Boomer inspiration to a generation of musicians, ESPN columnist, cartoon icon and gun nut Dr. Hunter S. Thompson shot himself dead over the weekend.

While I was impressed with the famous lifestyle that director Terry Gilliam and actor Johnny Depp tried to capture in the movie version of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” the only thing that matters is that in the end he was a brilliant writer. A few years ago I stole a section of Depp’s reading of Hunter’s chronicle of the demise of “the dream.”

For all the people that claimed (or publicists claimed) to be a “voice of a generation” Thompson will always be the closest thing I know of to the real thing.