What is REAL?

Rage Against the Machine (now Audioslave) is real. Or is it? I can easily see through the bias of network news or the latest Britney Spears publicity stunt or Bush's latest lies, but what do I not see through?

Do I love RATM because they're for REAL, or because they are just another corporate package that happens to be targeted at me and I'm unable to see the packaging? Do they really believe anything they say, or are they crafted with a message guaranteed to appeal to a leftist, over-educated, angry white guy? Can you distribute your real message to your fans through a corporation, or does the corporation simply craft the REAL according to the target audience, who are unable to see through it?

In the movie "Y Tu Mama, Tambien," there's a great line that says, "The truth is cool, but unattainable." It's funny, but true, ironically. Does it really matter if RATM believes their message? Does it really matter if it's true to them if it's real to me? Am I getting a quality experience of REAL from them anyway? And is that all that matters, a personal issuance of truth?

Sartre felt we were all ultimately alone, which precludes any hope of consensus and relegates us to a permanent state of dynamic truth-creation. Acceptance of that has been a long struggle for me, but now, at the end, the thought of anything being static and solid in its own integrity erodes, and I'm left with a peaceful sense that we, as billions of individuals making trillions of decisions over our collective lifetimes, create the REAL every day.