Eric and Kurt, a short story

Kurt Cobain sees 50

Seattle’s second most legendary musician reflects on supper clubs, the short tragic life of Eric Clapton, and the importance of being a father.

Article by Malick Strom for ROLLING STONE on-line

Kurt Cobain sits on a wicker loveseat and sips herbal tea. A frigid breeze rolls in from the Puget Sound and he pulls his cardigan closer.

“I keep having these weird dreams about Eric Clapton,” he rasps, reaching for the pack of Winstons on the table next to him. “I’m in this dark museum and there are all these weird paintings and old guitars on display.”

He taps out a cigarette, puts it in the center of his mouth, and lights it.

“I’m walking around looking for an exit,” he continues, the cigarette bobbing. “But the place is like a maze and I just get more and more lost. I ended up in a corridor that dead ended at this huge picture of Eric Clapton that was lit from below making him look like a god or a demon.”

Kurt takes a deep drag and gazes out across the water.

“It’s weird: Why the fuck am I dreaming about Eric Clapton?”

Kurt Cobain is not supposed to be smoking. He promised his doctor that he’d stop on his fiftieth birthday but found it even harder than kicking heroin. In the end, he settled for cutting down. During the interview Cobain smoked a total of four Winstons. Each time he lit up, the singer would give me a knowing look and rasp, “My cancer is hungry.”

I told him that he needed to write a song with that title and Cobain smiled a surprisingly boyish grin.

Kurt doesn’t do a lot of interviews. A cynic would say it’s because few people care about the former leader of Nirvana anymore. Others would suggest that the singer avoids them. I would propose a third reason: All the rules Cobain’s manager lays out in writing that any prospective interviewer has to sign. The biggest one--(it was even in a larger font)--was that I was not allowed to ask any questions about Frances Bean Cobain. Although she is rumored to be well now and leading a good life, it is still a subject her father prefers not to discuss. It is ironic that his daughter’s emotional problems caused Kurt Cobain to get past his own issues; that and a potent antidepressant known as Lithia 17. The former tortured lead singer of Nirvana now spends his days in his Japanese inspired home painting or creating eccentric dioramas. Every couple of years he departs for a truncated tour with a band comprised of hired guns.

“Half of them have beards now,” Cobain winces. “Two years ago they looked normal, but when we met for rehearsals a couple of weeks ago...beards.”

The singer shakes his head, grabs the Winstons, and then sets them down.

“Maybe they moved to Aberdeen,” he sighs. “I can’t look at them when I’m singing, hippies make me laugh.”

I attended one of the dates on his 2015 tour. The band was seated as they played sedate versions of the songs by Cobain’s legendary band and from his four solo albums. Some old fans have written him off for the mellow—(some would say lethargic)--versions of songs once brimming with pain and anger, some are just glad he got past his angst and self-inflicted torment to see his child grow up. Due to the rules of the contract, I do not share that observation.

Kurt Cobain’s dreams about Eric Clapton are not without a degree of eeriness: The legendary guitarist died on Kurt’s sixth birthday, February 20, 1973. His death by heroin overdose came as no surprise to anyone who had been watching the guitarist sink deeper into addiction. Clapton’s last work, the twisted and searing Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, is seen as a masterwork, one of the best rock albums in the history of the genre.

“Clapton was intense,” Cobain says, looking up with a sparkle in his eyes. “People who dismiss Layla and the other songs as mustache cock-rock are idiots. I mean, listen to Bell Bottom Blues; that song is almost too real.”

He gazes back out at the water and shakes his head.

“I wonder what he’d be like at 50--would he be some sad old man playing lethargic versions of songs that were once totally passionate and intense?”

Cobain taps out another Winston and smiles cryptically.

“Better to die in a blaze of glory, I guess,” he says softly.

Kurt takes a sip of tea and watches a gray and white cat prowling the yard for a couple of moments.

“I can totally relate to that album,” he continues. “I have had like ten copies of it that I have worn out or lost. That was 1992-1994 for me, maybe beyond that.”

The singer takes a long drag and looks over at a plum tree before continuing.

“When Frances started having her problems all my stupid shit just became irrelevant. Even my stomach problem went away because I had to be her dad, you know?”

