Sellout, Part Two: The Rules of Rebellion

4.

I rode down to the tracks

Thinking they might sing to me

But they just stared back

Broken, trainless and black as night

Climbed out onto my roof

So I'd be a poet in the night

Beat the walls off my room

I saw the big room that is this life

Put my ear to the door

I just heard hot rods and gunshots and sirens

People kill me these days

There's keys in their eyes but they lock from the inside.

-       Blake Schwarzenbach,

“Condition Oakland,”

24 Hour Revenge Therapy, Jawbreaker

I should have remembered that lesson, the one I learned back in the day, my past life, my punk past life. I should have remembered the lesson of Jawbreaker.

Lana Rebel and I were in the kitchen of The Peterbuilt House. I was washing the dishes, and she was reading aloud, something from Kerouac, or maybe it was John Berger. No, definitely Berger. It was Lilac and Flag. I know because I envisioned myself as Lilac and Lana Rebel as Flag. It wasn’t hard for me to see her climbing all those rungs, one by one, all the way up to the control cabin of the crane at the high-rise construction site. After dinner, we climbed out onto the roof so I could read her a poem in the night. It was punctuated by the hot rods and gunshots and sirens of the warehouse district.

Having finished the poem, I was waiting anxiously Lana Rebel’s response. She was silent. A freight train passed along the tracks below, slow and heavy, headed for the overpass. It wasn’t until the last car cleared the overpass that Lana Rebel spoke. “I know what you’re doing.” I wasn’t sure what she was referring to. “The whole thing about reading books aloud. Bottles on the nightstand. Poems in the night. Talking to the empty train tracks.”

“Not sure I’m following,” I admitted. 

“You might not be following me, but you’re following alright, following someone.”

For a second, I thought that Lana Rebel was getting revenge on me for the poem, for holding her capture as I recited it, in all its dissonance and asymmetry and impoverishment, so characteristic of whatever came out of my pen those days. Maybe it was too cryptic, and this was her way of telling me, you know, by responding in a cryptic manner. Not a bad strategy. It quickly became clear, nonetheless, that this was not the case.

“Come on, we all know you are a part of The Cult of Blake.”

It was the first time that I had heard the expression. The meaning of Lana Rebel’s accusation, nonetheless, was immediately apparent. She was referring, of course, to Blake Schwarzenbach, the frontman of the punk band, Jawbreaker, the topic of much debate as of late, a sore spot, a point of contention, being that we, the punk community, were in the middle of The Jawbreaker Affair.

Jawbreaker had been the darling child of the punk scene. There was something there for everyone: playfulness, pedantry, pulse, verve, intelligence, grit. They were both Brooklyn and Oakland, hardcore and pop punk, CBGBs and Gilman Street, modernist and postmodernist, past and future.  They put something into words that all of us had been feeling, experiencing, living, day in and day out, but that hadn’t been put into words yet, something hitherto pre-emergent, struggling to be born. They put their finger on it, pinned it down. No small feat. It isn’t every day that something like that happens in art and politics, which perhaps explains why the punk community showered them with such adoration, coddled them, clung on.

It also explains why punks, or some of us at least, felt so offended, so jilted, by Jawbreaker’s perceived slight, as unpardonable as it was unsubstantiated. In a dubious hermeneutic manoeuvre, the band was thought to have crossed a line, a proverbial line, one that couldn’t be crossed, or at least not without disowning the punk movement that had nurtured them.

But had the band really done the deed, the unthinkable? Had they actually sold out? Were the self-appointed punk police jumping to conclusions? Was it all just faulty reasoning? Interpretative slippage?

The facts were incriminating but not conclusive. It wasn’t a clear-cut case. There was ample room for speculation on both sides, which, we can all agree, is a dangerous zone for the dogmatic.

