Tru Fax and the Insaniacs – "The Problem Is Me" (1982)

I’ve got friends, status, money, health

I’m popular, good-looking
There must be something else

[NOTE:  Today's 2 or 3 lines features the second part of our groundbreaking interview with . . . 2 or 3 lines!  Just click here if you missed part one.]

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2 or 3 lines:  You’ve reached an important milestone.  Ten years is a long time to keep a blog going.

2 or 3 lines:  Truer words were never spoken.

Q:  Do you plan to keep going?  Will 2 or 3 lines be around for another ten years?

A:  If I live that long.

Q:  [Knocks on wood.]  So no thoughts of pulling the plug?

A:  I might have done that after the first year.  But the longer I go with 2 or 3 lines, the less likely I am to pull the plug.

Q:  But isn’t it tempting?  Think of all the additional time you would have to fiddle about – not in the Uncle Ernie sense, of course – if you weren’t committed to producing new material for 2 or 3 lines every week.

A:  Pulling the plug would take a lot of pressure off me – which may sound silly, because that pressure is 100% self-imposed.  

Q:  So why not do it?

A:  I’m still hoping that 2 or 3 lines will become something better than what is currently is.  Did you take Latin in high school?

Q:  I did – but that was a long time ago.

 A:  There’s a Latin saying “Dum spiro, spero” – which can be translated as, “While I breathe, I hope.”    As long as you’re alive, there’s a possibility that things will get better.  A baseball team can be down to its final out – even its final strike – but as long as the game isn’t over, it still has a chance to win.  Maybe that chance is very small, but it exists.  And as long as I keep 2 or 3 lines going, there’s a possibility that it will grow into something much greater than what it currently is.  But as soon as I pull the plug on it, that possibility disappears.    

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2 or 3 lines:  It’s clear that 2 or 3 lines is very important to you.  Can you articulate why that is?  

2 or 3 lines:  One reason that I write 2 or 3 lines is that I feel a need to explain myself to the world – to communicate who and what I am.  I recently came across a quote from a Swedish academic named Jenny Sunden that may explain the motivation for 2 or 3 lines as well as anything: “In order to exist online, we must write ourselves into being.”  That’s what I’m trying to do with 2 or 3 lines – I’m writing myself into being, and sharing that being with my readers . . . especially my children and my grandchildren (when they’re old enough to read).  

Q:  Do you see 2 or 3 lines as a kind of legacy?

A:  I suppose 2 or 3 lines is a legacy in the sense that it’s something tangible I’m leaving behind, but it’s of more than casual interest to only a very small number of people.  The fact that people worry about their legacy proves how vain we are.  

Q:  Speaking of being vain, do you think it’s at all vain to have yourself conduct a lengthy interview with yourself about yourself?

A:  I’ll ignore your interruption and continue with my response to your question about whether I see 2 or 3 lines as my legacy.  I’ve come to terms with the fact that no one will remember what I accomplished as a lawyer, and that I haven’t written a great novel or created some other memorable work of art – but the vast majority of lawyers and novelists and artists will be forgotten relatively quickly after they die.  The most meaningful legacy I will be leaving behind isn't 2 or 3 lines.  It's my children, and my grandchildren, and so on.   A lot of what I write is intended to enable them to know me better. 

Q:  You once paraphrased the famous Louis XIV quote, “L’état, c’est moi” – which can be translated as “The nation is me” – as “Le 2 or 3 lines, c’est moi.”  That statement can be read in two different ways.  Maybe you’re simply saying that 2 or 3 lines is wholly your creation – that you’re the chicken and that 2 or 3 lines is your egg.  Or maybe you’re saying that you are what 2 or 3 lines says you are.  Which is it?  

A:  Both, I think.  Most people would say that someone is what he is rather than  what he says he is.  Of course, no one knows a person as well as that person knows himself.  An honest autobiography is always going to be more revealing and comprehensive than a biography.  While autobiographies aren't always honest, everything I write about myself in 2 or 3 lines is the truth.  Not necessarily in an objective sense, but everyone knows that there’s really no such thing as “objective” truth. 

Q:  Was what you wrote about your hot (age-adjusted) French girlfriend the truth?  Did she really exist?  

A:  Absolutely!  

Q:  We haven’t heard anything about her in a long time – just sayin’.

A:  That’s because she’s now my hot (age-adjusted) French ex-girlfriend.

Q:  I’m sorry to hear that.

A:  Not half as sorry as I am. 

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2 or 3 lines:  Let’s shift gears and discuss today’s featured song.  It is well-known that you love irony, and I’m smelling more than a whiff of irony in the lines from today’s featured song that are quoted at the beginning of this post.  

2 or 3 lines:  I can’t deny it – I am one ironic son of a b*tch.

Q:  Is the singer of “The Problem Is Me” being ironic?

A:  You bet your *ss she is.  She doesn’t really believe the problem is her – she believes someone else is at fault.  After all, she’s popular and good-looking, she  has money, status, etc. – how can she possibly be the problem? 

Q.  Good question.

A:  But the real irony here is that the singer really is the problem.  There’s a type of irony called dramatic irony, which is when a character in a play or a movie says something that he or she believes is true, but which the audience knows is false.  Here we have an ironic variation on dramatic irony: the singer intends her words to be ironic, but we know that what she is saying is actually true.  

[NOTE:  Here endeth part two of the 2 or 3 lines interview of 2 or 3 lines.  Click here to read part three of the interview.]

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Click here to listen to “The Problem Is Me,” which was released in 1982 on Tru Fax and the Insaniacs’ first and only (to date) album, Mental Decay:

Unfortunately, “The Problem Is Me” is not currently available for purchase from Amazon or iTunes.