At the software company, Software Ventures, where I was accidentally employed (it was up the street, I was a single mom, and I needed a job), Hunter Thompson called one day for tech support. I answered the phone because our tech support guy was out to lunch, and Thompson was a little upset because he had to file his weekly column for the SF Examiner and didn't know how to get our software program, MicroPhone, working. Our company was started by Will Hearst, III (a summa cum laude math major at Harvard), who was running the Examiner at the time and who had hired Thompson as well as several other well-known writers to add a little color into the otherwise sleepy afternoon paper.
Thompson's voice was slurry and slow, but it had a memorable charge to it .... you got the feeling he could blast off at any moment and say something wickedly outrageous. Like a handholding emergency room nurse, I walked him through the only trick I knew: turn off the computer, reboot, and try again. It worked, and he filed the column on time. I couldn't help with the content of his columns, though, which lost that Hunteresque angst after the few first submissions. I got the feeling that his depression -- a general rage against the stupidity and unfairness of life --was the source of his creativity. It was also his reason for not wanting to live, and it got him in the end.
I will miss him ... BIG HUG for Juan, Jen, Willam and Anita… who never be able to fill the hole left in there lives by the man in spite of the myth and legend attached to his life..
Posted by: Brad Laboe | February 21, 2005 at 10:37 AM
... support calls for me were always great to find new an innovative ways of cursing... experiencing Mr. Thompson would've been mind numbing... what a guy.
Posted by: th0m | February 21, 2005 at 10:51 AM