Forgotten Memories

For me, the only real up side to packing up all of your shit when you have to move is finding things you completely forgot existed. Lately I've been surrounded in the madness of this never-ending process, but was pleased to come across some old pieces I had written back in the day when I was a student at Interlochen Arts Academy. As I looked at them I found myself becoming either extremely mortified or actually quite proud - but felt nothing even remotely in between that. I guess, like any writer, I have my good periods and my bad.

One of the best pieces from that time period is a short non-fiction piece I did about Kurt Cobain. I was inspired by a photograph of him that I found in Rolling Stone (see image above) and went from there. It is called simply, "KURT":

" He sits, almost dazed, looking off into the nothingness surrounding him. Here, we have the voice of a generation, a voice so pungent you could not mistake it for anyone else's voice. And yet, he just stares, not at the guitar chords or the mike in front of him, but straight into the distance where oblivion exists in the minds of the immortal.

He's an idol, as much as he'd like to think that he's not, when he sings in, Smells Like Teen Spirit,"...I feel stupid and contagious, here we are now, entertainers...oh denial...oh denial...oh denial," as if it's all a dream that's vanished. He never believed what other people told him. He never thought of himself as a "rock star," he never tried to fit into any of the cliches in society - he simply was. There were no complicated messages in his songs, no fancy words to explain what he was feeling, just the constant vibration of his guitar and his angst-ridden voice.

When you look at him, you could almost mistake him for an angel or some heavenly creature. His guitar lays upon his chest as though they were his wings; the painfully poignant blue of his eyes off in some other world - who knows, I could be crazy, but isn't that what he's all about? Feeling lost and trapped in a chaotic world that doesn't even know who you are? Perhaps that is why so many of my friends identified with him, and looked up to him as if he were their god in holey jeans and a ripped t-shirt, an emblem of their future; an everlasting figure of youth they wanted to resemble.

His band, Nirvana, ushered in congregations of adolescent aggression and distrust. They came in seeking renewal, to wash themselves of the society they lived, breathed, and loathed in. His concerts were as spiritual as the Sunday mornings of church-goers, bodies falling in a heap at the altar, arms out-stretched, desperate for any kind of contact, in hopes that he might heal them. For all we knew he could've been Jesus Christ, or even a re-incarnation of Elvis; it didn't matter that he hated life and hated who he was, in fact the more he hated the world, the more we loved him for it.

But he never seems to be affected at all by this rather immense following of his - in fact, he hardly cares. He sits still, head pounding, with his headphone pressed against his left ear, hearing nothing but the constant drumming of voices that rage day and night. There always seemed to be 'Something in the Way,' something that never quite allowed him to be at peace with himself. His music was a reflection of everything that passed through him - the restless anger and increasing vulnerability to a harsh world he did not want to face.

His abrupt suicide made him even more of a legend. His songs are all that are left of him for future generations. As for the one he left behind, his words will always be their anthem and Kurt will always be the voice of a lost generation."