Correct Again

So far I am 8 for 8 in picking the winners of the quarterfinals on America’s Got Talent. It seems as if my real talent is spotting talent which is something that is totally useless unless I get discovered by a team or a show that needs someone to judge talent.
But unless I am a big named star I couldn’t get one of those jobs.
There is at least one spot open on American Idol as Steven Tyler has left the show after two years to pursue his music career again. Jennifer Lopez may even leave, it is rumored.
So now we have to hear about all sorts of names of possible replacements and one of the names is Mariah Carey.
My question about that would be to figure out why does a professional singer need to be a judge? Do the judges actually pull in viewers? I don’t watch these shows for the judges. If anything they can ruin it. The dancing show, which name escapes me, has some bizarre woman on there who screams like a jungle witch doctor and it makes it impossible to watch.
I tried to watch Dancing with the Stars a couple of times and there is some poofy judge on there who makes a total ass out of himself every time he gets excited about what he has seen and I can’t watch that either.

So I officially put out there that I am available to be a judge on American Idol and I will do the job, and do it very well, for one quarter of what Steven Tyler did it.

Big Brother started last night and I wasn’t able to watch so I’ll get to that tonight at some point. I applied for this season’s show so I am curious to see the personalities that were blended together for this year. As far as a “reality” game show is concerned this one is second best to Survivor, to which I have also applied as previously mentioned.

I am currently watching every episode of Weeds on Showtime. I think it’s in its 7^th season now and I am midway through the 5^th. It’s about a California suburban widow who sells pot for a living starting Mary-Louise Parker. I think that I love her now but that’s probably because I have spent more time watching her than any other real woman in quite some time.

I’m not sure it’s the best show that I have ever seen, but it has continued to keep my interest for this long so it has something going for it.
The music that they select to accompany this show is perhaps the worst that I have ever heard though.
But what disturbs me about the show is the fact that it has me thinking about what I would do to make ends meet. More often than not as a D-list entertainer I am not making ends meet. So I wonder if I would actually turn to a life of crime to do so.
However it does seem as if I even run through a yellow light I get pulled over by the police so I just wouldn’t make a good criminal.

Criminals do live rather well though. I mean, throw out the fact that there are all sorts of risks involved…like getting caught and shot at all that kind of good stuff… but besides that there seem to be some nice benefits.

Mary-Louise Parker

In less than two weeks the Olympics will start in London. There are apparently all sorts of problems from security issues to weather to venues not being ready. But I am sure that everything will happen on time and memorable moments will happen just as they do in every other Olympiad. I just hope that the Brits ward off any real security problems there. If there is any event that attracts terrorists to it, it’s this event. Just recall Munich in 1972 as an example.

That’s it. I really just wanted to brag about my correct picks from last week’s AGT.

Done.

Quickly Moving On

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s all folks.

Done.

Going for Glory

It’s show day today, July 7, 2012, and I’m scheduled to do a show in Dover, DE, about an hour south of my home.
The temperature is supposed to top out at about 102 today in Dover and the show is outside.
But the show must go on! I doubt that the success will be that great today but I did a show at this same party last year and it was hot then, so I was invited back to do another and hopefully it will all work out.
There will be some tents under which the volunteers can sit during the show. That might actually entice more volunteers from the crowd most of which will be sitting in the sun to watch.
If it does get to 102 it will tie the highest temperature in which I have performed. A couple of summers ago I did a corporate party in a field near mid-day in South Carolina WITHOUT a tent. That was perhaps the most torturous show that I have done even though it was still a great one.

Such is the life of a D-list entertainer. We work when we can and where we can and hopefully…someday…get a big break somewhere.

This is one reason why so many people audition to get on shows like American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, and America’s Got Talent. Tens of thousands of entertainers of all kinds make attempts to stand in front of judges who have the power to determine their fates.
I am a fan of American Idol and America’s Got Talent, the latter of which is now in its live show Quarterfinals. Gone this year is judge Piers Morgan, who was just a douchebag the entire time he was on the show, in favor of radio star Howard Stern.
Stern’s addition was a good one for the show, in my opinion, because he does bring raw honesty and a good eye for talent. Even though he may sometimes be harsh he just isn’t as much of a total tool as Morgan was.

