See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Fleece Me

He’s REAL!!!! I know… he was Syfy or SighFeh or whatever the dimwitted brain dead morans (sic) at Sci Fi Channel call themselves these days.

Sigh Feh would never put on crap no sirree.

Is he that talk to the dead dude? HATE. HIM. He’s also gotten a little puffy in the past decade.

Here he is, receiving a major award ;)

Speaking of giant douches, that’s the first thing that comes to mind with Utah’s guest worker program. The sentiment sounds reasonable on the surface, but I get the sense that the goal is to have a quasi-legal workforce that can be restrained by threatening to call the federales if they get uppity…

Oh, I thought this was a book by Benedick’s lover Johnny Millll Edwards.

I thought he was dead. But I guess that wouldn’t stop him from talking or writing books or being a douche.

@libertarian tool: Heh. I’m sure he’d find some way to talk to us.

Oh, wait. Dead is dead.

@al2o3cr: HUZZAH!

Anyone ever been to see one of these people live in action? Hello? Anyone? I went once when my mother, who was still actively grieving the first of her sisters who died, heard about an englishwoman who was an aural psychic on the Bill Boggs show. Next time we’re all together I’ll do my imitation of the psychic, which is pretty funny, but for now try to imagine Hyacinth Bucket being jostled by a crowd of extremely chatty invisible helpers all with an urgent need to communicate something to tonight’s audience. She’d be addressing us when one of the invisible host would get particularly insistent, causing her to turn to one side and say in an undertone, “I know, love, I know.” Then she’d turn front and say, “Is there anyone here with an R? Missing an R?” So one of the audience would raise her hand and say “I knew a Michael.” To which she’d reply “Could be a Michael.” And so on. It was as interesting to watch her lead the conversation as it was infuriating to see the hope, misguided in my view but whatever, of so many clearly bereaved people being exploited. It went that way for an hour and a half, with my mother always hopeful some sign was forthcoming that her dead sister was present. That didn’t happen. But, right before the end of the performance, the medium stopped the malarkey, looked straight at the audience and said, “He’s sorry, darling (She’s English, remember). He didn’t get home. And he wants you to know he’s all right.” or something. Whereupon a young woman rose, sobbing, and the psychic treated her with extreme gentleness as she described, without any apparent coaching, the accident that caused her husband’s death.

All I can say is if she was a plant (and I bring this up because I realize that there are those among us with very little in the way of human feeling and who will use any opportunity to mock a man who never said he was perfect, who made mistakes, true, but who tried to make them right. Or at least to get away with them. I have made mistakes in my time. But the restraining order will be lifted any day now and I will be able to travel freely in Sth Carolina once more), if she was a plant it was very convincing. We all went out into Minetta Lane quite shaken looking for cocktails. It could almost make you hope for an afterlife.

@Benedick AEA, AFTRA, SAG, DG.: Yes. Long story. Gotta schlep to the laundramat – will tell you about it later, if you’re interested.

Very Superstitious — supposedly written about a family friend. Another long story.

@Benedick AEA, AFTRA, SAG, DG.:

That is the idea after all. She wouldn’t be a very good plant if she wasn’t convincing. Not all actors can get a paying gig on Broadway.

@Benedick AEA, AFTRA, SAG, DG.: You had me at “Hyacinth Bucket.”

@Benedick AEA, AFTRA, SAG, DG.: Why in God’s name would you want to go to South Carolina? I don’t even think he’s there anymore.

It is deeply wrong to try and communicate with the dead, more so to pretend to do so for profit.

@libertarian tool: It was because she wasn’t like an actor that one got that thrill of dread. She wasn’t playing the emotion, as we say. I suppose it’s possible that the medium got info about why she was there without the woman knowing but I was convinced she wasn’t acting. Almost all actors will approach a situation in a way that’s current, using a point of view that’s so clichéed we don’t even see the cliché. For example, watch the next time you see an actor ‘remember’ on TV. Almost invariably they will fix their gaze on the middle distance and go into a trance. I don’t remember any of that going on. But of course, I could have completely revised the reality over the years. The Great Randi did a lot to debunk this kind of thing as did Houdini.

I saw this person’s show a couple of times and he’s strictly snake oil.

@Tommmcatt is with Karin Marie on This One: Not that I have much experience with death but when I was close to it I was surprised to find it nothing like what I’d imagined and somehow much less dramatic.

South Carolina without Johnny would be like Berlin without bratwurst.

Attention JamieSommers:

The History of the Universe as Told by Wonder Woman

@Benedick AEA, AFTRA, SAG, DG.: Johnny is in North Carolina.

@Benedick AEA, AFTRA, SAG, DG.:

“He’s sorry, darling. He didn’t get home. And he wants you to know he’s all right.”

I’m going to guess that the audience for a psychic will include at least one person who fits that description.

Re: John Edward: as I have said again and again – give me 10 minutes alone in a room with any one of these Tony Robbins/Andrew Weil/Deepak Chopra sort of douchebags, and I will have them on the ledge ready to jump. I’m that good.

