The Art of Manliness - Episode #11： Badasses with Ben Thompson

00:00:00.000 Hello, Brett here. Before we get to today's show, got a quick favor to ask of you. If you've been

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00:00:23.760 check out a particular episode if you think they'd get something out of it. Thank you for

00:00:26.200 your support and now on to the show. Brett McKay here and welcome to another episode of the Art of

00:00:47.640 Manliness podcast. Now throughout history, great men have risen that single handedly built empires and

00:00:54.200 destroyed armies. Their deeds have become legends. In short, they were badasses. Well, our guest

00:01:01.200 today has become an expert on the history of bad assitude and has written a book about it. His

00:01:05.400 name is Ben Thompson and he's the author of the book Badass, a relentless onslaught of the toughest

00:01:10.020 warlords, Vikings, samurai, pirates, gunfighters, and military commanders to ever live. Ben, welcome to

00:01:16.800 the show. Hey, Brett. I just want to say thanks for having me on today. Yeah, it's our pleasure. So Ben,

00:01:22.440 badass. How did you get started with this badass project? Well, it's, uh, it kind of came from,

00:01:29.120 from my dad in a lot of ways. You know, my dad was really into history and, uh, and the way that my

00:01:33.860 dad was able to explain history to me, you know, he was a memorabilia collector who had all these like

00:01:37.980 really cool, you know, samurai swords and, and, uh, you know, night swords and muskets and stuff like

00:01:44.660 this. And, uh, you know, and he would break this stuff out and he would give me these really

00:01:48.000 awesome descriptions. It was like an action movie, the way he would explain like Leonidas

00:01:51.580 or, you know, Washington or whoever he was talking about. And it was like really intense

00:01:56.560 the way that he explained this. And then I went off to college and, or even in high school,

00:02:01.340 and I would learn these same stories. It would just be completely boring the way that they were

00:02:05.960 pretending. So, you know, I wanted to be like, okay, well, you know, I'm not really super

00:02:10.680 interested in Washington's agricultural reform. I want to know about all the people that he, uh,

00:02:15.480 kicked ass, you know, what did he do that was like so awesome? Uh, I just kind of wanted to find a 0.75

00:02:20.920 way to tell like the action movie story of these guys and make some jokes and try to make it kind

00:02:24.980 of funny and lighthearted. And, uh, uh, you know, that's sort of what I was hoping to accomplish

00:02:29.460 with this. Definitely. And so before, uh, you did the book, it actually started as a website. So

00:02:35.080 you're one of these bloggers turned authors, right? So tell us about the, the, your website.

00:02:40.680 Well, the website was started in April of 2004. Uh, it was just kind of something that I,

00:02:46.220 it's called bad-ass of the week. Uh, and then, you know, basically every Friday I just write a

00:02:50.280 story about some bad-ass from history or, you know, on the website, I have some fictional

00:02:55.060 characters, stuff like that. You know, and I just kind of started as a joke. I was really bored at

00:02:59.600 my old job and, you know, I just started typing these things up and just doing it as kind of a joke

00:03:04.340 for my friends. And the next thing I know, I'm starting to get a lot of hits and, you know,

00:03:08.540 the counter's going up a hundred thousand, 500,000. And she's like, Oh my God, this is insane.

00:03:12.520 And so, you know, I was kind of lucky to get, get on with the deal with Pepper Collins to try to

00:03:16.980 get this thing published as an actual book. It's been a great ride so far. Awesome. So you've been

00:03:21.680 doing the, the bad-ass of the week since 2004. When you decided to sit down and write the book,

00:03:28.300 how did you decide which bad-asses to include in the book? Were like, were there criteria you had

00:03:33.240 or, I mean, what was it? It was a, it was a grueling, painful process.

00:03:38.380 It was the short version. You know, I basically had this list of like 150, 160 guys that I thought

00:03:43.460 were going to be really great for a book like this. I ended up just through a very painful

00:03:48.780 bloodletting. It was like, you know, killing your own children, trying to figure out who I was going 0.71

00:03:53.220 to put in and what I wasn't going to put in. So I ended up coming up with 30 guys who weren't in

00:03:58.680 the book. And then the great thing about doing the website is that, um, but yeah, 30 guys that

00:04:03.100 weren't on the website. Uh, and the, the great thing about doing the website is that I've already

00:04:06.820 got, you know, articles up there that people have liked. They get a lot of hits. People have

00:04:10.280 been doing positive feedback about them. So I was able to just basically take a top 10 from the

00:04:14.500 website and then supplement it with some, some guys that I hadn't written about before.

