Guess what my wife brought home for me today...

[Barry]

...This: http://www.amazon.com/Gonzo-Life-Hunter ... 0316005274
...from Powell's Books on Hawthorne.

And now she's pissed because I'm a little fucked up.

Oh, well...GONZO forever, right?

HST, you stomped on the terra.

Peace,
Barry
PS: I cannot wait to read it.

[Barry]

So I started reading on Friday and finished it just now.
Man, I can't believe what a dick that guy was, and how all the people he was a dick to, no matter how much of a dick he was, lavish nothing but praise on his memory. Is it just because he's dead now, like that's just what you do when someone dies, lavish praise on them no matter what kind of an asshole they were in life?
I don't get it.
I mean, yeah, he was brilliant; he established a genre all his own: gonzo journalism; and no one has come along yet who can do it the way he did. But, jeez, did he have to be such a complete asshole to the people who loved him? Is that what brilliance means, what brilliance is? Shit, they even make the fact that he shot himself in the head, with his family in another room of the house, seem like it was the right thing for him to do. I just can't get behind that.

Peace,
Barry

[Doreen Peri]

I watched part of the movie with Johnny Depp ... "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" .... I couldn't watch very much of it. That's exactly what I thought. What an asshole.

Lots of people love that book and movie and admire Hunter Thompson. Honestly, I've never read his stuff. Renting the movie was my first step in deciding whether I wanted to read him. I decided not to.

Back in my twenties, I watched people get fucked up and fall down. It wasn't funny or fun then and it's not funny now.

The suicide was pure selfishness. I've seen people on the internet actually praising him for being so open about wanting to kill himself, saying that people should have their own control over their lives and deaths, like committing suicide is something to be admired.

Bullshit. It's the most selfish act there is and shouldn't be glorified.

I feel sorry for his family who were subjected to the mess they had to clean up.

Admittedly, as I said, I haven't read his work so I have no opinion about his writing.

But to elevate him to some sort of hero based on his lifestyle of substance abuse and being a jerk to his friends and family members.... well, I definitely don't get that. It's sad. The man was no hero.

[Barry]

The first time I ever read the book- the Vegas book - as he called it, in the first few pages I found myself laughing out loud, all alone in an empty room, which is a little disconcerting when it happens. Laughter is something that's supposed to be...I don't know; shared, I guess. When you find yourself laughing alone, it's weird. This is the only book that ever did that to me, and it was a liberation of sorts, when I just let myself laugh and stopped worrying about what anyone overhearing might think. As it seems to have been for a lot of people.
Later on, when I was older, me and some friends - we called ourselves the spawning truthers or the Spawning Truth Club or the denizens of the lower pits or Portland - we used to take acid and read from that book to each other, for as long as we could as the drug took hold, until we were simply laughing and holding our sides, no longer able to read. Then we would go out into the streets of the city and...I don't know, blow bubbles out on the sidewalk downtown with the big bubble wand I'd made from a coathanger, try to cause as much and as little trouble as we could without actually getting into trouble. This was when the downtown part of Broadway, a few blocks from my loft, was the big cruising street in this town. One night my friend danced in amoungst the cars locked up on Broadway, like a torreodor with an invisible cape. And later on some guy showed us the gun in his belt, under the shirt, just to let us know that it wasn't like what we were doing wasn't dangerous. It was. It was fun. We did it anyway.
In our own small way, we tried to stomp on the terra, as Hunter did, without being too much of a dick at the same time. It wasn't always easy. In fact it was never easy. Bad craziness broke out all too often. But more often flowers bloomed, minds opened up, change swooped in and took place. It was all any of us could ever ask for.
We stomped on the terra. For fun. It was dangerous. But we did it anyway.

As for the movie, Doreen, I couldn't watch much of it, either. Watch the one with Bill Murray, Where the Buffalo Roam; it's the better movie of his life, in my opinion. It's hilarious, drunken hillbilly antics aside.
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As for the sucide, I'm with you...It's the most selfish - not selfless - act anyone can ever do. I feel about Hunter's suicide the way I feel about the movie Seven Pounds.
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No matter what good comes from it, it's still killing yourself. It's still thinking more about yourself than anyone else.

Even Jesus, whether it's a myth or not, even if it's just a story, the character in the story kills himself; he basically commits suicide by cop.
How can that be glorified?
But then again, if you really love the character, how can it not be?

I'm going to keep loving Hunter S. Thompson, even though he killed himself and I don't understand why or how he could do that.

My father-in-law, in 2005, he could have lived longer, stuck in a hospital bed receiving daily transfusions of fresh blood, but he said, no, this is no kind of life to live; stop the transfusions...and he died. It wasn't my choice to make, whether that's the choice I would have made or not. It was his. And he made it. I will not fault him for it. And I guess I won't fault HST either. There are just many things in this life I still do not understand. Love, however, is now less one of them.

Rest in peace, Hunter S. Thompson. You stomped on the terra!

Love,
Barry

[Doreen Peri]

Your father, lying in a hospital bed ill, who made the decision that he didn't want to be kept alive any more by blood transfusions .... that's a totally completely different thing then blowing your brains out with a shotgun so family members would have to find you and clean it up, like Hunter Thompson did.

No, your father did not commit suicide. He made a sane and rational decision about how much suffering he wanted to continue having and for what cost.

Thanks for the insight into your young adult life and the LSD excursions. I have stories, too, but I don't like talking about it. It's a part of my life I'd rather forget, frankly.

[Barry]

I was editing when you replied, so I missed this.

No, your father did not commit suicide. He made a sane and rational decision about how much suffering he wanted to continue having and for what cost.

I agree, but people say this about Hunter. Even his son says it, for God's sake. It's just too crazy.

