The Art Thief – Michael Finkel – Episode 91

The Buddies found themselves in an unfamiliar section of the book store this week, as they wandered into the the non-fiction arena. A fellow Buddy/listener recommended The Art Thief by Michael Finkel, and the Buddies had to oblige. The book follows the crazy and somehow true story of Stéphane Breitwieser & Anne-Catherine Kleinklaus, and their torrid stealing spree across Europe. The Buddies got to discussing the pros and cons of stealing 2 billion dollars’ worth of art, why having extra vacation time is bad, and why living by a code like Omar from the Wire is so important. So get your Swiss Army Knife ready, read up on the European legal system, and join us as we take on The Art Thief.

Intro/Book Report (0:00-4:30)
Stock Up/Down (4:31-32:51)
Favorite Character (32:52-35:15)
Love/Hate (35:16-39:46)
Favorite Art Heist Movies (39:47-41:05)
Conclusion (41:06-42:25)

NEXT BOOK: North Woods by Daniel Mason

Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂

All right, welcome to my book, I’m Dylan here with the only thief I know, the man who stole
my heart, Keith, what’s up, buddy?
Don’t you do it.
Don’t you do it again.
We’ve recognized some best dollars in this week.
We’ll be discussing the art thief by Michael Finkel, which was published in 2023.
If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read or reach out to us on any past episodes,
you visit our website by bookcom.com or sign to our DMs on Twitter or Instagram, buddy book
up podcast.
You can list us on iTunes and Spotify.
Normally, I’d say download and subscribe, but this time if you would please, from the
bottom of my heart and the bottom of the man who stole my heart, Keith, please review
and follow us on socials.
I just said the socials.
If you could write a review and follow, it would be greatly appreciated.
I know a lot of the big podcasts out there say it, but they got thousands and thousands
of followers.
They don’t know the individual people.
I want to know the people.
I want to be one with the people.
No, we would really would appreciate it, honestly.
The art thief, $3.99 on Goodreads, really unfortunate, not a flat 4.0.
You’d think you’d haul or do some friends and family say, get us up there.
Put a 4.01 in there.
If 10 of you do it, it’ll probably get 4.0.
How do you feel about through the $3.99?
Do you feel like it’s like it’s similar to any grade or anything?
Can we first tell them that we recorded half of this and it didn’t forgot to record
first so that they know that we’re just repeating half of what we said?
This is not planned by the way, we go up the top for 90% of this stuff.
It’s tough because we really don’t know what we’re coming into and going to say to each
other and usually I find at least that it’s more enjoyable for me.
I hope it’s more enjoyable for others, but this time considering I know what you’re going
to say for the first 15 minutes or so, it just makes me laugh on the inside.
B’s are good or B plus it’s what do you think?
If you get a 76 on a test score, so that’s a C, a C plus kind of looks okay.
You get 77, 78, 79, but if you get a 76 that’s the worst, I’d rather have a C minus.
It’s just terrible.
C minus then you’re close to failing because D is technically failing.
B minus.
I’d rather have a B minus than B.
Get back to your original today.
That makes sense.
Okay, that was my original one.
God damn it.
So this was the same narrator as Wall, which kind of threw me off for the first couple
minutes or so because I’d listened to a couple of those wool books and I felt like he was
just doing Juliet.
I also watched Shakespeare in Love recently and we talk about rom-coms a lot here.
That’s a pretty good rom-com.
Really?
Ties in here because we’re talking about the art thief.
It’s a period piece about Shakespeare.
So that’s a 1500s.
That’s older than most of the stuff that he was stealing.
I don’t know.
I gave it a 325.
You haven’t seen it?
No, I did just watch.
I’m a big rom-com.
Yeah, that’s insane.
I did just watch anyone but you.
Okay.
That was one of the worst rom-coms I’ve ever seen.
Never seen it.
I mean, it was just a lot of hot people in it.
That’s it.
And they got tons of good reviews and tons of money.
I don’t get it.
Well, Shakespeare in Love also has some hot people.
Pwinneth Paltrow, if you’re into her, Ben Affleck.
The main character is some guy who’s the most beautiful one in the whole movie but I’ve
never seen him in anything else.
I don’t think.
Yeah, I would say check it out.
It’s a one best picture.
Anyway, we’re not here to talk about Shakespeare in Love.
I’ll go check it out.
It’s a good movie.
We’re here to talk about the art thief.
Keith, you have a book report prepared for us.
I’d like you to stand in front of the class and present it.
Let me ask you a question and be honest.
Does art make you horny, baby?
Does it make you Randy?
If you answered yesterday that then you and the notorious art thief, Stefan Brightweiser.
Brightweiser.
Yeah.
I have something in common.
The art thief follows Stefan in his $2 billion stealing spree across Europe.
It’s a combination of Ocean 11 and Thomas Cranifer minus any sort of planning or likable
protagonists and sub out Pierce Brosnan and George Clooney for the Miss Guzy guy from Euro
Trip.
The book takes you inside the mind of a Colonel mastermind.
By mastermind, I mean the guy that leeches off everyone and is really good at unscrewing
things with a Swiss army knife.
I don’t mean to be so negative.
I just hated Stefan.
But I do get immense satisfaction out of the fact that he’s now paying for his dues.
After stealing over 200 items, damaging or destroying over $2 billion in art and being
caught over five time dealing, he’s now paying the ultimate price.
He’s currently on house arrest with an ankle bracelet.
Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.
And that’s what we learned.
That was well done.
I’d like to give you an 87 like a B plus, but you stumbled a little bit in the presentation.
