Biofuel may displace Nirvana as town's claim to fame

ABERDEEN, WASH. -- Downtown, the theater is long-shuttered and the streets are empty at midday. A few businesses -- a thrift shop, a tattoo parlor, a place to take out payday loans -- fill some space.

What seems to give Aberdeen a pulse are the shrines to the best-known product of this coastal town: the poet of despair, Kurt Cobain. As the lead singer and songwriter for Nirvana, Cobain shook up the popular music world in a few years of chaotic creativity and then shot himself to death at his house in Seattle.

Dead for 12 years, Cobain has perhaps never been a greater cultural and economic force. In October, Forbes magazine reported that his estate had generated more money in the previous year than that of any other dead celebrity, about $50 million. In that sense, Cobain is bigger than Elvis.

But at the same time, Aberdeen -- which has a population of about 16,000 -- would like to be known for something else. A day after the Forbes report appeared, people gathered at the muddy port at the edge of town for the groundbreaking of what they said would be the nation's largest biodiesel fuel plant.

Down for so long as the fortunes of its timber economy have fallen, this area 110 miles south of Seattle hopes to become a beachhead for a new energy future. Creating fuel from farm crops, the plant is expected to turn out 100 million gallons a year -- more than the entire biodiesel output of the United States last year, officials said.

No matter how much of the clean-burning fuel is produced in Aberdeen, the ghost of Cobain is likely to remain front and center. Cobain is a cultural export tied to a dreary past. The plant is a promise and a gamble on the future.

It has taken time for Aberdeen to come to terms with its best-known son. Cobain was arrested for petty crimes. He told interviewers that he had lived under a bridge for a time and spray-painted "God is gay" around town as an act of youthful provocation.

Still, people come from all over the world to stare into the inky expanse of the Wishkah River, to walk up the doorsteps of the ramshackle rental house where Cobain lived after high school.

"Barely a day goes by when there isn't someone outside with a camera, taking pictures of this sidewalk," said Les Blue, who has worked for 19 years at Rosevear's Music Center, where Cobain is said to have bought his first guitar.

The Cobain estate generated money through sales of Nirvana albums, rights for television and movie deals, and an interest in the band's song catalogue.

Aberdeen does not see much of the Cobain income, town officials said. But they did finally acknowledge him, though indirectly. Last year, a big roadside sign went up at the edge of town -- "Welcome to Aberdeen, Come as You Are." The second line is a reference to a Nirvana song.