New book contends that Catch Me If You Can is mostly made up
whyy.org
whyy.org
ERNIE LUCKMAN ... this guy appeared on tv, claiming to be a world-famous imposter. He said he'd posed at one time or another as a great surgeon, a theoretical submolecular high-velocity particle research physicist, a Finnish novelist, a deposed president of Argentina...
BOB ARCTOR He got away with it? Never got caught?
ERNIE LUCKMAN See, the guy never really posed as any of it. He only posed as a worldfamous imposter. Turns out he just pushed a broom at Disneyland, until he read about this actual world-famous imposter, and he thought, I can pose as all those things, then he thought, hell, I'll just pose as an imposter. Save a lot of time, a lot easier. Made almost as much money as the real imposter with books and movie rights.
https://books.google.no/books?id=EBAcBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT125&dq=Sc...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Lem%27s_fictiti...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudepigrapha
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Literature_in_the_America...
--- from the book --- "--this guy," Luckman was saying, manicuring a box full of grass, hunched over it as Arctor sat across from him, more or less watching, "appeared on TV claiming to be a world-famous impostor. He had posed at one time or another, he told the interviewer, as a great surgeon at Johns Hopkins Medical College, a theoretical submolecular highvelocity particle-research physicist on a federal grant at Harvard, as a Finnish novelist who'd won the Nobel Prize in literature, as a deposed president of Argentina married to--"
"And he got away with all that?" Arctor asked. "He never got caught?"
"The guy never posed as any of those. He never posed as anything but a worldfamous impostor. That came out later in the L.A. _Times_--they checked up. The guy pushed a broom at Disneyland, or had until he read this autobiography about this worldfamous impostor--there really was one--and he said, 'Hell, I can pose as all those exotic dudes and get away with it like he did,' and then he decided, 'Hell, why do that; I'll just pose as another impostor.' He made a lot of bread that way, the _Times_ said. Almost as much as the real world-famous impostor. And he said it was a lot easier." ---
One of my favorites from PKD. The movie was actually a really good representation of the book.
I was disapointed they didn't bother with that. Except for that, I agree, a good adaptation of one of my favorite PKD books. It is such a weird book.
The quote about the imposter is funny cause Bob Arctor is an imposter himself...
> In his scramble suit, Fred, who was also Robert Arctor, groaned and thought: This is terrible.
I like it better the way I read it even though it apparently wasn't written that way, ha!
There still is something to say maybe about how the book still tells different parts by describing the person as "Fred" or "Bob" depending on what role he's playing, something you lose in a movie that doesn't have textual narration like that. Maybe it at least made it more clear that Bob doesn't realize he's both people, even if the reader does? I forget how/how early this was clear in the movie. I should both read and watch it again!
Granted the con isn't as glamorous at it was made out to be, but still a pretty effective con.
I don't really have respect for people who haven't actually accomplished anything aside from a grift. I do read books like Principals by Ray Dalio or I Love Capitalism! by Ken Langone.
I don’t think having there’s anything wrong with having some sort of social interaction coach or the equivalent to help learn what the social norms around dating are. Although not usually for dating, that is a form of therapy that can be helpful for people on the autism spectrum who may have trouble understanding the social cues on their own.
If you're looking for something long term why seek advice from someone that's chronically single but an expert at "dating". And if someone has been married a long time, they probably don't know anything about the current "dating scene". But if you just want to learn to hook up with lots of people then maybe they have something to teach you.
Why seek advice on diabetes from a doctor who isn't diabetic?
Bizarre objection to make.
If your objection is that you are looking for a long-term relationship instead of pick-up skills, and you are not satisfied with the replies that state the supposed confidence boost from learning pick-up dynamics, there are also plenty of resources exclusively focusing on finding and maintaining long-term relationships, such as the one above.
It's very easy to Not Give a F** when you've always had rich parents to support you. As if your known to come from money you'll have no shortage of people who want to get to know you.
It's all trash anyway. The only thing that fixed my dating life was dropping 70 pounds in my 20s. Also fixed my blood sugar! Without the chronic back pain I'm happier too.
This was very hard though and took 6 months or so. I doubt ' Fix your life in 6 to 12 months by making hard choices ' would sell all that well. These books offer quick fixes which aren't practical.
The best trick he pulled with "Models" is selling it as a book about dating, when it's really just about developing self-respect.
I didn't know he was wealthy, but his stories aren't all that removed from your average white college guy in the 2000s. The advice he offers isn't dependent on your income. It's not like "4 hour work week" where the secret was just to pay people to take care of basic tasks and free up your time.
That's only possible if you are born into money. Even then he avoids giving out concrete advice. If I'm going to spend 20$ on a book I might as well read one by a billionaire.
