In my last entry regarding singer/songwriters, I may have misspoken.
Putting Kurt Cobain and Bon Jovi in the same category, as I did – some
could find that disrespectful; as if to say – those two are most certainly NOT
in the same category!
Let’s compare the two. One – his band played at his high school dances and
at parties. He’s been rocking the house for decades, packing ‘em into
stadiums. He’s a Jersey Boy, like The Boss. My life is like an open
highway. Like Frankie said I did it my way. He wears Rock n Roll Hall of
Fame like a jersey.
The other?
Well. I think Mickey and Marissa said it best in Aronofsky’s The Wrestler,
during the bar scene.
Randy 'The Ram' Robinson: Goddamn they don't make em' like they used to.
Cassidy: Fuckin' 80's man, best shit ever!
Randy 'The Ram' Robinson: Bet'chr ass man, Guns N' Roses Rules.
Cassidy: Crue!
Randy 'The Ram' Robinson: Yeah!
Cassidy: Def Lep!
Randy 'The Ram' Robinson: Then that Cobain pussy had to come around & ruin it all.
Cassidy: Like there’s something wrong with just wanting to have a good time?
Randy 'The Ram' Robinson: I'll tell you somethin', I hate the fuckin' 90's.
Cassidy: Fuckin' 90's sucked.
Randy 'The Ram' Robinson: Fuckin' 90's sucked.
To be continued
Requiem
I get it. I understand why Kurt Cobain died and it’s really sad.
Last year I was on a Gus Van Sant trip, watching all his experimental films,
and I saw Last Days based loosely on Kurt Cobain, and I DIDN’T like it, but
I guess, you’re not really supposed to LIKE it. I think that blonde actor hit it
pretty close on the head. I get it. It’s a way of seeing the world – a way of
being true to your self, true to what you hold true, whatever that means, in
this day and age, with so many gods vying for dominance.
I recently posted a blog, which I quickly deleted, about going to see the new
Neil Young Trunk Show concert movie with a homeless guy I met on the
street in front of the theater last week – if I had never have met the guy, I
would’ve never seen the movie.
After the movie, I had all these thoughts about being homeless in a city like
Los Angeles, or Seattle for that matter. If you don’t mind being unclean and
smelling a bit, and if you have no real desire to own anything beyond that which
you can carry, like a guitar, what’s the point of having your own home? If
you’re good-looking, or have friends, you can always shack up with
people. The ‘bum’ I smoked out with in my parked Cadillac, and with whom I
drank booze inside the theater – he spent his days panhandling and his
nights at clubs like House of Blues watching bands, and going to movies on
the Westside – not a bad life. He was kind of a deadhead, prone to following
bands on tour. He's sleeps on the street some nights.
There is so much wealth around urban America. Really. Just take a look at all that is
thrown away each day while others starve, in the same city. All the
empty seats in theaters throughout the city.
Kurt Cobain lived in his car. He lived on the street. He crashed at people’s
houses. He was no stranger to dumpster diving. He didn’t desire the things
that most people desire. He was very Buddha-like in his way, a possible Bodhisattva
on route to enlightenment in a future life, kind of way. You might think, ‘Why would a person
want to live such an ascetic life?’
I saw white people in India that had hucked their
passports into the Ganges years before. They were never going back to Europe
or Australia or Canada or the US, or from wherever it was they came.
There is so much wealth in this world, and the problem is – it’s distributed so
incredibly disproportionately. This fact affects everyone’s life, so much so,
that most people never really stop to think about this fact – some people
never once in their entire lives. Most people never really stop to think about
anything outside their own little world – they do and say and believe what
they are told. They like the music their friends like – who only like that music
cuz that’s what other people like -- gotta support the team -- it’s a cycle that
feeds on itself, like the modern American economy. Some people think about
shit like this all the time, a kind of subconscious empathetic surrender – they can’t help it.
Most teenagers feel some kind of rebellious anger. It’s called angst. Some
feel it more than others.
Cobain felt these emotions like most people could never imagine. With all the
corruption and crookedness in the world, and intolerance of different people
and hatred, how can a person truly believe in a certain principle and still be a
part of modern society? It’s the world we live in that is America.
I lived in Asia for 13 years and 5 months and NOW I’m back here in
America. I’ve been back four months. I’m not suicidal, but I don’t like the way
things are done around here. So much crass consumerism and
commercialism overload in LA and urban America. Most people I see scare
me in a way, like – one on one, they are harmless, but I wouldn’t want to take on
an army of them. Punk rock came out of this mentality – people didn’t
want to be part of modern American society. If I didn’t have my family to
mooch off of for digs, I would have ZERO DESIRE to get a job and become part
of this world, here in LA. Like Timothy Leery, who was a Harvard
Professor, who quit his job and went around the country dropping acid with a
group he called, The League of Spiritual Discovery, trying to get people to
stop being a slave to the dollar and take another look.
Cobain felt the suffering of every creature on this planet; you can feel it in his songs.
A few years after his death, they published a collection of his
notebooks. I thought it was a tad disrespectful; most of it was never meant
to be read by anyone but him. Some of it was pretty deep.
And because of his left-handed proclivity for creativity – and the fact that he
rocked on with an upside down guitar like few before him ever had – in a
style, like Hendrix, a style that people had never seen before. With Kurt's
irascible lyrics and primal screams about his love buzz, and about how she
should have been a son. Audiences were captivated and mesmerized.
Cobain achieved stardom. It’s what most musicians want. Did Cobain want
that? Did Cobain want to fly to LA in a private jet and get picked up in a limo
and get recognized everywhere he went? I’m sure in many ways, he hated
the life he created for himself; and I’m sure that as much as he thought David Geffen
was a cool guy, what he really wanted more than anything else, was just get away from it all.
Obviously. That's what he did. He got away from it all.
I wish Cobain would have had someone close to him, like Dave Chapelle
probably had to support his decision to run off to Africa for a few months
and forget all about Comedy Central and the USA when he suddenly became a
SUPERSTAR. If Cobain had taken off, for say Chile or Spain and just told America to
bugger off for a few months or a year, and just got away – if Kurt would have had the
incling and the strength to venture somewhere unknown, like Cambodia or Jamaica,
maybe he would have come back with more music or a novel or something else. If nothing else,
maybe he’d still be alive. He’d be one year older than me.
The candle that burns twice as bright, burns half as long.
After dinner I had ice cream / I fell asleep and watched TV / I woke up in my mother’s arms / Grandma take me home
Nothing against Bon Jovi, I was never a fan – I’m still not really – I became a fan by default
after I moved to SKorea and my standards went way down; nothing against him…
But he’s not that deep. He’s very much – like all the others. He’s doesn’t
break any new ground or SPARK NEW EMOTIONS, which is exactly what
Nirvana’s music did to me and millions of others back when the eighties
finally came to screeching halt. Kurt Cobain and Nirvana spoke for a slice of
humanity with the same intensity and newfound vigor for emphasis, the likes
of which had never been seen before, the way Chuck D rapped in It Takes a
Nation of Millions, also at the tale end of the 1980’s, just to a different
audience. I was lucky enough to have been part of both of those audiences
for the last 20+ years.
It’s ironic. It took a world of vultures and parasites and ‘the meek never
inheriting dick’ for Kurt Cobain to write such brilliant music. And it was the
same world that took him away from us.
Kurt Cobain
RIP
1967 – 1994
He died on April 5th, which is next week. Drink a cup of Seattle’s Best and
smoke a doobie listening to the Bleach album in memorium. That’s what I’m
gonna do.
Recent comments