I know this seems out of left field but in the 1990’s when Nirvana broke – they kicked the dick off of the type of rock star that had been prevalent. Kurt Cobain was not married to a model but a fucking insane loudmouth rock star in her own right. He was short and he was skinnier than Kate Moss. He wore dresses, eyeliner and nail polish on network television and kissed his band mate Krist on Saturday Night Live. Kurt appeared on the cover of The Advocate. He wasn’t gay or a drag queen nor was he just trying to shock people or pull some gimmick. He was trying to assert with all of his being that being a man had nothing to do with asserting power over women or gay people or looking or behaving a certain way. I wonder if an Eddie Brill type would have seen Kurt and thought, “This guy is not authentic. He’s trying to be too much like a woman.”

I saw Nirvana perform and The Breeders opened for them. Kurt came out and apologized that they were not the Breeders. He said he wished he could be as bad-ass as Kim Deal. A guy said that on stage about a woman at the height of his fame. He was hanging around with Riot Grrrl Kathleen Hanna from Bikini Kill who spray painted, “Kurt smells like Teen Spirit” on a wall, which is where he got the name for that song. He was quoted as saying, “The future of rock belongs to women.” Nirvana often had the girl group Shonen Knife open for them. At first, audiences got angry and violent – as the ‘jocks’ in the audience didn’t want to see chicks in a band. Kurt helped change the culture because he walked it like he talked it. He brought women in front of his audience. He wrote things on his album liner notes (“what are those?” you ask – shut up) that said, “If you’re sexist and hate women, don’t come to our shows.”