Another literary hero of mine has died this month.


(NY Times)

Hunter S. Thompson, 65, Author, Commits Suicide
By MICHELLE O'DONNELL

Published: February 21, 2005

Hunter S. Thompson, the maverick journalist and author whose savage chronicling of the underbelly of American life and politics embodied a new kind of nonfiction writing he called "gonzo journalism," died yesterday in Colorado. Tricia Louthis, of the Pitkin County Sheriff's Office, said Mr. Thompson had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Woody Creek, Colo., yesterday afternoon. He was 65.

Mr. Thompson, a magazine and newspaper writer who also wrote almost a dozen books, was perhaps best known for his book, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," which became a Hollywood movie in 1998. But he was better known for his hard-driving lifestyle and acerbic eye for truth which he used in the style of first-person reporting that came to be known as "gonzo" in the 1960's, where the usually-anonymous reporter becomes a central character in the story, a conduit of subjectivity.

"Nobody really knows what it means, but it sounds like an epithet," he said in an interview that, for him, journalism "can be an effective political tool."

Hunter Stockton Thompson was born in Louisville, Ky, on July 18, 1939, the son of an insurance agent. He was educated in the public school system and joined the United States Air Force after high school. There, he was introduced to journalism, covering sports for an Air Force newspaper at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. He was honorably discharged in 1958 and then worked a series of jobs writing for small-town newspapers.

It was in the heat of deadline that gonzo journalism was born while he was writing a story about the Kentucky Derby for Scanlan's magazine, he recounted years later in an interview in Playboy magazine.

"I'd blown my mind, couldn't work," he told Playboy. "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."

Instead, he said, the story drew raves and he was inundated with letters and phone calls from people calling it "a breakthrough in journalism," an experience he likened to "falling down an elevator shaft and landing in a pool of mermaids."

He went on to become a counter cultural hero with books and articles that skewered America's hypocrisy.

"He wrote to provoke, shock, protest and annoy," Timothy Crouse wrote in his book "The Boys on the Bus," about the 1972 presidential campaign.

Mr. Thompson influenced a generation of writers who saw in his pioneering first-person, at times over-the-top writing style.

As a young man, he was heavily influenced by Jack Kerouac and wholeheartedly followed Kerouac's approach in which the writer revels in his struggles with writing.

Among his books were "Hell's Angels," "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," "Fear and Loathing on the Campiagn Trail '72," "The Great Shark Hunt," "Generation of Swine" and "Songs for the Doomed."

Oh ((((Steph))))...so sorry to hear the news!

R.I.P. Mr. Thompson

__________________
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~Thomas Dewar~

Mr. Thompson's "Fear and Loathing" was a required reading in a college class I took...quite an eye opener. I did not know, however, that he and I had something in common--our birthplace. RIP.

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"Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets. So love the people who treat you right, forget about the ones who don't, and believe that everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, then let it, and if you have to wait for what you really want, take the time because nobody said that life would be easy. They just promised it would be worth it." ~ Unknown author

How tragic.

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<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>
One man's dream is another man's nightmare~~~~> §¤ Lilith ¤§
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Good Journey Mr. Thompson

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(((((Lixy))))))

Another more colourful story, this one's from the CBC:

ASPEN, COLO. - Hunter S. Thompson, the U.S. writer who pioneered the super-subjective form of journalism known as "gonzo", has killed himself, his son said.

In a statement released to the Aspen Daily News, Juan Thompson said his father shot himself to death in his home in Aspen, Colo. on Sunday night. He was 67.

The newspaper said the Pitkin County police confirmed the suicide.

Thompson is credited with pioneering "gonzo journalism," a highly subjective and over-the-top style that makes writers – and their opinions – essential parts of the narrative.

He first vaulted to fame with his non-fiction book Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (1966) – after riding with the bikers for a year to gather material.

But he's most famous for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1972) – which purported to be a work of fiction, but was a thinly disguised, gonzo compilation of two road trips that Hunter made to Las Vegas with a friend.

In their trunk, according to the book: "Two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers. ...A quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls" – all of which they manage to consume on the short trip.

