This site is dedicated to relaying Bradley Barnett's account of Kurt Cobain's final days. He has been involved in the case since.... He will be posting his opinion of recent developments on this website from now on. The truth is closer than you think.
This article "Fixing A Hole" is reprinted from David Perle's website:www.mindspring.com/~dperle/nirvana
Note from David Perle:
This is the full text of Bradley Barnett's recollections from his alleged meeting with Kurt Cobain, days before Cobain's death. Bradley's story is partially told in the book "Who Killed Kurt Cobain?" He later contacted me about getting his full text online for all to see, and I volunteered to put it up for him if he'd like.
I do not know if any of these events took place; I have not made up my mind either online or offline. I am not putting this here to suggest that these events took place, though I am not denying that they did. This is here for all to be informed about what is out there being said. I leave it to the reader to make up his or mind, or to at least be informed.
For the record, Barnett does not believe that Kurt Cobain was murdered.
This page has been accessed times since April 8, 1999.
Fixing a Hole - Interview With Kurt Cobain
There are defining moments in an individual's life and also defining moments in a nation's history. These events affect the collective conscience of a nation. They tear at the fabric of our existence. They unwittingly assist in the inexorable dissolution of society, or, "In poison there is physic; and these news, having been well, that would have made me sick, being sick, have in some measure made me well."
These momentous events occasionally crystallize a nation's conscience and a nation's character, or they stand isolated. And after the initial trauma has abated, they become merely a minor footnote of historical fact. These events have no significance beyond themselves. They stand alone and finally vanish, like the wailing voice of the lost, forgotten child.
This interview represents the voice of that lost, forgotten child. And many years from now when we are all gone, his message may well be forgotten and abandoned in our personal and national conscience. Shakespeare said, "Out! Out brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon stage, and then is heard no more: It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." The message is as old as the scriptures, the question begs for an answer for all time.
This interview took place on Easter Monday, April 4, 1994, and it is dedicated to the genius of a man who took his own life. It is dedicated to the unrealized promise of the artist and his time. It is incumbent for those of us still living to dedicate ourselves to his unfinished work. Camus once wrote, "Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured, but we can reduce the number of tortured children. And if you don't help us, who else in the world can help us do this?"
Kurt Cobain's death was not in vain, and from his death we shall, at least for a moment, reflect on the terrible truths that he taught us. He need not be idealized in death beyond that which he was in life, but to simply be remembered as a genius who raged within and without, against himself and others, and ultimately against the brutal truth of human existence.
Cobain spoke often of dream imagery; reference his interpretation of the 'Meat Puppets' song, Lake of Fire: "Where do bad folks go when they die, they don't go to Heaven where the angels fly....they go to a lake of fire and fry...." And during this interview Cobain quoted a sentence to me which sounded like scripture, and later I found that it was. "Go, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God."
Cobain spoke of the fiery pain in his stomach. He too transcended that pain, walked through the furnace and found salvation through his rejection of the 'Golden image which I have set up.' If there is a lesson of his life and death, therein lies that message. Kurt Cobain's songs were far too complex for many to understand; many messages and just as many questions.
Kurt Cobain gave artistic form to the passions of his time. The songs and Cobain himself reflected the misfortune of his time, also. Cobain was unable to tear himself away from that misfortune, so he continued to create. He became a victim of his times. It is dangerous because the artist must share in the passion of his times, but must also release the tension through the creative process and not be swallowed up by it. In our world, this may be that defining moment where we will have no artist of Kurt Cobain's caliber. We will kill our best leaders and artists, because we need martyrs, but too often the lessons are forgotten. Kurt Cobain went through misery, horror and pain, but he emerged from it with his integrity intact. Oscar Wilde once said, "What a strange thing! This broken lead heart will not melt in the furnace, we must throw it away. So they threw it on a dust heap where the dead swallow was also lying. Bring me the two most precious things in the city, said God to one of his angels; and the angel brought him the leaden heart and the bird. You have rightly chosen, said God, for in my garden of paradise this little shall sing for nevermore."
The artist today must have strength enough to master his emotions, and many artists end up groping in the dark, just like the man or woman on the street they are unable to separate themselves from the misfortunes of the world. Desiring solitude and silence, dreaming of equality and justice, yet seeing themselves as objects of ridicule and scorn. He is dragged along kicking and screaming by a force that, little does he know, Is that which he thought he was in control of and by definition, has no control of at all.
The artist, Kurt Cobain, could not escape from the arduous experience called life. It became bigger than he, and unable to draw strength from others, to forget occasionally, to find some pleasure and have friendship his auto-immune switch flipped on and he destroyed himself, slowly, then suddenly.
Kurt Cobain saw the naked suffering and lost hope. His indulgences, weariness and introspection did not allow him to respect himself or others. Society's gut wrenching morality, like cynicism, makes a painfully sensitive man despair. If that man takes no responsibility for himself or others, the house crashes like a house divided, and Kurt Cobain was very divided.
