| PART ONE OF 11th SEPTEMBER 2000 UPDATE “It hardly makes me feel better, but I later learned that virtually everyone close to Kurt had a similar story. Something went terribly wrong right at the end”. (Michael Azerrad, ‘Come As You Are’ p 344.) I didn’t get into Nirvana until the end of 1996, therefore, at the time all the relevant articles were being written, I wasn’t reading them. It’s only been recently that I have been able to obtain certain articles/bootlegs/singles, which form the basis of this update. Information has been buried over the years and conveniently left buried. There are many books on Nirvana, but if you’ve read one, you’ve read them all. The deeper I dig, the more I find, and the more I find, the less surprised I am at the reluctance of mainstream journalists to cover this case in the serious manner which it deserves. Through Dave, she passed a present on to Kurt: seashells, pinecones, a set of tiny teacups, a miniature doll, all wrapped up in a Valentine box. The gift would later inspire a Nirvana song. It’s not unreasonable to conjecture that there might have been another miniature substance included in that box. After all, by then Courtney did have an M.O. for entangling men in her life, and that M.O. was already working on Kurt. Given the lyrics of “Heart Shaped Box” , “I was drawn into your magnet tar pit trap”- there is cause to wonder if Courtney, whose first letter to Rozz reportedly contained pills, didn’t toss in a bit of black tar heroin, or at least a few of her favourite “dolls”. (Melissa Rossi’s book, ‘Queen of Noise’ p 96). She (Courtney) bought pills, speed, downs, and assorted odd drugs from old hunched-over pharmacists and sent them to Rozz (Rezabek) in small boxes. (Rossi, p 63). I’ve noticed a lot of times, with a lot of my girlfriends that they’ll be singularly obsessed with one man and they’ll do an interview and they’ll aim it at one man. I did it myself; I did it with Kurt forever. I went to Germany and every interview I did, I asked if they were interviewing Nirvana the following week? -will you tell that Kurt Cobain that I have a huge crush on him? Everyfuckingwhere he went. He was like: “Oh my God. She’s crazy”. “Oh,” I said, “And tell him I'm pregnant...and my Daddy’s mad about it!” Scheming females. Such bitches! Ha! (Courtney. ‘Women Rewrite Rock’ by Amy Raphael p 30). According to Vanity Fair’s September 1992 edition Kurt and Courtney got together in early October 1991. Nevermind hit the top 10 in Nov/Dec 1991. Frances was born on August 18th 1992, which means that Courtney was pregnant by mid/late November 1991. In November (1991) ‘Teen Spirit’ was MTV’s number-one video, and Nevermind was absolutely charging up the charts. On the eighteenth of that month Nirvana was already number seven on the album charts.(‘On The Road To Nirvana’ by Gina Arnold, p 233). On Dec 5th 1991 Kurt and Courtney got engaged (‘Come As You Are’ p 207). At that time they were in France, but the next day Kurt finished his tour and flew back to America, leaving Courtney to finish her tour. Courtney appeared at the ULU London on Dec 12th 1991, a performance I have on video. She performed Leadbelly’s ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night’ and later included some lyrics which eventually turned up on the single ‘Beautiful Son’. She also played a rough version of ‘Violet’, which had been described as a “new number” in Melody Maker’s November 30th 1991 edition. At one point she threw a handful of dust into the crowd and said, “that’s acid”. Later she started throwing out packets, telling them: “This is heroin. I love heroin. I do it all the time. Me and my boyfriend, we do heroin all the time”. At this point Courtney was a minor musician who got pregnant, talked about drugs, and impressed a journalist called Everett True. In the May 4th 1991 edition of Melody Maker Everett True wrote an article on Hole’s new single and voted it “Single of the week”. He also wrote an article on Hole/ Courtney for the June 15 1991 edition, of which Rossi wrote: He later claimed (Courtney) had a breakdown the next day as a direct result of his probing questions. Maybe. But to others it seemed that Everett was the one having the breakdown, he was so enchanted with the singer. Midway through the interview, Courtney even called her manager to brag that Everett was madly in love with her. But that night she had another man on her mind- Kurt- and he was there. (Rossi, p 97). The first rave review that summer came out about Courtney and Hole- in a British paper. Melody Maker writer Everett True, whose words were respected in the industry, had done more than gush. He may have been hot for Courtney, but he was a professional who wouldn’t have stuck his neck out simply for his heart; he was equally blown away by her band. Everett started a media blitz with full- page feature on Hole, half of which was a picture of Courtney. He gave a thumbnail sketch of her past, writing “she was a self confessed ‘Teenage Whore’, a slut who would sleep with anyone going”,(Rossi, p 99). She was used to an adoring UK music press that understands her sardonic, sarcastic sense of humour, didn’t ask hard questions, didn’t