• "If a head is cut off, two more will take its place" the motto of Hydra (a fictional terrorist organization) 
• "You know the greatest TOOL of the Preacher is his TONGUE. Cut off one and ten more grow in its place!" Reverend Ivan Stang of The Church of the SubGenius
• "I'll have what she's having." Rob Reiner's mom, in the movie When Harry Met Sally 

I am a simple man. I live a simple life. I have a simple network of family and friends. I have a simple job. I have simple needs. My life is simple. I have no illusions about how pathetic and simple my life happens to be. It is by design. I don't like ..complications. 

A friend has suggested I not say what I am about to say. There are people who would kill for the words I am about to use. They have already. That's evident. I tell myself my life is not worth their time, because it is so simple. Not enough heed my words. So few pay attention to me. I think I can shout from the rooftops and no one would notice. My friend thinks I should remain silent. I shouldn't make a fuss.

Attention Zetas and all narcotics traffickers from Nuevo Laredo to around the world: cut off one tongue, and a thousand will grow in its place. You can't kill all bloggers, and every death will only piss us off more. 

This isn't even my war. These are not people I know, the ones who have been slain. Why should I care? Why should I make a fuss? Why should I risk my life, such as it is, for those who have fallen? 

They were bloggers. The bastard Zetas killed innocent civilians in cold blood.. for blogging. That makes it my war too. 

It would be very simple to silence me. All you have to do is kidnap a friend or a family member. Maybe kill one person about whom I give a shit. What effort would that take? One man's time, probably. However, I wasn't even interested in the Zetas little war before they started publically attacking bloggers, hanging them from bridges for the world to see or leaving their decapitated heads in buckets. I didn't even know Zetas existed as more than some elusive myth like the Chupacabra. Something people talk about distantly but I had no evidence they were real so I didn't care, really. 

They're going after bloggers now. And I'm not much of a blogger myself. Maybe half a dozen people read something when I post it. I'm probably being optimistic. Nobody cares that I've been blogging in one form or another since 1995. Much of what I have written is now lost in time. You might find me in the Wayback Machine but most of my words were ignored by mankind, as well perhaps they should have been ignored, but I leave pieces of my brain out there in cyberspace so I can find them later, and there's still a lot of bits of me scattered over the web like fragments of a head that's been shot by a rifle at point blank range. It'd be a lot harder to clean me off the walls of cyberspace than one might imagine. 

I'm not alone. There are many bloggers out there who are much better at this than me. We are a club of nonjoiners, much like the SubGenius Church. Many of us are anonymous. And if you haven't figured this out by now: anonymous is legion. 

I doubt the Zetas have ever bothered to read Shakespeare. Had they done so, their behavior would not be so idiotic. After reading this morning about how the drug cartels in Mexico have murdered thousands over the years as part of their day to day routine behavior in conducting business, it occurred to me that they never learned from Tybalt. 

Romeo was a simple man. He lived a simple life. He had a simple network of family and friends, known as The House of Montague. Romeo had simple needs and simple desires. He wanted to fall in love and raise a family and grow old surrounded by the best and brightest from two houses of people. He had illusions as an idealist, about how simple his life could be. Tybalt slew Romeo's friend Mercutio, which turned a simple innocent civilian into a man thirsty for vengeance and justice. Romeo didn't want to live and die by the sword, but because Tybalt did, Romeo could see no other course of action. When Tybalt slew Mercutio, Romeo slew Tybalt, thus forfeiting his own life, and had he not taken his own life, had it been at the hands of another, then the House of Montague would have yet another reason to attack the House of Capulet, and so on ad infinitum. This way of life, this method of function for any House, is a doomed fate for that line of blood. 

Because in the face of injustice and brutality, wise and noble men cannot fall silent.You can slay another Mercutio, but you'll only invent another Romeo. Sometimes dozens. Sometimes hundreds. So you slay all of them? An army of Romeos will rise up against you, so you just slay them as well? Eventually, you will run out of Tybalts, but the Romeos will keep coming. 

It is in silence that immoral and unethical people can craftily concoct horrendous schemes against their fellow man. In silence and ignorance, the worst of Man can fester and grow malignant. Only through knowledge and counsel and diplomacy can mankind ever hope to crawl out of the slime of its past into a future of promise and prosperity. We have seen that throughout history and we are seeing it again now as ignorance wins out over knowledge throughout the world we see a shadow cast dark over the landscape of humanity. 

Make no mistake. This is a war. Not a war over houses of blood. It's a war of silence & ignorance versus knowledge and illumination. Every time the drug cartels kill innocent civilians in cold blood, they are declaring war on innocents. They are declaring war on civilized society. They are announcing themselves as new dictators. I for one do not plan to happily welcome our new overlords. I aim to misbehave. 

Every time someone uses their wares, injects themselves with their drugs or pops their pills or loads their weapons, that person is contributing to this deadly cycle of violence and despair that grows and festers in mankind like a malignant tumor. Every death at the hands of their drugs and their weapons and their excess, adds to the sea of blood they already use to navigate their ships, metaphorically speaking of course. 

