by Mark Edward
Saturday night arrived. I pulled my car into the KYAK security lot and made my way through the maze of reception cubicles, lounges, and carpeted halls to the heart of the studio where the red ON THE AIR light buzzed in the glass window. Inside, I could see my partner DJ, Eddie Vann, diligently working the control board.
Tall, skinny, and with the kind of easygoing manner of a lanky tennis player, Eddie seemed to be a decent, friendly guy. We shook hands and he made our first conversation a short one, as I was due to go on the air immediately. He was to-the-point and a bit brusque, but I was all ears.
“So, here’s how we work it, Mark. Remember that this is a music format and the music is what pays the bills. I will introduce you and then the screener will start taking calls. Once the screener gets their name and where they are calling from, I’ll come on the air, say hi, and ask the caller what their question is. After you answer it, I’ll ask what their dedication song is and who it’s going out to. That’s it. We do around three readings every half hour. Got it?”
“Sure. But, Eddie, does the caller get a chance to respond or is that it?”
“We’ll see how it goes. They might respond, but remember this station doesn’t have a squelch button and if we let people go on and on, it can get sticky. It’s better if you just answer their question and let me take it from there, okay?”
“No problem.” I thought right away that Ed was on a power trip, but since I had worked radio before, this was nothing new.
It appeared that he and he alone would have the final word as to who and how long I would talk and just what I would be allowed to say. Ed was obviously the star of the show and I was just an extra selling point that could be used at his pace or not.
Part of what makes a good psychic reading over the radio is the caller being able to validate the accuracy of what any psychic will say. I knew this was a dicey situation if the psychic asked any questions. To make statements as facts is the only way to go if there is any interplay with a caller. It was simply a matter of avoiding asking the standard kinds of ambiguous crap you will hear constantly from inexperienced psychics on the air:
“Does this make any sense to you?”
“This is true, isn’t it?”
“You are a Gemini, aren’t you?”
“I see there’s a dog with you. Is that correct?”
“Why am I seeing a body of water?”
“What is the initial M I’m getting?”
“You recently lost your car keys. Am I right?”
A caller can simply say no to any of these inane questions and the reader ends up sounding like the no-talent buffoons they so often are. This is not what the audience wants to or should hear. We are supposed to know. Any questioning of a caller is a mistake, and Ed’s initial taking control over the entire situation told me there wasn’t a lot of trust between the jocks and the psychics.
I was then introduced to our screener, Billy, a streetwise black dude with an attitude. He was an unpaid volunteer and couldn’t care less about putting on a good psychic show. He was there only to try to wend his way to the top of the music business by starting at the bottom of the studio ladder.
Billy told me flat out, “I don’t dig psychics and don’t tell me anything about anything.” I hadn’t planned to share much of my insights in-house anyway, so the fear—or whatever it was—making him a little dodgy was a plain enough statement of distance that I would respect.
“What’s the matter, Billy?” I asked as I grabbed a cup of strong coffee from the kitchenette. “You think I might be real or something?”
“No, my mother has been going to the same psychic for years, and that bitch has never been right about anything.”
“Then why does your mother keep going back?” I asked. I was ignored as we moved off to our respective stations.
I was as ready as I could be, so we took calls all night about love and money, as expected. I noticed that Ed took great pleasure in making sure the audience knew all about the station’s disclaimer, and every twenty or so minutes into each hour, he would stop and solemnly recite his mantra: “The psychic readings on Twilight Mix are for entertainment only and do not reflect the opinions or policies of KYAK, its ownership, or management.”
True, this was part of the agreement I had signed, but it seemed as if Ed delivered this public service announcement with a particularly snotty edge to his voice.
When I returned home that night, the Twilight Mix had done its magic and my phone message machine was packed with a dozen desperate callers wanting an immediate private reading. After I had listened to the first run-through of this roster and mentally extracted the nutcases who would not only be unproductive to deal with but also downright dangerous to have anything to do with, I was left with a decent wage for my time.
Most of these messages were quickly erased over a glass of wine:
“I need to talk to you right away, tonight. Please call me back.” (No phone number given.)
“My husband wants to kill me and I need to know if he will find me.”
“Can you help me reach my dead mother?”
“My house is full of demons and they live in a glass jar under the stairs. I need you to come over here and help me right away!”
“My dog is telling me to kill myself. Please call me.” (No phone number given.)
During the first weeks of our relationship, Ed asked a lot of questions. He wanted to know who taught me how to read fortunes, why I was qualified to tell people what to do, and other less than complimentary comments that seemed to indicate a thinly disguised disrespect, if not outright distain. He seemed repulsed by the other six psychics who worked the rest of the week, and I couldn’t imagine what he was telling them about me. I tried to keep up a humorous façade with him, but he was clearly one of those people who is never happy unless he’s the center of attention. His off-the-air relationship rants belied a lonely guy, despite his considerable radio voice.
The thought began to occur to me that there was a little jealousy going on between us. I decided that a bit of convincing was in order. I needed to get this guy’s respect one way or another, or his negative attitude would soon undermine my future with the audience.
