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Biddy is a woman of some years: a GenX'er, Riot Grrrl, survivor, traveler, tattoo collector, senior pet owner, music lover, former public school embattled public school retiree and amatuer vegan chef. Biddy Sounds Off is a thinking woman's bildungsroman and pirate radio station some thirty years in the making: featuring episodic writings and eclectic musical selections.
Welcome to Biddy Sounds Off, a place for episodic writing and music I love. I'm Biddy. This April 8th 2024 marked the 30th anniversary of the discovery of Kurt Cobain's passing. I know that a lot of us lived through this. Get it?
Biddy Bops:Time. The news of his passing had a profound effect on me, and I remember hearing of his death while working at my mom's coffee cart. She'd financed a coffee cart and rolled it inside a crafter's corner. If you've ever heard of those shops, they were booth rentals for crafters, artisans, and antique dealers. Business was slow.
Biddy Bops:Mom went out for a lot of smoke breaks. Once, a little girl on her way into the shop stared at my mom and asked, why are you eating that thing that smokes? I'd been working the morning shift. When the noose came in over the radio, it was probably Kilo back then, the station 943. They played all the hard rock sounds of the day.
Biddy Bops:Your Motley Crue, Metallica. Then in the nineties, they didn't know what to do about bands like Nirvana. By the time my mom came to relieve me from my morning shift, I'd spent the morning playing Nirvana way too loud and slouching in the corner over the radio, probably next to a cup of pennyroyal tea. The crafters and antiquers ignored us. None of them drank nearly as much much coffee as we did, and in Colorado Springs, you had to use waters blessed by Jesus to attract them.
Biddy Bops:We weren't part of their golden flock, it must have been pretty obvious. They turned their backs on us, on our arrival, pretending like they'd never heard of these dang old cafe mochas. Mom had just expected me to run the business with her. It had only been months since I've been dragged back from California from my chosen life to be at her side for a life and death surgery she suddenly forgot about as soon as I landed on her doorstep. What surgery?
Biddy Bops:My sister thought it was hilarious. I'd fallen for it. Good one, mom. I had used all the money I'd earned from a job working in an exotic pet store and found myself dependent again and back to stasis, an end to progress. I collapsed in my dark bedroom, did drugs openly, stopped showering.
Biddy Bops:Maybe she thought it would cheer me up working on her coffee cart business. The fight went out of me. She had a path for me and I was becoming ever less resistant to veering off. Back then though, the wooden faced dolls and their elaborately arranged yarn hairstyles drove me at least to find my ambition again. It was rare for me to offer resistance, except for one time, dad insisted that I dug my heels in on a visit with him after they divorced and told her I didn't wanna go back with her.
Biddy Bops:I was happy in Pueblo with dad. Maybe this is why she retaliated so harshly. I still don't know why she tobacco smoking paraphernalia and drugs out the back door. I tobacco smoking paraphernalia and drugs out the back door. I'd first started working there when I was still in high school a couple of years earlier.
Biddy Bops:The manager I had worked under had left, and one of his higher minded underlings remembered me, which meant he remembered how unchecked and rampant the sexual harassment was from my high school days. I'd been the only female employee at the time and had already proven my unparalleled ability to never complain, take shit, swallow it, and smile nervously. The perfect employee. Since then, the all male staff had been reprimanded after customers had complained on my behalf. I didn't know any better, but was pleased when it stopped.
Biddy Bops:The grabbing, staring, talking, touching, laughing, code songs they play over the store speakers when I walked in, then more laughing. This time, I was moved to the main store where the bosses worked. I thought it might have been a move to protect me, but it turns out some of the bosses enjoyed making unwanted sexual advances of their own. I put up with it, pleased to be surrounded by music and not crocheted crosses. We did lines on CD cases in the back when some of the guys from the smoke shop came through.
Biddy Bops:There was a skinny guy with fluffy hair who asked me to shoot him up in the smoke shop bathroom. I did. They sold used tapes and CDs back then. A lot of Blondie and REO Speedwagon at the used store. But the main store sold new everything.
