Soaked in Bleach

Soaked in Bleach is the most recent in a string of documentaries that supposedly offer a in depth look at the life and death of Kurt Cobain. This documentary provides an overview of the alleged  inconsistencies in the death of Kurt Cobain as seen through the perspective of a private investigator and former police detective, Tom Grant. Grant's theories were previously featured in a documentary called Kurt and Courtney, but this time he took a crack at laying out his findings, instead of letting another director get the final cut. In the first five minutes of the film his goal is clear, he wants to prove to you that Kurt Cobain did not take his own life. He believes that he was murdered. In fact, Tom goes as far as to imply that he was murdered by Courtney Love or someone that Courtney Love hired to do it, but he never actually says it, because if he did, Courtney would have been able to sue.

This week I sat down and watched the film for the first time and I was incredibly disappointed by how poorly the documentary was made. I was hoping for so much more than this documentary offered.  Instead of learning anything, I was blown away by how little he understood about the people that he was hired to investigate. The film promised to feature recorded clips of phone calls Tom shared with Courtney before she knew that he was actually investigating her. As I listened to each clip, I kept thinking, "this is all you have?" All he has are a few clips that show what a horrible person Courtney can be! He proves that she is a money hungry bitch, but if you love Courtney, you already know that.

I was only 10 years old when Kurt Cobain passed away. I was just discovering Nirvana when Kurt Loder came across the screen to announce Kurt's death. The passing of Mr. Cobain was one of the pivotal moments in my life. I became obsessed with Kurt and of course Courtney. Hole is my favorite band of all time and in 1994 Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain were my idea of the perfect couple.   They didn't care about the same things that my parents cared about, they cared about music, having fun, and well, drugs. I don't think I really understood what drug addiction was, but it wasn't something that I thought about very much. I loved Nirvana, I loved Hole, and I loved grunge, and that is all I really cared about.

It has been over 20 years since Kurt passed away and I still think about him a lot. I have watched every interview that I can find, watched every documentary that has come out, and I creepily follow his daughter on Twitter like her posts are going to give me some new incite into his life. I still love Nirvana and I still credit Hole as being my favorite band of all time. The sound of Courtney Love screaming is one of the best sounds I have ever heard. I still love to throw on an album and scream my heart out with the queen of rock and roll, but I can't say that I look at Courtney the same way I did when I was 10 years old.

As an adult I realize a few things that I didn't quite perceive as a child. First, Kurt and Courtney were incredibly young when they rose to fame. They were also incredibly famous very fast. They went from being incredibly poor to incredibly rich and from nobodys to the center of music and pop culture. Courtney got pregnant with Frances very young and very fast, two things that make parenting and marriage even more challenging. Now, I realize how young Kurt really was when he passed. He may have had the coolest scruffy facial hair that a girl could imagine, but he was just becoming a man when he died. I never realized how much of a feminist Kurt was, Courtney was a riot girl, but so was Kurt. I also never realized, they were fucking heroin acts.

Don't get me wrong, I knew that, but I didn't understand what that meant. As an adult, I now understand that this means most of the time I saw videos or heard interviews during this time period, they were high as hell. This explains why Courtney has always rambled on about nothing, it also explains why Kurt seems so out of it in interviews. I finally understand that my heroes were also junkies.

Mr. Grant goes in depth about the way the bullet landed, he breaks down a few nonsensical recordings of conversations that Courtney had with him over the phone and he brings a few friends into a studio to talk about what they think really happened. But, he doesn't bring anything new to the table and the movie does a horrible job of presenting his case. The only thing that was truly clear to me was that he did not understand the people that he was researching or interviewing. He spends hours analyzing the thoughts, actions, and ramblings of a bunch of heroine addicts, which as you may know, is a waste of time.

After watching this film and thinking long and hard about what I thought, I realized I still think the same thing I did before I watched it. It is really sad that Kurt took his own life, and Courtney is fucking crazy, end of story!

~S