Hunter S. Thompson put forth his principle of journalism in a 2003 interview, when he explained why he was the most accurate reporter people could read.
"You have to distinguish between what happened and what the situation was," he said.
What happened was, on Sunday, Thompson, the pioneer of gonzo journalism and most famous for 1972's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, shot himself in his home in the Colorado mountains.
What the situation was, we will probably never know.
One of the most legendary figures in American politics and journalism for more than 30 years, Thompson was also famous for his Herculean consumption of illicit narcotics and his love of firearms. In at least a few incidents, local police visited him after he sprayed gunfire at his compound. On one occasion, he accidentally shot and wounded his personal assistant.
That love of guns inspired the last writing he published. A sports column for ESPN was posted just days before his death describing a two-person golf game he and Bill Murray invented. One player tries to tee off onto the green, while the other tries to blast his ball off course with a 12-gauge shotgun.
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Many people acknowledge Thompson's profound influence on American journalism and on the baby boomer generation that shared, in less extreme quantities, his unconventionality, anti-authoritarianism, drug use and alienation from mainstream American culture and society.
What few people recognize is that this influence didn't end with that generation. I devoured Thompson's description of getting the crap beaten out of him by Hell's Angels during his long investigation of the gang. He considered its founder a friend 30 years later.
A guy I knew in high school dressed in the Hawaiian shirts and aviator glasses made famous by the eclectic journalist's work and the movie with Johnny Depp.
The new journalism so common today in magazines and publications ranging from Esquire to Sports Illustrated to Harper's - in which the journalists break the artificial barrier between themselves and the story, sometimes even becoming the story themselves - is a constant reminder of the power of its grandfather.
Most important to me of all was Thompson's constant push for active citizenship in American society. Despite his seemingly constant violations of the law, Thompson was devoted to the Constitution and its liberties. He ran for sheriff in his hometown and constantly analyzed and deconstructed politics for his readers.
He saw the dark problems lurking underneath the American dream, but instead of running from them, he engaged them and urged everyone to help him overturn hypocrisy and corruption.
Did some combination of hallucinogens, alcohol and a substance burning in his infamous cigarette holder spur him to action, or was he driven to depression by the recent electoral victory of what he called in his latest book, Kingdom of Fear, "these flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid rich kids like George Bush"?
Was he just trying to invent another game - .45-caliber bowling, maybe? Or had the man who lived at Mach 5 because he never expected to survive past 30 just gotten tired?
What happened was, America lost one of its truly unique voices and writers.
Whatever the situation was, I deeply wish he were still around to tell us about it.
