Rumors and Theories about Nirvana

Weird Stuff

Hey - There's some weird stuff going around the net about Nirvana and Kurt Cobain's death. Credits are at the bottom of the page. I won't say what I think till the end of the page, but read on...

� Kurt had a best friend who came along with him to buy the shotgun that supposedly ended Kurt's life. Would Kurt's friend have let Kurt buy a gun if he thought that he was suicidal?

� Kurt's parents said that Kurt had plans when he got out of rehab, and was looking forward to doing them.

� Kurt once said of his baby, Frances, "Holding my baby is the best drug in the world." Why would he leave her alone?

� A New York newspaper stated that Kurt and Courtney were going to get a divorce - Kurt hadn't yet signed the papers because he hadn't finished a new will. It is speculated that Courtney was not in the new will.

� Kurt decided that Nirvana was not going to Lollapalooza, where they would make a ton of money. Courtney was VERY angry at Kurt and couldn't understand why he would turn down that kind of money.

� Just days before Kurt died, Dave (Grohl) released a statement saying that Nirvana was going to break up. There were also rumors of Kris going to Pearl Jam around the same time.

� When police arrived at the scene where Kurt lay dead, they assumed that it was a suicide. They never investigated it, the case never opened.

� No fingerprints could be found on the gun that was used or the pen that had been used to write the suicide letter. Kurt was found wearing no gloves, meaning he would have had to touch both the gun and pen.

� A few days after Kurt died, someone in Texas tried to buy $43 worth of flowers from a local nursery - on Kurt's credit card.

� Two different handwriting experts found two different sets of handwriting on Kurt's suicide note. The part that Kurt definately wrote contained no mention of killing himself, it only said he was leaving the music business. Dave had told the media that Nirvana was breaking up, and Kurt probably decided not to form another band.

� Kurt's blood contained 1.51 ml of morphine per Litre. That's over 75% the deadly amount. Even if that didn't kill him instantly, he wouldn't have been able to roll up his sleaves, put his drugs away, and shoot himself.

� The shotgun was loaded with three cartridges. Only one shot was fired. Why did he feel three shots might be necessary?

� A musician by the name of El Duce reported that he was offered $50,000 by Courtney to kill Kurt. He passed a lie detector test by the world's top polygraph expert. A week later, El Duce was found dead when he was hit by a train. He was walking with a friend he had just made, who nobody had ever seen before.

� Courtney admited to planting a phoney story to the Associated Press, saying that she had overdosed.

� On April 6, Courtney calls an electrician and tells him to begin working on their greenhouse. Kurt was dead inside. Did Courtney know anything?

� On April 4, Courtney announced that Kurt was suicidal. This comes after she had alledgedly told more than one person to kill him in exchange for money.

There are a lot of facts here, and it's a lot to swallow. I think that Kurt and Courtney had a weird relationship, and that Kurt might not have been suicidal. I don't think he killed himself. Form your own opinion.

- - - BUT - - -

Assuming that the police and local authorities WERE right and Kurt really did commit suicide, take the following into consideration. It was sent to me by a loyal Nirvana fan who visited this page, and decided to e-mail me. I encourage such e-mails.

Death and the Dreamachine
A THEORY ABOUT KURT COBAIN�S DEATH
By Terry Ehnert

Steve Newman is a man on a mission. A friend of Nirvana frontman, Kurt Cobain from high school until his untimely death, Newman�s mission is to voice the word that Cobain�s suicide may not have been what it seemed - caused not solely by a combination of depression, heroin addiction, and sudden, incomprehensible fame, but by a little black box called the Dreamachine.

Described by Newman as a "psychoactive, hallucinogenic neocortex-pulsator," the Dreamachine wass invented in the late 50s by writer/occultist Brion Gysin (1916-1986). As a writer, Gysin was most noteworthy for co-inventing, along with William S. Burroughs, the quasi-Dadaist concept of "Cut-ups." This method of writing, derivative of John Cage�s musical work, involved cutting up strips of paper that the author had written on, and then randomly rearranging them to see what new work was produced. Gysin had many collaborations with Burroughs, who described him as "the only man I have ever respected." One of the mutual interests shared by the two was technological drugs-devices that could be used to stimulate the brain in much the same way that conventional drugs do, only without the necessity of ingestion.

Along these lines, Gysin invented the Dreamachine. The machine itself is simply a small rotating device with a luminescence in the center, and a cylindrical aperature through which the light can travel. Similar in principle to those "relaxation goggles" that one sees adds for in OMNI, the user sits in front of the Dreamachine with their eyes closed. The light flashes at a rate of 10.56 times per second, which, according to Newman, is a frequency that "reacts very strongly on the human brain." As the light flashes, the neocortex is stimulated - and after 20 to 25 minutes of exposure, the brain is significantly, if temporarily, altered.

So what effect does the Dreamachine have? Newman has used it a total of 5 or 6 times, and he describes the effect as being "like what a ten year old imagines acid to be. Very, very obvious, in your face sort of stuff - I was hearing things, seeing images from my past, especially movies I had seen in my childhood. Things were morphing around a lot, with a lot of loud audio-visual effects. It was interesting, but I would not describe it as pleasant."

