Many Years in Captivity (the story of Stacey)

This whole Dr. Christopher Johnson scam reminds me of a person I used to go to school with. We were “sort of friends” from Grade 5 into junior high. Stacey (born "Anastasia" – but that’s not her real name) held some kind of strange social power that meant you were privileged to be in her friendship orbit. And she did have a sort of superficial attractiveness, though she was no beauty. But she ACTED beautiful (Meghan Markle comes to mind) and seemed to draw people to her like a magnet. Boys fell over each other to date her.  Stacey always got what she wanted, always won every argument, always got the highest grades in everything, and won lots of awards, which she received as if she was being crowned Miss America.

(Just to clarify: people have asked me if the images I used here are of Stacey. No, they're of me as a child  and adolescent. I just happen to like them.)

Still, there was something about her that everyone knew. She was dishonest. She was known to cheat on exams, and teachers knew about it and looked the other way. She stole other girls’ boyfriends. She even stole items from people’s lockers, and if you found out, you were supposed to feel flattered that she wanted your stuff. It was an honor to see her walking down the hall wearing one of your sweaters.

 After Grade 10 we went to different high schools, and I didn’t see her any more. Then a few years ago, I was on a Facebook page about the history of Chatham, Ontario where I grew up. It amazed me to see all sorts of familiar names in the comments, people I had not seen in years and years, including

.  . . you  guessed it! It was Stacey.

Her Facebook page was very interesting. Most of the photos featured her in elaborate yoga poses and modeling glamorous eveningwear. BUT, there was a strange subtitle on her home page banner that I didn’t understand. It said, “Enjoying life after many years in captivity.”

I thought, hmmm, does she mean she had a bad marriage, or what? It was hard to believe she’d stay in a relationship where she didn’t get everything she wanted. But there was more. There she was in a photo posing with a very familiar-looking guy, someone I knew from way back in Grade 5, announcing that they were engaged to be married! She included a description of how they met in elementary school in a special class for gifted children with Mensa-level IQs. Well, not quite – I was in that class, and it was one of those educational experiments of the 1960s in which every student learned at their own pace and only studied subjects they were interested in. The class was total anarchy and nobody learned much of anything, but Stacey thrived in it and soon went to the head of the class.

By this time I wasn’t surprised to see the names of all  sorts of people I had gone to school with in the comments, all congratulating her on her engagement, praising her for how beautiful and youthful she looked, etc. Somehow she was still attracting heaps of attention and praise.

I found all this fascinating and followed her for a while, though I did not contact her, feeling wary. Well, strange things began to happen. More and more of her material was being deleted from Facebook. The fiancé disappeared. Soon there was very little left at all except a name and one photo. Then even THAT was gone, along with the “many years in captivity”.

But then an even stranger thing happened. She popped up on YouTube.

She only had 11 subscribers and 4 videos, but I knew it was her by the familiar locations (she was evidently still in Chatham) and the sound of her voice. Then something even more weird happened. I began to see duplicate channels in her name. I counted four of them altogether, and they were virtually identical, with barely any subscribers and only a few very similar videos.

But why would anyone do this? Why would anyone set up multiple YouTube accounts with hardly any content?

It only made sense to me when the Dr. Christopher Johnson scam came up, and I saw that he too had several identical accounts with single-digit content. He seemed to be using them as a base for his scams, closing one and opening another if he got into trouble or was reported. Then I remembered “Enjoying life after many years in captivity”, and suddenly realized that Stacey must have done serious time for something. It was literal captivity, I think. At some point the law caught up with her, though I can’t imagine what she had done.

It could be she’s still trying to be that same charismatic, slippery character she was back in high school, running scams from her multiple YouTube channels at the age of 70. I guess today we’d call her a narcissist, but back then there was no name for it. I do remember crying in Grade 5 and my mother asking me what was the matter, and I tearfully said, “Stacey doesn’t like me any more.” Your self-esteem rose and fell according to your status in her friendship orbit. There is too little content in her videos to determine what her life is like today. but I’m glad I didn’t try to contact her. God knows what I might have gotten tangled up in.

UPDATE! I actually did find pictures of Stacey in the Chatham Daily News archive, but decided not to post them. But it’s definitely her, and I believe she has had a lot of work done.

