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Good evening everyone. This is WBAI New York. Stay tuned for a special edition of
Off The Hook as we remember our friend Jim.
It doesn't get much worse. But if they could, they would.
Bundy, Lippmann, for the best, expect the worst.
I hope that's understood. Bundy, Lippmann!
And a very good evening to everybody. The program is Off The Hook.
This is Manuel Belstein over here. We have Kyle.
Yes, I'm here.
In Skype land we have Rob P. Firefly.
Good evening.
We have Gila.
Hello.
We have Alex.
Hello.
And as you may have surmised from the beginning of the show, this is a sad episode
because we're mourning the passing of our friend Jim, who has been part of the show
in one way or another since early 90s.
And quite a history, quite a lot to remember.
We're going to be taking a bit of a trip down memory lane, playing some clips
and talking about Jim a little bit this hour.
And then at 8 o'clock we'll be over on YouTube for overtime.
That's a chance for you to call in, share your thoughts, your memories and feelings.
I guess before we play some of the clips, let's open it up.
Anybody want to say anything?
Jim passed away on Thursday.
He'd been ill for quite some time.
And as many of you know, he suffered a stroke I guess 15 years ago
and has been living with that, the debilitating stroke all that time,
but still managing to be a part of our world, even coming to the radio station
and just never detaching.
That was just so admirable.
Go ahead.
I think this is really part of who Jim was as a person.
I think a lot of his identity was being part of the hacker culture
and was always being present.
And I think it's a real testament to his fortitude and his indomitable spirit
that he had persisted in engaging with us in the radio show
and being part of the radio show and hanging out during the radio show,
after the radio show, coming to dinner, doing all the things that he did
while he could barely talk.
I mean you mentioned he had a stroke manual,
but I think it's worth going into a bit what that stroke did to him.
Well, one thing it didn't do to him was affect his mind
as far as enthusiasm and interest in things
and just basically ways of just being a part of it all.
I can't imagine the hell it must have been to be trapped in that world
where you want to express yourself and you're not able to.
And so many people have that hell to deal with.
So it took a tremendous amount of strength for him just to live his life
with such an incredible handicap.
And of course there's the Jim before the stroke that we all remember as well.
And for those of you who don't, who are new to the radio show,
I'd like to share some of that with you.
Kyle, I think you're remembering something right now.
Sorry.
I can hear his voice just when you mentioned the radio show.
And I think so many people have thought of him
and how prominent and fun and his distinctive laugh
and just enthusiasm and joy in the discussion,
in the glee of just wherever the conversation goes.
Yeah, that certain glee in mixing it up a bit,
in saying the things that someone else wouldn't say
or just getting involved in an argument like we do here on the show
and enjoying the process.
And we sure enjoyed his company.
Yes, go ahead, Rob.
Yeah, I'm very fortunate to consider him one of the oldest friends
I made in this community.
And I think that's something that a lot of people are saying.
I'm sure it's something that's true of any of us here on this program now,
those who've been on the program over the years who are no longer.
But he was just, it seems like he was always there.
Like he came with the venue and he was so welcoming.
He was one of the first people that welcomed me
into the 2600 meetings when I started going.
I've heard that from some other friends of ours as well.
And it was just, he was such a warm and encouraging presence
just to hang out with, just to be friends with.
And it was a pleasure and an honor.
And it was a joy to spend time with him.
Well, let's go over some of that history
because it was an interesting history.
And it started on April 13th, 19, I'm sorry, August 13th, 1994,
when Jim presented a very controversial talk
at the very first HOPE conference.
In fact, after Robert Steele had given his keynote,
Jim was the first speaker.
In fact, he wasn't known as Jim.
He was known as Red Balaclava because he was trying to hide his identity.
It was a very poor job of hiding his identity
because he was about 6'5 and very thin
and there weren't any other people like that at the conference.
So when he wasn't presenting his talk,
it was obvious who it was that had just presented that talk.
That's just part of the wackiness that Jim personified.
He gave a fascinating discussion on the newly introduced MetroCard
to the New York City Transit Authority.
And at that conference and at the succeeding conference in 1997,
beyond HOPE, he was the person that basically gave out the information
and talked about the things that others did not want to talk about.
Certainly, others in the MTA did not want to have this revealed.
But the first time he came into the station, actually,
was on November 7th, 1995.
I have this wrong.
May 17th, 1995.
And he's talking about a different subject here,
basically explaining this new concept known as webpages.
And it's also the only time he gave his real name on the air.
You could tell after he did it that he wasn't sure if he should give his real name,
but he was just kind of put on the spot at that moment.
Let's just go back to 1995 and hear that.
We have some web designers here, don't we?
Oh, yeah.
