Wiretap - My Imposter Live

Episode Date: June 29, 2020

Jonathan discovers a fake Jonathan Goldstein posing as him on Twitter. Tune in to the Jonathan Goldstein showdown as the real Jonathan confronts his imposter.

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Find the latest season wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. You're listening to Wiretap with Jonathan Goldstein on CBC Radio One. Today's episode, recorded live in Vancouver, My Imposter. Thank you. It's very nice to be here. is I don't know how to introduce it really, other than to say that it really, really happened.

And I know I don't have the best track record with this kind of thing. My detractors have referred to my show as Liar Tap, so I don't know how to prove it to you. But this is true. Facebook had been a fiasco from day one. When setting up my account, I accidentally chose Missouri as my network instead of Montreal.

And since I wasn't tech-savvy enough to change it back, I only ended up with five friends. Four people I'd met at a radio conference in the Netherlands two years earlier, and one Missourian evangelical group that didn't seem very selective about their befriending. Twitter was a chance to start fresh, and one of my very first tweets was asking if anyone knew a place in Montreal. that delivered tacos after 1 a.m. I waited five minutes.

I waited five days. And still, no answer. Friends told me I needed more followers. Write about bacon, they said. Everyone loves bacon and people follow people who write about it. Others said I had to hone my language. At 140 characters per post,

it was like composing a haiku. Haikus take a lot of time to write, I said, resentfully. They're compressed, perfect little diamonds. And more often than not, they aren't about bacon. Rather quickly, I became disillusioned. One twitters, one's tweets, I repeated to friends. It sounds so childish. Yet dutifully, I twittered my tweets.

I was in the middle of promoting my book of short stories that had just been released, and my postings were mainly to announce readings, but it didn't do much good. After posting about an L.A. bookstore signing, I only had two people show up. I decided I'd had enough. No more twittering.

But then several weeks later, while over at my friend Paul's, he told me that the post I just made that day about toupee hats was really funny. You're mistaken, I said. I haven't twittered in ages. But when he handed me his laptop, I saw that there I was. Fake Jonathan Goldstein had all the same statistics as me,

same homepage, same bio, same Montreal location. The only thing different from my Twitter profile was that in the picture, the same one I used, I was wearing a crudely drawn beret and dark sunglasses. What a mystery. As far as I could tell, being impostered only happened to celebrities, and I was no celebrity. Sure, I host a radio show, but I was certainly no P. Diddy,

a man, incidentally, who's twittered prolifically during tantric sex. Yes, mysterious and flattering. The imposter hit the ground running, and he was unafraid to tweet his own horn. Of an upcoming reading I was doing at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, he wrote that I was, quote, unquote, bringing the sexy back.

Compared to that, my Twitter before the event was downright perfunctory. If you're in town, I twittered, come by. But as time wore on, there was some occasional confusion, like when someone asked me where I got off signing breasts and bookstores. That's not me, I answered, it's just my imposter. It was like I'd subdivided into two entities, and that felt like a natural part of my emotional evolution, having another me to blame for everything.

But then more of my friends began to confuse us. It would often begin with them telling me how funny my posts were. My posts aren't funny, I'd say. Sure they are, they'd say. Some of these friends even told me that they'd stop following the fake Gouldstein, a fake unfunny Gouldstein, who only posted bookture information. My Twitter twin was outdoing me, posting more often and more funny. And he was getting more and more followers, too.

The Ottawa Salvation Army was even following this guy, not me. But then he started twittering late at night, drunk and cursing everyone, even Twitter itself. The next morning he'd be repentant. If you know how to delete one's tweets, he wrote. Please let me know. You shouldn't Twitter while drinking, Howard told me after reading the drunken tweets. You thought that was me, I asked, and that I would Twitter drunk? Howard and I have been friends since we're kids.

