Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Warning. The following minniesode includes discussion of Bronto sources, fortune telling,
Larry King, the Flintstones, and America's first licensed astrologer. It's
also conveniently packaged in ay list format for listeners who
don't like their information presented in numerical order. Please take care.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
For anyone who listens. You know, Skyline Drive isn't that political,
but there's sometimes a person just has to stand up
for what is right. And during the course of our reporting,
it occurred to us here that there aren't any famous
astrologers honored on US post stamps. There are, however, brought
(01:03):
to sources which were famously considered real when I was
a kid, then were declared not real when my cousins
were kids, and then maybe they're real again. I really
can't keep track. Also, there are stamps with Confederate generals
on them, which is confusing because why exactly are we
honoring a bunch of people who try to overthrow the government,
(01:23):
mostly because they wanted to keep slaves. But maybe most
confusing of all, we have the Pony Express on stamps.
This was a failed startup. It barely lasted a year
and a half and it was never part of the
US postal system. So it's kind of like Google issuing
a Google Doodle to honor Alta Vista or Ask Jeeves
(01:45):
or some other long dead competitor. So unless you think
astrology is worse than fake dinosaurs, racist generals, and complete
business failures, I think it's okay to put an astrologer
on a stamp. If we're gonna pick just one astrologer,
I nominate Maxine Taylor from Kaleidoscope and iHeart Podcasts. I'm
(02:11):
Mongi's articular welcome to Skyline Drive. Many sewed one three
(02:49):
reasons we should put Maxine Taylor on a stamp already.
To be honest, Maxine Taylor shouldn't have had time for me.
She spends her days writing and collaborating on books and
taping predictions for her YouTube channel, and also filling the
extra space in between with zoom consultations for clients. But
I think when she heard I was from Brooklyn and
(03:12):
visiting my parents in Georgia, she just couldn't resist. Maxine
happens to be tethered to those two places too. She
was born and raised in Brooklyn and has lived most
of her adult life not too far from where my
folks live, and I'm so glad she made time for me,
because after just an hour with her, I realized how
much she's done for the art and practice of astrology
(03:35):
here in the United States. One Maxine made it legal
to be an astrologer.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
I said, listen, I want to legalize astrology and at
some point become an astrologer. Back then, you practiced trology
in hush whispers because we're in the Bible Belt, for
goodness sake.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
In nineteen sixty nine, soon after Maxine had moved from
Brooklyn to Atlanta, she realized that you couldn't get a
business license for astrology in Georgia.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
It wasn't just Georgia, it was the entire country.
Speaker 4 (04:19):
One of the distinctions that seems to be made is
is between fortune telling and astrology, And so what is
it that doesn't sit together with those two ideas.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Oh well, first of all, there's a negative connotation to
fortune telling. It's like a gypsy, is like a rip off, etc.
It's not I think it's a term used to denigrate.
But if you're able to put people's mind at ease,
put their hearts at ease, answer their questions, and if
(04:52):
you come from love. This is a mission. It's a
labor of love, and I think word fortune telling is insulting.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Maxine had a vision that she was meant to bring
astrology to the forefront. It came to her in a
dream that one of her purposes here on earth was
to make people see the worth in astrology and to
legitimize it. So she took her case to the Cobb
County Commissioners. The only problem was no one would give
her an appointment, So for weeks she waited in the
(05:26):
lobby without anyone calling her name, and finally she saw
an open door. So she sneaks into the commissioner's office
and politely asks him herself, and to her surprise, he
invites her to a commission meeting the following week, just
to plead her case in front of a panel. So Maxine,
who's just in her twenties right now, is super nervous
(05:47):
about this.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
I was scared to death because it was very imposing.
The commissioners were sitting on a dais upon like judges,
and I didn't know how am I going to convince
these people.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Also, the mood in the room is not great. The
Marietta Daily Journal was there and they covered the event
and they wrote, quote it had been a long Tuesday
afternoon full of sewer angry and water angry and highway
angry people, and the clock on the wall showed nearly
five pm when the girl walked in. Anyway, she finally
(06:24):
gets her turn, and she starts by trying to show
how astrology is prominent in the Bible, but she soon
realizes this tack isn't really working well, so she changes
her strategy.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
So what I did was I started talking about each sign,
and I asked each commissioner what their sign was, and
I described them and introduced humor, and the whole nine
yards long story.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
Short and Maxine's charm quickly wins them over. She explains
how the charts take real work, like it takes her
nearly twelve hours of study before she presents one to
a client, and she explains how she doesn't want to
do this as a hobby out of her house, how
she wants a proper office and a business license to
go with it, and one of the commissioners get so
(07:11):
intrigued that he asked her if she could predict the
best days for going hog hunting. In the end, the
panel was so tickled by the way she sussed out
their personalities and connected the stars to their life stories
that they decide to give her a license and they
only charge her one hundred dollars.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I was able to buy the very first license for astrology,
not entertainment, not miscellaneous, not fortune telling, and so what
I did was historical.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Two Maxine put astrology on TV.
Speaker 5 (07:55):
Now.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
One of the things I strongly believe is that pop
culture has the ability to sway all culture. So take
how we sleep. For example, middle class couples in America
used to sleep in separate twin beds, the way Lucy
and Desi did. Until sitcoms of all types from Ozzy
and Harriet I thought you went to bed, well I did,
but I to the Flintstones, to the Brady Bund, Martia,
(08:20):
Marsha and Marcia started depicting couples sharing a bed and
this actually affected American bedrooms and buying habits. But that
isn't the only case. Like when sixteen and Pregnant aired
on MTV, the teenage birth rate went down by five
point seven percent. Joe Biden claimed Will and Grace I'm
(08:41):
Gay did more to pave the way to shift America's
opinion on gay marriage than nearly anything else. So if
any one thing could make astrology more acceptable to Americans,
it's got to be an astrologer on CNN. Can you
tell me how you ended up on the networks?