Okay, someone come up and tell us what webs are like.
What are webpages like?
What can you do with a webpage?
Try to move the microphone as much as possible to make all the noise you possibly can.
All right, go ahead.
Okay, what is a webpage?
Who are you first?
Well, my name is Jim Vachench.
I'm a half-owner and principal of Esoteric Resources, Incorporated.
We're a computer training, documentation, and webpage writing firm here in New York.
We're also a couple of ex-hackers, but we won't talk about our sordid past.
What is a webpage?
The World Wide Web is a way of graphically accessing information on the Internet.
If you have what's known as a shell account, you have what looks like just a text-based method of looking at the information.
It looks like those old teletypes you see in your typical old science fiction or World War III movie,
except now it's on a screen instead of on an endless scroll of paper.
What the World Wide Web does is it puts up on your PC or Mac screen whatever pictures the person who wrote that page wants you to see.
It looks a lot better.
You're able to see whatever they want to put up.
You can also, if you have the right viewer, you can also see little movies, download sound clips, access sound clips off their webpage.
There are literally hundreds of thousands of them out there.
It's sort of like what the printing press was in 1500.
It's a new technology that gives everyone the power to put up whatever information they want.
Again, that was a clip from 1995 where Jim and his future wife Pam came to the studio
to explain some of the technology from an insider perspective as someone who was involved in the World Wide Web, which was very exciting back then.
Let's fast-forward a little bit to 2001, September 25th, 2001, to be specific.
That was, I believe, the first day we were allowed back on the air.
It might have been the second week after 9-11 that we were allowed back on,
but it was the first time that Jim was part of the discussion.
This is basically a recounting of his experience on 9-11.
Jim is here, too.
Hello.
How are you doing? You had a close call on that Tuesday.
Yeah.
I did something I seldom do, which is I went banking at a branch that was not where I normally go.
I think I've been there over the last 15 years like five times,
but I had to run a couple of errands in lower Manhattan.
I got off the R train, still the R at that time, at Cortlandt Street.
The funny thing is I had heard a noise when we were going through Rector,
and I couldn't place it.
I figured it was a train on the other track starting.
You know how that sometimes happens.
I get out of Cortlandt Street just south of the Millennium Hotel.
I can't remember what street it is.
The exit I got off was across the street.
It's across Church Street from the World Trade Center site.
I get up, and I look around.
Instead of people walking around, people are pretty much standing still, and they're looking up.
Of course, what do you do in that case? You look up.
There's a lot of smoke coming from the top of the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
Essentially, I said, holy four-letter word, stopped for a minute,
walked the block north to get a better view, asked somebody what happened.
You know, sirens are going off, and the fire and police are streaming in.
Somebody says, plane just hit.
I said, what?
Plane just hit the World Trade Center.
I said, holy four-letter word once again.
I remembered that Tom Clancy novel, the title of which escapes me,
from several years ago, which I read the last few pages over someone's shoulder once.
Never read the rest of the book, but in the book,
a crazed Japanese pilot puts, I believe, a 747 loaded with explosives
into the Capitol building during the State of the Union address.
So I had read that, and I had been working in the area eight years ago for the 93 attack.
I work nights usually, and I got off that morning
and was still in the neighborhood when that happened.
So I remembered that.
I remembered that they said that they wanted to take these buildings down
as a sign against American imperialism and all that sort of stuff.
So I put two and two together, and I just headed north.
I figured the trains are not going to be running, maybe not now,
but definitely sooner or later I'm going to get on them.
I'm going to get a few stops, they're going to stop.
So I figured, get over the bridge into Brooklyn,
because I figured there were going to be ten more planes,
because I figured that what they were doing is they were going to try slicing the towers up,
and it would take two, three, four planes per tower to do that.
You had this all figured out after one plane, that there were going to be multiple planes,
or was this after the second plane?
This was after the first plane, because I remembered the Tom Clancy thing,
and I looked up, and what you saw was a hole in the thing.
It was the thing teetering like when you take a chunk out of a tree.
And I figured they always wanted to take the whole thing down.
So I figured, well, one plane isn't going to work.
If they were going to try again, they were going to do it.
So they were going to do it by half measures.
I figured there were going to be a half dozen or more planes.
Well, it was close. It was close to a half dozen planes.
Overall, yeah.
What I'm surprised about was that the subway system made it so.
I mean, you know a lot about the subway system, obviously.
Any trains lost or any damage?
As far as I know, no train was lost.
Station-wise, Cortland and points south on the NNR closed,
mostly because of debris above it.
Cortland on the 1 and 9 is closed because of the towers pretty much falling into it.
Points south on the 1 and 9 are relatively intact.
But the subways were evacuated.
Yeah, apparently so.
