Now it can be told! The story of JGold2000 Part 2: a Chronological Breakdown

(Note: a much shorter version of this piece originally appeared in The Post. I'll let you decide which one you want to read.)

I recently went through my history of JGold2000 tweets and have collected the tweets that I found particularly funny or interesting. When I created the account I really didn't have any idea how it would go. I didn't know how long it would last, how many followers I would end up with, whether people would actually believe I was the real Goldstein and if I would ever be exposed as a fraud. All I knew when I started was that I found the idea funny and that I would keep it going until it stopped being fun.

It ended up being fun for about ten months or rather it never stopped being fun but it came to an end after ten months because I was caught out by the real Jonathan Goldstein (with the help of John Hodgman) – you can listen to the episode here if you haven't already. I could have kept it going after our confrontation but for me the real humour in this project lied in the fact that people thought I was (or at least weren't sure that I wasn't) the real Goldstein. Once it was revealed that I wasn't I felt that it was time to put JGold2000 to rest.

If the real Goldstein were not so prolific then the whole stunt probably wouldn't have lasted more than a few months but as he produces a half hour radio show and a 500 word newspaper column on a more or less weekly basis I hardly ever found myself wanting for material. When material was scarce it was always easy enough to initiate some sort twitter shenanigans and my followers were always quick to join in and up the ante.

In any event it was a good run. Here are the tweets:

April 8^th my first tweet:

Reaching for the top!

April 9^th the real Goldstein was on a book tour when I started. For each city he was in I'd Google a classy restaurant and tweet about what I was eating. I felt this sort of thing would capture his pseudo-snobby persona:

Will be enjoying the Warm Pear Salad, Branzino Filet and Goat Cheese, cheese cake at the River Cafe on Water Street. May be late for reading.

April 9^th ditto for announcements about the readings:

Fans: due to acute eczema on my hands I will not be signing books but the new intern will be stamping them with the official J.G stamp.

April 13^th it was my hope that minor details (such as what the in-flight movie was) would make my account seem authentic. I was also trying to emulate the way that Goldstein breaks character every now and then by showing cracks in the real Goldsteins' "impeccable tastes":

The in flight movie was Hannah Montana: Keeping It Real. I made instant and public use of my vomit bag but secretly I was delighted.

April 14^th many, many people would ask me when Wiretap would be available as a podcast. I'd usually provide answers like this:

no but I will be selling wax cylinders of our best episodes at future readings. $200 a case.

April 16^th starting to push the envelope:

Dear fans, in the future please limit your personal interactions to: 1 book signing, 1 request for me to visit your site, 1 breast signing.

April 18^th I made more than a few hockey references. This was one of the better ones:

Looking for something to do in Winnipeg. Are the Jets in the playoffs this year and, if so, are they playing this eve?

April 21^st Montreal had just been eliminated from the playoffs. I was devastated:

Back in Montreal. The whole city has fallen into a sour mood. Did something happen whilst I was away, or is it because I was away?

April 23^rd I made a few announcements of this sort in the hopes that people would follow up on the tweets at his readings. To the best of my knowledge no one ever did:

The 1st 3 people to offer me a footbath this eve will receive a free bible but be warned, you may have to deliver on that offer.

April 26^th 4 AM The first of many late night, drunken tweets. I sort of regret dropping the F bomb. It doesn't seem fitting:

Tacos? Anyone? I thoguth this was supposed to be what twitter was for. THsi application is worthless/ I'm looking for help and this is the t

C',om Twitter! You think you're better than me. Stuoopid 140 charavcers! I'm fuckin JOnathan Golsteain. I'm on a book touy. I can use as

manyt character as I want .I';m gonna call my friends at Pneguin Canada anfd therir gonna give me 50000! Characters! Now who's the mans!

April 28^th my first tweet directed at the real Goldstein and a reference to a Wiretap episode in which someone hacks into his e-mail account and sends an cryptic e-mail back to that account:

@JGoldstein trust me, I am you and you are me and we are both killers. We have killed again and again and again. We laugh and we kill.

April 30^th the real Goldstein came to town and did a reading at the Rivoli. I went to see him but (along with many others) couldn't get it because it sold out. I did however get in afterwards when he was signing books. When my turn came I asked him why he had two Twitter accounts. He said that the one with a beret wasn't him but that he did find it funny. I took that as a sign that I wasn't doing any real harm and should continue.

