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Movies, new media, music, sports, politics, cocktails, and absurdity. Texan the City.
[My Bio at indieWIRE, indieLOOP] |
As a huge fan of Rolling Stone magazine and journalism in general, I was sad to hear just a few minutes ago that Hunter S. Thompson was found dead. He apparently shot himself, at the age of 67.
It seems only fitting to mention it here, because Thompson could easily be considered one of the first "bloggers." No, he didn't have a blog, but his style of "gonzo journalism" was clearly one of the pioneering forms of writing that soon gave way to what we're doing right here and right now, on this space you're currently reading. It was the kind of random, kinetic, first-person journalism that defied editors or corporate gatekeepers. It was raw, to be sure, but it also felt like a direct line between his typing and the reader's eyes.
Regardless, he was a powerhouse personality. On The Show With No Name, a TV show I directed for a couple of years, one of my favorite clips was this great piece from Conan O'Brien's show, when he visited Thompson on his Colorado compound and they drank booze and fired guns. Meanwhile, I remember checking out the touring Rolling Stone museum a few years ago and one of the exhibits was a series of correspondence between Thompson and RS editor Jann Wenner. In it, Thompson pleaded with Wenner about needing more money and fast...
It's a great piece of history for a man who still to this very day can be found in the staffbox of Rolling Stone magazine as head of the "National Affairs Desk." Since that title seemed ceremonial for the most part, here's to hoping Wenner will keep it intact. Nevertheless, one of journalism and pop culture's great wild men will be missed.
sic transit gloria mundi
Wow...my hero has fallen. I'm not surprised or sad...we all gotta go some time. Some of us CHOSE when that time is, while the rest of us sit and wait to be led to it. Farewell my hero...pbyrum
OMFG man.. thats it.. the end.. the bastards have won
Dr Gonzo the definition of dissent silenced forever.
I am DEEPLY saddend. Journalism is dead. There is no such thing as justice anymore. Any hopes of it resurfacing gone..If I hadnt watched my father who fought hard his entire life...willingly accept death and want it... then I would be screaming that this was a carefully planned assasination. I can hear fox news now. "Drug crazed liberal gun fanatic Hunter Thompson offs himslef"
But I do associate Hunter S. w/my father... (It was my father who introduced me to Thompson's writings at age 5.) they both were journalists, they both believed with so much of themselves in justice prevailing... they both fought so hard in different arenas... They both lived through the civil rights movement, through vietnam, through times when people stood up and fought for what was right. And they both watched all of that crumble.. everything either one of them stood for and believed in has been strangled before their very eyes.. and there was nothing they could do about it.. just watch in horror. Many people have lost thier voice in recent years. And it would seem the people have lost their way. Now the people have lost yet another great champion. Lets hope there are no censors on the other side and his voice can be heard loud and clear.
I dont know when this dark cloud will disapate... but its taking a hell of alot of good people with it.
goddamn him... this is fucking horrible.
I always thought he''d meet a grisly and meaningless end and the wrong end of a gun held by a lunatic. RIP HST, you'll be missed
How could he leave us .. so soon .. and by his own decision. I'm pissed that he did, but it's so much him to do it ... but why NOW? Just when we need him most --to us boomers who grew up with him and are now in the the crosshairs of the neocons and the bushies? was he thinking he had no more to say ...?
I think Im going to be sick...
I have been a big fan of Hunter S. Thompson going on 5 years now. I always thought that Hunter S. Thompson would outlive us all.
I can still see it now as it fades away into reality. A alternative reality where Hunter S. Thompson now some 90 years old still tools around in 350 small block powered chevy, while blowing holes into the road signs with whatever handgun happened to be present in oh his person. Ocationaly he pick up some vagrent hitchhiker and twist there little heads like ketchup packets till they explode...
Well, thats how I will probably best remember him... but as that memory faids a new thought replaces it... the thoughts of what conspeacy could of lead to this...
