HST DEAD. STOP… SOS. STOP… SEND DRUGS. STOP…

Two weeks ago, Arthur Miller cashed in his chips. Yesterday, Hunter S Thompson committed suicide.

In Bush’s America dissent is dying on its ass, Dan Rather takes another kicking without ever finding out what the frequency is and who the hell is Kenneth and the good ol’ boys in Homeland Security whistle ‘Hail to the Chief’ and watch The Fear spread like cancer in the bowels of the Old Glory.

“I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.
Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent.
If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.” Rev 3:2-4

We may never know quite what led Hunter to take his own life but you kind of hope his reasons were something less than mundane, that it all came down to a final act of defiance; a cosmic ’screw you’ to the Bush generation and to the editors and media men who’ll spend the next week or so eulogising over a man than most lacked the cojones to hire while alive.

Its started already, the obliqué, and sometimes not-so-obliqué, references to Hemingway and Kerouac, the shifting sands of memory which will ultimately lead to the literary beatification of HST.

America loathes its eccentrics and iconoclasts while alive and loves them with a passion when dead As a nation it is all the poorer for it.

Farewell, HST.

Res Ipsa Loquitur.

Hunter’s final body of work, for ESPN, can be found here.

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