Running for the Balls

Yeah, its about time to post up. 

July is a relatively slow month for hypnosis shows for me. I have exactly four this month, which isn’t actually all that bad considering previous July's but after a hectic May and June I was on a roll and its nice to be on a roll.

August, which is usually slow also, will be bolstered by a booking at the NY State Fair for twelve consecutive days. It’s a gig I am anxious to do since I have been trying to get into my own state fair in Delaware and they won’t even acknowledge my letters of inquiry there.

The NY State Fair will be cool, though. Hopefully I am able to see some of the bands that are appearing there such at Styx, Lynard Skynard and Los Lonely Boys amongst others, of course.

I am a little concerned that the fairs site hasn’t listed my show. I guess that I don’t rate yet. But my show needs promotion since it needs volunteers so I had to ship off an email to see what’s up with that. 

What prompted me to write now is not what is listed below what I am about to post but rather the fact that its time for the Running of the Bulls in Spain. Each year hundreds of thousands of morons try to outrun actual stampeding bulls through the streets of Pamplona after having spent the previous evening drinking themselves into oblivion. It can only mean one thing…that I will have some pictures at which to laugh shortly thereafter the run begins. I always root for the bulls in this event as well as I root for the bulls in bull fights. Here is the picture that prompted my creative juices to flow today.

Oh, please give me more of these!

So with my down time it means that I have more time to watch TV and waste my life. The summer shows are on and I have enjoyed the networks decision to air completely different shows during the summer instead of reruns of old shows that they used to do when I was a kid.

CBS features Big Brother, now in its 15^th season. This is a show to which I applied two seasons ago. I would have again this year but I was booked pretty solid. I need to work; not take a chance that I might get more work from something like that. But based on who they picked to be house guests there was no way I would have received any consideration…again…this season. The oldest person is 37 and she, I think, is the only one over 30.

There is controversy in the BB house this year as one of the cute girls makes a bunch of remarks that has everyone calling her a racist. Some of the mocking that she does is pretty clearly offensive as she uses a stereotypical rant to portray an Asian. But some of the others are just things that she means as a joke.

Aaryn Gries - Racist?

For example, she is getting a lot of heat for looking at the fish tank in the house and noticing that the lighter colored fish were near the top of the water and the darker colored fish were near the bottom. Her comment was about how they were segregated. THAT isn’t a racist statement. That was pretty clearly an observation about which she was trying to joke.
However, when she was talking about the Asian girl in the house and said, “Shut up and go make some rice.” Well…that was pretty clearly out of line. In particular it was out of line because there was clear intent to insult someone with that statement.
It was beyond stupid to say anything remotely like that. Hell, the show’s host, Julie Chen, is Asian. I mean, what is this dingbat thinking?
She also referred to the gay kid in the house as a “queer” and, again, this wasn’t in some joking way.

Its all about intent.

Well, it turns out that she has been fired from two of her jobs. She doesn’t know this yet but when she gets out, she’ll be unemployed. Many people go on that show, especially hot girls like that and wanna-be celebrities like me, to try to get new work. Unfortunately for her she may never work again.

Aaryn isn’t the only one though. Ginamarie Zimmerman from Staten Island also got chopped from her job for an “insensitive” remark. And there could be more coming if they don’t watch out. Spencer Clawson has apparently referred to Hitler as a “good speaker.” That won’t go over very well either.

GinaMarie Zimmerman

Spencer Clawson

Suddenly looking like a saint is Elissa Slater, who has been a target for termination since day one, but has avoided being eliminated by two miracles created because of a twist in the game show’s play this year. Slater is the sister of the polarizing figure Rachel Reilly, her older sister, who is a previous winner on the show.

Saint Elissa

I love the strategy, love the choices for contestants except for one very obvious one (me), and its 24/7 accessibility (no, I don’t watch 24/7.) It’s a home run of a show.

I have also started watching Siberia on NBC. Here is a great idea for a show and the first two episodes have been pretty good. 16 contestants are selected for a reality show deep in the middle of nowhere in Siberia and left to fend for themselves until winter hits the area. There are no rules. There are challenges that are supposed to take place but no rules…its Lord of the Flies, potentially.
But something goes wrong…goes very wrong. So its not an actual reality show, it’s a drama/horror (I think horror…too early to tell) scripted to look like every other reality show.
More hot women on this show too!

The Rock has a reality game show called The Hero on TNT. People haven’t been eliminated from this show…at least not yet. Each week a series of challenges gives contestants a chance to add money to the ultimate winners prize at the end of the show. The winner will be apparently be chosen by the audience.
Along the way the challenges are made more difficult by other contestants getting bribed by The Rock. He’ll make an offer of $25,000, for example, to someone who isn’t participating in the weekly challenge, but those that are in the challenge will find it harder to complete the challenge if that person accepts the bribe (less time to finish it is one example.)
Half of those who compete in the weekly challenge will then get an opportunity to be of three who potentially will take on a solo challenge. If the person who competes in the solo challenge completes it (again potentially falling victim to another greedy contestant who accepts yet another bribe from The Rock) that person can either take a $50,000 prize or add that 50k to the final jackpot.
It does make for some interesting choices and some great arguments between the competitors.
I like the show and would give it a “thumbs up” if I were one of those types of reviewers.

Of course Dexter is back on Showtime and it has already started out great. This will be the final season and it will be sorely missed. I can see a path on this show that could lead to a spin-off series with his sister on the show played by Jennifer Carpenter but I have heard no such news about such an awesome idea.

Jennifer Carpenter (Make her the next hero serial killer!)

Then there is True Blood on HBO. Look, I like the show but it is a bit over the top every week. I like my science fiction and fantasy shows but I need to have a little bit of reality mixed in with it. Someone really needs to explain how in the world anyone who isn’t a monster living in that town would actually stay in that town longer than a day after witnessing what they see. The story line does revolve around Vampires living amongst humans all over the world so there is no escaping that. But the town, Bon Temp, where this show is set, is just friggin cursed. Not only does it have vampires, but werewolves, witches, faeries, shape shifters and hybrids of all of them. Since the town is small it would stand to reason that with all of the sex going on in it that there was going to be some hybrids, but there are still a couple of characters on the show who haven’t been turned into something supernatural and still live there. 

Face it. Even if all of that were a reality, a still-living-and-breathing human would be long gone.

Ok, well I behaved myself in this posting by not mentioning anything political. I am proud of myself for sticking to way less important stuff.

Done.