Illustrator :: Creating Distressed Look On Object - Expand Gradient Mesh

I'm trying to create a distressed look on an object that has a gradient mesh appliet to it. i've done this with regular objects but never on one with a gradient mesh. one of the steps in this process is to expand the object, but i'm not able to do so because the expand option is grayed out in the drop down menu.
 
normally after expanding the object i would use one of the artistic charcoal brushes to create a texture over the object in a different color. then i would select the brush strokes and expand apperance. then, using the pathfinder, i would merge the expanded brush strokes with the expanded object and then delete the brush stokes. what remains is the object with little cut-outs where the texture of the brush strokes used to be.
 
however i can't do this because i can't expand the object with a gradient mesh.