Your father, lying in a hospital bed ill, who made the decision that he didn't want to be kept alive any more by blood transfusions .... that's a totally completely different thing then blowing your brains out with a shotgun so family members would have to find you and clean it up, like Hunter Thompson did.

I agree here, too. It might have been a little more thoughful to choose a less messy way to do it. He had loads of cocaine and other potentially lethal substances at his disposal.

Thanks for the insight into your young adult life and the LSD excursions. I have stories, too, but I don't like talking about it. It's a part of my life I'd rather forget, frankly.

I try not to forget the things I've done, even the mistakes. It just seems to get better that way.

Thanks, Doreen, for being who you are, and for being there.

Peace,
Barry

[SadLuckDame]

I don't know, but I loved the movie back in the day, then really dug the book a year ago, re~watched the movie recently and still thought it was genius. I've no opinions past that, other than he was just a guy in the end and the same as any of us with a poor decision.

His style of writing though was unique and increased my reading pleasure. If he were family, friend, etc. than I'd think more of his suicide or antics in general, I guess.

Oh man, the fabulous Richard Brautigan (whom I adore for his catfish) shot himself, Virginia Woolf stuffed rocks in her pockets before setting out to her watery excursion, Janis Joplin ODed, all the same to me and all missed, but glad they gave to begin with.

[diesel dyke]

So easy to sit in judgement.

The Savage God

They say Sylvia Plath was a victim of her biology. A fatal case of PMS. I spent thirty years trying to learn something from her death. But then it dawned on me like a bright light over Hiroshima. It was not her death that learned me but her life's work.

I have always been partial to tidy suicides. That has always been on my mind when I have considered it. Lew Welch was a very tidy suicide. I always admired that. Brautigan a messy one.

In 1984, at age 49, Richard Brautigan died of a self-inflicted .44 Magnum gunshot-wound to the head in his house in Bolinas, California, looking out at the ocean through his window. The exact date of his death is unknown, ...Brautigan's suicide note read "Messy, isn't it".

Brautigan once wrote, "All of us have a place in history. Mine is clouds.


http://www.findadeath.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17245

Better to treasure their life's work then dwell on their deaths.


For HST

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[the mingo]

Did someone say Richard Brautigan ? O driftwood artillery!

[Doreen Peri]

So easy to sit in judgement.

I guess.

I tend to be quite opinionated when it comes to glorifying suicide. It's not something that should be glorified, in my opinion. Nothing glorious about it. It's the most selfish act a person can do. Rubs me the wrong way when folk heros are made out of people just because they committed suicide. To be respected for what a person does with his live, his or her accomplishments, work, value, contributions, is wonderful! But suicide isn't something to be praised or glorified. It's sad. Not heroic or admirable.

[stilltrucking]

Woul you please please point out to me what I have written on this thread that glorifies suicide.

Maybe this could be said to glorify suicide?

Lew Welch was a very tidy suicide. I always admired that.

His body was never found. He went off into the mountains he loved and his rifle was missing.

Source
Genesis Angels Lew Welch and the beat generation. Aram Saroyan.

[Doreen Peri]

Nothing you wrote glorifies suicide.

That wasn't what I was saying.

You said, "so easy to judge" and I thought you were saying that it's too easy for people to judge people who commit suicide and I replied by stating that I do judge people who commit suicide as being selfish people and that suicide shouldn't be glorified.

That's all.

But now that I re-read your comment "I always admired that" .. .well I donno, maybe you're right. Maybe to admire the way a person commits suicide is glorifying it. I donno.

Is it?

[Doreen Peri]

Just a footnote.... To be quite honest, I have suffered from debilitating depression during various times of my life and the thought of ending it all has definitely crossed my mind more than once. I understand pain and suffering. I understand WHY a person might choose this route.

I'm only saying that it's not something which should be heralded as an admirable thing like Thompson's suicide was by some people.

Also, yeah I guess to be neat about it would be a good idea if that's the route chosen.

So to admire someone for doing it neatly, well that's not glorifying it, that's admiring him for having the respect for his family and friends not to make a huge mess they'd have to clean up.

[stilltrucking]

I am not happy with my choice of words Doreen. Admire was not a good word choice.

There is a line from that Waren Zevon song about HST that sticks in my mind.

I said, Buddy, I'm afraid to be alone
'Cause I got some weird ideas in my head

Awareness is more important to me than happiness.
I don't want to repress any thoughts
I do not wish to fear my thoughts.

Hunter Thompson had a loving family his children were not angry from what I have read, they had compassion for their father.


What concerns me these days is "virtual suicides" like Jack Kerouac.

Just before his marriage to Stella, Jack had visited Mary Carney, who was now married for a second time. Her daughter Judy, then twenty-one, remembers the morning clearly. ' My mother was hanging clothes out on the line in the back, and he asked her to marry him and she said, "No. You've never stopped drinking." He said, "You'll never see me again. I'm gonna leave here and I'm gonna drink myself to death." And he did. She always felt guilty about that.' According to Gregory Corso, 'Because he was a catholic, he didn't want to commit suicide, but he wanted out.'
http://www.studioeight.tv/phpbb/viewtop ... ed+hipster

I hardly ever think about suicide anymore except for the occasional cigarette.

I had a cough from hell a couple years ago, after about a month I finally went to see a doctor. There is some shadowy thing deep down in my lung. I was obsessed with thoughts of Virginia Woolf with her pockets full of rocks. I imagined myself walking on a beach with my lungs full of cancer and my pockets full of rocks. I am still smoking.

[SadLuckDame]

hey stilltrucking,
don't go anywhere anytime soon
I'm still trying to read you and find out what ya have to say.

thanks much from this dame
sld

P.S.
I'm serious, no rock collecting