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June 22, 2008

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Jeff Trexler

Hey, hey, we are the Monkees
You know we love to please
A manufactured image
With no philosophies . . .

You say we're manufactured
To that, we all agree
So make your choice and we'll rejoice
In never being free

Hey, hey, we are the Monkees
We've said it all before
The money's in, we're made of tin
We're here to give you more
The money's in, we're made of tin
We're here to give you--

If the above lyrics aren't familiar, you might want to check out The Monkees' feature film, Head. It's a great film--truly one of my all-time favorites--written by Bob Rafelson and Jack Nicholson before Easy Rider & Five Easy Pieces launched them into superstardom.

The movie's theme is right on point with your post. It's about commodification and the loss of the soul--is it possible to rebel & become free, or are we hopelessly trapped in a big black corporate box?

The movie has a dark satirical take on the question. It's not a kiddie film, but rather, a deliberate subversion of bright-and-shiny commercial imagery--which becomes pretty clear early on, as one of its initial scenes is the aftermath of a five-way with a Monkees groupie, something you never saw on the Saturday morning show.

The first time through the film might seem a little baffling if you're not familiar with its many references, such as the comedy of Lew Lehr or Victor Mature as RCA Victor. On a broader level, it's a satirical existentialist spin on Hope & Crosby's road movies.

Phil

Thanks, Jeff, maybe we can do the film version of "We Are The New Radicals." Maybe Nicholson could be induced to return to his roots and star in it? Or maybe we could get Dennis Hopper, once he finishes his stint with Ameriprise? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eS6isp7Uao The five way with the groupie could be an ad for Viagra, maybe.

ikorush sikorsky

A TV commercial for Head is one of my earliest, still accessible childhood memories - if are such things as memories, rather than the memory of memories. In wither case, you can count me out/in.

Wither now? Viz Gore, too often people move from the awareness of the movement from awareness to despair, to action, without stopping to realize that awareness is despair, and there is no medium position. They conspire, with the clucking approval of Time, to produce an hallucinated journey from point A to point B, imagining retroactive rest stops, where they would stop to think up projects l'acte like putting "at-risk" youth to work in the redemptively hazardous job of bike messenging. I remember, twenty years ago, weighing the odds, and applying for a foot messenger job instead, and then not even showing up for that. That is a rational decision in a world in which Achilles can never overtake the tortoise. Under those circumstances, I preferred not to deliver.

In this sentence I make non-specific reference to the satirical type called the "self-promoting fruitcake."

Phil

Yeah, all well and good, but we are out here by The Dumpster, grousing, and Ms. Moulden is doing a weekly gig in the Huffington Post. We may be the Newish Radicals in a way, but we are not making much off it. There has to be some way we can cash in on our acrid discontent.

archi

focus it into a beam and create steam?

Phil

Steamed citizens as new energy source, if confined in tight spaces? Seems like a plan.

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