Dear listeners, this is Indra Hardat, Interim General Manager of WBAI, asking for your support
as we begin our Fall Fund Drive, which runs from Wednesday, October 4th through Saturday,
October 28th.
The goal for this drive is $900,000.
We are counting on you during the entire drive to help us take telephone pledges, especially
between the hours of 7am and 12 noon.
Please remember, we can only keep WBAI the strong, compelling, provocative, and uncensored
radio that you are accustomed to with your help.
So please spread the word around, and thank you for your continued support.
And you're listening to radio station WBAI New York, where the time is 7 o'clock on a
Wednesday night, time once again for Off The Hook.
The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
We couldn't get much worse, but if they could, they would.
Bon Diddley Bon, for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood.
Bon Diddley Bon!
Bon Diddley Bon!
And a very good evening to everybody, the program is Off The Hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this hectic Wednesday evening.
Oh boy, what a day this has been.
Is it too early to call for a commission to find out the truth of what happened on 10-11?
No, it's too soon?
Well, I mean, the Bush administration has been surprisingly quiet about this, and there's
been no commission established as of yet to find out who knew what when.
I saw photographs of explosives in that building.
You think the building imploded?
Well, it's still standing.
Well, you know, they don't always get it right, these government agencies.
Well, I don't know, maybe there's a baseball connection of some sort because of the playoffs
of tonight, I don't know, but wow, what craziness here in New York today, in case you didn't
hear about it, a small plane carrying a Yankee pitcher at the helm apparently crashed into
a building.
Apparently nobody in the building was hurt, or on the ground, but the people on the plane,
their fate was pretty much sealed.
But it's caused all kinds of traffic problems and people running around panicking in the
streets, but for the most part I think we're getting through it.
What matters the most is that we get through tonight, and that we do well in tonight's
marathon show because, well, that's what keeps this radio station going.
So please don't panic, we're here to help.
And who's here tonight?
Well, Jim's over there.
Jim's over here.
And I see Mike.
Hi.
I'm in a new seat.
It's a little weird.
A new seat.
Well, good for you.
And Redbird.
Good evening.
And Arseny over there.
Hello.
Bernie S. down in Philadelphia.
I thought it wasn't a good idea to fly out there tonight.
No.
Probably wasn't.
But, you know, it's sort of one of the scenarios that we were discussing a couple of weeks
ago, how simple it is to simply take off from an airport and crash into a building.
Apparently that's...
I don't know if that's exactly what happened here, but there's not a whole lot you can
do.
Sure, they scrambled jets.
There's apparently military jets circling our city right now, and boy, do I feel good
about that.
But there's nothing they can really do about airplanes that take off from nearby airports
and crash into buildings.
Those planes don't do any damage, though, as you saw.
I mean, they do some damage.
Ask the person in that apartment what kind of damage it did.
No.
Okay.
So two apartments out of the entire building.
No.
It's like having a bus crash into your apartment, which also isn't very pleasant.
But then again, there's not that many people willing to fly their plane into a building
just to take out two apartments, so.
It depends.
Depends what kind.
I mean, look at the chaos that's ensued just as a result of this.
I mean, you could have a taxi cab crash into a light pole, have the same fatality count
uptown, and the city wouldn't be panicking like it is now.
But it's not spectacular.
It doesn't get you the press that a bomb explosion, a suicide bombing, a World Trade Center collapse
causes.
This is minor.
And 3,000, 6,000 miles away, no one cares about this.
Oh, I don't think so.
If you go to BBC News, I'll bet it's a top story.
Because it's New York.
But if this was Oshkosh, Wisconsin, all right, no one in the heartland of Germany or the
middle of northern England would care.
Well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see, because I'm sure Oshkosh is on the list
of targets.
But, yeah, that's what's happening in New York today.
But we're going to move past it and look at more pertinent things to what we're discussing
here on this particular radio program, which, by the way, is not going to be on probably
for the rest of the month because of the fundraiser.
So if you want to support the radio show, this is your time to do so.
How do I do that?
By calling 212-209-2950.
And I see we have $925, but I think that's the total from the last show, right?
Because I don't think we could have raised that in just five minutes of not even giving
out the phone number.
But we can beat them.
Yeah, we can.
Let's please beat that.
212-209-2950.
And we're going to have some interesting things to pledge for.
But if you just want to pledge the minimal amount for $25, you'll get an off-the-hook
t-shirt, which you can only get through these fundraisers.
And if you want to call in advance, you can ask our friendly tally people what kinds of
items we're offering tonight, and they'll be able to help you.
First, a quick look at some of the things that are going on in the world of privacy,
technology, fear, that kind of thing.
And this happened last week, actually, late last week.
United States and Europe clinched a deal giving U.S. law enforcement agencies easier access
to personal data on transatlantic air passengers to fight terrorism, ending a legal limbo for
airlines.
The European Union's top court struck down an existing agreement after a challenge by
the European Parliament out of concern to protect privacy.
So basically, I guess everybody's information is now being traded all over the place.
What do you make of this, Bernie?
Well, I think the European Union tried to hold out a little bit, but they buckled under
pressure once again.
And basically, all information of travelers, I guess the issue was that travelers' data
was not being given to U.S. authorities until after the planes were already in flight.
And now they want the information well before the planes take off.
So that was the point of contingency as far as what the U.S. was saying.
Listen to this great concession that the Europeans got.
Apparently, formerly the United States would query the Europeans for the data and just
go right into their database.
Now the U.S. does not have direct access to their database.
The European airline companies send it to the U.S. government, and they present this
as though it's somehow some victory for privacy.
Okay, so we don't ask for the data, but they send it to us.
So that's protecting the privacy because we're not asking them to give it to us?
It's very unclear.
Well, I sort of understand it.
It just doesn't make any sense.
Okay, fine.
I'm used to that.
All right.
A couple of letters, and we have to sort of do an abbreviated version of this since we
have a special program tonight.
Again, our email address, as always, oth at 2600.com.
Dear Off The Hook, I'm sure you're familiar with the Verizon's unlimited Evdo service,
E-V-D-O.
Anybody ever hear of this?
Jim, you're nodding your head.
This is the, if I recall, the thing whereby you put a card in your wireless computer,
and Verizon has many, many, many towers, or the equivalent, where you can data stream
at a higher bandwidth and greater speed.
Someone is holding one up to the microphone, so those of you with picture capability can
see it.
And this is a good opportunity to welcome back somebody who was on the show years ago
and has recently just come back to New York.
