Sue Eastgard, Executive Director of Seattle's Crisis Clinic, which deals on a daily basis with suicide, was not familiar with the murder allegations when I spoke with her, but she was not surprised by them either. "Absolutely that is part of the denial that surrounds suicide," she says. "We can rationalize a murder in our mind better than a suicide. It's a way that we make sense of senseless acts."
Eastgard points out that though the legendary status of Seattle as the suicide capital of the country is simply not true, suicide is the eighth leading cause of death in the U.S. (and that doesn't count gray-area cases such as auto and household accidents or drug-related deaths), and that a suicide occurs every 17 minutes. "But you don't see telethons for suicide," she says, adding that feelings of shame and humiliation among survivors can create an atmosphere of poisonous silence. "Anniversaries of deaths often stimulate feelings of grief all over again. My hope is that if people are feeling despondent or suicidal that they talk to someone and do something about it."
While it would hardly be fair to call the silence of those who knew Cobain poisonous, they are certainly silent. It makes sense, given the trauma of his death, the trampling of Seattle by the media last April and the unbelievable insensitivity displayed at every turn. All of those close to him--his mother, his father, his sister, his former bandmates, the principals of his former record labels--have ignored all requests to speak about Kurt's death and have largely kept their own counsel in the past year.
With one notable exception: Courtney Love. Love still won't talk to anyone about that tragic first week in April but she has otherwise put herself very much in the public eye. What's to be made of a woman whose bold confidence in her own destiny had her requiring Cobain to sign a prenuptial agreement at the time of their marriage--just as Nevermind was inexorably rolling past the three million mark in sales and with "Smells Like Teen Spirit" still sitting in the top 40? A woman whose sheer power of will refused to allow a great album to be torpedoed by the inconvenience of her husband's suicide or her bass player's death from a drug overdose? (In numerous phone calls to me and other journalists, Love talked about her disappointment that her album had been overshadowed by the tragic circumstances of her life). A woman who seemed to be everywhere at all times--on TV, in magazines and newspapers, and at the other end of the telephone line when you least expected it?
Clearly there are people--in Seattle and elsewhere--who hate her. Richard Lee becomes positively vile on the subject of Courtney Love, as do miscellaneous New York editors and hundreds of contributors to computer news group sites. The most recent up-the-ante entry into this sweepstakes has to be Mudhoney, whose "Into Yer Shtik" on their new album is one of the best things they've done, but you have to admit it's a little hard. The song includes the lyric, "Why don't you blow your brains out too?" After Love called to complain about the song, Mark Arm recently told Melody Maker "If someone is going to be offended by that and take it personally, then they probably deserve it."
But Courtney Love remains resilient above all else, almost seeming to feed off of this kind of treatment, and, for better or worse, she doesn't seem to be going away. In fact she's even agreed to do yet another interview with Vanity Fair in the coming months. All evidence indicates that she wants to be the new Madonna (and already Madonna is aping her) but in fact it's more like she's the new Cher. How far apart, really, is the estimable "Doll Parts" from the estimable "Half Breed"? And how different are Courtney's squealing fans of today from the '70s teenyboppers who rushed out to buy "Gypsys, Tramps, & Thieves"? When Courtney finally makes her move back to the movies, my guess is that she'll surprise us. She'll be really, really good, just like Cher. And we'll really, really like her.
She might even be the first to admit it. Already, in December's Rolling Stone, she's found a place for herself and Kurt in the rock 'n' roll pantheon that includes John & Yoko and Sid & Nancy. But maybe she forgot to mention Sonny & Cher. So much of what she's done in the past year--the rumors of liaisons with Evan Dando, Trent Reznor, even Danzig, the hysteria on airplanes, the continuing public deification of Cobain in her numerous interviews--has sadly served only to divert attention from Kurt's legacy. It was exactly that hysteria of the media spotlight and his ongoing idolatry that drove Cobain to his final act. Who among us can claim--including Courtney Love or anyone reading this story, let alone writing it--that we weren't (and aren't) part of that process and that problem?
Will Kurt Cobain still be famous in five years? Or will we think of him merely as "Kurt Who?, the slacker, Generation X, twenty-something whiner who offed himself for no good reason," as the Erik Lacitises of the world would want to portray him. I don't know, but I think I'm about ready to join the parade of people who want to put it behind us. He's dead now, he's been dead for a year, and he will be dead in five years' time. Those are facts. Nothing we can say or do will change that. And still the yammering goes on and on.
Kurt Cobain is most frequently thought of as the captain of the commercial triumph of punk-rock, which in many ways Nirvana was (though obviously it was never anticipated nor particularly welcomed by him), but the most fascinating, enduring and wonderful aspect of Cobain's work was that he instinctively sought a place for himself in history. And, I believe, he found one, an impressive one. The work will stand, I would bet my last dollar on that.
Part of the continuing fascination with Cobain's death has to be that there is practically nothing to compare it to. Other rock stars have killed themselves--most notably, Joy Division's Ian Curtis, the Band's Richard Manuel, and Johnny Ace--but none were in the prime of their career, except Johnny Ace, who was not exactly a suicide nor an artist of Cobain's stature. And the deaths of other rock stars have touched deep emotional chords--John Lennon, Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, even Sid Vicious--but none were so obviously self-motivated. Hemingway was 20 years past his prime when he chose his own endgame.