...an extremely difficult development.
The process of renewal, he said, meant providing the country with competent leadership.
He laid the blame for the present upheavals in the communist-led state on his predecessors,
claiming they had violated party statutes and had lost the party's close relationship with the people.
But despite Krensch's outwardly vigorous attempts to revitalize the party's sagging image,
doubts remain about his ability to rescue the SED's dwindling fortunes.
Clive Freeman for Pacifica News from Berlin.
In Managua today, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega announced he's prepared to renew a unilateral ceasefire
if the U.S.-backed Contras agree to disband under guidelines set forth by the Central American Plan.
Ortega said he will formally announce the proposition for reinstating the 19-month-old ceasefire
when he meets with the Contra leadership at the U.N. tomorrow.
In reaction to Ortega's announcement, a Contra commander in Honduras said his forces would not consider disbanding
without first a ceasefire and a guarantee that Contra forces can return home.
Meanwhile, here in Washington, Nicaraguan opposition candidate Violeta Chamorro met with President Bush at the White House.
Tomorrow, she will have breakfast with visiting Philippine President Corazana Quino.
And is then scheduled to meet with members of Congress.
Chamorro will leave for Europe on Friday.
And you're listening to the news on WBAI New York.
Democrat Jim Florio made lower car insurance prices his top priority on his first day as New Jersey's governor-elect today,
promising a reduction in the next year and also renewing his promise not to raise taxes.
Car insurance is number one, said Florio, who also named campaign manager Doug Berman to head his transition team.
Florio, an eight-term Congress member making his third run for governor,
defeated Republican Jim Corder in yesterday's election, carrying 62 percent of the vote to Corder's 38 percent in the landslide.
Democrats were swept into control of the state assembly on Florio's coattails,
taking 44 of the 80 seats in the lower house, with one race still too close to call.
Republicans had had a majority of 41 to 39.
Democrats already controlled the Senate, and the gubernatorial and assembly victories gave the party complete control of the state house.
And finally tonight, the healing has begun.
Mayor-elect David Dinkins lived up to his image as a conciliator last night with a carefully worded victory speech
and a deliberate selection of guests on the podium as he made that speech.
It was friends and family only.
No politicians, including Jesse Jackson, joined him on the stage.
Jenny Bourne was at the victory celebration and talked with African-American New Yorkers
about their hopes for the first black mayor in the city's history.
The race was far closer than anyone expected, just three percentage points instead of the double-digit victory predicted by the polls.
In the end, Rudolph Giuliani conceded just before midnight, pushing Dinkins' victory speech into the wee hours of Wednesday morning.
Thousands of Dinkins supporters crushed into the Sheraton's Imperial Ballroom.
They grew restless waiting to celebrate their champion.
By the time Dinkins appeared, they didn't want to hear anything about his opponent.
Rudolph Giuliani is a decent man.
Oh, oh, oh, oh.
Now.
Now.
Now hear me, please.
Dinkins called for unity and was careful to thank a list of key supporters, including Mayor Ed Koch, who he called the city's senior statesman, and Governor Mario Cuomo.
Before he mentioned Jesse Jackson, the crowd began a soft chant, barely audible, urging Dinkins to give voice to their conscience and thank Jesse Jackson.
And another man of towering talent who has touched the face of history, a man whose gifts and caring cannot be denied, sometimes misunderstood.
I know he wants to be a powerful force for the healing of America.
I make reference to my friend, the Reverend Jesse Lewis Jackson.
Jackson became the center of controversy during the campaign when Jewish voters, considered crucial to Dinkins' victory, questioned Dinkins' association with Jackson because of the civil rights leader's stance on Israel.
Dinkins said throughout the campaign that the two differed on Israel.
On primary night, Jackson stood with Dinkins on stage, but during the later phases of the campaign, he was nearly invisible, and Dinkins assured Jewish voters that Jackson would not be a key advisor in New York City's government.
Last night, Dinkins became mayor with only 39 percent of the Jewish vote.
By contrast, 97 percent of all African Americans voted for David Dinkins, hardly surprising since nearly every black elected official and clergyman came out in his support.
And that vote was crucial in winning Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Manhattan.
During his acceptance speech, Dinkins recognized Congressmember Charles Rangel, Senator Basil Patterson, and former Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton.
Dinkins said everybody stands on someone's shoulders, and he stands on the shoulders of Sutton, who also ran for mayor.
Last night, supporters representing diverse segments of the African American community expressed hope for Dinkins' administration,
but didn't let their new mayor-elect off the hook.
Pete Williams of the Medgar-Evers College Center for Law and Social Justice says black activists must come up with an agenda expressing their concerns to the new mayor.
We cannot say now we have an African American in there and just leave it as that.
We must constantly provide the necessary direction.
Activist Jitu Weyusi, who resigned from the Dinkins' campaign after being accused of making anti-Semitic remarks during the 1960s teacher strike,
was there last night showing his support for Dinkins.
And I think that now we should take a period of time and reflect on everything,
and then we can kind of see how everything is going to move, you know.
I think we should enjoy the moment tonight, though.
Assemblymember Al Vann, another longtime black activist who began his political career in the wake of that teacher strike,
says the Brooklyn vote was key to Dinkins' success.
Brooklyn has probably one-third of the electorate, and we came out in great numbers in the primary,
and we did the same thing in the general election, so you might say so goes Brooklyn, so goes citywide leadership in many ways.
In Brooklyn, as in many parts of the city, long lines formed at the polls as the evening wore on.
Hazel Dukes, who heads up the state NAACP, says large numbers of African Americans came out to vote in the three boroughs won by Dinkins.
At 7.30 there was lines in Brooklyn.
I always believed that Brooklyn would be ours, and with Brooklyn, Bronx, and Manhattan, there was no way that Mr. Giuliani could win.
It would be close, but he could not win, so I was not tense.
I was tense and sad that Mr. Giuliani did not concede earlier, as he did, and I'm not so sure whether he really conceded.
In his concession speech, Giuliani said he was proud of his 48% victory in a city that is 5-1 Democrat.
Dinkins campaigned as a healer who could bring together the city's diverse racial and ethnic groups.
Last night, African Americans said they hope his leadership will stem the tide of police brutality and racially motivated violence in the city.
New York cannot continue to exist the way it has been existing over the last 12 years.
Attorney C. Vernon Mason.
This city was getting ready to blow up.
Now, a lot of people did not understand that and had no appreciation for that.
Just getting a voice on a number of problems that we've had over the last 12 years,
we've pretty much run up against a deaf ear in city politics and even in state government.
We've had special prosecutors appointed on cases like Jimmy Lee Bruce where nothing has been done.
So I think that David will add a tone to the city that has never existed before.
The expectations of people in our community are going to be very, very high,
but I think the expectations of people across New York City are going to be very, very high.
While many black activists say they will fight hard to make New York's mayor-elect live up to those expectations,
last night they were simply savoring the moment like long-time Harlem activist Queen Mother Moore.
What happened is beautiful, so we all should enjoy it.
It's about time we see it.
Now, what we want to do is stick together and make it stronger and stronger.
For WBAI News, I'm Jenny Bourne with Sally O'Brien and Zensley Khoisan.
And that's some of the news for Wednesday, November 8th, 1989.
The news was engineered by Jennifer Burnett.
It was produced with Mark Albert, Julie Cohn, Lauren Kamato, Zensley Khoisan, Sally O'Brien, and Jenny Bourne.
And the newsroom wishes Jenny a very happy birthday.
I'm Amy Goodman in New York with Tara Seiler in Washington for WBAI listener-supported news.
And it's coming up on 1147.
You're tuned to WBAI in New York.
This is Emanuel Goldstein.
I'll be filling in for Robert Knight tonight.
And we have quite a few interesting things coming up, including some call-ins.
If you feel in a talkative mood tonight, this is your opportunity.
Listen.
This is not the way of it.
This is not the way of it.
All that shouting.
All that noise.
All that noise.
Listen.
This is not the way of it.
All that shouting is not the way of it.
All that noise.
All that noise.
Listen.
Listen.
Listen.
This noise.
Noise.
Noise.
Noise.
Noise.
Noise.
Noise.
Noise.
Noise.
Noise.
There's one thing I hate.
Oh, the noise, noise, noise, noise.
You ever think that life is just nothing but a series of noises?
In fact, that's what the whole planet, the whole universe is.
Well, this is not Earthwatch, but it's going to be close.
We'll be talking about the environment.
We'll be talking about high technology and some low technology
and some low morals and high morals
and all kinds of neat things like that.
Flag burning, East Germany, you name it.
There's just so many things going on that I feel like finding out more about
and our listeners are certainly the people to tell us.
But before we get into any of that,
I'd like to play a couple of things for you that I think are extremely relevant.
The first thing is off a project that I was involved in
with a couple of other people called Brain Damage Incorporated.
And this is from our, I guess you would call it an album.
But it's not an album in the fact that it was never released and it was never put on vinyl.
But in every other sense, it was an album.
And this piece features a gentleman known as Reverend Al.
Let's have a bit of that and then we'll go into some telephone business here on WBAI.
Our telephone number, by the way, in case you want to call in, is 212-279-3400.
If you rewind the tape and start over again, I may proceed.
But I do not find it possible to proceed with the tape at the present moment.
In fact, I refuse to proceed.
I am staying in my church until you rewind that tape and I can go once again.
Right on.
This transmission is coming to you approximately halfway between the moon and the earth.
McDonald's, may I help you?
Yeah, hi.
I'm sorry to bother you.
Now, I'm on a special diet, so I can't have some foods.
But I wanted to taste the McDonald's for a while now.
Could you possibly tell me what exactly goes into a Big Mac?
Okay.
On a Big Mac, it has the beef, the hamburger meat, right?
And it has a special sauce with onions and lettuce and two pickles and a spice of cheese.
Now, do you know what the special sauce is this is?
Um, could you hold on for one second?
Yeah, I can hold on.
All right.
All right.
That's not required information for us to be given after people now.
I can't eat that.
That's the ingredient.
That's no.
All right.
You can't get that information.
You can buy it with me, though.
You know what I'm saying?
It's amazing.
He said he's on a special diet.
He can't eat.
Oh, wait.
What can't you?
Why don't you ask him what he can't eat?
And if it's there, then that's how we'll do it.
That's the thing.
Okay.
Right?
Hello?
Um, what can you not eat?
Well, I'm supposed to have low-sodium foods with, like, not a lot of salt.
Uh-huh.
And I can't have things with iodine.
Uh-huh.
Or glycerin.
Uh-huh.
Or hypoglycerates.
Hypoglycerates?
Yeah.
Uh-huh.
Well, you can have a Big Mac, then.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Uh-huh.
The number you have reached, one, has been changed.
The new number is two.
Please make a note of it.
Please repeat.
The number you have reached has been changed.
The new number has been disconnected.
Hit.
It's done.
It's done.
It's done.
It's done.
It's done.
It's done.
It's done.
It's done.
It's done.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
We'll be right back.
Let me look at the record cover here and see what year is printed on this thing.
It was way back there.
With my luck, there's no year on this.
Now, that does not seem to be, unfortunately.
But I had to go long and I had to go to the record, but I had to go long and far to find a used copy of this record because it's out of print, Focus.
And the record is called the record.
little crazy bits, and that was it. They sort of faded away, and on this record, I believe there
are seven on the album cut. I remember the first time I was listening to, like, the Progressive,
the Progressive FM station back in the 70s. That's when we used to have such things. You know, the one
that played the LP tracks, and where the DJs talked for long periods of time, and had really
deep voices, and things like that, and they played the long version, and it was like, wow, there's a
long version of this, and I remember sitting by the radio with my tape recorder. This was before
they had tape recorders built into radios, or if it wasn't before that, it was before I ever saw one
of them, and I would sit there with my handheld microphone, and my Panasonic tape recorder, which
I had just gotten for some kind of a celebration of some sort, and I was holding it up to the radio,
waiting, waiting for those opening chords, and of course, you'd always miss the opening chords, because
you'd run to turn the microphone on just when they started playing, and I still have those
tapes. I still have those tapes. If I listen back to some of them, I hear the remnants of
some of these songs, and the DJs talking afterwards sometimes, which is really pretty amazing, like
the old WABC with the bell and all that. Oh, those are the days. Those were the days.
Hocus Pocus by Focus here on WBAI, listener-supported radio in New York, and before that, we heard
from Brain Damage Incorporated, and a special thanks to Dave from Brooklyn and Mike from Wisconsin,
whose last name is Johnson, and that's all that I'm going to say. It's just about midnight.
I'm Emanuel Goldstein, filling in for Robert Knight and the Earthwatch program. Speaking of
Earthwatch, speaking of our planet and the environment, I don't know if anybody saw Calvin
and Hobbes today. Boy, I love that comic strip. Calvin's walking through the woods with Hobbes and
says, I was reading about how countless species are being pushed towards extinction by man's
destruction of forests. Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere
in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. Yes, that's something. Something
can certainly be said there. And listening to the whole McDonald's thing, you wonder,
what's in a McDonald's hamburger? They don't even know. They don't know. I mean, you ask
them and they say, oh, we can't give out that information. We have no idea what's in a McDonald's
hamburger. Don't ask any questions like that. Amazing. So, the environment. The environment
is a pressing issue. It's the issue that I hope most people were thinking about yesterday
when they went to the polls. Although a lot of people, I think, were more concerned over things
like taxes, which unfortunately don't always go hand in hand. Sometimes the environmentalists
are accused of spending more money to preserve the environment. And that can be an unforgivable
sin, I know. And in some cases, it costs them. We'll go into that a bit more later on as
we talk about various environmental issues. I'd like to hear from some environmentalists
out there. I'd also like to swerve the program carefully, carefully, you know, because it
is slippery outside. Swerve the program over to the issues of high technology and telephones
because that's sort of my main interest is phones, computers, that kind of a thing. And
I'd like to hear comments, observations on things concerning privacy, things concerning
where it's all going, and some of the issues that perhaps you don't see in the media all
that much. Well, this is your chance. Our number is 279-3400. We're going to demonstrate something
for you now. This is actually a piece that I had to record earlier because the number that I'd like
to demonstrate to you, this is a number that exists for everybody. Everybody can call this number,
I believe. Up until recently, you couldn't call it in the New York City area. But I think now you can.
And it's a number, it's actually two different numbers operated by the phone company. And they
allow you to do all kinds of interesting things with a talking computer. And I will play the tape
where I actually went through a very thorough demonstration of it. And the reason I can't go
through a thorough demonstration of it live on the air right now is a very simple reason. The phone
setup is such that I can't push those little buttons on the air. At least if I can, I haven't figured out
how yet. And that's very important. You have to respond by pushing those little magic buttons.
So, in order to be able to present this demonstration, I had to record it. And that's
just the way it is. But we'll talk about it when we come back. We'll take your phone calls,
212-279-3400, here on WBAI in New York.
Telephone repair, if you haven't called recently, has a brand new type of device. Listen to this.
Good evening. You have reached New York telephone repair service. At this time,
we are experiencing a work stoppage. To continue, press 1. I will press 1.
This is an automated repair service line. No kidding. You will be asked a series of questions
to help us repair the trouble. Most questions will require a yes or a no response. Yes is
always indicated by pressing 1. No by pressing 2. In all cases, you will be given instructions.
Should you require an agent at any time during this call, press 0. Please enter the area code and
telephone number that you are reporting. If you make a mistake, press the star key.
Enter the area code and telephone number now. Now I'm going to enter my phone number here,
632-6901, and I will probably refuse to accept it since it's not a real telephone number.
You have entered area code 516 and phone number 632-6901. If this number is correct, press 1. If
incorrect, press 2. Please hold on momentarily while we retrieve your repair records.
They're not going to find them.
Please hold for the next available agent.
Yeah, well, that's pretty much what we figured would happen. The thing is, you have to enter a
valid number that's served by New York telephone, and that particular phone number is what we call
a direct inward dial or DID number. It's not the same thing. It's not a real phone number. It's
hard to explain, but believe me, it's true. So I've taken the liberty of going through the phone
book here, and yeah, I don't want to send repairmen to people's houses or anything like that. Actually,
I don't want to send repairmen anywhere, but I do want to demonstrate the capabilities of this system,
and I figured where else to send a repairman if we had to do it than to New York telephone
themselves, because we're certainly having lots of trouble with them lately. Their phone system is
really falling to pieces because they're all on strike, and the phone company doesn't seem at all
interested in fixing the strike. In fact, I got into a very lengthy discussion last night with somebody
at our monthly hacker meeting who was telling me how 9x is trying to bust the union, you know, and
after, I think, it's seven months or so. After seven months, they have to fold the union if they're
still on strike, or some crap like that. I don't know, but it seems to me my interpretation of this
whole 9x strike is that it certainly doesn't hurt the phone company any to have them out on strike.
I mean, look at it. Look at it from their point of view. They're not paying the people who are
walking around on strike, and they get to accuse them of all kinds of sabotage, which may or may
not be true. Who knows? But it's good PR when that happens. And they charge full rates for us,
for us, the poor customers. We're not getting any discount on this, although there is starting
finally to be some talk of getting a discount. So they're doing quite well, and there's nothing for
us to do. There's no competition. There's nowhere else we can go. So, we've got a phone number here.
Let's see. How about 9x? Oh, no, New York Telephone.
What I made a telephone repair network is that it takes much longer for you, the customer,
to tell what the problem is. You have reached New York Telephone repair service. I go through these
endless menus. At this time, we are experiencing a work stoppage. To continue, press 1. God forbid
you don't have a touchtone phone. This is an automated repair service line. You will be asked a series of
questions to help us repair the trouble. Most questions will require a yes or a no response.
Yes is always indicated by pressing 1. No by pressing 2. In all cases, you will be given
instructions. There's no way to bypass this announcement, by the way. If you require an
agent at any time during this call, press 0. Please enter the area code and telephone number that
you are reporting. If you make a mistake, press the star key. Enter the area code and telephone
number now. Okay. 9x Business Centers.
You have entered area code 516 and phone number 9331881. If this number is correct, press
1. Please hold on momentarily while we retrieve your repair records. Thank you for waiting.
We have your records. Let's continue. Okay. If you should need to start over at any time,
press the star key. Are you having trouble getting a dial tone? If yes, press 1. If no,
press 2. What do you say? No. No trouble there. Are you having trouble calling out? If yes,
press 1. If no, press 2. No trouble calling out. Is there noise, static, or interference on the line?
If yes, press 1. If no, press 2. Uh, what do we say for that one? No. Are you having trouble
receiving calls? If yes, press 1. Yes. I am having trouble receiving calls. If no, press 2. Because
we're not getting enough calls. Okay. Yes, definitely. Is the trouble on all your telephones on this line?
If yes, press 1. If no, press 2. If you do not know, press 3. Uh, yes.
Our test shows that your trouble may be caused by your telephone equipment. We must advise you that
if our repair person visits your home and finds the problem to be caused by your telephone set,
we cannot fix it. In addition, we must bill you for the visit. We suggest you try a different
telephone on the line or have your phone checked by the manufacturer. Do you wish to continue with
the trouble call? This is the best part. If yes, press 1. If no, press 2. I'm going to
say no and listen to what happens. It just hangs up on you. Now, can you imagine if a real person
did that? Uh, do you want to continue? No. That's it. It's all over. Incredible. Well, at least that
worked. Uh, we didn't send a repair person out to 9X, though we certainly should have. Now, uh,
you dial 611, you can do all kinds of neat things, I guess. Uh, what's, what's fun about that,
you might have noticed they said, uh, our tests indicate, which, which means they actually test the
line while you're there. In fact, if, if you're online, you'll hear, you'll, you'll hear a click
and, um, it's kind of, kind of neat the way they do that. Uh, and there's another system too. I'm not
sure if I can access that. I haven't tried yet, but I'm going to try now. Um, one moment.
Okay, this is the credit system.
Welcome to New York Telephone's automated credit system. To receive a credit for service
difficulty within your local calling area, simply hang up at the sound of the tone.
For additional credit assistance, please stay on the line.
We'll stay on the line. We'll get connected to another computer with a very staticky voice.
Welcome to the New York Telephone Automated Credit Bureau. Please use your touchtone telephone
keypad to enter one, now. Enter the area code and number that you called, now.
If you would like the credit applied to your telephone number, enter one, now. Otherwise,
enter two, now. I'll enter two. Please hold, and an operator will answer. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. No
humans. No humans allowed. Now, what's, what's really amazing, I guess I should, I should demonstrate
this, because, uh, you'll, you'll see how unfair and unjust it is firsthand.
Let's, uh, let's just pretend I called this thing, and I don't have a touchtone phone.
A lot of people don't have touchtone phones.
Welcome to New York Telephone's automated credit system. To receive a credit for service
difficulty within your local calling area, simply hang up at the sound of the tone.
For additional credit assistance, please stay on the line.
Okay, now, I don't have a touchtone phone, so I can't press numbers or anything like that,
so I'm just going to stay on and talk to a person.
