The Moth - Slamming into the New Year: Liza Cooper and Jim Winship

Episode Date: January 19, 2024

On this episode, we share two stories, one meta, and one about a mountain music festival. Host: Gabriel Szajnert Storytellers: Liza Cooper tells a story… about telling a moth story. Jim Winship finds healing at a mountain-music festival. If YOU’D like to share your own story, or would just love to hear some incredible live storytelling, check out a Story Slam near you: https://themoth.org/events The Moth would like to thank its listeners and supporters. Stories like these are made possible by community giving. If you’re not already a member, please consider becoming one or making a one-time donation today at themoth.org/giveback

Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Gabriel Shiner, Associate Producer at the Moth, and your host for this episode. There are so many different parts to the Moth. There's the podcast you're listening to right now. There's the Moth Radio Hour airing on public radio stations every week. There's workshop programs where we help communities and students and advocates all around the world craft personal stories. Our main stage events where storytellers craft their stories with moth directors, there's so much happening here at the moth. And then there's the open mic story slams, which are some of the coolest shows the moth

produces. At story slams, people put their name in a hat, and if they're one of 10 folks selected, they get to share a true personal personal, 5-minute story on stage without notes. If you've been to a Moth story slam, you know there's an energy to them. None of us know what's going to be told next, and there's a great sense of togetherness and community in the audience. Story slams are special because it's everyday people telling these stories, from teachers,

to scientists, to actors, to doctors. At the last story slam that I went to, there was a garbage collector that was still wearing his uniform from the work day. One of the things that I love most about story slams is that you become closer to the community that you're a part of. To kick off this new year,

we wanna put a spotlight on these open mic moth story slams that are open to everyone and produced in cities worldwide. It may be your New Year's resolution to tell a story, or maybe it's your resolution to come out and hear local stories and support your community. Our first story is all about that. It was told by Liza Cooper at a, you guessed it,

StorySlam in New York City. Here's Liza, live at the mall. They say that divorce is like a death, but I died during my 10-year-long marriage. The passionate, sensual, creative poet and writer was gone. And despite our bitter union, my husband and I, when we came apart, were quite amicable. We moved into a tenement building, three stories apart. Because after all, we had three beautiful beings between us. Our precocious eight-year-old son, Liam, our beautiful Siberian Husky Luna, and our sweet lap cat, Pablo Neruda.

And things actually went pretty well, with 50-50 custody, and our three kids went back and forth with relative ease. My ex and I got along better than we ever had before. So one night about 10 months after we split, I was home in my apartment with my young son, my elderly dad was visiting. And I knew my ex was out on the town

and that he had left our dog Luna home alone in his apartment. And I felt bad for her. I thought she'd be lonely, and that she should be upstairs with us. And so I texted him that I was going to go get her. And I went downstairs and keyed open the door, and the apartment was dark. Luna started running toward me. And to my left, I saw a big woman's purse.

It was gaudy and garish, and nothing like me. And as I was processing that, I heard a woman screaming. But it wasn't frightened screams. It was euphoric, pleasure screams. And I realized at that moment that my ex was in the shower was, I want that. I want intimacy and closeness and sensuality and connection, and that in worrying about my dog's loneliness, I had discovered my own. And that night, I penned my first OK cupid online dating profile after a decade of being married. Soon after I got an interesting note from an interesting man and we met up and we liked each other and we connected on a lot of different levels, intellectual, political, emotional, and physical.

It was really nice. He was a writer and a musician. And we saw each other. We got each other. And we saw the best things in each other. And we started to open up windows in the other. And he started to write music again, which he hadn't done in a long time. He wanted to perform on the stage, which he also hadn't done in a long time.

And I started to write poetry in short stories. And I was realizing that that sensual, creative poet was coming back to life. We were even writing stories together as co-creators. It was pretty cool. But there was something that I wanted to take him to that I had written about in my okay cupid profile as a fellow writer and person of depth

and storyteller. I wanted to take him to the Moth storytelling hour. And I knew he'd love it. And so I looked at the upcoming topics and there was a topic on baggage coming up in a couple of months. And I thought that was perfect, because to be honest, I thought he had a lot of it. So I scored us some tickets, and we went to see the Moth baggage here at Housing Works. And it was amazing.

We loved it, and we analyzed all was amazing. We loved it. And we analyzed all the stories. We had the same favorite. And afterwards, we went back to his place and we were sitting and talking. And then very suddenly, he turned to me and said, I feel like I'm wasting your time. That hit me like a bullet.

You see, because we had a few small problems, but we had one big problem. He was a diehard bachelor. He was a fan of monogamy, much less love or long term. And even though we shared strong feelings for each other, we both knew that I didn't need to have all those things at that particular moment, but eventually I would. And so he said that he had something else to tell me, that he loved the moth.

And that in fact, he wanted to tell a story at the moth, at the next slam, and that it would even feature me and about why we couldn't be together. And I had that same feeling that I had standing outside my ex's bathroom door when he was in the shower. A moth story? I want that. So today I'm almost 50, I'm divorced,

I have a little boy who wants to spend less and less time with me, and that creative, passionate, sensual writer and poet has returned. And I've realized that sometimes it's the people you don't end up with that can be your biggest influence. And for 20 years I've been sitting in the moth audience watching other people tell their stories. And this is the first time I've had the courage to climb the moth stage and tell my own. Thank you. That was Liza Cooper. Liza is a mom, writer, storyteller, and photographer who uses words and

images to capture grief, joy, and resilience in the everyday. Outside her day job, she spends time helping women over 50 find love as a dating coach. Story slams happen all over, from New York to New Orleans, from London to Louisville, from Melbourne to Michigan. If you want to see a list of the upcoming story slams, the full list of cities, dates and themes is at the moth.org slash events. We'll also have a link in the episode description. Another great thing about these story slams is that you don't have to tell a story. About 90% of the audience comes just to listen. We do allow the audience to participate by filling out anonymous answers to the question of the night. At a recent story slam here in Brooklyn,

the theme was confessions. And the question of the night was, what was a time you did, or did not spill the beans? An anonymous patron wrote in and answered, the person sitting next to me has no idea I bought them a diamond ring last week. I've never seen so many partners turn to their significant others in disbelief. Our next storyteller is Jim Winship.

