' Don't write, Ralph. You'll bring shame on your family. ' -- Hunter S. Thompson -- - Ralph Steadman

Let me say it here and now. For all Hunter's mindless self-indulgence, which is legendary and crude, he always impressed me with his blind, selfless urge to cut out the crony bestiality of modern society and the political economy that scarred the era.

Those Fear and Loathing drawings were only possible for me because of the America's Cup six months earlier, which injected the the drawings with the eerie sense of being there to record the sensations. It was a regurgitation, a psycho-artistic vomit - a creative, cathartic cleansing of my inner being.

At least my mural of Leonardo da Vinci still exists on the wall of their offices, which were subsequently taken over by Expedia. They had the wall insured.