HaCKeRz KrOnIcKLeZ 3/HaCKeRz_KrOnIcKLeZ.iso/anarchy/essays/schoolsucks/kcobain1.txt

Text File | 1996-04-27 | 12KB | 248 lines

subject = Psychology
title = Kurt Cobain
papers =
Psychology 41G Report

            Aberdeen,
Washington, a small town southeast of Seattle is 108     miles long, and outlined
by an endless amount of trailer parks; past them         are many acres of     timberland,
blemished by stubbly scars, where             loggers have been clear cutting. From
east the first thing seen is the             unattractive     Weyerhauser lumberyard leading
to the Wishkah River.
        These days, the streets of Aberdeen, Washington are
looking like         empty or boarded up storefronts. Business is booming for only
local             pawnshops.  One of the biggest growth industries in the country presently
    is
the cultivation of Marijuana and psychedelic mushrooms, which people         grow
in order to boost their meager or nonexistent incomes. It wasn╣t         always this
bad. Aberdeen used to once be a bustling seaport where
    sailors used to stop
off at. Truth is, the town used to be one big              prostitution centre.
        This
is where on February.20th 1967 Kurt Donald Cobain was born.      To homemaker
Wendy Cobain(nΘe Fradenburg) and mechanic Donald         Cobain. His early influences
who soon became mentors to him were,
    his mothers siblings Chuck and Mary.
        From
the day of his birth to the day of his death Kurt Cobain
    had problems, psychological
and otherwise. The problems just could not         leave him alone.  The Cobain╣s
didn╣t live in the best part of Aberdeen and
    were not wealthy. They were
basically │white trash posing as middle class▓     according to Kurt when asked
about his early childhood upbringing.          Kurt╣s major problems began at the
age of 8 in 1975.  This was when his         parents divorced.  His mother admits
that both she and Don used the             kids(sister Kim 5 at the time of divorce)
in the divorce and fought for         custody.  It╣s been described as that a îlight
went out╣ in him, a light that he     tried to recapture, but couldn╣t.

        Kurt
became angered at his parents for not being able to sort out         their problems.
 Throughout most of his childhood he was ashamed of his         parents  After the
divorce Kurt continued to live on with his mom in         Aberdeen, for a year, but
his mom soon decided that she could not             handle him. To cope, she shipped
him off to his dad in Montesano a smaller     logging community 20 miles east
of Aberdeen.  Even with his dad Kurt         was unhappy.  They didn╣t get along
to well because Don pushed Kurt into         sports which Kurt was not good at, which
caused more pressure on Kurt         because Don was a jock.  Don did not let Kurt
be a kid, he wanted him to         be a little adult.  He╣d get irritated quickly,
and would whack Kurt over         the head.  One time when Kurt was 6, he threw Kurt
across the room           Basically, Kurt had no father figure to look up upon. Despite
all of this         Kurt was spoiled by Don and showered with material things that
Don could     offer.
        Kurt was then shattered again when Don got remarried
in February         of 1978.  Kurt and his step-mom did not get along. The longer
Kurt
    lived with Don the worse things got.  Don was determined to make Kurt
    accept
the new family, so he got legal custody in attempt to make him
    part of the
family. Don then gave up on Kurt because he was convinced
    that his mom brainwashed
him.  Eventually, Don couldn╣t deal with Kurt.
    Kurt was passed between 3
different sets of Aunts and Uncles and his
    Grandparents on his dad╣s side.

        In school Kurt did not do well.  He was seen as an outcast, being
    shifted
around between 4 schools in Aberdeen and Montesano. While still         in school,
Kurt was friends with Myer Loftin, an openly gay student.  He         enjoyed the
conflict he caused.  He thinks it was then, that he almost found         his identity
true identity.  Around Grade.11; the moving around a lot was         only a small
part of the problems What led to his eventual drop out of         school in May of
graduating year, was his intense hate of the teachers.
    He would fantasise
killing them in front of the class.
        Wendy seeing all of this decided
that her traumas were worse             than Kurts, because she had just dumped an abusive
boyfriend.  She was         still focused on doing good by her son. So, she simply
passed her son
    on to live with her brother Chuck. Kurt by then was distraught
about
    moving from relative to relative.  In May of 1984, when Kurt was 17,
    Wendy
was remarried to Pat O╣Connor.  Wendy once again decided
    that she was worse
off than Kurt, because Pat was an alcoholic. She
    again she felt incapable
of taking Kurt . After months of emotional phone         calls and crying, Wendy
took Kurt back.  Kurt rebelled at home when back     with his mom. Wendy╣s patience
with Kurt     wore thin with Kurt because         she was mad at Pat for drinking. She
often used her anger at Pat towards         the kids  One morning while living with
Wendy and Pat, Pat came in         smelling like a girl. With Pat being an avid gun
collector Wendy attempted     to load one of the guns, but found she couldn╣t.
She had Kim gather up all         the guns and bullets and dump them in the Wishkah
River.  Kurt witnessing     all of this from his room, recruited some friends
to dig out as many guns         as they could out of the river and then he sold them.

