Summer Solstice

Summer Solstice Celebration kicks off today at 4 p.m. in Alameda Park with the Solstice Festival. The event runs until 9 p.m., with musical and dance entertainment. But if that’s too short notice for you to make an exit from L.A., plan on joining the Saturday fuBeginning at noon Saturday, the Summer Solstice Parade will feature more than 1,000 parade participants, floats, costumes and dancing ensembles. For the parade — its theme is “Splash” — the number of spectators is expected to exceed 100,000.a

The parade begins at noon at Cota Street, heading down State Street to Micheltorena. It should be a great showcase of the area’s creativity, as the elements of the parade (floats, costumes, etc.) are created by community members. No advertisements or motorized vehicles will be allowed in the parade. Nudity won’t be permitted either, by the way. At Alameda Park, the end of the route, day two of the Solstice Festival commences with live music, food, crafts, a beer and wine garden, and a drum circle. (I guess you really can’t have a solstice celebration without a drum circle.) The parade floats will be displayed at the festival, and a children’s stage will host musicians, storytellers, mimes and other performers.

More seriously, it looks like it will be a blast. The Beer Goddess, Lisa Morrison, will be judging the event along with Abe Goldman-Armstrong, and there are some fair-sized bragging rights at stake. Of course, there will be more kegs of good beer than you can shake a stick at, so whether you find the festivities interesting or not, your attention will be occupied.Noon-8pm, on the beach, kids are encouraged and can participate in the Root Beer Games. All proceeds go to charity.

Bradley Whitford

Bradley Whitford and Jane Kaczmarek have filed divorce papers to end their 16-year marriage, People.com has reported. The pair, who were married in August 1992, have three children, ages 12, 9, and 6. Whitford won the Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2001 for playing Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman on The West Wing, while Kaczmarek received seven consecutive Best Actress in a Comedy Series nominations for her role as mom Lois on Malcolm in the Middle.

The infamous Vogue editrix loses her party planner, House as a tranny-nun, Governator Ahnold's real-life action sequence, a sad Hollywood divorce, midgets, gays, nerdy Jews, scary Americans, more Gossip Girl action, and Gary Busey. Presenting your Saturday morning Gossip Roundup: Anna Wintour's main event-planning-lady - who she's had around for 11 years - is leaving to go spend time with her family.

Hollywood's Rapid-Fire-Speech Power Couple, West Wing actor Bradley Whitford and wife# Jane Kaczmarek (Malcolm In The Middle) are getting a divorce; they have three children. Want to tear up? Here's Whitford's famously charming and gracious Emmy acceptance speech in which he lovingly thanks Kaczmarek for her support of his career. It was going to be 17 years in August, and this is the second celebrity divorce announcement of the week (the first was Billy and Katie Lee Joel). [People] Gah! The Governator was on a flight when the cockpit filled with smoke and had to make an emergency landing. Everyone's fine and nobody had to "GET OUT OF THE CHOPPAH" because they were in an airplane, obvi. [TMZ]

Lucas Glover

Lucas Glover is seven under with two holes left in the second round at post timeI'd have bet on the guy based on Boland's recommendation, but I have a strict policy against wagering on athletes or teams I've never heardNewsday baseball/golf scribe Erik Boland surely is too modest to point this out on his own, so I will: Check out his picks here for golfers other than Tiger and Phil most likely to win the U.S. Open.

It's late night in the Philippines and early morning in America. Already, many people are looking for an updated US Open Golf 2009 Leaderboard. As I checked from the US Open Golf official website, I found out that Lucas Glover (USA), Mike Weir (CAN) and Ricky Barnes (USA) are on top of the US Open Golf Leaderboard. Fan-favorite, Tiger Woods, is tied on bottom at 66th position. The first round ended with 25 players at even par or better. Then an abbreviated second round began. When play was suspended for darkness Friday, two things were as clear as the looming weather forecast was cloudy.

The players forced to play in the rain Thursday were as aggrieved as the spectators with tickets who had watched them. Except, unlike the fans, the rain-soaked players from Thursday would not be getting a refund, nor would they receive automatic invitations to Monday, when the fourth round will probably be played. The benefits of playing Friday afternoon were indubitable. Eleven of the top 13 scorers in the first round played in the afternoon. That is a statistic that will not hearten those who slogged it out Thursday morning and then finished Friday morning before warmer, calmer conditions arrived.