I thought this was a compelling interview. I know a lot of people are skeptical of this guy and I will admit I am a little bit as well. With that out of the way I figured I would add my two cents. Listening to his story of being homeless was incredibly sad. I could not help but think of my son, who is 24, going through that situation. As a father my heart went out to him. I also empathized with him in other ways. I was also a poor student, had a bad home life, and always had my nose in a book. I laughed when he told the story of getting on a bus with the seniors to go to career day because that is exactly something I would have done at his age. I don't think he lied about his home life or that he was homeless. Rather than focusing on parts of his story that may seem exaggerated I would rather congratulate a man who worked hard to get off the streets and became a successful writer.
40 minutes into the episode I came here to see if others felt that this guy is not 100%. My red flag alarm was going off like crazy. I'm going to finish the episode now to see if it turns around.
John McAfee lived in Woodland Park, CO in the 90s, which happens to be when and where I grew up and went to high school. He had a place just out of town. We went looking for it one day and after a maze of dirt roads then suddenly there was this paved driveway with a big gate and two big (I think they were lion) statues. My friend Maria (who was also in high school, maybe 16 or 17 years old) was a barista at a coffee shop in town and one day she told me she was working for John McAfee, that he was a lonely rich guy and was basically paying her good money to just hang out and alphabetize his DVD collection and do yoga with him. At the time I suspected that maybe he just liked to have a pretty girl around, but I would really love to talk to her more about it now! I don’t know how to get in contact with her though.
He did mention James Frey didn't he? Is that a clue?
And by the way I read that book a million little months ago and have zero recollection of anything other than standard English in the text. But he said it has a made up language like A Clockwork Orange? Doesn't it? Also that book is 20 years old but somehow special for this young man?
(I don't have Netflix but have been looking at review of this new doc and they are really not good. Anyone watched it yet. Anyone watch the excellent Gringo (2016) as an alternative? It is available on Showtime and probably elsewhere. I saw it on Netflix years ago, I think it was Netflix then.)
yes, the entire time listening to him I felt like he could be lying, hes very interesting and an incredible storyteller, perhaps he cant help but stretch the truth and create narratives out of his experiences that blend truth with fiction... and when he mentioned James Frey I felt like he was giving us a clue. really great episode, but my intuition was to set my bullshit detector on high alert.
Yes, red flags abound. One of the few TS interviews that seemed off from the get-go. Wouldn't be surprised if he ended up in something like Scientology or a similar hangout for smart people who think they're more clever than everyone else.
I don't know. I think I've already done enough speculation about him. From what Wikipedia says about "A Million Little Pieces" the book is written in an unusual style.
Before I answer your question I want to say that I am fully aware that I might be wrong. At a certain point, early in the interview I became suspicious. I don't know what provoked the thought, but from then on I was watching with a skeptical attitude. The following is more a description of my skeptical approach than saying this my final conclusion or even less, to state, that he really is an impostor. Once in the skeptical mindset, things add up in their own way and build a narrative all plausible in itself. Things could easily been seen differently. It is as I said: I have a hard time to believe, which is not claiming that I am right with my suspicions.
As soon as I got suspicious it all seemed too much. For instance: On top of homelessness, after having survived two attempted murders by his mother, comes an assault with an unlikely and adventurous escape and then eight day of sleeplessness. Not 3 days which already really is a lot. No, eight. I don't even know if this is possible.
But that wasn't enough, it then had to be 2 years of severe PTSD, which then was treated all by himself when he was working on a yacht. Severe PTSD and two years of a dissociative state treated all by oneself? Maybe, but how likely? And, of course, with an unlikely and somewhat outlandish outcome of fearlessness and the inability to feel excitement. I met guys who notoriously had to exaggerate everything what happened to them and the trajectory of his story remembered me of them. A quite extraordinary recovery from severe PTSD isn't enough for them, not even with maybe a drastical change in their attitude to life. It has to be special psychological traits. Traits like one I only knew from the superhero Green Lantern: fearlessness.
The story when he was addressed by that famous (of course) author in the cafe seemed possible but a little bit off. He told he was working with a laptop, not writing on paper. Why would somebody think he was writing a book and not doing something else on his notebook? Again, could happen. I was asked twice in my life, if I was a writer, but I was writing page after page on paper, a thing everyone could easily see from every angle in the room. Nobody ever asked that, when I used a laptop where I just as easily could have done regular business stuff. You yourself made the joke with Stephen King. And then what? He's living close to him or something! Yes, sure.
