Timesuck with Dan Cummins - 49 - Kurt Cobain: The Triumph and Tragedy of Alt Rock's Greatest Icon

Episode Date: August 21, 2017

I remember the exact moment I first heard Nirvana and I remember the day he died. But I didn't know how hard he had to work for Nirvana to break through, and I didn't know how terribly troubled he was while they were breaking through. With the recent suicides of Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington of Linkin Park, it felt like the right time for this episode. And it was a great excuse to listen to Nirvana all week. They were so good it made me angry all over again that Kurt's not still with us. The life of Kurt, the rise of Nirvana, and the circumstances of his tragic death in today's grunge edition of Timesuck!  Timesuck is brought to you today by the Crime in Sports podcast. Find the fantastic Crime in Sports on PodcastONE.com, the PodcastONE app, or anywhere podcasts are found! The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. No shame in calling them. Ever.  Please rate and subscribe and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG, @timesuckpodcast on Twitter, and www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast

In 1994, Kurt Cobain should have felt on top of the world. Nirvana has just released back to back number one albums. He's headlining the festivals and arenas he had dreamed of just a few years before. He has a beautiful baby, and a wife who is a rock star in her own right. Critics loved his music worldwide, but despite all that, he was self-destructing, he was imploding, turning down tours, fighting with bandmates, blowing off practices, and mostly doing a shit ton of heroin. He wanted to name the album in utero, I hate myself and want to die. Now he did have a dark humor for sure but he

also really did seem like he hated himself and wanted to die. Why? He was so good. So good. Let's try to find out what Kurt was all about. What was bringing him down? Learn how he went from homeless to a huge success and a phenomenally short amount of time as we suck on some grunge on today's Northwest, smells like teen spirit, alt-rock, drop the addition of Time Suck. You're listening to Time Suck. Yeah.

We. We. We. We. We. We. We. We.

We. We. We. We. We. We. We. Happy happy Monday and hell Nimrod time suckers. I'm Dan Cummins and thanks to listen to the suck. Thanks to listen to the time suck. Today's time suck is brought to you by the podcast Crime in Sports. Are you fasting with crimes? Of course you are.

Everyone is. Do you like sports? Doesn't matter who gives a shit. Sports matter to crime in sports as much as KFC matter to John Wayne Gacy. It just gives context and also really drives home the old saying of, it didn't have to turn out this way. I love crime sports. Just every episode, it's just some athletes rise and then horrible, horrible fall.

You know, because athletes are criminals sometimes too. We oftentimes don't hear about them because they have a silver-haired middle-aged white men exploiting their talents, covering their tracks at every crime scene. Comedians James, Petr Gallow, and Jimmy Wisman host crime in sports with a new story and it's fantastic every Tuesday. They approach each one with humor and sarcasm because most of the time the laws and courts don't treat them seriously, so why should we? James is relentless in his research and will find facts about criminal athletes, even their

moms don't know. You know, like how James Fly Williams allegedly had aggressively nasty anal warts. How did he find that? Find out by listening to Crime and Sports. Can you even say that in a commercial? Probably not. But I just did. James and Jimmy run them down these crimes from birth to present day. These criminals, you know, whether it's death and carceration or they're back on the streets to re-violate, heads up, they're always going to re-violate. Find crime and sports on podcast1.com,

the podcast one app, or subscribe, everywhere podcasts are found. And these guys are not just amazing podcasts, they're friends of mine, and they're so good at what they do. I highly, highly recommend you checking out crime and sports. It's just fascinating, man. Every episode, you're like, no, please, come on, dude.

Don't throw your life away. You have a promising career every episode, you're like, no, please come on dude, don't throw your life away. You have a promising career. Oh, you motherfucker. But it does make you feel better about yourself. Listen to every episode, you're like, well at least I didn't do that. At least I'm not dealing crack after having a promising NFL career.

Oh, fantastic, that's crime and sport. So be sure and check them out. And today on Time Sucker, Big Format Change. Big Format Change, the most consistent critique I feel like this suck has received other than my mosh mouth, concerns the TimeSucker, Big Format Change. Big Format Change, the most consistent critique, I feel like the suck has received other than my moshmouth concerns the time sucker updates. You know, basically, that jump into them, you know, kind of makes it take too long sometimes

to get back into the meat of the episode, the actual story. So problem solved, the updates are not going anywhere, don't worry, but they are gonna be relocated within the episode. They're going from the front to the end. All right, not sure why I didn't think of that sooner. This way, if you like them, I'm gonna hope you do, great. You can still hear them. You just listen to them at the episode. They're going from the front to the end. All right, not sure why I didn't think that sooner. This way, if you like him, I'm gonna hope you do. Great. You can still hear him. You just listen to him at the end after the narrative is over. And if you don't like him, well, fucking, you can skip it, okay? You're going forward. It's gonna be, you know, a few minutes of greetings after the little open there.

So thank you, some quick announcements, and then bam, back into the episode. Fuckin' get movin'. Then a little teaser for the next episode, after the top five takeaways, and then time- back into the episode, fucking get moving. Then a little teaser for the next episode, after the top five takeaways, and then time sucker updates at the end. And then I don't feel rushed doing them. I'm not worried about like, oh my God, how many minutes is it taking

to get back into this story? It's gonna be great. It's starting this episode. Also, going back to the original Time Suck timeline for a bit. I forget how much you guys love staying traditional on some of this stuff. I get attached. So I got feedback there. Russ was a worst old great job.

He did a great job on the TimeSug timeline song, but instead of replacing the intro and outro permanently, what I'm gonna do is make it a revolving door. Some weeks it's gonna be the original one, you know, that you're used to. Other weeks it'll be, you know, perhaps a time sucker, showcasing their musical skills, and then back to the original.

So if you have any TimeSug timeline little song, you wanna throw out there to kind of tease your band or just have some fun, you know, just send it to Bojangles at time suckpodcast.com and we'll throw it in for an episode or two. Little musical chairs, you know, thing going on there. Sounds fun to me. So that's those announcements. Now here's these ones. Tickets are on sale for the first ever live recording of Time Suck. I'll be at the Hollywood improv. Very excited for this. In the lab, Thursday, October 5th, show starts at 7.30 pm. Pacific time, doors open at 7 pm.

All right, so 7.30 show time, 7 pm doors open. Take it's only 15 bucks. Please, please, please, if you're in the LA area, come support this event if you can. Definitely nervous about doing my first live time suck and hope it's a good showing. Take it link will be in the episode description on the podcast player and timestockpodcast.com.

And thanks to all the time suckers again, for the recent I-Tune reviews, man, so nice, so flattering, the subscriptions, recommendations for others to listen, you're really spreading the suck each week and it's gonna allow me to do some cool things coming up by the end of the year. Thanks for getting those time sucks sticker packs that you can buy at the shop or get free

with some sweet exotic animal skin t-shirts other purchases. And yeah, man, I hope to see those, you know, spreading around, sticking on some stuff. And then I'll put the pictures up on Instagram. So, and please come out to Irvine Improv, this week. Here my new show, Thursday through Sunday, and to the Omaha Funny Bone, next week,

Thursday through Sunday. More shows coming up, just added a Seattle date in October. I'll be at the part of live comedy club in Bellevue, one night only, Sunday, October 15thth after doing some shows in Portland, Oregon at Helium, October 12th, do the 14th, more tour dates coming up. Spokane, lots of other places, grand Rapids, Madison, all kinds of stuff. Follow the suck on social media at TimeSuck podcast on Instagram, Twitter, slash TimeSuck podcast on Facebook for cool updates and stuff. And finally thanks to Hunter Bloodsworth, Brian Salon, Sean Davis, and any other time-soaked

or I missed for requesting Kurt Cobain. So let's suck on him. Nirvana, man. They weren't around for long, but they sure did make an impact. Oh, and by the way, if it sounds a little different today, I'm recording this from a hotel instead of my normal little studio at home, because it just didn't work out in the schedule to get it done in the little studio. But it feels right with Nirvana, man. It feels grungy.

It feels like it's supposed to with these guys. Nirvana, man, they let the huge impact on me. I just started my freshman year of high school when I bought Nevermind. They'd just come out and they fucking blew me away. I had not heard anything like it. It was one of the last tapes I ever bought. I meant side B. I remember flipping it over to side B, which kicks off with little territorial pissings

and it ripped my goddamn brain out of my head. Slap it around, threw it back in my skull, a little different than it was before. So raw, powerful, so fucking angry. It's like, who were these guys, man? Who can drum that heart? Is he singing or is he screaming? I just moved from Riggins, Idaho

to go live with my dad in Vegas for a bit And it was a rough transition man. It was not easy. I was not fitting in. I didn't have any friends You know, I wasn't popular at all like I like I was back in Riggins in a little tiny school Which was much easier to be popular. It's 15 Misunderstood. I was pissed about my parents divorced and just angry in general and listening to Nirvana It just felt like Kurt Cobain had given me my own soundtrack. And listening to it today, man, the music holds up. God, does it hold up?

The guy was a musical genius. He was also, you're gonna find out, extremely troubled. So let's get to know him. Let's try and find out why critically acclaimed iconic rock star, recent millionaire, and new adoring father would kill himself at just 27 years old. And yes, conspiracy friends,

we will address the possibility of his murder, also, don't you worry. So let's suck on the life and times of Kurt Cobain, get to know the man a little bit with the big ol' time suck timeline. Shrap on those boots, soldier. We're marching down a time suck timeline. Time line. February 20th 1967, Kurt Donald Cobain is born at Grey's Harbor Community Hospital in Aberdeen, Washington to first time parents Don and Wendy.

He spent, uh, he'd end up spending about three quarters of his life within 10 miles of this very hospital. His parents lived nearby Hoquium. Just a few miles away also on the harbor, a little town of the population about 10,000. Aberdeen was a blue collar logging town, with a population of just under 20,000. Biggest town in the area of Grey's Harbor, Washington, which is the sixth busiest harbor on the west coast of that time. Login was huge. The area was home to 37 different lumber, pulp, or other types of sawmills. That's a lot of sawmills, if you're not a big sawmill,

a fishing auto. Life was down in Dirty Man. There was 27 taverns in 1967 in this little place. And there was several brothels until the 1950s. Life magazine, actually once called Aberdeen, a hotspot in the nation's war with sin. Just a rough, down in Dirty, blue-colored Northwest logging town when Kurt was born. I get a man, Riggins, where I grew up was a, you know, for most of my childhood,

was a teeny tiny version of this. It was also a little logging town. And down in Dies, well, Kurt was the first grandchild on both family trees. And current parents were young, getting married July 31st, 1965, but his mom was only 17, still in high school. So they actually got married in Cordelein Idaho,

where I live now, which was kind of famous in the Northwest for a long time for this little place called the Hitchin Post. And Idaho's kind of relaxed marriage laws. And basically, you know, if you wanted to get married, if I get 16, who gives a shit? Come to Corde de Laine, get married.

Don worked at a gas station when he stayed at home, Cardwood sandals out of Driftwood to sell to local Native Americans. No, she didn't do that. She stayed at home and she worked as a mom and house wife. That other stuff didn't make sense on many levels. First couple years of his life, Kurt is the center of his parents' world, man.

Music is all around him. A lot of extended family members play musical instruments. And the family, we get to get together for big jam sessions, by all accounts. First few years of life, fantastic. September 1969, less than two years after Kurt's birth, the young couple moved out of their rental in Hokeham and advised their first home in Aberdeen for $7,953 bucks. Oh my god, man, to buy a house back then. They lived in a neighborhood called felony flats though. It's still called felony flats.

It's a two-story middle-class house, middle-class neighborhood. Kurt would later call it white trash posing this middle-class, which makes sense with a felony flat subscription. And after watching some documentaries, checking out some YouTube videos or the general area, yeah, probably a little sketchy, you know? But still, good old, you know, middle-class, lower middle-class, the general area. Yeah, probably a little sketchy, you know, but still good old, you know, middle class, lower middle class, American childhood continues.

And then in early 1970, Donald Wendee had a second child, Kurt Schengers, sister Kim, is born in April 4th that year. 1971 Kurt starts kindergarten, little Kurt. Starts at the age of five, he's already showing some amazing artistic talent. You know, he's has a great art, a great art, great drawing and sketch skills.

His parents would drive him to Seattle around this time, set up a little booth for him, and he would paint caricatures of tourists down at the Pike Place Market where they throw the salmon and stuff. Cobain's caricatures come as you are. He'd actually used the title of that little booth he had for the song the same name years later. You can see some of Kurt's early caricatures in my ass, because that's where I just pulled that part of the story from. Now, he never did caricatures in Seattle, but he was artistically gifted in early age. That part's true, okay.

He was painting by the time he was in kindergarten. His room began to take on a look of an art studio, classmates, remember having an incredible ability to sketch anything. I was admired that talent, man. My friend Carter Wilson was like that. He could sketch anything really well. I actually got my son's name from a old buddy. But I tried to be that kid.

