It’s true. I have not posted to this site in a couple of months. I commenced a full-time office job for the first time in years, surprising myself at how easily I fit back into the 9-5 mold after I don’t know how many years of the flâneur.nyc lifestyle. But as any working stiff knows, a full-time engagement leaves precious little time or energy for much of anything else.
I do not expect this full-time job to be a long-term arrangement, but for now it’s a healthy and productive distraction from my crumbling world of aging websites. This job is something I took on out of want far more than need. If I ever feel comfortable talking about it publicly I might explain how this job is, for me, a kind of performance art.
Aside from the job I’ve had a lot going on in my personal life. The only encounter I want to talk about here came about through almost magical connections involving Payphone Radio, a Reddit discussion thread, and a certain ghost in the machine of my PBX that caused a brief sensation.
I WOKE UP FAMOUS
Sometime on the night of Monday, January 10, a Reddit user posted the phone number that connects to my Payphone Radio (212-255-2748). The Reddit thread was intended to spur discussion about the audio content heard when calling that number.
That is what happened, at least at first. Redditors called in and heard the audio, then posted comments about it to a subreddit that evidently started somewhere else, in the middle of an unrelated discussion about the Antiwork movement: https://www.reddit.com/r/thepayphoneproject/
As the discussion ensued Redittors started calling the number, quickly discovering a “glitch” in my system. It’s not really a glitch. I always knew it was there. I just never expected anyone to find it.
When one person called the number they heard the Payphone Radio audio, as expected. But when a second person called the number at the same time the Payphone Radio audio stopped and the two callers could talk directly to each other. At that point other callers got a busy signal. Calls disconnected after 6 minutes.
Word quickly spread and, all through the night, people from around the world called 212-255-2748 engaging in brief, ephemeral conversation with other callers. The PBX call logs clocked about 3000 calls (many callers heard busy signals) mostly from North America but with several calls from overseas.
When I learned of this all I could think was This is why The Payphone Project was created in the first place, over 26 years ago. In 1995 I posted a list of payphone numbers and locations around Manhattan and encouraged people to call those numbers and make random contacts with complete strangers. It worked, and this site grew from a list of a few dozen NYC locations to over 750,000 locations on all 7 continents.
I had no idea what was happening in my PBX until about 11am Tuesday, when all at once a couple of rapturous emails, a joyful voicemail message, and an Instagram connection crossed my radar.
The voicemail message came from two people saying they loved my audio but they also wanted me to know about this unexpected ability for people to talk, in case it was a mistake or a security gaff
One email contained this comment:
In a time when people feel alienated from one another due to the current state of things, this has allowed people to connect, which is such a vital thing. Please, please, do not let this stop, this is a great thing and even if it is not intended, It has definitely been a wonderful experience.
Intrigued by the buzz, I called in myself.
At first I heard, as expected, the Payphone Radio Shoutcast stream. Moments later that audio stopped, signaling someone else had called in. I said something like “Who’s calling? Anybody there?”
I spoke with a dude sitting in his car in a parking lot somewhere in Texas. He said he’d read about this phone number you could call and “listen to someone talk about onions.” Assuming he came from Reddit I guess this person had only read as far as the introductory comments where the focus was meant to be on the audio content of Payphone Radio. He had not read as far as the “glitch” part, where people talked about randomly connecting.
Another caller described 212-255-2748 as “a number New Yorkers call to complain about shit.”
Other calls came through. Some people expected to just hear audio and not interact but most were there to make these random 6-minute connections.
Everyone I talked to seemed nice and genuinely interested in having transient, evaporative conversation. My fears when opening up phones like this, for all the world to access, is that talk would turn ugly or abusive. That does not seem to have happened.
With respect to the “glitch” some felt they’d slipped into another dimension, a telephonic wormhole. On the other hand those expecting to hear audio content seemed miffed to find themselves instead conversing with randos from anywhere on earth.
Communications I’d received kept referring to a 6-minute timeout, to which I kept asking What are they talking about? Calls are not supposed to time out after 6 minutes… I thought maybe the sudden quantity of calls had overloaded my PBX, a scenario that didn’t make sense. There weren’t *that* many calls coming in.
It turned I thought I had set incoming calls to time out after an hour, or 3600 seconds. That’s just a sanity check and good VOIP manners to prevent calls from unintentionally staying connected for 4 hours. One can listen as long as they want via their web browser or mobile device but over the phone I set a timeout.
It turns out there really was a glitch. Calls were supposed to timeout after 3600 seconds. I typed 360 seconds, or 6 minutes, into the config file. That solved the mystery of the 6-minute glitch.
6 minutes is kind of a weird time span in the world of telephone systems. I think it contributed to the sense among those who called in that this ability to connect with strangers was a mistake.
GLITCH FIXED. NOW WHAT?
I set the timeout to an hour, as originally intended, restarted the PBX, and took what I intended to be one last call for me. It came from a Bushwick-based burlesque stripper and performance artist named Cecilia.
Setting call length to an hour just moments before Cecilia called proved fortuitous and, dare I say, lucky. Instead of timing out after 6 minutes we chatted for about a ½ hour. I felt uneasy at first, still settling in to this strange universe I’d created but never expected to come alive. She seemed a little nervous, too.
Our conversation drifted on, free and easy, high and low, G-rated to tawdry. This was Tuesday around noon.
I dated a stripper for a number months some years ago. She was my last real attempt at what some would call a “normal” relationship, in which we went on dates and tried to build the foundation for a lasting connection.
We should never have even bothered but from her I learned a little bit about the stripper lifestyle, giving Cecilia and I some basis for conversation, something besides payphones, that is.
Cecilia asked if I’d ever seen my stripper ex perform. I replied “Only for me.” “Iconic” was her reply.
Next thing I knew I had a hot date with a burlesque stripper. This was Tuesday. We decided to meet up around noon on Thursday at Grand Central Terminal. That happened and this video documents some of it.
The music at 0:17 is subway busker T.C. Saxman, in a recording I made using a 14th Street payphone in May, 2019. I chose that to accompany the still photos because Cecilia so enjoyed The Saxman’s playing when we heard it at 34th St/Penn Station. She’s a damn good tipper, btw.
3:36 is Iconic.
I gave her the grand tour of midtown’s payphones, handing her a stack of Payphone Radio cards to stuff into payphones on 5th Ave., at Grand Central, Macy’s, and the Port Authority/Times Square subway station. We also stuck cards into a number of LinkNYC kiosks.
It was a beautiful way to spend an afternoon, thanks to an almost unbelievable circumstance in which to have made any kind of connection, much less a meaningful and lasting one. We made fast friends. I found her endlessly interesting and, dare I say, interested. I admire Cecilia’s performance art and videos, and think you will, too. She’s not so hard on the eyes, either.
Find her at @itsceciliasin on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsceciliasin/
So here’s a pro dating for you PBX admins out there: Set up a hidden conference call bridge on your system and wait for the babes to start pouring in. Easy!