To hear some folks tell it--about 2000 extras, a large film crew, and some fairly famous actors, all present and well accounted for last Friday afternoon at the Center's fountain--there was a handful of flashily dressed out-of-towners in hot pursuit of three outcasts who apparently did something very wrong.
Like the few thousand other folks gathered around the Seattle Center last Friday, I had a pretty good idea of what was going to take place. We were all there because we'd heard that New Line Cinema was staging a reenactment of the famous mournfest that, five years earlier, had drawn a great many more folks to that same location. The film is to be called A Leonard Cohen Afterworld, and its production company had laid down a lot of advertising dollars to ensure a good turnout of "background." Some were being paid handsomely for their services, especially the shills: KNDD morning "DJ" Andy Savage was there, attempting to make jokes and handing out lame prizes like movie posters and soundtracks for bad, forgotten movies. He kept the largely teenage crowd entertained with contests, enticing participants with pairs of tickets for next month's hallowed End Fest. One competition featured a showdown of style and strength between two guys given brand new guitars--gleaming Fender Stratocasters--who were then asked to smash them to bits in a faux display of bad rock star behavior. One guy performed his task beautifully while the other failed miserably, and huckster Savage let the loser--and everyone watching--know it in his typical loudmouth "morning guy" manner.
All around the Center milled teenagers appropriating--some reprising--the grunge look. Ninety percent of those present wore flannel shirts, either traditionally or tied around their waists. Several girls tried to look like Courtney back when she made her appearance at the real memorial, wearing a mohair cardigan and little-girl barrettes in her hair. One looked like a hybrid of Kurt and Courtney, sporting ripped jeans, baby T-shirt, cardigan, barrettes, and the kind of white retro sunglasses Cobain had been photographed wearing. Some carried homemade signs and tributes much like the real mourners had, some had no clue what they were doing but probably just wanted to "be in a movie," like the signs lining the perimeter of the park promised.
After the film crew had painstakingly set up, the other paid extras streamed forth from the hall where they'd been getting into costume. An army of blue-toned flannel and denim marched past me as the crowd headed toward the Flag Pavilion. This was the mall version of grunge wear, reinterpretations of the fashion statement that most of the folks who popularized it had already ceased wearing by 1994. Several held wiltless silk roses and wildflowers, others carried artfully pre-burned candles. Smoke machines simulated burning sage and incense as an up-and-coming star wandered mournfully through and then out of the crowd.
Later those same kids were directed over to the fountain, where another shot was being set up, this one featuring the real movie stars Selma Blair (Cruel Intentions) and Jared Leto (My So-Called Life). A creepy-looking guy with a video camera intently documented the proceedings. It was Richard Lee, the pain in the ass and all around sicko who has made it his life's duty to prove that Kurt Cobain Was Murdered. New Line had the site under heavy security, and it wasn't long before Lee was asked to leave. He returned soon after the fountain had been turned on the screaming kids, as per the original event, and began making a commotion that required the attention of the bicycle cops stationed next to me, who were, until then, audibly appreciating the wet T-shirts sported by the teenage girls. A drunk loudly proclaiming to have been the neighbor of Judy Garland was also removed from the premises.
A Leonard Cohen Afterworld has something to do with pinkie-ring-wearing bad guys chasing Blair and Leto across the country--and eventually, the fountain--knocking several mourners to the ground in the process. Blair, whose character is a stripper, ran through the scene in six-inch heels. Leto, sporting a blue-black Mohawk and leather motorcycle gear, looked nothing like anyone seen around this city in 1994. But several months from now when this scene plays out on screens across the nation--one of the first films of the new millennium--Seattleites will have another painful day to remember, six years after the first one.
