WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY DEFINES talent as:
A superior, apparently natural ability, in the arts or sciences.
Of superior ability in a certain field.

I feel compelled to rant a bit.

We all know the sad reality of sensationalism, its' hype, its' magnetism, and its' absurdities. We are all guilty of subjecting ourselves to viewing many shows capitalizing on ridiculousness and nonsense, if even for a moment, myself included.

When America's Got Talent announced their Las Vegas auditions, I was quick to move and flew in a specialty act from Chicago, a brother-sister novelty tap dance act called Sibling Rivalry.

The audition went well. The response from the executives on site was very positive and the act was called some days later. Sibling Rivalry were put on a very short waiting list or an alternate list and were told they'd be contacted shortly. They were also told that there was a strong chance they'd advance. The call never came.

The finals and the winner were announced on August 17. There are some hugely talented acts in the finals. Personally, I was rooting for LD Young or Bianca and how cool for anyone of the finalist to win 1 Million Dollars!

Back to my rant…the sad reality is that the entire process of televised auditions could have and should have been about the talents, not the absurdities and un-talented freakish acts. The show title may have been better scripted as "America's Got Freaks" or "Ripley's Believe It or Not Weirdo's." Yes, I know, the shows viewership ratings were through the roof and that's the bottom line with television. But isn't this rather sad. What does that say of what us American's are drawn too? And how sad for the really talented, my tap dancers and the hundreds of other acts, that didn't make the cut because another act that may have had NOTHING to do with talent took their potential spot due to some visual deformity or oddity. The act from Chicago got bumped Mnot because they weren't talented enough (that's Showbiz and understandable), but because some wacko act looked or acted weirder than them. (Not showbiz and also OK if the show WASN'T about Talent.)

I feel totally misled by the show producers and very mislead as a personal manager!

So, go ahead, somewhere someone needs to produce a REAL talent show that allows real specialty acts to be seen for what the title implies, America's Got Talent. There are hundreds that need to be seen and many of them live right here in the City of Entertainment.

PS. Sibling Rivalry, AKA Connie & Jay Fagan will be performing here at the Suncoast Oct. 13, 14, & 15. I invite you to see their talent for yourself. Definitely a million dollar act!