Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)

Subject: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 12:09 AM

Hunter S. Thompson, the incredible gonzo journalist, took his own life tonight.

I can't imagine what demons would drive a person to do something like this. He was an incredible character with what many of us would consider numerous flaws, but he was an original. There will never be another like him.

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 12:24 AM

So many striking obituaries this evening. And my good computer gone so there is no way to surf the web to visit the various obits and recent contributions. Arrrggghhh. I didn't read much of Thompson's work, but have friends who read his work religiously. Please post more when you can. I always come back to Mudcat to get my news (or so it seems!).

SRS

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 12:27 AM

There aren't too many details. He shot himself and his son discovered the body.

I loved his writing - Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 was a classic. Richard Nixon said that Thompson was "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character." I guess Nixon was right in this case.

Another great read is Generation of Swine, a collection of his work.

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson
From: Peace
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 12:51 AM

SRS, here.

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 12:52 AM

Hunter always loved guns and drugs. Seems fitting to me, I suppose, that he went out that way.

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson
From: Teresa
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 12:53 AM

Oh nooo ... I'm speechless. What a damn shame. :(

Teresa

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson
From: Peace
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 12:53 AM

Various news sources

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson
From: Peace
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 12:57 AM

Thompson, if he is to be believed, has sampled the entire
rainbow of legal and illegal drugs in heroic efforts to feel better
than he does. As for the truth about his health: I have asked around about it. I am told that he appears to be strong and rosy, and steadily sane. But we will be doing what he wants us to do, I think, if we consider his exterior a sort of Dorian Gray facade. Inwardly, he is being eaten alive by tinhorn politicians. The disease is fatal. There is no known cure. The most we can do for the poor devil, it seems to me, is to name his disease in his honor. From this moment on, let all those who feel that Americans can be as easily led to beauty as to ugliness, to truth as to public relations, to joy as to bitterness, be said to be suffering from Hunter Thompson's disease. I don't have it this morning. It comes and goes. This morning I don't have Hunter Thompson's disease.

– Kurt Vonnegut Jr. on Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: Excerpt
from A Political Disease, Vonnegut's review of Fear
and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: Peace
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 01:00 AM

Thanks for the heads-up, Ron.

Rococo. Thompson loved that word. Rococo. IMO, America and the world lost a brilliant writer today--love him or not.

BM

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: Ebbie
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 01:06 AM

Frankly, I am amazed that he was only 67. Seemed like he had lived forever.

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 01:33 AM

He was an original. I hope that he is at peace.

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: open mike
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 01:50 AM

a friend often used a quote from Hunter S. Thompson
as the signature on his music-related e-mail messages.
Something like: the music world is a dog eat dog world
full of money grubbing greedy pimps and then there is
the down side...
i know that is totally out of context and not accurate,
but does anyone have the actual quote?
he was a reporter on the human condition and an observer
of life in a time of great change and freedom.

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: GUEST,mr in pdx
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 02:39 AM

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- Hunter S. Thompson

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 02:40 AM

open mike, I found the quote on Mudcat, posted in an earlier thread, by Clinton Hammond:


"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic
hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.
            
There's also a negative side."

There was also a link to some of his other writings, in an old obit thread for Ken Kesey: click here

I hope he has found peace and I hope his family is okay. My uncle chose to end his life in the same manner and it was hell on his family. He was as creative and brilliant, in his own way, as Thompson.

Thanks, Ron, for letting us know.

kat

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: open mike
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 03:03 AM

Yes i found the quote too..
My heart goes out to the son
who found his father...I hope
he will be able to fiind a way
to move on past the horror of
it all and find his own piece
when everything settles down.
What a horrible thing to have
happen to a child to find their
parent in such a situation.

It seems that often people who
are observant, brilliant and
aware have a difficult time
processing all the thoughts
that are running around in their
head.

Does anyone know what he had his
Doctorate in?

