Lots of Great Shows

I am officially resisting the urge to talk about gas prices today. I had written a whole bunch of stuff about a rumor I heard that Obama said we should drill in Alaska and went on a whole rant. I’ll save it for another day.

You are welcome.

I’ve been real busy with three shows in three states in four days. All went incredibly well. The one of particular note was a high school in Northampton, PA where I was told by a few people that I put on the best show they ever had there. One of those people was the principal of the school.
That show was in front of 500 people and the truth is that it’s easier in front of a large group like that. I know that statistically I’ll have great candidates and I can move much faster through my induction process than with a smaller group.
But that’s not always the case, of course. I had a return visit to a high school in Butler, NJ this week with about 60 people in the audience and it was probably a better show that the one in PA. There is something in the water up there I guess that just makes them much more animated than most audiences.

Who knows? Maybe I’m just getting better at what I do that helps these things become better shows.

The other show was an after prom in Weedsport, NY. This was also a return visit. I know that this show went very well for me and that for the most part this was a homerun as well. But there was one girl was over-the-top animated and was a bit on the annoying side to a lot of the people watching and even participating.
How do I know that she was perhaps a little too distracting? Well, there was one incident where I was doing a skit where I was talking to one of the volunteers. For some reason she started pulling the leg hairs of the kid I was trying to get to talk to me. I have no idea why she was doing this, but I needed her to stop so I put her to sleep. Half the audience gave me a standing ovation for doing so.
Then I was doing my skit where everyone talks gibberish. She was now sitting front and center of the stage on the floor in front of three girls who were sitting in chairs. I talked to a few kids who were making no sense, as was supposed to happen, and then went to the girl in the middle of three who had been one of the other stars of the show. I asked her how she was doing and then in English replies, “I don’t know, but this girl right here is really annoying,” to yet another standing ovation.

I don’t really market myself very well with my entertainment career particularly considering the social networking methods available. But I do have a Facebook page for me as a stage hypnotist. Before the PA show I had about 190 people who “liked” the page with perhaps half of them not people who I know who just liked it because they are my friends. After the PA show, it jumped to 238, a 50% increase in “other-people” fans in one show.
That’s very flattering. It perhaps rivals the show I did at a Lancaster, PA show where someone created a whole Facebook page in tribute to the time they had that particular day. “I attended Marshal Manlove's party on Magic Island!”

Again, anything that I read, see, or hear like that is very, very flattering and gives me great satisfaction.


Speaking of great shows, we are down to just three contestants in American Idol now; Scotty, Lauren and Haley the hot one. Lauren pulled herself together this past week and was clearly much more confident on stage. Haley slayed the crowd with a second song performance that pulled herself out of a hole she dug with her first one and Scotty is simply a future country recording star.
We said good-bye to James Durbin, who will also forge forward to recording music in the rock genre. He’ll be missed by the rockers out there who follow the show.

As mentioned, it’s been anyone’s to win now for a few weeks. It’s tough to now judge who is best because we simply all have different tastes. There are two teenaged country singers left of the three though, so that might suggest something about the show’s demographics this year.


Speaking of more great shows, I had wanted to get into talking about Survivor, which had its finale last night. To me it’s still the best reality show out there and it was really the first of its kind to introduce the whole concept of voting off a contestant like that, to my knowledge.
I won’t give away the ending in case some people have it taped and want to try to be surprised by the outcome.
The show still holds up great to me and keep in mind that I can be as critical as anyone of these things. It is well produced, well shot, well planned and it is intriguing every week.
What I like to watch is how this gets filmed. In 22 seasons you cannot find a hint of a cameraman there. Of course you know that the camera is there because people do interviews on it but what I mean, for example, is that you cannot see a cameraman’s shadow in this show. They have cameras all over the place…in the air, underwater, in the mud and you name it, not one shadow that shows a cameraman there.

Cast of Survivor Redemption Island

The engineering staff and creative staff that they have to create, develop and build the sets for the challenges continues to come up with new twists on these challenges and the sets at which they are contested.
Thousands of people still send in entries to be on this show where, if selected, they will basically starve for the majority of the time they are there.
I know plenty of people who talk about how it’s faked and that it’s not completely pure. One cannot fake starvation though, remember that. There would have to be SOME help along the way either with a ration of food or some tools or something at the start. If someone were shipwrecked like that some provisions and tools would wash up on such a deserted place along with the people who were stranded.

Wow, I have a lot to do. So, I’m

Done.

How Much for My Jetpack?

