And here we are on YouTube for another exciting edition of Overtime.
Of course, we also have to make sure that we successfully made it onto YouTube, because sometimes we don't.
Sometimes it doesn't work. Kyle, I see that you made it to YouTube.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
There you are.
I like it. It's all right.
Alex has just arrived in YouTube land.
Welcome.
Yo!
Rob T. Firefly, waiting for the thumbs up from you to ensure.
Okay, we are on YouTube, and Gila, welcome as well to YouTube land.
Those are not thumbs.
What I'd like to say is for those people calling in, we'd like for new people to call in first.
What happens is, this is the feedback I've been getting, people hear the same people calling in at the top of the hour,
and then another familiar voice comes in after that, and then a third voice, and then they think,
you know what, this is just some kind of a club that I'm not a part of, so I'm not going to call because I feel out of place.
So what I'm asking is that those people should call, but not call right away.
They should call after a brief period of time to allow those new, sometimes shy people to call in and become part of the club.
Not that there is a club, but if there were, they should feel welcome.
Okay, so 802-321-4225 is our phone number, 802-321-HACK.
If you have never called before or if you haven't called for a very long time, give us a call now.
We'd love to hear from you.
We can only take one call at a time, obviously, and if you connect, then you'll be talking to us,
and if someone else is talking to us when you call, you might go to voicemail, and there's nothing we can do about that, unfortunately.
We want to have one phone line where if somebody else calls, we get a busy signal,
but you would not believe how hard it is to do that these days.
No, you have to have a call waiting. You have to forward someplace.
You can't have a busy signal. Oh, my God.
I like busy signals. I really do.
It used to be plain old telephone service.
Got a call, Kyle. Got a call. I don't hear the phone.
What's going on here?
It's not working at all.
It's got features.
What's going on? The phone's not ringing.
I see it on caller ID, but I didn't see it ringing.
All right, well, I picked up.
You picked up? Is there a phone call?
Yeah, talk to him.
All right. No, you see something?
Okay, here's another phone call, and I don't hear the phone ringing.
I'm sorry, folks. It's on our end again.
Okay, there's a person there, I think.
Is somebody there? Somebody on the radio?
I hear myself on the phone.
Well, we're getting phone calls, but they're not going to the phone.
Why is that?
I heard the phone ringing during the show, so something very strange is happening.
Someone's figured out how to call us without ringing the phone.
If you're one of the two people who called in just now,
please call back 802-321-4225.
Kyle has a phone off the hook, so you might bypass the phone.
I'm being as frantic as I can be.
Well, the phone didn't ring.
I saw it on caller ID, so I don't understand how that's even possible.
But those were two new calls.
I could tell.
Okay, there you go.
There you go.
Now, that's a new call, I think.
Good evening. You're on off the wall.
I did it again.
Off the hook overtime.
There is no off the wall overtime.
Yet.
Yeah.
Hello, it's Phillip from Missouri.
How are you guys doing?
Okay, well, you're not a new caller.
But you haven't called in a while.
Yes, you said if you haven't called in a while, and I haven't called in a while.
So I was like, okay.
Of course, we haven't been on the air in a while either.
But you know what?
I'll let it go this time.
But we do want people who have never called before.
Okay, the next person who calls after this semi-regular caller,
please be somebody who hasn't called before.
How about that?
He didn't call.
Yes, for real.
The more people, the better, you know?
Yeah.
In fact, if you could encourage the next person to call,
I think that would carry more weight.
Okay.
He hasn't been on since last year.
Last year was less than two weeks ago.
He hasn't been on this year.
Just let him talk.
It's 11 days old this year.
Okay, you know what?
We're going to stop bickering.
What's on your mind?
Well, it just amazes me how it seems like our congress people
just want to hang out on Twitter and get in these little stupid fights
with one another.
It's so much fun.
It's so much fun hanging out on Twitter and getting into fights
with everybody.
I hear you.
Yeah, but you know, it's so high school, you know?
Oh, my high school was far better than that.
Well, you know, these people are supposed to be out there making laws
and arguing about the laws they're supposed to be making, right?
Making compromises to get them through and all this other stuff.
I mean, it's like this AOC thing with something about her boyfriend's foot.
What?
Or something.
Wait, what?
I haven't heard this at all.
Don't know about it.
Yeah, well, apparently Fox News or something went nuts
because she was photographed down in Florida with her boyfriend
and they went all crazy because he was wearing flip-flops or something.
Is that not allowed?
I don't know.
I just know, well, she's not wearing a mask and she's in Florida
and her boyfriend's wearing flip-flops.
It's all I know.
Okay.
And AOC, somebody else.
I don't know why she went to Florida.
Why would she go to Florida of all places?
But, you know, if you're outside, you don't have to wear a mask.
That's pretty obvious.
We all know that.
So is she getting shamed for that?
Well, yeah, I guess they're trying to catch her on something.
And somebody went on Twitter, I guess.
I don't think it was Green.
I think it was Bover.
Somebody like that just went on Twitter and started talking about it.
And she fought back.
She's like, well, you're just mad because you guys want me.
You think I'm pretty.
You know, just hot school junk.
Oh, Lord.
I mean, I'm serious.
It's just, it's got me so sick.
I mean, I've, my eyesight's gotten so bad now that I'm on disability now.
I had to go on incomplete on my schoolwork.
I've been busting my butt to try to, you know, with the pandemic and hard-finding job.
I figured I'd just try to get a degree in something.
Now I have to put that on hold because of everything that's going on with my health.
And that comes from not being able to afford insulin and stuff I need, you know.
That's crazy that you have to worry about that.
Yeah.
I mean, you got, you got, here's the thing.
I mean, nobody wants to have health care to where people can actually use it.
But yet, you know, you have Apple, you have like a corporation like Apple going on, going on about how to make two trillion or the three trillion.
I can't remember.
It's not three trillion.
Three trillion.
Three trillion.
I remember when they became one trillion.
One trillion was only a couple of years ago and that was a big deal.
You know, it's just, and this shows how when you have lots of money, you make even more.
It's just, it's a snowball effect.
Yeah.
And the thing is, it's like, okay, well, this is, they're making money off stuff we don't need.
You know, nobody needs a cell phone.
Well, some Apple followers would disagree strongly with any product that they put out.
Yeah.
But the point, the point is, is people make this, make this big thing about, well, if we do health care, then people will not want to pay for the health care and all this other stuff.
That's what they sound like.
But you have no problem paying $4,000 for a phone.
Yeah.
And they do sound like that when they talk.
The life cycle, the rate with which they develop new products, it's unnecessary.
They're making enough money because they've done that so many times over and over again, constantly reselling and reselling and improving incrementally.
But if they waited just a little bit longer, made these things more desirable, had the features actually be evolutionary, it might be a slower, less profitable in the short term.
But they just want to keep repeating this life cycle and keeping people in a frenzy of never having anything that they're really on for an appreciable amount.
Well, keep in mind, they're not just developing a new product, but they're also making sure their old product is something nobody wants anymore so that you have to buy 19 different iPhones in your lifetime.
You think about old technology and how things would last for a long period of time if forming the same basic function.
Yeah, it's great to have new features and things added on, but to make the old product garbage within a space of months, it's clear that they know exactly what they're doing and they're just milking those for maximum profit.
Well, it's corporate communism, too, because the way everything's gone digital and everything, ownership is just a thing of the past.
They don't want you to own anything.
They just want you to keep paying them money for the honor of being able to watch a crappy sci-fi series on HBO Max or like The Matrix.
I don't know if you've seen The Matrix.
The new Matrix? No, I haven't seen that.
Have you seen the new Matrix yet?
No, I have not.
We have not, no.
I'm just trying to figure out the last one.
Yeah, the old Matrix we're still working our way out of.
Well, they set it up in a second movie where they said the Matrix reboots every so often anyway.
It's like with Marvel and the multiverse now.
All they've got to do is just snap their fingers and say, oh, well, that didn't work, so multiverse and we'll just start it over.
They can't really lose because they can just throw ideas against the wall and see whatever sticks.
And if it doesn't stick, well, The Matrix says it reboots every so often, so we'll just reboot it again.
Reboot the entire franchise, yes.
Yeah, that's what they try to do with the newest movies.
Actually, the beginning of it, it actually goes into how Warner Bros. is forcing them to do a Matrix sequel.
They actually say this in the movie.
They say, well, Warner Bros. said if we don't do the sequel, they're going to do it anyway.
I mean, it's just...
That's just wrong.
Treat us like we're idiots.
And they try to say, well, we're just trying to be edgy and really deep.
No, you're not.
You're there telling us that you're just screwing with us to get more money.
If you want to be edgy, how about coming up with a new idea, not just rebooting an old idea over and over again?
I would have been fine if they would have recast everybody.
Had a new Neo and everything, instead of having a 60-year-old Keanu Reeves go there and half-ass everything.
Why not tell a different story from The Matrix?
I mean, Neo's not the only guy in there.
What about some other person?
Yep.
How about Otto?
What's he up to?
I don't know.
There's got to be a different story.
Rob, go ahead.
I don't know how much this will light up our phone lines, but I saw The New Matrix and I liked it.
So, I'll just leave it at that.
Well, the beginning is actually a best-of episode from TV, where they're actually showing clips from the other movie saying,
Remember this?
And they cut away to a clip from the other movie.
Wow.
A best-of Matrix.
They do do that.
They do do that, but it's in a weird, metafictional way.
And the themes of the movie actually re-examine what it means to reboot something or consume something and want more of it and be nostalgic for it.
I thought it was clever.
Not everyone did, but I was a fan of the old trilogy and I enjoyed this one.
And Gila was a very good sport for going with me, even though she is not into any of it.
He's got a point, yeah.
I am a good sport.
All right, Caller, anything else you want to say to us besides encouraging the next caller to call in?
I'm kind of mad.
I had to put my life on hold because of the health thing, and I don't think we can do much better.
Yeah, we certainly can.
Do you have health insurance?
I sort of now, but that's from Medicaid or whatever, because of the disability.
Well, you have to work with what you've got and don't let it get you down.
Basically, your health is the most important thing.
So regardless of what someone tells you something costs, if it's important, you do it,
and you worry about that later or not at all because you have the right to be healthy.
Yeah.
I just wish that these stupid politicians would quit acting like children on Twitter and stuff
and just actually tend to their jobs.
That would be nice.
Josh Howley out here, he's got the most absentee votes of anybody in the Senate.
Yeah.
And the biggest thing he complains about is book deals and, oh, they're going to cancel such and such
or something like that or CRT or whatever the buzzword is today.
I don't know.
It's criminal what they do.
And, you know, right now trying to get the filibuster to be dispensed with
or to at least change the rules so that we can have something as basic as voter rights pass in the Senate,
the degree with which that is being opposed shows you exactly how little these people care about their constituents,
about the country in general, about even democracy.
It's sickening.
I mean, it's just I just don't get it.
I don't get how the more money you get, the better off you have it in this world.
And then you basically shame other people for not having it.
It's like, well, you know, I have a right to have a Maserati, but you don't.
I mean, even if you had it, let's say you won the lottery and you bought a Ferrari, right?
Would you be able to hang out in the same places that the rich people hang out with the Ferraris?
You wouldn't because they would just look at you like.
Yeah.
You didn't have the money before.
You're not.
You're not the same as this.
They'd be like, you drove it.
You drove it here.
You know, if I can make a suggestion for people who are interested in the effects of money, watch the series Succession.
I think I think that's a that's a lesson right there.
And it's a parallel to what so many people in the one percent are actually like.
And it also proves money does not buy you happiness by any stretch of the imagination.
In fact, it makes you so much more miserable and so much more of a miserable person in so many cases.
Well, I do have one question about parodies, right?
I was like working on a little thing with with kind of Trump.
And I was going to call it Trump, like T-R-U-M-P apostrophe.
I mean, exclamation point D.
OK.
And I'm just being raunchy about it.
It's like every little raunchy thing you can think of.
He and Ted Cruz will be doing like a Mardi Gras go.
And it's like somebody somebody tell me you might get in trouble for that.
But it's like, no, it's a parody.
I can make fun of whoever I want.
You know what?
Even if you get in trouble with it, which I doubt you will, it's worth it.
And the publicity you get will easily counter any trouble you do get into.
Yeah.
I just got to be able to see the screen to do half of this.
It's just I got I got all kinds of stories running through my mind.
It's just driving me nuts.
I can't just put it down unless I'm like pushing a microphone button on the stupid iPad.
And they just don't take the notes right.
OK, go ahead, Rob.
The thing about parody caller is as long as you're using it and this is in the United States,
as someone who's who's a media creator and a parodist and a comic and stuff like that,
I've I've been very close to this.
You're you're basically protected by fair use if you're making critical commentary on something such as a public figure.
And Trump and the rest of them are definitely public figures.
So as long as you are you are not trying to pose as the actual Trump for like some sort of fraudulent purpose.
And it's obvious that you're you're making fun of them and and such.
You know, obviously, I'm not a lawyer. I'm not your lawyer.
My advice as an artist is, yeah, you're probably fine.
You just want to research fair use and parody and how they relate to one to one another and how they protect creative people.
Well, I got it. I got like running around in a in a broken down limo that he has to rent.
Waving at squirrels, not realizing there's nobody out there really to wave to.
That's funny. And stuff with the president that he got from Putin inside the inside, inside the limo.
So if you can think of a city broken down limo from the 80s,
running around with Trump, just doing the nastiest stuff you can think of with Putin as giving him a president backseat.
Hang on a second. You said even that squirrels and squirrels gone.
I don't know what's going on. You said this is a parody.
It sounds like a documentary. You sure?
I think I'm thinking I'm becoming a prophet on this.
I could swear I've seen this play out. Alex, did you have something?
Yeah, I think I think Rob's right on point going through various points.
I think Rob's right on point with respect to the fair use doctrine.
Any kind of criticism, critique, parody, satire is generally going to be protected if it's a public figure.
But definitely consult your own attorney, your local attorney, if you've got some.
Yeah, but I don't think people need to get attorneys in order to engage in parody.
I think that pretty much closes it off to most people, if you say that.
Don't ever hesitate to reach out directly to any of us, to me included, and happy to have an offline chat.
In any event, I reserve judgment on The Matrix because I haven't seen it.
But to go back to the caller's original point, I entirely agree with him.
I think that Twitter is certainly the wrong forum for real political dialogue.
What's happening there is childish.
And as I've been saying on this show for many years now, it's absolutely goddamn frightening to me that Twitter is used as a forum for dialogue between national leaders, between leaders of hostile nations, between leaders of nations that are nuclear powers, insulting each other.
Going back to Trump, it was absolutely terrifying when we saw dialogue between North Korea and the United States on goddamn Twitter.
It is not what this was designed for.
It is limited.
It is propelled by outrage and amplification by others, where truth is determined by who gets the most applause and who's the most outrageous, not by the validity of any individual statement.
So I entirely agree with the caller and his sentiment.
And both he and I are sick of it.
Yeah, it gives way too much power to the companies that are conveying that stuff.
And they're not as critical.
Like, yeah, maybe the internet itself is the sort of infrastructure that we depend on.