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: fat B****rd
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 04:20 AM

Well, i'm sorry to hear this. I loved F and L in Las Vegas and The Great Shark Hunt (A collection) Goodbye Dr. Thompson RIP

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: number 6
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 08:08 AM

This news was a shock!

Hunter will be missed. The world needs peoplelike hime .... Just to shake us up a bit.

sIx

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: GUEST,Willie-O can't freaking log in
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 08:27 AM

Umm, Ron, did Nixon really say that? Wouldn't think he had the lyrics in him. Another source I just looked up:
http://teaching.arts.usyd.edu.au/history/hsty3080/StudentWebSites/Nixon%20Obits/obit9 quotes THOMPSON as saying about Nixon:

"It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character ..."

...was he just turning Nixon's words back to himself? seems odd. Thompson never lacked for descriptive phrases for Nixon, such as:

"he was a foul caricature of himself, a man with no soul, no inner convictions, with the integrity of a hyena and the style of a poison toad." (ibid)

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: catspaw49
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 08:30 AM

When I saw this on the news, I was oddly not shocked at all as if it was the only natural end for this true and flawed genius. He was one helluva' writer and the opening paragraphs of "Hell's Angels" are as both visual and visceral as anything ever written.

I wonder what Trudeau will do with Duke?

Spaw

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: GUEST,Mrr
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 09:10 AM

Yes, I wonder how Duke will survive this. What a shame.

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: Willie-O
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 09:39 AM

Can't say I'm surprised either, don't know why anyone is. Given his huge appetite for drugs, alcohol and unrestricted firearm usage, and the mood swings attendant on the first two, I'm only surprised he lived this long, to 65 or 67 depending which news report is correct.

As with many of us who came of age in the 70's, he was a big influence on my writing in my younger days. Makes me nostalgic for Rolling Stone back then, with its propensity for huge long articles that rambled and took chances and stances, but actually mattered.

I have a cherished but not well-protected stack of old issues from that era--last year we had a neighbour lad looking after the house while we were away at Christmas and I came back and found he'd been using them to start the woodstove with...ARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: PoppaGator
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 10:04 AM

What can I say in addition to what's already been said? I remember my first encounter with Dr.Thompson's prose, serialized in Rolling Stone magazine, and hav efollowed him ever since.

I always considered him a kindred spirit, albeit one somewhat crazier than I.

No one else had quite the same ability to clear away the bullshit and expose the nasty truth in all its gory glory. I doubt that all his readers took him as seriously as they should have; he was hilarious, certainly, but he was also dead serious. There's no way any of us can really know the source of his terminal despair, but I have a hunch he was always frustrated at the general public's failure to take his satirical insights to heart, to actually heed what he was trying to tell us.

THREE celebrity obituaries this morning, by the way: besides Hunter Thompson, John Raitt (broadway star and father of Bonnie) and Sandra Dee also passed away within the last 24 hours or so.

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 10:06 AM

I'd bet if the truth came out Thompson was probably suffering from a terminal disease. You can't drink, smoke, and drug like he did and not suffer some consequences...unless, of course, you're Keith Richards.

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: JJ
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 10:38 AM

"He will not be missed -- except perhaps in Fat City, where every light in the town went dim when we heard that he'd finally cashed his check."

-- Hunter S. Thompson on the death of Oscar Acosta, "Dr. Gonzo."

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: Amos
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 10:54 AM

Work was impossible. The geeks had broken my spirit. They had done
       too many things wrong. It was never like this for Mencken. He lived
       like a Prussian gambler--sweating worse than Bryant on some nights and
       drunker than Judas on others. It was all a dehumanized nightmare...and
       these raddled cretins have the gall to complain about my deadlines.
                  -- Hunter Thompson, "Bad Nerves in Fat City",

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 11:02 AM

Suicide -- The sincerest form of self criticism.

Death of any kind is always very sad.

Art

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: Amos
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 11:04 AM

From the film:

"Our trip was different. It was to be a classic affirmation of everything right and true in the national character; a gross, physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country, but only for those with true grit. AND WE ARE CHOCK FULL OF THAT, MAN!".