I didn't get on the subway that day.
I hightailed it into Brooklyn and got on a bus.
At what point did you find out the second tower was hit?
I was on the bridge and saw it.
Saw it happen?
Yeah.
And that speeded me up even more.
We're listening to our late friend Jim, part of Off the Hook for many, many years,
who passed away on Thursday.
We're going to move ahead to something that's kind of inevitable
when you annoy a big agency such as the MTA, as Jim did with his Hope Talks
and basically talking on the radio and various other places about the security issues.
They indicted him, and this is how we found out on February 26, 2002.
Let's see, that's pretty much all we have time for,
except for one last thing from Jim, who has come in with a startling bit of news.
Jim, why don't you tell us quickly in the last two minutes of the show,
and again, apologies to all the listeners for not being able to take phone calls.
We will do that next week and catch up, hopefully.
Go ahead, Jim.
Well, to quickly give you a little history,
the second worst kept secret in hacking is the fact that I, Jeopardy! Jim,
am also Red Balaclava.
And some of you may remember me from Hope in 1994 and Beyond Hope in 1997.
Suffice it to say that I've been indicted and arrested,
and consequently I'm going to need some assistance from the hacking community.
I'm currently jobless.
I need to find a criminal lawyer,
and there are some other things that people,
even not in the immediate New York area, could do
that would take very little effort on their part and be very useful.
Can you tell us what they're charging you with?
They're charging me with grand larceny in the fourth degree,
as I like to call it for MetroCard funnies.
Essentially, I've been a railroad clerk slash station agent for the Transit Authority for some time.
I spoke about MetroCards at the Two Hopes,
wrote a couple of articles for 2600 Magazine.
Some people have noticed that I have not given any concrete advice on how to hack MetroCards,
just a general overview.
I was very careful to just disseminate what I had picked up from the newspapers,
nothing I had picked up in-house.
But apparently they're gunning for me because of that.
It took them a long time.
They never did it directly, but that's the cause.
It was 1994.
Yeah.
This is the first time.
They have long memories.
Among other things, I want volunteers who are willing to go and listen to old off-the-hooks
and make it since roughly April or May, June of 94.
I have a fairly distinctive voice,
and if you can find anything I've said on MetroCards or anything I've said at all
and write it down, this will be organized.
I'll be at the 2600 meeting this Friday in New York
and eventually get a website mailing list going.
To coordinate this, my trial date is the 22nd of April.
That was from 2002.
Now this case followed Jim around for the next year or so,
and there was this really interesting episode where Jim went to court.
It turns out that he had missed a court date
and had not responded in a timely manner,
so he was actually arrested and spent two nights in the tombs.
We learn about this on the radio for the first time,
and his remarkable sense of humor in such a situation
and just basically looking for those little things
that people who are not hackers would not look for,
talking about history, talking about technology,
while going through a hellish experience.
This aired on November 20, 2002.
So were you in jail last week while we were on the air?
Yeah.
I was wondering what happened to you.
Yeah, I couldn't make a phone call.
I really wanted to make a phone call, collect to the station.
Actually, I had a calling card I memorized,
and I had a touch-tone phone.
I don't think you can use calling cards from jail.
Well, it depends on what sort of phone you are.
In the original holding cell, yes, it's a regular pay phone.
You can call collect.
You can use coins if you have them.
Now the tombs are down in Chinatown, right?
They're right next to the criminal court building.
The address is actually 125 White Street,
and it's connected via a bridge nicknamed the Bridge of Sighs
after the famous thing in Venice in the medieval times
connecting the prison to the Doge's Palace.
The Doge was the head of Venice,
and all his political enemies would go before him,
and then he'd just send them over this bridge to the prison.
You must have spent hours discussing the history and the aspirations.
No, I stayed to myself.
I figured that was much safer.
Yeah, that's horrible.
So two nights they kept you there.
Anything happen worthy of note other than being bored to death?
A lot of bored to death.
Things that a hacker mind would see inside the tombs that perhaps we might appreciate.
Yeah, I was trying to think of that.
There's not much.
I believe that I have a greater appreciation for anybody who's been in prison or jail
or worked their way out of prison or jail
because I was looking around just for the hacker mind,
not intending to escape.
I figured I had enough trouble just missing a court appearance.
Imagine the trouble I'd be in if I escaped.
Just looking to see how feasible that was,
and that was pretty damn unlikely.
So all these guys who take a spoon and chisel through over six months or two years or whatever,
amazing.
And this is just for missing a court date?
Oh, yeah.
For showing up and saying that you missed the court date.
No, no, no.
It was not getting back to them in the time that they wanted, obviously, on my lawyer's part.
Like I said, it gets worse, of course.
