Thompson was chain smoking one whiskey-soaked Camel cigarette after another as this barrage continued. When the man finally stopped to take a breath, Thompson went into his "wild man gonzo journalist" routine, letting loose with a string of incoherent expletives before segueing into a scintillating discourse on the state of America & the follies of another war in Iraq.

At that moment, the young man began backing up. He looked physically ill & psychically wounded. Thompson continued berating him & just before the man turned & disappeared into the crowd, he quietly muttered, "Hey dude, I'm a Republican. That shit's fucked up, you burned out lunatic dope fiend!"

The final time I saw Thompson was only a few months ago. I was passing through Aspen & stopped at a little hole-in-the-wall bar on the way. I had heard he was neither going out much these days nor seeing visitors so, out of respect for his privacy, I hadn't planned to stop by the compound.

But there was my old friend in the bar, slumped over in a poorly lit booth near the back door. He looked bloated & when I tried to engage him in conversation he simply lifted his glass and, after mumbling "To America!", slugged the gin back. He looked sick - as if something was eating away at him from the inside - but passed out before I could reply.

I retreated to the relative safety of the cold winds outside but, in retrospect, wonder if I should've stayed - if there was anything more I could have done.

But what can anybody do once others begin on a methodical path to self-destruction?

You can only find your way out of so many bad situations before the walls close in and the final darkness falls, as Thompson himself asserted when he wrote, "The American nation is in the worst condition I can remember in my lifetime, and our prospects for the immediate future are even worse. I am surprised and embarrassed to be a part of the first American generation to leave the country in far worse shape than it was when we first came into it. Our highway system is crumbling, our police are dishonest, our children are poor, our vaunted Social Security, once the envy of the world, has been looted and neglected and destroyed by the same gang of ignorant greed-crazed bastards who brought us Vietnam, Afghanistan, the disastrous Gaza Strip and ignominious defeat all over the world...Big Darkness, soon come. Take my word for it."

He may've only been speaking for himself when expressing that opinion but sometimes words fall short.

Action becomes necessary. Decisions are made.

And those who are left behind try to make some sense out of the incomprehensible.

More views and information on Thompson here.