And, with that note of victory, it's just about 8 o'clock, you're listening to radio
station WBAI.
And, uh, it's time once again for Off The Hook.
And a good evening to everybody.
The program is Off The Hook.
I give a medal to anybody who knows what that, uh, what that piece of music is the theme
to, uh, or actually what these continuing remixes are themes to.
Anybody who knows, give us a call.
We'll tell you at the end of the, uh, show.
Unless I forget, and then we'll never know.
Anyway, the, uh, program is Off The Hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this, uh, the fifth day of March in the year 2002.
I received email from someone saying that this date will never occur again.
This is a one-time thing.
Once this March 5th is over, there won't be another one.
At least not another one with 2002 following it.
What do you think of that, Mike?
Is that scientifically correct?
That's weird.
Yeah, you didn't think about it.
That's why it's weird.
No.
Yeah, you just have to think these things through and, uh, you know.
I don't believe it.
The fundities of it, uh, just will, uh, will amaze you.
Yeah, so, uh, we've, um, we're gonna be taking phone calls a lot tonight
because, uh, we didn't do that at all last week
and I've been wracked with guilt ever since.
So if you want to get on the bandwagon, uh,
well, the number for the bandwagon is area code 2,
well, country code first, 1.
Um, I'm not sure what the interplanetary code
or the time code if you're traveling through time is,
so you have to figure that out yourself with your local authorities.
Uh, city code 212, or area code as we know here, 209-2900
as the lights already, uh, begin to light up.
And, uh, Jim is here again this week.
Hi, Jim.
Hello.
You still a free man, that's good.
Uh, yeah, I think so.
Uh-huh.
I think so too.
I think most of us think so.
But, um, you'll be talking about some of your
problems with the Transit Authority,
or the MTA as they call it.
Or, or, or the, uh, New York State Courts
or the NYPD, depending on how you look at it.
Jim, as many of you know, uh, was, uh, instrumental
all the way back in 1994 at the first HOPE conference.
Hackers on Planet Earth, um, where he, um,
he basically gave a lecture on the whole,
at the time, the brand new MetroCard system.
And answered quite a lot of questions,
and has been answering questions,
uh, here on the radio and, um,
throughout various other means,
2600 meetings through the magazine,
that kind of thing, as to how the technology works.
And apparently that's gotten you in a heap of trouble
by, uh, talking about how technology works.
Yeah, I believe that's what, uh,
has caused, uh, my problems, uh,
indirectly, has angered the, uh,
the powers that be, the, uh,
the demigods of the TA, as it were.
Mm-hmm.
As, uh, some demigods to get after you,
from what I understand.
And it's not the first time something like this
has happened to somebody.
I understand there's been witch hunts in the past.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, the, the, the problem with this
is that since it's a, uh,
a criminal matter now,
I have to, uh, handle that
and then prove that it's, uh,
uh, petty, uh,
uh...
Vindictiveness?
Vindictiveness. Thank you.
Well, this should be interesting.
So, um, well, if there's anything you want to contribute,
if you're involved in a case, obviously...
Yeah, there's, there's not tremendously much
I can say that either, uh,
gets me into more trouble or, um,
that wouldn't get me into more trouble
or tip off my, uh, my defense.
Everything you say can be used against you.
Uh, yeah, I'm not even thrilled with your introduction,
sorry to say, uh,
flattering though it may have been.
I can do it again.
No, no, no, I think they've got it on tape or it'll be on the web.
The show's on tape so we can go back and do it again.
Oh, is it?
Gee, I never realized that.
All right, let's just cut that part. All right, we'll start over.
Uh, well, essentially, they, uh,
they had a case against me, uh,
last year, which was internal discipline,
an internal discipline case,
uh, that they introduced, uh,
the main body of evidence
in, in the current criminal case
and the impartial arbitrator
threw it out because, gee, there were no
charges relating to this massive,
uh, uh, alleged
data. Uh,
it was just thrown in to, uh,
uh, color his opinion of me,
uh, make me look like a criminal.
And now a year later and two years
after the fact, they're charging
me with, uh, grand larceny
in the fourth degree, which, of course,
uh, begs an answer for the
question, well, gee, uh,
if this is two years in the past and
they think I'm committing grand larceny,
why did they let me work two years?
Interesting.
Well, as a, as a concerned citizen, I'd like
to know that. I'd like to know what kind of people the Transit
Authority is hiring here.
That's, uh, definitely something to, uh, to consider,
but, uh, it, it does sound pretty damn absurd
to me. Right. Well, the whole case. Right.
And, uh, uh, not,
not to tip off too much, uh,
I've actually even been told by
the union that they don't want a lot of this
out in public, so, uh,
certain offers certain people have made
are going to be impossible. I'm not going to refer to
specifically what they were,
but, uh, uh,
you know, certain publicity is, is to be
avoided. Essentially what,
uh, they're alleging is that,
uh, if a person came to
the booth with a problem with a Metro
card and I put it on the money that was
remaining on the card on another card,
uh, they culled out
every $1.50 transaction
and said they're all fraudulent.
Uh, essentially I'm doing
my job and I'm punished for it.
Do you think there are many, um,
you're a token booth, uh,
clerk. Uh, station agent is currently
the official title, yeah. Okay.
Uh, are there other station agents
that, uh, are falling victim to this
as well? Yeah, yeah.
There, there's been probably around two dozen
arrests all told. The TA
has about a, uh,
60% success rate.
Meaning that they're able to prosecute. Convicted,
yeah. And do you think the people
they prosecute actually are doing something or are they?
Well, obviously I would have to
say that in, in an organization where
there are 4,000 station agents,
uh, somebody's going to do this.
Uh.
It's just interesting because
obviously our history, we've, we've
seen this quite a bit and I think a lot of our listeners have as well.
Particularly people in schools
where when they explain
how something works or show people how it works
or just know a little too much, know more than the people
that are supposed to be running the system, they tend
to be targeted as the problem, as
the person that actually caused any kind of
design flaws or as somebody who has
superhuman capabilities and is to be
feared and, and locked up and, uh,
penalized in various ways. And I can't help
but, uh, be reminded of that in, in this case.