do much investigation, and kept secrets in exchange for the favour of a hip musician. (‘Come As You Are’ p266). And unfortunately that UK press is still rolling. Had Courtney not been pregnant with Frances, no doubt Kurt would have left her: “Being from Aberdeen and raised with some sense of family values, Kurt thought he had no choice but to marry Courtney. I know he liked her a lot, but he would say many times that he was not sure if he was in love. But Kurt said he was convinced that you didn’t have to be in love to get married. Later, I think he really loved her”. (Dylan Carlson, ‘WKKC?’ p 65). So on Feb 24th 1992 he married her. Then Courtney did the Vanity Fair article, during which she talked of using heroin after she had found out she was pregnant. Courtney claimed that she had been misquoted, but the interviewer Lynn Hirschberg insisted she had the tapes of the interviews (‘CAYA’ p 266). This article, (for the September 1992 edition), quoted unnamed sources accounts of Kurt and Courtney’s drug use during the time they lived in Fairfax, LA. One of these sources who was described as a “friend” said: “It’s a sick scene in that apartment”. Which was exactly what Courtney was eager to impress on Azerrad when recounting the events at the same LA apartment: “That was a sick scene...that was gross. That was a sick scene if ever there was a sick scene”. As Kurt admits, “The bathroom didn’t smell very good“ (‘Come As You Are’ p 246). If you want to check this out, look up page 80 of the 1993 edition of ‘Nirvana And The Sound of Seattle’ by Brad Morrell or Sandford p 239). Both the Azerrad and Morrell books were published in October 1993 so it isn’t inconceivable that if Kurt read them he would have also noticed Courtney was saying exactly what those unnamed/inside sources were saying. And since the Vanity Fair piece was based largely on unnamed “inside sources” they had to deal with the profound disappointment and paranoia that arose from the fact that some of their most trusted friends and associates had betrayed them. “We’d already turned into cartoon characters by then and it justified everything - all the lies and rumours that had been going around,” says Kurt. “I just found it amazing that someone could get away with something like that”. (‘Come as You Are’ p268). As a result of the Vanity Fair article they lost custody of Frances. Around one month, $240,000 in legal bills and routine drug tests later they regained custody of Frances. In October Victoria Clarke and Britt Collins started to research for their book about Nirvana. They interviewed Lynn Hirschberg, amongst others, and Kurt panicked. Messages were left on the answer-phone of Clarke. Some of them have been made available on Broomfield’s film, and you can clearly hear the enjoyment in Courtney’s voice, and the despair in Kurt’s, who was worried that the rumours and unnamed sources would again threaten the loss of his child. “The dialogue attributed to Cobain was starker, less coherent, more confused”. (‘Nirvana and The Sound Of Seattle’ by Brad Morrell, p 120). The March 1993 edition of Select magazine reported that Kurt sounded “very distressed” in these tapes. Even Poppy Z Brite (p 144) interpreted Kurt as sounding “young, hoarse, and bitter” during these calls. Of these tapes, Kurt said: “I don’t enjoy people fucking with my family and carrying on the tradition of lies and slander. I don’t deserve it. No one deserves it”. (‘Come As You Are’ p 289). Then, within a month Courtney phoned Melissa Rossi in November 1992 and later that night told her Kurt was “lost to drugs“. His ambition was to become the world’s most famous poisoner. By the age of twelve his favourite books were ‘A Handbook on Poisons, Sixty Famous Trials’ and ‘Poisoner In The Dock’. Chapter two of the ‘Sixty Famous Trials’ book was about Dr Edward Pritchard, the nineteenth century Glasgow physician who poisoned his wife and her mother. Pritchard was skilful in his use of materials, but sufficiently arrogant and self-obsessed to leave tracks absurdly uncovered. It was his vanity and boasting that finally gave him away. Young also loved the chapters on Crippen and Palmer. Crippen was his idol. By the age of thirteen, Graham Young had accumulated enough poison in his bedroom to kill three hundred people. At fourteen he was sent to Broadmoor for poisoning his family. Nine years later Graham Young was released and began once more the practice of his deadly trade. It wasn’t until he had poisoned a further eight people that he was finally discovered. (‘The St Albans Poisoner’ by Anthony Holden published by Corgi). “There is a hole that pierces right through me”. Euripides, Medea. (From ‘Courtney Love, The Real Story’ by P. Brite). The idea for the name ‘Hole’ goes back to the classics, she says. There is a section in Euripides’ famous Medea, where the female protagonist describes a hole going directly through her soul. “It’s about the abyss inside,” Courtney tells whoever will bother to listen. (August 16-29th 1995 edition of Raw magazine). Courtney, the well read intellectual, divulges that the name Hole is taken from the Greek tragedy Medea, written by Euripides’.. “In Norton’s Anthology