The Original Text for How America Got Its Name
I recently purchased the vinyl for the 1979 version of In Trousers and in the liner notes it has the entire original text for How America Got Its Name. It's quite different from the 1985 version with the main difference being that Marvin is the only one who says anything; it is a solo monologue. There are other differences, but I would rather not list them all out. Anyway, here we go:
Marvin:
(Dressed like Columbus)
Columbus didn't use to be a sailor. He was first and foremost director of medicine at a prestigious institute for doctors in Eldoro. That's the truth. But nobody ever talks about his medical career anymore. He was embarrassed out of his job. Harassed. Made to be the butt of jokes at medical conventions. This is what happened. One day--now this is the truth--one day outside Poma del Fuego, he picked up a social disease from a man with red hair and broad shoulders like his mother. By the time Columbus got to the Verona Baths, he had cancres all over his chest where once bronze hairs grew. And back at the Institute no one could fail but notice an incredible diminution of intelligence on Columbus' part. He was half insane by the time they strapped him to a ship, and pushed him to sea.
With him on that boat were other socially diseased persons. From the few clippings extant, it appears they had a ball the whole trip and screwed like bunnies, never worrying if finally they were going to contract the dread disease, because they all had it, you see--so they debauched the whole night and awoke refreshed. This went on for thirty-four days.
I am going to discover Cincinnati, Columbus cried. Why Cincinnati, they asked him. For my Aunt Cynthia and Uncle Nathan, he said, who died four years earlier in a plague which my Institute never quite found the cure for. This is what the Jews do, he added, name other countries for the dead.
Halfway out to sea, or on the thirty-fifth day, Columbus' cancres began to disappear. He stopped moaning in the middle of lovemaking and began to say: "How about that, young man?" or sometimes, boasting, "Tell me you didn't like that." Well, everyone was glad to see Columbus becoming his old self again, but everyone was saying what a prick Columbus was. In his diary he wrote: "Whatever it is I discover, it better not give me any lip."
Fifty miles off Martha's Vineyard, it became clear that everyone's cancres had disappeared, their brains restored, bodies once again sound; and everyone had a good laugh about it, maybe whistled with relief, maybe gave a few pecks on the cheek here and there, but there was no heavy petting, you can be sure of that. "Hey, keep your hands off me fella"--you heard that pretty often on deck. And then later, "I said keep your hands off me!" Well, Lord knows, many lonely evenings, clippings extant say, because each man feared acquiring the dread disease which had brought him there in the first place. In his diary Columbus posed the question: "How many passionate persons can fit comfortably on the head of a pin?" He pondered the question, he sat with his chin resting neatly in the palm of his hand, and he replied.
Question: "How many passionate persons can fit comfortably on the head of a pin?"
Answer: "Merely one. Or...
I don't know." (MUSIC BEGINS)
I don't know.
So there they were on board looking out to see this new land Columbus was going to discover. And soon the blue horizon disappeared to be replaced by a magnificent array of greens. Fir green, evergreen, lime green, dark green, light green. The entire palette of greens stood maybe only a day's float ahead of them. No one moved. No one was allowed to move. When they were maybe fifty or seventy-five yards away, Columbus could not withstand his enthusiasm any longer. "My land is so beautiful," Columbus cried. "So beautiful," they agreed in unison, like a chorus, like a barbershop quartet multiplied by fifteen. 'So very beautiful." There were tears in Columbus' eyes. "Men," he turned to them, he looked at every one straight in the face, he was very moved by this discovery, "Men, no longer do I call this land Cincinnati; rather, this fine, green, beautiful land which I discovered today, I name AMERICA! After Amerigo Vespucci. A young man I met in Poma del Fuego with red hair and broad shoulders like his mother.
The thing about explorers is: they discover things that are already there. Columbus closed his diary and went ashore.
