COLUMBUS DAY

I’d like to invite anyone whose name ends with a vowel (Persians excluded) to raise their hands, extend their middle fingers, and flip off the Native Americans, the hippies, and everyone else in the International Association of Crybabies who has a piss and a moan about Christopher Columbus.

This is not “indigenous people’s day,” it is not “la dia de la raza” and it isn’t frigging “wear a beret, listen to Joni Mitchell, and wear patchoulli day.”

To the “Native Americans” who have a beef with Columbus Day — suck it. First off, it isn’t as though you sprang from the goddamned earth in Foxwoods. You’re immigrants too. You just wandered across ice to get here. We took boats. You were here first? I give a fuck?

There was a war. You lost. That’s how it works. That’s why the Celts wound up living in Ireland, Scotland, and every shitty rain-soaked crag in which they could cling to life — because they lost wars. That’s why nobody speaks Gaulish or whatever Vercingetorix spoke. They lost the damn war.

Sorry you crybaby fucks. That’s what happens when you LOSE A WAR. Trust me, the Italians know how you feel. We suck at wars. We used to be awesome at them. That ended some time around 400 A.D. Italians are the Chicago Cubs of warfare. (But you’re the Padres)

Tons of us came here to get away from the consequences of being really shitty at fighting wars. It worked out for us. We gave the world the thermometer, barometer, piano, electric battery, nitroglycerin, eyeglasses, the radio, and The Telephone.

We turned ghettoes into neighborhoods where people would kill to have a studio apartment. (Yes, I know that is the Gays’ job now, but it used to be ours) We taught the mayonnaise-faces what good food tastes like. We gave America 39 Medal of Honor recipients. We gave America Filippo Mazzei, John Basilone, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Bruce Springsteen, Vince Lombardi, and Gino the Ginny. You know what their middle names are? “Fuckin” that’s what.

We gave America its NAME for chrissakes.

You know what America gave us in exchange? A holiday. Good enough for us.

And you know what? America didn’t even give it to us, we took it. You know why? Because at the turn of the last century, Italians and other Catholic immigrants weren’t exactly what you would call “welcome” here. Yes, they used to lynch Italians too. So, the Catholics and Italians started organizations like the Knights of Columbus as a way to band together against the bigotry they encountered. They thought that by choosing Christopher Columbus as their symbol, it would show that if an Italian “discovered” America, then as Italians, they belonged here.

So you assholes can run your little left-wing crybaby agenda on any one of the 364 other days. I don’t give a damn if you managed to get every crap stained woodstock love child, fucking peruvian flute band, and liberal academic to weep with you as you look at the pollution on the highway. This is our holiday, and you can kiss my ass if you have a problem with it.

Don’t get me wrong. I generally have nothing but love for my Native American brothers and sisters. I think that they got a crappy deal. I’m with them when they get pissed off at the completely racist Cleveland Indians logo, and I don’t think you should call a team “The Redskins” if you wouldn’t call it “The Jigaboos” (yes, its the same damn thing). I think that America DOES owe the Native Americans a little something — and it ought to be something better than the right to build casinos. We owe them respect, help, and dammit, we ought to put a hell of a lot of effort into preserving their culture. 

But you know what, Tonto? If you have a beef, its with the damn British, the French, the Spanish, and the white-bread assholes who kicked your asses. Lord Jeffrey Amherst gave you the smallpox infected blankets, not Al Pacino. You picked a fight with the wrong people, because the Italians never did jack to you. So get the fuck off my holiday.

Personally, I don’t know why we’re all down on the Conquistadors anyhow. Leonidas killed 20,000 ill-equipped, poorly trained, forced-to-fight losers and we call him a hero for the ages. A couple hundred Spaniards kick the crap out of an entire empire of human sacrificing, child-raping, savage nutbags who make Jerry Falwell look sane, and we think it was an awful sin?

Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 and then your lives started to suck. Boo hoo frigging hoo. The Conquistadors followed Columbus and took all the gold. Yeah that sucks. I got news for you, your lives sucked before Columbus got here.

You know what else sucks? When you screw with our holiday.

So here’s the deal. Take out the calendar. No, not that stupid Mayan one that is going to be worthless next year, the REAL calendar.

You want a holiday? Be my guest. Pick any day on the calendar except October 31, February 14, March 17, January 1, or July 4. I don’t even care if you want Christmas, but picking THAT will be a marketing nightmare.

You know which day would be an awesome Indigenous People’s Day? How about the Friday after Thanksgiving? Most of us have the day off anyhow. The pilgrims wouldn’t have survived without your help. So, the day after Thanksgiving, as we’re all resting up and glad that we have four days in a row off, we can thank you. Thank you for saving the Pilgrims’ asses. Thank you for basketball, and chewing gum, and chocolate. Thank you for potatoes and tomatoes. Thank you for the windtalkers. Thank you for really cool art. Thank you for whatever the hell else you did for us. Thank you for not stabbing every person in a Cleveland Indians shirt. Thank you for not setting off bombs at Redskins games. Thank you for being pretty damn cool about one of the most royal screw jobs in the history of mankind.

But most of all, thank you for quitting your damn bitching about Columbus Day.

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