What a shitty, shitty thing to wake up to

Anybody can learn to write well. I may be wrong about that, but it's what I think. There's nothing special about being able to write well; what is special is being a UNIQUE writer, and (not coincidentally) loving to tell the truth, whatever that is for you. Writers of genius are utterly unique, and love telling the truth more than anything else in the world, more than success or fame or--often--their own happiness.

This is a roundabout way of saying how sorry I was to read this morning that Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide.

The tributes have just begun. They're all distanced and strangely soggy--like the article in a high school newspaper the editor writes after the class rebel gets hit by a train one Saturday night. "We all liked him, but never understood why he was so angry," the editor writes. "It's too bad HST never applied himself. Maybe he could've gotten into Harvard."

HST was a great writer--a brilliant stylist, utterly unique, and loved telling his truth. He was the Suetonius of the American Empire. We desperately need more writers like that, and now everybody will have to start from scratch...Damn.