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Newsweek
Cover: 'Exclusive Excerpt: The Kurt Cobain Diaries'
Entry on His Heroin Addiction
In 'Journals'
Cobain Talks About His and Courtney Love's Drug
Addiction, Detoxing A Month Before the Birth of Their
Child; He Attacks Pearl Jam, Writes
Surprisingly Ambitious Band Memos Controversy Over
Book Has Fans, Nirvana Band Members Split
NEW YORK, Oct. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- The journals and
writings of Kurt
Cobain, the late lead singer of Nirvana, are raw
and unsettling and reveal how he spiraled from an
ambitious kid in a garage band to a disillusioned
pop star with a deadly heroin addiction. In the October
28 issue (on newsstands Monday, October 21), Newsweek
exclusively excerpts passages from "Journals,"
a collection of handwritten diary entries, letters,
band memos, drawings, screeds and cries from the heart
that editor Julie Grau culled from stacks of Cobain's
notebooks.
(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20021020/NYSU003
)
Riverhead Books, who will publish "Journals"
next month, is said to have paid the Cobain estate-his
widow, Courtney Love, and his 10-year-old daughter,
Frances-in the neighborhood of $4 million. The book
is already controversial among some fans, who worry
that it's an invasion of Cobain's privacy, his suicide
in April 1994 being tragic, irrefutable evidence of
his desire to be left alone. Nirvana's drummer, Dave
Grohl, and its bassist and cofounder, Krist Novoselic,
recently settled a lawsuit with Love over control
of the band's legacy. Novoselic preferred not to speak
for this story, his manager Corey Moore saying, "He
just feels it's wrong to talk about something this
private. He doesn't want to be involved with these
diaries on any level."
After his death, Cobain's personal belongings started
disappearing. Cobain's grieving friend Eric Erlandson,
who played guitar in Love's band, Hole, saw what was
happening and moved to safeguard valuables including
his notebooks. "From day one I treated the whole
situation the way I would have for any friend-keeping
their stuff safe," he says. "But from a
historical perspective, I treated it like I would
have treated John Lennon's legacy. I guess I knew
even then it was important." An excerpt follows:
'I Am Not A junkie'
Cobain married Love in February 1992. The singer's
heroin addiction raged all summer. He entered a rehab
facility in Marina del Rey, Calif., and wrote in his
journal prodigiously. Among the entries was this open
letter to Nirvana fans, which he never made public.
I kind of feel like a dork writing about myself like
this as if I were an American pop-rock icon-demi God,
or a self-confessed product of corporate-packaged
rebellion, but I've heard so many insanely exhaggerated
stories or reports from my friends and Ive read so
many pathetic second rate, freudian evaluations from
interviews from my childhood up until the present
state of my personality and how I'm a notoriously
f---ed up heroine addict, alcoholic, self destructive,
yet overtly sensitive, frail, fragile, soft spoken,
narcoleptic, neurotic, little pissant who at any minute
is going to O.D. jump off a roof wig out blow my head
off or all 3 at once. Oh Pleez GAWD I can't handle
the success! The success! And I feel so incredibly
guilty! For abandoning my true commrades who were
the ones who are devoted who were into us a few years
ago. And in 10 years when NIRVANA
becomes as memorable as Kajagoogoo that same very
small percent will come to see us at reunion gigs
sponsored by Depends diapers, bald fat still trying
to RAWK at amusement parks. Saturdays: puppet show,
rollercoaster & Nirvana ...
Well for those of you who are concerned with my present
physical and mental state. I am not a junkie. I am
not gay, although I wish I were, just to piss off
homophobes. Ive had a rather unconclusive and uncomfortable
stomach condition for the past 3 years which by the
way is not related to stress which also means it is
not an ulcer. Because there is no pattern to the burning,
nauseaus pain in my upper abdominal cavity, I never
know when it will happen, I can be at home in the
most relaxed atmosphere sipping natural spring water,
no stress, no fuss and then WHAM! like a shotgun:
stomach time. Then I can play 100 live performances
in a row, guzzle boric acid & do a zillion television
interviews and not even a burp. This has left doctors
with no ideas except the usual: here Kurt, try another
peptic ulcer pill and lets jam this fibre optic tube
with a video camera in it down your throat for the
3rd time and see whats going on in there. Again. Yep
your in pain alright. Your stomach is extremely inflamed
and red. Try eating ice cream from now on. Please
lord, f--k hit records, just let me have my very own
unexplainable rare stomach disease named after me.
And the title of our next double album, "Cobain's
disease."
So after protein drinks, becoming a vegetarian, exercise,
stopping smoking, and doctor after doctor I decided
to relieve my pain with small doses of heroine for
a walloping 3 whole weeks. It served as a band-aid
for a while but then the pain came back so I quit.
It was a stupid thing to do and Ill never do it again
and I feel real sorry for anyone who thinks they can
use heroine as a medicine because um, duh, it don't
work. Drug withdrawal is everything you've ever heard.
You puke, you falail around, you sweat, you s-t your
bed just like that movie "Christiane F."
It's evil. Leave it alone.
I am the product of 7 months of screaming at the
top of my lungs almost every night 7 months of jumping
around like a retarded rheesus monkey 7 months of
answering the same questions over and over ... . I'm
really bored with everyones concerned advice like:
"man you have a really good thing going. Your
band is great. You write great songs, but hey man
you should get your personal s-t together. Don't freak
out, and get healthy." Gee I wish it was as easy
as that but, honestly I didn't want all this attention
but Im not freaked out which is something a lot of
people would like to see. Its an entertaining thought
to watch a rock figure whos public domain mentally
self destruct. But I'm sorry friends Ill have to decline.
Maybe Crispin Glover should join our band.
Well Ive spewed enough, probably too much but oh
well, for every one opinionated, pissy, self appointed
rock judge cermudgeon there's a thousand kids ...
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