So I’m sorry.
We’re just going to take one point off.
It’s just one point though.
Yeah, just to be 86.
We’re taking the plus off of there.
We’re giving you the 86.
Keith, let’s jump into the stock up stock down.
You already warmed up those pipes.
So what do you got for stock up?
Stock up squeak from basketball.
Peace.
Where if you guys were out on me?
Two or thirteen more times.
I’m out of here.
Exactly.
And I was like, oh, is this my bed?
And then it’s like, no, that’s spikes better.
Whatever the dice.
That’s your bed.
I love that movie.
But squeak, the movie if you’re not familiar, is kind of a pushover.
But he’s nothing compared to what we get within this book from both Anker-Treen and the European
legal system.
I mean, squeak comes off as a strong will and uncompromising man of honor compared to that.
Anker-Treen gives a stuff on like 20 ultimatums.
And I don’t think she knows what ultimatum means.
Yeah.
She basically is like, don’t do this or I’m leaving.
He does it.
But maybe next time if you do it, I’m going to leave.
And then he does it again.
She doesn’t care.
She actually does.
I swear to God, you steal 12 or 13 more times than I’m out of here.
You have to use these gloves.
And he doesn’t use gloves.
And she’s like, all right, well, maybe next time I might be upset.
Yeah, no student in Switzerland.
Oh, wait.
I just stole this from Switzerland without gloves.
Well, that was shoot.
Pretty tough look for her overall and just staying with him for that long.
Ultimately, she gets away luckily.
So you’re okay with the fact that she faced no penalty for this.
I think she went to prison for a month or something like that.
No, day.
I think it was a day that she went to prison for a year.
I think that was just lots of fines.
She was in mom or something.
No, his mom went to prison for like three months or something like that.
Oh, his mom went for 18 months.
You’re right.
And she received 18 months for a season but only served six.
She went for six.
Whatever.
Six months.
I think she just had a good lawyer.
She wasn’t an idiot and didn’t sit in prison.
You’re being the legal system is a little weird.
They’re so lenient but they also just made Stefan sit in prison without a phone call
for three months.
I feel like that was a little bit of a storytelling from your boy Stefan who’s a fucking notorious
liar and making up whatever narrative he wants for his own benefit.
Yeah.
If it’s this lenient on everything, you think he’s going to get away with not having a
lawyer for four months and not getting a phone call and not being able to talk to anyone.
They made it sound like they’re like a hunger strike.
He’s in a dark box the whole time.
There’s no way that was happening.
They did make it seem like he was in like solitary confinement.
I’m sure he was treated really well and he wanted the notoriety.
He just wanted to be famous and popular.
You’re saying he wanted to be famous because of the newspaper clippings though.
Because he was stealing all the art and putting in his room.
So why do you think he wanted to be famous?
Well, yeah, but it has its own adoration of like I get to I did all this.
This is me type of thing.
And then once he eventually got caught, which he probably wanted to get caught some ways,
he kind of wanted to be like, yeah, there was a role in mine.
I did that.
They were like, oh, I’m going to get caught.
There’s no way they would have caught him if he was just like, no, that’s not me.
I didn’t do that.
They’re going to paint everything on him.
But he just openly admitted it to everything.
Yeah.
Well, that was a pretty good play by the cop in that one scene when he got.
He pretty much was like, all right, cool.
Just one more thing.
Like, did you steal this?
And it was all the stuff that his mom or who knows.
But presumably his mom had thrown into the canal and it was like, aha.
He like threw the hundred the hundred other ones at him.
I was like, I got you because these are all the same place.
I think it would be actually really cool to hear the story from the interrogators perspective.
Yeah.
Well, it’s tracking this guy down.
Look at that.
You know, but anyway, yeah, yeah.
The European illegal system, they gave him the biggest pass I’ve ever seen and they kept
on being like, he’ll learn this time.
He’ll learn this time.
How many times are you going to give this guy?
Yeah.
One, I think his girlfriend, I think she played smart, obviously, not saying anything because
the reason why he got in trouble was because he said something.
He could have just never said anything.
I think he would have been fine to some degree.
But she’s just played it from the jump that I’m not going to say anything.
So the author of this book, Michael Finkle got nothing out of her nor did any of the
legal system.
There’s no press or anything.
So we’ve known pretty much nothing from her side.
It’s hard for us to call her Sque.
She definitely loved him, I think.
But I do agree with you that at some point you got to get out of there.
But how many people in this world go on with the relationships that are shooting just because
they’re comfortable in it or whatever reason?
Lots and lots of people do that.
What if she’s actually the mastermind?
She was like, you have to go steal these things for me.
And then at the trial, she pins it all on him.
He’s the actual Squeak that he just takes credit for.
He’s like, yeah, it was all me.
She didn’t do anything.
Yeah.
Like he just wanted the attention that much in the French court or whatever.
She said, oh, I never even went to museum with him.
I never did any of this stuff.
And when they went to Brightfeiser and they’re like, OK, so whose story is correct?
He’s like, hers is correct.
Yeah.
She never went to anything.
I’m going back to jail.
He either loved her a lot, which is more than likely.
The alternative is that he just wanted.
He was a glory hog and wanted all the glory for stealing all the stuff, which is your
take.
The best story gets way better if she’s actually behind everything but hasn’t talked.
Her and her and his mom are and they just keep him captain.
So my first stock up because I’m going to defend this man is the wires Omar.
Are you watching the wire right now, Keith?
I am.
I’m on season four right now.
I’d say it’s my number one, but I haven’t seen it in a while.
And I saw this pronto’s recently and I fucking love the sopranos.