I've read that in the past few years many of the leaders of drug cartels have been brought to justice in one way or another, so those currently running these cárteles de la droga are the replacements for those leaders. Apparently they're not as smart as their predecessors. They are less organized. They are more desperate. They are sloppy. Their lives are not simple, and they continue to get more and more complicated. It is foolish to kill innocents and then display them publically as an omen. People of today are not as superstitious as they once were. You can't scare everyone silent. You will scare some, but not all. And those you do not scare, you will have to make examples of them too, but this will only cause even more people to notice your antics. The solution in the first place is to not commit actions that escalate into brutality. If that means don't traffic in guns or weapons or other contraband, then so be it. Failing that, if one must conduct clandestine activity, do so in a way that does not bring attention to oneself. You won't have to kill innocent people if you don't do stupid things in front of them. Observing that the current leaders of these cartels behave the way they do, and allow their underlings to commit such rash and uncivilized activity in public, is indicative of uneducated, desperate, barbaric people. 

It should be a requirement of all leaders of drug cartels to read Shakespeare. Many lessons can be learned in their pages. Not the least of which is how not to live happily ever after. Keep slaying Mercutios, and your life will continue to get more complicated. 

That's not a threat. It's social physics. 

Reading the newspaper this morning I recall finding of interest two peculiar stories which were nestled together as if a matching set on the same page. These two stories had nothing in common on the surface, and yet they complimented each other. I have since mislaid the paper of course, and can't remember enough about either story to google it properly and provide linkage. I will endeavour to describe what I can remember below. 

On the left was a photo of a man sitting at the defense table in a courtroom, looking back at the photojournalist taking his picture. This man had stuffed in his ears what appeared to be either cotton or tissue paper. Upon reading the accompanying text, it's revealed that this man is being tried for multiple counts of murder. These murders mostly occurred around twilight, so he's known as the Twilight killer. Good luck running a search on that. All you get is twinkpyres. 

His name escapes me, but he allegedly has shown signs of psychological instability, like multiple personality disorder, schizophrenia, and an obsessive compulsion to slice old ladies w/cleavers hours before most of us drink our first cup of coffee. Murder before breakfast. The man is clearly insane. His lawyer explained that the cotton is in his ears because he's trying to stifle the voices that trouble him. It didn't go into much detail beyond that. What voices? What are they saying to him? Which voices? The ones inside his head, or the ones coming from witnesses saying he's a cold blooded homicidal maniac? Granted his entire story is disturbing, but this bit got me the most. 

He believes the voices are coming from outside his head, and therefore the cotton will prevent him from hearing them, but he's inside a court of law. The events in this courtroom will dictate what will happen to him for the rest of his life. Of course a sane man would want to have some idea what's going on, but clearly this man wants us to believe he's insane so he's doing the opposite. If he is trying to curtail the actual voices from actual people reminding him what he and/or one of the personalities in his brain, then he's more interested in focusing on the voices coming from inside his brain which tell him everything is alright and soon as all this blows over he'll be able to go back to killing little old ladies at twilight.

If he is trying to stifle the voices inside his head, then the cotton in his ears are only preventing these voices from echoing outside his ear canal and into the ears of his lawyer, the judge, or anyone who might then believe he's hearing voices if in fact they could too. So either way this cotton in his ears is simply not going to do the job. I would hazard to say that not only could a sane man tell this, but someone who actually is insane would still find the absurdity of this concept and would not put cotton in his ears. I think this proves the man is sane as you and me. Well, at least as sane as you. I'm not convinced I'm sane. That would take belief and I don't do that sort of thing anymore. 

So this boils down to belief. Either he believes in the voices in his head or he believes in the voices outside his head telling him what an asshole he's been. The voices inside his head can only be coming from one place: his brain. Any individual's brain is notorious for telling itself what it most wants to hear. Try it some time. By putting cotton in his ears, science would support me on this, he can't as easily hear what's outside his brain. This allows him to push actual reality away easier and focus more on the subjective perception of reality he's been enjoying thus far, which got him into his current predicament and will continue to destroy his life. That's how belief works when left unchecked by hard cold reality. 

The other story which straddled alongside this one on the same page but a bit to the right was one of a young woman who had this story to tell: since she was little she's been suffering from leukemia. She was so sick as a child she spent many years in a particular hospital (whose name escapes me at the moment) but eventually she got better and tried to live a normal life. Well about a year ago the leukemia came back and it's been getting steadily worse. About six months ago she discovered she only had roughly six months to live. Her parents were no help. They kicked her out on the curb and she had to depend on the kindness of friends to take her in and give her a bed to sleep in. She has been weak and sleeps a lot. 

She went to church and asked her community for assistance. Of course hundreds of people came to her aid after hearing her sad story and thousands of dollars were raised in hopes of her getting better and beating this horrible evil affliction. She'd regularly go to a nearby hospital and would need someone to drive her there, but she would ask them to please not stay and wait because she didn't want to impose further. She'd find another way back to her friend's house. 

You can already see where this is going, can't you? Six months, and thousands of dollars in donations have come and gone, and she's still here. It's a miracle! Either that, or there's more to this story. Although of course there were some people who believed in her story wholeheartedly and had no reason to question it so they haven't verified her claims, but there are other people who were not as convinced. They investigated. They even hired a private investigator who talked to her "terrible" parents that kicked her out of the house. Turns out the story isn't quite what she's been telling. 

There's no record of her staying for several years in any hospital, much less the one she specifically named. There's no record that she's been recently seeing a doctor at the hospital where people have been dropping her off. Furthermore, there's no indication she currently has leukemia, and no doctor or hospital has come forward with records showing she's sick and nearly dying. She surely can't present any of this information, and all that money people have been giving her never went to any charities or went to pay for her medical bills, cuz there aren't any medical bills. 

