{"id":8004,"date":"2010-11-16T00:53:14","date_gmt":"2010-11-16T05:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wendybrandes.com\/blog\/?p=8004"},"modified":"2011-11-13T18:56:00","modified_gmt":"2011-11-13T23:56:00","slug":"what-wendy-wore-smells-like-teen-spirit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2010\/11\/what-wendy-wore-smells-like-teen-spirit\/","title":{"rendered":"What Wendy Wore: Smells Like Teen Spirit"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been listening to Nirvana’s Nevermind<\/a> album recently. When it came out in 1991, I got it on cassette after work and ran home to listen to it even though I had the beginnings of a headache. In fact, I listened to it over and over on full blast until my headache developed into a blinding migraine. Guitarist Warren Cuccurullo — 9\/11 conspiracy theorist, amateur porn star and member of cool band Missing Persons<\/a> — reportedly said<\/a>, “You know, there have been a lot of casualties in rock-n-roll.” I was one of them! But at least I didn’t suffer permanent damage, unlike Warren, who, according to Wikipedia, believes that “the planes that hit the World Trade Center on 9\/11 were a hoax created by computer-generated imagery.”<\/p>\n

I only saw Nirvana live once, in 1993, when the band taped MTV Unplugged<\/a>. My kind, patient and talented photographer friend, Frank Micelotta<\/a>, was shooting the performance for the album art and took me along. (As I recall, a lot of his photos<\/a> of lead singer Kurt Cobain were used to illustrate stories about Kurt’s suicide the following year.) I had a prime seat next to Kate Moss.<\/p>\n

Frank was always photographing celebrities, but he made an exception once and took a picture of me. It’s framed and hanging by MrB’s night table. I put it — frame and all — in my crappy scanner to show you. It’s more sepia in real life.<\/p>\n

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WendyB at 26 years old. Photo by Frank Micelotta.<\/p><\/div>\n

I remember that Frank said, “I know you’re not going to like this” because it wasn’t a smiley picture. He was right. I didn’t like it at first. But now it’s the one non-smiley photo of myself of which I approve.<\/p>\n

In addition to the photograph, my souvenirs from that period of time include a Nirvana t-shirt. Even though I’ve sworn off the big t-shirt\/leggings look<\/a>, I briefly revived it for this post.<\/p>\n

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Photo by Jennine Jacob.<\/p><\/div>\n

What Wendy Wore for This Post<\/strong>
\nT-shirt:<\/strong> Nirvana (1993)
\nJeggings:<\/strong> Citizens of Humanity (2010)
\nBoots:<\/strong> Michael Kors (pre-2005)<\/em><\/p>\n

Here’s the back of the shirt.<\/p>\n

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I tried to take a photo of the little holes left when my late dog, Mr. Chubbs<\/a>, nibbled the shirt many years ago, but it didn’t come out. Chubbs wasn’t usually a shirt-nibbler. I don’t know what got into him that day. He did eventually suffer from doggy dementia; maybe t-shirt mastication was one of the earliest symptoms.<\/p>\n

I also had a Hole t-shirt but it vanished a few years ago.\u00a0 Did Mr. Chubbs eat it entirely? It was a tiny tank top so that’s possible. I was a huge fan of Cobain’s wife Courtney Love and her band Hole. I bought the shirt when I saw her at Roseland in May 1999<\/a>. For a long time, Courtney could do no wrong<\/a> in my eyes. Even the notorious 1992 Vanity Fair story<\/a> about her pregnancy didn’t throw me. I was willing to believe that Courtney kicked heroin after she realized she was pregnant<\/a>, rather than using late into her pregnancy as writer Lynn Hirschberg indicated.<\/p>\n

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Biographer Poppy Z. Brite says Vanity Fair airbrushed Courtney's cigarette out of this photo.<\/p><\/div>\n

While I still listen to Hole’s albums Live Through This<\/a> and Celebrity Skin<\/a> (and sometimes even the first, harsher Pretty on the Inside<\/a>), I’ve lost my tolerance for Courtney’s bad behavior. Her public harassment of her estranged daughter<\/a>, Frances Bean Cobain, via Twitter on the girl’s 18th birthday<\/a>, was particularly pathetic — especially because it happened about a month after Courtney started a style blog to improve her image<\/a>. Does she seriously think bad outfit photos are the cause of her image problems? Worse than having her only child take out a restraining order against her<\/a>? I don’t want to speculate on what ails Courtney. She went through all kinds of shit as a kid<\/a>, but at some point, a terrible upbringing doesn’t excuse today’s destructive behavior. I’ve seen this kind of thing up close and personal: “talented but troubled,” which is so intriguing in a 20-something, is damn sad in a 40-something.\u00a0 If you want to be a tragic pop-culture icon, you better die at 27<\/a>, because 20 years later, it’s not a pretty picture … no matter how many fabulous outfit photos you post. <\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been listening to Nirvana’s Nevermind album recently. When it came out in 1991, I got it on cassette after work and ran home to listen to it even though I had the beginnings of a headache. In fact, I listened to it over and over on full blast until my headache developed into a…<\/p>\n

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