It was sad to hear this past week of Hunter S. Thompson's suicide at his home in Woody Creek, Colorado. Though I'd only read two of his books, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Generation Swine, and was more familiar with his work as a columnist with ESPN and Sports Illustrated, his style, madness and fearless writing was an inspiration.

With his passing there have been, naturally, countless tributes and words written to assess the scope and value of Hunter's life and work. In the face of genuine, better informed appraisals than my own 'the likes of Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer' and a glut of ill'informed, superficial rubbish too large in number to want to plough through to find wisdom, I figured I'd best keep things brief.

Put simply, for me, he wrote with a spirit and enthusiasm that never failed to take me on a thrilling, insane trip somewhere unique, and you've gotta' love a man who once said "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."

Enough said.

Read Hunter's last column at:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?id=1992213

Ezy Reading is out every Monday.