He told this at a story slam in Madison, Wisconsin. Here's Jim Jim live at the mall. When my dad died, it was neither a tragedy nor unexpected. He was 88. It had a good and a full life. But the last year had been hard, both for him and for his family. And when he died, it was a little bit of relief, but it hit me harder than I thought it would. So a couple of days after the funeral,

I asked my brother if we could go to Carter fold. Now, we live in here in Wisconsin, and I grew up in Bristol, Tennessee, where my family lived, and my brother and sister still do. So my brother said, yes, and so we drove to Carter Fold. Now Carter Fold is the music venue that the children of AJ Carter founded. AJ Carter who collected the first kind of folk songs

and pressed and produced the first country music album in 1923. And so I'd never been there, but mostly I just wanted to spend time with my brother. So on a late Saturday afternoon we drove up. It was 20 miles if the crow was flying straight, 22 miles on those windy roads, and about 45 minutes to get there. And on the way up we didn't talk much. It was like sorrow and about 45 minutes to get there. And on the way up, we didn't talk much. It was like sorrow and sadness were also riding with us in the car.

But then we get the Carter fold, and it's amazing. It's unlike any music venue I've ever seen. So there's this old kind of country house, and they've got a deck built on back, and that's the stage. And then the hill slopes down, and that's where people sit. And if you get there early, you get the good seats, which are bench seats that have been taken out of old trucks and put right in front of the stage.

And everybody else sits on kind of benches. So they take these logs and they push them into the ground and they put 12 inch planks and they nail those down and then carpet squares on top. So we're sitting there and the music, it's either bluegrass or old-time music. I don't know if you know what old-time music is, it's bluegrass without the banjo. So there was a group that was going to be playing. I didn't really care who it was. I just really wanted to go and spend the time with my brother.

But about 15 minutes before the show is going to start, some people start pulling amplifiers up on stage. And there's this kind of buzz that goes through the audience. And I look at my brother, and he's got this little smile on his face, but he's just shaking his head like he's not going to tell me what's going on. I found out later that there are pretty much purists, and almost nobody gets to plug in there.

And then Jeanette Carter comes on stage. One of AJ Carter's daughters, she's an imposing figure. She's far more than strong. And she welcomes us, and she thanks us all from coming there and about how this really is kind of helping keeping mountain music alive and thriving. And then she pauses and then she says, I want to welcome another guest here. He's a friend of Carter Fold, a special friend of the family. And she kind of steps back and a man walks slowly up to the

microphone and says hello I'm Johnny Cash. Holy shit I'm 40 feet away from Johnny Cash. So Johnny sings Big River and then he calls June out. And June Carter cash comes out. I mean, this woman's a goddess and they sing Ring of Fire and after they do that, Johnny says, you know that part that has the Mexican trumpets, that came to me in a dream. And then June steps back and Johnny pulls a cheer up to the microphone and lowers it down and gets his guitar and sits down. And says, Bruce Springsteen sings one of my songs in concert, so I thought I'd sing one of his. And so he sings Highway Patrolman. It's a story song about brothers and about who one of them, who's a police officer, kind

of puts his job aside to let his brother go free. The chorus, you know, me and Frankie were brothers, nothing stronger than blood on blood, taking turns dancing with Maria while the band played night of John's town flood. So we're sitting there and we're listening to him, and I don't know how we happened to all be there that night. It was the first time I ever went to Carter Fold, not the last, the first time I'd been. And it was the last time Johnny Cash played there.

He died in the following year. But that evening, as he was playing and singing, it seemed like sorrow and sadness just kind of faded away into the background. Giving us some space to breathe is my brother Dave and I sat there on those planks singing along softly, nothing stronger than blood on blood. That was Jim Winship. Jim is a documentary filmmaker, a social worker and retired social work professor, and an oral and digital storyteller. That's it for this episode. We'd love for you to join us at an upcoming open mic story slam. Throw your name in the hat for a chance join us at an upcoming open mic story slam.

Throw your name in the hat for a chance to tell a story or just come to listen. Every storyteller needs a listener. For locations and dates of all our Moth story slams and all our other shows, just visit themoth.org slash events. From all of us here at the Moth, we hope to see you and hear your story soon. Gabriel Shinerd is an associate producer at the Moth, who will not let you forget he's from Miami, even though he's from Broward. This episode of The Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin-Geness, Sarah Jane Johnson,

and me, Mark Sellinger. The rest of The Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bulls, Kate Tellers, Marina Kluchai, Susan Rost, Brandon Grant Walker, Leanne Gully, and Aldi Kasa. The month would like to think it's supporters and listeners. Stories like these are made possible by community giving. If you're not already a member, please consider becoming one or making a one-time donation today at themoth.org slash give back.

