From The Lost Brag of Herastides

A plague killed all the men in my village on the day I was born. I have a signet ring that counts as valid postage in ninety countries. I am responsible for the Tudors, but I wash my hands of the Stewarts. I founded the watchmaker’s union. I was engaged briefly to the woman who posed for the Statue of Liberty, and let us merely say that the torch she carries is not for freedom alone. I put the ram in the rama-lama-ding-dong, then all of a sudden I pulled it out and held it above my head, screaming that I would destroy it if all my demands were not met. I really carve up the slopes. I found a loophole in the metric system and auctioned it off to the highest bidder. I signed off on the Maginot line. I play a nearly flawless game of Candy Land. First, I’ll take Manhattan, then I’ll take Berlin.

I travel in a tiny invisible train, chugging its way through all the major historical events in presidential history; that puff of smoke on the grassy knoll was no second gunman, it was just me and my tiny invisible train, huffing and puffing up the hill with a can-do attitude.

I have more ears than you would expect me to have, but fewer fingers than you might suppose. I stabilized a sluggish economy through sheer chutzpah. I shook my fist at Poseidon and in doing so won his respect, as well as a bet I had made while drunk. In order to solve the limestone shortage in ancient Egypt, I suggested, “why not just make them pyramids instead?” I have crossed every item off my list. When I am being tailed, I always keep my cool. I do my best to perpetuate the phallo-fascist misogynarchy through subliminal messages and secret ingredients. I made certain promises, and I intend to keep them. I wrestled Hemingway, I pimp-slapped Goering, and I laughed derisively at the Burghers of Calais. I administered the control group during the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. I introduced punk rock to the masses, or rather, I played punk rock during Mass. What, in the end, is the difference?