So this boils down to belief. Either this young lady is delusional, and sincerely believes she's dying and is suffering from some form of psychological condition which necesitates her experiencing both hypochondria and a need to be the center of attention and have strangers worried sick about you 24/7, or this woman blatantly made up all these lies and is a very bad con artist. When I say very bad I mean VERY very bad. A good con artist would have left town just before her six months were up. 

The human brain is a complicated thing and we're still trying to decipher its many mysteries, but if we are to presume that the brain is the byproduct of millions of years of evolution instead of just something that was magically put together by a god (surprise suprise I'm not going with the latter assumption) those brains that survived long enough to breed and make descendants with brains are the ones who were able to do enough to survive long enough to breed. If I just lost you with this paragraph please go back to not reading your bible. You're not ready for this. 

Michael Shermer calls one example of something a successfully evolved & bred brain can do patternicity. This is the ability to suss out order in chaos and signal in noise. Shermer enjoys using the example of a caveman walking along hearing a rustling in the bushes. Either this rustle is the wind, or its a sabre toothed tiger ready to eat him. Successfully evolved brains could tell the difference and knew when to run. Unsuccessfully evolved brains could not tell the difference and became dinner. This is why most, if not all, human brains today have patternicity. Shermer suggests humanity could not have survived prehistoric Earth without it. 

Can we prove this? No, but it makes more sense then a talking snake lying to Eve. When someone tellls you they are dying, if you care about your fellow man, you are going to feel terrible and you're gonna wanna help this poor lady. You won't immediately say, "can you prove you're dying of cancer cuz I ain't giving you shit unless i can see a tumor growing out your head." Well, YOU wouldn't immediately say that. I might. You would probably take the woman at her word and then seek out ways to help her overcome this. However, as you progressed, if you began to notice discrepancies in her story, or evidence that maybe her story isn't coinciding with actual tangible reality, a couple examples of this should be more than sufficient to stop for a second and contemplate the situation. Just as a rustle in the bushes would cause a cautious cave man to think twice about walking near it, a tale told by one person which doesn't gibe with extraneous events should give one reason to question if you're being conned. If you still believe this woman's story long after the police have gotten involved and she's put up on charges, frankly I'm surprised your ancestors didn't find themselves inside a saber toothed tiger. 

That's how belief works when left unchecked by hard cold reality. 

"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in." - a quote from The Godfather franchise

Back when I was little, my sister would grab me and give me a big hug and this was great alright? Not knocking hugs. But then this is what she'd do. She's like six years older than me so when I was six and she was twelve she'd do this. She'd grab me give me a big hug and then still hugging me she'd sit down in the big La-Z-boy and i'm uncomfortable immediately so i'm struggling to move around and she just clings tighter and suddenly I get a little claustrophobic I can't break free cuz she's stronger and bigger than I am so I try to wrestle out of this and it's no use she's just laughing and smiling and she thinks this is funny. I'm getting pissed so I struggle even more and this goes on for awhile and I ain't gonna win cuz she's sitting all comfy cozy in the La-Z-boy she can do this all day, and I'm kinda twisted and turned around at this point. I feel like a pony trapped by an octopus. 

But here's the thing. After awhile I'd give up cuz I'm exhausted and so I'm just laying there in her arms and she thinks she's won. So I pretend to go to sleep. She slowly loosens her grip, and that's when I try to break free, but she'd just tighten her grip again. I thought I was fooling her but she was anticipating this. The more I'd resist the tighter her grip but when I'd relax she'd relax too. Thank goodness for puberty cuz if I didn't get a growth spurt around the age of twelve I'd still be pinned down by my sister. 

This morning I'm reading the news. 

Battle in Kabul heightens Afghan security fears

Guess what? These wars against terror ain't what they want us to think they are. Time to put on your tin foil hat. Granted, the people actually committing the violence probably are sincere in their hatred of Americans. They want us out of their country. They want to live their life as they please. They want to be able to pass judgment on whomever they want and protect whomever they feel needs protecting and they don't want our input. I get that. I wouldn't want people from the Middle East hanging out downtown with guns telling me to live the way they want me to either. 

I ain't talking about the soldiers or "terrorists" or rebels or whatever they're being called this week. I'm talking about the bastards funding them. Follow the money back a few steps and you'll find someone who thinks like this: if America gives up and leaves the Middle East, we won't be able to convince the masses that they need us. We won't be able to sell as much weaponry. We won't be able to pass laws and enforce tyrannical oppression. We need an enemy to scare the populous, so they will let us continue to rule them, or so that we can convince them they need us to rule them. We need to keep scaring not just our enemy, but the idiots we claim to be protecting. 

This mentality goes for every major political power system in practically every country on this planet. The US government needs us to think we need a powerful defense. They need us to fear foreign governments so we'll keep funding the war machine. Why? Cuz the people who make money when wars are fought want to keep making that money. Peace is much less lucrative for anyone used to war. 

Has it ever occurred to anyone that the Soviet Union fell not just after Reagan told Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. That was superfluous. It fell after the Soviet Union spent untold resources failing to win in Afghanistan. Has it ever occurred to anyone that we Americans are doing the same damn thing? And now our economy is going to hell. All that money going into weapons and ships and planes and training people in the Middle East to defend themselves, where is that money going? Billions of dollars a year in American Defense contracts. Where's that money going? Apparently it's leaving America, and going where? 