Do you want to talk about the worst part?
Oh, sure.
Let's talk about that.
We only have an hour.
Oh, okay.
Well, I'll make it really quick.
My lawyer, who is not happy with the fact that I haven't paid him aside from the initial amount,
is now taking himself off the case.
So I'm one step above a public defender, something called an 18B,
which is a real attorney that donates or is forced to donate.
I'm not sure how it works.
Technically, I'm an indigent defendant.
So I've gone down in the quality of my counsel.
We can't have been too high in that regard anyway, winding up in jail.
That's a good point.
Can't get much worse than that.
It's supposed to keep you out of jail.
Well, yeah, but on the other hand, like I said, it's my responsibility.
If I had just read the damn piece of paper right, I would have made the appearance the day before.
But, you see, when you have a lawyer, they're supposed to also call you and tell you, remind you of things.
I appeared in a deposition last week for the whole DECSS case, yet again,
in front of the DVD Copy Control Association,
and I was reminded constantly by my lawyer that you have to be here at this time,
take this bus to get there.
We have one key difference.
You're able to pay your lawyer.
Well, actually, that's not entirely true, but we'll get into that.
Some other time.
Well, it's a special case.
Oh, okay.
Whereas me, I'm just another peon in the system.
That should not enter into it.
I agree with that.
Just like with medical care, payments should not.
A lot of things should be, but you and I know that they're different.
But this is what I mean when I say that certain things should not be treated as commodities.
You should have the right to competent legal representation and to competent medical care.
But I'm just going to get off on this.
My vision of the world, which you probably disagree with.
Somewhat.
Which is rather ironic.
Yeah, it is, isn't it?
Again, from November of 2002.
Just an example of how Jim was somebody you could just talk about anything with
and talk about anything with for hours and hours and hours.
He made it all so interesting.
His legal problems came to a culmination February 5, 2003.
Let's listen to what the conclusion was.
Has there been any developments with various issues?
Oh, yeah.
We have, as you know, Jim sitting here.
He's got some news.
Okay, let's hear it, Jim.
Well, I've joined the ranks of the, well, I'm now a felon.
Let's put it that way.
Wow.
Yeah.
Join the club.
I can't talk to you about it, unfortunately.
If you're a felon, you can't talk to Bernie S. anymore.
Ah.
All right, Bernie, from now on, I'll direct your comments away from Jim.
Face the other way, I guess.
And, Jim, I don't know if you can respond to things that Bernie says to us
or if we have to repeat everything for you.
Oh, I think I can probably respond to things.
I don't think we can direct things at each other.
That's the thing.
Okay.
Well, then, you two are no longer speaking.
And how long will Jim and myself be on non-speaking terms, I wonder?
Jim, I wonder how long this will last.
Well, already it's way too long for the show.
Well, I get sentenced towards the end of March.
I'm going to do five years probation, no jail time.
Wait, I have a question, though.
Are you not a felon until you're sentenced?
Never.
I pled.
Yeah, but.
Oh, that's a good question.
Does somebody know?
I mean, are you considered a felon after the sentencing date or before this?
I'm a convicted felon.
He's pre-felon?
Well, felon to be.
Oh, gee.
If you haven't been sentenced, then I don't think you're convicted yet.
Oh, okay.
Then we can talk.
Well.
We've got to get five years worth in.
Since I'm a felon to be, I wonder if I can get a registry someplace like Bloomingdale's.
Oh, that's pride to be.
Oh.
Oh, boy.
That was something.
He just injected humor into every situation.
There were so many instances where he could have been negative, and he wasn't.
He wasn't.
Is that what you guys remember from Jim?
Absolutely.
No matter what he was talking about, he always had a sparkling sense of humor about it,
even when it was how miserable things were for him personally, like in this case.
Man, I had so many of those long conversations about anything with him.
You could just talk to that guy forever.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Oh, and Alex, I want to ask you, since you're a lawyer, let's settle the question that Jim was raising in that last excerpt.
Are you a felon before you're sentenced, or are you a felon at the point that you plead?
I have been thinking about that.
I think that you'd be a felon at the point that you pleaded because you admitted to doing the crime at that particular point.
You had to allocute, and assuming your plea was knowing and voluntary, you committed.
You essentially just admitted to committing a felony, which would therefore make you a felon.
I think tautologically, in a sense, you would be a felon at the time of pleading.
However, I can also understand the argument that it would be a conviction-type thing.
We're going to wind up getting on a sidetrack here, like we always do.
But this show is about Jim, so let's do that.
I do want to say something about Jim, too, though, which is just listening to these recordings,
it's so amazing to hear his voice again.
It's really, really fantastic.
You mentioned this at the outset of the episode, that it was 15 years ago that he had a stroke and lost his voice.
