The Circumnavigation of Cleveland

Myth:  Magellan – Ferdinand Magellan – a name that resonates so loudly in pages of history.  One of the most celebrated and esteemed explorers of his era; he was the first man to cross from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, as well as the first to successfully navigate the entirety of the Pacific.  More specifically, the Portuguese Magellan was the master of the ships that circumnavigated the vast seas of this Earth – sadly he was not alive to see this tremendous feat accomplished.  While stopping in the Philippines to restock necessary supplies as well as to converse with friendly locals, including the king of Cebu, he attempted to Christianize a group of unwilling, warring Filipinos, ultimately leading to his death at their hands.  Of the 237 crewmen who departed from Seville in 1519, only 18 returned to Seville in 1522.

Fact:  As facts concerning Columbus’s own navigation and historical misinterpretations come to light, it seems inevitable that Magellan’s own points of landing, routes and tactics be disputed.  To put it bluntly, Magellan was not even close to the first successful circumnavigation of our globe.  Due to ineffective navigation and Magellan’s own slothfulness, the crew that set out from Seville quickly turned northward on the Atlantic ending up at the mouth of the St. Lawrence river in present day Quebec.  One of the German crewmen – true to his German nature and taking notes on everyday occurrences, while drawing sketches of more aerodynamic and efficient clipper ships – recorded one of Magellan’s deceitful conversations:  “Christy [referring to Christopher Columbus in a disparaging manner] did the same damn thing.  I heard he spent the majority of his exploration in Nice, France drinking Chardonnay.  Look at him now.  We’ve come this far – we deserve the rest.  And frankly, I’m sick of having sex with men.  The French always look into my eyes during copulation; it’s getting to me.  We wait a few years and come back heroes.”  Magellan had falsely named the Pacific Ocean (peaceful sea) as a means to feign further navigation and because the only source he had was the peaceful Lake Erie on which he was know anchored.  Lying about the serene, tropical locales he was visiting, he looked upon a landmass that would later become Cleveland and wrote:  “Such beauty lies before my eyes.  Abundant in resources and filled with gregarious natives, I can only assume that this small village will one day be one of the most important cities in centuries to come.”  Bored of life on the ship, Magellan decided to dock in ancient Cleveland and communicate with the locals.  Things started off amicably between the European explorers and the native steelworkers, until Magellan made a colossal faux pas:  he began talking of his native sport of soccer.  This sent the barbarous steelworkers into a rage. And so in hopes of allaying the situation, Magellan quickly changed subjects and began discussing the “the awful Cavalier-like attitude of some of his shipmates; some of whom he had to trade away for men who were less Cavalier.”  “And these Indians that abound in this area, what a bunch of inept players in this world.”  Magellan was immediately slain along with majority of his crew.  His shipmates quickly boarded ship and headed back to Spain with the falsified story of the Battle of Mactan in the Philippines.  He had died valiantly, according to his faithful crew.  Ironically, Magellan had died by inadvertent insult at the Battle of Cleveland

Dead Presidents

Myth:  The United States of America has seen forty-four presidents enter and leave office, whether by their own accord, term limits, illness or assassination.  Since 1789, when George Washington was sworn in, this young nation has seen a vast array of personalities and politics.  One of the most highly esteemed positions in the modern world, the US presidency has at times earned the title of “leader of the free world.”  Through an intricate system of succession, the US presidency was and is always intact, from the assassination of Abraham Lincoln to the resignation of Richard M. Nixon.  Some valiant soul will always take the helm of one of the most stressful, and yet revered, jobs in the Western World.