00:04:18.240 Awesome. So, uh, who's your favorite bad-ass that you've written about?

00:04:22.740 It's tough to say. It's tough to say, you know, sometimes I'm really into Vikings,

00:04:26.260 sometimes I'm into ninjas, you know, uh, it's really difficult for me to pick a, pick a number

00:04:31.200 one. Uh, when I'm trying to talk about the book, the guy that I usually reference is, uh,

00:04:36.380 uh, an Irish warrior named Wolf the Quarleson. And, you know, I just love the name more than

00:04:42.420 anything, you know, Wolf the Quarleson. It's like, Bladdy and Taylor is another good one.

00:04:46.440 But yeah, Wolf was a, uh, an Irish, an Irishman who, um, was around in, I think the ninth century.

00:04:52.680 And these Vikings were invading his, uh, his homeland. And, you know, we don't know anything

00:04:57.660 about Wolf the Quarleson because epitomizes the guy that I like to write about, because we don't

00:05:01.600 know anything about this guy, except that he killed a bunch of Vikings at this battle. He almost

00:05:06.860 single-handedly turned back their army. And then when there, when the Viking commander killed the

00:05:12.360 Irish king, this guy hunted him down, uh, punched him in the throat, cut out his, uh, cut open his

00:05:19.240 abdomen, pulled out his entrails, tied one of them to a tree, and then like forced the 0.62

00:05:22.880 guy to walk around the tree in a circle, pulling out his own entrails until he died from it.

00:05:26.700 So it's like, you know, he doesn't really serve a whole lot of, he doesn't have a whole

00:05:31.260 lot of historical significance, but he was kind of a badass guy. And those are the kinds

00:05:35.220 of stories that I want to, that I want to be able to hit with the book.

00:05:38.140 That's crazy. Wow.

00:05:40.300 Yeah, he was a bad guy. 0.56

00:05:42.720 Insane. So, uh, uh, who's the most badass U.S. president you think?

00:05:46.720 There's so many good ones. You know, I mean, the big, the big three you would think would

00:05:52.220 be, you know, you think are, uh, you got George Washington, you got, uh, Andrew Jackson, you

00:05:56.880 got Teddy Roosevelt. Those are the three that are, you know, are really some of the toughest

00:06:01.220 guys that have been in office. I like to talk about, uh, Zachary Taylor when we're talking

00:06:06.060 about badass presidents, because he doesn't get as much publicity or as much credit as some

00:06:10.580 of those other guys. But Zach Taylor was kind of a badass guy also. He was a war hero from

00:06:14.580 the Mexican-American War. He had, uh, fought off an Indian attack at the fort with just

00:06:20.140 like himself and two other guys. And, uh, and they made him president for the Whig party

00:06:25.060 because he was so successful and because he kicked so much ass in the Mexican-American 1.00

00:06:29.080 War. Uh, but then, you know, he wasn't the kind of guy who was just going to be a political 0.96

00:06:33.900 puppet. You know, the Whigs put him up thinking that, oh yeah, we'll just write his credibility

00:06:38.280 to the White House and then make him do whatever we want. Uh, but once he got there, they

00:06:42.680 started giving me these orders and he was like, yeah, I don't want to do that. You're

00:06:45.180 going to have to make me. And then, you know, so he just didn't give a crap about anything. 0.98

00:06:49.100 Uh, didn't basically wasn't the Whig in any way. Uh, and when they kept trying to get him 0.95

00:06:53.540 to, uh, to put his, to put their policies forward, he just told him to get lost.

00:06:58.240 Wow. So yeah, he did some, some political, uh, uh, huevos there.

00:07:02.800 Yeah. Yeah. He didn't care.

00:07:04.960 Yeah. Yeah. And like, yeah, it's funny you mentioned, you know, Andrew Jackson and Theodore

00:07:08.720 Roosevelt. There's a, those are two presidents actually had assassination attempts on them,

00:07:13.080 but the way they handled it was like really bad-ass. I mean, this is before secret service.

