Hunter S Thompson (1937-2005)

[steeltsar]

Rest in peace, Hunter S Thompson.

I'm looking forward to the first account of your encounters with the devil.

I don't rate Old Nick's chances.

[Marca]

Fear And Loathing In Hell? Here's a link to the news for those who haven't heard:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertain...ts/4282865.stm

[Pietro_Mercurios]

I must admit, the only book of his I've actually read, was Hells Angels (1966). That was a cracker of a book!

I've articles and bits and pieces, elsewhere. The thought of HS Thompson and Ralph Steadman doing America, still gives pause for thought.

The ultimate Gonzo Journalist Supreme. Things must have been bad, if he decided to hit the ejector switch, instead of getting tanked up and reporting the scene: 2005, in all its warts and all horror.

:(

[Typhoid_Mary]

I must admit, the only book of his I've actually read, was Hells Angels. That was a cracker of a book!

You have to read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It's a book that everyone should read at least once.

I'm quite weirded out by the news of HST's suicide. He was one of my favourite writers.

There's too much death around at the moment...

:(

[Kalessin]

She answered, "Gilgamesh, where are you hurrying to? You will never find that life for which you are looking. When the gods created man they allotted to him death, but life they retained in their own keeping. As for you, Gilgamesh, fill your belly with good things; day and night, night and day, dance and be merry, feast and rejoice. Let your clothes be fresh, bathe yourself in water, cherish the little child that holds your hand, and make your wife happy in your embrace; for this too is the lot of man."

[PsychicWarVeteran]

It's the fact iot was suicide that gets me. Very surprising. And very sad.

Rest in peace, Hunter S. Thompson.

[mordenkainen]

8O

[DeeCrowSeer]

Hunter S. Thompson's writing had a profound and unquantifiable influence on me as a young man, and I doubt very much that I would have followed the path, or made the connections, that I did without the strange fuel his books fed me. I doubt I understood more than half of the things he wrote, and I never followed his example as a "role model", but nevertheless it's hard to imagine where or who I would be now if I hadn't picked up a cheap paperback edition of Songs of the Doomed back in my early teens. It's too early to comment on the circumstances of his death, if such things require comment, although it does strike me as something of an anti-climax.

As a tribute, I'd like to reproduce the following essay, written by HST at the age of seventeen:

Security... what does this word mean in relation to life as we know it today? For the most part, it means safety and freedom from worry. It is said to be the end that all men strive for; but is security a utopian goal or is it another word for a rut?

Let us visualize the secure man; and by this term, I mean a man who has settled for financial and personal security for his goal in life. In general, he is a man who has pushed ambition and initiative aside and settled down, so to speak, in a boring, but safe and comfortable rut for the rest of his life. His future is but an extension of his present, and he accepts it as such with a complacent shrug of his shoulders. His ideas and ideals are those of society in general and he is accepted as a respectable, but average and prosaic man. But is he a man? Has he any self-respect or pride in himself? How could he, when he has risked and gained nothing? What does he think when he sees his youthful dreams of adventure, accomplishment, travel and romance buried under the cloak of conformity? How does he feel when he realizes that he has barely tasted the meal of life; when he sees the prison he has made for himself in pursuit of the almighty dollar? If he thinks this is all well and good, fine, but think of the tragedy of a man who has sacrificed his freedom on the altar of security, and wishes he could turn back the hands of time. A man is to be pitied who lacked the courage to accept the challenge of freedom and depart from the cushion of security and see life as it is instead of living it second-hand. Life has by-passed this man and he has watched from a secure place, afraid to seek anything better. What has he done except to sit and wait for the tomorrow which never comes?

Turn back the pages of history and see the men who have shaped the destiny of the world. Security was never theirs, but they lived rather than existed. Where would the world be if all men had sought security and not taken risks or gambled with their lives on the chance that, if they won, life would be different and richer? It is from the bystanders (who are in the vast majority) that we receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must be laid aside for a life which is but a painful wait for death. These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can from life out of the imaginations and experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at the now-familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to go through years on a tread-mill, cursing their existence, yet afraid to die because of the unknown which faces them after death. They lacked the only true courage: the kind which enables men to face the unknown regardless of the consequences.

As an afterthought, it seems hardly proper to write about life without once mentioning happiness; so we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?

The Proud Highway: Fear and Loathing Letters Volume 1 (Bloomsbury 1997)

[steeltsar]

There were four of us at university; Cambridge in the early 70s. Hunter S Thompson was one of our patron saints. Like having a very bad uncle sending a stream of violently exotic postcards.
Him and Ralph Steadman.
Anyway, salut, and thanks. We had some good times.

[mordenkainen]

Has anyone read "Hey Rube" yet by the way? I never had an occasion to read his column in ESPN.

[Anonymous]

The authors that have had the most influence on me (in no particular order):

Michael Moorcock
Robert Anton Wilson
William S. Burroughs
Hunter S. Thompson

Today is a sad day.

[devilchicken]

My mate sent me this:

Just prior to his death Hunter S Thompson
invented a new sport, Shotgun Golf, with Bill
Murray. His description:

"The game consists of one golfer, one shooter
and a field judge. The purpose of the game
is to shoot your opponent's high-flying golf
ball out of the air with a finely-tuned
12-gauge shotgun, thus preventing him (your
opponent) from lofting a 9-iron approach
shot onto a distant "green". Points are
scored by blasting your opponent's shiny
new Titleist out of the air and causing
his shot to fail miserably. After that,
you trade places and equipment, and move
on to round two.

Go out this weekend and play it in tribute.

Read HST's last ever column:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?id=1992213

[DeeCrowSeer]

They mentioned the golf thing in some reports I'd read, but it was never really explained. Thanks for filling in the blanks! I suppose I should have guessed that it involved guns somewhere along the line...

[devilchicken]

Perhaps they could slip it into the next Olympics as a new event. Along with grenade fishing

[Marca]

Anyone heard that there's now a conspiracy theory doing the rounds about HST's 'suicide'? The curious lack of information concerning his death only fuels such rumours I suppose. :?: