The 11 Most Badass Presidential Facts

WARNING: The incredibly BADASS-LOOKING and WILDLY INTERESTING below video is technically an advertisement for my book, How to Fight Presidents (order here or here). I tried to make it ENTERTAINING, and watching it will COST YOU NO MONEY, but I know the Internet hates it when it thinks it's been TRICKED into watching or reading something advertorial, even if the piece of content might make you LAUGH and TEACH YOU THINGS that make you MORE INTERESTING AT PARTIES. If you want to not watch the RAD TRAILER for my book, this is your opportunity to click over to one of the other FREE ARTICLES AND VIDEOS on this website. If you want to watch the RAD TRAILER for my book but lie and say you DIDN'T to convince your friends that you're a REBEL who STICKS IT to THE MAN, I won't tell on you. There are direct references to MALE GENITALIA in the trailer. Thank you for your time. End of warning.

Sellout.

Some Background

During my first year as a Cracked employee, when I was still a senior in college, I wrote an article about my favorite subject, and it ended up being pretty important for the rest of my career. I was on an editorial call with Editor-in-Chief Jack O'Brien and Senior Editor David Wong, which was, in 2008, the entirety of the creative staff of Cracked.com. Wong offhandedly mentioned that President's Day was coming up in a few weeks and it would be cool if someone knew enough about presidents to quickly turn an article around.

I was still pretty intimidated to be on these phone calls and mostly kept quiet, but I spoke up this time to sheepishly mention that I'd been independently studying presidents for the last four years as a hobby, and I started rattling off some of my favorite bits of presidential trivia. I softly pitched the idea of doing an article about the most and least badass presidents. Jack said, "Cut the 'least' angle and write it up, as soon as possible." I was happy to be able to write about my favorite subject, but was in no way confident that anyone would care about presidents as much as I did. Plus, the article was running on a Friday, which at the time was the day that traffic died on Cracked.

The article that Wong and Jack dragged out of me was called "The 5 Most Badass Presidents of All-Time" and has been read by over 10 million people.

A stupid tradition was born, and I started writing about presidents every single year. Then I wrote an article about fighting Andrew Jackson based on a silly little book idea I had. My good friend and smartest guy on the Internet Ryan Holiday bullied me into writing a proposal for that silly idea and then connected me with a phenomenal literary agent, Byrd Leavell, who in turn sold the book to Crown (Random House). Friend, co-worker, and all-around impressive human being Winston Rowntree provided the illustrations, because he is the best.

Soon that book will be out and people can buy it in stores (or just pre-order it right the hell now). I'll annoyingly whine about this book all over the Internet for the next month or two, and I'm sorry in advance for clogging up your eyes with my desperate "SPEND MONEY ON THINGS" pleas. If you're already sick of hearing me talk about presidents ...

Here's What OTHER People Are Saying About HTFP

"Too many balls and dicks in this book." -My agent, Byrd

"The language ... and the generous descriptions of bodily functions makes the book somewhat young reader unfriendly." -Amazon Vine User

"Just a word of caution to those poor souls who ... might get upset at reading certain colorful and earthy words describing some of our president's physical toughness and lusty ways, GET OVER IT!" -Amazon Vine User

"I'm OK with the use of genitals in this chapter." -My agent again, make up your mind, Byrd!

"The author has an intense dislike for Martin van Buren" -Amazon Vine User

"This is a book that would be great in a high school U.S. history or government class, but if a teacher used in a classroom then they would get fired." -Amazon Vine User

Thanks

The opportunity to write a book would never have come about if all of you nice people weren't around to read my Cracked stuff, so thanks for being alive and having functioning eyes.

And thanks for watching our shameless commercial. It's still amazing to me that adults let me write a book and they're going to put it in the same kind of bookstore I spent most Saturday nights in as a kid. I'm already the luckiest guy in the world; please order my book wherever books are sold to force a luck overdose from which I will surely die.