The Generous Life

My unlikely journalism career owes its beginning to a great man who died suddenly last week: Charles Cross, age 67.

“It’s impossible to imagine the music or community of Seattle in the Eighties and Nineties without Charles,” producer and former Death Cab for Cutie member Chris Walla wrote on X. “He influenced or enabled practically every story, relationship, and musicians…in the city for decades. I’m eternally grateful.”

Back in the 80s and 90s, Seattle was the good kind of weird and Charley was publishing a jet-fueled music magazine, The Rocket. It was THE voice for all things music in the Emerald City.

The Rocket was the first to cover bands such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains—all those other Northwest bands that later leaped to national fame.

But The Rocket also ran these odd bunny cartoons called “Life in Hell.” The cartoon had absolutely nothing to do with rock-n-roll or Seattle but Charley wanted to support this relatively unknown cartoonist named Matt Groening. Today Groening is celebrated for creating “The Simpsons.”

That was Charley—always encouraging up-and-coming indie musicians, artists, satirists, cartoonists…

And newbies.

That was me.

When I met him in 1987, I was a not-suited-for-science geologist with a vague hope of becoming a newspaper reporter. Ridiculous on its face. I had zero writing experience. None.

Somehow, my rock-n-roll-afficianado brother got me into Charley’s casual-cool office at The Rocket in downtown Seattle. Charley and I had a good talk and he started sending me out to review the city’s local bar bands—the same bar bands that would later leap to national fame.

My “rock” experience at that time dealt only with minerals. But even I could hear a peculiar sound haunting Seattle’s misty streets. Angry grit amid unrelenting rain. Plaintive lyrics of pure adolescent angst. Flannel. Grunge rock.

Every time I turned in one of my reviews to The Rocket, Charley would sit with me in his office and rip apart anything sub-par. Never, ever, were his criticisms personal: He intended to grow a writer.

“Sibella, here’s how you can improve this review,” he’d say without a trace of exasperation or impatience. Doubly remarkable since he was not just putting out brilliant editions of The Rocket, he was also publishing and writing Backstreets, a glossy and successful Bruce Springsteen fanzine.

“Attention,” wrote Simon Weil, “is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”

In large part due to Charley’s tutelage, I got accepted into the journalism program at the University of Washington.

Charley—journalism grad of UW himself—was thrilled.

“Write for The Daily,” he said, referring to the campus paper where he’d worked, too.

As editor of The Daily’s arts and entertainment section alongside my friend, the late great Chris Welander, we modeled our stories off the chutzpah of The Rocket.

For instance, we published a college “gardening issue” that explained how to grow pot (then illegal) and mushrooms in your dorm room without getting caught by the school administration. Totally out of bounds. And nobody asked for our deaths. (Man, do I miss the 80s!)

“Write about anything you want, Sibella,” Charley said. “Just make sure it’s smart and that you’re original.”

One day, I found an odd classified ad in a Seattle newspaper. It read:

“If you’re a young woman who’s dated a man but can’t remember what happened that night, please call Detective Smith at the Seattle Police Dept.”

I called Detective Smith.

“Hello, I just read your ad and I’m a reporter who —”

Click.

The detective hung up on me.

I called back. “Something must be wrong with your phone. The line just went dead.”

It’s difficult to convey just how laborious investigative reporting was before computers and smartphones. All legwork and obsessive compulsions and copious amounts of ulcerative coffee. Good practice for writing novels.

Hoping to decipher the detective’s cryptic ad, I started riding my bike—yes, my bicycle—around Seattle, haunting the King County courthouse, Seattle PD, digging through public records, reading police reports…The detective hated me.

Then, begrudgingly, he admired me because after months of hard work and against his obdurate resistance, I had marshaled the facts. They were:

A middle-aged man who was a representative for the public school teachers union was cruising Seattle bars. He’d meet some young woman, plop a Roofie in her drink, and drive her to his expensive house—paid for with taxpayer money. Then he would violently rape his now-unconscious “date.”

Revolting.

One woman had contacted Seattle police. Though unsure what exactly happened while on her “date” with this guy, she knew her severe injuries—some internal—could only have come from a brutal assault.

The detective suspected more victims were out there.

I believed in protecting the victim’s identity, But I wanted to reveal the truth about this monster and encourage other victims to come forward.

That’s what journalism is supposed to be about—helping the oppressed, taking down oppressors.

The story was too long and too strong for The Daily. The only other place it could run was one of Seattle’s two large newspapers. Undoubtedly they’d steal my newbie byline, if not take the entire story and pretend they broke it.

I called Charley for advice.

“Get down here,” he said.

Once again, we sat in his office. This time for several hours as Charley combed my story line-by-line and demanded to see the evidence behind every damning accusation about this rotten teachers’ union representative.

“This story really needs to be published,” he said.

“Yeah. But where?”

“The Rocket.”

“Charley, this story has nothing to do with music.”

“Yeah.” He grinned. “But we’re gonna scoop both the Seattle Times and The Post-Intelligencer—it’ll be awesome!”

So here came the next edition of The Rocket with this explosive crime story. Musicians across Washington state were wondering why it was there when we could’ve reported on Soundgarden’s latest release.

But soon after, the Scripps Howard Foundation awarded that story First Place for investigative journalism. Then a terrific Virginia newspaper, the Richmond News Leader, hired me as a features writer.

Charley and The Rocket had launched my highly unlikely journalism career.

But here’s another of God’s twists.

Charley grew up just outside of Richmond. Right where I was headed.

“You might like it,” he groused. “Just make sure you come back here.”

I did love Richmond. And whenever I drove past his family’s business—Cross Brothers Grocery store—I sent up a thank-you to God for the “coincidences.”

Fifteen years later, I returned to Seattle. We emailed, intended to catch up in person, but by then both Charley and I had book deadlines and young kids. Life gets busy.

Now that he’s passed away so suddenly, I’d leap through fire hoops to thank him in person.

As the Deathcab by Cutie musician noted, Charley was an exceptionally generous soul. He catapulted others to success, even as he pushed himself to achieve greater things.

Five years ago, his book publisher decided to re-release Charley’s bestseller about Kurt Cobain, Heavier Than Heaven. The book’s re-release was to coincide with the 25th anniversary of Cobain’s death.

In the preface, Charley wrote:

“The idea of an ‘anniversary’ edition of any biography tied to the death date of a historical figure admittedly focuses on their loss rather than their birth….

“And yet there is something about the moment we lose a person, whether they were famous or not, that stays with us in a way no other date does.”

Precisely.

May all of us blessed by Charley’s great generosity pay it forward.

Charley would want that.