And I look forward to seeing the facts come out.
I think it'll be very interesting to, uh,
to see just what exactly these people are talking about
if they ever do explain that.
Yeah, I mean, uh, uh, it's been, uh,
common knowledge, and I've said this on the air before
so I'm not too upset about saying it again,
that, uh, bending the card in certain
places causes, uh, uh,
extra value to appear on it.
I, I want to point out that in
March of 1994,
the Daily News,
the New York Daily News, was the first to publish
that. I learned that from the Daily News before I
did it through in-house or, uh,
rumors or, or official, uh,
in-house communication. This is what?
The bending of the MetroCard? The bending of the MetroCard.
Yeah. I've never, I've never seen that
work. I've bent lots of MetroCards. I've, uh,
you know, just to see if it would actually work
and I've never gotten it to. Well, I've unbent
a lot, so I know where it is, but I haven't
bent them. I've unbent them. You've unbent them.
We've been told, if someone comes with
a card and there's an obvious bend on it,
unbend it. How do you unbend
something? Uh, well... It's gotta have
a crease in it. Right. So you do it the other way.
But the crease is still there
and it's still a pretty good indication as to where the bend
was. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, but
the value that was there when
the bend was there disappears.
It goes from $150 to zero.
It goes from $1,650
to $15, whatever. But why
would somebody who did that give you the card?
Lots of
cards will not work in the turnstile with a
bend. Uh-huh. But
in the, uh,
token booth, uh, terminal
in the booth,
you can put that card in the slot
and convey the money onto
the value of that card onto another card.
So if someone has taken a card that
for argument's sake has $3
bent it, it looks like it's a
$4.50 card with a problem.
You convert that, you take that
money off and put it on another card,
it's a $4.50 card.
Meanwhile, this was a $3
card that this person had.
So they've, they've created
a $1.50.
Out of thin air.
Out of thin air. Out of a bend, actually.
Well, uh, we'll be following this
as it transpires and
hopefully you won't be victimized too much.
But, uh, we all know how the technophobes
work in this society.
Autojack, you're still here. What do you mean? Don't I
live here? I guess, I guess maybe you do
now. Uh, transplanted from
San Diego, now, uh, in New York.
And, uh... Indefinitely. Indefinitely.
Well, it's, it's, it's, there are worse things that could happen
to you. Many worse things.
And I know. Um,
so, um, any, anything exciting happening
in, uh, in your world as, uh, music and, uh,
and the arts and all that kind of thing?
Well, um,
musically, uh, I guess, uh,
you and I went to go see Asobi Setsu
the other night on Saturday. Yes, yes, the,
uh, the, the, um,
I guess, uh, the next step in
Theta Wave State. Yeah. If you're not familiar,
Theta Wave State did the music for Freedom Downtime,
uh, which will be released soon.
Very soon. Really soon. We're not kidding
this time. Uh, we weren't kidding last time either.
It was basically, uh,
uh, that's a long story, but, uh,
we, we've, we've got it done and it should be, uh,
actually available. Just keep checking
the website. There'll be announcements.
But, yeah, Asobi Setsu is, is the, uh,
is the new incarnation of that band and they're really,
really good. Yeah, they're excellent. Yeah.
So, yeah, I guess that was the highlight of the week.
Heh. Well, hopefully,
uh, this week will be exciting too. We have, uh,
some, some news items and then, of course, we'll take
phone calls.
212-209-2900
and, uh, if you know what, what theme this is
we're playing in the background, please let us know that as well.
Uh, you know, I already know. Yeah, I know what it is.
There are a few people out there that, that know
who I already know, so, uh...
I'll never tell. Yeah. Yeah, you,
you shouldn't. And, uh, the theme that's
playing now is not the same theme,
so...
do not guess what this is because
it's not part of it.
Okay, uh, we had quite a lot of feedback
to, uh, to all our talk
of Clear Channel and, um, and
radio stations and the overall
fascism of, uh,
of commercial radio and what's going on.
Uh, it's really pretty
sad what's, what's happening with, uh,
a small
amount of corporations owning
virtually all of the, uh,
outlets of, uh, of radio
throughout this, um, throughout this country.
Um, and
I think a lot of people are very upset
at this. Very upset. Now,
we, we mentioned XM, uh,
as the, uh,
I guess next technological step
even though it's not, uh, it's not
really a radio band like AM or FM.
XM is a company. So, they
put on who it is that they want to put
on. You might say, okay, well, at least there's some alternative
to Clear Channel. Well, you'd be wrong because
Clear Channel, uh, owns
part of, uh, XM. I'm not sure exactly how
much, but we got mail from somebody,
uh, telling us, um, something
else as far as that goes. Uh,
our good friends at General Motors
also have a stake. So, uh,
you know, it's just the same thing. It's a
different channel, but the same
basic players. And, uh,
unfortunately, we don't really
gain anything from that.
Uh, interesting letter that I saw
in, um, uh,
a publication called Radio World, which, uh,
if anyone's interested in radio, that's, uh, a great
publication to read.
Um, although I couldn't tell you how to subscribe,
I guess I should have brought a copy with me. Instead,
I printed out the letter, but, um, look it up on
the internet. It's a publication called Radio World.
Not the, uh, not the chain in Canada
that sells, uh, radio components.
But they might know how to get to the
magazine. Who knows? Uh,
anyway, this is a response, uh, to
somebody, uh, somebody else who had written
the letter, apparently about this whole
thing, uh, with, uh, Commercial Radio,
Clear Channel, things like that. Um,
the media has played
a large role in the disintegration of our
families, neighborhoods, and towns
by supporting concepts such as
satellite radio, NPR,
and the corporate cloning of broadcasting.
Uh, our society is becoming
more fragmented as people lose touch
with the people and happenings in their local
communities. As a result, our towns
have lost the spirit that help people form
the ties that build a neighborhood or community.
