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  b) You tell her that she can order the most expensive thing on the menu and that you’re picking up the check.

  1) The most expensive thing on the menu is a $60 steak.

  2) The most expensive thing on the menu is a Big Mac.

  c) You focus on how broke you are during dinner conversation and talk her into paying the bill.

  d) The moment you pick her up, you ask for gas money.

  ANSWERS

  a) +10 points. New-school manliness cannot contend with old-school manliness. If you’re a gentleman like Clark Gable, you are a real man. However, if you try to fuck your date at the end of the night, you get zilch. With this one, it’s all or nothing.

  b) -5 points. Unless you’ve got old-school manliness, never offer a woman the most expensive thing on the menu. By saying nothing, you can tell what type of woman she is. If she orders the most expensive thing on her own, she is most likely out for your money. If she orders the cheapest thing on the menu, she probably lacks confidence and will be easy to bed.

  1) If you’re at a really nice restaurant where the most expensive dish costs $60 or more, you’re an even bigger douche bag. Go ahead and subtract another 15 points.

  2) If you took your date to McDonald’s and she actually walked into the place, you already know she has no self-respect. In such a case, offering her the most expensive thing will probably make her happy and horny. Consider it a wise move and give yourself +15 points.

  #6 You just got knocked the fuck out. Joe Rogan comes over and asks you what happened. What do you say?

  a) You immediately begin making excuses. Tell everyone how your hand was hurt going in, your wife left you, you got the flu. Just rattle off every bullshit reason for the knockout you can think of.

  b) You don’t say anything because you are too busy crying.

  c) You say, “Everything was going good, and then I just got knocked the fuck out.”

  ANSWERS

  a) -10 points. Real men don’t make excuses, even when those excuses are legitimate.

  b) -5 points. The reason I didn’t subtract more…well, you know the reason.

  c) +10 points. This is the way every loss should be handled. In addition to making more fans, you don’t go home feeling like a jackass.

  #7 In a raffle you recently won a gigantic douche-mobile, such as a Range Rover, Hummer, or some kind of lifted truck. What do you do with it?

  a) Go off-roading without worrying about scratching the paint or acquiring a few dents.

  b) Donate the piece of shit to charity.

  c) Trick it out by purchasing fancy rims that turns it onto an on-road vehicle only.

  d) Use it to haul tools and lumber back and forth to work.

  ANSWERS

  a) +5 points. In order for off-roading to be extremely manly, you have to do it in something that isn’t built for the dirt, like a Honda Civic. But showing that you don’t care about the appearance of the vehicle gives you +5 points.

  b) +10 points. I mean, come on, who really needs a Hummer.

  c) -75 points. Do I really need to explain?

  d) +10 points. Real men have manly jobs, and sometimes those manly jobs require a big vehicle. Gardening tools don’t count. You’ve got to carry big tools, like lathes and grinders and wood splitters…. And no, I don’t really know what a lathe is either.

  If you passed the test with the appropriate number of points, feel free to consume the coming wisdom. If you did not pass the test, I feel sorry for you. However, being the nice guy that I am, I will attempt to improve upon your manliness by giving you some tips. Once you’ve committed these tips to memory, you must put the book down and go practice. After two years and nine days have passed, you are free to pick the book back up and take the test once again. Good luck ( jackass)!

  One More Thing Before We Get Started: You Must Improve Your Manliness

  Most people have the completely wrong idea about what it takes to be a real man. If your goal is to attain a heightened state of manliness, and someone has been feeding you the wrong information (i.e., your chick or mother), you need to follow the guidelines set forth below. Personally, I’m a man’s man. I say this because on many occasions I’ve been explicitly told that in no way, shape, or form am I a ladies’ man.

  The Real-Man Checklist

  Repairman: A manly man knows how to fix shit. If the heater is on the fritz, he knows how to take it apart and put it back together. The more cusswords you use while doing the repair job, the more manly you become. It also helps to show at least three inches of butt crack and fart regularly.

  Mechanic: Most manly men know how to fix cars, but it is not mandatory. However, you need to have a basic understanding of what’s going on underneath the hood. If you have a friend who claims to be a man, yet he can’t tell you what an alternator does or identify it, he is not a man.

  Beer: All real men drink a specific brand of cheap beer. While I was growing up, my stepfather, who was the manliness man on the planet, drank Schlitz tall boys. There was no room in the fridge, so he just left them on the counter and drank them warm. One day I asked him why he drank Schlitz, and he said, “It’s only 3.1 cents per ounce. Beer is an acquired taste, so you might as well acquire a taste for cheap beer.” That’s some manly shit.

  Chef: A lot of people feel real men should leave the cooking to women, but that is complete bullsquash. Real men cook all the time, but there are some strict guidelines. First, all cooking must be done on a grill, even during winter. Especially during winter. Second, you can’t cook anything fancy. Stick to meat. Third, you can’t use too many condiments or know the names of the seasoning you used. If someone asks you what spices you put on the chicken, you must reply, “Hell, I don’t know. It came in a package.”