I saw that JetMan had a successful flight across the Grand Canyon the other day. I had posted a link to a story about him on my Facebook page to a newspaper story.

The jetpack apparently reaches speeds of well over 100 mph.

When you are thinking about what I might want for Christmas this year, just get me one of those. It might be a little pricey but my birthday is a week before Christmas, so one jetpack for both days combined will suffice.

I wonder what the gas will cost for that though. It’s now over $4 a gallon here in my region averaging I’d say $4.05.

But there are some people in our government who believe that we should now tax oil companies at a higher rate because of this.

Ok, someone help me out here. How the hell is that going to LOWER the cost of gas?

Seriously, if I asked you to make up a story that included one of the most stupid things a person could do, you would never come close to making up that story.

What is particularly diabolical though is the flat-out lie that our government “subsidizes” oil companies. What that would mean is that we give our money to oil companies to do business.
What these same people really mean by “subsidies” is tax breaks.
What these same people really mean by “tax breaks” is reducing the amount of tax deductions that a business can deduct from its gross receipts.

Every business…and I can’t believe that I actually have to explain this so bear with me those who know better…has costs of doing business. For arguments sake lets say a company does a million dollars a year in business. Businesses don’t get taxed on that figure because it, for example, might cost 400,000 to do that business. Taxes are then on the 600,000 that is left. That is for every business out there.
This is not a “tax break” or a “loophole” this is a cost of doing business. Your labor is a cost of doing business. Companies pay you to do work and because your labor is such a cost the business doesn’t pay taxes on the volume generated to create your paycheck.

Do you really want to go down the road of taxing that whole million dollars? Do you want to keep your job? Do you want the company to move to another country and all Americans working there to lose their jobs? Because that is what happens. So those of you who think otherwise wake up.

Here is a link to a story written by Jazz Shaw which goes a little more in depth  http://hotair.com/archives/2011/05/03/oil-company-subsidies-clarified/

So what will be your breaking point with gas prices? It’s $2 a gallon for me and I’m being generous.

I am an anti-big government person. But if I were President I would toss around ideas that would create real incentives for people and companies to create the necessary technologies that would pull us out of this mess and any other such mess.
For example, I would go to Congress and ask for…lets say 100 million dollars or even a BILLION dollars…for the first person or company to create a car engine that got 200 miles per gallon of gas.
The examples of this could be endless…the same reward for an alternative energy engine that actually worked properly, was LESS expensive, and MORE powerful than what we have to use right now.

Money talks of course. If it’s not a cash prize like that then offer future tax incentives…NO TAX for 20 years for the first company to do the same thing.

But no, there are those in this country who instead take a company, claim it is screwing the American people, then tax it into oblivion, or at least to the point where it has to move out of the state or country to do business. Who wins then? China, India, Saudi Arabia…name it.

Obama went to El Paso to give this speech about immigration reform. He claims that everything is much better with regards to illegal immigration.
Ok, I won’t even go in to that. Let’s say it’s true because he believes it.

Then why bother talking about it? Why is he even out there discussing this when we have yet another energy crisis.

Better yet, think about this. When prices raised this high under GW Bush, the media went batty about how Bush and his “oil buddies” were in cahoots and out to screw the people.

Bush isn’t in office now so what’s the excuse this time? If Bush had anything to do with gas prices as his detractors said, then so does Obama.

But the detractors were right, Bush did have some things he could do to deal with gas prices. Remember when a price of a barrel of oil shot back down under $40 a barrel? That was a direct result of an easing of regulations on the amount of boutique gasoline blends that create these higher costs of doing business and developing product for market for the oil companies.
But what does our current genius do? Create MORE regulations to clamp down on oil companies and suggest that higher taxes should do the trick.

So…speculators…you know those greedy evil bastards, right? What do they do? THEY know that all of these policies are going to make it more expensive for oil companies to make gas, so they speculate that the price is going to be higher.

If those same evil doers knew that the cost of making gas was going to be less, guess what would they would speculate next?

Please don’t make me right the common sense answer to that question now, ok? It’s nearly criminal that I have had to actually have this same conversation more than once live and in person.  And have it with people who, on the surface, are not as idiotic as they then make themselves out to be when they side with policy makers who are destroying this country.

Here is something I might have written here before, but I’ll repeat it even if I did.
If someone is really smart and goes to school to learn something and what they are learning is all wrong, are they really actually all that smart?
If someone with a high IQ goes to Harvard and what they teach at Harvard is any strain of communism/socialism/Marxism are they really that brilliant?

