660: Hoaxing Yourself

Ira Glass

Parents, here is all the evidence you need that TV is bad for kids, especially public TV. When Sean was 14, he loved watching those British TV shows they're always running on PBS-- Masterpiece Theater, Doctor Who.

Ira Glass

What Sean liked about Lady Harriet Makepeace, and all the other Brits on TV, was their aloofness, how they seemed above it all, how they looked down on Americans. Which Sean did also, convinced there must be something wrong with the nation that produced jocks and bullies, who harassed him in school. And sometimes, joking around with his friends, he would talk with a British accent.

Ira Glass

Sean spoke with a British accent from the time he was 14 until he was 16. And at some point, his mom thought, you know, maybe I need to do something about this, and took him to see a psychiatrist.

Ira Glass

Sean was furious. He had an impulse to lecture the guy on how, in fact, he was British. And the only problem with that was that A, he knew very well that he was not. And B, his mom was sitting right there. She was sure to contradict him. He didn't know what to do. His situation seemed impossible.

Ira Glass

Well, today on our radio program, stories of people who tell a lie, and they get to the point where they believe the lie more than anybody else does. It feels like it must be true. Happens all the time. And can I say, we are not even going to get into what happens with political figures in this show, kidding themselves about the facts of things. Today we have stories of civilians, people like you and me, basically pulling hoaxes on ourselves.

From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass.

Act One of our program today, The Sun Never Sets-- On The Moosewood Restaurant, in which two young men, both from small towns, try on new identities-- false identities-- and what they have to do to keep the lies going. Act Two, Conning the Con Men. Nancy Updike reports on a federal sting operation, and how it caught con men by setting up a con of its own. Act Three, Oedipus Hex. A little kid tries to get rid of his own father with a very, very unlikely plan. Stay with us.

Ira Glass

Act One, The Sun Never Sets-- On the Moosewood Restaurant. So this is the story of two young people who, for a period in their lives, in their search to figure out who they were, pretended to be people who they were not. We're going to hear from Sean Cole and from Joel Lovell. We're going to start with Sean. Today's show is a rerun. This was recorded years ago. These days, Sean is a producer here at our show.

Sean grew up in a small town in Massachusetts, a town that was approximately 3,350 miles from London.

Ira Glass

Joel Lovell's story began when he left the working class town where he grew up in upstate New York. His parents owned a liquor store in a small town. He was the first member of his family to go to college. And it was an especially big deal, because he got into an Ivy League school, Cornell.

Ira Glass

Joel Lovell and Sean Cole. Joel Lovell is the executive editor of a podcast company called Pineapple Street Media.

Sean Cole

Sean Cole works in public radio.

Ira Glass

Indeed, he does. He's one of the producers of our program.

[MUSIC - "MEAT" BY NOISE ADDICT]

Ira Glass

Act Two, Conning the Con Men. The American legal system, for the most part, does not uphold the principle of eye for an eye. If you steal somebody's car, the judge does not steal your car in return. If they catch you selling weed, they do not sell weed to you as your punishment. But if you're in the business of running scams, authorities catch you by running a scam on you.

This is the story of a con man who made millions by fooling people over the phone, until he was the one who got fooled. Nancy Updike reports.

Nancy Updike

The guy's name is David Diamond. That's his actual name. He was one of the most successful salesmen in one of the longest-running telemarketing scams in Los Angeles history.

Nancy Updike

This is Dale Sekovich. He's been a Federal Trade Commission investigator for 29 years. He's the one who busted Diamond.

Nancy Updike

David Diamond was just one of a whole bunch of guys making money, hand over fist, in an operation in Southern California that was basically running the same scam over and over, under different names, for seven years. It was an investment scheme. Give us your money, and we'll put it into this great 900-number business, or this online shopping network, or this hot new internet service provider.

Needless to say, no one ever made a dime, except the people running the scam, who cleared $40 million. Since Diamond was one of the operation's top salesmen, he made $2 million in commissions in just four years on the job. He got 30% of whatever he talked a person into investing. That means he personally conned people out of more than $6 million.

The FTC caught Diamond and the others in the operation essentially by conning the con men. They had volunteers pose as dupes and record their phone calls. Because the FTC brought a case against the operation Diamond worked in, some of those recordings are now part of the public record. I got Dale Sekovich to listen to the tapes with me, and talk about David Diamond and the FBI volunteer who caught him.

