I was sitting at the bar with my wife the other night, the kind of bar where the bartender knows you well enough to ask, “Same thing?” but not well enough to ask how your kids are doing. His name was Jim, and he slid a fresh glass of Bourbon across the counter when Rage Against the Machine’s “Bulls on Parade” erupted from the speakers.
“I used to LOVE them,” Jim said, shaking his head like he was remembering an old flame.
“Me too,” I offered, though in my case “love” meant one burned CD and the occasional head nod in traffic.
“Too bad they sold out,” he said.
I asked what he meant, and he launched into a story about major labels, reunion tours with high ticket prices, and band members living like hedge fund managers. Apparently, if you once wrote songs about dismantling the system, you aren’t allowed to charge $150 for floor seats.
It struck me as funny, this idea of “selling out,” mostly because I’ve been doing it quietly for years.
When I was young, my career ambitions alternated between two noble callings: professional baseball player and beloved author. Not once did I think, “You know what would be thrilling? Fluorescent lighting and quarterly performance reviews in a swampy state shaped like a pistol.” And yet, here I am.
Idealists burn out fast. That uncompromising spirit doesn’t survive long against utility bills and dental insurance. And if it somehow does, just add children. The revolution doesn’t seem quite so urgent when it’s 3 a.m., your baby is screaming, and you’re trying to calculate whether you can afford formula without cutting into your beer budget.
The loudest anti-establishment voices I knew in college either overdosed, disappeared, or got real jobs. One guy I knew used to carry around The Anarchist’s Cookbook like it was scripture. Today he sells insurance in North Dakota. I saw a picture of him recently. He wore a pink suit, grinning with his little girl at a daddy-daughter dance. His tattoos, which once shouted “F(*orget*) The Man,” now peek meekly from under his sleeves, like children forced to sit still in church.
We all become that guy eventually. My friends who played in punk bands now mow their lawns on Saturday mornings while their Spotify playlists shuffle from “Revolutionary Rock” to Yacht Rock without irony. I once swore I would never be one of those people, but I now hum along to “Rebel Yell” while trimming hedges in cargo shorts.
Maybe selling out isn’t so much betrayal as it is triage. You pick your battles. Do you want to keep your middle finger raised forever, or do you want to raise your daughter in a gym decorated with crepe paper and helium balloons?
I’ve got my own daddy-daughter dance coming up soon. I already promised to wear something pink. Maybe that makes me a sellout. Or maybe the real sellout is refusing to bend, clinging to some brittle purity until everyone else moves on and leaves you behind.
If ending up like my friend in North Dakota, twirling his daughter under fluorescent lights while a censored version of “Killing in the Name” plays in the background, is the price of selling out, then I’ll take it.
Maybe that isn’t selling out at all. Maybe that’s the encore.