisewite finds an article by my friend Kimra in Blue Jean Online, a publication that hooks an audience not even born when Cathy first ran. Google gets credit from me for surprisingly turning up a friend; Guisewite — who actually resembles a cross between Sandra Bullock and CNN's Carol Costello — gets credit for hitting that audience.

But let's examine the other candidates.

Clearly, Lynn Johnston (For Better or Worse) is out of the running with her Canadian-ness, but is Jim Davis chopped liver? Does Guisewite get the edge for the engagement gimmick? Should Garfield suffer because cats can't marry?

Then there's Bil Keane of Family Circus. Sure, Keane's getting up there in years, but I bet he can still sit in a convertible and have a dotted line follow him down the street.

The same likely holds true with Mort Walker of Beetle Bailey, except with our nation's armed forces toeing that dotted line. Just consider Walker's characters: the foul-mouthed, the sexy, the doddering, the lazy. They hit the Derby crowd's stereotype superfecta!

But having never known until this week that the Derby even had a parade, I'm not caring too much. Honestly.

You want me to pick the marshal from the comic pages? I'd get some Louisville kid telling crappy Mini Page jokes. Every good horse parade needs crap.

Wilco began streaming A Ghost Is Born on the Web today. I spent the afternoon listening, giving the new album more ears than I should have if I wanted to get anything else done. But I didn't.

After one-and-a-half times through, I love the disc. The roll and kick of At Least That's What You Said open the work perfectly in character for the band. The following tracks drive and detour in steady but challenging fashion, with a harder edge up front evolving into naturally softer explanation. Choking guitars become juts of piano and then drone.

I'll be interested to read others' reactions, especially to the sequenced drifts of the latter songs. From a Walden broken heart on Company in My Back to the outward and inward warnings of I'm a Wheel and Theologians to the SETI-stolen Less Than You Think, what question does the subsequent and closing Late Greats answer?

For me, the gem of the album is Muzzle of Bees. Starting the disc's midsection, the song draws hopes. It makes me imagine Lake Michigan on a late spring day — captured in time-lapse photographs but lived in long seconds. The song's fills and gaps seem light enough.

Others make you think and rhyme. Like the Barenaked Ladies' Pinch Me. Each time I hear the song, I want to rhyme every line with the underwear line.

Same with Beck's Loser. I was driving home the other night and listening and finding myself having to work to focus on the road. First it was "weasel" and "easel" and then eventually got to garden implements as I passed more and more lawns: "Cuz one's got a shovel and the other's got a rake / And the first is kinda easy while the second's kinda fake…."

Which is true if you think about it. In a certain kinda way.

Chuck of the Bonnie Bernstein Yahoo Group wrote me last night about my Coach K item. He pointed out that the previous Duke tournament games were similar: "Whenever they interviewed a Duke coach at halftime, it was usually an assistant, not Coach K, who they did interview in feature pieces."

A quick Googling confirmed this tradition. I couldn't find anything directly from the coach about why he does this, but various news articles and discussion posts (with varying degrees of support) showed the assistant interviews go back at least as far as 2001. Thanks to Chuck for e-mailing.

Bill Carter of The New York Times vexes in his latest:

The network has so far courted Mr. O'Brien as best it can. Nobody on either side will confirm, but neither will they deny, that in the event of some misfortune befalling Mr. Leno, Mr. O'Brien has a Prince of Wales clause. Mr. O'Brien wants to create comedy shows through his production company and NBC is already steering business his way — particularly one promising comedy pilot starring Macaulay Culkin. And Mr. O'Brien had only to ask once to do a prime-time Christmas special this year.

What is a Prince of Wales clause? I imagine it has to do with a bottled heir to the throne (like Conan is with Leno) and the privileges earned by peaceful bottledness (like the production company work), but not even British Parliament can give me a straight answer. From a March 2002 session of the House of Commons:

Mr. Wiggin: Will my hon. Friend briefly explain what a Prince of Wales clause is?

Mr. Cash: The Minister may be able to help, because I am not sure. As I understand it, a Prince of Wales clause is a special provision in Acts to save the rights, properties, privileges and liabilities of the Prince of Wales. [Interruption.] Would the Minister be good enough to repeat what she has just said from a sedentary position? Obviously not, and in the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold, I am afraid that I can only take a stab at it. Perhaps we can elucidate such matters in due course.

But they never do.

IM from Nate: Your boy Dan Neil won a pulitzer

He sure did. Los Angeles Times auto columnist Dan Neil yesterday won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

I couldn't have agreed more with the jurors. Spotted highlights of his work have appeared in this space before — like March 8th's Guy Lambardo and January 3rd's Phrasing of the Day. Highlights would have appeared even more if I read the Times regularly.

The lede on his most recent column certainly stood among the best: "Riding a motor scooter in Los Angeles is a religious experience. And that religion is Calvinism."

The paper honored Neil and his work yesterday, showing him to look much like Thomas Hayden Church (best known as Lowell from Wings). But my favorite plaudit came in the form of a letter on Jim Romenesko's media page. According to the letter writer and his cited sources, the Raleigh News and Observer fired Neil in 1997 after he "described sexual congress with his fiancee in the back of Ford's largest sport utility on New Year's Eve."

The firing drew reaction on the triangle.general newsgroup at the time. Two posters were against his firing; three supported it. "As far as Dan Neil goes," one poster wrote, "I still think he's lousy writer."

Sic.

Audience members from the Raisin in the Sun previews have begun posting their opinions on Broadwayworld.com, and the early word on Sean Combs is not good.

That said, it's important to emphasize that these opinions are coming only from previews. As Musicals 101 notes, previews are a work in progress. The show doesn't open on Broadway until April 26, and professional critics won't be gauging the show and the performances until then.

Related previous entries:

-Mar. 28, 2004: Stages, they receive you warm?

-Feb. 24, 2004: Puffiness

-Mar. 11, 2003: Exposed by the media

-Nov. 16, 2002: Lopez v. Combs, Judge Ross presiding

A Craiglist entry tells it like it is: "Must be 'cool' with certain things that we can discuss when looking at the place."

Medill took home 40 of the 85 regional SPJ Mark of Excellence awards Saturday, with the seven wins of former masters student Nathan Max leading the charge. "It's always great to have your work recognized," the surnonymously overachieving Max told Medill.

"Fortunately for me," Max continued, "Northwestern apparently has higher standards than the Society of Professional Journalists because several of my winning stories actually received mediocre grades!"

Get well soon. Find more Wilco news here.