This year’s quarterfinals features a mentalist, Eric Dittleman.
I also perform a mentalism routine as well as my hypnosis show. My mentalism routine is rather unique and always gets rave reviews from my hosts. So it was with particular intrigue that I watch this guy.
So what ends up irking me are the two routines that I have seen him do before. Both went over very well with the judges, obviously, since they moved him forward twice. But the routines he did were so basic that I don’t even do them in mine because I think they are cheesy.
My mentalism show plays better to more intimate and smarter crowds though. I would have to develop something that would be more visible and playable to a larger live audience. The TV audience would be fine since they do close up shots, but there has to be an affect on the crowd watching in the theatre.
But now since this guy has made it on the show I can imagine that many others in the same genre will try to get there with their routines also.
After this dude did his routine a friend of mine texted me to ask me how he did what he did. She then sent me a couple of her thoughts as to how he pulled off his stunts. I didn’t tell her how he did them but she did get it right in one of the two methods that she mentioned. That, to me, tells me that he will have a hard time convincing many others as time passes.
But, still, he has indeed gotten his break. How big of a break it will be, is yet to be seen, but the exposure is worth its weight in gold for sure.

2012 America's Got Talent Promo Picture

This might be one of the years where a singer doesn’t win it all. There is perhaps one singer left who can go deep and he is 49-year old, Joe Cocker-sounding Tim Hockenberry with a good personal story.
But is he a million-dollar Las Vegas act (like my hypnosis show someday?) Who knows how America will vote? There is a dog act (Olate Dogs) that is absolutely spectacular, a guy who made an instrument of the audition theater (William Close,) a couple of artists who incorporate music into their routines (Joe Castillo and David Garibaldi and his CMYK’s,) and perhaps even one solo dancer (Turf) that I believe will reach the finals this  year.

I’m tired of dance groups making it through on this show though. Yes, I know they all work hard, but unless they are incorporating a bunch of acrobatic moves in their routine I don’t really like them. Just my personal preference; I’m sure they would hate my hypnosis show…unless they were in it and I was turning them into dancing monkeys.

But all of this has inspired a whole new idea which if the partner I picked to help with the production and I can pull off, could very well make a move to stand on that long line ourselves to try to stand in front of those same judges. If we can pull off what I hope you’ll know before then. But until, or unless, we can figure out everything that will be last that I mention of that. So that means that for now, I’m

Done.

Faster, Higher, Stronger

There is a temporary change in the name of this blog to Hypnolympics until the games of the XXX Olympiad in London are through on August 12^th.

And, no, the XXX stands for 30^th you freaks! Those are Roman numerals for those who have forgotten, or never learned them.

I am so much of a geek for the Olympics that back in 2000 I started my own amateur sports festival here in Delaware called the Diamond State Games. This one venture by itself is why I will never be able to retire from working in my life because of all of the money that I lost over its 9 year run. Sadly, I live in the state of Delaware where you can barely motivate a hungry person to eat let alone try to get them excited about anything.

There is a much longer story about that for another time but even though I have had many problems with that project and lost so much money I still am looking to keep pushing on running them again. That’s despite the fact that enough places in the state aren’t available for use at this time of the year. Again, that’s a longer story.

From what I can dig up so far Delaware has four Olympians headed to London. We actually have someone on the men’s swim team and while I have been alive I believe he is our state’s second to make an Olympic swim team. His name is Andrew Gemmell who attended the Charter School of Wilmington and he placed first in the 1500-meter freestyle qualifier.

Our area is a hotbed for Field Hockey and Delaware looks to have three women on its team and two from the same high school. Maren Ford and Carrie Lingo are from Lewes, DE and attended Cape Henlopen HS. Katelyn Falgowski actually lives across the line in PA but attended St. Marks HS around the corner from my house. Ford and Falgowski are in my sports video library from my sports videography business and old TV show called Delaware Sports. So its very cool to see people who have crossed my path in life achieve this kind of success.

But there is one very prominent name that can’t be found on any Olympic roster this year and I think it’s a damn shame. Elena DelleDonne, the nations leading scorer from women’s basketball is not on the US basketball roster. Here is a woman now who has been on national championship teams her whole life, was recently on the US team that won a gold medal in China last year, and actually brought the University of Delaware basketball team into the second round of the NCAA playoffs basically by herself, and she is nowhere to be found.
Ah, but could there be a specific reason why? Could it possibly be that the head coach of UCOnn, Geno Auriemma, is the head coach of the team? Could it possibly be that because Elena originally signed with UConn and then decided to come back home to Delaware that she didn’t make the roster?
I don’t even know for sure if she tried out for the team or not. So I could just be all pissy for absolutely no reason. But she belongs on that team.
To be fair I don’t see Brittney Griner, the 6’8” center from the National Champion Baylor Bears on there either, but she isn’t from Delaware so I don’t care as much.

