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