Yes, You’re Old: Nirvana Baby, Now 17, Reenacts Nevermind Cover

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mojo-photo-nevermindguy.jpgI know your corns were giving you trouble and you just stepped on your bifocals, but here’s another reminder of your rapidly advancing age: the wee tot whose wee-wee was displayed proudly on the cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind album is now 17 years old, and he has recreated the famous photo, just to rub it in. Spencer Elden was just a baby when his parents were paid $200 to drop him in a pool for the up-and-coming Seattle band. The resulting image of the infant swimming hungrily after a dollar bill (coinciding with Nirvana’s move to Geffen) has since become one of the most iconic in the history of recorded music. MTV News says it’s “unclear” why Elden shot the new photo, although I think the subject of the photo itself might be a big hint. Elden’s wearing dopey board shorts in the new photo, which EW’s Popwatch blog says turns out to be “the difference between art and commerce,” and they’re right: naked, it would have been a kind of John-Lennon-In-Bed-With-Yoko statement, but instead it gives the impression some sleazy web site gave him 50 bucks, and he goes “okay, but I’m keeping the shorts on,” and they go, “fine, just hurry up, we’ve got a Lohan story to cover.” So the whole thing feels more sad and embarrassing than anything else. …Or wait, maybe that’s our gray hair that’s sad and embarrassing.

Photo from splashnewsonline.com.

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It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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