It was common knowledge that Kurt Cobain was a fan of Jawbreaker. This, in itself, was polemic from a punk perspective. It suggested that the God of Grunge wanted to in some way ally himself, situate himself, within the politics or aesthetics of the movement or, worse, appropriate some aspect of its legacy, which, we all agreed, he had no right to do. Nirvana had made a business out of counterculture, appropriating some of the outward signs of punk, the signifiers, while ditching its content, its political commitments. Because punk, after all, isn’t a question of fashion or attitude but an alternate mode of producing, circulating, and consuming culture, one that is antithetical to and incompatible with the mainstream, with major label deals, with market analyses, with advertising strategies, with the bottom line. Quite simply, Cobain approach to music and culture disqualified him from making such a claim.

But couldn’t Curtis simply have liked the band, like some many other random people, without any grand schemes or ulterior motives? And, in this case, what did this have to do with Jawbreaker? Why would this fact incriminate them? They are certainly can’t be held responsible for who likes their music and who doesn’t. They put their music out into the world and, from that point on, it takes on a life of its own. They are not any more or less punk because people who are not punks like or don’t like their music, right? Or would it be more punk to irritate people in the mainstream, as was the case with a band like Screeching Weasel, who took his premise so far as to irritate half the punk community as well?

In any case, Nirvana was on their In Utero tour in early 1993 when their opening band flaked out on a few of the scheduled shows. Kurt, as the story goes, proposed Jawbreaker as a replacement, and what the king of flannel and ripped jeans wants, the king gets. The minions of his Highness reached out to Jawbreaker. There was no contract involved, no major labels, no deal with the devil, no bags of gold, just four shows as the opening band. Jawbreaker accepted. In the four shows they played, the lowly punks never even crossed paths with the royalty. Nirvana, hermetically sealed off from the world, spent all their time, the time when they weren’t on stage, in the air-conditioned lounges of the interior of their eighteen-wheel tour buses, a convoy of them, where they were attended to by an entourage of agents, managers, publicists, fellow super stars, massage therapists, spiritual advisors, and cooks. As was customary for punks to do, Jawbreaker slept in the makeshift loft of their van, built with two-by-fours and plywood, the same van that they always toured in.

Was it a crime then? Lana Rebel seemed to think so. She also knew that I didn’t, which, apparently, made me a part of something called The Cult of Blake.

To make matters worse, Jawbreaker had just released, 24 Hour Revenge Therapy, an album in which the band openly addressed their critics through songs such as Boxcar: “my enemies are all too familiar / they’re the ones who used to call me friend / I’m coloring outside your guidelines / I was passing out when you were passing out the rules / one, two, three, four / whose punk? What’s the score?” For some punks, this was the proof that they had been looking for, a confession. The matter was settled: Jawbreaker had sold out. Case closed.

For others, however, it was a much-needed critique of punk dogma. If the movement had originated as a transgression of rules, it had developed to a point at which it had become a set of rules unto itself. And the Rules of Rebellion were proving exceedingly rigid. The punk police patrolled the scene for infractions. Take a taxi to the show instead of your bicycle? Wear an article of clothing that hadn’t been thrifted? Shop at a chain instead of an independently owned business? Buy food at the grocery store instead of the co-op? Eat a cookie with a non-vegan ingredient? Drink coffee out of a disposable cup instead of a Mason jar? Pay for a haircut? Any one or combination of these infractions were cause for concern. All were incriminating, casting the dark shadows of doubt on your punk credentials, your authenticity. All of them chipped away at your Punk Points, your countercultural prestige, your ranking in the scene, such a delicate affair. All, potentially, ground for ridicule or, worse, ostracization. If punk was originally characterized by critical thinking, it was proving itself incapable of thinking critically about its own ideas and practices.

Jawbreaker, in that sense, represented the point at which punk became self-consciously critical, turning its critical edge against its own tradition. But isn’t that precisely what punk is all about? If punk is about transgression, what could be more punk than transgressing the norms of punk? It was punk elevated to the second degree, or at least if you were a part of The Cult of Blake.

In the wake of the freight train, slow and soulful, the tracks went blank. The warehouse district went silent. The city lights crackled orange in the distant, barely audible, nearly extinguished, as I struggled to find the words, to assemble my defense, to close the gap that had left Lana Rebel on one shore and me on the far shore.

