"The Money Bird"

I don't know why I'm so into these old non-Barks Western stories!  Am I like an aging libertine whose palate is so jaded that he has to venture into the realms of the bizarre and possibly illegal to receive any sort of frisson of pleasure?  Maybe!  Was it a good idea for me to make that simile?  Definitely not!  But here we are!

The first thing I have to note about this story is something that will be meaningless to ninety-nine, or more likely one hundred, percent of people reading this.  But needs must: once you've imagined ol' Tom Boldface there talking in the voice of Evrart Claire, the cheerfully corrupt head of the dockworkers' union in Disco Elysium, you will be unable to not hear him like that.

Anyway, this is Dick Moores, about whom I have written a number of times, as you will see if you click the handy little tag.  I don't know why I have such a weakness for him, but the evidence strongly suggests I do.  Do reporters typically just wander around aimlessly waiting for news to occur?  Seems like a pretty chill job.

Also, those nephews look stoned to the gills.  They're dreaming a strange dream, where nothing is gray.  Moores is very good at creating that effect. 

My old friend, Clyde Beetroot.  Donald has a lot of old friends in these stories that are then heard from never no never no more.  I do wonder about the name here, though.  That the editor is called Tom Boldface suggests that we're going for some sort of nominative determinism here, but I have no notion of what "Beetroot" could mean in that context.  Pretty weird!

I think it is safe to say that that is indeed unbelievable, in the most literal sense of the word.  It is impossible to believe.  Anyway, how does ol' Clyde know it's "genuine?"  And what exactly would it mean if it were counterfeit?  The ontological questions here are enough to set one's head a-spinning.  Also, they're all entirely meaningless.  Let's move on.

This...just occurred to you?  I mean, whether or not it's a good idea, doesn't it seem like the implications, or even the bare existence of implications of some kind, should've been obvious?  Meh.  Anyway, I do appreciate Donald's selflessness here, even if his quick-wittedness is up for debate.

"I refuse to believe that everybody can be as rich as I am."  There's just something about that turn of phrase...it would be one thing if the word was "anybody;" then it would just be a typical Scroogian sentiment.  But the borderline agrammaticality of this version really tickles me.  As much as I think our plutocrats' wealth has warped their minds and made them other than human, I don't think they think quite like this.

A li'l economics lesson, as Barks liked to dispense on occasion, albeit significantly more ham-handed.  But if you think that the rest of the story is going to confirm this or refute it or address it in any way...all I can say is, BOY ARE YOU DUMB.

...

Right.  You know, these stories tend to be so thoughtless and goofy that there's not much point in acting all ostentatiously surprised by their twists.  It generally feels fairly performative.  But in all honesty, the mental processes involved in Scrooge's line of thinking here truly defy even a general approximation of comprehension.  "It takes brains to figure these things out!"  Brains or something.  There's a bunch of stuff that I've cut out involving him trying to buy as many peanuts as possible.  It's a little like the Barks story where he thinks fish is going to be the new currency and tries to corner the market, but much more demented.

Anyway, here's yer denouement, such as it is.  It remains good only if you keep it.  Well...okay, so we definitely saw ol' Clyde handing an eggful of it to one of the nephews, above, but let's leave that aside.  It's hard to tell what exactly the parameters of that are.  So, "it's only good if you keep it" and "as soon as you try to spend it the money turns blank."  But those aren't the only options, are they?  What if you just try to deposit it into your bank account?  You're not "keeping" it, but neither are you spending it.  And, I mean, we were told that it's "genuine United States currency," and if that's the case, doing this couldn't be illegal.  Well, what's "genuine" even mean, anyway?  What would it mean to distinguish between "genuine" and counterfeit money that comes from an egg?  This is far too complicated, and I'm far too drunk, to think about any further.

Yes, "it just proves" that.  Is this meant to be a profundity?  Is getting money just by wishing for it the ultimate dream?  I mean, I suppose it is, if you think about books like Think and Grow Rich or, more recently, The Secret.  Still, the way he says that looks faintly ludicrous.  Big "since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the Sun" energy.  Okay, we're done here.