Monday, February 21, 2005

Hunter S. Thompson: 1937 - 2005

I could not avoid this article:

DENVER (AP) -- Hunter S. Thompson, the acerbic counterculture writer who popularized a new form of fictional journalism in books like "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," fatally shot himself Sunday night at his Aspen-area home, his son said. He was 67.

"Hunter prized his privacy and we ask that his friends and admirers respect that privacy as well as that of his family," Juan Thompson said in a statement released to the Aspen Daily News.

Pitkin County Sheriff officials confirmed to The Associated Press that Thompson had died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Thompson's wife, Anita, was not home at the time.

What can I say? People think of the guns and the drugs, but he was still a true Professional Journalist, and would have wanted to be remembered for this. He wrote for Rolling Stone. He was still writing for ESPN up to the point of his death. He was a man who as eccentric as he was,  knew the difference between Good and Evil, and had no hesitation applying the later to the undeserving. Read his obituary of Richard Nixon to see.

And as for his writing: no sequence of comparative, superlatives and adjectives would do justice to the man. He wrote with Style.

Rest in peace, good Doctor.