I knew this guy that had this dream where he was driving a motorcycle down a long hallway. It was intense, as you could imagine.
He couldn’t break or slow down. All he could do was steer himself back to the middle of the hallway because the bike kept veering off center.
The hallway was dark, and the motorcycle was loud. He had to continue to fix the bike’s position in the hallway because he had to randomly drive straight through a doorway and continue down the next hallway.
People kept peaking out of the doorways as he zoomed by to see what was going on. The further down the hallway he went, the further people started peaking their heads out and started to step outside. Now, he had to steer clear of those residents that were in his way.
He couldn’t tell how fast he was going, but he knew it was a dangerous speed for a crowded hallway.
The confused residents in pajamas then morphed into black shadowy figures with hats and raincoats on, and they all faced my friend as he roared past them on the chugging motorcycle.
The hallway began to rain, and with the rain came thunder and lightning. The shadowy figures started to crowd the hallway. The rain got heavier and greyed out his vision as he awaited his firey oblivion.
Slowly but surely, his waking hours start to feel like this, too. Bombarded with task and overwhelming risk. He could feel the grey stormy rain nearing, and he fears the oblivion when he starts to feel nothing. He doesn’t know what he’ll do, but the clock is ticking, and he doesn’t have much time until the shadowy figures get in the way and make him crash his motorcycle down the narrow, rainy hallway of life. Oblivion.
Chapter 2: Oblivion
Everything in life, good or bad, eventually becomes a distant memory.
Whenever we have good times, they blow by way too fast, but whenever we get stuck in hard times, it seems as though the clock has stopped. And I mean, literally stopped. Time has come to a complete stopping, and you have to do something to escape this time gouge.
I picture myself in a dark room sitting on a wooden chair, staring at a simple clock on a blank wall only visible by the moonlight illuminating that window shaped section on the wall.
All of a sudden, the clock stops and I start panicking. I was waiting for the clock to tick all the way so I could move on, even though the clock has no definitive end. Move on to… I don’t know what. My heart starts racing. I hear a loud engine getting closer and closer to my door. I NEED TO END THIS NOW.
Chapter 3: Tomorrow Begat Tomorrow
One thing that everybody needs to understand is that the day, no matter how good or bad, will come to an end.
No matter how good or bad a day is, the moment will come when you look back on that dread or that delight and think to yourself, “Oh, it’s over.”
The delight being, a vacation, party, or just a good day. Maybe, even a whole chapter of your life. Something that you had been looking forward to is now completely over. You can either look at that in sadness that the moment was fleeting or happy that you got to experience the great moments.
Honestly, the best part of the good times is the couple days, or hours before when the excitement is building.
The duality of this experience also coensides with the dreadful days and the dreadful times in life. Just like the good times come to an end. The horrible gut-retching time will indeed eventually come to an end as well.
I know the feeling of being trapped in a closed mental space with very few options, or you keep searching for options in your head, but you keep coming across the same specific answers.
It’s like the photos of “liminal spaces” that you see online. The empty rooms and hallways with multiple doorways and exits that lead to more and more of the same thing.
These never-ending hallways and “backrooms” in your mind that you get trapped in, hold you there by triggering a fight or flight response by releasing some deep seeded nostalgia from your subconscious to give you some comfort. And in that comfort, you find some erie themes and puzzles that you try to figure out but never find the answer to. You keep traveling down avenues and doorways, hallways, and into empty quarters to try and scramble together some meaning to all of this emptiness. You keep walking and walking and looking and looking in circles and in circles into nothingness and into more nothingness until you’ve convinced yourself to do something unreasonable to “free” yourself.
Take a breath, my friends. Surviving another day is a victory. Surviving another day and taking another step up the mountain so when you think back to yesterday, you will be a little higher up than before and with a new perspective.
The sky above you is grey, and you belong to the wintery midwest.
You reside off the highway of a town just outside of a city that is two hours away from an even bigger city and that city being about three hours away from a city even bigger.
You are nowhere and nobody and nothing.
But, who do you answer to?
One god? A king and a queen? A holy trinity?Or is it the four horsemen of the apocalypse?
I can’t leave you. That opportunity ended just as I pulled in. A traffic jam blocked your exit as I entered.
A semi-truck trailer full of mirrors over turned a mile head on the highway. There is no way of knowing if it will ever be cleaned up.
You answer to the four horsemen.
War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death.
I stop at the first of your entities down your street for my first delivery.
It’s an old factory. I usually don’t deliver to this area so I don’t know much about it besides that it’s old and dirty.
I walk up the ramp next to the dock area. It smells like diesel fuel and cigarettes.
I swing the rusted industrial door open and pass through. Now, it smells like grinded metal and oil. Fading yellow safety lines pass by on the floor as random hanging ropes and chains scrape against my shoulders as I walk.
No one is around. The only thing present is the constant scrapping and crashing of the machine in the building.
Although I don’t wish for human contact in a place like this, I need a signature for this box.
A menacing Red button stands on the wall looking at me. The print underneath indicates that I should push it, if needing service.
The low humming of the factory gets louder as I stare at the button, deciding its fate. To be pushed or not pushed. Finally, I slap it. **REEEAAAPPP** The whole factor erupted with the sound created by the lone button. I wait a few seconds for something to happen.
Down at the end of the long dark corridor was a yellowish, less dim opening that was an opening to a perpendicular hallway. Out came a large, fast walking man. He walked crooked, had long grey hair, and looked like a clump. A clump of arms and hair.
I stood my ground and didn’t run like my instincts told me too. I stood my ground to deliver the box and receive the signature from this clump.
I handed the box over and asked for a signature. His long grey hair covered his eyes, and his teeth ly touching on a crooked Jaw. He only said words I didn’t understand.
I walked back out into the fresh air of the out doors although, the air wasn’t as fresh as I remembered, and the sun was a little bit lower in the sky. I got into my delivery truck to go to the next stop.
The next building was a big blue… something.
I couldn’t tell if it was an office building or a warehouse, but there were a lot of things that made me think that this place didn’t know what it was, either.
The parking lot was full of junky cars that were parked terribly and the dumpster was over loaded. Random things like broken plastic chairs and large air tanks laid in the parking lot.
I walked up to the black tinted glass doors, opened them and passed through. The front room I walked into was dark and no one was in it.
Unlike the factory this place was a little bit calming.
It was dark and cluttered with things. Things I recognized like kitchen supplies and furniture. But the longer I stayed, the more unsettled I felt. The room was dark and blue, except there was a light on down the hallway. I heard talking, but I could understand anything because there was also buzzing, and the buzzing was getting a little bit louder and louder with every minute I stayed. Right next to the door was a pile of boxes. I set mine with them. I needed a signature, but the room was getting louder and darker. The dark corners grew, the talking turned to shouting and laughter, and the buzzing was starting to get unbearable. I fled. I forged the signature.
I made my way to my third stop. It was a big cube shaped building made of grey bricks.
I already had weird feeling about this place. There were no windows at eye level, rather they were up closer to the high ceiling. I could see the florescent lights from the outside looking up at the building.
I’m delivering a bundle of shovels here. I swing the door open and get my first real look of the inside. The ceiling was high, but you don’t get the sense that any natural light was coming in from the outside by how yellow it was in there. I couldn’t tell if the walls were yellow or if the lighting was just that bad. The high walls were over baringly bare besides the grainy, pixilated looking painting of agriculture on the wall that sucked all the life out of the room. Every speck of that painting just felt like an eye staring at me. The front desk was one of many as other desks were lined up next to it and behind it. All the desks had other agricultural painting infront of them too. Even though the paintings were of farms and tractors, I couldn’t help the feeling that I was under the supervision of something more powerful and menacing like an authoritarian dictator. The woman at the front desk was kind. It seemed out of place. She seemed like a hostage to this place. Like everything down this street, the aura doesn’t match the vibe and that’s what fucks me up. I look over to more door ways. I don’t dare wonder down them. I’m not invited to anyway. I’m just the delivery guy. Three more doors were in this room that led further into the building. Two of them were on the same wall, with brighter lights shining out of them with big talking voices coming out of them. I couldn’t understand the words, but they seemed like the bosses of this place. The authoritarian dictators. And if they happened to come out of their offices, I feel like they may have talked me into staying. The hostage woman gave me her signature, and I left her their. I moved on to the last business.
It was an animal shelter. It was kind of confusing. It was at the end of a cul-de-sac. The parking lot was more like just a mud drive way that took up the length of the small building.
Metal screens and bars covered the windows and the small building a multiple mismatch doors with different add-ons and enclosures. They had bug lamps that zapped moths outside. I was delivering a heavy box of dog food that I barley hoisted up on my shoulder. I was drawn to the far left door with a sun bleached sign with rabbits and flowers on it that read; “open”. So I pressed the button on the plastic screen door handle and pulled it opened. I could tell I went in the correct door because there was a front counter in front of me but no one was there. For all the vehicles parked outside, I couldn’t see or hear any people to account for them. All I heard was barking. Animals.
This place didn’t have much lighting. It wasn’t too dark or anything, but they didn’t have any lights on in the front office, which is acceptable due to natural light coming through the shades, but it wasn’t very good natural light. Like I had mentioned before, it was a cloudy day, and as I had finished each delivery, the light kept diminishing. As I waited for someone to come find me, as I thought someone would since a bell rang when I entered, I looked over at a mural on the was drawn by a child in the room against the hall. It must have been an area that they kept cats or dogs as I could tell the room was covered by a sheet of glass. It was a rainbow with some clouds beside it.
The light in between the thin cracks of the shades got less bright as I waited, and the nightlight on the wall next to the counter got brighter. Barking continued. I couldn’t even tell how many animals were making noise, but I knew it was many. A scruff of hair had become visible from behind the glass across the hallway. It was the back of someone’s head… maybe… it was at this moment I realized that this place smelled awful. And muddy scratches and paw prints covered the mural and the floor. Pet hair infested the corners. The scruff of greasy hair started to shake, and barking off in the distance got louder.
Thurman Poe, how dare you trap me here. What did I ever do to deserve this sensory de-establishment. Everything I have gathered throughout my life has been turned on its head. What is the world?
I then see a placard on the wall, and I start to read. I already skipped getting a signature from one of the businesses, and I didn’t want to be at 50%. So, I tried to distract myself and wait for a friendly face to show itself.
The wood frame and the black engraved slat of metal read; “Thurman Poe. True patriot and brother’s keeper. The champion of the american dream for it is indeed obtainable. It’s just not preservable. Failure and success can not be measured on a grand scale but your own linear path and by the standards of your own means. The concrete mental structures of society prevent the mind from doing what it must to strive on with ease and happenstance. Our brother, who aren’t in heaven, forever lost in liminal space… underneath his own scrutiny.”
(I wrote this a few years ago for a podcast that I never recorded.)
INTRO
I was born in 1996.
Two years after Kurt Cobain died.
Died under certain circumstances, which I will get into later…
I am 26 years old now(when I wrote this). Kurt died at age 27 on April 5th, 1994. He was 27 years and 44 days old.
July 14th, 2023, will be the day I die if I live to the exact age of Kurt Cobain.
It’s weird knowing this.
Nirvana and Kurt Cobain are a force I grew up with. They are a big part of my makeup. And I identify with his music to my core.
My love for Nirvana didn’t stop at Nirvana. I love a lot of the Seattle bands from that time, and I love a lot of the grunge music that came from all over the world that was inspired after.
I could tell you all about grunge music. Like, did you know that there’s an album called Deep Six that features six Seattle bands? The producers wanted to capture the Seattle sound. So, they recruited six bands from the scene. Green River, Malfunkshun, The Melvins, Skinyard, Soundgarden, and U-Men.
Probably like most of you, I am my own harshest critic. So, when I talk about these things coming up, just know that I love the band and I love all of these rock stars. I just see myself in them and them in me, and I can’t help but ask some of these questions and discuss a few of these things.
Growing up, music was a big part of my life. I had an mp3 player, and I downloaded songs my dad knew off of limewire.
I listened to Michael Jackson, Foreigner, Weird Al, Green Day, Nirvana, and various others.
I knew that the singer of Nirvana was dead.
Death just doesn’t mean anything to you when you are that young because it seems so distant and things in the past seem so long ago.
Something my parents liked to do on the weekends was have friends and family over for karaoke. The music video would come on, the lyrics would flow by, and you sang along with the artist, trying to match their tone.
I remember my dad drawing a connection between two of the songs that were available on the karaoke system. One of the songs was “Best of You” by the Foo Fighters. The other song was “Come As You Are” by Nirvana.
He explained that the guy in the first video used to be the drummer for the second guy and after the second guy shot himself the first guy moved on and started a new band and wrote songs about the second guy.
“Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?”
“And I swear that I don’t have a gun. No, I don’t have a gun. No, I don’t have a gun.”
COBAIN GROHL HAWKINS
Sometimes, I wonder about Dave Grohl.
I’m not seriously suspicious of him in any way, but after Taylor Hawkins died earlier this year in 2022. I couldn’t help but think… I don’t know.
He seems like a really nice guy. Really nice. Too nice?
This is one of those instances where I’m visualizing myself and over criticizing myself.
Dave Grohl is passionate about the things that he’s a part of. He’s enthusiastic and energetic. Others that don’t share his energy level might find him to be a little pushy.
The pairing of Kurt Cobain and Dave Grohl seems like they were assigned partners in class. Dave was the friendly party guy, while Kurt was the quiet weirdo that chewed on his pen cap.
Near the end, it is said that Kurt wanted to fire Dave from the band. He wrote a note to Dave, but I’m not sure it ever reached him at that time.
I could just see Dave trying to talk his way out of it to Kurt. Begging to stay in the band. Finally, Kurt throws his hands in the air and doesn’t argue. His mind was completely blank and over stimulated at the same time. Dave, Courtney, Frances, tours, mangers, contracts, travel, money. All people and things whirling on his head
Maybe it all was too much. Maybe that’s why everything ended. It’s impossible to say.
And let’s not forget about resently. The Foo Fighters have been super busy, albums, tours, and movies. These aren’t young men anymore. Taylor Hawkins’s body just… gave out. Maybe ambitions pushed boundaries of well-being.
That being said, I love Dave Grohl. He is a hero of mine. The Foos were kind of losing me for a minute with the last few albums, but Man, they reeled me back in with Dream Widow, their metal album. And they were really brought to the forefront of my attention when Taylor died.
He really seemed like he would be the last one to go.
I only think these things of Dave Grohl because, like I said. I am very skeptical of myself, and these guys are super important to me. When something bad happens to someone close to me. My brain becomes a scummy insurance company, trying to find every possibility that it could be my fault and how I might have caused the bad thing.
DRUG CULTURE/SUICIDE CULTURE
Now, I would like to talk about drug culture and suicide culture. They can sometimes go hand in hand, but they could also be separate.
A lot of what I’ll talk about spans way before Kurt Cobain in the 90s, but a lot of what he was about spread to the new generations that listen to his music. Like he’s a vessel that moves through time like liquid. Many people in many different age groups feel and understand what he’s saying.
