'You are not the clothes you wear. You are not your job. You are not the contents of your wallet. You are not the car you drive. You are not your fucking khakis...'
(paraphrased - Tyler Durden)

"I see in fight club the strongest and
smartest men who have ever lived -- an entire generation pumping gas and waiting tables; or they're slaves with white collars.
Advertisements have them chasing cars
and clothes, working jobs they hate so they can buy shit they don't need. We are the middle children of history, with no purpose or place. We have no great war, or great depression. The great war is a spiritual war. The great depression is our lives. We were raised by television to believe that we'd be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars -- but we won't. And we're learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed-off.

We are the quiet young men who listen until it's time to decide."
(Tyler Durden)

TYLER
Lye -- the crucial ingredient. Ancient peoples found their clothes got cleaner if they washed them at a certain spot in the river. Why? Because, human sacrifices were once made on the hills above this river. Year after year, bodies burnt. Rain feel. Water seeped through the wood ashes to become lye. The lye combined with the melted fat of the bodies, till a thick white soapy discharge crept into the river.

(Tyler kisses the back of Jack's hand)

TYLER
The first soap was made from the ashes of heroes. Like the first monkeys shot into space.

(Tyler tips some lye onto the kiss)
TYLER
Without sacrifice, without death, we would have nothing.
TYLER
This is a chemical burn. It will hurt more than you've ever been burned and you will have a scar.

JACK (V.O.)
Tyler's kiss was a bonfire on the back of my hand.
TYLER
Look at your hand.

JACK (V.O.)
Guided meditation worked for cancer, it could work for this.

(Jack imagines green maple leaves)
TYLER
Come back to the pain. Don't shut this out.
JACK (V.O.)
I tried not to think of the words "searing" or "flesh." I imagined my pain as a ball of healing white light.

(Jack imagines a green forest in a spring rainfall)
TYLER
Stop it. This is your pain -- your burning hand. It's right here. Look at it.
JACK (V.O.)
I was going to my cave to find my power animal.

(Jack thinks about his cave)
TYLER
Don't deal with this the way those dead people do. Deal with it the way a living person does.

(Jack thinks about Marla)

JACK
I... I think I understand. I think I get it...
TYLER
No, what you're feeling is premature enlightenment.

(Jack thinks of the forest without rain)
(Tyler SLAPS Jack in the face)
TYLER
This is the greatest moment of your life and you're off somewhere, missing it.
JACK
No, I'm not...

(Jack thinks of forest burning)
TYLER
Shut up. Our fathers were our models
for God. And, if our fathers bailed, what does that tell us about God?
JACK
I don't know...

(Jack thinks about forest fire)
(Tyler SLAPS Jack in the face again)

TYLER
Listen to me. You have to consider the possibility that God doesn't like you, he never wanted you. In all probability, He hates you. This is not the worst thing that can happen...

JACK
It isn't... ?
TYLER
We don't need him...

JACK
We don't... ?

(Jack thinks of Marla in cave, naked)

JACK
... Marla ... ?
TYLER
Fuck damnation. Fuck redemption. We are God's unwanted children, with no special place and no special attention, and so be it.
TYLER
You can go to the sink and run water
over your hand. Look at me. Or you
can use vinegar to neutralize the
burn, but first you have to give up.
First, you have to know that someday,
you are going to die. Until you know
that, you will be useless.

JACK
You ... you don't know what this
feels like, Tyler.

(Tyler shows Jack a LYE-BURNED KISS SCAR on his own hand.
Tears begin to drip from Jack's eyes. Tyler grabs a bottle
of VINEGAR -- pours it over Jack's wound.)

(Jack closes his eyes, holds his hand... slumps to the floor.)
TYLER
Congratulations. You're a step closer to hitting bottom.

OKAY, so if you haven't seen the movie that won't make any sense whatsoever... rush out and rent the movie. It's a GREAT FUCKING MOVIE! Don't worry, I'll wait, just go and see it. NOW! NOW! HURRY!

Do you want to live in Tyler's world?

you mean his dream world?

Harold and Maude's pretty good also!

Yeah I really liked that movie, but no I wouldn't want to live in Tylers world. I like mine thank you very much.

Do you want to live in the same mindset and reality that he does? Do you want to feel and think and do the same things?

No. He's a fucking psyco.

would you join a fight club?

Henry The Fool, that's how I feel. Henry The Fool. I think you can still rent it. Try blockbuster. Little black and white movie. Oh Henry, we miss you...

yes, but not project mayhem

as much as i would love the system he is trying to create by demolishing the credit card companies, i couldn't stand for the 'Sir, the first rule of project mayhem is that you do not ask questions' bullshit.

