PR

Saw that Daniel Johnston movie at the Sunshine: cult singing-songwriting hero best known for his 1983 cover art on Kurt Cobain's T-shirt circa 1992: "Hi, how are you?" The deal is that he's supposed to be a genius but also clinically insane, institutionalized and raving about Satan etc.

Thing is, Dad got Kurt to babysit for me back in '91 (I was old for a babysitter but Kurt was totally cool about it, told me his mom and dad used to make him stay with a babysitter till he was like 18 or something ridiculous), and so Kurt told me that the whole crazy–Daniel Johnston story is just that: a story. Kid got himself a great PR guy, same one who did the whole Kurt's-a-junkie thing, and the rest is rock-and-roll history. It's amazing how much bullshit is out there and how much is taken for granted as fact. Don't people remember how much these people pay to have their reputation sculpted and polished?

FACT: Kurt Cobain graduated first in his class at Harvard in 1989.
FACT: He and Courtney met at Oxford summer school in England, where she was studying Chaucer.
FACT: Eminem had a regular role on a popular kids' television show of the 1980s.

The world of US Weekly might as well be Stalinist Russia with all the revisionism. No joke.