Abe-solutely Fabulous!

Abraham Lincoln
Feb. 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865

When you were a kid, you remember how you knew you were in real trouble? When you got called by your entire name. Right down to the stupid middle name and everything. You could go your entire life avoiding your middle name, never being called by it, and even denying you even had a middle name...but let them find out you smuggled the August 1981 issue of Playboy home, and man, you were done. Over. Sure, it was the same day your dog died, the same day that Harry Chapin died, but it was your thirteen-year-old ass that was on the line.

But I digress.

Point is, there are guys in history whose middle name you never would have known, except they really screwed up. Or rather, succeeded. Succeeded at being bad. Guys like Mark David Chapman, Lee Harvey Oswald, and John Wilkes Booth...two names good, three names bad.

Make no mistake. Although he was a brilliant, brilliant man, Abraham Lincoln (born 199 years ago today) couldn't get elected to anything these days. No one with a beard can compete in politics anymore. And under that beard, Abe was so hideous that he would make Neil Young look like Hugh Grant. Radio hadn't even been invented yet and he already had a face for it. But he unified his country and his assassination on April 14, 1865 made him a martyr. John Wilkes Booth, who shot Lincoln, actually did the President a favor and made him immortal.

Now don't get me wrong. By "immortal" I don't mean that Booth made Lincoln a Highlander. As you're well aware, there can be only one. Lincoln at best was considered a so-so President while alive...but death made him a figure of major historical importance. Nice going, John Wilkes Jerk.

The story should end there, and yet...I never did know when to let things be. The greatest thing that you never knew about Abe Lincoln isn't really about him at all. It's about his wife, the batshit crazy Mary Todd Lincoln. Her Wikipedia entry says nothing about the fact that she spent a lot of time being locked in the basement of the White House, bouncing off the walls. She would hear voices in public and hired maids to keep her company during the night because she was afraid of falling asleep. In 1875 she was committed by her son Robert to the laughing house. In many ways she was both the Marie Osmond and the Britney Spears of her time. True.

But, speaking of "Honest Abe" Lincoln, what exactly did he do to merit this nickname? Apparently honesty was a common trait amongst our founding fathers, with George Washington also being allegedly honest as the day is long. George W. was copping to cutting down cherry trees while Abe was nothing more than a promising strain of DNA (which certainly existed, though nobody knew about it yet). I have yet to find any reason to believe Lincoln was more honest than anyone else of his era. Besides, it was the middle of the Civil War, and people ate dirt all the time. What the hell did they have to be dishonest about?!? They were keeping it real like a mofo.

Here's an interesting thing to note, and this one actually has something to do with Abe Lincoln. Numerous gangstas and hip-hop types speak of "Dead Presidents" in reference to money. This is all well and fine, but just keep in mind that the only treasury notes currently in circulation are the $1, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100 bills. The bills all do, in fact, feature so-called "Dead Presidents" except for the $100 bill, which features Ben Franklin. Franklin, while a drunken swinging hedonist and sexual deviant, was never President...so hip-hoppers and gang members surely don't use this note for financial transactions. Which sucks, because using $100 bills can sure make that million-dollar drug buy much lighter than if you're using $20s and $50s.

I'm just sayin', yo.