Hunter S Thompson Dead(NSR)

[Arnold Babar]

DAMN! Well, not schocking to see him go this way. I, for one, always took comfort in knowing that he was out there giving the finger to the status quo, thus altering it in the process. There are certainly powerful entities who prefer that he not walk this planet. I call this a sad day.

[Ubersheist]

.

RIP man. You still have my vote for mayor.

Actually, he ran for Sheriff of Pitkin Co. in 1970 (or 1971, I'm not sure) In 1969, he backed and acted as a campaign manager for Joe Edwards, a local biker/hippie who lost his bid for mayor of Aspen by only 1 vote.

It's sad, but not a shock. It's pretty widely known in the Roaring Fork Valley that he no longer had his sanity.

However, he was probably my favorite writer. He showed that the counterculter was large enough to have an impact. He had an indellible impact in the Aspen area (remember his attempt to rename it "Fat City" to stave off developers), and on skiing itself by bringing it into the spotlight and into the conciousness of America through his writing (especially his article on Jean Claude Killy). He will be missed.

[tuffy109]

i smoked out of his pipe in new york after a friend stole it from his hotel room.

[Free Range Lobster]

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.

Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who
among us can be happy and proud of having this
innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine?
These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and
fooled by stupid 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 the 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. Fuck them.

-Hunter S. Thompson

A fine late piece from a man who remained one of the few refusing to pull punches.

He'll be sorely missed.

[powderpow]

great.. another clown who thinks all that Hunter was about was drugs (try reading/re-reading his work)



"The person who doesn't scatter the morning dew will not comb gray hairs."-HST

I know HST is more than that but look at what he accomplished under the influence. His drug use spawned a whole new form of journalism.

[Spence]

One of the greatest American authors....He will be missed....Who else out there will run his level of shocking and brutal honesty....

RIP HST

[Spats]

I slugged some single-malt from the bottle. Then I poured some out on the ground for his memory.

Good night, Dr. Gonzo. We miss you.

[jibij]

Nice piece from the RMN:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7010798/


Death came instantly

Thompson shot self in mouth with .45, Pitkin coroner says

By John Aguilar and Deborah Frazier

Rocky Mountain News

ASPEN - Hunter S. Thompson killed himself in his kitchen with one shot in his head from a .45-caliber handgun, Pitkin County authorities said Monday.Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis, Thompson's friend of 35 years, said Thompson hadn't given him any indication that he planned to commit suicide.

"It was quite a shock to me," the sheriff said.

Thompson, 67, "gonzo" journalist and biting social critic, had been in pain after hip-replacement surgery, spinal surgery and a broken leg last year, said Braudis.

Thompson died from the self-inflicted gunshot wound in the head that entered "via the mouth" at 5:42 p.m. Sunday, said Pitkin County Coroner Dr. J. Steve Ayers.

An autopsy Monday concluded that the wound was instantly fatal, Ayers said.

Thompson's son, Juan, his daughter-in-law, Jennifer, and their son, William, of Denver, were visiting but weren't in the kitchen when Thompson died. Juan Thompson returned to the kitchen about 6 p.m. and found his father dead.

A statement from Hunter Thompson's wife, Anita, and Juan Thompson said: "On Feb. 20, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson took his life with a gunshot to the head at his fortified compound in Woody Creek."

"He stomped terra," the family's statement said. In Latin, terra means earth.

Pitkin County sheriff's spokesman Joe DiSalvo refused to say whether a note was found.

Louisa Davidson, a longtime friend of Thompson's and Braudis' estranged wife, described Anita Thompson as a stellar person and a "saint" who called her a few hours after Thompson committed suicide. When the Thompsons wed in a civil ceremony two years ago, Braudis and Davidson were the sole witnesses.

Anita Thompson said her husband asked family members to leave the kitchen so he could be alone, Davidson said.

But Braudis said he didn't think that Thompson asked anyone to leave the kitchen.

Thompson then called Anita at the Aspen Club, where she was working out, Davidson said. Soon after that call ended, he shot himself, she said.

She said Thompson had been depressed, talked about suicide and "was a prisoner of his lifestyle."

Davidson once partied with Thompson and his friends, but said she has been sober for two years. She said she hopes a message can be gleaned from Thompson's suicide.

"The party is over," said Davidson.