But these internet companies are not that—it's not that serious.
They should not be the forum necessarily where official business for states or counties or nations negotiate and do diplomacy and deals and policy arrangements.
It's not the place.
It's a terrible, terrible place to do it.
It gives companies way too much power.
And then they in turn become more focused on profits and deliver products that are subpar, that don't have the interests of their users and makes a sort of digital feudalism, a sort of they're the royalty and we're all playing whatever game they arrange for their enjoyment and profit.
It should be made clear, too, that Twitter is not a trusted source for official announcements and news and political statements and things like that.
Which is why I believe that as many Twitter accounts as possible should be hacked just to prove that, just to show that, you know what, did Kim Jong-un say this?
Or maybe it was some hacker somewhere said this.
Who knows?
We can't take it seriously.
And that way, you know, you don't have these Twitter wars.
You realize, hey, it's only Twitter.
You know?
And let's wait for a press conference or something more official before we take something that seriously.
Anyway, Caller, thank you for calling in.
We want to open it up to somebody new.
One last comment and then we're going to open up the phone line again.
Well, yeah, well, the politicians use it as free advertising anyway.
And that's what they're really upset about.
That's why they don't really go to these other sites like Gitter or whatever.
What's that one?
There's a lot of them.
Yeah, there's a lot of them now.
Or they'll show up on somebody's podcast on YouTube or something like that.
It's free advertising for them.
Yes, absolutely.
And because these other places don't reach out as much as Twitter and Facebook does, they raise cane about it.
They don't care about the other accounts.
They just care about the ones that get them the most views.
That's very true.
Anyway, thanks again for your call.
Good luck with all the challenges.
You'll get through it, though.
I hope so.
All right.
It's terrible.
It is.
You have a good one.
All right.
You take care.
And our phone number, 802-321-4225.
We saw a couple of calls coming in on call waiting.
I saw a call from California come in.
And it went away because, well, it had nowhere to go.
But we need a new caller to call in, somebody who has not called before.
We want to hear from new people.
802-321-HACK.
802-321-4225 is our telephone number.
While we're waiting, just on the subject of tweets being official presidential statements
and stuff, as I think was ground into the public view by the previous president, I remember
wondering during all that, what if previous forms of social media drama were considered
official business?
Like, what if Bill Clinton was on IRC in the 90s in like Pound 2600 trying to get his
official statements out among people shouting at each other and slapping each other with
fish?
It's the same thing.
That would be hilarious parody.
That would be great.
You should put that together.
Or he wants likes on his saxophone video on YouTube.
I see some of these conversations on Twitter, these back and forth.
I realize I've been here before.
This is IRC in the 1990s.
Except now, they're leading countries and determining policy, but they're the same immature
idiots.
And they might be the same immature idiots, too.
That's the really scary part.
This is the epoch.
This is where we have the most powerful technology.
This is what we're using these incredibly advanced computers for to talk trash and do
all the stuff that we had many other outmoded forms to use to communicate the very same
cruddy stuff.
Like, it's just not worth it.
Okay.
We got an incoming call, but it's coming from Bulgaria.
So, the odds of a second caller from Bulgaria are very slim.
So, I know it's Bobson, but we're not going to pick up this time because we want a new
caller to call in.
If we don't get a new caller in the next 10 minutes, then we'll open up to old callers,
and then we would love to hear from Bobson and others.
Yeah, we have caller ID.
We can tell, even from Bulgaria, that the same people are calling.
But we need new people.
We want to know that there's other people out there.
Now, I know you might be shy.
You've never talked on the radio before.
Well, it's not really radio.
It's just YouTube right now.
Sure, it'll be saved in our archives for all time, and 100 years from now, you'll be able
to go there and hear your voice.
But that's nothing to get nervous about because we do this every week, and after a while,
it just becomes normal.
So, please, give us a call.
Show us that there are new people out there, and then we can hear from the regular callers
afterwards.
802-321-4225, 802-321-HAC.
That is our phone number.
Maybe somebody else can implore new people to call in.
I don't seem to be convincing anyone.
Yeah, you mentioned shy people, and we appreciate shy people.
Some of us on this program, I won't name names, but off the air are shy people.
Indeed.
And, you know, however intimidating it might be, we want to hear from you.
We love hearing from you.
It's why we're doing this all over time, why we've done it since the initial lockdown,
when we couldn't take your phone calls live anymore.
It's a part of the actual radio show we miss very much, and we hope we can bring it back
soon.
But until then, this is The Next Best Thing.
So give us a call at 802-321-4225.
That's 802-321-HAC.
Or in the U.S., you could use toll-free phone number 833-755-2600.
And tell us what's on your mind.
Join the dialogue.
Be part of what's going on here.
When we're at the radio station, we can get 10 phone calls at once.
Of course, we only pick up one.
But you see the phone lines lighting up with all these callers from all over the place.
So, yeah, you know, it's a memory that we hope to come back to sometime in the near
future.
Right now, this is the best we can do.
And putting it together, wow, I can't believe we were even able to pull this off.
But it's a two-way street, you know?
We want to talk to our listeners and hear things from them.
Guaranteed, if you call us and say something to us, we'll learn something that we didn't
know before.
Right now, I'm learning that we have no new listeners.
No new listeners that want to call us.
Yeah, maximum three questions, we'll learn something new.
Probably less than that.
Probably two questions.
All right.
Well, I'll give it another five minutes.
And if we really don't have any new callers in five minutes, then I'll say, okay, open
up the floodgates.
But I don't want to be predictable.
I'm looking at our YouTube right now, and there are 32 people watching the stream.
So, you know, that's a lot of people out there that are just listening and not talking
with us.
Right.
That's 31 people.
I will say that, you know, we're obviously not going to call in.
No, we're not going to call in.
We're not going to call in.
But the 31 other people are more than welcome to.
I don't understand why it's only 31.
It should be much higher than that.
I know a lot of people listen to it over the week, but I guess listening live is something
that...
See, on the radio, it's different, because you get people that are driving in their cars.
And this is why we want to be on the radio more than anything, because radio is magic.
You can't see how many or how few people are actually out there.
But YouTube, for all its pomp and circumstance, doesn't carry the same weight.
Yeah.
And if you're viral, you know, if you post a picture of a kitten flying an airplane,
yeah, okay, you'll get a million views.
But most people, they don't feel that at all.
Radio is magic.
And that's why we are continually drawn to it.
And we don't have a YouTube channel so that we can have just thousands upon thousands
of subscribers adding up week after week after week after week.
That is not exactly what we're striving for.
We don't tell people to subscribe.
Make sure you subscribe.
Don't forget to click over here.
Wow, it's so damn annoying.
It would be a totally different kind of show if all we wanted to do was get more and more
and more and more and more people.
It's about the likes, Kyle.
We want people to be there, yeah.
We want you to maybe even call right now or just when you get around to it,
catching up with how things evolved, you know, what direction the conversation took.
That's what's cool about this.
It's not just about having passive people out there.
That's kind of what I was alluding to with the way we're using phones.
These services, these things that, as was said, like the caller said,
you never really own it.
It's just you're a continuing subscriber.
You're just paying for it and only on their terms.
You don't get to modify it.
You don't get to customize it.
You're just one account of many on their system.
That's not high technology.
These politicians, these celebrities, people out there, they think this is it.
This is the epoch.
This is what I'm doing with information technology.
The height of human evolution is talking trash on a social media service.
Like, get real.
That is not intelligent at all.
You're a sucker.
You're just one of many.
The same thing for decades.
Before this, it was IRC.
Before that, it was CB radio.
I just think there's always been this least common denominator outlet for
people to waste their time on.
Yeah.
