Reasons To Die In 1997
(inspirational people, cartoons and thoughts that bit the dust recently)

I realized why Kurt Cobain killed himself today. I know it's a little late, but these kinds of revelations sometimes take years--look at what happened to the disillusioned hippies of the 70s. You take enough acid and realize that the death of all belief only leaves one solid thing to pin hopes and dreams on: money. But enough about those guys, let's get back to the dead. Cobain wanted to say something--he thought he could say something to the world through his music, but everything he sang turned into pep rally songs for bored suburban kids. Precious few understood the lyrics--and the ones that did probably didn't need to learn, which is why they understood in the first place. So everything Cobain thought he stood for and believed in was turned around into ugliness and shameless commercialism.

Being a junkie only enforced the feeling of despair. Everyone told him he was killing himself--or at the very least, wasting his talent. "Wrong, wrong, wrong," they said, wagging their little fingers in front of Cobain's gently wasted face. They were afraid they would lose him, whatever he represented to them: a commodity, a husband, a father, a friend. They felt his lifestyle was killing him, when in reality it was the realization that everything he'd done was wasted on his audience that was fueling his impending death.

They just didn't fucking get it. Celebrity has the built in irony of letting a person say whatever he feels like to millions of people and having almost everyone listening not understand a word that is said. Cobain realized he could teach the world to sing, but he couldn't make them understand what they were singing.

How would you like to live in a world where millions worshipped you, but none of them can even comprehend what you're saying? Should you hate yourself for the rest of your natural life because the world is fucked or just give up on the whole thing and blow your head off? We think Kurt made the right choice.

With that in mind, the world lost a bit more brilliance over the last few months. Here's what we're mourning these days:

MIGHT MAGAZINE -- 1994-1997

Ahh, the memories. Not as drop dead serious as Mother Jones, not as juvenile as Spy, and, well, probably the best magazine sold to a mainstream audience ever. And if you take a look around at what is sold to the so-called non-mainstream audience (is that alternative?), Might was pretty much the best thing around. And since they printed a slightly re-written midnight e-mail from our esteemed editor about Judas and Jesus Christ Superstar, well, we have nothing but damn good things to say about Might. Sure, we were "inspired" by a few things they did (notice the similarities of our record reviews), and (as we like to tell ourselves by the surreal light of a flame touching the bowl of our bong) they were similarly "inspired" by a bit of our silliness. And as we wonder if mold can grow on old Kool-Aid sitting too long in the fridge, we morn the passing of what we once thought of as the God of Cool Magazines. Alas, poor Might, you proved to be all too mortal.

DUCKMAN 1994-1997

What's so big about a cartoon duck who sounds like Jason Alexander and spends all of his time chasing large-boobed babes, killing his secretary care bears on a regular basis, insulting one of the sisters of his dead wife, lusting after his other sister-in-law who didn't show up until the third season, rambling with his pig partner at his detective agency which never gets around to actually doing any cases, ignoring both his teenage idiot savant son and younger twins (who have one body and two heads), and occasionally battles a villain named King Chicken whose goal is to rule the world? Well, it's kind of funny if you think about it.

But, alas, the only program worth viewing on USA (aside from the occasional titty flick when no one has enough money for actual porn) has been canceled. Duckman suffered the fate of many shows the networks don't really want: being put at time slots which cater to the lonely and unemployed. The show had the gift of mixing intelligent humor with the insanely stupid and ultimately had the ability to say and do pretty much anything it wanted. No other show could say America is the land where anyone can accomplish anything unless they're black, admit it stole the plot for an episode from Hamlet, let Ice-T have a potty-mouth filled monologue with an air horn censoring the fuck and shit words, and stick the occasional musical number in whenever they wanted. And that's just during this last season. The show also had the finest flashback episode in the history of television.

Shows are better if they do the nasty well, and dammit, Duckman did the nasty VERY well. That's probably the best compliment our favorite naked, yellow, glasses for eyes, thrust for pelvis, "What the hell are you staring at?", big mouthed duck (man) would ever want.

WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS 1914-1997

While we as school children read Hawthorn, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulkner, we always dreamed of writers who meant something to us. Writers who didn't suck on the cocks and breasts of the publishing world except for the sheer pleasure of it. Writers who had nothing to lose because they've lost more than they ever could gain back again, so they write with no inhibitions. Writers like William S. Burroughs.

The man had no barriers as we know them. Sex, drugs, reality. He was a slave to them all and yet he found the freedom in all the constraints. His voice was distinct and like no other. It seemed to hover two inches above the floor, and unless you intentionally looked down, you'd miss him entirely. But if you have no problem sitting with your ear near the floor, the truth parents fear their children will learn comes out in the form of an ancient junkie. A medicine man of sorts.

His writing inspired, but it was his life that held the real prize. He spent time with Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Leary, and Keruac and taught them all a thing or two. One constant reminder he gave was that The American Dream was a concept made up by men who wanted conformity of the masses. To his dying day, conformity was his anti-Christ. No matter how much he said or did, Burroughs fought the idea of a drug free, thought free society. That's what we'll miss about him. Sure, we'll pull out a copy of Naked Lunch, watch Drug Store Cowboy, and play his taped recordings. A thinker is dead, and nobody thought like Burroughs.

He spent his last days where the our editors spent some of their first: Lawrence, Kansas. His drug using body retired at age 83.

BEAVIS & BUTTHEAD 1992-1997

We wish we could've subverted America like these two assholes. All we could do was watch as they changed the lexicon of young America forever. They were blamed for all of societies evils and still made a shitload of cash from a semi-inspired 75 minute movie. Kids burned down houses, and Beavis had to stop saying, "Fire." Their contribution to society was deliberated in Congress. B & B made fun of the very videos MTV tried to hypnotize with, and praised bands that would've never been big without them (White Zombie in particular). Satirizing the very people who were watching the show, Beavis and Butthead pulled off one of the harder things to do: Make teenagers laugh at themselves. Of course they all started laughing the same way ("Heh, heh, heh."), but at least it was a step in the right direction.

And sure MTV is going to re-run the shows into the millennium, Mike Judge'll probably get around to writing another movie someday (whenever he gets time off from King Of The Hill), and another series by the once-Albuquerquean is said to be in the works for the music channel. Of course, what can you do after changing the world? Hope to hell that people remember what the series was really saying (teens aren't really evil, they're just kinda stupid--I'm sorry ignorant--sometimes), rather than just the way Beavis and Butthead laughed every few seconds.
return to the basement.