The Phone Ranger rides again! And watch out, Ma Bell, this time, he's packing his guitar. New Yorkers of a certain age and a certain disdain for a certain telecommunications monopoly will no doubt remember George Levine, the furniture salesman whose crusade against AT&T in the 1960s earned him a brief moment in the spotlight as "The Phone Ranger." Levine's campaigns against monthly equipment rental charges and unfair rate hikes have definitely quieted down since the breakup of the phone monopoly 17 years ago, but his passion for a good fight has not. In fact, he thinks it still has quite a beat to it. So much so that Levine has written what may be the world's first phone-company musical -- "The Bell Wringers" -- which is that rarest of Broadway confections, the "boy-meets-girl, boy-gets-girl, boy-and-girl-take-on-the-phone-company" drama. It's Rodgers and Hammerstein meets Gerde's Folk City. "We all must love our old Ma Bell, `cause of the way we treat her so well," Levine sang the other day, giving the Gnome a sneak preview (full disclosure? I haven't invested in a musical since "Starlight Express," but this man had me reaching for my wallet). "Two billion profit was last year's score. This year they'll make even more," Levine continued. "That song is the scene-setter about monthly rental charges," Levine said, recalling the days when the phone company charged a phone-rental fee on top of the regular line charge -- yet wouldn't let you save money by installing your own phone. It was a long, strange, uniquely American trip that took George Levine from a shipbuilding yard during World War II to writing protest songs about the phone company. During the war, Levine honed his folk-singing skills by staging theatrical shows to encourage people to join the union. Later, he became cultural director of the Progressive Party, the man who introduced Paul Robeson at rallies and hosted a radio show called "Folklore with Lorrie" (using a fake name because, at the height of the McCarthy years, he had traveled to Bucharest for a decidedly Red-sounding "World Youth Festival"). When his father died in the late 1950s, Levine abandoned his dreams of singing folk anthems in front of placard waving proletarians and went into the furniture business. But he never lost the folk music bug -- you know, the bug that bites the butt of corporate America ... in song! "Bonnie and Clyde used guns for a thrill," Levine sings in a tune called, "Hallelujah, I'm a Consumer." "But you can get robbed with a telephone bill." Levine responded by selling rewired antique phones and hip modern European phones that Ma Bell ("one phone fits all") didn't bother to offer. Trend-hungry New Yorkers snapped up the phones -- but the phone company went after Levine, claiming that all phones had to be rented directly from Ma Bell. "I wasn't trying to start a war with them -- but they started the war with me," Levine said, proudly. With his faithful Tonto at his side -- a bookkeeper named Ellie Martell (a.k.a. the "love interest") -- Levine founded the American Telephone Consumers Council. The Council sold guidebooks on lowering your phone bill. Which reminds him, of course, of another song: "Our show-stopper is called `Vulnerable,'" said Levine. "It goes like this: `No matter how big...they...are/How much like a pig...they...are/When you care a fig...they...are/Vulnerable!' That's the number when I convince Ellie that we have to fight them." To make a long afternoon short, Levine and Martell eventually triumphed over monthly rental fees and even helped block a phone company plan to abandon flat-rate local calls in favor of minute-by-minute charges. ("Do you have any idea where the Internet would be now if that went through?" Levine said, forgetting, perhaps, where the Internet ended up anyway). With Levine done singing, there was only one question left: Who would play Ellie, his partner in battle by day, partner in love by night? "Julia Roberts," Levine said. "`Erin Brockovich' is the same story as `The Phone Ranger,' although I didn't see it, I must admit." --30--