Kurt Cobain made drugs cool. Especially in the eyes of children and teens. To a set of maybe, more tired eyes of an older person whom has felt and experienced more pain and suffering in life from cycles of substance abuse from themselves or loved ones may not find the Kurt Cobain story so charming.
Nobody thinks his death is charming as I put it, but a person who knows drugs and drug addiction. The situation with Kurt is more of a pity than an absolute tragedy.
After Kurt died, a lot of kids did copy cat suicides. Still to this day, there’s an idea of surviving the age of 27. Let me tell you, Jim Morrison didn’t make that popular. Kurt Cobain did.
Age 27. Age 27. I always wonder about that one. This idea that drugs are cool and suicide is noble has really fucked us. The Misfits that grow up in these past few generations. I know those things aren’t true but that Clock still ticks in my brain. Eating at me.
I’m addicted to cigarettes. I live in a time where that is really really looked down upon. But I can’t shake that dark 90’s side of me. Kurt Cobain, gangster movies, Tarantino Movies. Its in my blood. I’m Vincent Vega, smoking a cigarette, shooting dope, driving a convertible, and going to pick up a baddie. That’s who I am. It’s inescapable.
FRANCES BEAN
Speaking of people who are affected by Kurt Cobain’s death, let’s talk about Frances Bean Cobain.
Obviously. Her father… but something struck me a while ago. On her birthday, August 18th. I follow her on Instagram, I seen it was her birthday, so I went to her profile to wish her a happy birthday, but then realized she had the comments turned off for all of her posts.
This woman must get harassed constantly…
Between people constantly praising her father and the people calling her mother a murderous whore, it’s gotta be rough.
She’s gotta be the type of person to vet people before she let’s them enter her life. Do you worship my father? worship his band? What’s your real motivation for showing me kindness?
She’s probably been faced with some pretty good actors. They act like they just care about her, but them a few weeks down the line, that person starts asking about her father’s death. “Do you remember him?” “Do you think your mom killed your dad?”
It may have, at one point, gotten so bad that she pushed people out if they even knew of the band Nirvana or know the name Kurt cobain. That would be a real, lonely life.
Constantly being reminded that your father is a dead drug addict and your mother is hated by most music fans that watch the documentaries.
She seems to be doing well, according to Instagram, so, to Frances Bean Cobain, I wish you well. I wish YOU well. I’m sure you have found a way to get over this whole thing I’ve talked about, and if that’s so, then great. I really hope that YOU get to enjoy life as a regular human being. No expectations, no questions, and no harassment. Leave this woman alone.
Just check out HER art on Instagram.
LOCAL H/MERCH GUY
I went to a Local H concert last week. In town. You know Local H, Bound for the Floor, Eddie Vedder(The Song), High-Fiving Mother Fucker. You’ve heard them before. They were great! The show was very small but I feel lucky that I was able to go.
They are listed as an alternative/grunge band they’re from Chicago, and their carrer really kicked off in the second half of the 90’s. 90’s A.C. (After Cobain).
The show was kind of weird, in that, I felt like the singer was making fun of himself too much.
Their were a few kids in the crowd, and from the partial dialog I could hear, it was their first concert.
He made a joke like, “Good. Start them off with a mediocre band. So, not to set their expectations too high.” Which was a funny joke, but he kept just going on and on with it.
They played a great show despite the singer’s jabs at himself. Eventually, he asked the little girl if she wanted them to play a Nirvana song. She asked for In Bloom, but he didn’t know how to play that one, so they played On a Plain.
They nailed it. But, that got me thinking…
This guy… who was making music the same time Kurt Cobain was making music, the same genre of music too, is essentially picking up the scraps of a dead man.
This man, Lucas Scott or Scott Lucas, sorry couldn’t remember, two first names. A man in his 50s has to tour around to these small towns to these small bars and play to children that ‘have a guy that’s been dead for almost 30 years‘ shirt on.
This guy has been around way longer, working his ass off making music way longer just so everyone and their children can worship the dead guy.
It’s just funny. I’m sorry. It really sucks. I love Nirvana. I like Local H. I just try to see life through other people’s eyes sometimes.
I hung around a while after the show because I wanted to buy a patch for my concert vest, and for whatever reason, the merch was only sold after the show? I didn’t understand but I waited.
After the show, finally, the merch guy shows up, and after a while, I noticed he was drunk. It was kinda funny, but I was also thinking. “Okay, this guy is pretty chatty. I just want to buy a patch and go home. I have work in the morning, but then I realized that it wasn’t just some drunk merch guy, but it was Local H’s singer. I felt stupid for not recognizing him. Scott Lucas.
Those kids I was talking about earlier got a picture, and he was funny, but when it was my turn, I was really awkward.
I wanted to buy a patch and two stickers. I could’ve swore he said; “sorry, we’re out of STICKERS, but I have PATCHES left.”
So I was like, “Cool, mind if I grab a selfie.” Oh my God, I don’t know why I asked for a selfie. That was so cringe, but he said it was fine. He finished getting my things ready, I looked down, and there were two stickers and no patch.
So either I was too drunk or he was too drunk. I said “oh, I wanted a patch too.”
Scott said, “I said we sold out of patches, I only have stickers.” Another guy in line added “dang man, he’s doubling down on the patches!”
So I was just like, “Oh shit. Oh yeah.” I took the stickers and left. No selfie. Ugh. So cringe. I wasn’t mentally prepared to deal with that, but oh well. No hard feelings, of course. I had a great time, and I hope they come back to town.
He has a podcast that they do on tour, so I want to listen and see what they say about my hometown. Maybe he talks about the stupid guy who kept asking about patches. That would be funny.
MY GRUNGE CONCERTS/CHRIS CORNELL
I’m a bit of a concert head. And I’m a bit of a 90’s grunge head. I’ve made it my goal to see as many grunge bands as I can see in this modern era as I possibly can. I’ve done pretty good so far.
I’ve seen Alice in Chains this past summer, Stone Temple Pilots, Melvins, The Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, Taylor Hawkin’s band Chevy Metal(I know its not grunge but it’s still notable), Meat Puppets (Whom Nirvana covered songs, Platu and lake of Fire.), The Toadies but MOST notably for me was when I got to see Soundgarden back in 2017.
Seeing Chris Cornell and Soundgarden in 2017 in the most important concert for me to this very date. My wife and I drove to Indianapolis on May 10th, 2017. The concert was great, and I was lucky enough to be able to stand as close as I could to the stage. The only thing between me and the stage was the VIP section, which wasn’t very big. I was living the concert. It was awesome, and I will never forget the experience.
And maybe I would characterize it this way and praise this moment so much if I didn’t wake up just one week later to see that he had died. I saw one of his last shows. Which sucks. I was devastated. As silly as it sounds, his death really got to me.
He hung himself.
One of the last remaining for that time. One of the remaining absolute ledgends.. gone.. took his own life.
And, of course, I heard the conspiracy theories. Especially after Chester Bennington did the same thing on Chris’ birthday, July 20th.
Taylor Hawkins, Scott Weiland, Shannon Hoon, Layne Staley, Andrew Wood, and many more all passed on from substance.
Chris and Chester took their own lives and had the conspiracy theories about being assassinated and set up to look like suicide.
And then you have Kurt Cobain, who lies in between the lines.
COURTNEY LOVE
I need to deliver a hot take about Courtney Love for a second.
I know a lot of the people listening to this right now are convinced that Courtney Love had something to do with orchestrating the death of her husband.
And I’m not here to argue that. I’ve watched the documentaries. It’s pretty convincing.
But let’s think about this… you know me… and my unorthodox thinking…
It’s the 90s okay? A decade I only experienced the first four years of my life. The years I basically have no memories of, but still. Knowing the pop culture, movies, music, and the way things carried on in the 2000s, I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on how things were… but then again, maybe I’m wrong.
Misogyny. Woo. What? Scary. What are you talking about? I’m talking about the hatred of women.
And before you start calling me a loser or simp, just know that I’m happily married to a beautiful woman so I really don’t give a fuck.
Whenever a guy tries to genuinely stick up for more scrutinized people, we get called weak. The insecure dudes start making their Jabs, anyway…
Misogyny has only been going away in society very slowly. Even today, it’s still pretty bad, but think back 30 years ago?
Courtney Love personified herself as the Teenage Whore. And instead of that being taken as expression of art, trauma or whatever else she was trying to express from that. People took it super literally. People blamed the tragic events of Kurt Cobain on the strung out, crazy, bitch wife, teenage whore. Isn’t that an easy target? She’s just another rock star.
She was a rock star. Yeah she was crazy, yeah she did drugs but so did motley crue. Axel Rose, pretty much every rockstar?
I do think Kurt Cobain could have done a lot better relationship wise, but I’m not going to hold that against Courtney Love. She was just a rock star who married another rock star, and now she’s probably one of the most hated women in the whole world.
I’m not here to argue the testimonies and the aligations and the documentaries because, hey, it mostly convinced me…
But, I believe something more important should come from this. Instead of seeking justice or getting down to the bottom of that rabbit hole, I think we need to stop ruling out depression. I think we need to start talking about suicide.
Just because Dave Grohl did an interview and said that Kurt would never kill himself doesn’t mean anything. You can be bright as day one day and then down in the trenches, the very next moment.
When trying to reach a long-term goal, it can feel like your life is on ice.
You start to question your decisions and long for the lifestyle that you sacrificed for the journey towards your supposedly brighter future. It can be taxing, the constant waning and waxing of optimism over this course.
If rowing a boat from point A to Point B was how life was depicted and the port side was optimism and the starboard side was realism, you would need both to achieve a consistent path. Reality isn’t automatically lined up for your success. In order to reach your destiny, you must dream and pursue what you want and shape it for yourself, but with that, you must also listen to the signs of reality and adjust tactfully as to not get carried away with delusion and ultimately fail. Everything needs balance.
“I’m a driver, I’m a winner. Things are gonna change, I can feel it.” Has been a quote that has been used for my many social media bios over the years. It’s from the song Loser by music artist Beck. I chose my career path as a driver long ago back in high school when I was a pizza delivery boy, and that has led me to a successful career as a package delivery driver today.
Recently, through certain steps to further succeed in my career, I have had to temporarily deviate from the driving aspect. I now bag the ice that you might find in a big cooler outside of a gas station. You tell the gas station clerk that you want a bag of ice. They ask you if you want a big bag or a small bag. You pick, pay for it, and then on your way back to your car, you exit the gas station walk along the outer wall until you find the big white freezer, open it up and you grab your cold bag of ice to pour into your cooler a little later.
It’s certainly not what I wanted for my life, but I believe I’m taking the right steps. My hard work and optimism can only get me so far before I have to take a lesson from reality. Which is, you don’t always get what you want when you want it. So, this driver, pizza boy, repoman, and Braindead Henchman is temporarily…
THE ICEMAN
I feel like my life is on ice right now.
I’m stuck in limbo until my career picks back up, and in a way, I feel like I have gone back in time. It’s been about ten years since I left my starter job where I was the youngest guy, and now I’m back at a starter job, but now I’m the oldest guy.
Being around these guys reminds me of those days before real adulthood. Marriage, mortgage, and a steady career really change an individual over time. Individuality is lost, safeguards are steadfast, and long learned lessons can turn a person into a jaded wretch.
I have time to think. Actually, think. Not plan my route or wonder when I’ll get done. I know when I get done, I never leave the building.
I never leave the freezer, to be exact. The loud, windowless freezer room where machines are running, ice is being ran up and down conveyer tubes until they are dumped until a bag, stapled shut and the conveyed to me to hoist it onto a neatly stacked pallet. I especially enjoy slicing open the discarded bags and letting the ice spill into the grated pit I stand over.
Hopefully, this means that the world is doing better. Instead of staying indoors and ordering packages and waiting for the delivery man, people are out at the park or a beach, sharing cold refreshments from their ice filled cooler with loved ones enjoying the weather. Instead of staying indoors and watching the tiktok, people are going outside to smell the roses.
That’s what I keep telling myself to get through this patch in my life. Stop and smell the roses. Ambition is good and can propel you, but when you put that same focus on fear and worry, it doesn’t take you anywhere. It might cause you to go backward.
I have been watching professional football my entire life. I have been a die-hard Indianapolis Colts fan for as long as I can remember. Peyton Manning and his rocky upward battles toward championships have fueled my appreciation for the sport.
Football reminds me of the Roman Empire with the lines of soldiers in metal armor with banners and intimidating drum beats accompanied by trumpet blasts, chivalry, and the upmost respect for the sport.
The way us fans “worship” our teams specifically reminds me of the Crusades or Holy Wars back in the Middle Ages and since I’m kind of a nerd, it really reminds me of the franchise, The Lord of The Rings, as well.
The football itself is The Ring that “rules them all.” And the two armys/teams battle for its possession to get the ring to mordor/end zone and throw it into the bellowing firey pit at the core of the earth to destroy evil and finally bring peace and light back to the land of men.
We all watch this match-up through the eyes of Gandalf the Grey trapped in Saruman’s tower. Our only option is to pounder the outcome as we stare into Saruman’s Orb.
It is currently the 2023-2024 post-season, and we all await the playoffs to conclude at Super Bowl LVIII. By this time, you have already picked your “Fellowship.” Your dream bracket is placed, and you have decided which star Quarterbacks deserve to win each game going forward.
Josh Allen? Lamar Jackson? Brock Purdy? Or maybe it’s an underdog/hobbit that you’re rooting for… Baker Mayfield? CJ Stroud? Jordan Love?
Sadly, our poor Boromir/Jason Kelce has fallen from playoff contention after he sacrificed/retired himself so his fellows could move on closer to Mt. Lombardi to do what must be done.
Don’t cry too hard. We still have Aragorn/Lamar Jackson, Legolas/Brock Purdy, Gimli/Josh Allen, and our underdogs/hobbits Frodo/Travis Kelce, Samwise/Patrick Mahomes, Merry/CJ Stroud and Pippin/Baker Mayfield still in contention.
After the Buccaneers/Orcs raided the fellowship and “retired” Boromir/Jason Kelce, it split up The Fellowship and left them to face their own challenges and find their own way to Mt. Lombardi.
This leaves our underdogs/hobbits Frodo/Travis Kelce and Samwise/Mahomes off on their own. They are the chosen ones. The favored ones. All eyes are on them.
That’s right. Smeagol/Swift sweeps Frodo/Kelce off his feet, and they fall in love. Swiftgol acompanies Kelcdo and MaSamwise in their journey to Mt. Lombardi for the fame and fortune that The Ring will bring them.
In the eyes of many men of Middle Earth, Swiftgol is considered a Gollum, and the common understanding is that her intentions are not genuine.
You watch in disgust from your orb as Swiftgol follows the pair of fellows around, thinking she is only in it to write a new hateful folk tale about Kelcdo after they get to Mt. Lombardi. You think she might push him into the flames and steal the spotlight from him…
Swiftgol’s presence attracts the attention of some of the women of Middle Earth, and it’s so annoying to some fellows that it’s created an odd culture war.