How many of you remember Phil from the old days, back when we were making Freedom Downtime?
Hello, everyone.
Good to be back.
Phil, you used to run our website, and now you're a senior editor over at Make Magazine.
Yes.
Great magazine, by the way.
Thank you.
I believe you just launched another magazine, too.
Yeah, Craft.
All inspired by 2600 Hacker Culture.
Oh, really?
It's all good.
We've got some residuals coming our way.
Now, you're holding up a phone that has this feature that we're talking about.
Well, it's a PC MCA card, and you put it into your laptop, and you get, quote, unlimited
data.
I'm worried about losing my, quote, unlimited data, because I use it quite a bit.
There are people who that's happened to quite a few times.
Yeah.
Now, here's a story.
Now, they offer unlimited service, and what this listener is talking about is that unlimited
actually means five gigs a month.
Their terms of service specify states, unlimited access to email and web from the phone.
But here's where this falls apart.
If I get email with large attachments, specifically in excess of five gigabytes per month, my
account will be terminated, and I'll be charged $175 early termination fee, even though I
have not violated anything.
I believe this is targeted at folks who tether their device to a laptop, stream audio, video,
or use VoIP.
Verizon doesn't look at packets or protocols to determine if you are improperly using bandwidth.
They just look at total bytes transferred.
That's a quote from Verizon.
If they do not analyze packets, how would they know that I'm using my device in an inappropriate
manner?
What would you suggest as a possible resolution if this does indeed happen to someone who
uses their phone within the boundaries set forth by Verizon's terms of service and still
gets terminated?
Signed, Dan.
Well, first of all, I'm flabbergasted that they can say unlimited when it's not unlimited.
How do they get away with that?
This actually happened to one of my coworkers where their plan got chopped off, and there's
no early termination fee, as our listener writes that there is.
So it's actually a good way if you ever want to cancel your plan but don't want to pay
the termination fee, you can just use up all your bandwidth, and I guess they'll cancel
it for you.
Is that written down that there won't be a termination fee?
There wasn't one.
Maybe it was a fluke.
Maybe there used to be no termination fee, but now, as Dan writes, there is.
I don't see how there could be a termination fee when they're the ones doing the terminating.
I still can't figure out how unlimited means five gigs a month.
That's a little mysterious.
Someone should teach them how to speak the language, because unlimited means unlimited,
right?
Who knows?
I think so.
Well, Phil, any insight on this?
You have this service.
I do, and I'm a little worried because one of the things I used to do is take the card
and put it in my laptop, and when I go to airports, I can broadcast Wi-Fi for free.
You know how you have to pay $5?
I was like, oh, you know what?
I can let everyone use my connection for free.
You're the one.
Okay.
Yeah.
When Phil's in the airport, everybody rides the internet for free.
Free ride.
Okay.
I'm a little worried about it because I still do that.
Luckily, most of the things I do is text, but when I have to upload or download files,
that's when things get tricky.
I don't really have a solution.
The only thing I could suggest is anytime you're around a free open Wi-Fi hotspot, use
that and maybe keep this the best you can.
Write letters.
They've got to know that surely this is false advertising.
Surely there's something they need to hear.
Write letters to radio stations and have them right over the air.
Maybe that'll make a difference.
It does seem to make a difference sometimes.
Things do change.
Here's one more letter, an update actually from Sky Raider.
I wrote to you about SoundExchange a few weeks ago and the unpaid artist list where all these
artists weren't being compensated because they supposedly couldn't be found, even though
they were pretty famous.
You got the word out, but some understandable concern was expressed about the fact that
the tiny URL I gave led to an IP address.
For your listeners who consider SoundExchange more trustworthy than an unknown IP, here's
how they can click through.
Go to www.soundexchange.com.
Click on the text, take me to the featured artist list.
Then click on the text, unpaid artist list.
This will bring up the same page as the tiny URL, which by the way is tinyurl.com slash
J5YWU.
Thank you again Sky Raider for that information.
Diving into our special program tonight, we have on the phone with us from Florida,
a special guest, Rick Dakin, who is the author of a book called Geek Mafia, and I believe
we've corrected that down in the tally room.
It's no longer listed as Greek Mafia.
Okay, we're sorry about the mix up there.
It's a common one.
Yeah, I guess it is.
Well, Rick, why don't you start by telling us something about what kind of a book is
this?
Geek Mafia is a novel, it's a thriller, sort of loosely inspired at least from a jumping
off point of my own experiences living in Silicon Valley and working in the computer
game industry, which I did for a few years as lead designer on City of Heroes.
But it pretty much takes off into, you know, much more adventurous and interesting things
that never happened to me at that point, and it's about a video game designer who gets
fired from his job, and then he hooks up with this con woman and her sort of crew,
and they help him take revenge on his former employers, but in the process, suck him down
into their whole criminal underground world.
Let me read the summary as listed on, I believe, the official website.
Fired from a job he hated at a company he loved, video game designer Paul Reynolds is
drowning his sorrows in late morning margaritas when he, who hasn't been there, when he meets
an alluring pink-haired con woman named Chloe.
With her gang of techno-pirate friends, anybody we know, Chloe helps Paul not only take revenge
on his former employers, but also extort a small fortune from them in the process.
What more could a recently unemployed, overworked video game designer in Silicon Valley ask
for?
Wow.
How much of this is based on personal experience?
Sadly, none of the extorting money are pink-haired con women.
You know, sort of the setup is based on, you know, sort of my interpretation of what happened
to me.
I'm sure if you talk to the people on the other side of that, you might get a different
story.
Although, they've all read it and liked it, so, you know, it just goes to prove that no
matter what light you show somebody in, if you put a fictionalized version of them out
there, they're just so flattered to be talked about that they'll like it no matter what.
Tell us, tell us something about Chloe's techno-pirate friends, and if they resemble any people that
we might be familiar with.
Well, the techno-pirate friends in general were not specifically based on any individuals,
although I will say that when doing research, I did in fact watch a number of videos from
Hope 2004.
So, you know, I got some material.
I also got some material from Mythbusters and from, you know, weird people I've known,
but, you know, it definitely, you know, researching this book, because I wanted to include, you
know, I had a few friends out there who were interested in hacking and those kinds of things
in sort of the more, you know, general, the way you guys use the word, the way I use the
word now, as opposed to the, you know, the media stereotype of the word.
So that led me to look into that, and I tried to get all the technology as right as I could
at the time, and I think it holds up.
