Kurt Cobain died 20 years ago tomorrow. I think I was in 5th grade. I pretended to hang myself from the monkey bars on the playground to impress a girl that day and got in a small amount of trouble. I definitely was a tiny weirdo with long greasy hair back then, and I felt my slight, childish alienation expressed better by GRUNGE as it stood than anything else I had come across, but you know, I was a kid or whatever.
ANYWAY. When I got to Junior High School I got into PUNK in NYC which was very exciting. Punk is all about participation, rather than consumption, which I realized even that young, so I started writing a fanzine and I printed up two t-shirts to sell at shows, along with my shitty publication. One shirt had a picture of the state of New Jersey and it said "Kiss Your Girlfriend Where It Smells, Take Her To New Jersey" (I was fourteen when I made it okay?) which I think I stole from another fanzine. The other shirt just said I KILLED KURT COBAIN which I thought was a super punk sentiment, even though I still secretly liked Nirvana.
My freshman year of high school I went to a party at
my friend Andrew's house. His parents were divorced and it was one of
those situations where you tell your mom that you're sleeping over at
the one parent's house but then actually the other parent is out of town
and you have a party there. Andrew's step-sister Kristen was a
cheerleader and she invited all her friends and Andrew invited our crew
(me, Bruno and Diego) and we smoked bongs in the attic and like,
listened to bootleg Operation Ivy tapes Diego brought back from the
flea market in Mexico City, which is what we would've been doing even if
Andrew's dad was home.
Eventually we wandered down to the living room and a bunch of
dudes from the football team were in there getting drunk. Imagine a room
full of wasted Moose Masons but listening to Biggie instead of whatever
music they had in Archie Times. I was a young Freak on a Leash back
then (metaphorically speaking, though the year prior I had spent much of my time wearing a LITERAL leash) so I was wearing: my brand new from 8th Street Grinders Combat boots
with the neon NKOTB laces I stole from that weird biker store on St
Marks Place, some big black JNCO jeans (do you remember those?), my I
KILLED KURT COBAIN shirt and my hair in four pigtails (to invoke the
corners).
Some of Kristen's football friends sold us Budweiser 40s
for $5 a pop, which we thought was reasonable because we'd never bought
beer before, and we started to drink and kinda hang out with them a
little. And it was like, this weird moment where these young freaks and
older jocks were getting along okay. AND THEN, this one gigantic sports
dude just got all devil eyed and pointed at me and was like, "TAKE THAT
SHIRT OFF!" and I laughed because I thought he must be kidding and then
all of a sudden he was across the room right in my face and we were
having one of those weird Man Moments where he was butting his chest
into mine and talking through his teeth and he was like "I SAID TAKE
THAT FUCKING SHIRT OFF!" and I was still laughing, albeit a little more
nervously, because I still just thought he was fucking with me and was
gonna laugh about it too any moment because why would some jock care
about my I KILLED KURT COBAIN shirt?
And then he picked me up by my collar like they do in the
movies and shoved me against a wall and I was scared. Kristen was like,
"oh no Travis put him down leave him alone" super feebly and it was
clear that she was actually so stoked on this display of raw masculine
power. Very quickly and very quietly I said to him "what's your fucking
problem man? You've made your point, you're bigger and tougher okay just
put me down now." because everyone was watching and I hated it.
And then in that placid voice that shitty dudes get right
after they Hulk out when they are gonna instill the lesson that was
supposed to accompany their display of force, he was like, "My
problem? My problem is with that shirt. I love Nirvana and I love Kurt
you little faggot. So take that shit off."
And at that point, I busted out laughing so EARNESTLY and
so intensely that he just dropped me on the floor and walked away
mumbling that I was crazy. If I had any chutzpah or more of a death wish
I would've leaned in and kissed him. What a perfect moment! Like three
hours later he was asking me to teach him how to play "About A Girl" on
Andrew's dad's acoustic guitar.