I could be wrong, but did I see Courtney Love wearing a prim, white pinafore and sporting something very Marilyn Quayle-ish hair-wise at the Oscars? I mean, I might be smokin' something, but did she flutter her eyelashes and curtsy to the press corps!?

Good God, how time flies...

The great limping beast called Grunge has been searching for its final resting-place for some time now. Weary after years of intravenous drug use and numerous episodes involving high-caliber firearms, I think the floor is as good a place as any. Despite all of the misdirected glamour that has been glommed onto the likes of Lane Staley, Andrew Wood, Mark Arm, Kurt Cobain and Mark Lanegan for their reputed drug use, the end is nigh. Last week, in one final and gigantic stage dive, Soundgarden pulled the whole friggin' tent down with news of their dissolution.

Without their genre's spokesband plotting the course, groups like Mudhoney, TAD, The Fastbacks and Screaming Trees find themselves orphaned and rudderless in a vast sea of category-hungry record labels. The credibility strain created by legions of Nivanabes aping the sound of the Pacific Northwest has spoiled the whole darn pudding for everyone. The baby has been thrown out with the proverbial bath water.

There you have it...let the bells ring, put on your suit, you're going to a funeral.

"So what?" you might ask. "Grunge was created by and intended for fools, and by mentioning it, you sir, are a fool as well." True as that may be, I make mention of it for a reason. I cut my teeth on the stuff. Its passing stirs what few traces of sentimentality still remain in me. Not because I lament the corruption of a good thing, not because I fear a future free of power chords, but because it serves as a big, glaring signpost in my life. The demise of Grunge gives me the same sinking feeling as discovering a tuft of gray hair, or a wrinkle on what had been a smooth patch of skin.

Throughout the years, our physical growth is analogous to the maturation of our musical tastes. If you're a music lover, the era in which you grow up sticks to you like a paste - regardless of merit. It serves as a yardstick, or a timeline that helps to chart your progress. Like it or not, we're forced to react to the musical climate in which we develop.

We learn about music in various ways. I learned about it from the television. Once I got past music as a mnemonic device (the mantra of the ABCs, and grammar via School House Rock), I started to learn to enjoy it for its far less edifying qualities. As a third grader I liked Blondie because Deborah Harry was the stuff that prepubescent dreams are made of. I dug Quiet Riot because their album cover had a drawing of a guy with forks in his eyes (not to mention that Randy Rhoads was in the band--natch). And, Generation X and Adam Ant made the cut because they had cool buttons that looked nifty on my denim jacket.

In junior high I pitched the buttons in favor of safety pins. My tastes turned towards my hometown heroes Squirrel Bait, Big Wheel and Slint, and I grew my bangs to my chin. I spent all my chore money on a Christian Hosoi "Hammerhead" skateboard and began to spend all my free time hanging out in a sewer pipe that was euphemistically called the Rush Hole. My friends and I skated endlessly and learned to mouth the words to every track on Out Of Step by Minor Threat. It was easy to use music to separate the herd into neat, manageable packets. Punks and Poseurs, man. A marker-drawn "Anarchy" symbol, a surplus army coat and a cassette collection including anything by Seven Seconds, Black Flag or The Circle Jerks earmarked you as acceptable and worthy of friendship.

During high school, status mongering crept in. Music served as a soundtrack to a bad movie with less plot structure than a bowl of spaghetti. In life as in music, I learned about things the hard way. I grabbed everything with my grubby little fingers, pulled it close to my face for a sniff and then put it back where I found it. This got me into a considerable amount of trouble, but it was also a good way to figure out what was for me. I soaked up musical influences like a sponge. I did my work in the classics (Big Star, Zeppelin, T-Rex, Cream), as well as in contemporary studies (Sonic Youth, The Minutemen, Buffalo Tom, Dinosaur Jr.).

By the time that I reached college, I was at critical mass. The rest of my hair had begun to catch up with my bangs, my pants were sagging considerably, but my eyes were wide open. I was ready to get my mind entirely around one movement from start to finish. Coincidentally, there was a brand new attitude, fresh off the line. Everyone was victimizing themselves and blaming their parents for stuff...I wanted in! The result would be extensively named, publicized and marketed...um, Grunge, or sumthing.After a swift Doc Marten in the rear, the pithy rock products of the late eighties bowed out, and Grunge stepped up with a neatly packaged angst with matching dress code and complimentary handbook.

I was on that train. I bought the handbook, I ripped my jeans...hell, I even read poetry aloud at a coffee house. Grunge ran its course and then dropped dead due to the same illnesses that have been plaguing even the most well-intentioned trends for centuries. I'm not saying that it was a good thing. I'm just saying that I was there. It was something that happened, and now that it's gone I have perspective on it.

I just wish that perspective wasn't such a scary thing.

BRANDON BARBER