Not one time did he write back to me and tell me he was with someone and they were having a baby together--and not one time did someone close to him tell me, either, so while I was shooting from the hip and my third letter to him got sweeter, he was shooting from the hip and knocking up some broad and didn’t say a word about it to anybody. I wonder what else he’s keeping from all of us. Yeah, and he likes to call himself “brutally honest”.

Bullshit.

I can’t believe I actually used to like this careless, spineless sack of shit. Go ahead and keep lying to the whole wide world and tell me again how you’re tortured, and then go ahead and have a million more babies and royally screw the Earth. Dickhead.

God. You know, I love the man–I can’t muster anger towards him because it’s his life, I have no say whatsoever–but you have to admit that’s a real dick move, where a fan who’s trying to be sweet with you and she kind of let down her guard with you, and you can’t so much as tell her in private that you’re with someone and you’re having a fucking baby with them. I’ve always been respectful of his privacy, too, so of course I feel used (and in a weird, metaphorical way, like the other woman)–what really gets me even more is I always saw people saying how he’s the nicest guy ever. Yeah, I have to laugh at that now, and that’s all I can do is laugh at those testimonials.

But on the other hand, I’m actually glad I found out about it now instead of 2015 when I was 10 minutes from the psych ward and not in any state of mind to find out news like that. Whatever. Consider Ben Shepherd behind me. Like I said, the guy can have 20 more kids and I wouldn’t care because I didn’t lie to him, nor was I irresponsible with my words to him… and the lack thereof.

Now I want everyone to understand that I’m not into gossip. Too many scars on my psyche, too many ruined relationships, too much confusion, and not enough truth. I have had a couple anons in the past who were like “you know Ben has a gf” and I’d be like “whatever, bro” because I really don’t care one way or the other. His life is his life and that has always been my approach. I have had women message me, tell me rude things about him and then proceed to insult me. And when you gossip you become “that” person. It’s a lowering, demeaning position, not just for the person you’re gossiping about but for yourself. And in my case, it was always sexist because God forbid likes a guy.

But understand that after my second letter to him, when I began letting my guard down to him because I had already told him my life story in my first, it would’ve been nice—because Soundgarden were on a lengthy break after four straight years of touring—to have heard from him. I’m respectful of privacy, too, so had he said something to me about it, know that I would’ve understood and gave him my full respect because I am just that type of person.

But that’s not what happened. I didn’t hear a peep from him. So when I wrote to him again in 2016, I was totally vulnerable with him with a pic of myself included (it was modest, though, in my David Bowie shirt and my jeans so it wasn’t like I was flounced in my panties or anything) and the point of that was to show him what I looked like and I was also holding two paintings I had made in hand. And I told him I loved his mom—and she was totally on board with it, too!

But I didn’t hear a word about him having a baby with someone, though. I don’t think anyone knew, and to be honest, that’s not fair to the child or to the woman he had him with—and I say this because my Soundgarden book New Metal Crown talks about Ione and his wife at the time. This was almost out of the blue.

Almost, because do you see how I kind of feel like the other woman, though? Kept it under wraps, the ball was always in his court whenever I wrote to him and I never got a reply, I was always told he wants to meet me but nothing ever came of it—and the few people who know him I’ve spoken to were like “really?” when I said I wrote to him. It’s just... it’s twisted. The whole god damn thing is twisted.

Ben lied to me. He lied to all of us. Lied by omission but a lie is a lie no matter how you look at it, and I have no patience for lying. It’s damaging to trust and not to mention it’s insulting. You seriously believe that someone going out of her way to be nice to you is considered flirting? You think I’m just some home wrecker, some girl who grew up repressed and wants to fuck everything in sight? You also seriously think I’m that dumb? I’m not angry at him, and I can’t get angry at him because there’s nothing I can do about it, but know that if I could punch him in that big fat potbelly of his, I would—I’m a hockey player, too, I know how to fight dirty. Chris was onto something when he said “I used to think that silence was golden.”

But on the other hand, it all makes sense now. That explains why I never got a reply from him and why I pretty much had to rely on hearsay to find out about gigs even: remember the Sonics show he did with Barrett Martin in 2015 (four months before his son was born mind you)? Yeah I didn’t learn about that until two days after it happened. Two days!

Also to anyone who thinks that kid is “cute”: it’s NOT cute, man. It’s the offspring of lies and a guy who didn’t have the spine to even so much as say a word about it until the kid was almost two years old. Shit, his godson is cuter than that spawn (pfff, Ione was cuter than him when she was little).

