In a fitting end to a life that skyrocketed through the stratosphere of reporting, Hunter S. Thompson’s friends and immediate family are gathering together to shoot his ashes out of a cannon. According to the article below these were his last wishes concerning his remains.
As a long time admirer of his work I can think of no more fitting round up to his life. He lived on the edge, never stepping back from risk. From riding with the Hells Angels in the early sixties, hanging out in the Barrios of east L.A. during Chicano riots, and continually challenging those in authority to silence him if they dared he didn’t just push the envelope he ripped it wide open.
To know that his ashes will be scattered across the sky like thousands of comets that will disperse across Colorado gives me satisfaction that even in his death he will probably piss some people off. He always hated the fat cats and greed pigs who were ruining his beloved Aspen, and the knowledge of maybe some of those ashes dirtying their B.M.W.s would bring a twisted grin to his face.
To many people, suicide is a coward's way out. But when I think of Hunter S. Thompson I visualise him standing defiant in his trade-mark shades and a cigarette holder clasped in his teeth. His means of ending his life was the act of an extremely proud man unwilling to give in to the illness that was eating him away.
He looked death in the eye and spat. This was not giving in, this was doing it on his own terms. As always he wouldn’t take shit from anyone, including death.
So on an August day in Colorado Hunter S. Thompson will take his last flight. Happy landings!
Article comments
1 - Pat Cummings
Corrected links at bottom of post - nice story, g-man!
2 - Dr. Tristan, M.D.
Appropriate for me to post as this was the 1st post that ever got me interested in BlogCritics--the one on hunter's death~~
Did you all know that not only did Hunter ride with the Hell's Angels for about a year, but they also beat the shit out of him..............
And ~~~
there are "rumors" that his last article he was working on was an expose of the gay prostitution ring run out of the white house involving Gannon & Rove --"rumor"- I said ~~~and that perhaps THIS might have had "something" to do with his "unti,ely" and "weird" death circumstances....
3 - gypsyman
Pat
Today was my day for forgetting HTML completely. If you read my plea in the comment section of my other post, not even going to try a link, naive and libellous on the internet, in culture you'll have seen what I mean
thanks so much
gypsyman
4 - gypsyman
Pat,
I just checked on your edits and wanted to ask you about the target=new code you put in before the words. I have never seen that before. Lisa didn't use that on the link she corrected for me, over in culture, so could you explain it to me.
I'm interested in avoiding this problem in the future. I've never had a code problem before, and as in the case with my code on the other post today, I can't see what you have done different, aside from the new target.
I'm a bit slow today, so if you could spell it out for me.
gypsyman
5 - Pat Cummings
It's a style thing, I suspect - the target='new'/ code causes a new window to open for the link. Readers are not "led away" from BlogCritics that way. Another option is target=blank/
6 - Lisa McKay
Great point, DrPat - I rarely use the target=new code, even in my own posts, and it's probably a good idea to do so.
7 - Dr. Tristan, M.D.
I find this absolutely AMAZING ~~~
even the author of the post itself is printing OFF-TOPIC shit here on this post ~~~
isn't this all subjects that SHOULD be appropriately discussed on the Yahoo BlogCritics site instead of here on the POST ----
I mean what's good for the goose SHOULD be good for the GANDER ~~~
which very frequently is NOT the case here at BLOGCRITICS---
which is why GONZO earlier chose to leave BLOGCRITICS:
there seem to be two VERY DIFFERENT sets of rules here:
ONE for all the inner circle (and you all know who I'm speaking of)
and a totally DIFFERENT set for some of us who are NOT in the inner CLIQUE ......
for your info (all you inner Cliqu'ees~~~~)---
this has been stated often and always seems to be met with strident criticism and BASHING here by the Inner Clique'ees .....
It looks VERY UNPROFESSIONAL to all the outside perusers of BLOGCRITICS ~~~
and all of the Clique'ees always blab about how "professional" they are trying to keep BC ........
Welllllllllllll....might want to look at this thought honestly and do a wee bit of self-critique (before you all jump on the bandwagon and bash me...I'm definitely NOT one ogf the insiders......eh ..!!!!) --
But bear in mind--I'm not bashing anybody in particular--just a common theme that seems to flavor the entire BC site here quite often whenever anyone NOT in the inner clique says anythisn a wee bit too clever or a wee bit too incisive--perhaps a wee bit too critical of one of the "insiders" .........
As I said ---if you're adult & mature and activists instead of reactive and censoring and cliqueish just to cover your own asses ----I'm NOT bashing particular individuals here--I'm just offering a bit of brash outside critique that you might heed or not, as you prefer ........
Depending on whetther the Inside Clique would really like BC to groe into
an honest and responsible body of impartial journalistic endeavor---or stay as a juvenile clique-ridden "slap-my-back-and-I'll-slap-yours" type of sophomore rag'ism ....
just a thought ~~~!
(can't WAIT to see the RE-action to THIS..!!!!! )
8 - Dave Nalle
Feeling a bit psycho are we, Tristan.
Dave
9 - Vincent Black Shadow
He must be feeling the psychosis with a layering of dementia to make such little sense in so short a fleeting moment of what we call time, especially when he's commenting on a post involving the suicide of a greatly admired man.
inner Cliqu'ees? You poor fool! Wait till you see those goddamn bats.
Good article man.
I seen the bbc fear and loathing thing, it follows hunters plan to make the cannon and leave it as a monument after his last flight.
He shall be greatly missed.
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Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a main era - -the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run, but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.
There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.
And that, I think, was the handle - -that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting - -on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark - -the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.
History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time - and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.
_______________________________________
10 - Phillip Winn
Tristan, the "inner circle" to which you refer is well-defined and public. It consists of all posters to blogcritics.
In fact, the comments related to formatting above seem to be quite on-topic as they deal literally with the article posted at the top of the page. You don't get much more on-topic than that.
That said, we *are* still working out the best way of communicating between editors and authors, so your comments will be taken into consideration as we decide how to handle it.
The rest is just paranoia, and I think there are dietary changes that might help with that. :-)
11 - Aaman
DrPat/gypsyman - the target=new is messing up the links - they do not work. What you guys may not be aware is that the custom mt Philip put together prepends the html links with a redirect from blogcritics.
Please remove the target=new stuff and test if the links work correctly
I won't even get into the off-kilter off-topic stuff from DrT
12 - Mawi
20th August is when his ashes are getting blown
private ceremony
13 - dragonlady474
Great article about Hunter. He was a great man.