Newsweek Cover: 'Exclusive Excerpt: The Kurt Cobain Diaries'

Entry on His Heroin Addiction

In 'Journals' Cobain Talks About His and Courtney Love's Drug Addiction, Detoxing A Month Before the Birth of Their Child; He Attacks Pearl Jam, Writes

Surprisingly Ambitious Band Memos Controversy Over Book Has Fans, Nirvana Band Members Split

NEW YORK, Oct. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- The journals and writings of Kurt Cobain, the late lead singer of Nirvana, are raw and unsettling and reveal how he spiraled from an ambitious kid in a garage band to a disillusioned pop star with a deadly heroin addiction. In the October 28 issue (on newsstands Monday, October 21), Newsweek exclusively excerpts passages from "Journals," a collection of handwritten diary entries, letters, band memos, drawings, screeds and cries from the heart that editor Julie Grau culled from stacks of Cobain's notebooks.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20021020/NYSU003 )

Riverhead Books, who will publish "Journals" next month, is said to have paid the Cobain estate-his widow, Courtney Love, and his 10-year-old daughter, Frances-in the neighborhood of $4 million. The book is already controversial among some fans, who worry that it's an invasion of Cobain's privacy, his suicide in April 1994 being tragic, irrefutable evidence of his desire to be left alone. Nirvana's drummer, Dave Grohl, and its bassist and cofounder, Krist Novoselic, recently settled a lawsuit with Love over control of the band's legacy. Novoselic preferred not to speak for this story, his manager Corey Moore saying, "He just feels it's wrong to talk about something this private. He doesn't want to be involved with these diaries on any level."

After his death, Cobain's personal belongings started disappearing. Cobain's grieving friend Eric Erlandson, who played guitar in Love's band, Hole, saw what was happening and moved to safeguard valuables including his notebooks. "From day one I treated the whole situation the way I would have for any friend-keeping their stuff safe," he says. "But from a historical perspective, I treated it like I would have treated John Lennon's legacy. I guess I knew even then it was important." An excerpt follows:

'I Am Not A junkie'

Cobain married Love in February 1992. The singer's heroin addiction raged all summer. He entered a rehab facility in Marina del Rey, Calif., and wrote in his journal prodigiously. Among the entries was this open letter to Nirvana fans, which he never made public.

I kind of feel like a dork writing about myself like this as if I were an American pop-rock icon-demi God, or a self-confessed product of corporate-packaged rebellion, but I've heard so many insanely exhaggerated stories or reports from my friends and Ive read so many pathetic second rate, freudian evaluations from interviews from my childhood up until the present state of my personality and how I'm a notoriously f---ed up heroine addict, alcoholic, self destructive, yet overtly sensitive, frail, fragile, soft spoken, narcoleptic, neurotic, little pissant who at any minute is going to O.D. jump off a roof wig out blow my head off or all 3 at once. Oh Pleez GAWD I can't handle the success! The success! And I feel so incredibly guilty! For abandoning my true commrades who were the ones who are devoted who were into us a few years ago. And in 10 years when NIRVANA becomes as memorable as Kajagoogoo that same very small percent will come to see us at reunion gigs sponsored by Depends diapers, bald fat still trying to RAWK at amusement parks. Saturdays: puppet show, rollercoaster & Nirvana ...

Well for those of you who are concerned with my present physical and mental state. I am not a junkie. I am not gay, although I wish I were, just to piss off homophobes. Ive had a rather unconclusive and uncomfortable stomach condition for the past 3 years which by the way is not related to stress which also means it is not an ulcer. Because there is no pattern to the burning, nauseaus pain in my upper abdominal cavity, I never know when it will happen, I can be at home in the most relaxed atmosphere sipping natural spring water, no stress, no fuss and then WHAM! like a shotgun: stomach time. Then I can play 100 live performances in a row, guzzle boric acid & do a zillion television interviews and not even a burp. This has left doctors with no ideas except the usual: here Kurt, try another peptic ulcer pill and lets jam this fibre optic tube with a video camera in it down your throat for the 3rd time and see whats going on in there. Again. Yep your in pain alright. Your stomach is extremely inflamed and red. Try eating ice cream from now on. Please lord, f--k hit records, just let me have my very own unexplainable rare stomach disease named after me. And the title of our next double album, "Cobain's disease."

So after protein drinks, becoming a vegetarian, exercise, stopping smoking, and doctor after doctor I decided to relieve my pain with small doses of heroine for a walloping 3 whole weeks. It served as a band-aid for a while but then the pain came back so I quit. It was a stupid thing to do and Ill never do it again and I feel real sorry for anyone who thinks they can use heroine as a medicine because um, duh, it don't work. Drug withdrawal is everything you've ever heard. You puke, you falail around, you sweat, you s-t your bed just like that movie "Christiane F." It's evil. Leave it alone.

I am the product of 7 months of screaming at the top of my lungs almost every night 7 months of jumping around like a retarded rheesus monkey 7 months of answering the same questions over and over ... . I'm really bored with everyones concerned advice like: "man you have a really good thing going. Your band is great. You write great songs, but hey man you should get your personal s-t together. Don't freak out, and get healthy." Gee I wish it was as easy as that but, honestly I didn't want all this attention but Im not freaked out which is something a lot of people would like to see. Its an entertaining thought to watch a rock figure whos public domain mentally self destruct. But I'm sorry friends Ill have to decline. Maybe Crispin Glover should join our band.

Well Ive spewed enough, probably too much but oh well, for every one opinionated, pissy, self appointed rock judge cermudgeon there's a thousand kids ...