I haven't read "Art of not..." because it came off as one of those books cashing in on "stoicism for bros". As I understand it, that's the book that made him truly famous.
My original comment refers only to what he wrote in "Models", which was written several years earlier. I would much sooner read a book about dating from a relatively average looking, average seeming guy than somebody who never had problems dating to begin with.
Weight loss would be another example. Everybody knows that you should eat less and exercise more, but those things are hard to improve at, so instead many people gravitate to gimmicky fad diets that won't work but are much easier to try.
I'd question this. It's my impression that this is currently the last self help hype - at least it was two years or so ago.
The gospel is that you have punish and torture yourself to accomplish something. You have to "leave the comfort zone" but in a particularly strenuous, masochistic fashion. The pain is then a signal interpreted as being on the right path.
more like I love Survisorship Bias
If their get-rich-quick pump-and-dump schemes actually worked, they'd have a lot better things to do with their time than evangelize Bitcoin and Ethereum and ICOs and NFTs in online forums.
I guess this is for my self too. My thinking is I’d be a wildly different person if I not only fell for shills peddling stuff and “successful experts” selling courses. On top of that, keeping the money in risky investments is a whole other thing. Like staking a big stake of money in Bitcoin or Eth for the past 5+ years without cashing out. Or still having tons of money in dogecoin without cashing out.
Of course I too wish I made tons of easy money. The fact that a friend bought into dogecoin a month ago and I didn’t. Means I’m never going to do this sort of stuff. Same friend/acquaintance wants me to buy into dogecoin during the next dip. Which to him is dropping ~15%. He wants me to buy in at 45+ cents. It’s at 55 cents right now after rising like 40% or something in a couple of days. He’s probably going to max out his credit cards to buy more dogecoin before Elon Musk’s SNL appearance.
I am very tempted to buy in to dogecoin as well just for the hype of him. Sell before he actually presents. We’ll see.
The guy made loads of money from lying. Why would we trust him about some sort of crazy rich man's lifestyle story that almost perfectly stereotypes what a crazy evil wall street boiler room guy would do.
For example, at the start of the movie, he talks of driving a red Ferrari, and immediately changes it to white [1].
Another example is the 400lb bench press [2].
I also saw an interpretation on how Scorsese sought to present money and opulence as the ultimate salvation. So it only made sense to write the gospel in a way that extended that narrative. [3]
Edit: Formatting
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxZ99H5_1Z8
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/MovieDetails/comments/bvt20s/in_the...
[1]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OxZ99H5_1Z8
[2]https://money.cnn.com/2005/11/04/news/newsmakers/fidelity_pa...
[3]https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/business/06fidelity.html
[4]https://www.reuters.com/article/fidelity-trader-idUSN0818028...
actually, this niche is already quite full.
> I was interviewed by the co-writer only about four times. I believe he did a great job of telling the story, but he also over dramatized and exaggerated some of the story. That was his style and what the editor wanted. He always reminded me that he was just telling a story and not writing my biography. This is one of the reasons that from the very beginning, I insisted the publisher put a disclaimer in the book and tapes.
Here's a question though: did the writers feel they had to stick somewhat close to the "truth?" Did it cause them to make some choices they might not have if they were writing about a totally fictitious conman? And, if indeed those things happened, would the movie have been even better if they had total freedom? Or did the movie thrive in part due to its constraints? All unanswerables of course but an interesting train of thought. Reminds me of how the first three Star Wars films are the best despite their limited budget and Lucas' relatively constrained freedom of direction.
Next you're going to tell me that The Unknown Comic wasn't really unknown, and his name was actually Murray Langston.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unknown_Comic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BBZVQ4zBcU&ab_channel=RBArc...
I think this crosses a line. It's not a matter of reordering events or combining characters or even inventing small events to drive home a conceptual point. All of those are fairly accepted in the memoir and historical drama genres as changes which seek to clarify. Essentially, it's ok to misrepresent the facts of the truth if it's helping communicate the spirit of the truth.
If what this author is alleging is true, then whole aspects of Abengale's story and ethos are totally fabricated. For example, a big part of Abengale's story is how he used his abilities as an autodidact to outwit the heavy handed systems of professional credentialism (becoming a pilot, a doctor, a lawyer). Once having pulled the wool over the eyes of the elite, he fleaced these wealthy suckers for no more than they could afford.
In reality, he may have simply been a stalker, who leveraged people's kindness to steal considerable amounts of their small nest egg. That's a pretty different story. Because it fundamentally changes Abengale's relationship to his victims. What he is doing goes from being bold and clever and reckless to being predatory and petty and cruel.
