President James Madison was trying to stay out of the war between France and Britain, so he started a war with Britain.

And he was short. And his wife, according to the official whitehouse.gov website, had big boobs.

But here’s what I like the most: America totally lost the War of 1812, but Americans decided not to see it that way. They all just chose to dwell on some of their few military victories. And this is on top of it being a generally stupid war to begin with, so much so that after a couple years no one could really remember what it was they were fighting for, which is why they stopped.

This is the war where we got our National Anthem, by the way. As far as I can tell, the gist of the song is “We were getting, like, totally lit up by enemy war ships. Everything was blowing up and stuff. And I saw a flag. Isn’t America rad?” And it has that high note. Also, it has the word “Spangled” in it’s title. Classy.

But my point: I love this can-do spirit of misremembering. After the war we lost, their was a HUGE swell of national pride. If their horses had bumpers, there would probably be a ton of cocky bumper stickers on them.

So, why are we all frazzled over Iraq and the long years ahead of us in Afghanistan? Let’s just remember a couple times when we rocked a battle and MOVE ON. Come on Vietnam vets, chill out. Remember when we carpet bombed the HECK out of that one jungle? Or when Charlie Sheen killed Tom Berringer? THAT MEANS WE WON. Derrrrrr.

And yeah, they named the snacks after Dolley.

I mean, 2002 is a guess. It seems right. I spent half of that year traveling around in a van doing comedy, the other half trying to open some sort of coffeehouse/theater in San Diego with friends, and the rest of the time finally getting the girl I had been chasing for a year.

I have a few piles of these old notebooks sitting around the house here. I figured I’d break out the scanner since I can’t be bothered to do anything creative lately.