OBrien Cory - George Washington Is Cash Money: A No-Bullshit Guide to the United Myths of America

(Or: Emergency Toilet Paper) Sup, guys. One of the things that happened while I was researching this book was that I started reading the introductions to a lot of other books, and I decided maybe my book should have a good introduction too. Introductions are important in books of history and mythology, because theyre where authors get a chance to tell you how biased they are. Me? Im hella biased. I think the story of the United States is one long, violent soap opera where the best people get killed young and the worst people get rich.

But Im one of the beneficiaries of that story, and the storys not over yet. See, the other thing I believe is that history and mythology are the same thing. Theyre stories we dredge out of our pasts in order to make sense of the present, and those types of stories are always going to be necessary. But the stories themselves, and who the main characters are, are always gonna be changing. Around the turn of the twentieth century, we started a big philosophical movement called the Enlightenment. Thomas Jefferson was a big fan of it, as were a whole grip of scientists and poets and philosophers.

The idea was that we were smart enough, technologically advanced enough, to throw off old superstitions and look at the world through the lens of pure reason. Though these guys were mostly too nervous to say it, Enlightenment philosophy was a pretty big diss to the old concept of religion. Rumor had it that Jefferson was an atheist, but atheism wasnt cool in those days, so if he was, he kept it under his wig. More and more, though, people started to turn to science to answer their questions about the world. And suddenly, the old gods werent so attractive anymore. Myth became a bad word, as youve maybe noticed if youve ever been on Snopes or read a listicle about dumb wrong things people think you should eat.

But when we told the old gods to fuck off, we found ourselves in need of new ones. And no place felt this more than the United States of America. The country is way young, like barely legal, plus the separation of church and state makes it almost impossible to have an official mythology. People need to believe in something, though, so the U.S. has slapped together its own myths, centered around the Founding Fathers, around Science, around The Invisible Hand of the Market. Presidents, gangsters, serial killers, and rock stars are our new pantheon.

Politicians invoke the names of Reagan and the Roosevelts. Pop stars are avatars of Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley. We put their faces on our money, name our streets after them, erect big stone dicks over their graves. (That last part never changes.) Ive done my best to make the stories in this book as historically accurate as possible, but Ive also kept a lot of the juicy rumors in, because those are part of history too. Part of the mythology. Ive also used some terminology that isnt exactly politically correct, so let me throw in a quick disclaimer: I know there are other Americas besides the United States of America, and I know the people who originally inhabited the United States part of America were not in fact Indians from India.

Im using these commonif outdatedterms because they fit on the short lines I use, and because sometimes it actually serves to point out the ridiculousness of the terms, and because the language I use is a casual, rough, technically incorrect version of English. Which brings me to why Im here. Im here to educate you about the mythology of the United States, the same way we get educated about the mythology of the Greeks and the Romans. Well, not exactly the same way. Ive stripped off a lot of the pomp and circumstance. Ive added a lot of dick jokes and pop culture references.

My friend Soren drew some sweet pictures for you to look at. I guess what Im saying is that this book is here to educate you about the mythology of the United States the way the Greeks and Romans were educated about theirs, back when their shit was new.

So a long long long long long long long time ago there was absolutely fuck-all in the entire universe. Then a little while later, there was some stuff either because gods made it out of clay and boredom or just because. At first all the stuff is underwater (at least, according to most dudes) but Waterworld is a terrible movie so all the gods and sassy animals finally wise up and decide to have land and some of this land is a lame-sounding place called Turtle Island. Wait I mean NORTH AMERICA.

YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAA. But so now theres all this sweet land and nobody to ruin it. ENTER: HUMANS. There are a few theories about how humans entered like out of the underworld or from the east or space or maybe the gods just had some extra dirt to burn but WHATEVER everyone agrees dudes started existing at some point and that it was a generally bad idea. Great, so, the universe exists and there are dudes in it but riddle me this: What are these dudes gonna eat? Dont worry, friends the Cherokee people got this one covered. See, shortly after all this world-creating stuff theres this guy named Kanati.

Kanati has a wife named Selu and a son named Good Boy because this is olden times and names are scarce. Good Boy has a special friend who hangs out with him by the river when his parents arent around. Good Boy, being a good boy, tells his parents who are like STRANGER DANGER and hatch a plan to catch this man. This is the plan: The next time Good Boy sees his friend (whose name is Wild Boy) hes supposed to wrestle him to the ground and then call his parents never stopping to consider that this may be exactly what Wild Boy wants. Anyway, it happens and instead of getting registered as a sex offender Wild Boy gets to live with the rest of the family as their adopted son which would be fine except that Wild Boy is a garbage person. Let me explain.