00:07:19.060 Um, and I, once I, I mean, yeah, one story that comes to mind is Andrew Jackson. He was

00:07:24.500 like in a duel or like, no, he, there's actually an assassination attempt and the guy, the gun

00:07:29.680 misfired. And then Andrew Jackson, like, he's like this old guy goes and chased down the 0.91

00:07:34.460 guy and beats him with his cane. I mean, right. Beat him up with his cane and then build a

00:07:38.800 statue to himself on the site where he was almost as fascinated. Yeah. Uh, he was a tough

00:07:42.900 guy. This is what his body used to rattle because he'd been in so many duels. He had

00:07:46.340 so many gunshots in him. Uh, and there's a famous story about him being in this duel and, uh,

00:07:51.560 you know, he faces off against this other guy who had such a, uh, interjected his wife or

00:07:55.080 something like that. Uh, another guy was just really talented, really, you know, bad-ass

00:07:59.120 duelist. Uh, and they, they turned, they, you know, 10 page turn fire or whatever. And, uh,

00:08:04.620 Andrew Jackson just basically stands there and lets the other guy shoot him first so that he

00:08:08.260 can take his time when he's aiming. It's just like, I mean, that's like balls of steel right

00:08:14.080 there. Yeah. It's crazy. And then, uh, Theodore Roosevelt, uh, you know, this was after he's

00:08:18.580 president, he was running on the progressive party, uh, the bull moose party or whatever. And

00:08:24.160 some guy shot him. And instead of going to the hospital, he gets up and gives a 90 minute

00:08:29.320 speech and shows the audience. Yeah. It shows the audience's wound is like, you can't keep

00:08:34.940 a bull moose down. I mean, that's just, you, I don't think you'd ever see that happen today.

00:08:39.720 No, no, not a chance. I mean, standing outside and it's like freezing cold, I believe at the

00:08:44.560 time. And, you know, in front of all these people. Yeah. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Very cool.

00:08:51.300 So in your book, uh, Ben, you're, you're, you're an equal opportunity, uh, badass appreciator

00:08:56.900 and you also include some women in the book. So can you, can you give us an example of a 0.86

00:09:02.000 badass woman and her exploits? Uh, yeah, one of the, one of the toughest ones in the book 1.00

00:09:08.700 is, uh, is Anne Bonning. And Anne Bonning was a, uh, a pirate. She, you know, was living,

00:09:14.520 living in Nassau. She was the wife of some small time pirate. Uh, and then that pirate that 0.95

00:09:20.440 she was married to started selling out other pirates to the local government for money. 0.96

00:09:25.340 And, you know, she really thought that this was BS. So she escaped and like made off with

00:09:31.500 some other pirate guy. And the two of them just basically sailed around, you know, did

00:09:35.700 all the good pirate things, plundering and pillaging, all this good stuff. And, uh, you

00:09:40.580 know, she was dressed as a man for the first little bit of their voyage. Um, but eventually

00:09:46.340 people caught on that she was a woman, but she was so tough. And, you know, it was really

00:09:49.860 bad luck at this time to have women on board pirate ships, but she was so tough. And she 1.00

00:09:53.820 was some of the, one of the mean people on board that they, you know, they didn't care.

00:09:57.480 She dressed as a woman the whole time and nobody really should have a problem with it. Uh, and 1.00

00:10:01.720 then when the pirates eventually got captured, she, you know, was the only one, like most of

00:10:07.240 them were really drunk and they were ambushed by the British Navy. Uh, and, you know,

00:10:11.480 there was a small battle and it was basically Anne Bonning and like this other woman, 1.00

00:10:14.720 Mary Reed, who was the other woman on board. Uh, and they were the only two who fought 0.96

00:10:18.660 back. All the other pirates were just like, whatever, I'm wasting, I don't care. Uh, and

00:10:22.740 so, you know, these two women fought back for a while. They eventually were, were, were 0.89

00:10:27.380 captured and as they were being dragged off by the British, they turned the guns on their 0.97

00:10:30.960 own men for being cowards. Wow. So, you know, they didn't, they didn't have any tolerance 0.98

00:10:35.200 for, uh, for people who, who didn't, uh, didn't want to fight. Yeah, no tolerance for

00:10:39.840 wussies. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know, and all the, you know, they, they went to 1.00

00:10:44.380 trial and, uh, they eventually were able to get off from being hung and vanished into

00:10:48.600 history. Uh, you know, we don't know what happened to Anne Bonning afterwards because

00:10:51.900 she, she escaped. Uh, but you know, during a trial of all of the people who testified

00:10:56.460 against them basically said that she was like the most evil person they'd ever met.

