When I lived in Colorado Springs I worked as an Easter Bunny at the Citadel Mall for a month, and since the bunny suit was so heavy and left no external trace of me, I stopped showering and brushing my teeth, and the fluffy tail chafed a bloody welt into the base of my spine that required me, for the Merry Month of March, to sleep on my stomach, but there was one day when Hunter S. Thompson came barreling through the food court, and so I lurched up, bunny head leaning forward, and made a beeline, intercepting him, and stuck my Mickey Mouse-gloved hand toward his face--this man who had written Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, which is the best book ever written about politics in general and American politics in particular, maybe the most honest book ever written about America, even; this man who had inspired me, not yet 20 years old, to deal with bullshit by throwing even more bullshit back in the bastards' faces--and the bunny eyes that were floating above my forehead must've looked imploring to Hunter, like, "Shake my bunny hand, Doctor Gonzo," and he shoved me out of the way and kept walking, which in fact was the perfect response, and I can't help but feel, on hearing that he killed himself on Sunday night, that he's telling the rest of the world how Doomed he thinks we are, and I have to say to him in response: You're right to feel that the jackasses have devolved since Nixon, that we now live in an Evil World that is Devoid of Style, but you were wrong in killing yourself--that doesn't seem like the Style you commanded; and also thank you so much for everything, Dr. Thompson, we'll have to take it from here.