America's Got Even More Crap

I just watched the first semi-final of America's Got Talent (I don't know why... it was on my DVR so I figured I should). While watching it three words came to mind: awful, awful, awful. From start to finish.

The judges loved them all though, but that just goes to show how smart they are. Of course, I'll let them speak for themselves. David Hasselhoff had the gem of the night with this line: "You're as American as the Olympics". Brilliant David (surprisingly the Olympics and AGT happen to be on the same station... I'm shocked they didn't start selling the Michael Phelps DVD although he did get a mention later on the show).

Piers came in close second when telling Neal E. Boyd, the opera singer (who can't tell the difference between show tunes and opera), that "only in America" could someone who works in a job like an insurance salesman come into a talent show and sing like him. Piers forgets Britain's Got Talent (on which he is also a judge) where Paul Potts, a phone salesman, not only came in and sang better but won the whole competition. Maybe he meant that only in America someone can sing a show tune in an operatic style and in the process make both sound stupid.

They need to change the title to "America's Got a Modicum of Talent But Is Nearly All Crap" (or AGAMOTBINAC for short).

Olympics Coverage

I've been spending essentially every free minute of my time watching the Olympics recently which goes to explain my lack of posting. So here is a post about the Olympics

• I'm glad Michael Phelps got his 8 golds but I am also glad he is finished for a few reasons. First, so that NBC will just stop saying his name. And two, Most of his races were boring to watch because he was just so much better than everyone else (the two big exceptions being the 4X100 freestyle relay and the 100M butterfly which were two of the most exciting moments so far).
  
• In keeping with the media saturation this bullet will also be about Mr. Phelps. Yes, Michael Phelps is great swimmer, probably the best ever. But he isn't a good interview so I don't know why NBC insists on repeatedly having extended interviews with him, and his coach, and his mom. How about showing some other sports NBC, huh? No, you'd rather spend another 40 minutes talking to Michale Phelps's dry cleaner... ok.
• In the rare cases NBC shows a sport that isn't all that popular in the US you know the US is going to win (because why else would they show it?) Women's rowing eights on tape in prime time... hmm... I wonder if we are going to win this. Thankfully though, NBC has a ton of other channels showing Olympic coverage so if you want drama watch the sports on those channels.
  
• The Chinese gymnasts aren't over 16 (and won't be by the end of the year). They are clearly cheating and I think the IOC is ignoring the issue until after the games are over. Once they are out of China and the repressive government, I think they may investigate a bit more (or at least I hope they do as there is plenty of evidence out there)
• Some of the gymnastic judging has seem suspect at times but it is nothing compared to how bad the boxing judging has been. There are five judges and they have two buttons in front of them, one for each fighter, and three of them have to register a scoring punch within one second of each other for the punch to count. It is at least open scoring (i.e. you know the score during the fight and so do the fighters and the audience, as there booing and cheering attest to) but that doesn't change the fact that the judges miss a lot of scoring punches and sometimes even score phantom blows (maybe they hit the wrong button who knows). But because it is so hard to score a point, whenever someone takes a lead into the last round all they do is run away and hold. It is not boxing at all really... it is more like a game of tag with headgear.
• I love the super slow motion replay, the expressions the athletes make and the way their flesh bounces around, it always makes me laugh. It goes to show that even incredible physical specimens can still look ridiculous when photographing them at a hundred frames a second.
  

Even with the sometimes annoying coverage by NBC and the judging controversy, I am still enjoying the Olympics as I always do... otherwise I'd feel bad about watching so much of it.

Last Last Comic Standing

The summer reality shows are winding down and that means the scripted part of the TV year (i.e. the good part of the TV year) is starting up again soon. That and the hockey and football season... good times.

Last Comic Standing had their last performance show this past week. It was thankfully much better than last year's show, both the comedians and the filler. We only got two acts other than the comedians: a painfully unfunny intro song from The Dan Band and a thankfully brief stand-up from host Bill Bellamy.

The show instead filled time this year by having all the comedians from last week perform and only tell them afterward whether they were in the top 5 (they also did little profiles of each comedian before their set but since I DVRed the show I was able to skip right over those. I don't want to bias my opinion with their back stories). It is rather harsh for those who didn't make it but at least they get to perform one more time in front of millions (and try to prove America wrong after the fact).

The contestants got a gift from the producers and got their sets extended to 5 minutes (or the equivalent of what a neophyte comedian would get at a minimum in any club).