DelleDonne is still young, however, so 2016 is going to be her prime year. But she brings so much more to the table than her amazing ability to take over a game. I figured that for sure she would be on this roster.

The swimming accomplishment of Gemmell is perhaps the biggest one here, though. Only TWO spots for each individual race are up for grabs. I know that there was some decision some time in the 80’s I believe that cut the number of swimmers that we can bring to a swimming event. That decision is horrible of course given our tremendous success in that event over the history of the Olympics. Our third place finishers are usually better than most country’s top qualifiers so some of them get absolutely robbed of a chance to be an Olympian.
But think about how difficult it is then to make one of these teams. There are hundredths of seconds that can separate first from fourth place in these races, particularly the shorter ones. Fourth place in the Olympics means that you go home with just your memories. For the US Trials, 3^rd place means you don’t even get the chance to make those memories nor have your dreams come true.
So much can happen from the time that someone knows that they are going to compete for a spot until the time the actual race takes place. A sudden cold or sickness, perhaps eating something bad that weakens you, a little slip off the starting block, etc., and you are out.
For younger women who are more likely to peak at these younger ages for swimming, a growth spurt can alter everything that an athlete has to do to maintain the necessary pace to win.
So many athletes yearn to become Olympians and yet even as gifted with athletic prowess as one might have there still is a certain amount of luck one has to have and a certain amount of political luck as well.

I am a fan of the TV show Big Brother and just saw the cast revealed for this upcoming season of the show. I sent in an audition tape to get on the show but naturally since I am writing this I wasn’t considered.
There are a couple of hot girls on there which really makes it rougher to not get the good news. But it looks like a couple of hot dudes on there too so I would have only been able to live vicariously through those guys lives that they would have in the BB house had I been able to go.

I did also submit an audition tape to the TV show Survivor this year. I have threatened to do it for years but finally did it this year. I can’t stand the heat, hate bugs, hate rodents and love modern conveniences which is why I never submitted a tape for all of these years. But I’m not getting any younger and have a desire to do something extreme like this so I figured that I would let the producers know that if they wanted to see a grown man cry in the wilderness like a little lost girl, they should pick me.
I have been tempted to start a Facebook page that is titled, “Pick Marshal Manlove for Survivor!” to try to get some publicity or support for the effort. But I wouldn’t want to risk the possibility that only 4 people supported the cause and just bury my chances instead.

After all, it is difficult to get Delawareans excited about anything, as I already sadly know.

Done.

Knuckle Them Under

Well it’s been a while since I posted in here. I’ve been actively posting on a political blog under an alias. I’ve had a lot to say there and not so much here because I would simply rather not be whiny here.

Wow, the baseball season is almost half over now and I haven’t mentioned anything about it.
Well, I’ve been watching intently and there isn’t a whole heck of a lot to rave about. That’s even though my team, the Mets are actually first in line for a playoff spot right now in the NL. They only trail the Nationals, of all teams, in their division and are three spots ahead of the hated Phillies at least for now.

A couple of the main stories, individually, are R.A. Dickey a pitcher for the Mets and Bryce Harper, the 19-year old rookie from Washington.
Dickey is a 38-year-old knuckleballer who came into this year with an overall losing record in his career. He is currently 11-1 and leading the league in ERA and pitched two consecutive 1-hit shutouts for the Mets. He has a current scoreless inning streak of 42 innings which is just a couple games short of the major league record.
He goes against the Yankees tonight at Citi Field and will have that streak seriously put to the test.
Dickey also has a biography of his life for sale now and in it he speaks of his sexual abuse when he was a kid and how that has affected his life even today. He is also probably one of the smartest guys in the league, well liked, and is easy to root for in these times.

R.A. Dickey

 

Bryce Harper has burst onto the scene in a big way. With all eyes upon him because of his age he has shone like a bright star. He is hitting about .280 with 7 homeruns and has provided a spark for the Nats that has kept the team in first place for quite some time and has helped boost ticket sales in the nation’s capital.