You have to hit rock bottom in order to know who you are.
These are the words of Tyler Durden. I know this because I've read the book and I've seen the movie "Fight Club."
I know who I am right now. I am Jack's overwhelming sense of failure. You know what? I am getting ahead of myself. Let's go back a bit.
Tyler and I were servers. He was a banquet server who pissed in a soup. I worked at either family restaurants or neighborhood pubs. (I've never contaminated anybody's food. So, if I ever waited on you, you're safe.) I was suddenly without a job.
This is when my fall began. This did not affect Tyler. He is a fictional character that I am using as a literary device. I am Jack, the artsy fartsy writer boy.
Tyler gave out a homework assignment. Go out and start a fight with a complete stranger. I declined. I'm trying to find a job, I don't have time for such nonsense. I stopped at four restaurants that day. Two were not hiring. One was not hiring me. The fourth, well, I got an interview.
It was at a pub on the Westside. The manager stepped up to a bar to interview me. His eyes were bloodshot. His shirt stained with sweat. His breath stank of bourbon. He kept nodding off mid-sentence. I should have left. No person with any self respect would even consider working for this man. I was all ready to say, "When do I start?" I am Jack's desperation.
He was half-way into offering me a job when he stopped and said, "Wait a minute. You ain't got tits." He vomited and passed out, leaving me at the bar alone. I sat there. Thinking. It was all making sense. I can't get a real job because I have no experience, or skills, for that matter. Now, I can't get a job waiting tables because of my gender? I could hear my psyche free falling through the air, whistling all the way down, until it landed with a crash on the rocky surface. I felt Tyler's hand on my shoulder as we looked down at my shattered dignity and the lifeless body that was my self-worth. He just smiled and said, "Congratulations."
I know who I am right now. I am Jack's overwhelming sense of failure.

Woody Rau. re-printed without permission.

sckbch

damm fight club was the sickest movie of all,i love that movie,i wish there was a fight club around my place,i would also start one up to,,,you know all us totse members should,it would be organized and we can start franchises everywere,
PROJECT MAYHEM!!!!!!!!!!

Damn skippy.

with all due respect punkrockchick, I don't think you quite understand the dogmatic principles at work in fight club well enough to pull something like that off....

Damn skippy.

not many people would reject mainstreamness and the use of moden tech. i forgot what the hell tyler said when the other guy was talking on the phone to the cop. it was like right before he said, just tell him you fuckin blew it up. thats what he wants to hear.

~bar room hero

[This message has been edited by Bar room hero (edited 07-29-2000).]

any revolution I participate in damn well be techno-fetishistic.....

A strange afterthought, why the fuck did I post the original thread with the little winking happy face? Like the one on this message. Any comments or suggestions will be appreciated.

Trippy, I think you missed the point of that movie. The revolution had nothing to do with anything. The reason you don't question Project Mayham is that its goals are irrelevant. Its purpose is to satisfy the desires of Tyler Durden who, though he has not quite been able to give up his self-definition based on relationship to society, has decided that said relationship need meet only his own standards and not those of society, in spite of the seeming paradox. Unfortunately, rather than complete the synthesis and abandon social identity altogether, Tyler goes into complete relapse, and then doesn't even die. What a shame.

At least that was my take on it. But sometimes I read things into stories that just reflect whatever I'm thinking at the time, especially ones as ambiguous as Fight Club. It's also been a while since I saw it. If anyone has read the book, that would probably shed some light.

Anyway, there were a lot of funny moments in that movie, regardless of its points. I think that was its best quality.

The book actually has a different ending, If I remember correctly,
SKIP THIS IF YOU ARE PLANNING ON READING IT!!!


Durden is in one of the buildings, and tries to disarm the bomb, ending up in the hospital, with the police defusing a bunch of the other ones. It ends with one of the janitors in the hospital he's staying at letting him now that the movement will carry on without him, even though he tried so desperately to bring it down.

READ AGAIN...


the whole point being, the ideology is sweet enough to lure people in, and deadly enough that it deserves some serious thought, or else you may find yourself lured into giving up your individuality in the name of individual freedom, thats another thing I liked about the movie, recognizing that the indivualist revolution required giving up your individuality...

I started a fight club. But no one would join so I just stood in my dad's bedroom hitting the wall.

...after a while your dad came out and beat the shit out of you for hitting the wall...

noone would hit me. seriously, it's hard to find sober people who want to just beat the shit out of each other.

really?
*slams goatboy around a bit*