I didn't want to be, you know, the subject of a Johnny Long parody talk at some point
in the future or something like that.
Can you tell us something about the kind of research that you would have to do to put
together a book like this?
Well, for this one, I mean, this one was easier than the sequel, which I'm working on now.
Just from the point of view that, certainly for all the details, I could draw on a lot
of things from my own life, you know, from living out there, a lot of the places and
people and the way things work in Silicon Valley are, you know, analogs to my own experiences
out there.
And then other weird little things, like there's a, early on in the book, the Clo and Paul
pull off a con involving comic book grading.
I don't know if any of you are comic book collectors, but...
Comic book grading, you say?
Comic book grading, which is, there's basically a company that you send your comic books to
and they grade the condition of it.
Oh, grading.
I thought you meant grating.
Not like cheese.
Not like cheese, but like, you know.
Yeah, I was wondering if that was a new style.
On a scale of one to ten, so right with sub-point, so you could get like a 9.6 or an 8.4 or something.
I see.
And then they seal it in plastic and send it back to you with a grade, and that's, people
use this, it gives you some assurance of what you're buying if you're selling and buying
on eBay.
And nobody ever is supposed to open that plastic again, right?
Exactly, which I've always found ridiculous.
And so it just happens that my brother works for that company as a grader.
Wouldn't it be great if they just took the middle pages out and you'd never know if you
didn't open the plastic?
Well, yeah, you know, I had that same thought, and that's the con they do in the book.
Oh, wow, you're kidding.
No, that's exactly what they do in the book.
I, oh.
Wow, how about that?
I'm proud of myself, because I didn't read the book, and yet somehow I fell right into
the con there.
Great.
So, yeah, you know, so things like that, you know, and I worked in some of my own liberal
political bent into some of the other stuff they do later in the book, you know, but set
it in Los Gatos, for instance, which I don't know if you've ever been to, it's a suburb
or a small town in the mountains.
It all sort of blurs out there in California.
Yes, it does, definitely.
As I say, San Jose is the virtue of being 45 minutes from a lot of different places
you'd rather be.
Arsene, you have a question.
Yeah, well, I mean, not really a question, but I did read the book, and all these little
clever adventures that they go on is, I think, really what kept me reading the book, just
because it's like, okay, what are they going to do next?
And the thing with the comics I thought was really, really clever, because I didn't know
anything about, like, that's even possible.
Yeah, and that was, you know, again, I like Emanuel here, as soon as my brother started
working for that company, I saw how it goes, I said, well, what would stop someone from
doing this?
Yeah, I guess that's sort of the hacker mentality, they always think of a way to subvert the
system one way or another.
Yeah, exactly.
So, now, what kind of response, first of all, when did the book actually get published?
Oh, it came out, it's been out for, it came out this year, so it's been out for several
months now.
What kind of response have you been getting?
Pretty good so far.
You know, it's hard for a first-time novelist to get a lot of response, but everyone who's
read it has really liked it, or everyone who talked to me afterwards, anyway.
I guess the people who hate it wouldn't talk to you as much, but...
Yeah, probably not, but I've gotten a lot of good response, and, you know, got picked
up by a small production company that bought the movie rights, so we're sort of crossing
our fingers there on that long, involved process.
Now, for aspiring authors out there, how did you get started with this?
How did you get interest in the book?
Well, I've been writing for a living for about ten years now.
I started in the pen and paper role-playing game industry, you know, like Dungeons & Dragons,
that kind of stuff.
Yeah.
So, I wrote source books and things for that for many years, through the latter half of
the 90s, and then I got into video games.
And I guess the thing I would say about writing is that the key is that writing is a muscle,
and the more you do it, the easier it gets.
Just keep at it.
You know, when I'm going, when I'm on a book, I write 3,000 words a day, you know, just
get in there and do it.
But in general, what I'm really excited about, with regard to technology these days, I released
Geek Mafia is under Creative Commons, and you can download the PDF version for free
from my website.
And I just read the book The Long Tail by Chris Anderson.
I don't know if you guys have talked about that or read that, or are familiar with that book.
We're getting a bunch of shrugs.
We've heard of it.
Some of us have heard of it.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's the ideal.
I guess he's still our editor at Wired, but he talks about, what's the tagline on the
book?
I don't know if this is selling less of more, but just this idea that sort of, there's all
kinds of neat and exciting ways to go out and get in touch directly with customers without,
you know, I'm in bookstores and things like that, but that's a slow business.
And I'm really much more interested in building up, you know, that direct connection with
readers and fans and people like that.
And so hopefully with the next book, I'm going to even try a new sort of system where people
can act as the bookstore if they want and get the same cut that I would give to a, you
know, to a Barnes and Noble or Borders that they take from me now, and I would give that
directly to people.
Well, the industry is definitely changing, and that sounds like a creative way to reach
people.
I guess this is as good a time as any to mention that we are offering this book as one of our
premiums for people who call in and support the station.
For a pledge of $50, you'll get a copy of Geek Mafia, as well as an off-the-hook t-shirt,
and it's not often that you see books with a hacker mentality, with kind of a hacker
plot, but I think in this particular case, this is something that comes right out of
the community.
Geek Mafia is something that was quite popular at Hope, I believe.
You brought copies up there?
Yeah, I did, definitely, and yeah, didn't have any to take away with me.
Yeah, so people are fighting to get to this thing, and you don't have to fight.
All you have to do is call 212-209-2950.
Again, the pledge level is $50 for this book, and every pledge $25 and above will get you
an off-the-hook t-shirt.
212-209-2950.
We're already up to $150, which is good, because apparently people were calling while we were
talking before we even mentioned what we were offering here.
Excellent.
Yeah, so the important thing is that the station be supported so we can talk about things like
this and all sorts of other things in the future.
Now, Rick, maybe you could give us some idea of what your inspirations were that led you
to write this book in the first place.
Well, it really was sort of everything I do, writing-wise, is that I couldn't find anything
else out there.
I talked about how I watched some videos from Hope, and I'd picked up copies of 2600 periodically
and over the years.
I don't have a particularly technical background, but I've just always found it interesting,
and so looking around, that's part of the problem I've had when people ask me to describe
this book.
What is this book like?
I mean, it has elements in common with a lot of different kinds of thrillers, but there's
nothing that really addresses these kind of subjects, these sort of geek-slash-techie
issues in sort of a fun, compelling way.
You read a lot of books that get a lot wrong, or ...
Yeah, it seems that way.