The only twist in this case may be that it's the conman making everything up rather than the movie producer / writer / director. "Based on a true story" almost always means, "totally made up, but doesn't contain any scifi or magic, unless it's about an exorcism."
“Based on a true story”: loosely based on a book
“Based on true events”: loosely based on some news articles
“Inspired by true events”: The writer heard your story and thought of a more interesting one
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2004/03/is-hidalgo-reall...
Seriously though, I think that movie was what really broke the "based on a true story" thing for me. There's no real criteria for claiming something is based on a true story, you only need a tenuous grasp to reality.
Basically, you can make the claim that Avengers Endgame is just as much based on a true story as Hidalgo if you wanted to.
Despite or because of?
> I was interviewed by the co-writer only about four times. I believe he did a great job of telling the story, but he also over dramatized and exaggerated some of the story. That was his style and what the editor wanted.
ETA: It's not like the version on his website is likely true either, just saying that questions about the veracity of the story have been around for a very long time and have been strong enough that he's backed away from a lot of the claims in the book.
In fact, most of the more extraordinary episodes in the film such as him passing bar or running a hospital come directly from his book which is supposedly an autobiography.
Say this was especially egregious in the Steve Jobs biopic, which had almost nothing to do with reality, except being a "best hits" of various memes spread about the man throughout the years, combined with copious amount of Sorkinisms.
It's full of wrong facts and misplaced events (most famous is the HIV positivity disclosed before Live Aid (1985), Freddie discovered his positivity in 1987) and John Deacon role was taken to the minimum level.
They won 5 oscars.
Recently I watched the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line (2005). https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0358273
It was entirely by chance that almost immediately after that I saw the story of his first wife, Vivian Dorraine Liberto, in My Darling Vivian (2020), https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7432980
Watching these two films back to back is informative. The end bits of the last film featuring the celebratory gathering of Hollywood personas was specially galling, in context of the counter-narrative.
There is this 'machine' that has perfected the art of deception and perception management and preys upon our inherent human psychological susceptibilities. Even cynics like me are susceptible. The only effective antidote seems to be to turn the tools and means of the machine against its products, or to avoid its products entirely.
Examples:
the Holman-moody team came up with the “hot swap” suspension thing, not the Shelby team.
Leo Beebe didn’t try to fuck Ken miles.
Ken miles wasn’t killed by brake failure, he was killed with the Jcar test mule lost the rear body work at high speed.
Lots more, but I don’t want to type it all out.
Other stuff I’ve just accumulated over the years ,don’t think anyone has written a complete history of the program.
What PISSES me off, is that in HS I lived within bike distance of gurney’s AAR and had no idea. My dad should have known, but didn’t bother to tell me. Also, within driving distance of Carroll smith’s residence.
I wanted nothing more than to be a race car engineer at the time.
All his exploits were small-time cons, and he often got caught. The author does a really good job of documenting all this with primary sources (arrest and prison records, etc.), secondary sources (news articles from the 1970s) and with interviews with people who were actually with Abagnale during some of the supposed exploits in the 60s and 70s.
Overall, it's good, thorough journalism. I wrote a brief review at https://adiamond.me/2021/03/the-greatest-hoax-on-earth-alan-..., but the WHYY review is more thorough.
And, BTW, I loved the movie. As author Logan points out, one reason con men can con is because people would much rather believe an exciting romantic story than a mundane and disappointing one.
The central premise of The Life of Pi
A former postal employee, he named himself "Dr. med. Dr. phil. Clemens Bartholdy" and first worked as a public health officer in Flensburg.
> When asked about his dissertation's subject, he reportedly replied "On pseudologia phantastica [with regard to] the example of the character Felix Krull from the homonymous novel by Thomas Mann and cognitively induced distortions in stereotypical judgment".
Later, he worked as a surgeon major in the German armed forced, and several years as a senior physician in a psychiatric hospital, also giving lectures.
> By chance, a co-worker recognised him on July 10, 1997, forcing him to go into hiding. At that time, an appointment was already set for an interview with Hans Geisler, then Saxony's Minister of State for social affairs, health and family, on the occasion of Postel's appointment to a professorship and to the position of chief of medicine at Saxony's hospital for psychiatry and neurology at Arnsdorf near Dresden.
A reasonable perspective to have about every dramatized based-on-a-true-story blockbuster, you'd think.
I lie occasionally. Sometimes enjoy it too.
Maybe they serve a purpose, just like people who speed a bit on the highway are beneficial to the traffic flow.
And you know what? Im starting to suspect you may actually be a net negative to the society yourself and I’d be veeery wary dealing with someone like you
Did you not see the effect of lies on the pandemic or this most recent US election?
