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May he rest in peace.
Legendary US author Hunter S. Thompson, a sharp-witted icon of the 1960s counter-culture, has died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
The 67-year-old writer and journalist, best-known for his 1971 book “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” apparently shot himself at his home in Woody Creek, in the western US state of Colorado.
California, Labor Day weekend… early, with ocean fog still in the streets, outlaw motorcyclists wearing chains, shades and greasy Levi’s roll out from damp garages, all-night diners and cast-off one-night pads in Frisco, Hollywood, Berdoo and East Oakland, heading for the Monterey peninsula, north of Big Sur.The Menace is loose again, the Hell’s Angels, the hundred-carat headline, running fast and loud on the early morning freeway, low in the saddle, nobody smiles, jamming crazy through traffic and ninety miles an hour down the center stripe, missing by inches… like Genghis Khan on an iron horse, a monster steed with a fiery anus, flat out through the eye of a beer can and up your daughter’s leg with no quarter asked and none given; show the squares some class, give em a whiff of those kicks they’ll never know… Ah, these righteous dudes, they love to screw it on.
posted by Rich Miller
Monday, Feb 21, 05 @ 1:15 am
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-JRD
Comment by Anonymous Monday, Feb 21, 05 @ 3:31 am
There “is something to remember, if you work in politics or journalism–or both, like I do. You will be flogged for being right and flogged for being wrong, and it hurts both ways–but it doesn’t hurt as much when you’re right.” - HST
Comment by Anonymous Monday, Feb 21, 05 @ 9:20 am
“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
-HST
So long, Dr. Gonzo.
Comment by Anonymous Monday, Feb 21, 05 @ 9:30 am
“Did you just see what God did to me”.
HST
Comment by Anonymous Monday, Feb 21, 05 @ 9:38 am
“Did you see Bush on TV, trying to debate? Jesus, he talked like a donkey with no brains at all. The tide turned early, in Coral Gables, when Bush went belly up less than halfway through his first bout with Kerry, who hammered poor George into jelly. It was pitiful. . . . I almost felt sorry for him, until I heard someone call him “Mister President,” and then I felt ashamed.”
Comment by Ralph Monday, Feb 21, 05 @ 10:59 am
Although HST was well known for his Fear and Loathing writings, if you really want to learn about the man, go back to his back page columns in the National Observer (long gone WSJ publication) - bizarre stories out of South America. Hunter was pleasantly demented long before the world knew it.
Comment by Anonymous Monday, Feb 21, 05 @ 3:56 pm
Better than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie was the first thing that ever really got me interested in politics. It was a shock to see he took his own life but it is great to see so many fans comment. He was a a rare and savage beast who could ony be admired for his tenacious writing style. I hope and pray we find more journalists like him. So long Hunter, Mahalo
Comment by Anonymous Monday, Feb 21, 05 @ 4:25 pm
You’re right about those National Observer columns.
My favorite was about the young American corporate types nonchalantly hitting golf balls off a balcony in a high-rise hotel, as if there was nothing below. HST imagined how the locals cringed every time one of those balls banged on their tin roofs.
Comment by Rich Miller Monday, Feb 21, 05 @ 4:35 pm
My favorite, from when Ford pardoned Nixon:
That sold-out knucklehead refugee from a 1969 “Mister Clean” TV commercial has just done what only the most cynical and paranoid kind of malcontent ever connected with national politics would have dared to predict…
If I followed my better instincts right now, I would put this typewriter in the Volvo and drive to the home of the nearest politician — any politician — and hurl the goddamn machine through his front window … flush the bugger out with an act of lunatic violence then soak him down with mace and run him naked down Main Street in Aspen with a bell around his neck and black lumps all over his body from the jolts of a high powered “Ball Buster” cattle prod.”
Comment by Anonymous Monday, Feb 21, 05 @ 8:22 pm
Thompson was a friend of Ed Bradley, the 60 minutes reporter and they used to hang together. A good friend of mine is a sideman for a famous musician you’d all recognize and Bradley and Thompson showed up in the dressing room after the show.
Long story short, my friend almost ended up coming to blows with the good Doctor after Thompson decided to piss in the dressing room sink in the presense of some honorable females.
Being Hunter S. Thompson must have had it’s advantages, in that everyone expected you to be out there. But apparently my friend wasn’t giving him that leeway.
It is truly a sorrow that his life ended by his own hand. But of course, his work will long outlive him. And that, after all, ain’t bad.
Comment by The Inside Dope Monday, Feb 21, 05 @ 11:30 pm