I made plans for a friend to call in and say her name was Emma. She would ask a question we would decide on ahead of time, then act totally blown away and tell the listening audience that I was exactly right. This was an old mentalist ruse that I was not averse to using under the circumstances. It was mostly for Ed’s benefit. He was just a little too cocksure of himself. And the love and money questions that streamed in all night long were getting extremely boring. What was needed were a few “ringers,” as they were known in the dark world of the carnival pitchman.
Unethical? Maybe. But that’s show biz.
Emma’s call came in when I had expected it would and went down smoothly.
“Hi, this is Eddie Vann. You’ve reached KYAK’s Twilight Mix radio call-in show. Tonight’s psychic is Mark. What’s your name and what is your question?”
“Yes. Hi, Eddie. This is Emma. I wanted to see what Mark sees concerning a trip I’m planning?”
“Hi, Emma. This is Mark. The first thing I feel is that you are going in a northerly direction, maybe even out of the country, and I sense a cold feeling—Canada or Alaska? Are you traveling to Toronto, Quebec, or someplace like that?”
“Oh my God, yes! I’m going to Montreal!”
“Montreal. Well, I think the trip is going to be very good for you. I think you need a break, but I also sense that you have to be cautious about some person who will be around you. Watch out for that person and don’t let him or her manipulate you in any way, okay?”
“Oh, yeah, I know who you mean.”
“Yes? And who might that person be?” I asked.
“Unfortunately, that would be my ex-husband.”
“I see. Well, Emma, just be very careful with him and you will be okay. I think you know what to tell him.”
“Oh, yes
, I can handle him now, thanks to you. Thank you, Mark!”
Ed was speechless, which for him was a bigger miracle than the reading I had just delivered. He took Emma’s song dedication and cut to it while taking off his headphones.
“How’d you do that?” he demanded.
“Ed, either you accept what I do or not. It’s what I do.”
I tried to leave it at that. Unfortunately, my little gambit had the opposite effect from what I had intended. Ed became even more contentious.
I invited a few of my other friends to call in from time to time and work the same magic. Was this wrong? Or was this work? What truly makes radio the theater of the mind?
Ed had no clue that I had used any plants, or if he did, he wasn’t saying. A few nights later, Ed asked me, “You don’t really believe in this bullshit you are doing, do you?”
“Yes. Don’t you?” I asked honestly. “My belief is nothing more than if I told you I believe in gravity. It is what it is and that’s all.”
“I just don’t buy into it like these people do.”
“That’s too bad. Your skepticism is tanking the premise of the show. ‘These people,’ as you say, are the audience who pays our paychecks. Besides, I’m not trying to preach or convince anybody about anything weird, like I’m a cult leader or anything like that. It’s called entertainment, and that’s what I’m here to do. If I do it right, it makes both of us look good. If you don’t like it, what can I say? Maybe you just need to get laid or something. Lighten up, man.” We went on like this by necessity for several tentative weeks. It was often a tense but mutually respectful job from then on.
Then something wonderful happened. I met Rick La Rocca. Rick was a jock who immediately saw the potential for really wigging people out, and he had no scruples about messing with people’s heads. The first night we were introduced, Rick took me aside away from the screener and told me his plan for success.
“So, Mark, I hear you are pretty good. Listen, let’s do it this way. I’ll take the calls from the screener and find out some information about them. You know, where they live, what they do for a living, what they want to know. And I won’t let on that I’ll be telling you all this. I’ll just tell the caller to ask one question, and then you can go ahead and use all the info I got from them to blow them away. How’s that sound?”
“Sounds like dynamite radio to me, Rick!”
I had found a kindred soul, someone who knew how to take a basic premise and stretch it to its limits. It would now sound to the listener as if I knew all sorts of incredible facts about the caller that there was no way I could have known without being truly psychic. I would do my usual hit-and-miss dance, with a strong percentage of more hits than misses. No one would ever know how this was being done except Rick and me.
The switchboard lit up that night like a Christmas tree. This was a turning point for me, and from then on I looked forward to working with Rick whenever possible. Yes, we were absolute media frauds, but we were having a blast. The station manager called in several times during our shifts together and complimented us on our good work. He had no idea how I was getting so many dead-on hits and we chose wisely not to enlighten him. On the nights that followed, we learned to not overdo this ploy—just a few knockout punches sprinkled in with all the usual dull love-and-money readings.
This method of getting information also gave Rick a great opportunity to flirt with the girls calling in with their lost-love problems. I’m sure he benefited from this little bit of side action too and my private readings increased substantially in those weeks.
Predictably, the only problem was Eddie Vann. Word got around that Rick and I were getting higher ratings and more calls than any of the other psychic shows. One night when working with Ed, I happened to give a really strong reading without benefit of anything except good luck, and Ed let me know he was not happy.
“I don’t think that what you are doing is ethical,” he declared.
“What do ethics have to do with being a radio psychic?” I asked.
