Here is why this strikes me so much. As Greg mentioned, he was only a few years older than he and I, and just as important, and something that I have just realized, is that although I can only speak for myself, I am entering that time of my life where I know the sands of time left in the hourglass are less than the sand already passed through, and I start to see those around me that I feel a connection with start to enter the twilight of their years, or be taken away far too soon. Without the Beastie Boys, there is no Eminem, no Yelawolf, no Aesop Rock.