“If I had a time machine?” I do have a time machine! I have one full year to meet my ancestors and predecessors across the western hemisphere, and I’m heading to the beginning of the year of our Lord 1804. I want to visit Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Beethoven, William Blake and Napoleon Bonaparte, but along my journey I will witness many births and meet many more of my heroes. I'm the billionth person currently alive on planet earth. It's a leap year. And there's a lot to do.
I start off in Germany with some blueprints and to load up on the first morphine ever made. I convince Sertürner to name it 'awesome sauce,’ and it remains decriminalized into the 21st century. High five! Since I'm already in Germany, I head over to Königsberg to visit Immanuel Kant on his death bed. As he mutters, "It is good," I tell him appropriately, “That’s irrational.” We do hand-slaps, he dies, and I head to the States.
I'm headed to Nashville, Tennessee to visit Old Hickory. As soon as he acquires the Hermitage, I immediately burn it to the ground, free all his slaves and shoot Andrew Jackson twice in the head; thus preeminently ending the Trail of Tears, Jacksonian 'demigod' status and Jacksonian Democracy as we’ll never know it. Effectively Van Buren and Polk become anonymous as well, allowing Whigs to control the White House in the Post-Founding Father America. Slavery is abolished peacefully and Native Americans get to stay. High five!
As spring rolls in, I head down to New Orleans to attend the Ceremony at Place d'Armes commemorating the transfer of the Louisiana Purchase. I then ride up to St. Louis to give Lewis and Clarke farewell high-five's before their trip to Oregon.
End of May, I’m headed to Boston. I gotta go give props to my man Ralph Waldo Emerson! It's his first birthday. "Transcendental high fives, little man!" I make it to Jersey in time for the most famous duel of all time. I don’t like either Burr or Hamilton. So on July 10, the day before the scheduled duel, I shoot both of them in the balls. Double hand slaps!
Now I gotta head back across the pond…
One of the main purposes of this visit was to hang with Ludwig Van. I've just spent weeks on a ship, contracted typhoid fever and I'm about to die. Luckily I brought antibiotics and blueprints for a helicopter. I left them with my engineer friend in Germany earlier this year, and he built me a fucking helicopter. (note: Da Vinci had plans for a helicopter 3 centuries before 1804, and I have to get back and forth from Europe to America this year. I need a fucking helicopter, OK?)
So I'm finally in Vienna to witness the first private performance of Beethoven's Eroica i.e. 'Bonaparte' i.e. 3rd Symphony. I'm too afraid of interrupting history here, so I simply watch in awe. I'm really here to witness the mad genius begin work on Symphony #5. I'm curious what he's thinking and how he works, but I remain at a close distance, not wanting to tamper with the progression of the aesthetic universe, The Romantic Era, this man is single-handedly creating. High #5!
From Vienna to July in Paris, I witness Chopin’s future lover, George Sand, being born. I make it back to Massachusetts to see the birth of Nathaniel Hawthorne. While in Massachusetts, I visit John Adams in his retirement at Peacefield. Congress amended the constitution this year because of the confusion of the last presidential election, in which poor old Adams lost by a hair and disappeared in the night. I pose as a hired hand and spend a week working with Adams on the farm. He refuses to discuss politics, but I enjoy his company nonetheless.
In Hillsboro, New Hampshire the most depressing president of all time, Franklin Pierce, is being born. I tell his parents if he gets into politics he's going to be a pushover. Toughen that little bastard up! Put the fear of trains in his future family… High five!
The journey wouldn’t be complete without visiting the Founder of Founders, Mr. Thomas Paine, on his farm in New Rochelle, NY. After his imprisonment in France, he’s returned to The States to live a life of reclusion, shunned by the country he founded. He will remain obscure into the 21st Century. Perhaps in the 22nd Century, people will begin to appreciate his contributions to humanity. The pious callow nation that adored him before the revolution hasn’t been able to keep up with his progress through to “Age of Reason,” a book written 300 years before its time. Federalists still hate him for “Common Sense.” “Letter to Washington” compounded that hatred. He wasn’t even allowed to vote this year. Paine will be dead in less than 5 years, and 6 people will attend his funeral. Despite leaving a will, he will never be given a proper burial. Into the 21st century, people will sell hand bones and femurs on Ebay claiming they’re Thomas Paine’s. His reputation will never fully recover. In the 21st century, there will be more monuments of a French explorer named Robert LaSalle than there will be dedicated to Thomas Paine. No handslaps. [more on Thomas Paine]
After acquiring a private jet from my German engineer friend with whom I left blueprints earlier this year, I fly to London to visit a friend of Thomas Paine’s. William Blake has just returned to London to begin his Prophetic Books, beginning with “and did those feet in ancient time.” I pose as a client just to witness his workshop. I’m awestricken by the beautiful man. Finally, I tell him I’m from the future, as I know he’s the only person on earth who’ll believe me. He says, “I know you’re from the future, and so am I.” He laughs and we sing and play music together. While in London, I briefly visit with teenaged Lord Byron at Harrow, where I accidentally step on his foot.
Across the channel, I travel with Simón Bolívar to Notre Dame de Paris to witness Napoleon crowning himself Emperor of the French. I try to warn Napoleon not to fuck with the Russians, but he won't listen. He orders to have me guillotined. I pull a flashlight out, flip it on and off and convince him I’m a God and they let me go. High five, Josephine!
I have less than 24 hours to get back to The States and cast my vote for Thomas Jefferson, not that he needs my support. This will be the biggest landslide victory in U.S. presidential history. Night of his victory, Whitehouse doors open to the public. Jefferson and I smoke opium from his garden and discuss the future. He says, “It’ll take a hundred generations to fill The West.” I mumble to myself, “Or just three.”
I ask President Jefferson, Secretary of State James Madison, Minister to the UK James Monroe and Senator Quincy Adams to join me on the lawn where the Oval Office has yet to be built. I tell them I’m from the future. I pull out an iPad in which I’ve put together a slideshow of the brutality of 250 years of slavery along with photos of the impending War as well as a biography on The Founders highlighting relevant depictions of their morality as “complicated.” Quincy Adams screams, “I told you so!” Overnight they all become avid abolitionists, freeing all of their slaves and becoming the necessary voice of reason in a “complicated” callow country. Then I sit down at the Whitehouse piano and try to play pre-1804 music, although my blood is seeped in Blues and Romanticism. We all drink and dance into the morrow. I can’t help but wonder what will become of music without African American oppression? It boggles the mind to ponder such suffering in its poignant relation to creation. Could there even be Blues or Jazz or Rock or R&B, Funk, Soul, Hip-Hop… What will become of music?
I spend the rest of December as Heyoka with the Mandan people and Lewis and Clark’s Corps in what would become North Dakota. New Years Eve, I go off into the woods alone and dissipate in time and space.
This has been, Time Machine 1804, based on actual historical events across the western hemisphere in 1804, in order. High five.