WE DIE YOUNG 'Editorial'By Christint 'Mascia RAMBLER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Late 1991-Early 1992 missing persons report after he failed to show up at his style, a look, an attitude and Seattle was the new rock I wandered around an "alternative" music store Seattle home for 6 days. Ms. O'Connor was quoted as and roll mecca. "Never mind" went platinum 5 times over around the block from my house. Also milling about were saying "Now he's gone and joined that stupid club of rock in the United States alone. It opened gates for Pearl Jam, the twentysomething college students buying up under- stars." A suicide note was found at the scene." Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, The Breeders, groung CD's. A young girl walked in, about 14 or 15, in Shocked, stunned, and saddened Joe and I sat Smashing Pumpkins and the like to be played in the ponytail and cheerleading jacket with her mother. Her for a while in the car while the radio continued to play mainstream. It became a new 'Irend" and mega-station mother eyed the store and it's customers quite suspi- Nirvana songs. I remember feeling as if I had lost a best Z100 changed it's format to a 60% alternative station. To ciously. Standing at an endcap, they exchanged this friend. an alternative "veteran" like myself this was unbelievable. dialogue: Was underground music becoming "commercial" or was it "What are you looking for?" April 10, 1994 good for this music to be accepted by the main- "Smells Like Teen Spirit." stream???? "What?" 7000 kids converge upon the Flag Pavilion in To Nirvana, the overnight success was hard to "Nirvana, you know. Smells Like Teen Spirit" Seattle. Some are burnt out 16-19 year olds, others are swallow. It was especially hard for introverted Cobain, The two of them fiddled through a bunch of tapes. I college students. Some dressed in traditional punk garb, who was now thrown naked to the screaming lion pit of pulled out the "Never mind" tape and handed it to them. some in the flannel-and-denim grunge uniform, and some young people who adored him. Gone were the hole in the "Buy the whole tape" I said. The girl's mother took in my have fashioned the yellow "Police Crime Scene" tape wall bars and club scene. Arenas and brokers scrambled nose ring and purple hair and without a second word around their heads. Most of the older fans are outside to book Nirvana. Rumors surfaced of drug use and the hurried her daughter to the cash register to pay. Grunge Cobain's home, mourning and comforting each other. At paparazzi was kept abuzz of his marriage to Courtney had infiltrated top 40 radio, and now junior high kids were the Pavilion, they are slam dancing, holding candles and Love, who is front woman of riot grrri band "Hole." They eating it up. playing Nirvana albums. Courtney Love has taped a had a baby daughter, Frances Bean, and Love went reading of the suicide note to be played to the fans. Later public with lurid details of heroin use early in her preg- Aprils, 1994 that night. Love shows up, visibly inebriated, crying out to nancy. She gave a now infamous interview to Vanity Fair the sky: "You come back now! I love you, what about which showed Love on the front cover with "Family Here I was same music store, buying tapes for me? Come back, come back! Are you happier now?" Values" scrawled across her bare belly. Cobain ran and myself and my boyfriend. WDRE was playing on the She cries and screams and falls into the throng of young hid, clashing with her over their fame and fortune and two radio. Around 2:30, the music abruptly ended and a people. Disappearing for a short time, she returns with tumbled farther into the spotlight with public battles about somber Hillary Laser, newswoman for the station, articles of her dead husband's clothing and hands them privacy and Love's sometimes-too-generous accounts of delivered the first part of the news broadcast: out to the crowd. their lifestyle. In a rare display, during an interview with "The Seattle Police have confirmed that at 8:40 Spin magazine, Cobain removed his shirt to show nasty a.m., a body was discovered at Kurt Cobain's house by Two days later, on April 12, Courtney Love is fingernail marks across his back, a symbol of their torrid an electrician. No word yet from Nirvana or Cobain's arrested after her husband's funeral on drug charges. relationship. family whether or not the body was indeed Cobain's." Heroin, the drug of choice for herself and Cobain, was the