Punching Tom Hanks: Dropkicking Gorillas and Pummeling Zombified Ex-Presidents---A Guide to Beating Up Anything (26 page)

  8.
Never fight a robot in the rain. He’ll electrocute you way before he rusts and conks out.

  7.
Don’t ever, ever trust Dennis Farina.

  6.
Always keep an extra-hollow tooth filled with cyanide in your mouth. If your captor demands you hand it over, you’ll still have one left. Also, you might want to fill a third hollow tooth with powdered fruit punch mix. It’s refreshing, and a nice surprise when you’re thirsty and then remember you have it.

  5.
The old, “your shoes are untied,” trick doesn’t work on reptilian, “Creature from the Black Lagoon” types. It’s not because they don’t wear shoes, many of them do, they’re just not stupid.

  4.
Don’t believe the hyperbole. Tugging on Superman’s cape is totally fine, as long as you’re wearing gardening gloves made from kryptonite. Plus, nine times out of ten it’s not Superman, it’s just some goof dressed up as him.

  3.
Don’t ever trust anyone you’ve recently seen in the company of Dennis Farina. Not even someone who
appeared
to be attacking Dennis Farina.

  2.
Always give a loud karate yell or,
“Kiai,”
when doing mundane everyday things like hitting
SEND
on an e-mail, or opening the office fridge. It cultivates a nice aura of danger that will keep others on their toes.

  1.
In a crowded room, the man you have to look out for is the one pointing a gun at you demanding you give him all your money. Watch him, he’s going to be trouble.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Huge thanks to:

Peter McHugh, Eddie Gamarra, Julie Kane-Ritsch, and everyone at The Gotham Group. Dan Conaway, Stephen Barr, and everyone at Writers House, Yaniv Soha and everyone at St. Martin’s Press. You are all awesome.

Heather Seccia, Ariel Schrag, Sarah Altman, Kulap Vilaysack, Aimee Mann, MP, Gino Guzzardo, and Timothy McKeon.

My dad, Roger Seccia. Joyce and Megan. My mom, Kye Noizy, and Ilderick Noizy.

Joan and Jack and the Myer family. Bo Yon, Andy and the Potter family. Bo Chang and the entire Seo family.

Dr. David Boyer for saving my eye. Mary Ann Kaicher for being the best high school English teacher an idiot could ask for.

Karen Kilgariff, Jon Schroeder, Rhett Miller, Flanagan, Boris, Liana Maeby, Deborah Netburn and Eric Ducker, Gerry Duggan, Grodezone, Bobb. Anyone who ever gave me a writing job and any comedian who ever helped me out in the Largo early days: Federman, Griffin, Cho, The Sklar Bros, Tunney (R.I.P.), Proops, Fitzsimmons, Rajskub. Danny Ceballos, Ken Daly, John Matta, Mark Banker, Jay Johnston, Laura Milligan and Mike King, Lisa Leingang, P.F.T. and Gary S. Mann.

Fiona Staples, Zach Galafianakis, Patton Oswalt, Andy Richter, Greg Behrendt, Sarah Silverman, Jon Hamm, Freddie Roach, and Wild Card Boxing.

Eric Edelson, Doug Eckhardt, Pat Murphy, Jason Laliker, Kristen Mezger, Carissa Moncavage, and everyone else in the beautiful Garden State.

And Paget Brewster, John Carroll Lynch, and Brenda Wehle for long ago keeping me alive by overpaying me for jobs you didn’t actually need done. That was awful kind of you.

Kevin Seccia is a writer and stand-up comedian who has appeared on CBS’s
The Late Late Show
and Comedy Central’s
Premium Blend.
He has written for Ellen DeGeneres, numerous live-action and animated shows, and was a staff writer on G4’s
Attack of the Show.
Visit his Web site at
KevinSeccia.com
and follow him on Twitter at @KevinSeccia.

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE STRONGEST PERSON I KNOW—MY MOTHER, KYE YON

PUNCHING TOM HANKS
. Copyright © 2011 by Kevin Seccia. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Photo of Freddie Roach courtesy of Tanja Nicklisch.

All interior illustrations courtesy of Joe Wilson at Debut Art.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Seccia, Kevin.

Punching Tom Hanks : dropkicking gorillas and pummeling zombified ex-presidents—a guide to beating up anything / Kevin Seccia.—1st ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-312-64374-4

1.  American wit and humor.   2.  Fighting (Psychology)—Humor.   I.  Title.

PN6165.S38 2011

814'.6—dc22                                                2011000012

First Edition: June 2011

eISBN 978-1-4299-8091-3

First St. Martin’s Griffin eBook Edition: June 2011

*
I tried that once. I entered a ring of death wearing a backpack filled with energy bars. I figured that if my opponent and I were evenly matched, the energy bars would ensure that I’d never tire, giving me the edge, and eventually my opponent would collapse. Well, I guess I should’ve made sure the pack was empty before I loaded it up. In Round 17 the zipper slid down spilling the contents of the pack all over the ring. There, in full view of the crowd was: a pair of my heart boxers, some pornography, a love poem, my pink-paged diary (which landed open, exposing a transcript of a breakup letter I’d received), and some erectile dysfunction medication. It turns out, this was the backpack where I’d been hiding all my embarrassing stuff! What unfortunate luck! AND my boss and fiancé were in the crowd that night. Needless to say, I didn’t get the promotion and I’m still single.

*
No one will ever read this.

*
Not actual recipe.

*
Immediately tell Derek your friendship is over.

†
Even though sock-filled-with-nickels is your new best friend, resist the urge to draw eyes and a smiley mouth on it with a magic marker. It’s just gonna creep everyone out. And don’t talk to it, either.

*
You must be Superman for this tactic to succeed. I hope that part was clear.

*
If this is your first fight, “Orange Traffic Cone” is a decent choice. Your first fight is an important one. You want to choose something easy enough to beat, but not so easy that beating them is meaningless. On the other hand, you don’t want something that could defeat you, crushing your spirit and forever turning you off the fight game. You want something with some skills who isn’t a world-beater.

Which is why, much like the legendary Davy Crocket, I took on and defeated a bear at the tender age of three … Sure, mine had two buttons for eyes and a felt-smiling mouth, but a bear is a bear. Any scientist will tell you that. I mean, this thing wasn’t some hypoallergenic pushover. It was made from down, something I happen to be allergic to … Round 1 of the fight ended with me in the hospital. Round 2—which consisted of me insisting the bear be put into the attic for good—went much better for me. Round 3, which took place a few weeks ago, involved me finally bringing the bear down and taking it out of a box, shrieking once or twice, nervously throwing it into the fireplace while cursing its name, and then collapsing into a sobbing fit. It did not survive the wrath of the flames. Point Seccia. Victory attained.