Dave found an authentic psychic, and asked her to tell, by divine intuition, what kind of sandwich was under wraps.
She couldn't do it.
In fact, Dave was more of a "psychic" in figuring out what flavor of pie his mother had baked the night before.
In his typical wiseguy way, Letterman was telling the world that PSYCHICS are fakes.
Most of the world is not listening. Then again, most of the world never watched "Late Night" or "Late Show."
So, PSYCHICS continue to scam and cheat people.
The gypsy "Bajour," the palm-reading scam and the rest of it, was once the subject of a comic, short-lived Broadway musical. The con games live on. There's no Reed Hadley to warn that more money is lost via confidence games, than to all the thugs and hoods with their violence.
Why is it we have government agencies to protect the public from scams, and the FDA making sure peanut butter isn't loaded with roach legs, and consumer affairs groups blowing the whistle on fake doctors and shoddy contractors...but PSYCHICS aren't against the law?
There's no such thing as a "psychic." As David Letterman's "psychic sandwich" routine proved, NOBODY is psychic. As common sense tells you, why in the world would somebody who pretends to be a mind-reader, or a sayer of sooth, or an astrologer, or a PSYCHIC, be a grubbily dressed peasant working out of a cheap storefront in a crap neighborhood?
"Oh," safety the soothing soother, "I can't pick a winner in a horse race, but I can change your luck if you just give me all your tainted money."
And old people, and lonely people, and immigrants do just that. Even people who "know better" have been taken by these con artists. That the city doesn't shut these people down, as they do with bookies or whores, is reprehensible. The gypsies are often not content with laying in wait in their grubby grottos, like spiders with a web. They defy the police by leafletting, and defy Sanitation by chaining up signs to lamp posts. They count on apathetic councilmen to say, "It's hard to pass a law saying that a sign can be confiscated, or that repeat offenses require double and triple the fine."
And a local freebie newspaper, METRO, will tell you they need PSYCHICS to help keep them in business.
Yes, TWO SOLID PAGES of mostly adds from so-called PSYCHICS.
Not one of them could name the contents of a wrapped sandwich.
THEY are full of baloney, more than the sandwich might be.
Freebie newspapers used to be loaded with "masseuse" ads. Somehow, this stopped. But getting fucked by a phony Psychic is ok.
This includes illiterate ones.
"I NEVER LOOSE" says one.
Another ad seems to suggest that while most Psychics are fakers, ONE is guaranteed to satisfy:
"YOUR ARE DISAPPOINT WITH ANY ASTROLOGER MEET HIM ONCE SEE THE DIFFERENCES."
While most any neighborhood will have a crappy walk-up building with a roach-like greasy-faced psychic-bitch lurking in the basement, one too ugly to get paid for sex, it seems the majority of psych newspaper ads resolve to BLACK neighborhoods in Harlem and in Brooklyn.
Perhaps a reason politicians don't want to do anything about psychics is that superstition is very common among minorities, and it would be "racism" to ban the con artists. Whether black, Puerto Rican, Haitian or Muslim, there are people who swear by lighted candles, incantations, goat killings, palm readings, and simply obliterating people with bombs because instead of praying to an invisible friend, they are attending a marathon in Boston, a nightclub in Florida or a rock show in England or France.
There was a short story, popular before illiteracy won the day, called "The Emperor's New Clothes." The lesson was to tell the truth and prove fact over bullshit.
But the 21st Century is now more like the 14th Century.
As late as the 1940's, "seances" were de-bunked. The methods used by the con artists were revealed in books and movies. The "seance" con is no more.
But the psychic con, the mind-reader con, the astrology con lives on. So does the promise of religious fanatics that joining their cult will be the best thing that could ever happen to you.
And so the emperor can claim to have special powers and special clothes, the same way the leader of the Mormons claimed to have magic underwear.
We are not allowed to tell the truth, nor prove the truth. We can't say, "Psychics are fake" or "Lighting a candle or putting a needle into a doll is NOT going to affect your enemy." The reply is "Don't tell me anything. I choose to BELIEVE."
BELIEF is to be respected over REALITY and FACT and COMMON SENSE. Even to the point of stealing money from people and taking their lives in the name of a crackpot religion that involves someone you can't draw a picture of, or a guy like L. Ron Hubbard whose froggy face is well known thanks to brainwashed hucksters pushing copies of "Diabetics."
When will we stop allowing religious fanatics to rule our lives?
When will we allow cults to be tax-free havens for evil?
When will we padlock the stinkholes inhabited by palm readers and astrologists?
Should I consult a psychic to find out?
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