Coming from that perspective my assessment of his story telling qualities was rather different from yours. Where you saw somebody experiencing the world through a story telling mindset I thought: Or he's just telling a story he made up. Or stories with a core of true events but exaggerated drastically. It was a bit too fluent and elaborated for my taste. Maybe this is because he told it many times. But I've heard the same stories of your life several times and you probably have told them more often. They are always fluent and eloquent but not in that way, not as smooth. I also felt the pace and style of his telling changed when you were talking about ghostwriting. In this part he seemed real to me whereas the other parts felt a bit like rehearsed.
And the way he agreed with you when you were on a tangent, like e.g. about the story telling mindset: he seemed to be out of his depth and just throwing in buzzwords. Something an impostor would do when you're leaving his script. On the other hand, anybody could do this when being out of one's depth for a moment.
Next thing: he's friends with ALL of his clients, as opposed to the other ghostwriters. Special again. In itself, no reason to be suspicious. But it's adding up.
These are some of my very individual thoughts and doubts. If I am totally wrong and if he's ever going to read this, then I hope that he could have a good laugh about how weird people's thoughts can become once they took off in a certain direction. Maybe he's legit and then: Sorry, Alex, for saying all that bullshit about you.
The only thing that made me a bit skeptical was when asked about certain books he did not expound on them in much detail. If you ask me about some of my favorite books you will not shut me up. That being said I am also aware that (1) it is not fair to use myself as a baseline to evaluate other peoples behavior and (2) maybe he was nervous being on a podcast.
After listening, I was left with the feeling that this guy is highly intelligent, both in his craft as well as emotionally. I didn’t get the feeling he was being untruthful but I was kind of marveling at how he seemed to handle all of this trauma so well and appears to have a strong moral code -- maybe a bit more virtuous that what one might expect. Now you have me re examining my character assessment. I’m not totally convinced but you make a compelling case with some very astute observations that I did not pick up on.
I wonder if he has handled the trauma. When he was talking about his experience of being homeless, the first thing I thought of was that it could give a person PTSD. I hope he has learned to manage the pain, but oftentimes we are not very good at diagnosing and treating our own trauma.
I'm glad, I didn't convince you, because after all I'm not convinced by myself. As I wrote, for some unclear reason I became suspicious, and after that I was watching in that mindset.
The thing with that kind of mindset is, that it is self-affirmative by looking out for possible flaws. It's all too easy for distrust to regard things as not trustworthy.
I was already thinking, that it would perhaps have been better, if I wouldn't have answered to Chris that "astutely" (as you put it), because by doing so publicly I was instilling doubt about a person I don't know at all.
My bullshit detector went off too… mainly bc the kind of stories he told and the way he told them reminded me of other people I know that have this tendency to self aggrandizing. Quoting you, my bet would be on the existence of “a core of true events but exaggerated drastically”. Of course I might be totally off too, if so, he is the exception in the set of people who tell this kind of stories in that way. (I can define further what I mean by “this kind of stories” and by “in that way” but don’t wanna be boring.)
I must admit I also considered that a couple of times. He's so evidently brilliant and there are so many gaps in his personal story --why didn't he contact his brother, the one he ended up working years later, during the time he got stranded hitchhiking, for instance?-- that it wouldn't surprise me he's using his amazing story-telling skills to tell a yarn about himself. And maybe McAffee himself noticed Cody was hiding something --just like him-- which is why he admitted him into his inner circle (a con can tell another con).
But regardless of that, it was a fascinating conversation. Cody in a way reminded me of the character of FBI profiler Will Graham in the movie Red Dragon. A man who can get inside the head of even the most twisted of psychopaths; a valuable asset for a ghost writer, I'm sure.
Yeah, I thought the same about gaps in the story and the thing with not getting in touch with the brother. There could be good explanations for it, but somehow....
There is a 2016 doc about McAfee it's called Gringo and it is really good. He like to hire the local poor Belize women to shit in his mouth according to an interview in Gringo.
After listening to Alex’s story it reminded me of an Alan Watts lecture where he talks about something in Zen Buddhism called “Satori” which is sudden spiritual enlightenment … sometimes people who are in an extreme situation experience Satori where they physically and mentally feel they are one with the universe. Well Alan watts explains it much better than me. I think all the reading and the experiences lead up to his Satori, but it is a phenomenon that I’ve heard Alan Watts talk about
I thought this was a compelling interview. I know a lot of people are skeptical of this guy and I will admit I am a little bit as well. With that out of the way I figured I would add my two cents. Listening to his story of being homeless was incredibly sad. I could not help but think of my son, who is 24, going through that situation. As a father my heart went out to him. I also empathized with him in other ways. I was also a poor student, had a bad home life, and always had my nose in a book. I laughed when he told the story of getting on a bus with the seniors to go to career day because that is exactly something I would have done at his age. I don't think he lied about his home life or that he was homeless. Rather than focusing on parts of his story that may seem exaggerated I would rather congratulate a man who worked hard to get off the streets and became a successful writer.
