Draft

The Language of Lies
by: Joseph Tingle

Unusual as it may be, I rely on the Muses of the world of rap, rock and heavy metal to draw inspiration for this personal essay, which I apologize for in advance as it's probably little more than a glorified free-write. Maynard Keenan and Tool have the stage:

We all feed on tragedy.
It's like blood to a vampire.

Now, lyricist, singer, wine-maker, political commentator, and amateur actor Maynard Keenan and cronies make a “good” though tragically-obsessed point. What is it? I'll get back to that.

When I lived in Chicago, a friend of mine from high school named “Dave” met a girl he was interested in. At one-hundred and some pounds overweight, Dave wasn't exactly what most women would consider “attractive.” Dave, of course, had an excellent personality, was thoughtful, sympathetic, easy to talk to, artistic, a “deep thinker” but not an athlete. One day, Dave met a cute (warning: high school terminology on the way) “gothic” girl in fishnets and a black skirt who fit his idea of beauty, and they began eating lunch together, talking on aim and the phone, going to concerts, and whatever else. This person loved talking and being with Dave, as people usually did. But what happened when the question of sex came up (it's inevitable between men and women, isn't it?)

This girl told Dave that she liked “guys who had problems,” and “people who lived on the fringe.”

Ah, classic representations of the pre-packaged, punk-rock sentiments on sale for $22.49 a tee at Hot-Topic. Unfortunately, it was only a couple days later when Dave told me that he didn't believe in God, thought he might be bipolar, and “always kinda thought he might have been molested as a child.”

Why did this person tell him these things? Was it to brush-off a “nice” but traditionally unattractive person? Or was she telling the truth? Or was it a combination of things?
The age of self-esteem tells us that we should be happy with ourselves, and that we shouldn't be afraid to be different. Eminem:

Don't let 'em say you ain't beautiful.
They can all get f---ed. Just stay true to you.

I used to write for an alternative newspaper named The Steaming Pipe. The Pipe started as a campus paper in the vein of the Medium or the old Village Voice, slowly grew into a local paper, then finally a multi-university arts magazine before imploding. Like Eminem, the paper flaunted itself as a source of controversy. It made liberal use of the word f---, and made sure that you knew it did so for some vague, counter-reactionary reason reminiscent of colonial pamphleteering.

When the University's Student Organization had problems with it's electronic voting system and had to postpone the election, the Pipe reported with the semantic accuracy attainable only by English majors “Student Org. Fixes Election.” When I wrote an article about how Student Organization was purchasing a lobby from the University for 1.3 million dollars, I stood by silently as the editor abrasively but accurately titled my story “Student Org gives 1.3 million to school.”

As it turned out, I wasn't artsy or edgy enough for the Pipe, and left as it turned into a full-fledged alternative arts magazine.

What is it? The people who write are the people who feel they have something to communicate. More often than not, the people who have something to communicate are the same who are somehow unsatisfied, negative, “deep thinkers” who have been through something life-changing. But writing is a sincere practice, isn't it? Where is the sincerity in exaggeration? Where is the sincerity is pretending to be “deep?” Where is the sincerity in over-dramatizing?

When I was younger, my best friend's dad had a drinking problem. Though he was never hit by his dad, he constantly felt like he was being verbally abused, unable to meet the expectations of that person. Resentment for his father grew and grew, until he dropped out of college and moved out of the house at the age of nineteen.

Though their relationship is now probably better than it's ever been, his perception of his father has traditionally been a negative one. He sees his father as a unfaithful boozer, an opportunist, an abuser and is tormented by his memory of him daily.

I see his father as I see my own, an imperfect, old fashioned human being who has made tons of mistakes, but nearly always attempts to do the “right thing” if not right away then at least eventually.

We're brothers, but we have different fathers. My mother, on the other hand, sees them both. There's parts of both of us in her.

Sometimes, I feel that I could dig up my brother's or some other poor soul's torment, and make it my own. Sometimes, I feel that I need to sensationalize my own experience, act generally unhappy, or lived some kind of fantastic life to be a writer. But that isn't true, is it? Where is the sincerity in that?

Society tells us it's okay to be ourselves, but somewhere, for some reason, writers make us feel like we have to have emotional scars to be noteworthy, to sell. Why is this? Is it about the combination of our hippie parent's self-esteem doctrine and the super-individuality emphasis of American capitalism that makes us feel like we have to be scared of tradition and “normal-ness” to be heard?

To be noticed, we need to stand out from the group. To stand out from the group, we need to have some kind of noticeable scar, real or invented. Writing is one of the oldest means in which people have attempted to reach immortality.

As humans, we love drama, especially the kind that we don't have to be a part of. And sometimes we'll go as far as to sensationalize the mundane in order to experience a little bit of that drama if we have to, because that makes us “deep,” and “special,” sets us apart from the group and gives us something to write about, occasionally by throwing sincerity to the fire. After all, that's what sells.

Maybe being yourself doesn't have to included acting deep, or like you have a cross to bear, or shooting an elephant like Orwell. As another band, dredg, tell us:

All you need is a modest house
in a modest neighborhood
in a modest town where honest people dwell.

Making the cleanest energy
for the greenest plants to grow,
the richest soil
that is wet with the freshest rain.

Then, you can sit in your backyard,
and watch stars come over the tallest mountaintop
because they unveil honest opinions about the stars.

Only language can tell lies.