Someone is making a lot of money scaring other people, and I ain't getting a cent of it. Are you? 

Think about this. We have made it VERY clear we WANT out. We didn't want IN! The people of Afghanistan know that if they just wait, we will leave. If those perpetuating the violence really wanted us out, they'd lay down their arms, pretend to do whatever we asked, and then after we were gone they'd quietly go back to doing what they were doing in the first place. However, that's not what's happening. The Taliban is actively attacking foreign interests just as they start to lose interest. Why is that? 

Cuz they need us to be scared of them. They need to perpetuate this machine. Otherwise they are worthless. They are not attacking embassies and blowing up buildings to end an argument. They keep trying to start one. They claim that we're the bullies, but they are picking a fight. 

If you ask me, and nobody has but i'm gonna tell ya anyway, NBC's The Voice is a great idea for a television series that has dramatically failed to achieve it's full potential. Okay so I'm just being an armchair producer, but that's part of the fun for me, watching these kinda shows. How would I make this better? Let me count the ways. 

First let me diagnose the problem. We're watching something that's either an intentionally fixed competition that's secretly an exhibition for many talented singers, or a well-intentioned actual competition that wasn't very well thought out. What started out as a fun and innovative idea with The Blind Auditions has deteriorated with these Battle Duets into what's roughly the structure of a wrestling federation without any of the bravado or shouting. In fact I no longer believe this is a real competition. Okay, i never believed it was a competition but I was willing to suspend disbelief up to a point, and that point ended with the final round of Battle Duets. With very few exceptions, I was able to guess which person in the battle duet was going to be chosen by their coach, based primarily on how each participant was introduced to us during the blind auditions. Whichever one got the most face time during the Blind Auditions tended to be the winner in the Battle Duets. Whether intentionally or not, that makes this show feel fixed. 

Take for example Jeff Jenkins and Casey Desmond on Team Adam in the most recent episode (part four of the battle duet eps, i think episode six overall so far). Now back during the auditions we got to see Jenkins entire performance, and a lot of time has been devoted to his backstory, but we saw little to no air time comparatively with Casey Desmond. It's like the producers & editors of the series already knew not to ingratiate Desmond to the audience. They didn't want us rooting for Desmond as much as they want us cheering on Jenkins. And I've fallen for this, no doubt. Jeff is why I'm watching The Voice cuz I happened upon his audition on YouTube, but since watching the show I've come to appreciate Desmond's work prior to the show. She's got some great stuff on YouTube. I've also come to like a great many other talented people who are on the show but have each been singing their hearts out for years. All of these people are talented. The criteria set to get past the auditions made most contestants as good as any American Idol finalist. So going in, NBC's The Voice is surpassing the competition. However, looking back over the Blind Auditions after seeing the Battle Duets, it's rather consistent that the winner of almost every round is someone the producers & editors of the audition episodes already wanted to win. So again, each of these Battle Duets look fixed. 

What exactly determines how a person gets past the Battle Duets? The coach that picked them. That's it. There's no conflict here, and it looks easily manipulated by any shrewd producer. Rash decisions a coach made with their back turned can be easily dismissed with crocodile tears & a pat on the back by voting that person out during the battle duet. This completely diminishes the purpose of the blind auditions. The coaches should have to work with what they have, rather than be able to select half of their choices as bad cards they can throw into the discard pile. 

What I think they should have done, and what I feel they will need to do next season, is the following: 

1) Six Slots Instead Of Eight: You don't need eight. You're not using eight. Before you even get started you whittle eight down to four. Rather than allow each Coach to start with eight slots, next season they only get six. First off, they obviously don't need eight if you're going to dismiss so many great voices immediately thereafter with the Battle Duets anyway. This would also make the Blind Auditions even more gruelling cuz each spin of the chair has more weight to it. 

2) Send Less People Home Early: All the other reality game shows like this from Survivor to American Idol do that. Stop doing that. It's stupid. There's no reason to send anyone home early on in a season. Eventually you'll have a winner, but why whittle down so soon? Give all talents enough face time to win over an audience and build a following so when they ARE each sent home closer to the end of the season, more of the audience feels an emotional connection. So if no one is getting sent home, how is winning determined? Easy. By way of a point system. Each accomplishment gains the winner of that round a point, and other things like audience partcipation via 900 numbers and coach choices and other things can also cause a contestant to gain a point. Perhaps sometimes the coaches can even decide to take a point away if a participant does something really super stupid. 

3) Make Battle Duets An Actual Battle: This first go around, the pairings were done inside each coach's camp. Therefore, there was no real battle. It's all internal. It's pretty obvious the only purpose of the battle duets is to allow coaches to weed out their own bad apples. That's lame from a storytelling standpoint and it's boring game practice. It's like watching a poker player pick one to three cards to discard from his own hand. That's boring. Instead, I recommend this procedure. A predetermined pack of six songs are given to the coaches. Each coach looks at the songs and decides which singer on their roster could best pull off that song. Each singer is then paired up not with someone on their own team, but one of the players on an opposing team. So instead of two singers from TeamXTina going head to head, you'd have one person from Blake's team singing a duet with someone from Ceelo's Team, one person from Adam's team going up against one of Christina's sirens. Et cetera. With six ppl instead of eight, the pairings should hammer out without anyone left over. Then after two singers duke it out, the decision as to who wins each battle would then fall into the hands of the two coaches who didn't have a dog in that fight. Tiebreakers would be decided by studio audience reactions helped out by Carson Daly, cuz he really needs more to do in this show. He looks like a sore thumb sticking out half the time. 

