Okay so Paul Bunyan

he’s this really huge guy
who is basically probably the main reason
that lumberjacks are considered badass
TO THIS VERY DAY
because this dude was big

HOW BIG WAS HE?

he was so big
it took three storks to deliver him to his parents
AS A BABY
he was so big
that when he was old enough to laugh and clap his hands
he DESTROYED HIS HOUSE
also at one point he sawed all the legs off his parents’ bed
for some reason
i guess because it was his DESTINY
he was so big
one time he made a fire
and he wanted to put it out
so he stacked rocks on top of it
and now it is called Mount Hood
he was so big
he dragged his axe behind him when he was walking
and made the grand canyon
this guy
was BIG
ok?

but none of that shit compares
to the time paul bunyan tamed the whistling river

ok so there’s this river right
it’s called the whistling river
because as a result of some fucked up natural phenomenon
this river likes to rear up
like a fucking majestic stallion or some shit
and let out a piercing whistle
every day
many times a day

this river is also a total asshole
it breaks up log rafts
it drowns loggers
it does everything a river is not supposed to do
and laughs about it
or i guess whistles about it

but then it fucks up
cause see one day paul bunyan is sitting by the river
prolly eating some flapjacks
when the river rears up
and chucks FOUR HUNDRED AND NINETEEN GALLONS
OF MUDDY WATER
INTO HIS BEARD

now i’m sure i don’t have to tell you
that a lumberjack’s beard
is NOT TO BE TRIFLED WITH
but Paul Bunyan gives the river a pass
he just goes back to his pancakes
and figures the river will behave itself
but no
NOOOOOOOOOOO
that river rears up
and chucks FIVE THOUSAND AND NINETEEN MORE GALLONS
AND SOME TURTLES
AND SOME FISH
AND SOME MUSKRAT
DIRECTLY INTO PAUL BUNYAN’S ALREADY SOAKING WET BEARD
plus his flapjacks are pretty wet

this is the kind of shit any self-respecting lumberjack cannot ignore
so what does paul bunyan do?
does he get up and move someplace where the river can’t soak him
NO
he decides
IM GONNA TAME THAT FUCKING RIVER
but how?
hmmm

So paul bunyan decides to do some thinking
and the way lumberjacks think
is they sit down
and they eat popcorn
for DAYS
paul bunyan eats so much popcorn
that after a week
the air is full of little white popcorn fluff
and the ground is covered with eighteen inches of popcorn scraps
for THREE MILES AROUND
and animals that wander into the area
immediately think it is winter
and freeze to death before they have a chance
to actually think about what they are doing
and the loggers have pot pie materials for weeks
but they also have to clean up all the popcorn scraps
so it evens out i guess

anyway finally paul bunyan leaps up like AHA!
i bet if i took all the kinks out of the river
and made it perfectly straight
it would calm the fuck down

BUT HOW?!
well i’ll just tie it to my massive blue ox
named babe
and she’ll tow it straight
oh but wait
it’s made of water
what am I going to tie my ox to it with
OH I KNOW

so paul bunyan and his ox go to the north pole
and he makes a box trap baited with icicles
and then goes and plays fetch with babe for a while
using GLACIERS
but he has to stop
because he floods florida
so then he goes back to check on his trap
and finds that he has caught SIX BLIZZARDS
man
i wish i had a box big enough to catch six blizzards
i’d open up a blizzard stand
and no one would buy any
because blizzards aren’t really something
you can physically manipulate
they basically just kill you
and ruin your things

but paul bunyan doesn’t see it that way
he lets go all but 2 blizzards
and he takes those back to his logging camp
and has Ole
this big swede
make two huge logging chains
and attach them to the blizzards
and then he goes to the whistling river
and jams the blizzards into it
and freezes it FOR SEVENTEEN MILES
so it is really having a hard time whistling at this point
and then paul hooks the river up to babe
and is like PULL OX PULL

