But one segment on the tape stands out above all others and shows how extraordinarily different this family was. Shot by Courtney in the bathroom of their house in Carnation, the scene begins with Kurt giving Frances a bath; he’s wearing a burgundy smoking jacket and looking like a handsome country squire. As he lifts Frances like a plane over the tub, she involuntarily snorts because she’s having so much fun. Kurt wears the kind of ear-to-ear smile that was never captured by a still picture—the closest any photographer came was the photo of Kurt, Wendy, Don, and Kim from the Aberdeen days. In the video, Kurt looks to be exactly what he is: a caring, doting father, enthralled by his beautiful daughter, and wanting nothing more in life than to pretend she is an airplane, soaring over the bath and dive-bombing the yellow rubber ducks. He talks to her in a voice like Donald Duck—just like his sister Kim did when he was growing up—and she giggles and cackles, full of the kind of glee that only an eight-month-old can exude.
Then the camera turns toward the sink, and in the blink of an eye, the scene changes. To the right of the basin, mounted eight inches up the wall, rests a toothbrush holder—the same kind of white, porcelain toothbrush holder in 90 percent of all homes in America. Yet what makes this particular fixture so remarkable is that it isn’t storing toothbrushes: It’s holding a syringe. It is such an astonishing and unexpected object to see in a bathroom, most viewers wouldn’t notice it. But it’s there, hanging solemnly, needle-tip pointed down, a sad and tragic reminder that no matter how ordinary this family looks on the outside, there are ghosts that follow even the tender moments.
By July 1993 Kurt’s addiction had become so routine, it was a part of life in the Cobain house, and things worked around it. The metaphor frequently used to describe the role of alcoholism within a family—that of a 10,000-pound elephant in the middle of the living room—seemed so obvious that few bothered to utter it. That Kurt was going to be messed up for at least part of the day had become the status quo; as accepted as the rain in Seattle. Even the birth of his child and court-ordered treatment had only served to temporarily distract him. Though he’d been on methadone and buprenorphine for weeks at a time, he hadn’t been free of opiates long enough to completely detox for almost a year.
In the crazed logic that overtakes families caught up in addiction, it almost seemed better when Kurt was on drugs: In contrast, he was impossible when he was suffering the physical pain of withdrawal. Only a few actually voiced this theory—that the system orbiting around Kurt was more stable when he was using drugs rather than abstaining—but Kurt professed it himself. In his journal he argued that if he was going to feel like a junkie in withdrawal, he might as well be one in practice. And he had friends that agreed with him: “The whole ‘getting him to stop using drugs’ [theory] was absurd and ultimately damaging to Kurt,” argued Dylan Carlson. “Drugs are a problem when they are impacting your ability to, say, have a house or maintain a job. Until they become a problem of that nature, you just leave the person alone and then they’ll hit the emotional bottom on their own—you can’t drive them to that bottom....He didn’t have any reason to not do drugs.”
By the summer of 1993, addiction was a lens through which everything in Kurt’s life was distorted. Yet though he was outwardly happier on drugs, in the crazy contradiction that is addiction, he was inwardly filled with remorse. His journals were marked by laments on his inability to stay sober. He felt judged by everyone around him, and he was correct in this perception: Every time his bandmates, family, managers, or crew encountered him, they did a quick survey to determine whether he was high or not. He experienced this ten-second once-over dozens of times during each day, and was furious when it was assumed he was stoned when he was not. He felt he was a functional addict—he could use drugs and play—so he hated the constant scrutiny and found himself spending more and more time with his junkie friends, where he felt less inspected.
Yet by 1993 even the drugs weren’t working as well as they once had. Kurt found the reality of drug addiction a far cry from the glamour he had once imagined reading the works of William S. Burroughs, and even within the insular subculture of addicts, he felt he was an outsider. One journal entry from this period found him desperately pleading for friendship, and ultimately for salvation:
Friends who I can talk to and hang out and have fun with, just like I’ve always dreamed, we could talk about books and politics and vandalize at night, want to? Huh? Hey, I can’t stop pulling my hair out! Please! God damn, Jesus fucking Christ Almighty, love me, me, me, we could go on a trial basis, please I don’t care if it’s the out-of-the-in-crowd, I just need a crowd, a gang, a reason to smile. I won’t smother you, ah shit, shit, please, isn’t there somebody out there? Somebody, anybody, God help, help me please. I want to be accepted. I have to be accepted. I’ll wear any kind of clothes you want! I’m so tired of crying and dreaming, I’m soo soo alone. Isn’t there anyone out there? Please help me. HELP ME!
