I'm obviously still finding it hard to accept. son and wife release a statement, police corroborate. But still Here i am hours verging on closer to a day later looking for an answer. at least burroughs was decent enough to have a last diary entry. I could just tell myself there was no way I could have ever met him. But Dr. Raul Hunter S. Gonzo Duke Thompson's ghost who has as many stories as he has names won't explain himself. It kills me because Hunter to me seemed to be all about truth. So i read everything I can find over again looking for his insight on the current state of the world his current outlook on life and shooting oneself in the head. Perhaps this is answered simply drugs, money, depresson, climax, or the like but I hope not because I see allot of myself in hunter. truth is I'm worried about me. I can only hope that the fact that i will probably never "buy the ticket" means for me the ride will be easier. on feb 3rd salon posted an article in which Hunter said:

"Telling the truth is the easiest way; it saves a lot of time. I've found that the truth is weirder than any fiction I've seen. There was a girl that worked for me a long time ago"..." I asked her -- just so I could get braced for this situation, meeting the parents and having them come to the house: "Given what you know about me and what you hear about me, which is worse?" She finally came out and said there was no question in her mind that the reality was heavier and crazier and more dangerous. Having to deal with the reality is no doubt a little more traumatic."

" I'm the most stable neighbor on the road here. I'm an honest person. I don't regret being honest. I did give up petty crime when I turned 18, after I got a look at jail -- I went in there for shoplifting -- because I just saw that this stuff doesn't work. There's a line: "I do not advocate the use of dangerous drugs, wild amounts of alcohol and violence and weirdness -- but they've always worked for me." I think I said that at a speech at Stanford. I've always been a little worried about advocating my way of life, or gauging my success by having other people take up my way of life, like Tim Leary did. I always quarreled with Leary about that. I could have started a religion a long time ago. It would not have a majority of people in it, but there would be a lot of them. But I don't know how wise I am. I don't know what kind of a role model I am. And not everybody is made for this life."

"I've found you can deal with the system a lot easier if you use their rules -- by understanding their rules, by using their rules against them. I talk to a lot of lawyers. You know, I consider Pat Buchanan a friend. I don't agree with him on many things. Personally, I enjoy him. I just like him. And I learn from Pat. One of the things I'm most proud of is that I never had anybody busted, arrested, jailed for my writing about them. I never had any -- what's that? -- collateral damage."

and a million other things I agree with. However I currently see suicide (which has been a real topic of debate for my brain in my lifetime) as both a cowards way out, and a disservice to those who you would have affected and may have never met. Hunter was just a normal weird crazy guy, he led a gonzo life, he coned the bigwigs into giving him money, and he truthfully spoke his mind. I guess the part i find fitting is that his story ends not in accolades or a fantasy but in real life.

What i have grown to hate is people who cant imagine that he actually lived his life without "spin" like Krassner, founder of the leftist publication The Realist and co-founder of the Youth International (YIPPIE) party. who quipped
"It was hard to say sometimes whether he was being provocative for its own sake or if he was just being drunk and stoned and irresponsible,"

in ROLLING STONE COLLEGE PAPERS 1980 hunter s thompson says:
"Hemingway said that journalism was good for a writer if you knew when to get out of it. I think I stayed way too long."

when asked have you gotten out of it now he responds:
"I hope so. But it's hard to get out of. I've always viewed it as a sort of a left-handed thing, sort of a ticket to ride. Journalism has always been my way of going to a place to see if I wanted to see what was going on. And you get addicted to that. It doesn't mean that writing the sotry interests me, I hate that.

I don't like to write. I don't care what the fuck happens after I write. Once I've gotten the story in my mind, the rest is just pain. And to cure the pain, we put it together between covers and call it The Great Shark Hunt and sell 100,000 copies at fifteen dollars apiece. It helps ease the pain."

an added tragedy is that I hate sports so I don't think there will ever be a sports writer i can read again. perhaps, sadly in a way, this tragedy was expected of him the only truly gonzo thing to do when you buy a ticket to ride is to hop off before your stop destined for another place you find more attractive.

need a link? go see the great Thompson hunt or search for one of the hundreds of other people wrighting online about the death of Hunter S Thompson.

if you like hunter might I reccomend the gonzo journalist Spider Jerusalem of Warren Ellis's Transmetropolitan.