4) Being On The Bubble: Contestants are sent home when their numbers go down so far it's no longer possible for them to win mathematically. Perhaps a final option can be given once or twice through the course of the season. If there are two players "on the bubble" an audience reaction by 900 numbers or by website vote can give boost points to allow one of them a chance to stay in the game but the other one gets sent home. This widens the possibilities, and will give a wider selection of participants for audience members to choose from as their favorites. Any player not on The Bubble who still has a shot before the final three are selected should be kept in the show as long as possible. The more different people with the more face time the better. 

Some people might think this a problem cuz this would have more faces/voices going into the live shows, but that's good cuz you want audiences to have more selection of people they want to cheer on.  And after the first round of live shows, you may not want to send players home early cuz even if they can't win at this point, they could still get face time by working up exhibition performances with other 'losers' when the producers need to fill the hour with fun stuff. t the end of the season, the three singers with the most points go head to head with solo performances, and final decisions are determined by one vote from each coach, one vote from the studio audience, one vote from television audience via website or phone vote, and one accumulated vote from the remaining contestants that weren't in the final three but that you didn't send home.

Any tie breakers would be determined by which participant's voice can break a champagne glass with a high B flat the fastest. Okay I'm kinda half kidding with that last suggestion. 

First off, who greenlighted the title? "The Voice." Really? That's the best you can do? I'm trying to come up with a better name, but I guess if I could do that I'd be producing tv shows instead of blogging. Anything I can think of would inadvertently define it, and that's kind of why such a generic choice as "The Voice" was chosen I suppose. Cuz ultimately what makes this show work is how it doesn't seek to define what "The Voice" really is. Unlike a show that I can't help but compare it to: American Idol. Although the more I learn about The Voice the less I can compare it to American Idol.

Yes NBC's The Voice is incredibly corny. Yes it's wagging the dog. Yes the producers are kinda scatterbrained in their execution & the coaches seem a little coached themselves. It doesn't matter. For all its insecurities & blemishes, NBC's new reality karaoke game show series "The Voice" is silly stupid fun and I'm on board for the ride.

I almost disregarded "The Voice" entirely for the same reason I ignore most reality shows. It's not reality. It's slickly produced faux reality based loosely off the lives of people willing to allow themselves to be used & abused in hopes they might be able to squeeze a little fame & fortune out of being totally embarrassed by strangers in front of America and the world.I have watched some reality shows. I enjoyed Fear Factor immensely and currently am a fan of Wipeout. These shows know what they are and don't pretend to be loftier. They're just entertaining. Most other reality shows try to turn people's every day lives into anything from afterschool specials to re-enactment docudramas. It's insulting to my intelligence. I have made some exceptions over the years but most of the time I surf on. American Idol discouraged me after the first season. Simon Cowell was a bore. It's not that he was arrogant or insulting. I could almost admire that. He was trying to give a dose of actual reality to these starry eyed wannabes. Performing for a living is effing hard. You're gonna get a lot of rejection, and if you don't have something that makes you stand out like a greased pig on fire in a quiet library, you might as well not quit your day job. I speak from some personal experience here.

What changed my mind about The Voice was a happy accident that happened over at YouTube. I accidentally saw part of a performance by one of the contestants on The Voice and was blown away by the guy. So much so I had to check his whole performance out on Hulu.com and eventually the entire show. I thought it was cool that like me, he was a ..shall we say ..pleasantly plump dude. He did not appear to me to be someone that the producers of American Idol would even take remotely serious. I had assumed The Voice was like American Idol; a show looking for a specific sound that's just this side of an autotuned Whitney Houston on a bad day. However, if Jeff Jenkins could make it on The Voice and be taken seriously for his talent, with little to no mention at all about his Pillsbury doughness, this might be the kinda show I could support. Why? Cuz I am Pillsbury doughness too. At the very least, The Voice looked like it was gonna cater to my demographic. So I thought I'd give it a shot.

Much to my surprise, it's not catering to my demographic. It's catering to a much wider range of demographics. There's four different "coaches" competing, as opposed to three "judges" trying to make nicey and predictably failing. This expands the potential for new and different possibilities across a much wider spectrum. So there's bound to be something (and someone singing) for everybody. That's a very good thing. Also the way the blind auditions were run is much more promising. You got four talented, known celebrities with their backs to the contestants. So what a person looks like is inconsequential to their talents as singers. Very nice idea. This inevitably sets up a very artificial sense of suspense and excitement as the celebrity chooses or doesn't choose to turn around and accept the tyros. Then if two or more celebrities make their interests in the contestant known, the contestant gets to decide which famous, knowledgeable person they want to be mentored by; essentially "judging" them. Unique device, as reality shows go. Most celebrities wouldn't necessarily be comfortable being put in this position, but these four handle it surprisingly well (at least in front of camera thanks to some spirited editing).

As of this writing I've only seen the first two episodes, and yes I can see that the entire series is produced in such a way as to pull at my heartstrings and manipulate me. They're rather blatant about it. For some reason, I don't seem to mind. It's kinda like when America's Got Talent does that. The fact they're blatant about it makes it less annoying. Slightly.

I would prefer if somehow NBC's The Voice could be set up so that I can't see the contestant until after they have started singing, and preferably until after the first celebrity turns around, because that to me would be a more dramatic way of doing this, but then perhaps that WOULD be manipulating me. I guess a way to play along at home would be to close my eyes as each contestant is being introduced until I can't stand it anymore, but this ain't radio.

