Paula Abdul, Dionne Warwick among 2022 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade guests

NEW YORK — Fans of Paula Abdul, Dionne Warwick and the animated series “Bluey” all have something to be thankful for this year.

The stars and characters are among those appearing in the 96th edition of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, organizers announced Tuesday.

Expect appearances by Grammy-winner Warwick, Abdul, “Blue’s Clues & You!” host Josh Dela Cruz, the debut of the Bluey balloon, and performances from new Broadway musicals “A Beautiful Noise” and “Some Like It Hot.”

The festivities — which will include more than 12 marching bands and 10 performance groups from across the country, 16 giant character balloons, 28 floats, 40 novelty and heritage inflatables and more than 700 clowns — will kick off Nov. 24 at 9 a.m.

The parade’s executive producer Will Coss described this year’s event in a statement as “another spectacle full of magic and wonder that will help create everlasting memories with loved ones during this special time of year.”

A performance from Disney’s “The Lion King” on Broadway is also confirmed, along with an appearance by “Glee” star Lea Michele, who is currently starring in Broadway’s “Funny Girl” revival. Look out for other appearances from Jimmy Fallon and The Roots, Ziggy Marley, Joss Stone, Miss America 2022, the cast of Peacock’s “Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin,” and the Muppets of “Sesame Street.”

There will also be new giant balloons from “Despicable Me 2″ and “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.”

And, of course, Santa will be there as the grand finale, officially ushering the start of the Christmas shopping season.

Harmonies of Pentatonix will make a noise against childhood bullying

MINNEAPOLIS — Pentatonix singer Scott Hoying suddenly perked up over the phone.

He had just learned about the cause behind the benefit concert that his champion a cappella quintet is performing Saturday in Minneapolis. It's for PACER Center, a Twin Cities agency that helps children with disabilities and operates anti-bullying programs.

"Oh, my gosh. That's an incredibly important organization," Hoying said. "I think that anything we can do to put an end to bullying is something we want to do. Because bullying affects kids for their entire life and affects your future."

He knows. He speaks from personal experience. He was bullied as a youngster. Name-calling. Taunts like, "Why do you talk like a girl?" "Why do you act like that?"

"A queer kid in Texas," the 31-year-old said. "I had a tepee in the closet and tried to hide the true me for so many years. I was a really eccentric kid. I had a lot of energy, and I was goofy and so over the top.

"There was one specific time where a kid physically hurt me that has stuck with me to this day. Stuff like that in your formative years can really, really affect your development," he said. "I feel like it's something I'm still dealing with. I'm still writing songs about it as a form of therapy. Empathy and kindness and connection and kids are essential."

For Pentatonix, the Minneapolis benefit is an isolated concert in a year that has been mostly time off. Soprano singer Kirstin Maldonado gave birth to her first child in the summer. New bass singer Matt Sallee got married. Yet, Pentatonix still managed to squeeze in the recording of another yule album, "Holidays Around the World," the group's sixth Christmas offering in eight years.

In fact, two weeks after the PACER concert, Pentatonix will hit the road for its annual holiday concert tour. Like Bing Crosby and Mannheim Steamroller, Pentatonix has become synonymous with Christmas music. Is that a blessing or a curse?

"I'd say it's a blessing," Hoying said. "Christmas is such a joyous time. It's family and memories. We get to be the soundtrack to so many people's Christmases, which is a time associated with joy, happiness and peace. Also, Christmas is a huge thing every year."

Hoying finds it comforting to know that Pentatonix will be able to gig for six weeks every holiday season. Otherwise, he finds the music industry so fickle.

"You'll have a No. 1 one day and then one day the industry won't want you anymore," he said. "That's a really scary thing."

Released last week, "Holidays Around the World" features an original, "Kid on Christmas," with pop star Meghan Trainor. The project also showcases other guests, including Chinese pianist Lang Lang, England's the King's Singers and Filipina vocalist Lea Salonga, who voiced Jasmine and Mulan in Disney animated movies.

"It's probably the album we're most proud of in Pentatonix ever," Hoying said. "We collaborated with all these iconic artists in all these special countries. It was fun to have instruments and production inspired by each country, and also we put in some strong originals."

In addition to all those holiday albums, Pentatonix — which launched its career after winning NBC's "The Sing-Off" a cappella competition in 2011 — has recorded five albums of cover songs as well as two full-length collections of original material, including 2021's "The Lucky Ones."

Pentatonix was formed by Hoying and two high school friends from Arlington, Texas. He self-released three solo albums in the mid-'00s before turning to a cappella singing. This summer, he finally dropped his first single, "Mars," since joining Pentatonix. Its accompanying video is an ambitious trip to the desert with some additional underwater videography.

"So, the budget for the video is really, really small," Hoying said last month from his Hollywood home. "I find it so inspiring to bring five friends, go out to the desert and get an Airbnb and make art in DIY fashion. Everyone is so hands-on and inspired, and it ended up looking like a million-dollar video."

Solo recordings have been a long-held dream for Hoying, and he finally felt he had the "experience and capacity" to do both solo work and Pentatonix.

"Pentatonix still comes first," he said. "I want to keep releasing music and have a solo career going as long as I can keep up my energy."

His solo career is a higher priority than his other side project, Superfruit, with Pentatonix pal Mitch Grassi. That duo is on hiatus as Grassi works on his own solo project.