        Wendy abandoned Kurt again.  She sent him to live with his friend         Jesse
Reed, whose parents were born again Christians.  The Reeds weren╣t         too fond
of Kurt.  He was considered a bad influence on their son.  The         final straw
with the Reeds came when they locked Kurt out of their house,         and Kurt kicked
in the door.  Mr. Reed told Kurt in no uncertain terms         that he was a lost
cause. That was the end of life at the Reed house.
        After this incident Wendy
decided to try îtough love╣, which
    was just becoming recognized. Kurt moved
into an apartment in             Aberdeen with Jesse Reed.  In 1985 Kurt was evicted
from his apartment.          Wendy keeping up with the tough love had nothing to
do with Kurt.          With nowhere to sleep Kurt would sleep on a cardboard box
on his friend
    Dale Crovers porch, or under the North Aberdeen Bridge.
 Wendy, then         dropped the îtough love╣, and allowed Kurt to stop by her house
and she╣d         make him lunch.
        In fall of 1986 Kurt hurt his hand while making
french fries, and
    severely burnt his hand on the grease.  Kurt was told by
the doctor
    that he╣d never play the guitar again.  In 1987 Kurt developed
a piercing         pain in his stomach.  The condition plagued Kurt for the rest
of his life.  It         baffled even the best specialists.
        From 1987 on Kurt
was heavy into the music and drug scene.  He         was plagued by psychological
problems, and stomach pain as well as drug         addiction. These problems persisted
on through to 1992 and then through         to his  death while he and his constantly
changing band were frustrated by         the setback of trying to make it big in
music, and then coping with fame.             Kurt being naive about drugs, started
taking percodan, not being         aware of the addiction factor involved.  Eventually
percodan led to heroin.       Then, very unexpectedly in 1992 Nirvana finally
made it big. Nirvana         skyrocketed to fame at a quick pace.  Kurt never fully
recovered from this         fame.  He didn╣t like and couldn╣t cope with the fame
and public limelight.
        February. 24th, 1992 in Waikiki, Hawaii Kurt was
married to             Courtney Love. Like Kurt, Courtney was also from a broken home.
6         Months after their marriage their first and only child was born.  A girl,
        Francis Bean Cobain.  Kurt struggled with parenthood, and with the fact         that
the Seattle branch of Child and Family services was trying to take         away Francis
with charges of unfit parenting.  With the onset of a new         child and marriage,
Kurt became severely depressed.  The depression         lasted    up until his death.
In March of 1994 Kurt collapsed in Rome.  A         near fatal combination of champagne
and tranquillisers. On April.8th 1994     at the young age of 27,  Kurt Donald
Cobain was found dead in the             greenhouse on top of the house he  shared with
Courtney.  His death

    has never, despite media coverage, been proved as
a suicide.
        Kurt╣s main outlet for his pain was music.  If you analyse his
    songs
you can read the pain that he╣s trying to express. Music helped Kurt         communicate
the pain that he was going through. A less noble outlet
    was drugs.  Not to
sensationalise or condemn drug use, but in your teens
    it╣s confusing enough
without the added on troubles of both parents
    abandoning you.  In some ways
Kurt did try to stop his downward spiral of     destruction.  When Kurt was nearing
18 his father feared his could loose         Kurt forever, he made an ultimatum of
music or living with his dad             rent free.  So Kurt sold his guitar, and tried
the Navy test.  He ended up
    getting one of the highest scores Aberdeen had
ever seen.  However Kurt         never did enlist in the Navy.
        Kurt tried many
times to stop his drug abuse.  Shortly before he was
    found dead Courtney
tried an intervention.  Successfully, Kurt enrolled        in the Exodus Rehabilitation
Centre.  One of the finest and established
    places in Seattle.  Unfortunately,
Kurt left before his treatment could really
    start to help.
        My evaluation
of Kurt Cobain is that he was an almost over comer.          His life was worth a
lot to many people.  If he had not died when he did, he     would have been an
over comer. In Kurt's short life he matured a             lot.  He stopped taking his
anger out on society in every way he could.  He
    found love in his wife and
child.  He was determined to be there
    for Francis the way his parents were
not there for him.  The effect of
    Kurt╣s music was tremendous.  He managed
without a lot of a lot of words        to touch his fans, in a way no other rock
star had before.  He was
    different than the average star.  Not everything
to him was a greedy
    money game to him.  He tried as hard as possible when
he was famous,
    to lead a modest life. Kurt╣s brutally honest approach to
life will never


    be forgotten.  He was not only a songwriter, but a
poet.
        My thoughts on Psychological nature are that sometimes your
    environment
that you grow up in, does not have to dictate the rest
    of your life. Kurt
had bad surroundings and role models but, he
    made a lot out of his short
life.
        Freud was somewhat right with his theory of your childhood.
    Kurt
had a very bad childhood, and it stayed with him right up until
    the end.
 He was always afraid of abandonment, and desertion.  Yet, in the
    same breath
you can say that he almost broke the cycle of abandonment, by
    being a good
father to Francis and not abandoning her in the same
    way his parents abandoned
him.  Kurt did not fully break the cycle of
    abandonment, because now Francis
will only have memories of her
    departed father, although at least they will
be mainly good memories.
    It╣s important to remember, that when you idealise
and put rock stars up
    on pedestals as much as Kurt was you also have to give
them space
    and privacy, like so many stars want to have.  Kurt should be
an example
    to all that rock stars are not superhuman beings.  People may
say if you         don╣t like public attention, then quit music.  It╣s a catch 22,
easy to say but         not to do. Even if Kurt did quit music, he would always be
│that guy from         Nirvana▓.  If Kurt did in fact commit suicide, he should not
be a hero or         selfish but a lost soul, wondering amongst the dead, who should
not be         forgotten.
        In closing my theory is that;  yes, your childhood can
ruin you
    but only if you let it.
        In the words and memory of Kurt Cobain

    │PEACE, LOVE AND EMPATHY▓
    The above line quoted from the │alleged▓ suicide
note found by his body.
    My main question and confusion about human behaviour
is why was Kurt         so deeply affected, and his sister Kim not?