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(S04E08) "They will let anybody on this show. Why?" - Nick after seeing a bad act

Haven't you watched the show before, Nick? Didn't your agent tell you what the series was all about before you signed on the dotted line? America's Got Talent is all about everyday people showcasing their talents. And, as it is the case for American Idol, anyone and everyone can audition, meaning that the audition episodes will be filled with bad acts performed by people who should have stayed home.

Tonight's installment featured an excerpt of Mariah Carey's new music video for the song "Obsessed." The song is not too bad, but I miss "Vision of Love" Mariah with the bigger vocals and usage of her full and impressive voice range. The clip, even if we didn't see it in its entirety (it may have aired fully in your area), seemed to be entertaining enough to air a million times on MTV in the next month. In case you missed the announcement, Mariah, aka AGT's host Nick Cannon's wife, will perform live on the show during the August 5 result episode.

Now onto comments about tonight's acts, including links to see more from some of the performers!

(S04E07) "You didn't even give me a chance!" - Contestant David Glass after being Xed three times and booed by the crowd

The judges may not have given David Glass a chance -- they were right not to do so -- but they did give a free pass to another contestant who didn't have the goods to go on to Las Vegas. Even if the producers will never admit to it, you must agree that it looks like producers have the judges vote through a certain number of bad and wacky acts so that viewers tune in for Vegas Week to see if the judges will be crazy enough to vote those to the Top 20.

Tonight's episode gave us another reason why America's Got Talent should not let individual singers audition since a lot go move on to the later rounds, making it look like another version of American Idol. This week, they not only let through a few singers, they also let through Idol's season one contestant Kelli Glover.

(S04E05) "It looks like hunks in trunks will be dunking in Las Vegas!" - Hoff

After a funny entrance by "The Hoff Rider," wearing a black leather duster and cowboy hat, the show got started in Houston, Texas.

I sort of slugged my way through the first part of it, but wow, the ending was totally worth all the crummy acts. Barbara Padilla looks like any other stay-at-home mom, but out of her mouth came this awesome operatic voice. Not only that, she's a cancer survivor. I'm such a sucker for these heartfelt, hopeful stories. She's no newbie, though. Barbara actually has a nice Web site highlighting her talent.

Also not a newbie is Grandma Lee (pictured), who's done some stand-up comedy before coming on America's Got Talent. Pretty darn funny, though.

After the jump, check out my thoughts on tonight's auditions.

(S04E05) "Even The Hoff couldn't rescue us today." - Piers, about how bad the auditions had been that day in L.A.

Are we there yet? I enjoy watching America's Got Talent and all the various acts, but the audition process is once again this year torturing me. There are way too many audition episodes. Can't they cut down on the number of audition episodes and put some on the Internet as extra content? They could tease us with a quick montage and say that to see more of these acts we just have to go online. Are you with me on this?

Luckily, auditions installments are soon over and episodes will focus on better acts than the toe dancer or the 7th cousin to Celine Dion who thinks she got the Dion singing gene!

(S04E01) "This place is absolutely barkin' mad." - Sharon about Seattle

This year's season premiere of America's Got Talent was about the same as last year's and the previous one: same montage of bad and good acts, instant reactions from the host backstage, the same type of comments from Piers, Sharon and the Hoff, and the last act being one where the contestants have a touching story and are great performers.

The main difference was the change in host -- Nick Cannon took over for Jerry Springer -- and the fact that a contestant, whose act was singing and playing guitar, decided to profess his love to The Hoff! That was probably the highlight of the entire two-hour premiere.

In her Oscar-winning movie Funny Girl, Barbra Streisand as Fanny Brice described herself as "a bagel on a plateful of onion rolls." Last night, CBS served up the Barbra bagel in the one-hour TV special Streisand Live 2006. As music specials go it was a delicious serving of all-time great hits like "Somewhere," "Evergreen," "The Way We Were" and "Don't Rain on My Parade." But at just an hour -- probably 48 minutes considering the commercials -- the show just wasn't enough. It was a smidge of Streisand. I wanted the whole thing.

From a marketing point of view, this was probably just what the Streisand camp wanted. On Tuesday, April 28, Sony is releasing a 3-DVD set of Barbra TV concerts, including the full, two-hour-plus version of Streisand Live 2006. So in many ways, the CBS special was an extended preview, an infomercial, a nibble that would make you want to buy the DVD.

Well-read indie rockers the Decemberists, whose guitarist, Chris Funk, faced off against Stephen Colbert in an epic guitar battle that made that whole "Devil Went Down to Georgia" confrontation look like two little girls fighting over the last candy bar, are getting a bit of exposure again on Comedy Central.

This time, it's lead singer Colin Meloy, who will appear on an episode of L'il Bush voicing an "un-dumbed" Jeb Bush. I've placed a clip from the episode below.

Korean pop star Rain, the bane of Stephen Colbert's existence (see video below) is in negotiations to appear in the upcoming Speed Racer film from the Wachowski brothers, the duo behind the Matrix trilogy. Rain will join already-cast Matthew Fox (Lost), Christina Ricci, Emile Hirsch, John Goodman and Susan Sarandon.

