Psychic Blues

by Mark Edward

  “Maybe that was what I was seeing, I don’t know.”

  Sean was impressed. Improvisation and pre-show work had made this interlude a believable bit of psychic storytelling. Of course I once again danced around the information I had overheard and made sure it was only bits and pieces that I had eavesdropped on from far across the room.

  Surprised sitters will sometimes stop a reading after hearing something accurate and ask me how I can possibly know all these things. I answer honestly by stating simply, “I read a lot.”

  This is a true statement. I read magic books, almanacs, demographic tables, psychic biographies, mentalist publications—anything that might allow me to dip into what many would consider meaningless trivia and store it in my head until the moment I can make use of it. I don’t always get a dead-on hit, but this time silver blue was close enough to blue and it worked. If all of my comments don’t make complete sense, at least I sound like I know what I’m talking about. And chances are, the sitter will do everything they can to make a good connection for me, no matter how obscure the information may be.

  Since Sean was auditioning me, I hadn’t expected him to help out too much, but taking a few measured leaps had left him suitably primed. I had traveled to Morro Bay many times and knew what that big rock looked like: a big stone meatball. You can’t miss this towering rock, if you live within ten miles of the bay. It’s probably over seven hundred feet tall.

  I have stated far more bizarre things and had sitters make far more radical connections for me. I knew the cat was in the bag.

  My audition suddenly over, I got up to leave. Sean offered his hand. “Thanks, Mark. You know, it’s interesting what you said. My wife has been telling me to watch it on the road too. We are probably going to have to move down here at some point and we would be driving south, like you said, if this radio deal goes.”

  “It will,” I said with conviction. I knew that the Friends wouldn’t have gone this far without following through with a master plan, no matter what. “I see you living within ten miles of this building within a month, or at least staying there for a good part of the week.”

  I said good-bye to Sean, made my way through the legions of seers, and began the waiting game. I busied myself with applying to other local radio stations, but two days later I got a call from Valerie.

  “Mark, I have good news for you! The radio people have chosen you out of sixteen hundred applicants to be one of the four people on the radio deal. Congratulations!”

  The plan was to have two main psychics, a man and a woman, along with two backups. I was going to be one of the backups.

  “Does that mean I’ll be on a retainer, to keep me happy when I’m not filling in?”

  “I don’t think so. You will be totally on call and paid by the shift.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. Working on commission or signing any contracts for on-call work is like being a chauffeur. Any life you may have thought you had becomes nonexistent when you are on call.

  “Well, if that’s the deal, then I guess I won’t look forward to any exclusive binding contract.”

  “That’s up to Michael later on, if he wants it.”

  The archangel Michael again.

  I wasn’t looking forward to playing the Psychic Friends shell game with any money due me this time around, so I was happy to be a lowly backup. I could keep my other jobs rolling along and wouldn’t be working my ass off, like I knew this month’s other two darlings of the World’s Greatest category would. I thanked my lucky stars and looked forward to meeting my competition.

  Within a week I was sitting across the studio console from Sean and the other three inductees ready to christen the Psychic Friends Radio Network. First and foremost was Master Clairvoyant Nick Newton. Nick looked like he came less from the local spiritual ashram and more from the Actors Studio. He was soap-opera handsome, suave, and wore all black with oversized, very dark, Fellini-style sunglasses. A Frankie Avalon without the tan.

  His partner was the glamorous Caprice, a bleached blonde who could talk the birds out of the trees. She had a bubbly personality that I immediately admired. We always had fun when we worked together.

  The other backup psychic was Melanie, a jolly, overweight Goth gal with a positive, winning energy impossible to ignore. She was nobody’s fool and as crafty as a fox.

  To say this entire crew had been around the block more than a few times would be an understatement. There was zero spirituality going on here. We all knew what we were about, and although it was never mentioned openly, we all knew we were no more psychically gifted than any other performer willing to play the role. We were four experienced con artists, and that was all that counted.

  Don’t bullshit a bullshitter—never was that old adage truer than it was for us. Small talk was eliminated. Nobody needed to try to one-up each other or play head trips. We were at the top of an odious heap—the best America could offer the airwaves at that point in time.

  There was a mild competitiveness between Nick and me, which was evident from the moment we met. The only words he aimed in my direction were a coldly offered, “So, you’re the guy who’ll be filling in for me when I’m off, huh?” Nick had a Mafioso aura going for him, and I kept my distance from his slick, super-psychic demeanor. He seemed a little dangerous, and I didn’t want to get on his bad side.

  How did this whole master media plan pan out? In a word: terribly. The Friends’ promises of nationwide exposure turned out to be a very slow and eventually aborted crawl across the worst of idiot America. The Friends had a hard time getting hooked up in major cities like Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle so began instead with stations in North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama. We took free calls from some of the most miserable characters I had ever had the misfortune to talk to. It should have been called the Hee Haw Psychic Network. Hours and hours of dismal calls about love, money, and little else.

  “Hi, this is Angel. Will my truck-driver boyfriend come back to me?”

  “How long has it been since you’ve seen him?”

  “Six months.”

