and also he was probably already crazy
so he keeps stealing shit from the natives
and almost throwing axes at them
and being like “Hey, gang
let’s split up!
We’ll cover more ground that way.”
But in spite of Lewis’s bullshit
all but one person makes it back home
and that one dude only doesn’t make it
’cause he decided to keep hanging out in the woods
so that barely even counts
and Thomas Jefferson is like “Nice work.
Time to fill this land with white people!”
and Lewis is like “Okay, cool
glad you’re satisfied
gonna go kill myself if that’s okay.”
and it’s not okay at all, but it’s too late, he’s dead
and then Clark raises Sacagawea’s kid for her
who grows up to be a badass mountain guide
and lives to be like eighty
and then dies on the way to get gold in Colorado
and by that time pretty much everyone else is dead
because that’s how history works.
So basically
what I’m trying to say
is that your cross-country road trip game is weak.
PAUL BUNYAN IS GODZILLA BUT WITH THUMBS
So now we’ve got all this land
but it’s full of all these obnoxious trees.
Somebody’s gotta do something about these trees.
NO PROBLEM, WE GOT LUMBERJACKS.
These are dudes
whose job is to MURDER ENTIRE FORESTS
IN STYLE
and one of the most prolific/preposterous tree-killers
is Paul “Biggie” Bunyan.
Now, I assume you’ve all heard of Paul Bunyan
you know
the single highest concentration of masculinity
ever to exist in one place at one time?
Oh yes
I’m talking about the dude who was SO BIG
that it took four storks to deliver him to his parents
SO BIG
that every time he cried
a swarm of frogs freaked out and fled the local pond
SO BIG
that when he outgrew his crib
his parents put him on a raft off the coast of Maine
because how do you feed a baby that big?
There are many stories about Paul
but since most of them are less stories
and more ridiculous short-form lies
how about instead of trying to reproduce one
I just walk you through a typical year in Paul’s camp:
So you show up to this camp
and it’s huge
like, gargantuan
like, way bigger than it needs to be.
They’ve used as much wood to make this camp
as they plan to cut down this whole goddamn year
and sitting in the middle of all this is Paul Bunyan
who is constantly smoking
(he smokes Peerless brand pipe tobacco, btw
because if there’s one thing he’s good at
it’s being co-opted by advertisers)
and he blows all his smoke toward the West Coast
conveniently giving L.A. an excuse for all that smog.
It’s hella wasteful
welcome to America.
As a logger in this camp, you are one of thousands
and all several thousand of you are lumberjacks
so of course you all need flapjacks
which means this camp is equipped with a griddle
SEVERAL MILES IN DIAMETER
which must be greased daily
by several dudes
with hog-skins strapped to their feet
SKATING ACROSS IT FROM END TO END.
I’M NOT MAKING THIS UP.
(SOMEONE ELSE MADE THIS UP.)
So once you’ve eaten your ridiculous breakfast
you head over to the woods to do some logging
but it’s wintertime, and this is the worst winter ever
(every winter is the worst one ever in these stories).
The snow is deeper than the trees
also it’s blue for some reason
also the ground is littered with FROZEN SNAKES
which you are expected to tie together
and use as sleds for the logs you cut down
which, may I remind you
ARE BURIED UNDER MILES OF BLUE SNOW.
But you do it anyway
because you’re a tough-as-nails lumberjack
and also shit-scared of your enormous boss
and you get back to camp in the evening
to enjoy a hard-earned dinner
which is composed of pea soup
dispensed from an entire lake
which the cook made into pea soup
after accidentally dumping all the peas in there
plus you drink some Irish whiskey
made from potato skins
fermented by the withering gaze of Sour Pete
(who you are not looking forward to bunking with).
Then you go to sleep inside a hollow loaf of bread
along with all the other loggers
because that’s how big the bread is here.
Everything is too big
it’s like Texas, but also ridiculously cold.
It’s only been one day, and you are already tired of it.
So through a combination of pancakes and fury
you make it through the winter of the blue snow
chop down an entire country’s worth of trees
load them onto frozen snakes
and get them into the river
and you’re riding the logs down the river
(this is an actual thing lumberjacks did)
when your logs get all out of whack
and run into each other, and get jammed
(this is the actual origin of the term “logjam”).
