Much of my teenage years were filled with either hair metal or straight up metal, having seen the epitome of hair bands, Motley Crüe, when I was 13, Aerosmith and Skid Row New Years Day 1990 in the Boston Garden and then The Headbangers Ball tour that summer which had Exodus, Helloween and headlined by Anthrax. Hell, I even had my mom come to see the movie The Doors with me and my friend because it was rated R and the ticket guy was a dick and wouldn’t let us in. Come to find out my mom had seen The Doors when she was in her teens in California as they were getting really popular. Actually she saw everyone I wish I ever could’ve in that time era including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Led Zeppelin. 

Here I am a 16 year old kid who had no direction, no idea what life was about, had lost my grandmother just 4 years after I lost my dad, starting to question my religious beliefs and felt like no one knew what I was feeling. Now everything I listened to musically was about partying (which I knew well), women (which I had no idea about and to this day kind of question myself about them even though I’m married) and rock and roll, which I proudly knew a lot about. One day I’m watching MTV, when they still played mostly music although The Real World had just started, and the song Smells Like Teen Spirit comes on and even though it took some time to completely understand what this marbled mouthed, stoner, outcast looking dude was saying but it spoke to me. I immediately ran out and picked up Nevermind on tape for my car and CD for home and listened to it so much that it was now ingrained in my brain, so much so for the longest time I thought never mind was spelled as one word and to this day catch myself spelling it as one word. 

Only two musicians that have died in my awareness of what they meant where I have cried. Stevie Ray Vaughn and Kurt Cobain. I couldn’t believe it, and then I got mad when I found out he had killed himself. What a waste, what a tragedy, how could someone so talented, smart and on top of world do something so senseless and selfish. I didn’t know of his addiction, his pain and inner demons. We didn’t have the internet back then. Later in life after I had lived life a little, battled my own addictions, been through several bouts of depression and thought about killing myself more times than I care to remember that I felt like I understood him a little better. I eventually read Heavier Than Heaven and one of his Journals and found myself resenting him because he seemed more caught up in his addiction and self loathing and this feeling of being smarter than everyone else. On top of this I fell into the trap of also hating Courtney Love for being an enabler and adding to his paranoia. 

I still respected his music and his writing but not the man so much. Out comes Montage of Heck on HBO (thanks Jake’s HBOGO not HBO2GO like I used to tweet) and I have to check it out. Maybe I am misjudging this guy and being too harsh on him. 

Tupperware. I absolutely loved this documentary. Montage of Heck was so in depth and complete that  I got a completely different perspective on Kurt. Interviews with his family shows a child who displayed every symptom of a real ADHD child not just a slightly hyper child that is diagnosed just because parents don’t want to handle their children. A latch key kid of divorced parents who had no direction and smart beyond his years but with no guidance and no peers to look up to. He found writing and music, mostly the agro, and frenetic pace and chaos of punk music. This led to him forming a band and trying to make his music heard around the world. He was dealing with an undiagnosed stomach problem, which is littered throughout his writings, on top of a heroin problem that is in its infancy as well as what I would call an undiagnosed depression on top of untreated ADHD. 

Once Nirvana signed a deal and started getting attention his rebellious nature hit an all time high and he doesn’t have a support system to help him through everything. His mother makes a quote which shows her incompetence and arrogance and I feel is kind of made up after the fact. After Kurt has her listen to Nevermind she says to “…buckle up cause you are not ready for this.” First of I have a feeling she didn’t even know what she had just heard nor did she have the wherewithal to know it was going to take off but even if she did why say you are not ready for this and say let me help you so you know what you’re headed for. 

At this point Montage of Heck delves into his downfall and shows a lot of his home life and his struggles with trying to get clean, stay clean and then just giving up and giving in to your addition even to the point where he was writing in his journal referring to himself as a junkie. It’s at this point when it is showing him in home videos playing with his daughter Frances and he is almost anorexia like thin and Courtney is appearing to make more sense and talk some sense into Kurt. It also shows the behind the scenes of the Nirvana Unplugged recording which I loved so much. Even then what looked like what should’ve been a great time he felt burdened and showed his ever present disdain for authority, media, fans, his popularity and life in general. 

It was shortly after this that all of this that he gave up and killed himself. Part of me thinks that suicide is a selfish act and is never the final answer but I understand why people do it. With Kurt I think it was more self awareness of what he could never be for his daughter which he loved with all his heart. He couldn’t see himself kicking heroin ever, he couldn’t see himself as someone worthy of being a role model to fans so how could he to his own daughter, and he couldn’t see an end to the pain. He didn’t do this just for himself but for anyone who looked up to him as a cautionary tale of what not to do with your life.