And You Think You're Crazy

And so I continue to watch this television series. I might as well call it by name as I wouldn’t be the only person presenting an opinion of it one way or another. It’s called Paranormal State. I’ve now watched nearly every episode. Most aren’t that interesting, [imho], though there are a few that are, and there are certainly people on the program one will be attracted to, others that will stir nothing, and still others that one will be annoyed by to the extreme (for me that’s the larger guy [Chad?] who seems to go well out of his way to make even the most trivial of sights and sounds the work of some evil spiritual entity).

Today’s coffee mug will be one of the two Luke Skywalker mugs my mom gave me for Christmas. The coffee inside it is hot. I don’t know if I’ll have time to drink it. I never have enough time anymore. I want to get to work and get a ton of work done but I only get a lot. Then I have to rush home, walk the dog, get in my exercise, but for those of you that have a dog and are really committed to the relationship and the animal’s psychological health, you know it’s a large time commitment (well beyond simply walking them). So I do that get home and try to get a lot more work done then cleaning then dinner then more house work then maybe more work then...man, way too much.

I want to get back into my writing. I keep saying that. So if you’re a reader you’re probably fictional. Who would want to read me saying that over and over again? I wouldn’t. I don’t. And yet I want to learn to make everything I type meaningful, worth reading, full of depth and meaning so that some day you will come here and read...and I hope that will happen well before I die because I don’t want to be like the dead artist whose painting is hanging on a cold wall of a museum. I want my words to speak to those alive while I am alive. Then I will permit them to speak for me after my parting :)

Which brings me back to this program.

I have always been incredibly interested in the concept of life after death, ghosts, and the like. I have not, however, had any experience that could be described as ghostly except one which was more likely a fluke or my cousin playing a trick on my brother and I. I’ve had the hair on my back stand on end, I’ve felt spirits and demons, but none of these are scientifically valid outside the psychology of having an experience (that aspect is always true regardless of what’s occurring outside one’s mind), and I’ve most definitely never had an experience worth season after season of a television series.

I would absolutely love to have my own program dedicated to the investigation of the weird, the occult, the paranormal. Following are the things I’d do:

1. Refrain from manipulating the viewer via editing, sound effects, music, and the like. True, on some level it’s meant to be entertainment, but there’s a line and most paranormal reality series cross it.
2. Split the program into four parts:
   • Initial Research: This is the background research into the phenomena. For example if we’re going up to Washington State to Ape Caves to look for Big Foot here’s where the research is done and presented. This includes both book learning and interviews.
   • The Scientific Study: This is the part of the episode that explores whatever it is using the scientific method. It’s not only meant to create a valid study, but also teach the audience what the fuck science is.
   • The Paranormal Study: I’m not sure of the name of this aspect but this is the point we ask people about the hair on the back of their necks and bring in the psychics. This is the only part of the program where sound effects and music can be used to bring the viewer into the experience because it’s all about the subjective.
   • Conclusions: The final five minutes of the program wraps everything up.
3. Be honest with the viewer: As far as I can tell through my research there’s a level of dishonesty with a great many of the reality ghost programs out there. Sometimes its the producers who do research up front then do things like tell the psychics before filming--granted, it’s exciting to see a psychic make hits but I think I speak for most people when I say what we really want to see is the real McCoy (plus seeing the real thing make mistakes helps us better understand what it means to have real psychic gifts, something I can speak to). At other times it can be as simple as the editing being put together in ways such that what we’re seeing isn’t what really happened, at least not in the same way or order.
4. Don’t attempt to solve the world: So many of these programs attempt to solve the world in one episode. Take for example an episode about the Jersey Devil on Paranormal State. They go out with infra red cameras, see something, and boom, it must be the first bone fide picture of the Jersey Devil! Plus 40 or so minutes of program was enough to encapsulate the entire history of the phenomena. No, I wouldn’t do that, I’d just talk about what it is, do my research, go out there, create and experiment, perform it, blah, blah, etc, conclusion. No wild and far reaching conclusions on my program, especially when there’s no bloody baseline.
5. Professionals, No Buddy-Buddy: Another thing I want is to get professionals working on the show. What I instead see on other programs is a mix of people who are just really interested in something, want to be on camera, or are close pals with the producers/writers/stars. The result of existing reality programs is at best muddled experiments, at worst gross favouritism.
6. The star stays out: One of the biggest mistakes I notice is that the lead person on the progam is involved in nearly every aspect. For example when Ryan, the star of PS, brings Chip, one of their frequent psychics, into a house he asks, “Have I told you anything about this house?” to which Chip says, “You’ve told me nothing.” But even from a psychological point of view that’s not true! Chip’s read his body language before hand and will be during the entire walk through. Likewise if Chip is a full psychic (and I do believe he has some gifts) he could be reading Ryan’s mind the entire time. Why do I care? Why should you? Because I think I can speak for most when I say we’d rather watch a psychic give a reading without being fed queues (intentional or not). On my program someone without any knowledge of the home would be with the psychic. (P.S. Later in the series Ryan often takes another psychic who goes in blind folded--kudos, it’s a step in the right direction!!!).

There are probably a few others but I’ll leave it at that. So if you’re out there, if you’re interested, if you’re a producer and want to make a program to study this kind of thing, I’m in. I’ll write, I’ll coordinate, sometime’s I’ll star in episodes. Maybe I’ll be the Rod Sterling of the program (yeah, I’d like that), but mostly I’d like to make it something new, something worth watching, something objective, something that’d make people on both sides of the debate start talking to each other instead of barking from opposite sides of the fence.

That is all for now.