Three, Three, Three For My Heartache

Everyone’s for sale, I understand this. Despite that, there’s still a little piece of me that shrivels up and dies every time I hear a song on a commercial that makes me realize another pop culture icon has discovered what their sell price is.

I know, selling out is an outdated concept - the evidence is all around us. Prince played last season’s finale of American Idol and the Super Bowl halftime show on the weekend and the most controversy he managed to stir up was when he made a penis shadow puppet with his guitar. This from a guy who used to writhe about stage in orgasmic pleasure. So I moved on when Supergrass sold out to MasterCard and I accepted that The White Stripes were shills for Coke. I even, grudgingly, understood when Sloan sold a guitar lick to Futureshop.

What I never expected was to see was some schlub happily strutting back to his dreary cubicle with a bag of greasy Wendy’s, to the tune of Blister in the Sun.

When I'm a walkin' I strut my stuff, and I'm so strung out
I'm high as a kite, I just might stop to check you out
Let me go on, like I blister in the sun

Sigh. Why Violent Femmes, why? I hate the advertising exec who figured out how much money to put in the dump truck they backed up to their homes. I sure hope it was a lot, because it wasn’t just the fact that they sold the song but the juxtaposition of a teen angst anthem with the crushed reality of office life, where your only pleasure is shoveling down some fast food before the next meeting. You guys might have been paid, but I’m the one who feels ripped off.