Fight Club Presentation: Reflection

            For the group Fight Club project, I feel that we did a very fine job at delineating skills and responsibilities equally within the members of our project. I feel we were very diligent in completing our responsibilities and commitments to the project, despite us all having very difficult schedules and living in very different areas of the San Fernando Valley.

            When we initially discussed our project in class, it was apparent I was the only member that had seen the film and read the book several times before this course, which was great because not only did I love the text and the David Fincher film, but I felt that my knowledge could be very useful. (I say this in most humble way possible, as I don’t wish to appear pragmatic or better than any other group member on the basis that I have seen a film or a read a book more times than them.)

            When we met for the final time in person, we all agreed to take on an aspect of the text and present on it in class, becoming a mini-expert of sorts on our topic. My topic was Nietzsche’s “uber-mensch” or “overman” concept within Palahnuik’s novel. That is to say, the betterment of one’s self can come through means of another pushing them to become better – evolving above the average man to become the over man and to be the best possible form of oneself they can be.

            In our first meeting we all brainstormed to come up with topics for the 7 of us to present on, and everyone had very thoughtful input on what to present to class. Likewise, when we were deciding our group activity, I feel we all had a thoughtful and equal say as to what we would do for the class and our project, with all members responding and putting forth valuable input.

            In our presentation to the class, I presented my concept and conferred with my group members. I also agreed to do an introduction of sorts, and a wrap-up to our presentation, which I admit was more extemporaneous that rigidly rehearsed, but I was proud of it nonetheless. I feel all the other members presented very well, and through our hard work and collaboration we achieved a well-done presentation, one that was overall built on a solid foundation of hard work, communication, and a good understanding of our personal duties.

            I would gladly work with this group again, for I felt we all knew very clearly what our duties were and how we would go about doing them. As an orator, group leader and in a sense, discussion emcee (I use this term lightly for I don’t wish to diminish the work of others) I felt my contributions were just as vital to our overall presentation as others were, and I am very happy in being able to comfortably say so.

On Lou Reed

            I realize I’m fairly late to the punch here, but man oh man I am bummed about the passing of dear Lou Reed. He was someone I always heard about through proxy – Rolling Stone Magazine, Spin Magazine, my record-junkie friends – but not someone I seriously considered as such an important and influential musical figure until his recent passing. I always liked Transformer – and it got its just dues, as did the eponymous Velvet Underground & Nico album, but they never really resonated with me until recently.

            Now that I have further educated myself, I’ve come to find that without Lou Reed there really would not have been a prevalent alternative music scene until, well, who knows? Would David Bowie have gotten his toehold in the U.K. without Lou? It’s unlikely, in my opinion.

            It’s funny though, for now I think to myself, “What didn’t I like about Lou Reed before? Why was I so dense in years past?” In my pondering and overthinking, I then got a wild idea – were Rolling Stone and Spin and the like padding their lists with Velvet Underground and Lou Reed because they truly saw his genius, or was it a sort of risk-management on their parts to include a legend when died so they can claim they always championed him from the get-go.

            Hang with me here. Lou Reed was never the healthiest guy – in fact, it’s kind of a wonder he was around this long considering how he spent much of his youth. Furthermore, Lou has always been a formidable musical presence, but much more so in the U.K. than the U.S. – it’s just how it went down, and it was also likely due to Brian Eno and Bowie. To that end, Velvet Underground and Lou albums have never been huge commodities here. Lou was always very alternative, underground and subversive.

            So once again I ask – was Lou Reed’s constant appearance in large magazines in recent years oddly prophetic and risk-management-like? Certainly no one could have predicted his death years ago when new revisions of Rolling Stone lists came flying out with Lou’s name almost always on them. Though, there he almost always was, with a celebrity playlist or inclusion on “The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.”

            The skeptic in me thinks that Rolling Stone didn’t want to be known as the corporate music giant that has no stakes in artistic integrity outside of Lady Gaga and Elton John, therefore they had Lou and Velvet Underground so largely proliferated in their publications. Just in case the ex-heroin addict, liver-transplanted, unhealthy musician were to leave us they made sure they idolized him and his influence.

