Come As You Are: Kurt Cobain’s Washington

Take Your Time, Hurry Up

It’s a trying time to be a travel blogger. A few drives around Seattle and a couple of mini-road trips, Danny and I followed the grunge king’s story in the Evergreen state.

Only a true Nirvana fan would be excited to visit Aberdeen, a small logging town two hours southwest of Seattle. Nicknames include “The Hellhole of the Pacific” or “The Port of Missing Men” due to a high murder rate. Aberdeen is grim, made up of homes in need of serious TLC, boarded-up buildings, and lots of fast-food restaurants (2 Dairy Queens in a town with 16k residents). It’s a working class town without the class. The famed “Come As You Are” welcome sign was placed in 2005.

From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah

Kurt lived in several different homes and towns throughout Grays Harbor but his main childhood home is located in Felony Flats at 1210 East First Street. The Kurt Cobain Memorial is a tiny park just two blocks away. A few modest tributes have been placed here in his honor — statues, a couple of signs, and a granite headstone. The headstone is engraved with a handful of quotes, one of which the city deemed offensive (“Drugs are bad for you. They will fuck you up”) and was crudely sandblasted to censor. I brought a crayon and made a rubbing of Kurt’s image from the stone. 

There’s no parking lot, so we had to park directly in front of someone’s house. A grumpy, homemade sign is posted in their yard wanting us to know that Kurt never lived in their house which is not a gift shop, we should watch out for needles, and yes, they “get tired of this.”

Decades before it was named after him, Kurt hung around this park and notably under the Young Street Bridge as a teen in the ‘80s. In the song “Something in the Way,” he eluded to having lived under the bridge. People who knew him say he never did and with the tides and mud of the Wishkah River, it was not possible. On the day we were there, someone was definitely living there. A sign informed us that Wishkah is an adaptation of the Chehalis Indian word hwish-kahl, meaning ‘stinking water.’ Rumor has it that some of Kurt’s ashes were scattered here.

Where Did You Sleep Last Night

Kurt attended Weatherwax High School, now known as Aberdeen High. He didn’t graduate but ended up back here a few years later when he worked as a janitor. Watch the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video and notice a nod to his former occupation. The high school suffered a fire in 2002, so likely looks very different than it would have in Kurt’s day.

Although the bridge story may have been an exaggeration, during periods of homelessness in Aberdeen, Kurt slept in heated hallways of apartment buildings or in the lobby of the Grays Harbor Community Hospital.

The Capitol of Washington

Kurt moved to Olympia in 1989. In a small apartment at 114 Pear Street, he wrote the majority of Nirvana’s songs. When I got out of the car to take a pic, someone from inside yelled, “oooooh Kurt Cobain!” I guess they get tired of this too.

He liked to eat at the Spar Cafe and King Solomon’s Reef, just around the corner.

Fun fact: His famous mixed tape titled “Montage of Heck” included a Partridge Family song. There will be no talking to Danny after discovering this.

Movin On Up

Although most people associate Seattle with Kurt Cobain, he lived here for less than two years.

The posh Lake Washington home where he last lived went up for sale last year. Don’t judge me, but I tried to schedule an appointment to see it. I never heard back and I’m sure the realtor wrote it off as some wacky radio bit or just knew I am an annoying looky-loo. As there are no official memorials to Kurt in Seattle, fans have turned Viretta Park, next door, into an unofficial gathering spot. The park’s benches are decorated with Nirvana-related graffiti. You can see a sliver of his house through the trees. On this particular day, someone had left flowers and a handwritten note to Kurt. With the controversy surrounding him, I can understand a reluctance to name things after him, but I also don’t think the way he died should overshadow his musical contributions… maybe that’s just me.

26 Years After His Death

This isn’t exactly what I had envisioned for this blog pre-COVID, but here we are. I did not stay at the Polynesian Resort in Ocean Shores where Kurt worked for a time and often took naps in the rooms, I did not stay in room 226 at the Marco Polo Motel, a dicey operation where as a rockstar at the height of his fame Kurt would come to shoot up when his wife wouldn’t allow drugs at home. And I did not eat his favorite things, like the bananas dulce at Cactus or at Taco Time, home to his favorite burritos. I did get a sense of his life, his talent, and why Nirvana’s songs are the perfect soundtrack to the Pacific Northwest.

Source: Heavier Than Heaven