And We All Shine On

Some psychologists would probably have a field day with this, but for some reason whenever I think of Kurt Cobain, John Lennon's Instant Karma goes through my head.Kurt Cobain died on April 5, 1994. Like most people my age, I can remember exactly where I was when the announcement came. I was at the Spring State Conference for Model United Nations (MUN for the acronymically happy) yawning my way through the General Assembly when the girl reading the announcements stopped talking. Her silence killed our voices and stillness spread throughout the room as 800 high school students stared expectantly at our announcement giver. With a shaking voice, she announced, "Kurt Cobain is dead. He killed himself and they found his body earlier today. Can we have a moment of silence please?" Like most moments of silence, this was anything but. There were sniffles and sighs. Rustling could be heard through the huge room as Kleenex was pulled from purses, sleeves were dragged across eyes and under noses and people shifted uncomfortably in their seats. I slumped down in my seat and prepared to be grumpy for the rest of the day. I wasn’t sad or confused. I was MAD. River Phoenix had overdosed almost six months earlier and now somebody else was gone. Kids our age had so few heroes of our own. Everybody we tried to look up to overdosed, went into rehab, faked their way into the spotlight and exploited our attention. Here was a guy we thought was Real, was True, was a Leader, who was One of Us and now he was gone too. It just wasn’t fair. I was what you would call a closet grunge freak. I didn’t own any of the albums. I got my fix at school dances and friends houses. My switch from the Light 80s Pop radio station in Coos Bay to the Mid 90s Rock top 40 station out of Eugene had raised my mom’s eyebrows to say the least. At 14 I had bought Guns n’ Roses Use Your Illusion II, and the sound of that nearly caused her to faint, and while Mom never censored what I read, watched or listened to, she was fairly vocal about her disgust for what "we" dubbed "Angry Mad Boy Music" so at home it was Billy Joel and Bette Midler for me, although . I’m sure she thought her daughter was selling herself out to the "Teen Angst" that had become so vogue. School wasn’t much better. I went to school surrounded by kids who worshipped Garth Brooks as if he were the second coming and bowed to their idols of Wrangler and Skool (Skol?) The school district allowed five days worth of excuses absences for hunting but politely requested students leave their kill at home rather than bring it to school to brag. We were told that we could keep our gun racks in our cars, but to leave the rifles at home when we could. In the midst of this, I existed. I was That Kid. I didn’t really talk to anyone outside my small circle of friends. I did Drama and Model UN. I was in the choir and my notebooks were filled with angsty teenage poetry rather than class notes. I let my hair hang in my face and didn’t’ care what people thought of my oversized black sweatshirt (a garment I still own and my Mom still won’t allow in the car). I didn’t fit into my local scene any better than I would later come to find out Kurt Cobain did. I had bigger dreams than my peers and some teachers saw fit, and I was one of three kids in my class Not expected to wind up living in that angry little town for the rest of my life. You see, when you come from a small poor town entirely supported by the timber industry, you are raised to not have big dreams. You’re taught that the best you can expect is a job at the local mill and marriage to the classmate who turns your stomach the least. Should you have the lofty dream of going to college, you are told the state schools are your best option for your four year vacation from the clear cut hills of your home town. Rebelling against this thinking labeled you a freak, and people shook their heads sadly and mourned for the day you discovered the "real world." It was like Pleasantville but dull, gray and listless. Kurt’s voice raged against this teaching. He refused to settle and he fought. He fought and he succeeded and he was from ABERDEEN, a town not unlike my own. Maybe Kurt wasn’t the voice of a generation, as many arguments have been made. He was certainly though, the voice of a Region. Until Nirvana broke onto the scene, nobody cared about our little corner of the nation. The Northwest was known for Trees, Spotted Owls and the place where the Hippies went to turn themselves into Republicans. There were other bands and ideas helping the Seattle Scene come into its own and granted, that’s where most people think Nirvana is from. But Nirvana is from ABERDEEN. A nothing place like a lot of other nothing places where a lot of nothing goes on and a lot of desperate kids dream of escaping.Nirvana is often credited with the birth of "grunge" and "Alternative Music" and neither credit is really true. "Alternative" was born from a hybrid of punk and metal, movements started in the late 70s and the term "Grunge" just makes me laugh at the pretentiousness of those Melrose and Madison fashion socialites who had to give a label to every trend that came along as if somebody woke up one morning and said "Hey, today I am going to put on ripped jeans, a flannel shirt and some heavy shoes. No no, I’m not a poor kid who has to walk everywhere in cold, rain and mud. I’m a Trendsetter." Did nobody realize the functionality of flannel, Doc Martens and the layering of one’s clothes? What Nirvana deserves credit for, is Succeeding. Dave Grohl founded the Foo Fighters, who kick music’s ass every time they release a record. Teeny Pop is now emulating the garage sound their older siblings listened to at top volume (it really did drown out Barney well). Kurt Cobain gave all the rest of us weird kids a leader—somebody to point to when we were told, "you will never make it" and say "He made it."