@Benedick AEA, AFTRA, SAG, DG.:
You were there, and I will certainly defer to your experience with all things stagecraft. But just from your description, it sure sounds like “He’s sorry darling” was a cue. And I find it suspicious that it did happen at the end of the “show” which I would think demands some kind of denouement to satisfy the audience. [Insert some stage/playwright homily or aphorism which you would know and I don’t that is saying something about needing a big finish at the end of the 3rd act]. Again, from your description, this was the only unambiguous unexplainable “contact” for the entire show that shook your skepticism. And it happened at the end of the show. On cue. If a con-man is good, you are not going to see the con. Even if you are looking for it.

All that said – my mother, like yours, took comfort throughout her life from a belief in spiritual things and a local community of believers like herself, but in a more Presbyterian sort of way. I was grateful that she was able to draw support and comfort from those beliefs, particularly at the end. It fills a need for a lot of people. I tried not to burden her with my skepticism.

@blogenfreude: A friend once worked for Mr. Robbins. Happily, that’s as close as I’ve come.

@libertarian tool: I thought exactly the same thing. It provided an 11 o’clock number and sent us all home shaken. Very much a dramatic structuring. As far as the psychic herself went, she had a very ordinary woman-in-the-street quality, if you live in Huddersfield, that was immediately disarming. She was like the kind of woman who used to run digs for theatricals when I was in rep. My mother was very self-dramatizing so she really enjoyed the ‘unexplainable’ aspect.

@nojo: That too. Hadn’t thought of that. But then, I’m not as heartless as some.

@SanFranLefty: Johnny is in North Carolina. This would explain why it’s been so hard to track him down. And a few other things.

@Benedick AEA, AFTRA, SAG, DG.: How is the musical coming? When you sat down with a blank piece of paper on Day 1, how did you know where to start?

AT&T buys T-Mobile: There go the bad iPhone knockoff commercials.

@Dodgerblue: I started with my original idea which is both simple and far-ranging. You don’t get many of them in a lifetime. Then I read many boring books. It’s a period piece. Then I started to make notes to develop a structure for the plot. Not to be confused with the story which is about the impossibility of second chances. Musicals are all about structure. Now I am working in pencil on index cards to flesh out scenes and acts and characters and incidents and ideas for songs – and how to make the motherfuckers dance – ideas for how to put it all on a stage, what the set might be, etc, all of which will lead, in about 6 weeks, to a full treatment of the as yet untitled piece. I will then talk to Vienna to see what’s next. If all goes well it will be a script with complete score. Thanks for asking.

Speaking for myself the single most important thing not to do when starting on a new piece is sit down with a blank piece of paper.

In happier news, the crocuses are up and snowdrops are showing. And last night, after one warm day, somebody brought ticks in to bed. I hope not from the dead raccoon outside the kitchen door.

@Benedick AEA, AFTRA, SAG, DG.:

Johnny is in North Carolina. This would explain why it’s been so hard to track him down. And a few other things.

Oh! You’re respecting the Order of Protection? Or you don’t want to get Space Alien on you?

@nojo: HA!

@Benedick AEA, AFTRA, SAG, DG.: Our crocus(es)/(i)/(whateverthefuck) are up. Lovely. No daffodils yet, but I don’t like them anyway.

Time to break out the meditation CDs. See y’az!

@JNOV:Horrible that you’re being persecuted by way of Google. I wish I were clever enough to suggest some stratagem that would baffle your persecutors while enabling those of us who love you to divine that your new user name and avatar are you. Your fertile brain will probably come up with something. Hugs and kisses to you and yours.

@Benedick AEA, AFTRA, SAG, DG.: Dear darling Benedick etc., etc.: Your tour de force in the second paragraph (the one beginning “and I bring this up because I realize that there are those among us with very little in the way of human feeling . . . ” going on to the heights of “Or at least to get away with them.”) is splendid.

My mother told about being taken when she was small to a seance. When ghostly trumpets floated around the room up near the ceiling, she scissored her legs back and forth hoping to trip whoever was carrying them but no luck. Much later, when my grandmother was in her seventies, maybe eighties, Mom took her, at Grandmother’s request, to another medium, I’m not sure why, except that G wanted to go. I have never known what to make of all this: my mother’s mother was a reader and a thinker, my mother a thinker all right but not a reader and definitely a skeptic, hardheaded, nobody’s fool. I guess what I make of it is that my mother loved my grandmother in a surprisingly unconditional way, “my mudder.” You humor people you love, is that the way? Yes, and try to fathom what they’re doing but if you can’t and whatever it is seems harmless, go along with it? Well, anyway, that was the behavior modeled for me, and I’m stuck with it. I’m lucky, too, I think?

Do Dead People Watch You Shower?

well duh
if you were dead wouldnt you watch people shower?

@Capt Howdy: Only if I were a succubus.