Written by: Erik Hagen
Happy Tesla Day, everybody! Did you get my card that I sent you in the mail?
Now what’s this all about, you’re saying. Tesla? Like the band? No, not like the band. You make me very sad. Come on, man, Tesla. As in, Nikola Tesla. Today is his birthday, and he would have been 156-years-old today were he still alive, and also some kind of an immortal being, because I’m pretty sure people don’t ever live to be that old. How I do wish that Tesla had been a Highlander. Regardless, let’s all be sad now that Nikola Tesla is not still alive today.
Are you done being sad now?
Yes, today is the day that we celebrate the life of Nikola Tesla, history’s greatest human being. I will do so with the traditional telling of Tesla’s life story. Feel free to interject as you read, out loud to your computer monitor like you believe that I can hear you, with your own Tesla-related anecdotes, of which I’m certain that you have several. This is what binds us together as a people, our mutual appreciation for Nikola Tesla.
Tesla was born on July 10, 1856 in what was then known as Serbia and is now known as Croatia, but will someday be known as Teslavaria, as soon as my Internet petition goes through. Nikola Tesla became a citizen of these United States at the age of 35, and died penniless and unloved in the streets of New York City at the age of 86. Which was sort of a bummer, in hindsight.
In between all of that, he collected some 300 patents, of which every single invention of all time was wrought from. I am not exaggerating when I say that Tesla invented everything. He did. He made the radio before Marconi. He created the X-Ray before Roentgen. He invented radar before Watt. He discovered electrons before Thomson. He made the iPad before Jobs. As you can clearly see by all the claims I have made without any kind of attribution, Tesla was the inventor of all things, but suffered the misfortune of having done so at the same time as a bunch of other inventors who pretended to invent the same things at the same time, because they were jerks. Like this guy.
This fat ball of lard is better known as Thomas Edison. The guy who invented the light bulb? NO. He is not the guy who invented the light bulb. As I already said, that was Tesla. So why is Edison the “father of the light bulb”? Because he told everyone he was, and everyone was all “Oh, OK.” Thomas Edison was a much better marketer than an inventor, which is how he managed to market himself as an inventor and everyone just believed him.
But I don’t want to get into what a tool Thomas Edison was, and how he popularized his Direct Current electricity at the expense of Teslas’ Alternating Current by implementing a marketing campaign where he electrocuted cats, dogs and one very unfortunate elephant to “prove” that AC was too dangerous for usage, when he damn well knew that DC would have done the exact same thing, since, duh, it’s electricity. I don’t want to waste time on Edison, because we are talking about Tesla, and it is his birthday, so no more of this Edison rubbish. Here are some of the things that Tesla did.
• Built an earthquake machine that would have destroyed New York City if he hadn’t smashed it with a sledgehammer when the police came to his door, trying to figure out who was making that earthquake.
• Invented a functional robot that he named Kevin, who lived in his laboratory and was programmed to crack wise whilst Tesla worked, keeping him in a jovial mood so he would be less tempted to create earthquake machines with which to kill everyone.
• Made a machine designed to duplicate one Hugh Jackman into two Hugh Jackmans, but then one of the Hugh Jackmans would fall and drown in a pool out of sight of the audience, making it appear that Hugh Jackman had teleported from one spot in the theater to another, in a highly contrived and sort of confusing kind of way.
• Built a tower that would wirelessly provide energy for the entire world for free, which unfortunately was co-opted by the mad billionaire Donald Trump a few months back to brainwash the populace into believing that he could somehow be elected president.
• Had a best friend who was an imaginary pigeon with laser eyes. I’m actually not making that last one up. Did I mention that Tesla was nuts?
So there you have it. Nikola Tesla, God’s second greatest creation after the platypus. We are all indebted to your genius, Mr. Tesla, and we will celebrate your achievements by finding Thomas Edison’s ancestors and kicking them as hard in the junk as we are capable. Happy Birthday, Tesla. Thanks for all of the stuff.
-Bismarck resident Erik Hagen is the author of the SodBlog and just wrote an entire blog post about Nikola Tesla? Really? How did he manage to trick a girl into marrying him again? Send your Tesla Day cards to or visit his website at sodblog.com.
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Well, it’s good to celebrate a brilliant man’s birthday with a smile