Sorry to those of you who didn't get in last night, apparently I'm more popular than John Lennon these days.

May 3^rd The late night Tweet that almost ruined the real Goldstein's career:

David Sedaris is overrated..... there , I said it. I mean the mans' good but c'mon all he ever talks about is his sad little life.

May 6^th in one tweet I spelled Goldstein's middle name wrong (Stewart instead of Stuart). He called me out on it. This was the first time he had tweeted at me. Here was my retort:

I think I know my own middle name poindexter. Also: stop following me, I already have enough stalkers.

May 6^th @CBCVancouver asked for people to share their memories about their mother's as Mother's Day was fast approaching. I'm pretty sure they thought I was the real Goldstein as they told me that this was hilarious:

 my mother would make me take my pants off to try on shoes at the shoe store.

she also told me that I was lactose intolerant. I later found out she was just trying to prevent me from getting tubby.

May 8^th one of my tweets draws the ire of the real Goldstein and we spar publicly:

JGold2000: Will be taking off early today to do some spoken word in the park. Don't tell the taxpayers. J_Goldstein: the REAL Goldstein is a true vagabond whose real life would be too shocking for you or the CBC to comprehend, my friend.

JGold2000: In the words of Chevy Chase "I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and you're not." You're going down now buddy boy, you're going down.

May 12^th apparently bacon tweets were all the rage. This was my attempt to show everyone that I was "with it":

Eating a bacon sandwich, on a plate made of recycled bacon while sitting on a chair that is 60% bacon. Also wearing a bacon hat.

May 15^th classic JGold2000:

An old lady told me last night that my cologne smelled like pickle brine. The sad thing was I wasn't wearing cologne at all.

March 15^th some more drunken tweeting. My neighbours really were cranking the Edwin which I thought was funny but not as funny as the idea of a drunken Goldstein tweeting Black Sabbath lyrics:

Their having a party across the street and I'm pretty sure they're playing an entire Edwin album. Maybe I'll see if I can join.

Now in darknees, world stops turning/ Ahees where the ndies burning/ No omr war pifs og the power/ HAND OF GOD HAS STUECK THE HOUR!!!

On May 21^st @J_Goldstein (perhaps worn out from our fighting) disappears from "the Twitter." I take advantage of his silence and continue my quest to convince the Twitter community that I am the real Goldstein.

May 23^rd another fake drunken tweet. I think David Rakoff sings this while drunk on one episode of Wiretap. I added the beret reference to make it my own:

My beret brings all the boys 2 the yrd and thr like it;s beeter than yours DAMN rght it's better thn yours I can tch you but I have 2 chrge

May 28^th I was listening to Q one day and Alice Munro was flirting with Jian Ghomeshi. Jian never got back to me on this one:

@jianghomeshi Do you have any pointers on how I could sound sexier on the radio? I never get attention from the older dames like that?

June 4^th some writer who was working on a Catcher in the Rye sequel was making headlines at the time:

All of the sudden I'm having second thoughts about my "Breakfast of Champions" sequel.

my working title was Lunch of Runners Up actually.

June 9^th my announcement that Wiretap would be going on hiatus for the summer and response to a follower who asked what I would be up to:

WT should be back in September once I've fully recovered from "exhaustion"

@codytuck my recovery will involve a series of baths with epson salts and the consumption of various pickled items.

June 30^th shortly after the death of Michael Jackson:

If it's not too soon, my father #Buzz Goldstein, would like to announce his candidacy for the new king of pop. Let's all wish him well.

July 7^th no joke, I was at work and was told that The Pretenders would be playing a surprise lunch-time show for us. I thought the idea of Goldstein being a Pretenders fan was funny:

When I wake up, well I know i'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next

July 10^th sometimes people would half jokingly offer to be interns in response to my various intern jokes:

hmm... are you capable of lifting packages weighing 70lbs and up?

July 28^th I was teaching a night class and working full time at this point and was experimenting with caffeine (I'm not a regular caffeine drinker):

On my way to Starbucks to order a shot of everything in one cup.