Welcome to the New York Telephone Automated Credit Bureau. Please use your touchtone telephone
keypad to enter one, now. Don't have a touchtone phone? I can't do that.
Please hold, and an operator will answer.
Sounds fair enough to me.
We're sorry. Due to a 9X work stoppage, the credit bureau is temporarily closed at this time.
If you require credit for a service difficulty, please record the details and contact the credit
bureau immediately following the work stoppage. Credit will be applied at that time. We apologize
for any inconvenience. Thank you.
Give me a bleeding break here. We're supposed to write down all of the times that 9X screws up and
give it all to them at the end of this strike? That's preposterous. That's amazing. It's simply
unbelievable. So if you don't subscribe to their time, and you know, they still have people calling
you, nagging you to subscribe for touchtone service and all that crap, why can't they put
them to work taking the credit information? I just don't understand it. So a lot of people aren't going
to report the trouble because they don't keep track of it, you know, for four months or however long it's
been. And as a result, 9X will simply clean up as they've been doing. Oh well, enough about that. Of course,
if you want repair information, you want to see what that system can do. It's 611 if you want credit
211. And, um, that's, uh, that's the latest in technology. And it's kind of interesting too,
that they've introduced those things now after the strike, uh, to, uh, replace people, even though
it doesn't really replace anyone. All it replaces is the person that, uh, the repair thing, for instance,
it just replaces the person that takes that information and can talk to you back and forth a little
better than the computer can. Uh, it doesn't replace the people that have to go out and fix
the thing. And it, uh, it allows for a lot of false, uh, false reports to be filed. So it's, uh,
it's not really saving anybody anything, but it is fun, isn't it? Our telephone number is 212-279-3400
as, uh, we abuse the phone company in, uh, much the same way we've been abused over the last several
months. You know, I was in Europe when this whole thing started, when the, when the phone strike
started. And actually back then it was, uh, it was strikes all over the place. It was strikes,
uh, you know, in, in Southern part of the country, out, out West. But for some reason,
9x is the only company that has not settled. And, you know, I keep reading in the paper and by the
way, if somebody has the, um, the, uh, 9x, the number that you call to get the information on the
strike, it's sort of like a, a news line, please feel free to call in with that number because, uh,
not only will I call it, but I will share that number with other people because we certainly have
the right to know what's going on. Although I should warn you that you call that number, usually
they just say something like, nothing's happening, goodbye, and they hang up. You know, it's a recording,
but it doesn't really say much more than that. Uh, but I, I heard about this thing. I was, I think,
in, in Amsterdam or something when, uh, word of the strike hit. Well, actually, word of the strike
didn't hit. I tried to call home. I tried to call directory assistants and, uh, uh, the poor Dutch
operators were going crazy, you know, trying to, trying to get through and, and waiting up to
10, 15 minutes for, for information to come online. This was when things were, were really bad.
They didn't have anybody staffing the place, but, but here it is. It's, it's November, you know,
August, September, October, November, four months. And I mean, come on, you know, if it's,
if this was a, a major corporation with, with, with competition, you know, they would be out
of business by now. I mean, look what happened to Eastern Airlines, Continental, that whole thing,
you know, it hurts. It hurts when people go out on strike, but there's something different with
the phone company. You see, AT&T did this back in 1983. They had a strike. In fact, they've had,
they've had strikes before, but 1983 was their last, the last mighty corporate strike, I call it.
The reason being, 1983 was pre-divestiture, before there was the breakup of AT&T, and before
all the competition started getting equal access. When that happened, suddenly AT&T had competition.
So, when their workers went out on strike, and they started giving substandard service,
they suddenly had to be concerned. Now, back in 1983, they didn't really have to be concerned,
because when the workers went out on strike, they stopped paying the workers, so they saved all
that money. They charged the customers full price for, for substandard service, so they continued to
get the money that they, that they were getting before, and the money that they, they lost through
non-working pay phones, and, and lack of new orders, and things like that, was minimal compared to what
they gained. Now, that can't happen anymore with AT&T, because there's competition, and that's, uh,
that's probably the best reason I've ever heard for the breakup of the bell system. You know,
it's confusing as hell. Yes, yes, I know how confusing it is to make a phone call, but
it was well-intentioned. It was a good idea in the long run, I think. Now, New York Telephone.
You may or may not know this, but there is no competition for New York Telephone. Now,
it's very easy to tell, because when you pick up your phone and make a local call, you only have one
choice. You can only make that call on New York Telephone. You can't say, oh, what, what company am I
going to make my local call on? You know, what's, who's going to install my phone line? You don't have
that choice. It's got to be New York Telephone, so I think it's high time that there was some
competition there. Also, along the same lines, high time there was some competition with cable TV
companies, and anyone else where there's just one company doing it. It's just not fair.
That's, uh, that's the way I feel about that. Anyway, our telephone number is 212-279-3400. If you
call now, though, you'll probably get a busy signal, because we do seem to have a lot of calls,
calls. But, uh, I do want to hear what other people have to say about these matters and about
anything else relating to, uh, technology in the, in the modern world. It's, uh, 21 minutes after
12 o'clock. Again, the number 279-3400. Good evening.
Oh, good evening. Um, let me get my radio. Uh, I just wanted to say, um, Emmanuel, that I heard your
show on, uh, that Monday night that, uh, Peter wasn't on a few months back when you did this thing,
um, um, off the hook. Uh-huh. On Monday, like Monday night, and I wanted to say that I'm a
supporter, long-time, um, supporter of the Bone Freaks, going back to the 60s, and, and of what
you're doing, and I'd like to see you get that show there. Get us, not take over, um, Shelton
Walden's position, because I didn't, at the time, of course, he wasn't there, but get something like
that late, late at night. Yeah, well, you know, I'd like to do a, a program pretty much like the program
I'm doing right now, where we just talk about these things, because, uh, it's, it's something
that hits us every day, you know, and I'm, I'm going to demonstrate how it hits us, because
there are, you know, there's little devices, there's little databases, there's all kinds
of, some, sometimes they're neat. They're only neat, though, if you know how they work, and
know what they're capable of doing, and have access to them, but they're not so neat when
they're only in the hands of, of, you know, the government, or big corporations, or other
people that use them against you, you know what I mean?
Exactly, and I think there's not enough discussion of that, and especially, um, on B.A., where,
where we, where, it's only, our only place where we can talk about these things at all,
and, you know, the computer show addresses the technical aspects, but this, you will address
the, um, political and social aspects of alternative technology, as well as the technical, and show
their interrelationship, and the importance of people educating themselves about these things,
and not being, um, not being, um, technology illiterate.
Right, yeah, and I don't want to, you know, compare programs, but the, you know, computer
show is, I would, I would consider...
It's a great service. I'm not putting them down. I just think they're not filling another,
there's another gap to be filled, and you, and I think you do, did a great job that night,
and I would like to see you, you continue to do it, continue to do that.
Yeah, well, I, I hope I will be able to. Where are you calling from?
Um, from, um, Lower Manhattan.
Lower Manhattan, great.
Yeah.
Okay, well, is there anything on your mind, uh, regarding high tech, or anything like that, or any concerns?
Um, I'm just, uh, I'm, I'm an avid supporter. I've been active in it, active in promoting
it, and, um...
Well, now, for the, for the benefit of the listeners that might not know what that means,
could you sort of define what you mean by avid supporter?
Um, well, um, during, starting in the 60s, I, I, um, I guess one of the things that,
I don't know if I should say this, but, on the air, but I did pass out the lists and
stuff, and, um...
The lists? What are the lists?
The phone freak lists, and, um, I pass out all the information I could on the black boxes
and the white boxes and all that stuff, and, and continue to...
That's the old stuff, the stuff that doesn't, doesn't work anymore.
And in the present, uh, um, just distributing literature around it, and, um, trying to educate
myself on, on doing things alternatively by, um, I'm interested in alternative energy.
So I'm sort of trying to work on, trying to develop ways of, of having decentralized sources
of energy that could, a community could generate on its own and not have to depend on kindness.
Uh-huh. Well, that sounds, uh, sounds like a worthy thing.
What would, what would you say, what would you say to those people that, that would say
that you're just, uh, you know, involved in defrauding the industry, and, uh, you know,
you're not, you're not doing something that's legal. What would you say to that?
I would say that, um, possibly there's some argument in that, but I would say that let's
pit the Davids and the Goliaths here, and we're the Davids and they're the Goliaths,
and if we open up their books, we could probably demonstrate that they've perpetrated more
fraud on the public and more hurt on the public than, than the public could possibly, or has
possibly done to them. That's, that's a very good point. And just, just looking at New York
Telephone alone, uh, you know, look at the strike, look at what they've accomplished with
the strike, look at all the money they're making there. Obviously, I can't say exactly how much
money they're making, but it's common sense, you know, they're not paying all those workers,
obviously not filling their shoes, and they're providing substandard service at full prices.
Now, there's that, there's, there's all kinds of, of rip-off services, like, um, I don't
know if you, you got this thing in your phone bill recently about, uh, you know, come January
1st, we won't be able to maintain your wires anymore unless, unless you pay us a certain amount
of money per month to maintain your wires. Now, you know, it's, it's common sense. Ask yourself,
ask yourself, yeah, of course, but, but ask yourself this question. When was the last time
something went wrong with the wire inside your wall? Uh, you know, I, I don't know anybody
where, where something went wrong with the wire inside the, I'm, it's just, it's money,
it's money for nothing again.
There's a box that's in my house that's, that's, there's like a wire that runs from my phone,
where my phone jack is, to the window where it runs out into the, outside, up into the
roof and stuff. Right.
And there's like a little box there, and that little box just wore out, and I had to come
in here and repair it just like a few weeks ago. Uh-huh. So I'm a really bad person to
ask about that. Well, I mean, these, uh.
Look out of my mind, so like, it was good for me that they, that it was possible I could
get the service. You know what I mean? And I, I'm not, I'm not much of an electrician,
I'm really a mechanic. Right, but I, I don't think that would fall under the wire
maintenance charge, because I really don't know of any instance where that's been used.
You know? Actually, I wasn't charged. No, it did fall under that charge.
Are you sure it was the wire maintenance? Because, because, if you're talking about
that little box, what is the difference we're talking about here?
Are you talking about that little box known as the interface that they put on the, on
the wall? Yeah. No, that, that will continue to be covered. That's part of the phone
company. That's, that's where their wire ends. They're, they're talking about the wire
inside the walls of your, of your house that, that go past that point.
See how ignorant, you know, I'm just saying, see how ignorant somebody even tries to
keep up. Yeah, it's, uh, you know, it's, it's crazy. I mean.
Yeah, that's amazing. I had no idea.
But that's not the only example. There's, there's things like gold numbers. If you ask
for a certain number, okay, like, let's say, I want a number with a two at the end of it,
okay, they'll say, okay, we can get you a number with a two at the end of it. It used
to be no problem to do that. They just went in the back, found a number, and gave it to
you. Now, they charge you for what is known as a gold number. It's like a, a $20 fee to start
with, and then a monthly maintenance fee. You got to pay to maintain your number ending
with a two, you know? It's the most insane thing, and, and they make money for nothing.
Yeah, that, well, we need, we need a, we need a cop. We need a citizen's utility.
We need educated people, and that's, that's hopefully what we can accomplish here tonight
is to educate some people.
Yeah, yeah, well, that's just my point. So, thanks a lot, and really keep it up.
Okay, thanks for calling.
All right, bye-bye.
279-3400 is our phone number. Good evening.
Oh, yeah, hi.
Hi.
Can I turn down the radio here?
Okay.
Um, yeah, I, I, I called in, I heard you, you mentioned something about privacy before.
Yeah.
And, uh, I'm, uh, I, I, I've been listening to, like, scanners, you know, uh, VHF, UHF.
Oh, that's, that, that, that can be, that can be illegal, you know, if you listen to the
wrong things.
Yeah, yeah, we, there's, uh, I'm, I'm also a sys-op on CompuServe.
Uh-huh.
And, um, not the forum that I'm a sys-op of, but, uh, another forum there, HamNet, there's
usually a pretty good discussion. It's been continuous, I'd say, for the past, I don't
know, geez, at least the past six months, there's been a, a, a, a nice thread there going on about
the, uh, ECPA.
Yeah, and...
That's Electronic Communications Privacy Act of, I believe, 1986?
Right, right.
It's been a while.
General, the general consensus is that, um, if you have a cellular phone, basically it's
about as private as, uh, standing out on a street corner and, uh, and hollering out to
the world your, your innermost thoughts.
Exactly, all the worse for, for a mobile phone of any sort.
Yeah, it, uh, you know, even with these scanners now, like, um, I have, um, the scanner that
I, I can, personally, I, I think it's pretty boring, most of the stuff that, uh, that you
can hear on, um, on the cellular network.
Are you kidding? Drug deals? You hear prostitution? All kinds of things, you know?
Well, I'll tell you, you know, now, now, I'm out here in the burbs. I'm out here
in Jersey, and, and I'll tell you, I don't hear any of that stuff.
Oh, no, you gotta drive into Manhattan to hear the good stuff.
Yeah, I guess, I guess, but, um, but I, you know, I don't hear too much of that. I, I
hear all the, you know, I, I, I can listen to the, all the, uh, the cop stuff in Manhattan
and stuff like this, you know, and, and, and having them chasing guys around and...
You know, it's interesting, just to, uh, backtrack for a second, uh, you mentioned
cops and things like that. Uh, when I was in Europe, I think it was in, uh, I think it
was in, in London, actually. If you turn around on the FM dial, first of all, you
hear a lot of pirates, and you hear the, the regular BBC stations, but right there
smack in the middle of the FM dial are the police, you know, just, like, chatting away
about various things, and, uh, you know, on their, on their two-way radios, right in
the middle of the FM dial. It's, uh, it's really funny, but, um...
I've never been to Europe, but, uh, it's, it's, it's funny how a lot of the scanner
manufacturers have, uh, blocked out that certain range of frequencies on their, um, on their
radios. Right. They have, you know, out of, out of, uh, well, I guess, obeying the law,
even though it's a kind of, uh, ridiculous law, but it's, it's very easy, I understand,
to bypass that. Oh, it's a piece of cake. Basically, it's, uh, just snipping one lead
off of a diode that, uh, that blocks that out, and, uh, any, any of the radios that
have that 800 megahertz capability, that have that section blocked out, all of them are
easily modified by, by anybody with a little pair of wire nippers. Yeah. Well, a lot of people
do have those little wire nippers, and, uh, God bless them all, I say. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, uh, that's, that's a lot of fun. What I've been, um, trying to
work on lately, and, and there's been a lot of this going around, is, is a lot of the,
um, the radio teletype stuff that's also, that's out there on, on, like, shortwave
and stuff. Right. Now, again, uh, for people who have shortwave radios, if you're tuning,
uh, tuning around, you'll hear these things sometimes that sound like airplanes, right?
Yeah, um, uh, a lot of times they'll sound like airplanes, or, or actually just, uh,
the, the airplane sounds are, are actually, uh, what's the term for that now? Uh, it's
late, I'm sorry. High-speed data transmission of some sort, or? Oh, no, that's, that's not
it. The, um, the high-speed data transmission sounds just like a modem, you know, uh, like
a computer's modem. Yeah. Ever heard what one of those sounds like? It's kind of a screeching
kind of noise. Yeah. There's a lot of that out there, I could, I could kind of tune in on
some of those things, but most of that type stuff is amateurs, is ham radio operators.
They have that capability now. They have their own bulletin boards now that are accessible.
Rather than going through phone lines, you, you access them over the radio now. But, um,
but there's, there's also things like, well, one of my, my favorites was, uh, just, just,
uh, a couple weeks back, uh, right after the, uh, the DEA moved into Columbia, I happened to
stumble on a set of their frequencies. And it was, uh, it really, really knocked me out
because I found this RTTY, uh, radio teletype signal where it really shouldn't be. And I,
so I, I, you know, got the decoder going and, uh, and hey, geez, it's not even encrypted or
anything, you know, it's not, uh, it's just out there in plain text. And I, I started, you
know, copying some of the stuff going through and, and I said, well, gee, you know, if this
frequency's here, then, then, well, maybe if I try this frequency over here. And so sure
enough, there was, uh, a CUSO going on between, um, the DEA agent down in Columbia and his home
base in, um, I would guess it's Washington DC, but I'm really not sure. And, uh, hello?
Yeah.
Oh yeah. And, um, and they, I was able to correlate the fact that they, he was using the same kind
of, uh, I don't know, not really passwords, but, uh, but kind of call signs, you know,
he was using the same identifiers on both the, uh, the voice and also on the RTTY hookup. And,
uh, I got a real kick out of that cause it's really rare that, that you'd ever catch something
like that go through. The only thing I figured is that they just didn't have the, uh, there
in Columbia, they just hadn't had the time. This was all really fresh at the time. They,
they didn't have the time to set up all their hi-fi encryption gear yet, but that's, uh,
that's also part of our, our discussions is people picking up on different, um, different
discussions, uh, on, uh, on how to, how to decipher some of the stuff that's out there
now. And, uh, yeah, well, it helps if it's not, if it's not encrypted in the first place.
Now, what, what did you say the, the nature of the transmission was? Was it very sensitive?
Not too sensitive. Um, I don't know. He gave me, well, this one might interest. He gave
me the phone number where he was down there and the listeners probably out there. I, I,
I told Bob fast this story a while back. I, I remember Bob fast used to get captain crunch
on his airwaves. Hey, I hung out with captain crunch in Amsterdam. What a character he is.
Yeah. Eons ago. This is, this is going way back now. And, and, um, he, he did all kinds
of neat little tricks with, uh, bouncing his voice around the world. And, and so you'd get
the delay effect, you know, he'd talk and then he said, well, because he's going through
so many networks and it's, it's, it's going around through so many circuits that, that
there was actually this, this, I don't know, probably about a two to three second delay
involved because it was going through so many different networks.
Well, I'll tell you in the early days of, uh, of, of sprint, which was one of the first,
uh, alternate phone companies, first it was MCI. And then I believe sprint was the second
one. Uh, I remember calling up, uh, a sprint access number. This was before they had the toll
free nine five O numbers. There was an actual phone number that you would call to get a sprint
dial tone. And it was terrible because if you were to call this and then call your number
after, after entering your code and that number was busy, you still had to pay for the call
to get to the dial tone. It was really a, a disadvantage.
Well, that's like, that's like, like the cellular service, don't you? You pay for every time you
pick that thing up, you pay, right?
Oh yeah, definitely. If even on incoming calls, it's, uh, you know, it hasn't quite reached
the stage where it's even remotely considerable for me yet. But, uh, on the, on the old sprint
system, what you could do was you could call back the sprint number, then enter your
code again, call the sprint number again. In fact, you could call the sprint number in
California. You could call the sprint number in Boston. And I remember doing this about,
uh, 13 times and then calling a friend of mine who was down the block. And the, the,
the, the crazy part was by the time this person heard my voice, uh, it took about 30 seconds
and, uh, you should have heard it when I hung up, you know, all the tweets and chunks. It was,
it was, it was incredible.
And one last thing and then I'll go up. There's, um, one, one of the threads, uh, one of the
the messages on, on the computer thread, uh, mentioned that the, uh, that the San Francisco
Narcotics Department was going over to, because they, they did not want people eavesdropping,
people with scanners eavesdropping on them, that they were going over to cellular phones
for privacy.
Oh, God bless them.
For secure communications for the San Francisco Narcotics Division of the Police Department.
No, it makes you, it makes you really feel secure in knowing that law enforcement has
such a, uh, uh, you know.
Yeah, they have such a, such an enlightened outlook.
Yeah, they have such a, such a grasp on, on, on secure, what's secure and what's not
secure.
Wow.
Although I don't hear too much of it out here. I used to live in Arizona and I, I would
listen to the narcotics guys down there. They'd be tracking people all over the place
down there. And, and it, yeah, just, just some, you'd hear some really wild stuff.
Um, the, the, the best one was that, um, one night they had, they had busted this guy
and he had a car, uh, some kind of Chevy and it had a trunk full of drugs. I don't know
whether it was pot or Coke or what, but they, they said that, well, all the evidence is in
this trunk. They called in a uniform, uh, police unit to come in there and they said,
okay, we're going to take this guy down and book him. You guys stay here and watch the
car. Uh, about 20 minutes later, they came back and they said, where's the car?
And as it turns out, the uniform unit was watching the wrong car and somebody else had
shown up. Now, who knows, maybe it was even somebody with a radio like mine had just shown
up and driven the car away. And, um, here these, the police officers were just sitting
right there. So here these guys are, they got these two guys downtown, uh, ready to
be, uh, ready to be processed. And now they have no evidence.
Oh yes. You gotta, you gotta write those stories down. Those are, those are great.
Okay.
Thanks very much for calling, sir.