  “Is he married?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry, Angel, but I have to tell you what I see and I don’t see him coming back.”

  This lonely-hearts club riff was repeated endlessly. We heard from the same lunatic fringe of washouts I had talked to every day on the 900 line, only worse. You had to be a total loser to want to listen to any of it.

  In the rare event I was called in to substitute for the fabulous Nick, I attempted to get something interesting flowing by injecting a ghost story or bizarre Art Bell-type theory that I had been “investigating,” but to no avail. The show would quickly descend to the lowest levels imaginable in terms of both listener profile and call volume, while the Friends lost millions on this little gamble.

  It became so bad, the studio’s engineers and any hangers-on loitering around the mixing board that day had to masquerade as callers to fill up the time. At least we had a few fun moments goofing on each other and instantly being amazingly accurate and helpful.

  Sean would start with, “Welcome to the Psychic Friends Radio Network. You are on the air. What’s your name?”

  Someone like Caprice would be creating an interesting call in the next room. “Hi, my name is Julie, and I’m having a surprise birthday party for my sister-in-law this weekend. I want to know if I should get chocolate cake with white frosting or should I get white cake with a strawberry filling?”

  I might get assigned this earth-shattering query. “Julie, I see there will be several people there who are not into either of your two choices. I’m seeing a huge platter of fresh fruit, like watermelon and strawberries, and the cake is an ice-cream cake. I get a sensation of cold coming from it, so it’s got to be an ice-cream cake, Julie. I feel that if you go with ice-cream cake and fresh fruit on the side, this will be a very successful party.”

  “Mmm, that sounds so goooood,” Julie would reply. “Thanks,
Mark. I’ll do it!”

  No wonder Larry King and Montel Williams never checked in with us.

  Life went on its merry way for week after blissful week. I’m sure the FCC would have been interested to hear some of the bullshit being pitched in hopes of rescuing the Friends’ quickly sinking ship. Every week we plotted a new ploy and gave it a try, but every week grew bleaker and bleaker.

  The superstar psychic paychecks were soon “delayed” while we were told to be patient, but I had heard that story before. I felt a strong non-psychic vibration coming from the east telling me that the infamous Babe Ruth baseball was inching closer and closer to the auction block. Unfortunately, money can’t buy everything—including integrity, honesty, and popularity.

  I eventually stopped getting calls from the studio to come in to work. Thankfully, very little money was owed to me when the dreaded B word surfaced: bankruptcy. The whole Psychic Friends radio deal lasted about six unhappy months, and it didn’t take long for the news-hungry media to start trumpeting the demise of over a decade’s worth of notorious swindling.

  I unplugged my headset and stopped taking 900-line calls after nine long years with the Friends. Frankly, it was all a great relief. I packed my traveling bag with all the tapes I had filled with my versions of great psychic wisdom and prepared to pound the pavement, in search of a more legitimate, established radio station, if such a thing existed.

  Through the kindness and camaraderie of Psychic to the Stars, Melodie, I heard that one of the biggest radio stations in Hollywood was running a nightly psychic call-in show. The turnover was enormous because the station didn’t pay, but the station manager was a confirmed shut-eye and would let each psychic give out their contact information twice an hour in return for a four-hour shift. This put the word out to thousands of people, translating into as many private readings as the psychic could handle. It would be hard to find a better way to advertise. I baited my hook and gave them a call.

  “Good morning, KYAK radio 106.3 FM. This is Jackie. How may I help you?”

  “Good morning. Is the station manager available?”

  “Can I tell him who is calling?”

  “Sure, my name is Mark Edward.”

  “And may I tell him what this is in reference to?”

  “I’m interested in getting on board with the Twilight Mix Psychics.”

  “Oh, I’ll get him right away!”

  I waited for a brief second or two and then was greeted by a pleasant voice that sounded very happy to hear from me. “Hello, this is Steven. I’m the station manager. I understand you are psychic?”

  I smiled into the phone receiver and jumped in with, “Yes, I am. I have just completed working for a nationally syndicated radio network and, before that, I worked for KSSK in Hawaii as their call-in psychic. I would really like to get hooked up with KYAK. Can I send you my demo tape and publicity package?”

  “I would rather have you come in and give me a personal reading. My mother was clairvoyant, so I’m a pretty good judge of genuine ability. When can you come in?”

  Dale Carnegie’s smile-and-dial method was once again helping me move ahead in show biz. “How about tomorrow at five?” Why waste time when I was obviously on a roll?

  “I’ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow, and thanks for calling.”

  In my experience, if you pitch believers a decent throw, they’ll catch the ball and run with it for all it’s worth. That had been easy. In fact, almost too easy.

  I drove into Hollywood in good spirits the next day. I was directed through a security gate and shown through a modern, well-kept monolith with everything, including a kitchenette and a television lounge, then into the station manager’s corner office. The station manager’s room contained Eastern-motif antiques and the windowsill was dotted with an impressive collection of giant, multicolored crystals.

  Steven was a lean fellow with a short, fashionable haircut. He was dressed in a T-shirt and khakis, but wore no socks with his loafers and no jewelry. He immediately passed my Hollywood slimeball evaluation test with flying colors, which was refreshing. We shook hands, and I sat down to give him his reading.