When I saw games with in-app purchases, that was like the first use of color
screens on phones that is just blatantly there to take people's money and divert
their attention from thinking about anything that matters.
I know there's circumstances where you want to mindlessly do things.
There are plenty of game systems and other ways to mindlessly do things.
Or just observe society.
But no, you have to have earphones and eye covers and augmented everything.
Yeah.
That's it.
That's you being as intelligent and evolved as humanity could ever hope.
Okay.
It's 830, and we're going to open up the phone lines to everybody now.
We have no new listeners, apparently.
We have shy new listeners.
Anybody can call now, including Bobson from Bulgaria.
802-321-4225.
802-321-HACK.
Just tell me something you do on your processors that isn't a waste of time
and isn't ostensibly survival, like just working.
Do something else.
Everything hackers do is a waste of time in the eyes of the mainstream.
But what curious things.
What are you evolving?
I looked up a game that I really liked, and people are still developing it.
All right.
Yeah, answer this call.
I'm still ranting, though.
Go ahead and rant.
I reserve my rant.
Rant in the other room.
We have a phone call.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook Overtime.
Hi, gang.
Tim from Connecticut.
How are you doing?
Hi, Tim.
Actually, you haven't called in a while, so you kind of qualify as a non-regular.
Well, I also stayed back because you were looking for new people.
Yeah.
Out of curiosity, why not just enable the chat on the YouTube channel?
Then we'd have to look at that, too.
That would be a floodgate.
You'd have somebody moderate it.
And who's that going to be?
You'd have other people putting in their comments that might not want to speak on the telephone.
But it's a call-in show.
That's the whole point.
That's true.
Getting back to another thing that you were talking about, the spoofing emails.
Yeah.
I get them from Amazon all the time.
Oh, yeah.
I forward my stuff over to stop-spoofing at Amazon.com.
Oh, they have an email address for this.
I try to do the same thing for each company that I get a spoof email from.
Do they all have something for you to send such an email to?
So far, I've been pretty successful in finding the fraud department email for that.
I just Google spam email and then whatever it was, Chase Bank or Amazon.
And then just forward it off.
Because, I mean, if they have the audacity to try and spoof me and, yeah, okay,
I'll take the one or two or three minutes it takes to forward it off to Amazon, et cetera.
I mean, they always give me an acknowledgment email back, you know,
thank you very much for letting us know, and then it falls off the face of the earth.
So there's some poor person at Amazon whose job it is to go through all the spam
that is sent to you in their name or anybody.
Yes, I'm sure there must be.
It doesn't take much time.
But, yeah, it's that person's job.
And the more important thing is it's not your job.
It's not your job.
And you take a little bit to divert it.
I'll pull one up real quick.
Yeah.
And it says, thank you for writing to Amazon.com for bringing this to our attention.
Your message has been forwarded to our security department.
We will investigate the situation.
Please note that you may not receive a personal response.
In all likelihood, the message you received was not sent to you by Amazon.com.
We strongly advise that you not send any information about yourself back to this individual,
especially your credit card number or any personal information.
Yeah, I can hardly wait until something like that where words like that are part of a spam email.
You know that's going to happen.
Someone's going to send that out saying, we understand that you got fake email.
Please give us your information so that we can stop it.
Yeah, and then it's sincerely Amazon.com.
Okay.
Yeah, don't expect a human response because you don't get those anymore.
No, not at all.
But, I mean, it's something.
Mm-hmm.
All right.
Well, good on you for doing that.
That's important.
Alex, did you have something?
Yeah, I have a sort of long-winded anecdote about this issue of sending messages to messages.
So, when I used to live in D.C. a long time ago, it had to be like 2002 or 2003 or something.
I was working for the U.S. Army JAG at the time.
And I was living in this weird residential building that was in Roslyn, Virginia, right over the key bridge.
And we used to get these memos from the management that had all of this flowery language, this orchidaceous prose written into it.
It sounded like it was written by a British lord in the 18th century or something like that.
But they were memos that would be slipped under your door.
And so, one of them warned about Fourth of July parties on the roof.
So, we had apparently, you know, we had this nice view of D.C.
And so, you could see the Fourth of July fireworks very well.
And the manager in this memo had said that, you know, there were going to be police stationed around the building this year.
And this was due to the antics of the—and I remember this specifically—the, quote, overstimulated revelers, quote, on the roof last year.
And so, you know, everyone was very upset about this memo coming around and whatnot.
And I remember reading this over and over again.
And that was just, you know, one example of the prose that was throughout this entire memo.
Hang on, hang on, hang on, Alex.
Something doesn't add up here.
They have police stationed to monitor your roof?
I mean, that seems overkill.
On the Fourth of July?
What kind of pull does this manager have?
That's exactly my point.
I mean, it was totally overkill and crazy.
And I don't think there were any police that were out there whatsoever.
So, to that point, one of the nice things the building used to do in the morning was they would put out a complimentary coffee thing in the lobby.
But it being D.C., people would get up so goddamn early that by the time I would get up and go to the lobby, all of the complimentary coffee was gone, completely gone.
So I got really angry about that.
And I took the letterhead of the building and I recreated it and I wrote my own memo in the language of the management board about the complimentary coffee.
I remember how it went.
You know, it has recently come to the attention of management that certain malicious residents have been misappropriating the complimentary coffee.
You know, this is a clear violation of the building's name, residential code, Article 10, Section 1029.
That would constitute waste and misuse, subjecting you to fines up to and including eviction from the building.
And then I went on to say that we had installed, excuse me, covert surveillance cameras to deter and or detect whoever was misappropriating complimentary coffee.
And you would be brought up on charges under the building's residential code if you were seen to be doing this.
And then at the end of it, I just said, you know, thank you for your attention.
You know, hope you enjoy the coffee, exclamation point.
So the memo, I posted the memo behind where the coffee stand was surreptitiously one morning.
And it was there for about five days.
Nobody took this memo down.
And people stopped taking big, oh, the other thing I mentioned was that people were taking travel mugs, like, you know, filling up their travel mugs.
I mentioned that in the memo.
People stopped doing that.
And I was able to get coffee in the morning.
So the memo had the intended effect.
But it really pissed off the management board of the company, of the building, because they then wrote another memo to everybody that they then distributed under all of their doors about the childish and asinine prank that somebody had played by posting a memo under the door.
You know, and, you know, please take heed.
You know, we will never post a memo.
We will always distribute a flyer under each and every resident's door and whatnot.
It went on and on.
Yeah.
Why didn't you do that?
Why did you slide under everybody's door?
That's the appropriate way to send a fake memo.
Yeah, exactly.
I know.
Can I ask something, Alex, though?
You cited a code.
Was that an actual code or did you just make that code up?
Oh, I completely made it up.
But it was believable that something like that would exist, given the language that was constantly used in these memoranda that were being passed around.
You know, at Stony Brook, my college, some friends of mine and I—
I'm going to drop off, guys, so if anybody else can call in.
Okay.
Good talking to you.
And I saw we got a call from Alabama.
So whoever called from Alabama, call back.
We want to hear your perspective.
But at Stony Brook, we engaged in many false memos, including one that involved a curfew being re-implemented from the 1960s.
And this was, I think, in the 1980s.
We re-implemented it, saying that people had to be inside by 10 o'clock.
And this made it so incredibly inconvenient that the university had to come out with a retraction saying, no, there is no curfew.
But we cited basically the previous curfew name or number.
And when they refuted it, they also cited that.
So we created a curfew that had never existed.
And the university was referring to that nonexistent curfew.
So you can have so much fun by sending out—I don't know if you can still do it.
If it's considered terrorism now, it might be.
But you can have so much fun just messing with people's minds in various ways.