So you’re upset, obviously
but you’re also looking forward to the time off
which is when Paul Bunyan shows up
with his giant ox
which is still pissed because the snow dyed it blue
and he puts the ox in the water
and just starts shooting it
over and over again
with a rifle.
And you’re like “Dude what are you doing?”
and he’s like “NO IT’S FINE
SHE JUST THINKS IT’S FLIES”
and sure enough, the ox starts swishing her tail
to get rid of the flies
and it makes the whole river flow backwards
unjamming your logs
and sending you on your way.
A few days later, you’ve finished your logging run
you’re lounging with your bros at the camp
waiting for the season’s pay
when Paul Bunyan comes thundering in
like “GUYS, GUYS
YOU KNOW THOSE TREES WE CUT DOWN?
THOSE WERE GOVERNMENT TREES
WE GOTTA GO, WE GOTTA GO NOW!”
So you freak out, obviously
(you are not going back to jail)
and you grab whatever’s nearby
and book it for the nearest town.
Here’s the thing though:
Paul Bunyan was lying to you
he just didn’t have enough money to pay you guys.
Also, he’s French-Canadian.
I don’t know how you feel about that
but there it is.
The moral here is pretty obvious:
Folk heroes make terrible bosses.
THE BOOK OF MORMON: GREAT MUSICAL, BAD BOOK
Okay, so it’s 600 BC
there’s some Jews hanging out in Jerusalem
’cause where else are they gonna hang out, right?
Oh, wait
how about AMERICA?
Yeah see, this prophet Lehi has a vision
where God is like “DUDES
I MADE THIS GREAT PLACE
IT’S CALLED AMERICA
IT’S JUST SITTING OVER THERE
BETWEEN THE PACIFIC AND THE ATLANTIC
WOEFULLY UN-JEWED.”
So Lehi and his bros get onto a boat
and sail to America
but when they get there, they notice a problem.
It is the same problem that Europeans will notice
when they show up about two thousand years later.
It is this:
America has abundant food and water
the deers and the antelopes are cavorting like hell
amber waves of grain all up ins
they’ve even got purple mountains
where do you find those, outside a hallucination?
AMERICA, THAT’S WHERE.
But there is one thing that America seems to lack:
BRUTAL WARS.
So the colonists are like “We better get on this.”
They split up into two rival factions:
the Nephites and the Lamanites
I think the Nephites are the good guys
but I am too lazy to check.
It seems to me like they’re all pretty sucky though
’cause how are you gonna try and fight a war
after you already traveled a million miles together?
That’s like if I wanted to punch you in the face
and I was like “Hey, man
let’s fly to Singapore”
and then when we got off the plane in Singapore
I punched you in the face.
. . . Okay, you know what
that would actually be hilarious.
Anyway they fight and fight
dudes die, it’s awesome
but this whole time
the Nephites have been writing this shit down
in a book with golden pages.
I dunno how they found the time to get all that gold
seems like they’re pretty busy fighting
but anyway they’re writing and fighting
fighting and writing
in a language that no one else
in the history of anything
has ever heard of
called “reformed Egyptian”
which
from what I can tell
is made up mostly of sideways boobs
exclamation points
and different versions of the letter “T.”
But then all of a sudden
JESUS APPEARS
’cause he just got killed in Rome
and he is taking a vacation in America
before coming back to life.
He sees all these dudes fighting and he is like “WHOA
WHOA WHOA WHOA.
Didn’t you guys get the memo?
No fighting!”
and then he has to explain everything to them
that he already explained to the other Jews
just to get them up to date
and I guess maybe he makes up some other stuff
about how you should have a ton of wives
and wear full-body underwear with holes in it
really solid advice
that he forgot to say the first time.
But all good things must come to an end.
Jesus goes to heaven
and everybody else dies
but not before making sure to bury their golden book
under a hill in upstate New York
you know, for posterity.
CUT TO 1832
some dude named Joe Smith is hanging out
in his house in upstate New York
when all of a sudden God is like “JOE
JOE!!!
THERE’S SOME GOLD PLATES IN THAT HILL.