This one was just like funnier.
There’s like actual funny parts with all the sadness.
The wire has less funny parts with all the sadness.
And by funny, you mean like between the pasta intake, funny stuff or when’s the comedy?
Yeah, between the heavy breathing and the pasta intake, there’s some funny stuff.
Usually it involves probably walnuts.
But the wires Omar, my favorite character and hopefully yours, everyone’s favorite character,
he lives by the idea of every man has a code.
I think he says that a few times and Omar is coming.
But bright vice air also lives by a code or at least initially.
He doesn’t consider himself an art thief.
He deplores them actually.
People that tear canvases out of frames or don’t properly take care of things or sell
them to other people, whatever the thing is.
In his mind, he’s just borrowing art to enjoy it under the circumstances he wants.
I do understand his idea of museums aren’t that cool in terms of places to view art.
You should art should be enjoyed with a glass of wine or eating some cheese or having sex
in my four poster bed with Anne Cottrine, whatever the case is.
I think there is some merit to that idea and he just wanted to pilfer it for a little
bit and he was eventually gonna return it.
He does say or the author says that shady people have been peddling bright colors for
two thousand years.
And it is interesting in the idea of art that usually the person who owns it or whatever
the case is, it’s not like he was just like passed down like a family heirloom.
Our wars happened, their thievery and at a government level.
We’re talking of Great Britain’s imperialism.
They’ve gone into other countries and just taken all of their art and now distributed
across Europe in these different art galleries and now these countries are coming back saying,
hey, this is our art.
What are you doing?
So this is still going on now.
So I get the idea that in his mind everyone else is dealing.
So why shouldn’t he?
Which is not really like a good point.
It’s very childish like he is.
And he’s definitely an narcissist.
For sure.
But I’m going to say he lived by a code at least for a little bit and I respect it.
I’m going to push back pretty heavily on this because my other stock up was being an attention
seeking hypocrite, which is all that’s all he is.
But yeah, everyone knows the variation of this guy.
Everything he’s telling in this story is shaped by him to make him look better.
Oh, it was all about honor.
It was all about because I believe this way.
You didn’t even believe any of this shit.
He just crafted that story out of the fact he just like stealing.
He liked the notoriety.
He’s a lazy piece of shit as attention seeking that leans on everyone else, leeches off
everyone else.
The whole idea of stealing art at a museum, which is a public forum for everyone to view
something, that’s the whole point of a museum.
It’s like a library.
It’s like a park.
Everyone’s able to enjoy it.
The whole point of that is so that everyone can do it.
Not so you can go there and take it and enjoy it only yourself because you know how to enjoy
it more than I know it does.
It doesn’t make any sense.
It’s also illogical.
All you need to do is steal from someone that’s rich.
If some rich person has it in their basement and they’re not treating it well, they’re
not even hanging it up, go take it from them.
I’m 100% on board.
They would have no qualms about you stealing some rich guy that doesn’t appreciate it.
I think everyone would.
I wouldn’t even put him in prison for that.
I’d be like, hey, they weren’t appreciating it.
So you seem as more a Robinhood character.
It would be Robin if he did that.
Instead, he’s a what’s the anti-Robhood?
Sheriff of Nottingham?
He’s going to like your local jungle gym, tearing it out and putting it in his backyard.
Prince John would probably be on the ground.
Is he the blind guy?
No, that’s for our talk.
Well, that’s in the cartoon version.
That’s the blind guy.
Oh, you’re talking about the Kevin Costner version.
Much of Pelle plays?
No, I’m thinking about one.
Chip Pelle plays the…
Oh, Blinken.
That’s Blinken.
And that movie is Blinken.
In the Kevin Costner movie, it’s Duncan.
What else do you got?
What are the Robinhood trivia you got for me?
Oh, and I didn’t even mention this the last time.
I used to know I got it.
This is Sumson up perfectly.
Everything about him, it was summed up in this one thing.
He’s in prison, and this is a made up story first off, but he’s in prison and he says
he’s so depressed because he hasn’t seen art in so long that he tries to hang himself.
What does he try to hang himself with, the man?
Dental Falls.
Are you out of your mind?
Are you kidding me, demon?
You’re defending this guy?
It’s the most made up thing I’ve ever heard first off.
Secondly, talk about looking for attention.
And you’re now out of prison because they let you, you’re in Europe.
They let you out of one day after feeling $2 billion.
You can hang yourself then if you really are that depressed, but he doesn’t do it anymore.
Oh, it got better.
I will say as a man who flosses on the daily, I respect…
Breaks in my teeth all the time.
There’s no way.
I snap floss in my teeth once a night maybe, and I just attribute that to my very sharp
teeth or something.
I’m also a grinder, but yeah, I don’t think his idea of, oh, I nodded it a few times
so then I can hang myself.
Also, how long is dental floss?
I was trying to think the math on it.
Have you seen those clips of someone being like, how many strings of spaghetti pots?
Do I need to do to pick up this 20-pound suitcase?
No.
It’s like breaks after like 400 strands of it.
So I’m like, how many dental flosses would it be able to hold up 100?
Oh, interesting.
Let’s say it’s 155, 50-pound man.
Yeah.
It has to be 5,000 minimum.
There’s no way you’re getting held up by that unless it’s an insane amount.
Yeah, that seemed like a made-up story.
That’s a good point.
I didn’t really think about it, but he’s like, oh, the guards here.
Let me wrap this dental floss around my neck.
He could have been, by the way, based off the ending of this story, he could have been
the catchy of me if you can guy.
Yeah.
