I'm sure this will be all over the place tomorrow, but I just log on and find this; very, very sad. I don't usually get emotional over famous people, but, shit.
Author Hunter S. Thompson Kills Himself
1 minute ago
Add to My Yahoo! U.S. National - AP
ASPEN, Colo. - Hunter S. Thompson, the acerbic counterculture writer who popularized a new form of journalism in books like "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," fatally shot himself Sunday night at his Aspen-area home, his son said. He was 67.
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"Hunter prized his privacy and we ask that his friends and admirers respect that privacy as well as that of his family," Juan Thompson said in a statement released to the Aspen Daily News.
Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis, a personal friend of Thompson, confirmed the death to the News. Sheriff's officials did not return calls to The Associated Press late Sunday.
Juan Thompson found his father's body. Thompson's wife, Anita, was not home at the time.
Besides the 1972 drug-hazed classic about Thompson's time in Las Vegas, he is credited with pioneering "gonzo journalism," purposefully slanted writing full of the writer's opinions.
Other books include "Hell's Angels" and "The Proud Highway." His most recent effort was "Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and The Downward Spiral of Dumbness."
Holy Crap, (Hunter Thompson)
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stilltrucking
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Scootertrash
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I read this just now. I thought of Hemingway. I thought of Brautigan. And now... Thompson.
How many writers seek escape from the pain of writing thru self-inflicted wounds?
The women writers seem to take to drowning or perhaps poison or even gas, but they wouldn't defile their pretty little heads. It is the men that blow their brains out (Cobain), without regard of the mess it makes for other to clean up. Of course, the clean up is not what is in the heads of those that do such things - it is an effort to empty their own heads of all the confusion, doubts, madness, and bullshit.
Altho many years ago two of our better friends had a neighbor that lived across the street from them... a woman. She took to blowing her brains out. She lived alone. Perhaps she was an exception.
I won't thank you for the news, Shamatha, but I will thank you for the news.
How many writers seek escape from the pain of writing thru self-inflicted wounds?
The women writers seem to take to drowning or perhaps poison or even gas, but they wouldn't defile their pretty little heads. It is the men that blow their brains out (Cobain), without regard of the mess it makes for other to clean up. Of course, the clean up is not what is in the heads of those that do such things - it is an effort to empty their own heads of all the confusion, doubts, madness, and bullshit.
Altho many years ago two of our better friends had a neighbor that lived across the street from them... a woman. She took to blowing her brains out. She lived alone. Perhaps she was an exception.
I won't thank you for the news, Shamatha, but I will thank you for the news.
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Scootertrash
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"Anytime there's a big sporting event, go to either the winning or losing town; there'll be riots in both of time. Riots are fun." (Hunter S. Thompson, advice on 'adventure' in Men's Journal)
"Avoid being seized by the police. The cops are not your friends. Don't tell them anything." (Hunter S. Thompson, advice on 'adventure' in Men's Journal)
"Ether is the perfect drug for Las Vegas. In this town they love a drunk. Fresh meat." (Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)
"Events of the past two years have virtually decreed that I shall wrestle with the literary muse for the rest of my days. And so, having tasted the poverty of one end of the scale, I have no choice but to direct my energies toward the acquisiton of fame and fortune. Frankly, I have no taste for either poverty or honest labor, so writing is the only recourse left for me." (Hunter S. Thompson, to Mr. Arch Gerhart, January 29, 1958)
"Get out of control, but appear under control. It's not bad to alarm other people, though - it's good for them." (Hunter S. Thompson, advice on 'adventure' in Men's Journal)
"Gonzo journalism is a style of reporting based on William Faulkner's idea that the best fiction is far more true than any kind of journalism - and the best journalists have always known this. Which is not to say that fiction is necessarily 'more true' than journalism - or vice versa - but that both 'fiction' and 'journalism' are artificial categories; and that both forms, at their best, are only two different means to the same end." (Hunter S. Thompson)
"Groveling is wrong for the soul, like grappling with whores in a drugstore." (Hunter S. Thompson)
"Have an objective to give your bender a theme. For instance, stalking and killing a wild pig with a bowie knife." (Hunter S. Thompson, advice on 'adventure' in Men's Journal)
"History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of 'history' it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time - and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened." (Hunter S. Thompson)
"I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me." (Hunter S. Thompson)
"I've always considered writing the most hateful kind of work. I suspect it's a bit like fucking, which is only fun for amateurs. Old whores don't do much giggling." (Hunter S. Thompson, on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)
"In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity." (Hunter S. Thompson)
"Register at a hotel under a pseudonym, and then rent two convertibles - a Porsche and a green Cadillac - so you can switch cars when things start to go bad. Be sure to launch one of these cars off a steep hill." (Hunter S. Thompson, advice on 'adventure' in Men's Journal)
"Some may never live, but the crazy never die." (Hunter S. Thompson)
"Stay naked as much as possible, but do not impose your orgiastic will on others. Don't have sex in the lobby - it's usually awkward." (Hunter S. Thompson, advice on 'adventure' in Men's Journal)
"The Circus-Circus is what the whole hep world would be doing on Saturday night if the Nazis has won the war. This is the Sixth Reich." (Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)
"The city's frightening now. That's the basis of my reaction to Las Vegas. It's not the city I wrote about. It's not the same place at all. You'll notice that even the - what do you call them? - milestone or trademark casinos are now gone." (Hunter S. Thompson, on "modern" Las Vegas, when compared to the Las Vegas of the early 1970's)
"The Edge...There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over." (Hunter S. Thompson, Hells Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga)
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." (Hunter S. Thompson)
"We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world - bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are whores for power and oil with hate and fear in our hearts." (Hunter S. Thompson, on America)
Shit!
