Announcing the MF Historyscope!

You know what MF stands for, right?

I admit I laughed at that meme where a woman asks, “What’s your astrological sign?” and the dude says, “Dinosaur” and then she says, “But that one doesn’t even exist” and he replies, “None of them exist.”

It’s a bit sexist, presenting the “rational” man vs. the “irrational” woman. Statistically, women are more likely to believe in astrology, but the gender gap in the various polls I checked isn’t that big. I would have enjoyed it more if the genders were reversed because I hate it when misogynistic stereotypes like that are perpetuated. Men are plenty capable of not just being irrational, but violently so.

Shit, this is turning into a lecture when it’s supposed to be something fun. Before that, however, a brief bit of astrological history. You may believe it harmless, and in most cases I expect it is, but not when it comes to geopolitics. See, late in President Reagan’s second term it was revealed by his Chief of Staff that “Virtually every major move and decision the Reagans made during my time as White House Chief of Staff was cleared in advance with a woman in San Francisco who drew up horoscopes to make certain that the planets were in a favorable alignment for the enterprise.”

So, yeah. An astrologist named Joan Quigley, by most reports, had significant influence on American leadership during the 1980s, and the 80s were a fucking shitshow. As an aside, my wife and I are both Gemini, and the four of us are very much in love.

It should not surprise you that a skeptical mofo like me doesn’t believe in astrology. I don’t drink that mercury-flavored Gatorade. If that’s your thing, please just don’t make any foreign policy decisions based on it, okay?

Anyway, I am announcing the Muthafuckin’ Historyscope, where the stars don’t align for shit. What is it? Well, I have long known that when someone encounters my sweary history book, the first page they often look to is their birthday to find out what cool, or possibly horrific, thing happened on that day. What happened on my birthday? Watergate break-in. Fucking Nixon. That dick. Anyway, “Historyscope” is a portmanteau of history and horoscope, except not bullshit but instead something that actually happened on your birthday.

So, go visit my website at JamesFell.com, punch in your birth date, and find out what I wrote about for that day in history. You can check your birthday, or a friend’s or your fucking dog’s birthday I don’t care there are no rules. And no, I’m not scraping cookie information or anything; I love you but I’m not obsessed with you. I also love Kateland Kelly aka The Write Assistant who came up with the idea and said I could use it.

Go check out the Historyscope thing now. You can also become a paying subscriber: