"It's not just that this kind of early death has become a fact of life that has become disturbing, but that it's been accepted as a given so quickly". - Lester Bangs in 1973 about Janis Joplin's death
I found out at about 9 p.m. last night that Mike Starr was found dead in his apartment in Salt Lake City. It honestly didn’t surprise me because of his well-documented struggles with addiction. It’s operating purely from a place of speculation to assume that this was why and how he died, as no official cause of death has been determined at this point. I cannot help or hide the fact that it fucks with me and bothers me, Try as I may. because it certainly does. In my mind that brings the death toll to 43%. 3 now of a group of 7 guys that got me through a defining period of my life are gone. I was a young confused teenager wandering blindly in an adult world that I wasn’t in any way prepared for and frankly scared to death of.
December, 1992. It’s after Christmas but before New Years Eve. I arrived at the East Coast Naval base I was assigned to on a cold and wet night. The kind of cold and wet that is just incomprehensible, even to an Indiana boy who had been spoiled by being a Texan for 11 of my then 18 years. I didn’t have a car, less than $40, and didn’t know a soul or even where to go on base. I got in on a Friday night and ended up spending 3 nights in the wrong barracks like a squatter because my boat was dry docked at another base up the river, unbeknownst to me at the time. I didn’t have the proper dorm I.D. to eat at the mess hall so I walked a few miles to a McDonald’s and ate. Back on base in the barracks that weren’t mine, dozens of young men were drinking and raising hell. No one was friendly, familiar, or recipient of a stranger. I was absolutely certain that I had made the biggest mistake of my life. I didn’t want to be here, a thousand miles from home, with all of these crazy frat-boy type people. I didn’t want to shower in a dark, open room with 12 showerheads hanging from the wall. I fucking wanted to go home Jack! The first of the month hit, my $256 paycheck hit the bank and I found out where I was supposed to be and got transported there at last. Now it was snowing. I was housed with a few hundred or so 18-30 year olds from all over the country and still didn’t know a soul. I found out that I could buy alcohol on base with my I.D. and I also found the Base Exchange and bought a few things, including cigarettes, vodka, a Walkman, a copy of Alice in Chains Dirt and Nirvana Incesticide on cassette. I didn’t know any of these people and was intimidated to be around most of them, so I recoiled into a world that existed between the 2 foam pads of my ear phones. This became my fortress of solitude. My happy place. My Cave. Walking around the seedy streets of Portsmouth, Virginia alone with 7 friends clipped to my hip. Kurt Kobain. Dave Grohl. Chris Novaselic. Layne Staley. Jerry Cantrell. Sean Kinney and Mike Starr. No matter how anxious, scared, confused, and conflicted I felt, I always felt just fine walking around and listening to those songs. "Down In A Hole" "Hate To Feel" "Rain When I Die" "Sickman" all contained snapshots of feelings and emotions that I too felt and identified with in a way that I had never identified with a song before. I began then a lifelong journey into immersing myself in music and the beautiful way that another person’s turn of phrase about something perhaps personal to them could unilaterally translate into a personal meaning for you as well.
From Dive "Kiss this, kiss that yeah. Live alone, lone single. At least, at least yeah, you could be my hero…" and they were my heroes. They were flawed, confused, conflicted, imperfect human beings who found a way for me to understand that I wasn’t the only flawed, conflicted, imperfect human being wandering around in the dark. I began completely identifying with lines like "Down in a hole and I don't know if I can be saved. See my heart, I decorate it like a grave. You don't understand who they thought I was supposed to be. Look at me now a man who won't let himself be…"
Kurt, Layne, and now Mike have all now succumbed to their own demons. People can sit in their glass houses and cast stones and dispersions about the perils of a "rock star lifestyle" and that what happened to them was and inevitable byproduct of their choices, and by and large they would be right. Jerry Cantrell once said, "We deal with our daily demons through music. All of the poison that builds up during the day we cleanse when we play". I deal with those daily demons by listening to and watching them play. I have long ago parted ways with the notion of actually trying to emulate anyone by being a musician because want, desire, and passion do not beget talent. I mean, lets be honest. I don’t have Rolando’s talent for music, James’s talent for the sketchpad and pencil, Patrick’s impeccable eye behind a lens, but I can and will write about it. That’s my niche. I will be content to be the Lester Bangs of this, our little online single- serving communal. It is in this that all of the poison that builds up during the day is also cleansed for me. Sometimes it is cathartic and totally refreshing, like an ice cold Fiji water, and other times it’s like drinking from a warm garden hose; both will take away your thirst, one just leaves a bad taste in your mouth. In this instance, score one for the latter. Rest in peace finally, Mike Starr.
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