but that river is TOOOOOOO ornery
it won’t budge
even though babe pulls those chains into solid iron bars
and digs ruts into the solid rock she is standing on
with her feet
because she is trying to run SO FAST

so then paul bunyan is like alright
no more bullshit
and grabs the chains too
and he and babe both pull SO HARD
they drag the river free of its banks
and through the prarie
really unpleasantly fast

finally they stop running
and turn around
and see that the river is TOTALLY STRAIGHT GUYS
but it is also somehow much shorter
without all the bends
i guess because all the excess bends material
is scattered all over the prarie
as a result of the VIOLENT WAY
IN WHICH PAUL BUNYAN AND HIS ANIMAL PAL DEVASTATED THE RIVER
so paul bunyan takes all the extra bends
and packs them up
and uses them later
when he needs to float logs
in the middle of the desert
because you get to ignore physics
as long as you are really really big

anyway then the river gets all huffy
because everything that made it the whistling river
and allowed it to be a total asshole
is officially GONE
so it refuses to whistle
and actually
this makes everyone really pissed off at paul bunyan
because they are like DAMMIT
WHAT IS GOING TO WAKE US UP AT THE CRACK OF DAWN NOW
WE ARE LUMBERJACKS
WE NEED TO WAKE UP EARLY AND ALARM CLOCKS DONT EXIST YET

but it turns out to be ok
because along comes this dude named squeaky swanson
with a speaking voice
that is never above a whisper
but a shriek
that can physically LIFT THE BLANKETS OFF EVERYONE IN CAMP
so every day squeaky swanson wakes up at the crack of dawn
and SHRIEKS EVERYONE AWAKE
solving every problem forever

so once again
the real hero of the story is not paul bunyan
who actually ruined the whistling river
and fucked over his campmates
and littered a lot of popcorn scraps all over
and flooded florida
and sawed the legs off his parents’ bed
but rather an unassuming man
with some kind of weird voice problem

so god bless america
home of the little guy
who can yell really loud

The End.

(For a dramatic reading of this myth: YOUTUUUUUBE)

Guys i want to call your attention to something

dont you think it’s weird
that of all the myriad ethnic groups
we have shoehorned together in this great nation
our predominant mythological tradition
is tied to a bunch of ancient dead dudes
whose religion no one even worships anymore?

guys

why do we know so many greek myths guys
if you grow up in sweden
they make you learn norse myths
straight up that is something you have to do
because the swedes
DESCENDED FROM THE NORSE
I AM NOT EVEN ONE EIGHTEENTH GREEK GUYS
WHY DO I KNOW ALL THESE GREEK MYTHS

now i am not denying greek myths are super sweet
there is nothing better
if you want to watch a bunch of asshole children
fuck and kill each other
but i feel like it is my duty as an american
to raise awareness
of some motherfucking AMERICAN MYTHOLOGY UP IN HERE

so here goes

NOW JOHN HENRY WAS A STEEL-DRIVIN’ MAN
do you guys know what that means
that means that he was a dude who worked on a railroad
and his job
was to KILL MOUNTAINS
now the way he did this
was some poor sonofabitch named Little Bill
would hold a steel drill in place against the rock
while john henry BEAT THIS SHIT OUT OF IT
WITH A TWENTY POUND HAMMER
and Bill had to keep turning the drill after every strike
and eventually the drill would get dull
so he had to swap it out
for another drill
that someone would hopefully hand to him about that time
and then they would bring the old drill to a blacksmith
so the blacksmith could fix it
and then bring it back
to bill
so he could switch it out
AGAIN
and meanwhile John Henry’s hammer
is just whistling right past Bill’s junk
or face
or ribs
or wherever he had to hold the drill
in order to make sure the rock was getting brutalized in the right direction
And john henry
for his part
just has to heft a fucking TWENTY POUND HAMMER
over and over again
with perfect accuracy
all day
through solid rock
never stopping
never getting tired
under constant threat of rockslides and disfigurement