I've enjoyed your shows in the past and I hope to, I hope to hear you on there a lot
more. And, um, I'd also, as, as somebody who, uh, you know, who, who, who messes around
with computers and stuff, uh, I believe at one point it's, what is that? The 2600 club
or something like that?
2600 magazine. Yeah. It's sort of a, a loosely affiliated group of hackers that, uh, puts out
a magazine.
Phone numbers for some BBSs that they ran, but none of them ever seem to...
No. It's, it's interesting. Maybe, maybe this is a good opportunity to get some people
who are interested in running bulletin boards because we had a bunch of bulletin board networks
and it just kind of like dissolved into thin air. You know, people just sort of got busy
with other things and, uh, it, it just happens sometimes. If you're interested in running
a bulletin board system, uh, for a bunch of computer hackers, I'll tell you one of, one
of the, one of the absolute rules though that we have, uh, is that privacy must be maintained.
Privacy for the individual person that calls in. We don't require people to give their
real names because, uh, you know, we don't think that's, that's our responsibility to
know who is on the other end of the phone line. Right. And we think it's, it's your
right as somebody calling in to be anonymous. Yeah. As far as public BBS systems are concerned,
the only ones that I use are ones that I could just log onto without filling out forms and
waiting to be cleared by sysops and stuff like that. Right. It's, you know, it's, it's a form
of invasion of your privacy, I think. Absolutely. What we have is we have a system where
you just call in, say who you want to be, and you're given an account, period. And
that's, uh, if you want to run a system like that, I guess you can, you can call 2600
516-751-2600 and, uh, leave your name and number and someone will get back to you and
you could, you could be a system operator before you know it, but you have to have a computer
and a modem and that kind of thing. That number went by too fast. Give me that number
again. 516-751-2600. 2600. And believe me, we got that number before they started charging
for gold numbers. We wouldn't be able to afford that number now. Okay. Thanks. I'm enjoying
the show. Okay. Take care. 279-3400. You know, speaking of cordless phones, I don't know if
anyone saw the article in the paper today, uh, in Newsday about a cordless phone. Yeah.
It's called a convict's high tech appeal. When Peter Feta used the cordless telephone
in his upstate home, he didn't realize that such calls could be easily overheard, even
on an FM radio receiver. That's right. The old ones you can hear on FM radio receivers
and, uh, the new ones show up in other parts of, of the radio dial, but they're still just
as easy to hear. One of, uh, one of this guy's listeners was an off-duty New York City police
officer. You know, off-duty New York City police officers are everywhere, you know? If you
stand up in the middle of a room and say, hey, all the off-duty New York City police
officers stand up, you know? Those that don't shoot you will stand up. It's incredible. One
of Feta's listeners was an off-duty, uh, New York City police officer who began to suspect
his neighbor was involved in drugs after hearing Feta's conversations on his own cordless phone.
Now, that, that, that gives me an idea. If you have a cordless phone, start having all
these conversations that will make anyone listening think that you're involved in drugs. And then
they'll go crazy following you and figuring out what you're doing and you can just, you
know, have kind of like a fun movie script type of adventure with it. Anyway, the officer
taped some of the calls and turned them over to Rockland County officials who used them
to get a wiretap on Feta's cordless telephone and successfully prosecuted him on drug conspiracy
charges last year. Feta is serving a three-year-to-life sentence on the felony charge. That's a rather
odd sentence, three years to life. Now, however, Feta is appealing his conviction on the grounds
that the officer's tapes made without a warrant were illegal and poisoned the prosecution's
case. What do you think? I think it's a valid reason if you believe in due process and that
kind of thing. Now, once you connect, you don't need a touch-tone phone. You can even tape record
their numbers and play them in. Oh, that's true. Yeah, I mean, there are all kinds of ways to do it.
I could just, yeah, I could, I could generate the tones or I could connect to somebody else and ask them
to generate the tones. Another scheme. In fact, that's a lie. I have a case going now or about
to with NYPIRG and I can prove the credit system is jipping you. I know it is. How so? Okay. It's
on tape, number one, even or not. It's on disk. All right. I'll give you an example. You have a wrong
number or poor transmission. I'll show you how a way to prove to a poor transmission. It's built into
the modem. I have a lot of things, boy. All right. But these are very practical, everyday New York
tell things and how to get credit. I'll give you the idea and you put two and two together.
Okay. Sounds good. First is this. You make a call at, say, 7 a.m. and you get a poor connection,
wrong number, disconnect. Okay. So you get your, you want your four cents credit. Okay. You wait a
while and you have a calling the same number, another problem at peak rate, say noon. Now, when you go to
ask for credit, I'm sorry, it's the other way around. The poor connection was the later
time. Let's say I had a poor connection, but it was at seven o'clock. There's no way the
operator can distinguish. You'll only get four cents credit, not six. Follow me? I think
so. Okay. In other words, you made, you had two poor connections to the same number. Right.
One at the cheaper time, the one at the higher time. When you request credit, they go in sequential
order. I see. It's for God. All they do is care about today. Okay. Now, put two and
two together, the left hand of Kali. I once formed a, my own company, and I used the Indian
model, which is Shiva, which is a good symbol for nexus and then connection and so on. You
have the many hands of Shiva, the goddess. Yeah. Oh, your goddess. All right. That was
my logo. Shared, holistic, integrated, virtual access, which meant nothing. All right. Try
powers of two. Why? Because they have interesting numbers. One of the NAP number. You're on the
island, right? At least for 718. Let's tell what the 958 number is. That's in the public
domain, and it's informational only. It's in the Bell Journal. You know what it is, right?
958 tells you your phone number, although I've noticed a few pay phones I've tried that
from. It stopped working. No, it works fine in 718 and 212. That's good. What you have
to do first on some of them is the 660, and then hang up, and then do the 958. Okay. You'll
either get a ring or a busy. Hang up, and then come in. Okay. That's good to know. All right.
Notice, though, that 3, 1 is one less. Now we get into powers of 2, 3, 4, 5. Make up a table
like this, not to exceed 4 digits. Do you have a little calculator handy?
Just my head, but I'll... Okay, but when you get one, you know, whenever you get around
to it, and for the general pubic out there. Okay.
Do powers of 2 and powers of 2 minus 1, 2, 4. And those are very interesting numbers.
Those are word lengths. In other words, when you dial a particular number, it may not be
a number. It's a storage location within the operating system of the computer. It is a computer.
That's what divestiture is also about. Mm-hmm. Well, it's all computer-run. I mean,
when you hear your dial tone, that's a computer you're hearing. Yeah. Well, except on old crossbar
exchanges. Right, which are rapidly being depleted. Right. And by the way, if you have call waiting,
which is a rip-off, dial any number to keep the line busy, tap, press the switch hook, and
regardless of polarity, you have touch tone, although you block out the call waiting. But you
may need it for rapid redialing. Mm-hmm. You can, by the way, you can emulate any of
those custom calling features yourself. Oh, sure. Call waiting, you can simply get a
second phone line known as an auxiliary line, which only costs... A dollar more.
It only costs $5 a month, though. $5 a month for call waiting and $6. Now, there are two
types of second line. Right. But I'm saying an auxiliary phone line on your residential line
will only cost you about another $5 a month. And you can have a... Less than that. You can have a service
that costs nothing known as call hunting, which will allow the, uh... If your phone is busy...
Call forwarding. Right. If your phone is busy, it will jump to the next line. That doesn't cost
anything, so you can emulate call waiting. That's right. Everything that's in the central
office can be on a chip in your phone from Radio Shack or whatever. Right. And you can emulate
three-way by pushing down two buttons on your two-line phone. See, three-way isn't true three-way.
No, it's not. When you pay for three-way, it's not conference calling. You can't initiate the two
other parties. One has to initiate you. You also can't drop the, uh, the first party.
Mm-hmm. They have a new service now. You can have an intercom system in your house. Uh-huh.
But it blocks out call waiting. I'll tell you how to do it for free. Okay. Uh, I can only
speak, uh, for Manhattan and Brooklyn. Uh, try... This is always on the ESS-2s or higher. And
one of the ways you can find out is simply, A, ask if they have to tell you, and B, uh, dial,
uh, you know, some error messages. And at the end, you'll hear A1 or A2. And I'll give
you some of the T3s in New York. We'll get in... If you want to get into ISDN. Uh, I have
a nice... You can build your own phone from practically nothing. If you want, I'll send
in the, uh, a printed circuit, uh, from Radio Electronics from two months ago.
That'd be good if you could send that in. In fact, let me, let me give the address here
so that, uh, anyone who wants to send stuff like that in would be, uh... What was that
number you gave, um... That was the number for, for the magazine, the hacker magazine.
2,600? Right. Yeah. How do I subscribe? Okay. Well, you can, you can, I can't give subscription
information out, but I can give you a number to call for more information. Information out?
You can't mention a price. No, I can't mention a price, right. Oh, but I'm saying how does
one contact? One, one would call the phone number, which I'll give to you. Right. It's, uh,
516-751-2600. Yeah, on the golden number, so-called, if you had your own number, and
say you didn't, you had it disconnected for non-payment. Right. When it reinstated, they
were going to try to charge your golden number. Yeah, I, that was, that was the most incredible
thing. They would charge you for a golden number because you were requesting a certain
number, that is, your old number. And that's, uh, that's crazy. I know. So try power, do powers
of two, three, four, five, six, and seven. Okay. And one minus it. Uh, and on, especially
on lower Manhattan exchanges. Okay. It doesn't work anymore, but I had the direct numbers for
9-1-1, 6-1, it used to be 2-5-0-9-2-1-1, you know, and so on. Nice thing is you bypass the
switch and you only paid the regular price. Okay. Um, I don't, all right, I hope I'm not
being traced. Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure they're closing in on, on all of us. Um, but, uh,
it's, it's information and information should be passed around. Yeah, right. And you're not
a member of any police, uh, at the federal state or city level, are you? I'm sorry?
You're personally a member of a police organization or federal. If I am, I'm doing a damn good job
of fooling myself. Yeah, I mean, do you have shiny black shoes? As a matter of fact, I do,
but that's only because I, I ruined a pair. $9 at Modell's, but I'm a poor person, what can I say?
Listen, I'm going to go to some more calls. All right, no, really, this is, can you hang
on for two seconds? Two seconds, go ahead. All right, just quickly, um, also there's
some interesting modem numbers, uh, for ordering, and those are also powers of two. If you want
to make some money, strangely enough, Radio Shack has some good books, and which, one
is, uh, can I recommend it? One is on Packet Radio, which I just got into. Okay. First, there's
a satellite, it's a freebie, it can go all around the world, and it goes on a polar orbit.
Two, you can go at high speed. Uh, under a half watt, you can send live video images.
You can go about half a mile for the city. Three, I want to talk, just for two seconds,
mention extremely low frequency, grounded, uh, radio transmission. Are you familiar with
that? Uh, what frequency are we talking about?
Uh, okay. In other words, on your short wave, they have, uh, low frequency. You're talking
about long wave? Long wave. Okay. Extremely long wave. Okay. And it transmits through soil
pretty well. Okay. So get yourself real ground, in other words, pound it in at least six feet.
You can get copper or aluminum, and if you can't, try to put two in. Um, you'll hear some
very interesting stuff, just listening. Okay. In fact, you'll hear phone conversations. And
two, if you have a neighbor, uh, within a few blocks, you have free transmission probably
to that person. Uh, as far as encryption, I have a good Radio Shack article. Okay. Why
don't you give us, what are the titles that you want to recommend?
I don't have them offhand, but, uh, if I gave, can I give a P.O. box if anybody wants
to? Sure. Go ahead. It's P.O. box 440, you know, Brooklyn, New York, 11210. And if you
send a self-addressed envelope, I'll be happy to send you Xerox of encryption articles. Uh,
the same way, oh yeah, one thing we didn't talk about quickly, sub-carriers on FM, like
BAI itself. Yeah, we, we do have a sub-carrier. I think it's to a financial institution.
Actually, and do you know what one of them is? No, I don't.
Found a sub-carrier encrypted from Merrill Lynch. Are you kidding? Oh my God. Oh, it's,
uh, and it's an easy encryption. It's, it's a little harder than Caesar code, but not much.
Uh-huh. And they're sending stuff, and that's inside trader information. Well, it's, it's,
it's sharing a frequency. Satellite, you can buy satellite time. Sharing a frequency with
our programs here in BAI. It's, uh. I'll show you how to, there's a circuit for that too. It's
a standard radio. Let me recommend some books at Radio Shack, really. And here's, oh, here's
the last one. I am. Okay. I have not paid, uh, phone real in years. Um, call up, uh, it
only works for your own, if whatever borough you're in, use it. Um, okay. If you call up
the business and or the billing number and ask the operator what the charge is, she'll
give you a charge. Okay. If you dial the number, you're not charged, if it's under five minutes.
And then if you were to dial two on one, you get the credit anyway. Interesting. And the
credit system only recognizes valid exchanges. You'll wind up with more credits than calls
that you ever made. Wow. If it doesn't go below negative zero. So you'll never pay for
an inch or ladder call again. And that goes for 976 numbers, not 550. Okay. Well, I want
to thank you for calling. We do have to get on to some more calls, but, uh, again, there's
obviously a person who has done his homework, who is not letting the information age pass him
by. And, uh, I salute you, sir. Our number is 212-279-3400. We want to hear from folks out
there that, uh, are interested in this kind of thing. And by the, by the look of the switchboard
here, I'd say there's quite a few of them. 2-7-9-3400. This is Emmanuel Goldstein filling
in for Robert Knight, who is in California and hence cannot do the program tonight. Program
normally known as Earthwatch. We're taking a look at, at Earth in a, in a different sort
of way. We're going to, uh, get into some other topics too tonight, but, uh, we certainly
have a lot to talk about here. And obviously, uh, a lot of other people do too. 2-7-9-3400.
Good evening. Hi. Hi. Um, I'm, I've got a question about, uh, this, this interesting
topic. Okay. Um, I'm, uh, on an old, uh, what I guess is, uh, called a crossbar five
exchange or a similar old... Well, I can, I can tell you right away. How does, how does
your, your telephone ring sound when you're calling a number in your, in your exchange?
Well... Is it a really deep baritone ring? I know, I know. I can, I can, uh, sample it
for you if you want. Okay. Why not? I'll just turn down those touch tones so that people
who know how to decode them won't dial your number or something. Okay. Well, he's still
dialing. There you go. Okay. That's a crossbar number one. Nice. One. Deep baritone ring
there. Okay. Yeah. I like that. I like the sound of that. It's all kinds of static in between
the rings, right? The one or a five. Um... Five's generally a harder pitch. I could be
wrong about this, but I'm pretty certain that's a one. Okay. Well, here's the deal. Um, they
seem to have a very interesting circuit on this number. Yeah. Uh, for equal access. You
know how... Oh, okay. Okay. Say no more. Yeah. You know, it's, well, let me, let me just,
you know how the, the equal access has the, uh, you know, the 10 triple X numbers they're called?
One O X, X, X plus the long distance number. It'll route you to your long distance company
of choice. Interesting thing. The interesting thing about this, and then I'm going to want
your explanation. I just want to, you know, let you hear what, what's so interesting about
this. For one thing, um, you don't get the scratchy sound between the, between when you
dial the numbers like an old crossbar would. Uh, you, the dial tone is muddy also. It sounds
a lot more like muddy or muffled. But then the interesting thing is if you flip your switch
hook around a little bit, you can sometimes knock that off.
Exactly. I do the same thing. I've got an adjunct frame. It's, that's what it's called,
by the way. It's called an adjunct frame. It's, uh, it's meant to emulate, um, ESS, electronic
switching.
But only on outgoing.
Oh yeah, only on outgoing. I mean, the ring still sounds the same and you can't get things
I call waiting, but you can get overseas direct international dialing and you can get access
to different long distance phone companies. Um, and the purpose is to, um, it's to bring
it in line with Judge Green's order to, uh, to have equal access everywhere. So it, it allows
you that. But if you, if you toggle your switch hook enough times, you'll, you'll bypass the
adjunct frame and you'll get the old dial tone back and the scratchiness between the numbers
because, you know, you'll be bypassing that machine.
Or the, uh, the other thing you can do sometimes is sometimes it's hard to get a dial tone, but
if you knock the switch hook around a little bit, you'll, uh, knock it off into what equals
a one.
Uh-huh.
And you'll be into the scratchiness. But the only thing is with that, you can only call
into, uh, I'll, I'll say I'm in 718 and you can call into 212 only.
Everything else you call, you'll get an error message.
Yeah, if you...
Well, try this then, sir. Try calling an operator and saying, hey, I'm having trouble calling
this number. I'm not sure if it even shows up on billing if you do that.
Now, do you, do you know, uh, there's two other things I don't want to take up too much
time, but, um, do you know anything about the, uh, I know most 800 numbers now are supposed
to have, uh, ANI or call identification.
Uh, a lot of them do, but I've never actually seen it used as, on an 800 call. I've, I heard
a report, and this, this I have not heard firsthand from anybody, but I've heard a report
where American Express was using an 800 number to identify their callers before they picked
up the phone. In other words, you would call American Express and someone on the other end
would pick up the phone and say, good morning, Mr. Smith, how are you? And, and it, it freaks
so many people out to hear that, and they, they reacted violently against it, so they
stopped doing it. Especially if you're calling from Mr. Smith's number about your American
Express bill, it would totally confuse everybody. Right. I don't know if that really happened,
and, uh. I know that some do. I do know that it was, it was, uh, rumored at least for a
long, long time that, um, many of the other companies besides AT&T, like Sprinter MCI, that
offer long distance watts, or whatever you call it, 800 numbers, uh, that, that, uh, they
were the ones who, um, who were, uh, you know, who were running that type of a service, and
that AT&T was not. Yeah. For the longest time. I'm just wondering, uh, you know, I, uh, what,
what you knew about that, and the, the one other thing is, what in New York is the ringback
number? Okay, in New York City, uh, and this doesn't always work, in fact, it seems to be
working less and less these days. 660 usually gets you a dial tone, and, uh, then you have
to dial something after that. Uh, I've seen 1121 work sometimes. I've seen, uh, uh, a combination
of stars and pounds and, and, and things like that. Really? So it could be a, it could be a,
there's no definite, uh. It's, it's hard to say. I, I have not found anybody in New Jersey
yet that can, that can make their phone ring back. I know how to do it in New Jersey. How do
you do it? In certain parts of New Jersey. This is very funny, actually. Okay. Um, if
you're in, like, I guess the, most, from what I know, it's most of the New York, uh, metropolitan,
you know, like Bergen, Passaic, uh, Union, Hudson, those, those counties, and stuff. I guess
mostly where 10NJB works. Uh, you could, this is really funny, you call 550, of all things.
Really? Uh, or 551. It's been known to be two, those two, 550, or 551, your last four
digits. Okay. And then it, it puts you into a dial tone. Uh, that dial tone is unusable,
but what you do is, like, flip your switch hook for a second, and when you lift it back
up, you're into a second dial tone, which sounds like a, uh, the tone you get when your receiver's
off the hook for a while. Yeah. And then you hang up your phone, and it'll ring back. Okay. Uh,
and then what you do is answer it, and the tone is there, or you can, if you flip the hook again
after you answer it, your phone will ring, it'll repeat the process. I see. That's, uh, okay,
that's good to know. That works in New Jersey, 550, or 551, plus the last four digits. Right,
right, right. And, uh, is there, do you have a number to find out your phone number in New
Jersey? That's what I, that I'd like to find out. Yeah, because, uh, in New York, most places in
New York, it's 958, and it's, it's fairly reliable. It's, it's incredible, you know, with all this
invasion of privacy, one thing the operator will not do is tell you your phone number. I can't ever
understand why that is, you know? Uh, yeah, they're always, you know, concerned that you might be
somewhere, you know, at, at a, at a phone that, uh, the, the, um, the party wouldn't want whoever
the person is to have the telephone number. Right. Like, to. Well, it's, it's usually very easy to
get it. You simply call somebody, person to person, collect, who refuses the charges and says, uh, you
know, can I call him back? And they give you the phone number that way. One of the funniest things
that happened, by the way, a long time ago, uh, before, um, Sprint, uh, Sprint was really funny
because before Sprint, uh, operators had, uh, your number on a display screen. Yeah. Um, you could call
them up and, um, make a collect call to coin phones. They wouldn't have your number and they didn't have
it registered. That is true. Uh, which was really funny. You could do that for a long period of time.
Let me tell you something that just happened to me, uh, about a week ago and I don't, I don't do this
kind of thing. I don't call collect, uh, I don't call pay phones collect just, you know, for the, for the
joy of it. I do it for experimental purposes to see if it works and I happen to know a phone number that
was a pay phone and I found this, this new type of, uh, pay phone device where you pick up the phone
and you dial zero plus the number you're calling and then you get the little fading dial tone that sounds
like the AT&T tone except it wasn't the AT&T tone. It was really lousy reproduction of it. And so I
wanted to make a collect call. So I hit zero and instead of getting a human, I got a computer. The
computer said, this is the operator to make a collect call. Press one to get an operator. Press three.
