Aberdeen's Memorial Project

I wanted to post a new entry about the efforts in Aberdeen to recognize Kurt Cobain's legacy. I had written in previous posts about my sense that Aberdeen had not entirely come to grips with Kurt. While these posts were, in part, ramblings after long shoot days, I felt that we had encountered so many people at so many different locations, that we had a good sense of the divide.

Within these posts, I did not mention local efforts by two city councilmembers and others to start the Kurt Cobain Memorial Project. The sign as you enter Aberdeen, which now reads "Welcome to Aberdeen - Come As You Are", was one of the project's first goals. As you can see on one Nirvana fansite, they are also proposing a youth center and a park.

I bring this up because several of my blog posts about Aberdeen were condensed into a "personal perspective" column in The Daily World, with the headline "Aberdeen: Get past your love/hate thing with Kurt". (While this was my general jist, I might have lobbied for a less preachy title.)

Perhaps in response to this, one of the founders of the Memorial Project - City Council Member Paul Fritts - takes me to task over my comments. I'm reprinting them in full below:

     AJ I appreciate what you are trying to do but I can't agree
     with your assessment of Aberdeen having so much trouble
     coming to grips with Kurt.

     Having had much more experience in dealing with this
     particular issue than you, I can verify that yes there are
     those that disagree with doing anything to acknowledge
     what Kurt did.

     But by far most everyone from the old to the young have
     no problem with Kurt or acknowledging that he came
     from this area. As a matter of fact I have been stopped
     at various places in town and thanked for starting the Kurt
     Cobain Memorial Project (the link was already provided to
     you by Tim)

     You have to remember you came here for merely five or
     so days and had a very limited group of people of which
     to speak.

     You also stated that we had resistance in even having the
     "Come as You Are" sign put up. This was not true in the
     least bit. Not only did my group, which paid for the sign,
     receive no resistance but the city of Aberdeen bent over
     backwards to help us.

     As far as the house goes that is not the legacy our group
     wishes to leave. The overwhelming majority of fan emails
     and forum posts about this project have stated that these
     fans do not want a "Kurt Cobain slept here" kind of
     memorial, etc.

     With that in mind my group has set our sights toward a
     type of youth center to help those kids who are now what
     Kurt was like then. The center will be dedicated to him.
     There is also a third phase to the project but you can
     check the site for those details.

     I do truly look forward to your film and again appreciate
     what it is that you are trying to accomplish but I had to
     voice my opinion with your assessment of the area. Good
     luck. Feel free to contact me with any questions in the
     future.

     Paul Fritts
     Aberdeen City Council
     Co-founder Kurt Cobain Memorial Project

One of my favorite things about this blog is having this kind of public access - not just to me, but to this project - and allowing debate or disagreement or whatever.

Let me just respond to a couple of Paul's points.

First, I want to say that the vast majority of people that we encountered in Aberdeen, no matter their opinion of Kurt, could not have been more generous with their time, their homes, their businesses, etc. Even many of those who were not fans of Kurt's music or were conflicted about his legacy were amazingly helpful to us and participated in the film.

In the time that we were there (and in my previous scouting trips and phone calls), we probably talked to a couple hundred people - when we would call people and ask to shoot in a specific location, when we would be stopped by people on the street, when we would ask people for permission to film them, etc. I wrote about this in my first post on the subject:

     In pulling unsuspecting folks off the streets, we were able
     to get a good glimpse at the ongoing controversy in
     Aberdeen over whether or not to pay tribute to Kurt. I had
     heard talk of this before and I knew that the city’s decision
     to put “Come As You Are” on the “Welcome to Aberdeen”
     sign was not without struggle, but over the past few days
     we’ve learned that the divide between the love Kurt and
     hate Kurt camp is distinct. Seems that there are many who
     feel that recognizing his legacy will, in some way, condone
     his drug use or his suicide. (I’m not sure the folks of
     Memphis are as conflicted about celebrating a drug addict
     rock star...) We’ve heard from several who say that they
     just didn’t like or understand his music, they like
     “traditional” rock or country music.

In the days after I posted this, I asked a lot of people, including my own contacts with the city, to tell me more about this debate, not because it affected the film but because I was naturally curious about it.

I have actually been following the efforts of the Memorial Project for a couple of years (as noted previously, I have been working on this film since 2003), and took particular notice of the debate and discussion on a leading Nirvana fansite, where Paul Fritts and co-founder Jeff Burlingame engaged fans on what kind of memorial they'd like to see for Kurt. A quick glance shows a variety of fan opinions (as would be expected), with some opting for signs at Cobain-related spots and some arguing that nothing should be done because "Kurt hated Aberdeen and Aberdeen hates Kurt" (a point that Paul and Jeff strongly counter).

Eventually, the committee settled on the sign, the park and the youth center. The effort to put the sign up, which was financed independently by the Memorial Project, not with city funds, was reported to me as a struggle and a debate by a number of people in Aberdeen - both officials and ordinary residents. I was told, "you don't know how hard it was just to get the sign." During the lead-up to a city council vote, Paul Fritts noted on one of the message boards: "I am anticipating trouble with one council member, though most support it, and seeing a deluge of support will bolster our cause."

