From My Cold Dead Fingers

With about ten days to go before the end of the Mayan calendar I began doing a countdown to the end of the world.

Naturally it was all in jest as I certainly don’t believe that 12-21-12 will be the date when the Earth blows up or anything remotely similar.
But for some people it will be the end of existence for them since people naturally, and even un-naturally, die every day.
With about 8 days left in the countdown the mass murder of 26 innocent people took place in a little town in CT, 20 of whom were children mostly 5 or 6 years of age.
A countdown even in jest seemed inappropriate for a few days and I’ve just sort of stopped it even after a few more passed.
Some people are really freaked out about this and some places have taken measures to make sure that floods of people don’t make their way into these places space to do bizarre end-of-the-world things.

So many others are far more articulate than I when debates begin about things like gun control and mental illness so it rarely makes sense to get in the middle of them when the debate gets heated. Even after when I read things that make sense that I could pass on to others it doesn’t make much sense because these things have made their way around the social media networks and I’m just parroting at that point. 

There are a couple of things that I read or noticed that I thought were interesting to note though and I will parrot them accordingly:
- Doctors accidentally kill more people in the US than guns purposely do. Yes, doctors save lives too, but so do guns when criminals know that potential victims have them.
- The flu killed 5 times as many people in the US as guns did in 2010 (50000 to 11000 - source CDC) Let's not get into heart disease and cancer stats.
- Alcohol induced deaths in 2010 were just over 25,000. We know what happened when alcohol was banned in this country.
- President Obama wants to tighten gun control but just sold 20 F-16 fighter jets to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. You know, that group that basically wants to kill as many non-believers as possible.

- Heroin, Cocaine, Meth and all sorts of drugs are banned and illegal in our country yet there continues to be a growing problem with them in our country.
- 446 school-aged children have been shot in Chicago this year, which supposedly has the toughest gun laws in the country. On the day of the Newtown massacre, 10 teens were shot in Chicago, 4 of who were killed. Just another day; no headline news of note to read there.

- Since Australia’s gun ban, armed robberies are up 69%, assaults with guns up 28%, gun murder up 19%, and home invasions up 21%. That, my friends, is called evidence that gun bans are not working.

- In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
- In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
- Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.
- China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated.
- Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. (Seems that the end-of-the-world date was a little off for them.)
- Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
- Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, one million educated people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.

There is this other argument about assault rifles and semi and automatic weapons. My understanding of the whole debate about guns when the US Constitution was created is that the 2^nd amendment was written so that citizens could defend themselves against a government out of control. At that time the government didn’t have tanks and bazookas and grenades and chemical weapons and F-16 fighter jets. They had single-shot rifles. Citizens had the chance to fight on an even playing field.
It would be a bit extreme to suggest that citizens should be able to go out and buy tanks to defend themselves but its patently obvious that even with the ability to buy an automatic weapon that we are way overmatched if a battle ever came down to the citizenry and the US Government forces.

Here is the 2^nd Amendment to the US Constitution, for those who haven’t actually read it in a while, or ever.

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

I have heard some people read that sentence and state, emphatically, that to own a gun you have to be part of a militia.
I read it clearly as two different things – a militia and the people.
I am placing an “and” in there where the comma is but to me the comma is the “and.”

But let’s take the first part which says “militia.” What does that word conger up in your mind these days? Terrorist group, perhaps? That is what gets sold to us these days by the leftist media. American militia groups are on watch lists in this country but it seems to me that if they are well regulated they should be just fine. How do we end up categorizing a militia as a terrorist group today?

I have a deep concern about giving any government too much power. Just look at some of the above examples I posted about what has happened in countries where governments took away guns from people.
I feel the same way about taxation in this country. I consider money to be powerful. Take a dollar and consider that one unit of power. The more dollars that the government takes from us through taxation the more units of power that they have. When a government devalues that dollar by printing more of them, they are taking power from us. This is something to fear, in my opinion. I don’t care who is in office, Democrat or Republican, they do not get the power. Our Constitution was written to guard against that. Yet I still hear people talking about how it is out of date or is a “living and breathing” document that can be changed because society changes. (There is an amendment procedure to deal with that so in that sense it is living and breathing.) But who are the ones who always seem to want those changes? The ones who want us to pay more taxes and remove guns from our homes thus taking power out of our hands. Does that make sense at all? DOES THAT SINK INTO HEADS AT ALL?!?!?!?!

The end of the world isn’t coming Friday for most of us. I’m not worried about that. I am, however, certainly more worried about many other things that are related to what is written above here.

Please trust that I have only thought about this an hour or so today and only today. I have otherwise kept my vow of focusing on the positive during this Holiday season, which has been fantastic for me thus far. I am fully confident that Christmas will come and it, too, will be awesome. I wish all of my friends a healthy and happy holiday season and a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (just in case I don’t write again…and it won’t mean because my world has ended, it will only mean that I am busy having fun and enjoying myself.)

Done

When Reindeer Fly

It’s tough to build an audience writing once a month but it’s been busy. Now that everything will slow down for a bit perhaps I can catch up with whatever this is here.

Well the end of the world is coming on December 21^st. The official countdown begins. This is the 3^rd end-of-the-world countdown I am experiencing in the last year and a half.
The last two were lead by Harold Camping, a kook, who was merrily playing his Pied Piper role to a flock of sheep who really should have revolted after the first time the world continued to thrive, let alone the second time.

