On Friday, April 8, 1994, I was sitting at home, listening to a talk radio program. I had the TV on, waiting for "All My Children", one of my favorite soap operas. The TV was muted, so I could hear my radio show. I don't know why I did that, but I used to do it all the time, watch TV with the sound off while listening to the radio. I was a weird kid, what can I say.
A teaser came on for the news, it was a house in a grey, drizzly area, and they showed a stretcher with a white sheet covering a body. My first thought was: "Oh my God, that's Kurt Cobain!"
My second thought was: "Who the hell is Kurt Cobain?"
I'm reluctant to share this, because honestly, it makes me sound and feel crazy. I'm truly not, I promise. I have a good career, I'm a stable member of the community. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before, and nothing like this has happened to me since.
I know in this high information age, it seems absurd that you could *not* know about someone so famous in pop culture at the time, but I really didn't. In 1994, I was a teenager into classic rock, I'd just discovered the Beatles, and spent my time listening to the oldies stations on the radio. We didn't have cable, so I didn't have MTV (and this was back when MTV actually played music videos, this is how old I am). I didn't go to school, so I didn't have friends to discuss music with.
I had bought a People magazine the month before, when John Candy died, and there was a short article about Kurt Cobain's overdose in Rome. I skimmed through it, thought "what an idiot", and that was it. My friend Rachel had sent me a mix tape (again, dating myself) a few months earlier with "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Territorial Pissings" on it. I didn't think much of the second song, but I liked the first one, I starred the album "Nevermind" in my Columbia House Records catalog, to remind myself to order once I had some money.
And that was the full and complete extent of my knowledge of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana on April 8, 1994. I seriously couldn't have picked the man out of a lineup. So it was the strangest feeling, just *knowing* that body on the TV was his.
As it turned out, I was right. I quickly unmuted the TV and turned the radio down, just in time to hear the broadcaster say he was dead from a self inflicted gunshot wound to the head. And I just started shaking my head. No. I might have even said it out loud, alone in my room. No. There was just no way he killed himself. And again, I wondered how I could know this with such certainty, and furthermore why I even cared.
I spent a long time trying to shake it, trying not to care, but to no avail. From that moment on, I was hooked. I read everything I could find about the circumstances surrounding his death, and the more I read the more I questioned the official story. There were just so many weird things going on. Nothing made sense, it didn't add up.
I don't remember when I first heard the name Tom Grant. I still have the "Unsolved Mysteries" on VHS that aired back in 1997, where he discussed the inconsistencies in the case and called for it to be re-investigated. He was a godsend to me, since I'd spent three years telling everyone and anyone that I felt very strongly that Kurt Cobain had been murdered. Most people, naturally, thought I was nuts. Here was someone, an intelligent man, who believed the same way I did, and I was so grateful.
I followed Tom Grant's website, once it went up and I actually got a computer for the first time (1999, I think). I read Ian Halperin and Max Wallace's two books: "Who Killed Kurt Cobain?" and "Love & Death" (excellent by the way). I finally brought myself to watch "Soaked in Bleach" a few weeks ago, the amazing Benjamin Statler documentary about the case that Tom Grant consulted on. I knew it would be hard to watch, and it was, but I'm glad I did it. He did an amazing job bringing the facts to light.
So after 22 years I'm seeing people discuss the case, discuss what happened, having the same questions I've had since 1994. And I can't even begin to tell you how good it makes me feel. It was a very lonely feeling, shouting to the world how I felt and being looked at like I was a moron.
Tom Grant collaborated with Matthew Richter to put out this book "The Mysterious Death of Kurt Cobain". It was all preaching to the choir for me, obviously, since most of it I already knew. But there was some good new information in there that I hadn't been aware of, mostly of how badly the Seattle PD bungled the investigation from the start. If anyone can read this book and honestly still believe that they truly did thoroughly investigate this man's death, then they are the crazy ones, not me. Maybe you think I'm crazy. That's fine. Read it and prove me wrong.
Every year I pray this will be THE year, the year the truth finally comes out. I hate getting my hopes up, but now with the word being spread, more and more people questioning, maybe someday we'll finally know what really happened to Kurt Cobain. It won't bring him back, but it will restore my faith in the universe.
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