Monday, April 05, 2004
Spanish, Schmanish
The day Kurt Cobain died I found out I wasn't, in fact, failing Spanish (the class; the language was a different story). I had really, really slacked off on irregular preterite verbs, so my C elation, plus the scurrying to make my lacrosse game (that's right, lacrosse), didn't give the news time to settle. Then, about the middle of second quarter, bored because we were customarily down by a zillion, it hit me that there'd be no more Nirvana records. Ever. It hit me hard.
When I got home, I lied on the couch and watched the loop of MTV coverage until I went to bed. After an hour, my mom asked me if What's His Name dying made me sad. I placated her with a "no", like I always did then whenever she'd (unintentionally) fumble at communicating. She went back to making dinner, and I went back to soaking up the interviews, concert footage, and Kurt Loder. I realized just how huge a tragedy it was. The music, sure. But the baffled family and friends were what broke my heart most (except for Courtney -- she's always seemed 12 kinds of Self-Obsessed Crazy to me).
I never bought into the Kurt-as-spokesman-of-a-generation shit, but Nirvana was almost entirely responsible for my discovery of alternative, punk, and indie rock. I didn't have some kind of profound epiphany that day. I just felt really lame for caring so much about my stupid Spanish grade. More than anything, though, I remember feeling very... adult. Having lived a sheltered, relatively stress-free suburban life, I think his death marked the first time I understood loss.
I can't believe it's been ten years. Anyway, really the point of all this is to show how much I love that band and how great and relevant the music still is. That's all.
The day Kurt Cobain died I found out I wasn't, in fact, failing Spanish (the class; the language was a different story). I had really, really slacked off on irregular preterite verbs, so my C elation, plus the scurrying to make my lacrosse game (that's right, lacrosse), didn't give the news time to settle. Then, about the middle of second quarter, bored because we were customarily down by a zillion, it hit me that there'd be no more Nirvana records. Ever. It hit me hard.
When I got home, I lied on the couch and watched the loop of MTV coverage until I went to bed. After an hour, my mom asked me if What's His Name dying made me sad. I placated her with a "no", like I always did then whenever she'd (unintentionally) fumble at communicating. She went back to making dinner, and I went back to soaking up the interviews, concert footage, and Kurt Loder. I realized just how huge a tragedy it was. The music, sure. But the baffled family and friends were what broke my heart most (except for Courtney -- she's always seemed 12 kinds of Self-Obsessed Crazy to me).
I never bought into the Kurt-as-spokesman-of-a-generation shit, but Nirvana was almost entirely responsible for my discovery of alternative, punk, and indie rock. I didn't have some kind of profound epiphany that day. I just felt really lame for caring so much about my stupid Spanish grade. More than anything, though, I remember feeling very... adult. Having lived a sheltered, relatively stress-free suburban life, I think his death marked the first time I understood loss.
I can't believe it's been ten years. Anyway, really the point of all this is to show how much I love that band and how great and relevant the music still is. That's all.
