Joybubbles
Encyclopedia
Joybubbles born Josef Carl Engressia, Jr. in Richmond, Virginia
, USA
, was an early phone phreak
. Born blind
, he became interested in telephone
s at age four. Gifted with absolute pitch
, he was able to whistle
2600 hertz into a telephone (see Blue box). Joybubbles said that he had an IQ of “172 or something.” Joybubbles died at his Minneapolis home on . According to his death certificate, he died of "natural causes" with "congestive heart failure" as a contributing condition. The character of Whistler, played by David Strathairn
in the film Sneakers
, is based directly on Engressia.
A student at the University of South Florida
in the late 1960s, he was given the nickname “Whistler,” due to his ability to place free long distance phone calls by whistling, with his mouth
, the proper tones. After a Canadian operator reported him for selling such calls for $1 at the university, he was suspended and fined $25, but soon reinstated; he later graduated in philosophy
and moved to Tennessee
.
According to FBI records, the phone company SBT&T first noticed his phreaking activities in summer 1968, and an employee of the Florida Bell Telephone Company
illegally monitored Engressia’s telephone conversations and divulged them to the FBI.
After law enforcement
raided his house, he was charged with malicious mischief
, given a suspended sentence
, and quickly abandoned phreaking
.
. He lived off his Social Security
disability pension and a job as a test subject for scent-intensity research. He was an ordained minister of his own Church of Eternal Childhood, and ran a one-man nonprofit support organization
for people rediscovering and re-experiencing childhood, called “We Won’t Grow Up.” He tried to remain an active member of the children’s community around his home, giving readings at the local library
and setting up phone calls to terminally ill children around the world. He often contributed to the Bulletin Board section of the St. Paul Pioneer Press
newspaper.
Sexually abused as a child
by one of his teachers, a nun
, Joybubbles “reverted to his childhood,” in May 1988, and remained there until his death, claiming that he was five years old. He legally changed his name to Joybubbles in 1991, stating that he wanted to put his past, specifically the abuse, behind him.
An avid fan of Mister Rogers, Joybubbles was mentioned in a November 1998 Esquire
magazine article about children’s television host Fred Rogers. In the summer of 1998, Joybubbles traveled to the University of Pittsburgh
’s Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
Archives and listened to several hundred episodes over a span of six weeks.
, Engressia was featured in an Esquire
article by Ron Rosenbaum
(Secrets of the Little Blue Box) which exposed the phone phreak scene to a general public and led to further media coverage of Engressia, who became a cultural icon.
The movie Sneakers had a character named “Whistler,” who seemed to combine traits of both Joybubbles and John Draper
. In his book iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak
mentions Joybubbles as an early inspiration during his college years.
In the early 1980s, he ran a phone line called the “Zzzzyzzerrific Funline,” which had the distinction of being the very last entry in the phone book. During the Zzzzyzzerrific Funline days, calling himself Highrise Joe, he would go on various rants about how much he loved Valleyfair amusement park and would also regularly play and discuss “Up With People
.”
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
, USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, was an early phone phreak
Phreaking
Phreaking is a slang term coined to describe the activity of a culture of people who study, experiment with, or explore telecommunication systems, such as equipment and systems connected to public telephone networks. As telephone networks have become computerized, phreaking has become closely...
. Born blind
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
, he became interested in telephone
Telephone
The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...
s at age four. Gifted with absolute pitch
Absolute pitch
Absolute pitch , widely referred to as perfect pitch, is the ability of a person to identify or re-create a given musical note without the benefit of an external reference.-Definition:...
, he was able to whistle
Whistling
Human whistling is the production of sound by means of carefully controlling a stream of air flowing through a small hole. Whistling can be achieved by creating a small opening with one's lips and then blowing or sucking air through the hole...
2600 hertz into a telephone (see Blue box). Joybubbles said that he had an IQ of “172 or something.” Joybubbles died at his Minneapolis home on . According to his death certificate, he died of "natural causes" with "congestive heart failure" as a contributing condition. The character of Whistler, played by David Strathairn
David Strathairn
David Russell Strathairn is an American actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for portraying journalist Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck...
in the film Sneakers
Sneakers (film)
Sneakers is a 1992 caper film directed by Phil Alden Robinson, written by Robinson, Walter F. Parkes, and Lawrence Lasker and starring Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier and David Strathairn...
, is based directly on Engressia.
Whistler
As a five-year old, Engressia discovered he could dial phone numbers by clicking the hang-up switch (“tapping”), and at the age of 7 he accidentally discovered that whistling at certain frequencies could activate phone switches.A student at the University of South Florida
University of South Florida
The University of South Florida, also known as USF, is a member institution of the State University System of Florida, one of the state's three flagship universities for public research, and is located in Tampa, Florida, USA...
in the late 1960s, he was given the nickname “Whistler,” due to his ability to place free long distance phone calls by whistling, with his mouth
Mouth
The mouth is the first portion of the alimentary canal that receives food andsaliva. The oral mucosa is the mucous membrane epithelium lining the inside of the mouth....
, the proper tones. After a Canadian operator reported him for selling such calls for $1 at the university, he was suspended and fined $25, but soon reinstated; he later graduated in philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
and moved to Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
.
According to FBI records, the phone company SBT&T first noticed his phreaking activities in summer 1968, and an employee of the Florida Bell Telephone Company
Bell Telephone Company
The Bell Telephone Company, a common law joint stock company, was organized in Boston, Massachusetts on July 9, 1877 by Alexander Graham Bell's father-in-law Gardiner Greene Hubbard, who also helped organize a sister company — the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company...
illegally monitored Engressia’s telephone conversations and divulged them to the FBI.
