Ok, you guys are dead to me.
May 4, 2010 3:05 AM   Subscribe

Life imitates art.
posted by Christ, what an asshole (26 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Holy crap, even if those guesses had been accurate in some way...that man is ANNOYING. gaaaaaaaah
posted by Stunt at 3:19 AM on May 4, 2010


Best moment comes at 3:50.

"Was there a divorce with you? You never married? I'm not surprised. *snorts* I'm not surprised, because I want you to love yourself more, and you don't..."
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:25 AM on May 4, 2010


Eponysterical.

sorry, had to be done
posted by revmitcz at 3:31 AM on May 4, 2010


This guy formerly must have been an auctioneer.
posted by bwg at 3:52 AM on May 4, 2010


What a phony swine.
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 3:59 AM on May 4, 2010


Is the moustache supposed to be some sort of antenna?
posted by longsleeves at 4:10 AM on May 4, 2010


I seem to remember a decent explanation of the cold reading process in this episode of southpark.
posted by piratebowling at 4:54 AM on May 4, 2010


"I'm getting strong feelings of a trickster. A scam artist. A charlatan. A fraud. Was that your father? No? Someone your father was involved with, then? No? Your mother? No? Someone in your family? No? Your neighbour? No? Your dog? You don't have a dog? Your cat? No cat? Goldfish? No? OK, then, it must be me."
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 4:54 AM on May 4, 2010 [6 favorites]


"Are you married? Never been married. Ok, I'm not surprised. I want you to love yourself more, OK?"

Wow.
posted by Houstonian at 5:16 AM on May 4, 2010


Freak imitates art.
posted by gman at 5:27 AM on May 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


It kills me that these phonies can make a living doing this. I hope there's a very special corner of hell for their sort.
posted by Daddy-O at 5:39 AM on May 4, 2010


What I'm getting here is...I sense...I sense the colour blue. Does the colour blue have any significance? I see. Well, that's definitely what I'm getting. Numbers. A number. A single number. In the sort of low...five? Bucks? Right, yeah, five bucks and the colour blue are very closely connected. I'm detecting a sort of tired anger...tempered with disgust? Like lazy, simple anger on a big blue pond. Are you, or has anyone you ever knew, been pissed off with TV psychics?
posted by turgid dahlia at 5:49 AM on May 4, 2010




I surprised myself by feeling some twinges of sympathy for the little shit!

(Then I watched the wonderful Geller/Randi/Carson clip from Optamystic - what a hoot.)
posted by Jody Tresidder at 5:58 AM on May 4, 2010


For the host's sake, I hope he used his deodorant that morning.
posted by digsrus at 6:21 AM on May 4, 2010


I'm sure I've said it before, but I wish the dead could speak to the living. So they could turn around and sue all these assholes who claim to speak for them.
posted by lucidium at 6:34 AM on May 4, 2010


Also related: LEAP OF FAITH - Steve Martin as cold-reading tent-revival religious huckster.
posted by kcds at 7:33 AM on May 4, 2010


The pros like Edwards always edit out the deadends to make it look better, this time they made it to Youtube.
posted by Evilspork at 7:44 AM on May 4, 2010


God, what an asshole.
posted by heyho at 7:51 AM on May 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


James Randi's fiery takedown of psychic fraud
posted by rebent at 8:30 AM on May 4, 2010


For the host's sake, I hope he used his deodorant that morning.

A satirical takeoff on this video would actually make a pretty good deodorant commercial, especially if this ends up going viral.
posted by Atom Eyes at 8:35 AM on May 4, 2010


Oh my gosh. I can't watch this. I can watch most things, but I haven't felt this squirmy in a long time. Thanks to the Amazing Randi, Penn & Teller, and to a lesser extent Derren Brown, for spreading the word about this crap. These hucksters will eventually be their own downfall (as this video seems like it will demonstrate) but I'm grateful for the skeptics trying to speed that up. Okay, going back now to try to finish it. But I don't know if I can.
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 8:36 AM on May 4, 2010


gman: "Frank imitates art. "

Fixed that for you
posted by rebent at 9:07 AM on May 4, 2010


I find when I'm trying to make it through one of these so-awkward-it's-painful-to-watch videos, it's easier if I imagine it's really just actors in a comedy sketch, instead of actual people in a real life situation.

So, instead of cringing at the antics of a hapless, hopeless shlub embarrassing himself on national TV, you can laugh along as Dom Deluise or James Coco portrays a hapless, hopeless shlub embarrassing himself on national TV.
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:23 AM on May 4, 2010




The most interesting part of this to me is that a failure at cold reading is indistinguishable from a success.

How the fuck do people fall for this? Actually, I also liked that the oldest lady in the front row kept looking around like, "what the fuck is this supposed to be?"
posted by cmoj at 11:27 AM on May 4, 2010


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