If You Haven't Seen Mandy Harvey From America's Got Talent Yet Drop Everything and Watch This

I know this happened the other night, but I didn't see this video until yesterday and couldn't, not blog it, even if it's not 100% fresh.

See I had the pleasure of running  "in school suspension" again at my alma matter yesterday which meant no blogging.  

It's honestly my favorite way to make money.  About as easy as it gets. If watching the in house kids could be a full time job, it'd be perfect. I get paid to sit on a laptop all day watching youtube videos/netflix/hulu. Just gotta be kind of a strict ass hole to a couple troubled kids. So I get to be mean, watch tv and get paid. Yeah dude, sign me up. I'm always tempted to blog when I'm in there because it'd honestly be the perfect scenario to do it, but I'm kinda paranoid that the computer I borrow from the library has a key tracking technology. I can explain watching hours of Netflix and the occasional sporcle quiz all day bored in there. In fact, I think they kind of understand, but I don't need to explain DOL to them. Probably over thinking like crazy, but I'd just rather not risk it. 

Anyways, after finishing up the latest season of New Girl (again) on Hulu I was surfing Youtube looking for something to watch. That's when I looked at trending videos and saw this.  #1 trending video on all of Youtube. Figured I had some time to kill, so I checked it out. Who am I to not look at the #1 trending video in America? 

Little did I know how much this would get to me. I had to try my hardest not to cry in front of a couple punky 15 year old boys who were rude to a former teacher of mine, but spoiler alert I did not succeed. Your boy teared up.

Hard.

I'm kind of a cry guy the more that I think about it. I once made myself cry at an impromptu speech at brunch about how nice it was to get everybody together. I just wear my probably enlarged heart on my sleeve. 

So little preface before watching if you're going in blind. This contestant Mandy Harvey was a singer who tragically lost her hearing when she was a freshmen in music school because of some sort of nerve disease. Thought she'd never be able to sing again, wicked sad stuff.  But after a few years she realized she could still sing by being shoeless and feeling the vibrations in her feet.  How that's possible blows my mind. I could never guess the word people would trace on your back in like middle school (remember that game?) but this girl can follow the tempo of a song via the vibrations on the floor. Insanity.

​Just watch what happened for yourself. 

Now I don't really ever watch these reality talent shows but apparently the golden buzzer is a pretty big deal. At least 30 seconds of research tells me so. I work nights and I'm single dude, so I'm not exactly the targeted demo for shows like this. I mean was into American Idol when I was like 12, but who wasn't? I watched the first few seasons, but after I think Bo Bice is when I stopped.


Is Simon Cowell nice now or is he just actually showing his human side instead of being a mean British robot? Never seen him so compassionate before. Granted I don't watch his show. Maybe getting older has turned him into a softy? But I can't really blame him with this one. When I was watching I just thought of this girl Mandy and everything she's gone through to get to that stage. Just to think about where she was from being a singer who was lost her hearing, to a decade later be on America's Got Talent and receive that reaction from everybody. Can't even imagine how big of a moment for her that must've been. Absolutely beautiful moment. Awesome to see her dad in the background too, you could tell how important this was for them. 

Not to make this about me, but it just made me think about never giving up. This girl lost her fucking hearing as a musician and ended up here on America's Got Talent. Think about that, she's deaf and still making music. Good music at that, her voice is angelic. So I can't give up on my writing. Sometimes I get discouraged because people aren't reaching out to me about blogs like they used to. I've been getting writing block like crazy and been feeling the pressure a ton. Like what if finally a barstool guy checks out DOL and the one blog he reads is a shitty filler blog? Shit like that has been driving me loco. Sometimes I think, dude maybe you're just not good enough.  But I know deep down that's not the case, even if the writing says otherwise sometimes. I'm a funny dude with decent takes, and an encyclopedic knowledge of trivial shit. I can do this. It's my calling. Same goes for all of us. If you want something, fucking go for it. That's what Mandy Harvey did after it seemed impossible and it's inspirational as fuck. If she can be a deaf singer, then wtf is stopping all of us from going for it? Now I probably won't watch a second of this show, but I mean how can you not root for this girl to win? Congratulations, Mandy Harvey you just got the official DOL seal of approval and are my official pick to win AGT.  I'll be checking up on youtube days after airing. Best of luck to you!


P. S. 

I know Howie Mandell was probably being genuine here doing the deaf clap, but that dude just rubs me the wrong way. Kind of a hardo move by him in a way.  I picture his inturnal dialogue to be somethng like this


"Look at me doing the deaf clap, I GET it. I'm Howie Mandell and I'm 61 years old and afraid to shake people's hand."

​I just feel like Howie is the type of dude who does this just so people can be like "look at Howie Mandell deaf clapping" more so than just doing it to do it.