Brief introductory explanatary note about title. I describe my blog thusly: "The rantings of a long haired iconoclast." Periodically this word will pop up in my reviews or commentaries, as it forms such a large part of the role I've taken on with my postings; popping some balloons and laughing at sacred cows.
I've been wanting to say something about Hunter S. Thompson since he died, but I have been having a hard time of it. For too many people Hunter was the drugs, alcohol, and violence; the larger-than-life persona that he created, lived and wrote about. My least favourite book to this day remains that icon of the counter culture Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Therein, I think, lies my discomfort with that title, and by extention Mr. Thompson himself: status, and for all the wrong reasons.
Hunter S. Thompson was the quintessential outsider. How else could he have ridden and lived with Hell's Angels in the early sixties? Sure they ended up giving him a good beating, but then Hunter never was one for being a joiner, so that should come as no surprise. To me he was always the epitome of the famous Groucho Marx line, "I'd never be a member of a club that would have me as a member." When you rail against the machine, to have the machine try to incorporate you into its mechanism is your worst fear. No matter the effort, there is always the fear you are being co-opted. You're only paranoid when they're not out to get you. The easiest way to neutralise dissent is to make it part of acceptable mainstream. Middle-class thrill-seekers can say they've read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. and get safe shocked looks in return, but it will go no further than that.
It's sad that a searing indictment of all the worst elements of the American Dream was co-opted in that way, but that's the risk that we all take when we offer our souls up to the maw of the mass market. Unfortunately for a writer to live, he has to have a market to sell his books to, so his control is limited as to how his work is interpreted. I resent blaming the artist for the way in which people try to manipulate a work to suit their own prejudices, and think that to be just another sad reflection of the wasting away of individuality of thought.
Article comments
1 - Pat Cummings
Book titles in the Books Section need to be in italic, g-man. Please also take a look at the punctuation changes I made - many missing periods and spaces do not make a post artistic, just less readable.
2 - sally
howdy you dont know me..
but i want to talk.:)
so the day it all happend i had my cell phone off..im kind of glad because all my friends know how much i love him. my friend sends me a coded text message than my brother calls me and relizes i already know and just found out.it still brings tears to my eyes my favriote person in the world is now gone.
3 - Aaman
Yes it can be hard to lose an idol - care to share some stories about what he meant to you?
4 - gonzo marx
well, seeing this Post ripped the scabs off some scr tissue for me
it was HST's death that brought me to BC
i'm no "writer", but when i came downstairs that morning, my wife handed me a cup of coffee,and told me he was dead...
i went right to the computer and googled, reading and sipping...stunned
then i opened up Notepad and typed for a bit, and wanted somewhere to put it
that's how i found BC
for the sake of Posterity, i will set the original Comment here....my Obit for Hunter...
*"when the going gets weird, the weird turn Pro.." HST
the Curse of Lono is finally fufilled...the greedheads and swine can rejoice...i can almost hear the Tin Man with his gravelly chortle pulling his hand out of the Shrub's ass for a second so he can squirt some Iraqi's blood onto the corners of his rusted mouth, enabling that shark like smile....fuck them...i refuse to allow this Horror to drown me in the Kingdom of Fear
a giant has fallen in the Wilderness...none of the "legit" Citizens will do more than a token Notice...but the freaks,the outlaws,the strange, the thinkers, the Doomed....they will notice.
among the Tribe of the Weird there will be much Lamenting and consuming of peyote buttons as we Spirit Walk and rail against the gods as to why our Shaman has been taken from U.S.
the gods won't Answer, of course...they never do, and now there is one less Voice to put our muddied feet on the Path...one less Visionary to rub our noses in the fact that the Emperor is ALWAYS naked...you can almost hear the cackling from Hell as Nixon jerks off violently in small souled glee...
when most of the hippies that had tuned in,turned on and dropped out shed their tye dye clothes for the yuppie suits and BMW's of Reagan's 80's...becoming the fascist neo-Cons, epitome of all they had railed against, Hunter stood firm on the slippery muck of Principle and Truth...spewing the Words that helped tear away the Veil of Corporate propaganda and hauling us out of the rut induced by cowardly, politically correct, right-think.
he was not the kind of man that burst thru a concrete wall spitting dust and looking good doing it, he was more the guy who watched that Freak consume the room, and then picked up all the loose change on the floor after the bar fight...but he always "stomped on the terra", leaving indelible boot prints on the necks of our Spirits as he gnawed on the Skull of Truth with his very own teeth.
so wash down that mescaline with a quart of Wild Turkey, spark a joint and wait for it all to kick in...give the good Doctor the mother of all Wakes that he deserves....
me...i'll be wondering who is going to feed the mojo-wire with the flotsam of America's Id, and wailing and gnashing my teeth in the realization that half a continent away in the quiet snows of Owl Farm, the peacocks are crying....
30 *
Excelsior!
5 - gypsyman
Sally:
Talk away, either here or elsewhere, as Aaman said share some stories as an article or post here all you want.
6 - Curtis Robinson
Well, I worked with Hunter and called him friend for 10 years. I've been slow to post, although I've done a few TV things ... but I have to say your comments about "outsider" status reminded me of the last time I saw Hunter. We were in New Orleans -- he was "on the story" of a remake of All The King's Men and I was shooting a documentary of the publishers of the "Outsider" magazine (it was an early fan of Buk, and others) and we discussed his outsider status. He was back and forth over the years -- he balked at being too far our of the mainstream because it meant he wasn't relevant, or at least not as relevant as he'd like to be. Yet he knew the Truth was that he was not exactly in that mainstream -- good conversations on what turned out to be a hellish week in the land of black magic. And he also thought Campaign 72 was underrated a bit ... I work in Washington now, and it's odd how many people from different political views consider that collection a textbook. But a correction -- he wasn't into Wild Turkey these past few years, having adopted Chevas as a "better every-day whiskey." It's good to see stuff like these posts going around ... thanks.
7 - Charles Thomson
I wholeheartedly agree with your point about too many people associating Thompson with alcohol, drugs and violence. Too many of Hunter's fans appreciate his lifestyle over his work.
For example, shoot over to youtube and check out the video of Hunter Thompson setting fire to a Christmas tree.
Then scroll down and see how many of the comments contain comments like, 'Yea! Pure gonzo!' or 'Go Hunter! Gonzo in action!'
Gonzo is a form of journalism. It has little or nothing to do with drugs, insanity, or wild antics - and sweet F.A. to do with burning Christmas trees.
Gonzo journalism the art of placing oneself in the middle of the action and writing about the situation as one sees it - offering a unique perspective on a story that traditional, objective journalism cannot offer.
Hunter's lifestyle is irrelevant to the genre, it merely prevails in his work because he is writing from his own perspective. It is an entirely separate aspect of his work.
I find it depressing that so many of Hunter's supposed fans don't even know what gonzo journalism is, and confuse his influencial work which his distractive lifestyle.
Too many of them are more concerned with Bat Country, cigarette holders and LSD than they are the huge impact that his work had on the world of journalism.