I HAVE SUDDENLY CHOSEN YOU
TO GO DIG THEM UP.
GOOOOOOOO JOOOOOOOOOOOOE.”
So Joe goes over to the hill
and this angel appears like “’Ey buddy
I’m the angel Moroni.”
(Moroni is one of the guys who wrote the book
the one with the with the gold plates
and also the last name of an Italian mob boss
played by Carl Weintraub on Days of Our Lives.
COINCIDENCE?)
So Joe is pretty impressed
but then the angel is like “Listen up, kiddo
I gots dese plates for youse
but you ain’t gettin’ nada
till you spend four years coming back hereabouts
and taking religion classes with yours truly
CAPISCE?”
And that is exactly what happens
So Joseph finally digs up these golden plates
but like I said
they’re in “Reformed Egyptian”
so it’s not like he can read them, right?
WRONG.
Clearly you have not heard of SEER STONES.
Here is how seer stones work:
Step 1: Take a rock
Step 2: Put the rock in a hat
Step 3: Put your face in the hat
Step 4: TRANSLATION COMPLETE
I am not exaggerating.
For several months Joseph Smith sits in his room
with his face inside a white stovepipe hat
Yes of course Joseph Smith needs investors
not like he could just sell pages
from that GOLDEN BOOK he found
that would be SACRILEGE.
So this goes on for a couple months
with only one false start
which only happens because Martin Harris’s wife
(a confirmed FEMALE)
becomes suspicious of the fact
that no one except Joe has seen the gold book
which he apparently doesn’t need to have with him
in order to translate
and which is written in a fake language
and is made out of gold
and says, amongst other things
that ancient Jews built boats and sailed to America
so she has the audacity to ask to see the translation
and finally does
and then STEALS it
which makes Joe SO MAD
that he decides not to re-translate the part she stole
and instead write a whole other part in two months
and then he has to get his buddy Harris
to take out some more loans to get the book printed
but that doesn’t go so well
and Harris loses his house and his wife
which is okay because his wife sucked anyway.
ANYWAY
people are somewhat reluctant to believe in a book
that was written by staring into a hat full of rocks
but a lot of people are willing to make an exception
because it’s the true word of God/they are bored
at which point the angel Moroni shows up again.
He’s like “Hey, bub
I see you got a nice thing going here in New York
but, see, the trouble with New York
is that it’s not nearly enough like ancient Jerusalem
by which I mean way underpopulated
and dry as a bullfrog’s cooter.
Allow me to direct you
TO SALT LAKE CITY.”
Except he’s actually way more cagey than that
and Joseph dies on the way
without telling anybody exactly where they’re going
and his buddy Brigham Young
(who has a name like an evangelical pedophile)
has to take over and lead them through the desert
until everyone gets sick of wandering around
and is just like “Fuck it
this is where we live now
let’s wear white button-down shirts
and part our hair on the side
and ride bicycles forever and ever.”
AND THAT’S WHERE MORMONS COME FROM.
So the moral of the story is
give a man a fish
and he’ll eat for a day
give a man a hat full of rocks
and he’ll move to a place where there are no fish.
THE TRAIL OF TEARS IS NOT THE NAME OF A LINKIN PARK ALBUM
So Indians . . .
YUP
THEY ARE STILL CALLED INDIANS
and they are still
(despite the best efforts of the colonists)
inhabiting a significant portion of their native lands.
This is a problem, and it must be stopped.
Luckily, President Andrew Jackson has this on lock.
This dude is a war hero
which the country just LOVES
and he is so good at war
that he has a nickname from it:
“Ol’ Hickory”
meaning that he is strict I guess
(actually it sounds like a bondage thing to me).
Anyway, Andy slithers on into the White House
and immediately starts plotting to prank the natives.
He’s like “Hey, [white] guys
remember all those promises we made to the Indians
about how they could keep their land and whatever?
How about
—and I’m just spitballin’ here—
how about fuck those promises.”
And pretty much everybody in Congress
most of whom stand to gain from this
is like “Hell yeah, kick ’em out!”
This screws over a whole lot of tribes
but for the sake of time
let’s focus on a prime example:
the Cherokee Nation.