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[create_destiny]

A friend of mine in Buffalo wrote to me recently, lamenting Cobain's demise. I lamented back. Told him I haven't listened to any Nirvana since 1994. Then a few hours later I'm channel surfing and I stop on Nirvana's "Unplugged in New York." I keep it there. The Boyfriend hears this and asks me from the next room, "Do you still like Nirvana?" And......I can't answer that question with a simple "yes" or "no." I launch into a diatribe about Kurt, the spirit of this age, meat-eating orchids, absurdity and surrealism in art and half way into this I'm shaking and crying. That's not a question that can be answered with a simple yes or no.

Tori Amos singing Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
This haunts me.

Comments

Gah, fucking Nirvana. :|

[whosplittheatom.livejournal.com]

I still have such mixed feelings about Kurt Cobain. I practically worshiped him for awhile, and was the hugest Nirvana fan around. Then when he died I was in the midst of my own crisis of crazy numbness, and it didn't really hit me until much later. I very much think he was too sensitive for this world, and the empathetic and sensitive part of me totally relates to that and feels with him, and then the part of me which appreciates the value of toughness is kind of resentful of him for doing such a spineless and escapist thing at the peak of his popularity - not so much out of concern for him, but for the millions of kids who looked up to him. In a certain sense what he did was a horrible abuse of power and position, no better than what government or corporate leaders do, and in some ways worse because he was an artist. What a waste, in so many ways. Part of me wants to say "oh wah, cry me a fucking river Cobain, if you didn't want to get burned then you shouldn't have jumped into the fire; if you knew Earth would be too much for you, you should've stayed on fucking Neptune." But then my own heart goes out to him because I know how it feels to be hurt deeply too, I've just learned how to repress and throw up walls and defense mechanisms for survival purposes - necessary, but not always the healthiest choice.

It's weird, my first conscious defiance of "proper Orthodox practice" was to pray and light candles for him in church up at Platina, even though according to the Canons you're not supposed to pray for suicides.

*shrug* I dunno, man.

Otep did a really awesome cover and video of "Breed" recently, you should check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlaKJoFomXk

Re: Gah, fucking Nirvana. :|

[createdestiny.livejournal.com]

The lyrics for Breed are so haunting....just like most everything he wrote.

I have a lot of mixed emotions, too, because he had a daughter and he left her in the biggest most fucked up way possible and that's so not cool.

I go back and forth from feeling profoundly empathetic for what his lyrics reveal of his world-view (because that's hell, plain and simple and I've been there too and so have you and when you're there, there's no way out and it's insane and you think it will never end but what you don't realize is that something bigger than you will save you imperceptibly if you'll just fucking hang on and then one day you'll realize you're not in hell anymore).

So this pendulum swings between anger and empathy and never settles in the middle, it just goes back and forth and makes me feel motion sickness when I hear his music or when somebody asks if I "still like Nirvana."

Yeah, he was a fucking addict, yeah, cry me a river, too. Just file me and everyone else under "forgiven."

Re: Gah, fucking Nirvana. :|

[ygolonac.livejournal.com]

"In a certain sense what he did was a horrible abuse of power and position, no better than what government or corporate leaders do, and in some ways worse because he was an artist"

I don't think Cobain being famous should have meant he was no longer allowed to be human. And worse because he was an artist? Being an 'artist' means he's held to some other standard?

Re: Gah, fucking Nirvana. :|

[whosplittheatom.livejournal.com]

Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, their gifts and their downfalls. Everyone also has the obligation to self-responsibility, though whether or not they choose to uphold that obligation is each person's own choice, with rewards or consequences reciprocal to that choice or lack thereof.

Personally, I see parents held to the highest standard of all, for obvious reasons. Artists and anyone with a position of leadership or influence I also see as held to a high standard, simply because they affect and influence people on a very deep level. I'm not saying that the average Joe or Jane Q. Public shouldn't be self-responsible, because obviously they should be on whatever spheres of life in which they operate. But some random anonymous person who offs themself - regardless of how real and tragic their story is - doesn't have the far-reaching negative impact that someone like Cobain did when he chose to end his life.

Not that I'm much fond of quoting the Bible, but one of Jesus' sayings that I really do agree with is "to whom much has been given, much will be required." Yeah, I'm pretty much fucked in that regard because I'm not doing much of anything with what I've been given, but I'm still breathing and living and trying, which I think counts for something. God/universe/whatever willing, I plan on dying with my boots on, not with my brains splattered on a wall and a devastated family and millions of shellshocked fans. That to me is the difference between being a lover of life and a hater of life, and in that respect, Kurt Cobain epitomized perfectly the pathetic and absurd natural consequence of a life-hating, self-hating mentality. It's really sad that he ended up that way, but even more sad that such a mindset is still being peddled to kids from every angle. It makes my blood fucking boil.

So yeah, I do hold him to a higher standard. And yeah, it was ok for him to be human, and he obviously was very much so - he struggled a lot with many different things, and I value and respect how much he suffered. But the moment you stick a loaded gun in your mouth with intent to pull the trigger is the moment you cease being human. Humans may seek escape from pressure, naturally, but humans do not seek to negate themselves, and that's where my sympathy for him ends. Speaking as a father, I say with full conviction of everything within me, that that is something you just do not do when you have kids. Period, ever. He "didn't have to breed", but he chose to anyway, and that's where his boundaries should've been clear and obvious - it was only his own deep self-delusion and self-imposed victimhood which prevented him from seeing and respecting them.

Re: Gah, fucking Nirvana. :|

[ygolonac.livejournal.com]

You're going off on a tangent. I'm not talking about his responsibility to his kid, I'm talking about what you claim is a responsibility to millions of fans.

"But the moment you stick a loaded gun in your mouth with intent to pull the trigger is the moment you cease being human"

I think you're full of shit with that statement.

Re: Gah, fucking Nirvana. :|

[whosplittheatom.livejournal.com]

So then, let's uphold self-loathing and self-destruction and escapism as the human virtues; while we're at it why not add war and greed and control and everything else that blights our species as well! We'll obviously never attain any kind of ideal anyway, so fuck ideals and let's just keep on lowering the bar for everyone, that way everyone will be able to feel good about themselves and no one will feel left out! Three cheers for entropy, it wins in the end anyway, right?

Re: Gah, fucking Nirvana. :|

[ygolonac.livejournal.com]

My saying that a person does not cease to be human when they decide to commit suicide is not the same as me saying that I uphold "self-loathing and self-destruction and escapism as the human virtues". It simply means that I have some empathy towards people that find themselves unable to continue.

And then you're spinning off on some kind of ranting tangent again.

You have this tendency to take one small thing a person says or does and go off into fantasyland regarding their motives and thoughts.

How in the world you go from me saying choosing suicide does not make someone inhuman to that meaning I want to lower the bar for everyone and 'fuck ideals' and the rest of that is really messed up. It's like I say that little bit, you respond in your head and then your brain makes up responses for me (which you don't write down) and then your respond to the things you imagine I said, or something like that.

Really bizarre.