America’s Got Talent: is a show that featured mostly foreign acts.

Sometimes, some things are worth standing out in the rain for an hour. One of those times was last Saturday and one of those things is, watching a live taping of America’s Got Talent. This was a surprise to me.

I am not the intended audience of variety shows. Or belted out R&B ballads, country music, sob stories seeking redemption through Hollywood stardom, or pretty much anything with sequins at the core. America’s Got Talent is pretty much all of those things and I went there in large part because my wife likes these things and I like being with her- but also because the alternative was an evening where I try to convince my 2 children to clean up after themselves.

So I went.

While I am not the appropriate target for all those things above, I have more than a healthy appreciation for live music well performed, no matter the genre. I also love a rowdy crowd, being around people who are actively doing the things they love, and most of all I appreciate things that are real. This event had all of those things as well.

For example the Philadelphian in me loves a crowd that is willing to boo. I also love a crowd that is willing to stand up and cheer for a child who needs a little help getting over cold feet. This was that sort of crowd. 

The event was also surprisingly real.

What I mean by that is the set is crawling with cameras, producers, and we were able to sit in our chairs and watch as Simon Cowell asked performers lots of follow up questions in an obvious attempt to get those amateurs to say something a television audience might find remotely interesting. We got to watch an obviously professional band do a sound check with a fantastic song, then perform a completely different sob story song once it was show time, and then answer Simon’s question as to “why did you choose to come on this show?” by saying, “Because the producers called and invited us.”

That was pretty real.

What was also real is that this show with America in the title only had one America born judge and 3 of the seven acts were from another continent…

Which in mind is how America should and could be.

That One Time I Hung Out With Tyra Banks: My Baby Hairs are On Fleek

So this one Day I get an email saying that this TV show is looking for white fathers of bi-racial daughters. The premise of the  bit is that we oafish Dads may be ill equipped to do the hair of our daughters, especially if they don’t have the same hair types as our collective selves.

That email was well directed.

I had never heard of the show and for good reason- this call was for its very first taping. What I did know was the name of the celebrity headliner, because every boy of my generation knows the name Tyra Banks.To make a long story short, you did not miss our episode. It never aired. Which makes this post exclusive footage, but that isn’t really my point. I will eventually get to some sort of point. Eventually.

So I show up, bi-racial daughter in tow, and I meet a bunch of other guys who are there to play the role of expert hair-doing dads. I am the only oaf. Normal.

Once the cameras got rolling I realized it wasn’t just Tyra but a cast of characters hosting the show including this one woman I know as Mrs. John Legend.

This is the part where I get to my point. Sure I was on a television set with celebrities and producers and such, but I was more interested in this ivy league professor, and academic rock star friend of mine who has a borderline unhealthy obsession with John Legend. The obsession is understandable as John is after all the coolest, smoothest, and arguably smartest crooner alive today, and here I am hob-nobbing with Mr. Legend’s Sports Illustrated cover gracing wife.

I told Chrissy Teigen I was good friends with someone who may be willing to pay me an unreasonable amount of money to somehow, anyhow, make her husband “available.” She admitted there were many people with the same intentions.

My wife is by far the best, I am more Doug Heffernan than Cassanova, and I am not even close to Tony Soprano, so Chrissy and I settled for texting my professor friend a picture of the two of us together.

And of course I had time to do all this because Tyra was working on my little girl’s baby hairs. Then, when it came my turn, they cut to commercial and a crew of actual stylists came in to do what they were sure I could not… make a pony tail.

Perhaps the reason why we didn’t air was my little girl’s hesitation to perform while sitting on Tyra’s lap. Too young to be star struck, she was comfortable enough talking, but Lil Bit refused to look into the camera and say “My baby hairs are on fleek.” She acted all shy and stuff.

Driving home I asked her why she wouldn’t say it. “Did you get scared?”

“No Dad”, said the seven year old, “I don’t know what fleek means. I’m not going to say a word I don’t know on TV.”

I am apparently even more deficient in teaching my children vocabulary than I am in making pony tails.