I was really looking forward to tonight, to hearing Jim's voice, and I think I underestimated how good it would feel.
Go ahead, Gila.
Yes, I didn't know Jim before.
I didn't know any of you until six years ago.
So I never heard Jim hold force like this.
So having the opportunity to do so tonight is just so amazing.
And, if I could say, I'm also enjoying watching all of you listening and watching all of you remembering our friend.
And this evening is moving on so many levels.
Well, put on your seatbelt, because we're about to delve into Jim's conservative leanings,
which was no end of entertainment for many of the listeners.
And, of course, fodder for all kinds of spirited discussions.
Here, it's April 9th, 2003.
The Second Gulf War had just begun.
It was a magical period.
We had some really rousing discussions with differing opinions.
And here, Jim explains, well, he defends his position, explains why he takes the views he does.
Take a listen.
Wait a moment.
Wait a moment.
As an ex-chemistry major, I'll tell you just one thing, which is that you can easily make nerve agents out of pesticides.
Okay?
What, the Iraqis aren't supposed to have pesticides now?
No, no.
But if they have an outlandish amount of pesticides and no pesticide exporting industry, then you get suspicious.
Okay?
I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.
I think it's a bit of a reach.
No, it's not a bit of a reach.
If you want to hide it, you build up your own pesticide industry.
But this wasn't a farm.
It wasn't an agricultural area where they tend to use pesticides.
Like I said, I'm willing to say it's a maybe.
But the point is.
I look at it this way.
I'm a black man who lives in Harlem, and I have seen police officers do what they wanted to do to get what they needed to get, which was numbers.
And on a larger scale, the United States Marines, not the Marines, the grunts, so to speak.
But they have people who are over them who give them orders to do X, Y, Z, A, B, C.
And they're going to follow just like the police officers in the street.
Now, you're going to find, like that article you read about they found pesticides.
And even that gentleman who is as intelligent as he is, you know, because I don't think he'd be around you if he wasn't, you know, for him to say, well, we can get some pesticides.
And he prefaces it with that.
He was a chemistry major and that you can make pesticides.
But, you know, you found this on a farm, you know, in an agricultural area.
And even he is buying into the propaganda.
Well, that's twice.
That's twice you've accused me of justifying the administration's position.
I want to say the following 20 seconds as a hacker.
My idea is to be a devil's advocate.
OK, this is a liberal oriented radio station and show.
Therefore, I tend to be conservative.
OK, I'm just offering the possibility that if they're hiding it, that's the way to do it.
OK, and that's Jim.
That is who Jim was, someone who challenged the prevailing opinion no matter where he was.
Let's fast forward over to November 10th, 2004, our post election day show where things didn't go so well for the Democrats.
And Jim was quite happy about that.
Yeah, Jim, you must be very happy, right?
You're your guy, Warren.
I'm fairly pleased.
So what do we have to look at?
Let's turn down all the microphones and we'll just let Jim go forth for a minute and tell us what's ahead for the next four years.
Go ahead.
Well, I would be remiss if I don't say that there are still many problems.
We do have one clear improvement in the resignation of John Ashcroft,
but he's being replaced by a man that I have problems with, despite my right wing leanings.
It's not so much what we have to look forward to, it's what we've avoided, which I think was the way I voted.
And we still have to be on guard for civil liberties.
I agree with that.
You still have 40 seconds.
What more do you want to say?
No, I just wanted to give you the opportunity.
That's going to be the last opportunity for quite some time without people jumping on everything you say.
Unlike almost everybody else in this room and a large number of people in the United States on all sides of the spectrum,
I believe that it's not so much the president that controls this country.
It's the thousand invisible hands of commerce and markets and people interacting among themselves that create the direction the country goes in.
The president can channel it, but he doesn't lead, direct, or drive it so much.
So if you don't like what you see, there are many things you can do on a grassroots level to change,
or if you like to put it this way, undercut what's going on.
So don't blame it all on the president when it might be your own inaction.
But apparently voting isn't one of those things because that sure didn't work, did it?
This is a democracy.
You've got to take the losses with the wins, like I did with Bill Clinton.
It's not actually a democracy.
It's a republic.
That's true.
And I'm usually the one to point that out.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, right back at you then.
Oh, what fun we had.
That was 2004.
Skipping ahead to April 12th, 2006, an example of Jim's interaction with the audience,
who certainly took issue with some of his political positions.
Hello?
Yes, go ahead.
Earlier, Jim used the word disingenuous.
Disingenuous, yes, I know.
I realized that as soon as I said it, I decided not to go back.
Why didn't you correct this then?
Jim, let's talk about this.
You used the word improperly.
I'm sorry.
