I'm Going To Take His Face... Off

Chris Rock once said that when you go on a first date the person doesn't meet you; they meet your representative. I believe this is not only true on first dates but every day life as well.

Before you leave your house every day you put on a mask. For some people it's the "I'm cool" mask, for some it's the "I'm emo" mask, etc... Some people wish to appear wealthy when they are not; some wish to appear confident when they are in fact self-conscious. The only constant is that no one is themselves. There probably are a few people that are themselves but it's almost impossible to prove so for the purposes of this essay they don't exist.

Most people, I believe, are uncomfortable being themselves around pretty much everyone except their closest friends. Again, this is only speculation. It's a hard fact to verify as its' very nature causes people to lie about it. But people have a fear of not being accepted. This fear puts pressure on people to act differently than they normally would in order to fit in. It's been my experience that people like you for who you are not and love you for who you are. You have to pretend to be somebody else in order to gain acceptance and then slowly filter in your true personality in small doses.

People think I'm funny. I think I inherited this gift from my father who has a great sense of humor. But why do I feel the need to be funny? I'm going to paraphrase Kevin Smith a little here because he pretty much summed up how I feel on the matter. I think I do what I do because I grew up fat. People generally want to hang out with their own aesthetic type. People that look different tend to be castigated and therefore need to bring something else to the table in order for "normal" looking people to associate with them. I decided to make myself a human cartoon character.

When I started working at a bar 3 years ago it really gave me a stage on which I could perform. My mask isn't so much a total falsehood as it is a half truth. I took a certain part of my personality and turned the volume way up when I was at work. Sometimes it literally took me hours to mentally prepare myself to be ready to perform at work. But hey, it worked. People liked me and I obtained what I call "quasi-celebrity status" in the Nashville night life scene. To this day I still can't go out without someone wanting to buy me a drink or asking me to do something crazy they've seen me do before. If I ever showed up for work acting like I act around the house people would constantly want to know what was wrong with me. When I assured them that nothing was wrong I would get a variety of responses all to the tune of,
"Well you'll tell me when you're ready to."

But why do I do it? Because I don't like the fact that people wear masks. The plan I concocted was simple and ironic. I thought that I could lower the bar, so to speak, on what society found acceptable by being a dork and revealing almost everything about my life. No subject was too taboo, no joke was too crude, and, to paraphrase George Carlin, I wanted to cross the line as often as possible hopefully taking a few people with me each time. I figured that when people saw how stupid I was being they would feel like they could be stupid themselves. Simple enough, the ironic part was that I had to wear a mask in order to accomplish it.

I work at a different place now, way more upscale than anything I'm used to, full of pretentious douche bags and trend whores. There were always people talking about me behind my back but here it's part of the very fabric of the social structure. People laugh at my antics and comments but everyone thinks I'm an idiot. Part of me is tired of it. Almost no one respects me as a person. I used to think I could make a difference, that if I acted totally ridiculous people would see that it was OK to be themselves but I don't know if I believe that anymore. Part of me is sick of getting up and performing, but if I go to work and act like I do at home people who are used to the act are always going to think something's wrong with me. Plus it's difficult to be that other me when I'm so used to being the class clown. It's just become far too easy to slip into that other persona. Stephen Fry said in "V For Vendetta", "You wear a mask for so long you forget who you were beneath it." I fear that I have forgotten who I am beneath my mask.

I don't know if I want to be funny anymore, but I don't know if I can stop.

Until next time, True Believers...
The bottle is empty
And the well is dry
September 2006

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