Big Cheese

It's been nearly 19 years since Kurt Cobain decided to end his life, but his legacy still looms large even if it's more of a cultural touchstone than anything else. Musical trends have come and gone and the angst-ridden, punk-tinged indie-rock revolution he led is alive and well in the music collections of those of us who were of age back then, but kids today lump Nirvana in with the classic rock their parents dig. Today, the music charts are all about hip hop, country and pop. Which is fine.

But the commercialization of Cobain lives on. Every few years, there's a new box set or hits collection released. You can buy any number of horrendous Kurt Cobain-esque Halloween costumes. This week, news broke that CBS had purchased a sitcom called, yep, Smells Like Teen Spirit, about an 18-year-old Internet entrepreneur who clashes with his '90s indie-rock parents blah blah blah. Then a few days later, it was reported that Cobain's widow Courtney Love was working on a Nirvana musical for Broadway or a motion picture. I suppose we can thank Green Day for that.

Of course, all this has led folks to moan about the death of so-called alternative culture, but really, it was beaten to death long ago. After all, when Nirvana and Pearl Jam et al hit it big in the early '90s, there was a huge run on lame-ass products and programming targeted at "Generation X." There was Reality Bites. OK Soda. Grunge fashion (aka douchebags paying $150 for flannel shirts). We were done with all that shit even before Cobain decided it was better to burn out than to fade away. So the fact that people are hoping to cash in on that nostalgia is no big shocker.

It's not even worth getting angry about anymore. Just laughable, really. And the description of the sitcom is funnier than anything that will actually make the air, and not for the reasons the show's producers hope. It's funny because it's pathetic and eminently predictable. Same as it ever was.