Shit

Shit

They tell you never to answer the phone on the first ring. Maybe we should add to that as a twenty-first century corollary never to answer your e-mail first thing in the morning. From friends and news e-mails, there were five messages that Hunter S. Thompson had shot and killed himself.

I don't have a lot to say. I liked his work. I've read a goodly bit, but not nearly all. I do count Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as a personal favorite. Hell's Angels, too. I've got a couple of things on my to-read shelf. I'll take this opportunity to pick one of them up.

But I've not gone through his entire library, or kept a bevy of his words at handy for use.

Bill's read close to everything he's published. He might have something more to say on the matter.

The truth is, I think I enjoyed his public persona, his image, even more than his writing. Even as much as I appreciate his writing. Which is why I think news of his suicide hits me like it did. And not even as just the simple idea that anybody takes their own life, which is depressing enough. But anytime I saw Thompson, doing an interview or in some documentary or another, it always just seemed like there was a "fuck you" lurking just beyond the threshold of polite conversation, like it could just jump into the conversation at any given time, without invitation.

He thought his own thoughts. I never felt like he spent time preaching to the choir, like most commentators of any breed do today. Hunter spoke his thoughts. A lot of the time, those thoughts were an eloquently stated F You.

I dunno. Suicide is a final fuck you. At family, friend, and that choir. Maybe its fitting. But it doesn't make it easy to swallow.