Rain, whose real name is Jung Ji-hoon, appeared in the 2006 Korean film I'm a Cyborg, but that's OK (doesn't that sound like a Monty Python song)? He is not officially part of Speed Racer just yet. What's also not clear is how big his role will be.

The movie begins shooting this summer and is slated for release sometime next May.

It's clear the music in television commercials is no longer limited to mainstream music. In fact, more and more advertisers are using "alternative" and "underground" (or whatever you want to call it) music in their ads. In fact, it's a great way to get your music heard if you're a struggling new band, says Cyndi Lauper.

This helps to explain why Lauper signed on as a creative consultant for Alka Seltzer's Battle of the Bands contest. The contest is seeking bands to write their own version of the popular "Plop Plop Fizz Fizz" jingle. I don't know if reworking that particular jingle will launch any band to superstardom, but I think Lauper has a point about how commercials can help a band get exposure that's harder to come by these days with more and more clubs and smaller venues closing down for good.

Rock star Dave Matthews has signed on to a guest starring role on an upcoming episode of House. Matthews will play a man who is a brilliant pianist-- a talent he acquired after getting hit by a bus at the age of ten. Dr. House is brought into the mix when Matthews begins having seizures and his father must decide whether to cure his impairment, which means losing his musical talent.

Dave Matthews is building up quite the acting resume. He appeared in the movie, Because of Winn-Dixie, and has a role alongside Sissy Spacek and Troy Garity in the upcoming movie, Lake City.

The episode airs in March.

When I first typed that headline I accidentally typed "Everybody HITS Chris." Then I couldn't help but imagine a sitcom where every episode revolved around the main character being slapped around by everyone else. Sorry, I'm just really amused by my mistakes.

So anyway, Vincent Martella, who plays Chris' best friend Greg on the series, is also a musician. You can listen to one of his original songs on his MySpace page. The song, "Closest Thing to Heaven," probably won't blow the lid off popular music as we know it, but I sure as hell wasn't writing songs like that when I was his age, and the fact that he's performing his own music and not just singing some other person's songs is pretty cool. If you want to hear more of Vin Man's singing, click here for his rendition of some popular tunes. If his music doesn't quite do it for you, step outside, find the nearest junior high girl, and have her listen to it, because this music is really for them and not for you.

The album is available on iTunes.

Toby Keith, country star and supporter of the rectally-inserted footwear approach to terrorism, recently starred in the movie Broken Bridges, about a country star who returns home to his high school sweetheart and a sixteen year old daughter he's never met. The movie also stars Willie Nelson, Kelly Preston, Tess Harper and Burt Reynolds. CMT Films produced the movie along with Paramount, so if you missed it in the theaters you can catch it on CMT Friday December 15 at 8 pm before the DVD comes out on January 9. CMT will also be airing several specials centered around Toby Keith, just in case you have a deficiency in your Toby system and need to get re-energized. Remember, the surgeon general recommends four servings of Toby a day. At least that guy at the bus stop claimed he was the surgeon general. I was somewhat suspicious since he was telling this to a half-eaten can of peas with his pants around his ankles. Still, one must respect his elders.

Bennett? I think I broke it!

Sorry, punchline to an old joke, couldn't help myself. Anyway, Tony Bennett, whose albums have made the charts in every decade since the 1950s, will sing a series of duets this evening with the likes of Barbara Streisand, Elton John, Christina Aguilera, John Legend, Diana Krall, k.d. lang and Michael Buble. Tony Bennett: An American Classic, which celebrates Bennett's 80th birthday, airs tonight at 8:00 on NBC and is directed by Rob Marshall, who also directed Chicago and Memoirs of Geisha. The tribute will include big production numbers and stories about Bennett from folks such as Billy Crystal and John Travolta.

Call me old fashioned, but I'd rather just see Tony on stage by himself singing his hits and a few standards without all the extravagance and folderol, but what the heck, it's good to acknowledge that he's still influencing artists from different generations.

Despite so-called rumors, singer Diana Ross will not be doing a cameo role on ABC's Desperate Housewives, nor was she ever approached by anyone involved with the show about doing such a cameo. I've done some exhaustive research to find out just why the creators of Desperate Housewives never approached Ross about appearing on the series, and after speaking with experts, going over large amounts of data, and meditating naked inside a cave, I came to the conclusion that no one cares about Diana Ross anymore. Although, if she wanted to keep at least one toe in the spotlight she should just make up rumors about being on other shows, too. Next she could try denying she was ever asked to appear on Meet the Press to discuss exit strategies in Iraq. If she were on Meet the Press I'm sure advice to president Bush would be to stop the conflict (in the name of love). Lame joke, I know, but it's not like I had much to work with.

Elvis Presley made three appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show in the late 1950s. It was on his third and last appearance that he was filmed only from the waist up to obscure his gyrating dance moves, gyrations that no doubt would have hypnotized every teenage girl in America and turned them all into mindless slut zombies willing to do Elvis' bidding whenever he so desired. Thankfully, CBS stopped that particular catastrophe from ever happening. The complete episodes featuring Elvis and containing the original commercial breaks will be included in a new DVD box set titled, Elvis Presley: The Sullivan Shows. The set will be released on November 21.