The Doctor is Out

I've been waiting to write this post so I could get my mind around how I really feel at this point. My mind hasn't even come close, and I don't know if it ever will, so I blog to begin some kind of healing process. I hate to call it that, because I'm not hurting necessarily and in all honestly I have far greater things on my mind than Hunter S. Thompson's suicide. I guess I should explain that Dr. Gonzo is/was my favorite writer. He was the first person I read who made me stop and think. I read and reread the things he wrote and even went as far as highlighting passages that I enjoyed. I've read a lot of his stuff, but not all of it. His works are still dispersed in my ever growing stack of recreational reading. Thompson will always be the first writer that changed something in me and therefore will always be important.
It is a weird feeling when someone you don't know personally, but has had some influence in your life dies. This is especially the case when it is the first writer that influenced you. I feel as if I am going through some weird rite of passage. I really don't know what I feel. Am I sad? Yes, I wish HST was still around to keep America on its toes. I'm also sad that he felt bad enough to take his own life. I feel more pissed than anything else. Pissed that he took a chicken way out. Pissed that he justified all of those people who wrote him off as a drug fiend who was more crazy than brilliant. Pissed that he left when he might have had one more important thing to say. Maybe Raoul wanted it that way, for us to be pissed, not sad, because the American Dream ain't dead yet bubba, but it sure is close.
Thompson will always represent the part of me that I wish I could let out more often. Irreverence is a comfortable coat of arms and if used often can make you numb to most of the crap in the world. Sometimes I want to load up a rented convertible with as many illicit drugs that I can find and ride off into the sunset with a newly lit cigarette dangling from my lip. I never will, and I don't have to, because Doc did it for me. When it comes down to it that is what really pisses me off. He's not around to do the things I won't and more importantly say the things that I can't. So long Hunter, keep it strange.