[FAST MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: I recently
wrote an article for the
technology issue
of "Vice" about
"The Anarchist Cookbook".
And if you don't know what "The
Anarchist Cookbook" is,
it was written in 1971
by a 19-year-old
named William Powell.
It was a response to the Vietnam
War and a type of
field manual for civil
unrest at the time.
And it contains stuff like how
to make TNT, how to kill
people with your bare hands,
firearms knowledge, and all
sorts of fun stuff.
A few years later he actually
became a born again Christian
and requested that the book be
taken off the shelves and
taken out of print.
Unfortunately for him he
didn't have that luxury
because he sold the original
copyright to the publisher and
today you can still buy
the thing on Amazon.
Somewhere around the mid-1980s
things took kind of an
interesting turn with
the heyday of
bulletin board systems.
Someone compiled this list of
instructions on how to make
low-grade explosives and stuff
like flaming tennis balls, and
just general malcontent shit.
And somewhere along the line
they appropriated William
Powell's original title "The
Anarchist Cookbook" and people
started calling it that even
though it had very little
resemblance to the original.
A lot of people know about "The
Anarchist Cookbook" but I
don't know too many people that
have actually tried the
entries out for themselves, and
they're rumored to be very
dangerous and incomplete
and incorrect.
So I thought it would be a good
idea to head out to a
warehouse in Brooklyn and just
blow some shit up and see if
there was any merit
to these recipes.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: It's pretty
simple here.
You just take Strike
Anywhere matches--
just going to be cutting
the match heads off.
I think we figured out that for
each tennis ball you need
about 3,000 match heads.
And you want to cut in maybe a
quarter of an inch, and get a
split tennis ball.
Let's do some sandpaper now.
Literally drop your
matches in there.
Just in case Strike Anywhere
match-filled tennis balls
don't explode like we hope,
we're going to have a plan B.
And we're breaking apart some
bottle rockets, getting the
black powder out, and we're
going to make a combination of
matches and black powder
in one of the balls.
We don't know how many parts
powder compared to how many
parts matches we should be
using, so we're just going to
fill up the entire
fucking thing.
ED ZIPCO: Black powder.
ROCCO CASTORO: Yeah, I mean
we're going to need to pack it
with a lot of the--
ED ZIPCO: Sandpaper?
ROCCO CASTORO: The
sandpaper then.
Maybe a little bit
of cardboard.
We just need it like filler,
essentially.
This is going to be test one
of the flaming tennis ball.
OK we're going to use the
experimental version packed
with black powder
and match heads.
- Whoa!
[LAUGHTER]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ROCCO CASTORO: I mean this was
kind of silly to begin with--
make blow darts out of
these pipes, and
yarn, and pencil erasers.
Those are the directions and I
suspected it wasn't really
going to do anything.
So basically you just take a
pencil eraser, push it down to
the end of the dart, which
serves as a kind
of a stopper here.
You want to make sure you have,
I think these are called
beaded needles, with
the hole in them.
Some yarn which is going to act
as kind of like a feather.
Kind of stupid and silly--
I didn't really think it was
going to work that well, and
it really doesn't.
I don't know why anybody would
really make one of these.
Certainly couldn't defend
yourself or hurt
anybody with it.
I think it's safe to say that
this was definitely a failure,
and "The Anarchist Cookbook",
whoever wrote
it, just wasn't thinking.
[FAST MUSIC PLAYING]
Apparently, if you make a pound
of this, it will fill up
an entire city block
with smoke.
Going to need four
parts sugar, six
parts potassium nitrate.
It's pretty simple.
Got here in your hot plate,
you can use your stove if
you're a little daring,
I guess.
Very low heat.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
ED ZIPCO: This is the first time
where I felt like we're
really cooking up something.
It's like fucking foul.
Oh wow.
ROCCO CASTORO: This is what
the saltpeter and sugar
mixture turned into.
We've got wicks and
matches in it.
We'll see what happens.
If it smells as bad as it does
now when it starts smoking
then we're all in
for a bad night.
- Whoa!
- Put it out.
- That's awesome.
ROCCO CASTORO: Basically the
idea here, you've got the BB
gun, you've got the
can of hairspray.
And what theoretically this is
supposed to do, at least what
"The Anarchist Cookbook" says
it'll do, is spark the
matches, also puncture the
bottom of this can, and send
it down the road.
We're not doing it outside
because there's a school
across the street.
Because we just think it's
going to explode.
ED ZIPCO: Dude, Nick?
His fucking buddy, ah what the
fuck was it, they threw a keg
into a campfire.
One kid got decapitated.
ROCCO CASTORO: What?
ED ZIPCO: It was for
real, fucking like
proper murder charges.
They charged everybody, everyone
who was involved.
It was like a fucking thing.
People got really fucked up.
ROCCO CASTORO: Who was this?
ED ZIPCO: One dude gone.
Nick.
He was here earlier.
Shrapnel ain't a fucking joke.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
LOU: Did that hurt?
Don't, don't, don't, don't!
Seriously!
Ow!
Back up if you're
going to do it.
Back up [INAUDIBLE].
ROCCO CASTORO: This is what we
call the down the road rocket,
and what "The Anarchist
Cookbook" calls the down the
road rocket.
We've attached ours
to a skateboard.
It's a little modification.
We don't think it's going to
work, but if it doesn't work,
we're going to either put some
napalm in the back, or figure
out a way to do it.
[MUSIC - LIVEFASTDIE,
"WEAPONS"]
- What are we going to do now?
LOU: Another one of these.
But we're gonna light
the matches.
Whoa, shit!
ROCCO CASTORO: Simple
ingredients for napalm.
Basically, take gasoline,
put it in a bucket.
Put as much Styrofoam as
the gasoline will eat.
So just keep feeding it the
Styrofoam until it stops
dissolving.
You'll end up with a really nice
little goo that you can
spread on your baby sister,
or a car, or
somebody and burn forever.
And it doesn't go out so make
sure whatever you're burning
you don't want.
And you're able to control it
somehow-- either be a big open
space or some kind of space
blanket you can throw over it
because I don't know what
else will put it out.
ED ZIPCO: Yeah, but if we
mash it down first,
and we flatten it--
MILES: Like that?
ED ZIPCO: Yeah, look at that.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[INAUDIBLE]
- That's awesome!
LANDLORD: Hey guys?
As soon as you can, you should
turn that off because if the
sprinklers go off, all our
equipment gets damaged, and
that's quite a bit of--
- OK.
OK.
OK Can we turn it on?
- Yeah, but we're not
turning it on.
-No we're not.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- That's badass.
- That is so fucked up.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
