Last of a species, gonzo journalist Hunters S. Thompson died as he lived, by his own hand.

He was not a man who knew fear. He wrote about the Hells Angels, San Francisco in the 1960’s, shark hunting, The Kentucky Derby, football and Richard Nixon equally. His coverage of the 1972 presidential campaign should be required reading for all journalists. He wrote it as he saw it in a quick, knowledgeable and uncensored style.

Often misunderstood because of a unapologetic lifestyle he once quipped,” I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me.”

For his critics his passing will be seen as another nail in the coffin of the 1960’s, a poor drug addled refugee of that long forgotten age, a degenerate whose crude and lascivious lifestyle was doomed from the start: To his readers, an affirmation of an authentic lifestyle unhindered by the realities of work-a-daddy schedule. Too weird to live, too rare to die.

“All my life my heart has sought a thing I cannot name.”

-Remembered line from a long forgotten poem, Hunter S. Thompson

His corporeal body will now fade and crumble, his ashes, by some accounts to be shot out of a cannon over his Woody Creek, Colorado farm, another passing mote in the great eye of humanity.

Much will be written about him while my humble memorial will be to continue to read his books and remember that he once said “It never got weird enough for me”

Selah

Bill Polonsky
strangethingsdone@hotmail.com