Selling Out

Carola 48 x 49,5 cm pastel on cotton

SELLING OUT

is a bummer for

the 70’s era pop-rock super-gods

—their latest

release turning gold even before

it hits the stores, cute little Stevie

on the cover, all big eyed and blond—so

they take revenge on their own success.

Their next album pushes past the

limits of the listenable; the critics kill it….

Bill Clinton sold, and sold again. Except for an abbrevi-

ated era when he seemed to believe  

in something French: Liberte’, Egalite’, Fraternite’—

like a fortune cookie’s prophecy folded into

a triangulated croissant

then dropped, like an orphan, on Wall Street’s door step.

Mick and David sold out

long before Angie caught them

comparing schlongs in a suite

at the Waldorf. Or did I just

make that up? Maybe it wasn’t

the Waldorf. I don’t know, maybe it was their

guitar collections they were comparing.

What does selling out mean in the worlds

of pop music, and politics,

and even religion? It’s 1375, say, and I give

my priest a cow and a couple of odorous goats

for a good word in God’s ear. Meanwhile

the sun has turned us into bones.

Bleached out, broken, scattered across the sands

until, that is, Georgia O’Keeffe

spirit-in-residence on her own Ghost Ranch,

gathers us up, places us on a shelf

with a few other bony relics. Used to take a long

time to get old. I was thirty-five at least ten years—

I thought!—and now every two or three months

little bits of me chip away. I’d sell out in a heartbeat

to slow down the rot. It’s so easy to go Faustian.

End Of Season Sale. Everything Absolutely Must Go!