After law enforcement
Law enforcement agency
In North American English, a law enforcement agency is a government agency responsible for the enforcement of the laws.Outside North America, such organizations are called police services. In North America, some of these services are called police while others have other names In North American...
raided his house, he was charged with malicious mischief
Malicious mischief
Malicious Mischief is the specific name for different criminal offences in a number of different criminal jurisdictions. While the wrongful acts will often involve what is popularly described as vandalism there can be a legal differentiation between the two....
, given a suspended sentence
Suspended sentence
A suspended sentence is a legal term for a judge's delaying of a defendant's serving of a sentence after they have been found guilty, in order to allow the defendant to perform a period of probation...
, and quickly abandoned phreaking
Phreaking
Phreaking is a slang term coined to describe the activity of a culture of people who study, experiment with, or explore telecommunication systems, such as equipment and systems connected to public telephone networks. As telephone networks have become computerized, phreaking has become closely...
.
Childhood abuse and becoming Joybubbles
In 1982, he moved to Minneapolis, MinnesotaMinnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
. He lived off his Social Security
Social Security (United States)
In the United States, Social Security refers to the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program.The original Social Security Act and the current version of the Act, as amended encompass several social welfare and social insurance programs...
disability pension and a job as a test subject for scent-intensity research. He was an ordained minister of his own Church of Eternal Childhood, and ran a one-man nonprofit support organization
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
for people rediscovering and re-experiencing childhood, called “We Won’t Grow Up.” He tried to remain an active member of the children’s community around his home, giving readings at the local library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
and setting up phone calls to terminally ill children around the world. He often contributed to the Bulletin Board section of the St. Paul Pioneer Press
St. Paul Pioneer Press
The St. Paul Pioneer Press is a newspaper based in St. Paul, Minnesota, primarily serving the Twin Cities metropolitan area. Circulation is heaviest in the eastern metro region, including Ramsey, Dakota, and Washington counties, along with western Wisconsin, eastern Minnesota and Anoka County,...
newspaper.
Sexually abused as a child
Child sexual abuse
Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include asking or pressuring a child to engage in sexual activities , indecent exposure with intent to gratify their own sexual desires or to...
by one of his teachers, a nun
Nun
A nun is a woman who has taken vows committing her to live a spiritual life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent...
, Joybubbles “reverted to his childhood,” in May 1988, and remained there until his death, claiming that he was five years old. He legally changed his name to Joybubbles in 1991, stating that he wanted to put his past, specifically the abuse, behind him.
An avid fan of Mister Rogers, Joybubbles was mentioned in a November 1998 Esquire
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
magazine article about children’s television host Fred Rogers. In the summer of 1998, Joybubbles traveled to the University of Pittsburgh
University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...
’s Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, also known as Mister Rogers, is an American children's television series that was created and hosted by Fred Rogers. The series is aimed primarily at preschool ages, 2-5, but has been stated by Public Broadcasting Service as "appropriate for all ages"...
Archives and listened to several hundred episodes over a span of six weeks.
Presence on screen and page
In 1971, just after his arrestArrest
An arrest is the act of depriving a person of his or her liberty usually in relation to the purported investigation and prevention of crime and presenting into the criminal justice system or harm to oneself or others...
, Engressia was featured in an Esquire
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
article by Ron Rosenbaum
Ron Rosenbaum
-Life and career:Rosenbaum was born into a Jewish family in New York City, New York and grew up in Bay Shore, New York. He graduated from Yale University in 1968 and won a Carnegie Fellowship to attend Yale's graduate program in English Literature, though he dropped out after taking one course...
(Secrets of the Little Blue Box) which exposed the phone phreak scene to a general public and led to further media coverage of Engressia, who became a cultural icon.
The movie Sneakers had a character named “Whistler,” who seemed to combine traits of both Joybubbles and John Draper
John Draper
John Thomas Draper , also known as Captain Crunch, Crunch or Crunchman , is an American computer programmer and former phone phreak. He is a legendary figure within the computer programming world.- Background :Draper is the son of a U.S...
. In his book iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak
Steve Wozniak
Stephen Gary "Woz" Wozniak is an American computer engineer and programmer who founded Apple Computer, Co. with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne...
mentions Joybubbles as an early inspiration during his college years.
Phone services
Joybubbles ran a weekly telephone story line called “Stories and Stuff.” The numbers were +1 206-FEELING (+1 206 333-5464), +1 612-813-1212, and +1 773-572-3109. Stories and Stuff was usually updated on the weekend.In the early 1980s, he ran a phone line called the “Zzzzyzzerrific Funline,” which had the distinction of being the very last entry in the phone book. During the Zzzzyzzerrific Funline days, calling himself Highrise Joe, he would go on various rants about how much he loved Valleyfair amusement park and would also regularly play and discuss “Up With People
Up with People
Up with People is an international education organization founded in 1968 by J. Blanton Belk, building from roots in the similar "Sing-Out" program of 1965. Up With People is best known for their musical performances by international casts consisting of 70–100 students from, on average, 20...
.”
External links
- New York Times Obituary
- New York Times Magazine memorial profile
- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette profile (2003)
- 11-20-91 Off the Hook interview / Summary of the Off The Hook interview
- An archive of Stories and Stuff
- A Haxor Radio interview with Joybubbles (April 22, 2004)
- NPR’s All Things Considered remembers Joybubbles (Interview with Ron Rosenbaum)
- A video of Joybubbles making a phone call by whistling
- A conversation with Joybubbles from 1998
- Secrets of the Little Blue Box