“Guilty as charged.” In a flash of inspiration, it occurred to me that it wasn’t the moment for circumlocutions and elaborate defenses and evasive verbiage. The only way to come out clean on the other side was to plow through the middle of the awkwardness. “So, I guess this makes me a sellout too, a sellout by association, at least I’m pretty sure that is how it works. You guys aren’t going to kick me out of The Peterbuilt House or anything, are you?”

Lana Rebel was more than happy to play along. “Mmm, I still haven’t decided. For now, you’re just on probation, so just make sure you’re on good behaviour, and I’m sure you’ll be fine.” The tension dissipated, the tension that, just moments earlier, had been lingering, looming ominously.

“You got to admit that it is really good writing,” I added as an afterthought. “I’d be happy if, one day, I could write half as good as Blake, sellout or not.”

“You know I’m a fan,” Lana Rebel confessed.

“Of Blake?” I blurted, unable to resist.

“You know I’m your biggest fan,” Lana Rebel corrected.

“So, you liked the poem?” Resurfacing, my anxiety got the best of me.

“Let’s just say that you write well enough to not need to go around imitating Blake.” To date, it is the best compliment anyone has even given me.

The warehouses along the tracks creaked under the weight of the sky, which had been slowly gathering its forces since sunset. A freight train wailed in the distance, fanning the city lights, orange and pink, on the far side of town.

Within a few short months The Jawbreaker Affair would be over, the enigma resolved. And, when the dust settled, I would be on the wrong side of the divide.

After 24 Hour Revenge Therapy, they sold out. This time it wasn’t a matter of overinterpretation. This time there was no room for doubts or counterarguments. It was a textbook case of selling out: they signed on a major label, spent far too many hours in the recording studio, spent far too much money on production, made videos for MTV, and elaborated an intricate publicity campaign. Their strategy was clear, transparent, coherent. They had been singled out to follow in the footsteps of Green Day. All they had to was follow the same recipe. But there was one small problem. Blake was no Billy Joel. An intellectual through and through, he had none of the mass appeal. His lyrics were too sophisticated for the culture industry. The album was a flop. Cut off from their base, they lost the support of the punk community before having secured their place in the mainstream. When things didn’t go according to plan, the major label didn’t think twice about ditching the band, cutting them loose, severing the tether, leaving them to confront the mess that they themselves had created. The door to wealth and celebrity slammed shut in their faces but, by that time, it was too late to run back to the safety and comfort of punk.

What was the lesson of Jawbreaker then? Before you sell out, make sure that you can.

I should have remembered that lesson when I left my home at the Punk University and set out for The Almost Ivy League University.

5.

"Man with Hammer," Liliana Porter, circa 2000.

I read somewhere that every wall

is a door to something new.

yeah, well, if that's true,

why can't I get through?

Guy Picciotto,

"Hain's Point,"

Rites of Spring

5.1

The Over-Educated Janitor takes a seat in the circle of folding chairs in the basement of the church on the outskirts of town, once used for other things, once meaningful in other ways, now long since unintelligible, or at least without the wildest cynicism and insincerity. He fixes his gaze on the concrete floor, on the intersection of two large cracks in the cement, a cross of sorts, among the stains and scoff marks and dust bunnies, the usual grime. 

This place could use a good scrubbing, he thinks to himself, out of habit, a conditioned reflex at this point.

The meeting starts. His palms sweat. Squirming in his seat, he sits and listens, going back and forth between astonishment and irritation, commiseration and antipathy. His anxiety grows more acute as his turn approaches. Possessed by the feral feeling, the one he gets so often these days, he scans the room furtively in search of the staircase, an open door, the way out. But the escape plan doesn’t have time to materialize.

I can’t go through with this. I can’t go through with this. I can’t go… Before he has time to finish the mantra, it’s his turn.

5.2

“I’m not sure how this works,” The Over-Educated Janitor confesses.

“You can do this.” He can’t identify with precision the source of the reassurance. It seems to have come from every seat in the circle at once.

