John T Ford manager of Ford’s Theater where Lincoln was shot and Jerry Seinfeld.

1.  Find a way to harness the power of Haley’s Comet to finally banish Tom Cruise’s ghost to an undisclosed dimension. 

2. Campaign for the election of Abraham Lincoln’s re-animated corpse. 

3. Find the girl from Total Recall with the three boobs and hook up with her. 

4. Donate money to help with the oil spill caused by the sinking of the ship carrying hair gel to the US for President Simon Cowell. 

5. Become a missionary to spread the word of Justin Bieber our lord and savior. 

6. Continue to complain how we still don’t have Jet Packs. 

7. Hyper-Impeach Space President Richard Nixon. 

8. Kill Betty White. 

I don’t really believe in heroes but there has been a few people that I have never had the pleasure of knowing personally that have had a great impact in my life. If Rock N Roll was never created I would have killed myself years ago. Today is the birthday of a man that has dedicated his life to Rock n Roll. His influence on it is so massive that he is ingrained in the DNA of Rock itself. You can hate if you want but when the Beatles were singing I want to Hold your Hand the Stones were singing about spending the night together. He’s 68 years old. His band is about to celebrate their 50 anniversary. He’s outlived half the Ramones, half the Beatles, half The Who and musicians from when i was growing up like Michael Jackson. People have tried to live the way he has but they end up like Johnny Thunders. Nobody but the man himself could live a life the way he is. 
Happy Birthday Keith.

Since the holiday season is approaching I figured it would be a good time to talk about war superstitions. When I heard the story behind three on a match I thought it was an awesome story that only could have come from some incredible war experience.  Some people may have heard that it’s considered bad luck to light three cigarettes off of one match. The superstition is based off stories from WW1. Soldiers claimed that in the darkness if someone lit a match the enemy would see it. If they light another cigarette with the same match the enemy would take aim. And with the third being lit the enemy would fire and kill one of the men. 

Cool story right? Turns out it’s fake. 

There has been no documented stories about the superstition. The story has allegedly been created by a man named Ivar Krueger. Why would this guy create such a badass war story about lighting matches? It all comes down to $ people. Ivar Krueger was a Swedish match tycoon and he invented the story just  so people would use more matches. 

Happy Holidays 

I enjoy this very much. When I was around twelve my mother told me one of her favorite movies was The Deer Hunter. Years later when I finally watched it I realized my mom might be a little bit crazy or just really fucking cool.

1. When Lincoln was running for President he received a letter from an 11-year-old girl from Westfield, NY named Gracie Bedell. In the letter she encouraged Lincoln to grow a beard because she felt his face was to thin, a polite way of saying he was an ugly motherfucker that no one would vote for. Lincoln received the letter, took her advice, and won the Presidency. While traveling to D.C. for the inauguration he stopped in Westfiled and personally thanked the girl for her advice. Lincoln became the first US president to have a beard while in office.

  2. Three days before his was assassinated Lincoln described to his wife and a few friends a dream he had several days ago. In the dream Lincoln was walking around the White House late at night searching for sobbing that he heard. He entered a room and found a casket guarded by soldiers. He asked the soldier whose casket it was. The soldier replied that it was the President’s and an assassin had killed him. Lincoln said he was woken by a loud burst of grief by the solders.

3.Lincoln’s son Robert declined to go to Fords Theater the night his father was assassinated, a decision that haunted him for the rest of his life. Since he would have been sitting behind his father it’s possible he could have prevented Booth from shooting Lincoln, but we’ll never know and either would he. That’s a huge mindfuck. If that wasn’t enough shit to deal with, Robert was an eyewitness to President Garfield’s assassination by Charles Gateau on July 2, 1981. (I guess he didn’t feel like intervening with that one) Robert Lincoln was also at the World’s Fair on the same day President McKinley was shot by an assassin. Days later the President succumbed to his wounds and died. This guy was a death magnet for Presidential assassinations. It’s a good thing he died before Kennedy was around. There has only been four US presidents assassinated in the history of the United States and Robert Lincoln was in someway involved in three of them.

       4. Early in Lincoln’s political career when he was a State Legislator he was challenged to a duel. Anonymous letters sent to a local newspaper were printed attacking Lincolns political rival James Shields. Shields blamed Lincoln for the letters and challenged him to a duel. As the one being challenged, Lincoln had the honor of choosing the weapon. Since Lincoln didn’t really feel like being killed that day broadswords were his weapon of choice. At the site of the duel Shields witnessed Lincoln practice by cutting flowers off a bush from a great distance. Watching Lincoln use the sword with his freakishly long arms, Shields- being smart and probably a pussy- backed out of the duel.

5. Lincoln was also known for having a great sense of humor. When the country’s in a civil war, your wife is crazy because a couple of your kids died, and you were fucking ugly, a sense of humor probably came in handy. While he was in office he received a letter form an admirer asking for a personal autographed sentiment. Lincoln wrote back “Dear Madam, when you ask a stranger that which is of interest only to yourself always enclose a stamp. There’s your sentiment and here’s my autograph.” Another time Peter Harvey, who was the assistant to the late Daniel Webster, visited him. Harvey sat with Lincoln for two hours giving him the advice he felt Webster would have given. Harvey expected to make a great impression but when he was done speaking the President merely reached over, grabbed Harvey’s legs, and replied “Mr. Harvey, what tremendous great calves you’ve got!” After that the meeting was over.

6. I’ll admit this one is tough to believe but it’s true. John Wilkes Booth had a brother, Edwin Booth, who was also an actor. Edwin was famous enough that he would be stopped for autographs on the street. He was the George Clooney of his day. During the civil war Edwin was waiting for a train in New Jersey. A crowd of people rushing for a train knocked a man to the tracks. Edwin scooped down and saved the man from an oncoming train. The man he saved thanked him by name because he recognized who he was. It would be like if Tom Hanks saved you from being hit by a car. A couple of weeks later Edwin booth received a letter from Col. Adam Badeau thanking him from saving the man. The man was someone I mentioned before- Robert Lincoln, Abe’s son. Again with this fucking guy, right? Robert wasn’t close with his father at the time, probably because he was busy keeping the country from tearing apart, and his mother was a basket case so he never told them about the story. Edwin Booth probably would have told everyone for the rest of his life if his brother didn’t shoot the president in the fucking head.

therealthroat@twitter.com 

This guy was parked in Allston next to urban renewal in that tiny lot He was there for at least two hours just listening to music and revving his engine. I asked if I could take his picture and he said “hell yeah cowboy” I immediately checked the GPS on my phone to make sure I wasn’t in Texas.

Allston Near Dawn