"Maybe for people he had the coolest life ever," she said. "Our generation is so full of addicts. This valley glorified this lifestyle."

But Braudis said Thompson's "mind was firing on all eight cylinders and his humor was there."

Mike Cleverly, a neighbor and longtime friend, said Thompson hadn't been able to get out as much since the surgery and the broken leg last year, but he "was doing as well as any 67-year-old could."

The Woody Creek Tavern was swamped by media early Monday as photographers and reporters descended on the establishment where Thompson regularly spent time. But by evening, the tavern had returned to some sense of normalcy, with waitresses working an almost full room of patrons.

Thompson's friends returned to the Woody Creek Tavern on Monday to remember and mourn.

"I wasn't surprised," said George Stranahan, a former owner of the tavern. "I never expected Hunter to die in a hospital bed with tubes coming out of him."

Just up Woody Creek Road from the tavern sits the unassuming low-slung brown building that Thompson called "the compound" - the spot where he lived, worked and partied for the past four decades.

Several cars were parked in the driveway and a security officer stood guard at the property's entrance.

Thompson, who chronicled presidential campaigns and the Hell's Angels, was a lifelong admirer of Ernest Hemingway and often quoted his work.

In 1961, Hemingway died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his home in Ketchum, Idaho. He was 62, in failing health and depressed.

As a young writer, Thompson traveled to Ketchum after Hemingway's death and wrote an article about why Hemingway moved to Ketchum.

"The strength of his youth became rigidity as he grew older," Thompson wrote in "What Drew Hemingway to Ketchum." "He was an old, sick, and very troubled man.

"The illusion of peace and contentment was not enough for him," Thompson wrote. "So, finally, and for what he must have thought the best of reasons, he ended it with a shotgun."

[mr_gyptian]

Tom Wolfe has a great article with some priceless anecdotes in today's WSJ.

i read Fear and loathing on a road trip to Sun Valley during a spring break a couple of years back. it may have been a little too inspiring, as i don't remember much of the Denver to Ketchum sprint. There is a strong possiblity I may be a charter member of Rip Griffin's lifetime banishment club.

I'm having a helluva time finding this hilarious letter to the editor he sent to Esquire when he was in high school. classic.

[Benny Profane]

Kinda thought the way he would go is getting run over over a few times by a woman in a Moab style-tricked out Jeepster. Drunk and coked up, of course. Both of them.

Just talking recently about the Aviator sequel I'd like to see - Him and Howard Hughes crossing paths in late 60's Vegas, Tim Burton directing, Johnny Depp playing both roles.(he already did one pretty well).

edit: Cool, new sig

[WHISKA]

His drug use spawned a whole new form of journalism.

actually, "gonzo journalism" is not about drugs either, it's about including yourself in the story which your supposed to be covering. whether your on drugs or not (hunter usually was), by adding quotes or conversations you were included in your coverage qualifies as gonzo journalism. it was not his drug use that started this.

[Stu Gotz]

NOTES ON THE PASSING OF AN AMERICAN MONSTER....HE WAS A LIAR AND A QUITTER, AND HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN BURIED AT SEA. ...BUT HE WAS, AFTER ALL, THE PRESIDENT.
SUBJECT: THE DEATH OF RICHARD NIXON:

"And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is becoming the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird."--REVELATION 18:2

Richard Nixon is gone now and I am poorer for it. He was the real thing--a political monster straight out of Grendel and a very dangerous enemy. He could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time. He lied to his friends and betrayed the trust of his family. Not even Gerald Ford, the unhappy ex-president who pardoned Nixon and kept him out of prison, was immune to the evil fallout. Ford, who believes strongly in Heaven and Hell, has told more than one of his celebrity golf partners that I know Iwill go to hell, because I pardoned Richard Nixon."

I have had my own bloody relationship with Nixon for many years, but I am not worried about it landing me in hell with him. I have already been there with that bastard, and I am a better person for it. Nixon had the unique ability to make his enemies seem honorable, and we developed a keen sense of fraternity. Some of my best friends have hated Nixon all their lives. My mother hates Nixon, my son hates Nixon, I hate Nixon, and this hatred has brought us together.

Nixon laughed when I told him this. "Don't worry," he said. "I, too, am a family man, and we feel the same way about you."