Kurt Cobain's genius in life was art. Art, not for art's sake, or art based on hatred and ridicule, but of his society. Art that released those suffering pain and anguish. When there is no catharsis, then comes the pretender.
Kurt Cobain did not like his last album, 'In Utero,' or at least he was ambivalent of it. It was that realization he was working towards, but he never resolved through his own pain and suffering. He eased the pain of thousands of young men and women. It was the crystallization of this supreme truth that would have held on to heal him.
The artist must endure living, creating and resolving the internal battles. However, the artist in today' society is reviled and shamed. The artist starts out with optimism, but society destroys his will to live. Keats once said,
They are no dreamers weak;
They seek no wonder but the human face;
no music but a happy-noted voice-
They came not here, they have no thought to come-
and though are here, for thou artless than they-
what benefit canst thou so or all thy tribe to the great world?
and so Cobain's creative capacity to convey was far beyond ours to understand.
(3:30pm-6:30pm, afternoon.)
I saw Kurt in Madrona Park on Easter Monday, April 4th, 1994. The symbolism of that day, in retrospect, is all the more poignant. We spoke briefly and because of my literally driving from Michigan to Washington, after at first declining my request, he agreed to talk with me. The meeting was purely by chance.
The glittering, radiant reflection of the sun's rays of the still cold water and the argentous early morning light were adding to my pounding headache. The trees which ringed the lake were planted close together, yet not quite far enough apart, allowing the rays to flash and pop like an unending succession of flashbulbs that momentarily left you with rainbow vision.
Kurt's home was surrounded by huge pines, willow trees and glorious lilac bushes and rhododendrons redolent and intoxicating. April is a beautifully virginal month in the state of Washington, a month that suggested renewal and recovery after a difficult winter. Springtime always reminded me of a pregnant woman--a time of beauty and anticipation, a time where one's perception and sense are without flecks.
The thought suddenly occurred to me that I was dreaming and that my journey of two thousand miles would end in a short story describing the outside of Kurt Cobain's home. Kurt appeared to me in all his boyish splendor. He was slight, but the sign of him sparked a capacity to dream and wonder, as I had never had before and never will again. There was something mystical about that moment that words can't convey. Kurt had beautiful cobalt eyes that matched the cloudless blue of the morning sky. He was holding a pack of cigarettes in his right hand. I could not help but stare at the soft, delicate hands, the hands of a child.
He broke the stare by asking me if I had just seen a ghost, and I, without thinking, responded with a question. I asked him if he had seen the father and son fishing on the lake. He smiled and said wistfully that he had, and how much he wished that his father had taken the time to do those types of activities with him. He then sighed. With that sigh overwhelming sadness hit me, but it passed as quickly as it came.
We then exchanged the perfunctory "How are you's," which replaced the formal introductions that many famous people revel in. Kurt did not want to set up those barriers and made every attempt to banish formality. The fragile strength that emanated from Kurt that afternoon was unforgettable. It wasn't the charisma or idolatry that we feel for the famous person that I felt towards Kurt at the moment, it transcended that type of fascination, which I felt was a religious, mystical kinship that I have never felt before and probably never will again.
The day was dreary, yet the magic in the air was palpable. We talked on the balcony of his garage until the stormy sky rained furiously on us. The top level was a large, unfinished room; an area that Kurt could remove himself to when necessary. It was a quiet place to meditate and ruminate. It provided necessary isolation at times to create. (--This was at night.)
Kurt had attempted to clear the immediate area of the previous nights' debris, but was unsuccessful. He was apologetic about the messiness.
There were three books on the table that struck me as odd, they seemed out of place. I picked one of them up and was astonished to see that Cobain was reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and the Damned, and so the dialogue began. Cobain with his ever present cigarette, and I on the swivel chair. Time, although eternal, seemed quantified, so I began because it was our time.
"Are you aware that Fitzgerald was twenty-eight when he wrote what most critics consider his best novel, The Great Gatsby?"
The irony was not lost on Cobain, nor was it intended to be, and he quickly responded, "Did Fitzgerald think it was his best work? I think many of the short stories are as good, or better, and they were written throughout his twenties. Fitzgerald's art peaked after Gatsby, as he became lost in alcohol and personal despair. He lost the brevity and clarity that is evident in his earlier work. Actually, I think his clarity returned before he died."
I was going to follow up his response with the question about Cobain's much publicized drug problems, but thought better of asking the obvious. Kurt could be silently abusive.
Kurt lit another cigarette and I asked him whether he felt that as Fitzgerald was considered the interpreter of youth, and the spokesman of his generation, if he too felt a responsibility to his generation? Cobain responded, "I don't really think so, at least not entirely. The artist surely speaks to those he moves, but I think that the critics are the ones that want to label the artist as, in Fitzgerald's case, 'the spokesman for the Jazz Age.' I don't speak for my generation. I think I reflect the times I live in, but the artist always speaks from the heart and reaches some people, but not his whole generation."
