Word: fakeness
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Creating a fake ID in the '60s had a much lower degree of difficulty than it does today, when embedded photographs are a common feature. Young Barbara Bush had to have gone to some trouble to acquire her phony Maryland photo ID, now framed as a trophy in the family room of a New Haven, Conn., security guard. Most IDs during Bannon's era simply had spaces for identifying characteristics, and they were easy enough to alter. They were also often issued under questionable, if not laughable, auspices--in Bannon's case, the Andover Stickball League, the name of which...
...various classmates as flunkies. He went on to outline the rules, the schedule and the venues (wryly named after various parts of the female anatomy) and, according to Bannon, concluded his speech with a pledge to issue membership cards that, he assured his deeply amused audience, could double as fake IDs. True to his word, soon thereafter Bush began to distribute "officially certified" cards to the student body...
...Bush in cherry-red ink, presumably to distinguish his signature from those of three lesser stickball officials. Above the names were spaces for descriptive data, such as weight, height, hair and eye color and, most critically, date of birth. Bannon rushed back to his dorm and typed in a fake name ("Everett B. Ford"), address and his team name: the Trojans. He then affixed his school picture as a special touch. "When classmates saw the finished product, they got on board," says Bannon. "The line for lamination at the drugstore stretched around the block. And when I road tested...
Perhaps because of his mature appearance, Bannon proved remarkably good at it. Presenting a fake ID to a bartender is a tense interaction, pitting one's willingness to deceive against the bartender's need to preserve his job. In a darkened barroom, judgments are notoriously arbitrary. But Bannon's stickball ID proved infallible, never let him down, and he imbibed at will at the taverns of his choice. Often this would be at a notoriously unvigilant bar like New York City's Malkan's, whose entire business model seemed to be based on serving minors. But the seasoned bartenders...
Although Bannon said he eventually became "tremulous about its continuing viability," he used his card for four years, eschewing the more popular fake ID of the era, the altered draft card. The day he turned 21, Bannon retired the battered document, grateful for its many years of uninterrupted service...