RIP Hunter S Thompson

[Guest Nogbad]

Sadly Hunter S Thompson passed away yesterday. Here is a link to a very entertaining review he wrote of a Ducati.

 

http://www.latexnet.org/~csmith/sausage.html

[Guest Fox]

Hunter shot himself. Strangely I cant imagine him going out any other way .. but he's left us a great literary legacy. R.I.P. Hunter S.

[Guest Nogbad]

Yes.

 

Probably he should have gone out and gone crazy arse on his bike. It would either have killed him or lifted the depression. Sad when anyone gets to the stage where they would blow their own brains out.

[Ralph Werner]

Hunter's book Hells Angels was a good read - it captured the essence of outlaw gangs. I actually read it twice.

 

One of the most interesting writers of our time!

[mojohand]

He was an extraordinary writer who wrote about politics, guns, drugs, sex, journalism, sports (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...thompson/050216, and of course motorcycles: Even Italian bikes (http://www.latexnet.org/~csmith/sausage.html), not just Vincent Black Shadows (http://www.vincent-hrd.co.uk/hst.html). One of my graduate school articles was a biography of him, back before people were writing bios of him. Been a fan since I first read Hell's Angels.

 

Too bad...too bad.

[Guest ratchethack]

Hunter S was a campus icon at Ann Arbor, Mich (U of M) in the early '70's. He could fill an auditorium to SRO with drug-fueled knuckleheads faster than any rock star. I saw him speak on campus in '72 (100% sober). After waiting for an appreciative crowd to sit down & shut up after a raging 10 minute standing O welcome, he walked up and gripped the podium, a little unsteady on his feet. His first words were, "God, the reds are starting to take hold..." I don't think he was referring to Communists.

 

"Fear and Loathing" became a watchword for alienation to the emerging "youth subculture" of that time that will live on long after him. An era has passed (some would say thankfully). He will certainly be missed.

[jrt]

Nicely said. i picked up on Thompson's writings during my adolescence, so they'll always have a place in my head. See ya' later Uncle Duke.

[Skeeve]

See ya' later Uncle Duke.

43953[/snapback]

 

"60mm mortars for deer hunting?"

"Yeah, I like to soften up an area before I go in..."

 

Funny that a commie like G.B. Trudeau could capture the essense of a libertarian (libertine?) like Thompson so succinctly!

 

Rolling Stone would be just another industry freebie rag if they hadn't hired him in their early days: Hunter's gonzo journalism [a term invented to describe his particular type of writing] put them on the map!

 

Sorry that the lifetime of alcoholism & drugs finally exacted their due, but did you expect him to go out on any other terms than his own? I sure didn't. That's the Curse of Lono, I guess. No matter.

 

He's gone, but remains an icon. Him & Tim Leary made quite a pair of horizon-expanders; who's in the wings to replace'em? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

 

Let's strap on our helmets & a little Uncle Duke in our hearts & go for a fast, fast ride!

[jimbemotumbo]

Sure was a crazy SOB. I know some of his neighbors up in Pitkin County and some of my HD riding buddies have done the biker bar scene with him. They say he would write all night, drink the whole time, and then start shooting his guns at 6 am. He kept junk cars in his back yard so he always had something to shoot at. I think the neighbors should be thankful for the cars. Everyone agrees he was a decent guy, asking only for privacy and respecting everyone else's.

 

Most of his books 'blow' (pun intended) by my standards, as I have never understood revolution for revolutions sake. But I enjoyed "Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail".

 

If you are ever here in Colorado, and happen to be in his old neck of the woods, ask about him at the bars. There are colorful stories to be heard.

[dlaing]

Funny that a commie like G.B. Trudeau could capture the essense of a libertarian (libertine?) like Thompson so succinctly!

 

43959[/snapback]

Trudeau is not a totalitarian commie and Thompson was not a right wing libertarian.

They are/were both critics of the totalitarian right wing.

I suspect the recent Bush victory and appointments of the most extreme bastards, Gonzalez and Negroponte, did little to brighten Thompson's reality.

It is sad when the greatest of fighters quits.

But if I walked through his shoes, I would have been dead 20 years ago.

One last toast to the Gonzo King,

 

Jesus Hated Bald Pussy

By Hunter S. Thompson

From "Kingdom Of Fear "

2003

 

 

 

Let's face it, the yo-yo president of the U.S.A. knows nothing. He is a dunce. He does what he is told to do, says what he is told to say, poses the way he is told to pose. He is a fool.

