I'm back in Montreal for the holidays, going little by little, as I do in my free time, through the suitcases full of my private correspondences dating from roughly 1986 to 2001 (after which there is virtually no paper trail at all). I pulled out, at random, a letter I had somehow never noticed before, and I'm not quite sure how it came into my possession. I am not quite sure who wrote it either, nor to whom it was written. It is evidently someone I knew in California in the early 1990s, but nothing in it rings a bell.
I had had the intention of copying out a few extracts, simply in view of their remarkable testimony to the spirit of era, and only after I began the transcription did it dawn on me, with the aid of a bit of Googling, that this letter is even more interesting than I had at first supposed. It was written by a girlfriend, evidently at the tail end of her relationship, to a well-known alternative rock star, identified here only as 'R.'. This R. was, in 1994, at the cusp of fame. I have decided to abbreviate names to protect anonymity. Astute readers might be able to identify R. nonetheless from the available clues.
Anyhow what interests me about it is the way a report from a fairly mediocre life (and the sort of life that is very familiar to me from that era) can end up, with time, to have a real archival value. Traces of lives are mundane when first left, but then their mundanity warps or rusts or ferments into historicity. And to think that this can happen even with scraps of paper I've been dragging around with me from city to city, as I myself warp and rust: astounding.
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Hey Dude,
I started a letter to you weeks ago, but you know how that goes! I have 15 minutes now so I'll see what I can fit in. So fucking much has happened I don't know where to begin! I'll start where you left me in Jan. (with R. in my bed and E. on his way.) My life is a T.V. mini series! J. said (he is a character you have not met yet) going out with me is like being on "Hard Copy" or "A Current Affair"...
J. is part owner of B. Café where I now work. He is a brilliant writer and has the best sense of humor since you and I. He is 30 which means he is very serious about relationships etc. He won't play games and has no tolerance for R.'s B.S. For 2 weeks J. and I had an incredible binge together. Xanax to crack and everything in between. We have some stories that we are lucky enough to live to tell. Don't tell anyone but I've been hanging out at the Viper Room (w/ Johnny Depp and all). Also J.'s best friend is married to Drew Barrymore. I am quite the Hollywood scenster [sic] now...
R.'s album was released on Tuesday on Geffen records. It was the #1 new added on college play lists. He is signing a publishing deal for another $175,000! (and he is still a cheap bastard). I love him so much! He is moving to Connecticut a week from now. We are both moping around depressed and we can't figure out why. We both just achieved huge life goals. My theory is that we love each other and we know we are going to have to be apart soon. We have spoken about marriage and my moving to New York but in an indirect sort of way. I don't know what to do!...
E. is insane! He calls and threatens to do something to my grandparents if I don't pay him. Yikes. He is so gross. My judgement about guys has been so lame. I worry about myself. All the more reason to just settle down with R. At least he is sane...
The death of Kurt Cobain hit us all pretty hard. It still freaks me out. I wish he could have held on to the strength of his creativity to survive instead of letting it drive him over the edge. I'm sure all the drugs did not help. It is so depressing especially when I think that I try to help heal people who are depressed with their creativity. I was hanging w/ J. about the time Kurt offed himself. That marks the beginning of our binge, we couldn't take the grief. We felt all his pain and J. insisted that he was possessed by the spirit of Kurt Cobain as we laughed our way through those crazy punk rock weeks...
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