Quickly Moving On

I just got done watching America’s Got Talent quarterfinal round number 2 on DVR and thought I would jot a few notes before the live voting show is on at 9 EDT.

Twelve acts performed last night from all sorts of genres again. I think its easy to say that 6 of them don’t have a shot.
The six that I think are the top vote getters with just four advancing are, in this order, TURF (the solo street dancer,) Donovan & Rebecca (the acrobatic duo,) Tom Cotter (the comedian,) and Tim Hockenberry (the singer.)

The other two acts with a shot to squeeze in the top four are Hawley Magic, and Ben Blaque (the crossbow shooter.)
The magic act was pretty impressive but a couple of the judge’s comments about presentation had merit and an audience can get swayed by those types of comments. The same thing could be said about Hockenberry. Howard Stern believes he is the front runner for the title, but thought he took a step backwards last night. That does open up some space for the 5^th and 6^th acts to leap frog over him.

I pull for Hockenberry who is just a year younger than I am and is also a recovering person. Both of us took the wrong paths earlier in life, got back on the right path and pushed forward through life trying to make our marks. As I mentioned in my last post I can get caught up emotionally with some of these acts as I empathize as a struggling entertainer and watch people succeed after getting a chance to make a huge breakthrough.

I will say, however, that Hockeyberry does have a bit of success if one takes a moment to search. He has recorded three albums with a 4^th coming and has been on tour with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and current with the Mickey Hart Band (from the Grateful Dead.) But this show makes him a national name and proves just how powerful we all know the media is.

This show can be reality TV at its best at times and it is also why I like TURF and Tom Cotter as individual acts. Both are great (Cotter in his 40’s while TURF is in his early 20’s) and both have to work in awful places to try to earn money and improve their routines. TURF literally performs in the streets and Cotter as a comedian has to work all sorts of small, smoky, crowded rooms with drunken idiots heckling him. Its great to see them shine on this show and I do believe my picks are pretty solid.

That’s all folks.

Done.