“I just want you to know I won’t help you get any information on people and let you use it in any way, that’s all.” He was adamant in his honesty. He and Rick must have talked or the word got out through Billy.
“That’s fine with me. Let’s just get the job done like we have been doing all along. I would appreciate it if you would climb off my back when I’m doing a good job with the calls and stop acting so cynical. As far as you and I are concerned, I’m a psychic and that’s all that matters. If Rick and I want to work differently, that’s between us. We are having fun and the audience is having fun with us.”
I knew then what Steven had meant when he had mentioned the “trouble” they had been having. The psychics weren’t the problem; some of the jocks just didn’t like playing second fiddle to anybody, much less a psychic who was getting higher ratings than they were.
The writing was on the wall. I knew I needed to make the best of this situation, so I networked with the other psychics and soon found that many of them were experiencing “negative karma” from some of the jocks, especially the gay psychic, Peter. A few of the jocks were mean-spirited toward him and openly snubbed him on the air. Peter was too nice of a guy to complain to management, but he was ready to quit the show.
I happened to pass Melodie in the hallway one evening between shifts and asked her, “So, how do you get along with Ed?”
“He seems a little tense lately. My reading on him is that he’s angry about this whole psychic thing. He’s just not ready for it. It’s too bad because I gave him a reading on his love life and told him he was going to meet someone in the next three months. I hope that helps.”
“Probably not. I don’t think he’s ready for a psychic or a love life.”
She laughed. “I’ll bring him a magic worry stone next week.”
“Good. Maybe we can work a spell on him or something.” I was kidding, of course.
“I already tried that,” she replied.
On other occasions, I used the images that I had collected. Before I would take a call, I would shuffle my bunch of words and pictures and then go with whatever was randomly assembled in front of me. One night I picked up two pictures, one of a woman’s red painted toenails and another of a waterfall. Kim called. She had a Texas accent. Try to picture your own version of what you can make up before you read on. You be the psychic for a minute.
But this is how it played out:
“This is Twilight Mix KYAK, Eddie Vann here with Kim on the line. What’s your question for our psychic?”
“Well, I just moved here from out of state and I wondered whether I was going to meet anybody?”
“I think you are going to meet several different people, Kim. I see one significant person coming up for you in November. This seems to be an outdoors type of person. This person is in good physical shape. They work out or they jog. They ride horses. Do you ride horses?”
“Yeah,” she drawled, “I’ve been known to do that sometimes.”
“Yes? Well, I see something that has to do with a very romantic interlude that also has to do with a waterfall and the outdoors.”
“Oh, yeah? I like that.” She laughed.
“Also, there’s something to do with horseback riding. Let me ask you something. I keep seeing the color red. Do you paint your toenails?”
“Yes, they are red right now,” Kim answered, still laughing.
“Hmm. Well, Kim, bring those painted toenails close to a waterfall and I think you will attract somebody who is going to be quite interesting, okay?”
“Wow. Well, thanks a lot. Ha, ha!” Kim signed off with nervous laughter.
“Okay, Kim. And you wanted to hear Chris de Burgh’s ‘The Lady in Red’ as your dedication song. Ha, ha!” Ed laughed in spite of himself. “The lady in red toenails, I guess!”
Ed cued up the song and swung around in his chair dumbfounded. This had not been a set-up call and he knew it because he had taken it himself. He looked
stunned. I shrugged and simply held up the two pictures that I had taken out before the call even came into the studio. As a fortune cookie I once broke open told me, “That which is genuine needs no explanation.”
Call it synchronicity. Call it blind luck. Call it magic. If you set the table for coincidence, synchronicity, or whatever we may want to call it, many times it will show up, allowing these moments to happen. Of course, we all—myself included—tend to remember the hits and forget about the dozens of misses. But once again, even in those not-so-dead-on calls, the callers often made the stretch for me. Connections adjust with some of the most outlandish combinations imaginable. It would be hard for even the most skeptical person, like Eddie, to doubt there was something to all this.
Unfortunately, like most shortsighted people, these brief moments of unexplainable mystery only served to increase Ed’s sense of alienation and aggravation toward the psychics. Rather than improve the show’s tone and tenor, it seemed that this vexation was becoming a threat to his command of the audience. There was simply nothing to be done about this. I couldn’t dumb down what I was doing any further than I had already. What was working was simply working.
My private readings continued to roll in too. I was quite happy with the money I was making and the tapes I was handed at the end of each shift. At the station, many more amazing success stories came in, like Kim’s call, and I quit using any planted phone calls like Emma’s. Being too perfect in my psychic visions had only made matters worse for me.
It would have been tempting to take myself too seriously throughout all of this. I had to work hard to convince myself that any accuracy or gift I was being touted with, or had testified to, was purely a numbers game due to the laws of probability mixed with wishful imagination. I found myself obsessively watching Nightmare Alley over that eighteen-month period of my life. Not only did it keep me sane and on track, it’s a film any true believer in psychic phenomena should see at least once. For me, it remains cathartic.