He paused and lit another cigarette, which seemed to serve as a pacifier. I had the distinct feeling that he did not feel that he had answered the question, or maybe he was reluctant to add his own private demons. I quickly thought, 'Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain; for they breathe truth, that breathe their words in pain.'
I continued, "You touched on your opinion that Fitzgerald's short stories are good or better than his novels. The short story lyrically, poetically written, seems to be a lost art form. What stories do you like best?
Cobain replied, "Winter Dreams, Absolution, Babylon Revisited, and Crazy Sunday to mention a few. It's not really a short story, but the piece I like best is 'The Crack Up Articles,' really a series of articles that appeared in Esquire magazine in 1936."
As Cobain spoke, I conjured up in my own mind the similarities in the two lives, especially as they matured and perfected their art. Both were rebels and non-conformists, but Fitzgerald quietly, almost pathetically disintegrated via alcohol as Zelda's illness destroyed him. Fitzgerald was weak, yet he showed courage and determination that was profoundly inspirational. I hesitated to ask, so I stated an opinion that seemed inoffensive and yet sensitive.
"I have often thought you are vulnerable. You often remind me of a teenager whose behavior reflects a depraved childhood, a teenager that acts out as he becomes a man-child and is unable to cope with life let alone the constraints and demands of a media superstar." I then asked, "How do you progress to the next stage, not only as an individual, but as a father, and as the artist who speaks to his audience?"
Cobain quickly stood up and pushed the stringy blonde hair back off his forehead and abruptly, yet courteously excused himself for a period of time that bordered on fifteen minutes. When he reappeared the stubble was still there, and all of the same physical attributes remained, but his attitude reflected a confident, imperious Cobain; a façade that was blatantly mendacious. I will let the reader reflect on the veracity of that thought. He completely avoided the question I had asked fifteen minutes before. We returned to Fitzgerald in an almost obsessive way.
Cobain began, "In 1936 in a series of articles for Esquire magazine, Fitzgerald publicly acknowledged his breakdown." Cobain confidently reached for a much read book entitled The Crack Up and he began to read quietly. "And then suddenly, surprisingly I got better-and cracked as I heard the news... I began to realize that for two years my life had been drawing on resources that I did not possess, that I had been mortgaging myself physically and spiritually up to the hilt... I saw that for a long time I had not liked people and things, but only followed the rickety old pretense of liking. I saw that for a long time I had not liked people and things, but only followed the rickety old pretense of liking. I saw that even my love for those closest to me became only an attempt to love...hating the night when I couldn't sleep and the day because it went toward night." Cobain then informed me that there were two follow-up articles, 'Pasting It Together' and 'Handle with Care.' He continued to read, "But at three o'clock in the morning, a forgotten package has the same tragic importance as a death sentence, and the cure doesn't work-and in a real dark night of the sould it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day." Cobain paused and I saw real emotion in his watery, bloodshot eyes.
Cobain suddenly spoke, "Fitzgerald talks with dealing with this 'Black Hole,' and I don't mean my wife Courtney," although I did not believe him. He continued, "Fitzgerald hopes for a great material or spiritual bonanza, but as the withdrawal persists there is less and less of a chance of the bonanza," and then Cobain read directly from the article and glanced at me to make sure I was listening. "One is not waiting for the fade out of a single sorrow, but rather being unwilling witness of an execution, the disintegration of one's own personality," and once again he stared through me, this time he was reading but not thinking about Fitzgerald. "Unless madness or drugs or drink come in it, this pause comes to an end."
I asked him to stop for a moment and asked him whether an artist needed the artificial stimulus of drugs. Cobain smiled and repeated that he was not finished and continued to quote Fitzgerald.
"This led me to the idea that the ones who had survived had made some clean break...a clean break is something you cannot come back from, hat is unretrievable because it makes the past cease to exist. So, since I could no longer fulfill the obligations that life had set for me or that I had set for myself, why not slay the empty shell who had been posturing at it for years?"
I asked, "Do you see any parallels in the relationships between Zelda and Scott, and Kurt and Courtney?"
This question made him laugh for the first time. He replied, "Why would you think that? Zelda competed with Scott by plagiarizing his ideas and writing, she made it impossible for him to write and she was perfidiously and intellectually an infant to him. I have no respect for Zelda Fitzgerald. Scott loved her and she paid him back by literally and figuratively fucking him and everyone else they knew as long as it was alive."
Cobain quickly jumped up and glided from the chair to open the doors to the large attic-like room, and just as quickly returned and lit another cigarette. I could't help but notice that without sleep or rest, and I know he never rests, that Kurt Cobain was one of those men who was pretty; not handsome, but pretty. I began to ask the next question but he interrupted me in poem.
"Ere the sun through heaven once more was ruled,
the rats in her heart will have made their nest,
and the worms be alive in her golden hair,
while the spirit that guides the sun,
sits throned in his flaming chair,
she shall sleep.
