Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Here's how it happened:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=1999553

Seems like a pretty shitty thing to do to his family.

. . . but I suppose being a "road man for the lords of karma" causes one a little bit of stress.

There's a much more detailed story, and interview with his son and daughter-in-law in the Rocky Mountain News.

http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/state ... 97,00.html

Thompson died behind his typewriter in the kitchen — the area that doubled as his work space and tripled as a salon of ideas and celebrities who would drop by for a whiskey or call in on the famous speakerphone.

When Thompson fired his .45-caliber handgun at 5:42 p.m., Winkel Thompson was with Will in the adjacent living room. Juan Thompson was in a nearby office. Both thought the explosion was a book falling.

Winkel Thompson continued playing 20 questions with Will. Juan Thompson continued taking a photo.

Until a few minutes later.

"When I found him, he was in his chair, his head was slumped forward," Juan Thompson recounted. "It looked like he had fallen asleep. I saw him. I thought, 'Oh, did he fall asleep in his chair?'

"You never describe a gun as peaceful, but it wasn't violent."

Juan Thompson called Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis.

Was that because Braudis was a longtime friend of Thompson's or because he was the sheriff?

"For both reasons," Juan Thompson said.

Juan Thompson recalled that he said to Braudis: "Hunter shot himself."

Braudis, on his cell phone, replied, "I'm on my way."

Did Hunter Thompson have his favorite liquid sidekick, a glass of Chivas Regal on the counter?

"Of course he did," Juan Thompson said.

But he emphasized that his father was not in a state.

"He was rested," he said. "He got a night's sleep. He was calm. A lot of people figure it was the end of a five-night binge. It was a deliberate choice. It wasn't something made in a drug or alcohol fog.

"The guy was a warrior, and he went out like a warrior."

"He had a lot of courage, and he wasn't afraid to direct his life," Winkel Thompson said.

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I sympathise with people who see suicide as the only way out of a situation. I have considered, maybe even fantasised about it, many times. But, I'm still here because I have good days as well as bad.

I also think I have never killed myself because I'm too unmotivated to do even that.

Another reason for never going through with the graphic depictations in my head is thinking about the people I'd leave behind. Not thinking I'd miss them but thinking how they'd feel.

Maybe you get to a point of complete despair when you can't even think about family and friends. Maybe there is a point where all the good memories get so fucking tarnished by the bad that a swift bullet is the only answer.

Suicide is a cowards way out. It's a cowards way out because it is an escape, not a solution. I guess you could argue that it is a solution, in that it solves all your problems.

Anyway, I do think it's a cowards way out. But, since I'm alway on the side of the underdog, that includes the coward.

I don't know much about Thompson. I've only ever seen the film of Fear and Loathing, which I really enjoyed. But to reach such a pit of dispair as to put a bullet through your head is one thing, doing it while your wife was on the other end of the line just seems like a cruel and quite sick thing to do.

Was he out of it on "medication" when he killed himself?

The very validity of suicide is neither cowardly nor courageous. Suicide is valid when it is necessary. It's not a matter of courage or cowardice, it's not a matter of morality, it's a matter of economics.

It can be a cost-cutting measure. You can spare yourself physical or emotional pain by making that choice and in the case of impending physical infirmity, you can spare your family the expense and turmoil of caring for an invalid.

What difference does it make if they find you slumped over your desk from a gunshot or a heart attack? I remember when my grandmother died in her bed of perfectly natural causes. It wasn't pleasant to find her. Rigormortis was just setting in and she was stiffening and gritting her teeth.

he was a wild man and he went out in a blaze, on his terms, I never expected less from that crazed Gonzo Dog, read him if you have not and know he was for real..................

Suicide is the most selfish act there is.

I spent a whole day here the other day posting about it.

I don't want posts on this site in any way to even suggest that suicide is OK.

It's not OK.

Why do I feel responsible?

Because I am responsible for hosting this site.

And what if... what if there is someone out there viewing these messages who is feeling so down that they are contemplating ending their life.... let's say this someone is absolutely miserable and in horrible mental pain .... and the pain is so much that they are feeling that they just can't do it any more ... and then they hit this site, which I am hosting, and read that many people are saying that suicide is an acceptable alternative.

I wouldn't like that too much if something somebody read on this site caused that person to carry through with the task.

What's the difference of finding someone keeled over a desk dead after having a heart attack compared to finding someone keeled over a desk after a self-inflicted gun shot wound?

Come ON!!!!!!

There's a HUGE difference.

To say suicide is an acceptable choice is to promote it.

I wish people would stop doing that here.

Philosophize all you want, but please have a heart and some sensitivity when it comes to who may be viewing these threads.

Thanks.

Sorry, but I'm very sensitive about stuff like this.

People who are contemplating suicide need to seek professional help because there ARE treatments for mental anguish and they CAN get better and life CAN be joyful again.

As I said in a previous thread, I can understand euthanasia in certain circumstances for terminally ill patients, but at no other time would I support someone's desire to take their own life.

It is a selfish act and the family and friends of the person who commits suicide will carry the memory and grief of it with them throughout the rest of their lives. It's NOT fair to them!

doreen,

we have agreed to disagree on this subject.