“Okay, deep breath, deep breath, here goes nothing…

“My name is The Over-Educated Janitor, and I’m a sellout, or at least that is what you can call me.”

This is his first time, his first time at a Sellout Anonymous meeting. He knows that he is supposed to tell it, his story, the story of his Fall from Grace, but he can’t get his thoughts straight. He narrows his vision, anchoring it to a dust bunny on the floor, as if it were a portal.

“There were rumors, of course. When I stopped going to the coffeehouse, the bike co-op, the shows. When I moved out of The Squat, our squat, The Peterbuilt House. It isn’t that anyone, any of the other punks said something to my face, said it, pronounced the word, sellout. But, then again, they didn’t have to. In a scene like punk, in a town like Branson, information, especially false information, travels along the back channels, the subterranean ones, as presupposition, as implicature, as inference, as innuendo. The judgement doesn’t need to be spoken to have an effect. I could feel the disapproval in the stares, the evasive gestures, the averted eyes, the little smirks, a smile insinuating itself in the corner of the lips, here and there.

“But they weren’t accurate, the rumors. Yes, what was happening was a metamorphosis, The Metamorphosis, but, as such, it was a change of shape, of form. The content remained intact throughout the process, the transition. There was more continuity than rupture in what I was doing, what I was about to do.

“When I stole the pair of bolt cutters from the tool shed, when I tiptoed off in the middle of the night, when I cut a Hole in the Fence and squeezed through to The Other Side, emerging anew, bright eyed, leaving the bolt cutters behind, knowing full well that I wouldn’t be needing them, knowing that I wouldn’t be coming back, when I finally did it, I wasn’t selling out, not yet.

“I was continuing The Same Project in a new form. I was going to take up my studies at The Punk University.

“From that first day, when I sat on the cold floor on the lecture hall, when I filled up the margins of my notebooks with feverish scribbles, when the voice of José Amicola took up the entirety of the available space in the room, when collectively we summoned something into existence, something so much bigger than any single one of us, it was clear that the stakes were high, it was clear that there was no turning back.

“I took up residence in The Shoebox Apartment above the motorcycle repair shop on the corner or 9^th and 64^th streets, and I stayed there, holed up there. For two decades, I stayed true.

“Day in and day out, semester in and semester out, I labored, first as an undergraduate student, then as a master’s student, and finally as a teacher. Nothing fancy. A low-level teaching position. Without the possibility of obtaining a higher post. Committed to The Project, committed to The Feeling, committed to caring for what we had summoned into existence, I was more than happy to remain at my station.

“I had etched out a place for myself, a little place, a margin. From my little room in The Shoebox Apartment, overlooking the cobblestones and the sad streetlights, so orange until morning, I prepared my classes, I studied, I wrote, and I planned events and Interventions and Side Projects.

“The walls of The Shoebox Apartment grew mold, thick spores of it, more unruly with each passing year. Mourning doves roosted in the shutters, generations of them. Leaf matter accumulated in the tiny spaces between the bookcases and the wall, little orange pillows of it, so very fragrant on humid days and hot summer nights. Up late, sitting at the desk, dictionaries piled high, or in the armchair by the window, armrests threadbare, I grew older, grayer, creakier, crankier.

“That is when The Temptation first started. In in off hours. On the bad days. Obliquely, at first. For two decades, my pay had been the same, that is, barely enough to make it to the end of the month. I watched as my colleagues went on vacations as I stayed home and worked twelve-hour days. I watched as people who read less, studied less, wrote less, researched less, and taught less received more recognition, accolades, promotions, raises, higher posts, higher pay. As I fed myself off the crumbs of the table, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t invited to The Banquet.

“Life on the margins grew more hostile and, with it, The Temptation also grew. It took the form of a little voice, a friendly voice, an ally, offering consolation, introducing itself into my thoughts here and there throughout the day.

“You deserve better, it said. Everyone deserves dignity, deserves to live in decent conditions, so why wouldn’t you? You were true, it said. You saw it through to the end, completed the mission, and can now rest assured, it said. What had once been helpful has now become a hindrance, harmful even, it said. You have come up against a wall, a ceiling, it said, and can’t get through, can’t get through to what comes next.

