I have recently been watching the television series the Dead Zone on Netflix. It is loosely based off Stephen King’s best -selling novel of the same name. Johnny Smith, the main character, has the ability to see the future. As a child he fell and hit his head while playing hockey and he became a little bit psychic, but then years later he got into a car accident and went into a coma for 6 years and when he woke up he became really psychic. Now all he has to do is touch someone and he instantly travels through space and time and sees what is about to happen to the person he is touching. The place in his brain which gives him this ability is called the dead zone. On the most recent episode I watched Johnny, super psychic that he is, brought in to help the U.S. Government track down the perpetrators of 9/11. Eventually Johnny is taken into the psychic holding room where he meets others who have access to their dead zone, there are two guys and a lady and the lady is playing with tarot cards. For those of you that don’t know, tarot cards are an ancient method of divination. There are 78 cards in each deck; each card had a different image which gets interpreted for fortune telling. Of course, all of these psychics were skilled in remote viewing, the tarot cards were just for fun.

Seeing the lady with the tarot cards reminded me of being a teenager. I bought my first tarot deck when I was 17. I used to spend all night long at the local Denny’s or Perkins giving away free readings. I liked Perkins better because they actually gave you pots of coffee, so you didn’t have to wait for the waitress to fill your cup. Also they had chocolate chip muffins, and I love chocolate chips. So every night a few people would come by my table and I would tell them what I saw. Most of the people I read for were teenagers like me, and most all suffered from an exaggerated dislike for their parents. Of course, I do not think anyone needed to be psychic to assess that. But there was one night crew customer that was very interesting, his name was Paul and he was 78. He also read tarot cards so we would practice on each other. He was writing a book about astrology and women. Being old as he was, he said that he had managed to sleep with women from every sign of the zodiac more than twice over and because of that he became an expert on astrology. I wish I could remember what he was going to title the book, but I don’t. Anyway, I grew up in hippy dippy Boulder, Colorado and there were a lot of characters.

Years later I worked on a Psychic hotline, I went by the name “E”, because Miss Cleo was already taken. This seemed like it was going to be fun, but it didn’t take long for my dead zone to tell me it was lame and unfortunately the government was not ringing me for my services. I became a phone sex operator instead. I just want to pause for a moment and acknowledge how great it is that I am a comedian, because if I was running for political office I don’t think I would be allowed to share any of this with you. Being a phone sex operator is interesting. The lady who hired me was over three hundred pounds and I when I first met her I thought to myself, “whoo hoo, this is where all the fatties come to talk dirty”, it was very exciting. I can’t tell you all the details; sorry you will have to go to my porn site for that. When I was younger I had wanted to be a stripper, but I ate too many Twinkies. Anyway, within 2 weeks of working in phone sex I was the number one most requested operator, and they said it was because of my ability to empathize. Hmmm, phone sex psychic, was I using my dead zone? I quit the phone sex after my client, Marlene who was really Brad who was planning on having a full blown sex change convinced me that I should be living a different way. No, not as a man, just not as a sex worker, so I became a political fundraiser and pretended that America had something to stimulate the masses. Phone sex was better.

I was the number one fundraiser for five years they said it was because of my ability to empathize. Hmmm, dead zone fundraiser? What is the point I am trying to make? My point is that I don’t think that you have to get into a car accident, go into a coma and awake as a super duper dead zone receptor name Johnny Smith to experience that which might normally be considered psychic. The dead zone is defined as a part of the brain which is unreachable by conscious mind. Since our conscious minds aren’t reaching this part of the brain than it seems that it must be un-used as well. But, I think we are using this part of our brain all the time, especially comedians. No, I have never seen a comedian tell somebody their fortune on stage; maybe I will make that my shtick. I do however think that comedians have to break done walls of consciousness not only in themselves, but in the audience as well. When you witness or experience a “bomb” in the comedy world, you and the audience feel separated by the thickest of walls, completely impenetrable. And when you witness or experience a “killing” in the comedy world, you feel like the whole world is at the edge of your fingertips. It feels like you have straight access to each and every person in the room, the unconscious flood gates appear to be wide open. It makes me feel like I should start my set with, “Good evening everyone, welcome to the dead zone.”