Seattle Forever
By In Utero Goddess (Eryn Mulloy)
Seattle, Washington, 2004
Seattle seemed like my Hollywood. In my mind, the whole city was in lights, and I dreamt of the day finally to meet it. About a year ago, me and 4 of my close friends from online started to plan this trip, as we all really wanted to go. But all have been dreaming to go for years. We decided to go during Kurt Cobain’s 10 year death anniversary, so we can at least be in Seattle on one of the many past and future anniversaries to come. We all did our part in arranging the trip and finding any Nirvana related places to visit. It never sunk into me the entire time as I waited to go, and knew I was finally going, that I would be there. I thought if I thought about it too much I’d make myself sick. Finally , April 3rd came, the day I finally got to met the city of my dreams. I was so nervous going to the airport, it was raining here in Denver, and it never does. The entire ride to the airport I was just a mess, smoking and smoking. Once I got inside the airport and made my way to my gate, I was doing much better. I am traveling with my friend Nicole from Australia. She came to Denver, 2 days prior, because she too was nervous to arrive in the city alone. I was too. It intimidated me.
11:45 AM Denver International Airport April 3rd
“ I’m waiting for the place that I’ve wanted for so long. I hate myself that I get so nervous, but I am doing pretty well then what I thought. Sitting here waiting, I am trying to pick out Seattle Locals, returning home. I think I see only three. A lot of older people are on this flight. I wonder what that’s all about. Nicole is doing fine- relaxed as can be. Id be more like a train wreck. I just want a cigarette. I have not eaten a single thing today. I do not eat before I go on flight I am super nervous on. I could not eat even if I had a steak platter in front of me right now. I want to stay awake on the whole flight. I’m trying to not think about it, think about anything, or where I am going. I fear I will have a panic attack or something. I don’t think I know what I am doing.”
This was all our first time ever going to the city, to that, it made it better. I had distract myself on the entire flight, pretending I do not know where I am going, for my best interest of my sanity. Our 2 hour flight finally lands at Sea-Tac. We walk out of the plane and into the terminal like zombies. I remember the pictures of Kurt at this airport, and for some reason, fell just like him, making my way to my luggage. We roll up off the escalator to see our other friends waiting for us right by our baggage claim. Jenny and Mary came from St. Louis, I have met them once before. Stephanie came from Chicago, I had met her twice before. We have all become great friends thru out the years of emails, letters and phone calls, for us to finally all meet up on this vacation was perfect for us. We gather ourselves and our luggage and head outside for our first breathe of Washington air. Before we make our first move, we just stand there in a circle, collecting ourselves for what the city holds for us. We take the public bus to downtown Seattle. Almost catching the wrong one only once. Getting off downtown, and us with all of our huge suitcases, roll them thru the hills in downtown Seattle, till we finally find our hostile, which is about 25 more steps to go down to the door!
We check in, get into our room and get settled in. Day one of our planning was just to walk around the city. We go down to the walk able distance of Alaskan Way right near the waterfront. There we looked up and found the old OK Hotel, which was in the process of being remodeled, and Pier 48 Port of Seattle, where Nirvana played their Live and Loud performance. Shopping ties over most of the night, till we start walking near the Public Market to find something into the night. We run across the Moore Theatre, where Nirvana, Hole and Sonic Youth once played. Almost ready to give up, we stop to evaluate our plans. There standing, looking like a bouncer is a bald local man, I turn to him in frustration, and ask what is there to do in Seattle after 8pm?!! He laughs and invites us to see his band, The Betty Ford Falcons. We indulge in go into the very hole in the wall of your basement venue, to take over some nice guys table. Ralph was our new friend, and told us about neat things to do in the city. Two of his other friends were talking to us too about what to do, but nothing seemed to great. Jenny drank till she about fell asleep. Ralph’s band goes up on the stage, and is terrible. Sorry you guys. But we did stay for the entire show. But it was great walking home, because we got lost twice, and had to walk past the venue we were at all night, hoping no one saw us walk past it again.
International Hostel- 1st & Union Room 200
1:33am 4/4/04
“In my bed, from my window, I hear the stupid kid from the lame Vh1 “Graveside Groupies” special they ran about two years ago. He is staying at the same hostile as us, but I never see him go anywhere. He just talks to anyone who will listen about how he hates Courtney Love and loves Chad Channing. I hear him arguing with some girl from the UK about who killed Kurt Cobain.
