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CONVERSATION LESSON

OVER THE HILL

Dan: Aaron Campbell. How are you, my friend?

Aaron: Pretty good. I’m kind of hot, man. It’s kind of hot today.

Dan: It’s kind of hot?

Aaron: Yeah, it’s an oven outside.

Dan: Are you hot and bothered?

Aaron: No, I’m not hot and bothered. Just hot. Hot and sweaty.

Dan: Yeah, it is a steamy day.

Aaron: Yeah, typical of the summers in Kyoto.

Dan: So what are we talking about this month?

Aaron: Oh, I think we’re talking about age. We’re talking about deception. We’re talking aboutDan: People often tell you to act your age, don’t they?

Aaron: No… Well, they did when I was much younger. These days, no.

Dan: Do you feel that you… How are old are you, by the way?

Aaron: I am 42.

Dan: No. Okay, let’s be honest.

Aaron: And I will be 43 next month.

Dan: Forty-three years old. You act like a middle-aged guy.

Aaron: Do I?

Dan: No, you don’t. You act like a much younger man.

Aaron: I feel much younger. I don’t feel like an old person.

Dan: Age is just a number.

Aaron: Yeah, age is what you make of it. You are as old as you feel. You are, definitely.

Dan: I would say that most of my friends don’t act their age. They’re young at heart.

Aaron: They’re young at heart. I know a lot of people young at heart. I think it’s a good thing. It’s a positive thing.

Dan: And then of course, there’s people that are quite young and they act like they’re a 50-year-old person.

Aaron: Yeah, that’s true. A 50-year-old in a positive way or a 50-year-old in a negative way.

Dan: Well, exactly. I know a plenty of 50-year-olds and 60-year-olds that are very young-spirited.

They like to have fun and they see the positive in life. And then I see some people who are in their 50s or 60s and they see the negative and they look at the world changing and they’re not happy about it.

Aaron: Or they act like babies?

Dan: Yeah. So you hear that a lot, too, right? Don’t be a baby.

Aaron: Yeah, don’t be a baby. Don’t act like a baby.

Dan: Sometimes I tell that you my daughter, Leah. Don’t be a baby, when she was a baby.

Aaron: Don’t be a baby even though she’s clearly a baby.

Dan: She’s not much of a baby anymore.

Aaron: No, she’s a big girl now.

Dan: So acting your age or trying to pretend to be a different age.

Aaron: Like the actress in the story.

Dan: Right, Maggie Gyllenhaal. That’s something. It was in the news just a couple of weeks ago.

She was just flabbergasted that she tried out for a part and they told her the reason that you’re not getting it is you’re too old. And the fact is she’s only 37 and she was trying to get a part where she was going to be the love interest of a guy in his 50s.

Aaron: The actor was in his 50s?

Dan: The character. I don’t know. The character was supposed to be 55 and she was 37. So here she is almost 20 years younger, but that’s too old. Hollywood wants to show these stories of these actors and leading men in their 50s and 60s dating women that are in their early 20s.

Aaron: Right. And that kind of age discrimination goes on constantly in society.

Dan: Right. I think especially in Hollywood, that’s why a lot of actresses, they have to pretend to be younger than they are.

Aaron: And that sometimes involves plastic surgery and all that kind of stuff.

Dan: Right. I think we actually did a lesson on Botox.

Aaron: Yeah, a long time ago.

Dan: If anybody hasn’t listened, that’s a good one. So Maggie Gyllenhaal, she was in the news. And also there was Calvin Graham, I think his name was.

Aaron: Is this the boy who wanted to join the war effort?

Dan: Yeah. He was actually 11 when his cousin died and he felt he needed to do his part for the country.

Aaron: He was American.

Dan: Yeah. He was a young American boy.

Aaron: And you have to be 18 to join the army.

Dan: I think maybe you could be 17 if your parents signed some paper.

Aaron: Some kind of waiver.

Dan: So when he was 11 he decided he wanted to join the war. And when he was 12, he did it. He put on his brother’s clothes and he was shaving a lot thinking that that would stimulate some beard growth. And he tried a really deep voice and he was almost caught because one of the things they do when you try to join is they do a physical. And a dentist looks at your teeth and he knew that the dentist was going to see these are the teeth of a 12-year-old.

Aaron: Sure, that’s a tell-tale sign.

Dan: So the dentist did see it and he just raised a ruckus, and he said that, “I know for a fact that some of the other kids that you passed are not 18. And I’m going to blow the whistle on this whole thing if you don’t pass me.” And the dentist, he just didn’t want to deal with any of it. He was like, “Okay. Whatever, kid. You’re in.”