A giant raven shows up at Saruman’s tower to rescue you. A bunch of other fellow wizards are also on the giant raven, and you make your daring escape.
You and the rest of the wizards head back to the main land on raven back until a bull-horned Texan missile strikes the giant raven. You and the rest of the wizards fall into the ocean. As you guys start to lose hope, one of the wizards spot land and yells, “Land ho!”
Part 2
I have been watching professional football for a very long time. I’ve waved the Indianapolis Colts banner like a midieval peasant during the Crusades. Witnessing last-minute, game saving Hail Mary passes have made me appreciate the game.
Battle victories called for celebration and was soon discovered by the King and his counsel that the overwhelming emotion and joy from the peasants were financially beneficial. The peasants lived very hard lives and would spend their money in celebration when their team/country won something. Prayers were answered, and God finally saw them. Maybe life would get better.
Coliseums and arenas were built to simulate war on smaller scales to entertain everyone from kings to peasants. Soldier’s jousting and sword fight. Prisoners would fight (and usually get slaughtered by) trained soldiers or wild cats, and this excitement was meant to feed that same feeling that a community would feel after a war was won.
As time continued, sport and competition evolved monetarily along with the rules and equipment. Companies paid to have their brands on signs and uniforms during competition, radio, and television broadcasted the competition, making the game (and ads) accessible to people everywhere.
In the year 2024, we have unlimited access to sports on our smart devices, online communities, ad deals, and easy access gambling that adds to the slow evolution of sports consumption.
Now that the 80s kids have grown up and discovered that WWF arena wrestling was scripted, the scheme seems plausible for any sport, even football. The refs make a bad game-changing call that gives the other team the upper hand. The refs get a call from New York(NFL headquarters), it feels like the Emporer back in the day giving a thumbs up or a thumbs down when the officials needed a higher power to make a decision.
We’ve all questioned if this stuff is rigged. Is it more financially responsible to keep an Indianapolis fan base happy or Boston fan base happy? Obviously, the Boston fan base is bigger, and therefore, they will buy more merch, and more people will pinch pennies to be able to buy tickets.
Now, this next part is purely theoretical…
It’s mostly dudes that watch football. Let’s say that a famous “girly” influencer starts dating a football player and essentially triples that particular football team’s fan base through association, Would it not be financially responsible for the NFL to do everything they had to through camera work, social media posts and bad ref calls to make sure that that team wins the heart of the world and makes it all the way to the Super Bowl?
That’s just theoretical, though, of course.
An enemy ship must have assumed that the flight of wizards was part of the fellowship’s trek to Mt. Lombardi, but really, they were just a bunch of aimless wizard dudes trying to get back home.
The wizards eventually washed up on shore. Got a fire going, dragged the big dead bird out of the water, and exepted the fact that they were stranded on this deserted island now.
Night fall came around, and the wizards sat around the fire eating flame charred raven meat. The only thing they could think to talk about was their passion for the fellowship, and if Kelcdo would reach Mt. Lombardi safely without Swiftgol derailing him.
This hot topic quickly divided the wizards into two groups. One group wasn’t bothered by Swiftgol’s presence in the fellowship. The second group, however, was enraged by any sight of Swiftgol. They wanted her gone before she stole the spotlight, and the women of Middle Earth took over football Fandom.
The first group tried talking sense into the second group. “Boys rule and girls drool!” The second group yelled. This got everyone rowdy, and some wizards from the first group went over to the second group.
“Girls, go to Jupiter to get more stupider!” The back and forth continued. Eventually, it was just you and one other henchman wizard. He was short, fat, wore glasses, and his name was Brainy.
The second group of wizards became barbaric. They exiled you and Brainy from their camp, and you had to fend for yourselves.
The barbaric wizards decapitated the giant raven used its blood as war paint and placed the severed head on a pike near camp as a trophy… and a message.
1990 film
Part 3
No matter how hard we try to cope with the fact that our team keeps losing weather, we blame the refs and think the whole thing is rigged, blame coaches, quarterbacks, and kickers, it’s not going to change the outcome.
Your team sucks. This leaves you to watch different teams in the post-season/playoffs. It’s not your fault that you like a bandwagon team. He’s in a lot of funny commercials, and She attends most of the games. You’re drawn to them. Football is now a TV event that both you AND the Mrs can enjoy.
And a lot of dudes just can’t handle it.
The next day, you and Brainy wake up with the group of barbaric wizards pointing spears at you, demanding that you join them or “pay the consequences.” You and Brainy slowly get up and back away, showing resistance.
The leader whistles, and the pack of barbaric wizards then chases you and Brainy down the beach with spears. As you round the corner of the island, you see a large ship docked nearby with a smaller boat approaching the shore.
This made all the wizards stop in their tracks. The men from the ship approached the stranded wizards with caution. “This be the crash site of the flight of wizards on raven back?” The wizards nodded.
The wizards civilly made their way over to the ship to be rescued. “Who from the fellowship made it to Mt. Lombardi?” One of the wizards asked a soldier on the ship. They all expected Kelcdo and Swiftgol with some sort of controversy or MaSamwise saving the day and being a true teammate.
“Bilbo/Jared Goff made it to Mt. Lombardi and destroyed Sauron/Won the Super Bowl.” The soldier said.
Shock rushed over the famished wizards. “Did Swiftgol break Kelcdo’s heart, making him lose?” One of the wizards asked. “Nope.” The soldier said. “Swiftgol was very supportive of Kelcdo and MaSamwise. She sang them songs and motivated them. They just got bested by other members of the fellowship.”
That’s right, folks. Jared Goff and the Detroit Lions will win the Super Bowl, and the whole Taylor Swift thing never mattered.
If trends and technology move with time, then I could see the NFL looking to AI for the perfect post-season/playoff script. Their motivation won’t be human spirit, money, or viewership. The board members of the NFL might put all their faith into AI to map out what teams need to win each game for the best outcome for society. Maybe it’s for a reason we can’t even comprehend.
Society is a complex machine that’s filled with gears, belts, dominoes, and rolling stones. Maybe if the NFL’s AI let the Detriot Lions win the Super Bowl, maybe… just maybe it could just bring world peace through some weird butterfly effects that only the AI could predict.
C’mon Commissioner Roger Goodell… don’t do it for the bandwagon fans… don’t do it for the Swifties… do it for Motor City.
If Detroit can win a Super Bowl, maybe we can all start believing in ourselves again.
“A repetitive guitar riff is okay, Jason… even a bass riff… You know the song Maggie M’Gill off of Morrison Hotel?”
“Of course.” Jason paused for just a moment. “My favorite song off that record is Blue Sunday.” He said to add some whetstone to Chris’ dull point.
“Blue Sunday? Interesting.” Chris said. “That’s my favorite from that record, too.” Carla added as she emerged from the back door of the venue. She was carrying equipment out to the van with the other band members and roadies as Jason and Chris talked music theory over cigarettes. “I guess mine would just be Roadhouse Blues… Anyway…” Chris went on.
“I was lucky enough to hear some concert recordings from a concert of theirs from 1970 in Boston, and – you know the song Down So Long from L.A. Woman?”
“Yes, I do.” Jason answered. “The live recording of Down So Long had that bouncy Maggie M’Gill guitar riff. They didn’t use the simpler, hard-hitting riff like they do in the L.A. Woman recording. So, if The Doors can have repeats in their hit songs, we sure as hell can at our Euro shows.”
Jason Baker-Saunders was feeling insecure about his performance at the gig they just played. He felt as though his improv was a bit repetitive. He was filling in for the band’s bass player while they toured Europe. “The band” being a Seattle based folk/country/rock band, The Walkabouts. Chris obviously didn’t mind Jason’s bass playing as the night came to a close. He was more interested in tasting new Scottish ales that he hadn’t tried yet.
Chris Eckman and Carla Torgerson were the two singers and the core members of the band. The music exuded the esthetic of Americana. That’s why they were such a hit in Europe. They ate that shit up. It was the sound of the wild west – tragedy, heartbreak, and bad decisions. The entanglement of Chris and Carla’s vocals were a complete picture. Chris’ was a red Mustang speeding down route 66, and Carla was a rattle snake slithering next to it. They sped by cacti and saloons as the sun set in front of them as they headed west toward wild uncertainty.
Jason had the urge to correct himself about his favorite song off of Morrison Hotel. It was actually Peace Frog because it mentioned what he considers his hometown, Chicago, where he began his career. He liked that he was agreeable with Carla so he didn’t announce this realization out loud.
He loved her voice. The band had Jason learn some of their new songs but told him to improvise and listen for key changes for the older ones. A newer song called Heartless was more of a duet between Jason and Carla. Her voice was pale, bare and beautiful, and his bass ran deep and… thrusted slow.
Jason pictured their relationship like a relationship between a bed and the floor. The crescendo of her voice was the clean white sheets of the bed, and his bass was the dusty floorboards underneath. The two never meant to touch unless the unbridled and unnatural occurred.
Jason decided to walk the Glasgow streets that night after the band was packed up. A night of drinking and comradery was something Jason couldn’t do anymore. He had to be careful as to who he hung around wi-
“Jason Baker-Saunders?” A voice came from a dark wall behind a glowing cigarette ember. When he turned his head to look, He inaudibly answered the question. The man was shorter and wore a brown leather jacket. Despite being a Scot, he sported a grey paddy cap. Jason was expecting the man to talk about how much he loved Layne Staley or something, the singer of the supergroup he was in.
Jason stopped and faced the man as he approached. “Your bass playing is arguably the best part of Above.” This flattered Jason. Above was the album name of the one and only album his band would release.
Usually, bass players get overlooked, and their talent is never realized by general audiences. Especially in Jason’s situation. His main band was a band called Mad Season. They were considered a supergroup. The members included Layne Staley of Alice In Chains, Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, Barrett Martin of Screaming Trees, and unofficial member Mark Lanegan also of Screaming Trees. Jason was a nobody compared to them even though he was a founding member.
The band started when Jason met Mike McCreedy in rehab. They were both struggling with heroin addiction. They almost stuck with the band name, The Gacy Bunch, a mix of The Brady Bunch and John Wayne Gacy, a serial killer from Jason’s hometown. They ended up choosing Mad Season because it struck a heavy chord with the members in the band. Mike had the idea to start a drug free band and create a safe environment for struggling artists. One of those artists that he had in mind was Layne Staley. He knew Layne was struggling with addiction and wanted to give him a shot in a drug free band.
A Mad Season is a time in one’s life when they are feening the hardest for the substance that they’re addicted to. They all got together, recorded some music, and toured a little bit. Eventually, Mad Season went on hiatus, and the big names were obligated to go back to their original bands. Hence, Jason touring with The Walkabouts now.
Mesmerized by the recognition and praise, Jason found himself sitting in a pub with the paddy capped Scot. “What ya’ drinkin’ tonight, mate?” The barkeep asked. This is when Jason realized he had put himself in an awkward situation. This is why he didn’t go out with the band. Jason took a second to respond. “We’ll take two pale ales on me, barman!” The paddy capped Scot announced. He slapped Jason on the shoulder. Jason is just trying to bear down and get through the night unscathed by self-destructive thoughts.
The amber-colored ale arrived, and Jason glared down at it like he was standing on the roof of a house about to dive into a swimming pool. “Here goes three years of sobriety.” Jason cheers to himself as he and his new friend drink away.
After a half-hour of indulging his fan, Jason made it clear that he had to head back to his motel to get some shut eye. “This is a huge ask, but…” The paddy capped Scot, whose name was Graham, was about to ask Jason an annoying favor.
“I literally live right around the corner. I have a Mad Season CD I would really love signed. It would really be great to remember this night with a signed copy of one of the best CDs ever by the best bass player out there.”
Jason must have looked annoyed. “I live like two minutes away. Please, mate, it would mean so much to me.”
He agreed to follow Graham home to sign his CD, and he was right. It was a very short distance from the bar. He was expecting a slight exaggeration. “Here’s my flat, right here.” Graham turned to a slim doorway on a corner of an old building. He opened it and was immediately met with stairs. They creaked as the two men walked up them. Those stairs brought them to another door. This one, Graham, revealed a key to which he unlocked it with. He gingerly opened it and told Jason. “Keep quiet, me mum’s sleepin’.”
Graham shut the door behind them as quietly as he opened it and then went around and pulled the short chains on the light fixtures to illuminate the room. Jason’s eyes widened in glorious shock. The front room was filled with old American retro pop culture. A picture of John Wayne hung on the wall next to a picture of Judy Garland, an American flag with the stars in a circular formation and a painting of wild horses running hung over the old TV set.
He went to inspect the shelf of VHS tapes next to the TV to see a bunch of old films such as The Postman Always Rings Twice, Cool Hand Luke, and one that rested in the very corner of Jason’s memory. One called The Blue Bird.
Graham came back with the CD in its case, a marker and a small black leather case. Jason signed the CD, but his eyes never left the small black leather case. Jason wrote, “To my favorite fan, Graham Keirchet, cheers to a night I will never forget, your friend, JBS.” The thoughtful message took up about the whole face of the CD. “You wanna stick around a little longer?” Graham asked as he bounced the case in his hand. “No, I have to leave.” Jason said as he tried to make a sudden exit. He struggled with the lock. Graham, wanting to have a more meaningful goodbye, tried doing so as he helped Jason with the lock, but as soon as the door opened, Jason slid out and noisily trampled down the stairs.
That case looked exactly like the case he used to carry around. It housed his needle, wool, tar, a lighter, and whatever else he was into at the time.
Jason was a little buzzed from the beer, a little jaded from just seeing that case in Graham’s apartment, and a little triggered from the whole experience. He walked the streets of the quiet Glasgow night. He thought of the Americana that the Europeans liked and tried to reverse it. Europe’s history. It was too deep and dark to try and encapsulate like you could America. Whole history books are filled with events that happened on this side of the pond. There were hundreds of generations of kings, queens, wars, plagues, death, slavery, rape, and pillaging. The dark history of old kingdoms haunted Jason as his mind started to scurry. He started to see things in the shadows, and the only thing to comfort him… the only thing that brought him home, was that little black case.
“NO.” He told himself, as if there was an argument. He looked over as to communicate with the little angel and demon hovering over his shoulders to help sway him, but they weren’t there. He was alone in this dark foreign land. He saw the lights of the motel office and started jogging towards it. He didn’t have to check in or anything, but went there for solace. He entered the chiming door and caught his breath at the front counter. He looked at the guy at the counter who served as the bookie and knew instantly that he was on the level.
Both of their eyes blackened as their tar filled minds became synchronized. “Got any?” Jason asked. The bookie, with his mouth drooped open, slowly nodded. He then looked down at Jason’s hands that were tensely grasping the countertop. Jason then slid out a once crisp $20 bill from his hand that turned into a damp cloth due to the living situation in his sweaty palm ever since the possibility of heroin entered his mind. The bookie went to the back and came back after a minute with something in his fist.