Yes, we're all dodgin'

Yes, the candidate's a dodger, yes, a well known dodger 

Yes, the candidate's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger too 

He'll meet you and treat you and ask you for your vote
But look out boys: he's a dodgin' for a note, 

Yes, we're all dodgin', a dodgin', dodgin', dodgin 

Yes, we're all dodgin' out away through the world 

Yes, the preacher he's a dodger, yes, a well known dodger 

Yes, the preacher he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger too 

He'll preach you a gospel and tell you of your crimes 

But look out boys: he's a dodgin' for your dimes 

Yes, we're all dodgin', a dodgin', dodgin', dodgin 

Yes, we're all dodgin' out away through the world 

Yes, the lover he's a dodger, yes, a well known dodger 

Yes, the lover he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger too 

He'll hug you and kiss you and call you his bride 

But look out girls: he's a tellin' you a lie. 

Yes, we're all dodgin', a dodgin', dodgin', dodgin' 

Yes, we're all dodgin' out away through the world

This isn't actually about the internet at all. Except that it is. This is one of Aaron Copland's beloved Old American Songs. These are loosely based on old folk songs that are thought to be anonymous (or written by that well-known composer, Arthur Unknown). To me, a lot of them sound suspiciously like Stephen Foster, especially the one that always moves me to tears, Long Time Ago. To hear William Warfield sing that delicate bit of musical incandescence is to truly be transported to another time and place, when people were different.

Or were they? 

This song seems to have been written as a sort of brash but good-natured political satire, a protest against the corruption that seems to have been around forever, trickling down from government to the most intimate areas of our lives  I don't need to tell you what "dodgin'" is, though today we might say scamming, spamming, trolling - all the different names for fraud.

The song is about insincerity as a way of life, and how ubiquitous it is. It's pretty cynical as it moves from political candidates (whom we all know are crooked) to preachers "dodgin' for your dimes" (has  anything changed here?), to -  the worst of all, the most painful - the lover: "He'll hug you and kiss you and call you his bride/But look out girls: he's a-tellin' you a lie." 

The only thing that saves this song from cutting sarcasm is the shrugging insistence that "we're all dodgin', out away through the world." Arthur Unknown seems to be saying we all have something of the scam artist in us, a necessary survival mechanism that often seems to work a lot better, and cost us a lot less, than honesty and sincerity. But then, displaying those qualities requires a mixture of foolishness and courage that most people just aren't up to, these days.

Instead, we see what we can get away with. Everyone's doing it, aren't they? Myself, I have paid far more dearly for my honesty than for my occasions of dishonesty. Often, a lie is what people would rather hear. All this proliferates on the internet like seething bacteria in a polluted sea. It's the ideal medium for dishonesty, and just look at how well it has done! As usual, its shining initial promise has pretty much collapsed into mediocrity and outright danger. It's just not safe to trust any more.

Integrity struggles, surfaces like a dolphin, goes down again. I don't know what the end of this is. I can't even end this post!  But I know it's a good song, and I'm going to go listen to the rest of them now.

ADDENDA. The roots of the song:

"The Dodger Song" is a 19th-century American folk song. Aaron Copland wrote an arrangement for it as part of Old American Songs, a collection of arrangements of folk songs. "The Dodger" was apparently used as a campaign song to belittle Republican James G. Blaine in the 1884 Presidential election between Blaine and Grover Cleveland, the Democratic candidate. Cleveland had won the support of progressives by his fight against Tammany Hall in New York. The version known today is based on a Library of Congress recording by Mrs. Emma Dusenberry of Mena, Arkansas, who learned it in the 1880s. It was transcribed and first published by Charles Seeger in a little Resettlement Administration songbook.

SPECIAL BONUS VERSES! There's more to this song than you think.

Oh, the candidate's a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger,
Oh, the candidate's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger too.
He'll meet you and treat you and ask you for your vote,
But look out, boys, he's a-dodgin' for your vote.
We're all a-dodgin',
Dodgin', dodgin', dodgin',
Oh, we're all a-dodgin' out the way through the world.

Oh, the lawyer, he's a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger,
Oh, the lawyer, he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger, too.
He'll plead your case and claim you for a friend,
But look out, boys, he's easy for to bend.