All maus stories are true, as remembered by the storytellers. For more about our podcast information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org. The Moth podcast is presented by PierX, the public radio exchange, helping make public radio more public at PierX.org. We hope you enjoyed this episode. We're excited to introduce you to another fantastic podcast. By tuning in, you're directly supporting your favorite podcast and discovering new content. Thanks for listening.

Welcome to Critics at Large, the podcast from The New Yorker. I'm Nomi Fry. I'm Vincent Cunningham. And I'm Alex Schwartz. Hello. Hey. Hi Alex Schwartz. Hello. Hey. Hi, Alex. Hi guys.

Hi. We are all staff writers at The New Yorker. And each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here. So I, like many of us, I am sure, have found it very hard, if not impossible, to look away from the story of one George Santos. He's out of there today, lying Congressman George Santos was voted out by two thirds

of the house with Couten. He's had down. He's had down. You know, George Santos, for anyone who is not in the know, please reveal yourselves and let us give you a prize if you have never heard this name before, is of course the now ex-Congressman from New York's third congressional district who is voted out of office by his colleagues earlier this month.

That in light of the expulsion of the gentleman from New York, Mr. Santos, the whole number of the house is now 434. After the House Ethics Committee released a pretty damning report about him. He's facing, let's see if I can just rattle them off, federal charges for conspiracy, wire fraud, falsification, identity theft, and underlying all of this, of course, is the fact that almost everything the man said over the course of his career in politics, and it turns out, well,

before, perhaps even since birth, has turned out to be a lie. He loves lie. He loves, he loves to lie. Can you just give me a couple of your favorite Santos lies? Of course, I have to step up and say that his, his Jewish roots. Yes. His falsified Jewish roots are my favorite. It's a claim that his mother on his mother's side, he is, he has Jewish heritage, which is completely unfounded. Later, he backtrack a little bit and said that he didn't say he was Jewish. He said he was Jewish, which is kind of amazing. I like the fact that he claimed to be a Baruch college volleyball star and never played the sport as far as me.

Oh yeah, he got two knees. Knee replaced knees knee replacement because he just gave it all I of course also like the Jewish as a New York City native I did enjoy his total fabrications about where he went to high school Which is something that weirdly does mean a lot to people in New York City, and yet is absolutely irrelevant outside of it. And his audacious mispronunciation of the words, Horace Mann. Now that he pronounced it, I didn't hear that. Horace Mann? Horace Mann? Oh my god.

So, you know, again, hard to get wrong, but if you do, go big. And, right. And big he's gone. I mean, as the three of us prove, this is a story that has been very difficult not to watch. It's juicy, it's salacious, it's absolutely idiotic, if I may say. It's hard to believe in short, it's great entertainment. And part of that, I will venture to say, is that Santos embodies a familiar archetype

in American culture, that of the scammer. I do think the scammer is a classic American figure, someone who rolls into town, has no history, no past. And suddenly, everyone is dancing behind him in tune, ready to do whatever he requires, and in the case of George Santos, give quite a bit of money to personal causes. So today we're talking about George Santos and tracing this archetype of the scammer across the culture, specifically American culture.

The scammer, I think, is a very American figure for all kinds of reasons having to do with this specifics of this country's history and its identity. And the big question I have for us today is, why are we so entertained by scammers? And does that just make us part of the con? [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ So, to start out with, let's talk a bit about Santos

and how he embodies the figure of the scammer. I mean, can you guys remember what you thought when the extent of his lies became clear? I remember the Jewish thing, and I remember the volleyball thing, and a bunch of lies that were sort of comically rolled out. And then I think the big event was when on the floor of the house before the floor of the house

before the state of the union address, Mitt Romney like goes to him and like hems him up and is like, you can see him, he's like berating him. Like we later learned that the report was that, he was telling him like, I think he was like, you don't, you should not be here. Like Mitt Romney and all this like,

decorum and institutional sense affection for the whatever, the great totem that is Congress. He was like, I think I'm pretty sure he said, you're a sick puppy. I'm pretty sure he called them, which is like for Mitt Romney, that's like. Oh my God.

Tell him about his mom or something. Like that's like the most disgusting comedy. It's as if you had taken up both of his gloves and slapped him in the face. That's right. That was when I was like, realized that it was a thing. And that's when people started asking like,

how did this happen? Yeah. I was like, realized that it was a thing. And that's when people started asking, like, how did this happen? Yeah. I feel like for me, that was the moment where I was like, okay, this is the character that I should be paying more attention to. I was just like, okay, this is gonna get fun.

Is that guess what I thought? I know it feels that to me at least that he's been with us for so long that when looking at some timelines of The public activities of George Santos. I was shocked to realize that really this has been a bit over a year But you know certainly the culture has squeezed as much much juice as there is to squeeze Out of the Santos experience We're now in the part of the Santos story. were now in the part of the Santos story,

were in the post script, I guess, because he's no longer in Congress, and yet what has been really interesting for me to see in the past few very short weeks is the way that the Santos story has been funneled directly into the content pipeline. I mean, I did enjoy, I will say, Boeing Yanks cold cold open this past weekend

on SNL as Santos. Very funny, very good. This entire country has been bullying me just because I am a proud gay thief. And then being a whisked away to a piano where he does does a version of Elton John's candle in the wind, now called Scandal in the Wind. Of course. You know, just because he's out of Congress does not mean that the fun has to end. Over the weekend, it was hinted that he might be on dance with the stars. Tro Santos might be. Yes.

I think he himself may even be encouraging that idea. Well, he is an incredibly, incredibly, incredibly. Right. And here we are doing a podcast about him. Right. He's too hard of the problem. Yes, we're in the Santos economy. That's right.