I felt a great wave of shame wash over me, and I decided to just hope that no one knew the word.
Normally, sir, this kind of thing is not tolerated here.
Millions of people are listening.
Yeah, I thought millions of people are listening.
And the other gentleman used a redundancy, more crazier.
Who was that?
Did I say that?
No, the other fellow.
I don't know his name.
I apologize if I said that.
You said that?
I don't know.
It's either me or Bernie.
Well, we're going to go through the transcript after the show.
This is a very serious allegation to you.
No, not crazier.
It's a redundancy.
All right.
Well, let's be less sillier then.
Take another phone call.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Yes.
Also, I'd like to mention...
You sound very similar to another caller, and that's just too much for me to handle.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Go ahead, please.
Yes.
Hey, Martin.
I didn't realize that.
There's nothing wrong with more crazier, by the way.
I think that's perfectly fine.
Let's not start a big fight about this.
I don't know why that thing was even brought up.
Anyway, the thing I wanted to ask you was...
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Yeah.
How's your Republican guy there?
He looks healthy.
He looks just fine.
I think down with John Bolton and the new Pope, the Grand Inquisitor and...
Well, I'm Greek Orthodox.
I think that the Catholics are just way too liberal anyway.
You're Greek Orthodox?
Yeah.
I didn't know that.
My grandfather was a priest.
Wow.
You've kept that quiet.
Huh.
Interesting.
It's not something that you could usually use to pick up girls.
I mean, hey, my grandfather was a priest.
Republican.
All right.
Well, he seems to be fascinated with the fact that you're a Republican,
but we're going to move on to something a little bit more controversial than that.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
You know, something else that Jim was known for was his talent in poker.
And, you know, occasionally he would just be a part of these tournaments,
even after he had a stroke.
We can talk about that a little bit later on.
But here in this excerpt, July 12, 2006,
he explains the difference between poker and gambling.
And, of course, as always, we have a lively debate.
Anyone ever used an online gambling site in this room?
You have, Jim?
Yeah.
What's it like?
You just basically click on something and all your money goes away?
Well, okay.
I don't gamble.
I play poker, which is a little different.
Wait a minute.
Wait.
Whoa, whoa.
You play poker?
That's not gambling?
When you're gambling,
When you play poker, ideally, definitely when you have a cinch hand,
the outcome that you're betting on is the most likely,
or at least you believe it to be the most likely.
I like the way he talks, talking about things like this.
That's okay.
I'm going to accept that.
Okay.
Continue.
Yeah.
They're very simple.
In most cases, you download software, but not all.
Some are Java-based.
It resembles a cartoon version, in less dimensions, of a casino or a poker game or whatever.
You put money in through PayPal or MasterCard or whatever, and then that's your account.
And you say, how much would you like to risk at this poker game at this table at this time?
But there's nothing to stop you from basically losing everything you own in this manner?
Everything that you have on site, everything that you've put in.
You have a bankroll, so to speak.
Right.
And you can keep putting things into that bankroll, correct?
You can also, in the stock market, buy stocks that go down in value,
and then after you've lost your money, put more money into your brokerage account
and buy another stock that goes down in value.
Yes, you can lose money in many ways.
But you don't do it instantly.
It takes time for the stock market to crash and for you to lose your investment.
This, you can just click a button, and all of a sudden, there's 20 grand gone.
Wonderful.
You can go to Atlantic City.
It takes three hours more for all those to happen.
Not if you're six years old, you can't.
If you're six years old, how are you going to get to your credit card?
How do you have a credit card if you're six?
You don't.
Your parents do.
What do your parents do when you have your credit card?
Look, credit cards left on the kitchen counter one day, and look what happens.
This is a case, well, the problem is not that it's wrong in that case from Goodlatte's point of view.
The problem is it's wrong because the kid should not have a credit card.
Oh, I agree with that.
But it just seems like if you're going to gamble, you should go through something to gamble,
like by traveling someplace or doing something in person.
Well, this discriminates against the handicapped, then.
No, it doesn't.
Handicapped people can go places.
Well, if you're in an iron lung, not that I think anybody still is.
If you're in an iron lung, are you really going to be gambling?
I mean, I think you have more pressing concerns.
Well, never mind.
Well, I take your mind off it.
In fact, if you're a gambling addict and gambling is causing you problems,
I don't think traveling somewhere is going to be very much of a deterrent.
Exactly.
Oh, I miss those conversations, those debates.
All right.
Sadly, this next clip is our last clip of Jim before his stroke.
This show aired on May 9, 2007,
and it's particularly interesting because he reveals how he found out about Off The Hook.
You can do it on the Internet,
and it's not the same thing when you have a 50,000-watt radio station in the middle of New York City
and you're able to get people from all over just tuning in in their cars.
