Do you remember where you were when you heard Kurt Cobain was dead? I don't. That might sound like blasphemy to some of my contemporaries, but there you go. I don't remember where I was or what I was doing. I may have been in the kitchen eating a peanut butter sandwich; I may have been in my bedroom beating off on that fluffy blanket depicting two Canadian geese in flight that my mother dutifully washed every week or so, never mentioning the fresh islands of crust dotting the landscape. I just don't remember. Does this mean I felt nothing at the loss of Cobain? Of course not. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nirvana's Nevermind changed my musical life. Before Nirvana I listened exclusively to Michael W. Smith, "Weird Al" Yankovic, and classical music. I was also a devoted radio listener, a fan of the Euro-pop techno and party rap that littered the FM landscape at the time. It was Nirvana, in conjunction with REM and They Might be Giants, that turned me on to a world of musical possibilities I never thought possible. Within a three weeks of purchasing REM's Automatic for the People, I, with the help of my mother, owned every REM cassette that came before. Same with Nirvana. I bought the Bleach tape at K-Mart one week after receiving Nevermind as a reward for straight A's on my report card. It was a pretty exciting time in my musical development. I started grabbing everything I could get my hands on: Juliana Hatfield, The Lemonheads, Primus, Smashing Pumpkins, etc. I was obsessed. Still, I couldn't tell you where I was or what I was doing when I heard Kurt Cobain had blown his brains out. I remember watching the footage of Seattle teenagers gathering together and lighting candles on Mtv, Courtney Love reading the suicide letter, but other than that, I'm blank.
Whether or not you remember where you were, Cobain's death was a great loss. I had heard rumors that he was working on stuff with Michael Stipe shortly before his suicide, so I was bummed about that, but I never mourned in any significant way. Probably listened to my Nirvana albums, watched my VHS copy of Unplugged a lot. I wanted a sweater like the one Cobain wore on that show and my mom got me one for Christmas. Several years later, my horrible ex-girlfriend would throw this sweater in the garbage without me knowing. It is one of the many reasons I dislike her so much to this day.
But, yeah, Cobain was dead. I liked his music, it changed my life, and he died. Oh, well. Billy Corgan was still alive and not a freakish ego-maniac yet, right? At least he wasn't vocal about it. Things were going to be OK. Some people, however, worked through their pain in, um, different ways, like the focus of today's profile. His poem, featured on my second favorite Web site, Failbook, is a moving (i.e. weird) tribute to Cobain, a man he refers to as his "hero." I'm not sure what part of Cobain's life he is so fond of--the heroin addiction, the repeated suicide attempts, the failed drug rehabs, his marriage to Courtney Love, etc.--but Cobain is his hero, so, all right. Now, I don't make a habit of poking fun at people's attempts at poetry--hell, I wrote some pretty awful poems when I was a young man, though, to be fair, some of them were required for a creative writing course, I mean, I had to write them or I would fail the class--but this weird, bad poem begs to be mocked, so that's what I'm going to do, right now.
Let's take a deeper look. Don't worry. This is all for science.
Heroin burns on a silver spoon,
Under "Automatic Peoples" early moon,
Starting with a reminder of Cobain's well documented heroin use seems like a no-brainer. Nice job, guy. And the spoon is silver. Kinda seems like a judgement, but, oh well.
And I can only assume he is referencing REM's Automatic for the People, which is not a Nirvana album. I guess he may be referencing Cobain's admiration for REM, but that doesn't explain what "'Automatic Peoples' early moon" could possibly mean. Any thoughts? Send them to giantpengy@yahoo.com.
His letter wrote, scrawled with pain,
Left behind his life of fame,
'Written,' not 'wrote.' Sheesh! And, from everything I've heard, Kurt wasn't all yippee-skippy about his "life of fame." That "life of fame" may have been a big reason he took the blast to the head.
The Spokesman bleeds within his room,
Worst line ever? And I do mean in the history of all poetry.
A crying child, a mother's gloom,
A generation, searching for blame,
...and creating a ridiculous murder mystery in the process. Depressed people kill themselves every day. They aren't all elaborate murders masterminded by Courtney Love.
The 90's had courtney and lost Cobain.
Lowercase "c" on Courtney. That's a bold statement. Or a typo. I'm gonna go typo.
Shattering pages on the cold april day,
We learnt of his refusal, to not "fade away",
Sensitive, depressed, disfunctional, bore,
Hear all his bibles at a good record store.
His "bibles?" Really? Ugh. That is probably the real worst line in the history of poems.
And are you calling your hero a bore here, dude? That's kind of harsh. I think you probably mean bored--as you probably also mean dysfunctional without knowing it--but I guess bored doesn't rhyme with store, so you made an artistic decision, like, you know, describing Cobain as a some kind of "dull, tiresome, or uncongenial person." Good for you.
Blonde bearded angel in a mainstream shame
ARGH! That's the really real worst line ever! Though "Mainstream Shame" sounds like a pretty good title for a Nirvana song. What it means here, I don't know. I think it might have something to do with the confused, profoundly awful final line of the poem...
Turned into a product, While they sold out his name.
Well, Paul, it's a good thing you came along and restored Cobain's good name with your wonderful poem. Ugh.
I'm sorry, but I've got to go with Nate on this one.
