The Art Of Selling Out

I had one of "those days" at work. You know, the type of day where you find a nice quiet place to pace back and forth for a few minutes before you actually have to deal with anybody. The type of day where violent depictions of torture and flames fill every single thought you have. Yep, I had one of "those days."

And while I don't mean to compete with any of your bad days that you may have had, I dare say that my day might have actually been a little bit worse than yours. And not because I have a more stressful position than you, or that I work with any more particularity bitchy people than you. No, I make this claim on the basis that my work has recently started to pump music from "Sesame Street" into every corner of the building.

"Rubber Ducky," "Fuzzy And Blue," and "I Love Trash," all there, all the time. And there is place from which you can escape it. I went to the bathroom.........there it was. I took a break......there it was. I went to scream in a stairwell.............lo and behold, there it was. In my face, constantly repeating.

Whilst I managed to force most of those songs into my subconscious and slowly drive myself mad, there was one song that stood out to me.

It was the duet between Kermit and R.E.M, doing a Muppetized version of "Shiny Happy People," redubbed "Fuzzy Happy Monsters" and acting as some sort of Muppet revolutionary warcry or something.

And I had to laugh. I absolutely had to. Because I was completely convinced that the guys in R.E.M actually lost sleep over this. I could actually see a sleepless Michael Stipe staring at his ceiling and saying to himself, "I did a song with the Muppets, no one will ever take me seriously again."

And then a thought hit me. A thought hard enough to make me shudder. "My god," I said to myself, "is it possible that one day I might have to sell out like that?"

It's a terrifying notion, to say the least, because the BGO and R.E.M kind of play in the same park. Not that I'm comparing my material to a refined band like R.E.M, but I know that if music sales kick up, I'll be sharing shelf space with them at Wal-Mart. And despite all the rebellious overtones, the intense research of jazz and blues, and my penchant for singing about weird shit, I would still be seated in the same musical section, a few racks down.

That kicks up the chances that I may be approached to have my work re-written to apply to hand puppets. I'm not even sure what I'd say to that. Yeah, I get a kick out of kids, and want to support anything that makes them more interested in the world around them, but at the same time I kind of want to protect my work.

"But," I again said to myself, "I sing about stalkers, moochers, and necrophiliacs. Surely they'd figure I 'm a little too unorthodox for children's programming." Well, considering the recent popularity of a little thing called Kidz Bop (Check out Vol. 9 for an absolutely painful rendition of "Feel Good Inc.") I would say nothing is safe anymore. With a bit more popularity, it's very possible that I would eventually become munchkin-fodder.

So, what do I do? I don't want to avoid fame if it comes a'knocking. Fame would guarantee financial security, and the ability to keep making noise whenever I feel like it. But, it can come with a cost. And having to lose sleep because a bunch of numb grownups figured out a way to make my work palpable for kids might be that cost.

I guess all I can do is fight it as much as possible. In the end though, I guess every artist with a good following has to sell his soul a little bit. There may very well be a day where a choir composed of cartoon characters and adolescents are performing one of my songs and singing, "She talks to the devil in backwards speech and spends her time trying to curse me."

Actually, that might be kind of cool