STRAY SHOT FROM GONZO JOURNO

HE’S been dead for nearly three years, but the eye-popping tales of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson’s insane and unpredictable behavior just keep on coming.

In their new book out next month, “The Kitchen Readings; Untold Stories of Hunter S. Thompson,” Michael Cleverly and Bob Braudis reveal how some of the weirdest stories about the booze-swilling, drug-loving author of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” revolved around porn.

The authors report that when Playboy assigned Thompson to do a piece on the hardcore movie industry, he began his research by taking a job as night manager of a San Francisco porn theater, whose owners gifted him with a nickel-plated, high-tech pellet gun. Soon, Thompson was in his back yard taking shots at a disturbing metal lapel button which depicted Mayor Diane Feinstein – who had tried to get the adult cinema shut down – with eight breasts.

Suddenly, there was a scream from a nearby house. “A foolish homeowner had clearly put his house in a bad spot. Never wishing to offend, Hunter denied everything and told the unhappy neighbor to ‘[bleep] off,’ ” the book relates.

Another time, Thompson – miffed that Aspen Mayor John Bennett‘s kid daughter, Eleanor, won a betting pool at his Kentucky Derby bash in Colorado – went to replay a video of the race for her but substituted a hard-core porn flick. “Pandemonium ensued,” the authors write. “Some fled the scene in terror or hysterical laughter. All the while, the mayor’s sweet young daughter stood impassively, watching closely, waiting for the race to begin.”

The book, out next month from Harper Perennial, also chronicles how Thompson and his pal, CBS newsman Ed Bradley, once flew to Denver together to go car shopping, with Thompson videotaping it for a short he called “Mr. Ed Goes to Market.”

In one scene, as Bradley lets Thompson drive his Porsche, Cleverly and Braudis write: “Ed could be heard saying, ‘Hunter, you might want to slow down a little.’ No response. ‘Hunter! This is a bad curve coming up, a thousand-foot drop-off! Slow down!’ Hunter: ‘Don’t worry, Ed. I’m a pro.’ Ed: ‘You mother[bleep]er! You’re going to kill us. Slow down!’ ”