That summer Kurt’s drug rehabilitation physician, 60-year-old Robert Fremont, was found dead in his Beverly Hills office, slumped over his desk. His cause of death was ruled a heart attack, though Fremont’s son Marc asserted it was suicide by overdose, and that his father had been again addicted to drugs. At the time of his death, Fremont was being investigated by the Medical Board of California, charged with gross negligence and unprofessional conduct for overprescribing buprenorphine to his patients. Fremont certainly made plenty of buprenorphine available to his most famous client—he would dispense it to Kurt by the carton.
On July 17, 1993, Nevermind finally fell off the Billboard charts after being on for just under two years. That week the band traveled to New York to do press and play a surprise appearance as part of the New Music Seminar. The night before the show, Kurt sat down and conducted an interview with Jon Savage, author of “England’s Dreaming.” Perhaps because Kurt admired Savage’s book, he was particularly forthcoming about his family, describing his parents’ divorce as something that made him feel “ashamed” and yearning for what he had lost: “I desperately wanted to have the classic, you know, typical family. Mother, father. I wanted that security.” And when Savage asked if Kurt could understand how great alienation might lead to violence, he replied in the affirmative: “Yeah, I can definitely see how a person’s mental state could deteriorate to the point where they would do that. I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve fantasized about it, but I’m sure I would opt to kill myself first.” Virtually every interview Kurt did in 1993 had some reference to suicide.
When Kurt was asked the inevitable question about heroin, he told the inevitable lie: He talked in the past tense, said he did heroin “for about a year, off and on,” and claimed he only did it because of his stomach problems. When Savage followed up on the stomach pains, Kurt declared they were gone: “I think it’s a psychosomatic thing.” Savage found Kurt particularly jovial this night. “I haven’t felt this optimistic since right before my parents’ divorce,” he explained.
Twelve hours later, Kurt was lying on the floor of his hotel bathroom, having overdosed again. “His lips were blue and his eyes were completely rolled back in his head,” recalled publicist Anton Brookes, one of the people who rushed to Kurt. “He was lifeless. There was a syringe still stuck in his arm.” Brookes was shocked when he saw Courtney and the nanny Cali spring into action like experienced medical aides—they were so methodical he was left with the impression they did this regularly. While Courtney checked Kurt’s vital signs, Cali held Kurt up and punched him violently in the solar plexus. “He hit him once, and he didn’t get much reaction, so he hit him again. Then, Kurt started to come around.” This, plus cold water to the face, got Kurt breathing. When hotel security arrived, drawn by the noise, Brookes had to bribe them to not call the police. Brookes, Courtney, and Cali dragged the still-groggy Kurt outside. “We started walking him,” Brookes remembered, “but at first his legs weren’t moving.” When Kurt finally could speak, he insisted he did not want to go to the hospital.<
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After food and coffee, Kurt seemed fully revived, though still very high. He returned to the hotel, where he was scheduled to get a massage in his room. As Kurt was getting his rubdown, Brookes grabbed packets of heroin off the floor and flushed them down the toilet. Ironically, less than three hours after he was comatose in the bathroom, Kurt was back doing interviews, denying he used drugs. At soundcheck that evening, he was still way too high—perhaps due to a bag not found by his handlers. “He pretty much died right before that show,” recalled sound-man Craig Montgomery. When David Yow, of the opening band the Jesus Lizard, went to chat with Kurt before showtime, “Kurt couldn’t talk. He could just mumble. I said, ‘How are you?’ and he said, ‘buzzcolloddbed.’ ” In a pattern that was becoming all too familiar, despite Kurt’s earlier impairment, he seemed fine onstage, and the show itself was a marvel. The band had added Lori Goldston on cello, and it was the first time they featured an acoustic interlude in their set.
