Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Catch Me If You Can

Ever heard of a man named Ciprian Skeid? Well, up until recently, neither had Ciprian Skeid. Or so he claimed. According to a story in the Globe & Mail, the talented Mr. Skeid made his first appearance on the Canadian scene in 1999 when he wandered into a Toronto hospital. He insisted he had been beaten and robbed of all his identification, and worse that he had been left with an unfortunate case of amnesia. The press dubbed him "Mr. Nobody", but he preferred the name Philip Staufen (coincidentally also the name of a medieval German king). Unable to obtain a Canadian passport, B.C. birth certificate, or an extension on a temporary permit allowing him to remain in Canada, Skeid did the only logical thing. He married his lawyer's daughter and moved to Portugal. Over the next few years, his other various incarnations started to come to light: German cook, professional mooch, masseur in a gay bath house, and French male model. Quite the resume! Finally, when confronted by intrepid reporters in possession of his Romanian birth certificate, he admitted his identity and confessed to the fraud. Said Skeid, "I'd rather be a fake nobody than the real me".
Ordinarily, you wouldn't think that a story about a Romanian bunko artist who bears an odd resemblance to Tom Cruise would have political implications. But, leave it to the commenters at the Globe to correct such an assumption:

Didn't the Conservatives promise to put a stop to this sort of thing.


This jerk sounds like he'd make a great member of the Liberal party of Canada. Fraud, stealing, dishonest con-artist and living off of Canadian taxpayers.

Takes a long time to expose these imported liberal votes.


This guy is a wet dream for the NDP and their open door policy (especially Svend?). Where does Taliban Jack stand on this issue now?

2 comments:

Red Tory said...

It’s a great story (nicely written up, btw) and hard not to think of “The Talented Mr. Ripley” or “Catch me if You Can” when reading it. Pity for the delightfully named Ciprian Skeid that these films have already been made otherwise Hollywood would surely be beating a path to his door. Who knows, perhaps they will anyway. It’s not like originality has much currency in commercial filmmaking anyway.

But to your ostensible point, isn’t it funny that some people are so permanently bent out of shape that they’d choose to view something like this through the lens of partisan politics just in order to make some cheap (and unfunny) shots at their “enemies”? These folks really need to get a life. Any life… After all, Mr. Skeid has shown us how easy that can be.

Red Canuck said...

RT - Thanks. Skeid is one of those strange characters that almost seems drawn from the pages of a Hollywood movie. He is at once amusing and pitiable.

As for the clowns commenting in the Globe, it really is amazing that some people can be so bitter as to find partisan politics in virtually anything. I imagine these people walk into a grocery store, find an overripe fruit, and start cursing the Libs/Cons/"Taliban Jack".