To our readers:

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the suicide of Kurt Cobain. We at The Stranger felt it was important to address the event. No one on staff, however, was able to find the appropriate words or sentiments to commemorate the loss. For some, Cobain’s death remained a surprisingly raw nerve, leaving speechless a group of people whose defining characteristic is their shared inability to shut up. Others are still angry at Kurt for taking the easy way out. Still others, particularly younger staffers, never understood why a drug-addicted rock musician’s death was such a big deal in the first place. Rather than feature the response of any one staffer–thereby running the risk of trivializing anyone else’s perspective–we decided to turn this space over to a true fan, a young man who grew up in the shadow of “Black Friday.”

The Stranger has changed a lot since 1994, and Seattle has changed with us. For our young guest writer, who writes under the AOL username he began using on April 9, 1994, very little has changed. Both on his weblog, and in his private journals, XXXdOLLstEAk94 has dedicated his life to keeping Cobain’s spirit alive. In so doing, he’s provided all of us with a valuable lesson in the power of sincerity in these cynical, skeptical times. Mr. XXXdOLLstEAk94 would only agree to write for us if we refrained from editing him in any way, shape, or form. We’re proud to feature his words–and his passion–in our pages. –Dan Savage

>>>> i don’t know about the rest of u, but i, for one, am still angry.

yeh its me again, XXXdOLLstEAk94, talking my shit about the death of the gr8 1 krrt and even tho nobody might be readin it i still am gonna spew my chunks till its time to “crawl right back.” hey, wait! same old complaint, but i am in debt to nobody except the 1 who i’m writin about. RIP.

10 years. even i can hardly believe that 10 years have passed by since krrt pulled the trigger. it barely seems possible that 4 1 whole decade we have been without his music, his voice, his guitartistry. almost like some kind of sick f**kin’ joke except do u hear anybody laughin motherf**ker? LOL. i’m messin with u, strangers, becuz i know (yeh, even me) that u don’t know how to deal with the rawness of people who still remember where they were the day it all went down and didn’t choose to try and forget so they could go on living their little li(v)es. the day of infamy. the day XXXdOLLstEAk94 was born.

i know i’ll always remember where i was cuz its not like I could ever forget. my mom (bitch) comes into the living room where i’m opening presents and goes, “honey, that singer you like is on the TV,” and we turn it on and he’s f**kin dead. there goes that birthday. too bad you only turn 12 once. yeh, that’s right my birthday was krrt’s deathday. i didn’t ask to be born, and i definately didn’t ask for it to be on april 8th, 1982, fuq very much but in a weird way, there is a silver lining, becuz if it hadn’t been my birthday i wouldn’t have got a computer that day, and i wouldn’t have started writing about krrt every day and there would be no XXXdOLLstEAk94, which i would rather have krrt, but u know what i’m trying to say. sometimes it seems like no time has gone by at all except for now i’m living in the basement, and when my bitch mom comes in it’s usually to remind me to take my insulin (ive got adult onset diabetes. suxs! it onset on me when i was 14. 2 much mntain dew in my formative years, i spoze. now the dox tell me no more dew/dble stuff oreos, which dble sux!). my room is still the same. my mom is still a bitch. i’m even typing this on the same computer. its so wierd.

anyways, that’s not even what i’m supposed to be talking about in this oBITCHuary. unlike what everyone seems to think, its not all about u sometimes sometimes its all about him and that’s what I wanted to talk about. when i was a kid (when i was an idiot), nirvana was everywhere. first video i ever saw was “teen spirit” (overplayed), Nevermind was the first CD i ever bought with my own money. i went down to the sam goody at northgate and slapped down my mom’s credit card and my world was forever changed. i got t-shirts and more CDs and posters, and this was before there was napster or even KaZaa, but i didn’t care. i even got suspended from my school for wearing the fudge packer shirt, but i still didn’t care. if it said nirvana on it, i wanted it and i got it. but now it’s all so overcommercialized and sold out and nobody can even be bothered to remember anymore.

which is my point being (told you i had one). ITS THE 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF THE WORST MOTHER- F**KING DAY OF MY MOTHERF**KING LIFE YOU COLD MOTHERF**KERS! why isn’t anybody else writing about it? had u even remembered this date b4 you turned the page of this lame rag and saw krrt’s face staring back at you, accusing? where is the peace love and empathy now? more like apathy, imho. were u at the fountain? why aren’t you still there? where did u go that was so great? (probably out getting laid.) what does a person have to do to get remembered in this f**king century anymore?

i don’t want my birthday to be my only reminder. so i’m gonna be 22. big f**king deal. i still miss krrt. all i have now is the t-shirts and posters. i don’t even have CDs now cuz of my iPod. how f**ked up is that? i got the journals and the other book, where charles r. (stands for rip-off) cross blatantly stole ideas off my website but do i get any credit? (oh, yeah, rip-off, who was calling nirvana a “power trio” in 1995???) but those are just books.

basically that’s what i wanted to say. 10 years later and krrt is basically forgotten except by assholes like me who spend too much time on their stupid computers, drinking red bull and reliving the pain. when I look back on some of the things i’ve posted over the years, i’m a little embarrassed but at least i was honest enough to keep caring about the genius who changed my life forever. i miss u krrt. i miss ur songs, i miss ur records, i miss ur videos, i miss ur pain, i miss ur wisdom. i don’t know why you did it. maybe nobody does. some people are just too good for this bullsh*t world. but i do know one thing, and that is the pain of adult onset diabetes is nothing compared with the pain of losing u. and that’s why XXXdOLLstEAk94 is still alive and posting. i have a lot more i could say, but really i should just shut up now cuz what else could i say, y’know?

its like what that f**kin slutbitch smackwhore courtney said at the memorial, “why didn’t you just f**king stay?”

–XXXdOLLstEAk94