By Sheila
Lennon
Bottom-up' journalism from the pros
Fair and balanced, too!
February 22, 2005, 6:36 p.m. -- Last
week's weblog
I'm off for a week. In the past, my
colleagues have pitched in as guest bloggers, and I'll be looking for them
to keep things lively here.
February 21, 2005, 4:01 p.m.
Gonzo meets Gidget at the pearly gates. John "Curly" Raitt's belting, "OKE-la-homa,
where the...":
Hunter
S Thompson: There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. Some kind
of high powered mutant never even considered for mass production. Too weird
to live, and too rare to die.
Where's Hunter S. Thompson when you need him?
Checked out, a Hemingway turn with a beloved shotgun .45 ends in a
scene with Gidget -- Sandra
Mrs. Bobby Darin Dee, Tammy ferteenyboppersake-- holding his hand
at heaven's door. To show tunes. All three arrived together yesterday.
No waking up from this one.
There were rumors ("OK
his insides can't handle solids now and he lives on avocado and yoghurt, but
surely that's a small price to play for the wild ride.")
We made the pilgrimage to Woody Creek in the summer of '71, two-thirds of
the way cross country in a $900 International Travelall that hauled state workers
before we painted the inside red, and taped velcro for mosquito netting to
the back panel doors.
The tavern looked empty, HST still sleeping.
I didn't want to meet him. He had more than a decade on me, and I knew he'd
find me boring, timid, unformed. Guns? Gulp.
I just wanted to leave a thank
you for the writing, for saying it, for changing me. This is gonna have
to be it.
He did Dionysian to derangement. And today I don't want to hear mealy clucking
disapproval from Sparta East or modern Puritan America.
It's damned lonely on that edge, any edge. He endured it till he didn't any
more.
Tonight, a shot, a toast to Thompson. For now, read:
The
New York Times obit says HST is 65, born July 18, 1939; The
Aspen Daily News, the
Denver Post and AP, July 18, 1937; Internet site Who's
Alive and Who's Dead says 1936; Did the Times haul out an obit written
earlier, in the can and waiting? Is this gonzo journalism's last laugh or
a secret only the Times knew?
At Rolling Stone,
not a mention, and "A search on Hunter S. Thompson did not return any
matches. "
Dr. Hunter S.
Thompson Bulletin Board & All-Nite Shooting Range (guestbook for
memories) at The New Old
HST Bulletin Board.
A post there:
Richard M. Nixon — 2/21/2005 2:31:23 AM
What took you so long? Now, where were we...?
Hunter S. Thompson
dead at 67, The
Aspen (Colo.) Daily News. The hometown paper.
"Hunter was not only a national treasure, but the conscience of this
little village," said Gerry Goldstein, a prominent Aspen attorney who
is a dear friend of the Thompson family. "He kept us all honest. It
didn't matter who you were, whether you were his friend or someone he didn't
even know. He didn't mind grading your paper. He was righteous. He was part
of a literary nobility."
Pitkin County Commissioner Dorothea Farris, who moved to Carbondale in the
late 1980s after living in Woody Creek, called Thompson a fine neighbor despite
the fact it was common for her to hear gunfire from his property. As much
as he was a defender of the First Amendment, he was also a champion of the
Second Amendment. Firearms were abundant at Owl Farm, where he had his own
shooting range.
"He was a good neighbor," Farris said. "He slept during the
day and wrote at night. This is sad."
The Great Thompson Hunt: The
original HST fan site. WHO
IS (DR.) HUNTER S. THOMPSON? is its original first page, with that blue
and white Mosaic browser look. (It says,"...born July 18, 1937")
Below it, What
Is Gonzo Journalism?
...Another feature that makes it unique is that true gonzo writing is unedited.
A notorious misser of deadlines, Thompson often drove editors nuts because
he often faxed articles late, too late to be edited but just in time to make
the printers. Dr. Thompson sees the fax machine, or "Mojo Wire" to
be the ultimate communications instrument, as one can send information anywhere
in seconds....
The
Death of Hunter S. Thompson at Blogcritics:
Many offerings from writers who call him influence.
From comments at I
Am Correct's eulogy:
Todd R. Steenburg: I would give anything to read one last story from The
Good Doctor.
I named my son Hunter Thomas (Thompson was too much for my wife to bear
as a middle name) because I couldn't think of another person on earth that
I'd more like him to emulate.
