Kurt Cobain's Stuff

Courtney Love has announced she's selling a bunch of Kurt Cobain's belongings through Christie's auction house.

The Fangirl part of me would love to have something. The woman who heard Smells like Teen Spirit for the first time on KNDD, and my breath caught. The one who didn't realize until a lot later it was the same band who did that strange but interesting remake of Love Buzz.

Even though I was older than his average fan, I totally got Nirvana. He spoke to that geeky, fat, zit-faced girl who never thought she would ever have a boyfriend. The girl who wore the same pair of jeans for six months once - jeans with a plaid fake-fur patch on the knee.

Not because I didn't have other jeans, but I was making a statement. Don't ask me what the statement was, but it was a statement.

The high-school girl who wanted to live in Seattle, and have cats, and go to foreign films and dress only in clothing from Baby & Co. and Goodwill.

That was the girl inside the woman who heard Nirvana and knew that whoever wrote the songs understood what it was like to be an outsider. To not fit in with any group, and who was both conflicted and happy about it.

I actually knew Kurt was a junkie before it was common knowledge to the entire world. I worked with someone who was a 'greener, and still had ties to that community. ('greener refers to someone who attended Evergreen College, the alternative collage in Olympia.) We talked about going to a show - she thought we might even be able to get backstage on her friend's coattails. She warned me that Krist was pretty wild and drank a lot, and that Kurt was into heroin.

I didn't care, because it was the music I cared about, not him. Yeah, I thought he was awesome. It would have been cool to meet him, even though he wouldn't have had much interest in me. But it was his talent, and his words, and the music that spoke to me, not him, personally. Drugs - well drugs are only one part of who a person is. I might not like the drugs, but that doesn't mean the person doesn't have value.

My co-worker got engaged to a super-straight guy, and I felt strange about going to a show with kids ten years younger than me. I regret not going to see them live.

TS called me at work to tell me when he died. I knew it was coming - I don't know why, but I knew it was only a matter of time at that point. I was upset. It was probably the only time I cried when a real life person I didn't know died.

I don't know what would have happened if he'd lived. Cleaned up, become someone who helped knew and unknown bands get known. I don't know. Burned out and faded away...maybe. Stayed a junkie and pulled his wife down with him...I don't know, she seems pretty strong for that to have happened.

All I know was that his music captured something for me. Something that encapsulated a time, and a place, and the longing for something different.

So, the FANGIRL wonders what it would be like to own something of his.

I have my own Fender Mustang now. A sonic blue repro. I like it. I didn't buy it because of Kurt, I bought it because I liked it, and it made me smile to find out he once played them too. I can play a couple of Nirvana songs, as long as I stay away from F, and B. I like to plug in my amp, and crank up the sound, and I don't care if I suck, it just feels good to play. Sometimes I even write my own songs.

So, maybe I really don't need a "thing" to remind me of him. He already gave me the most important thing, his music.