it must have been in 1992.. i had just been bitten by the grunge bug.. my not first but still lasting love became, as you know, pearl jam.. i remember me and my friends listening to pj at my place on those nights.. also remember my skipping classes because i had to go to tricity to buy the second pj album 'vs'.. it was in 1993..

another recollection.. our class had an empty lesson so i went to my friend's place who lived opposite the school.. he played 'nevermind'.. i didn't like it.. what's more, i criticised the album..

some time later i was on the way home from gdańsk.. late afternoon.. sunny.. warm.. the school year was about to end.. the bus was half empty.. i had two seats for myself.. the guy on the other side of the aisle had two for himself.. he also had two cds.. i don't remember one of them, but i recall his unwrapping of the other one with almost tangible reverence.. the album was nirvana's 'nevermind'.. that whole 'ceremony' just gave me to thinking.. soon i got myself a cassette and.. it was a revelation..

also remember a saturday morning in april.. woke up at about 9 or 10.. turned on the tv.. was surfing channels when mtv came on.. there was a reporter standing in front of cobain's house in seattle covering what had just happened.. shotgun.. suicide.. suicide note.. i spent the next few hours watching mtv, not allowing anyone to change the channel, trying to understand more and overcome the shock i'd got at hearing the news..

'nevermind' was nirvana's breakthrough album, took them to the top of the charts and made kurt cobain a household name.. housewives in the us became interested in kurt's problems with his wife, courtney love, or drug addiction.. music became/was an issue of secondary importance.. 'mtv unplugged in new york' simply proves how wrong the things went.. released after cobain's suicide it turned out to be his farewell note.. his testament.. a kind of last will i'd love to leave behind when i go..

in the us elderly people refer to the moment when kennedy was assassinated in 1963.. 'do you remember what you were doing when jfk was shot dead?' is a kind of question returning every now and then.. i do remember april 8, 1994..

funny how things in life happen.. all the above i owe to the contagious reverence of the guy on the bus and truancy..

till thursday

cottage

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