Fact:  There have in fact been fewer than forty-four presidents of the United States, and one must look no further then one’s own mind.  Can you list all of the Presidents of the United States?  No, you can’t.  There are indeed forty-four names occupying our history textbooks, but about half of the names are false – persons invented to prove to the rest of the world that we, the USA, were always a legitimate international power.  There were periods between magnificent and chaotic eras in US History that were just plain boring, and no man wanted to occupy the position during one of these, as I like to call, Prozac Periods.  How would one stack themselves up against Washington or Lincoln by saying, “I presided over the period of time when the Ferris Wheel was invented and jobs were stable.  No. No.  There were no wars.  I said the Ferris Wheel.  Isn’t that cool.  Right?”  There are also glaring lies concocted by politicians to increase the excitement of a specific era.  For example, after the presidency of Van Buren (yes, the Little Magician himself) the US hit its first Prozac Period and had to invent minor troubles that weren’t actually happening in order to boost the relevance of the young nation.  The Mexican-American War, which supposedly took place from 1846 to1848 under the supervision of President James K. Polk (fake president), was concocted merely to prove to the British and French Empires that they were involved in the world and not stagnating.  It is unbelievable that no other historian besides myself has noticed the obviously fabricated Mexican General names, a clear indicator of a false war.  For instance, the leader of the Mexican forces was General Brown Guy Taco Bell Chihuahua.  The American politicians became lazy during these lazy times, unable to adequately cover their tracks.  Another Prozac Period occurred after the assassination of Lincoln and the end of the Civil War.  Ulysses S. Grant, leader of the Union forces during the war, was purportedly the 18^th President of the US.  In actuality, Grant had died several years before he had “taken office” and a puppet scheme a la Weekend at Bernie’s ensued.  Three midgets were always hidden in the then “obese” Grant in order to move his arms, legs and mouth.  The last Prozac Period ended with the true election of FDR, after the false presidencies of Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover (the inventor of these names was FDR himself, a man who fancied alliteration).  So, the next time you can’t remember Rutherford B. Hayes or Franklin Pierce, do not worry, for they were never real. 

Peanut Racism

Myth:  George Washington Carver, the brilliant and humble African-American scientist, botanist and educator, was born into slavery in Missouri in 1864, just shy of abolition.  After many dangerous escapes, Carver became free near the end of the Civil War.  An inherently talented individual, Carver gravitated toward science as a means to aid in the reconstruction of the South that lay in ruins.  Though he is most notably remembered for the invention of peanut butter – a substance that had already existed for centuries – he was a man who invented such things ranging from instant coffee to necessary dyes to buttermilk.  More importantly, Carver was an avid humanitarian concerned with the well being of poor farmers, both black and white, who attempted to rebuild their lives during the atrocities of Reconstruction.  An inductee into the Royal Academy of Arts & Sciences in London and member of the famed Tuskegee Academy, he was a true renaissance man, nicknamed the “Black Leonardo da Vinci” in 1941.

Fact:  It is hard fact that Carver was a brilliant botanist and overall extraordinary human being, but his work with peanuts he was so famous for, was but a sick and twisted backlash from bitter whites living in the destitute conditions following the American Civil War.  Carver did introduce various other crops as a way to replenish the land from the effects of the incessant planting of cotton, but peanuts were certainly not on his list.  He had been born with a severe peanut allergy, an affliction that came to light while eating at a Waffle House when he was only six years old.  He had ordered his hash browns “smothered” and “covered,” but somehow the order had become “peanuted,” and he found himself in the hospital some thirty minutes later.  Years later, some Ole Miss graduates had discovered Washington’s nasty affliction.  Since they were mere Communications majors*, the Southern job market at the time offered no chances for life improvement, so they directed their bitterness on the black population – notoriously so on the nerdy Carver.  It must be stressed that many of the racist attacks during Reconstruction were executed by white men with degrees ranging from Communications to Geography to Business Administration.  Carver vividly noted the first account with these good ol’ boys in his memoirs:  “I was walking in downtown Jackson, carrying a textbook on Advanced Botany when I noticed three white boys approaching me.  One was carrying a thin book with the title Mass Communication During the 20^th Century scribbled poorly across the front.  ‘You think you smarter than us or somethin’, boy,’ one had barked rudely.  I simply replied ‘Yes.’  This sent them into a rage, but after a few moments one of them wryly smiled and said, ‘Heard you ain’t got the stomach for the ‘nut…every man got the stomach for the ‘nut…well, we gonna make you get the stomach for the ‘nut.’  I said they might reconsider their choice of words, but that only angered them further.”  Carver was subjected to the tortures of working with peanuts because of these three cowards, and his name would be invariably linked with the legume he so despised.  All in all, Carver came out only somewhat tainted, but those were times of chaos and he accepted it.  In a twist of irony, Carver later found out that all three men had died some years later after their peanut bullying due to overindulgence in milk – good ol’ fashioned white milk.  They were all severely lactose intolerant.