I wanted to be that kid. Carter was one year above me. I tried to be that kid in my class. And I kind of was. I was like a low rent version of that kid. Like classmates would ask me for sketches in early grade school, but you would always get one of two things because they would do the only two things

I could draw. You get a muscle dude or a monster. So I was like, oh, you want to pick it yourself? No problem. No, no problem. How about you as a monster? How about you as a monster with fangs and stuff? No, okay. That's fine. Not feeling that. How about you, how about you, Michelle, as a moustache-yote muscle dude? No? Well, I guess you're just going to take your page from you somewhere else. Kurt, music as a kid. I could beat out melodies on the piano without lessons around the age of six or seven. He bought his first record, Seasons in the Sun by Terry Jacks by the incomparable Terry Jacks.

I never would have guessed that as his first record, check this out. He could be set free. Then I looked into the ocean blue. I think my first tape was Billy Eidel's Vital Eidel. Maybe. That makes me sound pretty cool. But it also may have been, I might have bought them on the same day actually, WAM. I'm not sure the title of the WAM album, but it was the one that had wake me up before you go go

Wake me up before you go go. I'm not hang around like yo, yo It also had a careless whisper if you call that one I'm never gonna dance again You'd if it if got no rhythm Yeah, yeah, so that one not as cool, but you know what, solid fucking song still. I'll stand by him. March, 1975, Kurt plays Little League for the first time, which makes it sports love and father Don super happy. Kurt was a, he was okay baseball, but he never ended up really loving it,

really getting into it, and really didn't get in any sport, which bummed his dad out, because that's all his dad was about. Don was varying to sports, and they're kind of disagreement on sports being cool, or important, you know, would kind of just cause this gap between them. Kurt was an archie little kid, Don didn't understand that.

Don was really into sports, Kurt didn't understand that. And that bum cut out because you know, he wanted his dad's approval and well boy, he doesn't. But he didn't want to do what Don approved of, you know, which was sports. Also around this time, while Kurt was in grade school, Kurt was given riddling for three months due to being a hyperactive kid. It didn't really seem to slow him down. While Kurt was in grade school, Kurt was given riddeline for three months due to being a hyperactive kid Didn't really seem to slow him down so he was taking off of it Kurt would later blame the euphoria He felt on riddeline as a kid as a precursor to his like drug abuse later

Thinking about how is his you know the best he felt as a kid and when life got harder He got a little older, you know He wanted to go back to this simplicity of childhood and he wanted to feel that euphoria again He wanted to do drugs again Honestly, this sounds like a bullshit excuse to me to blame something other than one zone free will, poor choices for drug abuse. That's me. UCLA research has shown that children with attention, deficit, hyperactivity disorder are

far more likely than other kids to develop serious substance abuse problems as adolescents and adults. However, studies also found that taking riddals in specifically to treat ADHD does not seem to increase the odds of future drug abuse whatsoever. February's 1976, a week after Kurt's ninth birthday, the end of February 1976, Wendy tells Don, she wants a divorce.

Fuck. Happy carefree childhood over. A few days later, on March 1st, Don moves out to go live with his parents in a little trailer in Montessano, a town of a few thousand, few miles from Aberdeen, just another little town of Party Grace Harbor, a little Kurtz devastated, you know?

Dad just moved out to childhood, just thrown into turmoil, turmoil that will fester and twist inside of him and later propel him into being the, you know, musical mascot for disillusioned youth across the world Don slips into depression denial following the doors Thinking Wendy's gonna change her mind and she does not Wendy actually quickly shacks up with longshoreman Who makes twice as much money the dawn?

Wendy from a lot of stuff. I read you know that was very important to her income and that turned a painter is like a you know Superficial person. I mean money's important to her income. And that turned to painters like a superficial person. I mean, money's important to a lot of us, but it seemed to be that was like the big B with Don. He was not as ambitious as she would like him to be. And her new guy was apparently an asshole in addition to a longshoreman who hated Don very much. One time, I read this in several articles,

when Don's driver's license was mailed to Wendy by mistake shortly after the divorce, this new dude literally wiped his ass with it, wiped shit on it, and then forwarded it to Don in the mail. And miraculously, Don did not head over to his ex-wife's house and just fucking killed him both. Wow. You know, like whenever I hear about some crazy domestic dispute in the news, some like, you know, woman's shoes husband to mistress and then herself,

or ex-husband kicks down ex-wife's door door, and kills ex-wife, a new boyfriend. I never think it's good. I never like, yeah, good for them. But I do always wonder, like, why? What led up to that? Usually it's mental illness or some premeditated sociopathic shit. Usually it is the perpetrator's fault. I will say that, be very clear about that.

But I also feel like a couple times, it's gotta be like a normal person who just got pushed to fucking far, right? Like in this case, like if your husband's driver's license comes to your house by mistake and you and the dude, you're shacking up with, you know, use it to wipe your asses with it or you know, or one of you wiped your asses with it and then forwards it to them.

I'm not saying it's okay for him to then come over to your house and kill you both with like a shotgun. But I do think the ass wiping should be taken heavily into an account during the sentencing. Like you know the judge would be like, you've been found guilty of two counts of first degree premeditated homicide. I was gonna sentence you to life in prison

without the possibility of parole, but then I heard about the ass wiping thing. It's set you off. Now, I'll say, it's okay. Well, you did, but I am going to sentence you to 10 years instead. And you're going to be eligible for parole in, how about three? Not cool what you did, but those motherfuckers kind of had to come with the butt wiping shit. That's bullshit. June 1976, Kurt has not taken the divorce well. That June Kurt writes on his bedroom wall. I hate mom, I hate dad, dad hates mom, mom hates dad. It simply makes you want to be so sad.

You know, here in this bum me out, man, especially as a kid who's parents divorced when I was about the same age as Kurt and also having a divorce myself. The mic gets had to go through. So definitely a bummer, but you can also see Kurt's future of lyrical ability in that refrain, right?

It simply makes you want to be so sad. I don't feel like that's how the average nine-year-old is going to write about their parents' divorce. I feel like it would normally be something like, I hate mom, I hate dad, they can eat poop and boogers, hope they do eat some poop, and I hope some boogers too. You know, I think it'd be more like those lines. 1976 would be the one of the worst years of Kurt's life,

man, he was so upset about the divorce, he ended up going to the hospital because of malnutrition. This might have been the first sign of a stomach condition that would plague and haunt him for the rest of his life, or he might have just been so emotionally upset, he couldn't keep his food down. Three months after the divorce,

Kurt went to go live with his dad and Montessano, sister, Kim, stayed with mom Wendy. And then the winter of 1976, he transferred to a new school in Montessano. A smaller town of about 3,500 people with a much smaller school, about a third of the size of the school is in Aberdeen. It was easier for Kurt to be a lot popular there.

He immediately became a favorite of the girls with his blonde hair, blue eyes. And this resonates with me very much, man. My parents got divorced when I was like eight, third grade. I wanted to go live with my dad, it wasn't allowed to. My parents got divorced when I was like eight, third grade. I wanted to go live with my dad, it wasn't allowed to. My dad stayed in Anchorage, Alaska,

where we'd been living for a few years. And then my mom moved us back to our born back to Riggins, Idaho, where there was about 20 kids in my class now. And I went from not having, you know, too many friends. I don't remember being very popular at all. Anchorage was a little,

you know, I had like one or two friends or whatever. And so I went to a few schools there. I remember one school just right after like kind of during my parents' divorce where I was just not happy. I so I went to a few schools there. I remember one school just right after like kind of during my parents divorce where I was just not happy. I think I probably cried a lot in school, which makes other little kids, you know, not wanna be your buddy necessarily.

And then I go to a school where there's like 10 kids in my class and Riggins, you know, or 20, 10 boys. And I became way more popular than I ever would have been if I would have stayed in Anchorage. Like way, way more. And that definitely affects your development. I don't think I'd be a comic today, honestly, if I hadn't went to school for Riggins for most of my childhood, you know, I just got a confidence there.

I wouldn't have got somewhere else. You know, I had that new kid, Kache, you know, I had it in the town where you might be the only new kid for a couple of years. October 1977, Donnie to woman named Jenny laid that fall. The woman he would soon remarry. She was divorced, had two kids herself, Mindy, a year younger than Kurt and James, five years younger.

Kurt liked her at first, like Jenny, step mom, but also she's the woman who ruined his plan to just hang out with that. You made some little deals, a dad raves a divorce, like, well, I had dad promised to never get married, and Don was like, okay, and then Jenny comes along. So I get his anger there.

I also had dreams to hang with my dad, my sister Donna, she could come, hang out, but that was it. I didn't see my dad much the first few years after the divorce. And then when I finally did see him, he's living with some lady. I'd never met some lady Julie. And then the next time he was living with a different lady. I'd never met Colleen that he's now married to.

And I was fucking pissed. What about our time? So I get his anger there. Kurt Vizzis and mom and sister in Aberdeen on weekends. He hates that. He loves to see his sister, loves to see his mom, but he hates mom's new boyfriend, Frank Franch, a violent man who would break his mom Wendy's arm.

Kurt Winnes is some of the violence between his mom and her boyfriend and he feels helpless to protect her. So he's got that going on on his mom's side. You know, that's not good. Don's granted Custy, full custody of Kurt in 1979 and that fall Kurt starts junior high. seventh grade yearbook profile on Kurt reveals that his favorite saying is excuse you.

That was a little twist on Steve Martin's excuse me from an SNL sketch. His favorite band is Meatloaf. I remember having one of those Meatloaf albums as a kid. Like I had a Meatloaf like that bad out of hell too, returned to how some shit like operatic, opera like kind of rock. Yeah, it's me loaf, you know, yeah, it's a good song.

His favorite subject is the band. He's remembered as a quiet kid at school and a loud kid full of complaints at home. By 1981, friends really began to notice 14 year old Kirk dark sense of humor. He tells one friend when he was a kid that he was gonna grow up, become a musician, become rich and famous, and then kill himself.

I'll creep you a zat. He said he wanted to blow up and then go away like Jimmy Hendrix. And you guys, he told that to a variety of kids. And he'd also been recently introduced to suicide. Kurt Great Uncle Burl, his grandpa's brother on his dad's side, had shot himself in the head in 1979. And I guess Kurt would talk about that often.

He was fixated on that. And then in 1981, also, he saw a suicide. This is really crazy. He was an eighth grade classmate, Curtin, New at Montessano, hanged himself from a tree outside the Man of San Hill grade school. Curtin, two other classmates discovered the body

while walking home from school. That's like some stand by me shit. Right, if you ever seen that movie or read that Stephen King short story, it ended up staring at it for like half an hour before school officials made him leave. That's got to leave an impact on you, man. I mean, just seeing some kid you know, or new, I guess, hanging from a tree.

Jesus Christ. Kurt started smoking weed, drop an acid in the eighth grade. He went from smoking pot of parties to smoking pot with friends to smoking it daily by himself. Pot itself may not be addictive, but that's true addict behavior, man. Every day he's doing it. Pot became his escape. He also started cutting class regularly by the end of eighth grade.

You go buy weed, raid some other parents, liquor cabinet with some buddies. Start spending more and more time alone as well. Stop doing his chores, start acting out more and more at his dad's house. He's spending more and more time in his basement room alone, fighting with his stepmom, fighting with his step brother and step sister.

Feels like she favors the other kids over him. September of 1981, Kurt starts high school, joins a track team, to host a discus, runs a 200 yard dash, but doesn't show up to the practices. You know, very many of them. So, to a few here and there. He also joins a JB wrestling team, but kind of gives it the same kind of half-ass effort. His dad actually ended up walking out during one of his matches when he just lays there and lets the opponent

pin him. First birthday, his grandpa Chuck offers Kurt either a guitar or motorcycle that year and Kurt picks the motorcycle. How weird is that man? He actually gets good enough with it to earn a spot with the Aberdeen Rumblers team that competed in sort of a precursor, I guess, the X games, where two teams of five riders each would wear light body armor and try to knock off other riders with wooden bats.

I guess how you'd win is the last team to have a rider, you know, not get knocked off of their bike with a bat would win. And Kurt's dad and grandpa, they fucking loved it. Man, they loved it. They saw a competitive side of Kurt for the first time. Kurt actually killed a kid in his second match. So that was never more priceless.

That was a good moment for him. Of course that never happened to. Why, what point did you realize it was bullshit? Was it, please tell me at the body armor part, you were still like, that's weird. That's crazy. I never heard of the Aberdeen Rumpers. It's because he never exists.

No, I'm sorry. Kurt, he picked a guitar. Of course he did. Kurt Cobain, he played it constantly and fortunately, he also fought out with his dad and stepmom constantly, even though he was the only, you know, freshman in high school, they kicked him out of the house this year,

standing a little, live with his grandparents, Leeland and I, Iris. Over the next four years, he would live in 10 different houses with 10 different family members. His family painted a picture of Kurt around this time as a lazy, petulant, self-absorbed teen, you know, even a sister Kim, you know,

she's lived in the same environment but she kind of keeps her shift together. She helps pay the family bills, you know, with her paper Kim, you know, she's lived in the same environment, but she kind of keeps her ship together. She helps pay the family bills with her paper route. Kurt's not interested in doing any of that. He doesn't want to get a job, can't be bothered. Life's not fair, everything's not fair. Why should you have to do that? Kurt ends up living with his uncle Jim Cobain for a while,

his uncle Chuck, soon after that, numerous other family members, no one either has room for him or they can control him. And they're having to kick him out, Kurt transfers from his high school in Montesanote to Aberdeen where he goes to live with his mom halfway through his sophomore year,

J.M. Weatherwax High School. Has 300 students per grade, three times the amount of kids in Montesanote and Kurt does not handle the transition well, right? Kurt does not make friends easily if the new school isn't popular in Aberdeen. He's a small kid, not athletic enough to half-ass it, still make a team. Things are way more competitive. The school is full of clicks. He doesn't belong than any of them. And again, I mentioned this earlier with the going to Vegas.

