Originally Posted by alpinedad
What BSS said.
I remember arguments about whether Jerry's death or Kurt's mattered more, culturally speaking (obviously, if you were related to or friends with one or the other, it's a different issue). My take was always that Kurt's mattered, because it marked potential unrealized, while Jerry's just meant that someone who'd been spinning his wheels for twenty-some-odd years had finally stopped spinning. Basically, one snuffed himself quickly while on the upswing of his arc, and the other finally succeeded in snuffing himself slowly long after he peaked.