- Everyone knows holding a roll of nickels in their fist and punching someone increases the punching power of a person by an incredible amount. Most don’t know even using something smaller and lighter is devastating. Punching someone with a roll of chapstick or a Bic lighter in your fist will turn your punch from a so so to knocking someone out cold. The extra weight helps but isn’t the main thing. It’s the solid material that stops your hand from giving way upon contact. Makes your punch much more damaging because it is much more compact. A lot of guys that fight a lot/live in wild neighborhoods know this little trick. I would be breaking up fights and everyone involved has chapstick on them? I thought perhaps soft lips were a priority there in the 18th Street Insane Gangster Bloods? I forget who but someone eventually clued me in on how these young thundercats were using them.
- In terms of running away or catching someone in a vehicle pursuit having a vehicle that accelerates quickly will beat a vehicle with a much higher top speed. In a car chase acceleration is king, not top speed. This is why a car can never catch a motorcycle. It’s not because they’re faster. It’s not because motorcycles can go places cars can’t. It just 97% raw acceleration and 3% being able to cut through places a car can’t like between cars stopped in traffic. If you want to be a bad guy or catch them think about acceleration before overall speed…or just be smart and always use a motorcycle to commit crimes? Side benefit the licence plate is impossible to see from more than 3 feet away and you can cover your body head to toe so your sex and race can’t even be determined and not raise any suspicions.
- As Marine, EMT-Paramedic, Firefighter and Cop I have seen …like…whew… a whole lot of people die. I’m not counting the bijillion dead bodies I have seen, carried, rolled and had to touch, examine or whatever but people actually dying right in my presence. By far there are two most common things people say as their last words before dying (in this order). 1. I had the right of way…” 2. “Mom….” .
- Fireman and Police are the exact same type of people as far as personality types, sick but hilarious humor and discussions. Goals. Politics. I could detect no difference whatsoever in the kind of people that do either job. They also go through the exact same stages in their careers from excited and annoying to proficient to expert to burned out utterly and counting the seconds to retirement. Both are equally intrested in helping people and exually disgusted with humanity at the same time. They’re exactly the same people right down to every 3rd one named “Mike”. The funny thing is Police and Fire in every town I worked in that was large the two hated each other. Many a city and Church festival in St Louis City has been disrupted by fist fights between the two breaking out. It was actually quite common for Policemen and Firemen to fight at bars and beerhall events etc in the City. Ironicly I was involved in fistacuffs for both sides. Our City actually had a Police vs Fire boxing match that fills the Blues Hockey Arena every year. It’s called “Guns and Hoses”. No joke. Spoiler alert we always beat the shit out of those Firefighters, it’s a fun night and it all goes to charity. I’m not joking when I say that if you fight in Guns and Hoses and win by a knock out you will be instantly famous in the 2000 member department and in line for promotions very soon.
- About 75% of peoples houses have very “weird” smells. Not always necessarily bad like cat piss (which is pretty common) but more like they cook regularly with some weird ass spices. Now that I know that I ALWAYS ask people who will tell without bullshitting if my house smells weird when they first come over. You could be living in a very very weird smelling house and have no idea.
- Most really big guys can’t fight for shit. They have gotten by on being big since age 13 and never had to actually fight at all. They didn’t have to fist fight like me to and from school 5 days a week in Detroit because I was tall and skinny and looked easy to beat up (which I totally was for many many years until one day I wasn’t). Big guys who can’t fight will ALWAYS try to grab on to you and take you down to the floor to wrestle. Just throw jabs and move and they will be so worn out in less than a minute or two they will start dropping their hands, mouth breathing. Then you go in on them dirty with some throat punches and face shots (a good number can take hits to the body but not the jaw).. Don’t underestimate smaller guys, especially if they’re wiry.