He's on cameo, something he thinks. He's making the problem. Yes, we're in the Santos economy. That's right. He's on cameo, sell video, thing. Yes. Cameo for those non-familiar as this platform where celebrities, so-called celebrities, from, I would say, be list to zealist, hawk their wares. Yes. And patrons are able to pay whatever market price, this celebrity deems acceptable

for videos, personalized videos. This can be reality stars, it can be sports stars, and now it can be Santos as well. A former disgraced congressman. You know, since we've been preparing this episode, we've seen his rate on cameo go to now currently at this moment, $500 videos are flying like hotcakes of the show. Yes, if you want George Santos to wish your relatives a happy holidays, you know, there's a chance for you. Exactly. You know, speaking of which, you know, I am looking right now at a TikTok page called

Georgie's Camus. Oh, Georgie. Oh, it's just that. Which purports do you have accumulated all of the camios, or I guess a good number of the camios that Mr. Sandos is done? Here's one called Georgie's 500th Pepp talk, shall we listen? Yes, please.

Yes. Hey, Emmy and Allison, I just wanted to stop by to give you guys a little encouragement. I know that finals are tough, but hey, it's the end at the light of the tunnel. You girls are calling to be awesome rockstar lawyers. No diva down nonsense. You girls are kind of slay.

So look, do me a favor and keeping the queens you are so that you can go conquer the world. Muah, bye. Okay, this is a rich text worth every penny. Worth every penny. Worth every penny. A few things that occurred to me immediately, you know, one, how natural

he is at this job. He's absolutely loving his era as a cameo star. He's loving it. It's it's it's just the role suits him. He is taking the, you know, pop culture detritus that has accumulated around his person and is wearing it like so many Mardi Gras beads. He is just, he is just prading, prading down the avenue of cameo, willing to be in drag as himself. Yes. George Santos. And honestly, like the thing about him is that he just like projects well-being.

He looks, he looks great. Like he's got, he's heavy, great t-shirt. He's wearing his classic, like, sort of chunky black glasses. And his hair is kind of clothed. First of all, I love the spoonerism. It's the end at the light of the tunnel. Did anybody notice that? He didn't say the light at the end of the tunnel.

Is that what he said? The end at the light of the tunnel. Like he's so good that he's just like dissociating. It's like, he's in his, like, he's on some like, Mingus. Like he's so good that he's just like dissociating. It's like he's in his like, he's on some like, Mingus shit. He's so good at this. I mean, I just think that like, you know, could this be, could some of this glow, we saw be the delight

at the first honest buck he's made in his life, you know, I was very amused to see on cameo that there is a user guarantee. There's a money back guarantee that if George sent us to not just not actually send you a video, you can get your money back. Wood, that this have been the case for the people, for instance,

who entrusted George Santos to raise money to cure their ailing pets years ago, who saw none of that money. And the pets died. And what's your pet's died. And that's died. Oh my God, we have to get to this. That's like literally animal murder. Right, so after many different schemes,

finally our culture, as I see it, has enabled the schema to make good and to take weaponize every bit of his scheming persona. Yeah, I mean, I think cameo in general, what I find interesting in general about cameo and why I think it's the site for honest scamming that Santos is primed for is that it combines the sort of air of sincerity, right, or the air of care, right? Like, you got this queens, like I'm behind you,

100%, you're gonna rule the world, you know, slay, divas, the affect is one of earnestness and support, but he doesn't know these people. There's nothing to back it up, but that's fine, because it's a cameo video. That's the contract that's happening. Right. And truly, Naomi, that is exactly what a lot of politics is. It is walking into a room and looking at someone you've never seen before in your life.

And maybe you don't refer to them as queen or queens, but you might call them sir or maim. And you might look deep into their eyes, shake them by the hand, and try to take them for every penny they've got. Yeah, you know, people. Make friends and influence people. Yeah, it actually strikes me that cameo is a lot like the practice of what we,

like when I work in politics called call time, which is like literally somebody gives you a piece of paper that tells you everything about the person. You just cold call them. And it's like it's just like two hour in every politician's day where they make calls that are just fed to them by a staffer. That is what cameo is. He's looking at a piece of paper,

like who are you talking to? Divas got a final boom, boom, boom, boom. And you can tell, this is the 50th, one of these, he's done in the day. It's the structure of it is like, it's like, it's like, it's like the 50th, one of these he's done in the day. And it's like, the structure of it is like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's as fresh as, as if it were the first time. Yeah.

Politics has perfectly prepared him for this role. I mean, there are, there are of course, other things in the George Santos IPDUM. We've now heard, there also is going to be, perhaps an HBO adaptation of a new book called The Fabulous by Mark Chuzano, which I know that you guys have dipped into. Would anyone, would anyone care to report back on The Fabulous and how you found it? Yeah.

So Mark Chuzano is a news day reporter who began following Santos when he was pursuing his first congressional run back in 2020. Back in 2020. I mean, I believe he started following in 2019, but yeah, that was for the 2020 election, but then he just kept going and began to gather steam. And so Chizano was like, oh, this is actually a story that has kind of more far-reaching consequences and can tell us something not just about Santos proper, but about the culture of scamming

in a kind of post-Trump, post-Trump America. And so, yeah, so this book basically gives us the story of Santos, his various small time and then bigger time scams since his youth in Queens. I thought it was well reported, but it sort of felt like a mountain of details where I was just like, wait, what did he do again? It's hard to keep it all in your head. It's hard to keep it all in your head to me. And maybe part of it is like, you know,

and I think Shusano says this at one point, it's kind of trumpy in the sense of like, there's an exhaustion that happens when you confront someone like Santos because it's like, oh, another lie? Oh, wait, another scam? Wait, didn't he do this already? Yeah, I mean, it's interesting formally

because Truzanot is a fiction writer. Did you notice in his bio that he wrote a book of short stories? So I saw that in the bio, I'm not familiar with his fiction. I'm not either, but it's so interesting to me that this book wants to be something other than what it is.

