Following up on yesterday's pre-event report, last night the late Hunter S. Thompson's ashes were sent skyward amid fireworks propelled from a tower in the shape of raised fist near the gonzo writer's former home in Aspen, Colorado. According to a post-festivities article, the site was teeming with security, ensuring privacy for memorial services attendees, although Thompson acolytes looked on from nearby hilltops. The event was attended by Johnny Depp, Ralph Steadman, Sean Penn, and Bill Murray. Longtime Thompson friend George Stranahan speculated the champagne fueled event was too Hollywood to have been what Thompson would have wanted, but the Aspen Daily News quotes Thompson's son Juan as saying the scene trumped Thompson's own vision of it.

It's a fantastic crowd," said Thompson's longtime friend and neighbor Don Dixon. "Half of the people here look like Keith Richards."

Richards was invited to the fiery farewell but could not attend because he is preparing for the Rolling Stones concert in Boston on Sunday.

Thompson's ashes were blasted out of a 153-foot monument - 2 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty. The "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" author often violently disagreed with how his image and materials were produced.

"He'd probably say it wasn't quite big enough," said Ralph Steadman, who flew in for the ceremony from London after last seeing Thompson in the fall of 2004. "We want him back. (Saturday night) was a kind of pleading for him to come back. All is forgiven."

The_Reverend

United Kingdom

September 2004

AUG 21, 2005 02:38 PM

Cool.

One_Pure_Thought

East Greenwich, RI

October 2003

AUG 21, 2005 02:43 PM

I once saw a documentary in the 70's about him. At one point of the documentary he is planning this very memorial and shows him talking about how the specifics of the cannon ect ect. When I was watching I was thinking to myself "there's NO WAY he still wants to do this."

That bastard got the best of me again.

gerrit77

Roseville, CA

January 2003

AUG 21, 2005 03:21 PM

There's a video of HST's ashes being shot out of the fist over at CNN.com. It's so fucking cool that they were able to do this.

MrStitches

Brooklyn, NY

November 2003

AUG 21, 2005 03:29 PM

gerrit said:
There's a video of HST's ashes being shot out of the fist over at CNN.com. It's so fucking cool that they were able to do this.

Hahaha, i love that the commercial they play before it is for the US army.

jake_lex

Lexington, KY

February 2003

AUG 21, 2005 03:34 PM

My only fear is that HST is going to be remembered more for stunts like this than his writing. I hope his persona didn't overshadow his work, in the end.

[Edited on Aug 21, 2005 by jake_lex]

StickyRice

Atlanta, GA

January 2003

AUG 21, 2005 03:40 PM

jake_lex said:
My only fear is that HST is going to be remembered more for stunts like this than his writing. I hope his persona didn't overshadow his work, in the end.

[Edited on Aug 21, 2005 by jake_lex]

Good point, even if the cannon-shot was what he wanted. I was just reading the first volume of his collected letters last night. Such an earnest, intelligent, ambitious guy. That got lost later in all the noise.

dahmer

South Vienna, OH

OLD SKOOL

AUG 21, 2005 03:47 PM

Thompson acolytes looked on from nearby hilltops.

Beautiful.

_DictionaryGirl_

NEWSWIRE

San Diego, CA

AUG 21, 2005 03:54 PM

So awesome.

And no, it'll always come back to his writing in the end. I hope twenty years from now they teach it in high schools.