I relate to this, you know, in between eighth grade, my freshman year. I went to go live with my dad in Vegas. I've been living with my mom since the divorce in Riggins, Idaho, transferred from a school with a class size, like I said, roughly 20, to a school in Las Vegas, I had more kids and just my class, about 650, than the entire population of my town had. Right before, huge culture shock, and I did not know anyone. And I went from being a popular kid in Riggins to a kid who had no friends.

I also grew like six or seven inches, and about six months didn't put on any weight, which did not help. I hadn't grown for several years. There's a weird thing when I was a kid. I was like the shortest kid in my class, from about fifth grade to about eighth grade. Like, I mean, boys or girls, I was tiny.

By eighth grade, I was still around, I think around like four, 11, you know, somewhere between maybe even four, 10, five, two, probably about a hundred pounds. And suddenly I shoot up to about five, eight, five, nine. I only make it about 110, 15 pounds. Like I was like, you know, the kind of skinny where everyone's like, just eat.

And I'm like, fuck, and I am. I'm eating all the time. Suddenly I get acne, you know, pretty kind of skinny where everyone's like just eat. And I'm like, fuck, and I am. I'm eating all the time. Suddenly, I get acne, you know, pretty bad. Go from being a star or the basketball team to not even bother to try out for the team because most of the kids could dunk and would layer play in college. And I was used to practicing on a hoop and my lawn back in Reagan said, was, you know, roughly regulation height was very uneven ground. It was fucking terrible.

And, you know, that does awkward to go through with that time in your life. And it was awkward for Kurt. Kurt remembers being picked on in Aberdeen. He dropped out of sports, the only class that he excelled at, where a few art classes, basic and commercial art, fifth and sixth periods. I guess you'd mostly just skip school until then. His art skills didn't press his teachers, you know.

But other than that, he just wasn't showing up. His mom doesn't even seem to notice. His mom was busy, shackling up with young dudes. She loved young guys even seem to notice. His mom was busy shacking up with young dudes. She loved young guys in the early 20s when she was in her mid 30s. And she was too busy, you know, just banging it out, I guess, to pay attention to curtain and be a parent. Kurt's mom did embarrass him. She would sunbathe in a tiny bikini in her yard when his friends were over.

She'd buy his friends alcohol, kind of seem to flirt with them. She was fucking gross. I'd buy his friends alcohol, kind of seem to flirt with them. She's fucking gross. I'd go to dirt bag. Like the parent who flirts with their kids' friends, you are such a fucking dirt bag. When she popped up on some documentaries, I watched about Kurt like montage of heck. I immediately did not like her.

I didn't really like either one of his parents to be totally honest. His dad just seemed to check the fuck out. His stepmom seemed clueless and his mom just seemed like a dirtbag. Kurt Cobain also went on to his first concert shortly after head back to Aberdeen, first rock concert man, he saw Sammy Hagar at the Seattle Colosseum,

fucking Sammy Hagar. That's one of the first musicians I was into as a kid. I remember when a Sammy Hagar was tapest as the first one I ever shared with a friend. Like, first one I was like, dude, you gotta listen to this. It was the song, I can't drive 55. I distinctly remember being in the basement, putting out in the boom box. I was about six or seven years old and just being like, man, check this out. I remember my friend started talking, I was like, no, shh, quiet. You gotta hear this.

Like, this is the greatest thing I'd ever heard, you know? One, 25, post my face and want that old laugh. Take my license, all that job I can't drive 55. You get that fucking crazy high note, right? Oh, butt rock. Curve would call him butt rock, too, later. Man, is that a regional term, butt rock? For like the Sammy Hagar, kind of Skid Row, Cinderella, warrant, type music. I don't know, man, that's what we call it.

Kurt would later say the black flag was his first concert. Classmates would later remember that he came to school though, wearing Sammy Hagar shirt the next day. All right, so it wasn't black flag, buddy. Don't try and rewrite your narrative. All right, don't act like that. What your first concert you wanted to was, but you bought rock. That's where you started.

Fuck yeah. I bet he did have a Hagar shirt. I bet that shirt had some like hot chick, hot rock chick, just caress him. Hagar's hairy chest or something. Man, fucking butt rock. I asked him to wash jeans, teetop, ca meros, punchin' nerds, peeling out and parking lots.

Summer of 1983, Nirvana did see some punk. Nirvana, I'm calling Nirvana now, Curricle Bane. He sees the Melvins following Summer, performed for a handful of people in a little Montessannele grocery store parking lot. How punk rock is that? It would change his life forever, man. He'd later write about it in his journal. This is what I've been looking for. Yep, Melvins blew him away. Crowd was small, but the Melvins energy was huge. They played fast and raw with an intensity. He had not seen before. He

soon saw them again, many, many, many times. Actually, the Melvins would be very intertwined with his life and with a life in Irvana, as we'll find out. He finds out that the melvans had all grown up and gone to school together in a little old Montessena, were curded gone recently, and they were now practicing an Aberdeen, where he was living, just a few miles, you know. They were all in the same little area there. I can't imagine how cool that must have felt for Kurt.

Melvans practice in the back of drummer Dale Crover's parents place in Aberdeen. Local teams will come watch him, including Kurt. The band called these kids Klingons, Little nod to Star Trek, Little Lick Knowledge, a little klingy following nature. Kirt knew the Melbourne's bassist, Matt Luchen, Matt had gone to school in Montessano about three years older than Kirt. Matt would go on later to help form influential Seattle band Mudhoney. And Pearl Jam would actually end up writing a song about Matt Luchen, named Luchen.

I heard that one. It's a little like one minute song. Seattle band Mudhoney and Pearl Jam would actually end up writing a song about Matt Luchin, named Luchin. I heard that one. It's a little like one minute song of theirs. Spring and 1984, Kirk gets kicked out of his mom's house, becomes a homeless teenager. At first, he's sleeping on a buddy's porch, and he slept in the hallway of various Aberdeen apartment complexes.

This type of living would inspire the lyric he'd write later. It amazes me the will of instinct. To eat, he'd go to a local hospital, till cafeteriai workers, he was grabbing food from one of the patients there. How fucking sad. Man, this is the kid who's supposed to be in high school. And he's sneaking food out of a hospital. Kurt moved back into his father's house after about four months of being homeless in 1984, and it begins really getting into the guitar now, really practicing it for hours, hours down in the basement. And then another co-bein suicide, kind of,

depresses the family. Another one of his grandpa, Leland's brothers, this time Ken co-bein, now shoots himself in the head, just of depresses the family. Another one of his grandpa, Leland's brothers, this time Ken Cobain now shoots himself in the head, just like his other brother had. Two of his grandpa's brothers now have shot themselves and actually his third and final brother had recently drank himself to death, which the family felt was kind of suicidal because basically his doctor had told him,

if he keep drinking, you're gonna die and he just goes right back to drinking. Kurt, too far behind in school now to graduate on time. He just kind of stops going, drops out. 1984 after he's dropped out, he tries religion, still looking for some meaning, his chaotic, increasingly hopeless looking life. His shot on religion lasts about six months. He goes to a Baptist church with a buddy of his, Jesse, even his baptized that October. Even gets really into it for a while. It starts going to Wednesday night Bible studies in addition to the Serm Sherman on Sundays. Kurt moved in with Jesse's parents, the reads Dave

and Ethel in September of 1984. Also Jan was future Nirvana basis, Christ nobicellic at this time. He met Christ eventually at the and it is Christ by the way, I was not for years, it was Christ. It's actually Christ with a T of an odd name right? Christ, I think it's Croatian. But Christ, he met him initially at the Melvin's practice space back in Aberdeen. Chris was another one of those klingons. And then he ran into him in the Baptist church, he was going to with the reeds. So Jesse Reed, Kurt, Chris, all jamming on guitars with the reeds. By March of 1935, Kurt is really dreaming of being a big musician someday.

He cuts his fingers, a lamplighter, a little restaurant he worked at in the area as a dish washer and a bus boy has his stitches and so he panics and he quits his job. Tills a friend, if he hurts his fingers and so he panics and he quits his job. Tills a friend, if he hurts his fingers and can't play guitar, he'll kill himself. Right with no job, no ability to play guitar for a little while, with draws, he convinces his buddy Jesse to skip school with him, stayed home with him, get drunk, do some drugs, and the reads find out and kick him out. Right, he's homeless again.

He ends up working a part-time as a janitor now at Weatherwax High School. How fucked up is that man? This is the school he was just at, the school he dropped out from right huge low point for young Kirk He imagine that you're going to high school one year the next you're mopping the floors of that high school when you should still be going to that school That's got to be so depressing Man left him very depressed and he quit after just two months and Yeah, it's future to not look bright in 1985 and he's bouncing around in 1985 And he finally ends around in 1995.

And he finally ends up in a hundred dollar a month studio apartment with a Jesse Reed until he gets evicted, lives with a former teacher for a while, crashes with the melvins here and there, gets arrested for doing dumb teenage shit like Melissa Smith's shift begins drinking in public. You know, gets arrested for that too. Starts a band called Fiko Matter in December of 1985

with a few friends, has Dale Crover on base, Dale being the drummer for the Melvins, and Greg Hokinson on drums. He writes songs with names like Suicide, Samurai, Spankthrough, and Buffy's Pregnant. They make a crude demo, but the project doesn't last long. Fiko Matter broke up without a replaying a single gig. Virgins of some of those really songs though would show up in Kurtz later in Nirvana releases. That August, Chris Nova Selig's girlfriend Shelly, who Kurt knew from high school, talked Chris and Letton Kurt crash in their van for a little bit.

Chris listened to Kurtz, Fiko Madder demo, thought Spank through, it was a pretty good song. It was interested in formative band with him. September 1, 1986, Wendy Kurtz mom loans Kurt 200 bucks. And he gets a place near her

in felony flats, Aberdeen. It was enough to pay his first month rent, you know, some shitty little house there, no fridge, no stove, has a rotten roof, two living rooms, two bedrooms, single bathroom, odd constructed house, you know, it's just two blocks away from his mom's house and they're getting along a little better, she'd bring him food from time to time, he could go to her house, he was in the laundry room and he's living there with Matt Lugan, Matt Lugan from the melvans moves in and because of that association, there's gonna be jam sessions all the time

at Kurt's house, man. He's also doing a lot of acid around this time. According to some friends, roughly five times a week. That's a fucking terrible amount of acid. I've only done it once, that was enough for me. No Vicelli remembers, you know, Kurt at this time just being a total mess. Doing ass all the time, getting drunk in the middle of the day,

but also bingeing on music, also, you know, able to jam with a variety of different musicians. One, one, you know, Celica on bass and a local drummer, Bob McFadden. Another lineup, feature Chris on guitar, Kurt Androms. Kurt and Chris formed one lineup. I love this, called the Sellouts. And they would only rehearse Credence, Clearwater, Revival Songs. Because he thought if they got good enough, they could play like local Aberdeen taverns. Oh my God, how crazy would that be if that's what went

with form? If instead of forming Nirvana, they would have just formed an Aberdeen CCR fucking cover band called the Sellouts. Another lineup featured Kurt on bass, Kenny Loggins on Banjo, Bojangles on Hermonica, and Michael Motherfucking McDonald on Backpipe. They called themselves Beale's Bubs Butthole, and they would only play it midnight under the light of a full moon.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, that's weird, that's weird and not true. No, another real lineup was called the stiff woody's, and they played a high school party for the kids who ignored them. And fecal matter in the stiff woody's. If Beavison Butthead would have existed this time, Kurt would have been all over him. Kurt Christ and a drummer named Aaron at Berkhard began playing in another little lineup, an onname group, which would be the very beginning of Nirvana, and they'd play a few times a week. March 1987, Tracy Miranda starts dating Kurt in the beginning of 1977, his first real girlfriend. Yeah, by that March, Kurt had the beginnings of a girlfriend,

the beginnings of the band. You know, they would later become Nirvana They played their first gig Nirvana still didn't have a name. They were considering Spina Bifida Whisker Biscuit, Whisker Biscuit, Jesus that reminds me junior high designer drugs Pupu box Gut bomb and puking worms among men. There's what if Nirvana would have just stuck with whisker whisker Biscuit That is such a ridiculously junior high slang term for vagina. Oh, there's no way, even with the same music, there's no way they're getting as big

with the name Whisker Biscuit as Nirvana, right? Because you'd be, I'd be fucking in bed, like grown up, you'd be embarrassed, man, hey man, have you heard Whisker Biscuit? Like what the fuck? Whisker Biscuit, no radio stations, gonna be like, check out this if you heard Whisker Biscuit, they'd like, what the fuck? Whisker Biscuit. No radio stations, gonna be like, check out this next track from Whisker Biscuit. Oh my God.