Oh, the preacher, he's a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger,
Oh, the preacher, he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger, too.
He'll preach the gospel and tell you of your crimes,
But look out, boys, he's dodgin' for your dimes.

Oh, the merchant, he's a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger
Oh, the merchant, he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger, too.
He'll sell you goods at double the price,
But when you go to pay him you'll have to pay him twice.

Oh, the farmer, he's a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger,
Oh, the farmer, he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger, too.
He'll plow his cotton, he'll plow his corn,
But he won't make a livin' as sure as you're born.

Oh, the sheriff, he's a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger,
Oh, the sheriff, he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger, too.
He'll act like a friend and a mighty fine man,
But look out, boys, he'll put you in the can.

Oh, the general, he's a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger,
Oh the general, he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger, too.
He'll march you up and he'll march you down,
But look out, boys, he'll put you under ground.

Oh, the lover is a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger,
Oh, the lover is a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger, too.
He'll hug you and kiss you and call you his bride
But look out, girls, he's telling you a lie.

Ted. . . Fred. . . Fraud

It amazes me how quickly spare change can morph into wooden nickels.

Case in point. About a month ago, a homeless guy named Ted Williams (probably not his real name) "went viral" on YouTube for standing on a streetcorner in camouflage holding a piece of cardboard. On the video, this scruffy wraith spoke with a rich booming announcer's voice, and soon everyone in the nation was throwing job offers at him: advertising voiceovers, sportscasting, Disney characters (well, maybe). They did this to show the world how swell THEY were, not how swell they thought Ted was.

Everything moved so quickly, in a kind of blur. The story devolved from day to day: Ted not showing up for appointments. Ted acting strangely, speaking incoherently. Ted being taken in by police for an "altercation" with his daughter. Ted being lambasted on Dr. Phil for blowing all the opportunities life was throwing at him.

Just give the guy a job, and it'll all work out, won't it? His addiction, his criminal past, his nine alienated children by many different mothers, his current crack-whore girl friend, all these problems will melt away and he'll show up for work in the morning smiling, shaven and wearing a suit.

Right now his handlers are claiming we shouldn't worry that he bailed on expensive, paid-for rehab to hustle on the streets of Columbus again. He's receiving "outpatient" therapy, no doubt at a local watering hole.

It's tempting to blame Ted for all this. OK, I DO blame Ted for all this! But the bozos who thought they could immediately change entrenched, life-threatening behavior and a criminal past by throwing money at it were beyond naive. Where have they been hiding all these years?

So now I can't help but bring another Ted into the mishmosh, Ted Haggard, the not-gay pastor, who's now saying he's not bisexual but would be if he were 21 years old.

I don't get it. I don't get that he is now admitting he paid a gay hooker to masturbate him while high on crystal meth (not to mention his solitary activities while watching gay porn), but still hedges on admitting he's gay. Or even bisexual.

I don't know of any straight men who do this, or who even want to do this. I think he's dancing around a subject which obviously makes him profoundly uncomfortable. I think he's trying to save his face and his ass at the same time.

I think he's a fraud.

His new little barn church makes me wonder, too. I watched that TLC program in which he threw the doors of his crude sanctuary open to the wretched sinners of the earth. The darker the sin, the more he wanted you. This church was for really ba-a-a-a-a-ad people, sort of like Pastor Ted (who still isn't gay. Or bisexual. Though he would be if he was 21.)

Then I found a curious newspaper article from two years ago, saying Pastor Haggard had just opened up a new church in his barn. So he did this twice?

Or once more for the cameras?

These two Teds have certain things in common. They're both grandstanders who have learned how to fake sincerity. Both have traded on their wretchedness and on the public's fascination with the fallen.

Can they be redeemed? Well, what the hell does that mean? The man who once led a multimillion-dollar religious empire is now diving for spare change. The guy who chose the name of a famous ballplayer for his nom du guerre has slipped back into the poisonous stream of hustling for dope and dodging for dimes.

We love stories about how the mighty have fallen and been rescued by the grace of God and a wad of cash. But what do we do when these paragons of redemption fall on their asses again?