This week, Nick, Kyle and Mike discuss Science! Some of everyone’s all time favorite movies and television shows come up, including Star Wars, Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy, The Terminator and Firefly! Things take a left turn quick though and soon Albert Einstein and Bill Nye, the Science Guy are in a knock down, drag out, fight to the death over the Greatest Scientist in History! Everything finally gets back on track when the boys discuss their Top Five Bad Science Movie Moments. Even if you hate science, this weeks episode is sure to have you donning your lab coat and safety goggles.
Sponsored by Nikola Tesla’s Hugh Jackman Cloning Machine! 00:30 Meet the Beast, Science 16:43 Beast Duel: Einstein vs. Bill Nye, the Science Guy 24:38 Top 5 Bad Science Moments in Movies
Through history, many things have been said about the original order of the Assassins. Their enemies claim and continued the lies that they were users of hashish, making them into villains in their drug-free, Muslim culture. This has been said of them for hundreds of years, that the only reason the great Hassan-i Sabbah kept his followers in check was with drugs and illusions of paradise.
The truth is a little simpler than that. Hassan-i Sabbah liked to call his followers Asasiyun, or the people who are loyal to the foundation of the faith. He used the younger, stronger, most agile of recruits to carry out murders against his enemies and their supporters. They weren’t only skilled at killing, they were smart enough to blend within the lives of their target. The men, what we would consider high schoolers would be able to speak like their target, move like their target and think like their target, but the most important part of their mission was to never sympathize with their target.
The Assassins were formed at a very tumultuous times in the history of Islam. Not only were they fighting for strength against Christianity, who had their own force of super soldiers in the Knights Templar, but also against other sects of Islam who sought the Holy Land and the power it included for their own.
Just like it is portrayed in video games and movies, Assassins preferred to kill their targets in a public space, blending in with the crowd and eliminating or threatening their prey in broad daylight. After all, what better way is there to win the favor of a people you wish to oppress, by killing their oppressors right in front of their eyes.
Two centuries of murder, intrigue and espionage is a lot for the modern order of Assassins to live up to.
In today’s
day and age of Australian internet revolutionaries, neo-robber barons
and street gangs called “F**k Being Broke”, pretty much anyone
can get clipped.
We here at Beast Duels believe preparedness
is next to coolness.
Coolness.
So here's a handy three step guide to surviving a hit.
# 1. Don’t be a target
People get bodied for a number of
reasons. Here are some of the most common.
- Engaging in what’s known as 'la vida loca'.
The crazy life.
You know what we
mean. Petty scams, drug smuggling, book-making, all the way to
prostitution, armed robbery and contract killing. The higher you climb
the ladder in these activities the more likely your haters will turn into determined plotters.
- Being well known
Living in the public eye has its pros
and cons. One of the cons is that some people are insane, and
associate you with whatever is bothering them. That can cause
problems.
-Being yourself
Occasionally speaking up about
something you're passionate about can land you in hot water. Or
cement. Still, self – expression is a must.
Freedom of Speech.
So what to do if
for some reason you can’t fulfill Step One?
# 2. Be
Prepared
There's that P word again.
-Mental fitness
Do whatever works for you to
maintain a calm, positive state of mind. Know yourself. Learn your own reactions.
Learn what to do in the event of an attack.
-Physical
fitness
You don’t need expensive equipment. Just body-weight squats, sit-ups, push-ups, and or pull-ups every day or so. It works in the Army.
Other than that, breathe deeply, eat real food, get enough sleep, and
think moderate thoughts about others.
-Alertness
Do your
best to maintain awareness throughout the day. Being mindful of the
present moment can increase your effectiveness and your enjoyment of
life.
Sometimes even the best buckle. What to do if they catch
you slippin’?
# 3. React
React now.
The key here is to stay calm and
move quickly. Trust your instincts. Stay focused on the goal of
staying alive. You may have to deal with various threats, including...
-Explosions
Whether caused by car bomb, drone attack or old timey
hand grenade, fire and shrapnel are a major issue. Move toward safety,
find cover, and protect your vital areas (fetal position works well
for this). If you're lucid, check for any damage and get out of the
area.
-Gun-play
Cinema and video games have fueled a lot of
misconception about how gunfights work.
Impossible to aim.
Addressing that in full is beyond the scope of this post. To get some real answers I recommend
Col. Jeff Cooper and Massad Ayoob. They're two of the most respected
gun writers in American history and can get you on the right track.
The basics of getting shot at are keep
moving, find cover, stay calm, call for help in a safe way, get out
of the area.
-Close combat
So maybe your
assassin believes in doing things the old fashioned way and you find
yourself in a fight to the death.
For hand to hand combat training I'd go with a grappling art. Think judo, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, or amateur wrestling.
Striking can be useful. However it can also cause injury and waste time during a serious attack.
Knowing how to control the human body can carry you through a lot of
scrapes.
Here's Anthony Soprano from New Jersey
showing us how it's done.
