Oh no! The Great Gonzo Journalist is dead? Jeez, he was only 67... Way too young to be checking out.
Alas, a Google search confirms it, apparently of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. I'm inclined to agree with Haggis on this one. Thompson was the kind of man who, faced with a terminal condition, would have chosen the express lane check out, and the way he abused his body with assorted chemicals would certainly make that a strong possibility. The Rev might have it right too, gun safety and drug safety were not high on the man's list of priorities.
But either way, a great light has gone out, and to me the world feels a poorer, dimmer place for his absence. Nobody ever chronicled the depravity and corruption of power with the wit, style, and penetration he did, and even if he'd never achieved anything else, that would have secured his reputation as a first class journalist. I often found him foolish and puerile, but he was something excitingly dangerous and wild and unpredictable and uncompromising, and at his best there was nobody better. We need more like him.
Hunter S. Thompson
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