It seems they always never quite get the technology, or they try to modify the technology to make
it more glittery.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
We see that in Hollywood all the time, so it's important to actually get the facts right,
to get the technology realistic.
Some people say, well, that doesn't play as well if you make it too realistic.
After all, how many people will see a thrill reading text on a computer screen rather than
seeing some sort of graphical image that makes it seem like a life form?
I think if you do it right, if you write it well, if you have your facts, and you also
have a plot, you also have a good story driving it, that you can do this.
It's a challenge, yes, but you can do this.
That's the challenge.
It's gotten me interested in the subject in general, so that now I'm working on this nonfiction
book about hackers, that I've been traveling to hacker conventions all this year.
I just got back from a two-week trip in Germany, where I was touring various CCC, Chaos Computer
Club facilities, and went to a local con there in Darmstadt, which is just all infinitely
fascinating.
Yeah, it certainly is.
The hacker culture is worldwide.
It's been there for decades.
It will be there for a very long time to come.
This is our window into that, writers like you who put out books and tell us what it's
all about, fiction, nonfiction, otherwise.
We have one call on the line right now, 212-209-2950.
We have a room full of Tally people.
Please give a call.
Support the station and support this kind of creativity, 212-209-2950.
Again, pledge level $50 for this book, Geek Mafia, written by Rick Dakin, and also you'll
get the Off the Hook t-shirt included with that.
Now, Rick, you were our victim, or Steve Rambam's victim.
I was indeed.
That's right.
Yes.
Do you mind explaining that maybe?
Sure.
So it was, I was, starting as I was well into the research on this book, and I was, I had
watched Steve Rambam as a private investigator, and at Hope 2004, he'd given a talk about
privacy, which I thought was very interesting, and then I was listening to a recording of
Off the Hook when he was on, asking for volunteers.
So I volunteered, really without thinking about it very much, which was probably a mistake,
but I think it's worked out well in the end.
So I emailed him Sunday night, which is when I'd been listening to it, and Monday morning,
8 a.m., I woke up and checked my email, and he'd written me back, and I guess he'd already
done a preliminary check on me, and decided I was the one.
He had you shoe-sizing the email, right?
He did, practically.
Well, then I told him, okay, give me a call when I get into the office, and my phone rang
as I was stepping out of my car, which was about 45 minutes later, and he'd already,
of course, knew everywhere I'd ever worked, what kind of car I was driving, every place
I'd ever lived, all this kind of stuff.
And then he was supposed to give the presentation that included that information, along with
a lot of other great stuff about how privacy is dead, and I'd hoped that that didn't happen.
Yeah, because of his arrest by the FBI, which is still an ongoing story, but let's give
an update on that, because we have been trying to reschedule that panel so that people could
attend it at no cost in the New York area.
And it looks like, at this point, it's going to be sometime in November, right?
That's what I'm understanding.
That's great.
I'd like to come.
We did give it at TourCon a couple weeks ago in San Diego, and it went over great.
The room stayed, but we'd like to hit New York, and hit all those people we missed at
Hope, and a much larger audience than we had there.
Well, we should have a final date posted on the website and on our next program.
So Arsene, do you have an update on this?
Well, it's just that people might be wondering why does this keep getting delayed, but we
really can't advertise this event too much if we're going to be off the air, right?
Yeah, that's true.
It's not going to be on for the rest of the month.
Yeah.
But, I mean, we're pretty much set for sometime in November.
I think Steve said late November would be best for him, so that's when it'll be.
And we're looking, actually, at something in New Jersey that's easily accessible?
Oh, yeah.
It's just like a subway ride away on the PATH.
PATH train, okay.
And what's the name of the school?
Stevens.
It's actually where I go to school, me and Redbird.
We're going to get a nice room, nothing nasty.
Oh, that's good.
What, are you implying that it was nasty at the Hotel Pennsylvania?
Oh, no.
I'm just saying it's not some basement.
No, no.
A nicely sized room.
So sometime in November, the Steve Rambam panel will be presented at no cost, and we'll
give updates.
I just got to see it for the first time in San Diego, and it's really great, you know?
Okay.
Got a lot of great material.
He's even updated it since then with some new stuff, you know?
Some of the things that happened with him in Google in the wake of the arrest.
Plus, it's always fun just seeing Steve go crazy for two hours.
Yeah.
Which is worth the price for admission, which in this case will be nothing, but still, it'll
be worth it even if it was something.
So I guess at that talk, we'll be able to hear everything there is to know about what's
going on in Rick's life.
But if we want to know what's going on inside his head, we should read his book.
Yes.
Which you can, of course, get by calling 212-209-2950 and pledging $50 or more.
Yeah.
And we have open lines.
There are two in use right now, and we have tallied people down there that are not answering
phones because their phones aren't ringing.
Make them happy.
212-209-2950.
But the important reason to call and pledge is to keep the station going.
We have to do this a few times a year.
It's in lieu of commercials.
You'll never hear a commercial on WBAI.
You will hear interesting discussions, though.
You'll learn about books.
You'll learn about technology.
You'll learn about government plots against your privacy and all sorts of other things
like that, things you're not hearing on the commercial stations.
So if that matters to you, if that's something you'd like to see continue into the next decade,
then please give a call, 212-209-2950.
Pledge whatever you can.
And there's all sorts of other items that we're offering as well.
In fact, we're going to be getting into one of them in a few minutes.
But we'd like to see these phone lines light up, 212-209-2950.
Let's get a couple more calls, and then we'll move on to our next feature.
I'm going to the tally room.
Oh, you are?
How exciting.
So if someone wants to talk to me, they can call.
Or if someone wants to be talked to, they can call.
We had so many calls last week that we weren't able to thank everybody because they all came
in such a big spurt.
And we're sorry about that.
We don't have access to those names anymore.
They're gone.
That's too bad.
But we'd like to make a very sincere thank you for helping us.
But now we need you to call this week.
And again, this is the last week we're going to be on during this fundraiser.
So please give a call, 212-209-2950.
Again, $50 for the book and the off-the-hook t-shirt, $25 just for the t-shirt.
All right.
Any other words, Rick?
No.
I don't have anything other than to tell you that, yes, the plane hitting the building
was the lead story on bbcnews.com.
See?
I told you.
Along with Scarlett Johansson's advice for us to take regular HIV tests.
That's lovely.
That's good advice.
Yeah.
So, yeah, 10-11.
It begins now.
And no doubt there'll be a scandal and a conspiracy.