Aaron: Wow.

Dan: So probably, people, his officers and his fellow soldiers, they could look at him and probably tell he’s a young boy. But I think at this point in the warAaron: They’re probably desperate for soldiers.

Dan: Yeah. They needed as many people as they could, which is really unfair how he was treated when it came out.

Aaron: Yeah, right. He put his life on the line for the country and then they treated him quite badly.

Dan: They put him in prison for three months. They knew he was a boy! At this time, he was at most 13.

Aaron: They should have taken responsibility for that. That was their fault, not his fault.

Dan: Not only did they throw him into prison, they took away his medical benefits. And he got some medals for his service. They took those away, too.

Aaron: They took those away, too. Wow. He was actually trying to do something for the country.

Dan: And he did save lives and he was wounded. He was a gunner on a navy boat. So you can imagine the kind of guns they have on ships. These aren’t handheld guns. Can you imagine a 12year-old boy? Anyhow, he did get his medical benefits reinstated when he was in his 50s. And I think after he died, the president at that time, maybe President Carter, reinstated his medals.

Aaron: Took a while, huh?

Dan: A little too late, I’d say.

Aaron: But there was another man, actually a boy, a teenager in our story that also tried to appear older but his motivation was much different. His aims were much different. He tried to con people by appearing to be older.

Dan: Right, Frank Abegnale.

Aaron: That’s right. Frank Abegnale.

Dan: So there’s actually a pretty good movie with Leonardo DiCaprio. He plays Frank Abegnale in a movie called Catch Me If You Can.

Aaron: I don’t think I saw that.

Dan: Oh, you should see it. It’s pretty good.

Aaron: Is it?

Dan: It’s entertaining. I think he started his career as a con man at 15. And one of the first things he did was he impersonated a security guard and he just put a sign on a cash deposit box saying ‘Deposit box broken. Give the money to the security guard.’ And now he jokes about it. He’s like, how can a deposit box be broken?

Aaron: Well, a lot of people don’t think about what they’re doing.

Dan: Yeah. They’re just conditioned to follow orders.

Aaron: And if they see a sign, obviously it’s official. It’s a sign.

Dan: He just had so much confidence. Apparently to this day, people who meet him just feel that he is magnetic and that he just puts out this air of warmth and confidence.

Aaron: Yeah, warmth, confidence, definitely that will go a long way if you’re trying to manipulate people, I would imagine. He probably had a lot of charisma, as well.

Dan: So he was 15, 16, 17 and impersonating pilots, doctors, lawyers, people that probably need to be in their late 20s to get those kind of jobs.

Aaron: What’s even more amazing is those are not just jobs that you can, like a janitor job or a taxi driver where the skill is quite simple that the training is not that great. I mean, to impersonate a doctor or a lawyer, you need years upon years of education. And how do you do that, especially at such as young age?

Dan: Well apparently, he did pass a bar. I forget which state it was.

Aaron: Wow, that’s not easy to do.

Dan: And he said he just studied really, really hard. And apparently in that state you can take it as many times as you want. And he took it 5 times and he passed. And he faked a degree from Harvard Law School and he got hired. But apparently the job he got hired for was as an assistant to the Attorney General. So the Attorney General was using him almost as a gofer.

Aaron: So he wasn’t taking the lead in making decisions?

Dan: No. It was like, “Go copy these. Go look this up for me.” And they got suspicious pretty quick, actually, even as an assistant. And there was a guy who was a Harvard graduate who kept asking him questions. So in less than a year, he quit and he left town.

Aaron: And he didn’t last too long as a doctor, either, did he?

Dan: No, but I think for at least a few months. And again he weaseled his way in to a position where he didn’t have to do much. Or he was a supervisor and he would walk around with a clipboard and say, “Okay, good job, Thompson.”

Aaron: But he did almost cause a baby to die, right? When he had to step in…

Dan: So there was an emergency, he got called and he didn’t know what he was doing.

Aaron: What I don’t understand about this story, I’ve been wondering, is what is his motivation?

Why would you want to do that? I mean, I can see if you’re trying to make a lot of money by conning someone, but he wasn’t in a position to make lots of money by doing these jobs, right? As a lawyer or as a doctor. What do you think his motivation was?

Dan: Well, I imagine that as a lawyer he was, you got to remember he’s a teenager, he’s probably making a pretty high salary. They’re seeing him as a Harvard grad. But I think also he talks about just wanting to see how far he can go, how far he can push the envelope.

