Vadney loses his top and drives full-throttle to perdition?

Affectations can be dangerous.
—Gertrude Stein

We have seen that the Vadney is not above crying poor. His so-called “AFFIDAVIT IN SUPPORT OF NOTICE OF APPEAL” (apparently he never actually did file a notice of appeal in due form) alleges that he can’t afford the cost of the appeal,can’t afford a lawyer, etc. He apparently can’t even scrape together $1600 to pay a judgment debt for court costs to one of the defendants in his lost defamation suit. Poor How-Old!

And not so long ago he was bragging about his success and wealth.The Schenectady Daily Gazette published a puff piece on 25 April 1998 (p. B-11), in which Vadney was described as “a businessman who turned a gift for languages - he speaks five - into an international translation service founded in 1986 that currently employs 300 consultants”. Who could have told them that? Even to this day he claims to “travel frequently to venues in Europe, especially Germany, France and Italy” (from the “about me” rubric on his blog, current as at time of writing). Then there is the small matter of that apartment in Italy. And I wonder how it is that he can afford to get around in a BMW convertible. By all reports, he drives around with the top down, his long scarf flapping in the breeze. Surely, he must cut a ludicrous figure posturing around like that at his age: a clear case of delayed mid-life crisis. And what poseur would be complete without vanity plates? In his case, apparently: “OBEN OHNE” (German for “topless”). No doubt the car is registered in his partner’s name, but how often do you think Edward J. Hayes III gets to drive it?

It all adds up, really. The riches to rags, the obsession with toplessness, the holidays in Italy, the convertible with the top down, the long flowing scarf, all point to one thing:

THE VADNEY THINKS HE’S ISADORA DUNCAN!

If the Vadney wants to emulate Isadora Duncan, then so be it. I am sure she was a bit of an exhibitionist too. Let us hope his reënactment of her life proceeds at breakneck speed. But there are a few important differences that rather spoil the parallel:

• People actually paid money to see Isadora Duncan topless;


• Isadora Duncan actually achieved something in life; and


• by the time she was the Vadney’s age, Isadora Duncan had been dead for seven years.

Of course, this is sadly purely hypothetical in the Vadney’s case, but we could perhaps add a further major divergence here:

• When Isadora Duncan died, some people were rather upset about it.

It remains to be seen, of course, if anyone would be upset if the Vadney met a similar fate to Isadora Duncan’s. (Maybe Hayes III would be upset about the damage to his car.) Let’s hope we don’t have to wait too long for a resolution to this question.

Well, I couldn’t find a picture of Isadora Duncan topless.
So here’s Mata Hari bottomless.
Like the Vadney, she got herself into trouble with her compulsive lying.


(Courtesy of wikia.com)

Some references

I have been a bit slow about posting reference material, partly because blogging is far from my main occupation, partly because I need to ensure I am not exposing my sources to any legal risks, and partly because I am in the process of changing hosting companies. But here are a couple of files.

• Vadney’s affidavit in support of his so-called appeal. Here you can see his pathetic bleatings about how he didn’t understand what was going on at the trial of his defamation case, and how he is now a “poor person”, who can’t afford a lawyer or even the court fees for an appeal. A far cry from his usual chest-beating.


• Judge Teresi’s findings, including, among others, that the “defamatory” allegations against the Vadney were, in fact, true. Also noteworthy is that defamation proceedings are so rare in the US that the court reporter didn’t even know the word “libel”. Maybe they should have got Terry, whoever she is!

I don’t suppose anyone will download, let alone read, those files, but at least they’re there, and at least the Vadney knows that I know....

A more serious matter....

The Vadney has been harassing my octogenarian parents in Adelaide (Australia) with phone calls in the small hours of the morning. This is totally unacceptable. Ostensibly, he was trying to contact me, but he knows very well that I am at the other end of the world, in Europe. I will take whatever action is necessary, legal or otherwise, to protect my parents from this harassment.

Of course I won’t be retaliating in kind by calling the Vadney’s elderly mother in the middle of the night. I wouldn’t want to wake up the whole trailer park!

Coming soon!

Vadney’s career as a thief!

The Pink Parasite, or Would you buy this used man?

We all know about projection. Vadney lied about his credentials, which makes him a fraud; so he calls me a fraud. He accuses me of defaming him, when my accusations were true; so again the boot is on the other foot. Similarly he accuses me of criminality, stupidity, impotence, ugliness...even of being a parasite, which is a bit rich considering his own circumstances. Recently, he has accused me (and Scott Horne) of being suicidal; so I draw my own conclusion.

So why is Vadney contemplating suicide? Well, I know it’s hard, but let’s try to imagine ourselves in his position. This is my (imaginative) take on it:

Would you buy this used man?