  Intelligence: Real men don’t need to be particularly intelligent about general matters, but they do have to be smart when it comes to guy shit. First and foremost, they must know the military ranks in order—corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, etc. If someone says something about a full bird, and you think it’s when you elongate your middle finger, which is what I thought as a kid, then you’re not a real man. I would suggest writing down the military ranks so you can study them, but real men don’t write. (Note: I’m a man because I broke my own badass rule to write this book, which tells all you assholes to not even start writing…. Does that even make sense?)

  Hunter: In order to be a real man, you don’t need to be a lumberjack who lives in the woods. You also don’t need to kill your food with your own two hands (though it certainly helps). At least once in every real man’s life, he has killed something, cleaned it, and then consumed it later that same day. Shooting a buffalo and then losing track of it in the forest or paying someone to stuff it doesn’t count. You must kill, clean, and eat. There is nothing quite like the steamy, meaty smell that emanates from a freshly dressed carcass.

  Ways to Lower Your Manliness

  Hair Removal: If you shave your chest, or God forbid any other part of your body, more than you shave your face, you are not manly. You’re hygienic, but not manly. Although I have to admit (and I would have never pictured myself ever saying these words) I actually prefer to roll with guys who shave because I end up with less of their body hair in my mouth. But note, I tend to look down on them. You’re also not a real man if you get electrolysis; I don’t care how many tattoos you get—you’ll never be manly. Now, if you shave your chest to get women and feel you deserve a partial pass, you’re wrong. Why in the world would you do that? A real man never caters to women.

  Tanning-Bed Membership: If you pay monthly dues for a tanning-bed membership, you bear no resemblance to a real man. I say this because when guys tan they usually put their junk in a sock or cover their package with a wash-cloth. This is disturbing, not manly.

  Self-Help Books: The act of reading one of these types of books (unless Forrest Griffin happens to be the author—because he has perspective) is, in and of itself, a womanly deed. Briefly scanning, spot reading,
or faking the reading of these books is, however, an acceptable method of conflict avoidance when dealing with a relentless, pesky wife or girlfriend; but actually completing these books means that you are either such a bitch of a man that you are succumbing to the will of your female master or your testosterone is leaking out your nipples. In any case, consider yourself warned.

  Examples of Real Men

  Bret Favre is my favorite real man right now. He’s got a fucking Levi’s commercial, and that’s some manly shit right there.

  Ernest Hemingway was a real man, and then he killed himself, elevating his manliness to new heights. You hear what I’m saying, pig licker?

  David Caruso from CSI Miami is a real man, and I’ll tell you why. This guy has absolutely nothing going for him. He’s a skinny, ugly, redheaded dude who looks like he would break in half if you hit him, yet he walks with a swagger that convinces you he isn’t afraid of anyone or any thing. That swagger makes him a real man.

  Clint Eastwood is obviously the epitome of a real man. If you feel you’re a real man and try to compare your manliness to his, you’re stupid.

  The old Chuck Norris used to be a real man. I’m not quite sure what happened to his manliness—perhaps it has something to do with two hip replacements and the fact that he dyes his hair.

  BOOK 1

  THE PHYSICAL

  The Devil Wears a Pocket Protector

  The toughest dude on the planet is not competing in the UFC or any other MMA organization. He doesn’t train in the martial arts, shoot roids into his ass cheeks, or even hit the heavy bag. He couldn’t have. From the looks of him, it’s impossible. I don’t know his name or what he’s been up to for the past six years, but I’ll never forget his face.

  Back when I was attempting to play football for the University of Georgia, I’d occasionally catch a ride with a group of meatheads who were also attempting to play football. One afternoon, four of us were packed into a Jeep with the top down, cruising around for a while, when someone had the bright idea to go down to Georgia Tech and harass some of the smart folk. With nearly a thousand pounds of muscle, fat, and attitude weighing down our ride, we trolled around campus. I wasn’t exactly sure what my cohorts had in mind until one of the guys jumped out of the Jeep while it was still rolling and headed straight for the only person in sight. The target happened to be the biggest geek I had ever seen. Now, I’m not calling this kid a geek because he had more brains than all of us combined and actually went to class, but he was five nine, packed at best a hundred twenty pounds, wore a button-down shirt, and had, in his breast pocket, half a dozen pens crammed into a plastic protector. But there’s more. He had on horn-rim glasses and hugged a handful of books to his chest like a ten-year-old schoolgirl. Hands down, he was the most pathetic-looking kid in existence.

  So what does the dickhead who jumped out of the Jeep do? He goes straight up to the kid, slaps his books out of his hands, and then begins laughing at him and calling him names. Dork, dipshit, fuck nuts—he let this kid have it. Pretty early on in the verbal assault, I suggested that we get moving and, to expedite our departure, started to say that the cops would be showing up. Now, I was certain this short, scrawny kid would begin wailing and running in circles, which only would have prompted this asshole I was with to chase after him.

