I heard of this case when it first happened and it was discussed on a forum, I felt strongly it was a hoax, ok someone may want to rip out labels, but to remove all identifying marks from shoes is far too suspicious.
I guess I am a softie... :oops: It seems that he truly did have a breakdown and was going to commit suicide. He never told anyone he was a virtuoso, they just spun that for themselves out of his penchant for drawing pianos and tapping on the keyboard.
He might not have wanted his family to identify his body and to know of his death, and that could have been a rationale for removing idewntifying marks from his clothing.....
I don't see what there is to "admit" about being gay or why that keeps getting mentioned in the article. It doesn't negate the fact that he was obviously having a lot of problems and broke down. I think it is preposterous for them to want to sue him just because their far flung fantasies and speculations were trounced by somethign more ordinary and realistic. He may not have even known that they thought all of this stuff if he was severly depressed and "out of it". They say they wasted trying to help him?? It sounds like he needed help! He was trying to kill himself, for godssake! Why do they assume that intentionally misled them, when he may have just been depressed beyond words? Because they wanted a novelty, a speechless savant. Now that he can speak and isn't a savant, they're ticked.
Lastly....perhaps he is autistic to some degree. Both I and my son have the tendency to draw the same picture or subject over and over and over....
He only drew a piano once.
There must be a lot more to it than we know about, that might explain why they are considering suing him.
In the UK if someone attempts suicide they get a day in hospital then discharged, unless they are sectioned.
So for a suicide attempt he wouldnt be kept like that for months.
He was obviously giving a very different impression, as they said, copying the behaviour of people he worked with.
To obtain services like that is counted as fraud.
According to what the German man said, the saga was the result of a failed suicide attempt. If that's true, then the whole incident has more of the character of a farce than a cynical premeditated hoax.
Anyone who thinks autistics cut labels off things to erase the identifying marks from their shoes or garments is an ill-informed idiot. With hindsight, the marks rubbed off the shoes should have been a blatant clue of some kind of premeditiation in the incident, either pointing towards the possibility of a hoax or a deliberate hiding of identity. I think a lot of government service stuff-ups happen because the kind of situation is categorised in the wrong way. This case should have been treated with a forensic scrutiny, rather than the wishy-washy mental health thinking that was applied. Sometimes mental health problems are treated as legal issues, with similarly poor outcomes.
Okay, then let's assume he wasn't disturbed or having a breakdown (and I will leave aside the fact than auties and aspies often pick up on and mirror behaviors of others- this happened to me when I was working with disabled people, but it doesn't mean that I'm not really autistic).
Why would anyone do this?
To my mind it seems like *something* was seriously wrong, somewhere, even if he was faking it, or he wouldn't have done so.
The repetitiveness of the drawings
This implies that he drew pianos more than once... or, something more than once, repetitively.
The other alternative I can think of is that he has done something wrong or criminal somewhere and was trying to lose his identity.
Do you think, in this day and age, that people still "go off the deep end" because they can't accept that they are gay? Is there any evidence that this could have been an issue with the guy?
Wait a minute- someone who is totally sane and doesn't need any services wouldn't bother doing that. This is a parallel to people's claims that you shouldn't pay attention to the suicide attempts of people who are trying to gain attention- ANYBODY WHO WANTS ATTENTION BADLY ENOUGH TO DIE OR GO TO A MENTAL HOSPITAL NEEDS ATTENTION.
True but does it have to do with us?
Jerry
This was Private Eye's take on the Piano Man case:
PIANO MAN IDENTITY SHOCK
by our musical staff
Al Legro and
Ann Dante
THE so-called "Piano Man", who has appeared in concert halls all over the world, was revealed last night to have totally fooled the experts.
The mystery virtuoso turns out to be Alfred Brendel, 75, a humble Austrian concert pianist, who in reality can scarcely play a note.
But last night the bespectacled piano man with the enigmatic smile was unavailable for comment.
Said a neighbour in London's leafy Hampstead, "We always knew him as a quiet chap with a foreign accent, who kept himself to himself. We had no idea he could play the piano."
This sounds like a different piano man to the first one.
I think it is still possible for people to be very emotionally conflicted about being gay, and there are still parents who would not accept their child if they told them of this. The suicide rate in the gay community is higher than in the rest of the community so something about it must cause emotional distress - there are still people in their prejudice and ignorance who treat gay people as pariahs.
Taking legal action against the first piano man seems ludicrous. He might have fooled the medical people to some degree but they were also gullible and fooled themselves so they should bear some responsibility for the cost of the treatment.
I cut labels off clothes because they are itchy - sometimes shoe labels can be annoying too and I would remove them, so I don't think too much should be made of the man having done the same with his things.
Tenacious, Sjo's post is from Private Eye which is a humorous magazine, it is not an accurate representation of the Piano Mans story.
But how was I supposed to know it was a joke? Grrr.... silly jokes. :evil: :oops: :mad:
You would only know if you recognised the name of the magazine.
But how was I supposed to know it was a joke? Grrr.... silly jokes.
Did you not notice the names of the correspondents, Al Legro and Ann Dante?
I take it you hadn't heard of Alfred Brendel either. Oh well.