Let's get to the comedians:

• Marcus: Apparently, he is too important to have a surname. You win one challenge on LCS and all of a sudden you are just Marcus, huh? A lot of his jokes weren't very original and often setups just to do impressions. If you like Dane Cook, you'd like Marcus. His style is very similar, although Marcus has got a bit more talent as he is a good impressionist. Even still, I wasn't impressed but America loves Dane Cook so who knows...
• Ron G: Big energy, lots of character work, but not a great set (although I did enjoy the LA church bit of a guy getting baptised with a bluetooth headset). Doesn't really matter as he didn't make the top 5 anyway.
• Jim Tavare: His usual weird self and thankfully America liked him last week as well and he was in the top 5. I just enjoy watching him and what I said last week still holds: original, clever, deadpan, and English. He had a couple of groaners but even when he has a miss he is still interesting.
• Louis Ramey: Looking sharp and, as always, very funny. He started off a little slow but built as he went along and ended very strongly. I'm sure he is used to doing a longer set than 5 minutes so his last joke took a while to setup but it was still worth it. Of course, he was in the Top 5.
• Adam Hunter: His set is extremely scattershot and he jumps topics all over the place. He just went too quickly, barely even pausing between jokes. It was hard to recognize the punchlines because he sped right passed them not even giving the audience a chance to laugh. The crowd, however, really enjoyed him and were upset when it was announced he wasn't in the top 5.
• Jeff Dye: He grew on me this week; I liked him better than last week (maybe it was because he did 3 minutes on the board game Guess Who? because I used to play that all the time). He was funny but I still don't get a lot of depth from his persona. He made it in the top 5.
• Sean Cullen: He was not as strong as last time, but his personality is still winning. Some jokes he did I've heard similar ones before but they weren't bad. I got the impression his heart wasn't in his performance... maybe he knew he wouldn't be in the top 5 (which he wasn't).
• Iliza Shlesinger: She also, like Sean, was not as good as last show although she kept her high energy and her pacing. She really played to the younger people in the audience, both in the theatre and watching TV, by doing an extended bit on drinking games (I haven't looked at the ratings for LCS but I would imagine it skews young and as such it may have been a good tactic on her part). Of course, the drinking game section wasn't very strong. The crowd was really behind her at the beginning but she seemed to lose the energy by the end. For those that can count, she was obviously in the top 5.

Since this is my blog, I am going to decide the winner and rank all the comedians... I can do that. I have that power here. So your final LCS ranking is:

1. Louis Ramey
2. Jim Tavere
3. Jeff Dye
4. Iliza Shlesinger
5. Marcus
6. Sean Cullen
7. Adam Hunter
8. Ron G

It would seem given my ranking America made the correct choice of the top 5. It was a pretty good season for Last Comic Standing (last years winner would rank #9 on the above list).

Now bring on the scripted shows, and the Rangers, and the Giants...

Poetry Night III

It has been a while, but poetry night is back. I'm sure everyone has been praying that this come back, so here it is.

Apparently, I wasn't accurate in my first poetry night post as I said that was the oldest poem I had written but I was wrong. I don't know why I said that because I had the following one then. This one dates a full year earlier than the first, all the way to 9th grade English class. (I know I have two older poems somewhere-- one titled "Unlucky Day" from that same year and one from 6th grade when I wrote a poem about the Norman Invasion of England... yes, I was a weird kid).

This one is untitled.

He looked for a place to escape or somewhere to run
But, alas, to his dismay he found there was none
Even so, he waited for a chance to flee
for if he did not escape, he knew he would be
dead in a moment, killed by the madman's knife
Although the outcome looked bleak, he prayed for his life

The guards pushed him forward into a small cramped room
the approaching footsteps sounded impending doom
his future killer stood near him with a dagger at the ready
he tried to fight or to struggle but the guards held him steady
The assassin grinned evilly as the knife began to rise
he could do nothing but stand there with tears in his eyes

the dagger flashed down and cracked into his spine...
The next day there was a special, fresh hamburger meat $2.29

A scathing look at the meat industry, isn't it? It was written from a cow's point of view going to the slaughter. Now I am not a vegetarian but one of my friends at the time was. I remember have a discussion about eating meat and other related things and it inspired me to write the preceding poem (that and the assignment that was given in class-- inspiration combined with a deadline is the situation under which I can create the most).

Mr. S, my English teacher that year, was a bit of a douche. First of all, when reading this poem to the class he totally blew the last line. Obviously, the poem is written in rhyming couplets, and as such the end of last line should be read as "fresh hamburger meat two twenty nine". He instead read it as "fresh hamburger meat two dollars and twenty nine cents". Any English teacher worth his salt should have realized that reading the line like that would kill both the rhyme scheme and the meter (as loose as the meter was... his version still just sounds stupid).

Of course, that just goes to show he was an idiot, not a douche. But he also was a douche-- he would insert smug statements in the middle of class for no reason (e.g. "Oh, I live in a much richer neighborhood than any of you" which even if true, and that is debatable, is still a pathetic thing to claim over the students in your class). He also would make fun of the students, and as usual I was one of the few who would stand up to him. I told him to shut up once while he was insulting me-- apparently, he thought it was OK to make fun of his students and not for them to fight back in any way.

You may just say that I was a stupid kid and he probably wasn't that bad. But even the other teachers agreed. My friend (the one who inspired the poem) and I were in the teacher's office area talking to our senior year teacher when Mr. S came over and said something stupid that I don't remember. As soon as he walked away our much cooler teacher said, "He is such a prick."

OK, so I wrote more about my 9th grade English teacher than the poem, but I think that was much more interesting anyway (plus, I pretty much said everything there is about the poem....).