Hunter S. Thompson shot himself to death yesterday.
I enjoyed some of his writing, but a lot of times he was a figure I appreciated more in theory than in practice. Terry Gilliam’s adaptation of his work generated a frustrating question for me: What causes a really talented journalist to pursue such a bizarre life-path?
That is, coming out of an era where there were pretty respectable careers to be had in his field, what made this guy go ’round the bend in terms of drugs and guns while still working as a journalist?
Gilliam’s answer, very briefly, seems to be contained in a few flickering TV images of Vietnam, but that raises the question of why so many other talented journalists didn’t pursue that path.
Anyway, my condolences to his family.