A baggie. They traded. Jason went to his room, removed the VHS tape that he swiped from Graham’s apartment, slid the tape out of its sleeve, and a Polaroid photo slid out with it. It was just a picture of a man and woman. On the bottom in black marker was written, “Boris and Shirley.” He popped the tape in the VCR and prepared his syringe that he retrieved from a first-aid kit.
Jason paused, “Carla.” He remembered the standard he set while being around her. “What would she think of this.” He tried to get himself to think and consider his options. It wasn’t too late to dump all of this down the toilet. But it was too late. His mind was doing one thing, and his body was doing the opposite. Jason’s brain is a train conductor, and he sees a fawn grazing on some greenery that had popped its way through the tracks. He wanted to stop the train to save the fawn, but he couldn’t. The train was an addict for blood, just like Jason’s body was an addict for the gutter. There was no stopping this train.
Jason pressed down on the syringe while the tape played, and as his body fell back on the bed, he thought about Carla. He watched the movie and inspected the old photograph until he couldn’t any longer and passed out.
BleitzFuneral Home, Seattle WA
Thursday, April 14th, 1994
Never assume anything about a man unless you know what song is playing in his head. You wouldn’t want to bump shoulders with a guy playing Hammer Smashed Face by Cannibal Corpse in his head on a bad day. You also wouldn’t want to make a girl cry that had Tiptoe Through the Tulips by Tiny Tim stuck in her head, who knows what she would do.
This was the thought process Krist Novoselic was going through. “What song was Kurt on?” Krist asked himself days before now. Now, he was waiting to be ushered into the funeral service of his best friend Kurt Cobain.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t cry. He wanted to cry. He knew that fans and paparazzi wanted him to cry, but he couldn’t. The sad truth is that he’s mourned his friend many times before.
All the calls he had gotten about Kurt overdosing and being rushed to the hospital and all the lies and excuses Kurt had told him over the years had made Krist mourn his friend over and over again. And now… there wasn’t much left to feel… but a shot gun? “Damn, Kurt, what song was playing in your head?” Krist wondered as he sat next to bandmates Dave Grohl and Pat Smear. Dave cried, and everyone admired him for that.
The funeral looked like the live MTV show in New York. I guess that’s what Kurt wanted for that setting, but what would he want now for his funeral? A regular MTV set? A bunch of tie dye, teal abstract art, and pink leopard print? Doubtful.
Krist thought about the last few months leading up to this. Kurt and his wife Courtney Love were falling apart, and the band was falling apart. This was definitely apparent when Kurt punched Krist in the face while trying to drag him onto an airplane to go to rehab. “Damn.” Kurt was falling apart. This funeral seems so obvious now.
Krist tried changing his thought process to something different. Something a little bit better.
Playing the bass guitar.
Krist never did heroin but he thought that maybe he knew what it felt like. When playing a gig, Krist would stand right in front of his speaker with his legs spread out and his knees relaxed as his fingers plucked away at the instrument. The roaring of the crowd and the vibration of his spinal cord made him feel high as a kite. This would reach a tipping point when the beat dropped and Kurt would scream into the mic, and Dave would eradicate the drums of any life by slamming them in murderous fashion the way he did. Krist would add to the chaos by closing his legs, bottling all that metaphorical dope in his spine, and then jumping up and down, propelling like a rocket stuck on a rope. The adrenaline would kick in, and he would be at an apex level with the rest of the band, leaving everyone in the audience in an altered state of Nirvana.
Kurt was cremated. You couldn’t very well have an open casket for someone with a shot gun blast to the head. “What song was in there?” Krist asked himself as he picture what that open casket would look like. He handed Dave a tissue.
He pictured the ivory satin interior padded walls of the coffin like it was an elegant insane asylum. Kurt wore a black pinstriped suit similar to the ones the band wore for the Rolling Stones magazine cover earlier that year. He looked like a made man in a gangster movie who got “got” in a classic diner scene.
His head split wide open with his arms crossed against his chest, blood and chunks of brain, along with his long locks of blond hair lay scattered across the padded room of the elegant insane asylum disguised coffin.
Krist was staring at his paper cup of steaming coffee as he snapped out of his disturbing thoughts. He then heard the ring of his parents’ old rotary phone that reeled him back in. He grabbed it, and he put the phone up to his head as he stared at the brown-orange wood panel wall. “Hello?”
He heard the muffled cry of a woman. “Kurt! Kurt! It’s Kurt!” The woman cried. The typical recipient of this phone call would frantically be asking, “What’s wrong? What happened?” But Krist already knew what happened, and what was feared back then was reality now. He was remembering the first phone call he got from Kurt’s mother, Wendy. Krist, staring at his coffee again, decided to lean over and give the image that he was expelling his grief, in which he had none left. His eyes were the driest desert. Dave, at this point, had gotten himself together and now put his arm around his ex-band mate to comfort him.
Krist decided to spend some time in his hometown, Aberdeen, after the funeral. He made the two-hour drive by himself. He walked around town, got a cup of coffee at an old diner, and then called a childhood friend of his from a pay phone.
His childhood friend Esteban invited Krist over for dinner. It was late, Esteban and his family were pretty much done with dinner by the time Krist had called, but they were more than happy to reheat some chili for Krist. He was emotionally wiped from the day’s events, and the nostalgia from visiting his hometown didn’t help that. Esteban offered him the futon in the basement if he couldn’t make the drive home, and after some slight pushback, he eventually took the offer and carried down a duffle bag with belongings he scraped up from his car down the basement stairs.
He exhaustedly flopped onto the futon. It sat in front of a small tube TV. Esteban patted him on the shoulder and handed him the remote. Esteban said he would be back. He had to go put his oldest to bed who had Down Syndrome. The process required both mom and dad to get him settled in for the night, and sometimes it took hours.
Krist pointed the remote at the TV and pressed the big red rubber button on the top right corner, and then tossed it to his side. He didn’t care what was on, he just liked the comfort of TV sound. It slowly powered on. He heard the high-pitched ringing and saw the grey screen illuminate.
A black and white film came on. It looked familiar, but it was dubbed with Spanish audio. Krist knew very little Spanish at the time, but he read the slightly delayed English subtitles when he felt like paying attention.
The movie so far was about a little girl and her younger brother going into the forest to catch a bird using a trap made with a box, a stick to prop it up, and a string attached to the stick to pull when the bird went under the box to eat some bread crumbs. The ornery duo eventually caught the bird and ran back into town with excitement.
Krist was pulled out of the story when he heard creaking coming down the basement stairs. It wasn’t Esteban, but his youngest son. The kid was dressed in tractor pajamas, thumb in his mouth with his blankie held in the same hand as the other hand held onto the hand rail.
The man wiped his eyes to make himself seem more awake. He didn’t want to disturb the child by making him look into the puffy tired eyes of a man that just lost his best friend to a self-inflicting gunshot wound to the head.
The child didn’t seem to be bothered by Krist’s appearance. Instead, he tossed his blankie onto the futon and plopped on facing the TV, making himself right at home. Well, it was his home. “Hi.” The child greeted the man and then turned back to the TV.
“H-” he had to clear his voice. “Hi.” Krist wasn’t sure what else to say. He was trying to remember the kid’s name. He was introduced to the family when he first arrived, but new memories weren’t a great thing for days like today.
“My name is Alejandro, and my brother’s name is Domingo.” Alejandro said, answering the question on Krist’s mind. He could hear the boy’s older brother fussing upstairs. “Krist.” He cleared his throat again. “My name is Krist.” He clarified. “I know.” Alejandro said. The two continued to watch the film.
The children in the movie made it back home and were eating supper with their parents. Krist was too stuck in his thoughts to read the subtitles at the moment. He could see from the corner of his eye that the little boy had turned his head to look at him, so Krist looked back at the boy. “Did your singer die?” The innocent mind asked. Once again, he cleared his throat, and he answered, “Yes.”
The little boy hopped off the futon, grabbed his blankie, and creaked his way back up the stairs the way he came.
The black and white film felt daunting as Mother yelled at child. The subtitles read that the little girl was an ungrateful child. Krist heard creaking coming back down the stairs. It was Alejandro again. This time, he had his blankie and a piece of paper in his hand as the other guided him down the rail. His little feet tapped on the concrete floor as he walked back to the futon. He handed Krist the folded-up piece of yellow notebook paper.
Krist took it and opened it up. It was a name and a phone number. “My tia is a singer. She could be your new singer!”
Krist realizes that he has been clearing his voice an odd amount of times, just making a rumbling sound that made the boy giggle. That made Krist smile. “Is this a four or a nine?” He pointed at the small piece of paper. The boy looked at it, not able to distinguish the digit either. He took the piece of paper from Krist’s hand and went back upstairs.
At this time in the movie, the daughter was in bed talking to her mother. She was scolding her daughter about having a bad attitude. The daughter said that she doesn’t want to have a bad attitude and doesn’t know why she has a bad attitude. The mother then tells her that she needs to figure it out. She needs to find happiness.
Creaking came back down the stairs. It was Alejandro again. He ran to Krist and proudly handed him the piece of paper. The digit in question before was undoubtedly a four. Alejandro wrote the misunderstood digit very boldly.
“Are you happy?” Alejandro asked Krist. “Yes.” He replied, staring at the piece of paper as a tear streamed down his face. “Thank you.” He said.
The name on the piece of paper was that of Yva Las Vegass. Krist began to cry, baring the full extent of the day. He was paying a debt that he owed himself. The child balled up his blankie and gave it to the man to use as a pillow. The sobbing fellow tucked it between the side of his jaw and the backrest of the futon. Alejandro handed him a tissue and tried to comfort him like he did for his fussy brother.
The two faced forward to check in with the movie. It had changed from black and white to a multi-color film. Krist decided that he would dedicate the rest of his music career to making music that he wished his friend had stuck in his head during his trying times.
Boner Records, Berkeley CA
Friday, November, 23 1990
“Guys! Guys! Cliff Burton died!” River Snake barged into a small storage room filled with stacks of magazines and papers, audio reels, CD cases, cassettes, and a bunch of other junk. The door partially opened after slamming into a VCR and knocked it off the pile it was on.
Buzz and Lori were sitting on a half broken cot in the back of the small cluttered room. Buzz slowly removed his face from Lori’s to turn to Randall, whom he nicknamed River Snake. “I know, RaAn-DaLL. Cliff Burton died like five years ago in a plane crash.” (Four years ago* Bus Crash*)
River Snake’s arms lay pressed against the frame of the doorway. “Oh, I didn’t know that…” The tall skinny ginger with big curly “Melvin hair” walked away, “doinking” himself on the forehead. Lori rolled her eyes because he left the door open. Buzz got up, started stepping over stacks of papers to shut the door, and inevitably knocked some of the stacks over, contributing to the mess. “Oh, forget about it, Buzz. We’ll have to jack off our jollies later.” Lori said, butchering the slang.
Cliff Burton was a perfect example of what a great bass player was. The first three albums by Metallica reflect this by the band producing absolute garbage after his death. The bass solo in the song (Anesthesia)–Pulling Teeth off their first album, Kill ‘Em All, is a great showcase of his talent.
Finding a good bass player is a hard thing to do, especially in a region with a rampant music scene like the West Coast. There was punk, thrash metal, and then a term that was just coined up north in Washington called “Grunge.”
In the early 1980s, Lori Black’s first band, Clown Alley, was looking for a bassist. She was talking to the group of guys after a show, trying to impress them with her personality as people do during first impressions, but eventually, they seemed kind of unimpressed. She then whipped out her wildcard. “I am the daughter of child star, Shirley Temple.”
This got everyone interested again, but the attention didn’t stop at intrigue. “Why isn’t your hair curly?” One of the guys asked as he wrapped his finger in her long black hair. “How did Shirley Temple end up raising a punk rocker?” But eventually, the teasing ceased, and she was accepted in the band.
The band never really went anywhere. She was always treated like a cymbal-playing monkey when the band was doing interviews except instead of being a monkey’s uncle, she was Curly Top’s daughter and the joke ended with a bunch of amateur tap dancing.
And then Buzz Osborne came along. He was from Seattle. She wasn’t able to make a first impression with anyone anymore. Her bandmates made them for her, but Buzz saw through that. His intrigue with her probably wasn’t any less toxic, but he thought she was cool while the other guys thought she was funny.
Eventually, Buzz moved south to San Francisco to date Lori and make music with her. His Seattle bandmate Dale followed, so they just continued with the old band name (the) Melvins.
Buzz grabbed a palm sized basketball from the storage room and pegged River Snake in the kidney with it as he walked by for cockblocking him. “Ouuh!” River Snake flinched and overreacted. “Get in the booth, Snakey.” Buzz scolded the sound tech.
The Melvins had one more song to record, and it was an important one. The album was called Bullhead and the first song on the record would end up being the song they were just about to record. The song was called Boris.
“Where’s Dale?” Buzz asked River Snake. “He’s been in there sitting at his drum kit all morning in the dark, spinning his drum sticks… kind of demented.” River Snake answered. “HA!” Buzz laughed. “We’re all are demented.” Lori followed Buzz and turned around to devilishly stick her tongue out at River Snake.
“Ready? Take one.” River Snake said from the sound booth. The song was heavy and slow. Buzz and Lori were in sync with the chugging of their guitars. Dale’s meditation helped him hit the drums slow but powerful. The lyrics spoke of an entity that was abusive and soul sucking. A powerful force of evil that did what they pleased at the behest of nobody. Buzz’s bottom lip was glued to the bulb of the microphone as his body gyrated around him while his eyes never left Lori’s.
After the song’s release, Buzz was asked who the song was about, and Buzz answered by saying it was about his cat. I seriously doubt that, though.
The anger, sadness, and pain in Buzz’s voice on the recording of that song are telling of something very different. It was the story of someone close to him. Someone he shared a bed with. Someone he stared at the ceiling and smoked cigarettes with while trading stories. Someone he could look in the eyes as they played music together. He was telling her story. Lori’s story of Boris.
Shirley Temple seemed to be an unapologetically fierce little girl. She played the role of a disrespectful or naughty child in some of the movies she played. In the plot of the movies, the naughty child would endure some sort of mental rehabilitation that would change her into becoming a bright and kind little girl by the end.
The cigar smoking, pencil mustached, scotch sipping movie executives in the 1940s probably were delighted by the short firecracker with a smart mouth, good for show biz but when it came to principal, it is prevalent that this child learn manners and that this little girl mature to an obedient lady someday.
Luckily, she was able to see through all of that and stay true to herself. She retired from acting in her early twenties and started a family. Unfortunately, her first husband was an abusive drunk, so the marriage ended. Shirley would not be the enduring submissive wife that Hollywood tried grooming her to be. She kept her dignity and left the dud of a man. She married her second and final husband shortly after. This man was the father of Lori ‘The Lorax’ Black.
When a child star arrives at the point of raising children of their own, they have two options – raise them the way you were raised and make them stars, or give them normal lives. The normal lives option would be the merciful option in the eyes of the grown child star after living a life of manipulation and being an outcast to other children through their career. The only thing you risk is that your children might resent you for not allowing them to live up to your expectations or to their full potential.