They played their first gig as in Raymond Washington, little town of 3000 loggers, roughly an hour from Aberdeen. It was an unpaid gig and 15 people showed up. The first song was Downer, one of the first songs Kurt Roach sang that would show up on Bleach. Those at the party don't remember him ever raising his head or pushing his hair out of his face

and then no one clapped at the end of the first song. Man, talk about humble beginnings for the man that would just rule the rock world in a very short amount of time. They wouldn't play in front of another audience for months. Kurt Leaves Aberdeen, April of 1987, moves in with his girlfriend Tracey and Olympia. That's a good move for him.

Olympia was a super eclectic little, uber liberal artsy college town. That's where evergreen colleges, like maybe one of the most liberal colleges on the face of the earth. Tracey lives right next to downtown, super good place for emerging artists to live. Kurt worked on his art there in his music while living

with Tracey. She dots on Kurt. She was a few years older. Nurtrede and her almost maternal way. She was a support of mother he never had in Wendy. In the documentary, Montage of Heck, she comes across as a very, very sweet woman actually. As of spring 1977, Devana still hasn't settled

on a permanent name. They played a few more parties in early 87 and then in April, performed on a college radio station called KaOS in Olympia. Tracy passes a tape at the performance, Jim May, the boaker of a theater in Tacoma, Washington, called the Community World Theater. And they performed there at the theater,

their first non-party gig as another name, Skid Row. I love that. They didn't realize there was already a band name Skid Row, fronted by Sebastian Bach, complete Bud Rock, and there was about 20 people in the crowd for that one. And Nirvana's still not making any money this time. The band almost breaks up because of it. Chris is working two jobs for a while in Tacoma.

He's working as an industrial painter, and also as a Sears clerk. And then the original drummer, Aaron Berkhart, he takes a new job as the swing shift assistant manager at the Aberdeen Burger King. And he can't play with any more because he can't make practices. How fucked up is that in hindsight? Dude, you were in Nirvana? Oh yeah, man. I was there first drummer. I could have been Dave Grohl. What happened? Well, Burger King called is what happened and I answered. And you know what? No regrets. I'm a manager now. So head butt high five,

up top. December 87, Dave Grover, an old drummer for the Melvins was back in town from California and Kurt reaches out to him. So he could record some tracks from a demo. So now they got Dale Grover on drums. January 23rd,, Chris Kurt and Dale Crover, the drive up to reciprocal recording studio in Seattle, a now legendary studio, where Mud Honey, Mother Lovebone, Sound Garden, other Seattle favorites and legends that already recorded, unless in six hours on January 23rd 1988, they had recorded and mixed nine and a half songs. That's right, there's a half in there because the real estate ran out halfway through the last song and it

didn't have the 30 bucks for an extra tape. That's how. There's a half in there because the real tape ran out halfway through the last song and they didn't have the 30 bucks for an extra tape. That's how poor they were. A lot of the songs from Bleach were originally recorded that day. They played the Tacoma theater again that night in front of about 20 people again. And they actually get paid this time. They actually get paid. They get 10 bucks in gas money. A month away from his 21st birthday, Kirk Cobain is now technically a professional musician. And I guess, I guess he,

uh, supposedly just kind of rubbed that $10 bill around in his pocket the whole, whole drive home. How adorable is that? I still remember make my first money in comedy, man, 25 bucks for doing five, seven minutes sets and spoke in Washington over the course of a weekend, five shows at a little place called the season ticket, uh, sports bar. They called the comedy club inside of it. Laffes, just a separate room inside of a sports bar in the parking lot of a thrift store. I was 23 and it felt fucking amazing. Kurt was now obsessed with his new still-unnamed band. Yeah, actually, I want to thank Nick Tyson for giving me that first sets.

That was the guy that got me started. But Kurt, yeah, he's obsessed. He became convinced that getting on a video on MTV would catapult the band to fame and to help make that happen. He convinced his bandmates to play an Aberdeen radio shack in early 88. A friend shots performance on a low budget camera that had very special effects, kind of like shitty effects.

And with Kurt Watts the tape, he realized, you know, not quite MTV quality. And so did the rest of the band and then Krover left and went back to work with the Melvins. I love the delusional optimism of youth. Just guys, I have a plan. MTV videos makes bands famous, right? And we want to be a famous band, right guys?

Okay, then, what we need to make a video then. And look, I got an in. We can shoot it for free at Radio Shack. Think about it. They already have all the cords, they have all the adapters we could ever need. They have remote control cars for some reason, which I've never understood, but we can work those into the video

All right, if the phone rings or customer has a question we just play right on through that shit Well, he doesn't get his video but he doesn't give up late in the 88. Chris and Kurt they get another drummer Dave foster hard pound and hard living drummer from Aberdeen Finally Kurt also comes up with the name Nirvana Kurt. I watch a late night TV program on Buddhism And finally, Kurt also comes up with the name Nirvana. Kurt watched a late night TV program on Buddhism. He was always seen up late watching TV. And he watches like an infomercial, basically, on Buddhism. He learns about the concept of Nirvana, the concept of spiritual enlightenment

and suddenly considered himself a Buddhist for a little while. Long enough for Nirvana to get that as a name for the band. Well, the demo he made back in January had been mixed and mastered now, passed along to a few people. And one of these people is Jonathan Ponteman. Jonathan is the co-owner of the Seattle Indie label you have now heard of called Subpop.

You know, just kind of known locally at that time. Ponteman had called the band, conversation, Kurt and I waiting for his whole life, man. Ponteman wanted to do a, Ponteman, excuse me, wanted them to do a showcase at a venue called Vogue. Just, you know, to make sure you wanted to work with them. It's tied a little venue in Seattle. He had a monthly showcase there, you know, called Showcase Sunday, just to make sure you wanted to work with them. It's time to little venue in Seattle. He had a monthly showcase there, you know, called Showcase Sunday's Subpops Showcase

Sunday's $2 cover for three bands, Cheap Beer Specials. Kurt's so excited for the gig with Subpops. He goes to Seattle and gets there four hours early for the gig. By the time it's time to play for them, Dave Foster said Kurt was just really uptight, like super anxious. They finally get on stage and there's again about 20 people just like Tacoma, right? And this time they're trying to get a fucking record deal. But you know, they only got 20 people to play 14 songs in front of 20 people who mostly

leave actually. There's way less than 20 by the end of the sets, most of the crowd thought they sucked. Local music photographer was so unimpressed, you didn't even shoot any photos of them. And they drive home sulking about it. And Kurt's, you know, he's promising the band, he's gonna work harder, write better songs. But they do feel like it's a total loss. But then a few days later, Subpop calls, offers him a record deal.

It was for a single with two B-sides and an EP, right? Subpop wanted Love Buzz to be their first song and Kurt Eastbuck instoped. As the prepared to record the album, Van Doe, they hit another drumming snack. Their drummer Dave Foster has beat up the mayor's son of a local small town and he goes to jail for two weeks. Lose his license, has to pay thousands of the medical bills,

and Kurt, you know, they don't have time to fucking be driving this guy around now and dealing with all this other fire room. And the band brings back that Aaron Burkhart from the original lineup, who then almost immediately gets a DUI and loses his license. So they have to get another one.

Man, goddamn drummers. It's like spinal tap for these guys. They get Chad Channing. Chad had been in a band called Tick Dolly Row. Weirdest names for some of these bands, with Ben Shepard, who would end up being a future basis for Soundgarden while working as a cook on Bainbridge Island. How cool is that man that all these future rock stars are milling around taking weird jobs,

fucking bouncing from band to band, you know, in this presently unknown Seattle stew of future grunge superstar. Man, there's members of like, you know, Mudhoney, Sound Garden, Screaming Trees, Nirvana, Allison Chains, Pearl Jam, just floating around, man, just getting ready to blow up to various degrees. June 11th, 1988, Nirvana heads into the studio and they record 13 total hours of studio

time and they get four songs, Love Buzz, spank through Big Cheese and Blandest. In November 1988, Subpop releases the Love Buzz single, Big Cheese is the B side. And they start to get a little bit of play on like KCMU, you know, in Seattle, a UW Indie Rock station, Buzz starts to begin to slowly build. Subpop ends up wanting to do a full length album with them, you know, in Seattle, a UW Indie Rock station, buzz starts to begin to slowly build, Subpop ends up wanting to do a full length album with them, you know, off of the buzz, but unfortunately, Subpop is so broke that they can't pay for the album. So they tell Nirvana, hey man, we want to do an album with you guys, but you guys are going to have to pay for it, which is usually, that's the exact opposite of how things are supposed to work at a label, right? But they're so excited to just

have somebody want to do an album that they agree. But that is so ridiculous. You know, we're going to have you pay for the album and then we're going to take half of what we make on the album that you paid for because we'll distribute it kind of, but we're broke so we probably won't even distribute it. But anyway, early 1999 Curtin Tracy started having relationship problems. He writes a song about it. The song is a relationship that Terry Rade's called About a Girl. I'm sure you've heard that.

I love the unplugged version of that song. This song was this first real love song. It ended up being one of the breakout songs on the Nirvana Unplugged album. Also, it showed up on Bleach, on that first studio album, first full-length studio album. And the early 1989 Kurt Demand's that Subpop signed a contract with Nirvana, even though Subpop doesn't normally do contracts with bands, but the band itself demands it, which, again, is weird. Usually, I mean, it's ideal to have a record done with a label, but not be in a contract.

Like that is the best case scenario. But they want more commitment from Subop and Subop agrees. And the label is going to pay them $6,000 for the first year of the contract, $12,000 for the second, $24,000 for the third. That was the contract they demanded. Hilarious. Considering how much money they would make later and how big they'd blow up. 1989, for most of it, Kurt does not work a regular job

and is also not making money with Nirvana. Tracy pays the bills and Kurt stays at home, writes songs, paints, works on art projects, watches TV. As to how the discreet was man, he needed a patron man. He needed a patron to nurture his talents and give him the time to work on his craft or he never would have made it.

No one develops all by themselves. I think that's a good little reminder of that lesson here. Any artist you like, anybody that ever says like, man, I fucking did it all on my own. No, you didn't. No, you did. Somebody else helped in some way, or you would have never made it.

1989, Nirvana would play over 100 gigs far more than the total current played in his entire life before Nirvana. He's now a working musician. Not that the gigs are very good. Their first tour brought them down from Seattle to San Francisco, where they were doing shows in front of crowds of small as five people. Ben was so broke, oftentimes they would have to eat a soup kitchen

during the day to get a decent meal. Think about how fucking frustrating that would be. How hard it would be not to quit around that time. They were so close to breaking through, but they didn't know it. It must have felt so far away most of the time. June 9, 1999, Nirvana played Subpop's lame fest at the more theater in Seattle,

the open for Mudhutty and Tad. Bleach wouldn't be available at record shops until June 15th, but fans could buy the album at the show for the first time. It was the first time Kirk got to watch, gets to watch fans of Nirvana line up to buy Nirvana album. How fucking cool is that? Awesome moment for him.

Late June, 89, Nirvana heads out in their first cross country tour, heading out for two months together in a van, turned all the way to Boston. It was Kurt, Chris, Jason Everman, a guy who was a second guitarist, they had for a little while, kind of a pre-cursor to Pat Smirr, and then, you know,

they got Chad the drummer, loaded the band up with their first t-shirts, which I'm not making this up, this is one of my things. The first t-shirt read Nirvana, Fudge Packing, Crack Smoking, Satan Worshipping Motherfuckers. Fudge Packing, Crack Smoking,

Satan Worshipping Motherfuckers on a t-shirt. How hilarious is that? And I guess they sold enough for that shirt to make the tour tiny bit profitable. I mean, they were still so broke they usually had to choose between food and gas, but they made a tiny bit of money. Man, if somebody has has one of those teachers, that has to be where some serious bank right now. The band is sleeping on people's floors, or if they do get a hotel bed, they're

all snuggled up in it together. So it's still very, very modest kind of, you know, professional musicianship at this point. 1989 Kurt also, Kurt also began to see a specialist to figure out why his stomach is always messed up. It goes through a barrage of tests, he's convinced it's his diet, which I'm kind of convinced up to from everything I've read. He's always talking about stomach pain, but he's also joking about never eating salads, never eating vegetables, and he's eating fried and fast foods pretty much only, and he's drinking a shitload of Mountain Dew. That's exactly how you get a fucked up stomach.

