February 22, 2005 - 00:02 [z-05:00]

       He drank Chivas and not Isle of Jura or Bowmore. Hunter Thompson didn't know great scotch. But he did, at least, drink potable scotch. He created gonzo journalism and shot himself to death. There will be hundreds of liberals writing about how "honest" his death was.

       I'm writing first to say that this is total crap.

       Hunter Thompson spent his life, running away from his greatness.

       No-one is going to say he was not an excellent writer. I loved every one of his Fear and Loathing Books. I waited for them to come out. He made sense to me in a crazy sort of way.

       He wasn't the first to write like that. Remember Jack Paar's My Sabre Is My Point? Remember Jack Douglas' Never Trust a Naked Bus Driver ? Remember Bob Hope's I Owe Russia $1,200 ? Remember Jonathan Winters' Monologues? Well, Thompson was not the first to write like that. He wrote very, very well. But there was always something missing. Why did the cowgirl have such big thumbs? It wasn't just the answer, it was the answers missing.

       Thompson was a figure in Doonesbury. There was truth in the comic strip in the beginning. But power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts like a comic strip. The comic strip Hunter became the comic strip crutch comic strip character. The strip has only been mean-spirited and nasty for the past few years. But Hunter Thompson could always be counted on for a chuckle. Like his life, he was a good cartoon inside a bad cartoon.

       There is no greatness that will be missed. Not because he wasn't great, but because he did not reach his full potential. And it WAS reachable. Hunter Thompson killed himself before he got a chance to be as great as he could be. There are books that he will have to write in another lifetime, because God WILL make him come back again. If I were God, I would make him come back.

       I want the novel about Clinton and the gonzo White House. I want the novel about Jerry Faldwell meeting with Gay Orchestra Leaders at Disney World and coming out (of the meetings) with a decision that Mozart was straight but that Sibelius was African. I want him answering the Presidential marijuana question. It doesn't have to be true, it just has to be wonderfully funny.

       I don't know why Hunter Thompson blew himself away. All I know is that he missed. He should have shot Gary Trudeau.

       And anyway, he drank Chivas and not Isle of Jura or Bowmore.