Nirvana returned to Seattle the next week and played a benefit on August 6 to raise funds to investigate the murder of local singer Mia Zapata. That week, Kurt, Courtney, Krist, and Dave spent a rare night out together taking in Aerosmith at the Coliseum. Backstage, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler took Kurt aside and told him about his experience with 12-Step recovery groups. “He wasn’t preaching,” Krist remembered, “just talking about similar experiences he’d been through. He tried to give him encouragement.” For once, Kurt appeared to listen, though he said little in response.
That same week, also at the Seattle Center, Kurt did an interview with the New York Times, conducted at the top of the Space Needle. Kurt picked this location because he’d never been to Seattle’s most famous landmark. He was now insisting a representative from DGC’s publicity department tape every interview—he thought this would cut down on misquotes. The talk with Jon Pareles, as with all of Kurt’s 1993 interviews, sounded like a therapy session, as Kurt discussed his parents, wife, and the significance of his lyrics. He exposed enough of himself that Pareles wisely noted the contradictions: “Cobain ricochets between opposites. He is wary and unguarded, sincere and sarcastic, thin-skinned and insensitive, aware of his popularity and trying to ignore it.”
The first week of September Kurt and Courtney returned to Los Angeles for a two-week stay, their first extended visit since moving. They attended the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards, and Nirvana won Best Alternative Video for “In Bloom.” The band wasn’t playing this night, and there were few of the histrionics of the previous year’s awards. Much had changed in the music business during the last year, and Nirvana had been missing in action for most of it. Though In Utero was highly anticipated, they were no longer the biggest rock band in the world, at least commercially: Pearl Jam now held that honor.
That week, Kurt and Courtney appeared at a benefit for “Rock Against Rape” at Hollywood’s Club Lingerie. Courtney was on the bill as a solo act, but after performing “Doll Parts” and “Miss World,” she called out for “her husband Yoko” and Kurt came onstage. Together they did duets of “Pennyroyal Tea” and the Leadbelly tune “Where Did You Sleep Last Night?” It was the only occasion they would ever play together in public.
In Utero was finally released on September 14 in the U.K. and September 21 in the U.S., where it entered the charts at No. 1, selling 180,000 copies in the first week alone. It reached those sales figures without being carried by Wal-Mart or Kmart: Both chains had objected to the song title “Rape Me” and the back-cover collage of Kurt’s fetus dolls. When his manager phoned with this news, Kurt agreed to revisions that would get the album into the stores. “When I was a kid, I could only go to Wal-Mart,” Kurt explained to Danny Goldberg. “I want the kids to be able to get this record. I’ll do what they want.” Goldberg was surprised, but he knew to accept Kurt’s word: “No one would dream of saying no to him at that point. No one made him do anything.”
Yet Kurt did clash with his managers over concert dates. He began 1993 asserting he wasn’t planning on touring. While not unheard of, this decision certainly would have diminished the new record’s chances of hitting the top of the charts. On this issue, Kurt faced a juggernaut of opposition: Everyone who worked with him—from his managers to his crew to his bandmates—made most of their money from touring, and they urged him to reconsider. But when he discussed the matter with his lawyer, Rosemary Carroll, he seemed adamant. “He said he didn’t want to go,” she remembered. “And frankly, he was pressured to go.”
Most of the pressure was from management, but some came from his own fear of scarcity. Though he was wealthier than he had ever imagined possible, a tour would make him richer still. A memo Danny Goldberg sent Kurt in February 1993 outlined details of his projected income for the next eighteen months. “Thus far, Nirvana has been paid a little over $1.5 million,” the memo states on the subject of songwriting income. “I believe there is another $3 million in the pipeline to be paid out over the next couple of years.” Goldberg estimated that Kurt’s income after taxes in 1993 would include $1,400,000 from songwriting royalties, $200,000 for expected sales of two million of the new record, and if Nirvana toured, an additional $600,000 from merchandising and concert revenue. Even these figures, Goldberg wrote, were conservative: “I personally believe that [your] income for the next eighteen months will be double this amount or more, but for rational family planning I think it’s safe to assume $2 million, which presumably gives you the breathing room to furnish your house very nicely and know that you will have a substantial nest egg.” Despite his earlier protests, Kurt agreed to tour.