Oh, no doubt.
And, you know, my great regret, one of my great regrets in life is that I didn't respond to the responsive memo with another responsive memo calling, you know, the fact that, you know, it called the real memo childish and asinine.
That itself was the real childish and asinine thing.
And that, you know, we will always post memos.
We're not going to distribute them.
If it's ever distributed under your door, it's absolutely fake.
You know, and just go on a memo.
That was my great regret that I didn't respond.
Well, it deteriorates quickly at that point.
But, hey, we have another phone call.
I think this phone call is from West Virginia.
Is that true, caller?
Yes, it is.
Wow.
Welcome.
How are you doing?
This is the first time I've called.
There you go.
Pardon me?
Yeah, our new caller.
We've been waiting for a new caller.
So thank you for calling.
Yes, I've been reading your magazine 2600 for quite a long time, and I'm glad you have this show.
Thank you.
And there's an airport here in town that's on a mountaintop.
And last week I was walking, taking a walk, and I saw this E-2 radar plane fly through.
And I thought they were supposed to be, like, stateside.
I mean, along the coast, along the coast.
Uh-huh.
And this is, like, the fourth time I've seen it fly into the airport.
And I'm thinking, what's going on here, you know?
Wow.
I'm just curious about, like, the NSA and that kind of thing.
Well, first of all—
You know, we have the—go ahead.
Is there a reason why you'd only expect to see those along the coastline?
Well, we're not all—West Virginia's not along the coast.
Right.
But I don't know.
I'm just kind of curious about it.
Is the plane—
Anyway.
The type you're talking about have, like, a big disc on top?
Yes, it does.
Yeah.
So it's pretty far inland, but there could be some kind of training.
There could be some kind of maneuver because of stuff we're not—we don't have sensors
and we're not being alerted to because it's not necessarily our job.
What I'm trying to find is, why is it surprising that it's so far inland?
Why is that unusual?
Well, I mean, I thought they were supposed to just survey, like, the coastline.
That's what I was under the impression.
But, I mean—
Well, I think the advantage—it can fill in where there is not a fixed location for radar
that is pointed maybe over the Atlantic or further, and so they may be filling in.
They may be training.
It depends on whose equipment it is and what exactly their mission is that day.
But that's interesting, just a difference you've noted.
But there have been a lot of things going on with aerospace at every altitude.
So it doesn't surprise me there's wild stuff going on in the air.
How many times have you seen this plane?
Four times in the last year.
In fact, about four years ago, down in Sugar Grove—I don't know if you're familiar with that.
The NSA had a listening station down there, and they closed it up.
They still have some parts to it that are kind of off the radar, so to speak,
and it's in the National Radio Quiet Zone down there.
And that's where they have the Green Bank Telescope down there.
Okay.
Yeah, I'm familiar.
I've read a little bit anecdotally some stories about that.
There's also people with radio sensitivities, I think, that live out there,
people that are sensitive or feel that they have health vulnerabilities.
So I've read a little bit about that quiet zone.
I know about it, and it is very interesting stuff that you're noticing,
and it's great to hear different anecdotes about.
Why didn't we visit that when we were driving through West Virginia a few months ago?
We should have.
That would have been fun.
It would have been really cool.
There's some interesting stuff, but it's basically there's not a lot of RF noise there.
Caller, have you ever been to Morgantown?
Yes.
We were there recently.
It's a pretty cool place.
Yeah, yeah.
That's where WVU is located?
Yes.
And they have those personal transportation devices.
It's the biggest system in the world.
Wow.
Yeah.
We learned that.
We haven't been very much, but we're exploring.
We're venturing down into West Virginia more.
We've been there, I think, on other trips,
but we're learning more and more about it,
and there's a lot of research, defense stuff,
university there, health and high technology.
So it's a lot more than people think about the stereotypes and so forth,
maybe preceding what life's like there.
So thanks for sharing.
Yes.
I'm originally from Columbus, Ohio, but I've been living here.
I had a job.
My background is in mainframe computing.
Oh, wow.
I retired from IBM, and so that's all.
I didn't start working for IBM until, like, later on in my career.
Did you work with punch cards?
Oh, yes.
Back in 1970.
That's awesome.
That really is.
You should write an article for 2600 about this,
because people are fascinated by this kind of stuff.
Yes, I could.
Well, let me tell you this.
I used to work for Honda in Marysville, Ohio,
and I got a picture of their very first computer that I got to dig it up,
and I was going to send it to you guys.
It's their very first computer using floppy disks.
It stored all their company information and everything on it.
Wow.
Yeah, definitely send that to us, please.
We'd love to see that.
Yeah.
These are the building blocks of now what all these companies do just all the time
in machines and on their virtual platforms.
It's the beginnings, and we love archiving.
We love getting examples of that, so please do if you get the chance.
Also, what was the name of the quiet zone you mentioned?
It was Sugar Grove?
Yeah, Sugar Grove, West Virginia.
Got it.
It's all about the NSA.
They shut it down, like I said, about four years ago,
and they offered the governor of West Virginia that he could have the property
with all the buildings empty, of course, for a dollar, and he turned it down.
Somebody bid on it, put it up for auction, and I think they paid like $11 million
or $4 million, I don't know what it was, for the property.
They still have some listing stations, and you can read up all about the NSA and everything.
They offered it to him for a dollar, and he turned it down.
I can't believe that.
Yeah.
Wow.
Whenever that happens, that should be made known so someone else can offer $2
and get the thing if he doesn't want it.
That's fascinating.
Right.
By the way, speaking of the governor, we heard he has COVID and is not doing well.
We heard that today.
Yes.
Fingers crossed for him.
He basically was one of the proponents of getting vaccinated.
He's fully vaccinated.
He's had his booster.
He's 70 years old, and hopefully he'll poo through, but supposedly he wasn't doing too well.
That whole virus stuff is just crazy.
Now, I'm vaccinated, and I know some people, they think, well, there's some kind of a little
transmitter to gather whatever.
I mean, tracker or something like that.
I don't know what's going on.
I mean, well, nobody does really, but you keep coming with all these bearings, and I'm
thinking, what is really going on?
You know what?
To those people who think that there's some kind of transmitter being inserted into you
when you get a vaccine, at some point, the truth is going to come out, and people will
figure out, hey, you're right.
There is a transmitter, and then when that happens, you'll be part of the most massive
lawsuit against the government ever, and you will make out like a bandit.
So it's worth your while to get that shot, because if there is a transmitter there, you're
going to profit handsomely from it.
And if there isn't a transmitter there, you'll get the vaccine.
So it's win-win.
That's how you do it.
That's what we do.
Alex, did you have a question?
No, I did not.
I really enjoyed having a new caller on the air.
Such fascinating stories.
Thank you so much for your time and for calling in.
Yes.
Thank you very much, and please send us those pictures, and write an article, because you
have some fascinating stories, I'll bet.
Okay.
Oh, yeah.
I also worked for the Department of Defense, and I was using Unix at that time.
I worked there for 10 years.
I used some good Unix, and also assembler language at that time, and programmed in that.
So yeah, I had a top-secret clearance on that.
Wow.
You have a bunch of good stories I can tell.
Yeah.
Well, so I guess I'll let you guys go.
All right.
Well, thanks so much for calling, and we hope to hear from you again.
Yes, sure.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Now, how awesome is that?
That is a new caller.
That's how cool it is when you get new callers.
And West Virginia, we were just there.
It's really an interesting place, and I suggest people visit it and learn more about it.
And I see this call from Alabama has been trying several times, so I hope that person
makes it through.
I know there's a delay, but between the time I say that and the time they hear that, so
802-321-4225, we'll see if we get another new caller tonight.
But boy, that was worth it.