It opens in a call center. You know, there's some attempts at style of like the sound, the way the phones ring, the way they upsell. These details that are like. It's kind of purple. Yeah, it is kind of purple in places, but the details aren't given to anybody. There are nobody's sensations, right?

They're reported facts, but like what this wants to be, and what Santos, the only thing that could contain Santos is like it wants to be like a sort of like nonfiction novel. You know what I mean? And I think this is important because he has like the classic fiction writers, I think, delusion that this can be located in biography, what he does.

That, because he was poor, or because he wants to be something else, he always talks about, oh, he's stressed because of all the scams. He's trying to attribute regular people emotions to this guy, who's actually just a sociopath. Yes, yes, yes. And it's like, but because he wants to make him a character, he's like, oh, it's because of this insecurity. Did you know he cares so much about people's bodies?

He wants to be skinnier, he wants to look better, he gets botoxed, and he gives all this background in this almost fictional backstory, and it's like exposition. And it's like, no, this guy's a maniac and he has been since the moment anybody knew him. It's like, there's no reason. He's a monster and he has been since the moment anybody knew him. There's no reason. There's no... he's a monster. That's right.

Right. Which is maybe a little brutal anthropologically like this. You know, sometimes people just suck. Yeah. I think that's what's up with George. So what does this all tell us about the kinds of stories people are hungry for? That's in a minute on Critics at Large. Hi, it's David Remnick.

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My first trip to the Patagonia region was on the Archen Tintide. I couldn't believe the expansive territory. It's like being in Tibet, the emptiness and the harshness, really. I found transformative. Oh, a story told when safely back when dry land. You know, things happened every single day. I ran out of gas on a jet ski in the middle of the ocean. And I was like, what if a sea creature comes to eat me?

But then I'm delusional. I was like, I'll make friends with it, and it won't eat me. And maybe I'll ride that back to shore. That's how it works. Yeah. Join me, Valaie Ara Coppley, every week for more adventures on Women Who Travel, wherever you listen to your podcasts. What do you think of the most important things that you can do to make a living?

You know, one thing occurs to me having read the mark she's on a book, which is about us, the three of us, and everyone else who I'm including in the first person plural pronoun, us writ large. And what draws us to a story like this, you know, one point he wants to make is that we kind of get the scammer narrative that we deserve right now, you know, where is the scam taking place? Well, in the case of George Santos, it's taking place in politics.

And Nomi, as you were saying before, the Trump era has opened the floodgates. Yeah, open the floodgates into politics as an out and out scam for those who wish to take advantage. And so, of course, the story fascinates us, you know, as a reflection of what we're currently living. So, I wanted to ask you guys, you know, how far back can you trace the scammer in American culture? There have been all different kinds of scams over the course of his

nation's history. What are some early scams that you think of when you think of the American scam? Well, you know what, one of my favorite and this goes again to fiction. One of my favorites is fictional, which is Herman Melville's Confidence Man. You know, a stranger steps onto a Mississippi steam boat and the passengers who are modeled on others of Melville's contemporaries. There's one that's sort of like based on Emerson.

There's one that's sort of based on Thoreau. Another, there's a beggar who's based on Edgar Allan Poe. And all of these minds are like one by one sort of tested by the confidence man and like, and made subject to his wiles. You know, the sort of the figure of the traveler, you know, someone who kind of like comes to town, you know, either comes on a boat as you mentioned in the Melville. It's the same in the music man with Harold Hill, a traveling salesman, you know, arrives, says he has a plan for the city, and you know, my favorite, actually,

version of the music man is the Simpsons episode about the Montereyl. What happened? I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You know, a traveling salesman in the right-hand town. The name's Landley. Lion Landley.

And I come before you good people tonight with an idea. Probably the greatest, oh, it's not for you. It's more of a Shelbyville idea. Now, wait just a minute. We're twice as smart as the people of Shelbyville. Just tell us your idea and we'll vote for it. Alright. And he's like, Springfield should have a monorail.

Springfield does not need a monorail, but this man, you know, seduces everyone. What I say? Monorail! What's it called? Monorail. That's right. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail. Monorail.

Monorail. And then of course it's like made out of like old parts. You know, it's like the idea is that people will buy anything if you sell it to them in an attractive enough way. People want to believe. Yeah. Right. and an attractive enough way. People want to believe. Yeah. Right? Whether it's in religion, whether it's in commerce,

whether it's in politics. And yeah, and you know, and you see the version of the religious scammer, I was thinking on the way here about 80s televangelists. Remember, Jim Baker, yeah, and Tammy Faye and Jimmy Swagger, you know all of these people that were like if you want your soul saved You'll send this money. Yeah, you guys are getting at things that I think are key to the flourishing of any successful scam One is new technology just like you're describing no me with the rise of Televangelis in the 80s.

