Hunter S Thompson

I think he is dead. Visit me http://www.radiodenver.org/

I couldn't give an opinion, I didn't know him, I wasn't even lucky enough to meet him. His writing's cool, and from what I can make out he seemed it too. nobody

He was crap with guns.

No, he was very good with guns: he shot his brains out so his aim was good.

Hunter Thompson was a great writer. He is said to have invented the 'gonzo' style of journalism whereby he makes himself the centre of the story. Intellectually the argument behind this style is to make it more honest. If you do not explain yourself and your position in the story then it will always be biased. This way you are giving everything away so the reader can make up their own mind. But HST went much further - by becoming the very story itself as in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I have spent a little time with his British alter-ego, Ralph Steadman, and if you can't drink, don't bother. I do remember odd scraps of the conversation but it was all a long long time ago. Whilst HST's politics are exceedingly dodgy, as was a great deal of his life and beliefs, he is an original and very funny writer and deserves his place in the canon. Or, as his end dictated, the cannon.

I thought he was aiming at his neighbour.

His ashes were boomed into space.

The thing about Hunter S Thompson is, and I'm sure he's very good despite it, but he's just become such a pretensious wanky art student author to name-check it's like having a bloody che guevara poster on your wall.

Tom Wolfe should probably be credited with originating the so-called 'new journalism,' though Thompson called his variation 'gonzo journalism.' Very similar, but gonzo goes further in terms of putting the writer at the center of the story, at least in his own mind. This is similar to some of the blogging that goes on nowadays. The only problem is that very few people can do it well. Simply making oneself the center of the story does not make it a good story--hence the PWE (pretentious wanker effect). I've always enjoyed HST's writing, but I just wish he'd done more of it. The booze and powder took a major toll. He'd been living off his reputation for 30 years by the time he did himself in. "You don't need the light of the Lord to read the handwriting on the wall." Copies of Warsaw Tales available through www.new-ink.org