Biddy Bops:At that time, we were pushing a lot of freshly released rap and R and B of the day. Aaliyah, Mary j Blige, Nas, Wu Tang, Tupac. We also sold new release VHS tapes. Not just music videos, but movies, pornos. They even had those horrible faces of death videos.
Biddy Bops:I never watched the faces of death videos and kept track of who did. My older sister, like all the cool kids coming of age in the late eighties, had worshiped the hair metal bands. My sister went in for metal, then speed metal bands. Her boyfriend and his locally renowned band Anthrax shredded their way into the hallowed halls of Colorado Springs fame. When bands like Nirvana hit the airwaves in the early nineties, they were different.
Biddy Bops:The closest thing people could say was college radio, then alternative, then grunge. Labels were required and not just your own personal monikers for things you liked, but labels handed down from the purveyors of cool, the white male canon of rock or whatever. Despite working in a record store myself, white male customers routinely felt obliged to lecture me on this limited spectrum, which included none of the innovative rap, R and B, or female fronted bands I was listening to. Dropping gems like, actually, the original lineup included so and so, or this release sold this many copies, so music isn't about stats. This isn't baseball, motherfucker.
Biddy Bops:Nirvana had been punk at first, then they were decried for selling out when people actually enjoyed listening to their music. Then the hard rock guys came down on them for not being Metallica. And then to top it all off, Kurt started wearing women's accessories and a fucking cardigan, and everyone lost their minds. The fickle mainstream began to turn, shoulders swivel in righteous retaliation to what was perceived then as, quote, unquote, gay, which could literally be anything back then. And it was a term meant to cause pain and derision, the same way, I guess, pussy was meant to cut down men.
Biddy Bops:You fucking wish. You could never. Let's take a music break. First, we heard About a Girl followed by Aneurysm, those two songs connected by Shades of Toby Vale according to the lore. Conservative politics were on an upswell.
Biddy Bops:Rush Limbaugh and Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich were vomiting hate speech and homophobes had a raging hard on for Kurt Cobain who flamed the fires by speaking out for women and gay rights. He wore dresses and taunted haters. Bullies weren't new to him, but the hate mongers were gaining to the horrors of the AIDS epidemic with humanity and compassion. This was the culture of hate. The culture wars, a term used by that infernal Resh Limbaugh himself, magnified and distorted back to us by the machinery of media, advancing beyond print to acrimonious TV channels, TV stations, radio airwaves, and finally, the Internet.
Biddy Bops:The unifying message was fear, intolerance. Kurt was caught up in that media machinery, a sensitive artist with purported health problems beyond his drug abuse, whose journals reveal childhood trauma, including bullying and an unstable home life. This was the effigy propped up on a counter culture pedestal, someone who then married a firebrand in her own right, and in so doing, provided our homophobic, misogynistic culture more ammunition to fire at him. Cuckolded, pussy whipped, weak, and all the other slurs. He didn't stand a chance.
Biddy Bops:Whatever you think of her, I think it's fair to say that none of us would intentionally have chosen to appoint 19 nineties Courtney Love to serve as our exclusive advocate. Meanwhile, our cannibalistic media machinery continued to build momentum. Jerry Springer was just hitting his stride, further propagating the rise of reality TV with shows like OJ drives around in a white Bronco, OJ goes to court, Jenny Jones, Ricky Lake, Maury Povich, Real World, Road Rules, True Life, all of which kept us breathlessly engaged and opposition minded, busy turning on ourselves while anti queer legislation was passed like amendment 2 in Colorado from the weirdos at Colorado for family values led by a local car salesman, Will Perkins. Don't Ask, Don't Tell was enacted, and Jesse Helms spoke out about the National Endowment of the Arts using funds to back the, quote, so called artistry of non white, non heterosexual artists, and the so called Defense of Marriage Act or DOMA was enacted in 1990 6. All of this was on the heels of the LA riots, the Rodney King riots in 1992.