*Apologies to anyone with a degree in Communications – namely my girlfriend, Jenny Smith.

The Black Toenails of the Vikings

Myth:  The Vikings, a group composed of various Scandinavian ethnicities, is the general title bestowed upon a peoples prevalent during the late Dark Ages to the early Middle Ages.  The Vikings are often characterized as a brutal and warring people, composed of merchants, pirates, marauders and explorers, conquering and settling many areas of Europe and the North Atlantic.  Using their infamous longships, the Vikings traveled as far east as Constantinople and parts of Russia – not to mention the possibility of being the first Europeans to discover the Americas more than four centuries before Columbus’ famed voyage.

Fact:  The Vikings were a misunderstood tribe, not comprised of burly, bearded men as popular lore suggests, but rather a rag tag gathering of scrawny, brooding, acne-prone teenagers.  They were, in the crudest sense, the first Goth kids the world would see.  Coming from all walks of life, contradicting the earlier notion that most were of Norse stock, these depressed teenagers, often from broken homes, went north to be with their own.  A manuscript found in present day Portugal details the emigration of one noble family’s troubled youngest son to present day Sweden:  “Our youngest, Franco de Brofila, has decided, after the divorce of our parents, to head to the gloomiest region of our continent.  He has, shockingly, changed his name to Frank the Bloody Crow and taken a liking to Scandinavia’s native tongues.  Today he leaves with several others carrying nothing but his poetry.”  Scandinavia became a haven for once wealthy heirs submitting to their hormones.  But what of the brutal pillaging that has entertained imaginations over the centuries?  This can be answered simply.  After a century of emigration to the morose environment of the Norse world, many of the adolescents became jaded as the population grew exponentially.  In short, it simply wasn’t cool to live in Scandinavia anymore – posers had tainted the area.  After about a century, the Viking children began to fracture into sects, each vying to find the darkest place on earth, a place so dark that the poetry and off-key, simple guitar chords would simply flow from one’s fingernails.  So, they departed.  Many of the inhabitants the Vikings came across felt sorry for these disillusioned youngsters and told stories of their brawn and cunning so as to boost their broken egos.  Many even adopted some of these lost youth.  Leif Ericson’s (Leif Ericson translates into “Lover of Manson” in English) adoptive mother was so compassionate that she managed put her adopted son in the history books as a possible original discoverer of North America.  Her recently discovered diary says otherwise:  “He was a meek little thing, weighing only about 5 logs [about 90 pounds] and ate only Fritos most of the day.  But he had a sweet side, and I accepted him as my own.”

Bro Trip: 1804

Myth:  The Lewis and Clark Expedition, commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson and led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, was an epic journey to the Pacific Northwest in order to more firmly secure the United States’ discovery rights of the area.  Furthermore, Jefferson wished to find a water-navigable route in the newly garnered Louisiana Purchase for the purposes of commerce.  By intricately mapping the area covered and noting the ample resources of the West, Lewis and Clark were major players in what would later be described as Manifest Destiny – the bold endeavor to reign over the present-day lower forty-eight states of America.

