Travolta Rattles Menzel at Academy Awards

Oh the cyber world and water coolers across the country are all a-Twitter with Academy Award talk today. Top of mind is John Travolta’s slaughter of Idina Menzel’s name. Second is criticism of Menzel’s performance.

Well, number one, if someone pronounced my name as Amy Silverstone immediately before my big moment, before a billion people, I might be inclined to stop the orchestra and announce clearly, “Thank you. My name is Ann Silverthorn.”

No, actually, I probably would not do that. I’d start singing, and instead of focusing on whatever singers focus on while they perform a solo, I’d be thinking, “What did he say? I can’t believe I finally get my big moment (even though I’ve been around for a while) and my name gets botched. I wonder what my parents are thinking right now. My ex is probably laughing his ass off. Those mean girls in junior high are probably having an Oscar party, and their howling is so loud they can’t even hear what I’m singing. Oh, what the hell, I’m going to belt this thing out anyway.”

And that’s what she did.

From my sofa, I thought, “Who is this Adele Dazeem? She’s good. She kind of sounds like Idina Menzel, but her voice is a little shaky and she’s got that big microphone in front of her face. I can’t tell for sure. . .”

As the song progressed, and she started to hit those high notes, I thought, “Oh, this is definitely Idina Menzel, but what the heck did Travolta say?”

So, I consulted the authority, Twitter, and found that many other people were thinking the same thing.

This brings me to my second point. Does John Travolta have dyslexia? Of course, there are many people on blogs and message boards chiding those who have climbed down Travolta’s throat for his transgression, stating haughtily that Travolta has dyslexia. However, a 15-minute Google search doesn’t seem to return any solid evidence of this, although there are secondary sources that say he credits Scientology for “curing” his dyslexia.

Third point. This looks bad for Scientology. Time for a tune-up, perhaps?

Fourth point. If I had dyslexia, I might turn down the Oscar gig, or take some time and memorize my speech. Come on, Travolta had to memorize lines in Saturday Night Fever and Phenomenon, didn’t he? I’m quite sure his current schedule would allow some time for memorizing.

I predict that John Travolta will come out soon—to announce that he suffers from dyslexia. And perhaps that announcement will include some sort of apology to Idina Menzel.