This one is the real thing though, according to those who believe that because the Mayan calendar ran out of space on the rock on which they carved a calendar that the Earth will get sucked up in to a black hole of nothingness, or something like that.

If the world does end on the 21^st, it will now officially be ok with me though. There was one thing that I wanted to do at least one more time before I died and I did it a few times this past week, so I’m good to go now. It was one of those things that seemed to be in the same category of “when pigs fly,” or “when hell freezes over.” So everyone buckle up for that launch into oblivion in 17 days.

So we are well into the holiday season here in the United States and wherever else on the planet that isn’t dominated by heathens and atheists.

Frankly, I’m not a religious man. But I did grow up in a predominantly Christian society so I do celebrate the Christian holidays such as Christmas and Easter. Both holidays I celebrate a little differently because of my beliefs or, you might even say, lack of them. But I do find people’s faith a very powerful thing and sometimes wish I could experience the same thing.
I have to settle for my own understanding of everything in that subject and am quite comfortable there.

I have had, in my life, a stack of real terrible things happen around Christmas time. For quite some time it soured me on the whole month. It was really a horrible way to live though; hating a whole month of the year and wishing it would just get over quickly.

There came a point when I found it necessary for my own sanity to rise out of the pit of misery from which I refused to remove myself for years.
The process of turning that part of my life around revolved around taking a brand new look at everything and simply coming to terms with my experiences on a whole new level. I focused only on the positive things that crossed my path refusing to allow negativity to breach the filter into my thoughts. This didn’t matter how little there may have been that was positive; I would only be grateful no matter what happened.

Sure enough, and soon enough, this time of the year became the most important to me. Mainly because it was evidence of a great power perhaps just in the fact that I could knowingly overcome adversity at any given moment I decided to do so, or perhaps…just perhaps…there is magic in Christmas after all.

Whatever it was, or is, I still refuse to allow myself to be anything but positive. Even though the last two Christmas seasons were pretty rough I still hung on to every little positive thing I could because I knew, from my new experiences, that I would pull through emotionally, if not in any other way. In the end, for me, I think that is probably the most important part.
That, maybe, is sort of similar to what those of faith experience in their journeys through life. So it is why I share a kindred spirit with them if not the exact same walk through our short period of time on Earth.

During this time of the year I prefer to do things that help me create special memories about which I can think through the year or around every Christmas season. Sure, it is a time for giving as well but I am pretty clearly someone who finds that buying presents doesn’t always quite fit into “giving” the way that I define it, or feel it.
Sometimes just the simplest gestures can have a very profound effect when it comes to giving and sharing.

Are you creating those moments for yourself or someone in your life? Ever just go to the mall and sit and admire the decorations that people spent a lot of time placing out? Ever just do some people watching at the same time? Ever drive around neighborhoods to see how people have decorated their homes? Make cookies together? Decorate your own tree, listen to Christmas music and hug and dance slowly together with someone special in the middle of it all? Take time to go see a Christmas show? How about an elementary school Christmas show where innocence and true spirit fills the air? How about accidentally attending a Guatemalan midnight Christmas mass given in a language you don’t speak? (One of my best experiences ever.)

The whole month goes too fast. It pains me to hear people wish for it all to be done. I always want more of it. The great thing for me is that I know I can carry that spirit with me right into the next year. Knowing I can do that simply makes life grand and spectacular for me. This season helps wash away negativity for me and there was a lot of it this year. But I can turn my frown upside down and sing Christmas songs; both clean and dirty of course, and become renewed again.

Can you?

Poorly Played....Poorly Played

Well now that the election is over and I have started to get over the horror of what happened I can get back to jotting down notes about crap that doesn’t really matter much.

I purposely avoided writing over the past few weeks because I am beyond passionate when it comes to things of a political nature. I struggle with the thought of cranking out political commentary twice a day or just sticking to the inane.

This blog is written in a Google environment though and I am someone…and you can call me paranoid…that is afraid to criticize our current regime…I mean, administration…too harshly.

Before getting to the BS I will just mention that our supreme leader who was to bring us all together and galvanize the world is now facing the fact that there is a growing outcry around this country from people in states who are gathering petitions to secede from the union. The number is over 20 that I can tell right now. That is a failure in leadership.
Oh yeah, and our glorious leader’s middle east policy is so fantastic that there is a full-blown crisis breaking out across the region like none I have seen in my lifetime.

On our podcast, The Dungeon of Manlove, we play a “game” called “Be Careful What You Wish For.” It generally is about musicians who upload their crappy music to the internet with hopes of being discovered and adored by the world (much like the goal of our podcast, I should add.) Over 60 million people wished for this re-election in a similar type of contest which has, unfortunately, much greater consequences.

I cut out “friends” over this election (but made some new ones) because I had a strict rule about discussing politics in the Facebook forum. Those who were actively against my side who broke that rule had two consequences; 1- were subject to my retort and; 2- subject to being added to my useful idiot list and removed from my “friend” list. Twenty such people, including my personal lawyer, are now looking to replace me.

Ok, so I apparently needed to get that off of my chest. Consider it done.

