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DENVER - Hunter S. Thompson, the "gonzo journalist" with a penchant for drugs, guns and flamethrower prose, might have one more salvo in store for everyone: Friends and relatives want to blast his ashes out of a cannon, just as he wished. "If that's what he wanted, we'll see if we can pull it off," said historian Douglas Brinkley, a friend of Thompson's and now the family's spokesman. Thompson, who shot himself to death at his Aspen-area home Sunday at 67, said several times he wanted an artillery send-off for his remains. "There's no question, I'm sure that's what he...

This week, an homage de blog. Or would that be homage du blog? James Taranto will know. It's good to have an editor, especially one I would characterize as a nonintrusive stickler. He always knows my topic, doesn't know my view, corrects my spelling and grammar. [De? Du? It's all Greek to me!--ed.] Today I post thoughts blog-style. There is, however, a theme. Find it. Hunter Thompson, RIP. Tom Wolfe, a genius, goes over the top in his praise of Thompson. Wolfe and Thompson were of the same journalistic generation, and we are all chauvinists for our era. But Hunter...

ClassicalValues.com has flagged an earlier quotation of interest: Hunter S. Thompson on Billy Jeff Clinton: Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson tells the New York Post that supporting President Clinton was "one of my greatest tactical errors in politics." . . . . " I don't want to go down in history or have my son read that his father endorsed Clinton two times," Mr. Thompson said. . . . . "I had no idea what a treacherous bastard he really is. I'm shocked he went so low. You'd think after grappling with Richard Nixon that you would know where the...

Hunter Thompson shot himself in the head sometime on Saturday and a few things are certain. He was either stoned or hung over, and his work will be forgotten. Ask almost anyone today about Hunter Thompson and he will have no idea who you are talking about. Ask someone in a tiny sliver of demography, say ages 45 to 55, and all sorts of memories come conjuring up. There is the revelation of at least what we thought was his amazing ability with words, though I have not read him for years, so I no longer know if this is...

THE WASHINGTON TIMES Outlaw, druggie, Dunhill-smoking, Chivas Regal-drinking, anti-establishment literary icon Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide after becoming depressed about the United States' shift toward conservatism, said one longtime friend who spent the weekend at the Aspen, Colo., home of the late "gonzo" journalist. "He was depressed about the state of society," said Loren Jenkins, foreign editor for National Public Radio in Washington. A vehement opponent of President Bush, Mr. Thompson, 67, "was feeling maudlin about the current conservatism sweeping the country," Mr. Jenkins said. "He felt he'd had a long run, trying to create a freer society in the...

ASPEN, Colo. (AP) - While Hunter S. Thompson's suicide shocked many in his out-of-the-way neighbourhood, one of his closest friends said Monday the writer had been in a lot of pain after a broken leg and hip surgery. "I wasn't surprised," said George Stranahan, a former owner of the Woody Creek Tavern, one of Thompson's favourite hangouts. "I never expected Hunter to die in a hospital bed with tubes coming out of him. Thompson died in his home Sunday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, Pitkin County Coroner Dr. J. Steve Ayers said Monday. Authorities refused to...

Hunter S. Thompson died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Woody Creek on Sunday night. He was 67.

I USED TO RUN A MAGAZINE IN SAN FRANCISCO BACK IN THE 70s. I ran it out of the basement of a firehouse in North Beach under the offices of Scanlan's magazine. Scanlan's was the scam magazine of Warren Hinckle, a man whose record of conning money out of Bay Area millionaires stood unbroken for decades until the arrival of David Talbot and Salon. Warren liked to drink and spend other people's money on himself and writers. Naturally such a honey pot was going to attract Hunter. He liked to drink and spend other people's money on articles he might...

Pioneer Author, Journalist Thompson Dies at 67 By CATHERINE TSAI, AP ASPEN, Colo. (Feb. 20) - Hunter S. Thompson, the acerbic counterculture writer who popularized a new form of fictional journalism in books like "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," fatally shot himself at his Aspen-area home, his son said. He was 67. The Life of Hunter S. Thompson "Hunter prized his privacy and we ask that his friends and admirers respect that privacy as well as that of his family," Juan Thompson said in a statement released to the Aspen Daily News. Pitkin County Sheriff officials confirmed to The...

(2005-02-21) -- With the announcement that columnist and so-called 'gonzo journalist' Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide over the weekend, the field of potential replacements for Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News has "narrowed significantly," according to one network source. Mr. Thompson, whose stock-in-trade subjectivity and vigorous injection of personal opinion became the template for much of modern journalism, was author of several books including Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 and A Generation of Swine. But he was perhaps best known to the elderly as the inspiration for the Doonesbury comic...

AP News Alert ASPEN, Colo. (AP) -- The son of Hunter S. Thompson says the author shot himself to death at his Aspen-area home.

This morning at 11:45 a.m. ET, Virginia Gov. Mark Warner will deliver a luncheon speech to the Democratic Leadership Council in Washington, speaking mostly about his successful effort to get the commonwealth's GOP-led legislature to pass his $1.4 billion tax increase. But, of course, he'll also talk about Kerry. "Three and one-half years ago, Republicans promised they could cut taxes, eliminate the national debt and keep the economy booming. Instead, our country lost jobs, and we turned a $236 billion surplus into a deficit that now approaches $500 billion," Warner will say, according to an advance copy of his speech...

"Now I am really ashamed to carry an American passport. Not even the foulest atrocities of Adolf Hitler ever shocked me so badly as these photographs did. " - H.S.T.

Hunter S. Thompson's ESPN column was scrubbed of controversy late Monday afternoon when online editors worried the famed gonzo journalist had gone too far. In a column entitled, "Let's Go to the Olympics," Thompson went off on the Abu Ghraib prison picture scandal, exclaiming: "Not even the foulest atrocities of Adolf Hitler ever shocked me so badly as these [Abu Ghraib] photographs did." But after being linked to the DRUDGE REPORT, a top editor demanded the sentence be immediately edited --without Thompson's okay, according to an ESPN.com staffer. "Hunter can go too far sometimes," the Bristol-based ESPN employee told the...

<p>LOS ANGELES — Warren Zevon, who wrote and sang the rock hit "Werewolves of London" and was among the wittiest and most original of a broad circle of singer-songwriters to emerge from Los Angeles in the 1970s, died at his home after a 12-month battle with cancer. He was 56.</p>

NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- So, Hunter S. Thompson was saying on the phone Friday morning, he had recently hung out with his long-time friend Bob Dylan while the rock-and-roll star was on tour in Colorado. Yes, we're talking about THAT Hunter Thompson and, yes, THAT Bob Dylan. Talk about a meeting for the ages: Thompson, the maestro of Gonzo journalism, and Dylan, the voice of his generation and still going strong at the age of 61. Thompson, who turned 63 on July 18, said he and Dylan had been lamenting the current spirit of America, whose fertile imagination each have...