Okay. So I hit a one to make a collect call. And then it said, please record your name at the sound
of the tone and gave me about five seconds to record my name. I recorded my name and then it dialed the
number and it didn't care what number I gave it. It would dial no matter what. So I, you know,
pay phones, uh, you know, uh, corporations that didn't accept collect calls. It dialed the number
and then when someone picked up, it said, hello, I have a collect call from, and it played my name
and said to accept press one to not accept press zero. I don't know what happens if you don't do
anything. You know what that might be? That might be ITT. It, uh, it very well might be. Um, I think
the number, uh, I know one of the numbers they use, I think is 1-800-275-1000 that you could
do that. I think that's their main, uh, like computer, uh, their, their set, like their little
central number there or something that that might be it. Uh, but one other thing about the
equal access, uh, uh, provided on this exchange, which was really kind of a lifesaver, uh, was with
the San Francisco earthquake. Oh, yeah. I had no trouble getting through to San Francisco because
I knew other phone companies I could use. And that's, that's another great, great, uh, excuse
for divestiture, for having competition. You don't have to, to play by AT&T's rules. AT&T said,
oh, we're cutting off all the incoming calls because we feel it's best. They may have been
right, but, you know, it, it may not have been right for everybody. And if you're smart enough
to know how to route the call in a different way, then you can do it. You know, I, I had
no trouble with other, with other companies getting through to San Francisco. And, and how
about, you know, how about AT&T's, uh, ads about the, the intelligent network and, and this
and that and how, how reliable they are. And, you know, I mean, and then, and then they
go and shut the, the service off. Well, I mean, you know, I can understand why they
did it, but still, I think there should be options. And in this case, I'm glad there
were. When you, when you, when you, when, when, when you promote yourself like that,
you know, and then the, the other thing that was really misleading, that this, this was,
this is a total joke. Uh, I don't know if you happen to, to catch that, um, Nixon movie
on ABC. Uh, somehow I missed it. Oh, well. So did a lot of people from what I heard. Um,
it was sponsored by AT&T. Okay. And in fact, when, that, whenever they would go into a commercial,
uh, they would, uh, it would actually say AT&T presents the final days every time it went
into the spot. That's kind of funny when you, when you say that.
You're right. Uh, they ran these like 90 second or two minute commercials. They were lengthy,
lengthy spots. And there was one that had to do with the earthquake. Well, that was a segment
in it was that had to do with the earthquake. And they were actually showing on there that people
could, uh, could actually place calls from that area. Uh, you know, place outgoing phone calls.
But the thing that they don't realize is that has nothing to do with AT&T. Those are those people's
local phone companies. That's, that's, that is very true. Yes. That is a local phone company
that provides them the dial tone. And in fact, if they had picked another company, they would be
using that company and not AT&T. So, uh, very, very good point there. Are they going to be, uh,
providing the, I'm told that, uh, eventually you'll have, uh, choices between local phone companies.
Oh, I sure hope so. Because this, this nine X strike is driving me insane, you know, and I want
an option. I want an option bad. And believe me, if it, if, if when I'm 95 years old, they present
an option, I'm signing up for it on day one, just because I remember the crap they're putting us
through right now, you know? Yeah. I mean, you know, we have to pay full price for this, this
substandard service, you know, it's, it's, I mean, there's no word for it that I can describe,
you know? In fact, let me, let me give a little demonstration. I'm going to let you go,
sir, and give a demonstration. Okay? Um. Thanks for calling. Okay. All right. Uh, just, uh, you
know, a little one-man demonstration here to, uh, to show you how, uh, how unfair things can be.
I'm going to call this number that, uh, I happen to know is busy. In fact, it's busy all the time.
I don't know what's wrong with it. Uh-oh. Uh-oh.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Apparently something, something went horribly wrong there. Uh, let me,
let me try this again. It's awfully hard to, to dial things here. So, uh, let me try to do it one more
time. Whoops. I made a dialing error. Oh boy. See the, the, the touchtone keypad is all the way on the
other side of the console. And I've got to reach clear across and dial the number and hopefully
not hit a wrong key. Will you please hang up and try your call again. This is a recording. Why should
I do that? I don't know what I did wrong. You must first dial a one when calling this number.
Will you please hang up and try your call again? This is a recording. G2. That's insane because I'm
dialing O. I'm not dialing one. I'm dialing O. This is going to be a long argument with a computer.
I can tell. Okay. I'm not giving up folks. I'm not giving up. I'm trying to dial O plus a number
in a different area code. And now I just made another dialing error and I'm starting to get
really frustrated here. Hold on. Hold on. We're going to, uh, we're going to accomplish this small
task. Okay. I think we might be getting somewhere. Ah, beautiful. Beautiful. We'll get an operator.
You got a telephone? Uh, yes. Hello, operator. I'm having trouble reaching this number. I keep
getting a busy signal. It's been busy now for a long, long time. I was hoping you'd be able to
verify it for me. Yeah, but that's a 45 cents charge. It's a 45 cent charge to verify the number?
Right. Unless there's something wrong with the line. Yeah, I suspect there might be. Okay. Then there
won't be a charge for it. Okay. Thank you. Shall I get it for you? Uh, if you could, I'd appreciate it.
What is the area code and number? Uh, doesn't it show up on your screen? I just dialed it.
Hmm. Hello? Well, she seems to have gone away. Okay. Well, that's, uh, that's part of what I
wanted to demonstrate. I don't, it wasn't quite exactly what I had in mind, but the, what they
have been doing for the most part is, uh, saying because of the strike, we cannot verify this number
for you. And it's been going on for a very, very long time now. It appears maybe, maybe they now
verify numbers, even though they, they seem to hang up on you too. Uh, it's typical of what's going on.
The other day I was, I was trying to make a phone call at a pay phone in New York City. And I don't
know if you've tried this recently, but it's, it's become so incredibly frustrating just to make a
simple phone call. Uh, the pay phones aren't getting fixed and the, um, uh, the ones that are
working, uh, tend to take more quarters than they should and horrible things like that. And, uh,
there's no end in sight. There really is no end in sight. At least I don't see an end in sight.
I'd like, uh, any insight on, uh, on the New York telephone strike of folks, uh, any strikers,
you know, I'd sure like to, to know what's going on from their point of view, because these folks
aren't being paid, you know, and it's the really funny thing is that, uh, it's not, it's not a pay
increase that they're striking about. It's, uh, it's because the phone company said, we don't want
to pay for your, your health benefits anymore. You must now pay for this. So it's like, you know,
it's like a, a pay decrease that the New York, uh, or 9X has suddenly hit them with. And that's,
uh, that's what caused this whole strike. It wasn't, uh, an offensive move by the, uh, by the
strikers. It was an offensive move by the management, which, uh, is a bit different. It
doesn't usually work that way. And, uh, out by me, I pass by the, uh, the building where the
operators are, are usually stationed. And I never see strikers there, but I always see two police
cars. There's always two police cars parked in front of the telephone company building. I don't know
why that is. They're expecting, uh, trouble or something, but I've, I've never actually seen
anything going on there. And I'm, I'm wondering why I don't see any strikers. You know, where are
all the picketers? That's, uh, something I'd like to know more about. Good evening.
Hello. Yes, go ahead. This is John from Old Westbury.
Hi, how are you? I'm good. What's on your mind?
It's relatively easy to find your way around in Germany, because the signposts are usually
clear. And there are lots of maps and guidebooks in English. Still, you should be able to ask
for the right directions. Listen to the first three dialogues where Ruth asks three tram drivers
where they're going.
I sure hope that's what they're asking.
Okay, sir. What, what was that?
I hope this is the last one.
I guess, uh, I don't, I don't, I don't think they're asking about trams anymore. Okay.
Well, thanks very much for enlightening us about that. Our number is 279-3400. Good evening.
Hello? Is anyone there? Okay. Good evening.
Good evening. I, this is the most fascinating program, and I want to first say as briefly
as I can, I say amen to what you're saying about a phone company, about AT&T and the rip-offs.
Uh, just a few quick things. One, I was finding the, uh, payphone, the outside payphone situation
in the street horrendous well before the strike. And you're lucky if you just get away losing
a couple of quarters. Uh, the other things, well, excuse me, am I on?
Uh, yes, you are. And, uh, and then all these, first of all, uh, just their charge is, I find
their charges horrendous. When I compare it to what, uh, phone charges used to be, say,
...this is just horrendous, but I want to make a very trivial point, far from the interesting
points that you have been making and callers have been making. It's, but it concerns, uh,
1-800. Uh, well, recently, I usually wake myself up, but it was very important, uh, to get
up very, three hours. So I, I try to call 540-WAKE. And as I call them, uh, I got a, I got a computer
computer, which told me, uh, dial your area code, uh, I mean, no, uh, uh, on your touchstone,
uh, uh, uh, not dial, touch, uh, your area code, your number, and then 540-WAKE. Now, I have
a dial, I have a, what do you call it, a dial phone. So I dialed it, dialed it with great
quickness. And right away, I got another computer voice, which told me, your time, your, your
time is up. You're past your time. You're past your time before I finished dialing. Then
I tried it over and over again, and it kept on being the same thing. Now, I still have a
dial tone. That's what I choose, uh, that's what I choose to have. And this makes me, I'm
finding now, and rapidly, within just a short period of time, uh, since then, I've been
finding that it's a price to great many 800 numbers, including, uh, that postal information
phone, 330. I called, and I was told, uh, it didn't work without using a touchstone. And
I think that, uh, I'm sure I'm not the only one, or I'm not very exceptional in still having
a dial tone. I think that's the deprivation of service, of a public service, of a public
utility to, uh, a sizable segment of the population.
Well, you know, my, my view on that is, uh, they should always offer an option for those
people that still have dial phones as opposed to touchstone phones. In addition, though, instead
of charging for a, uh, a touchstone line, which really is a, a fictitious term, they should
offer discounts for touchstone use to, uh, to, uh, encourage people to use them rather
than charging extra for, for the use of touchstones, which is completely ridiculous. Um, I really
feel, uh, I mean, within my budget, I can't afford to add an extra charge. I just, uh, I mean,
I have to really keep, uh, title it on my, uh, on my budget every month.
Right. And, uh, let me just bring up another thing. I don't know if you were listening before
when we called the credit operator, but, uh, if you didn't have a touchstone phone, you have
to wait until the strike is over and tell them all your credit reports then. Uh, now in your
case with the 540 wake, I'm, uh, concerned about something. Now you call this thing a lot
of times. Did it charge you each time you called that?
I see all this was very recently, so it wasn't within my bed yet. Okay. Well, you
better watch out. And I'm curious to see what it's going to be. You better watch out
because they may charge you $2 per call. So if, if they do that, you make sure you get
credit for it. Because, uh, that's right. Oh, thanks. Thanks. That's an important point.
It sure is. In fact, I'm very curious to see what, uh, to see what it's going to be
if they charge me. Yeah. Because here, I mean, you hardly can turn on your TV or radio
without hearing 540 wake. That's, that's ridiculous. In fact, you're, you're advertising
them even more. Let me, let me tell you, let me tell you a, uh, uh, a way around 540
wake, which costs something like $2 per call. Oh, that's good. You still, well, you still
need a touchstone phone and that's the problem. But, uh, out in California, for some reason,
they, they, they still don't have, uh, blocking of the 976 numbers. In other words, we can call
their 976 numbers and not pay for the, uh, the premium call. So it only costs us the call
of a long distance cross country call, which believe it or not is less than it, than it
costs to call one of those, uh, you know, conference numbers. Thanks. Yeah. So I think it's in
the 213 and 415 area code. If you dial 976 numbers, you only have to pay like, uh, something
like 10 cents a minute this time of day. That's better than a dollar per minute. But, uh, there's
one in particular, which is a, a dial back number. I don't know what it is. Might be 976 wake
or something. Unfortunately, you can only call numbers in California and have, uh, have
those people woken up. But if you arrange with a friend, you know, to, to have them
woken up at a certain time and then they call you and wake you up, you're still spending
less than it, than it costs to call 540 wake. You know, you might dissolve a couple of friendships,
but, uh, that's, that's a price. All along hearing 540 wake, I was saying, well, I can't
wake myself and so forth until it got to be very important because it was especially early
time and I couldn't miss it. And, uh, and here I, I came across all this unexpected
difficulty. Yeah. Well, they, they do make things pretty hard sometimes, you know, because
they, they just don't think of me credit. If they didn't charge all this, it's, it's
the only, I'll tell you to, uh, to a touchstone or a touch phone, I would, I mean, I have no
sentimental attachment to dialing. Right. It's easier to just touch your numbers. And it's
easier for the phone company too, which is why they should charge less. So I, I agree
with you there. And they're just out to find every kind of, uh, uh, kind of excuse to, to
charge you more like this business inside the walls or gold numbers or whatnot. Now, and I
don't think any company praises itself as much, pats its own back as much as, as AT&T does.
Well, AT&T. They always tell you when they're over TV about what they're doing, like bragging
about their service in California, which wasn't their service. Exactly. The service out of
California, not to California, which wasn't theirs. Now, you realize. This is just a small
example of, uh, how they're tooting their own horn all the time. Sir, you realize that
AT&T is, is separate from New York Telephone and they're not the ones that are doing the gold
number bid and they, and they. Oh, that's right. Yeah. They're, they're the long distance
company, but they're guilty in other, in other ways too, as are the other
long distance companies. Definitely. But it's, uh, it's the biggest, uh, it's the biggest
ripoff. It certainly is. And, uh, hopefully somebody from New York Telephone is hearing
all this. And I'll say, and, uh, I'm hardly against, uh, anti-tech or anti-modern tech, but
you know, there used to be a time when they, when there were all these candy stores, stationeries
and all kinds of other stores. For example, Wayland's, each Wayland's used to have a bunch of
foam boots in there. And it was a time when they all worked and, uh, if they were all occupied,
you didn't wait very long to get another one. Then there was this great improvement, uh,
technology improved. So it was possible to install, uh, straight foam boots, which, uh, right away
led to the elimination of, uh, those closed boots where you could close the door in stores.
And I find, uh, I mean, they're a joke. Uh, you, uh, I mean, when they're not broken,
they don't work right either. And the least of it is losing you quarters. Uh-huh. You better carry
a supply of, I find you better carry a big supply of quarters if you're going to just try to make
one phone, phone call. Yeah, that's what you have to do in the city today. Cause, uh, you know,
I, I, I find two out of three phones don't work properly. That's right. They make all kinds
of bizarre noises. And one thing, one variation of it, I find, I go over, I get a dial tone,
I put a quarter in, then I say, uh, put a, and I hear this announcement, put a quarter in,
uh, my quarter gets returned each time. And each time they tell you, uh, to put a quarter in. And,
uh, I was once on 57th street because I was late for a doctor's appointment. I had to get over to
East 57th street. I was on West 57th street. I was way late. And I just wanted to call them on the
way. And every phone there, uh, had the same thing. Uh-huh. Sounds like the same thing that
happened to me a few weeks ago. And, you know, I finally found that one out of six phones finally
worked. I could finally get it. And it took a while too. It didn't work normally. And I lost
quarters on that one. And I mean, where's the improvement at one time you didn't, uh, I mean,
to use, uh, the phone in your store, you didn't have to come in as a customer. You couldn't say,
excuse, you didn't have to say, excuse me, could I use your phone? You just went into the phone booth
and even a little bit of a stationary store would have a couple of phone booths in it.
Uh-huh. Uh, where you went in, sat down, closed the door. You didn't have to, uh, uh, very often
to tone, uh, voice on the, at the other end comes through very poorly on street phones, if at all.
And, uh. Plus there's all the noise of the street. Uh, and it, and the street, and it has to compete
with your street traffic. Exactly, yeah. No, I, I understand what you're saying, sir. It's, uh, and,
you know, by, by not having them enclosed in booths, that makes it all the harder. Perhaps
there's a reason store owners don't keep phones inside their booths. Maybe something happened with
the phone company where they charge money for that now. I don't know, but, uh, there, you know,
things certainly are, are going downhill. But I was thinking, you know, what you were saying about,
uh, the problems with, uh, making a phone call, uh, at a, at a pay phone. You know, if every time
you made a phone call, you simply dial the operator first, since we're having so much trouble, let's just
go on the assumption that we're going to have trouble and save us the time for a change and let them
work a little harder. Just dial O plus each time, say operator, I'm having trouble reaching this
number. They don't charge you the operator assisted rate. If you're having trouble reaching the number
and God knows we're having trouble reaching numbers now. So you simply tie them up. Let's
have a work slowdown of our own, a work slowdown from the consumer end. And, uh, once, once they
get so completely overworked that the whole system grinds to a halt, maybe then they'll start
realizing that yes, uh, a strike can hurt the company. Because, you know, at one time, uh, for
example, right near me, uh, there used to be a big whaling. They disappeared too, but there used to be a
big whaling. And they had two lines of phones and an emergency snowstorms. When my phone was knocked out
of service and I wanted to call repair late at night, I could go down there and, well, a number of
other people were calling, but, uh, even if they were all taken up, I could wait another minute or so
and get ahold of the phone, at least call, uh, uh, call repairs, you know? And now, uh, now it's a joke.
For one thing, uh, late at night, it's not safe to, to go over to one of these open, many areas. It's
not safe to go over to an open street phone. Somehow it attracts attention when you're on it.
Mm-hmm. It sure does. It's, uh, it's something that the phone company has been, has been doing over
the years. That's a disturbing trend. Profits before the public service. And since they are a public
service, since they are a utility, there are certain questions that they have to answer. Sir, I have to let
you go now because we do have other calls to get to, other topics to get to. In fact, thanks very much
for calling. Uh, it's just about 1.30 and, uh, this programming note, this is Emmanuel Goldstein. I have
been filling in for Robert Knight and now I'm filling in for Sidney Smith, who also won't be here tonight.
So we'll be here for another couple of hours, which I'm sure will make people very ecstatic or, uh, have
reactions of, uh, of equal proportion in the other direction.
And, uh, we have a couple of things that, uh, I'd like to, uh, to read. This is, uh, from
the latest issue of, uh, 2600 Magazine, which we were talking about before, under the title
of, uh, Privacy. Yes. Privacy? What's that, you may ask? Well, according to a magazine called
Board Watch, and this is a magazine that, that, uh, keeps an eye on computer bulletin boards,
it's representative George Gekas, uh, G-E-K-A-S, that's how I would pronounce it, Gekas of
Pennsylvania, has introduced a bill that would require bulletin board operators and information
services to provide names and addresses of persons suspected of using communications networks
to commit crimes without requiring a search warrant. In other words, uh, sort of what we were
talking about before, require people who operate computer bulletin board systems to supply
information that if it wasn't a computer bulletin board system, it would be illegal to supply
that information, uh, you know, without a search warrant of any kind. They're saying,
well, since it's a computer bulletin board, let's bypass that law, and, uh, the house bill
is called, uh, House Bill 2082, and it would be good if some people looked into that a little
further and, uh, maybe, uh, sent us some information here if, uh, if you know anything more about it.
Uh, it could also force phone companies to give this information, again, without a search warrant.
Yeah, uh, and if you do want to send us information here at the radio station, uh,
my name is Emmanuel Goldstein. The address is WBAI. That's 505 8th Avenue, New York, New York,
10018. And, uh, by the way, if you've made a pledge to us in the past, uh, please, and if you
haven't sent it in, of course, please send it in to that same address because, uh, your pledge makes
programs like this possible. And as, as you're probably painfully aware, programs like this are
really the only place where you can voice your opinion, where you can vent your spleen or whatever,
whatever that phrase is, where you can, you know, just get, get your opinion out. We, we give you
that opportunity. And, uh, a lot of times there's things to be said that, uh, might be inconvenient.
Let's say, let's say this program was underwritten by New York Telephone, as most programs tend to be,
you know, if, if we had New York Telephone commercials. Well, guess what, folks? We don't have
commercials, you know? We, we have, we have companies coming up here occasionally saying,
I want to buy commercial time on your radio station. And we, you know, we say, you see this
over here? That's the door, you know? And we show them the door and we, you know, it's a good door
too. I mean, we, we give them a very detailed examination of it and they usually get the hint.
Uh, we don't have commercials here. We're a non-commercial station because we have you,
our listeners, supporting us. So, uh, if you have a pledge and haven't sent it, or if you want to make a
pledge, that's our address. WBAI 505 8th Avenue, New York, New York 10018. Anyway, uh, I don't quite
know how I got off on that, but let's get back to privacy. The Commissioner of Immigration and
Naturalization, whose name is Alan C. Nelson, has proposed a nationwide computer system to verify
the identities of all job applicants in order to halt the widespread use of fraudulent documents by
illegal aliens seeking jobs. Similar nationwide computer databases are being suggested repeatedly
by various, uh, governmental agencies. And, uh, we can only suspect as to why that is. So far,
Congress has been successful in preventing this because civil liberties can still be found in
their dictionaries. But how much longer do we have?