40 minutes into the episode I came here to see if others felt that this guy is not 100%. My red flag alarm was going off like crazy. I'm going to finish the episode now to see if it turns around.
This was a fascinating podcast.
John McAfee lived in Woodland Park, CO in the 90s, which happens to be when and where I grew up and went to high school. He had a place just out of town. We went looking for it one day and after a maze of dirt roads then suddenly there was this paved driveway with a big gate and two big (I think they were lion) statues. My friend Maria (who was also in high school, maybe 16 or 17 years old) was a barista at a coffee shop in town and one day she told me she was working for John McAfee, that he was a lonely rich guy and was basically paying her good money to just hang out and alphabetize his DVD collection and do yoga with him. At the time I suspected that maybe he just liked to have a pretty girl around, but I would really love to talk to her more about it now! I don’t know how to get in contact with her though.
This episode was exceptionally interesting. I'm also more interested in Alex Cody Foster than John McAfee. :)
I have a hard time to believe this guy. I wouldn't be surprised if some day he will turn out as an impostor.
He did mention James Frey didn't he? Is that a clue?
And by the way I read that book a million little months ago and have zero recollection of anything other than standard English in the text. But he said it has a made up language like A Clockwork Orange? Doesn't it? Also that book is 20 years old but somehow special for this young man?
(I don't have Netflix but have been looking at review of this new doc and they are really not good. Anyone watched it yet. Anyone watch the excellent Gringo (2016) as an alternative? It is available on Showtime and probably elsewhere. I saw it on Netflix years ago, I think it was Netflix then.)
yes, the entire time listening to him I felt like he could be lying, hes very interesting and an incredible storyteller, perhaps he cant help but stretch the truth and create narratives out of his experiences that blend truth with fiction... and when he mentioned James Frey I felt like he was giving us a clue. really great episode, but my intuition was to set my bullshit detector on high alert.
Yes, red flags abound. One of the few TS interviews that seemed off from the get-go. Wouldn't be surprised if he ended up in something like Scientology or a similar hangout for smart people who think they're more clever than everyone else.
I don't know. I think I've already done enough speculation about him. From what Wikipedia says about "A Million Little Pieces" the book is written in an unusual style.
Interesting. Anything in particular that seemed off to you?
Before I answer your question I want to say that I am fully aware that I might be wrong. At a certain point, early in the interview I became suspicious. I don't know what provoked the thought, but from then on I was watching with a skeptical attitude. The following is more a description of my skeptical approach than saying this my final conclusion or even less, to state, that he really is an impostor. Once in the skeptical mindset, things add up in their own way and build a narrative all plausible in itself. Things could easily been seen differently. It is as I said: I have a hard time to believe, which is not claiming that I am right with my suspicions.
As soon as I got suspicious it all seemed too much. For instance: On top of homelessness, after having survived two attempted murders by his mother, comes an assault with an unlikely and adventurous escape and then eight day of sleeplessness. Not 3 days which already really is a lot. No, eight. I don't even know if this is possible.
But that wasn't enough, it then had to be 2 years of severe PTSD, which then was treated all by himself when he was working on a yacht. Severe PTSD and two years of a dissociative state treated all by oneself? Maybe, but how likely? And, of course, with an unlikely and somewhat outlandish outcome of fearlessness and the inability to feel excitement. I met guys who notoriously had to exaggerate everything what happened to them and the trajectory of his story remembered me of them. A quite extraordinary recovery from severe PTSD isn't enough for them, not even with maybe a drastical change in their attitude to life. It has to be special psychological traits. Traits like one I only knew from the superhero Green Lantern: fearlessness.
The story when he was addressed by that famous (of course) author in the cafe seemed possible but a little bit off. He told he was working with a laptop, not writing on paper. Why would somebody think he was writing a book and not doing something else on his notebook? Again, could happen. I was asked twice in my life, if I was a writer, but I was writing page after page on paper, a thing everyone could easily see from every angle in the room. Nobody ever asked that, when I used a laptop where I just as easily could have done regular business stuff. You yourself made the joke with Stephen King. And then what? He's living close to him or something! Yes, sure.
