Didja hear what Hunter Thompson’s relatives and friends want to do with his ashes? From AP:

Hunter S. Thompson, the “gonzo journalist” with a penchant for drugs, guns and flame-thrower prose, might have one more salvo in store for everyone: Friends and relatives want to blast his ashes out of a cannon, just as he wished.

“If that’s what he wanted, we’ll see if we can pull it off,” said historian Douglas Brinkley, a friend of Thompson’s and now the family’s spokesman.

Thompson, who shot himself to death at his Aspen-area home Sunday at 67, said several times he wanted an artillery send-off for his remains.

“There’s no question, I’m sure that’s what he would want,” said Mike Cleverly, a longtime friend and neighbor. “Hunter truly loved that kind of thing.”

On a related note, Robert Schlesinger of the hot new publication, the D.C. Examiner, writes:

Suicide is a cheap and mean cop-out. As one blogger headline put it: “Hunter Thompson, goddamn you!” He was an outsized, unreal figure — of who else can it be said that he not only birthed a journalistic style but also (unwillingly) begat an iconic cartoon character? He burned through American journalism, literature and politics, and left them all finer than what he found. He owed himself more than this.

True.