You can reach people in a new way. I mean, I'm sure scams were abounding in the 18th century, but I really think, like you've been in of the mid-19th century as the time when the scam took off, in part because there are all these new technologies, you know, even the railroad bustling around the United States that can both take people to new places and also provide new excitement and enticements and people don't really know how to use them or how they work and so someone can come along and take advantage of all these things, you know, much like with crypto today, technology that again promises great riches and rewards to a lot of people who don't

fully understand it, inventions of this kind are bounding in the 19th century when capitalism is starting to really take off and move faster and faster. And also new people, you know, the country is growing so fast in the 19th century and people are coming from all corners of the earth. They don't have really an understanding of the culture they're stepping into often. And so that makes them absolutely right for exploitation. So there are two examples of this. I see them as roughly the newcomer arriving and taking advantage. And the newcomer being taken advantage of. So like Nomi gave the example, which I also love,

of the music man, where Harold Hill enters this very insular Midwestern, Iowin community. There's actually another 19th century scam that I learned about recently that is so perverse, which I love. We're traveling another traveler would arrive at an inn, looked depressed while checking into an inn, go to bed, then call out for help.

Someone would enter his room, he'd point to an empty bottle that said, lodin' them on it, and call for preacher because apparently he had just, he's committed suicide and he's about to pass away from what he's just taken. And then the anxious townspeople would rush in, get a stomach pumped and then contribute

to his essentially the 19th century equivalent of a GoFundMe to get him back on his feet and send him to the next town where he could pull off this scam. So newcomer coming in, taking advantage of the Goof Wheel and the Lowndels. And then in the other category, a classic example is selling the Brooklyn Bridge, where you know, that old, that old favorite.

You think now how could this ever have happened? Well, there were so many green horns and people stepping right off the boat into the land of opportunity. What did they know? It's the land of opportunity. Here's a bridge. And there's a film I love from 1937,

called Everyday as a Holiday, which was's a film I love from 1937 called Everyday as a Holiday, which was written by May West and stars May West as Peach's Oday, a scam artist in turn of the 20th century New York, who is selling the Brooklyn Bridge. And there's a scene at the beginning in which Peach's Oday, glorious May West, a light from her carriage at the beginning, in which Peech's O'Day, glorious May West, allights from her carriage at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge and encounters a German with a very comically thick accent named Fritz, to whom she presents a

bill of sale for the Brooklyn Bridge for $200. $50, $2,000. Sold at the gentleman with the mouthful of marbles. And now I am the brother of the Brooklyn bridge. Here's your receipt. I cannot express my joy. I'm all choked up with the bum with my throat. I know just how you feel. We'll go by and good luck. I hope you enjoy your bridge. When this one wears out, I'll sell you new one. So, for Fritz, you know, a classic scam of its time. And, you know, we can trace it all through the 20th century,

but today I would say, I would argue, that we're once again in a golden age of scamming stories. There is, as we discussed, even just with the Sanders example, but much broader, there's a really IP theft happening, movies and TV and books, where it might be fictionalized accounts of famed scammers or documentaries about them, you know, clearly nonfiction. I think it's a thing.

I mean, do you guys agree? Oh, definitely, definitely. Yeah, there's been a deluge. I mean, the fact that there were, for example, there were two bits of IP, one of documentary and one of TV show about Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos fame. Together we are making healthcare accessible to everyone in this country. I don't understand how you're doing this extremely complex chemical engineering with a high school degree. This kind of the turtle neck and started talking like this because that's what conveys power. They're... I'm convinced when you do it Vincent.

I'm gonna fund your Silicon Valley, you know, biotechnology. Thank you so much. Thank you so much and a new podcast invention that I love to do. There's a, there were two pieces of content, whatever you want to call them, about the fire fest. Fire festival was supposed to be a new Coachella, the new Burning Man exclusivity with access to premier talent. It was going to be an experience bordering on

impossible. What's the worst thing that you've asked me to do? The festival, the... The festival, that... The Julien documentary. Julien documentary. Yes, they couldn't film them fast enough. One of which featured our colleague and friend, Gia Tolentino, she was a talking head on one of them

and I did like a double take when she showed up on the screen. And then there was like the, I mean, you could go on a non-face. There's a wee work, there's the wee work series on Apple. Yeah, called We Crash. The future of work looks different. We're selling an experience. We need a name. There was my favorite, the fictionalized version,

or the sort of dramatized version of Enadelvi. The fake era so allegedly scammed her way through thousands of dollars, gourmet meal, luxury hotel rooms, and private jet flights sources say she also con man had this gridter on this is the show inventing Anna in the band ten Anna with what's what's her name Julia Garner Julia Garner I love so much the pot all lies you know I did nothing wrong this isies, I'm not. Pretends to be an ares. Pretends to be an ares. Always thinks that she's like just a lone away from actually being legit. You know, this is the idea, but she's just, again, an inveterate, biflong liar, tell

stories about appearance, et cetera. Vincent, I'm putting you on the spot because I know that you were, I do remember, if I'm not mistaken, that at the time you had watched every episode of Inventing Anna about Anna Delvi, you know, what is it about a show like that that draws us in that, you know, people want to watch what, what did you like about it? Well, you know, in some ways it is the perfect text for this because it's sort of almost within itself, within the text, it dramatizes the IP-ness of Delvies story. So, the story is really about a journalist who's based on New York magazine's Jessica Pressler, I believe. Yes. But it shows how someone that works at a magazine,

not unlike ours, although it's based on New York magazine, is trying to upsell this story further into the cultural firmament. We get one level of sort of injection of the story into the culture, which is the New York Post. So the tabloids are part of the court proceedings, and then there's tabloid journalism, which is mulching it for everyday content. And then the next level up, a magazine journalist wants to do a big piece. And you can see the mechanism by which it becomes the show that you are watching, that culture pulls threads of this story up and up. And turns the scammer crucially, I think, in the Santos case, but also in the case of Delvy, turns the scammer into a celebrity.