Thanks to our frenetically paced society,
few people have time to read the local
newspaper in the same manner that our parents did.
Our only practical
means of gaining local information is from
radio. However, most of the local
stations across America are owned by corporate
giants that show little interest in programming
local information and news. In fact,
last week on this show, we talked about how many
times they're not even in the same town
that they allege to broadcast from.
There are DJs in different cities
pretending to be in other cities
and making sure nobody actually
has the job of announcer, uh,
in the local towns. Continuing,
since these giants are unwilling to sell
stations to local people, even stations
that lose money, we have little chance
of gaining any form of local news
in our towns. Unless we have a change
in values, the future of our
communities doesn't look promising. Local radio
could play an important role again in
fostering strong relationships within our towns
provided local independent ownership
is given a chance. But with
the Telecommunications Act, NPR
and the FCC all fighting local
commercial independent broadcasting,
it's not likely we'll soon see an increase
in local programming on our radio stations.
I ask you, is this what
people really want? That letter
was written by William C. Walker
who is the proprietor of WILWAM
in West Hartford, Connecticut.
I'd like to listen to that station.
I'll bet they have some local programming.
But, uh, it's a real problem.
The face of radio has changed dramatically.
Horribly. And, uh,
I don't know where it's gonna
go from here. People have
to, uh, get organized and
start taking back the airways because they do
belong to the people. That's what
we're told, anyway. Here's a
press release from Fairness and Accuracy
in Reporting, dated March
1st. Last week, the District
of Columbia Court of Appeals overturned
one of the country's last remaining regulatory
protections against media monopoly
and ordered the review of another.
The court overturned the rule that had prevented
one company from owning both television stations
and cable franchises in a single
market. The court also ordered that the FCC
either justify or rewrite
the rule that bars a company from
owning television stations which reach more
than 35% of U.S. households,
stating that, as is,
the rule is arbitrary and illegal.
And, uh, both rulings were
victory for Fox, AOL, Time
Warner, NBC, and Viacom.
So, uh,
one more, uh,
restriction
lifted. One more, uh,
protection against, uh, monopolies
gone.
Uh, the relaxation of ownership rule seems to have
generated some opposition in Congress.
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ernest
Hollings plans to hold a hearing
on the issue sometime in March.
Uh, but there hasn't been much reaction at the
FCC. If the FCC wanted to stand up
for the public, the agency could appeal
the decision to the Supreme Court. It could also,
as the appeals court suggested,
muster new evidence to justify
the ownership cap. But
neither course seems likely, given the
deregulatory seal of FCC Chair
Michael Powell, son of
Colin Powell, uh, who once declared
that the oppressor here is
regulation, and has said that he has
no idea what the public interest is.
I'd like to get that quote somewhere.
Uh, the FCC's lackluster response
suggests that the agency has forsaken
its mission of safeguarding the public interest
and is prepared to allow corporations
to redraw the media landscape
as they please, with little or no
public debate.
Um, the fair encourages you to
write to FCC Chairman Michael Powell
and let him know that the public is not willing to
give up on democratic, diverse, and decentralized
media. Urge him to
appeal the recent Court of Appeals decision
that overturned the television cable
cross-ownership rule, and to vigorously
defend the 35% television
um, ownership cap.
I'd like it to be a lot less than that, actually.
Uh, you can contact Michael Powell,
who's the chairman of the FCC,
445 12th Street, Southwest,
Washington, D.C.
20554.
Uh, or if you want to email him,
mpowell, m-p-o-w-e-l-l-at-f-c-c-dot-gov
Although, I bet he probably doesn't read any of his
email. Uh, as always, uh,
remember that your comments are taken more seriously
if you maintain a polite tone.
And if you want any more information on
fairness and accuracy in media,
contact fair at fair.org.
Speaking of
organizations and, uh, and
profits and things like that, we, uh, reported
that, uh, we were having, uh,
we had gotten the, uh, the top
level domain, the .coop domain
for, uh, the Independent Media Center.
Uh, we obtained media.coop
or .coop as it looks.
And, um,
almost immediately we had been, uh,
told that we weren't eligible to, uh,
to be media.coop. Even though
we are media.coop, it just, um,
seemed as if we were arbitrarily being
selected for, uh, some kind of
review.
And, um, I'm pleased to say
that we submitted all the required
paperwork and, uh, today I was notified that we
are in fact media.coop, so
small victory.
I think it's the
only one this week, too.
But what are you gonna do? What do you think about that?
Good. Good for the IMC.
Yeah. It's about time.
I think we also have indymedia.coop
as well, which is kind of cool.
It's not working yet. We'll be pointing to, uh,
indymedia.org real soon
and hopefully have some more stuff on it.
Our phone number, 202-209-2900.
I have more news, but, you know, I'd like to, uh,
start in with phone calls somewhat
early, so, uh, so that we have a
kind of, uh, good representation.
Mike, is there anything new from, uh, from your end?
Uh, I just want to announce the
Wreck-It Society. Are you familiar with them?
Yeah, the Entente, the troublemakers that get, uh,
you know, arrested by Philadelphia cops because they
dare to protest and things like that.
And they're anarchists that want to smash every
Starbucks in the world and, uh, and
just make shopping difficult.
That's pretty much an accurate description.
Interfere with commercials.
What they do is they hold, uh, action
camps, they call them, where they train people in, uh,
mainly in forest defense, how to
do tree sits and that sort of thing.
Tree sits. That's a word that
just got made up, right? Tree sit.
Not by me. Okay, but that's good.
I like it. Yeah. Um,
but they're having this summer
a tech toolbox action camp.
Uh-huh. Um, it's
going to be the end of June, beginning
of July in Occidental, California.
So if people are interested in
that, they should check out ruckus.org,
which is their website. Okay, great.
So it should be interesting, if nothing
else. And, Claude, I can't help but notice that you're here.
It happened again. It happened
again. It happened again.
Welcome. Welcome to our airwaves.
Um... You haven't been
camped out here since last week, so...
It wasn't even then, but I was
um...
um... abashed or whatever
by your
saying that I had been
sitting here all week, or all several weeks.
