Dr. Gonzo. Raoul Duke. HST.

Hunter S. Thompson. One of my all-time favorite writers.

He once typed the Great Gatsby from beginning to end. “In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.” Just like that until the very end. Reading it wasn’t enough for him to learn the rhythm. (He was of course on something, but weren’t they all?)

He used to call up his friends at all hours of the night and just start rambling. They’d always take the call, too. They’ve said getting a call at 4 in the morning when Hunter was alive was a joy. Now it just marks a tragedy.

I watched the 2006 documentary “Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride” last week. It was a decent film. It had some nuggets and old footage that I had never heard or seen before. It made me laugh and it made me miss him.

Ralph Steadman, the artist and Hunter’s partner in crime, was in it. Tim and I saw Ralph speak about four years ago when he was on tour for his book, “The Joke’s Over.” We sat in metal folding chairs lined up in a school’s basement on Oak street.

Ralph had a slideshow of old photos. He played recordings of Hunter. He did an impression of him, too. It was about a year and a half after Hunter died. We bought two signed copies of the book and then devoured it within a couple of days.

They met while on assignment covering the Kentucky Derby in 1970, which resulted in the piece, “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved.” Ralph didn’t know he was going to be part of making the story. You know, Gonzo.

Their first meeting as told by Ralph in the British newspaper “The Independent:”

“I had been watching someone chalk racing results on a blackboard while I sipped a beer, and I was about to turn and get myself another when a voice like no other I had ever heard cut into my thoughts and sank its teeth into my brain. It was a cross between a slurred Karate chop and gritty molasses.

‘Um . . . er you . . . er . . . wouldn't be from England . . . er . . . would you . . . er . . . an artist . . . maybe . . . er . . . what the!!’

I had turned around and two fierce eyes, firmly socketed inside a bullet-shaped head, were staring at a strange growth I was nurturing on the end of my chin. ‘Holy shit!’ he exclaimed. ‘They said I was looking for a matted-haired geek with string warts and I guess I've found him.’”

The rest is all art and magic.

Check out the famous Lizard Lounge from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” here for $3,000:

http://tinyurl.com/y9nhx4h

Will work for ... well ... work.

The job hunt continues for Alexandria Ann Rocha.

This time last year, the major corporation I worked for closed its West Coast division, leaving me and 1,400 of my colleagues without jobs. Across the nation, the number was even more staggering: 7,000 people who worked for Macy’s lost their jobs, from east to west, and north to south.

My mom was already in the process of losing her home to foreclosure. The layoff was the second time the Great Recession hit close to home.

Since then, I have managed to maintain my career, freelancing a long stint at the cosmetics company Bare Escentuals, then landing a permanent position on a consumer technology account at a marketing services agency.

Last week, my company announced that it was losing the account, which it has had for seven years. I have heard that seven years is nearly unheard of in the agency world.

If you have been following the tech business, you might know that certain consumer technology brands are undergoing massive changes to keep their footing with the competition. As it was with Macy’s, it’s a business decision and part of a larger strategy to keep the company from going under. I get it. But it doesn’t make it suck any less.

So once again I find myself looking for the next big thing. By “big thing,” I mean the next big thing for me.

When I transitioned from journalism to advertising 2 1/2 years ago, I was worried about leaving something I was seriously passionate about. What I found at Macy’s, in the work and in the coworkers, was something I truly cared about. It was devastating to lose both. At Bare Escentuals, again, I found the same thing. I was just getting started at the agency.

I am not afraid to write about this because it is the truth and it is turning into my story. In January, 10% of Americans were unemployed, according to the BLS. For a lot of us, it is not a reflection of the work we do and have produced. I know that is not the case for me.

My mom always gets goosebumps when I talk about changing jobs. So does my father-in-law. We don’t even tell him about certain job-related issues because we know it will stress him out. Their generations prided themselves on job longevity. My mom, in fact, is dating a man who has been at the same job for 45 years. It’s the first job he had after graduating from high school. My grandmother and aunts, and of course my mom, are thrilled about this. He’s stable, they say.

For us, this is unthinkable. If you’re not moving, you’re not learning or growing. If you haven’t worked within all areas of your industry, then forget it.

But now, I am finding it difficult to keep a job for even a single year. Employees seem so much more disposable now.

So here I am, putting my hat in the ring yet again. I’m looking for the right place, not just any place, to hang my hat for a while.

And by that, I mean at least a couple of years.