playsinperpetuity.com: The Hunter S. Thompson (HST) Obituary

I was 14 when I first read Vegas. I can’t say it made me want to be a writer, since writing is the only thing I've ever wanted, or really been able, to do. But it did make me realize how much fun could be had on paper—not silly fun, but cathartic, real fun. The kind of fun that howls on the flip side of tragedy.

“Howls on the flip side of tragedy.” Cazart! Not just anyone could bring that out first thing in the morning…Damn.

He stole without conscience from Twain, Mencken and Fitzgerald; thought Vegas the equal of Gatsby, and never really wrote about events that made him whom and what he was. He essentially stopped writing for the last part of his life, recycled his lines relentlessly (“Indeed." "The fat is in the fire." "Whoops." "Atavistic endeavor." "Selah" …”) and never got over Nixon. His “permanent assignment,” “The Death of the American Dream,” was a double-edged sword, as an extremely intelligent man chose to seek not just a disease, but a corpse. Though not a Boomer, he aligned himself with that generation, the most nihilistic, self-indulgent in American history, and his pessimism seemed to grow more encompassing as the Boomers’ babies had babies, and whatever it was the Sixties stood for became either anachronistic or commonplace. Yet for me and many others, for whatever reason, he always remained near the top of a short list.

Fuck it -- I just wish he'd written more.

As I write this, they have found no note, but he wrote of “breaking his back,” and I read he broke a leg fairly recently. It is not hard to imagine, given his blood could be sold as a painkiller in its own right, that even the strongest opiates would not run their normal course. He was likely in excruciating pain, pain he had no reason to believe would end. He went out on his own terms, in his home, among his own.

Rest however you find best, Doc -- “peace” was never your style. A lot of lights will be dim tonight.

Res ipsa loquitor.

msc