Jackie Chan Adventures

Remember that old cartoon show? It was on the air from 2000 to 2005, mainly on Kids WB. What a golden show in a golden era. Just imagine all the historic things that went on in that period: 9/11, Operation Red Dawn, Joe Strummer dying, Subway’s 5-Dollar Foot-Longs. I never experienced any of those things. I just found out about all that stuff. I was too busy watching Jackie Chan Adventures.

In an effort to stop being bored at work, I decided to pick an old cartoon from way back in the day and overload on its respective youtube channel. After a long selection process, I narrowed my choice down to either Jackie Chan Adventures or Muppet Babies. But what to pick? I flipped a coin. It landed on tails. I realized that selection process was retarded, so I picked the cartoon that would give me the least dirty looks if someone at work caught me watching it (“Why are you watching a cartoon about monsters in diapers?”)

Jackie Chan Adventures is a cartoon where Jackie Chan is a young, not-ugly archeologist who speaks English. In ways he is actually similar to his real counterpart, they are both big on the martial arts stuff. The series revolves around Jackie Chan, his niece Jade, and his uncle Uncle as they battle ancient demons, ninja armies, international crime syndicates, magic, and latent racism. They don’t always win.

Magic plays a major role in the series (like in Jackie Chan’s real life). For the most part, the gist of the show is that the heroes scour the globe searching for things called Talismans, magical octagonal rocks each bestowed with an animal power of the Chinese Zodiac. For example, the Rooster Talisman gives you the power of flight since roosters totally fly. The Sheep Talisman gives you the power to astral project into people’s dreams since the writers are HUGE dorks and like obvious jokes. And the Pig Talisman gives you laser eyes because why the fuck not?

Epiphany:

I am sitting at my work computer. I’m supposed to be working right now. Instead I’m watching old racist cartoons meant for children and writing about it.

Is this really where my life has taken me? I am a healthy, red blooded, free 22 year old man! I should be out there, there in the real world, having my own adventures! Discovering my own magic! Taking chances, making mistakes, getting messy! What the fuck am I surrounded by? What is this gray material that comprises my cubical cell walls? Broken dreams? Behind me is a window to the glorious world outside, just waiting for me…

Man was not meant to housed, no, caged like this. We are creatures of desire, of passion, of fire. To deny our essence is to be dead inside. To wander the earth as mere ghosts of our spirited past, echoes of jubilation that ran free in glorious Eden. Here we are all slaves to the Three Masters of Money, Want, and Time.

The problems we face as a species arise from agriculture sustenance, exacerbated by the Industrial Revolution, waxing forth until the enormity of suffering and pain destroys us all! My friends, this is the source of social stratification, coercion and alienation! This is the evil which lurks in the hearts of men! We must strike now while the pistol remains cocked! Cut the head of the snake known as Civilization and watch it writhe in its blood and end-trails. I call upon you all to de-industrialize, abolish the division of labor, end specialization, and abandon large scale technologies! Take action now! Go out and throw a brick into a Starbucks! Burn your boss’ car! Destroy something beautiful…

The apocalypse is finished, today it is the precession of the neutral, of forms of the neutral and of indifference…all that remains, is the fascination for desertlike and indifferent forms, for the very operation of the system that annihilates us. Now, fascination (in contrast to seduction, which was attached to appearances, and to dialectical reason, which was attached to meaning) is a nihilistic passion par excellence, it is the passion proper to the mode of disappearance. We are fascinated by all forms of disappearance, of our disappearance. Melancholic and fascinated, such is our general situation in an era of involuntary transparency