Crap…I really didn’t want to spend all this time on this. But now that I have, I’m not erasing it. I’m posting it.

Done.

Mr. President

American Idol is now down to four remaining entertainers…Lauren Alaina, Scotty McCreery, James Durbin and Haley Reinhart as Jacob Lusk got the boot last night.

Lusk was a likeable guy. He’ll have a nice career in the entertainment industry.

If I am the producers of this show or, more importantly, the parents of Lauren Alaina, I’d get her some help real quick though. This 16-year old is cracking under the pressure. Of course everyone is tense and nervous, but she is clearly overwhelmed with the attention and the criticism on top of the expected nervousness.

Durbin was ticking like a time bomb this week too so it’s getting to him a bit more as well while Scotty and the Hottie seem to be much more composed.

It can be a little scary standing up in front of small crowds to perform a show of any sort. At least I can speak about that from experience. I know that I had butterflies in my stomach for my first bunch of shows and then they returned for appearances in Atlantic City and Las Vegas. All of these were small shows numbering anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred people in attendance. But I can’t imagine walking out in front of all of those cameras and knowing there are millions of people watching every little detail about you on stage and criticizing every note of your performance. Then to read and hear what people say online, for example, can make one wonder how much it’s all worth.

I know I get flustered when I get ANY negative feedback and that’s despite knowing that there is going to be some in EVERY show that I do. This is without exception. When I think about that I then have to multiply it by thousands.

If someone’s self confidence is low, watch out. As bubby and personable as Lauren Alaina is, I am going to take a shot in the dark that she lacks the confidence of the other three who are left.


I watched the first presidential political debate last night. While I won’t get into any of my thoughts about that because this would then be a 9 page commentary, I will mention that there was a big surprise winner of the debate, according to a Frank Luntz focus group.
That winner was businessman Herman Cain. Of the 29 people in Luntz’ group, perhaps 6 of them knew much about him before the debate. 25 of them believed that he was the hands down winner and perhaps over half of them now believed they might change their allegiance to Cain based on his performance.
Cain, if you are someone who has not heard of him, is of African descent. He is black; however you want to categorize him or describe him saying is a successful American multi-millionaire businessman.
If he were to be the Republican nominee, the leftist press and all of you leftists out there would be in a real quandary. Those who disagree with Obama’s policies are labeled racists in this country because Obama is black. It’s the typical leftist attack plan pulled from the old play book that those of us who know better keep trying to inform those who don’t know better about. Anyone who is Republican hates black people, according to chapter 1 of their book about how to try to win an election by character assassination.
The other common attack plan is to label anyone who is Republican candidate as stupid. 

Herman Cain

 

So if Cain is the nominee, will they dare call him stupid? What would he single-handedly do to the leftist playbook? Could the leftist media call him dumb and get away with not being labeled racist? What would the 90% of black people who are Democrats now do when they heard another black man getting attacked like that, if so?
If Cain were the nominee next November it would be interesting to see how the black vote splits. Would it go 50-50? What would the white democrat vote look like then? I would imagine that it would pretty much stay the same. That would make Herman Cain the next President with that split in the black vote and probably make him President even if he only took 40% of it, which is entirely possible. Cain is a common sense, successful man who clearly swayed a remarkable 86% of that focus group last night.

Ok, see, I’m keeping this short and am running long…
Take gas prices alone last night. In one minute he gave the plan and the solution to the current mess which dealt with supply, distribution AND speculation issues in that span. Coincidentally in the news yesterday morning was a piece about the Obama administration now studying the possibility of applying a tax for every mile that we drive. This is on TOP of what we are paying now in state and federal taxes on every gallon of gas.
Even if I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again…the car represents freedom, to at least me. A tax on every mile that I drive (beyond how I am taxed already on it with gas taxes and tolls) is a tax on my freedom and a SPECIFIC attempt to control where I go and how.
Let me be even clearer, one of the facts that we are paying so much for gas now is precisely because there are people in our country and in our government who absolutely want to determine how we live our lives.

This process has just begun. There is so much that will happen from now until next November that will affect people’s decision making process. There are also still many candidates yet to join the fray but if I were to vote today I would vote for Herman Cain for President of the USA.

Flash - 9.0% unemployment figure now. The WH will point to 244,000 jobs created in April but will seem to forget to mention all of the jobs that were UN-created in April as well.

Done.