A

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: GUEST,Brian
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 11:07 AM

I can't say I totally surprised - what with the gun centrism etc.
Sad still - when I read he was essentially 'only' 67 it occurred to me he had lived most of his real impactful creative life long ago. Which is fine, so have Paul McCartney etc. Youthful creative rush.

For some perspective - I remember Hunter's long essay on Jimmy Carter in a 1976 Rolling Stone campaign trail article. This was a sort of comeback for him and if you do the math he was ONLY 38 at the time. And this was a comeback, in my opinion.

So if you think that the Las Vegas and Richard Nixon stories and articles were earlier and the Hells Angels book was probably somewhat earlier still in its first magazine versions..well the guy HAD done and seen it ALL very early on.

He never hid that he seemed to be plagued and tormented - by drugs and by the reality he perceived that was the life, the nation, the culture and the politics. Fear and loathing, right?

I guess if he was indeed terminally ill.....

Of course, he was a self appointed Doctor of something.. Journalism, Muckery, Hell Raising....

A rascal is needed for all times. He was one for those times.

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: Amos
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 11:09 AM

This may not have been intended as self-description, but what the hell, it works:

"There he goes... one of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die. "

A

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 11:12 AM

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 11:51 AM

Hunter Thompson = Jack Kerouac to my mind--and that is the highest of compliments. It does not matter how he sought to ease the pain, anger, sadness and enlightenments he saw in the negativities and discrepancies of the American life he chronicled. The result was ART, and in it's profound clarity it was a true lie that allowed us to see reality the way it IS, without the moral spin doctor's interpritations. --- As I've mentioned Picasso saying, "Art is a lie that lets us see the truth."

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 12:45 PM

I'd always though he'd gotten an honorary doctorate degree in journalism or maybe English from a prestigious university. He certainly deserved one. He was sort of like a modern day Mark Twain, and Twain's honorary doctorate from Oxford in 1907 gave him, to paraphrase, the authenticity he'd always craved. A quick google turned up a bit of info saying Thompson had received a doctorate from a mail-order church.

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: Amos
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 01:12 PM

Art should n't be so hard on himself, in my opinion!! :D


A

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 02:03 PM

Drugs can take their toll.

Sincerely,

Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 02:52 PM

My first reaction when I heard this was to feel bloody angry with him. And even more angry that he's not there to be angry at.

If he was going to go out being shot it ought to have been that he was shot by some bastard he annoyed, and who deserved to be annoyed. There were always plenty of them. I hate to think they won't have to worry about him getting at them any more.

He wrote some good songs too.

As for the stuff about him being 67 and past it - that's the prime of life. He should have had years more, and better stuff to write than he'd ever written yet.

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: DonMeixner
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 03:10 PM

With so many people I admire singing his praises I'll have to give Thompson another read or too. I must admit the only Hunter Thompson stuff I have read to this point I thought were more or less a waste of ink and so much windbaggery.. And the only thing I found admirable was his being the inspiration of "Duke" in the Doonesbury strip.

Well I have been wrong before and it may happen again. I better give HST another read before I consign him to the pile with Woody Allen, L. Ron Hubbard, Laura Schlesinger, and Dr Phil.

Don

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 03:21 PM

Like a few others, I have to say I wasn't surprised to hear this news, though I am saddened by it. And thankful for the quote from Vonnegut above about his real "disease".

I thought he was an excellent chronicler/journalist of his times in his short lived prime, but not really an artist in the sense that Vonnegut, or Philip Roth, or Arthur Miller, or Saul Bellow, just to offer a couple of "for instances" were.

I loved his Rolling Stone era political writings, but have to say much of his other stuff left me cold, especially the obsession with guns and weapons, his violent nature, and certainly his treatment and depictions of women. He had some serious mental health issues he chose to deal with using drugs, alcohol, and violence, and used them to cultivate his cool and hip persona that became legendary and made him such a huge pop icon among baby boomers.

