Gone....But Still Gonzo!

Portrait Of The Artist
As A Dead Man


Well, it's been about a month - to the day, actually - that Doctor Hunter S. Thompson, celebrated journalist and founding father of gonzo journalism, shuffled off of this mortal coil. He went out with a bang, not a shuffle, though. After struggling with bad health and refusing to grow old gracefully, Hunter ended his life by using one of his ever-present guns on himself in his Aspen home on February 20th, 2005.

For all of us who appreciated his style - not only in writing, but in life - it's a sad loss, but not all that unexpected. Taking a lesson from the Neil Young songbook, Thompson must've decided it was better to burn out than to fade away. He left us with an amazing legacy - an icon who put the culture in counter-culture.



"When The Going Gets Weird,
The Weird Turn Pro" - HST

And now that he's actually gone, his legacy is just getting warmed up. Later this year, Johnny Depp will reunite with Benicio del Toro in a new film based on Thompson's book 'The Rum Diary'. Rolling Stone magazine just released a very fine tribute issue to the good doctor, with reminiscences from everyone from Johnny Depp to Pat Buchanon. No matter what his reputation as a wild and crazy guy, Hunter Thompson was well-respected and beloved by many, many people. And for those of us who knew him through his writings, he was all that and more. Hitting his stride during the glory days of the Me Generation, he taught us all the correct way to blog.

He was, after all the BlogFather. His ability to put himself front and center in whatever he wrote about was exactly what we all do on our individual blogs. Now, some of us might not go as far into the abyss that Thompson threw himself into on a consistant basis in order to 'get the story' - after all, to do so would be embarassingly substandard to his gold standard - but he managed to teach an entire generation of self-centered writers exactly how to make any story worth reading. The journey was always far more interesting than the destination, and it was the opinions he put forth in his writings that always made the point. He cut through the bullshit, always in search of the truth. You always got the idea that his rage was alway righteous, and his jeers were always justified.


"The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over." - HST

We've lost a colorful character, allright. But his writings live on. That's comforting, I suppose, but not quite as comforting as knowing what Thompson would have to say about the crazy days that are yet to come.


The Doctor Is Out"