Easter, 1994
I left Ireland young, my ma had gone to England before and found a job and a flat above a halal butchers. On Saturdays and Sundays the sound of a saw going through bones hummed in my head as I watched cartoons and ate bowls of cereal. Each school holiday I’d return to Ireland and live another life with my da or my grandparents. The life of a what? Child of divorce? Unaccompanied minor (the name they call kids who take planes on their own)? The life of living on holiday? Easter was not about the resurrection (although I was sent to a roman catholic school) - it was chocolate eggs, how many i’d get, how many I could eat in a day and which out of the many would be the best. Those eggs often came with a teacup to remind you the year round about easter chocolate and gluttony. Did anyone else like to headbutt the eggs before unwrapping the foil?
Do these easter traditions still exist in England and Ireland ? Much like unaccompanied minors on planes I don’t see in Portugal or before in France gluttonous children eating more chocolate in a day than most would get in a week. Is it a insight into how we’re raised and how we treat food as something that can’t be a normal pleasure - is it linked to how we grow into binge drinkers?
The first fourteen years of my life Easters were defined by greed. The Easter of 1994 was the last one, as on Saturday 9th April I saw on MTV Kurt Cobain had killed himself. Nirvana were my favourite band. My innocence changed - someone who made music for a living, had videos on MTV, fans all over the world would end their life. Around this time of the year (probably linked to Kurts’ death) I have joked about celebrating the crucifixion by stuffing our mouths with chocolate. We were made to read the bible at school and made to go to mass and one of the images that stayed with me is the resurrection of Jesus pushing back the stone from the cave where his body was and in my mind I see Kurt Cobain. Six months after his death the record company released Unplugged in New York with the song Jesus Doesn’t Want Me For A Sunbeam and I’m not implying that Jesus and Kurt have anything to do with each other but trying to get the memories out and untangle the reason why every year since 1994 Easter and the anniversary of his suicide mix together even on different dates. Has it become my own tradition to link these for life? I can’t be the only one. Nirvana changed my life when my dad gave me the money to buy Nevermind in Tower Records when it was on Wellington Quay in 1992 - I read every interview I could and through their music discovered and searched out William Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, Black Flag, PJ Harvey, Leadbelly, The Breeders, The Pixies, Samuel Beckett…
As a fan of a certain age I find it unusual to see so many Nirvana smiley face tshirts these days worn by babies or people in their 80s - I can’t help but wonder would they buy the original Nirvana tshirt has these words on the back FLOWER SNIFFING/KITTY PETTIN/BABY KISSIN/CORPORATE ROCK WHORES
The smiley face was just one of Nirvana’s ways to get people to open their minds and maybe think before wearing something. I had a collection of over 30 Nirvana shirts which I can’t remember ever giving away and I wonder why this one- Dante’s circle of hell hasn’t become the stupid status symbol that the other has:
