And I forget
Just what it takes
And yet I guess it makes me smile
I found it hard
Its hard to find
Oh well, whatever, nevermind…
In the summer of 1991, I was 19 and living in Tallahassee in a vermin infested house in the shadow of the Florida state capital. I was working at a local chain bookstore, making a half-assed attempt at an English degree from Florida State University and generally wandering aimlessly in a Gen X stupor. I was a man in search of a plan, in search of some sort of guiding force. I used to lurk around used bookstores, snapping up Beat poetry and novels, books on Buddhism, romantic poets, dense arty novels. But none of these seemed to apply to me in 1991, they were the voices of previous generations, answers for ancestors.
Then one night in September I slid a new CD that I had picked up into my stereo. And I heard the opening chords of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and my life changed. Within months, I dropped out of college (for the second time), quit my job, packed up my pick up and headed out across the country for the Pacific Northwest. I know that kind of makes me a cliché today, but it didn’t feel that way at the time. Nor was it as simple as that, but in the music of Nirvana I heard the voice of my generation for the first time.
Even if you have…
Even if you need…
I don’t mean to stare.
We don’t have to breed.
We can plant a house,
Or we can build a tree
I don’t even care.
We could have all three…
I didn’t find what I was looking for in Seattle. I had hoped that I was joining a youth movement, a la Berkeley in the 1960s. But it didn’t turn out that way, there was a musical scene for a few years but beyond that Seattle in the early 90s was nothing like Berkeley in the late 60s. In a lot of ways it was the anti-Berkeley. It was cold and dark. It was exclusionary. Love was expensive and potentially deadly. The drugs were harsh and lethal. There was no political or social movement, in fact that sort of thing was regarded with suspicion. Above all, it was not like a Cameron Crowe film. I stumbled and bumbled around for a few years and ultimately came back South, poorer and emotionally wrung out.
In anecdotes about this time in my life, I’ve always relayed it as wasted time, my fucking around period if you will. But as I listened to “Nevermind” with my son the other day, I realized that this is an oversimplification. Tallahassee and Seattle in the early 1990s were a critical part of getting me to where I am today – Adelaide in 2008. What I was looking for during that time in my life was what I’ve found today. Like a lot of my generation, I knew that I couldn’t live the life of my parents. Their blue sky dream had been turned into a smoggy myth for us. A house in the suburbs and 2.4 kids and a lifetime job with The Company were neither available nor acceptable. I remember hearing of my Dad’s friends, the fathers of the kids I grew up with, being laid off from the company to whom they’d given the best years of their lives and for whom they’d dragged their families around the world. I remember the day that my Dad joined them. He had been a Company man for most of his life, but downsizing and outsourcing and all those words that have made it into the lexicon of our language over the past decade and a half meant that he found himself without a job and in his early fifties. I knew at that point, that even though I was floundering and failing, that my rejection of the path my parents took was a sound decision.
I think that’s one of the things Cobain was trying to get across. In his music, I hear a firm rejection of the Baby Boomers approach to life. But coupled with that is the angst and confusion and utter powerlessness of a man who doesn’t know have an alternate plan. He knows that the status quo is unacceptable, but can’t see the road less travelled. That is ultimately what killed him.
It is now time to make it unclear
To write off lines that don’t make sense
Love myself better then you
I know it’s wrong so what should I do…
Thankfully, I and most of the rest of my generation have found the road that Cobain couldn’t. I’ve accepted a lot of the status quo that I rejected when I lit out from Tallahassee. I live, regrettably and temporarily in the suburbs. I have bred. I have a family of my own and want, above all, the best for them. I don’t spend a lot of time fighting the man.
But, in many other ways I’ve opted out. I’m proudly not a Company Man. I’m working on my terms and when they cease to be my terms, can walk away and be OK. I’ve tailored my career to be what I want it to be and have taken advantage of the educational and career opportunities afforded me. I can work in my window office, I can work at home, I can work on the bus, I could probably work on the beach if I didn’t have a headbanging boy child trying to thrash my computer. I’ve opted out of that American blue sky dream to the tune of about 10,000 miles and a hemisphere.
Come as you are, as you were
As I want you to be
As a friend, as a friend, as an old enemy
Take your time, hurry up
Choice is yours, don’t be late…
A lot of people call Nirvana’s music angry, but Cobain wasn’t angry. He was, like a lot of us were at the time, frustrated, confused and frightened. That’s what you hear in “Nevermind”. Kurt Cobain never had a chance to try the alternate path that so many of us have taken. He opted out in a very final and ultimately cowardly way. In a lot of ways it’s a shame, because it is our time now. One of the reasons that I’m such an advocate of Barack Obama is that with his election, a member of my generation (in a broad sense) is poised to take real power for the first time.
This was supposed to be about Boy Z and Nirvana, but it’s not turned out that way at all. Boy Z liked “Nevermind” in the sense that he liked the time we set aside to bang along with that fantastic Novoselic and Grohl growling bass line. He detected the change in mood in his Papa and played along and drummed and thrashed things with his cricket bat. But Z likely didn’t hear the generational insurrection in “Nevermind”, he’s a bit young yet for that yet. One day, Z is going to see Nirvana as the music of his father’s generation – as dated and hackneyed. One day he’s going to reject my values and my path in life. He’s going to make his own choices based on his own experience. And when that’s the case, I hope I can remember this post and the way I feel right now. Find your way, Boy Z. Find your own way.
What album defined your coming of age, your great trip west?
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Nirvana’s “Nevermind” is available from 
.
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Image Credits:
Seattle in the fog
Further reading:
This post was partially inspired by this photo on Bluestreak’s excellent page.
Nirvana - "In Bloom" [4:15m]:
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Just a wee break in the 90’s flashbacks this week, stay tuned for more…
I got bogged down in the perfect storm of work obligations last week, resulting in a weekend spent almost exclusively writing lectures, exams and reports. The only thing that kept me from becoming A Bitter Man was that I managed to wrangle myself a day off on Tuesday. A free midweek day with Boy Z is enough incentive to plunge through an Australian spring weekend spent hunched over a computer.
Us you and me
Regular readers of A Free Man may know that one of my life long quests, much like Superman, is fighting for justice and pointing out inequity when it crosses my path. For example, the fact that Dr. O’C 
Your Number 2 Georgia Bulldogs host the racist Central Michigan Chippewas for a 3:30 p.m. Eastern (5:00 a.m. Sunday in Adelaide) kickoff. The game’s available on internet radio or ESPN’s Gameplan.
Trying out some more Aussie slang today. Maybe one of my Antipodean readers can tell me if I’ve got it right.