Fast food and Mountain Dew. If you are having stomach problems, listen, you're like, I don't know what my stomach hurts. And then as you're thinking that, you're eating, you know, your third double decker, Taco Bell Taco, and you're pounding a 64 ounce mountain dew, that's why, that's exactly why. Kurt began writing songs in 89,

like Polly, songs would end up on Nevermind. Polly actually, little trivia there, originally titled Hitchhiker. Actually written about a newspaper article Kurt had read about the story where a woman was kidnapped, brutally raped, tortured with a blowtorch, torch in 1997 by Washington serial rapist Gerald Friend. What a creepy name for a fucking serial rapist man, Mr. Friend. Look, near the end of the summer of 1989, band is a two week tour in the Midwest and the crowds get a little bigger up to 200 fans per gig You know to their amazement they'd sell enough teachers to actually truly make money

They actually ended up we got $300 richer by the end of the tours end first time they'd ever made you know kind of like a I guess decents maybe the word amount of money touring and again, man, Mr. Friend how creepy is that that dude? Currently serving consecutive 75 years sentence is by the way at Airway Heights Correctional Facility, just outside of Spokane, Washington by the airport. October 1989, Irvana arrives in London to play Europe for the first time. They play all over Europe, from UK to Germany,

to Italy, Kurt Stumick, Elements continues, of course it is, it hasn't changed, it's died at all. He's thrown up by them, blood from time to time. Nirvana, a little more well known in Europe. You know, the bleach was getting some a little bit better radio play over in Europe, and they sell out some of the smaller venues. Bleach actually made it to the top 10 of the UK independent label charts, but they were still barely getting by, still not able to afford hotel rooms most nights, sleeping in

the van most nights. By early 1990s, Subpop wants to do a new album with Nirvana, but Subpop is delaying the recording because surprise, surprise, they're broke. And, you know, so is Nirvana. Kurt applies for a job, hosing down kennels for vets to make a little money, and he's not hired. The roller coaster continues. Man, awesome show one night, get in turn down for a job. Literally, washing dogs should out of kennels the next day.

How do you knock it higher for that? Again, I think about that lyric, amazes me the will of instinct. He does not give up, he keeps going. April 1990, Subpop gets some cash. Dervana begins working with record producer of Butch of Vic in Madison, Wisconsin, in April of 1990. Butch would later work with a lot of famous grunge bands.

He'd formed the 90s band, Garbage. This recording session was the beginning of the Nevermind album, an album that was originally gonna be titled Sheep. Songs like Breed and and lithium were recorded there. And that session, even though Subpop had introduced Nirvana to Butch, Nirvana wants to get away from Subpop, and they use a session to create a demo to try to get major label interests.

They're tired of working with no budgets, and they want to get some distribution. Also in April of 1990, Kurt had gotten sick of Chad Channing's drumming, and Nirvana was about to get rid of yet another drummer. Also, Kurt breaks up with Tracy, eventually the same week he fires Chad May, Kurt had now fallen in love with somebody else. A 20-year-old Olympium musician named Toby Vale. He later told a friend that Toby was the first woman who ever made him so nervous, he threw up, like literally threw up. He wrote about it

in an aneurysm. Love you so much, it makes me sick. She played drums, she had a punk rock band of her own, like she had a punk rock record collection, she'd soon form a bikini kill that band. She was basically like his had a punk rock record collection. She'd soon form a bikini kill that band. She was basically like his female counterpart and he fell hard for it. Unfortunately, she was not as into him. July 11th, Nirvana records the single Sliver in the summer of 1990 at July 11th in advance of another UK tour to record it. They used the drummer from Mudhoney, Dan Peters, man, fifth drummer, just fucking different

drummers all the time. But then finally in August 1990, the band, they get Dave Grohl. They're on a tour open for Sonic Youth. The needed drummer again, of course they do. And they get Dave Grohl. Dave Grohl is introduced to Nirvana by Buzz, lead singer of the Melvins.

Finally, shows up in the Nirvana Suck. After one session, Kurt and Chris knew they had found their permanent drummer. Kurt would describe Dave as a fucking animal behind the drums. Dave began dating Kurt's girlfriend, Bikini Kill. Dave would begin, excuse me, dating Kurt's girlfriend's Bikini Kill bandmate. There we go. That was a lot of words. Kathleen Hanna, the other member of Bikini Kill besides Toby, a woman who would go later on to marry Beastie Boy, Adam Horvitz. After one night of partying, Kathleen Spray painted Kurt smells like teen spirit

on a bedroom wall. That's the origin of that song title. She was referring to a deodorant for teenage girls that Toby would use, called teen spirits, a little joke about how Kurt smelled like Toby because they've been hooking up, you know? Nirvana fans, you know, no smells like teen spirit is the name of that first big single off, never mind.

By the end of 1990, Toby breaks up with Kurt, and he's devastated, becomes so upset. He literally throws up, man, throws up when he meets her, throws up when he break up, a lot of throwing up for this guy. Still having signed with the major label, he's getting super depressed about his career. And in the four months following the break up,

he writes several of his most memorable songs, songs about Toby, songs like Aniourism, Drain You, Lounge Act, Lithium. Lithium was actually written before Toby, but he altered some of the lyrics after his breakup with her He also wrote smells like teen spirit of course, you know, that's partly inspired by Toby as we just found out So really we should all thank Toby for breaking his heart and giving us a lot of great songs But then by November second week in November 1990 he starts using heroin

This is where it starts starts writing about it in the journal dude kept a lot of journals so we're able to find this stuff out about him First injected heroin with the friend in Olympia Love had the drug made him forget about his breakup, made him forget about his career frustrations, and made him forget about his stomach pain, at least for a little while. He tells Chris no to sell it about it the next day, Chris tells him, dude, what the fuck are you doing? Why are you doing this?

Chris references Andy Wood. Andy Wood was the lead singer and mother love bone who had recently OD and died on heroin at that march. That previous march, mother love bone by the way, like Green River featured Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard and future founders of Pearl Jam. But despite the warning Kurt keeps doing it, that's generally how it happens with heroin.

You generally don't just try it for a few times and be like, no, I'm just gonna casually use it. No one fucking casually uses heroin. Kurt signs with Virgin publishing that fall, gets his first big advanced check. I love this, he gets a check for $3,000. Biggest check by far, he's ever gotten in his entire life and he spends a thousand, he spends a thousand of it

immediately and a toys a rust. How hilarious is that? He gets an Nintendo, a bunch of video cameras, some BB guns, some evil connevil models. He's like a little kid, just been giving a shop in spree. He buys fake vomit, a kid's bike, other random shit. He actually uses the BB gun to shoot out the windows

in a Washington state lot of building across the street right after that. Oh man, he and the band also signed with Sonic Youth Management around this time, Gold Mountain Management at Fall. And then on November 25th, 1990, huge show for Nirvana. They play the off-ramp in Seattle

in front of more music talent scouts than had attended any Northwest concert previously in the history of that scene. A&R reps are there from Columbia, Capital, Slash, RCA, several other labels. They're filling the audience and Kurt Falken kills it. Tells a friend later was the best Nirvana show they'd ever done. They played 12 unreleased songs, opening with aneurysm, first time it was played in public, and then the band ends up signing with Sonic Use label, or yeah, their music label also, same management and same label.

Now they go with DGC, David Geffen Company, a branch of Geffen Records. Geffen had a strong promotion department and that was key to breaking the band. Geffen gave them $287,000, which sounds like a lot, also buys them out of that pop contract for $75,000. Kurt was ecstatic, but he was also about to get a taste of how the record industry actually works. Right, took until April, first off, to get the deal done. So he has to wait a long time, you know, has to wait almost six months for this deal to get done. And then by the time it does get done, after lawyers, managers, taxes, other fees, he's put on a retainer of a thousand bucks a month by his management company.

Fuck, after all that, not nearly as sexy as $287,000. And he immediately falls behind on bills despite this big advance. Kurt's having problems with stomach still, diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome, prescribed lidox, doesn't seem to help. He gives up on it in a few weeks. By April 1991, the band is beginning to record Nevermind in LA at Sound City Studios in Van Nies.

They're back together with Butch Vig. Most days, they run from 3pm to midnight. All in all. Despite Kurt's mashing guitar and frustration during one session, it goes pretty well. If you've heard this record, it's no surprise. On January 12, 1990, Kurt's his Courtney Love for the first time. When Nirvana plays the With the Melvins at St. Tyrecon in Portland, Portland, Oregon, Courtney came with a friend who was dating a member of another band on the bill, the oily blood man.

Other names. Courtney floored with him, teased him, they looked on the bill, the oily blood man, the names. Courtney floored it with him, teasing him. They looked like the lead singer, a solo asylum. And then I guess Kurt came over kind of jokingly, wrestled her around, and kept wrestling to the floor. He likes her, but he's dating Tracy at the time, excuse me, Toby at the time. And then they part ways, but Courtney

does not forget about him. And then in late 1990, Courtney's friend, Jennifer Finch, who played in the punk band L7, starts dating Dave Grill. She's, you know, started tearing about Kurt a lot. Now Courtney does. Jenna actually had nicknamed Kurt Pixie meet, because of a small size and his worship with a Pixies.

I love that, I love that about him, and I love the Pixies too. Frank Black, hell yes. Courtney ends up meeting Dave through Jen. Told Dave she had a crush on Kurt. And then after the break up with Toby, on Kurt was single, Courtney sends Kurt a gift.

It sends him a heart-shaped box. You're probably familiar with that if you're a Nirvana fan. Phil with a tiny porcelain doll, miniature cheek-up, seashells. She wrote a perfume on it as well. Kurt was impressed. He loved the doll. He'd been using dolls in his art projects recently. He would rub off their faces and then patch real human hair on them to make them creepy

as shit. May 1991, Kurt and Courtney meet the second time during an L7 concert at the Bladium and L.A. Los Angeles, California, Kurt was backstage drinking some cough syrup from the bottle. It doesn't have a cold, just you know, pounded some cough syrup as people did back then. Courtney showed up and she had her own cough syrup in her jacket that she brought out and they compare cough syrup. So I'm not fucking making this up. Sounds ridiculous, but I remember my friends being in this. I remember a couple of friends of mine in Gonzaga.

They would go, they call it roboing. They, this is so stupid. Do not do this if you're listening to your son kid. This sounds very dangerous to me, but this is what they would do. They would pound bottles of robotusin and then claim to hallucinate. I never fucking tried it.

That sounded like a terrible idea, even as a kid to me. Shotgunning cough syrup, that just not sound fun. But curtain Courtney, they were into fun. But Curt and Courtney, they were into it. They met each other. They wrestled each other to the ground again, this time a little more sexual, I guess, from what witnesses said. Courtney just finished recording pretty on the inside, the initial recordings, an album produced by Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth, man that constant Sonic Youth connection, as well as the Melbourne's connection. Never mind, was still in production. Love had been written off as writing coach's co-tales more recently,

but actually, you know what, there was a lot of buzz about her career at this time. In the spring of 1991, they were on equal footing as musicians. Nothing was going on with one that wasn't going on with the other. And despite their little flirtation, nothing's gonna go on at this time between them. Love, despite her crush on Kurt,

she started dating Billy Corgan of the smashing pumpkins. Nevermind is over budget, but moving along, ended up costing about 120 grand to record, supposed to be 65,000. Geffen's a little worried about the album cover, thinking that the baby penis, if you've seen the album, it's a little baby in the pool under water, a little wiener sticking out.

The Geffen thought that the penis was a little too prominently displayed, they kind of battled over it. Kurt said they could put a sticker over it then, like a warning sticker, but he wanted the sticker to say, if you're offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile. God, I fucking love this sense of humor. Kurt is still doing heroin,

but he doesn't have the money to do it often. He does have enough money to be a complete weirdo. Gets a little white kitten, names it a quisp, and dies its hair with kool-aid, dies its own hair with kool-aid, and then he apparently lets quisp have sex with his rabbits too.

According to somebody, slash neighbor at the time, apparently watchingizz but have sex with his rabbits, too. According to somebody slash neighbor at the time, apparently watching his cat have sex with a rabbit was one of his favorite things to do. He was a weird dude and he was a weird, weird dude. I have to say that that probably would be pretty funny to watch, especially when you're high lot. Imagine he's still stoned a lot of the time, which probably made that pretty funny.

July 15th, 1990 flies to LA to work a little bit more on Nevermind, do some promo photos, etc. But then when he returns home to Seattle two weeks later, his shits all on the curb. His possessions are out in the curb in boxes. He's been evicted. His artwork, journals, instruments, etc. sit down on boxes. His ex-girlfriend Tracey had come by to take the animals, you know. Make sure that cat can still fuck the rabbit somewhere else, I guess. For the next few nights, he sleeps in his car. How messed up was that, man?

He's put in the finishing touches on Nevermind, and he he sleeps in his car. How messed up was that man? He's put in the finishing touches on Nevermind, and he's sleeping in his car. August 17th, 1990, the band films the now famous Smell's Like Teen Spirit music video. Video that would play on MTV, like no video he played before. If you've seen the Smell's Like Teen Spirit video, you know that there's a random janitor in it.

And that was a little nod to his former job, Mop and Floors at that weather wax high school, and Aberdeen. The dropout who mop floors, right? Now is the fucking soon to be rock star. Pretty cool. September 13th, 1991, Friday the 13th nevermind is released in Seattle.

A little pre-release there, Curt and the band are doing radio interviews all around Seattle. There's a record party release at Rebar in Seattle. They've raged to the night, passed out at a friend's house. The next day at an in-store record signing Curt has blown away as it's Chris and Dave by how many fans are lined up waiting to see them play at B-Hive Records in Seattle.