Aaron: That makes sense.

Dan: Yeah. I imagine he was getting some adrenaline thrill from tricking people and he just wanted to… The plans kept getting bigger and bigger. I mean, a security guard, that’s not so crazy. But then going to a pilot and flying all over the world for free, staying in airline-owned hotels for free, dating stewardesses.

Aaron: Right. I could see the attraction for a young teenager.

Dan: Actually, I saw a photo of him with the stewardess that he was dating. So he was probably a teenager, like 15, 16.

Aaron: But he didn’t look it.

Dan: He looked like he could have been 28, 29 years old.

Aaron: Did he have a beard?

Dan: No, but it’s just his face and… I don’t know.

Aaron: Body language, maybe.

Dan: Yeah, he just looks like a very confident, big, older 20s guy. So he almost killed people as a pilot, too, because some pilot invited… He was just riding, getting free rides but he got invited into the cockpit and they said, “Okay, take the wheel.” And I don’t know if he did it for a thrill or he just felt he couldn’t say no.

Aaron: I wonder whatever happened to him?

Dan: He now runs a consulting. He still advises the FBI and he runs a consulting company that advises banks and other companies on anti-fraud measures.

Aaron: Yeah, that would make sense.

Dan: And you imagine this guy is probably an excellent salesman.

Aaron: Oh, I can imagine.

Dan: And he’s got such a great story. I bet he gets tons of business.

Aaron: I bet he does, yeah. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. Now, he was someone who used his deception to appear to be older. But there’s another guy in the Core Audio who used deception to appear to be younger. He was getting older but he kept coming back to high school. That would make a good comedy movie, I think.

Dan: Right. I remember being in high school and everybody wanted to make fake IDs so that you could buy alcohol. And here this guy is making fake IDs. He made something like 40 documents to get into just one high school so that he could pretend to be 17 years old. So until he was like 27 or 28, he was still posing as a 17-year-old boy. And he talks about how he would have to shave multiple times in the day.

Aaron: To avoid the 5 o’clock shadow.

Dan: Yeah. And he said that, I don’t know if this is true, but he said in the mornings, it was much easier for him to appear young because he felt like gravity was on his side. He just woken up. But as the day wore on, his face would start to droop a little bit. I don’t know if that’s true, that somebody in their 20s has face drooping.

Aaron: Or it could be some subjective experience, kind of thing.

Dan: He just wanted a do-over. I think there’s something that a lot of people can relate, maybe not just in high school but some period in your life where you just wish you could do it over again.

Aaron: Yeah, you wish you could go back and make a different decision or take a different action or refrain from taking the action that you did take at that time. I’m sure we all daydream about this sometimes. “Man if I could go back and do that over again, I would do it so much differently.” Dan: I think I had that. I mean I never would have actually wanted to go back in high school, but I would daydream like, oh, if I could have gone back I could have done so much better in school or I could have gotten into sport or I could have got that girl that I really like and I was too shy to ask her out or I missed my chance here.

Aaron: I think it’s common. I think we’ve all had that sort of fantasy. What if I could go back and be a very young man again with the same mind that I have now. You know, when you’re a little bit wiser, but you could go back and have a much younger, stronger body again and have all these opportunities open to you that you didn’t see at that age because you were so wrapped up in being a 20-year-old or whatever. That’s kind of interesting.

Dan: But to high school, I think the overwhelming feeling I had as I was leaving high school was, I’m out. I’m done.

Aaron: Yeah, I’m out of here. I wouldn’t want to go back to high school.

Dan: I do remember I had to go back to high school to get some paperwork when I was 20 or something. And I’ve always looked young, even at my university now. Sometimes people ask me if I’m a student or what I studied.

Aaron: What did you do in high school? What were your activities?

Dan: What did I do in high school? I was… I didn’t really do anything.

Aaron: Really? You just hung out? You went to class and you hung out with friends?

Dan: Yeah.

Aaron: You weren’t into sports or music?

Dan: No. What about you? What were you into?

Aaron: I was an athlete.

Dan: You were a jock.

Aaron: Yeah. But I also focused on my studies. But I played tennis and soccer. It was fun.

Dan: So anyways, I had to go back to my high school when I was like 20, to get some transcripts for a university or something. I needed some paperwork, and it was in between classes that I showed up. And I remember some teacher cornered me and was like, “Where’s your ID? Where’s your hall pass?”

Aaron: Oh, man. High school days.

Dan: But I bet I could sneak back in high school if I wanted to.