Part of me is already speculating this a consperacy. But on who's part and why? I have a feeling this will become the 21 century's greatest mystery... Forever unresolved, and unfufilled like the JFK legacy. Maybe he just wanted it that way. I guess we shall never know.
And finaly of course... there is the 4 more years of this bullshit factor... That is alot of time for a man in his sixtes to wait to pass.. Personaly I could not blame him for doing it. If I was that old and wise, I think I might also want to thank whatever gods I believe in for the good times I had on this planet, and then check myself off this planet.
Hunter was a true force of nature, and his writing and overall impact on this nation would have been severely diminished had he been anything other than the living embodyment of gonzo. There's no point in carrying on about his choices in life - most of his choices were not what the rest of us would have made, but they were essential to being true to himself, his craft and what he gave to all of us. I respect his decisions in life, regardless of whether I think they were right for him, me, or anyone else. He, like Ken Kesey and many others had to travel his own (self-destructive) path, and those of us who have his books on our shelves can't deny the fact that who he was and how he lived was essential to what he wrote, and how he wrote it. I think most people are amazed he survived this long, and I'm frankly shocked it ended this way. I think there's more to the story that will soon come out - not that I'm an expert on him, but based on my conversations with him and my take on his writings, suicide would be a last resort in the face of some brutal and merciless disease. He was not one to shrink from a fight, so I think there must be something else at work here - I hope.
I will also take issue with the argument that some make about his recent stature. Although he has arguably not put out a work of visceral importance of late (not that his recent compilations lacked importance or relevance), he has still penned many articles that put as fine a point on current events as anything else out there. I think the one thing that defines him and his work is the never-ending quest for justice. Although he has (had) certainly been sympathetic to the left, the bottom line is that he was always looking out for the guy getting screwed. Hunter always had a moral code built on the premise of justice. Often it was skewed by his sometimes (ok, maybe often) hazy sensibilities, but he always advocated for those in the crosshairs of the Nixons, Ken Lays and George W. Bushs of the world. He fought for the underdog at every turn, and despite his eccentricities and sometimes questionable judgment, he never lost sight of the truth - that there is not enough justice in life, and that "life isn't fair" is not an acceptable mantra.
Tonight I am sad, I am disappointed, and I am hoping there is a good explanation. A powerful voice has been silenced just when we need it most. It is incumbent on all of us to make sure that truth and justice don't suffer the same fate.
Mahalo
Like Abbie Hoffman, the future was too bleak to hang around in his skin. Hopefully his energy will will rise yet again in new forms.
But I'll sure miss the belly laughs from reading his books.
A great man has passed.
His life was one of true grit, something he was chock full of.
From one god fearing american to another, let us raise a glass to the greatest of them all.
Hi - good article. I'll miss Hunter.
p.s.
"It seems only fitting to mention it hear, because "
should be:
"It seems only fitting to mention it here, because "
Who the hell cares? One liberal down, 55 milion left to go.
Since you were a huge Hunter fan I thought you might like this post
worth a read -- nice eulogy
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=1428
I will miss him ... BIG HUG for Juan, Jen, Willam and Anita… who never be able to fill the hole left in there lives by the man in spite of the myth and legend attached to his life.
stupid bastard tried snorting bullets. I told him it couldn't be done.
Goerge W gets re-elected and now this? It has taken 60 years but the Nazis have finally won the war. I don't think any single writer has shaped how I live my life to a greater extent than the good Doctor, this is such a shock and a tragedy. Although perhaps some solace can be found in the idea that nothing/nobody in this horrible little world could manage to destroy this great man, except himself. Only he could be the cause of his demise because no one else was capable. R.I.P.
What a shame, this gentleman knew how to live life. I've always been a great fan of "Gonzo". Adios Amigo
Does anyone know if Hunter was clinically depressed recently, in deep funk of late life depression? because one doesn't just off oneself for no reason. there had to be a reason. what was it?
suicide is gutless. as are burying youself in drugs and drink. too bad he didnt have the guts to be there for his family.