            Listen, this is all heresy and conjecture, I’m sure multiple people on the staff are big Lou Reed fans and always vied for his position on the lists. Yet at the same time, it seems slightly odd, doesn’t it?

Neo-Liberalism & Spike

            Touching onto the subject of neo-liberalism is an incredibly fascinating phenomenon in our society. Not only does neo-liberalism ultimately usher in a completely new way of political ideologies for superpowers in the West – (i.e. political bedfellows Reagan and Thatcher) but neoliberalism appears in our popular culture as well as a byproduct of the society and those who disseminate such ideologies to us.

            Consider the 1989 album Spike by Elvis Costello. Spike is often noted as Costello’s most political album, though he had certainly made political gestures on every album preceding it. Spike, however, sets itself apart from previous albums and endeavors by providing a Thatcher-era narrative towards the end of her tenure as prime minister. In doing so, the scope of the Falklands War and the brutal near-destruction of labor unions is amplified, and her actions are made that much more revolutionary.

            Certainly, Costello has a cynical and critical go at Thatcher, his parents both belonging to labor unions – his father was also a member of the Royal Orchestra – as well as a strongly devoted English resident at heart. Spike was among one of the first, if not the first, politically agenda-based records to do extremely well in the market, yielding a few singles and music videos on MTV, which was relavatory at the time for a whole body of work and popular music in the late 1980’s to fare so well.

            Success can certainly be deferred to Costello’s exemplary songwriting, but one has to think that the working-class fans of the punk-rock rooted musician had some modicum of an idea what Costello was talking about – namely Thatcher’s neo-liberalist regime and the destructive practices she implemented into British society and economy.

            Costello’s next album was much more tame, perhaps due to Thatcher’s leave of office, or his collaborations with Paul McCartney, but it seems to me that a popular music record has not paralleled so effortlessly what Costello did – that is, interweaving political and cultural unrest for a generation into a superbly made record that is often looked upon as one of his best.

            Even the cover of the album (below) depicts a duality in nature. The blackface/vaudevillian Costello, happy to perform and provide escapism and the white-face, ghoulish looking Elvis who is appalled at the current state of nature in his country. Overall, Spike is one of the best albums by Costello, but also one of the greatest musical treatises on neo-liberalism to date.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/93/Elvis_Costello_Spike.jpg)

A Hard Day's Fire

            In comparing the films A Hard Day’s Night by director Richard Lester and Oliver Stone’s The Doors, one can draw many parallels as well as make distinctions between the two. On a base level, both films pertain to popular and revered musical groups of the 1960’s, as well as serving as period pieces of the decade in which they take place. Both films as texts arguable make commentary of their zeitgeist, either overtly through the lens of Oliver Stone, and perhaps more subliminally with the Fab Four.

            However, in both films, an interesting point is brought to the viewer’s attention. That point is this – as a consumer outside of either group, it is impossible to truly be one of them, despite the commodities offered by both and the appropriations the markets around them capitalized on. Said another way, even if one bought Beatle boots, had shaggy hair, a skinny black tie and a Rickenbacker guitar, they would never truly be a Beatle – they lack the mentality of The Beatles, the cogency that they are marketable commodities but artistically integral ones at that (a very proto-punk mentality, I might add). The same agenda can be applied for the Doors. Despite Jim Morrison rallying his legions of Lizard King followers, poets and hippies, no one of them can be on the level of The Doors. No one possesses the capabilities of being either of the groups, even though both had branded themselves in albeit different ways – there was genuine knowledge by both acts that it could not happen but they continued along nonetheless.

            The Beatles and The Doors were musical acts whom very both very artistic and integral in their own regards. It is arguable that looking back in the scope of 1960’s popular music, though The Beatles would no doubt be ranked #1 or around the top position, The Doors would not be far behind. This of course can partially be attributed to Rolling Stone Magazine’s constant praising and doting upon both artists, but there must be a good deal of truth behind both positions. People want to emulate those they admire and respect, whether they wear suits or Concho belts, whether they sing silly love songs or condone acid and whiskey. However, this infatuation and super-commercialism was indeed a product of the 1960’s, and still we see those striving to be members of both and on the level of Morrison and McCartney.

(Credit: http://us.fotolog.com/thesexretaz_rock/)