July 31^st Coincidentally I end up looking after a friends' pug while the real Goldstein writes in his weekly Post article about looking after Howard's pugs. I post pictures of said pug during this period, further cementing my authenticity: 

Wour wistening wu Wirewrap wid Wesi da wug!

August 4^th I often joked/feigned confusion about the many spam accounts that were following me:

I sure have a lot of sexy followers these days. I guess people have taken note of my new fitted corduroys

August 5^th reaching the youth demographic was another recurring theme:

Teens Don't Tweet?!? But I've spent months (and many of my best one-liners) trying to connect with them here! What a waste...

August 7^th @RoDaSho made this for me. It was awesome:

I really do need to stop Howard from talking me into these things: http://www.trekyourself.com/?mId=31254517.3

August 7^th a good podcast request response:

I thought we did podcast it http://bit.ly/o6jdC we gave these Waterloo kids a suitcase of cash

August 17^th ditto:

I can send you a set for any season. 15 discs for $46.39. Please stop asking about podcasts, it's sort of a sensitive subject.

August 18^th I dropped  a classic Mr. Show reference while discussing Starlee Kine:

Starlee doesn't beleive in Utah. She also thinks that there are only 50 states and that one of them is called Chim-Cham.

Aug 22^nd As the real Goldstein turned forty I called on my followers to help me make #wiretap a trending topic to help ease the pain. We fail miserably in part because I was up late and slept in.

1 AM: The Big old fat fou r OH! Theres nio tu rnfg back iow,,,

Later on: Oh God, what happened? I slept in - did we make it?

Sept 8^th For a few weeks in September I begin "monetizing" (I didn'treally make money off of them) my tweets by copying the tweets of the various spammers that were following me and giving them a Goldstein twist (the Twitter community was not impressed):

get ripped like the actor's in Fight Club... and/or Jonathan Goldstein: http://bit.ly/LkMty

Sept 10^th

you might not find my "monetized" tweets as entertaining as my standard tweets but they help bring you and others a quality product.

Sept 11^th I discovered that episode descriptions would be posted in advance on their Facebook page. I began to take these and condense them for tweeting purposes. I think these tweets boosted my claim on being the real Goldstein:

Ths wk on WT, dscvr the pth 2 a bttr u. Grgr offrs up sm wght lss tps, rmndng us tht flssg be4 hppg on th scle cn hlp shv off th lbs.

Sept 16^th the news of Wiretap being offered as a podcast is picked up on Boing Boing. I share the exciting news with my followers but my high is short-lived as I read and tweet the unfavourable comments that accompany the article. My followers try to cheer me up but I'm inconsolable. Here's a sampling of the comments I tweeted:

"the most irritating, nails-on-a-chalk-board, whiny, nasally, smug-spewing, granola-crunching, sandal-strapping-hipster voice ever"

"I'm a huge fan of the CBC... but WT is the whiny-est most irritating thing I have ever heard on radio."

"Our local NPR station started carrying WT earlier this year. I'm still really undecided about it. It has moments of...humor...of a sort...

"If I hv the radio on whn WT shws up, I end up string at the radio, wndering why ths is on instd of ANYTHING ELSE in the CBC content store."

"I'm so anaesthetized by the waste of bits, bandwidth and battery power that I have to force myself to crss the rm to smsh the radio."

"Nothing personal Jonathan, I'm really glad that you've found work."

"I've tried to listen to it over and over again... but I just don't get it... I'd rather listen to Afghanada (it's freaking awesome)."

Afterwards I lamented:

Hmm, I wonder if they have any openings back at my old telemarketing job. There's a field in which I definitely had some chops.

Sept 26^th I went to the Word on the Street festival in Queens Park to see Goldstein read at the poorly organized CBC tent. I hyped the event beforehand:

2-3 PM at the CBC tent - it's Goldstein and Stuart McLean in a no-holds-barred cage match. Two authors will go in. Only one will come out.

Oct 7^th In October I try to reach the youth demographic by stealing links from Kanye West's blog. Sadly no one ever discovers or calls me out on this scheme:

http://bit.ly/KFUWV Whoah, check out the dance moves at the 2:00 mark!

Checkin' out some fresh turntable designs: http://bit.ly/1bZ9pD Very fresh!

