After receiving my first call from Karen Freeman, a few months went by and I figured it was a fluke, a wrong number, or a shot in the dark. Then one morning I checked my voicemail, and lo an behold, two messages had been left the night before, one left right after the other. This first message is perhaps the weirdest one of all, with references to Charlie Chaplin, innocuous rock bands, and Harry Potter.

At this point, I was curious as to why she might be calling me, of all people. I looked her up online, and got a phone number, which I called. Her voice was on the answering machine, so I was able to confirm that it’s actually her, but I decided not to leave a message; better to talk to her and try to figure out exactly why she left these messages for me. Here’s the second message:

I’ve Left Information for You Folks Before
(688 kb mp3, 1:56)

Hi Brian, Karen Freeman, I’ve left information for you folks before. I’m calling because Hearst, William Randolph, wanted to run a monopoly, a dictatorship presidency, who knows what you wanted to call it newspaper magazine, tv and broadcasting back in 1920. My concerns started with Charlie Chaplin, the movie “Train: A Hobo.” He sorta remember– resembled Adolf Hitler. What concerns me most in the celebration of Martin Luther King is then there was a black extermination, then hippies, Vietnam extermination, Desert Storm extermination. Then matter of fact, um, Iraq Iran, they don’t have lighting, indoor plumbing, and electricity in their jails. Matter of fact, if art imitates life, you folks have been through the perfect storm, and I think we’re going through it nationally. I’ve got concerns about a couple different groupings of people. The kids club, out in New York City. Wickets, who are a traveling group of, I don’t know, saucerers [sic] and Harry Potters who might be involved in interactive TV. London has brought over a lot of English musicians. John Mayall and many of the musicians he has trained for the past forty years, as well as groups like the Sex Pistols and the B-52s. What are the messages that these groups are conveying? Think of the song “Rock Lobster.” And, um, all I can do is suggest that we um [beep beep], y’know, investigate these situations, and if we’ve got problems with our local TV networks, look for Rambos, we’re caught in a web. If you’re having a hard time circulating information, use somebody else’s user ID. Paul Allen, Charter Communications, Windows on operating syst–

What are the B-52s saying?