Mommy was a star, but what about me? The little girl with long dark hair will never have the skill or the charm as Curly Top. Maybe that’s why Lori became ‘The Lorax’. She had to become an entirely different person to escape the comparison.
But, yet again, maybe something else happened…
The Black-Temple Estate, Santa Monica CA
1965
A knock at the door.
“Hello?” Shirley greets the stranger. “Why hello, Ms. Temple. I’m Morton, sent by Mr. Agar to escort Ms. Diane to his estate.” The man said as he politely removed his top hat. He wore a suit and black leather driving gloves. He had black balding hair and a thin detached mustache.
“Oh yes, come in, I believe she’s not quite ready yet.” Shirley left the man in the foyer as she herself continued to get ready for the day.
John Agar was the name of Shirley’s first husband, the drunk dud that she left. They had one child together, Diane. She would go stay with her father most weekends. It just so happens that his schedule has picked up, so now he just sends his driver.
“Diane! Your chariot awaits!” Shirley came back and yelled up the stairs. “I’m not ready yet! Diane shouts back. “Well, I have to get going soon, I have a meeting to get to, and Charles has already left for work. I hope you don’t mind waiting for her on your own.”
“I don’t mind at all.”
“Lori! Come down here! I need to talk to you!” Shirley shouted while struggling to put on her jewelry without a mirror.
Soon after, a young girl came around the corner and started stepping down the stairs. She had long dark hair and wore a black dress with white stockings. “Lori, dear, this is Mr. Morton.”
“Pleased to meet you, darling.” The man bowed. “I need to get going for work, and Mr. Morton will be here until your sister is ready to leave. Be kind and show him around.” Shirley grabbed her suitcase, kissed her youngest daughter, yelled at her oldest, thanked the man, and then walked out the door.
“Excuse me, Ms!” Mr. Morton shouted and followed Shirley outside. “Yes, what is it?”
“Can I ask a favor of you, Ms. Temple?” Mr. Morton asked. She must have had an annoyed look on her face. “It will just take a moment. Could I get a photo with you? I have a camera here in my car.” Morton begged.
“Okay, fine, but make it quick. Lori! come out here a minute!” The eleven-year-old slipped out of the door and down the front steps. Mr. Morton coached the young girl on how to operate the camera and then held a pose next to the retired child star.
Click *flash* rrrRRrrr a Polaroid photo ejected. “Thank you so much.” Mr. Morton bowed to Shirley as she climbed into her car. “Lori, be good.” She pointed and put her sunglasses on. She then pulled off the property in a hurry to avoid being late for her meeting.
“Spectacular.” Mr. Morton said as he looked at the girl. He walked up to her and took his camera back. He tugged the photo out of the dispenser. He waved the photo around and tried looking at it, but it hadn’t quite developed yet. “Is there a dark room I could let my photo develop while I wait for your half-sister?” Mr. Morton asked.
The little girl just nodded and led him back into the house, through the foyer and into her daddy’s study. It was dark in there. The shades were drawn, the walls and furniture were dark, and the brass fixtures needed polished.
“Ah, perfect.” The man exclaimed. “This is quite impressive study your father has. He’s a decorated veteran, I see.” Lori still didn’t know what to say to the man, but she didn’t have to. He just kept going on and on. Eventually, she wasn’t able to think about anything anymore.
“How old are you?” Mr. Morton asked. The girl held up ten fingers and then closed her fist and held up one finger. “Eleven.” She motioned with just her hands. “Ah, I have a little boy around your age that lives in Scotland. Have you ever been there?”
She shook her head. “It’s beautiful there. You’re beautiful too…” He elongated the pause. “Does your mommy and daddy realize this? Are they going to make you famous like your mommy is?”
Mr. Morton raised his camera and took a few photos of the girl, and let them develop in the room next to his photo with Shirley. The uncomfortable interaction came to a stop when thumping footsteps were heard from the upstairs. Diane was finally ready to make the trek to her father’s estate. Lori was left in the dark study sitting on a stiff leather couch. Mr. Morton quickly collected his Polaroids and quietly left the room to accommodate the older daughter.
Week after week, Mr. Morton would show up to pick up Diane. Week after week, parents would rush off to work, and Diane would take forever to get ready. Week after week, Mr. Morton would push boundaries and cross lines. He would tell her that he was a powerful man and could do mysterious bad things if she ever told anybody.
Every time she was left with the creep, she felt as though time slowed down. She would usually disassociate her mind from her body and travel into Mr. Morton’s wristwatch to encourage the village of rats that motored the gears of the watch to move and rotate the hands of the clock faster. To make time go faster. To make Mr. Morton leave. To make him stop doing these things to her. Eventually, she would convince the king of the rats, King Crumbyun, to make his worker rats work harder and speed up time. The rat workers climbed back into their wheels and began running. The wheels were connected to gears, and those gears were connected to bigger gears that moved the hands of the watch.
She knew that the rats had done their job when she finally heard the deep thudding footsteps of her sister leaving her bedroom and coming down stairs. Mr. Morton would stop, make himself decent as he glared at her through the mirror and left her in the study.
Eventually, Diane and her father had a falling out, and she no longer required a ride to his house every weekend. The last time that Lori ever saw Morton was the spring of 66′. He turned around before leaving and said… “Someday in the future, you may want to find me. Love me or hate me, that’s up to you. You’ll need to know my first name. You just know me as Mr. Morton?” The man looked at her through a mirror again as she sat on the stiff leather couch in the back of the study.
Lori didn’t answer or nod her head. She just stared at him, waiting for him to leave. “My first name is Boris.” He stated as he exited, and she never saw him again. But it was too late. He had taken so much from her. An unimaginable amount.
Nightmares were eased by the plucking of a bass guitar. They mimicked the footsteps of her sister coming down the stairs. The relief she felt became a power. The bass guitar as an instrument was a tool that could move people. You physically feel the blast of the bass guitar coming from the amplifier. She started playing, and people in the crowd started bobbing their heads. The bass guitar has the power to turn people’s stomachs and then turn them right side up again by ending on the same note that it started with. She was like King Crumbyun controlling his rats. She was like Boris controlli-… oh no… like many before her and, like many, many more after her, she turned to opioids and permanently harnessed addiction.
It wasn’t easy being the daughter of Shirley Temple. She gave up her acting career in Hollywood, but she took up another acting job in front of governing bodies and white buildings with regional flags. There was no help and no awareness of the real problems because she always had to keep her look and her more-than-plausible reputation. Lori distanced herself, picked up the bass, and became The Lorax.
“It’s a wrap!” River Snake shouted from the booth. Dale immediately set his drum sticks down and left the room. River Snake left the booth to meet up with him. “Dale. Did you know Cliff Burton died in a…” He faded out as he left the earshot. “I’ve got another verse in me if you want to stick around for another go.” Buzz said to Lori. “But Dale left.” Lori pointed out to Buzz. “Maybe we don’t need drums for this last verse. It can just be you and I.” Buzz left the room with his guitar strapped on and emerged in the sound booth. He hit a few dials, made sure enough tape was on the reel, and hit the button. He then hurried back into the studio and queued up Lori. “One, two, one, two, three, four.” He mouthed. They finished the song with just the two of them and left the studio in peace afterward.
Later that night, Lori went back to her apartment and dug through her old film collection. She had a cardboard box full of old film reels that she collected over the years. She dug out one of her mother’s childhood movies called The Blue Bird. She stuck it in the old projector and watched the movie in silence.
The Blue Bird (1940)
The film was produced by 20th Century Fox, and it was the answer to MGM’s (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the studio with the roaring lion’s head) The Wizard of Oz (1939). They start off depressing with no color and then dramatically change to technicolor when the fantasy starts.
When the fantasy starts in this film, Shirley Temple’s character and her little brother wake up to someone knocking on the door. They answer it and find it to be a woman who introduces herself as a fairy. She tells the children that they need to find happiness, which is symbolized as a Blue Bird in the film. She transforms a lantern, a cat, and a dog into humans to help them on their journey.
They visit the land of the past, the land of luxury, and the land of the future. The adventure ends, but they never find a blue bird. The land of the past made them grateful for old memories. The land of luxury made them appreciate their modesty, and the land of the future gave them hope moving forward.
They then realized that the bird they caught earlier in the film (when it was still black and white) was actually a blue bird, meaning they were always capable of being happy. They just had to be content with what they had. That included being grateful for their memories, realizing that greed isn’t happiness, and always hopeful for tomorrow.
And now that our heroes have watched the film, let’s see how it applies to their individual lives…
Jason woke up feeling like a corpse. It was 3pm. The band had long left without him. They left a note on his motel door that read, “We wait for you in tender time.” Signed by Carla. He ended up missing a few shows due to not having backup travel plans ready. He met up with them in Sweden, about a week later, leaving them bass-less for two shows.
The spark he felt towards Carla had died. He knew he wasn’t good enough for her, and he recognized that every time he looked at her. Cool Chris treated him like a shady junkie and Carla talked to him like he was a special needs child now. It was easy to predict that the Walkabouts never work with Jason again after that tour.
Jason succumbed to his addiction on January 15th, 1999. His girlfriend had to go back home to Romania, leaving him defenseless against the only other friend he had. The Supergroup Mad Season never got back together. He was jobless. He was a junkie and his rock jumped on a plane and flew away. He met her at a gig with the Walkabouts in Croatia in 1996. No more heartache. He was found by a neighbor the next day. They sometimes drank coffee together in the morning.
Krist woke up with a sore jaw as it still rested on the balled-up blanket. Sunlight poured in the small basement windows. The TV was off. Esteban must have eventually come down, turned the TV off, and took Alejandro back to bed. He still had a piece of paper with the name and phone number. He was up before anyone else. He wrote a thank you note to the family with the same yellow notebook paper that Alejandro used. He left quietly and drove off into the sunrise, a refreshed man needing to make a phone call. He lives on to this day making music for his friend.
Eventually, Buzz joined Lori next to the crooked projector, watching her mother’s old movie in silence. “This is a Wizard of Oz rip off, isn’t it?” Buzz asked. That made Lori laugh. She knocked the projector over, breaking it, and wrapped her arms around Buzz. “Time to jack off our jollies?” He asked. She smiled, retracted her arms, and tapped his nose with her finger. “No.” She said as she walked away, controlling her own destiny.
Lori and Buzz broke up in 1993 after she got arrested for the possession of heroin at the Portland Airport. There was a rumor that she died of an overdose in 1998, and her political family kept it a secret in order to keep a positive image. It has been confirmed since then that she is alive, well, and is living the life of a private citizen in San Francisco as a photographer.
Lori was stuck in the land of the past, Jason was stuck in the land of luxury, and Krist was stuck in the land of the future. According to the movie, happiness isn’t found in any of those places.
I can’t help but think of the similarities between the “Blues” music genre and the 1940s film. We all face tragedy and hardship that makes us sad. We sing the blues. We all want to be happy, so we chase the blue bird. Both of these ideas are coping mechanisms. One is based on happiness and one based on sadness.
I think the blue bird is what Jason Baker-Saunders was looking for when he was feeling lost and alone, running through the foreign streets needing a true friend. The blue bird is something Jason needed when he was looking for solace, regretting his life decisions and looking for an out that the motel bookie could provide.
I think the blue bird is something Krist Novoselic was scrapping for when he got news about his friend overdosing and questioning if he was a good friend or not. The blue bird is what trapped Krist in his own thoughts, keeping him from facing his emotions.
I think the blue bird was passed down a generation from Shirley Temple to Lori ‘The Lorax’ Black. The blue bird carried her to Boris Morton’s watch to convince the rats to speed up time. The blue bird helped Lori define herself as something different, The Lorax.
Oh yeah, the silver lining…? I always feel like River Snake Randel when I get to the conclusion of these things. I’m just “doinking” myself in the head right now. I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m not a doctor or a therapist. I don’t know anything about happiness. I feel things, I let them take me on a journey, and then I end up here with some sort of cliche message, like “enjoy the little things” or “live in the moment.”
The truth is, that’s why the blues are sang. Sometimes, the world is too complicated and messed up to have an answer for everything, so you sing it away to pass the time. In doing that, you have the ability to create a beautiful artform. A lot of the best art is created in sadness. So, if your beautiful sadness can be someone else’s crutch, then I say it’s worth it.
Sometimes, the blue bird is better off being chased. Let’s sing about it.
***DISCLAIMER*** THIS IS A FICTIONAL STORY LIGHTLY BASED ON TRUE FACTS. THIS WRITING IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY.***
I have officially outlived Kurt Cobain. I know a lot of people will laugh at this and think it’s silly. I was born after he died, so what do I know about anything, right?
I’ve always loved grunge music, and I’ve always loved romanticizing the dead. That’s what you’re taught to do when you grow up christian. I wanted to better understand why so many of those people from that place… and from that time… died.
I was a fan of grunge pretty much since the time of the discman and the mp3 player. In those old days, I understood the five main grunge bands as Nirvana, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and Stone Temple Pilots. Those bands are what played on the radio.
It wasn’t until music streaming platforms became available that I discovered other grunge bands. The Melvins, for example. I became a huge Melvins fan while stumbling across them on Pandora during study hall in high school.
My mind was blown during that same semester when I discovered a tour announcement in that same study hall that one of my friend group’s favorite bands, System of a Down, was going on tour with the Melvins. It didn’t take much to convince my two buddies and my girlfriend to hop in the car with me and drive to Detroit the summer of our graduation in 2015.
After seeing the Melvins, I made it my goal to see as many grunge bands in concert as possible. There weren’t many left, and most of them that were left had different singers. Soundgarden wasn’t one of those bands. They had all the core members in the band, including singer Chris Cornell.
Soundgarden announced a tour in 2017. I, of course, had to go. Soundgarden was one of my bucket list bands, and they were one of the main grunge bands. At this point in time, the only grunge or grunge related bands I had seen were Foo Fighters, Meat Puppets, Melvins, Smashing Pumpkins, and The Toadies.
My girlfriend and I waited in line for a couple of hours and got really awesome spots on the lawn. We got as close as we could possibly get. We stood at the gate that separated the lawn from the VIP section. The VIP section was right up against the stage, and it wasn’t that big of a section, so we had a really great view of the show.
And what can I say, I had a great time. I loved every moment of it and still to this day is one of the best and most important concerts I have ever been to.
A week later, still not down from the high of seeing one of my favorite bands in concert, I wake up one morning to devastating news…
Chris Cornell took his own life after a show in Detroit, Michigan. He had a mixup with some medication… and well… he hung himself with an exercise band on his hotel bathroom door.
Of course, people came up with conspiracy theories about him being murdered and set up to look like suicide and those theories got even more complicated when Chester Bennington of Linkin Park died later that year in the same mannor on Chris’s birthday, July 20, 2017.
When people started making these crazy theories about Chester and Chris about to uncover a secret pedophile ring and they were assassinated before they could expose everything, I lost faith in pretty much any related conspiracy theory.
