Psinister Psychic Friends Network

Whatever happened to those psychic hotline commercials that were ubiquitous throughout much of the '90s? You couldn't change a channel without seeing one of those odd clips, shot over green screen or in a gaudy studio, with loud graphics and some supposedly clairvoyant host waving her hands, adorned with long fingernails, around a crystal ball. The 900 number would flash on the bottom of the screen, with a slightly smaller print below, telling you that you had to be 18 to call, that this was "for entertainment only" and that the first minute will cost you $3.99 (or more).

It wasn't just some random psychics offering their gifts of foresight, but celebrities too -- either hawking their own hotlines on tv or giving testimonials to others'. You had LaToya Jackson and her "Psychic Readers Network," Dionne Warwick's "Psychic Friends Network," Nell Carter had "Nell Carter Psychic Hotline," and Esther Rolle (the mom from "Good Times") implored viewers to call her "Caring Psychic Family" (such a welcoming name; doesn't it just make you feel warm and fuzzy?). Even Vicky Lawrence, Billy Dee Williams and Phillip Michael Thomas of "Miami Vice" appeared in ads, giving their thumbs-up to some 900 number.

But the Grand Puba of them all, the most unforgettable hotline psychic was, no doubt, Miss Cleo of the Psychic Readers Network. "Kohl meh now for yer free reeden'," she would tell you, in an almost chiding tone, in her Jamaican accent (though she was actually a native of Los Angeles, and not a Jamaican at all). Cleo kept it real, she told the truth, honey -- be it good or bad! "Ye no' aboht dee gal he's seeing raht now? She's a little hoochie mama," Cleo would break it down, no-nonsense style.


Hearing that kind of sage advice could become addictive to some people, and that's why those 900 numbers became such big business. (Our girl Cleo earned a reported $13.5 mil from her hosting duties). Some callers would get their fix on LaToya's line but then also get a "second opinion" with one of Dionne's seers, and so it would continue. The psychic hotline addiction could become as powerful as a gambling one. One woman even wrote a book about the insatiable craving to receive guidance on life's decisions from what, in fact, is just some average joe with no real psychic abilities, sitting in his or her living room in pajamas.

In fact, in the late '90s, as part of Giuliani's welfare-to-work program, New York City trained welfare recipients for jobs as psychics for the Psychic Readers Network. The only other requirement was having a high school equivalency degree, "a caring and compassionate personality" and English speaking skills. Within a few years of this ingenious (and so successful!) effort, both Cleo's hotline and Dionne Warwick's would be buried under various lawsuits and bankruptcy. The newly imposed Federal Communication Commission's restrictions on 1-900 numbers certainly didn't help matters.

So when one combines all these psinister psychic factors -- potential for addiction, deceit on the part of the psychics and plain old fashioned greed -- it's not hard to understand why those colorful commercials we were once so accustomed to seeing are now buried in the same 1990s pop culture graveyard as grunge and Vanilla Ice. We can only hope that, one day, they will not attempt to rise from the dead and try to eat our brains...again. Until then, we'll just keep watching those entertaining Extenze ads and their equally lofty promises.

Le Freak C'est Chic

Back in 1932, a dark little film called "Freaks" was released by MGM studios to the masses. The story revolved around a gold-digging trapeze artist who seduces and marries a sideshow little person in order to get her hands on his large inheritance. Eventually, she poisons him, starts having an affair with an average-size man, and when the rest of the sideshow performers learn of her deceit, they viciously attack and mutilate her and her lover in a macabre and unforgettable climax.


The movie was highly controversial then and still is, because the cast consisted almost entirely of people with real-life deformities and illnesses. They included a multitude of dwarves, a pair of conjoined twins, the Human Torso (i.e. a man with no limbs), who in one scene lights a cigarette with matches, using only his mouth. You'd think that this kind of exploitation for entertainment's sake could have only come out of an era before color televisions, Civil Rights, computers.

Well, think again. Because the popular channel TLC -- best known for its "family-centered" reality shows like the mega hit "Jon & Kate Plus 8" -- has become the main purveyor of a slew of documentary programming that can only be described as a kind of modern, repackaged version of "Freaks." And their growing popularity says a lot about us as the audience.


On an average night, usually after 8 p.m., you can learn the true story of Tony, the 750 lb teenager, or Hayley, the girl with progeria -- the disease of rapid aging; or Zahra, the woman who was pregnant for 45 years and didn't know it, or Ronnie and Donnie, the oldest living conjoined twins, or Sharon, the primordial dwarf (tiny, but proportionate). And just like the bluntly-titled "Freaks," the titles of these TLC shows offer no mystery about the contents that await. Here is a sampling:

"The 650 lb Virgin"
"The Tiniest Toddlers"
"Dwarfs: Standing Tall"
"The Smallest People In The World"
"The Girl Who Never Grew"

TLC has tapped into that corner of our psyche that is simultaneously repelled and drawn to human oddities. And although the deformities they feature are no less unusual than the ones displayed in "Freaks," TLC has made theirs somehow more digestible to middle America -- in some cases, even endearing. I mean, who is not going to melt into a puddle of goo when they watch a little primordial dwarf that weighs 11 lbs and stands at about 28 inches, at age four, talk in her tiny voice and wave around her miniature hands, and bat her teeny tiny doll-like eyes? Especially when you have a woman with a gentle, sympathetic voice narrating the whole affair.

And so, the shows play like this, for hours, daily, peppered with commercials advertising everyday people stuff like prescription drugs and Verizon cell phones, as the average American sits there and watches, eyes open wide in both shock and curiosity, secretly thinking, Damn, my life is not so bad.

Bad Brains

Yesterday, the world surveyed the memorial service of all memorial services, the most lavish send-off of a dead man known to our modern times, the only kind of send-off worthy of THE KING (of pop).

Celebrities made speeches, singers sang their songs, retrospective videos played on enormous screens, and throughout the fast-paced ceremony, one thing remained static and conspicuous and that was the shiny casket bathed in fresh roses. Inside it, of course, was Michael himself, perhaps adorned in his signature Thriller jacket, sparkly glove, penny loafers and white socks, the hair on his jet black ladies wig falling elegantly at his shoulders. But what most spectators and performers didn't know was that beneath that wig, and further still, under his skull, there was nothing but empty space. Yes, Michael was being buried without his brain.

It seems rather ironic that the man who sang about zombies would end up taking his final journey without that one piece of anatomy zombies like to feast on. The irony gets even thicker, given that Michael played the brainless Scarecrow in The Oz.

But there is a good explanation for his brainlessness. You see, having reached no definitive conclusion regarding the nature of his death after the autopsies, pathologists requested his brain for further examinations, which could take up to three weeks. That was the choice faced by the Jackson family: let Michael's body sit in a freezer for weeks and wait for his brain to return back from the lab, or go ahead and put him into the earth, hollow-headed. They chose the latter.

So what do the scientists hope to discover when they slice and dice through Michael's gray matter? Well, for one thing, they're going to dig for evidence of past drug use and whether he has suffered other overdoses, in addition to any other hitherto unknown diseases.

But that is all standard stuff. It seems that these pathologists have a golden opportunity on their hands -- to go beyond the boring drug stuff and try to understand what REALLY lay inside this mysterious man. Did he lie about having only two plastic surgeries (picture Michael making a peace sign during the infamous Bashir interview when asked that same question) in his life? Did his calm, peaceful Little Prince-like demeanor hide a raging temper? I suppose we can only wait and see.

The family still has the option of burying his brain later. Which begs the question: Will the brain have its own ceremony?