Another thing that usually bothers me about shows like this is how it wants ppl to choose one talent over another or one team over another. I'm not much of a fan of competitive sports for just this reason. I don't normally buy that team X is better than team Y because of Z. That attitude usually bothers me. I want everyone to win and I think people should compete with their past selves, persevering to improve themselves rather than compare themselves to other people on other life voyages taking different paths. Some people will tell you that Christopher Cross is better than Michael Franks or The Rolling Stones beat The Beatles. I find that to be silly. Those contests are artificial and besides in terms of longevity and showmanship, whether you like him or not, Neil Diamond beats EVERYBODY, dead, alive, or undead. There's no contest. The winner's already been crowned for eternity. So it's all pointlessly academic beyond Neil.

I chose a team early on and have so far been steadfastly loyal. Of course I want everyone to win, and there are talented voices on the other three teams that I also enjoy, but when Jeff Jenkins picked Adam Levine, I did too. And the more I learn about this guy, the happier I am with that choice.

I gotta admit prior to "The Voice" I wasn't a fan of any of the four coaches on the show. I'd heard of Christine Aguilera before of course, and of course I couldn't ignore her vocal talents, but like Madonna & many others like her in modern music, she goes in a direction of pop that just doesn't speak to me at all. Cee Lo Green is a great talent and I've enjoyed songs like Fuck You and Crazy but I knew those songs as being done by "Gnarls Barkley" and didn't connect the dots until The Voice. Like some still mistake Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd and Monty Python as The Person and not the name of a band, I didn't realize Cee Lo Green was only half of Gnarls Barkley.

I don't listen to country much nowadays. As a kid I liked Kenny Rogers a lot and had a passing fancy with CB oriented country music like Red Sovine and Jerry Reed. I have mostly negative opinions of country music, with some exceptions. I acknowledge it's very popular, and I respect it as a genre, but it personally doesn't interest me. When I do like it, it's usually cuz the song has rock or folk influences & doesn't twang, therefore the "country" song works for me cuz it's not "too" country. Kinda defeating the purpose of listening to country music. Blake Shelton has never registered with me before The Voice, so let's just say I'm finding myself taking a crash course in country music by just watching this guy at work.

Maroon 5 is one of those bands I may have heard before but didn't pay attention to the name. I've since started exploring YouTube for examples of Adam Levine at work and I gotta admit I like the sound. There's a YouTube video of "Never Get Out of This Bed" and while I think the video is dumb, the music is kick. Levine is an example of sound I'd actually go out and buy, if I had expendable income. He's kinda rock, kinda folk, kinda jazz, kinda funky. He's a little of everything. He likes to experiment with styles and genres & doesn't like being categorized. In my youth I called this "alternative music." Everything from Oingo Boingo to REM to Devo to Elvis Costello to Edie Brickel and the New Bohemians to Madness to Siouxsie and the Banshees to Simply Red. I know I'm dating myself here. Adam Levine is an example of The Next Generation. What I'd probably be listening to if I were 20 years younger. 

As far as I can tell, the producers seem to be painfully aware that The Voice will be compared to American Idol. It's kinda impossible not to, so in some ways they've gone out of their way to be as far away from AI as possible, while in other ways they purposefully cater to that part of the audience which needs that familiarity. The basic set up is the same. Contestants are competing for spots by performing live before "judges" but since these judges are also really coaches aka mentors, that changes the dynamics in ways that cause the show to organically stray from that formula. So NBC's The Voice purposefully starts at American Idol and then also purposefully resets the bar.

Looking at each judge in turn, Christine Aguilera's #TeamXtina is what I'd call "The Benchmark." Another way to put it is "American Idol Plus." If the producers consider every contestant they have to be a cut above American Idol, Christine's picks represent the players who are just above that plastic ceiling. Aguilera instinctively goes for a sound that is very pop and sleek, much like the stereotypical American Idol sound, and the producers may have either purposefully or subconsciously intended that. However, C.A. is also listening for what she calls "adlibs" and "runs" and "riffs." When C.A. sings she goes up and down the scale in ways that trigger deep emotions in the listener. An example of this is Frenchie Davis, who can riff and adlib and coincidentally competed on American Idol a few years ago. Christine doesn't want to have to teach how to adlib. She's looking for that ability in those she chooses for her team so Christina is essentially listening for herself in the blind auditiions. That's not necessarily a bad thing. She knows that works, but of the four celebrity coaches on The Voice, Aguilera is the least willing to venture outside her comfort zone. Also interesting to note, she only has one guy, Justin Grennan, on her team.

Speaking of comfort zones, while Blake Shelton was willing to step outside his a bit more than Christine Aguilera, he still remained firmly in his country roots and his eight picks strongly reflect that. This is understandable. Country is a very popular style. It's his strength. It's why he's in that chair. It's how he's made a name for himself. Go with what works. Don't reinvent the wheel. How boring. I currently see Blake Shelton as "The Safe Bet" and if I were a country fan I'd obviously pick him to win this. If the majority of fans of The Voice aren't looking for something new but want to hear a Voice that makes them comfortable, then one of Blake's picks will ultimately win this. I don't want safe tho. Where's the fun in that? I'd like to point out that Shelton has on his team a Texan named Patrick Thomas. Being Texan myself, if he ultimately wins this thing, I'd still kinda win. Shelton also has one of two duos contestants, known as ElenOwen.