As clearly confident as he it is clear that he has just enough humility to be likeable as well. We know that he is going to do and say some things that will show his lack of maturity, such as an incident where he punched or threw something that came back and cut him in the face, but as long as he continues to hustle the way he does and grows emotionally, he’ll be a star for a long time.

Bryce Harper

It does make me want to see more young guys called up to the big leagues. I truly think most players are sitting in the minors far too long. Many are coming from college and are already 22 or 23 when they get drafted and then spend a couple of years “seasoning” in the lower leagues. Bring them up already and get that energy onto the field.
I think that has been the second biggest mistake that big league clubs have been making over the last 15 years or so. The first is the ridiculous concentration on pitch counts. There is no way that any of these pitchers can strengthen their arms if they are limited the way that they are. What is truly insane is the amount of pitches (100) that makes everyone panic and the announcers in the booth start to worry about the health of the pitchers and the sanity of any manager for pushing the boundaries beyond that mark.
In between each inning the pitchers warm up by throwing 7-9 pitches. Stop throwing so many of them then. Throw 2 or 3 if its really such a concern. Use the energy for the game.

No one listens to me though so I am just talking to myself.

I have had a stack of hypnosis shows recently that have all gone really well. My show continues to get better and I continue to get great reviews for them.
I am trying to step up game somehow. I have been trying more booking agents to put me on their rosters across the country and have had some recent success with that.
But I believe that my show is ready for much greater things and I am trying to find a path that will take me there.
I am trying to find a publicist or a public relations firm that can help with this process.
I mention this mainly because I have to talk about how insanely expensive this is and how arrogant I have found these people to be so far.
These particular groups of people are supposed to help make contacts with important media outlets. For example one guy claims that he can get bookings on places like Good Morning America, Fox and Friends, Oprah, and places with large audiences like that.
But just to speak to this guy to find out if he will even work with you costs hundreds of dollars. That might not seem like a lot of money but that’s just a consultation. Then, if this guy decides to grace you and allow you to hire him you put him on a retainer for thousands of dollars… A MONTH. Then there are a minimum amount of months that they charge. Of course there are then no guarantees that it will work.

So I don’t really have thousands of dollars to spend on something without a guarantee. If I guaranteed success, then that’s a different story; I’d have the money. But I wasn’t born yesterday either.

Some idiot in Canada made national news when he hypnotized a bunch of young girls and allegedly couldn’t wake them out of hypnosis. He had to call his mentor to do it who told him to talk “in a stern voice” to awaken them.
What a quack. Both of them.
It is literally impossible to have someone not awaken from hypnosis. Somebody could fall asleep and a tap on the knee might be needed but in this case these morons simply didn’t say the right thing. I’m not going to give away how it’s done here. You have to pay ME thousands of dollars to learn how to do that.

I’ve started hitting the gym again with more intensity and have actually started to run again. I recently submitted an audition tape to the TV show Survivor and suddenly realized that I better get my ass in better shape just in case they actually call me.
The chances of that are slim, I would imagine, and I won’t even know one way or the other until January or February. But now I have a fitness goal in mind so that is helping motivate me to get in great shape.
It would be bad enough to be out in the wilderness without good shelter and little food but then to have to compete in lots of physical activities in horrible shape would make it even worse.

Besides, I’m 50 now and trying to find one more woman to spend the rest of my life with. Since no one wants to date a 50-year old dude, except 60 and 70-year-old women I don’t even want to look remotely porky. Wow this whole process is horrible and a completely different and long story. I’m trying to do it online and only have horror stories and funny stories to tell. I’ll save them for another time because for now I’m

Done.

Pure Adrenaline!

Some of my favorite commercials on TV are the Geico commercials. I love the gecko. I loved the woodchuck ad and most of all I love Maxwell the pig and his commercials.

Maxwell is an adrenaline junkie who loves to go fast and scream weeeeeeee whenever he is doing so.
What particularly makes me laugh at all of them though isn’t the fact that a pig is having so much fun and going weeeeeeeee and talking. No, it’s the fact that he is holding pinwheels in each hoof as he is doing so.
Who even owns a pinwheel anymore? How many people under 30 even would know what one was at first sight? It was such a random and goofy prop to stick in the ad that it kills me every time.