Meanwhile, overseas, Scotland Yard is busy storing information in electronic databases,
things like electronically processed fingerprints, suspect's photographs, and full criminal records.
Now, when the system is ready, by the end of 1990, police officers will be able to find out
everything there is to know about a person within minutes. The fully digitized fingerprint records
could allow a detective to send an image of a fingerprint found at the scene of a crime
and receive within minutes the name and criminal record of the suspect. The system is known as PNC-2.
Another system called Holmes-2, as in Sherlock Holmes, uh, will be used to spot discrepancies in
suspect's stories. And, uh, no doubt grammatical errors as well. The example they use, say, uh, the example
they use says that if a suspect gives two separate police forces differing stories, the computer will
instantly catch the discrepancy. Policemen just hate being lied to, don't they? Oh, the Christian
Science Monitor reports that Americans are so concerned with getting tough on drugs and crime,
drugs and crime, oh God, that they've become lax on privacy concerns. Anybody with the intelligence
of a turnip has to be concerned about the potential for abuse, says Clifford S. Fishman,
a law professor at the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University. According to James A. Ross,
president of Ross Engineering Incorporated, some new phone systems have built-in monitoring
capabilities, allowing a person to listen in on others' conversations. It's become much easier to
wiretap a line, and, uh, that word is in quotes because wiretapping doesn't really enter into it
anymore. It's just eavesdropping. No wires involved. Often it can be done by computer. Experts are
increasingly concerned about illegal wiretapping by private individuals. A growing number of private
detectives and police forces appear to be engaging in this activity with very little chance of being
detected. And the current hysteria over drugs and crime make it all the more unlikely that Americans
will be concerned about civil liberties. It's incredible, you know, the way it's, uh, it's all
happening. This is the, um, the no decade, you know? It's, everything is just no. Gotta say no to drugs.
Drugs are, uh, are horrible. You know, whatever it takes, you gotta wipe drugs off the face of the
earth. And sex, oh God, you know, a troubled sex can get you into no to that, too. Uh, movies, you
know, movies with, with nudity, you know, what they can do to you. All these horrible things, you know?
You gotta, you gotta rank rock music so that children don't hear the wrong things, get the wrong
messages. TV programs, God, keep an eye on those things. Boy, are we becoming paranoid. I mean,
yeah, drugs are a menace. No question about that. But drugs have always been a menace. And, uh,
there are, there are certain more potent forms of drugs. And, uh, it's become a lot cheaper. But I
think, I think we really need to focus on education. Not just, uh, saying no. Not just forbidding things.
Not just making all these laws that won't be followed anyway. I mean, somebody needs help. You
don't lock them up. You help them. And that's, uh, that's really what we, uh, we need more than
anything else. Ah, getting back to privacy, though. In a related, uh, story to, uh, the drugs and
crime bit, Bell of Pennsylvania has acknowledged widespread wrongdoing by company employees,
including giving outsiders the private phone records of its customers. A Bell employee gave
information about a phone customer's long-distance calls to a private investigator, according to a report
from the company. Bell also routinely let people have information about long-distance records without
search warrants. The company said it was disciplining, disciplining, yes, uh, 13 employees,
but it refused to identify them or describe their punishment.
And the Justice Department has a neat idea to keep guns out of the hands of felons. Every citizen will
be required to carry a personal smart card. This card would contain your life story, including any
criminal activity and, uh, thought crime, too. Gun dealers would never let a criminal buy a gun,
right? And if you're not a criminal, you've got absolutely nothing to hide. So everyone will be
safe and happy and brain dead, given time. Our number is 279-3400. Emanuel Goldstein here filling in
for Sidney Smith until 3.30. And, uh, we're going to get back to the phone calls. Oh, but first...
It's time to play Confuse the Operator.
It's time to play Confuse the Operator. Thank you.
Great.
It's time to play Confuse.
It's time to play Confuse.
It's time to play Confuse.
I don't know.
Here we go.
Please tell zero for an operator or enter your credit card number at the tone.
This is one of those rip-off companies.
I don't know why I'm getting this.
Yes, hi.
Is this the operator?
Yes, sir.
Yes, hi.
I'm having trouble getting through to this number.
I'm trying to call it collect, but I keep getting this recording and I don't understand it.
Could you help me?
What number are you dialing?
Okay, I was dialing area code 304 and the number is 757-9921.
Is this collect call?
Yes, it is.
I have your name, sir.
Yes, my name is Emanuel.
Thank you.
I don't understand what that noise is.
Ah.
The call you are making requires a 25-cent deposit.
Please hang.
Requires a 25-cent deposit.
Please hang.
Requires a 25-cent deposit.
Please hang.
25-cent deposit.
Please hang.
25-cent.
And I...
Hello, operator?
Sir?
Yeah, I can put 25-cent deposit.
I don't understand what that noise is.
The call you are making requires a 25-cent deposit.
Please hang.
No, sir?
Requires a 25-cent deposit.
Please hang.
25-cent and dial...
Hello, operator?
Sir?
Yeah, I can't put 25-cent in the phone.
I mean, I don't have a pay phone.
Listen to me.
I'll try.
Dial this access number and try AT&T operator.
That number is 10-28-80, and then the area code and number you're dialing.
I see.
So AT&T will be able to handle it then, is that what you're saying?
They should be able to.
So dial their access number first, and then the area code and number you're calling.
Okay.
Out of curiosity, what company is this?
This is NTS.
NTS.
Okay.
Can you just answer one question for me, please?
If I can.
Okay.
I'd just like to know, if I was to make this call directly...
Yes.
This number, how much would that cost?
Um...
Well, if you're dialing direct, that will be your long distance carrier that will handle
your cost.
Right.
If I dial that direct using NTS.
Estimate if you're going through us, through the operator.
Right.
If I dial the direct using NTS, how much would that cost?
You cannot dial direct using NTS because we are not your carrier.
Oh, I see.
Well, okay.
How much would an operator assisted call to that cost then?
Okay.
One moment.
Would it be correct?
Um...
Yes, I guess it would.
Thank you.
Okay.
I try not to let too much of this dead air go over, but it does happen occasionally.
I'm waiting for information here.
Not much else we can do, actually.
Well, okay.
I think the point has been made.
The point is that companies like NTS, NTS is one of these resellers of long distance lines,
which you get connected to occasionally.
And I don't know why we're getting connected to them here at BAI.
Somebody has made a dreadful, horrible mistake here, because if you make a zero plus call on NTS, which tries to sound like AT&T to a degree until you ask them a question they can't answer, they charge roughly about twice the amount AT&T does.
Uh, they're one of these alternate operator service companies, AOS companies, and, uh, you just gotta be really careful because they're another product of, uh, of competition, you know.
You know, if, if, if you're aware, if the consumer is aware of what's going on, you can, uh, avoid these things, but, uh, notice how difficult it is to get rate information.
You ask, you know, a legitimate company rate information, you get it right away.
These guys, they put you on hold, they play all kinds of funny tones, things like that, and, uh, if they ever have trouble completing a call, they just pass you on to somebody else.
Well, I don't know if we can access AT&T here, if we can, uh, we'll, we'll come back and, uh, and try to, uh, try to make a couple of more calls to these numbers.
Uh, gonna play a bit of music now, we're gonna get back to the phone calls, but, uh, give me a chance to get a drink of water or something, and, uh, we'll be right back.
Our number is 279-3400.
These are the Buggles, if you remember them.
Living in the plastic age, that's what it's turning into here.
75-33 00.
Industry
Stripe
Every day my mental friend
Shakes my bed at 6am
And the shiny serving clones
Running with my telephones
Don't be fast, I'll make a deal
Buy the fake and sell what's real
I'll watch this pain here in my chest
Maybe I shouldn't take a rest
They suffer from the police
To put you over cardiac arrest
And as they drag you through the door
They tell you that you're great
Oh, living in love
Living in the plastic cage
Looking only on my edge
Hello doctor, look my face
I wish my skin could stand the place
Oh, my bad, I read my mind
Remember how the mice were blind
I wasn't fucking in the cage
Could this be the plastic cage?
Oh, my bad, I read my mind
Oh, my bad, I read my mind
Oh, my bad, I read my mind
Oh, my bad, I read my mind
Oh, my bad, I read my mind
Oh, my bad, I read my mind
Oh, my bad, I read my mind
Oh, my bad, I read my mind
Oh, my bad, I read my mind
Oh, my bad brud administ verme
Living in love
One day
One day
One day
One day
One day
One day
One day
One day


Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And that is the B-52s.
Here on WBAI from their very first album.
In fact, that's the very first song in the very first album called Planet Claire, preceded
by the Buggles with Living in the Plastic Age, title track from that record, which I believe
came out about the same time, early 80s, that general period, which is all kind of a dim
haze right now in my mind.
And, well, 279-279-3400 is our telephone number, talking about high tech and the abuses therein
and all kinds of fun things like that.
Speaking of the Plastic Age, I just wanted to diverge, divulge, digress, that's the word,
for a moment over to elections.
Well, first of all, did anyone catch the David Dinkins, well, do you remember when David Dinkins won the primary over Ed Koch, how he was making a concession speech?
No, he wasn't making a concession, he was making a, well, he was making rather a conciliatory victory speech, if such a thing is possible.
And he mentioned Ed Koch's name, and suddenly everybody started booing, and Dave Dinkins said,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
That's behind us now.
We're friends now.
We're together now.
You know, something like that.
And, well, same thing happened last night with Rudy Giuliani when he was conceding to David Dinkins.
And as soon as he mentioned David Dinkins' name, everybody started booing and hissing and things.
And he did the same thing, you know, but it didn't quite work.
It didn't quite work as well.
You know, he stood up there and he said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
You know, a few more times, too.
I don't want to exaggerate, but he did go on for quite a bit saying, no, no, no.
You know, and the people, you know, wouldn't stop.
They kept booing and hissing anyway, and Rudy got kind of upset, and he just said, yo, stop, shut up.
You know, something to that effect.
He just said, you know, hey, like a gym teacher, you know.
You know when you keep talking in gym class, you know, they yell at that same tone of voice, and it was really funny.
He would have made an interesting mayor.
I'll give him that.
He thinks he would have made a good mayor.
I think he would have made an interesting mayor.
And we can do with a little more interesting, a little less interesting things of that nature, I think.
But, well, anyway, I did some research.
Actually, before I get to this, why did I talk about the election?
Okay, I was talking about the Plastic Age.
Back where I live, out in Long Island, my county legislator is a guy named Steve Engelbright, who has been instrumental in passing all kinds of landmark bills, such as the plastic bill, the anti-plastic bill, that is, that mandates that fast food places have to have biodegradable packaging.
You know, it seems like a common sense kind of approach.
But, of course, when you're dealing with big business, common sense goes right out the window.
Profits, profits come first.
Let me tell you, you've got to make money.
That's what's important.
Okay?
That aside, Steve Engelbright, the county legislator out there, has come up consistently with these environmental issues.
Now, he's gotten a lot of organizations angry at him.
You know, a lot of big businesses and things like that, you know.
I mean, McDonald's and Burger King, they're not too happy about having to repackage everything because this guy came up with a law that, by the way, is being followed.
And, you know, it's the model for laws all over the country that are slowly popping into existence where, you know, people are saying, hey, we're tired of all this trash, this plastic stuff that lasts forever, you know.
If it costs a little more, so be it.
But we think the brunt should be borne by the companies that are making this crap, referring to what's inside the packages and the packages themselves.
Now, in addition to that, of course, he's been instrumental in things like recycling, preserving the open land, which, if you're familiar with Long Island, there's less and less open land.
Shopping centers are popping up everywhere.
Houses are being developed.
Wilderness is being destroyed.
And it's a time of crisis for developers because they're very worried about the wilderness, you know, because it seems to be fighting back a little bit, just a little bit, you know.
People are saying, hey, you know, maybe, and correct me if I'm wrong, but maybe we have too many houses and too many shopping centers and too many McDonald's.
Maybe it's good to have a tree here and there, you know.
That kind of talk can really make a developer sweat.
And I think we should stop calling them developers because they don't develop, they destroy, you know.
They go into the forest and the fields.
They say, hey, there's nothing here.
Tear it down.
Put some concrete up, you know.
It's really pretty sick.
And what's especially sad about it is Long Island is an island, you know.
So every time you take away an acre, there's not another acre to go to.
There's one acre less and there's more people competing for that one acre less of green.
And eventually there just won't be anything left unless more people like Steve Engelbright pop up and continue to do what they've been doing.
Now, why am I talking about him?
Okay, well, he was running for re-election last night as county legislator.
And driving back from New York last night, I was listening to all the radio news stations, you know.
And they were giving all the election returns, you know, Governor of Virginia and Washington State and Japan and wherever else, you know.
But they weren't giving Suffolk County, which is where I live, you know.
And I wanted to know, did this guy win or did the Republican person that came out of nowhere and just started saying,
well, Steve Engelbright is responsible for all these high taxes.
Now, that worked.
You know, that got county legislator Wayne Prospect.
All right, who's the wise guy?
Someone's beeping me.
Okay, I'm going to put this thing in vibrating mode.
There we go.
All right, my beeper's in vibrating mode now.
Oh, yeah, can't be disturbed.
Sorry about that, folks.
High-tech intrudes again.
But you have people like county legislator Wayne Prospect and county legislator Greg Blass,
both environmentalists, both instrumental in the closing of the Shoreham nuclear power plant,
but accused by their opponents in the primaries of being responsible for high taxes.
Now, you say high taxes to somebody, and it provokes all these horrible responses, you know.
Oh, screw the environment.
I don't want to pay for it, you know.
And even if it's not true, you know, and a lot of times it's not.
If they just accuse someone of being high tax prone, that's enough.
That in itself, it's kind of like a hysteria that takes over the voters.
And that's what this Republican challenger was doing to Steve Engelbright, to the environmentalist.
And I knew if, you know, if he was defeated somehow, the island was really in a lot of trouble
because losing Prospect, losing Blass, two really, you know, big environmentalists out there,
who knows what's going to happen, you know.
And I kept listening to the radio, you know, driving in the fog.
It was really, really foggy last night.
Not hearing anything.
Not hearing...
Oh, my beeper's vibrating again.
Not hearing a thing about the election out there.
And how was I to know?
How was I to know if, you know, if the news was good or the news was bad?
And I didn't know until I, until I got back to my little sleepy town at five in the morning
and I passed by one of his election signs and draped across the election sign with the
simple words, thank you.
Thank you?
Well, he wouldn't be thanking people if he lost, would he?
He must have won.
And he did.
But not by much.
Not by all that much at all.
Which scares me.
It really does.
It scares me that people who are concerned more about profits and taxes before the environment
are actually becoming a force again.
I mean, face it, people.
Just face it.
The environment is the most important thing.
No question about it.
I mean, without the environment, there is nothing left.
And if we ignore that, we might as well throw all the money out the window.
Because it's not going to do us any good.
We've really screwed up the environment with something fierce.
We may not be able to fix it.
There's an ozone hole over Antarctica.
There's trash and litter and all kinds of toxic waste in the oceans.
There's very little land left.
Forests are being destroyed.
You know, I really admire the animal activists.
I don't always agree with them.
But I admire them because they're out there and they're making it an issue.
They're being very public and open about it, you know?
And they're out there and you see them.
And you see their demonstrations.
They make scenes.
They're in the papers.
Now, where?
Where are the environmentalists?
I see Greenpeace every now and then, but where's the rest of it?
You know, shouldn't we be having massive demonstrations?
Shouldn't we be having people doing all kinds of things in support of the environment
and against the people that are polluting it and that don't care about it?
Shouldn't we be having sit-ins in politicians' offices and teach-ins and that kind of thing?
I mean, this is about as important as it gets.
It is a war.
It's as important as a war because if we don't take care of it, we're all going to die.
No question about it.
So, keep an eye on the politicians.
Keep an eye on the people in office because they're the ones that can do something about it.
And if they're more concerned about monetary things and not concerned about preserving the environment,
restoring the environment, let's get a new phrase in here.
To hell with preserving.
There's not much left to preserve.
Let's start restoring what we have destroyed.
When you find people like that, that care, make sure they stay in office.
And that's my little sermon on elections, the importance of it.
You know, a lot of people say to me that they don't feel like their vote matters.
And to a degree, they're right, especially in the very big elections, you know, the nationwide things.
Their vote really doesn't matter all that much and the candidates really aren't all that different.
You know, the major candidates, that is.
And those are the only ones that ever get any attention in the media.
But locally, locally you do have a voice because 100 votes makes a difference.
So, keep that in mind.
Keep that in mind because we've got to keep the right people in the local office.
They're the ones that can save the trees and save the grass and save all kinds of things like that.
Well, enough serious business here.
I have figured out a way to actually hack out the phone system here and get through to an AT&T operator, which has been made very difficult.
Now, I'm sorry, but there are people calling on the unauthorized lines and they're tying up the outgoing lines.
And I just can't allow that.
So, I'm going to have to, unfortunately, pick up someone and then hang them up.
And I don't like doing that.
If someone wants to hang up on that line voluntarily, we can save you the embarrassment of actually being hung up upon here on WBAI.
But I am going to have to do that.
That's the only way I can get through.
It's just one of these essential things.
Okay, well, since no one has opted to do that, I'm afraid I must get violent and actually knock somebody off.
There, I've done it.
What, they're back?
No, they're gone.
Okay, one moment, please, while we, now they're back.
This is ridiculous, folks.
Someone's got to hang up here because I can't make an outgoing call unless I have a free line here.
Someone seems to have given out all the secret numbers.
And now there's, ah, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, sir, or ma'am, or whatever that was.
Now, let me try to make an outgoing call here.
I'm going to get an AT&T operator, but I'm going to have to turn my microphone off in order to do it in the proper way.
Thank you.
Okay.
We're on our way.
AT&T.
Hi, is this the AT&T operator?
Yes, it is.
Oh, great.
I'm trying to get through to a number here, and I'm having a lot of trouble.
I was trying to make a collect call.
My name is Emmanuel, and I just, I don't understand what's happening at the other end.
I'm getting some strange recording.
I can't really make it out.
Can you help me?
Uh, where are you calling, sir?
Okay, it's, uh, to Dallas, Texas.
It's, uh, area code 214.
And the phone number is 951-1797.
Okay, if you use any chance, I'll tell you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'm sorry.
The number you have called, or the number you are calling from, is not a working number.
Okay, you...
I don't understand what she means by that.
214-951-1797.
Yeah, she says the number I'm calling from isn't a working number.
I mean, I never heard that phrase before.
One second.
850 Dallas?
Yes, operator.
New York is calling.
Would you please assist me ringing a number in Dallas?
Okay.
Okay, I have 214-951-1797.
When we dial the number, apparently the recording comes back and tells us that we cannot reach the number
because the number we're calling from is not a working number.
Okay, just a moment, I've heard.
Thank you.
Okay, hold on, Senator.
Okay, I paid my bill.
I don't know if...
Would that have anything to do with it?
No, because if you didn't pay your bill, you wouldn't have been able to get me.
Ah, okay.
Actually, I had to go through quite a bit to get you in the first place.
I'm sorry.
The number you have called, or the number you are calling from, is not a working number.
Operator?
Yeah.
I'm getting that same thing.
Evidently, um...
I guess it's...
Somebody hasn't paid their bill.
Well, it hasn't been me.
I mean, I pay my bill every month.
Maybe it's the one that you're calling from.
Hmm.
No, that couldn't be.
That couldn't be.
Well, how would a recording in Dallas know that I haven't paid my bill?
That doesn't seem to make sense, you hear?
All kind of ways.
Is there some way that you can, um...
Evidently, the number...
It must be the number that you're calling into.
Uh-huh.
They haven't paid their bill.
And it's not going to go through if...
They can't receive a call if the bill hasn't been paid.
I see.
Well, I'm trying to think how I can tell them to pay their bill if I can't call them.
Um...
Okay, now this...
Are you sure of the number?
Because this is Grand Prairie.
It's not Dallas.
Uh...
Well, I'm sure of the number.
I don't know where the number is.
Okay, Operator, all I can say is I'll report it.
Okay.
Thank you, Operator.
You're welcome.
Bye-bye.
Okay, I appreciate that.
Uh, Operator, I was having trouble with another number, too.
I was wondering if you want to be able to help me there.
Are you sure of the number?
This one is in the Baltimore area.
Okay.
I see every one in the number.
Okay, it was area code 301.
And the number is 725-9904.
And again, I was getting a strange recording, and I was beginning to think it was just me.
The call you have made requires a 25-cent deposit.
Please hang up.
No, there's no way I can put money in this phone.
I know that.
Where are you getting this number from?
Well, I have them in front of me, but, uh, I've...
