Lessons in Capitalism #37: Lay Away

“I’m what they used to call a fly man round these parts.” 

So Grant Morrison is non-binary. As I am writing this piece, they have just updated their pronouns to be they/them, confirming without a shadow of a doubt that they are non-binary. This is something to consider given Morrison’s history with gender being… less than optimal. It’s also worth noting given Morrison is silently one of Noah Hawley’s major influences, as anyone who has watched Legion will tell you. We’ve talked about Morrison in the last Lesson in Capitalism, in particular their work with the New Gods. But in this episode, there’s another aspect to consider: their magical war with noted con artist Alan Moore. Unlike the show, I use the term “con artist” with an air of love and affection. The phrase befitting a beloved (if somewhat problematic) grandfather who punch an asshole in the face. He is the best kind of con artist, one not so much interested in swindling the poor out of billions, but one out to change the world with his cons. To con the world, the systems that control us, and win out in the end. But there are two things Moore did that every con artist inevitably does. Firstly, he burnt some bridges. Morrison’s was among them, but there were countless others. Davis, Lee, Fox, to name but a handful. One does not con people without pissing them off or being pissed off in turn. The second thing he did was trust the government. It’s surprising to think a man like Moore, an anarchist who started his comic book career committing tax fraud against Thatcher’s England, would trust the government. But the face of the government takes on many forms. In the case of Moore, it called itself DC Comics. Contrary to popular belief, corporations are not people so much as systems. Ones that will break and destroy you if you ever think of them as people, let alone a fellow con artist. There is no art in the conning of the corporation. Only math, only pain. Morrison, for their part, also fell for this. They thought they could change things from within. As if empathizing with a corporation. They learned, after decades of hard work and unfortunate bootlicking, that this isn’t the case. And now, adrift from the system they once served, they feel comfortable using language that wouldn’t be accepted in such systems of power.

“Au Revoir, Shoshanna!” 

This is a story about the margins. Not just in the sense of the main players all being marginalized (people of color, women, queer folk), but rather in the sense that this is a secret history. The secret history is not so much the history that wasn’t know or necessarily the one that was repressed. Rather, it’s the history that isn’t acknowledge, be it by a lack of awareness or an active repression. It is the story of Bayard Rustin, the queer man behind the civil rights movement, of Emma Goldman, anarchist philosopher and unionizer, of Walter Morrison, war protester and soldier turned pacifist. It’s the stories of the writers of history who keep their personal tragedies, which led to their biases, to themselves. It’s the stories of the countless people whose stories can never be told because they were lost in a fire, kept from us by the powers that be in favor of other stories, or for the simple banality that they just weren’t seen as interesting. It’s still election day as I’m writing this. Though it is now Wednesday, it will still be election day. The day has been an extremely stressful one. Putting aside that the last presidential election day was one where I came out as bisexual shortly before Donald won, I was supposed to get a book. I had read it beforehand, having been given a review copy by its author. The book is called Blue in Green. It’s a graphic novel about Jazz musicians, ghosts, demons, and art. It focuses on a black man doomed to mediocrity due to not having the push to make himself great. No muse, no drive, just rote competence. He comes across a song possessed by something old and cruel. Something that killed his father and his father before him. He becomes obsessed with the song, wanting to share it with the world. It will make him great, more powerful. But, in the end, the man finds himself lost of everything he held dear, on the verge of death. I did not get the book. Instead, I got a notification from Amazon asking me to authorize them sending me the book. When I did, I was informed that I would get the book by the end of November-the end of December. And it was that which pushed me over the edge. At the top of my lungs, I screamed “FUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!” holding it for an entire minute. Even afterwards, I felt like I was on thin ice, dizzy, about the puke, standing on the precipice of collapse. I told Sam that I would probably be late in sending him the article. It’s probably the case. Election Day is way too personal for me to be able to walk through it unscathed.

“They’re buying it.” 

So I had planned on doing this as seven quotes about con artistry, but apparently the election madness has made me unable to write a lot at a time, and school work takes priorities. I did have thoughts about the relationship between serial killers and con artists, but my head’s not in a good place to write such a piece. I’m sorry that this is crap. Fargo is amazing. The acting is superb, the direction and editing are haunting, and oh god, the music is so good. It’s a great show that is willing to let its pace linger for long stretches of time. I wish I could say more about it, but my head’s currently fried from the hellscape that is the 2020 election cycle.

“The best liars tell the truth.”

A man pulls over on the side of the road and sees a billboard for an idea he came up with. The man will never receive credit for or any money off of the idea. Not because he didn’t capitalize on the idea, didn’t put the effort into making the idea, or anything else of the sort. The man won’t receive credit for the idea because he is a black man. He is a black man pegged as a criminal by the local establishment. In their eyes, he may be little better than a beast, but he will always be a little worse than a man. The game has always been rigged against the man. And what’s worse… he knew it all along. He knew that the American Dream was a con, but he still bit into the hook. A part of him wanted to believe the lie. And there it is: the world shattered before him, the son he loved but forsake for power murdered, his best friend dead, the war he’s fighting a losing one. The house always wins. Loy Cannon’s ultimate failure was believing his small talent for crime made him eligible to be part of the house.