"Bad Neighborhood"

I used to have a pink alarm clock radio with red digital numbers that woke me up for high school at around 6:00 am. One morning the Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ song “Under the Bridge” woke me up, and it was the first time I heard it because it had just come out that year. It’s very different from their other song I knew, the frenetic, amped-up “Give it Away”. “Under the Bridge” is slower and melancholic in style, with sentimental lyrics. It struck me as so sad that I couldn’t bear it at first- even before learning that it was about the lead singer’s heroin addiction. Waking up to that chorus, the way he bends the notes when he croons,

“And I don't ever wanna feeeel/ like I did that day...”

I shot out of bed, groggily shut the alarm and started my day, getting ready for school, thinking ughh what kind of world is this that such sad music can exist? On my way to the train station I continued the thought: Between that song and Nirvana’s "Nevermind" album ... seriously... what kind of world is this?

 

And now I have to be a teenager in it…   

It didn’t stop me from buying RHCP’s “Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik” and the “Nevermind” cassette tapes and regularly playing them. I remember once reading maybe in Spin magazine, Grohl or Novoselic joking that, "Kurt's lyrics are basically like, 'I hate myself/I hate life/someone give me a gun so I can kill myself'”. I could be recalling wrong, but I remember reading something like that. Too bad I can't find it now.

Some believe he was murdered. I believe (the official verdict) that he committed suicide. Whichever it was, his death indisputably occurred in April of ‘94 when he was 27. I was almost 17 at the time. The April before that (‘93), I was admitted in Holliswood from April to May for my suicide attempt, right before my 16th birthday in June. It's not as though I really looked up to Cobain, but hearing the news in the kitchen that day was a blow that hit hard. And I saw his impact, parts of the memorial, and how he reached so many.

“I'm not a perfect peersooon...” Hoobastank lead singer Doug Robb sings in 2003’s ”The Reason”

“...my eyes are way too far apart” Joe continues in the same key/melody cracking me up.

“I try so hard/ to be Fred Durst/ but in the end it doesn’t even matter” cracking me up again, parodying poor Chester Bennington in his song “In the End”. I'm sure I made fun of his name at one point too, something no one named Tennille should even think of doing. How we joked about all that and more without emotionally investing, yukking it up in my Brooklyn living room. Probably laying on the floor propped up against the bottom of the couch since sometimes it was more comfortable than sitting on the actual couch. My little sister laughing along, shaking her head. Not even preferring Fred Durst over Chester (at all), just joking around like that because we could.

In the early 2000’s I was more into singers like Alicia Keys, Shakira, Marisa Monte, and Norah Jones- her “Come Away With Me” album boring my downstairs neighbor Dawn to tears when I played the first song for her once…

“Well… she ‘didn’t know why’, I guess!” she politely remarked as she dismissed this lulling singer and her debut single, “Don’t Know Why”. I was also listening to (or revisiting more thoroughly) "The Clash" and Elvis Costello. I wasn’t really up on the post-grunge, nu-metal scene- passively liking some songs here and there, but…

But wow, Chester was so different than Durst! And for the record, I’ve always liked “In the End”. I love the piano in the beginning (and the end). It resonates deeper now that he’s gone. The video makes me tear up now.

Of course I think about my own attempt years ago. 
-The “selfish” label many give those who attempt/commit suicide,
-The Holliswood nurse shaming me when she found out why I was being admitted, saying how dare I put my mother through this pain
-My pen pal at the time calling it “stupid”, I’m sure in an attempt to emphasize value upon my life but I couldn’t help but feel as if she were lumping it with all stupid stunts that people pull, "America's Funniest Video" things like under/overestimating a leap, or aggressive sledding from the show "Jackass". 
-How Natalie, an old friend, confided in me about a rough patch in her life but how she nixed the option of suicide since it was “a coward’s way out”
-and so many people agreeing with that, especially online where one can make cowardly statements freely.

I'm not sure if it's exactly cowardice that's at play here. There is a degree of fear and terror, but I wouldn't be quick to call it cowardice.

I also don’t think trying to commit suicide is such a selfish act even though it may seem like it is. Speaking for myself here, sometimes you're so convinced that everyone would in fact be better off without you, it’s almost as if you’re trying to do them a favor. 

"This place right here (Chester pointing to his head) this skull between my ears, that is a bad neighborhood. I am... I should not be there alone. I can't be there by myself...It's insane, it's crazy in here, it's a bad place for me to be by myself." he explains almost jokingly, as the interviewer kind of laughs in response, asking for clarification. 

I think of all this and I learn just how much he meant to so many people, mainly my sister's generation. One of my co-workers said that he grew up on "Linkin Park", that it saw him through his high school years and that those songs basically saved him. He was looking forward to the recently cancelled Blinkin Park concert later this week.  Another co-worker (both in their early 30’s) said that her husband was a huge "Linkin Park" fan and that her first gift to him was their CD, “back when people still gave each other CDs”.  
I’ve been crying because he was only one year older than me, grappling with depression like me, and a child abuse survivor, trying to get past all that.

I think of Ned Vizzini, whom my cousin Vincent actually knew. We're planning to meet up soon and see  "It’s Kind of a Funny Story”, a film inspired from his book of the same name.

I'm gonna end this with two videos I saw last week. This singer, Anthony Vincent always blows me away with his versatility and talent:



And as you might already know, practically anything NYC related moves me- this memorial is no exception. Rest in Peace & Power, Chester