Table Of ContentCONTENTS
Title Page
Preface
Epigraph
Introduction: Hi, I’m a Ruthless Engine of Destruction!
1 | HOW TO BEAT UP … HUMANS
2 | HOW TO BEAT UP … ANIMALS
3 | HOW TO BEAT UP … CELEBRITIES
A Note On Weapons: Part One
4 | HOW TO BEAT UP … HISTORICAL FIGURES
5 | HOW TO BEAT UP … FICTIONAL CHARACTERS
6 | HOW TO BEAT UP … THINGS THAT ARE TERRIBLE
A Note On Weapons: Part Two
Conclusion (Including: 10 Cardinal Rules for How to Beat Up Anything)
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Dedication & Copyright
PREFACE
Good call, picking up this book. That’s step one. Step two is taking it up to the
register and paying for it.
To be honest, the risk you’re taking here is a small one. Fifteen dollars—the
price of this book—has the unique distinction of being the exact amount of
money you’ll never regret having spent. Ever. Fifteen dollars is never going to
be the cost of that jacket, the amount you’re short on rent, or the price of the
lifesaving medicine you take hourly. If you lose a hundred bucks, your day is
ruined. If you misplace twenty dollars, it’s annoying and mildly unsettling. Not
fifteen. Fifteen dollars is what you find crumpled in your jacket pocket the
morning after a bender, too small of an amount to even bother filing into your
wallet.
Why even spend the fifteen? Well, for starters, this book will kick your other
dumb books in the face.
You put this book in a locked steel box with The Sun Also Rises, 1,001 Baby
Names, and some book with a sad vampire in it, then open the box a week later
—those other three books will be dead. What constitutes book death? you ask.
You’ll know soon enough, my friend.
One of those books will look okay at first, but when you open it up all the
pages will be blank, and then you’ll notice that it’s resting on a pile of broken
letters. Then you’ll check my book and it’ll have twice as many words in it, and
a handy new section listing baby names: “Achilles, Archimedes, Aristotle,
Billy…” Oh, and the extra letters my book took from the Hemingway novel will
now spell out the cure for cancer.
This book is what you pull out of your shirt pocket the second after a bang!
sounds and you’re picking yourself off the ground with no idea what’s
happened. When you take the book out there will be a bullet embedded in it.
When you pull the bullet out to inspect it, the hole in the book will heal itself.
You’re welcome! Oh, and thanks for ruining the cover of my book. And why are
people shooting at you?!?
—Kevin Seccia
November, 2010
Now remember, when things look bad, and it looks like you’re not gonna
make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. ’Cause if
you lose your head and you give up, then you neither live nor win. And
that’s just the way it is.
—THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES
INTRODUCTION
Hi, I’m a Ruthless Engine of Destruction!
The world around you is a dangerous place. It’s teeming with vicious men and
women, savages, thugs, dictators, unspeakable creatures, seafaring miscreants,
syphilitic tyrants, and ex-cons in it for one last shot at the big time (who define
“the big time” as beating you senseless and then taking your money and your
lucky hat). Look around you. Every single interaction has the potential to go
south in an instant: that guy browsing the magazines, that lady sipping a latte,
that toddler pretending to skip carelessly about while his propeller hat spins in
the wind—every one of them is secretly mulling a scenario that ends with them
kicking you square in the junk.
Sure, the world also contains kittens, baby otters, and charming old men on
porches who spin yarns, but how long before they, too, decide to turn on you?
Are you THAT likable? Can you really afford to go through life assuming this
will never happen? And that’s just the real stuff. What about fictional
characters? Is magic real? I have no idea, but if it is that opens you up to a whole
other group of potential attackers.
This book will help you navigate our treacherous modern-day world. The
author is an orange belt in tae kwon do, a veteran of almost half-a-dozen jujitsu
lessons, and possesses an underground boxing record of 0–1.
He’s suffered detached retinas, two herniated discs, and once broke his hand
punching a wall. His high school fight record was 6–1–1.
Are you familiar with Bruce Lee? Well, so is the author of this book.
Punching Tom Hanks is a guide for anyone who’s ever wanted to beat up
someone or something. Simple, effective instructions for beating up aliens,
bullies, robots, inanimate objects, even time-traveling future versions of
yourself. Possibly even Steven Seagal. Godspeed.
You see them, you admire them, you deal with them every day. Chances are
fairly good you actually are one. If that’s true, chances are even greater that
you’ve angered one. When push comes to shove—as it always does—the
following information will prove to be quite valuable to you.
Not, like, more valuable than gold or anything. I mean you won’t be able to
barter with it, or turn it into jewelry, but valuable nonetheless. God! Stop
comparing everything to gold already.
HOW TO BEAT UP A MAN HANDCUFFED TO A
STAINLESS-STEEL BRIEFCASE
Here’s a random tactic you should try sometime. It actually works with most of
the entries in this book. Climb up a tree not far from where you know your
quarry will be walking. Then, when they walk by, unexpectedly jump out of the
tree, landing on top of them.
Jumping out of a tree is not as easy as it sounds. People in movies seem to
have the uncanny ability to predict where people will walk, so they pull this
move off quite often. I suppose you could overhear your quarry talking in a cafe
saying something like: “Oh, the maple tree? I walk by that maple tree all the
time. I plan to today, in fact. When? Well, that’s a rather odd question. Eleven
minutes from now, if you must know.”
If you do happen to have this information, it’s something to think about, but
in this situation the man handcuffed to a stainless-steel briefcase will already be
on high alert, so proceed with caution. I mean, you don’t handcuff a metal
briefcase to your wrist because you’re expecting things to go smoothly.
The actual contents of the case will go a long way toward determining the
fight’s course. If the case has a high-tech weapon inside it, he may go for it at
the first sign of trouble. For instance, let’s say he’s carrying some sort of
lightweight, death ray, laser gun, mini-torpedo device? I’m not a weapons
expert, so it’s pointless for me to speculate much further … but if he had a
hammer with a knife blade instead of a handle (you grip the head), or a hat that
shoots tiny missiles containing knockout gas, or a catcher’s mitt that’s been
dipped in iron, then had spikes glued to it, or a machete? Again, I’m not a
professional armorer, so I’ll stop there … Okay, one more. Or a lasso that’s
actually electrified wire? If he had any of these in the case, he’d take it out and
use it.
If he attempts to shield the case from you using his own body, that means the
case contains a valuable, not a weapon. Possibly bars of Nazi gold, or a diamond
necklace. Or perhaps a single giant diamond, so large and lustrous that it would
make the Hope Diamond weep with jealousy. If the Hope Diamond could see,
and then somehow saw this … and also had a basic understanding of what
diamonds were, and that it was one of them, and that this one was better … Man,
would it weep. I bet you could sell its tears, too. But I’m getting sidetracked.
Or, he could be carrying a rare animal, or an unhatched dinosaur egg …
Maybe the cure for polio? I mean, I know we already have one, but maybe this
one is cherry flavored …
Hmm. This is getting annoying now. WTF do you think he has in that case?
He’s too good for a backpack? He puts whatever is soooooo important into a
backpack, no one would ever bother him. Are we not supposed to wonder? That
case, all burnished metal and sharp lines, perfectly put together, catching the
