The quest for bleach

like most impressionable middle-class youths in the early 90s, i was deeply in love with the revolutionary sound of nirvana. from the minute i heard the very first guitar riff from smells like teen spirit, i was a fan fanatic obsessed.

i recall saving my money so i could buy the entire album, one of the first three CDs i ever bought (the other two were queen's greatest hits and eric clapton unplugged).

but it wasn't until i found out that smells like teen spirit wasn't actually their debut album that i showed my first signs of being insane. of course, in those days, there was no internet, there was no itunes. if dude wanted some obscure music, he had to work hard to get it.

the music store where i bought my tapes and CDs was little help. they said they would try to order it but, for whatever reason, it couldn't be ordered.

but i didn't give up. some friends and i teamed up, and we began a rigorous search to find what we were looking for and after several weeks of letter writing, information pooling and lots of guts, we finally had a dubbed tape of the bleach album.

up to that point, i had never tasted such sweet victory, despite coming to the conclusion that indeed, bleach was a pretty shitty debut album.

Much props

as someone who hit puberty in the 90s, most of my musical love bounced between nirvana, tupac, dre and (don't judge me) michael jackson. weird mix, i know, but those were the times.

now, flash forward to me sittin' at my sister's house the other day, playing with her toddler's playschool xylophone. i start messin' around and before ya know it i'm bangin' out musical hits from the 90s. my sister even joined in with the rhythm section (also brought to us by playschool).

i thought, surely other adults have done stuff like this...

apparently they have.

ain't the internets badass?

Nirvana

i miss the comfort in being sad.

never will i forget the day curt cobain died. i was so, bothered. finally, here was a celebrity -- a star, a genius -- someone who got me. someone like me. with similar thoughts, pains, demons.

and boom, like that, he was fucking dead.

i don't think i ever got over that a hundred percent. there are some days when i can't help but wonder what sort of musical brilliance we missed out on because of his selfishness, his inability to fight...

i got demons. i hate myself sometimes. but, more than anything, i refuse to give up. i refuse to lay down.

fight.

i will always fucking fight.