Shelly
I wanted to change the subject but it seemed inappropriate as Cobain was getting poetic. "What do you think genius is?", I asked.
Kurt answered with a question, "Didn't John Lennon say that he didn't know, but if there was such a thing he was one?" I nodded and continued, "I don't think genius has anything to do with education and knowledge. It has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence. It is a kind of incommunicable power of creative thought that has nothing to do with traditional learning because it can't be taught. To be taught requires a willingness to learn and a genius' undefined thought process can't follow a logical succession of ideas. That's why poetry, or my lyrics transcend thought. Musical thought, as I know it, creates and defies pattern-logic."
"Don't you think it has a spiritual aspect to it?", I asked. And Cobain responded,
"It represents one's highest spiritual sense. If genius defies logic, which is thinking in an ordered sequence, without pattern, then how do you explain it to others? Genius involves imagery, sounds and sensations. My point is that words alone, except through genius can't express logical thought. When I'm writing music or lyrics I think in pictorial images, much like painters do, but the precision required tempts better musicians, technically speaking, to dismiss [my music] as luck or maybe fuck, or as my detractors would say, 'manically obsessive' musical thought."
I decided to venture into a touchy area, "And are you manic depressive?" Cobain defended, "Absolutely not. Do you think my behavior is characterized by alternating moods of mania or psychotic depression? No fucking way. Have you watched me perform? Have you heard rumors of dark, brooding depression? Have you heard of my being in a hole, I did it again, that I couldn't get of? Absolutely not."
We took a break after this; the atmosphere was tense, yet playful. Cobain needed another cigarette. His attention span was at times very short and he seemed bored and slightly withdrawn, but the outward habits tell nothing of the inward man.
After twenty minutes Cobain needed a pack of cigarettes. We drove to the corner of Madison and Washington Lake Blvd. He bought cigarettes and I bought a six pack of Miller Lite. We drove into the Capital Hill neighborhood and he shocked me with the next comment, which was gratuitous. Kurt said, "I fear for my life." I asked him what he meant and he replied, "I owe someone money." This comment has haunted me since I heard it, and nothing more was said by Kurt, and I did not follow up because it seemed like such an odd comment.
I asked him again, "If poetry is composed of words alone, how can you say there is genius in poetry?"
Cobain grew frustrated with my persistence. "I already answered that only genius can express, through logical thoughts, what words alone can convey. The poet avoids the entire vocabulary of logic. Words become alive and words combined with music, poetry and melodies in their purest form defy all logic."
I commented that I agreed Fitzgerald's best work showed clarity, then commented that Cobain's songs show that limpidity. "Let's use one of your songs as an example," I inquired. "What are your most creative lyrics on your new album, 'In Utero'?"
Cobain looked at me with his most satirical smile and coughed, as he frequently did and said, "In Serve the Servants, 'there is nothing I could say that I haven't thought before;' Heartshaped Box, 'throw down your umbilical noose so I can climb right back;' Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle, 'I miss the comfort of being sad;' Dumb, 'the sun is gone but I have a light;' Milk It, 'I am my own parasite' and 'look, on the bright side is suicide.' All my songs are like my children, all have different personalities and characteristics--Pennyroyal Tea, 'distill the life that's inside of me'; All Apologies, 'all in all is all we are.' My best lyrics are the ones I don't write."
Cobain continued, "These lyrics defy but they do evoke imagery and then sounds through the music which I supposedly keep as simple as possible in song. Less is more. This simple rule applies to lyrical imagery. The songs are closer to sketches with words or impressionist paintings. They have made different meanings to people and that is what great music or poetry does. There is not a correct analysis as to the meaning of the words and there was none intended. The music in all its simplicity and the abstract thought that represents the lyrical imagery are to evoke comparison and paradox. The music then soars like the spirit."
I stated, "Some believe that true genius must retain its health and integrity..."
He replied, "Well I guess that means Bernstein wasn't a genius, or Lennon wasn't, or Fitzgerald wasn't. That's a piece of shit. No, most true geniuses are troubled and frequently sad, and yes, mad.
The mad comment switched his mood to one of facetiousness, but at the same time removed the piteous cloud of poignancy that had hung, or draped the room. I noticed for the first time that he had changed into a t-shirt that said, 'appreciation Fund,' painted with black snow flakes, green flowers, gray leaves and of course blonde sun.
"How do your songs come to you?", I inquired.
Cobain's response was a simple one. "I get many of my ideas when I am sleeping, which is usually between 3am and 2pm. I think when you sleep, the mind reverts to primitive thought mechanisms and the dreams convey images that become subconscious to the waking intellect. Below that level of the initial waking consciousness occurs my poetry." The comment brought a slight grin to what was becoming a weary Kurt Cobain. "The imagery is archaic but when I translate the dream imagery from silent memory to words, to music, there occurs the act of creativity. I feel like I am in a trance during the actual creative process, the adrenaline and other stimulants drive me and I don't stop until I've exhausted myself. The creative trance gives me access to the treasure of personal, and I hate to admit it, inherited memory."