Speaker 3 (08:59):
In the early year, CNN was an experiment. It was
like the United States. It was a grand experiment.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
At the time. CNN is just a startup and the
channel is throwing ideas at the wall, trying to figure
out what I'll stick. And the truth is, Maxine sticks.
Maxine is kind of built for this. Not only is
she charming and fun and bubbly, but she's also beautiful
and composed. In college, Maxine had been a regular and
beauty pageants and a finalist for Miss University of Florida,
(09:30):
And before she switched to doing astrology full time, she'd
been an elementary school teacher, so she kind of knows
how to wrangle outside personalities.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
In fact, when I was on Larry kingshow he was
a gentleman and he was wonderful, but they felt they
had to present a disclaimer. When I was on, well,
I tend to rebell and you might have figured that
(09:59):
one out, and I really would get irritated with them,
and this was live TV, and I realized I love
live TV because whatever you say, you can't take.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Back, and in the way Maxine always does, it wasn't
long before she started winning people over.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
What happened was my predictions were accurate, and so they
stopped criticizing, and a couple of them asked me to
do their charts.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
She won't reveal who, but big anchors on the network
who would kind of mock astrology or who would publicly
distance themselves from it were regularly asking her to do
their charts.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
I loved being on that team, and I did political predictions,
but at that time mangish I was totally non political.
I didn't even watch the news. It was too negative.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Maxine was such a joy that the station still brings
her back to comment on astrology scandals and occasionally to
make sense of the news. What in the world's going on?
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Oh honey. Every couple of years, some Yahoo rediscovers the
fact that there are two zodiacs. It's that simple, Really, yes,
it's that simple.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Three she convinced an entire country that things would be okay.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
I got a call in nineteen eighty something and it
was from a reporter who also worked for CNN. I
couldn't understand what he was saying, because then we had
and I don't know if we still do what was
called coaxial cable. It was under sea and there was
an echo, was like talking into a tin can. And
(12:01):
he said, I would like you to do the chart
of Hungary.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
This is nineteen eighty nine, soon after communism fell in
Poland and a pro democracy revolution was spreading across Eastern Europe.
And as protests were breaking out in Hungary, a CNN
reporter based in Budapest reaches.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Out and I laughed because I'm thinking, well, when was
this country born? So I said, well, if you can
get me their birthtime, because you need an exact birth
time to cast a chart, and the month, day and year,
I'll do the chart. And he said okay, and I
said goodbye and kind of chuckled, thinking I'll never hear
(12:46):
from this guy again. Well, a couple of weeks later
he was back, and he was so excited. He said,
we were born today.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
On October twenty third, nineteen eighty nine, the Republic of
Hungary officially came into being, ending communism.
Speaker 5 (13:06):
There.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
The Berlin Wall would actually fall two weeks later. It
was really an exciting period in history.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
He gave me the moment it began and said, okay,
will you do the chart? And I did the chart
for the entire country. A country is an entity, a living,
breathing entity, and we interpret that chart a little bit
(13:33):
differently than we do a birth chart, because we're dealing
with not just say short trips, but transportation, communication, the press, etc.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Maxine's reading was pretty thorough. It addressed different areas of
how Hungary would evolve, and it not only aired on
Radio Budapest, but it was printed in newspapers across the country.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Obviously, there was a rebellion going on. People were fighting
for principles. Hungary wasn't free, and so it was quite
an event, quite an event. I considered that the highest honor,
and that was what I realized I wanted to do
(14:21):
to hug the world.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Maxine Taylor broke all sorts of areas for astrologers in
the US. She created space in this world for professional astrology.
She brought it into the news cycle, and she put
the citizens of Budapest at ease by giving the entire
country or reading. Also, she's a total sweetheart.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
I love humanity and I love the diversity the people
who are so bigoted. It's like, can't you see we
are all one. We come in different colored packages, different shapes,
different sizes, different beliefs, and when you touch base with
(15:26):
somebody on that level, to me, that's heaven.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
I love how astrology provides a way for us to
connect and how it lets us see people not just
in their instagram perfect lives, but to appreciate them for
all their complexity. In twenty twenty three, we're getting new
postage stamps to honor snow globes, sailboats, school buses, and pinatas.
And while I'm very much for those things, astrology figures
(15:59):
into a lot of our daily lives. From the Reagan episode,
we know it's shaped our world and country, and in
a strange way, it gives a lot of us comfort
and purpose. Stamps are a symbol of what we value
and what we want to celebrate. So don't you think
between all the sailboats and the snow globes and the piatas,
(16:22):
there might be a little room for an astrologer too,
I like to think. So that's it for this week's
(16:47):
minisode of Skyline Drive special. Thanks to my team here, Mary, Nitra, Mark,
Anna and Drew for cobbling this together over the holidays,
and Botany as always for the soundtrack. Also thank you,
thank you so much to the lovely Maxim Taylor. To
see her predictions for America or to book a consult
with America's first licensed astrologer, just visit Maxinetaylor dot com.
(17:11):
Also a big thank you to my good pal Ben
Bolan for doing this episode's warning. Ben used to sit
across from me at How Stuff Works.
Speaker 5 (17:18):
He's the co host of Ridiculous History and Stuff they
Don't Want You To Know to excellent programs, and he
just put out a phenomenal new book by the same name,
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
Go pick one up immediately.
Speaker 5 (17:32):
We'll be back with more full episodes very very soon.
I know you have so many shows to choose from,
but I want to.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for spending
your time with us. See you soon.