.
1937-2005
“There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”
Story
Hunter, you rat bastard, you picked a fucking swell time to leave us. If ever you were relevant, its right now. You coward. You left us to fight these swine in Washington on our own? You rotton, selfish cocksucker. Fuck you, we’ll do it ourselves. We don’t need you. You left your filthy fingerprints on generations of surly monsters. We’ll carry on, drunk and belligerent.
Hunter S. Thompson was one of, if not THE, greatest of my heroes. His invention - Gonzo Journalism - was the very inspiration behind this site, the few movies I’ve done, DFH Radio and nearly anything I’ve written. Many a late nights I’ve spent drinking and talking into a microphone duct taped to my chest. Where those recordings are now, I have no idea. I’ve never listened to them. Dear Jesus.
What can be said? The man was a mother fucking God damned genius. I don’t use that term often. Or maybe I do. Fuck it. He was. And this time I MEAN it. He fought the system with his words. He stretched the rules, and made a living exaggerating reality. He spent his life looking for the American Dream, and God dammit, whether he knew it or not, he fuck-well found it.
When first I learned of Hunter’s Death, I thought “fuck.” What else is there to say? I was shaken and at a loss. When I found out he took his own life, I was at an even greater loss. How could this be? “Maybe he faked it..like in Transmetropolitan“..How perfect!” No, thats my paranoid-geek side seeping out.
After several drinks it occurred to me, “There’s no other way!” We’re talking Hunter fucking S. Thompson here. Chances are in the next few days we’ll find out he was sick. If indeed, this was the case, would it be in Hunter’s character to go out in a comfy bed, meek and miserable? Fuck no. To take his own life, with a High Caliber firearm of somesort? Yes! Thats the way Hunter would go. It all makes sense now. I’m sure it was a grisley scene to stumble upon. Fucking hell.
Oh God please, don’t let HST wind up on shirts of teenie boppers who shop at Hot Topic.
Yee gods man. I need another whiskey. Take care good man.
“And that’s It for now, folks. There is no more. Aloha, Mahalo and so long for now.”
Stay tuned as this post will be updated throughout the week.
TIME: The Gonzo Faxes
Ralph Steadman on HST
Daily Kos Collected Quotes
Remembering Hunter
Washington Post Blog
John C Dvorak Comments on HST
SF Examiner
Gonzo.org
Aspen Daily News
BBC News
ESPN Tribute
Denver Post
- “We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear — fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts, or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer … ” - Hunter S. Thompson
As the day trudged on, I stumbled upon link after link and blog after blog paying homage Dr. Gonzo. Each time I read the same story on every page, and I felt a little shittier. I even found myself avoiding the web today so I didn’t have to be reminded the fucker’s dead. I still haven’t accepted the fact that Thompson is gone. I feel like I’m in Evil 2005, you know, like in Back to the Future, when they somehow get flipped into Evil 1985, and everything is bad.
This is bad.
Its the final bad that makes me think “Yes. Its serious now. We are all totally fucked now.”
Its bad that Bush is president. Its bad that our country is being driven into the shitter. People are going crazy, doing crazy shit..parents killing their children, children killing their grandparents, teenagers birthing in the woods, teachers fucking students, completly fucking Evil. My life personally is bad on most fronts…jobwise, moneywise, etc etc..Its just one damn thing after another.
And now this.
Where did I cross over from the Good Dimension to the Evil One? How do I go back? Is there a “Good Demension Mat” somewhere living it up in a world where the US is not run by Nazis, and HST is alive? Good Dimension Mat hangs w/ celebrities and has no financial worries. That lucky bastard.
These are dark times friends. Dark times. And last night everything got a whole lot darker.
Several great articles have been posted on the Aspen Daily News website. Friends and neighbors weigh in as to why HST decided to eat a bullet Sunday evening. Pretty much the same thoughts we all have. (either physical sickness or a giant hoax)
Up until his last days, Thompson’s leg continued to plague him with pain. He also had an artificial hip, and he recently had back surgery. A simple journey to the bathroom forced the cult writer to hold onto his loved ones for support, as he limped across the room.
“I knew he was dying from a distance. It hurt him being in so much pain,” said Jimmy Ibbotson, a longtime neighbor and former singer-guitarist of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band who, like others before him, had been 86′d from Thompson’s kitchen for poor behavior
“I haven’t ruled out that this is all part of an elaborate hoax,” said Ibbotson, half-jokingly. “There are times when you’ve had enough of fame.”
Yeah..faking his death wouldn’t be totally out of the realm of Thompson, methinks.
But George Stranahan, a former owner of the Woody Creek Tavern, one of Thompson’s favorite hangouts, said he “wasn’t surprised” that Thompson killed himself.
“I never expected Hunter to die in a hospital bed with tubes coming out of him,” he said.
Then again, maybe Hunter saw this and decided it was time to go.
———-
One of the metal vultures at the Gates of Thompson’s home.
Photo shot by me.
(George) Tobia (Thompson’s lawyer) said he didn’t know of anything specific that led to Thompson’s suicide but noted the two had discussed it in the past.
He did say that the decision had nothing to do with the re- election of George W. Bush or the current trend in national politics, which provided a certain grist for Thompson’s mill.
Nor did the writer have any significant financial problems. With his land, archives, royalties and other valuable, Tobia said, Thompson’s estate is worth millions of dollars.
The best explanation, perhaps, is that in recent months Thompson had chronic pain from back surgery and an artificial hip.
Adult Swim Salutes HST
HUNTER THOMPSON IS NOT DEAD.
Don’t believe their filthy lies. Giblets saw the Good Doctor with his own two eyes just a few hours ago, heading north in the White Whale. He said he was headed up to heaven to shoot God. “The great bastard’s in season and it’s long overdue,†the Godfather of Gonzo said as he dusted off his elephant gun. “I have full reason to believe they will award me both the head and the tail. Expect me back by the apocalypse.†Good hunting, Doctor Thompson. You’ll be missed.
(via Sister Novena, via Fafblog)
———————–
Anita Thompson, 32, said her husband had discussed killing himself in recent months and had been issuing verbal and written directives about what he wanted done with his body, his unpublished works and his assets.
His suicidal talk put a strain on their relationship, she said.
“He wanted to leave on top of his game. I wish I could have been more supportive of his decision,” she said. “It was a problem for us.”
Via CNN
Hunter and wife, Anita
The literary champ was sitting in his command post kitchen chair, a piece of blank paper in his favorite typewriter, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot through the mouth hours earlier.
But a small circle of family and friends gathered around with stories, as he wished, with glasses full of his favored elixir — Chivas Regal on ice.
“It was very loving. It was not a panic, or ugly, or freaky,” Thompson’s wife, Anita Thompson, said Thursday night in her first spoken comments since the icon’s death Sunday. “It was just like Hunter wanted. He was in control here.”
“This is a triumph of his, not a desperate, tragic failure,” Anita Thompson said by phone, recounting that she was sitting in her husband’s chair he called his catbird seat in the Rockies.
She added: “He lived a beautiful life and he lived it on his own terms, all the way from the very beginning to the very end.”
Via Rocky Mountain News