Several weeks, because we weren't on for a couple of weeks. Quite.
Yeah. You were abashed by that? That's not
good, is it? Abashed? No, it's not.
It's, uh... I can't
even think of the right word. It's happening again.
Uh-huh. Okay. Well,
curl back up in the corner there.
Right. Fetal position. If you think of something else
to say, just feel free to come up to the microphone.
Well, actually, one thing did occur to me a little while
ago about that, uh, folded
card, um, turning
into... into
metro transit.
Uh... $1.50
there. That's sort of like
what's going on with... or
what happened before the
euro currency came out.
That the money...
before the money existed, it
was all just magnetic
pulses. It was the strangest
kind of thing, where money
moving backward and
backward from any kind of physical
item
to just
the idea of value.
I mean...
Well, in any
event, there's no gold behind
the stuff, and it's just... it's a strange
direction that money has gone in.
Mm. Well...
You can't file down
like a milled coin
that's residing only on a computer.
I don't think anybody
really understands money, where it is,
what it means. We just
accept whatever we're told. If we're told that something has a certain
amount of value, then, uh, it
does, because we're told so. We all may believe in unison.
It's all a big game. I mean, let's face
it. But, um...
The problem is some people win. Yeah. Well, hopefully...
And this is a good point to remind people
that have pledged to the radio station, that whether or not
you believe in money, please send the money
in that you said you'd send us, and, uh,
you know, we'll happily continue the radio
station. And, uh, of course, the people
who pledged during this show, you'll be getting the shirts we
promised you as soon as, uh, we get the
list of people, which we usually wait a few weeks
just to make sure everything's, you know,
kosher, and people have paid, and that kind of
thing. Uh, another reminder, then we'll
take a phone call. Um...
The, uh, annual, uh, SWL
Winterfest, which, uh,
is rapidly running out of time, because winter
never really arrived here in the first place,
uh, but the, uh, the annual SWL
Winterfest is, uh, being held March
8th and 9th. And yes,
that's this Friday and Saturday. It's in a
town called Culpsville, Pennsylvania
that's spelled K-U-L-P-S-V-I-L-L-E,
and it's about, uh, 30 minutes north
of Philadelphia, last I checked.
Uh, you can get more information on it at
www.swlfest.com
And, uh,
here's a description of it
from a biased source.
The convention is the largest gathering
of listeners to the radio spectrum,
long wave, medium wave, short wave,
broadcast, utilities, pirates,
VHF slash UHF, FM,
scanners, television, and satellites in the
United States, perhaps the world.
About 200 persons from Europe, Asia,
North America, and South America
attend each year.
Um...
Does that sound kind of small?
It does, doesn't it?
I mean, if it's the largest gathering
of listeners to the radio spectrum
in the country in all year,
perhaps the world, um, it just seems like
there'd be more than 200 people there.
On a big 2600 meeting on a first Friday,
don't we have close to that?
And a lot of those people are listening to radio as well.
I'm not quite sure. Maybe there's a misprint.
Maybe it should be, uh, 200,000 people,
or 2,000 people,
20,000 people, or anything like that.
Or, on the other hand, maybe you have to have
some sort of, uh, high-end, uh, uh, uh,
radio device
that goes to frequencies
only dogs can hear and
picks it up to be in that elite group.
That's the only way you get in. Yeah, that could be, I guess.
But, you know, the Dayton Ham Fest, that gets, you know,
tens of thousands of people showing up at that thing.
Well, they broadcast hams as well.
These are listeners. Uh-huh.
Oh, yeah, these are listeners.
Well, I mean, you know, a BAI listener fest
can get more than 200 people easily.
Yeah, but I don't think they're really
into the equipment the way these people...
Oh, you'd be surprised. You'd be surprised.
A diverse interest of our listening, I'm sure.
Many of those little lights on the phone there
are some of those people that, uh... True.
You know, are calling to correct us on something.
Anyway, to continue with this description,
it is a nice way to break out of the doldrums
of the Northern Hemisphere winter, if only.
If only we had gotten one this year,
we would be breaking out of those doldrums.
Broadcast representatives, clubs, and vendors attend.
So, uh, again, that's the SWL Winterfest
this March, uh,
this Friday and Saturday, March 8th and 9th
in Culpesville, Pennsylvania.
More details, swlfest.com.
And just to give you an idea of some of the things
that are being talked about.
Intro to SWL slash DXing.
Not for beginners only.
Inside your radio.
Who needs shortwave?
The year in pirate radio.
Broadcasters forum,
the year in shortwave.
The story of jazz in shortwave.
I guess most of this has to do with shortwave.
So maybe it's the biggest shortwave convention.
SWL, doesn't it sound like shortwave whatever L is?
Yeah, yeah.
SWL, which I knew exactly what it stood for.
Shortwavelength?
Maybe something like that.
We're definitely going to get calls on this one.
And Kim Elliott from the Voice of America
will be giving a talk.
Oh, he's out of his show.
Kim Elliott.
What show is this?
It was a VOA show
that was not political.
I forget.
There's that guy out in Oklahoma
who does a show about shortwave.
Bauer?
I think his name is.
Maybe I'm the only one
who listens to this stuff.
But Kim Elliott
did a program.
It was broadcast on
WWCR
and also WBCQ.
It was a very interesting show.
I wish I could remember any of it.
It's gone now.
I'm not sure
how it happened that he went off the air.
It was not like
some
Christmas coup kind of thing.
I think he just left that show.
You can find out the story
by going down to the Winterfest
and asking directly.
He'll be asked about it and he'll give the answer
without being asked, I'm sure.
More than 200 people will show up to ask the questions.
Our phone number, 202-209-2900.
I cannot but notice that the lines are doing
weird, wacky things today.
Are they always doing weird, wacky things?
I tend to, but this is the thing.
This only happens a few times.
Of course, we haven't taken phone calls for a month.
It starts off on line 1 and hops to line 2
and goes all the way up to line 12
and then disappears someplace. We don't know where it is.