Actually, I've been having trouble calling these numbers for a while.
But I figured, you know, I'd get them all together tonight and try to figure it all out.
Hey, babe.
Yes, Operator, New York is calling.
Could you please assist...
Okay, never mind, Operator.
You could call.
Wrong one.
What happened?
I thought I was the wrong Operator.
Oh.
AT&T Operator?
Yes, Operator, New York is calling.
Would you please assist me bringing your number?
When I dial the number, a recording comes on and says deposit 25 cents, and my party is calling from a non-calling phone.
Okay.
Okay, it's 301-725-9904.
725?
725, yes.
Hold on.
Oh, you got it to ring.
It's ringing, yeah.
Thank you, Operator.
Didn't it ring before the announcement?
No.
Yeah.
Operator.
Okay, hold on.
Please hang up momentarily.
Listen for dial tone.
Deposit 25 cents, and dial your call again.
Let me check something, Operator.
Hold on.
Thank you.
Is your party calling a resident in Laurel, Maryland?
That's my impression.
Yeah.
I'll have to report it, Operator.
I don't know what the trouble is.
Okay.
Thank you, Operator.
Okay, so I guess I reported those two numbers.
Okay, well, I guess thank you very much for your help, then.
You're welcome.
All right, have a good night.
You too.
All right.
And this episode of Confuse the Operator was not sponsored by AT&T.
You can rest assured of that.
Our telephone number is area code 212-279-3400.
And if you want to talk about anything high-tech related, well, now is your opportunity.
Speak now or forever.
Hold your peace.
That kind of thing.
Here at WBAI New York, Emanuel Goldstein filling in for Sidney Smith until 3.30.
Again, 212-279-3400.
If you get a busy signal, just put yourself in redial mode, something like that.
Thank you.
Okay, back to the phones.
Also, there was an interesting piece in the New York Times about the new digital watches.
Well, actually, digital watches is kind of a weird term.
It's not really the watch itself.
It's the first wristwatchers with paging beepers.
That's right, paging beepers attached to little wristwatches.
I guess we should have expected this.
They're expected to be introduced early next year, a significant advance in the miniaturization
of complex radio communications technology.
They say engineers have succeeded in putting the electronic circuitry of the pager on tiny
silicon chips and in placing a highly sensitive antenna needed to pick up radio signals in
the band of the watch.
Current paging devices, which are considerably larger, in fact, I've got one right here,
which was making noise before, are hooked to a belt or carried in a purse or a briefcase.
Yes, or put anywhere, actually.
I can put it right here on the table.
That's what a beeper sounds like.
Well, when you drop it.
That's not what a beeper sounds like when it goes off.
But for more than a decade, engineers have been racing to develop a beeper small enough
to fit inside an ordinary wristwatch.
Now, American Telephone and Electronics and Hattori Psycho plan to offer early next year
a wristwatch pager that is expected to provide strong competition for manufacturers of existing
paging equipment and providers of paging service.
AT&E, interesting initials, has built a paging network that transmits messages to wristwatch
pagers anywhere in the world.
The messages are carried on FM radio subchannels at speeds substantially faster than those of
current paging systems, which use standard radio waves and are mostly limited to local
service areas.
The AT&E Psycho Watch Pager, which will cost about $200, has a battery life of one year.
However, service rates are $8 a month for national paging and $35 a month for international paging,
which I believe are cheaper than regular beeping services, as far as I know, anyway.
So imagine that, having beepers on your watch now.
I mean, you know, everyone's going to have one.
Everyone will have a little beeper and you'll be able to reach everybody at a moment's notice.
Oh, it'll be wonderful until it becomes mandatory.
And everyone must be accounted for at all moments.
I mean, yeah, okay, call me paranoid.
Call me someone that's infatuated with George Orwell's vision of the world.
But, you know, keep in mind, technology is something that's going to spread all throughout
the world.
And not all countries all throughout the world have benevolent governments.
And not all nice governments remain nice.
Not all nice governments remain in power.
But one thing that will remain is the technology once it becomes established.
Imagine if the years just went in a different direction.
If, you know, this century went the other way.
It's 1989.
Next year is 1988.
Next year is 1987.
Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Until we get to the 1940s and the Nazis.
And they have access to the things that we've developed here.
Don't say it's not possible.
It is something to consider.
And that's why we have to be educated.
212-279-3400.
Good evening.
Good evening.
Emmanuel Goldstein?
Yes.
Okay, good.
It's a pleasure to talk to you at this day of the week.
Because usually when I try to get on Robert Knight's air, but it is, of course, in the public trust.
You're familiar with that term.
Uh-huh.
My name is Monroe.
And he has a kind of attitude towards me because I've been critical.
Now, you use the term vent your spleen.
What I do is not venting spleen.
I think I have a spleen, and perhaps I have bile in it, and it's a biologically functioning part of my body, as Gary Noll probably explained.
Let me say it this way at the beginning, that I'm an original subscriber.
I love this station, and I'm an intelligent person.
You know, there is intelligence on this planet.
You understand?
Yeah.
And I don't know, I'm sure I wouldn't horrify any extraterrestrial because I think I could, you know, work it all out with them.
But the point is this, that I think you may have mentioned freedom of speech.
And as an intelligent person on this planet and somebody who loves the station, WBAI, and remembers that Lou Hill, who originated the idea,
because, you know, radio began and it had experimentation and commercial people saw the virtues of it,
and they figured, well, we'll put our Quaker Roads commercial on and all the people listening will hear it.
Well, Lou Hill had the idea.
Are you familiar with Lou Hill's name?
Not really, no.
Well, he was, as a result of the Second World War, he was in our psychological area, you know, trying to keep the troops happy.
You know what I mean?
After all, the war was a terrible ordeal.
I was, I'm 58, so I was 7, 8, 9.
We're attacking us, you know, and all the other civilized parts of the world.
And what did I know?
And anyway, the point of it all was that I, at the age that I was aware of the war, was fearful that the Axis would win.
I mean, can you imagine that?
I mean, and then even when they were, we were going through Europe and so forth, and we had cleaned the fascists out of Africa and so on.
The point being, I was always fearful that their rockets would come over the United States.
They had sent a couple of submarine saboteurs to Long Island, you mentioned Long Island, onto the beaches, and they were rounded up by the, you know, police and the FBI and so forth.
But the point is that I was even fearful that, at last-ditch effort, Hitler and his people, the scientists, would use poison gas.
And even in the United States, there was a German-American Bund, and they were favorable towards, this was a group of people who were favorable towards the Nazis.
You know, they were endorsing it.
And then, of course, on WBAI, on Uncle Sam and the Swastika, it was shown that even Henry Ford liked many of the things that Hitler stood for,
and that many of these multimillionaires were actually supporting Hitler's, you know, move for various reasons, naturally.
Anyway, to get back to the story, I have subscribed to WBAI for 30 years, and in recent years, there's been an awful lot of freedom of speech talk on WBAI.
And often there is freedom of speech, and as there is right now as I'm talking to you.
But, however, various things have been happening recently, and you just mentioned George Orwell.
Now, 1984 was read on WBAI in full, you know what I mean?
Were you aware of that?
I had heard, I didn't hear it myself, but...
Well, it was very well done, and I wish it could be done again, you know, rebroadcast, or excerpted even,
because even though people all know the name 1984, I mean, it's like, you know, a password,
there's something about that book, the idea that this individual didn't even know who to turn to.
He didn't, the woman that appealed to him, he wasn't sure whether she was a spy or not, you know, for the government.
And as an individual...
If I could step in for a moment, sir, about what you are saying, and I wish we'd get this phone system fixed,
so it could be two-way, what you're saying is very, reminds me a lot of the hacker world,
where nobody trusts anybody else.
Yes, it's exactly the same thing as with 1984, computer hackers, they never know who is a Fed and who is not a Fed,
and when you think about it, when you think about what it all means, it's just, you know, we just want information,
we just want to know how something works, and that's being denied to us, and it's a sad state of affairs.
I don't like cutting people off, but I'm afraid I want to try to move through these calls quickly,
and there are a lot of calls here, and a lot of people have been waiting for a very long time,
so the number is 279-3400.
Good evening.
Hello.
Yes, can I help you?
Is this BAI?
Yes, it is, you're on the air.
Yes, I've been hungry for the taste of a Big Mac for quite some time now,
and I was wondering if you could tell me what a Big Mac consists of?
Oh, you must have been listening earlier, then, when we actually, actually...
I've been hungry for the taste of a Big Mac for quite some time now.
Actually, your voice sounds very familiar.
This might be one of the people involved in that sketch.
Ah, yes, well, insane people seem to be attracted to this place.
Good evening.
Good evening, are you there?
Yeah, just a response to the last call.
I mean, you gave him a lot less time than you did that guy who was going on around 15 minutes
with the telephone company, and I think that was wrong,
because that guy, you know, back on 115,
that guy was, like, 20 minutes talking about all his little, you know,
kicks to phone company, I mean.
Yeah, well, you know, it's hard because, you know,
it's inherent in this phone system, but it's hard for us to interrupt people.
We just have to, like, cut people off or wait for a pause when they start talking,
because for some reason I can't talk at the same time you're talking,
and you won't be able to hear me,
and since we're using a delay system,
you won't be able to hear me on your radio for another seven seconds.
It's terrible, but that's irrelevant.
What are you calling about?
I just mean, I think, I thought it was, like, you're biased,
because he was picking up a phone company,
and you liked it because you hate the phone company.
Anyway, okay, a couple things.
Well, I did like what he was saying,
but, I mean, I'm perfectly happy to let somebody else say their piece, too.
All right, you seem a touch paranoid,
though I certainly agree with you about the danger of technology being in the hands of,
you know, bad governments,
but I can't put a finger on a couple things that did have a certain paranoid tinge to what you were saying.
The thing about playing it, let's confuse the operator.
I don't know how you confused her, and it was like,
I'm not sure what the whole point of that was.
Maybe you can explain all about that.
Well, now, if you've never heard such things before,
first of all, we were able to see very clearly how different phone companies react to certain things.
The company known as NTS that we found by accident,
they don't handle confusing things themselves.
They pass it on to another company,
and they're just interested in charging you and making money,
and they're really a rip-off organization.
I have no problem saying that because it's been proven.
Lawsuits have been filed against them,
and they've been told by federal commissions to stop doing what they're doing,
which is charging huge amounts of money for the same calls that you would place on a regular phone company.
Now, AT&T, you just noticed,
went through all this trouble to figure out what was going on with one of these phone numbers.
Why is a phone number asking for money from a customer, a residential customer?
We had operators from all over the country trying to figure this out.
AT&T talked to an AT&T operator in Dallas and in Baltimore,
and it's just kind of interesting how the whole network ties together.
So it's a learning experience as well as a bit of fun.
Okay, it was somewhat fun.
If you can give any information out that would help us beat the phone company,
that would be great.
I guess you're afraid to do that because you might get in trouble yourself, right?
Well, I mean, the way you beat anything is just to be on top of things.
Like, if you're not informed, you'll get ripped off is basically the way it is.
You have to know what a ripoff is when you see it.
You have to know what pay phones to avoid because they charge you, you know, $500 to make a call back home.
All right, can you say a minute about these hackers who are afraid that other hackers are feds?
Like, what's a hacker and what, you know, what are fed hackers?
Are you asking me?
Yeah.
Okay, well, a hacker, I mean, by my definition,
and my definition is certainly not the definition of all time,
a hacker is someone who is interested in finding out information,
finding out how a particular computer or phone system works
and doesn't play by the rules in as much as he doesn't just read the material that he's supposed to read.
He looks for additional information that the companies that put out this kind of system,
the phone system, the computer systems,
they don't want everybody to have this information because they want to keep certain things secret.
They don't want it known that they're selling databases with your name on it to other companies
and passing that around.
They don't want you to know that credit reports are very easy to get a hold of,
legitimately or illegitimately.
The phone company doesn't want you to know that it's incredibly easy to look up your phone bill,
whether you're that person or not.
The phone company doesn't want you to know that it's incredibly easy to charge hundreds and hundreds of dollars
of phone calls to your account, whether you're the right person or not.
Hackers find out these things.
Some hackers abuse them, some don't.
Some are just interested in information, you know.
Why are they fed hackers?
Well, fed, I don't call them hackers.
I just call them feds.
Feds are people that, you know, they're run by the federal government, obviously.
They're either the Secret Service or the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Right.
And what they do is keep an eye on these hackers.
Mostly, most of them are in their teens, although they're hackers of all ages.
And they just, they watch them.
They watch what they say on bulletin boards.
Sometimes they monitor their phone lines.
Yeah.
Sometimes they watch them in person.
They're all over the place and they're very concerned.
And obviously, the government and the big companies are very concerned when a group of people take knowledge into their own hands
and don't play by the rules and find out things that they're not supposed to find out.
Because a lot of what's going on would make the average person livid with rage when he finds out how his name and Social Security number and credit report is being bandied about from place to place.
Right.
Okay.
I feel I've taken enough time.
Let me say one last thing, okay?
Yeah, go ahead.
Okay?
Go ahead.
Yeah, this last person I want you to know, his name is Monroe.
He calls lots of shows.
And this message I'm about to say, Monroe, is directed to you who I know are listening.
An example of what you just did in the last phone call is a perfect example of how you're not fair to the human race in that you go off on 10,000 different digressions
and you show no respect, therefore, to the person who is hosting the show because you don't focus your,
the digressions that may be very valid and what you said about World War II was very interesting
and your restating of the stuff that came out on Uncle Sam and the Swastika was very important stuff.
You nonetheless, you disrespect the host by not focusing your question to their concerns
and I wish you'd see how it's not, how it's inappropriate behavior for a humanistic fellow like yourself
and what I'm sure you think you are.
Okay.
Well, let's not try to have a war between listeners here, but we'll take that as constructive criticism.
Exactly.
Constructive criticism.
Okay.
Okay.
Thanks for calling.
Bye-bye.
And I guess I can't add anything to that.
212-279-3400 is our telephone number.
Good evening.
Hello?
Yes?
Oh, all right.
So I'm on the air.
Yeah, I'm calling from Coney Island.
Okay.
The question is, well, I guess, I don't know whether you can answer it, but this is a question.
A phone call from one of the booths in Coney Island costs 45 cents, but from Manhattan to get to the same number costs 25 cents.
Okay, can I ask you a question?
Yeah.
Is the pay phone that you're using in Coney Island a New York telephone pay phone?
Hmm, that's interesting.
I don't know.
Well, okay.
Can you picture it in your mind?
Mine next, it should be a...
Okay.
Can you picture this phone in your mind?
Can you just sort of recreate it?
Now, is there a little blue sticker in the upper left-hand corner, or is it an orange sticker, or is it not a sticker at all?
All right, let's see.
I've tried, I've tried about, yeah, there's, let's see, the telephone, those telephones are in the subway station, you see.
At Coney Island?
Yeah.
They're in the subway station?
Yeah, they're in the subway station.
Okay, those are New York telephone pay funds, then.
They wouldn't be anything else.
It couldn't be anything else.
And also, at another location on Surf Avenue, the same thing happened.
I just simply didn't understand the first time.
It was about a year ago that I called Bell of New York, and they told me, well, this shouldn't happen.
This shouldn't be the case.
But, now, again, about a month ago, I, no, no, it isn't a month ago, but a week ago, and I called again the operator, and I guess the operator couldn't do anything or couldn't say much, but, I mean, yeah, well.
Well, there's one thing I would suggest, and, uh.
Is there a phone or somebody that I, I mean, over, over a few thousands of people, this, yeah, okay.
Well, it's, uh, it's certainly a valid concern.
It might be an error, it might not be, but either way, there is a way around it.
If you get an account with a, uh, another long-distance company, and, you know, it may seem like you need a long-distance company for this, but I'll explain why.
Uh, if you were to make this call using, say, MCI, Sprint, Western Union, just about any phone company.
You mean from here to Manhattan?
From here to Manhattan.
I mean, from anywhere, from anywhere in New York to anywhere else in the, you know, in the general area, it would cost, the first minute would cost you probably something like about 17 cents.
And, uh, since most phone calls, most phone calls locally don't last that long, uh, you would actually be saving money.
But it would certainly be less than 45 cents, and at night it goes down even, even further.
So what, what you would do is you would call the, uh, toll-free number from the pay phone, get the dial tone, enter your authorization code, and then the phone number.
Which is a bit of a pain, but there's no coins involved, and, uh, sometimes it can be a lot cheaper, and it works from just about everywhere.
But you mean with an account number?
You just need an account, but anybody can get one.
You just call up the company, and there's no charge to get the account, you see.
And, uh, that, that, that's one way around it.
Okay, my point, my point, of course, is, is just a general thing.
Okay, to get around it for personal use, it's okay.
But, I mean, I mean, I don't know whether other people are doing it.
And I, I've seen a lot of people here in Coney Island, from the projects, from everywhere, they're using the pay phones, and, and I guess it, it would be.
Well, you know, I'm not, I'm not certain if, if it's, if it has to be that the rate going both ways has to be equal.
But, it sounds like it should be.
And, uh, you know, it sounds like a, a letter to the editor is in order, if nothing else.
But, uh, contact your business office.
Obviously, you can't contact them now, because they're still out on strike, and you have to look.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
I was just, I was just listening to your program, and, and it's focused on, on, uh, on the, uh, you know, on, on the telephone company.
Right.
And I, I had this question for, for a long, long time, and I didn't do anything about it, because I don't use the phone too much.
Uh-huh.
But.
Well, it's, it's a very good point, though.
I don't know whether one should, should go ahead and, and, and, and sue them for, uh, for, uh, whatever, you know, for, uh, how do you call this, uh, um.
For making too much money.
Yeah.
From, from people that.
I mean, why, from Manhattan to, uh, to Brooklyn, 25 cents, and, and from Brooklyn to Manhattan, 45 cents.
I mean, I don't know.
That, that doesn't really make much sense, and, uh, I'll, I'll look into it a little bit more, you know, myself,
because, uh, that doesn't sound like something that, that should be going on, and if it is going on, it should be well publicized.
It shouldn't be.
I couldn't, I couldn't understand.
I don't understand, and probably I will, I'll try something else, but, on, it is, uh, I don't know for, for, for, uh, charging.
I find, uh, this is a completely different point.
Uh, I'm, I'm a foreigner.
I, I come from Europe.
I'm Greek.
And, uh, in, uh, in Greece, our telephone company is, is, uh, I mean, I don't want to spoil your point, but, I mean,
the telephone company in Greece is, uh, state-owned, and, uh, they're, they're pretty wild with their prices.
They're about twice as, as much.
Oh, sure, sure, yeah, and that's not, that's not at all uncommon in Europe and, uh, in other parts of the world.
I guess in Germany happens the same thing.
Well, you know, the thing that, the thing that a lot of people in other countries don't see the harm in is the fact that the post office and the phone company are owned by the government, run by the government.
And, you know, it's, it's been going on for all time.
For all time, it's been going on so people don't say, hey, you know, this is a threat to our freedom.
Uh, if it happened here, obviously we would say this is, this is not right.
Like, but since it's been going on there, people have gone, gotten used to it, and, uh, it's, you know, it's, it's become a given.
So, my point is that things, things change, things change, and you become used to them.
You've got to watch what's happening.
This has always been the case in Europe.
It's not a healthy situation to have the government running the phone system because, you know, the phone system is a, is a very vital link, and, and the mail is a very vital link.
You don't want the government controlling that, that, that stuff, you know, unless, unless it's an accredited totalitarian government that there's an understanding with the people that they're going to invade your privacy and violate your rights, okay, fine.
But if, uh, if the case is, is, you know, something where it's halfway democratic, uh, that is not a healthy situation.
You know, an interesting thing, in Paris, I, I was in Paris over the summer.
I went to, uh, to a pay phone to make a local call.
You know, this is, this sounds like a New York telephone horror story, but it's, it's worse.
Because I wanted to make a local telephone call, and I couldn't do it.
You know why I couldn't do it?
Because it didn't take coins.
The pay phone didn't take any coins, and I just had coins with me.
I mean, I, I, I didn't have anything else besides coins.
I figured that's what I needed to make a phone call.
But no, no, in Paris, you need a phone card.
You need this little card that you put in the phone, and it, uh, sort of subtracts numbers from the card.
And, uh, that's, uh, that's how you make your phone calls.
Now, I didn't have a card.
I just got off the train.
I didn't know where to get a card.
It was late Sunday night.
There was no place to go to get one of these cards.
I couldn't make a phone call locally to, to, to find out where I had to go.
I was lost, and I, I, I couldn't make any phone calls whatsoever.
Finally, finally, I, I did find one phone that did take quarters.
I, not quarters.
What am I talking about?
Took, uh, whatever, whatever coins.
I, I was in so many countries, I've lost track of what, what they're called.
But, took French coins, and, uh, allowed you to make a phone call.
But I had to wait on a very long line to use it.