Fact:  Meriwether Lewis had just been dumped by his girlfriend of seven years, and to add insult to injury, his girlfriend had parted by saying in a mocking tone, “And I’ve been cheating on you with a real man, with a real name – Meriwether.”  His roommate of ten years, William Clark, noticed a drastic change in his friend’s behavior after the breakup.  Though it was a natural response to be depressed, Clark became alarmed when he found Lewis sobbing in the shower, attempting to carve out his Old English tattoo of his birth name that ran vertically down the back of his arm.  Clark knew just what to do:  Bro Trip!  Short on cash, Clark went to see his old William & Mary College pal and lacrosse teammate, Thomas Jefferson, for a “government advance” on Clark’s proposed trip.  Jefferson completely understood, since he himself had had lady troubles since his sophomore year at William & Mary when a lacrosse party went awry and a Miss Sally Hemmings, the entertainer for that evening, entered his life.  Clark wanted Lewis to see what else was out there:  “There’s more than just white girls out there, Lewis.  White girls looking for Episcopal men with good social standing and law degrees, doing some purveying on the side.  I want you to see red, my friend.”  With government money, the two explorers “bro’d” it up for two years:  Rafting, surveying the land, swapping spit with the local tribeswomen and playing the most popular game of that era – Fart on a Bear and Get Away Before It Kills You.  Halfway into the trip, Lewis met the girl of his dreams.  Sacagawea.  Lewis didn’t care what others thought about his forbidden relationship, and he subsequently planted himself in the Pacific Northwest, opening a Gluten-Free coffee shop entitled Sack-a-good-beans-for-ya.  An old-fashioned bro-trip had mended a broken heart and secured the US’s rights on the frontier of the new nation.

Everything's Bigger in Texas

Myth:  Remember the Alamo.  A statement ingrained in the American psyche, highlighting the courageous efforts of a few hundred Texans repelling the attacks of several thousand Mexicans at the famed Alamo mission building until their subsequent slaughter on March 6, 1836.  Two weeks had passed before the Mexican troops were able to execute their prey.  It was a modern-day Thermopylae.  Such American legends as Davy Crockett and James Bowie were present that fateful day, dying for the expansion of their beloved United States and the new Republic of Texas.  Those Texans exemplified the American spirit and tenacity that would vault the fledgling nation into the status of “Superpower” a century later.

Fact:  The Alamo was not a Christian mission building as most believe it to be – it was in fact the first established On the Border – an extremely mediocre Tex-Mex chain that now sits near movie theaters nationwide.  James Bowie – inventor of the Bowie knife and ancestor of the British sensation David Bowie – came up with idea while eating squirrel meat near the Alamo premises.  With David Bowie-like flair, James said the following:  “I can’t eat this shit anymore.  Maybe Crockett can because he’s a bona fide hick.  What’s with the coonskin hat anyway – he looks like a gay Canadian lumberjack.  Doesn’t matter.  I want some real food.  Maybe we could utilize some of the ingredients of our enemies, but take all of the nasty out if it.  You know what I mean?  Meat and cheese without all that gas-inducing rubbish they put on it.  I know it sounds bland, but people will pay for this.”  Within a few weeks, about a hundred lower-class Texans came to garrison the Alamo in exchange for two Margarita and Nacho Nights a week.  Bowie, though a Kentuckian by birth, had essentially created the Texan ideal within a matter of weeks:  All portions were larger than most restaurants; Mexican food was bastardized into it’s present-day white, Tex-Mex form; and the mentality that they had created something unique within their United States identity led all Texans to believe they were a special breed.  After hearing of this gastronomic blasphemy, President General Antonio López de Santa Anna – leader of the Mexican forces – initiated an attack on the newly founded establishment.  “Let no man who has defiled our national cookery be taken alive.  Kill them all,” he had barked.  Once the garrison/white-trash restaurant had been infiltrated, it is said that the General came upon Bowie while he was using the toilet and said with a laugh:  “Everything’s bigger in Texas my ass.”  Bowie was swiftly cut down. 

The Old Switcheroo

Myth:  Adolf Hitler, the Austrian-German born political leader and, ultimately, one of the most justly vilified dictators of the 20^th century, was elected Chancellor of Germany in 1933, replacing the slipshod Weimar Republic.  Running on a platform of pro-German ideals, anti-Semitism and anti-capitalism, Hitler vaulted the world into its second world war – not to mention being one of the masterminds behind the slaughter of some six million European Jews.  As World War II neared an end, and the German Third Reich began to crumble, Hitler took his own life on April 30^th, 1945, as the German and Axis powers capitulated some weeks later.

