Fictionary Supplement: Unpopular Historical Figures Part 1

Most people study history at some point in their lives. At some point, however, the Average Jane or Joe loses interest. I've learned all I can from watching popular Nicholas Cage-related historical docs like 'National Treasure 2: The Search for Hitler's Gold,' you might complain. Stop complaining, no one like a whiner. As a public service, possibly required by law, I have spearheaded an effort to spread more hist'ry to the peoples, covering ground your average New York Librul State Technical Colleges wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole! We will be covering wide categories, including definitive musical groups, folk legends, authoritarian figures, and more.

I present Unpopular Historical Figures, part 1:

Duke Newcomb:

Edward Thomas Bellevue, 4th Duke of Newcomb, 134th in line to the British crown, was born in 1763. A rakish fellow, he enjoyed the gentlemanly arts of hunting, drink, and womanizing. He was to achieve notoriety from one event in the winter of 1797. Having traveled to to one of his country estates in Pembrokeshire, Wales, Newcomb hoped to track and shoot the elusive proton pheasant. Instead, he encountered his manor abandoned by his many servants and overrun by ragged French revolutionaries. Grabbing his Brown Bess musket and his fowling piece, Newcomb regrouped in the forest. As he had anticipated a four-course meal from his chef upon arrival and had not even received so much as afternoon tea, the Duke consumed some delicious-looking forest mushrooms to sate his hunger. Proceeding onward to battle, Newcomb became convinced that the French soldiers were actually creatures from beyond the stars. As he slayed multitudes of these outer space beasts, the Duke eventually encountered their leader, attempting to flee to his ship, at the port of Fishguard. With a quick quip--"Blow it out your arse!"--Newcomb lit the fuse to a bomb and tossed it at the fiendish commander, thus ending the French/alien invasion of Britain. His heroic deeds were passed down for generations at bedtime by patriotic British parents to their children, when eventually, they formed the basis for the "Duke Nukem" series of video games. His family remains proud of their ancestor to this day, their only regret that his video game name is horribly misspelled, as all Americans are wont to do.

Harry Grundell Jr.:

Like his father before him, Grundell (pronounced like "trundle") Jr. was uniquely predisposed towards the lucrative business of investment banking. His physiology was something of a boon, a series of genetic permutations assembled in just such a way: his eyes- too close together for proper depth perception, this made Harry, nonetheless, a whiz in the 2-D world! His phalanges, extra long and coordinated, allowing Harry to tickle keyboards from across the room! His biographer wrote that Grundell's voice carried an old-world-y raspiness, a mastadonal bass offset with shrieks of excitement. The combination proved to be efficient, and Grundell grew to understand, in minimizing wasteful meaningful humanoid interaction, and getting a lot more typing done.

Rick Spickler and the Puberteens:

Nearly everyone familiar with the gristle and intrigue of the short-lived TV hour "The Laff Brigade" remembers the eponymous and tragic rise and fall of this dynamic 90's power trio. Spickler, an erudite yet impossibly tardy young ranch-hand from the Hinterland wilds made a go of his pop dreams in York, and then more successfully New York, America with his occasionally androgynous cousins, Creo and Lawntee. Obsessed with recurring visions of fame and fortune, the trio accidentally wandered into Lady Luck on the downtown number 6 train in Manhattan. It turned out to be a disaster. Lady Luck, of course, being a wayward oil tanker, crashed headlong into the underground trestle, upsetting a family of four and waylaying the boys' plans to meet with a record executive for pie. The rest of Spickler's rise and the formation of the hated Crybabies, then the critically acclaimed Puberteens, became his most famous musical contributions to date, and were solely responsible for the rise of the MiniDisc, and the inspiration for the Nu-Redundancy Movement.

Tran Pham:

A veritable enigma of the inner-web, Pham is best known for advertising his services in the wrong sections of Craigslist, so that you think it is a job, but instead it's some d-bag who can't read directions, apparently. Ad usually reads as such:

Meet Tran Pham:
Compliance Technician
Hobbies include vintage vehicles, breadwinning, and yelling at buildings.

To this day, experts and the unemployed are baffled as to its meaning, or really, what this guy may be trying to prove.