Hunter S. Thompson, R.I.P.

Here's the artist Ralph Steadman, in a 2000 Salon interview, on Thompson and guns:

You know recently he tried to hit a bear; he tried to scare it, and he hit his aide. So that was a problem, and it worried him terribly. But he says, "I am one of the few people who should have guns." And I think he's one of the few people who shouldn't have guns; everybody else should have guns. He really is funny like that. He's dangerous when he's got a gun, but he's also good with a gun. But guns are hellish things, anyway, so I don't approve.

That Hunter S. Thompson made it to 67 is itself remarkable.

His book on the '72 presidential race, Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail, is a wonderfully entertaining read.

An excerpt: After getting his Muskie campaign credentials pulled for giving his press-pass to an ex-con "gin-crazed Boo Hoo" who terrorizes the campaign train, Thompson suggests in print that Muskie's rages may be attributable to the West African jungle drug ibogaine. It's not Theodore White, and it's priceless.

Pics: Feeding a wolverine * Dispatching a typewriter