...With Your Host, Cubil...

The Time: 4am, first Sunday, January 1976

The Place: My apartment, my bed

(Telephone rings) "Hello Bill? It's your mom. I'm not waking you up am I?"

Me: mumble mumble (in state of total fog, may have been seriously drunk that night)

JC: I'm stuck here in Beaumont and I won't be able to make it back for my radio show in the morning, I need you to fill in for me. Be there at 8 am. Don't worry, you won't have to do anything, I have psychics lined up to call in with their predictions for the coming year.

Me: mumble mumble OK, goodbye.

- 3 hours later -

(Telephone Rings) "Hello Bil? It's your Mom. Do you remember I called last night?

Me: Oh no! It wasn't a bad dream?

JC: I need you down at KPFT in 30 minutes, don't worry, everything will be fine. (hangs up)

There is only one thing that would make my mother blow off her radio show, and I'd bet my bottom dollar he was a smooth talker. I never asked, and she never offered an explanation, so that cinches it.

JC had been on the air at KPFT for several years, many of those years were during it's crazy period where people locked themselves in the studio, others would blow up it's transmitter, you know, stuff like that. As I mention those things, I realize how easily JC fit in.

The weekly program was called "The Esoteric Side of Life". She talked about metaphysics and had guests, and people called in. The theme song was a tune I had written and recorded called "You Bring Out The Best In Me", a catchy disco number that people seemed to like, but had no real connection with the shows theme.

I had listened to the program enough to get through the first 3 minutes, then I was at the mercy of the people she had "lined up" to call in with their predictions. Having been around psychics a number of years, this worried me the most. Most of the psychics I knew were better at telling you the major events they predicted after they had happened.

My prediction was the first to come true: nobody called.

On the air, I begged people to call in and make predictions whether they were psychic or not, and a few did. Finally my mother called from Beaumont. Never at a loss for words, she did about 20 minutes. This got us through 2/3 of the hour, we just need another 20 minutes to fill up...

I began to jabber some kind of stream-of-conscience-incoherent-babble, 'took a couple of calls, and before I knew it, it was time to play the theme song again and get out of there!

I was an On-Air Personality!