For four and a half minutes on April 27, 1986, HBO s broadcast signal was jammed.
Viewers in the entire eastern half of the U.S. were beamed a protestation that read: GOODEVENING HBO. FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT $12.95/MONTH ? NO WAY [SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE!]
Eventually, the signal returned, and the movie that had been screening at the time,
The Falcon and the Snowman, resumed, but not before presumably several million HBO subscribers witnessed the interruption.
For several days, the identity of Captain Midnight was unknown. It wasn t until after multiple days of investigation and hundreds of false confessions from people around the country that 25-year-old John R. MacDougall, a satellite operator at a ground station in Ocala, Fla., was subpoenaed following a tip from a tourist who had overheard him discussing what he had done at a payphone.
Mar 9, 2021
In the time capsule today…
We find a movie in theaters that becomes the highest-grossing film of all-time in Australia. “Crocodile Dundee” stars Paul Hogan and Linda Causelowski. The two met on the film set and later got married!
We find someone calling themselves “Captain Midnight” jamming the HBO satellite signal with a message protesting their pricey rates. Electrical engineer John MacDougall was later caught, after bragging about his exploits at a payphone in Gainesville, Florida. A busybody overhead the call, jotted down the license plate number and called the FBI.
And we find a song on the radio by the Pet Shop Boys. “West End Girls” was originally written as a rap song! The lyrics describe the London club scene, with the glamorous and moneyed West End, contrasting with the rougher and working class East End.
How about joining me in a blast back to the future (like Marty McFly and Dr. Brown did) to revisit some icons of yesteryear while we wait for the COVID-19 vaccine to help us make it into the rest of 2021 and beyond!
We will rev up the DeLorean in a moment, but, first, a few words about trying to understand todayâs progressive dizzying âalphabet soup,â particularly âcc.â
Do you remember when âccâ most always meant âcarbon copy? â(Now I need to explain that, I suppose) Well, anyway, today âccâ most often means counterculture. And I, for one, am really âpoâdâ about it!
Capt Midnight Retired, To Stud | Standardbred Canada standardbredcanada.ca - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from standardbredcanada.ca Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Patricia Highsmith 100 years on review: “she was a sexual predator, a liar and a sadist” Ian Thomson
Patricia Highsmith, the doyenne of the psychological suspense novel, was born in Texas one hundred years ago this January. Her five Ripley thrillers – the so-called “Ripliad” – are among the most disturbing books ever written. Few writers fathomed with such intensity the dark places of the human mind. Tom Ripley, with his social envy and bouts of self-loathing, is at times quite a charming psychopath. Highsmith’s fiction, a marvel of taut, luminous prose, unsettles by its refusal to judge the amoral Ripleys of this world. Highsmith was the “the poet of apprehension”, said Graham Greene.