The good Dr. Thompson will be
missed. He gave us a rich journal of modern speech. And for that I have been blessed.
Thank you Doc, wherever you are.....
Chivas, with plenty of ice, coffee, orange juice, cocaine, acid, Dunhill, and grass for my breakfast tomorrow please Hunter darling.
"This wavering paradox is a pillar of the outlaw stance. A man who had blown all his options can't afford the luxury of changing his ways. He has to capitalize on whatever he has left, and he can't afford to admit-no matter how often he's reminded of it-that every day of his life takes him furthur down a blind alley." HST (Hell's Angels)....RIP
i did no know much about him, but enough to ecknowlegde the fact that he was a great human R.I.P hunter
"In my own country I am in a far off land...I am strong but have no force or power...I win all yet remain a loser...At break of day I say goodnight...When I lie down, I have a great fear...of falling." -Villon (Hell's Angels)
"Live steady. Don't fuck around. Give everything weird a wide berth-including people. Its not worth it. I learned this the hard way, through overindulgence." -HST (fear and loathing on the campaign trail '72)
Terrible news. First W, now HST.
"Ah, memories, memories...and here we go again, back on the same old trip: digressions, tangents, crude flashbacks...When the '72 presidential campaign ended I planned to give up this kind of thing...But what the hell? Why not? Its almost down in San Francisco now, the parking lot outside this building is flooded about three inches deep with another drenching rain, and I've been here all night drinking WIld Turkey, smoking short Jamaican cigars and getting more & more wired on the Allman Brothers' 'Mountain Jam,' howling out four big speakers hung in all four corners of the room." -HST (Campaign Trail '72)
"Listening to him (Yeomon), I realized how long it had been since I'd felt like I had the world by the balls, how many quick birthdays had gone by since that first year in Europe when I was so ignorant and so confident that every splinter of hick made me feel like a roaring champion. I hadn't felt that way in a long time. Perhaps, in the ambush of those years, the idea that I was a champion had been shot out from under me. But I remembered it now and it made me feel old and slightly nervous that I had done so little in so long a time. I leaned back in the chair and sipped my drink. The cook was banging around in the kitchen and for some reason the piano had stopped. From inside came a babble of Spanish, an incoherent background for my scrambled thoughts. For the first time I felt the foreigness of the place, the real distance between me and my last foothold. There was no reason to feel pressure, but I felt it anyway-the pressure of hot air and passing time, an idle tension that builds up in places where men sweat 24 hours a day." -HST (The Rum Diary)
What came to mind first was that someone shot Hunter- the next thought was an excerpt from a book where he is speaking about something his mother said once about the suicide rate of intelligent human beings around bad elections-- but considering the fight he has been through his entire life AGAINST fascism-- I spose I can see how the person that shot Hunter was his self...
Man, bad year for the lefties.
Hunter S Thompson lived longer than most of us expected. He came to fame in an age where most us expected to die young in a huge mushroom cloud. He survived into and through an age of conservatism that, eventually stifled and strangled him. The last 20 years, Hunter has been in coma. Rarely regaining literary consciousness. Hunter RIP.
"This fascinated me, for I had always been an observer, one who arrived on the scene and got a small amount of money for writing what he saw and whatever he could find out by asking a few hurried questions. .....I felt for the first time in my life that I might get a chance to affect the course of things instead of merely observing them."
Hunter S. Thompson, "The Rum Diary"
matt dentler you're a tosser!!!
"On The Show With No Name, a TV show I directed for a couple of years . . ."
No thanx for the CV - I wanna hear about the Dr not your ego - You yanks have got no tact . . . pathetic!!!!
Blogger - more like wanker!
Re: Ann Coulter: Evil personified. Would love to see somebody blast her face off.
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