So yeah Hunter S. Thompson is dead. Self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Which, while sad, isn't all that terribly surprising as an exit strategy. My two fave Thompson memories: (1) reading all of Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 72 during one three hour Trailways bus ride to Bawlmer. This would've been sometime in the early 80s. Certainly reading it didn't turn me into a jaded cynical bastard. I think one has to have a pretty bent worldview already to even pick up a Thompson book. But it probably had a lot to do with the styles and flavors of cynical bastardness I ended up drawn to, at least in my 20s. (2) saw Thompson speak at NYU later in the 80s. He was, predictably, late. Very late. 90 minutes or so (I can't remember exactly). And he was pretty spun by the time he took to the stage. Mostly he read stuff and talked about his experiences as night manager at the O'Farrell, an adult movie theater in San Fran. Then he answered questions from the floor. The one I most remember was some kid asking about ether. Which question either got hooted at by the audience, or else the moderators tried to brush off the question (I seem to remember they were trying to steer the questions away from drug-related areas). But Thompson barked them down, told the kid it was an excellent question and proceeded to give a concise detailed response on ether, its effects, and why you wanted to stay away from it.