How We All Benefitted From Mark Twain Being Shitty With Money

No they don’t, you fucking liars. Nobody has any money.

My least favorite type of article are those awful, gaslighting monstrosities that try to convince you that thriving in a capitalist world is easy with even a tiny smidgen of self-discipline and self-control. You’re undoubtedly familiar with these dreadful mind-fuckers: they pretend that if you only pack a lunch once a week, cancel your Hulu subscription and get Amazon free shipping there’s absolutely no reason you can’t pay off all your credit cards and student debt, save one hundred thousand dollars and buy your first home and rental property before you turn thirty. 

These articles make me want to scream. I want to yell at my laptop “No! It is not true! Getting out of debt is not that easy, nor is saving money, and they idea that you can do both simultaneously if you just cut back a little is crazy-making and wrong.” 

Despite their good intentions, the purpose of these articles seems to be to make people feel weak and sloppy and deficient for feeling overwhelmed and defeated by the pressure and strain of capitalism. These articles pretend that capitalism is a totally kind and manageable and reasonable system, even under Donald fucking Trump, and one that can be mastered with just a few simple life hacks rather than an inherently cruel and Darwinian nightmare that’s a fucking dream for the folks at the very top of the socioeconomic ladder and a living nightmare for a lot of folks below. 

I much prefer articles that acknowledge that capitalism is fucking brutal, and a lot of us are just barely keeping our heads above water or have taken on so much credit card debt that becoming debt free becomes a Quixotic impossibility. 

I love reading articles like that. Not coincidentally I’m also a prolific creator of articles of that variety. I’m trying to be the change I want to see in the world: I want to feel like I’m not alone in feeling defeated, if not destroyed, by laissez faire capitalism so I write a fuck-ton articles about struggling with money.

The repressed Midwesterner in me feels like I should be more stoic and suffer in silence but fuck that noise. There’s absolutely nothing wrong about being honest about things that are painful and hard. I don’t want to suffer in silence; I want everyone else who hurts in this profoundly important way to know that they’re not alone. 

I also unsurprisingly love reading about other people who struggle with money, particularly if they’re heroes of mine. I derived way too much satisfaction from discovering that to make ends meet during the lean times Dorothy Parker (THE Dorothy Parker, the one credited with every clever saying in the history of the universe) would sell the books she reviewed. 

And I was way, way, way too excited to discover that the reason that we know Mark Twain not just as an accomplished author but as the white-suited embodiment of homespun commonsense American wisdom and Dorothy Parker-like sayer of famously clever things is because Mark Twain, god bless him, was terrible with money. 

Like most people who are terrible with money, Twain wanted to make his fortune but made so many terrible financial decisions, in terms of how he invested his money and who he trusted, that he ended up losing several fortunes instead. 

Twain was a very successful, prolific author but he was an even more prolific squanderer of money. He lost so much money and was perpetually in such dire straits financially that he needed to continually go out on the road and deliver humorous speeches to make money to pay off his debt. 

The Mark Twain of the public imagination, the one whose shtick and persona is so well-defined that it has inspired a small army of impersonators that includes such famous names as Hal Holbrook and Val Kilmer, is the Mark Twain of public appearances, the Mark Twain that gave speeches, that came up with wry, widely quoted aphorisms as naturally and reflexively as breathing. 

Rare shot of a time-traveling Twain taking a selfie

If he were not so perpetually hard up for money, Mark Twain would still have been a great writer but he would not be the celebrity and folk legend we know today. 

We all benefited from Mark Twain being terrible with money. The need to make money forced him to give the speeches and coin the witticisms he’s as famous for as his literary works. 

Good things can come from bad. I would not be anywhere near as prolific if I did not have to be. The need just to pay the mortgage and put food on the table forces me to be a content machine. Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place would not exist if I hadn’t gotten laid off the Dissolve or grown so disillusioned with the pop culture media that it all but forced me to create something all my own, something that could not be taken away from me no matter what. 

Desperation and the need just to survive can bring out the best in you as well as the worst. I wish that I was better with money, that it did not flummox and distress me the way it does but I derive some comfort in knowing that, as was the case with Mark Twain’s money troubles, some times very good things can emerge from a very bad financial situation. 

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and of course y’all can still get in on the Weird Accordion to Al campaign book as well. TBH I could really use an influx of cash for that because the publishing costs will be substantial and I want to do everything the right way: https://make-the-weird-accordion-to-al-book-a-ridiculous-r.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders