Flag of Defeat

In Search of the Perfect Band Name: Permanent Flag of Defeat

Ernest Hemingway described the protagonist’s sail in The Old Man and the Sea as furled like a permanent flag of defeat. The description has stayed with me to this day because who doesn’t feel like that.

Conspicuous consumption is the coin in which reputations are made. We have been taught the most important thing is to be successful, and we have learned this lesson well.

I did not go to my five year high school reunion. The scars from my public education experience were too recent to voluntarily go back into the fray. Let’s just say that if Henry the Sixth would have personally tried to convince me to revisit my high school by saying “Once more into the fray, dear friends. Once more”, Shakespeare’s play of the same name would have had a different ending.

Against my better judgment, I went to my ten year high school reunion. I was the king of lowered expectations that night. They wanted to charge us something like $50 a plate. I decided to crash after spending $15 at the Bombay House for much better food. Jaron, Jason, Mike, and I went in our sweaty gym clothes after a session in the rock climbing. After all, I skipped out on yearbook day my junior year to go bouldering up Little Cottonwood Canyon, so there seemed to be a symmetry.

It would have worked out well, but our wives decided to shower and change into nice clothes. All men basically look like losers compared to their wives, but this was taking things a little too far. Also, they decided we didn’t have time for the Bombay House (sigh).

I attended Hillcrest High School, which means we had a large graduating class. In Utah education, we pack them deep and sell them short.  The people that showed up fit in a smallish room of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. I think most people did not come because A. Who wants to pay 100 bucks to drag your wife through an evening of embarrassing stories about gym class, and B. Our images of success end up making most people feel left out. Everybody there was dressed to impress, whereas my group would have easily earned the worst dressed award.

I spent most of the time talking to the friends I came with for the simple fact that they were my friends. Sure, there were a couple people it was neat to see again, but there is always the twenty year reunion for that. It was high school all over again: people were trying to outdress and boast, only most of them now had more resources with which to do so.

As I had quit my teaching job to earn my doctorate, I though it would be appropriate to tell people I was unemployed and living off of my wife. Some people try to keep up with the Jonses, I prefer to let them all migrate elsewhere so I can enjoy the peace and quiet. In looking at my peers that night, I decided I would rather be a failure than play their games.

In light of these recent revelations, I’ve been thinking of starting a band. We could call ourselves “Permanent Flag of Defeat”. Since Hemingway already came up with it, it has the added advantage of taking zero creative effort. We are supposed to recycle, but when we do it on term papers people call it plagiarism.

It has the feel of a counter-culture, I’m-a-young-rebel-and-I-don’t-have-to-succeed-in-the-corporate-version-of-the-American-dream statement. If you think about it, though, it falls apart in the long run. Even bands that try to make the I’m too cool for all that common stuff statements are lame sellouts. Consider the All-American Rejects. According to their name, they must be the best at what they do on a national level. What happened to all those rejects that got cut in the first round?

The guys in this band must have really made it, which kinda detracts from their band name. Besides, their music is just more nauseating teen trash pop. If people like it, the music can’t be all that cool. This rule is as well established as Newton’s laws of physics. Think about it: how can anyone other than Rage Against the Machine can really pull the anti-establishment thing off while being played on stations bigger than KRCL?

It all started because they have an amazing band name. It wouldn’t be the same if they were Politely Dissenting Against the Machine. Nobody is afraid of the Dread Pirate Wesley.

We could probably trade on George Clinton’s P-Funk and refer to ourselves as P-flag. Although the name is cool, I’m not sure I want to pigeonhole the band as purely funk. Besides, what do we do when someone tells us to ‘get the funk out’? Does that mean they want us to play our other stuff or more funk? Life gets too confusing. This is probably similar to my parents trying to understand what we meant when we called something ‘bad’. Great, I’m starting to relate to the older generation. Maybe I need to continue searching for the perfect band name.