Amen. Folks put these wacked-out wierdos on a pedestal, like they are better. They're no better than the scum shootin up on the street. Not worth the skin off a working man's teeth. Sorry but I have no use for a miserable cowardly drunk.
If you can't tell the difference between a junkie bum and a talented writer like HST (especially his early work), then you are suffering from the inability to value things. It's typically a liberal symptom... the idea that things cannot be valued or that everything is "equivalent."
You don't have to like HST's message (I don't) to recognize that he had talent.