I know you don't like unpleasant things.

But there are many unpleasant things that need to be discussed.

Things like death and sickness and pain and suicide and aborting are not pleasant subjects but they are important ones.

None of us wants to abort a baby or commit suicide or put a plastic bag over our mother's head. But sometimes these terrible things are preferable to the alternatives.

But simply discussing a topic like suicide or death doesn't mean we advocate it.

I didn't say not to discuss it.

Of course topics like death and suicide need to be discussed.

But.....

None of us wants to abort a baby or commit suicide or put a plastic bag over our mother's head. But sometimes these terrible things are preferable to the alternatives.

What the HELL are you saying? Putting a plastic bag over your mother's head is preferable to WHAT?

That's just plain sick.

Abortion is sometimes necessary. Murdering your mother is NEVER necessary. Committing suicide could maybe be an acceptable alternative if you are dying of a terminal illness and there is absolutely NO alternative to creating a way any respectable quality of living at all. Otherwise, it's just plain selfish and is not an acceptable alternative.

Sorry, but to say that putting a plastic bag over someone's head is a preferable alternative to WHATever .... is promoting MURDER, my dear.

AND saying that committing suicide is a preferable alternative to living, is promoting suicide.

Plain and simple.

You say it's OK.

And it's NOT ok.

And to say it's ok, is to promote it.

And what if... what if there is someone out there viewing these messages who is feeling so down that they are contemplating ending their life.... let's say this someone is absolutely miserable and in horrible mental pain .... and the pain is so much that they are feeling that they just can't do it any more ... and then they hit this site, which I am hosting, and read that many people are saying that suicide is an acceptable alternative.

i think it's wrong to assume suicide is always connected with being down, and i think that's at the root of your disagreement with it, in that you view it as an escape while in a certain state of depression


but i don't believe suicide is necessarily connected in such a manner...it is quite possible hunter, just as others who suicide, are completely coherent, upbeat, and together when they suicide

Shooting one's self as the culmination of one's life
in ink, drugs and guns
is as right as the Pope
being rendered silent,
to save him,
by the vatican surgeon.

It is interesting to me that HST's family didn't seem to mind the mess or the ending and accepted his choice as "the warrior's way".

My initial shock at the self murder (call it suicide, if you prefer) is what someone leaves behind for others close to, to deal with. I too think it is a purely selfish act but we are selfish beings, all of us, whether self preservation or destruction is kicking in.

Maybe it wasn't a spur of the moment decision, maybe he planned it all along...who knows but one guy and he is dead as a dildo.

What a marooon!...I keep saying, over and over...what a big Goof! I have gone and found some of his recent writings and they are still pertinent, still amazingly good. If he was in pain...hell, life can be a pain...but there is always something beautiful on the horizon. He coulda done like Timothy Leary and LSDed himself to the other side or something! Hunter had more than many, a son, a wife, beaucoup friends..."What a Maroon!", as Roger Rabbit would say.

These guys and gals who off themselves are sure giving us writers a bad name. His gravestone should read, "Opps! couldn't handle it, couldn't take it anymore...and a middle finger to the rest of you."

Guess I'm still pissed...Hah!

Peace...without creating violence,
SooZen

..........or...

"oops couldn't handle it, and don't let yourselves be fooled, people, you, who continue to handle, are better equipped to survive.
keep it up - someone's gotta carry the torch..."

To say that suidide is a selfish act is true, but it also seems like a self-defeating argument. What could possibly be more selfish than telling someone what they can and cannot do with their own life . . . especially an adult. How can you argue against selfishness with selfishness of your own?

Would I be angry/sad/distraught if my own father or anyone close to me killed themselves? Of course I would. I'd be mad at them. But hopefully after the shock went away, I'd be brave and compassionate enough to view it as Hunters son and daughter in law did. "He had the courage to direct his own life," she said.

What right do I have to ask someone to go one with something they wish to end, just to save my own feelings? Because in the end, that is what it comes down to, wanting to avoid my own unpleasant feelings, asking someone to live their life to please me rather than themselves.

That said, discussing suicide is a touchy subject. Children( and many adults) aren't capable of making grown-up decisions, and suicide is definitely a grown-up decision. Counselling should always be the first option. Suicide is almost never the answer to a temporary problem, and all problems are only temporary. I would try to talk any person out of suicide who I knew was contemplating it, do whatever I could to stop them, because, no it is not the Answer. But then, another's life is not mine to possess, either. But Hunter was a grown-up, fully capable of self-determination, and it appears that, though saddened, his family understands that.

No one will ever really know why Hunter decided to leave the way he did. Some will make money speculating.

He certainly made no bones about how he felt about things.

Certainly, he has raised the question on the issue of suicide for all of us.

I for one, feel that all of us are on a course of suicide having elected George Bush and his cronies again, continuing to allow him and Cheney to misrepresent us to the world, tearing down the word democracy to a religious crusade.

The richest company in this country was recently announced and it was Mobil/Exxon.

Complacency is suicide too folks. So who the hell are we to talk?

H