Ultimately, as noted in this Daily World article, "(t)here was little to no discussion from council members, who all appeared to be supportive of the committee's plans."

However, the article hints at previous resistance to such a project:

     "I'm extremely pleased to see our city is willing to shift
     its focus away from the negative aspects of Kurt's legacy
     and instead choose to focus on the positive," (Jeff)
     Burlingame, The Daily World's Arts & Entertainment
     editor, said. "A lack of progressive thinking is what led
     Kurt and so many others to feel out of place here. This
     is our committee's first step toward changing that."

Perhaps, as Fritts argues, this vote was a turning point in the city's dealing with Kurt's legacy and what I found, from talking to people from all facets of Aberdeen, was the last remnant of those who wanted to focus on "the negative aspects". Unfortunately, I found this response to Kurt (both those truly conflicted and those who "never want to hear about him again") to be common enough (even if in the minority) that it made me want to write about it.

Finally, a note about the house. I'm a big believer in history having a "sense of place" and I felt that the house spoke volumes about Kurt, about his time in Aberdeen and about who he was in relation to who he would become just 4 years later. To me, it's not about "Kurt slept here" or even that "Nirvana practiced here" (or "was born here" as claimed by the band in it's most recent releases), it's about how Kurt spoke of that house (very descriptively) and what it seemed to represent to him. Being inside of it made me feel that it should be preserved somehow. That the house was in such bad shape struck me as odd and emblematic, as I wrote.

Ultimately, I hope this film project serves to present Aberdeen in a different way, a more complete way, than it has been portrayed in the past, both in print and elsewhere. Part of the complexity that I hope to show is reflected in the ongoing local debate over Kurt's legacy. I'm glad that Paul feels the community has mostly united behind the Memorial Project and I know he is sensitive to the idea that an outsider, like myself, might come into Aberdeen and get things fundamentally wrong:

     As far as magazine articles about Aberdeen hating Kurt
     they are crap. We dealt with all the usual suspects coming
     into town i.e. Rolling Stone, Spin, The Stranger(Seattle
     Magazine), Time, People, etc. Each time the reporter
     would track down some old person or some person in a
     tavern at noon and base their opinion off the town from
     those people. They rarely interviewed students, doctors,
     lawyers, everyday people. I think you get the point. The
     was a myth to uphold and the reporters were going to
     make sure that what they got fit the story they wanted.

I would never claim that Aberdeen hates Kurt, but it doesn't take a lot to see that they are still having a discussion about him and his legacy and what it should mean for the town. Is it good for the city to be inexorably linked to such a controversial figure? What are we saying to our kids if we seem like we are lifting him up like he's some kind of hero? Should we be putting him on a pedestal (literally and figuratively)?

As I noted in my post - "It's frankly none of my business" - but of all the things I encountered in Aberdeen, I was most intrigued by what I heard from everyday people and how they themselves thought of Kurt, his legacy and the town. And I'm glad that I met folks in Aberdeen who, like Paul, are taking pride in what Kurt and Krist did there and who want to find some way to acknowledge it. I'd like nothing more to see this debate contribute, in some small way, to their efforts.

Comments

[Dave Wilkins]

Hi AJ--

Firstly, my apologies for any grief the "Personal Perspectives" piece may have caused. I think it was a perspective that needs to be considered by plenty of people who still refuse to recognize Kurt Cobain's accomplishment's, because they believe that in doing so they are somehow "glorifying" his lifestyle and eventual tragic end.

This was brought home to me by the fact that the day after we ran a story about you being in town and filming, someone called to complain.

The woman in question was incensed, specifically, because putting a story about a movie on a "drug addict" and "suicide" on our front page represented validation of both of those things, as if, in her words, we were "holding Kurt Cobain up as some kind of role model for our kids."

Our city editor gently explained that the story didn't glorify anything, it merely noted the presence of a film crew in town doing a movie on Aberdeen's most famous son, and like it or not, that's news. And reporting the news is what we do.

Her attitude, unfortunately, is far from unique. With all due respect to Paul Fritts, who is a fine city councilman and (as he should be) an ardent civic booster, there are still plenty of people hereabouts who not only don't approve of any positive public references to Kurt Cobain, but also don't appear to fully understand what it was he did and why (other than the lurid stuff) he became so famous.

So I just wanted to weigh in and say thanks, again, both for doing the film and letting Kurt himself tell the story. And I hope you can come back to Aberdeen when it's done and show it to the community.

There are a lot of forests around here, but a lot of people still get fixated on individual trees, so to speak.

OK,

Dave Wilkins
The Daily World

[AJ Schnack]

Thanks, Dave, for the kind words. I definitely look forward to coming back to Aberdeen to screen the film once it is finished. I am deeply indebted to all who worked with us and we hope to do justice not just to Kurt but to all those in the communities he called home.
All best,
AJ

[Josh]

good work...