They’re sitting outside in front of the hostile smoking. I don’t know if that’s comforting anymore to hear kids talking about this still. Kurt is dead physically , but never gone. Everyone seems to accept Courtney is his only remains anymore, and no one likes it. But they must have never thought of the option to even think that way about it all. Everyone seems to put more energy into hating and disliking her, then the fact we had this masterpiece of a band named Nirvana, and a man named Kurt. It seems the few people who I’ve talked to here was more about restarting murder theories then coming here for the anniversary. I see why Seattle hates you. This town is a hidden paradise, and should be its own island. You find its deep dark holes in the city and just never want to leave. Yet, sitting there watching your first local band from Seattle live, you begin to understand everything almost. The city. The people. The past. I love its raw secrets that no one will tell you. I love how they tell you not to come here. I love how they can spot from miles away there you’re a tourist. That’s how well they know. Our first night here, we all walked down to the Public Market, an obvious native, inviting us to see his band for free. He knew we were not from here right off the bat. He brought us into his world, down in some bar basement, no bigger then my apartment. That room was filled with nothing but locals, we could now tell. And due to the secretive location. We stuck out like soar thumbs. But that room you could tell a whole lifetime story, but not speaking a word to anyone. I felt so much energy and magic there, I will always remember my first Seattle Saturday night.”
We retire that night to our hostile and get go to bed early, as tomorrow will be our first full day.
The next day we had many things planned. Our first stop was the Experience Music Project, located in downtown Seattle, we walk there, and are one of the first people in. They only charged me for a Youth, which I found very great. We all wait for one another before we step in, and the first thing we all notice, was the real In Utero angles from Nirvana In UteroTour, in a huge display there. It was like walking onto a cloud in heaven to see that in person, with your own eyes. We all travel thru there slow with wide eyes for shinny things. They have a little “grunge corner” In there has like the history of grunge, with original vinyl’s and tapes, and some mixing boards even. They have one of Nirvana’s original cassette tapes. They have cute grunge marketed products like air fresheners and the pencils I remember. Mudhoney, Soundgarden, The Gits, L7 and of course Nirvana was just a few of the bands they had lots of neat and rare things on behind the glass.
Above you see the original sign for the OK Hotel. Walking up the stairs onto the second floor, you see a big young photo of Kurt Cobain, and a logo taken from his journals on the photo on the wall. Next to it, which to me was most interesting, you find his Univox. The one I have seen thousand pictures of, is now right in front of me, only glass separating us. It was, of course broken, but they had most of the pieces. And it was so neat just to see all the pictures he taped to the back of his guitar and phrases he wrote on there. Like it was your friends guitar sitting in their bedroom, and you just happen to notice it out of boredom. They also where playing Nirvana live videos on a screen, which I sat there and watched the entire running of it. We wonder over to see a big sign that says “Be A Star” or something like that, and we walk over and ask what it was all about.
Apparently, you could go into this room, perform one of the 3 songs they provide, and play the instruments and make a music video & get your photo taken too. We were so up for it. We decided to be “Broken Hymen“ as our band name, since we are in fact now an all girl band. But we had to disguise it, so we became “Broken High-Myn”. We performed “ I love Rock n Roll” By Joan Jett. A perfect choice for us indeed. Stephanie was on guitar, I was the lead singer, Jenny was on drums and Mary was on keyboard, and Nicole took photos of us. It was so great, we were totally in it!
After it, we saw you could buy a big photo of us performing, so that we did, and the lady only gave it to us for half off! Next off in the EMP we went into the music room. Jenny did a 2 song demo. I would have but I had no idea what songs I would want to do at all. I think she covered some Radiohead songs, which she is a great musician, and I do want to hear those songs someday. After that we wondered down to the gift shop. There we bought a $3 Kurt Cobain chocolate bar! That was indeed a highlight! After the EMP, we went over to the space needle. The day was just so exciting. I tried to get away with being a Youth there, but sadly, it did not work. We all get our tickets and walk in to immediately do some more shopping. I bought this really neat vintage Seattle picture bracelet, which I love and don’t ever plan on taking it off! After we all got done spending our millions at the Space Needle shop, we walked up to go up on the Space Needle top. On our way, we took aneat and tacky photo with the space needle, it was great! We have to get it scanned it was so great. We totally did the “pretend your hanging off the needle thing”…just like Kurt.
