#ripkurtcobain: Seventeen years ago today

Hard to believe it's been that long. Seventeen years ago today, Kurt Cobain left this life entirely too early. I remember vividly where I was and what I was doing when word of his death first came across the clock radio on my desk. It was a complete shock to the system.

And that's the way the news was delivered, on the radio. If the same thing happened today, of course, we'd be barraged with millions of simultaneous tweets on Twitter (where he just happens to be trending right now, incidentally), followed by an infinite amount of news reports (see Jay Reatard).

I can still remember listening to Nevermind on my Walkman on the bus ride home after work and just feeling sad and empty, like I'd lost a close friend (probably not coincidently, I felt pretty much the exact way same way when I heard that Buckley, Tupac, Biggie and Elliott Smith died), and then watching the impromptu tribute and news coverage on MTV. What a huge loss.