Nancy Updike

The rush of a con, the pleasure of it, is knowing that you have more power than the person you're conning. You know more. You know that it's a con. And let's face it, given the choice between being the mark and being the con man, nobody's going to choose to be the mark. But the problem is, the more confidence you have in your own con, the more easily you become a mark yourself.

Con men get taken by other con men all the time. There just seems to be something about the particular arrogance of always being on the knowing side of the con that makes for a really, really good mark.

Ira Glass

Nancy Updike is one of the producers of our program. In the years since we first broadcast this episode-- today's show is a rerun-- Dale Sekovich, the FTC investigator who busted David Diamond, has died. Coming up, a child tries to fix his own family by harnessing the most powerful force that exists anywhere. That's in a minute, from Chicago Public Radio, when our program continues.

It's This American Life. I'm Ira Glass. Each week on the program, of course, we choose a theme, bring you a variety of different kinds of stories on that theme. Today's show, Hoaxing Yourself, stories of people who are fooling themselves. Sometimes that is a side effect of trying to fool others. Sometimes they just don't know better, and pin their hopes and beliefs on something that is simply not true at all.

Ira Glass

We've arrived at Act Three of our show. Act Three, Oedipus Hex. Shalom Auslander tells a story which happened to him when he was a boy in one of those ultra Orthodox Jewish religious schools called yeshivas. A warning to listeners that, although this story is about a little boy, in the story, the dad is not so nice to his kids, which might not be a thing that little kids will enjoy hearing at all. So take that under advisement. Here's Shalom.

Shalom Auslander

Rabbi Breyer walked into our third-grade classroom, hung up his long black coat, took off his big black hat, and handed each student a small black booklet entitled, The Guide to Blessings. We had one week, he told us, to prepare for the annual Yeshiva of Spring Valley Blessing Bee. My heart leaped. This was just what my mother needed. The Blessing Bee would make her forget all the troubles of our home.

To have a son who's a talmid chuchum, a wise student, that was the ultimate. Her brother was a respected rabbi. And if her husband couldn't be one, well, maybe her son could be. The Guide to Blessings was a 70-page-long listing of hundreds of different foods-- soups, breads, fish, desserts. I flipped through it, slowly realizing the size of the challenge that lay ahead. Falafel? Herring? Eggplant parmigiana? I had my work cut out for me.

Friday afternoons, the yeshiva closed early so that we could all rush home to help our parents prepare for Shabbos-- the Sabbath. Rabbi Breyer told us that the Sages tell us that the Torah tells us that the preparation for Shabbos is equal to the importance of Shabbos itself. Most of my preparations involved searching the house for kosher wine and pouring it down the toilet. It was a thankless job I admitted to nobody.

My father's frustrated rage at not having his Manischewitz Concord grape was fearsome, but it was far better than his drunken rage if he did have it. I'd search the pantry. I'd search the garage. I'd search my father's closet. But I was only eight years old, and there was always a bottle of Kedem hiding somewhere I just hadn't thought to check.

That night, my father, drunk on a bottle of blush Chablis that got away, grabbed my older brother by his shirt collar and dragged him away from the Shabbos table. He dragged him all the way down the stairs to our bedroom in the basement and slammed the door shut. Even the silverware jumped. Who wants the last matzoh ball, my mother asked? I made extra.

When my brother returned to the table, his nose was bleeding. My mother brought him a can of frozen orange juice to hold against the back of his neck, which was supposed to somehow stop the bleeding. Rabbi Breyer taught us that it is prohibited to defrost orange juice on Shabbos because changing food from solid to liquid is considered cooking, and cooking is considered working. And even God refrained from working on Shabbos.

There are 39 different categories of work that are prohibited on Shabbos. That's also why you're not allowed to switch on lights on Shabbos. The electricity causes the filament to glow, which is considered burning, which is considered working. Category number two.

My father came back to the table and drunkenly sang a few Shabbos songs, fudging the words and banging heavily on the table with his fist. I sat hunched over, absentmindedly drawing circles on the condensation that had formed on the silver water pitcher. My father slapped my hand. Shabbos, he shouted. Writing, category number five. Eventually, he stumbled off to his bedroom and fell asleep, snoring loudly. We sat in the dining room and picked glumly at our food.