That was worth it.
That was so worth it.
Yeah.
And just getting that conversation, I don't know.
And talking about things that are a little wild, but not in someone's right or wrong,
just airing it and seeing what you've been hearing and technically observing.
I'm going to answer this.
Okay.
The first call is Bobson.
The second call is Alabama, so I'm not sure which one this is.
I want to speak to both of them, but if it's Bobson, we'll have a quick conversation.
But just pick up and we'll see what happens.
And good evening.
You are on Off the Hook Overtime.
Good evening, Off the Hook Overtime.
And you do not sound like Alabama.
You sound like Bobson.
Happy New Year 2022.
Yeah, you sound like Bobson.
Happy New Year to you.
And it's good to hear from you.
Yes, I can hear you.
I hear my voice being transmitted across the Atlantic Ocean.
Well, twice, I guess.
That was my headphones that I turned off.
You sound pretty awake tonight.
Is it very lively over there in Bulgaria?
Well, if it is, I haven't been informed yet.
But there's no unusual noise coming from the window or anything like that.
Okay, all right.
To speak of.
Yes, well, watch that cough.
Has 2022 been fairly good over there so far with the Omicron variant and all that?
Well, the numbers are good in terms of, you know, people getting sick and all that stuff.
What I've heard is that it's going to probably reach its peak by the beginning of February.
And then the possibility of a sharp decline.
That's what I've got my fingers crossed for.
Well, it better be sharp.
I don't know anything about epidemiological statistics to predict anything for sure.
But if it's a sharp decline, I'm not going to be disappointed.
Yes, I don't think any of us will be.
Guys, anybody have anything to say to Bobson?
Okay, Alex, it's not going to be another interrogation about Bulgarian groceries, I hope.
Because that lasted 20 minutes last time.
I do have a comment.
All right, a quick comment.
Yes.
For Bobson.
However, the comment is that I have to apologize.
I have not yet made it back to the Bulgarian grocery store in Pennsylvania.
However, I promise to do so this week.
And we'll have a lengthy discourse next week.
Unless the Bulgarian grocery store knows about your impending visit and locks its doors.
I haven't been able to go looking for the cookies that you mentioned.
I tried to figure out what you were talking about, but oh well.
Oh, the trayana.
Yeah, keep an eye out for them.
I think that you'll enjoy them.
They're absolutely fantastic.
I've seen them in the past, so it shouldn't be too hard.
I don't think the two of you can hear each other when you're both talking at the same time.
So, Alex, what were you saying?
I think it was the cookies with the jam in which you were interested.
So, I wish you the best of luck in the search.
And I believe, Alex, you were going to send one of those cookies to all of us so that we could all be on equal footing.
But we have failed to get them.
You know what?
You're absolutely right.
I completely forgot about that.
You completely forgot about that, didn't you?
I did.
Yeah, all right.
Well, I haven't been back to that store, but I will buy five.
No, I guess I only really need a couple.
I only need two more boxes, right?
So, two boxes to send.
Yeah, send it to FedEx Custom Critical.
No, no, no, no, no.
Get a courier.
A courier's faster.
All right.
They're not on bicycle, they're not.
From Pennsylvania?
All right, Bob's on any.
I'll go ahead.
Alex, you had something else?
Oh, no, no.
I'm looking forward to that.
Yes.
Bobson, anything else from you?
Well, I enjoyed hearing the new callers tonight, earlier.
It's really one new caller, but yeah, he was awesome.
Wasn't there more than one?
Well, there's somebody from Alabama that keeps trying to reach us, but other callers keep getting in the way, Bobson.
Yeah, sorry.
I tried to avoid it.
You just dialed too fast.
You're a speed dialer there.
Well, I have a device that remembers numbers dialed and repeats them easily.
Wow.
That's some cyber stuff there.
That's pretty impressive.
Did you see some talks at Congress?
I watched some of them, but I have to go through the recordings now because I didn't watch enough of them.
Yeah, it was a really packed schedule and so many different things to watch, but we did the same.
Well, they had something like three or four consecutive tracks at the same time.
Yeah, but you can see them all now at your leisure.
Does anybody have the URL where listeners can go to see the talks that took place at Congress in Germany?
I think it's still streaming.media.ccc.de.
A lot of dots there, streaming.media.ccc.de.
Or just media.ccc.de.
Okay, all right.
If you have trouble, write to us and we'll help you out.
All right, well, Babson, it's been great hearing from you.
We're running a little low on time, so thanks for calling and best of 2022 to you so far.
And we hope to talk to you again.
Same here.
Have a great night.
You too.
Take care.
And a great 2022 as well.
Yes.
All right, good night.
Bye.
And that's Babson from Bulgaria.
Our phone number, 8023214225.
See, that's the call from Alabama.
But I bet if we pick up, there's nobody there, right?
Because I think it came in on call waiting, or she came in on call waiting.
Yeah.
So if that person trying to call can call again, then you'll make the phone ring and then we can pick up.
It's good to hear Babson, though.
Yeah, it's great to hear Babson.
I know there's stuff going on there.
I was going to ask him what the weather's like, but that seemed a bit idle.
I'd rather have a really meaningful conversation.
There's a lot going on.
Well, it's just good to share.
And that was what was so good about watching some talks is a good refresher.
I'm getting really excited for the HOPE conference, which is going to be more talks, maybe even live talks.
Oh, absolutely live talks.
Yeah, I remember those.
That used to be a thing.
It's an in-person event.
It was a thing, yeah.
And this is the conference that I think we need, we all need.
Alex, you have your finger up.
Rob T. Firefly has his whole hand up, so he wins.
Go ahead, Rob.
Just confirming that the site is media.ccc.de if you want to check out videos from Congress.
Okay, and go ahead, Alex.
Nothing to do with Congress, thankfully.
But very quickly, why don't you try to pick that up?
Yeah, it's a private caller, so it's not necessarily the Alabama caller.
Good evening.
You're on Off the Hook Overtime.
Yes, here we are calling from Disneyland.
Well, not really Disneyland.
This is Rebel, and it's definitely not in Alabama.
No, I'm in California.
Okay, all right.
What's your area code, Rebel?
714.
Okay, that is a California area code.
So obviously, yeah, you can't be making that up.
So, wow.
Are you really in Disneyland?
I was, but it just got so boring that I just, why am I in Anaheim Stadium?
You just realized you're in Anaheim Stadium?
Well, no, I left Disneyland.
That's such a California thing.
But you just said, why am I in Anaheim Stadium?
Like, you just woke up there.
Yeah, because I just left Disneyland, and I'm looking for a place to charge this Tesla,
which I don't know why.
I just thought I'd rent a Tesla.
Rebel is driving a Tesla.
I never thought I'd say that.
That's amazing.
Yeah.
I thought I'd try it, but this is a Model 3,
and it's like a $50,000 car.
And, you know, while it's nice and futuristic and everything,
it gets kind of annoying.
I mean, when the light turns green, it dings.
And to get in, you have to type a card.
This card is a key card that's a RFID card.
To turn it on, you have to tap it by the console,
and it's really annoying.
I've got to find a charging station.
One of those super charging things.
Is there something we can help with?
Yeah, yeah.
Tell us if we can in any way help you find that.
You're probably going to find it.
You'll run into it.
Oh, okay.
Supercharger, Anaheim, California.
Well, I know where it is because I'm at the...
And there's probably icons.
Doesn't the map thing show you in the car?
It's got like...
Yeah, we see the thing with the map.
I mean, it's so complicated.
I mean, not that it's complicated, but it's just...
I mean, really, it's not my car.
It's somebody...
I rented this through Toro, which is...
That's how rentals work.
It's not your car.