Gots Me the Blues

It was a beautiful weather day today; one of the first real nice ones for me this spring. I don’t care for hot weather so it was perfect.

So why do I feel so depressed today? Ugh…this is awful. I should go get some ice cream at Brewsters. That has got to help…so what if I gain 8 pounds. It’s not like women are going out of their way for my attention in my current state.

We have all heard that money can’t but happiness right?
Have you ever seen the show, “Undercover Millionaire?” See the look on people’s faces and their reactions when the millionaires write them big checks?
Sure, there are some tears, but those are tears of HAPPINESS!
I guess the person who originally uttered that quote didn’t understand the concept of “tears of joy.”

I know I was happier 2-3 years ago when I was making 4 times what I am now, that’s for sure.

I am now waiting for American Idol to start.

Wait a minute…that is truly pathetic, isn’t it?

Ugh.

The new episode of the Dungeon of Manlove in four parts is now posted at http://www.marshcast.com/ THAT has been making me happy. I wanted a creative release as I mentioned here, and there it is.
It’s not for kids or those who can’t deal with dirty language and other naughty things. But if you can deal, check out our premier edition of “Angry Bitter Old Man Dating Advice for Beginners” there.
You’ll also get a great lesson about why you shouldn’t do drugs. The taping can thus serve as public service tool.

Wow. That is all I have. Going to try to keep away from ice cream and push through this funk today.

Done.

You go Cee Lo

The Twins Francisco Liriano threw baseball’s first no-hitter of the year against the White Sox last night in a 1-0 win for the team with the AL’s worst record.
Liriano walked 6 men and only struck out two in the contest. This game was his first ever complete game too, suggesting that someone nearly needs to throw a no-hitter or perfect game in order to complete the task that started that particular game.
Liriano’s no-hitter was the first for the Twins since 1999 when Eric Milton did it against the White Sox.

Andre Ethier’s hitting streak reached 29 games last night and now its getting interesting as it’s over half way to one of baseball’s legendary record. His streak is the second longest in Dodger’s history tied for second with Zack Wheat behind Willie Davis’ mark of 31 set in 1969. Earlier this week he surpassed Duke Snider and Ducky Medwick who both had 27 game streaks while playing with the Dodgers. Ethier did not know who Zack Wheat was…merely a Hall of Famer.

I watched the second episode of The Voice last night. I still can’t get past Christina Aguilera’s awful hair-do.
I had never heard of Cee Lo Green until this recent “hit” of his, which I only actually heard for the first time when one of the auditionees sang it. It’s not really called, “Forget You” right? If I recall, it’s F You. No matter, that was the only reason I had heard of him.
I find that I like this guy though. He hasn’t pigeon holed himself by taking on singers to coach on his team that perform his style of music only. The last person he took was a country singer who the country singer on the panel, Blake Shelton, didn’t even take.
Shelton, who I also find to be likeable, didn’t take two particular country singers that Cee Lo and Maroon 5’s Adam Levine ended up taking. Ironically both of those particular contestants sang songs that Shelton and his fiancé Miranda Lambert made famous.

But it’s the hair that is still very distracting.

And Carson Daly. How the hell did he get another high profile hosting gig?

So, we believe that Bin Laden is dead now, right? Watch this administration screw this up big time. The longer that proof is held from the public the greater the speculation is that Bin Laden is not dead or that any evidence later produced (video, pictures or whatever) is fabricated.
Seriously, these advisors in the WH are blowing this for Obama (which is just fine for me, as you know.)
I would have had Obama walk out to the podium late Sunday night to make his announcement that Bin Laden is dead and then hold up the picture of his corpse right on TV in front of billions.
Of course that would have been shocking, but it would have been rather convincing right on the spot.

Can you think of a better way to do it? What, put the picture on a website somewhere? Have Jay Carney come out the next day and hold it up for the press? THAT IS NOT WORKING.
If Obama gets the credit for it, then take the damned credit for it. Hold up the picture, say “Osama Bin Laden is dead. Our Navy Seals did this with my blessing and on my command. Don’t F with the United States of America,” Then turn around, walk back into the WH and go to sleep. Ok, replace F with mess, I don’t really care.
I would have even jumped out of my seat and ran out into the streets screaming USA, USA! Obama is the man!
Think about THAT statement and what it would do for his poll numbers…which, by the way raised 11 points in the NY Times/CBS polls (LOL) although his numbers haven’t changed in the Rasmussen polls.
But instead, we have a bunch of politically correct fools making a mess out of the public relations part of this victory.