The other duo, Tori & Taylor, belongs to Cee Lo Green, as does another fellow Texan, Nakia. The idea of a comfort zone doesn't seem to apply to Cee Lo Green. He amassed the most varied and provacative team of all four coaches. From Tje Austin to Kelsey Rey, we're looking at daring and sedate, sullen to explosive, a lot of extremes but not a lot of safe. This is not to say he has the best team. Cee Lo has what I'd call a sink or swim team. Either he will win this thing by building a better mousetrap and reinventing the wheel and performing a few other miracles before breakfast, or he will fail magnificently. Either way, it'll be entertaining television, so I'm calling #TeamCeeLo "The Wild Card."

Obviously "The Team To Beat" is #TeamAdam. Adam Levine's selections seemed rather touch and go during the first two episodes, but there was a method to his madness. He readily admitted when he picked Tim Mahoney, with his back turned he thought he was listening to a sultry siren vixen female. Imagine his surprise to find that voice coming out of a man's adam's apple. Adam didn't let that phase him ..much. It's an indication of how he was listening for different and out of the ordinary sounds. Curiously, on multiple occasions Cee Lo and Adam would turn their chairs at almost the same time. So either their instincts are similar when it comes to listening for talent, or one of them was following the other's lead. Since I'm rooting for Adam, naturally I have to assume it was Cee Lo tugging on Levine's coat tails, although I of course have no evidence to corroborate that.

I've already expressed at length my appreciation for Jeff Jenkins. He's the real reason I'm watching this thing. However, he's but one feather in Adam Levine's cap. Rebecca Loebe stole my heart during her audition. She reminds me of talented local women here in north Texas whose careers I've been following for a long time. Annie Benjamin, Annette Conlon, Courtney Fairchild & Kristy Kruger but to namedrop a few. These names should mean much more to you than I bet they do and their music has gotten me through thick & thin. I'm forever grateful to them. Casey Weston also has that spark that makes listening to music euphoric for me. I am such a sucker for a lady wielding a guitar. Javier Conlon reminds me of such talents as Harry Belafonte and Bobbie McFerrin. He has that jovial spirit and an obvious infectious love for the craft and art of singing. There's a party in his heart and he wants to invite everybody. Angela Wolff is the Underdog. Always the bridesmaid never the bride. She's performed in the past as a backup singer for other stars, but never had a chance to really shine on her own. She's hoping this will be her chance to break free and I share that hope for her. Devon Barley is a man trapped in two worlds, but he's following his heart which is obviously a greater risk. However, like most of Levine's choices he obviously doesn't like to play it safe. I don't recall getting to hear Casey Desmond. I guess the producers are holding her back as some kind of reveal later in the season.

The One That Got Away is curious to me. Sonia Rao made me wish I could push a button, turn my chair around, and keep her on the show. Even though the coaches had two chances to pick her, they passed her by both times. In Sonia's first audition there was a point where she sang the word "don't" in a way that felt like a puppy licking my nose. Definite tingles. Very subtle but effective. I really enjoyed her audition and am at a loss why she got snubbed by all four coaches. I really would have liked to see what Cee Lo Green could have done for her. When he turned around and saw how physically strikingly beautiful she is, he gave his trademark "hey pretty girl" which has since started the use of that phrase as a hashtag on Twitter. However Rao's vocals didn't turn him on and I really don't see how that was possible. She has such a haunting and evocative lilt to her voice. I'm following her now on Twitter and hope this isn't the last we hear of her amazing sound.

So that's what I got so far to say about The Voice. Let me hear what you have to say.

There are ppl who are "American at heart," tho they may never step foot on American soil or be officially sanctioned. They commit actions that befriend geographically born Americans and support their endeavors, because these foreign individuals understand the concepts behind America and the  democracy that it represents for ALL people to have inalienable rights of life  & liberty.

There are also "Americans" who are essentially domestic terrorists, and do not believe in the ideals that metaphorically make our banner  wave. They commit actions daily which are self-serving & seek to breakdown the fundamental foundations of our nation and its people. They think they know  what's right but when given a choice between selfishness for themselves or their  kind, they commit acts that improve themselves at the cost of community or  country, or they commit acts that improve their like-kind at the cost of their  own freedoms or the betterment of their nation. Some even make choices that  appear to help the nation as a whole on the surface but later prove to tear down the
individual or states' rights, which beats at the cornerstones of the constitution.

Being American is not a geographic thing. Perhaps it was at one time, but that has changed. It has become an ideal that has  been attached to a geographic region. It shouldn't be.

All men and women are  "created" equally. We are all endowed by our "Creator" to have certain  inalienable rights. There are those who believe the use of the word "creator"  means THEIR creator. Their anthropomorphic representation of that Quantifiable  Unknown many foolishly call a god. They believe this sets them apart from those  who believe otherwise but it does not. They commit actions that try to make this  a Christian nation at the cost of those who are not Christian. This undermines  the fabric of what it means to be American; even what it means to be human. We  don't know what created us, but whatever it was, we all start off equal because  of it.