If that happens to you,
you might not know what's happening to you.
Other people, sometimes they get disconnected.
We'll try to get to everybody.
We'll try to do that.
Make your comments as brief as possible
and as poignant as possible as well.
Let's take the first listener phone call.
Who could it be? Good evening, you're on the air.
The person who sent you an email
saying that there's not going to be a...
Hold on, one second.
With Rebel, we made the deal.
He had to not annoy us for 30 days.
Now, I remember...
Okay, wait.
It was late January, wasn't it?
I think he's allowed that.
It was January 29th.
I have this written down, January 29th.
Oh, he certainly made it.
He made it.
No, you didn't say that.
We should at least take the question.
He hasn't annoyed me.
I'm not sure if we said
he didn't have to annoy anybody.
Let's give him a chance.
He hasn't been above a base level.
Are those people out in the hallway?
Okay, now they're shaking their heads.
They haven't been annoyed.
Claude, you're okay? Mike, you're okay?
I'm all right.
Rebel, you're cleared. Go ahead, speak.
The person who sent you an email
It's just an advertisement.
They're trying to sell you something.
The March 5th thing.
Didn't you notice there was an advertisement?
An advertisement for what?
It was an advertisement.
That person who sent you an email.
What person sent me an email?
Give me more details on this.
The thing that said,
March 5th, 2002 will never come again.
That was an advertisement.
What's it an advertisement for?
I don't know, but some company
No, I think this was just
someone trying to get me to appreciate the day
that's never going to happen again.
I think that's what it was.
It's never going to happen again.
March 5th, 2002 will not occur again.
So if you miss it, you've missed it.
No, no, that was Spielberg at the end of AI.
Spielberg didn't send me mail.
No, but he tried to get you to appreciate the day sort of thing.
I wish Kubrick had made that film.
I really do, but never mind that.
Just like anything else,
everybody's taking the American flag
and putting it into a corporate logo.
Those are pretty strong words coming from you, Rebel.
Yeah, just like the term
God Bless America and United We Stand,
they're just corporate logos.
If you go up to one of those signs
that say God Bless America
and you simply, by one way or another,
remove the B, it says God Bless America.
People really don't have a sense of humor about that.
It's sad when people
don't know how to laugh anymore.
Yeah, but you know,
there's an advertisement under it.
It says God Bless America and United We Stand
and then it says brought to you by AT&T Wireless.
Yeah.
If we're so united,
then I guess maybe we shouldn't be putting
our corporate names underneath signs like that.
Let's just donate the money anonymously
to say something like that.
That would be nice.
Right, and then they have these things on the news
that say do the terrorist scare.
To see the terrorists, visit our website.
Well, I like how the terrorist scares are planned.
There's going to be a terrorist scare on Thursday
and they just said that they were going to do something.
Yeah, we can take their word for it.
Terrorists are going to strike at a certain date.
The whole point of terrorism is to surprise people.
So I don't know
where this information is coming from
or what it means, if it means anything.
Well, it means that they want you to go to their website
and see their annoying banner ads,
which you have to get a faster computer for
because all these banner ads come up
and crash your computer.
Yeah, I think there is no method that is not...
Are you telling me to hurry up?
I tell you to hurry up.
You don't tell me to hurry up.
No, he's not doing that to you.
He's doing the waving hand thing.
I know what he's doing.
He's referring to another party to the conversation.
Now you totally threw me off here.
What I was saying was
any act against all this advertising,
banner advertising,
the pop-under ads, they are so annoying.
I don't think anything is justified
to stop this, I really do.
Short of bloodshed perhaps,
but it's so incredibly annoying when you go someplace
and you want to read, say, a news story,
and you get three pop-under ads that you don't even find
until later on when your desktop
gets completely cluttered with garbage.
And when you call things now,
they ask if you have a touch-tone phone.
Yeah, I say no, but they usually continue asking.
No, but it's like, are you using a rotary phone?
We're in America.
We have touch-tone phones here.
Yeah, but we also have rotary phones.
It's a land of opportunity for all.
Well, you know, some of us might want to
hold on to our rotary phones because they're so annoying
to use touch-tones.
The way things are going, I think I'd like to go back
and have rotary phones.
You do that.
And when you get back there, send us some messages
from the land of rotary phones.
But thanks for calling, Rebel.
We're going to take some of the phone calls.
Rotary phones, yeah, the more the better, I think.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Speak up.
Yeah, this is from Ruby Eye.
Yes, go ahead, you're on the air.
Good, how are you?
Uh-huh.
Okay.
Uh-huh.
Huh.
Uh-huh.
It's a good question.
You want to know, how does the data get from the buses,
which aren't plugged in, to the system?
Well...
Well, Jim, can you answer a question like that
without being indicted?
Oh, that's an excellent question.
Can I answer a question like that without being indicted?
No, the guy's question.
Okay, what I know from public sources,
the newspapers,
the good thing about MetroCards
is that the information
is both sent through the system
and written to the card.
Not identical, but similar, and in some cases
overlapping information.
So, yeah, the information that the bus fare box
takes is kept until the bus
gets back to the terminal.
But there's enough
information written to your card so that
you can then use your card to transfer
onto a subway, that
it takes the correct amount off the card,
barring unforeseen
glitches and all that.
It takes the correct amount off the card,
it registers the
use, the time, and all that.
So,
yeah, there's two sets of data,
some of which overlaps,
and it generally works.
What about the hole in the card?
That's for buses and
for the reader-writer
in the booth that makes it go
up and down.
Okay, but what does it do? It latches onto that hole or something?
Yeah, there's a little prong in a
conveyor belt sort of thing that puts it down
and brings it back up.
Okay, you had another question, caller.
Yeah, my question is, now that I live
around the area where the
radio station is, is there any way
that I can go into
the studio where you are doing a
transmission? Oh, you want to know if you can come
into the radio station while we're doing a transmission? Well,
people are welcome in
the radio station, unlike
in the past year.