Sort of does the scammers work for them? Our awareness of the grift on some level helps double down on the grift. So then that text shows the sort of, I don't know, the cultural motion that the story can kind of achieve. Yeah, I think there's even a new anadelevi property. She's apparently going to start a new reality show

called Delvies Dinner Club while she's on house arrest. Yeah, she's been on house arrest for a while now. She will host actors, musicians, and more in her New York City apartment. You know, if you're gonna be on house arrest, turn it into a party, people. You heard that here first. So who do we empathize

with in these stories? They are everywhere. We can't quit them. We love them. We love them. Why? Why do you think? I think that there is a story that we all hold on to, which is that there is

a proximity of like a next level of life, right? That like somewhere, you know, we are coming to you from a studio in the sky at the World Trade Center. And I just know on some floor of this building, not far from where I am, there is an opportunity that could change my life. That's what man, that's at least the promise of Manhattan, you know, and when you hear about someone. The soaring skyscraper. That's right.

You know. And the boxy suits, all of it. And, and the rubber run. And the boxy suits all of it. And the scammer is the one who shows that it not only is it true, hearteningly true, it is perilously and dangerously true, that if only you had fewer scruples, you know, if only you were more energetic in your own sort of promotion, something amazing could happen to you. Before you go into jail, don't get me wrong. But that there is a sort of, the mobility that

is one of the sort of preconditions for believing in the society that we live in is not only real, but it's like, vertiginous. So there's something attractive about the scammer that keeps us watching or about certain scammers. Yeah, and I think also, I mean, this is, this is, I mean, this is kind of a very basic thing to say, but isn't this the promise of the American dream, right?

Where you are able to scale these new heights thanks to this mobility and the mobility are able to scale these new heights thanks to this mobility and the mobility almost, it presupposes corner cutting, right? It's like this sort of like, move fast and break things thing, we're like in order to, take a bite of the American pie, you have to spill some of the milk, right? Right, or something.

I don't know, is that a real thing? Pie of the milk? Yeah, something. I think you landed that metaphor, I love it. Yeah. It's like, you know, in order to climb to the next level, which is what we all want in this country and is the promise of this country,

you have to be a bit of a rogue, right? And the rogue and the scammer aren't so far apart, I think. Yeah, I think there are a few different reasons why we like these kinds of stories. I mean, one, which you guys are getting at a bit is just the narrative excitement of the will they are, won't they pull it off? And some of it, I think, also is we love to moralize.

We do. We love to, I think, certain stories and courage are sympathy with the scam or uncertain with the scammed. And so when I think of, here's a theory for you guys. Please, please. Let me try to unspool a theory. Alex. Make it snagged.

It may get very snagged. Lay it on us. All right, so I am thinking of the profusion of scammer stories that we've recently seen, the fact that we cannot turn on our televisions without getting hit with another one. And we're clearly in the midst of a genre at the moment. And as I was watching a few of these titles of the past, you know, a couple of years or so, it did occur to me that they have something I think in common with the proliferation

of noir, film noir in the 40s and early 50s. And you know, that is the time which American society is troubled. The war is over, but the war has not been this, I mean, yes, we won hooray, but people are coming home. They're having difficulties. They're having doubts. Their lives have been broken. In many cases, their bodies have been broken. And so noir is everywhere. These stories of desperate people doing desperate things driven by passions they can't control to try to make a book run away with the married woman of their dreams, whatever it might be, murder the husband, get away literally with murder. I'm thinking of films, you know, one that comes to mind right

away is the classic, the postman always rings twice from 1946. Frank, Frank, listen to me. I'm not what you think I am. I've made a big mistake in my life. classic The Postman Always Rings twice from 1946. We never did any harm to me. But darling, can't you see I'll help you and I will be together here without him. And in these stories, you know, because of code production values, you could not show the protagonist getting away with it. And the idea was, you know, we can't encourage this kind of immorality in our viewers, let's show people what happens when bad people come to bad ends. But of course, we come around anyway to the sides of these desperate protagonists.

We root for them. We want to see them succeed. We want them to enjoy their ill-gotten gains, even if we know that's not going to happen. And I think that kind of instability is at play in the scammer narrative as well. We are rooting. We're behind the person who is doing the scamming. And then there's a totally different side of us that really wants to tisk-tisk and enjoys these stories

precisely because we do hope people get their come-up ends. There's something operating on both sides, but what the scamming story allows us to do when it's shown in a television serialized format or in a movie format, is enjoy the depths of the actual behavior, you know, really kind of get down and dirty with everything that came to pass. So yeah, I think something's going on that lets us have our cake and eat it too, where these scammers are concerned.

And do you think that, like, you know, you compared noir or you, you situate a noir in a certain moment in American history, right, with a sort of post war, mellais and stuff? Do you see the scammer story and the genre of the scammer story in both fictional and non-fiction all the ways that is playing out culturally in relation to our moment historically as well. Yeah, for me, it's a totally post 2008 phenomenon. I mean, 2008, for me, is the moment when the entire culture was shown to be built upon a scam.

And it's no longer just like, ah, the internet bubble, or oh, you invest in a bad house too bad, we realize that we are all connected most of us unwittingly to the scam at the heart of society, and that the ground beneath our feet is not stable. I mean, you know, made off is another great contemporary scamming character. Of course, his story has also been mined for IP, of course IP. And you know, even when we think we're doing things above board so often in the society, we discover that in ways beyond our control, we've just, you know, we've been playing the show game. Yes. Yeah, and the structure of the scam is there's suffering in its wake, and the ones perpetrating the scam are made whole, right?

