TVSquad

During my senior year of college, my friend Ken, suffering through a tough job market right after he graduated, worked as a cook in the fraternity house in which he (and I) lived his college years. As he was preparing our lunches and dinners, he'd walk into the living room, see us slumped in front of whatever crap was on daytime TV at the time, and say, "Isn't Montel on or something?"

It became a bit of an inside joke that year. But even fifteen years ago, it seemed that Montel Williams' talk show was always on. But as of the end of this season, Montel is departing the syndicated airwaves, after 17 years.

I only watch Montel when psychic Sylvia Browne is on, because I like to study her and hopefully improve my own psychic abilities. So far I can bend spoons with my mind and talk to animals, though bending the spoon with my mind means I just press a spoon against my forehead until it bends, and while I can speak to animals, I can't actually understand what the animals themselves are saying. I've been trying to combine both of my psychic abilities into one by headbutting a cocker spaniel across the room, but so far no one is that impressed.

I haven't caught ol' Sylvia in awhile, but I did find a couple clips on YouTube that help to prove one very important rule for psychics: never, under any circumstances, admit you're wrong. In the first clip, which I placed after the jump, Sylvia tries to convince a grieving couple that their deceased daughter, who passed away five years ago at the age of seventeen, was shot in the chest. Actually, the girl just collapsed in her room and the autopsy revealed nothing. Undeterred, Sylvia changes "shot in the chest" to "something hit her in the chest," which, when you think about it, is really the same thing. Just the other day somebody punched me in the chest and then later somebody shot me at pointblank range with a .44 and I couldn't tell the difference at all.

Yesterday was Wednesday, and that can only mean one thing: Psychic Sylvia Browne was on Montel once again. Montel started the show as usual, giving a plug to Sylvia's book, If You Could See What I See. I've actually considered writing a book as a response to her book titled I Can See What You See Because You Don't Actually See Anything, but I can't seem to find a publisher for it because the title is also the complete text of the book. So it's really less of a "book" and more of a "sheet of paper with a sentence written on it," but whatever.

Sylvia begins the show by saying that through her work as a person who makes stuff up off the top of her head that she's come to realize that people are very "off kilter" these days, worried about the economy and their personal relationships. I actually found that  statement to be quite profound. She's absolutely right, this specific moment in human existence is nothing at all like before when everyone in the world was perfectly happy, financially secure, and had found the love of their lives. And who could forget all the dancing and singing? And the joy? And those little mushroom houses? Wait, I'm thinking of an episode of The Smurfs.

Sometimes I think to myself there must be more to this world than what my eyes see, a spirit world which mingles clandestinely with us lowly terrestrial beings. But how do we get in contact with the "other side," and more importantly, how can we use this knowledge to instill absolute terror in young children? This is why I watch psychic Sylvia Browne on Montel every Wednesday. If you missed yesterday's show, here's some highlights:

The first guests were a mother and a daughter who was probably in her late twenties. The daughter's sister, who was her twin, had passed away at a party without explanation. Using her conduit to the spirit world, Sylvia asked about a set of earrings. Yes, the mother said, she did sometimes buy things in sets of two for the girls, and sometimes she bought earrings. As much as I wish I had the kind of grip on the spirit world Sylvia has, I could only come to the same conclusion by noticing that the daughter was wearing gigantic earrings, that twins always receive gifts, usually similar, because they share the same birthday, and that every mother in the history of mankind has at one time or another bought earrings for her daughter(s).