Poppied hills around the world wept when gonzo journalist, explosively psychotropic author, and enigmatic counter-culture demigod Hunter S. Thompson fatally shot himself in the head on Sunday.

Why eulogize? He would call himself one of God's own prototypes. He was some kind of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.

On Temperance:
“I wouldn’t recommend sex, drugs, or insanity for everyone, but they’ve always worked for me.”

On Truth:
“Bill Clinton does not inhale marijuana, right? You bet. Like I chew on LSD but I don't swallow it.”

On Faith:
“It is all well and good for children and acid freaks to still believe in Santa Claus.”

On Republicans:
“In a nation run by swine, all pigs are upward-mobile and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: Not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely.”

On Nixon:
“If there were any such thing as true justice in this world, his rancid carcass would be somewhere down around Easter Island right now, in the belly of a hammerhead shark.”

On the Media:
“The press is a gang of cruel faggots. Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits - a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage.”

In accordance with what we think your dying wishes might well have been, we commit your final mortal remains to the bosom of the blogosphere, which you loved so well.

UPDATE: Marty Beckerman just posted a notable interview he had with Thompson concerning Bush, Nazis, and other Kotskoesque issues.