Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Lightning Rod
02-23-05
Washington D.C.


"objective? Fergiddaboudit."

Lend me your ears.

If Hunter Thompson accomplished nothing else in his life, he did one monumental thing. He exposed the myth of objective journalism. He proved that the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle also applies to reportage. Simply by observing an event, we change it.

Thompson saw the simple truth that a writer cannot be separated from his story. The writer is always part of the story. His embodiment of this principle was probably responsible for both his success and his demise. We all know the story of talent being overcome by fame.

I came to bury HST, not to praise him, but a little praise is in order. Although his conspicuous addictions and wonderful excesses were glorified in movie and print and cartoon, he was a consummate craftsman and as dedicated a writer as Updike or Hemingway or Kerouac or Twain. Perhaps in the end the myth overcame the man. But, at least Thompson created his own adversary. Et tu?

The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones. So let it be with Hunter. He took no prisoners but filled the general coffers with a richness of defiance and cold-eyed realism that is rarely seen today in journalism. Hunter cut to the chase. He wrote of real personal experiences and what can be learned from them.

The New York Times obituary said of Thompson:

“Mr. Thompson's approach in many ways mirrors the style of modern-day bloggers, those self-styled social commentators who blend news, opinion and personal experience on Internet postings. Like bloggers, Mr. Thompson built his case for the state of America around the framework of his personal views and opinions.”

And the New York Times is an honorable paper.

They say that his approach 'mirrors' bloggers. No. Bloggers mirror him. This man was the first one to cross the Rubicon when it came to personal, involved reporting. He occupied a story and influenced its outcome. This was his innovation and also his downfall, because when the reporter becomes more important or interesting than the story....well, you see the problem.

Hunter Thompson's last words were to his son. He said he wanted a grand funeral. He wanted his ashes to be shot from a cannon. Did this in Hunter seem ambitious?

Suicide could also be called self-assassination. They were all honorable men--Hemingway, Crane, Freud, Cobain, Belushi, Socrates, Bruce.

I can imagine several reasons for Hunter Thompson's suicide. Maybe he was in trouble with his bookie, I don't think it was because he was inconsolable over Bush winning the election or the Eagles losing the Super Bowl or because the NHL season was cancelled. Hunter was made of sterner stuff. Perhaps his liver was on the fritz or his prostate had grown large, who knows? Could be he just thought it would be better press to go out with a bang rather than a protracted whimper. Guns are quicker than knives. Does this seem ambitious?

But there are other possibilities. It could have been murder. Johnny Depp or Bill Murray could have snuck into the house posing as HST and shot the good Doctor anticipating the re-release of their movies after his death. Gary Trudeau? Or the government could have taken him out just for payback. Et tu Brute?

Suppose it was an accident. Perhaps he was fondling his shotgun and, you know, looking down the barrel to see if it needed cleaning and BAM!

Ironically his last column was about Shotgun Golf. It was a transcript of a 3:00 AM telephone conversation between Thompson and Bill Murray about a team sport which would be a combination of shooting skeet and playing golf.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/st ... 2213&num=1

The Poet's Eye weeps for the loss of an American Original. Weeps for us, not for him. He manufactured his own myth and he chose his own moment of exit.
Was this ambitious? No, it was Gonzo!!



You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Hunter,
And I must pause till it come back to me.--paraphrased from
Antony's funeral oration-- Julius Caesar-- Shakespeare

Late Hunter S. Thompson wanted ashes to be fired from a cannon


LOS ANGELES (AFP) - US author Hunter S. Thompson, who committed suicide last weekend, wanted to exit this world in a style befitting his extraordinary life: being fired from a cannon, a friend revealed.

The larger-than-life writer of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" stated in his will that he wanted his ashes to be fired out of a cannon following his funeral, plans for which have yet to be announced.


"I believe he wanted to be shot out of a cannon," friend Troy Hooper told AFP.


"I understand it's in his will," said Hooper, associate editor of the Aspen Daily News, based near the Colorado home where Thompson, 67, apparently shot himself on Sunday.


"That's Hunter's style. That's how he would want it. He was a big fan of bonfires and explosions and anything that went bang and I'm sure he'd like to go bang as well," he said.


Hooper, who became friends with father of "gonzo" journalism about five years before his death, cited reports that Thompson told his son, Juan, that his after-life ambition was to become cannon fodder -- literally.


"That's exactly the kind of stuff he would say all the time," he said of one of the most important American literary figures of the 20th Century.


It was Juan Thompson who found his father's body in his rural home in Woody Creek, near the ski resort of Aspen, after he apparently shot himself in the head on Sunday night.


Hooper, who saw Thompson last week, said Thompson had been in pain following recent back surgery, following a hip replacement and after he broke his leg recently.


But Thompson, famed for his LSD- and alcohol-fuelled literary exploits, did not seem "more distraught than usual" in the days before he died, Hooper said, adding that Thompson was "often either up or down."


Sheriff's department investigators in Woody Creek, where Thompson lived for more than 40 years, said he appeared to have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.