You're welcome
to drop by, but during the broadcast
it does get a bit hectic, so
you're welcome
to visit, but we
try not to encourage hundreds if not thousands of people
from actually being out there.
The space gets a little cramped.
On the other hand, if there are any groupies
out there, I may entertain that idea.
Okay, well that's something to talk to Jim about.
Well, not particularly this caller,
nothing against you, but
you don't really sound like my type.
Well, you know, you don't give things a chance, Jim.
212-209-2900
is our
phone number, and anyone who wants to
speak to Jim, let's call us after the show.
Arrange all that.
Let's take a phone call. Up here. Good evening. You're on the air.
Hello. How are you doing?
How are you doing this evening? Well, you know,
pretty good overall. The music.
The music. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
The music. Is this the remixes of
the theme from Hackers?
No. Well, actually, by this,
do you mean what we're listening to right now? Because that's totally different.
No, what you were playing before.
It was not remixes from Hackers.
Not by a long shot.
Jeopardy Jim says no.
Any other
points or questions?
No, but I have a question for Jim.
Without being arrested
and indicted, can you tell me anything about
these student MetroCards?
No, no. I
really can't, and
in fact, I'm not going to explain why.
Sorry.
Wow, that's intriguing. I think you might have explained a lot by saying that.
No, well, okay.
I'll explain why. I don't know.
Okay. That's a fair answer, I guess.
I was trying to be mysterious.
Caller, is there something about these student MetroCards
that piques your interest?
No, I have one. I get one
every
semester.
I'm just wondering how they work.
Well, let me ask you some questions, because I know nothing
about this.
Now, this is good
for a certain number of rides per day,
or is it good for...
It's good for three rides with transfers.
Until
eight o'clock.
What time does it start in the morning?
I think five in the morning.
And you can use it anywhere?
You're not restricted? Or have you not tried?
No.
It's not restricted, but there's a half-fair
card, I believe.
Yeah, there is. There's more than one type
of card, as far as I know.
There are certain cards that actually give you
two rides.
They seem to act like a normal MetroCard,
except they're student-only.
I don't know if anyone has noticed, but
there are lights on the turnstiles that light up
different color if you're...
Yeah, I've noticed that.
Student, employee or police,
and elderly or handicapped.
Three different lights.
It lights up, but who looks at the light?
The police.
The police are looking at the lights.
That black, matted glass surface
towards the upper part of the turnstile
has three rectangular
bars of light
of different colors. Red,
whitish and green.
And depending on what you are,
it's a different color.
So green is a normal color?
No, there's no color for a normal MetroCard.
Either paper ride or
unlimited. But for
students, for employees, for police,
for handicapped, for elderly...
And where is this beam of light?
It's not a beam of light. It's a light behind
a colored
piece of plastic.
Yeah, on the buses it's behind the driver.
You can see it.
I never really thought, realized what the
purpose of it was, because who's on the bus
watching that?
The other passengers can take control and
throw somebody off the bus?
No, sometimes, once in a while they'll have an
undercover cop, but it's more common on the
subways. And, you know,
there are fair amounts,
I'm not going to say a large amount, but enough so that
it pops up every so often,
of teachers or armed
robbers or somebody using a card
that they shouldn't have. They just busted
a teacher a couple months ago.
Well, yeah. They've got to get somewhere.
There's one point here
I had a question about. Do you say it doesn't work after
8 o'clock at night? Nope.
And that's a big problem.
What if you have, like, super detention and you get stuck
until, like, 9 o'clock or something? You know, that
does happen. Yep. They actually have a
night high school where the hours are much different.
Yeah, that's...
Well, okay, that's kind of baffling.
And 5 o'clock is when it starts working? Yeah.
Okay, Jim, you had another point?
Um... I thought you did.
Okay. Yeah, we've
determined, apparently, that this thing is
unrestricted. You can use it on any bus
to start, any subway to start.
Yep, from my experience.
Okay, interesting. Any other points?
Um, no, not really. Okay, thanks for calling. No problem.
Now, Autojack, we've been riding subways
quite a bit. If we have Jim here,
is there anything we want to ask him?
We've studied the subway. It's almost
like a, you know...
I can't think of anything I really want to ask Jim.
Okay. He's here. If I think of anything,
I'll pipe up here.
Alright. Let's take another phone call.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Speak up, please.
Hi, how's it going? Okay, how are you?
Uh, it's going well. I wanted to give you guys
an update on an article that you covered a little while ago.
Okay. Um, I live in Hartford, Connecticut.
Uh-huh. And we were talking about the
Acme rental car guys there.
Oh, yeah, alright.
It was a speeding ticket, right?
Yeah, they lost. I heard about that.
I heard about that, yes.
Well, I do a public access TV show.
I've sent you guys a couple of emails back and forth,
and we've actually gone down and listened to some of it.
Their lawyer, first of all, is really hilarious.
He's really clueless.
Um, but actually, they're also...
Not only are they losing, and they're going to try
to appeal it, but they're supposed to be
paying back over $13,000
that was collected
so far on this.
What we're talking about are speeding tickets
that were issued to customers who rented cars,
and they weren't aware of it, but they were
getting speeding... Not speeding tickets, but
basically fines by the company
itself that was tracking them.
And what their argument essentially
was was that there's all kinds of damage to a car
when you speed, which, as all of us
know, there's actually, when you go over 55,
60 miles an hour, there's less damage on a highway
than it is driving city streets, etc.
But what the real
crux of the whole thing was, they spent
over $2,000 per car to put these devices
in there, and it turns out to be a great way for them
to collect money to pay for these devices,
and I began to pay for that stuff.
I believe that the ruling, though, said that
the fee wasn't unjustified,
it was just excessive. Was that what it said?
Well, at the extent of the actual
damage of driving a car from
one of the big reports was
over 79 miles an hour, like they say,
was about $0.34 or $0.38
per mile, and they were charging
$150 per violation.
Okay.
So that was a little bit excessive by a few thousand percent.
One other thing was,
you were talking about Senator Hollings
and his astonishment a little bit earlier.