We can never know what's going on in the mind's of others.
Completely fathomless unless they tell us.
So often we find out when it's too late, after the fact.
Suicide makes me angry, sad and angry.
So many take this route, I wish they could have found another way.
And their family, their loved ones, the ones left behind.....
Such a desperate act, too too sad.
We can never know what's going on in the mind's of others.
Completely fathomless unless they tell us.
So often we find out when it's too late, after the fact.
Suicide makes me angry, sad and angry.
So many take this route, I wish they could have found another way.
And their family, their loved ones, the ones left behind.....
Such a desperate act, too too sad.
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Scootertrash
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In his own voice the Good Doctor's Ode To Jack
http://www.gonzo.org/fun/sound/odetojack.mp3
RealPlayer needed
http://www.gonzo.org/fun/sound/odetojack.mp3
RealPlayer needed
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Scootertrash
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Hmmm, it might not been out of unfathomable despair-he could've been diagnosed with a progressive incurable illness and decided not to linger nor die by inches.mousey1 wrote:
So many take this route, I wish they could have found another way.
And their family, their loved ones, the ones left behind.....
Such a desperate act, too too sad.
Some guys go that route.
if ever there was a man who should've written his own suicide note or obituary it is HST. but i doubt that such a document will surface.
but of course there will be questions as to whether in fact this was a suicide or an accident or foul play. as hemingway's and cobain's legend live on immor(t)ally.
i was reading schopenhauer's essay "on suicide" a couple days ago. (seems that arthur's father killed himself.) it doesn't exactly defend it, but points out the absurdity of condemnation of it.
but it just doesn't seem to fit. this just doesn't make any sense.
why is it that writers tend toward selfdestruction (or do they? maybe we just fixate on prominent cases and ignore the possibility that the incidence may not be much higher than general populace?)
not to mention the slow suicide by poisoning which is alcoholism (or, drug addiction, macdonalds, fox news).
there seem to be few cases of writers turning their destructive drive outward and committing murder, but many that turn inwards. thought is a dangerous disease. (rarely communicable?)
but of course there will be questions as to whether in fact this was a suicide or an accident or foul play. as hemingway's and cobain's legend live on immor(t)ally.
i was reading schopenhauer's essay "on suicide" a couple days ago. (seems that arthur's father killed himself.) it doesn't exactly defend it, but points out the absurdity of condemnation of it.
but it just doesn't seem to fit. this just doesn't make any sense.
why is it that writers tend toward selfdestruction (or do they? maybe we just fixate on prominent cases and ignore the possibility that the incidence may not be much higher than general populace?)
not to mention the slow suicide by poisoning which is alcoholism (or, drug addiction, macdonalds, fox news).
there seem to be few cases of writers turning their destructive drive outward and committing murder, but many that turn inwards. thought is a dangerous disease. (rarely communicable?)
I don't think 'Therefore, I am.' Therefore, I am.
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Lightning Rod
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stilltrucking
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suicide is the ultimate act of self control
a lump on my neck a tingling in my little finger no health insurance
I was thinking about Freud's suicide, he refused morphine for the pain of the cancer in his jaw (sometimes a cigar is a motherfucker)
unti the end. He felt the drugs would iinterfere with his work. He gave his final lecture and then asked his doctor for the fatal dose.
I think about the mess. I think about the mess I would leave and I think about the pain of my family. I have fantasy of moving away and find some friendly little beach town, and with my last bit of strength swimming to Cambodia, no fuss no mess no note, just a mystery.It is the men that blow their brains out (Cobain), without regard of the mess it makes for other to clean up. Of course, the clean up is not what is in the heads of those that do such things
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Lightning Rod
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considering the method of his death, I thought this was an ironic (or prophetic) subject for his last column.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/st ... son/050216
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/st ... son/050216
Bravo
Bravo for Hunter, I say.
When someone decides to kill themself and follows through with it, then who are the rest of us to question the decision?
Hunter the iconoclast, the rumbling ivory- tusked boar in a field of domesticated swine. Think of the ignominy of an aging, doddering, toothless, drooling Hunter S. Thompson, limbs too wasted to lift a weighty handgun, no strength left to heft the 1/2 gal of wild turkey. Imagine the disgrace of being confined to a hospital & told by cleancut doctors smelling of aftershave and BMW leather to "watch your alcohol intake, no red meat, and 8 hours of sleep per night, no exceptions".