Like you’re saying he had the ability to be that guy, Frank Abigail.
Yeah.
So my, and you kind of talked with this so we don’t have to dive too deep into it.
And I’ve already talked about this before.
But my other stock up is stealing $2 billion worth of art.
So Bright Visor and Catrine, they did over 200 heists in eight years.
In total, he spent, well, this is for these heists, not for some other letter stuff that
he got into.
But in total, he did four years in prison, how they think that is recidivism, whatever,
like you’re not coming back after four years in prison for that is crazy.
But he did four years in prison.
In this prison, you get ping pong, which I’m already down if I had to spend four years
in prison, if I got ping pong.
You can use the cell phone.
You got Coca-Cola, illicit drug use, if that’s your thing.
Like you had previously said, the punishment is worth the crime or something like that?
I don’t know.
But don’t do the crime.
If you can’t tell you the time.
Yeah.
I don’t know which thing.
Don’t do the crime and you can’t do the time.
Yep.
It just seems so wild to me that you could do that, that you could take $2 billion worth
of art, that it’s over 200 and whatever pieces, 250 pieces.
All of the important ones, they’re not all the important ones.
But a lot of the important ones are destroyed.
It’s not like, oh, we found them back in pristine condition.
A lot of them are destroyed.
Most of them need to be cleaned, all the man hours and whatnot.
And all you get is four years.
It just doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense.
The amount of money that the state…
Yeah, that’s those things.
Just the money that they have to pay for that.
What I’m going to do is write gone in 60 seconds too, gone in 120 seconds.
Oh.
The McCage in it.
And him just being a little bit slower, a little older obviously.
Like, making it in Europe where there’s zero consequences.
They’re just like stealing cars.
Oh, so you’re going to go super low budget and just actually steal all the cars?
We could get some house arrest for this.
Maybe a month if we steal a million dollars worth of cars.
It’s…
That’s nothing.
A million dollars and nothing there.
So that might not even be…
That’s probation for like a week.
That would be terrible because it’ll be like a Michael Bay film.
They destroy half the country.
Yeah.
And it’s like, wow, this is going to be tough.
You can’t come back to Europe for six months.
It’s like, oh, all right.
All right.
How’d it take?
What else did you ever start up?
Stock up the old justice or the outlaw system or whatever you want to call it.
Wait, say that again?
The old justice?
I’m not really sure the naming was…
Like the Wild West?
Yeah, maybe the Wild West.
Or are you talking more I for an I?
Maybe Aladdin Justice.
Yeah, Aladdin where they…
If you’re stealing, they take your wrist.
Oh, okay.
Aladdin, the wrist-ass thing actually happens in the Kevin Costner movie with Robin Hood.
The opening scene is that you’re going to take his wrist.
I think he’s just a prisoner of war, but I think eventually they’re thieving food.
I’m not advocating for anyone that needs food to be high their hands.
Oh, okay.
Now, if you’re stealing art, unless he’s eating the art, that would make sense about this
book.
If he’s eating the art, he’s super into it.
I don’t think if he was super into it, he wouldn’t be eating it.
He’d be doing something else.
So I as an idiot, he’s eating paint chips.
Anyways.
But yeah, I think after the third one, they just release him and say, hey, you’re good
to go, but if you’re caught again, we’re taking an arm.
Yeah.
When they hang on the wall as art, get some of your money back.
So you take his wrist, take his arm, and then if he doesn’t, again, you take another one.
What kind of macabre?
I guess he isn’t some crazy medieval castles where he’s stealing this stuff.
Yeah.
So they might hang on the wall.
It’s artistic.
Yeah.
It’s artistic.
But it’s funny you were talking about this because I was listening to a great courses pod
called the Origins of Ancient Civilizations, and they were talking about Hammurabi’s code,
I for an I, which is legit, and it’s very specific, this code.
If you take someone’s right eye, then their family gets to take your right eye.
So what is the equivalent for stealing $2 billion of art?
Because it’s not like, okay, you just paint all these pictures again and then we’ll destroy
them.
What is the equivalent of that?
I was trying to think about this as I was listening to the book.
So I was like, okay, what would Hammurabi do here?
Equal.
Split the baby in half?
Yeah, it’s a different one.
Yeah.
I don’t know.
Maybe keep them in a room for a long time and make them repaint everything until it gets
exactly right.
Just work for college propaneers for a couple of years.
What do you mean?
Oh, not paint the room itself.
You mean actually paint.
You have to repaint the paintings.
And then someone looks at it and says, not good enough and they light it on fire and
they’re sticking back in the room.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think I actually like that.
Until you become good enough to paint what he destroyed, he stays in that room forever.
It’s like 30 years ago.
Okay, you’ve mastered silver smithing.
Now on to portraits.
It’s like, I think just take out his eyeballs.
That’s what I came to.
I said, he loves art so much.
He loves to see it.
Just cut his eyeballs out.
I think he’s still can steal his hands though.
Yes, but he’s not Mr. Magoo.
What if he’s Neo and he can see without his eyes?
I love it.
You’re just trying to go extra.
This is like when you do a bit, you know, and you just, you’re doubling down on all
the bits.
I like it.
You can make art.
You know, you don’t need any sort of terrible skill.
No, I think your takes terrible.
How about that?
If I wanted to be really good at piano, which I played for five years and I was absolutely
terrible, but if I dedicated my whole life to piano, I think I could be a moderately
good piano player.
Not great.
Not very good.
moderately good.
That’s what he was after.
He’s after the greats.
Based on who?
It’s so subjective.
That’s true.
I see what you’re saying.
Art is subjective.