It was Richard Nixon who got me into politics, and now that he's gone, I feel lonely. He was a giant in his way. As long as Nixon was politically alive--and he was, all theway to the end--we could always be sure of finding the enemy on the Low Road. There was no need to look anywhere else for the evil bastard. He had the fighting instinctsof a badger trapped by hounds. The badger will roll over on its back and emit a smell of death, which confuses the dogs and lures them in for the traditional ripping and tearing action. But it is usually the badger who does the ripping and tearing. It is a beast that fights best on its back: rolling under the throat of the enemy and seizing it by thehead with all four claws.

That was Nixon's style--and if you forgot, he would kill you as a lesson to the others. Badgers don't fight fair, bubba. That's why God made dachshunds.

............

If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin.

These are harsh words for a man only recently canonized by President Clinton and my old friend George McGovern--but I have written worse things about Nixon, many times, and the record will show that I kicked him repeatedly long before he went down. I beat him like a mad dog with mange every time I got a chance, and I am proud of it. He was scum.

Let there be no mistake in the history books about that. Richard Nixon was an evil man--evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it. He was utterly without ethics or morals or any bedrock sense of decency. Nobody trusted him--except maybe the Stalinist Chinese, and honest historians will remember him mainly as a rat who kept scrambling to get back on the ship.

.............
Some people will say that words like scum and rotten are wrong for Objective Journalism--which is true, but they miss the point. It was the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place. He looked so good on paper that you could almost vote for him sight unseen. He seemed so all-American, so much like Horatio Alger, that he was able to slip through the cracks of Objective Journalism. You had to get Subjective to see Nixon clearly, and the shock of recognition was often painful.

[WHISKA]

remember his attempt to rename it "Fat City" to stave off developers

remember reading Fear and Loathing in America ?

[splat]

If one-tenth of the shithead, ass licking journalists and publishers in America had the balls Hunter S. Thompson did, this country would be in a thousand times better shape. Why ? Because even what is now considered objective journalism is most likely tainted PR released by and favorably inclined toward those the stories are supposedly written about from that objective point of view.

I admire anyone that refuses to buy into bullshit just because it's been covered in a gold leaf veneer to make it more appetizing.

Thank you, Hunter S. Thompson, for calling out the scumbags of the world.

[Greydon Clark]

remember reading Fear and Loathing in America ?

^^^^^^^
Funny.

[Tippster]

^^^^^^^
Funny.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...57749?v=glance

[Greydon Clark]

Thanks, I read it. Like most posting on this thread I really enjoy HST’s writing.

[freshie247]

Hunter is one of the three main influences on my writing along with Phillip K. Dick & Douglas Adams.Nobody could string adjectives & adverbs together like DR. Thompson.He was a water buffalo type of a man that could chew his way through a concrete wall & come out on the other side covered in lime dust,& look good doing it.

I'll always quote him in regards to the music industry.

"The music industry is a cruel shallow money trench;a long plastic hallway where pimps & thieves run free & good men die like dogs.Oh Yeah...,There's a Negative side to it too!"

I hope some of his spirit lives on in my work as well as others that he has influenced.LONG LIVE GONZO!

[Dr. Gaper]

He could have at least had the decency to go outside to do himself in, instead of leaving the gore and shock of it all in the kitchen for his relatives to find. What a selfish, cowardly act.

[splat]

They always said when he went out, it'd be messy.

Very Hemingwayesque exit.

[freshie247]

I know that had to suck for his family,but Thompson was never afraid to make a mess!

[Benny Profane]

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/...-oscar-acosta/

“It was like falling down an elevator shaft and landing in a pool full of mermaids,”

[Name Redacted]

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/...-oscar-acosta/

“It was like falling down an elevator shaft and landing in a pool full of mermaids,”

Always wondered why "Where the Buffalo Roam" doesn't get talked about more. I mean, Bill Murray FFS! It is based on HST's eulogy “The Banshee Screams for Buffalo Meat.” For how much people circle jerk over F&LLV you'd think WBR would get at least some collateral respect.

[Mudfoot]

I have regretted every day since Trump came down the escalator that Hunter has not been here to give us his perspective on the events of the day. To paraphrase one of his quotes, the man really knew how to stomp the terra. We so need him right now.

[singlecross]

^^^ I think it would read something like this… edited from above:

“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.

Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid rich kids like Donald Trump?

They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us--they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis.

And I am too dead to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them.”

-Hunter S. Thompson