The next day was the day I was most nervous and excited for. It was the day to go to Kurt’s Park. We all got up early and took advantage of the complementary hostile breakfast and ate a lot before we traveled there. We walked to the Public Market to look for any newspapers with anything on the anniversary, and there was quite a few. After that we walked over to the flower shop to get Kurt some flowers. We all picked out one we thought he would like. He would have liked how romantic that was. Then we stopped to get some candles, each picking out a candle color we liked. I picked out red. As I would always see that as his favorite color. We then headed for the bus stop, to catch the #2 to Mandora Park. A local on the street was very excited to rock on to us that “today is the day!” We walked down the streets of downtown Seattle, with our Nirvana shirts and lots of flowers, I think everyone there in the city knew what we were doing. To me it felt like that very day, except we knew more answers.
We got on the bus, and I was so nervous. I stared out the window the entire ride. The houses in his area are so beautiful and unique and private, just what I think he was looking for to live in too. We get off at the stop, stepping right off the bus to view Lake Washington. It was like I was in a movie with all those perfect scenery and symphony music that makes you fall in love with something.
We headed up the long, about a mile, path, with the lake on our side. I was in front of everyone, and as soon as you looked up from the big trees covering the area, I could see the balcony window of his house, I said “There it is you guys.” It felt like I was coming home again. We walk up the small hill into the park, like we have been to this place a million times before. There was about ten scattered people already there, and MTV2 and other media. We walk towards the fence to set up a sitting area for us. I glare at the bench in the corner of my eye as I walk past it, and loose my breath.
We all sit down, pissed the media was there, and wondered if we should just say “ Fuck it, lets go to the bench” so that we did. We got our flowers and candles, and walked up to the bench. I lean down to it. My eyes started to tear up, I wanted to have a hysterical cry, and lay down beside it. I wanted to have the nervous breakdowns I used to have when I would lay on my bedroom floor, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, blaring Nevermind and locking my door. It made me feel better sometimes.
We lit our candles and placed our flowers on the bench. We then all started to write our message. I once again chose a red sharpie. On it I wrote:” I miss you Kurt, I love you 4/5/04 eryn- denver” There was not enough room to write anything long like I wanted too. I just didn’t know what to write, I had so much to say to him, but all I could think of what I felt that very moment. I sat and had a smoke on the bench, then the media started coming up to me, asking to interview me and my friends. At first we were very hesitant, but then thought, its better us then someone really lame. They asked me really stupid questions, like “What does it mean for you to be near this bench, right here, right now” And “What did you write on this bench” and “Why did you love Nirvana” and loads of crap like that. I gave them short and confusing answers. When they asked me why I liked Nirvana, I said, “cause they were so raw and made me feel uncomfortable, I liked that.”
We hung around the bench, because we just didn’t know what to do with ourselves honestly. MTV2 came over to interview us too, and that was fine, thou we had to take like 20 takes! But it was fun, we got to know everyone very well, and knew what to say! Some other local TV stations and newspapers did the same interviews and everything, it was so weird, that all the sudden we were so important. They wanted to interview Nirvana fans. I’ve always known that being a fan of them, was a sign that you were very different from the rest of the flock.
Stephanie and I took long walks around the house and the Lake and just finding beautiful places to sit and smoke. We did that for a few hours, and then went back into the Park, to find a small circle of one guy playing guitar, and everyone singing. We totally joined in. We sang so many Nirvana songs, so many times over, my voice hurt so much by dark. I sang my heart out on everyone. It was so great to sing these songs with other people, so alive and loud. MTV did a lot of footage on it too.
We didn’t care to stop to do an interview or whatnot, we just kept singing. The producer from MTV Alex Coletti, who I recognized from talking in the Bare Witness Special on Nirvana Unplugged, actually played a song with us. He played “Where did you sleep last night” I don’t know what songs got on MTV, but we did so many good ones. At one time, we didn’t even know they were filming live, and me and my friend were so hungry, we whipped out the bread and peanut butter we bought to keep our tummys happy, and MTV was filming while we were chowing down! So they sadly, had to retake that shot! We started to appreciate MTV’s existence there, because they let us use their porter potty, which was so great. We begged them to leave it there all night, and they did! Later that evening, before MTV left, they come back down to the park, right to where I was sitting with bags of food and drinks! He told me to go ahead and sort these out to everyone! I grabbed a Sprite and a bag of Fritos, they bought enough for everyone. I hardly ever think they would do that!