When you stick a song on a tape, you set it free.

'The Voice' has lots of singers who fit the 'Idol' mold of young, innocent ingenues with psycho stage moms. But it also has long-suffering adult pros, with a whiff of thirtysomething despair in their voices. That adds an edge of realness.

Most of an award-show host's job is showing up and keeping a cool head and soldiering through it, whether it's the Oscars or the Hallmark Channel's 'Hero Dog Awards.'

I was the only kid at Camp Don Bosco who would admit he was an alter boy back home, so I served two masses a day all summer. But I loved the cassock and surplice, ringing the bells, lighting the candles - it was like being a glamrock roadie for God.

One nice thing about growing up Catholic is it makes you open-minded about other people's religions, since ours is nuttier than yours.

In the old days, when a star left a still-thriving hit show, they'd celebrate by killing him or her off. But 'The Office' dispatched Michael Scott in a crueler and more final way: they made him normal. Since we're talking about Michael Scott, 'normal' might be stretching it, obviously.

'American Horror' is the debasement of the suburban family, the way a lonely kid would have imagined it in the Seventies.