How to Celebrate Presidents’ Birthdays, Part 1

Washington and Lincoln have their birthdays celebrated in February, but unbeknownst to most Americans is when and how to celebrate the birthdays of the other presidents. This handy list should fit perfectly on refrigerators or taped to calendars.

January 7 – Millard Fillmore: Be a dick to everyone.
January 9 – Richard Nixon: Plant a tree. Or, protect a tree if it’s too cold out.
January 29 – William McKinley: Annex a series of tiny islands.
January 30 – Franklin D. Roosevelt: Do something fun and keep at it.
February 6 – Ronald Reagan: Have a movie marathon. Or sell some weapons to an Iranian.
February 9 – William Henry Harrison: Plan something, but stop doing it way too early.
March 15 – Andrew Jackson: Do what you feel like.
March 16 – James Madison: Confirm the fact that your parents can’t claim you as a dependent anymore by attempting to take control of their shed.
March 18 – Grover Cleveland: Grill the biggest burgers you can find. Do that for lunch, take a break, then do it for dinner as well.
March 29 – John Tyler: Create the circumstances to have a grandchild alive 150 years after your death.
April 13 – Thomas Jefferson: Buy a significant portion of land from the French. Or get to know a black lady.
April 23 – James Buchanan: Pick a fight with some Mormons.
April 27 – Ulysses S. Grant: Spend time with friends.
April 28 – James Monroe: Have some good feelings.
May 8 – Harry S Truman: Do something unexpected of you.
May 29 – John F. Kennedy: Remember the moon.
June 12 – George HW Bush: Note that today is the only presidential birthday in June, find it slightly interesting, and then forget it.
July 4 – Calvin Coolidge: Typical Independence Day fare, just be very quiet about it.

Presidents who Stole Your Girlfriend

-John Quincy Adams (had a swimmer’s body)
-Franklin Pierce (did it because he could)
-James Buchanan (it was an accident)
-James A. Garfield (let his biceps do the talking)
-Calvin Coolidge (it’s always the quiet ones)
-Bill Clinton (well, duh)

A Selection of Presidents who Dislike this Blog

-John Quincy Adams (“Jackson is hardly as cool as he’s portrayed.”)
-James Buchanan (“This journal is not a good thing, however I find myself powerless to stop it.”)
-John F. Kennedy (“I, er uh, was not mentioned in this blog ’til a year after it started.”)
-Millard Fillmore (he’s just a dick)

Presidents’ Favorite Books

Dwight D. Eisenhower: Great Expectations

Rutherford B. Hayes: Moby Dick

James Buchanan: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Leadership

Warren G. Harding: Gravity’s Rainbow

Presidential Rankings Based on Google Search Results

Here’s an interesting bit of information: the following list is how the presidents are ranked based on the number of results returned on Google for the search term “president x” where x equals the president’s first and last name. There are definitely some surprises (11.5 million for John Tyler?) and some not-so-surprises (Lincoln, Washington, Kennedy in the top 10).

Also, these results are just for those presidents no longer living. Clinton’s 25-million+ would have skewed the rankings, and we would not want that. Why? There’s so much more we can do with this information. Check LP tomorrow and see.

(accessed April 12-13, 2010)

1. Abraham Lincoln … 22.8 million
2. George Washington … 22.6 million
3. Thomas Jefferson … 15.7 million
4. Andrew Jackson … 16 million
5. James Madison … 15.8 million
6. Franklin D. Roosevelt … 13.5 million*
7. Andrew Johnson … 13.2 million
8. John F. Kennedy … 13 million**
9. John Tyler … 11.5 million
10. Theodore Roosevelt … 6.72 million***
11. Woodrow Wilson … 5.57 million
12. Dwight D. Eisenhower … 5.4 million
13. Richard Nixon … 4.37 million
14. James Knox Polk … 4.17 million
15. James Monroe … 3.71 million
16. Ronald Reagan … 3.19 million
17. Lyndon Johnson … 2.8 million
18. James Buchanan … 2.37 million
19. John Adams … 2.23 million
20. Benjamin Harrison … 2.17 million
21. Gerald Ford … 2.08 million
22. Herbert Hoover … 2.08 million
23. John Quincy Adams … 2 million
24. Franklin Pierce … 1.96 million
25. Zachary Taylor … 1.52 million
26. William Henry Harrison … 1.46 million
27. James Garfield … 1.37 million
28. William McKinley … 1.3 million
29. Ulysses S. Grant … 1.27 million
30. Grover Cleveland … 1.21 million
31. Harry S Truman … 1.18 million
32. Martin van Buren … 952,000
33. William Howard Taft … 868,000
34. Calvin Coolidge … 864,000
35. Warren G. Harding … 804,000
36. Rutherford B. Hayes … 539,000
37. Chester A. Arthur … 301,000****
38. Millard Fillmore … 254,000

*as Franklin Delano Roosevelt
** as John Kennedy
***as Teddy Roosevelt
****as Chester Arthur

