Newsgroups: alt.fan.gene-scott Path: digex.com!news.intercon.com!udel!wupost!howland.reston.ans.net!darwin.sura.net!ra!itd!jost From: jost@itd.itd.nrl.navy.mil (Patrick Jost) Subject: SCOTT ART SCAM (read this, it is FUNNY) Message-ID: Sender: usenet@ra.nrl.navy.mil Organization: Information Technology Division, Naval Research Laboratory Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1993 22:34:35 GMT Lines: 87 A long time ago, my sister Caitlin worked at Doc's horse ranch. The old bastard sacked her for no good reason. Well, she did get a small settlement through the labour board, but it was no fun. We decided to teach old Doc a lesson, great teacher that he is. At the time, he was offering to sell his art. Inspiration struck... I have a family friend from Iran who posed as a "rich Arab" who wanted to buy the artwork. I posed as "Lawrence,", "Mr Habib's" bodyguard. We strung Scott along for about 2 weeks...cryptic phone calls, calls to phone booths, all sorts of things. We rented a Mercedes 450SL, drove out to the ranch, along with "Nigel" and "Deborah", another bodyguard and "Mr Habib's" assistant. Actually, they were people who wanted to see the fun. We all wore goofy clothes, Nigel and I in mock-Rambo Soldier-of-Fortune paramilitary gear and Deb in sleaze/yuppie duds. Nigel and I used the most hilarious "stiff upper lip" accents we could manage (I'm a semiBrit, so not hard for me). "Mr Habib" only spoke in Persian, which I can also speak, so the illusion of interpreter was good. We engaged Doc on a pretty wild bunch of topics, and acted downright odd. "Mr Habib" is pretty successful, he was kind enough to loan us a briefcase full of jewelry as "bait". Well, Doc fell all over us. What a scumbag. We ate his food, drank his booze (except Habib, of course, must preserve the illusion). The man isn't too sharp-Persian and Arabic don't sound at all alike, and there were times when that damn Habib obviously understood our quips about "why do you show so many bloody videos of horses, old boy" and so on. We at a whole Docday. He had to have a tape run instead of going live. He wanted money, which he said was to buy or renovate some old church. We told him that we had jewels and Krugerrands, we wanted art, that Habib and his partners in Dubai wanted art. Scott took Polaroids of everything in sight. He got one of Habib, which we made a big show of destroying ("mess with Habib, you are MEAT", we told him). He kept trying, I smashed his Polaroid, told him he was lucky I didn't shoot him (he nearly sh*t). ANyway, we told him we'd get back to him about transfer of goods in a few days. Sure enough, Doc started talking about this on the air. Money is coming from God, the usual. About a week later, Deborah called him. Very serious professional voice. (We had been given a special number-now disconnected to use for "contacting" Doc) "Dr Scott?" "Yes" "Deborah here, from Mr Habib's organisation" "Aha" "I don't know quite how to say this..." "Er go on" "Nigel and Lawrence did some, ah, checking, they are, ah," "what?" "well connected, so, and they found out..." "found out what?" "YOU'RE AN ASSHOLE" "huh?" "yes, an asshole, they have advised Mr Habib of this, he will not buy, he says he would not let a camel pee on your artwork" "thanks" (click) 1 day later, Scott is ranting about people tricking him, giving vague descriptions of "the Arab, 2 Englishmen and the girl" who tricked him. Gotcha, Gene!