I have a time-honored tradition in my life that once Thanksgiving hits, I stop paying hourly attention to news of the world. I allow myself to absorb holiday spirit and become immersed in it. For 11 months I stress over the daily decisions by politicians and policy wonks and those who wish to destroy my way of living. On T-Day Eve, its over. Its all about Santa, Frosty, Rudolph, Jingle Bells and gaining 10-15 pounds eating Christmas treats.
In the past I used to take the last two weeks of the year off from work to vacation and just sit in places where people rush around like mad freaks and watch them rush around like mad freaks and simply relax. I’m not really able to do that now because I like to try to keep myself open to perform at holiday parties, but even in that situation I am working at a party so it’s a lot less like work.

I am very much looking forward to Wednesday night then so I can begin that process and just work more on creating dirty song parodies for the Dungeon show.

I have found new motivation in life writing, performing and recording filthy song parodies. In just a couple of months we have recorded two dozen of them and have been playing them on the podcast. Music, and apparently any type of music, attracts listeners. Our subscriber base expanded four fold in the last two months jumping from about 1200 to over 5000. It’s a phenomenon!

I was doing one of my mentalism shows the other night in North Carolina. I love doing them because most of what I do has not been seen by many who watch them as opposed to the hypnosis shows where many more are familiar with potential contents.
For this particular show I sent a prediction to my hosts a week in advance. On show night I was going to do a demonstration and the results of which were going to be revealed from inside the sealed prediction envelope.
The demonstration involved gathering random numbers from about 20 people in the audience. I wrote down the numbers on little pieces of paper and then had someone begin to add them.

While they were being added I did another routine which was another awesome one in a series of awesomeness that had been unfolding all night. During the middle of it I was checking the addition of my audience helper and the numbers weren’t adding up right.

After the current skit was completed I had to add the numbers myself and indeed they weren’t adding up to the number that I had predicted. I asked everyone to check the floor around them to see if I had dropped a piece of paper because my number was 28 short of what it was supposed to be.

When it was determined that the floor was clear I realized that my finale was blown and the secretary of the vice president of the company was holding the envelope which everyone knew had this prediction that was going to be revealed.

Well, basically that was the end of the show. Fortunately the rest of the evening went flawlessly, but what everyone will remember, unfortunately, was that I bombed my finale.
So people were starting to head home for the evening when I turned around to my table where I had all of my show supplies and sitting right there was the missing piece of paper with the number 28 on it. Unfortunately it was too late to salvage the finale other than to a couple key people who were at least able to see that my prediction was true.
Apparently when I picked up a calculator to give to my helper in the audience I dropped the piece of paper.

A few key people did see what happened and remained impressed nonetheless but I literally dropped the ball on the ending of what had otherwise been a great show night.

I now believe that The Voice is the best singing contest show on TV clearly now surpassing American Idol and the X Factor (which has never been as good as The Voice anyway.)
The talent on this show is well beyond these other shows. I know that many of the singers on there have been those who are currently working or have had deals in the past and it sometimes lacks the appeal of Idol where it seems like a regular person can be discovered, but its still great.

The winner of The Voice should be 18-year old Trevin Hunte, a big, burly, unassuming guy with a range that makes him able to do songs that women sing as well as men. He has a true gift that we will get to hear for decades to come, hopefully.



Trevin Hunte



But even with him leading the way there are other clear stars that will shine. Terry McDermott, a classic true rocker; Amanda Brown a sultry rocker; Nicholas David an early 70’s throwback with a Barry White type of voice; Cassadee Pope who can best be described as an Avril Levigne; and Sylvia Yacoub who nearly blew her chance trying to sing Celine Dion the other night, but at least came close enough to pulling it off to keep her in the competition.



Sylvia Yacoub



Cassadee Pope

I imagine that a couple of guys who have snuck their way into the top ten because of their looks will may outlast a couple that I have mentioned, which will be a shame, but those that I have mentioned I believe will have long careers in the music industry.

I think you can tell that I am rooting for the two girls above in the photos. Because someone has to offset the teeny bopper girls who vote for hot dudes who can't sing.

I would watch the X Factor but I rarely watch any shows that I watch at their regular broadcast time. I watch them late at night when I am done with anything else that I am doing On Demand (my cable company’s service.) X Factor is On Demand but only for a short period of time. So if I don’t watch it right away, I miss it. So if I miss a couple I have a tendency to lose interest.

Poorly played, X Factor, poorly played…just like my finale…just like the election.

Done

Revolution

Well its been a busy month for me and I am grateful for that. I now await the election to get an idea of what will be in store for me personally. In the two weeks after Obama was elected to office in 2008, I had $5000 worth of hypnosis shows canceled for that upcoming holiday season.

Those were all corporate holiday shows which gave me personal proof that companies believed that this was not going to be a business friendly administration. And it hasn’t been.

People who believe in this guy can scream and shout all they want thinking that the opposite is true, but it was really only true for companies that poured money into his campaign. You know, like GE which we found out went a whole year without paying a dime of tax on boatloads of money.

The past few holiday seasons have been slow for that same reason; companies cut back on everything. That was even for a lot of companies that might have been doing well. Some of those companies purposely held back on spending on those types of affairs because it made it look like they were flaunting money during rough times.

That only screwed people like me which was a direct result of what started in November, 2008.

I have an agent out in L.A. who only books corporate shows. His business has been down 80% during the last four years.

Need I say much more in a space that I prefer to keep short?

I think its so obvious that it should be slapping people in the face that if we truly believe that businesses, both small and big, should thrive in this nation that we need to let them do so. For me my choice will be clear this Election Day because I need to get back to much better days so maybe I can retire. If this does not go my way I literally, at this moment, see no clear path to retirement.