I think depression is real. I created my own little conspiracy theory. I think Chris may have planned it. The only thing I have to back it up is that he performed with all four of his music groups in the last year before he died. He toured with Temple of the Dog, which was a band that was formed in the wake of his best friend dying, Andrew Wood, who was the singer of Mother Love Bone. He did a small tour as his solo act, he has some very good solo songs, he did a show with Audioslave at an anti-Donald Trump concert and finally he went on tour with Soundgarden his original band that started in 1984.
Chris Cornell, Avast, Seattle, December 1993 Captured by Charles Peterson
I was bothered by the death of Chris Cornell for many days. It may have been weeks. I started an Instagram page where I could post pictures and share knowledge of the time, music, and people that I loved. Because there was nothing else I could do.
Just like discovering Kurt Cobain and his death threw me into the mood and into the music, just like discovering the underground stuff like the Melvins fetched me my obscure taste for it, Chris Cornell’s death and my almost tangible connection to it with pictures, close distance, and the vivid memory launched me into a full deep dive of everything from that time and place.
“Our Father, who art in heaven hollowed be ThyGrunge.” -Braindead Henchman
After years of digging into the fandom, that is nearly forty years old now. I no longer respect that brand name that I created (ThyGrunge). After understanding the opinion of the name (Grunge) by artists and producers that made the music, I understand that it’s the radio name for the wide array of sounds that Seattle created.
Nobody liked being called grunge. Nobody knew how to describe it. It was just a name that the magazines slapped on the cover to describe the few bands that made it on the radio that were from Seattle.
The reality is, there are so many other great bands from Seattle that never made it and probably should have, but part of the additude of the bands up there belonged to the West Coast punk scene who refused to sell out. Some bands sounded too folky or country like, mirroring lumberjack culture up north. Some were blues’y some were weird Al’y.
In my opinion, grunge is such a lazy way to describe the music. You might as well just call it Hard Rock from Seattle. The musicians were definitely inspired by the spreading punk scene, blues from the east, folk from the north, and country from the south. With that, it birthed twangy guitars and rhythm from Alice In Chains and Hill Billy boy yiping and screeching from Kurt Cobain in Nirvana.
The “dirty-grunge” sound comes from the punk attitude, and the spirituality that we feel coming from the songs is the mixture of the deepness and sway of blues music.
Instead of joining the business of nostalgia baiting, I’ve decided to just do my own thing. I love music, and I will continue writing, but as far as my Instagram goes, it’s now Braindead Henchman.
After all, I am grateful for knowing the end before the beginning in the case of Kurt Cobain. Before, maybe I felt like I missed out on something that other fans experienced firsthand, hearing that voice of the generation Kurt Cobain died and finally understanding the weight of the songs. But Chris Cornell’s death hurt. Bad. It’s this period that I discovered that a young man at the age of twenty-seven wasn’t the end of feeling worthless and empty inside. Life is a constant battle of finding and obtaining self-worth. You can never truly have it all. Life is a constant battle no matter your status or the worth of your possessions. Living means fighting.
Long ago, I rode my bike around my childhood neighborhood and listened to my dad’s old CD collection that was ripped and burned onto my mp3 player. His favorite band was and still is Guns N’ Roses, so you know I had at least a few tracks taking up my gigabytes.
I thought the intro to their song, Civil War off the album, Use Your Illusion II (1991), was a sample from an old American Civil War movie. I pictured an old lady sitting on her porch in an old rocker talking to her fellow townsfolk about the massive casualties of battle and the stubbornness of the other side continuing to wage war.
Guns N Roses is an interesting band that existed in an interesting time, a time of change. Rockstars were replacing their spandex with dirty flannel shirts, trading in their glitter for dirt and sang more about drugs than they did girls.
A hair metal band called Sleze changed their name to Alice In Chains and became one of the biggest “grunge” bands coming out of Seattle. Guitarist Diamond Darrell from Pantera, another band that started off as hair metal, changed his name to Dimebag Darrell, and Pantera shifted to metal and hard rock. David Bowie even followed this trend for a short while. The man known for playing a sexless alien creature on stage grew a goatee, put on a trench coat, and made music with Nine Inch Nails. These are just a few examples of the times-a-changing in the rock music industry.
Something happened in the late 80s with music and pop culture that changed the whole course of the 1990s. It brought hyper-realism and champions of suffering to the forefront. Who had it the worst? Generation X’s new political awareness changed the game as it does for every maturing generation.
There was a rejection of conformity and a rise of rebellion and angst. What reason did people have to be happy? Would you sing about your shitty parents or the horror of genocide?
When it came to lyric writing for artists, they could either use it as an expression of liberation and oppression awareness or they could join the madness and act like they didn’t care about anything. “I’ve had it rough in this life, and I’m here to share my anger with you.” A rebel without a cause, maybe?
These two avenues would eventually create two different types of people. If you listened to the “rebel without a cause” groups like Limp Bizkit or Pantera, there was a lot of non-poinient aggression that had a message like “I don’t give a fuck. If you don’t like me than fuck you. Get out of my way.” Self validating anger that could be compared to the mentality of a school ground bully.
On the other hand, you have the “activism groups” that sang of the suffering and oppression of others like System of a Down and Rage Against the Machine. To the school ground bullies, these people came off as the school ground “tattletellers” or “teachers’ pets.”
You will see those two attitudes in our social political world today. Some people care little about other people’s feelings, they act tough, and they expect you to conform to their ways. Other people seek justice and peace for not only themselves but for all people.
Of course, a lot of artists write a lot of different things that don’t fit into either of these categories. For instance, bands like Korn and Nirvana sing aggressive songs that are self-centered, but they are usually about abuse or being bullied. So they kind of land in the middle but more towards the activism side due to them spreading awareness of how treating someone badly can affect them negatively.
Gun’s N Roses seems to land on the aggressive side of the spectrum, especially if you listen to the song “One In A Million.” Singer Axl Rose spits out multiple racial and homophobic slurs during the song in a hateful manor, but I can’t help but feel that the band has a soft side, too.
My favorite songs of Guns N Roses are the soft Elton John-esc sounding songs like November Rain, Don’t Cry, Patience, Knocking On Heaven’s Door, and Civil War.
I recently added a few GNR songs to my work playlist that plays on my Bluetooth stereo in my truck mastered from a streaming service application on my smartphone. The song Civil War came on the other day, and as the song was playing, it just sounded too real. I wanted to change it because it was making me depressed.
“Look at the hate we’re breeding.”
“Look at the fear we’re feeding.”
“Look at the lives we’re leading”
“The way we’ve always done before.”
It was all too familiar. Instead of picturing an old Civil War movie, I saw flashes of riots, insurrections, red hats, covid masks, and a ton of different flags being waved in angry droves.
But, because I’m always moving and got distracted, the song plays on.
“My hands are tied!!!” Axl screams.
I’m suddenly back on my bike with my corded earbuds wearing my black and neon green Tony Hawk shoes, leaning over to one side as I blaze over the curved sidewalk that goes around the neighborhood pond.
“The billions shift from side to side, and the war goes on with brainwashed pride.”
The song is filled with nostalgia of times that I miss but also the new understanding of civil unrest as history continues to repeat itself. So, why does this keep happening?
“Look at doubt we’ve wallowed.”
“Look at the leaders we’ve followed.”
“Look at the lies we’ve swallowed.”
“And I don’t want to hear no more!”
I finally make it to the gazebo on the far side of the neighborhood pond. I decided to start the song over so I could listen to it on the ride home. I fish the small black device out of my pocket connected to my headphones, and I press the back button.
Slash begins plucking a somber trail of notes on his acoustic guitar.
“Some men, you just can’t reach. So, you get what we had here last week – which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it!”
Axl Rose starts whistling the song “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.”
“I don’t like it anymore than you men.”
As my past self launches from the gazebo and around the pond, listening to the song one more time, I will explain where the intro sample of the song actually comes from.
Cool Hand Luke (1967)
The short speech at the beginning of the song wasn’t resited by an old civil war era woman but by a 1950’s Prison Chain-gang Captain (Strother Martin) that had an old raggedy high-pitched voice. For simplicity, I’ll be referring to him as The Warden as he would be called in common prison terms.
The Warden and his Henchmen or “Bosses,” as they’re referred to in the film, made it very clear that they run a tight ship. Follow orders, do you time, and you won’t get in any trouble.
This was something explained near the beginning of the film when a group of incoming prisoners arrived at the Florida chain-gang camp. Amongst those newcomers was Lucas Jackson (Paul Newman), a World War II veteran who struggled to find peace when coming back home. He got himself picked up by a couple of blue boys when out on a drunkard decapitating parking meters with a pipe cutter.
Luke is how he is referred to for the rest of the film. He always knew how to play it cool with these cutthroat authoritors without crossing the line and causing any trouble for himself. He played them in a way that if they did react to his smart licks, it would only make the bosses look foolish and thin-skinned.
The man who ran the bunk house was named Carr (Clifton James). He was a large man with a straight to business manor. He rattled off the rules to all the newcomers and introduced a punishment known as The Box.
If you break any of the rules what so ever, that’s where you will end up. The Box is a small brick structure the size of an outhouse that you had to stand or crouch in overnight as a punishment.
It wasn’t only the Warden and the Bosses Luke had to deal with. He also had to earn the respect of his fellow inmates, who at first were rough around the edges. Especially, the biggest guy there who took the role of leader of the inmates, a man called Dragline (George Kennedy).
Dragline offered Luke a spot at the poker table one evening after a few playful slights. Luke joined the table, bet all of his dollar bills, and won the whole table with a hand full of nothing.
This earned him the name Cool Hand Luke.
After gaining Draglines’ comradary, Luke pushed his luck too far after teasing Dragline while he was ogling a woman washing her car while they were out doing work on the road. Dragline demanded to box Cool Hand Saturday morning in an organized prison fight, commistioned by the Bosses.
Of course, due to the difference in the size of the men, Luke had no chance. Dragline kept knocking Luke to the ground over and over again, but he kept getting back up. He eventually wore Dragline down to the point of exhaustion and won over Dragline’s respect and also made a friend for life when he demonstrated his percervence.
This leads us to visitation day when Cool Hand Luke’s mother arrives in the bed of a pickup truck with a cushion and some shade to keep her comfortable. She was very sick and said that she would probably be dead by the time Luke was free again. This obviously bothered Luke, but he and his mother had a sense of humor around the whole thing when they were around each other.
It wasn’t long after that Luke received a letter stating that his mother had passed away. This shook Luke in a way that the other prisoners and the Bosses had never seen before. He sits down on his bunk and sings the debut song “Plastic Jesus” that reflected the humorous reality in life that we all live under falty plastic constructs, an idea that he and his mother shared together.
The next morning, the Warden came out to announce that Luke would have to stay in The Box during the duration of his mother’s funeral because in the past too many men have tried to make an escape to attend funerals and for that reason Luke was to be systematically punished.
After being locked in The Box, Cool Hand Luke turned his humorous wit into trickery and escapism. He was able to escape a few times, but he was always brought back. The first time he was brought back, The Warden was there and made a plea to the other inmates about how well they were all treated, but Cool Hand made another smart remark. “I wish you would stop being so good to me, Captain.” The Captain or The Warden, as I prefer, lost his temper and knocked Luke down the hill.
“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate. Some men, you just can’t reach. So, you get what we had here last week – which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it! I don’tlike it anymore than you men.”
Warden was talking about Cool Hand’s attitude, but the funny thing is that he’s describing himself and the system he’s a part of. The one-way communication of authority. Even if you do everything you’re supposed to, you can still expect to be kicked down and stomped on and locked in a box. A failure of communication.
A Values War At Civil Cost
Values of a school ground bully are obviously self-centered. Values of an activist are probably self-centered if you ask enough questions. Which values are more noble? I guess that’s for one’s soul to decide.
I didn’t write this to specifically defend criminals and inmates, but again, bringing this around to the idea of civil unrest. It pays to keep us down and stay within our political lines. We as people are best monetized when we are angry, and we feel our values are under attack.
Whenever we have a moment of clarity and take a step back from the news cycle, we kind of feel like we’re being played, but we always get sucked back into it when another one of our “values” is on the line. We’re like these inmates doing the best we can but getting systematically stomped on to remind us to stay in line. Stay angry, keep digging, keep watching the news, donate to your favorite clergyman or statesman, and buy political merchandise.
I have a little hope in me that eventually we can come together as a people only because I remember hope and optimism I felt when I was younger listening to the song Civil War.
I’m peddling a few blocks from my family’s house, and the third act of the song starts. Axl Rose’s fingers bounce on the piano, giving the black and white war film in my head some rag time music. This part of the song always spoke to me in a way like, “Things aren’t perfect right now, but we are all still okay.” It comforted me.
Around the six minute and thirty second mark, the lead guitarist Slash rips into a sunny guitar solo that brings a tear to my eye because I would always peddle the hardest to this part. I receive a tremendous amount of peace from this part of the story that plays out in my head.
The black and white civil war film has an overcast of a grey sky, citizens of the same country shooting and stabbing each other, Axl Rose playing the piano, and then Slashes guitar erupts into a bright yellow sunlight that washes over everyone and ends the war. This part spoke to me like, “absolute goodness will win.”
Is that possible? Is it just the unrealistic optimism of a child? Can it be true?
As I hop the curb and glid up the driveway, the final line of the song is spoken. “What’s so civil about war anyway?” I always thought that line was redundant. “After all of that emotion, you’re gonna say something dumb like that?” I thought to myself as I walked my bike in the garage and flipped the kickstand down with my Tony Hawk shoe.
After making parallels with the song and the movie and life, I felt the same redundancy when watching the last scene in Cool Hand Luke.
Cool Hand and Dragline make their final escape and get held up in an empty church. The Warden and Bosses are outside. Dragline wants to go out peacefully and go back to the camp, but Cool Hand Luke can’t bring himself to do it. He finally goes to a window to talk to the authoritors. He says, “What we got here is a failure to communicate.” In a mocking voice.
One of the bosses, with no warning and commands, shoots Luke through the window right in the chest. A frantic Dragline carries Luke outside so they can take him to a hospital, but The Warden tells his Bosses to take him to the prison hospital that an hour away apposed to the regular hospital that’s much closer. It’s safe to assume Cool Hand Luke doesn’t survive the trip.
So what’s the right answer? Do we continue to keep our heads down and get kicked? Do we flee to an empty church and pray to plastic jesus? Or do we wait for the mysterious yellow sun to shine on our grey sky?
I am turning twenty-seven today, and to celebrate, I would like to take a trip to another dimension with everybody to celebrate my birthday at a very notorious and exclusive club. In order to travel there we need a guide.
Here she comes now. She’s walking over. If you didn’t know her, you would just describe her as “a goth chick.” She’s got jet black hair down to her collarbone, short bangs, and shaved eyebrows. She’s wearing dark makeup, a nose ring, and black lifted boots. Her name is Majik, and her name matches her style. She wears a long black skirt that stops at her shins with a mesh top and a bra. She’s Majik Karbaum of the band, The Shaves. A band of sisters that all shaved a part of their head. Majik, for instance, shaved her eyebrows.
