A predictable end

Hunter S. Thompson, famed "gonzo" journalist died yesterday of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. You may know him through his book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He also wrote for Playboy and Rolling Stone. He was famous for inserting himself into the story he was writing about. He often portrayed himself as wildly intoxicated or stoned. Although, in his defense, he told USA Today once that his description of his own drug use was highly exaggerated--he'd be dead otherwise. Here's what a journalist colleague said about him:

"He may have died relatively young but he made up for it in quality if not quantity of years," Paul Krassner, the veteran radical journalist and one of Thompson's former editors, told The Associated Press by phone from his Southern California home.

"It was hard to say sometimes whether he was being provocative for its own sake or if he was just being drunk and stoned and irresponsible," quipped Krassner, founder of the leftist publication The Realist and co-founder of the Youth International (YIPPIE) party.

"But every editor that I know, myself included, was willing to accept a certain prima donna journalism in the demands he would make to cover a particular story," he said. "They were willing to risk all of his irresponsible behavior in order to share his talent with the their readers."

Quality of life? I guess I don't see it. And apparently, in the end, neither did he. Hunter Thompson may have seemed to have a lot, but in the end, it seems it didn't nourish his soul.