so i thought i would cunningly segue
from vaguely sea-related shit
to vaguely thanksgiving-related shit
and it turns out that there’s really only one story
fit to fill that extremely necessary niche
and that is the story of one of history’s greatest entrepreneurial sea-jerk
i refer, of course
to CHRISTOFAR COLOMBO

wait shit, that isn’t his name
well that’s cool
Christopher Columbus isn’t his name either
his real name is something like Crystal Balls-Colon
and with a name like that
it is shocking to me that he did not end up as a headliner at the 14th-century’s equivalent of Chippendale’s
let’s just call him Chris

So Chris is a cheese-merchant’s son
who works at his dad’s cheese shop
but unlike most sons of cheese merchants at this time
Christopher Columbus has an EXCELLENT PLAN to make MAD BUXX
you see Chris lives in Western Europe
and Western Europe is fucking CRAZY about opium
and also whatever else China and Japan sell
like tea and silk and nyancats
and up to this point in history this has not been an issue
because dudes from western europe can just walk across eastern europe into china
buy some shit
and walk back
(it takes kind of a long time but whatever)
but then a bunch of dudes start killing each other right in the middle of the walking trail
and everyone from europe is like fuck this
I like getting high slightly less than I like having my organs inside my body
but I still REALLY LIKE getting high
we have to find another way into Asia
HOLY SHIT LET’S USE BOATS

Most of these people try to get Asia by sailing south
around the bottom of africa
and then east
to where asia is
but Christopher Columbus has a different, fiendishly brilliant plan
his plan is to sail WEST
AWAY from where asia is
and then … be in asia

now granted
the world is round or whatever
if you sail far enough west you eventually go off the map and come back on the other side
but see the problem is that china is like twelve thousand miles away if you try to go that way
a problem that Christopher Columbus solves
by doing his math wrong
and concluding that China is actually about 3000 miles to the west
FUCKIN ALL ABOARD THE MOTHERFUCKING SUCCESS TRAIN
WOOO WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

armed with this ambitious and totally legit scheme
Chris does what any modern gentleman would do
he starts looking for venture capital
he looks for it in pretty much every royal court in europe
which is unfortunate for him
because europe at this time seems to be ruled primarily by sane people
he finally ends up in spain
where queen isabella and king ferdinand also say no to him
but for some reason decide to pay him a ludicrous sum of money to stay in spain
either as a court jester
or as a solid to the other rulers he would have bothered with his dumb ideas if they let him run around
but suddenly, after several years
and a million more identical pitches from Christopher
king Ferdinand is like YOU KNOW WHAT
SUDDENLY THIS SOUNDS LIKE A PROFOUNDLY GREAT IDEA
LET’S RIDE THIS FUCKIN SUCCESS TRAIN TOGETHER BABY

here are the terms that Christopher Columbus demands:
1) 10% of the revenue from any place he discovers (which is a pretty standard agent rate)
2) governorship over same lands
3) the title of GREAT ADMIRAL OF THE OCEAN
AND POSEIDON ROLLS IN HIS WATERY GRAVE

So Sea King Columbus sets out on his voyage
he ends up doing four of them
and they go bizarrely fucking well for the guy
like, it turns out there’s land pretty much right where he said it would be
and it’s full of people who sort of look like some of the people he was trying to find
so naturally he calls them Indians
because what else could they be
and then he spends the next decade taxing and mutilating the shit out of these people
his sons help
it’s a bonding experience

pretty soon word gets back to spain about all the mutilating
and in what may be the only recorded instance of anyone in europe being nice to natives
they send an investigator to see if the rumors are true
and duh, they are
so they fire him from being governor and throw him in jail
this is definitely a grand humanitarian gesture
and not just an attempt to not pay Chris the ten percent they owe him
that would be ridiculous
but Chris’s son Diego seems to think that’s what’s up
so he files a bunch of lawsuits against the Spanish crown
which is dumb because it’s hard as shit to sue the government

Chris does get a couple bucks out of the deal
and he also gets to go down in history as the dude who discovered America
and the dude who established that the world was round
and both of those things are totally wrong
but that’s okay
because so was Christopher Columbus

so the moral of the story
is space travel isn’t as hard as all those scientists like to pretend it is
mars is like six blocks away, trust me
and if it isn’t
i bet something even cooler is

the end.