Re: [Harp-L] Re: Borrah Minevitch's Thesis

[David Payne <dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I remember that on Slidemeistet, John. It's now my opinion, too. Your post was my inspiration for trying to confirm that it did not exist and asking Sissy about it..
I've got this book Borrah put out, he mentions it:
"It was never a toy to me - not at any time. In college, I wrote my thesis about it." 
I suppose the idea was: So, if he could write a master's thesis on the harmonica, it could not be a toy. Therefore, you should enroll in the Harmonica Institute, buy Borrah's harmonicas, etc.. 
I'm a newspaper reporter, so I'm good at telling when people are lying cause they lie to me all the time. One of the best was when we got this call about somebody being bitten by an octopus, in the Ohio River. I actually got sent out to investigate that one, I refused, saying an octopus in the Ohio River would survive as long as a slug in a box of salt, for the same reason, I expected to get in trouble for refusing, but didn't, it got passed to somebody else. The octopus "victim" kept rescheduling the appointment on the guy, I suppose to get sufficient time to arrange the smoke and mirrors, the paper finally gave up, luckily. 
So anyway, first thing you look for is when everyday events are given magical details, such as, in the book, when Borrah went to Europe, hundreds of boys came out to send him off supposedly, even though he wouldn't have been famous at that time. Then, you look at what the motivation is for lying and beware of details that appear skewed to paint the liar's wanted picture. That send off just one example of  many implausibilities in the Borrah story, the thesis is probably another.I wonder if we can confirm if he even went to college. I doubt he even did.
I find it interesting that the Borrah book starts with "A friend of mine said to me the other day, 'You know, if the harmonica could talk, it would say this- Borrah, you've made me what I am today.'"
He probably did, but you don't have to be a braggart about it, either. You know, had he conducted himself with honesty and not this bull...t shroud, we'd be saying, "wow, he was a great guy." instead of "wow, he was  a great guy, but a supreme jackass."
Dave
__________________________
Dave Payne Sr. 
Elk River Harmonicas
www.elkriverharmonicas.com 
Dave
_____________________
Dave Payne Sr. 
Elk RIver Harmonicas
www.elkriverharmonicas.com 

----- Original Message ----
From: "MilwHarmonica@xxxxxxx" <MilwHarmonica@xxxxxxx>
To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2008 11:01:30 PM
Subject: [Harp-L] Re: Borrah Minevitch's Thesis

Hello, David Payne.

As you know, I wrote about this subject on Harp-L about 6-8 weeks ago, and  
on Slidemeister. 

All of the information from my limited sources was included in the  posts.

It's my opinion that Borrah created the legend of the Minevitch Harmonica  
Thesis.

He was a con man, a huckster, a flim-flam man of the highest  magnitude.

However, if anyone ever sees the Thesis, please let me know.

John Broecker



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