Maxwell the Gieco mascot

But, no matter how much I love the ads that Geico runs, I will never buy their product. It’s too expensive. It has to be spending all of that money coming up with all of those ads. Obviously they work to the point where people buy the product, but it will never be me. Not as long, anyway, as 21^st Century Insurance continues to cost me half of what every other plan does.

Over on American Idol last night, Heejun Han got the boot. It didn’t matter to America that he tried to get more serious the evening before or that a concerted effort to keep him on the show was in place. It was just his turn and it was inevitable.
Sadly that meant that DeAndre Brackensuck is still on the show. He is the absolute worst “singer” that has ever made it this far.
Jimmy Iovene had it right about Brackensuck; his style is polarizing. One can either love it or hate it. I HATE IT.
I also don’t like Joshua Ledet’s voice and style either but I get it how others might. He is at least likeable enough also.
My current belief is that Philip Phillips will win AI. Jessica Sanchez is the best singer left of the eight but the female vote is much larger this year, apparently.

I know people who scoff at American Idol for a few different and strange reasons. One thing is certain about this show, however, and it is that it is huge and powerful.
What other type of show has there been in prime time like this that attracts the type of stars to it like it does?
Let’s face it. Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler are superstars in the music industry and this show attracted them to it to take it on as a new career and it has made their careers bigger. Randy Jackson was well known in the industry also but as a member of bands (Journey for one) and is now pretty much just famous for AI.
Let’s not forget what it did for Ryan Seacrest.
The real proof of the shows power though was evidenced last night as last year’s winner Alfred E. Neumann (Scotty McCreary) was presented with a platinum album for his first-ever record. Platinum means one million albums sold. That was in less than a year, my friends. That is truly amazing.

The same holds true for The Voice, a show which I know continues to attract more viewers and even some of those who I know don’t like American Idol. After all this show has Christina Aquilera as a judge and not just for the first year but now also the second and the same holds true for the other three judges. I didn’t really see them all coming back for year two. This means that the opportunities for these judges, and anyone who appears on the show, are gigantic.

Speaking of gigantic, the Mega-Millions lottery drawing going off tonight is currently at 540 million dollars and it will grow by the time it is drawn tonight.
The cash option on that is a whopping 389 million dollars. If you just figure that half will go for taxes I will get a staggering 190 million dollars clear when I hit it tonight.

Tonight is my night!
If you see another blog of mine in a couple of days you will know that it wasn’t me who took the jackpot down to the bank. But if you never read this again you will also never hear anything from me again because I’ll disappear faster than my puppy’s breakfast every morning.

And stock up on pinwheels!

The premier edition of our second show, Marshcast, was recently posted. You can find it right here on this blog page over to the right in that Podbean player. As mentioned this is a mainstream show and in the first edition my friends Chris Park, Mike Peco, Pete Rotteveel and Dennis Morina joined me to discuss gas prices and what we believed could be done about it. A conversation about uses of urine came up also after I mentioned that someday it would be cool to use that to power cars. Wouldn’t that be awesome though?

Our second show with the same guys featured talk about gay marriage and about our favorite TV shows. If you even remotely like reading this page you’ll get to hear a whole lot more on this podcast and meet some new people who have some funny and interesting things to say as well.

Done

Silent No More

Ok, I can’t take being silent any longer. It’s time to get back into this.

I am someone who suffers from depression and there are simply times when it doesn’t matter how much I would like to write, that the battle with it makes it unwise to do so.

But Spring is here now which means baseball season is upon us and that is reason to have cheer.

Except if you root for the Mets, like I do.

Damn, now I’m depressed again.

I am a fan of American Idol, as you know by now, and one my regrets about not writing for a while is not being able to prove that I have again picked a bunch of singers who have made it into the top ten.
The ones that I picked early on during the show were Jessica Sanchez, Phillip Phillips, Elise Tostone, and Hollie Cavanagh. I did also pick Shannon Magrane, daughter of former MLB pitcher Joe Magrane, but she was eliminated in 11^th place and out of the tour.

Magrane was actually selected by the AI terrorists at www.votefortheworst.com as one of the worst singers. Granted she had one real bad night that spelled her eventual doom, but at 16 years of age, she belonged there.

The one who doesn’t belong there is Deandre Brackensick. (Lets just call him Brackensuck right now.) This kid is horrible in the mold of Sanjaya from a few years ago but at least Sanjaya didn’t shriek in falsetto and bop around like a bobble head on stage.

