A long long time ago

or maybe just a long time ago

some internet person tried to pay me

to retell the Principia Discordia.

As payment I demanded twenty dollars in quarters

and photographic proof of having amused strangers in traffic

which i thought was a suitably discordian payment.

The person in question completely failed to deliver either of these things

which

now that i think about it

is probably a suitably discordian payment method

but rather than trying to transliterate the entire corpus

of the Epiphanies Rudely Imposed Upon the World by Her Royal Weirdness Eris Discordia

(whose most notorious achievement I have already documented in any case)

today I am going to tell you about the Goddess’s Only Begotten Son

EMPEROR NORTON

RULER OF THESE UNITED STATES

AND – FOR A SHORT TIME

PROTECTOR OF MEXICO

This is a real story about a real person

a real person born in England in like 1818

who grew up in South Africa

and only moved to the US when his parents died

/ when he realized how rad America was.

So Norton (whose first name is not actually Emperor

but is in fact Joshua)

shows up in San Francisco as a pretty rich dude

like, his parents were rich and then they died

and that made him rich because richness is i guess genetic

anyway Norton is a pretty shrewd investor

so he quickly turns his money into even more money

and then he comes across THE ULTIMATE FINANCIAL OPPORTUNITY

you see, China suddenly decides it’s not gonna export rice anymore

and San Francisco is full of Chinese people

who are used to having rice

so all of a sudden there is a HUGE demand for rice

and like NO RICE

so Norton buys up like a million tons of rice

and has it shipped to san Francisco

so he can be the big rice man.

BUT HE FORGOT ONE CRUCIAL THING:

CHINA IS NOT THE ONLY PLACE WHAT GROWS RICE

so all of a sudden these two huge ships arrive from peru

just brimming with fucking rice

and overnight Norton’s boatload of bucks

becomes a boatload of sucks.

He tries to get out of paying for all that rice

but his reasons are bullshit and everyone knows it

so within the space of like a week

dude is suddenly not rich anymore.

So what does Norton do?

Does he jump off the top of a building?

NO

HE DECLARES HIMSELF EMPEROR OF THE UNITED STATES

DUH.

Like, first he disappears for a little while

but when he reappears

he just starts writing royal decrees

and sending them to san Francisco newspapers

like “Hear ye hear ye, I’m emperor now”

or “Avast, congress is hereby dissolved”

or “Yarr, build a bridge over that there Oakland Bay”

oh fuck I slipped into pirate mode there for a second

although you have to admit

the only thing cooler than being emperor of the united states

is being PIRATE-KING OF THE UNITED STATES

but anyway yeah

Norton is totally serious about all of this

he’s all writing letters to Queen Victoria/Abe Lincoln

trying to marry one and moderate the other one’s civil war

he’s issuing his own currency

and selling royal bonds

and inspecting the quality of the streets and the police

but none of that is really that remarkable.

Crazy people believe crazy shit all the time

especially when it comes to their crazy selves.

What’s ACTUALLY insane

is how people RESPOND to this guy.

Restaurants accept his currency

and actively seek out his royal seal of approval.

The city council pays for him to have fancy clothes

like gold epaulets

and a coonskin cap with peacock feathers in it.

One time a police officer accidentally arrests him for being crazy

and people get SO CHEEZED

that the chief of police is forced to order his release

and issue a public apology

which Norton responds to with a ROYAL PARDON.

Boy, it sure is pretty dope to be white in America, huh?

YOU KNOW WHAT IT’S NOT DOPE TO BE IN AMERICA THOUGH?

CHINESE

at least not in the 1800s

who would have thought that the country that went on to intern the Japanese

would harbor anti-Chinese sentiments during the civil war era huh

yeah, people are straight rioting in San Fran

(which Norton explicitly forbade anyone from calling “Frisco” by the way

so keep that in mind)

and they really want to kill them some Chinese people

so they show up in Chinatown, bout to bust some skulls

and who’s standing there

rudely obstructing their murder route?

EMPEROR FUCKING NORTON

OBVIOUSLY

THIS IS A STORY ABOUT EMPEROR NORTON

KEEP UP.

Norton just stands in front of these rioters with his head down

and fucking prays at them until they feel awkward and go away.

Then he goes back to selling bullshit royal bonds to tourists.

Emperor Norton is like most people in that he eventually dies.

It’s a bummer, but he lived a pretty good life

and somewhere between 10 and 30 thousand people show up to his funeral

which is somewhere between 7 and 20 percent of the city at that time

oh, and do you remember that bridge he ordered built?

LOOKS LIKE IT GOT BUILT AFTER ALL

SIXTY YEARS LATER

THANKS ENTIRELY TO EMPEROR NORTON AND NO ONE ELSE

also I imagine there are some Chinese people who are happy they weren’t murdered.

That’s a pretty solid legacy

i gotta say.

I think the moral of this story is one we can all appreciate:

when life gives you lemons

declare yourself emperor

issue a proprietary currency

and then use that currency to buy lemonade.