Coming from that perspective my assessment of his story telling qualities was rather different from yours. Where you saw somebody experiencing the world through a story telling mindset I thought: Or he's just telling a story he made up. Or stories with a core of true events but exaggerated drastically. It was a bit too fluent and elaborated for my taste. Maybe this is because he told it many times. But I've heard the same stories of your life several times and you probably have told them more often. They are always fluent and eloquent but not in that way, not as smooth. I also felt the pace and style of his telling changed when you were talking about ghostwriting. In this part he seemed real to me whereas the other parts felt a bit like rehearsed.
And the way he agreed with you when you were on a tangent, like e.g. about the story telling mindset: he seemed to be out of his depth and just throwing in buzzwords. Something an impostor would do when you're leaving his script. On the other hand, anybody could do this when being out of one's depth for a moment.
Next thing: he's friends with ALL of his clients, as opposed to the other ghostwriters. Special again. In itself, no reason to be suspicious. But it's adding up.
These are some of my very individual thoughts and doubts. If I am totally wrong and if he's ever going to read this, then I hope that he could have a good laugh about how weird people's thoughts can become once they took off in a certain direction. Maybe he's legit and then: Sorry, Alex, for saying all that bullshit about you.
The only thing that made me a bit skeptical was when asked about certain books he did not expound on them in much detail. If you ask me about some of my favorite books you will not shut me up. That being said I am also aware that (1) it is not fair to use myself as a baseline to evaluate other peoples behavior and (2) maybe he was nervous being on a podcast.
After listening, I was left with the feeling that this guy is highly intelligent, both in his craft as well as emotionally. I didn’t get the feeling he was being untruthful but I was kind of marveling at how he seemed to handle all of this trauma so well and appears to have a strong moral code -- maybe a bit more virtuous that what one might expect. Now you have me re examining my character assessment. I’m not totally convinced but you make a compelling case with some very astute observations that I did not pick up on.
I wonder if he has handled the trauma. When he was talking about his experience of being homeless, the first thing I thought of was that it could give a person PTSD. I hope he has learned to manage the pain, but oftentimes we are not very good at diagnosing and treating our own trauma.
Thanks, Candice.
I'm glad, I didn't convince you, because after all I'm not convinced by myself. As I wrote, for some unclear reason I became suspicious, and after that I was watching in that mindset.
The thing with that kind of mindset is, that it is self-affirmative by looking out for possible flaws. It's all too easy for distrust to regard things as not trustworthy.
I was already thinking, that it would perhaps have been better, if I wouldn't have answered to Chris that "astutely" (as you put it), because by doing so publicly I was instilling doubt about a person I don't know at all.
My bullshit detector went off too… mainly bc the kind of stories he told and the way he told them reminded me of other people I know that have this tendency to self aggrandizing. Quoting you, my bet would be on the existence of “a core of true events but exaggerated drastically”. Of course I might be totally off too, if so, he is the exception in the set of people who tell this kind of stories in that way. (I can define further what I mean by “this kind of stories” and by “in that way” but don’t wanna be boring.)
I must admit I also considered that a couple of times. He's so evidently brilliant and there are so many gaps in his personal story --why didn't he contact his brother, the one he ended up working years later, during the time he got stranded hitchhiking, for instance?-- that it wouldn't surprise me he's using his amazing story-telling skills to tell a yarn about himself. And maybe McAffee himself noticed Cody was hiding something --just like him-- which is why he admitted him into his inner circle (a con can tell another con).
But regardless of that, it was a fascinating conversation. Cody in a way reminded me of the character of FBI profiler Will Graham in the movie Red Dragon. A man who can get inside the head of even the most twisted of psychopaths; a valuable asset for a ghost writer, I'm sure.
Yeah, I thought the same about gaps in the story and the thing with not getting in touch with the brother. There could be good explanations for it, but somehow....
There is a 2016 doc about McAfee it's called Gringo and it is really good. He like to hire the local poor Belize women to shit in his mouth according to an interview in Gringo.
I could have listened to another two hours of this conversation.
After listening to Alex’s story it reminded me of an Alan Watts lecture where he talks about something in Zen Buddhism called “Satori” which is sudden spiritual enlightenment … sometimes people who are in an extreme situation experience Satori where they physically and mentally feel they are one with the universe. Well Alan watts explains it much better than me. I think all the reading and the experiences lead up to his Satori, but it is a phenomenon that I’ve heard Alan Watts talk about