Don't forget, this is a guy that wants to put
a chip in every electronic device that we own
with the SSSCA.
Yeah.
And he has no idea why everybody wants to
throw the privacy over the tracks
music that we listen to and all that stuff
nowadays.
There is no good.
Definitely not so...
A few points of enlightenment,
but not very many of them.
Yeah, one thing I would definitely like to say
is I encourage everybody to listen to the show
and listen to some of these topics. I know from
our standpoint here in Hartford, people say,
well, why do you talk about these issues?
People are worrying so much about them, but once we lose
these freedoms gradually, which is especially happening
with all the legislation going on right now,
it's getting really, really deep.
And I still want to say that Miss Isaac
was really great on the show, and hopefully
one day he'll be back.
All right. I think he's appearing in cabaret in various places
around the city, but
we'll check with the arts people on that.
But thanks for calling.
Yeah, there are all kinds of
all kinds of
legislations and laws
and bills
coming down, coming at us.
And this country is a radically
different place than it was even 20 years ago
as far as what's
free and what's not. There's barricades
everywhere. There's guards everywhere. There's metal detectors.
Starbucks.
And do you feel any safer?
I was telling people before, I'm afraid.
I've never been in a Starbucks in my life.
And that's something I'm very proud of.
And I realize now that with the
utter predominance
of them in the landscape, I might
very well one day walk into a Starbucks without realizing
it because they're
taking on protective coloration and things like that.
I don't count the ones in Barnes & Noble
because that's part of another chain.
I don't really go there anyway, but
you've got to be really careful these days.
All right, we have
this piece.
Okay, this is concerning
something we talked about before.
Talking about the changing landscape of the country.
All the security measures at
the Groundhog Day celebrations. This person
wrote us a letter saying, I'm not sure if you
heard about Groundhog Day, so I'll fill you in.
You said you heard
there were going to be metal detectors there.
No metal detectors. It would have been
damn near impossible because 38,000 people
came to that tiny little town.
Most of which were college students.
It was like an early spring break.
What they did do was have
a buttload of state troopers there
with maybe 10 in town the night before.
And I estimate
around 40 to 50 on February 2nd.
There were unarmed National Guardsmen there
to augment some sort of security.
Sorry, but I was active Army for a few years
and National Guardsmen for a year, and I know
they are a joke. I don't want to be too
nasty here, but I do seem to hear that
quite a bit. As far as
basically people who
don't get very much training are being given big
guns and told to stand guard over things.
It's kind of
frightening and unfair to them as well.
Anyways, the only time they really did anything
was when people got on the buses
going to see the Groundhog. State
troopers and the Guard were searching bags
and I heard some were doing bodily searches.
So
that was written by Taz. Thanks very much
for sending that in. The security measures
surrounding Groundhog Day. I don't know,
are they protecting the Groundhog? Are they
protecting the people?
Or just giving some sort of
show of force? I don't know.
202-209-2900 is our
phone number. Good evening, you're on the air.
The smartwave
program you were talking about before
is Glenn Hauser's
DXing with Kumbra.
DXing with Kumbra, and it's on
a couple times. It's on 7.415
VCQ on Saturday
at 7pm.
Glenn Hauser's
program is also on WPKN in Bridgeport
on Saturday afternoons, and I've listened to that
many times. It's a fascinating program all about
shortwave radio and various things that
are going on. It's been on forever.
And Kim Elliott, what was the name of his
program? You probably know.
You have a real fascination with this Kim Elliott character,
don't you? He just quit, and he's
been on there for quite some time.
People quit all the time.
Yeah, there are only two of these shortwave programs.
If you know who Kim Elliott is,
let us know, otherwise...
We're done with him. We're done with Kim Elliott
for the night, and if you have any further questions, go
see him at the... Unless you're a
Kim Elliott expert, in which case, call in.
Kim Elliott's probably calling in right now, saying
why are you talking about me all the time?
Alright, thanks for that call. Let's
take another one. Let's go over here. Good evening,
you're on the air.
Speak up, you're on.
Good evening, Emilio. I have a question
to ask you. When you were in Finland
or Norway back in December to
attend a conference... It was Norway, and it wasn't
to attend a conference. I attended a conference in Germany,
but yeah, go ahead. Okay,
Emilio, what phone did you use?
Did you use the same phone
over there
as you did in the United States?
Yes, I used a GSM phone,
which has VoiceStream
here in the United States, but over in Europe, you can
choose up to six different companies
to use, because they
have competition over there with the GSM technology.
So what frequency
did you use? Well, basically
the way it works is here,
we use 1900.
And over there
is 1800? Over there it's 1800 and also
900. Okay.
That's megahertz, of course.
They basically
have a lot more
frequencies to hand out,
but also it's
what every country in Europe uses, so you're
able to hand off a lot easier.
What we have to do here is we have to get a phone
that's called a tri-band phone, because you have three
different bands, one for the United States and two
for Europe.
That's how you get the most out of it.
What brand name did you use, Nokia or...
I have a Motorola. I've used an Ericsson
in the past, though. Okay.
Thanks very much, Emilio.
Thanks for calling.
It's really kind of cool
that you can take a phone from here and use it
overseas and have it work exactly
the same way, if not better, over there.
I've heard rumors, maybe people can
fill these rumors in,
that competition might be coming to
the United States in the world of
GSM. Someone told me that Voice Dream
is opening up offices in California,
which would mean that they'd be competing
with Pac Bell. I've also heard
that some other company, I forget
the name of it, some other company
is switching their network
to GSM here on the East Coast.
If anyone knows more about this,
we'd sure like to know more details.
212-209-2900 is our
phone number. You're on the air.
Good evening, sir.
I'd like to mention...
You know, Rebel, you're really not fooling anybody.
Do you really think you're fooling us?
You're clenching your teeth. It's not good for
you to do that.
You had your phone call this week.
This almost gets me angry.
Alright? We don't want to do that.
Wait, wait, wait. I think I remember
what company that was that
we heard that was switching to GSM.
It was Singular, wasn't it?
I remembered it the same moment you remembered it.