And then, early the next day, I got up.
Went down to the post office.
Yes, the post office, uh, run by the government.
And, uh, went there to buy my phone cards.
So I could make phone calls the French way, and not have this problem again.
And you'd think it, it would have a happy ending, wouldn't you?
You'd think that, that would solve all my problems.
But, they were out of phone cards.
Yep, they didn't have any phone cards.
Because, I couldn't get a phone card.
I couldn't make a phone call, because I couldn't get a phone card.
Because, the government-run post office didn't have any more phone cards.
Now, normally, I would consider the French to be very intelligent.
And, you know, well-versed in the ways of democracy.
But, damn it, you have a system where you take away the phone cards, and the people can't make phone calls.
You turn a phone call into a physical commodity that you can ration.
Oh, you can come up with the reasons later on, but the fact is, you can actually ration phone calls.
You can say, oh, well, you only have 100 units per day.
Don't exceed that.
And, that's a very unhealthy thing to be doing.
There's only one way to do it, and we can cut back on it anytime we want.
Boy, it was a scary situation.
And, you know, the toll-free numbers, the ones that didn't require the card.
You couldn't make those without the card anyway, so you had to have a card just to make those calls.
It's a bad situation.
And, yeah, makes the system here very good in comparison.
But, that doesn't mean the system here is great.
There's a lot that needs to be improved.
And, you know, I was saying, wandering around Europe and Amsterdam, London, Paris, you know, the payphones here are terrible compared to the payphones in New York.
And, imagine my shame, my disgrace when I came back to New York and tried to make calls in the payphones here, only to find that maybe one out of three, if I'm lucky, more like one out of four payphones are working.
The rest give you weird busy signals, high-pitched tones, little shortcuts from the hole on the top to the hole on the bottom where the quarter slides through without even touching anything in between.
All kinds of horrible things like that.
Oh, mouthpieces that don't work.
You know, you ever try talking to somebody without them hearing you?
It's horrible.
And then your quarter goes away after you hang up the phone.
All because of companies that don't care enough to maintain the products and because of companies that are out on strike and not doing much to resolve the matter.
279-3400 is our telephone number.
This is Emanuel Goldstein filling in for Sidney Smith.
It's about 16 minutes to 3 o'clock in the morning.
And, boy, there's a lot of people up in New York.
Here's one of them.
Good evening.
Good evening, Emanuel.
How are you doing?
First of all, I've heard you here tonight.
I was sitting here, you know, in a little anxiety.
Listen, the station really needs a lot more comedy or humor.
And I happen to write a lot of that stuff.
It's not what they call straight comedy.
It's humor.
And I utilize rhyme.
And I've been heard a lot on your station.
I've done poems, limericks, of which I have hundreds and thousands of them.
I'm not widely known.
I'm not out there.
You know, I lived in New York a couple of years ago.
I lost the wolf.
Well, I agree with you.
I think we need a bit more comedy on the radio station.
You should...
I understand.
But, you know, I'm handicapped.
Osteoporosis.
You know what that condition is?
I explain it.
The bone, the soft bone thing.
Right.
And you have to have milk, cheese, yogurt, and all that stuff to build you up.
And I've been banging my head off here, calling and calling and getting the royal runaround
from everyone.
And I'm a veteran.
I buried my mother last year.
I was five years in an orphanage as a child in Far Rockaway, New York, called the Israel
Orphan Asylum.
And I just found out this week I'm in my 40s where my father is buried in Staten Island.
And I think this world is really sick and hurting.
We're all victims on this world, you know.
And I'll tell you where comedy comes from, out of tragedy.
And I have had more than my share of tragedy.
I was denied not only a father, I was denied a brother and a sister.
I was denied a beautiful family that was lost in the Holocaust.
And I think there's something wrong with this world.
There really is.
Now, would you like a little humor tonight?
Yeah, I was about to ask you for some.
Comedy, see, most people's interpretation of comedy is, oh, you do comedy, you get up,
you attack this and that, and you tear everything down.
Now, I don't tear things down.
Of course, I could if I wanted to, but I don't believe that's the right way to do it.
I don't try to make enemies.
I try to make friends.
I try to bring people together.
That should be the purpose of real comedy and humor.
And I'll tell you, if the station presented more of this, not only would you have a bigger
audience and listenership, people would support you.
You've got to find a gimmick, and that's the gimmick.
Humor.
Never mind where they go, regular comedy.
Humor.
H-U-M-O-R.
Follow?
Yes, yes, I do.
I'll give you a brief example.
Give me a brief example.
I do utilize rhyme, and then people think, oh, you're a poet.
It's rhyme, and that's all.
What can I do?
All right, here, I'll give you a brief example here.
What do I think of computers in school?
They're okay if you can get them to sit behind a desk.
That's a good one.
That's a good one.
Ellie in a tough part of New York.
I ordered a lean corned beef.
They brought me a mean corned beef.
You see, I utilize rhyme in a sentence.
I do it in a one-liners.
I do it in couplets.
And when I was doing it a couple of years ago, people looking amused as some kind of
a jerk from another planet and another solar system.
And you must be succeeding.
I'm not succeeding.
I'm out here suffering in pain and hurting and taking mental, physical, emotional, and
verbal abuse from everyone, including what's left of my so-called family.
This world is like this.
All right, how about Limerick?
I have over 8,000 Limericks.
They're not even out there.
I don't know when I'll get them out there with my condition.
And I worry that something should happen to me, that my work will just go to the devil.
You know, this is a terrible world.
A lot of greater writers than me were either ripped off or victimized or done in.
I mean, you know, it sounds simplistic to say, you know, try to dwell on the positive.
And I know that's not the easiest thing in the world to do, but that's the only way, you
know, eventually some door is going to open.
The greatest things I've done are parodies, like Alan Sherman, Weird Al, any of your great
writers, Eddie Greensleeves, where you take something that exists, change the words around
and rhyme them in a different manner.
Yeah, but you see, you're making a generalization.
You're saying people are out to destroy you.
Yes, some people are, but we can't say people are.
It's just like a thousand words.
If you could make something rhyme in any manner, certainly a gift.
Is it not a gift, or is it some kind of a deviation from the normal?
Okay, I'll give you a couple of brief examples here.
If I had chicken soup made by Jackie Mason, I'd dump it out into the hot dogs and sauerkraut.
You see the rhyme there?
Ah.
Do you know how I do it?
Yeah, yeah.
I thought you would be very, very, uh, uh, what do you call it, hostile to what I do?
Because a lot of people are.
Well, you know, okay, why would you think I would be hostile?
I don't know, because so many have been.
Uh-huh.
When you have talent, well, why?
You see, you know, if you expect me to be hostile, I might sense that, and, and...
I, I wanted to try, I was sitting up here, and I said, I'm going to take a shot for up
to an hour.
I'll wait and hold on.
If I get on, I get on.
If I don't, I don't.
All right, I did get on.
Now, all right, uh...
I, I do have to give credit to not only you, but all of our listeners that call in and
just leave the phone ringing and ringing and ringing in the hope that we'll get to them.
I, I, my hat off to you.
I don't, I'm not wearing a hat, but if I was, I'd take it off now, because, uh, that does
take a lot of patience.
Uh, Emmanuel, these limericks are called the parlor trick of an intellectual.
I don't know what the heck I am.
I don't consider myself anything except just a poor victim of the world who was denied
a lot of things in life, and I'm still going through a living hell here, you know?
All right, how about this?
There once was a savings and loan that wanted to create a clone.
They loaned out all their dough to Fanny and Zoe, who stored it in a no-interest zone.
Do you know what a limerick is?
Yeah, it's a...
This is right.
There is no such thing as fusion.
The entire experiment is just an illusion.
Getting energy from water is like selling your daughter.
Let's put an end to all this confusion.
Uh, now, whatever it is, it is, I don't know.
Listen, you want to hear something exciting?
On Labor Day, I saw one of these so-called chariots of fire, or UFOs, or flying saucers.
Uh-huh.
What is going on in the world these days?
I'm looking for answers.
I've got this book on the Kabbalah.
I really don't know much, because I wasn't, uh, educated.
But all my life, I've been searching for answers.
And you know what happens when you're searching?
You're open to any type of literature or propaganda that comes by.
And, you know, everybody hands you something.
Like a lady was well-stacked, so she hands you a religious tract.
What is it supposed to do?
There's got to be an answer somewhere, you know.
You heard of the dancer who looked for an answer.
She ended up with cancer.
See how I do it?
Ooh.
And liners, I'm pretty funny.
I should be doing stand-up.
How can I stand-up without osteoporosis?
That's funny.
I'm sorry.
That's, uh, you got a tragic sense of humor.
I like that.
Okay, then I've got to go to another call.
Give me one or two more.
Okay, all right.
What is the theme song of Hurricane Hugo?
I've got my eye on you.
Oh, boy.
One more.
Somebody left their sex toy on St. Croix.
You know what it is in the world?
People don't know what love, friendship, or brotherhood is anymore.
Because, uh, they're looking for something, right?
So they think they utilize sex as a common denominator to find love, friendship, or anything.
And that's how the whole world is messed up.
Look at your television every night.
Shooting, killing, and what is this?
Look at the movies.
Same old garbage.
No 3-D movies.
And I've been fighting for them for five years.
I've made hundreds of dollars of phone calls.
And it's one of the biggest cover-ups in Hollywood.
Not only deaths of good writers, but the deaths of, uh, uh, of wonderful movie stars and others.
And songwriters.
And I'm in the same category.
Can you blame me for being somewhat paranoid like Sigmund Freud?
Not at all.
Not at all.
When is this going to end?
You know, you look for a friend and you find a rear end.
What is with this world?
When are they going to wake up to reality?
Is it because they have a small mentality?
See, maybe at Getting On Tonight, there's an intelligent audience listening.
They'll say, oh, I know who that guy is.
He lived in New York a few years ago.
We remember him.
He used to run here and there.
He's writing his little couplets and rhymes.
Maybe he's finally blossomed, you know?
What's your name again, sir?
Bill is the first name.
That's all I'll tell you.
Well, you're going to need a stage name.
I don't need a stage name because I'm not getting on a stage.
The whole world is a cage, not a stage.
Oh, okay.
Oh, I'm pretty brutal with the rhymes.
Can I be?
But I don't want to be.
Okay, well, I want to thank you for calling and for hopefully spreading some cheer.
Take pity on Kitty because she's back in the city.
Suffering from anxiety, neurosis, and halitosis.
We must bring her some meatballs and zitty.
That's a good way to close, right?
That is a good way to close.
Yeah, if that's not a close, then I'll blow my nose.
Okay, take care.
279-3400 has a lot of interesting people out there.
Good evening.
Hi, Emanuel.
Hi, how are you?
Fascinating show tonight.
Thanks.
And Bill from Nutley, your last caller, is always a difficult act to follow.
But I just wanted to let him know that there are people who recognize him and appreciate him
from radio stations big and small all over the New York area.
You were talking about the 9X strike before.
Certainly was.
And one thing I didn't hear you mention, you might have, but 9X has to be making a killing off of this strike.
Oh, yeah.
I mentioned that at quite some length.
Because not only are they not paying most of their or all of their unionized employees that are out on strike,
they're also getting away without providing many of the services that are tariffed by the Public Service Commission.
Right.
I was trying to prove that before, but apparently I failed because I think they've started providing it again.
But the verification where if you get a busy signal, they see if somebody's on the line.
And I was getting for the longest time, sorry we can't do that because of the strike.
And unfortunately tonight they went ahead and did it, or at least started to do it before they hung up on me.
Well, a couple of things interesting about that, not about verification per se,
but I know somebody who in New York was starting a new business, a new store in a new location.
Can't get a phone.
Can't get a phone, right.
How can you do business in New York City if you can't get a new telephone?
And who's going to pay for all the lost business that this person has to put up with
because New York Telephone is being stubborn, you know?
Well, all of us are paying the same rates for the New York Telephone Service that we're not getting.
I know of someone close to me who was a victim of violent crime.
And then this person started getting harassing phone calls relating to this violent crime.
A person went down to her local police precinct, filed the appropriate complaints,
aggravated harassment by telephone, and was told by a detective at the precinct
to call the Annoyance Call Bureau and telephone security.
...is failing to provide it.
And they had the audacity to tell her when she was calling the Annoyance Call Bureau
that she would have to get the detective from the precinct
to call up the telephone security.
But even if they did, since she was on a crossbar exchange, due to the strike,
they couldn't provide her with the information on tracing the incoming phone calls.
And if you ask them, they'll say, well, it's those workers, you know,
those workers are sabotaging things and they're just not listening to reason and things like that.
But, you know, I don't care.
You know, even if it is the workers, which I don't think it is in this case,
but even if it is, it's not my problem.
I'm the customer.
You should be, you know, moving your ass to get the system back to the normal state.
And they don't care.
They're not moving.
Well, these are all that we're talking about here, services that are tariffed by the Public Service Commission.
As you mentioned before, I did hear you mention it is a monopoly.
And there are supposed to be profit guidelines that are supposed to be imposed on monopoly services like this, public services.
And they're making this money.
And where is all of this excess money going?
If your line goes down or if you need new telephone service, you can't get it.
But meanwhile, these are tariffed.
And the phone company isn't putting out any money to provide these services.
And they blame it on the strike.
I think if the Public Service Commission finally cracked down on the telephone company and said,
look, you're going to have to, because this strike is going on,
you're going to have to reduce everybody's phone bill by half,
for whatever the appropriate amount of money it would take to rebate the amount of what constitutes over-profiteering charges
during the last however many months this strike has been going on.
I think you'd see that strike end real fast.
You sure would.
You know what else?
If everybody listening here would contact the Public Service Commission,
I know their phone number is at the beginning of the phone book.
Just open up the phone book.
A hundred number even, I believe.
There's an 800 number and just, you know, voice your outrage there.
You know, and believe me, they will come down hard on New York telephone
when it becomes apparent that the people of New York are outraged by this.
And that's the problem.
It's the problem with anything.
You've got to voice your outrage.
You've got to voice your outrage that the environment is all screwed up.
You've got to start, you know, saying these things loudly, insistently, repeatedly.
And then they'll hear you and then they'll do something.
But if you just sit back and complain to your friends, you know, that's not going to do much.
Absolutely.
That was one of the reasons why I called was to urge people out there, anyone and everyone.
It doesn't matter whether you've had a personal problem with the telephone system
or know someone who has, that the telephone company is more than willing to blame on the strike.
Whether or not you've had it, call the Public Service Commission
and demand that the telephone company's excess profits and the money that they've stored up due to the strike
be immediately reimbursed in forms of telephone rate reductions.
We get these on Con Edison bills all the time,
where if Con Edison buys cheap power from the state power authority,
everyone in New York City gets between a couple of cents and a couple of dollars off their bill every month because of that.
And it should be applied to New York telephone, and it hasn't been.
Now, and, you know, we definitely are entitled to some kind of a rebate from August on.
But more importantly than getting a reduced rate, we want the full service back.
Because as you've demonstrated, it can actually risk somebody's life.
Yeah, and the telephone company does not care about that.
I think that another thing that would stop this strike immediately
would be for the Public Service Commission to leave 9X open to civil lawsuits
from people whose businesses or life and property have been tangibly damaged
due to 9X non-performance of their tariff duties by the company and blamed on the strike.
You'd see the strike end real fast that way as well.
Yeah, you know, a strike that goes from August to November with no significant talks
is inexcusable in any company.
But a monopoly, it's something, you know, that's downright scary.
They want to bust the union the same way Continental and Texas Air tried to do,
as you mentioned before as well.
Yeah.
I know you've got a lot of other calls.
I want to mention one thing quickly.
Go ahead.
Somebody brought up a long time ago about the AT&T earthquake service, as I call it.
Yeah.
Um, I have family, as a matter of fact, my parents, who live about five miles north of
Santa Cruz, which, of course, was the epicenter of the earthquake.
They're just over the mountain from the fault line there.
And that night, I remember very distinctly, a friend called me up and said,
have you heard about the earthquake?
So immediately about, I guess it was nine hour time, I turned on the television.
And I sat there for three hours watching the scenes of the fires in San Francisco,
the Bay Bridge being down, and the Nimitz Freeway disaster.
No communications in and out of Santa Cruz, despite the fact that I was trying by AT&T,
which at the time, I emphasize that, was my primary service.
And, uh, I tried, uh, MCI and Sprint, and, uh, of course, everything was blocked.
And, uh, later on in the night, I heard, uh, as you had mentioned, that AT&T had, uh, blocked the lines.
Um, so finally, about, uh, sometime after midnight, after having to, uh, take a stiff drink to calm myself down
to the worry about my family and not hearing any communications at all from, from out there,
uh, I had a friend who, uh, much like yourself, apparently, is, is very much into telephones.
And I just, I just told him, I said, look, give me every access code on equal access of every company.
And I finally got through out there on, uh, several of the smaller companies.
Um, when I finally did, I found out that my family, uh, fortunately, was, was okay.
A lot of property damage, but nobody was hurt.
And I was listening to some of the local stations in town rebroadcasting the local stations out there.
AT&T here in New York, and I guess all over the country, was telling people not to try to call California.
Let people in the earthquake region call out to you.
Meanwhile, my entire family out there had absolutely no dial tone any place where they tried to dial out,
but they could receive incoming phone calls.
Well, you know what they probably had?
They probably had a condition on a slow dial tone where it takes several minutes to get a dial tone
because so many people are requesting one at the same time.
Uh, well, here's the situation.
The, the power plant out there, I'm not familiar with the name, in the Monterey Bay area, uh, had been turned off
because of, of fear of its, its operational safety.
I'm not sure whether it's a nuclear plant or, or, uh, what it was, but the power was out out there.
So, um, uh, the story that I got from the rebroadcast of the local media out there
was that the places that were widely affected all the way from, uh, San Francisco to south of Monterey,
which is about a hundred mile stretch, had absolutely no power,
and thus the outgoing, uh, capability of the exchanges was knocked off.
Um, so, what you got were the local officials in San Francisco
and, and more predominantly in the, in the Monterey Bay area
telling people to get someone specifically.
I heard this being rebroadcast on Channel 4 in New York,
which was broadcasting the local Channel 4 out there.
They were telling people to get someone outside of the earthquake area
to do the calling around for you.
Someone who did have a dial tone to make the long-distance calls in.
Meanwhile, I have family in Sacramento, so I tried to call them.
I could not even get through to, to Sacramento on any of the major carriers.
And when I got to Sacramento, finally, on one of the smaller carriers
to tell everybody there that, uh, the rest of my family in the earthquake area was all right,
then what we ended up hearing was, well, AT&T has blocked off all of our service, too.
So, AT&T, uh, specifically, uh, caused me, uh, a night's worth, worth of useless worry.
Uh, there was a total lack of coordination and, in fact, 180-degree disparity
between what the local residents were being told out there
and what the rest of the country was being told by AT&T about how to use the phone.
I think what we, what we have is a problem any time someone puts it into their head
that they know what is best for everyone else.
You know, I mean, that, you know, they may think they're doing the right thing,
but a lot of people are going to think they're doing the wrong thing.
Well, let me, let me make one more point,
and then I'll let you go on to the other people who have been waiting as patiently as I have.
Go ahead.
The next day, I was, uh, or two days after that, I was so angry looking back on that situation,
uh, I called up AT&T, uh, customer complaints.
And, uh, I decided, uh, as I've just told you, to, uh, give them a piece of my mind.
Initially, the, uh, the operator on the line, um, was kind of, uh, uh, not wanting to hear what I had to say
and wanting to give me the company line.
And aside from, uh, the, the, I, uh, that I want to echo the, the lauding in this particular situation
of the, uh, divested long-distance, uh, system, uh, which was the only way that I managed to get through,
uh, I didn't want to hear this crap coming from an AT&T business representative
because I was angry and complaining about what I considered to be the grief that the company had caused me
by its mismanagement in a crisis.
And, yes, like your other caller, I did see those commercials on that, uh, on that Nixon program
where that, where AT&T was claiming about what good service they provided the Bay Area
when they had nothing to do with service to the Bay Area,
and they, in fact, shut off their service to the Bay Area.
So I called, uh, I was talking with this AT&T customer representative,
and she was starting to give me the company line back.
And I said, I don't want to hear the company line.
And I said, I said, listen, I'm calling to give you a technical complaint
of the nature that I just described.
And I said, if you're not going to hear me,
if I'm going to hear one more word of company BS from you,
I said, I will immediately change my long-distance primary affiliation
to one of the companies that got me through in my time of need.
that the attitude of that operator changed 180 degrees on the spot.
Amazing.
And I'm sure that that would not have happened without divestiture.
No, because AT&T didn't have to worry about competition before.
Now they do.
Now we have a choice.
Right.
And that's, that's very important.
And that choice, uh, can certainly be, I'm sure, if, in, in some cases, uh, of the earthquake
and probably a similar situation in the hurricane, providing that the, the lines weren't down
of Hugo, uh, that could literally be, in some cases, a matter of life and death.
