planes mistaken for stars

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It is apt and strange that we would commemorate the death of Kurt Cobain not with the day he died, but the day his body was found. He was to me, after all, nothing but what was reported of him, a star who only lived when I turned on or thought about his music, say his grin beaming down from my from my then-boyfriend's bedroom wall, or picked up Spin magazine. To paraphrase Bono, who quoted himself in his most recent braggard BS in RS, "Kurt killed himself before America could kill him."

Or at least I could kill him, as I have killed countless other stars, because when you stop looking, then someone stops being a star - gets killed.

I had a friend named Luke, he played the drums in what would have been my first band. We were terrible and played Smashing Pumpkins coves, Nirvana covers. After Kurt's death, both he and my then boyfriend tried to kill themselves and failed. Then Luke tried again.

I do believe in the copycat effect, but I don't believe that it is a reason not to talk about suicide (look on the bright side). Of course, I don't think that chatting with Benji from Good Charlotte is the way to do this, but I'm not 15 again, so I can't be sure. I'm definitely old enough now to 'know better' about the bright side, because as Thurston cultural gatekeeper Moore mentioned, if Kurt would have lived, 'he would have liked it.' Ya, that's the feeling you get about friends who kill themselves, like for the rest of your life you wonder if they would have been psyched about whatever silly thing comes along. The new Pringles flavors, rap-metal, the Strokes, hybrid cars.

I was a freshman in high school when Kurt died. My mom didn't think it was a big deal that he died, but she always talked about how when Kennedy died, she contacted him with a ouija board and was so scared she threw the board across the room. I was at my friend Sarah Gasper's house, spending the night there because her parents were lenient and we could walk to our boyfriend's houses, some guys in a band who skateboarded and listened to grunge, boys who would later be the trenchcoat mafia and ultimately, townies. Sarah and I talked with her little brother about Kurt all day long, because her brother bore a striking resemblance and really emulated the rocker. We called our friends on the phone and told each other about it. We went about our days, but with a little sadness.

My boyfriend, the one with the poster, used to have a quote on his wall. "The same rain falls on all roofs, but on the tin ones, it sounds louder." or something like that. Sometimes I thought he was just trying to be dramatic, but it turned out he and Luke had real, really deep troubles. The quote was from Kurt, who was his idol. I always thought it was kind of silly and childish to worship stars in that way, but I can think about it as a way for him to understand the world, to maybe express the queer or alienated parts of himself that weren't out enough in Ohio in 1994. I didn't understand it then, and maybe I only understand it now that those boys, now men, are beginning to write about what they loved in Kurt in developed, adult ways. Look at the Whitney Biennial this year and you'll see it in the art. There are comps of Nirvana covers sprouting up around, and yes the media has put him in the canon. But I really think that I'm only beginning to see what those 15 year old boys already did because as a girl at that time, I didn't have an idol like that; I had to make my own. (if only I had known about Kurt's former girlfriend then, instead of his wife).

Hmm. This is by far the most blog like thing I've written for the Music Issue, and I can imagine people thinking, "why is she writing such sentimental claptrap about this construct of the rock dinosaur press?" and partially maybe, this is because the fact that Kurt died 10 years ago makes me feel like a bit of a dinosaur myself; periodizes me, to borrow Frederick Jameson. And maybe because dumb Thurston, who everyone wanted to be in 1994 so bad it ain't funny, really managed to say something human in his NYTimes piece, which is to say, he's grown up too.

Sometimes it feels like Luke isn't dead at all, only that we've gone our seperate ways. Would it be better if we all forgot about these deaths? Is remembering again and again part of why he killed himself in the first place? Or, like Ian Curtis, part of the cruel irony of the self-concious myth maker? I don't have an answer, but I am up for more conversation on the topic.