For my birthday, we will be taking a trip to Club 27, and Majik will be our guide to this dimension of purgatory. To be exact, it’s Afterlife Dimension 199197EXPL02, Club 27.
“No need to dress up for this club.” She says to our group. “Come As You Are.”
“That’s how we all go.”
“This way.” She says as she leads us outside. We walk across the street to a parking garage and continue on inside the spiraling concrete structure.
The dirty yellow shades of the fluorescent lights start to plague our eyes of the natural sunlight as we go deeper. We’re being guided to the corner of the basement level in the parking garage. “Where exactly is this going to take us?” One of my friends asks Majik. I could tell they were getting a tad worried. “We’re going to an elevator that will take us to our destination.” She answered. My friend made an audible gulp. “An elevator?”
“Weirdest birthday party ever.” One of your friends says. I have a realization. Shit. I’m turning twenty-seven. This is the age my idol Kurt Cobain died and the age my teenage self thought I would die too, and now it’s finally here. Will I be joining the club?
The phenomenon of the 27 Club is something that was noticed over time. Celebrities, mostly musicians, becoming famous at a young age and then dying at twenty-seven, usually due to drug overdoses, some sort of irresponsible action, or suicide. They feel burnt out and jaded just after a short while. Due to the amount of praise and pressure they get from their fans, they turn to drugs or alcohol that lead them to overdose or commit suicide but, really, whats the difference?
“No worries, Henchman.” She must have been reading my mind. “You will not be joining this club. You are not famous.” This led to smiles and chuckles. My nervous friend grabbed me by the shoulders, shook me, and laughed in my ear.
Majik stopped in front of a wall, we all stood behind her, and like Gandolf and the Mines of Moria, she was summoning some sort of door.
The group heard a “ping” noise, and a nearby spray painted arrow pointing down started to illuminate and slowly flash. The concrete wall we stood in front of slid open, revealing a small room that was the elevator. The interior wall was dark wood paneling, and the floor was red carpet with stains across it, especially in the corners. Majik stepped inside. The carpet made wet sloshes. “Come in.” She said. Our group slowly shuffled into the elevator, multiplying the sloshing.
The single light above us was humming and had an old brown plastic shade over it occupied with dirty water and dead bugs.
Majik operated the elevator. She stood in front of the button panel to the right. It was the setup that you don’t see too much anymore. The round pearly buttons with silver trim that illuminated a soft yellow when pressed. She pressed the button that said “27” and then the one that symbolized “close door.”
The elevator door slid back shut, and we felt that little initial drop that made everyone flinch until it moved at a steady slow pace downward. “So… are you a part of the twenty-seven club?” My nervous friend asks. “No, I died when I was twenty-six.” She answered.
“I was elected by a higher power to do this job. To escort people to this dimension.”
“How did it happen?” One of your friends asked. “I overdosed after my younger sister died of cancer.” The small space filled with “Oh, I’m so sorry.” And “Sorry for your loss.”
“It’s okay. It happened a long time ago.” She said as she lit a cigarette.
Part Two: Copycats
The light above us flickered as the elevator came to a stop. “Almost there.” She said. The elevator door slid open to another parking garage, but this time, it was almost pitch black. The moonlight coming in from the level above only gave us the slightest amount of light to see old beat-up cars in the parking spaces. They all looked like they belonged in a junk yard.
Majik led the way with the ember of her cigarette and her old metal butane cigarette lighter. The seven of us followed closely behind her.
We made it up to the ground level and walk towards the exit. We begin to hear loud bustling music coming from inside somewhere. Smooth bass, piercing guitar, and what sounded like moaning vocals.
There stands a magnificent building with a giant purple neon sign that reads, you guessed it, “Club 27” Sky lights on top of the building move and rotate, producing a dazzling light show in the sky.
The air smells of marijuana due to the club but also of tar and sewer due to the city. I looked away from the club for a minute to observe the rest of my surroundings. The city was pitch black. There are tall buildings but no lights, no cars and no people.
“Oh, shit, look at the line.” One of my friends said as they hit my arm. I looked back at the club and noticed the line of people wrapped around the building. “Oh, there’s the people.” I thought to myself.
“Don’t worry, we can skip the line.” Majik said. As we walk by the line of people, we start to realize that these aren’t just regular people. Even though they’re in the afterlife, their bodies were still postmortem.
There’s a couple of guys shoving each other around jokingly with a shot gun blast through their flannel shirts, a large chick that was soaking wet with pale bloated skin and bloody cuts on her arms, and a guy with bulging eyes and a belt pulled tight around his neck.
One of the shot gun blast guys accidently shoved his arm through the other guys chest, knocking them into the tall naked chick who was then pushed into the belt guy, sqeezing him into a wall causing his eyes to pop out all the way.
We all start to freak out. “What the hell is this!?” My nervous friend shouts to Majik. She spun around to face us now as we continue to walk parallel with the line of dead folks. “These are all the copycats that thought they could get in the club by killing themselves at the behest of their age or their favorite artist dying, thinking that they could join the club and share some sort or legacy with their idols.”
“But, they will never get in.”
We get to the front of the line, and sure enough, the bouncer unhooks the velvet rope for us, and we push through the golden doors.
When entering, we’re greeted with a clearer sound of the music, flashing lights, and a sort of “purple haze” that filled the club. Amy Winehouse and Jimi Hendrix are on stage now with a mashup “Rehab” and “All Along the Watchtower.”
Of course, Amy was singing, Jimi was on the guitar, Pete de Freitas of Echo and the Bunnymen was beating the drums, and Dave Alexander of The Stooges played the bass guitar.
Moving my eyes off the stage, I realized this place was more packed than I expected. Every member here was still in their 27 year old body. Joseph Merrik or “The Elephant Man” as he was known in the late 1800s at freak shows and Janice Joplin were dancing with a bottle of booze between them.
Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson, singer of the band Canned Heat who sang songs like, “Going Up the Country” and “On the Road Again” was standing on a cocktail table barefoot stuggling to keep his balance while smoking a joint. Sitting at a table nearby laughing at Blind Owl were rappers Fat Pat, Freaky Tah, and Stretch.
Jesse Belvin of The Penguins and Rudy Lewis of The Drifters leaned back on a piano, listening to Jimi Hendrix tear a solo into his guitar. Jesse Belvin sang “Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine),” and Rudy Lewis sang “This Magic Moment.”
Our group started to splinter off. Some of our friends were getting distracted with all the commotion and fun happening all around. After following Majik for a few minutes, it’s just you and I left following her.
“He’s over here. This way.” Majik said over her shoulder. We were next to the rounded stage at this point, heading to a darker corner of the room. “Henchman.” I looked back towards where Majik was leading us. “Here’s somebody I think you’re going to want to meet.”
Part Three: Seattle Club
There, sitting in the middle of the corner booth, was Kurt Cobain. He sat between Mia Zapata to his right and Kristen Pfaff to his left. Mia was the singer of Seattle rock band The Gits, and Kristen was Courtney Love’s Bassist in the band Hole for a short period of time.
Kurt’s wearing those iconic white framed sunglasses staring right through us, leaning forward on the table smoking a cigarette. “May we sit?” Majik inquired. Kurt motioned with the two fingers that he held the cigarette, and that was enough for us to all slide into the big corner booth. You and Majik sat next to Kristen, and I sat next to Mia.
Mia and her band The Gits were originally from Ohio but moved to Seattle during the Seattle sound era, but before the grunge takeover. They did well in Seattle, but you can only book so many gigs in a city that also homed Soundgarden, The Melvins, Alice In Chains, Mudhoney, and a hundred other bands. So, they usually played at bars. But, on one fateful night in 1993, during the period of the grunge takeover, Mia made the unwise decision to walk home alone after leaving the bar.
She never made it home. Her body was found beaten, raped and strangled in an alleyway. Her murder case went cold for ten years before justice was found. DNA technology had gotten better over time, and in 2003, Jesus Mezquia was arrested for the murder of Mia Zapata with a DNA match.
“Don’t worry, Jesus is in Hell.” Majik said as Mia was telling her story. Her comment harvested some laughs. Jesus Mezquia died in prison in 2021.
Kristen was another outsider of Seattle. If you asked her how she ended up there, she might say that she was dragged to Seattle unwillingly. She attended the University of Minnesota and majored in women’s studies, and did a lot to help victims of abuse.
In 1991, following graduation, her music carrier began. She learned how to play bass guitar and joined the band Janitor Joe. Much like Seattle, Minneapolis had a growing music scene as well – The Twin-Cities music scene. That garnered music labels, producers, and “scouts” in the area looking for talent. This brings us to “scout” Courtney Love, offering Kristin a job back in Seattle as the new bass player in the band, Hole.
Kristen at first said, “No.” She didn’t want to leave home, and she didn’t want to leave her band, Janitor Joe. But, she received some ill advice from friends and family.
“Bite the bigger fish.” If that’s how it’s said. Pick the bigger and more successful band. Move to Seattle and become a part of THAT scene.
She eventually took that advice and moved to Seattle and became the new bassist for Courtney Love’s Hole. Something that is always repeated by Courtney Love in recent interviews and podcasts is how “every single person in Seattle was doing heroine, man!” Which may have been true but was certainly projected by her back in the day.
By the time 1994 came around, Kristen not only started doing heroin but was so badly addicted that she sought out help through rehab, moved back home, and played with her old band. But, when the time came to go back and clean out her old apartment in Seattle, she was no match to the addiction and to the Seattle scene. Her friend Kurt died two months ago, and maybe she would never fit back into the Twin-City music scene, but she still had a place right here in Seattle. She remembered where she kept a stash. Every junky has some “local H.” She went and got it out of the vent, heated it up, expunged it, and injected it. She died in her old apartment, adding to the massive list of casualties of Seattle rockers, the toxicity of the city, and her name to the eternal list of the 27 Club.
The club lights dimmed down. The music set had switched out. Jimi Hendrix and Amy Winehouse left. De Freitas and Alexander stayed on to play drums and bass for the next set. Ron “Pigpen” McKernen of The Grateful Dead came out to the keyboard, Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones came out with a guitar strapped on, and finally Jim Morrison of The Doors walked out hyping the crowd as this set’s singer. They started with “Light My Fire.” Jim Morrison’s girlfriend, Pamela Courson, was dancing just below the stage, ramping him up with her slow sensual movements as the music played.
Back to our table. It was time to talk to Kurt Cobain, the so far, silent partner in all this. I’m almost positive that everyone reading this knows the singer of Nirvana and his story.
He just sat there leaning over still with his cigarette and his sunglasses unbothered and completely bored of our presence. I didn’t want to say anything too weird to him. I didn’t want to come off as annoying or bothersome, so I thought maybe I’d just vibe with him. We all listen to Jim Morrison sing from our corner booth, but something eventually made me speak. Maybe it was the fact that I traveled all the way down to purgatory on my birthday to see this man, and this was a once in a life time opportunity.
“Hi.” I stuck my hand over the table for a shaking. “My name is Braindead Henchman. You can just call me Henchman if you want.” I said. Ugh, that was so cringe. Kurt Cobain uncomfortably switched his cigarette to another set of fingers and reached over a shook my hand. It was the coldest hand I ever felt. “Who’s your boss then? If you’re a henchman.” He asked. Only because he probably felt cornered by my weird gesture. “I’d say Society. I’m just a product of my environment. I do the rich and the powerful’s dirty work. No different from anyone else.”
“I guess that’s poetic.” He responded probably out of pity and as to not leave me hanging. I’ve got Kurt Cobain right here, and I could ask him anything! I tried thinking of something to ask, but I couldn’t! It’s like going to the doctor, and then the doctor asks you if you have any questions and you can’t think of any, and then you go home and remember a ton of questions you had!
“How did you die?” I asked, being the only thing I could think of. Oh, that’s so fucking rude, I thought to myself right after I said it. Everyone at the table has a shocked look on their face. The “I can’t believe you just said that” face.
Kurt, with a smile, put a finger gun up to his head and went, “Pew.” Then dramatically threw his arms up, then back down and laid his head on the table with his hair covering his face. “Like that.” He said. He picked his head back up and lit another cigarette.
I decided to lean into it. “Did you die like Kristen? Or did you die like Mia?” (Did you kill yourself, or did someone else kill you?)
“That’s the big question, isn’t it?” He irriatedly asked. “I take comfort in knowing that I’m more famous from my death than my shitty music.”
Shitty music? “What the fuck does it even matter?” He continued. “I’m fucking depressed, I’m doing drugs and I’m a rocker. It was bound to happen.”
I didn’t know how to respond. “Even if I told you what happened, some parts of you would be disappointed.” he said.
I now try to rebound from that question. “Do you have any advice on how to become a successful artist?”
“Sure. Create something halfway decent and then kill yourself.” He said to me. I was stunned.
Something was happening. The music stopped, and the club went quiet. Kurt repeated himself. “Kill yourself.” Except this time, de Freitas hit the snare drum on beat with Kurt’s message to me. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This guy is my hero. “Kill yourself.” He said along with the drum beat. “Kill yourself.“
“Kill yourself.”
“Kill yourself.“
I got up from the table. I couldn’t take it anymore. I was too embarrassed. I blew it. Maybe he has every right to be mad at me, I asked him horrible questions. I walked out next to the stage, and I realized everyone in the building was looking at me. Even Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, and everyone else on stage. De Freitas was still hitting the snare. Pamela Courson came around the front of the stage with a serious look on her face and took me by the hand. We walked up the steps to the stage. I could see gas-powered fire lamps now lit the club, giving it a much darker feel. As Pamela walked me to the front of the stage, I noticed a noose coming down from the ceiling hanging just in front of the stage. De Freitas’ slow beat had turned into a drum roll.
Part Four: The Gallows
Pamela Courson took Jim’s mic stand and used it to hook the noose and reel it in. She put it around my head and kissed me on the cheek. “Kill yourself.” She whispered and then backed away, leaving me to face the dead eyes in front of me expecting a show. Do I jump?
Everything I’ve done in my life… is it worth living with? Everything I will do… is it worth playing out? I take a step closer to the edge of the stage and look down at the big light bulbs that line it. The band starts playing “Break on Through (To the Other Side). What a song to go out to. I started to lean forward. If Kurt Cobain says so…
“STOP!“
I looked out to the crowd, and my friends started to re-emerge. “STOP! Don’t do it! Get down!” They all started to yell. I could see the ripple in the crowd as my friends started to push their way to the front.
I remembered that I had my friends with me and they were all here for me on my birthday. I took a step back to look at everyone. I realized that I am loved by the people in my life that truly matter. During this moment, I noticed that golden entrance was being pounded on from the outside. What’s happening?
Then someone shoved me full force off the stage while I still had the noose around my neck. My arms and legs went flailing as I swung back towards the stage. My feet still couldn’t reach a surface. I swung back out, officially giving up. As my lights started to go out, I saw the doors bust open. The line of Copycats waiting outside finally forced their way in. The tall naked chick with cuts on her arms threw the body guard through the door, and hoards of postmortem suicide folk came pouring in.