Fact:  It is true that the real Adolf Hitler was an insidious anti-Semite, but his anti-Semitism knew some boundaries, for he was also somewhat of a gentle soul – an artistic soul.  It is common knowledge that Hitler attempted painting as a career before entering into politics, but his rather quick turn from the life of an artist to the life of a mass murderer and prolific propagandist is puzzling.  And while it is true that Hitler was a mediocre painter, his cartooning skills were unparalleled.  At the time, Hollywood was a buzzing scene searching for the next great animator/cartoonist, and young man from the area, somewhat similar in appearance to Hitler, took an interest in Adolf’s work.  This man was none other than Walt Disney.  Disney, contrary to popular belief, was a terrible animator, but he did surpass Hitler in one way – his hatred for the Jews.  During a trip to Hollywood in 1925, Hitler and Disney proposed a plan that would forever change the face of the world.  Since Disney had taken German during high school, he simply needed some brushing up before becoming fluent in his “adopted” mother tongue.  And since no Hollywood producer, even to this day, paid attention to the their underlings, Hitler’s thick Austrian accent would go unnoticed for decades.  Disney and Hitler had planned the ultimate switcheroo.  Hitler, yearning to make his mark in the artistic community, decided to take on the name Walt Disney since Germans during this period of time were somewhat frowned upon in Hollywood.  And Disney, a three-time debate state champion, itched for a chance to utilize his skills of politics and persuasion in a climate ripe for such an endeavor – Germany.  Hitler was indeed imprisoned for one year between 1923 and 1924 after a failed coup, he did not write the infamous book known as Mein Kampf (or My Struggle), but rather he spent this time doodling what would become his most famous character – Mickey Mouse.  Mein Kampf was actually a work written by Disney in one evening after a rather intense encounter with a cartoon producer named Shlomo Epstein.

Washington's Wood

Myth:  George Washington, America’s first president of the United States and celebrated war hero, is one of the most glorified men in American History – not to mention other parts of the world as well.  An imposing figure at over six feet in height and stoic in demeanor, Washington was the epitome of American grit and drive, wooden teeth and all.  A staunch advocate of an America with no political parties, he underscored the importance of unity and the upholding of the American Constitution.

Fact:  Since only a few men knew of George Washington’s true character, the following may be shocking:  George Washington, the archetype of Americanism, was not a man at all.  He was nothing but a fine cut of mahogany, crafted into the form we most fondly know him as.  He was an American “Pinocchio.”  The wooden teeth – a trivial, but fun fact of American History – was just the tip of the iceberg.  The fledgling new nation needed a flawless leader to gain the respect of other international superpowers, such as Great Britain and France.  Prior to the American Revolution, John Adams – a lawyer and amateur carpenter – devised a plan in which the leading figure of the United States would be a puppet of the great minds behind it.  Since late eighteenth century America was defined by a somewhat staid and puritanical culture, the very few movements of “George Washington” would seem simply normal.  Most men assumed he was non-partisan simply because he didn’t say anything.  Ironically, Martha Washington – unaware of Washington’s true nature – often remarked on his “Frenchman-like ability in the bed chambers.”  “He was always, and I mean always, ready for lovemaking,” Martha remarked in her memoirs.*  As his caretaker, John Adams, would change his facial expression on a weekly basis, depending on the trends of the time.  Sadly, in 1799, “George Washington” was struck by lightning near his home in Virginia, leaving a large fracture down the mid-section of his wooden body.  John Adams knew this was the end of America’s glorious, inanimate hero.  Sobbing while he drew closed eyes on Washington’s face, Adams laid his creation, and hero, to rest.

*The term “woody” to describe an erection is a direct reference to George Washington’s makeup