You've seen him on Paranormal State making bug eyes and waving his arms around as he pretends to be a psychic medium. Now A&E, your one stop shop for racist bounty hunters and Criss Angel's greasy sex appeal, brings us Psychic Kids, a new low in television history starring Chip Coffey. Psychic Kids takes the worst element of Paranormal State, Coffey's ridiculous attempts to "help" "psychic" children by telling them spirits invade their heads and demons attack their brains, and turns it into the whole goddamn show.
Where fake psychic (redundant?) Sylvia Browne just abuses the parents of missing children, Coffey cuts out the middle man and goes after the kids themselves. But who am I to judge? What harm could possibly come from telling a child those things going bump in the night aren't just real, they're out to get you!
Enter Operation: Coffey Roast. Sure, I could have come up with a better name (and I definitely could have come up with a better logo), but I struggled with a phrase that would evoke a feeling of spoiled Coffey. Operation: Too Much Creamer? Not as punchy.
The prime ingredient for a good roast is a healthy pinch of lampooning, which will be an important part of OCR. In the weeks ahead, I'll be featuring interesting factoids about Chip Coffey on this site. First up? The question of Coffey's paranormal heritage. In his bio, he claims to be the great-grandson of famous Cherokee medicine woman and shaman Minnie Sue Morrow Foster. For someone so famous, it's curious that the only references to her that come up on Google are from Coffey's bio and from a message board for real-live Native Americans discussing how they've never heard of her. Also, "shaman" isn't a Native American term. I suppose InStyle magazine was right in describing Coffey as "a cross between John Edward and Dr. Phil." They're all giant douchebags.
Assuming Psychic Kids and Paranormal State are still on the air by this Labor Day weekend, OCR operatives will be meeting at Dragon*Con in Coffey's hometown of Atlanta, Georgia to demonstrate against Coffey's childsploitation, do some heavy drinking, and maybe play a game or two of Dungeons & Dragons. Good times.
So good, in fact, that Coffey considered the announcement of OCR to be a physical threat. Here's the email he sent me about the original OCR blog post I wrote at CHUD.com:
Yesterday, Brian Thompson posted a blog on CHUD.com with content including what certainly appears to be a personal threat against my safety that he is planning during Dragon*Con.
I have alerted the authorities regarding this threat.
-Chip Coffey-
How self-important can a fake psychic be? Why would anyone threaten physical harm against a guy when making fun of him is so much more fulfilling? For example: Is that a chin or is he trying to mate with a toad? See? So much better than physical harm.
Also, who writes to someone and refers to him in the third person? What an odd man.
Just to make things perfectly clear, Chip, no one wants to hurt you. We just want you off television so we can get back to watching racist bounty hunters. And if you really want to impress, why not take some time away from scaring the bujeezus out of little kids and appear at Dragon*Con for a public debate?
And if anyone reading this wants to become an OCR operative, write to me at brian (at) amateurscientist.org. And in the meantime, you can build up your alcohol tolerance by playing the Psychic Kids drinking game. During the show, you take a shot every time Chip Coffey makes up something horrible to tell an innocent child. Just don't blame me if you die of alcohol poisoning.
