Hot Tuna Birthday

Today is my birthday of all things. I’m 30 years old … Seems like a very strange age to be. Since 30 means a transition into a new decade it seems like it should be noteworthy, but 30 somehow lacks the pizzazz of turning 20 or 40. Additionally, birthdays don’t really excite me as an adult, mainly because my childhood circumstances spoiled me. I grew up in a small town in upstate New York, and each and every year June 9th happened to fall on the same week as our yearly local carnival – Which was massive and took place in a giant field fifty feet from my driveway. For my birthday each year (which also coincided with the end of school, mind you) I was treated to three days of amusement park rides, thoroughfare games, a parade, and fireworks … literally in my backyard.

We moved when I was 13 years old and birthdays since (though I’ve had some great ones) never seem to measure up to when I was a kid. Given that I’ll likely never have epic carnival birthdays ever again I’ve taken the liberty of historically situating myself in some of the more noteworthy past events that have transpired on June 9th … Also, I’ll be at ‘4 Peaks’ in Tempe around 8 pm for libations. Please stop by.

JUNE 9th

1856 … I lead 500 Mormons from Iowa City to Salt Lake City, carrying all of our possessions in handmade carts. We stop at nearly every Taco Bell and spot several heathens along the way.

1898 … I agree to lease Hong Kong to Britain for 99 years. I then trade Nebraska for two Pixy Sticks and a pack of baseball cards.

1909 … Alice Huyler Ramsey, a 22 year-old housewife and mother from New Jersey, becomes the first woman to drive an automobile across the United States. I ride shotgun and give directions. We get lost and the week-long trek ends up taking fifty-nine days to complete. Ramsey ends up getting blamed for the stereotype that women can’t drive. We do Taco Bell when we hit the coast, my treat.

1934 … Donald Duck and I make our big screen debut in an early Disney cartoon called “The Wise Little Hen.” I play a boozing, wayward American hitman in China and DD is my reluctant concubine. We go on to costar in five more films; including Michael Bay’s Oscar nominated “Fowl Force IV: Shoot the Coop.”

1963 … I give birth to actor Johnny Depp. I teach him everything he knows.

1980 … I rush Richard Pryor to the hospital after he ignites himself on fire while freebasing cocaine and drinking 151 proof rum. Within the week I create the D.A.R.E program which is intended to keep comedians off drugs. A bunch of PR people get their hands on it, turn it into some kind of kid thing, and now most all funny people get stoned because of me.

1986 … At the Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center I open a network link to five other supercomputers through the National Science Foundation server (NSFNET), thus establishing a network base, and essentially creating what we know today as the “Internet.” Two weeks later I stub my toe on my boom box and swear off technology forever.