Rumpology is the idea that one can tell a lot about you by reading your rump. “Just as a print of your fingerprints, palms, soles, and ears tell a story, so does your rump,” says Jackie Stallone, astrologist and mother of Rambo. “So they thought in ancient India and Babylon and so today. The Greeks used palm and behind prints to determine health and fidelity. The Romans used the prints to identify potential future success. The prints reveal your whole being,” which is not exactly evidence for the efficacy of the method.
According to Stallone’s website, if you send her a photo of your bottom she will use her psychic abilities to tell you about your past, your future and your “natural personality characteristics” (no idea) for the very reasonable price of $125 (which includes a glossy color print of your butt suitable for framing).
As for her astrology skills, Stallone claims to be “the only astrologer to forecast Bush-Jr’s victory during the presidential election” in 2000, which, if correct, would tell you quite a bit about other astrologists but nothing about Stallone’s abilities. Her son, Rambo, says that his mother’s greatest talent is her ability to see the future. She probably has an accuracy of about 75% due to the Barnum and Forer effects alone. Rambo’s assessment is, in short, not particularly flattering.
She even teaches her skills to others. José Miranda, of Little Havana, Miami, an apparently popular idiot on the late-night talk show “La Cosa Nostra” on Spanish-language WJAN-TV Channel 41, learned his skills at Stallone’s … feet. Miranda claims that rump reading is “no different than reading a palm or someone’s eyes,” which is probably right. He seems to specialize in live readings of scantily clad models on TV.
Diagnosis: What do you do when your family members become celebrities, yet you yourself lack any skill, intelligence, aptitude or sanity? Well, there are plenty of options, and Stallone has followed a well-paved path to imagined respectability. Her threat to civilization is probably pretty marginal, however.