And I think, you know, 2008, we're speaking of the financial crisis, you know, the bailouts that quickly ensued showed us the structure of a kind of con. And I think crucially, what happens with George Santos, the diva down, the jokes, is what we call them the internet irony poisoning, or as we've called it forever, nihilism. Once you realize how deep you are in a scam like that, and how powerless you are against its forces and its sort of velocity, all you can do is kind of laugh as you watch the thing burn.

So people are like, I think a precondition for people kind of enjoying Santos is like, well, how is that different from Marjorie Taylor-Grene? Or for people that are on the other side of some, he is only the sort of expressionistic example of something that we think is at work anyway. Exactly. I mean, I think the obviousness of it is a relief too, right?

Because the lies are so flagrant, and the performance is so outrageous. And the shamelessness is so galling that there's a release and a relief associated with the blitancy of it. Because so often, I think, when we're talking about larger forces swirling around us and the kind of the big scam you know of society, it's not identifiable. So what what occurs to me guys is that you know these stories are often exposing fundamental societal weaknesses that we have, things that really should not be applauded and in fact should be rectified if at all possible.

And yet, a lot of them are comedies. A lot of the ways that we see these scammer stories are comedies. The made-off story is not, to me, that really is a Greek tragedy or Shakespearean tragedy type story and works that have been developed from it. Take that note. But a lot of the other ones are really kind of fun.

So what do you guys make of that? Like are we all missing the message or is this kind of is the idea that, you know, we would even more or less from these things so tedious as to be inconceivable? Yeah, I think part of that is just like the way the structure of storytelling is that you take this sort of big, emblematic example, you know, I'm thinking of even the Wolf of Wall Street, the way that it's, so this floridly told, and I do think that that amounts to a critique. And it is a good idea. Yeah, that's right.

But then on the other hand, when you take a step away from the exceptional, I'm thinking of a Nat Geo series that I watched called Traffic. It's about various aspects of the global underworld. And one episode was all about scams. I think one of them is around one of these call center farms where like every, you know, the calls that we all get on our cell phones from fake numbers that are asking us,

that are trying to scam us a nonstop. This is not somebody that's gonna end up George Santos. It's somebody that's trying to pay their next bill by stealing from my last bill, from my last check, right? I mean, it's just like every day, some people are just scamming justice. Barely getting by. Just to make it, right?

I mean, it's the same with the HBO, the recent HBO documentary series, Telemarketers, which is about these like, sorry call centers, similarly, where people are just working there, just in order to sort of like live a very sassanous level resistant. And it has to do, again, like if the attraction of the scammer story is the dynamic nature of our society, the reality is the sort of instability, that there's a floor that's crumbling and people are falling and you know,

desperation becomes the true context for the scam. Yeah. So I think critique is possible, but I think you're right that the kind of the level of enjoyment that we gain from some of these depictions of scams. It doesn't mean that the critique isn't there or isn't salient, but it also means that it's like there's so little to enjoy in contemporary society that it's almost like we as audiences In contemporary society, that it's almost like we as audiences, fully aware of being scammed, are also begging, please make this fun for us. Oh God, that is so dark.

But do you know what I mean? I do know, you mean. I don't know if this is the only way to look at it, but I think it's definitely one of the ways. I definitely see it as one of the ways. I just resist it because it is so dark and it does make me think, we are all just part of the con.

Yeah, and I think the thing is, and some of the stuff in this book is so bad. George Santos did, there's a whole chapter that says called and then came the dogs. Oh, no. It's very sad. It's horrible. This veteran who is It's just about this horrible, this veteran

who is at the end of his rope, he's got PTSD. Yes, homeless. Homeless. The only happiness in his life is the succession of dogs that he's on and I always got this pit bull who is growing what we think is a sort of like tumor

and is recommended to this, one of George Santos' fake organizations, this like puppy rescue thing that he started. And he raises, go fund me style, a bunch of money to afford a surgery, at this point the man is homeless. And George Santos then does what he does, which is like disappear.

Pockets the money. Pockets the money, goes away, the Tumor Creeps growing, the dog dies. You know, which is like disappear. Pockets the money. Pockets the money goes away, the tumor creeps growing, the dog dies. You know, it's like, the dog dies. It's just like the most disgusting thing in the world. So there are some really bad things that's like, Georgetown does is truly a bad person, right?

But the reason that I think we go along and there is this sort of nihilistic fun around it is that the true object of critique is not the individual, but the system in which they flourish. What people are truly mad about is how fucked up the world is. And there is not a single person bad enough to eclipse the context. And so if there is a critique, it's about politics,

it's about society, it's about society, it's about the Republican Party, but it's like never enough to stick on the one guy because at least he has figured out a way to expose the deeper sort of nefariousness of the swamp from which he emerges. Be that as it may, I just want to implore everyone here and everyone listening that as you continue to enjoy these scammer properties of which there will certainly be many. Remember the dog. Remember the dog.

Don't forget the dog. These are not victimless crimes. Remember that sick puppy. Remember that sick puppy. Sorry. God damn. This has been Critics At Large. Our senior producer is Rann and Corby, and Alex Barish is our consulting editor.

Our executive producer is Stephen Valentino. Alexis Quadrado composed our theme music, and we had engineering help today from gay paroga with mixing by Mike Cutchman. You can find every episode of critics at large at New Yorker.com slash critics. And you can email us at the mail at New Yorker.com. We would love to hear from you. Just make sure to include critics in the subject line.

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