This year, Hoying has become super-passionate about songwriting, penning a song "almost every day."

Although he has enough quality material for an album, Hoying hasn't signed a contract, so he'll just release singles in the meantime.

The PACER Center gala isn't the only benefit for Pentatonix this year. In April, the quintet joined an all-star lineup in a salute to Joni Mitchell for MusiCares, the Recording Academy's charity foundation for musicians.

"One of Joni's favorite songs is 'Why Do Fools Fall in Love,' so Brandi Carlile — she hangs out with Joni and Joni plays solitaire and listens to Pentatonix — asked us to surprise her and sing her favorite song for her as well as one of her songs. And besides that, it was one of the craziest events I've ever done. It was surreal."

To top it off, Hoying talked to Mitchell about music for about 10 minutes.

"It's one of those 'Pinch me' moments. How did my life lead to this moment? It was really cool."

Tony Hawk uses skateboarding to teach community organizing

Sara Campos remembers being inspired to start skateboarding after playing Tony Hawk videogames on the California family’s PlayStation 2.

Campos, 23, who uses they/them pronouns, never dreamed they would be part of Tony Hawk’s charitable work. But last month, Campos was selected for the first class in The Skatepark Project’s fellowship program. The program trains 12 diverse skateboarding enthusiasts in community organizing and project management to be able to build a skatepark in their neighborhoods. Not only does the program hope to create a new gathering place in minority communities. It also aims to support and train young minority leaders.

“It’s almost like a dream come true,” said Campos, who used to draw skatepark designs on printer paper to show their parents. “Getting to do that again, but for real this time, is one of those things you didn’t actually think would happen.”

It’s almost exactly what Hawk hoped for when he launched this initiative.

“With this program, we are engaging these kids — not only to advocate for a skatepark for their use but also to realize that their voices can matter, that they can effect change,” Hawk said. “If you’re a city looking for more projects that are inclusive, that are diverse, I think skateboarding is at the top of the list these days.”

Hawk, who won 73 championships by age 25 and was world champion of vert skating for 12 straight years in the 1980s and ’90s, noted that the sport has changed dramatically over the years. He no longer hears people shouting, “White boy sport,” at him while he’s on his board.

He now sees a wide array of races and genders when he visits skateparks. It’s a shift that he hopes to foster with his nonprofit work.

“My style was so mechanical that I became an outcast within the skate community, but I did find my own sense of identity and community at the skatepark,” Hawk said. “It’s an individual pursuit, but you are bolstered by the community around you. And then they support you in your endeavors.”

Neftalie Williams, a sociologist and expert on skateboarding culture as well as a provost postdoctoral scholar at USC’s Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism, said he is excited by the prospect of having skateparks built through the fellowship program.

“These young people care passionately about skateboarding and are now getting training to be able to carry out their mission and get the work done,” Williams said. “It’s not just getting the skatepark built or getting knowledge within these young people’s hands. They’re gonna have generational knowledge that’s going to passed down and there are very few things that allow that.”

The Skatepark Project – which began as the Tony Hawk Foundation in 2002, funded by Hawk’s $125,000 win on the celebrity edition of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” – saw the fellowship as a response, of sorts, to the police killing of George Floyd in 2020. Hawk said he believes the fellowship can help address racial inequality as well as provide opportunities for a new generation of minority leaders.

Williams, who is also on The Skatepark Project’s board of directors, recalled Hawk and his team saying: “How do we do more? There’s a racial reckoning that’s going on. There needs to be more representation (in skateboarding) for LGBTQ+ communities. There needs to be more work for Indigenous folks. How do you take this platform and really take it to the next level, really empower the next generation?”

Creating a new generation of skateboarding advocates who also understand the mechanics of community organizing is part of the answer.

Nicole Humphrey, program coordinator for the fellowship, wants each fellow to create a skatepark that reflects their community and its needs, while also being economically sustainable. But she also wants them to feel that they can apply what they learn in this fellowship to future projects beyond skateboarding, from building other public spaces in their communities to making their voices heard on issues that concern them.

“What I learned very early is there wasn’t a book or anything to reference,” said Humphrey, a community organizer who also co-founded the nonprofit Black Girls Skate, dedicated to supporting minority skateboarders. “There’s nothing like it. We’re really honestly building it from scratch, and it’s been fun. But I think my entry point was really just being in the organizing space.”

Though the Skatepark Project fellowships began only in September, Campos, a communications and digital marketing specialist at Utopia PDX, has already learned much about what they need to do to build a skatepark in Northeast Portland, one that can be “a space where once you show up, you just feel like you belong there.”

Campos also received plenty of information they can use for Queer Skate PDX, the nonprofit they co-founded to support women, LGBTQ+ and gender nonconforming people getting started in skateboarding by offering them needed equipment and sponsoring events to meet other skaters.

“As a person of color who lives in a state that is predominantly white, it makes it a little bit harder to find community groups that you can relate to,” said Campos, whose family is from Guam. “I had the idea of trying to prioritize and uplift all of these marginalized communities, as well as serving everyone as a whole.”

Campos said the fellowship has given them a deeper knowledge about the history of skateboarding as well as what the sport has done for them.

“Skating has brought me a group of friends and connections and community that I would not have if it wasn’t for skating,” Campos said, adding that they also met their partner, Rochelle, through the sport. “It’s taught me a lot in terms of falling down and getting back up. It’s taught me a lot about courage.”