R.I.P UNCLE DUKE, YOU OLD BASTARD

I can't f***ing believe it. Hunter S. Thompson is dead. He shot himself at his home in Colorado tonight.

Let me rephrase that -- Nobody could believe that Hunter S. Thompson lived this long. And I still can't believe he's f***ing dead. I just found out a few minutes ago, and I'm sad, pissed, and proud all at the same time.

Sad, for obvious reasons: the man was a diety to anyone who put pen to paper or pounded fingertip to keyboard and tried to explain how very twisted and hilarious and f***ed up Americans, our government, our society, or the human race as a whole can be. He represented every bit of insanity, debauchery, and pure balls that we all wish we could have or experience for ourselves. For those of us (which is everyone) who are comparative lightweights in those areas, we never had to go any further -- Hunter Thompson lived that life for us, and by some miracle of a gracious God lived to tell us about it.

Pissed: Yes, I'm pissed that a guy like that had to leave the planet. I feel like I did when Ray Charles died, or Johnny Paycheck, or even Don Kalmbach (of Ginny's). Although they were far from the prime of their lives creatively or personally, these were people that made us all better by just being here, as a reminder of what we should strive to be as artists, or even as people. Flawed, of course, but with the ability to both express themselves perfectly and draw emotion from their audience or those around them, rendering the listener/reader/friend powerless not to feel. And they led their lives their own way, with little apology, and no surrender. I'm pissed that more people (including myself) aren't more that way, and I'm pissed that Hunter Thompson won't be around to show people what pure guts and soul looks like in the flesh.

And proud: Proud? Yes, proud at the way he went out. I've always felt that suicide was the wussiest and most selfish way out for most people, especially entertainers. And I feel pity for those that went out that way -- even if I respected the way they lived (Faron), I had little respect for the way they died. But, that said, if anybody ever deserved to go out by his own hand, it was Hunter S. Thompson. Save for stabbing himself to death with his own pen, or maybe a hanging himself using a typewriter as a counterweight, shooting himself is the most poetic and perfect way he could have gone out. He died with the two things in his hand that he loved most -- his gun, and life itself.

Hunter S. Thompson is (not was) a hero to me as a writer, hack that I am, and I can only aspire to follow his lead as an artist and human. OK, I'm pretty damn sure I'm not going out that way -- I just hope I have the balls to go my own way, in life or death.

God Bless Hunter S. Thompson.

Roger