"At night the lights of Palisades looks like the profile of King Kamehameha's head. Is this a fluke or was the town laid out that way?"

Sigh. Is this how Rorshach started?

Inkblots or streetlights, the human mind struggles to impose order and familiarity upon entropy and clutter. It visualizes mountain-sized spaceman faces created by Martian shadows. It goes nudge-nudge wink-wink upon trains entering tunnels. It imagines that cats purr because they're happy. Hoo-haw.

The Palisades lights, from a certain angle, vaguely resemble a human profile. From the Aiea angle, though, they resemble the bear in the California State flag. From Wahiawa, a menorah. Looking down from the Koolaus, er ... an amoeba with salt on it?

There is no planning involved. The gap between the nose and chin exists because there's nothing there. It's a valley in real life. Duh. Double duh.

Star-Bulletin editor Stephanie Kendrick said that mountainside lights remind her of lava flows, which is actually pretty good, because the streets flow along the lines of least resistance on the slopes, as lava would. Such logic in an editor must be carefully monitored.

The fascinating thing is that people see "Kamehameha." Why not Katherine Hepburn? Why not Spiderman? Jimmy Page? Fred Flintstone?

This is how rumors get started. So, next time you see the lights of Palisades resembling a human face, shout out, look! It's the profile of Stephanie Kendrick! Who's to say you're wrong? Not us.

Prime-time ratings compiled by Nielsen Media Research for the program's first two showings on the family-oriented PAX network put the show near the bottom.

In its first showing Aug. 23 and its second Aug. 30, Destination Stardom was 127th with ratings of 0.8 and 0.7, meaning it was watched by less than a million households.

The show's producer, Al Masini, said he's not surprised at the poor ratings because there has yet to be any significant promotion by PAX of its new prime time lineup.

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