My Kurt Cobain Artwork

     There was a silence and then the young man responded: "Is he dead?"

            Kurt Cobain was to me a role model, and tour guide in my messed up little world.   In many ways he and I were alike and it was always comforting to know 

someone out there had an equally bad time growing up.   He was bisexual and "gay in spirit" according an Advocate interview with Kurt.   He grew up with a distant father and   an ant-gay community.   Alone in the dark, I had an outlet through Cobain's gut-wrenched scream. 

            He was an artist that enjoyed painting obscure imaged that only dreams are made of.  

            How Kurt dressed stared a trend in the early nineties, a tend that was created out of not having a lot of money and trying to stay warm in Washing ton D.C.   Not having a lot of money and not really giving a damn about my appearance past the Christmas of '93, I wore dark blues, greens and black that with time and a lot of walking all turned different shades of gray.    Jagged blue jeans were a necessary for me since I did not want new jeans and as a result my jeans grew slits to gaping holes in the upper legs.   My ever growing low self esteem and emotional isolation created a side effect wearing clothes to not be noticed and to not be attractive.

            My hair grew bleached in the sun and later was bleached with actual bleach.   Over three years I let it grow non-stop.   I washed every so often and the unkempt blond strands long since dead would cover my face.   I bleached the hair that grew on my face to match my hair.   Cobain and I, Benjie were alike inside and out.   Tim was pushed back and hidden.   The Tim that loved and needed love was buried in my soul so that I could go on each day with very little joy.   I absorbed pain.   

            A very bad self image striking in my early years committed myself to not eating well.   My bones tended to stick out here and there and denying the pleasure of eating created a simular way of life as Kurt.   He understood what is like to be not wanted for who you really are.   A chronic back pain that caused him cough up 

blood minutes before going on stage resulted in his heroin and his lack of eating.  

In the note found at the Cobain's dearth scene, apparently written to Kurt Cobain's imaginary childhood friend "Boddah", Cobain quoted a lyric from Neil Young's song "Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black)": "It's better to burn out than to fade away."