Being the capo of a small crime family
caused him to instantly fail at Step One.
However his therapy appointments and
basement work out routine have prepared him and he's alert during the
attack, Step Two.
Step Three is fulfilled by his tank-like
dispatching of his attackers. Notice he's always aware of where the
gun is pointed and his primary goal is getting away.
So whether you're a small town gangster, seedy politician, or rogue blogger, remember these tips if you want to survive a 187 attempt.
In The Divine Comedy, Dante punishes the traitors far more severely than mere murderers: they are trapped in pools of ice up to their eyebrows, and any struggling efforts to free themselves only makes a breeze that freezes more water to trap them further. The past century and a half hasn't been much kinder to Robert Ford, that dirty coward who gunned down Confederate guerrilla turned train robber and folk hero Jesse James. As the song goes, “he ate of Jesse's bread and slept in Jesse's bed,” and worst of all, he shot a defenseless man in the back. His quick release by the governor suggested that the governor was in on the plan all along, and in Reconstruction-era Missouri, this was another example of a government acting as an adversary to the people. But to Sam Fuller, the death of Jesse James was something he'd had coming to him for quite some time. In 1949, Fuller sought to make a film that could elevate the people's opinion of Robert Ford. In I Shot Jesse James, Fuller suggests it was the love of a woman and a conscience, not just money, that made him pull the trigger.
Ford (played by John Ireland, a fine Western actor who later appeared on all the TV classics: Branded, Bonanza, Rawhide, and later Little House on the Prairie) is in love with actress with Cynthy Waters (Barbara Britton, later star of Bwana Devil), an actress. He longs for a proper life with Cynthy, a farm and a family, but that life can never happen when he's hiding out with the James gang. The governor of Missouri offers amnesty and $10,000 for Jesse James, dead or alive. Ford does the deed and is quickly pardoned, but finds himself perceived not as a hero, but a traitor. With only a fraction of the money he was originally offered, Ford sets out for Colorado to seek his fortune in a silver mine and provide Cynthy the life she deserves. Unfortunately, Cynthy is not waiting for him. She is humiliated by Ford's cowardly act and sees herself as the impetus for it. She tells her new love that she could never bear to be with a man who would do that to a friend, and that she never cared for him that much in the first place. Ford, who seems to have totally lost touch with reality by this point, cannot see the situation for what it is and seems doomed for destruction.
Our distaste for the way Jesse James met his end only works if we perceive it as something undeserved. As time rolled on into the Populist and Progressive movements, Jesse James took on the mantle of a Robin Hood of the rails, stealing only from the 'express' cars or robbing those evil banks, and distributing the spoils to the poor. However, there is no evidence, no matter how anecdotal, that the James gang shared the money with anyone but themselves. Train robberies in particular were seen as an act of Confederate resistance to Union modernization. Before the robbery days, Frank James was a member of Quantrill's gang*, who attacked Lawrence Kansas and killed every man and boy they found; Jesse was in a lesser-known group of bushwhackers who also participated. “Mr. Howard,” Jesse's alias, may have been a defenseless man in St. Joseph who was killed as he hung a picture on a wall, but Jesse James himself was a paranoid outlaw, a die-hard Confederate, a torturer of injured soldiers, a scalper, a murderer in his own right.
I Shot Jesse James is far from a perfect film. It's more character- than plot-driven, yet it's hard to feel bad for Robert Ford when his plan doesn't work out the way he'd planned. The adaptation of the tediously titled Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is certainly a more plausible explanation of Ford's motivations. But what Fuller’s debut achieves is reminding viewers that both parties are complicated men, and there is no honor among thieves.
* John Ireland, our Robert Ford, went on to play Gen. Quantrill in 1951’s Red Mountain.
In Episode 16 of the Beast Duels Radio Hour, Nick, Kyle, Cir and Mike discuss badass murderers and creepy, horrible people known as Assassins. How many questions do you think they answer? Is there a difference between Assassins and Hitmen? Are there really people in skintight leather outfits shooting people in the face from hundreds of yards away like O-Ren Ishii? Are the real Assassins goofy, nobodies like Mark David Chapman? We hire out Anton Chigurh to Assassinate Emperor Palpatine and run play-by-play on the live feed from space in this weeks Beast Duel. The show wraps in a hail of bullets as they discuss the Top Five Movie Shootouts. 0:00: Intro
00:43: Assassins
The gang talks the best movie assassins, and the difference between assassins and hit-men.
12:59: Beast Duel
Anton Chigurh vs The Emperor
20:41: Top Five Shootouts In Movies Ever
The Gang talks Shootouts, man crushes on Clive Owen, and Jason Statham and we ruin movies for you on Beast Duels Radio Hour
Check out episode 12, where we talk
- Evil Children, and what makes them so dangerous
- Who would win, You vs. 100 5-year olds
- Top 5 Movies We'll Make Our Children Watch (except for Themos, who will make his kids watch shit that will scar them for years to come)
