The Voice is SO, SO much better....

Move over American Idol, NBC's The Voice is where it is at! A.I. was good the first 2-3 seasons and I was a devoted fan. Then the show started airing the "auditions" of truly bad singers and it just became painful to watch - it began to feel like a form of bullying as news magazines and entertainment shows would replay the most bizarrely dressed, or the truly dreadful singer. I began to wait until there were 6-8 contestants to start watching and then I just stopped. As a child I too was a victim of bullying - don't need to participate as an adult...especially given a choice to watch or turn the program OFF.

If you haven't seen or heard of it, The Voice is surprisingly well done!

Part 1...Blind Audition selections completed in the first 2 weeks of the show.

The singers are PRE-SCREENED prior to your ever having to listen to them. So there is no out of tune, off pitch, terrible audition that we as viewers must endure. Carson Daly is the host, with  Adam Levine, Blake Shelton, Cee Lo Green and Christina Aguilera, the "coaches" who will select  a singer to join their team of 8 from blind audition - solely on their voices - for they are sitting with their backs to the performer. Should more than one coach turn around for a singer - the singer decides whose team they want to join.

Part 2 - Battle Competition Phase -

Coaches selects 2 members of his/her team, selects a song and helps to fine tune the performance. Then the contestants vie for advancement by singing the same song together, in a faux boxing ring. Comments from the other coaches about the performance are offered but it is up to the contestants coach to choose who stays for the live performance, cutting the teams to 4 each. One more week of phase 2 is left before the live performances.

Part 3 - Live Performances - whittling teams down to one member each to then compete for the $100K and a recording contract should begin the first week of June. I only watched the first 2 selection shows and due to DWTS (competing nights/time slots) finales I haven't seen any of the "battles" so I can now look forward to another hour of entertainment based on talent not crime.
Looking for a new show now that DWTS and American Idol are over? Check out The Voice, Tuesday evenings, NBC, 10pm. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Ciao~

Finding True Love? or Finding Fame

As irritated as I am, I can't seem to come up with an opening sentence for my latest rant...so I will just say - THE BACHELORETTE and The Bachelor must go!

I am no fan of the original show: The Bachelor, which made it's debut in 2002. I will admit to watching the very first episode and cheered when a beautiful Mid-Eastern woman stood up and announced that she was eliminating herself - her words were along the lines of "I know you won't be selecting me, I'm the token non-white". And that was the end for me as well, I didn't even finish watching that episode. Here it is 9 years later and unbelievably it is still on! Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bachelor_(TV_series) for the statistics of bad boy behavior and how they all fared. It's not pretty, but predictable for sure. I'm not that righteous, I just refuse to participate in the demeaning of women - even when these very women 'sign-up' for the event.

Where do I begin? To state the obvious .... do we know a young woman who got up one morning and said "when I grow up I want to be a contestant on the Bachelorette"...I think not. In my 20's I had no self-esteem...clearly I had more than the women who not only sign up to compete against each other over a man in front of millions of people. Really? You want to show the world how truly sad you are?  Where are the feminists screaming for this show to be removed? Are we really teaching the young women of America that the way to find their 'soul mate' is by mass dating for one guy on TV in front of the world?

What is so charming and appealing about a man saying he "wets the bed", or is so drunk or tired that he falls asleep during your first meeting (per recent promo commercials) that screams "pick me, pick me"?  And the other side is - she is crying about how "I didn't believe I would be hurt again so soon"  in the first episode - or words similar. The first episode has you in tears? The commercials alone are enough to make me want to heave my most recent meal.

I just don't get this fascination with watching train wrecks on TV. If 25 women are chosen for a "season" that means that several hundred applied to be part of the train, for something like 15 seasons....and then if one of them is the runner-up or in the case of one recent finalist - engagement broken off on live TV and the runner up is chosen - you then get the opportunity to mass date 25 males on your own train - is it really love that you are looking for or the attention that this will bring you for about 15 minutes. I mean, seriously, the only woman I remember surviving the train wreck is Tristan  - mainly because she's the one that got married out of all of the shows. So that tells me that young women are looking for the fame they believe they may find on one of these dating shows. It amazes me that bright, beautiful and talented young women sink to this level, just for fame.

The saddest part of all of this is that these shows are popular. America's willingness to watch this fluff and sign up to participate only promotes it's longevity...when I googled searched it I discovered that over 484K people "Like" this on Facebook...that's almost the entire number of members. I can proudly say that I was NOT one of them. And I won't be doing so in the future...however, I will dance the day their cancel the shows.

Young women everywhere: If you feel the need to compete - join a sports team, run a marathon, challenge yourself to achieving your dream of higher education, saving the planet one person/animal/plant at a time - compete for something that matters. Just when you aren't looking - Mr. Right will appear. I know - it happened for me.

~Ciao

arm-chair quarterbacking....DWTS

for you non-enthusiasts feel free to move on...however I just can't seem to let this go. I have a friend that lives in Washington State and we are able to share this (via Facebook) which probably aids in the 'hanging on' that I am experiencing. 

I am not a fan of the 'themed' music shows...last night's "Patriotic" music, which is nice to hear but it appears to be very difficult to choreograph. Some were ok, others just annoying to watch.

So in no particular order, my thoughts on each of the individual celeb dancers:

Romeo: Newsflash: it's not classy to use a 'cancer announcement' as a "vote for me" moment.(especially since you aren't even related to the patient!)

Kirstie: please have your costume designer FIRED...you deserve better costumes. I love that your 'over-the-top' personality can manage the mountains of jokes that women with weight issues have thrown at them. You have rhythm girlfriend....dance as much/long as you can. You get some of my votes.

Ward: It's just too bad you have such great timing/technique...are you sure you've never had lessons?

Kendra: seriously? monthly hormones? again? TMI honey, TMI. your whining and brat 'tude is just irritating.
Someone needs to go...bye-bye Playboy princess.

Okay, I'm done for this week's review. Can't wait to see the results show.

I think I swallowed a grouchy pill...some days are just like that.
Ciao~

Hey Charlie ...it's called therapy, get some!

Is this guy for real? Am I the only person who thinks that he now believes he IS Charlie Harper and is living that role off the screen? Whoever has been feeding him the Kool-aid needs to stop immmediately.

Now I must admit I have enjoyed the sit-com "Two and a Half Men" since it's beginnings in 2006. The writers are good, Jon Cryer won an Emmy for his role - but Charlie you need to take a reality pill. Oh, that's right you took a test at some point in the last few days and are drug free....riiiiiight. And trust me, there isn't a TV star alive and working that is worth $3M/episode - and certainly not you. Especially given that you haven't been working, but have been trashing hotel rooms, hookin' up with lovely, but questionable young women, and now even your devoted publicist has fled for higher ground.

Goddesses? - these girls are...yes, girls, lets get real here,will only be around as long as the money lasts. And at the rate he is throwing it around, that won't be too long. As I said to my man this morning...I wasn't willing to "share" a man in my twenties and I am sticking to that now - much later down the road.
There are many qualified therapist that can bring you back into the light, please seek one out I am frankly tired of seeing you on the news - I am sure there is another B-list celeb that could use the 15 min you keep falling into. Seriously,  he is a train wreck. Someone needs to also intervene on these two young women who, in my opinion, may regret in the future what they are doing today...