You are 57 years old. You have been trying to make a career as a freelance translator for over 25 years now, and still you can’t make a go of it. Your business is derisory. Others, in far less time, have built up successful careers, but you can’t do it. You are coming to realize that you are too old to start again. Until a few months ago, you had a job-search website up, but after over five years, it became just too humiliating, and you had to take it down. Now your opponents, who have access to archived copies, are making fun of you over it.

Your lover, Edward, is 14 years your junior. When you met him, you were broke. When he gets sick of supporting you and kicks you out, you will be broke again. Naked came I, as the Good Book says. For a while it was rather neat that a younger, wealthier man supported you. In a way it proved you were desirable—to someone at least. But now you worry about being old and ugly. You know that dyeing your hair a lurid shade of orange can only cover for so much. You know that your days of living in comfort as his parasite are numbered.

You know, too, that, when the time comes, and your toyboy has had enough of you, you will be very hard-pressed to find a replacement. As you so aptly put it, “Middle-aged men with low self-esteem and zero self-respect are not exactly A-list company.” You really don’t like yourself. If you were happy with what you are, you wouldn’t dress up in a lab-coat with “Dr H. W. Vadney” printed on it. Not for a portrait; not even to do the gardening. It might not have made you a better person, but it fooled some people and gave you an illusory feeling of respect—not self-respect, maybe, but respect from others. Now that you have been exposed for what you are—a fraud—you must know that people laugh at you behind your back about that famous lab-coat.

In fact, there is nobody you encounter, either in your so-called professional life or in your neighbourhood, who you can’t be sure isn’t secretly laughing at you. You have been caught lying about your credentials, and it has been in the press, and it has been mentioned on professional websites. You have nowhere to hide.

Reality is closing in on you. For years—decades—people believed you were a doctor or a clinical scientist, or they politely pretended to. But now the secret is out: you have only a lousy BA, and you made a mess of your MA. You had so much trouble coping with that failure that, even nearly 30 years later, you were still pretending to have passed your MA. Until you were exposed as a liar. The whole house of cards has come crashing down around you.

You continually lose court cases; you must realize that you can be stung for costs, and then your only way out—apart from suicide—will be to go bankrupt or to go cap in hand to your young lover, who sooner or later must tire of your demands for money. You can’t accept that the fantasy persona you created for yourself is a lie; so you relentlessly harass and pursue anyone who challenges or threatens it. But somehow you know too that you have been caught out: the game is up, and you will never again be taken seriously. Your claims to be a doctor and a clinical scientist, instead of winning you respect, have made you ridiculous, despised, a laughing-stock. It is too late to recover your self-esteem and relaunch yourself: you are too old and you have no independent means. You can’t even earn a living.

You know too that some of the things you have been exposed for are serious crimes: fraud, perjury.... Even your current obsessive hate-blogging could get you prosecuted for harassment, but you just can’t stop. You could land in prison. With your fake upper-class mannerisms, your puffery and your holier-than-thou attitude, you will be despised and detested, both by the other criminals and by the prison guards. Your two absurd and pathetic attempts to become a judge will not sit well in your new environment either. Your life in prison will be hell.

You? A judge? Some hope! With 17 votes, it looks like not even all your family voted for you. You should be grateful: a judge in prison would have an even worse time of it than you’ve booked yourself in for.

You skulk around the house in your dressing gown, behind closed shutters and boarded-up windows, peering out at the world, at the people who, unlike you, have a life, wondering whether they are talking or thinking about you. Pathetic. You Google your own name obsessively to find out what people think of you. You have next to no work; you are afraid to show your face for fear of ridicule, or just for fear that people will realize you have nothing better to do than wander around. Your future as a homeless and despised old jailbird (if you survive to be let out), unattractive, unloved, unwanted, living on the street, is too horrible to contemplate. How sad.

No wonder you want to kill yourself.

But don’t worry: he won’t do it. He hasn’t got the guts.

PS: If anyone is wondering what happened to the entry on the distinction between onanism and masturbation, two topics dear to Mr Vadney’s heart (see his blog entries from December 2007 for multiple references thereto), stop worrying! I posted it to this blog by mistake: it was intended for the companion blog, Biblical quotations for the Vadney, and that’s where you’ll find it now. Although that blog is primarily intended for his spiritual guidance, that particular entry is more for his general education, which is sadly lacking. However, I included it there because it rests on a Biblical quotation which is commonly misunderstood.

PPS: I’m still in Annemasse. My precise geographical coördinates, to two decimal places, are on my ProZ.com profile. I can’t be bothered copying them here.