Singular. I heard that name as well.
Thanks. If anyone knows more about that,
please let us know.
Let's go over here.
Good evening. You're on the air.
Speak up, please.
Hi there. My name is Gene.
You're asking about
Kim Elliott. He works for
Radio of America.
For a while, he had another capacity
in the organization.
Then he had a program called
Communications World.
That's it, yes.
He put out information regarding
what's happening in the
shortwave radio business
all around the world, different countries.
Everything from what is being
broadcast to equipment
and so forth and so on.
It was kind of an all-around type program.
What's the scoop with what
happened to it?
VOA decided just to
relinquish it and not
broadcast it anymore.
He's going on to a different
position in the same organization.
He's still with VOA?
Yes, he's still with VOA.
This wasn't some political scandal?
No, nothing like that.
The whole business in shortwave radio
like BBC,
it's all changing.
Everybody's going over to the
internet, the web.
Things are drying up
in the shortwave radio business for a lot of
things.
Do you know, are they
just withdrawing from
shortwave broadcasting?
It seems that any
corporations or even VOA,
BBC has found it very expensive
to operate these transmitters and all.
They're looking
at it. It's the way to go.
Put it on
the net, go in that
direction.
The shortwave equipment, unless it's being
bought up by other countries that
do not have
a net operation,
it may continue.
Shortwave radio in the commercial line
is kind of drying up, which is sad
really. Because the thing
about shortwave radio is you can put it in your
pocket and take it with you.
You can't do that over the net, at least not now.
How are you going to take your computer with you?
Most of the time, you know.
It can be anywhere in the world.
Anywhere, really, and still pick up
the information. That's what's nice about it.
I got a question about your...
I came up and saw Downtime.
Freedom Downtime.
It was very good, well put together.
Thanks. Is that what people are going to call it for short? Downtime?
I guess that makes sense.
I did have one question, though, on it.
At the end of the film,
of course... Don't give it away.
Don't give away the ending.
A lot of people haven't seen it.
Ask the question in a way
that doesn't give away the ending.
I don't know how I can do that.
You got me.
We'll tell people who haven't seen the film yet
to turn down their radio for the next 30 seconds.
Alright?
I was wondering, Kevin
seemed like he gave up because he was in the jail
so long.
You're right about the fact
he didn't get a swift trial.
He didn't get no trial.
That's outrageous to hear something like that.
The thing is, if he had gone to trial
and lost, he could be
in jail for another 10 years.
He'd still be in jail now, so he did what he had to do
to get out of there, which I think makes a lot of sense.
I do, too.
I agree in what he did.
By the way, I work for the transit company down here in Philadelphia.
Oh, really? SEPTA?
We don't have as good
of a system as you have in New York.
I've used the system up there,
using the MetroCard and all,
and it's very well, you know,
it's a real good system.
We're very slow down here.
You know what the thing that annoys me about SEPTA the most
is trying to buy a token.
You have to buy two of them, and then there's somebody
sitting in a booth whose only job is to tell you
that they can't sell you a token.
What kind of system is that?
Well, the other thing, too, is
you can't buy, let's say,
like the same as a MetroCard in New York.
We call them TransPasses down here,
or a TrailPass,
which they use on the regional rail
commuter lines.
And what I like about New York
is you can buy it anywhere.
Down in Philadelphia, you can only buy it
in certain places,
and up in New York, you can walk into
almost any store and get it,
and it's not activated
until you get on the bus, you know,
for those days.
I thought originally that they
sold a complete new
set of
MetroCards up there,
but apparently it's activated
by the fare box when you get on the bus at all.
Right.
It gets activated as soon as you start using it.
We're out of time, but fascinating subjects
you brought up, and thanks for calling.
Thank you. Call again.
Wait, wait, wait. You can't forget.
I haven't forgotten anything.
The music that we were listening to before
is something that I expect no American to know,
because you're prevented from hearing it.
You're prevented from seeing what goes along with it.
I'm talking about the theme music
to the all-news channel known as BBC World,
which really has a lot of
interesting stuff on it 24 hours a day,
but you can't get it in this country.
You have to get it from Canada.
You have to get a
Canadian satellite signal like I did.
It's my favorite song. It's a great song.
And now they've put out a CD with four mixes on it.
They have a CD of the theme music.
It's gotten so popular, they had to put out a CD,
and a lot of states just don't know about it,
and that's something I think is sad,
because it's a world perspective of what's going on
all over the planet.
Ask your cable company, I guess.
Ask your satellite provider. See if they'll actually do this.
It has no commercials. Maybe that's the reason.
Jim, do you have an email address to give out?
I have an email address.
red underscore balaclava,
B-A-L-A-C-L-A-V-A
at hotmail.com
If you're just planning on sending best wishes,
please don't. I'll get inundated,
but if you want to listen to old off-the-hooks
and call out what I've said
to make sure I haven't said anything that's gonna kill me,
that is the sort of volunteer work
that I could use. Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, everybody, for calling in,
and thanks for people
that give us
all kinds of advice and information.
We'll be back again next week.
We'll have all kinds of new stuff for you then,
and we'll take more phone calls.
Until then, Emmanuel Goldstein, have yourselves a good night.
Looking for salvation
We had an ice cream stutter
I said, have you ever wondered
What became of Uncle Bill
We were peeling potatoes
Back in World War II
And we was playing that rock and roll
At the school for you-know-who
Hidden from the public
It was behind the scenes
There was a man
He was a man
I looked across the room, I saw a girl in a red dress, she said she'd like to see me
in.
I left the waiter a tip, I stand before the door, I said you might have loved me but now
there's nothing more.
She's always on my trail, she really likes to kill.
I keep her lovely picture on my windowsill.
I was just a cowboy without a show.
I was like the kind of guy you never really know.
You won't forget me no matter how hard you try.
And when it's my time to go, I'll wave goodbye.
And you are listening to WBAI 99.5 FM in New York City.
It is exactly 9 o'clock.
Stay tuned for Barbara Nimri Aziz and Radio Tafir.