Crossing Over Read online

  “Well, I’m a psychic medium, and I have this book coming out. The publicity department for my publisher said I’m going to need to start getting on television and stuff, and I want to be selective with what I do. I want to know that the subject matter is going to be treated with integrity, which I know your show would.”

  “Great idea, lousy timing,” Ramey said. “I just did a show with another medium not two weeks ago. The network won’t let me do another one so soon.” I guess I got the right person, if about two weeks late.

  “I’ve got some stuff I could send you,” I said. I’d put together a little kit of my One Last Time video, some galleys of the book, and the Newsday article. “Do you think you might be able to look at it sometime?” Sure, she said. I packed up a box, and put Ramey’s name in my looseleaf binder—Ramey . . . Warren . . . Black—with a note to call her back in a few weeks. I knew she wouldn’t call me. These people never call you back. You have to keep after them. I moved on to the next show on my list.

  There was a morning program called Fox After Breakfast that I thought might be interested. I called the person in my contact book, Paul Shavelson, the executive producer. I started my spiel, but he seemed to be only half-listening. He said something polite like, “We’re not really interested in doing that subject matter at this time,” and passed me off to someone below him, who said, “Yeah, I don’t think we’re doing that kind of thing.”

  After a few more calls, I realized something. This isn’t like radio. In radio, you speak to the producer of the show. That’s it. In TV, it’s like every show has twenty people, and all of them are producers. Executive producers, associate producers, just plain producers. You have to talk to four people before you get to anybody who can make a decision, and then you’re still nowhere because their decision is: Sorry, not at this time. Some of them were cocky TV types I probably was best to steer clear of anyway.

  A few days after I started making calls, the phone rang: “Hi, John? This is Ramey from the Leeza show.”

  “Really?” I said. “Leeza? You’re calling me back? I didn’t think you would. That’s so cool.”

  Ramey laughed. She wasn’t used to so shameless a display of gratitude. I don’t think they do that in L.A. “So what did you think of the stuff I sent?” I asked.

  “Okay. Here’s what I think. I think the tape doesn’t represent you as well as I think you need to be represented. But I think you’re amazing, and I would love to help get you out there. If we wait awhile, we’ll have another shot at getting you on the show.”

  I thought it was great of Ramey to call me back just to give me some kind words. She was someone definitely worth keeping in touch with. I called her a month or so later, and we wound up talking about . . . stuff. Religion versus spirituality. Family. Television. After that, we started speaking regularly and became phone friends. She told me that the Leeza show was just the latest in a string of TV jobs she’d had going back twenty years. She had started out as a talent coordinator for Johnny Carson on the Tonight show. From there she went to Hour magazine, the Late Show at Fox, the Home Show, Will Shriner, Body by Jake, and the show she had the most fun with—the Tammy Faye show. But she was restless after producing for these syndicated shows day after day, year after year. It was like feeding morsels to an insatiable beast. Grind it out, do it again tomorrow, and five times next week. She was about ready to do something she’d been thinking about and planning for years. She wanted to form her own production and media-training company. It was a natural move. She had friends all over town. She even had a name for the company: Media-Savvy. And a partner: Adora English, an entertainment producer for the morning news on KTLA who had worked on “every fabulous and terrible talk show in America,” as she liked to say. “On both coasts.” Now all they needed was the nerve to do it.

  Ramey came to New York in May for the Daytime Emmys, but we couldn’t get our schedules to match, so it wasn’t until October that we finally had a chance to meet in person. I was coming to Los Angeles with Rick Korn to meet with an old friend of his named Marc Gurvitz, who was a talent manager and television producer.

  Rick, Marc, and their friend Alan had grown up together in Plainview, Long Island. One night a few weeks after graduating from college in 1978, Rick ran into Alan in their old hangout on Long Island. Alan said he was leaving the next morning for California, chasing his girlfriend and figuring he’d find a job when he got there. Their old buddy Marc was already out there, and he could crash with him for a while. “Hey, man, why don’t you come with me?” Alan said to Rick, who had a good first job in marketing but was living with his parents and open to suggestions. It was the third beer that did it. Alan went home to finish packing, and Rick went home to start. At five in the morning, he woke up his parents and said he was leaving for California. What? When? Right now. Alan’s in the driveway. Rick loaded up his stuff in Alan’s Toyota pickup, and they drove out of Plainview with Rick’s distraught parents in the rearview mirror. They drove into the city and stopped in front of a building on Madison Avenue. Rick went upstairs and told his boss thanks for the opportunity, but he was moving to California. What? When? Right now. My friend’s downstairs, and he’s double-parked. And off they went, Rick, Alan, and Alan’s dog, Goat.

  Marc Gurvitz was already out in L.A. trying to break into show business. According to Rick, who loves to talk about Marc and his exploits, his friend was a ballsy, hilarious guy who would say or do just about anything to get into the game. By day, Marc ran the shipping department of Capitol Records, a job he cleverly used to make connections. If a tape had to be delivered to Jackson Browne, Marc would do the job himself and find a way to make it a personal delivery, which always came with a full introduction at no extra charge. At night, Marc made the rounds of the comedy clubs telling the standups he liked that they would go far if they let him manage them. Bill Maher and Sam Kinison, to name two, found that Marc had an uncanny knack for knowing what was funny and what was really funny. Marc used his savings to get an apartment in a building called the Oakwood where he knew the movie studios put actors up. He would come home at lunchtime and hit the phones, booking his clients and making deals. When Rick, Alan, and Goat arrived in the Toyota, they found a twenty-two-year-old kid with the words Gonna Make It Big practically stamped on his forehead.

