Between the Lines, Online: Boxers or Briefs?

Like every other political writer of my generation, I adored "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail," though I knew Thompson only slightly. When I was profiling Garry Trudeau for NEWSWEEK in 1990, he had raged at me one night for two hours about how the cartoonist had ripped him off for his Uncle Duke character in "Doonesbury." I argued it was homage; he called it theft.

This time, Thompson agreed to meet me at the Woody Creek Tavern, the place outside of Aspen that he made famous as his second home. My brother, his friends and I arrived around 7 p.m., expecting to have dinner with the great man per our arrangement. He showed up, not surprisingly, around 11 p.m., in precisely the manic state we had hoped for, retreating every half hour or so to the men's room for apparent self-medication before resuming his exhilarating rant, which if I remember correctly through the tequila haze had something to do with the decline of sports. The Nicholson piece was quickly brushed off and forgotten.

At a certain point, Thompson had had enough of us and retreated to the bar.

Suddenly, one of my brother's friends, a Chicago commodities trader and no stranger to debauchery himself, loudly re-approached.

"Hunter," he slurred. "I have one more question."

A look of considerable irritation flashed across the legend's face as we recalled his fondness for firearms.