It is a busy TV season. I try to watch everything I can late at night. Here is the current list:
Baseball Playoffs

Survivor

X Factor

The Voice

Raising Hope

American Horror Story

Revolution

Two and a Half Men

Fringe

Grimm

Dexter

Homeland

Impractical Jokers

I won’t even begin to list all of the reasons that they are good and on my viewing list because it would simply take too long. One that you might not have heard of, however, is the last one. It is on TruTV and stars 4 lifelong friends who do candid camera stunts with unsuspecting people as each of the friends is the victim of a practical joke in the scene.
I had the opportunity to work with one of the guys on the show in the past which was what put it on my radar. But its laugh-out-loud funny most of the time.

I should mention that on Survivor there is Delaware’s first contestant on the show that lives in Delaware. Here name is Katie and she is a former Miss Delaware. Naturally she is representing us here horribly. I did recently send in an entry to the show and at the time I said I was looking to be the first person from Delaware to be on the show. Now I will need to edit it to state that I want to be the first person from Delaware to not embarrass an entire state on the show.

She isn’t even the best looking girl on the show and that isn’t really a surprise since I don’t think that in the history of national beauty contests has a girl from the First State ever even made the top ten. The honor of hottest Survivor girl goes to Angie Layton from Utah.

Oh, did I say Utah…again? I love Utah. I would move there in a minute. This is one more reason why.

Delaware already has a bad reputation because of Joe Biden and now our former Miss Delaware has just piled on top of it. This may be another reason why I need to move. If these are the representatives of my state out there I can only imagine what the public thinks if they see that I originate from a place which sends out these reps and then makes it less likely to hire me to do a comedy show.

Well indeed Miguel Cabrera won the batting Triple Crown to become the first winner of that honor since 1967 in either league. It’s a Herculean accomplishment as evidenced by the length of time since we had one.
Now the Tigers have just swept the Yankees out of the playoffs and are awaiting the winner of the Cardinals-Giants series, which seems to be a lock for St. Louis now, in the World Series.

Let’s see…what else? Oh yeah…hot women.
Here is a shot of Revolution’s leading lady Tracy Spirodakos.

I’m not sure that when I watch the show I’m all that much in love with her. But I can see how others are. I think it’s the character and how they dress her on the show that makes a big difference. But one can easily tell that she has no problem attracting dudes, this is for sure.

On a real positive note, Scarlett Johansson is available again. And remember, folks, that I am going to the Dungeon of Manlove show until she makes a 15 minute appearance on it in person or until she porks up and/or uglies up. This will be quite some time for sure so if you want the DoM to stop, you know what to do.

Yes, I know she roots for the wrong political team, but if I can get her close enough to me I have a bunch of ways to fix that little problem, if you know what I’m saying.

Done

No more WAR!

The final day of the regular season in Major League Baseball is today. There isn’t as much potential drama as last year as all of the playoff spots have been clinched. However there are still two division titles up for grabs as the Orioles are a game behind the Yankees in the AL East and the Rangers and the Athletics are tied in the AL West. Those games are important because of the new playoff structure with two wild card teams that play a one-game round to determine the ultimate wild card team.

It’s just going to be tough to beat last year’s final day magic.

It does look like for the first time since 1967 that there will be a batting Triple Crown winner in MLB in Miguel Cabrera. He leads comfortably in Batting Average and RBI’s and has a one homerun lead over Josh Hamilton from the Rangers. The Rangers do have a meaningful game today though so anything can still happen. Should Hamilton hit one today Cabrera stills win the TC even with a tie.

Now there is talk about who will win the MVP in the AL between Cabrera and the Angels rookie star Mike Trout. The nod should clearly go to Cabrera just based on his stretch run that helped propel the Tigers to the AL Central title as they passed the White Sox with a few days to go. The Angels failed to make the playoffs even though that’s certainly not Trout’s fault. One could argue that his presence was the main presence needed to keep the Angels that close near the end of the year.

But there is a baseball statistics organization out there called SABRE. Someone from there created an incredibly terrible new stat called WAR (wins above replacement) which attempts to gauge the amount of wins a team would have with a player who played in place of a different player. Trout apparently has a number around ten and Cabrera a number around six. They can’t get rid of this thing fast enough. It’s bad enough that we have to deal with a stat called OPS which simply adds On Base Percentage to Slugging Percentage, but now this. Yet what don’t have is a stat called Game Tying and Go Ahead RBI’s which would give a far better yardstick against which to measure a players clutch hitting performance.
We used to have Game Winning RBI’s but the way that was measured was absurd. If a player drove in the first run of the game and the game was never tied then that run was the game winning RBI. But the game could have ended up 10-9 and that first run really didn’t mean anything beside a go-ahead RBI, which would have still counted in my category, although there would not technically be a game-winning RBI in the sense of that old stat.

Anyway, I had been rooting for the Mets R.A. Dickey to win the pitching triple crown but he came up short last night. He should end up leading the NL in strikeouts but will end up one win behind the Nationals Gio Gonzales in wins and about .20 behind the Dodgers Clayton Kershaw in ERA. Credit Kershaw for putting pressure on Dickey in his last start of the year when he pitched a complete-game shutout to take the lead in that stat.
Dickey pitched last night but gave up three runs growing his ERA and getting a no-decision in the Mets next to last game of the year.
But give Dickey even more credit as it was announced last night that he will need surgery later this month to fix an abdominal tear that he has been playing with for quite some time.

