Friday, February 20, 2015

Kurt Cobain

OR

My Life is an Album and You're the Track I Always Skip

OR

Kurt, I Love Your Mind, But Could You Keep It Off The Walls?

OR

I Woke Up In Seattle With Nirvana in my Pants, and Pearl Jam All Over My Face




My father was a complex man. Part gentle family man, part hideously disfigured Viennese whore, he would drink, and gamble, and stage illegal dachshund races through the streets of our town. When I was born, he christened me Captain Romeo Della Vaginaface to win a bet.

But for all his faults, he was a good man. And if there was one thing he loved, it was Bangkok ladyboys. And if there was another thing he loved, it was Nirvana.

He knew Kurt Cobain, he loved Kurt Cobain, he carried Kurt Cobain in his womb for five months. And he always told me, a male uterus opens doors. The other thing he told was this: if you can decipher the lyrics of Nevermind, you'll never go hungry again. I never understood what he meant, until the day I saw the poster: Nevermind Essay Contest, 1st Prize a Lifetime Supply of Walnuts.

And so I went to Kurt himself, and asked him. I said Kurt, your album changed my life, but I've always wondered, was it a deliberate decision to make Track 7 so absolutely awful?

He laughed, and said, That was my proudest achievement. I had always wanted to write a song that was impossible for any poet to reinterpret in an entertaining way.

That was the night I introduced Kurt to speed. The next day I introduced him to mass, and by the end of the week he had a good working understanding of momentum. I can't help thinking if he'd pursued his passion for physics, he might still be alive today.

We sat and listened to Nevermind, and I said, Let's play a game - every time you mumble incoherently, take a shot. And he misunderstood in a rather drastic manner.

Later, as my father and I were mopping up, I asked him, What did Kurt mean, "When I was an alien"?

He said, we're all aliens sometimes. Kurt felt like an alien - he felt strange and out of place, he felt alone, he had a disproportionately large head and smooth grey skin.

We're all aliens, we're all misfits, we're all silicon-based and trying to conquer earth with our giant plasma cannons before implanting our seed in your human women. Just like Kurt.

And that's why whenever we feel down and out, lost and insecure and squirming in agony from the extra-terrestrial eggs hatching in our brains, just remember Kurt's words.

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