The store fell unusually silent, and WDRE began culprit. Six weeks prior to his death, Kurt Cobain was playing Nirvana on the radio. I rushed out, hopped into hospitalized in Rome following and overdose of prescrip- my car, and drove out to Farmingdale. Bolting up the To most, Kurt Cobain was just another de- tion medication and alcohol. After his recovery, he flew stairs of Lupton Hall, I peered into the classroom where pressed smack shooting junkie grunge head. Yes, he back to the United States. Courtney Love and Nirvana Joe, my boyfriend, was. Waving like a maniac, I got him was this, and we all know that he was no Janis Joplin or bassist Krist Novoselic dropped Cobain off at Exodus and to come out of the classroom. Jimi Hendrix or Jim Morrison. But we do know that they Love took refuge with the baby in Los Angeles. The band "Joe, a body was found at Kurt Cobain's house. were talented individuals, voices for their generation, lived dropped out of headlining the 1994 summer "Lollapal- They're not sure if it was his or not." hard, and died young. Kurt Cobain and Nirvana brought looza" tour, citing "health reasons." The band supposedly Joe and I left the building, got into his car, and alternative music into the limelight. They were reluctant squabbled, and resigned to a break up. A friend of headed for an appointment that we had with the agency anti heroes who refused to be photographed by '1eeny- Cobain's was quoted as saying "The very last thing Kurt we work for. At 4:00 we pulled into the agency parking lot bopper" magazines or mainstream entertainment week- charged on his credit card was a shotgun." at Brookville, Nirvana's "Come As You Are" ended, and lies. Top 40 radio stations stuck to safe dance music or once again Hillary Laser took over the airwaves. "safe" rock and roll like Guns n' Roses or Aerosmith. The man who re-routed alternative music laid "It has just been confirmed that the body found at Grunge, alternative and college music was saved for the dead and unidentifiable in his house for a day before Kurt Cobain's home this morning was his. Sources tell us university radio stations and WDRE. But Nirvana burned somebody found him. the cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the up the Billboard Top 100 with its angry, crunching grunge Music fans today ask "Why?" I ask "Didn't head. His wife, Courtney Love, and baby, Frances Bean rock and hesitant poetry. "Never mind" knocked off anybody see him falling?" In the self-righteous world of were in Los Angeles at the time. He had been admitted to Michael Jackson's "Dangerous" as the number 1 album. the music industry, it's better to burn out. Like the Exodus, an L.A. drug rehab center, and had walked out It was no longer college kids buying the albums, it was candles at his memorial service, that's exactly what he after 48 hours. His mother, Wendy O'Connor filed a people from all walks of life. Grunge became a music did. LAST STAND IN FARMINGDALE SGA STRUGGLES WITH MORAL JUDGEMENT WHO LOSES? An 'Editorial'By Hoe (Puuio RAMBLER MANAGING EDITOR We all felt for Robbyn Hasberry, when her dorm have otherwise attended the ceremony will not be on the to qualify them to run and gave only two weeks to room was burned and she was in fear of her health. We cruise, since they too have to pay for tickets. Many of us accomplish this. That action made it virtually impossible all rallied around her, giving support and encouragement. in the fully funded units work hard and deserve to be for anyone who has a full schedule to do so. It also Now, months later, the horrid event is well behind us and recognized for their efforts in front of their peers. makes 'Ihe guy with the most friends" the person who will Robbyn has gotten on with her life. But she is a different This year's crowning of Homecoming King and run and unfortunately these are usually the p>eople who Robbyn now, she appears to have been somehow Queen, which has traditionally been held in the Multi- take a few simple classes and are not likely to work very hardened, as any survivor woukl be. She is not the only purpose room with food and festivities was moved into the hard. one that has changed however. SGA has become a force Little Theater and with neither. The highest ranking The final humiliation came when SGA decided to for change, a powerful voice toppling much of what was administrator in attendance was Lou Copertino, who take the awards recommendations away from the club tradition here at Farmingdale.