- Cars never blow up. Honestly. Never. They catch on fire and the fire can spread very quickly but they don’t blow up with a big fireball like every car on every movie or TV show forever. If you drop a car off a cliff it will not explode. If you stuff a rag on fire down the fuel port it wont explode. If all the gas leaks out underneath it it wont explode. There is actually only one part of a car that actually does explode is the tires. You call it a blowout or flat tire but most of the time it’s actually an explosion of compressed air finding a weakness. It’s one of the most common causes of trucks in particular but any vehicles to crash. However once they crash from a tire explosion the car still doesn’t explode. I have put out at least 500 car fires personally with a 1″3/4 preconnect attack hose or a fire extinguisher. Many of them were fully involved with fire from bumper to bumper. Never once did I ever see or hear of a car exploding. Also side fact. When you see an explosion the more fireball and flame you see the weaker the blast was. Big ass explosions that kill you…military grade explosions like artillery, grenades, mines, rockets etc have almost no “fireball” or color to the explosion. All the energy is directed to the blast. A fireball is wasted, weak energy bled off so when you see a movie with a massive fireball explosion that it was actually a very weak event despite it’s cinemagraphic look.
- Nobody ever says cool shit after something crazy like a shooting or some life and death event. Even the coolest, doesn’t look at explosions, eats a meatball sub over a mangled dead body with as much comfort as a at a nice table downtown STILL says “OMG DUDE DID YOU SEE THAT?????…..I JUST SHIT A KITTEN?” as they pat themselves all over looking for holes they didn’t start the day with. It’s always really scary too but you leave that part out when you’re dining out on that story for the next decade. There have been times as I was either in a building fully involved with raging fire dragging my forehead on the ground because the heat just 2 inches higher from the floor was unbearably painful or about to go do an entry knowing 100% a guy with a gun was behind the door…..just taking a beat to question my vocational choices….being alternately totally scared and pretty sure you’re going to die now and weirdly filled with endorphins that must be like what Heroin feels like and super into it all of it.
- People put a lot of crazy things in their butts and need medical intervention to remove them and sometimes to save their lives (like the guy that put one of those twisty shaped light bulbs up there…not the regular round normal light bulbs…the energy efficient big ones that are a twisty tube if that makes sense). Yea that broke up there and literally tore himself a new asshole. To add to his indignity I made him ride in the Ambulance with his butt up in the air and his face down in the pillow area because it was the only way to keep the wound above his heart. The ER Surgeon told me that and not applying anymore pressure (moving the glass around in the process) which was counterintuitive …combined, probably kept him alive long enough to save. His BP was something like 20/10 with a thready pulse and circling the drain.
- I found that despite my pride the best thing I could do as a Medic was just get them to the ER as fast as possible many times. “Load and Go” over “Stay and Play” as Paramedics say in their slang. The average Ambulance in America takes 8 minutes to arrive but in many many places its more like 15 or 20. If your loved ones life is on the line do the mental math. Can you get them to the ER before an Ambulance can get here? If someone I know is dying they’re getting thrown in a vehicle and driven to the closest ER turning corners on two tires in almost every conceivable circumstance. This is what Cops do when other Cops get hit. I have never seen or heard of a shot/stabbed St Louis City Cop arriving at the Trauma Center in an Ambulance. The nearest Cop throws you in the back seat and then does some of the scariest driving you will ever see or hear tell of to get you to the ER. If Grandpa suddenly has chest pain and trouble breathing…don’t walk him to the bedroom…walk him to the front seat of the car. You will be halfway to getting him to the ER by the time you could have finished describing what is going on and where to 911, let alone waiting for them to be notified, get to the rig and drive to you (then talk a lot and finally drive him to where?….the ER you could have been at 10 minutes after the event started instead of 45 minutes with EMS). Plus this way you get to do a dramatic Emergency Room entrance as you burst through the sliding glass doors and loudly proclaim “I NEED A DOCTOR!”
- If you ever see a person with a messed up looking ear (like shown below) what we call “Cauliflower Ear” and are considering fighting them, reconsider fighting with them if possible or call for backup before you get into it if you’re Police.
