It was April 9th, 1994, the day after my 12th birthday, and I had woken up at around 10:30 a.m. because it was a Saturday. I came downstairs and looked on the table and there was a magazine lying on it. It was a Newsweek magazine that had arrived in the mail that day. The title of the issue was SUICIDE. I looked through it and came to a featured article on Kurt Cobain. From that day forth I have been forever changed. Nothing could've prepared me for the pain I would experience because of the impact of one great person and musician. I felt, for the longest of time, that Kurt's lyrics were speaking directly to me, because I felt a lot of the things that those songs were about. I was getting ready to enter Junior High the next year and I was dealing with a lot of issues that surrounded that large transition. I didn't think it was "cool" among my friends to say that I liked Nirvana, because we were all really into Boyz II Men and groups like that, so I was worried about being ditched by them because of that. It's ironic to think about now, because I realize that my best friend at the time (and still to this day) was actually a Nirvana fan as well, and probably never mentioned it for the same misinformed reasons. I remember reading that Newsweek article over and over again and staring at the pages filled with images of terribly distraught fans, crying in the rain, holding candles. They wrote the quote "Oh well, whatever, nevermind..." in bold seperate from the article, and wrote about how Kurt's death was only the next step in his world of depression and drugs.
At first I just started to deal with the fact that he was dead and I didn't really question what everyone was say: that Kurt had committed suicide. My main problem was that he was gone, and I didn't have anyone left in the world who could reach me like that. I was also very depressed due to the fact that I had pretty much lost one of the most important figures in my life as a birthday present. I began to just push it all out of my head, I didn't listen to Nirvana when my brother would play the CD as it would depress me even more. I threw myself into school and I was a a gross unpopular little freak for my entire Jr. High career. When I hit High School, however, I found a new outlet, I found the internet. It allowed me to talk to other people and express myself without having to look them in the eye. It also opened me up to the truth about the death of a man that I had deliberately turned my back on.
I found the Tom Grant website and it was all that I needed. I was hooked, it was everything that I had wanted to believe so long ago, deep down inside, and it was full of rock solid facts that could satisfy my more logical side. It wasn't just angry ranting by an upset and distraught fan, it was evidence from a trained investigator. I went through a period of time of just feeling relieved, Kurt didn't leave us on purpose, he didn't have a choice! That lasted about a week. Then I got pissed. I'd hear people talking about Courtney Love and I would remember all the things I read on Tom's site and I would try to tell them what the truth was about her. They just wouldn't listen. She had sunk her claws into them. I began to torture myself by reading everything I could about the conspiracy, I looked at the "suicide" note and the death certificate, I started to listen to the music again, and at about my Sophomore year of High School it all came to a climax.
I would look at those haunting pictures, Kurt's body, autopsy photos, the death certificate, etc every single day. I became totally depressed, it just didn't seem fair. How could she take someone so important to so many people, the voice of angst-ridden youth, and walk from it unpunished. All this confusion and anger landed me in counseling and on suicide watch (people seemed to think I was going to give up that easily!). When they finally realized I wasn't going to kill myself I was allowed to go out and spread the word. It started in my Advanced French class, a group of 6 Sophomores. We started talking about music, I mentioned that I didn't like rap and they asked me what I liked, and I told them I liked Nirvana. Eventually the conversation turned toward Kurt Cobain and some of them started to tell me that Kurt had killed himself and that he was a loser. I started rattling off facts about how he didn't, and eventually I think I changed some minds. But there was a consequence. Everyday for the rest of that school year there were 3 guys that would walk past me in the hall, or talk loud behind me in class, saying the same thing, "Kurt Cobain killed himself, what a loser. It's a good thing he's dead, his music sucked. I'm so glad that Kurt Cobain blew his head off with a shotgun," and other similar comments. It wasn't really the fact that they continued to say it that really bothered me. It was the fact that no matter what what I said, no matter what evidence I presented to them they just refuse to acknowledge the truth. It was very frustrating. But now, two years later, I've come to understand that not everybody is going to accept the truth. Even though I wish I could prove it to the world so that Kurt Cobain fans everywhere can get some kind of justice, I realize it is next to impossible. I hope that the information and links on this page, as well as my own personal experience, will help someone see the light and inspire them to join the revolution.
Links to other sites on the Web
TOM GRANT
The Cobain Murder Investigation
The Smoking Gun
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