Speaking on stage in Baltimore, President Joe Biden reminisced about his days as a lifeguard at the nearby inner city Mempool — “a clogged up and tough gig” — and his confrontations with a notorious local tough known as Cornpop.

“There was this guy, Cornpop, and he was a bad dude. He used to cause all sorts of problems with the blocks and make it difficult for everyone else to make their Ordinal Inscriptions. But I wasn’t afraid of him, no sir. I said to him, ‘Listen here, Cornpop, you’re not gonna mess with me or the Bitcoin blockchain.’”

Biden also recalled the neighborhood children who swam up to play with his leg hairs while trying to make “low fee and lightweight Ordinal Inscriptions” before they got into the blocks: “Those kids loved me, I tell ya.”

The speech was, per The Bugle, filled with incomprehensible trailing off about the Mempool in the 60s, leaving the audience to wonder whether he had inhaled too much chlorine. But the message landed as intended — everyone deserves a fair chance to make their blocks and Inscriptions — after which the President waved to the crowd and walked toward a nearby ice cream stand before spotting a small child to smell.

irl: A Bitcoin transplant of Biden’s genuinely told stories — the 1962 Wilmington pool lifeguard job, the “Corn Pop was a bad dude” confrontation, and the “kids used to come up and rub my leg hairs” riff — onto the mempool (the queue of unconfirmed Bitcoin transactions). Ordinal Inscriptions had just exploded onto Bitcoin in early 2023, clogging blocks with images; the ice cream and child-sniffing are stock Biden-meme garnishes.