On September 25 Nirvana was back in New York to appear again on “Saturday Night Live.” They played “Heart-Shaped Box” and “Rape Me,” and though the performance was rocky, it was free of the tension of their first visit. In addition to cello player Goldston, they had added former Germs guitarist Georg Ruthenberg, known by his stage name of Pat Smear. Smear was eight years older than Kurt, and he’d already been through a long junkie drama with Darby Crash, his band-mate in the Germs. He gave the impression there was little that could unnerve him; his wry sense of humor lightened the band, and his solid playing helped Kurt fret less onstage.
The week before the In Utero tour began, Kurt flew to Atlanta for a visit with Courtney, who was recording Hole’s album. When he came by the studio, producers Sean Slade and Paul Kolderie played him the songs from her record that were done. Kurt seemed proud of Courtney’s effort and praised her lyrical skills.
Later that day, Courtney asked Kurt to sing background vocals on a few unfinished numbers. He protested at first, but relented. It was apparent to Slade and Kolderie that Kurt was not familiar with much of the material. “She said things like, ‘Come on, sing on this one,’ ” recalled Kolderie. “He kept saying, ‘Well let me hear it. How can I sing on it if I haven’t heard it?’ She’d say, ‘Just sing off the top of your head.’ ” The results were less than impressive, and Kurt’s vocals were used on only one song in the final mix. But Kurt warmed up considerably when the official session ended and a jam ensued. He sat down at the drums, Eric Erlandson and Courtney picked up guitars, and Slade grabbed a bass. “It was a blast,” recalled Slade.
Kurt returned to Seattle, only to leave a week later for Phoenix to rehearse for Nirvana’s upcoming tour. On a connecting flight to L.A., the band Truly were on the same plane, and Kurt had a warm reunion with his old friends Robert Roth and Mark Pickerel. Pickerel ended up in the seat next to Kurt and Krist—Grohl was in the front of the cabin—and Pickerel felt embarrassed for carrying a copy of Details with Nirvana on the cover. Kurt grabbed it and devoured the article. “He became agitated as he read,” Pickerel recalled. Kurt was unhappy with Grohl’s quotes. “He went on and on about it,” Pickerel said. A few minutes into his rant, Kurt announced that for his next album, “I want to bring in other people just to create a different kind of record.” He would revisit this subject repeatedly that fall, threatening to fire his bandmates.
The In Utero t
our began in Phoenix at a 15,000-seat venue where Billy Ray Cyrus had performed the night before. It was the largest-scale tour Nirvana undertook, and included an elaborate set. When MTV asked Kurt why the band was now playing big arenas, Kurt was pragmatic, citing the increased production costs of the show: “If we were to just play clubs, we’d be totally in the hole. We’re not nearly as rich as everyone thinks we are.” When USA Today ran a negative review of the debut (“Creative anarchy deteriorated into bad performance art,” wrote Edna Gunderson), Smear defused a Kurt fit by remarking, “That’s fucked—they totally got us. That’s the funniest thing I’ve read in my life.” Even Kurt had to laugh.
Courtney begged Kurt not to read his reviews, yet he obsessively sought them out, even searching for out-of-town newspapers. He had become increasingly paranoid about the media and now demanded to inspect a writer’s previous clippings before agreeing to an interview. Yet in Davenport, Iowa, Kurt ended up in a car coming home from a gig with publicist Jim Merlis and a Rolling Stone writer. Kurt was unaware a journalist was in his midst as he directed Merlis to a Taco Bell– like joint. The fast food restaurant was swarming with kids from the concert, all wide-eyed when they saw Kurt Cobain standing in line to order a burrito. “Taco day was my favorite day at school,” he told everyone within earshot. The story, of course, ended up in the press.
During this first week of the tour, Alex MacLeod drove Kurt to Lawrence, Kansas, to meet William S. Burroughs. The previous year Kurt had produced a single with Burroughs titled “The Priest They Called Him,” on T/K Records, but they’d accomplished the recording by sending tapes back and forth. “Meeting William was a real big deal for him,” MacLeod remembered. “It was something that he never thought would happen.” They chatted for several hours, but Burroughs later claimed the subject of drugs didn’t come up. As Kurt drove away, Burroughs remarked to his assistant, “There’s something wrong with that boy; he frowns for no good reason.”
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