On the Last Rock Star

Weather Changes Moods

On a hot August evening, the sun was setting over Barricata beach out on the Po Delta. The beach bar was deserted and the lifeguard-cum-barman started up his tractor and began to pick up the sunbeds. To do his work he put on the sound system and turned it up, loud. Sandwiched between the usual forgettable pop, the opening chords of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” rang out.

Twenty years later after Nirvana blew apart the stilted, machine-produced world of pop music, the commentariat is busy trying to answer a question first posed by fellow travelers Sonic Youth: Nevermind — what was it anyway?  Interpretations range from the interesting — Nirvana burying rock machismo, for a bit anyway, to the blatantly commercial and sentimental.

I bought the record the week it came out — convinced by a friend to pick up the new one when I had my eye on Bleach for pure street cred — and spent the next few weeks learning most of the songs.  The prevailing order of the day — sarcasm and apathy — meant that I had to act completely blasé about Nirvana’s successes. It wasn’t purely baseless: it would have been hard to be a stranger to the independent record label world that begat Nirvana in the home of Squirrel Bait, Slint and Kinghorse. And our “little group” quietly celebrated the mainstreaming of our underground: what else could get a gang of teenage boys to rush home on a Saturday night to watch TV? In this way, Cobain succeeded where our parents did not.

The 1990s were the era that birthed the sensitive man, for a variety of cultural reasons beyond the purview of this post. This new-found sensibility bore heavily on Cobain, who rejected fame’s embrace and embraced the rejected, using his celebrity to openly discuss gayness, feminism, domestic strife, drug use, and depression — conditions that pop culture accepts as part of its landscape now. Because of this, grunge had a gravity that escaped the happy nihilism of most of the first wave of punk bands.

Contrast Cobain’s desperate howl with the gleeful madness of Johnny Rotten telling listeners he’s going over the Berlin Wall.  Cobain mumbles along for most of Nirvana’s hit before exploding in yawps of “a denial” — of what, exactly, it’s never said. Pleasure? Pain? Fame? Life itself? A few years later the man himself exploded tragically, while today, most first-wave punk bands have been able to soldier on, either for lucre (Sex Pistols), pleasure (Buzzcocks) or sheer cussedness (the Fall).

Just as Michael Jackson was the last great pop star, Cobain was the last great rock star. He presented himself as an iconoclast, who stood for ideals and ideas that he thought were greater and better than the dreck that brought him up and enveloped him. It’s unlikely in today’s atomized world of pop music, with its countless sub-genres, that there will never be another. The songwriting, which could appeal to the most craft-oriented REM fans or to the most noise-devoted Albini enthusiasts, reflected this completeness of vision as well.

Nirvana’s meaning and accomplishment will continue to be discussed, debated and exploited.  If they did nothing else, the fact that two decades later in an isolated place far away from Aberdeen, Washington, one can hear a song written by a real human being and not manufactured by a profit-driven industry is no small feat.

Fashion Week Begins

And what will she do with Thursday's rags when Monday comes around ?

The fashion week party, or rather, pre-party drink like one of those early punk shows I went to when I was a boy: you feel you have total freedom to do whatever because everyone is doing anything. A man is a fluorescent toga-like dress with his whole head shaved except for a little random-seeming tuft on the side with a long lock sticking out of it attracts no attention, and his example was only the most egregious. There were weird Americans with platinum hair and bangs eating cherries that the bartender popped into their waiting open mouths, strange Milanesi discussing the best clubs in (actually outside) the city in English to each other and telling me the ones in town were filled with ‘rednecks, politicians and mafiosi,’ a hyper-active, hyper-competent bartender who fulfilled my request for ‘un negroni – FORTE,’ Germans dressed for a soccer game, and a tortured electronic version of ‘Killing an Arab’ blasting from the DJ booth. As I was waiting for my drink, which was suitably strong, one thought went through my head:  “Men from Kentucky and Italy are dying in Afghanistan to preserve this way of life.” I didn’t see the picture of Hemingway hanging up on the wall which, until I got there, was the only thing I knew about the place.

In the middle of the throng on the street was our humble little Meet-Up group of mainly Italians looking to practice English: the mag ed dapper in his blazer, drinking a beer from a bottle and wondering why he didn’t check that it was fashion week before, and above us, the mass of the Duomo, stained glass ablaze for the third time this year, watching over us all, the gold eye of the Madonnina peering down to via san Raffaele of a Thursday night in September.

Why — or How — Italy Works, and Why No One Wants to Leave

The motorist tries to run you over and you get into a yelling match on the street. The phone company is billing you for your old and new internet, although neither work. You’re getting laid off, you lose your private office and have to share a cramped space with people who don’t believe in the AC and it’s unseasonably hot. No water, coffee, phone or internet at work. You’re forced to come home to use the toilet and pause to buy fresh lettuce, grapes and peaches from the Sicilan at the open air market that’s outside your front door. He calls you ‘caro’ and sells you the items at a ridiclously low rate, offering to lop off a bit more if you don’t have change. The doorman walks by and calls you by name like you’re a long-lost friend. You met him the day before.  You salute him in return and come home to eat your produce. It’s the best lunch you’ve had and it’s just three ingredients. You’re king of the world for a little while. That’s why.