- Here is the rant portion: So now I would say this is a thing most people don’t know and it drives me so crazy. If you are in an accident on a road. Stop there if safe, make sure the other person is all right….Then….please pay attention here people….THEN MOVE YOUR CAR OUT OF THE ROADWAY TO SOMEWHERE SAFE LIKE THE PARKING LOT 20 YARDS AWAY IF THE CARS ARE DRIVEABLE. For some reason people like sheep tend to just freeze and not want to move after even the most minor fender bender. Sit right there in traffic hoping they don’t get hit by cars flying by and causing a major hazard cause guess what? People are going to have to be changing lanes to avoid your cars and you standing there in the street on your phone looking at your bumper. Traffic slows and people rubber neck to look. I can’t tell you how many accidents Cops get a call for and there is a 2nd or even 3rd accident at that same spot before we get there. If your car can move, get it and you out of the road to a safe spot to wait for Police. Stop after the accident. Tell the person in the other car….”I’m moving to a safer place, that CVS parking lot over there.” Then go. Call 911, look for your info, check the damage…all in safety. The first thing any competent Cop asks when arriving at an accident in an active roadway with traffic is 1. Is anyone hurt? 2. Are the vehicles able to be moved? If no injuries and drivable cars the Officer will immediately direct you off the roadway to a safe location to sort things out. We can tell from the damage alone and statements exactly what happened and where, move to safety on your own. If everyone did this there would be literally 50% less traffic jams in America minimum.
- When people get shot they almost never die instantly. In fact the vast majority of people who are shot multiple times live. For example I once got a call for “a man shot”. Got there. 20 year old kid sitting on a stoop. He had been shot 7 times in the chest and stomach with a .45 and 2 more times in his hand/arm. He had run 6 blocks home, called 911 and was sitting there talking to me quite normally when I arrived. I mean shots dead ass center mast and all around the nipples, belly middle, not off to the side shoulder shots or something. He had powder burns we call “stippling” and soot around the entrance wounds, so someone gave him all 10 rounds in the torso at less than 5 feet. He walked to the Ambulance and climbed in when they arrived like 8 minutes later. Saw him around quite a bit after that. He was fine. No permanent problems just a big ass zipper scar from his pubes to his adams apple. My point also is even wounds that are mortal regularly take from 5 minutes to 30 minutes before the person dies and they’re totally functional until then able to shoot and move etc. BTW that kid refused to name his assailant but word quickly got out that Lil Poo from the 18th St Insane Gangster Bloods had shot him (this guy was a Cochran Crip). About a month after this guy gets out of the hospital someone shot Lil Poo coming out of the corner store with a .45 multiple times in the face. No arrest ever made in the case due to lack of witnesses. You know this guy learned his lesson that just shooting someone in the chest might not kill them and just unloaded on this dudes face. His face looked like a Calzone someone threw against a wall.
- Trust your instincts and intuitions. If you are getting a weird vibe off a situation or a person, learn to pay attention to that. People can often detect micro expressions that a person is a threat and body language people are putting out that mean to do you harm. You often detect this unconsciously long before your conscious mind dials in and realises something is definitely wrong. You may just feel vaguely uncomfortable. Act on and be aware of your intuition. This has saved me a few times.
- If you’re out and about in a larger town and all the sudden have to take a crap it can be difficult to find a clean bathroom. Your best bet is always to go to a really big Hotel like a Hilton, Adams Mark, etc.
- ^ The nicer chains have huge lobbies with massive bathrooms done in Marble. Spotless. Some so big you could play half court basketball in there. Even better they’re almost always empty. So if you’re on the road and some high end hotels are nearby that is your best bet.
- Lasty, if you want to guarantee your McDonalds fry’s are incredibly hot and right out of the fryer ask for “no salt”. Then just keep some salt packets in the car. It’s the only way to get really hot fries 100% of the time. I hate cold fries. Man….now I want fries. It’s 12:34 at night now…I can make it. They don’t close until 2.
English (United States) 