You can find a video that performance on YouTube, man. Literally the very beginning of true rock and roll fame in the U.S. Can you imagine seeing them in a record shop in 91? They played 45 minutes on that record shop floor. When the album does come out, nationally, it takes two weeks to enter the billboards top 200 when it does enter. It's only 144, but by the second week on the charts. It's 109 third week 65 four weeks on November 2nd It was at number 35 top 40 for the first time. That's huge man

And it would rise a lot higher would have written a lot higher higher faster would have risen a lot higher faster if DGC Had printed more records that but they didn't expect it to sell that well So they only made a little over 46,000 initially. And so most places ended up being sold out for weeks. During these first few weeks, they're never minds barely getting radio play. They're doing all this growth by word of mouth. Right. But then the request start pouring in. The research was done by Seattle's KNDD alternative station. Did some research on how people like the song and received the highest positive response in the station's polling history. People fucking loved it. People loved it who only heard a 15-second clip played over the phone. Amazing. MTV starts playing smells like

teen spirit now becomes one of the channel's first big buzz bin videos in early November. I totally remember watching that. By October all of Nirvana shows are selling out man. That Halloween Nirvana sells out the Paramount and Seattle, really famous theater. They were supposed to play the more, another famous one, but they had to be moved at the last minute to a large venue to accommodate ticket sales. They had officially blown the fuck up. Also in October,

Kurt would fall in love with Courtney. Courtney loved. Nirvana was playing in Chicago. They were in Chicago to play the cabaret metro. Billy Corgan lived there, and this mashing pumpkin, Courtney's boyfriend, Courtney flew out to go see him the same weekend that the fucking Nirvana was doing shows,

and then she walked in on Corgan with another girl, and they were done. And then that night, she goes to see Nirvana play, Kurt smashes a drum kit, closed out the set, or I guess Dave's drum set after the show. Courtney sneaks into a backstage party, sees Kurt runs over and sits on his lap, Kurt's happy to see her and then the head back to his hotel that night. And Courtney, Bond immediately, she had her own fucked up childhood to match his,

made him feel, you know, less misunderstood, more than his previous girlfriends. You know, Courtney knew what government cheese tastes like. She knew what it was like to tour an event and struggle for gas money. She got it. Also like Kurt, Courtney wasn't stranger to heroin. And the two first did it together in LA on October 25th. Courtney apparently had none of very often. Kurt at this point was escalating to daily use. He was rationalizing it as controlling his stomach pain.

I think this is important to mention that Courtney did not popular to rumors on the internet turn Kurt onto heroin. And that was all Kurt. By Halloween, Nevermind had sold 500,000 copies. It's gone gold. By November 28th, it hits a million sales in the US alone. While the band's on tour in the UK,

they're the biggest thing in music months after being basically broken homeless. Courtney is being accused of hooking up with a rising star at this time. Even though really reviews of her first album were as good as his. Her second album, Live Through This, would receive 4.5 out of 5 stars in Rolling Stone. Go platinum 94. Pretty on the inside, also, receive really good reviews. Nevermind, actually, initially got 4 out of 5. Got 9 out of 10 by spin, 5 out of 5 by Blender.

But they both did really well. They were both basically getting the same, really good reviews. I just want to point this out that, you know, she wasn't just a hanger on. She was a popular and critically acclaimed musician outside of Nervonix. I just hear that constantly going into this, into this research about how courty love killed him, courty love, wrote his coattails. You know, I'm not saying she wasn't a gold digger. Maybe she was. But she was also successful. And it's not like people were, you know, buying courtney love records because she was dating Kurt Kurt that's fucking ridiculous. No one's gonna buy it just to hear I mean he was not it.

January 1992 nevermind hits number one in the Billboard chart bumping off Michael Jackson's dangerous. Nirvana plays two songs on Saturday Night Lives smells like teen spirit territorial pissing. Nevermind has now sold over 30 million albums worldwide. Also, even though they were both doing heroin, they didn't know what Courtney was now pregnant with his daughter, Francis Bean Cobain, who would be born in August. Life is moving fast for Kurt, man. He and Courtney ran a place in LA that spring. First time Kurt had lived outside of Washington. And why on February 24th, that year, Kurt and Courtney get married while on tour. Kurt does not invite his family to the wedding. Neither does Courtney. It says

a lot about their relationships with their families. Also, Kurt does not invite his family to the wedding. Neither does Courtney. It says a lot about their relationships with their families. Also, Kurt does not invite Chris Nova Selig's wife Shelley. Unvites her. I think she's being mean to Courtney. So, Chris doesn't come either. And this begins to cause a rift in their relationship. Actually, Chris would leave Hawaii thinking that his time in Irvana was over. Francis being co-bein is born on August 18th, 1992. The day after she's born, Kurt scores heroin in the hospital and actually fucking Odice in the hospital. How crazy is that? He got a gun also, brings it to the hospital.

He can court me to double suicide pack. He was going to kill himself and kill Courtney. I guess not in that order. That would be hard to do. If someone tried to take their baby, and they were worried about someone trying to take their baby, because of a Vanity Fair interview, where Courtney admitted to doing heroin while pregnant. Well, two days after Francis' birth, a social worker shows up at the hospital with that vanity fair article in tow. Right, the county petitions to have Kurt

and Courtney declared unfit parents and have the child taken from her. The court refuses to release the baby home with them. Nanny ends up having to take the baby out of the hospital. August 24, 1992, the first court hearing is held regarding Francis' being's custody. Kurt was ordered to undergo 30 days of drug treatment. Both parents would be drug tested randomly after that,

and business with Francis would be supervised for a little while. Francis would have the time had to live with Courtney's half sister. And then days later, he's heading to Europe to headline the reading festival on August, right? August 30th, what a strange life he's leading. Fit to headline Europe's biggest rock festival, not fit to be a dad. September 11, 1992, Nir fit to be a dad.

September 11, 1992, Nirvana performed at a sold out show at the Seattle center, Saddle Center Coliseum, right? 16,000 rabbit fans. This is the venue he'd watch Sammy Hagarat as a kid, right? His first taste of live music there and now he's selling it out himself. Some rock stars, shit. Hundreds of kids are crowd surfing. Chris Nova Selik actually tells her crowd that night about how he'd gotten drunk at a

Neil Young concert at the Coliseum years ago and then been banned for life. In the backstage, before the show, he found a picture of himself in a room for, you know, like postings of people who were not supposed to be allowed into the Coliseum. How fucking great is that? Now he's rocking it out, sold out on stage. These guys are golden gods at this point. But things are not going well, backs, you know, kind of behind the scenes in the band. Curt and Chris relationship again had been kind of strained since that Hawaii wedding. And then whenever Curt and Dave Grohl would fight, Curt would threaten to throw him out of the band like he had previous drummers. They did have a history getting rid of drummers. And Dave actually almost quit over criticism from Curt in 1993. Curt's behaviors getting more and

more erratic, more negative with his combination of success and heroin abuse. The band records our third and final studio album in February of 1993 in utero, not counting in sesticide, you know, since that was a collection of B-sides and rarities, not counting to run on pluck. So that was just one take recording of a live show. So this was their third and final studio album. Initially, Kurt one of the albums to be titled as I said before, I hate myself and want to die.

Holy shit, man. Chris talked him out of that apparently, saying they could encourage kids to kill themselves and then they could get sued by those kids' families. Well, a lot of the innu-ter-ro songs came out of his marriage with Courtney. The name in utero actually came from a poem of Courtney Loves. Kurt's drug use was continuing, nearly overdoses, on heroin, on May 2, 1993. He's taken to King County Hospital, barely makes it, barely lives. Turn blue was dead for a little bit. August 1993, Kurt's taken to King County Hospital, barely makes it, barely lives. Turn blue was dead for a little bit.

August 1993, Kurt has clearly troubled. He's doing numerous interviews in 1993 and he's referenced in suicide in almost everyone. His stomach problems continue. The morning he tapes at the MTV M-Plug Special, I guess he's spent an hour filling a dietician's questionnaire, and then Kurt and Kurt moved into a house in Seattle, now infamous house in January of 94, 171 Lake Washington Boulevard East. To house and want to Seattle's most upscale neighborhoods, Denny Blaine is the name of the neighborhood. Their next door neighbor was Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks. There's a large lot, three quarters of an acre, lushly landscaped,

block or so away from Lake Washington, about 7,000 square foot of house, square feet man, 7,000. Had five bedrooms, five fireplaces looked like a president could take a retreat in it. Curtin Courtney lived there with Francis as nanny, and they paid 1.1 million dollars for it. I looked up what was worth now because that actually seemed really cheap to me, and just over 20 years later, it's worth 7 million. What the fuck? And not because co-beying lived there. That's just what houses go for around there now. God, man. Just, you know, the cost of higher

education, the cost of real estate's gotten so out of fucking control the last 40 years. Definitely gonna time suck that bullshit eventually. The American Dream is getting way too expensive. February, Nirvana flies to Europe for some shows. The band, you know, thought he was a mess this time. Courtney doesn't accompany him. She's finishing post-production on her new album. Kurt is worried about bringing his new family. He's worried about them falling apart. Tries to cancel the tour, but he's told he'll be liable

for damages if he does so. They play throughout Europe, all through February, making their way to Germany in early March, accompanying Nirvana on this tour as the melvins. Man, how cool is that? Only 11 years earlier, Kurt had been hanging around the melvins in their practice spot back in Montes back in Montessano, and that little

town near Evden. Now the melvans are opening up for him in fucking arenas in Europe. Nirvana would play their very last show actually with the melvans, kind of poetic, really, and Munich on March 1st. Before going on stage for that Munich show, after the melvans said before Nirvana said Kurt spoke with Buzz Osborne, you know, the melvans lead singer kind of his mentor early on, and I guess he unleashed a long list of problems, Buzz said it was the most distraught Kurt had ever looked. Kurt told Buzz he was going to break up Nirvana, fire his management and divorce Courtney. He told Buzz that I should be

doing this solo. Kurt cuts the shows short, finds agents, tells him that's it, can't tell the next gig. Kurt also finds a doctor who would write a minute note saying he was too sick to perform, so it wouldn't be held liable for future gigs. Then he heads to Rome where he's supposed to meet up with Courtney and Francis, you know, and then he checks into a hotel with them March 3rd, he actually passed America him down with them and you know by all accounts everybody was getting along really well So see if you do this thing at this time where it's like, you know one second. He's like man I'm gonna give it a divorce. I'm gonna fire these guys in the next second. You know everything's great He's just he's very I thought he's fucking junky at this point. He's all over the place

So yeah, so they have a, have a good night, that night apparently. But then, the next morning, when Courtney wakes up, Kurt is passed out on the floor. I say passed out. He's overdosed on the floor with blood coming out of his mouth. She'd seen him overdose. Apparently, dozens of times right now. But this time, I guess it was different. This time, it was not accidental.

Right, this time, he had a suicide note clutch in his hand He wrote about being sick of touring He wrote about how Courtney didn't love many more. He accused Courtney of wanting to cheat on him with her ex Billy Korgon Said he'd rather die than go through divorces all this crazy shit man He's just telling buzz the day before like man I want to get rid of these people and next things like I'll kill myself if they leave me Curt had taken 60 Rohipnall pills also known as

Floney Trasapan Flonid Tresapam. Flonid Tresapam is a powerful sleeping pill. Each pill, I guess, is about 10 times as powerful as a similar size pill of volume. 60 pills easy enough to kill somebody. An ambulance takes him to the hospital. Pumped systemic, he comes out of a coma, he'd fallen into about 20 hours later. The event became highly publicized in the US, appearing on CNN, other news outlets. There was definitely some initial false reports

floating around that he died. March 8th, 1994, Kurt leaves the hospital. March 12th, he flies back to Seattle. His management team's working on damage control now. They're trying to sell a story to the press. It was not a suicide attempt. It was an accident, a low overdose. And I guess most people buy it.

Despite the Rome scare, he goes right back to heroin abuse. He's full on fucking junky right now. Courtney Bands drugs from the house. She'd say later, Kurtz response was to go do heroin and CD motels on a roar avenue. Nova Selleck starts to wonder if the coma he was in after the Rome overdose, actually put his brain damage to him somehow.

Like if he had some kind of brain damage from that, said he was so fucked up, he just wouldn't listen to anybody. So this isn't just, again, with the conspiracy stuff. This isn't just Courtney kind of writing this narrative with the conspiracy stuff. This isn't just, you know, like Courtney kind of writing this narrative, the other people around him from this time also would say later that he would just out of control. March 18th, curtain, threatened suicide, locks himself in the bedroom back in Seattle. Courtney sees several guns on the floor. When he opens the door, she calls a police, police come to the house. Second time in six days, they've come over for some kind of

domestic dispute. The police sees three pistols and a rifle that day. They also took 25 pounds of ammunition. The officers also took Kurt downtown for questioning the word about him, then they release him. By late March his normal heroin dealers stopped selling to him. That's when you're fucked up, man. When your heroin dealers are like, no, man, you don't need to do more. I guess they were afraid that if he, you know, oh, deed, you know, in connection with them, they could get in a lot of trouble just because of his notoriety.

They didn't want to be blamed for Kurt's death. They didn't want the heat that would come with that. I guess he tells one of the dealers, like, don't even worry about it, man. Everyone is not going to kill me. He said he was going to shoot himself in the head. He's saying this stuff to people, people who talk about this. Curse behaviors get more and more and more erratic. Chris thinks that he's totally determined to kill himself at this point.