Biddy Bops:The Supreme Court declared affirmative action constitutional, and Bill Clinton announced his action constitutional, and Bill Clinton announced his administration's intent to mend it, not end it, which prompted Bob Dole to introduce the so called equal opportunity act in Congress, which would do the exact opposite and end race and gender based affirmative action. Waco was 1993 for context, and the rise of the modern militia movement and hate speech was given more and more airtime. They encouraged people to arm themselves in the wake of the Brady bill. Neo Nazis were emboldened during this time period, and those of us who'd believed in a more progressive future became increasingly demoralized, despondent, and at least for me, surrounded by more and more weapons in Colorado in a city triangulated by an army base, the Air Force Academy, and focus on the family. But guns aren't just a Colorado thing.
Biddy Bops:It felt like the undoing of a lot of progress. Hate crimes were on the rise. Racial and gender based discrimination was prevalent, and it felt like a painful backlash, a punishment, direct response to the emergence of new artistry, new and more diverse voices in the nineties in art, music, fashion. Every generation has its own rebellion. There isn't anything special about that.
Biddy Bops:While the preceding attempt and in historical, I love it when people say an historical, almost as much as I enjoy hearing data referred to in the plural form. Overview may be reductionist. I hope it serves to highlight the push and pull in modern day American politics, which seems obsessed with maintaining a death grip on racist, antisemitic, misogynistic, and anti queer tropes, maintaining these practices and reaping the commercial benefit of it all. We buy into it through cultural indoctrination, distracting ourselves with a culture war. All the while, harmful legislation is passed.
Biddy Bops:The footwork of capitalism keeps it afloat, elevating commerce over basic human rights. Boomers boomed, bullies prevailed, and a lot of us gen x's just fell silent. Matthew Shepherd was murdered in 95. James Bird was murdered in 98. It was a heartbreaking close to an era that had begun, at least for me, with hopefulness, graduating high school, starting a new life in California.
Biddy Bops:Resistance, if not my very existence, appeared futile. My era of self advocacy would be some 30 years in the future, not that I knew it then. In the end, I wound up getting fired from my job at the record store. At the same time, my sister was starting to slip away in a more definitive severing of herself from my mom and me. Ravaged by her addictions, my sister cut ties with us more and more, further solidifying the trauma bond, another kind of death grip between myself and my mother.
Biddy Bops:Adding insult to injury, Cobain's death was immediately ruled a suicide without due cause or, to my mind, a proper investigation. Take away the notoriety of the decedent, and what remains is the familiar enmity and common discrimination of the police and the public towards known drug users or or alcohol users or anyone who in life may have engaged in behaviors ex would ex would find me, force feed me large quantities of alcohol, and somehow cause my death. He wouldn't even need to get creative. I'd be at the coward's mercy. The coward, which all bullies are, would prevail.
Biddy Bops:How many problematic deaths are conveniently ruled suicides, especially in cases tarnished with labels like domestic abuse, allegations diminished with trite aphorisms like he said, she said, especially in a case involving individuals prone to so called risky behaviors or having a known history of mental health issues. Suicide is an easy lazy call, especially for those of us brave enough to address our own issues with mental health. The stigma should be reversed. No shame in seeking help or therapy with shame ascribed only to those who actively deny themselves therapy, hurting themselves and others. Someone in dire need of help and a reasonable advocate, one unconcerned with fame, profitability, or sexual jealousy was Kurt Cobain.
Biddy Bops:Putting aside the rock star's notoriety, there is a second issue which looms large as an effective counter strategy for anyone questioning the means or manner of his death. So effective, in fact, that even the idle questioner of the numerous aberrant facts of the case becomes a kooky conspiracy theorist. A cursory overview of those facts include the highly irregular statement of Seattle police spokesperson Bennett Tishi on live TV in front of the media feeding frenzy. And upon immediate discovery of the body in the morning of April 8th, she stated, it is obvious this man is dead from a shot gun wound to the head. Now, there was a suicide note left inside the house.