The VFTW terrorists have chosen Heejun Han as their worst of the group right now, and while Han has really blowin off tune the last couple of weeks, he at least has real personality and is funny. Brackensuck just sucks and needs to go.

It’s more obvious than ever that the voting audience is heavily female since Brackensuck is still hanging around and getting votes while decent singers like Magrane and particularly Erika Van Pelt, who was booted last night, are now gone.

DeAndre Brackensick

I think the two most interesting people left are Phillip Phillips and Colton Dixon right now.
Phillips is a humble southerner who took advice from singing coaches Jimmy Iovene and Diddy (or whatever that dude is calling himself now) and from fashion advisor Tommy Hilfiger and tossed it all out of the window. Iovene told Phil Phil to lose his guitar and Hilfiger said to never wear grey on stage. Phil Phil came out with his guitar strapped over not just one, but TWO gray shirts and blew the house down with his rendition of a Billy Joel song.

Dixon’s story is interesting because he was a contestant last year who made it to Hollywood week and was eliminated. This year he came to support his sister who was auditioning and he was going to audition. Somehow he was in the room in front of the judges with his sister (sort of suspicious, yes) and then was asked to sing again. He was put through to the next round…then the next round…then the next round, and now he is on this summer’s tour.
Dixon also is a Christian who makes it known to this National audience that God is his driving force. He apparently has been told to tone down talk of all that on the show and then last night gave thanks to God anyway.
I’m agnostic so I’m not pushing anything here one way or the other. I admired that the kid stood up for what he believed in that case.
Both Dixon and Phillips stood up for what they believed was right for them and that is particularly courageous given the fact that major players in the music and TV and fashion industries are telling them to other things. Neither of them have reached high levels of success where it wouldn’t matter if the industry booted them to the curb so to risk sacrificing potential higher levels of success to do what they think is right is admirable for sure.

I was happy to see Haley Reinhardt singing on the results show last night. She was looking hotter than ever. Not sure that I liked the song but I liked watching her sing it for sure.

There are so many other things to say because I’ve been away for so long. I sort of want to get it all out in case I don’t write again for a while but no one will stick around that long.

So I’ll make shorter notes.

I’ve been watching a lot of TV because it’s the only thing I can really afford to do these days.

The next time I write I’ll say more about the Voice. I continue to like that show and soon they will do live songs from their finalists. The guy with the actual best “Voice” there is an opera singer and it will be interesting to see how he will get molded to get enough votes to win the competition. Again, more later…if I don’t hibernate again.

I am a fan of the show The Bachelor on ABC. I won’t watch the Bachelorette because there are too many dudes on it for me. But watching 25 desperate women trying to find “love” on a TV game show creates so many opportunities for good laughs for me that it is so worth watching.
I also happen to be great at picking who will win. I have successfully chosen the past two winners from just the very first show of the season. That’s right, Bachelor fans, I picked Courtney from day one and during Brad’s second season I picked Emily from day one (who will be the Bachelorette this season.)

This past week we taped our last weekly version of the Dungeon of Manlove. It’s been a full year that we have been taping that show which has now reached into 61 different countries.
It’s time for a change of pace for us in our podcast world and next week we will begin taping our new show.

The new show will be pop culture related and will be a mainstream show rated PG (ok, perhaps from time to time someone will curse but there will be a warning, if so.)
The new people on this show will have their own blogs, such as this one, which will help them expand further on topics that come up on the show but perhaps we don’t return to discuss on it.
The main reason for this change is pretty simple; the Dungeon show has a niche audience and those who are on the show are all afraid to tell their friends that they are on it!
I never cared about all of that. I had nothing to lose if people didn’t like something we were doing on there. Ok, perhaps somewhere I missed something to gain, but I never wanted to play by all of those rules either (much like Phil Phil and Colton Dixon.)
But for those who are starting this new show with me I would like them to have the chance to share what they are doing with their friends without taking the same of risk that I took myself. I certainly don’t wish to force that type of risk on anyone.

I still don’t know what to call the new show though. I don’t really want to call it the Marshal Manlove show, because there is no draw because of my dumb assed name. I have been thinking about calling it Poppourri (as opposed to Potpourri of course) or something like “The Culture Vultures” (even though a websearch for that name had a few hits.)

Any ideas for a name of the new show? Send them to me and I’ll give you credit for it, if you wish.

But for now, I’m

Done.