A gifted chronicler of depravity in American Life, some of Thompson's other works included Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail (1973) – about the 1972 presidential election campaign between Richard Nixon and George McGovern – and Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s (1989).

Thompson was born in 1937 in Louisville, Ky.

He served in the U.S. Air Force for a short time as a young man, then began working as a freelance journalist.

He seemed to have rubbed shoulders with almost every famous counterculture figure in the 1960s, from beat poet Allen Ginsberg to New Journalist Tom Wolfe to Ken Kesey (including hanging out with the Merry Pranksters and participating in Kesey's first LSD tests).

He inspired a number of films, including Where the Buffalo Roam (1980) with Bill Murray playing Thompson and British director Terry Gilliam's take on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), starring Johnny Depp as the Thompson character, Raoul Duke.

He was also the model for the character "Duke" in Garry Trudeau's comic strip Doonesbury.

Thompson's most recent book was Hey Rube: Blood Sport, the Bush Doctrine, and the Downward Spiral of Dumbness (2004).

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.
- Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter Thompson never seemed real to me.I guess it was the portrails by Bill Murray and Johnnie Depp in part that made me think of Thompson as a fictional character rather than real. I was never a big fan,but enjoyed the thought provoking words of what I did read.R.I.P. Hunter

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From CNN:

The family is looking into whether Thompson's cremated remains can be blasted out of a cannon, a wish the gun-loving writer often expressed, Brinkley said.

"The optimal, best-case scenario is the ashes will be shot out of a cannon," he said.

__________________

The practice of putting women on pedestals began to die out when it was discovered that they could give orders better from there.~ Betty Grable

If I wanted your opinion, I'd remove the duct tape and ask you for it.~ Me
<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>
One man's dream is another man's nightmare~~~~> §¤ Lilith ¤§
~>My Scribbles<~
==>Gone Shopping<== ~Just a Quickie~ *~A Celebration Vacation~* ~Surprises~ Sleeping With the Window Open
What Did You Do Today? Self Defense Class ~Short Sweet Snippets~ § Summer Spin § Story Challenge Submission Pajamas

After he wrote,the book,on the Angels,they almost beat him to death!His wife
must have had a weird sense of humor.According to the news,her comment was that he always wanted to go out with a BANG! Irish

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Irish---Better to be dead & cool,then alive & uncool!
(Harley Davidson & the Marlboro Man)

Actually, he was beaten before the book was finished, & not by the Angels, but another bike gang in the area...he later acknowledged it was partly his own fault, he made the mistake of drinking with them, & foolishly got into a drunken argument with one member over motorcycles...& of course, when they came to blows, it was "one for all, & all on one"...I felt little surprise that he would kill himself, by his own account he abused his body over the years, & if it had begun to finally break down on him, he would not be the kind to hang on to life if it meant being feeble & pitiful...& of course, we KNOW he had a gun handy to do the job...

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Plug me into somethin'

If the theory does not conform to the facts, then the facts must be discarded.

No good deed ever goes unpunished

Never argue with an idiot. He'll drag you down to his level, & beat you with experience.

The article I read suggested he sufferred after having broken a hip and a leg, I think.

__________________

The practice of putting women on pedestals began to die out when it was discovered that they could give orders better from there.~ Betty Grable

If I wanted your opinion, I'd remove the duct tape and ask you for it.~ Me
<~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~>
One man's dream is another man's nightmare~~~~> §¤ Lilith ¤§
~>My Scribbles<~
==>Gone Shopping<== ~Just a Quickie~ *~A Celebration Vacation~* ~Surprises~ Sleeping With the Window Open
What Did You Do Today? Self Defense Class ~Short Sweet Snippets~ § Summer Spin § Story Challenge Submission Pajamas

...just read in the newspaper here that his ashes are to be shot out of a cannon

In the early morning the day after he killed himself, I thought to myself, "I bet he was ill & didn't want to be old & feeble." To some, that is worse than death.

He had a broken leg & a spinal injury previously & it had slowed him down.

scotz was right, the book wasn't even started, although I believe it was a Hell's Angel who gave the beating. Thompson never said he didn't deserve the beating.

If I were a betting woman, I'd say that the beating made him realize his research stage was over & it was time to start writing the book.

Wow