|
Alan Abel (b. 1930) is an American writer, musician and hoaxer. He is famous for a series of hoaxes that he was able to turn into major media circuses with surprising ease. Jump to: navigation, search A hoax is an attempt to trick an audience into believing that something false is real. ...
INS agents recover Elián González by force from his uncles house; this photo, taken by AP photographer Alan Diaz won him a Pulitzer Prize. ...
Abel graduated from Ohio State University with a B.S. in Education. Jump to: navigation, search The Ohio State University (legal name), also known as Ohio State or OSU, is currently the largest public university in the United States and ranked by US News as the best public university in Ohio and the twenty-first best public university in the nation. ...
One of Abel's earliest hoaxes took place in the early 1960s. Abel posed as a golf expert who taught Westinghouse executives how to employ ballet positions to improve their game. Golfer teeing off at the start of a hole Golf is a sport where individual players or teams hit a small ball into a hole using various clubs. ...
Westinghouse logo (designed by Paul Rand) The Westinghouse Electric Company, headquartered in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, is an organization founded by George Westinghouse in 1886. ...
The Waltz of the Snowflakes from Tchaikovskys The Nutcracker Ballet is the name given to a specific dance form and technique. ...
After the Watergate scandal, Abel hired an actor, Bill Deprado, to pose as Deep Throat. The man called a news conference in New York City before 150 reporters and literary agent Scott Meredith offered $100,000 to buy the rights to his story. The would-be-Deep Throat argued with his wife, who did not want him to testify, then he fainted and was spirited away in a private ambulance. The Watergate building. ...
Omar's School for Beggars was a supposed school for professional panhandlers. In his new disguise he was invited to the Tomorrow Show by Tom Snyder, whom he angered because Erma Bombeck was waiting to come on but Omar stole the show for its entire hour. Other Omar victims included Morton Downey, Jr., Sally Jessy Raphael , Mike Douglas and Sonya Friedman who was very upset because Omar ate his lunch on camera during the interview. Beggars in Samarkand, 1905 Begging includes the various methods used by persons to obtain money, food, shelter, or other necessities from people they encounter during the course of their travels. ...
Tom Snyder rendered in acrylic on canvas by artist Mark Farinas Newscaster for New Yorks WNBC-TV in the 1970s, Tom Snyder (born May 12, 1936 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) was raised Roman Catholic and educated by the Jesuits, and gained national fame as the host of The Tomorrow Show...
With S.I.N.A. Society for Indecency to Narcoleptic Animals, Abel claimed that low moral standards in USA are due to publicly naked animals. Their motto was A Nude Horse Is a Rude Horse. The society even managed to attract contributions that were always returned. Walter Cronkite helped fuel their cause with one of his nightly news shows on CBS-TV. Reporters Pete Hamill and Susan Brownmiller tried to infiltrate S.I.N.A. without success. The hoax lasted five years until Time Magazine blew the whistle and published an expose.
In 1966-1967 Abel wrote a weekly humor column for San Francisco Chronicle as "The Private World of Prof. Bunker C. Hill." It was syndicated in Washington, DC and earned Abel a visit to the White House to meet President Lyndon Johnson. He was held at the gate for an hour because his invitation ID read "Prof. Bunker C. Hill." Chronicle editor Scott Newhall was finally located to clear things up. The San Francisco Chronicle, the self-described Voice of the West, is Northern Californias largest newspaper. ...
In 1979 Abel staged his own death from a heart attack near the Sundance ski Lodge. A fake funeral director collected his belongings and a woman posing as his widow notified the New York Times. The Times published a long obituary January 2, 1980 (a rare example of a premature obituary). Three days later Abel held a news conference to announce the "reports of my demise have been grossly exaggerated" and the Times published a retraction. Jump to: navigation, search This page refers to the year 1979. ...
The New York Times is an internationally known daily newspaper published in New York City and distributed in the United States and many other nations worldwide. ...
Jump to: navigation, search January 2 is the second day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ...
Jump to: navigation, search 1980 is a leap year starting on Tuesday. ...
Various notable people have had their death announced in error. ...
In 1997 Abel invented a special gift; a gift-wrapped pint of urine from Jenny McCarthy. The product was supposedly offered in the name of CGS productions, with a contact named Stoidi Puekaw ("Wake up idiots" backwards). Her copyright lawyer threatened to sue. Abel's pun was based on an appearance by McCarthy in a shoe commercial where she was sitting on a toilet. 1997 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Urine is liquid waste excreted by the kidneys and eventually expelled from the body in a process known as urination. ...
Playboy centerfold appearance October 1993 Birthplace Chicago, Illinois Birthdate November 1, 1972 Measurements 38 in - 24 in - 34 in Height 5 ft 7 in (1. ...
For copyright issues in relation to Wikipedia itself, see Wikipedia:Copyrights. ...
Abel also ran for Congress in a platform that included paying congressmen based on commission; selling ambassadorships to the highest bidder; installing a lie detector in the White House and truth serum in the Senate drinking fountain; requiring all doctors to publish their medical school grade-point averages in the telephone book after their names and removing Wednesday to establish a 4-day workweek. A congress is a gathering of people, especially a gathering for a political purpose. ...
For other uses, see Ambassador (disambiguation). ...
A polygraph or lie detector is a device which measures and records several physiological variables such as blood pressure, heart rate, respiration and skin conductivity while a series of questions is being asked, in an attempt to detect lies. ...
The southern side of the White House The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States. ...
Truth Serum is an independent comic book series created, written and drawn by author Jonathan Adams. ...
Wednesday is considered either the third or the fourth day of the week, between Tuesday and Thursday. ...
At the 2000 Republican Convention in Philadelphia, Abel introduced a volatile campaign to ban all breastfeeding because "it is an incestuous relationship between mother and baby that manifests an oral addiction leading youngsters to smoke, drink and even becoming a homosexual." After two- hundred interviews over two years, Abel confessed the hoax in "U.S. News and World Report."
In 2004, his daughter Jenny Abel along with Jeff Hocket made a documentary film on his life called Abel Raises Cain. It played at the Boston Independent Film Festival and won the first prize for Best Documentary at the Slamdance Film Festival in 2005. Documentary film is a broad category of cinematic expression united by the intent to remain factual or non-fictional. ...
Alan Abel's Books
- The Fallacy of Creative Thinking
- The Panhandlers Handbook (as Omar the Begger)
- Confessions of a Hoaxer
- Don't Get Mad, Get Even
- How to Thrive on Rejection (1984, originally as W. W. Norton)
- The Great American Hoax (1966)
External links |
Feeds |
Contact