Edit: When somebody who proudly proclaims that "I lie occasionally. Sometimes enjoy it too." denies knowing about something so widely covered in the international news, believe them when they say they enjoy lying.
the-dude: You have google and wikipedia. Look it up. No more excuses for ignorance and whitewashes for liars and blame for believers.
@Don : first, editting your comment is in no way the proper etiquette to discuss. Second, I looked it up, and apparently you are referring to this re-election campaign. Seriously, I didn't know about it.
Ignorance is bliss.
If you missed noticing that, you didn't look it up very well, and you're not being sincere.
There's really no point in taking seriously or continuing a discussion with somebody who brags he enjoys lying, and cultivates blissful ignorance.
If your blissful ignorance is really sincere, then you don't have much to contribute to the conversation.
Ignorance is bliss : practically, keeping up with the news doesn't really do much for anybody.
Building a real, albeit overvalued company isn’t the same as running a massive fraud from first principles.
WeWork’s model for scalable cloud office space is now basically the default, and post-pandemic they are already selling seats to corporates like gangbusters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_of_Takako_Konishi
It's lies all the way down!
I love how that somehow suddenly makes stealing money on.
From Wikipedia: "Abagnale was in fact in the United States Navy from December 1964 through February 1965. Following his release from Great Meadow Prison on Dec 24, 1968, Abagnale was re-arrested on Feb 14, 1969, in Baton Rouge after victimizing a local family and small business. He told the Parks family of Baton Rouge he was a TWA pilot on furlough while he stayed with them. While their backs were turned he rifled through their belongings and stole their personal checks. This is the first reference to Abagnale committing a crime dressed as a pilot. Abagnale was convicted and sentenced for theft and forgery from the Parks family and a local small business (Dolley and Son) in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in June, 1969 (State of Louisiana vs. Frank W. Abagnale. Case #69.103 and Case #69.104). Abagnale fled his supervised probation and court-ordered psychiatric treatment and in August, 1969, he victimized two local families in Klippan, Sweden, while dressed as a TWA pilot (Swedish national Archives, Case #B -195/70). Within a month, Abagnale was arrested in Montpellier, France, and served 3 months in Perpigan prison. He was extradited to Sweden and was sentenced to two months in Malmo jail. After deportation to the United States, Abagnale secured a Pan American Airlines uniform. In the summer of 1970, at 22 years old, Abagnale began a three-month period where he wrote 10 personal checks with a Pan American Airlines logo attached. Targets included small businesses such as Hales Camera in Provo, Utah, and Pilgrim Dry Cleaner in Houston. On November 2, 1970, Abagnale was arrested in Cobb County, Georgia. This three-month period is the basis of his self-promotion as the world's greatest imposter. Federal court records show that Abagnale was convicted for the 10 Pan American Airlines checks in five States (Texas, Arizona, Utah, California and North Carolina), worth a grand total of less than US$1,500 (United States of America vs. Frank W. Abagnale. Southern District of Georgia. For the US, J. Owen Forrester, Docket #s 26829, 26814, 26797, 26793, 26734, 26733, 26706, 26689). Following parole, he claimed he went to work for the FBI. However, he was arrested in the summer of 1974 in Friendswood, Texas, for theft at a kids' camp, Camp Manison. This arrest was noted in the local paper (Houston man arrested for Camp Manison theft. The News (Friendswood, Texas). 1974;Thursday 5 Sep,Page 1). Combined, the NPR article, and the separate article in the Louisiana Voice, and the detailed, 350-reference book The Greatest Hoax on Earth, debunk Abagnale's many claims, and refute his long-standing claim that he "never, ever" ripped off an individual or small business.[33] There is no evidence that he was ever nicknamed The Skywayman, nor that he was ever on any wanted list of the FBI."
> “No one from the FBI has ever made a public statement about what Abagnale has or hasn’t done for them,” Logan said. “He has given some guest lectures at the academy, but he makes these outlandish statements in the media. He’s claimed to teach ethics at the FBI.”
> Abagnale sticks by his stories, continuing to tell and retell them even today.
> “Go to YouTube, you will see the Talks at Google that Abagnale did not that long ago. That video has been viewed over 11 million times. And he makes the claim there, still, that he was an attorney general and passed the bar exam.”
> In the video, Abagnale claims that the FBI included in its 100th anniversary coffee table book a section that identifies him as the only person ever sprung out of the federal penitentiary to work for the agency.
> “And I just recently … picked up a copy. There is, indeed, a beautiful coffee table book printed and published by the FBI. And Mr. Abagnale’s name, as you might suspect, is nowhere to be found within it.”