Just before chaos ensued, my nervous friend grabbed my dangling legs and pushed them up to release some pressure off my throat. “Help me get him down, guys!” My friends gathered around me, lifting me up, trying to push my head back out of the noose.
I’m finally freed, and I fall onto a pile of my friends. The band continues to play as the angry mob intermingles with the members of the 27 Club. Some of the copycats push a lamp over on some furniture, starting a fire in the middle of the dance floor.
Jim Morrison convulses into the microphone, adding to the chaos. The Copycats keep adding to the fire, turning it into a giant funeral pyre.
We all stand up in front of the stage facing the fire, and things take a turn for the worse. I see the Copycats start throwing their “idols” into the fire. Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix were the first ones to be thrown in. “Oh shit! We gotta get out of here! Where’s Majik?” One of my friends asked. “She’s back at a corner booth around the stage!” I answer. The seven of us all hustle around the stage.
Kurt Cobain was being dragged by his arms by the two friends with the shot gun blasts through their chests. As Kurt passes us, he says “Nevermind” to me. The two guys hoist him into the flames.
Damn.
The Copycats rushed the stage and started to grab ahold of Jim Morrison and company. We ran back to Majik, who was the only one left sitting in the corner booth. “Ready to go so soon?” She asked jokingly. “Duhh!” I say. “We’ll have to go out the back.” She says as she puts out her cigarette. The front was too chaotic and dangerous to try and make an escape.
Majik slid out of the booth and led us through the swinging kitchen doors that are next to the booth. The fire was spreading, and we had to escape the black smoke quickly. “How do we get out of here?” One of your friends asked. “I don’t know, I’ve never had to do this before!” Majik yelled over the sound of the fire alarm.
The Copycat with the belt tightened around his neck was in front of a hotplate cooking an egg. He was smoking a cigarette and was wearing Kurt Cobain’s sunglasses in order to keep his eyes in place since they were squeezed out earlier. You could see them since they were directly pressed up against the lenses. He points to a hallway behind him, and we all run towards it. “Thanks!” You yell. He waves as he looks down at his burnt egg.
We finally come to the dark hallway, and at the end of it is a red exit sign. Assuming a door to the outside is underneath, we all sprint towards it, desperately needing fresh air.
Part Five: The Fiddle Player
We emerge outside, falling to the ground, coughing our lungs out from all the black smoke.
“Rough night?” A voice said in a southern accent. I looked up. Leaning against the brick wall of the burning building was a man wearing a cowboy hat and holding a fiddle. “Who are you? Another Copycat?” I asked. “Nope. I’m a club member.” He answered. “I died in a plane crash.” He went on. “My name is Chris Austin, and I was Country Singer, Reba McEntire’s fiddle player.”
I stand up and dust myself off. “Just so this trip isn’t a complete disappointment, could you tell me what it takes to be a successful artist?” I ask desperately.
“Well.” He pondered for a second. “I was never a popular artist on my own, but my boss Reba would always say…”
“To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone, and a funny bone.”
“That simple.” He said. “It seems to me, every single person inside that building right there lost all three of them bones at some point, and that’s why they’re here now.” He continued.
“I never became as famous as any of those folks in there, and I never did no hard drugs either. I was perfectly content with my life, and I had a pretty happy life, too, up until the plane crashed at least.” He concluded.
“We have to get out of here.” Majik said as she stood up.
“I’ll just say this…” Chris went on again. “I understand that you’re scared to move beyond someone you idolized when you were younger. And, I understand that you might be feeling down about growing older, but just like Reba said…”
“Singing sad songs often has a way of healing a situation. It gets the hurt out in the open into the light, out of the darkness.”
Chris could tell we were itching to get out of there. “Well. Y’all have a nice night then.” He said. “Thanks, Chris.” I waved.
The big naked chick busts out of the back door, now with burning flesh wounds across her body, wraps her arms around Chris, and drags him into the building. “So looooooooooong-” he yells.
The eight of us run around the building and back into the dark parking garage, find the wall, Majik summons the elevator, and we eagerly pile in. The elevator was playing some soft elevator music this time, or at least I noticed it this time. I could tell everyone was feeling relief but wouldn’t feel true relief until we were back in our dimension’s parking garage.
The elevator slowed to a stop. “Ping.” The door slid open, and we all rushed out of it. Majik, however, did not. “I’m afraid this is where our journey together ends.” She announced. “I hope you all were able to learn something from this experience. “Thanks, Majik.” We stagger un-harmoniously. “Wait! Can I have your number?!” My nervous friend shouts. As the elevator door shuts, she gives us all two middle fingers.
We all laughed and celebrated with each other the rest of the night. Age is just a stupid number.
The End.
~ July 14th, 2023 ~ I will be the exact age of Kurt Cobain.
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If there was a self-help book that was guaranteed to help you guide your life to success, I bet it would sell like crazy. If it was truly a miracle book, then I’m sure it would be expensive too. But what if I told you that you could get the same results by just going to the dollar store and buying a cheap pack of playing cards?
Take a seat, shuffle the cards, and play solitare. Organize the cards by suit according to the rules, and organize your life one card-flip at a time. Each suit is a symbol for an element in life that can lead you to success. The suit of “Hearts” is your passion for whatever you’re doing. “Spades” is the amount of hard work you put into whatever you’re doing (like a spade shovel). “Diamonds” is how much you financially put into whatever you’re doing, and “Clubs” is something you have no control of. It’s the element of luck (because it looks like a clover).
It’s up to you how you prioritize these elements and how far you let each lead you to your goals. I would suspect that passion and hard work get you the farthest, but the harsh truth is, sometimes, finance and luck play huge factors in people’s success stories as well.
The story I’m about to unfold took place between the 1930’s and the 1970’s. The span of the life of a man who looked for success in the worst way possible.
Early 1930s:The FortuneTeller’s Tale
This leads me to an empty fortune teller’s tent, “Lady Wiggin Knows Your Destiny,” the sign read hanging over the entrance. Her son, Austin, played with some knickknacks right next to her on the dirt floor as she sat at her customer-less table pondering what she wanted for her life.
She grabbed her young son, sat him on the table, read his palms, and made predictions about his future. This. Changed. Everything.
Late 1940s: A Strawberry-Blonde Woman
The fortune teller’s son Austin had grown into a young man. He worked as a hand at a textile mill and didn’t make much money. The other guys at the job couldn’t relate to him and coined him as “humorless.” He was always serious and never really smiled unless it was for a picture.
I’m sure Austin’s life was more like a mission for him. His mother, an older but wise woman now, told him long ago, three things in his life that will come true. The first fortune she told her son was that he would marry a strawberry blonde haired woman. I imagine that Austin went around, only talking to strawberry blonde haired women, and married the first one that reciprocated. The woman he would end up marrying was Annie, and she was indeed a strawberry blonde woman. Austin’s mother’s first fortune came true.
1950s: Death Before Two Sons
Austin and Annie would come to parent a total of seven children. Austin’s mother would not live long enough to see her grandchildren. The second prediction that she made for her son is that she would die before two of his sons were born.
Just as Austin probably waited around for a strawberry blonde woman, who knows what actually happened to his mother. Did he wait for her to die? Everyone knows you can’t postpone a pregnancy once it’s already happened. Austin had to beat the clock if he wanted the rest of the prophecy to come true. He didn’t have much money and was a hard worker. He was depending on the riches that would come to financially support him when he was old if his mother’s predictions all came to fruition.
One day, Austin was refilling a rat trap with poison on the kitchen counter. While he was sprinkling it onto the moldy cheese that was in the cage, he noticed a glimmer in his peripheral vision. He looked over and saw his mother’s morning tea cooling on the counter next to where he was. The liquid was swaying back and forth in the mug as if something had fallen into it. “Hopefully, the rat poison didn’t fall in Mother’s tea!” He thought to himself. He went over and inspected the mug.
As he watched the small waves sway back and forth, he thought, “Maybe this is it. Maybe this is how it’s supposed to happen.” He stirred the tea and told himself that nothing was floating around in there. He brought the tea out to his mother. She was wheel chair bound now sitting on the porch with Annie. She was reading a book, and Austin’s mother just looked out into a nearby field as she accepted the mug of tea from her son.
Ultimately, whatever happened in that mug that day didn’t kill her, but Austin made a habit of refilling the rat trap at the same time as he prepared his mother’s tea. He added a little bit of “elbow” when tearing open the next bag of rat poison. It sprayed out. He was getting messier and messier with the rat poison, hoping some would “accidentally” spill into the tea “unnoticed” and put his mother to rest before any sons of his were born to keep the prophecy on track.
The farm cats started to die off. Bloody hairballs and bloody footprints started to plague the countryside home. Annie was out on the hill, burying another one of her cats that she found dead this morning. Austin handed his mother another mug of hot tea.
Austin’s mother sat in her wheelchair, watching pregnant Annie digging graves for her cats up on the hill. “What has come of this world?” She asked herself out loud. Austin stood next to her with her mug of tea. “Precious life wasted…” Austin tried handing his mother her her tea again. She didn’t take it. She continued to watch Annie.
“Austin! I think she’s going into labor!” Mother said to son as she pointed at the hill. Annie had fallen to her knees and was holding her stomach in pain. Austin then saw this and was getting anxious. The clock was ticking. His knee rested on the back of the wheel chair as it neared the porch steps. He leaned more and more. Closed his eyes and kept on leaning.
Mother grabbed Austin’s leg. “You don’t think I can’t taste the poison you’ve been feeding me, boy?” She growled. “Get off me, now!” She yelled. Austin took a couple shocked steps backward, spilling a little bit of tea. “When my grandchildren come of age, have them call for me.” She said in a harsh voice. She let out a rugged shriek as her hands shot forward, propelling her wheelchair wheels to move forward. She toppled down the stairs, her head violently bobbing back and forth, hitting her shoulders until she reached the gravel surface. Her wheel chair spun around, tipped over backward and smacking her head on the ground. She was gone instantly. Austin dropped the mug of tea and tended to his wife. The second prophecy came true.
1960s: Daughters in a PopularBand
The final and most important prediction Austin’s mother made was that he would have daughters in a very famous band. With the first two predictions set in stone, this only meant that the third one had to come true as well. With everything Austin had been through and everything he sacrificed, his daughters would be in a famous band whether they liked it or not. He was going to make sure of it.
Austin and Annie ended up having four daughters and three sons. Austin probably encouraged Annie to keep having children until they had enough daughters to form a band. The man still didn’t make very good money, and the nine person family lived on a small budget, but it would all pay off someday, Austin thought.
He booked gigs for his daughters at Town Hall to play music when they grew old enough. His oldest daughter Helen helmed the drumset. Dot, the middle child, dawned the microphone and played lead guitar. Betty, the youngest of the three, harkened to her sister and played backup guitar and vocals.
Austin achieved this by pulling them out of school to be educated from home. He bought them instruments, enrolled them in vocal and music lessons, and made them do calisthenics to keep them in shape. This schedule kept them from having any friends or social lives. Their whole existence was centered around the fortune of their late grandmother, enforced by their father.
The girls played songs that they wrote themselves. They sang about their lost cat, being confused, their loyalty to their parents, Halloween, and Jesus. These topics are all explored and their 1969 album “Philosophy of the World”.
The funny part is, is that the first track of the album “Philosophy of the World” titled “Philosophy of the World” is about being content with what you have because you can never truly be happy with what you “think” you want. Poor people want what rich people have (money). But also, rich people want what poor people have (a simple life/time). Skinny people want what fat people have (food). Fat people want what skinny people have (a thin form). And so on and so forth. It sounds like they wrote this song for their father, who always drempt of riches, but Austin was too busy looking at the dollar signs in his eyes to take a lesson from his own daughters.
The crowds would heckle them, laugh at them, and throw trash at them. They didn’t actually have any talent as musicians. It was like a puppet show. These girls were merely just doing what they were told and nothing more. They had no passion for making music.
They were… THE SHAGGS. Austin named them after the popular haircut at the time, hoping that they would become popular too.
To most, their music just sounds horrible but, to some, once you know the history of abuse and brainwashing, you can’t help but to feel bad for these girls and root for them as the album plays. You just hear the pain that they will come to realize in the future when they break free from their father and reclaim their lives. And in that way, the music has beauty to it.
1969: What Should I Do?
The night before the girls went on to record their record, The Wiggin family of nine held a seance for Austin’s dead mother to communicate with her beyond the grave just as she instructed right before she threw herself down the porch steps that killed her. They sat in a circle in the living room and joined hands and chanted, “Mother Wiggin, we need you. Answer our prayers and tell us what to do.” Over and over again. Austin wanted to see if his mother had any final messages for him before he blew the last of his life savings on the studio time to record the album.
As the family was chanting, Austin opened his eyes in hopes of seeing a spirit, a flash of light or anything around the room move. They chanted on for so long that the girls started acting silly by rocking back and forth and started singing the chant. Austin’s eyes moved back and forth, looking for any sign that his mother was communicating with him.
A pack of playing cards fell from the shelf behind the girls. He couldn’t tell if one of his girls bumped something to make it fall or if his mother knocked it down for him to see. He launched to the middle of the circle where the playing cards lay and opened them up.
The pack only included a Queen of Spades, Queen of Diamonds, a Queen of Clubs, and the rest were twos. All of the other cards were gone. Little did Austin know that Annie used those missing playing cards as grave markers for her cats all those years ago. “Daddy, look!” one of the girls shouted and pointed at the fireplace. The Queen of Hearts laid on one of the wood planks. Before Austin could grab it, it went up in flames and was gone.
♡ ♤ ◇ ♧
Three Shaggs and Three Queens. Spades, Diamonds, and Clubs. But no Hearts and no passion.
It’s obvious that Austin didn’t play his cards correctly. His mother predicted a happy life for him. A wife, sons, and daughters. He squandered that happy life in pursuit of riches and fame. He found a woman to marry and treated her like livestock to produce rockstars. Once the rockstars were produced, he became the manager, and his family was his business.
The next day, The Shaggs recorded “Philosophy of The World.” Only 100 records were recovered out of the 1,000 that Austin ordered. The other 900 were said to be destroyed by the record company. The third prediction did come true. Except Austin forced his daughters to be in a famously BAD band. Austin kept the band together until he died in 1975 from a heart attack, and The Shaggs immediately disbanded.
Austin should’ve lived his life the way it would’ve happened naturally. Sometimes things happen the way you wouldn’t expect, and you can’t always force things to happen that you think should. Maybe all of the predictions would’ve happened if he just let things naturally play out. Maybe those predictions could have been interpreted differently, or maybe Austin’s mother had no idea what she was talking about and sent him on a wild goose chase.
I believe passion is the key to success. Hard work, money and luck won’t change your life if you aren’t consistently doing what you love.
The End.
TIP: Listen to The Shaggs by yourself. It’s too embarrassing to listen to around others.
***DISCLAIMER*** THIS IS A FICTIONAL STORY LIGHTLY BASED ON TRUE FACTS. THIS WRITING IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY.***
braindeadhenchman 