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 Never Existed, part II

-James K. Monroe
-Martin van Beethoven
-Andrew Lincoln
-Andrew Grant
-Andrew Hayes
-Andrew Harrison
-William Jennings Bryan
-William McKinsey

Rap/Hip Hop Lyrics Inspired by Presidents

-Grover Cleveland: “Nothing but a G thing, baby.”
-William McKinley: “Call me Mr. Flintstone, I can make your bed rock.”
-Franklin D. Roosevelt: “They see me rollin’, they hatin’.”
-Richard Nixon: “What you know about that? What you know about that? What you know about that? I know all about that.” (also “It’s tricky to rock a rhyme, to rock a rhyme that’s right on time. It’s tricky.”)

Presidents’ First Choices for Vice President

Due to the nature of party politics, presidents do not always get to run with the people that they would prefer to be their vice presidents. Here is a short list of some people that the presidents would have rather served with:

George Washington: None

Andrew Jackson: Henry Clay-Jackson dreamed about making Henry Clay his vice president so that he could rub Clay’s face in the fact that he was president and Clay was not.

William McKinley: Mark Hanna-McKinley thought that Hanna would be a better vice president than Theodore Roosevelt, who he considered wild and unpredictable. However, some historians believe that Cuba would have invaded the United States in 1902 had Hanna been in the Oval Office.

Richard M. Nixon: Sammy Davis Jr.

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 who Have Been to Scotland but Weren’t Impressed

-William McKinley (preferred Ireland)
-Theodore Roosevelt (nothing for him to conquer)
-Millard Fillmore (he’s kind of a dick)

The Changing Title of McKinley’s Secret Autobiography

-For the Last Time, Sorry about the Tariff: My Life in Politics (1893)

-Fuck Spain: The Life and Times of William McKinley (1898)

-Hawaii, I Got that Bitch: The William McKinley Story (1900)

-Why I Love Buffalo: The William McKinley Story (1901)

-Being Governor of Ohio: The Highlights of My Life (undated last tentative title)

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.