I'd figure he'd know I wouldn't even mail a magazine subscription renewal card when drunk. I'd have thought he'd know the real me. And yet, here we were. And fake Goldstein was stepping things up. He began saying stuff that didn't represent me. all, inflammatory things. This from one post. David Sedaris is overrated. There, I said it. I mean, the man's good, but come on. Now, those in the humorous community know that words like that, if ever heard by Mr. Sedaris, could destroy a professional wag's career. And so I decided

at that point that I had to write him and tell him to back off. His reply, in the words of Chevy Chase I'm Jonathan Goldstein and you're not then he told me to stop stalking him I started to think it could be anyone friends

family co-workers I figured it had to be someone I knew because fake Goldstein's Twitter page was called J-Gould 2000 a riff I thought on my personal email account name Pop Mo 2000 anyone who was too witty became

suspect. Paranoia set in. Occasionally, we battle publicly, me accusing him of being a phony and him responding in kind. And then one day I received an email from John Hodgman. John, as well as playing the part of the PC and the Mac ads, has also been on my radio show a few times. John wrote that he just recently rediscovered an email in his inbox months after having forgotten about its existence. The subject heading to this email read, Email in which I request assistance from you

in my quest to defeat Jonathan Goldstein in the Twitter battle I have started with him. The rest of the email explains how my imposter wanted John to add him as a Twitter friend and interact with him as though he was the real Goldstein and thus legitimize him. He goes on to explain that his mission has been to offer a more interactive

and entertaining Jonathan Goldstein experience to Twitter users, that people deserve better than what I was providing. He then ends the letter by signing off, kind regards, Ben Dugus. It was now clear to me. Imposter Goldstein was hungrier, wanted to be Goldstein more than I did. So after getting the email, I stopped being angry and simply became curious. Who was this Ben Dugus, and what made him tick? now that I had his name I decided to track him down

call him up and find out Hello Is this Ben Dugas? This is Ben, this is Jonathan Goldstein Hello, how are you? I'm okay

are you surprised to be hearing from me because you sound a little nervous that's not how I would put it I feel that this would be a tense encounter like heroes and villains coming to meet at the end of a film and there's some tension on my part because I don't really have much leverage in this situation

like you're being brought into the principal's office Is that it? A little bit. Like I've been brought out of hiding. Like a rat? Sort of. Can I ask you a question? To maybe cut the tension?

See, that's exactly what I'm talking about. You're the one asking the question. Oh, is there anything that you'd like to ask me? I guess there are a few things I would like to discuss. But, well, you can go first. Okay, that's noble. It's like a game of chess. It is exactly like a game of chess.

Well, I guess my first gambit, my first question is, why did you do this? Well, there were two reasons. You know, I was just kind of coming around to Twitter and thinking, hey, it might be fun to have some sort of, you know, fake account, if you will. And at the time, I think you had something to the city of 200 followers. Yeah, because I was going to ask, like, why me and not, you know, George Clooney or something. Right. You know, there's a ton of reasons why people start, you know, fake Twitter accounts.

But, you know, it's also, you know, oh, look at me, I'm fake Ashton Coucher. isn't that funny. But to me, the idea of treating a fake account of someone who was not a particularly big Twitter celebrity was kind of unique. Like, most of what made it funny to me was that people would maybe think that it was real. So what I was trying to do was kind of be, you know, the most authentic Jonathan Goldstein on Twitter. More so than the other John, the me, Jonathan Goldstein. But then the other thing is that I could kind of compete with you on a level on which I could win, you know, let's say you're racing, you know,

a hundred-meter dash with Donovan Bailey. I mean, you couldn't possibly win that, right? But if you were having a race with him that was one meter, you might not be the favorite, but your odds would be much better. And now in this analogy, how do I compare with Donovan Bailey exactly? It's like if I were to try to produce a half-air wiretap,

that would be pretty impossible. But writing 140 characters, that's doable. And so my other goal was to eclipse you in terms of Twitter popularity and followers. And I think as it stands right now, you're pretty close. We're almost neck and neck. I actually checked just before this. I have just over 940 followers. You have, I think, 1150.