The WH Spokesman, Carney, was just quoted as saying the release of the photo would be inflammatory.
You have got to be $^$&** kidding me now, right? Bin Laden supporters are inflamed and are threatening Obama’s life because he killed Bin Laden. You’re worried about a showing a picture proving it now? Are you afraid they will double threaten to kill him? I don't get it.

Speaking of public relations snafus, apparently the Bin Laden operation was called “Geronimo” so now “Native Americans” are pissed off equating an evil terrorist with a Native hero.

Whatever public relations firm this administration is using, I will do the job for half the money and just using common sense will give Obama 12 extra poll points.

Done.

USA!

Wow, what great news we all heard last night. Osama Bin Laden is dead! Bye bye M*#&#^R F&$*#*R.

If it hasn’t been clear in anything that I have written, or said, I can’t stand Barack Obama. It’s not a personal thing, it’s a policy thing.
But one has to give credit where credit is due. Bin Laden goes down on Obama’s watch, so therefore he gets the credit.
I had a little problem finding out that they “had a lead” all the way back in August and now it’s April/May when this goes down, but the job is done and kudos to those who carried out the mission. Whoever did the actual job are American heroes and I hope we get to throw a major parade honoring those on that mission. Whoever was the leader gets the credit for it happening under his command.
I’m good with all of that; finally something has gone right under Obama.

That’s right. Finally, something has gone right. Because nothing has really gone so well up to that point, from where I sit and what I see.

So, since Obama gets the credit for Bin Laden, he now also needs to take credit for the gas prices which have doubled under his watch and crushed any chance for an economic recovery, for which he somehow thinks there has been and is taking credit for.

Want to impress me, Mr. President? Want to actually get my vote next November even though you’re a communist at heart? Pretty easy to do…get those gas prices back under $2 a gallon, and I’ll vote for your ass.

You read it right here from my own fingers.

See, because dealing with this oil problem is actually much easier than trying to find Bin Laden hiding in a Pakistani cave. Don’t let anyone con you in to thinking otherwise. If one believes that this is an issue that cannot be dealt with easily, I believe you have indeed been conned.

But that’s another longer discussion.

I’ll also say that this victory by Obama and the United States really changed the career path of one individual in particular – Donald Trump. I saw a photo already this morning that had a picture of a smiling Obama with text printed on it that read, “Sorry about the delay in getting my birth certificate to you. I was busy killing Osama Bin Laden.”
Classic burn there; one that will go down as an all-time classic.

I’m going to talk about Trump tonight on the next taping of the Dungeon of Manlove. The basic gist of the discussion will center on my thoughts that Trump doesn’t have any intention of running for President at all. That’s all that I will tease here (not that I think you’ll now get all excited waiting for my revelations) for now.

But the bottom line of all of this is that Americas public enemy number one is dead. That is all that matters today. Obama was right about a couple of things in his announcement last night; that we should all rally together around something like this just as we did on September 12^th 2001 and God bless the USA baby.

Now let’s get our troops home. Those scumbags may think otherwise in the long run, but as far as I am concerned the mission is complete and we just won this war.

USA!

Done.

What's That Smell?

It seems as if the crowd at my show in Lynchburg, VA left the show satisfied Friday night. Usually when organizers say they want me back next year already, that’s a good sign.
It’s after-prom and graduation season now so most of my shows are scheduled at those types of venues.
I like doing the high school shows because kids are just naturally more willing to participate and much more animated when they are hypnotized.
While those shows are always funny because there are usually lots of participants and much more animated participants, the adult shows are ultimately much funnier.
The difference is in the audience expectations of what they think they will see when adults are on stage as opposed to high school aged volunteers. Even though a similar response may come from a 45-year old and a 17-year old, the reaction to a nasty smell, for example, usually does seem funnier from the older person.
Basically its because my show is filled with all sorts of goofy things that one might associate with a younger audience anyway. If I have a bunch of boys hypnotized and there is a nasty smell, the reaction and interaction of the group one could probably see while everyone was wide awake in any such group at any time. If there are a group of middle aged women now experiencing a nasty smell and one turns to someone next to her and asks, “Did you shit yourself?” it’s always funnier even though the kids may ask the exact the same thing.

The exception to that is a young person who is usually quiet and shy in public, but then becomes that crazy, animated and loud person on stage that surprises those who believe they know the person to be more reserved.
I’ve seen a couple of instances where that type of person then becomes less socially awkward afterwards.

Stupid people are really bothering me today.

Done.