Presidents whose Names Could Be Used as Football Plays

-The Right Lincoln Sneak: while all the attention is on a run up the middle, the halfback sneaks the ball under the cover of night along a different route to the end zone
-LBJ Fly: receiver runs a fly pattern during which he takes the presidential oath of office
-FDR Screen: quarterback rolls to his right, but sadly his head coach dies before the end of the big game
-The Buchanan: team takes field, snaps the ball, and then does nothing because they running a play will just make the defense and their fans not like them, although they believe history will vindicate the move

Presidents with the Strangest Nicknames

-Iron Butt (Richard Nixon)
-Uncle Cornpone (Lyndon Johnson)
-Wobbly Warren (Warren G. Harding)
-The Human Iceberg* (Benjamin Harrison)
-Uncle Jumbo (Grover Cleveland)
-Ten-Cent Jimmie (James Buchanan)
-His Rotundity (John Adams)
-Ol’ Woodbiter** (George Washington)

*NOTE: This might actually be kind of kickass.
**NOTE: This is the only fake one…the rest are true for once.

This America Day in History

-1776: Many future presidents sign the Declaration of Independence.
-1804: Thomas Jefferson unintentionally changes history when he reveals to Aaron Burr that Alexander Hamilton was the one who sprayed the “Burr’s a douchebag” graffiti on the walls of the Capitol building
-1820: James Monroe accidentally sets Vice President Daniel D. Tompkins’s house on fire with poorly-constructed homemade fireworks. (Monroe would never confess to it, though he always promised Tompkins that he would “find those British tomfoolers who undoubtedly perpetrated the crime…undoubtedly.”)
-1825: John Q. Adams drunkenly calls up the king of England asking, “Baby, can’t we give this thing another try?” before being hung up on. He then cried, vomited, cried into his vomit, and passed out on his couch holding a map of the British Isles and a light beer.
-1829: Andrew Jackson does some crazy shit.
-1830: Andrew Jackson does some crazy shit.
-1831: Andrew Jackson does some crazy shit.
-1832: Andrew Jackson does some crazy shit.
-1833: Andrew Jackson does some crazy shit.
-1834: Andrew Jackson takes a nap because he has a migraine, yet still manages to shoot someone.
-1835: Andrew Jackson does some crazy shit.
-1836: Andrew Jackson does some crazy shit.
-1837: Andrew Jackson does some crazy shit after breaking into the White House to party with Martin Van Buren.
-1856: Franklin Pierce sets the record for most ladies ever brought back to the White House after a night on the town.
-1858: James Buchanan sets the record for most men ever brought back to the White House after a night on the town.
-1869: Ulysses S. Grant has some friends over to celebrate. They end up staying for eight years.
-1882: Chester A. Arthur wonders why the hell he’s president.
-1898: William McKinley, fulfilling a promise to the US Army, shaves his body and eats a bug for winning the Spanish-American War.
-1901 to 1908: Theodore Roosevelt does things that are so awesome, manly, and patriotic, Congress officially changes the name of the day Teddy Roosevelt Is Awesome Day.
-1913: Woodrow Wilson hangs out with some Civil War veterans, hoping to hear extraordinary war stories. He is slightly disappointed when he is told he’s the one that has to give a talk, not the veterans.
-1929: Herbert Hoover renames Teddy Roosevelt Is Awesome Day by signing the the July 4 Name Act. This is widely regarded as the worst thing Hoover did during his administration.
-1934: Franklin Roosevelt tries to distract the nation from the Great Depression by ski-jumping over a shark. For a day, the country rebounds, but the prosperity quickly ends when someone points out he was sitting in a chair the whole time.
-1967: Lyndon Johnson thinks the fireworks outside are getting a little too close to the White House.
-1979: Jimmy Carter is horrifyingly embarrassed by his brother Billy, who insists on drinking heavily. He stops drinking soon after he passes out on the White House lawn. There were hundreds of witnesses, and the Washington Post reported there were “cans of Billy Beer and peanut shells littering the White House lawn for a day and a half, at which point the president’s brother regained consciousness and urinated on a tree.”
-1982: Ronald Reagan watches Star Wars; he doesn’t get it, but he likes the title.
-1990: George H.W. Bush scolds and then grounds VP Dan Quayle for playing fireworks.
-1996: Bill Clinton has a barbecue with all his rowdy friends. Somehow, a slip-and-slide ends up in a tree. This would remain there for the remainder of his presidency.

Buchanan’s Selected Filmography

-”One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” as Taber
-”Taxi” as Reverend Jim
-”Who Framed Roger Rabbit” as Judge Doom
-”Back to the Future, Parts I-III” as Doc Brown

Conundrums Pondered by Buchanan

-”Well, secession’s illegal, but so’s going to war to stop secession. Shit.”
-”Well, I could take a position on slavery and have one side hate me for it, or I could sit back and let the Supreme Court decide while I’m chastised as being ineffective. Shit.”
-”Well, we could rescue the Kobayashi Maru and start a war, hence being destroyed, or we could leave the Kobayashi Maru and let the crew perish. Shit.”
-”Well, I could write ‘History will vindicate my memory’ and be wrong, or I could do nothing and be regarded as terrible. Dammit.”