Cobain proceeded, "The creative act of writing occurs at a primitive fifth dimensional level that most people either don't remember or can't creatively express, but at its most intense level it's no longer bound by time, but sees things happening in the past or future."
I grew more curious. "Do you mean you can see your own future?"
For the first and last time during this conversation, he appeared to be angry, but it passed quickly and he said, "No man or woman has the power to see his own future." He then picked up the talk about fifth dimensional thought.
"The fifth dimensional act of composition starts with only the initial thought but the imagery evokes the painter who knows, or sees the final product before he begins the actual first brush. The song presents itself as complete but requires line by line construction in the reverse order. It's like having the answer before the question. The process of genesis to fruition works in reverse with genius. There is no logical construction of ordered thought." Kurt then said, "In the fourth inning an angel committed suicide by jumping off a low cloud. The angel landed on second base, causing the whole infield to crack like a huge mirror on account of fear."
I decided to get off the subject. "Where did you get the title for your latest album, 'In Utero?'"
Cobain's response was deep, yet inherently simple. "It is a 'Regresses Ad Uterum,' an attempt to recreate the paradise that precedes birth. It is man's search for his femininity. All meaningful art reflects the masculine and feminine. The title stands for a paradise where there is not death, suffering, or disease. It is the paradise we lost at birth. It represents every person's search to return to the maternal womb. The mystical meaning of 'In Utero' is that to achieve a state of permanence, which involves the resolution of the life/death dilemma, we have to have an abolition of time. On a basic level, that means dealing with the concept of beginning and ending. Once we have succeeded in the quest, our personal pursuit, we find that we no longer exist in this world or the other world, but in both at once. The future becomes only an infinite proclamation of the past. There is no longer a past or a future, but a different state which defies traditional verbal explanation or logic. We find ourselves crossing the threshold that is both life and death, but neither one nor the other. A state of being and non-being which is the subconscious longing of all mankind that once upon a time there was no time."
Longing to understand I asked, "So do you see death as nothing more than a transitional phase of existence?"
He answered with quick words, "Life or death, heads or tails; life and death are just the opposite sides of a coin. The soul is a coin, and it is eternal on whichever side the coin lands. I believe in a world that is outside of time. Time confines. Our time is temporal. This world is located alongside the normal universe that we know. You can reach this universe anywhere, it might be across the street, through the door to this room, but is unrecognizable and invisible to those that are unaware." Kurt sadly, and wearily again quoted a verse, or song. He actually sang this lyric, "I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in, and stops my mind from wandering, where it will go..."
At this point in the interview, Kurt was visibly tired. It was late in the day and the atmosphere conditions inside and outside were changing. There was a slight feeling of melancholy creeping into these discussions.
"One reaches a state of permanence and as this is achieved, so is the resolution of the life/death dilemma and the abolition of time which alters the human concept of a beginning and an ending. Ultimately, one ends up not in one world, but both. Time is abolished and there is no past, no future, no present. It is a state of being and non-being." And Cobain then reverted to poem, which always took me aback:
'Hope and despair,
the torturers slept
no mortal pain or fear
marred his response,
the influxes of sense,
and his own being
unalloyed by pain,
yet feebler and more feeble
calmly fed the stream of thought,
till he lay breathing there,
at peace and faintly smiling-
his last sight was the great moon,
over the western line of the wide world,
her arms suspended' PBS
Cobain then turned the tables and asked me a question. "What does it mean?" He responded for me, "It's the death of a poet!" He said, and continued,
'Alas, I have no hope or health,
nor peace within, nor calm around
not that content, surpassing wealth
the stage in meditation found,
and walked with inward glory crowned...
I could lie down like thee, child.
And weep away the life of care' PBS
The long day was waning and the cool April air began pulling a long black and gray blanket over what was left of what had been an exciting day. Kurt was visibly tired. I asked one more question. "Who is your favorite poet?" Kurt paused and then quickly said, "One of my favorite poets is Stephen Bernstein." I asked him what he liked about Berstein, and Kurt said it was his sense of irony and humor. He had obviously memorized some of Bernstein's poetry and quoted one poem that seems to have significance in retrospect. Kurt recited a poem called "I FEEL HORRIBLE." I laughed and Kurt's eyes smiled in an elfin way. I asked him if he knew any others and he quoted "Star Spangled Nails." Kurt said, "You've got some star spangled nails in your coffin, kid. That's what they've done for you, son." Finally he muttered, "You have stolen death because you're bored........you joy ride around for a while listening to the radio, and then abandon death, walk away, and leave death for the police to find."
The lake no longer shimmered, the clouds blanketed the sky and the rain softly fell and I took my leave. Cobain walked me to my car and lying next to the tire was a dead sparrow. He picked it up and gently caressed it before it flew away. I said goodbye, and for the last time he spoke in a voice wavering with emotion.