The following Monday morning, as we all sat studying from our blessing books, there was a knock on Rabbi Breyer's classroom door, and Rabbi Greenbaum, the yeshiva principal, solemnly entered. We all rose. The two rabbis conferred quietly for a moment before signaling us all to be seated. After a few thoughtful strokes of his long black beard, Rabbi Greenbaum sighed deeply and informed us that the night before, our classmate Avrumi Gruenembaum's father had suffered a heart attack and died. Some kids have all the luck.

Blessed is the one true judge, said Rabbi Breyer, nodding his head. Blessed is the one true judge, we all answered, nodding our heads. I wondered what Mr. Gruenembaum might have done to deserve death. Did he bow down to idols? Did he walk four steps without his yarmulke on? Whatever it was, it must have been pretty bad. As Rabbi Greenbaum turned to leave, he paused.

And with a stern shake of his finger, reminded us all that the Sages tell us that the Torah tells us that until the age of 13, all of a boy's sins are ascribed to his father. I turned to look at Avrumi's empty chair. Avrumi was a chubby kid with heavy orthodontia and foul breath. But a sudden respect for him grew inside me. I wondered what he might have done to cause his father's death. Whatever it was, it must have been pretty bad.

Scowling fiercely, Rabbi Greenbaum advised each and every one of us to pray to Hashem, the Holy One, blessed be he, for forgiveness, so that he wouldn't kill our fathers, too. My heart leaped. Blessed is Hashem, he said. Blessed is Hashem, we answered. Blessed is Hashem was right. All of a sudden, I had two ways I could save my family. I could win the Blessing Bee for my mother, or I could sin so much Hashem would have to kill my father.

Courageous Avrumi Gruenembaum. Maybe one Shabbos night, he had switched on a light. Maybe he drank milk after eating meat. Maybe he touched himself. That night, just before bed, I ate a drumstick, washed it down with some milk, touched myself, and flicked the bedroom light on and off. Break those lights and I'll break your hands, my father shouted. It was going to be a busy week.

The Blessing Bee worked the same way as a spelling bee. There are six basic blessings on food-- hamotzei, the blessing for bread; mezonos, the blessing for wheat; hagofen, the blessing for wine or grape juice; ha-eitz, the blessing for things that grow from trees; ho-adamah, the blessing for things that grow from the Earth; and shehakol, the blessing for everything else. Bagel? Hamotzei. Oatmeal? Mezonos. Gefilte fish? Shehakol, the blessing for everything else. But that was the easy part.

Things became much more complicated when you started combining foods. Some foods are superior to other foods, and in combination with subordinate foods, the superior food, gets the blessing. To make matters worse, some blessings are superior to other blessings, and you had to know which blessing to recite first. This is where they separated the men from the goys.

Spaghetti and meatballs? Mezonos, the wheat blessing, then shehakol, the everything else blessing. Cereal with milk? Shehakol for the milk, then mezonos for the wheat in the cereal. Twix, the chocolate candy with the cookie crunch? Trick question. Twix isn't kosher.

I spent the next week sinning and blessing, and blessing and sinning, alternately praising God and then defying him, as much as one eight-year-old possibly could. Monday morning, I stuffed myself. I had a bowl of fruity Pebbles-- mezonos-- a slice of toast-- hamotzei-- a glass of juice-- shehakol-- half an apple-- ha-eitz-- and a couple of old French fries I found at the bottom of the fridge-- ho-adamah. One meal, five blessings.

Tuesday, I touched myself. I also partook of bread without first ceremoniously washing my hands. And that evening, before going to sleep, I sat on the edge of my bed and carefully recited [BLEEP], [BLEEP], and ass a dozen times each. My father banged angrily on my bedroom door. Lights out, he barked. I smiled. For you and me both, pal.

Wednesday, I stole $5 from my mother, and didn't recite any blessings at all on the bag full of candy that I bought with it-- a Charleston Chew, which is traif to begin with, and a Chunky, which would have been a shehakol if I weren't trying to kill my father. A Chunky with raisins? Shehakol, then ha-eitz. Thursday, I didn't wear tzitzis. Rabbi Breyer noticed that the strings weren't dangling from my sides, and grabbed me by the ear and pulled me to the front of the class.