Biddy Bops:Not exactly a well considered statement. It was happening in real time, but that was enough to run with and the suicide narrative was established. The note itself is problematic, reading like regained consciousness from that incident, insisted was not a suicide note at all, but simply another one incident in Rome was all the more suspect because at the time, incident in Rome was all the more suspect because at the time, he was fresh from rehab, had spoken to a lawyer about filing for divorce, and had plans to dissolve the band. These are the actions of a man who is planning for the future. In a thorough and impartial police investigation, these are leads that would be followed on.
Biddy Bops:Of course, much has been made of the amount of heroin in his system, which according to the Seattle Post Intelligencer was 0.152 milligrams per liter of blood, which is 3 times a lethal amount, making it difficult to believe he shot himself up with that massive amount of heroin, all before neatly repacking his drug paraphernalia and supplies, recapping multiple syringes, and all this before shooting himself with an upside down shotgun. Open bottles of soda mixed with sedatives were found. Volume was determined to be in his bloodstream. It's overkill. This brief overview doesn't include Isaiah's guitar, the presence of Sam Lufti, an infamous Hollywood baddie, missing statements from Cali, the nanny, and Jessica Hopper too.
Biddy Bops:And as we wind down this episode, I would be remiss not to include mention of 2 more suspicious deaths, both closely a duchess bizarre death, a colorful character indeed, and Kristen Pfaff, the former whole bassist, who purportedly died of a drug overdose after successfully completing rehab. With the deaths of 1 nutty punk rocker and another former drug user, police investigators, in my opinion, lived down to their reputation of blaming victims for their so called risky behavior, and ultimately denying them the dignity of a thorough death investigation. It is easy to write off stories like these, especially when the big media machine spoon feeds us another shinier narrative in service of those in power, sluts on the casting couch instead of rapists like Harvey Weinstein making our movies. Wendy Williams is a loon and judged on her appearance rather than the content of her recriminations against Sean Combs. She lost her radio show for speaking truth to power and were still making fun of her, in spite of her mental health issues and being held a a financial hostage by her ex husband.
Biddy Bops:Dan Schneider, a known pedophile, was allowed free reign at Nickelodeon for decades. But Amanda Bynes is the one who gets dragged in the media for being quote unquote, crazy. This is the same fame machinery that ran rough shot over Britney Spears when she was in crisis, a system we all enable and participate in. And hallelujah for millennials and gen Z for keeping Me Too in the conversation, and keeping Black Lives mMtter in the conversation, and for making moves in the direction of progress. Thanks to their efforts to change the tone of our discourse moving forward, it doesn't seem so crazy to think that an unwell, sensitive artist and fellow self loathing human prone to bouts of depression, traumatized by bullies growing up, than more bullies as an adult, and even now after death, it seems 1000% accurate that someone like that without an appropriate advocate might have been bullied to death.
Biddy Bops:Regardless, his death deserves the dignity of a proper inquiry, as they say on my favorite UK police procedurals. I mean, they are on another level. No one does better mysteries either. Shetland, the new Scotland Yard, Shakespeare and Hathaway, if you haven't seen Sebastian on that show, treat yourself to a bit of BritBox. And let's treat ourselves to a tune now in honor of Kurt, a kindred spirit of the bullied, the self harmers, the depressives, those of us who grit our teeth in public.
Biddy Bops:The skill we know best is how to self destruct. Now for us, the only goal we can aspire to is progress. Forward facing preferably. Releasing what we perceive as control, worrying less, causing zero harm to ourselves, to others, doing our best. If these are in place, how can it matter what anyone else has to say about us?
Biddy Bops:A bully's anger is irrational. It appears irregularly. It doesn't adhere to logic or reason. It exists only to be feared, never questioned. The surprise of it catches you off guard enough to question yourself, to fall in line, to submit.
Biddy Bops:The more time spent away from bullies, the more obvious it becomes that this anger is their problem, not mine, and not yours either, gentle listener. It doesn't even exist in the same universe where our best is busy being done. The best song I can think to fill these last moments together is All Apologies. If you'd like to get in touch, email me at biddybiddybops atgmail.com. That's 2 biddies and bops with an s.
Biddy Bops:I'd love to hear from you. This has been Biddy Sounds Off. Thank you for listening.