We'll just have to keep people updated.
I don't think we have any 10-11 premiums to offer yet, but I'm sure we will.
Stay tuned.
Rick, you're welcome to stay on for the rest of the show.
Yeah, that'd be great.
Okay.
Rick Dakin.
Am I pronouncing your name right, first of all?
You are, actually.
Oh, good.
Which I'm eternally grateful for.
I always try.
His book, Geek Mafia, is currently out, and we're offering that as a premium.
Thanks, by the way, for donating it to the radio station.
My pleasure.
I'm a big supporter of public radio, like WBI.
We have a station similar to it in Tampa here, which I listen to all the time, so.
WMNF.
Yeah, WMNF, exactly.
What, do you know all the radio stations in the world, Mike?
I try to.
Okay.
It is a fellow Pacifica, so.
Wow.
Let me just read a couple of one-line reviews that I found online for your book.
I, too, got sucked into the story and soon found I was waiting to get back home and read
some more each day.
I don't understand why he couldn't bring the book with him.
Maybe it was chained to his desk or something.
Maybe he's a lifeguard, didn't want to get wet.
That's possible, I suppose.
As the other reviewers have mentioned, this is a fun, breezy, and original book.
Dakin did a fine job of creating a believable subculture and some well-rounded characters.
I'm glad I read it.
Well, Rick, did you create this subculture, or does it already exist?
I take, well, I guess I created my own little criminal subculture, you know, to fit within
the large, I guess it's a microculture within the subculture.
I guess that would be a way.
I guess that works.
You know, I have these sort of criminal crews that kind of interact with each other, because,
you know, it's a novel.
And here's another review, as a serious bookaholic, it was a great pleasure to come across this
little gem.
These are the kind of reviews you really want to see, isn't it?
Yeah, it's great.
The Unique Lifestyle, another review, the Unique Lifestyle of The Characters Kept Me
Intrigued, exciting story.
This is a fun read.
That's always nice to hear.
And finally, this is a great novel, a must-read for geeks and non-geeks alike.
Wow, these are glowing reviews here.
They are.
I don't even know any of those people who wrote them.
Wow.
Well, again, our phone number, 202-209-2950.
We do have a few more open lines, and we'd like to hear from you.
And let's introduce our next guest, who is live here in the studio for, I believe, the
first time.
Mitch Altman.
Welcome.
You want to get near that microphone there.
You were on the phone before, and now you're here in the studio.
I was here during Hope.
Oh, that's right.
You were here during Hope.
Yes, okay.
I'm glad to be back.
That room was pretty full.
Now, Mitch, we know you as the inventor of a marvelous little device called the TV Begone.
That's my baby.
You have caused so much confusion and outrage amongst the populace that I got to tell you.
After the meeting last Friday, though, we go to a place that always has a TV set on,
and they had the Yankee game on.
No, the Met game.
Whatever.
Whoever was playing.
I don't know.
Somebody was playing baseball.
And it was on, and it was distracting.
So you know what?
I turned it off.
I used your TV Begone.
I hit the button, and lo and behold, the TV set just went off.
And what happened?
Nothing happened.
Nobody cared.
Nobody was paying any attention.
It was the playoffs.
It was a local team in the playoffs.
I turned the TV set off, and you know what?
People turned to each other and started talking.
It was beautiful.
Is that what they did?
I don't recall that.
Well, they threw things at each other, too.
There was a little bit of a brawl that broke out.
But never mind that.
The important thing is they interacted, and they didn't care about the TV set.
And you know what?
My entire time there, nobody even turned it back on.
Maybe they couldn't figure out how to do it, but I didn't see any panic, any real upset
people around.
Isn't that great?
You turn the TV off, and people feel better rather than worse.
Is that what happens, though?
In my experience.
I don't really go around to places where people go to watch television, because why would
I do that?
Well, I know why you do that, so you can see the kind of chaos you can cause.
Yeah, well, a lot of people did buy it for the World Cup, sold a few thousand during
that period.
It wasn't my idea.
But my experience, I go to places where people are going to do whatever they go out in public
to do, various different things, none of which is watch TV.
And when the TV turns off, TVs just happen to turn off wherever I go.
They talk to one another, they read, they don't necessarily even know that the TV set
went off, but they're more relaxed.
Yeah.
Well, it's so annoying and intrusive to have a television set on, especially when the audio
is on as well, in a place where you went to socialize, to hang out with people.
Restaurants have them now.
In the dining areas, bars have always had them.
You see them at checkout counters and all sorts of places, everywhere you can possibly
think of where you might be a captive audience.
Somebody has thought, hey, let's put a TV set there.
But now you've created something that allows the average consumer like us to fight back.
Now, how does it work exactly?
It's a universal remote control.
And I got rid of all those extraneous buttons because most universal remote controls have
all these different buttons that are really not important because there's only one button
that's important on a TV remote control, and that's the off button.
So when you push that button, it'll turn off any television.
Wow.
Any television set is susceptible to your device there?
Yeah, any remotely controllable one, which is pretty much every television.
Now how long does it take to go through all the possibilities?
Well, there are thousands and thousands of different makes and models out there.
But it turns out that there's about 150 different codes that took me about a year of my life
to put into a database that'll get all of them.
I put the most popular ones up front, so the most popular ones will turn off almost right
away.
Yeah.
The one I used on Friday, it turned it off in three seconds.
Yeah.
That's a very satisfying feeling.
It was great.
It was so nice.
It was so nice.
Yeah.
I mean, I jumped up and down and emitted a little squeal, but I figured that would probably
draw attention.
And I guess that's something else we should point out is when you do something like this,
when you turn off a TV set that doesn't belong to you, maybe you shouldn't be too eager to
advertise that you've done that.
Yeah.
Well, TVB Gone lets you do it without anyone knowing that you did it.
So one thing I wanted to point out, you said captive audience.
I was at a gift show.
TVB Gone has brought me to a lot of places I wouldn't have normally been.
A gift show is one of them here in New York City.
Was it last month, the month before?
And they had over 100 huge screen televisions all over Javits, the convention center.
And they were all playing the same content, which was advertising to everyone around there.
And they would advertise themselves.
And the name of their company is called Captive Audience.
That's the name of their company?
That's the name of their company.
And I was so appalled that I turned every single one of them off.
So I would go with a baseball bat.
I mean, that's really, it's insulting.
Well, the baseball bat would be very satisfying for a while, but you'd get arrested, it would
have consequences.