Speak to the children of Israel, he quoted loudly from the Torah, as he spanked me hard on my bottom, and tell them to make tzitzis on the corners of their garments. That afternoon, after not respecting my elders by taking out the garbage like my mother had told me to, I touched myself and silently begged God to, just this once, credit those sins to Rabbi Breyer's account. Later, I defiled a prayer book by carrying it into the bathroom.

The Blessing Bee was the following morning and I could barely sleep. Lentil soup? Mezonos. Potato knish? Ho-adamah. Root beer? Is it a root? Is it a beer? [BLEEP] [BLEEP] ass bitch. I tossed and turned, I blessed and cursed, and finally, I fell into an uncomfortable sleep.

After a week at home, Avrumi Gruenembaum conveniently returned to school just in time for the Blessing Bee. It was all I could do to not lean over and ask him how he did it. Psst. Avrumi, tell me. Was it lobster? Did you eat lobster? Rabbi Breyer told us that the Sages tell us that the Torah tells us that when Abraham died, Hashem comforted Isaac. We learned from this that it is a tremendous mitzvah, or good deed, to comfort the bereaved.

Rabbi Breyer instructed us all to line up at Avrumi's desk, to shake his hand, and recite the traditional mourner's constellation-- may Hashem comfort you among the mourners of Zion. Just eight years old, I wasn't entirely familiar with Hashem's system, but it occurred to me that, along with all my sins, my father might also be getting all my mitzvahs. I wasn't taking any chances. Soon, it was my turn in line.

How's it going? I said to Avrumi. Rabbi Breyer pinched me. Ow, I screamed. Shmendrick, he grumbled. After the last boy had asked Hashem to comfort Avrumi among the mourners of Zion, Rabbi Breyer smacked his desk loudly. The Blessing Bee began. We lined up at the back of the classroom, nervously pulling on our tzitzis and twirling our peyis. The rules were simple. Name the correct blessing, and remain standing for the next round. Name the wrong blessing, and you take your seat.

Last year's winner, Yukisiel Zalman Yehuda Schneck, stood beside me. He leaned calmly against the wall, mindlessly picking his nose. Auslander, Shalom, called out Rabbi Breyer. I stepped forward. Apple, he shouted. Apple, I called out. Ha-eitz, the blessing for food from trees. Correct, Rabbi Breyer said.

The Blessing Bee usually started off pretty easy. David Borgen got tuna-- shehakol, the everything else blessing. Ari Mashinsky got matzoh-- hamotzei, the blessing for bread. And Avi Tuchman got stuck with kugel, which he thought was ho-adamah-- food from the Earth-- but was really mezonos, the blessing on wheat. Three other kids got taken out by oatmeal. Borscht with sour cream claimed two others. And by the end of the first round, almost a third of the students were already back in their seats.

Round two. Auslander, Shalom, called Rabbi Breyer. I stepped forward. Mushroom barley soup, he shouted. Mushroom barley soup? Mushroom barley soup? Damn. I knew I should have studied the chapter on soups more. I'd wasted half the week on entrees. Was it ho-adamah on the mushrooms, which came from the Earth? Or was it mezonos on the barley? Maybe it was shehakol, the everything else blessing, on the soup.

Mushroom barley soup, I called out. Mezonos. Rabbi Breyer tugged on his beard, his eyes narrowing into angry little slits. And, ah, shehakol, I added? Rabbi Breyer triumphantly smacked his desk, signaling that I was correct.

Apple strudel took out David Borgen, Yoel Levine, and Shlomo Pomerantz. My friend, Motty Greenberg, got stuck with cheesecake, and I could tell just by the expression on his face that he had absolutely no idea. He wisely offered two answers-- one for thin crust, and one for thick, and somehow managed to stay alive. It was hard to believe this was only round two.

Avrumi stepped forward. I smiled at Motty. Avrumi may have killed his father, but he wasn't very bright, and he never did well at these things. He was lucky to even be in the second round at all. Bagel, shouted Rabbi Breyer. Bagel? I looked at Motty in disbelief. Was he kidding? Bagel? Bagel, called out Avrumi. Hamotzei. This was bull-[BLEEP]. Correct, shouted Rabbi Breyer. Very good.

Ephraim Greenblat, Avrumi Epstein, and Yoel Frankel all got out on cholent with barley and large pieces of meat, while chopped liver on challah with a slice of lettuce and a bit of olive took out four more, including Motty. And then there were three. It was just Yukisiel Zalman Yehuda Schneck, Avrumi Gruenembaum, and me.