I got it.
Well, to me, my mom paints.
Okay, if you said you could have the Mona Lisa or you could have my mom’s painting, I’d
take my mom’s painting.
I think it’s more than me.
Oh, come on.
I mean, I’m just so sweet.
Well, I’m just saying like it’s all in the eye of the beholder who doesn’t matter who
says it’s good or not, but he’s reading these art books, Jack and off to them.
Literally though, he’s probably doing that.
He’s talked about how central art is.
Just make your own thing.
Make your own art.
That’s all you have to do.
It’s funny.
I care so little about art because I have to say this quietly because the wife’s in the
house, but her family has a Picasso, I think of this.
Jesus.
Yeah, Picasso painting.
Like she’s like, oh, my mom’s a Picasso print.
Like one of those prints, it’s like there’s only 50 of them or whatever.
It’s like, oh, cool.
Like, you know, there’s valuable.
She’s like, no, my dad is like a Picasso painting.
So wow, what?
Or a sketch or something.
I don’t know what it is, honestly.
But you still have to wall in so many years, you’d get it.
But no, she was like, oh, like he’s just going to give it to me.
So like we’ll have it.
And this is how much I don’t care about art or anything.
I was like, well, what does it look like?
You know, I was like, I’m not going to just hang it on my wall if it’s like terrible.
By the way, the biggest cheat code ever in a great, great, this Bake Off I just saw an
episode is someone did one of those Picasso like Cubist or whatever paintings as a cake
or something.
And it looked like a piece of shit.
It looked terrible, but it looks like a Cubist there.
Yeah.
You could fuck up however many times you want.
And it’s a blob.
And they’re like, wow, that’s really lifelike.
It looks like what you.
Yeah.
I’m like, it’s a piece of shit.
Is that the one where the guy made the lion’s head?
Uh, maybe he was like a guy who’s like, not really great.
Like he’s definitely not a favorite to win, but he makes this incredible lion’s head
out of bread.
It was like amazing.
That might be it.
Yeah.
My last stock up is the Swiss army knife.
So the Swiss really got this one figured out with this army knife.
It’s the only thing Breitweiser uses to steal for the most part.
I mean, he’s obviously using his own dexterity and his knowledge and being in a room where
no one else is, and there’s no security cameras and stuff like that.
But for, for using this was our, I’ve used, using all these different screws to get these
weird screws.
I think that it’s small.
So it’s concealable.
It can also get behind stuff pretty easily.
It’s got the knife on it can cut through those silicone glue and the plexiglass real thin
knife.
Yeah.
I mean, honestly, I think this is something that big Swiss army knife should really be
putting out to the people to get them to sell more products.
And yeah, I just had to throw some love to the Swiss army knife.
Did you ever own one?
No, I wasn’t.
I was never in like the Cub Scouts or any of that stuff.
I was in the Cub Scouts.
What do you say?
I feel like you kind of need to be woods here.
I did go camping.
I did go camping with my dad here and there.
I also thought whenever you pulled one of those like knife set or something like that,
I feel like your nails going to break every time.
Oh, that’s a good point.
I forgot about that.
Yeah, they were not fun, especially when they’re like rusty or like cold.
It’s like, oh, we’re tough to.
It feels weird.
Once they start rusting up, are you going to fade like a knock off one?
Like the Swiss army ones were well lubricated.
They slid out fairly easily, but I did forget about those little notches.
But yeah, they had a toothpick on it and it just wasn’t for me.
Seems a little gross picking at those teeth.
And then I mean, I’m still thinking about it and it’s still kind of gross grossing me
out, honestly.
That was probably like something to like scrape something and you’re like a toothpick.
Okay.
That’s like fair point.
It totally might be like my dad had one to use as a toothpick.
He might just be a disgusting human being.
Wow.
I made me question my whole life.
I need to know now.
All right, let’s get into some talk down.
Let’s get some new stuff.
Keith, what do you got for stock down?
Well, stock up Switzerland, you said, but I’m stock down in Sweden.
Oh, by the way, if IKEA stock down.
I’ve never really thought much about IKEA.
I know it’s from Sweden.
I know a lot of people don’t like it just because it takes such a long time to set up.
They’re like a lot of pieces and whatnot as far as I’ve known.
But fashion wise, I’ve never heard been people like, oh, IKEA, you can’t even like, I’m
like, look at it.
It’s fucking disgusting.
Not a Stefan’s mom.
At one point, they’re talking about how the time will trust the divorce was.
They’re arguing and yelling and there might have been some physical stuff going on.
His mom loses the house.
Loses them Mercedes.
Parents aren’t talking to each other.
Stefan never talks to his dad again pretty much after that until later.
So everything is kind of ruined.
But IKEA, that was the last straw.
She’s like, we have fucking IKEA in here.
I thought it was a racial server.
She’s dropping in a hard eye.
She was like, easy to this.
IKEA in here.
This is pathetic.
I was like, holy shit.
So I guess IKEA is terrible.
I didn’t realize that.
Well, she should go there and have their Swedish meatballs.
They’re quite delicious.
The food is incredibly cheap there.
Well, you know, you could just drop me off.
You walk the whole place and then I eat the food.
The only frustrating part about IKEA when you go there is just having to walk the entire
place.
Well, I think I’ve only been like once when I was young.
I don’t really just don’t like shopping at all.
Ecommerce is the best thing that’s ever happened to anyone.
Well, yeah.
But with furniture and stuff, you kind of have to see it.
At least in my mind for the most part.
Oh, right.
You don’t have to see it.
Just sit on it.
What?
