I write about random things a lot. I write a lot about random things. You know, this time of year is always a bit of an interesting one to me as a musician. I mean, sure - Easter is a fun time, and no matter how you celebrate, it's good to have a little extra time to unwind.

But the musician side of me is always drawn again and again to the story of Kurt Cobain. Likely to remain a mystery greater even than that of what happened with O.J. Simpson, it's time once again for the anniversary of Cobain's death in his Seattle home.

It's funny now to be in an environment like our school, because a large percentage of you reading this aren't old enough to remember anything about the incident when it happened. Personally, I can remember being in a Grade 7 music class when the teacher came in that afternoon, April 8, 1994, and made the announcement. I had never before heard of Kurt Cobain or Nirvana.

Every year it comes around again, music magazines and websites all begin to publish stories about how he used to be, try to fill in some of the blanks behind his music. In truth, it seems tragic to me that someone who was so talented, someone with such a fire inside, even wound up in the position he was in. That isn't to say that Cobain shouldn't have been famous or published, but in that position of being made to give and give of yourself as leader of a band, that couldn't have been an easy thing for someone so volatile and fragile, I would imagine.

In the years since his passing, Cobain's musical legacy has been (sadly) nearly trumped by the conspiracies surrounding his death. Even though you may not remember where you were when he died, you've probably heard enough of these conspiracies in the past 16 years to know there are two very distinct factions on this topic - one group insists that he struggled under the weight of his own creative genius and wasn't able to overcome the drugs to which he turned, while the other group insist that Cobain was being drugged and detained, a prisoner in his own life to threats of danger.

Unfortunately, inconsistencies in behaviour and accounts of the incidents by those involved do a lot to support the allegations of murder - to this day, hardcore fans scream out for justice against his widowed wife, Courtney Love, and she hasn't done much in the way of convincing anyone of her innocence, looking at her strange behaviour around the time. Though I don't have enough space here to get into any specifics, The Smoking Gun (thesmokinggun.com) has an extensive collection of official documents, including police reports of incidents and interviews with Courtney Love (with her name blacked out of each document), and all are found with a simple search.

The reason I bring it up is that as each year passes, lots of people struggle with depression and stress, results of the kind of pressure to perform, to succeed, to entertain. Hopefully there are no conspiracies in your life, no dark figures chasing you to rob you of your genius, but there is a lot of pressure to perform well here at school so keep it cool and stay safe - we've only got a few weeks to go. Don't do anything crazy, because you could be robbing the world of your genius too.

Dave Reed, Cobain's former foster father, said this of Kurt: “He had the desperation, not the courage, to be himself. Once you do that, you can't go wrong, because you can't make any mistakes when people love you for being yourself.”

m out of words.