so this is this guy’s job

now john henry works for a pack of rat bastards
called the C&O railroad company
i know they are rat bastards
because one day john henry’s railroad team
rolls up on this big fucking mountain
it is a big enough mountain
that it is named Big Bend mountain
so the railroad crew is all like welp
better get ready to go around this mountain huh
and the stupid motherfuckers from C&O
are like NOPE
GOIN’ THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN
STRAIGHT THROUGH
IT IS ONLY LIKE A MILE AND A HALF THICK
YOU GUYS LIKE HAVING JOBS RIGHT
SO DO IT

so they do it
most of these guys are freed slaves
so they don’t exactly have their pick of employment opportunities
this goes double for John Henry
who is not only a freed slave
but also an UNSTOPPABLE BADASS WHO NEVER QUITS
so every day all the steel-drivers go to work
and they fling themselves mercilessly at this mountain
and like 20 people die
and get buried in shallow graves outside the tunnel
people are dying left and right
and up and down
and pretty much any direction you can die in
but john henry just keeps abusing that stone
making a solid ten foot tunnel every day
AT LEAST

so, you know, great for him
but all his friends are still dead
and the dicks at C&O are getting impatient
so when this travelling salesman shows up
all like HEY GUYS I HAVE A STEAM POWERED DRILL MACHINE
IT WILL DRILL THE FUCK OUT OF THIS MOUNTAIN NO PROBLEM
they are like SIGN US UP
and by the way all you people who work for us are fired
ESPECIALLY JOHN HENRY

now john henry is the kind of man
who takes no guff from anybody
it is unreal how little guff this man takes
like if there is a great big pile of guff by the side of the road
and john henry walked by
that pile would remain completely undisturbed
because he would take none of it
so when he sees this guff coming his way
like a shitstorm rockslide avalanche of guff
he just sidesteps that shit
and is like hey travelling salesman
i bet i can drill harder
better
faster
and stronger than your pussyass machine
and the travelling salesman is like YOU’RE ON

so the next day John henry lines up next to this machine
along with his trusty shaker Little Bill
and TWO TWENTY POUND HAMMERS
and they get to work

now this steam drill
is pretty fast
it is like CHUFF CHUFF CHUFF BITCHES
but meanwhile John henry is pretty fast too
all like WAM BAM CLANK DING MOTHERFUCKER
i dont know what hammers sound like
anyway the drill and john are pretty much neck to neck
maybe the drill is even doing a little better
but then it gets STUCK
it gets jammed in a hole in the rock
and john henry just goes grunting and flailing and sweating
FOUTEEN FEET INTO THE HEART OF THAT MOUNTAIN
BAM CLINK CACHANG POW BOOM PEW PEW PEW

so final score:
newfangled steam drill
nine feet
one man armed with nothing but sweat and gumption
and two twenty pound hammers:
fourteen feet
oh wait
did i forget to mention
that since john henry was using two hammers
he drilled TWO HOLES
while the steam drill only made ONE
so really the score was nine to TWENTY FUCKING EIGHT

yeah
but then bad news guys
john henry puts down his hammers
and dies
because he just hammered that rock so hard
he gave himself a fucking stroke
it doesnt say in the ballad
but i like to think
that his last words
were something like

…damn right

anyway then he was dead
so i think they end up using the steam drill anyway
although they have to cancel work for like a week
because everyone is convinced john henry’s ghost lives in the tunnel
also later on
it turns out that the tunnel is notoriously unstable
and it ends up collapsing a ton of times
but none of that matters
because the real hero of this story
is Little Bill
who held two drills
right next to his body
against a solid stone wall
while an absurdly muscular dude
repeatedly charged towards him
flailing two twenty pound hammers
and he kept holding those drills
and turning them
and shaking out the stone debris
and switching out the drills when they got dull
FOR THIRTY FIVE MINUTES
AND TWENTY-EIGHT FEET
and also
lived through the whole thing
didn’t have a stroke
or even shit himself in panic
so let’s hear it for little bill
real American hero

The End

(Coming Thursday: Paul Bunyan)