And is it addictive? "Very much so. It draws you in, and keeps you coming back for more."

Enter Kurt Cobain. Cobain had collaborated with Burroughs in 1993 on an EP, "The Priest, They Called Him," and, on the course of conversation, Cobain mentioned that he had read about the Dreamachine in some of Burroughs� prior writings. Burroughs directed Cobain to a man in San Francisco named David Woodard, who produced and sold the machines. In response to Cobain�s interest, Woodard wrote him a letter stating that "when used willfully and with extreme caution the machine triggers states of supreme aboveness," but also warned him in no uncertain terms of the string of suicides associated with the machine.

Despite Courtney�s objections according to Newman, Courtney even mailed Woodard $5,000 so that he wouldn�t mail Cobain the machine), Kurt eventually attained the device. For some still unexplained reason, Cobain apparently thought that using the device would help him conquer his addiction to heroin; however, as Newman states, "Nothing could be further from the truth. The chemicals released in the brain by the device react violently with those released from the use of heroin, and the resulting synergy is far worse than either of them alone."

Cobain�s use of the device, according to Newman, became more and more prolonged, until it reached the point when he was using the device for "up to 72 hours at a time." Soon enough, the Dreamachine took its psychic toll, with results that are now infamous.

After Cobain�s suicide, the ensuing media buzz conmpletely ignored the device, despite its presence. The Dreamachine was even on the scene, less than 20 feet away from Cobain�s lifeless body, when the coroner came to make his autopsy. "He had no idea what it was," states Newman. "To him it just looked like some random gadget or curio, and so it was completely ignored in the report."

Courtney Love took the device into her own possession, where it soon fell into the hands of Hole bassist Kristen Pfaff, and wreaked havoc once again. Over Courtney�s strenuous objections, Pfaff began to use the device, and soon killed herself - with a lethal dose of heroin. "There was kind of a morbid intrigue, I think," explains Newman. "She wanted to understand what Kurt was going through, so she decided to put herself through the same thing."

Love, according to Newman, decided to keep the pivotal role of the Dreamachine quiet until the media onslaught died down. Besides the sensationalistic frenzy that would have ensued had word gotten out, she was afraid that impressionable fans of Cobain might have decided to find a machine themselves and emulate their idol. Now, however, Love and Newman, along with other concerned friends and associates, have decided to band a group so they can inform the world of the dangers of the Dreamachine.

Newman describes the core of the group, Friends Understanding Kurt, as being made up of himself, Love, Love�s attorney Celeste Mitchell, and other friends of Cobain�s, as well as various peripheral members. Newman is the most active member, serving as the media liason, while other members such as Love and Mitchell play more of a "low-key role." Dave Grohl and Chris Novoselic, of Nirvana, are not in the group - Newman states that they are "very preoccupied with getting their own lives and careers back together," - but they are "providing us with moral support."

The unfortunately acronymed organization�s goals are described by Newman as threefold: First and foremost is the wish to see information about the Dreamachine disseminated to the American public in a responsible manner, so that those curious about the device are fully aware of its dangers. Secondly, the group hopes to encourage users of heroin and/or other narcotics to enter Narcotics Anonymous, or some other form of licensed 12-step program. Thirdly, and somewhat curiously, is the goal of "proselytizing the second coming of Christ, by introducing fans of Kurt�s to �the true Nirvana.�" While Newman himself is a born-again Christian, he asserts that the group is not exclusively a religious organization, and one does not have to be born again to be a member. He himself was not born-again until July, when he "re-thought his sense of priorities, in the light of the recent tragedies." He is also quick to distance himself from the more reactionary elements of Christianity - he dismisses the homophobic Bible-thumpers as "not understanding what Christ was really about." He holds up Cobain's empathetic nature as a contra positive to this stereotype, reassuring fans that "the qualities that they like most in Kurt will come back to them in the form of the Second Coming of Christ." This does, of course, lead to the question of which of the Meat Puppets ends up being Jeudas, but that�s neither here nor there."

Mostly, however, the group�s goals are fairly modest and logical. This isn�t Kurt Kobain Konspiracy Korner, where there are men standing in the shadows, pulling strings and rubbing out those in their way; it is just an unfortunate tragedy, premeditated by none, that could have been avoided with more caution. The group is not even totally against the careful use of the Dreamachine - Newman and his associates simply wish to warn of the possible consequences, in the way that one is warned of the risks of drinking, smoking, skiing, or any other dangerous activity. "It�s not that we think the Dreamachine is pure evil," allows Newman. "All we want to do is to say to anyone curious about it, �Look what happened to these people before you decide anything.'"

Hmmm. Pretty interesting, huh? Thanks to Julian on that one.

Thanks to the following:

Russ

Polly wants a Cracker

The Kurt Cobain Mystery

Nirvana: Twilight of the Gods

See Kurt's "Suicide" Note

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