  The three Jewish kids from Long Island lived together for a while. Rick got another job in marketing, but eventually moved back east. Alan was really a California beach bum at heart, so New York was permanently in his rearview mirror. He had gone to school for marine biology but became a scuba instructor. A couple of years later, he moved to the Cayman Islands. And Marc? Marc stayed in L.A. and Made It Big.

  In 1998, he was a partner and head of the management division of Brillstein-Grey Entertainment, which Rick informed me was a very major Hollywood agency that manages talent and produces shows. They did The Larry Sanders Show, and now they were starting production on another show for HBO, some kind of series about mobsters they were calling The Sopranos. Marc was putting together Just Shoot Me and was an executive producer of Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, which got him an Emmy nomination. Rick wanted me to meet Marc. He was convinced I should have my own TV show. A sitcom about a psychic, maybe?

  Ever since we’d become friends, Rick had been trying to raise my profile. He was a marketing man, but he liked to spend at least some of his time on good things, benefits like World Hunger Year. He was in media marketing, but he could easily make the slight transition to medium marketing. It wasn’t just the business opportunity that drove him. It was his genuine wish to introduce me to the world, and vice versa. But I didn’t know about this TV stuff. I’m having trouble getting on Leeza, and Rick thinks I should have my own show. Not only that, it should be produced by one of the hottest, most cutting-edge companies in town. You’re cutting age, Rick told me. Okay, whatever.

  Marc Gurvitz was spending time in the Hamptons that summer, and Rick and I drove out to meet him. He was a nice gu
y and seemed interested in me, but I knew it was probably only because of Rick. We spent the afternoon together, I read him, and then we made plans to meet in California in October. In the meantime, Marc would bring the idea to Kevin Reilly, the head of the TV division of Brillstein-Grey.

  The day before we were supposed to fly out, Rick phoned with some bad news. He’d gotten a call from Reilly, who said what Rick considers the four ugliest words in the English language: “We’re going to pass.” They didn’t do much syndication, which is what they considered the type of show Rick was talking about. In fact, their very first one was in the pipeline. It was a show with Martin Short. They were going to start with that. They were interested in me, but their thing was really comedy. A show with a psychic medium didn’t quite fit in.

  We gave it a shot, Rick told me, trying not to sound too defeated. There will be other opportunities. And there’s a lot of other stuff to be excited about—the book, of course, and the infomercial that came out of the Larry King video fiasco. The direct marketing company had hired a really good producer-director from Los Angeles, and we were starting to plan it out. Although it was technically being called an infomercial, I saw it in a much less crass way. Maybe I was being naïve, but I saw it more as educational television. Whatever I called it, Rick thought it couldn’t miss.

  Still, he was disappointed about Brillstein-Grey, much more than I was. But I told him not to cancel our flight. We were going to L.A. anyway.

  Why? he wanted to know, not surprisingly. What’s up?

  Nothing, I said—we just need to go.

  But the meeting’s canceled.

  I know—but we still need to go.

  For what?

  We just need to be there. We can see the infomercial guys. I’ll call up this woman Ramey who’s been so nice to me. All I know is, we’ve still gotta go.

  Okay. Whatever.

  So we flew out to California. With nothing much on the agenda, we drove up to Malibu. I had never been there, and Rick wanted to show me around. I wasn’t impressed. In fact, Los Angeles in general didn’t do a lot for me. New York and the Caribbean—that pretty much had me covered.

  On the way back down Pacific Coast Highway, we pulled off to take a look at this other ocean. “John,” Rick said finally, “why are we here?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, adding with a laugh, “maybe we just need a vacation.” We had called Chad Murdock, the infomercial producer, and made plans to get together. But I knew that wasn’t why we had come. “You know, I think I need to meet this Ramey. I think that’s why I’m here. Maybe she’ll be able to help me with the book or something.”

  By that time, Ramey Warren Black’s professional life had changed in a big way. Over the summer, Paramount Productions had hired a new executive producer for the following season of Leeza, and he wanted to bring in his own people. So even though she had another year on her contract, she made a decision. She said to her husband in the car one day, “You know what? I’m done. I’ve had twenty years of talk, and that’s enough. It’s time to do Media-Savvy.” She worked out a settlement of her contract, called her partner-in-waiting, Adora English, and they decided it was time to jump off the cliff. Thelma and Louise were in business. They would start out doing media training, getting people booked on shows and preparing them for their fifteen minutes of fame. Eventually they would move on to producing. On her card, Ramey identified herself as “President (Odd Days).” Adora had the even days. Their first office was Adora’s dining room. A couple of months later, they got a desperate call from TV Guide saying the magazine needed a dozen celebrities right away to help launch the TV Guide Channel. “We asked for an extraordinary amount of money,” Adora said, “and they came back and said yes.” Adora had her dining room back.

