About Author

 

 Joseph Hulscher 

KCGB - The Boy From the Porch - My Dying Mom and Kurt Cobain is a story that has been percolating in the family since 2002. At first, I did not believe what I heard from my youngest brother John. I told him he was full of shit when he said Kurt Cobain got high in my old bedroom. No way, but I wisely began taking notes and journaling the stories two of my brothers shared. John was an open book, while his brother Tim kept it close to the vest, only sharing information if you took the time to pry it out of him. In 2011 I was able to get him to open up.

In June of 1997, we lost our Mother to cancer, which devastated my family. Unbeknown to all but two in our family, she had driven to Seattle not long before passing and shared a story with my Brother Tim and then the same with my brother John. She described a visitor coming to see her, and she thought it was the same kid she had helped 11 years earlier in 1986. Neither brother understood what the heck mom was talking about. It took until 2007 before we accepted the truth of this story. It was Kurt Cobain. 

Our home in Aberdeen, Washington, was a revolving door of kids coming and going in the '80s, often at all hours of the night. The place was a good hideout, so it is not surprising that Kurt blended into our family, unaware he was even there, but he was. This was the summer of 1986, just after he spent a week in jail and found himself homeless. Legends say he slept under the Young St. Bridge or in a cardboard box on a friend's porch. He was couch surfing and relying on friends for a place to sleep, even finding a chair in the hospital lobby as a warm place to catch a few z's. 

I was given a front-row seat to understanding Aberdeen and all the characters in this story, meeting Krist Novoselic in 9th grade at Miller Junior High School. We were both new kids, myself having spent the previous eight years at St. Mary School while Krist teleported in from Southern California. Talk about a culture shock for him. Aberdeen was alive but beginning to feel the effects of the changing Timber industry that was about to be rocked by a Spotted Owl. 

You will be disappointed if you expect this book to rock your Kurt Cobain world early on. But keep reading. This family memoir will introduce you to our Mother and compare and contrast the world of Kurt at the same time. There are some new stories about Kurt's life that I have learned and some legends that will be clarified. It was very intimidating to write about Kurt, almost like sacred ground. Still, it was as if he were saying it was OK to share this story because it would be as if he were advocating for the feminine, our Mom, and in this way, you will read and learn about her contributions to the world, and how mysteriously, their lives became interconnected in ways I still do not understand. Kurt loved his mother. That is a fact. He longed for a traditional family and felt it when meeting Mom. I hope you enjoy reading the story as much as I have enjoyed putting it together in a way that makes sense concerning my family and friends of Kurt.