Yeah. And, you know, I had several things working against me. One, obviously, the fact that, you know, I am not you and you are. There's that. I'm glad that you see that as being something in my favor. And so I figured with those things in mind, if I could convince people that I was the more authentic Goldstein, that would be perhaps the greatest Twitter upset in history. And along with that, I mean, what could be more Goldstein than being eclipsed by his own imposter? Exactly, right?

Like to be humiliated in that way. Yeah. That's quintessential Goldstein. Meta Goldstein. I mean, the thing that I found sort of intriguing was just how you were choosing to be Goldstein, right? rather than having Goldstein inflicted upon you. Like you're enjoying your Goldstein hood, probably more than I enjoy my Goldstein hood.

Yeah, well, I remember when it started, you were on this book tour. And so I would find the cities you were in. I would find nice upscale restaurants. And then I would post links to, you know, the restaurants and, you know, say what I was eating on the menu. And, you know, looking at these maps of cities kind of made me feel like I was on a book tour. So, you know, I get a little taste of what it's like to be the real goldstein.

A little taste is all you need, my friend. But I remember, actually, specifically, when I was in Toronto for a signing, and the afternoon that I had spent sitting in my hotel room eating a turkey sandwich from Subway and watching cable TV, you had tweeted about how, you know, I was out on Queen Street and eating orzo and fancy pastas like that. Yeah, so J-Gold 2000 was actually maybe having, not like, a more interesting time than me, but a more interesting time than you. Yeah, and of the J-Gold 2000, how did you come up with the 2000?

Just because I think 2000 is something you tack on to your name if you're trying to be cool and maybe like the late 90s. But, you know, to use it now, I thought, would kind of add to the Jonathan Goldstein, you know, thing where he tries to get a cool screen name, but it ends up being, you know, eight or nine years out of date. Boy, you really, if you're, if this is true what you're, saying it's uncanny and you really anticipate me well because my email address has a 2000 and I've had it for years now.

But you chose it before 2000, thinking that that would be cool and futuristic? Yes. Yes, I did. If you're absolutely loving your summer read and don't want the book to be over, your experience doesn't actually have to end when you finish reading. I'm Matea Roach, and on my podcast bookends, I sit down with authors to get the inside scoop behind the books you love. Like, why Emma Donoghue is so fascinated by trains?

Or how Taylor Jenkins-Reed feels about being a celebrity author? You can check out bookends with Matea Roach, wherever you get your podcasts. So the other thing I was going to say is that, you know, I don't know if you were called, but we've met face-to-face. No, I had no idea. When was this? You were in Toronto for your book tour. Okay. So I came in and got, you know, my book signed, and what I did is gave you this piece of paper, and then I taped a chocolate to it, just because I thought that would kind of throw you off.

I remember that. Now, let me ask you this, knowing Goldstein is you do, what do you think was done with that piece of chocolate? Oh, I'm guessing you didn't eat it. No, I didn't. Yeah, you would have been frightened of candy, stranger? Were you so certain, in fact, that there was no way that I would eat that piece of chocolate that you just went ahead and poisoned it? No.

In your certainty? No. Okay. So what are you going to do now? Now that you've been discovered, are you going to keep doing it, or are you going to hang it up? Like, what next? Well, I think I'm going to have to kill him off. How do you mean?

Well, at first I was thinking I would just kind of discontinue it. But then I was thinking, well, maybe I should actually tweet about. dying. I was going to suggest if you had any requests in terms of how you want to go out. Oh, what are some of the options? You could be poisoned by chocolate? Okay, can I offer an alternative

to killing me off? Mm-hmm. I could leave you the mantle of Goldstein to dawn, and I could just sort of gracefully retreat into the shadows. Do you mean that I would get to take charge of the J. Goldstein? Twitter, you know, account?