  When Ramey went out on her own, it meant that she was free to help me beyond her own show. Who better to explain me to producers than another producer? “You know what, John, I would love to do that,” she said.

  “Great, you’re hired.”

  “No, don’t hire me. Just send me some books and let me make my twelve calls. I’m not a publicist, but I know what doors to go into. Adora and I have worked with all these people; they’re all our friends. I can call my friend who’s the executive producer of Sally, our friend who’s the executive producer of ET. So let us make our calls, and it’s either going to go or it’s not.”

  I couldn’t believe it—my first Hollywood contact, and she turns out to be a total sweetheart. She just wanted to help me. How cool was that? So now in late October, I figured that had to be why I was pulled across country. I was supposed to meet Ramey, even though my original reason for going was called off.

  Chad and his assistant, Nicole, came up to my hotel room in West Hollywood, and we spent a couple of hours talking about the upcoming infomercial. Then a call came from the front desk saying a Miss Black was on her way up. When I opened the door a few minutes later, I took a long look at the woman in front of me and said, “Yes?” She looked at me and said, “John?” “Umm . . . Ramey?” I looked at Rick, and we both started laughing. “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  “You’re not black,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Some psychic I am. I visualized you as a black woman on the phone. When did you become white?” I don’t know why—Ramey had no discernible dialect on the phone—but all these months I had a very strong image of a black woman.

  “Nope,” she said. “Only my name is Black.”

  We had a laugh about it, wondered what it meant that a psychic thought she was black, and said our nice-to-finally-meet-yous. Then all these producer types—Ramey, Chad, Rick—were chatting back and forth while I kind of zoned out. And then I was suddenly overpowered—really overpowered. “I’m sorry, but I need everybody to leave right now,” I announced. “I need to read her.”

  Rick protested mildly. He reminded me that I said I would relax on this trip and not do any readings. “I know,” I said. “But she’s brought like an entourage.” It was what I called a surprise-attack reading. Chad and Nicole headed out, and Rick went up to hang out at the pool.

  Ramey sat on the couch and I took a chair. “I’m sorry to ambush you like this,” I said, “but you didn’t come alone. Do you want me to do this?”

  “Oh, absolutely,” she said.

  “Have you ever done this before?”

  “I’ve been read a few times by psychics.”

  I ran through the preliminaries, then took off my glasses and asked for her watch to hold. I breathed deeply and listened. If you asked me what happened over the next twenty minutes or so, I couldn’t tell you very much. As is often the case, even for a great reading, I remember only a few highlights. I can summon the essence of it, the feelings and quality of it, but the details are like vapor. They’re not my thoughts, so they pass through me without stopping to register in my brain. Fortunately, many people take careful notes; others are able to remember the dialogue so accurately it’s as though they have a tape recorder in their heads. Ramey was in that group. She took out a notepad but didn’t need it. She remembered everything, and later wrote an account for herself. That’s what most of the following is based on.

  One of the things I do remember is that the reading started strong, right out of the gate. There was a very pushy woman coming through pointing me toward Ramey’s right hand. “That’s my ring,” she was telling me. She was really aggressive about this ring, which had a diamond in the middle of it. Ramey told me that this was obviously her grandmother on her father’s side. “Pushy?” she told me later. “She was like Attila the Hun. As my mother says—and my mother’s the nicest person in life—she was mean. The ring was indeed my grandmother’s, and it has a very dramatic family story attached to it.”

  “Okay, who’s Jim or Jimmy?” I asked, according to Ramey’s account.

  “My cousin,” she gasped, clasping her hands over her mouth and starting to cry.

  Suddenly, I knew the mystery was solve
d—Ramey was the reason I was here. “Your family is the reason I’m here,” I said. “They got me on that plane.” I assumed it was so they could get these messages to Ramey. What I didn’t know was that it wasn’t the only reason I was here. And Ramey’s relatives weren’t the only ones who wanted me to come to California and meet her.

  Jimmy wanted me to get to the point. “He’s saying not to worry about the separation between you. Let it go. He’s telling me that there was something that came between you and a reason you couldn’t get to him when he died. But he wants you to know that he’s okay. He’s with your father. Did your father not get to see you grow up?”

  “No, he died when I was very young.”

  “Because he’s here, too. And he wants you to know that he’s very proud of you and he’s always known what was going on in your life. Were you very young? Because he didn’t raise you.”

  “I was eighteen months old.”

  “There’s someone else here, too. The man who did raise you. He’s showing me a pink rose with thorns on it. That means he was unable to express love.”

  “My stepfather.”

  “He’s saying happy birthday to someone.”

  “Oh, my God. Today is my sister’s birthday. She’s his biological daughter.”

  This was one of those clear days when I could see (and hear) forever. Even the best readings have gaps, symbols that don’t make sense, messages misinterpreted by me or misunderstood by the person I’m reading. But with Ramey’s relatives, it was almost impossible to get it wrong.

  “He’s showing me blackness down here, like in the intestinal area,” I said of Ramey’s stepfather.