Hunter S. Thompson, R.I.P.

From Yahoo!:

ASPEN, Colo. - Hunter S. Thompson, the hard-living writer who inserted himself into his accounts of America's underbelly and popularized a first-person form of journalism in books such as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," has committed suicide.

Thompson was found dead Sunday in his Aspen-area home of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, sheriff's officials said. He was 67. Thompson's wife, Anita, had gone out before the shooting and was not home at the time. His son, Juan, found the body.

Thompson "took his life with a gunshot to the head," the wife and son said in a statement released to the Aspen Daily News. The statement asked for privacy for Thompson's family and, using the Latin term for Earth, added, "He stomped terra."

Read the rest here.

I was 16 when I read "Fear and Loathing" and, needless to say, it completely changed my outlook on the world. It opened my eyes to a dirty, secret, exciting part of humanity that I never knew existed. Who knows, maybe it never did exist. I guess that's part of the beauty.

R.I.P, you crazy old bastard.