Yeah, that’s the…
It’s not unless I have the things you sit on, like a desk or a bed.
You kind of want to see it before you buy it.
You can see it in pictures.
Yeah, it’s different.
You got to see the space.
What do you…
Step on with his eyes taking out over here.
What are you talking about?
You have to see it in space.
As someone who just bought a new couch and spent a lot of time sitting on and looking
at couches.
Yeah, I guess when you invest that much, I understand the need for that.
Fair enough.
It wasn’t that key.
Yeah, by the way.
So, you know.
My first lockdown is museum security slash police in general.
I understand there are a lot of small museums that can’t afford security staff and rely
on patrons and just not to steal.
You know, I do understand that.
But Brian, why is there in his girlfriend and cut train?
They were stealing three out of every four weeks for two plus years straight.
They’re small museums, they’re big museums, but someone had to see something at the museum
and just not…
Like a couple of times they even use the example like, oh, he knocks something over.
It wasn’t just, oh, we don’t have enough people to staff these.
It was people just not paying attention, honestly.
And the police, they introduce us, I feel like, in the book to four different police officers,
maybe eight different countries that are Pav’s police enforcement, six of which have specifically
art thievery divisions, but they can’t do anything to find this guy even though it feels like
the pieces are there.
This happened between like 1991 and 2000.
So at this point, there are security cameras.
They might not be in the room and I understand that small museum thing, but I figure a lot
of museums that do have security cameras, which they were going into, would have them, at
least in the front, so they could get a picture of all the patrons that come in.
Seems pretty straightforward, right?
And I feel like the police could have put this story together with all these different robberies,
just be like, all right, let’s take all the pictures that day, have all the patrons and
then another robbery.
It’s like, okay, let’s take all the pictures and someone’s like, I spotted a man and woman.
It’s like, okay, now we have all these pictures.
We’re looking for a couple that came in.
The line limits it down and then you say, oh, these are the same people.
I don’t know.
It just seems way easier if your soul job is to be art police for a country and there’s
like six different countries working on this and they don’t talk to each other and can’t
figure it out.
I don’t know.
It seems like whatever the deal is, stock down museum security police.
I don’t understand what they were doing this whole time.
It’s similar to why churches don’t have security that like higher security, because you don’t
expect people to go in there and rob from you.
It’s just like this is a public forum, a public area.
why national parks don’t have people guarding the trees
and the plants because they expect
don’t be able to go in there and be pieces of shit.
Like this guy is in steel from them.
I agree, I agree.
My argument here though, is that what’s on the walls
is super expensive.
I guess that’s true.
Which is, yeah, a giant sequoia is expensive,
but I’m not gonna walk out with a giant sequoia.
I’m gonna walk out with this painting
that I can stuff in my pants.
Remember the guy that Alabama guy
that poisoned the oprentry or maybe-
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He got like four years in prison for sure.
I was like, yeah, that’s fair.
That’s a fair punishment, I think.
Yeah, it’s like, what?
This tree’s been there for 200 years.
He’s doing four.
Yeah, like sounds fair.
Did he actually get four years?
Did he get the same as this guy did?
Yeah, find out what we’ll do.
Cause my next one ties into my first one,
which is just museums in general.
I agree with Brightwiser and that they’re uncomfortable.
That I don’t know what to do with my hands.
You know, I’m standing around in museum.
I don’t know what to do.
You touched all the painting.
But yeah, there’s no security.
It doesn’t really make a lot of sense.
Do you go to many museums or have you been to many museums?
Is that your bag, baby?
No, I like history museums.
I haven’t been to many art museums very much.
I think it just would go over my head.
I also do think there’s a bit that’s pretty funny
of the comedian being like,
taking his friend to an art museum
and he’s like touching the painting.
He’s like, what the fuck are you doing?
Are you doing a bit?
Cause if you’re doing a bit, that’s kind of funny.
But if you’re not, what are you an idiot?
And the guy’s like, oh, my bad.
I didn’t know that.
Like, why can’t you touch it?
And then he goes, and at that point,
I realized I’m not that much smarter than this guy.
Cause I have no idea I can touch the paintings.
But anyways, but I agree with that.
Yeah, I agree with you in terms of history museums down.
Anytime I’m down for that, you feel like you’re learning.
So the art just doesn’t hit me right
into the Museum of Fine Art.
I’ve been to the Louvre, I’ve been to the ones in Amsterdam,
like with the Dutch Masters,
been to Van Gogh Museum a couple of times,
you know, like the right museum.
Like I’ve seen some of these places
that are supposed to be like the most amazing stuff.
And it just, it doesn’t do it for me personally.
It’s just, art doesn’t hit me like that.
I’m odd by it because it’s just like,
how could someone create that?
That’s what gets me.
It’s like, how does someone just do this?
It’s wild to me that someone could just paint this picture.
I think more of like the realistic type ones,
Dutch Master type stuff, like, whoa, how’d you paint this?
How’d you paint this harbor?
This like looks like the legit harbor.
Right, right.
What the hell is going on?
Yeah, but that’s just me.
So that’s why it’s a tough take for this.
What’s your next talk down?
By the Harvey Updike, which is a very evil criminal name,
a great name there, received three years.
So I don’t know if you actually served all that.
When you said Harvey Updike,
I thought you were gonna go on this like Batman tangent
or something.
It sounds like a, yeah, it sounds like someone out of that.
Oh, Harvey Updike, the mass murderer.
My last talk down is European generous vacations.
Okay.
Everyone gives Europeans this, oh man,
they go on these long holidays.
They get months off.
You know what though?