You rented it from a private...
No, no, it's not.
This is not...
It's not like that.
It's like rental companies don't rent Teslas.
So you got to go through this thing called Toro.
I don't want to go on the freeway.
No, nobody does.
But wait, what's Toro?
It's like people renting...
I'm asking him.
I'm sorry.
People renting their cars out.
Like the rental company doesn't have a particular car.
Wait, so it's...
Hold on a second.
So it's individual people.
It's like...
Right.
Airbnb.
Airbnb for cars.
Gila said that.
Why would someone rent their Tesla to you?
I mean, I'm not saying you're any worse than anybody else,
but I'm saying why would anybody rent their Tesla to someone, a stranger?
Well, people have rented their Porsches and Lamborghinis out.
Why don't we do this, Kyle?
I don't know.
You want to drive a Porsche.
It's the best way to do it.
Well, we'll find one.
Yeah, I mean, that's one way to do it.
Wow.
Was it expensive, Rebel?
It was like a hundred and something a day, $110 a day.
That's comparable to rental companies.
Not for a Tesla.
No, not for a...
But they don't rent Teslas, so we know that.
All right, where is this charging station?
I'm looking for the supercharger.
What's a supercharger?
I'm talking to you, and I'm looking...
It's like...
You don't know anything about Teslas, do you?
I know nothing about Teslas.
I never said I did.
Rebel, this is why you should have stayed at Disney World.
I think he's still in Disney World.
I think it's electric.
That is one of the rides at Disney Land.
That's what I think this is.
All right.
No, let's go back.
Last week, I was in the Bay Area.
I rented a Nissan Leaf.
That's an electric car, being Nissan.
Now, that's a more nicer...
You know, it's a regular car, and it's regular, you know...
You know, the regular type of a Nissan,
like, I think a Nissan Maxima or something.
But it's electric.
Now, I'll just stop here.
Was that more, like, user-friendly?
Yes.
Okay.
Less unwieldy, more, like, you know...
Right.
Manageable.
You have a regular key fob, and, you know...
Yeah.
It doesn't have this thing in it, and, you know...
I don't even know where the cruise control is.
It's an auto driver thing, and connect, and if you...
I don't want to touch it, because, I mean,
I don't want to mess any of the settings up,
because I'm in somebody's car,
so I don't want to, you know...
Yeah, and also, those ones are kind of fast.
They got, like, all these...
They might have, like, a secret button
that launches you somewhere.
You got to be kind of careful.
I don't think...
I don't think the leaf...
It's not a button, but it's a...
It's a setting that...
The drive setting to sport mode,
and it really accelerates.
I turn that off.
Yeah, turn...
Keep that off.
Yeah, it's...
But you need the juice.
You got to get...
And the superchargers are the high-speed ones, right?
So you just are there for, like, 10 minutes
while you're talking to us, right?
Well, it's a half hour to charge.
Half hour, okay.
But I'm not at the supercharger yet,
and I just stopped to talk.
Stopped to talk.
Now I feel guilty.
An hour for the leaf to charge.
Uh-huh.
From 10% to 90% or 80%,
it takes, like, an hour to charge a leaf,
but from, like, 10% to 80%,
it takes, like, 20, 30, 40 minutes.
What I don't understand
about all these charging stations,
what are people supposed to be doing
while their cars are charging?
Is there some kind of activity for them,
or are they just sitting in their damn car?
Well, they usually put them, like,
near restaurants and shopping centers
and things like that, so...
They're supposed to be liking and subscribing
the Channel 2600 YouTube channel.
Oh, there you go, yeah.
Did you find it yet?
Wait, he stopped to talk to us.
It's our fault.
It's our fault he hasn't found it.
Do you know where he's going?
All right, wait a minute, hold on.
I'm impressed.
All right, wait a minute.
He's doing a...
That's not...
Wait, you suddenly sound muffled.
Are we on speaker?
Is that what's going on?
I think he put a phone down.
Oh.
Yeah, because I'm looking for the...
He's navigating it.
Okay, now we're on an unknown level, you know?
Now we're doing this.
This is how horror movies start.
See, that's the thing.
I would do it on the Bluetooth,
but the Bluetooth doesn't...
It was working, but then...
For some reason, it stopped working.
It'll do that.
So right now, we're in a cup holder.
Right.
Now, I don't...
Well, you're not in a cup holder now.
I'm holding the phone,
which I'm...
You know, I hope that...
I know I'm sure that...
California...
Yeah, that might not be legal, Rebel.
You might get in trouble.
It's not legal.
Yeah.
You're going to get arrested for talking to us.
But then we can talk to us from jail.
That'd be kind of interesting, too.
Well, no, you just get a ticket.
You know how California is with their tickets.
You know, they really, you know...
Yeah, but they tell you to hang up the phone
when they're giving you a ticket,
and you won't do that,
so then you'll get arrested.
He called us for help.
We're supposed to be helping him find a tourist.
Well, that was his mistake, wasn't it?
Calling us for help?
Really?
I like the survey.
I like these surveying different things,
checking out all this new stuff,
and I guess...
Okay.
Well, now I've got to make a right.
I go, well, it's good that you did this
back in the 90s.
You know, you called in
when you were in different places, and...
No, you're right.
I've got good memory.
I did call in
while I was driving around California.
I remember that.
Mm-hmm.
There was one show
where my voice changed
while I was talking on a cell phone,
and it didn't sound like me,
and nobody believed it was me.
Oh.
That was really weird
because I couldn't hear the difference,
obviously,
but everybody else could,
and when I listened to it,
I didn't believe it was me either.
Well, I wanted to make this a green trip,
so, you know,
that's why I wanted a...
It's pretty green.
Yeah, you sound like
you're going out of your way
to make the choices
that would, you know,
produce less carbon.
Right.
You know, I have not emitted
any greenhouse gases
since I've, you know, come here.
Well, I'm not sure I believe that.
Yeah, I don't know about that, Rebel.
Well, listen,
we want to wish you well.
Yeah, no gasoline fumes.
We want to wish you well
in your travels.
Oh, boy.
See, this is where it gets complicated.
Uh-huh.
Okay, well, we have every confidence
you're going to find
a supercharging station
and get everything you need.
Are you going to be back in New York
in the next week or two?
I'm coming back to New York City
on Friday.
Okay, great.
So, maybe you'll call us
locally next week.
You can tell us all about the Tesla.
Yeah, next week.
All right, sounds good.
Safe travels,
and, yeah,
sorry Disneyland
was a disappointment.
I'm glad it was,
because...
Yeah, the one in Florida
was so much better.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, that's Disney World,
and that's the whole state.
Right, yeah,
that's where I went
a couple months ago.
It's so much more exciting.
All right, Rebel,
thanks for calling,
and best of luck.
Okay.
All right, be well.
Bye.
Have fun.
Wow.
I wasn't expecting that.
I was not expecting that.
You know what?
We're going to give it
another few minutes.
A person from Alabama
was trying.
We'll see if they ever get through.
We'll give it another,
like, three minutes or so,
and if they do,
we'll pick it up,
and if not,
we'll do something next week.
Go ahead, Alex.
I think it's been
a really great overtime.
This one has been
a lot of fun.
It has been.
Having new callers,
and then some old callers
come in,
and I heard from
an anonymous listener
that,
and this, I think,
is a testament
to the power
of taking phone calls,
is that overtime
is becoming
more interesting
and entertaining
than off the hook.
Wow.
Is that your opinion, Alex?
Yeah.
It's such a fraudulent call.
You got to pick this up, Kyle.
You got to pick this up.
On the screen,
the call from Alabama
says fraudulent call.
Is this a fraudulent call?
Hey.
That's what your call says.
