Kurt
Cobain's life would have been much
simpler if he had been Charlie Brown. No heroin, no grunge rock,
no Courtney Love, just an animated guitar, a psychiatrist's booth
and a lonely pitcher's mound in the rain.
Hmmm...Charlie
is slang for cocaine. Brown is slang for heroin. Worlds keep
colliding in unexpected ways.
If
you had to draw (or sketch) comparisons between the works of Kurt
Cobain and Charles Schulz, you'd be in trouble.
Charles
M. Schulz
was born in 1922. In time he became the most widely syndicated cartoonist
in history. He didn't write 'Rape Me' or howl his way angrily through
covers of Leadbelly songs. He might well have worn a cardigan.
That's about all I can think he'd have in common with Mr Cobain.
Kurt
Cobain fell into the world in 1967 in Aberdeen. Not Aberdeen in
Scotland, but in Seattle. To my knowledge he never worked in a steak
house. Another missed opportunity.
Both
artists are dead. Both artists had world-wide appeal.
Charles
Schulz actually had interstellar appeal: In 1969 the Peanuts
characters became official NASA mascots. This is unlikely to happen
to any of Kurt's creations, although who knows what (if anything) astronauts
listen to in space. I suspect it is Hootie and the Blowfish and
Sheryl Crow.
Peanuts
was originally called Li'l Folks. Schulz didn't like the name
Peanuts - he thought it was demeaning, but the syndicates liked
the name Peanuts and it stuck.
Quite
a few angsty, angry rock stars should have been cartoon characters -
or at the very least cartoonists.
It's
a more sedate lifestyle: cartoonists tend not to trash their pens and
brushes after a triumphant day's work. They are not regularly fed drugs
by starry-eyed groupies.
Rock
stardom indulges the basest aspects of a person's soul. Which is probably
good fun for a short period of time. But I can imagine many rock stars
would be happier hunched over a sketch pad, their tongues splayed in
concentration, as they try to make Snoopy dance.
Snoopy
was based on Schulz's pet dog Spike. Pets do mean prizes.
All the connections make my head hurt. Goodnight.