Live your life as if each day was the last -- and if the poor swine can't
take the medicine.. if they can't swallow the fact that your time has come..
That your last thought was to chew the slug out of the business end of a
loaded shotgun.. then they don't get the essense of the beast. They don't
get that a man can choose when to leave, when to stay.. and choose he did.
Mahalo
and,
Anonymous said...
It is unfortunate that Hunter is gone. Honestly between him and Bill Maher,
they are the reasons I am in political science. He was a guiding light for
the truth, even though we all loathed what was on the other end. I take comfort
in that Hunter went out on his own terms. The best writer/journalist of the
20th century.
A
Master Passes by Stewart Pittman, veteran TV news photographer and the "lenslinger" of
Viewfinder Blues
A hero of mine is dead, apparently by his own hand. It's a sad end to a
whirlwind life, an abrupt halt to a twisted, tortured existence spanning
several decades of decadence and delusion that changed the face of journalism
in the process. To some he was just a drug-fueled, gun obsessed iconoclast,
a hold-over from the sixties who never let go of that era's freedom. But
to me, he's always been a literary role model, the Father of Gonzo Journalism
who long ago scrambled my brains and ignited my soul....
And now he's gone, the apparent victim of his own violent psyche. That part
saddens me the most, as it will cast a shadow over his legacy for awhile,
givign others ample proof that the Father of Gonzo Journalism was in fact,
still crazy after all these years. Perhaps. But throughout his life, Dr.
Thompson inspired as much as he instigated, delivered as much as he derided,
and lifted a workaday medium to dizzying new heights.... Some view his work
with middle-of-the-road disdain, dismissing his infectious wordplay and laser-beam
wit as the drug-addled ramblings of a madman. Fair enough - but if you're
reading this, then count yourself a fan. If you like what it is I've been
attempting to pull off at this humble site, then you too are a Disciple of
the Duke, for my hollow words are a mere echo of what Hunter S. Thompson
has been shouting about all these years...
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
Indeed...Rest in Peace, H.S.T.
Gonzo's
Gone To Bitburg:
Hunter S Thompson is dead.
S***.
I have one more thing to do today then I'm going to get drunk.
Rob
Audio: The
Paris Review Interview: Hunter S. Thompson On Humphrey and Muskie
Originally Appeared in Issue 156, Fall 2000
Alexey
the Sinner: "I've not been sad like this since Mr. Rogers died."
RIP
HST, by Acoustic Kitty at My Aching Blog
The world has lost a great and insane mind. We will all have to go a little
crazier in order to fill the vacuum left by the loss of Hunter S. Thompson.
He will always remain somewhat a mythic figure for me; along with Burroughs,
Henry Miller, Miles Davis and a host of others. When it was most necessary
for me to shatter my sophomoric perspective of youth and face the ugly truth
of life, these men were there to show me that it could be done. Oddness and
insanity, irreverence and unabashed contempt for convention could not only
survive, but flourish in this world....
'Truth
is weirder than any fiction I've seen ... ' : Guardian, U.K.
At Bankrate.com, Hunter
S. Thompson: surprised he's still here,
Bankrate: You've been particularly scathing to Jann Wenner, editor and founder
of Rolling Stone.
Hunter S. Thompson: Oh Christ, yeah. Yeah, he never paid on time. Never
has, never will. Ask all my good friends: You're nobody in the publishing
world if you haven't been fired by Rolling Stone. Two come to mind right
away, the editor of Sports Illustrated (Terry McDonnell) and the editor of
ESPN.com (John Walsh). It's a really distinguished alumni. He didn't pay
them either.
Bankrate: Did you jump at the chance to do a weekly sports column?
Hunter S. Thompson: I always like to have an immediate outlet. I wasn't
really looking for that, but John Walsh, who has been a friend of mine for
30 years from Rolling Stone, came out here with a couple other guys. I like
writing columns. The lag time between when a piece is due and when it's published
can be very disturbing to me. Those small, quick ideas that pass through
your mind, a column gives you an opportunity to spit them out....
...Bankrate: Among your many bizarre encounters, your limousine ride with
Richard Nixon during the 1972 presidential campaign was surely a high point.