As I drove away he was walking up the driveway and I began sobbing all the tears that I have never shed, the tears of a lifetime, tears that have never stopped.
"There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to outcarol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen and God in His Heaven smiles. For the best is only brought at the cost of great pain...or so says the legend."
I still can see that soft angelic face and the eyes that spoke as much as these lyrics do.
"She's not a girl who misses much
do do do do do do do do do.....
I need a fix 'cause I'm going down
Down to the bits that I left uptown
I need a fix 'cause I'm going down
Mother Superior jump the gun
Happiness is a warm gun
When I hold you in my arms
and I feel my finger on your trigger
I know no one can do me no harm
Because happiness is a warm gun."
Hell Is For Children
(Sometime between 4:30pm & 6:30pm, Evening.)
There are great silences in the conversation of Kurt Cobain, and in the silence the roar can be more deafening than any of his music. I would say that he was silently abusive, as we drove to Broadway. What is clear as crystal is when Kurt did speak, the sledgehammer conversation felt like a wave of fire sweeping over me. Much of what he said still crashes and burns in not-so-distant memory. The conversation was, at times, wave-like in intensity, leaving me physically and mentally drained for days.
I spent approximately four hours with Kurt; three hours on the afternoon of April 4th, 1994, and close to an hour, early in the morning of April 5th, 1994. The last hour he had a female companion with him.
During the four-hour conversation Kurt seemed to speak from a distance. It was as if he were wearing a mask but he took the mask off in the end, and when he showed me what he had been hiding it devastated both of us.
Kurt was one of those people who need to be rescued from time to time throughout their lives. Kurt needed to know that someone cared enough to save him, or as it turned out, try to save him. He had been abandoned at various times throughout his life by those whom he loved and trusted. At the time of our meeting I was unaware that the final betrayal had recently occurred; and in the end he would turn to a stranger. Kurt never forgot or forgave those who abandoned him, or he thought had abandoned him. He always carried the rage of the abandoned child. I am convinced that for this reason alone, Kurt took the time to speak to me. Somehow, in Kurt's mind, I became the father he never had, the father he never could or would be.
Kurt: "I once told Michael Azerrad that after my dad got married, the second time, that he just gave up on me, because he was convinced that my mom had brainwashed me. I still want to puke when I think that he based my whole existence, our whole relationship, on that kind of thought. Every child needs a father figure. I never had that."
I asked him if he had spent most of his life searching for that.
Kurt: "No, I don't think about it much anymore; I don't care. What scares me is that I am, for different reasons, a bad father to my daughter. I am too selfish, too self-centered, and when I'm stoned...how can I parent my daughter when I was never parented? I don't know how to be a good father. I never had one myself. I don't want her to know this."
I then began to talk about my daughter, and we shared, as only fathers do, the fears of inadequacy of fatherhood. I involved myself and at the time felt slightly guilty, by showing Kurt a photograph of my then three-year-old daughter. Tears welled up in Kurt's eyes. I remember feeling his loneliness and sadness as we sat in silence.
To break that silence, I asked Kurt where Courtney was.
Kurt: "In L.A. I still love her, but I can't live with her anymore. We're a lot alike; the main difference between Courtney and I is that she can't stop talking. She needs to know how to be subtle." He laughed and continued. "Last month she intervened, on my behalf, and brought together all those who control my life. The Gold Mountain, Geffen and other freaks and retards, to resolve the million dollar question-"What's wrong with Kurt?" After I'm with Courtney for more than an hour, her incessant talking reminds me of fingers on a chalkboard."
Courtney Love was in many ways a female version of Kurt, but she lacked the contradictions that defined him. Kurt could be combative one moment and conciliatory the next. Kurt could be extremely sensitive and kind, yet also, as I mentioned, silent and abusive. Courtney reminded Kurt of a "bull in a china shop."
Kurt: "I have never told anyone this, but until recently, I never needed a bodyguard, because I have Courtney. Now I need to protect myself from her."
I asked him what he meant.
Kurt: "At the meeting of friends and associates," which was said with great sarcasm, "Mrs. Cobain spun a web of confusion and deceit, and betrayal. It was like being in school. The only reason I agreed was because Courtney kept hysterically repeating that they would take Frances from us. I compromised, but I didn't, and I listened, although I pretended not to. Everyone told me what I had to do, to change my life. It was a gigantic conspiracy of fucking betrayal and the one who was at the front of the line was my faithful wife. Everyone, including Courtney, threatened to leave, or break up the group. Well, I am the "
I stupidly asked if Krist and Dave were there. Kurt didn't answer, other than to refer to them in a disparaging way. He did say that, "They never call and don't come close to understanding." He then muttered something about "Mr. Holier Than Though and the Frat Boy."
Kurt paused, and continued to chain smoke.