it says: “There is a hole that pierces right through me, which Medea says right after she kills Jason”. Actually Medea, the jilted lover doesn’t kill Jason, but rather murders the children they had together, as a way of spiting the man who ditched her. No line in the Dover Thrift Edition of the play resembles the line that Courtney refers to. Instead, after Medea poisons Jason’s new wife and father in law, she pesters the court messenger for details of the deaths, asking: “How did they die” You will delight me twice as much if you say they died in agony". (From an article in the Feb 1997 edition of Vox, by Peter Relic). In Euripides version of Medea, Medea had two sons by Jason. Jason ditched Medea, he married someone else. Medea thought things through, as follows: I have thought of so many ways to kill them, my friends, I am at a loss to choose. Shall I set fire to the bridal chambers? Or steal into the bedroom where sheets enfold them and plunge the sharp sword through their pumping hearts? The danger there is that I might be caught and killed myself before my sword has spoken, leaving the last laugh to my enemies. No, I will not be mocked; give them no chance to make the name Medea a laughing stock. The simplest way is best, the way we women are most skilled at, the way of poison. “By Hecate, the fearsome Queen of the underworld, whom I revere above all other gods, whom I have chosen as my tasks accomplice, by Hecate, the secret guest of my soul, not one of these shall soil my honour and fail to pay for it. They shall repent their marriage in bitterness and pain; bitterly repent their wooing, bitterly repent my banishment. ...a finely woven robe, and a gold chaplet, with such dire poisons, I shall smear my gifts that, if she puts them on, she will die horribly, and all who touch her. Enough of her. But my next move I shudder at myself. For I must kill the children I have borne. No one shall stop me. And when I have quite ruined Jason's house I’ll leave this land, escape all punishment for this unholy act, my dear sons' murder. I cannot, will not, tolerate the scorn of those I hate. So be it. What use is life to me? I have no country now, no home, no refuge from my despair. Oh, I was wrong to leave my father’s house. I never should have been persuaded by that glib Hellene who now, with the gods’ help, will pay a dreadful price. Never again will he see alive the sons I bore him; nor from his new bride breed heirs, for she must die an agonising death, slain by my poisons. Let no one see me as a poor weak woman who sits with folded hands. I’m of another mould. Kind to my friends; implacable to foes. To such as live like me the glory goes”. Medea infused poisons into a robe and crown, which she then had her two sons present to Jason’s bride. When she put on this robe, she died, and her father, when he knelt down to hold the body of his dead daughter, also died. Later, Medea stabbed her own two sons to death. Medea told Jason: “Your sons are dead. Let it pierce your heart: your sons are dead!” (All from a translation by Jeremy Brooks for Methuen Drama, published by Methuen). “I’ve always been looking for the quadruple entendre, you know, the bard, you know, what Shakespeare could do”. (Courtney on the Barbara Walters show). “..and how Dr Baker (a senior psychotherapist at Canyon Ranch, a health and wellness resort the couple attended) said that like Hamlet, he had to choose life or death, and that he’s choosing death”. (Courtney talking about Rome, Spin’s Feb 1995 edition). “Too bad I’m not a guy because all I want to do is play Hamlet. All the guys that I go out with have to play Hamlet”. (Courtney, Seattle Times Dec 17th 1996). For proof that the kinderwhore look existed long before her and Kat, Courtney quoted Hamlet.. (‘Babes in Toyland, The Making And Selling Of A Rock And Roll Band’ p.257, by Neal Karlen). “If you want someone to be bad for you, there are plenty of girls with charisma who are bad, who will shoot drugs intravenously and sleep with lots of people, who will play the part of Ophelia. I’m just not gonna do it” (Courtney, The Seattle Post Intelligencer, April 8th 1994. This was originally from the March/April issue of Option. Steck’s portrait of Ophelia is on the cover of ‘Celebrity Skin’). “With me and Kurt it was either Bonnie and Clyde, Sid and Nancy or mommy... the equality was based on Bonnie and Clyde...and Romeo and Juliet. But it was also Hamlet and Hamlet. Not Hamlet and Ophelia. These two fucking Hamlets sitting around”. (Courtney, Spin Feb 1995 edition). Gossip columns skewered (Courtney) for her behaviour during a performance of Hamlet which she attended with musician Jeff Buckley. In between searching for pills, she talked loudly, noting, “This is my favourite line!” throughout the play. I spent ages trying to find that, I knew I’d read it somewhere. Where did I find it? Rossi, p 244. Recently (June 2000) I found a copy of Hole’s single ‘Beautiful Son’. This single was released in Europe on April 5th 1993 (363 days before Kurt died). The front cover has a photo of Kurt age about six. On the back cover there is a list where the following can be found: Hamlet Prince of d (the rest covered), and