00:11:01.960 She was like the worst of all the pirates on board. It was great. 0.90

00:11:05.340 That's funny. Um, you also have a section about badass animals and, uh, one of the, one of the

00:11:11.840 things I thought, the stories I thought was really cool and funny was, uh, about a bear

00:11:16.060 that the Polish army recruited. Tell us about this bear.

00:11:20.800 Yeah, the bear is on the website. You can look the bear up. His name is Wojtek. Uh, and he

00:11:25.600 was a Syrian brown bear cub that was rescued by the Polish as they were traveling through,

00:11:32.460 uh, the Middle East towards, uh, towards, you know, going to get ready for their invasion of, 1.00

00:11:37.120 uh, from their invasion of Italy. And, you know, they kind of raised this bear from birth. They

00:11:41.120 wrestled with him. They, he smoked cigarettes. He drank beer. Uh, you know, he, he marched like

00:11:46.240 on his hind legs along with the men when they did like parade stuff, you know, just crazy. And,

00:11:50.720 uh, you know, the bear first distinguishes himself by, you know, the bear used to like to take baths

00:11:55.840 in the bath houses that they would set up in their camps. And he found a German spy in one of these

00:12:00.840 bath houses and basically just growled at the guy until the guy like basically wet himself and

00:12:04.460 surrendered. Uh, so, you know, that was cool. And then there are reports at the battle of,

00:12:10.140 uh, Monte Cassino. And this is one of the things in the book that looks so insane. You wouldn't

00:12:14.780 believe it, like, unless you're able to find, you know, six to eight corroborating sources for it.

00:12:19.520 But at the battle of Monte Cassino, he carried artillery shells, you know, walking on his hind legs,

00:12:26.320 carrying artillery shells in his hands from the trucks to the guns. Wow. It's like ridiculous,

00:12:32.060 right? Yeah. I mean, uh, you know, that's unbelievable that he was, you know, he's on the, 0.97

00:12:38.540 all the heraldry of the unit now. He's on their official logo and everything like that. And, uh,

00:12:43.020 he was in Edinburgh Zoo after, after the war and his old buddies used to come visit him and like

00:12:48.900 jump down into the enclosure with him and like horrify everybody that was around because it's

00:12:52.320 like jumping to the enclosure and wrestle with him like they used to. Crazy stuff.

00:12:56.180 Wow. So an artillery shell carrying, cigarette smoking, beer chugging bear.

00:13:02.520 That's pretty, that's pretty badass. That's definitely badass.

00:13:07.200 So, yeah, yeah. You know, it's, it's sort of humbling writing this book because I'm like,

00:13:10.640 this is a bear. He's more badass than I am. How is that possible?

00:13:15.220 Yeah. It's, it's, it's Stephen Colbert's worst nightmare.

00:13:17.920 Really.

00:13:18.200 Yeah. No kidding. It's a sentient bear.

00:13:20.460 Yeah. So, uh, Ben, most of the people you include in the book are long dead. Um,

00:13:25.660 do you have any, do we have any bad-asses living among us today?

00:13:29.020 Yeah, we do. We do for sure. I, uh, I didn't include any in the book. Uh,

00:13:33.860 everybody in the book is currently dead because, um, I don't get sued.

00:13:39.000 Short version. Uh, you know, you're right.

00:13:41.160 I have a lot of present day people on the website because, you know,

00:13:44.300 people don't like it. Somebody reads it, you know,

00:13:46.640 they're obviously bad-ass if they're on the website. Uh,

00:13:48.980 and they come to me and say, I don't want to be up there.

00:13:50.860 It's easy to pull it down off the website, but this is in print.

00:13:53.160 You're kind of stuck. So yeah,

00:13:54.740 there's a lot of really bad-ass people doing stuff right now. You know,

00:13:57.960 you've got, you know, you've got firefighters, you've got, uh, you know,

00:14:00.920 the soldiers, you've got so much bad-ass stuff happening every day. Uh,

00:14:04.400 the story that I like to tell is, uh, a couple of years ago,

00:14:07.360 there was a guy who was a master of arms on a cruise ship and the cruise ship

00:14:11.480 was coming under attack by Somali pirates.

