Thugs

I happened to watch an old Jackie Chan film the other day. It’s known as either The Big Brawl or Battle Creek Brawl and basically, Jackie beats up thugs in 1930s-ish Chicago.

NOTE: The film has a rather involved plot (for a kung-fu movie), but it’s basically an excuse to watch Jackie Chan beat up people in period costumes. Arguably, plots in kung-fu movies are largely there for show, as you don’t watch them for the story or acting, but to see men and women acrobatically hurt each other with various parts of their anatomies and occasionally, swords and/or sticks.

Now it’s not just that Jackie spends his time beating up thugs, it’s that he beats up the same thugs repeatedly. He fights the same group of guys three or four times and they always lose. For plot-related reasons, they can’t just shoot him and be done with it. No, they endeavor to return the favor with fists, the occasional bat, and at one point, a Chevy.

NOTE: Might’ve been a Ford. I didn’t really notice.

They were pummeled so frequently, I actually started to feel bad for them. Here they are, your average, work-a-day thugs, trying to make ends meet with a variety of protection rackets, bootlegging, smuggling, and good ol’ fashioned mugging, and instead of making any sort of profit, they spend their time being fed into the human wood chipper that is Jackie Chan.

It got me thinking. What was going through their heads as they went up against Jackie, time and time again?

Moe: Hey, it’s that Chinese kid! Let’s go rough ‘em up!

Jimmy the Amusing Nickname: What, you mean that guy? Ain’t he the guy that beat us up yesterday? And twice on Tuesday?

Moe: Yeah, we got’s to get our revenge!

Jimmy the Amusing Nickname: But ain’t he just gonna beat beat us up again? I mean, I’m all for a vicious beatin’, but that kid ain’t human!

Moe: What’re you, scared?

Jimmy the Amusing Nickname: Nah, but, we jumped him with seven guys yesterday and he took us all. Little Nicky needs a machine to help him pee now.

Moe: So? See this? We got an edge – heh.

Jimmy the Amusing Nickname: But he beat us up with an old sock stuffed with dryer lint and three marbles! No knife is gonna even them odds!

Moe: But today’s Thursday! We got +2 to morale!

Jimmy the Amusing Nickname: Oh, well why didn’t ya say so!

A merciless beating (theirs) commences.

Cheers,
-Jason

Me Vs. Chocolate

So there I was, preparing to break a five-pound bar of chocolate with my head. Why? you might ask. Huh? is also an appropriate response.

It is not a long story. My friend Laura got a five-pound Hershey bar for her birthday. If you have never seen one, they are roughly the size of a computer keyboard and about 2 inches thick. I train in martial arts and she though it would be cool if I broke it. We discussed various ways to do this and settled on me breaking it with my head. I positioned Leigh and the chocolate, Beth, another friend, got the camera ready. I prepared.

The thing is I had no idea if I could do this. I train in kung-fu and we do not break boards, bricks, or anything else. We especially do not break things with our heads. I have no clue how dense or tough a five-pound bar of chocolate is and yet I am preparing to break it in front of all my friends.

There were three possibilities. I could break it. This is the optimal outcome. Ideally, I would look cool doing so. The second option is that I would fail to break it. This would be embarrassing, but I figured I could blame Leigh for not holding it right. The third, least desirable outcome would be that not only would I not break it, but I would knock myself out doing so. This would be bad, not only because of the embarrassment, but because I would have to kill all of my friends upon regaining consciousness so they could not tease me about it for the rest of my natural life.

I did a three-count. On three, I lunged. Head met chocolate. Physics happened. The chocolate bar smashed in a truly amazing way.

I was victorious.

The rest of the evening was uneventful, at least by comparison. We chatted and ate chocolate. I did something cool and did not have to murder my friends. It was all good.

Cheers,
-Jason