further down: Claudius in my petal pink slip. See the scan of this to the left. Having noticed that Courtney referred to Shakespeare’s play Hamlet so often I decided it was time to read it. Below is a basic outline of the play. Claudius murdered his brother Hamlet, King of Denmark. He poisoned him. The murdered King came back as a ghost, and told his son Hamlet Prince of Denmark that he had been murdered. The Prince vowed revenge, but Claudius plotted to murder him, first by sending him to England where it was arranged he would be executed. That plan failed. So Claudius plotted with Laertes (Ophelia’s brother) to arrange a fencing match in which, unbeknown to the Prince, Laertes would have a sword covered in poison, which, when it cut Hamlet would kill him. As a backup plan, Claudius would also drop a poisoned pearl in a chalice of wine intended for the Prince. Claudius harboured a murderous ambition. He killed his own brother to become King of Denmark, he plotted to kill his own nephew, who was also his stepson by his marriage to Gertrude. When you look at Courtney, time and again you see these recurring themes of drugs, death, murder, poison, reptiles and snakes getting under peoples skin, control, back-stabbing and winning. Before Kurt died, leading up to his death, incorporating those methods in his murder. Gossip columns skewered (Courtney) for her behaviour during a performance of Hamlet which she attended with musician Jeff Buckley. In between searching for pills, she talked loudly, noting, “This is my favourite line!” throughout the play. (Rossi, p 244). When the Ghost appeared to Hamlet and described the method of his murder, he worded it as follows: A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark is by a forged process of my death rankly abus’d; but know, thou noble youth, the serpent that did sting thy father’s life now wears his crown. This imagery of the serpent (Claudius), stinging/poisoning/murdering, is reminiscent of Courtney’s lyrics at Reading, August 1995: Like a reptile I am under your skin, Don’t mess with it, I will always win. Like a snake I am under your skin, Don’t mess with it, baby, I will always win. These lyrics have now been changed slightly and appear on ‘Dying’ on Celebrity Skin. The lyrics aren’t provided on the lyric sheet, but they are as follows: Have you seen a cripple dance? Pay your money, now’s your chance. Your lies like cyanide. I am so dumb, Just beam me up, I’ve had it all forever, I’ve had enough. Remember, you promised me, I’m dying I’m dying-please. I want to, I need to be-under your skin. Our love is quicksand-so easy to drown, they steal the gravity, yeah, from moving ground. Remember, you promised me I’m dying, I’m dying, please. I want to be, I need to be under your skin, and now I understand, you’ll leave with everything I am. And now I know that love is dead, You come to bury me. There’s nothing left here to pretend. Remember you? I’m dying I want to I’m dying, I’m dying, please Under your skin Under your skin. Lyrics attributed to Courtney, music to Corgan and Erlandson. Drugs like Rohypnol and heroin are no different in effect to those used in Shakespeare’s/Euripides’ time. All are poison, all can kill. References to poison in the play Hamlet: The dead King, Hamlet: With juice of cursed hebona (henbane) in a vial, And in the porches of my ears did pour the leprous distilment; whose effect holds such enmity with the blood of man that swift as quicksilver it courses through the natural gates and alleys of the body; And with a sudden vigour it doth posset and curd, like eager droppings into milk, the thin and wholesome blood? Lucianus: Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing; Confederate season, else no creature seeing; thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected. With Hecat’s (Hecate’s) ban thrice blasted, thrice infected, Thy natural magic and dire property on wholesome life usurps immediately. Laertes: And for that purpose I’ll anoint my sword. I bought an unction of a mountbank, so mortal that but dip a knife in it, where it draws blood no cataplasm so rare, collected from all simples that have virtue under the moon, can save the thing from death that is scratched withal. I’ll touch my point with this contagion, that, if I gall him slightly, it may be death. Courtney’s fascination for this subject before and after Kurt died along with the undeniable fact that she had years of experience of drug use and that thousands of people believe, at this point, that Kurt was murdered, cannot be ignored. The events in Rome and subsequent manner in which Kurt was murdered is entirely consistent with the way Courtney’s mind works, and within her, and DeWitt’s, capabilities. All of this comes directly from Courtney. It can all be checked, the bootleg Reading 1995 video, the single ‘Beautiful Son’ the quotes etc. Courtney has a history of drug use, a history of violence and two dead people behind her -Kurt and Kristen, neither of whom were suicidal or using drugs at that time, both of whom it is entirely possible were administered enough drugs to kill them, without their knowledge. Back to Frances Barnett In Defence MAIN 1 |