Because what would have happened, let's say, my parents living four miles from the fault line,
right in the middle of, of a 7.1 earthquake, what would have happened if there had been,
if there had been, uh, multiple injuries there and nobody could have been able to, uh, call out
and I hadn't been able to call in?
Indeed.
You could, you could have ended up with deaths on that part.
And again, much like with, uh, 9x not providing the service that they're tariff for here
and blaming it on the strike, it would have been because of the incompetence of a company
handling it in an emergency situation.
And every time I see or hear a commercial about the intelligent network or AT&T,
the, the, the one that gives you the best service, all I can do is Raspberry now.
Okay.
Well, I want to thank you for bringing up these points because they're all very relevant.
Well, thank you for this, uh, fascinating show.
And I hope that I hear more, uh, programming like this from WBAI.
Okay.
Thanks for calling.
Very much.
Bye-bye.
Okay.
Thanks for calling.
Very much.
Bye-bye.
And, uh, our telephone number is 279-3400.
Uh, it's interesting.
You know, I can understand why AT&T did that.
I really can understand the motivation.
But, uh, you gotta give people the final say, you know?
You know, I mean, yeah, AT&T can do what they want with their network, but you gotta give
the people an alternative to their network.
And there is an alternative to their network.
There's lots of alternatives to using AT&T.
But most people don't know that.
There's no education.
You know, and that's, that's what's so sad about this is the fact that there are options
and a lot of people don't know about them.
And, uh, you know, it's, uh, again, I can understand why they would want to cut off incoming
calls to, uh, you know, to, to keep the lines open for outgoing calls.
It makes sense.
But in this day and age when, when, you know, phone, more phone calls can be transmitted
over a single wire than ever before, you know, that becomes less and less of an issue.
And with more and more phone companies doing the same thing, it's not an issue at all.
Uh, so, uh, divestiture can be good for some things.
And this, uh, this certainly is one of them.
Uh, again, the other thing we're discussing tonight is, uh, the New York telephone strike,
the 9X strike, and, uh, how that is, uh, affecting all of us and how we should be educated
on that too.
And we should be outraged and calling our elected officials, calling the public service commission.
Don't bother calling New York telephone because they're not answering the phones.
It's, uh, very important that we speak out.
And, uh, speak out loudly.
Speak out loudly and repeatedly.
Because if we do that, the strike will end.
We will get rebates and this won't happen again.
But we've got to do it.
I mean, if everybody listening now were to open up their phone book, find that number
for the public service commission and call it first thing tomorrow.
I mean, it's a toll-free number.
So, I mean, you know, what are you losing?
You can call from a pay phone even.
And just, uh, voice your outrage.
Say you heard it here and that you want something done about it and you want them to get back
to you.
Make sure you say that.
Make sure you want, you say you want somebody to call you back.
Because then they have to do something.
Then they have to spend time on it.
And when they spend time on thousands of people who are demanding calls back, then they'll start
realizing it's an issue.
And I think that's what we're proving here tonight, is that this is an issue.
279-3400.
We'll be right back.
Get up, stand up, stand up, stand up, stand up for your eyes.
Get up, stand up, don't give up the fight.
Get up, stand up, stand up, stand up for your eyes.
Get up, stand up, don't give up the fight.
You preach a man, don't tell me.
Heaven is under the earth.
You are dubby and you don't know what life is really worth.
It's not all that glitter is gold.
And half a story has never been told.
So now we see the light.
We're gonna stand up for our rights.
Come on, get up, stand up, stand up for your rights.
Come on, get up, stand up, don't give up the fight.
I'm begging you to get up, stand up.
Stand up for your rights.
Get up, stand up, stand up, stand up for your rights.
Get up, stand up, stand up, stand up, stand up for your rights.
I said don't give up the fight.
Because you know most people think a great God will come from the skies
and take away every little thing and let everybody dry.
But if you know what life is worth, you would look for yours right here on earth.
And now we see the light.
We're gonna stand up for our rights.
Come on, get up, stand up.
Don't make them push you around.
Stand up for your rights.
Come on, brothers.
Get up, stand up.
Be brave now, don't give up the fight.
I said get up, stand up.
Stand up for your rights.
Don't let them hold you down.
Get up, stand up.
Don't give up the fight.
Sick and tired of this game of technology.
Humbly asking Jesus for his mercy.
We know, we know and we understand.
Almighty Jack is a living man.
You fool some people sometimes.
But you can't fool all the people all the time.
And now we see the light.
We're gonna stand up for our rights.
Come on, get up, stand up.
Stand up for your rights.
Come on, brothers.
Get up, stand up.
I said don't give up the fight.
Don't let them push you around.
I said get up, stand up.
Stand up for your rights.
Come on, I said don't give up.
It's a minor thing you might say.
It's a small thing in the face of what's going on in the rest of the world.
You know, people fighting and dying in the streets.
And we're here complaining about telephones.
Well, it's the little things.
And it's not a little thing.
I mean, it's a basic human commodity here.
But it's a basic part of our lives.
And we have to make sure that certain things are run the way that we want them.
Because we're the ones that are in charge of them.
As we are in charge of every aspect of our lives.
Or we certainly should be.
It's up to us to keep it that way.
So, that's basically what we're saying here tonight.
And, you know, I could see a telephone rep saying,
Here are all these people complaining about the phone company.
And they're all using telephones.
And calling into the radio station and complaining on the telephones.
And the telephones are working.
Why are they complaining about something as they're using it to complain, you know?
And the fact of the matter is, you know,
Most of the phone system is completely automated.
You don't need human intervention to make a simple phone call.
But it's those human intervention things.
Where you need an operator.
You need a phone number.
You need repair.
You need credit.
You need a phone, a pay phone fixed or something like that.
Those things are very important.
And they're especially important in a crisis situation.
Or it's just someone who's handicapped.
Or confined for one reason or another.
And those are the people that are suffering more than anyone else.
You might not be suffering at all.
You might not even notice the strike.
But there are a lot of people that are noticing the strike.
A lot of people who want a phone that can't get one.
A lot of businesses that can't operate without a telephone.
Well, it's living hell.
And we can't ignore the inconvenience, the suffering.
I mean, it may sound kind of silly to say people are suffering because of this.
But it is true.
It's a, you know, it's a kind of a, not very high form of suffering.
But it is, it's one of those little things that just sort of builds up inside you.
It's one of those little inconveniences.
You know, like, you know, in 1984, the lift never working going up to whatever Flora Winston Smith lived on.
You know, the lift never worked, so he'd always take the stairs.
There was never any hot water.
Never any sharp razor blades.
Just one more little inconvenience after another.
It just turns you into a very embittered person.
And we don't need bitterness.
We don't need that because that doesn't get us anything.
We need to be looking forward, looking upward, being positive.
And no, I'm not being religious, so don't even think of it.
It's something that is a very basic need and needs to be filled, needs to be renewed.
So we must call upon the phone company to end this nonsense right away and get back to the business of being a phone company.
Speaking of phones, some timely telephone tips that we pulled out of a Defense Department manual, of all things.
I thought you might find some of these interesting, and we'll go back to the phone calls right after we take a look at those.
When you receive a telephone call, always remember to answer as promptly as possible.
Try to answer before the second ring.
Identify yourself when answering, Mr. Brown's office, Ms. Andrews, or personnel, Mason.
Huh?
Catchy, eh?
Speak distinctly and pleasantly.
Hold mouthpiece well up in front of lips.
Avoid trite or abrupt phrases, such as,
Who's calling?
Just a moment.
He's busy.
He's in conference.
He's tied up.
He isn't in.
Hello?
No, that last one was me.
I'm sorry.
Volunteer the whereabouts and whenabouts of an absent person.
He can be reached in Mr. Jones's office, extension 2094.
He is out of the building until 3 o'clock.
May I locate him and ask him to call you?
Volunteer your own assistance.
Is there something I could do?
Could I help you?
Or anyone else?
Would you like to come upstairs?
Sorry, sorry, that was me again.
Request identity of caller only when necessary and in a tactful manner.
May I have your name?
May I ask who the hell this...
May I ask who this is, please?
Okay.
Explain off-the-line delays.
It's in the files.
Can you wait a moment?
Take messages willingly.
Write essential details on a suitable message form.
Deliver promptly.
Transfer elsewhere only when you know definitely the correct person or number.
Give caller these facts before transferring.
Again, Defense Department phone tips.
When you make a telephone call, always remember to plan an effective conversation.
And I guess we can pass this along to all of the people waiting on the phone lines here, okay?
Have you planned an effective conversation?
I hope so.
Get your thoughts in order before calling.
Place the call yourself, except in special circumstances.
Make sure you are on the line, ready to talk when the called person is reached.
Have the correct number or extension in mind.
Consult your directory or personal number list.
Listen for dial tone.
Dial carefully.
See general information page in your directory.
Identify yourself immediately to the first person answering the called telephone.
This is Mr. Johnson.
May I speak to Mr. Hodges, please?
Identify also, when helpful, your office and purpose in calling.
Mr. Brown in accounts, returning Mr. Green's call.
Ask whether called person has time to talk now, if call is likely to be lengthy.
Try to complete your business on one call by securing information or leaving a message.
Volunteer your extension and the best time to reach you in case you request a call back.
And finally, keep your business, I'm sorry, keep your conversation brief and business-like.
And those telephone tips were brought to you by the Defense Department.
Straight out of their phone book.
Yes.
Our telephone number is 279-3400.
This is Emmanuel Goldstein, and I'll be here until 3.30, which is just about 11 minutes away.
I can't believe it's so late.
And it's so nasty outside, too.
Wet and slippery and all that kind of thing.
But we're here talking about the phone company.
Talking about not just the phone company.
Not just the phone company.
We're talking about high-tech and abuses of high-tech.
People monitoring, listening, and all kinds of ways the system can be used against you.
But also ways in which you can use the system for yourself.
And that's kind of the whole idea of being a hacker, which is what I proudly claim to be.
279-3400, area code 212.
Good morning.
Good morning.
How you doing?
Mike Fader has been banned from WBAI for a month because he mentioned certain people on the station and said what he felt, that they were being unfair.
Now, my point is this.
WBAI is supposedly a freedom of speech station.
It is like the cornerstone of the whole idea that Lou Hill had that people could discover.
Okay, okay, okay, sir, sir, enough Lou Hill for one night.
I'm sorry.
Good evening.
Sir, sir, enough Lou Hill.
Good morning, I mean.
Good evening.
Hello, turn down your radio.
Good morning, I mean.
Hello, turn down your radio.
Okay, well, it's nice to hear my voice on the radio in someone else's house, but it's just not nice enough to keep going with.
Good morning.
Hello, Emmanuel.
How you doing?
Okay, interesting show tonight.
Thank you.
I recently was victimized, actually not successfully by the victimizers,
but I got a phone call that really irritated me.
It was about nine in the evening, and I picked up the phone, and there was a young woman,
and it was like I had walked onto the set of Wheel of Fortune or something.
She's saying, you've just won an all-expenses trip paid to the Bahamas.
I said, right, likely.
You know, I said to myself, right, likely story.
But she was really into trying to rev me up.
She's calling me by my first name and saying, now, who are you going to take with you on your trip?
So I said, now, come on, you know you're going to sell me magazines, right?
She said, oh, no, we would never think of selling you magazines.
They have something bigger in store, right?
Absolutely.
It was amazing the way this thing panned out.
So I thought I'd test her, try and create kind of a cusp point in her life,
make her realize what kind of outfit she was involved with.
I said to her, are you willing to vow that you will go to hell for eternity
if you were actually trying to sell me something or rip me off in some way?
And she said, oh, sure.
That's beautiful.
That's beautiful.
Something like that.
So, you know, she said, now, are you excited about your all-expenses-paid trip to the Bahamas?
I said, well, mildly.
When will written notification of this award be received?
She said, well, that'll come in a few days.
Since you're so excited about your new trip, I'll hand you over to Mr. Johnson or whatever.
Maybe he's the same guy from the Army.
But anyway, so then this guy starts, you know, are you excited?
Who are you going to take with you on your trip?
And then, finally, they get to the payoff, which is, now, in order to verify that you are the winner,
all I need is your MasterCard number.
Oh, beautiful.
Can you believe that?
And I hope you supplied it with a cheer in your voice, did you?
Uh, I, what I said at that point...
Well, you're one of these un-American suspicious people that doesn't believe in all this, you know,
free passing of MasterCard numbers.
I think I played it straight a little bit longer.
I said, now, why would you need my MasterCard number?
You're free to give me anything you like, but you don't need my MasterCard number to give me vacation.
So, we just need it to ensure your spot.
Yeah, I said to him at that point, well, you know, I sometimes wonder how people like you can lie so bold-facedly.
At that point, he said, you know, I don't like your attitude.
I think we're going to have to give this vacation to someone else.
Well, you know, why don't you just say, I don't have a MasterCard, and see what he would have said then.
Uh, I don't know.
I just, I think I had kind of had my fill.
I mean, at that point, I just wanted to get in a shot.
Well, I've won about 20 of those free vacations in the last two years,
and invariably what the deal is, they charge you a verification fee,
and you have to pay some sort of a custom tax and all kinds of things like that.
And in the end, you pay several hundred dollars,
and you have to provide your own transportation to the very tip of Florida
to get to the Bahamas from that very tip of Florida.
You have to get down there yourself.
And then, you know, you stay in this rat shack for a couple of days,
and, you know, you don't really get much out of that at all.
I mean, you're better off going down to Bahamas and pitching a tent.
You know, that's a free vacation, too, isn't it?
Well, I suppose so.
Let me just try and hit the highlights of what else I had on my mind here.
There is a concept among some people, even some remarkably intelligent people,
that technology is something passive,
and that it's not the technology, it's what you do with it.
And one of the great challengers of this idea was Marshall McLuhan.
Now, it's dangerous to even mention Marshall McLuhan,
especially since Woody Allen did such a great satire on people
who go around talking about McLuhan.
I don't know if you know that or not.
What was that called?
It was, well, it was a scene in Annie Hall in which there's some guy...
Oh, yes, yes.
And Woody Allen says, well, gee, I wish I had a sock filled with horse manure.
Even better yet, I wish I had Marshall McLuhan here.
And then he pulls out the real Marshall McLuhan,
who comes over to this guy and tells him he knows nothing about his philosophy.
Wouldn't it be great if life were like that?
I think that's exactly what Woody Allen said.
You've obviously seen the film.
In any event, however, one of the important things you have to understand about technology
is that it is not passive.
It actively transforms the people who use it.
Not to say something like this.
For example, Jim Freund, an excellent AI producer who works with computers
and also does a science fiction show, has on many occasions stated how ridiculous the idea
of computers taking over is, which is, of course, the thesis of many cheap science fiction plots.
But the fact of the matter is that the real danger is that people will give machines control
over many things in order to avoid having to deal with those things
and in order to avoid having to make decisions.
And that's how technocracy comes about.
It's not a computer gone mad taking over the society.
It's people wanting to abrogate their own responsibilities and give them to machines.
Yes, so in a sense, I mean, the idea of computers taking over is a very simplistic thing,
but they can take over in a much more subtle way.
Exactly.
That's what I think we're moving towards, yeah.
Exactly.
And I wanted to mention there are two fairly interesting videotapes
that people with access to a video machine can rent,
both on the themes of the way that technology can transform people,
especially surveillance technology.
One of them is a fascinating film by Francis Ford Coppola called The Conversation,
starring Gene Hackman.
It's about a professional surveillance expert.
And it's a personality study and a study of the way that surveillance has a...
There's extensive scenes at a wiretapper's convention
and various explorations of the psychological aspects of the way that people relate
to this technology of parabolic microphones and so forth.
Uh-huh.
There's also...
You can also rent a videotape of an old science fiction show called The Outer Limits,
and there's an episode called OBIT, O-B-I-T,
which is about a Senate investigation of a disaster at a military installation
where people have begun committing suicide and having nervous breakdowns.
And it turns out that an alien has introduced a machine
which allows people to perform complete surveillance on anyone
as long as they know their whereabouts.
You mean their thoughts, too?
Uh, not their thoughts, just all of their actions.
Okay.
And ultimately, it turns out that the purpose of this on the part of the alien civilization
is to bring people to a point where they are obsessed with spying on each other
to the point that they become actually addicted to it.
I think the most significant aspect of the dynamo of this
is that the aliens believe that this surveillance is actually like a drug
to which people become habituated,
and that they then lose an active interest in life
and simply become obsessed with spying on each other
and finding out what each other are doing.
That's not an unrealistic way of looking at it.
It's not something that I wouldn't doubt.
I mean, that could definitely be the case.
I have one final comment.
It's actually...
I'll make it very quick because we're running out of time here.
Okay.
Uh, do you know anything about the NSA
and whether they do actually have some of the telephone surveillance capabilities
with some paranoid leftists?
Well, supposedly they have the capability of recognizing words
and transatlantic conversations.
If you say a certain word like bomb, terrorist, that kind of thing,
it triggers a machine or something like that.
I don't know.
I'd like to know more about that.
And if someone has information, please send it here.
I'd like to ask you one more question before we say goodnight, sir.
Have you ever heard the term technorat?
No, I haven't.
Well, you mentioned the word technocrat before,
and I figured you might like to know that phrase, technorat.
It's sort of analogous to hacking, computer hackers,
because, you know, a rat.
What is a rat?
A rat is the most vile creature you can think of,
always getting into things that it's not supposed to get into
and, you know, completely jumping into disgusting things
and very intelligent, too, you know?
Uh-huh.
Well...
It's sort of the way that hackers are looked upon.
I'm not quite a hacker myself,
though I do have certain inclinations,
but I prefer not to choose the rodent as my role model, especially.
I hear I've had some slight scrimmishes with them in my apartment.
Uh-huh.
Well, try to look at it from their point of view next time.
But thanks for calling.
Thanks, bye-bye.
Okay, and that's going to just about do it for us.
I want to thank everybody who called in
and say sorry to all those people that we didn't get to.
There's a whole line of them there,
but that's just the way things go.
My name's Emmanuel Goldstein.
I've been filling in for both Robert Knight and Sidney Smith tonight.
It's been fun doing a doubleheader,
and hopefully we'll do it again sometime soon.
Hopefully that strike will end.
Let's hope so, okay?
And call up your public service commission
and all those other nice people
and let them know how you really think.
Okay, we'll see you soon.
Good night.
Good night.
Oh, then no man knows his power, only God alone
Oh, then it can cure the sick or destroy the evil
With one sweep of power known by God alone
Oh, God is not too busy to know the sins of man
You may hear from heaven, you may feel his hand
If you are in trouble and afraid of all mankind
Hey, pick up the atomic telephone and get him on the line
Hey, I have talked to Jesus on the atomic telephone
Oh, then no man knows his power, only God alone
Oh, then it can cure the sick or destroy the evil
With one sweep of power known by God alone
Oh, for this call to heaven, there will be no choice
Just like old Manoa, move the phrase from an eye
You can ask your boy just what to do
He'll leave you from the wilderness and out of the dark
Oh, then I have talked to Jesus on the atomic telephone
Emmanuel's off with the Spirits of Memphis Quartet
Heading down to the Atomic Cafe
And I guess you can call him another time on the atomic telephone
Another time, he'll pop up I'm sure again here on WBAI in New York
But now, stay tuned for Out of the Shadows
Talk to Jesus on the atomic telephone
It's googaroo time, baby
It's googaroo time now, baby
It's googaroo time, baby
It's googaroo time, baby
You can't stand still for the rhythm in your bones
And that is why I can't leave you alone
Yes, I can see, but it has to be
If you must dance, don't waste time, baby
Cause it's googaroo time, yeah
It's googaroo time, yeah
It's googaroo time now, baby
It's googaroo time, yeah
Baby
Pretty as you want to be
It's googaroo time, yeah
Baby
It's googaroo time now, baby
Baby
It's googaroo time, yeah
Baby
It's googaroo time, yeah
It's googaroo time, yeah
Baby
It's googaroo time, yeah
Baby
Baby
Though you may not drive
A great big Cadillac
Against the white wall
TV antennas in the back
You may not have
A car at all
But remember
Brothers and sisters
You can still stand tall
Just be thankful
For what you've got
Though you may not drive
A great big Cadillac
Against the white wall
TV antennas in the back
You may not have
You may not have
A car at all
But remember
Brothers and sisters
You can still
Still stayin' tall
Diamond in the back
Sunroof top
Diggin' the scene
With a gangsta lane
Woo-woo
Diamond in the back
Sunroof top
Diggin' the scene
With a gangsta lane
Woo-woo
Diamond in the back
Sunroof top
Diggin' the scene
With a gangsta lane
Woo-woo
ört and guild
Now
To the gangsta lane
You can still
minh
Jenni
Anna
Mystroof top
Evil
Pam 실
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.