But TVB Gone is also very satisfying, and it's legal.
It's like a baseball bat, only anonymous.
And you know what?
You were in town a couple of months ago, and we were sort of walking all over the place.
We went to that Circuit City, and boy, did we have fun in there.
I got to say, though, they must have hired people just to find out what was going on
with the TV sets.
Because as soon as we turn one off, maybe like five minutes later, it would be turned
back on, which meant somebody was combing the aisles, making sure all the TV sets were
on properly.
But we went to that new Chase Bank, and I guess we can say this, because why not?
There's a new Chase Bank in Astor Place.
It's sort of taken up the whole block.
And they had a couple of TV sets on that were always piping advertising all night long.
They were behind glass.
But we were able to turn both of them off.
And we were wondering what would happen in the morning when these people came in and
realized, hey, these TV sets that nobody ever touches somehow got turned off.
And wouldn't you know?
They've replaced them.
They probably thought the units were faulty, and they wound up replacing them with just
LCD screens that can't be turned off in that way.
So it can cause all kinds of confusion and consternation, but it sure does feel good.
And folks, I should point out that we are offering you an opportunity to feel this good
because Mitch has donated a whole bunch of his TV begon.
So again, for a pledge of $50, you can call 212-209-2950.
And in exchange for your $50 pledge, you'll get a TV begon of your very own in addition
to an off-the-hook t-shirt.
And you also still have the choice.
For $50, you can get the Geek Mafia book by Rick Dakin, who remains on the line with us
in addition to the off-the-hook t-shirt.
Or for $25, you can get an off-the-hook t-shirt.
Or for $100, you can get everything and two off-the-hook t-shirts.
Wow.
And that's how it works because it's 50 times 2 and 2 shirts included with that.
212-209-2950, I should point out, we have limited supplies of these items, so they won't
be around for very much longer.
That's why it's important for you to make that call.
The most important thing, though, is to support this radio station.
I imagine, Mitch, that not too many commercial radio stations would really be supporting
what you do here, would they?
Radio stations have been quick to pick up on the story.
When I first made TV Be Gone, radio stations were interviewing me left and right, commercial
and non-commercial.
So it's just kind of interesting.
The media really loves an opportunity to look at itself.
It's very narcissistic.
So even if it's sort of antithetical to it, it's a news story.
Three calls on the line, 212-209-2950.
$50, you'll get your own TV Be Gone.
You'll be able to cause all kinds of consternation in your neighborhood.
And believe me, an opportunity will present itself very, very quickly for you to play
with this thing.
We could go on all night long talking about stories, and we'll tell a couple of them as
to how you can make a difference.
212-209-2950, $50 pledge, get you a TV Be Gone and an off-the-hook t-shirt.
Now, this, I understand, is a new version of the TV Be Gone, version 2.
Version 2.
And I guess this is somehow better than version 1, right?
You wouldn't go from 1 to 2 and be worse.
How do you improve on something like this?
Well, there's a few ways.
The first version, unfortunately, you had to go through the whole minute cycle in order
for it to reset itself so you could turn another TV off.
But when I first came out with it, there weren't all that many situations where there was more
than one TV in a room that needed to be turned off.
Oh, wow.
But now there are.
Yeah, there certainly are.
There certainly are.
So it has an updated database.
So it'll get a few of those huge wall-sized things that unfortunately are appearing everywhere
we go.
Wow.
Actually, the version 2 of the device, we have a TV here in the studio, which until
version 2 of the device, I had to go and manually push the button because it didn't get turned
off with version 1.
But now, right from over there, we can do it.
Yeah.
Glad to be of service.
It's incredible.
It really is.
The range will constantly be improved.
Are there any kind of defense mechanisms that manufacturers are building into TV sets to
prevent people like you from causing them grief?
Not that I'm aware of, but CNN happens to own all of the televisions in airports.
And when they found out about TV Be Gone, they went through the great expense of taking
every one of their televisions and casing it in a wooden box to cover up the remote
control receiver.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
So they were kind of threatened.
That's one of the reasons I knew that I did something that was worthwhile.
Every single TV set in every single airport.
Yeah.
There are a few around that aren't encased yet.
And LaGuardia is one of them.
They have these huge LG brand TVs that turn off just fine.
When I was in Chicago, my plane was delayed on the way out east from San Francisco, where
I live.
In Chicago, they have all these encased televisions, and there wasn't a single place where I could
sit, where I wasn't an earshot or eyeshot of a television blaring away something that
I really didn't want to listen to, and no one else seemed to want to either.
So I just walked right up to the wooden encasement, pointed the TV gun down there, and turned
it off.
Oh, wow.
You're bad.
Actually, good.
People tend to enjoy it.
Yeah.
I've noticed that the reaction has just been amazing.
Now, Phil, I know you've been working on some hacks, actually, of the TV-B-Gon.
Yeah.
It's good to point out that in addition to the TV-B-Gon being a lot of fun, you can take
it apart and have more fun with it.
And there's two projects that I really like.
One is to just increase its range and to add 20 little LEDs to it, which makes it about
20 times as wider.
And when you add a 9-volt battery to it, it goes around 90 feet.
So you can pretty much turn off any TV.
It's like a flashlight that just turns everything off.
You could stand in the middle of suburbia in the street and just sort of sweep around
and turn everyone's TV sets off.
Yes.
That exactly works.
Oh, my goodness.
You can stand outside of electronic stores and turn off television.
So it's a really simple how-to.
You just wire up 20 new LEDs and then a 9-volt battery, and you increase the range, the power,
and everything else.
The second thing you can do is take it apart and wire it into a baseball hat.
Oh, my goodness.
Yeah.
So that's even better.
And you just walk around.
And what we did is we showed how to repeat the first 10 codes over and over, which are
the most common.
Right.
So that is really good.
Because as you walk around, especially in places like, I don't know, Vegas or CES or
like electronic shows, you can turn everything off.
So you'll be known as Mr. No TV because that guy with the baseball cap, if he comes near
a TV set, it just goes off.
Something's weird.
All he has to do is look at it.
Yeah.
Wow.
So, OK, tell us something about how...
Is this something that you're going to be publishing in Make Magazine?
They're all online right now.
They are?
Yep.
So just go to tv-b-gon and hacks or mods and you'll find all the articles.
Wow.
Yep.
But you need a TV-B-Gon to do this in the first place.
And the way to get it right now is to call the radio station 212-209-2950.
Had a lot of people calling in so far.
So hopefully there'll be some left by the time you call in.
