I met Richard J. Schock yesterday via e-mail. He suggested putting Kurt Cobain on the list of famous people; because Kurt Cobain was a great example for him. So we decided to put his sorry "Why Kurt Cobain was a great help to him" on the website and hope this will be an inspiration to you too.
One Hell of a gift!
"I was 24 when I first heard this
incredible new sound, it was like nothing I ever heard, It had Beatle like
lyrics and melodies, but a real dirty raw hardcore Guitar sound. It was just so different; everyone was talking about this
new album Bleach by a band called NIRVANA out of Seattle,
now in those days the internet was in it’s infancy and most people did not
own desktops, let alone internet access and my family was no exception.
So I went out and bought as many music magazines as I
could find that had NIRVANA articles in them and I started learning about this
really amazing man Called Kurt Cobain. Now there was some information about
Kurt and NIRVANA, but not nearly enough for my liking, but that all changed in
the summer of 1991, because Never mind, NIRVANAS second LP exploded onto the
charts like a Meteor and music would never be the same, because Grunge had
arrived, and those of us who were generation X’s has a new spokesman, Kurt
Cobain. To really understand how big this was, you have to go back in time a
bit, The Generation Xer’s were raised on silly glam rock bans with poofy hair
and wearing lipstick they looked more like girls then the hardcore rockers they
purported to be, and to be quite frank we were sick to death of Van Halen, Kiss
Poison, Motley Crew, churning out the same old meaningless drivel about chicks
in g strings and muscle cars we could not afford and party, get laid party,
booze, get laid, booze, it was nothing like our lives that they were gibbering
about.
Now generation X had there own original sound, no more
listening to the music of are older siblings. And our own leader, A guy most of
us could relate to, who looked like us, jeans and sneakers and who dint dress
himself like a Jackie on 10th avenue and then had the nerve to call themselves
hardcore. After Never mind Blew up globally, information about Kurt Cobain was
every ware. I devoured it, trying to learn as much as I could About This man, I
found we had so much in common, we were both Dyslexic, he was a painter, I am a
painter, he had the same issues in high school that I had, not really being
excepted into the main pack and ostracized. My friends were the kids who liked
to sneak into the New York City and
go to the punk clubs and liked Art, basically just like Kurt but he did his
thing on the east cost.
We were the weird kids, who dint really dig sports and
team work, we were loners we dint need to take some ones dignity to elevate
our own self esteem, and we were called the strange ones, funny you never saw
anybody from my crew picking on anybody or making fun of the fat kids. And as I
learned more I found out he was like me in so many ways. He dint really get
along with his parents, just like me. He was shy and introverted, just like me.
He would rather go to a art store and hang out there then go to a pep rally
just like me. He uses to get pushed around and picked on, just like me. He
liked sweet gentle Girls, just like me, he liked poetry, just like me. He liked
getting high, just like me
He believed that women were treated like garbage and that
had to changed , just like me ,he thought corporations were getting far to
powerful and had the ability to exert far to much influence on our political
system, just like me. He believed the consumer society was fat and bloated just
like me, he believed that there was more to life then working to buy things you
could not afford or need, life was more then a race to collect more and more
possessions, it is also was about living and passion, just like me. Don’t get
me wrong I don’t want to present Kurt Cobain as some Angel, he had a huge
amount of very serious issues in his short life, but the way I look at it it’s
our imperfections that really are the sum of what we are, that’s what makes
each of us unique.
You asked me what Kurt gave me, he gave me a very special
gift. He made me feel good about myself when I looked in the Mirror; he taught
me it was ok to be who I really was, and that I owed no one an explanation, for
what and who I was. That’s one Hell of a gift."
Richard Schock, novembre 2007