He looks directly at me and I see why everyone comments about how blue his eyes are.

Possibly feeling vulnerable after sharing so much, Cobain looks over at the tree again and then at the Puget Sound in the distance.

“The stronger antidepressants helped, I guess,” he continues. “But more so it was someone I love needing me.”

He trails off and seems to be watching a ferry crossing the water.

“Crap, that reminds me: I have to go pack and take care of some things before we get on the road tomorrow. More supper clubs,” he winces and then shakes his head.

I ask him why he does it if he doesn’t enjoy it.

“Ah, I enjoy it once I’m on stage,” he grunts. “Sometimes I think about how a Nirvana fan might see it, an old guy playing a young man’s songs.”

He takes a short drag, the smell of cigarette smoke mixing with the scent of chamomile.

“I’ll be doing the new version of You Know You’re Right which was originally filled with as much angst as Layla or Bell Bottom Blues…”

He trails off and looks at the cigarette in his hand.

“I don’t feel that anymore,” Cobain says softly. “I play the songs and I appreciate they’re good songs but the emotion that caused their creation is something I can’t relate to anymore. That’s why we do all these mellow, acoustic versions now; it would just seem false to play them amplified with me screaming over the top. The why?”

He shakes his head and snubs his cigarette out. I notice that the bottom of the ashtray has a Guns ‘n’ Roses logo but someone has changed the “R” into a “P.”

“Well, there are still lawsuits, pending, you know?” Kurt says. “Some of the stuff that Frances has done, some stuff having to do with Courtney.”

He looks over at the gray and white cat.

“I’ve got to get ready now,” Cobain says this so softly it’s like he’s talking to himself or a ghost. “Time for me to get my velvet jacket and cummerbund out of the closet--have you seen my truss? That, of course, will be track three on the next album: Have You Seen My Truss? The cover will have me seated at a low table with a big grin on my face as I look down at an overflowing fondue pot. It’ll be a concept album about cheese…very hot cheese.”

Kurt Cobain rises slowly and makes his way back into the house, I do not follow him in.

In Seattle I got lost and found it impossible to use the GPS in my rental while driving. I parked and looked for someplace to get directions. Passing an alley, I saw a young woman spray-painting something on a brick wall. She either did not sense my presence or didn't care. When she was done the artist dramatically tossed the aerosol can aside and stood back to admire her handiwork: Clapton is God.

“Big Clapton fan?” I asked.

She jumped at the sound of my voice.

“Yeah. I wished I could have done this four days ago on the anniversary, but I had the flu.”

The anniversary---the day the guitarist was found dead next to a garden bench.

“Your parents were probably in grammar school when he died,” I suggested.

The painter was thin and had her long, blonde hair parted in the center. She licked a finger and smoothed one of the letters before answering.

“They don’t even know about him,” the girl frowned. “I had an uncle who turned me onto Clapton. It’s what I listen to when I feel like shit.”

I tell her about my job and that I had just spent a couple of hours with Kurt Cobain.

“What a sell out,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Talk about someone who should have died young. Did you see that unplugged concert he did on MTV3 last year? Serve the Servants used to be this incredible, angry song but there he was crooning it like Tony Bennett and limply strumming an acoustic guitar. He had a bassoon player with him, a fucking bassoon player on Scentless Apprentice! It was sick, there was all this passion in the stuff he was doing twenty-five years ago but it’s totally gone now.”

That night I had a dream that I was walking into Kurt Cobain’s garden for another interview but it was Eric Clapton sitting on the loveseat, an Eric Clapton that had lived to see 50. We chatted a bit about records he would never make and achievements that would never be his. I awoke feeling empty and depressed. In his twenties, Eric Clapton was suffering through two unrequited love affairs: One for his best friend’s wife and the other for heroin. He made a beautiful, tormented album under an assumed name and then decided it’d be a good idea to wash down some dangerously pure heroin with whisky. The end result has been the source of discussion and debate the past forty-four years. I think of Kurt’s dream, of a small somewhat faded man looking up at the larger than life portrait of one of his dead heroes---

I think of that scene and feel sorry for both of them.

(C) 2020 Izaak David Diggs

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