Sad waste of talent and ability IMO, and I truly pity his family, who are, if nothing else, free of him at last in the physical world anyway. I know this sounds harsh, but come on folks. There just wasn't much to admire about this man beyond about a five year writing streak, is there?

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: robomatic
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 03:24 PM

"I must have had a plan"

-Duke

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 03:41 PM

From The Guardian's obit:

On hearing that Hunter S Thompson, the maverick voice of American counterculture, had been found dead at his fortified compound in Woody Creek, Colorado, friend and fellow-author Martin A Lee described his death as "sad" but "not surprising".

The mood among commentators following the announcement of his death this morning was equally resigned: the subtext to the many radio and television reports of his apparent suicide was that such an act was a fitting, if tragic, end to a remarkably singular life.

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: Once Famous
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 03:53 PM

I did have some respect for the man.

but it's hard to now when someone had to bail out this way.

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: GUEST,Bat Goddess
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 06:16 PM

Funny, it was just last week that I looked up that quote --

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."

But the quote wasn't always about the music business -- sometimes it was corporate communications, show business, radio or TV.

About.com found the original quote --

And it was from "Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80s," published by Summit Books in 1988. There, on page 43 Thompson had written:

" The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason. "

The piece, obviously lambasting the television industry, was originally published as a column in the San Francisco Examiner on November 4, 1985.

About

Linn

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Feb 05 - 06:46 PM

Here's a lot of Hunter Thompson, mostly around sport.   Anyone who thinks his days of writing good stuff were behind him is just a dedicated follower of fashion.

Unfortunately, of course, now they are. Ralph Steadman (who illustrated Feat and Loathing in La Vegas, and knew Hunter well) was interviewed about it on the BBC. I missed it, but I gather his reaction was the same as mine - he was furious with him.

Anyone got the words or a sound file of "Saints and Sots", the "Woody Creek Anthem", which Hunter had a hand in writing? A pretty good song.

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: Fossil
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 11:24 AM

"But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it's In. The association of motorcyles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions."
(Hell's Angels, 1966)

So farewell, then H.S.T. Hope you found the edge you were looking for.

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 12:23 PM

The Independent (London) gave over its front page today entirely to this - here is the piece by Ralph Steadman they ranHunter S. Thompson RIP:

Hunter said these words to me many years ago: "I would feel real trapped in this life if I didn't know I could commit suicide at any time." I knew he meant it. It wasn't a case of if, but when. He didn't reckon he would make it beyond 30 anyway, so he lived it all in the fast lane. There was no first, second, third and top gear in the car - just overdrive.

If you want more, click on the link I gave.

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: Once Famous
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 12:35 PM

"I would feel real trapped in this life if I didn't know I could commit suicide at any time."

Sorry, but that is bullshit.

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 12:54 PM

Loudon Wainwright III touched on a deep truth when he wrote

"The game of life is hard to play
I'm going to lose it anyway
The losing card I'll someday lay
So this is all I have to say
Suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please"

... and you can do the same thing, if you please....

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 01:39 PM

I can't see a deep truth there. It seems to me more like a rather shallow lie. What is true is that the fact that there is a possibility of suicide, means that refusing to take it, when things get bad, becomes a positive choice.

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 01:44 PM

I do not believe for a second that suicide is always negative

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 01:53 PM

This seems to be drifting off into a topic that might be more fitted for a separate thread.

The rest of that Steadman piece gets into other stuff than suicide. For example a snatch of Hunter S Thompson song:

"Drive your stake into a darkened heart in a red Mercedes-Benz.
The blackness hides a speeding tramp.
The savage breast pretends.
But never mind the nights, my love,
because they never really happened anyway"

Subject: RE: Obit: Hunter S. Thompson (21 Feb 05)
From: GUEST,Loudon Wainwright III
Date: 22 Feb 05 - 02:00 PM

Although I appeared on several episodes of the MASH Tv series, I didn't write that song. It's from the movie that predated the series and was written by Johnny Mandel and Mike Altman.

LWIII