  “So, what do you see?” Steven asked with a self-assured smile. He picked up a pencil and prepared to take notes. This was a direct and to-the-point personality I could deal with.

  I took a deep, concentrative breath, smiled my best smile, and let it rip.

  “Many things, Steven. I see a lot of things going on for you right now. You’re very busy, perhaps too busy at times. Many decisions are up in the air. It seems like there are some very important people around you who are waiting for you to make one of these decisions. In the coming week, a message about this decision will be delivered to you that will ease a lot of the stress that has been building for the last few months.

  “Also, there is a spiritual side to you that is seeking greater expansion. I see that this will be given greater attention next month, around the twenty-first and continuing until the end of the month. Watch out for some family issues that may seem more complicated than they really are. Don’t try to do too many things at once.”

  I paused and watched for any telltale facial movements before digging any deeper. Steven dropped the pencil he had been holding on his desk and leaned back in his chair. I saw his glance go from the tight eye contact he had been holding on me to the golden Buddha statue that sat in a corner by the window.

  “Wow.” He exhaled. “You managed to hit upon so many things in such a short time. They were all pretty much right on. I’d say you were ninety-five percent accurate.”

  I can live with ninety-five percent. I nodded and said calmly, with hands held palm up, “Hey, that’s my job.”

  I waited to see if there might be some follow-up confirmation, which usually comes spilling out when the percentages are as high as Steven had quoted.

  “I have to tell you, I’m in major transition in a business sense, and I am waiting for another job opportunity to materialize. I am indeed way too busy, and one of my greatest fears is that I might miss hearing about what’s really important by getting involved in too many projects. The other thing is that my mother is very ill, and I don’t know what I’m going to do about it. I guess that’s the family issue you saw. Can you tell me what her health is going to be like in the coming weeks?”

  This could have been a trap to see if I would take a medical question, but from everything I could tell about Steven, he was a gentle, caring guy. I seriously doubted he would use trick questions on me.

  “Well, Steven, I learned a long time ago never to take medical or legal questions for a variety of reasons. I’m not qualified as a physician, but if you will take what I say with a grain of salt, as merely an impression, I can see that if your mother does what the doctor tells her to do and doesn’t fight or argue with them, she’s going to be fine for the time being. She can be a stubborn lady and I see that her attitude sometimes gets in the way of any healing process she may need to go through.”

  “You’re right about that, Mark. Very good. I’m impressed. So when can you start working with the KYAK team?”

  “What’s open?” I stayed focused and on track.

  “Well, we have been having a little trouble with our Saturday night person. He’s not getting along with the jock for some reason. I could start you next week if that’s good for you?”

  “I’ll take it.”

  “Deal.” Steven stood up and we shook hands.

  “Let me give you the station guidelines. It’s very informal. Basically, you will be given two free one-minute advertisements listing your name and phone number twice an hour in compensation for your readings. Also, any other events or appearances you may have scheduled elsewhere can be announced on your show and on our weekly psychic calendar. Once in a while we may ask you to appear at some promotional events or conventions like the Whole Earth Expo, if you are available and interested.”

  These were all good solid perks. Even a salary couldn’t guarant
ee instant publicity like this deal. KYAK was one of the most powerful radio signals in southern California and they were a respected player in the big ratings market. All seemed well and good.

  One tiny niggling doubt briefly entered my mind, though. What kind of trouble could develop between a radio jockey and a psychic? Psychics are usually pretty easy folks to get along with, and show-business people can be a superstitious lot who generally won’t mess with anyone psychic for fear we might tell them something bad or put the evil eye on them. Perhaps that was what was going on here. I decided it would be best to project a persona of humorous, relaxed confidence and avoid playing my role too severely until I had a better handle on Steven and his stable of jocks.

  As I left Steven’s office, I caught him staring pensively at his Buddha statue. My impression was of a man going through a transition and his present position wasn’t going to continue to be a long-term option for him. He seemed too spiritual to last in the Hollywood shuffle.

  As it turned out, I was right on some things and totally wrong on others. He had been with KYAK for ten years, but changes were expected. Just what was about to occur was any psychic’s guess.9

  I prepared to meet one of the head jocks I would be working with on Saturday night by setting up all the material I could and making myself look really good for my debut. Listening audiences can’t see what is going on in the studio, so I could bring in notepads, books, or other tools to increase my accuracy and believability. I gathered together systems that could be used to provide random words and images too. This was a good way to generate fresh, concrete images in the minds of the radio audience, and a technique that had worked well at other stations. Photos, postcards, word cards, and random photo books with the usual New Age stock of tarot, ESP, and playing cards—I made sure to bring with me plenty of items to draw from. It wouldn’t do to repeat myself too often.

  Not wanting to sully my first good impressions of the station or discern the quality of the psychics on air during the rest of the week, I purposely didn’t listen to any of the shows. I didn’t want to hear how bad or good it could be. I suspected it would be really bad, though, and the usual rubber-stamped psychic readings would predominate. I remembered what the agent had told me: I had no competition.