Kurt: "Here's something that I want you to know. I overheard a Gold Mountain employee, whose name I won't mention, whisper to Courtney that 'Something has to be done about Kurt,' and Courtney's response was like, 'Duh, no shit, fuckbrain,' and the Gold Mountain employee said, 'I mean something permanent. We are sick of this whining fag.' Courtney said, 'Why state the obvious? I've lived with it daily for a year. He's ruining my life, costing all of us a lot of money, and I can't take it.' And the Gold Mountain boy said, 'We'll take care of it.' Courtney then distinctly repeated, 'Don't cause him any more pain.' One of the errand boys told me that they would break me as easily as they made me."
Kurt at this point of our conversation was what I would call "incredibly paranoid." It was a classic case of siege mentality. Kurt then asked me a question that has haunted me ever since he uttered the words.
Kurt: "Have you ever been threatened?" And I replied, "Of course," but it was obvious to Kurt that I didn't understand and he replied, "I mean threatened, with your life?" I said "No," and Kurt told me, "I fear for my life." I asked him to explain, and he responded, "She said to the same Gold Mountain boy that, 'he would be better off dead; financially, and otherwise. Kurt has made self-loathing a fad.'"
I was floored by this revelation and was speechless. Kurt then said, "I don't know, all I know is I have to get away," and that's exactly what he did.
I remember looking at my watch. It was 6:30pm. Kurt had mentioned, more than ten minutes before this, that he had to go to Capital Hill on a "pick up and a business transaction," but that he would be back. At this time Kurt asked me, if I had two thousand dollars. I did not, but if I had, I would have willingly given it to him. During the next five hours, the thought crossed my mind repeatedly, "Why would this rich and famous man ask me for money?" Being back, to me, meant coming back to Madrona. I spent the next five hours alternating between eating, drinking and trying to sleep.
At about 11:50, I heard a pounding on the door of my car, which scared the hell out of me. It was Kurt and his companion.
I cannot adequately express to the reader, the Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde transformation that I now witnessed. The kind, sensitive, thoughtful-going man was now replaced by a boorish, raging Kurt. He asked me to drive the van and proceeded to direct me, relative to where to drive. Not knowing Seattle, I have no idea where we went. Even if I did, it would have been impossible to remember where, solely because Kurt was screaming most of the next 45 minutes. He repeatedly talked about the physical drain he felt. The sentences became fragmented utterances of partial thought; real, imagined...only Kurt knew.
Kurt: "I owe the dirty fuckers money, and I don't have any money. I can't get any money. Fuck, fuck, fuck...they know I'm good for the cash...the stupid fucking asshole bitch."
All of the phrases were repeated over and over.
Kurt: "I'll show them...someone is following me. Liars can't trust themselves, and I have no intention of telling the truth... What the fuck was Patti's sister there for?"
Kurt was silent for the next five minutes and then he said to me:
Kurt: "You can hide the fire, but what are you gonna do with the smoke?"
I'll never forget it, as long as I live.
I watched him and his companion walk up the hill and finally disappear on that fateful night, and many times I wished I had gone with them.
Kurt's alternating moods of rage and euphoria rarely found any middle ground after age seven. At some point around 15 the rage he felt towards himself and others became channeled creatively into music. His genius was completely satisfied by this creative outlet. For a time by 1992, the singular concentration of that gift became distracted by the powerful demands made by the record company, by management and by his insatiable appetite for drugs. By 1994, the music, which had been his salvation, bored him.
By 1992, the gift was bastardized, clouded by his increasing drug addiction, and by the Rasputin-like influence of his wife, Courtney Love. It may sound trite, and yes it is a cliché, and even Kurt said it to me that, "I can't live with her, but I don't know if I can live without her. She is my lightning rod ...Why did she betray me, why, why..."
Kurt spent his whole life searching for someone who would love him and when he thought he found that, it satisfied him, for a short period of time. Kurt didn't seek the love of a woman. He sought the love of a father. I don't think he ever resolved this dilemma. A woman's love was conditional. He had learned that from his mother. In some ways, it is unfair to blame Courtney Love for something she couldn't give Kurt. He relied upon Courtney. She wore many hats; wife, lover, business manager, mother, father, and in the end she betrayed him. At least as Kurt saw it, like everyone else.
The idea of a divorce was anathema to Kurt. Courtney was expendable, but he couldn't resolve the, as he called it, "The Frances dilemma." In fact, during the last four days of his life he hid from Courtney. What he couldn't deal with was another divorce. Another child going through what he went through.
Kurt was adamantly opposed to the European tour that began in February, 1994. He told me that he had told the record company and management that, "I can't do it." The resolution of the royalties dispute only hastened the end of what we knew as Nirvana. The synergy was gone, finished. Kurt couldn't have cared less.
Kurt: "Paul (Apostle) once said that in the end, 'God will be all in all.'"
I commented that he had incorporated that into All Apologies, and Kurt said, "What do you think it means? I said I had no idea and he said to me, "In the end, all of us, including the Devils, will be saved."