I would turn the accounts over to you. But let me say this. If we are to do this, there's no tradebacks. Like, you're going to be Jonathan Goldstein. You mean on Twitter or in real life? You know, we'll start with Twitter. But, I mean, you could find yourself having to, you know,

visit my parents, the family visits, the colonoscopies, which, by the way, are monthly, because that's how I rule. I've never had one of those. Well, you'll be having them. I mean, I could think that over, but initially my response wouldn't be a definite yes. Oh, it wouldn't? I mean, it's not an outright no.

But I think that that would be a difficult decision for a man at my point in life to make. All right, well, don't say I'd offer you legitimacy. Well, do I, if I want to do that, do I have to say yes now? Well, I had to say yes now. Well, when you were born? When I was born. I said yes. I continue to say yes.

I say yes every day. That's very pretty with you. Well, you know what? You be the best Ben Dugas you can be, and I'll try to be the best, Jonathan Goulda scene, that I could be. That sounds like a plan. Okay, we'll take care of Ben Dugas. Okay, likewise.

Bye-bye. The post script to that is that I think he really wanted to go out in a blaze of glory because in recent weeks he created a fake Howard Chackowitz account and a fake Gregor Erlick account. And when it was brought to my attention to fake Gregor account, someone said, how do you know that it's a fake one? because I hadn't even spoken to Gregor yet, and I said, well, this Gregor Ehrlich is referencing something that I actually said on the show, and I know for a fact that Gregor never listens to the show, I send them CDs, and he fast forward to them just to his own parts.

So I knew that it was, I knew that it was a phony. So, yeah, thank you so much, and Hannah Georges, take us out. I can't play this game for you. Fowls are all gone and scrabbles left on the consonants for you. I can't say if it's right or if it's the wrong thing to do. Are you calling from painful this time? The lines aren't clear. Is everything okay on your side?

No one needs to know. No one needs to know right now. Take a deep breath and don't let all pray. Don't break you down. No one needs to know, no one needs to know right now. Take a deep breath and don't let all break you down. And who has this say on how the way things should be? And who will take you home when the lights go on and your glass is empty?

Who will hold your breath when you're diving off the deep end? Are you calling from a payfall this time? The lines aren't clear. Is everything okay on your side? No one needs to know, no one needs to know right now. Take a deep breath and don't let all break you down. No one needs to know, no one needs to know right now. Take a deep breath and don't let all break you down.

No one needs to know. No one needs to know right now. Take a deep breath and don't let all break you down. No one needs to know. No one needs to know right now. Take a deep breath and don't let all break you down. Don't let all break you down. Don't let us break you down.

Thank you. Oh, yeah. Thank you so much. on wiretap today you heard ben dougas and a musical performance by hannah georgias with robbie driscoll and laura smith today's wiretap was recorded in vancouver's studio 40 special thanks to recording engineer gary morgan and to bruce d'erick denton booth and anne penman wiretap is produced by jonathan goldstein with mira birdwin tonic and crystal du hame It's like you said, this is way too tough. We've got no way to make it out there all along.

Out there on our own. When times get tough, you got my back. Don't know what I'd do. Without you, I'd be all alone. out there on my own I ain't got no fancy ride ain't got no money to go out tonight all I got is this feeling inside

a home when I wake up you're Party in my head is the day you rolls on. I'm thinking about you song by song by song. Oh, please sing along. You are the tune that keeps you right on key. Don't know what I do. Without you, I be alone.

Out there on my own. I can't sit right, ain't got no money to go out tonight. All I got is this feeling inside. All I got is this beep being inside, and all I know is what I want, and all I know is what I want, and it's you. Beep-Beepid stuff. Give me that.

Blip-be-beat stuff. Give me that. Let be-b-pe-be-stuff. Give me that. Let, ble-pe-be-stuff. Give me that. But peep-be-stuff. Give me that.

Beep-be-stuff. Yeah. Yeah Yeah Oh Oh Oh Ain't got no fancy

right Ain't got no money to go out tonight All I got is this feeling inside Oh All I got is this be beat inside And all I know is what I want and all I know is what I want and all I know is what I want and all I know is what I want and it's you. Thank you so much.

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