“The Next Step, it said, is a doctorate, and you can’t do it at The Punk University. You have to diversify. Besides, it said, The Punk University is slow in everything, so very slow, excruciatingly, anachronistic. An undergraduate degree is eight years, a master’s four, a doctorate six to ten. The numbers, it said, don’t add up. When was the last time you looked in the mirror? Notice anything? All that gray hair, it said. You’re not getting any younger. Why do in six to ten years what you can do in three or four somewhere other than The Punk University? Think of all the work you have done, all the work you do, it said. You have to redeem it, you have to professionalize, to validate retroactively all those hours of study, it said. And, the only way to do it is with The Rubber Stamp, it said.

“The voice grew louder and louder. Its interpretations displaced all other interpretations. Its version of my life displaced all the other versions, all the punk versions, until it was the only one left standing. You’re committing professional suicide, it said, over and over, the same phrase, professional suicide, the last shovelful of dirt on the coffin lid. You have to do something, something drastic, it said, now or never.

“That is how it happened. That is when it happened. That is how I found myself on the dirty doorsteps of The Almost Ivy League University with a suitcase full of books, bursting at the seams.”

5.3

The Over-Educated Janitor took one last look at the dust bunny on the cement floor in the middle of the circle of chairs, crucified on a cross of intersecting cracks in the concrete. For the first time since he began the story of his Fall from Grace, of how he turned his back on The Punk University in its time of need, The Over-Educated Janitor lifted his head to meet the gaze of his interlocutors. A friendly bunch, they were all nods and smiles and reassurance. The lady directly across from him looked vaguely familiar, like a middle-aged version of Lana Rebel. “You’re so brave,” she said. The words were barely audible.

“What I found when I arrived at The Almost Ivy League University was an institution in ruins.

“I can’t say, though, that I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I can’t say that I had many illusions. I knew what everybody knows. I knew, of course, that the universities in this part of the world have lost their identity, lost their cultural meaning, lost their specificity, lost their autonomy from the private sector. I knew, of course, that they must bend the knee to their wealthy donors and orient their research to suit the needs and interests of their benefactors, whether economic, social, or political. I knew, of course, that such universities are giant vending machines, shrines to consumerism, at whose feet the students, now clients, genuflect, as they dig deep in their pockets for the oversized coins that they put in the oversized slots of the machine in exchange for The Rubber Stamp, their diplomas, hot off the press, wrapped in cellophane, brand spanking new, a consumer product, instead of a professional formation.

“I also knew, of course, that these universities have sold out on their founding ideals, on their commitment to autonomy, intellectual freedom, and the production of knowledge as an end unto itself, not a mere means to other ends. I knew, in short, that The Almost Ivy League University was an institution by and for sellouts. In fact, it was why I was there in the first place, for The Rubber Stamps, just like all the other clients, just like all the other sellouts.

“I knew about all that, but nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to encounter, the decadence, the impoverishment, the pettiness.

“I thought I had the upper hand. I thought I could come out on top. I thought I could sell out and get away with it. But that is simply not how neoliberalism works. In the neoliberal university, the institution always has the upper hand, always come out on top, always squeezes as much as it can from its clients while giving them as little as possible in return.

“I showed up on the dirty doorstep of The Almost Ivy League University and started pounding on the door, demanding entry, I mean really clamoring. To my surprise, it opened, that thick wooden door, so solemn, and I walked right into the inner sanctum. There were no trumpets, no red carpet, no glory, no choral music, no majestic halls, no disinterested scholars hunched over ancient tomes, no dedicated acolytes taking feverish notes. No, it was a knife fight, all against all, no holds barred, ear biting and everything, every student for themselves, torn garments, blood drawn. It was nothing but ruins, inclement, inhabitable, hostile, eery, a ghost town, a mine without the motherlode. Not once did I get The Feeling; no, I don’t get The Feeling anymore. Instead, I tried not to be impoverished by the impoverishment of my surroundings, I lowered my head, I hunkered down, I kept to myself, I slept with one eye open, I focused on content, I saw my project through to the end and, yes, came out on the other end, graduation, in record time, three years.

