Ten Little-Known Facts About John Adams

I missed the opportunity a couple Fridays ago, on October 30, to celebrate the 274th birthday of John Adams, one of my all-time favorite presidents. Here are some fun facts about the man.

1. When his sailing ship to France nearly capsized in rough seas, used his pantaloons to create impromptu inflatable life raft. Then accidentally popped it with his razor-sharp toenails.
2. Routinely hid George Washington’s teeth before big speeches.
3. Ironically enough, though he abhorred slavery, he loved nothing more than writing letters to good friends.
4. On separate occasions, shared a bed with Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Labyrinth-era David Bowie.
5. Was the first president to (1) live in the White House, (2) do away with his powdered wig, and (3) to make it to the buffet table.
6. Bowling legend Dick Weber won his third PBA title whilst using a life mask of an 87-year old John Adams in place of a ball.
7. Invented “twooting,” a childish bed prank where a person farts into his hand, sucks the fart into his mouth, then blows it into the face of his bed partner.*
8. Died July 4, 1826, the same day as Thomas Jefferson. But rock ’n’ roll will never die. It is here to stay.
9. Before settling on “Peacefield” as the name for his estate’s garden, played around with the names “The Land of Milk and Hiney”, “Tee-hee, George Washington Wants To Mount Vernon”, and “Shitfarm.”
10. Was misled by the authors of the Alien and Sedition Acts which he endorsed. Sincerely believed that Martians were planning an insurrection on the U.S. government.
    

* Confirmed by the memoirs of Abigail Adams and Labyrinth-era David Bowie.

When in the Course of Human Events

On July 4, 1776, John Hancock led the Second Continental Congress in adopting the final wording of the Declaration of Independence. Today, we think of the Fourth of July as a day of fireworks, hot dogs, beer, and a group of middle-schoolers butchering "God Bless America" before a baseball game. On this July 4th, I want you to put all that aside and think about that day in the summer of 1776 when the whole wide world turned upside down.

Thomas Jefferson awoke on July 4, 1776, boiling as hot as the Philadelphia summer morning. He was still seething over the weeks the Congress had spent butchering his beloved document, revising the language and toning down the vitriol. Jefferson was angered most by the removal of the anti-slavery section, a move demanded by the southern delegations. This morning, he was still so angry that he barely touched the toast, eggs, and coffee prepared by his trusty slave Jupiter. Jefferson dressed, assisted by his able slave Caesar, before mounting his horse, with the help of his longtime slave Erasmus, for the ride to Congress, all the while wondering how a nation that condoned African servitude could survive.

Jefferson had barely rode two blocks when he was intercepted by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Elbridge Gerry. The four patriots stopped into a coffeehouse to prepare for the momentous day ahead of them. Adams spoke of disturbing news from the battlefield in New York where the war was going poorly for the Continental troops. Franklin regaled his comrades with the tale of his evening with a prostitute named Sweet Fanny, describing his signature move "the Franklin stove," a maneuver as vile as it was physically dangerous. Gerry then bemoaned the effect the war was having on the shipping business in his native Marblehead, Massachusetts. Jefferson then berated Gerry for the preponderance of slave ships that called the port home, telling him that true gentlemen avoided such commerce, preferring the laborious task of planting, as Jefferson did at Monticello (with minuscule assistance from the more than 300 slaves that worked the estate).

Finally, the four joined the rest of the Congress at the fortuitously named Independence Hall. John Hancock called the session to order, Charles Thomson called the roll, and Caesar Rodney gobbed on Thomas McKean's shoe buckle. John Adams stood and asked for a final vote, Edmund Rutledge seconded, John Witherspoon said a prayer, and Samuel Adams passed around a jug of his Summer Ale.

Hancock was the first to sign the document, writing his name ridiculously large so that "King George can read it without his spectacles, even if the Declaration is lying on Michigan Avenue and George is reading it from the top of the Me Building." Franklin steadied a nervous Thomas Lynch, saying "we must all hang together or most assuredly we shall all hang separately. Speaking of hanging together, who wants to take part in a gangbang at my place?" The signing continued as Samuel Adams passed around more of his homebrew, causing a drunken Francis Hopkinson to sign the Declaration as "Hugh G. Rection."

Those 56 men had begun the day as Englishmen and were ending it as Americans. This fact weighed heavily on each of them as they all stood in line at Franklin's place waiting to stick their liberty poles into Sweet Fanny. All of them except Jefferson. He only raped slaves.

I hope you will take two things from my story:
1.) I love America.
2.) Thomas Jefferson was an asshole.
Happy Independence Day.