Hunter S. Thompson: Oh, boy. The Raiders were playing against the Packers,
which was Nixon's team, and nobody else on the press bus could talk about
it, they were afraid of Nixon on football. He was known to be a hard rocker
and very involved. And (press secretary) Patrick Buchanan -- I've always
liked Patrick Buchanan -- he was looking for somebody to ride with the boss
and talk football, and these other guys, political wizards, nobody volunteered.
I was the only one on the press bus who volunteered.
Bankrate: You've been pretty outspoken in your dislike of our current commander
in chief.
Hunter S. Thompson: I was candid about Nixon, too.
Bankrate: Yet you say Nixon pales in comparison to George W. Bush.
Hunter S. Thompson: Oh, yeah, he looks almost like a liberal. You look at
the Clean Air Act and several others back then. Nixon was a crook but at
least he operated off of an individual base. But this yoyo, this stupid little … It's
cheap opera. Take a look at your pocket. Take a look around you. It's a hold-up,
a looting of the national treasury, and that's what they're doing. The combined
spending of the Kerry campaign is far less than $5 million for advertising.
Five million dollars, that's like a goddamned Susan Anthony dollar compared
to $60 billion that is just routine going out to Halliburton. We might lose
if we went to war with Halliburton.
Espn.com: Goodbye, Good
Doctor: With a heavy heart, Page 2 bids farewell to one of its own, the
incomparable Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005)
::publicado
por jorge em 21/02/05
" i have already lived and finished the life i planned to live." hunter
s. thompson (1977)
All Hunter
S. Thompson Meetup Groups Worldwide
Dr.
Gonzo, Down and Out In Aspen, Voodoo
Madness: Dean, from Auckland, N.Z.
"My life has been the polar opposite of safe, but I am proud of it
and so is my son, and that is good enough for me. I would do it all over
again without changing the beat, although I have never reccomended it to
others. That would be cruel and irresponsible and wrong, I think, and I am
none of those things.
Whoops, that's it, folks. We are out of time. Sorry. Mahalo. " -Hunter
S Thompson
Last published words of the first and only Gonzo Journalist. Eerily enough
these were the words I read not two hours before learning of the death of
Hunter S. Thompson. Last night in his Aspen compound, Thompson put an abrupt
period on the most brutally crazed life and career in modern writing. According
to his son Juan, Dr. Thompson fatally shot himself. Age 65.
If you're looking for cycling news, or comments life on the other side of
the planet, you won't find it today. An influential person in my life died
tonight, so this rant is all literary snarl and babble. I'll be back to my
normal self later, but tonight it's story time.
I first picked up a copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas at the tender
age of 16. This was about the time that I discovered Fight Club by Chuck
Pahlaniuk (thanks mom) and these two books had a major impact. Immediately.
At the time I was struggling with the idea that I wasn't good at anything.
Too small for football. Not smart (or patient enough) for Math or Science.
Music? No good. Painting? Worthless. Drawing? Just as pathetic. Writing?
Well, I can't write like Stienbeck or Kingsolver (nor do I want to), and
newspaper writing is dry and boring so looks like that's out as well. Right?
...halfway through Fear and Loathing I suddenly Got It. The drugs and violence
might have got me interested, but what kept it mind-blowing was the style
these guys had. The way they wrote, not just what they wrote about. They
didn't need "outlines" or "acts" or "proper structures." They
wrote like they thought, at a million miles an hour. You had to keep up or
get f&#ed, these guys weren't teaching to the bottom of the class and
I loved it. I started to really enjoy writing for English assignments, purely
to see how far I could push myself. I found my voice, and I spent the rest
of High School seeing how hard I could write without getting failed, and
it payed off.
This
is London: "Gonzo journalism, he called it, but who the hell was
Gonzo? Or what? According to the Dictionary of American Slang, it is street-speak
for anything wild, bizarre or confused, although there are those who reckon
it is an Irish-American term for the last man standing after a long drinking
session. And Thompson was always the last man standing."
Don't forget Ralph
Steadman.
Salon interview, 2003: Hunter
S. Thompson: "The godfather of gonzo says 9/11 caused a "nationwide
nervous breakdown" -- and let the Bush crowd loot the country and savage
American democracy. "
More Thompson
links
From 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' by Hunter S Thompson
We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled
the 60's. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around
America selling 'consciousness expansion' without ever giving a thought to
the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who
took him seriously... All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought
they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss
and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion
of a whole life-style that he helped create... a generation of permanent
cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy
of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody... or at least
some force -- is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.
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