00:14:13.740 And this would have been basically a complete nightmare if these pirates had

00:14:16.640 gotten on board a cruise ship. Uh, and this guy was, you know,

00:14:19.920 he was master of arms, but he didn't have access to weapons or anything.

00:14:22.560 They didn't have any guns on board or anything like that,

00:14:25.160 that he could actually use to fight,

00:14:26.600 fight off two boatloads with full of guys with AK 47s and RPGs.

00:14:31.420 So he grabbed the freaking deck fire hose for the cruise ship and then just

00:14:35.680 hoses these guys down while they're shooting AK 47s at him, uh, 0.96

00:14:39.500 and fights them off with a frigging fire hose, uh, to, you know, 0.94

00:14:42.640 like 12 guys with bazookas. It's crazy stuff. 0.89

00:14:45.520 That's awesome. That's awesome. So Ben in your book,

00:14:49.380 you don't make any bones about this kind of being an over a top,

00:14:52.220 you know, hyperbolic and it's, it's really humorous, the writing you do. Um,

00:14:56.120 and it's definitely, it's fun to read,

00:14:57.980 but were there any real life lessons you took after researching about the,

00:15:01.480 the people and the men you include in your book that has helped you become a

00:15:04.760 better man?

00:15:06.920 Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yeah.

00:15:09.080 And I do try to do a little bit over the top of it, you know? Uh,

00:15:11.980 and that's something that I think is kind of a good flavor for,

00:15:15.960 you know, I have like Julius Caesar swim,

00:15:17.300 looking at basketball. I have like my Vikings,

00:15:19.720 he drives over somebody's head with a riding lawnmower, you know,

00:15:21.980 I'm trying to do some funny stuff or do some cool stuff with it. But, uh,

00:15:25.920 yeah, in all seriousness,

00:15:26.940 the one thing that will tie all of these characters together where you have,

00:15:30.980 you know, a Leonidas on the one hand, who's defending his homeland.

00:15:33.920 And then on the other hand,

00:15:34.840 you've got an Anne Bonny who's making people walk the plank or Vlad the Impaler, 1.00

00:15:38.420 who's, you know, murdering his own people. Uh,

00:15:41.500 the one thing that kind of ties these heroes, villains,

00:15:44.100 human beings together is that they're all determined. They have this,

00:15:47.760 they have this determination, uh,

00:15:49.580 and they have this one thing that they want to accomplish, whether it's,

00:15:52.140 you know, conquest or, um, freedom or whatever it is. And,

00:15:56.300 you know, they don't want anything standing in their way.

00:15:58.200 They just will knock down anybody who gets in their way.

00:16:00.680 They'll break the enemy door. Uh, and they just,

00:16:03.220 they don't do a crap. They're going to do what they want to do and nothing's going to 0.94

00:16:05.960 stop them.

00:16:06.800 Wow. So determination.

00:16:07.780 Exactly. Exactly. That's the,

00:16:10.600 that's the one unifying factor among all people who are bad-ass.

00:16:15.240 Awesome. Well, Ben, thanks for talking to this, talking to us today.

00:16:18.420 It's been a pleasure.

00:16:19.740 Yeah. Yeah. It's been great being on. Thanks a lot for having me.

00:16:21.960 Our guest today was Ben Thompson.

00:16:23.800 Ben is the author of the book Badasses,

00:16:25.420 and you can pick up his book at amazon.com or any other major bookstore and make

00:16:29.780 sure to check out Ben's website,

00:16:31.420 Badass of the Week to read about more bad-asses from history.

00:16:34.460 Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. For more manly tips and advice,

00:16:42.160 check out our website at artofmanliness.com. And until next week, stay manly.

00:16:48.280 Bye.

00:17:04.460 Bye.

00:17:34.460 Bye.

00:18:04.460 Bye.

00:18:34.460 Bye.

00:19:04.460 Bye.

00:19:05.160 Bye.

00:19:05.460 Bye.

00:19:06.120 Bye.

00:19:06.520 You

The Art of Manliness - April 03, 2014

Episode #11： Badasses with Ben Thompson

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