Yahoo! News - Writer Hunter S. Thompson Kills Himself
ASPEN, Colo. - Hunter S. Thompson, the hard-living writer who inserted himself into his accounts of America's underbelly and popularized a first-person form of journalism in books such as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," has committed suicide.

Besides the 1972 classic about Thompson's visit to Las Vegas, he also wrote "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72." The central character in those wild, sprawling satires was "Dr. Thompson," a snarling, drug- and alcohol-crazed observer and participant.

Thompson is credited alongside Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese with helping pioneer New Journalism — or, as he dubbed it, "gonzo journalism" — in which the writer made himself an essential component of the story.

Before "my time". So was Sandra Dee.

Edit: After reading some of the tributes to Hunter, I have to admit I'm having a real hard time right now with the glorification of hard booze and hard drugs. Maybe I'm just jealous that I can't indulge myself, I don't know, because right now it's so tempting to just blot out this shit with chemicals. But after losing so many voices, so many artists and musicians, and after losing my two closest friends to addiction- to hold it in such high esteem seems profane.

I often wonder what the "boomer" generation could have accomplished had they not gone down that route. Perhaps the artistry would not have had the edge it needed to make it's point without the influence of the mind-altering substances. Perhaps that was the fuel that gave them the courage to find their voice. But in many ways I'm angry at them for selling out and bringing us the world in which we live in today. Could the booze and drugs have been the thing that ultimately held them down?

I was raised on the tail-end of the "counter-culture". I watched as one by one the "kids" that I looked up to then grew up and gave up on their ideals. Maybe they weren't as powerful as they like to think that they were. They didn't "change the world"; they got careers and bought BMW's and elected Reagan and Bush. In my mind a lot of them just got old, gave in, and sold out. Just my perspective, someone at the end of the boom and the beginning of Generation X. Yuck. I was born too early, or too late, I haven't figured out which one yet.

Not all of them sold out, of course. But enough so that I'm kind of pissed off today. It's a struggle for me because I understand the nature of addiction, the desire to "raise a glass" and make the pain go away. It calls to me everyday, especially lately.

But I know where that road leads, and it's not the answer.

So have your drink for Hunter (and Belushi and Cobain and Morrison and Joplin and Hendrix and on and on and on), and think about what "could have been". I'm going to have to fight that desire myself.