  It would have been a horrible (although hilarious) sight to watch—a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound linebacker chasing down a hundred-and-twenty-pound kid, pens flying everywhere. But that’s not what our geek chose to do. Out of nowhere, he charged directly at my dickface associate and swung for the hills.

  I couldn’t fucking believe it. Swear to God, the football player was so big that even if you had ten buddies getting your back, you’d still think twice about charging him. And here, this little kid was doing it all on his own, petite fists looping through the air like pesky mosquitoes. But before the kid could land a single shot, the football player cracks him and he goes down. I thought that would be it. The kid had probably watched too many kung fu movies and thought he was some kind of tough guy. Daniel-san or some shit. Anyone who saw this exchange would have figured now that he had taken one to the face, he would stay down and play dead. That’s not what happened. Getting socked only seemed to fuel his passion for justice. He popped back up like a weeblewobble and again charged forward.

  By this time, another one of the guys in the Jeep had jumped out. Harnessing the pack mentality, he grabbed the kid by his neck, dragged him over to the edge of a grassy slope, and threw him down it. The kid tumbled head over tail, but when he reached the bottom, he didn’t lie there in a tattered heap. He came storming back up the hill. When he reached the top, he stopped for a moment, casually removed his glasses, set them down on the grass, and then panned his eyes back and forth between his two assailants. The four words that came hissing out of his mouth will be etched into my frontal lobe for an eternity.

  “I’M READY TO DIE!”

  He began his charge at five hundred pounds of muscle. He ran straight into one of them and knocked him backward into the Jeep, producing a decent-size dent. This naturally angered the driver, so he jumped out and joined in on the “fun.” Together, they began beating the holy hell out of this kid. They’d throw him down, kick him in the guts and back, and then begin to walk away. Before they could make it five feet back to the Jeep, the kid would leap up again and charge them. So they’d smack him around, throw him down again, and do some more kicking. All the while the kid threw his fists for all he was worth, head butting, trying to bite. Meanwhile, I’m urging these boneheads to get moving.

  After this went on for a little while, I could see the fear growing in the eyes of my fellow football-player wannabes. They weren’t worried about this kid causing them damage with his fists—they were scared of his heart and soul. It suddenly dawned on these geniuses that they had started something they couldn’t finish, not unlike a twenty-pound burrito. The kid really was prepared to die for the sake of his dignity. Unless they were willing to go to that end and actually kill this kid, they could not win this fight. Eventually, the three of them picked the kid up, carried him back to the hill, and threw him over. The second his sinewy frame left their hands, all three of them came scrambling toward the Jeep, scared that they wouldn’t make it back before the runt clawed his way up the slope and began his next charge.

  All of them fell inside, as though they were trying to escape some terrible onslaught. The driver revved the engine and peeled out. As we sped away from the scene, I looked back over my shoulder. I saw the kid come over the top of the hill in all of his hundred-and-twenty-pound glory, and a chill went down my spine. His face was bloody, and his button-down shirt was torn and grass-stained, but there wasn’t a trace of emotion on his face. Instead of running for the police, the kid dusted himself off, put his glasses back on, and then headed casually off, I assume, to Gryffindor or Hogwarts or wherever, hugging his books in his arms. Right then, I realized that not only was that kid the coolest guy in the world, he was the toughest son of a bitch to ever walk the face of this earth.

  Toughness can carry you a long way, especially in fighting. Personally, I don’t have the best strikes or submissions in the business. The reason I’ve won most of my fights is that I’m too stupid to back down. It’s always been this way. When I was a kid, my mother went to night college, and every afternoon she’d drop me off with a group of older kids. One day when she came to pick me up, she watched them repeatedly chuck me into the bushes. As any mother would do, she stormed over to them and demanded to know what they were doing.

  “He’s just a little kid!” she shouted.

  Immediately they all went on the defensive. “You don’t understand. We’re playing king of the hill, and he won’t quit charging us.”

  I’m not claiming that those who have a never-say-die attitude are superior to those who don’t, because in certain situations, it can actually be detrimental, but when it comes to fighting, it can be one of your most important tools. If an
opponent lands fifteen hard punches to your face, and you smile as though you enjoyed the ride, it fucks with his head. After all, the majority of people are equipped with an easily accessible lever in their head that, when pulled, switches them from “fight mode” to “flight mode.” We’ve all seen what flight mode looks like in the Octagon—it can come in the form of severe backpedaling, clinging to your opponent on the ground, or even giving your opponent your arm so he can finish you off with a quick submission. When you take incredible abuse and refuse to make the switch to flight mode, it causes your opponent to doubt that you have the lever in your head at all. At that point, you start to appear more like an angry wild animal than a human. And the majority of us fear angry wild animals because they have no reason. I would have no problem scrapping with a bear or a baboon if I knew that once I hurt it or it hurt me, we’d both say, “Okay, that’s enough, time to call it quits and go home.” But that’s not what angry wild animals do. They don’t get into fights; they get into scraps that go to the finish. And once you’re lying dead in the dirt, they take it one step further by tearing off your genitals and eating them.