Because I don’t take that much vacation time.
I’m not out there stealing art, but you could tell
in Katrina, anytime she had time off,
which is frequent, she had to go on holiday,
they’d take this like road trip
and go steal a bunch of shit.
So, you know, maybe if they had a little bit
better work ethic and a little stricter vacation calendars,
then we wouldn’t be two billion dollars in the hole here.
So, stock down.
I mean, no Stefan has no work ethic.
The fact that, hey,
trust me, I’m a guy that would be,
hey, if you figured out a way you don’t have to work,
good for you.
Leisure is life, go enjoy things.
But at the same time, do something.
It really doesn’t matter if you work or not.
It’s really about doing something.
And yes, I know he was doing something.
He was going out stealing every weekend
and then studying art in the meantime.
But that’s a weird obsessive nature.
Like go walk in the woods.
I think he did that too.
Shit, I’m not doing a very good job actually.
I might be on his side.
My piece is stock up for me, I don’t know.
I think I’m on his side.
But yeah, it did seem like they were going on
all these vacations all the time.
It’s crazy to me that he didn’t work.
That his grandparents supported him.
That his mom paid for his gas money to go museums.
They’d go on ski trips.
They’re going to different countries all the time.
They’re talking about gas money.
The gas money must be incredible.
He must be spending hundreds of dollars a month on gas.
They’re taking train trips,
all this stuff, plus just getting into the museums.
You’re going to a museum every weekend.
I’m a budget guy.
So you’re a good museum every weekend.
That’s 30 bucks a week or maybe more,
depending on how much, but let’s say 30 bucks a week.
That’s 120 bucks a month.
We got to start cutting that out of our budget.
We don’t have that in yearly budget.
So the fact that he was just doing this seems a little crazy.
We don’t have to pick your character,
but you want to talk about a hatable character?
No, I have a favorite character.
Oh, you do.
Okay.
Yeah, who is it?
His dad.
He just doesn’t leave him and just doesn’t communicate with him.
All of his problems are because of his dad, potentially.
No, his dad realized, I mean, it’s nature versus nurture.
I think his dad at one point realized,
oh, this kid really, really sucks.
Like his dad is a hard worker, I’m sure.
He had him restate, he’s had a boat, he had a nice house.
He had to do like good parents.
And then he birthed this kid who’s like,
the absolute fucking worst.
So he’s like, you know what?
I’m just going to leave him.
And then he gets caught and he’s like,
oh, maybe he actually had some work ethic.
He would still tune with things.
This guy has actually like kind of figured things out.
And then he gets caught again and he’s like,
never mind, I’m not talking to this kid again.
Which I respect.
He actually gave him an ultimatum, his dad.
He’s like, you fucking went back on your word
and you’re done.
See you later.
I respected him.
It’s wild to me that a father could just like not communicate
with his son for that long.
So.
Yeah, that’s a little crazy.
But at the same time, again, this kid sucked.
And then when you like, you said though,
then when he comes back into his life when he’s an art thief
and he’s kind of praising him for it.
You know, he’s like, oh, this is his stuff.
You’re going to be his grandparents too.
You’re going to be in the history book.
Yeah, his grandparents being like,
they shouldn’t have made it that easy to steal.
Which honestly is another good point.
And we’ve talked about it.
No, it’s not.
No, it’s not.
Yeah.
They shouldn’t have made it so easy for them to steal.
Yeah, they should put all these things
behind like cages and fences and stuff.
Buddy, have you not seen Indiana Jones?
That’s what they do.
They got the freaking Ark of the Covenant
and they’re putting in a warehouse.
Shouldn’t that be on display?
Yeah, yeah, that’s good.
Unless you don’t want your face to melt off.
Yeah, Stefan goes to steal.
It knocks the top off and everyone’s face starts melting.
That’d be terrible.
Only Nazi faces melting for us.
Yeah, his dad was a weird guy.
I didn’t have any favor here.
Honestly, all these people were like fairly deplorable.
Even his grandparents are such enablers.
They’re all enablers.
It’s pretty bad.
I don’t feel bad for him at all though.
He’s an adult.
Why, it feels bad for him.
Who feels bad for him?
I don’t feel you.
You’re like, you’re giving him stock ups left and right.
You know, I’m playing devil’s advocate to a bit.
I don’t feel bad for him though.
I think he got worse.
Excuse me, he deserves worse than what he got.
I think it’s somewhat hilarious, but it’s also really sad.
It’s hilarious that that’s how the legal system worked
and it’s sad that all of that stuff was lost
because of this selfish prick.
But at the same time, I understand how this could happen.
What did you love about the Art Thief Keith?
I think it’s the perfect airplane book.
It’s easy to read.
You knock out an airplane and you instantly feel
like more cultured and informed
and you’re kind of gallivanting around Europe.
Nonfiction does that to you too.
It’s a good cocktail party story.
You can kind of tell over cocktail.
I’m trying to think of what high class people do.
This sounds like an episode of Tim Robinson or something.
Like you are at a cocktail party,
which is hilarious already to think about.
Tim Robinson, like I think you should leave.
Yeah.
Okay, yeah, all right, roll back.
Yeah, it’s you at a drink and a cosmo
at a dinner party or something like that.
Talking about this book when people are just confused.
You’re just going off on this guy.
This selfish prick.
Yeah, the other thing it did like was that,
this is more because I like history a little bit,
but the paintings were like 1500s, right?
And they’d have all the house stamps on the bed.
Putting your name on the back of that,
that’s pretty badass.
I’ll give them that.
If he was like, I’m in it for the history,
the glory of like when my name in the back of one of these
things, I stole it, I own it.
