The Years Have Not Been Kind

Amerigo Vespucci was a punk. There. I said it. On the fourth of July.

What would he care? Dude was Italian, after all. He would no more have wanted to hang with James Madison that you would. Now that guy was short. Teeny, really. Shortest United States President ever. Shorter by nearly a foot than his best butt buddy Jefferson. He could barely look over the Official Presidential Podium. They made him stand on a milk crate. In fact, one of the first crises of his presidency was when Charles C. Pinckney stole the milk crate during Madison's first two months. For this, you know, Pinckney was kneecapped by the Secret Service.

Of course, Vespucci was also a notorious firebug, so he probably would've loved to be at the White House when the British burned it down. So maybe he would've enjoyed having a slice of pizza & laughing laughing laughing at shrimp boat Madison while the mansion was in flames. But one shouldn't speculate about such things, not on America's birthday.

Vespucci also was fond of what would later be called "Cartesian Erotica," because Descartes made it popular at the court of Louis the thirteenth. But neither Vespucci nor Descartes really knew that that smut wasn't French nor Italian in origin, but Manichaean, originating in the more perverse writings of the bawdy upper class of the Sassanid Empire. It surpassed the rather tame Catholic porn of the time, which inevitably had to have the Pope involved, or at least an abbott with a strap-on. So while it was a step up, it most certainly wasn't as much fun as Boccaccio. That mofo knew how to throw down.

If you must celebrate the lucky sumbitch who got two continents named after him, not to mention a country sort of, go ahead. No one's stopping you. I know he wrote a few really good songs that emo bands cover regularly (although no one has ever really done a really good cover of his hit single "I Got Them Ain't No Way It's Asia, They'd Rather Believe Henry The Navigator, But Fuck Me If It's Not A Fourth Continent Blues") & I know he invented the shrug, but he was a punk. That's all I'm saying.