There are also ppl who seek to return to class distinctions or insist  that because their families have more money or influence that makes their  birthright more important than another's. Those too have no understanding of  what it means to be American At Heart. We must be ever vigilant against enemies  both foreign and domestic, but what we fail to do, and what "Birthers" make even more difficult, is to seek out like-minded foreign friends and understand that  we share commonalities that make THEM as American as anyone who happens to be born on this soil. Democracy. Freedom for all people. Diversity. Tolerance.  Checks & Balances. Respect for individual AND community AND all of mankind  without committing acts that pit one against the other. THESE and more are what  make this country great and can make this species better.

Even if Obama was  proven to be born outside America, that's geography. What difference could that  possibly make to his track record? His actions throughout his life have proven  he means to support America and what she stands for. A birth certificate can't  take that away from him.

To some people, being American only means where you are  from. Maybe centuries ago that's all it used to mean, but that's changed. Being  American should not be about where you are from, but who you are and what you  do. The people who don't get that are the real enemies to freedom. If those  enemies win this battle of thought, and I wake up one morning and discover that  being American means only the geographic region for what it was named, then I'm  afraid I'll no longer be welcome on my home shores, and this social experiment started just over two hundred years ago will prove to be a failure.

We can't let  that happen.

I forgot this was here. To the ppl behind Posterous who sent me an automated email reminder thingy: sorry!

I'm all over the Web nowadays. Very scatterbrained. It's crazy.. I don't know what I'm doing, but today's a special day, and I wanted to document the occasion.

Today is April 13th 2011. On this day in 2003, I quit smoking. On this day in 2006, I quit smoking for a second time, and on this day in 2011, I told you about it. I did start smoking briefly between 2003 & 2006 but then I found out Peter Jennings was dead cuz he stopped smoking then started smoking again then got cancer. I haven't smoked a cigarette in around five years now, give or take. Yay me. Go me. \o/

What's also special about this day is that Christopher Hitchens was born on this day in 1949. A regular contributor to The Atlantic Monthly, Hitchens is a fervent atheist & skeptic & just general all around asskicker. Also, he's got cancer & is fighting it like a son of a bitch. Jack Chick was also born on this day in 1924 but he's a crazy old man who published a lot of religious comic book tracts that really fucked my mind up when I was like nine years old, so screw him. Hitch rules, Chick drools.

Tonight I'll be on a podcast with some guys talking about atheism, humanism, absurdism, and whether or not any of us got laid recently. I didn't, so I won't have as much to talk about as they probably will. Bastards.

In other news, I've been posting new crap to CinchCast including a couple rambles I wrote myself and a This I Believe essay written by @EmilysPoste of Twitter fame. Check those out and tell me what you think. Also feel free to ask me a question over at VYou so I'd have a reason to leave an answer. I tried answering my own questions for a brief while but that got creepy real fast so I try to only post there when others leave questions which isn't as often as I would like.

I just found out I still believe in something. I like to proudly admit nowadays that I believe in nothing. Ever since I discovered a few years ago I have become an atheist, I have strived to remove all unprovable beliefs from my psyche. This is not as easy as it sounds. I keep finding assumptions in my head that I have no reason to believe are true and yet I act as if they are. I used to believe in the possibility of everything. Gods, fairies, aliens, conspiracy theories, global warming, why not believe all of it, until faith is trumped by proof? I have recently learned that is wrong. We human beings should stop believing without proof. You need proof first, then you don't need to believe. Then you will know.

I found out this morning that I still believe in breakfast. I discovered today that if a friend is going without breakfast, though they wanted breakfast, I will pay for it myself out of my own pocket if I can. If I have it. That's how I roll. It's a small thing, but I believe everyone should start their day with a full belly. I have no evidence to support this. I just believe it. It's important to me, and I don't know why.

There was a time when I believed all life was precious, and all human beings have the right to live free to persue their bliss. However, for some people, the pursuit of their bliss either directly or indirectly involves robbing others of their inalienable rights. I used to believe in inalienable rights. If rights were ever inalienable, they couldn't be taken from you by a bastard like Gadhafi.

We live a very sheltered life here in the United States of America. I'm painfully aware there are parts of the world where not only am I not welcomed, but I would be murdered in cold blood with extreme prejudice. Their reasoning would be simply cuz I am different, and they are righteous. I speak my mind, and they speak the will of their leaders, or their gods.

Gadhafi will die as he has lived: a bitter, broken, angry, mad man drunk on power, thirsty for glory, and blind to the consequences of his selfish betrayal of his fellow man. Imagine if he had channeled his passion toward a more selfless betterment of humanity. Imagine if he had taken peace to heart, rather than his own "last drop of blood."

He vows to fight to the end. He imagines himself to soon be a martyr to the cause of Libya. Gadhafi imagines himself to be the living will of Libya, when his will opposes the will of the people of Libya; its inhabitants. Some may remember Gadhafi as a martyr, but history is not written by the loser. Gadhafi's story will be written by his opponents, the people of a country he once professed to protect, back when I was teething and getting potty trained, and he started his harsh rule of law. I grew up. He still has temper tantrums, but not for much longer.

I don't wish to see Gadhafi dead, even tho he'd happily hire someone to put me down like a rabid dog if he ever perceived me to be a threat. That's how he rolls. I used to believe the only people who deserved to die were people who by their actions proved they did not believe in the inalienable rights of other. This is a double edged sword. Believing that any one for any reason deserves to die and acting on those beliefs would forfeit one's own life. So, I don't wish to see Gadhafi dead, but when he dies, be it of old age or at the hands of one of his many enemies, I hope he dies on a full stomach, because despite my best efforts to no longer believe in anything, apparently I still believe in breakfast.