Courtney flies down to LA on March 25th to go over final details and connection with the release of Whole's new album. She urges Cobain to come with her, check and do a recovery program. Finally, he does, he comes down the 28, three days later, goes to Marina Del Rey and checks into Exodus. You've been in this recovery program before,

kind of a recovery program that took a lot of musicians. And it was the first time I've hope he'd given anybody in weeks, if not months, if not years. The optimism, short-lived, three days later, he suddenly leaves the facility without warning and a panic, love hires a private investigator to find him. The trail stretches to Seattle, but the investor apparently can't find him.

Kurt makes it to Seattle on April 2nd, over the next few days, there's random sightings of Kurt around Seattle. And I guess the private investigator never went to Kurt's house to go look for him and really pursue that because the nanny is there. A man named Callie, who was living there and Courtney thought that Callie would tell her of Kurt showed up, but I guess Callie didn't want to get in the middle of it. And again, conspiracy theorist think that Callie may have killed him.

I think man, he was probably just a dude just caught in the middle of these messy fucking junkies and colleagues doing drugs himself at this time. He doesn't want to deal with it. He doesn't want to be the one who rats curts out and maybe loses his, you know, sweet fucking gig hanging out being the nanny sometimes and doing drugs around there. It doesn't want to get caught up. So sometime on or before the afternoon of April 5th, they wouldn't find his body for several days. Kurt Cobain barricaded himself in the greenhouse above his garage by propping his tool against his French doors. He pended one page note, suicide note and red ink. He drew a chair up to the window, overlooking the PJ sound, sat down, pressed the barrel of the 20 gauge shotgun to his head, and

evidently using his thumb pulled the trigger and blows brains out. The man who had been talking about suicide on a regular basis for his entire adult life, in teenage years, finally did it. At 27 years old, the wild, talented light that had been Kurt Cobain, was snuffed out forever. And that feels like a definite end to this timeline. Good job, soldier. You've made it back.

Barely. The autopsy also found sleeping pills in an amount of heroin in Kurt's system believed to be lethal. After this, the shotgun blast to the face wouldn't kill them, apparently the drugs would have. Despite all this, man, rumors of the murder persist. For this episode, I leaned heavily for my research on the book, Heavier Than Heaven by Charles Cross. I highly recommend it. It's a big one. But if you're really interested in Kurt's life, that's where I got a lot of info from. There is other books out there like Love and Death, The Murder of Kurt Cobain by Ian Halperin and Max Wallace. But these guys look like fucking wacky deals to me. Straight up. Like if you had an appointment with a surgeon and you

walked into the room and saw one of these clowns as your doctor, you would walk back out if you had any respect for yourself. I wanted to live. I walked into the room and saw one of these clowns as your doctor, you would walk back out if you had any respect for yourself. I wanted to live. I looked into the murder conspiracies, most of which are perpetuated by the Tom Grant, the private investigator, Courtney Hyde. And he seems like a fucking nut. Seems like an opportunist trying to cash in

on being the PI Hyde Defined Curt. He asserts stuff like the suicide note wasn't written by Kurt. Says the handwriting analysis shows it was private and by Courtney but he won't name the experts that supposedly verify this. He talks about the shotgun not being dusted for prints, questions, fingerprints, missing for the suicide pen, on and on.

A lot of these theories are kind of covered in the DocuDrama's token bleach. But on June 27, 2016, Vernon J. Barath, former homicide detective of the New York City police department who was among the experts in viewed in the DocuDrama posted an article on his practical homicide investigation website and Facebook page stating that he was not happy that the producers of Soak and Bleach made it appear that he agreed with this theory. He stated that, you know, he made it quite clear that he believed Kurt Cobain had taken his own life and he backed up his opinion with the fact that he obtained from the Seattle police department's homicide division, coupled with his experience with suicide cases.

I think with that docu-drama, the filmmaker did what filmmakers often do, and those docu-drama-ish productions, they go with a predetermined premise of what they think happened, what they want to have happened, and they twist and distort facts to make that case. Kurt being murdered, frankly, is just a sexier angle to talk about than a sad, troubled junkie just finally killing himself. And I mean, just fans feel better. You know, it appeals to them a little bit or two, but I just, I don't buy it.

After everything I read, I do not buy it. But you know who does think he killed himself? Dave Grohl, Kurt Krasnovaselek. And that means something to me. The people who's around the most, you know, his family thinks he killed himself. The police think he killed himself. But you know who definitely thinks he was murdered?

A lot of idiots of the internet. It is the internet. Under a YouTube video called the Kurt Cobain conspiracy, user Scott6794 says, Courtney's lawyer found pieces of notebook paper in Courtney's possession on which she was practicing Kurt's handwriting. This single fact, coupled with her own father, publicly calling her an accessory to the murder, should be enough for people to get the picture. Courtney even

wrote poems about one day marrying a rich rock star and murdering anybody who got in her way. Her album, Live Through This, came out right after he died. She's a scary and psychotic woman who had him killed for financial reasons, so obvious. So obvious you guys, so obvious. Listen, Scott the Twatch. Her album did come out right after he died after months of fucking planning while he was alive. It was already on the release docket

long before he died, right? How's that gonna help sales, by the way? It's not. She didn't have him killed and then quickly tossed out an album to capitalize on his death, right? And her lawyer never found any such thing. You just pulled that from a dailymail.co.uk article. I found the same article. That fucking website, after you in research on so many of these episodes now, is about as reputable as Star Magazine. I come across

it all the time and it is consistently horse shit. It's a fucking tabloid, whether it is make-up nonsense. There's a reason that's particular, doesn't show up in a single legitimate source, is horseshit. But user, Mr. Sun's 10 says, sadly people think conspiracies are for nut jobs when most of the time the conspiracies are true. Really, most of the time, Mr. Sun's? Most of the time, conspiracy is true.

No, that is obviously nonsense. Most conspiracies are fucking crazy talk, which is why they have a bad name. Right, and this is from coming from somebody who loves a good conspiracy theory when it has some legitimacy. But you know what, usually things actually are what they seem, which is why you don't often hear detectives say stuff like, well, I think we can clearly see that the lizards

did this. Or probably the work of the Illuminati, or maybe guessing this has something to do with Hitler, still living in South America, right, guys? Now, you're fucking down, where the squad the twat there, Mr. Sons. Then, user wizard writes, I agree fully. I've even read that Courtney was great friends with a medical examiner who signed Kurt's death certificate as a suicide. Where did you read that?

In a pamphlet that you wrote in your butt? Alright, Kurt did not know the examiner. Courtney did not. Kurt had a loose association with the examiner if you fucking researched it all you half-wit. In the 80s, Dr. Nicholas Hartzhorn was barely, barely a punk rock promoter as were so many people in Seattle around that time. He was responsible for Book and Nirvana,

like one shitty gig very early on at the Central Tavern in Seattle in 88. Six years later, he served as the medical examiner for Kurt Cobain following his death. And who cares? That doesn't mean they knew each other. It's beyond a stretch, right? And Chris usually dealt with the promoters anyway. So he more more likely that Chris know the select knew this guy. And definitely very unlikely,

the corny knew this guy. But 20 Scottie, he jumps back in saying wizard, I would bet money that she was close with that examiner. She's actually very intelligent. And from what her father says, quote, is a complete psychopath with violent tendencies. Of course, her dad said that she had been estranged from her dad for many, many, many, many years. All right. And then and now this dad is writing a book about it all about, you know, everything he knew about Kurt. He didn't fucking know anything because he wasn't involved in the family. He was never around. He wasn't in their lives, right? He wasn't invited. He wasn't even at the wedding. Clearly, you know, they were not close.

They've been estranged for many years. This dude doesn't know shit about shit. He's just a loser trying to make an exploitation buck off his estranged daughter. Scott also adds though, David Geffen strikes me as a very cold and calculating guy as well. Something tells me he had something to do with it. Okay, all right.

Let me get this straight. Scott, David Geffen is going to have the most profitable act on one of his labels murdered. That makes total sense, right? That makes total sense. They have a tremendously financially profitable person killed. Instead of just letting him make this guy make many more millions cranking out new records,

that's like Phil Jackson, having Michael Jordan killed in 1992. You fucking idiot. And so many others talk about how Courtney would have, you know, been nothing if Kurt would have just lived and he was gonna cut her out of his will. Well, you know what, her bandhole has sold over five million albums. I'm not saying I'm the big, I'm not like her biggest fan,

but I'm just saying she's not some bum who hasn't done anything. She just not, no matter what you think of her, that's just not true, right? You know, I'm just saying that she did not snake. Here's the fact. She did not sneak Kurt Cobain out of that rehab facility. He did. She didn't make him buy guns. The last few years of his life, he did. She didn't turn him into a heroin junkie. He did. All right. She didn't make him tell people he was going to kill himself. It's all fucking life. He did that as well. And she

wasn't in Washington when he died. Sometimes again, things are what they sing. And all the time, there are so many idiots of the internet. I look, well, if you've learned anything from the suck, it's that this dude was very troubled, man. He was trying to kill himself long before that shotgun blast. The man was so talented, but also kind of a selfish asshole. Many had a baby at home. He had adoring fans all around the world who really loved him, like really loved him. He could have given the world so much more, so much more amazing music. Could have used his rock star money for good.

Maybe start some charity, start some funds. Trust funds, I don't know, something. But he shot himself instead. Did he do it? Because it's stomach hurt all the time. Maybe, I guess, maybe he was sick of the chronic pain. But he also didn't do much to fix it. You know, he said, I saw doctors, he saw specials,

he had tests, but he did follow their advice, I highly doubt it. Because he was smoking, doing heroin, eating ton of fast food all the time. I'm sure none of them were like, hey man, just keep doing what you're doing. You keep doing heroin, smoke a lot, and eat a lot of fucking Taco Bell, and you're gonna be fine.

Drink more mountain do if anything. That's exactly how you fuck your stomach up. My stomach hurts so bad every time I occasionally have Taco Bell, and you're gonna be fine. Drink more Mountain Dew if anything. That's exactly how you fuck your stomach up. My stomach hurts so bad, every time I occasionally have Taco Bell, which is not often because it kills me. You know, this is not some silly joke, but seriously, like violent painful stuff happens being the bathroom within 30 minutes.

It's terrible, because it's terrible food. It's not good for you. You know, he curried fused to accept the reality of his newly divorced family and adapt as a kid. You know, Kurt didn't seem willing to adapt as an adult. You know, he seemed very unrealistic about life in a lot of ways. He wanted to be healthy, but he wanted to do a lot of drugs.

He wanted to have a family, but he wanted to shoot a pair of women. He wanted to be a rich rock star, but never tour. He loved his fans, he hated his fans. It's got to need to therapist, honestly. He needed to work on getting his shit together, take responsibility for his life, but he didn't. You know, and now he's dead.

And others died because of him. After returning home from a co-bein suicide visual, Daniel Caspar, 28, ended his life with a single bullet. And Southern Turkey, a 16 year old girl, some fan of Kurt Cobain's locked herself in a room, cranked her volume music up, shot herself in the head. Friends said she'd been depressed ever since hearing about Cobain's death recently.

Now, Kurt did not kill those people, all right? I'm not saying that, but he did take away one of the reasons to live. I get being in a dark place. I really do. Man, I hated growing up in a divorce household. I really did. Hated it, you know, when my wife left me, I hated that I was continuing the reasons to live. I get being in a dark place. I really do. Man, I hated growing up in a divorced household. I really did. I hated it. You know, when my wife left me, I hated that I was continuing the cycle of divorce, thought about killing myself.

I remember driving down a windy highway, you know, after taking a couple of bike-ed in, that I didn't need to be taken, thinking it would just be easy to drive right off the road. I wasn't wearing my seatbelt. I could just ramp the car up to about 120, plan it right into a tree, be done with it, had a life insurance policy, did we give my kids some money? I thought maybe that'd be best but they'd hurt for a while but move on But then I thought about how selfish that would really be how much it would hurt him You know how how the scar would never heal from that, you know And it would mean I didn't get to see what else you know life might hold for me

I didn't watch them grow up and all that shit and I'm glad I didn't so glad life got a lot better those dark days You know love being a part of my kids lives love where my life is now love doing this I'll watch them grow up love my amazing wife I love fucking penny little penny pubertin my pup a part of my kids' lives, love where my life is now, love doing this. Love watching grow up, love my amazing wife. Love fucking penny, little penny pubertin', my pup. It's a lot of fun stuff. I wanted to do this episode after thinking about the recent suicides of Chester Bennington,

you know, from Lincoln Park, Chris Cornell, Sound Garden, Audio Slave. Those guys both left families behind, but even as they didn't, man, it's important to remember, you're never alone, right? You're never just gonna check out, not bother anyone. There's always someone who cares about you. And if you're sure there's not, then stay alive, stay alive long enough to find one. Give that to

yourself. Don't let those fucking dickheads who you don't think value you. Don't let them win. Stay alive to piss people off. I don't like you. Nothing else. Now I want to take a second to give the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. It's 1-800-273-8255 and it's 24 hours a day, seven days a week. No shame in calling that number. It'll be in the episode description on the website, 1-800-273-8255. It's a suicide prevention lifeline. Time sucker and fellow comic and podcaster, Christopher James, out of Salt Lake City.