Respect.
I actually give him a pass on that.
Yeah.
It’s just funny because that takes me back to when you get
a book on like the first day of elementary school,
or you get out of the library and you pull the slip out
of the back and you’d see someone, I mean,
I’m going to date myself, but you’d see someone’s name
from like the 70s and it’d be like, wow, what?
Like someone else had this book in the 1970 and now I have it
now and it was where the red fern grows.
It didn’t matter.
There’s a hundred thousand copies of them probably
in the county.
But it’s even cooler when it’s on a piece of fine art
and you’re like, yeah, you know, all these great houses
that have had this that I’m going to write,
write in mind an Anne Cuttrian’s name.
That’s a good one.
Well, for this one, what I love, I mean, you had me at Heist.
It’s really my sort of true crime.
I don’t really love the the murdery true crime stuff too much,
but this was interesting.
Like you said, I had that nice bit of historical aspect to it
and I just like people stealing stuff.
So it worked for me.
Okay, well, let me qualify this.
Besides everything involving Stefan,
what did you hate about this?
Let me see through the list of stuff.
You just have Stefan over and over and over and over again.
Peace be upon you.
That would be cool.
I think if it was from the detective side,
because I think that would be cool.
Yeah.
Track it down.
That was my number one hate.
Was it would have been nice to see what the quote unquote
smart police were doing during this time to track him down?
They said several of these elite art,
kind of like the art FBI, but in Europe,
was looking into him from these various countries.
What were they doing?
Like, I want to know.
I know they didn’t catch him, so I’m okay with that.
But I think if we had two perspectives of this story,
it would have been more interesting.
Like him doing this stuff as someone’s trying to hunt him down.
And I think that if they were to make this into a movie,
that would be a good way of telling it.
Because you want to see both stories.
Well, one, you need to make stuff for drama purposes.
And really the other thing I hated that ties into this,
because it’s talking about a movie,
is a lot of times in this book,
it was pretty much, quote, they stole this.
Then the next weekend, they stole that.
And then they went back and stole more.
There was so much stealing going on,
but it wasn’t exciting at all.
And it’s incredible, the amount he was able to steal.
And it’s a true story, so you can’t build
in the necessary drama that you would to make it entertaining.
The reason why he was so successful
was because his high work is sexy.
But I think if you were to make it into a movie,
you would have to not only have the police perspective,
but change the heists a little bit.
Are the ones you show, are the ones where he’s knocking
over a chair and you think the guard’s gonna be there,
people are gonna notice or whatever the case is.
The biggest thing too, which would suck
is if this were made into a movie,
he would be portrayed as like,
good looking, smooth talker.
Yeah, exactly, that’d be the worst thing,
is like he’s not that.
His only flaw is that he loves art too much.
That’s his only flaw.
Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly.
I can already tell they’re gonna make a movie out of this.
It’s gonna be annoying.
Yeah, I looked it up, they haven’t.
There was a movie called The Art Thief,
and it was a man and woman on the cover,
and I was like, oh, I think it was like Ryan Gosling,
or something, I don’t know, whatever.
Favorite art heist movie, he references
Thomas Crown Affair in this,
which I have watched somewhat recently,
Pierce Brosnan, and God, why can’t I think of the woman?
She’s in the Lethal Weapon, three, or it’ll come to me.
I was sure I think it’s some other ones,
and I didn’t really have any other art heist movies.
I do like the Thomas Crown Affair,
but the only one I could think of was entrapment
that Catherine Zeta-Jones and Sean Connery movie,
which is, I’m pretty sure it involves art,
I haven’t seen that movie since it came out,
or close thereafter, so I don’t know.
I remember when I was an amazing movie.
Yeah, so do I, but I was also like 13.
Because the only thing I’m sure we can both remember
is Catherine Zeta in a slick black thing,
going through laser beams and stuff, right?
That’s all we can remember from that movie.
The only other things that was thinking besides those are,
there’s a couple of good documentaries I’ve seen.
One is the Rape of Europa, which is about Hitler,
like the Nazis, taking all the art from literally Europe.
Those guys are pieces of shit, unsurprising to anybody.
And exit through the gift shop,
although this is kind of a stretch
because it’s not about thievery necessarily,
but it’s more about street art and stuff like that,
but it’s a good art documentary.
Art Thief, would you recommend it?
Yeah, I think the airport book sums it up perfectly.
I think it’s just a perfect book to pick up
and consume on a flight, so yeah, I think it was a good one.
Yeah, I agree.
I mean, it’s five and a half hours long.
What else did I ask for?
Pretty much just listening to a long documentary, kind of.
You know, just about this person.
So yeah, I would definitely recommend it.
I think if you’re one of those crazy people
that needs to reach a certain amount of book limit
at the end of the year, stuff this one in
on December 30th, get away from the family for a minute
and stuff this one in.
But yeah, I would definitely recommend it.
And although I think the characters were just like,
all the people in general were like pretty shitty.
The story as a whole was interesting
and kind of amazing that he was able to steal all this stuff.
All right, what do we got coming to next?
We got Northwoods by Daniel Mason coming up next.
This was recommended to me by a friend
who’s an English teacher in Tampa Bay, Florida.
So it’s literature.
When I started reading, I was like,
this is reminds me of an English class book.
It’s art.
Here we go.
I’m stealing this away.
So no one else can see it.
Cause I can only appreciate it.
All right, Keith, well, we’ll catch you for Northwoods.
This was our theme and we’ll catch you all next time.
All righty.
Bye now.
Bye now.
Alright, we are