Uncontrolled // Hater

Warning: this is very dirty, so don’t read if you’re a prude or hungry for that matter #exotica #throughthestomach

Last night, I had a dream about Nirvana. You were their second guitarist as planned from the days of Bleach. I had scribbled two extra “H”s and an extra “N” on Dave’s kick drum and everyone absolutely loved it. You and Kurt were like Lennon and McCartney in the way you harmonized and sang to the chorus of Spank Thru—I told Kurt it was my favorite, but I saw he never told you that. He also never told me that you two and Courtney were going to record Asking For It all together with Hole, and that the two of you planned a dual solo together in Drain You. Indeed, I woke up singing “you’re my vitamins” to myself and my mom’s voice echoing “Chris died! Hannah, Chris died!” in my mind. I sighed as I knew it was all a dream: Kurt’s gone, Courtney’s still as controversial as ever, and you’re still out of sight, out of mind, and quite frankly, I don’t blame you.

I wrote a letter to you again, last week, but I neglected to send it. I wanted to do something for your 50th year of life here on Earth but I felt it wouldn’t be good enough. And I value your privacy, a strange, almost alien concept in a society that expects the opposite from me—it reminds me of the first line in Dumb by Nirvana: “I’m not like them but I can pretend.”

You soundtracked my darkest hours. I came to you when my broken thoughts started to sew themselves back together. I opened to you when I couldn’t do it with anyone else, when I lived in my private hell alone. I told people about you, and whether or not they believed me was up to them: those who did supported me; those who didn’t challenged me. I protected you and your privacy from those who challenged me. And then, like magic—slowly, but surely, you opened up to me.

You will always make my toes curl. You will always make my heart hammer inside my chest. You will always put that tickling feeling in my tummy. I will never not want to touch you, to hug you, to feel you against me. I still want you to model for me: to strip yourself of your clothes and let me draw your beautiful body, because I’ve long known that my pencils do the talking more than my lips ever will. I recently considered merely flying up to Bainbridge Island to find you, and the two of us could have lunch or a cup of coffee together. Just you and me, but I don’t know how you’d feel about it, and who knows? Maybe Mama Shepherd would want to join us. I still want you to write a song about Chris and I’m hoping Matt and Kim have aces high up their sleeves for what’s to come in the remainder of this decade and beyond. But for now, there’s this.

This is honest to God my favorite picture of you. I’ve had this picture forever it seems. When I lived in Oregon, I had it positioned in such a way that you were the first thing I looked at when I woke up in the morning and the last thing I saw before I fell asleep. I’ve drawn it a total of four times and I could never comprehend why I’ve always been so fascinated by this one. But about a year ago, I came to a consensus that it showed me you are not “the angry rocker”. You are not that unfair label of the enraged little pissant who likes to throw his basses and flip the bird at unruly audience members. This picture showed me that you are soft, that you are tender, that you have a soul, that there is more to you than just the strange, scandalous motions on stage and the cathartic screams in Otis and Mike; there is more to the 6′5″ intense behemoth behind the curtain.

There are four things now that I associate you with: first and foremost is Nirvana. Every song, be it from the Fecal Matter demos to Teen Spirit; every aspect from Foo Fighters to Hole to the Melvins to Kurt saying “I think ‘oh, oh, oh’ means ‘shut up, Krist’; I associate it all with you, the man who nearly made my namesake, one of the most famous trios in history a quartet. The second thing is this song. I can’t explain it but it always makes me think of you. The third thing is this picture of me. Originally a black and white photo, I played with a bit to fit into the autumnal color theme on my Twitter. I was going to send the black and white version to you. I washed and brushed my hair and then put on my pink flannel over my favorite bra. I wanted to look sexy for you. The fourth thing is this quote from Lemony Snicket: “I love no one but you, I have discovered, but you are far away and I am here alone. Then this is my life and maybe, however unlikely, I’ll find my way back there. Or maybe, one day, I’ll settle for second best. And on that same day, hell will freeze over, the sun will burn out, and the stars will fall from the sky.”

You crawled forth onto this beautiful planet a half of a century ago, in the heart of the psychedelic era, in one of the most turbulent years in history, and yet you came out the other side, still tall and brooding like the Headless Horseman, a Byronic hero straight out of a Charlotte Bronte novel, still everything to me.

Happy birthday, baby.

This album is undoubtedly amazing, but my favorite is forever the 2nd. Ben and Matt, everyone