 

No. Nonsense. The president cannot be a Fool. Not at this moment in time, when the last living vestiges of the American Dream are on the line. This is not the time to have a bogus rich kid in charge of the White House.

 

Which is, after all, our house. That is our headquarters, it is where the heart of America lives. So if the president lies and acts giddy about other people's lives, if he wantonly and stupidly endorses mass murder by definition, a loud and meaningless animal with no functional intelligence and no balls.

 

To say this goofy child president is looking more and more like Richard Nixon in the summer of 1974 would be a flagrant insult to Nixon.

 

Whoops! Did I say that? Is it even vaguely possible that some New Age Republican whore-beast of a false president could actually make Richard Nixon look like a Liberal?

 

The capacity of these vicious assholes we elected to be in charge of our lives for four years to commit terminal damage to our lives and our souls and our loved ones is far beyond Nixon's. Shit! Nixon was the creator of many of the once-proud historical landmarks that these dumb bastards are savagely destroying now: the Clean Air Act of 1970; Campaign Finance Reform; the endangered species act; a Real-Politik dialogue with China; and on and on.

 

The prevailing quality of life in America-by any accepted methods of measuring-was inarguably freer and more politically open under Nixon than it is today in this evil year of our Lord 2002.

 

The Boss was a certified monster who deserved to be impeached and banished. He was a truthless creature of former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, a foul human monument to corruption and depravity on a scale that dwarfs any other public official in American history. But Nixon was at least smart enough to understand why so many honorable patriotic U.S. citizens despised him. He was a Liar. The truth was not in him.

 

Nixon believed, as he said many times, that if the president of the United States does it, it can't be illegal. But Nixon never understood the much higher and meaner truth of Bob Dylan's warning that "To live outside the law you must be honest."

 

The difference between an outlaw and a war criminal is the difference between a pedophile and a Pederast: The pedophile is a person who thinks about sexual behavior with children, and the Pederast does these things. He lays hands on innocent children, he penetrates them and changes their lives forever.

 

Being the object of a pedophile's warped affections is a Routine feature of growing up in America, and being a victim of a Pederast's crazed "love" is part of dying. Innocence is no longer an option. Once penetrated, the child becomes a Queer in his own mind, and that is not much different than murder.

 

Richard Nixon crossed the line when he began murdering foreigners in the name of "family values"- and George Bush crossed it when he sneaked into office and began killing brown skinned children in the name of Jesus and the American people.

 

When Muhammad Ali declined to be drafted and forced to kill "gooks" in Vietnam he said, "I ain't got nothin' against them Viet Cong. No Cong ever called me Nigger."

I agreed with him, according to my own personal ethics and values. He was right.

 

If we all had a dash of Muhammad Ali's eloquent courage, this country and the world would be a better place today because of it. Okay. That's it for now. Read it and weep....See you tomorrow, folks. You haven't heard the last of me. I am the one who speaks for the spitit of freedom and decency in you. Shit. Somebody has to do it.

We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world-a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us... No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you.

 

Well, shit on that dumbness. George W. Bush does not speak for me or my son or my mother or my friends or the people I respect in this world. We didn't vote for these cheap, greedy little killers who speak for America today- and we will not vote for them again in 2002. Or 2004. Or ever.

 

Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill "gooks". They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are racists and hate mongers among us-they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. @#!#$# them.

[jrt]

Here's an article Hunter wrote that is much more aligned with the philosophy of this website:

Song of the Sausage Creature!

 

It's a performance review of a Ducati 900. At least it's Italian....

[dlaing]

I trust he will get his final wish.

"On my tombstone they will carve, "IT NEVER GOT FAST ENOUGH FOR ME.""

[RichMaund]

I know why he shot himself. You see... Deep down he was really a normal and sentimental old guy. His "act" was just to earn a living. In private he'd listen to old Folk Music albums and watch Debbie Renolds movies in his garage.

But he couldn't go on living in a world without Sandar Dee. It was too much for his broken heart to bear.

[dlaing]

I know why he shot himself. You see... Deep down he was really a normal and sentimental old guy. His "act" was just to earn a living. In private he'd listen to old Folk Music albums and watch Debbie Renolds movies in his garage.

But he couldn't go on living in a world without Sandar Dee.  It was too much for his broken heart to bear. 

43984[/snapback]

Heres one for Sandra Dee

[helicopterjim R.I.P.]

And it must be noted that another friend of Mr. Thompson has passed away. Warren Zevon succumbed to lung cancer just the other day. Maybe he has found Roland.