I mean, that's the coolest thing in the world,
is getting somebody who has no real interest in the hacker world getting turned on to it
because they happened to turn on the radio at the wrong time and get us.
Yeah, you know, a lot of people are dialing the radio dial looking for something interesting and find us.
In fact, I'm one of those people who accidentally came upon this station.
Wait a minute, wait, wait.
You mean you're here now because you accidentally tuned us in?
I'm here now for a lot of reasons, but that's one of them.
So, I mean, basically we would never have met you, Jim,
if we hadn't been doing a radio show and you hadn't turned on the radio.
Exactly.
The show that I first heard was ironically the one before The First Hope,
where you were saying, is anybody from the MTA listening and knows anything about MetroCard?
Oh, my goodness.
Well, we can try to find that moment.
I think we've played that.
Have we played that?
We've played that.
Then we can find the moment where we played it again.
That would be fascinating.
That must have been a pretty historic moment right there.
Three calls on the line, 212-209-2950.
Which, by the way, is still the number that you can call to pledge support to this amazing radio station here at WBAI.
Our last clip of Jim is when he returned to the radio station just over a year after his debilitating stroke,
only a couple of months after the excerpt you just heard.
This is November 12th, 2008.
And you can tell by the program is off the hook.
Emanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
Joined this week by Mike.
Hi.
Down in Philadelphia, Bernie S.
Greetings from Philadelphia.
Looks like Voltaire over there.
Over there.
On the side of the room we have not Kevin.
Hello.
Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
And special surprise joining us on the middle part of the room, Jim.
Welcome back.
How are you doing?
Well.
Better.
Much better.
You came here on your own.
And it's not only for All Points Bulletin.
He's in a better place now.
He's in a place where he can actually come and go thanks to the tireless efforts of many people.
Bernie, you certainly not the least.
And advice from some of our listeners.
Bernie, you want to tell us something about Jim's position now where he can go and stay and things?
I understand Jim was successfully moved this morning from the nursing home in Brooklyn to an adult facility in Brooklyn, Queens.
And, Jim, I hear that there's a computer there that's online.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Yeah.
That's what I've been told.
And I hear there's a good library there.
And the most important thing is you have the freedom to come and go.
And the first thing he did was come here.
So he's got his judgment back.
That's certainly an important thing.
Congratulations, Jim.
Congratulations.
Yes.
Welcome back.
So good to see you again.
And you're looking better than ever.
Thank you.
I'm going to miss him.
Yeah, I just basically met him a couple years after that.
And he was in the studio many, many times sitting next to me, joining in on the conversation.
Sometimes he'd even nod off a little bit, and I'd give him a little poke, or he'd look over when we were talking and get back in the conversation and just, you know, listen.
I think he just wanted to be there with us listening.
And it's weird for me because all of my previous radio listening to this show was stuff that included him.
And so I knew him as well as anybody who's listened to the archives of OTH.
And it was just really kind of cool over the years to help him.
He tried so hard, that same joy and enthusiasm.
When he had something to say or he was writing something down, he would use a pen and paper a lot.
He would be emphatic about creating understanding.
And I love that.
Like, that's my favorite thing about communications and storytelling and my own never-ending diatribes that I won't ever shut up sometimes.
I love human understanding when people connect, especially when we're traveling, when we're meeting other hackers and speaking about common things and so forth.
But he would be so emphatic.
And he would even laugh and have that sense of humor at his own difficulty trying to get you to understand exactly what he was talking about.
So as you'd be learning about something he's telling you, he'd say, right.
Or he'd say, yeah.
Exactly.
Well, you'd feel stupid for not getting it.
And he would write things out and there'd be like a letter missing.
And you were supposed to fill in the letters.
That's Jeopardy, right?
That's how Jeopardy works.
And you might have heard him being referred to as Jeopardy Jim or referring to himself that way.
That's because he appeared on the TV show Jeopardy.
Rob, I believe you said it was episode 1337, which spells Leet, which is pretty amazing.
If anybody can get that copy of the show, we'd love to have it somewhere.
I think it was on two episodes.
I never knew that.
Yeah, he was on two episodes.
The second episode was Jeopardy episode 1337, which is amazing.
That's crazy.
I'll forever be pondering the cosmic implications of that coincidence.
Wow.
Yes, Alex, go ahead.
And isn't it true, Rob, that he lost that episode by a mere dollar?
By one dollar, yes.
It was strategic betting on Final Jeopardy on the part of the guy who won.
Jim wouldn't talk about this a lot, but he'd kind of roll his eyes and go, yeah, whatever, and shrug.
Both before and after the stroke, that's how he would remember those.