212-209-2950.
A pledge of $50 gets you probably one of the most amazing toys ever invented that will
cause all kinds of running around and accusing people of various things.
I should also point out that in addition to being a TV-B-Gon, it's also a TV-B-Back because
if a TV is off and you press this button, it will turn it back on, won't it?
Yeah, right.
It's a power button.
And like any remote control, the power button will turn it off or on.
Sometimes it is kind of fun to turn it on, right, when people...
Like usually the only people that are going to turn it on again are people who work at
the establishment where the TV went off.
No one else seems to notice.
But sometimes right about when they're going to just turn the TV on, I turn it on for them.
And that's kind of funny.
Wow.
Or you ask somebody to turn something off and they turn it off and then it comes back
on.
You said, I thought I asked you to turn that off and you get into a whole big thing with
them.
That's if you want to drive them crazy.
It's a good tool for that.
Yeah.
It's a fun way to start conversations.
Mm-hmm.
212-209-2950.
Bernie.
I had a good TV-B-Gon story.
This device is very cathartic.
It sort of gives you a lift.
It's really good for your mental health.
I was walking around Philadelphia several months ago with a friend of mine and she was
having a bad day.
And we passed a storefront.
The store was closed, but they had all these TVs in the window, these big, flat panel TVs
looping the same really annoying ad content.
And I handed the thing to her.
I said, here, just point this at the window and press a button.
And she did.
And it all bleeped off right away.
And she said, oh, I so needed that.
Yes.
It cheered her up completely.
It was great.
You'll make all kinds of friends if you do this wearing your off-the-hook t-shirt, boy,
and reading a copy of Rick's book.
Yeah.
I have a TV-B-Gon.
I bought one from Mitch at Hope, actually, and I had a lot of fun with it as well.
It's a small world, isn't it?
Well, I remember we were walking around in Dayton, Ohio, where they also have TVs.
And people had their big TV sets on in their living rooms as you walk down the street.
And you could just turn them off from the street, from the street.
Driving by, you can do this.
And imagine the kind of reaction.
These people set up these huge TV sets just so their neighbors can know that they have
a big color TV set.
They've been doing it for decades.
And now you can finally fight back.
Or if you really want to drive them nuts, turn it on so that they see it turned on first
thing in the morning when they come down the stairs, and they'll really kind of freak out
when that happens.
212-209-2950.
It's not all evil, though.
We have all kinds of good uses because, as we've mentioned, TV sets, when they're on,
uninvited can be really intrusive.
And I think if you're paying to be someplace, if you're in a restaurant, you should not
have to be a captive audience, whether it's to the company captive audience or just in
general, to anything that is playing there.
You should have a way of fighting back.
And we've done this countless times in restaurants where we turn things off.
It tends to drive the staff crazy a little bit.
And they sort of take attention off what they're supposed to be doing to try and fix the TV
set.
But eventually, they learn that they cannot win.
And they keep the thing off and maybe just move it outside where it belongs.
Yeah.
And sometimes when the staff is watching TV rather than doing their job, you can turn
it off and remind them that there's work to do.
And they have the worst things on, too.
They're watching Oprah and Montel Williams and all this crap in the middle of the day
when they should be making food.
You know, that's what they're supposed to be doing.
Oh, man.
Just the mentality.
It drives the IQ of the room down incredibly.
Emanuel brings up what I wanted to ask about, which is for TV to be on 3.0.
2.0?
No, no.
For 3.0.
Oh, for the next one.
For the next one.
OK.
Can you possibly do it so that one can take control of that TV?
I do my laundry in a laundromat.
And what I get is date my mom on VH1 or, as you say, Dr. Phil and Oprah or, God forbid,
Al Manar TV.
Oh, yeah.
That's really big in the laundromats, isn't it?
You don't know who the laundromat attendants are.
You have a washer-dryer.
So I would love to take control of the machine, not just turn it off, but actually put something
I want to watch on, like Battlestar Galactic or something.
Well, I'm afraid you'll have to invent your own for that because, for me, the power button
is where it's at.
Yeah.
And plus, there are so many combinations.
As Mitch was saying, how many different combinations do you have in your little device there?
Well, I have about 150 codes for the North American version that'll work on all but a
handful of the TVs I've ever come across in the last two years.
And if somebody finds a set that it doesn't work on, should they write to you and tell
you what it is?
Oh, yeah.
Email us.
Info at tvbegone.com.
Yeah.
I'd like to find out.
I'm always looking for improvements.
On your email address, is tvbegone just tvbegone, no spaces, no dashes?
Yeah.
On the email address, tvbegone.com.
If you go to my website, I have mirrors of just about any way you can think of to make
it easy.
All right.
212-209-2950 is our phone number.
Again, we're in the middle of a pledge drive, our autumn pledge drive here at WBAI.
It's our last time on for this pledge drive for this month, and we're offering two very
special premiums tonight.
Mitch Altman is here with his amazing device, tvbegone.
It allows you to turn off any TV set, no matter where you happen to be.
You can get that along with an off-the-hook t-shirt for a pledge of $50 at 212-209-2950,
or you can pledge for the book by Rick Dakin, all about the, I guess, the hacker underground
of one sort or another, called The Geek Mafia.
That also is available for a pledge of $50, 212-209-2950.
Again, you get a t-shirt with that.
If you pledge $100, you'll get both the book, Geek Mafia, and the tvbegone, plus two off-the-hook
t-shirts.
Yeah, I just came from a media activism conference, ACME, Action Coalition for Media Education,
and there were lots and lots of presentations.
I gave one there myself, but it really underscores how corporate-controlled media is pretty much
all we can get in this country, with a few exceptions like WBAI and other community stations
around.
That's why I donate tvbegones to WBAI, so that they can help support themselves, and
I hope you'll help support them, because it's a really valuable thing.
It's a real irony, isn't it, that the corporate media is what's bombarding us all the time.
We're always being surrounded by it.
We can't get away from it.
And here, at the one place where we give you a different perspective, we're offering something
that allows you to turn off that other voice, something that they would never offer.
It's so nice and symmetrical, I think.
Yeah, it works out well.
It gives you, the consumer, more choice.
Now, what else have you been involved in over the years?
Because I know this kind of thing is not the only project that you've embarked upon, is
it?
Well, I was born a geek, so I've been doing geeky things all my life, and I've also done
a lot of volunteer stuff all my life.
I helped start a community station in Urbana, Illinois, of all places, W-E-F-T, and helped
start community center there.