Aaron: I don’t think so, man.

Dan: I think I could.

Aaron: No, I don’t think so.

Dan: I think I could fall for 17. I put a little bit of makeup on the bags under my eyes.

Aaron: You are dreaming.

Dan: You? No way.

Aaron: Yeah, I would need some hair on the top of my head.

Dan: You could maybe pass for 41.

Aaron: You think? Maybe?

Dan: Maybe. On a good day.

Aaron: Maybe? On a good day. Yeah, you might be right about that.

Dan: I don’t know. I find this guy fascinating because Rick Rosner, clearly he’s a very intelligent guy.

He’s got the second highest score on this intelligence test.

Aaron: Oh, the IQ test?

Dan: Yeah. But he must have been emotionally stunted or to have that desire to go back to high school four times.

Aaron: Yeah, something’s missing.

Dan: He gives kind of mixed reasons. He said in the beginning he wanted to get a girlfriend, but that was just the first time. He was only 18 years old. He’s not like some creepy pedophile. He said after the first time he realized that was gross to be going after a high school girl. But there was something about the environment of high school of how predictable it was that he felt it was a good place where the variables of real life were things are always changing and new challenges are happening and maybe a lot of people feel this underlying angst where they’re not happy with their life but they’re not sure why. He says in high school, you know exactly why you’re not happy because you’re stuck in this high school and people are telling you what to do. And somehow he found comfort in the permanence or—

Aaron: Just the boundaries that are set for him. I mean, I can see that because once you’re out and you’re an adult in the world, you have to take responsibility for everything. Whereas in high school, you’re still seeing it as kind of a kid. So the amount of responsibility you have is really limited and so it could be comforting, I suppose. Especially for someone older, knowing what awaits them outside the walls of the school.

Dan: The funny thing about Rick Rosner is he was a high school student by day, and at night he was a stripper and a bouncer, and he said he was a king at catching fake IDs.

Aaron: Oh yeah. I bet he was.

Dan: Because he was so good at making them himself. And he said that he often left boys sneak in with fake IDs but he felt that it was unsafe for young girls to be preyed on.

Aaron: There’s that gender discrimination thing again. Interesting. But this thing about the IQ, you said he had the second highest IQ score, like ever?

Dan: On one test. I mean there’s various ones but this is a very established test, but I can’t remember what it’s called.

Aaron: But I would imagine anybody who took that test over and over and over again, or trained for it could actually increase their IQ, increase their score because you see similar questions over and over. You get used to answering those kind of questions.

Dan: And he makes no bones about it that these are not accurate measurements of your intelligence.

Aaron: Well, I think there’s been lots of studies in the past 20 years have come out saying that the IQ test, maybe historically it’s been used to measure “intelligence” but it only measures one very narrow sliver of intelligence. There’s also emotional intelligence. There’s also athletic intelligence.

There’s musical intelligence. So many different types of intelligence is out there. Multiple intelligences.

Dan: Yeah, I think we’ve got a lesson on that, too.

Aaron: I believe we do somewhere. One of our free lessons.

Dan: Yeah, so search deepenglish.com for ‘multiple intelligences’.

Aaron: When I hear that name Rick Rosner, I think of Rick Ross.

Dan: Rick Ross. Rick Ross, the rapper, or Rick Ross, the drug dealer?

Aaron: I guess the rapper. That’s who I think of. I don’t know much about the other Rick Ross.

Dan: Well, there’s the other Rick Ross who was a famous cocaine drug dealer in LA in the 1980s.

Aaron: Ah, the Regan era.

Dan: And what brought him down was the CIA was funneling… It sounds like a made-up movie.

Aaron: It does sound like a movie. This is reality.

Dan: But the 1980s, the CIA was buying drugs in Central America, bringing it up to the US, selling it to people like, not Rick Rosner, Rick Ross, and taking the profits from those cocaine sales to secretly funnel money back to Nicaragua.

Aaron: Wow. That’s pretty shady business.

Dan: Yeah, very shady. So anytime when people talk about, oh, this guy he believed anything. He’s just a conspiracy. Well, some conspiracies are real.

Aaron: Yeah, that was one of them. Unbelievable. So this rapper took his name, basically.

Dan: Yeah, Rick Ross the rapper took his name, but that sounds like a story for another lesson.

Aaron: Yeah, totally. Well, I hope you keep your beauty routine going there. Stay young. Stay looking young and try to stay cool in this heat.

Dan: Okidoki. Talk to you later.

Aaron: All right, man. Talk to you soon.