Round three began. Auslander, Shalom, called out Rabbi Breyer. I stepped forward. Ice cream, shouted Rabbi Breyer, in a cone. Ice cream in a cone. Ice cream in a cone. I knew ice cream, but why would he add the cone? Was there something different if it was in a cone? What was an ice cream cone made of, anyway? Was it cake? Was it a wafer? Ice cream in a cone, Rabbi Breyer shouted. Is the ice cream subordinate to the cone, or is it the cone's subordinate to the ice cream?

If it's a sugar cone, maybe you really desire the cone. Ice cream in a cone, Rabbi Breyer shouted again. I had no choice. Ice cream in a cone, I called out. No blessing. Everyone in the classroom turned to face me. Looking back on the whole episode, Rabbi Breyer had really left me no choice. No blessing? said Rabbi Breyer. Why no blessing? Because, I explained, nervously twirling my tzitzis, because the room smells like doody.

There was a long silence. Motty giggled, and others followed. Rabbi Breyer slowly rose to his feet, his thick fists pushing themselves into the desktop. It may have been a loophole, but technically speaking, I was correct. Rabbi Breyer himself had told us that our Sages tell us that the Torah tells us that there were three situations in which one is absolutely prohibited from reciting a blessing.

One, while facing a male over the age of nine years old whose genitals are showing; two, while facing a female over the age of three years old whose genitals are showing; and three, in the presence of feces. Frankly, given the other two options, I think I chose the least offensive answer. For a big man, Rabbi Breyer moved pretty quickly.

It's true, I said, as he barreled toward me. The Torah says that-- he grabbed me roughly by my arm, lifting me clear off the ground, and dragged me towards the door, shouting angrily in Yiddish the whole time. But it smells like doody, I yelled. The room smells like doody. Wait, there's a naked girl in the room. There's a naked girl. The door slammed shut behind me. I stood in the hallway and rub my bruised arm. I began to cry. The Blessing Bee was lost. I was not a great rabbi. And my father was still not dead.

I tiptoed toward the classroom door and listened closely. Two minutes later, Yukisiel Zalman Yehuda Schneck fell victim to matzoh brei with maple syrup. And the last man standing was Avrumi Gruenembaum. Apples, called out Rabbi Breyer. Apples, Avrumi answered. Ha-eitz. Mazel tov, called out Rabbi Breyer, mazel tov. Total bull-[BLEEP].

That night, we had the traditional Friday night gefilte fish-- shehakol-- with a little slice of carrot-- ho-adamah. My father was drunk again, singing Shabbos songs, fudging the words and banging heavily on the table with his fist. My mother went into the kitchen and brought out the soup. When my brother said he didn't want any, my father slapped him, pushed him over backward onto the floor, and poured the hot chicken soup onto his face.

My mother took my brother into the bathroom and sat with him on the edge of the bathtub, pressing a cold washcloth against his cheeks. I went back to the dining room to get the chicken soup off the floor. Chicken soup is a shehakol, even if it is cooked with vegetables, since chicken is the dominant taste in the soup. Rabbi Breyer told us that the Sages tell us that the Torah tells us that the Holy One, blessed be he, sent the Egyptians 10 plagues in order to teach us that he gives people many chances to repent.

And only then, if they still continue to sin, does he punish them with death. I went downstairs to my bedroom, took four steps without my yarmulke on, touched myself, flicked the lights off and on, and fell asleep.

Ira Glass

Shalom Auslander. He's the author of many fine books. This story appears in his memoir, Foreskin's Lament.

[MUSIC - "(HE'S) THE GREAT IMPOSTER" BY THE FLEETWOODS]

Ira Glass

Our program was produced today by me and Blue Chevigny, with Alex Bloomberg, Susan Burton, and Julie Snyder. Our contributing editors for today's show, Paul Tuft, Jack Hit, Margie Rocken, Elise Spiegel, and consigliere Sarah Vowell. Mixing up today by Jared Ford and Catherine Raimondo. Production up from Anna Martin. Our technical director is Matt Tierney.

Our website, ThisAmericanLife.org, where you can listen to over 600 episodes of our show for absolutely free. This American Life is distributed by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange.

Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torey Malatia, who is not jealous at all of the fact that the This American Life staff gets to tape interviews all the time.

Ira Glass

I'm Ira Glass. Back next week with more stories of This American Life.