Make No Bones About It, He Knows Who’ll Win

My Super Bowl Diary: Day 4

NEW ORLEANS--There are 3,000 members of the media here asking questions every day trying to learn who will win Super Bowl 36 before it is played--talking to players and coaches who have been trained all their lives to tell the media nothing.

Since they were wasting their time, I went to Jackson Square in the French Quarter, where there are people who can tell you all about the future if you give them some of The Times’ money.

I sat down with Sasha at the corner of St. Peter and Chartres, and asked if she still sees the grocery store bagger in my future. Who cares who wins the Super Bowl?

She shuffled the cards, I moved a little cat statue out of the way so I could take notes, and she told me I had just pushed aside the goddess of pleasure. I told her I did that six days ago when I left L.A.--and I can’t wait to hear how my wife explains that to her giggling kids today at the Catholic school where she teaches.

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I ASKED Sasha what’s in store for Mike Garrett, and she flipped over seven cards and said this person needs to “learn how to love by using wisdom and needs to stop having such an attitude problem,” and since she was batting a thousand, I said, “Do you think I’ll ever get a return call from Steven Sample?”

Sasha pointed to a card with a king standing in front of a raging fire and said that means “Hell, no.” I told her Garrett and Sample worked at USC, and she said, “My father graduated from USC and he’s an attorney in L.A.--John P. Kightlinger--do you know him?” I told her I don’t hang around with many folks from USC.

I asked if Kevin Brown would ever smile and she turned over two cards--Dagaz and Eoh--and explained he has a problem receiving gifts and staying happy. And all this time I thought it was the pins I was sticking in the voodoo doll. I also asked if she could see Salma Hayak in my future, and she said, “Hell, no,” and now that I think about it, I don’t recall her turning over any cards before coming to that conclusion.

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I’M HERE because of the Super Bowl, so of course I asked some Super Bowl questions. I sat down in Judy Moon Star’s Reading Room, and while Sports Editor Bill Dwyre won’t let me write about Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxxxx, I felt it was my journalistic duty to ask if she saw another wedding in Xxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx’s future.

NBC reporter Jim Gray was jogging by, and he joined me for the Xxxxxxxxx discussion as Judy Moon Star asked me to pull a card. I turned over the “seven of slaves,” and said, “Yeah, they probably were,” and she said I was mistaken, it was the “seven of staves.”

After pulling two more cards, Judy announced “this is him,” her next husband, “the king of swords.” Now as Jim Gray is my witness, at the very moment Judy Moon Star told us to look behind us, and expecting to see the King of Swords--her next husband--a guy skated past us playing a guitar and wearing only a cowboy hat and a pair of underpants with “The Naked Cowboy” written on his behind.

I’m sure they’ll be very happy together.

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I REMEMBER Judy saying something about the wheel of fortune, and Gray demanding to know if Vanna White figured somewhere in his life and Judy saying, “Maybe in your next lifetime.” I know I’d like to be listening today when Gray’s wife calls, wanting to know just where Vanna White does figure into his life.

And yes, I asked about Jeanie and Phil. Apparently the cards suggest they have hit a fork in the road, and if the Laker coach is going to marry the owner’s daughter, it’ll happen sometime in the next eight weeks to eight months. I should have asked if she sees him proposing to Jeanie in the hot tub during the NBA All-Star break.

I was running out of The Times’ money, but I also asked Terry the Tarot if he saw me getting stranded any time soon in Nebraska, and I was so thankful when he turned over the “Five Wands” instead of the “Five Hicks.” He said he didn’t see me ever going to Nebraska and it was worth the 20 bucks I gave him to say that.

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WHEN I got to Hurkey for my chicken “Bone Reading,” he poured some Highjohn Oil into a little pouch, asked me to hold it with both hands, and then poured the bones mixed with Cowie Shells onto the table. He told me the bones had come from a Haitian priest, which was a relief, because I thought they looked familiar to the ones I had picked clean a night earlier at Hooters.

He rubbed some of the oil on my hands, held my hands, closed his eyes and we just sat like that for several minutes. If Mike Ditka had held hands with Hurkey, for all we know he still might be coaching the Saints. Of course, if Hurkey had held hands with you know whom, she might be known as Mrs. Xxxxxxx Hurkey today.

Hurkey said the bones “speak to him,” and when I asked if I’d be able to eavesdrop, he said, “No, you don’t have the gift.” When I told Hurkey I had $25, the conversation between the spirits and Hurkey intensified, and he said I should take a salt bath and step out backward so all the “negativity” runs down the drain. I have no idea why he’d think I’d be covered in negativity, but I could tell he knows what he’s talking about, because he said he could see me coming into some money this June.

I figure it’ll take that long to convince The Times I spent $120 trying to find out who will win Super Bowl 36--while never getting around to asking the question.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com.