He knew I was doing this topic and he hit me up. Said he wanted to share his story. Said he'd planned his own suicide a few years ago. I was really shocked, man. He's a super friendly, super upbeat, happy guy. I would even use jovial to describe him, very friendly and upbeat, oozing positivity. And it sounds like for most of his life,

you know, he'd been that way, but a couple years ago, he got caught up in a bad relationship with somebody who was super cool at first, just like a friendship. You know, some dude, and it was slowly and surely became verbally abusive and demoralizing someone who just

eroded his confidence little by little. Somebody poisonous, I've met people like this. You know, when I was a kid, I had a few friends briefly like this. Now I spot him immediately. You know, that kind of person who likes to slip in extremely hurtful comments under the guys Of just joking, you know, what are you doing this week and man? It's not like you're gonna be going on a date I mean look at you. I mean no offense. We're not exactly a lady lady magnet, you know, I mean I'm come do come on I'm not being me. I'm just joking. I'm just joking dude

Well, wait remember why did you say that really man? I was so stupid. God, you fucking idiot sometimes, dude. Why are you, why are you, dude? What? Come on, I'm joking. I'm joking. Dude, everybody, look how skinny this fucking idiot is. Oh my God, man, eat already, look gross. Dude, when can blow you over, man. Oh, come on, why are you but her?

I'm just joking, dude. What's up, tons of fun? What's up, chubby checkers? What's up, what's up, fucking double wide? I'll do calm down, man. I'm not picking on you. I'll come on, man. You know you're fat, come on. I'm'm not picking on you. Come on man, you know you're fat. I'm just, no I'm joking.

Dude I'm, no you're not, you're a fucking dick. You're a sad poisonous hateful little dick. Who probably has a little dick and I'm not just joking. Well this person, this, this dick eroded Christopher's confidence until he felt like such a piece of shit. He thought it was your best just to check out. Especially when some bad legal stuff came out about this guy and then Christopher got a bunch of flack online

by kind of guilty of association Now basically, you know, this friends is only this dude is only friend and he said he was planning it like literally planning his own death And then it was all like all of a sudden it's like you woke up out of a bad dream realize you had so much to live for So much life ahead of him and now he's great again, man And you can be great again if you're in a dark place Don't anybody talk you out of living your life, man. Don't anybody talk you out of you know You know having a great life. You fucking beautiful, slash handsome,

slash super talented bastard. The world needs you. I mean, you're a time-socker for fuck's sake. So you know that you're the cream of the goddamn crop. You know, you curious and magnificent living testament to greatness. So, you know, and if you give up, you know, the great Nimrod is not gonna let you back

into his heavenly ball sack. How about that? He's gonna stick you in his butthole. That's what happens. If you're feeling low and you're thinking about thonch, just ask yourself, is this gonna be worth an eternity in Nimrod's butthole? No, then calm down, Kimmelsovy. And don't do heroin ever. It's legendarily addictive. It's mind-altering. Become a heroin junkie. Like Kurt was and you're not gonna ever think straight again. Guaranteed. That's exactly how you end up killing yourself by the way.

Twist the thoughts. Start wrapping on your head that really aren't your own. There are some mental illness, some drug abuse thoughts. Don't ever try it. If you get hooked on it, get help now. There's no good stories about long-term heroin use. I step brother to heroin. I step brother growing up and you ended up going out exactly like Kurt did. Your blues brains out.

No joke. Uh, heroin never improves anyone's life, man. No one ever shows up in a ward show saying, you know what? I owe this all to heroin. Before shooting up, I didn't even know how to play guitar. But once I started riding the devil's fucking horse, it all just kind of came to me.

Everything fell in place. Women, money, fame, talent. Thanks, heroin. Before shooting up, I didn't even know how to play guitar, but once I started riding the devil's fucking horse, it all just kind of came to me. Everything fell in place. Women, money, fame, talent. Thanks, heroin. Alright, I've been giving my soapbox speech. Now, time for one last look at Kurt. It was in top five takeaways. Time suck, top five takeaway.

Number one during the production of Nevermind, after the indie success of Bleach, Kurt still got evicted out of a shitty apartment for not paying rent and slept in his car. In that frustration and angst, you hear on those first two records, oh that's real, that's very real. Number two, despite rantings on the web, Courtney Loved did not introduce Kurt Cobain to heroin. Was she an enabler? Yes.

But no more than Kurt enabled her. They were both junkies. He just happened to be the one, more famous one, and happened to be the one that died. Number three, Kurt had been thinking about suicide and threatening to kill himself on and off again since he was in high school if not earlier. He was a very sensitive dude who clearly never recovered emotionally

from his parents divorce in the fallout it created. Number four, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-8255-24 hours a day, seven days a week. Don't be all, you know, pusillanimous and not call it. Number five, new info back in 2014. The 20th anniversary of Kurt Stetsk, please did review his case again. Detective Mike Sysansky, a veteran with 20 years working homicide, 10 years specializing in cold case investigations, explains in a report that he learned of a new clue about the shotgun shell that killed Cobain. As part of his review of the evidence inside the bag of shotgun shells, Seattle

Police Department found at Cobain's side, 20 years ago, Detective Suzuki writes, I recovered a sales receipt for 6.95, which was dated 4.2.94. On the box of 20 gauge ammunition is a price sticker for 6.95 from Seattle guns. This sales receipt had not been previously disclosed by the SPD. For the first time, Detective Sasensky claims to have connected this date of April 2nd on the receipt first to the store, saddle guns, and then to what he identifies as another significant piece of information from the original detective's follow-up report. In that report, it was noted that a great top taxi picked up a mail from the Cobain residence on the morning of 4294.

The mail advised the cab driver that he wanted to find a place to buy some bullets since he had recently been burglarized. The cab driver dropped this person off in the area of 145th and Aurora. Sasensky's new report explains that saddle guns was located just south of 145th and Aurora. Conspiracy theorists like Grant and Cicida Conspiracer fired the weapon that killed Cobain, questioning his inability to do so, taking a large dose of heroin, and questioning Cobain's will to commit suicide. Detective Sasansky, his determination, was that Kurt Cobain purchased the shotgun shells within one or two days of his death, appears to suggest a person planning a suicide more than it might,

the coincidence of Cobain buying the shells that a conspiracy were ultimately used to kill him in a planned stage, suicide. So there you go, don't kid yourself. Curkelbane, killed Curkelbane. Time suck, tough, five takeaway. So that was this week's suck, you guys. I hope you loved it. This Friday, it's bonus episode, MK Ultra. Been reading fascinating shit about the CIA's Friday to master mind control, a lot of LSD use.

Makes sense, actually, that they tried this. The CIA's main job is extracting covert information from targets, how better to get that information than to figure out how to control the subject's mind, render them unable to resist spilling their darkest secrets, turn them into a human robot. She's gonna get crazy. It's gonna get weird on Friday.

This is a conspiracy that appears to be all too real. What unethical experiments did our own government engage in? How did they justify him? How strong was the LSD? Find out and cover up suck this Friday. And then next Monday, a week from now, KKK. KKK didn't suck. After recent shenanigans and the tragedy in Charlottesville, I want to learn more about

these sipsons of bitches, about these hate mongers. Find out how fucking dumb their agenda actually is. Updates? Get your time sucker updates? Okay, first update, another tragic mispronunciation. The slender man, stabbing took place in Wakashaw, not Wakisha. It's Wakashaw. Austin Storker, Bryce Rich, David Smith, Nicole Alley, and other time suckers wrote in to let me know about that.

Lesson here, I've stopped using pronunciation videos for the names of cities. I always fuck up the actual word pronunciation. I miss pronounced pronunciation when I start to say it. Oh my God. Seriously though, those videos are wrong so much the time. I think I know where I know where to go now. Local news videos. Find a local news story about the town.

Where they say the town's name. Like for some local, they say in the town's name. And I know that many of you don't even care that I fuck these names up from time to time, but I am really glad I get these corrections, because for me, part of what time suck is about, you know, it's trying to be my best, kind of put forth the best possible suck each week,

and up in my pronunciation game, it was part of that. I know the research is more important, but it's still important. The pronunciation is also important. And Nicole also let me know that jury members for this slender man's stabbing trial are being picked from Waka Shaw County,

and they will be sequestered during the whole process, and that the judge issued a rest warrants for potential jury members that haven't responded to their questionnaires yet. Over 100 residents of the county were sent to questionnaires and 12 didn't respond, resulting in court summons to explain themselves. Only two of those people showed up.

So a rest warrants sent out for the other 10. So another odd twist in this case. What's going on with these jurors? I don't know, man, maybe Slender Man got to him. How fucking weird would that be? How messed up with that? Be of that sound of a bitch or somehow real? I know he's not, but he does creep me out. Okay, another update from young time sucker Madison Herbst, recent high school grad, and outstanding human being. She sent in another Slenderman update, and I love this. She says, master sucker. After listening to the Slenderman episode of Time Suck, I recalled one of my

most embarrassing middle school memories. Don't worry, it's not as bad as the creepypasta kits. I started middle school in 2011, just around the time the Slender Man meme began to get super popular, I also had just discovered the internet. Being one of those girls that liked to hang around with the boys for sports and computer game reasons, okay sure it was. Now I heard plenty of talk about this faceless demon. Eventually the rumors and scary stories had me, a 12-year-old, believing in slender.

So being the smart and curious kid that I am, or that I was, I turned to the best place on the internet to get completely factual answers from genuine people, extreme sarcasm, as an ad. Yahu answers. Yesterday, I made an effort for you, Master Sucker, and for my fellow time-sockers, to find my original post, you show everyone how naive and paranoid a preteen can be and she found it and this is so fucking good. Oh, Maddie. So glad you shared this with us.

Here it goes. Here's what Maddie wrote. Is the slender man real? Please tell me. On Sunday, my friends went to Woodland Park at 11 p.m. to play tag for his birthday party. Dan and Joe sat behind the tennis court fence. Then they saw a tall figure wearing his suit and and hat with no face It chased them down the hill and teleported

And teleported to the road where they were going to run My friend was pale and unable to speak for a while They met up with their group and told them what happened They walked up to the hill to check it out and they found a dead squirrel that was twisted to death The next day at school Joe was still scared out of his mind and was feeling sick. I need to know what happened Did he really see this londerman? Oh, so good. So good.

All right, Madison says. Turn out that the day they all told me this story was also April Fool's Day. I didn't realize that until somebody told me on the forum a good week later. I guess my point is, as Madison looking back, I realized that I was just as completely susceptible to any sort of peer pressure, believing in most things. I hear and read just like you said. I also think that a lot of kids can get into that headspace. Anyways, thank you so much for all your hard work. You inspire me to be a good person.

Keep on sucking. Maddie. Fucking love this Maddie. Oh God, we are so funny and we're kids, man. Honestly, I remember being so scared about certain things. So scared. So exciting to worry about monsters when you're a kid, man. Really worry about them.

I remember laying in bed, pulling covers over my my head totally convinced there was some demon under my bed About to kill me about to grab my ass take me to some awful dimension. I just knew it had to be true and finally Lizard space lizard update. You know how much I love those numerous suckers wrote in with a lizard update Time suckers been Sess tack at that kid texts on Twitter at way be bone 121 on Twitter at you can't find me dad on Twitter And others let me know this some space lizard shit might be going down or at least lizard stuff at that kid texts on Twitter, at WavyBone121 on Twitter, at you can't find me, dad on Twitter. And others, let me know, there's some space lizard shit might be going down, or at least lizard stuff,

might be going down today during the solar eclipse in South Carolina. WLTX and West Columbia, South Carolina, has reported that the South Carolina Emergency Management Division posts on social media at SCEMD, that lizard men may be more active during his solar eclipse. Now, this was a tongue and cheek post, but there is a real lizard man, legend in South Carolina.

The first lizard man was reportedly seen in Lee County, South Carolina, 1988, coming out of a scape orp, coming out of the scape or swamp. Son of a bitch apparently jumped on top of 17-year-old Chris Davis' car, hit a swerve, speed up to shake that lizard bastard off. But the lizard illuminati were not happy about that, man. Sounds like that swamp lizard probably went rogue. It's like every family, he knows that one dipshit doesn't follow the rules. It's probably no different for the space lizards,

you know. They can't be all controlling our minds all the time. Probably feel those lizards lazy, unambitious, you know. Rulebreakers. They don't want to control our minds. They just want to hang out in some swamps, drink some moonshine, fuck with some locals. Maybe bump ugly with some dirty old swamp chicks. Who knows? And that is all for this week's Time Sucker Updates. Thanks for listening to him. Thanks, Time Suckers.

I need a nap. We all did. Alright, hope you liked the new format, everybody. Hope you liked it. Let me know. Thanks for keeping this thing moving forward, moving along. Thanks for keeping it growing. And again, man, this is making me feel like there's a possibility

I could do some really cool stuff with this coming up. Makes you want to work even harder on it. Spread those new stickers around. Send me some pics to post on at-time-soc podcast on social media. And you know, most importantly, you know what I'm going to say. You can say with me, keep on sucking. 감사합니다.