By last Saturday night, a number of jokes about Kurt Cobain's suicide was making the rounds at local record stores and watering holes. You've probably heard them by now: "Kurt Nobrain," "I guess success went to his head" or "Teen angst hasn't paid off well."

In death, Cobain's rocky life may become just another sad footnote in the history of rock 'n' roll, where untimely death can be the norm. But like his life, his death has left many questioning the impact of his work. Surely Cobain's legacy will be worth more than a few jokes, albeit hard to understand.

However his career may be analyzed and critiqued during the next few weeks by rock critics and media pundits, his impact and sudden absence has left everyone with an opinion:

-- When my 15-year-old sister heard the news Friday night from a high school friend, she thought it was a joke. Kurt Cobain would never let her down like that. When Carrie began crying hysterically after hearing it on the radio driving home, my mother passed it off as an overreaction, that teen-angst thing her generation never had to worry about but always seemed to torment my sister and her peers.

When Carrie came down the next morning with 5 inches of her hair cut off, our mother got really worried, but I wasn't too surprised.

How else should my little rebel sister have dealt with Kurt Cobain's suicide?

But not only was Cobain the first rock star of our generation to kill himself, I think he was also the first person my misunderstood sister could relate to.

I understand Carrie. When I was in high school trying to figure out that whole identity thing, a best-band-in-the-world with plenty of anger and emotion and popularity helped me more than any guidance counselor or Sassy magazine could. If I liked a band well enough, it could represent me -- my friends, my enemies, my unhappiness, my awkwardness -- with one single song.

It's unfortunate that a heroin addict is the person my sister admired the most and that he couldn't live up to being the "voice of our generation." I am disappointed in Cobain for letting down my sister.

When I first heard the news, I felt sick to my stomach. The first person I thought about was my sister. Then I thought about the thousands of teen-agers in America just like my sister and wondered if they felt as alone as I and Carrie did. (Melanie)

-- I heard the news Thursday night while talking with my brother from Atlanta. Listening to the radio, he found out that Nirvana was now "defunct."

Dropping the phone, I screamed the news to my friends around me. I couldn't believe it. The band that I thought would sell out, had dropped out. And my friends didn't seem to care or were too shocked to care. Bands do break up all the time.

When I woke up the next morning and came down to the office, I found out news much worse than a group's rumored break up. Nirvana's lead singer Kurt Cobain had blown his face off with a shotgun.

I quickly called my friends from the night before. They were too slow to pick up before the answering machine started. I told them anyway about Cobain's death in disbelief -- how the electrician discovered his body and thought it was a mannequin, how he called a radio station before calling the police, how the next-of-kin needed to identify the body was a Seattle reporter.

That night, my friend had taken out the answering machine's tape for preservation and Nirvana's In Utero blasted on heavy rotation. All we could do was talk about Cobain's life and death.

I wondered why he did it. Did video kill the megastar? Did he sign a pact with the devil when he inked a deal with a major label? In the end, what stuck in our minds most was that he was one of us. This 27-year-old from Aberdeen, Wash., was just as confused and selfish as any of us. (Jason)

-- Kurt Cobain has become more than just a cliché -- he has become a joke. Cobain has joined the "stupid club" of Hendrix, Morrison and others. He deserves nobody's sorrow -- he got what he wanted.

I respect the dead, but not in this case. This man had responsibilities that he completely betrayed -- a wife and a baby daughter. If he had abandoned them, he'd get no sympathy. Instead he killed himself; he should still get no sympathy.

Cobain also had millions of people looking up to him, hoping that they, too, could be successful and happy without selling out. He let every one of those people down.

For some reason after I heard of the suicide, I remembered an episode of "Married . . . with Children." In the episode, Al Bundy runs into the librarian from his elementary school. The librarian tells Al that he's a loser and always has been. Al responds that even though his children hate him, his wife hates him and he's trapped in a life he hates, the fact that he hasn't put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger makes him a winner.

I don't care what the reasons were, suicide is never the answer. Kurt Cobain is a loser. (Mark)

-- Like many, shock and an immeasurable sense of loss rang through me when I heard the news Friday. Sitting in complete dumbfoundment watching MTV's retrospective for two hours only made me sadder.

To me, Nirvana was the only American band around today worth listening to. Stone Temple Pilots? The Lemonheads? Phish? Please.

Cobain's suicide has left an incredible, unfillable hole on the music map. There have been many who compared Cobain to John Lennon, and rightfully so. But for a generation that matured after Lennon's death, he was much more than that -- he was one of us.

In an era when Generation X and Reality Bites have tried in vain to pinpoint our generation, Cobain's most popular work, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," perfectly captured the silliness of it all. No matter how many times I've heard that song, it still strikes a chord -- it's a song about me written by someone like me.

Through some of the most deeply personal and profound songs to emerge during the last several years, Cobain's voice spoke a sad, heartbreaking truth that his suicide only has added credence to. While there's no point in justifying his actions, should it have been that big of a surprise?

In retrospect, Cobain's fate was written all over his music -- "Aneurysm," "Rape Me," "Blew." Cobain sold millions of albums, but nobody really listened. If we had, Friday would've just been the start of another weekend. The only comfort now is that he left us with four great albums, plenty of memories and a trunkload of grief. (James)