But the most incredible thing about baseball this year is that the Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles are in the playoffs and at the same time. We can even throw in the fact that Oakland’s presence is a miracle as well since they were picked for last place, but the Nationals are currently tied for the best record in the NL and they won their division convincingly. The Orioles still have a chance to tie for the division lead (not sure of the tie breaker if they tie the Yankees tonight) and in a division with the Yankees, Rays and even the Red Sox and Blue Jays, no one gave a second of thought to the Orioles contending for this spot in the playoffs.

Showtime’s Dexter and Homeland had great season premiers this past Sunday. Dexter is in its 7^th season and Homeland its second. Think of Homeland as sort of a “24” for today without the real-time structure that 24 had. Both lead actors (Claire Danes and Damian Lewis) in that series won “Best Actor” Emmy’s for last year’s season.



Claire Danes



I like Claire Danes. She could be in my harem if it was legal to have one. She might not be the lead harem mistress though even from that show. That spot between the two main women on the show would go to Morena Baccarin who plays Lewis’ wife. She was the girl who played the lead role in the science fiction series V on ABC and she also plays on The Mentalist, which I have still never seen.



Morena Baccarin



Fringe has returned to FOX for its 5^th and final season. It was sad news to me to find out that it will not return again. It had been getting pretty good the last couple of years and I adore Anna Torv, the lead female. Torv (from Australia) is one of those foreign actors who work in an American accent like Hugh Laurie (England) from House and Ryan Kwanten (Australia) who plays Jason Stackhouse on True Blood.



Anna Torv



This is my busiest time of the year so I don’t get a lot of chance to write now. I sort of wish that Summer was busier and Fall was slower so I can enjoy the weather more at this time of year. But I’ll take busy at any time of the year over slow, especially these days.

We are still taping the Dungeon of Manlove show. It’s been a lot of fun. In a way I wish it were more mainstream so that the potential for more people to listen to it would be greater. But I just don’t think it would be as fun for anyone involved or anyone who does listen now. If you dare, you can take a listen right from this page in the Dungeon Player near the upper right portion of the page.

That’s all I got…

Done

Dogs > Humans

In my area this is the day that I look forward to each year when that first real cold front blows through and wipes away the stale, nasty, hot air of summer and ushers in autumn.
Ah…it’s about time. Now I can come out of hibernation and party!

It also means that the MLB playoffs can’t be too far behind and indeed there are less than 20 regular-season games left for baseball teams.
With the addition of a second wild-card entry to the playoffs this year’s finish could come down to the final day again as it did last year when we witnessed the most exciting final day in baseball history.

The Orioles and Nationals are STILL in first place with the Nats firmly locked in and the O’s currently tied with the Yankees.
The Phillies, the most hated team in the world, have even crawled back into wild card contention at this point and are only out 3 games although 5 teams are still ahead of them. That is why this looks to go to the last day.
The Angels with all of the money that they spent over the off season are in third place and trail the Oakland A’s of all teams.
Heck, even the Pirates are in contention for a playoff spot.
So to recap…the Orioles, Nationals, A’s and Pirates could actually all make the playoffs this year and neither of those teams have been in the playoffs since forever (I’m not looking it up.)

Statistically the season is still boring. The Tigers Miguel Cabrera is teasing a Triple Crown run but he is now 6 homeruns behind Josh Hamilton and that’s probably too much distance to cover.
The worst thing that might happen is that the Giants Melky Cabrera might win the NL batting title despite being suspended for 50 games for violating the MLB drug policy. That will be yet another drug stain for the sport.

The final three acts in America’s Got Talent were William Close, Tom Cotter and Olate Dogs with the Dogs winning the season. Six acts reached the final round but it was easy to predict those final three out of the six. I personally voted for Tom Cotter, the comedian, since I really wanted to see a guy in that genre win the thing. There is no doubt that the Dogs and William Close will land major deals even without a win on AGT.



The Winners



With the end of AGT brings the beginning of The Voice and X Factor. This is the third season for The Voice and I’m a fan especially in the early rounds. There are some great singers already being assigned to the four “coaches” who all remain the same as the first two seasons; Adam Levine, CeeLo Green, Christina Aguilera and Blake Shelton. I have a feeling that this show has done great things for their careers hence the third season appearance.
I didn’t watch X-Factor last year but just watched the first two episodes On Demand last night. New judges this year are Britney Spears and Demi Lovato to go along with Simon Cowell and the other dude who I don’t like even for a second…LA something or other.



Demi Lovato



This show is way over-produced but I found myself liking it ironically because sometimes during the show that over production worked and made for some pretty emotional and dramatic moments.
I found myself taking a liking to Spears because she has been rather tough and nasty to those who she didn’t like. Her facial expressions when someone bombs are precious also.
There was a particularly horrifying moment for her, and for all of America, when a guy with whom she did a duet 10 years ago named Don Philip auditioned for the show.

He did the duet on Spears first album doing a song called “I Will Still Love You.”
Cowell asked him why he was out of the business for 10 years and on what aired Philip said something about not “feeling worthy” or some nonsense.
He then went on to bomb in nuclear fashion and Spears couldn’t even look him in the eye as she was cringing. Philip nearly pleaded with her in desperation after Cowell told him he couldn’t sing and I was yelling at the TV to tell him not to put her in that spot. Well, I actually said, “Don’t do it, you douche!” But he did it anyway and then left in a flood of tears.



