Hunter wants to go out with a bang

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