I actually started a queer arts commune in rural Tennessee.
There's a lot of bizarre and varied things.
I've also started a couple of Silicon Valley companies, and I do computer refurbishing.
I get computers for free, fix them up, give them away to nonprofits, keep them out of
landfills, help the nonprofits do their cool work.
Amazing.
How do you find time for it all?
I don't have a television.
There you go.
You see how productive you can be if you just turn the damn thing off?
212-209-2950.
Take the first step.
You've obviously turned your radio on, now take the next step and turn someone else's
TV off for them.
They'll thank you in the end.
They will.
And you do get thanked, as you mentioned.
You get people saying, hey, this is what I needed.
This was great.
This is an unexpected surprise.
We had an instance, Kevin and I were at a road stop at New Jersey Turnpike, and he turned
off a TV set there.
Unfortunately, he was wearing a TV Begone t-shirt at the time, and the truck driver
who was watching Oprah apparently wasn't very happy with that.
So you have to be a little bit subtle in how you do it.
You can turn it right back on, of course.
You can.
You can.
But imagine if you have several people with these things, the kind of chaos you can cause.
It has been known to happen.
AdBusters has sent a bunch of people around during TV Turnoff Week, some culture jammers,
and they organized groups all over the country to go around en masse.
They've gotten some pretty good responses.
Wow.
212-209-2950.
We've had a flurry of calls, and we have a few more open lines, so please take advantage
of this for the next, I guess, about eight minutes or so we'll be offering this.
And then we'll be gone until November.
And boy, that's a long time, isn't it?
Actually, it's only two weeks, but still, a lot can change.
A lot can change, including maybe the House of Representatives.
We'll have to see.
212-209-2950.
We should point out that people pledging helps ensure that we do, in fact, return.
That's right.
That's right.
Well, the CBS station has been here since 1960, surviving only on listener contributions.
And Mitch, I must even surprise you to hear something like that.
Oh, it's great.
It's great.
We're in the middle of New York City, 50,000 watts, Empire State Building, in the middle
of a commercial band.
We've got a lot of good things going for us.
Yeah, and I'm looking at the little monitor, and the number keeps going up.
Yeah, they...
I hope it keeps going up while we're here.
They can't keep up with the calls coming in for both the book and the TV Be Gone.
Again, all available, 212-209-2950.
And for those of you out there that maybe don't even want any of this, well, there's
two possibilities.
You can get something else.
Our Italian people are very well trained as far as what is available there.
Or maybe you just want to pledge for the sake of pledging.
There are people like you out there who do that and realize that the radio station is
the most important commodity out there, and you want to keep it going.
By all means, give us a call, 212-209-2950.
Pledge whatever you can afford.
You can take all sorts of credit cards, or you can send us a check, or whatever you feel
like doing.
But the important thing is to make that phone call, 212-209-2950.
Here's something I didn't know.
You can pay in installments if you want.
Really?
Yeah, it says it right here on this yellow paper.
So if you pledge $10,000 tonight...
You could pay $1,000 for the next 10 months.
Yeah, there you go.
And then be in time for next year.
But seriously, any amount is appreciated, and it all adds up.
On the other hand, if you have $10,000, it would certainly do a lot of good.
Yeah, it would make us kings around here, wouldn't it?
Yeah, they'd have to respect us then.
All right, 212-209-2950.
Yes, Jim?
If you have $10,000 and have not thought of what show to pledge to, please pledge to us.
Yeah, if you're debating, you know, where am I going to put this half a million bucks
that I'm holding in my pocket, burning a hole, why not off the hook?
If you've decided that it goes to WBAI, call 212-209-2950 and say, credit this to off the
hook.
We might even get another hour out of that.
That would be great, a two-hour show.
Wouldn't that be something?
Wouldn't that be something?
You have a million dollars, and we'd like to hear off the hook two hours later.
Only a million dollars, that's all it costs to get us a second hour.
Yeah.
All right.
I thought we didn't sell programming on this stage.
No, we're not.
We're selling a concept here.
All right.
All right?
On the other hand, if you don't have a million dollars, as most of us don't really, any amount
does help.
Well, we all do have a million dollars if you break it up into installments.
You can take out all sorts of loans and things.
I don't know if there's a limit on the number of installments.
We're not saying people should sell their houses and all their possessions just to support
the radio station, but it wouldn't be the worst thing you could do with that money.
If you're the leader of a group of one million people, each with one dollar, who plans to
pledge to WBAI, call in now.
And if you're able to intimidate them into doing this, then by all means.
But no, we don't encourage intimidation of any sort.
Your gift is tax deductible.
Or maybe.
We do believe in coercion of a sort.
Yes, it's definitely tax deductible.
And many corporations will match the charitable contribution.
I didn't know that either.
You can learn a lot from this yellow paper.
I didn't even get that yellow paper.
How did you get that?
It's up front.
What are the fun facts around this?
You can use a credit or debit card, Visa, MasterCard, American Express, but no Discover.
Still no Discover, huh?
Oh, no.
And you can request an invoice if you don't use any of those, and then send in a check,
money order, or electronic funds transfer.
Ooh.
Well, there's all sorts of ways of doing this then.
But the only way to get the whole process started is to make that phone call, Country
Code 1, Area Code 212, Exchange 209, Extension 2950.
That translates to 1-212-209-2950.
Please give us a call now.
We have some open lines.
We have about seven calls currently in progress.
Do we have more than seven people down in Talley, I hope?
I wouldn't want to think of them running around going crazy.
They like to go crazy.
They do.
It's much better than just sitting there.
They do, don't they?
There's no TV in there, but if there were, it would surely be turned off, and they need
to do something, and that's answer your phone calls.
Okay.
We have a lot of calls coming in.
We've already exceeded what we did last week, so that's great, and it's a real testament
to our listeners out there.
I want to thank them very much.
Who knows?
They might even put us on again before the end of the marathon.
If they do, it's solely because of your support that made that possible.
212-209-2950.
And you may have forgotten, from the start of the show, we're giving away copies, limited
number, of Geek Mafia, which is a hot new novel from a great friend of this show and
the station, and TV Be Gone, which we've talked about for the last half hour.
All right.
Again, 212-209-2950.
TV Be Gone, Geek Mafia, off-the-hook t-shirts, all sorts of cool things.
Make that call.
See you in November.
Take care.
All right, hey cat.
Hey, you're listening to WBAI New York 99.5 FM.
It is October the 11th, 2006.