Britney Spears



We came to find out though that X-Factor cut out something that happened on stage when he came out. Apparently LA Reid kept badgering him about some secret that Philip had and that secret was that he is gay and now believes that he was “bullied” into confessing it. Hell, we all knew when he walked out onto the stage that he was gay. But now he is all pissed at X Factor for bullying him even though they cut it out of the broadcast.
What was even more ironic was that during the first show the closing act that was shown was a girl who was bullied all of her life and that was the entire heart-tug story line of her audition. Apparently Lovato was bullied all of her life too and campaigns against bullies. Sidenote: On the surface I’m not buying that Lovato was bullied all of her life but I’ll need to see pictures for evidence.
So X Factor pushed through someone who was bullied and makes her America’s darling for a night and then the next night does the bullying itself causing a gay dude to think about committing suicide when he got home from his audition.
That is the kind of stuff worth watching to me. Not that I want to see anyone blow off their heads as a result, but it is compelling TV.

This is a big week for CBS as Big Brother will come to a close on Wednesday night and Survivor will start that evening also. I’ll be locked in for sure. Survivor has two celebrities on it this year; Jeff Kent a former MLB player and Lisa Whelchel from The Facts of Life TV show from years past. I was in love with her back then and Kent is a baseball player and both are on my favorite show so this is a no-brainer on the viewing list.



Lisa Whelchel



If you don’t have Showtime I suggest that you get it soon since Dexter and Homeland will return on September 30^th. If you have never seen either, do go back and watch previous seasons. Dexter is entering its 7^th season and Homeland its 2^nd. I know there are sites out there online where one can catch up for free.

That’s it for me. It’s show night tonight in Lutherville, MD so I have to pack up the car and scoot. September has been very slow for shows for me. Times are still very tough for those of us in the D-list entertainment field. Things need to change and change quick!

Done

Time to Eat!

School is back in session and Fall is just around the corner and I love Fall. Usually that is one of my busiest times of the year so I don’t get to do many of things that I like to do to enjoy it but take every chance that I can get to soak it all in to me.

Fall means football and baseball playoffs and as a fan of both sports there is no better time of the year to be a fan.

This year even fans in Baltimore and Washington have reason to cheer. No, not because of the Ravens and the Redskins, but because the Orioles and the Nationals, of all teams, are both in first place in their divisions.

It is a testament to the fact that a great manager is important in this sport. Buck Showalter for the O’s and Davey Johnson for the Nats both know how to win and Johnson is an innovator when it comes to managing teams. He was one of the first to use computer generated stat tracking capabilities when he was with the Mets and ways that he handles pitching staffs are those to emanate as well.

While I find it hard to think that the O’s and Nats could actually meet in the World Series this year, just being in the position to think about it is shocking and refreshing. If it does happen though, I live close enough to go get tickets and watch it happen live, and will if so.

Ok, enough of that. Back to hot women because this motivates me to write stuff in this blog more than anything else. I mean, I really want to write about politics but am saving it either for another time or on my anonymous blog that I imagine has me on a watch list somewhere and maybe at the bottom of this page (you have been warned.)

But I can do this…speaking of politics and the fact that it’s an election year here are two amazingly gifted women who can be found over at the Fox News Channel.

Andrea Tantaros is a 33-year old journalist from Allentown, PA who speaks Spanish, French and Greek. She worked as a press secretary in Congress for a few years and now also writes a weekly column for the NY Daily News. She also is featured regularly on Fox’s show “The Five,” a daily political talk show.



Andrea Tantaros



Kimberly Guilfoyle is also on “The Five.” She is the complete package and is 43 years old, which is ten years older than I thought she could possibly be. She is a lawyer and former prosecutor who was once married to Gavin Newsome who went on to be mayor in San Francisco. Even more importantly than that she was a Victoria Secret’s model when she younger!



Kimberly Guilfoyle



Maria Melino makes watching weather reports hot. I mean, come on, what red-blooded dude can resist watching her tell us that it’s hot outside?

Maria Molina knows what hot

I am a fan of the CBS TV show “Big Brother” and while people who are on that show become eligible for hotness lists. Britany Haynes, who made her second appearance on the show, makes my list and makes my day. She is a pharmaceutical sales rep now and married while not locked up in a studio disguised as a house in California.



Britney Haynes



26-year old Amanda Seyfried is up next. It’s all about the eyes on this girl although this picture instead shows that she is a complete physical package also.
I recently took extra notice of her in the movie “In Time,” which has a great concept for a movie even it wasn’t all that spectacular, so I ran to the computer after it was over and started harvesting her pictures.
She also played Little Red Riding Hood in the movie “Red Riding Hood.” I can certainly see why the big old bad wolf wanted to eat her.



Lunch!



Chuckle, snort.

There are no hot men this week. If you want to see them immortalized on the pages of this blog you will have to send me your picks and I will obligingly post a few up as I have over the past few entries.

I am going to end on very one important and serious note and it is political in nature so if you are now being warned that a political statement is coming and can stop reading now.

WARNING - POLITICAL OPINION COMING!

