Phreaking - Blog Posts

Joybubbles (May 25, 1949-August 8, 2007)

Joybubbles (born Josef Engressia) was an early phone phreak.

With perfect pitch he was able to control the phone system by simply whistling the tones normally generated by Bell's systems, an ability he accidentally discovered at age seven.

Acrylic on canvas, 5x7″.  From my September 2015 set Luminaries of the Hacker World.

"Bell Odyssey" - This phone-phreaking-themed parody of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" was written by RBCP for issue 39 of the Phone Losers of America zine, which was released on July 27, 1996. Thirteen years later to the day, I released my own performance of the song.

The release date was entirely coincidental; I randomly got the urge to record the old track, spent a few days putting it together, and just happened to finish and release it on July 27, 2009.  RBCP later informed me that it just happened to be the song's 13th anniversary.  I blame the ghost of David Bowie; he isn't dead of course, but that's certainly never stopped him before.

Soon after I posted this, my colleagues at Off the Hook surprised me by using it as the closing song on the July 29, 2009 episode while I was away from the show.  RADIO AIRPLAY!

The genuine phone company recordings used in this track came from ThisIsARecording.com.

This song is downloadable as an MP3 from PLA's songs page.