I was never cool in school
I'm sure you don't remember me
And now it's been ten years
I'm still wondering who to be
But I love to mix in circles,
Cliques and social coteries,
That's me
Hand me my nose ring
(can we be happy?)
Show me the mosh pit
(can we be happy?)
We can be happy
Underground
~Ben Folds Five


I guess I’m getting long in the tooth or something. I find it impossible to believe a decade has past since I was a target demographic for acne medicine. The funny thing is no one ever tells you there will come a time when you have both the occasional zit and the all too frequent gray hair. The best of both worlds I guess. So everything today owes a debt of gratitude to the time and place I grew up in.

I’m sure the nice folks who were almost 30 in the early 90s though every band on the radio sounded like “The Pixies” or “The Smiths.” Maybe they were right. Today I hear bands like “Finger Eleven” and hear only traces of yesterday's “Pearl Jam” or I'll see the “Yeah Yeah Yeahs” on MTV and can not help but think “The Pretenders” have a new album out. Its probably just the people who change. New kids take on the same roles and new bands fill in the gaps in every genre.

A Goth today pretty much looks like the Goth of yesterday. Except today they put in those stupid giant “earrings” that stretch their ears out. Of course these kids assume they’ll never want to be a cog in society's machine, but trust me someday you’ll be trying to figure out a way to hide, reconstruct or otherwise make your mangled ear socially acceptable. My generation traded in their combat boots and long oily hair for an SUV and a house in the suburbs. The one before us retired the “Flock of Seagulls” haircut and their keyboard guitars. The one before that packed up their lava lamps and “Earth Wind and Fire” records. You see where I’m going with this no doubt.

So here we sit 10 years after Kurt Cobain checked out. I use to believe Courtney Love killed him. The truth is we all killed him. For some reason if you paint a picture or write a book or make an album and people like and relate to it, then you become a cult hero. Then, we all think you owe us something. Maybe it is an autograph or a sophomore album or a debt of gratitude. Let the poor man rest. I definitely get tired of that “woe is me” crap that every Hollywood celebrity whines about in interviews. Its one thing to hear Usher complain about how he can not go to “Taco Bell” anymore, but it is another thing to reach the point where your life no longer feels like your own and you see no point in carrying on.


So Monday when MTV does a retrospective and all the “alternative” stations are cranking out Nirvana tunes just take a second and remember that there was a person behind this legend. He was a father, a husband and a sensitive and somewhat confused young man. He wrote songs, good songs, which got a lot of us through the murky waters of being a teenager. In the end, he turned out to be fragile and human and no stronger than the rest of us. For me personally, I feel the expression of pain is sometimes very therapeutic. In the case of Kurt Cobain it shows how what makes great art doesn’t always lead to a catharsis.

With the lights out it isn’t always less dangerous.