Samuel L. Johnson
Dr. Samuel L. Johnson, LLD (18 September 1709 [O.S. 7 September] – 13 December 1784), often referred to as "the other Dr. Johnson", "the cooler Dr. Johnson", or simply as "The Man", was a towering figure in 18th century English literature. Though unrelated to the other Dr. Johnson, his career parallels that of his namesake; with the exception of being much cooler, sexier and more violent.
Early life[edit]
Johnson was born under a full moon on Salisbury Plain. Legend has it that his future greatness was foreshadowed when, as an infant, he was attacked by snakes, which he defeated by shooting them all to bits with a tiny little automatic flintlock pistol. Once he had defeated all of the snakes on the plain, he went to school at Stourbridge, where he met his future lifelong rival, Dr. Samuel "No L." Johnson.
Whilst Dr. S. Johnson was a sickly child who suffered from scrofula, obesity, depression, Tourette's Syndrome, dropsy and spastic bladder disorder, Dr. S.L. Johnson grew up to be a towering pillar of ebony muscle. His body was chock full of midi-chlorians, thus giving him the ability to manipulate the Force. However, he was just so cool that he rarely had to do so, and preferred to save his Jedi powers for literary battles with Alexander Popeatine and Darth Byron. Johnson and Johnson (no relation to either the shampoo company of the same name, or the '80s TV show Simon & Simon) took an immediate dislike to each other.
This is typified by an incident described both in Boswell's Life of Johnson. According to Boswell, L accused L-less of being fat, to which Johnson replied,
"I should rather have a corpulent body, sir, than a fat head; and so fat is your oversized cranium that all around you do grow most obese."
To this, Johnson slowly and menacingly replied:
"I... don't... remember... asking you... a God... damned... thing."
He then beat up Johnson and took his "Bad Mother Fucker" wallet.
S. L.'s biography (see below) confirms most of this story, but denies that Samuel Johnson ever owned any such wallet.
Rival dictionaries[edit]
In the years after school, S. Johnson lived in poverty, slowly building his reputation as a literary man, whilst S.L. Johnson was called straight to the Royal Foundation for Wits, Poets and Dilettantes, where he was appointed to the High Council. He was offered the job of "Pimping Up" the British Museum, but instead opted to write a series of articles for the Gentleman's Magazine on The Noble Art of Self Defence, or, We Should Have Shotguns For This. The Museum job went instead to David Garrick whose exhibition "Bling from the Pharaoh's Tomb" was the highlight of the London season.
Within a few years, S.L. Johnson learned that S. Johnson had found a patron to pay him while he wrote his famous Dictionary of the English Language. Determined not to be one-upped by his near namesake, S.L. declared "it's necessary to make the dictionary" and started on his own.
The rivalry between the two was so fierce that it even affected some of the entries in their respective dictionaries. S.L. Johnson defined jerkwad as a noun "describing a person of poor manners and poorer hygiene, comig from questionable parentage and chubby to boot, eg, Dr. Samuel Johnson"; brandy was described as "a drink for chubby man-harlots with brains the size of those of Marie Antoinette and tits to match; and, in his most savage definition, johnson was defined as "euphemism for a human penis. Quote: The fatter the Johnson, the smaller the johnson - S.L. Johnson, 1732"
However, it is agreed by many that S. Johnson got the better of his rival when he defined shaft as an "adjective describing a remake far inferior to the original production." To this definition, King George II is said to have commented "oh, snap!"
Novels[edit]
Irritated by his defeat at the hands of his rival, Samuel L. Johnson decided to walk the Earth having adventures and occasionally stopping for a while to write a novel. Many of these, though popular at the time, are seldom read nowadays. Possibly the reason for this is that modern food preservatives have weakened the gene that allows humans to synthesize cowabungamine, the enzyme that allows one to break down large molecules of awesomeness into manageable chunks. As such, many modern readers who have tried to read out of print copies of Johnson's classic xXx vs. SWAT, Rear Windru or Serious Literature have died trying, literally blown away by Johnson's prose.
As such, most readers get to know Johnson not through his books, but through books written about him, most notably Sir Gabriel Yoda's classic eight-volume work Hm, Yes, Johnson, the Life Of, which contains thousands upon thousands of anecdotes concerning the witty remarks, cool deeds, and booty-pleasing of Johnson.
Later years[edit]
When an eye injury caused Johnson to cut down on the whole walking the Earth business, he returned to London to discover that S. Johnson had formed a group called "The Club", consisting of some of the most talented literary men in England, including Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Burke, David Garrick and Oliver Goldsmith. L. Johnson decided to respond by forming his own club, called "The Better Club" and consisting of Quentin Tarantino, Jerry Bruckheimer, John Travolta and, tragically, George Lucas. Soon, London newspapers were full of accounts of the rivalry between the two clubs, or at least they were until the journalists were distracted by a cat stuck in a tree.
Death[edit]
Eventually, George Lucas betrayed and murdered Johnson, as he had so many others. Even more tragically, S.L. Johnson died mere days before S. Johnson, allowing the latter to win an ongoing bet between the two, "last man alive gets to pee on the other man's grave".
Johnson was buried in the Great Pyramid of London, which would remain the tallest structure on Earth until the building of the Eiffel Tower.
In 2005, having spent over a century digging his way out of his tomb, Dr. Samuel L. Johnson went to Paris and pulled down the Eiffel Tower with his bare hands. There were no survivors.