Monday, February 21st, 2005
R.I.P., Doctor Gonzo…..
by Warren
Hunter S. Thompson killed himself over the weekend. I was never a fanatical devotee of the original gonzo journalist’s work, but I can appreciate what he did to break the mold of objective reporting in the turmoil of the 1960s and ’70s.
A friend of mine said it’s inevitable that a pioneer like Thompson is followed by a legion of far less talented followers, and maybe that’s what finally did him in. My take is that Thompson felt the state of America’s volatile political and social condition a lot more than he let on,and masked it with vitriol. The rise of the neocons might have been too much for a guy who took on Nixon and Co. at his peak.
But nobody really knows why Thompson decided to end his life at this moment, and to be fair it’s really none of our business. Let’s hope his writing lives on to inspire a new generation of hacks and equals.