“Yes, I emerged with The Rubber Stamp, a diploma to hang on the wall, but this Coveted Prize came with a catch. It came with the knowledge of its devaluation, the knowledge of its meaningless, not only for me personally but also within the academic job market.

“I went to The Almost Ivy League University to professionalize, that is, to retroactively validate my studies as an autodidact, as a late bloomer, as an anomaly. The Rubber Stamp, however, had the opposite effect. When I walked across the stage to receive my diploma, I did so as a person thoroughly de-professionalized.

“The university had given me some courses to teach as a doctorate student, and I was under the illusion that I would be able to continue teaching some of them after graduation. The salary was scandalous low, but at least I would be working in my field. There is, however, no shortage of incoming students, future clients, and the department had no qualms about offering my courses to someone else, especially since I had been butting heads with the department for months over the content of my classes, too polemic for their tastes, and in particular about the war, a topic which I was strictly forbidden to address in my classes, an impossible demand in my field. By the end of the year, it was clear that I was not going to fall in line and that the department was not going to renew my contract. The accent in their infamous hire-and-fire contracts was to fall on the last qualifier of the syntagm.

“Furthermore, the neoliberal university being what it is, a Rubber Stamp Machine, there are legions of other people with the same degree. It doesn’t matter that they studied less, wrote less, researched less, taught less. It doesn’t matter that they are less talented or less dedicated or less experienced. What matters is that they did things The Right Way, the prescribed way. Because, in the academic job market, there is only one right way to do things. It does not contemplate anomalies. It does not accommodate singularities. You are stream-lined, or you are nothing.

“The cubicles of the PhD study rooms are filled with future doctors in their respective fields, slouched over their computers, hacking away noisily at the keys. Are they doing research? Are they furthering their knowledge? Are they breaking new ground? No, they’re working on their CVs; they are furthering their own self-interest; they are making themselves marketable. If they don’t do so, they simply don’t have a chance.

“It was clear, by the end of the year, that I didn’t have a chance. I scoured the job boards and applied to all the job postings. I sent off all the statements of purpose, all the letters of recommendations, all the pedagogical declarations. A handful, then dozens, too many to count.

“The New Year came and went. I hadn’t heard back from any of the applications, silence on that front, deathly still. I moved into The Hallway House. My bank account dwindled low, low enough for me to have to swallow the pill, bite the bullet, pin the nametag to my apron, don the beige coveralls, anything to make it to the end of the month.

“Looking from the window of my shoebox apartment at The Halfway House, the orange pavement until morning, it was clear that I had come full circle. Back where I started, reality set in. I became aware of my condition, of my identity as a sellout, but not just any sellout, a special category, more abject, the one who sell outs without having the conditions to actually pull it off.

“Seduced by the prospect of professionalization, I gave into The Temptation, I gave up my teaching position at The Punk University, turned my back on it in its moment of need, so I could work in my field, so I could take The Next Step, forward, upward, onward, but ended up here, two steps backward, at the bottom, cleaning toilets.” 

The Over-Educated Janitor sits back in his seat. All the tension has left his body. He feels lighter, sleepy, ethereal, a thin wisp of pine smoke curling upward towards the heavens. Looking around the circle, he expects to find averted eyes, evasive gestures, little smirks, grimaces of disapproval, judgment, condemnation, Lana Rebel’s face twisted into a frown. But he is met with something quite different, unexpected, so improbable in today’s world. There is something there in the basement that wasn’t there before, something more than the sum of the folding chairs and the circle of sellouts. For a second, they are a community of sorts, an ensemble of singularities, an assemblage of anomalies, quilted together, staying afloat.

It is the first time that he had The Feeling, the first time since he showed up on the dirty doorstep of The Almost Ivy League University, with his suitcase of books, bulging at the seams, eager to overplay his hand, eager to precipitate his Fall from Grace.

"Fix," Liliana Porter, circa 2000.