It says fraudulent call.
How did you do that?
I feel like I've been
war dialing.
It's a Singapore number.
You're calling from Singapore,
not Alabama.
Well, yeah, yeah.
Wait.
I don't know what the
prefix is.
What is the country code
for Singapore?
Plus six five.
Okay.
What was showing up
was six five nine,
which is an area code
in Alabama,
so that's why we thought
it was Alabama.
But, wow,
it says fraudulent call
for a call from Singapore.
That's what our phone company
thinks of your country.
That explains why
a lot of people
aren't picking up my calls.
That is what it says
by default.
That's so insulting.
Anyway,
what's on your mind tonight?
Well, I was just asking
to call you up
to see whether or not
you can provide me
with your mother's maiden name.
First time caller.
Been listening for years.
Missing Oscars
all night deli.
Oh, my God.
You really haven't
listening for years.
I know, right?
It was pretty bad.
But, no,
I just call up,
say hi,
but also kind of
a topical thing
that's happening
at the moment.
So I live in Singapore,
but I'm kind of
stopping with friends
in the UK at the moment
for Christmas and whatnot.
Obviously,
our premier,
Boris Johnson,
is currently going through
some trials and tribulations
as long as you've been following us.
But it's interesting
that arguably
probably the most surveilled
place in the UK
is his residence.
And it's interesting
to see whether or not
the police authorities
now have enough evidence
given all that CCTV
that exists in that area
as to whether or not
they can now investigate
if he was
at a wine and cheese party
or not.
Oh, I'm sure they can.
I'm sure they can.
Because they were saying
a couple of weeks ago
that there wasn't
enough evidence
to investigate.
But I'm sure
there's probably
enough body of evidence
now with all the
surveillance in that area
to,
surely,
to be able to
find out whether or not
the blond-haired,
floppy
individual was present
or not.
Well, between CCTV
and all the surveillance
that a prime minister
would get normally,
I think they can
account for
every movement.
I heard today
there was
some footage of him
with wine glasses
next to him
and a cheese board.
So I think they
got all the evidence
they need.
Yeah, I think so.
I think so, right?
So I think I'll just
come down to a question
of whether or not
he's...
There used to be
a saying that
people would have
a suit made of Teflon.
Feels like
Boris is a bit like
that at the moment.
I'm amazed that
he's had about
four or five different
things
recently
that he's managed to
evade.
But we'll see.
So watch this space,
I guess.
What's interesting
about this
is that
Boris Johnson
is a member
of a rather
conservative party,
obviously,
in England,
in the UK,
and members
of his own party
are calling for him
to resign.
Now contrast that
to what happens
in this country
where it doesn't matter
what somebody does
in a particular party,
they will never
call for that.
They will continue
to back them up,
no matter how unreasonable,
how crazy they get.
So even though I don't
like Boris Johnson,
it's kind of interesting
that they have
that much integrity
that they're saying,
you know what,
you're out of here
because you weren't honest
and you didn't live up
to your responsibilities.
Well, it's an interesting
thing, Emanuel,
that prior to his
kind of
involvement
in higher politics,
if you want to call that,
he was
a journalist
for the press,
but he was also
a fairly regular
host of a TV show
called Have I Got News
for You,
which I don't know
if you're familiar with it,
but it's a satirical
panel show
that kind of
reviews and berates
politics largely.
So he went
in a relatively
brief period of time
from hosting that show
to then
becoming,
I think he was
foreign minister
and then before
you know it,
after a number
of resignations,
he's prime minister.
So it's kind of
a strange trajectory
for a premier.
But I hear
what you're saying.
It's an interesting
situation that you
have over your part
of the world
where
I'm surprised
that there isn't
more of a
culture of people
kind of calling
for politicians
to stand down.
Why is that,
do you think?
Is that just not
in the
kind of DNA
of the politics
in the U.S.?
Well it didn't used to be
and I think
when you have
cult mentality,
which I honestly believe
this is,
it doesn't matter
what the facts
point out.
It doesn't matter
what the actions
of the person
you're following are.
They will never be questioned.
They will never be wrong.
And it's really
kind of scary.
We've seen it before
in other places
and other times
and we're seeing it
first hand here.
And it's just
it's frightening
how many people
have fallen under
that spell
and I wonder
what it's going to take
to get them to wake up
and see reality.
Which is not necessarily
the reality
of the other party.
It's reality of
wow,
I'm being lied to,
this is wrong,
this doesn't make any sense
and I should be
questioning things.
And do you see that
both sides of the aisle?
No, I mean
to a degree
obviously there's
blind following
in any leadership role
but no,
there's no comparison.
There's no comparison.
I mean,
if anything,
Democrats have the problem
of self-criticism
that hurts them
to the degree
where they
basically keep losing
to the Republicans.
Where somebody does
something that's
slightly wrong
and they're treated
with the same
gravity that
somebody
who is doing something
really wrong
on the other side
and standing in the way
of democracy.
It's a problem
that
they can't seem
to get past
like getting
in their own way.
I don't know.
It's kind of depressing.
It's kind of depressing
but it's also
fascinating to watch.
It's an example
of the political hyperbole.
The political currency
being
hyperbolic language
and that language
morphing
to out and out
lies
and
falsehoods
and
not
really
not
and not seeing those
as a liability
in the way that
the Prime Minister's
party might be.
Here it's like
well it's a lie
well they're running
with everything.
Because
the more
outrageous
reaction
that it provokes
and
the more provocative
the things are
that's seen
as
being more
valuable
than
doing right
and seeing
long term
political liability.
That's what we're really missing.
The Republicans
aren't seeing this
as the liability
I think it is.
Go ahead Alex.
Alex please
go ahead.
Yeah yeah yeah
I had to go off mute there
for a second.
It's like
somebody beeping
before you get into first gear
when the light changes
from red to green.
You have trouble with that too?
Beep.
I know.
One thing that
Collar
forgot to mention
with respect to the trajectory
of Boris Johnson
was that he did spend
a considerable amount of years
as the Mayor of London
and
and
and that was I think
you know
sort of the last step
before the
national politics again
but
I lived in London
under
for a few years
under Boris Johnson
and having studied
in the UK
as well
I can say
I can imagine
nothing
more British
than
taking down
a Prime Minister
with a wine
and cheese board
and
a garden party.
This is
absolutely fantastic.
Yeah.
It seems like
so nothing.
Sorry, go ahead Rob.
No, yeah, go ahead.
It's...
We'll see.
I mean, watch this space.
Who knows?
Yes.
Maybe it'll be the Haggis
that finishes him off.
But
who knows?
Alright, well look
we're going to leave it there.
Thanks so much for calling.
Are you currently in the UK
or in Singapore?
I'm in the UK right now.
I'll be back in Singapore
in around about the 20th
and I'll be doing my lockdown.
So
I'll probably catch you then.
Yes, call us from...
Time works out quite well.
Call us from Singapore
because it'll be daytime there
while it's nighttime here
and it'll be kind of cool
to say that.
Sweet.
Alright, will do.
Alright.
Nice one.
Stay safe.
You too.
Take care.
Great to hear you.
Alright.
There you go.
Another new call.
Aren't these amazing?
I thought it was Alabama
but that's funny.
Okay.
Well, well over
our usual time period.
So I say we say goodnight
and thank everybody
for listening
and for calling in.
Please write to us
oth at 2600.com
We'd love to hear
what you have to say.
If you have a story
you want to send us
something you want us
to focus on
in the next edition
of the program
please do that.
Please remember to support WBAI
the radio station
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from 7 to 8 on Wednesdays
by going to
give2wbai.org
or calling
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Alright.
We will
see you next week.
Goodnight everybody.