Nine boys suspended for having a Fight Club.
The boys were given what are termed emergency expulsions, effective Monday.
Seriously? When we’re in the middle of the largest emasculation program ever conceived of in the history of the United States they’re going to throw boys out of school for having the cojones to risk some injury in order to have so very much fun pounding the crap out of each other?
Voelpel said Stewart took action based on the videos. He said none of the boys’ parents had reported the incidents to school authorities before the video aired.
Yeah, and you know why? Because it was boys being boys. It isn’t expulsion-worthy.
Note: I am a huge fan of Fight Club. Some of the quotes are from the book, some from the movie. They may not be verbatim, even (although my editor can probably quote the movie by heart).
God Damn! We just had a near-life experience, fellas.
We should be congratulating the boys for being boys. What are their options… hopscotch and homogenized non-gender-specific organized reverse-role-playing? Getting in touch with our freaking feelings? Hey, I think everyone is touching themselves quite enough and we need to start giving boys different activities: cap guns, bb guns, GI Joe action figures, bottle rockets, garbage can “shields” and piles of dirt clods (one of my favorites as a boy), tree-climbing contests, no-hands no-helmet bike riding, running with scissors, magnifying glasses on a sunny day, slingshots… hell, people, chime in! Gimme your suggestions for good “stupid” boy activities that BY GOD will build character if they survive it!
Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.
Imagine how pissed off a bunch of future girly-men are going to feel when they finally wake up to the fact that their masculinity was stripped from them by sleeping parents and reprehensible teachers. And they won’t know what to do about it because they have only been taught things that do guys no good whatsoever.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.
But back to the rant… Yes, they will survive it. I did. Most guys I know did. Hell, I plowed a furrow in fresh sharp gravel with my face when I wiped out racing down a steep graveled hill on my ten-speed. Blood and snot everywhere. I was streaked with gore from forehead to waist and gashed all over the place. And somehow I survived. I leapt off of my parent’s roof using a bedsheet as a parachute (which doesn’t work at all when you’re 12 feet off the ground). I survived. You gotta do things that can’t possibly work because those painful lessons make us stronger.
By this time next week, each guy on the Assault Committee has to pick a fight where he won’t come out a hero. And not in fight club. This is harder than it sounds. A man on the street will do anything not to fight. The idea is to take some Joe on the street who’s never been in a fight and recruit him. Let him experience winning for the first time in his life. Get him to explode. Give him permission to beat the crap out of you. You can take it. If you win, you screwed up. “What we have to do, people,” Tyler told the committee, “is remind these guys what kind of power they still have.”
Share your dumb-boy-stunts, please. For the sake of tomorrow’s MEN.
I just don’t want to die without a few scars.
Here’s one of my favorite scenes. Not for the sadism, but for the truth in what Tyler says. The kid’s life IS going to be changed, he WON’T be taking it for granted (at least he better not). I think it’s the things we survive that make us appreciate living a bit more. Think of it as the positive that you explore since you can’t actually sense the negative.
No, I’m not waxing metaphysical. No, I don’t worship every line in the movie. I don’t even have the movie in my home collection. But I think there are some nuggets of insightful observation in it.
[Tyler Durden has told a clerk behind a store to get on his knees, and the conversation takes place with Tyler behind the clerk, gun to his head.]
CLERK: Please… don’t…
TYLER: Give me your wallet.
[The clerk fumbles his wallet out of his pocket and Tyler snatches it. Tyler pulls out the driver’s license.]
TYLER: Raymond K. Hessel. 1320 SE Benning, apartment A. A small, cramped basement apartment.
RAYMOND: How’d you know?
TYLER: They give basement apartments letters instead of numbers. Raymond, you’re going to die.
[Tyler rummages through the wallet.]
TYLER: Is this a picture of Mom and Dad?
RAYMOND: Yesssss…
TYLER: Your mom and dad will have to call kindly doctor so-and-so to dig up your dental records, because there won’t be much left of your face.
RAYMOND: Please, God, no…
[Raymond begins to weep, shoulders heaving.]
JACK: Tyler…
TYLER: An expired community college student ID card. What did you used to study, Raymond K. Hessel?
RAYMOND: S-S-Stuff.
TYLER: “Stuff.” Were the mid-terms hard?
[Tyler rams the gun barrel against Raymond’s temple.]
TYLER: I asked you what you studied.
JACK: Tell him!
RAYMOND: Biology, mostly.
TYLER: Why?
RAYMOND: I… I don’t know…
TYLER: What did you want to be, Raymond K. Hessel?
[Raymond weeps and says nothing. Tyler cocks the gun. Raymond gasps.]
TYLER: The question, Raymond, was “what did you want to be?”
[silence]
JACK: Answer him!
RAYMOND: A veterinarian!
TYLER: Animals.
RAYMOND: Yeah … animals and s-s-s —
TYLER: Stuff. That means you have to get more schooling.
RAYMOND: Too much school.
[Tyler shoves Raymond’s wallet back into Raymond’s pocket.]
TYLER: Would you rather be dead? Would you rather die? Here? On your knees? In the back of a convenience store?
RAYMOND: No, please, no, God, no!
[Tyler moves the gun right between Raymond’s eyes.]
RAYMOND: Noooo!
[Tyler uncocks the gun, lowers it.]
TYLER: I’m keeping your license. I’m gonna check in on you. I know where you live. If you’re not on your way to becoming a veterinarian in six weeks, you will be dead. Now run on home.
[Tyler throws him his wallet. Raymond takes it, staggers to his feet and runs down the alley]
TYLER: [shouting to Raymond] Run, Forrest, run!
JACK: I feel ill.
TYLER: Imagine how he feels.
JACK: Come on, this isn’t funny! That wasn’t funny! What the fuck was the point of that?
[Tyler brings the gun to his own head, pulls the trigger — CLICK. Empty.]
JACK: I don’t care, that was horrible.
[Tyler walks away.]
TYLER: Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessell’s life. His breakfast will taste better than any meal you and I have ever tasted.
**************
Lemur King's Folly 