I have immense admiration for suicide writers.
Certainly, any faceless, walk-a-day-sidewalk bloke like you or me can off themselves and leave behind a few file drawers of whatever art or manuscripts life drove us to create, perhaps our final thoughts clinging to the hope that some relative, some entrepreneur will make something of the gibberish we leave behind, seduce some publisher into going for the myth shot, the postmortem bestseller gig (isn't that the case with John Kennedy Toole and The Confederacy of Dunces?) But how likely is that?
Ah, but the established, published, bonafide author, when he or she turns the lamp out the last time, then allez! Tribute to their memory, bless their work, extol their creative lives, their relentless offering, and let them rest in peace.
Salute to you, Harry Crosby, boyish and unutterably eccentric, finalized at 31.
Chip chip to you, Master Hem, your bluff and machismo all hubris at the final instant of explosive demise, but your lean prose style, deserty-spare remains.
Aloha Hart Crane, your bloated torso bobbing on the Caribbean waves while the ship sails on to New York.
прощание Mayakovsky (1890-1930), better your own hand guide the bullet through your brain than the hand of some illiterate Stalin lackey, onion & vodka breath in the face.
Om groovy watermelon sugar to you too Richard Brautigan, your whiskey bottle Montana big sky redoubt.
Shoot straight your beloved shotgun, chisel-jawed Lew Welch disappeared into California woods never heard from again.
Bottoms up, Ms. Woolf, Davey Jones Locker of the lake the eternal room of your own.
Yip out, Abbie Hoffman, wave that American flag upside down in heaven and taunt the likes of Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Daly sweltering in pig sty depths of fire.
My hat is off to you all! I'll sluice the blood of chirst from my flagon the day long in your memories, linger at the bookcase, take in hand The Proud Highway and drink in your wild animal prose, Hunter S.
Don't despair for Hunter. We marveled at his renegade career, laughed uproariously at his writing, relished the authenticity of his voice, gave thanks for his tireless willingness to confront the Man.
No time to cry in our cocktails. Heft the glass, pick up the pen, go to the typewriter, the keyboard, grab the paint brush, the saxophone, the camera, take a deep breath and charge the goddamn world, confront it, record it, relay it, transform it. That's our task in the aftermath.
When someone decides to kill themself and follows through with it, then who are the rest of us to question the decision?
Hunter the iconoclast, the rumbling ivory- tusked boar in a field of domesticated swine. Think of the ignominy of an aging, doddering, toothless, drooling Hunter S. Thompson, limbs too wasted to lift a weighty handgun, no strength left to heft the 1/2 gal of wild turkey. Imagine the disgrace of being confined to a hospital & told by cleancut doctors smelling of aftershave and BMW leather to "watch your alcohol intake, no red meat, and 8 hours of sleep per night, no exceptions".
I have immense admiration for suicide writers.
Certainly, any faceless, walk-a-day-sidewalk bloke like you or me can off themselves and leave behind a few file drawers of whatever art or manuscripts life drove us to create, perhaps our final thoughts clinging to the hope that some relative, some entrepreneur will make something of the gibberish we leave behind, seduce some publisher into going for the myth shot, the postmortem bestseller gig (isn't that the case with John Kennedy Toole and The Confederacy of Dunces?) But how likely is that?
Ah, but the established, published, bonafide author, when he or she turns the lamp out the last time, then allez! Tribute to their memory, bless their work, extol their creative lives, their relentless offering, and let them rest in peace.
Salute to you, Harry Crosby, boyish and unutterably eccentric, finalized at 31.
Chip chip to you, Master Hem, your bluff and machismo all hubris at the final instant of explosive demise, but your lean prose style, deserty-spare remains.
Aloha Hart Crane, your bloated torso bobbing on the Caribbean waves while the ship sails on to New York.
прощание Mayakovsky (1890-1930), better your own hand guide the bullet through your brain than the hand of some illiterate Stalin lackey, onion & vodka breath in the face.
Om groovy watermelon sugar to you too Richard Brautigan, your whiskey bottle Montana big sky redoubt.
Shoot straight your beloved shotgun, chisel-jawed Lew Welch disappeared into California woods never heard from again.
Bottoms up, Ms. Woolf, Davey Jones Locker of the lake the eternal room of your own.
Yip out, Abbie Hoffman, wave that American flag upside down in heaven and taunt the likes of Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon, J. Edgar Hoover, Richard Daly sweltering in pig sty depths of fire.
My hat is off to you all! I'll sluice the blood of chirst from my flagon the day long in your memories, linger at the bookcase, take in hand The Proud Highway and drink in your wild animal prose, Hunter S.
Don't despair for Hunter. We marveled at his renegade career, laughed uproariously at his writing, relished the authenticity of his voice, gave thanks for his tireless willingness to confront the Man.
No time to cry in our cocktails. Heft the glass, pick up the pen, go to the typewriter, the keyboard, grab the paint brush, the saxophone, the camera, take a deep breath and charge the goddamn world, confront it, record it, relay it, transform it. That's our task in the aftermath.
"... accept balance on the turbulent promenade."
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