*************************************

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

The First Lady made a comment in her speech at the DNC the other night which might have been the most offensive political comment that I have ever heard coming from an American.
She stated that we all “belong to the government.”
Now I know that political pundits and those in the opinion game jumped all over this the following day but when I heard that statement I wanted to puke and I was shouting this in my house before I heard or read anyone else talk about it.
I do not belong to the government. YOU do not belong to the government. We are citizens of the United States of America which DOES NOT OWN US.
I know that those in power now want us to be more dependent on them and as a result those who succumb to that notion end up “belonging” to the government but this is not why this country was created. And the First Lady, as a person of African descent, should know better than to make a statement like this. How many people died as a result of “belonging” to other people or other groups or other countries and how many people died attempting to free them from the bondage that results when someone “belongs” to a government.

She is supposed to be a person who believes in “Progressive” politics. What is progressive about giving up our freedom to a government that thinks we belong to them? Well, it’s only progressive in the sense that the Progressive movement was given birth by the Communist Party. They do, indeed, believe that its citizenry belongs to the government and the government is the answer for everyone’s problems.

Don’t believe me about that last statement, do that check yourself.  

That thought, that very philosophy is against the core of what this country stands for and has stood for since its creation. It must be pointed out how flawed and failed it is and we must stand up and fight against that at all costs. It is very sad that anyone in this country thinks this way after all that we have seen and experienced in this country and in others over the centuries. Yet, here is the First Lady of the USA standing up and saying this exact thing. It is shameful and disgusting.

Done.

Regrets?

I came across a video where a speaker had found out what the top five things people regret about their lives when they are at the end of theirs.

1-     I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

2-     I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends

3-     I wish I’d let myself be happier

4-     I wish I had the courage to express my true self

5-     I wish I had lived a life true to my dreams instead of what others expected of me.

Does that list make you stop and reflect on your life currently?

This list had me all messed up for the past week. It has forced me to take an inventory of my life and its just left me deep in thought and I’ve been out of touch for a few days besides normal work stuff.

These are just the top five though. When I was thinking about that list I actually temporarily came up with more that I would regret if I was on my way out today. But that’s beside the point really. I was sort of focused on 4 and 5.

I can honestly say that I have had the courage to express my true self and also that I have lived a life true to my dreams.
I don’t take the last one to mean that I have dreamt about traveling the world and living in the fast lane or something along those lines. I take it mean that I have followed my vision when it comes to things that I have wanted to do to try to make a living, such as making a career change to become an entertainer.

I express myself on here just to point out one example of doing that in my life.

There is a saying, “be careful what you wish for,” that comes to mind with those particular wishes though.

There are plenty of risks involved when trying to live to those particular standards for ones self. Exposing ones ideas verbally, in writing, in music or in art leaves a person wide open for criticism and hate instead of praise and admiration, the more welcome results. Someone not mentally prepared for the negative consequences to which they could be exposed can face a rocky road in life potentially filled with sadness and doubt.

Try living life true to your dreams while those who surround you don’t, or won’t. Want to see a stream of negativity flow through a room? Tell a group of people today that you are thinking about quitting your job to start a business that you have always wanted to start. Many people truly don’t want anyone else from their little world try to break free from the chains that bind them from reaching their goals because it forces them to have to look in the mirror and realize that they are too afraid to take such a risk. Some of them will ridicule and mock you and tell you that it’s impossible because if you do succeed that makes them feel bad about themselves and their own situation. It can breed envy, one of the seven deadly sins, and it’s ugly to watch what those will do and what they will say to keep someone down at their comfort level.

Unfortunately leading a life in these ways can have a bunch of negative consequences also. There is always good and bad. It’s the concept of yin and yang, the Chinese philosophy literally meaning “shadow and light” where seemingly polar opposites are interconnected in the world.

After contemplating all of this for the last few days I can only come to one conclusion that can keep me sane. Rather than focus on what is regrettable, I would rather focus on what I wouldn’t regret. I think that the original question is flawed in that way. I imagine that many people on their death beds start to look back and question themselves in that manner. But the irony is that the #3 thing on that list about being happy can be done so easily by simply focusing on the positive things in ones life. Doing that is allowing one to be happy.

It’s probably just that simple and if we can indeed see the silver lining in every cloud then there will be one less potential regret later in life.

Back to hotness.

We’ll start with the men first and some of your submissions for hot dudes (and thank you for reading and submitting them.)

First up is DJ Qualls. His first role in a movie was as Kyle Edwards from “Road Trip” where he played a young virgin…a real stretch for sure since, I mean, look at him. This hunk of hotness was born in 1978 so get him while he is still hot, girls.

DJ Qualls

The next entry is the one and only Gilbert Gottfried, a stand-up comedian who has Howard Stern to thank for the reason he has a career. Gilbert does many cartoon voices these days and was the voice the AFLAC duck for a while before he made a joke about the tsunami in Japan in 2011 and was fired from that gig.

Gilbert Gottfried

 

The TV show Glee has a couple of hot girls on it. I watched that show early on its run and liked it but it got way too gay for me and I do mean that I prefer not to watch dudes kissing if I can help it. But one of the leads Lea Michelle can really make a lollipop hot and Naya Rivera makes me want to tune back in to watch her in action as well.

Lea Michelle

Naya Rivera

It’s easy to just post up hot pictures since there are models who are strictly in pictures because they are hot. I am limiting these entries to those who are in movies or TV, music, sports, or are otherwise well known for something else besides simple modeling.

