PSYCHIC PUCCIO SPEAKS HIS MIND ON KFI RADIO

“I’ve been trying to locate my father for 17 years,” said a caller to Joe Puccio’s “Future Predictions” program on radio station KFI-AM (640). “I was wondering if maybe you think I might find him.”

“I get something that looks to me more like a Southwestern state,” Puccio immediately answered. “It could be Texas, New Mexico, Arizona . . . where there’s a lot of bareness. But I think it will be a couple more years before you stumble on a clue. And I’ll tell you how you’re going to find out something about him. It’s going to come from an older woman who is very short.” Next.

“Do you see my (baby) sitter as being good for my girls?” caller Mary asked.

“Yes,” Puccio answered. Next.

Karen wanted to know why her son was having mood problems.

“Frustration is part of it,” Puccio said. “The other part has to do with his diet. . . . He should not be skipping breakfast and he should make certain he’s getting more protein, because he could be having some low-blood-sugar problems.”

About 10 callers a day make it past the busy signals to ask Puccio, 47, about the fate of real estate ventures, relationships, careers and, occasionally, a lost person or object.

Describing himself as part psychologist, part Dear Abby and a professional psychic of 14 years, Puccio has perfected a rapid-fire delivery that quickly sums up a caller’s questions and, just as quickly, answers them.

He warns listeners that he, like all psychics, doesn’t have all the answers. Nonetheless, his radio show, he says, has helped to double his $70-an-hour private readings business.

Puccio is one of the few local psychics who enjoys daily radio exposure, though there are other local call-in shows that have a parapsychological bent similar to “Future Predictions.”

“Out of the Ordinary” on KIEV-AM (870) Sundays at midnight, features transmedium Gerry Bowman.

Monday through Thursday at 10 a.m., Elizabeth Nachman hosts a show on KFOX-FM (93.5). She invites listeners to “comment on world events or parapsychology,” according to KFOX program director Jim Dolce.

On KABC-AM (790), Bill Jenkins hosts “Open Mind” Saturdays at 9 p.m. A rotating cast of guests discuss with callers what Jenkins refers to as “new age” topics (including out-of-body experiences, reincarnation, advanced sciences and psychic phenomena) “not ordinarily (examined) in the media.” Psychics also appear regularly on general audience talk shows.

Few have the demeanor or delivery of KFI’s Puccio. Joining the station last November, Puccio is on the air weekdays from 10 to 11 a.m. He squeezes in his comments twice in the hour, which is otherwise filled with KFI’s standard fare of pop songs, traffic and news reports.

Predictions, he said in an interview, are “better on the radio. It’s off the top of my head--it’s fast, it’s something that’s spontaneous, it’s objective, and because of that it’s usually most accurate.

“When I have to stop and think too much about it, my own processes get in the way and my accuracy diminishes.”

Black-haired, mustachioed Puccio was dressed in a lilac pullover sweater and khaki pants. He looked more hip than mystical.

“I’m not a fountain of knowledge that walks around,” he said. “I think there’s the danger a lot of times with psychics that we have a tendency to be placed in the position of being God, and we’re not, really. People are looking at me as an example of the psychic world, so I have to be careful about what my message is. I don’t want to come across as some squirrelly person or some person who is out of left field or spacey.”

Puccio claims to have had psychic experiences since the age of 3 but says he doesn’t know how he evolved into a media psychic. “I was sort of led to where I am,” he said. “I just listened to my instincts and I’m doing it.”

A former high school English teacher, Puccio joined KFI to add “entertainment and amazement elements” to the morning show, says station program director Steve LaBeau, who adds that the resident clairvoyant “probably has a (psychic) power.”

But how many of his predictions come true?

“I have gotten a lot of feedback over the years,” Puccio said, “but I wouldn’t give a percentage (in regard to accuracy) because with some people I could be zero percent. I’ve had people who tell me that nothing I’ve told them has happened. It bothers me, but I know that over the years I must have had a high degree of accuracy or I wouldn’t be as successful with people returning to me as I’ve been.”