Oct 17^th I really did this. I think it was my breakfast that morning.

I just mixed chip bag remnants with chip dip remnants and ate it with spoon. Mmm good!

Dec 10^th this didn't happen to me but rather was in reference to a poutine-centric Wiretap episode:

Dropped poutine in my tea. Deliberating on whether it's still good. My life is complicated.

Update Poutea (tm @cityeyes) is delicious!

Dec 18^th I think about 12% of Goldtein's jokes involve corduroy pants. Naturally I tried to emulate this in my tweets:

Almost time for the office christmas party. One question remains: corduroys or sweats?

Dec 21^st

perhaps if I just wear sweats I'll have room for more sweets. If only there were an office appropriate sweat pant.

Jan 19^th I wore boots all winter and it was around this point that I realized I should invest in socks were not ankle socks. The boots kept cutting into my ankles.

Ankle socks are not winter socks and do not go well with short pants.

Jan 21^st I do a phone interview with the real Goldstein (it had been arranged a few days earlier through e-mail). During this call Goldstein offers me "the mantle of Goldstein" but the catch is that I'd have to take over his whole life, not just his Twitter account. The offer is somewhat appealing but I'm scared off once he informs of the monthly colonoscopies that will come with it. After a sleepless night I tweet:

Time to get this weekend started... with my monthly colonoscopy.

Jan 28^th after Salinger's death:

Now that Salinger's gone I wonder if his secrets will be revealed. Was urine therapy the key to his writing? How much did he have to drink?

Jan 29^th Howard and Gregor appear on Twitter and start tweeting with me. I assumed that they were legit and that the real Goldstein (having decided that I wasn't crazy) told them to join in on the Twitter fun. It turned out that they were fake accounts. The timing was very strange. Here are some responses to their first tweets at me:

@GregorEhrlich first of all it's a Magic Bullet not a blender. Secondly, I have power smoothies in the morning not margaritas.

@HowieChackowicz you know I don't condone the consumption of veal. I would bring you some other sort of sandwich but not veal.

Feb 5^th the fake Howard and I made beautiful tweets together. Whoever he was he really had his Howard down. It's too bad he didn't pop up months earlier or that I hadn't thought of creating my own Howard:

@HowieChackowicz I realize selling your nude pictures might be a nice little cash cow we don't want to tarnish the CBC and Wiretap brands.

Feb 8^th following Bob Gainey's shocking resignation as GM of the Montreal Canadiens:

Who's Gainey and why is everyone talking about him? Does he work at the CBC? Should I be concerned?

Feb 12^th at the NHL trade deadline the Canadian trending topics were dominated by hockey:

Can I edit my trending topics list to filter out hockey players?

Feb 16^th knowing that my interview with the real Goldstein would be played to a live Vancouver audience in the near future I decide to go out with a bang. I call on the help of all my followers to make #wiretap a Canadian trending topic. We don't succeed but we do much better than the first time around and a lot of heavy hitters on "the Twitter" chip in:

Dear powerful cohorts, @CBCRadio3 @cbcbooks @walrusmagazine can I count on you to make #wiretap a CDN trending topic at 1PM EST tomorrow?

Feb 19^th having received notice from Mira (Wiretap producer) that they'll be airing our call during Jonathan's live reading in Vancouver, I kill off JGold2000. He succumbs to poison chocolate that someone left on his desk over Valentine's day weekend (this makes more sense if you listen to our confrontation). For my last tweet I meant to write "its time 2 mk th donut" (a reference to a line from a Wiretap episode where Goldstein discusses his own mortality) but I mistyped it. I would have fixed it but I felt that deleting and retweeting my own final words would have killed the drama of the moment:

Alright, that's it - I'm eating these chocolates! The show must go on and I require sustenance

Oh... I don't feel so hot right now...

I knw it I shoudl never have eaten steandfe chocolate

Visiuin faidng thruyat closigb ack

its time 2 the do

JGold2000's death seemed to just confuse people at first. They either didn't know what was going on or just flat out didn't notice. However, over the next few weeks people have lamented his passing and expressed how much they enjoyed the time they spent with him. Furthermore the real Goldstein has started tweeting once again. He mainly just tweets to an account that he seems to think is maintained by his grandmother but hey, it's a start.