This brings me to my next choice and she is Jennifer Love Hewitt. I couldn’t even tell you the name of any show or movie in which she has starred. I could look it up easily enough but I don’t even care. I have adored this girl for a while now. She is now 33 and so far the oldest I have mentioned but again…I don’t care.

Jennifer Love Hewitt

Ok, I’ll go older. Another of my favorites for quite some time who still is one of the hottest girls on the planet is Alyssa Milano. She’ll turn 40 this year but clearly has plenty of hot life left in her. She began her TV career at 12 (when legally she was not hot) co-starring with Tony Danza and Judith Light in “Who’s the Boss?” Where she really got hot was in “Charmed” though after doing a whole stack of movies which all sucked except for the fact that she was in them.

Alyssa Milano

I guess, now that I think about it, I do regret not being to have met any of the hot women on my lists so far. But I live in Delaware so that will never happen…unless I live true to my dream and get the hell out of here and allow myself to be happy!

Done.

Smoke and Mirrors

Seven- time Tour de France winner, Lance Armstrong, is having his wins stripped from him and his name erased from the record books for “doping.” You know, for all of those blood tests that he took that came up negative at the time, that’s why he is getting erased from our memories.

Who knows if he doped or not for sure amongst us common folk? Is this a witch hunt? Did he dope later and because he did that makes him guilty and erasable from the time he left the womb? Did he dope well before and everything he did later is under a cloud of suspicion?

We are no privy to the inside information so we will probably never know for sure. But since he has stopped all appeals processes he is being labeled a “cheater.”

So say that Armstrong did cheat for a moment. Take him and all of the baseball stars who “allegedly cheated” their way into MLB record books and I won’t get into naming all of them. What does that say about my generation and its sports heroes? It was all fake? I simply witnessed an illusion on TV for all of those years? It turns out that all of these athletes are no more powerful than David Blaine or Chris Angel.

It’s sad and pathetic. I have a hard time watching sports any more because of it. I am going through Olympic withdrawal right now and don’t know where to turn. But the Olympics are filled with that also. At least it seems that athletes get caught quickly and the justice is dished out promptly. With MLB the Unions had just enough power to fight off investigations into athlete’s possible drug usage. The result of that misuse of power has been a disaster.

Next year’s MLB Hall of Fame ballot has some interesting names on it for the first time; Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Sammy Sosa. Bonds and Clemens have been on trial for possible steroid use. Sosa, while not in that same situation, has been rumored to be amongst possible culprits as well.
There are two names, Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro who are struggling to get Hall of Fame votes. McGwire has failed 6 years now and Palmeiro twice. Palmeiro has over 500 home runs and 3000 hits which would normally make him an automatic qualifier. He was one who made a claim that he never, ever used steroids and then was linked to them shortly thereafter.
It will be interesting to see if the future record books will list Bonds and Clemens as record holders and/or as members of the Hall of Fame.

Speaking of smoke and mirrors, magicians didn’t fare that well trying to make it into the semifinal round of America’s Got Talent. The clogging group, All That, somehow got in there though. But I did get redemption when Sebastian “El Charro” de Oro reached the semifinal round by getting one of the four wild card selection. He is the 10-year old mariachi singer who should have been in there, according to my earlier picks, amongst the first 16 semifinalists.

Speaking of smoking, I saw a Facebook debate break out about who was hotter, Mila Kunis or Kristen Bell. Both were in the movie “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and when someone recently watched the movie she (yes, she) claimed that Kunis was hotter than Bell.
Coincidentally those two names were going in my next installment of “What’s Hot” today.
This is a tie for certain. It’s simply a matter of what hair color one would prefer on a given day. Kunis, of course, is a brunette and Bell is the blond.
Kunis made her name on “That 70’s Show” and, from what I remember, had lied about her age early in her career and was younger than what she told people she was back then.
Someone in the debate said that he didn’t think Kunis was that hot in the first years of the show. His man instincts were correct there since she was jail bait. But no longer is she that, so fantasize away, dudes.



Brunette- Mila Kunis?



 

I first saw Bell on “Heroes” where I also saw Hayden Panattiere. Any hot girl with super powers gets the edge in my fantasy playbook but straight up without such earthly powers creates the tie.



or Blonde - Kristen Bell?



I asked for women to submit some favorite hot guys for posting here and I did get my first two submissions.

The first is Al Bundy, played by Ed O’Neill, of course. Bundy was a man’s man and a woman’s man. No one can actually doubt his talent as in this category and it’s evidenced by the fact that he moved on to land a role in that other show (which name still escapes me) that has Sofia Vergara as his wife (who made the hot list last blog entry.) So clearly whoever can bag Sofia Vergara has to be hot.

Al Bundy

Next on the list is Danny McBride, better known as Kenny “effin” Powers from the hit HBO show “Eastbound and Down.” Who can resists a flame-throwing, f-bomb throwing, drunken, chubby, coke head who treats women like shoes treat a pavement? Every woman has a secret desire for a bad boy, and Kenny Powers fits that bill.

Kenny Powers

Also making the hot list is someone who I first saw on “Eastbound and Down” as well. His name is Deep Roy. He played in the season where Kenny “moved” to Mexico and his star shined brightly as the thug that he was. Good things come in small packages and when that thing is a bad boy too? Ooh yeah, the women go wild.

Deep Roy

Well, that’s all for now folks. I have to save some hot names to ensure that I have lots more nonsense to write in the future! So, I’m

Done.