Thompson became a sharp-witted icon of 1960s counter-culture after the publications of "Fear and Loathing" in 1972 in which he pioneered "gonzo" journalism, in which the writer inserts himself and his personal views into the story.


His work, written in the first person, hit a chord with America's youth at the height of the unpopular Vietnam and the social rebellion of the 1960s and 70s.


Thompson described the birth of gonzo journalism in a 1974 interview with Playboy, saying he was covering the Kentucky Derby on deadline, but "I'd blown my mind, couldn't work."


"So finally I just started jerking pages out of my notebook and numbering them and sending them to the printer. I was sure it was the last article I was ever going to do for anybody."


Thompson rose to fame in 1966 with the publication of his book "Hell's Angels," the story of his infiltration of the then-feared Hell's Angels motorcycle gang, an adventure that got him savagely beaten.


"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" is the apocryphal tale of a wild, drug-fuelled weekend spent in the desert gambling hub of Las Vegas by protagonist Raoul Duke, a thinly-disguised version of Thompson.

The adventure was recreated in a 1998 Hollywood film starring Johnny Depp.

The stories of Thompson's heady experiences earned him a popular reputation as a wild-living, hard-drinking, LSD-crazed writer bent on self-destruction.

His other works include "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72," a collection of articles he wrote for Rolling Stone magazine while covering the election campaigns of then-president Richard Nixon and his opponent, Senator George McGovern.
_________________
Parkinson\'s Disease Forum

Sales Soar for Hunter S. Thompson Books


LOS ANGELES - Sales of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and other favorites by Hunter S. Thompson have soared since the "gonzo" journalist killed himself Sunday.



"Fear and Loathing" was No. 15 on Amazon.com as of Wednesday and publisher Vintage Books has ordered a "significant" reprinting.


"We usually sell about 60,000-70,000 copies a year of that book and our next printing will be close to that total," Vintage spokesman Russell Perreault said.


Other Thompson books selling well include "Hell's Angels," "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72" and "Hey Rube."


Thompson, 67, shot himself in the head Sunday night with a .45-caliber handgun in the kitchen of his home in the Woody Creek area north of Aspen, Colo. Friends said he had been in considerable pain over the past year after breaking a leg and undergoing hip surgery.
_________________
Mercedes Benz B Class

This is a fine tribute to Hunter S., LR.

I guess my only quibble with your excellent commentary (and many that I've read elsewhere of lesser quality & insight), is a tendency to refer to "his downfall" or his "demise".

I suppose that technically a person's suicide can certainly be called a "demise" yet the gist of much of the sentences that use this image (downfall) is that well, once he was HUNTER S. THOMPSON but at the time he ended his own life he was just, well, you know, fallen.

Not that Hunter exactly went out "on top". I happen to think that much of his work in the last few years, particularly those throw-away pieces on espnpage2, (though excepting his brilliant piece written right before the 2004 Presidential election) were pretty lame, particularly when weighed against the quality and verve of his best work. But he hadn't really languished and fallen into writer silence ruin, either.

So, "downfall"? Permit me to disagree.

On another note, however. BRILLIANT catch & call on the NYTimes obit. Saying that Hunter's work "mirrors the style of modern-day bloggers" is blasphemous indeed, not to mention unutterably stupid. Where was the fucking editor when that burp went through?

Sharp, LR, very sharp. Thanks for all the great words and the dialogue, 'tis sad the man's death sparked it all, but what the hell?
Light the fuse on that cannon, hand over a beer, and let's get on with the show.

P

thank you for the nice comment. very on time.

I agree that I was a little over the top with 'downfall'

that was probably not the right connotation

demise is more appropriate, but I am impatient with repetition of descriptive words.

it's just my little quirk

yes, light the bardo cannon fuse

put a bottle of wild turkey in and

point it south

lr

i really liked your self-assassination theme and endearing shakespearean tribute, uncanny almost, who'd a thunk it but you.

i hope ya make it big time someday soon, not for your sake of course, but for mine and our shared karmic visions. and that bit about subjectivity made manifest.

stayin sharp and on target.

something that comforts aswell. Honor given with magnitude.

I must have gotten distracted or perhaps addled. I know you gave me this link when I submitted my own Hunter tribute but why did I not read it?

This is so well done.

Thank you, fellow gonzoite.

Love
D

I have always admired a man that did things his own way regardless of what society thought at the time. These men usually changed the thinking for future generations. I don't mourn Hunter, I applaud him for being Gonzo to the end. Excellent piece of writing my friend.
"C"

anita is keeping a new blog:

http://www.owlfarmblog.com/

I missed this before, on the road, but amen nonetheless....

Don't do nuthin Th Doctor wouldn't do!

Anybody hear about when the movie Rum Diaries is comin out?

I wonder when we'll have Dr Gonzo on boxez of cereal!

Dr Gonzo lives on!

wwhstd?

the rum diary hasnt started production yet, but i believe it's due to soon. josh hartnett slated to play the good doctor.