Kurt spent most of his life trying to find balance in imbalance. For Kurt, the circle was the spiral, an endlessly re-configurable one. There weren't any straight lines, only curved ones. He was a man who lived a life of contradictions. He said to me, "Don't you see? It is, yet it isn't. I do, but I don't." Complexity defined by simplicity, seeing peace within utter confusion.
Kurt's death, though genuine tragedy, was necessary. The ancients saw tragedy as unavoidable catastrophe. A restless, tortured, exiled soul looking for its true home, a home he sought, and in the end found. Self-destructive, like a smoldering fire, Kurt understood how pointless it was to hold on. Kurt sought for answers, in the end, but in the midst of the furious swirl of energy and destruction, he found the necessary point of detachment alone on a battlefield of his own choosing. Kurt understood that one couldn't avoid disaster for long. In the end, Kurt became prisoner to his own need to contradict himself. Although Kurt knew that the divorce was inevitable, he simply couldn't understand how Courtney, like his father years before, had "given up on [him]." It was that single thread of Kurt's need to know that someone still cared enough to once again save him. When Kurt realized that Courtney had gone over to the "other side," he literally imploded. He spoke of the "conspiracy of silence" and his inability to "live by the expectations of those fuckers," but I suspect his own expectations contributed.
Kurt told me during the course of our conversation that his father once had told him that, "If you lie to others, you will lie to yourself, and that is the worst thing you can do, because if you lie to yourself, you will never know the truth. The truth lies between the lies. That's why so few ever find it."
During the last year of his life, Kurt told me that he had "a reoccurring dream of the apocalypse, of everything falling apart." This is what most of the Romantic poets, Shelly, Rimbaud had in common. All of them were in love with death. Society has taught us that death is something to be afraid of, but the poet embraces it as a friend. When I saw Kurt, his so-called friends had abandoned him, or maybe he had abandoned them. In the end, his only friend was death, and it brought him peace.
KC: "I need a vacation from me. I would die if anything happened to me." Great sarcasm.
Bradley Barnett, 9/10/94
A Missive
11:45pm, 12:20am
The walk back seems longer than it really is, up hill and around midnight. The air is cool and moist. The light from the street lamps surprises me; they seem like an intrusion on this moment. No one speaks, and we reach our destination, but confusion seems to guide us. Kurt and his companion whisper to one another (I still see the silhouette, framed by the light) briefly, and the thought occurs to me that I must be dreaming. Adrenaline rushes have negated any influence of alcohol. It seems strange that we are sneaking onto property owned by one of the parties. After maneuvering through a maze that includes bushes and stairs, we enter a dark room, separated from the larger home.
Kurt is quiet, so now I have seen many of his faces. The cigarette lighter, or in my case matches, momentarily creates artificial light. And these are the only times I can now see Kurt and his companion. I pay no attention to her, as I am utterly astonished at my good fortune in meeting Kurt. I have only a fleeting impression that she is neither attractive nor unattractive. She is simply there. Kurt is too quiet, and after much thought I break the silence and ask, "Is this where you get away?" It is asked in a normal voice, which is clearly too loud, and I am 'shhhed' by his companion. We now whisper when we speak, which is infrequent.
The next question seems rhetorical, one would ask themselves. A doubting question.
Kurt: "Why stick around? I feel like I'm trying to balance thought and emotion on the head of a pin."
This statement simply astonishes me, and after a distinct pause he continues.
Kurt: "I hate my wife, I hate myself..."
There is a distinct pause.
Kurt: "I can't be here anymore. My life is controlled by everyone but me. I measure time in seconds, hating every moment I'm awake. And it hurts too much. I can't do it anymore."
The companion speaks softly, and with some compassion. It's the only comment I can remember.
Companion: "You need to get away. Tell them that you aren't a puppet, and that when you are ready..."
Kurt: "That would be never."
Companion: That's the way you feel now, but..."
And she didn't finish her thought, or maybe that was all she had to say.
Kurt: "I will have it pulled down; the timber will sell for something always. It shall be pulled down...so that no man may say where this house stood."
Again, I leave for smokes. (Gone 20 minutes.)
When I returned he was in the fetal position crying and every few seconds he whispered one word; "Michael." "Michael, don't die Michael." He whispered this in what sounded like an Irish accent???!!
We were lying on the floor. I held him in my arms, and he cried like a child. There are few times in one's life where one feels the emotion of another, but I remember a rising wall of emotion inside of me, and I too sobbed silently. Then I turned my head towards Kurt, and kissed him on the forehead. I can't forget the tears and the feel of his whiskers.
I remember Kurt asking me if I knew the difference between the truth and lies. And I said "No," and he replied, "The only difference between the truth and a lie is whether you believe it." We all vacillate between the truth and lies, and balance them. But Kurt stopped doing that.
again, 9/11/94
Bradley Barnett
Copyright (c) 1999, 1994 by Bradley Barnett.
All Rights Reserved. Reproduced by written permission. Not to be reproduced elsewhere except with permission from the author.
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