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["Joe Komenda" <joe AT komejo.com>]

Yow!

    My bit-box be melting after that one, but I must say - huzzah!

    I never cared much for Courtney Love, but she's shown so much character
'post-Kurt' that I've changed my opinion 180 degrees.

    It was a damn waste to lose a songwriter like Cobain, but it would have
been even worse if his talented (and obversely articulate) wife had
withdrawn from public view afterwards.


Joe K



----- Original Message -----
From: "Rachel Cox" <rachel AT hesketh.com>
To: "InterNetWorkers" <internetworkers AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2000 12:43 PM
Subject: [internetworkers] Re: Hole in the web


> Charming. Obviously we have people here who don't care for
> Hole, or Courtney Love, or both, and who figure that's as good
> a reason as any to trot out the same tired accusatios that I
> was already sick of hearing long before that piece of tripe
> called a documentary was released. I know I shouldn't respond
> to this kind of flamebait, but I'm fed up to my ears with people
> blaming the survivors for their loved one's suicide (although,
> I'll admit, they rarely go so far as to accuse the survivors
> of murder). If you're in no mood for a rant, I'd recommend
> you not read further.
>
> At 03:18 PM 6/18/00 -0400, Shea Tisdale wrote:
>  >Didn't she leave out the part about how you can be talent-less and just
kill
>  >your husband to become rich and famous?
>
> Fie.
>
> Whether or not you like the woman (someone I'd be willing to bet
> few of us know) or her music (the value of which is a matter of
> taste), that's a hell of an accusation and one that no one I know
> of has been able to convincingly support. It's right up there with
> "the government killed Elvis" on the believability scale and, IMNSHO,
> offensive as hell, on a number of levels.
>
> I know people hate to believe someone as talented as Cobain might
> have taken his own life, and I know they want very much to find
> some way to excuse it, or make it not true. If *he* was so un-
> happy that he wanted to die, then what hope do the rest of us
> have, who aren't famous, aren't rich, aren't whatever it is we
> think Kurt Cobain was? But blaming Love - whether by accusing
> her of his murder or of simply not having been *good* enough -
> does no good. It doesn't bring Kurt back, it doesn't educate
> people about depression - indeed, by refusing to acknowledge
> it, we push it further into the shadows from which sufferers
> may find it even harder to seek help - or about the physical
> ills that made life simply painful for Cobain, it doesn't
> educate about drug or alcohol abuse, or comfort those whose
> loved ones have also taken their own lives, and it certainly
> doesn't encourage others not to do so. If anything, quite the
> opposite. It *does*, however, remind me a great deal of the way
> some apologists for their alcoholic or drug addicted loved ones
> let the addict off the hook, arguing that it's someone else's
> fault they're using, so they can't be expected to stop or be
> held accountable for the screwed-up things they do. I wonder
> if it betrays an unwholesome eagerness on our parts to also
> be held not responsible for the less admirable things we do.
>
> and at 09:43 AM 6/19/00 -0400, K. Jo Garner wrote:
> [snip]
>  >Of course, before you go getting your groove on to Courtney Love, might
I
>  >suggest a look at Nick Broomfield's "Kurt and Courtney" that documented
>  >(a bit unorthodoxically, I admit) Ms Love's rise to fame on the
coattails
>  >of you-know-who.
>
> "Unorthodox" is a big understatement. Nick Broomfield obviously
> has an axe to grind against Love, and most of the people he uses
> to support his vision of Courtney As Evil appear to be drunk, on
> drugs, crazy, or all three. Only one (apart from Courtney, who -
> wisely or not, but understandably - wanted nothing to do with
> this exploitative garbage) really knew Kurt during his final
> years, and she swears he was suicidal and that she'd expected
> him to do it. Broomfield is obviously counting on the Cult of
> Kurt (a man who never wanted any such thing and more arguably
> was killed by his fans than his wife) to buy into this
> canonization of Kurt and vilification of Courtney: everyone
> wants someone to blame, and The Wife is the easiest and most
> time-honored target. I hate to believe that people are buying
> into again, this time on the basis of claims that are as suspect
> as a National Enquirer article and a hundred times more exploitative.
>
> As for whether Courtney was "riding the coattails" of "you know
> who", well, how does one determine whether the successful wife of
> a successful man is riding his coattails? Does she have to become
> successful *before* he does? Must she forswear all post-marital
> success for fear of accusations that she's a talentless know-
> nothing whose every success comes because she happens to be
> married to someone whose star rose before hers? What if they're
> just dating - are her successes still due only to his? Are we
> to judge by using our own frequently subjective estimation of
> her talents and where they might have taken her had she been
> wise enough to remain single? The film mentioned above documents
> nothing but the filmmaker's bias, and to suggest, on the basis
> of only it or one's own bias, that Love and Hole owe their
> success only to an advantageous marriage is unfair at best,
> and at worst, seems like misogyny.
>
> -Rachel
>
> ____________________________________________________________________
>     Rachel Cox | voice: 919.834.2552 x16 | http://www.hesketh.com/
>
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