He would definitely have that kind of groan or reaction sometimes.
Go ahead, Alex.
Just one thing I want to mention that really strikes me and hit me, I think, right in the heart
was just that massively stark contrast between Jim prior to the stroke and Jim after the stroke.
And that quote that you played of Jim returning a question with a couple syllables of a response,
that's what I remember of him for so many years now.
It was such a treat to hear his voice.
And I forgot how goddamn smart he was.
I really did.
And it makes me think it must have been just so absolutely torturous for him to just only be able to blurt out a couple of syllables for this long,
knowing full well what was going on in his head.
It was absolutely incredible.
I just want to share one completely unrelated anecdote as well.
Jim had come back from one of his jaunts at some casino somewhere.
I think it was Atlantic City.
I remember us being down at 120 Wall Street.
It must have been after one of the shows, probably back in the early 2000s.
I was asking him about how did it go and what did he play.
He was telling me he played blackjack, I think it was, not poker, all night long for like 12 hours or something like that.
And so I said to him, how did you make out?
And I never forgot this, and I always think of it whenever I go into any casino,
is that he said it was the hardest you could work for minimum wage, but you won.
And I thought that was just so interesting that he had this persistence.
He was down there and he was making money by playing and winning and using his brain against the house.
And even though he wasn't betting big, he was still there.
He looked at it as almost like a job to me.
And I could see how that would be a really tough way to make five or six bucks an hour, probably what it was back then.
And this conversation, this was pre-stroke or post-stroke?
No, this was pre-stroke.
Because after he had a stroke one time, he just ventured out on his own and scared the crap out of everybody because he just disappeared.
Nobody knew where he was.
He went down to Atlantic City and he was gambling.
He still had that and he just took it.
He just went down there and did that for himself and just came back casually while the rest of us were putting up signs on lampposts and things like that.
Now, we only have a couple of minutes left, but we are going to continue on YouTube on Channel 2600 or click on the link that's on the 2600.com webpage.
We'd like to hear your thoughts, your memories and call us and we'll talk more about Jim.
We have a couple more clips.
But Rob, you wrote a particularly eloquent piece about Jim.
Can you give the address so people can read this?
Yeah, it's right on the front page of the site for our local 2600 meetings, which is nyc2600.net.
And there are some great pictures of him from over the years and just a lot of thoughts and a lot of links.
There's a link to New York Times front page story that he was in.
It was difficult to write, but fulfilling.
It's beautiful.
Yeah.
It is utterly a beautiful remembrance.
It absolutely is.
And if you have pictures of Jim you want to share with us, please email us oth at 2600.com or if you have memories that you'd like to share as well.
And also, if you'd like to come to the 2600 meeting, which is this Friday at the Citigroup Center on 53rd and Lexington, all the info is right there to nyc2600.net.
A lot of us are going to be sharing our remembrances of Jim.
Yeah, the meetings, he went to so many of those with such a part of them.
And it's going to be hard.
It's going to be really, really hard.
I mean, you know, since the stroke, obviously, it was different, but he was still there.
He was still around.
He was still a presence.
And even at this most recent Hope, he was being thought of.
He was supposed to participate in a talk.
I don't believe he was able to, but there was a talk with his well-being.
It definitely was the theme.
Alex, closing thoughts.
Yeah, I just and I think this is maybe a good way to close out of Jim.
But if I recall correctly, as a member of the speaker selection committee for Hope, that the proposed title for Jim's talk at Hope was he's not dead yet, Jim.
Right.
Like that, which which I think you might have even mixed as being slightly inappropriate or something.
But here he was, I think, you know, knowing full well that he was in decline and towards the end of his days.
And it just goes right back to what you said earlier about Jim Emanuel, which is that he found a way to to make light of it and to and to bring the humor out into the situation.
So he he never lost who he was.
That's for damn sure.
And we can all learn incredible lessons from him.
All the recordings that we played are available online.
Twenty six hundred dot com slash off the hook.
So they're so much more than what we played tonight.
Rest in peace, Jim.
We're taking next week off.
We'll see you on YouTube at eight o'clock.
Good night, everyone.
He was a friend of mine.
He was a friend of mine.
Every time I think about him now.
I just can't keep from crying.
He was a friend of mine.
He died on the road.
He died on the road.
He never had enough money to pay his room or board.
He was a friend of mine.
I stole away and cried.
I stole away and cried.
Because I never had too much money.
And I've never been quite satisfied.
He was a friend of mine.
He never done no wrong.
He never done no wrong.
A thousand miles from home.
And he never harmed no one.
And he was a friend of mine.
He was a friend of mine.
He was a friend of mine.
Every time I hear his name.
I just can't keep from crying.
He was a friend of mine.